Vital Statistics:
| Last | Change | |
| S&P futures | 4,184 | -25.8 |
| Oil (WTI) | 70.82 | -0.34 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 1.50% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 3.20% |
Stocks are lower this morning on overseas weakness. Bonds and MBS are up.
The Federal Government made Juneteenth a Federal holiday. Government offices are shut. The Federal Reserve will remain open today, and the implications of a surprise holiday will mean all sorts of things with respect to TRID and recission periods etc.
The Index of Leading Indicators hit a record in May, according to the Conference Board. “After another large improvement in May, the U.S. LEI now stands above its previous peak reached in January 2020 (112.0), suggesting that strong economic growth will continue in the near term,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, Senior Director of Economic Research at The Conference Board. “Strengths among the leading indicators were widespread, with initial claims for unemployment insurance making the largest positive contribution to the index; housing permits made this month’s only negative contribution. The Conference Board now forecasts real GDP growth in Q2 could reach 9 percent (annualized), with year-over-year economic growth reaching 6.6 percent for 2021.”
More than half of all home sales occurred above the listing price, according to Redfin. We are seeing record price appreciation, where Phoenix (33%), Austin (42%), and Detroit (32%) had the biggest increases, while San Francisco was flattish. “Homes in the Inland Empire are still affordable compared to nearby coastal areas like Santa Monica, OC, or San Diego, but they’re nearly double what they used to be just a few years ago,” said Inland Empire, CA Redfin real estate agent Keith Thomas. “Locals are scratching their heads and wondering how they can afford a home as people move into Riverside County and the high desert from LA, Burbank, and other more expensive areas. Many are remote workers looking for something more affordable.”
With lumber prices coming back to Earth, I think we will see an acceleration in homebuilding going forward. Places like Austin, Phoenix aren’t restricted by geography the way many West Coast areas are. Those places can build out and create exurbs, which should alleviate upward price appreciation. Still, that will take some time to come on line. Interestingly, the only places where we saw increases in supply were areas people are fleeing: San Francisco, New York, and Philly.
The Fed is likely to go slower this time getting off the zero bound. The consensus of the FOMC seems to be two rate hikes in 2023. One area of concern will be the pace of reduction in purchases of Treasuries and MBS. The Fed wants to avoid another “taper tantrum” like it had in 2013. Note that the 10-year has shrugged off Wednesday’s hawkish FOMC statement already.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
this is a good interview
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Lindsay is really good. I have been watching him for several years now. He is very much on top of this stuff.
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This should be entertaining:
“Officers, sergeants resign en masse from Portland’s Rapid Response Team crowd control unit
Posted Jun 17, 7:55 AM ”
https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/06/officers-sergeants-with-portlands-rapid-response-team-resign-from-the-specialized-crowd-control-unit.html
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If the city is just going to let them go without doing anything, why would you want to get in the middle of a riot? What for?
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I just watched a documentary, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words. Pretty interesting, although I wish they had spent more time on some of his opinions. You might need a subscription to Daily Wire in order to watch it, but worth doing if you don’t like the current progressive monopoly on streaming services that currently exists.
https://www.dailywire.com/videos/created-equal-clarence-thomas-in-his-own-words
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May have been light on opinions so as not to get removed from Amazon, I think, which it did anyway because Thomas is so DANGEROUS. If I recall correctly.
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Colorado’s persecution of Masterpiece Cake Shop continues.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/colorado-judge-fines-masterpiece-cakeshop-for-refusing-to-bake-gender-transition-cake/
Here is the judge’s ruling:
Click to access Scardina-v.-Masterpiece-Cakeshop-Transition-Cake-Case-Findings-of-Fact-and-Conclusions-of-Law-June-15-2021.pdf
The most risible part of the ruling is this:
“The Court specifically finds that Ms. Scardina’s request was a not “set-up” to initiate litigation.”
That is an utterly absurd finding.
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It’s about bending the knee.
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It proves how our legal system has been wholly co-opted by the left.
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Well, duh. 😉
https://images1.newscred.com/Zz02YmEzY2ZiYzBlMmZkZTQ2MGYyYzEyN2JkOWFmM2EwOA==
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Nothing says “oppression” like the inability to compel a Christian baker to make you a cake.
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Make a gay baker make a cake with some nasty homosexuality punishment quote from Leviticus or something, then lets see what happens.
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Send a couple lawyers from New York to compel a Muslim caterer to do a Bat Mitzvah.
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Again, this transposes the oppressor and the oppressed. In one case, a brave activist is confronting the oppressor and trying to deny them their bigotry while speaking truth to power. In the other, powerful and genocidal monsters who make war on oppressed minorities would be trying to oppress an innocent Muslim with their violent words. THERE IS NO EQUIVALENCE!!!
Supposedly.
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That won’t happen because you’re transposing the oppressed and the oppressor. Masterpiece is about the oppressed group demanding their pound of flesh from the oppressing individual with his oppressive individual rights.
IN the scenario you suggest, it would be about an oppressor coming into a business that acts as a representative for an oppressed and marginalized group and attempting to oppress them–in fact, to do violence to them with their violent words, like the domestic terrorist they would no doubt be.
For the woke there is no equivalence to the scenarios.
And there won’t be–until the day in which the state declares all bakers can only bake goods as approved and designed by the state, all of which praise Dear Leader, at which point it will be too late. But we’ll probably be run by China by that point so . . .
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Indeed. And it’s a weird think because the baker will make anybody a cake. Just not in the form of an ideological or political endorsement.
But it’s about not just bending the knee but “moving the Overton window”–which should just be called “destroying Western culture”. Because if this can become a universal because they get this one guy–and then get some other guy–then they can expand outwards. Because no one is being denied anything in cases like this–they are trying to force small business people to sell them things their business doesn’t sell.
So at some point they should be able to demand Christian bookstores sell them books on Satanism and communism. The family stores include pornography. That companies that make inspirational posters also make one’s that say “Death to Israel”. Etc.
Because the guy basically says what kind of services he offers, and the argument is that if he doesn’t also offer services they want–in addition to what he is actually selling–then it is discriminatory and oppressive. So if I am an artists who offers paintings of landscapes and flowers and someone and demands I paint penises–I can’t say “no, that’s not what I do”–because the judiciary demands that I do it in order not to be discriminatory in my offerings?
Which doesn’t even address the fact there are far more bakeries where you could get a gay wedding cake or a “hail satan” cake than where you can’t. It’s about who is in charge, and the erosion of individual liberties. Progressives much further ahead of the curve have already made the argument that if you don’t essentially have sex on demand with a transexual, you’re oppressive them and a bigot. You’re violating their rights somehow. The long game is removing your individual right to do anything–or not do anything–as defined by the various identity groups who end up wielding state and cultural power.
I don’t think they are going to succeed but it’s going to be messy and very stupid for a while, possibly for the remainder of my lifetime or beyond.
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That is an utterly absurd finding.
Agreed. Not sure how that finding in the context of what has been basically admitted to be a set-up by the litigant and is nothing but earmarks of an explicit set-up would affect an appeals case but it seems like it would be relevant in terms of adjudicating whether or not that ruling should be overturned.
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The IRS has always been weaponized.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2021/06/irs-denies-tax-exempt-status-to-organization-that-encourages-christians-to-pray-vote-engage-because-bible-teac.html
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