thehousingbubble@gmail.com
Blog

When They Stopped Paying, I Was Really Shocked

A report from the New York Post. “Moving trucks were out in force on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Saturday — leaving Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa practically tripping over them. ‘The mass evacuation of Upper West Siders from NYC is in full effect,’ Sliwa, who lives on W. 87th Street, lamented, blaming the city’s decision this summer to house hundreds of emotionally disturbed homeless and recovering addicts in neighborhood hotels.”

“Stopping at each truck, he was told each was heading out of state. No sooner had Sliwa stepped out of his apartment building — where nine out of the 12 units are empty — than he saw the first moving truck of the morning. ‘They told me, ‘Curtis, first the pandemic hit us and now the quality of life is so bad’ Sliwa said. ‘The woman was almost crying. They said they survived the ’70s,” as a young couple in the then-high crime neighborhood. ‘But then in a month, in July, the neighborhood was destroyed.'”

“The fourth truck was at W. 75th and Central Park West. ‘They were moving themselves down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,’ Sliwa said. ‘They said in the last month, there have been so many disturbed people in the streets, aggressively panhandling, defecating, urinating — they leave the hotels and have no bathrooms to use,’ Sliwa said of the new homeless neighbors, who he believes are also victims. ‘These are the people who elected de Blasio, who live here,’ Sliwa said. ‘It’s a progressive, liberal neighborhood. And now there’s a visceral hate here for him — the feeling that he has virtually singlehandedly destroyed this city.'”

The Bainbridge Island Review in Washington. “Home sales on Bainbridge Island have been strong, even through August, when they usually start to slow a bit. Sonja Jones of Sotheby’s said the riots in Seattle have something to do with it. ‘There’s a push to get out of the city and into the suburbs,’ she said. ‘People want more rural, where it’s a little bit safer.'”

“The coronavirus itself also is playing a part. ‘The island is low for COVID-19. It’s on your mind,’ she said of the small number of cases here. There also a number of buyers in the Edmonds area. ‘People don’t feel secure there anymore,’ Jones said.”

“Since COVID restrictions started March 25, 122 homes were listed and sold. 47 or 38%, sold above the original list pirice. 45 or 37% sold under list price. 30 or 25% sold at full price.”

The Colorado Sun. “Six months into a pandemic that shut down restaurants and shops, and kept employees out of office buildings — and it’s impossible to ignore the similarities to the dead zone of four decades ago. The economic ‘ecosystem’ of downtown doesn’t work without people, and these days, there aren’t enough people to keep it going. The number of pedestrians along 16th Street Mall is about 25% of normal, according to a tech-based count by the Downtown Denver Partnership.”

“By 3 p.m. on Thursday, only six customers had stopped by Obento, the ramen-bubble tea shop near 16th and California streets. That’s quite a difference from the good ol’ days earlier this year when about 50 people would filter in just during the lunch hour. ‘It’s dead. But we have rent to pay,’ said Owner Billy Enkh, who said that his landlord is working with him to help keep things going for both of them. ‘There’s not enough business. But what do I do? Stay home? I can’t do that. Hopefully it picks up but I don’t think it’s going to anytime soon.'”

“Denver lawyers at Messner Reeves LLC began offering free legal help to struggling restaurants since the COVID outbreak began. A couple hundred have taken them up on the offer, said Valerie Bromley, a partner at Messner Reeves specializing in real estate. But, she added, landlords are stuck too. ‘Some of them have been able to apply for federal funding, which doesn’t pay their tenants’ rent but helps them in other ways,’ she said. ‘But their hands are tied to some extent with their lenders because they still have to make loan payments and may not be getting any reprieve (from the bank) on those.'”

From Westword on Colorado. “Rents are definitely dropping around the city, according to the just-released September Denver rent report from Apartment List. In their comments responding to our recent rent story, readers make it clear they aren’t impressed by the drop. Suggests Walter: ‘Denver’s not worth the 4-digit rent anymore.'”

“Concludes Chris: ‘I don’t think Denver is terrible myself, but after 22 years I recognize that I need to leave. This town’s history has been one of phases and change since its earliest days. Denver is now turning into a difficult and expensive (to me) place to live. It’s now a place for high-income earners and, I suppose, working people content to occupy a sharply defined and increasingly static niche. Well, okay, the new crowd and the old guard that happen to like the new evolving Denver are welcome to it.'”

The Real Deal on Florida. “Aria on the Bay may be the Melo Group’s signature project near Edgewater and the Arts & Entertainment District, where the developer has built most of its residential buildings in Miami. The 53-story luxury tower features units with floor-to-ceiling glass walls that offer expansive views of Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami’s skyline.”

“Yet, two years after its completion, Aria on the Bay is allegedly dogged by a litany of construction defects, according to a recently filed lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. The building’s condo association is suing two of the Melo Group’s development affiliates, Arquitectonica and six firms that worked on the 648-unit project.”

“The condo association’s lawsuit includes an 11-page report that identified 114 deficiencies. For instance, the parking garage at grade level is not connected to an accessible building entrance, and mailboxes were improperly installed and are not compliant with the American Disabilities Act. Other alleged examples of poor workmanship include defective elevators, cracked stucco and masonry walls at various locations throughout the building and loose glass panels in multiple units and in the lobby area.”

The association alleges that it has expended and will continue to spend ‘large sums of money’ for repairs and maintenance which would have been unnecessary had Aria on the Bay been built according to Florida building code standards.”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “The builders of a $1-billion project in downtown Los Angeles are betting that the city will revive and people will come together again in large numbers. Work on the Grand, a long-anticipated mixed-use complex designed by architect Frank Gehry has reached the halfway mark. Bunker Hill’s office buildings are mostly unoccupied, as are government offices and courtrooms in the nearby Civic Center. Art institutions steps away from the Grand are closed for the pandemic, including the Broad, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Music Center. Tourists who swoop by to get a selfie in front of Disney Hall have gone missing as fear of COVID-19 dampens leisure travel.”

“The full-speed construction of the Grand stands in contrast to the idle cranes at Oceanwide Plaza, another downtown mixed-use development valued at more than $1 billion, where work stopped early last year as its Chinese developers apparently ran out of money.”

“Many of downtown’s office buildings are nearly 90% empty at the moment, according to real estate brokers, and the percentage of space that is not leased may edge up to 20% before the pandemic is over, far above the amount that is considered healthy. Hotels also are suffering high vacancy rates. In June, the Singapore-based owner of the 73-story U.S. Bank Tower said it will sell the property for $430 million, a 34% discount from its pre-pandemic valuation as tenants in the building reduced or closed down their operations.”

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “Pinterest terminated a massive 490,000-square-foot lease at San Francisco’s unbuilt 88 Bluxome project, citing a shift toward more remote work amid the coronavirus pandemic. The company will instead continue leasing four existing San Francisco offices and pay a one-time fee of $89.5 million to cancel the Bluxome lease. The cancellation is the strongest sign yet of how the coronavirus is reducing the tech sector’s once-voracious appetite for office space.”

“Numerous other companies have embraced an expansion of remote work and greater geographic diversity for their workforces. The trend is ominous for the Bay Area’s economy, which has received billions of dollars in taxes and real estate fees over the past decade related to new office projects, which were largely leased by tech companies.”

The Nevada Independent. “Three years ago, Virginia and Donald Hartwig bought a ranch-style home in northwest Las Vegas for a dual purpose. First, it would serve as a rental property, supplementing their meager monthly income. Then, the couple would move from North Augusta, South Carolina, and make it their retirement haven. Virginia Hartwig, 79, considered it the perfect landing spot for multiple reasons. But their plan hit a major financial snag before the cross-country move could occur. After the pandemic erupted and Nevada implemented an eviction moratorium, their tenants abruptly stopped paying the monthly $1,550 rent and ceased communication with the property manager.”

“‘When they stopped paying, I was really shocked,’ she said. ‘They had good credit.'”

“As mom-and-pop landlords, the Hartwigs are among a group of people who say they’re being unfairly harmed by policies protecting tenants while leaving owners on a financial cliff. Some have fallen behind on mortgages or are chewing through their savings to keep afloat. And it’s unclear how soon they will secure any form of relief.”

“One month became two and then three and, by the time Tuesday rolls around, the eviction moratorium will have been in place five months. And for those landlords with non-paying tenants, it has been a juggling act balancing lost rental income, mortgages for the properties, utilities, repairs and homeowner association fees. ‘Now their financial health is starting to suffer considerably,’ said Chris Bishop, president of Nevada REALTORS.”

“Danielle Gallant, a managing partner with Guardian Realty Investment and Property Management in Henderson, warned that forbearance isn’t always helpful. It depends on the arrangement. If deferred payments are due within a matter of months — as opposed to tacked onto the end of the mortgage — it may not be enough time for landlord homeowners to gather the money.”

“With the new tenant mediation program not even up and running yet, she’s not optimistic landlords will receive their owed money in any sort of swift timetable. ‘I don’t think we have enough mediators to handle what’s coming down,’ she said. ‘I have a feeling it’s going to take even longer.'”

“Housing industry experts say all the uncertainty and financial tangles have left some mom-and-pop landlords wanting to walk away from the business and sell their properties when they are able to do so. Soaring housing prices may be spurring them along as well: The median price for single-family homes in Southern Nevada hit $330,000 last month, setting a record.”

“‘There’s no question that it has put in some concern with the investor,’ Bishop with Nevada REALTORS said, referring to the eviction moratorium and non-paying tenants. ‘They don’t want to be investors.'”

“That’s the case for Virginia Hartwig. She’s eagerly awaiting the lifting of the eviction moratorium. ‘As soon as I am allowed to, I am going to give them notice to pay up the back rent or I’m going to terminate their lease for nonpayment of the rent,’ she said. There’s no telling how long that process could take.”

Related Posts
This Post Has 125 Comments

  1. ‘The association alleges that it has expended and will continue to spend ‘large sums of money’ for repairs and maintenance which would have been unnecessary had Aria on the Bay been built according to Florida building code standards’

    Well it was cheaper than renting.

  2. ‘the riots in Seattle have something to do with it. ‘There’s a push to get out of the city and into the suburbs

    This riots/exodus thing is a housing bubble thing now.

    ’45 or 37% sold under list price’

    Wa? But UHS says multiple offers hotcakes?

    1. “This riots/exodus thing”

      As I posted here before, this is now THE housing story of 2020.

        1. From the Wall Street Journal, quoting the sister of the Portland shooter on Saturday:

          “I never really knew him very well,” she said. “He was just a figure that showed up every once in a while to demand money from Mom and then disappear.”

          LOL@ demand money from mom. This is a housing story because these are the left behinds of urban America.

          Basement to live in denied, they have to crawl back from their urban squalor of LMFAO@ living with roommates in your 30’s, and ask mom for money.

          These are the “warriors” of your alleged revolution.

      2. Nobody of means, black white or otherwise, wants to live in an urban hell hole with riots and looting in the streets and a defanged police force.

      1. Biden scoffed. ‘But instead he’s rooting for chaos and violence.’

        He’s rooting for you and your thugs to get thrown out Joe. It’s a few months late for you to pretend to distance yourself from them.

      2. ‘Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?’ Joe Biden slams Donald Trump for linking him to violence and accuses president of ‘poisoning our very democracy’ in Pittsburgh speech denouncing rival’s leadership

        Why yes, that’s EXACTLY what you look like! Further, you appear to be a creepy, weird freak who sniffs womens’ hair and gropes children and says perverted things to underage women. In other words, you are one sick SOB.

        2. Rip,
          I view Biden the same way you do. He really creeps me out. Add to that all his self serving corruption all those years.
          There was no reason for a man that old and senile to run for President. The arrogance coming from him is unreal. I think he ran to protect his own corruption and he’s trying to ride on the Obama steam.

  3. ‘There’s no question that it has put in some concern with the investor’…referring to the eviction moratorium and non-paying tenants. ‘They don’t want to be investors’

    Doesn’t make a lot of sense Chris.

  5. These are the people who elected de Blasio, who live here,’ Sliwa said. ‘It’s a progressive, liberal neighborhood. And now there’s a visceral hate here for him — the feeling that he has virtually singlehandedly destroyed this city’

    Click! I said this was possible, and now it’s here.

      1. You should have seen some of the alternatives.

        Then again, look at that choice for President (again). And the leaders of the Congress.

        Obama is almost exactly my age, and when he was elected, I thought at least we would soon see the back of Generation Greed politicians, replaced by those younger.

        Sliwa is running for Mayor, so there is a reason for the stuff he is pitching. I don’t believe anything anymore until I see it on the ground.

        2. Obama is almost exactly my age, and when he was elected, I thought at least we would soon see the back of Generation Greed politicians, replaced by those younger.

          They might be younger but they’re still bought and paid for by the same interests.

    2. ‘It’s a progressive, liberal neighborhood. And now there’s a visceral hate here for him — the feeling that he has virtually singlehandedly destroyed this city’

      Every time I read about libtards reaping what they voted, I feel joy.

  7. “That’s the case for Virginia Hartwig. She’s eagerly awaiting the lifting of the eviction moratorium. ‘As soon as I am allowed to, I am going to give them notice to pay up the back rent or I’m going to terminate their lease for nonpayment of the rent,’ she said. There’s no telling how long that process could take.”

    Good plan, Virginia. But I’ve got bad news. Once you’ve finally scraped that barnacle off the boat, who will you rent to next? And at what rate? What if they’re all like that? What if nobody wants to fund your retirement?

        1. “Landlord Tears” coffee cups, t-shirts, etc. available soon?
          I wouldn’t feel this way if way they hadn’t gotten so greedy in the past couple of years.

      2. Sisolak extends Nevada residential eviction moratorium

        The reason for the extension is to allow counties to pay out short-term rental assistance to landlords

        Nevada now has a socialist running things. It used to be a hardcore red state. Sad. What a joke this can-kicking bullsh!t is.

      3. #$&*% I was looking forward to a particular nuisance neighbor finally getting booted out. Even evictions for cause were on hold, I assume they will continue to be.

      4. You know they will extend it until after the election and then until after inauguration day in January.

    2. First thing she needs to forget about is the owed rent. An then she’ll be happy to find someone for 60%-70% of what she imagines she should get. If it was that easy, everyone would be able to do it. Just barrow, and let someone else pay your mortgage. I dealt with renters most of my life. It’s a hard business and if you don’t have a strategy, you’ll get burned sooner than you think.

      1. I was friends with a husband and wife 15 years ago, before the last meltdown. In good times they owned a number of rental houses. The husband told me it was awful. Seemingly every one of their tenants at one point or another stopped paying, they had to evict them, and the repairs to the house were expensive and time-consuming. He was a contractor. They sold all of them and swore they’d never own a rental again. They ended up getting completely wiped out in the bust, but that’s a different story.

        1. swore they’d never own a rental again.

          My husband is a property manager and doesn’t want to own one, particularly now in CA.

        2. Lil Sis tried her hand at landlording. The last renter was a mom with many chirens. Turned out she was dealing drugs to make the monthly. Changed the locks to keep Lil Sis from nosing into her business.

          Six months of missed payments after she stopped making them, Lil Sis finally used the courts to evict. At which point her landlording sideline ended.

  8. ‘They said in the last month, there have been so many disturbed people in the streets, aggressively panhandling, defecating, urinating — they leave the hotels and have no bathrooms to use’

    Sounds kinda like a socialist sh$t-hole. Larry?

    From Crain’s New York:

    Restaurants sue city and state for more than $2B over indoor-dining ban

    1. A co worker of mine decided to make the trek into HQ last week. He walked it from Penn Station and said he had to “step over a half dozen junkies camped out on the sidewalk.”

      You own it all ParkSlopeDope….. You own it all….. and every person in the City and state of NY knows it.

        1. https://patch.com/new-york/prospectheights/man-slashed-face-brooklyn-subway-cops-say

          ‘The man took out a knife and slashed the 68-year-old on the left side of his face before getting off the train at Sterling Street, police said.

          The 68-year-old was taken to Kings County Hospital in serious but stable condition, according to police.’

          ‘Cops released photos of the suspect that were taken from surveillance video at Sterling Street station after the incident. They said he appears to be 20 to 30 years old.’

      2. It’s amusing to think of you living in NYC, or in the suburbs. Didn’t you just buy a sexi-truk? Where do you park it?

        1. Didn’t you just buy a sexi-truk?

          Is that what women call them? What kind of vehicles catch your eye? Just curious.

          3. Audi R8

            I had to Google it, and I will say that’s a pretty nice looking ride. Now I”ll have to look for the price…

          5. No, I don’t believe that sexi-trux are actually sexi. I call them sexi-trux because the men think the trux make them look sexi. The cutsey spelling is intended to mock such men.

            The only cars that I thought were attractive are the old school Corvettes — the really curvy ones. And for some reason I really like the look of the Jeep Rubicons which are tricked out to look like a Hummer — the really squared off ones (I’ve heard those Jeeps look good but are really cheaply made). Go figure.

          6. Is that what women call them? What kind of vehicles catch your eye? Just curious.

            I like a nice 4WD Toyota 4Runner. Oh wait, I already own one! 🙂

          7. “I call them sexi-trux because the men think the trux make them look sexi.”

            Hilarious!

          8. And for some reason I really like the look of the Jeep Rubicons which are tricked out to look like a Hummer — the really squared off ones (I’ve heard those Jeeps look good but are really cheaply made). Go figure.

            That just so happens to be what I ordered the other day. 🙂 They’re actually pretty tough vehicles, but they do have their share of problems. What’s nice is there is massive aftermarket support for them, and parts are cheap and plentiful. Built in Ohio. Gotta love American made. I’d never own eurotrash. The parts prices are insane.

          9. I’ve always liked late 70’s Firebirds, especially T/A’s. If I wasn’t so stingy I would buy a resto-mod, maybe with an LS3 engine.

          10. “I call them sexi-trux because the men think the trux make them look sexi.”

            A $70k “truck mortgage” is a ritual of manhood in my area!

    2. Ahem…

      “We’ve never seen anything like this in 35 years in business. Each one of these distribution is serving well over a thousand cars!” said the food bank’s Director Community Engagement Mike Altfest.

      ALSO READ: Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown’s Frank Advice For Democrats On Violent Protests

      ‘It is one of four locations across Alameda County where folks are receiving much needed basic food for free. They are people who may have lost their jobs when their businesses were forced to shut down due to pandemic concerns.’

      “They start lining up as early as seven in the morning and this will run for six straight hours” said Altfest. Altfest says the amount of food being handed out is amazing. “Since the start of this pandemic, our food distribution has increased between 50 and 70 percent. So, while we were distributing 600 pounds of food a week before this, we’re now well over a millions pounds a week,” said Altfest.’

      https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/08/28/people-line-up-for-food-in-record-numbers-at-alameda-co-food-bank-in-covid-19-economy/

      They used to tell me I was building a dream
      And so I followed the mob
      When there was earth to plow or guns to bear
      I was always there right on the job
      They used to tell me I was building a dream
      With peace and glory ahead
      Why should I be standing in line
      Just waiting for bread?
      Once I built a railroad, I made it run
      Made it race against time
      Once I built a railroad, now it’s done
      Brother, can you spare a dime?
      Once I built a tower up to the sun
      Brick and rivet and lime
      Once I built a tower, now it’s done
      Brother, can you spare a dime?

      2. “We’ve never seen anything like this in 35 years in business. Each one of these distribution is serving well over a thousand cars!” said the food bank’s Director Community Engagement Mike Altfest.

        Every single video and article that I’ve seen shows brand new, expensive cars. WTF? Is there no means testing? Do you really need food assistance if you’re driving a $50k vehicle? The free-sh!t army thing is pissing me off.

      3. 21st century depression update…(many apologies for Garrison’s Me2 cancel culture voice at the start)


        One More Dollar

        A long time ago I left my home
        For a job in the fruit trees
        But I missed those hills with the windy pines
        For their song seemed to suit me
        So I sent my wages to my home
        Said we’d soon be together
        For the next good crop would pay my way
        And I would come home forever

        One more dime to show for my day
        One more dollar and I’m on my way
        When I reach those hills, boys
        I’ll never roam
        One more dollar and I’m going home

        No work said the boss at the bunk house door
        There’s a freeze on the branches
        So when the dice came out at the bar downtown
        I rolled and I took my chances

        One more dime to show for my day
        One more dollar and I’m on my way
        When I reach those hills, boys
        I’ll never roam
        One more dollar and I’m going home

        A long time ago I left my home
        Just a boy passing twenty
        Could you spare a coin and a Christian prayer
        For my luck has turned against me

        One more dime to show for my day
        One more dollar and I’m on my way
        When I reach those hills, boys
        I’ll never roam
        One more dollar and I’m going home
        One more dollar
        Boys I’m going home

        Source: Musixmatch
        Songwriters: Gillian Welch / David Rawlings

    3. Where are all those people from?

      It is fair to say that for the past 20 years, the problems of rural and small city America have been far greater than anything happening in NYC right now. It was barely reported, and almost no one (else) I knew paid attention and gave a damn.

      They are here now. (And in Phoenix, and Tuscon, and Tempe where a self driving Uber ran over an old homeless woman pushing her belongings on a bicycle).

      https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-autonomous-crash-arizona-pedestrian-dead-cnnmoney-orig.cnnmoney

      Like expectancy fell for three years in a row in this country. It’s massive economic and social decay, papered over with borrowed money. Then you have the decline of families, thanks the values of a generation, epitomized by the President it elected, THE MAN of his generation, Donald Trump. No one wants to talk about that anymore.

      https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/generation-greed-and-the-family/

      You can try to push the consequences elsewhere, but they aren’t going away. The plan in most of the country is to wait until they commit some crime or infraction, then lock them in jail. DeBlasio let them out. I’m not sure what Sliwa has in mind, but if you house them all, and the rest of America sends more. Especially with mass eviction.

      1. Here is a nuanced view of the DeBlasio voter types in San Francisco.

        https://granolashotgun.com/2020/02/06/grass-roots/

        At one time New York City had lots of homeless children. At a more capitalistic time in the city’s history, the solution was to ship them off the west on Orphan Trains.

        If NYC politics goes the way some might like, hope you are ready. After all, there is no shortage of square footage with HVAC, a roof, and restrooms in the U.S. Just look at all the abandoned malls, prevented from being used to house these folks by big government rules. And from what little I’ve heard from The Donald (I’m trying to ignore this crap), he isn’t really in favor of free market deregulation!

        1. free market deregulation!

          What does that have to do at all with the government housing people in malls, like a storm shelter?

          1. He is running against reducing zoning for exclusively one-family housing. So if you are an empty nester, you can’t have an accessory apartment in the unused space.

      2. thank you
        Its all over I travel the eastern side of the Mississippi and its not just the D towns/states, its all over. Hell there are small towns in the middle of Nebraska that are just as junked and crime ridden as many cities.

        1. Small towns nowadays are full of drunks, stoners, tweakers, junkies and retards.

          The smart natives move to bigger cities and come back only for holidays, if there’s any family left.

        2. Yeah, when I talked about this among the locals here in Brooklyn, the only one who got it was from Flint, MI and had family there. And everyone has forgotten how down and out the Northeast was in the 1970s, or early 1990s.

          We had to move to Tulsa OK in 1977, so my Dad could get a job. Everyone out there thought Tulsa was booming and NY was down not because oil was up and Wall Street was down, but because they were the good Christian people and New Yorkers were the immoral people.

          Or course that turned around by the late 1980s. People around there didn’t think it was because it was a real estate and junk bond bubble. It was because New Yorkers were the smart people and the rest of the country cared more about the high school parking lot and football team than learning.

          When we got our ass kicked in the early 1990s, it was the era of the Asian Tigers, who were prospering not because of a massive unsustainable inflow of capital, but because their “Asian Values” of family and discipline were superior to the feckless West.

          Then you had the “Asian Contagion” collapse of the late 1990s, at the same time as the IT and dot.com boom. Because, Americans believed, we were creative and innovative and had good regulation, while Asians just had rote learning and crony capitalism.

          Then you had the dot.com bust. Etc. Etc. Etc.

          People.

      3. Like expectancy fell for three years in a row in this country. It’s massive economic and social decay, papered over with borrowed money. Then you have the decline of families, thanks the values of a generation, epitomized by the President it elected, THE MAN of his generation, Donald Trump. No one wants to talk about that anymore.

        You do realize that the problems which led to a decline in life expectancy took years – decades – to manifest, right? Your hero Obama at the very least perpetuated this with his “no banker left behind” policies. At worst, he CAUSED it.

        1. Obama didn’t cause it, but didn’t fix it. Two words. Larry Summers.

          So desperate people turned to Trump, and what did they get? A third round of tax cuts for the rich.

          I’m not optimistic about the choice.

          1. A third round of tax cuts for the rich.

            Repeating it doesn’t make it true. Look at the tax brackets and rates along with the SALT deduction cap.

      4. “…where a self driving Uber ran over an old homeless woman pushing her belongings on a bicycle…”

        Those self-driving cars are more dangerous than a blind man behind the wheel.

        And thanks to the Fed’s funny-money financing, they have brazillions of dollars in political pressure backing up their implementation.

        I’m happy that I will most likely be able to avoid being on the road for most of the incipient rollout of robotic-driven cars with no conscience or insurance liability.

      5. It is fair to say that for the past 20 years, the problems of rural and small city America have been far greater than anything happening in NYC right now. It was barely reported, and almost no one (else) I knew paid attention and gave a damn.

        It was their own fault for being deplorable.

  9. ‘The World Trade Organization’s director-general Roberto Azevedo stepped down on Monday, leaving the already-damaged global watchdog leaderless as it faces the biggest crisis in its 25-year history.’

    ‘As the WTO’s influence seeps away, rising international tensions and protectionism during a COVID-19-induced slowdown, most obviously between China and President Donald Trump’s U.S. administration, make reform of global trade rules evermore urgent.’

    “This is indeed a new – though alas not unsurprising – low point for the WTO,” said Rohinton Medhora, president of the Centre for International Governance Innovation. “The organization has been directionless for some time, several years in fact, and will now be functionally leaderless.”

    ‘In particular, the WTO appeals court, which rules on international trade disputes, has been paralyzed by Washington’s blockade on the appointment of new judges.’

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/economy/article-damaged-wto-now-leaderless-as-chief-roberto-azevedo-steps-down/

    1. ‘Like many in our region, we have voted for Democrats over many decades,’ the letter stated. ‘We have watched as our constituents’ jobs left not only the Iron Range, but our country. By putting tariffs on our products and supporting bad trade deals, politicians like Joe Biden did nothing to help the working class.’

      ‘The mayors said that they had ‘lost thousands of jobs’ in the region, while ‘generations of young people have left the Iron Range in order to provide for their families with good paying jobs elsewhere.’

      ‘Additionally, they noted: ‘Today, we don’t recognize the Democratic Party. It has been moved so far to the left it can no longer claim to be advocates of the working class. The hard-working Minnesotans that built their lives and supported their families here on the Range have been abandoned by radical Democrats. We didn’t choose to leave the Democratic Party, the party left us.’

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-democrat-mayors-in-minnesota-endorse-trump-for-reelection/ar-BB18vpoF

      2. I used to live in Dennis Kucinich’s Congressional district in Cleveland. During the 2008 Democrat primary debates, he stood up on stage, raised his arms and did a 360, and said “no strings attached” in reply to a question about health care and the health insurance industrial complex.

        I voted for him and for Ron Paul in 2008.

        There used to be options, all that’s left now is civil war.

      4. “We didn’t choose to leave the Democratic Party, the party left us.”

        That’s a natural consequence of pandering to political extremists and maintaining a code of silence when looting is done in the name of a good cause.

    1. Of course he wasn’t charged with a hate crime, even though he admitted he wanted to kill a white person! The local courts have been stacked with partisan hacks.

      2. “Just three days before the stabbing, Hatchett had been freed on bond after being charged with criminal damage to property, WLTZ reported.”

        Productive.

  11. In their comments responding to our recent rent story, readers make it clear they aren’t impressed by the drop. Suggests Walter: ‘Denver’s not worth the 4-digit rent anymore.’”

    Those comments sections always belie the fake news being pitched by Real Journalists and REIC shills in globalist media propaganda outlets.

    1. “Denver’s not worth the 4-digit rent anymore”

      I wouldn’t know, never lived there. Living in Jefferson or Arapahoe Counties means you can take money out of Denver and not spend money in Denver.

      The money leaves Denver, but it doesn’t come back.

  12. The association alleges that it has expended and will continue to spend ‘large sums of money’ for repairs and maintenance which would have been unnecessary had Aria on the Bay been built according to Florida building code standards.”

    Makes you wonder who’s enforcing these building codes. And how many brown envelopes they’re collecting.

    1. Yeah, I was wondering about that. Aren’t they suppose to inspect as it goes along? Maybe they used Cuban codes?

      1. Yeah, I was wondering about that. Aren’t they suppose to inspect as it goes along? Maybe they used Cuban codes?

        During the last bubble, builders – mostly national builders – were allowed to do their own inspections. What could go wrong?

  13. I am shocked, shocked! to discover that in our crony-capitalist wonderland, captured and complicit regulators and enforcers are turning a blind eye to insider trading – especially when the Fed’s Wall Street accomplices are involved.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/insider-trading-rife-no-regulators-090007170.html

    (Bloomberg Opinion) — At 6 a.m. on Aug. 3, Google bought a 6.6% stake in ADT Inc., the largest U.S. home security company, for $450 million. ADT appreciated 100% as soon as the stock market opened. But the headlines detailing the transaction weren’t a total surprise because more than a few people knew ADT was poised to benefit from an event big enough to be gaining Google’s hitherto inaccessible technology.

    Three days earlier, when ADT wasn’t reporting much of anything, a series of computerized trading alerts derived from the algorithms of Bloomberg Automated Intelligence (BAI) revealed insiders’ unmistakable handiwork:

    — On July 29, the frequency of people searching for articles about ADT and reading them exceeded the most recent 30-day average.

    — The same day, ADT rose 6.3% via trades 90% more numerous than the 20-day average and when its weekly gain until that point was 4.1%. ADT competitors closed with an average decline of 2.6%.

    — On July 30, ADT bonds changed hands four times more than the five-week average.

  15. More good news to kick off the weekend with, Riot-Ravaged Minneapolis Businesses Can’t Rebuild Because the Insurance Won’t Cover It, published a few hours ago:

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jim-treacher/2020/08/31/riot-ravaged-minneapolis-businesses-cant-rebuild-because-the-insurance-wont-cover-it-n867003

    Kiss your city GOODBYE.

    It’s the war you wanted, right? LOL@ not spending a penny in your urban hellholes ever again.

    My money is welcome down in Custer County. My money is welcome down in Huerfano County. My money is NOT welcome up here in Denver County.

    Guess what? I’ll do you a favor and spend it down there, not up here. Denver, NO GIBS FOR YOU!

    1. The SJW’s will propose laws forcing insurance companies to sell coverage to those businesses at “affordable” rates.

  16. Astra-Zeneca is cooking along with their Phase III trials. They are starting up in the US now. It’s two shots a month apart. The rumor is that this is the vaccine that Trump wants to fast-track, possibly before the election.

    1. Is it possible to avoid paying reparations if you can prove your ancestors arrived on American soil after Lincoln freed the slaves?

      2. notice they never ever demand repatriation from the descendants of thousands of black slave owners…..sounds kinda racis

        1. fought for the Union

          Sorry, the Union had lots of slave states, not that actual history matters anymore.

          1. So I guess the ancestors need to prove that the soldiers continued to serve in the Union Army even after September 22, 1862. After that point, the soldiers knew that they were fighting for emancipation.

  20. https://tslaq.org/stunning-highly-detailed-interview-with-tesla-whistleblower-karl-hansen/

    “Karl Hansen is an investigative and security professional with an extensive background in federal government service. In 2018, he joined Tesla as a member of their internal investigations department at the battery factory in Sparks, Nevada. As you will quickly learn from this remarkable interview, he was far too good at his job to survive at Tesla. What he discovered before his unlawful termination, and the events that have unfolded since, have very grave legal and political implications.”

  21. Were you hoping that herd immunity would end the COVID-19 outbreak?

    Better hope some more!

    1. My antibody test two months after I thought I had COVID-19 came in negative. Maybe falsely so.

      “Studies have shown declining or undetectable antibodies in Covid-19 patients two or three months after they were sick.”

      The Wall Street Journal
      Health
      Had Covid-19? Don’t Assume You Can’t Get It Again.
      Doctors, scientists and public-health experts still don’t know how long immunity to the disease lasts
      July 30, 2020 2:16 pm ET

      Doctors are warning Covid-19 survivors to continue following social-distancing and mask recommendations even after they have tested positive for antibodies. That’s because physicians, scientists and public-health experts still don’t know how long immunity to the disease lasts.

      Studies have shown declining or undetectable antibodies in Covid-19 patients two or three months after they were sick. That has led some experts to question whether patients could be reinfected at that point. A key question is whether the antibodies drop to a level that doesn’t protect a person from infection, said Stuart Neil, head of the infectious-diseases department at King’s College London. He added that it is possible that a potential vaccine will require a booster later.
      …

    2. Immunity isn’t all about antibodies. People who got sick from SARS-1 are still showing T-cell immunity 15+ years later, despite not having antibodies. And in another study, researchers tested the blood from blood banks collected from 2015-2018, and were stunned to see that ~40% of those samples responded to COVID virus with some immunity. The immunology community is hard at work figuring this out.

      2. “…tested the blood from blood banks…”

        A side benefit of blood donations are the antibody tests, which show up on the Red Cross app about a week after donating.

        1. I wonder why they have five year old blood donations laying around. Don’t those things have a best used by date?

      1. redneck on redneck shooting……no POC here to get Moochelle angry. Interesting her speech at the DNC from their new $11 million dollar home on 98% white Martha vineyard.

  23. AZCentral.com
    Number of metro Phoenix homeowners not paying
    mortgage …
    But many housing experts will be closely watching how homeowners fare when the federal foreclosure … “Valley homeowners shouldn’t panic,” she said.
    1 day ago

    Says number soars? Wa?

    1. ‘Chevrolet Silverado HD discount offers for August 2020 are nearly identical to recent offers, with the all-new, next-generation 2020 Silverado HD receiving a price reduction of nearly $4,000. Meanwhile, select models of the previous-generation pickup riding on the K2 platform – versus the new trucks’ T1 platform – are being discounted by up to $5,500.’

      https://gmauthority.com/blog/2020/08/chevrolet-silverado-hd-discount-cuts-new-model-price-by-3750-in-august-2020/

      1. …. and the beauty about it is? A lookylou can stack all the incentives. We’re looking at another 3/4 crew cab with the durtymax in the low 40’s right now. They were mid 50’s barely 2 months ago.

        Wait, watch, prices fall, wait some more.

        Priceless.

  25. Worried about being evicted? DeSantis extends evictions, foreclosures order for fifth time hmmm isnt he an R?

  28. You got to ask yourself what should be the purpose of Government in the first place.

    When the USA was a productive Nation in terms of jobs and manufacturing, the great middle class workers were the biggest voting block.
    When the Politicians sold out to the money interest of Globalism, monopolies, Ponzi Schemes, and even welfare State and Fed money printing , they took the Government from that great voting block that got gutted. So, special interest hijacked Washington DC.

    Does Biden and Bernie even think that if you destroy the middle class productive sector that there will be enough money to fund anything.
    We have a Political Party that thinks it owns the Welfare State as part of their voting block. So, welfare is a special interest group rather than a by product of a gutted America.
    So, the bottom line is the USA can’t survive when Government is in service of the Rich and the poor , the parasites and Looters of the productive working class.
    We will turn into the rich and the poor, like any third World Nation that doesn’t have a strong productive working middle class.

    1. I’m pretty sure you misunderstood their message. There are two ways you can make it work. One, cut taxes and let businesses do business and recirculate the money, or tax the heck out of them and the state recirculates the money.
      One way it does not work, cut taxes to zero, and let the business owners hide the money in offshore accounts until there is no money left. Then it’s game over.

      1. One way it does not work, cut taxes to zero, and let the business owners hide the money in offshore accounts until there is no money left.

        First, the sentence is nonsensical. No one could accurately decipher exactly what you think is going on.

        Second, what business is it of YOURS what business owners do with THEIR own money?

      2. Dora,
        The economic system that is operative in the US now has to be restructured back to what we had before like between 1945-1975.

        So, the rigged systems need to go .

  29. When all the rigged markets come crashing down, maybe a strong productive working class job force here will be able to soften the blow. I can’t think of anything else other than becoming a productive Nation again, bringing back all those jobs stolen by Globalism.

  30. “Housing industry experts say all the uncertainty and financial tangles have left some mom-and-pop landlords wanting to walk away from the business and sell their properties when they are able to do so.”

    Is it possible that Mom and Pop landlording isn’t the guaranteed one way path to untold riches that it was cut out to be?

    “Soaring housing prices may be spurring them along as well: The median price for single-family homes in Southern Nevada hit $330,000 last month, setting a record.”

    Go on, take the money and run!

    1. “…Is it possible that Mom and Pop landlording isn’t the guaranteed one way path to untold riches that it was cut out to be?…”

      Here in the LA AM radio market, a lot of the big stations were saturated with commercials touting to ‘take equity out of your house’ and ‘put it to work’ by buying rental property. Just so happens, the people behind the commercial just happened to have rental properties for sale.

      Gosh, what a coincidence!

      Post pandemic, haven’t heard a single ‘untold riches’ radio commercial.

      Could it be [they know] the jig is up?

      Shocked I tell you, just shocked!

Comments are closed.