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A Bridge To Nowhere Is An Upward-Sloping Pirate’s Plank

A report from the Georgia Straight in Canada. “A buyer is paying over $1,757 per square foot for a condo unit in Vancouver’s Olympic Village. That translates to $7.7 million for the 4,381-square-foot property. Based on the listing history recorded by fisherly.com, the three-bedroom, four-bath condo was previously on the market for $10,898,000. This listing was terminated on October 21, 2019. A subsequent listing for $8,998,000 was terminated on June 19, 2020. On the same day, the listing was renewed at $7,998,000. The waterfront condo sold 19 days later for $7.7 million.”

The South West Londoner in the UK. “London’s rental prices are falling amidst reduced demand and an oversupply of properties, according to the latest data released by Rightmove. The total number of available rental properties is currently up 41% in London compared to this time last year. SpareRoom director Matt Hutchinson said: ‘We’re starting to see the entire city becoming more affordable, which could spur a flurry of movement as people seek out cheaper rents than they currently have.'”

From Hungary Today. “As a result of the coronavirus epidemic and the imminent restriction of short-term apartment rentals, such as Airbnb, rents have fallen in Budapest this year, and the consolidation of the housing market ended a period of steep increases in residential property prices as well. The changes are well illustrated by the fact that a 50 square meter apartment in good condition in the inner districts, which previously cost HUF 150-160,000 (EUR 424-452) per month (not including utilities), now only costs around HUF 120-130,000 forints (EUR 339-367).”

“The coronavirus epidemic and the halt of tourism also decreased prices in the city center, namely in the so-called party district. The rent of many flats here slipped below the shocking limit of HUF 100,000, which was previously unthinkable. Before the epidemic, even a less-favored basement studio could have been rented out for HUF 100,000, and now furnished, renovated, small ground-floor apartments are offered for HUF 80,000. The decline is even greater for larger apartments.”

“The real estate market is also showing a downturn, and potential buyers are currently waiting for a further fall in property prices.”

From ABC News in Australia. “The number of empty rental homes in Sydney’s CBD has jumped by 70 per cent since last year. Data from SQM Research shows in the CBD, 13.8 per cent of rental homes — or nearly 1,300 properties — were empty in June. Last year, it was 764. ‘We’ve also seen a drop-off in demand from some of the younger people who might normally live in share houses and share apartments that have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic,’ said chief economist at BIS Oxford Economics Sarah Hunter. ‘Perhaps they are having to relocate back to their parents, so that demand has dried up.'”

“Another reason behind the increase in rental vacancies is due to a glut of new apartments hitting the market, Ms Hunter said. ‘We knew that those completions were coming and they’ve come at the same time [as the pandemic] so, put all that together and the vacancy rate in the centre of town has really shot up.'”

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. “As Australia’s two biggest states battle a coronavirus resurgence, senior bankers are facing up to a grim reality: the unprecedented government and bank-provided lifelines will not be enough to save everyone. This was expected but has now become more urgent as bank call centres contact hundreds of thousands of people who have put their loan payments on hold in the last few months as an emergency measure.”

“National Australia Bank’s group executive in charge of personal banking, Rachel Slade, says the lender is checking on about 10,000 borrowers with deferred loans every week, and most want to keep their payments paused for a further three months. About one in five are in better shape than expected and have resumed repayments. But a much smaller fraction are moving into hardship arrangements, which can involve restructuring loans, selling assets, or in some cases selling the property.”

“‘Of course, there is that recognition that there will be customers that won’t recover from this,’ she says. ‘We’ve added resourcing into the parts of the bank that deal with customers in hardship, and we’re working with customers on an individual basis to figure out when the right time is for them to make that shift. Because it’s not in our interest or their interest to keep them on a deferral if it’s clear to us and to them that they’re not going to come out the other side of it. We’re much better off moving to helping them work through other options.'”

“Jefferies banking analyst Brian Johnson says the market will not know the condition of banks’ loan books until all the government support expires, and this will depend on the economy’s ability to bounce back. ‘A bridge to nowhere is an upward-sloping pirate’s plank,’ he says.”

The Wall Street Journal on China. “Rents in China’s big cities have been falling in recent weeks, a sign of economic uncertainty in China’s otherwise gravity-defying residential property market. ‘Landlords have been forced to lower their rents, and there still aren’t that many tenants,’ says Zhang Chaofeng, an agent at a Beijing branch of Lianjia, a brokerage company with thousands of offices across the country. Mr. Zhang estimates vacancy rates in central Beijing are now roughly three times as high as a year ago.”

“The recent drop—the sharpest such decline in the past eight years—hints at the magnitude of the economic pain being felt in China’s cities. ‘The deviation between the rent and home price indicates that there is a certain degree of a bubble in housing prices,’ says Wang Ruochen, a researcher at the privately run E-House China R&D Institute.”

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  1. From the last link:

    ‘Other indicators underscore the continued uncertainty: Retail sales fell again in June, while elevated joblessness has been stubbornly persistent—particularly for young college graduates, for whom unemployment surged last month to a record 19.3%.’

  2. The changes are well illustrated by the fact that a 50 square meter apartment in good condition in the inner districts, which previously cost HUF 150-160,000 (EUR 424-452) per month (not including utilities), now only costs around HUF 120-130,000 forints (EUR 339-367).

    Given the low wages paid in Hungary (the average in Budapest is 250,000 HUF), that is still a princely amount.

    1. True.

      But you are comparing the swankiest district of the entire country to the average wage of the entire country.

  3. Speaking of upward sloping pirate’s planks, how about that stock market? Has it set your FOMO on fire by now?

      1. “Investors have been growing increasingly concerned that only a handful of stocks pushing the market up from its lows, including the likes of Facebook Inc. FB, -1.49%, Amazon.com AMZN, -1.83%, Apple Inc. AAPL, -1.38%, Netflix NFLX, -2.45%, Google parent Alphabet GOOGL, -0.50% GOOG, -0.46% and other names like Microsoft MSFT, -1.34% and Tesla TSLA, -4.54%.”

        I guess the theory is after those companies buy everything else, they will control 100 percent of whatever is left of U.S. GDP.

        1. Could someone please explain to me why all those FANMAG stock price changes have negative signs in front of them?

          Could it be a mistake? I heard that FANMAG stocks always go up.

        1. Do you wonder if the central bankers are inadvertently feeding the creation of a lost generation of zombie corporations, through the permanent financial life support of unlimited, indefinite Extraordinary Measures?

          Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are prime examples.

          3. Do you wonder if the central bankers are inadvertently feeding the creation of a lost generation of zombie corporations

            I think they are doing it deliberately. But I can’t fathom the end game. Do they really think this will somehow turn out well?

          4. Do they really think this will somehow turn out well?

            For them and their friends? Maybe better than the alternatives. Assuming everyone finds a way to keep their fortune and their head.

    5. The higher prices go the closer to the top they get. The only way this statement cannot be true is if there is no top.

      If you believe there is not top then you need to visit my bank and ask me to sign you up for one of my Dotted Line Specials.

      1. Could you possibly arrange for me to borrow $1 billion to fund my FANMAG stock purchases? I read somewhere that their prices would continue to go up forever, so I will definitely have no problem repaying the money you loan me.

    6. How much do these Allianz dudes get for pouring other people’s money down a rat hole? Maybe the Arkansas teachers should consult my daughter’s Millennial boyfriend instead. He reportedly has turned his COVID-19 stimulus checks into a tidy stock market gain.

      The Financial Times
      Coronavirus business update 30 days complimentary
      Allianz Global Investors AG
      Arkansas teachers fund sues Allianz over coronavirus losses
      Asset manager accused of employing ‘reckless strategy’ during market turmoil

      The Arkansas Teacher Retirement System claims that Alpha Funds had placed bets against an escalation of market volatility in an effort to recover losses they incurred from the same strategy in February

      © Getty Images
      Ortenca Aliaj 14 hours ago

      A US teachers’ pension fund has sued Allianz Global Investors, accusing one of the world’s biggest asset managers of employing a “reckless strategy” that cost retirees almost $800m during this year’s market turmoil.

      In a lawsuit filed on Monday in New York, the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System claims that Alpha Funds, investment vehicles marketed by AllianzGI, had placed bets against an escalation of market volatility in an effort to recover losses they incurred from the same strategy in February.

      By the end of February, the AllianzGI funds, which according to the lawsuit should have a so-called market neutral portfolio that balances out bets on a rise against those on a fall in prices, were positioned to suffer losses if US equity markets declined further, according to the lawsuit.

      After tumbling 8.5 per cent in February, the S&P 500, the benchmark index for America’s biggest companies, dropped 12.5 per cent in March as investors awoke to the severity of the pandemic and the economic lockdowns that would be required to contain it.

      Rather than making a “bad call”, the funds abandoned risk controls that were designed to “protect the Alpha Funds’ investors against precisely the types of market conditions experienced from February through May of 2020”, the lawsuit claims.

      The lawsuit is one of the first to emerge from a period of turmoil in markets that sent oil prices crashing and the Vix volatility index to levels that surpassed those of the financial crisis of 2008-09.

      “AllianzGI was effectively selling expensive insurance to other investors seeking to protect themselves from large market swings,” according to the suit filed in the Southern District of New York. “This strategy — undertaken with the assets of ATRS in the Alpha Funds — was a gamble that the expected market tsunami would turn out to be a drizzle.”

      According to the filing, by the end of the first quarter of the year, the Alpha 250 fund was down over 43 per cent, Alpha 350 had fallen almost 56 per cent and Alpha 500 had plunged by 75 per cent.
      …

      1. “Financial genius” = was in the market when it bubbled

        “Reckless strategy” = was in the market when it cratered

  5. Welps, I am waiting for banker bailouts and forebearance programs to end and inventory to rise in Sacramento, California.

    1. Real estate is not liquid, and its price moves are glacial. You would be well-served to ignore prices for the next 3 years, minimum. Otherwise you’re just driving yourself nuts.

      1. Exactly.

        And though a “sample” of size two is not much to bank on, the last two California real estate busts each took upwards of five years to shake out (e.g. 1990-1996, 2007-2013). I see no reason the COVID-19 crash will play out any more quickly, especially given the massive amount of denial slowing down the correction at the initial stage. It’s a long way down the cliff from here.

        1. To add another data point, the stock market crash of 1929 took almost 3 years to reach its final bottom. And that’s liquid.

          Maybe ben should w@h in Oil City. 🤔

  7. ‘I Can’t Believe We Survived,’ Uber Driver Says After He Was Attacked By Large Group Of Teens Downtown

    By Jermont TerryJuly
    20, 2020 at 10:28 pm

    CHICAGO (CBS) — “I can’t believe we survived” – those are the words of a terrified Uber driver who was caught in the middle of hundreds of teens getting pushed through the downtown area by Chicago Police.

    As CBS 2’s Jermont Terry reported, the driver had to jump the curb and then go the wrong way down Washington Street on the sidewalk just to escape the group, which targeted him at a red light.

    “I’m just scared, and it’s going to take a while to regain the trust of the city, I guess,” he said.

    The driver is fearful after his Kia ended up getting each and every window busted out – all by a group of teens who were getting ushered by police from Millennium Park on July 4th weekend.

    “I knew they were coming I said, ‘Oh f***, and so they came and jumped on the car and started dancing around on the hood,” he said.

    But the driver said some in the crowd turned violent and tried opening the doors. What happened next had the driver and his two passengers in disbelief.

    “And then they broke in the driver window, and that’s where I knew we were in big trouble, because they were trying to grab me, and I heard the back rear window shatter as well,” he said.

    A pitchfork crashed through the rear window, coming within inches of his Uber passengers.

    “Who knows what would have happened if they were able to pull us out of the vehicle? It seem like they wanted blood,” he said. “It’s terrifying just to think that there’s just basically a school a piranhas just roaming the streets of Chicago, and we don’t know where they’re going to show up.”

    “It was nothing short of miracle that he’s still living,” said community activist the Rev. Robin Hood.

    Hood said we do not need an act of God, but action from government to help Chicago teenagers who were suffering before the pandemic.

    “The state needs to step up and come up with these summer jobs that should have should have started last week,” Hood said.

    Hood is not justifying the violence associated with the large meetups, but he believes without neighborhood resources, this could get worse.

    “It’s easy to say that those kids were thugs,” Hood said. “No, these kids are suffering from trauma to the 10th power.”

    https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/07/20/i-cant-believe-we-survived-uber-driver-says-after-he-was-attacked-by-large-group-of-teens-downtown/

    1. ‘A war out here:’ Police say 14 shot outside funeral home on Chicago’s South Side

      POSTED 8:39 PM, JULY 21, 2020, BY FOX TELEVISION STATIONS AND AP WIRE SERVICE,

      CHICAGO — Fourteen people were injured in connection with a shooting outside a funeral home on Chicago’s South Side, police officials said Tuesday, July 21.

      First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said mourners outside a funeral home were fired upon from a passing SUV. Carter says several targets of the shooting returned fire. The SUV later crashed and the occupants fled in several directions. One person of interest has been taken into custody. Carter says all the victims were adults.

      The victims were taken by the Chicago Fire Department to nearby hospitals in serious condition, said spokesman Larry Langford..

      Arnita Geder and Kenneth Hughes said they heard gunshots while in their home watching television, adding that they came outside to find bodies that were shot up and “laying everywhere.”

      “We thought it was a war out here,” Geder told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s ridiculous all the shooting that’s going on out here, it really has to stop.”

      The shooting comes as the Department of Homeland Security is planning to deploy dozens of federal agents to Chicago to deal with an uptick in violent crime in the city.

      Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, after threatening to sue if President Donald Trump acted without her permission, said Tuesday the city would be working with federal agents to fight crime.

      https://fox6now.com/2020/07/21/police-14-shot-near-funeral-home-on-chicagos-south-side/

      1. It’s like the good ol’ days of the Chicago mob. With 9mm pistols instead of Tommy guns, I suppose.

    2. This sounds like a peaceful protest. It’s what George Floyd would have wanted, right?

    3. An actual pitchfork? Where would a downtown Chicago yoot get a pitchfork? Did they loot the local Tractor Supply?

    4. Hood is not justifying the violence associated with the large meetups, but he believes without neighborhood resources, this could get worse.

      Not so subtle blackmail on display. “Invest” in “neighborhood resources” administered, of course, by the unholy alliance of the local Democrat apparatchiks, “community activists,” and their gang enforcers – or else.

    5. all by a group of teens who were getting ushered by police from Millennium Park

      They were then promptly ushered by police to jail after violently attacking these innocent people, right?

    6. “It’s easy to say that those kids were thugs,” Hood said. “No, these kids are suffering from trauma to the 10th power.”

      I’m sure they’ve had some trauma in their lives. But I think I’m still going with the easy answer on this one.

  8. Because it’s not in our interest or their interest to keep them on a deferral if it’s clear to us and to them that they’re not going to come out the other side of it. We’re much better off moving to helping them work through other options.’”

    “Other options” = GTFO, deadbeats.

  9. ‘We knew that those completions were coming and they’ve come at the same time [as the pandemic] so, put all that together and the vacancy rate in the centre of town has really shot up.’”

    My grasp of supply and demand is a bit hazy, but don’t vacancies shooting up translate into “Hey greedhead landlords, if you want renters, you’d better start sawin’ and slashin’ like you mean it”?

  11. This was expected but has now become more urgent as bank call centres contact hundreds of thousands of people who have put their loan payments on hold in the last few months as an emergency measure.”

    But…but…I don’t understand. The REIC trolls who used to pop up on the HBB assured all and sundry that loose lending was a thing of the past. So the specter of hundreds of thousands – soon to be millions – of debt donkeys putting their mortgage and rent payments “on hold” due to inability to pay is absolutely inconceivable!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhXjcZdk5QQ

  12. “The number of empty rental homes in Sydney’s CBD has jumped by 70 per cent since last year.

    Is that a lot?

  13. “The recent drop—the sharpest such decline in the past eight years—hints at the magnitude of the economic pain being felt in China’s cities. ‘

    Mao’s Third Strata had a lot to say about the distress felt by the former middle class as they sank deeper into poverty and hopelessness, while corrupt, mendacious governments were indifferent to their plight. Better start reading up, CCP comrades – China has plenty of precedent for mass uprisings of the destitute and downtrodden.

  15. “…So while people lockdown, work or not work from home, social distance, face mask, and compulsively sanitize, cowering before the small risk of a germ (how do they even get up in the morning?), they’re blissfully unaware that the world is bankrupt. A tsunami the likes of which none of us have ever seen has already made landfall and will permanently deprive millions, perhaps billions, of their livelihoods and millions, perhaps billions, of their lives. The coronavirus cowards are running from an ant into the arms, claws, and fangs of a very hungry beast.

    Those who don’t want to be beast chow will have to think and act for themselves. Those who don’t will get what they deserve. Although they’ll clamor for it, there will be no savior “order” emerging from chaos, only more chaos. Starving, impoverished billions watching their loved ones die will render moot those Agendas, New Deals, Old Deals, World Orders and the other depraved nonsense that bankrupt powers will try to foist on them, but won’t have the means to enforce. The impoverished billions’ only agenda will be sustenance, and bankrupt powers and a global economy in ruins won’t provide that…”

    – “The Power Of Ones”, Robert Gore

  17. With the economic recovery gaining steam, the stock and housing markets booming,
    the discovery of a COVID-19 vaccine just around the corner, and the Fed’s guarantee of unlimited market support measures, can the outlook possibly get any rosier?

    1. Wouldn’t you love to know what documents the CCP ordered to have burned as they prepared to pull up their tent stakes?

    2. I’ve heard everything from Chinese injecting vaccines last month, to no vaccine until late 2021, to no vaccine at all.

      This week, Medcram put out a very interesting video. We have the technology for a 10-minute saliva paper test for COVID. The drawback is that it has a pretty high detection threshold — that is, you need to have a lot of virus before the test sees it. However, it turns out that also you need to have a lot of virus to be infectious. So, the test doesn’t need to know f you have a tiny amount of virus; it just needs to know if you have enough to infect someone else. And these paper tests are capable of indicating that.
      That’s a game changer. These tests can be printed by the millions or billions for under $2 each, and they can be done at home. So, you could pick up a stock, of say, 90 tests, and take one each day. If you’re clear, you can go out. If you’re infectious, stay at home and ring up the doc to get your HCQ/Ivm cocktail delivered. What a game changer. No need for drive-up testing or even contact tracing. If people really did this, we could knock down this virus in under a month, since ALL the infectious would stay home.

      1. If people really did this, we could knock down this virus in under a month, since ALL the infectious would stay home.

        Most. Don’t underestimate the a-hole factor. But yes, it would be a big tool for beating the virus eventually.

  18. US orders closure of Chinese consulate in Houston
    By James Griffiths, CNN
    Updated 6:16 AM ET, Wed July 22, 2020
    See how Beijing reacted to closure of Houston consulate

    Hong Kong (CNN) The United States government has abruptly ordered China to “cease all operations and events” at its consulate in Houston, Texas, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, in what it called an “unprecedented escalation” in recent actions taken by Washington.

    US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the consulate was directed to close “in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans’ private information.”

    Late Tuesday evening local time, police in Houston said they responded to reports of smoke in the courtyard outside the consulate, located on Montrose Boulevard, in the city’s Midtown area. Local media shared video of what appeared to be officials inside the compound burning documents.
    …

  19. California is number one for COVID-19 cases. And the economy is getting flushed down the toilet again.

    Heckuva job, Governor Nuisance!

    1. We stopped in Riverside County on the way home yesterday. Everyone there wears a mask.

      After bending the curve, California has overtaken New York for the most Covid-19 cases
      By Sara Sidner and Jason Kravarik, CNN
      Updated 7:08 AM ET, Wed July 22, 2020
      – California was first to lockdown. Now it’s experiencing a surge of cases.
      – Doctors sound alarm over ‘Covid parties’

      Rancho Mirage, California (CNN) For the past 15 weeks, sleep is about the only time when Catherine Davis isn’t thinking about Covid-19.
      Even then, she says she is sometimes awakened with thoughts of “How long are we going to sustain this? How long are we going to be faced with this every day?”

      Davis is the nursing director at Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage, California, a desert town in Riverside County about 100 miles from Los Angeles. She and her colleagues are nearing exhaustion as a surge of coronavirus cases has nearly overwhelmed the staff there.

      California on Tuesday surpassed New York as the state with the most recorded coronavirus cases, according to numbers from Johns Hopkins University. It has recently been reporting about 9,000 new cases each day, and its total rose above 409,300 on Tuesday.
      …

      1. “We stopped in Riverside County on the way home yesterday. Everyone there wears a mask.”

        Sean D
        1 month ago
        Now in the US if you walk into a store without a mask you’re Satan

        James McCormick
        2 months ago
        Is YouTube gonna delete this too? LOL

        Armed Proletariat
        1 month ago
        How can I ever trust what come out of his mouth? They are all lying and stealing from us.

        Kwisatz Haderach
        2 weeks ago
        This guy should be in prison.

        Tacticaldave1
        4 weeks ago
        This will likely go down in history as Dr. Fauci’s most honest moment in his career.

        https://youtu.be/PRa6t_e7dgI

          2. Masks work if everybody uses them. Masks worked in Asia and Europe. And they also worked in Maryland. The minute Maryland took off some of the masks — in restaurants, on the beaches, and in protesting/rioting, guess what. The cases went right back up.

          3. Masks work

            Not according to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons:

            Conclusion: Wearing masks will not reduce SARS-CoV-2.

            N95 masks protect health care workers, but are not recommended for source control transmission.

            Surgical masks are better than cloth but not very efficient at preventing emissions from infected patients.

            Cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as personal protective equipment (PPE).

          4. “guess what. The cases went right back up.”

            Some? I know four who never went for a test and were told they tested positive and in the great scheme I don’t know that many people.

            Concerns arise as some receive positive COVID-19 results but never got tested

            July 19, 2020 at 8:17 PM EDT – Updated July 21 at 8:37 AM

            SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – Coronavirus continues to spread quickly across the state. Plus, now, on the Suncoast, although testing has been made more available, many say there are some problems in really getting a handle on how much the virus is in our community.

            It has nothing to do with being able to get tested, but instead the results. The quickest turnaround is about 48 hours, and the majority of the time, it can take about a week of finding out if you’re infected our not. However, the most recent issue is getting back results that aren’t even yours.

            “I got a call asking for me, and they told me that I had tested positive. I was like, ‘Positive for what?” Then, the lady said for COVID, and I said, ‘That’s impossible. I never got tested, Ma’am,’” Mindy Clark said.

            Clark had gone to the drive thru testing sight at Manatee Rural Health, but before she was able to get swabbed, she left the line because she realized it was for people with symptoms only.

            “I told them they needed to take this off my record, and they said I had to prove it to them that I wasn’t positive,” Clark continued.

            She tested negative just two days later, and also tested negative for the antibodies. Plus, according to many of our viewers, this hasn’t only happened to her.

            Clark says if she and many others have been incorrectly identified as positive in the state’s system so easily, how accurate are the numbers that are released daily?

            https://www.mysuncoast.com/2020/07/19/concerns-arise-some-receive-positive-covid-results-never-got-tested/

          5. talking about masks

            It cost the FedGov $10 billion to test 50 million people. With enough money we can keep this “Cases!” narrative going for another few months.

          6. Every major medical and pharma association have come out and said masks do nothing.

            There’s a reckoning looming on the horizon. A substantial one.

            DonK.

          7. “3 hours ago”

            So Trump’s advisors told him to cave to the BS.

            I don’t need the votes of millions who bought into the months of 24/7 CNNABCNBCCBSNYTWAPOHUFPO all corona all the time look at these death rates 25 million could die in the U.S. put on a mask don’t go to church shut down the bars the schools and the day cares get off the beach and into Walmart shelter in place unless you need an abortion or receive an email telling you where tonight’s riot is going to be keep the boot on the neck of the economy and we’ll keep Hiden Biden November is coming!

    3. Orange County now has the 2nd-most COVID-19 cases in California
      Local News
      by: Los Angeles Times
      Posted: Jul 21, 2020 / 11:21 AM PDT / Updated: Jul 21, 2020 / 11:21 AM PDT
      West Oceanfront in Newport Beach draws window shoppers and skaters on Monday. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

      Orange County now has the second-most coronavirus infections in California, as the region and state continue to grapple with sharp spikes in the number of confirmed cases.

      The cumulative COVID-19 case count in Orange County was 29,986 Tuesday, just ahead of Riverside County’s 29,983. Only Los Angeles County is higher, with nearly 160,000 cases.
      …

    4. 1) Fake numbers
      2) Kill economy
      3) Blame Trump
      4) Elect Democrat

      I personally don’t think Biden will be on the ticket. HRC, being the narcissist that she is, will probably reassert her entitlement to the position.

          2. It would certainly fit with the craziness playing out.

            You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

            — Rahm Emanuel

          3. Read “Shock Doctrine”. It’s from a lefty perspective but I don’t think it was wrong.

      2. Still doesn’t explain why all the other countries are taking the same measures.

        1. European schools are open. Where should I move to send my son to school here in the United States? Because California’s schools are closed for the foreseeable future with the waive of Newsom’s pen.

    1. There’s more internal fraud at Fannie than any other private or public institution in history.

    2. Getting rid of cars after they take their initial depreciation hit? Isn’t that closing the barn door after the cow got out?

      I strongly suspect he blew a lot of his money on expenses other than cars.

    3. Must have been tough to give up that electric blue Escalade with 26-inch rims and spinners,

      🙂

  26. I don’t know how I manage to keep ending up in these areas but I am now sandwiched in a housing mania in Southern VT. It’s absolutely crazy with NY, CT, and MA buyers making site unseen cash offers. We have an offer pending on a house and the inspection revealed more work than I’m willing to do. Trying to negotiate with the wife unit to take a 10mo lease on a furnished vacation home to get through the mania. Meanwhile many commercial properties have come online since they’re burning through cash and sales are way down due to COVID. We’re also toying with the idea of buying mixed use and converting to residential.

    We were fortunate to leave FL with a nice purse and I’d like to protect that. I’m exhausted from going from mania to mania.

    1. “We were fortunate to leave FL with a nice purse and I’d like to protect that.”

      Good for you bro.

      You’re a smart dude you’ll do fine.

      It says a lot about you and Ben’s blog that you reconnect here when you start weighing these decisions. Stay cool and take care of that family of yours.

    2. Trying to negotiate with the wife unit to take a 10mo lease on a furnished vacation home to get through the mania.

      Best choice IMO.

    3. Southern VT

      Good luck Muggy!

      Make sure there is internet and cell phone service. This is VT.

    4. Keep renting. Your situation is too fluid to buy anything, unless you find something really cheap.

    5. “Trying to negotiate with the wife unit…”

      Trying to reason with emotion and drama? Don’t waste your time. We’re slip-sliding into a depression, and being a renter is the best position to be in other than own outright.

      1. We’re slip-sliding into a depression, and being a renter is the best position to be in other than own outright.

        Trump just announce that the extra $600 weekly cheese is not going away entirely, and the FED is at the ready with UNLIMITED QE, so I do not see a depression anywhere in the near term. I see record high stocks and high prices on all goods and services for the foreseeable future.

        1. I don’t see how the Millennial day traders can keep trouncing the likes of Warren Buffett without their $600 weekly plug of gambling chips.

      2. With the way housing price declines are accelerating, you’re right.

        Glendale, CA Housing Prices Crater 17% YOY As One LA Broker Conceded, “We Ripped Off A Whole Bunch Of People”

        https://www.zillow.com/glendale-ca-91205/home-values/

        *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

        As a noted economist said so eloquently, “A house is a rapidly depreciating asset that empties your wallet every day you own it. Rent a house for half the monthly cost of buying it.”

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