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 | 4,044 | 15.00 |
| Oil (WTI) | 94.07 | -1.38 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 3.09% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 5.79% |
Stocks are higher this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up small.
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he was “happy” to see the stock market reaction to Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday. “I was actually happy to see how Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole speech was received,” Kashkari said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast on Monday, reflecting on the steep drop after Powell spoke. “People now understand the seriousness of our commitment to getting inflation back down to 2%.”
Since Neel Kashkari has historically been one of the biggest doves on the Fed, this statement has even more impact. The market is interpreting Powell’s remarks as the Fed wants to see demand destruction, not just an improvement on the supply side. In other words, falling commodity prices and an improvement in supply chain issues are a necessary, but not sufficient, impetus to get the Fed to pivot. IMO, the Fed wants to see at least 4% unemployment before it thinks of pulling back.
We are seeing some improvements on the inflation front. One indicator that is useful for global demand is the Baltic Dry Index which measures the cost of moving raw materials by sea. When the index falls, it indicates that demand is slowing. We can see the chart below which has been falling.
Fridays jobs report could be a reversion to the old “bad news is good news” phenomenon. If we see an uptick in unemployment, markets could rally since this would mean the Fed’s tightening is gaining traction.
Consumer Confidence improved in August according to the Conference Board. These consumer confidence indices are heavily influenced by gasoline prices, so this does reflect an easing of prices over the past month.
“Consumer confidence increased in August after falling for three straight months,” said Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board. “The Present Situation Index recorded a gain for the first time since March. The Expectations Index likewise improved from July’s 9-year low, but remains below a reading of 80, suggesting recession risks continue. Concerns about inflation continued their retreat but remained elevated. Meanwhile, purchasing intentions increased after a July pullback, and vacation intentions reached an 8-month high. Looking ahead, August’s improvement in confidence may help support spending, but inflation and additional rate hikes still pose risks to economic growth in the short term.”
Job openings ticked up slightly in July, but the trend is still generally lower as we retreat from record highs. The quits rate (which tends to lead wage growth) ticked down to 2.7%. This is an indication that the labor market is softening a touch. Note this is July data, so it is somewhat dated.
Home prices rose 17.7% YOY and 4% QOQ, according to the FHFA House Price Index. “Housing prices grew quickly through most of the second quarter of 2022, but a deceleration has appeared in the June monthly data” said William Doerner, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist in FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics. “The pace of growth has subsided recently, which is consistent with other recent housing data.”
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
Apparently 17 states automatically adopt whatever automobile environmental rules California sets.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/25/california-new-ev-rule-00053862
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_vehicle_emission_standards
Virginia joined the bandwagon in 2021, so it’s currently impacted by the California mandate to eliminate all new gas powered car sales by 2035.
https://apnews.com/article/legislation-virginia-environment-bills-pollution-115fbed1c57860db80078b1c0c55158b
Republican in the states are trying to roll that back now:
https://richmond.com/lifestyles/technology/gop-leaders-want-to-untie-virginia-from-california-ev-rule/article_fa20b7e8-e122-593b-b319-baa3eb704aac.html
Not too keen on outsourcing decisions like this to another state’s regulatory board.
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That makes me laugh a lot. Is every elected legislative member hell-bent on giving up their authority? It’s flabbergasting.
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If you are a progressive, it’s a good way to make it harder to roll back your policy preferences. California is about as safe a blue state as you can get and by doing this, all they have to do is maintain a veto point to keep it from being rolled back rather than justify enacting new restrictions.
The Virginia Democrats did this when they briefly had a trifecta in the state and now that they still maintain control of the state Senate they can veto any attempt to roll it back.
If they stay united. This may be a bridge too far.
Of course much like light bulbs and everything else, people will just drive out of state to purchase a new gas powered car.
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McWing:
Is every elected legislative member hell-bent on giving up their authority? It’s flabbergasting.
I think it makes a perverted kind of sense if your highest priority is the implementation of leftist policy, and you are in a state where the maintenance of leftist authority is less secure than it is in California. Remember, for the left, the ends justifies the means, even if the means is subordination of your own authority to a more reliably leftest authority.
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jnc:
Not too keen on outsourcing decisions like this to another state’s regulatory board.
The idea of outsourcing such decisions to any other state is idiotic. Outsourcing them to that particular state is insane.
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It does demonstrate pretty clearly that there’s a red American and a blue America.
Red America can start linking it’s policies to Texas. It would be interesting to see the reaction if say 17 states had their abortion laws written to be whatever Texas had enacted.
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Pennsylvania Governor,Tom Wolf, demonstrating yet again that Democrats are economic illiterates completely motivated by emotion and not reason.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/pennsylvania-governor-calls-for-more-stimulus-checks-says-its-mind-boggling-anyone-would-worry-about-more-inflation
It’s just mind-boggling, the sense that giving somebody who is trying to put food on the table or pay the rent, that that is somehow inflationary, when how many trillions of dollars did we give away to the very wealthy during the Trump years in tax breaks?
Right…inflation won’t happen if you print money to “help” people buy food and housing. What a fucking moron.
And, Wolf has also fallen prey to the economically illiterate and morally condemnable notion that “tax breaks” are the equivalent of actually spending money.
Besides, federal tax revenues set new records in each of Trump’s years in office, and the portion of taxes paid by the top 1% of income earners also reached a new all time record high of 40.1% in 2018.
https://taxfoundation.org/federal-income-tax-data-2021/
He literally has no idea what he is talking about.
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Or is just lying.
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Possibly, but personally knowing lots of Democrats, I am inclined to think he is economically illiterate and driven largely by emotion rather than deliberately malicious.
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With elected politicians, I assume lying by default.
They have advisors who know better.
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My problem with the left particularly but most people generally (historically the GOP has been little better about gaming out secondary and tertiary consequences and considering the role incentives play in what people actually do—but they have been a little better).
They cannot think beyond the moment, beyond the thing they want right now. They don’t imagine that people will have incentives to do anything different in response to policy-or free money.
When they do think long term (say, climate change or Great Resetting) they might as well not. It’s still never about the data but their passion for “saving the earth”. They still don’t think about what changing incentives mean, or that rationing energy arbitrarily threatens to collapse the economy that is the only thing that can generate the technological innovation that would actually allow for a green revolution.
Which is pretty clear when you consider how environmentally destructive wind power and electric cars and even solar panels are presently. But that doesn’t matter, only the potential for increased planetary temperatures coming from a small shift in the level of carbon dioxide (the stuff plants need to live) measured jn fractions of parts-per-million.
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KW:
They cannot think beyond the moment, beyond the thing they want right now.
They are driven primarily by emotion. It’s all about how they “feel” in a given moment. And that is why they are always accusing their political opponents of being “heartless” or lacking empathy or in some way not “caring”, and using emotional blackmail to advance their policy desires. Because they think everyone is equally motivated in their politics by emotion, and so if someone disagrees with their policy desires, it can only because they do not have the same “feelings” about the situation.
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I think what’s needed here is more cowbell.
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What a shame.
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GOP demands that Facebook turn over communications with FBI regarding the Hunter Biden laptop.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-senators-demand-facebook-turn-over-fbi-comms-on-hunter-biden-laptop
I don’t understand why they don’t demand that the FBI itself turn it over. Surely Congress has as much right as private companies like Facebook and Twitter to know whatever information the FBI was conveying to Facebook and Twitter. If Wray refuses to reveal what was said to Facebook and Twitter (and refuses to reveal who else it was said to), then he needs to explain why it is that the FBI can convey to private actors information that he cannot convey to Congress itself. And we can draw the obvious inference…that the communication had a nefarious purpose that Wray is now trying to coverup.
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I would ask them if they believe they have a responsibility to work for Republican presidents or only Democrats.
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“I don’t understand why they don’t demand that the FBI itself turn it over.”
Probably easier to get it from Facebook than the FBI.
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jnc:
Probably easier to get it from Facebook than the FBI.
Yes, and isn’t that quite damning of the FBI…that it will tell Facebook and Twitter and other private actors things that it will not tell Congress?
What motives other than corrupt motives could Wray have to testify in front of Congress and refuse to reveal what was revealed to Facebook and Twitter, either about the Hunter laptop or Russian disinformation more generally in regards to the 2020 election?
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Since Democrats have a majority, the FBI won’t be compelled to turn over info.
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jnc:
Since Democrats have a majority, the FBI won’t be compelled to turn over info.
I understand, but it not a question of “compelling”. The existence of a Dem majority does not preclude Republicans requesting this info from the FBI. Even members of the minority get to ask questions of witnesses at Congressional hearings. The R’s should request this info, and if Wray refuses to provide it without giving a legitimate reason why (and I can’t think of what such a reason might be), the logical inference that he is covering up corrupt, politicized activity can be drawn. And they should accuse him of exactly that.
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Is that a demand they could enforce from any practical standpoint without holding but the legislative and executive branches? And SCOTUS of course.
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I would love to find out that this was some kind of false flag campaign initiated by a Texan trying to keep progressives from screwing up Texas the way way they have already screwed up California.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-mysterious-billboards-urge-people-not-to-move-to-lone-star-state/
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That’s what I thought it was to be honest.
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I can entirely believe that some guy or gal with cash was so singularly worried about progressives moving to Texas and hatched a plan to stop it. Seems a little too dark to be done humorously or trolling, so I’d have to think if it’s an attempt to scare liberals off of Texas it’s by someone who considers the possibility of Californians moving to Texas to be an existential threat.
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Check the date and compare it to current reporting.
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/02/poll-shows-peril-for-republicans-032431
Republicans picked up 63 seats in 2010.
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polling always skews to the left.
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FALSE EQUIVALENCE!!!
Am I doing this right?
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“Am I doing this right?”
Pitch-perfect.
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We all know that this is how billionaires hide their wealth, by selling used clothing and vintage t-shirts on eBay!
Tax the shit out of those Wreckers and Kulaks!
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I know I’m an outlier here and I guess a “Woke Woman” whatever that means. My opinions aren’t that important and I suppose I’m uninformed too. But I’m going to link this piece…………….nothing to do with politics really. You guys have your set conviction of liberalism destroying America. And I’m worried about the Trump Party doing the same. Never the twain shall meet I guess.
Unfortunately, all of this back and forth has nothing to do with the existential problems our country and our world are actually facing.
https://www.propublica.org/article/colorado-river-water-shortage-jay-famiglietti
I know I can’t convince any of you here, but I did think it was important to at least raise the issue before I leave.
I paid for the domain again for another year and will try to transfer that to Scott, although so far it’s not a slam dunk transfer. You guys might want to figure out a new way to carry on. I’m 72 and so as long as I’m still alive I will pay for it but if I disappear you’ll know I bit the bullet………..LOL
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“I know I’m an outlier here and I guess a “Woke Woman” whatever that means. My opinions aren’t that important and I suppose I’m uninformed too.”
Arguably none of our opinions are important, as I don’t think any of us are going to be shaping public policy with our opinions. We’re just bloviating.
You are an outlier here now, but that wasn’t the idea. Alas oil and water don’t mix. And you’ve proved yourself more open and honest and courageous than any of the other PlumLine folks that once hung out here (or came for a moment to yell at us and disappear, like Shrink).
But where we disagree about certain things, it does suggest either you, or I, or we are uninformed (or doing a poor job of processing our information). But maybe it’s not you, but we who are uninformed and you know the real story.
The problem being we may be uninformed about how uninformed we are!
Which is why it’s good to share opinions and be honest about our disagreements without being overly-concerned that others disagree with us. Maybe they have a point? Maybe they don’t. Trying to debate our disagreements a bit may teach us something. At the very least it may sharpen our own thinking.
“You guys have your set conviction of liberalism destroying America”.
I have said here many times I do not call the modern left liberal. I call them progressives because (a) they are not classically liberal in any sense and (b) I prefer to distinguish the present-day left from the liberals of the 70s and 80s. One may have held the door open for the other, but they are not the same.
“I know I can’t convince any of you here, but I did think it was important to at least raise the issue before I leave“
You’ll be back. You know you love me. And Scott. And McWing, you love him so much. I know it! You won’t be able to stay away. Something will happen and you’ll wonder: “what are those rugged, masculine, shocking attractive alpha males saying about this, I wonder? I must find out!”
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“My opinions aren’t that important and I suppose I’m uninformed too.”
If I ever disagree with you, it’s not meant to convey any sort of belittlement or disregard for you as a person.
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“I know I can’t convince any of you here, but I did think it was important to at least raise the issue before I leave.”
With regards to the lack of water issues in the West, it seems to me that the American solution would be to build a massive water pipeline from the parts of the country that are flooding due to climate change to the parts that are drying up due to climate change.
That’s what we would have done in the 19th century.
But now, it probably wouldn’t get through an EPA review and there’s also a possibility that someone could profit off of it and we can’t have that. So, we’ll embrace failure instead.
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the ironic thing is that decades ago, southern california built desalination plants during the last big drought, but they never maintained them and let them fall into disrepair.
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Desalination along the Cali coast is priority #1, redirecting flood waters from the Missouri River System into the Oogallala is priority #2, evacuating the Gulf Coast is priority #3.
That’s partially tongue-in-cheek, but might all prove prophetic, anyway. Doesn’t require uphill pumping done correctly.
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Is that why he left billions in equipment with the Taliban?
Or is he pulling a Slawell and threatening to nuke Americans?
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who does this pinhead think drives the trucks in this country? A trucking embargo on I-5 and I-95 would mean every city from San Diego to Seattle, DC to Boston would be out of food and gas in 72 hours.
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He doesn’t know what he’s saying. I blame Jill Biden for this. The poor bastard should be enjoying his dotage, letting black children fondle his leg hair.
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the funny thing is that the military will have its hands full putting down riots in New York City to even bother dealing with Cletus in Texas.
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McWing:
He doesn’t know what he’s saying. I blame Jill Biden for this.
I completely agree.
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The leg hair story was so weird. I get Trump has a lot of rude or inappropriate stuff when he was running that didn’t make me think “oh that guy will be a good president” but Biden was saying in public speeches the kind of think that, of Trump did it on private, the leaked recording would still get brought up every 3rd day as evidence of what a twisted freak the bad orange man was.
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Ok champ, here’s some ice cream. Now go lay down for your nap while I go talk to A Place For Mom.
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He’s painting a picture. It’s call “All Republicans are Doomed Seditionists, Insurrectionists and Losers”. The subtitle is: “They are so stupid they think they can defeat the might of our LGBQT+ military with pop guns! You don’t want to be stupid like them. Or fascist like them. Or racists like them. Vote Democrat!”
I think it’s about the narrative more than a real argument against what Republicans want to do. Even Biden wins in a debate against straw men.
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A smart Republican politician should say “the left is letting the mask slip. they intend to use the military to take your guns by force.”
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Yes! And BTW, it wouldn’t be just hyperbole. Does anyone doubt that the left would do exactly that if they thought they could?
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The Taliban didn’t have F-15’s and they sent Biden packing.
The entire history of insurgencies and counter insurgencies proves him wrong.
Plus the January 6th Shaman didn’t have an F15 and he apparently almost took down the whole government.
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I don’t get how some rioters on January 6th almost toppled a government that has threated to use nukes and F-15’s on it’s citizens.
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The cognitive dissonance is strong. “They are so stupid to think they could take on the US government with AR-15s! We’ve got nuclear warheads!” Followed up with “OMG! A bunch of rednecks acted like drunk assholes for a few hours—without any real weapons at all—and we came THIS CLOSE TO LOSING OUR DEMOCRACY!”
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Apparently the place to get laid is the FBI.
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https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/31/republicans-should-bring-back-college-debt-bankruptcy-and-heres-why/
What should Republicans do to address the student loan crisis? It is very simple: bring back bankruptcy for student debt for those who cannot repay their loans after several years of good-faith efforts and require that colleges repay half of their students’ discharged debt.
I’m in.
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Here we are, ahead of the curve.
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Me too, 100%.
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I love the fact the KosKidz are concerned that Trump won’t be indicted, tried and convicted.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/31/2119901/-Bombshell-DOJ-filing-shows-highly-classified-documents-were-found-in-Donald-Trump-s-desk
Some people love ghost stories.
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