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We Are Beginning To See A Little Price Compression

A report from the Orange County Register in California. “Just how slow is the housing market? For nine consecutive months through April, CoreLogic housing stats show countywide sales failing to top the year-ago period. That slump has led to a nine-month period with the smallest number of Orange County home purchases in seven years.”

From Patch Danville in California. “The Danville mansion owned by former San Francisco 49er Larry Allen recently got a significant price cut, and according to Realtor.com the all-pro lineman wants the property at 401 Kingswood Lane sold. Originally listed at $7.5 million, the home’s price has been reduced to $5.8 million.”

From Mansion Global on New York. “Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch has officially parted with his duplex apartment in Manhattan’s Midtown East after a little more than a year on the market, property records filed Thursday show. The $17 million final sale price is almost $9 million less than the $25.9 asking price that had been attached to the four-bedroom condo when it first listed in April 2018. The price then got cut to $24.9 million in October.”

The Arizona Republic. “The priciest home for sale in Phoenix has sparked its fair share of controversy. The spiral house that famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his son David in the upscale Arcadia neighborhood is listed for $9.9 million, which represents a $3 million price drop. The 2,553-square-foot house built in 1952 was listed in September for $12.95 million.”

The Uptown Messenger in Louisiana. “Although there is not enough demand, real estate sales are better in New Orleans East than people think. ‘There are lots of properties on the market for a variety of reasons. But we still have to encourage people to want to live in the East,’ explained Gentilly-based real estate broker Eugene Green.”

“HRI Properties Chairman Pres Kabacoff attributes unevenness in the market to a slight decline in population and a lack of job growth. ‘The real estate financing environment has been robust but the condominium and apartment markets have become slightly overbuilt. It will take a little time to absorb all the existing units. Though I am not in the market every day, my gut feeling is that there will be some limitations as to what can be built right now,’ Kabacoff said.”

“Long-time Latter & Blum broker Paul Richard feels that the Uptown market is maturing and that we are currently at the long tail of a 10-year cycle that began after the 2008 crash. ‘There was a peak in prices in the last quarter of 2017. Prices still increased in the first quarter of 2018 but at a declining rate,’ Richard said.”

“Since then prices in some areas are falling and some properties, especially those that list in excess of $500,000, are staying on the market longer. ‘Finally we are beginning to see a little price compression, but it will be building by building, block by block,’ he said.”

From The Real Deal in Florida. “Florida’s former foreclosure king sold a home in Hillsboro Beach at a loss for $7.5 million. David J. Stern, a disbarred lawyer, sold the 5,275-square foot home at 925 Hillsboro Mile for $1,421 per square foot, records show. Stern had paid $8 million for the home in 2008, according to records. Records show Stern did not have a homestead exemption on the property, indicating it likely was not his primary residence.”

“Stern was disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court in 2014 for his Plantation-based firm’s alleged misconduct. The company at one time had a caseload of 200,000 foreclosures statewide, swelling Stern’s practice to 1,200 employees during its peak. The small town of Hillsboro Beach is home to some of the priciest residential properties in South Florida.”

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  1. ‘Florida’s former foreclosure king sold a home in Hillsboro Beach at a loss for $7.5 million. David J. Stern, a disbarred lawyer, sold the 5,275-square foot home at 925 Hillsboro Mile for $1,421 per square foot, records show. Stern had paid $8 million for the home in 2008’

    That’s a lot of bubble years wiped out.

    1. If you adjust for inflation the loss is even more severe. If you adjust for loss opportunity it is a crushing loss even if you bought at the top of the stock market in 2008, you would still have almost doubled your money by now if you would have stayed in the market.

      1. ‘if you bought at the top of the stock market in 2008’

        That reminds me to go work on that time machine out back.

      2. If you had a time machine, I presume you would have bought at the bottom. PS to have doubled your money you would have had to reinvest the dividends. If you did and bought at the bottom due to Ben’s time machine, you would almost triple your money. Housing does not look like such a great investment. The one difference is the leverage. You cannot buy stocks with 3% down. Of course that leverage works both ways and does not look so good when housing prices are falling.

        1. I know someone who allegedly put most of his portfolio in stocks in early 2009, after a 50% or so drop. He’s pretty smug about that decision…

          2. He’s pretty much the opposite of an insider…doesn’t work anywhere near Wall Street, and has the judgment and cajones to bet 180 degrees opposite the direction of the bovine herd stampede.

        2. “Of course that leverage works both ways and does not look so good when housing prices are falling.”

          Two comments:

          1) On an individual basis, the consequences of falling prices are heavily dependent on the difficulty of walking away from your debt.

          2) Certainly the Fed realizes how terrible widespread underwaterness would be against the backdrop of so many federally guaranteed low downpayment loans, and will do everything within the scope of their mortal powers to ensure this will never occur.

    1. Eeeee-bola Boston!

      No one wants your dilapidated 1890s shack full of lead paint, asbestos, and K&T wiring for $1.2mm anymore.

  3. What Is a Bear Market?

    A bear market is a condition in which securities prices fall 20 percent or more from recent highs amid widespread pessimism and negative investor sentiment. Typically, bear markets are associated with declines in an overall market or index like the S&P 500, but individual securities or commodities can be considered to be in a bear market if they experience a decline of 20 percent or more over a sustained period of time – typically two months or more.
    …

          1. Why didn’t Mexico do this sooner?!

            It’s almost like they suddenly got incentivized to block illegal immigration. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer must be apoplectic with rage.

          2. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer must be apoplectic with rage.

            Nancy is.

            “Nervous Nancy” Pelosi Slams Trump’s “Temper Tantrum” Tariff Win With Mexico

            “The President’s resolution to the impromptu Mexican tariff war that ‘popped up’ last week was ridiculed and slammed by Nancy Pelosi on Saturday morning. The House Speaker put out a statement claiming that President Trump had ‘undermined America’s preeminent leadership role in the world’ by threatening Mexico.”

          3. Because Mexico has been exporting their poor to the US for decades, and they loved the arrangement. They have not only turned a blind eye, they have encouraged it.

          4. Stylistic note: I use “?!,” or multiples thereof, to indicate a rhetorical question. Responses aren’t necessary but certainly welcomed.

          5. Sure seems like an easy fix to me. Fine employers how who hire illegals and landlords who rent to them $1000 a day, give whistleblowers 25%. Use the money on xray machines at the crossing points to help stop drugs being sent in. But, then they would really want a solution, not just talk.

    2. The Remain in Mexico plan reminds me an awful lot of the deal that Angela Merkel and the EU worked out with Turkey to keep north African and middle east immigrants in Turkey rather than on Greece’s shores. Unfortunately that deal doesn’t seem to be working very well because Greece isn’t sending them back.

    3. Nancy Pelosi’s permanent Democrat supermajority isn’t going to build itself, you know. The collectivists can’t take their “redistribution of the wealth” to the next level until they add enough dependency voters to turn the former USA into a one-party kleptocracy a la Venezuela. Forward!

    2. Actually, your own link shows that it is up 5% from the bottom for this week and of course it is up 500% since the late 90s, far above the general inflation rate. Oil is a finite resource and we are quickly using up the last of the cheap oil. We lost enough 11 rigs drilling for oil this last week according to Baker Hughes, no way oil companies can make a decent return on their capital at these prices, many smaller oil companies are going out of business, with less Yellen bucks looking for a place to die, it is clear oil needs to go up in price, so enjoy lower prices than last Fall, they will not last much longer.

      1. There was a big dead cat bounce in risk assets, due to Fed jawboning. But I’m wondering if the punch-drunk bulls overdid it, as my dead tree edition of the WSJ sitting on the table in front of me tells me that when the Fed shifted to easing in 2001 and 2007 under similar concerns over economic weakness, the blue-chip index was lower a year later.

      2. up 5% from the bottom for this week

        Day trader.

        The big picture is the biggest tits up formation in everything in history. Twin peak credit boom, building boom, resource boom, all kinds of booms, globally.

      3. There is a globe full of oil with more formed every day. There’s always been a glut of oil and there always will be.

        1. This is the actual production from Texas not the EIA’s estimated production figures which are published every week. The stagnating of oil production is apparent using the actual production, no the world is not swimming in oil and the impact of falling rig counts over the last few months is just starting to be felt:
          https://www.rrc.state.tx.us/oil-gas/research-and-statistics/production-data/texas-monthly-oil-gas-production/
          However, the official numbers do impact speculation. Some on the blog seems to think speculators only cause prices to rise, but speculation in commodities can cause prices to drop below the cost of production. There is a lot of speculation in the oil market but right now it is bearish speculation not bullish speculation. The bearish speculators are about to be schooled. In housing, there really isn’t a way to short, which is unfortunate I would have loved to speculate against San Francisco and LA housing.

          1. right now it is bearish speculation not bullish speculation

            I’m not a day trader, but isn’t there always somebody on both sides of a bet?

            I think people who are crack sure of what the future holds can’t be schooled, no matter how many times they are proved wrong.

          2. “The bearish speculators are about to be schooled.”

            $80 oil, here we come…any day now!

      4. “…up 500% since the late 90s…”

        Cherry picked statistics are unconvincing.

  6. “’For what a couple might spend to buy and renovate a 1,400 square-foot home in Mid-City, they could get a 2,800 square-foot home in the East. It’s about perception and the desire to live in neighborhoods that are cool and hip,’ Green said.”

    No, it’s actually about lower crime and better quality schools, Eugene.

      1. true, I am just using the terminology used in the article and most publications. I have seen batteries described as new energy as if storage of energy is a source of energy.

        1. Such a description is a handy way to hide the negative environmental impacts of energy production methods favored by the leftwing fringe environmentalists.

          1. Left/right is a false dichotomy. EVs are only as clean as their fuel source this is true, but they are much cleaner than any gas powered car.

            Another way to think about it is trash. Everyone who lives in the US creates trash. But it would be a real problem if you had to keep all your trash right where you consume it. That is exactly what gas cars do. The tailpipe emissions keeps all the pollution right where it is produced. The ultimate goal is to reduce trash (reduce/reuse/recycle) and make 100% of it biodegradable. The ultimate goal for “greenies” or even conservatives who actually care about conserving the environment would be to pivot to a non-carbon future.

          3. they are much cleaner than any gas powered car.

            The wrong assumption that leads to a myriad of bad choices.

          4. wrong assumption

            Incoming progaganda from The Economist, InsideEVs or Electrek in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . .

          6. Is 510 megatons alot?

            Electric Vehicles Aren’t Likely to Save the Planet for This Crucial Reason
            Electricity consumption would amount to an extra 510 megatons of carbon emissions.
            electric vehicles
            By Parakram Pyakurel on June 4, 2019
            Filed Under 2050, Cars & Energy

            Several countries — including France, Norway, and the UK — have plans to phase out cars powered by fossil fuel before 2050 to reduce air pollution and fight climate change. The idea is to replace all conventional vehicles with electric vehicles (EVs). But this is unlikely to help the environment as long as EVs are charged using electricity generated from the same old dirty fossil fuels.
            …

          7. “But it would be a real problem if you had to keep all your trash right where you consume it.”

            If carbon emissions are the concern, then this is a failed analogy, as unlike trash, carbon emissions cannot be contained and have global environmental impacts.

          8. Incoming progaganda from The Economist, InsideEVs or Electrek

            Says the poster who posts from Zerohedge and Breitbart on a regular basis. LOL!

          9. If carbon emissions are the concern, then this is a failed analogy, as unlike trash, carbon emissions cannot be contained and have global environmental impacts.

            Pollution in particulate matter is relative to its concentration. It’s a lot like drinking water. Lead in some minuscule quantity is not novice to human health, but above a certain threshold it becomes extremely dangerous. Same thing with tailpipe emissions. Once you get enough vehicles in a dense enough area you’re basically gassing yourself. Electricity generation stations don’t concentrate pollutants right where people work, live, play, etc. So in short, the EV proposition is better because it allows some of the electricity to be achieved with renewables, is more efficient on a miles-per-gallon equivalent, and doesn’t create pollution in your face. Eventually as we shift to non-carbon electricity generation it’s the ideal transportation.

          10. Zerohedge and Breitbart

            I neither read nor regularly post from Breitbart. I’m also not the only one that reads or posts from Zerohedge, which often has news and analyses that MSM will not touch.

          11. “…because it allows some of the electricity to be achieved with renewables…”

            More expensive is better?

            I see…

          12. Not until they try to scale rendwables up as a substitute for fossil fuel generation and the subsidy training wheels come off will the true cost of renewables be discovered.

          13. “More expensive is better?”

            Did you explain to your wife that while cubic zirconia does indeed have a much lower refractive index than a real diamond, your ring is really about the symbolic commitment of your love rather than the reflective shine?

          14. Professor, you of all people should know and appreciate negative externalities and uncaptured costs inherent in fossil fuel. A good primer for what happens when low prices can lead to detrimental behavior I recommend “The High Cost of Free Parking.”

            By the way, renewables are the lowest form of new energy being brought online in almost all instances. This whole idea of “virtue signaling” or “sanctimonious EV” driver will be put to rest very shortly as EVs are almost at cost parity when viewing the “true cost to own” metric.

          15. I’m also quite familiar with the evil coalition of environmental extremists and Democrat politicians who promote harebrained ideas like the Green New Deal through propaganda campaigns.

          16. environmental extremists

            I had to suffer through one of these as a commencement speaker two years ago. He ranted about Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement. I jokingly texted my husband in the stands: micro-aggression.

          17. better because it allows some of the electricity to be achieved with renewables,

            There isn’t any such thing as renewable energy, unless you’re advocating hydro which I’m pretty sure you’re not. Solar and wind waste more power than they deliver, and they pull demand forward by decades. They would not exist except in special circumstances without massive debt and subsidy. There is a reason they aren’t used to reproduce themselves.

            The “Dilution is the solution to pollution” argument to justify making more pollution somewhere else is BS.

          18. “Dilution is the solution to pollution”

            Variation: “the solution to pollution is dilution.” It was one of my mom’s favorite sayings alongside “if in doubt, throw it out.” I miss her.

          19. “They would not exist except in special circumstances without massive debt and subsidy.”

            Those subsidies seriously cloud the comparison between traditional energy production systems and New Age green technologies. You could even make ditch digging look like a profitable energy production activity, if you subsidized it sufficiently and waged an all-out propaganda campaign.

          20. “Did you explain to your wife that while cubic zirconia does indeed have a much lower refractive index than a real diamond,…”

            We went for the real diamonds…in both of our rings.

          22. FWIW, I also responded to your Hank was long Treasury’s in thread: housingbubble.blog/?p=1843

          23. The Wall Street Journal
            Opinion Review & Outlook
            State AGs’ Climate Cover-up
            What’s behind third-party funding of liberal state attorneys general?
            By The Editorial Board
            June 7, 2019 6:10 p.m. ET

            Voters are spurning alarmist climate agendas at the ballot box, so U.S. progressives have turned to state attorneys general to litigate against fossil fuels. But the plan is backfiring as an ethically dubious program involving private-interest funding of state AG staff is being confronted in court.
            …

          25. Heartland institute is not a neutral arbiter of the science. Look up who supports the Heartland institute and the scandals they have been involved in.

          26. Be that as it may. If their point were wrong, we’d see EVs taking the world by storm, sans propaganda, sans Obama subsidies.

          27. If their point were wrong, we’d see EVs taking the world by storm, sans propaganda, sans Obama subsidies.

            It’s early days still. But the data is showing a huge uptick in EV sales over the past couple of years and this is coinciding with a decline auto sales market in the US. At some. EVs have only 2% of new auto sales in US and 4% in China. But if the S-curve takes hold, watch out. The trend is increasing EVs sales and decreasing gas car sales in the US. At some point a drop in the bucket becomes more consequential since these trends are moving in opposite directions.

            https://insideevs.com/news/352626/ev-sales-scorecard-may-2019/

          28. But if the S-curve takes hold, watch out.

            There you go.

            If the top commie in China says you’re all going to drive golf carts, then you’re all going to drive golf carts.

      1. BTW, did you notice that is a GM vehicle? Yes, close down a Ohio plant which makes the Chevy Cruze, (I own one and like it), and import these things. Trump has messed that up with his tariffs.

    3. Dan, you are a big bull on oil. But it seems to me that the higher oil prices go, the more EVs make financial sense. The article you linked to even touts the EV vs gas-car parity which should be reached sometime around 2025 because Lithium-ion batteries costs are going down by about 20% per year.

      Low interest rates tend to help EVs because they make the financing cost much easier and the payback of the higher upfront cost less dramatic. But if oil prices fall either due to lower demand, that would either imply we are heading for a recession or it may cause a recession since so much employment in the US is tied to oil.

      In the same way that CARB pretty much dictates auto manufacturing for US auto makers by the sheer size of it’s market, China with its mandate for EVs will end up dragging all western automakers kicking and screaming toward fully EV adoption.

      1. Im going to keep enjoying my low gas prices, made more affordable by the slackening of demand due to EV boosters who claim the oil era is over and gasoline-powered vehicles are obsolete.

        1. You’re welcome.

          Incidentally, a shift towards EV cars probably won’t have nearly the impact on oil consumption as the electrification of buses will. Buses consume so much diesel and fuel in the US and account for a good chunk of demand. So any municipality that switches out buses has a much larger effect on reducing oil final demand. The same would be said if we get to electric semis or city fleet trucks. Proterra buses will make more of a dent in the oil demand equation than Tesla will.

          1. That’s awesome. Someone else can enjoy the sanctimonious pleasure of an EV bus ride to work, and I’ll enjoy the cheaper gasoline. Sounds like a win-win.

      2. Do EVs pencil out as an investment compared to gasoline-powered, given the steep cost of battery replacement?

          2. “…crowdsourced…”

            What kind of commentators does a crowdsourced conversation about Tesla batteries attract?

          4. Teslarati. I’m sure they’re objective.

            If you know of any other source that is collecting data from hundreds of actual Tesla users regarding their battery performance over time, by all means point us in that direction.

            Here is the source of the data:

            “An online spreadsheet created by Matteo and maintained by Merijn Coumans via the Dutch-Belgium Tesla Forum tracks battery degradation being experienced by roughly 900 Tesla drivers from around the world. Using a linear progression model, the spreadsheet compiles various data points to create a trend line that suggests remaining battery capacity for a Tesla Model S and Model X over its lifetime.”

            The upshot:

            “The trend line seen in the chart has a slope of 60,000 km (40,000 miles) per 1 percent of 50,000 km (30,000 miles), meaning that on average the battery will degrade by 1 percent every 50,000 km driven. According to Maarten Steinbuch’s blog post, a Tesla Model S or Model X will still retain 92% of its battery capacity at 240,000 km (150,00 miles). By comparison, an internal combustion engine vehicle is expected to reach its end of life at around 220,000 km (140,000 miles).”

            tl;dr A reasonable estimate is that a Tesla is expected to last about 2x the amount of car on the road to day. A full battery replacement should be about $4k to $7k when that time comes (if it every comes).

          5. I’m just a tiny bit familiar with tech involved.

            It’s fair to say that Battery management on a Tesla or similar EV is an order of magnitude more involved than the battery in your laptop, or other consumer device. Spending a 1-2 grand on controller electronics and thermal management makes since when we’re talking cars though.

      3. China with its mandate

        China really blew it on the “renewable energy” scheme. They built capacity to make solar cells as if the whole world was going to buy up as much as they could produce. They did this just as the solar mania was rolling over.

        It is unlikely that they will fare better with electric cars, but let them knock themselves out.

        1. China’s low cost of solar production coupled with tax subsidies for installation was one of the reasons why rooftop solar had such a big boom in the past decade in the US. DJT tariffs on solar panels to ostensibly protect solar manufacturing but it has really hurt the US solar industry.

          US has more clean energy jobs than fossil fuel jobs now. But when you placate to W. Virginia coal miners you might end up doing something that hurts US as a whole.

      4. I agree that we need to find another way to fuel autos due to a shortage of oil. However, it does not necessarily follow that EV cars are the only solution. They will be where electricity is cheap and more importantly government subsidies are high enough. However, India which cannot afford the EV subsidies has gone down the NG path with CNG vehicles. China has gone down that path with trucks by adopted LNG vehicles. The major problem I seen with EV vehicles is that lithium ion vehicles use materials which cause horrible pollution and one cobalt is even more rare than oil. Thus, I do not see how you substitute EV vehicles for gasoline vehicles. When we come up with better batteries, I will jump on the EV bandwagon. I just think Elon Musk has been too great a salesman for lithium-ion batteries, I think it is a dead end technology.

        1. Bloomberg launched his “Beyond Carbon” campaign a few days ago. EV enthusiasts have had an uneasy truce with LNG/CNG vehicles because the emissions are way lower compared with gas and especially diesel. The thought is that LNG is an ally because it is a step towards full decarbonization. But now many EV enthusiasts are turning against LNG because they see that as a false solution. I tend to agree with this.

          As for battery technology, Tesla just acquired Maxwell and the rumor is that the Model S refresh is going to have over 400 mile range on current battery technology. My model 3 has 310 mile range and now with the new V3 superchargers it can charge from 0 to 80% in 9 minutes. So the current battery tech with fast chargers is already more than sufficient. We have come a long way from 87 mile range Leafs.

          “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” – William Gibson

          1. I tend to trust what people are doing much more than what they are saying. India has examined both EVs and where it believes both oil and NG are going in terms of price. It has decided that spending a lot of money on NG infrastructure makes the most economic sense. And remember that is despite the fact that India must import its NG as LNG which means prices triple what they are in the U.S.:
            https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/road-to-future-tata-motors-to-roll-out-cng-cars-in-fy21-gradually-reduce-its-dependence-on-diesel-vehicles/1598147/

          2. And yet India just required Ola and Uber to have 40% of their fleet electrified by 2026…

        2. “I agree that we need to find another way to fuel autos due to a shortage of oil.”

          There is no shortage of oil. There is a GLUT.

          1. And new reserves are discovered and technologies to exploit them are developed every time scarcity drives up the price sufficiently high to adequately incentivize these activities. This dynamic could continue indefinitely unless left-wing environmental fanatics stop it through costly political strangulation of market forces.

        3. Hey PB & ABQ Dan, while we all go off on tangents at times, it seems like an inordinate number of your posts are related to oil demand & markets, with no clear nexus to housing that I can discern. While you both have valuable and relevant insights to offer, maybe you could reorient on the fact that this is the HBB, not a board for endless arguments about who said what related to oil prices, or how electric cars will impact oil usage.

          To quote a great American, “Cratering.housing.prices” should be the focus here.

          1. I consider housing, oil, stocks, bonds PMs, and currencies as interconnected and collectively distorted and disrupted by the most activist and arrogant central banking establishment in the history of mankind. Gone are the days when money was a veil for the real economic activities which provide opportunity and wealth to society.

            So when I seem to go off topic on oil or bonds, I am describing one of many dimensions of the centrally planned neo-Keynesian economic dystopia our latter-day central bankers have delivered; housing is another dimension of the same command-and-control policy regime.

    5. The more people who use electric cars the cheaper gas gets. What is not to like? Someday I can take my 79 F150 4×4 to go fishing again.

    1. Housing is related to virtually everything. For example how much land has California tied up with solar and wind projects. Some of these projects actually cause more co2 to be released in the atmosphere. Hard to beat nuclear if you really want to reduce carbon emissions:
      https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2019/06/09/the-answer-is-not-blowin-in-the-wind/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NWW-News+%28National+Wind+Watch%3A+News%29

      2. The California government’s extreme restrictions on land development for housing amplify the boom-bust price dynamics, especially when speculators snap up all availability inventory during the boom phase to ride up the gains, and Proposition 13 dessicates liquidity by providing incentives to HODL forever in order to never adjust to a new, higher tax basis.

  10. For nine consecutive months through April, CoreLogic housing stats show countywide sales failing to top the year-ago period. That slump has led to a nine-month period with the smallest number of Orange County home purchases in seven years.”

    Here in the Santa Barbara area (Goleta though Carpinteria), both MoM sales volume and the MoM median selling price of SFHs have flattened since late 2018. But, sales volume and selling prices of condos continue an unabated ascent. Here are my latest data regarding sales of preexisting SFHs and condos on the South Coast:

    Santa Barbara Area Home Sales, May 1–15 (2019)

    An expanding workforce at technology start-ups here is expected to put a solid floor under prices of “lower end” SFHs and condos. At least that’s the theory.

    Barb
    Santa Barbara Bubble
    sbBubble.com

    1. “An expanding workforce at technology start-ups here…”

      We’ll see how long that lasts now that we are in the longest ever post-WWII expansion.

      1. The expansion was so weak under Obama it never created the excesses that usually end an expansion. Just like bull markets do not die from old age, economic expansions do not end due to age, they die due to excesses. Cycles can continue if excesses get corrected during the cycle. We are seeing it in the second quarter, the first quarter had a build up in inventories. We are working off the inventories in the second quarter which reduces the GDP and job growth this quarter. Still job creation in the second quarter will probably exceed Obama’s average of 109,000 jobs per month. This low number is despite the fact that he became president in an almost perfect point in the economic cycle, a large percentage of the job losses of the recession had occurred under Bush. The recession itself ended in the first part of the summer of 2009 prior to any of Obama’s policies coming into effect. Thus, if liberals are going to claim that Bush owns the 2009 budget deficit, he should be given credit for getting us out of the recession. I hate both globalists presidents but it is the reality. If the press was fair it would be asking why the Obama recovery was so weak but it is not, so the question will never be asked. It is good that the housing bubble is being deflated, it makes a recession in 2020 less not more likely.

        1. I hate both globalists presidents

          To wit, Boeing, Obama, A Gold Watch, And 346 Dead

          “According to a report from Bloomberg, Boeing donated $10 million to the Obama presidential library and museum in Chicago. And earlier this year, Obama dropped in to speak to a Boeing leadership retreat at a swank resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Obama gratefully waived his $400,000 speaking fee.”

          “While pushing the sale of Boeing planes around the world, the Obama administration was at the same time fast tracking a dangerous deregulatory process at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that effectively put the corporations in charge of the safety certification process — and that in effect put Boeing in charge of certifying it’s faulty MCAS software that led to the tragedies in Indonesia and Ethiopia.”

        2. “The expansion was so weak under Obama it never created the excesses that usually end an expansion.”

          LMAO. You live in a fantasy, man.

          1. At least his posts are a source of entertainment and fascination…much like his idol Trump’s tweets.

    1. “The diseases have flared as the nation’s homeless population has grown in the past two years: About 553,000 people were homeless at the end of 2018, and nearly one-quarter of homeless people live in California.

      The diseases spread quickly and widely among people living outside or in shelters, helped along by sidewalks contaminated with human feces, crowded living conditions, weakened immune systems, and limited access to health care.”

      This during the longest US postWWII economic boom. Makes one shudder to contemplate how the homeless situation will evolve in the next recession.

      1. I remember a similar health crisis with Linda Vester reporting on the Hutu refugee crisis in Goma, Zaire.

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