Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
Stocks are lower this morning after the producer price index came in higher than expected. Bonds and MBS are down.
Bond yields lurched higher yesterday after a lousy 30-year bond auction. The bad results pushed the 10 year yield up about 10 basis points.
Inflation at the wholesale level increased 0.3% MOM in July. On a year-over-year basis wholesale prices rose 0.8%. If you strip out food and energy, prices rose 0.3% MOM and 2.4% YOY. Overall, it looks like commodity inflation is pretty much over.
Final demand services did increase 0.5% MOM and 2.5% YOY. Final demand services is largely wage growth, and it appears that wage inflation is moderating. This is good news for the Fed.
San Francisco Fed Chair Mary Daly said that it is too early to declare victory on the battle against inflation. “Whether we raise another time, or hold rates steady for a longer period — those things are yet to be determined,” Daly said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “It would be premature to project what I think would happen because there’s a lot of information coming in between now and our next meeting….We do need to see that come back to prepandemic levels if we’re going to be confident that we can get to 2% on a sustainable basis,” Daly said. “I’m going to need to see some traction in getting there before I feel comfortable that we’ve done enough.”
Mortgage delinquencies fell to 3.37% in the second quarter, according to the MBA. This was down 19 basis points compared to the first quarter and 27 basis points from a year ago. The strong labor market is the big driver of this performance.
We have been in a nirvana market for mortgage servicing rights, with elevated short term rates providing interest on escrow accounts and low delinquencies keeping down servicing costs.
From the United Wholesale earnings conference call: Mat Ishbia is staffed up for a refi boom coming soon: “We know the [refi] (ph) boom, whether it’s a long sustained one or a mini refi boom is going to come soon. The opportunities are usually in the first three, six months, maybe nine months to really make money from a volume and margin perspective and it really grow your business. We are prepared for that now.”
Mortgage banking is the most cyclical business on the planet, and while good times don’t last forever, neither do bad times. This bad time has lasted 18 months, which is an eternity.
Consumer sentiment was flat in July, according to the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Inflationary expectations ticked down from 3.4% to 3.3%. Long-term inflationary expectations remained at 2.9%, which is above the pre-pandemic range of 2.2% – 2.6%.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
Worth noting:
“Massachusetts governor declares state of emergency amid influx of migrants seeking shelter”
https://apnews.com/article/migrants-shelter-massachusetts-state-of-emergency-3daeb96003779a2fe49def8e1f7b8975
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Policies, meet consequences.
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MSM vs Substack on explaining why the Hunter Biden plea agreement collapsed:
MSM synopsis
“The unexpected announcement Friday is the latest twist in Hunter Biden’s years-long legal saga. The president’s son had reached a tentative agreement with federal prosecutors in June to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun charge under terms that would probably have kept him out of jail.
But that deal unraveled in a federal courtroom in Delaware last month when the judge assigned to the case questioned whether the terms of the deal were constitutional and asked them to spend a few weeks to ensure it was on solid legal footing.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/11/doj-merrick-garland-hunter-biden-weiss/
“As a reminder, Hunter Biden was set to plead guilty in a deal to resolve tax and gun charges last month, but the deal was put on hold after a judge questioned an unusual provision that would have required the court — as opposed to the Justice Department — to decide whether the Hunter Biden had violated the terms of a diversion program agreement requiring him to avoid using drugs or owning a firearm.”
Vs Substack with far more detail
https://popehat.substack.com/p/hunter-biden-and-the-fog-of-war
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/this-episode-has-been-superseded#details
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The mainstream media does not do journalism anymore. Not even close. They were always biased—which once was taken for granted, then got wrapped in the pretension of objectivity that was always at least semi-bullshit—but bias is not a word for the fictional propaganda that would make Pravda blush that the MSM cranks out these days. Not to mention the absurd political and ideological lens through which almost all reporting is done through—entertainment or cultural or weather or crime or whatever.
It should just be broadly understood that none of the MSM news organs do news or practice journalism, but exist strictly as narrative shaping operations that play almost entirely to people who want to be reassured that the narrative is being properly shaped.
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How much does the MSM influence the electorate however? I’d say it’s influence is nil.
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It keeps the Hive Mind on the reservation
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Only through osmosis. The general vibe of the culture is probably more influential. Vague feelings of life quality and how threatening the other side is for normy lifestyle.
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I’m always entertained and awed at Popehat’s continual befuddlement as to the “why’s” of things. To live life as if each day is the First Day must be quite something.
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Oh he admits that it’s not rational to get as offended as he does but wants to keep fighting.
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Gotta love Taibbi’s ledes:
https://www.racket.news/p/in-landmark-censorship-case-judges
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The big question I have is what happens if the government loses? I’ll bet the government just ignores it. We are coming up on an election year.
And of course the Hive Mind will be oblivious to the whole thing to begin with.
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Agreed. Look at the spying the CIA has done on the Senate with zero consequence. Look at the FBI’s continual violations with unmasking. They don’t care
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For Scott:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4140521-historic-supreme-court-case-could-imperil-the-entire-us-tax-code/
The panic in the author’s writing is sublime.
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I don’t understand how the constitutionality of a wealth tax is implicated in this decision. The author seems to be saying that the justices must either allow the taxation of “income” never actually received or allow a wealth tax. I don’t see how ruling that the former is unconstitutional (which it is) must lead to ruling that the latter is constitutional (which it is not).
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I thought re a wealth tax that it taxed unrealized gain, as in, for example, a tax on the increase in value of a stock portfolio. Taxing the value today of 100 shares of, say, Apple purchased in 1980. There have been stock splits, etc but no shares were ever sold. Obviously the value of that asset has increased but has never been realized if it’s never been sold. A wealth tax would be on the value of it today even though it’s just sitting there, unsold.
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I think maybe I was misreading the article to be saying that either SCOTUS rules in favor of the 2017 tax or it rules in favor of a wealth tax. Upon a re-read, it is seems to be saying that if it rules that the 2017 tax is constitutional, that would allow a wealth tax, but if it rules against the 2017 tax (and hence a wealth tax) it would destroy the existing tax code which already does all kinds of unconstitutional things.
I am all in on destroying the existing unconstitutional tax code.
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I don’t have a problem with it. Taxation is theft.
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Wishful thinking.
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Yes, it is. But it wasn’t too long ago that people thought overturning Roe was wishful thinking, so…
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Point taken. I have been routinely surprised by the ruling coming out of the court, pleasantly so. I don’t think we could expect better (want? Surely. But expect? No.). I would not have imagined it a few years before, and despite his file cabinet of flaws and vulgarity, Trump’s presence and it’s impact on the court is, I expect, his most positive legacy. Although terribly flawed (like most significant men and women) there’ll be no such positive legacy for Obama or Biden. Biden especially. Even if his corruption is never generally acknowledged (or at least not for a century, when no doubt acknowledging his corruption and incompetence will be a part of acknowledging his failures to be sufficiently pure to whatever the present-day dominant ideology is at the time) I can’t imagine history will do more than gloss over his presidency as if it barely was, and attribute the results of its failures to Trump and whomever the next Republican president is.
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He’ll get the sympathetic “Man of his Times” that Wilson gets from the left.
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Love this.
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Fair. I’m sure it applies to Biden too.
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“rest of the world” = leftist pinheads in Western nations.
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Goddamn.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/11/economy/inflation-rate-spending/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_content=2023-08-11T21%3A58%3A05&utm_source=twCNN&utm_medium=social
No mean tweets though.
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Knock me over with a feather.
https://x.com/nytimes/status/1690768950932430848?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Nock them over with a feather. This is the exact expectation and desire of the media and they pretend that it isn’t.
Modern “journalism” is a hive of scum and villainy, and little else.
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I don’t buy this. I know it’s the prevailing wisdom on pundit right but it just sounds nonsensical to me.
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It’s the prevailing wisdom on the pundit right? I did not realize that. I will have to rethink my position.
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I’m talking about the RedStates, Townhall, Hot Air, the dudes that replaced Rush, Ben Shapiro. So not Never Trump. Hope that helps.
It still doesn’t make sense to me.
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With the exception of Shapiro I haven’t been imbibing much right wing punditry. I did not realize the opinion prevailed.
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Worth noting:
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Jesus – this guy is a living black swan.
https://x.com/krrankypants/status/1691128550001459200?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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I just browsed through the latest Trump indictments out of Georgia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/14/indictment-document-trump-georgia/
Based on the legal theory being employed, it seems to me that if they fail to convict Trump, the Fulton County DA’s office can then be labelled a “criminal enterprise” which, for the purpose of “falsely” imprisoning Trump, “corruptly” endeavored to persuade Georgia jurors that Trump had committed a crime. The DA and her fellow co-conspirators should then be charged with the very crimes of which they accuse Trump and his team.
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Ironic.
But in progressive Calvinball the rules only apply to one side. For reasons. The erudite word salad progressive pundits can come up with to justify their hypocrisy boggles the mind.
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Popehat agrees on some of that:
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/unfortunately-this-episode-is-rico#details
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