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It Was A Bad, Perfect Storm

A report from Bolly Inside. “Flexible workspace provider Knotel has filed for bankruptcy and has announced plans to sell its business to listed real estate services company Newmark, the company said on Sunday. The pandemic has punished several workspace companies. In December, Serendipity Labs filed for bankruptcy and Montreal-based workspaces company Breather said it would abandon its more than 300 sites in the United States and Canada. Months earlier, Regus had bankrupted dozens of individual workspaces it operates across the country in order to waive or restructure those commitments.”

From The Real Deal on New York. “For years, Long Island City has been experiencing rapid growth: New residential high-rises were built left and right, with thousands of residential units slated for delivery by 2020. But a lot can change in a couple of years. According to data from Trepp, occupancy at two major residential projects has declined sharply from last year, leading to debt backing those towers being added to the data firm’s watchlist.”

“In 2018, the real estate marketplace Localize.city reported that 6,400 new residential units would be coming to Long Island City in 2020, the most of any neighborhood in NYC. But Covid stymied demand for those units; the number of new leases signed in Northwest Queens, which includes Long Island City, had declined every month for more than a year until recently, according to data from Douglas Elliman’s market reports. Rents in Northwest Queens, meanwhile, have also dropped sharply.”

The New York Post. “The rolling wipeout of beloved New York City restaurants might only be getting started. And as painful as it would be to food lovers, it would hurt landlords even more as retail vacancies of all kinds mushroom in each of the five boroughs. The potential loss of so much ground-floor space could be the last straw for landlords already reeling from the wider retail collapse and from some lenders’ reluctance to renegotiate terms amid COVID-19 restrictions.”

“A partner in a dozen three- to five-story apartment buildings in Manhattan that were heavily dependent on rental income from sidewalk-level restaurants told The Post, ‘Some of them are zombies, meaning they’ll use my space only as long as the rent moratorium goes on.’ The landlord, who didn’t want to be named because ‘everybody will hate me,’ said, ‘It’s bad enough they’re not paying me — even after I offered them deals. It’s worse when they turn out the lights. There aren’t enough nail salons on Earth to fill them all.'”

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette in Pennsylvania. “At one time, Ninth Street and Penn Avenue was considered the next big development site Downtown, with plans for up to 185 high-end condos, 30,000 square feet of retail, and a new parking garage. Then it all fell apart. Even before the pandemic hit, the condo and retail proposal fizzled. And now the garage may be in jeopardy as well. ‘If revenues don’t come back and parkers don’t come back, is there a need for another 700 spaces Downtown when we can’t fill the ones we have?’ asked Pittsburgh Parking Authority executive director David Onorato.”

From Bisnow Boston in Massachusetts. “As more and more new life sciences developments are announced in and around Boston, experts are starting to question whether the market could possibly keep up with the froth. The region now has approximately 30M SF of lab space, according to Colliers International, nearly twice as much as it had in 2010, when the market sat at 16M SF, according to Cushman & Wakefield. This year, the market is set to deliver 4M SF of lab space, a roughly 13% increase in supply. In the coming years, the pipeline sits as high as 18M SF, according to some estimates, which would increase the supply after 2021 by more than 50%.”

“Allianz U.S. Real Estate CEO Christoph Donner, whose firm last October made a significant loan on a downtown Boston office building, said not every piece of land works for life sciences, even if the demand for that property type is fueling billions worth of investment. ‘We do see a lot of life science opportunities; when you dig a little deeper, it’s an ordinary office building with a sign on it,’ Donner said. ‘That’s clearly not what we’re looking for. Really finding the right location, the right operator and the connection to tenants is key. There’s a lot of capital chasing it.'”

From Inside Hook in California. “Michael Bellings, a third-generation real estate agent (and San Franciscan), thinks S.F. real estate is a perpetual buy, despite the occasional gloom. ‘I don’t think we’re going to have double-digit gains, like we’ve been used to over my whole career, but I think mid-level single-digit appreciation gains will definitely be seen. With the large, ‘hotel-like’ buildings — specifically in SoMa, Downtown, what we call like District 9 — no one wanted to pay $1,200 a month for the HOA dues for a gym and a pool that weren’t open. No one wanted to share an elevator with six people, and no one wanted to be in a 300-unit building, and no one was walking to work.The beauty of SoMa is that you can walk a block to Twitter, and that wasn’t happening. For those buildings, it was a bad, perfect storm.”

The Marina Times in California. “Rents in San Francisco closed out 2020 with a 2.7 percent drop in December, bringing the 12-month decline to 27 percent, according to Apartment List. San Francisco has the largest drop in rents in the Bay Area, but it is not alone. Apartment List reports that rents fell in all of the 10 largest cities in the metro area; for example, rents in Oakland declined 13.7 percent in 2020, and San Mateo’s dropped 15.6 percent over the same time period.”

The Midland Reporter Telegram in Texas. “ApartmentList showed Midland with the second highest year-over-year drop in the nation (30.2 percent), trailing only Odessa (33.3 percent). Odessa and Midland led even larger cities like San Francisco (27.0 percent), New York (21.2 percent) and Seattle (20.0 percent). It is the second straight January that Midland rents dropped year over year.”

From Community Impact in Texas. “Convention-less. Festival-less. Tourism-less. In downtown Austin, the pandemic has taken the regular menu of revenue drivers off the table. The drain has made the math especially difficult for restaurants and bars, where bottom lines also depend on a now-dissipated office workforce, and smaller real estate footprints exacerbate the impact of social distancing rules. Business owners cited the pandemic as the main reason for closure; however, all listed contributing factors such as soaring property taxes, concerns about public safety and the rise in the visibility of people experiencing homelessness.”

From KDVR in Colorado. “Every county in the Denver metro area had double-digit increases in auto thefts according to the Metropolitan Auto Theft Task Force. The Task Force’s 2020 Motor Vehicle Theft report reveals auto theft was on a gradual decline during the first two months in 2020 right before the pandemic. Just as the ‘stay at home’ order went into effect the week of March 15, auto theft started to skyrocket. The report shows the fourth quarter averaged 459 car thefts per week, a 95% increase.”

“One Denver man tells the FOX31 Problem Solvers he was assaulted when he approached a group of men attempting to steal a car. ‘I said what’s going on and somebody hit me in the face,’ he said. Rick Martinez is happy to have his truck back after it was stolen near Sheridan Boulevard and Colfax Avenue but now it’s missing a catalytic converter, several keepsakes and has a ripped tarp. ‘Two-thousand dollars worth of damage to my vehicle probably and they’re probably going to get $30 out of it,’ he said.”

From My Northwest in Washington. “A Seattle resident named Kristine says she was attacked during a break-in at her condo building in Greenwood. She’s lived in the New York area and Chicago, but says she never felt unsafe until moving to Seattle. ‘Outside my dining room window, you could see the back door of my building, and my partner Todd looked out and saw just tons of stuff being stockpiled out there,’ she said. ‘So it was pretty obvious that we were being robbed at the time,’ she told the Dori Monson Show on KIRO Radio.”

“‘I asked this woman to leave and she started yelling at me,’ Kristine said. ‘And what made me even more upset was that she kept saying over and over how there was nothing I could do about it, that even if she were to be arrested — which she felt like she wouldn’t be — that she would just be let go. And it was no problem, that she could do whatever she wanted.'”

From Willamette Weekly in Oregon. “It’s actually a flaming, apocalyptic disaster out there. At least, that’s how it’s depicted in Forbes, in an op-ed titled ‘Death of a City: The Portland Story?’ In a throwback to last summer’s ‘everything is on fire all the time’ rhetoric, author Bill Conerly insists the city is on the verge of being abandoned or wiped off the map entirely. Despite referencing Pompeii, Conerly writes that a natural disaster isn’t likely to cause Portland’s undoing, but a combination of social ills, including housing prices, having to actually see people experiencing houselessness and, of course, anti-fascist riots.”

“‘Portland has shot itself in the foot,’ he concludes. ‘Most likely, the people of the city will come around and seek treatment. But if they don’t, the wound will prove fatal.’ Well, that would certainly suck. But hey, look on the bright side: Living in the burnt-out husk of a major American city means shorter lines for brunch when we can all go out to eat again, right?”

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This Post Has 109 Comments

  1. ‘when you dig a little deeper, it’s an ordinary office building with a sign on it…There’s a lot of capital chasing it’

    Life sciences isn’t gonna save all yer biscuits? Say it ain’t so! Once again, QE results in deflation.

    2. QE results in inflation where the money goes, and deflation where the money doesn’t go. Simple as that.

      1. So Stocks and Housing it seems.

        Instead of correct value pricing for housing, we are going to get appreciate pricing (cause by the fed and the usgov).

      3. A better analogy is to think of Unlimited Quantitative Easing as triggering the asset price analogue of star death. Right now we are still in supernova expansion phase, with cratering into a black hole soon to follow.

        2. And according to a couple gurus, that black hole will be preceded by a crater(?) in the 10-year bond yield. When we see cash flocking to the bond yield, get out of the market. (I think I got that right… I always confuse my bond prices and bond yields.)

        3. I think a better analogy might be the red giant phase. then comes a collapse, then comes the super nova (weimar hyper inflationary destruction), then comes the leftover neutron star.

  2. ‘Midland with the second highest year-over-year drop in the nation (30.2 percent), trailing only Odessa (33.3 percent). Odessa and Midland led even larger cities like San Francisco (27.0 percent), New York (21.2 percent) and Seattle (20.0 percent)’

    Even larger cities! Has the criminal media looked into how many of these suckers can survive these rent declines? Short answer: almost none.

  3. ‘It’s bad enough they’re not paying me — even after I offered them deals. It’s worse when they turn out the lights. There aren’t enough nail salons on Earth to fill them all’

    Obviously, CRE was in a bubble. But that doesn’t mean I want to wreck these cities. I said in the spring of 2020 these Marxists were gonna leave a big black hole. Right frozen soup line Larry?

  4. ‘But hey, look on the bright side: Living in the burnt-out husk of a major American city means shorter lines for brunch when we can all go out to eat again, right?’

    Eat out of the trash cans you commie. Who is gonna stand around serving you breakfast burritos when they can’t pay the bills?

    1. Portland isn’t coming back until the core of the population that votes over and over for Marxists, either leaves or starts voting for individuals that want a healthy, vibrant city. Until then, the city will decline and rot. I live in Oregon and no longer even step foot into that city because it is too depressing. The cheap, pretty and clean little city is no longer.

      1. what about all the people that bought condos and rehabbed houses? Dont they see that the city is degrading and want to do something?

      2. From the comments: “Coming from an outsider’s viewpoint, so take this for what it’s worth…and I realize what locals think of non-locals. My wife and I have been visiting Portland consistently several times a year for the last seven years. There’s so much we’ve loved about this city. With COVID and our jobs moving to permanently remote, we considered if this was the time to relocate to Portland. This summer, though, it was very striking the changes that have occurred. I’m not referring to the homelessness or grit you get in any urban area, which we’re very used to and comfortable with. This summer, the city and bits of the eastside quite frankly looked…trashed. It was striking, next-level vandalism, trash, graffiti, homelessness, etc., that by itself in pockets isn’t awful, but it had clearly so exponentially accelerated in 2020 that I didn’t feel like I was in the same city.”

        Nailed it!

  5. The landlord, who didn’t want to be named because ‘everybody will hate me,’ said, ‘It’s bad enough they’re not paying me — even after I offered them deals. It’s worse when they turn out the lights.

    NYC landlords have been gouging commercial tenants for years as the Yellen Bux valuations of their buildings kept climbing. Now the parasites are killing off the productive hosts. Karma’s a bit*ch, ay, greedy landlords?

  6. ‘I asked this woman to leave and she started yelling at me,’ Kristine said. ‘And what made me even more upset was that she kept saying over and over how there was nothing I could do about it, that even if she were to be arrested — which she felt like she wouldn’t be — that she would just be let go. And it was no problem, that she could do whatever she wanted’

    Lovely. Can I borrow for an airbox down there? Go ahead, defund the police – idiots.

    2. Greenwood was working class (circa 2000) that went upper-middle class with gentrification – rehabbed houses, new smaller upscale condo buildings and new townhouses.

      Interesting if we look at these type of locations in big cities around the country. Will the politicians and police get a handle on this behavior? Or will it potentially become less trendy to allow working class back in.

    3. Well, she is correct.

      And don’t you dare defend yourself or use force to defend your property.

      Because you will be arrested.

      The joys of living in democrat marxist cities with massive voter fraud.

      “This building has been has been broken into multiple times, and I have called the police and they won’t come.”

      1. I’m not going to link to this utub video:

        VAN LIFE | ROBBED Crossing the Mexico Border by CORRUPT POLICE (hidden camera)

        Took 500 bucks bribe cuz of their CBD oil. Oh but Mexico is so cheep!

        1. Ya gotta be kinda stupid to take CBD into Mexico. Just because it’s legal here doesn’t mean it’s legal there.

          1. They insisted it was legal there. Notice how fast they coughed up the dough. Fastest 500 bucks thrown away evah.

            Here’s a tip for Mexico, which I’ll never go to again. At the border, pick up one of those fake “gold” rolexes (10 or so bucks, don’t get ripped off there too). When the cops shake you down, act like you got no money, but reluctantly hand over the watch. The police are so stupid down there they won’t think a gringo might be wearing a fake watch.

          2. I would never drive my car into Mexico. The rules are very different, you’re just asking for trouble. Plus the cops are crooked as hell and with foreign plates you have a bulls eye on your back.

    4. And what made me even more upset was that she kept saying over and over how there was nothing I could do about it

      But Biden promised to “protect you”. What happened?

    5. It’s amazing to me how anyone can’t immediately grasp how defunding police directly leads to emboldening criminals. It’s not rocket science. Even a complete idiot should be able to grasp the principle involved.

      1. It’s a 9/11 mentality. Right after that, there was a movement of “whyyyy do they hate us” and “we need to understaaaannnd them.” I guess we just didn’t love them enough or send enough social workers. Yeah.

        I notice that Trump supporters receive no such courtesy. No social workers this time! Not even an honest conversation. Nope, they’re just evil wht supr through and through, brainwashed into The Big Lie. Green zone around the Capitol building for them.

  7. ‘Just as the ‘stay at home’ order went into effect the week of March 15, auto theft started to skyrocket. The report shows the fourth quarter averaged 459 car thefts per week, a 95% increase’

    Jeebus…

    1. And there was the guy who had his SUV stolen. He bought another one with the insurance money, and it was stolen within days.

      Why do I think this guy will pull the D lever next election?

  8. Rick Martinez is happy to have his truck back after it was stolen near Sheridan Boulevard and Colfax Avenue but now it’s missing a catalytic converter, several keepsakes and has a ripped tarp.

    Platinum prices are surging (up $54 this morning in Kitco) and with it the vibrants are stepping up their thefts of catalytic converters from diesel SUVs parked on streets. Each replaced catalytic converter costs at least $2K.

    2. The Financial Times
      Retail trading
      ‘Short squeeze’ spreads as day traders hunt next GameStop
      Wild trading continues after hours as Reddit message group Wallstreetbets briefly goes dark
      European companies targeted by Reddit traders include Poland’s CD Projekt, maker of the Witcher series of video games, the pharmaceuticals group Evotec and the battery maker Varta © FT montage
      Robert Smith, Laurence Fletcher and Madison Darbyshire in London, Eric Platt in New York and Hannah Murphy in San Francisco
      January 27 2021

      A “short squeeze” that started on Wall Street swept across the globe on Wednesday, triggering another day of frenetic upward moves in the share prices of previously-unloved companies, followed by a dramatic plunge in after-hours trading when a popular Reddit message board went dark.

      The dramatic moves highlight the growing influence of retail traders, who have organised on Reddit. Their success in pushing up stocks that are the subject of large short bets by hedge funds has led them to target a growing number of companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

      Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the Biden administration was “monitoring the situation” as shares of companies including the retailer GameStop, the hard-hit cinema owner AMC and tech pioneer BlackBerry whipsawed.
      …

      1. Ya gotta love how handing out helicopter drops of free monies to bored, tech-savvy, unemployed Millennials has spawned a massive disruption on Wall Street!

      3. Marketwatch is providing a handy-dandy list of heavily-shorted stocks, in case anyone wants to participate in the revolution. Gamestop was by far the most vulnerable. The Reddit retails could afford to lose a few large to make a point, but if they keep it up, they’re gonna get killed.

  12. “Michael Bellings, a third-generation real estate agent (and San Franciscan), thinks S.F. real estate is a perpetual buy, despite the occasional gloom. ‘I don’t think we’re going to have double-digit gains, like we’ve been used to over my whole career, but I think mid-level single-digit appreciation gains will definitely be seen.”

    Could a 27 percent cratering in SF rents possibly obviate his prediction?

    1. 27 percent down over 12 months doesn’t seem so bad until you factor in leverage. We’re probably talking about more like 100%+ loss of equity when leverage is taken into consideration, and much worse if the rent moratorium is reflected.

      1. The porcine beautician journalists who specialize in “real estate selz like hotcakes” articles have never had to lie more to do their jobs.

      2. If it doesn’t say effective rents, it doesn’t include vacancies and concessions, which can double or triple the declines.

        1. That was my guess..thx for confirming. I.e. they don’t average in the $0 rents on empty units or occupied units with no rents being paid.

          So the 27% 12 month drop is a massive underestimate.

  16. From a dry food seller site:

    ‘The People of New York City Are United In Fighting Against Wall Street Corruption’

    ‘New Yorkers support the retail traders teaching the financial elites a much-needed lesson’

    See we’re all in this together. No mention of broke a$$ young guys expecting to stuff large amounts of easy money in their pockets. Will we all be together when it comes to divvying up the anticipated loot?

    OK, so what’s with the loaded rhetoric? “The” people, united, fighting corruption, “teaching elites” a much needed lesson! This whole thing stinks on the face of it.

    BTW, they want 600 bucks for 3 months of dried food. That’s a lot for granola.

    1. Not gonna sustain the Unlimited Quantitative Easing for very long based on this “young taking it back from the old” Robinhood trading theme…or MMT.

    2. Market Summary > GameStop Corp.
      NYSE: GME
      243.49 USD −81.51 (25.08%)
      Feb. 1, 11:09 a.m. EST

      Mommy, where did muh face go?

        1. Beanie waffle boy weighs in:

          Media Launches Coordinated Fake News To STOP GameStop Rebellion

          “It’s a trap!” he says.

    3. OK, so what’s with the loaded rhetoric? “The” people, united, fighting corruption, “teaching elites” a much needed lesson! This whole thing stinks on the face of it.”

      Agree . Scary what happens to society when people are locked up and stressed out by incompetent government .

    4. To be fair to the dried food, it’s actually freeze-dried which is much more expensive than drying. It’s not a bad value if you stick to meats and dried fruit. However, stay away from the starches like pancake mix or oatmeal, especially if you eat such starches regularly. You’re better off just rotating the pantry stock.

      1. it’s actually freeze-dried

        I lived on freeze dried food for a couple of weeks hiking in the Rockies as a teen doing Philmont. There is absolutely no reason to use this stuff unless you are going to carry your provisions on your own back.

        1. The military had LRP meals that were freeze dried, just awful. The MREs are way better, lots of research went into them. And you can get ’em by the case on Amazon for your TEOTWAWKI supplies.

        2. I did that once with friends when I was in the bloom of youth, to the Rawah Wilderness Area in Colorado. The trip is one my most cherished memories, but not so much the meals.

  17. Read the article linked above – it is completely one-sided. So from his POV, real-estate will merrily carry-on. If remote work really takes off, then it is going to be a real shock to the REIC eco-system. However, i am guessing that the outside will start to suffer first – San Jose and Oakland for instance.

    And for every one person that was leaving, I’d get two or three more buyer calls, with people saying, “Hey, seems like there’s going to be an opportunity here.” They weren’t necessarily buying that day, but they were saying, “I’m still working at Twitter. I have a great job. I have great savings.” And then you had other people saying, “Hey, we’re going to IPO.” This can be a bit of an insulated area here, and if you didn’t lose your job, you had a lot of smart buyers wanting to buy.

  20. “Michael Bellings, a third-generation real estate agent (and San Franciscan), thinks S.F. real estate is a perpetual buy, despite the occasional gloom. ‘I don’t think we’re going to have double-digit gains, like we’ve been used to over my whole career, but I think mid-level single-digit appreciation gains will definitely be seen. With the large, ‘hotel-like’ buildings — specifically in SoMa, Downtown, what we call like District 9 — no one wanted to pay $1,200 a month for the HOA dues for a gym and a pool that weren’t open. No one wanted to share an elevator with six people, and no one wanted to be in a 300-unit building, and no one was walking to work.The beauty of SoMa is that you can walk a block to Twitter, and that wasn’t happening. For those buildings, it was a bad, perfect storm.”

    Now is the best time to BUY!

    -Realturd

  21. Flexible workspace provider Knotel has filed for bankruptcy and has announced plans to sell its business to listed real estate services company Newmark, the company said on Sunday. The pandemic has punished several workspace companies. In December, Serendipity Labs filed for bankruptcy and Montreal-based workspaces company Breather said it would abandon its more than 300 sites in the United States and Canada. Months earlier, Regus had bankrupted dozens of individual workspaces it operates across the country in order to waive or restructure those commitments.”

    If only they IPO! I mean this stocks would have pull a GameStop!

    1. The scams just never end.

      One theory I have is when certain people start seeing dollar signs flash in front of them, the common sense part of their brain just short circuits.

      Ponzi and Pt. Barnum were probably the first to realize the mass stupidity of some people.

      1. “One theory I have is when certain people start seeing dollar signs flash in front of them, the common sense part of their brain just short circuits.”

        Long legs topped with a landing strip are my weakness. 🙂

  23. Just saw this:

    Tesla posted its first full year of net income in 2020 — but not because of sales to its customers.
    Eleven states require automakers sell a certain percentage of zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. If they can’t, the automakers have to buy regulatory credits from another automaker that meets those requirements — such as Tesla, which exclusively sells electric cars.
    It’s a lucrative business for Tesla — bringing in $3.3 billion over the course of the last five years, nearly half of that in 2020 alone. The $1.6 billion in regulatory credits it received last year far outweighed Tesla’s net income of $721 million — meaning Tesla would have otherwise posted a net loss in 2020.
    “These guys are losing money selling cars. They’re making money selling credits. And the credits are going away,” said Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research and one of the biggest bears on Tesla (TSLA) shares.

    And the credits are going away

    Ruh roh, Shaggy! Better sell TSLA now!

          1. Technically, Tesla is profitable, even if it’s only because they can sell their green brownie points for now. I suspect that the green new steal is going to create a lot of situations like this, where the productive and profitable are forced to subsidize others.

          2. Sounds about right.

            But you were talking about what the P/E number would be without the subsidy, correct?

    2. a big part of Tesla’s success was the tax credits for individuals. What happens as out automakers start getting that advantage

      Tesla faces challenges this year from traditional automakers, which are rolling out more electric vehicles. Edmunds.com Executive Director of Insights Jessica Caldwell says the number of electric vehicles on sale in the U.S. will rise from 17 to 29 this year.

      Many will be eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit, giving them an advantage over Tesla, which has used up its allocation.

      “Although there has yet to be a true `Tesla killer’ in the EV arena, a bigger pool of contenders eligible for federal tax credits could have the power to sway some Tesla shoppers,” Caldwell wrote in an email.

      1. Once buyers consider Tesla’s poor build quality, they might choose to buy EV’s from firms that actually know how to build a car, since there will now be viable options.

  24. Does it seem like Mr Market is in the raging manic phase of bipolar disorder?

    I don’t know what happens next in markets, but I have seen enough evidence over my long years of experience to say the resolution can get quite ugly in the human version.

  25. Preview of tonight’s Timcast IRL:

    “I’m ‘not a stock guy’ but please listen for the next two hours while I talk about stocks. And let’s break a minute for our dried food sponsor. SMASH that like button and ring that notification bell. Sign up for Timcast Dot Com and become a member today, and access exclusive *Members Only* content including skateboarding videos, playing guitar, and yes me Tim Pool fluffing Lydia’s bull. We’re getting kicked off of YouTube soon so SIGN UP TODAY!”

    1. I’m listening to Beanie Boy right now. You’re not wrong.

      But something interesting is going on. Evidently all the MSM is talking up the “silver short” and reporting that the Reddit Retailers have “lost interest” in GME. Looks like the MSM got some phone calls from Wall Street. For the first time in weeks, I went to WaPo to check out the articles. To the credit of the liberal comment section, they libs are NOT fooled by this. But there’s a silver lining. Now even the libs realize that the MSM is being manipulated. Let the infighting begin.

  26. Just when you though it couldn’t get any stupider

    “Seyer-Ochi addressed the topic with her students, who she said were also upset by what they saw as the implicit message being delivered by Sanders’s choice of outerwear.

    “What did they see? They saw a white man in a puffy jacket and huge mittens, distant not only in his social distancing, but in his demeanor and attire,” Seyer-Ochi wrote, adding, “What did I see? What did I think my students should see? A wealthy, incredibly well-educated and -privileged white man, showing up for perhaps the most important ritual of the decade, in a puffy jacket and huge mittens.

    “I don’t know many poor, or working class, or female, or struggling-to-be-taken-seriously folk who would show up at the inauguration of our 46th president dressed like Bernie.”

    Prior to the inauguration, Seyer-Ochi had also had her students analyze images from the Jan. 6 riot by supporters of former President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol.

    “This,” she told her students about the images from that day, “is white supremacy, this is white privilege. It can be hard to pinpoint, but when we see, it, we know it.”

    1. Just when you though it couldn’t get any stupider

      ““Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” ” – Albert Einstein

    2. Ivermectin would have saved them.
      HCQ and zinc would have saved them.
      Vitamin D probably would have saved them.

      Fauci will have much to answer for.

  28. I don’t know what I was happier to see today, the massive American flag flying over Mar-a-Lago rippling in the wind of the cold front or the security guards dressed in black with what I would assume and hope were M16 rifles slung over their shoulders and index fingers extended outside the trigger guard at the Mar-a-Lago service entrance by the Southern Blvd. bridge.

    God Bless Donald J Trump

    PS

    “assume and hope were M16 rifles”

    Meaning I hope they were select fire assault rifles not AR15 pull the trigger once gun fires once modern sporting rifles that American private citizens own.

  29. Are cratering real economies destined to be fully papered over by central bank support of future risk asset prices, or does a day of reckoning lie in store once the global economy leaves its current cryogenic pandemic state of existence?

    1. The Financial Times
      3 hours ago 19:53
      S&P cautions over potential defaults and other tail risks in Asia
      Sarah Provan

      S&P Global has sent a note of caution to Asian investors even as expectations of economic recovery, vaccines and government stimulus have boosted markets, and has warned on potential defaults and other risks this year.

      The ratings agency expects Asia-Pacific growth of 6 per cent this year, led by China, while corporate profits rebound but its mood is one of caution rather than exuberance.

      “We expect a solid recovery in Asia-Pacific,” the agency said in a note to investors, which follows a recent webinar that explored the “tail risks that could strike amid the cushion of extraordinary Covid stimulus”. Most industries will not return to pre-pandemic credit metrics until at least next year, S&P’s research note dated Tuesday added.

      S&P’s release comes days after the IMF predicted that by next year recoveries in the US and China will leave their economies 1.5 per cent smaller than pre-pandemic projections while other advanced economies will be 2.5 per cent shy.

      Emerging economies other than China will be hit even more as they are projected to be 8 per cent smaller than expected a year ago.
      …

  30. Word of the Day
    Margin Call

    A margin call occurs when the value of an investor’s margin account falls below the broker’s required amount. An investor’s margin account contains securities bought with borrowed money (typically a combination of the investor’s own money and money borrowed from the investor’s broker). A margin call refers specifically to a broker’s demand that an investor deposit additional money or securities into the account so that it is brought up to the minimum value, known as the maintenance margin.

        1. The Financial Times
          Robinhood
          Robinhood raises $2.4bn in second cash injection in four days
          Capital infusion comes as day trading surge sharply boosts broker’s clearing requirements
          Vlad Tenev, Robinhood founder, said the company initially faced a $3bn cash demand from its equities clearing house
          © 2016 Getty Images
          Miles Kruppa in San Francisco and Henry Sanderson, Philip Stafford and Madison Darbyshire in London yesterday

          Robinhood, the online broker at the centre of the boom in day trading, has raised $2.4bn in its second capital infusion in a week to shore up finances strained by turbulent trading.

          The brokerage was hit by a surge in trading last week as retail investors bet against short sellers, driving up the price of previously little-loved companies such as GameStop and AMC, the struggling cinema chain.

          The company’s latest round of convertible debt financing — which allows investors to swap their debt for equity — comes as Robinhood faced sharp increases in demands for deposits at clearing houses where trades in stocks and options are processed.
          …

          1. Meanwhile, the bubble stocks the Reddit mob were shorting are crashing this morning. Remember, bagholders, in the rigged casino, the house always wins.

          2. “Meanwhile, the bubble stocks the Reddit mob were shorting are crashing this morning.”

            The Reddit mob took out long positions that drove share prices ever higher resulting in a bloodbath at the hedge funds who held short positions and had to buy those shares at an order of magnitude (or two) higher. This mob action certainly laid bare the corruption on Wall street.

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