For Investors, It Is A Painful Experience

1. Lead story on the NPR site is the eviction tsunami narrative:

   https://www.npr.org/2020/07/24/894996949/concern-over-evictions-rise-as-covid-19-unemployment-benefits-expire

   1. Time to spend another $3T

      1. Helicopter Ben himself couldn’t have imagined the largesse going on now.

         1. But he certainly did pave the Yellow Brick Road that brought us to this place.

            1. Heh. The Yellow Brick Road was originally written as a metaphor the gold standard. This money pumping is anything but.

            2. Good catch! If you’re bored, check out:

               The” Wizard of Oz” as a monetary allegory
               H Rockoff – Journal of Political Economy, 1990 – journals.uchicago.edu
               … Few students of money and banking or economic history will forget the battle between the advocates of free silver and the defenders of the gold standard when it is explained through the Wizard of Oz.

2. 71% of Millenials worry they may never afford home ownership – research https://propertyindustryeye.com/71-of-millenials-worry-they-may-never-afford-home-ownership-research/

   1. Just keep waiting kids. Don’t overpay for Generation Greed’s houses. Paying virtually nothing for them is the only way to take back some of the burdens they have shifted to you.

      1. Larry,

         I agree with you that everybody should of boycotted the real estate prices. Everyone should of boycotted some other prices like higher education also and ignored the fact that you wacko Government was willing to give a loan for this gouge.

         People just have to be smarter than the forces that are rigging the game.

   2. “71% of Millenials worry they may never afford home ownership”
      This greed-and-fear mindset, along with an ingrained disdain for delayed gratification is what fuels these insane bubbles and helps Big Business, Big Finance and Wall Street Scumbag Carpetbaggers work their magic. Nobody wants to do their homework, not just because they have no patience, but also because they don’t want to hear bad news that’s not in line with what they want. Do these folks have a clue what it takes to save 20, 30, 50k CASH for a down payment on a house? Of course not. If they did, they’d have a completely different mindset IMHO.

3. ‘The median condo price took its first year-over-year dip in 14 months’

   Boston airboxes have been sinking like a turd in a well for a long time Tim.

4. https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/covid-19-era-foreclosures-surface-cuyahoga-county

5. From the WA link:

   “Seattle used to be a place that had a great vibe and you wanted to go into the city. I’m not feeling that so much anymore,” said Shawna Tews who works in South Lake Union. “I think the drug part, it’s an epidemic. It’s not going away. I have seen it getting worse.”

   ‘Treseder says she’s personally been affected by the changes in Seattle. She lives in South Lake Union not far from whole foods. Last night, Treseder was walking her dog with a friend. They were walking home from Sam’s Tavern around 9:30 pm. They were at Westlake and Harrison.’

   “This man who looked deranged, running down street, completely unprovoked shouting profanities, came up to me, shoved me into the street, said he was going to mess me up, hurt my dog and shove my friend into a brick wall,” said Treseder.’

   ‘They called 911. The suspected attacker ran about a block away, and ended up hanging out in front of a nearby business for about 15 minutes said Tresender.’

   “My friend was on the phone with 911. The (West) Precinct was literally 5 blocks away and no one came,” said Treseder. Treseder said they waited for police for 45 minutes to an hour. But, no one ever came. She left her contact information with Sam’s Tavern in case police stopped by. She said according to the restaurant, officers never did.’

   “It was really frustrating,” said Treseder. “I pay tax dollars to have them protect me and they were not there last night.” She went onto say, “The majority of people who live in the downtown area are wanting to move out of the city because the landscape has changed so much over the last 6 to 8 months. It’s just getting worse. There’s more people on the street that are not abiding by the laws. And the people who are supposed to protect us aren’t doing anything about it.”

   1. “I pay tax dollars to have them protect me”

      Is this the HBB or Comedy Central?

      1. Yeah…that’s somebody who doesn’t understand how the system works. And she’s not alone. If she wants protection that’s going to cost extra.

         1. She had her first taste of anarcho-tyranny. She’d best get used to it.

   2. Seattle mayor slams 50% defunding of police and announces $76 million budget cut in 2021 | king5.com
      https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/seattle-police-department-budget/281-0be471f3-f2dc-40d2-85bc-0ffc3cbc7b65

      1. (snip)

         The Downtown Seattle Association issued the following statement Monday:

         “Calls by a majority of the City Council to immediately reduce our police spending by 50% without a plan or a process is not leadership or governance; it’s a recipe for chaos in our communities. The important work to restructure policing and reexamine how we provide community safety will not happen overnight, and deserves more thoughtful and responsible planning. This work cannot be accomplished in the two-week budgeting exercise that is in front of Council. Mayor Durkan and Chief Best have outlined a reasonable and responsible timeline and action plan to examine the roles and responsibilities of SPD.

   3. Seattle used to be a place that had a great vibe

      Funny how vibrancy can turn around and bite you in the azz.

   4. “It was really frustrating,” said Treseder. “I pay tax dollars to have them protect me and they were not there last night.”

      What’s the over/under on Treseder being a D voter? If so, she’s getting exactly what she voted for.

      1. If so, she’s getting exactly what she voted for.

         Funny how the Communist paradise is never anything like how it’s portrayed in the brochures.

         1. Most humans have the instinct to crave fairness even though “life isn’t fair”. For some it’s so strong it shuts off their logic circuits. There are sociopaths who don’t care one way or another but love to manipulate people using that need. True for many needs I suppose. For today social justice is the headliner.

            1. Carl,

               The thing is social justice isn’t just. It’s the tricker at work.

               A idea that everyone can be equal in outcome, without the requirement that everyone put in the same, is the flaw of the theory

               Equal outcome becomes unjust because it requires unequal contribution to create equal outcome.

               So, as people who have lived under Commies can testify to, the productive get sick of getting the same as the slacker, so the productive become as unproductive as the slacker and all production. Incentive goes to the lowest level, than everyone starts starving and getting rations.
               Basically it would be unjust to expect the productive to be a victim of a parasite who is simply a thief in social justice clothing.

            2. “Incentive goes to the lowest level, than everyone starts starving and getting rations.”

               Don’t forget about waiting in line for hours to get your ‘free’ bread.

         2. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

            — George Orwell, Animal Farm

   5. “This man who looked deranged, running down street, completely unprovoked shouting profanities, came up to me, shoved me into the street, said he was going to mess me up, hurt my dog and shove my friend into a brick wall,”

      In other words, your typical democrat politician or media whore. Not sure who is worse, this deranged guy on the street or the people that support and nurture this behavior, all the while blaming Trump, Bush, even Reagan for some drug addled whack job who wasnt even born when Reagan was is office. Leftism is truly a mental disorder, cant wait until the cure starts being administered.

   6. “It was really frustrating,” said Treseder. “I pay tax dollars to have them protect me and they were not there last night.”

      How much do you want to bet that this ignoramus votes Democrat down the whole ticket? I LOVE IT. GIVE ME MORE OF IT.

   7. The (West) Precinct was literally 5 blocks away and no one came

      Reminds me of living in Newark NJ 1970s. Similar experience. I was in an apartment in one of the not quite so bad areas. Eventually the dispatcher told me they weren’t responding to anything but homicides.

      Times don’t just change, they just go in circles.

6. I wish the pain felt in NYC and London real estate was also lowering prices in Fort Lauderdale and L.A., but that’s just not what I am seeing on the ground here yet.
   Still patiently waiting.

   1. I post crater on LA almost every day.

      ‘Jim Morris is on the hunt for a South Florida mansion, at a bargain price. He considered a nine-bedroom Fort Lauderdale property before coronavirus shut down the economy. The owner insisted he was firm at $15 million. But last month the owner called him to knock off 20%. ‘I am expecting more of that — there are going to be distressed situations and distressed situations lead to opportunities,’ Morris said. ‘I don’t want to overpay because we don’t know what the new market will look like when this is all over. What may look like a bargain today may actually be too high.’

      http://housingbubble.blog/?p=3151

      1. One of my borrowers just netted over a quarter mil on a renovation.
         My $600k was outbid on a 0.31 acre lot. Train is still moving on the ground.

         1. You clearly lack your own conviction. Get out there and snap up a shack before you are priced out forever. No, two shacks, three!

            Sure tens of millions just suddenly lost jobs, millions stopped paying their mortgages, loans are drying up like loogies on the sidewalk, but train is still moving on the ground! Whatever that means.

            1. This just closed minutes ago

               07/24/20 Sold $1,637,500
               06/02/20 Listed $1,695,000
               09/28/20 Sold $1,550,000
               04/04/18 Listed $1,695,000
               11/20/17 Price Chg $1,765,000
               04/16/17 Sold $1,440,009
               04/05/17 Listed $1,850,000

            2. I clearly said I was patiently waiting

            3. Glancing at my dead tree copy of the Wall Street Journal this morning, I noticed a front page article and a companying figure that shows how new weekly job losses have dropped off sharply from their level at the beginning of Stay at Home orders.

               However, weekly claims remain persistently high, about double their previous record level dating back to 1982. I don’t see this ending well, or anytime soon.

            4. I think he’s talking about his gravy train.

            5. You clearly lack your own conviction. Get out there and snap up a shack before you are priced out forever. No, two shacks, three!

               This clown calls himself a “hard money lender” yet he was telling us he was applying for a jumbo loan not long ago. He’s a debt-junkie who’s also enabling debt junkies, essentially exactly who needs to be purged in order to get back to normal.

            6. “This clown calls himself a “hard money lender” yet he was telling us he was applying for a jumbo loan not long ago.”

               Back when I was repossessing cars I discovered that some of the most fraudulent scam-artist borrowers were people who worked in the credit business.

         2. Fraud has a way of doing that.

            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.”

7. This video probably won’t be up long. The powers that be don’t like it. (42 minutes)

   The tyrannical beatings will continue until you say you like wearing your muzzle. The tyrants are out for total control over you and everyone else.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1x8TL1kdZA&feature=em-lsp

8. oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Inflation/Deflation: The Economy Is an Elephant
   http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/07/inflationdeflation-economy-is-elephant.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+google%2FRzFQ+%28oftwominds%29

   (snip)

   “This is the key dynamic of the economy going forward: defaults on debt, declining wealth as assets are relentlessly repriced lower and sharp declines in income due to layoffs and debt defaults.
   The economy is like an elephant surrounded by blindfolded economists and pundits: what each blindfolded person reports about the elephant depends on what part they happen to touch.
   This is why aggregate measures such as gross domestic product (GDP) and the consumer price index (CPI) will be misleading and therefore useless going forward: different parts of the economy might experience sharp deflation while other parts are experiencing rapid inflation. What each household and enterprise will experience depends on their exposure to these cross-currents.
   Adding up sharply deflationary and equally severe inflationary trends to get a total inflation reading near zero will be utterly meaningless. Let’s review a few key sectors of the economy to see how different participants’ experiences of the economy will be.
   Let’s start with two of the apple carts the pandemic has knocked over: retail and commercial office space.
   The first chart reveals the enormous surplus of retail space in the U.S. compared to other developed nations. Half of all U.S. retail space could vanish and we’d still have more than twice as much retail space per person as most of the developed world.
   Such a vast surplus and the implosion of demand suggests a highly deflationary future for retail space rents. Furthermore, empty retail = no income for landlords = default on mortgages = bank losses = banking crisis. How much is empty retail space worth when the prospects of ever getting a paying tenant are poor? The answer is zero, or even less than zero, since the owner still has to pay property taxes, liability insurance, maintenance, utilities, etc.
   The same dynamic dominates the commercial office space there’s a massive surplus of office space while demand is imploding as marginal businesses fold and remote work becomes the desired setting for millions of digital workers and the default setting for employers anxious to avoid lawsuits arising from needlessly exposing their workforce to crowded offices.
   What’s the value of an empty office tower if the current owner overpaid and has a mortgage that far exceeds any realistic valuation based on 50% vacancy rates for the foreseeable future?
   Next up–lofty rents for apartments in previously hot metro areas like San Francisco and NYC. Rents in the S.F. Bay Area are up 60% from 2009, far more than most renters’ income gains in the same period. If the exodus from these hot markets accelerates as layoffs gather momentum, rents could fall far more than many expect.
   Then there’s the core problem with our entire economy: debt payments are fixed, income and profits are not. Take a quick glance at the chart of student loans, now pushing $1.7 trillion, and ponder how many of the Millennials who have to make these fixed debt payments were employed in sectors that have collapsed: tourism, restaurants, musical venues, gig economy, etc.
   Recall that every debt that crushes the borrower is an asset that yields monthly interest to the affluent owners of that debt. When unemployed people default on their student loans, the value of those loans falls, and the income flowing to the affluent owners of the debt drops to zero.
   This is the key dynamic of the economy going forward: defaults on debt, declining wealth as assets are relentlessly repriced lower and sharp declines in income due to layoffs and debt defaults.”

   Go to the link to see some charts.

   1. “Furthermore, empty retail = no income for landlords = default on mortgages = bank losses = banking crisis.”

      = Unlimited bailouts ahead

   2. How much is empty retail space worth when the prospects of ever getting a paying tenant are poor? The answer is zero, or even less than zero, since the owner still has to pay property taxes, liability insurance, maintenance, utilities, etc.

      It really doesn’t matter in economies of bail. These assets are by and large held by the moneyed special interests who will be made whole by the FED. When you’re a billionaire you run out of things to spend your money on, so you collect vacant real estate and all sorts of things and just carry them for decades. All they care about is the FED maintaining the bubble pricing. That’s why the FED is feverishly trying to levitate the bubbles, because if they crash then the oligarchs get burned. Can’t have that.

9. Wha?

   They told me mortgage bonds were risk-free, because real estate always goes up.

   “Hedge funds and mutual funds are among bond holders that could lose $2 billion as a consequence of U.S. lawmakers letting millions of homeowners delay their mortgage payments. At stake are so-called credit-risk-transfer securities. The securities, which threaten to lead to estimated losses of between $1 billion and $2 billion, are intended to shift the risk of borrower defaults on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages to private investors. If borrowers don’t leave forbearance by the six-month mark, which for many borrowers will be in September, ‘it really is going to be a problem for those bonds,’ said Fitch Ratings analyst Suzanne Mistretta.”

10. If borrowers don’t leave forbearance by the six-month mark, which for many borrowers will be in September, ‘it really is going to be a problem for those bonds,’ said Fitch Ratings analyst Suzanne Mistretta.”

    Suzanne earned the big bucks right there. I’d have never figured that out on my own.

    1. She researched it.

       1. LOL!! I remember that one! “Suzanne researched this.”

11. ‘In many cases, the coronavirus crisis exposed deeper systemic problems, like staggering unstainable debts run up by companies with unprofitable business models,’ said Golubow.

    When the financial reckoning day can no longer be deferred by extend-and-pretend, the full fraud of the debt- and stimulus-fueled “recovery” pushed by the Fed is going to be on display for all to see.

12. ‘Ultimately, government intervention in the form of printing and giving away money will end, and credit lines and bonds will need to be repaid.’”

    After the moral hazard promoted by the Fed’s monetary policies since 2009, deadbeats are going to be walking away from their financial obligations en masse. Those credit lines and bonds aren’t getting repaid – they’ll be going into default on an epic scale. We as a nation are going to pay a terrible price for entrusting our money issuance to a criminal private banking cartel.

    1. Can the Fed tame an avalanche of corporate distress? Bond investors are betting on it
       Published: July 24, 2020 at 5:57 p.m. ET
       By Joy Wiltermuth
       About 18% of U.S. junk bonds now trade a distressed levels, down from 41% in March, per JPMorgan
       Betting booths for horse racing at Belmont Park in New York City.
       Getty Images Getty Images

       The Federal Reserve has proven it knows how to keep credit flowing during a crisis.

       Look at the record debt already issued this year by highly rated and speculative-grade U.S. corporations during the pandemic.

       But bond investors now also expect the Fed’s unprecedented stimulus sloshing around financial markets to turn the tide on the credit cycle, namely by preventing more companies from going belly up than was expected only a few months ago.

       “It’s a key axiom that businesses don’t default because they are losing money,” said Steven Oh, global head of credit and fixed-income leverage at PineBridge Investments in Los Angeles, in an interview with MarketWatch. “Businesses default because their access to liquidity dries up.”

       Hertz Global Holding Inc. (HTZ, -5.38%) J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (JCP, -0.33%) and Frontier Communications Corp. (FTRCQ, -2.29%) are among the deluge of U.S. companies that already defaulted on a combined $52.6 billion of high-yield debt this year, according to B. of A. Global.
       …

13. “At least one real estate broker said she’s lost a potential out-of-state buyer because of the news coverage of damage done by vandals or looters in Downtown Seattle.

    It isn’t the news coverage of the Soros scum and their antics that’s causing buyers to pull out. It’s the realization that Seattle is being run by an incompetent, larcenous gang of radical leftists who are going to use every means of wealth extraction on homeowners and wealth creators.

14. Massachusetts saw a 23.4 percent decrease in single-family home sales and a 30.7 percent drop in condo sales. Condo sellers reported a 5.7 percent year-over-year drop in the median sales price to $396,000.

    Is that a lot?

15. “Private rents are falling in London at an extraordinary pace. Figures prepared for the Guardian by Rightmove reveal that in zone 2 of the capital, rental asking prices are down by 8% since February alone.

    Die, speculator scum.

16. Key Words
    Elon Musk: ‘Another government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people’
    Published: July 24, 2020 at 2:14 p.m. ET
    By Nicole Lyn Pesce
    The Tesla CEO said a second coronavirus aid package would be ‘jammed to the gills’ with special interests
    …

    1. The Tesla CEO said a second coronavirus aid package would be ‘jammed to the gills’ with special interests

       Not to worry, there will be another $1200 cheese check. It’ll be “fair”

17. Savills said potential tenants are looking for place with rental discounts of up to 40 percent from last year.”

    Oh dear. I sure hope no greedy landlords assumed renters would cover their outsized mortgages while their shacks appreciated year after year.

18. Across the city, the inner regions were hit hardest by house price falls, dropping $100,000 in the inner west, $125,500 on the lower north shore, $91,000 in the city and eastern suburbs, and $62,500 on the northern beaches.”

    Okay, so that’s bad news and all, but now prices have surely stabilized and the worst is over, right?

    Oh, wait….

19. The Reserve Bank, at its July meeting, pointedly noted the ‘weak conditions’ in the rental market, stressing, in particular, the ‘increase in the supply of rental housing in some areas’ and the ‘reduced flow of new arrivals to Australia.’”

    The RBA outdid even the Fed when it came to encouraging and enabling a completely unsustainable asset bubble in real estate. All those Chinese money launderers and embezzlers who the globalists invited to park their ill-gotten gains in Australian real estate have stopped coming, and now the cratering is going to pose systemic risks to the nation’s financial system. Heckova job, central bankers!

    1. The one thing that might of made a softer landing for the destiny of the unsustainable rigged markets and debt bomb was a build up of the productive sector. In fact the only solution was to become a productive Nation again.

       That would mean screw the Globalist/Monopolies/Money Changers/China and bring back the jobs and manufacturing to USA..
       Notice how these traitors couldn’t stand anything that had to do with Trump trying to build up or benefit America or American Workers, or even control borders.

       And for God Sakes Trump gets impeached for even a inquiry into corruption in the Ukraine. The vile power hungry con artists with their Russian Hoax that got them the House in Congress by that slander. The Dems trying to take out a Judge by that fake Ford lady.

       Any party that resorts to what I have seen for almost 4 years now needs to be taken out like a festering rotten tooth in your mouth that will kill you if it isn’t extracted.

       1. was a build up of the productive sector

          Not likely. All car factories in Oz have been shut down and offshored. The Holden brand is no more.

       2. I can only hope against hope that our leaders aren’t so distracted with elections and antics that they take the lesson of PPE equipment manufacturing to heart – we outsourced almost all of it to china, even our ‘premium’ stuff, and China then not only cut off the supply chain we assumed would be there, they quickly and quietly bought up as much world-wide inventory as possible. What they are selling is mostly crap and more crap.

          It’s not just PPE though. The lesson is there for everything we rely on but don’t make here – the supply can be cut off in a moment’s notice and our ‘just in time’ systems explodes. And with the way relations with China are going, things are going to get even more vulnerable.

          1. Not to worry! I’m sure our national leaders have already put in place a contingency plan for a hard, fast Chinxit.

          2. I read a comment somewhere that 3M is doubling the capacity at its N95 factory in South Dakota. Still, it’s not enough.

20. The Financial Times
    Coronavirus business update 30 days complimentary
    Lunch with the FT Life & Arts
    Jim Chanos: ‘We are in the golden age of fraud’
    The short-seller on being a bear in a bull market, betting against Tesla and why he thinks ‘trouble’s coming’
    © James Ferguson
    Harriet Agnew 7 hours ago

    Jim Chanos has been cast as the “Darth Vader of Wall Street”, the “Catastrophe Capitalist” and the “LeBron James of short selling”. The 62-year-old titan of the $3.2tn global hedge fund industry predicted the downfall of US energy giant Enron almost two decades ago, making a fortune in the process. But the course of true riches, it seems, never did run smooth. On the day of our encounter, Tesla, which Chanos has bet against for the past five years, overtakes Toyota as the most valuable carmaker in the world, leaving him nursing heavy losses. But more about that later.
    …
    I return to the subject of Tesla, whose shares have surged around six-fold in the five years since Chanos began shorting the company. What is going on here? “I think Elon Musk has personified the hopes and dreams of this bull market,” he says, setting out his bear case against Tesla, which he sees as unprofitable, highly leveraged and facing increasing competition. Tesla “burnishes its results through aggressive accounting”, in his view. He also describes it as “a culture of deception” because it is selling self-driving to consumers, which as yet “doesn’t exist”.

    What, I ask, is Chanos’s main motivation: to be rich or to be right?

    “I want to do this until they pull me out of the seat,” he replies. When Wirecard filed for insolvency, there was “an electricity” that ran through Kynikos. “That keeps you going.” And so, he says, does his belief that “this market is setting up to be one of the great short opportunities of all time”.

    “Trouble’s coming, I don’t know when, but it’s coming.”

    1. Sounds like another guy that thinks fundamentals will matter again someday even in the face of an unlimited central bank.

       1. Everywhere you look, there are massive distortions which are not based upon fundamentals but instead a deranged central bank. It’s absolutely despicable.

    2. ‘We are in the golden age of fraud’

       Eade told the I-Team she’s been digging around in medical reports and said, out of the 581 deaths, only 169 deaths are listed as COVID-19 without any contributing factors.

       GUNSHOT TO HEAD, PARKINSON’S DISEASE, DEATHS IN PALM BEACH INCORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED TO COVID-19

       I-Team: Deaths incorrectly attributed to COVID-19 in Palm Beach County

       Jul 23, 2020

       https://youtu.be/zhMMNUghNw4?t=26

       1. Had lunch with some peeps I used to work with yesterday. One has a friend who scheduled a china corona virus test, but never went and got tested. She got a call a week later that she tested positive…

          1. I personally know people the exact same thing happened to in Jupiter Fl.

             1. I’ve heard at least 3 instances of this happening.

             2. What’s in it for the test companies to commit fraud?

             3. Professor Bear
                July 24, 2020 at 7:53 pm
                What’s in it for the test companies to commit fraud?

                This is a very important question.

                I wonder if the $10 billion the FedGov put in the CARES act for testing has something to do with it. I would think that if you want to collect the honey you have to report doing tests.

                Why the media misreports is another important question.

             4. It seems kind of stupid to call untested people and tell them they tested positive.

          2. One has a friend who scheduled a china corona virus test, but never went and got tested. She got a call a week later that she tested positive… In the last week the same thing happened to a grade school daughter of a neighbor down the street. They had visited family in Florida for a week, signed up for testing there. The girl overslept & missed the testing appointment. A few days later she got a phone call that her test was positive.

             1. I have it on good authority that on a long enough timeline, everyone is going to die. On my command, please run around waving your arms and screaming like a little girl.

             2. screaming like a little girl Kermit or Beaker

             3. FWIW, a niece in North Carolina was tested a week ago, as a coworker tested positive. She tested negative.

             4. She tested negative

                Nine out of ten people do, regardless if they are sick.

21. We did withdraw our offer on the house today and have lined up a rental house for a year. What a relief.

    And Blue, I enjoy having no coverage out here! Lovely!!

    1. “What a relief.”

       Yup, dodged a bullet!

    2. What a relief

       Good for you.

22. There, had to update the name in accordance with geography

    1. Good for you for renting! Really, the only reason to buy is to have a paid off house in retirement. If you think you’ll have the cash to downsize into something in your mid-60s, then rent v buy doesn’t really matter.

       1. “only reason to buy is to have a paid off house”

          LOL@ this Realtorbabble. You will never “own” your allegedly paid off house. From your own description of your neighborhood, on this blog, you live in a suburban ghetto. And you’re anchored to it. Like a f*ing albatross, hat tip to Samuel Taylor Coleridge…

          1. And more realtorbabble.

             In the meantime…..

             San Mateo, CA Housing Prices Crater 14% YOY As Bay Area Crime Leaps And Foreclosures Jump

             https://www.zillow.com/san-mateo-ca-94404/home-values/

             *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

             As one Bay Area broker conceded, “we facilitate appraisal and mortgage fraud every opportunity we can”

       2. It’s all situational. It’s clearly advantageous for us to own, but unique specifics come into play in every situation.

          What’s dangerous is just taking what someone else – your parents, the media, Realtor(s)(tm), etc – as what you are supposed to do (because it’s easier to sheeple). It usually takes a decade (or several) or more of being an adult to figure out that you are the only one really looking out for you and decide that you’re going to take full responsibility for it.

          1. “It’s all situational.”

             Totally. We’ve mostly rented AND I have zero ragrets about owning in FL for a few years. It was the right thing to do at the time and the numbers worked. We were completely dumb lucky with the relocation and timing of it all as it relates to covid. Renting is the right thing again for our current situation.

23. Don’t get so preoccupied with individual trees that you can’t see the forest.

    The Financial Times
    Peter Wells 3 hours ago
    Emoticon
    California reports another record daily increase in deaths

    California reported a record increase in coronavirus deaths for the second day in a row on Friday and nearly 10,000 new cases.

    A further 159 people in the state died from Covid-19, California’s health department said this afternoon, from Thursday’s then-record jump of 157.

    California has now reported 8,186 deaths from the disease since the pandemic began. That is the fourth-highest number of fatalities for any US state, but about one-third of first-ranked New York.

    Just this week, the three most populous states – California, Texas and Florida – have each reported their biggest single-day jumps in deaths. That helped push the daily national death toll above 1,000 a day for the third day in a row on Thursday, the first such instance since May 29.

    Florida reported a record 173 deaths on Thursday and a further 136 today, while Texas had a record jump of 197 on Wednesday and its most recent data showed an increase of 173 yesterday.

    California confirmed a further 9,718 people had tested positive for Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, down from 12,040 on Thursday. That took the total number of cases to 435,334, the most of any US state and having overtaken longtime leader New York on July 22.
    …

    1. Florida reported a record 173 deaths on Thursday

       Here’s where math conflicts with propaganda and general stupidity. Deaths were reported on Thursday. Did those people die on Thursday? No. Have deaths on any specific day reached this number? No.

       What incentive does the media have to exaggerate the number of deaths in Florida? What incentive do you have?

       1. “What incentive do you have?”

          None.

          This is why I prefer UK newspapers as my source of COVID-19 cases news, such as The Financial Times. They are above the ongoing U.S. political fracas and have no incentive for biased reporting.

24. Vancouver, WA Housing Prices Crater 19% YOY As Portland And Seattle Housing Glut Drives Prices And Rents Lower

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

    A noted economist stated, “A housing ‘recovery’ is falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels by definition.”

25. Does a 30-year Treasury yield seem unusually and unsustainably low? IIRC they were yielding 8% or so three decades ago. How much farther does the downtrend have to run before bouncing off a hard floor?

    1. Meant to say “below 1.25%”. I suppose it’s a ways down from here to the zero bound.

       Bond Report
       30-year Treasury yield falls below 1.25% as investors weigh geopolitical tensions against improving eurozone data
       Published: July 24, 2020 at 4:32 p.m. ET
       By Sunny Oh
       …

26. Under an agreement with the lenders, Hertz has agreed to sell 182,000 cars over the next few months,

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hertz-cut-6-billion-vehicle-192247543.html

    1. How can Hertz sell cars that it is leasing? Shouldn’t the company or companies who actually own the fleet be the ones selling them?

27. The heck with corona….. Why Boston Beer Stock Soared to a New All-Time Today The brewer’s profits are surging despite fierce competition.

    https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/07/24/why-boston-beer-stock-soared-to-a-new-all-time-tod.aspx

28. Welps, I am tired of renting a crappy 1 bedroom apartment and need more space but home prices and inventory are horrible now in Sacramento. SO, I may just rent a house for a few hundred bucks a month more and keep my down payment cash if a crash ever takes place and more inventory comes back on the market after COVID ends.

    1. You’ve got 3+ years to go before there will be anything remotely resembling “affordable” or “reasonable.” And with the deranged FED’s “Unlimited QE” and Zimbabwe tendencies, maybe even longer.

       1. @rip, the nation would have big trouble if it comes to hyperinflation and collapse. Still, renting a home for 2k and no down payment is way more attractive than dropping 50-100k cash on one and spending 2500/month on debt mortgage payments.

29. U.S COVID-19 cases are currently increasing at a rate of about 2 million a month.

    Is that alot?

    The Financial Times
    Coronavirus business update 30 days complimentary
    Coronavirus pandemic
    US coronavirus deaths surpass 1,000 for fourth day in a row
    Friday’s fatality count caps grim week in which Donald Trump conceded seriousness of outbreak
    The number of coronavirus cases in the US surpassed 4m this week
    © AFP via Getty Images
    Peter Wells in New York
    3 hours ago

    The US recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths on Friday for the fourth day in a row, as the disease continues to spread rapidly in southern and western states.

    The sustained increase in deaths comes after several weeks during which the coronavirus case count increased significantly. It surpassed 4m this week, an increase of 1m in barely a fortnight.

    On Friday, 75,193 people had tested positive over the past 24 hours, according to Covid Tracking Project data, up from 71,027 on Thursday. It is the second-biggest one-day jump on record.

    The 1,178 fatalities registered on Friday marked the first time since May 23 that deaths have risen by more than 1,000 on four consecutive days. California, Texas and Florida all registered one-day fatality records this week.
    …

30. Filed in the #realtors-are-liars file:

    So we’re about to embark on a month-long “work-from-not-home” trip, driving to the midwest to get to know the area as we’re considering buying a homestead to retire in the next ~12 months. Going to rent a couple VRBOs/AirBnBs for two weeks a piece.

    Given the long stay, I’d expect we can expect a discount vs a nightly rate…find a nice house (sadly owned by a realtor) and reach out asking if they offer a weekly/long-term rate. The response: “Yes, we absolutely do a 15% discount, the rate is $XXX”. Which is the nightly rate, of course (they already advertise a reduced “SUMMER RATE”), that they were trying to pass off as a discount for a long-term stay.

    Apparently the realtor would prefer not to take in $3k for two weeks, as I’ve gotten zero response since pointing out that’s listed at the nightly rate and was hoping/expecting they’d be interested in renting for a block of time to a single customer.

    It blows me away…on one hand AirBnB is begging people to send money to places they’d stayed previously as a “tip”, and yet the hosts would rather have a property empty than rent it out for $150 instead of $175 for 14 nights.

    We’ve instead booked two other very nice properties that were happy to be accommodating and set up a nice win-win deal. I’ll be posting remotely from some nice horse farms over the next month!

    As always folks, remember “realtors are liars”!

    1. Don’t forget to send the realtor one last text message: “Thanks! If you hadn’t been so hung up on the rate, we wouldn’t have found these nicer places to stay at for less!”

    2. “…and yet the hosts would rather have a property empty than rent it out for $150 instead of $175 for 14 nights.”

       They apparently are deluding themselves into either thinking you wouldn’t be able to find a better opportunity, or that they could readily find someone else who would take their unattractive deal.

       We similarly walked away from a Realtor who tried to play hardball with us late last year when we were seeking a new place to rent. We neglected to mention that we had two other alternatives that would work for us, as she seemed to think we had no choice except to accept her unattractive terms.

31. Housing prices are cratering.

    Coeur d’Alene, ID Housing Prices Crater 16% YOY As Sellers Flood Market And Slash Prices Double Digits

    http://www.zillow.com/coeur-dalene-id-83814/home-values/

    As a noted economist said so eloquently, “liquidate whatever you’ve got to eliminate all debt and hold onto every dollar you’ve got…. You’re going to need every last one of them.”

32. Are you planning to keep HODLing your stawks right through the upcoming fall selling season?

    1. Markets
       Executives are selling stock as the market experiences its epic rebound
       Published Fri, Jul 24, 2020 12:13 PM EDT
       Updated Fri, Jul 24, 2020 8:22 PM EDT
       Maggie Fitzgerald
       Nick Wells
       Key Points
       – The ratio of companies with insider buying compared to insider selling is at 0.27 in July, the lowest level since at least 2000, according to the Washington Service, a provider of insider trading and data analytics.
       – The heads of UnitedHealth and BlackRock are selling shares, a major shift from the insider buying during the market bottom in March.
       – “I think insiders broadly thought the March sell-off was over-pessimistic,” Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt told CNBC. “As the market’s recovered, we’ve just seen more selling, less buying, as prices have become less dislocated.”
       …

33. Published last night:

    “A U.S. judge on Friday denied Oregon’s request to restrict federal agents’ actions when they arrest people during chaotic protests that have roiled Portland and pitted local officials against the Trump administration.

    Federal agents deployed by President Trump to tamp down the unrest have arrested dozens during nightly demonstrations against racial injustice that often turn violent. Democratic leaders in Oregon say federal intervention has worsened the two-month crisis, and the state attorney general sued to allege that some people had been whisked off the streets in unmarked vehicles.”

    https://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny-portland-protests-20200725-77ardxxhmzhrfiwlftwy3pilbu-story.html

    Send in the napalm. Portland is irredeemable.

    1. Lots of interesting videos on this but the third one down presently has toddlers and very young children saying and carrying signs that say “f#ck the police”.as the author says “on cue from the adults”.

       https://twitter.com/elijahschaffer/status/1286258390897958913

       1. Seven down…

          “But remember: it’s still too dangerous to go to school or church”

          LMAO

          If that doesn’t sum up this great MSM led coronascam nothing does.

          1. The SCOTUS disagrees with your point.

             U.S.
             Supreme Court Rejects Nevada Church’s Challenge to Covid-19 Rules
             Lower courts declined to suspend the state’s public-health orders during the church’s lawsuit, prompting the high court appeal
             By Jess Bravin
             July 24, 2020 10:59 pm ET

             WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court voted 5-4 Friday to reject a Nevada church’s plea to suspend state public-health orders limiting attendance at services, marking the second time Chief Justice John Roberts has joined liberal justices to uphold emergency measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
             …

             1. “The SCOTUS disagrees with your point.”

                With a 5-4 vote too, what a shock. 🙂

                PS

                Did you look at the large group of shoulder to shoulder many maskless “protesters” dancing bumping and slobbering on each other?

                Does the MSM or the Supreme Court have an opinion on that? With that ongoing behavior in Portland, Minneapolis etc, for months I would have expected the “protests” to have ground to a halt by now just from the “protesters” dying off from https://youtu.be/mfhBM_Yay6w COVI19.

             2. ‘Did you look at the large group of shoulder to shoulder many maskless “protesters” dancing bumping and slobbering on each other?’

                We’re on the same page regarding the double standard applied across churches, businesses, and BLM protesters. While Governor Nuisance is happy to shut down businesses and churches in a heartbeat, BLM looters get a pass on Stay at Home orders. Even the medical establishment has failed to point out the problems with mass protests in the street during a pandemic.

                However, I note that a bog spike in California COVID-19 cases and deaths has transpired only a few weeks after the California BLM lootfest.

    2. Send in the napalm.

       Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure.

    3. Poorly presented case. The part you left out:

       “

       1. “Legal experts who reviewed the case before the decision warned that he could reject it on those grounds. A lawsuit from a person accusing federal agents of violating their rights to free speech or against unconstitutional search and seizure would have a much higher chance of success, Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University, said ahead of the ruling.

          “The federal government acted in violation of those individuals’ rights and probably acted in violation of the Constitution in the sense of exercising powers that are reserved to the states, but just because the federal government acts in ways that overstep its authority doesn’t mean the state has an injury,” he said.”

          Are there any libertarians left on this site?

          1. Are there any libertarians left on this site?

             I don’t know, what do you mean?

             The Democrats played the States Rights thing 150 years ago and got their hand broken. What’s the question?

             1. Commentary on the seemingly daily implication that protesters = bad, while turning a blind eye to unidentified people in unmarked vans gassing (not just the unlawful) and detaining people. If there’s probable cause of a crime, make an arrest. But who are you being arrested by? It’s a troubling sign. Perhaps we already are “Venezuela.”

             2. seemingly daily implication that protesters = bad

                Protestors are fine. Rioters are not. Big difference.
                FindLaw: Rioting and Inciting to Riot

             3. unidentified people in unmarked vans

                Actually they are identified. They are just intentionally difficult to dox.

             4. Perhaps we already are “Venezuela.”

                Let’s see. Venezuela is ruled by a communist dictator.
                The masses are starving and many have fled to neighboring Colombia, while millions still try enter the US illegally, even with COVID.

                Nope, not Venezuela. Not even close. Though I have to say that Seattle’s CHAZ did fit the bill somewhat

             5. But who are you being arrested by?

                Funny, the media seems to have no problem identifying them as Federal agents.

             6. “Funny, the media seems to have no problem identifying them as Federal agents.”
                Yes, after a few days that came out. Question is, what would you do if approached by armed, uniformed, unidentified people in unmarked vans who want you to get in. Do you do it? (Or, assuming there was probable cause, would you prefer they identify themselves, read you your rights, then put you in cuffs?)

                “Venezuela…”
                The response to dissent, Colorado. Granted, protesters in the US apparently don’t seem know how good they have it, relatively speaking. Speaking of which, and getting back to the lawsuit, it will be interesting to see if any protesters decide to sue the Feds. My bet would be no.

             7. “Protestors are fine. Rioters are not. Big difference.”

                Agreed. I’m not sure I understand the value to conflate the two.

             8. unidentified

                No, identifiable federal agents with patches and/or badges.

                read you your rights

                The Miranda warning requires that officers let you know of certain facts after your arrest, before questioning you. No questioning, no Miranda warning.

                protesters

                Again, rioters not protestors.

                I would be horrified if what you are suggesting were really happening, but it’s not. The DNC/MSM is creating a narrative that Trump is an authoritarian dictator with his “Stormtroopers” to scare you and to get you to vote against him. If you step back and look at what is actually being done versus what he has the authority to do, it proves the opposite. He’s protecting federal property while expecting state and local officials to handle their own business. It’s called federalism.

             9. “No…No…no, it’s not”

                Eh, I’m thinking it’s not such a black and white world, Red…I’m trying to deconstruct the absolute narratives (and the pick-a-side mentality that comes with it) about the community I live and participate in, created by people who don’t.

                “protesters”
                Fair point, I’ll go with participants here since it’s not clear whether a protester or rioter was detained/arrested, at least in the early stages of Fed presence. Clearly some think their rights were violated here. What remains is whether or not they take legal action.

             10. @near_seattle

                 I reviewed the opposition motion and judge’s order. Oregon’s AG is a joke. Besides losing the procedural matter of standing to sue, she submitted a total of three examples: one was withdrawn as having taken place in San Diego; and, the remaining two she had to admit that the agents had “POLICE” emblazoned on their chests.

             11. “POLICE”

                 Anything else? Seems like something anyone with a smidgen of talent could put on a t-shirt.

             12. Perhaps you should do your own research, look at the facts and ignore the spin.

          2. Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University

             http://www.dorfonlaw.org/

             Trump Admin Legal Team’s Defense Of Portland Goon Squads Mirrors Prior Pretextual Arguments
             by Michael C. Dorf

             Trump’s Not-So-Proto Fascism is Still Not Proof of Political Genius (Evil or Otherwise)
             by Neil H. Buchanan

             Portland is the New Crimea: Trump’s Little Green Men
             by Michael C. Dorf

             1. Thanks for sharing, Red.

             2. Dorf is clearly a liberal who dislikes Trump but the article doesn’t give you that context. His legal opinion (an appeal to authority) should have been confined to the procedural matter of standing but wasn’t so as to further the desired narrative.

          3. Granted, protesters in the US apparently don’t seem know how good they have it, relatively speaking.

             No. They don’t. And as a result they way overstep the bounds of ethical protest sometimes, IMO. They want to declare war but still be treated as peaceful protest. You can’t have it both ways…at least for very long. And if you really do just want to peacefully protest you will probably have to make some effort to stay separated from those trying to prosecute guerrilla war while hiding among you.

             I am interested in hearing from people whose families have been unjustly mistreated by the police. I am not interested in hearing from those who want to replace the constitution with something more to their liking. In the case where they are the same people I need to ask them to separate the two conversations if they want me to listen and be polite.

             1. “They want to declare war but still be treated as peaceful protest.”

                Right.

                I do have to give partial credit to BLM here for finally calling out rioters for co-opting the original message. I say partial because in the same vein they basically suggested they were encouraged by the increased activity in recent days. 😐 (speaking of having it both ways…)

             2. They want to declare war but still be treated as peaceful protest.

                You don’t threaten someone with an AK-47 and not expect them to shoot back.

                It is funny though, how the cops will come in and quickly intervene if abortion clinic protesters get too close to the clinic while they pray the Rosary in what must be a very threatening way.

       2. Also: “U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman said the state lacked standing to sue on behalf of protesters because the lawsuit was a ‘highly unusual one with a particular set of rules.’” (emphasis added)

          The state failed the first procedural hurdle.

34. Is your day trading side gig working out well for you?

    1. Take a bunch of bored, unemployed, computer-savvy workers permanently stuck at home, add cheap brokerage accounts plus the rocket fuel of Unlimited Quarantinive Easing, and you have the makings of a Wall Street conflagration the likes of which the world has never seen before.

       1. Stocks
          Everyone’s a Day Trader Now
          Bored, isolated and out of work amid the pandemic, millions of Americans are chasing stock-market glory—and bragging about it online. Not everyone’s a winner though.
          By Michael Wursthorn, Mischa Frankl-Duval,
          and Gregory Zuckerman
          Updated July 25, 2020 12:01 am ET

          Stuck at home in lockdown, millions of Americans are trading the markets like never before.

          At E*Trade Financial Corp., investors opened roughly 260,500 retail accounts just in March, more than any full year on record.
          …

       2. Oddly Enough
          July 20, 2020 / 3:18 PM / 4 days ago
          Gambling addiction spikes among South Korea’s work-from-home day traders
          Joyce Lee

          SEOUL (Reuters) – Day traders seeking help for gambling addiction have tripled in number in South Korea, as COVID-19 social distancing and working-from-home has freed up more time for online stock market trading, data showed.

          Retail investors, known locally as ants, were a force in a 50% stock-price surge after a virus-induced sell-off in March.

          From then through May, however, those seeking help for trading-related addictive behaviour reached 214, showed data from the Korea Center on Gambling Problems. The growth rate eclipsed the overall 16% rise in calls seeking help.

          The trend is a worrying sign of things to come should social distancing practices such as work-from-home become the norm, experts said, as isolated individuals have even fewer mechanisms such as peer support to check addictive behaviour.

          Compulsive stock trading also lacks the social stigma that may act as a deterrent toward traditional forms of gambling, even though the stimulation behind both is similar, they said.
          …

    2. Heber City man admits to $10M day trading fraud scheme
       By Dennis Romboy
       Jul 23, 2020, 5:35pm MDT
       The federal courthouse in Salt Lake City is pictured on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020. Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

       SALT LAKE CITY — A Heber City man convicted of investment fraud almost a decade ago has admitted in federal court to a new day trading scheme that took investors for more than $10.3 million.

       Thomas Robbins, 65, pleaded guilty to securities fraud and money laundering in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, admitting he induced people to invest in a fraudulent foreign currency day trading business.

       Robbins told investors he had achieved high returns, but had in fact lost millions of dollars and diverted investor money for his personal use and benefit, according to court documents. About 66 people lost money.

       “This case presents a classic example of a Utah securities fraudster. Lie upon lie, he created an investment opportunity that drew in dozens of investors who ended up losing more than $10 million to Mr. Robbins, who is a swindler rather than a foreign currency day trader. For all intents and purposes, the money is gone and cannot be recovered for victims,” U.S. Attorney John W. Huber said.
       …

    3. Markets
       Ten Thousand Day Traders an Hour Are Buying Tesla Shares
       By Sarah Ponczek
       July 13, 2020, 12:20 PM PDT
       Updated on July 13, 2020, 1:34 PM PDT
       – Almost 40,000 Robinhood users bought the stock in four hours
       – Tesla shares surged 16% Monday before giving up gains
       …

    4. We’d have never heard a peep out of this guy if he were still up $1 milion.

       “Fair” = I made a bundle gambling on stocks

       “Unfair” = I lost a bundle gambling on stocks

       An amateur investor turned $15,000 into $1 million then lost it all, the latest cautionary tale in the day-trading frenzy
       Saloni Sardana
       Jul. 10, 2020, 12:12 PM
       – Robinhood-user Richard Dobatse said he turned $15,000 into $1 million, and then lost everything.
       – He told the New York Times: “They make it so easy for people that don’t know anything about stocks. Then you go there and you start to lose money.”
       – He said he is planning to appeal his case to financial regulators for arbitration.
       – Dobatse’s story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of day-trading, and how quickly losses can mount.

       1. Too clever by half?

          “31-year old Richard Dobatse told the New York Times he initially funded his account by taking out $15,000 credit and two $30,000 home-equity loans to fund early losses.”

    5. It didn’t work out too well for this young man.

       Forbes: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies By Suicide After Seeing A $730,000 Negative Balance

       1. Just wait until the next wave of stock market collapse wipes out a large swath of Millennial day traders. The mental health situation could get quite ugly.

    6. By the way, did I mention that this day trader craze is the shoeshine boy moment for the pandemic financial collapse?

       1. No, but Roger the Heartthrob at Real Vision mentioned it a couple weeks ago. 😛

          1. A Roger “rabbit” sitch, huh? LOLZ.

35. ‘After city building inspectors fined a struggling cafe for hanging an “open for takeout and delivery” sign, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti cut the penalty Friday and cleared the way for more businesses to put up banners.’

    ‘This week, the owners of Studio City’s Crave Cafe received a letter containing a $356 fine from Los Angeles’ Department of Building and Safety. AJ Shalob, 38, runs the diner with his family. He said the pricey penalty weighs heavily on the restaurant, which has seen a 70% drop in business since the coronavirus outbreak began.’

    “They’re asking me for something I don’t have,” Shalob said Thursday. “If we keep going like this, we’re done, we’re not going to last.”

    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-24/garcetti-loosens-banner-restrictions-after-cafe-gets-fined-for-were-open-sign

    1. ‘Bristol Bay is a weird one. Fishermen work most of the season without knowing how much they will be paid for their catch. This week, more than a month after the season began, major processors like Trident Seafoods and OBI Seafoods announced an ex-vessel base price of $0.70 per pound for Bristol Bay sockeye, just over half last season’s base of $1.35. Predictably, the fleet was not happy. Exhausted fishermen had just scooped up a harvest over 37 million fish, much it over a two-week period that came after a slow start gave way to a wall of fish on July 4, setting off a string of historic days with over 2.5 million fish harvests. The surge overextended not just processors—most were forced to put fishermen on poundage limits—but skippers and deckhands as well. So when tired, hurting fishermen heard this week they would, for now, take an almost 50 percent price reduction, many of them were fuming.’

       https://www.nationalfisherman.com/alaska/covid-hair-cut-bristol-bay-base-price-slashed-almost-in-half

       1. It’s tough to move fresh fish when restaurants are closed.

          1. My local WMSC keeps running out of 7.5 oz cans of red sockeye salmon at about $4.40/can, same price last 2 or 3 years now.

             1. Canning and selling at high end retailers like Whole Foods is the way to go if feasible. But it sounds like the fishermen collectively caught more than the processors could absorb over a short period of time. This is a recipe for low prices.

    2. Vultures from the LA City government are picking the bones of struggling businesses even before they die…

36. take an almost 50% price reduction”

    Sometimes you win… sometimes you take beating. It’s the way the world works.

    North Logan, UT Housing Prices Crater 28% YOY As Double Digit Price Declines Ravage Salt Lake City Area

    https://www.movoto.com/north-logan-ut/market-trends/

    As Salt Lake City broker conceded, “If you’re a buyer, the broker is lying to you. I know a liar when I hear one. I’ve been lying my entire life.”

    1. I heard during a recent trip to the SLC area that high end homes are dead in the water, and the low end is selling like hot cakes.

       Same thing happened in the SF Bay Area in the period immediately preceding the Great Recession.

       1. That’s what happens when prices plummet.

          1. Yep. A fish rots from the head.

       2. I heard during a recent trip to the SLC area that high end homes are dead in the water, and the low end is selling like hot cakes.

          This has been going on for years. The more expensive something is, the harder it is to sell. It doesn’t matter if it’s a house, a car, a boat, a jacket or a frying pan.

          1. “The more expensive something is, the harder it is to sell.”

             Yes if the price isn’t going up by 10% or more annually, and if leverage is constrained.

             It seems like the high end has started to fall, and the lenders have stopped handing out easy-peasy jumbo loans like candy.

             Thus you can stick a fork in the high end of most U.S
             housing markets.

37. Intel Corp.’s decision to consider outsourcing manufacturing heralds the end of an era in which the company, and the U.S., dominated the semiconductor industry. The move could reverberate well beyond Silicon Valley, influencing global trade and geopolitics.

    The Santa Clara, California-based company has been the largest chipmaker for most of the past 30 years by combining the best designs with cutting-edge factories, several of which are still based in the U.S.

    Most other U.S. chip companies shut or sold domestic plants years ago, and had other firms make the components, mostly in Asia. Intel held out, arguing that doing both improved each side of its operation and created better semiconductors. That strategy is in tatters now, with the company’s factories struggling to keep up with the latest 7-nanometer production process.”

    TSMC that’s where they will try and go.

38. Does it seem like the Fed’s QE2Infinity, with unlimited stimulus and perpetual bailouts, could be undermining the benefits of capitalism?

    1. The Saturday Essay
       The Rescues Ruining Capitalism
       Easy money and constant stimulus have undermined the basic dynamics of the free market. We’ve paid the price in low growth and productivity, falling entrepreneurship and rising inequality.
       By Ruchir Sharma
       July 24, 2020 11:15 am ET

       Modern society looks increasingly to government for protection from major crises, whether recessions, public-health disasters or, as today, a painful combination of both. Such rescues have their place, and few would deny that the Covid-19 pandemic called for dramatic intervention. But there is a downside to this reflex to intervene, which has become more automatic over the past four decades. Our growing intolerance for economic risk and loss is undermining the natural resilience of capitalism and now threatens its very survival.
       …

       1. The FED has destroyed the free market over the past 20 years.

          1. I wonder if anyone who works at the Fed buys into the delusion that they support the invisible hand of the free market, whose beneficial effects all economists study in school?

       2. The Rescues Ruining Capitalism
          https://imgur.com/a/EsxLDjG
          *enjoy!

39. Explosive, profanity-laced call involving Chicago mayor leaked: Report

    1,656,267 views•Jun 9, 2020

    https://youtu.be/3VrLvJBxAKw

40. BLACK TRUMP SUPPORTER SHOT DEAD IN BROAD DAYLIGHT WHILE CAMPAIGNING FOR TRUMP

    Jamie White | Infowars.com – JULY 25, 2020

    A 60-year-old black Donald Trump supporter was shot dead in broad daylight near his “Vote Trump” banners on Thursday.

    Bernell Trammell was killed in front of his business, Expression Publications, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin while campaigning for President Trump.

    The suspect drove up in front of Expression Publications where Trammell sat outside, shot him, and drove off, according to law enforcement. They are investigating whether Trammell was killed over his political beliefs.

    Trammell gave a video interview about why he supported Trump just hours before he was killed.

    Neighbors and acquaintances said Trammell was a proud Trump supporter and a kind man who was respected by the community.

    “I had an interaction with him last Saturday across the street from Walmart on Capitol Drive,” one woman told local media.

    “It was the second time I had seen him with his Trump sign and I pulled my car over to chat with him. What a nice, friendly man!”

    “We chatted for several minutes, and I told him I was proud of him and he’s very brave to put himself out there so visibly as a Trump supporter!” she added.

    Another witness said Tramell was “very philosophical” and a “really great guy.”

    “It was very deep conversations, very philosophical,” said Janette Island. “He was a really great guy. He meant no harm.”

    https://youtu.be/B-sCRE15s9Y?t=141

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