Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojkt
Stocks are flattish as the cease-fire appears to hold. Bonds and MBS are up small.
Consumer inflation rose 0.9% in March, according to BLS. Rising gasoline prices drove the increase. The headline number rose 0.9% MOM and 3.3% YOY. The annual number was a touch below expectations. The core rate rose 0.2% MOM and 2.6% YOY, which was below expectations.
The February PCE Price Index rose 0.4% MOM and 2.8% annually. The core PCE rate rose 0.4% MOM and 3.0% YOY.
If you look at the housing price indices, home price appreciation is flattening and rolling over. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that price cuts are increasing, especially in oversupplied states like Texas and Florida. Redfin reports that 34% of homes had a price cut in February, a record for that month. The average cut was about $41k or 7.3%.
Mortgage credit availability improved in March, according to the MBA. “Credit availability increased modestly in March to its highest level since August 2022, with growth across all loan types. Despite the increase, overall credit supply is still closer to the lower end of its historical range,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “Although March was volatile for mortgage rates and they moved higher over the month, there was growth in streamline refinance programs for lower credit score borrowers. Additionally, the jumbo index increased for the third consecutive month, driven by greater availability of non-QM loan programs.”
It seems like every correspondent lender out there is buying non-QM paper these days.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
lol
https://x.com/drewpavlou/status/2043552999856070992?s=46
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Good read.
https://hollymathnerd.substack.com/p/what-the-fish-cannot-know
Also predictions on escalation of the Iran war and/or ground invasion of Kharg island?
A substack I’ve been following says the most likely window is 4/13 – 4/20.
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Charlie Garcia?
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Yep. What’s your take on him?
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What do you think of this?
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2026/04/16/jd-vances-theory-of-trumpism-is-no-match-for-the-practice?giftId=Yjk0MjE3MTktNGZkMi00MzczLTljOGMtOThmNzNhMTYyODY0&utm_campaign=gifted_article
I am more interested in the comments about Vance’s world view, which strike me as potentially coherent, than I am in the stress between it and Trump’s impulsive actions and even more unguarded words.
That whole AI Jesus- no -I was a doctor thing made me start thinking Rs would have a better shot if Vance got to be President before much more time elapsed. So I wonder what you think of Vance’s ideas. I am starting from a place where I dismiss Trump as crooked and self dealing in the extreme and impulsive and without a conservative thought in his brain – by conservative I mean fiscally responsible and not overreaching. Vance has seemed to me to be more aligned with traditional conservative ideas.
On another note that may be of interest to you, Joe, a slice of teenage life in the upper middle class in Austin.
My twin granddaughters are now 17 YO juniors at two different high schools. One will probably be National Merit and is number one in her class and wants to be an aerospace engineer. The other Rebecca, is in the top 5% of her class at her HS and intends to be a business major in marketing and merchandising. She already has a certificate from Intuit in “small business and entrepreneurship” and ran a successful mini marketing campaign as a sophomore. She is taking IB North American history. Her class took one of those four directional political placement tests. She told me that she was the only strong libertarian in the class. She tested as somewhat liberal/libertarian. She said the entire rest of the class tested authoritarian – either liberal or conservative – but authoritarian.
Rebecca is a debater who has even gone to Harvard for competition and she says debaters tend to be more open to listening to other views than her cohort in her IB history class, who all know they are right.
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Hi Mark! Hope you are well!
“That whole AI Jesus- no -I was a doctor thing made me start thinking Rs would have a better shot if Vance got to be President before much more time elapsed.”
Are you referring to the 2026 midterms or the 2028 POTUS election? If I’m not mistaken, with Trump on the ballot, Republicans do very well (see 2016 and 2024) then when he’s not on the ballot, such as 2018. Other than the 2002 Midterms, the party in power always gets hammered, mainly, I think, because the POTUS in office is not on the ballot. What evidence is there that Republicans do better when Trump isn’t on the ballot?
“ by conservative I mean fiscally responsible and not overreaching. Vance has seemed to me to be more aligned with traditional conservative ideas.”
Trump is certainly not a Fiscal Conservative, but what other Republican POTUS has governed as a Fiscal Conservative? I’d posit none and that Fiscal Conservatism is dead letter within the party much as Free Speech is dead letter among the Democrats. Also, I’m guessing Vance is much more isolationist and dovish than Trump. Overall, doesn’t that more align with the Goldwater, Libertarian wing of Republicanism versus Traditional Conservative ideas? Further, has there ever been an elected Republican that has reduced the size of government? It’s my understanding that Federal employment is at a 50 year low. That has never happened in, I suspect, either of our lifetimes.
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Vance may line up with BG. I can see that.
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Not speaking about Mark but I constantly see the assumption on the left and middle and anti-Trump right that Trump is very unpopular and that Musk is very unpopular and both are political poison and it’s just not true. They both remain phenomenally popular. They won’t win elections in ever precinct but … the left has a serious problem with projection. I believe it was Maureen Dowd who was mystified they Nixon beat McGovern because nobody she knew voted for him? It’s still the same story.
And Nixon was a fucking horrible president the left should have loved, so you can’t trust the left’s judgement on even advancing their own western-civilization-destroying agenda.
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I think that was Paula Kale. And yes, overall, Nixon was about as good as it gets for lefties when in comes to a Republican POTUS.
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Pauline Kael! And I should have Googled it. As it turns out the quote was apocryphal. The actual quote is apparently this: “‘I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.’”
Which isn’t quite the same, or doesn’t suggest a complete ignorance of her own provincialism.
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I am largely convinced they are all crooked and self-dealing to some degree. Trump is perhaps more shameless. Or shameless in a less socially acceptable way. But do I trust Vance to be less corrupt or even more coherent? Okay maybe more coherent. But less corrupt? Not much and perhaps less willing than Trump to respond to facts on the ground. Eh, I dunno. Which is not to say whoever the Democrats put up won’t be horribly corrupt and even likely worse than Vance in that regard.
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Thanks for the update Mark. I’m glad they are both doing well.
In case you haven’t seen it, both Brent and Scott now have Substacks.
https://weeklytearsheet.substack.com/
https://reasoninexile.substack.com/
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He is interesting. Not sure what to think yet though. He is a great writer.
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There is a youtube channel “Whats up with Shipping” that is really good too.
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This is funny:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/amy-hamm-how-ndps-equity-cards-turned-the-convention-into-a-circus
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Baby, why you make me hit you?
https://x.com/bethanyallenebr/status/2045004721761759579?s=46
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That’s too inside baseball for me to follow.
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IMO Fox (and the WSJ) get their journalists from the same place everyone else does, and the stories chosen reflect those biases. The Wall Street Journal is two papers now: the editorial page which leans right and the news section which is all Trump bad all the time.
Can’t talk about Fox since I don’t watch TV, but I assume it is the same.
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I really don’t care who the news source is. WSJ or NYT or One America News or something else. They are not more trustworthy than random assholes on the internet and usually less so. It’s just reality television. It has the veneer of truthiness, but mostly it’s not.
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Interesting read.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/opinion/wall-street-markets-iran-ai.html
https://archive.ph/DH2pz
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Love to see this:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jury-charges-southern-poverty-law-center-wire-fraud-false-statements-and
The way Trump has gone after the left’s sacred cows almost makes up for all of the other dumb shit he has done.
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Trump is all sorts of problematic but would I vote for him again over Kamala? 100 fucking percent.
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They should.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2026/04/25/new-european-nato-proposal-n2201685
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https://x.com/sirajahashmi/status/2048447643748118881?s=46
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Yeah, cause thenDoD track record since his confirmation has been dubious at best.
https://x.com/alexanderbolton/status/2048726712410587637?s=46
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The left despises Hegseth. The left has worked SO hard to sand off the male warrior culture of the military and this guy re-institutes it and fails to honor all the left’s cultural shibboleths.
Separately, at what point does the entire leadership of the Secret Service need to get canned? Supposedly the security at the event was completely lax.
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It’s fascinating to watch the anti-Hegseth contingent. Did Rumsfeld get this level of vitriol from the left? In hindsight he might have deserved it.
Re the Secret Service, ultimately a big chunk of protection is due to the illusion of competency. More attempts beget more attempts and the perception of invulnerability erodes and the flaws become known throughout the nut world. Crooks proved that the Secret Service has competency problems and that drives more attempts. Nuts will give their life if they think there is a chance at success but not if they think there is no chance at success. When Crooks drew blood, the floodgates opened. It sure the genie gets put back in the bottle for years.
As this Kees escalating, at some point right wing kooks are going to want some revenge and then it’s a very quick collapse.
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Re: Hegseth. Like a lot of this, this isn’t right vs. left as much as it is the feudal lords vs. the peasants, or the expert class vs. the lay people who are just supposed to obey the experts. Lay people are never to be in a position of power.
It does not matter that the expert vs. lay person distinction is often wrong, irrelevant, or backwards. Those who fantasize themselves to be experts resent any intrusion into their sacred sphere.
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This made me laugh.
https://x.com/igorbobic/status/2049098274896765074?s=46
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I have tried my hand at AI slop. It’s a homage to Bewitched. From a concept I’ve had in some form or another since middle school. Grok is the video, SUNO is the music.
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Spoiler: slop or not, Aunt Clara is the real star here. As always.
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Lizzie Montgomery was exceedingly sexy.
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Yeah. She really was. But I still got a soft spot for Marion Lorne. I always loved Aunt Clara.
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This has to be an audience plant.
https://substack.com/@greenwald/note/c-250488859
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Democrats are not going to react well to the SCOTUS news. I think any R pickups will be muted, however, due to lawfare that will delay redistricting in the affected states, even if eventually overruled by SCOTUS.
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As we Americans celebrate this Cinco de Mayo I’d like to post my favorite Trump tweet of all time, the goat of his tweets.
https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/728297587418247168?s=46
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Does the proposed SEC rule requiring only semi annual reporting by publicly traded firms have any significant effects either for the market analysts, the stockholders, or the investor?
Clearly it reduces a bit of bureaucratic expense for the company, but all publicly traded companies have these accounting materials at hand – at least they used to. They are management tools, after all.
So what is the purpose of eliminating two published reports annually? nominal cost cutting?
Would fewer public notices fuel speculation? Dampen speculation? What?
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I think most of the world reports on a 6 month cycle so I doubt it will be a game changer. Most companies in general close the books monthly to do a variance analysis versus the budget. At least every company I have worked at does this.
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thanks!
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TDS goes to 11 in Virginia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/us/politics/democrats-virginia-plans-gerrymandering.html
https://reason.com/volokh/2026/05/10/the-stunning-plan-to-reverse-the-supreme-court-of-virginia-lower-the-retirement-age-to-54-retire-the-justices-in-the-majority-install-cronies-to-uphold-new-map/
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The D’s still have the edge in the midterms though. They’re acting as if all is lost.
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Which is how they always act if they don’t get 100% of what they want.
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The tactic works.
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Democrats are collectively a woman. That would terminate any pregnancy should one occur. Obviously. But still collectively female. Everything isn’t perfect? End of the fucking world.
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“ Everything isn’t perfect? End of the fucking world.”
Lol
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I’m not completely unsympathetic to that. There are times where I’m aware my emotional reaction to what are in truth trivial problems is very much “my feeling tired and frustrated is just like the end of all life on planet earth”.
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Being around women will do that to all of us.
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“But still collectively female.”
I have always said that Barack Obama was the first woman president.
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And the hive mind that ran the Biden admin was the second woman president.
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Juiceboxer in rare form.
https://x.com/geiger_capital/status/2053868749195825201?s=46
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Uh…
https://x.com/nickkristof/status/2054205051913244933?s=46
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lol!
https://x.com/thekevindalton/status/2054252885983260724?s=46
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In all sincerity, is there a good faith reason to be concerned if ICE agents are at or near polling places?
https://x.com/govkathyhochul/status/2054325104549441976?s=46
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They’ll discourage illegal immigrants from voting for Democrats.
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