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The Gravy Train Is Well And Truly Over

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “‘Twelve years ago, [the housing boom] led to a bad outcome with a foreclosure crisis. But that was due to funny mortgages that went to everyone without income documentation,’ said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. ‘This time around, all the mortgages are soundly underwritten.'”

“‘The builders are out there building like crazy, but of course, land is expensive, so new construction tends to be a little bit higher than existing,’ said Susan Semba, Idaho Housing and Finance Association’s executive vice president of homeownership lending. IHFA also has affordable programs that offer homebuyers up to 6.5% on down payment and closing cost assistance. ‘That will definitely get you into a loan with hardly any money out of your pocket,’ Semba said.”

“Former high-flying billionaire hedge-fund manager Phil Falcone appears to be close to losing his townhouse on East 67th Street as well as his Hamptons estate. Now he owes $1.8 million in back taxes to New York City, according to public records. And last September he whined that he was too cash-poor to pay a nearly $14 million legal tab, according to a lawsuit filed against him in Manhattan Supreme Court that is still winding its way through the court.”

“When Jesús Flores first heard about the drama with SiliconSage — the upstart developer being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly defrauding investors — he said he felt dismayed. They wonder if the land will sit idle, attracting blight and exacerbating the area’s problems. Many reports allege the company paid investors’ returns using money from new investments, mirroring the structure of a Ponzi or pyramid scheme.”

“The coronavirus outbreak helped push about $146 billion of commercial real estate into distress, serious risk of bankruptcy or default at the end of last year. Many properties never make it to Chapter 11, with real estate changing hands through foreclosures, deeds-in-lieu and loan sales. ‘Jingle mail’ is industry parlance for the common practice of a distressed property owner or sponsor voluntarily handing over the keys to its lender once they’re unable to make payments.”

“Scott MacPherson, Vancouver-based managing director of Cushman & Wakefield’s Equity, Debt and Structured Finance Group, said peak prices for land entitled for condominium development in Vancouver have fallen off from more than $500 per square foot to the mid-$300s. ‘With revenue dropping off for absorption, and hard costs essentially staying at par with where they were in 2019, it’s difficult to make up that difference. The residual value of the land has to shift. That’s the only way the economics work.'”

“The share of new homes in England and Wales sold off-plan has been steadily falling since its peak in 2016. In 2020, the proportion of off-plan sales reached the lowest share since 2014. Edward Heaton, managing partner of national buying agents, Heaton & Partners, said: ‘For many, especially international buyers, buying off-plan was seen as a sure-fire way to turn a profit before they had even taken possession of their properties.'”

“‘The thinking was that in the one to two years from locking in their purchase price, house price inflation would turn a tidy profit before they’d even needed to make their final payment. The gravy train is well and truly over – buyers now are much more likely to be end users who prefer to have something tangible to see and touch before parting with their hard earned cash.'”

“Tighter mortgage lending rules put in place before the pandemic hit prevented house prices surging and avoided a market crash, the Central Bank has claimed. Meanwhile, there will be 15,000 mortgage-holders in ‘serious trouble’ as a direct result of the pandemic, the chief of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation has said. CEO David Hall added: ‘I nervously laugh when I hear people talk about a current housing crisis and homeless crisis – no one has a clue what is coming. I have always said there is a tsunami of repossessions coming. It is grim. It is not going to be pretty.’”

“In the construction industry, insolvencies are a dime a dozen. But it’s not often you see a wealthy builder turfed out of their luxury penthouse as a result. Alas for Grocon scion Daniel Grollo, the Grocon-constructed Eureka Tower pad he’s been calling home for several years is ultimately owned by a company among the nearly 100 entities now in the hands of administrators. And they’ve bowed to the demands of creditors, a spokesman confirming they intended to sell the expansive 80th-floor apartment.”

“Grollo, who blames the growing collapse of his family’s building empire on a $270 million dispute with Infrastructure NSW, is also out of a job, having been one of around 20 staff at Grocon terminated by the administrators this month. Aside from any termination benefits, he’s owed more than $1 million in leave entitlements alone, but has previously indicated that as a director, he would have his claims met from the unsecured creditor pool. Which is unlikely to stretch very far at all.”

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This Post Has 84 Comments

  2. Sure are lot of ponzi schemes, insolvency, bankruptcy, foreclosures, jingle mail, and all around a$$ poundings going on in the red-hotcakes.

    3. “‘Twelve years ago, [the housing boom] led to a bad outcome with a foreclosure crisis. But that was due to funny mortgages that went to everyone without income documentation,’ said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. ‘This time around, all the mortgages are soundly underwritten.’”

      Twelve years ago this clown was telling us the mortgage market was sound. But this time it’s different.

    4. What Lawrence Yun was actually saying about twelve years ago:

      “ The speculative excesses have been removed from the market and home sales are returning to fundamentally healthy levels, while prices remain near record highs, reflecting favorable mortgage rates and positive job gains.” L Yun, October 2017

      The fact that clowns like this are not outcasts from society and even still hold positions of influence is a very sad commentary on how little we learned from the last catastrophe.

      1. There’s a lot more graft and corruption to go, and these thieves aren’t about to slow down while music is still playing.

  3. ‘prices for land entitled for condominium development in Vancouver have fallen off from more than $500 per square foot to the mid-$300s’

    But 50% off is unrealistic. Give it time.

  4. ‘Jingle mail’ is industry parlance for the common practice of a distressed property owner or sponsor voluntarily handing over the keys to its lender once they’re unable to make payments’

    How do those non-recourse loans look now? It’s a slaughter in CRE.

    ‘the common practice’

    1. The lunatics are running the asylum now.
      You got all these old bought off treasonous incompetent creeps like Biden, Pelosi, Shumer , and the Freak show in the Cabinet appointments , that only a rigged election could manifest.
      Nancy Pelosi, the Queen Bee of the female power gone haywire, who wants the nuclear codes, is so detached from reality that our enemies are thrilled.
      Policies of exalting minority transgenders, to neuter any sexual identity , so male warriors are deneutored and demonized . Also a attack on the family structure the greatest buffer against Commie alliance to the Big State.
      Globalist Monopolies taking over using Commie Methods to divide and conquer.
      And, a fake narrative of over half the Country being terrorist insurrectionists, who were just regular people who didn’t vote for suicide of the US.
      Nancy Pelosi with her 30 thousand strong army surrounding the Capital is at war with US Citizens, while she leaves us vulnerable to our real enemies.
      These incompetent and treasonous nut sell out to enemies , who are the byproduct of rigging elections, are a National Security risk.
      This is one of the consequences of a rigged election is that the nuts are running the Asylum, coming for all the amendments like killer bees trying to kill the great US Beehive.
      Can’t even impeach that despot nut Pelosi because she has the majority in Congress who are cult like drones .

      1. You’ve nailed it, once again, Wiz. Everything that you’ve said here is true. And so many of us — even those of us formerly on the “left” — are seriously concerned about what the heck is going on. It’s like the world inverted.

    1. Dr. Richard Levine supports sex changes for 8 year olds.

      This is the “fundamental transformation” you were promised.

      1. It’s the rise of the rule by minority groups. That’s why the Majority use to rule, a far safer group to rule.
        To choose people based on color or sex as opposed to based on being competent or truly representing the majority is a assault on representation.
        A small percentage of transgenders get to dictate policy . A non-white person gets to take out their revenge on White culture taking money from the tax coffers and loot the Majority.
        A poor Mexican illegally crosses the Border without a pot to piss in, but somehow their poverty is the fault of the racist Majority in US, not the corrupt Country they came from.
        Transgender attack on sexual identity of the Majority wanting to take sexual identify and neuter the Majority ,just because that small group isn’t happy with the biological sex they were born as. So this child abuse of messing with children to alter their sexual identity even before 10 years old. Women’s sports altered so transgender males get to beat the females ruining sports for females.
        Monopoly Rule that doesn’t represent the interest of the Majority Citizens.So rich nuts like Gates gets to tell the majority that they should eat bugs and like it.
        Nuts saying that White people should be less white, as if these creeps have a right to destroy white culture and values.
        Look, I’m sorry that minority groups don’t like a merit based system of advancement, but this Commie based way is insanity.
        The original immigrants that came here didn’t get welfare. It took them a couple of generations to get ahead because they were starting from scratch. Big Business exploited them with cheap wages.
        Minority groups have been given welfare in the trillions for the last 50 years, as well as affirmative actions jobs that have been discrimination against White hiring, yet Whites are called privileged.
        Look, if minority culture didn’t excel it was their own doing and choices. Asians excel because of choices of hard work and studying. And Whites don’t excel within the hierarchies without hard work and study either.
        You got a certain small group of people born into wealth, that have money privilege, but that doesn’t represent the Majority of Whites in America.
        So, under conditions like this you have lunatics like Pelosi at war with the Majority calling them terrorist, while that sell out nut Pelosi leaves us vulnerable to real enemies, as the loony Biden is doing also.
        So, the Majority got robbed of representation by a rigged election . And Monopolies rule and control the fake narrative news, who are at war with the Majority.
        So, we the Majority, are being overtaken by smaller groups , who want to destroy the Majority.
        So the election was rigged so the nut minority could rule with the self serving Monopolies.
        And one big Monopoly in conjunction with corrupted Government call Health Care has created a police state of locking us down, making us wear masks, jab us with questionable vaccines, using a flu for a fake Pandemic that isn’t following the Science, or can justify shutting down most Countries.
        I can only hope that the blowback from this criminal assault on the Majority comes soon .

        1. HW my white privilege was having 2 parents who cared about their kids. Made us do our homework and we all graduated on time and no summer school. My father was a bricklayer and so was my grandfather. I think my upbringing was not special but looking back maybe it was. My Parents allowed us to buy anything we wanted as long as we came up with half the money. So we all had paper routes at like 12, we worked at IHOP and Carvel ice cream when we were technically under working age at 15. Because the manager lived down the street…… But my father was strict about one thing NO swearing at home he had enough of all day on the construction site so he wanted some peace and quiet at home.

          1. Sounds like bliss, aNYCdj. I feel like we’ve gone so far in the wrong direction since those days.

            Family is the most effective social safety net. You don’t need much in the material sense if you have a loving family that teaches their kids about good character, a good work ethic, etc.

          2. Your assertion that hard work and sensible principles of behavior are a critical factor in success is a deeply hurtful micro aggression.

    3. “Female track star on lawsuit to stop trans athletes from competing: ‘Biological males are taking our medals’”

      – Sex is binary, but “we don’t care.” Must continue destroying the basic family unit and replace it with The State. The U.S., starting with CA, slowly morphs into China. Read Communist utopia. /s

      “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – 1984 Opening line of novel, Part 1, Chapter 1.

      “Every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”- ‘1984,’ George Orwell

      “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. . . . Power is not a means; it is an end . . . not power over things, but over men. . . . In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. . . . There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. . . . Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.” – George Orwell, 1984

      https://reason.com/2021/02/23/california-bill-would-give-1000-fines-to-retailers-with-separate-girls-and-boys-toy-sections/

      California Bill Would Give $1,000 Fines to Retailers With Separate ‘Girls’ and ‘Boys’ Toy Sections
      The proposed bill from Assembly Members Evan Low and Cristina Garcia would require stores to have one unisex section for children’s products and apparel.
      Christian Britschgi | 2.23.2021 10:30 AM

      – Oh, the insanity!

      1. Thanks for posting Orwell because what’s happening today is so in sink with what Orwell portrayed in the novel 1984, that Orwell said was a warning.
        The part about power for powers sake as a ends and not a means is so chilling.

        1. Dr. Richard Levine does not have a uterus, does not have ovaries. Dr. Richard Levine will never menstruate, get pregnant, or give birth to a child. Every cell in Dr. Richard Levine’s body contains a XY chromosome.

          In western Europe and Canada, the government can seize custody of your children and sterilize and mutilate them.

          This is who globalists are. This is what globalists want.

          1. Canada, the government can seize custody of your children and sterilize and mutilate them

            Would you care to elaborate on that?

          2. Curiouser and curiouser…

            reallygracefulThis Lesson of History Cannot Be Forgotten
            February 18, 2021
            https://tv.gab.com/channel/reallygraceful/view/this-lesson-of-history-cannot-be-6037ad4c58afffa0caa24e15

            She says, “This video is the Bermuda Triangle of censored topics between the Holocaust, WWII, and vaxx, so I had to upload it somewhere besides YouTube…”

            Her channel is terrific. This video is on GabTV because it wouldn’t have lasted long on YT.
            https://www.youtube.com/c/reallygraceful/videos

          5. elaborate on that

            If this is real, those people are insane. I am fortunate that my Guardianship of my adult handicapped daughter still means something.

          6. with female pronouns whether to him directly or to third parties; shall be considered to be family violence under s. 38 of the Family Law Act,

  7. “…Twelve years ago, [the housing boom] led to a bad outcome with a foreclosure crisis. But that was due to funny mortgages that went to everyone without income documentation,’ said Lawrence Yun…”

    Of course, Lawrence Yun, you couldn’t see it coming.

    Remember Lawrence Yun, Everyone wants to live here, They aren’t making any more land, Buy now or be priced out forever, Real estate always goes up, Interest Rates will never be lower, We have entered an entirely new valuation model, Boatloads of Chinese are bringing in boatloads of cash, People look down on you when you rent. You won’t be invited to parties, The trend is your friend, It’s different this time, Every one makes 200k here except 18 year old fry cooks, and finally Suzanne said we can do this!

    1. Even though this is said seriously, think about it:

      ‘‘For many, especially international buyers, buying off-plan was seen as a sure-fire way to turn a profit before they had even taken possession of their properties…The thinking was that in the one to two years from locking in their purchase price, house price inflation would turn a tidy profit before they’d even needed to make their final payment. The gravy train is well and truly over – buyers now are much more likely to be end users’

      If this was remotely true, there would be no poverty, anywhere on the planet. Guberments could simply deed unbuilt airboxes to everyone and they could refi endlessly and we’d all live off the gravy, forever. Even a child can see that’s a fantasy. It just can’t work. Yet this is what we are told day after day. Shacks will make more money than you can earn, getting up every day and going to work. And you can live in them or rent them out while your sweet equity piles up!

      1. “Even a child can see that’s a fantasy.”

        Bahahahahahaha … these fantasies are what supply me with an effortless living.

        Suzanne fully revs up the schmucks then she brings them to me for the finishing touches. Fantasies are what keep the machine humming. If these ignorant pukes ever wake up to real-world reality then Suzanne and I will be finished.

      2. IIRC wasn’t this the sentiment in 2004-2008? Just get people “into” a house and suddenly no more poverty forever? Same thing in 1999 with dot com.

    1. From your lips to God’s ears, PB! I’ve had a lot of bonds mature lately, and there is nowhere to put the money. I love high interest rates. 🙂

  9. CEO David Hall added: “I nervously laugh when I hear people talk about a current housing crisis and homeless crisis – no one has a clue what is coming.”

    That calls for a round of the “black stuff,” mate!

  12. It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “‘Twelve years ago, [the housing boom] led to a bad outcome with a foreclosure crisis. But that was due to funny mortgages that went to everyone without income documentation,’ said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. ‘This time around, all the mortgages are soundly underwritten.’”

    – From the link:
    Red-hot housing market lifts even struggling metros
    By Reid Wilson – 02/25/21 06:00 AM EST

    – All you need to know:
    “Economists said a sustained period of record-low interest rates spurred people to start looking for new homes,…”

    https://twitter.com/dfwaaronlayman/status/1365012787827793924
    Aaron Layman @dfwaaronlayman
    “Builders, brokers & housing in general getting hammered today [yesterday] as yield on 10-year pushes past a measly 1.5%.”

    “What happened to the “pent-up demand” those real estate industry economists keep talking about? Maybe it’s just dependent on endless Fed intervention?” 🤔
    11:56 AM · Feb 25, 2021·Twitter Web App

    – Our Potemkin village, BS economy continues apace.

  14. Globalists gonna globe:

    “On orders of President Biden, the United States has launched an airstrike on a facility in Syria. As of this writing the exact number of killed and injured is unknown, with early reports claiming “a handful” of people were killed.

    Rather than doing anything remotely resembling journalism, the Western mass media have opted instead to uncritically repeat what they’ve been told about the airstrike by US officials, which is the same as just publishing Pentagon press releases.

    So we are being told that the United States launched an airstrike on Syria, a nation it invaded and is illegally occupying, because of attacks on “US locations” in Iraq, another nation the US invaded and is illegally occupying. This attack is justified on the basis that the Iraqi fighters were “Iranian-linked,” a claim that is both entirely without evidence and irrelevant to the justification of deadly military force. And this is somehow being framed in mainstream news publications as a defensive operation.

    The US is just taking it as a given that it has de facto jurisdiction over the nations of Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and that any attempt to interfere in its authority in the region is an unprovoked attack which must be defended against. This is completely backwards and illegitimate. Only through the most perversely warped American supremacist reality tunnels can it look valid to dictate the affairs of sovereign nations on the other side of the planet and respond with violence if anyone in those nations tries to eject them.

    It’s illegitimate for the US to be in the Middle East at all. It’s illegitimate for the US to claim to be acting defensively in nations it invaded. It’s illegitimate for the US to act like Iranian-backed fighters aren’t allowed to be in Syria, where they are fighting alongside the Syrian government against ISIS and other extremist militias with the permission of Damascus. It is illegitimate for the US to claim the fighters attacking US personnel in Iraq are controlled by Iran when Iraqis have every reason to want the US out of their country themselves.”

    https://www.rt.com/op-ed/516647-caitlin-johnstone-us-bombs-syria/

    1. Beanie boy says were in the Middle East because it’s the only way to keep the (petro)dollar as the world reserve currency. If the Middle East tries to trade oil in anything but dollars, nobody will want dollars anymore and the US currency goes Zimbabwe. Evidently Sad Dam, and I believe Omar K tried it and that’s part of the reason they were invaded.

      But this is going to be a real test for Dems. It was easy for the Dems to be anti-War 15 years ago when the cabal was trying to Secure the Realm. Obama’s being anti-Iraq war was a big reason that he was able to beat Hilary in the 2008 primaries.

      So, what are the Dems going to say now that their beloved news stations are beating the same drum Bush did?

      1. being anti-Iraq war

        That’s what we thought we heard, but it turned out he was really good at killing people.

      2. Why all the worries about oil?
        I thunk we were ditching fossil fuels post haste for clean green energy from outer space?

        1. It’s not the oil. It’s the dollar. The dollar used to be backed partially by gold, but since 1971 it’s been basically backed by crude oil. If countries could price oil in, say, Swiss francs or — 😱 — Bitcoin, there would be no reason for people to have dollars at all and dollars can inflate away to nothing. What else is there to back dollars with?

          1. ‘since 1971 it’s been basically backed by crude oil’

            You got a link for that? I’ve heard it said, but never seen any actual tie.

          2. Ben,

            “After the collapse of the Bretton Woods gold standard in the early 1970s, the United States struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to standardize oil prices in dollar terms. Through this deal, the petrodollar system was born, along with a shift away from pegged exchanged rates and gold-backed currencies to non-backed, floating rate regimes.”

            https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/072915/how-petrodollars-affect-us-dollar.asp
            —————————–

            It’s why we topple governments in the Middle East and make illegal claims to their sovereign land…and the oil beneath it. Whenever a democratically-elected leader in the ME wants to use their oil for the benefit of their own people, and especially when they decide to trade that oil in a currency other than dollars, we overthrow or kill them.

            Isn’t it great that Joe Biden is back, so that everything can be “normal” again?

          4. Thanks to CA renter for finding that. I didn’t realize that the agreement was so formalized.

            Blue, here’s a line from Wiki on the gold standard:

            Under the Bretton Woods international monetary agreement of 1944, the gold standard was kept without domestic convertibility.

            There’s a lot more, and more under the “Nixon Shock” and “Executive Order 6102” entries. Basically, it looks like the dollar was still partially backed by gold for foreign countries to trade with dollars, the backing was removed in 1971, and the general public was not allowed to obtain gold until 1975.

          5. the dollar was still partially backed by gold for foreign countries

            I believe I was steeped in this info by 1970 (thanks Grampa). France made a run on the US gold “reserve” and we were one of the last countries to end redemptions. The workaround then was purchasing numismatics, with little collecting value. We were sure things were going to heII in a handbasket immediately.

  15. “There has been a greater demand for larger-sized homes out in the second ring suburbs or even into smaller towns,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. “This is a new world and people need larger space or want larger space, an extra bedroom to turn it into an office.”

    Yep, it’s different this time!

  16. “I have never seen a market like this,” said Khalil El-Ghoul, principal broker at Glass House Real Estate, who sells homes in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. “The only reason a home is on the market more than a couple of days is because we insist on allowing enough time for full market exposure. If it were up to buyers, homes would never go active.”

    Total BS!

    NAR Rule Changes for Off-MLS/HIP Pocket Listings
    https://www.gaar.com/blog/article/nar-rule-changes-for-off-mls-hip-pocket-listings-what-you-should-know-and-h

    2. Total BS!

      I’ve seen 4 over $1M “pending” before they were ever “active” and I check the MLS frequently.

  18. Is a paradigm shift underway in the bond vigilante community?

    If so, what are the implications for mortgage rates and U.S. housing prices?

    1. The Financial Times
      US Treasury bonds
      ‘Humbling’ week in bond markets leads to fears of paradigm shift
      Investors question whether a lasting and destabilising rise in yields is at hand
      Bonds remain strong in historic terms, but for the typically staid and steady US government debt market, this scale of move is rare © FT montage
      Colby Smith, Joe Rennison, Katie Martin and Robin Wigglesworth
      5 hours ago

      For prominent US government bond bulls, it has been a tough week, after a gentle decline in prices abruptly became a rush.

      With expectations for rising inflation building, prices on Treasuries had been sinking for most of this month, pushing yields to their highest point since the coronavirus crisis struck markets a year ago. But on Thursday, a shaky US government debt auction caused 10-year yields to spike as high as 1.61 per cent, ending the day with a gain of 0.14 percentage points.

      “We are eating humble pie, after the bond market served up a lesson in humility,” said HSBC’s head of bond research, Steven Major. “The probability of lower bond yields has fallen because of much larger US fiscal stimulus than we had expected, and the development of a number of effective vaccines.”

      Bonds remain strong in historic terms. But for the typically staid and steady US government debt market, that scale of move is rare. The incident has rekindled memories of chaotic scenes in Treasuries just under one year ago, and led investors to question whether a lasting and destabilising rise in yields is at hand.

      “Are we at a paradigm shift? That’s what people are worried about, that history isn’t much of a guide for us now,” said Joyce Chang, chair of global research at JPMorgan.
      …

    2. Personal Finance
      Published 9 hours ago
      Today’s mortgage rates see highest mark since June 2020 February 26, 2021
      By Chris Jennings
      Content provided by Credible, which is majority owned by Fox Corporation. Credible is solely responsible for this content and the services it provides.
      Our goal here at Credible Operations, Inc., NMLS Number 1681276, referred to as “Credible” below, is to give you the tools and confidence you need to improve your finances. Although we do promote products from our partner lenders, all opinions are our own.

      Check out the mortgage rates for February 26, 2021, which are trending up from yesterday. (iStock)

      Based on data compiled by Credible Operations, Inc., NMLS Number 1681276, mortgage rates have risen since yesterday.

      – 30-year fixed mortgage rates: 3.125%, Up from 3.000%, +0.125
      – 20-year fixed mortgage rates: 3.125%, Up from 2.875%, +0.250
      – 15-year fixed mortgage rates: 2.500%, Up from 2.250%, +0.250
      …

  20. Idaho, especially the Treasure Valley, is essentially ruined now. The politicians and developers (Cory Barton) made tons of money and native Idahoans are left out in the cold. Wages do not match the prices in housing. See California.

    1. I was in the Treasure Valley a month or so ago. For kicks I pulled up house prices. Oy vey. I looked around and wondered how everybody was making well over 6 figures to live there, because the prices were ludicrous. They seemed more overpriced than San Francisco when you factor in incomes.

      1. Don’t I know it. Moved here from south SF bay on 10/2019 and figured I’d wait about a year before I bought, thinking the top was close to being in.

        Little did I know everybody else from the coastal states would follow us here and bid up the prices. Moratoriums, low rates, and generally stupid people have absolutely screwed up the housing market here.

        Now I have to wait longer for the inventory flood to begin and the inevitable crash.

        1. Oh, I’ve been railing on this entire debacle since before the lockdowns started, as the migration here started long before the company I work for moved, but that didn’t stop 3 coworkers from recently buying houses here that were perennial renters down south.

          Cherry on top is the company recently lost a huge contract and the majority of us will likely be laid off toward the end of this year.

      1. It’s hard to argue with this:

        “The mainstreaming of Bitcoin is raising its correlation with equities. Since holders of Bitcoin and single name stocks have the same risk preference around macro shocks such as in interest rates, there is a risk of simultaneous deleveraging in both of these assets.”

        1. Wall St. dove in head first on crypto. When it’s wipeout time for stocks, crypto will respond like somebody just opened a trap door in the floor – the bottom is going to fall out.

  25. The Financial Times
    The Big Read Capital markets
    Return of the bond vigilantes: will inflation fears spoil the post-pandemic party?
    The sell-off this week in government bonds reflects concerns that an economic boom will reignite inflationary pressures
    © FT montage
    Robin Wigglesworth, Joe Rennison, Eric Platt and Colby Smith yesterday

    Many eulogies have been written for the “bond vigilantes” that were once said to prowl global markets for spendthrift countries to bully into fiscal rectitude. But the vigilantes seem to have saddled up again.

    The term was originally coined by former EF Hutton economist Edward Yardeni in the early 1980s to describe how bond sell-offs could force the hand of central banks or governments. The concept was later immortalised by James Carville, an aide to President Bill Clinton who in 1994 ruefully wished he could be reincarnated as the bond market so he could “intimidate everybody”.

    For the past two decades there has been little sign of the vigilantes. Inflation remained quiescent globally, and a desperate hunger for returns eroded the discipline of many bond investors. Since the financial crisis, central banks have smothered fixed-income markets with a succession of vast quantitative easing programmes that neutered any would-be vigilantes.

    But 2021 has seen a disconcertingly swift and powerful bond market rout. The 10-year US Treasury yield — arguably the most important interest rate in the world as it influences prices in virtually every other corner of financial markets — jumped from under 1 per cent at the start of the year to over 1.6 per cent amid tumultuous trading.

    As the pandemic starts to wane, many governments around the world have promised to “act big” to spur recovery and repair the economic scarring of the past year. But some analysts now believe the bond vigilantes are riding again — and could undermine the economic recovery and on unsettle booming financial markets.

    “We’re in a brave new world of excesses in fiscal and monetary policy, and that’s where the bond vigilantes thrive,” Yardeni says. “It’s their job to bring law and order back to the economy when the central banks and the fiscal authorities are lawless. And that’s arguably what we’re seeing here.”
    …

    1. “It’s their job to bring law and order back to the economy when the central banks and the fiscal authorities are lawless.”

      Ahem.

  26. OK, so this One World Order idea, that basically Woodrow Wilson started, isn’t Government by the people.
    The people didn’t vote for being controlled by these agendas that are some kind of Top Down Control of the populations by Entities that hijacked government by the people with sovereign States.
    So, we are subjected to rigged economies and Monopoly Rule and some kind of a Deep State that’s pulling the strings.
    So, these Entities that no doubt rigged the election have taken back this Clown World of agendas that want to dictate the lived of what should be free people making their own choices, with Constitutional protections.
    You go back 25 years ago this Agenda 21 was a program of total Top Down Control of the Populations under the guise of sustainable earth.
    So, they have to have 24/7 fake narratives to get these agendas that take the life choices and freedoms from the individual.
    So, the fake Covid 19 Pandemic of fighting the invisible enemy, to create a police state of Medical Tyranny, not justified by any stretch of the imagination, has taken over.
    And now the never ending Mutant strain of Covid19 is being hyped to keep this fraud going.
    Fake news 24/7 and censoring of facts and dispute to the narratives is a attack on first amendment, and they are going after the second amendment also.
    And the pushing of Commie programs and ideas is just more of the Top Down Control of people’s lives under the false narrative of equity.
    So regular hard working people that voted for the traditional America are now labeled terrorist.
    It’s these Entities that are the insurrectionist that corrupted Government to have this one World Order of top down control that criminally rigged the election.
    So, I don’t get jabbed by needles by Entities that are censoring all the facts. I don’t get jabbed by needles by Entities that have immunity to any damage they cause by their vaccines. I don’t get jabbed by needles by fear mongering Entities that had no justification to lock down populations over a flu, with a inaccurate test that primarily affected people over 80 with comorbidities, as it has been affecting that sector for decades.
    And for decades now we see Big Pharma commercials normalizing a list of snarly side affects of the meds advertised, with 700 thousand dying per year as a result of taking meds as prescribed. Look it up, you would be shocked.
    So, no I’m not the Big Pharmacy guinea pig for meds and vaccines where they have a very high tolerance for adverse reactions and death, that they are trying to normalize.
    Do no harm, doesn’t apply anymore to the Medical Cartel. And I’m not talking about areas that Medical is good at, or lifesaving, or anything like that.
    So, I don’t know how exactly the people are going to get Government by the people back, especially when they rig elections. So, maybe these Entities will fail by some factor unknown at this time yet.

    1. ‘So, maybe these Entities will fail by some factor unknown at this time yet.’

      When men make plans, God laughs.

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