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Issues Similar To Those Faced By Investors In The Years Leading Up To The Housing Bust

A report from the Sonoma County Gazette in California. “Some communities have established Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO) Exclusion Zones to keep housing and their neighborhoods protected from commercial use of residential homes, while others have tried and failed to to establish Exclusion Zones. It’s a complicated process, requires entire neighborhood agreement, and costs fees many cannot afford. In Sonoma and Marin Counties, some residential neighborhoods have more VRBOs than residents.”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “The average asking rent for an apartment in Los Angeles County fell last month from a year earlier, according to RealPage. The 3.3% decrease to an average of $2,254 for units of all sizes followed a 0.8% drop in April and reflects how the coronavirus-related economic downturn is sweeping through the rental housing market.”

“Some landlords and property managers said they’re giving concessions such as a month of free rent or dropping their asking price to get units filled as concern over the economy grows. According to RealPage’s data, the last time rents declined was in 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession. ‘We’ve had a big dropoff in overall demand,’ Greg Willett, the company’s chief economist, said, citing the coronavirus.”

“In addition, RealPage’s numbers cover professionally managed apartments and thus leave out many mom-and-pop landlords who charge lower rent. The RealPage data showed declines were focused on the middle and high end of the market. As president of property management firm Eberly Co., Chuck Eberly manages about 2,700 units in the Los Angeles area across the market spectrum, from high-end properties to working-class apartments.”

“Eberly said he’s had to offer a couple of weeks of free rent and in some cases dropped rent outright, mostly for his more expensive properties. Although he called the rent declines ‘small adjustments,’ he expects he’ll be forced to make more cuts down the road. ‘I see a lot of product right now and just not a lot of lookers,’ he said.”

From 6 Sq Ft in New York. “The summer months are typically the busiest when it comes to real estate in New York City, especially the rental market. But with the city still not out of the woods of the coronavirus crisis, and with so many facing job and financial uncertainty, the idea of signing or renewing a lease becomes increasingly complicated.”

“It’s also important to note that rental listings are in high supply right now, so by many accounts, it’s a renters’ market. As was previously reported, ‘Listings website CityRealty saw 7,793 rental listings in early January. Buy mid-April that number had grown to 8,244 and as of May 15, it was 10,641.’ However, as Douglas Elliman agent Eleonora Srugo noted in a recent email, this could all change come the fall: ‘The seasonal rental market has been impacted by the pandemic with large discounts and incentives being offered on all new leases.'”

The Wall Street Journal. “Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC said it is acquiring a business that manages nearly 130,000 housing units, a deal that extends Greystar’s position as the country’s largest operator of rental apartments. The Charleston, S.C.-based firm is buying the business from Alliance Residential Co., the country’s fourth-largest apartment manager.”

“‘This is how consolidation is happening in this industry,’ Greystar Chief Executive Bob Faith said. ‘A lot of real-estate owners that own and manage their properties look up one day and say, ‘I’m not making a lot of money [at management]. I’m going to give it to Greystar.'”

The Real Estate Journals. “Just look at the most expensive rental market in the United States, San Francisco. Zumper reported that one-bedroom rents in San Francisco are down 9.2 percent this June when compared to the same month a year earlier. That median monthly rent is still high at $3,360. But that figure is the lowest median rent for one-bedroom apartments in this city since March of 2017.The next three most expensive rental markets in the country — New York City, Boston and San Jose — also saw one-bedroom median rents fall on a year-over-year basis.”

“In the Midwest, Milwaukee saw a big drop in its median one-bedroom rent, falling 4.7 percent on a year-over-year basis to $1,010. Chicago, not surprisingly, ranked as the most expensive Midwest rental market, with the median one-bedroom rent coming in at $1,510 in June and the median two-bedroom rent hitting $1,810. The one-bedroom rent was down 3.8 percent from a year earlier, while two-bedroom median rents in Chicago were down 4.6 percent.”

From Mortgage Professional America. “According to a new report by Lease Lock, first day rent payments in June saw a 2% drop in total rent collected compared to May and April, and a 6% drop compared to the pre-COVID average. ‘This decline is a foreshadowing of what’s to come if we don’t see some more government intervention,’ said Rochelle Bailis, vice president of marketing at LeaseLock. ‘This issue will progress without more comprehensive relief.'”

“According to the report, rent payments at Class C properties continue to decrease, which Bailis warns could trigger a ripple effect. Traditionally, Class C properties house working class residents, who were more greatly impacted by recent service industry lay-offs and after slipping downward for the last two months, Class C properties saw another 3% drop in first-of-the-month rent payments.”

“‘When service workers get laid off, the industry suffers and executives begin losing their jobs as well, affecting Class B and Class A residents as well,’ she said. ‘If renters can’t pay their rent, then owners can’t pay their mortgage, that affects the banks and that’s really what the multifamily industry is trying to stop. We are trying to prevent those dominoes from falling.'”

From Multi-Housing News. “With June’s rent payments now due, a voice in the wilderness is questioning whether statistics showing how many residents made their April and May rents are accurate—or if this month’s numbers will be, too. Jonas Bordo, the founder of Dwellsy, a 15-month-old rental search engine, doesn’t think so. Bordo bases his claim on an admittedly random, unscientific poll he took on May 21 and 22 in which he asked renters on Twitter if they will have difficulty paying their rents this month.”

“More than 4,600 responded. ‘I was shocked,’ Bordo said in a phone interview. ‘It clearly caught people’s attention.’ More stunning, perhaps, is that less than half—48.5 percent—said they were not confident they’d be able to meet their June obligations. That compares to the 87.7 percent who paid their rent in May, according to the National Multi-Housing Council, and the 89.9 percent NMHC says paid in May 2019.”

“Bordo decided to query renters because he couldn’t square the fact that 38 million people are out of work and that 39 percent of all households don’t have $400 on hand to cover an emergency with the NMHC’s rental figures. ‘How on earth is it possible that more than 38 million Americans, many of whom had little to no emergency funds, all lost their jobs and were still able to pay their rent?’ he wondered.”

“The Dwellsy founder doesn’t doubt the NMHC’s figures. But he doesn’t believe they tell the entire story. He supposes that because of the way they are sourced—from five property management software companies that serve the largest management companies, Bordo says—they are skewed toward luxury properties.”

“‘The apartment communities that those property managers operate are overwhelmingly higher-end properties,’ he said. ‘As a result, this data is representative of the more affluent end of the market, where apartment dwellers are far more likely to be working from home than unemployed.'”

“What the database does not include are the millions of rentals owned and operated by Mom and Pop investors who don’t use sophisticated software. Bordo pointed out that according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 75 percent or so of the U.S. rental market is comprised of properties owned by individual investors who only have just one to four units.”

The Houston Chronicle in Texas. “In May, 7.15 percent of commercial mortgages that had been bundled into securities were at least 30 days delinquent, up 481 basis points from the month before, according to securities data company Trepp. That’s the biggest month-over-month increase Trepp has recorded since it began tracking the metric during the Great Recession in 2009. Another 7.6 percent of commercial mortgages that back securities missed May payments, but were less than 30 days delinquent. Even more are in forbearance.”

“‘Everybody who invests in commercial real estate has felt the pinch in one way or another,’ said Manus Clancy, senior managing director at Trepp. ‘Texas has a double whammy of COVID and the oil and gas issue, where the price of oil dropped so sharply that firms in Houston are pulling back in terms of their space needs and the number of employees.'”

“Commercial real estate investors are confronting issues similar to those faced by investors in residential real estate in the years leading up to the housing bust of more than a decade ago. As with homes, most commercial properties are purchased with mortgages, which are then bundled into securities and sold to investors, whose returns depend on property owners making their monthly payments.”

“Cash-strapped commercial tenants are missing lease payments and their landlords missing mortgage payments, undermining the value of the mortgage-backed securities. If the debt goes bad, it could blow a hole in the balance sheets of investors, dry up the capital needed to revive the commercial real estate market and hurt the returns of institutions, such as pension funds, on which millions of Americans depend.”

“The most heavily hit sector, according to Trepp data, was lodging. Nearly 20 percent of hotel loans packaged into securities were at least 30 days delinquent as of May, and Clancy said he expected that number to rise in June. Lodging was followed by retail, which had a 10 percent delinquency rate, multifamily with 3.3 percent and office with 2.4 percent. In February, before the pandemic became strongly felt in the United States, the overall delinquency rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities was 2.04 percent.”

“Investors who own commercial mortgage-backed securities have seen the value of their holdings fall. Banks that had agreed, pre-COVID, to make commercial loans that would be packaged into securities and sold to investors are facing significant losses.”

“For example, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Credit Suise Group AG and Macquarie Group Ltd. agreed to lend more than $7 billion to Eldorado Resorts, a casino business, before the need to social distance, according to a Bloomberg report. The sudden change in the company’s financial stability made it difficult to find investors who were willing to take the debt off of the banks’ hands, meaning they may have to offer the debt at a discount or even come up with the cash themselves.”

This Post Has 100 Comments
  1. ‘In Sonoma and Marin Counties, some residential neighborhoods have more VRBOs than residents’

    ‘I see a lot of product right now and just not a lot of lookers’

    That’s some shortage.

    1. I live in Sonoma Co. and am not aware of neighborhoods w/ more VRBO’s than residents but that could very well be…have heard of individual streets where that is the case. In any case will be glad when the number is greatly reduced and think the requirement for an onsite owner or manager is a good one. The traditional B&B setup where someone rents a spare room/suite in their home occasionally is far less disruptive, have stayed in many in Ireland over the years.

        1. I just figured that out not too long ago. It is amazing how many of these scams have popped up over the course of the past decade or so.

  2. ‘This decline is a foreshadowing of what’s to come if we don’t see some more government intervention…This issue will progress without more comprehensive relief’

    Lots of landlord feet stampin’ for guberment help in this article.

  3. ‘The apartment communities that those property managers operate are overwhelmingly higher-end properties…As a result, this data is representative of the more affluent end of the market, where apartment dwellers are far more likely to be working from home than unemployed’

    ‘What the database does not include are the millions of rentals owned and operated by Mom and Pop investors who don’t use sophisticated software. Bordo pointed out that according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 75 percent or so of the U.S. rental market is comprised of properties owned by individual investors who only have just one to four units’

    Translation = things are a lot worser than the industry is admitting.

  4. ‘In May, 7.15 percent of commercial mortgages that had been bundled into securities were at least 30 days delinquent, up 481 basis points from the month before, according to securities data company Trepp. That’s the biggest month-over-month increase Trepp has recorded since it began tracking the metric during the Great Recession in 2009’

    So this is the second or third article on CMBS in the Houston Chronicle. Why would they be so interested? Because they’ve seen this movie before.

    1. I got this today in an email:

      ‘Here are some other fascinating insights Vail shared with me about the impact of Covid on the hospitality industry’

      -Occupancy was down 63.9% overall to 24.5% in April
      -Room Demand collapsed by 68.3%
      -Average Daily Rate nationwide is down 44.4% to $73/night
      -The crucial RevPAR measure collapsed 79.9% to $18
      -And room revenue overall down 82.4%

      1. It’s much, much worse than those current results suggest, because companies far and wide are currently in the process of learning to conduct operations remotely, in the absence of travel. Once weened from expensive air travel with hotel stays in distant cities, companies will not go back to business as usual after COVID-19. The hospitality and air travel industries are dead in the water.

        1. Sounds like a great reason for their stocks to rocket higher. Oh, already happened. Nevermind…

        2. Even before the pandemic, I couldn’t understand why there was so much business travel. Given the existence of videoconferencing technology, etc etc.

          1. In my industry individual contributors rarely travel anymore. The last time I was sent anywhere was in 2017. I hadn’t seen my boss since then until we started doing zoom meetings (prior to that we just did phone meetings). I was surprised at how much he grayed since then.

          2. I couldn’t understand why there was so much business travel. Never underestimate psycho-social inertia, or: “We’ve always done it that way.”

          3. I’ve been to technical conferences where very little tech goes on. It’s all networking and glad-handing. And I sure there was some green-handshaking and brown-enveloping too, but I never made it high enough on the ladder to get to those. Kinda tough to all do that over Webex.

          4. Easy some CEO’s like face to face meetings with their best paying ($$$$) clients. Would you feel more comfortable handing over your companies money over zoom, or in person?

          5. Bitcoin’s gotta be good for that, no?

            A some point you have to covert it into fiats to spend them. Plus they already have a well establish laundry process in place to handle the brown envelopes and turn them into “legitimate” cash.

          6. Even before the pandemic, I couldn’t understand why there was so much business travel.

            In my line of work, customers who pay millions of dollars for your machines want a lot of in-person attention when they have a hard time using those machines. Even if the answer is right there in the documentation. And sometimes they run into bugs that are hard to diagnose from a distance. So it creates an opportunity for development engineers who like to travel. The techs can’t handle the really complicated stuff and frequently management didn’t hire enough people or allow enough time to create a really good system within the product to capture complex failure data to diagnose bugs remotely. So we still travel…some grudgingly once in a while, some quite happily as often as possible. Myself, I ended up taking a job with one of the customers after a while so I’m kind of stuck in one place now.

          7. In my line of work, customers who pay millions of dollars for your machines want a lot of in-person attention when they have a hard time using those machines.

            Not to mention that they often pay big bucks for service and support contracts. So if a megabuck server starts having hiccups, they expect people who can fix that to show up ASAP. That said, if our customers are in New York, Chicago, LA or Bay Area, we already have people local to them who don’t need to travel.

          8. “Even before the pandemic, I couldn’t understand why there was so much business travel.”

            That’s where you enjoy your cutie-pie too.

      2. Just thinking how long did it take you to feel comfortable with entering your credit card or bank account number on line???

        Scenario: Hi everyone I’m Tim Cook, and i want to buy your company I see all the stockholders are here and this zoom meeting is being recorded for legal reasons , so you all agree to sell the company to us? yes yes yes yes yes …..at the agreed price of $1 billion us dollars yes yes yes yes yes, Ok my CFO is preparing payment………….so can we all meet up at Vail in a few weeks……yes yes yes yes yes…………pause………………payment received…….Congratulations you are now all apple employees. Thanks for being at this zoom meeting……….(meeting has ended.)

      1. Excellent I used to love playing 70’s soul and Carolina Beach music when i lived in South Carolina …..and General Johnson was always a go to artist.

        1. I am of the opinion that the phrase “sho nuff ” is vastly underutilized.

          Tell Me Something Good Lyrics
          Rufus and Chaka Khan

          Got no time is what you’re known to say
          (Got no time, no, got no time)
          I’ll make you wish there was 48 hours to each day
          Your problem is you ain’t been loved like you should
          What I got to give will sho nuff do you good

          Tell me somethin good
          (tell me tell me tell me)
          tell me that you love me, yeah
          tell me somethin good
          (tell me tell me tell me)
          tell me that you like it, yeah

  5. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t a lot of cops spend their time handing out traffic tickets and going to traffic accidents. Than you got the cops that are investigating murders.

    I’m just saying how is it possible that Police aren’t necessary. It would be like the wild west.

    1. handing out traffic tickets and going to traffic accidents

      In California, that’s done by the California Highway Patrol.

      1. In California, that’s done by the California Highway Patrol.

        On freeways and highways, yes. But not on city streets or county roads.

        1. From Wikipedia: The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is a state law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of California. The CHP has patrol jurisdiction over all California highways and are also known as the state police. They also have jurisdiction over city roads, and have the right to conduct law enforcement procedures there.

          1. They do have jurisdiction, but lack the manpower to patrol everywhere. The Sheriffs and PD’s also hand out plenty of tickets.

    2. I’m just saying how is it possible that Police aren’t necessary. It would be like the wild west.

      If you eliminate the police you end up with warlords and roving gangs. We would be better off as a nation admitting that and focusing on getting rid of cops who turn off their body cameras at suspicious times and stuff like that instead of getting rid of all cops. We need the good cops to be more aggressive with the people who want to burn it all down.

          1. Because the suburbs and beyond can easily throw together their own roving gangs if the cops and national guard can’t keep the peace. Everybody knows it and is hoping to avoid it.

          2. Yup. We have a few protesters this weekend in town, mostly white libs. They know well that if they smash a window that they’ll be greeted by a hail of bullets.

          3. “We have a few protesters this weekend in town, mostly white libs.”

            Assuaging their guilt I assume?

          4. Assuaging their guilt I assume?

            I would suggest they sign over any property and money they have to a deserving minority family.

      1. Don’t have to go that far. Try Mexico. The beach resorts are patrolled by Mexican Marines because the police there are utterly ineffective.

  6. Jordan Peterson nails it when talking about what is wrong with universities today, starting at 36.23 minutes into this video:

    Watch “Jordan Peterson: From the Barricades of the Culture Wars” on YouTube
    https://youtu.be/v6H2HmKDbZA

  7. Is anyone familiar with CFP and/or CFA certification processes? I would imagine it would look pretty bad for someone with these certifications to have a home foreclosed on them. Is there any way for clients or others to search whether a financial planner has had one?

    1. whether a financial planner has had one?

      I know a real scumbag who after being fired from a real job for dishonest dealings became a Financial Planner. I never went to a financial planner. Do any of the gullible ask for “credentials”?

      1. We have a problem with independent FP sharks in this area, due to the high number of industry workers with savings and company retirement plans. Perhaps some of them are legit and provide a decent service, but it’s hard to get past the aggressive, pushy behavior of a single person behind a desk in a rented office. The whole thing just screams “con artist”.

        I had one relentlessly stalking me for over a year by phone, e-mail, and LinkedIn. I got real close to calling the police or going to court and getting a PPO on the guy, it was ridiculous. No one cares about you and your well-being that much.

        1. I you just gotta use an FP, why not use the ones at the 401K plan? AFAIK, Fidelity doesn’t even charge for the service.

        2. I you just gotta use an FP, why not use the ones at the 401K plan?

          I’m guessing that a person who really likes an exciting Casey-Serin-style pitch gets bored pretty quickly with an ethical conservative pitch. And someone who wants to keep things ethical and conservative probably doesn’t need much help.

          1. Yeah, being told how much a boring annuity will pay is less sexy than a “you’ll get rich, RICH, if you do what I say!”

        3. The whole thing just screams “con artist”.

          That would comport with the financial history of the owner of the property I mentioned a few days ago. The financial planner and his wife took out $200K in February from the property held in a trust and used it as a down payment for another property in her name only. I’m trying to determine how much flexibility they have on price.

    2. “Is anyone familiar with CFP and/or CFA certification processes? ”

      You can check for complaints/violations with FINRA. https://brokercheck.finra.org/

      But a personal foreclosure wouldn’t show up and isn’t a violation.
      If the person is employed rather than independent, their employer would probably have an issue with it as credit worthiness is a job criteria.

      1. Thanks! He has his own company with two other professionals and two office staff.

    1. Similar to her video on Twitter that I posted two days ago. Same day, same shirt, different hair.

  8. #KnowYourNarrative

    The latest bugbear for the globalist-collectivist twisted panty set and their Real Journalist propagandists is the Boogaloo movement. Recall that after Comrade Beto dropped the mask and said, “Hell yes, we’re coming for your AR-15s” guns sales went parabolic. Students of history know that when collectivists initiate gun confiscation, it’s because they’re planning something that is likely to incite resistance by its victims, i.e. the 100 million mostly defenseless people who perished in the 20th century due to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Pol Pot, to name a few. Also keep in mind that the collectivists are pushing a narrative of “irredeemable deplorables” indicating that anywhere from ten percent to a full quarter of the population are “bad people” who (it logically follows) our collectivist overlords might need to do something about…for the children.

    So the Boogaloo movement’s explosive growth dates back to October 2019, when guys who didn’t want to see their Constitutional rights annulled or their hard-earned wealth and property redistributed, starting gunning up and referring to a civil war that would erupt if the collectivists tried to confiscate their guns as a prelude to a globalist-collectivist “final solution” against what remains of Heritage America and the Constitution. Of course, no Real Journalist will supply this context – instead, they are pushing the narrative that terroristic gun owners are plotting to overthrow the gub’mint, with the FBI entrapping a few nut jobs on the fringes to reinforce the “domestic terrorist” angle. Never mind that the vast majority of so-called Boogaloos Boys have made it plain that there will be no “Boogaloo” unless and until the collectivists attempt to forcibly confiscate their guns as a prelude to tearing up the Constitution and replacing it with rule by globalist-collectivist diktat. Arbitrary COVID-19 measures have been a test run for conditioning the sheeple into mindless compliance with orders from their Democrat overlords.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dzgw5/are-the-boogaloo-bois-a-national-security-threat-new-york-democrat-wants-dhs-to-investigate

    1. I cut out leftist friends years ago. They can have rioters throw rocks at them while they shout their support for the riots, for all I care.

  9. Scientists in Australia have made a breakthrough discovery by pinpointing the precise location of four fast radio bursts (FRBs).
    FRBs are very mysterious bursts of radio waves coming from somewhere in the universe. The average pulse ranges for a few milliseconds, caused by high-energy sources, which are not entirely understood.

    New research, published on June 1 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reveals that four FRBs came from massive galaxies forming new stars. Researchers said FRBs originated not from the center of galaxies, but rather from the outer edges.

    While the precise origin of the FRBs remains unclear, researcher Dr. Boo Randy, who has purchased numerous advanced degrees for himself off the Internet, believes their message is clear: Realtors are liars.

  10. Black economists say the only way to end racism is to narrow the wealth gap between blacks and whites (in other words, the collectivists are laying the groundwork for a “redistribution of the wealth” that would do Karl Marx proud. The globalist oligarchs are way ahead of them, however: together with their Fed accomplices, they’re making sure that blacks, whites, and every other member of the 99% are equally pauperized debt serfs on the incorporated neoliberal plantation that used to be America.

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-only-way-to-truly-solve-the-race-problem-in-america-is-to-narrow-the-wealth-gap-black-economists-say-2020-06-06?mod=MW_article_top_stories

    1. We could give every single black person in the USA $500,000 tomorrow, and most would be flat broke in a New York minute and just as angry as before. What would that solve? A big old nothingburger.

      1. How long until the rioters and “protesters” get tired and bored, and just go home? Will it be next month when the $600/wk federal unemployment supplement runs out?

  11. Another story that the globalist media has consigned to the memory hole: increasingly violent unrest in Lebanon against the corrupt elites and their central banker cohorts who for the past 30 years have systematically looted the productive economy while amassing ill-gotten fortunes for themselves and their scions. Now Lebanon’s currency has become near-worthless and banks won’t let people withdraw their money, especially the dollar accounts. Because this hugely important story hits a little too close to home, the globalist media are enforcing their usual journalistic omertà when it comes to reporting on anything that might give the proles ideas.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/tear-gas-stone-throwing-beirut-demonstration-turns-violent-200606182654841.html

    1. “So you have to get out now, especially if you own property because that property is about to become worthless.”

      In progress. Should be listing in two weeks.

      “If the public schools in your area are not yet polluted with social justice propaganda, great.”

      Our new principal, who started in January, emailed two Anti-Defamation League links, a Center for Racial Justice in Education link and NY Times article entitled “These Books Can Help You Explain Racism and Protest to Your Kids.”

    1. Meanwhile, people I know who have never owned a weapon, are considering getting one. They are not alt-right skin heads. They are middle aged swing voters who after watching the police run away as rioters burn and loot major cities on TV have concluded that they will have to defend themselves and cannot count on the government to protect them.

      I wonder how long until “slavery reparations” are offered as a bribe to make the rioters go away. Of course, other protected groups will feel left out and also demand reparations.

    2. The SPLC is not a legitimate civil rights organization and needs to have their non-profit tax status revoked.

  12. Sonoma, CA Housing Prices Crater 18% YOY As California Economy Staggers On Tech Layoffs And Rampant Unemployment

    https://www.movoto.com/sonoma-ca/market-trends/

    As one California broker put it, “We lie through our teeth when prices are rising. We’re not any less dishonest now that housing prices are cratering.”

  13. $500 million, is that alot?

    “More than 500 shops and restaurants in Minneapolis and St. Paul have reported damage when protests on five nights turned violent over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Dozens of properties burned to the ground.

    Owners and insurance experts estimate the costs of the damage could exceed $500 million. That would make the Twin Cities riots the second-costliest civil disturbance in U.S. history, trailing only those in Los Angeles in 1992, which were also sparked by racial tensions with police and had $1.4 billion in damages in today’s dollars.”

    https://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-rebuilding-begins-with-donations-pressure-on-government/571075592/

  14. OMG, what a bright young women. Owens is spot on in that tape that is really addressing the false narratives.

  15. I keep thinking that what we have today in the USA isn’t really capitalism. I had a taste when I was younger of something close to capitalism until the Politicians sold us out to a Globalist Oligarchy ,where the greedheads and Government got in bed with each other.

    So, the Commies saying that capitalism is bad is incorrect because we don’t even have capitalism currently.

    Ok, we have price fixing monopolies, rigged markets, Ponzi Schemes, real estate casinos, Global markets that exploit labor, on and on.

    So, when the Commies say that this is capitalism and it needs to be overthrown they are incorrect that’s it’s capitalism. We need a return to capitalism, not Communism to replace this Globalist Oligarchy.
    Between say 1940 and say 1990 capitalism was working really well and the balance of power allowed the working class to get ahead.

    Than Politicians though it would be a good idea to have a Global economy , transfer US jobs and manufacturing to places like China, and get rid of the Glass Steagal Act that set up the Ponzi Scheme casino markets and faulty lending.

    Communism is a theory that only looks attractive when we really don’t have capitalism.
    So, all the false narratives going on to keep this corrupted system going and usher in even more corrupt systems ,that are outright evil and would enslave people more.

    1. We need a return to capitalism, not Communism to replace this Globalist Oligarchy.

      Communism IS part of the globalist plan: China is the blue print: Party big wigs control the economy and live like kings. A managerial and professional class keep the means of production running, and everyone else earns a pittance.

      1. China is the blue print: Party big wigs control the economy and live like kings. A managerial and professional class keep the means of production running, and everyone else earns a pittance.

        And until it actually happens everybody who is pushing for it assumes they will be in one of the upper classes.

          1. Right now they still think they are connected due to their great work in the streets.

          2. Right now they still think they are connected due to their great work in the streets.

            When they’re no longer useful, they’ll be treated like Eddie Murphy near the end of Trading Places, after the bet is settled.

      2. But, don’t you think the Greedy Globalist are playing with fire with these Communist. The true Communist would take their wealth in the final analysis.

        The Communist want a central government that owns all wealth and means of production, in which alll is dispersed by that government that equates to everyone getting equal.

        Millions have been killed when Communist take over because people fight giving up their wealth to the State.

        The Communist never like to talk about the force required in the State taking over all wealth and production. The new Communist avoid the subject on what that transformation would entail.
        Today young people are sold this idea of Communism being a bunch of free stuff from a kind big government who is making everything equal. You can be a slacker and not even work because the kind government will provide your needs.

        But, that is not the way it works out in real life as history shows.

        1. But, don’t you think the Greedy Globalist are playing with fire with these Communist.

          Aren’t they one and the same?

          1. They aren’t the same because they have different end goals.

            This is Communism 2.0. See China for an example. They have billionaires and a consumer society. They even have a Disneyland in Shanghai.

        2. Millions have been killed when Communist take over because people fight giving up their wealth

          Usually because they’re the wrong race, or they are educated, or they might have wrong-think, or they have a religion, or they had money, or they were farmers. Most of the millions who have died under Socialist tyrants didn’t fight back much.

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