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What Will Happen With That Excess Inventory?

A weekend topic starting with the Wall Street Journal. “Pension giant California Public Employees’ Retirement System is projecting malls will lose some of their value in the second quarter, according to an internal estimate. The investment chief of the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund is expecting the worth of student housing to drop. ‘If you talk to anyone who says that they know exactly where the market is going and that they have all of the answers, they really don’t know,’ said Chicago Teachers’ investment chief Angela Miller-May.”

“Pensions are $4.9 trillion short of what they have promised retirees as of the first quarter, according to the Federal Reserve. The shortfall stems from years of over-optimistic investment assumptions and government decisions to skimp on annual retirement fund contributions.”

From Bisnow. “The retail industry has been one of the most severely impacted sectors in commercial real estate. Millions of retail workers have been furloughed or laid off. Thousands of retailers have closed, and of those that have remained open, only half are able to pay rent. In Brea, a suburb of Orange County, Simon Property Group said it would convert a former Sears department store into a mixed-use development that includes housing, restaurants and a fitness center. Macerich and Hudson Pacific Property are converting the former Westside Pavilion Mall in West Los Angeles into a 584K SF creative office.”

“While rent collections in this sector have improved since May, this sector lags behind other CRE sectors, with rent collections under 60% in the month of June, according to RCLO. ‘Retail is in a serious downturn and still headed lower,’ RCLCO’s Mid-Year 2020 Sentiment Survey said.”

“One of retail’s biggest problems? There’s too much of it, said David Sheldon, a practice leader with Perkins and Will. The U.S. has almost 25 SF of retail per person, Sheldon said, while China and Europe have 2.8 SF and 3.8 SF of retail per person on average, respectively.”

From McKnight’s Senior Living. “Senior housing occupancy in the second quarter was at the lowest level on record since the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care began reporting data in 2006, NIC said. Assisted living is pulling down the average, said NIC Chief Economist Beth Burnham. ‘That’s been the case for a while, even pre-COVID,’ she said. ‘That had to do with the fact there was a lot more construction that had happened in assisted living more so than independent living. And a lot of construction in assisted living was more than the market could readily absorb. If you look at the actual rate of absorption, that was a –0.5%. That’s never happened, that level.'”

From Community Impact on Texas. “The Dallas-Fort Worth real estate market overall has fared well through the pandemic, said JP Piccinini, CEO and founder of JP and Associates Realtors. And there are not enough existing homes on the market to support the serious buyers and meet their needs, he said. However, the opposite is happening in the multifamily sector, Piccinini said. Realtors are now seeing what they refer to as a ‘bubble’ in this market, he said.”

The New York Times. “The coronavirus lockdown has hit New York City’s rental market hard, driving Manhattan vacancy rates to their highest level in 14 years and pushing the number of June new lease signings to the lowest level seen in nearly a decade, according to a new report from the brokerage Douglas Elliman. John Walkup of UrbanDigs said nearly 1,500 new Manhattan listings came on the market the week of the reopening, about 500 more than you’d see in a normal June. ‘And while we’ve seen a slow but steady increase in leases signed, it’s low compared to last year, so the question is ‘What will happen with that excess inventory?'”

“‘Everything is supply and demand,’ said Gary Malin, chief operating officer of the Corcoran Group. ‘And there’s a lot of supply but much less demand. Now that everyone is beginning to see what is out there, owners will modify their prices.'”

From Naples News in Florida. “The two companies behind the Bay Club development in Crayton Cove have filed for bankruptcy protection, seeing it as a way to ‘capture the value of the property’ and move the long-awaited condo-retail project forward. It’s the third time the sister companies — tied to Naples developer Harry Zea — have been entangled in a bankruptcy. The other cases ended in dismissal.”

“Last year, the city determined Zea took his renovation of the south building too far, eventually leading to condemnation, then an order for the partly demolished commercial building to come down completely. The building sat idle for nearly a year with rubble all around it and became a neighborhood eyesore, earning the nickname — Fallujah — referring to the war-torn city in Iraq.”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “Bidding has commenced in an auction of the Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills, a legendary hotel last owned by a highflying Malaysian investor now on the lam after being accused of embezzling billions of dollars from his country’s government. In 2012, Low turned heads when he dropped a whopping $38.98 million on his Hollywood Hills estate, redefining what a home could sell for in the celebrity-filled Bird Streets neighborhood. Federal authorities seized the property and sold it for $18.5 million in March.”

“The hotel market is depressed now, hobbled by the pandemic, which has damped travel around the world, industry analyst Alan Reay said. Sales of hotels in California were down 90% from April 1 to the middle of June compared with the same period last year, he said, ‘so for all intents and purposes the sales market has come to a grinding halt.'”

The Associated Press on Oregon. “A steep drop in lottery funds due to the COVID-19 crisis has killed the sale of $273 million in state bonds to pay for major projects in Oregon, the Bulletin newspaper of Bend reported. The 37 projects authorized by the Legislature at the end of the 2019 session include water system overhauls in Warm Springs and Salem, rehabilitating the Wallowa Lake Dam, a Deschutes Basin piping project, two affordable housing projects, a new YMCA for Eugene and deepening the Coos Bay channel.”

“‘There’s not enough money — there is no repair,’ said Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, a chair on the budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee. ‘It’s all or none,’ said Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, a member of the Joint Ways and Means Committee. ‘If we don’t sell one, we don’t sell any. The lottery revenue has just cratered. We already have debt service on projects funded in earlier cycles.'”

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This Post Has 150 Comments

  1. ‘dropped a whopping $38.98 million on his Hollywood Hills estate, redefining what a home could sell for in the celebrity-filled Bird Streets neighborhood. Federal authorities seized the property and sold it for $18.5 million in March’

    Redefining indeed! I wonder if anyone used that comp for an appraisal?

    ‘The lottery revenue has just cratered’

    I keep seeing signs the economy has cratered. A lot of bad decisions have been made the past years. Look at the retail space compared to other countries. It’s been that way for a long time and they kept building more retail.

      1. ‘At the Alameda County Food Bank cars line-up for free groceries in numbers no one has ever seen before. The number of people in need now is staggering. All of the Bay Area food banks combined are feeding about a million people a month now. That’s the equivalent of the entire population of San Jose. And it is double the number of people these same food banks were serving just a few months ago, before the pandemic hit.’

        “It’s unprecedented. We’ve been in business 35 years. We’ve never seen anything like this. The need skyrocketed overnight,” said Michael Altfest, spokesman for the Alameda County Food Bank.’

        ‘It especially skyrocketed in the South Bay where the Second Harvest Food Bank Silicon Valley is now serving half a million people a month. Many are people who never needed any help before. “They’re working multiple jobs. They’re commuting long hours to work those jobs. They’re just barely making ends meet. Those are the folks who weren’t able to go to work and don’t have substantial savings to carry them through months of being off work,” said Cat Cvengros of the Second Harvest Food Bank Silicon Valley.’

        https://www.ktvu.com/news/bay-area-food-banks-are-seeing-an-unprecedented-need

        ‘The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank has seen its monthly numbers double to a quarter of a million people.’

        God’s country.

        1. “Those are the folks who weren’t able to go to work and don’t have substantial savings to carry them through months of being off work,”

          They’re getting paid over $50k per year to be unemployed. I’m calling BS on this. These people are milking the system.

          1. They’re getting paid over $50k per year to be unemployed. I’m calling BS on this. These people are milking the system.

            There may be some people getting $48k/yr at the moment on unemployment but I bet there is very little overlap between them and the people we are talking about. Aren’t there a lot of people ineligible for unemployment?

          2. $50K a year doesn’t go very far in the bay area. If you were making $80K and are now unemployed, you might need to hit a food bank.

          3. If it gets really serious you’ll see armed National Guardsman tossing sacks of rice to the starving hordes from a “deuce and a half.”

        2. It’s been posted before on this blog, but California is the most impoverished state in the country.

          The “Fifth Largest Economy In The World” is just a meme to mask the systemic rot.

          1. As a Californian occupant of an Improvised Mobile Dwelling, I find your comment hurtful. It’s fairly warm here. We don’t need as much from our shelter.

          3. If it gets really serious you’ll see Air National Guard planes dropping MREs and pallets of drinking water to the starving hordes of Bay Aryans. This also happened in Afghanistan in 2001 or so. At least the weather is nice in the Bay Area, as opposed to Afghanistan.

          4. If it gets really serious you’ll see Air National Guard planes dropping MREs and pallets of drinking water to the starving hordes of Bay Aryans.

            Most Bay Aryans have cars, I doubt they’ll hang out to play that game. The question is how will the people where the food is deal with the influx of people from where the food isn’t. Especially if they are acting entitled and still trying to throw their toilet paper dollars around as though they matter. There are a lot of places in CA that grow a lot of food…hopefully it’ll be enough so that they can stop there.

        3. It’s an astounding thing to see people in $40K+ vehicles waiting to get free food. Absolute insanity!

          Reminds me of the homeless person outside the store I encountered the other day using an iPhone, but needed money for food. (ie – beer and cigarettes).

    2. “Lottery sales sharply declined during the coronavirus crisis that arrived in Oregon at the end of February.”

      Because people have no money? Oh, wait! That’s not it, lottery sales are down because …

      “The subsequent closing of businesses and the stay-home emergency order for residents kept customers away from venues that sell the state-sponsored games of chance. The Lottery said earlier this month that sales for April were off by 90% compared to the year before.”

      1. The subsequent closing of businesses and the stay-home emergency order for residents kept customers away from venues that sell the state-sponsored games of chance.

        I don’t know about Oregon, but here they sell them at Safeway and King Soopers.

        1. Oregon also has video lottery terminal (VLT) style slot machines in bars, restaurants and some weird stand alone places. That’s what took the hit, not the scratch offs or weekly power ball type games.

    3. “I keep seeing signs the economy has cratered.”

      California housing prices sure are.

      Loomis, CA Housing Prices Crater 32% YOY As Sacramento Area Construction Costs Slip Under $50 Per Square Foot

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

      As one Sacramento broker shared, “The cost to rent a house is half the monthly cost of buying it but that’s something we just don’t discuss openly.”

      1. It’s nice, in a contempo-modern kind of way. $18M seems like a lot for it. Not sure I like the see through garage, though I suppose there is another space to keep the garden tools and other junk.

        1. Seriously you think the owner needs garden tools? No way. I’m sure a truck full of garden tools stops by every week.

          2. I’m sure the owner of such a place has a landscaping service. But I would expect them to have a few tools handy

            Garages are hard to keep clean, because cars are kept in them. Of course the owner probably has an army of people that keeps the whole property spit spot clean. There’s a reason why they suddenly run out of money sometimes.

      2. Imagine watching a leggy cutie-pie slowly saunter up that staircase in #7 of 12; the profile view through the glass banister?

  2. ‘The investment chief of the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund is expecting the worth of student housing to drop. ‘If you talk to anyone who says that they know exactly where the market is going and that they have all of the answers, they really don’t know’

    I’ve noted for years the pensions were putting a lot of dough into things like luxury student housing/apartments and that some people who thought they were going to retire – won’t. Life insurance companies too.

    1. Life insurance companies should be a great investment!

      Covid is a hoax. It only killed 280 people in South Korea and 80 people in Taiwan. Just like the Flu!

      Am I missing something?

      1. Yes. You’re missing the D614G mutation. You’re also missing that the only places which have managed to shut out COVID were island* populations who were able to shut down travel almost immediately, instead of waiting for the cigar-suckers at the WHO. You’re also missing that these governments have much more control over their people, and that those people are already trained in Asian epidemics. You’re also missing that these countries are stuck remaining as islands for the foreseeable future. Any country who “beat” the virus and reopened some borders was immediately re-smacked.

        *I count South Korea as an island.

        1. And also missing as critical a factor: Korea and many other nearby countries have very low obesity rates. I believe Korea is about 3% or so, as contrasted with over 40% for the US. We’re an astonishingly sick nation, and Covid is targeting it.

  3. ‘Sales of hotels in California were down 90% from April 1 to the middle of June compared with the same period last year, he said, ‘so for all intents and purposes the sales market has come to a grinding halt’

    So this would be a problem in any case. But:

    3 May 2017

    ‘Which US hotel markets are on the bubble?’

    ‘As the hotel industry continues on the path toward a downturn, it’s time to begin looking at warning signs for which markets are poised to experience a large drop.’

    ‘At a recent gathering, I was involved in a group conversation with hotel property investors who agreed that they have been “choking on the numbers” in certain U.S. hotel markets. Stated differently, their spreadsheet models explode once either acquisition prices or development costs are entered to evaluate hotel opportunities, especially in red-hot markets.’

    ‘They asked, “Should we pay such high prices now, given that the boom may turn into a bust?” As a college professor, I offered the standard response: “It depends, what do you think?” As a hotel market forecaster, I promised to think and write about hotel property market bubbles with regard to their questions, and likely those of others, about current pricing in local markets.’

    ‘Boom and bust experiences over the past few decades—with tech stock prices and housing prices, for example—have generated an avalanche of books and articles about short-term, extraordinary asset pricing volatility. A summary of these writings appears as follows.’

    https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/4082501.html
    By Jack B. Corgel, Managing Director, CBRE Hotels’ Americas Research

  5. I’m having problems breathing with the mask. I have to do my shopping quick so I can get outside and tear the mask off.

    When I look at people that have to wear the mask their entire work shift, it’s really terrible.
    When the CDC let people go grocery shopping they showed that a curbing for medical workers until they got shored up was the objective.

    People are so stressed out living like this that you can cut it with a knife.
    Just open up and go for herd immunity while the high risk groups have to be more protective of themselves, or it done for them in nursing homes.

    I think it’s absurd that some propose we have to remain shut down until a cure is found. How do you like Big Government now? Political bodies are the worse and power is the objective.

    1. Just got back from Saturday morning shopping. I don’t like having to wear a mask to shop, and I doubt the medical efficacy of the homemade one that I wear. But a man’s gotta eat to live, gotta shop to eat, and gotta mask to shop.

    2. Housing wizard, you don’t know crap about this virus. So far, antibodies are fading after about three months. That means there is no such thing as herd immunity. A vaccine is a long way off, and even then you might need a booster every 4 months. And many people don’t know whether they are vulnerable. There are too many reports of young and healthy folk suffering for 3-4 icky months and sustaining long-term organ and/or psychological damage and chronic phantom pain.

      Luckily I snagged some (not many) N-95 masks from Home Despot before things shut down. I tape it around the edges to ensure a proper fit and wear goggles to boot. I’m good for about 90 minutes.

      Mega MIke, thanks for the tip. I’ve heard that furnace filters work too, but you need to get the wires out. I may need to start making those masks myself if we don’t start getting N-95s out to the general public again.

      1. AHHHT!

        Housing.

        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.”

      2. You’re leaving something out. This from my family doctor. Enter through laundry room exterior door. Drop all clothes directly into washing machine. Proceed directly to shower.

        1. And be very careful taking the clothes off, I guess. Wear something that you don’t have to pull over your head.

        2. laundry room exterior door

          Not all homes in CA have laundry rooms let alone laundry rooms with exterior doors. Our washer and dryer are in the garage.

          2. Besides having a yard and pool for the kid, I’m most looking forward to having a real laundry room in our future home.

          4. Not all homes in CA have laundry rooms

            In most, the “laundry room” is the garage.

          5. Perfect! The garage surely has an exterior door.

            In most California homes, the door to the garage is in the kitchen, though I have seem some that have a second door to the back yard.

        3. Enter through laundry room exterior door. Drop all clothes directly into washing machine. Proceed directly to shower. To save steps & increase safety, install a shower head and floor drain next to the washing machine. Shower off immediately after disrobing, and while still standing next to the washer.

      3. oxide ,
        Do you realize what it would mean if there was no immunity to Covid 19, or even just short term immunity? They have not announced that people don’t get immunity after infected, so for now I’m hopeful it will burn itself out . If human can’t get immunity than they should of done a different type of shut down. IMHO.

        1. Also, European Countries are opening up now, including the schools Apparently Europe didn’t get the memo that there isn’t immunity. As of now I believe humans develope immunity. If they are lying to the World about immunity, than that would be a game changer. That being said, I wear the mask but still feel they can open up business.

        2. If human can’t get immunity than they should of done a different type of shut down. The “different type of shut down” is also known as “death”. But please note that is DISTINCTLY uncommon, so far.

        1. Have already watched a ton of PP. That’s where I get my HCQ news. I’m being pessimistic about the immunity. It might be four months of six months. SARS-1 showed signs for 18 months. But with lockdowns and masks, we’re likely to have rolling waves of this. The virus could leave the area for six months and then come back again — to a population which is now vulnerable again.

    3. “When I look at people that have to wear the mask their entire work shift, it’s really terrible.”

      Like the drywall guys doing the taping and texture?

    4. I think it’s absurd that some propose we have to remain shut down until a cure is found. I remind all that a “cure” may never be found. So we survivors will just have to remain shut down forever. So much absurdity, so little time!

  6. Not in Sacramento there is a serious shortage and record low inventory of homes for sale under a million dollars. Soo frustrating as first time buyer. I may just rent a house for a few years until this bubble madness ends.

    1. Meanwhile, your tax dollars will go towards paying people who are unemployed more than they made while working, to help ensure they can afford to buy food while being allowed by fiat to skip their rent or mortgage payments indefinitely.

      So long as unlimited forbearance is extended to allow renters and homeowners to indefinitely forego paying their monthly housing costs, inventories can stay low forever, as it’s pretty clear the rent-free residents aren’t going to move anywhere else for now.

      1. @Professor Bear, do you think that this freeloading will ever end for renters and home owners and if so, when? I predict sooner or later the FED and central bankers will not be able to forever print money out of existence and we can face a Zimbabwe hyperinflation event in the future.

        1. Heh, that’s the $6.4 trillion dollar question. You may want to check out youtubes like Real Vision Finance and Peak Prosperity (plus all the gold and silver bugs). They talk about that “when” all the time. My person prediction is: not before the election.

        2. I have no clue what constrains Unlimited Quarantinive Easing. Aren’t “unlimited” and “unconstrained” synonyms?

    2. Dont forget you’re competing with hundreds of thousands of government employees who are getting paid full freight to not work.

  8. Can the irrationally exuberant stock market stay elevated forever above the crater of a worsening economic collapse?

      1. “sap economy of momentum” Terminology used here ignores the fact that momentum has no predetermined direction, it just is what it is, something along the lines of mass times velocity squared. Current economy has PLENTY MOMENTUM – all in a horrible direction. But let’s ignore that.

        1. momentum has no predetermined direction, it just is what it is, something along the lines of mass times velocity squared

          Not nit-picking, but you made me think about physics which I haven’t really had to since school. My recollection is P=mv, not mv^2, but perhaps I mis-remember

      1. I predict things will never return to normal. Onward & upward to the creation of a new reality!

    5. This would be a great time to reload on long-term Treasurys, before the next leg down in yields drives a massive flight-to-quality rally.

      1. Treasurys
        U.S. Government Bond Yields Hit Lowest Closing Level Since April 24
        Investors showed strong demand for new longer-term Treasury debt
        By Sam Goldfarb
        Updated July 9, 2020 4:47 pm ET

        U.S. government bond yields fell to a nearly 11-week low Thursday after another well-received bond auction helped ease investors’ concerns about the growing supply of Treasurys.

        Yields, which fall when bond prices rise, held steady overnight. But they dropped near the start of the U.S. trading session when U.S. stock indexes started to fall.
        …

    6. @Professor Bear, no but the bankers want to keep asset classes like the stock market and real estate inflated forever as they would lose money if not. I do hope my AAPL stock keeps rising and if it went to 2k a share that would be awesome return for when I bought some a while back.

      2. LMAO!!!! You won’t even see $400! Wait until word that Buffett has unloaded his stake hits.

  10. Get out of large cities, it is now illegal to protect yourself:

    “ST. LOUIS — 5 On Your Side has learned St. Louis police officers executed a search warrant Friday evening at the home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the Central West end couple who confronted protesters with weapons in June.

    Sources told 5 On Your Side that police seized one of the weapons, the rifle, from the couple and they told police their attorney has the pistol seen in photos.

    5 On Your Side is not aware of any charges against the McCloskeys at this time, and the warrant served Friday evening was just for the guns.”

    https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/mccloskeys-served-with-warrant-police-take-rifle-shown-in-viral-pictures-st-louis-protests/63-c6059a94-528c-4fa5-8fea-4a87fba31f1c

    1. I’m curious how the warrant and seizure were justified but I haven’t seen that information yet. Did they break local laws? Or are they now considered dangerous or potentially mentally unstable for coming outside with a weapon? I assume there must have been a legal justification…

      1. It’s the title of the Minor Threat song: Guilty Of Being White.

        Wall Street Journal — Police Wrestle With Surge in Crime in U.S. Cities Amid Defunding Efforts:

        “Law-enforcement officials in several large U.S. cities are wrestling with a sharp rise in violent crime amid a national debate over the role of police, calls to reduce police-department budgets and growing fiscal troubles.

        Some cities are on track to have their most violent summers in years.

        In Milwaukee, homicides are up 37% so far this year, on pace to break the record of 167 in 1991, which included 16 murders by convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Homicides so far this year in Chicago are ahead of the pace of 2016, which marked the city’s highest tally since 1996. In New York and Los Angeles, which have seen falling numbers of homicides for years, killings this year are up 23% and 11.6%, respectively. Kansas City, Mo., has recorded 99 killings since January, far outpacing any record for the first six months of the year.”

        https://www.wsj.com/articles/police-wrestle-with-surge-in-crime-in-u-s-cities-amid-defunding-efforts-11594472400

      2. It’s never a good idea to brandish an assault rifle a people walking by on their way to protest at the mayor’s house a few blocks away.

        2. rifle a people walking by on their way

          Sure. People who yell they are going to kill you, burn your house and then live in it?

          Just out for a walk.

        3. It’s never a good idea to brandish an assault rifle a people walking by on their way to protest at the mayor’s house a few blocks away.

          That’s a separate consideration. For now I want to know the law that justified the warrant and seizure. It shouldn’t just be based on goodness or badness of ideas. Otherwise the free for all has begun. People who don’t care about rule of law often have no idea how much it is protecting them from those who at least grudgingly respect the law and leave them alone.

          2. Otherwise the free for all has begun. I am starting to believe that the “free for all” – war of all against all – has already begun.

          3. war of all against all – has already begun.

            In a few people’s minds maybe. But not most people. I think most people are watching and waiting…still hoping rule of law will win.

          4. I think most people are watching and waiting…still hoping rule of law will win.

            A lot of people still have something to lose. Those people aren’t going to don a tricorn hat, grab their AR-15 and join the good fight. A civil war means losing the cushy office job, the 401K/pension, the house and the luxury cars.

        4. Kim Gardner Is St. Louis’ First Black Circuit Attorney. That Matters — And She’s Just Getting Started
          *yo sis, who’s killing who?

          3. “Shut up and pay your reparations, whitey.”

            You learn quickly; I’m proud of you, grasshopper!

      4. assume there must have been a legal justification…
        The legal justification appears to be to enforce tyranny for the law abiding and allow free ranging terror campaigns by the lawless and feral.

    3. 5 On Your Side is not aware of any charges against the McCloskeys at this time, and the warrant served Friday evening was just for the guns.”

      No f**ks given. This couple were wealthy lawyers and donors to Democrat candidates. Guns got grabbed? Gee, Mark and Patricia, aren’t you funding a party that’s all about gun grabbing and giving free rein to BLM to loot with impunity? This couple is purely and simply getting what they deserve.

      1. This couple is purely and simply getting what they deserve.

        That may be true but I still want to know what the legal justification was to confiscate their guns. If it’s just a St. Louis thing that’s not my problem…it can work its way through the courts. But if the unspoken rules have changed everywhere we all need to know that.

        1. But if the unspoken rules have changed everywhere we all need to know that. You don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing.

      2. I think you do need to give some f**cks. I’m pretty sure that the protesters/mob wasn’t checking voter registration before deciding which houses to redistribute unto themselves in the name of reparations.

        And I have a very sneaky feeling that Mark and Patricia won’t be donating to Democrats any more.

        1. That’s why sensible people don’t live in places like St. Louis.

          I once had a recruiter contact me about a job in downtown St Louis. I laughed at him.

          1. That’s where I started out over three decades ago. Once I got away, there’s no way I could go back. Who wants to work in an area where criminals routinely prey on the gainfully employed?

        2. I have a very sneaky feeling that Mark and Patricia won’t be donating to Democrats any more. Dead people may vote Democratic, but they don’t donate.

  11. I’ve been perusing Goya’s products online and I’m inspired. In addition to the recaito cooking base bergera recommended, I found a few other things I want to try: chimichurri steak sauce; mojo criollo and bitter orange marinades; arepas (I had these in NYC years ago and loved them!); discos (pastries) for empanadas; and, fajita seasoning. The dulce de leche sounds really good too but I don’t need to get hooked on that. 🤤

    2. After perusing Goya’s product lineup, it appears that they cater more to Cuban and Puerto Rican palates. I’m sure this is lost on the real journalists who think that “Hispanics” are a homogeneous group.

    1. They’re going to do it in the name of “contact tracing.” Right now there’s a debate raging about whether we should even do contact tracing. How can you trace a disease when you can spread it asymptomatically for 14 days and never even know you had it? This disease is just too contagious and too silent for contact tracing to work. The only course of action is to just assume everyone has it all the time and everyone is spreading it all the time, and, sorry, mask up.

        1. Well….that is his strategy after all…. MaskMonkeys are just too stupid to figure it out.

        1. Still not gonna work. This app only tracks phones which have been in close contact for five minutes. What if this is semi-airborne through the AC system? Or what if someone talks to you and walks away, like at a bar? It also depends on the infected person getting tested. What if he never shows symptoms, or only mild symptoms? He’ll never get tested. It depends on the contacted person getting tested and self-isolating, even if he has a less than 50% chance of being infected. It also depends on everyone having a phone on them at all times. And it also depends on infection by close contact, no surface infection. And ALL of these things have to happen, every time. While I understand the tech, it has its limits.

          1. It doesn’t depend on any of those things to have a positive effect. It doesn’t have to be 100% effective to be effective enough to help reduce infection rates. The fact that you bring these things up make me think that you didn’t watch the video all the way through. You probably did, but it just doesn’t seem like it.

            Length of contact times can easily be adjusted to less or more. A sweet-spot can be found.

            The bottom line is the app gives you more usable info than you’d have without it. How much that info helps is always variable, but the fact that it’s always good to have more info, isn’t variable. And if you find the info you get isn’t good enough for you, simply don’t use it. No one is forcing it. But even if you decide not to use it, many other people still will.

            Lastly, i already said in the original post that it isn’t a perfect solution. It’s merely a contribution.

      3. just too contagious

        I’ve been to the grocery store or hardware store probably 50 times in the past four months. I would guess each time I’ve been in the proximity of 10 people. It appears that at any given time 10% of people are in the contagious 14 day period of infection. So, I was exposed indoors to 50 infectious people, including the store clerks who stood there all day every day. That can only go on for so long until you can assume just about everybody has been infected if they are ever going to be. Masks or no masks.

        The mask thing is ridiculous from several viewpoints. When people started wearing them, it didn’t slow the spread of the virus, and now that people have largely stopped wearing them there was no spike in illness or death. Only time did this.

        If masks were really effective, we wouldn’t be happy with a carpenter’s mask designed to reduce exposure 95%. As I commented months ago, you could still by 99.95% (P100) dust masks when the N95s were sold out. They have a good seal and you don’t have to tape the edges to your face. I haven’t seen one person wearing them. Many just wear a bandanna, which is probably 10% effective. It’s not protection, it’s just a badge of obedience.

        1. bandanna, which is probably 10% effective. It’s not protection It sure as hell provides some protection if a maskless infected person sneezes into your open mouth. Been there, done that decades ago. Some can fire off a sneeze faster than a gunman can fire off a shot.

          1. if a maskless infected person sneezes into your open mouth

            Were you acting as a physician at this time?

          2. Were you acting as a physician at this time?
            No, I was more careful about things like that at work. This happened during church, when someone in front of me turned to face me and snapped off a sneeze before I could shut my mouth. Fever began about 12 hours later. Symptoms resolved in about a week. Mother was standing next to me & had the same symptoms over the same time frame as I did.

  13. The story of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the wealthy Democrat couple who pointed their firearms at BLM protesters who marched down their street, just keeps getting better and better. That is, if you enjoy seeing wealthy Democrat donors reap what they’ve been sowing.

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/missouri-couple-who-defended-home-have-rifle-seized-during-police-search-report

    Authorities in St. Louis executed a search warrant Friday evening at the home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who made headlines last month when they took up arms to defend their home from protesters.

    During the search, police seized the rifle that Mark McCloskey was shown holding during the June 28 incident, KSDK-TV of St. Louis reported, citing information from a source.

    Que pasa, McCloskeys? Didn’t your fellow Democrat, Comrade Beto, announce “Hell yes, we’re coming for your AR-15!” So now that you’ve been stripped of your means of self defense and are paying thousands a day for armed private security, shouldn’t you rejoice that your party’s gun grabbing program is being implemented?

    “[They said] that they were going to kill us,” Patricia McCloskey told Hannity on Monday night. “They were going to come in there. They were going to burn down the house. They were going to be living in our house after I was dead, and they were pointing to different rooms and said, ‘That’s going to be my bedroom and that’s going to be the living room and I’m going to be taking a shower in that room’.””

    I fail to see a problem, Patricia. As Democrat donors, you should be all about “redistributing the wealth” – starting with your own. And since the Democrats took a knee for the BLM protesters, you should too – you were okay with the Democrats groveling before the Gimme Dats when they ran riot in Minneapolis and New York, so what right do you have to complain about YOUR sh!t being forcibly taken away from you. You should be rejoicing at the opportunity to put your Democrat principles into practice!

  14. ‘If you talk to anyone who says that they know exactly where the market is going and that they have all of the answers, they really don’t know,’ said Chicago Teachers’ investment chief Angela Miller-May.”

    Sleep well, NEA indoctrination mill cadres, at the thought of your pension funds being in such capable hands.

    1. They’re all expecting a Democrat landslide in November, followed by the mother of all bail outs.

      1. They’re all expecting a Democrat landslide in November, followed by the mother of all bail outs.

        Then if Trump can pull it off we should get the mother of all reaction videos instead.

  15. “Pensions are $4.9 trillion short of what they have promised retirees as of the first quarter, according to the Federal Reserve. The shortfall stems from years of over-optimistic investment assumptions and government decisions to skimp on annual retirement fund contributions.”

    The ripoffs of pension funds are part and parcel of the plunder of the middle and working classes that was set in motion by the oligarchy’s establishment of the Federal Reserve, aka The Creature from Jekyll Island, on December 24, 1913.

  16. Realtors are now seeing what they refer to as a ‘bubble’ in this market, he said.”

    The bubble has been there for years. Realtors just purported not to see it.

  17. “The two companies behind the Bay Club development in Crayton Cove have filed for bankruptcy protection, seeing it as a way to ‘capture the value of the property’ and move the long-awaited condo-retail project forward.

    That’s a helluva way to “capture value.”

  18. In 2012, Low turned heads when he dropped a whopping $38.98 million on his Hollywood Hills estate, redefining what a home could sell for in the celebrity-filled Bird Streets neighborhood. Federal authorities seized the property and sold it for $18.5 million in March.”

    How are you digging those comps, Bird Street celebrities?

    1. I bet it was pretty chill there back in the day. The George Harrison Beatles song off the Magical Mystery Tour LP “Blue Jay Way” is about partying there, getting lost in the fog while driving stoned.

  19. “‘There’s not enough money — there is no repair,’ said Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, a chair on the budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee.

    Once upon a time, Sen. Johnson (D), America created wealth through value-added manufacturing and creating things of lasting utility, instead of selling lottery tickets to fund Democrat patronage and graft rackets.

  20. “The shortfall stems from years of over-optimistic investment assumptions and government decisions to skimp on annual retirement fund contributions.”

    And, particularly in certain places, retroactive pension increases, with public employees getting far more than they had been promised and walking off with the loot.

    They want everyone to forget about that. But I live in NYC, a place where taxpayers kicked in 17 percent of payroll for pensions over the decades. There was no skimping.

  21. “The coronavirus lockdown has hit New York City’s rental market hard, driving Manhattan vacancy rates to their highest level in 14 years and pushing the number of June new lease signings to the lowest level seen in nearly a decade.”

    The constitutional justification for New York City rent regulations is a “housing emergency,” defined as a rental vacancy rate below 5.0%. The proof of that vacancy rate is the Housing and Vacancy Survey, which the city pays the Census Bureau to conduct every three years.

    https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/nychvs.html

    Based on what has happened in the past, I suspect the 2020 HVS was deferred to 2021, because the Bureau is busy with the decennial census of population. That means next March.

    This could be interesting.

  22. Latest figures on China’s coronavirus outbreak

    Taiwan has recorded 451 cases, the 158th highest in the world. US coronavirus cases surpass three million

    By Disease Outbreak News Center, Taiwan News

    22 hours ago

    Country/Area Confirmed Deaths

    1 USA 3,238,219 135,953

    20 Canada 107,125 8,759

    56 Japan 20,174 980

    131 New Zealand 1,193 22

    159 Taiwan 451 7

    https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3864928

  23. The Financial Times
    Coronavirus business update 30 days complimentary
    Coronavirus pandemic
    Covid-19 deaths rise as US states impose new restrictions
    Louisiana is latest to mandate masks as coronavirus surge continues along sun belt
    Wait times were low for Expedition Everest on Thursday in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom reopened Saturday, while Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios will follow four days later.
    © AP
    Courtney Weaver in Washington and Peter Wells in New York 4 hours ago

    US states ordered new restrictions including mandatory mask-wearing as a surge in Covid-19 cases continued across the US, a day after the country posted its largest one day jump in cases.

    Louisiana’s Democratic governor John Bel Edwards on Saturday announced that masks would be required for anyone over the age of 8 who was within six feet of a non-family member, and bars would be closed. The move followed earlier mask mandates in Texas and Mississippi.

    US sun belt states continued to post increases in coronavirus infections and fatalities on Saturday. Texas reported a record increase of 10,351 new cases over the past 24 hours, while the number of deaths rose by 99, six short of Thursday’s record increase. The state has more people hospitalised with Covid-19 than any other in the US; the total ticked higher to 10,083 on Saturday.

    Florida reported more than 10,300 new cases. South Carolina posted a record number of new infections — more than 2,220 — as did North Carolina, which saw more than 2,400 new cases of the virus.

    At a press conference to announce Louisiana’s measures, Dr Catherine O’Neal, an infectious diseases specialist in Baton Rouge, said the state had experienced a “massive increase” in the number of hospitalisations in the past 10 days.

    “Now we are overwhelmed. Our hospitals are full,” she told reporters.
    …

    1. Once the hospitals are full, any additional cases requiring hospitalization may occur with greater fatality risk, due to the unavailability of the best treatment used in hospitals.

      1. Personal knowledge of a young man who recently died in a motorcycle accident, no helmet, head trauma.

        Death certificate

        Cause of death

        COVID19

        1. Husband’s buddy was at a party recently with a bunch of border patrol agents. 6 had tested positive; 1 had a fever and said it was awful (his buddies said he’s a wuss); 2-3 said they felt a little run down but enjoyed their paid time off not having to use their sick leave.

          1. his buddies said he’s a wuss I have had many deceased patients who had to put up with that kind of “guff” from their “buddies”. Who cares what other people “think”.

          2. fever

            Is a 101 temperature that bad? I thought 104 is where things get dangerous.

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