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Signs That Sellers Are More Willing To Capitulate To Market Conditions

A report from Bisnow on California. “While 2019 represents a bounceback year for housing completions in San Francisco, this year’s number of groundbreakings tells a much different story. Through the first three quarters, construction starts on market-rate multifamily units are down 62% to 1,281 from 3,406 at the same point in 2018, according to CoStar. CoStar’s data excludes student and senior housing. Construction costs in San Francisco (and all around the Bay Area) have soared throughout much of the decade, but only more recently has residential rent growth not kept up.”

“In September, San Francisco one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments saw 2.7% and 1% decreases in year-over-year rents, respectively, according to Zumper. ‘Anything that’s not in an A+ location or doesn’t have long-term, patient capital is going to struggle,’ said Strada Investment Group Vice President William Goodman.”

“Developer Build Inc. received approval for its One Oak project at 1500-1540 Market St. in 2017, but the company doesn’t know when it will break ground on the 40-story, 304-unit development, Build partner Lou Vasquez told Bisnow. ‘It’s been heavy sledding, and with costs where they are it’s difficult to make the deal pencil,’ Vasquez said. ‘We’ve been out looking for equity partners, but there’s not enough.'”

“‘None of the developers I know are quite able to get things to pencil nowadays,’ Emerald Fund Chairman Oz Erickson said. As of earlier this year, San Francisco had 9,717 net units under construction, according to the city’s pipeline report.”

From 10 News San Diego in California. “On any given night, amid the bright lights of the downtown skyline, are the not-so-bright, 41-story towers of the Harbor Club condominiums. Aaron Howe lives two blocks away. ‘Just kind of empty and lonely. You see a few lights, but it’s mostly dark,’ said Howe.”

“Sources tells 10News, at various times in the past decade, as many as half the units have been vacant, meaning they are not a primary residence. It is sights like those dark units prevalent across the downtown area that have drawn the scrutiny of County Board Supervisor Nathan Fletcher.”

“‘I’m concerned that you have foreign wealth funds buying floors that are never occupied. I’m concerned you have people making investments in their fourth, fifth and sixth homes. To tackle the housing crisis, you can’t just build something you call housing. It has to be something that actually houses people,’ said Fletcher.”

From Bisnow on New York. “In some bad news for multifamily owners, New York City’s high residential rents are showing signs of slowing. The rental market had benefited from people steering clear of the sales market amid high prices and political uncertainty over the last six to nine months, Miller Samuel President Jonathan Miller said — but that is starting to change. ‘Not only are we seeing this influence of much lower mortgage rates over the last year, but we are also seeing signs that sellers are more willing to capitulate to market conditions,’ he said.”

From Newsday on New York. “The oceanfront Sagaponack home of fashion designer Elie Tahari is being relisted for $39 million, a price reduction of $5 million. Originally listed three years ago, the house was taken off the market and rented, says Keith Green of Sotheby’s International Realty, who is listing the property with Ann Ciardullo. The three-bedroom, three-bathroom home includes a master suite with views of the Atlantic Ocean, a deck leading to the beach, a room-sized shower, an oversized tub, an office with an 85-inch television and balcony overlooking the great room.”

“Annual property taxes are $55,455.”

Fromm Click Orlando in Florida. “The city of Oviedo is the most expensive place to rent a home in Central Florida, according to RentCafe. ‘A lot of people want to move to Oviedo and there simply are not enough units here for people to live in,’ said Oviedo Mayor-elect Megan Sladek.”

“Sladek said demand is high and supply is low. Only a couple hundred apartments near the Oviedo mall are yet to be developed but no other housing is in the works. Sladek campaigned on anti-growth and promised not to approve any new residential projects seeking to change the comprehensive plan.”

“‘I think continuing to build would not be in the best interests of the people who are already here,’ Sladek said. ‘We need to protect the quality of life that those residents who have made this their home already, and honor the property rights of those who already have rights around town. But to start changing property rights to increase residential density and a lot more multi-family, that would really mess with the vibe here in Oviedo.'”

“Long-time Seminole County realtor Kim Coburn added that Oviedo can also command high rental rates because housing — apartments, condos and houses — are new and luxurious. Coburn said Central Florida’s rental market is also hot because so many homes are under construction and families need a place to stay until their home is completed.”

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This Post Has 114 Comments

  1. ‘We need to protect the quality of life that those residents who have made this their home already, and honor the property rights of those who already have rights around town’

    2. It’s the housing “have’s” vs. the “have-nots”. The constituency that is protected are those that have already purchased. This is why I view homeowners as a sort of self-interested cartel designed discourage competition and new supply as it would imperil the value of their most important asset.

      2. “I view homeowners as a sort of self-interested cartel designed discourage competition and new supply as it would imperil the value of their most important asset.”

        Such an interesting view!

        1. When it’s someone else’s name on the mortgage, “It’s market forces,” or “Better suck it up!” However, when it’s your John Handcock on that mortgage the tune changes to, “They better do something,” or “I’m a Veteran,” etc., or something similar.

      3. The Fed should have stayed neutral on the wealth allocation between housing market haves and have-nots during the post-2009 period.
        Instead they favored old, wealthy homeowners over young, poor renters.

        My impression is that wealth redistribution lies outside of the scope of the Fed’s mandate. Judging by their actions, they disagree.

  2. Construction costs in San Francisco (and all around the Bay Area) have soared throughout much of the decade, but only more recently has residential rent growth not kept up’

    Rents are falling.

    ‘In September, San Francisco one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments saw 2.7% and 1% decreases in year-over-year rents, respectively’

    This is an industry website and they do some OK reporting. But they can’t let go of the shortage, “Oh poor me I’m so beset with Richy Rich type problems!”

    ‘Anything that’s not in an A+ location or doesn’t have long-term, patient capital is going to struggle…It’s been heavy sledding, and with costs where they are it’s difficult to make the deal pencil…We’ve been out looking for equity partners, but there’s not enough…None of the developers I know are quite able to get things to pencil nowadays’

    First of all bay aryan developers:

    yep yep yep yep yep um um um um get a job

    Second, it’s probably been a couple of years since the Chronicle quoted a Related guy saying every single residential project in downtown SF had been put up for sale. That bubble popped long ago.

      1. Low end, high end is a distinction without a difference. It’s all inventory and it all depreciates…… and now prices are plunging.

        Fremont, CA Housing Prices Crater 10% YOY As Bay Area Rental Rates Tank On Ballooning Housing Inventory

        https://www.zillow.com/fremont-ca-94538/home-values/

        …. and don’t forget to select price from dropdown menu on first chart

  3. ‘On any given night, amid the bright lights of the downtown skyline, are the not-so-bright, 41-story towers of the Harbor Club condominiums. Aaron Howe lives two blocks away. ‘Just kind of empty and lonely. You see a few lights, but it’s mostly dark’ Sources tells 10News, at various times in the past decade, as many as half the units have been vacant’

    That’s some shortage there San Diego.

    1. My husband and I drove through Del Mar Heights/Carmel Valley the other day and were amazed at how high density it’s become in the last six years since we moved. Yikes! I can’t wait for my 1+ acre lot!!

      1. Temecula used to have some elbow room, but these days even the driveways are so short that the trunk extends into the sidewalk.

          2. skydiving turf

            That’s right! My 9th grade English teacher was a skydiver. IIRC, she was married to an instructor.

      2. Yea they fought and fought the density but lost. The State housing policies are making it so cities have to build tons of high density housing to stay compliant. Or just flip the bird like Encinitas and continue to pay millions in fines to keep the status quo.

  4. “ I’m concerned you have people making investments in their fourth, fifth and sixth homes.“

    I was in the jacuzzi chatting with a Chinese resident last year. She said her friend had bought 22 residential homes in Southern California as investments.

  5. This seems to sum up the problem well to me:

    “To tackle the housing crisis, you can’t just build something you call housing. It has to be something that actually houses people,’ said Fletcher.””

    The question is, how do you actually do this? A vacancy tax? A foreign owner buyer tax? A register of beneficial owners so as to track which individuals/LLCs are turning housing into a commodity?

    1. Shut down the GSEs and let banks fail so their non performing assets have to be liquidated….voila, just like magic, affordable housing. Not like this is going to happen. Also the majority of the land in the western half of the country is owned by government agencies and cannot be developed. In some states as much as 80-90% of the land is government owned. The federal government owns 640 million acres of land, 28% of the total land area of the country. This does not include land owned by state governments for state parks etc.

        1. “Personally, I’d love to see the US population start decreasing. But that probably won’t happen either.”

          Do the gen-z or millennials exhibit Animal Instincts?

        2. Oh, it’s gonna happen. There will be another plague that will wipe out 50% of humans, I’d bet on it.

          1. There will be another plague that will wipe out 50% of humans, I’d bet on it.

            It’s a shame that stupidity and buying things(houses) you can’t afford isn’t fatal…

          2. It’s a shame that stupidity and buying things(houses) you can’t afford isn’t fatal…

            It’s still too early to say that for sure.

      3. Shut down the GSEs and let banks fail so their non performing assets have to be liquidated….voila, just like magic, affordable housing.

        I agree with shutting them down in a controlled way, but politically this is a non-starter. But even just reforming the GSEs to eliminate cash-out refis, mortgages for 2nd homes/vacation homes, reduce lending amount to 2x-3x median income in an area would go a long way to rectifying the problem. I think that if one were able to wave a magic wand and eliminate the GSEs, I think the result would be a lot more renters and a lot more housing built for the high end. I don’t think housing would become more affordable unless foreign capital is addressed, NIMBYism, and local zoning requirements and other fees that make it costly/prohibitive to build.

      4. “non performing assets have to be liquidated”

        At which point the houses will be snapped up and either rented or flipped. This is what happened in 2009. Yes, house prices will drop, but not enough to turn a $500K house into a $200K house. Possibly $400K, but more likely, that $500K house will be bought in bulk for $350K cash in a non-arms-length transaction, Millenial gray reno-ed, and relisted for the same $500K. I see this happening in my nabe now.

        Now, if you liquidated F+F at the same time as you raised interest rates to discourage developers from borrowing to buy those houses, then you may see some deep discounts. But then, the same higher interest rates would prevent the general public from affording the PITI even at the cheaper price.

        Either way I don’t see any upside for end-consumer buyers.

        2. At which point the houses will be snapped up and either rented or flipped. This is what happened in 2009. Yes, house prices will drop, but not enough to turn a $500K house into a $200K house.

          What happened in 2009 was the result of a successful collusion by the Fed and the banks to foam the runway and just dribble out the repos a few at a time and let the rest rot. It’s dangerous to assume they will succeed in doing that every time, because each time is more likely to get out of control.

          1. It’s dangerous to assume they will succeed in doing that every time, because each time is more likely to get out of control.

            Or perhaps they’ll get better at it each iteration…

  6. – While developers are concerned with projects not “penciling out”, I’d be more concerned about living in a 40 story building in CA, esp. SF. As long as no earthquakes, no problem (financials aside).

    “but the company doesn’t know when it will break ground on the 40-story, 304-unit development,”

    “are the not-so-bright, 41-story towers of the Harbor Club condominiums”

      1. John G, it kind of makes my point about local zoning regs and requirements that make it difficult to do affordable housing. If it was this difficult to get large garage approved and built because it could potentially impact others’ property values, imagine how difficult it is to get smaller houses, duplexes, quads, row homes are. Then repeat that thousands and thousands of times over throughout the entire US.

    2. I have friends near there. Real Vermonters say that the best thing about Burlington is that it is so close to Vermont. Burlington Vermont and now much of Vermont was taken over by liberals fleeing their sh*tholes they created. Real Vermonters tend to be libertarians.

  9. 200 page apprai$als report … $ad.

    Retail
    Sak$ Manhattan Flag$hip See$ Value Plummet in Retail Apocalyp$e
    Bloomberg |By Natalie Wong and Sandrine Rastello|
    November 20, 2019

    The value of Hudson’$ Bay Co.’s Sak$ Fifth Avenue flag$hip $tore has plummeted over the last five years, pulled down by retail woe$ and $liding rent$ in a high-profile Manhattan $hopping district.

    The building at 611 Fifth Ave. was recently appraised at $1.6 billion, according to a filing by the Toronto-based company, dropping almost 60% from about $3.7 billion five years ago.

    Hudson’s Bay, trying to round up support for Baker’s proposal, went to great lengths on Tuesday to defend the appraised value of its properties, releasing a report that ran more than 200 pages on the Saks building alone.

    Hudson’s Bay is spending about $279 million to upgrade the Saks store. That includes a revamp of its handbag department on the main floor, where an elevator equipped with LED art leads to the beauty section.

    The retail world has changed since 2014, when the initial appraisal on the Saks building was issued. At the time, Baker called it the “most valuable retail building in the world.”

    Since then, the rise of e-commerce has led to an upheaval in the retail industry, $purring bankruptcie$ and $huttering store$ across the U.S. Those $truggles have even extended to Fifth Avenue, where rent$ have plunged.

    CBRE’s appraisal noted that rents on the stretch of Fifth Avenue where Saks is located have dropped 18% from their peak in 2015.

    — With assistance by Scott Deveau

  10. “‘None of the developers I know are quite able to get things to pencil nowadays,’ Emerald Fund Chairman Oz Erickson said. As of earlier this year, San Francisco had 9,717 net units under construction, according to the city’s pipeline report.”

    I remain supremely confident that WeWork’s IPO will turn this around as all those newly minted tech millionaires will be flocking down to Mr. Banker’s office to imbibe some free coffee and sign on the dotted line for an insanely overpriced shack or skybox.

    Oh, wait….

    1. Seems like some major themes for the causal mechanism for these “cooling” markets are:

      1) Tech bubble/money deflating in CA
      2) Property taxes and debt (Chicago)
      3) Rising sea levels (Florida)
      4) Remote working (DC, NY)

      I think Oxide’s comments she has made on occasion about companies moving or diversifying their workforce for lower cost-of-living areas is taking place. So these frothy CA cities are going down anyway, even though not much housing is being built there. In other words, since these large CA urban areas with good jobs can’t/won’t solve the problem, the companies eventually relocate because it is in their interest not to have to pay bloated salaries for their workers to live in a high cost-of-living area.

      1. DC is full of folks who work@home 2-3 days/week, but “remote working,” i.e. 5 days/week so you can live anywhere, is still a big leap for a lot of these companies (including the gov). So the workers are not leaving the area entirely. At the same time, many parents are retiring in the same area in order to, you guessed it, “be near grandchildren.” If they’re not aging in place, they’re downsizing into small condos on the outskirts.

        The end result is rising demand for housing in towns 30-40 miles outside the city center. People don’t seem to mind commuting 60 minutes if it’s only twice a week. And the retirees are flocking to places like Charlottesville or Harper’s Ferry or Fredericksburg or as far as the Eastern Shore (Delaware). Out of the traffic but only 2 hours from the grandkids. I see no end to the sprawl.

      2. “lower cost-of-living areas”

        I used to think that would work, but now I’m not so sure. I recently had occasion to visit Nashville. From one spot, I counted 14 cranes. I’m sure they were just building more and more flimsy luxury apartments that were cheaper than San Fran but, given the wages, probably no more affordable. Route 40, the main highway, was as gridlocked as any I have seen. Parking was expensive too. It may as well have been Chicago or the DC burbs.

        I remember thinking: there’s no escape. There’s really no escape with all this expanding population.

      3. China is cutting back on renewables and building more coal plants. Despite the Hollywood accounting used by the green energy lobby, coal is still much cheaper than green. Only massive subsidies and mandates keep the industry going. Support for green programs is a mile wide and an inch deep. People have been told and believe that green energy will either lower their bills or at most raise them less than 10 percent. When they see them double, Democrats’ heads will be on the chopping blocks maybe literally.

        1. China a few things right and a lot of things wrong. If local provinces expand coal while the US and most other advanced countries are retiring coal, it will be to the detriment of the health of its population. Life expectancy in major Chinese cities is estimated to be reduced by almost 10 years due to pollution.

    1. “Officials also talked about what tools to use in the next rece$$ion. In a rare case of unanimity, “all” Fed officials said they opposed pushing their benchmark interest rate into negative territory in a downturn as central banks in Europe and Japan have done.”

      It,$ puddin’.face Powell … Ver$u$ … dtRumpsis, Mnuchin, Kudlow, Navarro, $helton, Ha$$ett, & Ro$$ llC: “Lower the same Fed Fund$ rate$ to (0) Zero% NOW!

    2. More!, More!, More!, … Fa$ter!, Fa$ter!, Fa$ter!

      Inve$ting
      Opinion: You better believe the Fed is doing quantitative ea$ing — and here are the beneficiarie$

      MarketWatch |By Ivan Martchev | Published: Nov 20, 2019

      “I don’t believe that the Fed’s balance sheet is the only determinant of the level of the stock market, but it sure is a major factor. Balance-sheet expansion is like printing money — but for financial institutions only. It does affect the monetary base (excess reserves plus currency in circulation), which is the narrowest definition of money supply (M0). It basically causes asset-price inflation without causing uncontrolled broad money supply growth, which is why has it has not (yet) resulted in hyperinflation.”

      “In prior economic downturns, the Fed would lower interest rates, which would stimulate lending, which would help lift the economy out of a recession. After the 2008 downturn, the Fed not only lowered interest rates but also provided a large amount of electronic dollars, called excess reserves, which first affected the prices of Treasury and mortgage securities, investment-grade corporate bonds and ultimately junk bonds and stocks. One could argue that the Fed pulled the economy out of a deflationary hole in large part by using asset prices, so it was not the improving economy affecting the price$ of financial a$$ets, but financial a$$ets causing the economy to improve. I think we have a similar QE dynamic at present.”

      1. Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson and Co., told Wall St. exactly what they were going to do, and encouraged them to pile into housing. They went out and essentially stole all of the foreclosed assets that they were responsible for creating.

  15. “On any given night, amid the bright lights of the downtown skyline, are the not-so-bright, 41-story towers of the Harbor Club condominiums. Aaron Howe lives two blocks away. ‘Just kind of empty and lonely. You see a few lights, but it’s mostly dark,’ said Howe.”

    “Sources tells 10News, at various times in the past decade, as many as half the units have been vacant, meaning they are not a primary residence. It is sights like those dark units prevalent across the downtown area that have drawn the scrutiny of County Board Supervisor Nathan Fletcher.”

    If you hunt for my posts on this, you’ll discover that I reported on San Diego’s dark condo towers long before this article, back when I mentioned my cousin’s interest to move into one of them. To rehash, we were enjoying a nice dinner in downtown San Diego and listening to him describe his post-retirement housing plans, and I asked him if he thought it was odd that so few lights were on in the condo towers around downtown in the early evening, when residents would normally be awake and have the lights on.

    Fast forward a couple of years: He’s decided that he would rather not live in a high-rise San Diego luxury condo surrounded by homeless encampments and filth on the streets below. He and his wife will stay in The OC instead.

    1. I lived in one of those new San Diego high rises by the ballpark. I made it 1 year and ran as fast as I could away to North County SD (basically Orange County). The homeless drug addicts all congregate there because of the services and I was scared walking to and fro from the supermarket. Often my car parking spot was taken in the garage. I was even punched by one homeless man for saying hello. Lots of mental cases down there, violent, dirty and drug addicted.

      Good choice to stay in OC. Tell him he can own a boat in Dana Point harbor and live oceanfront for 1/2 the cost of a condo.

      2. The last time I was in San Jose a homeless woman wearing an upside down sweatshirt for pants decided to perform a bowel movement right through the neck opening inside the Starbucks where I was waiting on an order. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard a few customers, “eww!,” as they stood up and exited.

  16. How can anything fail financially, iffin’ the Fed’$ provide ab$olute unlimited fund$ to cover any N$F over.draft$?

    FEDERAL RE$ERVE
    The Fed is looking at a ‘$tanding repo’ operation to handle overnight funding i$$ues

    CNBC | By Jeff Cox | Nov 20th 2019

    At their October 29-30 meeting, Federal Open Market Committee members weighed several options ahead for keeping the repo market stable and maintaining the central bank’s key lending rate within its target range.

    The discussions came about a month and a half after funding pressures sent repo rates soaring and the fed funds rate briefly above its target range.

    One option that received considerable discussion was a so-called standing repo facility – essentially a mechanism where the Fed will step in whenever needed to supply banks with reserves in exchange for ultra-safe collateral like Treasury debt.

    “And by effectively standing ready to provide a form of liquidity on an as-needed basis, such a facility could increase the risk that some in$titution$ may take on an unde$irably high amount of liquidity ri$k,” the minutes said.

    1. My view is that all markets are false based on the following.

      A, To much credit based on faulty lending, especially government backed debt
      B Misallocations of lending funds to build for speculation and foreign buying.

      C. Price fixing monopolies such as health care and higher education.

      D. Average wages that have not kept in sink with price fixing costs. More debt engaged in to keep up with price inflation based on fake price sitting.

      E. Artificial cheap credit, that encouraged false increase in consumer goods price at the expense of savings and stability of prices .

      F. To much foreign investment that distorts the USA markets.

      Until we somehow return to how the Country was run in the good old days, verses the current rigged Wall Street Casino markets with faulty lending and price fixing monopolies.

      1. A, B, C, D, E, F … G (all.of.the.above)

        G! … (A$ in “Geez.Willerker$!”)

        re$tin’ & awaitin’ the colo$$al capitulation’$ of over.priced $helter.$hack$ to compliment the colo$$al panic$ of over.priced Equitie$

  17. Re-post from the last thread:

    “In the Denver metro area, only 20 percent of millennial renters are on track to save enough money for a 10-percent down payment within the next five years, according to ApartmentList. Twelve percent of millennial renters in Denver expect they’ll continue renting for life.”

    https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/80-of-millennial-renters-in-denver-not-on-track-to-buy-home

    Millennial Denver women, sorry, this rich Gen-Xer renter isn’t gonna bail your @ss out. I’ll just keep making money, saving money, and not spending money.

    Delayed gratification seems to be an alien concept to anyone born after 1980, but that’s not my problem.

    Living with roommates after age 30 is such a buzzkill 🙁

    1. Denver women, sorry

      About 15 years ago I was trying online dating. I corresponded with one lady for a few weeks and then we tried a phone call since everything seemed to be falling into place. I had told her I was living on my boat already. When we got to talking on the phone she asked me several times where I lived. I told her I’m living on my boat. Yeah, but what about your House? No, I live on a boat. Click.

          1. Then it is a ship. Boats are carried on ships. In Coronado CA the Navy people get quite upset when people use the terms loosely.

          2. My boat doesn’t carry cargo across oceans, so it’s not a ship. I do carry an auxiliary boat (dingy) on my boat but that does not make it a ship. I have never heard a yachty call their vessel a “ship”. I’m referred to as a boater.

    2. I think it’s wise to just save until the market corrects.

      Health care is up in the air right now also.

      I still don’t believe that ones housing expense should exceed 25% of their income, but some might feel that’s old fashion.

      If one has artificial low interest rate, it might be prudent to determine that could affect a sale / price if rates go up in the future. In other words it’s risky buying something that is based on a loan rate that might not be available in the future.

        1. Is it? When I moved to the trailer park back in 2011 (documented here) my reasoning was that you can still live cheaply if you’re serious about it. But it requires living like a “poor person”. I think anybody can do it if they live like the people a whole income class below them, but most are too proud or too afraid. And I do think the culture tries to keep us all afraid of it.

          2. You can look up the median income in most west coast cities, then look at the cheapest trailer park in town, and it’s not going to be 25% of median income. That’s a big reason why there are so many homeless people now. All of the “affordable” places they used to rent are gone.

  21. Financial Times
    A chill wind blows through Aspen’s property market
    “[The data] paints a picture of a dead market with a glut of inventory,” says Bowden. He is marketing a new eight-bedroom detached house beside the Maroon …
    1 hour ago

    2. From the article:

      “But Aspen’s high property prices mean that building new affordable homes has become virtually impossible. “Land prices have made it too expensive to develop affordable housing in Aspen,” says Jeff Hanle of Aspen Skiing Company, which owns and runs the resort. The company provides subsidised homes for 723 of its employees (in addition to APCHA pool) which it is hoping to increase to 1,200 to combat the affordability crisis, he says. The latest initiative was “wheeling in” tiny, three-bedroom prefab homes on a trailer to a campsite a few miles from Aspen’s centre.”

  22. Oh dear…ArtGo, a marble-mining stock and high-flying Ponzi market darling that was up by 3,800% so far this year, saw 98% of its value wiped out after the MSCI reversed earlier plans to include it in a market index. Some Yellen Bux fortunes got wiped out just like that…gosh, I’m sure glad Yellen Bux shack valuations are rock-solid, given low inventory and all those eager buyers the REIC shills, er, experts, assure me are waiting to jump in.

    https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Nikkei-Markets/ArtGo-s-Hong-Kong-shares-crash-after-MSCI-reverses-inclusion-plan-in-Indexes

  24. Watched debates of president hopefuls last night. I am deeply concerned that the issues that mean so much to these people and their ways of solving it are nuts to me.

    I’m not on board that Climate Change is the number one issue for starters. They mentioned getting the money out of politics , which I agree with that. But, I don’t see any real perception on the real problems or viable solutions.

    It becomes scary actually that these people could do a lot of damage if they get in power.

    2. Hi Wiz!

      I could not agree more with your perception of the Democratic options right now. As a long-time Democrat, it’s unsettling to see how far off the tracks the Dems have gotten. IMHO, the “Green New Deal” is a corporate scam — there is nothing **green** in any of their proposals, it’s all just mandates that force taxpayers and consumers to funnel more money into the energy, finance, real estate, and tech/surveillance industries. In addition to being a corporate scam, it’s dangerous because they are claiming that we need more surveillance of U.S. citizens in order to become more “green.” Not buying it.

  25. China is cutting back on renewables and building more coal plants. Despite the Hollywood accounting used by the green energy lobby, coal is still much cheaper than green. Only massive subsidies and mandates keep the industry going. Support for green programs is a mile wide and an inch deep. People have been told and believe that green energy will either lower their bills or at most raise them less than 10 percent. When they see them double, Democrats’ heads will be on the chopping blocks maybe literally. So if you believe in CAGW Florida is toast. Poor Obama and his beach front properties

    1. “Elsewhere countries reduced their capacity by 8GW in the 18 months to June because old plants were retired faster than new ones were built. But over the same period China increased its capacity by 42.9GW…”

    2. I still say that alot of this hype about climate came out of Agenda 21 from the 90s that was more of a population control Issue and Elites vision of moving populations to the cities.

      Also, the playbook of the Communist Party is always to scare people into compliance and gain Political power as a result.

  26. OneAgainstMany

    I wouldn’t mine a businessman, but Steyer is to much Climate Change narrative.

    What I want is a realist as President that is leaning toward policies that prop up the working class. I want policies that create free market capitalism. I don’t like big government and they screw up everything

    I think that government is exceeding what their place should be.But like I have said many times, the policies between 1945 and 1975 were favorable to the majority worker.Globalusm has been a disaster for this Country, faulty lending has been , as well as price fixing monopolies.
    Anyway, I would like to put greedy entities back in their place but that would be by tax breaks only if they invest in USA, and tariffs if they don’t.
    For at least 30 years now the policies have been a disaster for the private sector working
    class.

    1. “…the policies between 1945 and 1975 were favorable…”

      TL;DR (the short version). There has always been American corruption. During the years you cite the U.S. was on top while the rest of the industrial world was rebuilding and recovering from WWII. By the 70’s the environment became the new American Shtick, and industry found it was cheaper to off-shore than modernize. Profits before people!

    2. What I want is a realist

      What I want is just for the left to realize that Trump was a reaction to them and the globalists. They get so hung up on what horrible people the deplorables are to elect someone like that and they don’t seem to understand he was simply at the right place at the right time being not-them. You would think they would learn from that…and realize the more they double down the stronger the reaction will get. It can get much worse.

  27. But that’s my point, there was no reason to give up the interest of USA majority workers in favor of interest that have proven to be a disaster for the USA private sector that created a lack of balance in distribution of wealth in the final analysis.

    1. there was no reason to give up the interest of USA majority workers

      Well, politicians have different constituencies. It might be banks, oil, the NRA, environmentalists, corporations, minorities, etc.

      American workers are not in a good bargaining position because of the sharp decline of unions and collective bargaining, off-shoring/outsourcing, gig economy, illegal and legal immigration, decrease in minimum wage in real terms, etc. The one benefit they have now is that the unemployment rate is so low that those at the bottom are finally getting a boost because workers are actually getting more difficult to come by.

      1. American workers are not in a good bargaining position

        The 2nd amendment puts them in a much better bargaining position than if it didn’t exist.

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