Real Estate Market Going Up Concept Illustration. (Photo: AdobeStock)
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) monthly House Price Index (HPI) finds U.S. house prices rose a solid seasonally adjusted 0.4% in November, slightly beating the forecast.
Economic forecasts ranged from 0.2% to 0.4%
On top of the solid gain for the month, the previously reported 0.3% increase in October was revised to reflect a 0.4% increase.
The FHFA monthly HPI is measured using home sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
From November 2017 to November 2018, house prices were up 5.8%.
For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly price changes from October 2018 to November 2018 ranged from -0.8% in the Pacific division to +1.1% in the South Atlantic division.
The 12-month changes were all positive, ranging from +4.5% in the West South Central division to +7.4% in the Mountain division.
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A man posing as an Islamic terrorist in a mask standing in front of a wall painted with the national flag of Somalia. (Photo: AdobeStock)
Three Kenyan-born residents of Lansing, Michigan were arrested Monday and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Somalia.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Michigan charged all three in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The charge is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison.
Muse Abdikadir Muse (Muse Muse) was arrested by members of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) at the Gerald R. Ford Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after checking in for a multi-connecting flight destined for Mogadishu, Somalia.
Federal law enforcement arrested alleged coconspirators Mohamud Abdikadir Muse (Mohamud Muse), and Mohamed Salat Haji (Haji), shortly after.
All three defendants are naturalized U.S. citizens who were born in Kenya.
According to the complaint affidavit, which is viewable below, Muse Muse purchased airline tickets earlier in January to travel from Grand Rapids to Mogadishu, departing on Monday, January 21, 2019.
The complaint further alleged Haji and Mohamud Muse aided in the purchase of the ticket and drove Muse Muse to the Grand Rapids airport, knowing full-well the true purpose of the travel was for Muse Muse to join and fight for ISIS.
A complaint asserts that all three defendants pledged allegiance to ISIS through videos they recorded themselves.
In one such video, Muse Muse and Haji allegedly discussed their desire to join ISIS, to kill non-believers, and even to potentially use a car for a martyrdom operation to run down non-believers in the U.S. if they could not travel overseas to fight for ISIS.
Following the arrests, federal agents executed search warrants at a residence shared by Mohamud Muse and Muse Muse.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, Andrew B. Birge, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, and Tim Slater, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Field Division, announced the arrests.
A vector of a man holding up a sign with the words CENSUS. (Photo: AdobeStock)
Two-thirds (66%) of American adults support the government posing a citizenship question on the U.S. Census, a new Rasmussen Reports poll finds.
In March 2018, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra became the first of 19 Democrats to sue the Trump Administration over the decision to ask about citizenship status in the 2020 Census.
Only 23% disagree with the Trump Administration’s decision, and 11% are undecided. Nevertheless, a federal judge in New York ruled against the administration, despite a clear history of posing a citizenship question.
Historically, the U.S. asked a citizenship question from 1820 to 1950. The Commerce Department also noted that the citizenship question would be the same as the one posed in the annual American Community Survey (ACS).”
The major difference is the sample size, with the ACS being a much smaller percentage of households than the actual census.
The U.S. Census collects population data used to determine representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Further, federal spending is allocated based on data collected by the U.S. Census.
Data collected also determines how many electoral votes each state will send to the Electoral College. Without a citizenship question, illegal immigrants do in fact impact U.S. elections, whether they vote or not.
An overwhelming majority, at 89%, think it’s important for the government to get as accurate a count of the U.S. population as possible in the Census, including 67% who say it’s Very Important.
Just seven percent (7%) say an accurate count of the population is not very or Not At All Important.
Both of these questions show virtually no change since Rasmussen Reports surveyed adults in March of last year, following the release of the 2020 census questions, including the citizenship question.
The survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on January 16-17, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3% points with a 95% level of confidence. See methodology.
File photo: A sold sign on an existing home. (Photo: AdobeStock)
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said existing home sales fell 6.4% in December, following two straight months of gains. The consensus was looking for 5.225 million, with forecasts ranging from 4.98 million to 5.4 million.
Total existing home sales — which are defined as completed transactions for single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops — declined to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.99 million in December. Sales are now down 10.3% from a year ago, or from 5.56 million in December 2017.
“The housing market is obviously very sensitive to mortgage rates,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun, said. “Softer sales in December reflected consumer search processes and contract signing activity in previous months when mortgage rates were higher than today.”
“Now, with mortgage rates lower, some revival in home sales is expected going into spring.”
The median existing-home price for all housing types was $253,600, up 2.9% from December 2017 ($246,500). This month marks the 82nd straight month of year-over-year gains.
Total housing inventory declined to 1.55 million, down from 1.74 million existing homes available for sale in November. However, it still represents an increase from 1.46 million a year ago.
Unsold inventory is at a 3.7-month supply at the current sales pace, down from 3.9 last month and up from 3.2 months a year ago.
Properties stayed on the market for an average 46 days in December, up from 42 days in November and 40 days a year ago. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of homes sold in the month of December were on the market for less than a month.
“Several consecutive months of rising inventory is a positive development for consumers and could lead to slower home price appreciation,” Mr. Yun added. “But there is still a lack of adequate inventory on the lower-priced points and too many in upper-priced points.”
Regional Data
Existing home sales in the Northeast declined 6.8% to an annual rate of 690,000 in December, or 6.8% below a year ago. The median price in the region was $283,400, up 8.2% from December 2017.
In the Midwest, existing home sales tumbled 11.2% to an annual rate of 1.19 million, down 10.5% overall from a year ago. The median price in the region was unchanged for the year at $191,300.
Existing home sales in the South fell 5.4% to an annual rate of 2.09 million, and are now down 8.7% from last year. The median price in the South was $224,300, up 2.5% from a year ago.
In the West, existing home sales eased back 1.9% to an annual rate of 1.02 million, and are now 15% below a year ago. The median price in the West was $374,400, up 0.2% from December 2017.
Today, let’s look at the spending side of the fiscal equation.
AOC, as she is known, wants a dramatic increase in the burden of federal spending for her so-called “green new deal.”
Let’s examine the implications.
We’ll start with a supporter. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has a giant carbon footprint compared to the average person, but that naturally doesn’t stop him from endorsing policies that would put AOC’s onerous burdens on the less fortunate.
Barack Obama picked up the theme and made a Green New Deal part of his 2008 platform, but the idea just never took off. So I’m excited that the new Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others have put forward their own takes on a Green New Deal… The goal is a ‘detailed national, industrial, economic mobilization plan’ to rapidly transition the country away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, such as a solar, wind, and electric cars.” The Green New Deal that Ocasio-Cortez has laid out aspires to power the U.S. economy with 100 percent renewable energy within 12 years and calls for “a job guarantee program to assure a living wage job to every person who wants one,” “basic income programs” and “universal health care,” financed, at least in part, by higher taxes on the wealthy. …it is time for the green movement to think big and make big demands…a portion of every dollar raised by a carbon tax in a Green New Deal would be invested in two new community colleges and high-speed broadband in rural areas of every state.
Now let’s look at the implications of such policies.
But before looking at fiscal and economic considerations, let’s briefly detour to ideology.
Jonah Goldberg of National Review has some fun examining the philosophical forerunners of Ocasio-Cortez’s plan.
…the Green New Deal…is a triumph of recycling. Not of plastic bags or soda cans, but of ideas. Specifically, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and the impulses behind it. To her credit, Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) is fairly honest about her ideological recycling. …the New Deal itself was largely about war mobilization — without war. Roosevelt campaigned for president promising to adapt Woodrow Wilson’s wartime industrial policies to fight the Great Depression. …Nearly the entire structure of the New Deal was copied from Wilson’s “war socialism.” The National Recovery Administration was modeled on the War Industries Board. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was an update of Wilson’s War Finance Corporation. …breaking discipline was a punishable offense, which is why a tailor, Jacob Maged, was sentenced to 30 days in jail for charging too little to press a suit. …American liberalism has been recycling the same basic idea: The country needs to be unified and organized as if we are at war… The attraction stems from what John Dewey called “the social possibilities of war” — the ability to reorganize and unify society according to the schemes of planners and experts.
We’ll start with Warren Henry’s article in the Federalist.
…the darling of democratic socialism proposed eliminating carbon emissions within 12 years. …The “Frequently Asked Questions” section accompanying her draft resolution claims it could be funded in the “same ways that we paid for the 2008 bank bailout and extended quantitative easing programs, the same ways we paid for World War II and many other wars. The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments, new public banks can be created (as in WWII) to extend credit and a combination of various taxation tools (including taxes on carbon and other emissions and progressive wealth taxes) can be employed.” …Ocasio-Cortez now falls back on the comforting myth that everything is affordable by soaking the rich with higher income taxes. …Ocasio-Cortez half-concedes her plan is a fantasy… For an idea of how detached Ocasio-Cortez is from reality, consider that we get only 17 percent of our energy from renewables. …even if the golden geese of capitalism were to continue laying eggs in Ocasio-Cortez’s command-and-control economy, there will not be enough to make her statist omelet. Even if Ocasio-Cortez’s fever dream were technologically feasible, the burden of funding it would land on the middle class as well as the uber-wealthy. …This is not the first time Ocasio-Cortez has tried to pass off a fairy tale as a white paper. She recently claimed the $32 trillion cost of a Medicare-for-all plan could be funded by curbing fraud at the Pentagon. Not even PolitiFact could make that math work, given that our nation has not spent $32 trillion on defense since its founding.
In an article for FEE, Jarrett Stepman looks at the economics of AOC’s plan.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that the avowed “democratic socialist” went with the predictable “tax the rich” formula in order to pay for a massive government program to combat climate change. …such a scheme would mean that her constituents in New York City would pay a max income tax rate of 82.6 percent… Perhaps New Yorkers deserve what they voted for, but does the country? …the tax hikes on the rich would be one of the least radical parts of the agenda. …moving the economy away from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable energy will come “at a cost of about $5.2 trillion over 20 years.” …this deal would instead rely on the ruthless bludgeoning of private industry and citizens through the levers of the state. …the plan calls for direct government intervention to be its “prime driver.” …The Green New Deal doesn’t just include environmentalist proposals… Among the liberal wish list items included, the Green New Deal contains a proposal for universal health care and a basic minimum income program to make up for all the jobs lost…this will all come with an immense cost. …How do Green New Deal proponents propose to pay for this extreme growth in government? …by massively hiking taxes and then borrowing and ultimately printing money. Then it would use public banks run by unaccountable bureaucrats to carry the whole thing out. …an American version of a Soviet-style five-year plan focused on command-and-control economic solutions that have proven to fail the world over. …The agony of a collapsing Venezuela…is a stark example of how badly this can end.
Milton Ezrati’s column in the City Journal further debunks AOC’s numbers.
…specific goals…include, among other things, expanding renewable-energy sources until they provide 100 percent of the nation’s power…upgrading every residence and industrial building in the U.S. for energy efficiency…eliminating greenhouse-gas emissions for industry and agriculture; funding “massive” investments… Ocasio-Cortez adds a long list of social objectives: providing training and education for the energy transition, including “job guarantees at a living wage for everyone who wants one”; …mitigating racial, regional, and gender-based inequalities; developing universal health-care and income-support programs… there were some 136 million housing units in the United States. Upgrading each unit to high standards of energy efficiency would cost, conservatively, at least $10,000 per home, adding up to a total cost of $1.3 trillion. Doing the same for industrial structures would easily exceed that amount. The single-payer health-care part would cost another $3 trillion or more, annually. Stabilizing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would add another $1 trillion to $2 trillion to the price tag—and all these still only account for three items on AOC’s list. …she would rely on debt, “printing money,” and government willingness to take an equity stake in some of the enterprises involved.
The bottom line is Ocasio-Cortez wants to dramatically expand the size and scope of government.
Some of her ideas would involve big increases in red tape, especially for the green parts of the Green New Deal (thus underscoring why it is rather naive for anyone to think the left would accept less regulation in exchange for a carbon tax).
But since I’m a fiscal policy person, I’m naturally concerned about what her grandiose plan would mean for the tax and spending burden.
Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute has used public sources to estimate the price tag. Here’s the new spending that AOC and her fellow travelers want to impose on the economy.
By the way, I can’t resist commenting on this second table. I realize Brian is merely following the tradition of budget scorekeepers at the JCT and CBO, but new revenues should not be categorized as “savings.” I would go with “grabbings” or “takings” instead.
On this episode of Liberty Never Sleeps, Tom argues that liberals are very good at creating problems, then claiming their ideology is the solution.
*New Ghostbusters *Covington Catholic Miscarriage *Government Deal *Los Angeles Teachers Strike *Jimmy Buffet Mic Drop Moment
Bumper Music:
In God’s Country- U2 Red Hill Mining Town- U2 Lay Your Hands- Thompson Twins You Make Me Feel Like Dancing- Leo Sayer Delilah- Tom Jones She’s a Lady- Tom Jones
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Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., announced on Good Morning America on Monday she will be running for president in 2020.
“I feel a responsibility to stand up and fight for who we are,” the senator from California told George Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton White House communications director now at ABC News. “I’m running for president of the United States and I’m very excited about it.”
She’ll join a crowded field of hopefuls vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and others announced and expected.
Joe Biden is among the latter group, and the senior senator from California snubbed the junior when she announced her support for the former vice president.
Senator Harris, 54, intends to official launch her campaign at a rally in Oakland, California, on January 27. PPD is told she will try to highlight her time as attorney general, as well as her work on criminal justice and immigration reform.
“For The People” will be the core slogan, or theme. Her first campaign style even will take place in South Carolina this Friday, Iowa or New Hampshire.
That’s noteworthy, according to PPD’s election projection model director.
“When Hillary Clinton ran into early state trouble against Bernie Sanders in 2016, we told everyone it didn’t matter because of her strong support among black Democratic primary voters in the South,” Rich Baris, the People’s Pundit explained.
“With this move, Senator Harris signals she’s decided on a similar strategy, betting proportionality and demographics overcome early state momentum.”
However, the Republican National Committee (RNC) jumped on the announcement, noting her lack of success in the chamber and left-of-center views.
“Kamala Harris is arguably the least vetted Democrat running for president, but it’s already clear how unqualified and out-of-touch she is,” RNC spokesman Michael Ahrens said in a statement. “Her hometown paper says she was a bad manager as attorney general, and all she has to show for her brief time in the Senate is a radically liberal voting record.”
Based on what he wrote for the opinion pages of the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof belongs on that list of “useful idiots.”
Cuba…in health care…does an impressive job that the United States could learn from. …an American infant is, by official statistics, almost 50 percent more likely to die than a Cuban infant. By my calculations, that means that 7,500 American kids die each year because we don’t have as good an infant mortality rate as Cuba reports. …a major strength of the Cuban system is that it assures universal access. Cuba has the Medicare for All that many Americans dream about. …It’s also notable that Cuba achieves excellent health outcomes even though the American trade and financial embargo… Cuba overflows with doctors — it has three times as many per capita as the United States… Outsiders mostly say they admire the Cuban health system. The World Health Organization has praised it, and Ban Ki-moon, the former United Nations secretary general, described it as “a model for many countries.”
Kristof admits in his piece that there are critics who don’t believe the regime’s data, but it’s clear he doesn’t take their concerns seriously.
And he definitely doesn’t share their data. So lets take a close look at the facts that didn’t appear in Kristof’s column.
My first recommendation is to watch Johan Norberg’s video on the real truth about Cuba’s infant mortality.
But there’s so much more.
Jay Nordlinger authored the most comprehensive takedown of Cuba’s decrepit system back in 2007. Here are some of the highlights.
The Left has always had a deep psychological need to believe in the myth of Cuban health care. On that island, as everywhere else, Communism has turned out to be a disaster: economic, physical, and moral. Not only have persecution, torture, and murder been routine, there is nothing material to show for it. The Leninist rationalization was, “You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.” Orwell memorably replied, “Where’s the omelet?” There is never an omelet.…there is excellent health care on Cuba — just not for ordinary Cubans. …there is not just one system, or even two: There are three. The first is for foreigners who come to Cuba specifically for medical care. This is known as “medical tourism.” The tourists pay in hard currency… The second health-care system is for Cuban elites — the Party, the military, official artists and writers, and so on. In the Soviet Union, these people were called the “nomenklatura.” And their system, like the one for medical tourists, is top-notch. Then there is the real Cuban system, the one that ordinary people must use — and it is wretched. Testimony and documentation on the subject are vast. Hospitals and clinics are crumbling. Conditions are so unsanitary, patients may be better off at home, whatever home is. If they do have to go to the hospital, they must bring their own bedsheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper. And basic medications are scarce. …The equipment that doctors have to work with is either antiquated or nonexistent. Doctors have been known to reuse latex gloves — there is no choice. …So deplorable is the state of health care in Cuba that old-fashioned diseases are back with a vengeance. These include tuberculosis, leprosy, and typhoid fever. And dengue, another fever, is a particular menace.
Wow, I guess shortages extend well beyond toilet paper.
Next we have some very sobering data from a 2004 article in Canada’s National Post.
…a small bottle of tetracycline costs US$5 and a tube of cortisone cream will set you back as much as US$25. But neither are available at the local pharmacy, which is neat and spotless, but stocks almost nothing. Even the most common pharmaceutical items, such as Aspirin and rubbing alcohol, are conspicuously absent. …Antibiotics, one of the most valuable commodities on the cash-strapped Communist island, are in extremely short supply and available only on the black market. Aspirin can be purchased only at government-run dollar stores, which carry common medications at a huge markup in U.S. dollars. This puts them out of reach of most Cubans, who are paid little and in pesos. Their average wage is 300 pesos per month, about $12. …tourist hospitals in Cuba are well-stocked with the latest equipment and imported medicines, said a Cuban pediatrician, who did not want to be identified. …”Tourists have everything they need,… But for Cubans, it’s different. Unless you work with tourists or have a relative in Miami sending you money, you will not be able to get what you need if you are sick in Cuba. As a doctor, I find it disgusting.”
…the Cuban government continues to respond to international criticism of its human rights record by citing…praise for its achievements in health and medicine…the unequivocally positive descriptions of the Cuban health care system in the social science literature are somewhat misleading. In the late 1990s, I conducted over nine months of qualitative ethnographic and archival research in Cuba. During that time I shadowed physicians in family health clinics, conducted formal and informal interviews with a number of health professionals, lived in local communities, and sought to participate in everyday life as much as possible. Throughout the course of this research, I found a number of discrepancies between the way the Cuban health care system has been described in the scholarly literature, and the way it appears to be described and experienced by Cubans themselves. …After just a few months of research, …it became increasingly obvious that many Cubans did not appear to have a very positive view of the health care system themselves. A number of people complained to me informally that their doctors were unhelpful, that the best clinics and hospitals only served political elites and that scarce medical supplies were often stolen from hospitals and sold on the black market. Further criticisms were leveled at the politicization of medical care… Public criticism of the government is a crime in Cuba, and penalties are severe. Formally eliciting critical narratives about health care would be viewed as a criminal act both for me as a researcher, and for people who spoke openly with me. …One of the most readily apparent problems with the health care system in Cuba is the severe shortage of medicines, equipment, and other supplies. …Many Cubans (including a number of health professionals) also had serious complaints about the intrusion of politics into medical treatment and health care decision-making.
Katherine Hirschfeld, University of Oklahoma (H/T: Scott Johnson)
Three academics at Texas Tech University also found very troubling data when they investigated the nation’s health system.
With 11.1% of GDP dedicated to health care and 0.8% of the population working as physicians, a substantial amount of resources is directed towards reducing infant mortality and increasing longevity. An economy with centralized economic planning by government like that of Cuba can force more resources into an industry than its population might desire in order to achieve improved outcomes in that industry at the expense of other goods and services the population might more highly desire. …Physicians are given health outcome targets to meet or face penalties. This provides incentives to manipulate data. Take Cuba’s much praised infant mortality rate for example. In most countries, the ratio of the numbers of neonatal deaths and late fetal deaths stay within a certain range of each other as they have many common causes and determinants. …Cuba, with a ratio of 6, was a clear outlier. This skewed ratio is evidence that physicians likely reclassified early neonatal deaths as late fetal deaths, thus deflating the infant mortality statistics and propping up life expectancy. Cuban doctors were re-categorizing neonatal deaths as late fetal deaths in order for doctors to meet government targets for infant mortality. …Physicians often perform abortions without clear consent of the mother, raising serious issues of medical ethics, when ultrasound reveals fetal abnormalities because ‘otherwise it might raise the infant mortality rate’. …The role of Cuban economic and political oppression in coercing ‘good’ health outcomes merits further study.
President’s Plan Would Also End Longest Government Shutdown in U.S. History
President Donald Trump on Saturday proposed a compromise to reopen the government in exchange for a “down payment” on border security to address the ongoing immigration crisis.
“To physically secure our border, the plan includes $5.7 billion for a strategic deployment of physical barriers, or a wall,” the president said. “This is not a 2,000-mile concrete structure from sea to sea.”
“These are steel barriers in high priority locations.”
The White House proposal also includes the following:
$800 million in urgent humanitarian assistance,
$805 million for drug detection technology to help secure our ports of entry,
2,750 additional border patrol agents and law enforcement personnel,
75 new immigration judge teams; and,
the creation of a new system that permits Central American minors to apply for asylum in their home countries. Reform will also promote family reunification for unaccompanied children, who are often dropped right at the southern border.
“That is our plan. Border security, DACA and TPS. A fair and reasonable compromise,” the president said. “It’s not intended to fix all of our border problems, but will reopen the government and begin to address the humanitarian crisis at the border.”
The president essentially announced support for the BRIDGE act in exchange for $5.7 billion in funding for physical barriers on the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
The bill offers three-year worker permits for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), as well as other non-citizens with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
President Trump also said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kty., has pledged to bring this bill to the floor of the United States Senate this coming week.
“I commend the President for his leadership in proposing this bold solution to reopen the government, secure the border, and take bipartisan steps toward addressing current immigration issues,” Leader McConnell said in a statement following the announcement.
“Compromise in divided government means that everyone can’t get everything they want every time. The President’s proposal reflects that. It strikes a fair compromise by incorporating priorities from both sides of the aisle.”
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who holds a shockingly tensuous position as leader of the lower chamber, appears unwilling to support this proposal, either. Before the president stepped up to the microphone, she released a statement opposing the plan.
“Unfortunately, initial reports make clear that his proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives,” Speaker Pelosi said. “For one thing, this proposal does not include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS recipients that our country needs and supports.”
Worth noting, President Trump had previously offered a permanent solution on DACA prior to the 2018 midterm elections, but the Democrats rejected it.
The president also stated that he intends to convene weekly meetings on border security at the White House after the government is reopened.
“Whatever we do I can promise you this. I will never forget that my first and ultimate duty is to you, the American people,” the president concluded. “Whatever we do will safe lives, make our country more secure and safer.”
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