The Reality Is Not Everyone Is Going To Come Out The Other Side Of This

1. ‘It was projected that the bankruptcies we are seeing today would occur over a 10-year period. We didn’t think they’d happen over just 10 weeks’

   Nobody can say with certainty how bad this is going to get.

   1. “say with certainty”

      Realtors are liars.

   2. Nobody can say with certainty how bad this is going to get.

      Got an anecdote to share. Last weekend I stopped by my local Sportsman’s Warehouse store to buy some bear spray, since bears are a real problem this year on some of the mountain trails around Green Mountain Falls, where I like to hike. The gun counter was busier than I’ve ever seen it, and the ammo section had been picked clean of most “military” calibers, i.e. 5.56mm and 9mm. But the thing that really caught my attention was a chance encounter with a father and son, new “preppers,” who were looking to stock up on freeze-dried food. They said they’d hit REI and other outdoor-supply stores, and most of the shelves were empty. I’ve seen panic buying of guns and ammo before, i.e. after Obama got elected, but I’ve never heard of freeze dried food disappearing like that. That stuff is expensive and doesn’t taste all that good, so if people are stockpiling enough of it to cause a shortage, it means there must be a lot of scared, fearful people getting ready for “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”

      1. …it means there must be a lot of scared, fearful people getting ready for “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”

         Probably the DJT Derangement Syndrome when Biden-Harris and their drug hooping, gender dysphoria and store looting constituency loses the election.

         1. I expect my name to be published by the local paper along with anyone else here who gave DJT money.

            My Glock has six mags. I guess the deadline for loading them all is Nov 3.

            1. All of my high-capacity magazines were lost overboard in my recent unfortunate boating accident. Ditto for my guns and ammo. It’s a crying shame, because I wanted so badly to meekly comply once the Biden Administration implements the orders of its globalist moneybags and starts confiscating “assault rifles” (the definition of which will expand to encompass just about any firearm per the diktat of our collectivist commissars).

      2. A bear stole a bunch of freeze dried food from us on a camping hike. They have no trouble opening the packages!

         1. Bear Vault model 550.

            It’s heavy but indestructible. Also good if you have my problem of mice getting inside the car while parked at trailheads.

2. Kinda late….Corbett is calling for better sprinkler systems and fire walls in new construction projects in New Jersey……So the people who just moved in to the other building will want their money back or a major reduction in rent…….
   https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/08/21/fire-tears-through-luxury-building-construction-project-in-somerville-n-j/

3. ‘For the first time in 40 years, we have a tremendous oversupply in housing as families are fleeing the city,’ said one survey respondent. ‘Vacancy rates are killing our business. It’s not even pricing – there is a frightening dearth of demand,’ said another. Landlords also fear the pandemic is the death knell for small mom and pop commercial tenants’

   When I went to UT Arlington to study real estate in the 80’s, DFW had just wrapped up the 4th year in a row as the top CRE market on the planet. It wasn’t so much that we “killed the golden goose”. The boom itself did us in. News started to come out about S&L fraud, then fraud all over the lending market. Didn’t we just learn how much the CMBS market has over-appraised loans?

   I started this blog partly out of concern we were running too hot. People in Sedona were giddy with prices going up month after month. But I remembered. We would watch people try to start a business, and fail. And again. For years, it was almost impossible to get traction.

   ‘Vacancy rates are killing our business. It’s not even pricing – there is a frightening dearth of demand’

   IMO we are being way too nonchalant in how we are going about this. These people running things may not be aware that you can snuff out activity. Sure the oil states came back. But it was a mini-depression, and as I’ve posted articles say here before, the public was snake bit. You can take things for granted. Once malaise sets in it is very hard to pull out of financially and psychologically.

   1. These people running things may not be aware that you can snuff out activity.

      Then again, the people running things may be quite aware of the tremendous economic damage they’re doing, and are snuffing out activity by design to advance their own malign agenda.

      https://www.unz.com/article/lockdowns-coronavirus-and-banks-following-the-money-2/

      It usually makes sense to follow the money when seeking understanding of almost any major change. The strategy of following the money in our current convergence of crises in late summer of 2020 leads us directly to the lockdowns. The lockdowns were first imposed on people in the Wuhan area of China. Then other populations throughout the world were told to “shelter in place,” all in the name of combating the COVID-19 virus.

      Understanding of the enormous impact of the lockdowns is still developing. The lockdowns are proving to pack a far more devastating punch than any other aspect of the strange sequence of events that is making 2020 a year like no other. Even when the issues are narrowed to those of human health, the lockdowns have had, and will continue to have, far more wide-ranging and devastating impacts than the celebrity virus.

      1. It’s an indisputable fact that China sealed off Wuhan from the rest of the country but allowed thousands of people to fly out of its airport around the world. The first case in Arizona was a student who had just arrived from Wuhan.

4. From the last link:

   ‘On Tuesday, when asked about what would happen should the vacancy rate continue to rise, endangering rent stabilized apartments, Mayor Bill de Blasio called the scenario “literally inconceivable to me.”

   “I think it’s a fair question to say, could we be in an unprecedented situation? I think that’s a very fair question,” the mayor told reporters during a virtual news conference. “I do think rent levels are going to start to go down. I think you’re seeing evidence of it already. But it’s a fair question, could it be a legal trigger? Even if that is possible, I don’t have a doubt in my mind that the Legislature will immediately create continuity with our current approach to rent stabilization and rent control.”

   You aren’t going to need rent controls for decades mayor. And you won’t have the revenue to do much either.

   1. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the scenario “literally inconceivable to me.”

      From “Princess Bride” – “Inconceivable!”

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

   2. NYC (as it is run) was and will remain, about income and property tax from the upper middle class and wealthy.

      If enough of these leave through end 2021, there is nothing the City and State can substantially do until they hit bottom and restructure

      Rent stabilization, free healthcare, daycare for the poor, transit services will not matter.

      1. Rent stabilization…. new rules if you lower the stated rent any legal increases start from there……so giving 6 months “free” is not lowering the stated rent.

      2. I think we’ve seen from this, what will happen if vacancies fall below 5%. They’ll change the law to read “10%,” and if it falls below that, “15%.” And repeat as necessary.

5. ‘Early indications are that this pandemic combined with the oversupply that already existed is going to turn this into a serious buyer’s market.’”

   Or a housing bubble implosion.

   1. “…this into a serious buyer’s market….’”

      “…Or a housing bubble implosion….”

      Or both.

      I believe we all agree that R/E prices are due for a serious downturn. (Even here in SoCal).

      But, what is going to replace the revenue lost via property and local taxes? How are bloated local government salaries and pensions going to be funded?

      I wouldn’t be at all surprised that counties and local governments enact a “super tax” to be pitched as “temporary” until the “crisis” is over.

      Of course, the “crisis” is never over if only to be replaced by another “crisis”.

6. Twenty-six luxury condo sales are pending, Condo Vultures’ data shows. It doesn’t help that the shadow rental inventory is also growing, Zalewski said.

   Wha? I thought shadow inventory was a conspiracy theory.

7. ‘When I walk around town, the Financial District and Nob Hill, I see so many closed businesses. It’s going to take a while to come back. From ground level, it looks bleak’

   ‘Workshop Residences, at 797 22nd Street, recently announced that it was permanently closing, Dwight said. He predicts 40 to 50 percent of San Francisco’s restaurants will go out of business. ‘Ground floor small retail and restaurant will see high vacancy rate’

   I watched a recent video last night with some restaurant big wigs. I don’t know if they’re right, but they said the restaurant biz was second in employment only to guberment jobs. They projected 50 million permanent lost jobs in the US.

   1. Thats one of the key points.

      [Not talking about the unfortunate folks on skid row, but the folks struggling a couple of rungs above]

      Restaurant work – kitchen, bus boys, cleaning crew was a way for folks struggling to get back into the workforce and make some money. Lowes/HomeDepot/SuperMarkets require references and have real interviews for jobs … But restaurants were a lot more lenient.

      What happens now

      1. If you’ve ever worked in one you’d know there’s a vast network of restaurant vendors, and I’m sure the 50M number includes estimates of their job loss. I went out to eat a few times. Kinda gave it up: it’s not fun anymore.

         1. The last time I went out to eat, at a Vietnamese restaurant, the owner came around and wanted me to sign a sheet listing my contact information (name and phone number) in case (supposedly) health authorities needed to contact me after eating in that restaurant. I refused, because I was skeptical that that was a legitimate requirement – I’ve never been asked to provide my contact information at any other restaurant. The owner got huffy but I still got served. That experience was pretty off-putting and I’ve cut way back on eating out since then.

   2. “I don’t know if they’re right, but they said the restaurant biz was second in employment only to guberment jobs.”

      I prefer to look at “family supporting” employment with health care and 401k contributions like skilled blue collar on up to the educated professionals. There’s too many people trying to raise children while working a 7-11 or gas station snack counter jobs, and they can’t do it without being on some acronym program.

      1. http://housingbubble.blog/?p=3796

         A link in that post:

         “David Rosenberg’s first day of work as an economist was Oct. 19, 1987 – Black Monday, when stock markets plummeted 23 per cent. The crash had a firming effect on the then-27-year-old Bank of Nova Scotia employee (especially as half his department was shortly let go). It taught him always to have a Plan B (and a Plan C), to be as up-to-the-moment as possible, and to stick to the data and resist the herd. He took time out last week to speak to The Globe and Mail’s Ian Brown about divining the financial future.”

         “We had very poor preparation and overextended balance sheets. We just love to pat ourselves on the back in Canada over what a great national balance sheet we had, because we only focused on the federal government. But the provinces, I’d say outside of British Columbia, are up to their eyeballs in debt. Corporations are much the same; the private sector in Canada is massively overextended. The Bank of Canada, every single year in its reviews, would talk about how overextended Canadian consumers were, over 60 per cent of GDP. And yet we go into a pandemic with record low savings rates, and record high debt loads.”

         “When you really think about it, society is hanging on by a thread. And the thread is called massive government deficits. We’re hanging on here because the government is borrowing record amounts of money that’s been largely financed from the central banks to pay people not to work. It’s necessary, but that’s really where the story is. There’s no way you can live with this situation. The glue holding the system together is the fact that unskilled, uneducated people laid off from their jobs were deemed to be non-essential. We learned how much of the economy turns out to be non-essential.”

         “The government decided who was going to stay open and who was going to be locked down. So a bar, non-essential. Restaurant, non-essential. Movie theatre, non-essential. There were some parts of the production sector that were essential. The medical sector, some stores. It was really quite subjective. I never realized so much of the economy was non-essential. And that’s because we really built an economy that has hinged on conspicuous consumption. And I would say it’s probably even more acute in the United States.”

         1. When you really think about it, society is hanging on by a thread. And the thread is called massive government deficits. We’re hanging on here because the government is borrowing record amounts of money that’s been largely financed from the central banks to pay people not to work.

            Bingo. The central banks have dropped all pretense being responsible stewards of the financial sector. The Fed, in particular, has since October 2019, when it started massively pumping liquidity via its repo operations to forestall a 2008-style financial crash, is now solely focused on levitating its asset bubbles and Ponzi markets, even at the expense of destroying the real economy where the non-elites have to earn a living. But I’m seeing more and more indications that these Keynesian fraudsters are losing control and that true price discovery is starting to assert itself no matter how much the Fed escalates its market rigging and money printing.

            1. A Battle Royale is shaping up in the precious metals markets between true price discovery and the Fed’s market rigging via its bullion bank accomplices, aka Commercial Speculators. The latter have taken out massive short positions in gold (more than 113,000 contracts, each for 5,000 Troy Ounces of gold) and now they’re facing financial wipeout if gold keeps rising. Last week they only covered 49 of those contracts, which indicates they are either counting on the Fed to jawbone up the dollar (a reliable past Fed trick whenever gold starting looking too perky) or, more likely, they can’t procure enough physical gold at current prices to cover their shorts, so they’re hoping desperately that the Fed will extricate them from their predicament. Note that the paper price of gold (set by the market makers) is a joke, since a) none of the online retailers are selling gold for anywhere near the notional paper price; and b) most online dealers are completely sold out of gold bullion coins, so the notional prices is immaterial in any case.

               With more and more former sheeple seeing through the Fed’s con games and losing faith in the dollar, demand for physical gold has been soaring. If demand for physical gold (vice make believe paper gold in the ETFs) continues to increase, the “Commercial Speculators” will be facing insolvency, as they need to come up with 560 MILLION ounces of physical gold to cover their shorts – and getting their hands on that much gold at real-world vice rigged-market prices is going to be virtually impossible, barring some dramatic intervention by the Fed, i.e. sharp interest rate hikes to spike the dollar and tank gold (and the Fed’s Ponzi markets).

               https://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/deacmxsf.htm

            2. I stand corrected: the figures I cited above (short contracts) are for silver. For gold, the Commercial Speculators are short 391,282 contracts of 100 Troy ounces of gold each. That’s 39,128,200 oz, whereas silver shorts are in excess of 590 million oz. My apologies for the error.

               My premise still stands, however: the bullion banks that have taken out these massive short positions in precious metals could face financial ruin if they are forced to cover them with physical gold and silver at current or higher prices. Since most of the bullion banks are also the Fed’s primary dealer banks, whose trading desks have repeatedly been caught manipulating the price of precious metals, the risks to the larger banking system could be considerable.

         2. The more I read that Rosenberg excerpt, the less sense it makes.

            “I never realized so much of the economy was non-essential.”

            Is this sarcasm? Most people noticed exactly the opposite – how much of our economy IS essential. The button store is essential, if what you really need is a button, but the button store is closed by gov’t decree.

            “And that’s because we really built an economy that has hinged on conspicuous consumption”

            This is a weird leap of logic to make, turning arbitrary government designations of essential vs. non-essential into an indictment of consumer culture? Sounds like blaming the victim to me.

            “how overextended Canadian consumers were, over 60 per cent of GDP”

            Somehow, I don’t think it was a haircut, button or night out at the movies that put consumers over the top debt-wise.

            “The glue holding the system together is the fact that unskilled, uneducated people laid off from their jobs were deemed to be non-essential.”

            What does this even mean?

            1. Somehow, I don’t think it was a haircut, button or night out at the movies that put consumers over the top debt-wise

               Unsustainable housing debt.

      2. “The glue holding the system together is the fact that unskilled, uneducated people laid off from their jobs were deemed to be non-essential. We learned how much of the economy turns out to be non-essential.”

         Little wonder that in poor countries the young men aspire to be gang members while the young women aspire to be prostitutes.

   3. “so many closed businesses”

      Like NYC, SF has had tons of closed and empty storefronts for YEARS. And this was during the glorious boom time, long before the virus.

      From the reports of CRE pain that only emerged after the virus, I’m guessing it’s not city-destroying vacancies that are causing landlords to hurt, but the credit event Ben keeps reminding us about. CRE landlords didn’t mind vacancies before. But now that they can’t refi vacant property on the fiction of ever-higher theoretical rents, closed and empty businesses are suddenly a problem.

   4. “ They projected 50 million permanent lost jobs in the US.‘

      According to http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219 the working age population (estimated) as of July 1, 2019 is 200,882,588.076. (I took the population estimate and subtracted the 38.8% that is either under 18 or over 65.)

      50 million lost jobs is one-quarter of the working-age population! We are in big trouble.

8. “A new national report shows that the hotel industry is facing a historic wave of foreclosures as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to devastate small business hotel owners and its workforce.

   As jobless people stop paying their mortgages, auto loans, etc., will the cascading defaults finally overwhelm the Fed’s Ponzi markets and asset bubbles?

9. ‘the hotel industry is facing a historic wave of foreclosures as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to devastate small business hotel owners and its workforce. Since the beginning of the pandemic the hotel segment has faced a historic number of delinquencies and is the most heavily hit sector of the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market. The report…shows that the percentage of loans that is 30 or more days delinquent is 23.4 percent as of last month—the highest percentage on record. By comparison, the percentage of hotel loans that were 30 or more days delinquent at the end of 2019 was 1.3 percent’

   ‘From a financial perspective, the report shows that $20.6 billion in hotel CMBS loans were 30 or more days delinquent as of July, compared to $1.15 billion as of December 2019. The highest volume of delinquent hotel loans during the Great Financial Crisis was $13.5 billion. The current percentage of loans that are delinquent now exceeds the highest level during the Great Financial Crisis by 53 percent’

   I can’t possibly post all the CRE crater. There’s a weekend topic later today you won’t want to miss.

   ‘‘There is a severe, significant impact on the hotel, and I do not see it coming back quickly…People are generally afraid’

   Haven’t we been bombarded with fear, 24/7 for months now?

   1. Haven’t we been bombarded with fear, 24/7 for months now?

      I recently heard from a friend that they know people who have not left their houses for 6 months. I was shocked.

      1. Are their groceries delivered?

10. The report, compiled by Trepp, shows that the percentage of loans that is 30 or more days delinquent is 23.4 percent as of last month—the highest percentage on record.

    Is that a lot?

11. The current percentage of loans that are delinquent now exceeds the highest level during the Great Financial Crisis by 53 percent.”

    And yet the Fed’s Ponzi markets are hitting all-time highs. One of these things is not like the other.

    1. I like listening to Sven Henrich. He nails it.

       1. +1

12. “cash buyers are not looking to pay market value”

    This is a plea for sympathy? Go kick rocks, looser.

13. ‘Commercial tenants, like residential renters, have a new reprieve from evictions. But the new guidance is unfolding in the same maddening way — including dueling orders from the governor and the courts — as the residential-evictions process has. On Thursday, state courts suspended evictions for commercial tenants until at least September 4, but only hours later, Governor Cuomo announced that he signed an executive order extending the moratorium on “COVID-related commercial evictions” until September 20. That new order, which the governor has yet to publicly release, clearly contradicts aspects of the Office of Court Administration’s directive, leaving business owners and attorneys holding the bag.’

    ‘Other Stuff Going on Around Town: The rats are taking over: Between city budget cuts and more people creating more trash at home, there has been a surge in rat complaints to 311 since March.’

    https://ny.curbed.com/2020/8/21/21377947/ny-broker-fees-lawsuit-rentals-news-pied-a-terre-tax

14. ‘We’ve seen it fluctuate from two percent up to four, middle fours, but I don’t think it’s ever eclipsed five percent,’ said Jay Martin, the Executive Director of the Community Housing Improvement Program.”

    Stick around, Jay. You don’t have long to wait.

    1. And like California, what’s the plan? Federal free cheese. The US guberment doesn’t have any money. They have to borrow billions every week to keep the lights on. If that’s the plan you guys are fooked.

15. ‘Barely two months ago, the 49-year-old Antonio’s Nut House reopened triumphantly after a monthslong closure with a new outdoor patio, new chef in the kitchen and hope for a reimagined future that included food pop-ups.’

    ‘But amidst the economic losses of the pandemic and uncertainty about when the California Avenue dive bar will be able to serve people inside, the owners have decided to close the Nut House again, at least for now.’

    ‘”We’re losing a lot of money. It’s just too difficult to conform to all the regulations and maintain our pricing,” said Jess Montooth, who took over the dive bar with his siblings after their father, Tony Montooth, died in 2017. “Our only hope of returning the business is if indoor dining or indoor bars are approved. Other than that, we’re done.”

    ‘Montooth said outdoor dining has been going OK, but that business has fallen due to the summer heat wave (and now, poor air quality). Construction work on a parking lot behind the bar also negatively impacted business, he said. They ran through a $80,000 federal loan through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) quickly, he said.’

    ‘The lease on the 321 S. California Ave. bar expires in December. The Montooth siblings had been hopeful they would extend the lease or find a new home for the Nut House before then, but the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic feels too great.’

    “If we knew in three months you can open back up, we’d stay open,” Montooth said. “We need the money. Just with the forecast being, no answers for anybody — it’s hard.”

    https://www.paloaltoonline.com/blogs/p/2020/08/21/palo-altos-last-dive-bar-the-beloved-nut-house-calls-it-quits-for-now-we-just-cant-afford-it-anymore

    1. They ran through a $80,000 federal loan through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) quickly, he said.’

       Raise your hand if you think that PPP loan is ever getting paid back.

16. ‘CHIP members report that they are significantly cutting rents and offering multiple months of free rent, and are still struggling to attract tenants.’”

    Then get to sawin’ and slashin’ like you mean it, greedy landlords. Rents don’t cover your costs? Then sell for whatever you can get so that true price discovery can finally impose itself on the Fed’s asset bubbles and shelter can become affordable again instead of being a speculative commodity.

17. Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)
    Seattle metro on pace for huge drop in new apartments,
    report says – Puget Sound
    Apartment construction had been slowing down in the Seattle area well
    18 hours ago

18. Speaking of The Nut House …

    San Pedro, CA used to have a restaurant/bar called The Nut House and they would do such colorful things as serving the customers beer in bedpans.

    A favorite attraction was the Ladies restroom, the reason being painted on the wall a full scale representation of Adam and Eve. The feature that made the restroom a favorite attraction was the fig leaf that covered Adam’s unmentionables; The fig leaf was painted on a plywood flap that was hinged to the wall. All one had to do was raise the leaf if one wanted to view Adam’s unmentionables. However, when the leaf was raised a light went off in the restaurant alerting everyone inside the restaurant as to exactly what the emerging occupant did while she was in there.

    1. 🤣😂🤣

19. Hotel industry facing historic wave of foreclosures
    ahhh They built multiple junk motels at about every highway intersection in the country and now they are crying because no one is staying at them?? Cry me a river

    1. I’ve worked in the hotel business almost my whole life and overbuilding is very common. No matter what city I’ve lived in overbuilding always goes in cycles.

20. This from an article linked here yesterday.

    “Following months of negotiations, and a last-minute price adjustment related to the pandemic, financier Michael Price sold his nearly 9,000-square-foot Upper East Side townhouse for $18.8 million in late July…Price and his wife Jennifer Price purchased it for $14 million in 2003, records show.”

    Is that bad? What did I leave out?

    “Following months of negotiations, and a last-minute price adjustment related to the pandemic, financier Michael Price sold his nearly 9,000-square-foot Upper East Side townhouse for $18.8 million in late July, or 51% off its original asking price of $38 million in 2016. Mr. Price and his wife Jennifer Price purchased it for $14 million in 2003, records show.”

    Perhaps that was the problem. That and anyone who actually paid $38 million for a similar property.

    1. “…Price and his wife Jennifer Price…”

       Wow, his wife uses his last name. Unreal!

21. I am shocked, shocked! to learn that California officials failed to properly maintain their power grid. Nobody could’ve foreseen that diverting funds from capital investments in infrastructure to Compassion, Inc. patronage and graft rat-holes could result in rolling blackouts.

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-heat-wave-elecrical-grid

22. 40 million unemployed, yet home prices are surging? One of these things is not like the other.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/zillow-real-estate-prices-home-value-growth-increases-july-2020-8

    1. It’s up here in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. Stuff moves fast (under 1.5 mil.) No pain yet that I can see. Low inventory as well.

       There are some places that sit forever, but they are priced crazy.

       1. Are you sure?

          Arlington, VA Housing Prices Crater 15% As Housing Demand Plummets Like Hot Cakes

          https://www.movoto.com/arlington-va/market-trends/

          As one DC area broker asked, “How can we sell a house when builders are selling a new one next door for 20 to 30 percent less?

    2. I’m not sure you realize that all the comment section has been disabled for all yahoo articles. We only have now the official brainwashing propaganda with no discussions or fact checks.
       Of course home sales surged. We had like 50 new sales in June in all Puget Sound region and in July it went up to 70. That’s a substantial increase. They only forgot to mention that sales are down 800% year to year for the same months.
       I closely watched the market for all 3 counties in the area. Home sales are anywhere between a few a day to 30-40 daily now. Major improvement compared to June, but the new listings are 500-1500 a day, depending on the day of the week. At this pace, we will have years of inventory built up p[pretty soon.

       1. I’m not sure you realize that all the comment section has been disabled for all yahoo articles. We only have now the official brainwashing propaganda with no discussions or fact checks.

          Virtually all globalist media sites have either shut down or heavily moderate their comment sections. Truth-tellers are immediately banned, and even mild challenges to The Narrative are forbidden. Which makes it paramount to refuse to subscribe to any site that censors free speech, and donate to sites like this one that are among the dwindling number that still allow reasonably open discussions and the free exchange of ideas.

          1. Fifteen years ago, sites like this were more the rule than the exception. This days, I’m quite amazed, and It’s quite a miracle that a site like this can survive. Try to find another one if you can 🙂
             Propaganda everywhere. Feels like Soviet Union in the sixties.

             1. ‘It’s quite a miracle that a site like this can survive’

                All it takes is money. My Dad used to say that.

             2. @ Ben. We must have grown up in completely different worlds. My dad always said, “Money is not the answer”. And then again, a completely different world where professional status, education, reputation, tradition, virtues defined who you were. Nobody had money and the difference was not made by money.

       2. “I’m not sure you realize that all the comment section has been disabled for all yahoo articles. We only have now the official brainwashing propaganda with no discussions or fact checks.”

          Reddit is copping out too. I gave up on city data years ago due to the hive-mindedness and Reddit is behaving that way. Discourse or even opinions or questions can get you shadow banned if the mods decide they don’t want you playing in their sandbox. Yahoo supposedly was trying put a lid on racism and other bad things. You can see Yahoo for what it is worth now. Scan the article headlines. It reads like TMZ material.

          1. can get you shadow banned

             Such a cowardly act.

23. ‘Following a growing season last year filled with battering rainfall and bitter trade wars, U.S. farmers hoped 2020 would provide them an opportunity to make up some ground. Instead, the situation has grown worse for many as prices remain depressed.’

    “Overall, the trade seems to be coming to the conclusion that…there is still going to be an oversupply of corn in the U.S. and the world,” said Tomm Pfitzenmaier, an analyst with Des Moines, Iowa-based Summit Commodity Brokerage, in a research note Friday.’

    ‘For many U.S. farmers, the prospect of grain prices staying low is untenable. “It’s almost a day-to-day struggle to decide what to do next year,” said Doug Sombke, president of the South Dakota Farmers Union and a farmer of 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans in Brown County, S.D.’

    ‘Mr. Sombke says his local grain elevator is paying $2.87 for a bushel of corn. That is nearly a dollar lower than what he would need to collect to break even. The same is true for his soybeans, for which the elevator is willing to pay roughly $8.50 a bushel.’

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/even-with-a-strong-crop-this-year-u-s-farmers-are-suffering-11598088601?mod=markets_lead_pos1

    1. All that’s needed to cure every ill is a massive repricing of all assets and businesses. It would be extremely painful short term, but then we could get back to a healthy economy. Alas, they are making everything in the long run much worse and more painful by trying to maintain asset price bubbles that cannot be sustained.

24. ‘Since this once-sleepy stretch of Mexico’s Caribbean coast began its transformation into a glitzy resort community 50 years ago, it has thrived by attracting millions of vacationers during its summer and winter seasons.’

    ‘These days, however, there are long stretches of deserted beach. Hotel occupancy has fallen below 30%. Shopping malls are empty. And the tourism industry that helped pull Cancún and its people out of poverty and put them on a more prosperous path is struggling.’

    ‘Samuel González—a 38-year-old who came to Cancún years ago from Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s poorest states, and flourished selling tour packages—says he has been out of work for five months now and worries about what the future holds.’

    “In Cancún there is no economic activity other than tourism,” said Mr. González. “For many, it’s like the end of the world.”

    ‘The global tourism downturn that has accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic hit airlines and hotel chains and hurt hospitality workers around the world. But it is being felt most acutely in the world’s less-developed nations, such as Mexico, where tourism is an important driver of economic development.’

    ‘From Rio de Janeiro to Venice to the Maldives, the global tourism industry is expected to lose more than 100 million jobs, or about one in three tourism jobs world-wide, according to estimates from the trade group World Travel & Tourism Council, or WTTC.’

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-covid-19-clobbers-tourism-millions-lose-a-lifeline-11598104800

    1. The Riviera Maya is doing everything it can to get people to come. But at the same time they are being strict about distancing and face coverings.

       Who wants to go on a vacation where you have to wear a mask?

       From what I have been hearing, Disneyworld’s reopening has been a huge bust, and that they aren’t even getting the limited crowds the were hoping for. Video bloggers keep yammering: “If you hate lines, this is the time to go*.”

       *Oh, but you have to wear a mask all the time while in the parks, except when eating. Sounds like a dream vacation to me.

    2. Well, at those prices, they would have gone down anyway. People just can’t afford it anymore. I went there starting 15 years ago and i saw a tree fold increase in prices. It’s much cheaper in US anymore. I love it, but it’s very expensive. so i will just skip it.

25. This stuff is making me sick:

    The Education Department (ED) confirmed on Friday afternoon that it “fully implements” the president’s Aug. 8 executive memo pausing federally-backed student loan debt for 43 million borrowers, extending the interest-free freeze until the end of the year.

    1. Student loan pause from Trump executive memo confirmed by Education Department

       https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/student-loan-pause-trump-executive-memo-215849366.html

       WTF is Trump doing? He’s gone full Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders.

       1. He’s not forgiving it, he’s just delaying it. Same thing with the payroll tax holiday or whatever. Of course, when everybody has to start up paying again, they’re all going to whine and Biden will make it permanent.

          1. That’s the thing – it sets a precedent. Once people are allowed to stop paying it not only violates contract law, it encourages bad behavior and sets future expectations of debt forgiveness. This is a bad, bad move.

          2. and Biden will make it permanent

             Sooooo … should I go out and buy an expensive vehicle with no down payment, with the expectation that creepy Joe will forgive my loan?

             1. I can’t bring myself to do it, being an ethical person, but I was considering that the best move financially for me may be to convert my entire bank account of cash into gold and silver, buy a house and truck on max credit, then try to game the system when it all melts down. I want my free sh!t, too (not really).

26. This is great entertainment. They’re both crazy as h-e-double-hockey-sticks, but were both hot as Hades back in the day. I’ll have to say, Rose McGowan has been proven to be a straight shooter. She’s been hammering Hollyweird and winning in the courts. These two worked together for over 5 years on “Charmed.” Here, she drops another truth bomb:

    Rose McGowan accused Alyssa Milano of being a “fraud” in a political Twitter feud that began over Joe Biden and the Democratic party.

    The stars exchanged heated words on Friday after McGowan tweeted that presidential nominee Biden and the Democratic National Committee were “monsters” and “frauds.”

    https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/rose-mc-gowan-calls-alyssa-milano-a-fraud-in-political-twitter-feud-get-off-my-coattails-182509487.html

    1. I forgot the best part, where Rose’s claws really came out:

       1) You stole #metoo (a brilliant communication tool, not a movement) from Tarana. You co-opted my movement, the Cultural Reset, for fame, jealous of me for outing my rapist. You made 250k per week on Charmed. “You threw a fit in front of the crew, yelling, ‘They don’t pay me enough to do this sh*t!’ Appalling behavior on the daily. I cried every time we got renewed because you made that set toxic AF. Now, get off my coattails you f*cking fraud.”

       When Patricia Arquette tweeted support for Democrats, McGowan responded, “Drone bomb me” and “F*ck off.”

    2. “What have the Democrats done to solve ANYTHING?” she wrote. “Help the poor? No. Help black & brown people? No. Stop police brutality? No. Help single mothers? No. Help children? No. You have achieved nothing. NOTHING. Why did people vote Trump? Because of you motherf**kers.”

       I’m guessing Kamala Harris does not want to have that conversation.

       https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Is-Kamala-Harris-too-cautious-Let-s-have-that-13793185.php

    3. Rose McGowan

       I never realized she was the hot chick at the club in Encino Man.

27. Bothell, WA Housing Prices Crater 11% YOY As Vancouver, BC, Portland, OR And Seattle Housing Markets Post Double Digit Price Declines In 2018 And 2019

    https://www.zillow.com/bothell-wa/home-values/

    *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

    As one broker conceded, “Everyone in our business is lawyering up due to all the mortgage and appraisal fraud.”

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