thehousingbubble@gmail.com
Blog

It Is Easier To Ignore The Facts Than Face Reality

A weekend topic starting with the Globe and Mail. “So who is paying for this massive wave of purchases by the Fed, the Bank of Canada and others? For now, nobody. Central banks are simply crediting themselves with the funds they need. In a fiat money system, they can do so with a few key strokes. In practice, things don’t always go so smoothly. The Bank of Japan began QE nearly 20 years ago. Many other central banks adopted their own versions during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. Most of these transactions have never been reversed. Rather than being temporary, most QE now looks permanent.”

“Followers of modern monetary theory or MMT, once considered a fringe school of economics, argue governments should ignore deficits and happily create as much money as is necessary to support the economy, create jobs and achieve other objectives. Only a few months ago, MMT seemed revolutionary. Now it simply looks like a description of what central banks are already doing.”

From The Guardian. “Ronald Reagan’s 1986 wisecrack – ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help’ – would not get a lot of laughs today. In much of the world, people are desperate for the government to show up and rise to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic. Some social scientists and historians argue that this pandemic could become a turning point in social history – on a par with the New Deal in the US or the post-war Labour government in the UK.”

“The coronavirus pandemic could also boost statism of another kind – more Big Brother than Great Society – by providing cover for governments to restrict civil liberties and entrench themselves in power. There are few signs yet that China’s leaders will be held accountable for their failure to contain the outbreak at its source, and their response to criticism has been further suppression of dissent and science.”

The Sun Sentinel in Florida. “Many borrowers have flooded social media with accounts of contacting their mortgage servicers, large and small, with requests to skip payments, then being told they can skip only three months and must repay them in a lump sum on the fourth month. Michael Zemon, of Pembroke Pines, said he tried to explain to his mortgage servicer what options are required for his Fannie Mae loan ‘and they had no idea what I was talking about.’ He added, ‘I’m waiting for a supervisor to call me back tomorrow.'”

“Only when the borrower nears the end of the forbearance period will the servicer begin to discuss repayment options, after asking whether the borrower can repay the full amount of missed payments.”

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “The coronavirus pandemic has shuttered municipal buildings across the Bay Area. Yet outside of courthouses and city halls across the Bay Area, one obscure legal proceeding continues to unfold: the auctioning off of foreclosed properties. Every week more than a dozen such auctions are taking place from San Francisco to Redwood City to Oakland, as auctioneers rattle off addresses and prices, and would-be investors gather around and bid for a chance to take ownership of a home where the previous owner has fallen behind on loan payments.”

“On Thursday, attorney Tom LaLanne showed up to City Hall on behalf of a client who had been in negotiation with the lender on a forbearance agreement. He had planned to ask the court to temporarily enjoin the sale to allow more time to work out a deal, refinance the debt or sell. ‘Superior Court is so bogged down we couldn’t get a hearing,’ he said.”

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. “A migration slump following the coronavirus outbreak could temporarily shrink Sydney’s population and leave it at more than 200,000 fewer people than expected by 2025, raising doubts about the timetable for major infrastructure projects. The report’s author, economist Terry Rawnsley, said the departure of around 300,000 temporary visa holders from Australia this year may even ‘push Sydney’s population backwards’ temporarily.”

“Subdued population growth will take a toll on demand for new housing construction which is an important driver of economic growth. Sydney’s population growth had been slowing even before the coronavirus outbreak. Last financial year the city’s population increased by 1.7 per cent, the lowest rate in seven years.”

From Stuff New Zealand. “Given a choice between altering my belief system and ignoring facts; I usually prefer to ignore facts. I’ve spent decades investing in the things I believe in and the cost of discarding these ideas is too painful compared to the simplicity of ignoring evidence. Helpfully I do not have many beliefs. Which brings me to Air New Zealand. The Efficient Market Hypothesis, which I stubbornly remained attached to decades after I knew it was bunkum, is the idea that the price of an asset is a function of all of the available information. This assumes rational investors and some liquidity in the market.”

“At three dollars a share Air New Zealand is worth about $3.4 billion, which for a business making $400m before tax seems about right. Since then its revenue has fallen 98 per cent. The state has had to lend it 900m and has the option to turn that into equity. Most of her planes are parked up. International travel has ended and it could be a year before there’s any significant revenue from overseas customers.”

“The airline’s major assets, aircrafts, are going to be hard to sell in the current market. It owes lenders 2.3 billion, not including the 900 million mentioned above. Yet at the time of writing the share price was $1.36 and at that level the market capital is $1.5 billion. It is difficult to see any justification for this valuation. Air New Zealand isn’t going anywhere, financially or literally. Whatever value that can be salvaged from its domestic operation will go to repaying its lenders. There won’t be any dividend between now and the next Beatles reunion tour.”

“Its share price should be two small rocks and a piece of string. You can do the same analysis for most of the major firms on any bourse in the OECD; I picked Air New Zealand only for most readers’ familiarity with it.”

“Many believe that an economy that was closed can simply be opened and the massive bubble created by a decade of cheap credit will be re-inflated as easily as Adrian Orr prints electronic money. We are in for a shock. Once we are released from home detention we shall find a desolate landscape of mass unemployment, closed shops and a collapsing housing market. Investors are stuck in a mental mindscape of a world they know and a belief in the power of governments and central banks to stimulate away any economic crisis.”

“The reality of the road that lies ahead is too painful to accept. It is easier to ignore the facts than face reality.”

The Los Angeles Times. “For more than a decade, California lawmakers have pushed with increasing urgency to build more housing near transit stops and job centers. Density, they’ve reasoned, is the best way to control the exploding cost of living and reduce residents’ reliance on carbon-spewing vehicles in a state best known for its sprawling suburbs. But now density has a new foe: the coronavirus. Skeptics of greater urbanization say the pandemic has proved that they were right all along.”

“New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo, has blamed high-rise apartment complexes and busy subways for the city’s plight. ‘Why are we seeing this level of infection? Why cities across the country? It’s very simple. It’s about density,’ Cuomo said at a recent news conference, punctuating his statement with a PowerPoint slide emblazoned with ‘DENSITY’ in all capital letters. The coronavirus, the governor continued, ‘is very contagious. The dense environments are its feeding grounds.'”

The Victorville Daily Press in California. “In 1933, H.G. Wells predicted a future that included a global economic slump that led to a world war and devastating global plague. Eventually the countries with the strongest militaries formed a ‘benevolent dictatorship.’ A new world order was imposed on earth to end conflict and promote harmony. My armchair predictions for our post-COVID-19 future are not quite that dark.”

“The COVID-19 social distancing regimen will deal a death blow to the liberal planners who had California teetering toward high-density regulations for everything from single-family housing to dog kennels. Five-story tall apartment buildings crammed into residential neighborhoods were so close to reality, the planners could smell victory. But, alas, the glorious dream of apartments placed on top of shops with rapid transit rail stops just outside was foiled by this damn virus. How can these people ever save our planet if we need extra space to stay alive? Oh my God, what a dilemma.”

“Now, one issue this virus has put on life support is globalism. COVID-19 has accomplished what nationalist movements everywhere failed to do by making citizens of every country keenly aware of the consequences that come with letting down their guards regarding immigration, unfettered international travel and foreign manufacturing. In my view, that’s one positive to come from this tragic event.”

“A problematic local issue that must be addressed quite soon — possibly before the future arrives — is what we do with the homeless folks who’ve been living in empty hotel rooms, vacant houses and trailers provided by our government. While you contemplate an answer, consider who and how the owners of those properties will be compensated for repairs and maintenance once they’re vacated.”

From Prospect Magazine. “There’s a scene in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory where Charlie, having been unsuccessful before in finding a prize-winning golden ticket in his chocolate bar, uncovers one in a bar he opens in the street. Within seconds, a mob—a mob of adults—has descended on him. ‘Run Charlie!’ the shopkeeper says. ‘Run all the way home, and don’t stop until you get there!'”

“The idea that adults could care so much about something supposedly for children, that they could inflate its value to the point of senseless mania, was every bit as intriguing as the factory itself. What I didn’t realise was that, while I was endlessly rewatching Willy Wonka, I was living through a golden ticket mania unlike any other.”

“It was the 1990s, and the craze was Beanie Babies. You might remember these pocket-sized stuffed animals. Ty Warner, the eccentric founder of Ty Inc, both invented the toys and marketed them in a way that was entirely new to his industry. Warner would supply Beanie Babies only to independent shops, and even then, would only allow each store to have a limited supply. He announced new lines at random intervals, rather than waiting for Christmas or summer, and withdrew designs with no warning.”

“Warner thought he was simply creating scarcity for his own product, thereby urging parents to snap up a certain bear before it was gone. But he was also creating a craze that could only have existed in this exact point in time, when a combination of media, upwardly-mobile ambition and a brand new buyers’ market came together to create a fad to rival the Tulip mania of Old Amsterdam.”

“First, there was eBay. The auction site that began with the sale of a broken laser pointer in 1995 was providing ordinary people a new way to sell ordinary things at extraordinary prices. The popularity of the site led to the mass-adoption of a phrase that was previously only used by antique dealers: this could be worth something.”

“Warner’s habit of abruptly discontinuing toys added to a sense that anyone could have something trivial that was nonetheless hugely valuable. Snort the Bull, purchased for five dollars, could suddenly be sold for $6,500. Peanut the Elephant could go for $7,000. And so, people began buying up Beanie Babies in their hundreds, creating riots in toy stores and the death of at least one security guard. Most of the people who bought these Beanie Babies didn’t see themselves as collectors—no, they were simply savvy investors.”

“The craze became a news item for 24-hour cable news channels that had no shortage of children, enthusiasts and ‘experts’ who were willing to be interviewed about their collections. The coverage drove the market to a fever pitch that went on for years. A couple divorcing in 1999 were forced to split up their collection on the courtroom floor, under the supervision of a judge.”

“And then? It ended. The children who’d first loved Beanie Babies grew out of them, and without the steady backbone of the legitimate enthusiasts, the market ceased to exist. While the craze might have died, the impulses that drove it kept barrelling along. Recent bubbles may have been more Bitcoin than Beanie, but the adult need to obsess over childish things has found other modes of expression: The Harry Potter frenzy of the early noughties, the iron grip of comic books on modern cinema, the Disney Princess BuzzFeed quizzes that grown adults use to self-classify as Annas, Elsas and the rest.”

“The people who thought they could get rich from Beanie Babies were ultimately left with nothing but a bag of less-than-magic beans. People are still trying to flog their Beanie Babies on Ebay for thousands, hoping against all odds that their Princess Diana bear really is worth the small fortune that they were promised. Listings for Beanie Babies are common; sales are, unfortunately, rare.”

Related Posts

How Long Will Prices Keep Dropping?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmOcv4RAglw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTdt4kyv-T8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCpjRog3iqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v48Z1civU1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqd6bjykGz4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UcveZwxmZI

This Post Has 173 Comments

  1. ‘Yet outside of courthouses and city halls across the Bay Area, one obscure legal proceeding continues to unfold: the auctioning off of foreclosed properties. Every week more than a dozen such auctions are taking place from San Francisco to Redwood City to Oakland’

    Wa? But guberment said no?

    BTW, for the people who have contacted me about foreclosures out there, I’ll get moving as soon as possible.

  2. The title for the last link:

    Riots in toy shops, mass hysteria and 24-hour-news: remembering the Beanie Babies craze of the 1990s

    When I saw people buying up onions, I knew this was mass hysteria.

    1. ” …remembering the Beanie$ Babie$ craze of the 1990$”

      Heeheehee

      (Eye did knot$ beanie.mania killed 50,000 folks in le$$ than < 40 days)

      Mania #2 (xaoh.deeth.👾.hy$teria)
      I$ feeding & devouring$
      Mania #1 (Bubble$.Ever.Thang$)

        1. Do yous think that the taller the $kyscraper “bidne$$” building, the longer the elevator ride presents a more robu$t opportunitie$ for a stranger to sneeze 👾or cough👾?

          Going up ☝️ or going 👇, 86 floor!👌

          1. Stop treating this as if it spreads like the flu!
            BS stuff like:
            “sneeze”
            “cough”
            “contaminated surface”
            “we’ll disinfect surfaces”
            “we’ll check people for fevers”
            “stay home if you’re sick”

            DOESN’T WORK HERE.

            Actual transmission:
            Inhale someone else’s droplets just from talking
            You can catch this even if you don’t touch a thing
            virus spreads before symptoms (including fever) appear
            WEAR A MASK.

          2. Watch out for the invisible coronavirus germs on the food you bring back from the contaminated grocery store! Down a shot of Lysol* after dinner, just in case.

            * Don’t really do this unless as part of a medical study; I’m just being snarkastic.

          3. “Stop treating this as if it spreads like the flu!”

            Actually it could 🐝’s the xaoh.deeth.👾.knobs&handles.killa.germ$ has x3+ more vector prevalent pathways than that $illy trouble$ome “this.years.🐷.gut.flu.bug.”

            (Like the difference between glypho$ate & dicamba sprayed herbicide$, they both kills things, just x1 (dicamba) likes to float in the air much longer & drift$ ea$ier, therefore the de$truction di$tribution is wider.)

          5. Nobody’s been in a Circuit City for some time either but the infections and reported deaths seem to keep on going after 6 weeks of “social distancing” and mass closures. Paging Dr. Som Ting Wong…

        2. Remember Dave Aids had a patient Zero……who was an airline steward….. just imagine if he worked at K mart ….Hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved.

          1. The best way to contain any disease is to put Patient 0 in a K-mart. No one’s been inside one in years.

          3. I was after something similar but slightly different: snarky + sarcastic.

            I’ve lost the hope of avoiding mask attire while shopping. Guess I’ll need to take up surfing if I want to go out in public in San Diego without wearing a mask.

            snarktastic
            Adjective
            (comparative more snarktastic, superlative most snarktastic)
            – Very snarky, especially in an appealing or entertaining way.
            Origin
            snark +‎ -tastic

  3. ‘Michael Zemon, of Pembroke Pines, said he tried to explain to his mortgage servicer what options are required for his Fannie Mae loan ‘and they had no idea what I was talking about’

    That’s one way to deal with it. Why no just sell Mike, for a tidy profit? UHS says red hot!

  4. ‘at the time of writing the share price was $1.36 and at that level the market capital is $1.5 billion. It is difficult to see any justification for this valuation. Air New Zealand isn’t going anywhere, financially or literally. Whatever value that can be salvaged from its domestic operation will go to repaying its lenders. There won’t be any dividend between now and the next Beatles reunion tour’

    ‘Its share price should be two small rocks and a piece of string’

    That is the price. Oh for the days when a self-driving flying taxi company was worth many billion$.

  5. “The coronavirus pandemic could also boost statism of another kind – more Big Brother than Great Society – by providing cover for governments to restrict civil liberties and entrench themselves in power.”

    The Betters are getting nervous about losing their grip on the you had better Obey your stay-at-home order mask wearing social distancing orders.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQhd-KUXrWI

    1. In mid-March I was at a costco. One person in the whole store had on a mask. I overheard someone say how silly that looked. I go to the store now without a mask (I have some masks from the foreclosure days) and the eyes above the mask are wide at my apparent suicide. Even though the people working there are strangely – alive. The mask thing is just another level of mass hysteria.

      Someone made the point about nursing home deaths. You can’t get any more locked down than a nursing home these days. So what the heck are we doing?

      Two things: one, we got a virus! It’s killing people!! But we’ve had viruses before. It’s a thing and we gotta live through it or not. Reading the Caribbean article again yesterday hit home. Millions lost their jobs with no prospects and tourism possibly destroyed. And they have a few hundred deaths. These people may have died anyway, lock down or no. The potato hoarders say, “we gotta stay home or we’re all gonna die!” But they can’t prove that. Did it save the people in nursing homes?

      The second point is there are people out there that want endless money printing. That want us all wards of the state, spied upon to make sure we are still under our beds, keep us afraid that mommy guberment won’t dictate every aspect of our lives. And they are using this situation to try and cram their crazy agendas down our throats. See the control freaks and statist for what they are.

      1. From what I saw yesterday, mask usage was way down.

        I can’t say I ever saw “wide eyes” at the unmasked. I mostly saw indifference.

        Will be going down to Denver later today. Will report on traffic levels later.

        1. “going down to Denver”

          You’re leaving Larimer County to drive through Boulder, Broomfield, Adams, and Denver Counties?

          Denver Mayor Michael Sanctuary City Hancock would like to have a word with you. As a U.S. citizen, crossing county lines is the equivalent of biological terrorism. But if you’re in this country illegally, the City of Denver welcome mat is rolled out for you and all fifty of your chain migration familia.

          2. I flew out of Commiefornia, through SeaTac, to Alaska. Nobody said boo about it.

            Commiefornia: Airport very empty, maybe 70% masked, including staff. Plane had maybe 20 people, 90% masked. 2 stewardesses masked, one not.

            SeaTac: Looked like a normal, slow day. Maybe 30% masked… staff maybe 50%. Plane to Anchorage was full except for center seats. 10% masks. A good bit of coughing.

            Anchorage airport: Slow day density, maybe 20% masked. No checks, just get off the plane and go wherever you’d like.

            Pretty feeble police state.

        2. Will report on traffic levels later.

          Traffic on I-25 was light to moderate, both going and coming back.

      2. “And they are using this $it.u.ation to try and cram their crazy agenda$ down our throats.”

        $ad when bubbles$ bur$t in way$ that are not ideal.

        $o.$ad

        👾…munch, munch, munch

      3. I was in one of the Publix stores in Jupiter Fl. last week and there were as many masks as an Antifa rally in downtown Portland Oregon.

          1. Ha ha

            I just spotted a perv…..the one wearing “Feminists Unite” shirt. Never fails.

        2. were as many masks as an Antifa rally

          It was like that here last week. Yesterday I hit several shops. Almost no one was masked at the local ACE hardware store. It was about 30-40% at Safeway and the liquor store.

          1. When I shopped in MD yesterday, it was 100% masks. Gov Hogan requires them. I’m very down with that.

          3. “I’m not clear on the advantage$ of irrational behavior$ and ma$$ hy$teria.”

            Iffin’ eye offered you up ×$6+ Trillion$ of example$ 💰💲💰💲💰💲💰💲💰💲💰💲, would you 🐝’$ @ least convinced that it can po$$ibly lead to the abilitie$ to financially be able to per$onally pick: Winner$! & Lo$er$!

      4. My Mother in Law is a nurse in an assisted living facility. All of the people that test positive and passed were people that were on deaths door according to her.

        Again every testing method now has proven to be rife with false positives/negatives. The reclassification of deaths is also a disturbing trend thanks to CDC guidelines.

        Finally the media has been criminal in their negligence with regard to reporting on this while promoting absolute hysteria.

        There are so many holes in this narrative that if you barely scratch the surface you can find a lot of highly disturbing things about this ‘event’.

        1. “All of the people that test positive and passed were people that were on deaths door according to her.”

          Doesn’t matter to their phat children who want society to spend “what ever it takes” to keep ’em alive, unless there’s a large inheritance.

      5. Soon to be forced to wear a mask to go out in public in San Diego. You can tell it’s for political reasons rather than any kind of medical need, as the measure doesn’t start until next Friday, while Sn Diego beaches open up to whiny surfers next week Monday. San Diego parks are so open, so long as they are within walking distance; parking lots that provide access are closed. The social controllers have fully usurped our civil liberties.

        1. “You can tell it’s for political reasons…”

          FWIW, I’ve been wondering why Gavin Newsom hasn’t joined the other Democrats in verbally henpecking Trump until it dawned on me that Newsom is paving a trail to the White House.

          1. “… until it dawned on me, “New$ ohmm” i$ paving a trail$ to the White Hou$e.”

            Bugs: “eh, eye yous on to him doc!” 🥕 munch, munch

            (Might bee thee fir$t.wine.cellar$ in$talled in the white.building?)

      6. “And they have a few hundred deaths. These people may have died anyway, lock down or no.”

        Difficult if not impossible questions to answer:

        1) How many deaths (worldwide and local) have occurred due to COVID-19 in excess of what would have otherwise occurred? (The Financial Times writers have taken a shot at that one.)

        2) How many more people would have died by now and over the remaining course of the outbreak with no or less restrictive quarantines?

        3) What is the right balance between the economic and psychological costs of social distancing measures and the benefits of reducing the death and other health costs of not socially distancing?

        I have no answers, only questions. But one shouldn’t assume the numbers of deaths without quarantine measures in place wouldn’t be a lot higher, particularly if it resulted in a loss of access to medical treatment for many with severe COVID-19 cases.

        1. “And they have a few hundred deaths. These people may have died anyway, lock down or no.”

          “Difficult if not impossible questions to answer:”

          This fell out on my hat liner:

          Proving a negative or negative proof may refer to:

          Proving a negative, in the philosophic burden of proof.

          Evidence of absence in general, such as evidence that there is no milk in a certain bowl.

          Modus tollens, a logical proof

          Proof of impossibility, mathematics

          Russell’s teapot, an analogy: inability to disprove does not prove.

          Sometimes it is mistaken for an argument from ignorance, which is non-proof and a logical fallacy.

      1. ‘In 1933, H.G. Wells predicted a future that included a global economic slump that led to a world war and devastating global plague. Eventually the countries with the strongest militaries formed a ‘benevolent dictatorship.’ A new world order was imposed on earth to end conflict and promote harmony’

        Another thing about death totals. Why are the media ignoring the fact that 200,000 to 400,000 die from medical error in the US every year? We tolerate that because it’s a trade off – ever year. It’s so obvious it’s not even a publicly discussed issue.

        Interesting that we never revisit thing like what the globalists did in Libya. Remember the regime change in Syria? Last count I heard was 400,000 dead civilians, probably way higher now. And Iraq, what was that, 1.5 million civilians dead? We stopped counting at some point. This obsessing over deaths is deliberate and meant to scare everyone, and it’s way out of proportion compared to the carnage the globalist drop on the world.

        1. Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

          Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.

          —60 Minutes (5/12/96)

          https://fair.org/extra/we-think-the-price-is-worth-it/

        2. ” ignoring the fact that 200,000 to 400,000 die from medical error in the US every year? We tolerate that because it’s a trade off – ever year. It’s so obvious it’s not even a publicly discussed issue.”

          Maybee on accounts “medical.error$” do knot mass populate on knobs & handles, or when someone sneezes.

          👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾

          1. Maybee on accounts

            Like a mania, an hysteria doesn’t have a logical foundation. It may be dressed like one though.

        3. “Researchers tracking smartphone data say they recently made a disturbing discovery:”

          Lei Zhang is worried about people who are no longer willing to Obey for the greater good.

          Experts Worry ‘Quarantine Fatigue’ Is Starting

          April 25, 20209:10 pm

          Researchers tracking smartphone data say they recently made a disturbing discovery: For the first time since states began implementing stay-at-home orders in mid-March to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, Americans are staying home less.

          “We saw something we hoped wasn’t happening, but it’s there,” said Lei Zhang, lead researcher and director of the Maryland Transportation Institute at the University of Maryland. “It seems collectively we’re getting a little tired. It looks like people are loosening up on their own to travel more.”

          Public health experts say any data showing widespread public resolve or cooperation beginning to wane is noteworthy. Because this is the first U.S. pandemic in 100 years, they don’t know how long people are willing to tolerate cabin fever for the greater good.

          https://matzav.com/experts-worry-quarantine-fatigue-is-starting/

          3. From my vantage point overlooking the village Main Street here in the Finger Lakes: Two weeks ago there were just a few vehicles per hour. Now it is a few per minute.

        4. The Libya case was even more egregious than that. Since Gaddafi had hired black Africans into his army, when the US backed rebels took over they started dragging the black Africans in Tripoli out of their homes and shooting them In the streets execution style as suspects based on the color of their skin. You never heard one person in the media ask Peace Prize Obama about that.

          1. Yeah, well John g, War is HELL.

            This American fella never gots a “Peace.Prize”, but he certainly kept his eye On.The.Prize!

            General William Tecumseh Sherman
            to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta

            ” …You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

            We don’t want your Negroes, or your horses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involved the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.

            You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, but the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began the war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or title of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands and thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve.

            Now that war comes to you, you feel very different.

            You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.

          2. An eloquent dissertation which I appreciate as I am not familiar with it. However, I fail to understand how it applies to the circumstance mentioned.

          3. The answer to yer question is contained in the last sentence of yer post.

            “You never heard one person in the media ask Peace Prize Obama about that.”

  7. Re-post from the last thread, article published yesterday:

    “Anyone wanting to buy or sell a home in metro Denver this year needs to buckle up and prepare for a wild ride in the months ahead.

    “Our forecast suggests the housing market recovery will look like a “flying W,” with an initial sharp drop this spring, a noticeable rebound in the summer followed by another dip in the fall, and on a final solid road to recovery by spring 2021,” predicts Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist with Haus, a startup that co-invests in homes with individuals.

    The housing market in Denver and many metro areas started the year on a strong footing, with a lot of younger households looking to buy and older households looking to upgrade or downsize. Now metro Denver is among several areas in the country looking at sales declines over the next several months.”

    https://www.denverpost.com/2020/04/25/coronavirus-colorado-front-range-housing-market/

    1. ““flying W,” ……..predicts Ralph McLaughlin”

      Well Ralph sorry to disappoint you. You recovery will look like Giant F…meaning you’re Fooked!

    2. “…Our forecast suggests the housing market recovery will look like a “flying W,..” “…and on a final solid road to recovery by spring 2021,” predicts Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist with Haus…”

      Ralph McLaughlin, you need to get together with Lawrence Yun of the NaR and do lunch.. (from a safe social distance, of course).

      Between the two of you, do you have *any* real data to backup your cozy models and predictions?

      One data point that I would love for you both to publish: Where is all the $$ going to come from for new purchases? (Keep in mind 50% of all US households have less than $1K of cash on hand).

  8. ‘one issue this virus has put on life support is globalism. COVID-19 has accomplished what nationalist movements everywhere failed to do by making citizens of every country keenly aware of the consequences that come with letting down their guards regarding immigration, unfettered international travel and foreign manufacturing. In my view, that’s one positive to come from this tragic event’

    Which brings up:

    ‘A problematic local issue that must be addressed quite soon — possibly before the future arrives — is what we do with the homeless folks who’ve been living in empty hotel rooms, vacant houses and trailers provided by our government’

    Why didn’t these globalists do something about homelessness for decades? Too busy flying around in private jets?

    1. “Why didn’t these globalists do something”

      The day I graduated from Football Factory State University, the front page headline of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was the LTV Steel mill shutting down.

      Ben Jones, my entire adult working lifetime has been nothing but a globalist assault on the American economy and American national sovereignty. And our betters tell us that getting “back to normal” in 2020 is something the U.S. should aspire to?

      1. “The day I graduated from Football Factory State University…”

        But OSU taught you to “Question Authority.” You’re free, Red Pilled, Tinder app, so no diapers, formula or minivan payments, etc., now go take a walk. 🙂

      2. ” …our better$ tell us that getting “back to normal” in 2020 i$ $omething the U.$. should a$pire to?”

        Thee.🍊.jesus, (& ALL thee. “Others”, clean backward$ to Tricky.Dick.Nixon 1970) … i$ knot advocating ELIMINATING Trade$ with China, they i$ merely me$$ing around in variou$ Way$ & Mean$ to extract$ Taxe$ from Trade$.with.China …

        That’$ thee i$$ue $imple.a$.can.🐝

        ($how Hwy50 that the current political avant-garde & nouveau riche is to $top export$ to China whil$t also eliminating import$ from China.)

        American$ every.$ingle.day are FREE to $pend their monie$ how they per$onally choo$e.

        It’$ U$A $nap-on tool$ … ver$e$ … China’$ Harbor Freight tool$

        🐝 FREE & Choo$e … Ea$y.Pea$y!

        1. That from a Nation that let’s its “bidne$$” people $tarve it’s own people’s, so thee.benevolent.bidne$$men could privately enjoy$ their profit$ to them$elve$ whi$st being well fed.

          Intere$ting POV.

          1. Your inscrutable character usage…it’s like trying to decode some Q post about a Tom Hank’s body double piloting an alien craft to Oprah Winfrey’s Antarctic ice pyramid hide out where they are growing clones of Bill Gates brain in a laboratory operated by Dr Phil in an MK Ultra mind programming rabbit suit.

          2. “Your inscrutable character usage”

            Apologie$, eye find the HB.B ll blog connection$ to all thing$ that pertain to arguement$ of truth$ or knot.truth$, fa$cinating in regards to its connection$ to monie$.

            Who?
            What?
            When?
            Where?
            Why?

            All POV’$, just fa$cinating!

            (eye’ve had a life long wondersment & joy in kaleidoscope’$, & like the folks who left the Cave.of.shadow$, eye placed down the toy, & looked @ the world$ that surrounds myself. Finding focu$ helps.)

    2. Our local leaders here in southern California are running up against this homeless issue. On the one hand they scold and threaten hygienic taxpayers who dare sit on the beach but let the vagrants do the same, set up tents, not social distance, etc on the beach. It’s not a good look and makes people doubt the government’s seriousness and authority regarding the lockdown.

      1. Taxpayers pay fines, the homeless don’t. The former are a profit center, the latter are a cost center.

  9. A weekend topic starting with the Globe and Mail. “So who is paying for this massive wave of purchases by the Fed, the Bank of Canada and others? For now, nobody. Central banks are simply crediting themselves with the funds they need. In a fiat money system, they can do so with a few key strokes. In practice, things don’t always go so smoothly. The Bank of Japan began QE nearly 20 years ago. Many other central banks adopted their own versions during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. Most of these transactions have never been reversed. Rather than being temporary, most QE now looks permanent.”

    https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc200420/
    Containing the Crisis
    John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
    President, Hussman Investment Trust
    April 20, 2020

    – Some excerpts here. In a nutshell, the lion’s share of the bailout funds went to the banking and finance sector. Recall that the Fed is a private bank, owned by the largest and most powerful banks in the U.S. The Fed is no more a part of the U.S. government that Federal Express; it’s NOT the fourth branch of government. It’s members are unelected and unaccountable to the American public. The Fed, as head of the banking cartel, is pro capital/finance and anti (con) labor/wages. The Fed is again, using the crisis as cover for concentrating power and wealth in the hands of the banking cartel. This is not essentially different that what it did after the GFC, but the numbers are now orders of magnitude larger.

    – Anyone in the U.S. on the short end of the stick, should be rightly asking what our duly elected Congresspersons are doing in terms of oversight and limiting the current Fed power grab? Moreover, in general, what is Congress doing in terms of actually representing and looking out for the best interests of its constituency? The current situation is looking a lot like taxation without representation to at least one casual observer. This is all, of course, is being widely covered in the press.

    Recession and the misguided, illegal Federal Reserve response

    Containing this epidemic, and containing this economic downturn, both require a clear understanding of how the infection is transmitted, and how to blunt its impact. See, economies don’t collapse just because the prices of debt, or stocks, or other investment securities go down. Rather, economies are endangered when the “circular flow” of payments through the economy is stunted. The most effective intervention is to direct funds toward that entry point – where spending by ordinary Americans enters into the circular flow.

    The closer we can get economic assistance to the very entry point of the circular flow – supporting individual basic incomes, contractual payments like rent and mortgage obligations of families, and fixed obligations of businesses experiencing actual economic damage – the closer these economic support policies will hit their mark.

    What’s not needed, however, is the use of public money to bail out the losses of investors who hold already outstanding securities that have gone down in price.

    Indeed, my impression is that investors have taken excessive hope from actions of the Federal Reserve that are illegal under the CARES act.

    “Pricing. As Ben Hunt of Epsilon Theory observed last week, “This is the Greenspan-Bernanke-Yellen legacy: a financialized political economy where the preservation of asset prices is our government’s primary objective.”

    Why leveraged Federal Reserve purchases of unsecured secondary market securities are illegal

    As a result, the newly created SMCCF is either a Ponzi scheme at public expense (if the Fed plans to allow portfolio losses to exceed 10%) or a 1987-style portfolio insurance scheme (if the Fed plans to liquidate securities into a falling market in order to cap its losses at 10%). Section 13(3) requires updates every 30 days on the “value of collateral” – that’s going to be an interesting dance if we break the March lows. In any event, even here, the SMCCF is already illegal.

    Support for specific companies

    Properly done, corporate bankruptcies, and even bank failures, simply wipe out stockholders and subordinated bondholders. The company doesn’t fire its employees. Depositors don’t lose a cent. The products of the company continue to be produced. What happens is that the bankrupt entity, relieved of part of its subordinated balance sheet obligations, is sold to an acquirer or recapitalized, and then everything moves on. Corporate failures are mostly packaged restructurings.

    “When company fails it does not generally fire its employees. It goes through a packaged bankruptcy. The people who get wiped out are those that own unsecured debt and equity, and by the way, those are the rules of the game.” – Chamath Palihapitiya

    The fact is that the main beneficiaries of “bailouts” during an economic crisis are corporate bondholders. Indeed, the global financial crisis could have been resolved primarily through orderly bank restructuring, as the FDIC did with Washington Mutual, but it turned into a Wall Street bailout because Geithner, Paulson, and the Federal Reserve were unwilling to allow the bondholders of banks and Wall Street investment companies to lose money.

    “Why did we do the bailouts? It was all about the bondholders. They did not want to impose losses on bondholders. They’re supposed to take losses.” – Sheila Bair, FDIC Chair, 2006-2011

    1. It’s kind of interesting how the Fed can bloat its balance sheet by an amount sufficient to buy an arbitrary share of financial assets in circulation, with much of the newly created wealth landing on and staying with banks in the Fed’s inner circle.

  10. Rather than being temporary, most QE now looks permanent.”

    All of these “emergency measures” are now permanent. The Keynesian fraudsters at the Fed know that the instant they stop pumping trillions in fake money into their rigged system and asset bubbles, pop goes the weasel.

  11. In much of the world, people are desperate for the government to show up and rise to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Our NEA indoctrination mills have done their job well: churning out legions of half-educated dolts incapable of original or independent thought, or going out and functioning in society, who will be the perfect Democrat dependency voters.

    The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.
    — M.L. Mencken

  13. “On Thursday, attorney Tom LaLanne showed up to City Hall on behalf of a client who had been in negotiation with the lender on a forbearance agreement. He had planned to ask the court to temporarily enjoin the sale to allow more time to work out a deal, refinance the debt or sell.

    You need to level with your client, Tom: his dreams of effortless riches from his RE “investment” just crawled into the arse to die.

  14. Density, they’ve reasoned, is the best way to control the exploding cost of living and reduce residents’ reliance on carbon-spewing vehicles in a state best known for its sprawling suburbs.

    Selling the proles on density and ant-tribe living standards also clears the way for the Bolsheviks in the California statehouse to import millions more dependency voters to grow Democrat patronage and graft networks.

    1. Obama pushes to make cities denser and more affordable | Grist
      grist.org › cities › obama-pushes-to-make-cities-denser-…
      Sep 27, 2016 – Among its good suggestions: eliminate off-street parking requirements, create zoning that allows high density and multi-family developments …

      Housing Development Toolkit – The White House
      http://www.whitehouse.gov › whitehouse.gov › files › images
      accumulation of such barriers – including zoning, other land use regulations, and lengthy development … Enacting high-density and multifamily zoning … Our nation’s housing market was in crisis when President Obama took office. In the first …

      Obama Administration Report Attacks NIMBYism And Zoning
      http://www.forbes.com › sites › scottbeyer › 2016/09/26 › ob…
      Sep 26, 2016 – U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Jason Furman, … Zoning, along with other NIMBY-inspired housing and land-use regulations, might be … These include changing antiquated zoning codes, increasing density …

      1. Density – CityLab
        http://www.citylab.com › 2016/09 › the-difficulties-of-density
        The Difficulties of Density. Richard Florida. September 14, 2016. Despite its merits, in the U.S., density peaked in the 1950s and has declined since then.

        Why Denser Cities Are Smarter and More Productive – CityLab
        http://www.citylab.com › life › 2012/12 › why-denser-cities-…
        Dec 10, 2012 – Another wrinkle in the density discussion. … Richard Florida. December 10 … It’s clear that density plays an important role in economic growth.

        Richard Florida Explains Why Density Doesn’t Impact Innovation
        http://www.smartcitiesdive.com › sustainablecitiescollective
        Large companies, universities, and other anchor institutions help spread the fixed costs of research (think buildings, suppliers, etc.). And by massing large …

        urban density, creativity, and innovation – Creative Class Group
        creativeclass.com › rfcgdb › articles › Urban_Density_…
        PDF
        by B Knudsen – ‎2007 – ‎Cited by 62 – ‎Related articles
        May 2007. Brian Knudsen, Richard Florida, Gary Gates, and Kevin Stolarick … Keywords: Creativity, Density, Innovation, Learning, Spillovers … Individuals require a high degree of existing expertise to engage in innovation for a number of.

        On “Density,” the Most Slippery Word in Urban Planning
        thebaffler.com › latest › on-density-the-most-slippery-…
        May 22, 2014 – Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class, one of the books that … by the Wrong Kind of Density will require more than good intentions.

        Want To Make A Creative City? Build Out, Not Up : NPR
        http://www.npr.org › 2012/07/31 › want-to-make-a-creative-cit…
        Jul 31, 2012 – But it turns out that some kinds of density are better than others. Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited, explains how going … And she always said that new ideas require old buildings, that having …

    2. Of course the best thing would be for companies to locate their corporate offices in smaller cities to take advantage of the underused infrastructure and cheap fixer houses. But then the companies wouldn’t be paying California taxes or salaries.

    3. Densely packed urban communities are ideal breeding grounds for pandemics like COVID-19.

  15. I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days: if this lock down is a farce, it’s being conducted in a non-reality that is coming up against a reality that will expose it. Why are so many opening up “task forces” being assembled? They know it can’t continue. States and cities are going broke. Credit cards aren’t getting paid. In the non-reality, some say “we’ll stay shutdown for years”. That’s plainly impossible. But what’s changed? Just a matter of a few weeks. The uninfected are still there. The virus is still there. Why open now? The rock and a hard place.

    So when we do open up, people will get sick, which is happening now. What we’ll see is we simply shot ourselves in the foot. And for no good reason.

    2. for no good reason

      On the contrary, Ben. You’ve noted a few times that the control freaks have exposed themselves, including, but not limited to: arbitrary and capricious stay-at-home orders for law-abiding citizens while releasing convicted criminals and welcoming illegal immigrants; selective recognition of assault allegations; and, discussion of forced vaccinations and immunity passports. We’re all stuck at home consuming more of it in real-time than before.

        1. Some of us were trying to be good citizens for a period of time until more information was available. Time’s up!

    3. The pertinent question no one has been asking….

      How many people will hospitals be saving when they can’t repair or replace equipment because no one can pay hospital or health insurance bills and there are rolling blackouts because power companies are going bankrupt because people can’t afford electricity bills? A few more weeks of this and we are going to start to find out. And there will be a lot of people shocked to realize the government can’t manufacture CV proof goods and services out of thin air to replace a crashed economy.

      1. While it is not housing related, I would like to point out that there is a long history of published peer reviewed legitimate research into the use of non specific disinfectant agents as clinical antimicrobials and antivirals. The most notable being ozone. This is not an approved treatment and has potentially serious adverse side effects. If you want to find out for yourself, go to NBI pubmed and search using the relevant key words. You will find a plethora of scientific data on the subject.

        I have a PhD in pharmacology from an Ivy League university and have spent over 20 years in molecular biology and drug discovery research. Much of that at a major pharma company.

        Personally, I don’t think I could be in the same room with Trump for more than 15 minutes. But this media pug pile is just another misinformation campaign and there is a widespread effort in social media to make Trump a fool in the eyes of people who just wouldn’t know any better.

        3. “But this media pug pile is just another misinformation campaign”

          Without a doubt media is an arm of the democratic party machine.

          1. I am not familiar enough with the primary research to provide an informed opinion about which I would feel confident.

          2. Fair enough. If you do any research, please read the primary research papers and not the screaming headlines.

          3. Why all thee exotic.malaria.suicides concoction$?, iffin’:

            📣🎙”it’s just the common.cold folks!:

            Guess some folks have “lost.their.faith$” in x2 aspirin, x1 can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup & box of root beer popsicle’$.

            $ad.

          1. I only discovered Derek Lowe a couple days back. From the one column I read, it looked as if he has succumbed to TDS.

        6. misinformation campaign

          There’s a clear distinction between physical versus chemical disinfectants that the MSM is deliberately conflating. At the same time, we should pause and consider what we allow ourselves to be injected with in the name of medicine. Anyone who’s witnessed a loved one undergo chemotherapy knows what I’m talking about.

    4. This is likely just a slightly more dangerous version of the seasonal flu except this country is so fat and unhealthy that it’s capable of much more damage than it otherwise would have. Think it will be a nothing burger over the summer. Funny how those with Trump derangement syndrome are the loudest about keeping things locked down for another year or more? I laugh at those that have actually followed those lockdown edicts. I’ve been enjoying the outdoors 😉

      1. Funny how those with Trump derangement syndrome are the loudest about keeping things locked down for another year or more?

        What choice do they have?! They can’t defeat him at the ballot box.

  16. Joe Biden, who was the parrot of Obama’s shoulder while the latter orchestrated the Wall Street bailout of 2008 and presided over the Fed’s “No Billionaire Left Behind” monetary policies for the next eight years, is now trying to out-do Fauxahontus when it comes to sounding like a so-faux populist. What a complete charlatan.

    https://news.yahoo.com/biden-assails-stimulus-calls-u-005308964.html

    (Bloomberg) — Joe Biden railed against the coronavirus stimulus packages in an interview published Saturday, calling corporate America “greedy as hell” while demanding legislation that includes stricter conditions on business bailouts and more oversight of the Trump administration.

    In the interview with Politico, the former vice president said the next stimulus bill should be “a hell of a lot bigger” than the first $2 trillion CARES Act and assailed big business and banks.

    “This is the second time we’ve bailed their asses out,” he said of the big banks.

  17. NY Governor Cuomo says the state overall is past peak plague.

    In other news, the trees here are all in full flower. In a week or so there will be green leaves all around.

  18. “What a complete charlatan”

    I$ there $omething ’bout$ “POLITIC$” you might 🐝’$ failin’ to $tand.under?

    Thee.🍊je$u$, a$ pure a$ the virgin $now! (job)

  19. Utterly ridiculous confiential remarks for a local way over-priced listing:
    “In the interest of public health and safety, EASY SHOWING by appt after receipt of the Coronavirus PEAD form attached and visitors wear face masks. Please ask Buyer if a) he/she or a household family member(s) had close contact with or cared for someone diagnosed with COVID-19 within the last 14 days? b) Buyer or a household family members experienced any cold or flu-like symptoms in the last 14 days (fever, cough, sore throat, respiratory”

  21. The Atlantic — Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal:

    “most of our online speech now occurs in closely monitored playpens where many tens of thousands of human censors review flagged content to ensure compliance with ever-lengthier and more detailed “community standards” (or some equivalent). More and more, this human monitoring and censorship is supported—or replaced—by sophisticated computer algorithms. The firms use these tools to define acceptable forms of speech and other content on their platforms, which in turn sets the effective boundaries for a great deal of speech in the U.S. public forum”

    https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/technology/internet-speech-will-never-go-back-to-normal/ar-BB13cgdp

    Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, go f*ck yourselves.

    I’m halfway through reading A New World Begins — The History of the French Revolution by Jeremy Popkin, published 2019.

    Globalists, you’ve been warned…

    1. “I’m halfway through reading A New World Begins — The History of the French Revolution by Jeremy Popkin, published 2019.”

      He reads. It looks like OSU taught you how to think, not what to think. Curious, do you ever wish that you went to Kent State?

  22. “It Is Easier To Ignore The Facts Than Face Reality”

    Yes it is.

    The Financial Times
    Coronavirus
    Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported
    Mortality statistics show 122,000 deaths in excess of normal levels across 14 countries analysed by the FT
    © FT montage; AFP/Getty
    John Burn-Murdoch, Valentina Romei and Chris Giles in London 4 hours ago

    The death toll from coronavirus may be almost 60 per cent higher than reported in official counts, according to an FT analysis of overall fatalities during the pandemic in 14 countries.

    Mortality statistics show 122,000 deaths in excess of normal levels across these locations, considerably higher than the 77,000 official Covid-19 deaths reported for the same places and time periods.

    If the same level of underreporting observed in these countries was happening worldwide, the global Covid-19 death toll would rise from the current official total of 201,000 to as high as 318,000.

    To calculate excess deaths, the FT has compared deaths from all causes in the weeks of a location’s outbreak in March and April 2020 to the average for the same period between 2015 and 2019. The total of 122,000 amounts to a 50 per cent rise in overall mortality relative to the historical average for the locations studied.

    In all the countries analysed except Denmark, excess deaths far outnumbered the official coronavirus death tolls. The accuracy of official death statistics from the virus is limited by how effectively a country is testing people to confirm cases. Some countries, including China, have retrospectively revised up their death tolls from the disease.
    …

  23. By extension, is it safe to stock a fork in the campus housing bubble?

    The Financial Times
    Opinion Education
    Coronavirus bursts the US college education bubble
    Soaring fees, worthless degrees and dicey investments have hurt the economy
    Rana Foroohar 8 hours ago

    Bubbles are bursting everywhere and America’s most prestigious export — higher education — won’t be immune. Universities are like landlocked cruise ships: places with all-you-can-eat buffets and plenty of beer, but almost no way of social distancing.

    Many colleges are considering running online classes into the autumn and beyond. But that requires additional resources that most are ill equipped to afford. Even before coronavirus, 30 per cent of colleges tracked by rating agency Moody’s were running deficits, while 15 per cent of public universities had less than 90 days of cash on hand.

    Now, with colleges shuttered, revenues reduced, endowment investments plunging, and the added struggle of shifting from physical to virtual education, Moody’s has downgraded the entire sector to negative from stable. The American Council on Education believes revenues in higher education will decline by $23bn over the next academic year. In one survey this week, 57 per cent of university presidents said they planned to lay off staff. Half said they would merge or eliminate some programmes, while 64 per cent said that long-term financial viability was their most pressing issue. It’s very likely we are about to see the hollowing out of America’s university system.

    US universities are world class. But the system as a whole is in trouble. Cost is a big part of the problem. I’ve written many times about the US’s dangerous $2tn student debt load. Soaring tuition fees, worthless degrees and dicey investments made by both universities and the government have become a huge headwind to economic growth and social mobility.

    If you don’t believe me, take it from the New York Fed, which two years ago called out student debt and the dysfunctions of higher education as problems for the overall US economy. That’s a sad irony, given that a college degree is supposed to increase wealth and productivity. Unfortunately, the US system of higher education — like healthcare, housing, labour markets and so much else in America today — is bifurcated. Those with fancy brand-name degrees from top schools do great. So do many who attend high-quality, low-cost community and state programmes.

    But millions in the middle get neither a cheap nor a useful education. Underemployed and debt laden, they were struggling even before coronavirus struck. One study by the think-tank Demos found that the average student debt burden for a married couple with two four-year degrees was $53,000, and resulted over their lifetimes in an overall wealth loss of $208,000.

    Economically, young people have been hit especially hard by the crisis as they do much of the low-paid, high-touch service work that has been shut down. Some 11m college students work: almost three-quarters of them for 20 hours or more a week, and 4.4m full time. Yet few are eligible for federal bailout money.

    Colleges, however, will get plenty. Many of the top recipients of federal aid are big state universities, such as the University of California, which incurred $558m of coronavirus-related costs in March alone. But a number of rich Ivy League colleges have received aid, too. Harvard, with its $40bn endowment, was given a nearly $9m CARES grant. It is returning the funds, as are many other top private schools, following public pressure.

    They are right to do so. Covid-19 has put moral hazard front and centre on the national agenda. The US cannot have taxpayer-funded bailouts that put big rich companies — or colleges — ahead of those who need help more. We need to focus on the most productive use of funds and worry first about helping the most vulnerable individuals and worthy public institutions.
    …

    1. Coronavirus is to the Housing Bubble like euthanasia for a donkey that’s still breathing after getting hit by a truck. It was only a matter of time, anyway, but thanks to curve steepening, now the misery can end sooner.

  25. The Financial Times
    Coronavirus
    Plans to reopen US economy hampered by lack of testing
    Experts warn states do not have enough data on coronavirus to lift social distancing restrictions
    Salon owners wearing protective masks install barriers to separate nail technicians and clients at a salon in Cartersville, Georgia, on Wednesday
    © Bloomberg
    Hannah Kuchler in New York April 25, 2020

    Andrew Cuomo, governor of the US coronavirus hotspot of New York, had a dire warning for state leaders eager to restart their shuttered economies.

    “People will die if we get cocky about reopening,” he said.

    As the rate of Covid-19 deaths and hospitalisations have declined in the US, states are finding that reopening their economies is more difficult than closing them. They are being hampered by the same problem that has plagued the fight against the pandemic all along — a lack of data.

    Some American politicians think it is time to start returning to normality. Georgia’s governor has opened nail salons and tattoo parlours, and the mayor of Las Vegas says she wants the city to become the “control group” to see what happens when there is no social distancing.

    But the clearest sign the US is not doing enough testing to open up is the rate of tests that come back positive. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said it is hovering around 20 per cent, far higher than the 2 per cent in South Korea and 7 per cent in Germany.

    “We’re primarily finding people with severe illness, who have very clear symptoms,” she said. “But what we need to do is find not just people with severe illness but also people with mild illness, and ideally even people who are asymptomatic.”
    …

    1. Where’s his legal authority to tell me what to do? We’ve got almost nothing in Arizona. People are gonna die no matter what. What I do know is it ain’t gonna hurt his lilly white ass no matter what I do.

      1. Aside from the fact that a majority of New Yorkers couldn’t identify the location of Arizona on a geographic relief map of the U.S., there are huge differences between Arizona and New York that argue against a one-size-fits-all approach to quarantine measures. For one thing, Arizona has a great deal of natural social distancing which New York City lacks without quarantine measures.

        1. I’ve been thinking about who is going to get hammered in this thing. NYC already had residential and CRE in collapse. They are highly reliant on tourism. People aren’t going to want to go there for a long time. What are the luxury condo dwellers going to do at night? Businesses are going to close. It’s going to be one of those black hole cities. He’ll be begging people to visit this summer and not many will. Good bye tax revenue.

          2. It seems like New York politicians are shooting themselves in the foot, if not aiming even higher.

          3. politicians are shooting themselves in the foot

            The only way to avoid is to stick with the script.

          4. “Good bye tax revenue”

            Why not just print more monies, raise everyones wages and devalue our currency. 30k (15% tax bracket) earners can get “increases” to 100k (30% tax bracket) and go lease that new car although seems this would lower their purchasing power…

    1. How does a demand side rebound work in the absence of supply?

      An old Midwestern farmer’s saying comes to mind:
      “Don’t count yer chickens before they hatch.”

      U.S. economy to reopen in May and June and then ‘really bounce back,’ Mnuchin says, but others are thinking fall
      Published: April 26, 2020 at 12:25 p.m. ET
      By Greg Robb
      In Sunday television interview, Treasury Secretary has harsh words for China
      Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin gestures as he talks with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell during the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Fukuoka on June 8, 2019. AFP/Getty Images

      The U.S. economy will start to recover in the third quarter after a period of reopening in May and June, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday.

      “As we begin to reopen the economy in May and June, you’re going to see the economy really bounce back in July, August and September,” Mnuchin said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

      The trillions of dollars in government spending “will have a significant impact” to spur growth, he said. “As businesses begin to open, you’re going to see the demand side of the economy rebound.”
      …

      2. ” … you’re going to see the economy really bounce back in July, August and September,” Mnuchin said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.”

        Nothing $pells “failure$” like having ×$6+ Trillion$ & (0%) a$ in Zero% & “UNLIMITED!” … Blow up 💣💥 in.yer.face!

        How far i$ the re.election from $eptember?

        Maybee the “blow.yer.nose”, 📣🎙”it’s just.a.common.cold!” 👾 will come ’rounds … again!

    4. Like my mom used to tell me, “To not decide is to decide.” So it goes with “deciding” to limit loss of human life due to COVID-19 at any cost whatsoever.

      ‘It’s appalling to attach a dollar number to a human life — for non-economists.’ Can Trump save the economy and save lives?
      Published: April 26, 2020 at 2:15 p.m. ET
      By Quentin Fottrell
      ‘You can’t ask the people of this state or this country to choose between lives lost and dollars gained,’ New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said
      …

      1. choose between lives lost and dollars gained

        It’s more like the choice between 10.0 years alive in solitary confinement vs 9.99 years alive doing activities with friends and family.

        None of us are getting out of here alive.

      2. “Cuomo said”

        The golden gas bag who evidently would go on a camping trip with no tent, sleeping bags, flash lights or lanterns, food, water, fishing poles or bug spray and then complain by asking who was going to tell his family they were going to have to sleep on the ground while going hungry and being bitten to death by mosquitoes.

        All the while being praised by the MSM as America’s Camp Counselor.

  27. Oh no, not more oil crater! They told me that oil bottomed out last week, and it was all up from here on out.

    Reuters
    Sun Apr 26, 2020 / 6:33 PM EDT
    Oil futures open lower in electronic trading
    David Gaffen
    FILE PHOTO: An oil pump jack pumps oil in a field near Calgary, Alberta, Canada on July 21, 2014.
    Reuters/Todd Korol

    NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. oil futures dipped in electronic trading Sunday evening, extending losses from last week that marked the eighth week of losses out of the last nine.

    Trading was extremely volatile last week, in an extension of the selling that has dominated trading since early March as demand collapsed 30% due to the pandemic. Global production cuts have not kept pace with the collapse in demand.
    …

    1. It’s hard to say where the bottom of this crater lies, especially now that we know there’s no zero bound on oil prices.

      I admits to liking tank tops.

      Futures Movers
      U.S. oil plunges nearly 30% to trade below $13 a barrel to start another punishing week
      Published: April 27, 2020 at 10:04 a.m. ET
      By Mark DeCambre
      WTI heads for lowest level since around 1999, according to FactSet data
      Associated Press

      U.S. oil futures on Monday were collapsing anew to start a potentially punishing stretch, putting the commodity on track to mark its second-lowest settlement in history, based on the most-active contract, as reignited concerns about a scarcity of places to put an overflow of crude weighed on the beleaguered asset.

      “The market knows that the storage problem remains and we are on a calculated path to reach tank tops in weeks,” wrote Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil markets at Rystad Energy in a daily research note. Prices can only decline when producers have nowhere to store oil in the near term, he wrote.
      …

    1. In a standoff between buyers who don’t want or need to buy and sellers facing a choice between selling now or selling at a lower price later, I wonder who will win?

      Home Buyers Are Looking for Price Cuts. Realtors Say Sellers Aren’t Budging.
      Published: April 25, 2020 at 11:19 a.m. ET
      Shaina Mishkin

      The coronavirus pandemic has dampened the spring homebuying season by nearly every measure—but buyers still might not find the discounts they’re looking for.

      Of the nearly 3,000 agents surveyed by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) between April 19 and 20, 64% said buyers expect a decline in home prices, with the largest share of those predicting a drop between 5% and 10%.
      …

      1. Between 5% and 10% of the initial asking price is typical negotiation territory for a property transaction. Not sure what the story is here.

      2. Home Buyers Are Looking for Price Cuts. Realtors Say Sellers Aren’t Budging.

        Sounds a lot like the current standoff between car buyers and automakers, who chose to quickly idle their factories rather than heavily discount their wares.

        1. I don’t think the auto business has the margins that the house business has. If they can’t sell at close to the list price they lose money, and if that’s true then it makes sense to shut down as soon as you think you can’t sell current models at current prices. Then the question is whether to wait it out or start designing some much cheaper models.

          1. From what I have read those super duper pickups and larger SUV’s have huge margins.

            Hatchbacks, not so much.

            Also cars at dealerships seem to be mostly loaded with expensive, high margin upgrades these days. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I took the 2013 KIAin for a recall. While I waited for the shuttle van I kicked some tires in the showroom, and I thought I was at a Lexus dealer, given all the luxury features and gadgets these “budget brand” cars had. Of course, they had window sticker prices to go with the luxury.

            What blows me away is that the average Joe supposed to be able to afford a $35K SUV. And yeah, they have stuff that costs more than that, a lot more. At a KIA dealer. I can only imagine what they cost at a luxury brand dealer.

            And if you drive by the Ford or Chevy dealer, it’s 80% pickups and SUVs. They have a few made in Korea hatchbacks stashed away in the back.

          2. “What blows me away is that the average Joe supposed to be able to afford a $35K SUV.”

            The cost to operate and depreciate these vehicle is borderline indentured servitude. And a slight fender bender, and it’s written-off entirely!

          3. And a slight fender bender, and it’s written-off entirely!

            Yup, someone rear ended my sister’s Rav4, which was almost paid off. The damage didn’t seem all that bad, it looked like it was just the rear bumper. It turned out there was other damage and it was totaled.

    2. Funny how the reporting$ of $ign.twriller$ & crane$.counter$ has kinda/sorta di$appeared?🤔

      “It’$ a my$tery Charlie Brown!”

      1. On a related note, I noticed that NPR moved its Marketplace show to a less prime evening time slot and has stopped announcing the Dow Jones Industrial Average level during each hourly headline news break.

        Could it be that their listeners have lost interest in stocks, now that they are cratering?

    3. It’s the worst U.S. buyer sentiment since I attended junior high, a long while ago!

      Only 50% of Americans believe it’s a good time to buy a home, an all-time low, Gallup poll says
      Published: April 25, 2020 at 9:18 a.m. ET
      By Jacob Passy
      People are more pessimistic about the housing market due to the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout
      Americans’ sentiment toward the housing market has darkened in the wake of the global coronavirus outbreak that’s created financially instability for many. Getty Images/iStockphoto

      Americans have quickly soured on the prospects of the nation’s real-estate market as the coronavirus pandemic has swept the country.

      Only 50% of Americans said that now is a good time to buy a home, according to a survey of roughly 1,000 people released Friday by polling firm Gallup. That represents the lowest share of Americans to have a positive view on the country’s housing market in the time that Gallup has tracked people’s sentiments on real estate.

      Only 40% of Americans think that the average home prices will increase over the next year, down from 62% a year ago.

      A year ago, 61% of Americans thought it was a good time to buy, while 36% said they believed it wasn’t. The previous low was set back in 2006 when only 52% of Americans thought it was a good time to buy amid the subprime mortgage-fueled housing bubble. Gallup began tracking American’s feelings on the housing market periodically back in the 1970s and has polled on this question annually since 2003.
      …

  29. “listener$ have lo%t intere$t in stock$”

    “$orry, there was no intere$t in the 1$t place, only blindful, hopeful, continuou$ aspiration$”

    “Open thee envelope”, … & thee winner$ i$:

  31. “Only a few months ago, MMT seemed revolutionary. Now it simply looks like a description of what central banks are already doing.”

    MMT was socialism when the printed money would be used for infrastructure and to reduce income inequality.

    It just make sense now that the Federal Reserve is buying corporate bonds to increase stock prices and keep the wealthy wealthy and executive pay high.

    For all the talk about socialism, the government has been redistributing income up for a long time. The reason is blackmail. The executive/financial class and the political/class claim that if the serfs don’t got along with it the system will collapse and they will be worse off.

    This will continue until people are so mad they’ll want to let it burn. If all they can afford is ramen noodles and rags for a decade, it will be worth it if they can bring those at the top down with them.

  32. Bugs ” eh, eye think$ yer on to “Them” doc” 🥕 munch, munch

    The $1200 $timulus i$ to keep ’em di$tracted $ qua$i.$ati$fied.

    The penny$ one.armed bandit $lot machine$ ain’t where$ the big monie$ is to be made. Those bet$ are happening in another location of the Ca$ino, peon$ with short$ & sandal$ & cheap sunglasses$ are di$.invited. Thee odd$ favor$.thee.Hou$e, hence the term: “Thee Hou$e alway$ win$!”

    (How thee.🍊je$u$ “managed” to cra$h a Ca$ino into into bankruptcie$ x2, is $omething to marvel @!)

    1. $tagflation:

      “With $tagflation, a country’$ citizen$ are affected by high rate$ of inflation and unemployment.”

      The $ad truth i$:
      Inflation$ = “deeth.wi$h”

      The que$tion i$: “who$e gonna pull the trigger$”?

      Thee $hort “long.term$” an$wer i$: NO ONE!!!

      How long doe$ quart$ of Pennzoil last? … oil filter$? air filter$? … (oh wait, never mind$ eye almost forget$, 🔋🚗 which will rule thee world any.day.now!, don’t need$ $tuff like that, $illy me.)

  38. Bill Gates Attacks U.S., Praises China: ‘China Did A Lot Of Things Right At The Beginning’

    By Ryan SaavedraDailyWire.com
    APRIL 26TH, 2020

    CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked Gates: “How would you respond to the charge that the Chinese covered this up, they essentially deceived the rest of the world, and as a result, they should be held in someway responsible for this?”

    “Well, I don’t think that’s a timely thing because it doesn’t affect how we act today,” Gates claimed. “China did a lot of things right at the beginning. Like any country where a virus first shows up, they can look back and see where they missed some things.”

    “Some countries did respond very quickly and get their testing in place and they avoided the incredible economic pain, and its sad that even the U.S., that you would have expected to do this well, did it particularly poorly,” Gates claimed.

    “That’s a distraction,” Gates claimed about criticisms of China.

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-gates-attacks-u-s-praises-china-china-did-a-lot-of-things-right-at-the-beginning

  39. Stocks are on a tear. Looks like Lil Sis may get her chance to sell the rally after having bought the March coronacrater. She loves running with the bulls, though in the opposite direction…LOL!

    1. I loves me an outside of the box market analyst.

      Need to Know
      Expert who called the 2008 crisis says the signal to sell stocks is coming soon
      Published: April 27, 2020 at 10:29 a.m. ET
      By Callum Keown
      …
      In our call of the day, former Goldman Sachs hedge-fund manager Raoul Pal said the dollar was the world’s “biggest problem” and that the signal to sell equities was coming soon.

      The chief executive of Global Macro Investor, who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, said: “You see the biggest problem the world faces is the dollar. We are in a viscous doom loop where slowing growth causes the dollar to rise, which causes slower growth, which causes the dollar to rise, as all borrowers play musical chairs to get access to the dollar to service debts.

      “Dollar swap lines, QE, jawboning, etc. have done nothing to stop this,” he added in a post on Twitter.

      He said no printing of money — by the Federal Reserve — would solve what he described as a “structural” problem. “All attempts to create more money to solve the dollar standard issue tend to devalue all fiat versus gold. Gold is rallying on debt deflation probabilities.”

      “My guess is that the next debt deflation signal will come when bonds begin to price in negative interest rates. That day is coming soon… and that will be the signal to sell equities and the insolvency phase will begin.”
      …

      1. The figure accompanying this article shows “total central bank purchases” ramping up to nearly $6 trillion at the present. This includes the Fed, ECB, BoJ, etc. It’s not entirely clear what the units are, but it also appears the big ramp up in asset purchases predates the coronavirus outbreak.

        The Financial Times
        Federal Reserve
        Fed under pressure to be clearer on coronavirus outlook
        US central bank is unlikely to add to its extraordinary measures at meeting this week
        Fed chairman Jay Powell can claim to have been largely successful at calming markets roiled by the coronavirus pandemic
        © AFP via Getty Images
        James Politi in Washington and Colby Smith in New York 5 hours ago

        Federal Reserve officials face a debate on whether to offer more guidance on the US central bank’s policies during the coronavirus pandemic, but are unlikely to make big moves at their meeting this week.

        Some investors would like to see Jay Powell, the Fed chairman, be clearer on the path of interest rates and the pace and duration of asset purchases to reinforce the US central bank’s extraordinary actions to support the economy over the past two months.

        But US central bankers are likely to be cautious, refraining from any new commitments that might limit their flexibility in an economic environment that is still highly uncertain, according to economists and strategists who closely follow the Fed.

        At a gathering of the FOMC set for Tuesday and Wednesday, Mr Powell can claim to have been largely successful at calming markets that had become wracked by volatility since the outbreak began in the US.

        Since early March, the Fed has undertaken a number of emergency measures to offset the sudden cratering of the American economy. These include slashing interest rates, reviving large-scale asset purchases, and setting up facilities to pump liquidity into many corners of financial markets. The moves have provided assurance that the US central bank was prepared to pull out all the stops to prevent an economic depression.

        Even though it is possible that the Fed could make tweaks to some of its credit facilities and offer a more detailed assessment of the dire economic outlook, it is unlikely to venture much further on monetary policy, as it assesses the impact of its moves so far.
        …

Comments are closed.