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 | 3,873 | 118.00 |
| Oil (WTI) | 86.22 | 0.31 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 3.94% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 7.10% |
Stocks are higher this morning after the consumer price index came in lower than expected. Bonds and MBS are up.
The consumer price index rose 0.4% MOM in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. On an annual basis prices rose 7.7%. The core rate of inflation (stripping out food and energy) rose 0.3% MOM and 6.3% YOY.
About half of the increase in CPI was due to shelter. Insurance, new vehicles and recreation were also contributors on the plus side. Used cars, medical care, airline fares and apparel were negative contributors. The year-over-year increase in the headline number was the lowest since January 2022.
It does look like we are beginning to trend downward in the overall month-over-month changes which is good news. Of course one data point isn’t going to change the Fed’s thinking all that much, but I suspect this puts to rest the steady diet of 75 basis point increases in the Fed Funds rate.
The initial reaction in the Fed Funds futures market is to increase the chances of a 50 basis point hike next month to 80% versus 58% yesterday.
The December 2023 Fed Funds futures are now circling around an end of year Fed Funds rate of 4.5% – 4.75%. This would mean that maybe we get 50 basis points next month, and then another 25 in early 2023. The thing I wonder about is shelter, since it can be persistent. If we look into next year and most inflation is back to normal with the exception of shelter, does the Fed still maintain a tight policy stance? Much of the shelter component is owner-equivalent rent which isn’t a “cost” in that it isn’t something you write a check for, at least if you are a homeowner. It is more or less an abstract concept.
The inflation print caused the 10 year bond yield to drop about 20 basis points, and put about 100 points on the S&P 500 futures. I wonder if the bond market reaction was due to a lot of people leaning short after the lousy 10 year auction yesterday. We will have some Fed-speak later this morning (luckily not Neel Kashkari) so it will be interesting to hear what Mary Daly says about the CPI reading. Don’t forget the bond market is closed tomorrow.
Initial jobless claims rose to 225k last week. So far, the labor market is holding up, notwithstanding the parade of job cuts in the real estate industry.
Redfin has closed down its home flipping unit and laid off 13% of its staff. Both Opendoor and Zillow have struggled to make money monetizing their proprietary real estate valuation models by making bets in the real estate market. It is a capital-intensive business, and I suspect the special sauce is not the gee-whiz cool valuation models, but blocking and tackling – managing properties, doing fixes, and moving the merchandise. Don’t forget that rising rates have increased the carrying cost of these properties as well. Redfin hopes to liquidate its portfolio by the end of the year.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
That this was written non-ironically makes it delicious.
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Good summation of the mid-term results:
Also, as the Democrats’ base voter shifts to college educated white people, they will do better in the mid-terms than previously as those voters tend to turn out more.
The old mid-term story was Democrats not turning out the way that they did in presidential elections.
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I just hope Rs take the house so no legislation gets done over the next 2 years.
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I didn’t remember the consent decree.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/twitter-security-resignations/
Musk may have to just shut Twitter down. I don’t think he’ll be able to run it the way he wants to. And of course Biden named him publicly yesterday.
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I think the technology was what Musk was after. It will help him jump start whatever thing he intends to roll out in 5 years.
But yes, the government will harass Musk relentlessly until it becomes the propaganda machine it was.
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I think that’s possible the case. At the very least the Biden admin can make it too expensive for him to operate. Potentially.
That said, it’s worth noting that the NYT and WaPo desperately want Musk to fail. So that he’s failing will be their narrative, and will be if he’s in business next year and Twitter is turning a healthy profit.
They are losing a lot of institutional knowledge but I know it’s possible, with sufficient money, to replace the institutional knowledge with extreme expertise. If he does that things will turn out better than one might expect given the current circumstances.
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The left is all – in on ensuring that Musk fails. They are that scared of free speech.
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I think Musk is better at running companies that actually make and build things vs social media bullshit.
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The official narrative will be that he is failing no matter what happens.
I dismiss it as noise and wishful thinking.
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This should turn out well:
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They are going to double down on the woke shit.
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David Shor’s interpretation of the result matches lmsinca’s.
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When I read articles highlighting the fact that so many women were registering for the first time, as well as gen Zers, I knew abortion would be more important than what the polling was showing. Also, I did a lot of GOTV this year myself and heard it first hand from all sorts of people, men and women. Sure inflation is a huge burden on middle class and working class families, but taking away a right like that and leaving decisions in the hands of many times gerry-mandered state legislatures created a back lash that crushed the red tsunami IMO. I know there were other factors as well but I think they’re more murky.
It looks like the House will go red but McCarthy’s going to have his hands full with the Trump Kiddos (assuming he can even get the votes). Fine with me, I’d rather see a bunch of infighting than BS hearings and impeachment threats. I haven’t seen a plan from R’s to boost the economy so hopefully they stay clear of that. Their economic record isn’t very good for Americans.
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The plan is to stop Biden and the Democrats from spending more.
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There are not enough Republicans who want to stop spending to do that, the most we’ll ever get is to slow down the rate of increase. That’s all I’m hoping for.
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That’s kind of funny…………when was the last time a Republican majority lowered the deficit? It there’s an example I’m truly listening.
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I’m sure there’s an example, but in general Republicans spend like drunken sailor. As I always say (and I will repeat again): the Republican Party is absolutely the worst political party in America, except for all the other ones.
I don’t think anyone here loves the Republicans or thinks of them as anything other than not as nanny-state authoritarian as the Dems, and not quite as delusionally utopian as the Dems. But in general the Republicans suck. Occasionally some ones I genuinely like pop up but I’m sure one day they’ll disappoint me, too.
I dislike the Republicans so consider my votes either (a) voting against the Democrats or (b) voting against both parties (as I did across the board in 2016, voting indecent wherever possible, writing in nonsense votes where not).
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“That’s kind of funny…………when was the last time a Republican majority lowered the deficit? It there’s an example I’m truly listening.”
1990’s with Bill Clinton comes to mind. Not sure how effective they were with Obama with lowering the deficit, but they did stop him from spending more after 2010.
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“I haven’t seen a plan from R’s to boost the economy”.
Neither have I, oddly enough. Can’t understand why they didn’t sweep into power with plan-free complaining.
That said, I can think of lots of things that would help the economy that the democrats are never going to do (and help get our energy greener, which they will also not do because everything that works is always bad—modern nuclear power, hydroelectric power, etc). I don’t actually think the Republicans would do anything productive, however, but they might be an impediment to Democrats doing more things that are destructive so … I voted a straight Republican ticket. For what it was worth. I contributed to the tiny red trickle! But if I thought there was a better option I’d vote for it in a heartbeat.
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I think gridlock will take a lot of uncertainty out of the equation, which alone will help.
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I think the left is talking its own ideological book here.
And the right should frame it as “we don’t support allowing kids to be aborted in the delivery room, which is what democrats want.”
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R’s already frame it that way and it doesn’t actually work because it’s another lie.
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of course it does. the left supports zero restrictions on abortion, which means up to the last moment.
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Still worth the cost as it was a horrible precedent. I’m working so that Texas expands its abortion laws and that allows a male sperm donor to veto a woman keeping their baby. Stranger should not have to be responsible if one or both partners do not want the baby. If that means forced abortions, so be it.
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Or after, the veto abortion survivor protections as well. That’s commitment I can support though to avoid the state having to pay for the baby.
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lms:
R’s already frame it that way and it doesn’t actually work because it’s another lie.
It isn’t a lie. The Dem position on abortion is zero regulation up until delivery. You vote for Dems, this is what you are voting for. The just passed amendment to the CA Constitution prevents the state from “interfering” with the “fundamental right to choose to have an abortion.” Full stop. No time limit.
It is you who is falling for the Dem lie, not R’s who are propagating a lie.
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Kudos to CA, that’s how it’s done and should always be done, by the state.
And I’m with LMS, abortion up to crowning, no restrictions for any reason.
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Heh. I’m with the average voter. About 15 weeks, exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother.
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Montana had a ballot initiative that didn’t outlaw abortion, but simply required doctors, including those providing abortions, to take “all medically appropriate and reasonable steps to preserve the life and health of a born-alive infant who is viable.” The initiative was opposed by the pro-abortion lobby.
The idea that the dem/left pro-abortion lobby is simply trying preserve abortion rights in the early part of pregnancy is an obvious myth. It is staggering to me that anyone still falls for it. Cognitive dissonance does amazing things to people.
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I don’t know how much time you spend on Twitter but when you see the mythical world the majority of the lefties live in (and in many cases right wingers as well) it seems only logical that all those people would fall for it and worse, and could easily be talked into a position that there are good reason to terminate a pregnancy after birth. Or at least keep it legal. They think Republicans want to reinstitute slavery, outlaw women working, voting and teaching women to read, that they want to give big corporations control over all our lives (an ironic position, considering) and that they want to put an end to medicine so that everyone will die because Republicans believe medical care is unnatural, and so on and so forth. There is a non-trivial, difference-making percentage of the electorate who are delusional and fact-free in their delusions. So of course they accept that Democrats are only trying to protect a woman’s bodily autonomy.
And lots of old liberals just kind of know Democrats want abortion to be safe, legal and rare. Because that’s how they remember it. And Republicans want women to be barefoot and pregnant because that’s what they are told.
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They do not state explicitly that they mean abortion up until the moment of birth (and in all fairness such abortions are vanishingly rare; the point is that members of the expert class can get to decide when to kill anybody, eventually. The dream is that one day euthanasia and abortion will meet, and experts will decide who gets aborted/euthanized for the good of the collective. IMO. Based on observation of the slipperiness of the slope.
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Abortion is 100% an emotional issue. Logic isn’t relevant.
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I tend to agree. Contraception is more varied and effective by leaps and bounds than in 1972. I include the morning after pill in with BC, and it’s something you can do after you’ve had sex to prevent pregnancy. There is no reason to be terrified that you and millions of other women will be impregnated and stuck with the worst imaginable thing in the world—a child—when you have so much control over getting to that point. Allowing for exceptions in all the extreme cases (rape, incest, life of the mother) and be 100% clear that DNCs for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies are medical procedures, not abortions) is where we probably should get to, where I think most states will eventually arrive at … living in an existential terror of America turning into Gilead is 100% emotional.
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“And the right should frame it as “we don’t support allowing kids to be aborted in the delivery room, which is what democrats want.”
Then they should stop running on this:
I think Shor is right, the Republican position on banning abortion with no exception for rape or incest is completely outside of where the country is on the issue.
And that’s the message that the Republican party, writ large, is communicating currently.
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It’s idiotic. He deserved to lose so good that he did.
But it’s not the message of the Republicans writ large: there is no coherent Republican message. That’s the message that the Democrats and the media attribute to the Republicans (and they don’t push back on the “ban abortions for rape victims” insanity) so it’s something they should take control over, using the 15 week ban plus exceptions model cite where Europe is on abortions as the evidence that it’s not draconian, and then remind people it’s up to state legislatures and governors. Listen to them on the issue.
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jnc:
I think Shor is right, the Republican position on banning abortion with no exception for rape or incest is completely outside of where the country is on the issue.
So is the Dem position of no restrictions at any point in pregnancy.
And that’s the message that the Republican party, writ large, is communicating currently.
Why do you think so? It is probably the message that places like the NYT are telling its readers the Rs are communicating, but are they actually communicating that? I can imagine a candidate or two might be delivering that message, but the party writ large? I doubt it. Hell, Lindsey Graham’s bill, which I think we all agree was a politically moronic move, wouldn’t have outlawed abortion for anyone at all prior to 15 weeks.
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A contrary take on the importance of Dobbs:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/11/10/contra-conventional-wisdom-there-is-little-evidence-dobbs-hurt-republicans/
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The political class along with pundits are busy knifing each other post election. It’s the perfect time for whacking snitches and settling scores, think prisons during riots. If you happen to establish a narrative, all the better. The truth is that we won’t know for a while what has happened and even my opinions are merely confirmations of what I tended to think before the election.
After the 2012 election the Republican party’s post mortem claimed that Republicans had to loosen up on immigration and social issues along with permanent war to broaden its appeal. That was the prevailing wisdom until the night Trump was elected and every shibboleth the Republican Party had, shattered like HRC’s ceiling was supposed too. In 2020, Hispanics and blacks voted for Republicans in record numbers and Republican have reverted to looking at foreign military interventions with deep suspicions.
I’m guessing there is no one prevailing factor and we still don’t know who will control the legislature.
That said, I’m ready to defend my theories based on my own prior beliefs!
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McWing:
The truth is that we won’t know for a while what has happened and even my opinions are merely confirmations of what I tended to think before the election.
Yep.
It is funny to watch everyone jump on their own hobby horses as explanations. For people who are all hung up on a woman’s right to kill babies, Dobbs was definitely the main factor. For NeverTrumpers, it must have been Trump and his chosen candidates that dragged the party down. For the Republican establishmentarians that look down on the party base, “candidate quality” changed everything. For the anti-establishmentarians, it is all due to the way McConnell chose to spend PAC money.
Most likely it was a confluence of all of these and probably many others. Besides which, the results were disappointing, but do not appear to be disastrous. Seems like the Rs will win the House, and they still might take the Senate. Which would clearly be a win for men!
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Was just listening to the Ricochet podcast, talking about the Arizona race. They guy they were talking to said something hugely damning if true and it was glossed over and on to the next thing—but IMO is this was generally the case, the GOP is guilty of criminal negligence (if it was indeed due to their choices).
He said Blake Masters and Kari Lake had no digital ads. That any time he watching anything online, a dozen ads—including Spanish language ads—for Mark Kelly and Katie Hobbs but nothing for the Republicans. If this is true and applies broadly to many races, that would explain the lack of the promised (and logical) red wave better than abortion, IMO.
There are a ton of low information voters who watch little to no TV and listen to little to no radio. Especially true of the youth but also true of much older demographics these days. But apparently the GOP spent all their cash in Arizona on TV and radio. If common elsewhere, I can see how they would be fatal.
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Ace had a post about this earlier in the week. He blamed Republican consultants who’s revenue is based off campaign commercials for radio and tv. That this model is typical in the Republican Party. If what you’ve heard is true then it seems to further strengthen Ace’s argument that a huge chunk of Republican campaign management is grift. Also, if this is true, really shows the strength of the Republican base, that even with the marketing failures they still remain exceedingly competitive and would be much more successful with a more comprehensive marketing approach.
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I don’t watch much TV or YouTube but even I managed to catch a few political ads on YouTube. A mix for me but that might have been Lee’s campaign doing it on their own. I expect some Republican pols know they can’t depend on the GOP, or have PACs that actually want to get them elected.
But if they are constraining exposure to TV and radio that explains a lot.
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Dobbs hurt Republicans in the absence of something better to think about from the Republicans.
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“Abortion is 100% an emotional issue. Logic isn’t relevant.”
Well unless you are pregnant and don’t want to be.
I’d characterize it as a values issue more so than emotional. And therefore less amenable to split the difference compromising.
Although, that seems to be exactly where the middle of America is on it, supporting some restrictions on late term abortions, but not for the early stages.
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Wouldn’t you argue that abortion restriction levels are more regional in their level of restriction rather than National in scope?
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Then they should stop running on this:
Agree. the right should have just taken the W and shut up about it.
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They are terrible at framing it, mostly: the only way to frame it is to ask political abortion advocates to define the limits on abortion they are comfortable with. 24 weeks? 36 weeks? Generally they respond with a non-specific answers like “I support a woman’s bodily autonomy” or “that’s between a woman and her doctor” instead of something like “24 weeks should be plenty of time”. Which if that doesn’t illustrate what the answer is, nothing will.
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“So is the Dem position of no restrictions at any point in pregnancy.”
That wasn’t salient because Republicans were too busy introducing new legislation and state constitution amendments to restrict abortion post Dobbs.
Why do you think so?
Because it was what the loudest Republicans were saying with no effective push back from the rest of the party. The parallel with Defund the Police is spot on. It only takes a few extremists to contaminate the whole brand.
Graham’s federal statute was mean to be a floor and would allow states to go further with more restrictions, but not fewer.
See also the Republican party platforms for the past few presidential elections, and Oz’s debate response about abortion.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/politics/oz-abortion-debate-pennsylvania-senate
Oz would have been better served stopping at “the federal government shouldn’t be involved”, as he was running for a U.S. Senate seat.
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jnc:
That wasn’t salient…
Perhaps not to you, because you agree with it. But as an objective matter, it doesn’t make much sense to think that it is the ostensible extremism of the R position relative to the moderate majority that is a problem when in fact the D position is equally extreme relative to the the moderate majority. If the R position is a problem in a way that the D position is not, it can’t be its relative extremism that is the problem, because they are both equally extreme.
I think Shor is just talking his own book as an abortion supporter.
Because it was what the loudest Republicans were saying with no effective push back from the rest of the party.
And by “loudest” you mean what…the most reported on? By the Dem supporting media?!?
Graham’s federal statute was mean to be a floor and would allow states to go further with more restrictions, but not fewer.
Sure, but your claim was that the party “writ large” pushes for no rape or health exceptions. Graham’s bill not only does not support that contention, it explicitly contradicts it.
See also the Republican party platforms for the past few presidential elections…
Well, there was no platform for this election, so it can’t have been that which leads you to believe the R’s, writ large, are in favor of no rape or health exceptions. The 2020 and 2016 platforms were identical, and they mentioned support for a Constitutional amendment that would bring unborn babies under the protection of the 14th amendment. Is that what leads you to believe that R party writ large opposes any exceptions? If so, I think you are seriously misconstruing it. And how many voters ever even read or were aware of what the 2016/20 platform even said?
…and Oz’s debate response about abortion.
Oz’s debate response was politically dumb, but it said literally nothing about what the substance of any abortion regulation might be, much less that it would not allow for any rape or health exceptions.
I think you are just falling for Dem talking points.
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I think you are just falling for Dem talking points.
Well, except the actual voting results are what they are. Exit polling may show more details.
What’s your alternate explanation for why Republicans under-performed so badly?
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I think you’ll find that they didn’t. Right now, R’s have garnered more than 6 million votes than the D’s, about 4%, just like the predictions that Trafalger, Big Data Polling and Rasmussen predicted. I suspect the disappointment is because many of these votes were not distributed efficiently. Combine that with the Democrats excellent ballot harvesting tactics (which we need to copy, by the way) resulted in a lack of inroads in certain swing states.
Add to that the significant increase of Hispanic voters for Republicans, as well as garnering 14% of blacks, the R’s came
Away in pretty good shape in terms of broadening their appeal.
Finally, the Trump/Obama voters of PA,
MI and WI despise both parties and didn’t participate like when Trump is on ballot.
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jnc:
Well, except the actual voting results are what they are.
I’m not sure what the voting results have to do with your sense that R’s are communicating an extreme, no exceptions position on abortion. Unless you think the only possible cause of the former is the latter.
What’s your alternate explanation for why Republicans under-performed so badly?
Well, first, I don’t think they performed that badly. They underperformed expectations, for sure. But they will still probably take the House, and maybe even the Senate. That isn’t a bad result. It’s just not a great result.
As for the reasons for underperforming, as I mentioned to McWing earlier today, there is no shortage of explanations, and everyone with their own hobby horse, from abortion to Trump-hatred to establishment-hatred thinks that it was their hobby horse that was the reason. I suspect it was a confluence of all of them, along with the usual disadvantage the R’s have in the media. And I agree with McWing that the Dem’s seem to have an ability to game the new voting rules that exist in many places that the R’s have not yet figured out. All of these things probably weighed on R performance.
I get that the simple, X is the reason for failure explanation is appealing, especially to people who have a passionate political interest in X. But I don’t find such simple narratives to be convincing at all, especially in this kind of mixed-bag election.
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I tend to agree. I expect abortion had an impact where candidates ran on banning abortions and where there were ballot initiatives on banning or restricting abortions, but probably nowhere else. Following some of the threads from McWing to Rich Baris to losing candidates blaming McCarthy and the GOP leadership in great detail it seems likely that lack of support or direct backstabbing from McCarthy and the GOP had a much more profound impact than abortion. I don’t know how much of that is malice or incompetence from McCarthy and company and how much might be sour grapes but I get the sense if there had been a red wave, a lot of the Rs in congress would have voted against McCarthy as leader.
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That’s framing nobody takes seriously when it comes from someone who is pro-life. Making pro-abortion activists answer the question or attempting to insert insanely generous time lines like 7 months and have the Democrats vote against it is what illustrates the point.
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I expect this is close to true. And not so much because of the overturn of Roe but because of the response to it. Most of the local initiatives were done with no polling if the general electorate in their area. Because why care what the constituents want?
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The ironic thing will be if Roe goes away and nothing changes.
All of the left’s sturm and drang will have been for nothing.
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With the exception of some deep red states, most of them with trigger laws, pretty much nothing is going to change regarding abortion access.
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I’m fascinated that this is framed as a good report. Inflation and the rate of increase in inflation both increased, MoM and YoY. How is that positive?
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/10/consumer-prices-rose-0point4percent-in-october-less-than-expected-as-inflation-eases.html
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inflation is slowing down. We were seeing 1%+ MOM increases a few months ago.
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I know it’s referring to the rate of increase, it just strikes me as odd that it’s considered a postive. No increase in MOM or a reduction in MOM, sure, that’s a positive, but not an increase, even if the rate of it’s incline is less steep.
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Somewhere, a Chinese Mata Hari is missing her farting Congressman.
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Best response:
“When the experts stopped doing their job and started doing the bidding of the woke left.”
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the BLM protest carve out for COVID regulations took the cake.
Science + Politics = Politics. The left can’t get mad.
Though it is funny that trust in the institutions is collapsing right as the left finished their long march through the.
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Mission Accomplished!
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Soooo, you guys can read this or not. Up to you!
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/the-facts-on-the-born-alive-debate/
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lms:
I’m not sure why you think a “fact check” from 2019 about federal legislation is relevant to any of the state ballot initiatives in 2022 or to whether or not the Dem policy on abortion is no restrictions throughout the entirety of a pregnancy.
I suppose if you can’t refute the facts and refuse to admit the facts, changing the topic is a good idea.
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Scott: do you think Dems will propose federal legislation to support or codify abortion in some way? Ultimately I don’t think they will, at least not anytime soon. Because of SCOTUS for one thing, but also because they are not going to be likely to pass an abortion-until-birth bill. And many of them likely don’t want to touch such legislation or have their side in that debate aired in public.
So it would make the most sense to let the bluest states go first, and establish themselves as abortion-until-and-possibly-right-after delivery. Build momentum. Coax other states to tie their laws to California. So forth and so on.
Always couched in the language of women’s rights and bodily autonomy, of course.
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KW:
Scott: do you think Dems will propose federal legislation to support or codify abortion in some way?
I don’t know. I think your proposed strategy probably makes the most sense, but then again I wouldn’t have thought it made any sense to push federal legislation that proclaims men to be women, and the Dem party is all in on that, so who knows what they will do next?
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Good point. So … anything could happen I expect.
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“Democrats say the legislation was unnecessary”
If that’s the case, then no harm in passing it either.
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this is good
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