Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
Stocks are higher this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are down.
The week ahead will have a lot of real estate data, with home prices and pending home sales. We will get the third revision to Q1 GDP and get personal incomes / outlays on Friday which will give us the all-important PCE Price Index.
Existing home sales fell 0.7% MOM in May, according to NAR. This is a decline of 2.8% compared to a year ago. The median home price rose 5.8% on a YOY basis to $419,300. There are about 1.28 million units for sale, which represents a 3.7 month supply at the current sales pace. A balanced market is 6 – 7 months’ worth of supply.
“Eventually, more inventory will help boost home sales and tame home price gains in the upcoming months,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Increased housing supply spells good news for consumers who want to see more properties before making purchasing decisions.” “Home prices reaching new highs are creating a wider divide between those owning properties and those who wish to be first-time buyers,” Yun added. “The mortgage payment for a typical home today is more than double that of homes purchased before 2020. Still, first-time buyers in the market understand the long-term benefits of owning.”
Q2 GDP is tracking around 3%, according to the Atlanta Fed GDP Now model.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
It’s infected everything:
“In San Francisco, Doctors Feud Over ‘Do No Harm’ When It Comes to War Protests
Doctors at the University of California, San Francisco, say that the workplace they once loved has been fractured by the Israel-Hamas war.”
https://archive.ph/WJr1I
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Worth noting:
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Banks are happy to kick out a bad CRE loan for 50 cents on the dollar to a hedge fund who hopes to get 70
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Love the closing quote:
“What I have been seeing is the cockroaches are starting to come out,” said Mr. Hamilton. “The general public does not have a sense of the severity of the problem.”
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Amusing:
https://www.racket.news/p/bring-back-capitalism
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I find it amusing that the people most likely to exclaim “muh democracy” are in favor of letting people like Klaus Schwab dictate policy.
Klaus Schwab reminds me of the villain in Lethal Weapon II
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Hopefully the backlash to ESG is real.
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Unfortunately, the shareholder advisory services like ISI follow ESG and therefore your index funds all vote that way.
Total market failure since companies like Blackrock should have a fiduciary duty to maximize returns for all of the 401ks that go into their funds.
Unfortunately, these managers are not paid to care about the performance of the underlying shares; they are paid to mimic the index. So if they vote against the company’s best interests, it is no skin off their nose. ISI has no skin in the game either. They have been captured by the left and get to virtue signal with other people’s money. Standard democrat MO.
The people who get screwed by this don’t even realize what is going on. They think “I’m not in a ESG fund – I am in a plain vanilla big market cap fund” Unfortunately, you are in an ESG fund. You just don’t know it.
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Surprised no one has started an active anti-ESG fund.
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Nate Silver election forecast:
https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-presidential-election-isnt-a
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If Biden himself does not see that he must step aside it will be evidence that his failing acuity is way worse than mere diminished energy.
I am not suggesting stepping aside because he cannot beat Trump. I never wanted a man a year older than I who was clearly losing steps over the last four years to run again for the nation’s sake, not his party’s.
If JB is dumped Trump will likely win anyway, given the timing of the campaign. That is no reason to continue with the damaged and declining old man.
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He may be a Marxist, but he’s got some good analysis:
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/elite-education-journalism-still
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How do you tow the line? With a boat?
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it’s ok because they were noble lies.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/06/26/james_clapper_mr_october_surprise_how_obamas_intel_czar_rigged_2016_and_2020_debates_against_trump_1040444.html
Totally a two-off as opposed to a one off.
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Not surprising:
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The base of the democrat party is single women who majored in useless disciplines like sociology, gender studies or psychology and are the most likely to owe student loan debt.
It is a sop to the base.
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Looks like some people are off message:
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“They don’t, as the Democratic faithful would have it, believe Biden = democracy and Trump = fascism. Many see Trump as their paladin and view Biden and the Democrats as privileging the interests and preferences of their supporters, especially educated elites, in a distinctly non-democratic way.”
“democracy” = democrats getting their way.
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I know there is some sort of Lefty attempted debunking of this. If you find it, let me know.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/foodnews/viral-tiktok-shows-the-same-walmart-order-price-increased-over-200-in-2-years/ar-BB1p14SQ
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Kos kids are freaking out.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/27/2249023/-Live-coverage-Trump-and-Biden-face-off-for-first-presidential-debate?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web#comment_88889202
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Lol
https://x.com/kellyo/status/1806505436457189594?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Double lol
https://x.com/kellyo/status/1806507435655348729?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Told ya, they’re panicking.
https://x.com/kasie/status/1806504918427013329?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Hanging their hat on a cold.
https://x.com/nancycordes/status/1806510506624311392?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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The golf debate was the best exchange I have ever seen or heard in my lifetime!!
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Just brutal.
https://x.com/amyewalter/status/1806499419690242453?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Breathtaking panic.
https://x.com/jonathanalter/status/1806502721060503931?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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“A new, young nominee will beat Trump handily”
I doubt this. All Trump has to do is remind everyone about how all the other Democrats lied to conceal Biden’s true condition from the country for months.
The entire Democratic Party is tainted by this and their months of gaslighting the public about “Cheap Fakes”.
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Even Krugman is calling for Biden to step aside.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/25/opinion/thepoint/krugman-biden-must-withdraw
Of course, during the Trump administration there were all sorts of calls to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. There’s a conspicuous silence from the Democrats about using it now.
But they won’t change. In a week, they’ll be accusing CNN of running a Cheap Fake by broadcasting the debate.
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I think invoking the 25thA would be appropriate, but the politics of making Harris POTUS probably are enough to keep the Cabinet members from suggesting it seriously.
In that regard, I never thought the politics of making Pence POTUS played into the 25thA discussions around DJT [wasn’t it rumored that some Cabinet members were suggesting it then? I know…rumors].
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Looks like Chevron is overturned.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/28/supreme-court-chevron-federal-agency-authority/
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Will wonders never cease. After the (Murthy?) decision on govt cenorship via third party, I would have sworn the Chevron would have been upheld.
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Some January 6th convictions overturned too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/28/supreme-court-obstruction-jan-6-trump/
Still think Trump has no shot?
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Good news. Still unhappy about the censorship decision though
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Nope. Not horrified at all.
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I cannot wait to read Ian Millheiser’s take.
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Loper Bright transfers a simply astonishing amount of policymaking authority from federal agencies that collectively employ tens of thousands of people, to a judiciary that lacks the personnel to evaluate the overwhelming array of policy questions that will now be decided by the courts.”
SCOTUS is saying that policy making power resides with the Congress, not the Executive. Nor the Judiciary.
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Potential upside is that Congress would have to reinstate regular order and substantial committee work to clear up what it meant in a wide range of statutes. That would be great if it happens.
This makes me want to suggest, again, tripling the size of Congress [as it set its own size most recently when the nation had 1/3 its current population]. We have agreed on the benefit of smaller Congressional Districts in the past, and this just adds one more relevant argument.
When I was in practice I saw many instances of agency court law that I thought were unjustified by the underlying statutes. Because every lawyer in an agency related practice sees these in the short term the federal courts will be busier than they ever have been.
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McWing:
SCOTUS is saying that policy making power resides with the Congress, not the Executive. Nor the Judiciary.
Exactly. And the problem Millheiser raises, that judges will now have to get mired in the details of subjects on which they have no expertise, can be largely resolved with the adoption of a simple judicial doctrine: any ambiguity in the law will be resolved in favor of less enforcement. If Congress wants regulators to do something, it needs to be specific and clear about what that something is. If it isn’t clear that a law should be enforced in a specific way or in a specific circumstance, then it won’t be enforced in that way or in that circumstance.
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What they really want is a government of self appointed experts shielded from any accountability to the public.
In the name of “democracy” of course.
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What they really want is a government of self appointed experts shielded from any accountability to the public.
What they want is to use the regulatory agencies to impose rules that would not have a prayer of being passed legislatively.
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lol “Big Mike”
https://x.com/zvbear/status/1806723772218487226?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Now it can be told.
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/29/two-bidens-trump-debate-2024-president
The stuff that will eventually be written will be hair raising.
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The media and democrats have been lying to our faces about the state of Biden.
Just one more reason (as if you needed one) to reflexively dismiss anything the media says any more.
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Mu thoughts exactly.
https://x.com/plzbepatient/status/1806866929505968166?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
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Latest episode of Real Time with Bill Maher was interesting. First time I believe I’ve seen Biden been the subject of jokes by a late night show host.
The other take away is Tulsi Gabbard would make an excellent running mate for Trump.
https://www.newsweek.com/bill-maher-confronts-tulsi-gabbard-over-her-support-donald-trump-1919124
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Totally who’d I’d lean on.
https://archive.is/CVURQ
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Can’t get pardoned if dad isn’t reelected.
This just gets better and better for Trump.
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It’s that and if dad ain’t in office Hunter has no future. Ever.
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You mean people won’t value his paintings as much once Biden leaves office?
He may have to pay his own legal bills?
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Interesting write up on Chevron:
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-what-is-chevron
Note this Brent:
and for NoVA should he be around:
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Joe and NOVA if you are around, this having been my first time to use Medicare Advantage for more than the annual physical [in 15 years] I finally got to collect more than I paid into Medicare in a twelve month period. This is what I wonder about my surgery:
Retail was $35K, Humana paid a negotiated $5K. When Humana accounts for this to Medicare is it based on their actual payment and admin cost plus a fixed profit or can it use accounting trickery to claim the retail cost in their numbers? Or does the actual cost of my surgery not fit into the calculation at all?
I don’t know how the whole advantage system works, accounting wise [obviously].
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Sorry you had to have surgery Mark. I hope you are doing well otherwise.
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RIP Kinky Friedman:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/arts/music/kinky-friedman-dead.html
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Good read:
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Sonny Corleone versus Tom Hagan.
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This is an amusing read:
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is eroding trust? That ship sailed.
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My wife sailed on Biden’s acuity about a year ago. Two MD friends of mine thought he had Parkinson’s and were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about mental fitness, assuming a cover-up of that breadth was impossible in leaky DC. But when Biden announced he was running, I think something like 3/4 of folks who had voted for him thought he was too old to last another term. Bad starting point for him.
The debate obviously tore off the veil. Apparently Sen. Whitehouse is demanding a full accounting of Biden’s health records. The Dem establishment in the White House and the closest allies will probably continue to circle the wagons, but since Biden not only cannot win but will so depress the possible D vote in the nation as to insure a Republican sweep the calls for him to step aside will only increase.
My wife says he is too impaired to know that he must step aside. D fears of a loss if he steps aside miss the imperative of Bayesian logic. Ds will lose if he doesn’t step aside.
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Hi Mark!
Do you sincerely believe that Whitehorse and the rest of the Washington Establishment didn’t know?
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George, I don’t know who knew what, or when. Age is a one way street and it can go downhill suddenly. Here is a story I do know, but it is not about Biden.
My late cousin was a very sharp Philadelphia attorney who had been a college basketball player at Temple in the late 1950s. He was always trim and athletic and very personable.
Three years after his firm, the real insiders, had pulled his docket from him he was still out front as the rainmaker, charming everyone else. Finally that went over the cliff and his long term memory went too, and he went into a nursing home and died.
It was two years after his firm pulled his docket that I knew that they had done so and while I thought he had slowed a bit I was surprised. Rosanne [my wife] had remarked a year earlier, that she thought there were signs of senility, after we had dinner with them, but I missed it entirely and had disagreed with her, thinking he was just tired.
I don’t know how often or how closely Whitehouse was in contact with him. I am inclined to think that outside the close perimeter they were all pretty shocked by what they saw Thursday night. There are stories leaking out that the debate prep folks saw this coming because he could not absorb debate prep, but that they were surprised by what they had to deal with.
Coupled with what I have seen from the loss of family, of colleagues, and of friends to creeping senility – leading to a cliff – I am inclined to harshly judge only a handful of true insiders – and Biden, himself.
We read that there are folks still advising him to make lots of public appearances to show his vigor and acuity. There is a real strong case for denial being suicidal. At this point that would look like elder abuse to me.
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Mark:
Ds will lose if he doesn’t step aside.
I wouldn’t be so sure, for a couple reasons.
First of all, there are plenty of people who, like you, would vote for a tomato juice can against Trump, and blue states are filled with them. Which means that the election is going to be decided by the same few, closely contested swing states that decided the election in both 2016 and 2020.
Second, what we learned in 2020 was that in those swing states, of far more import than voter sentiment towards the candidates is the extent of ballot harvesting operations that each party can muster. And the Dems have a long head start on those operations.
So I wouldn’t count out the tomato juice can just yet.
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Scott, it is true that I would vote for a tomato can against Trump but I wouldn’t give the tomato can any money and I would know the tomato can was going to lose.
Trump has always run ahead of his polling, IIRC, and JB was behind going into that debate. If he stays in, the hurrier he goes the behinder he will be.
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“George, I don’t know who knew what, or when.”
The Special Counsel figured it out pretty early and they called him a liar. Same thing when the Wall Street Journal article came out
What this has reinforced to me is how much the White House and the press has lied to protect him.
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Yes, the Special Counsel’s report was a big clue – but again, occasional memory lapses in a deposition are not necessarily signs of senile dementia. Early on it seems the same as “normal” aging [like remembering the song or movie but not its title].
I recall being struck by the vitriol in the response to that report not being directed at Garland as the telling signal that it had hit a raw nerve. Garland had ultimate authority over its editing and publication and that should have signaled that whatever it was, the report was not a political hit job.
JB’s conduct during a long deposition would not approximate his conduct during a controlled low pressure encounter. Just as he could campaign in NC with teleprompter, I am sure, and shake hands and say “God bless our troops” on cue a day after mumblefucking his way through a quasi-debate that would not have been any problem for him – in the past.
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That’s why the recording of the Hur interview should be released. The Administration has already admitted they’ve been edited so hearing Biden would add context. Especially now. Did he sound like he did during the debate? If so…
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jnc:
…or, far more likely, is so confident in his ability to pull the wool over our eyes…
Or, most likely, he knows the election is about ballot production, not voter sentiment.
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Is there any doubt that if there was a Republican administration indicting Chocolate Jesus for droning Americans that these freakish broads would side with the majority for a 9-0 decision on immunity?
https://x.com/waivedsap/status/1807799801154572466?s=46&t=vSGsUlnc4rLxcUf7zfUiHg
A sad day, indeed.
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I laughed.
https://x.com/jarvis_best/status/1807805785977585733
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