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The Fed’s Liquidity Dump Lit The Fire

A report from the Wall Street Journal. “More than a decade after home loans triggered the worst financial crisis in a generation, the strict lending requirements put in place during its aftermath are starting to erode. Home buyers with low credit scores or high debt levels as well as those lacking traditional employment are finding it easier to get credit.”

“Home buyers who don’t have pay stubs because, for instance, they are self-employed, have been gravitating to lenders that will accept bank statements to verify income. At first, these lenders asked applicants to submit years of statements. Now, some require just a few months. Citadel Servicing Corp. offers a mortgage that requires just one month of bank statements.”

From Aaron Layman. “During the last 10 years the Fed poured trillions of dollars into the economy to reflate asset prices, and a great deal of that liquidity went into the real estate sector. This a big reason for why we have so few affordable homes, and why many millennials are now priced out of the market as home price inflation has greatly exceeded wage growth.”

“Real estate agents generally don’t talk about this market dynamic. The Texas A&M Real Estate Center, funded by real estate licensing dues and renewals, spends a great deal of time writing and researching the intricacies of the Texas economy and housing market fundamentals, yet they miraculously leave the Federal Reserve out of the conversation in their research.”

“The center has a rich history, but in recent years the Real Estate Center at A&M has often looked like an extension of the Federal Reserve research, which offers copious amounts of data with little insight. I have an idea about why this is the case. If you scroll down to Page 27 of the Real Estate Center’s history, you will find a note about the ‘new era of REC-FED cooperation,’ which began back in 2012 with the arrival of one Dr. Luis Torres.”

“It makes sense that following the Great Recession, the Fed was looking to use its army of economists to preach the gospel of trickle-down monetary prosperity. The Federal Reserve needed cover for their massive quantitative easing experiment, and what better way to spread the news than to have economists cutting their teeth at the Federal Reserve and then branching out into other firms and agencies to spread the message of economic growth.”

“It’s surprising you never hear the Ph.D. economists at A&M’s center mention how the Fed blew a new bubble in Dallas-area home prices with trillions of dollars in new liquidity injected into the markets. You never see charts in Real Estate Center research pieces showing how the Fed’s liquidity dump lit the fire for the Dallas-Fort Worth economic boom following the Great Recession.”

“The Fed’s army of economists have a history of really bad forecasting and myopic thinking. In the Federal Reserve’s distorted view, Main Street America has the same access to super cheap capital as GE or Goldman Sachs. This is of course lunacy, but it’s how the Fed operates. The Fed’s flawed economic models and assumptions are not just bad; they are dangerous.”

“If you need an example, here’s Exhibit A: ‘We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited, and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.’ — Ben Bernanke, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, May 2007.”

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  1. ‘Home buyers with low credit scores or high debt levels as well as those lacking traditional employment are finding it easier to get credit’

    This has been going on for years. Are you an illegal alien? No problem since 2015! I’ve documented recently zero down, no-doc lending. Why did FHA go bonkers in 2014? All the GSE’s have been cutting standards since 2014.

    Subprime didn’t create the mania. It’s a sign they are running out of borrowers.

    1. But if you were legal, had great credit or no debt, but any “irregularity” like 1099 income, it’s been a super pain in the ass to get a proper mortgage. Ask me how I know first hand…

      Funny, as if there were incentives to give loans to the worst borrowers as opposed to the better ones…

      1. “Funny, as if there were incentives to give loans to the worst borrowers as opposed to the better ones…”

        Perhaps the better borrowers have the sense to not borrow.

        The highest prices paid at the top of market manias are paid by the dumbest of the dumb buyers. These dumbest of the dumb buyers are those who are flat-assed broke. They are flat-assed broke because, well, because they are dumb.

        1. The incentive to loan money to dumb-assed buyers is to keep prices elevated and rising. Prices that are elevated and rising in our dumb-assed economy is interpreted as wealth and wealth creation.

        2. Perhaps the better borrowers have the sense to not borrow.

          I think you are onto something here. Adverse selection.

          “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” – Groucho Marx

      2. “But if you were legal, had great credit or no debt, but any “irregularity” like 1099 income, it’s been a super pain in the ass to get a proper mortgage. Ask me how I know first hand…”

        Sorry Spiff, but this is completely untrue. You were just having a difficult time because you wanted the best rate, etc. There is no problem whatsoever getting a mortgage. It’s like buying a car. If you want that 0% auto loan, you better meet the most stringent requirements, but if you’re will to settle for a usurious rate, etc., they won’t even do a credit check and will give you the car that day.

        3. True that I was after the best rate. I mean what good is an 820 credit score, no debt and household income cracking the 99th percentile if you can’t get that?

          But I will say that 1099 income is treated worse by underwriting than W2 income, even when the details are much better. By better as in many years proven track record with Tax returns, etc. and contract(s) with fortune 50 companies for years of work in the future. That seems to count for much less in their eyes than working at starbucks, or as a clerk at Fry’s Electronics (which I discovered is going out of business today as I tried to find a replacement for my main UPS which died today).

          but it is what it is. And what it is that lenders have a template, and you gotta fit all the square pegs in the square holes or no go.

    2. “Why did FHA go bonkers in 2014?”

      Just like you said, the market had run out of buyers and was falling fast all that year. Then suddenly the ‘push button, get mortgage’ billboards appeared and the open houses were full again.

      As a side note, it wasn’t until after 2014 and the lowered standards that prices hit then blew past their previous bubble peak. 2011-2014 saw some stupid gains (things that were foreclosed in 2011 went up 50% by 2012), but that was a few knife catchers getting temporarily lucky amidst the global liquidity tsunami, and they were well on their way to getting wiped out by mid-2014. The really really crazy part of the rebubble, where prices were twice what they were at the last peak in 06, was after 2014.

      And post-2014 ensnared way more people than 2011-14, and more “normal” people who just wanted to buy a home vs. the speculators of 2011-14, and those “normal” people paid a much higher price than even the last bubble buyers. All because of those lowered lending standards.

      1. Why did FHA go bonkers in 2014?
        Thanks, Obama!

        Think of how much better the situation would be if the housing bubble would have peaked in 2014, rather than 2019….but then Obama would’ve been blamed, and Hillary wouldn’t have been thought as as a lock….

        (Bipartisan note: the same is true of Bubble 1.0: it would’ve been much better if it had peaked in 2003, instead of 2005. The bipartisan part includes the President and Congress (especially Democrats who didn’t want to reign in Fannie Mae & co)).

  2. ‘in recent years the Real Estate Center at A&M has often looked like an extension of the Federal Reserve research, which offers copious amounts of data with little insight. I have an idea about why this is the case. If you scroll down to Page 27 of the Real Estate Center’s history, you will find a note about the ‘new era of REC-FED cooperation,’ which began back in 2012’

    Surprise, surprise!

    1. Economists with Fed supported research can’t provide objective criticism, without risk of losing their grant funds.

    1. I saw that. Last week somebody said, “this might be the most valuable piece of real estate in the US.”

      1. Linked to Herbalife. That is about all I need to know. One of the largest MLM scams ever, and I’ve seen quite a few. I’m still a bit sad that Carl Ichan beat Bill Ackman in the short game on Herbalife.

          1. Exactly. MLM scam central. But the entire GOP is crawling with MLM beneficiaries that prey on the weak and broke. Herbalife and Amway are still much bigger than any Utah company. And Betsy DeVos and her ilk are now in positions of power in the government.

            I highly recommend “The Dream” podcast for understanding the entire history of the MLM industry.

            https://slate.com/business/2015/10/trump-carson-bush-all-benefited-from-multilevel-marketing-schemes.html

    2. It’s just a bit of song and dance. The original private lender bought it back and will probably just write off the $200M owed.

      That property was part of the original Hughes estate and, IIRC, the lender here. According to the LAT they expect to sell it for $400M or so. Holy mark-to-market, Batman!

      I’ve been at that defunct fountain at the Pomona courthouse recently during a jury summons. It’s a sad reminder of the decline of SoCal civic pride.

  7. “In the Federal Reserve’s distorted view, Main Street America has the same access to super cheap capital as GE or Goldman Sachs. This is of course lunacy, but it’s how the Fed operates. The Fed’s flawed economic models and assumptions are not just bad; they are dangerous.”

    – Insiders got first access to cheap credit from the Fed, not Main St.

    – “It’s deja by all over again” since the Fed is a one trick pony. Loans are now through non-banks, but still backed by the GSEs.

    – Subprime is back. Cash-out refi’s are back.

    – Existing home sales up slightly YoY (<1%) due to ultra-low rates again. Very small bounce. I expect downtrend to resume shortly, as shelter-buyer still priced out and tapped out (credit saturation), and speculators exiting.

    – Can-kicking still in play, but rapidly running out of runway…

    1. The WSJ says these “new” subprime loans aren’t backed by the government. that is a lie:

      May 25, 2018

      “In his corner of American finance, where hard selling meets hard luck, Angelo Christian is a star. Each time Christian sells a home loan, the company he works for, American Financial Network Inc., takes as much as 5 percent. Many of Christian’s customers have no savings, poor credit, or low income—sometimes all three. Some are like Joseph Taylor, a corrections officer who saw Christian’s roadside billboard touting zero-down mortgages. Taylor had recently filed for bankruptcy because of his $25,000 in credit card debt. But he just bought his first home for $120,000 with a zero-down loan from Christian’s company. Monthly debt payments now eat up half his take-home pay. ‘If he can help me, he can help anyone,’ Taylor says. ‘My credit history was just horrible.’”

      “Christian can do this kind of deal because he is, in effect, making the loan on behalf of the federal government through its most important affordable housing program. It’s a sweet deal: He gets his nearly risk-free commission. Taylor puts no money down. If things go south, the government ultimately bears the risk. Many borrowers ‘are living paycheck to paycheck and, if they lose their jobs, they go into default immediately,’ says John Burns, a housing consultant.”

      http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=10443

      1. Subprime fueled by moral hazard. Moral hazard fueled by other people’s money. MBS sold off to investors, taxpayer ultimately on the hook. How is it different this time? It’s almost as if the CFPB and Senator Running Deer intentionally looked the other way to reflate the housing bubble or something… Inconceivable!

        Fox meet henhouse.

      2. “Taylor had recently filed for bankruptcy because of his $25,000 in credit card debt.”

        Another consumer piece of schitt!

  8. “Citadel $ervicing Corp. offers a mortgage that requires just one month of bank statement$.”

    +

    “Lower the Fed.Fund$ rate$ NOw!, damn.it.all!”: dtRumpsis, Kudlow, Mnuchin, Ha$$ett, Navarro, $helton, & Ro$$ LLC.

    Go dog, GO! By P.D. Eastman

      1. Or like they did to me 10 years ago just upped my credit limit on 2 credit cards without asking if i needed or wanted it.

        1. oddly i recently had one of my AMEX cards that had a 33k limit go down to 9k automatically. It used to be a costco card and i never had a balance above $10 on it (my monthly gym membership has been tied to this card forever). I was shocked to see the limit decrease especially since all my other cards are paid off every month and my credit score is 750+. mabye AMEX is prepping for the recession…

          1. AMEX just closed my CC with a available credit of 14k due to inactivity. The account has been open for 14 years and they have steady increased by limit over the last ten years. I have a 790 credit score. I was thinking that liquidity must be tighten.

          2. My MIL had two credit cards that were cancelled in the past two months due to “inactivity” and some supposed information from a credit bureau (can’t think of anything that would trigger the cancellation of a card).

            My credit cards have seen their limits come down, too, even though we don’t owe any money on them and have 800+ credit scores. They certainly appear to be preparing for something.

            Also, many credit cards are not eliminating many of the benefits that were once standard, like rental car insurance, extended return policy, etc. I’ve seen this with at least a few cards recently, so am wondering what is up with that recent trend, as well.

    2. Americans are more in debt than ever — experts say ‘money disorders’ may be to blame
      Published Fri, Aug 16 2019 1:19 PM EDT
      Updated Mon, Aug 19 2019 10:12 AM EDT
      Kate Sprague
      Robert Exley Jr.
      ‘Money disorders’ may be ruining your budget

      The average American has $38,000 in debt — a quarter of which comes directly from credit card charges. In December 2018, consumer debt overall hit a record high $4 trillion.

      Experts say a significant amount of this debt can be explained by what they call “money disorders.”

      Brad Klontz, author of “Mind Over Money” and co-founder of the Financial Psychology Institute, says that money disorders is an umbrella term for recurring and self-defeating issues that people have with money.

      According to Klontz, money disorders are often the result of underlying psychological issues like anxiety, depression or trauma. He says that treatment requires that people think about their behaviors and feelings toward money.

      Klontz finds that most disorders fall into three broad categories: Money avoidance, money worshipping and relational money disorders. Each category can be broken into more specific disorders like overspending, workaholism and pathological gambling.
      …

      1. interesting article. I’d add shopping addiction, gambling addiction and low self esteem spending to “keep up with the Joneses” (no offense Ben)

        1. or how do you get to be 600lbs and realize you are dying, yet be totally oblivious to the problem at 300lbs?

        2. “keep up with the Joneses” (no offense Ben)

          I don’t think anyone can keep up with the Ben Jonses when it comes to housing bubble data. The man is a voracious consumer of it all!

      2. Experts say a significant amount of this debt can be explained by what they call “money disorders.”

        Now that it’s classified as a disorder they can be forgiven.

    3. “Fake #’$” ! … Uh oh, another negative (-) “revi$ion”:

      U.$. created 501,000 fewer job$ as of March 2019 than previous reported

      MarketWatch | Jeffry Bartash |Published: Aug 21, 2019

      WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – The U.S. economy had about 500,000 fewer jobs in March 2019 than previously reported, government revisions show, suggesting that hiring was not as strong in the past year as it seemed. Hiring was weaker in retail, restaurants and hotels. The annual revision is much larger than is typically the case. The preliminary revision in 2018, for example, was just 43,000. Every year the Bureau of Labor $tatistics updates its figures based on unemployment data that nearly all employers are required to file with the states. The current revi$ion is one of the large$t ever.

    4. “God bl$$ America’s debt-$trapped con$umers. We’re saved!

      “Select” debtor$ are more ways than ye can$ imagine!

      Trump promotes claim Jewish Israelis love him like he is ‘King of Israel and second coming of God’

      The Independent |Tom Embury-Dennis |August 21, 2019

      “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world…and the Jewish people in Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel,” Mr Trump tweeted.

    5. Actually it is going to be the US oil industry which is going to save the day. All predictions of an oil glut were premised on oil shale production increasing about 100,000 barrels per day per month for 2019 and almost the same for 2020. Instead we have seen production flat for six months, with the latest weekly report showing a decline of 100,000 barrels per day. The drilled but uncompleted inventory has been worked off. The price has risen enough that combined with the pipeline shipping costs being reduced by new capacity the Permian should explode with new drilling . Lots of related jobs such as steel production will similarly increase.

  10. what the hell is going on? More liquidity is not going to help. Japan has been there for 2 decades and now Germany (strongest in the EU) will follow.

    Christine at the ECB will make things so much worse – who the heck knows
    ——————
    https://www.reuters.com/article/germany-auction/update-1-germany-sells-new-30-year-bond-with-negative-yield-a-first-idUSL5N25H29G

    LONDON/BERLIN Aug 21 (Reuters) – Germany sold 30-year bonds with a negative yield for the first time at an auction on Wednesday, a milestone for a fixed-income market where the entire curve now yields less than zero.

    The euro zone’s benchmark bond issuer sold 824 million euros of the new long-dated bonds against a target of 2 billion euros, with an average yield of -0.11%. The coupon on the bond was set at 0% earlier this week.

    Bond yields across major markets have tumbled this year on worries about weak growth and speculation about central bank easing. Ultra-long-dated bonds have outperformed as investors move into longer and longer-dated maturities to grab a few extra basis points of yield.

    —-
    The European Central Bank is expected to cut interest rates when it meets next month and deliver other easing measures to shore up a flagging economy and boost inflation.

    In Germany, that has pushed the entire yield curve below 0% .

    1. “Germany sold 30-year bonds with a negative yield for the first time at an auction on Wednesday, a milestone for a fixed-income market where the entire curve now yields less than zero.”

      What an amazing statement.

      1. Talk about a war on savers. All to finance never ending deficits. I wonder how long until US mortgage rates approach 0% interest?

          2. Perhaps, Chinbabwe

            I was talking with a friend the other day and how we got through tough times a decade ago came up, and found out that back in the mid-2000s, both of us had good credit and credit cards with 5.99% fixed rates. And then, about the same time, those cards converted to 14-18%+ variable rate cards.

            We noted that those sort of rates have returned to the consumer sector, while the cost of borrowing and the interest paid on savings by banks has plummeted.

            I.e. the spread has increased and is staying that way.

  11. To those here in the major surgery/joint replacement club: Once things had seemed to be settling down, how often and for how long did you experience big flair ups?

    Asking ’cause at 4am I got woke with what has become the worst pain in several weeks. Cant even move my leg 2 inches sitting in a chair or it explodes. I’m curious if this kind of random thing might be common to persist for months.

    ok, back to housing…

    3. I was fortunate enough to only experience severe pain (say 7/10) the first week after each surgery. The following 2-3 weeks it went down, but was still high enough to wake me up about twice a night. After that it was 2-3 for a few weeks. I am talking about pain while at rest.

      I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced flare ups where I regressed severely. That said, recovery wasn’t linear, it was a zig zag, there were (and still are) days when there muscular soreness goes up a little, though the long term trend has been steady improvement.

      Recovery progress can be strange. One of the early exercises was to lay flat on my back and holding my leg straight while raising it to say a 45 degree plus angle. At first it was excruciating, I would have to grit my teeth while I raised my leg. Then suddenly, after a few days, it was easy.

      Then there are the stairs. Transitioning from one step at a time to going up and down normally took about 10 weeks. At first (after 10 weeks) I really held onto the railing as I didn’t trust the surgical leg to not buckle when bending while bearing weight. Then I gained more confidence and the hand was only gliding over the railing (just in case). After about 4 months from the surgery I felt confident enough to not need the railing at all. That said, even after a year, I still experience occasional muscular soreness when climbing stairs.

      I used the icing machine a lot in the first weeks. Once every two hours or so for about 15 minutes. I don’t know objectively how much it helped but the Doc and the PT strongly encouraged its use. I always used it right after PT.

      The machine is basically a cooler with an electric pump. You fill it with ice and water, close the lid, wrap the pad around your knee (no direct skin contact or you’ll get frost bite) and turn it on while you read or watch something on TV.

      1. That said, recovery wasn’t linear, it was a zig zag, there were (and still are) days when there muscular soreness goes up a little, though the long term trend has been steady improvement.

        Yeah. I keep detailed data on my medication, and the overall trend line is there, but as it’s gone towards zero, some serious volatility has emerged in the pain index.

        Then there are the stairs. Transitioning from one step at a time to going up and down normally took about 10 weeks. At first (after 10 weeks) I really held onto the railing as I didn’t trust the surgical leg to not buckle when bending while bearing weight.

        I started trying to go up and down the stairs “normally” around week 4 and can go up that way when not in serious pain. Going down is coming somewhat slower. As for the random buckle, I get that also. So far no falls, but a couple saved only by fast reflexes.

        I should up my ice usage/rate. I need another layer at this point, as the ice pack designed for the knee is too cold – feels like frostbite burn.

    4. i cant speak for you surgery in particular but the surgeries i had done replacing my knee caps and rods put in my legs when i was 19 healed up in about 3 months. If that happened to me now 20 years later i would guess the recovery time would be 2-3x. not that you dont already know this but its good to remind yourself: use your meds, do your recommended exercises and to the limit if you can, eat healthy, keep a positive mindset, surround yourself with happy people, distract yourself with activities when the pain is hard to handle and the meds havent kicked in.

      1. I’m trying. The most unexpected part has been losing almost 20 pounds since the surgery. I’m now actively trying to keep that going.

    5. “…at 4am I got woke with what has become the worst pain…”

      Are you sleeping in a bed or lazy-boy recliner?

      FWIW, the problem with a bed is that it allows you to “roll” to either side, which is not good for a post-op healing appendage or limb.

      1. That was one of the first questions I asked. Both the surgeon and the PT told me that I could sleep in my bed right away. That said, in the beginning (first week) I pretty much slept on my back.

        In fact, I think sleeping in a recliner could be counter productive as your legs would be lower than your head and torso, and would probably swell even more.

        1. Both. I try sleeping in my bed, on my back using pillows to keep me from rolling over. I can get sleep on that way, but If I roll to the left, it cant take the pressure on the side and only takes about 30 seconds to be in noticeable pain. I can roll to the right for a good deal longer.

          Usually I go to sleep around midnight and the pain wakes me up around 4-5am. From there, I’ll take something for it, then sit in my Zero gravity char (Human Touch Perfect Chair) with leg elevated. Sometimes the meds kick in within 20-30 min and I sleep a few hours in the chair, or I just nap it other times. Either way, I can’t easily roll on my side when in it.

          I didn’t mean to derail the thread, but today’s pain was the worst since well before I got off the oxy meds, and by a good margin. I was wanting to know if you guys who also have been through similar procedures had experienced similar volatility.

          I’m going probably get back to work next month, which will give me something to do other than sit around and post online all day, and my posting and whining should drop significantly. 🙂 I was thinking I would kiss the industry goodbye finally after the way things went the last couple years (and get my last laugh as they can’t do anything about the contracts already signed) now that it’s done, but a friend of a friend with a studio in California is apparently serious about hiring me for a few months of remote work on a cool title which would let me continue my rehab and physical therapy and delay likely having to go into an office building and stuck with 9-5 for a bit.

        2. “In fact, I think sleeping in a recliner could be counter productive as your legs would be lower than your head and torso, and would probably swell even more.”

          A firm wedge pillow can be fixed to the portion that lifts the legs such that your feet and knees are higher than your heart. You also discover how much fluid is stored in your legs as frequent urination sets in. The answer to that is compression stockings for the legs or careful uptake of fluids prior to sleeping.

  12. Im glad i dont live there, but we have got to stand up to the ACLU and semi legitimize homeless camps…. there is plenty of vacant land to put them and provide toilets showers and services as long as they dont leave the grounds, or abandoned military bases, there are highway underpasses abandoned train lines . closed mental hospitals like this, The hospital buildings were surrounded by 670 acres of land which consisted of large farm meadows and a forest.

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-residents-tell-elected-officials-to-stop-talking-and-fix-homelessness-crisis

    https://www.abandonedspaces.com/hospital/fairfield-hills-hospital-the-filming-location-of-the-165-million-dollar-movie-sleepers.html

    1. Portland has this …

      “Right 2 Dream Too (known to locals as R2D2) is a homeless encampment in Portland, Oregon incorporated as a nonprofit organization[1] In its beginning, it has setup an unauthorized transient camp on private property in October, 2011 in Old Town Chinatown at Northwest 4th Avenue and West Burnside St near downtown, Portland. It had permission from the property owner, but it was not authorized by the city. The encampment operates under its parent company Right 2 Survive.[2][3][4][5] Its operation erected tents and built a fence without necessary permits and it was assessed fines for doing so.[6] In April 2017, the city agreed to allow its organized transient camp to move to a land owned by the Portland Bureau of Transportation and stay for up to two years.[7] Its camp remained at the original location for over five years before moving to a temporary site in North Portland on N Thunderbird Ave in July 2017.[8]Its lease on this site will expire in April 2019.[9]”

      However there are rules (and some people hate rules) …

      “Code of conduct reads drug and weapon free zone as cited by OPB in February 2016.[10] Full time lodging is given only to members. Membership subject to approval process by existing members. Non-members sleep on the floor and are restricted to 12 hours per 24 hour period, as of June 2017.[11]

      “The camp has a 24-hour security desk at its entrance, which is manned by camp residents. Sleeping bags used by the camp’s populace are laundered weekly.[5][12][needs update]”

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_2_Dream_Too

      2. Dignity Village is another place in Portland where the homeless can go (but it too has rules) …

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Village

        (snip)

        “Continued membership is dependent upon following the community’s rules of behavior, contained in their membership agreement:[13]

        No violence toward yourself or others.
        No illegal substances or alcohol or paraphernalia on the premises or within a one-block radius.
        No stealing.
        Everyone contributes to the upkeep and welfare of the village and works to become a productive member of the community.
        No disruptive behavior of any kind that disturbs the general peace and welfare of the village.
        Membership size varies and is limited by the physical size of the available space at the city yard site. As of January 28, 2016, approximately 60 residents made their home at Dignity Village.”[14]

    2. Downtown Portland is a pain to drive in and park, add in deranged homeless and lefties makes me choose Tigard and other areas to shop in. Spend 650 million to house a few thousand of these nuts, are you kidding me? No thanks, toss them in an empty field with a water source and open pit toilets, surrounded by razor wire and be done with it. We can’t sacrifice the middle class to take care of a bunch of drug and alcohol fiends who are incapable of ever contributing to society.

    3. Maybe there’s something we can do with solar cells, windmills and renewable energy to fix the homeless problem. “Climate science” is Jesus for the Left, you know.

  14. what to believe…

    “For the first time, the annual growth rate in home sales to first-time buyers under performed the single-family housing market, as first-time buyers purchased 4% fewer homes in Q2 2019 than last year, according to Genworth.”

    https://themreport.com/daily-dose/08-21-2019/analyzing-first-time-buyers-in-the-current-housing-market

    or Larry Yun

    “Total existing-home sales completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, rose 2.5% from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.42 million in July. Overall sales are up 0.6% from a year ago”

    https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/existing-home-sales-climb-2-5-in-july

    Someones a lion!

  15. ““The Fed’s army of economists have a history of really bad forecasting and myopic thinking. In the Federal Reserve’s distorted view, Main Street America has the same access to super cheap capital as GE or Goldman Sachs. This is of course lunacy, but it’s how the Fed operates. The Fed’s flawed economic models and assumptions are not just bad; they are dangerous.””

    What clowns.

    2. You think burning down the Amazon jungle won’t have any long term consequences? What could possibly go wrong with that, amitire?

      “Mr Bolsonaro brushed off the latest data, saying it was the “season of the queimada”, when farmers use fire to clear land. “I used to be called Captain Chainsaw. Now I am Nero, setting the Amazon aflame,” he was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.”

      1. I remember when conservatives actually talked about “conserving” the nature, animals, and beauty of this world.

          1. “Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), capitalism (free markets), democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.”

            Democrats today are not this.

      2. $moke everywheres, more, more, more!

        Eye likes it, eye loves, eye want$ more of it!!!

        (they rely on rain? Doesn’t eCONomics 101 suggest it would be far better to employee thousand$ & thousand$ of their unemployed prison worker$ with rakes being mfg. to clean up their rather large forests?)

        The World’s Largest Forest Has Been on Fire for Months

        Bloomberg |By Jake Rudnitsky, Stepan Kravchenko, Hayley Warren and Demetrios Pogkas August 8, 2019

        Many of the fires appear to have been started by people along the region’s logging roads, with cigarette butts the leading culprit. Critics say government inaction allowed the situation to spiral out of control, blaming chronic underfunding and a 2015 decision to set up “zones of control.” Despite their name, these were effectively areas where the government wouldn’t try to control conflagrations.

        Uss has argued that relying on rain to extinguish remote fires is standard practice internationally. This week, he declared a “breakthrough” in fighting the blazes and noted that they didn’t burn down any settlements in his region. Even so, over 900,000 hectares in Krasnoyarsk continue to burn. These unchecked fires are destroying millions of hectares of trees in the world’s largest forest, a critical carbon sink, and could further accelerate global warming.

        President Vladimir Putin sent in the army and even Donald Trump took notice, offering his Russian counterpart U.S. help to battle the blazes. Governor Uss has since reversed his position, and is joining the fight against what Greenpeace Russia says are on track to be the worst Siberian forest fires on record.

        Temperatures in June and July were the hottest ever charted globally, with parts of Siberia where the fires are concentrated reaching 10 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) above the 30-year average from 1981 to 2010. The resulting dry conditions fed fires that torched more than 7 million hectares (17 million acres) of Siberian wilderness in just two months. Since the beginning of the year, fires have consumed more than 13 million hectares—an area larger than Greece.

        1. “Temperatures in June and July were the hottest ever charted globally”

          Not in Jupiter Fl. or Greenwich Connecticut.

          Must have just been everywhere else.

          1. This hottest ever is such BS. It may have been the hottest in a data set from the 1880s. However, in the last interglacial the world was 2 degrees Celsius hotter than we are right now. An inconvenient truth, which is often ignored is for a interglacial period which happens around every hundred thousand years we are quite cool.

          2. In Old Greenwich Ct. 1977 we were frying eggs on metal grates in the black top for 2 weeks in July. Summer of Sam NYC Blackout and riots senior year double session football for me (have you ever had full body cramps, I have. They didn’t give you water during practice back then, it was bad for some reason. Somebody finally figured out why 20 football players a year were dying)

            I won’t even go in to April 1991 in SE Region IV

            Heat wave: Here are the 10 hottest days in New York City history

            Posted Jul 21, 2019

            While the heat wave this weekend has had some Staten Islanders begging for a reprieve, just remember, it could be worse: Forty-two years ago today, on July 21, 1977, it was 104!

            Here are the 10 hottest days in New York City history, according to the National Weather Service.

            1. July 9, 1936 — 106 degrees

            2. July 22, 2011 — 104 degrees

            (tied) July 21, 1977 — 104 degrees

            (tied) Aug. 7, 1918 — 104 degrees

            5. July 6, 2010 — 103 degrees

            (tied) Aug. 9, 2010 — 103 degrees

            (tied) July 3, 1966 — 103 degrees

            (tied) Aug. 26, 1948 — 103 degrees

            9. July 15, 1995 — 102 degrees

            (tied) July 10, 1993 — 102 degrees

            https://www.silive.com/news/2019/07/heat-wave-here-are-the-10-hottest-days-in-new-york-city-history.html

      3. “You think burning down the Amazon jungle won’t have any long term consequences?”

        Nothing in either video about Amazon jungle.

        The CNN video is about a 16 year old girl named Greta Thunberg sailing across the Atlantic on a zero-emissions yacht with 6 people who are all flying back to Germany from New York when the stunt is over.

        Paul Joseph Watson talks about that, he also mentions how Prince Harry and his wife talk about a climate emergency and will only have 2 kids to save the planet and then take 4 Private jet trips in 11 days.

        Do as I say not as I do.

        1. The bigger question is, do you care about the planet and the environment? If so, what are you doing?

          4. I would have thought the one where she was wearing the chador or the burka or whatever you call it would have been the one that got her kicked off youtube.

  18. offers copious amounts of data with little insight

    Data without insight is a bad combination. It takes critical thinking to transform one’s information into knowledge and then even more time and pondering (and experience) to evolve it into wisdom.

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