All Things in Moderation

I have no idea how to embed these, so I’ll leave that to someone else:

Junior Birdmen song:

Flying Purple People Eater:

Monster Mash:

The Ipana Toothpaste jingle:

Wow!  I think I’m starting to master WP’s ins and outs to an extent.  There you go, MsJS–enjoy!

—Michigoose

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Vital Statistics:

Stock markets are weaker across the board as Greek austerity talks hit a snag. A party leader in Greece is now saying he won’t support austerity measures agreed upon.  The Germans are holding Greece’s feet to the fire with a “no disbursement without implementation” stand.  Greek sovereign debt is more or less flat.  Portuguese debt still trades like a 1999-vintage .com with another big rally today.  Their 10 year bond yield has blown out from 12.5% to over 18% and then back to 12.7% in about 4 weeks on no news.  So much for “safe, boring, risk-free,” sovereign debt trading.  S&P futures are down 13 points.  The S&P 500 has gone from 1200 to 1350 on more or less a straight 45-degree line, so I wouldn’t fall out of my chair with shock if we had a retracement.

In economic data, the trade deficit increased again.  Imports and exports increased, but imports increased by $3 billion while exports increased by $1.2 billion, to net out at a $48.8 billion trade deficit.  $26.9 was with China. The full year 2011 numbers are included in the release as well. Takeaway – the consumer is returning. Pre-crisis, the trad deficit was in a 55 – 65 billion range.  In summer of 2009, it dropped to 25 billion.  So a smaller trade deficit isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Next week we have Retail Sales, Capacity Utilization, Industrial Production, PPI&CPI, FOMC minutes, and leading indicators.  Earnings season is more or less over until the retailers with January fiscals start reporting.  Still, a couple of big names will report – Deere, GM, and CF Industries.

Have a good weekend!

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The Pew Research Center came out with what they classify as political typology. It’s a bit more refined than the political test in the other thread. It’s a more nuanced take than many I’ve seen. The full report and test are here:

http://www.people-press.org/2011/05/04/beyond-red-vs-blue-the-political-typology/

http://www.people-press.org/typology/quiz/

Mostly Republican

Staunch Conservatives (Highly Engaged Tea Party Supporters)

Main Street Republicans (Conservative on most issues)

Mostly Independent

Libertarians (Free market, small govt. seculars)

Disaffecteds (Downscale and cynical)

Post-Moderns (Moderates, but liberal socially)

Mostly Democratic

New Coalition Democrats (Upbeat, majority minority)

Hard Pressed Democrats (Relgious, financially struggling)

Solid Liberals (Across the board liberal positoins)

Bystanders

Young, politically disengaged

I scored as a post-modern, which feels about right. I’m clearly a Democrat, but have voted for the occasional Republican. [Note to NoVa – Sorry I missed your note the other date about Moran and his opponent.]

BB

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The political compass attempts to isolate two different axes of thought.  One ranges from “radical” to “reactionary” and one from “libertarian” to “authoritarian”.  The questions allow for shaded answers rather than “yes” or “no”.  I have found the website.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

Here is the test.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

As I said, I was 3/10 libertarian and exactly on the midline between “rad” and “reac”.  My 100% R voting friend, no ticket splitter he, was 2/10 libertarian and 1/10 reactionary.  We were too close to even shake a stick at, but I am an inveterate ticket splitter.  So I think it’s more fun and less demeaning than a pigeonholed test that puts the enlightened at one end [lib, if a liberal wrote it, conservative, if a conservative wrote it].  If any of you take it, I don’t care how you score, but I would like to know afterward if you think it was relatively fair and/or relatively surprising to you.  In my case, my old friend and I were surprised we were so close.  But on reflection, we noted that we had been friends for 50 years at the time and always were able to pick up where we left off.  So maybe not so surprising.

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Vital Statistics:

Markets are flattish this morning as talks continue between Greece and its creditors. The WSJ is reporting that the ECB has agreed to exchange bonds it bought at a discount in the secondary market at a price less than par.  Greek 10 year yields are down a percentage point to 33.14%

The WSJ has a story this morning discussing how the energy boom is driving the economy. The story points out that the multiplier effect from this is huge – for every new worker employed in the oil and gas industry, another 4 jobs are created in support.  Obama will have to walk a fine line between mollifying his environmental base which hates fracking and the fact that the energy sector is one of the few bright spots in the economy overall.

One housing story that has not been getting a lot of play has been the perilous state of FHA’s reserves.  FHA’s cash reserves are below the 2% statutory limit and a bailout may be necessary if housing deteriorates further.  How will it affect housing?  My gut says that the government will quietly tell FHA to start unloading foreclosed homes in order to raise cash. This will undoubtedly complicate the government’s efforts to support the housing market.

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Chris, you are wrong when you say it is a violation of religious freedom for the Obama administration to require large employers of institutions with religious affiliations to provide insurance that covers contraception for employees. Churches, which are religious entities, are exempted. Universities and hospitals that serve the public and employ people of different religious backgrounds and beliefs should not have the right to deny such coverage to people who do not share the church’s institutional position. In my view, that is a larger violation of religious freedom. Beyond that, it violates the rights of employees to receive the same insurance that the law requires be available to other workers. And beyond that, it is a matter both of women’s rights and women’s health.

I have heard the argument that “liberal” Catholics who helped to pass the Affordable Care Act are incensed that their opposition to Secretary Sebelius’s decision was not respected. They apparently feel their support for ACA earned them policy chits in another area. Why? Presumably, they thought the act was a good idea and a step toward making insurance available to everyone. Did they feel their support was somehow contingent on the idea they would be able to veto the rights to contraception for women who want and need it?

I have long been troubled by the ease with which the church I was baptized in waves its wand over the most deeply personal of human choices. The sexual scandals within the church in recent decades have found clergy and religious throughout the church covering up the most terrible of crimes against children out of a desire to protect the church’s reputation and, I think, out of some sense of loyalty to people who have shared their vocations, in spite of their violations. I think that loyalty could not be more horribly mistaken, but on some level I almost understand it as an empathetic reaction.

It is deeply sad to me that people whose vows and chosen vocations have meant they have not faced real world decisions about child rearing, family size, maternal and infant health, and family financial pressures not only pass down edicts about what is right and wrong in terms of contraception but also show so little empathy for the people whose sexual choices are at variance from those edicts. I find it profoundly immoral that someone in the hierarchy may look the other way when a priest sodomizes a child and yet pound down an iron fist of opprobrium when a woman makes her own very personal choice about family planning. Your ire and sympathies are misplaced, Chris. There is no need to valorize the moral position of institutions (hospitals and universities are people?) over their workers who have a smaller voice but their own moral position and rights.

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What can you say?  Must be nice to be above the law.    Here’s the story:  The director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission, which is tasked with enforcing marijuana prohibition, isn’t facing an investigation after drugs were found in her home.    I think our homes would be under siege by a SWAT team in a similar situation.      I know the War on Drugs will be hard to kill, but stories like this shows why, until prohibition is ended, we need to be out for justice.

Full story here.

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Vital Statistics:

Markets are a touch weaker on disappointing economic date out of Germany and China.  Greek debt talks continue, and sovereign spreads in Europe are behaving.  Portugal has completely retraced the yield spike from a week ago.  Europe seems to be quieting down. That said, Europe isn’t “fixed” by any stretch, and still has tight credit issues.  The VIX (which is a fear index) has returned to pre-crisis levels, indicating Europe is fading into the background.  Of course contrarians view that as a sell signal.  (VIX is high – time to buy, VIX is low – time to go).

The SEC is trying to figure out a way to deal with money market funds.  It is ironic that the SEC is trying to find out a way to “stabilize money market funds” while the Fed is doing everything it can to destroy them.  The SEC is creating new capital guidelines which will hopefully allow money market funds to navigate the next financial crisis.  Unfortunately, with rates so low, money market funds can’t cover their costs and provide investors a non-negative return.  So the point may be moot – there may not be many money market funds left when the next crisis approaches.

No major economic data on tap today or tomorrow.  We will get initial jobless claims  and consumer sentiment data later this week.  Earnings season is winding down.

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All of Michigan talk radio is a buzz with praise and criticism of Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra’s Super Bowl ad.  He’s running against long time incumbant Debbie Stabenow and well…

To summarize, we have an asian woman…riding a bike…. through a rice paddy… and speaking in less than ideal english…with “asian” music playing in the background. 

 Effective?? Racist??  Offensive?? Politically Corageous?? I report…you decide.

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Vital Statistics:

Slow news day today.  Stock futures are lower in spite of the fact that the Giants won last night.  No, I don’t buy that theory.  Or this one.  Or, for that matter this one.  The last one will cause anyone who believes in weak-form market efficiency to tear their hair out.

It looks like a foreclosure deal is getting closer.  25 billion will be the price tag.  Of course Ally is owned by the government, so in some sense, this is an informal mortgage relief plan from the federal government using taxpayer funds.  I have to imagine that this will be earnings-neutral as the banks will simply apply the principal reductions to loans they have already written down.  Who knows where banks are actually marking these things, but a home equity loan on an underwater house is basically worthless.

Can we officially say that Super Bowl halftime shows have jumped the shark?

Lost in the European issue is the fact that Denmark is having a credit crunch after their real estate bubble burst in 2007.  This will be interesting to watch because a lot of policy wonks and academics respect the Danish system of mortgage banking and some have suggested the Danish system as a model for a post Fan and Fred world.

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