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Treasury Secretary Bessent bought the government's own bonds this week. It worked for about eighteen hours.

Midterms, 80 days out. Iran war, lingering. Interest rate obsessed Trump and Bessent, trigger-happy.

Here's why you should care: mortgage rates ride the 10-year Treasury, and the 10-year had run to 4.75%. The 30-year hit a 19-year high. That's your rate sheet.

So Wednesday, Bessent doubles Treasury's long-bond buybacks, $2 billion per operation up to $4 billion.

A buyback is exactly what it sounds like. The government normally sells bonds to fund itself. In a buyback it goes into the market and buys its own bonds back, then replaces that borrowing with shorter-term debt.

If you're in this business, you already know what that is. It's paying off the 30-year with a credit card. The debt doesn't go anywhere. It just gets shorter.

But it should work, at least mechanically. Fewer long bonds out there means less supply. Less supply means higher prices. And bond prices and yields move opposite. Prices up, yields down.

Yields dropped.

Thursday the 10-year closed at 4.69%. Right back where it started. Then he went on CNBC and said the program could get bigger than $4 billion.

I'm not knocking him. He's doing what he can with what he's got. The hole is just bigger than his shovel.

Debt crossed $40 trillion this week. It passed $39 trillion in April. Four months. Deficit tops $2 trillion with no recession anywhere in sight. Bessent is bailing a bathtub with a Solo cup.

And he's fighting stuff Treasury doesn't control. Every AI company alive is issuing debt to build data centers, soaking up the same dollars. Inflation is still hot, for about a million reasons.

Then there's Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chair, rowing the other direction entirely. He wants to shrink the Fed's balance sheet and shift it short, which pushes long yields UP. He's also proposed rewriting the 1951 accord that gave the Fed its independence, in a way that hands Treasury more say over the Fed's balance sheet.

Read the rest of this post here …

Last October the Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association had $700 in the bank. Not seven hundred thousand. Seven hundred dollars, and I checked it twice because I assumed I was reading a decimal wrong. No PAC, no reserve, eight paid lender members, in an organization founded in 1969.

A lot of you are sitting in a state association that looks like that right now and you have quietly decided it is too far gone. It is not.

The demand was already there. We just were not meeting it. Five years into the worst market in a generation, lenders genuinely need each other again. State advocacy went from background noise to the whole ballgame, because when Washington is gridlocked the fights that hit your P&L happen at the statehouse. And the affordable event ninety minutes from your office became the only event anybody could justify. The downturn did not kill the state association model, it made it necessary again.

Here is what we did, in order...

1️⃣ We found ten to twelve people who would actually do the work.
2️⃣ Then we expanded the board, held the executive committee genuinely accountable, and communicated relentlessly.
3️⃣ We rebuilt the website, which had the visual energy of a 2011 dental practice.
4️⃣ And we made every payment electronic, because asking a two-billion-dollar lender to mail a check to a P.O. box is not a growth strategy.

That is the whole playbook.

A year later, the organization is rebuilt. We have members. We have money. We also put 58 people into the Statehouse last year in eight groups. And those politicians wanted us there. They want to understand housing and they want somebody credible to call, and almost nobody is bothering to be that person.

Texas, Michigan, California, Louisiana, New Jersey and Florida all took my calls and told me what worked. That is the only reason I am writing this down, in the hopes it helps others the way they helped me.

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This week, on "Toxic But Fixed" ... two people came to the open house across the street. One of them was the mailman.

("Toxic But Fixed" is a Netflix drama that does not exist, about a woman in couples therapy with her house, where she stays only because of the rate. Worried about me? You should be.)

THERAPIST: Danielle, you look tired.

DANIELLE: I sat at the window for four hours on Sunday.

THE HOUSE: Tell him what you were watching.

DANIELLE: The open house. Across the street.

THE HOUSE: Balloons, doctor. He put out balloons. In this economy. There was a little chalkboard sign with an arrow on it, as if the problem were that people couldn't find him.

THERAPIST: How many came?

DANIELLE: ...two.

THE HOUSE: Say the second one.

DANIELLE: Don't.

THE HOUSE: SAY THE SECOND ONE.

DANIELLE: The mailman. The mailman came in and took a cookie.

THE HOUSE: Took a cookie, used the powder room, and left. That's the market, Danielle. That's what's out there waiting for you. A stranger evaluating your primary suite while he holds somebody's electric bill.

THERAPIST: House, I want to name what's happening. You seem energized by this.

THE HOUSE: I'm devastated. He's a colonial. We came up together.

THERAPIST: You don't sound devastated.

THE HOUSE: ...I made a pitcher of lemonade at two.

DANIELLE: He watched the whole thing from the front windows with the blinds up. He wanted to be seen watching.

THE HOUSE: I wanted to be available. There's a difference.

DANIELLE: You turned the porch light on. At two in the afternoon.

THE HOUSE: I wanted the photos to be fair.

THERAPIST: Danielle, what did four hours at that window do to you?

DANIELLE: It killed something. I've spent two years telling myself there's a door out of here. And I watched a man in shorts eat a cookie in the only other door and leave.

THE HOUSE: There it is.

Click here to read the rest of this post …

Very fun no holds barred convo with FICO’s Head of Strategy & Market Intelligence Eric Lapin Monday at the Louisiana Mortgage Bankers Association (LMBA)’s outstanding annual convention.

A lot of confusion amongst lenders right now on the credit side of the business. Over half the session was Q&A with the lenders in attendance… which is the way it should be.

Good stuff this week in Baton Rouge!!🐯

I'm hiring. Here's what's on the table.

A sixty-year-old state trade association being rebuilt in public and growing fast. A national lender cooperative that is genuinely enriching to be around. Events people want to attend instead of tolerate. A newsletter that reaches 30,000+ people in this industry. And more interesting work in six months than most people touch in five years, with a lot more fun stuff coming.

And real opportunity. We've grown through the worst five-year stretch this business has had. If we can do that in this market, you can do the math on the next one.

Here's what I'm looking for ...

💖 A motor. Your last boss still tells a story about it.

💗 Someone just as comfortable on the phone with a bank CEO as they are stuffing 300 name badges at 7 AM, who doesn't think either one is above or beneath them.

😍 Someone who can be told they got it wrong without forty seconds of soft delivery first, and whose next message is the fixed version instead of an explanation.

❤️‍🔥 Someone who notices the thing I forgot, handles it, and then tells me it's handled.

💘 Someone who gets that two hours a day of outreach isn't busywork, it's the engine. It's how every deal here gets found, and the people who do it consistently make real money doing it.

🎅 Someone who thinks it's funny that we named a Christmas party the Mother of All Christmas Parties, and wants to help it live up to the name.

❤️ And above all, a genuinely good human. Everything I've built runs on relationships, and one careless person can cost me something I can't buy back.

MY RED FLAGS, STATED UP FRONT

Contract to start, because that's honest about where we are and it's the fastest way for both of us to find out. The money starts modest. The fall is heavy and December will run you over. There's no polished package here and no job description, because I don't have one.

WHAT I'M NOT LOOKING FOR

A title. I couldn't care less what yours was.

SWIPE RIGHT IF

You're willing to grind with a smile, you're not scared of the unglamorous part, and Ohio is a plus.

Email me and let's find out if this is anything.

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On this day 26 years ago, skeleton of massive T-Rex uncovered

Nike’s stock is plunging

New NFL “Fandom Index” ranks Bills fans first, Giants/Jets fans last

All 30 MLB teams minor league systems, ranked

US energy costs, by state (cool site)

AUGUST

Aug 26 - NATIONAL DOG DAY
Aug 27-29 - Fed Jackson Hole Retreat (Warsh's first as Chair, and the one to watch after three dissents in July)
Aug 28 - FINAL NFL ROSTER CUTS FOR REGULAR SEASON!
Aug 29 - COLLEGE FOOTBALL RETURNS!
Aug 30 - US Open Tennis Tournament begins

SEPTEMBER

Sept 1 - JOLTS for July
Sept 4 - August Jobs Report
Sept 7 - Labor Day
Sept 9 - NFL SEASON KICKOFF, Seahawks host Patriots in the Super Bowl LX rematch (a Wednesday, not the usual Thursday)
Sept 10 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading
Sept 11 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading
Sept 13 - US OPEN TENNIS FINAL
Sept 14 - 78TH PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS on NBC, going up against Chiefs vs Broncos on Monday Night Football
Sept 15 - OMBA NIGHT AT THE BALLPARK! Columbus Clippers party deck outing! Tickets here!
Sept 15-16 - FOMC MEETING, rate decision Wednesday the 16th
Sept 19 - INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY
Sept 19 - Oktoberfest begins in Munich
Sept 20-22 - Uniquely TMC, Austin TX
Sept 21 - OMBA GOLF OUTING, The Golf Club of Dublin, 9:00 AM shotgun start
Sept 24-27 - PRESIDENTS CUP at Medinah Country Club, Snedeker vs Ogilvy
Sept 27 - MLB REGULAR SEASON ENDS
Sept 27-29 - MBA Compliance and Risk Management Conference, Washington DC
Sept 29 - MLB POSTSEASON BEGINS
Sept 29 - NHL SEASON OPENS, first year of the 84-game schedule
Sept 29 - JOLTS for August
Sept 29 - NATIONAL COFFEE DAY

OCTOBER

Oct 2 - September Jobs Report
Oct 7 - September FOMC minutes released
Oct 10 - mPowering You: MBA's Summit for Women in Real Estate Finance, Chicago
Oct 11-14 - MBA ANNUAL CONVENTION AND EXPO, Hyatt Regency Chicago
Oct 12 - Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day
Oct 14 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading
Oct 14 - Fed Beige Book
Oct 14 - MBA Tech Exchange, Chicago
Oct 15 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading
Oct 16 - Import and Export Price Indexes
Oct 16 - NATIONAL BOSS'S DAY (your move, direct reports)
Oct 17 - SWEETEST DAY (invented in Cleveland in 1922, so Ohio gets the credit and the blame)
Oct 20 - NBA SEASON OPENS, Knicks raise the first banner in more than 50 years
Oct 23 - WORLD SERIES GAME 1
Oct 27-28 - FOMC MEETING, rate decision Wednesday the 28th
Oct 30 - Employment Cost Index, Q3
Oct 31 - HALLOWEEN, on a Saturday, and the night a World Series Game 7 would be played

"Your margin is my opportunity." Jeff Bezos

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]