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 | 3,816 | -19.00 |
| Oil (WTI) | 87.80 | -1.12 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 4.17% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 7.15% |
Stocks are lower this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are down small.
Mortgage applications fell 0.1% last week as purchases rose 1% and refis fell 4%. “Mortgage rates edged higher last week following news that the Federal Reserve will continue raising short-term rates to combat high inflation,” said Joel Kan, MBA Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “The 30-year fixed rate remained above 7 percent for the third consecutive week, with increases for most loan types. Purchase applications increased for the first time after six weeks of declines but remained close to 2015 lows, as homebuyers remained sidelined by higher rates and ongoing economic uncertainty. Refinances continued to fall, with the index hitting its lowest level since August 2000.”
As refinances fade into the background, I suspect the seasonality of the mortgage business is going to become a lot more pronounced.
Stamford Connecticut based Luxury mortgage is pausing originations while it looks for a new partner. Starwood was in a deal to purchase the Connecticut lender however there have been reports that Starwood backed out of the deal.
Loan Depot reported earnings yesterday, narrowing is losses as it exits the wholesale business. The company also announced the launch of its digital HELOC program, which it hopes will drive earnings in 2023. As of now, the company is firmly in expense reduction mode.
Mortgage banks aren’t the only ones getting slammed these days. Fintech, which was once the darling of the stock market, is getting hit too. Redfin has sunk to fresh lows after Opco downgraded the stock and said its business model is “fundamentally flawed.” “We believe that Redfin’s business is fundamentally flawed, as the company continues to use a fixed-cost model for agents,” the analyst writes. “This prevents the company from optimizing margins when the housing markets decline and limits share gains when markets rebound.”
Opendoor and Zillow are also announcing big layoffs.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
FYI Brent:
“October 2022 U.S. Foreclosure Activity Increases 57 Percent From October 2021
by ATTOM Team | Nov 9, 2022 | Foreclosures, Most Recent Articles”
https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/foreclosures/attom-october-2022-u-s-foreclosure-market-report/
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I think this is a result of pandemic programs ending.
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That makes sense. The SCOTUS case that vacated the eviction moratorium was one year ago.
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Pithy:
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hopefully the lesson here is that the future of the republican party isn’t trump
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I wonder if he’s still going to announce for 2024 on November 15th.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/07/trump-very-big-announcement-00065587
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Fingers crossed. In any case, Trump has been slowly souring his fans on him as a candidate. If he keeps going he may not be able to win the primary.
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Trump will fracture the R electorate as he doesn’t care. It’s a debate that’s needed though as the establishment hates their base and vice versa. It will be a spectacle but I suspect it ends up unresolved. The Republican party will fracture, ensuring Democratic control of the Executive and majorities in both chambers for the foreseeable future. Where the real action will occur will be on the state level as R governors start really challenging Federal intrusion (and I believe this would have happened should R’s control the Executive, D governors would start pushing back on perceived R intrusions. SCOTUS seems prepared to back them up to some extent, which leaves us on The Right in the rather ironic position of hoping for SCOTUS to reinforce Federalism. It won’t last however as it seems obvious that a majority of the populous wants a nanny state. My prediction is more rot with a collapse hopefully after I’m dead.
It should be a helluva show though, and I always enjoy that!
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If this phenomenon presents the opportunity to overturn Wickard, then Trump is worth it
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If SCOTUS can defang the regulatory power and enforcement mechanisms of the Executive branch and return them to the Legislative branch where they belong then I’d be all for expanding the House as well!
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Agreed.
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This made me laugh.
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This is making the rounds on righty Twitter this morning.
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It took a decade of 1970s economic punishment for leftist econ to be discredited.
I suspect we are in for another run like that.
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This seems newsy to me.
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Gonna be interesting to watch this narrative flip if R’s get to 51.
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Republicans really need to stop with the saying elections were stolen and focus on the sloppiness and incompetence of how they are handled, the simple security, short lines in places that hand huge amount of votes all on Election Day, etc. but otherwise echo the “Democracy is awesome” line.
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I get it but thats fighting the tide. Put in ballot harvesting infrastructure. The fact that McCarthy, McConnell, McDaniels and Scott did not after 2016 is just gross incompetence. Imagine what kind of system they could have had with the money they spent on Murkowski in AK when there was a guarantee in place after the primary that a Republican would win. Add in the money McConnell burned on O’Day and that moronic lost cause.
Oh well, I keep forgetting it’s the Republican base that’s the problem.
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Yeah, 100% the Republicans need to compete on even ground and have people dedicated to the same sort of ballot harvesting operations.
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KW:
Agreed. The R’s need to become experts in gaming the loose voting rules that D’s have implemented.
Although I do wonder if D’s have a natural advantage with low-information, lazy voters, which is the kind of citizen at which the new rules are aimed. I don’t at all know why it should be that people who are too lazy/uninformed to bother to go to the polls on election day are so overwhelmingly Democrat voters.
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I agree re lazy voters but that’s the world we live in. Plenty of working class voters that are motivated by Trump but not anybody else could be reached via vote harvesting in PA, MI and WI that, for some reason, many in the party establishment want to shun. For some reason, the educated white woman is always the desired constituency. I have no idea why they’re preferred and would love to be educated about it.
And Kevin, you’re right re Graham, his actions were inexplicable to me and stirred the dark thoughts of conspiracy and tanking the election.
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They may have a natural advantage, but there’s rarely a natural advantage that can’t be turned on its head.
There’s going to be a natural advantage for a lot of reasons: not the least of which is the left’s domination of culture. So Handmaid’s Tale becomes a shorthand for what will happen if Republicans win. Where’s the shorthand, popular, familiar cultural touchstone for what happens if Democrats win? I’d wager most of those people are familiar with 1984 as the name of a book they might have once had to read. And it’s about fascism or something, which is Republicans.
But there’s also just GOTV. Helping the elderly vote in nursing homes and getting there before the Democrat GOTV gets there. Just going through the tedium of identifying non-voters who could likely be swayed to vote, getting to them and harvesting their ballots (if legal in that state). Then there’s the options of nationalizing the election–by which you test dozens of Democrat and Republican policy initiatives and see what resonates with the most people. Then, when you nationalize, you focus on those things that resonate. Negative for the dems, positive for the Republicans. You may a commit to do (x),(y), and (z) that is consistent with the Republican position and is a place where it is hard for the Dems to play.
And sometimes it means doing liberalish things, in terms of give aways–just hopefully do them smart. A targeted expansion of Medicare that hits on something very popular, and specific, not generalized promises of “Medicare for all”. Be solving a specific problem for a large group of people. I’d like to Dubya’s “social security privatization” dusted off and spun-off into a “Supplemental Retirement Program”. Not going to touch SS. But we are going to have a supplemental retirement program to help people with long term care, unexpected cost increasing in your senior years, and that lets all our future retirees participate in a strong American economy. Then have it be Bush’s SS-reform, just as it’s own thing, with small amounts of money invested yearly in default index funds or, if the tax payer so chooses, their own selection of distribution over a menu of index funds.
That seems like a layup, and can be relatively inexpensive, and because it’s not touching SS its just more money for retirees over time! And it could also be designed to short up SS overtime, by the government saying that increases in value over a certain percentage will be captures by the government to shore up social security.
Or something. I’d suggest a repeal-and-replace for Obamacare that made it “medical disaster insurance” rather than trying to make it regular, tedious insurance. Kicks in when you’re poor and you’ve got expensive surgeries or cancer treatments.
I’d add to that aggressive outreach to Hispanic communities, the African American community (especially black men) and the Muslim community on culture war issues and the importance of protecting religious freedom. I think they would be responsive to “yes, they are coming for the Christians and Jews, and so you’re fine. But they will come for you to” message.
Anything I suggest here could have problems, but there are things that the Republicans could do that could destroy the left’s political power. But it takes time, planning, coordination, compromise, realtionship-building, outreach, ground game and activism. And there are examples that prove it: 100 schoolboards have been flipped by conservative activism since 2021. If you put in the time and effort and money and focus on what the voters want and are concerned about, you can make a lot of progress. And the more you prove you can address their concerns better than the other guys who just talk about stuff and then pretend to throw money at it while actually rewarding themselves and their friends . . . the more progress you will make.
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I’d still like to hear a reasonable explanation for why early and mail-in voting is so overwhelmingly tilted to the D’s. I sort of understood it in 2020, because the left was so irrationally panicked about Covid. But why still?
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And Arizona hasn’t had an updated vote tally since 6pm yesterday. WTF is wrong with the system out there? They should be working 24/7 counting votes, and providing updates every hour. The more time goes by without any information, the more likely it seems that someone is dicking around with the vote.
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They’re finding votes.
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D’s have an infrastructure in place to harvest ballots. They know who receives them and they know who have not turned them in. That’s the field we’re not fighting on and I go back to why McConnell and McCarthy didn’t account for it? And if they didn’t account for it why do they deserve a leadership position? And if they receive a leadership position, what’s that say about those that were just elected?
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Because there’s D infrastructure that goes out and “helps” people fill out their ballots, I’m guessing.
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IMO, the simplest explanation for whatever happened this election is that women came out to vote and don’t really appreciate male legislators determining their decisions regarding their family planning. I think we were under polled and if you look at the youth vote…………..duhhhh!
The polling was off and while Dems didn’t win everything, women won!
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It was worth losing the election to overturn Roe v Wade. And this is coming from a pro-forced-abortion zealot, me.
It was a terribly written opinion. I’d sacrifice ten years or Congressional majorities and 4 terms of POTUS to get rid of Wickard v Filburn.
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McWing:
It was worth losing the election to overturn Roe v Wade.
It isn’t clear to me that this was what led to the disappointing results, but if it was, I completely agree.
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It contributed to it, surely. Especially in the GenZ folks who showed with their fantasy CiffNotes understanding of politics. Although Lyndsey Graham helped seal the deal with his federal ban after 15 weeks proposal.
But other factors were in play. Candidate quality, no national message, tough to get political ads in front of younger voters, not enough focus on the other top issues. Not enough good answers to the “threat to democracy” accusation. And not enough ground game and community outreach strategy for the national GOP. That plus Roe led to the red mirage.
Will they learn any lessons? Probably not.
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lms:
while Dems didn’t win everything, women won!
The capacity for leftist women to think that they are representative of all women never ceases to amaze me. Apparently trans women are real women, but Republican women aren’t.
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Apparently trans women are real women, but Republican women aren’t.
I’m stealing this
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I think your description of the overturn of Roe is inaccurate … but the Republicans basically laid down and let that narrative dominate or played into it so they got what they deserved. Republicans don’t have a clear message on abortion that plays to the majority—which is reasonable limits on abortion, with exceptions for life of the mother, rape, incest, and making it clear that miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies are medical conditions taken care of by doctors not things addressed at abortion clinics.
Also Graham trying to federalize a 15 week ban right after was politically dumb. But it is what it is.
Republicans ran their campaign poorly and Trump looks positioned to fuck things up for Republicans in 2024. So good news for Democrats I guess!
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KW:
Republicans don’t have a clear message on abortion that plays to the majority
They shouldn’t have one. It is a state issue now, and so the national party itself does not need, and should not have, a single “message” regarding abortion. R candidates for statewide office ought to be tailoring their message to the desires of state wide voters, which will vary from state to state, and R candidates for national office should have no message at all, other than that it is not an issue for Congress to be involved in.
Are there a lot of uninformed voters who will allow their views on abortion to dictate their votes for national elections? Sure. But I think Republicans should attempt to educate them out of their ignorance, not pander to it.
Also Graham trying to federalize a 15 week ban right after was politically dumb.
I agree. Both politically dumb and anti-Constitutional.
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I don’t think they are uninformed. I think they may recognize the world they are actually living in vs what some of us would like it to be vis-a-vis the Constitution and nationalizing abortion policy.
I.e. hard to call them uninformed if they are reacting to something like Graham’s comments.
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And Graham’s smart enough to know there’d be a reaction to his efforts, so…
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Clearly, since he didn’t consult much of anyone before making the pitch, and the leadership clearly doesn’t have anybody on a leash. Except McConnell, who apparently keeps them on a leash primarily to shore up his own power rather than accomplish anything political.
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jnc:
By uninformed I was referring to not knowing about when actual Election Day is, or how to vote at an actual polling station. I wasn’t referring to political issues. Although there is probably a pretty strong correlation between people who are too lazy to go to a polling station on Election Day and people who are too lazy to inform themselves about the issues.
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I think a bigger problem is that there are a lot of people who are not too lazy to go a polling station (or figure out how to vote, generally, by whatever mechanisms are available) and ARE informed about the issues–incorrectly. They are informed from within a bubble of mainstream news, Twitter, the faculty lounge, etc. The problem is they believed themselves extremely well-informed, and so perfectly qualified to choose the best candidates to bring about utopia.
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“They shouldn’t have one. It is a state issue now, and so the national party itself does not need, and should not have, a single “message” regarding abortion.”
Then that should be it. Like it or not, abortion will be nationalized. A clear message about how the states will decide and what the means, why it is good for the states to decide, etc: that was a message they should have had. Clear communication about how the pro-abortion states were becoming more pro-abortion and weren’t going anywhere. A coherent message about how they have no intention to federalize abortion might also have been a good thing. “We don’t decide that in congress. We’re not going to. We, the undersigned, make a comment that we will vote “no” on any bill that attempts to federalize abortion” is a national message.
I think your point is exactly the problem. Republicans don’t feel they need to talk about something or address something because it’s not in their lane, so they don’t, when they should actually be articulating both why it’s not in their lane and their commitment to not try and force it into their lane. Every lefty on Twitter articulating their delusional list of why they had to beat the Republican fascists was that Republicans were just waiting to pass a national ban on abortion. The GOP should have had an answer to that.
” But I think Republicans should attempt to educate them out of their ignorance, not pander to it.”
That’s my point. They need to have a message, and part of that message in this cycle should have been “it’s a state’s issue, as it should be, and we pledge to make no effort to federalize abortion in any capacity. If something comes up, from Lyndsey Graham or Nancy Pelosi, we are going to vote no on it. If something somehow passes, we the undersigned will join the case to get that law overturned by the supreme court” . . . etc.
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lmsinca, I think your explanation is pretty good, but I would add that the Republicans ran some pretty bad candidates this cycle too that helped Democrats.
Anecdotally, it matches what some of my women friends ended up doing, even a few who had voted for Trump in 2016 & 2020.
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I don’t buy the candidate quality canard. PA elected a vegetable and a dead guy. It’s getting the votes that matters.
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McWing:
I don’t buy the candidate quality canard. PA elected a vegetable and a dead guy. It’s getting the votes that matters.
I completely agree. I’ve seen so many people on the right complain about the quality of Oz as a candidate, but he lost to a guy who is literally brain damaged and can barely string a sentence together. The explanation must lie elsewhere. Perhaps a better quality candidate could have overcome whatever this other explanation is, but the R’s need to figure out what it is, and not dismiss it as nothing but a candidate quality issue.
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Candidate quality is important. I think obviously important. But so is ground game. So is the overall ticket—not just a singular candidate. A better candidate for governor in PA might have been enough to pull Oz over the threshold.
But there are many other factors, from GOTV, early voting strategy, and bigger things that are very big projects—such alternative media, building popular entertainment with a center-right viewpoint, fighting culture wars outside of politics, with appealing alternatives.
But having a way to combat Dem strategies of ballot harvesting and gaming early voting is a big part of it.
I almost forgot: having a coherent national message. Having specific plans. Having the bones of legislation that will be broadly popular in your state could make all the difference. Don’t seem like you are in the election just to win the election—you aren’t going to overcome a blue-leaning electorate with “hey vote for me I’m not the blue guy” campaign.
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Candidate quality is one of the very important ways you get the votes. Not the only one but a very important one.
Dr. Oz was not terrible but being a carpetbagger and his history as a shill for snake oil didn’t not contribute to his quality. I would have voted for him over Fetterman in a heartbeat but in that state, with all the early voting, Fetterman was out of the limelight so got to be a blank slate. So it’s clear that if the candidate can get away with being a blank slate (see Biden) so that the voters can imagine they are whatever they want them to be … that can do a lot to make up for being a poor quality candidate. But I’m not convinced everyone can get away with that.
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jnc:
lmsinca, I think your explanation is pretty good
I continue to think that the idea that all women are not only monolithically single issue voters, but have the same view of that single issue, is demonstrable nonsense.
It is entirely possible that the abortion issue prompted many pro-abortion women (and, not coincidentally, pro-abortion men) to vote that might not otherwise have voted, and that this cost the R’s some races. But if that was the case, then it was pro-abortion voters, not “women”, who tipped the scales. The idea that “women”, simply by virtue of having vaginas, necessarily share lms’s political predilections and voting habits is, I think, absurd.
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It’s worth noting that polling indicates that single women are pretty monolithic on the issue. So she’s not entirely wrong. Married women and mothers are not as monolithic.
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KW:
It’s worth noting that polling indicates that single women are pretty monolithic on the issue. So she’s not entirely wrong.
Yes she is.
Saying that all dogs are the color black is entirely wrong, and the fact that all Black Labs are black doesn’t make it any less entirely wrong.
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I bow to your pedantry. 😉
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It isn’t pedantry. There is a reason that left-wing women constantly imply that they speak for all women on so-called women’s issues. It’s a lie with a purpose, and I won’t pretend it has any legitimacy.
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I hear you. Won’t argue it, that’s definitely long been true.
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So much for the view that women voters are a monolith who all think alike:
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I suspect the gender gap will grow to a chasm, especially as men (or at least straight white men) are the “other” in the D party.
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Black men are quickly becoming “the other” in the Democratic party–at least the hard left progressive wing of it, which is getting bigger everyday. There’s going to be a divide over that demographic that echos that of white men over the next several years. It may be hard to see it, but I think the alignment will be less about race–the Republicans will become the party of the married (especially the monogamously married who treat their marriage as a real marriage, including gay marriage), parents, the working class, and traditional religious groups (including traditional Muslims). And more black men will come over (especially the married ones, the parents, and those who want to be married and have children that they parent). Democrats will capture all the perpetually single, ne’er-do-wells, open-marriage, single-parent, smash-monogamy and the victim classes.
It hasn’t happened yet and may not, but I can see a point where you get a lot more alignment between the evil white supremacists like Richard Spencer or a David Duke and the left, as they orient around their common belief in racial essentialism.
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I think the face of the democrat party will be the miserable spinster and their ballless beta orbiters.
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No! It will be a strong, powerful woman living her best life, sitting alone in her small government-funded apartment, sipping her Chardonnay, surrounded by cats, fighting for climate justice on Twitter.
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