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This Is A Zero-Sum Game, Someone Is Going To Bear This Loss

A report from Realtor.com. “It seems like it was only yesterday when America’s downtown business districts thrummed with life. Since onset of the coronavirus pandemic, though, the pulse of those once-thriving districts has subsided to a faint quiver. That doesn’t bode well for the long-term future of office buildings and hotels in these neighborhoods. Some will likely shut down for good. But an abundance of vacant commercial real estate could be transformed into what the real estate market is most desperately clamoring for: housing.”

“But hold on. Many of these offices and hotels are in crowded city centers, which many residents are fleeing for suburban and rural areas where they can get more square footage for their money—and more social distance from their neighbors. So even if those spaces are converted into apartments and condos, will people want to live in them?”

The New York Times. “Five months into the pandemic, hotel rooms remain largely unreserved, office space sits empty and hardly anyone is venturing into malls. Commercial tenants are struggling to pay their rents, and property owners are struggling to make payments on the loans they took out to finance the buildings.”

“Some real estate investors, including the hedge funds and private equity firms that hold those loans, have had enough. Unwilling to risk any more missed interest payments, they are taking property owners and developers to court, hoping to foreclose on their interests in the properties and minimize their financial losses. ‘When this all started in March, the first reaction was this was temporary and let’s just see how this plays out,’ said H. Scott Miller, a real estate lawyer with Carlton Fields. ‘But we’re getting to the point where people are saying, ‘How much longer can this continue?’ This just can’t be open-ended.'”

“In cities across the United States, commercial hubs are lying silent. In Midtown Manhattan, usually a hive of activity filled with office workers, tourists and vehicles, the pandemic has cut pedestrian traffic in Times Square by 83 percent. Office buildings are all but empty because employees are working from home or have lost their jobs. Restaurants and stores are shuttered or operating at greatly diminished capacity.”

From Bisnow on New York. “Upper East Side art gallery Venus Over Manhattan is making a similar argument, claiming that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s March executive order banning in-person retail means its lease at RFR Realty’s 980 Madison Ave. is unworkable. Luise Barrack, who leads Rosenberg & Estis’ litigation department, is defending multiple landlords against suits and is taking action against tenants who aren’t paying their rents. She declined to give specifics on her clients. ‘You have to enforce contracts or people can’t rely upon anything,’ she said. ‘I don’t think [courts] will let tenants walk.'”

“Columbia Law Professor Jody Kraus said jurisdiction in New York City is very ‘unreceptive’ to letting commercial parties out of their obligations. If courts declare many retail contracts no longer binding, Kraus expects it would open the floodgates to litigation into the trillions of dollars. ‘This is a zero-sum game. Someone is going to bear this loss,’ Kraus said. ‘Letting tenants out of contracts, you are not avoiding the loss, you are just shifting it.'”

From Market Place. “Christopher Wallace is still collecting this month’s rent for the hundreds of apartments his firm manages in Washington, D.C., and he isn’t optimistic. ‘Since this all started in March, it’s been progressively getting a little worse,’ he said.”

“Most of Wallace’s buildings are known as Class C properties. Late or skipped payments aren’t the only problems, said Wallace. ‘I think a lot of people, if they’re unable to pay, what they’re doing is moving out and moving either back home or moving in with other people,’ he said. ‘We’ve seen a lot more vacancies than we normally would get this time of year.'”

From Bisnow on Texas. “DFW’s average apartment rent is down compared to March. The market’s abundance of newer Class-A properties is largely to blame for the decline. ‘Housing is essential, but the amount of Class-A new supply in the pipeline will face challenging lease-up times,’ ApartmentData President Bruce McClenny said. ‘At the other end of the class spectrum, rent collection looms as a huge problem as Congress painfully crafts a second stimulus package.'”

The Ahwatukee Foothills News in Arizona. “How do you see the market for commercial and office space in this region? Mary Nollenberger, a commercial real estate specialist: The East Valley for me is home, where I live and I do my work. The vacancy rate is just under 7 percent in those areas as opposed to other areas of Metro Phoenix that are in the 20 percent and 30 percent vacancy rates.”

The San Diego Downtown News in California. “After years of a housing shortage crisis, the region is facing a new crisis of missed rent and broken leases amid the economic downturn due to coronavirus. An analysis from global advisory firm Stout Risius Ross found 40% of renter households in the U.S. are at risk of eviction as eviction moratoriums wind down.”

“As for commercial real estate, experts paint a grim picture. Jason Hughes, the CEO of Hughes Marino, said over one-third of office space in Downtown San Diego is vacant with some buildings 99% empty, which could lead to foreclosures in the future.”

The Mojave Desert News in California. “An planned sale approval of the Silver Saddle Ranch property and surrounding Galileo Project lots could unravel should a judge approve a request to cancel the escrow during an Aug. 27 court hearing in San Diego. In an update on Aug. 4, the receiver Thomas W. McNamara reported he had received a complaint from Rick Jones regarding the sales process and interaction with the real estate broker handling the sale. Jones owns several California City businesses.”

“The Galileo Project consists of around 1,020 acres of land involved in a fraudulent land sale scheme. Silver Saddle Ranch and Resort was used as a ‘marketing centerpiece’ that bilked $30 million from thousands of investors who purchased undeveloped land between 2011 and 2019, according to the California Department of Business Oversight. The resort itself was not part of the Galileo Project.”

“Silver Saddle Ranch was at the heart of a massive land sale fraud, where defendants were accused of selling 1,020 acres of land to more than 2,000 people — largely Filipino, Chinese or Latino immigrants — for undeveloped land that later was deemed useless. The California Department of Business Oversight launched an investigation into the scheme in 2019 and took the defendants to court.”

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  1. ‘The market’s abundance of newer Class-A properties is largely to blame for the decline. ‘Housing is essential, but the amount of Class-A new supply in the pipeline will face challenging lease-up times…At the other end of the class spectrum, rent collection looms as a huge problem as Congress painfully crafts a second stimulus package’

    I said this was going to get oversupplied. And note again they are counting on a one month free cheese that hasn’t passed.

      1. If I ever win the lottery, Ima gonna bribe every Chinese fortune cookie company to just put one fortune in their cookies: “Realtors are liars.”

  2. ‘As for commercial real estate, experts paint a grim picture. Jason Hughes, the CEO of Hughes Marino, said over one-third of office space in Downtown San Diego is vacant with some buildings 99% empty, which could lead to foreclosures in the future’

    Oh dear…

    Don’t forget all those empty SD condos Jason.

  3. ‘Silver Saddle Ranch was at the heart of a massive land sale fraud, where defendants were accused of selling 1,020 acres of land to more than 2,000 people — largely Filipino, Chinese or Latino immigrants — for undeveloped land that later was deemed useless’

    You read that right, useless California land. Eat yer crowz jingle.

    1. Some might ask, what’s CRE got to do with housing? A couple of things. In the 80’s it was a CRE crash that eliminated millions of jobs, destroyed lenders and resulted in millions of house foreclosures. Two, credit is all tied together. When lenders of all stripes are getting their a$$es kicked, it’s going to change all lending. And now, bring on the lawyers.

      1. $eems like there i$ a lotta Ace$ in this here deck of card$!

        “When lender$ of all stripe$ are getting their a$$es kicked … ”

        $helter.$hack.loan.lender$ keep pulling Ace$.outoftheir.arse$!

        30yr fixed @ 2.35% = where.do.eye.$ign?

      2. And now, bring on the lawyers.

        In a perfect world, the lawyers would be slapping our captured and complicit regulators, enforcers, and policymakers with lawsuits for their culpability in the CRE bust.

    2. ” … useless California land. ” … hehhehehheeee

      1$t financial mi$take clue?
      The article is from a local New$ rag called: THEE.MOJAVE.DE$ERT!

      2nd financial $ucker clue?

      “… defendant$ were accused of $elling 1,020 acres of land to more than 2,000 people — largely Filipino, Chinese or Latino immigrant$”

      (i$ knot wanker.banker$ & real.e$tate $helter.$hack.$ellers $addled with gloriou$ merit$ titled : “Profe$$ional” & “Bidne$$.Ethic$”)

  4. San Diego, CA Housing Prices Crater 20% YOY As One Broker Shared, “Rent A House For Half The Monthly Cost. Buy It Later Because Prices And Rental Rates Are Plunging.”

    https://www.zillow.com/san-diego-ca-92109/home-values/

    *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

    As one broker conceded, “Don’t buy a house now because you’re getting burned. Prices Are plunging.”

    1. There are white elephant corporate campuses all over the suburbs, all over the country.

      And yet the next round of mega-corps decided to replicate them, often in cities.

    2. I wonder what’s going on — if anything — with Amazon’s vaunted HQ2, the darling of Arlington.

      1. article in Seattle Times today –
        Amazon might start putting some people in smaller buildings in the suburbs – instead of downtown

  6. I think a lot of people, if they’re unable to pay, what they’re doing is moving out and moving either back home or moving in with other people

    I’ve been seeing more and more of my colleagues turn up “back home” at spots all across the country on Zoom calls. Since there seems to be no end in site here in California, people are going back to their parents rather than keep their expensive apartments here in LA.

    Meanwhile, we are in the middle of a build out of a new office in a high rise on the Miracle Mile that we signed the lease for six months ago. Even though we are supposed to be ready for occupancy in September, we have no idea when we’ll be back in the office or how many people but we’ll be paying full rent on the space. D’oh!

    I overheard that the building itself is at maybe 10% occupancy. A couple of medical offices remain open and a group of radio stations are there, but that’s about it. Plenty of street parking along Wilshire Blvd and along the side streets – something I thought I’d never see in LA.

    1. My guess is that for these Class C properties, “back home” is El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. Almost nobody in a Class C apartment is doing their jobs over Zoom. And I suspect most of them didn’t get $2400/month either.

      1. “My guess is that for these Class C propertie$, “back home” is El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.”

        Yeah, on.accounts there ain’t no Cla$$ C apt$ occupant$ to bee’$ found anywhers’$ between Jackson, MS … & … Mobile, Al … & Tallahassee, Fl. that have U$A birth as their Motherland.

          1. “ I’m pretty sure I’ve lived in some class D stuff a time or two along the way.‘

            I resemble that remark.

  7. I biked into Lower Manhattan today to mail something, because Brooklyn is where the federal government sucks money out of to support postal service elsewhere in the U.S.

    There was a row of empty stores on Church Street, all boarded up. Riots? High rent blight? Shutdowns?

    Then I saw the plywood in what had been upper floor buildings. Someone had driven everyone out to make room for a development. Uh oh!

    This is not far from where I live. Only $1 million. Want to move in?

    https://www.zillow.com/homes/570-16th-Street,-brooklyn-ny_rb/30670572_zpid/

    I feel bad for the owners, who bought this building hoping to renovate and move in. Bubble victims. I’ve been pleading with young people I know not to buy for years.

    1. Well…. as a noted economist said so eloquently, “I can ask $50k for my run down 10 year old Chevy pickup but where is the buyer at that price? So it is with all depreciating assets like houses and cars.”

      1. Looks like the curb cut is for the row of houses on 11th Avenue. So what you might have is a 15 foot wide lot, parking on the street.

        (For those of you from the rest of the country, my house is 17 feet wide. It is 223, and the next house is 223A, because the city’s plans assumed 20 foot wide lots, and there weren’t enough addresses. There are also 16, 15, and 13-foot-wide row houses in the neighborhood. If you think the Sunbelt and Suburbs were built by private sector developers and the older cities by government regulation, think again. The man who built my neighborhood from 1900 to 1920, by the way, was Congressman Calder).

    3. Sex offenders at Upper West Side hotel will likely extend their stay

      By Derick Waller
      Wednesday, August 5, 2020

      UPPER WEST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) — A handful of convicted “sexually violent” level 2 sex offenders who recently moved into an Upper West Side hotel that is now set up as a homeless shelter will likely stay there, over the objections of neighbors.

      Neighbors like Jenna McIntyre Cohan, a mother of three children all under the age of 10, said she was concerned because the Hotel Belleclaire at 77th and Broadway is located just one block away from her children’s school, P.S. 87, at 77th and Amsterdam.

      “It’s dangerous, it’s horrifying, and it’s a very real threat,” Cohan said. “If you are a registered sex offender or if you are bringing drugs into the neighborhood with children, that’s what people have a problem with.”

      As of Friday afternoon, New York’s sex offender registry listed 18 sex offenders living at the hotel.

      https://abc7ny.com/upper-west-side-hotel-homeless-shelter-registered-sex-offenders-belleclaire/6345284/

    4. ” …is where the federal government $ucks money out of to $upport po$tal $ervice el$ewhere in the U.$. ”

      On.accounts a light.colored farmer on the rural outskirts of Beatrice, NE, should just wait for the pony.express to deliver their Mail & $ocial.$ecurity.paid medication.

  8. Denver has a serious homeless problem (do not buy a house in Denver, you will be very sorry if you do):

    “Meanwhile downtown, authorities have swept two large encampments in recent weeks — one in front of the Capitol where tents once numbered close to 200 and the other an 80-tent town surrounding Morey Middle School. Another sweep is planned for Monday near the Denver Art Museum, a camp that has grown since people sleeping a few blocks away in Lincoln Park were pushed out.

    As city crews have cleaned out camps, using shovels and garbage trucks to pick up tents, coolers and other possessions, more tents have popped up in other parts of Capitol Hill and northeast of downtown in Park Hill.

    It’s a relocation of tents, a shifting of people who are homeless during the pandemic from one bed to another, a strategy that Denver Homeless Out Loud organizer Terese Howard calls a game of “whack-a-mole.” And it’s pushing homeless advocates, the business community and residents of multiple Denver neighborhoods to ask for deeper solutions to homelessness.”

    https://coloradosun.com/2020/08/12/homelessness-in-denver/

    Downtown Denver is literally a shithole.

    1. deeper solutions to homelessness

      If we’re going to work on “deeper solutions” it seems like first we have to think hard about the people who have optimized the current situation for themselves and what we’re willing and able to do to get them to change. If we don’t have the will to force change on them then we’re wasting time and energy even thinking about the problem. And remember whatever you subsidize you get more of.

      What is the best solution for those who can’t produce and can’t manage their lives? And what is the best solution for those who won’t produce and prefer to manage their lives by taking advantage of help intended for the can’ts? And what’s the best solution for the predators that hide among the first two groups? Can we even tell them apart?

      1. I read a quote one time about being homeless. It said something like “If you don’t already have an alcohol or drug problem when you become homeless, you will.”

        1. “If you don’t already have an alcohol or drug problem when you become homeless, you will.”

          Sounds kind of like enlisting in the army in a combat division. Maybe that’s why so many veterans become homeless…it feels so familiar.

          1. Most of the guys in the combat arms are fairly squared away. It’s the support branches where you find the real riffraff, and those probably make up the bulk of the future homeless vets, since a high percentage are lowlifes even during their “service.”

          2. It’s the support branches where you find the real riffraff

            Sure. But I saw tons of them at the 101st even though they weren’t 11Bs. Regardless, pretty much everybody there was on the road to alcoholism. Hammered at the shelter might not feel that much different than hammered in the barracks.

    2. What is the best solution for those who can’t produce and can’t manage their lives?

      Unfortunately, the best solution — that is, to basically sweep them off to gov-run facilities to manage their lives for them — is likely Unconstitutional. Such facilities would basically have to be minimum-security prisons.

        1. Homeless living in RVs and cars is a different kind of homeless. These are the ones with jobs, but the job doesn’t pay enough to buy or rent housing in the area where the jobs are. They can manage their lives, perhaps at a low level, but they are off the streets. There are different deep solutions for that, most likely centered around gov workforce housing. Just prove you have a job and don’t trash the place, and gov will subsidy the housing. I don’t mind paying taxes for that.

          1. What about a parking lot for those homeless in your neighborhood? Encinitas has one of those.

    3. the problem is that many areas that middle class and upper middle class stay do not see the homeless. Think Centennial or Lowry or …

      My in-laws just dont see the problems unless they drive to specific areas – and thus they dont go there anymore

    4. “do not buy a house in Denver”

      Same here in Portland, goon. Not sure why you were even considering a house here.

      There must have been some sweeps recently, as tent cities have disappeared along a few popular commercial districts I pass through daily.

  9. ‘You have to enforce contracts or people can’t rely upon anything,’ she said.

    Bingo. If the precedent of gub’mint interjecting itself into contract law is allowed to stand, no “investor” in their right mind will touch rental housing. The unintended consequences will be disastrous.

  11. Define irony: remember the iconic 1984 Apple ad where the girl throws a sledgehammer through a screen projecting Big Brother to the mindless drones? Now Apple, along with Google, Facebook, and the rest of the creepy Orwellian big tech companies, has become what the upstart company was allegedly challenging back in 1984.

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

    1. I remember the ad. And I’ve thought of it many times in recent years. Irony, indeed.

    2. Plus one.

      The economic issue is this — is the fact that another challenger MIGHT arise in the future enough to keep the hegemons innovating and providing good value to customers?

      Or can they use their market power to squash new competitors, and become what Apple accused IBM of being — my gosh, it’s 36 years ago!

    3. This has been providing all the popcorn for us today. Epic totally baited Apple and Google, and had their suit filed within 30 minutes of fortnight being delisted. They’re making a serious play to attack the platform provider’s cut away.

      Of interest is that representing Epic in this matter is Christine Varney, a former FTC commissioner and head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division under President Obama. Epic has the deep pockets to fund a toe-to-toe with Apple and Google, though I suspect it’ll take 6 years to resolve.

      I’ll just say that I know Mr. Sweeney from way back in the day, as does my friend who emailed him today when this dropped. His response – while saying nothing – made it clear to us this was the opening of a chess match.

  12. Silver shorts, aka the Fed’s bullion bank accomplices, got crushed today. It was a thing of beauty.

    Silver, Bitchez!

    (Just had to put that out there.)

  13. Since we are enduring a pandemic, the Roaring Twenties replay must be right around the corner!

    The Tell
    Stocks could be melting up like they did in the Roaring ’20s, strategist says — we all know what happened next
    Published: Aug. 13, 2020 at 2:19 p.m. ET
    By Shawn Langlois
    The 1920s were going swimmingly until they weren’t.
    Getty

    Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

    Ed Yardeni, chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research, applied those words to what, for most observers, has to feel like a unique climate for playing the market these days.

    But that is not necessarily the case, according to Yardeni.

    “We live in interesting, though not unprecedented, times,” he wrote in a blog post. “The Roaring 1920s could be a precedent for the Roaring 2020s.”

    For instance, he compared the coronavirus pandemic to the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed an estimated 50 million people and infected some 500 million around the world.

    “The good news is that the bad news during the previous precedent was followed by the Roaring 20s,” Yardeni wrote. “So far, the 2020s has started with the pandemic, but there are plenty of years left for the prosperous 1920s to become a precedent for the current decade.”
    …

    2. “The good news is that the bad news during the previous precedent was followed by the Roaring 20s,” Yardeni wrote.

      What a crock. Comparisons between the world now and the world in the 1920s are completely spurious. Since 2009, the central banks have benefited the few at the expense of the many. Things might be “roaring” if you’re a Wall Street banker or hedge fund manager riding the Fed’s Ponzi markets to new heights, but for the 99% all that money printing is bringing only unaffordable housing, rising inflation, and the destruction of their standard of living.

  14. A Pirate Looks At Forty · Jimmy Buffett

    https://youtu.be/5M7gijb_1JQ

    Jimmy Buffett Lyrics

    “A Pirate Looks At Forty”

    Yes, I am a pirate two hundred years too late
    The cannons don’t thunder there’s nothin’ to plunder
    I’m an over forty victim of fate
    Arriving too late, arriving too late

    I’ve done a bit of smugglin’
    I’ve run my share of grass
    I made enough money to buy Miami
    But I pissed it away so fast
    Never meant to last, never meant to last

    https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jimmybuffett/apiratelooksatforty.html

  15. I can’t get over the recklessness of turning shelter into a speculative asset. These policies are insidious, and the death knell of the country. They continue, unabated. And there’s Jerome Powell, promising not only more of the same which brought us to where we are right now, but to ramp up inflation long and hard – you know, to stick it deep into the cavities of everybody except the wealthy. This stuff is diabolical, and nobody’s even talking about it. We have “fake news” instead.

    1. the country

      It is by no means better in other countries. Across the border from me in Canada it is crazy. A person of average means absolutely cannot afford even a modest house.

      From Greaterfool yesterday:

      “Buy a house off the Internet? That you never walked through? Based on a creative realtor’s description of ‘a chef’s kitchen… 10+++ spa-like master retreat bathroom… meticulous attention to detail… on a coveted street..’? And with photos that can make a beater property look like Martha Stewart just moved out?”

      I will add that it takes a no-conditions bid way over asking to “win something smaller than my original starter home. Insane.

  16. Today’s WaPo has a glowing article that Kamala Harris is going out on the campaign trail to wow the black women, while Biden is staying home in Delaware “because of concerns for coronavirus.” I really don’t know how this election is going to turn out.

    1. She is not “African American” her parents are from Jamaica and India. Just a race hustling fraud like Obama who as the son of a Kenyan immigrant and a white American mother does not have roots in this country prior to 1865.

      1. ‘About two thirds of mortgage experts polled by Bankrate expect rates to rise in the coming week. “Higher-than-expected inflation readings have jolted bond yields out of the past few weeks’ tight range,” said Greg McBride, Bankrate’s chief financial analyst. “Expect a bump in mortgage rates to follow.”

        ‘With none of the experts predicting another drop, the remaining third expect rates to stay the same next week. “The rally we have enjoyed got tired, and the most recent gains were given back,” said James Sahnger, a mortgage planner at C2 Financial Corporation in Jupiter, Florida.’

        https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/30-year-mortgage-rate-edges-up-freddie-mac-reports/ar-BB17VhS2

        1. “For the first time in U.S. history, American consumers are facing an imminent economic collapse because of political gridlock in Washington D.C.,” said LegalShield CEO Jeff Bell. “The earlier actions of Congress and the Federal Reserve forestalled a full meltdown of the U.S. economy, but without additional economic aid now our data suggest that we are on the precipice of an epic wave of small business and personal bankruptcies. In July, total intakes – consumer inquiries into specific legal services – surpassed 90,000 for the first month since January and were at the second highest level in nearly eight years, since August 2012. We are setting new record intakes each month around landlord-tenant, billing and employment issues, showing the pain is only worsening.”

          https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-consumers-facing-imminent-economic-140000138.html

          Larry?

          1. “The earlier actions of Congress and the Federal Reserve forestalled a full meltdown of the U.S. economy, but without additional economic aid now our data suggest that we are on the precipice of an epic wave of small business and personal bankruptcies.

            The globalist media is really driving home the central themes of The Narrative, with “The Fed saved us” and “We need more Fed action” being the most prominent. Never mind that the Fed’s actions have benefited only the financial oligarchy at the expense of everyone else: the sheeple have been conditioned to mindlessly believe MSM lies and propaganda.

        2. “Higher-than-expected inflation readings have jolted bond yields out of the past few weeks’ tight range,”

          But we’re told there’s “no inflation.”

      2. European Ponzi markets are all in the red as the drumbeat of terrible economic fundamentals is starting to overwhelm the ECB money-printing. It remains to be seen if Jerome “Janet” Powell can keep throwing enough trillions in printing press “stimulus” into the Fed’s Ponzi markets to keep them from cratering.

  20. A small but stable town in upstate SC ….This is happening now ….Our lower to middle priced houses that are listed for sale are snapped up for almost immediate sale ,some are being bought without being seen at all…almost always from someone from a big city ….often for cash …Our realtors are happy ,but almost no one else is , we don’t want city problems moving here.Like Asheville
    We see Asheville NC , They always thought they were so great,and enlightened … Riots and marching and shop smashing goes on regularly there ,almost none of it reported on ,except locally , we don’t need that

    2. Tucker slams Democrats, media for their silence as residents flee America’s cities in droves

      People are running away … There’s no mystery about why this is happening’

      FOX NEWS FLASH
      Published 11 hours ago

      Political leaders in America’s cities have abandoned the citizens they swore to protect and left them at the mercy of violent actors, Tucker Carlson said Thursday.

      “American cities collapsed, buildings burned, law enforcement vanished, criminal mobs rampaged unchallenged, stealing things and hurting people,” The “Tucker Carlson Tonight” host began. “Drug-addicted vagrants took over the streets, parks and public transportation. Anyone who could leave urban America did.

      “In New York alone, many hundreds of thousands of people, possibly a million people fled the city. Essentially the entire tax base of America’s largest metro area disappeared in just a few months, but here’s the remarkable thing — our political class said barely a word as it happened,” he went on.

      Carlson called the mainstream media’s failure to properly depict the extent of the ongoing violence in — and subsequent exodus from — America’s urban areas “bizarre”

      According to Carlson, Americans are outraged over what is happening to their communities and are fleeing places where they lived all their lives while too many leaders sit silently.

      “People are running away. Moving companies say they can’t keep up with demand,” he said. “There’s no mystery about why this is happening.”

      https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-democrats-media-americas-dying-cities

      1. This is the most important story of 2020.

        Housing (this is the HBB) and CRIME. Real Journalists can’t narrate their way out of this, it’s happening, and it’s not gonna stop happening.

  22. Real Journalists promote a forced isolation narrative:

    “Flare-ups from Australia to Japan show the world hasn’t learned an early lesson from the coronavirus crisis: to stop the spread, those with mild or symptom-free coronavirus infections must be forced to isolate, both from their communities and family.

    The failure to effectively manage contagious people with mild or no symptoms is a driving factor behind some of the world’s worst resurgences. But lessons from Italy, South Korea and others that have successfully contained large-scale outbreaks show that there’s a tried-and-tested approach to cutting off transmission: move them out of their homes into centralized facilities while they get over their infections, which usually doesn’t require longer than a few weeks.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/forced-isolation-may-be-the-only-way-to-stop-resurgence-of-virus/ar-BB17VSNH?ocid=uxbndlbing

    1. Right, and how do you distinguish between symptom-free coronavirus and no coronavirus? Or coronavirus-free symptoms for that matter?

      1. how do you distinguish between

        A lottery system would work as well as anything else we’ve got.

    2. Real Journalists promote a forced isolation narrative:

      That’s one way to relocate problematic deplorables into gulags.

  23. The Financial Times
    Peter Wells 42 minutes ago
    Emoticon
    Florida reports more than 200 daily deaths for third time in four days

    Florida reported its fifth biggest one-day jump in coronavirus fatalities on Friday, the third time in four days its death toll has risen by more than 200.

    A further 229 people died in Florida, the state’s health department revealed this morning, up from 149 on Thursday. The state set a record daily jump of 277 deaths on Tuesday.

    That has brought the seven-day average up to 175 deaths a day, having hit a peak rate of 185 10 days ago.

    Over the past 24 hours, 6,148 people in Florida tested positive for coronavirus, down slightly from 6,236 yesterday and compared with an average over the past week of 6,459 new infections a day.
    …

    1. A further 229 people died in Florida, the state’s health department revealed this morning, up from 149 on Thursday.

      Perpetuating the sham, only two of these reported deaths occurred on Thursday. All the rest occurred in the past two weeks. It has never been much over 150 in a day. The news never seems to mention this is people dying who also tested positive, not with Covid as most probable cause of death.

      There is some “positive” in all this contrivance. A month ago the number of people testing positive in Florida was 15,000/day. That was their peak and it is now down to 6,000 per day.

  24. Will an autopsy show yet another coronavirus death?

    Howard Mudd, Legendary Colts Offensive Line Coach, Passes Away

    Howard Mudd, who spent 11-plus seasons as a legendary offensive line coach with the Indianapolis Colts, passed way today due to injuries suffered in a tragic motorcycle accident. He was 78 years old.

    Aug 12, 2020 at 05:01 PM
    Andrew Walker
    Colts.com Writer

    1. All of my friends had mini bikes and dirt bikes growing up except one whose father was an orthopedic surgeon.

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