Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | |
| S&P futures | 4,475 | 13.2 |
| Oil (WTI) | 71.09 | 0.65 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 1.33% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 3.07% |
Stocks are higher this morning after inflation data came in lower than expected. Bonds and MBS are flat.
Prices at the consumer level rose 0.3% MOM and 5.3% on a YOY basis. This monthly increase was the lowest since January. Ex-food and energy, they rose 0.1% MOM and 4% YOY. Higher energy prices have been the big driver for the index, however food has also been a big factor as well. Interestingly, owners equivalent rent (which is a function of housing prices) rose only 0.3% MOM and 2.6% YOY. While this number is an artificial construct, it should generally correlate with housing prices. According to just about every real estate index, prices are rising in the high teens percent.
Small business sentiment increased 0.4% in August, according to the NFIB Small Business Sentiment Index. “As the economy moves into the fourth quarter, small business owners are losing confidence in the strength of future business conditions,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “The biggest problems facing small employers right now is finding enough labor to meet their demand and for many, managing supply chain disruptions.”
Biden is expected to nominate Mike Calhoun to run FHFA. It sounds like the left is not happy with him due to his Wall Street contacts. Supposedly he is in support of he utility model for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The share of mortgages in forbearance fell 15 basis points to 3.08% last week. “The share of loans in forbearance decreased by 15 basis points last week, as forbearance exits jumped to their fastest pace since March. The fast pace of exits outweighed the slight increase in new forbearance requests and re-entries,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “Servicer call volume jumped last week as summer came to an end and many borrowers reached the end of their forbearance terms. We anticipate a similarly fast pace of exits in the weeks ahead, which should lead to increased call volume and a further decline in the forbearance share.”
The housing market is beginning to cool off, according to Redfin. Redfin agents reported that 59% of all sales involved bidding wars last month. “Sellers are still pricing their homes very high, but a lot of buyers have had enough and are no longer willing to pay the huge premiums they were six months ago. Instead of 25 to 30 offers on turnkey homes, we’re now seeing five to seven,” said Nicole Dege, a Redfin real estate agent in Orlando, FL, where the bidding-war rate dropped to 57.5% in August from 78.9% in July. “Buyers are getting a bit more selective. I have one seller who recently put his four-bedroom single-family pool house on the market, but the roof was shot. He had to lower his asking price to $423,000 from $427,000 and agree to spend around $7,000 to replace the roof in order to attract bidders. Six months ago, he would have easily been able to sell that home as-is without dropping the price.”
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
The greatest bugaboo of the left – carried interest – is sticking around…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-blink-on-carried-interest-house-ways-and-means-tax-bill-11631569436?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
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Great Greenwald piece:
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I’ll take “why people are sick and tired of COVID theater” for $200.
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Greenwald is dead on. IMO. And politicians who seriously make more class based appeals—sincerely, one hopes—could potentially do very well.
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This was brutal.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-met-gala-dress-chick-fil-a-comparisons
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In what way should we describe Generally Milley’s actions here (if true)?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/09/14/new-reporting-shows-general-milley-engaged-in-a-coup-against-trump-n2595858
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Mutiny?
Charles Pierce actually makes a good point:
“General Milley’s Stories Might Have Been Useful at the Second Impeachment Trial”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37597967/general-milley-trump-nuclear-weapons/
Apparently it wasn’t serious enough to bring up at the time, but just enough to save for Bob Woodward’s book.
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In all honesty, that story reads like Milley is the hysteric. Seriously, to be that “shaken” by 1/6 to then catastrophize over things makes me think he (Milley) is emotionally unstable. What’s the alternative theory to that?
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It’s all BS to sell books?
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jnc:
It’s all BS to sell books?
Has anyone denied the story?
I know someone who works for the defense department and is a big admirer of Milley. I asked him about this story, and after detailing Milley’s CV and casting him as beyond reproach (“proven US patriot”), he rhetorically asked “Don’t you think there is more to the story than what you are reading?” I said that I would have been more comforted if he had just scoffed and said the story couldn’t possibly be true. I am struggling to imagine any context that would make what he (allegedly) did less objectionable.
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I’m very fascinated by the fact that the DoD is not out their vociferously denying this. Considering Biden’s mental state and how it’s portrayed in some of the right wing media, they’d be a little concerned about this.
What do I know though.
Genie’s out of the bottle now.
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Not sure if unstable is the right word—as I mentioned elsewhere he demonstrates a lot red flags for a sociopath. One characteristic is they have no reservations about telling hugely outrageous lies—for any reason or no reason at all. Another is they would not disclose important information—without guilt or reservation—no matter what the consequences for others if he sees it was somehow valuable to himself. I don’t for a second he believes Afghanistan had to turn out this way or cares that it did. I also don’t think he gives a damn about 1/6 or feels white rage is a huge national problem. But can speak to the country and pretend he does—for his own reasons or goals, or for no reason at all.
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“In what way should we describe Generally Milley’s actions here (if true)?”
How would Trump have been described if he had done this instead of Milley?
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I think I’m supposed to say “false equivalence”. I’m just curious if progressives are thinking far enough in advance to question the propriety of commanding general countermanding orders from the Commander in a Chief.
Prolly not though.
Why didn’t Milley resign and go public? The only thing I can think of is that he is seriously mentally ill. I really believe this.
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High-functioning mentally ill. Sometimes known as a sociopath. It’s possible.
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“propriety of commanding general countermanding orders from the Commander in a Chief. ”
There were no orders to actually countermand.
The idea that Trump was going to launch an attack on China absent Milley’s intervention is “#Resistance Fan Fiction” as one person on Twitter put it.
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Either Milley believed it, in which case he’s batshit crazy or it’s made up. The fact that it has not been denied is telling, in my opinion.
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Whose fan-fiction in this case? Milley’s or Woodward’s?
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Doesn’t matter, why isn’t Milley denying it? Why are progressives so convinced that Trump was a one-off when the governing was so utterly conventionally Republican (unfortunately)?
Are there Democrats outside the swamp bothered by this?
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This makes it even more fucked up.
https://www.axios.com/mark-milley-woodward-trump-crisis-bb8a80b1-3e3a-492b-934a-99825cc6ef7f.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter
I’m still flabbergasted at the lack of denial coming out of the DoD.
There is a funny section in the story however,
Milley allies were especially agitated by the White House saying he’d supported shutting down the air base at Bagram — a decision Milley felt compelled to make because of Biden’s orders to remove all troops from Afghanistan against his recommendations.
Oh the humanity!
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Sounds like for of a plea to the Blob.
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This is interesting. If Miller didn’t authorize the call the Milley did it on his own. Still waiting for his denial.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/09/15/extrump-secretary-of-defense-no-i-didnt-authorize-milley-to-reach-out-to-the-chinese-n2595950
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Pentagon doesn’t deny. Rubicon is crossed.
https://www.axios.com/pentagon-milley-joint-chiefs-china-1945bf8c-b08d-436c-bc2f-d2befd42fd1f.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=politics-milley
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Getting really interesting in a “two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong” kind of way.
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Here’s the Occupy Democrats Twitter celebrating evictions.
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Apparently he’s not denying it because it’s true—or he wants it to be true. Or he sees an angle. Or he’s a sociopath and his denial needs no further explanation.
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Also they are convinced Trump was a one-off because they are always sure that the Republicans are about to have 40 years in the wilderness, and are typically confident that having won recent elections they will never lose another election again, and they will always be pleased with the other Democrats.
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Also … seems the Democrats don’t ever care about this kind of stuff if it was noble and principled “standing up to Trump”. Generally I mean I’m sure there are some exceptions but none I’ve heard in the political or pundit or media classes.
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I’ll say it again. It goes back to the type of officer that got promoted in Obama’s military. Partisanship, wokeness, etc were rewarded.
The dude nominated a Commie as DCI. That says it all.
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Yeah, Brennan was a head scratcher. How he ever got into the CIA in the first place is a mystery as well.
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Brennan should have been unable to get a confidential – level security clearance.
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it’s not enough for trump to just be a bad president, he has to be some sort of cartoonish super villian that is constantly foiled. like dr. claw.
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Negatively and hyperbolically but more accurately even so.
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I am sure I have asked this before, but Biden’s vaccine mandate proposal raises the issue again. The mandate will supposedly apply only to businesses with more than 100 employees. Regardless of how one views the regulation, how is it that such an application is not a blatant violation of the equal protection clause?
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That’s easy. It’s because the equal protection clause applies except when Democrats don’t want it to!
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I think that’s where OSHA’s statutory authority starts. So really it’s an issue with OSHA regulations in general.
The other point, is why this should be considered an “emergency” regulation 18+ months into the pandemic and thus be exempt from the regular rule making process.
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In theory I could see the argument as to why you would count from the release of the vaccine to now–and then you can say you count from FDA approval of the vaccine until now. I can see the arguments that could be made.
My argument is why should OSHA have this power. Why should this kind of power ever be delegated to unaccountable bureaucracies?
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OSHA has to determine that employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards, and (B) that such emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger.” OSH Act § 6(c)(1), 29 U.S.C. § 655(c)(1).
last year, osha issued new rules but limited them to healthcare because it was concerned that it could not meet the “grave danger” and “necessary” criteria for a broader standard in light of accelerating vaccinations.
Biden basically overruled that
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Is the 100 employee threshold based on a general limitation on which companies can be regulated by OSHA or was it just an arbitrary number that was picked for this regulation?
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pretty sure arbitrary. but OSHA stuff is really new to me, so i might be wrong.
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Face Coverings Now Required at State-Regulated Child Care Facilities for Children Ages Two and Up, All Staff and Visitors
Keeping a face mask on a two year old? Easy peasy!
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-series-universal-mask-requirements-protect-new-yorkers-amid-rise
This is some genius regulatin’
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zero thought went into that regulation.
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I really am amazed. I’ve been listening to a lot of Heinlein novels and he has multiple histories where some strip of time is called “the crazy years”—because of spoiled people who want pull their weight and hippies and drug use and so on.
Listening to a lot of essays reminds me that people always think it’s the worst it’s ever been and the end is nigh.
But it also makes me think the present era should be called “the stupid years”. Because it seems collectively, the experts and the Titans of industry and our political leaders are astoundingly stupid.
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Beautiful
https://babylonbee.com/news/powerful-aoc-writes-tax-the-rich-in-the-sky-with-her-private-jet
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That is funny.
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Gotta say that the KosKidz attack on Biden’s DoJ being incompetent surprised me.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/14/2052282/-Presence-of-Trump-friendly-DOJ-prosecutor-on-Proud-Boys-insurrection-case-raises-red-flags
It seems, given the heavily Democratic makeup of the jury pool in Washington DC, getting these people convicted of anything, including Treason, would not be much of a challenge.
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Lol
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/top-earning-new-yorkers-could-face-61point2percent-combined-tax-rate-under-house-plan-californians-may-face-59percent-rate.html
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Ah, the irony.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/ny-healthcare-upended-over-vax-mandate-hospital-stops-delivering-babies-er-closes-wait-times-explode
Medical professionals, who were hailed as heroes during the throes of the pandemic, are now resigning in droves over a dictate from the governor’s office in New York requiring all healthcare workers, including long-term care facility employees, to be vaccinated, lest they be fired.
As a consequence, the NY healthcare system — and its patients — are already feeling the strains, only compounding an established nurse shortage
So much for justifying vaccine mandates as measure to ensure that the availability of health care.
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This is much more likely to feed vaccine skepticism than anything that Republicans do.
When nurses refuse to get the vaccine, the natural inference is that as insiders they know something that the rest of the public does not.
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I got some “news” email from Microsoft with a story about “Fauci debunks some tweet” and all I could think is that the government doesn’t have the credibility to debunk the Great Pumpkin at this point.
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The media generally has completely destroyed the credibility and meaning of “debunking” and “fact-check”.
Primarily because they’ve defined “fact check” as conforming to a preferred opinion or narrative and “debunking” as someone with a perceived or assumed degree of authority disagreeing with the supposedly “debunked” assertions.
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This makes sense. It doesn’t feel like a significant influence to me … probably because I feel like nurses and doctors are human and capable of being wrong. Wouldn’t make me worry overmuch about vaccine efficacy. What tends to make me suspicious is mandates and coercion, suppression of dissension and silencing of debate (a general sense that advocates feel I, as a layperson, should have no say as to whether I get it or not) and pro-vaccine arguments that distort or misrepresent data or are incoherent (needing to get vaccinated to protect the vaccinated is an incoherent argument, IMO, and at minimum begs much more explanation).
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The other thing that’s now fucked-up is the Federal takeover of the monoclonal antibody distribution. I predict (intentional) shortages soon for outpatient infusion sites. There really is a STRONG desire to get people in the hospital so they can give more money to hospital systems and pump-up the severe case rhetoric.
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“So much for justifying vaccine mandates as measure to ensure that the availability of health care.”
I never felt that justification was sincere, or that mandates were ever intended to benefit the general public except in the most abstract and theoretical of terms.
Which would mean it will take much more bad news and bad “unintended consequences” to get them to backtrack. Because the actual consequences aren’t important; the principal of expert management by our superiors is the point.
Also if they were serious about their desired outcome they’d do some due diligence, game out likely scenarios, ask the question: what happens if healthcare workers reject the mandate and lose their jobs? Doctors? What happens if Wal-Mart loses 25% of their employees? And so on.
But there isn’t much gaming out—-or due diligence—on anything the elite/expert class does, by “plan” or by cultural contagion. There’s just an endless rolling forward with whatever has become the new normal or the latest fashion … because they are experts, they are the smartest folks in the room, they don’t need any stinking plans or due diligence.
Which is in part because they suffer so few consequences no matter how bad their decisions or initiatives are.
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Wonder if they’re going to check their nanny and housekeeper’s vaccine passport?
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I think if the nannies and housekeepers wear masks to signal their subservient position in the power structure, they’ll get a pass on the vaccine passports.
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First indictment by Durham on Russiagate:
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For Scott,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/14/2052153/-Rural-NY-hospital-pauses-maternity-services-after-six-workers-refuse-vaccination
If you’re schadenboner lasts longer than 4 hours, consult a doctor.
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Comments indicate that (a) nobody there gives a shit about a nurse, doctor, or specialist shortage. Because all they want to do is talk about how the people refusing the vaccine are stupid and anti-science and really guilty of murder, basically.
As long as they can use the situation to point out how awful people are and how they are better, I don’t think they care about the actual situation. They’d be content for all hospitals to be closed down because of the mandate . . . just so long as they can point the finger at the villains.
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