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For Some Who Bought When Prices Seemed On An Endless Upwards Trajectory, The Bubble Has Burst

A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. “Canadian home sales tanked and price dipped in April over the previous month, marking the weakest activity since 1984. Last month, 16,612 homes were sold on a seasonally adjusted basis, down 57 per cent from 38,493 in March, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association, with Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and other large markets continuing to deteriorate. The average selling price across all types of residential properties fell 10.9 per cent to $475,310 in April from $533,504 in the previous month.”

“The country’s most expensive markets declined, with the average selling price in the Greater Toronto Area down 11.8 per cent to $789,274 from $894,745, and in the Vancouver region it was down 6.2 per cent to $1,009,570 from $1,076,461. CREA suggested that the low activity along with drop in sales of luxury homes pushed the average price down.”

“Phil Soper, Royal LePage chief executive, said there were still some properties in Toronto that were drawing multiple offers. But he also said the financial distress for some homeowners, especially real estate investors, may contribute to lower prices. ‘There are investors that feel overextended and are deleveraging. So there will be some bargains to be found,’ he said.”

“And the housing market has yet to feel the full impact from the economic crisis, as banks have deferred mortgage payments for more than 740,000 property owners for as long as six months. ‘You are going to start to see a lot of these people having to start making their payments again. And if they haven’t gone back to work, if their industry has been decimated by COVID or their company downsized, I think there will be an oversupply [hitting] the market in the winter months,’ said Dave Butler, principal broker with Butler Mortgage Inc.”

The Financial Post in Canada. “Not many condos are being sold in Toronto, (sales were down 70% year over year in April), but those that are appear to be going for lower prices. In a study of condo prices in April using data from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, online realtor Zoocasa found the median price dropped by $65,000, or 10%, to $574,000 from February.”

“Depending on the neighbourhood, that drop could have been even more. Based on neighbourhoods with at least 10 sales in April, Zoocasa found median prices dropped over $100,000 in two neighbourhoods, between $50,000 to $100,000 in four neighbourhoods and by up to $50,000 in 7 neighbourhoods. Toronto Centre took the biggest hit, with five neighbourhoods in this district seeing the largest declines. Mount Pleasant East was at the top of the list with the median condo price dropping $131,500 (-18%) to $617,500.”

The Daily Mail on the UK. “Prices on dozens of properties across Britain – especially in London – have been reduced in recent days as sellers do their best to shift their homes in a time of economic crisis, with further examples seen this morning. Banks are now looking at reassessing many loans – some even after contracts have been exchanged – with millions of workers having since had their pay cut, been put on furlough, lost a bonus or been made redundant.”

“Sarah Coles, of Hargreaves Lansdown, told The Times: ‘Mortgage lenders are free to withdraw their mortgage offer even after you’ve exchanged contracts. They can do it if they believe the value of the property has dropped significantly or if your circumstances have changed and they no longer consider you an attractive mortgage customer.'”

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. “This week the country’s biggest lender for home loans, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, predicted 11 per cent property price falls from March 2020 to March 2023 as their ‘base case’ scenario. In a prolonged downturn, where jobs do not recover quickly, CBA suspects declines could be as drastic as 32 per cent. National Australia Bank has forecast an 11 per cent decline in 2021 as a base case, and estimates price falls of more than 30 per cent over the next two years in a severe downturn.”

“The small Queensland mining town of Moranbah has become a cautionary tale for property investors. At the start of 2013, the peak of the mining boom, the median-priced house in this remote town was $750,000. By the end of the year it was $500,000 as the work dried up and investors sold quickly. Today, houses can be bought for half this price again.”

“The rental market has already started to show signs of struggling in some areas. For instance, high-density sections of Melbourne, like Docklands, and in Sydney, such as the CBD and Ultimo, where two-thirds of homes are rentals, have seen vacancy rates triple. In these locations more than one in 10 rental apartments are currently sitting empty.”

“Property owners who lease their homes and rooms out on Airbnb to tourists at higher rates have also started putting their properties onto the private market. According to data website AirDNA, which tracks Airbnb listings, the number of active short-stay holiday rentals in Australia fell from 202,000 in early February to 164,000 by the end of April. New bookings fell from 78,000 to 27,000 over the same period.”

“‘The lenders have seen the writing on the wall and have moved to avoid immediate problems, but if you’ve lost your business or your work, you’re going to be facing longer-term problems than the next six months,’ says UNSW professor and director of the City Futures Research Centre Bill Randolph. ‘There will almost certainly be some blowback in terms of negative equity for people in danger of not being able to pay their mortgage. That will slowly unravel and impact prices if people foreclose and there’s a fire sale. There could be all sorts of longer-term impacts.'”

“Those who have bought in the last two years would ‘probably be facing negative equity’ soon. ‘You can usually sit through these things if you can repay the mortgage, but the double whammy is so many people are losing their incomes and have financial commitments.'”

“There could also be more radical changes in the future, Randolph says, including a fresh way of looking at the incentives for investment and affordable housing. ‘We have to wake up to the fact the housing market is failing,’ he says. ‘The pandemic allows this government to ask questions it could not possibly address before. This includes looking for tax savings. Negative gearing is an obvious one. I suspect those things are on the table in a way they’ve never been before.'”

From The Age in Australia. “Property tycoon Larry Kestelman has resorted to Supreme Court action to claw back millions of dollars from investors who failed to pay up for luxury apartments inside one of Melbourne’s most high-profile developments. The $700 million LK Tower development, rising 50 storeys on the corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street in South Yarra, is the tallest building outside the Melbourne CBD and pitched to the market as ‘where the city’s style aficionados meet and mingle.'”

“But for some customers who bought the Capitol Grand apartments off the plan after its launch in 2015, when Melbourne’s property prices seemed on an endless upwards trajectory, the Hollywood bubble has burst. Mr Kestelman’s Capitol Grand development company filed Supreme Court writs against 16 people who were not able, or refused, to settle on time; other cases have been mediated privately.”

“Sources with direct knowledge of the situation said some buyers who paid high prices for units in the early stages of development were stung on settlement when property experts attached to lenders valued the properties well below the agreed sale price. Highlighting the risks of buying off the plan, the lower valuations and the softened Melbourne property market, even before the coronavirus crisis, has spooked the banks and left some buyers short of finance.”

“‘This is the problem, it takes so long to get these thing out of the ground before settlements, and circumstances can change — and they did change a lot,’ said one industry insider, who asked not to be identified. ‘Is it the fault of the developer? I don’t necessarily think so. (Buyers) probably paid too much for it and the value came in too low.'”

“Apartment buyer Bao Anh ‘Louis’ Tran, who was among those embroiled in Supreme Court action after failing to settle on the unit, agreed to buy a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit inside LK Tower with a car space and storage cage, for $1.295 million in November 2017. The pocket-sized 82.91 square metre apartment is now up for rent, asking $850 a week. Similar-sized apartments in the development with the same bedroom, bathroom and car space count are on the market asking between $999,000 and $1.18 million.”

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  1. ‘Apartment buyer Bao Anh ‘Louis’ Tran, who was among those embroiled in Supreme Court action after failing to settle on the unit, agreed to buy a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit inside LK Tower with a car space and storage cage, for $1.295 million in November 2017. The pocket-sized 82.91 square metre apartment is now up for rent, asking $850 a week. Similar-sized apartments in the development with the same bedroom, bathroom and car space count are on the market asking between $999,000 and $1.18 million’

    Sux to be you Louis.

    1. “The pocket-sized 82.91 square metre apartment”

      This reminds me of a video I saw, showing a tiny apartment bathroom with a layout so awkward that the toilet was basically unusable. I’m pretty sure it was in Australia. Couldn’t find it on YT, though. I wonder how big the bathroom is in Louis’ apartment?

      1. 83 sq meteres is over 800 sq ft. While possibly small for the price, that’s hardly pocket-sized. 800 sq ft can easily fit two beds and two baths.

    2. Pocket sized?????????? my calculator says that’s 892 square feet that’s a decent size even for 2 people and a kid

    3. Thank goodness for stop-loss orders when owning REIT shares. I can set my price and the losses will be reduced. No stop-loss orders for physical real estate.

      I look around in my hometown and see lots of luxury apartments being built. I ask myself “who is going to live in these places?”

      I also recall reading in the local newspaper in 2018 about a lady who wrote a personal letter to a seller to persuade him to sell her the house and that her dog would love to have a front yard to play in. I knew at that time the housing bubble had reached its peak.

  2. ‘Those who have bought in the last two years would ‘probably be facing negative equity’ soon’

    Good thing you guys stampeded the suckers into the FOMO horse-hockey the past year or so.

  3. ‘the Greater Toronto Area down 11.8 per cent to $789,274 from $894,745, and in the Vancouver region it was down 6.2 per cent to $1,009,570 from $1,076,461’

    And Vancouver’s detached shacks have been sinking like a turd in a well since the spring of 2016.

    ‘CREA suggested that the low activity along with drop in sales of luxury homes pushed the average price down’

    The mix! The MIX!!

    1. The question is whether housing money will come in from 1) China, 2) the rest of Asia.

      Working against this (from an 1-2 year outlook) is 1) very little FOMO, 2) Vacancy tax in BC and ON, 3) currency movement out of China.

      Working for this is folks wanting to get the heck out of dodge. For instance my wife’s co-worker (from a good family on third rig road in Beijing – very prestigious) has in the past 3 weeks asked her to be a reference for moving to Vancouver – they are not going to risk anything (lockdowns, economic, health) and just want to move to a quiet neighbourhood.

    2. ‘the Greater Toronto Area down 11.8 per cent to $789,274 from $894,745, and in the Vancouver region it was down 6.2 per cent to $1,009,570 from $1,076,461’

      Toronto housing prices are cratering.

  4. Another bizarre out of stock product: bread flour. We make pizza every Friday and can’t find in stores or online our usual Bob’s Red Mill Artisan Bread Flour or alternatively King Arthur Bread Flour. Did a massive amount of people become bakers in the last two months?

    BTW, paper products continue to be in low supply too.

    1. It was bittersweet to see a ton of people out in Solana Beach and Encinitas today: sweet to see people getting out and enjoying the day; bitter because of the traffic.

    2. I’ve been told that there isn’t a shortage of flour, rather a shortage of the 5 and 10 pound size bags. So if it can’t be packaged for the store shelf, you won’t see it there.

    3. I was just at Walmart this morning. First stop, the cleaning products aisle, which continues to be sparsely stocked, but plenty of bleach is available! Same goes for the paper products aisle, sparse, but I came away with paper towels and toilet paper, but only ONE package per customer. The baking aisle has been spotty, one week it’s well stocked, and the following it is picked-over. And only small cans of pumpkin. The aisle with pasta and sauce continues to be spotty, but the expensive stuff was available. The frozen fruit and veggies were also spotty, so if you see something you eat but don’t need right now, buy it anyway. On the plus side, the produce section looked normal, well stocked.

    4. bread flour

      I make pizza often. Bread flour is wonderful because it rises better. Has more gluten. With the much cheaper all-purpose flour, add gluten and it’s magic. Gluten is still available online.

      1. Even with bread flour, I add more gluten. A friend accused me of using conditioners. The horror!

          2. Ellios frozen pizza is no match for the exquisite taste of falling housing prices peppered with savory mortgage defaults.

            Vancouver, WA Housing Prices Crater 19% YOY As Vancouver, BC And Seattle Housing Markets Meltdown Under Weight Of Toxic Mortgages

            https://www.zillow.com/vancouver-wa-98684/home-values/

            *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

            As a noted economist stated so eloquently, “A house is a rapidly depreciating asset that empties your wallet it every day you own it.”

    5. Just-in-time supply chains at work. Wal-Mart slices their timing so thin that they were prone to running out of one thing or another even pre-COVID. I haven’t been to a Wal-mart in a couple months, mainly because they get too crowded, so I don’t know how they’re doing now.

  5. Tampa, FL Housing Prices Crater 17% YOY As Guf Coast Housing Market Turns Toxic On Rampant Appraisal And Mortgage Fraud

    https://www.zillow.com/tampa-fl-33617/home-values/

    *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

    As a leading economist advises, “Mortgage debt is the most toxic and damaging debt of all. Avoid it at all costs.”

  6. Why is Zillow showing January under median list prices? Are they usually that far behind?

    1. All these outfits are attempting to conceal falling prices. They even hire media outfits to suppress and otherwise interfere with the dissemination of falling housing prices.

    2. Their charts aren’t tall enough to show what happened in February and March.

  7. Powell is signaling more stock market support ahead. You can’t lose buying stocks with the Fed’s wind in your sails. Time to let your FOMO run wild!

    Dow futures rise nearly 200 points Sunday evening as Fed’s Powell says coronavirus vaccine is key but don’t ‘bet against American economy’
    Published: May 17, 2020 at 8:52 p.m. ET
    By Mark DeCambre

    U.S. stock-index futures rose slightly Sunday evening as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that Americans need to prepare for a tough road ahead in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic but said he wouldn’t bet against the domestic economy’s ability to persevere through the most significant public-health crisis in more than a century. “In the long-run and even in the medium-run, you wouldn’t want to bet against the American economy,” Powell said, speaking during an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” program, which was slated to air Sunday. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YMM20, 1.14%) were up 186 points, or 0.8%, at 23,703, those for the S&P 500 index (ESM20, 1.13%) were up 0.8% at 2,869, while Nasdaq-100 futures NQM20, 1.06% were gaining 0.8% at 9,168.75. Moves for futures comes after the Dow (DJIA, +0.25%), the S&P 500 index (SPX, +0.39%) and the Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP, +0.79%) registered their worst weekly losses on Friday since the period ended March 20. In corporate news, investors will follow developments with embattled retailer J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (JCP, +21.24%), after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Friday. The department store chain, along with many other retailers, have been slammed by closures put in place to limit the spread of the deadly contagion. J.C. Penney hopes to slash its debt, spin off a real-estate division and position itself to welcome back shoppers as many states loosen their stay-at-home restrictions.
    …

    3. Not everybody is convinced just yet that it is smooth sailing from here on into the safe harbor.

      I think we should buckle our seat belts. It is going to get bumpy still.

      — Mohamed El-Erian

      Key Words
      Buckle your seat belts, the road ahead is going to be bumpy, warns El-Erian
      Published: May 17, 2020 at 7:40 p.m. ET
      By Greg Robb
      Investors wrongly think the Fed will solve all the economy’s ills, economist says
      Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser of Allianz Getty Images

      El-Erian is doubtful about the chances of a quick V-shaped economic rebound.

      “Its very hard to say everything is going to be resolved overnight. We hope so. But I think we should buckle our seat belts. It is going to get bumpy still,” El-Erian said, in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

      El-Erian said the market thinks it is in a “win-win” scenario, betting there will be a quick recovery or the Fed will come to the rescue if the economy falters.

      “So there is a sense of comfort, whatever the outlook,” he said. If they’re wrong about the economy, “it doesn’t matter, because the Federal Reserve is buying assets that we never imagined it could buy.”
      …

      1. the Federal Reserve is buying assets that we never imagined it could buy.

        Just wait.

      1. Karen strikes again!

        New York tourist arrested after posting Hawaii beach photos

        Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, Associated Press
        Published 9:29 p.m. ET May 15, 2020

        Honolulu — A tourist from New York was arrested for allegedly violating Hawaii’s traveler quarantine after he posted on Instagram photos of himself sunbathing and carrying a surfboard, state officials said.

        “He allegedly left his hotel room the day he arrived and traveled many places using public transportation,” the release said. “Authorities became aware of his social media posts from citizens who saw posts of him – on the beach with a surfboard, sunbathing, and walking around Waikiki at night.”

        https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/15/new-york-tourist-arrested-posting-hawaii-beach-photos/111784258/

  9. I did a little review of our discussions about the new coronavirus before the world ended. We had quite the prescient conversation going back on January 31!

    Professor Bear
    January 31, 2020 at 1:01 pm

    This is why the current coronavirus outbreak may prove much more problematic and economically disruptive than SARS was to contain.

    ‘There’s no doubt’: Top US infectious disease doctor says Wuhan coronavirus can spread even when people have no symptoms
    By Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifield, CNN
    Updated 12:40 PM ET, Fri January 31, 2020

    (CNN) The nation’s top infectious disease doctor says a new study published Thursday night shows people can spread the Wuhan coronavirus before symptoms set in.

    German researchers found that the virus was transmitted by people without symptoms in five instances in one cluster of people: from a parent to a daughter; from that daughter to two colleagues; and from one of those colleagues to two other coworkers.

    “There’s no doubt after reading this paper that asymptomatic transmission is occurring,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “This study lays the question to rest.”
    …

    oxide
    January 31, 2020 at 1:39 pm

    OK, *now* it’s time to lower the Defcon.

    oxide
    January 31, 2020 at 1:49 pm

    The first, an otherwise healthy 33-year-old, developed a fever of 102.4 degrees, and felt ill for a few days. “He stayed in bed for the weekend, but by Monday he felt fine,” Rothe said. The second one had a “mildly sore throat and a minimal cough,” Rothe said. “He was clinically unspectacular.”

    How strange. This virus is easier to catch than a common cold, but it ranges from a sore throat all the way to being lethal?

    tresho
    January 31, 2020 at 8:43 pm

    How strange. This virus is easier to catch than a common cold, but it ranges from a sore throat all the way to being lethal? Nothing strange to that at all. N. meningitidis sometimes acts just like that. Some human carriers / transmitters may have no symptoms at all, at any time. One of the few bacterial diseases that can take a healthy young adult & turn him/her into dead meat in 24 hours.

    1. The state to watch is Georgia. Weren’t they the first to open back up? If re-opening re-starts a massive spread, we’ll know by the end of the week, assuming they test adequately, which is questionable. If the theories about vitamin D are correct, then we can expect a summer lull in cases. Not from the virus itself being vulnerable, but from people being more immune. If that’s what I see, then I’ll do another major stock up while I can, because the fall is going to be brutal as people go back to schools and office buildings.

    2. The coronavirus could kill millions of Americans: ‘Do the math,’ immunization specialist says

      PUBLISHED THU, MAR 19 20209:09 AM EDT

      The new coronavirus could kill millions across the United States, said Dr. Kathleen Neuzil, director of the Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine.

      “It would not surprise me,” she told CNBC on Thursday when asked whether the U.S. could see millions of deaths. “We need to prepare for the worst.”

      “We have 350 million people in the United States, and you do the math,” she said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

      https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/the-coronavirus-could-kill-millions-of-americans-cdc-advisor-says.html

      1. “The new coronavirus could kill millions across the United States, said Dr. Kathleen Neuzil, director of the Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine.”

        And as Director of this organization one of her tasks is to procure funding.

        “’It would not surprise me,’ she told CNBC on Thursday when asked whether the U.S. could see millions of deaths. ‘We need to prepare for the worst.’”

        “We need to prepare for the worst.”

        Translation: I need funding.

        1. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

          I like the term “Crisis Management” but I do not think of using this term in the conventional sense.

          Replacing the word “Management” with the word “Exploitation” is more accurate.

          Crisis Exploitation. There, more better.

  10. A reader sent this in:

    ‘I’m clearing out my fully furnished AirBnb apartment so a new tenant can bring in their own furniture. It took me a long time to acquire/transport all this furniture and over $1,500. Now, you can save the time and hassle and pick it all up in 1 trip for a fraction of the cost. I’d like to sell the complete furniture and kitchenware as a set for only $850. Great if you are moving into a place and need everything, starting over or furnishing your AirBnb. Furniture is name brand Pier 1, like new. Over $2,500 value.’

    https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb/fuo/d/long-beach-furniture-set-pier-1/7122339878.html

    2. Best corporate bankruptcy timing in history Pier 1. Stores completely empty before the lock-down.

      1. How is it that with all this artificial demand for furnishings from STRs that a store like Pier 1 still went bankrupt? Rhetorical question, but this post certainly highlights how the funny money easy credit STR complex propped up a lot of ancillary businesses.

  11. I was trying to figure out why I’m getting so ticked off .

    I think I’m getting tired of the Control Freaks.

    Control Freaks want to control everything. They want to control:
    The weather , a air borne virus, the lives of people, overpriced property, to much debt, information, truth, carbons, transportation, what to eat, what to think, where to live, who is woke, and how to filter money to the few, and they want to control your dreams and curtail your movements. You should be equally miserable.
    They want to bring you down and limit you and put you in a box. Why would they want to do this? Because they think they can .

    1. You are looking at this in the wrong way.

      Control freaks can be fun to watch. They need to control everything, as you correctly stated, but this is something that they cannot do. This fact forces them to endure unmeasurable levels of distress.

      If you get sucked into participating in this world of theirs and as a result get sucked into their world of distress then this is on you. But if you decide to watch instead of participate then you can learn that these people can offer up an abundant supply of amusement.

      Your choice.

      1. Mr Banker,
        I usually do laugh at the control freaks, but when it reaches a level that they get the power to mess with my life, than it isn’t funny anymore.

    2. Elizabeth Warren’s 86-year brother died of COVID in a nursing home in March. Washington Post commenters: It’s Trump’s fault. Trump could have stopped it all last November; he should be charged with murder.

      Meanwhile, CCP’s XI delivered flowery opening remarks at the WHO’s review of the COVID outbreak. Under pressure from China, member countries are agreeing to a watered-down version of the review, almost ignoring the causes of the outbreak. Washington Post Commenters: It’s Trump’s fault. He should have shown more leadership.

      1. “It’s Trump’s fault. He should have shown more leadership.”

        Cuomo doubles down on ordering nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients

        By Kate SheehyApril 26, 2020 | 3:42pm | Updated

        Gov. Cuomo doubled down Sunday on the state’s controversial directive ordering nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients.

        The governor — who himself has described nursing homes as a “feeding frenzy’’ for the deadly coronavirus — said that the facilities can’t challenge a state regulation forcing them to admit patients with the contagion.

        https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/cuomo-doubles-down-on-sending-coronavirus-patients-to-nursing-homes/

    3. I don’t blame you for being ticked off. This is quickly turning into a half-assed pandemic, with greed, deception, and agenda pushing from every party on every side of this, including from the virus itself. There isn’t a single good actor in the bunch:

      Evidence (not proof yet) of gain-of-function research on viruses, including a ferrin-cleavage sequence — that can’t be traced to related coronaviruses — showing up out of nowhere, and then denying any whiff of questions that COVID might have a man-made origin.

      China denying info about the virus — to the point of disappearing individual Chinese health providers who tried to spend the news — and then getting into bed with the WHO director to convince him to declare pandemic far too late. This week, the same WHO director is heading up an inquiry into the origins of the virus, with the help of… China.

      The left media decrying Trump as an ist for trying to stop the virus by limiting flights from China, only to blame him later for not stopping the virus.

      WHO and CDC waiting for their own evidence of asymptomatic p2p transmission, instead of being safe and assuming the worst.

      Officials in New Orleans (and Spain) waiting for the conclusion of lucrative tourist festivals before calling for lockdowns.

      Trump making a fool of himself in every press conference by self-contradicting himself and then reverting to his usual petty revenge games (Flynn and Obamagate? couldn’t that wait for a few months?)

      China keeping silent on the virus while quietly commandeering the world supply of PPE.

      Officials in New York pulling the Asian “ist” card (for the first time ever) and encouraging tourism to NYC Chinatown. This is monhts after Trump was supposed to have saved the world.

      CDC and the Surgeon General (I didn’t even know we had a Surgeon General, where has he been all this time) flat out lying that masks didn’t work, only to do a 180 a month later.

      CDC insisting on designing their own tests, royally screwing up in the process.

      CDC and WHO insulting the intelligence of half the world by issuing advice to wash our hands and stay home if we’re sick, despite the fact that the virus doesn’t spread as much by hands and and the virus can spread without being sick. Corollary: the CDC and WHO doing BARELY any research on practical matters such as whether 6 feet is sufficient enough to be so sacred, how well do masks really work, and whether it’s okay to handle the mail. Corollary: the task of finding virus-blocking materials was left to individuals like a tiny seamstress outfit in Los Angeles.

      Every person and every industry demanding a handout and a bailout, engaging in a decade of hard financial partying to line their pockets and adorn their mistresses, only to come crying poor based on one month of getting less business than usual.

      Fauci and Big Pharma suppressing studies of potentially effective treatments in order to promote their own non-effective yet very profitable reject drugs and new-fangled vaccines, to the extent of purposely designing studies to ensure failure and misleading news headlines. Corollary: the *rumor* is that Tom Hanks, one of the early COVID patients, was treated with HCQ in Australia, but he’s keeping that fact quiet because he’s an SJW.

      News media and social media such as Facebook and Twitter and YouTube suppressing any intelligent discussion and directing everyone to “official” WHO and CDC data, despite the WHO and CDC proving that they aren’t worth the precious toilet paper that they use.

      Congress spending trillions of dollars making their buddy banks whole (again) while taking 2 months to send out a thousand bucks to millions of unemployed peons. And they’re about to do it again. But have no fear, the Kennedy Center got funding.

      Half the country thinking that requiring a mask for potentially contagious people (that is, for everybody) is a violation of their Constitutional right to “peaceable assemble” by riding open Jeeps and waving automatic weapons and looking remarkably like a 2013-era parade in Aleppo.

      And finally, a virus itself which is just lethal enough to cause panic, but not lethal enough to force any kind of good behavior. We’d see a very different result if the sickness killed, say 25% of children.

      It’s a tough call whether this has been handled better or worse than Hurricane Katrina.

      1. Don’t forget China sealing off Wuhan from the rest of the country but allowing people to fly in and out all over the world.

        1. ….. but when do us hardhats get designated as “heros” and get our own propaganda parade?

      2. “I don’t blame you for being ticked off.”

        Not as ticked off as disgusted which is where I’ve been since the first week of the CBS Evening News and all the other MSM outlets wall to wall All Corona All the Time millions in the U.S. could die coverage which predictably led to the shutting down of the economy which they have cheerleaded, exaggerated and shamed all the way through to this day.

        1. they have cheerleaded, exaggerated and shamed all the way

          And the people are fully engaged with their theater. The whole country needs psycho therapy for unhealthy dynamics. There was a nearly seamless transition from the last act (impeachment follies) to this one. The curtain will fall on this story rather quickly if we don’t all die from lifting lockdown.

          Who can guess what the next act will be titled?

      3. For what it’s worth, I thought the people that I saw show up to protest in Michigan with AR-15s in tow were idiots.

        Although I didn’t catch them riding in a jeep, if they had automatic weapons they’ve had them for a long time because no automatic weapons have been sold in the U.S. for private use since May 19, 1986.

      4. “…with greed, deception, and agenda pushing from every party on every side…”

        There was an entertaining movie, “Swerve” circa 2011, with David Lyons, Jason Clarke and Emma Booth where everyone was trying to rip-off each other, e.g., no honor among thieves. Nothing deep, just a fun movie with some greed, skin and violence.

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