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 | 4,608 | -18.2 |
| Oil (WTI) | 108.42 | 3.79 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 2.41% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 4.87% |
Stocks are lower this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are flat.
Mortgage applications fell 6.8% last week as rates hit their highest levels in three years. Refis fell 15%, while purchases rose 1%. “Mortgage rates jumped to their highest level in more than three years last week, as investors continue to price in the impact of a more restrictive monetary policy from the Federal Reserve,” said MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni. “Not surprisingly, refinance application volume declined further, as fewer borrowers have an incentive to apply at rates that are significantly higher than a year ago. Refinance application volume is now 60 percent below last year’s levels, in line with MBA’s forecast for 2022.”
The economy added 455,000 jobs in March, according to the ADP Employment Report. Leisure and hospitality added 161,000. The Street is looking for 155,000 jobs in Friday’s employment situation report, so this bodes well. “Job growth was broad-based across sectors in March, contributing to the nearly 1.5 million jobs added for the first quarter in 2022,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Businesses are hiring, specifically among the service providers which had the most ground to make up due to early pandemic losses. However, a tight labor supply remains an obstacle for continued growth in consumer-facing industries.”
The final estimate for fourth quarter GDP was revised downward from 7.1% to 6.9%. The PCE price index rose 6.9%. This is the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation and it shows that inflation has been with us for a while already. Ex-food and energy prices rose 4.5%. In terms of contribution to growth, information contributed 1.06%. Real Estate contributed 0.89%. Construction was actually a drag on growth.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
Figures…Collins will vote for Jackson (after voting against Barret).
https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-maine-senator-who-opposed-barrett-confirmation-says-she-supports-judge-ketanji-brown-jackson
I don’t know whether she has her head in the sand, or if she is just a liar. But with representatives like this, who needs an opposition?
LikeLike
she is replacing a leftist. I don’t think this is a battle worth fighting.
use her hearing to poke fun at the left’s mental gymnastics and move on.
LikeLike
Brent:
she is replacing a leftist. I don’t think this is a battle worth fighting.
I agree that no one should fight to keep Jackson off the court, because it is definitely a losing battle. The Dems have the votes, and none of the Dems are persuadable to vote against her. But simply voting against someone isn’t what I would call “fighting a battle”. I would be content if every Republican on the committee dropped the pretense that this process has anything to remotely to do with determining whether a nominee is “qualified”, and declined to ask her a single thing, or make a single public critique of her, and just voted against her without comment.
Collins said that Jackson had reassured her that she would not bend “the law to meet a personal preference,” and then added that “In my view, the role under the Constitution assigned to the Senate is to look at the credentials, experience and qualifications of the nominee. It is not to assess whether a nominee reflects the individual ideology of a senator or would vote exactly as an individual senator would want.” This is what I am talking about when I say that she is either has her head in the sand or is a liar.
Progressive court members by definition bend the law to meet personal preferences. Those who believe in and apply a “living constitution” methodology have no other way of determining what the law means other than recourse to their own personal preferences. And as a result of being populated with such members, the Court has unavoidably become a political institution. As a political institution, it makes no sense not to assess the ideology of a nominee that is being put on the court. The Dems already know this, which is why they are so vicious in their political approach to nominees made by R presidents. By suggesting that she does not know this, and gullibly taking at face value assurances that the nominee will not do precisely what she was nominated to do, I think Collins is either being deliberately obtuse, or she is a liar.
Even Justice Scalia, who despised what the nomination process had become, understood this.
“And [such questioning by the Senate of nominees for justiceship] ought to go on, much as I hate that process, I prefer it to the alternative, which is just letting the Supreme Court, without any political control, rewrite the Constitution term by term. If they’re gonna be doing that, I would like some popular control, even if it it’s in this Byzantine fashion that amounts to a mini Constitutional Convention every time we appoint a new justice.”
I don’t want R’s to fight a losing battle to prevent Jackson from being on the bench. I just want them to vote against her, and recognize reality for what it is.
LikeLike
Republicans should vote down every nominee for every office but especially SCOTUS. After Kavanaugh (and we could go back to Thomas and Bork and even Roberts) the Democrats do not deserve good faith voting on the part of the GOP.
LikeLike
If it keeps her in office vs a Democrat, then it’s worth it. I think this is one where the outcome is preordained, so there are free passes given out.
As Buckley said, “I’d be for the most right, viable candidate who could win.”
LikeLike
jnc:
If it keeps her in office vs a Democrat, then it’s worth it.
Perhaps, but I am skeptical that her election hinges on her voting to approve of Jackson.
LikeLike
Well someone can primary her. If they can’t do that and win then she’s what the voters of Maine actually want.
LikeLike
This presumably is why judges need to be able to define woman for themselves:
“New Title IX rules set to assert rights of transgender students
By Laura Meckler
Today at 6:00 a.m. EDT”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/03/30/transgender-discrimination-title-ix-rule-students/
Mildly surprised they released this announcement before Jackson was confirmed.
LikeLike
Women have been tearing down male-only spaces for 100 years, so I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for female athletes.
LikeLike
This is a funny and telling view of how political preferences are assumed to be determined by identity to the point that people who go against the grain have to be explained in think pieces.
LikeLike
what an exercise in projection.
Democrats have women’s issues as their North Star, and everything the propose flows from that.
Republicans do no such thing for men. Are there any Republicans advocating for family court reform? Or male vs female sentencing disparities?
That is why i say the patriarchy doesn’t exist. Women have a party that is 100% dedicated to their interests. Men do not.
LikeLike
If you’re a white man, what’s in it for you to be a Democrat?
LikeLike
Are you kidding?
You’re an ally. You’re better than those OTHER white men who are completely worthless. You’re like the house honky—they aren’t going to cancel YOU. They PROMISE.
Also the popular culture implies all over the place that only woke dudes are attractive to women and they want to get laid … so …
LikeLike
That’s because men don’t need it. They get shit done even when the whole society is arrayed against them.
LikeLike
I’m all for protecting women’s spaces from predatory men. Even though you are right, I’m a man and fuck it. Tear down my clubhouse I’m still gonna to kill a bear and skin it for a throw rug. Life is war, with everybody, for a dude. Chicks need their spaces protected by men because they can’t do it themselves. Obviously.
LikeLike
Do they get to manufacturer discrimination for victim status, if no actual discrimination shows up? Demand is always outstripping supply these days.
LikeLike
What’s funny is the violation took place 7 years so.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fec-fines-dnc-clinton-for-trump-dossier-hoax
LikeLike
I thought narrative was inflation is a good thing?
LikeLike
depends on wage growth. The 80s had 5%+ inflation, but wages were rising as well, so it felt reasonably comfortable. Aside from the 70s-centric commodity-driven sectors like farming and energy
LikeLike
Thank you, I had forgotten about the ‘80’s.
LikeLike
The narrative says whatever they think will work in the moment. Not only is the narrative bullshit but it’s something different every other day.
LikeLike
Good piece:
“Woke Capital in the Twenty-First Century
From Woke Disney to a Theory of Woke Capital, Or, Why Politcs is Not Downstream of Culture
Wesley Yang”
https://wesleyyang.substack.com/p/woke-capital-in-the-twenty-first?s=w
LikeLike
Woke Capital requires the buy-in from intstitutional money managers. Most of them are not paid to pick good stocks, but to minimize tracking error to an index. They get to pass the losses onto investors.
Until investors impose a cost on these funds by pulling their money out and picking their own stocks or going with “non-woke” funds, nothing will change.
These institutions have a free ride – they get to virtue signal with someone else’s money and to pass the costs onto unwitting investors.
IMO I think the free rider problem prompts a fiduciary responsibility problem. Imagine if an index fund pressured companies to support the FL bill. The left would go apeshit.
LikeLike
Vox of course assumes that Congressional committees should be the same as grand juries.
“The January 6 committee is seemingly moving toward recommending charges for Trump
A federal judge agreed Trump likely committed crimes. Will Merrick Garland?
By Andrew Prokop ”
https://www.vox.com/23003124/trump-burner-phones-judge-crimes-january-6
Legislative purpose of course.
LikeLike
Seriously, did anyone here doubt that the committee would determine criminal wrongdoing by Trump and that the DOJ would file charges?
LikeLike
I just assumed the committee would be sober and objective and the DOJ would be completely non-partisan and act only on the interest of the country and the law.
HA! Psyche!
LikeLike
This is Onion or Babylon Bee worthy:
LikeLike
Honestly not sure what to make of this.
http://www.framingpaterno.com/jerry-sanduskys-request-john-ziegler-summarizes-why-he-became-convinced-alleged-child-abusers-innoce
LikeLike