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Owners Are Holding Onto An Asset That’s Underperforming, And They Can’t Do Anything About It

A report from the Boston Globe. “Massachusetts has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 11.3 percent. Unemployment in the service sector is higher than in any other job category, and many of the state’s 622,000 service workers are dependent on people returning to the office in order to resume their jobs. Paulina Bastidas used to arrive in the Financial District at 7:45 a.m., along with thousands of other people who streamed into office buildings in downtown Boston every weekday morning. When the pandemic hit, the roughly 500 lawyers and staff who worked in the offices Bastidas cleaned retreated to the safety of their homes.”

“Bastidas hasn’t worked in more than six months. And she can’t go back to the WilmerHale offices until the lawyers do. Three years ago, Bastidas had enough saved up for a down payment on a four-bedroom condo she shares with her daughter’s family in Revere. Her son-in-law, who worked at a Boston hotel, also has been laid off for six months, and they are working through the last of their unemployment funds. So far, they’ve kept up on the mortgage, which they split, but Bastidas said the time has come to reach out to lender MassHousing for assistance.”

“As the pandemic stretches on, the family’s foothold on the first rung of the economic ladder is becoming increasingly perilous. ‘Now the stimulus is gone and my savings are gone,’ said Bastidas, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. ‘I’m very stressed now, especially about whether or not I’m ever going to return to work.'”

The Boston Herald. “Boston’s apartment vacancy rate remains through the roof, one large local market analyst says, with downtown and the college-heavy areas seeing the most available apartments. The city’s ‘real-time vacancy rate’ — the number of apartments unoccupied right now — is 8.91%, meaning that more than one in every 12 apartments in the city doesn’t have a renter, according to Boston Pads. The company said the downtown neighborhood has led the way with a vacancy rate more than 27 times higher than last year.”

“The tony downtown neighborhood, packed with high-priced condos, was something of a surprise, Demetrios Salpoglou, the CEO of Boston Pads acknowledged. Salpoglou said he hadn’t realized how many of those apartments and condos are owned by companies that used them as shorter-term rentals. ‘Those operators, they definitely had no choice but to send it back to the marketplace and rent it in any way shape or form they could’ after the market for such places bottomed out under the coronavirus, Salpoglou said.”

“‘Even during recessions, we haven’t seen the type of incentives that we’ve seen like we’re seeing recently,’ Salpoglou said.”

From Crain’s Chicago Business in Illinois. “The oversupply is basically concentrated in downtown neighborhoods, that are each dense with high-rises and near the scenes of looting on Michigan Avenue and within the Loop. ‘River North, Gold Coast, Streeterville—these are probably the most troublesome markets proper now,’ says Harry Maisel, an agent representing a unit at 21 E. Huron. Maisel says that he had ‘zero showings in eight weeks’ earlier than slicing the price on Sept. 27 by a bit of over $69,000, to $829,900. ‘extra price cuts are approaching condos,’ Maisel says.”

From The Real Deal on Florida. “A Brazilian billionaire sold a Venetian Islands waterfront home for $10.2 million, The Real Deal has learned. Cana Brava Delaware LLC bought the 5,782-square-foot house for $12 million in 2015, records show. It was listed in 2018 for $13.5 million, according to Realtor.com. The price dropped multiple times, most recently to $10.9 million in November.”

From WJCT in Florida. “St. Augustine operators of short-term rentals like Airbnbs, also called vacation rentals, must now register their properties and pay a fee along with facing zoning regulations that some say will cripple their businesses. Amy and Mason Cardin operate a small Airbnb studio apartment on their property in St. Augustine. ‘They [the city of St. Augustine] let people come in and invest. They let young people like me and my family – we really depend on this income – like big time. It pays, you know, pays our living costs. So we’re either going to be in a position where we’ll have to sell our house, and our house value will be less, because you don’t have the potential to make an income off of a studio apartment,’ said Mason Cardin.”

Cardin estimates there are about 500 small Airbnb owners in the area in a similar situation. WJCT News has not confirmed his estimate. ‘We’re all going to be out of the rental game here pretty soon,’ he said.”

From KOAT in New Mexico. “There are three short term rentals in Cindi Maxwell’s neighborhood. And there have been two shootings. ‘The blood on the sidewalk, the noise in the street, people screaming and it was all very disruptive to the neighborhood,’ Maxwell said. ‘This is a neighborhood that is filled with retired individuals and young families. It scares the children, it upsets the senior citizens it is just not beneficial to the neighborhood at all.'”

From Bisnow Washington DC. “The drop in rent collections and leasing demand has created a difficult landscape for D.C. apartment owners this year, and D.C. policies responding to the pandemic appear to be making it more challenging. ‘Small landlords are being hurt right now by increased rent delinquencies and higher vacancies because students aren’t here, and other people who would be working in D.C. aren’t here,’ Small Multifamily Owners Association CEO Dean Hunter said. ‘They’re getting squeezed on both ends. They have tenants not paying rent and units that are vacant.'”

“RealPage Market Analyst Adam Couch said D.C. is typically in the top 10 in apartment demand among the 50 largest Metro areas, but last quarter it was in the bottom 10. He said metro areas with higher-than-average rents have been particularly hurt by the crisis as people have had the flexibility to move to cheaper locations. ‘Demand is significantly lower in the D.C. area, that’s why rents and occupancy have fallen so much,’ Couch said.”

“Greysteel Senior Associate Nigel Crayton, an apartment investment sales broker in D.C., said the only sales that have been able to close are for vacant buildings, and the majority of deals remain stuck. ‘A lot of deals we’re working on have been caught up and owners are upset because they’re holding onto an asset that’s underperforming, and they can’t do anything about it,’ Crayton said.”

The Saratoga Wire in New York. “During the lockdown period, all hotels were shut as per government orders. And now as things are getting back to normal these hotels are finding it difficult to deal with the loss. Despite being allowed to operate several hotels in NYC have permanently shut down due to massive financial loss. As of now out of approximately 700 hotels in NYC, more than 200 hotels are closed. And we don’t know if they are going to operate again.”

“Even the hostels that have decided to operate are facing massive loss due to price drop. NYC’s hotel industry is going through tough times. According to the executive officer of the Hotel Association of NYC, Vijay Dandapani, their hotel occupancy as of now is less than 10%. And this is because of the travel restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic. It has also resulted in heavy price drops. The hotel who used to charge $336 daily is charging just $135 now. Also, due to the cancellation of events in NYC, the hotels are not getting enough customers. Therefore many hotels have decided to shut down their business temporarily once again.”

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “As rents continue to fall in San Francisco, the unique incentives to entice new tenants keep on coming. This listing for a unit in the Dogpatch caught our eye this week, offering free rent until 2021. It goes for … drumroll … $3,486/month! Zumper reported the median rent of a two-bedroom in the Dogpatch is $3,973.”

From DS News. “Californians continue to feel the economic effects of the pandemic, including its impact on the housing market. The state’s rising unemployment rate along with its competitive and costly housing market has caused a housing crisis throughout the state. A recent study from UC Berkeley reports that nearly half of all Californian households have lost employment income since this March, and over 20% of households report ‘no or only slight confidence that they have the ability to pay their mortgage or rent next month.”’

“Californians now find themselves struggling to keep up with their housing payments. Berkeley’s study shows that 14% of renters and 9% of homeowners with a mortgage in California had fallen behind on their housing payments as of August.”

“That same month, nearly 18% of homeowners in the state reported that they might have to face foreclosures within the next couple of months. Californian renters are grappling with even greater fears of eviction. In August, 42% of Californian renters reported they were likely to be evicted from their homes in the next couple of months.”

“Paying rent and mortgages isn’t the only financial hardship on the minds of Californians right now. Nearly 38% of households that have fallen behind on rent and mortgage payments are also facing credit card and loan debts that they needed to get in order to pay for housing.”

“Landlords are also facing the impact of Covid-19, as more than half of all California renters who are behind on paying rent are living in smaller properties with four or fewer units. This puts extra strain on landlords trying to make ends meet while handling smaller properties. In the wake of the pandemic, households are now not only dealing with the loss of employment and housing security–they will also have to confront missed payments in the long run.”

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This Post Has 247 Comments

  1. ‘he hadn’t realized how many of those apartments and condos are owned by companies that used them as shorter-term rentals. ‘Those operators, they definitely had no choice but to send it back to the marketplace and rent it in any way shape or form they could’

    This was always the risk from STRs, wasn’t it? Phony demand that goes poof.

    ‘Even during recessions, we haven’t seen the type of incentives that we’ve seen like we’re seeing recently’

    Yer in a recession Demetrios.

      1. We’re in a depression yet everybody is running out and buying cars and rvs and houses, or so the media says. Weirdest depression I’ve ever heard of.

        1. FWIW, car sales are down YoY. But the sales pace picked up later in the summer, in part because there were big discounts.

        3. We’re in a depression yet everybody is running out and buying cars and rvs and houses

          Like they say, it’s a recession if your neighbor loses his job, it’s a depression if you lose yours. Times are still pretty good for those who remain employed in the sectors that are doing reasonably well. That’s what makes it weird.

      2. It’s worth noting that Wall Street Journal editions from the onset of the Great Depression give absolutely no indication that the U.S. economy had entered a decade-long crater which wouldn’t end until the onset of World War II. And to my knowledge, there was no Quantitative Easing or macroeconomic stimulus in play during the early 1930s to paper over the economic collapse with the happy news of ever-rising stock and housing prices. Hence there was no K-shaped recovery in the early 1930s to enable the wealthy to prosper while the poor were thrown under the bus, as is happening today.

  2. ‘several hotels in NYC have permanently shut down due to massive financial loss’

    Hey Larry, caught any falling swords lately?

    1. What are they prepared to sell them for?

      My guess? Too much to allow for creative adaptive reuse.

      1. My guess? Too much to allow for creative adaptive reuse.

        It takes time to get all the way through the stages of grief.

  3. ‘As rents continue to fall in San Francisco, the unique incentives to entice new tenants keep on coming. This listing for a unit in the Dogpatch caught our eye this week, offering free rent until 2021. It goes for … drumroll … $3,486/month!’

    Yeah, but what’s the effective rent? Another market goes free til 2021!

    What’s funny about this space that readers in SF might know, is that for years they did this little game about fake lamenting “things are so expensive, and get more expensive every day, bay aryans! Woe is you po’ renters!!”

    How are those 5% cap rates looking now?

  5. ‘A Brazilian billionaire sold a Venetian Islands waterfront home for $10.2 million, The Real Deal has learned. Cana Brava Delaware LLC bought the 5,782-square-foot house for $12 million in 2015’

    I’d say it’s cheaper than renting, but he probably never even slept there. See my video for how empty Miami condos are. I don’t know what the end game is. Each day the salt air keeps melting all that concrete and steel.

    1. I don’t know what the end game is.

      Citizen Jones! Algore and St. Greta have revealed to us what the end game is! Miami will be flooded thanks to climate change! Your failure to internalize this dogma is evidence of heresy and BadThink! Your dossier has been forwarded to Google for further review and downgrading of your already abysmal social credit score.

      1. That looks like an interesting museum especially with a walk-through the interior of the USS Nautilus.

        I visited the technical museum in Munich, Germany, which had an actual submarine from WWII used during the Atlantic wolf pack hunting days that was cut open on one side for viewing. I can’t imagine being cramped-up in there enduring the cold, damp and noise from the diesel engine rattling away charging the batteries for the next submerged attack run.

        1. There used to be an intact WWII sub (American) in Pittsburgh. Don’t know if it’s still there. I was surprised at how rough the construction was.

          1. The science museum in Chicago has a German WWII sub, that was captured intact. The walk through tour give the full claustrophobic experience!

  7. ‘As the pandemic stretches on, the family’s foothold on the first rung of the economic ladder is becoming increasingly perilous. ‘Now the stimulus is gone and my savings are gone’

    Yer fooked Paulina. But are you safe?

    This article has lots of screwed “immigrants”. Yer guvnah threw you under the bus, and shot the city in the fook.

    1. 18 years in the US and she still can’t speak English? But she “owns” a condo, even though she’s a janitor.

      1. Bastidas became a citizen in 2010
        …
        Bastidas’s options are limited. “The problem is that a lot of these jobs require English and I’m not bilingual,” she said.

        Too bad she couldn’t be arsed to learn the language in 18 years. But why would she? She was able to naturalize without being able to speak English. And I’ll bet she came here illegally too,

        2. I’m surprised she bought a condo. Aren’t immigrants more interested in actual land? Land that they could farm (or put tents up on) if they had to?

    1. “Teens”, think we all know what that means. Plenty of video of that same 13% attacking elderly Asians in the bay area, savagely beating them.

      13% (actually less accounting for age and gender) commit over 2/3 of the violent crime in this country. It’s in the FBI crime statistics and if anything is under reported based on anecdotes from ER personnel because significant dindu on Hindu crime never gets reported. Also confirmed to me by cops.

    2. Seems like a great time for anybody with anything to lose to avoid unpoliced rioting and looting zones in U.S. cities. Where’s the upside to going there?

      1. Not to mention the elderly. If you an oldster and living in a “vibrant” city … well, you should know better.

        1. My dad, whose plan to raise his family in a “vibrant” urban core was once vetoed by my mom, is ironically living out the remainder of his days in a retirement community located in the heart of an urban refugee zone, safely sheltered from the Burn Loot Murder rioters.

          1. A just a few minutes on google and Sanford FL had the highest crime rate in Floorridda And at least 8 breakins in past year in a gated community Ohbahma knew this the media knew this heck I knew this. yet trayvon is the saint.

  9. “near the scenes of looting on Michigan Avenue”

    They forgot to say “mostly peaceful” — Associated Press, revised style guide, October 2020

    2. A mostly peaceful leftist security guard for Denver’s Channel 9 news has been booked for first-degree murder in the shooting death of a Patriot Prayer protestor at a BLM protest in Denver yesterday. The shooter was employed by the Pinkerton security agency (nice vetting!) and hired to guard a Real Journalist, so there’s almost certainly going to be wrongful-death lawsuits filed against both agencies that employed this homicidal pro-BLM loon.

      https://bigleaguepolitics.com/leftie-matthew-doloff-charged-with-first-degree-murder-in-shooting-of-patriot-prayer-demonstrator-in-denver/

      2. First degree murder? Isn’t Mace considered a weapon? He responded to an attack with force, which is what he was hired to do. Hardly a premeditated murder.

          1. Skateboard Used As A Deadly Weapon – Canyon News
            https://www.canyon-news.com/skateboard-used-as-deadly-weapon/10481

            Man dies after being hit in head with skateboard during fight in Santa Ana Starbucks – ABC7 Los Angeles
            https://abc7.com/starbucks-fight-santa-ana-man-dies-skateboard/1098183/

            The neat thing about having a skateboard is it can become a very effective deadly weapon without the owner being burdened with authorities having it identified as being a weapon, hence it can be carried about in places where most other “weapons” cannot (i.e baseball bats, hammers, bricks, etc.).

            It would be difficult to describe mace as something other than a weapon but this is not so for a skateboard.

          2. Mace is certainly more of a weapon than a skateboard.

            Bullshit. Spraying somebody with mace isn’t remotely comparable to clocking them upside the head with a skateboard, which can cause death or serious injury. In most BLM-Antifa confrontations with counter-protesters, mace and pepper spray get used pretty liberally – that is no justification for the use of deadly force.

        2. Isn’t Mace considered a weapon?

          I don’t think you can inflict permanent injury with mace. And from the videos it does appear he used it defensively, to keep the thug away from him.

          That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the DA drops charges against the thug.

          3. I guess Pinkerton will hire anyone these days NYT said today Pinkerton has admitted Dollof was working for them but has denied they hired him. It gets weird at this point.

            Later Sunday, the company added: “The agent is not a Pinkerton employee but rather a contractor agent from a third-party vendor. The vendor is responsible for proper licensing for all agents under their employment. It is the responsibility of the vendor to ensure any agents assigned to security projects have the required documentation execute the assignment.”

            Back in the day I vetted physician applications from a 3rd party to work in the ER I supervised. I personally verified their licensure with the State Medical Board despite assurances from the 3rd party. I wonder if Pinkerton’s “third party” was Antifa. Whatever, Pinkerton has deep pockets, and the lawsuits (& perhaps indictments) should start flying any day now.

          5. So 9News contracted with Pinkerton, who contracted with some mysterious third party to procure an unlicensed thug to be a bodyguard. A thug who per hise Facebook posts is a rabid leftist.

            You can’t make this stuff up.

        3. This video gives a frame by frame break down towards the end (4:45).

          https://www.youtube.com/watchv=VMmaip2RFp0&feature=emb_ogo

          First the “security guard” tried to grab the victim’s mace and the victim slapped him away. After that, the shooter started drawing the weapon before the victim, who retreated, shot the bear spray.

          The “security guard” was also connected to leftist organizations (possibly Antifa) and was unlicensed.

          “There is no record for an active licensed security guard now or ever for an individual named Matthew Doloff or Dolloff. If he was operating as a security guard, he was in violation of the law,” The Denver Department of Excise and Licenses told CBS Denver’s Andrea Flores.

          https://www.cbsnews.com/news/matthew-doloff-denver-shooting-suspect-not-licensed-security-guard/

    3. Such a tragedy…Chicago has always been a beautiful city on the brink of turning into another Detroit.

  11. “Each day the salt air keeps melting all that concrete and steel.”

    This sentence perked my interest and led me to this …

    How long does a modern concrete building last?
    https://www.indiainfoline.com/article/article-latest/how-long-does-a-modern-concrete-building-last-116060600095_1.html

    (a snip or two)

    “Building materials play a big role in deciding the longevity of a concrete structure. There have been instances where concrete buildings not more than 20 to 30 years old have collapsed.

    “Needless to say, the world is gradually becoming one big concrete jungle. Innumerable concrete buildings are being constructed for residential as well as commercial purposes globally. Given that people pay a lot of money for them, a natural question to ask is how long these concrete structures or buildings will last.

    “Building materials play a big role in deciding the longevity of a concrete structure. There have been instances where concrete buildings not more than 20 to 30 years old have collapsed. However, there are cases where concrete buildings that were constructed 100-150 years back are still going strong without any kinds of damage or problems. Unfortunately, the fact that housing projects are being mass-produced today has resulted in countless buildings being constructed with inferior quality materials.

    “Since all concrete buildings look the same to the untrained eye, it is very difficult to ascertain how long any one will last without needing serious structural repairs. While some buildings will last for more than 50 to 60 years without problems, some will start developing problems after few years of construction.

    “The designs used in concrete buildings also play a part in how long they will last. If we examine some old structures, it becomes apparent that they have thick columns, beams and slabs that provide superior support to the building. In many of today’s concrete buildings being raised by developers who are more concerned with cost-cutting than delivering quality products, the slabs that are used are merely few inches thick.”

    ———————————————————————————————-

    “While some buildings will last for more than 50 to 60 years without problems, some will start developing problems after few years of construction.”

    Wow, 50 or 60 years! Imagine that!

    (And then there are those magnificent structures built by the Romans and the Mayans over two thousand years ago that are still standing.)

    2. It’s telling that western civilization, now under relentless attack by the globalists and their radical left minions, built magnificent cities and structures that are hundreds of years old, yet remain sublime in both their beauty and the solidity of their construction.

  12. “Amy and Mason Cardin operate a small Airbnb studio apartment on their property in St. Augustine. ‘They [the city of St. Augustine] let people come in and invest. They let young people like me and my family – we really depend on this income – like big time. It pays, you know, pays our living costs. So we’re either going to be in a position where we’ll have to sell our house, and our house value will be less, because you don’t have the potential to make an income off of a studio apartment,’ said Mason Cardin.”

    Maybe rentiers shouldn’t use debt to drive up the prices for the rest of us?

    “‘We’re all going to be out of the rental game here pretty soon,’ he said.”

    Excellent news for America.

    1. Maybe speculators shouldn’t use debt to drive up the prices for the rest of us?

      Fixed it for you.

  13. “Owners Are Holding Onto An Asset That’s Underperforming, And They Can’t Do Anything About It”

    How is the household business model of leveraging up to many times your net worth in order to put all your beans into the real estate basket looking by now?

    1. ‘In an interesting Tweet posted by the Ca. Governors office, they suggest that people should wear a mask in between each bite while eating at restaurants. The Oct. 3 Tweet from the Governor’s office says “going out to eat with members of your household this weekend? Don’t forget to keep your mask on in between bites.”

      ‘The Tweet added a diagram to help show the proper technique of eating food while wearing a mask. The image does warn people to limit the amount of time you remove your mask while eating.’

      https://www.khq.com/news/california-gov-gavin-newsom-encourages-wearing-masks-between-bites-while-eating/article_7d03d376-0a5c-11eb-8ee7-e39653b2443f.html

      2. The Oct. 3 Tweet from the Governor’s office says “going out to eat with members of your household this weekend? Don’t forget to keep your mask on in between bites.”

        This is all about conditioning the sheeple into mindless compliance with even the most arbitrary and asinine orders from the collectivist control freaks. You will obey my authori-tay!

  16. The city’s ‘real-time vacancy rate’ — the number of apartments unoccupied right now — is 8.91%, meaning that more than one in every 12 apartments in the city doesn’t have a renter, according to Boston Pads.

    I wonder what the “occupied, but by deadbeat(s)” rate is.

  17. The company said the downtown neighborhood has led the way with a vacancy rate more than 27 times higher than last year.”

    Is that a lot?

  18. Just finished washing my truck, finished an estimate yesterday that would have taken up half of my Monday besides reading the HBB. Now I think I’ll sit out back in the sun for a little bit before I pick something up I need at Home Cheapo and then off to Publix for some Ribeyes that are on sale and have an early evening date with my Weber.

    I’m getting the hang of these social justice football free weekends.

    2. The #2 story this weekend in the Mile High City is that the Broncos-Patriots game, which was scheduled for today, has been postponed for a week because more Patriots players are testing positive for Covid.

      I wonder what are the odds that the season won’t be completed?

  19. ‘Those operators, they definitely had no choice but to send it back to the marketplace and rent it in any way shape or form they could’ after the market for such places bottomed out under the coronavirus, Salpoglou said.”

    No, Salpoglou, I’m guessing a lot of landlords would rather leave them vacant than see them occupied by gub’mint-enabled freeloaders who can’t be evicted even for cause.

  20. Maisel says that he had ‘zero showings in eight weeks’ earlier than slicing the price on Sept. 27 by a bit of over $69,000, to $829,900. ‘extra price cuts are approaching condos,’ Maisel says.”

    Maisel’s getting hangry. The lack of protein in his all-ramen and Dollar Store pasta diet must be getting to him.

    1. slicing the price on Sept. 27 by a bit of over $69,000, to $829,900. ‘extra price cuts are approaching condos,’ Maisel says.

      Unless the Fed can pull out another miracle people need to understand that 69k won’t be the price cut…it will be the final price when everything clears.

      1. Unless the Fed can pull out another miracle

        I do believe that they can print enough to prevent a total asset price collapse, but the consequences will be much, much worse long term.

    2. If they lowered the freakin’ price to market value, they could sell it overnight. But instead, they are choosing to ride the market down indefinitely to ever increasing losses.

      Stupid is as stupid does.

      — Forrest Gump</

  21. Before I catch those rays, whoever originally posted this story here, I hate to say I told you so.

    Scratch that, I love to say I told you so.

    ‘White Supremacist’ Narrative Unravels: Whitmer Kidnap Suspect Attended BLM Rally, Another Called Trump A ‘Tyrant’

    We’re sure MSM corrections are forthcoming…

    Last week, the FBI says it foiled a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D), after the FBI infiltrated an anti-government militia and arrested 13 members who “talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor.”

    And while the FBI never suggested a race-based ideology in its criminal complaint, the MSM – as well as Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), took the ‘white supremacist’ ball and ran with it – hard.

    On Friday, however, the Washington Post profiled several members of the group. Notably absent were accusations of ‘white supremacy’ – perhaps after acknowledging:

    Another alleged plotter, Brandon Caserta, called President Trump a ‘tyrant’ – adding ‘ Trump is not your friend, dude. ‘ Caserta notably has an anarchist flag behind him in several videos he’s recorded.

    Again, there isn’t a shred of evidence included in the FBI’s criminal complaint, nor subsequent reporting, that the men adhered to a white supremacist ideology – a false narrative.

    And so, it appears that the FBI busted an anarchist, anti-government militia which plotted violence against elected officials – yet hated both sides of the aisle.

    Let’s see how fast this entire affair disappears from the news cycle.

    https://remarkboard.com/m/white-supremacist-narrative-unravels-whitmer-kidnap/1f278rc8jmb0d

    2. There is some serious discontent and unaddressed grievances percolating in the heartland. Whatever confused ideology these guys followed – and despite their epic stupidity in organizing an anti-government plot on Facebook – they seem to have been animated by things such as the soaring cost of car insurance and a sense that government at all levels was indifferent, if not actively hostile, to their interests and aspirations. It’s easy to dismiss them as a bunch of knuckleheads, but as the oligarchy concentrates all wealth and power in its own venal hands, I suspect a lot more radicalization is going to be taking place on both the right and the left.

  22. So we’re either going to be in a position where we’ll have to sell our house, and our house value will be less, because you don’t have the potential to make an income off of a studio apartment,’ said Mason Cardin.

    Cry me a river, speculator scum. Your ilk drove up housing costs and ruined the quality of life for your neighbors for way too long. Now go out and find honest work for a change, and let the bank take back THEIR house that you overpaid for.

  23. “RealPage Market Analyst Adam Couch said D.C. is typically in the top 10 in apartment demand among the 50 largest Metro areas, but last quarter it was in the bottom 10.

    How the mighty are fallen.

  24. Cardin estimates there are about 500 small Airbnb owners in the area in a similar situation. … ‘We’re all going to be out of the rental game here pretty soon,’ he said.”

    I think I’ve made it clear I bath in the tears of these ‘professional STR operators’. What do all these companies have in common?

    airbnb
    VRBO
    patreon
    kickstarter
    etsy
    ebay
    uber
    doordash
    upwork
    fiver
    (and many more, I’ll stop here)

    What they have in common is:

    1) They make their money by taking a cut of the gross income that people make using their platform
    2) They don’t actually provide any physical goods or services, their “members” do that
    3) Their “members” take all the risk of performance and delivery
    4) They don’t actually guarantee the fitness or performance of what their users purchase
    5) They have no vested interest in any specific “member”, it’s all about the aggregate total volume their “members” do
    6) Their ‘customer service’ and user facing physical presence is as minimal as possible
    7) They all considered themselves “disruptive” to established industries, and entered into a space with minimal or non-existent regulation
    8) Where there was regulation, they dodged or ignored it and bent the rules as much as possible – better to ‘ask forgiveness later’

    I’ve met too many “entrepreneurs” trying to come up with “the next uber/airbnb, but for xxxx” so they can strike it rich and have a fleet of cars with ‘billionaire doors’

    Rent Seeking on the backs of others is category — Shifting the risk onto the masses of ordinary users is the goal — Scaling up to make the founders billions is the dream.

    /in a grouchy mood this morning

        1. Hear hear…the original was actually disruptive. As well as being blatant theft but that’s another story :-).

          1. Theft was all relevant internet speed were still slow so even a 128k mp3 took awhile to download so you could get a copy that was acceptable but you could never download the full wav version until many years later.

    2. “taking a cut” for doing minimal work is nothing new. Just ask the National Association or Realtors.

      A former foreign colleague once told me that “taking a cut” is the American way. Perhaps he was right. It would explain why so many “businesses” like these have popped up and mostly in the US.

      1. I’ll always agree that Realtors make their living by ‘taking a cut’ of the transaction, but I don’t feel they qualify to be in the same boat as the dot-com middlemen.

        A realtor actually has to do things with their clients, involving their time, putting a cap on their potential, and they do have regs and rules they have to follow, and can be punished for not.

        The tech lords and wannabes have taken things several levels higher. I’m not saying I love realtors, just that they’re no microworkers.com

        1. I have a hard time accepting that realtors deserve a $30K commission on the sale of a 500K house.

          Of course that 30K get divied up: selling broker and realtor, buying broker and realtor. Like I said, a lot of people taking a cut.

          And on the finance side of the transaction, people left and right taking a cut for providing services of dubious value (like “appraisals”).

      2. “’taking a cut’ for doing minimal work is nothing new. Just ask the National Association or Realtors.”

        Or ask a banker. 😁

        “… ‘taking a cut’ is the American way.”

        A worthy goal for a banker is to take a cut out of each and every financial transaction that occurs on the planet. Every one of them.

        The next goal for a banker is the control of each and every financial transaction on the planet. Every one of them.

        Nothing should happen unless a banker wants it to happen.

        God’s Plan.

    3. 2) They don’t actually provide any physical goods or services, their “members” do that

      I disagree with this – they are providing the platform which allows these people to connect with their customer base. People don’t have to use them, but without them they have a much more difficult time finding any customers.

    4. All founded by the usual human cancer too. I’m sure they’ll donate .00001% of their ill gotten gains to get a hospital named after them.

    5. The mob concept is taking a piece of the action. No doubt prices have to be raised to compensate for this.
      Credit card companies raise prices of goods by people using credit.
      Fires and crime raise the price of insurance.
      Globalism raises the price of Government welfare.
      Government backed loans raise the price of shacks , cars, education or anything the gov touches. I could go on and on.

  25. ‘A lot of deals we’re working on have been caught up and owners are upset because they’re holding onto an asset that’s underperforming, and they can’t do anything about it,’ Crayton said.”

    When housing losses we must eat
    Let us stamp our little feet!

  26. Nearly 38% of households that have fallen behind on rent and mortgage payments are also facing credit card and loan debts that they needed to get in order to pay for housing.

    So in other words, those 38% never should’ve been given mortgage loans in the first place.

    1. “So in other words, those 38% never should’ve been given mortgage loans in the first place.”

      This 38% is what makes up my profit center. What pisses me off is …

      … it is only 38%.

          1. Is it true that payday loans can pay interest rates of up to 36%?

            I’m wondering why investors don’t channel more money that direction, given nominal rates of approximately 0% available on traditional interest-bearing investments such as government bonds, CDs, and money market funds?

          2. North Platte to host public hearings on payday loan interest rate caps, casinos at racetracks
            Telegraph staff reports Oct 9, 2020
            Local News

            Public hearings about ballot initiatives to cap payday loan interest rates and allow casinos at racetracks are scheduled Oct. 19 in North Platte.

            State law requires public hearings in each of Nebraska’s three congressional districts for measures placed on the ballot through petition drives.

            “The purpose of the meetings is to educate citizens and the media on the initiatives prior to the elections,” Secretary of State Bob Evnen said.

            The 1:30 p.m. hearing will cover Initiative Measure 428, which would limit the rates charged for cash advance loans to 36% annually.
            …

          3. 36% annual interest rate payday loans and casinos at racetracks go hand-in-hand in this era of negative real interest rate, risk-on all the time central banking we currently enjoy.

            Sadly, history suggests the present madness will end badly.

            History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.

            — Sir Alan Greenspan

          4. “Is it true that payday loans can pay interest rates of up to 36%?”

            Shirley, you are jesting again. Here, try this:

            “The average APR for a payday loan varies from state to state, but often exceeds 400%. Nationwide, the average payday borrower ends up paying over $700 for a $325 payday loan.”

            Wells Fargo: Stop funding/operating payday lenders – Iowa CCI
            http://iowacci.org/economic-justice/wells-fargo-stop-fundingoperating-payday-lenders/

            Because this is such a fun article I decided to offer up a few more snips …

            “For a family living paycheck to paycheck with an emergency need, it can be impossible to pay back a loan in just two weeks or before their next direct deposit of benefit or salary checks. This is why 76% of all payday loans go to customers getting a new loan every two weeks. Payday lending creates an instant debt trap that can be impossible to escape.”

            I like it, especially the impossible to escape part. Moving on …

            “Over the last 20 years, financial institutions have been promoting debt as an alternative to savings, and savings rates have dropped dramatically. Working families today have little to no savings, where 20 years ago savings rates were higher than 10%. Payday lenders use this to their advantage, marketing high cost loans as ‘quick’ and ‘easy’ alternatives to long-term savings.”

            A nation of broke-assed dummies.

            So, the question of the day: What about the banks? Please don’t tell me that banks are getting shut out.

            Not to worry …

            “Since at least 2002, Wells Fargo has operated revolving credit facilities – meaning lines of credit – with payday lenders across the country such as First Cash Financial and Check into Cash (2002), as well as Dollar Financial and Ace Cash Express (2003). Within the past 10 years, Wells Fargo has led the way in financing payday lenders, funding well over $1 billion.

            “On top of all this, Wells Fargo is offering their own payday advance product to their checking account customers who have their paychecks direct deposited into their account. Customers may get an advance of up to $500, with a $10 fee for every $100 borrowed. This amounts to a minimum of 120% APR, assuming the customer doesn’t incur other late fees or overdraft charges.

            “In their own words
            Wells Fargo funded payday lenders rely on Wells Fargo funding in order to bleed our communities of hard-earned wealth. Advance America states in their 2008 Annual Report that ‘we depend to a substantial extent on borrowings under our revolving credit facility to fund our liquidity needs, including cash dividends.’

            Wells Fargo ‘condemns the use of deceptive, predatory or abusive lending practices by anyone in the marketplace'”

            … bahahahahaha … one can never say that we bankers do not have a sense of humor …

            … but continues an ongoing relationship with abusive, predatory payday lenders and engages in their own wealth stripping payday product.”

          5. where 20 years ago savings rates were higher than 10%

            This is disheartening. When people reminisce how “back in the day” people had better jobs and more money to save, I usually think of some idyllic Leave it to Beaver era, or at least pre-1980. But 20 years ago was only 2000. It’s only in the past 25 years that banks have run amok, that our white-collar jobs went overseas, that we were overrun with unskilled labor, that internet and software made 90% of our clerical staff into buggy-whip makers, and that bubbles blew up in corporate, student, car, and housing debt. I don’t see any way out.

          6. ‘When people reminisce how “back in the day” people had better jobs and more money to save, …’

            A big difference is that the return on savings used to be sufficiently positive to keep up with inflation. Nowadays, given the Fed’s wildly successful War on Savers, real interest rates have been hammered down to negative levels. Why not gamble away your money or blow it on frivolous consumption when guaranteed losses are the financially engineered alternative?

          7. It’s only in the past 25 years that banks have run amok, that our white-collar jobs went overseas, that we were overrun with unskilled labor, that internet and software made 90% of our clerical staff into buggy-whip makers, and that bubbles blew up in corporate, student, car, and housing debt. I don’t see any way out.

            Under Obama we saw the largest offshoring of jobs to China and importation of cheap, illegal labor. This was in conjunction with an ever-expanding trade deficit as Obama licked the boots of bankers and the CCP.

          8. “The average APR for a payday loan varies from state to state, but often exceeds 400%.”

            Is that legal?

    1. “I think we know what that means.”

      Toll Brothers employees are soon going to move into their parents’ basements?

    2. Rip,

      Your exactly right that it was about 25 years ago under the Clinton Adminstration that the Political sell out to Globalist and Wall Street began. This created the rigged markets, monopolies of all sorts, Ponzi Scheme financial markets, Fat Cat Globalist looting, Commie Gov programs , advancement of the Commies, and the loss of capitalism, in favor of price fixing rigged monopolies.
      When their fraudulent loan market crashed they were simply bailed out by the corrupt Gov. In around 2009 under the Obama administration. At around the same time the Commie Obamacare was passed.
      Putting manufacturing to the cheapest manufacturing source World wide like China is a Monopoly on labor that destroys any competition and that’s what took place.
      The Politicians in DC didn’t do anything that they should of to combat this rigged monopolistic labor market that gutted all competition by cheaper China manufacturing, while the Globalist middlemen make greater profit by this while it gutted the USA of jobs or even the ability to compete.
      So, the mostly private sector jobs voters of Trump elected this outsider to bring back pre corrupted financial markets.
      If Biden/Harris wins there will be no chance for a reversal of the Political sell out to the Globalist fat Cats and the Commie insurrection.
      It’s a hard fight because the Globalist control the fake news, the Dem party, and they are donating to BLM to further defeat this uprising by half the Country being Trump voters.

      Fake narratives like racism and attack on whites only served to distract from the takeover of the USA by the Globalist and their rigged systems that don’t even resemble capitalism.
      If your a Gov worker or someone that thinks they might benefit by this takeover, your wrong. In the final analysis the demise of Trump voters in favor of the Globalist/Commies/Big Gov/China monopoly on manufacturing, and all anti American forces, will take your way of life also ..

  28. Things I wonder about:

    1) Does America’s army of self-styled real estate investing geniuses realize that they only did well in the post-2012 period because Bernokio targeted trillions in Quantitative Easing at reflating residential real estate prices?

    2) For how much longer can the Fed’s unannounced, targeted support for U.S. housing prices succeed before the ultimate, inevitable point of bubble price collapse?

    1. 2) For how much longer can the Fed’s unannounced, targeted support for U.S. housing prices succeed before the ultimate, inevitable point of bubble price collapse?

      We’re going to find out.

    2. Does America’s army of self-styled real estate investing geniuses realize that they only did well in the post-2012 period because Bernokio targeted trillions in Quantitative Easing at reflating residential real estate prices?

      No, they don’t. And they don’t care. All that matters is they won and you lost because they are bold risk taking entrepreneurs and you are Chicken Little.

      1. All that matters is they won and you lost because they are bold risk taking entrepreneurs and you are Chicken Little.

        Not sure about that. Landlords are getting BBQ’d right now.

    3. With the way prices are falling, did they really?

      And as we all know intuitively, 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 asset like houses and cars.

      Santa Monica, Housing Prices Crater 22% As The Rotting Stench Of Mortgage Fraud Settles In On Los Angeles Area

      https://www.movoto.com/santa-monica-ca/market-trends/

      As one Los Angeles broker decried, “We’ve been lying for so long how are we now supposed to tell the truth?”

    4. “For how much longer can the Fed’s unannounced, targeted support for U.S. housing prices succeed before the ultimate, inevitable point of bubble price collapse?”

      Well, as someone once said “Something that can’t go on forever, won’t”

      We just need to see how long it is just before “forever”

      1. It’s like saying that the sun won’t last forever and will one day turn into a red giant a destroy the Earth. It’s pretty much irrelevant to anyone..

    5. Professor Bear,
      I’m not sure that people in general even understand how financial markets work.
      Usually people are to busy to research everything, or they buy into fake news or they listen to Authority figures or they follow the crowd.
      It’s unfortunate that we have amoral fake news or opinion that people trust.
      It was so much easier in the good old days to figure out markets .

  29. I personally follow the President’s guidance when it comes to investing in U.S. real estate:

    “Stand back and stand by.”

  30. “Massachusetts has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 11.3 percent.”

    And that state had the most dynamic economy of the prior decade. Want to guess why?

    When you had the sequester, government spending was restrained. Massachusetts has the least government-dependent economy in the country, as I showed here.

    https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2020/08/24/big-government-where-it-is-by-state/

    And it is also the state that produces the most goods and services that are competitive with global markets.

    Now? The bigger borrowed government money is as a share of your economy, the better off you are. The one exception seems to be Texas, which is bucking both an oil price downturn and below average government dependence.

  31. ‘The World Health Organization’s special envoy on COVID-19 has urged world leaders to stop using lockdowns as the primary control method against the spread of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.’

    “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” David Nabarro told The Spectator in an interview aired on Oct. 8. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

    ‘Nabarro pointed to the collateral damage that lockdowns are having worldwide, especially among poorer populations.’

    “Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry, for example in the Caribbean or in the Pacific, because people aren’t taking their holidays. Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world because their markets have got dented. Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. Seems that we may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition because children are not getting meals at school and their parents, in poor families, are not able to afford it,” Nabarro said.’

    “This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe actually,” he added. “And so we really do appeal to all world leaders: Stop using lockdown as your primary control method, develop better systems for doing it, work together and learn from each other, but remember—lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.

    ‘Nabarro isn’t the only scientist opposing lockdowns. A number of medical or public health scientists and medical practitioners have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which states that “current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”

    ‘The signatories include: “Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University and a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.”

    “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk,” the declaration states.’

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/who-official-urges-world-leaders-to-stop-using-lockdowns-as-primary-method-against-ccp-virus_3534230.html

    1. ‘a doubling of world poverty by next year…at least a doubling of child malnutrition’

      Proud of yourselves bed wetters?

        2. What’s more, this announcement makes it clear that it is capitalism that feeds people, keeps them from being poor and sick. Capitalism has given us everything that we have.

          1. The globalists have hijacked our capitalist system and turned it into a rigged system where they siphon all of the money out of it.

      2. “a doubling of world poverty by next year…at least a doubling of child malnutrition”

        This mass starvation brought to you by the same people who said that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children under U.S. sanctions was “worth it” (U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking to Diane Sawyer on 60 Minutes).

        Globalists gonna globe.

        1. Don’t forget McStain and the clinton/rino destruction of Syria. All involved in that should be tried and executed for war crimes.

    2. “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk,” the declaration states.’

      So why did they take months – and inflict incalculable socioeconomic damage – to come out with guidance that was obvious from Day One? The timing is interesting – as more and more people were starting to push back on arbitrary dictates from the Big Club, WHO decides to backpedal.

      1. I was about to comment the same thing. It’s almost as if they are taking this loose stance now to cover their @$$es for how they effed up in January February. “Oh, we were planning for herd immunity all along! Yeeeahh, that’s the ticket.”

        So now they want no masks and COVID parties? You first, you distinguished doctors at the WHO. Herd immunity is all fun and games until you’re a long-hauler yourself. And if you’re going to send us off to get sick, can we at least have an in-home treatment (IVM/HCQ), instead of sending us home to suffer with nothing until we overwhelm the hospitals?

        And all the while, China is smirking that they got off scot-free.

    3. How is Governor Nuisance going to mint more dependency class Democratic voters without resorting to economy-crushing pandemic lockdowns?

      1. It’s a great time to be an oligarch sitting on a huge pile of inherited dough, while wielding the power to crush the economic prospects of those less fortunate.

        1. Gavin Newsom’s keeping it all in the family
          Avatar
          by Dan Walters
          January 6, 2019,
          Updated on July 8, 2019
          Ties among the Brown, Newsom, Pelosi and Getty families date back three generations.

          In summary

          As Gavin Newson becomes governor of California, he’s writing a new chapter in the saga of four intertwined San Francisco families.

          Gavin Newsom will be the first Democrat in more than a century to succeed another Democrat as governor and the succession also marks a big generational transition in California politics.

          A long-dominant geriatric quartet from the San Francisco Bay Area – Gov. Jerry Brown, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – has been slowly ceding power to younger political strivers.

          Moreover, Newsom is succeeding someone who could be considered his quasi-uncle, since his inauguration continues the decades-long saga of four San Francisco families intertwined by blood, by marriage, by money, by culture and, of course, by politics – the Browns, the Newsoms, the Pelosis and the Gettys.

          The connections date back at least 80 years, to when Jerry Brown’s father, Pat Brown, ran for San Francisco district attorney, losing in 1939 but winning in 1943, with the help of his close friend and Gavin Newsom’s grandfather, businessman William Newsom.
          …

        1. State budget ‘balanced’ with massive new debt
          Avatar
          by Dan Walters
          July 15, 2020
          California Capitol. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters

          In summary

          Gov. Gavin Newsom says the new California state budget is balanced, but in reality it has a huge deficit that will be covered by indirect borrowing.

          Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a 2020-21 state budget he described as “balanced, responsible and protects public safety and health, education, and services to Californians facing the greatest hardships.”

          Whatever its other virtues may be, the budget is far from “balanced,” at least as most folks outside the Capitol would define it.

          The 2020-21 budget spends far more — at least $20 billion more — than projected revenues, even including billions of dollars from the state’s emergency reserve.

          The gap is closed, at least on paper, by running up the state’s credit card with debt of one kind or another, the most spectacular example being how it treats the budget’s largest single expenditure, state aid to school districts for the education of about 6 million kids.

          It authorizes those districts to spend more or less what they would spend if the state wasn’t being battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, if its economy wasn’t in recession, and if the state’s revenues weren’t in a nosedive.
          …

          1. “The sneakiest bit of borrowing is an assumption that the budget will save $2.8 billion, half in the general fund, by reducing the pay of state workers via deals negotiated with their unions. The details differ from union to union, but generally, workers will be required to work two days each month without pay, offset somewhat by reducing their contributions for fringe benefits.”

            “The kicker is that those unpaid work days will go onto the books as time-off to be taken with pay later and doubles the ceiling on accumulated time-off. So eventually the state will be repaying workers, and probably at hourly rates substantially higher than their current salaries.”

            Reads just like a three-shell game!

    4. “Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry,…”

      We tried to do our part to help Hawaii’s collapsed economy this summer, but gave up when the second trip we scheduled was cancelled due to extension of their governor’s insane two-week quarantine policy.

      And it was all for nothing, as they have plenty of COVID-19 despite killing their tourism industry.

      1. Why is it so impossible for politicians to come up with a rational policy for controlling COVID-19 transmission risk without killing the economy?

        Hawaii pushes forward with tourism despite safety concerns
        By CALEB JONES
        October 7, 2020

        HONOLULU (AP) — Despite increasing coronavirus cases across the U.S., Hawaii officials hope to reboot tourism next week by loosening months of economically crippling pandemic restrictions, including a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all arriving travelers.

        The plan, which was postponed after the virus surged in the summer, will allow Hawaii-bound travelers who provide negative virus test results within 72 hours of arrival to sidestep two weeks of quarantine.

        But the Oct. 15 launch of the pre-travel testing program is causing concern for some who say gaps in the plan could further endanger a community still reeling from summer infection rates that spiked to 10% after local restrictions eased.
        …

        1. still reeling from summer infection rates that spiked to 10% after local restrictions eased

          That’s odd. According the the Hawaii government Covid dashboard, positivity peaked in August at around 6% and then fell to 3%. Deaths with a test result at 2 people per day. Still Reeling? 40/day would die simply of old age.

          How spectacularly stupid we are on the whole.

          1. In surge testing where they had I think over 10K tested positivity was less than 1%. The whole thing is a farce and as others have suggested, this is just a scam to bankrupt many and buy assets on the cheap. They did this after 2008, where even judges were in partnerships with banksters and attorneys to foreclose on people who werent even behind in payments. Some people lost millions in real estate. I said at the outset of this plandemic that they would use it as an excuse to take out the 10s of 1000s of airbnbs in this and other states and I still think thats the plan. Lots of businesses are going under, parts of the islands are ghost towns now.

            The only reason they are starting up tourism now even though cases are more than they were back in June is because the money from uncle sugar has run out.

            Beaches are packed with some tourists but mostly locals getting together for birthday parties or just to have a meal. I went to a beach potluck friday night, over a dozen mostly unrelated people and had a cop follow me home after, was wondering if he was part of the covid stasi.

      2. “And it was all for nothing, as they have plenty of COVID-19 despite killing their tourism industry.”

        Yeah, well I would not call it “all for nothing”. There is this Great Reset thingy in the works, as you know.

        A memory refresher:

        The Great Reset | World Economic Forum
        https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/

        Note: These Davos guys cannot implement their Great Reset plans and schemes when things are going swimmingly, they can only do so when things are going to sh1t, hence they are making sure that things are going to sh1t.

      3. t was all for nothing??? Look at the bright side of the collapse of the Hawaiian economy from the Oligarchy point of view: The local po folk will decamp from the islands for the mainland to get enough work to survive, island real estate values will collapse, and the Oligarchy can then buy up most or all of the Hawaiian Islands at a steep discount.

          1. It fits with the scheme to let the rioters and homeless overrun California cities, driving out owner-occupied real estate HODLers to other states and foreign investors to other asset classes. Once prices bottom out, the Democratic cabal can load up on California real estate assets at fire sale prices.

          2. Marketplace
            People still leaving California for Texas despite COVID-19 surge
            Andy Uhler
            Jun 26, 2020
            Heard on: Marketplace
            Demonstrators call for the reopening of Texas at the state Capitol in April. Politics is one reason some Californians relocate to Texas.
            Sergio Flores/Getty Images

            Marie Bailey grew up in Orange County, California, and moved to Dallas a little more than three years ago.

            “We moved because of cost of living,” Bailey said. The home she and her husband owned in Orange County was fine but not what she had always pictured.

            “I wanted a dream house, you know? It didn’t have to be a mansion, but we worked so hard. I worked, he worked, and I was like, ‘What are we working so hard for?’ ”

            After Bailey moved to Texas, she got her real estate license and found her niche relocating people from the Golden State.

            She said lots of folks are reconsidering where they’d like to live, particularly as they continue to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

            “That right there is really pushing people to move,” she said.

            Bailey moderates an 18,000-member Facebook group called “Move to Texas From California!“

            As cases of coronavirus spike in both states, she said, nobody in the group she’s communicated with has expressed regrets over having left California for Texas or their plans to do so soon. She said her business of helping people make the move is thriving now more than ever.
            …

          3. “I wanted a dream house, you know?”

            Must be drilled in from playing with dolls, houses and making Ken do schitt that he doesn’t want to do.

          4. making Ken do schitt that he doesn’t want to do

            In the Pixar short films, Ken (voiced by Michael Keaton and reminiscent of Ryan Seacrest) is worse than Barbie.

          1. ltresho

            That’s what happens when you start typing in the wrong box. It doesn’t go away on its own. Don’t ask me how I know.

          2. “That’s what happens when you start typing in the wrong box.”

            The curser’s focus needs to be set in the comment box.

          3. That’s what happens when you start typing in the wrong box.
            My cursed cursor jumps all around every time I try to enter something. I use a Trackpoint / trackpad on my laptop. Sorry for the confusion.

          4. When you first click on the Reply link you’ll see the cursor is blinking in the Name textbox, which is the default; it can be set to start in the Comment textbox.

            In the world of coding it’s called Focus, which is usually set as follows: SomeTextBox.Select(); and it has to be nested within the Reply form load event.

      1. I get your schtick about being the greedy banker. But how can a banker prosper if a society is completely dysfunctional and no one is productive? If the “pukes” are useless non producers, what is there to reap?

        1. With government-guaranteed mortgages, it seems like the bankers can collect the principle owed from the GSEs and collect the collateral from the foreclosed homeowner. Win-win for Mr. Banker?

          1. They can do that as long as there are productive people propping up society. What good does it do to foreclose on a house when there is no one to rent or sell it to? Sure, in the end the banking clan will own everything, but it will be mostly worthless.

            Anyway, my point was that if we reject mathematics as racist and ditch it, we’ll end up back in stone age.

          2. “What good does it do to foreclose on a house when there is no one to rent or sell it to?”

            Unlimited Quantitative Easing goes somewhere. With UQE, there’s always some future financial winner flush with cash, ready to snap up collapsed asset at fire sale prices.

          3. snap up collapsed asset at fire sale prices.

            You only get fire sale prices when there’s no more credit available. Then, it’s cashed up oligarchs picking the bones of the rubes they fleeced.

        2. “But how can a banker prosper if a society is completely dysfunctional and no one is productive? If the “pukes” are useless non producers, what is there to reap?”

          Pukes need to be dumbed-down past the point of financial incompetence but not past the point of usefulness.

          Pukes need to be competent enough to learn how to earn money but not competent enough to learn how to keep it.

          In an ideal world money that is earned is willingly and immediately passed up the financial infrastructure until it lands in the bankers coffers, and this is where it will stay (which will give new meaning to Truman’s saying “The Buck Stops Here”).

          The various student loan programs offer a good start in this process. Each year thousands of some very dumb-assed, dumbed-down high school graduates willingly and eagerly jump into the various and numerous student loan borrowing schemes that are almost guaranteed to doom them to many years of debt-slave misery. My only complaint about this program is that it does not go far enough.

          1. “Pukes need to be dumbed-down past the point of financial incompetence but not past the point of usefulness.

            Pukes need to be competent enough to learn how to earn money but not competent enough to learn how to keep it. “

            This is what the entire public education (forced mass-schooling) system in the U.S. has been designed to do since day one.

        3. how can a banker prosper

          Despite poverty and debt slavery continuing to rise, Americans still have a great deal of wealth and productivity. It’s a milk it until it’s dry thing.

    2. When I first saw this dreck (that math is racist) I face palmed. Unless we turn this nonsense around, we are doomed. We eventually won’t be able to keep the lights on or the water flowing.

      1. As someone who pretty much has done math for a living since I was in college, I guess I will have to learn to love the racis’ label.

        1. I, too, do math for a living but unlike your math, which I am sure is very precise, my math happens to be a bit … er, variable.

          2. Mathematicians (I wrote it that way, but was overruled by autocorrect at the last moment before posting!)

      2. Kind of already there given that the fed prints up a few trillion bucks out of thin air every year and showers us with it to keep us dancing.

      3. I gotta hand it to Campus Reform for including a second opinion in the article:

        National Association of Scholars Director of Research David Randall … explains that “mathematics has always been the purest field of scholarship… 2 + 2 = 4 everywhere in the universe, and always will.” Nevertheless, “critical race theorists may demand that we believe that 2 + 2 = 5, because bias affects mathematics and bias must be overcome, but free minds will never assent.”

  34. In Colorado,

    You ask a very good question about how do the Bankers prosper in the long run if the policies cause a total breakdown of productive society.

    This is the question that has always baffled me.
    The only think I can think of is the money men expect bail outs by the Commie Gov. Than they buy out at the crashed prices while the Commie Gov rescues the poor from the damage.
    The only problem is you eventually loot the economy so much that you don’t have anything to loot anymore. The previous tax payer productive become the depleted people who become the poor that need gov welfare.
    The only thing I can think of is that these wealth looters don’t look that far in advance because the current profits are the goal.
    I think they expect the gov to pay for their looting, so Gov Commie programs just cover up their damage from their rigged financial systems.

    1. “…money men expect bail outs…”

      That seems to be what happened last time…i.e. Friends of the Fed got access to bailout-financed ZIRP loans to snap up assets at fire sale prices at the point when Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sixpack were going through foreclosure and getting added to the growing ranks of the homeless population.

    2. The only problem is you eventually loot the economy so much that you don’t have anything to loot anymore. The previous tax payer productive become the depleted people who become the poor that need gov welfare.

      All successful systems rely on the producers to continue to produce. This is what always trips up communists. This particular time around I think TPTB think that once they own everything and can rent it back to the slaves workers that production will still be high after a temporary hiccup. It’s the ultimate plan for skimming…the whole planet. If production stops everybody is screwed until the potential producers can take power again.

    3. “You ask a very good question about how do the Bankers prosper in the long run if the policies cause a total breakdown of productive society.”

      In the long run we are all dead. But in the meantime it is important that hope among the pukes is kept alive and flourishing.

      I call this policy PukeHope and it is implemented via persuasion by the bought-and-paid-for Main Stream Media.

      PukeHope forever offers up hope to the hopeless, it forever has a new and better way of doing things.

      The current tool of PukeHope conjured up by the Great Fathers Who Run The World is something called The Great Reset. This Great Reset promises to finally Make Things Right, and it will be presented to the hopeless in the very near future.

  35. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Kick-off the “Soul of the Nation” Bus Tour in Phoenix, AZ

    Oct 8, 2020

    Comments

    A boy named Gilroy
    2 days ago

    Every single person attending that rally could get on that one bus and it wouldn’t even be half full.

    Bob Miller
    2 days ago

    It’s probably the short bus

    https://youtu.be/lakk5XKOih8?t=400

    1. I watched about 5 minutes of the VP debate. I listened to that vapid woman and thought to myself “is this Presidential material?” and the answer was a resounding “HELL NO.”

      1. PS – I was talking to a woman with severe TDS the other day, and mentioned I was concerned about Biden’s mental health as she went on another one of her anti-Trump screeds. She quickly retorted with something to the effect of “he picked a good running mate.” I laughed out loud (I honestly couldn’t control it) and she quickly offered “they chose her because she’s black.” It was almost like a child telling on themselves. She couldn’t even buy into the lie she was trying to pass off.

        1. She couldn’t even buy into the lie she was trying to pass off. Give her a point for unconscious honesty, then. 🙂

        1. Interesting Newt would say that, unless it’s just in jest. I was terrified of Hillary getting the presidency, but it was because her goals terrified me AND she was highly competent at pursuing her goals. I’m sure Kamela’s goals terrify me too but I’m skeptical that her competence approaches that of Her. Although how competent do you have to be if the whole machine is behind you?

          1. unless it’s just in jest

            Half in jest. He was on with Jesse Watters Saturday evening. I can’t find the clip right now.

          2. Although how competent do you have to be if the whole machine is behind you?

            She’ll just be a puppet, who will take her orders from the Davos crowd. Which is about as scary as it gets.

    2. Poway intersection today: Trump supporters outnumbered Biden supporters roughly 5:1. African American driver motioned support for Trump as white woman in black bloc with small BLM cardboard sign trekked roughly 50 yards to tattletale about who-knows-what to three Sheriff’s deputies. An hour or so later, a larger group of black bloc-clad white teenagers (female mostly) got in a shouting match with a Trump flag-bearing truck.

      2. black bloc-clad white teenagers (female mostly)

        I remember hearing a political theory once that if you want to see where we’re going next, watch the hot chicks. In the end everyone follows them. They used the example of the Vietnam protests as being a time when the hot chicks were with the resistance. If that theory has any validity, I’m still thinking Trump is going to win.

  36. ‘Thousands of Cubans, Venezuelans and other conservative Latinos convened in Miami to attend an ‘Anti-Communist’ caravan, flying flags of support for President Donald Trump. ‘

    ‘The parade, called the ‘Anti-Communist Caravan for Freedom and Democracy’, convened at the Magic City Casino on Saturday morning. Various reports estimate somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 cars in attendance for the caravan.’

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/latinos-for-trump-hold-a-massive-anti-communist-caravan-in-miami/ar-BB19Ubq1

      1. That’s just like the rally I went to this weekend. It was truly awesome. If you’re a Trump supporter and there is one local to you, go. Thousands just show up either driving or on the sidelines. We even had triaxles, trailers and straights rolling in our event.

  37. How dare these corrupt turncoats to USA Biden/Harris talk about the soul of the Nation.

    The soul of the Nation was sold out about 25 years ago to the Fat Cat Globalist by the corrupt Politicians like Joe Biden.
    Right Joe, the soul of our Nation is a Commie hellhole with Big Government creeps like you telling us what to do.
    The soul of our Nation was capitalism with Constitution and rule of law protections with freedoms that no Government should take.

    The hubris of Biden/Harris is beyond belief , and I’m sick of Biden getting off the hook for threatening a Foreign Country who wanted to investigate the bribes given to his son, along with the China bribes.
    It’s not the Soul of this Country to have such a treasonous SOB like you that enriched your Son at the expense of the US.
    And the Commie fake Harris is just a puppet like you have always been. The soul of the USA is we don’t pick VP based on gender and color, but rather being qualified to lead, when the fake doesn’t come close.

      1. Mr Banker,

        OMG, I finally looked up this GREAT RESET, by this Davos crowd of Globalist.

        OMG. A bunch of Rich Globalist wanting to control the World. A One World Order group of Control Freaks talking about Control of the World and the new opportunity because of Covid 19 to reset .

        These Characters were like something you would see in a James Bond Movie. George Soros talking about Trump being eliminated in 2020. They had evil accents and talked like Gods.
        Oh no, I didn’t elect these creeps to rule the World.
        Interesting stuff Mr Banker, I can see why you have made posts about it.

  39. The Democratic run city officials and real journalists strike again!

    Pete D’Abrosca
    @pdabrosca
    He literally wasn’t even a security guard.

    @9NEWS just hired an AntiFa thug with a gun.

    Though the Denver Police Dept. within hours of the shooting rushed to claim that their “investigation” determined Dolloff was a “private security guard with no affiliation with Antifa,” on Sunday night they admitted that wasn’t true.

    “Investigators are unaware of whether the suspect is personally affiliated with any political organization,” the Denver PD said.

    Rob O’Donnell
    @odonnell_r
    So the Denver @9NEWS security shooter, Matthew Robert Dolloff, now arrested for murder has quite the Facebook post history. From F@ck the Police (FTP), to sharing Occupy Denver/ Democrats, to his F@ck Trump.
    What I can’t find is any kind of security/police/military background.

    CBSDenver
    @CBSDenver
    City Of Denver: Matthew Dolloff Not Licensed To Be A Security Guard https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/10/11/matthew-dolloff-denver-security-guard/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    7:13 PM · Oct 11, 2020

    City Of Denver: Accused Shooter Matthew Dolloff Is Not Licensed to Be A Security Guard

    Chris Menahan | Information Liberation
    October 12th 2020, 2:11 am

    “If he was operating as a security guard, he was in violation of the law,” said Eric Escudero, a department spokesman, stated. “Security guards are prohibited from carrying or using a firearm without getting an armed firearm endorsement for their license. All security guards in Denver are required to get a federal background check before they receive their license.”

    Escudero also shared Denver is one of three cities in Colorado where security guards are required to have a license to operate, and there is requirement to have a license in the state.

    Security guards are also required to go through training which includes training on use of force.

    Doloff had his first advisement hearing Sunday morning. The judge declared the arrest affidavit will be sealed, and the defendant will be held on first degree murder charges without bond.

    As I reported earlier, Dolloff’s social media show he’s a radical leftist with a hatred of Trump supporters.

      1. Both the Pinkerton Agency that employed this unlicensed loon, and the Channel 9 News Real Journalists who hired him for security, can expect massive civil lawsuits. From all indications, this “security guard” went over and instigated the fatal confrontation, which is the last thing security personnel are supposed to be doing.

        1. Both the Pinkerton Agency that employed this unlicensed loon, and the Channel 9 News Real Journalists who hired him for security, can expect massive civil lawsuits. I agree. However, NYT today quoted the Pinkertons as having admitted Dollof was their agent, but has denied he was their employee, blaming an unknown “3rd party” for supplying him. I mentioned this elsewhere here under my typo name “Itresho”, so I won’t repeat the link. Pinkerton may avoid criminal liability but I don’t see how they can avoid massive civil liability. Nick Sandmann’s lawyers have probably already contacted the dead man’s family.

      2. The fact that the “Denver Police Dept. within hours of the shooting rushed to claim that their “investigation” determined Dolloff was a “private security guard with no affiliation with Antifa,”

        about a guy who had a social media history like that is truly scary and reason enough for me not to live there.

    2. to sharing Occupy Denver/ Democrats

      While Antifa/BLM are being taken over by other TPTB, I don’t want to dump too hard on Occupy Wall Street. The beginnings of the OWS movement were pretty legit, and OWS at least identified the correct target: 1% Wall Street and the money men. IIRC they even published a list of specific legislative demands, including a tax on high-frequency trading. If OWS had stuck to their anti-banker agenda instead of setting up communes in city parks (once a hippie always a hippie 🙄 ), they would have achieved much more.

      1. As I reported earlier, Dolloff’s social media show he’s a radical leftist with a hatred of Trump supporters.

        1. I can’t get the link to post. There is a twitter video of an Antifa/BLM buddy of Matthew Dolloff right before the shooting telling a Blue Live Matter protester and I paraphrase “what do you got mace? Come on mace me Nigga, see what you get you POS” as he puts his hand where his pistol is. Right after Matthew Dolloff shoots the retired Navy business owner who was spraying something like mace at him.

          These overzealous Trump hating propaganda filled pieces of sh@t are openly goading people so they can what they think is legally use deadly force.

          1. I can’t even find a link to Infowars site now, anyway if you can find the infowars site then breaking news (older news may need to be clicked by then) scroll to…

            City Of Denver: Accused Shooter Matthew Dolloff Is Not Licensed to Be A Security Guard
            Chris Menahan | Information Liberation
            October 12th 2020, 2:11 am

            In the story click on…

            As I reported earlier, Dolloff’s social media show he’s a radical leftist with a hatred of Trump supporters.

            If has not been sent to live with Hillary’s emails by then you will find frame by frame pictures of the murder and the twitter video I described above.

          4. After watching flying soy a couple of more times the F – Trump calls from the crowd turning to ooh ooh Ohhhh was all most as entertaining as the flight itself.

      2. Found it

        Military Vet Shot Dead At ‘Patriot Rally’ in Front Of His Son by Leftist Hired by 9News Denver As ‘Security’

        Chris Menahan
        InformationLiberation
        Oct. 11, 2020

        Brittany
        @Brittany3l
        Here is a video of what lead up to the Denver shooting:

        SlavTrapGod
        @slavtrapgod
        Replying to @slavtrapgod
        Pictures put in order. There isn’t a chance in hell this guy is able to walk via self defense unless his lawyer is dumber than internet autists. Also shows that I was correct as to who was in the blue shirt, the producer who was arrested. @SomeBitchIKnow @ThunderB

        https://www.informationliberation.com/

        1. This video is the one that needs to be seen. While the one guy is goading so he can shoot the other actually murders a man he knew only had mace.

          These are nasty despicable people.

          Brittany
          @Brittany3l
          Here is a video of what lead up to the Denver shooting:

          1. one video down

            Adam Biel
            @adambiel
            Replying to @adambiel
            *Graphic* Video of a man yelling just after shooting “One less white f#cking supremacist! F#ck yeah! Right in the f#cking dome!” 😪

      3. If OWS had stuck to their anti-banker agenda

        I said at the time, all they needed to do was stand there in business suits, dead silent, with high quality signage.

        But as soon as one hippie poops on a police car it all falls apart.

    1. Happy Columbus Day! Over the last weekend the President of Mexico published an open letter to the Pope asking the Roman Catholic Church to apologize for abuses of Indigenous peoples during the conquest of Mexico in the 1500s. However, he did not ask for apologies from the ancient Aztecs for enslaving, abusing and EATING the also “indigenous”, but non-Aztec tribes of Mexico prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. How do you think Cortez recruited the vast native army which backed his overthrow of the Aztecs?

      1. Over the last weekend the President of Mexico published an open letter to the Pope asking the Roman Catholic Church to apologize for abuses of Indigenous peoples during the conquest of Mexico in the 1500s.

        Last year he demanded a similar apology from Spain. The Spaniards told him to go pound sand. They knew if they apologized that demands for reparations would follow.

        AMLO recently confiscated about 20 billion in USD of publicly managed trusts in Mexico. These trusts were supposed to be autonomous and off limits from the federal government.These trusts were used to fund pensions, scholarships, infrasructure maintenance, and heathcare and food subsidies.

        He’s running out of money and is confiscating anything he can. There is an uproar in Mexico as seizing those trusts is blatantly illegal. He tried to unload the presidential plane last year (a Dreamliner) but asked for too much and it didn’t sell. Now they can’t give it away. He routinely has auctions were they sell confiscated cars and trucks, and makes a big deal over how much is raised (a pittance)

        Mexico is quickly going Venezuela, which is unfortunate as under previous administrations at least finances and employment were improving. And AMLO hasn’t made a dent in the narco wars.

        We should expect the Mexodus to resume soon

  41. Watched a documentary on what Brett Kavanaugh and his family were put through, Pretty damn disgusting what those nasty obviously lying people did to him and his family.

    1. Any stated opposition to the globalist agenda means you are “far right”, a “racis” and a “white supremacis”. That should be in the AP Stylebook by now.

  44. Confirmation of Judge Hearings already a Dem Trump bashing joke that has nothing to do with Judge confirmation.
    Basically their arguments against this Judge is she might rule against Dem policies.

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