Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
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Memetrics
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quarterback
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yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | |
| S&P futures | 4,103 | -17.25 |
| Oil (WTI) | 94.53 | -4.80 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 2.59% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 5.26% |
Stocks are lower this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are down.
Job openings fell by 600k in June, according to the JOLTS jobs report. Most of the decrease came in retail, as consumers are beginning to curtail their spending due to rising prices for necessities. The quits rate (which tends to lead wage inflation) remained at 2.8%. Overall, this report shows that the labor market is beginning to cool off.
Home prices continued to appreciate in July, according to the Clear Capital Home Data Index. The usual suspects – Raleigh, Miami, Tampa were the leaders again, but some of the laggards are beginning to heat up. Topping the list with nearly 11% QOQ growth was Rochester, New York. A couple other MSAs – Milwaukee WI and Hartford CT made the list of top 15 MSAs. Interestingly, some of the slowest appreciating MSAs were the ones that led the rally – San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle etc.
I wonder if work-from-home will cause some of these MSAs to equalize. As inflation continues to sap disposable income, perhaps people will relocate to cheaper places
One of the big drivers of home price appreciation has been a lack of homes for sale. Inventories are down some 54% from the average of 2017-2019, according to Black Knight. That said, it looks like inventory is beginning to increase again, as the number of homes for sale rose by 114k over the past two months. It would take a year of similar gains to get back to pre-pandemic normalcy. That said, we are still a long way from a balanced market. The US has underbuilt since the crisis, and is now stymied by shortages of labor and materials.
A balanced market is about 6 to 7 months’ worth of inventory. You can see how this metric has trended since the bubble days.
Inflation is beginning to negatively affect the finances of younger, lower-income Americans, which is causing them to build balances on their credit cards. Delinquencies have yet to take off, but non-mortgage debt is increasing.
For consumers with a mortgage, rising home prices has meant that they are increasing home equity. Debt consolidation cash-out refinances can be an attractive way to lower the monthly payment for people with lots of credit card debt.
Rocket is getting into home equity loans. The company will offer fixed rate home equity loans for a 10 or 20 year terms up to a 90 LTV. Rocket isn’t the only one getting into this line of business: New Residential, Guaranteed Rate and Loan Depot are as well.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
Insert Covid Liturgy here.
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Hmmmm, not sure how you equate Covid with the divine but as someone who had it, and managed to keep it away from family and friends, without any kind of divine, or other intervention (other than being vax’d and boosted)……………….I wore a mask and isolated in a guest room LOL..Our daughter was prescribed Paxlovid but never picked the RX up…………..Like me she isolated and everyone was fine………………we do the same thing here with the flu…………..vax and isolate. None of us are afraid of the disease or the vaccinations……………18 month old and 4 year old grandsons are waiting for their 3rd shot. We have bigger worries than Covid at this point!
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The Covid liturgy is a joke that all vaxxed people seem to,say when they inevitably get Covid – I’m thankful for the vax as it keeps me from getting really sick. Somehow saying the Covid liturgy proves a negative.
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lms:
but as someone who had it, and managed to keep it away from family and friends, without any kind of divine, or other intervention (other than being vax’d and boosted)
So being vaxed and boosted failed to keep it away from you, but it did keep it away from your family and friends?
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I got vaxxed and boosted! Was going on a cruise and it was required. Stupid IMO but I got the J&J and no myocarditis!
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Scott, everyone in the family is vax’d and boosted. I don’t recall anyone saying the vaccine would keep you from getting Covid. I think I probably picked it up at the gym and I also think I didn’t get very sick because of the vaccine (5 days of what felt like a cold) but it’s hard to prove right? I isolated, as did my daughter in CO, and we managed to keep from spreading it to the rest of the family. I think we’re all going to get it eventually, probably more than once, but I’m thankful for the vaccines and will get the next one as well. I love vaccines……………LOL I’m in a study right now for a RSV vaccine. I got that last fall from my grandsons and it was no fun. I hope the study works!
Also, in other news:
Kansas 1
Supreme Court 0
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I don’t recall anyone saying the vaccine would keep you from getting Covid.
Here’s dementia Joe saying if you’re vaxxed you wont get Covid:
“You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations.”
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn-town-hall-july/index.html
And this is the very definition of the Covid Liturgy:
I think I probably picked it up at the gym and I also think I didn’t get very sick because of the vaccine (5 days of what felt like a cold)
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Kansas 1
Supreme Court 0
Curious as to why you framed it this way, SCOTUS ruled that states should decide… and they did. Why is that a “victory” over SCOTUS? Is Kansas saying their rules re abortion should be enforced in other states regardless of the electorate’s in other states will?
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Kansas literally just 100% endorsed the reasoning of Dobbs.
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lms:
Scott, everyone in the family is vax’d and boosted.
I understand. But the thing I was questioning was your claim that you managed to keep it away from your friends and family by being vaxxed and boosted. If the vax and boost didn’t keep it away from you, why do you think it kept it away from them?
I don’t recall anyone saying the vaccine would keep you from getting Covid.
Not sure how you could have missed it. Biden quite famously said exactly that. So did Fauci. Along with all kinds of other authority figures who led the worshipping flock in the COVID liturgy.
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I 100% support the Dobbs decision. Had I been presented with a proposition like the Kansas one—I would have also voted “no” on repeal. So I’m getting what I want everywhere I turn. The real winner here is me.
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Well I guess I still don’t understand your “liturgy” comment. I did use the word “think” and also that it can’t actually be proven but I do tend to have a bit of faith in the science behind vaccinations. It seems possible that Covid would have been worse without them, not just for me but for others as well. I’m not preaching about it though, just trying to explain what I “think”.
And my scoring system re the SC is not reflective of the fact that they reversed a 50 yr old precedent but the fact that confidence in the SC is at an all time low as far as I know. Alito didn’t do the court any favors by his speech in Rome recently.
Conservative attorney John David Dyche: “Regardless of one’s view on Dobbs it is hard to see how an arrogant & injudicious Alito ‘spiking the ball’ in political comments at a Notre Dame event in Rome will do anything but further erode public confidence in a court already diminished by a multi-faceted credibility crisis.”
I’m not bothered by the fact that the states now decide abortion rules, but I am bothered by the way some of these states seem to think they’re not vulnerable to the opinions of the majority. I think the people of Kansas sent a clear message, to the SC, to Republicans in Congress who think a national ban is in their future, as well as to their own state legislatures about what will and will not be tolerated. The unfortunate issue IMO is how many women will suffer in the meantime.
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lms:
…the fact that confidence in the SC is at an all time low as far as I know.
That is probably because most people are ignorant of what Supreme Court’s job is, and are easily propagandized by the corporate media.
I am bothered by the way some of these states seem to think they’re not vulnerable to the opinions of the majority.
What states seem to think this, and what makes it seem that way to you?
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Most people are ignorant of that and many other things because most people don’t care about anything but getting what they want now. Modern western culture has created an army of Veruca Salts.
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KW:
Modern western culture has created an army of Veruca Salts.
Great reference. “I want a pony, now!”
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“Confidence” in the court can be measured by how much the people being surveyed like the outcomes. Right now conservatives are confident in the court. Whether based on the sound legal reasoning of Dobbs or because they got what they wanted.
If the left was getting what they wanted, they would be confident in the court.
But if people aren’t confident, good. They should invest their condiments in elected politicians (or elect different ones).
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Scott, I’m sure that many Americans are not cognizant in regards to what the SC means or does…………….you can count me in, if you want. But calling Americans who are in that category “ignorant” doesn’t really advance your argument.
Are 60% of Kansas voters ignorant? Very doubtful……………I respect their conservatism but also respect their vote to support women having a voice re their choices in family planning, not being penalized for being raped, or even having a miscarriage or a threat to their life pregnancy. I’ll even go farther we have a right to both privacy and autonomy.
Like I said……………I’m not going to argue with the end of Roe but I will state unequivocally that while the “states” decide on this issue, women will die and or suffer.
Also, the whole vax/anti-vax movement doesn’t move me in the least. I was raised by a very conservative Chemist (hell he signed me up for the Young Republican movement when I was 15 because he thought I was a rebel………..haha)
I’m not going to apologize for trusting the science and not wanting to die or expose Walter to covid. If science is faith based then I give up! Do I decide to have some kind of faith in science and the vaccines or do I hope that God keeps me safe……………picking science here!
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lms:
But calling Americans who are in that category “ignorant” doesn’t really advance your argument.
I wasn’t making an argument. And I didn’t call anyone ignorant. I said that most people were ignorant of the job of the Supreme Court. There is a difference between being ignorant of a specific thing and being generically ignorant.
Are 60% of Kansas voters ignorant?
Of what? My guess is that 60% of virtually any population are ignorant of all kinds of things.
I’m not going to apologize for trusting the science…
Another part of the liturgy…”trust the science”! Lol.
In any event, no one has asked you to apologize for anything. I asked you something entirely different, but it appears you aren’t going to answer.
BTW, there is a difference between trusting the science and trusting people who claim the mantle of science. People who actually do science, ie scientists, do the former. Everyone else does…or doesn’t…do the latter.
Also, I remain curious about which states “seem to think they are not vulnerable to the majority”, and what exactly they have done to make it seem that way to you.
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“I’m not going to apologize for trusting the science”
That’s fine, though at present the Science seems more religious in nature than scientific. Also what does “trusting the science” really mean in most contexts? It means trusting what fallible and flawed human beings claim and perhaps believe themselves, based on their authority or appearance thereof. With then COVID vaccines and the accelerated timetables there wasn’t much of the science we normally associate with biological medical treatments to be had. No double-blind studies. Very little in the way of traditional studies at all.
Also, “trusting the science” should not require so much rebranding. The mRNA “vaccines” are more correctly called gene therapies—-one of the reasons the traditional definition of vaccine was suddenly getting redefined everywhere (without notation) to no longer be a dead or attenuated virus used to stimulate an immune response but a more general definition that could apply to the mRNA gene therapies they were rolling out to stimulate immune systems in ways not only very different from traditional vaccines but very different from anything generally done in humans before.
I’m sure every expectant mother taking thalidomide for morning sickness trusted the a science as well.
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They’re not even vaccines, more like barely effective therapeutics.
And I think thalidomide is currently used to treat cancer as well as leprosy.
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And I’m pretty sure mRNA therapies will lead to a broad range of therapies that with solve a ton of health problems. Eventually. But rolling out a gene therapies that makes your body reproduce markers of the virus it needs to be fighting … and doing it on such a large scale with very limited testing … lucky the outcomes weren’t worse than they were. Extraordinarily reckless, IMO.
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KW:
I’m sure every expectant mother taking thalidomide for morning sickness trusted the a science as well.
Ouch.
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The whole point of the scientific method is to question and test and question some more. The assertion that The Science is unassailable wisdom handed down from on high is bizarre to me, and profoundly unscientific.
And science has always been full of human people pursuing their own agendas colored by their own incentives. Carl Sagan wrote more than one book treating the subject (Broca’s Brain is full of examples of unscientific science that often for a time enjoyed popular success). Stephen Jay Gould made his bones with his (and Niles Eldridge’s) punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution. The vast majority of the scientific community attacked them, insisted it was nonsense, and now their theory is generally accepted.
In The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould does an elaborate deconstruction of intelligence testing-a “scientific” tool of the expert classes often used to discriminate against unflavored classes and elevate themselves. Sagan was a lefty. Gould was a lefty. Both scientists. But they had clear understandings that science is a thing done by flawed human beings with agendas and incentives. That science was messy and often wrong and often practiced inexpertly or fraudulently.
Tl;dr: trusting the science misses the point.
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It’s interesting to think about what science knew to be true in 1800 versus what science knew to be true in 1900. Ditto 2000. Ditto 2100. A lot of what we know to be true will be proven wrong in the future. We could all be more circumspect in what we know to be true.
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Exactly. Things we know for sure:
We often don’t know what we don’t know.
“Discoveries” and “innovations” lack historical data. So there’s going to be a lot of things we don’t know about new things. Pretending we know everything about new complicated things we just figured out is silly, but common among those who desire power.
Real science can show humility. Experts who make constant assertions with 100% certitude are not practicing science.
We don’t know Jack shit about complex systems with a billion inputs. We don’t know how to model them or predict their course or much of anything. Which is why the assertions of “climate science” are based on emotional consensus rather than actual knowledge. Not that we know nothing about climate and climate change but we don’t know nearly enough to predict the shit we predict.
Also, I know the fact that Greta Thunberg became a spokesperson for Clinate Science is prima facie evidence that it is an emotional, cultural phenomenon and not one where there is deep empiric knowledge.
Also a marked lack of humility amongst those that demand the entire world change because of their fever-dream predictions based on .01% of the data.
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This is a very good article on the subject of science, following the science and human behavior.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/
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I didn’t get too deep into before I searched for Dr. Ioannidis’s current status. The Atlantic article is from 2010. I’m not at all confident they’d publish that kind of article today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/12/16/john-ioannidis-coronavirus-lockdowns-fox-news/
And sure enough, Ioannidis had a YouTube video he did censored and was attacked by other scientists for disagreeing with the narrative—basically “misleading the public with data” seems to be the charge.
Interesting that this sort of awareness of the fallibility of science, the fact that branches of science are susceptible to capture by people not particularly inspired by an objective pursuit of the facts … seems that has largely been forgotten, and now “scientists” are to be regarded as priests.
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“but I will state unequivocally that while the “states” decide on this issue, women will die and or suffer.”
Probably, to some extent, although that would have been an outcome of getting pregnant, potentially, for 99.999% of human history. I expect while getting abortions may become more inconvenient in some cases, almost everyone who needs one will be able to get one. Most any woman who chooses to bear a child will likely have access to reasonable healthcare and probably not die from being pregnant.
And to the degree the decision is turned over to the citizens, the more likely you are to get the Kansas result. I suspect the majority of the public wants abortion to be safe, legal and rare.
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Science + Politics = Politics
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Interesting that this sort of awareness of the fallibility of science, the fact that branches of science are susceptible to capture by people not particularly inspired by an objective pursuit of the facts … seems that has largely been forgotten, and now “scientists” are to be regarded as priests.
As long as you say the Earth is the center of the Universe the way the catechism says, you are a-ok. Just don’t try and claim the Earth rotates around the sun.
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That’s been the story of climate change for like 30+ years now.
There is climate outside! There is weather in the world! The planet’s temperature has risen a tenth of a degree over the past 70 years because the gods are displeased with us!
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Totally smart to give the most corrupt nation on earth even more billions.
Ukraine is demanding another $185 billion to rebuild the country.
There’s that WEF slogan again 🤔 https://twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1554660337084993536/photo/1
At what point do we realize the war is designed to kill Ukrainians and launder money?
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Uh, when it started?
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Takes a heart of stone not to laugh.
Yes to all this – this is a critical piece of the change: “So, we will have to see whether and how this name change will affect Seattle Audubon’s operations. It’s a birding organization—how inclusive is birding in Seattle? How will the organization change that?” https://twitter.com/maliniranga/status/1554162560609443841
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The modern progressive left has to be the strangest group of people ever…
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Dudes…………..does anyone actually read this or respond in a big way…………..if you compare it to the stolen election folks who even claim “Shenanigans” in their own winning primary………….where are we going here? I think we have bigger issues than anyone caring about the Seattle Autubon…………..is this actually an issue in the election? Both parties have crazy outliers but do we really need to highlight their craziness……………Let me know if that’s the JAM here and I’ll play!
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Bring it on, I love all crazies and would engage in hours of debate on who has the craziest voters!
And I won’t speak for Scott but I’m happy that Kansas were able to decide whether the Kansas Constitution should include language that bans abortion, that’s what I’ve always wanted,
States decking for themselves. I can’t fathom the objection to that.
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Here’s a wacky one being cancelled because she had been gainfully employed.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11068111/Disabled-non-binary-transgender-social-justice-warrior-CANCELLED-super-woke-internet-mob.html
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Social media is a cancer.
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McWing:
And I won’t speak for Scott but I’m happy that Kansas were able to decide whether the Kansas Constitution should include language that bans abortion, that’s what I’ve always wanted,
States decking for themselves.
Agreed. I have always said that I have way more passion about the issue being resolved in the proper Constitutional manner than about it being resolved with a particular policy. I have also repeatedly predicted that in a post Roe world, most states would maintain some degree of legal abortion, albeit more restricted than the free for all that was demanded by the Roe regime. The Kansas vote makes my prediction look a lot more likely than the HandMaid’s Tale dystopia of the left’s fever dreams.
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I think there is a tendency on both sides (regarding any large, amorphous opposing groups) to regard outliers as emblematic of the OTHER side. There is something satisfying and vindicating about the other side being “just awful” that we will focus on or highlight the crazies.
And then paint the whole other side as being “those crazies”. Humans are going to human.
That said some attention probably ought to be paid. Or the crazies end up with undue power and implementing their crazy policies into law.
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this is good
https://babylonbee.com/video/law–order-microaggression-victims-unit-episode-2—dead-named
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I’m not laughing, I’m rolling my eyes. Good lord when the left just get on with if and self-immolate?
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I’ll bring the marshmallows and beer
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