Brane Space: November 2024

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Newsflash! Treasury Yields Direct Mortgage Rates - Not Federal Reserve Interest Rate Cuts

Typical new home (left) in Colo. Springs - Now Over $650,000

Current avg. home mortgage rates

The notion that mortgage rates and home prices would rapidly go down if Trump got back in power, was one of the mainstay memes on the Right before the election. And examples were often cited in battleground states of how voters- once Dems - were prepared to upset the applecart and vote Trump because of high mortgage rates, e.g.

Wisconsin Voters Would Change To Trump Because Of Housing Costs? A Colossally Dumb Move

But it turns out these voters were all living in fairy land, as one learned on reading the piece on home borrowers in last Friday's Wall Street Journal (p. 2A). As noted in the article, which perhaps ought to have had more prominence before the Nov. 5th election:

"Mortage rates aren't determined by the Fed. They are heavily influenced by Treasury yields, which go up and down based on economic expectations. But the outlook for growth is strong which will keep yields and mortgage rates high."

As if to support that, one only had to glance at the adjacent column on the same page to read the headline: 'Investors Betting On New Boom', e.g.

We see clearly all the indices (on the right) that will drive Treasury yields higher - and mortgage rates - as the new growth agenda of Trump and cronies (like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel) get under way.

We learn further on in the main article on yields:

"Yields have risen since President-elect Donald Trump's victory. Investors think that Trump's tax cut heavy agenda would add to the deficit and increase economc growth and inflation. That would put upward pressure on Treasury yields. Trump has also promised higher tariffs which could further add to inflation."

In other words, the combination of higher Treasury yields because of Trump tax cuts, in tandem with his planned Tariffs (latest I read in the same WSJ is he plans 60% on Chinese goods, which would include building materials etc.) means new home buyers seeking mortgages are going to face an awful lot of financial pressure and pain.

Maybe, just maybe, they should have stuck with the 'devil' they knew instead of jumping to an orange one they didn't. A grifter and con man who promised them relief but in the end only looks out for himself. Into expanding his power, no one else's.

And:

FT Columnist Edward Luce Predicts 'Only Real Damage' GOP Could Do: "Send Stock Market Crashing" - Or Worse

And:

Six Big Lies That Won the Election: How Donald Trump Gaslit America

by Paul Rosenberg | November 10, 2024 - 7:01am | permalink

— from Salon

Nine days before Election Day, Donald Trump delivered his closing argument at a Madison Square Garden rally that drew comparisons to a 1939 pro-Nazi rally in the same arena and characterized by similar anti-democratic themes: demonization of immigrants and political enemies, invocation of strongman leadership, threats of violent retribution, denunciations of the press.

Responding to criticism of this self-evident hate-fest, Trump characterized it as “a lovefest.” He wasn’t just lying. That’s too simple an explanation of how Trump behaves in general, and what he’s doing here. Lying is deceiving people about the state of the world, and Trump routinely does that too. But simply tallying up the lies gives no insight into their purpose. Bulls***ting is deceiving people about one’s motives — using true or false claims indiscriminately — and is a more accurate description of his routine behavior. But calling that rally calls a “lovefest,” is doing something more: That's gaslighting, an effort to undermine people’s entire sense of reality and impose an invented reality in its place. For example:

The great Trump economy

This outrageous fiction builds on decades of GOP puffery and media complicity. Republicans have long been trusted more on the economy, despite generations of evidence that the economy does better under Democrats. Job growth offers a particularly striking example: Nearly all of it since 1989 has occurred with Democrats in office. But Trump takes this gaslighting to new levels, and the media’s abysmal treatment of Joe Biden’s remarkable record offered him a big assist.

In the closing days of this year's campaign 23 Nobel economists issued a letter calling Kamala Harris’ agenda “vastly superior to the counterproductive economic agenda of Donald Trump.” But that assessment (echoing an earlier letter when Biden was the candidate) caused barely a ripple, compared to the widespread media echoing of Trump’s ludicrous claims that Democratic governance would bring on economic disaster.

Trump’s an old hand at gaslighting where money is concerned. The Trump University fraud was a classic example, as are his seemingly endless string of business failures: a startup pro football league, an airline, his Atlantic City casinos. But he's highly skilled at was exploiting weaknesses in the press, creating his own reality and getting just enough people to project it to the public at large. That reached a peak with "The Apprentice," the reality show whose producers built a set of fake Trump offices, because the real ones were far too shabby.

Coming into office in 2017, Trump inherited the longest economic recovery in U.S. history. “Yeah, it was pretty good because it was my economy!” as Barack Obama recently quipped. Trump left office as the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs rather than gain them. Despite his repeated claims about having the “best economy” ever, economic growth was sluggish even before COVID hit. What Trump did was to brag constantly, and the media ate it up, producing the illusion of much better performance than actually occurred.

Biden, like Obama and Bill Clinton before him, was faced with the challenge of rescuing an economy that his Republican predecessor had left in shambles. Given the constraints, he was wildly successful. Under Biden, U.S. GDP has grown twice as fast as Canada's, the next nearest G7 nation. Inflation was a problem — a worldwide problem, overwhelmingly caused by supply-chain issues.

Here again the media collaborated, consistently painted a gloomy picture for Biden. University of Wisconsin political scientist Mark Copelovitch, who tracks media coverage alongside real-world economic trends, reports more than 10,000 media mentions of "inflation" since Biden took office, compared to 1,226 of "recovery." Even though inflation is now down to normal levels, there have still been 1,017 mentions of it since Aug. 1, compared to just 16 for "recovery."

“Even in 2024, continuing into the general election season, media coverage of the U.S. economy has overwhelmingly and disproportionately focused on covering inflation and the (nonexistent) recession,” Copelovitch told me, “while barely mentioning the fact that unemployment remains incredibly low or the fact that we've experienced an unprecedentedly rapid and complete economic recovery from the pandemic during Joe Biden's presidency."

Is it any wonder that even after Harris made early gains as the Democratic nominee, Trump still retained an advantage on the economy? In this case, he benefited from decades of skewed pro-Republican economic reporting. But the press largely echoed his other gaslighting claims as well. With the media’s assistance, Trump’s bottom-line gaslighting claim — that Democrats are the real threat to American democracy, and he's its savior — seemed far too credible to far too many voters.

There are certainly many other factors to consider in unpacking what happened in the 2024 election, including that it was just one element in a global trend of incumbent losses. But gaslighting is a central factor in the operation of fascism, and the failure of media in liberal democracies even to recognize its existence, much less to fight it, puts the very survival of liberal democracy at risk.

Solutions To Pendulum Libration Problems

Problem:

The motion of the pendulum below is studied as part of a celestial mechanics course, where  c is the critical torque for which f = p /2.

a) Write an appropriate equation for the critical torque value using the parameters: m (for pendulum mass), R for radius of motion, and g (acceleration of gravity).

Solution:

Use the torque eqn. (See Aug. 12 post):

Torque t = FR = mg R

b) If the value of  c is exceeded then the applied torque becomes larger than the restoring torque. Write an inequality expressing this condition.

Solution:

N > mg R sin f (for all angles f )

c) Write out one plausible form for the integral: òÖA dt.

Solution :

ò ÖA dt = ò d f/ [Ö1 - k sin ²f ]

We have the case for k = 1 which means that as f ® 3p /2

ò ÖA dt = ò d f/ [Ö1 - sin ²(3p /2 )]

d) To have libration we need k > 1. Write an appropriate integral for this.

Solution:

We need k > 1 and sin f » f

Then we can use: f = p/50 = 0.063 = sin f = sin (p/50)

We can therefore use:

ò d f/ [Ö1 - 1.2 sin ²(p/50) ]

e) Given the condition sin f » f show the motion would be simple harmonic and write an equation for the characteristic frequency,

Solution:

Given sin f » f we have an approximation that linearizes the problem by making the torque proportional to the displacement so simple harmonic motion results and: f = f o sin wt. Then the characteristic frequency is: w o = Ö ( g / R)

Given: f^" = - w o ²f = ( g / R) f

e.g. d ²f/ dt ² = - k sin f = - w o ²f ( i.e. k = w o ²)

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

The Colorado Anomaly: Why Was It The Only State To Swing Deeper Blue - Instead of Trump Red?

Kamala delivers a stirring speech in Denver, in March

"It’s basically a case of simplistic populist philosophy. It works because too many people don’t understand financial capitalism that really caused the inequality in the first place. And instead believe in the myth that the government is the root cause of all problems. It started with Ronald Reagan and Friedman economics and corporations are happy to promote the self serving myth. TFG is basically peddling the Santa Claus message of voting for him and get bigger presents." - Washington Post comment

According to Maureen Dowd in her Saturday NYT column:

"Donald Trump won a majority of white women and remarkable numbers of Black and Latino voters and young men. Democratic insiders thought people would vote for Kamala Harris, even if they didn’t like her, to get rid of Trump. But more people ended up voting for Trump, even though many didn’t like him, because they liked the Democratic Party less."

This followed a remarkable across the nation shift with millions sliding to the Right to elect a vile, 34 count convicted felon, consummate con man, liar and traitor insurrectionist, often by significant shifts to the Reeps in a majority of states. Some other columnists, e.g. in WaPo, even claimed that many women responding to pollsters and avowed they'd vote Harris, then turned around and voted for the orange pestilence in secret. What, worms nestled in their brains?

But not Colorado. Turns out Kamala Harris and the Dems again took the state by double digit margins - in a remarkable exception to the national trend which is now projected to even make Trump the popular vote winner, the first time for a Reepo nominee in 20 years.

In the wake of this insane result, according to Ms. Dowd:

"Gobsmacked Democrats have reacted to the wipeout in different ways. Some think Kamala did not court the left enough, touting trans rights and repudiating Israel. Other Democrats feel the opposite, calling on the party to reimagine itself. Others blame Biden for taking too long to bow out, others and other assert a massive 'rebranding' is needed."

Hold the phone. The Dem ticket here in Colorado went gangbusters for Kamala. So why did we hold strain for sanity and reason - recognizing a lying POS and tyrant imp traitor criminal - while the rest of the nation went bonkers, lied in polls, hawked their sanity and brains or otherwise used up their moral capital? Over what? The fuckin' price of eggs? Give me a break, do.

Turns out the answer is pretty simple: Colorado ranks as the second most highly educated state, as well as the least religious state. Kevin Ingham, of Aspect Strategic - a Democratic Polling Firm that helped conduct a bipartisan statewide survey of voters the final 2 weeks of the election - worked with Bridge Strategy (a Republican firm) to get the answers to what happened. In summary, according to Ingham:

"Colorado was remarkable for the fact that while the rest of the country moved significantly to the right - and that includes other 'blue' states like New York, New Jersey and California, Colorado did not."

In terms of the differential he was referring to states that Harris still won (like NY, CA, NJ) but with much narrower margins than Biden had four years ago. When all the votes are counted, indeed, Aspect and Bridge project a 13 -plus point win for Harris here in the Centennial State. Not too shabby. Ingham - in a Denver Post interview (Nov. 8), chalked the state's evident political stability up to several factors including: a much more homogeneous population, the second highest rate of college education among states, and very little religiosity compared to other states that lost their bearings and bounced Trump's way.

This especially is interesting given one would have thought more religious voters would have demonstrated higher moral standards and emphatically not voted for a self-confessed pussy grabber ('They let ya do it!'), adjudicated rapist (of E. Jean Carroll) and 34 x convicted felon. But one must surmise that mammon trumps morality these days, especially when false promises are ingested wholesale, i.e. to lessen the cost of bacon and eggs.

But Coloradans were too smart to take the bait. Further, for both the college-educated and irreligious Trump made little headway. A sign those two factors must count for a helluva lot in terms of elections. Indeed, it also meant fewer of us here in Colorado would either express our pique in not voting, or voting 3rd party. Each of which ended up lowering turnout for Ds in the other states and paving the way for Trump 2.0.

The combo Aspect-Bridge survey, used to frame a Washington Post polling model, found that white voters in Colo. supported Harris 53% to 45% while voters of color did so 63% to 30%. College grads went for Harris by 58% to 39%. And incidentally, Latinos in our state supported Kamala at a higher clip then their compañeros nationally. One reason? They are educated enough to know that even being legal doesn't ensure their security if Trump wants to issue rabid executive orders. And they've not forgotten when Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 he did assert 'they" (Latinos) "are bringing their criminals, their rapists".

Meanwhile people who attended church services at least once a month went for the pussy grabber and insurrectionist felon by 65% to 31%. Meanwhile, for those who never attend church - like me and wifey- preferred Harris by 74% to 25%. Overall, Colorado is among the states with the highest share of people who never attend religious services, so their brains (and hence IQs) are not gutted by supernaturalist bunkum. This according to a separate Pew survey.

And for those who might argue the cost of living here in Colorado isn't the same as in other states, think again. I just bought a pound of bacon at the store two days ago and shelled out 9.99. Meanwhile, pork chops came to 13.99. A dozen eggs are also pretty high at 5.59. And don't even look at housing, the average home price here in the Springs now passing a half million. No, we are hit by high prices too and economic pain, but we didn't let an orange slimeball and con artist gaslight us into believing he was our economic savior. We read actual print websites (NY Times, WaPo, Financial Times) not just social media blurts and 're-tweets'. Sadly, the media preferences of millions of our fellow Americans (Tik Tok, Reddit, Facebook etc.) bear little resemblance to the offerings of the legacy media, and so misinformation can spread as well as mind viruses.

This is what won the Nov. 5 election for Trump, not any failure on the part of Dems or Kamala. Colorado voters were percipient enough to avoid the gaslighting pitfalls, unlike the red shift segment of voters.

Also at the dummy end of the national voter spectrum we learned the Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt barked Sunday to Fox News' Maria Bartiromo :

"Blue state Democrats are vowing to fight back against President-elect Trump's agenda should it undermine their own state's policies, leading one key Trump transition team member to slam them for being "out of touch" with their own voters.

"They should open their eyes and look at how the American people voted in this election,"

Uh, no, babe. Only the low IQ, low information or easily gaslit "American people" voted so - again committing the fallacy of over-generalization. Those of us in Colorado sure didn't, except for the churched peoples. The Blue state govs, like Jared Polis in our state, are perfectly justified to defend their states' political integrity by preparing to go against a twice-impeached traitor and convicted felon, sorry. Especially given not enough voters- namely the young, white women and certain minorities- were not prepared to do so. Effectively enabling the total destruction of the environment as Trump packs his administration with regulations cutters - not to mention ensuring a climate change holocaust - as the monster gets the U.S. out of numerous accords and goes to "drill baby drill". Let's also not forget the spectacle of millions - or so he claims- being forcibly deported or incarcerated in detention camps.

Lastly, if Trump appoints RFK Jr. as "health czar" look for the CDC's mission to be undermined, as well as the FDA's - including approval of any new vaccines. For sure, you had better hope we don't see an Avian flu pandemic. As it is, we learned in the NY Times one of Trump's first executive orders in January will be withdrawal from the World Health Organization. (Controverting Biden's exec order to rejoin it after beating Trump in 2020). Be careful what your wish for, or whom you vote for.

As for the delirious (from MJ) Bill Maher on Real Time, who huffed Friday night that "losers need to look in the mirror". Yeppers, Bill, the losers (and dummies) who voted Trump expecting he will improve their lives. In that respect a commenter on the NY Times had the best take for the likes of Maher, as well as Maureen Dowd, Fareed Zakaria and other proto pundits rebuking the Dems' for their "ignorance" of the plight of working class voters and their failures to help the downtrodden:

"Ms. Dowd, you miss an important key point--Donald Trump IS a member of "the elites." He sounds and acts like some loudmouth working class Joe at the corner bar, but he is NOTHING like "the middle class" he claims to champion. Donald Trump is a billionaire. Wrap your mind around that. He has (or claims to have) more money than a middle-class person could spend in a dozen lifetimes. He has been surrounded by luxury since his birth. He got into college because of Daddy's money. He received draft deferments during the Vietnam War because of Daddy's money. He got into business fueled by Daddy's money. He's never done an honest day's work in his life. His entire career is built upon his ability to lie convincingly. Donald Trump is a product of television, and television is the business of illusion. If not for "The Apprentice" and Trump's vicious delivery of the words "You're fired!" nobody would know or care about him.

So stop blaming the Democratic Party. It's an easy (and lazy) target. Put the blame where it belongs--on the shoulders of a coward, a bully, a con-man, a pathological liar, a downright miserable, evil excuse for a human being. Put the blame on Donald Trump.

The next four years in this country will be hell on earth. Trump will pardon himself of all his crimes, past and present. He will direct the DOJ to shut down all investigations and prosecutions involving him. He will be, in essence, a king--and nobody will be able to stop him."

The only other takeaway we need here is Sen. Chuck Schumer gathering his Dem majority to fight like junkyard dogs to get Biden's 32 federal judge nominees (still in the 'pipeline') confirmed. Trump has demanded McConnell and the GOP block them but this can't happen, not after the Merrick Garland fiasco.

Excerpt:

In the wake of Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 election, residents of Dearborn, Michigan, are voicing their regret and frustration, with many expressing feelings of being misled.

Dearborn is home to one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the nation, with nearly half of its 110,000 residents being of Arab descent. The city has traditionally been a Democratic stronghold, but this year that all changed.

"They didn't vote for Trump because they believe Trump is the best candidate," Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News, told Politico. "No, they voted for Trump because they want to punish the Democrats and Harris."

"It's clear as day that he's playing us," Alawieh added of Trump. "I think he's going to target us. That's what he's going to do. He's going to target our families, and it's going to hurt. So, I think we're about to find out."

And:

Donald Trump

Six Big Lies That Won the Election: How Donald Trump Gaslit America

by Paul Rosenberg | November 10, 2024 - 7:01am | permalink

— from Salon

» article continues...

And:

Opinion | Right-wing disinformation is a mortal threat to democracy - The Washington Post

Excerpt:

Whether you believe that Americans embraced President-elect Donald Trump’s misogynistic, racist and bullying persona because they misunderstood what he stood for or because they liked what he stood for; or because they believed (falsely) that the economy was in a recession or because they could not afford to buy their own home; or because of some combination of all of these, we cannot ignore the success of the right-wing media’s disinformation network in shaping how millions of Americans view the country....

A Reuters-Ipsos poll found that “Americans who primarily get their news from Fox News and Conservative Media and social media/other are more likely to answer questions about inflation and crime incorrectly than Americans writ large.”

When tens of millions of Americans believe things that simply are not true, Democrats’ accomplishments matter very little. And frighteningly, “You can get people to vote away their democracy … as long as you create a false world for them to believe in,” as historian Heather Cox Richardson said.

And:

Opinion | Americans’ fury at globalization will hurt the rest of the world - The Washington Post

Excerpt:

What ultimately motivates Trump’s voters is that the United States has done a dismal job of distributing the gains from these global wins. It is by far the most unequal nation in the developed world. The American poverty rate vastly exceeds that of other affluent nations. Its life expectancy is shorter than that of its peers. Its social ills belie its place among the group of “advanced” nations.

That’s not other countries’ fault, however. That’s the fault of a political system unwilling to address the social downsides of the many changes, whether technological, economic or demographic, that modernity has brought about, and distribute some of the gains from its winners to its losers.

And:

Donald Trump

‘Absolutely Insane’: This Ex-Construction Worker Compared Trump to Hitler — but Voted for Him Anyway

by Alex Henderson | November 12, 2024 - 6:43am | permalink

— from Alternet

Many of the voters who supported President-elect Donald Trump on Election Night 2024 were staunch MAGA loyalists. Others, however, voted for Trump despite their reservations, often because of inflation and the economy.

In an article published by the Philadelphia Inquirer on November 11, one of the Pennsylvania results who voted for him was 45-year-old Matt Wolfson of Scranton.

A former construction worker, Wolfson voted for Trump despite his affinity for authoritarians.

Wolfson told the Inquirer, "He's good and bad. People say he's a dictator. I believe that. I consider him like Hitler, but I voted for the man.”

In response to that quote, a Philly resident tweeted, "This quote is absolutely insane."

» article continues...

And:

Donald Trump