Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktital Statistics:
Stocks are up this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are down.
The markets close early today in observance of Christmas Eve. Should be a quiet day.
New home sales rose 5.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 664,000 in November. This was up 8.7% compared to a year ago. The median sales price of new houses sold in November 2024 was $402,600. The average sales price was $484,800. The median price fell 6.3%, while the average price was down about 80 basis points.
Consumer confidence pulled back in December, according to the Conference Board. “The recent rebound in consumer confidence was not sustained in December as the Index dropped back to the middle of the range that has prevailed over the past two years,” said Dana M. Peterson, Chief Economist at The Conference Board. “While weaker consumer assessments of the present situation and expectations contributed to the decline, the expectations component saw the sharpest drop. Consumer views of current labor market conditions continued to improve, consistent with recent jobs and unemployment data, but their assessment of business conditions weakened. Compared to last month, consumers in December were substantially less optimistic about future business conditions and incomes. Moreover, pessimism about future employment prospects returned after cautious optimism prevailed in October and November.”
The CPFB is accusing Rocket Mortgage of illegal kickbacks. “Rocket engaged in a kickback scheme that discouraged home-buyers from comparison shopping and getting the best deal,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “At a time when homeownership feels out of reach for so many, companies should not illegally block competition in ways that drive up the cost of housing.”
Rocket responded by saying that one-third of the borrowers with an application in progress chose to go to a different lender: “The facts are clear – data shows one-third of consumers with a loan application already in progress with Rocket Mortgage, before contacting Rocket Homes, chose to close with a different lender,” the company said in a statement. “This proves Rocket Homes is committed to empowering home-buyers to make the best decisions for their unique needs.”
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
The End of Woke Hollywood?
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I’m skeptical. This social engineering shit is in their DNA. I don’t think they can pivot.
Small sample size, but my son watches Japanese stuff, while my wife watches whatever Netflix is pushing out.
I watch YouTube videos of a guy fixing a bulldozer.
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The end of Woke Hollywood?
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Really good long piece on the construction of the Borg
https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/rapid-onset-political-enlightenment?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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I read that after Taibbi linked to it. It’s interesting but I’m not sure I buy the whole Obama as an evil mastermind behind all of it.
Among other things during his administration he pushed back against the “professional left” many times especially during the healthcare and budget fights.
My own take is Obama’s administration may have built the social media messaging apparatus for their own use, but it spiraled out of control during the first Trump term and then Biden’s. In Biden’s case, he was too incapacitated to manage it and it effectively started running itself with the activists working on their own behalf.
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I do. Obama was a 100% ideological president who wanted to be a modern-day Reagan. He succeeded and ushered in the era of performative wokeness.
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His legacy is Obamacare, which solved so many healthcare problems that lefties now justify killing healthcare executives because of its consequences.
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This is how you properly rob a Walgreens.
Of course, what you’re able to carry out with you is limited.
you can’t compromise on proper form.
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I’ve been to that Walgreens several times. They need to close it at 10:30 pm like most of them and move their 24 locations elsewhere. Or just not have any.
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The most self-unaware people on the planet.
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/ryan-cooper-interview-democratic-messaging
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Astounding. I hear righties that seem unaware of how they sound, but never like this.
“and a mainstream press that normalizes their lies and sanewashes their extremism”
Sanewashes? Really? No sense of how insular and cultish in their language they sound.
As a tangent, every intellectual, talky podcast I find on YouTube that deeply engages intellectual subjects eventually reveals the people involved to be almost entirely right-of-center or dismissive of right and left entirely. There is almost no intellectual rigor left-of-center.
Then the author argues they need to put LESS effort reaching out to general audiences and underwrite insular bubble-media propaganda sites like ThinkProgress. Which would not reach or persuade a single human being, not one, who isn’t already going to vote left. So I full support them spending all their money this way.
It’s almost certainly an effort to grift; get more money for people like them and thus pay their salaries. I can’t believe they truly think more money for low-audience web sites and podcasts that only speak to people who only vote left is going to do anything to win elections
“and the importance of Dems building online presences on non-X social media platforms like Bluesky”
Again, arguing they need to focus on speaking exclusively to audiences who already agree with them about everything. It’s insane.
They seem to forget Rush Limbaugh on Fox News tapped a completely unserved audience. They spoke to the people everyone else was ignoring. While they are arguing they need to ignore the already ignored people more.
“If you actually want to get your message out there, Bluesky”
This is self-evidently wrong. If you want to get your message out, focus exclusively on only the people who already agree with you 100%, is delusional.
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They’ve learned nothing.
This NYT focus group observation still sums up the 2024 election best:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/13/opinion/focusgroup-young-undecided-voters.html
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I truly did not know this about Milton Friedman.
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What is we make of the Elon/Vivek vs MAGA war over H1-B visas? I’m sympathetic to a non-Tiger Mom upbringing.
Maybe restrict labor importation to keep wages down? Controlling government and restricting immigration depends, apparently, on whose Ox is being gored.
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The only people I see talking about it are leftists.
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Really good piece on this:
https://hollymathnerd.substack.com/p/about-h-1b-visas
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That was good and illustrates the issue.
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Another good piece on it:
https://www.public.news/p/the-internal-republican-fight-over
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Trump endorsing HB1’s is another idication that he does better when he lets the base determine the direction and then leads. When he stakes out a position and attempts to lead ahead of the base he usually falters.
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In this case, I think he was defending something he had direct personal experience with in his businesses.
He’s also not very good when he’s being defensive about something.
But better for this stuff to get hashed out now before he takes office.
It would be amusing if Bannon were part of the administration and see the shouting match between him and Musk.
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The thing is I’m pretty certain he uses HB2, not 1.
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They actually believe their own propaganda.
https://redstate.com/rusty-weiss/2024/12/28/michelle-obama-ripped-for-new-years-message-saying-americans-are-anxious-as-trumps-return-nears-n2183680
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Politico has a sad
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/26/9-political-trends-that-died-in-2024-00195593?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3M4tv5BIy0diu5MtYpgWQw133E0mrWmK39tZhHfepY83pWsRyXonKrZCA_aem_LbRCpa59JmgbIBu4Hzs7mQ
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Pro-choice ballot initiatives are winning all over. Even the abortion-for-any-reason-up-til-birth ballot initiative got over 50% in Florida. If they try something slightly less aggressive, it will pass. Abortion is winning in the wake of the overturn of Roe and the left doesn’t care, they basically are acting like abortion for all reasons is outlawed everywhere. Not getting that.
Also it seems pretty obvious pro-choicers who just accept abortion is a state issue now are making plenty of progress. Even some purplish states have laws more liberal than Europe. Not quite getting what their complaint is, or why they aren’t more pleased, Trump’s victory aside.
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And judging by a lot of focus group participants at the NYT, a majority of people agree with Trump’s argument about leaving it up to the states instead of having one federal law on it.
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No way this survives the courts.
Plus, it’s bullshit. What an adult chooses to do is on the adult, not the state. Don’t make me pay for them is all any rational person wants.
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Will have to be loaded with waivers. What about working the family farm? Working in the family business and learning the ropes there? Already working in retail?
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If it’s mandated by law it’s slavery.
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No, it’s just a particularly obnoxious requirement to get a high school diploma from a public school.
I also wouldn’t automatically assume that the way it’s being characterized on Twitter/X is accurate.
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When has that stopped the government? 🙂
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So basically my choices after high school are to 1: spend more money to go to school or 2: join the military.
This is the stepping stone to mandatory national service. Your default is joining the military. You can go to trade school or college to get out of it. I don’t support that shit either.
Here is an idea: bring back shop class in high school. Maybe dump Gender Studies 2 and bring back welding as an elective.
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If I could wave a magic wand I’d make welding and shop class and like plumbing or HVAC service mandatory classes for boys. And for the modern era networking and coding at least a way out of one of those for boys, and sure, chicks too.
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I believe the preferred term in ‘broads”, not “chicks”.
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Watch the graduation rate plummet.
This reminds me of the DEI requirements to graduate high school in California.
https://edsource.org/2021/california-becomes-first-state-to-require-ethnic-studies-in-high-school/662219
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Nothing the Federal Government publishes is true.
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I have mentioned it several times in my blog. If you look at the number of payrolls (an adjusted number that takes into account assumptions like birth rates and death rates, the number of employees (i.e. jobs created) over the past year was 2.3 million
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS
But, the actual number of people collecting a paycheck has fallen by 700k
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm line 4
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You’re right, I had forgotten. It’s last in / first out for me I guess. Sorry.
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I wish I could vote for him twice!
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Just as qualified as Buttigieg
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Kind of looks like him too.
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The Left is taking the high road re the Trump Tower attack.
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Interesting read on Trump’s appointee for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department:
https://www.theradicalist.com/p/the-fast-death-of-dei
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