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At Some Point, They Just Have To Wait For People To Show Up

A weekend topic starting with the Review Journal in Nevada. “Landlord Mario Tafarella is owed more than $30,000 in rent from two of his Las Vegas rental properties in Desert Shores, and it’s money he never will receive. ‘Thirty grand — take it out of your bank account. Would it have a financial impact on you?’ Tafarella said, referring to eviction moratoriums implemented by Gov. Steve Sisolak and the federal government. ‘If all of them (stop paying) it would drive us to bankruptcy.'”

“Las Vegas resident and landlord Bob Smith said his worst-case scenario would be foreclosing on his properties in Pahrump and Las Vegas. Smith had to tap into his savings when one tenant stopped paying rent last year after the eviction moratorium took effect. He’s lost more than $6,500 and had to requested a mortgage forebearance on the home. ‘I used it on that house — I had to,’ he said.”

“Real estate broker Tom Blanchard said mom-and-pop landlords are those who purchase one or a handful of properties expecting some extra income, especially as a part of a retirement plan. ‘They’re not the large corporate conglomerates that can handle taking a loss because they’re making money (on other investments),’ said Blanchard, who last year served as president of trade association Las Vegas Realtors. Nevada could see a rise in foreclosures should smaller landlords fail to keep up with their multiple mortgage payments, according to Blanchard.”

From KTNV in Nevada. “A report by the Nevada State Apartment Association noted that ‘the percentage of properties offering concessions has increased significantly since the start of the pandemic. New apartment communities are feeling the pressure with nearly all new apartment communities offering concessions by the end of the second quarter. Concessions are highest in the beltway submarkets of Summerlin/Spring Valley, Henderson, and Enterprise/South Paradise. That’s no surprise given the high asking rents, abundance of high-end units, and hundreds more in the pipeline for delivery over the next several quarters.'”

From Community Impact in Texas. “It might have been a banner year for single-home sales in Houston, but 2020 was unkind to the much of the region’s apartment market, especially its usually thriving Inner Loop. ‘We’re seeing a combination of a kind of urban flight and Houston’s uncanny ability to deliver massive amounts of new inventory at the worst possible time,’ said Bruce McClenny, president of ApartmentData. ‘It’s a pretty devastating drop.'”

“As of Dec. 31, rents had fallen by double-digit margins over the previous 12 months in three key markets: Downtown, Highland Village-Upper Kirby-West University, and Montrose-Museum District-Midtown. Those three markets also added over 3,300 new apartment units during the same time period, pushing occupancy rates down to around 84% or lower. There were over 12,000 unoccupied apartment units out of 79,000 in those five Inner Loop markets at the end of 2020, and roughly 7,700 more units are under construction.”

“‘I would hope that these operators in those areas—at some point, you can’t lower rents anymore. They just have to wait for people to show up,’ McClenny said.”

The Puget Sound Business Journal in Washington. “A Bellevue apartment property has sold for $279.1 million, according to the sales affidavit. Records show that the developer of Hyde Square, San Francisco-based Carmel Partners, sold the 618-unit project to DWS, a division of Deutsche Bank. It’s a big number, but when you break it down it’s not extraordinary.”

“The multifamily rental market has slowed due to Covid-19, with most properties offering free rent to lure tenants. Hyde Square, which opened in phases between 2018 and 2019, is no different. It’s offering between six and eight weeks’ free rent, a leasing agent said, and the property how the website trumpets ‘newly reduced rents.'”

From KATU in Oregon. “The coronavirus pandemic has caused rent prices to fluctuate in the Portland metro area. There are specific areas of town where rent prices have fallen somewhat dramatically. ‘It’s going to be a limited slice of the renter pool, because not everybody can live there. But if you have the means right now, this is one of the best times you’re ever going to have a new, kind of modern luxury apartment in central Portland or downtown Portland,’ said Basham.”

The Real Deal on Illinois. “With occupancy rates at Downtown Chicago apartments falling sharply during the pandemic, the owner of one of the largest complexes in the city wants to sell. An investment fund has hired Newmark to market McClurg Court, a 1,061-unit rental development in Streeterville, Crain’s reported, citing Real Estate Alert. The massive complex was expected to trade for over $200 million — roughly $189,000 a unit — according to the report.”

“The decision to sell comes at a time when the Chicago apartment market has taken a big hit. The third-quarter occupancy rate for Downtown rentals dipped to 87.1 percent from 93.8 percent in the third quarter of 2019. The latest number was the lowest figure in two decades, and has forced landlords to cut rents more than 20 percent year-over-year and offer more concessions.”

From Bisnow Chicago. “The national office market is suspended in midair, and few landlords or tenants want to sign deals. Tenants will find themselves in a historically advantageous position and can look forward to securing leases that will greatly boost their bottom lines with months of free rent and funds to renovate new offices. ‘It’s already happening,’ Chicago-based Savills Vice Chairman Lisa Davidson said. ‘But if I were a landlord, I wouldn’t want to be shouting about it.'”

“And it’s not just landlords of Class-A buildings that are willing to be generous if it means getting buildings filled. ‘It’s not about the type of building,’ Davidson said. ‘It’s any building that has a significant amount of vacancy. And that list is growing every day.’ Eighteen months of gross free rent is no longer out of the question, at least for owners looking to fill newly constructed space with top tenants willing to sign long-term leases.”

“With millions of square feet of sublease space being added to markets around the U.S., including in New York, Chicago and Dallas, tenants may have an unprecedented ability to play landlords against one another, according to Joe Brady, CEO of the Americas at flexible workspace company The Instant Group. ‘It has the potential to be a really ugly situation for landlords,’ he said.”

From Bisnow Los Angeles in California. “For now, the office market looks rough. Newmark’s Q4 office report found that vacancy increased to its highest point since 2013. Nearly 700K SF of office came online in the final quarter of 2020, 68% of which is leased, but tenants can’t occupy it yet. That accounts for part of the increase in vacancy in Q4, Newmark said, but not all of it. Current office utilization is averaging about 30% in Los Angeles, Newmark said.”

The Davis Enterprise in California. “Negotiations surrounding an extension of the state’s eviction moratorium are approaching the do-or-die point with little more than a week left to find a solution for renters and landlords alike. Debra Carlton, the apartment association’s chief lobbyist, said half of the state’s landlords are small mom-and-pop outfits not eligible for federal Paycheck Protection Program loans. ‘We’ve got to get money to landlords,’ she said. ‘We worry they are on the brink of foreclosure.'”

From KITV in Hawaii. “A new report forecast more than half of Hawaii’s hotel rooms will remain empty this year. Kekoa McClellan works for the association in Hawaii. He believes more than 24,000 jobs in hotels will return this year but that’s only 54% of all jobs available pre-pandemic. ‘Take a restaurant at a hotel for example on hotel property. If I’m at 20% occupancy and my hotel has seven restaurants, there is not a need for probably more than a single restaurant,’ McClellan said.”

From Inside the Magic on Florida. “The Holiday Inn Orlando Suites – Water Park Hotel has filed for bankruptcy despite its extremely convenient 5 minute or less drive to Walt Disney World Property. This is not the first hotel we have seen file for bankruptcy amid the ongoing pandemic. We recently reported that three other Orlando hotels were auctioned off as they fell into bankruptcy and foreclosure as well.”

The Globe and Mail. “Canadian pension funds are seeking to boost their real estate investments, betting the slumping property market will recover as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes and office workers and city dwellers return to downtown properties. As the pandemic forced many staff to work from home, the office vacancy rate in Canada hit a 16-year high of 13.4 per cent in 2020, according to CBRE. Downtown offices were hit harder.”

“‘I think pension funds are very well aware that…there are times when values dip a bit and vacancies go up but overall real estate assets are a great part of any pension fund portfolio,’ said CBRE Canada vice-chairman Paul Morassutti.”

“Grant McGlaughlin, partner at law firm Fasken, said he did not see any drastic moves on pension funds getting rid of their real estate portfolios. ‘I think that’s the right thesis that there is no point selling into a low,’ he said.”

From Domain News in Australia. “Renters have made huge savings across a swathe of sought-after suburbs in inner Sydney, with median rents falling by hundreds of dollars a week in some top neighbourhoods. Median rents across 57 suburbs dropped by 10 per cent or more over the year to December, new figures show, with many of the largest percentage drops for units in the city centre and eastern suburbs.”

“Millers Point recorded the biggest drop, with median weekly asking rent for units falling a whopping $305 — or 30.5 per cent — to $695 a week. The Sydney CBD and Pyrmont both recorded unit rents fall of $150 a week, or 20 per cent and 18.5 per cent respectively, while asking rents in Haymarket fell $140. ‘Some property owners were accepting up to a 30 per cent drop in their rent,’ said Kate Sommervelle, of Ayre Real Estate, about the city apartment market.”

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This Post Has 81 Comments

  1. ‘Nevada could see a rise in foreclosures should smaller landlords fail to keep up with their multiple mortgage payments…We’ve got to get money to landlords…We worry they are on the brink of foreclosure’

    But UHS say you can always sell? White hot, or red at least? Well if yer schlonged, you fooked up. You trusted them.

  2. Pensions must be run by the biggest dummies on the planet.

    ‘Vacancies in Calgary’s downtown office towers have risen to record levels and there’s no landlord relief in sight with almost one in three offices sitting empty and sublets accounting for a quarter of available spaces on the market.’

    ‘The city’s glut of empty office space has previously been linked to overbuilding but two commercial real estate reports released this past week show that downtown vacancy rates in Canada’s oil and gas capital are the highest in the country and growing – despite no major new towers opening in the past two years.’

    ‘Vacancies are likely to go even higher, both reports note, driven by short-term factors including layoffs resulting from the takeover of Husky Energy Inc. by Cenovus Energy Inc. and longer-term job losses from cost-cutting and mergers in the oil and gas sector.’

    ‘In its report released Thursday, real estate firm CBRE says the equivalent of four CFL football fields in downtown office space was emptied in the last quarter of 2020.’

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-calgarys-downtown-office-vacancy-rates-rise-to-record-levels-with-no/

    Measuring it by CFL football fields eh? IIRC CFL fields are yuuge!

    1. And on his first day, Pedo Joe cancels on of the largest Canadian American oil infrastructure projects resulting in thousands of layoffs on both sides of the border.

      As Canada has no real way to get its oil to international markets except by inefficient rail.

      And billions of investments wasted.

      I think this is a positive for RE in Calgary.

      1. Well, the Canucks could build it themselves. Of course, we all know that Trudeau is happy about this too, so that won’t happen.

        I guess this is good news for American drillers, for now

    3. Pensions must be run by the biggest dummies on the planet.

      I assume running a pension fund is kind of like being president. You know bad things are going to happen, the goal is just to make sure they happen after you’re gone.

  3. To the democrat marxists – you are the evil rich.

    “mom-and-pop landlords are those who purchase one or a handful of properties expecting some extra income, especially as a part of a retirement plan. ‘They’re not the large corporate conglomerates that can handle taking a loss because they’re making money (on other investments),’

    1. expecting some extra income, especially as a part of a retirement plan

      I’ve met quite a few people who think this way.

    2. I’m kind of tired of all these people who thought they were going to be real estate magnates and retire without having to work for a living. Like Ben says “…yip yip…drip drip..get a job…” or however that goes.

      1. All this “cancel rent” stuff is sure going to put a dent in the smugfest that is FIRE. Maybe they can survive by living in a tiny house and using teabags twice.

        Just wait until the moratoriums are extended long enough that LLs are forced to short sell. Gov cronies will snap up the properties, just in time to start collecting rent again.

        We will own nothing and we will be happy.

        1. We will own nothing and we will be happy.

          And the average landlords thought they were going to be the whales. I’m sure they’re not happy to find out they are the plankton.

          What’s the saying about revolutions? It’s not the haves and have nots that you need to worry about…it’s the “used to haves”?

          1. “And the average landlords thought they were going to be the whales. I’m sure they’re not happy to find out they are the plankton.”

            Most “mom-n-pop” landlords are just trying to establish some passive income for retirement since they don’t have “goon retirement.”

  4. Millions of illegals are on the way…

    “They just have to wait for people to show up,’ McClenny said.”

  5. ‘We’re seeing a combination of a kind of urban flight and Houston’s uncanny ability to deliver massive amounts of new inventory at the worst possible time’

    OK, so I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the idiots down there, but saner people are taking an a$$-pounding too. Houston must be the epicenter of US airbox insanity. The market there started sinking like a turd in a well in 2014. Undeterred, it was “free money baby” and they continued to overbuild. (QE is deflationary). Now it’s littered with foreclosures, many brand new. The MSM won’t tell you but I listen to their radio shows and this is what they discuss amongst themselves.

  6. Can you imagine, this business is going to sell at a decade low point…because they believe things are going to get much worse.

    🙂

    “With occupancy rates at Downtown Chicago apartments falling sharply during the pandemic, the owner of one of the largest complexes in the city wants to sell.”

    1. Believe? They know it’s going to get much worse. Other than the Magnificent Mile area, Chicago is the biggest ghetto I have ever seen.

  7. 18 months of free rent…

    Is that a lot?

    “Eighteen months of gross free rent is no longer out of the question, at least for owners looking to fill newly constructed space with top tenants willing to sign long-term leases.”

  8. ‘Current office utilization is averaging about 30% in Los Angeles’

    This can’t be that big a deal. Cuz how many people live there, a couple thousand? So the vacant space can probably be picked up by mattress stores or something.

  9. Here is a solution.

    Pay yer fooken rent or get quickly evicted.

    With all the free government money floating around…Plenty of opportunities to find something else.

    “Negotiations surrounding an extension of the state’s eviction moratorium are approaching the do-or-die point with little more than a week left to find a solution for renters and landlords alike.”

  10. ‘The third-quarter occupancy rate for Downtown rentals dipped to 87.1 percent from 93.8 percent in the third quarter of 2019. The latest number was the lowest figure in two decades, and has forced landlords to cut rents more than 20 percent year-over-year and offer more concessions’

    OK, so despite the top line number the media will focus on – 20%, you have to add in vacancy and concessions to find the true a$$-pounding number. And like the bay aryan landlords, we’re approaching 50% or more. How many can stomach that? Damn few, especially if they’ve been refinancing like crazy and pissed the money away.

    Many of these LL are already squealing like stuck pigs.

    ‘If all of them (stop paying) it would drive us to bankruptcy’

    Mario here is in Santa Barbara. You got yer boom Mario, enjoy the bust. Don’t take the dishwasher with you, it’s part of the shack.

    1. I remember last bust a family member’s neighbor was foreclosed on. This is in a gated community of houses around $1 million, give or take. When they bought the house, they did not fit in. While they had all the fancy cars and what not, they were low class for lack of a better term, and nobody in the neighborhood liked them.

      They didn’t even last a year in the house, then there was all sorts of commotion late one night. In the morning they were gone, but not before they had torn out the built in refrigerator and smashed it in the backyard. Apparently there was some anger. Certainly it had nothing to do with the fact that they borrowed a boatload of money they couldn’t pay back.

  11. ‘New apartment communities are feeling the pressure with nearly all new apartment communities offering concessions by the end of the second quarter. Concessions are highest in the beltway submarkets of Summerlin/Spring Valley, Henderson, and Enterprise/South Paradise. That’s no surprise given the high asking rents, abundance of high-end units, and hundreds more in the pipeline for delivery over the next several quarters’

    And how many people aren’t even paying rent? BTW, I know this post is too long, but I had a bunch of crater and didn’t even use all the CRE stuff I got from this past week.

    1. On a positive news note, the Covid has officially disappeared from the news.

      No more daily death counts and all unicorns and butterflies with the vaccine.

      So we should be back to normal in no time.

      1. “On a positive news note, the Covid has officially disappeared from the news.”

        Scam of the decade. Right up there with Iraq war and bank bailouts in 09.

        1. Decade?

          There are millions of people starving to death right now because of the lockdowns. There are around 100 million people who are now in poverty with no idea of when or if they will emerge. We have no reporting on how may will die from suicide, not getting operations, psychological injury, the list goes on. This is mass murder. And we all know who is responsible.

          1. “we all know who is responsible”

            Globalists.

            Just as the blood of Christ is on their hands, so is the blood of all those they have and will genocide in an exaggerated response to a disease with a 99.98% survival rate.

            We’re taking names, globalists.

            This will not end well for you…

          2. We’re taking names, globalists.

            This will not end well for you…

            I was thinking lately about all the small businesses which were forced to shut down while the likes of Target, Walmart etc. were allowed to stay open – essential businesses that they are and all. The furniture store was not allowed to sell furniture, but Walmart still was. What a rotten thing to do.

          3. Beautifully said. Biggest crime in all of the history of humanity. 97 year grandma just had this thing in NC. She survived just fine.

          4. “all the small businesses”

            I donated about 100 books to the local independent used bookstore this week. Not sold, donated.

            About 20 of those books were purchased there last year, prior to the library initiating curbside pickup.

            Instead of taking them to Goodwill, I’d rather give them to a local business, one of the few that actually sells something I want. If it helps keep the business open, and means one less vacant storefront on South Broadway for vagrants to sleep in the doorway of, I’m all for it.

            P.S. f* Amazon.

          5. You and Potsy are so on the money. Thank you both for those particular comments.

            It’s pretty damn easy to forget that there are at least 75 million of us. You start going down rabbit holes and you want end up with tunnel.

            75 million patriots.

            People are pissed! I think my attitude is bad until I ran into a couple in Walmart this morning who are just raging.

          6. Toss in all of pedo Joe’s economy crushing EOs and you could almost surmise this was part of the plan… Wait… Was it?

        2. The so called climate crisis and the war in syria/africa/middle East against the also funded ISIS are also worthy mentions. But covid is the biggest psyop we’ve probably ever seen.

      2. On a positive news note, the Covid has officially disappeared from the news.

        My local rag is still reporting the scare numbers:

        Larimer County reported two additional deaths from COVID-19 on Friday for a total of 184 since the pandemic began locally last March.

        The only Covid news I saw on the Dumver Post was an article demanding that POC’s and illegals get to go to the front of the vaccine line.

        2. Apparently Newsom thinks you people in CA aren’t smart enough to understand data. (from USA today)
          “California keeps key virus data out of public sight”
          California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration won’t disclose key information that will help determine when his latest stay-at-home order is lifted.

          State health officials said they rely on a complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public. Dr. Lee Riley, chairman of the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health infectious disease division, disagreed.
          “There is more uncertainty created by NOT releasing the data that only the state has access to,” he said in an email. Its release would allow outside experts to assess its value for projecting trends and the resulting decisions on lifting restrictions, he wrote.

          – The Associated Press

      3. In that case I guess nobody wants to know about the British Kent strain.

        hint: it’s more contagious and possibly more severe. Which means there will be more cases/deaths, you need stricter lockdowns to flatten the curve, and you’ll need a higher % vaccination to effect herd immunity.

        1. Kent Strain
          I saw Dr. Cambell’s presentation today and he seems genuinely concerned that the Kent Virus could skyrocket cases. Guess we will see.

    1. Here are pictures of them but they’re not wearing their cap and gown.

      Suspects arrested after brutal beatings, home invasion caught on surveillance, police say

      Michelle Solomon, Podcast Producer/Reporter
      Published: January 20, 2021, 4:34 pm

      HIALEAH, Fla. – Two Hialeah men are under arrest after police said they ambushed a man and woman in front of their home, beat them, entered their residence and robbed them.

      https://www.local10.com/news/local/2021/01/20/suspects-arrested-after-brutal-beatings-home-invasion-caught-on-surveillance-police-say/

  13. “‘I would hope that these operators in those areas—at some point, you can’t lower rents anymore. They just have to wait for people to show up,’ McClenny said.”

    Yer fooked McClenny. Yer clients fooked too.

  15. Just read that Hank Aaron was vaccinated two weeks ago. The MSM is busy spinning a narrative that his sudden death was unrelated to receiving the vaccine.

    1. “Just read that Hank Aaron was vaccinated two weeks ago.”

      I don’t think that vaccine is going to have as high a survival rate as Covid 19 does.

      1. The optics of when he passed relative to when he was vaccinated don’t look so good.

        There are reasons that it’s not a bad thing to be somewhat farther back in the line for vaccinations…

      2. If they count it the same way, the number of people who die “with a vaccination” will be in the millions, even if it’s harmless.

          1. symptoms

            Same as the symptoms of a “case”, symptoms are not how they are defined. Asymptomatic vaccinations will have a certain death rate. They are already being highlighted in the media. It’s phase two of logical disconnect.

        2. “If they count it the same way,”

          No matter what, none of it will be reported the same way.

          From here on out New World Norah O’Donnell, Up-Chuck Todd and the rest of the MSM evening and Sunday morning news shows will be reporting Joe Biden’s great accomplishments, how his “plan” saved us all from Corona and allowed us to sit and eat in a restaurant, go back to school and overcome all the job losses in the oil industry as we “build back better” and pat $5 a gallon for gas while China builds more dirty coal fired plats, slave camps and suicide nets for the Apple factory all while a pixie dust trail follows DOCTOR Jill Biden wherever she goes and Coma – La’s arse puffs perfume as she tells the stories of her family history that were plagiarized from Martin Luther King.

          By Jon Brown
          Jan 5, 2021 DailyWire.com

          “Kamala knows that her worldview is totally different than the worldview of Martin Luther King Jr. So it’s a big stretch for her to compare herself or to sound like him or to use some of his some analogies,” King said during an interview with Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, who asked her about the recent revelation that Harris seemingly lifted a story about her childhood from an interview King did with Playboy in 1965.

          https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-big-stretch-mlk-jr-s-niece-blasts-kamala-harris-for-plagiarizing-uncle-says-she-has-nothing-in-common-with-him

    2. Gov. Noem

      “Rather than following the pack and mandating harsh rules, South Dakota provides our residents with information about what is happening on the ground in our state—the science, facts and data. Then, we ask all South Dakotans to take personal responsibility for their health, the health of their loved ones, and—in turn—the health of our communities.”

      Gov. Whitmer says the stay-at-home order is not a suggestion, but the law

      by Samantha May | News channel 3
      Friday, May 15th 2020

      LANSING, Mich. — Responding to a question on a local drive-thru reopening, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said social distancing is not a suggestion.

      “This is not a suggestion. This is not thoughts about how you can protect yourself. This is the force of law, and we expect people to follow the law,” Whitmer said.

      Whitmer said businesses, such as the Owosso barber who was forced to shut down by the state, must continue to obey the state’s stay-at-home orders.

      Whitmer closed school buildings to students on March 16, and on April 30, she announced that buildings would remain closed for the duration of the school year.

      She said Friday once the state deems it is safe to return, local districts will have the flexibility to create a specific return date.

      https://wwmt.com/news/coronavirus/gov-whitmer-provides-update-on-states-response-to-covid-19-05-15-2020

  17. “He’s lost more than $6,500 and had to requested a mortgage forebearance on the home.”

    Why go into debt to buy a home for someone else to live in…unless you expect to make a killing on bubble price appreciation?

  18. “‘We’ve got to get money to landlords,’ she said. ‘We worry they are on the brink of foreclosure.”

    Wouldn’t landlords going belly up have the serendipitous effect of releasing low priced inventory to the California housing market, relieving the perpetual affordable housing shortage? This could be like rain at the end of a California drought: A welcome relief.

  19. By implementing Unlimited Quantitative Easing and a Powell put to protect stock market investors against loss, has the Fed ushered in the greatest ever degree of speculative euphoria on Wall Street?

    1. Investing
      Investor Jeremy Grantham says the market’s in a bubble with ‘very seldom seen levels’ of euphoria
      Published Thu, Jan 21 2021 3:18 AM EST
      Updated Thu, Jan 21 2021 4:31 AM EST
      Weizhen Tan
      Key Points
      – Famed investor Jeremy Grantham on Thursday reiterated his warning that Wall Street is in a bubble as individual traders get “carried away.”
      – Grantham cautioned that there has “never been a great bull market that ended in this kind of bubble that did not decline by at least 50%.”
      – Grantham said he prefers emerging market assets over U.S. markets and also likes cash and American venture capital.

      SINGAPORE — Famed investor Jeremy Grantham on Thursday reiterated his warning that Wall Street is in a bubble as individual traders get “carried away.”

      “They’re becoming euphoric … They’re borrowing money. They’re trading more shares,” Grantham, co-founder and chief investment strategist at Grantham, Mayo, & van Otterloo told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.

      In recent months, Grantham has warned that the massive runs on Wall Street are turning into an “epic bubble.” On Thursday, Grantham pointed to the number of over-the-counter shares traded since last February rocketing to 280 million shares in November and quadrupling to 1.15 trillion shares in December.

      “We have very seldom seen levels of investor euphoria like this,” he said, referring to individual investor speculation, rather than institutional.

      Grantham said individual investors “are throwing their hearts and souls into it and putting all their cash reserves into the market.” He pointed to the recent rally in bitcoin as well as the proliferation of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).

      SPACs have no commercial operations and are established solely to raise capital from investors, for the purpose of acquiring one or more operating businesses. Grantham described SPACs, which are sometimes referred to as blank-check companies, as “an invitation to give me your money and I’ll let you know one day what I’m going to do with it.”
      …

      1. SPACS sound reminiscent of the stock holding companies that lined up the muppets for the great muppet reaping in 1929.

    1. Deplorable

      I think you recently said you liked movies from before 1980. Here is one I watched last night that I believe I saw on HBO in the early 80s. Anyway, I’m no movie critic but I thought it was really good in the early 80s and perhaps better when I saw it last night.

      The Great Santini (1979)

      https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079239/

        1. FWIW, I really miss the 90’s B movies featuring ladies using their feminine wile for no good and the swindling men always looking for an angle.

    1. The States know who their landlords are come tax time. It is amazing to see the courts cheerfully flout contract law.

  24. The number 2 pencil looking Biden administration spokesperson (who I swear was in the photo of the Obama people just before he left office where they all looked like pissed of Nazis) evidently says the Southern Poverty Law Center will decide who is a rightwing extremist.

    Democrat NGO’s To Direct Military / CIA & FBI In Purge of Conservatives

    Jan 23, 2021
    45,003 views

    https://cantcensortruth.com/watch?id=600cb07242993508da58bc9a

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