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 | 4,080 | 23.50 |
| Oil (WTI) | 73.69 | 0.87 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 3.59% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 6.44% |
Stocks are higher this morning as investors sense the banking problems of the past few weeks are in the rear view mirror. Bonds and MBS are flat.
The Fed Funds futures now see a coin flip for another 25 basis points hike in either May or June to get to a Fed funds rate of 5%, and then they see the Fed beginning to cut rates. Even if the banking crisis is over, the banks will probably be a bit more conservative in their lending which will act as a brake on the economy. Of course that is the whole point of tight monetary policy, but this adds an additional component.
The economy expanded 2.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the third estimate for GDP. Consumption was revised downward, while the core rate of inflation was revised upward. Corporate profits fell.
The Fed’s tightening policy still has had little to no effect on the labor market. Initial Jobless Claims came in again below 200k, which is extraordinarily low. I plotted the Fed Funds rate versus initial jobless claims. Jobless claims and the Fed Funds rate should correlate, but over the past year they have not.
Pending Home sales rose 0.8% in February, marking the third consecutive increase. “After nearly a year, the housing sector’s contraction is coming to an end,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Existing-home sales, pending contracts and new-home construction pending contracts have turned the corner and climbed for the past three months.” Note that activity is still way down from a year ago.
The most affordable regions – the Midwest and South – are leading the activity. As work-from-home becomes more cemented in American culture, we should see more of an evening out between the expensive coastal MSAs and the cheaper Midwest and Southern ones.
The cuts keep coming in the finance industry – Lending Tree announced it is cutting about 13% of its workforce in order to lower operating expenses.
The Fed is considering adding a special assessment to the biggest banks in order to replenish the FDIC insurance fund after covering deposits for Silicon Valley Bank and Signature. Regulators see this as a way to ease pressure on the regional banks.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
A good example of emotion vs reason.
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Well, the formula for winning a debate is a multivariate model consisting of the decibel gap and the word gap.
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I also thought the vitriol of the accusations of racism, sexism and trans/homophobia played a part.
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This may be interesting:
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I wonder if the IRS “visit” got to him
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I didn’t think the federal government could still startle me but the IRS visit to Taibbi did.
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McWing:
I didn’t think the federal government could still startle me but the IRS visit to Taibbi did.
They don’t bother to make the effort to maintain even the pretense of non-political behavior.
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I think it’s reach that unfortunate but perhaps informative point where it actually becomes desirable, at least in the minds of the political left, to “send a message”. They want EVERYBODY to know that the machinery of the state can be turned against them, at any time, and destroy them if they don’t obey.
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I doubt it. He got kicked out of Russia by Putin, so I doubt he’s easily intimidated.
Plus he has a lot more money now to defend himself.
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It’s different because reasons.
Just like not being safe from Covid at a BLM/ George Floyd protest.
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“It’s okay when we do it.”
Gotcha!
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Welcome back!
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I’ll be here and gone. Don’t know why I’m so inconsistent. I just disappear into my own head some days. And so on. Don’t know if I mentioned, my dad died in October, and despite his having been barely there for the previous 5 years, I’m guessing it impacted me on some more primal level that I’m not cognizant of entirely. But I’ve also always be flighty, and prone to crawl into a hole for long periods, all my life.
My mom was (and remains) a big lefty, in the kind of 60s-70s-80s sense of the word, and wasn’t a big fan that Y chromosome. She overwhelmingly catered to my sister while I mostly got criticism (amongst other efforts to stamp the masculinity out of me). So my dad was both father and mother ultimately. Which I’ve always known but . . . eh, I may just be getting older and becoming prone to long periods of staring blankly into the abyss.
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I’m so sorry about losing your father. The older I get the more profound the loss. I’m glad you had him though, to compensate.
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Sorry to read about your loss. I dreamt about my dad the other day and it sticks with me, the loss, after 24 years.
I will be interested in exactly what the indictment is about. If it is John Edwards II, and a conviction follows based on a similar theory, it will have much less effect on Trump than it did on Edwards. The resulting fine and tax burden would be enough to hurt my retirement but would be as nothing for Trump.
Perhaps there is more. I don’t think there will be less, but considering the politics there might be.
I do think that being an ex-POTUS should not be a shield. It would be a better country if no one was glad about it, but rooting for “your” guy even if he is a crook or against “their” guy even if he isn’t is pretty entrenched.
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What’s as entertaining as this legal expense should be campaign expense is the sure knowledge that had Trump done that he would still have been charged, but it would be because it should be a legal expense rather than a political expense.
It’s awesome in its cynicism!
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Mark:
I do think that being an ex-POTUS should not be a shield.
It seems pretty obvious that far from being a shield, it has actually made Trump a target. If Trump had lost the 2016 election and never been President, there is zero chance any prosecutor would have pursued an indictment. Zero.
But that aside, given that being a candidate for POTUS was a shield for Hillary Clinton, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be for Trump. Other than, of course, the typical double standards that apply when Trump is involved.
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there is zero chance any prosecutor would have pursued an indictment.
Could be. What date was he named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cohen case? Cohen was sentenced in August ’18 so we can guess that Trump was unindicted because he was POTUS. Also, it may have been that Mueller had a hand in that decision.
I doubt Trump would catch a sentence like Cohen did for being proved to be the other co-conspirator. So being ex-POTUS is worth some points in his favor, too.
Finally, I am more interested in which NY Statute of Limitations controls. If the general five year statute controls and Trump can place prosecutorial discovery back to before March 2018 he may be off the hook entirely. But NY has many different specific SoLs of which I am not familiar. And NY may have a “continuing crime” rule – most states do – so that if Trump continued the criminal act that began earlier into the limitations period he would get caught up. Because I still have no idea what the charges are and under which statutes I can only claim curiosity.
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Mark:
What date was he named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cohen case?
I am not aware that he was ever named an unindicted co-conspirator. But even if he was, I don’t think that has any legal ramifications. Naming someone an unindicted co-conspirator is just a way for prosecutors to smear someone as a criminal without having to prove the charge or allowing them to defend themselves in court.
Cohen was sentenced in August ’18 so we can guess that Trump was unindicted because he was POTUS.
I think a much better guess is that Cohen was indicted only because Trump was POTUS.
Because I still have no idea what the charges are and under which statutes I can only claim curiosity.
It has been pretty widely speculated/reported that the basic charges he will face will be charges of falsifying business records, which is a misdemeanor with a statute of limitations of 2 years. But Bragg is getting around the 2 year limitation by upping it to a felony charge, which has a 5 year SOL, by claiming that the falsification was done in order to conceal another crime, that other crime being a campaign finance violation by Cohen.
There are other obvious problems with this beyond the SOL. First, since this is being pursued under NY State law, is the question of whether the “other crime” must be a crime under NY state law, because in this instance it is not. It is a federal crime. Then, of course, one has to accept the dubious legal theory that taking action to keep a story about a political candidate from becoming public represents a campaign contribution. (If one does accept it, then there there are an awful lot of people guilty of making in-kind campaign contributions to the Biden campaign in 2020 that are not being pursued by the DOJ). Lastly, the prosecutor will have to prove that Trump paid the “hush money” specifically and only to aid his campaign for president, and not for any other reason like keeping it from his wife or protecting his reputation (such as it is).
This is all a pretty tall order, and would almost certainly never have been pursued against anyone other than Trump. The good faith and honesty that you seemingly attribute to prosecutors with regard to anything related to Trump is belied by pretty much everything we have learned in the last 7 years. Indeed, this entire investigation was initiated by a NY AG who explicitly ran for office by promising to investigate and prosecute Trump: ““We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well.”. In America the justice system is supposed to investigate crimes, not people. But I guess Trump is such a unique threat to American justice, that old paradoxical cliche holds: we must destroy it in order to save it.
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Will my dream come true that the judge slaps a gag order on Trump,Trump then violates the order and is then jailed?
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Trump’s team thinks so:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/02/report-manhattan-judge-put-gag-order-donald-trump/
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Is this Lincoln hoping for an attack on Ft. Sumpter?
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McWing:
Is this Lincoln hoping for an attack on Ft. Sumpter?
Could be. If it isn’t a deliberate provocation, it is the best proxy for one that I can think of.
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BTW….the idea of placing a gag order on a defendent who has been the subject of relentless illegal leaks from the government, leaks which have gone completely uninvestigated much less punished, is Kafkaesque. But this is what justice under today’s Democratic party and its Never-Trump enablers looks like.
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Mark, from what I read they converted the two year statute of limitations for the actual charge (falsifying business records in New York) as a misdemeanor into a five year based on it being tied to a federal felony for which Trump wasn’t charged (i.e. the campaign law violation).
And apparently New York has a law where the statute of limitations is paused while Trump is out of state.
https://www.indianagazette.com/opinion/columnists/david-french-potential-trump-indictment-is-unwise/article_767a2750-0bd2-58ef-ac74-3d3eaf2161f1.html
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I was concerned they were bootstrapping. If the indictment is as you suggest, it will have been. We shall see.
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Mark:
I was concerned they were bootstrapping.
No concern about why they might do that?
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It is a Stalinist show trial over the crime of improperly accounting for a non-disclosure agreement.
The left deserves no assumption of good faith here. None.
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Our long national nightmare is over, Trump’s been indicted.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/donald-trump-indicted-in-hush-money-payment-case.html
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“Our long national nightmare is over, Trump’s been indicted.”
That would be very disappointing to the Democrats, as the whole point is to stretch out the long national nightmare as long as humanly possible.
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Koskidz rejoice!
https://m.dailykos.com/
At least 4 posts on the front page.
Goddamn, I’m unusually excited! The spectacle is just fantastic! I will have to call a doctor if Smith and Willis also indict! Please, those are the indictments that will go to trial!
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40% chance he’s denied bail and I am here for it!
A man can dream can’t he?
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Apparently he can’t be denied bail.
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Damn.
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It would have been interesting seeing how they accommodate his Secret Service detail in prison or jail.
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Remember also that a felony conviction doesn’t disqualify him from running and holding office.
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How many Republican POTUS candidates/nominees will be indicted before Establishment R’s realize that it’s not just because it’s Trump?
My guess is three.
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The left is criminalizing opposition. First step in the process.
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“How many Republican POTUS candidates/nominees will be indicted before Establishment R’s realize that it’s not just because it’s Trump?
My guess is three.”
I’m going to guess it will take about seventeen before the RNC gets the clue. Conservative pundits will have it in one, already have it. The GOP will take MUCH longer.
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Interesting interview with Jacob Siegel by Taibbi, re the great Russia Collusion hoax. I want to read the article being discussed.
This in particular resonated:
At an even deeper and an even more fundamental level, once you involve people in the conspiracy, once you get them to go along with it, they will go along with it, not because they want to be conspirators, but because they’re convinced that they’re on the side of good. If you convince them that Donald Trump is a Russian agent, the reason why they then attack Trumpists is because they think they’re doing good. It wasn’t all, you know, Rachel Maddow or Olbermann types. There were just normal people who looked at Adam Schiff and looked at what their leaders were saying, and believed. Once you involved them in that, you’ve now made them co-conspirators.
To get them to abandon that is to get them to admit that they’ve been made fools of, that they themselves were involved in an enormous deception. And I think that that’s very difficult for people. I think that involving people in these things and having them go along with these conspiracies as their primary means of political identification, in a culture that increasingly doesn’t have more local, more rooted forms of reciprocal communal identification — it just makes it difficult to break that. If you went all in on the #Resistance, or even just accepted this in a sort of tacit way, it is damning to acknowledge that you were taken advantage of, and it’s difficult to let go. I think that has a lot to do with it.
That describes a lot of people I know.
https://www.racket.news/p/tablets-grand-opus-on-the-anti-disinformation
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Occam’s Razor. The left is utopian, and anything that gets in their way must be bulldozed in the name of justice.
Doesn’t solve the problem, but we aren’t dealing with embarrassed marks here. We are dealing with an ideology.
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Here is the article by Jason Siegel. It is actually much broader than simply the Russian Collusion hoax, which was just one small aspect of the much larger domestic counterinsurgency program he describes. It is rather chilling and disturbing.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation
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Remember, this is a woman who has taken an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution.
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Trials are the opportunity defendants have to prove their innocence.
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This was not a slip of the tongue.
They truly do believe democrats are innocent until proven guilty and republicans are guilty until proven innocent.
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I believe it was James Clapper who said, years ago, that people are innocent until a credible accusation is made against them. On a TV interview, no doubt about something related to Trump or maybe George Dubya Bush or something.
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This would be AMAZING!!!
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen%2Farticle%2Fn7ewxx%2Ftrump-gag-order-manhattan-da
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