gehringer_2

Trump proving that even a stopped clock is right 2'ce a day. Seriously though, the Dems need to take advantage of the fact that Trump is so co-optabe and has no loyalty. If there are things like this they can get done that most Repubs won't like, they should take him up on it.

It's also possible that Trump in his more lucid moments believes that given the American First sentiment he has worked so hard to stoke, that enough tariffs will be politically acceptable enough to raise enough money to help cut the debt while he can still bask in the glow of trying to cut income taxes, though it's unlikely to ever be presented quite that way - and recession is still the most likely outcome of a trade war.

And the line forms on the left. Seem to be a lot of people chasing him.

You can either tax away the debt or inflate away the debt. Interest rates below the economy's 'equilibrium point' will cause inflation. The question is whether inflation is a worse tax than actual taxation. And for who. Inflation hammers working class people who are not mortgage holders, but the inflation in the 70's was almost beneficial for young boomers who did have mortgages because the real value of their debt was shrinking while the asset they held was appreciating rapidly. In general, inflation is better for borrowers than for lenders, thus the government does have incentive to let inflation shrink the value of the national debt. The problem is inflation tends to be unstable - once you get much about 3-4% it tends to get self-reinforcing and then you many need a recession to stop it, and then government revenue falls, and the debt gets really bad. TINSTAAFL.

you'll know it wasn't really a retirement when he shows up back on the air somewhere else shortly.

I've listened to parts of Tim Snyder's Yale course on Ukrainian history, and one of the points that he comes back to often is that rulers move into and out of religions (and even languages FTM) when it becomes convenient for other reasons. No doubt the reformation had become very convenient for H VIII!

I don't know if anyone in DC who matters even remembers, but this (US complaints about Canadian border policy) was a big deal after 9/11 and what eventually led to the end of open travel between the US and Canada. I was doing a lot of traveling to Canada in those days and part of the fallout from the argument across the border was that all of our technical services personnel that had Canadian clients had to take out Canadian work permits to go see them, which they had never required previously. PITA, and perfectly senseless, and 25 yrs later we still don't have the open border back.

which does or doesn't happen will be illuminating

Sweeney was a pleasant surprise. He's not good enough....yet, but he was better than I thought he'd be. It's one of those trap situations though - you don't want to invest a lot in a fall back if he's going to turn into a solid contributor, but you don't yet know if he will.

LOL - C$1.3B over 6 yrs is small money even by Canadian standards. Another political announcement that is more PR than program. Our Canadian neighbors absorb their lessons from the South well.

apropos enough, today's mail contained a solicitation from a 'separation of church and state' lobbying group.

I think it's inevitable Trump will throw Elon off the bus eventually.

David French recently wrote that the "#me too" movement was initially getting a warm reception in evangelical circles, particularly since so many Hollywood types were early targets, but it started catching out evangelical leaders, then suddenly it became commie-socialist pinko and had to be opposed by anyone with true theology.

actually I would say that over the years, NPR has done more coverage of religion in the US than most national media.

agree - that was my initial point - tariffs alone an industrial policy do not make.

Also correct. On shoring will be highly inflationary. In fact the macro argument/justification for allowing/encouraging off-shoring in the first place has always been 'lower prices!." Nothing in that basic calculus has changed much. The wage differential to China has shrunk a good deal, but now you have other low wage Asian and SA workers doing low wage work that has already left China.

an individual at the point of sale maybe, but when rates were going up the industry as a whole had an interest in not writing assumable mortgages, which is when they largely disappeared for a time.

The problem is that manufacturing capacity doesn't just appear overnight. It took decades for manufacturing to off shore, it will take years of steady effort and investment if we make a decision to re-shore. Tariffs are only the carrot, they don't do anything to help get any productive capacity on-line. So maybe after 5 yrs of recession the US looks more like 1960? That's 2 House cycles and 3/2 of the Senate standing for re-election in serious recession? Sure. When Trump was floating tariffs in his 1st term the had no re-investment incentive plans and he still doesn't.

right - and it's really only going to be common when rates are relatively stable. When they are going up, the lender has no incentive, when they are going down, the buyer has no incentive. The other thing that is much different from ages past is the way mortgages are securitized. You have mortgage originators who then become mortgage servicers because the note itself has been securitized and sold off. That changes the incentive structure compared to a bank that used to hold mortgages to their discharge.

Correct - to assume you have to buy out the current owner's equity, whatever that is. But then again, a lot of people keep pulling equity out of their homes as fast as they accrue it, so there are probably still some good candidates out there. 🤷‍♀️

Hinch made an appearance on MLB the other night and his comments on Javy were very pointedly in two separate parts: 'Have to get him healthy' and 'Have to get him in the strike zone', not "Have to get him healthy so he will be back in the strike zone'. I would read that say that Hinch is not really expecting that the hip repair is the fix to Javy's problems with the bat.

IDK, I'd read a little less. I take it as he was repeating the company line from the end of the season and until there is some actual performance to look at (eg ST) there's nothing more to add. To say he was making improvements when there is no game result to validate it would be getting out over his skis (and setting a fan expectation) more than I think Harris is wont to do.

I've seen that a few lenders have started allowing mortgage assumptions, which were once very common, but I don't know if there is any significant movement in that direction. They can at least make a few bucks on fees even if they don't get to write a new note at a higher rate.

The other thing is that there are people still out there, mostly those too young to remember before before 2001, who think that rates are headed back down to 1% or less again, they're not. The end point for the fed rate in a normal world is going to be in the 2.5-4% range so whether they do it in '25 or not until '26, short terms rates aren't going all that much lower anyway. if you have a 5% mortgage, learn to be happy with it.

the run up was funny money, the run down is funny money.