Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
Stocks are flattish this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up on the weak JOLTS report.
Job openings fell pretty dramatically in July, according to the JOLTS report. Job openings fell by 338,000 to a seasonally adjusted level of 8.8 million. On a year-over-year basis, openings are down 2.5 million.
Job openings fell in professional and business services, health care and social services and government. The quits rate edged down to 2.3%, as quits fell by 250k.
The Fed pays close attention to the JOLTs number and this is a big sign than the Fed’s tightening regime is finally gaining some traction in the labor market.
Consumer confidence fell pretty dramatically in August, according to the Conference Board. “Consumer confidence fell in August 2023, erasing back-to-back increases in June and July,” said Dana Peterson, Chief Economist at The Conference Board. “August’s disappointing headline number reflected dips in both the current conditions and expectations indexes. Write-in responses showed that consumers were once again preoccupied with rising prices in general, and for groceries and gasoline in particular. The pullback in consumer confidence was evident across all age groups—and most notable among consumers with household incomes of $100,000 or more, as well as those earning less than $50,000. Confidence held relatively steady for consumers with incomes between $50,000 and $99,999.”
There is a pretty big gap between what consumers feel about their current situation and how they perceive the future.
Bonds seem to like the economic numbers this morning, with the 10 year yield moving sharply lower.
Home prices rose 3% YOY in the first quarter, according to the FHFA House Price Index. They rose 1.7% compared to the first quarter. The areas that lagged the previous boom are now experiencing robust gains, while the Mountain and Western states are seeing stagnation.
Based on the three quarters ending in June, the new conforming loan limit would be about 747k.
The Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose 0.9% MOM in June, which was flat compared to a year ago. The index noted the same regional split: “Regional differences continue to be striking. On a year-over-year basis, June’s three best-performing cities were Chicago (+4.2%), Cleveland (+4.1%), and New York (+3.4%) – the same three that had topped our May leader board. At the other end of the scale, the worst performers continue to be in the Pacific and Mountain time zones, with San Francisco (-9.7%) and Seattle (-8.8%) at the bottom. The Midwest (+2.8%) continues as the nation’s strongest region, followed this month by the Northeast (+1.6%). The West (-5.9%) remains the weakest region. As the great philosopher Huey Louis said, its hip to be square.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
I didn’t know this:
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False equivalency, history started yesterday.
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I’m probably an outlier here, but I’d ditch the whole electoral college at this point and elect the president with direct popular vote.
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jnc:
I’m probably an outlier here, but I’d ditch the whole electoral college at this point and elect the president with direct popular vote.
You’ve said that before. I still don’t understand why you think the office of the presidency should represent the populace rather than the sovereign states. The states have already lost their representation in congress, with the passage of the 17th amendment. Literally the only power that states have in selecting federal representatives now is via the electoral college. Why you would want to eliminate that too is beyond me. But given that you do, what is the point of having states at all?
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The House represents it’s individual districts and the Senate represents the states, even if it’s elected by the people in those states vs the state governments.
And it’s not like the state governments currently choose the presidential electors directly. They all have mini-popular elections for president, just one step removed and where the votes have different weights depending on the states representation in Congress.
The president should be the one office that represents the country as a whole, where everyone’s vote is weighted equally.
I view the benefits of the electoral college as minimal if not non-existent vs the problems that arise with games like these about the electoral slates vs just having a straight popular vote which is harder to game.
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jnc:
The president should be the one office that represents the country as a whole…
It already is…the “whole” country being comprised of 50 states.
I view the benefits of the electoral college as minimal if not non-existent vs the problems that arise with games like these about the electoral slates
What problems? Why is establishing alternate slates of electors for contested elections a “problem”?
vs just having a straight popular vote which is harder to game.
I don’t know what “gaming” you are referring to under the electoral college system. But frankly I think that a national popular vote will be much easier to “game” and manipulate.
First of all, to have a national popular vote, you will have to remove state legislative control of election rules, and give control to the feds, because you will have to have a single set of uniform election rules across the nation. So states will either have to run different elections under different sets of rules simultaneously, or they will have to conform all elections to federally established presidential election rules. In which case whatever party controls congress will control all elections everywhere. And of course all of the controversies and questions that currently exist only in certain states – whether or not to have voter ID, loosening up of mail in voting, drop boxes, pre-election day voting – will be effectively nationalized, will need a one-size-fits-all answer, and will be the subject of national debate and political fights.
The incentives and opportunities to game election rules or cheat will also increase and spread. Right now, a California precinct with 90% Democrats has no incentive to stuff ballot boxes or engage in vote harvesting because it won’t have any impact on the presidential election at all. California’s electors are going to the Dem candidate even without any cheating or gaming, so there is no incentive to do so. But in a national popular election, any cheating or gaming anywhere will be equally useful everywhere. So more people will engage in it.
I think it is folly to think that having a national popular vote will minimize rather than exacerbate any existing electoral problems. But such practicalities aside, and more importantly, it would be yet another step in altering the nature and purpose of the federal government, and relegating states to increasing irrelevance.
Edit: corked by Brent!
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While theoretically I’m fine with a national popular vote, only way I’d be find with it is if goes through the amendment process successfully. Which I don’t think it ever will. So electors remain!
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just having a straight popular vote which is harder to game.
how is it harder to game? In single party states like CA, they can fake as many D votes as they want. Who is going to stop them?
At least the EC puts a limit on the left’s shenanigans.
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“First of all, to have a national popular vote, you will have to remove state legislative control of election rules, and give control to the feds, because you will have to have a single set of uniform election rules across the nation”
No you don’t. You just report the popular vote results at a state level rather than have the electors. Same way Senators and Representatives are elected now.
And no the electoral college doesn’t limit the left in any way. It just makes elections more complicated and easier to mess with after the voting is done.
“Whoever got the most votes is President” is easier for the populace to understand and harder to get around.
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jnc:
No you don’t.
Yes, you do.
Can you imagine the lawsuits that would take place if, say, certain districts in California or Texas had ballots mailed to them and could vote by mail, while certain other districts did not mail out ballots and required in person voting? You can’t say that all citizens votes count equally if different citizens are voting under different election protocols. The very first thing that will have to happen in order to have a national popular election is to establish nation voting protocols in all places. It is utter folly to think otherwise.
Same way Senators and Representatives are elected now.
Senatorial and House elections are statewide elections, not national elections. Can you name a single state in which election rules for Congress differ by county or district, which would be the analog of what you are proposing?
And no the electoral college doesn’t limit the left in any way.
Of course it does. Again, the effect of any cheating or gaming is limited to the state in which it occurs, and is a step removed from the final outcome. In a national popular election, any cheating or gaming will immediately and necessarily impact the overall election. And since cheating/gaming is easier to achieve in one-party jurisdictions where it is likely to have less of an impact under the electoral college system, you are simply increasing the incentive to cheat/game by making it a national election.
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I see the rationale there, and really don’t object, but I can’t be the only person who would insist the constitution was appropriately and legitimately amended in order to make the change. I don’t see the harm in blunting the power of certain insanely populous states, preserving power for some smaller states whose interest in presidential elections might otherwise be lost.
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What is to prevent San Francisco from claiming that 50 million people voted for the democrat? It guarantees the D wins every time.
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“What is to prevent San Francisco from claiming that 50 million people voted for the democrat? It guarantees the D wins every time.”
Well the same thing applies to Texas or Florida. And you can have fraud now that affects the outcomes.
I just don’t see the value in adding the complicating factor of the electoral college, potential faithless electors, and the weighting of some states over others into the process.
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Joe, I think the only flaw in the Electoral College as it stands is that the House of Representatives, whose size is statutory not constitutional, has not been increased in size in a hundred years.
There are three times as many Americans now as then. The vision of one rep for every 30K citizens was abandoned long ago, but never increasing the membership does violence to the idea of local representation in DC and to the value of the Electoral College, as well.
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mark:
The vision of one rep for every 30K citizens was abandoned long ago, but never increasing the membership does violence to the idea of local representation in DC and to the value of the Electoral College, as well.
I completely agree with regard to House representation, but I don’t see why it impacts the value of the electoral college. Electoral college votes are still allocated on the basis of state population, and in most states they are allocated on a winner-take-all basis. That being the case, increasing the total number of House representatives, and hence the number of total electoral college votes, would increase the total number of electoral votes needed to win, but each state would still comprise the same percentage of that number that they do now. So winning the same states would still result in the same electoral college result.
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Well the same thing applies to Texas or Florida. And you can have fraud now that affects the outcomes.
TX and FL are not uniparty states like CA.
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I feel like the inherent pro-government bias of large entities and the wealthy and connected also mutes conservative power everywhere. Tennessee is about as close to Republican uniparty as you’re going to get electorally, but the state GOP has frequently worked against populist Republicans in favor of establishment Democrats and have no interest in challenging establishment Democrats on things like election fraud, where the reverse would member be true. There are several Democrats in the Tennessee state legislature and other elected offices that would not be there except for the efforts of the TN GOP.
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Fair point Mark and expanding the House would probably help with some of the issues.
Mostly I just don’t see a benefit to the electoral college as a method of selecting the President one step removed from the actual popular vote.
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jnc:
Mostly I just don’t see a benefit to the electoral college as a method of selecting the President one step removed from the actual popular vote.
The benefit is that president will still be elected by the constituent parts of the US that the president is Constitutionally supposed to represent, ie states. The president is not meant to represent individual citizens.
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David Frum actually has a reality check for progressives:
“The Fourteenth Amendment Fantasy
The Constitution won’t disqualify Trump from running. The only real-world way of stopping him is through the ballot box.
By David Frum”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/trump-disqualified-president-14th-amendment/675163/
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Its Calvinball. The left will find a judge to do what they want.
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His goose is cooked. The party will remove him and permanently fracture itself (it was overdue) and the Democrats will dominate electorally for a cycle or two until a new Populist party emerges by, say, ’32 or ’34.
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I would suspect Trump has been told that if he withdraws all of this will go away.
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They can’t do that now, there’s too much blood lust out there.
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Does anyone find this even remotely surprising? Corporate media is entirely corrupted.
https://freebeacon.com/media/associated-press-coverage-of-courts-climate-bankrolled-by-dozens-of-left-wing-foundations/
The Associated Press, the country’s top wire service, is now bankrolled in part by millions of dollars from left-wing foundations, including one founded by “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones.
The news organization last year announced a series of “partnerships” to subsidize reporters covering climate change, race, and democracy. A review of the donor roster shows that the vast majority fund left-wing political causes, while none are supporters of conservative initiatives.
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I didn’t realize how far it had gone, but it doesn’t surprise me.
Fits with the economic problems that the media is experiencing. Back to the patron/artist model.
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The US media is officially Pravda. Treat it accordingly.
That said, it will fade into nothing but a leftist echo chamber.
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I think the “will fade” has already become “had faded”. The mainstream press is an emotional sop for its respective audiences, there to make them feel good about whom they hate, and no actual news or journalism required.
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Hah, maybe that’s because right-wing foundations don’t care about climate change, race or democracy? And I would add gun control, LGBTQ issues, reproductive rights, health care etc. etc. Just an idea!
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those are leftist hobby horses.
when was the last time the left cared about freedom, free speech, limited government, the power of the administrative state, school indoctrination, parental rights, etc?
Not in the past 10 years.
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You’re right LMS, I do not care about any of those things!
Hope you and Walt are well!
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lms:
You missed the point.
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LMS do you see any issues with the media being funded by advocacy organizations?
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This is funny
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I’d have just pulled up and arrested them without the drive through, but the hysterical over reaction by the protesters is par for the course.
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So the protesters are trying to block Burning Man?
Oh it’s on now.
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This is making the rounds but I suspect it’s the Republican version of the Pee Tape and Michelle’s thesis.
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1696600705006809511?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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It could be real, and if it is it’s being put out there by the DNC or other Democrats wanting to get him out of there. It’s not being presented to help Republicans, I’ll say that much.
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I bet they forgot to recite the Covid litany.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/first-covid-deaths-were-fully-jabbed-australian-state-records-reveal
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