Housing Data, National Idiot Festival

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We get to take it easy this morning because there is a Case Shiller Housing report due out shortly,, so check back for that at 8:15 Central.

The ‘National Idiot Festival’ is well described by  The Hill’s “Press: Democrats form circular firing squad.”  That’s not the national press – they’re for anyone but Trump.  No, this was from opinion writer Bill Press.  Still, it’s a circle and hours till more shooting.

Student Loan Debt To Remain

‘Free Lunch’ is surely one of the topics which will be covered by the firing-squad ahead.  But while both BS (Bernie Sanders) and JokeWhoHauntsUs are trying to out-promise the mentally impaired that which they can’t deliver, we are forced to remind people of this little snag in the socialist agenda.

Contract Law.

You see, the government doesn’t ‘own’ most student loans.  When the loans are issued, they are bundled – just like the sub-primes brought down the Housing Bubble – and sold off.

For those wishing to actually know something, I would recommend that a good ‘short course’ would be  Investopedia’s article “Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities: Safe or Subprime?”

Who buys Student Loan Asset-backed Securities (SLABS)?  It’s likely the hedge funds, retirement funds, and the braver people who think that like housing, there will be continuing payments.

When anyone says they are going to “cancel student loan debts” remember that the money doesn’t just go “Poof!”  It could blow a hole in  your retirement or certainly reduce the yield on select holdings.

What the insincere lefties aren’t telling anyone is that student loan backed assets will have to be handled just like any ‘bond.’  They will have to be ‘called’ and that’s where the contract law issues arise.

Not only could a student loan “cancellation” cost the face value of the remaining debt, but it would be virtually certain to land in courts, all the while people would likely start spending before any final resolution appears.

When, as a sensible judge would likely find, it becomes apparent this is just another attempt to bankrupt America, we could have a Housing-Bubble-sized collapse, as we figure it.

It is abysmal and pathetic that people pretending to the highest office in the land do not understand the first thing when comes to securitization of SLABS.  If you’re young or are the proud owner of a student loan, best not to get too jacked-up on prospects for a debt-free life, just yet.

We call it what it is: Lefty bullshit that will move debt from one pocket where it is (SLABS) and move it directly to the other pocket.  At the end of the day, we still have a egregiously inefficent education delivery system, run by a higher education lobby that turns out me-too’ers (like the climateer’s) and loads ’em down with debt while building tenured professor debt that is no longer supportable.

Now, if only we could find a democrat who understands finance and won’t bullshit people about ‘free lunch’ – why,, wouldn’t that be grand?

Where’s Howard Schultz when the dems need more than another schemer; someone who actually understands money?

Remember the Maine II?

Too early to be firing neurons, is it?  Wikipedia to the rescue!

USS Maine (ACR-1) was a United States Navy ship that sank in Havana Harbor in February 1898, contributing to the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in April. American newspapers, engaging in yellow journalism to boost circulation, claimed that the Spanish were responsible for the ship’s destruction. The phrase “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!” became a rallying cry for action. Although the Maine explosion was not a direct cause, it served as a catalyst that accelerated the events leading up to the war.

What is going on is not the Maine’s arrival in Havana.  Nope.  It’s the Admiral Gorshkov  – a Russian warship.

The arrival of the Russian warship in Havana Monday has been well-played by the “fifth column socialists” in the American media who have been doing their damnedest to sell the idea that Donald Trump is indecisive and erratic.

Thing is, you and I at the street-level may realize their fix (and how they’re trying to tear down America with open borders and so forth) but the Kremlin may not.

You see, the remnants of the KGB which Vlad Putin once headed are still in business and they assess the mood of America.  Not the Outback of Texas or American Heartland mood.  No sir; they assess the mood of the big pop-centers where their hand-picked spin-monkeys have been running their attack on Trump from.

Toss in rabid hawks who want war at any price, and it’s not irrational to conceptualize some “accident” befalling the Russian ship in Havana harbor, just as an ‘accident’ befell the Maine while the yellow journos of the time were selling war, writ-large on their front pages.

The cycle length is about right:  121 years might make Havana harbor a two Kondratieff waves long event.  If you live long and prosper, avoid that harbor in 2140.

Oh…might the Russians ‘create’ the distraction?  Well, hell yes.  Each for their own in global power struggles.

MORE Climate Lies

Once again, we see how easy it is to manipulate climate data and thereby delude millions, creating jobs, grants and environmental stupidity all at once.

The latest is over at Real Climate Science under th headline “Tampering Past The Tipping Point” by Tony Heller.

Anyone with a nickel’s worth of cynicism can see it, but here’s the tampering and quick, download the spreadsheet before that data too is tampered with.

As if this isn’t clear enough, try the article “The Earth’s climate is paying for our addiction to plastic.”

Propaganda Lesson:  Make a false assumption (climate is paying) and the real data be damned.  Few will look.  Because everyone just knows that climate change must be real or everyone wouldn’t be falling for it, would they?

PUI

The daily dose of Possibly Useful Information includes:

Customer Satisfaction High with Full-Service Restaurants; Fast Food Chains on the Decline, ACSI Data Show.

Airbnb Gets Swanky With Chateaus and Beach Homes Costing Up to $1 Million Weekly.

Southern California county seizes 20 tons of illegal cannabis.

Digital Mob Rule is alive and well as Ravelry, a Popular Knitting Site, Bans Pro-Trump Content.

Meantime, anti-Trumpers will have a hard time with data like this:

“WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association’s (ELFA) Monthly Leasing and Finance Index (MLFI-25), which reports economic activity from 25 companies representing a cross section of the $1 trillion equipment finance sector, showed their overall new business volume for May was $9.1 billion, up 18 percent year-over-year from new business volume in May 2018. Volume was up 3 percent month-to-month from $8.8 billion in April. Year to date, cumulative new business volume was flat compared to 2018.

Which is why climate, racism charges, and everything BUT money will be slung by that circular firing squad.

Say, here’s something tasty: What the Science Really Says About Grilled Meat and Cancer Risk.  Damn killjoys.

More when Housing data arrives…

33 thoughts on “Housing Data, National Idiot Festival”

  1. Truly disgusting topic of discussion this AM – Student Debt.

    Can U guess at the LARGEST ASSET listed on the books over at Treasury – Student Loans..that is downright disgusting, and VERY scary.
    The whole business of Student Loans is CRIMINAL, again, its F-ing CRIMINAL.

    How far we have fallen as a country and people..

    No generation of Man/Woman should EVER leave Debt to a subsequent generation, it is Morally Repugnant..what that says about current “pack” of demons running DC is everything U need to know about todays political office holders.

    What ever happened to the ASIAN CONTAGION ? hey Ur not supposed “look” at the banking crisis unfolding in panda land..

    Got Gold ? no..too late to sell into FOMO rally – maybe buy on the pullback.

    The Un-Stoppable De-Centralization of BTC’s getting stronger everyday, as more and more Govt. types begin to realize (learn) that it can not be CONTROLLED.
    The only Coin, sure they can make it harder to use and access, but CONTROL – Impossible.

    Wheeeee moar free money from the Fed soonly !! buybuybuy – it dont matta, the demons R in control..

    • “pack” of demons running DC is everything U need to know about todays political office holders.”

      E/D
      The problem is..you cant blame them…they are just puppets to the real leaders as much as we are..and in all truth we are the true idiots. We keep them in those offices when we should be flushing them out regularly.

      Our politicians dont write the bills.. they even argue why they dont have to know what’s in them..heck they rarely work at all and haven’t done a thing in decades.
      As the general population becomes more enslaved and dependent the more aggressive the true leaders will become towards everything.
      What gets me… is very few of the true leaders of our country even live here.. the oligarchy political environment leans to people that shouldn’t have any say so at all. I wonder if they even pay taxes..

  2. I don’t think myself a climate alarmist, climate has always changed over time. However, I think trivializing the mess we make of our environment is also wrong. We should attempt to leave less mess to our children. I think we could agree, to stream less carbon and other pollutants into the environment is a good thing. The item most of us disagree on is how much force to have government apply to have behaviors changed. On the conservative side, we prefer to convince people and use capitalism (build a better mousetrap). On the progressive side it is using regulation and its associated force to have people change behavior. The only answer I see to the environmental abuse over time will be stopping population growth. We as a species have never come up with a way to leverage any population control without complete violations of individual liberty. But if one is serious about climate and environmental damage, limit your reproduction quantities. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate/

    • The one obvious move is to market a male birth control pill with side benefits. If the pill makes you sterile and hornier, stronger, and happier, then guys will use it! Men don’t generally have the absolute need to have kids that many women have. Men love women and women love kids, so women will have sex for kids or to hook some particular guy, but men will have sex because that’s their core need as men. If we make guys feel more male and are sterile at the same time, we’ve created an environment where we’ll tend to stop increasing population. Women need a better pill – one that makes them feel hotter, healthier, and better about themselves just by taking it. Maybe mix it with a diet aid. Then they’ll do so without coercion.

      This is likely the best approach to non-coercive population control. I know the drug companies can do it. Now it’s about what will it take for them to actually get moving. We can start by defanging the FDA and DEA so that small doses of currently illegal substances can be incorporated into such pills. Euphoriants are generally outlawed and are schedule 1. Used carefully, they’re valuable drugs. This is the concept of Soma in “Brave New World”. Make the contraceptives cheap or free and we’ll have less undesired offspring.

    • “We should attempt to leave less mess to our children.”

      Unfurtunately it’s them and their little older compatriots that created the mess in the first place. Who consumes w/o regard for the consequences?? It certainly are not the older folks. I see it again and again how little younger cohorts have cared abour our environments, regardless of the few (so-called!) demonstrators ;-((.

      • “Who consumes w/o regard for the consequences?? ”

        The reason for the consumption increases has nothing to do with the younger generation. The real problem started with nafta and the new industrialists seeing bigger bonuses. It also pushed our population into having to seek out more public programs for assistance. And took the adult presence from the home. It’s all a form of slavery development to basically get the average working family dependent on them similar to asking dad for help..let it be the individual to seek it. Then no one can say look see what they are doing… dont repair it, replace it…cheap imported goods made and distributed from outside the borders of our country.

      • …Must’ve been freakin’ frozen in Texas until August, when those ships got icelocked a thousand miles inland from the edge of the ice pack.

        We have actual historical records — journals, Bibles, books and scribe-written publications, which detail climatological observations and events at least as far back as the 10th Century. One of my biggest issues with the global climate warming/cooling/change religion is it asks people to ignore these records and accept computer models and projections made on only the last 136 years of data.

        This troll is apparently in good standing in the church…

  4. Like every other complex problem, student loans offer many possibilities to mitigate their negative effects. Several things stand out for me:

    Remove the federal guarantee on loans going forward, excepting only those who are already in higher ed.

    Extend the standard payout from 10 to 20 years.

    Limit interest to the discount rate or below since the loan is federally guaranteed anyway. Eliminate fees beyond nominal interest. They can sometimes far exceed the actual principal.

    Provide much better paths for debtors to rehabilitate and be removed from default status. This might be a semi-automatic process for those who’s wages are garnished.

    Reinstate bankruptcy protection for all but those who have a “bankruptcy of convenience”. For most, Chapter 7 and for the remainder, Chapter 13.

    Hammer the schools with a requirement for much greater efficiency such that the loans provide actual value to the student. I’m not quite sure how to implement this, but it’s a worthy conversation.

    Create a pathway from default especially for those who never completed their studies, and therefore derived little to no benefit from the educational process. This especially applies to those who intended to practice a licensed profession and for some legitimate reason were unable to finish. There’s an actual cohort who were accepted yet found unqualified after a year or few. Others had to drop out for medical or family reasons. Such people received no benefit and actually wasted time in their lives. Like the airlines who never deliver a passenger to their desired destination, a refund might be in order.

    Currently student loans die when the debtor dies. Sadly, that might be part of the solution.

    • “Create a pathway from default especially for those who never completed their studies, ”

      Mike ..that’s a good point..but like for myself.. I didnt have the money to even begin my studies.. then children responsibilities..
      The closest I came was challenging the first two years and testing out so I could take a class I wanted to take.
      Even then the professor giving the tests misjudged me by appearance..tried to talk me out of it. I cant spell proper sentence structure sucks. And I basically look like a dweeb.
      I took the tests he tried to talk me out of when I came back he tried to talk me into staying I got the class I wanted to take and all is well..
      More schools should follow MIT’s example or Caltech Harvard yale and a few others.
      Luckily I can roam the libraries of almost all of the schools and the articles and books that I cant get, I have friends that will get it for me if I have the interest in reading it..when I thought I was going to be totally blind they even offered to get some college kids to read to me. Which I thought was very nice.. though how I read would probably drive some kid crazy..

  5. The thing about SLABS George is that they have terrible ROI. The default rate on Student Loan Debt (SLD’s) are close to the highest of any debt category. Many private institutions may be looking for a bailout of these loans much like the bailout of 2008.

    The key is to restructure the cost and curriculum of higher education. There is no such thing as free education no matter what you do. But, if have tax free semi-opt-in 529 College Savings plans to stave off student loan debt, that would help start the conversation.

    Maybe it starts at birth, but if a family has kids and it’s their intention to have them go to college, there probably should be a law like social security/health insurance/Medicare/…but with an investment twist, that semi forces families to put a percentage of their income into this college fund. Since it is tax free like your employers health insurance plan costs most people pay into, there are tax advantages and the cost savings over time could far out weigh the cut in paychecks.

    With Student loans, there are 10+ years of interest charges added on to the initial loan…Many students out of college aren’t great about paying them on time and that affects overall credit ratings and purchasing power.

    From what I understand, a few Democrats are proposing this approach. It sounds more like a GOP style program…because it eliminates government involvement…other than the bill to make it semi-mandatory..but it is a tax exception and doesn’t involve higher taxes to pay for college.

    • The clown posse have nary-a-once come up with a viable option to take out the slabs is my point. Same BS, different cast. Hell, I’m surprised Jussie Smollet isn’t running…or Kim Kardashian

      • One viable option is to prevent the DoE from selling any more student loans into the SLAB market. Make them hold the loans and it will choke down the supply of money to the students and schools. It will force greater efficiency. The loans already out there are a different problem and need to be addressed separately.

        If students need more money, they can go to private, non-guaranteed lenders. Let the lenders take the risk as they should.

  6. Oh my, they sure are killjoys. Nothing like a nice grilled rib eye steak cooked well done. Oh well, if one thing doesn’t kill us, something else will.

    • A ribeye WELL DONE!?!?!?!?! SACRILEGE!!!!

      It’s well know that in good restaurants, the chef will set aside inferior steaks for customers who want them ‘well done’… hard to judge shoe leather, after all.

  7. George

    “just as an ‘accident’ befell the Maine”.

    I believe the PBS show Nova did a special on the USS Maine accident several years ago.

    They found that it was an internal explosion in the gun powder locker when a coal bunker on the other side of a common wall caught fire. Analysis of the angle of steel hull plating that was at the site of the explosion all showed that they were protruding outward. The data came from photographs and other documents generated when the Maine was removed from Havana harbor. They built a coffer dam around the ship so they could get it all out. A sister ship is still available as a museum piece that showed the internal arrangement of compartments. As coal fires on ships was a known hazard it is amazing that they put the gun powder so close to the coal bunker!

    Another example of people thinking it can’t happen here, be happy don’t worry!

  8. Last night the most ambitious launch of the Falcon Heavy was accomplished, along with most of the mission goals. The side boosters landed as desired – at night no less. The main booster unfortunately missed its drone barge at a new location and got wet. That was known to be a real possibility and a much lesser concern.

    My question is why was this not the lead article on any site? It’s barely even mentioned. This is bleeding edge engineering at its finest! It’s a tribute to great engineers, scientists and creators.

    In other news, smearing CBD on your face is the latest Asian beauty craze (per scmp.com).

  9. George:
    I saw Bernie live on his Student Debt Forgiveness, and he was highly persuasive.
    No national debt increase (unlike how the R’s perpetually roll ever since Reagan tripled the national debt).
    And his pitch that ‘Main St. bailed out Wall St. during the great recession, and now it’s time for them to return the favor’ was also very persuasive.
    And it would in fact be HIGHLY stimulative, unlike the tax cuts (sold under false pretenses).

    (As an aside: Am still dumbstruck that at the crossroads, that at the moment of truth so to speak, the R’s choose tax cuts for the Rich rather than a strongly conservative immigration reform package. And the Base still seems perfectly fine with it. Fox News too!! You too, George, and you’re a huge dollar devaluation/immigration guy!!!!! Man, are those R’s truly incredible branding geniuses, or what?).
    Best, Mike

    • He’s making up money and screwing the debt holders! Just admit it – Bernie is a prsinter and that waters down the purchasing power of what few dollars we have. Thank god for hydrowponics,k gardens, gold, and guns.
      You want to share 10% of your income with Bernie…have at it, sport.
      A little red pilling is in order 5u.

    • Mike: Good point on Trump concentrating on Tax Reform for him when he had a chance for Immigration Reform for 2 years when he had a Republican controlled Senate & Congress. He squandered that opportunity for some reason (Deep State Pressure) and then came up with the bright idea to shut the government down & then get outmanurved by the Dems.

      Makes you wonder!!!. Only problem for a 2nd term electing someone else than Trump, is the 20 Dem idiots.

    • Bernie’s numbers are off by a factor of several thousand percent. Persuasion is great for getting a policy through the door. No amount of persuasion, nor anything else, can make the numbers work…

  10. Defaulted Student Debt can be paid by the Fed’s by just printing up more money. It is a wash. The Tech industry needs graduates & that is the USA’s biggest asset.

    What if the government is the biggest counterfieter. For each $2 billion they print, they only record it as $1 billion, & presto, 100% undetectable counterfeit $$$ are printed. Instant gain.

    • Well, no. That waters down the purchasing power of the rest of us (inflation of money sup0ply causes higher prices) so no, there is still no free lunch.
      Sorry

      • Defaulted Student Debt is a non productive asset. When the Gov’t pays the loan, the banks will break even & since the ex students who defaulted have no money to purchase additional good & services even without a monthly loan payment it will not be inflationary, just another bank bailout, but this one was the fault of the giveaway Feds. A necessary evil to keep ours the best & brighest.

  11. Roll over, Beethoven!!

    One can’t wait to see the first Breakdancing (sic) gold medal handed over at the 2024 Paris olympics. From gangster street roots to the pinnacle of sport, money really is a gas.

    Start your engine and put pedal to the metal; good luck, sir, and all the best in your regional riding mower championships.

    No one need say they can’t get no satisfaction!

  12. George,

    I can think of one Democrat that would most likely do a good job as President, but the party would never support him, Senator Joe Manchin.
    Middle of the road guy and from a state heavily dependent upon mining (actual product producing), and seems to have a desire to at least try to work towards solutions.

    To my knowledge, he hasn’t jumped on the “free lunch” bandwagon.

    Too moderate for the nutjob Democrats and their followers.

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