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I Can Afford It, So How Am I Going To Get My Hands On More Money?

A report from Fox Business. “Florida, it turns out, isn’t for everyone. But you would never know it from the PR coming out of the state. David Lowe, sold his longtime home outside Sarasota, Fla., in 2019 for $375,000 and purchased a similar-sized house on a larger piece of land in North Georgia for $180,000. He still has a small place in Florida, but in the next few years he plans to make Georgia his full-time home. He wanted a change from Florida’s flat landscape and ‘smoking hot’ weather. ‘I’d wake up every morning wondering, ‘Now, why am I still in Florida?’ he said.”

From Forbes on New York. Kushner Cos declined to oppose its lenders’ bid to appoint a receiver to take control of its Times Square property, a sign the company could be ready to throw in the towel on the beleaguered entertainment retail project, according to three attorneys not involved with the case. Kushner could also be holding its legal fire power to avoid triggering the debt’s recourse provisions, the attorneys said.”

“‘When a lender is putting a receiver in place it generally means the owner is not doing basic things, not keeping the lights on, not flushing toilets, and they have to get someone else in to run the building,’ the first attorney said. Even as the amount of distressed properties has increased during the pandemic, the step remains fairly unusual, he said. ‘It indicates the borrower has stepped away from the property,’ and such borrowers are typically opting to stop putting money into deteriorating properties to which they will never return, he said.”

“Kushner Cos acquired the Times Square property in October 2015 for $295.3 million. The value of the 248,457 sq ft property was appraised in October at $92.5 million, down sharply from $470 million when bankers securitized the debt.”

From Bisnow Southern California. “A year has passed since many coronavirus-spurred emergency rules were implemented, including moratoriums on commercial evictions that will expire in less than four months. Companies new and established have put together funds expecting to capitalize on a wave of distressed properties as a result of Covid. Over the summer, LA-based BH Properties launched a $200M fund anticipating ‘a dramatic and troubling increase in defaults, foreclosures, receiverships and bankruptcy filings across the country once commercial eviction moratoriums expire,’ according to a July Commercial Observer story.”

“Or, as Greensfelder Commercial Real Estate Managing Principal David Greensfelder, put it, ‘What’s going to happen when the music stops?'”

From CBC News in Canada. “Anna Pires bought a pre-construction condo unit in Richmond Hill, Ont., north of Toronto, on an assignment sale in September 2016 after coming across the sold-out development online. An employee of the developer, Ideal Developments, sold Pires his own purchase-of-sale agreement for $80,000 plus the $20,000 deposit he’d already put down on the unit. Now, after years of delays, the Modern Manors townhouses still aren’t built — and Pires recently found out that her purchase agreement is in jeopardy.”

“‘I have all my life savings in this project,’ said Pires. ‘To think that I may not ever get to see the home that I waited for, for five years, breaks my heart.'”

From Domain News in Australia. “Ultra-low interest rates are pushing up property prices, with new figures showing the average home buyer could spend $41,000 more at auction than a year ago. Interest rates were slashed to boost the pandemic-hit economy and the Reserve Bank this week emphasised it will keep rates low for the next three years even if house prices soar. ‘The house might not be any better — it might just be the same house and they’re just paying more for it,’ Canstar group executive of financial services Steve Mickenbecker said.”

“Jellis Craig managing director Steven Abbott has seen prices rise 5 per cent to 10 per cent in the last six weeks for some segments of his market in Melbourne’s leafy east. ‘[Buyers are thinking] ‘If I extend my budget 10 per cent or 20 per cent, the cost of funding that over time is, at the moment, attractive,’ he said. ‘It’s just one person’s capacity and perceptions of value over another’s. In a market that’s moving, you get less people that are probably telling you what things aren’t worth.'”

From ABC News in Australia. “Jacob had big dreams before the global financial crisis. He wanted to develop his then property in the Tweed Valley into a tourist lodge. But in November 2009, he had a serious accident on the farm tractor and could not work. He asked his lender at the time — who he had taken a high-risk low-doc loan from — to let him defer mortgage repayments until he could resume work.”

“But the lender would not give him leeway and started charging higher interest and default fees. ‘All they said is, ‘When are you going to pay?’ Jacob tells ABC News. He was forced to put the property up for sale in 2010, but because of the GFC, potential buyers were also in strife. Jacob couldn’t sell in time to keep the bank at bay and eventually they repossessed his property.”

“But the lender would not give him leeway and started charging higher interest and default fees. ‘All they said is, ‘When are you going to pay?’ Jacob tells ABC News. He was forced to put the property up for sale in 2010, but because of the GFC, potential buyers were also in strife. Jacob couldn’t sell in time to keep the bank at bay and eventually they repossessed his property.”

“‘We lost all the hard work of 12 years — doing up the property into a real magic place — that’s what we lost,’ he says. ‘And we ended up in a caravan.'”

“Jacob’s story is one that consumer advocates fear could repeat itself. The federal government is looking to wind back safe lending laws, saying there are other adequate protections for consumers. Perth-based mortgage broker Helia Singh said her customers were trying to push her to get bigger loans from the bank so they can afford more expensive housing.”

“‘In cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, the prices have gone up so much,’ Ms Singh says. ‘[There are] people who say, ‘I can afford it, I know I can do it, so how am I going to get my hands on more money.'”

“Property data analyst Martin North said if the federal government changes are passed as suggested, it would place most obligations on borrowers. ‘It tilts the playing field in favour of the banks — especially now, with the prospect of rates rising and higher unemployment ahead,’ Mr North said. ‘They [borrowers] can say whatever they like about their finances, the banks do not have to validate it — but it also means banks can then sue borrowers if later it transpires their information was not correct.'”

Related Posts

Buyers Are Pulling Out, FEAR and PANIC Set In

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGfWOJ_vluk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SkoFI0f6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kseyt6sIh3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaRKfc3XygE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdMbExOb8ng

This Post Has 94 Comments

  1. ‘acquired the Times Square property in October 2015 for $295.3 million. The value of the 248,457 sq ft property was appraised in October at $92.5 million, down sharply from $470 million when bankers securitized the debt’

    The article mentions bond buyers were eager beavers before and now are getting an a$$ pounding.

    1. Those “eager beavers” are probably the Fed printing presses. We’re the ones getting the pounding.

    3. Soothsayer Caesar!
      CAESAR Ha! who calls?
      CASCA Bid every noise be still: peace yet again!
      CAESAR Who is it in the press that calls on me?
      I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
      Cry ‘Caesar!’ Speak; Caesar is turn’d to hear.
      Soothsayer Beware the ides of March.
      CAESAR What man is that?
      BRUTUS A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
      CAESAR Set him before me; let me see his face.
      CASSIUS Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.
      CAESAR What say’st thou to me now? speak once again.
      Soothsayer Beware the ides of March.
      CAESAR He is a dreamer; let us leave him:
      pass.

    4. Soothsayer Caesar!
      CAESAR Ha! who calls?
      CASCA Bid every noise be still: peace yet again!
      CAESAR Who is it in the press that calls on me?
      I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
      Cry ‘Caesar!’ Speak; Caesar is turn’d to hear.
      Soothsayer Beware the ides of March.
      CAESAR What man is that?
      BRUTUS A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
      CAESAR Set him before me; let me see his face.
      CASSIUS Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.
      CAESAR What say’st thou to me now? speak once again.
      Soothsayer Beware the ides of March.
      CAESAR He is a dreamer; let us leave him:
      pass.

  2. ‘Florida, it turns out, isn’t for everyone. But you would never know it from the PR coming out of the state’

    Yep, instead of 1,000 people moving there every half hour, it’s actually flat. So the REIC is a lion.

    1. Florida appears to have some really great places, and some real shitholes. I remember watching a show, I think it was called “The First 48,” where they would try to solve homicides in the first 48 hours because after that, the chances of solving them turned incredibly low. This wasn’t fiction, it was real life where they followed the detectives around and also filmed interviews with suspects.

      One of the locations was a place called “The Pork and Beans” in, I think, Hialeah, Florida. The place looked like a 3rd world ghetto. A dead body laying on the street was commonplace. It was a real eye-opener.

  3. ‘In cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, the prices have gone up so much…[There are] people who say, ‘I can afford it, I know I can do it, so how am I going to get my hands on more money’

    Let’s not beat around the bush. This situation is everyone winking at each others scam. (Which was a title to a post here last decade). We all know what’s going on: the guberment and central banks are purposefully ginning up a housing bubble for their own short term power. They know it’s gonna crash eventually and don’t care. It’s happened in the US too.

    ‘They [borrowers] can say whatever they like about their finances, the banks do not have to validate it — but it also means banks can then sue borrowers if later it transpires their information was not correct’

    Well isn’t that lovely. Sure, lie on the application, and after we kick you out we get to take whatever you have left, maybe get a judgement and carve out a bit of yer future monies! So let’s hear from all the people who say guberment has fixed all the big bad lending.

    1. March 26, 2020

      “As America heads into a deep recession, the $11 trillion residential-mortgage market is in crisis. Investors who buy home loans packaged into bonds are dumping even those with federal backing because of panic that millions might not make their payments. Yet one risky sector had started to show cracks long before the coronavirus pandemic sparked the worst financial meltdown in 12 years: the federal government’s largest affordable-housing program, whose lenient terms are geared toward marginal borrowers.”

      “As real estate prices soared in recent years, working-class adults everywhere have increasingly relied on mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration — and U.S. taxpayers. Since 2007, the FHA’s portfolio has tripled in value to more than $1.2 trillion, almost 11% of the market. While private lenders make these loans, they are packaged into Ginnie Mae bonds, common in mutual funds and pensions.”

      “Before Covid-19 started roiling China, a November FHA report found that 27% of borrowers last year spent more than half their incomes on debt, a level it describes as ‘unprecedented.’ The share of FHA loans souring in their first six months has doubled over the last three years to almost 1%.”

      “Not long ago, Alex Castillo drove his shiny black Infiniti SUV through an office park north of the San Antonio airport, along a busy seven-mile stretch of highway that loan officers call ‘Mortgage Row’ because of its abundance of small independent mortgage companies that dominate FHA lending. Castillo, who has the words ‘The Dream Starts Here’ stitched into his jacket, works for Pennsylvania-based American Residential Lending. Oddly, amid the pandemic, his business is booming. His customers locked in FHA mortgages after interest rates plunged this month — adding to federally backed mortgage debt.”

      “‘If the government tells me you’re good enough to get a loan, I have to trust and believe in the government,’ Castillo said. ‘Then we just hope and pray that the client doesn’t get foreclosed on.’”

      “In downtown San Antonio, scores of investors stood on a parched lawn beside the city’s historic granite-and-red-sandstone courthouse. It was the first Tuesday of February, the day of the foreclosure auction. Matt Badders, a San Antonio lawyer who represents lenders, auctioned off two houses. The failed mortgages remind him of the run-up to the financial crisis 12 years ago, when lending to customers with spotty credit nearly brought down the world’s financial system. ‘We’re almost back to 2007, when mortgage originators are waking people up on park benches, saying sign here,’ Badders said.”

      “At the auction, the crowd bid on 338 homes, a third with FHA mortgages, according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service. One house had dual master bedrooms, a game room and granite kitchen counters. It sold for $202,000 — $52,000 less than the homeowner borrowed only two years ago. The taxpayer-backed FHA insurance fund will take a loss.”

      “Dave Stevens, FHA commissioner under President Barack Obama and former chief executive officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said a recession will expose hidden risks in home lending. ‘This should be an alarm bell to policymakers,’ Stevens said. ‘Sometimes you get blinded by a good economy and suddenly look at it and see a bubble of defaults coming.’”

      “The federal government has decided it doesn’t want to pursue — and has asked a judge to dismiss — a lawsuit against Utah-based Academy Mortgage Corp. The judge refused. The suit claims the company’s staff would repeatedly feed information into an automated federal underwriting system, manipulating it until the computer gave the green light. ‘Decline is a curse word,’ Plaintiff Gwen Thrower, a former underwriter, quoted a manager as saying. ‘We don’t use it.’”

      http://housingbubble.blog/?p=3070

    2. “Well isn’t that lovely.”

      Absolutely!

      “Sure, lie on the application, and after we kick you out we get to take whatever you have left, maybe get a judgement and carve out a bit of yer future monies!”

      😁

      1. This is how dumb people are. They are setting them up for a huge fail and they beg to get the treatment. Let’s not forget something about these countries with a queen on their money: the GFC (great financial crisis) was caused solely by US subprime loans. Never mind that 95% + of US foreclosures were prime loans, making this one of the biggest lies ever told. So why make something like that up?

        Because the root of the lie is, shack prices can never go too high. Trees grow to the sky and everybody involved will get rich with no work or risk. Fact is last decade shack prices started to fall in the UK and Australia before US subprime blew up.

    3. Well isn’t that lovely. Sure, lie on the application, and after we kick you out we get to take whatever you have left, maybe get a judgement and carve out a bit of yer future monies!

      Absolutely. This time the pigmen have a plan for after the subprime bubble collapses. They’re going to be going after kidneys and things.

  5. ‘a $200M fund anticipating ‘a dramatic and troubling increase in defaults, foreclosures, receiverships and bankruptcy filings across the country once commercial eviction moratoriums expire’

    As with the other vulture funds, 200M won’t put a dent in one street of LA or NYC crater.

    ‘What’s going to happen when the music stops?’

    It’s gonna sux, that’s what. Did anyone really believe that crashing the global economy would end any other way?

    This morning I saw another reference that the CCP virus CAUSED shacks to boom. What kind of moron would entertain such a stupid concept? Oh, and why are the ibuyers losing money hand over fist on every flip? It’s almost like the red-hotcakes is just another of the lies the PTB are telling us every minute of every day.

    I see closed businesses everywhere. Places that had been open for as long as I could remember. But get yer cruise line stocks before the ships get melted down.

    1. “What kind of moron?”

      The “me” kind of moron. I commented on this yesterday. There are two divergent situations which really can’t be lumped together.

      Visible small storefront businesses are closing, as you say. In burbs and towns, it’s due to CCP virus lockdowns. In downtown, it’s due to white-collar flight away from CCP virus and “mostly peaceful” protests. The storefront employees are on rent moratorium and therefore they are not driving red hotcakes for condoze downtown.

      Invisible larger corporations are not closing. The CCP virus caused full-time w@h and white-collar flight towards burbs 30-90 minutes from the downtowns, which caused a boom in those shack prices. In my zipcode alone, 40 houses are for sale and 17 of those are pending, and we’re barely in the spring selling season. That doesn’t include the booming migration of political moderates from blue states disasters to red-state mini-homesteads.

      What is your definition of red hotcakes?

      1. They were not morons. Sure, most of them lost a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. But making money, or even keeping money, wasn’t their objective. Their objective was to game the system to stick it to the man, and in that they succeeded wildly. How is someone a “moron” for achieving an objective?

        1. I must concur. There’s more to life than money. You can’t put a price on joy, or schadenfreude. It was possibly a little angry, but they really made up for it with style. Plus, it’s somewhat hilarious. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

    3. I see closed businesses everywhere. Places that had been open for as long as I could remember.

      Yep. The other day I was in an area I used to frequent and decided I’d go get a sandwich for lunch because I was hungry. I thought I took a wrong turn because I didn’t recognize the building. Then it dawned on me that the sandwich shop and all its signage are gone, and they painted the building and put up “for lease” signs in the window. This place had been in business for 35 years. This lockdown bullsh!t has hollowed out the economy.

    1. Actual on the ground report from west side Orlando
      (Windermere-Winter Garden).
      Prices going up. Properties pending within days of listing. My daughter’s house in Windermere went on the market 2 weeks ago on Friday, had signed commitment for full price ($579,900) 6 days later. Highest price to date in subdivision. Been looking for property around Winter Garden and Clermont with minimum .5 acre. Anything listed goes pending immediately.

      1. I remember years ago when he was reporting that Denver was cratering. A coworker put her house on the market and in two days she had multiple offers.

        1. Denver current stats. Median price $554k for attached + detached – up 19.4% y/y. It makes no sense re: unemployment or price:rent ratio … But that’s what it is

  7. ‘[Buyers are thinking] ‘If I extend my budget 10 per cent or 20 per cent, the cost of funding that over time is, at the moment, attractive…It’s just one person’s capacity and perceptions of value over another’s. In a market that’s moving, you get less people that are probably telling you what things aren’t worth’

    No mention of appraisers, BTW. If you tell people they can make 10 or 20% in weeks, with no work or much risk, there are a bunch who will jump at the chance. then we get the tales of woe.

    ‘I have all my life savings in this project…To think that I may not ever get to see the home that I waited for, for five years, breaks my heart’

    This story line appears again. It’s pre-construction airboxes, there are probably more scams that legit deals. She even asks, how can this happen in Canada? Like it’s some golden territory of virtue. Well you F-d up Anna, you trusted a Canadian.

    1. ‘I have all my life savings in this project”

      It’s costly enough without making a place to live a “project.”

      Why would anyone go out of their way and throw good money after bad making shelter more costly?

      crushing.housing.losses.

    2. “‘[Buyers are thinking] ‘If I extend my budget 10 per cent or 20 per cent, the cost of funding that over time is, at the moment, attractive…It’s just one person’s capacity and perceptions of value over another’s.”

      This needs repeating: “It’s just one person’s capacity and perceptions of value over another’s.” Keep this in mind as we move along …

      “In a market that’s moving, you get less people that are probably telling you what things aren’t worth’.

      “No mention of appraisers, BTW. If you tell people they can make 10 or 20% in weeks, with no work or much risk, there are a bunch who will jump at the chance. then we get the tales of woe.”

      “… there are a bunch who will jump at the chance.” And out of that bunch you only need ONE buyer. The number of people who make up the bunch bid against one another and the highest bidder in the bunch lands the sale AND sets the price – sets the price for that particular house AND resets the values for the comps. Using money that he/she does not have.

      And this is how equity wealth is created. Why, it’s a miracle!

      1. According to this link there are 115,904,641 housing units in existence the U.S …

        United States Housing Statistics
        https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/housing-statistics

        This link tells us that of this number of house that exist approximately 6,440,000 of them were sold in 2020 …

        • Existing home sales in the U.S. 2005-2022 | Statista
        https://www.statista.com/statistics/226144/us-existing-home-sales/

        Doing some math indicates that approximately six percent of existing houses were sold in 2020. This six percent of sold houses set the values for the ninety-percent of the houses that were not sold. If the sold prices were stupidly high then the values they generated for the comps were also stupidly high. Nevertheless these stupid values are deemed to be real and can become very spendable, so much so that an entire economic system can be based on this happening.

        It’s all quite amazing if one cares to take the time to think about it. Amazing in a stupid sort of way.

      2. Shirley, Zillow is joking. I did a Zillow inquiry and learned that the average value of houses in my zip code increased by 11.5 percent over the past 12 months.

        (doing some math here …)

        That means my equity wealth increased my total wealth by over $76,000 over the past 12 months. And all I did to deserve this treat is to live in my house and maybe mow the lawn now and then.

        I like to think that I am financially smart but actually stupid my house-buying neighbors deserve all the credit for my Zillow reported prosperity.

    3. It’s all about “how much a month?”

      $2000/month will get about $425K of loan. Rates go up, you get less loan. Housing prices will reflect that.

      My dilemma at the moment is hold on to cash for the crash or get real assets (property) for protection from hyperinflation. Either will happen before the “regular folks” have a chance to move. Which will it be?

      1. ‘My dilemma at the moment is hold on to cash for the crash or get real assets (property) for protection from hyperinflation. ‘

        You want real assets and at a discount too? Find a secure place and start stockpiling $25 boxes of pennies from the bank. The pre 1982 Lincoln cents are 95% copper and are worth over twice face value in copper metal:

        http://www.coinflation.com

      2. As long as the 10-yr Treasury is below the adjusted inflation rate it will cost you to hold cash. Of course all asset classes are over-priced too. And the best junk bonds are paying roughly 4%, which is too risky for anyone but the professionals. My age driven choice was to leave a California metro area for cheaper housing prices, but I had to locate another job first, and there was no covid crisis when I made my move. The fed.gov really is destroying families and retirees.

      3. Rates go up, you get less loan. Housing prices will reflect that.

        Yes. However, house prices are sticky on the way down, especially in California. Investors will snap up decent houses for cash long before rising interest rates drop house prices to where you can afford them. A lot of this happened in 2009.

        I would say, if you want to get out of CA and buy a house to live in and stay in, start looking now. If you want to buy your piece of heaven in CA, it’s much more dicey. Any drop is likely to be short-lived and you may not be able to time it. If you just want an inflation hedge, put the cash into a hard-asset ETF for natural resources or agricultural resources. Or precious metals (but be wary of taxes).

      4. “My dilemma at the moment is hold on to cash for the crash or get real assets (property) for protection from hyperinflation.”

        And when can we expect this tripling and quadrupling of wages and salaries you speak of?

  8. This is what happens in a bubble market. We use to call this middle men – folks that would ‘grease this skids’. With large development companies, employees do some advanced buying with a head I win, tails the company loses, approach. Happened in 2019 in a subdivision in Sammamish WA (East side outside of Seattle) – turns out that just slightly less than 10% of the houses were sold to ‘insiders’ from the development company or the contractors.

    —
    “on an assignment sale in September 2016 after coming across the sold-out development online. An employee of the developer, Ideal Developments, sold Pires his own purchase-of-sale agreement for $80,000 plus the $20,000 deposit he’d already put down on the unit.

  9. “Or, as Greensfelder Commercial Real Estate Managing Principal David Greensfelder, put it, ‘What’s going to happen when the music stops?’”

    If so many smart people are in line to get rich when the music stops, then isn’t extend-and-pretend to keep the music alive a likely policy response?

    Or is there a point where market forces overwhelm policymaking discretion?

  10. Two headlines om CNN’s business page:

    Biden’s stimulus will keep America’s economy humming for years, Goldman Sachs predicts

    Followed by:

    Wall Street is already eyeing Biden’s next trillion-dollar spending plan

    So, the current spending bill will keep the economy humming for years, but they’re already working on another one?

        1. I remember reading that it cost $12 for every $1 in benefits administered to someone needy; this was many years ago in California!

    2. “Two headlines om CNN’s business page:

      Biden’s stimulus will keep America’s economy humming for years, Goldman Sachs predicts

      Followed by:

      Wall Street is already eyeing Biden’s next trillion-dollar spending plan

      So, the current spending bill will keep the economy humming for years, but they’re already working on another one?”

      – The U.S. economy hasn’t been “humming” since at least since the GFC (2008). The whole shebang is being mis-managed and micro-managed by the idiots at the Fed and Gov’t. hacks. Recall that the real, productive economy (private sector) generates income and wealth that pays for the unproductive Gov’t. (public sector). The FIRE sector is another example of an unproductive sector. Both Gov’t. and FIRE have become too large with respect to the real economy. They have also become parasitic and are now choking off the private sector. They’re killing the host. This is how empires end. Reference: Ancient Rome.

      – Notice how “billions” has morphed into “trillions.” This is because debt must keep expanding to keep the wheels from falling off the bus. This is related to the negative productivity of debt, where 1$ of debt buys maybe $0.10 of growth now, since the U.S. and every other OECD country is highly indebted.

      – There’s no happy ending here. The debt will continue to expand and the bubbles will continue to inflate until the inevitable popping of the asset bubbles. I don’t think there’s going to be fourth bubble after this one, since this is “The Everything Bubble,” and when this sucker goes, it’s going to take down the entire system, hence, “The Great Reset.”

      – In a finite world, debt can’t grow to infinity, debt can’t grow to the sky. We’re in the end game now. Exactly when and how this ends I don’t know, but it won’t be pretty. Based on history, the outcomes aren’t going to be good here. I think everyone knows this, and MMT is just some BS propaganda ploy to try to keep the con game going a little longer. “It’s fine.”

      https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1371209545507336198
      Sven Henrich
      @NorthmanTrader
      Replying to @NorthmanTrader

      “But let’s keep all pretending this is all consequence free & we can have our cake and eat it too.
      Free markets have been dead for a long time now.
      We live in a planned economy with a centrally controlled market structure that needs to be managed daily with action & jawboning.      ”

      3:20 PM · Mar 14, 2021·Twitter Web App

      1. Notice how “billions” has morphed into “trillions.”

        And now it will be “multiple trillions”

        1. Note: There are no “shovel ready” jobs programs being discussed, just bux being doled. The little people will fritter it away on over-priced schitt, and the big boys are ready to vacuum it up!

          1. It’s interesting the lack of alarm by the average Joe over these multi-trillion deficits. As long as he, the missus and the kids get their $1400 each, it’s all good. Concerns about currency debasement or inflation are non existent.

            Here is investopedia’s definition of inflation:

            Inflation is the decline of purchasing power of a given currency over time.

          2. investopedia’s definition

            It is very simple. Inflation is the expansion of the money supply. We don’t easily understand this because we’re in a swamp of IOUs.

    4. To pay off government debt, pension funds, Social Security, 401k’s, bank losses, stock bubbles will require constant stimulus bills. The patient is flatlining.

  11. Poway, CA Housing Prices Crater 21% YOY As SoCal Construction Costs Slip Under $50 A Sqaure Foot

    https://www.movoto.com/poway-ca/market-trends/

    As one noted economist explained, “I can ask $50k for my run down 10 year old Chevy pickup but where is the buyer at that price? So it is with all depreciating asset like houses and cars.”

  12. I can personally confirm just how hot, humid & brutal the summers are in Sarasota!
    As a teen, its pretty cool to bicycle around in shorts, heading to N. Lido, etc.

    (Siesta? oh hell no! pretentious posers & pricks)

    Later in life as a young adult you really begin to notice the heat / humidity.

    If you have never lived anywhere else then the climate probably seems normal. My brother has been there since his teens & loves it.
    personally I get a little antsy if I can’t see the Sierras of N. Cal off in the distance.

    I don’t know how to explain it; it gets in your blood. I’ve lived all over the world but always feel the pull back to the state of my birth; California

    1. One of fastest growing states though. Not everyone sees it your way; I wish they would. We have enough transplants I think.

    2. “I’ve lived all over the world but always feel the pull back to the state of my birth; California”

      If you are into summer or winter outdoor sports it’s difficult to do any better than California. I also prefer fully developed neighborhoods with curbs, sidewalks and street lights. Most of the country has spec homes or trailers just plopped on-grade with a Piggly Wiggley with bars in the windows for shopping.

  13. My husband’s La Jolla tenants with the $1M view and $34K in arrears are filing for bankruptcy. The wife is a district attorney making roughly $250K/yr. The owners are thinking about moving back into the home and might have to pay the tenants 2 months rent to move out even though the owners may have to file as a creditor in the bankruptcy proceeding. Crazy.

    1. “My husband’s La Jolla tenants with the $1M view and $34K in arrears are filing for bankruptcy. The wife is a district attorney making roughly $250K/yr.”

      that is in indeed cRaZy! just outrageous!!
      people have no shame anymore.

    2. The wife is a district attorney making roughly $250K/yr.

      I can only begin to imagine what they burn their money on.

    3. I would not hesitate and call the media and your local representative. I hate stuff like this, my father always taught us the landlord gets paid first, and i have never been evicted or even taken to court.

    4. might have to pay the tenants 2 months rent to move out even though the owners may have to file as a creditor in the bankruptcy proceeding’

      upside down world

    5. The wife is a district attorney making roughly $250K/yr.

      “The legislation signed today pauses evictions for tenants who declare under penalty of perjury an inability to pay all or part of the rent due to a COVID-related reason…”

      Did said tenants give a sworn declaration to that effect?

  14. “…And we ended up in a caravan.’”

    A caravan is what they call a popup camper in Oz. From the looks of RV sales in the U.S., a ‘caravan’, unfortunately, may be the new trend.

    1. I think it means any camper, though their camper/rvs tend to be small compared to ours, small and light enough that a hatchback can tow them.

  16. The value of the 248,457 sq ft property was appraised in October at $92.5 million, down sharply from $470 million when bankers securitized the debt.”

    Oh dear. But that means “investors” who bought that securitized debt just got a major haircut. But I’m sure this is an isolated, one-off occurrence.

  17. “‘I have all my life savings in this project,’ said Pires. ‘To think that I may not ever get to see the home that I waited for, for five years, breaks my heart.’”

    Stupid should hurt, Anna.

    1. Seems like the debtors should be included as an encumbrance when the new owner took over the project, no?

  18. “‘We lost all the hard work of 12 years — doing up the property into a real magic place — that’s what we lost,’ he says. ‘And we ended up in a caravan.’”

    The bank making your money disappear was a magic trick of sorts, wasn’t it?

    1. “The bank making your money disappear was a magic trick of sorts, wasn’t it?”

      Oh, the money didn’t disappear, it was merely, er, redistributed.

      😁

  19. March 15 (Reuters) – Texas power retailer Griddy Energy LLC on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the state grid operator cut off the company’s access to customers for unpaid bills following the Texas freeze.

    The company said it is seeking court authority to release customers from outstanding bills, some of which were reported to have run over $10,000. (Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

  20. @ Aqius
    “I don’t know how to explain it; it gets in your blood. I’ve lived all over the world but always feel the pull back to the state of my birth; California ”

    Couldn’t agree more! Also lived and worked on 3 continents, from Hudson Bay in the 60’s and retiring from a County job in Seattle. Sitting here in Mt Shasta Ca after 16 inches of snow last night and blue sky and sunshine. Absolutely Shangri La from my perspective. 4 strong seasons, beautiful scenery all around to walk the dogs and decent lovely folks making up the community, many of whom help out with volunteering for senior food support / hospice / food banks etc; For many years I’ve heard all the derogatory comments about California……..I guess you just have to choose your diggings !

    1. Well, yeah, you live in a small, Republican town. While I’m sure that life is idyllic there, you still have to deal with the cr@p that comes out of Sacramento.

  21. More than $200 billion of unemployment benefits distributed in the pandemic may have been pocketed by thieves, according to ID.me, a computer security service that 19 states — accounting for 75% of the national population — use to verify worker identities. That’s more than triple the official government estimate of $63 billion based on the 10% pre-pandemic fraud rate.

    “The level of fraud is truly unprecedented,” Blake Hall, CEO and cofounder of ID.me, told Yahoo Money. “The main driver is the PUA program… For criminals, this program essentially makes every American and their identity a target.”

    Up to 30% of claims under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the program that provides benefits to self-employed and contractors, are fraudulent, according to data by ID.me.
    CANOGA PARK, CA – MAY 14: Maria Mora came to find information about her claim but found the California State Employment Development Department was closed due to coronavirus concerns on Thursday, May 14, 2020 in Canoga Park, CA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

    1. More fraudulent than legitimate claims have been filed in the Centennial State since the pandemic began. My understanding is that almost all were caught here and that only a few million $ were paid out to fraudsters.

  22. Wearing a mask while riding a motorcycle without a helmet:

    https://i.redd.it/ig3zus12m0n61.jpg

    CNBC — CDC chief warns of another Covid surge as Americans travel for spring break (3/15/2021):

    “The U.S. could still see another coronavirus surge — even as vaccinations against Covid-19 rapidly rise across the nation — as states relax restrictions and more Americans travel for spring break, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Monday.

    “With the coming warmer weather, I know it’s tempting to want to relax and to let our guard down, particularly after a hard winter that sadly saw the highest level of cases and deaths during the pandemic so far,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a press briefing.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/15/cdc-chief-warns-of-another-covid-surge-as-americans-travel-for-spring-break-.html

    1. Why do I have the sinking feeling that after practically everyone has been vaccinated that we will be warned about more “surges”?

      1. It’s never, ever going to end. People will be wearing masks while driving alone in Denver until the year 2030.

          1. The lady that runs the local art gallery told me today that masks are why we had zero cases of the flu this past year. Then she went on to tell me that she was quite ill in February, due to Covid. She has no idea how she caught Covid, because she always wears her mask.

          3. I don’t quite recall the stats, but if two people are unprotected, the chance of passing COVID is something like 17%. If two people wear a cloth mask at, say, ~N-50, the chance of passing COVID is, hmm, 17%x 25% = ~4%. 4% is small, but it’s not 0.

            Flu is much less contagious, and rides on larger droplets.
            That is, masks DO prevent flu.

          4. People should take the time to improve their health, the good old fashion way, rather than be at the mercy of Government/Medical Cartel.
            Wearing a mask all day is cutting off breathing, which can’t be good.

          5. People should take the time to improve their health, the good old fashion way

            That implies taking ownership and responsibility for your health. This is the decade of the victim, where it is perfectly fine to be so obese that you can’t walk, so the odds that many will improve their health are nil.

  23. How can CA the state with the most stringent environmental laws, the most progressive liberal society, have a landscape of trash and graffiti?

  24. Trump-Georgia Phone Call Reveals Sec Of State Committed Fraud To Frame Trump

    by Jamie White
    March 15th 2021, 5:38 pm

    The Washington Post issued a major correction Monday about President Trump’s December phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State’s office regarding the 2020 presidential election fraud.

    WaPo published the story in January claiming President Trump “urged Georgia’s lead elections investigator to ‘find the fraud’ in a lengthy December phone call, saying the official would be a ‘national hero,’” citing an anonymous source who “confirmed” the story.

    But recently released audio of the entire phone call reveals WaPo misquoted Trump, who actually told the investigator that “something bad happened” and that “when the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.”

    David Shafer
    @DavidShafer
    You may have missed this correction from The @WashingtonPost in which the paper retracted its false reporting that President Trump told @GaSecofState investigators to “find the fraud.”

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/wapo-retraction-about-trump-georgia-phone-call-reveals-sec-of-state-committed-fraud-to-frame-trump/

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