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The Gains From The Past 13 Years Will Be Wiped Out

A report from the Los Angeles Times in California. “At the start of 2020, the Southern California housing market was heating up, juiced by cheap money and a growing economy. Then a global pandemic hit. Deals are now falling out of escrow. Sellers are cutting prices. Certain types of financing are drying up. As Rick Cirelli, a mortgage broker in Laguna Beach, put it: ‘Everybody is backing out.'”

“Kerem Ozguz and his wife just had a son; they are now in escrow on a $497,000, two-bedroom condo in Irvine. The business consultant was planning on using a so-called non-qualifying mortgage. Those loans typically require less documentation, which makes it easier to qualify for workers like Ozguz who don’t have a W-2 statement to prove income. They are also riskier for lenders and investors. The other day, Ozguz got a call from his mortgage broker. ‘He was like, ‘Hey, the loan I was going to put you in doesn’t exist anymore,’ Ozguz said.”

From CNBC. “Aaron Kirman, superstar real estate agent and host of CNBC’s ‘Listing Impossible,’ thinks this pandemic could devastate the real estate market. Kirman also warns that some buyers and sellers should expect to renegotiate offers. ‘Some closings have happened, but they were 90 days old. I’ve seen offers on the table renegotiated for 20 to 30%.'”

“Buying or selling a house has become vastly more complicated, according to Kirman, who has seen a decline in house viewings since California issued a statewide ‘stay at home’ on March 19. While the lasting effect of the coronavirus pandemic is still unknown, Kirman believes that when the pandemic eventually comes to an end, it’s going to be a buyers’ market, claiming, ‘The gains from the past 13 years will be wiped out.'”

From New York Magazine. “The coronavirus and subsequent lockdowns have left virtually no industry untouched. Among the many affected is the short-term-rental industry, much of which is powered by Airbnb and the similar platforms that followed its lead. McGill University professor David Wachsmuth, who has spent years studying the effects of short-term-rental platforms, cautioned that it was early, but countered that there were already clear signs of the coronavirus’s ripple effect. He described Airbnb as ‘cratering’ right now. For the people who are renting out spare bedrooms or using the platform to supplement their primary income, this is not the end of the world. For the more aggressive speculators, who purchased condos with the intent of continually renting them out year-round, this is a disaster.”

“‘It’s still a little early to try to back that up with rigorous data at this point, but it’s very clear from the numbers that we’re seeing, as well as from the online discussions among hosts, that these businesses have basically evaporated overnight,’ Wachsmuth said.”

From CNBC. “Sean Ray normally rents out his 3-bedroom Dallas house for a few days at a time to travelers who find it listed on Airbnb. On Saturday, Ray spent the afternoon touring the property with a mother of two who showed up seeking a long-term rental and wearing an N-95 mask. ‘This is something that I’ve got to get done,’ Ray said. ‘I won’t be able to survive much longer if I don’t get this thing rented.'”

“An arbitrage is when a host rents a property and then rents it out to other people on Airbnb. ‘I’m putting someone in my house and crossing my fingers they’ll pay because I can’t evict them,’ Ray said. ‘But I can’t keep it on Airbnb because that’s a guaranteed loss.'”

“‘After they made that announcement, we received an avalanche of cancellations,’ said Liam McLaughlin, who manages 14 properties in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on arbitrage. ‘We are now just trying to survive by locking in people at week long or month long rates to just break even.'”

From Business Den in Colorado. “The deep freeze weighing down the hospitality industry is wreaking havoc on a local Airbnb market that’s grown to more than $10 million a month. Seattle-based Loftium, which said one-third of its 600 properties are in Denver, is negotiating to reduce lease payments to landlords. The company, which raised $15 million last year, leases homes with two units and then has one long-term tenant help manage the Airbnb unit like an innkeeper. Loftium typically pays property owners more than market rent for a long-term rental.”

“But now that business model is broken. Loftium CEO Yifan Zhang said her startup is not making any money right now. ‘Travel is gone. … Whatever a (long-term) rental is able to pay is the income that’s available,’ Zhang said. ‘We’re trying to just make something work.’ Zhang said the company is calling all property owners to renegotiate leases. ‘Everyone’s taking a hit,’ she said.”

From Vice Magazine. “Twenty-one Iceboat Terrace isn’t a hotel—but it might as well be. The postcard aesthetic the building purveys has seen many of its 920 condos co-opted into Airbnb units. But what was once basically a bustling mega-hostel for young, party-bound tourists has become a monument to coronavirus-induced isolation in recent days. The few long-term residents who remain are stuck in a ghost skyscraper, and the Airbnb barons who took over many of the condos across its 43 storeys have been left destitute.”

“The Iceboat Terrace building isn’t unique. It’s just one sore in the rash of ‘ghost hotels’ around the world. But by virtue of its size and location—the heart of the most prolific Airbnb neighbourhood in Toronto—it’s a good case study. A trip through Facebook groups for Airbnb hosts, such as Airbnb Cashflow Secrets—Financial Freedom Without Owning Real Estate, reveals mounting insecurity among members since the coronavirus pandemic started. What must have once come off as a low-risk, low-labour money-maker just melted away, leaving many hosts saddled with rents and mortgages they can no longer afford. Hosts are getting no short-term bookings and no long-term inquiries, they tell me. And they’re angry—at Airbnb.”

“‘This is my main source of income,’ said a Waterfront-area host named Jay, who would not give his last name. ‘I rely on it quite a bit. But all my reservations were cancelled with full refunds without any say from me.'”

“Cashflow Secret users say the smart thing to do right now is to pivot to what one member called ‘the dark side’ —long-term rentals to residents, a problem for the market considering users of this particular Facebook group are renting the apartments they are putting up on Airbnb to make a profit. ‘I’m noticing many Airbnb hosts around me are starting to put up their condos for long-term listings,’ said Waterfront-area host Amy, who also did not provide her last name. ‘But because everybody’s doing it at the same time, it’s almost impossible to actually make it happen.'”

From Pique News in Canada. “With the blow to visitation, Whistler might also begin to see homes that have historically been reserved for nightly rentals move into the long-term supply—but it hasn’t happened in significant numbers quite yet, said Matt Hick, CEO of legitimate vacation rental service, alluraDirect. Hick noted that alluraDirect is dealing with ‘immense losses’ and booking cancellations, said that even though Phase 1 owners have flexibility to rent short- or long-term, he advises them to wait at least a few weeks to see how things pan out before making a decision on their property.”

“Tricia Curmi owns and lives in a house in Alpine that is rented to several other tenants. Curmi said her and her partner reduced the rent by a third this week before two of their tenants broke the lease without notice. ‘The problem, I think, that landlords are going to start seeing is that people are going to want to start taking advantage of the situation. So even if they have family support or money set aside, they want to stay in Whistler and keep partying,’ making it difficult to know who really needs support the most, she said. ‘Then landlords are going to be painted as the evil ones and we are going to get stuck for not paying our mortgages.'”

The Daily Business Group in the UK. “Property owners are shifting from short to long term letting as coronavirus leaves a huge hole in the holiday lets sector. Airbnb are looking to get out of the tourist market and find tenants for their properties. There has also been a rush of tenants leaving to return to live with parents, creating a sudden glut of property on the market.”

“Property firm Apropos by DJ Alexander has been approached by hundreds of property owners in the last two weeks desperate to enter the long-term letting market after wholesale cancellations of holidays. David Alexandernb, joint managing director of apropos, said: ‘We have been inundated with enquiries from Airbnb owners. They have had all their bookings cancelled and there is little likelihood of an upturn in the market any time soon, so they are transferring to the long-term market.'”

“‘We have also had owners with properties in the Homes in Multiple Occupation (HMO) market wanting to rent them out, as students have left and returned home and there is no clear indication of when they will return so landlords are hoping they can rent these properties out until the market returns.’ He added that a number of tenants have given the statutory one-month notice and are returning to live with their parents or relatives because of the coronavirus outbreak.”

“‘The result is that we would usually have around 100 properties available at this time of year and we currently have 350,’ he said. ‘The result will be a reduction in rental prices. Overcapacity results in lower rents so I can see prices falling over the next few months and even when the coronavirus crisis is over I believe that many tenants will be able to negotiate lower rents as the market will remain over-supplied.'”

From Edinburgh Live in Scotland. “The coronavirus pandemic has seen a glut of former Aribnb properties appearing on the Edinburgh property market as long term lets – as the platform collapses across Scotland. Last week saw new rental listings in Edinburgh skyrocket with a massive 62 per cent increase compared to this time last year. According to new figures given to Edinburgh Live by property portal Rightmove.”

“And that rate is increasing, this week new rental listings are up 105 per cent in the city centre with more than 200 homes in Edinburgh added to Rightmove in the last two days alone, the Times reports. Previously the norm was five or six per day. Housing activists have hailed the collapse of Airbnb, saying it hopefully the crisis ‘will reset rents’ while others have cautioned that the new long-term lets my not be fit for tenants to move into.”

“Commenting on the collapse of the holiday letting industry, grassroots group Place Edinburgh said: ‘It makes sense that some people will have to sell up or let long term. Rents and homelessness have been rising alongside the sharp increase in residential properties being used as full time short term let businesses, without permission.'”

“Living Rent called on the government to ensure the much-needed homes aren’t converted back to holiday lets after the pandemic, saying: ‘This puts the lie to the idea that holiday lets have no impact on housing supply. We are seeing clearly just how much otherwise viable accommodation is lost to holiday lets.'”

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This Post Has 288 Comments

  2. ‘At the start of 2020, the Southern California housing market was heating up, juiced by cheap money’

    Well, she used to run around with every man in town
    She spent all my money, playing her high class game
    She put me out, it was a pity how I cried
    Tables turn and now her turn to cry
    Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
    Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now

  3. ‘Sean Ray normally rents out his 3-bedroom Dallas house for a few days at a time to travelers who find it listed on Airbnb. On Saturday, Ray spent the afternoon touring the property with a mother of two who showed up seeking a long-term rental and wearing an N-95 mask. ‘This is something that I’ve got to get done,’ Ray said. ‘I won’t be able to survive much longer if I don’t get this thing rented’

    Have you tried stamping your little feet Sean?

    BTW I might have to post a bit more than normal this weekend as the subprime lending market has blown up.

    1. “Seattle-based Loftium, which said one-third of its 600 properties are in Denver, is negotiating to reduce lease payments to landlords … But now that business model is broken. Loftium CEO Yifan Zhang said her startup is not making any money right now. ‘Travel is gone. … Whatever a (long-term) rental is able to pay is the income that’s available”

      Travelers to Denver can stay in hotels when they come here, there’s no shortage of affordable rooms.

        1. “…entire towers built for short term rentals.”

          How will$ they be “re.purpo$ed”?

  4. ‘The few long-term residents who remain are stuck in a ghost skyscraper, and the Airbnb barons who took over many of the condos across its 43 storeys have been left destitute’

    ‘This is my main source of income,’ said a Waterfront-area host named Jay, who would not give his last name. ‘I rely on it quite a bit. But all my reservations were cancelled with full refunds without any say from me’

    This one goes out to Jay:

    Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
    Mum mum mum mum mum mum
    Get a job, sha na na na, sha na na na n

  5. ‘Buying or selling a house has become vastly more complicated, according to Kirman, who has seen a decline in house viewings since California issued a statewide ‘stay at home’ on March 19. ‘The gains from the past 13 years will be wiped out’

    Brown spots in many California board shorts this AM. Eat yer crowz Thornberg.

    1. ‘The gains from the past 13 years will be wiped out’

      Hope this wont flood the market with speculative purchased inventory… oh wait, realtor has assured us it wont because the photographers are on back order (sorry in advance red ;). I direct my sarc mainly at realtor and the blatant lies they spew out

          2. So Californians risk loss of life if homes stop selling?

            That’s quite a stretch of the imagination.

          3. The upside is that it will be much easier to document the crater if California Used Home Sellers remain open for business.

          6. JtR is making the play for selling homes by video. Who the hell in their right mind would buy a $1.4M house without seeing it in person?!

      2. Having few outdoor options besides wandering the local neighborhood, I am quite surprised how many homes within walking distance of our front door have For Sale signs up. This seems like a historically horrible time to try to sell a shack!

    1. Ford is running an ad where you don’t pay for the first 6 months (3 months deferred and they pay the first 3 months = 6 months no payments).

      Just for I checked the local Ford dealer’s website. Their virtual showroom is open! So I’m guessing that if you make an appointment they’ll bring the car to your house so you can check it out.

      I wonder what percentage of local businesses are open. As far as I can tell, other than bars, restaurants and hair salons it’s business as usual here. The local K-Mart (the last one in the state) is closing and the sign twirlers are still out there that last time I looked.

    2. In the last recession I spent a year unemployed, with two years of expenses saved up, and *no* debt. In this recession, I have a good-paying job and debt (although solvent). And I will tell you that I feel MUCH freer now than I did then.

        2. Debt isn’t freedom, but solvency sure is. Sure, I’m in debt on my house, but I could sell my house tomorrow (well, in non-COVID times) and make enough profit to rent my same house for the next five years. It’s the good-paying job that made this possible.

          2. Debt isn’t freedom

            Right, debt is slavery.

            You’re not solvent on the house.

            I could sell my house tomorrow

            Except that you can’t, right?

            Still the Poster Girl.

      3. Oxide, I lived through a recession-related job loss in the early 1990s. I was officially unemployed for about 15 months, but made a significant contribution to our household income by quickly ramping up gig activities, including mathematics tutoring, college teaching, and free-lance musical performance. This was the first point in my life when I fully appreciated the value of my education and experience. Though my income took a hit, I had no trouble finding opportunity.

        Of course with COVID-19, work opportunities are canceled until after quarantine, and may take longer than expected to recover following the end of quarantine measures.

        1. “I was officially unemployed for about 15 months, but made a significant contribution to our household income by quickly ramping up gig activities.”

          Funny you should mention that. My company was acquired, our unit and its work was terminated, and i was laid off with severance and a non-compete and outplacement assistance, in January.

          So I’m on the market, and this virus isn’t helping. But in theory, when the severance ends I would be entitled to unemployment insurance. And with the kind of recession we are heading for, that will probably be extended.

          Now I could hang out my shingle as a consultant, though I’m not a salesman. But let’s say someone were to hire me for two weeks worth of work.

          When that ended, wouldn’t I be no longer eligible for unemployment insurance? That’s a hell of an incentive to not work. Theoretically I could get by to retirement no working but work is what I do, and I wanted to do so for another decade. Perhaps I should find an opportunity to work for free?

          The social safety net that ties benefits to formal “employment” sucks, and I said so long, long ago.

          1. wouldn’t I be no longer eligible for unemployment insurance

            You absolutely would still be able to collect NY unemployment, just not for the days you work, or weeks you work 4 days or more. You’ll still be able to collect your full benefit, just stretched out.

            Days you “work” means any self employment activity even if you don’t get paid, like calling someone to offer consulting services.

            I went through this after my long time employer noticed I had turned 65 and congratulated me on my retirement.

            You can file now, tell them about the severance, and they’ll guide you through it.

          2. Thanks for the advice!

            Under the circumstances I won’t be showing up to the unemployment insurance office any time soon, but based on your statement I’ll go when it safe to do so. I just didn’t feel the need to do so while still getting paid.

          3. be showing up

            Larry, we don’t go to the office anymore. You file online at NY Dept of labor website. You obviously haven’t been through this recently! I hadn’t either. File now or you may experience delays and there’s the waiting week thing. Give them time to verify your claim with your employer. My lovely employer of two plus decades told them I had Quit! Had to go to arbitration on that. Nobody gets severance when they quit, lol. Then when your severance is up you’re all set. Let’s hope you don’t need it.

          5. You can definitely apply online; heck, they had this set up even 11 years ago. I collected unemployment while never seeing the inside of a government office or a physical check.

            And yes, you can collect unemployment around the days you’re working. States intended unemployment for the working union man who might be laid off only for a month before callback, or worked odd jobs, or other on/off arrangements. The state knows that not everybody is out of work for solid blocks of weeks or months.

            If you can afford to coast to retirement but still want to work, one avenue might be to hang out your consultant shingle and offer samples of your work as goodwill. Everybody else is short of money too, and they would appreciate the free work. When times are good or at least stable again (my guess is 2-3 years from now), they will remember you.

          6. I would think that you would not be blocked from unemployment ins., they will only de-duct that amount from the amount you would otherwise get. That was my experience.
            Work as much as you can, Just remember you are not a Dem. Work, work , work, The less you suck from the Dem. Gov. Teat, the better.

        2. PS We were homeowners, having bought the previous year. We had no problems paying our pre-Housing Bubnle mortgage, and we sold with a modest (pre-Bubble) capital gain in 1996.

      4. There’s a world of difference between being employed during a recession and being unemployed during a recession.

        Unless you’ve lived through a bout of long term unemployment, even with plenty of financial reserves, it’s hard to understand the daily stress of not knowing where your next paycheck is coming from and how long your unemployment is going to last. It really weighs on you.

          1. We were newlyweds with no kids during my term of unemployment. And I guess we were confident that it would end; my wife was not only working, but also pregnant. My next full-time position started the month after our first child was born. I’m forever grateful to my wife for keeping the faith that we could weather that crisis.

        2. Yeah, I’ve lived through several recessions (more frequent in oil dependent states and provinces). In the 80s and 90s I lost my job. In the more recent great recession I managed to stay employed. Got to say having a job during a recession is way better.

  8. I was reading that internet traffic might get rationed. Yet yesterday Verizon gave me an additional 15GB on my phone, free, unsolicited. I only buy 2GB a month (their minimum) and rarely use 10% of it.

    There’s no shortage of food, no shortage of a$$-wipes. This is a mass hysteria people.

    Anyone notice the wave of deaths among grocery clerks? Neither have I. An update: the “bring out yer dead” cart hasn’t been by all week.

    via GIPHY

    1. Would you want to work on a commercial construction jobsite right now?

      “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished” — Proverbs 22:3

      1. Grocery clerks are somehow not dropping like flies. I’m not afeared of the guberment freakout. Even the governor of New York admitted the shutdown was not necessary and is probably making things worse. Nobody wants to get sick. But I don’t know anyone who has it. Except I met Rand Paul once years ago.

        I posted a statement about risk bias and toilet paper. The writer said it was the elimination of a small risk (not being able to wipe your a$$) and not eliminating the larger, real risk. Flying on a plane increases your risk for flu by 20%. You have a risk of getting hurt/killed every time you drive a car. But people drive all the time. Believe it or not, some people used to drive every day!

          2. These are statistics. You know what they say about those. Like days on market, etc. There’s no subprime lending, when the majority of loans are “non-prime”. Lots of dead people in Italy. And they got a medicaid for all type deal. Not much written about that.

            Toilet paper is an obvious signal of hysteria. One would think a larger consideration would be given to what else is hysteria? Media likes sensationalism, they make more money off it. I’m not a big fan of internet sites that hawk dried food, when there is no shortage of food. Beef futures just hit a 10 year low. But you can’t find hamburger. That’s hysteria, not a disease. Plenty of steaks though. There’s a glut of lobster too. And cheese! Has been for years. I scrutinize mania behavior every day. People are saying “these loans are going into default!” But that’s what happens to subprime. You never know what’s going to cause it, but eventually something happens and the “one way bet” turns out to just more greater fool gambling. And the vast majority of failed loans last decade were prime. Which showed more people were gambling than the “experts” said. Same is true today.

          3. Well at least the bailout authorities now have a convenient scapegoat to legitimize bailing out whatever they choose.

            Some big questions ahead include:
            1) How long will it take for the recollapse of subprime to transition from a Housing Bubble Blog discussion topic to headline MSM financial news?
            2) Is the recollapsed subprime mortgage lending sector bailout-worthy?
            3) Is the present size of collapsed subprime more “too-big-to-fail” or “too-big-to-bail”*?
            4) Who gets screwed and how if subprime gets another large-scale bailout?

            * For historic examples of “too-big-to-bail”, refer to the Great Crash of 1929, the Japanese stock market collapse of the early 1990s, and Lehman Brothers’ 2008 collapse.

          5. should hit 1 million in a few days ??

            I want to think the way Ben does but my fear is that its not where we are right now but where we may be headed…We shall see…

        2. “Grocery clerks are somehow not dropping like flies. ”

          I have seen the future and in this future I have seen that grocery clerks do not drop like flies mainly because there won’t be very many of them.

          A short video …

          Watch “Inside A Warehouse Where Thousands Of Robots Pack Groceries” on YouTube
          https://youtu.be/4DKrcpa8Z_E

          1. “Inside A Warehouse Where Thousands Of Robots Pack Groceries”

            There’s substantial risk in the automation of necessary functions. How many will starve if a strong solar pulse hits the earth interrupting the function of the electrical grid?

          2. Is this the future? Well i love shopping for bargains, will an automated system tell me there are 3 packages of top round steak at a half price managers special just sitting there waiting for me to buy them?

          3. Yeah no idea why medical types are so freaked out by this. They’re the ones who want us on lockdown…

            /s

          4. “…no idea why medical types are so freaked out by this.”

            I suppose the world looks different to people on the front lines of a crisis.

            Coronavirus claims 67 in NYC overnight and cases soar above 29,000 – Queens remains worst hit
            By Dave Goldiner
            New York Daily News
            Mar 28, 2020 | 3:30 PM
            EMT’s bring a patient into Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York on Thursday, March 26, 2020.
            (Gardiner Anderson/for New York Daily News)

            New York City’s coronavirus death toll continued on an unrelenting pace Saturday as 67 people died overnight in the five boroughs.

            The grim tally in the city that never stops suffering rose to 517 as of 10 am Saturday, up from 450 on Friday afternoon.
            …

          5. One possible lasting result of the coronacrisis is that firms may suddenly realize that they can get by with far fewer workers than they previously realized. Robots are highly efficient, require no paycheck to cover wages or employee benefits, and don’t shirk or negotiate.

            A longterm drop in labor demand is a potential consequence.

        3. Well ones can “mitigate” the risk$ of “accidents” , … touching office/retail knob.handles, sucking in air from contaminated vehicles (planes, trains, automobiles, knot so well.

        4. The state I live in, as of last week had 115 deaths from the flu and 1 from the Coronavirus.

          With that said, I wash my hand religiously.

          2. Some say that ones “beliefs” can shapes ones “behaviours.”

            It’s just a simple question:

            “So, getting thee old.fashioned “flu” (treatments available?) … or 👾 Corona.NO!🙅‍♀️ … = … same.thing.?”

            (Also, eye find it amusing that “True.Believers” in red.state cities that insist that; “👾 is a xaoh!”, are also wiping.out $helves purcha$ing butt.wiper$”.)

        5. Ben, you don’t know if grocery clerks are dropping like flies, unless you see the same ones every week or so. I suspect you’re right, that a grocery clerk might drop like a fly but then be back at the store within a month. Or, that clerk may cough for a day and not drop at all. However, that same clerk could spread it to 5-6 shoppers during senior citizen hour, killing two of them, without even knowing he had it.

          For the most part, we aren’t staying home for ourselves. We’re staying home to save the vulnerable and out of respect for the health workers. If that makes me a sissy, then SO BE IT.

          There are a lot of selfish people who refuse to do this selfless thing; we saw them at the bars and beaches. So the media is using hysteria as a scare tactic in an attempt to keep the partiers home. That’s why the news is full of personal stories of relative youngsters saying “I had it, and I recovered, but TRUST ME YOU DON’T WANT THIS.” I see this over and over again.

          1. Eye fail to see how “avoidance” = “hysteria”
            & that: “it’s just a common cold folks!” (Ra$h.limpbaugh$) is < "delusional"🤔

            Do as ye please with yer easily repaired lungs, eye'm certain mine have been damaged well enough by x4 years of running cross.country in the "leaded.gas" skies of the 1970's LA Basin smog.

            👾 … Corona.NO!🙅‍♀️ …✌🍷

          2. “So the media is using hysteria as a scare tactic…”

            How about a time-lapse video of someone from admission coughing uncontrollably to writhing in agony to expiration? It would be certain to go viral; no pun intended.

    2. grocery clerks

      Funny you should mention that. My husband just got home from the grocery store and mentioned that he overheard a clerk say someone wasn’t coming in because he wasn’t feeling well. No paper products to speak of.

      1. No paper products to speak of. My closest Target has huge cartoons of TP available, one per customer.

        1. SoCal vs. NE Ohio. Closer proximity to hot spots might change some people’s opinions.

    3. An update: the “bring out yer dead” cart hasn’t been by all week.
      Thanks, Ben. I’m feeling better now.

  9. “‘After they made that announcement, we received an avalanche of cancellations,’ said Liam McLaughlin, who manages 14 properties in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on arbitrage. ‘We are now just trying to survive by locking in people at week long or month long rates to just break even.’”

    Who actually “long-term” rented the apartment? Liam or speculators who were so lazy that they hired Liam to run the operation

    1. An arbitrage is when a host rents a property and then rents it out to other people on Airbnb…

      What a useless way to earn a living, just like the retail arbitrage folks who buy up insulated mugs on sale at Target and re-sell them on Amazon. Even flipping burgers is a more honorable profession.

  11. “…Aaron Kirman, superstar real estate agent and host of CNBC’s ‘Listing Impossible…”

    “…I’ve seen offers on the table renegotiated for 20 to 30%…”

    Hey Aaron, the REIConplex was telling us just a few months ago that declines of 20->30% were unpossible.

    If Aaron considers himself a “superstar”, he might want to re-check his credentials.

  12. I can’t imagine that real estate isn’t going to be toast after all the bail outs are exhausted.

    Now the Commies are going to argue that health care should be taken over by Gov. using this flu for their talking points. What would add insult to injury is if the health insurance companies raise the costs, in spite of getting major money from Gov. In their response to the emergency.

    1. Not just real estate. Everything is going to be toast. Raoul Pal at Real Vision has been talking about the corporate debt doom loop for a while, and I think it’s here 6 months early.

      1. Isn’t one of the key reasons for Unlimited QE presumably to short-circuit the corporate debt doom loop?

        The questions from here on out seem to regard who qualifies for bailouts, who pays for bailouts, and will the bailouts work to save whomever is the target of rescue efforts.

        1. The bailouts do next to nothing for me. A check for $1,200 doesn’t even cover the work I’ve already lost. Whatever the total of my lost income ends up being, that’s money that will never be replaced. I only have a finite amount of time on this earth, and these are essentially lost work days that I will never be able to get back.

          Some would say “well you can just delay retirement,” but I’m one of those people who plans on working until I die, at least until my body is no longer able. So, since that was the plan all along, this is lost income that will never be made up. I assume there are others in the same category.

  13. Denialists gonna deny. And stupid is as stupid sez.

    Is a Housing Bubble on the Horizon?
    March 17, 2020
    Mark Daniels
    Every day, we hear conflicting information about how the economy and the real estate market is faring. Are we at the beginning of a huge housing boom, as some analysts suggest, or is a housing bubble just around the corner? Responding to an October survey by real estate company Zillow, almost half of the economists and real estate experts are predicting a recession that will commence in 2020. On the other hand, some economists have suggested that there won’t be a crash until 2026 (if at all).

    The most commonly cited reason for a potential housing market collapse is monetary policy. If interest rates go up, getting a home loan will be more costly, shutting some potential buyers out. If the Federal Reserve raises rates too quickly, the economy will slow, and there will be a recession.

    Firstly, house prices had been rising quickly until 2017 and the average home price hit a record high, over 10 percent higher than the previous 2006 record. But housing prices cooled. Sellers were at first reluctant to drop their prices as they wanted the same high gains, so sales slowed. But average incomes haven’t increased as quickly as house price costs, so buyers generally didn’t have enough cash to buy.

    Housing prices have continued to rise in 2019, but not as quickly as before. The interest rates had been increased by the Fed from 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent, which made home loans more expensive. Recently, the rate was lowered to 2.25 percent, as the Fed attempts to balance the situation.

    There has been an increase in unregulated mortgage brokers. Half of the largest mortgage lenders are not banks, and they hold more than half of the U.S mortgages. These lenders are not as regulated as banks, making them more vulnerable to problems if there’s a sharp housing market drop.
    …
    Sub-prime loans were a big cause of the previous housing market crash, and many economists have noted that the mistakes of the past have not been learned from. Though the situation does not appear to be as bad as in 2008, a significant percentage of the market is subprime and sub-sub-prime loans.
    …

    1. This reminds me of one of the most interesting self-assigned library research projects I ever undertook. Back in the early 1990s, when I first became seriously interested in economics, I went to the college library where I was a student and looked up some old Wall Street Journal articles from the period from The Great Crash of 1929 through the early months of 1930. Reading the financial news of the day, one wouldn’t get a clue that the worst financial crisis of the 20th century had just ensued.

      Being familiar with the popular stories of financially ruined Wall Street gamblers jumping out of windows after getting wiped out by margin calls after The Great Crash, I was quite surprised to discover that the MSM of the day was blithely oblivious to the situation.

      1. gamblers jumping out of windows

        Probably only because they heard there was a toilet paper shortage.

    2. Help!, Helllllp!, we might$ fall DOWn, & won’t bee ables to $ell.loan$.4.over.priced.$helter.$hack$! Help.u$.NOW!

      Market$
      Real E$tate Billionaire Barrack Says Commercial Mortgage$ on Brink of Collap$e

      Bloomberg / By Erik Schatzker / March 22, 2020

      Predict$ ca$cade of margin call$, foreclo$ures, bank failure$

      Market$ needs a “time out” for 60 or 90 days to ea$e stre$$e$

      “To keep people employed, you have to support the employers,” he said Monday in the interview. “The biggest part of employer expense is rent. When commerce stops and they can’t pay rent and they can’t pay interest on the debt, and then the banks and the intermediaries can’t pay their investors, it all collap$e$.”

      Barrack, 72, said the impact$ could dwarf that of the Great Depre$$ion, affecting everyone from home owner$ to real e$tate developer$ to hotel operator$

      He propo$ed a re$cue plan coordinated by bank$ and supported by Congre$$ and regulator$ that includes the following:

      $500 billion of taxpayer funds to provide liquidity to the financial system, including for loans and repurchase contract

      Suspending both mark-to-market accounting and certain loan-modification rules

      Delaying until 2024 a new accounting rule governing the recognition of credit losses

      Providing banks leeway to offer mortgage-loan forbearance

      “What everybody needs is just a time out,” Barrack said in the interview. “Give them 60 or 90 days, let it all come back together, tack on that accrued interest to the end, and you solve the problem.”

      The challenge, he said, is finding a solution that safeguards the banking system while avoiding the perceptions of “crony capitali$m” a$$ociated with the bailout$ that followed the 2008 financial cri$i$.

      “$ad”, as thee.🍊jesus is oft to say.

      Barrack, a longtime friend of President Donald Trump, has much at $take in the outcome. Most of Colony’$ inve$tment$ are in or connected to real e$tate

      Colony, whose $hares have plunged 68% this year, is in a “great position,” with almost $3 billion of ca$h, Barrack said.

      1. I saw that report the other day. Really long time readers might remember that I posted a high profile interview with Barrack long ago where he called out the housing mania. At the time it was considered by the MSM to be a conspiracy theory. It goes to show one can be level headed and then make the same mistakes others did years later.

        1. @ age 72 it wasn’t a mi$take, it was his retirement’$ 🗼🎨”pièce de ré·$i$·tance!” 🏘🏘🌆💰💲💰💲💰🇺🇸🗽👏 … “$ee.ya.later$!”🛳

      2. We haven’t run out of wealthy gloomsters with their hair on fire over how much money they lost in early 2020.

        1. Maybee Kudlow is wrong. Maybee 6+ Trillion$ + “UNLIMITED” ain’t enough to $ave’em … again!

  14. Eye helped cause the the Housing Bubble ll to bust using hy$teria & all eye gots was this,
    Lousy T-Shirt!

  15. Again we hear the rhetoric that high asset prices are good, and lower asset prices are bad. Even when asset prices have soared, somehow having the go back to where they were is some kind of economic disaster that requires government intervention — in the form of debts that poorer later – born generations have to pay.

    In Brooklyn, where I live, the theoretical value of the row house I own soared to $2.2 million, according to the City of New York. That benefits me exactly how? My children would like to stay in the area where they grew up, and I’d like it if we could stay near to each other, like some of the old multi-generation families in the neighborhood. High housing prices make that impossible.

    The only way later-born generations can take back some of the disadvantages being foisted upon them by the richer generations that preceded them is to pay less for assets like housing. Higher real estate prices, and lower real estate prices, redistribute income, and higher ones redistribute from the worse off to the already better off.

    https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2017/12/09/fannies-mae-and-freddie-macs-stealth-economic-war-on-the-millennials/

    1. High asset prices are indeed good for the People Who Matter that followed the Fed’s cues to go all-in on risk assets following the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

      These people must be protected, for the good of The Planet.

    2. I’m reacting to 13 years worth of gains wiped out.

      I’d say things went nutso after 1995. If we went back to 1995 after adjustment for inflation, that’s all anyone has a right to expect.

      Except of course for dividends on stocks, which the C-suiters decline to pay, opting for buybacks to offset their grants to each other instead.

  16. Globalist media flagship Bloomberg is out with a fawning puff piece on how the Fed saved us from the abyss. Of course no Real Journalist who values his or her paycheck is ever going to write critically about the Fed’s role in creating the Everything Bubble and associated systemic risks to the U.S. and global financial systems.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-28/the-fed-brings-the-global-financial-system-back-from-the-abyss?srnd=premium-middle-east

  17. The other day, Ozguz got a call from his mortgage broker. ‘He was like, ‘Hey, the loan I was going to put you in doesn’t exist anymore,’ Ozguz said.”

    Hope the mortgage broker put away some of his commissions for a rainy day, since his job and company won’t exist either in a few more weeks.

    1. They switch to handling foreclosures, under a different facade of course. He’ll be just fine

  18. I’ve seen offers on the table renegotiated for 20 to 30%.’”

    These knife catchers clearly have no inkling how schlonged the housing market is going forward.

  19. ‘The gains from the past 13 years will be wiped out.’”

    Fake valuations created by fake money were never sustainable in the long run.

  20. For the more aggressive speculators, who purchased condos with the intent of continually renting them out year-round, this is a disaster.”

    When I watch the reckless and greedy get their heads handed to them as shack prices crash back to earth, I feel joy.

  21. ‘I’m putting someone in my house and crossing my fingers they’ll pay because I can’t evict them,’ Ray said. ‘But I can’t keep it on Airbnb because that’s a guaranteed loss.’”

    My landlord doesn’t have those concerns, Ray. For years now I’ve been a reliable, conscientious tenant, and he’s reciprocated by keeping my rent very reasonable for the area I live in. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement, which is what rentals should be, not gouging your tenants because you overpaid for an “investment” shack.

  22. ‘Give Neil Ferguson a break. Nearly two weeks ago Mr. Ferguson, an epidemiologist with Imperial College London, issued a report on Covid-19. Much of the public attention focused on his worst-case projection that there might as many as 2.2 million American and 510,000 British deaths. Fewer paid attention to the caveat that this was “unlikely,” and based on the assumption that nothing was done to control it.’

    ‘The report was one reason that led Prime Minister Boris Johnson to change policy and lock Britain down. Under the Imperial College model, the projection was that the steps Mr. Johnson had been taking would cut the number of projected deaths in half but still leave about a quarter million British dead.’

    ‘Now Mr. Ferguson has clarified his estimates. He told Parliament this week that he now reckons the number of deaths in the U.K. “would be unlikely to exceed 20,000”—and that many would be older people who would have died from other maladies this year. With the measures now in place, he believes Britain’s health service won’t be overwhelmed.’

    ‘There’s a warning here about science and journalism. Surely if we hope to neutralize a pandemic we don’t fully understand, we need to encourage a culture in which scientists feel able to adapt and clarify with new evidence. Scientists would also help themselves if, in explaining their findings, they would be more candid about the assumptions and variables.’

    ‘This goes double for the press. It’s no secret that the press’s reputation has taken a credibility hit in this crisis. Nor is it any secret why: Instead of a presentation of what we know and don’t, too often the focus has been political scapegoating or sensationalizing.’

    ‘This week on “CBS This Morning,” U.S. Surgeon-General Jerome Adams complained about a press that runs with projections “based on worst-case scenarios.” He was talking about ventilators, but his point applies across the board. Deborah Birx, coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, said the same regarding apocalyptic forecasts not backed by data about hospitals having to issue Do Not Resuscitate orders.’

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/worst-case-coronavirus-science-11585351059

    1. ‘According to an estimate by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were approximately 45 million cases of the flu in the United States during the 2017-2018 influenza season, resulting in an estimated 810,000 flu-associated hospitalizations and an estimated 61,000 flu-associated deaths.’

      2. So, getting thee old.fashioned “flu” (treatments available?) … or 👾 Corona.NO!🙅‍♀️ … = … same.thing.?

        2. “death rate .001355”

          Lung tissue chewin’ varmints 👾don’t cares ’bout numbers.

          really, they don’t.

          (knot sure hows eye knows that, put it’s my suspicions, & eye’m stickin’ to’s it!)

      4. That may flu deaths would result in over 167 flu deaths every single day. Since the flu season isn’t 365, let say 6 months. That’s 334 flu deaths every day during flu season. Not buying it, nor am I buying the mortality rate from Covie.

    2. Just spoke to a neighbor whose daughter works in the local hospital, and she said the situation is bad. Not enough monitors for the regular patients, and the level of care is going down. They have a refrigerator truck for the bodies.

      I wouldn’t take this lightly. Lots of younger people are getting it. They are recovering, but it apparently scars the lungs.

      I’m concerned my 88-year-old neighbor might get it, and lose 1-3 years off his life. But who is to say what the impact on a 30 year-end will be decades from now? They might lose 5-10 years off their life, as if they were smokers.

        1. America is not a healthy country, and the majority of the health problems here can be attributed to diet and lack of exercise.

          “This sucker could go down” — George W. Bush

          1. I’ve already made a few, shall I say, “errors” in my eating habits since this lockdown. I made some cookies and bought some snack things that I normally wouldn’t. Once a batch is made, good luck keeping me away. If I were a muppet I’d be “Cookie Monster.”

          2. The average ‘Merican lives on a diet of sugar cereal, pop tarts, donuts, french fries, soda pop and Taco Bell.

          3. Once a batch is made, good luck keeping me away.

            Double bomb in our household today. The Mother’s Day mason jar cookie mix gift tasted stale after using 3/4 cup of fresh butter and an egg and the 3-ingredient peanut butter cookies my husband made were underwhelming.

      2. refrigerator truck for the bodies

        Time will tell if this was overreacting.

        From 3/25: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/morgue-space-in-virus-hit-nyc-boosted-with-45-cooler-trucks

        “Officials stress that the measures are so far only precautionary, but the trailers and tents reflect both the feared scale of the epidemic in New York City and the precise lengths to which officials have been planning for the worst — down to the temperature of the trucks.”

        1. “refrigerator truck for the bodies”

          Makes for good TV

          “with almost 200 deaths” in what 2 weeks?

          470 people die in NYC everyday 365 days a year.

          1. Makes for good TV

            It does. Are they being ordered to add to the hysteria or really necessary? I honestly don’t know. I’m nevertheless concerned for my friends that live there.

          2. “I’m nevertheless concerned for my friends that live there.”

            So am I, I have family in the city and very close by.

          3. “470 people die in NYC everyday 365 days a year.”

            Well, any obituaries talk of illness/death caused by Aunt Marie pumped her gas @ local station, the 👾 “xaoh.knob.handle.death.germs” leaped unto’s her fingers & would.knott.let.go! Then she died. R.I.P. … $ad.

          4. leaped unto’s her fingers

            My gas tank is full. At the rate I’m driving I won’t have to fill up until after the apocalypse.

      3. I called my 95 year old neighbor a few days ago. She lives with her 73 year old daughter, a heavy smoker. They both went against advice last week & attended a funeral in Cleveland for a very distant relative, then had the whole crowd come to their 2 bedroom house for a get-together. She said everybody looked “clean”. I thought they will both be lucky if they are still alive in 30 days. They knew better than that.

  23. Seattle-based Loftium, which said one-third of its 600 properties are in Denver, is negotiating to reduce lease payments to landlords.

    Maybe they should rebrand themselves as Zoloftium. They’re going to be pretty damned depressed as the housing bubble bust plays out.

  24. What must have once come off as a low-risk, low-labour money-maker just melted away, leaving many hosts saddled with rents and mortgages they can no longer afford.

    Gosh, doesn’t sound like my idea of financial freedom.

  25. ‘I’m noticing many Airbnb hosts around me are starting to put up their condos for long-term listings,’ said Waterfront-area host Amy, who also did not provide her last name. ‘But because everybody’s doing it at the same time, it’s almost impossible to actually make it happen.’”

    No it’s not. All you have to do is lower the rent enough to make your rental a compelling value in our oligarch-looted, virus-ravaged economy. Of course you’ll probably be cash flow negative if you overpaid, but consider that a tax on greed and speculation.

  26. ‘The problem, I think, that landlords are going to start seeing is that people are going to want to start taking advantage of the situation.

    Payback’s a bitch, greedy landlords.

  28. “The coronavirus pandemic has seen a glut of former Aribnb properties appearing on the Edinburgh property market as long term lets – as the platform collapses across Scotland.

    Looks like some major rental reductions are in order, greedy landlords. And no, the monthly mortgage payment you’re on the hook for isn’t my problem or concern.

      1. Poor Oxy why? I’m not involved in rentals. Or maybe you’re going back to my statements of rents not going down proving that rents DO go down?

        Well of course, if a landlord shifts from a 1-7 day rental to a longer-term rental, the rent will go down. That would happen even pre-COVID. If LLs could get the same daily rents for six months as they could get for six days, then they wouldn’t rent on AirBnB in the first place.

      2. One thing I’ve never understood is your relentless ridicule and scorn of oxide, when you yourself bought a house.

          1. Blue bought a house, yes, but he bought it outright. So he’s debt free, except for exorbitant property taxes. He’s not scorning the house; he’s scorning the mortgage, just like the rest of HBB.

            What Blue doesn’t like to admit is that he was VERY lucky to be able to work a high pay job in a very cheap area. He lived on a boat part time and with relatives the rest of the time. With that kind of arrangement, it’s not hard to save up for a house by his age.

            Meanwhile, I’m 15 years behind him, so it’s difficult to compare. Even so, with the (pre-COVID) equity in my house plus some savings, I could buy his house outright and be mortgage free too. So he’s really not that far ahead of me. I’m sure he has more retirement banked, but I have 15 years to catch up to him there.

            He knows this full well, but the conversations here are worth the scorn.

          2. He lived on a boat part time and with relatives the rest of the time

            I rented a room from my son one winter. I had more interesting arrangements the rest of the time.

            If you have indeed saved enough cash in six years to pay off your mortgage, congratulations. If you’re talking about your retirement account then that’s pulling our legs.

            Things are getting interesting. We’ll see if the NYT Rent vs Mortgage calculator was right in predicting that you will get rich by mortgaging. If rents and house prices fall then it’s unfortunate. I have to admit, your idea that both will only go up was right for longer than I expected possible.

          3. “I have to admit, your idea that both will only go up was right for longer than I expected possible.”

            Unfortunately inflation in basic living essentials seems to be a consequence of quantitative easing.

          4. Thank you for the reasonable response, Blue. I haven’t saved up enough to pay *my* mortgage.

            What I’m saying, is that over the past 8 years I have paid a lot of principle, and got about about 2.3%/year house appreciation. If I add that up and subtract fees, I could sell the house and clear ~$120K+. That’s enough to buy a house in your area outright. I might need some liquid savings (which I have) to make up any difference, but I wouldn’t need to touch any retirement.

            I didn’t buy a house to get “rich,” depending on what you mean my rich. My aim in buying the house is exactly what I just said above – and have said for years: to pay down enough principle and get a modest appreciation to have a paid-off house in retirement. (not necessarily the house I live in now, just “a” house in a cheaper area.) That’s it, really. I’m not playing games like all the realtors and landlords we read about here. Real estate isn’t my job.

  29. Rents and homelessness have been rising alongside the sharp increase in residential properties being used as full time short term let businesses, without permission.’”

    Oh my. How the tables have turned. Short of seeing “woke” celebrities catch coronavirus, few things are more satisfying than seeing these short-term rental jackals get wiped out.

    1. few things are more satisfying than seeing these short-term rental jackals get wiped out. Most satisfying would be if one of the celebrity billionaires got wiped out.

      1. Not a fan of the Kardashians by any means, but have been favorably impressed with Kim Kardashian West’s efforts on prison reform. Our penal system is barbaric and a disgrace to any civilized nation.

        1. To me the best prison reform is to take away all parole hearing dates and base it on your ability to read, write and speak fluent English. Same with probation going to class daily and learning how to speak fluent English must be a main part of rehabilitation. So its up to the convict how long they want to stay in jail.

  30. “It goes to show one can be level headed and then make the same mistakes others did years later.”

    Yep.

    Isaac Newton’s Nightmare — Charted By Marc Faber
    Sam Ro
    Apr 2, 2013, 1:43 PM

    The parabolic move in Bitcoin prices has us thinking about some of the most notorious asset bubbles in history.

    We were thumbing through some of Jeremy Grantham’s old research and saw this great chart from Marc Faber.

    “I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men,” Newton apparently said after he lost his fortune.

    1. Here’s some awesome news: Some of the electricity wasted on Bitcoin mining is ending, thanks to the recent price collapse. Let’s hope this is the start of a trend.

      1. Every dark cloud has a silver lining.

        Bitcoin Price Decline Prompts US Mining Firm to Shut Down ‘Indefinitely’
        Anna Baydakova
        Coindesk
        March 27, 2020, 6:30 AM PDT

        Digital Farms, a California-based cryptocurrency mining company, is putting its operations on hold due to the recent decline in bitcoin’s (BTC) price.

        On March 18, the miner’s parent company, investment firm DPW Holdings, filed an update with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on its business related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been heavily affecting companies and markets globally. Among other closures and down-scalings, its mining business is being shuttered.

        “Digital Farms’ cryptocurrency mining operations have been suspended indefinitely, primarily due to the sharp decline in the market price for bitcoin,” the company wrote.
        …

        1. Magic internet money go bye bye.

          The first part of the Burton Malkiel book A Random Walk Down Wall Street discusses Dutch tulip mania, the South Sea bubble, the Mississippi Land Company, etc.

          Bitcoin is WORTHLESS.

    2. Other geniuses: Mark Twain lost a ton of money investing in a new type of printing press, and had to go on a lecture tour in Europe to pay his debts. Teddy Roosevelt was notoriously bad with money, losing most of his inheritance to his ranches. Even as he rose in positions of power, he left the management of his estate/farm on Long Island to his wife Edith. Beethoven could barely pay his bills. It was his son (or nephew?) who had the idea for Beethoven to write a song to pay the rent.

    1. With California on lockdown, freeway traffic down to a trickle, and air travel virtually shut down, I’m not sure how much oozing is underway at the moment.

  32. No worrie$, 5 day$ after Easter, the $pigot$ will be opened & the pipe$ & $torage tank$ & $hips emptied. All.acro$$.thee.Globe.

    Market$:

    Pipeline$ Ask U.S. Oil Driller$ to Curb Output$ as Tank$ Fill Up

    Bloomberg / By Javier Blas, Sheela Tobben, and Rachel Adams-Heard / March 28, 2020

    American pipeline operators have begun asking oil producers to voluntarily ratchet back their output in the clearest sign yet that a growing glut of crude is overwhelming storage capacity.

    Plains All American Pipeline LP, one of the biggest shippers of crude in the U.S., sent a letter this week asking its suppliers to scale back production. The notice came from the company’s marketing unit that buys and sells oil to customers. A Texas oil regulator said Saturday that drillers were getting similar notices from pipeline operators.

    Plains didn’t immediately have comment on its request. The company sent a separate letter requiring customers to prove they have a buyer or place to offload the crude they’re shipping

    U.S. oil refiners have been cutting back on the amount of crude they buy and process as lockdowns across the nation keep cars off the road, sending gasoline demand plummeting. Retail pump prices have, in some places, fallen below $1 a gallon.

    U.S. shale producers have begun to throttle back drilling, but it could take weeks if not months before that translates into a meaningful decline in oil production. Meanwhile, Cushing, Oklahoma — a major oil-storage hub — is already more than half full.

  35. The li$t is loooooooooong & exhau$$$$$$$$$$$tive.

    ($adly, it’$ behind$ a pay.wall)

    Busine$$:

    A Guide to Who’$ $eeking $timulus, From Manufacturer$ to Ca$ino$

    Bloomberg News / March 27, 2020

    Casino$ dealing with nationwide $hutdown.

    The indu$try lobbied as hard as any for $timulus funding, sending MGM Resort$ International’$ then-CEO, Jim Murren, to a White House meeting with Trump on March 17. The indu$try sought different type$ of aid, including zero-intere$t loan$

    Nearly all of the casino$ in the U.S. are closed to prevent the spread of the viru$, most after regulators and other local authorities ordered them shuttered. For some operators, the closures also follow a steep drop in Macau, where casinos are now open but largely walled off due to travel restrictions in China

    With assistance by Mark Niquette, Jonathan Levin, Naomi Nix, Christopher Palmeri, Brendan Case, Ryan Beene, Ben Brody, Stephen Cunningham, Yalman Onaran, Eric Newcomer, Julie Johnsson, Kelly Gilblom, Rob Golum, Edward Ludlow, Craig Giammona, Nic Querolo, and Patrick Clark

  36. How would a quarantine of New York and nearby states differ from the current Stay Home orders?

    1. I suppose that the cops and national guard could stop you if you leave your home and ask why are you out. In my neck of the woods “shelter at home” is on the honor system.

    2. It’s a little vague at this point, but one area of concern is that New Yorkers seem to be getting out of the state in droves, potentially spreading the disease in whatever communities they land. Many said communities are located in Florida.

      1. Ya gotta love a golden retriever named Mr. Bear!

        New Yorkers are fleeing the city to escape the coronavirus, but health officials worry it could worsen outbreaks elsewhere
        Julia Naftulin
        Mar 26, 2020, 7:39 AM
        suitcase christmas
        Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
        – Many residents have left New York City, now the epicenter of coronavirus cases in the United States, for smaller towns.
        – Health experts are concerned that, in doing so, New Yorkers could be unintentionally spreading the virus to places less equipped to handle potential outbreaks.
        – Experts say that anyone who has recently left New York City should self-quarantine for 14 days to prevent spreading the virus to other communities.

        When Isabel, a 23-year-old New York City resident, started to become concerned about novel coronavirus cases rising in the city, she couldn’t shake her anxiety.

        On March 13, she boarded an Amtrak train and, five hours later, arrived in rural Vermont where her mom, dad, and golden retriever, Mr. Bear, live.

        “I thought being around loved-ones would help [with my anxiety], and it did,” Isabel, who asked to omit her last name for privacy reasons, told Business Insider. “I also left because I was nervous about being in such a busy city with people everywhere.”

        Like Isabel, many other New Yorkers have left the city, which is now the epicenter of the pandemic in the US, in an attempt to escape the coronavirus. They’re replacing cramped apartments with wide-open spaces, family members, and the ability to go outside without worrying about crowds.

        But health experts are wary of New Yorkers’ displacing themselves, and worry that these people could unintentionally spread the coronavirus to places less equipped to handle potential outbreaks.
        …

          1. Good point…saw that recently on Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day.

            That suggests the concept of social distancing wasn’t just invented yesterday.

      2. And Florida with it’s elderly population could be disastrous.
        Payback for the spring break perhaps?

        1. A whole lot of Florida’s elderly come from New York-New Jersey. They call it the sixth borough (NYC has five).

          My guess is, however, that most of those who live in both places where down there when the coronavirus hit. Unless the kinds are going south to be with their elderly parents — which is NOT a good idea.

          1. Out here in the Finger Lakes, 300 miles from NYC, we have no cases at all, but the cottagers are already arriving. 24 beds in our hospital…

  37. Rental roulette. “Place yer bet$, hand$ off the table!”

    Who & how do you 👾 $terilize million$ of previous user.occupied vehicle$?

    Rental car$ are $tacking up in Arizona as coronaviru$ keeps traveler$ away

    Melissa Yeager, Arizona Republic

    An unexpected sight brought by the coronavirus pandemic that has spread worldwide? Parking lots filled with unused rental cars.

    Evidence of how the new coronavirus pandemic has brought Arizona’s normally busy spring travel season to a stop is parked in lines at the special events lot near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, reports the Arizona Republic, a member of the USA TODAY Network.

    Hundreds of rental cars that would normally shuttle tourists to resorts and spring training games now sit idle. Demand has come to a halt as travel restrictions meant to help contain the new coronavirus and prevent the spread of COVID-19 have forced the usual crowds of spring travelers to stay home.

    What you’re seeing at Sky Harbor is being repeated across the nation at many different airports,” said Gregory Scott, a spokesman for the American Car Rental Association trade group.

    Scott said car rentals nationwide are down 80% and that the parked cars are “a symptom of a larger problem for the industry as well as several other industries,” which now face liquidity issues caused by the drop in demand.

    Lack of demand hurts bottom lines

    Finding space to park the cars is just one of the problems the rental car industry is facing. Like many others, its income has dropped while fixed expenses have $tayed con$tant.

    A big fixed expen$e: their fleet$.

    Most fleets are leased and Scott said the companies still must make those payments to banks and finance companies.

    Eventually, companies can “de-fleet” by selling their cars either back to the manufacturers or to the public through their own resale lots.

    But with car manufacturers halting production and focusing on producing respirators, it is unpredictable what the used-car market will be like in the coming months and how much money could be recouped that way.

    On top of that, most airports charge fees for rental car companies to operate there.

    Sky Harbor imposes a $6 Customer Facility Charge per transaction. In 2019, that fee brought $50.5 million in revenue for the airport.

    Scott said most rental companies’ airport contracts include a guaranteed minimum on those fees, typically about 10% of their expected gross revenue for the year.

    The trade group sent a letter to Congress on behalf of the rental car companies, asking that any economic stimulus passed include liquidity help for the car rental industry as well as help with those minimum guarantees.

    1. Idunno I just wiped my dashboard with 3% peroxide and sprayed my car seats and rugs with Lysol, and closed it up. Funny i usually do this every few months anyway for the last …. years

  38. Editors’ Pick|19,577 views | Mar 12, 2020, 01:30am EDT
    Deathwatch Begins For The Subprime Of Shale Oil Drilling
    Christopher Helman
    Forbes Staff
    Energy
    WILLISTON SHALE
    Drilling in the Bakken of North Dakota, 2018. © 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP

    The news was “worse than we thought possible,” declared Michael Hsueh, strategist at Deutsche Bank, in a note Wednesday. With the Saudis now declaring their intention to flood the markets with 2.6 million barrels more per day than they sold in February, and the UAE and Russia following suit, the global markets could soon be oversupplied by 4 million barrels per day. West Texas Intermediate crude oil ended the day at $31 per barrel, half its price at the start of 2020.

    The oil situation has gotten so bad that fracking tycoon Harold Hamm took to the airwaves to publicly call out Saudi Arabia for “dumping” oil on the U.S. in violation of international treaties. Hamm says he will file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Commerce, and is calling for duties on Saudi oil imports. This is the same Hamm who several years ago declared that America’s oil drillers were on the cusp of defeating OPEC with a wave of patriotic petroleum. “We’re not asking for a handout; we want a level playing field,” Hamm reportedly said today.

    He’s got to try something. Whereas Russia, Saudi Arabia and even the supermajors like Chevron and BP have a broad enough resource base to withstand oil below prices of $40 per barrel, very few of America’s heavily indebted independent oil companies can compete. A six-month spell of ultra low prices could devalue a big chunk of the $1.9 trillion in energy sector debt, including about $300 billion in bank loans. (By comparison, the value of the subprime mortgages held by Americans in 2007 was $1.3 billion.)
    …

    1. The Financial Times
      Texas
      Oil bust and pandemic strike double blow for Texas
      State that outperformed the rest of the US on the back of the shale boom is heading for a crash
      Texas’s oil output quadrupled in the past decade, with the production boom in the Permian Basin surrounding Midland
      © REUTERS
      Gregory Meyer in New York 12 hours ago

      Steaks and oysters Rockefeller were once served to oil executives at Opal’s Table restaurant in Midland, Texas. This week the business closed its doors to customers to cook kerbside meals for the needy.

      An economic cyclone is ripping through Midland and the rest of Texas, the leading oil-producing state in the US. The Covid-19 outbreak has led to government stay-at-home orders that turned busy roads into empty blacktop. The ensuing collapse in fuel demand has halved the value of Texas crude amid an all-out price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

      Oil busts are familiar in Texas. Pandemics are not. The combination has cast a pall over its $1.8tn economy.

      At Opal’s, on the ground floor of an office building housing oil companies, owner Chip Hight said he decided to provide free food to the jobless and to medical personnel, magnanimity that will also keep his staff employed after the city banned dining out. “It appears that the winds are going to change very drastically,” he said.

      Texas’s oil output quadrupled in the past decade. The heart of the production boom is in the Permian Basin surrounding Midland, where volumes have reached 2.7m barrels per day, state data showed.

      [Column chart of Million barrels per day showing Texas accounts for 42% of US crude oil production]

      Wes Perry, chairman of oil and gas explorer PBEX and a former Midland mayor, said the sudden bust recalled the mid-1980s, when Saudi Arabia chose to open its taps in a quest for market share and drove West Texas Intermediate crude to $10 a barrel.

      But the disappearance of oil demand due to coronavirus makes this collapse unique. This week, Plains All-American, a pipeline company, was offering sellers $18.50 a barrel for WTI, whose peak this year was $63 in January.

      “As much a tragedy as the coronavirus is, most states are dealing with one problem. Texas is dealing with two because we’re dealing with coronavirus and the dramatic drop in oil and gas prices,” said Dale Craymer, president of the Texas Taxpayers & Research Association and a former state budget director.
      …

    2. Saudis not bowing to Trump admin pressure to end oil price war
      Riyadh declared an oil war after Moscow refused to back a proposal for deep output cuts to offset virus demand blow.
      23 hours ago
      Oil tanks at a Saudi Aramco facility in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. The oil giant pledged last month to drastically boost production, plummeting global crude to a 17-year low below $25 a barrel [File: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters]

      Saudi Arabia said on Friday that it was not in talks with Russia to stablise crude prices despite overtures from Moscow and rising pressure from Washington to call a truce in an oil price war.

      A three-year supply pact between the Saudi-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies led by Russia fell apart earlier this month after Moscow refused to support Riyadh’s plan for deeper production cuts to offset dwindling demand resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

      Saudi Arabia responded to the breakdown in relations by lowering the prices it charges for crude and pledging to pump oil next month at record levels.
      …

    3. “The oil situation has gotten so bad that fracking tycoon Harold Hamm took to the airwaves to publicly call out Saudi Arabia for “dumping” oil on the U.S. in violation of international treaties.”

      Why doesn’t he lodge a formal complaint in person at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul?

      1. Complaints of that nature in that region are usually delivered by a MQ-9 or, for more impoverished complainants, a Datsun rally car sponsored by Semtex.

    4. call out Saudi Arabia for “dumping” oil

      They can’t dump more than what our tank farms will hold.

  39. China must be feeling really stupid right about now.
    Their only 80000 corona cases is so fake just like the gdp and other economic stats

    2. When this is over 2-3 years from now, President Cuomo will remember who started this disease, who suppressed information about this disease, who spread this disease, and where all the masks and pharma drugs are produced. Oh, and who effed up the pet food and the drywall and the baby formula. The only thing worse for face than losing it, is trying to hide that you’re going to lose it. When the deception comes to light, they will lose even more.

        2. Some people so like his recent Mr. Rogers style fireside chat broadcasts that they suggest he be drafted at the convention.

          2. He might be electable, which makes him an unlikely Democratic presidential candidate.

            He does seem to be the favorite of the anybody-but-Bernie-ouch-Joe’s-a-disaster-too contingent.

  40. Now the bailout done and Central banks all over the world emerging with more power than before, I expect the corona hysteria to subside gradually.

  42. “At least two people who are homeless in Denver have tested positive for COVID-19, the fast-spreading illness caused by the new coronavirus, health officials said Friday.

    The people are recovering in motel rooms provided by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, but advocates worry that more people are sick and that the city and state are unprepared for a surge of the illness among those without homes or a place to self-quarantine.

    “Two positive cases means we probably have more coming,” said Cathy Alderman, vice president of communications and public policy at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.

    https://coloradosun.com/2020/03/28/homeless-people-coronavirus-outbreak/

    We were working downtown two weeks ago with the van parked in an alley and some tweaker tried to steal the old bulbs of the fixtures we were replacing. Zero resale value but try telling that to a tweaker.

  43. “…832 people have died in the past 24 hours — but also as the accumulated number of cases rose by a relatively low 13 per cent.”

    13% daily growth in cases implies 5.5 days to double the accumulated number of cases. I’m not sure how journalists define “relatively low”.

    The Financial Times
    Spain halts all ‘non-essential’ work for two weeks
    Fatalities in Italy top 10,000 as death toll continues to rise across Europe
    © Getty Images
    Daniel Dombey in Madrid and Miles Johnson in Rome 3 hours ago

    Spain is to ban all non-essential work for two weeks in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus, Pedro Sánchez, the country’s prime minister, announced on Saturday night.

    Mr Sánchez has faced mounting pressure to step up Spain’s two-week old lockdown from political opponents and even within his own coalition as the death toll from the virus has mounted.

    His announcement came after Spain registered its highest daily death toll to date — 832 people have died in the past 24 hours — but also as the accumulated number of cases rose by a relatively low 13 per cent.

    Mr Sánchez said in a televised address that the existing measures had put the country “on the right path”. He added that the lockdown had clearly limited people’s movements at the weekends and that the country needed to take “an extra step” to reduce mobility — and hence the risk of infections — during the week.

    He also issued an emotional call for the EU to show that “it is listening” by taking “economic and social action” to deal with the aftermath of the health crisis.

    “This is the most difficult moment since its foundation and the EU has to measure up to the circumstances,” he said.

    At a teleconference of EU leaders last week Spain was among those calling for the EU to take actions such as issuing common debt and a commitment to bloc-wide spending plans.
    …

  44. Limiting visits to senior care facilities doesn’t eliminate the risk if staff can bring it in.

    Coronavirus Enters San Diego County’s Senior Care Facilities
    Friday, March 27, 2020
    By Amita Sharma
    Photo by Laura McVicker
    Above: Signs in front of the Stellar Care senior living facility limiting guests during the COVID-19 pandemic, March 26, 2020.

    The coronavirus made its grim arrival at San Diego County’s senior care facilities this week — three have confirmed cases and three others are awaiting test results, according to county officials.

    The officials have refused to release the names of the facilities with cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. KPBS, however, has identified two of them.

    One is La Vida Real in Rancho San Diego, where four staff members have tested positive.

    “We are monitoring the situation closely and requiring all staff in the assisted living and memory care building to wear masks when inside the building and use personal protective equipment when interacting with residents showing any symptoms, per CDC guidelines,” La Vida Real said in a statement.

    Another worker is awaiting the results. Also, four people living in La Vida Real’s memory care section have been tested after showing symptoms.
    …

    1. This is going to get very sad soon for alot of American families. Ex’s father in a nursing home in Ohio is on his way out from other health problems and no children can visit. I buried my father last year and don’t want to see my mother die anytime soon.

        1. This is a generation of a family that was born in the Depression but too young to serve in WWII. You can learn alot listening to those old stories. Once those stories are gone, they’re gone forever…

          1. My parents wrote their memoirs over the past few years, so their Depression era childhood stories can be passed down to later generations…

  45. Bonds
    10-year Treasury yield falls below 0.8% as investors remain on edge about the coronavirus
    Published Fri, Mar 27 2020 3:32 AM EDT
    Updated Fri, Mar 27 2020 9:57 AM EDT
    Yun Li
    Elliot Smith

    Long-maturity Treasury yields fell as investors remained on edge after the U.S. has overtaken China for the most corononavirus cases worldwide.

    The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to price, was lower at 0.77%, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was down at 1.36%.

    The U.S. now has the most confirmed cases of coronavirus in the world, with 85,991 as of Friday morning, resulting in 1,296 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
    …

    1. New York Times says there are 119,000 U.S. cases today, up from 85,991 Friday morning.

      (119,000-85,991)/85,991 = 38.4% daily growth rate, with case count doubling time of less than two days.

    2. I guess the U.S. COVID-19 death tally just doubled in two days to 2000. This roughly means that more people died in the U.S. alone over the past 48 hours than died worldwide over the entire nine months duration of the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.

      I’m getting ready to go out shopping in an empty grocery store.

      1. Live updates: Confirmed U.S. coronavirus-related deaths double in two days, hitting 2,000

        Please Note

        The Washington Post is providing this story for free so that all readers have access to this important information about the coronavirus. For more free stories, sign up for our daily Coronavirus Updates newsletter.

        Confirmed U.S. coronavirus-related deaths doubled in two days, hitting 2,000 on Saturday evening, based on reporting from state health departments. It took about a month from the first confirmed death for the United States to record 1,000, but the toll has risen rapidly, and officials say the worst is yet to come.
        …

        1. The Financial Times
          Peter Wells an hour ago
          US coronavirus death toll surges past 2,000
          The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in the US has pushed past 2,000, doubling in a little over two days, as the national toll of confirmed cases topped 120,000.

          Five-hundred and seventeen deaths – or nearly 26 per cent of the national toll – have occurred in New York City and a further 109 have occurred within the state, helping cement its status as one of the hotspots in the global coronavirus pandemic.

          The high number of deaths and cases in New York prompted Donald Trump on Saturday to voice the possibility of quarantining the state, as well as neighbouring New Jersey – the second worst-affected state in the country – and certain parts of Connecticut. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo subsequently told reporters he had discussed no such plan with the US president.

          The 2,000 milestone comes 23 days after the US recorded its first coronavirus-related death, and is a more than doubling since Wednesday, when the toll sat just below 1,000, according to FT analysis of John Hopkins University data.

          This represents a mortality rate that is only surpassed by Spain, Italy and France, which had reported their 2,000th death in the range of 15 to 20 days. China, where the coronavirus pandemic originated, took nearly 30 days to pass the same milestone.

          The US had a total of 121,117 confirmed cases of coronavirus as of Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
          …

      2. I’m getting ready to go out shopping in an empty grocery store.

        You and thousands of others. Better bring a mask.

        1. I miscalculated. Due to reduced business hours and social distancing limits on customers in the store, there were lines out the doors at both stores I visited. I’ll go back either early or late, as I don’t want to catch coronabug waiting in line.

      3. I guess the U.S. COVID-19 death tally just doubled in two days to 2000.

        I think there were close to 1,300 a couple days ago, so it did not quite double in two days. However, I mentioned a few days ago that the number of dead has been doubling every 3 days for a couple weeks now. This surely isn’t sustainable, right? Because if it is, that would mean more than 2 million dead in 30 days.

        1. Just repeating what I read in WaPo and the Financial Times.

          “The 2,000 milestone comes 23 days after the US recorded its first coronavirus-related death, and is a more than doubling since Wednesday, when the toll sat just below 1,000, according to FT analysis of John Hopkins University data.”

        2. Your point finally registered. I’m slightly less alert than usual after my first full week of the CA Stay Home order.

          The Financial Times
          George Russell an hour ago
          US death toll tops 2,000 as it doubles in less than 72 hours

          The US total number of coronavirus-related deaths in the US rose above 2,000 on Saturday, according to state and territory data compiled by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

          The milestone comes 23 days after the US recorded its first coronavirus-related death, and the toll of 2,010 deaths has more than doubled since Wednesday, according to FT analysis of the university’s data.
          …

      4. I’m getting ready to go out shopping in an empty grocery store.

        I went out to Safeway at noon to pick up a few things. They had everything I was looking for, and when I looked down the TP aisle, there were a few packages left.

      5. “I’m getting ready to go out shopping in an empty grocery store.”

        Sounds like you will enjoy real savings!

      1. This fella might$ have King.dollar$ … hope he’$ getting the be$t $ervice his monie$ can purcha$e!

        Former MLB All-$tar Jim Edmonds ho$pitalized, being tested for coronaviru$

        By SCOTT BOECK | USA TODAY | 3 hours ago

        The four-time All-Star shared his experience Saturday on Instagram, writing: “Held off as long as I could.

        I thought I was tough enough to get through. This viru$ is no joke. #gethealthy.”

  47. Banks can’t win ’em all.

    And cockroach theory suggest there’s lots more similar news to come in the near future.

    Derivatives, Post-Trade, Sell-Side
    March 27, 2020 10:07 AM GMT
    ABN Amro confirms $200 million hit from client’s failed margin call
    A client could not meet margin calls on US options and futures trades, forcing ABN Amro to close-out the position and take a $200 million loss.
    By Hayley McDowell

    Dutch bank ABN Amro has confirmed that it will incur a significant $200 million loss after a single client failed to meet margin calls to keep trading.

    In a statement, ABN Amro said the client was trading US options and futures and could not meet the requirements due to ‘extreme stress and dislocation’ in US markets amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

    The bank confirmed its clearing arm, ABN Amro Clearing, was forced to close-out the client’s position to prevent further losses. It stated the pre-tax loss incurred stands at $250 million, with the net loss totalling $200 million, which would be included in ABN Amro’s first quarter earnings this year. The client involved was not identified.

    Volatility across markets globally has persisted throughout the coronavirus outbreak despite intervention from central banks and efforts from governments to settle concerns of investors. ABN Amro’s confirmed loss is one of the largest the industry has seen to date related to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Last week, US exchange operator CME confirmed that its clearing arm was forced to auction off portfolios belonging to Chicago-based proprietary trading firm Ronin Capital. Ronin Capital was unable to meet its margin requirements on its bond and futures trades.
    …

    2. “the former veep told guest co-host Sara Haines that “we have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse no matter what.”

      Yogi Berra for president!

      I guess not, some of Yogi’s made more sense than that.

      Yogi Berra quotes

      1. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

      2. You can observe a lot by just watching.

      3. It ain’t over till it’s over.

      4. It’s like déjà vu all over again.

      5. No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.

      6. Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.

      7. A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.

      8. Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.

      9. We made too many wrong mistakes.

      10. Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken.

      1. I thought about it but the song is too long and has some really nasty lyrics in it probably not suitable for a kid walking by a blogger’s laptop.

      2. Had that on LP vinyl in the ’60s while I was in HS Played it while doing homework. Too loud I think, my mother was patient with me. I actually graduated.

    2. Hey, thanks for that. If it weren’t for food, music, and alcohol, I doubt I could survive the California quarantine.

      1. I’ve noticed since the onset of the California quarantine order, my alcohol stash is harder to maintain.

        1. There may be no TP at Vons but the beer coolers (a full aisle long) remain fully stocked…

        2. Heard a Dr. on TV saying in this time of Coronavirus staying at home we should focus on inner peace. To achieve this we should always finish things we start and we all could use more calm in our lives. I looked through my house to find things i’d started and hadn’t finished, so I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Chardonnay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of wum, tha mainder of Valiumun srciptuns, an a box a chocletz. Yu haf no idr how feckin fablus I feel rite now. Sned this to all who need inner piss. An telum u luvum. And two hash yer wands, stafe day avrybobby!!!

          2. Eye’s don’ts drinks any mores.

            Eye’s don’t drinks anys less, but eye don’t drinks anymores. 🍷

          3. That’s funny…and also probably a tragic reality for many trying to cope.

            I’ve found that playing my guitar is a tremendous comfort, which fills my heart with joy. I have to also say that having followed this story since January through international news sources has resulted in no surprises with the situation at hand.

      2. I’m surviving quarantine mentally pretty well, but it’s so weird watching YouTube and seeing all these YV pesonalities in quarantine too. Like, Brian May doing 5-minute microconcerts from his living room. Or watching news anchors broadcast from their kitchen (with minimal makeup). One channel, YellowBrickCinema, broadcasts generic relaxation music. Their latest video is “music for quarantine.” Or people singing from their balconies.

  50. If you can get the full version of this story, it contains a doozy of a figure tracing the Dow’s capitulation beginning in October of 1929 and continuing through the end of 1933. So there is at least one historic example of a stock market correction that took over 3 years to play out.

    I recently read that the Dow was off by about 90% from it’s high by the end of this stretch.

    The Intelligent Investor
    We Can’t Prevent Market Panics. We Can Control How We React.
    The dangers lurking in the market can be hidden or delayed, but never eliminated. For investors, slumps are a chance for introspection–and, sometimes, new opportunity.
    By Jason Zweig
    March 28, 2020 12:00 am ET

    How could a microscopic organism destroy nearly $15 trillion in global stock-market wealth in five weeks?

    Until recently, many investors believed central banks and other policy makers had repealed the business cycle and that making money in the stock market was something you could take for granted—in much the same way that science and technology seemed to have beaten back diseases that had been the scourge of humanity for millennia.

    Maybe investors a century ago and more had a wiser view. They believed the world was governed by unseen, omnipresent powers that could be appeased but never controlled—and that financial panics were a form of divine retribution for the sinful excesses of prosperity.

    We shouldn’t regard market panics as quaint artifacts from the days of ticker tape and trading by telephone. Rather, they are forces that can be hidden or delayed but never eliminated. And believing that panics have become obsolete is a precondition for their recurrence.

    The modern history of financial markets is a chronicle of attempts to control risk—if not eliminate it. One after another, they have all failed.

    Crash Landing

    The downturn of 2020 could rival market pullbacks during past contractions but is far from the lows reached during the Great Depression.
    …

    2. many investors believed central banks and other policy makers had repealed “…the business cycle and that making money in the stock market was something you could take for granted…”

      Didn’t top Fed officials pretty much do everything within their power to convince market participants that this was the case?

      Which brings to mind a favorite nursery rhyme:

      “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,”
      By Mother Goose
      Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
      Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
      All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
      Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

      1. “that making money in the stock market was something you could take for granted”

        I follow some of the FIRE crowd and the vast majority seem to be all about VTSAX and chill and also appear to never have lived an investing life through a downturn.

    3. How could a microscopic organism destroy nearly $15 trillion in global stock-market wealth in five weeks?

      Because bubbles pop.

      1. Yeah, that’s like saying “how could one loud sound destroy a whole village at the bottom of that steep mountain?” It’s all about the stored energy, not the trigger that releases it.

  51. Since a week ago I have started to become proficient with Zoom, Google Hangouts, Facebook Chats, Skype, and various other distant socializing online platforms. This episode has been a good incentive for boomer dogs to learn new tricks!

    1. There exists empirical evidence that the last time CO2 concentration was this high the corresponding ocean sea level was 60-ft higher due to less polar ice. The difference is that way back the the CO2 concentration crept up slowly whereas current concentration amounts are climbing much faster due to fossil fuel combustion to support industrial age production and modern living standards.

    2. @Chino-
      I do agree with you that there are more pressing issues in the forefront, but also realize that this is an election year.

  53. It’s different this time.

    Or so I’ve been told.

    The Financial Times
    Opinion Inside Business
    Coronavirus bailouts must avoid the taint of ‘corporate socialism’
    Assistance should be limited, dilutive, and aimed solely at the helpless
    Jonathan Ford
    © AFP via Getty Images
    Jonathan Ford an hour ago

    Governments have moved with commendable dispatch to avert lay-offs by companies shuttered by coronavirus, seeking to shore up household incomes during the hopefully brief hiatus. But what about more exotic forms of corporate welfare if those measures aren’t enough?

    Some sectors have been quick to stake claims for additional alms, such as the US airlines and the aircraft maker Boeing, whose hardship pleas were rewarded by bumper packages of $50bn for the carriers and another $150bn earmarked for other “distressed sectors”. In Britain, the entrepreneur, Richard Branson, has suggested the UK aviation industry might need an extra £7.5bn to tide it over the shutdown. How should governments go about assessing such claims?

    The first thing they must do is to avoid any whiff of caving into special pleading. How such things are viewed in hindsight is important.

    It doesn’t matter that the most affected companies aren’t responsible for creating the present crisis in the way the banks were with their toxic assets a decade ago. There should be no repetition of the unsavoury aroma left by the 2008-9 US bailouts where, writes Nassim Taleb, “bankers who lost more money than ever earned in the history of banking, received the largest bonus pool in the history of banking less than two years later”.
    …

  54. So a friend’s son was murdered, according to a Facebook post. But I guess funerals are off limits with social distancing. Pain is worse if you have to endure it alone.

    1. The Financial Times
      Coronavirus
      Grieving alone — coronavirus upends funeral rites
      All over Europe, authorities issue orders to cancel, shorten or curtail ceremonies
      Coffins from the Bergamo area, the Italian town at the epicentre of the European outbreak, are unloaded from a military truck at the cemetery of Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan, on Friday
      © Claudio Furlan/LaPresse/AP
      Davide Ghiglione in Rome and Tobias Buck in Berlin
      2 hours ago

      Don Gabriele Bernardelli, a 58-year-old priest in the Italian town Castiglione D’Adda, has lost more than 60 members of his parish to the coronavirus pandemic. He could not give a proper funeral to any of them.

      “Now that funerals are banned, my deputy parish priest and I are the ones who are there to pray for the dead on behalf of the whole community,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday. “Many of my parishioners weren’t even able to talk to their loved ones before they passed away — they only see a sealed coffin, if they are lucky. We can only be close to those who are still here and pray with them. We can only have faith.”

      The global pandemic has brought death to thousands, and grief to thousands more. But it has also forced a radical change in the way those left behind are mourning their dead — upending rituals and traditions that have provided comfort and reassurance for generations.
      …

    2. So a friend’s son was murdered, according to a Facebook post.

      What??? Need more details on this one.

      1. So do I. I learned about it from my wife, who saw his Facebook post. Can’t find the story in the news.

  56. Coronavirus
    San Diego County Extends Public Health Orders Indefinitely Until Further Notice
    By Sophia McCullough • Published March 28, 2020 • Updated 4 hours ago
    County’s Latest Coronavirus News for March 28, 2020
    NBCUniversal, Inc.

    NBC 7’s Erika Cervantes has the latest coronavirus information from the county.

    San Diego County leaders Saturday revised the public health orders, which already established strict rules for residents to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, extending them indefinitely until further notice.

    All the orders presently in place have been extended including no gatherings of more than 10 people, no dine-in restaurant services, no in-person classes for all public and private educational institutions, as well as limited daycare and childcare services.

    Also still in place was the strong recommendation that all persons 65 years or older and/or have underlying health conditions quarantine themselves at home.

    Nonessential businesses should be closed and essential businesses should be adhering to social distancing and proper hygiene, Fletcher said.

    When announced on March 16, the orders were initially set to expire on March 31.

    Officials noted the extensions were in line with an increased severity of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

    The announcement came after the county’s single largest jump in reported coronavirus cases with 76 new cases Friday for a total of 417.

    “The situation in San Diego is only going to get worse in the coming days and the actions that we take now will impact the severity of that increase,” County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said Saturday. “We are going to be in this posture for a while.”
    …

    1. 76/(417-76) = 22.3% one day growth in cases. Approximate case growth rate is four times higher over a week’s time.

  57. This is really freaky.

    Rats swarm New Orleans’ streets as coronavirus precautions leave them empty
    March 28, 2020 / 10:52 AM / CBS News

    Precautions put in place to slow the rise of coronavirus cases in New Orleans has inadvertently led to a rat problem for the Louisiana city. With restaurants closed save for take-out service, far less food waste is being discarded in the city’s alleyways, driving the local rodent population out into the open to search for scraps.

    New Orleans’ famous Mardi Gras celebration brought thousands of tourists to the city, and medical experts believe it might be a big factor in the city’s COVID-19 outbreak. Now with Bourbon Street’s famous bars all closed and people social distancing, videos show dozens of rats scurrying through the empty streets.

    “I turn the corner, there’s about 30 rats at the corner, feasting on something in the middle of the street,” one local restauranteur told CBS News’ Omar Villafranca. He said he had “never” seen anything like it before.
    …

  58. Texas has adopted a Hawaii-style quarantine measure for entrants from certain other states. Now that coronavirus has a foothold in every state and DC, it seems a bit late for this.

    Governors are starting to close their borders. The implications are staggering.
    The coronavirus pandemic is testing the very notion that the United States are united.
    By Ian Millhiser Mar 28, 2020, 8:30am EDT
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott addresses the media during a press conference held at Arlington Emergency Management on March 18, 2020, in Arlington, Texas. Tom Pennington/Getty Images

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed an executive order on Thursday that would require travelers from some coronavirus hotspots to self-quarantine: It provides that “every person” who flies into Texas from “New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or the City of New Orleans, or in any other state or city as may be proclaimed hereafter, shall be subject to mandatory self-quarantine for a period of 14 days from the time of entry into Texas or the duration of the person’s presence in Texas, whichever is shorter.”
    …

    1. Even rural areas of states are not too welcoming of the city folk. As Blue said, the Finger Lakes do NOT want their summer tourists to come early.

      1. Can local communities pass 14 (or 40?) day quarantine measures on outsiders joining the community to run away from COVID-19 hotspots? Or could the federal government do this at a national level?

    2. “As the Supreme Court explained in Saenz v. Roe (1999), the right of citizens to travel freely among the states…”

      So they can mention Saenz v. Roe, but no one still ever talks about what that case was about.

      As part of the welfare reform act of 1996, more generous states insisted on a provision that people that were not taken care of in Red States that subsequently traveled to Blue States would only be eligible for the public benefits they would have received in the state they left. The Supreme Court stuck it down.

      So lots of people talk about all the homeless, mentally ill people in New York and California. But no one talks about where those people are from. If this oil recession lasts long enough, you’d have to expect some poor people from Texas to end up on public assistance or receiving mental health services in California as a result.

      Saenz v. Roe is one of those deals neither “liberals” not “conservatives” want to talk about, each for their own reasons. When you see the extent of the Unsaid, it shows just what a fraud all that so-called political conflict among Generation Greed really is.

      1. So lots of people talk about all the homeless, mentally ill people in New York and California. But no one talks about where those people are from.

        Good point. And I’m sure it frustrates the blue states. But I think the red states make a valid point too…don’t give away so much that it becomes an attraction. Nobody else can afford to do that…and neither can the blue states if the truth be known.

        1. Give them an incentive and they will come. It’s why libraries have become a favorite daytime hangout for homeless and other dregs: free computers for watching porn, comfy couches for sleeping. The only thing missing is free food. One of the final tasks of the day at any library is for security to sweep the place and chase the homeless out at closing time.

    3. ” … or in any other state or city as may be proclaimed hereafter, shall be subject to mandatory self-quarantine for a period of …”

      Even Texas is speaking just like the 🍊.jesus 👑!, lordy.

  59. Economic Preview
    The U.S. is sinking into recession, but the full scope of the damage won’t be visible right away
    Published: March 28, 2020 at 1:40 p.m. ET
    By Jeffry Bartash
    U.S. jobs report for March due Friday won’t capture all the devastation
    A State of Michigan Unemployment Agency office closed because of the coronavirus. Jobless claims are unemployment are soaring because of the pandemic. Getty Images

    A flood of bad news on the economy is about to pour in confirming what has become quite obvious: the U.S. is sinking into a deep recession.

    Crumbling consumer confidence, slumping auto sales, a manufacturing funk and rising layoffs — we’ll see all of that this week.

    What we might not see right away, however, is the full scope of the damage to the labor market.
    …

    1. “A flood of bad new$ on the economy is about to pour in confirming what has become quite obviou$”:

      Lung.tissue chewin’ varmints 👾 don’t care$ none ’bout$ you$ two legged’$ eCONomy.

      Monkey.pox!

    1. idiots who can’t abide by the basic rules of a civilized society A few days ago I read an online article about an African country. Two violators of the local COVID-19 rules were shot dead by police, a third violator was eaten by crocodiles.

  62. Whistling while strolling past the graveyard won’t change the situational reality.

    The Financial Times
    Opinion Global Economy
    Can the world afford fiscal and monetary stimulus on this scale?
    Policy injection is more dramatic than what we saw after financial crash
    Gavyn Davies
    Donald Trump arrives back at the White House after a trip to Virginia. The US Federal Reserve may finance part of the country’s fiscal stimulus by buying Treasuries
    © Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty
    Gavyn Davies
    2 hours ago

    The fiscal and monetary stimulus announced by the world’s major economies over the past month is a global policy event without precedent in peacetime.

    The increase in fiscal spending and loans in the US this year alone will reach more than 10 per cent of gross domestic product, larger than the rise in the federal deficit through 2008 and 2009. Although this is probably not as big as the financial stimulus implemented by China after the financial crash 12 years ago, most big economies could see government debt to GDP ratios rising by 10-20 percentage points.

    The impact of central bank injections will be equally enormous. For example, the US Federal Reserve may finance part of the country’s fiscal stimulus by buying Treasuries. On top of that, its balance sheet will grow from purchases of mortgage bonds and packages of private loan assets. It would not be surprising if the Fed’s balance sheet increased by $2tn-$3tn this year, up from $4.2tn at the end of 2019.

    That is similar to the cumulative increase over the entire decade that followed the financial crash. Those who claimed that central banks would be irrelevant in handling this crisis could not be more wrong.

    However, many investors — and, privately, some policymakers — wonder if this degree of stimulus by the US and most other big economies is “affordable”, and whether it will cause government debt crises and a subsequent rise in inflation.

    If the answer to either of these questions is “yes”, markets could lose confidence in the ability of the authorities to cope with the coming recession. The results for asset prices would be gruesome.

    Fortunately, this is unlikely to be the case.
    …

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