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Investors Will Be The First To Regret They Gambled On The Continuation Of The Housing Ponzi

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Extell Development has sold a sponsor unit at One57 for $16.8 million, 15.4 percent below its last asking price. Extell first listed the condo at about $24 million in July 2020, before it was chopped to $20 million in January. Fast forward to January 2021, and One57 set new records: A unit sold for more than 50 percent below its previous purchase price, a record resale loss at the tower. It followed a string of resale losses at the building, which Extell Chairman Gary Barnett has previously said do not represent a ‘real-world price.’ The latest resale was sold by an estate and another three were tied to HNA Group, a once high-flying Chinese conglomerate that sold its real estate holdings in a fire sale.”

“Condominium prices in Boston continued to fall precipitously to start the year. The average price per SF of a downtown Boston condo fell 22% year-over-year to $991 per SF while inventory rose 44% in the same period, according to Miller Samuel/Douglas Elliman figures. ‘Sales are surging, but you have prices declining,’ Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller said.”

“While Arlington Realty, Inc. provides this information for the community, it may not be the listing company of these homes. There are 365 days per year (unless it’s a leap year, of course). And, for this week’s Just Reduced column, we have $365,000 in price reductions to share! Add ’em all up and that’s what you’ll be saving off the collective original list price, folks.”

“But, as a friendly reminder, these preliminary savings can be only the beginning. From the Just Reduced price and if you have a polished team on your side, you can negotiate even lower. And, if the home you’ve been eyeing hasn’t been reduced just yet, your team can help you negotiate on that front, too.”

“The city once considered the butt of Bay Area jokes is apparently getting the last laugh. The national phenomenon of a sellers’ market has reached Vallejo — big-time. Todd Willis, real estate agent in Benicia compared the home-buying activity to the ‘toilet paper buying frenzy’ at the start of COVID-19.”

“Real estate agent with Royal LePage Ladysmith, Susan Perrey, said the market is ‘crazy all around’. ‘I had a mobile yesterday in a mobile home park that had six offers on it, going for substantially more than the asking price,’ she said. ‘It’s craziness.’ When the craziness stops, Perrey said that the market on the Island will remain steady, but some buyers who have purchased more than they can afford could be at risk of foreclosure. ‘Right now we’re seeing an extraordinary amount of demand to live here on the Island, but if it does burst, there will still be people looking for foreclosures that come up.'”

“Developers in Dubai are getting quite active with Ramadan promotions, offering straight out discounts of up to 20 per cent. On top of the decline property values have seen in the last two years, that 10-20 per cent discount comes to quite a decent saving for a buyer. Investor interest in offplan sales had dropped over the last 12-24 months on concerns about oversupply and the added pressure this will have on Dubai rents. With the promotions and discounts, developers are trying to convince investors all over again. ‘As developers, we need to clear offplan inventory at the first available opportunity,’ said a top official at one of Dubai’s biggest builders.”

“The resurging COVID-19 pandemic has posed many questions for NRIs who own properties in India or plan to buy one. These properties have been sold for prices that are almost 25% lower than pre-demonetisation levels. ‘Rental yield is just about 1.5 percent per annum. This barely takes care of inflation levels and depreciation of the Indian rupee. Since the last eight-nine years, both the property prices and currency have depreciated. This is prompting NRIs to consolidate real estate assets in India,’ said Amit Goyal, CEO, India Sotheby’s International Realty.”

“China’s financial regulator said operations at China Huarong Asset Management Co. are normal and the company has ample liquidity, marking the first official comments aimed at easing investor concerns over the financial health of the nation’s largest bad-debt manager. Huarong, which owes $42 billion to local and offshore bondholders, jolted Asian credit markets after failing to meet a March deadline for releasing its 2020 earnings. The company was already under a shadow after its former chairman, Lai Xiaomin, was executed earlier this year after being found guilty of bribery.”

“Hu Jianzhong, chief supervisor at Huarong, said at an event in Beijing on Friday that China will see more difficulties in bad-asset disposal market over the next three to five years as the volume rises and prices fall. The nation’s distressed loan managers are facing mounting pressure as the pandemic has made it harder to dispose of assets, according to a closely watched survey by China Orient Asset Management Co. released on Friday.”

“In Melbourne and Sydney, it’s a renters market and lending for investment housing is taking off as the epicentre of credit stress in banking. Rents in Melbourne, the worst hit market, are down as much as 16 per cent since the pandemic and the long lockdown hit the city hard. The quality and the value for money (for now) in new and near-new complexes in prime position in a few cases is a bit of an eye opener.”

“For example, the asking price on a compact Docklands pad in a flash recent tower with lap pool, massive gym, library and tennis court, or another in the Grand Hotel travesty on Spencer Street are the same as a 1960’s redbrick speccie with no amenity on Murray Road in Preston. And it’s the nominally high-end apartments in the city and inner ring that feature in the ‘down, down’ advisories this week.”

“Bouncy readings on consumer sentiment and the all too typical huzzah for the housing price bubble are dubious indicators. Great swathes of the mass market cannot pay the rent.”

“Owners of Sydney’s beleaguered Mascot Towers will thrash out their options on Thursday night to try to resolve the long-running stand-off over the empty apartment building, including the possibility of selling the tower. Apartment owner Brian Tucker, who is renting a unit in Arncliffe, said residents had suffered significant emotional and financial pain over the past two years. ‘It is a big asset that is basically worthless at the moment. It is disheartening – we have a nice unit that has been vacant for two years,’ he said. ‘The whole situation is very stressful.'”

“Another resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was in favour of a collective sale because it would bring closure to the two-year debacle. The owner said the situation had caused the breakdown of his marriage and would likely see him lose his job due to depression and anxiety. ‘I am just not functioning,’ the owner said. ‘I am not an uncommon situation. Lots of Mascot Tower owners are in similar situations: separated or divorced or suicidal. I’ve lost my entire life savings and my future lifetime to debt.'”

“A Living Hell: Apartment Disasters spills the tea on who is responsible for designing and building such shitty housing in Aotearoa (spoilers: it’s a lot of companies). One of the leaky buildings featured is the St Luke’s Garden Apartments in Auckland. The sprawling 285 unit complex was built between 2003 and 2011, making it a relatively new building to be affected by weather-tightness issues. The problems facing residents there are vast. Bevan Tse bought an apartment there in 2013; by the time he realised his mistake it was too late. He and his family have gone into debt to cover their share of the costs of remediation, estimated to be in excess of $100 million.”

“Remember FOMO? The ‘fear of missing out’ is a big deal in the world of house sales. But things have changed. As a result of the Government’s housing policy, there’s growing uncertainty over prices, fuelling hesitancy with buyers fearful of paying too much for property. Hence, FOMO has now been replaced by FOOP – the fear of overpaying. Before the changes announced three weeks ago, home buyers and investors were rushing into the market, fuelled by FOMO.”

“At the time Adrian Orr, the Reserve Bank Governor, said FOMO in the housing market was creating a frenzy that could create ‘irrational behaviour,’ and warned Kiwis not to get swept up in it. Now, there’s a new fear buyers are getting caught up in. ‘The fear of missing out has taken a pause, and now people are definitely worried about overpaying for property,’ said mortgage advisor Michael Anastasiadis.”

“The Government’s new housing policies mark a turning point in New Zealand’s speculation-driven housing markets. All recent homebuyers, investors and owner-occupants alike, and their lenders innately share an underlying hope that the property they just paid too much for will be even more over-valued in the future. Of these, investors will be the first to regret they gambled on the continuation of the housing Ponzi.”

“It is important to note that the vast majority of leveraged rental property purchases in overheated markets like Auckland are loss-making endeavors that can hardly be categorised as a ‘business’. These speculative plays on future capital gains are now merely deeper in the red courtesy of higher tax bills.”

“Although investor greed seems to be the primary target of the new housing policies, there is an even larger, greedier actor behind the housing Ponzi: banks. Without the eagerness of banks to lend increasing amounts of debt onto the shoulders of owner-occupiers and residential investors, the current obscene prices would not be possible.”

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This Post Has 112 Comments

  1. ‘Although investor greed seems to be the primary target of the new housing policies, there is an even larger, greedier actor behind the housing Ponzi: banks’

    Let the finger pointing begin.

    2. “Without the eagerness of banks to lend increasing amounts of debt onto the shoulders of owner-occupiers and residential investors, the current obscene prices would not be possible.”

      Bahahaha … open up the bank’s doors each and every morning and in flock the multides of starry-eyed pukes ready to place their bets on buying houses using money they do not have which forces them to borrow from me huge gobs of money that I do not have.

      Then these starry-eyed pukes descend upon the housing market and enter into bidding wars against each other so as to drive up prices which translates into magically creating home equity which can and will be drawn out and spent and will thus keep our seventy-percent consumer-based economy humming along.

      Interesting times.

  2. ‘It is a big asset that is basically worthless at the moment. It is disheartening – we have a nice unit that has been vacant for two years…The whole situation is very stressful’

    Well it was cheaper than renting Brian. Oh wait, you are renting!

    ‘Another resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was in favour of a collective sale because it would bring closure to the two-year debacle. The owner said the situation had caused the breakdown of his marriage and would likely see him lose his job due to depression and anxiety. ‘I am just not functioning,’ the owner said. ‘I am not an uncommon situation. Lots of Mascot Tower owners are in similar situations: separated or divorced or suicidal. I’ve lost my entire life savings and my future lifetime to debt’

    Look on the bright side anon. You can paint the walls any color you want!

  3. ‘Huarong, which owes $42 billion to local and offshore bondholders, jolted Asian credit markets after failing to meet a March deadline for releasing its 2020 earnings’

    Remember when we were told not one major company in China would default? Now the bad debt manager is on the ropes.

    ‘The company was already under a shadow after its former chairman, Lai Xiaomin, was executed earlier this year after being found guilty of bribery’

    Oh that? Yes, they will throw you out a high window in communist China.

    1. “after its former chairman, Lai Xiaomin, was executed earlier this year after being found guilty of bribery.”

      WOW!

      executed for a financial crime. that really jumps out at you.

      if only the U.S. of A. had more teeth to its laws instead of endless hot potato legal trickery . . .

    3. Remain calm…all is well!

      China Says Huarong Operations Are Normal, Liquidity Ample

      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-16/china-regulator-says-operations-at-bad-loan-managers-are-stable?sref=ibr3A0ff

      China’s financial regulator said operations at China Huarong Asset Management Co. are normal and the company has ample liquidity, marking the first official comments aimed at easing investor concerns over the financial health of the nation’s largest bad-debt manager.

      The state-owned company is actively cooperating with its auditor and will complete its annual report as soon as possible, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said in a statement. Huarong’s dollar bonds climbed, extending their rally from record lows on Thursday.

  4. “The city once considered the butt of Bay Area jokes is apparently getting the last laugh. The national phenomenon of a sellers’ market has reached Vallejo — big-time. Todd Willis, real estate agent in Benicia compared the home-buying activity to the ‘toilet paper buying frenzy’

    “Ha ha, we bay aryans so crazzzy!” Typical Mercury News stuff. Get ready for the a$$ poundings.

    ‘I had a mobile yesterday in a mobile home park that had six offers on it, going for substantially more than the asking price’

    Yeah, and the single wides in Fort McMurry are just catching up with Vancouver. No worries central bankers. These crap boxes fall apart in just a few years, in good weather.

  5. ‘A unit sold for more than 50 percent below its previous purchase price, a record resale loss at the tower. It followed a string of resale losses at the building, which Extell Chairman Gary Barnett has previously said do not represent a ‘real-world price’

    So Gary here can say what he wants. But he’s been undercutting his own buyers for years. And borrowing to do so. Wa happened to my safe deposit boxes in the sky?

  6. This is a pearl clutching article.

    The Guardian — Millions of Americans think the election was stolen. How worried should we be about more violence? (4/16/2021):

    “Three months after an insurrection at the US capitol, an estimated 50 million Republicans still believe the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, according to a recent national survey. But it’s far from clear how many Americans might still be willing to take violent action in support of that belief.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/16/americans-republicans-stolen-election-violence-trump

    Note the alleged sources cited in the article: political scientist, other experts, a senior researcher, extremism experts, a Rand Corporation economist, a sociologist, other experts (more than once).

    This is how Real Journalists attempt to script a narrative.

    Today is Friday, April 16th, and Joe Biden is not the legitimately elected president of the United States.

      1. Some “insurrection.” Despite all the hyperventilating by the globalists, their Democrat minions, and their media lapdogs, not a single firearm was recovered from the “insurrectionists.” Call it a revolt against a corrupt and unresponsive political class if you want, but don’t call it an insurrection.

        2. don’t call it an insurrection

          They have to. It’s not true, but it is the closest thing they have to satisfy the script. They have violent protests and call them “peaceful”. We have a peaceful protest and they call it “violent”.

          They called the Capitol Building “sacred ground” and setting foot on it a threat to “democracy”. B. S. The British burned it down and that didn’t destroy our Democracy. Besides, sacred ground is a religious concept, not a concept of Democracy.

          We’re in an Orwellian conflict for power. Our adversaries seek to destroy the country on earth so as to rule it.

    2. Chinese media does the same — “experts” say. They don’t put real names because it’s all carefully crafted propaganda by the party.

      It’s sad to see the USA become like China.

      1. I know Guardian is not a USA paper, so I should say the “west” become like China.

        USA papers are seldom better, though.

        1. The Guardian is a globalist propaganda organ. It is based in the UK, but like all globalist media is not loyal to any nation-state.

    3. Investigative journalism does not exist at any of the major outlets in the western world. It’s all propaganda and lies for the deep state-billionaire oligopoly. See 9/11/2001 and the unquestioned narrative that 2 aluminum aircraft can turn 3 steel and concrete skyscrapers into fine powder. Real Journalists (TM) are criminal scum.

  7. ‘Add ’em all up and that’s what you’ll be saving off the collective original list price, folks But, as a friendly reminder, these preliminary savings can be only the beginning. From the Just Reduced price and if you have a polished team on your side, you can negotiate even lower. And, if the home you’ve been eyeing hasn’t been reduced just yet, your team can help you negotiate on that front, too’

    There you go taxpayer! Ring these UHS up and they’ll provide a hankey to cry in while you get the bad news.

  8. I can see the commercial…

    Come on down to Uncle Ahmed’s! Once you finish with your slaughtering of your sheep in your front yard and want to impress your neighbors…

    ““Developers in Dubai are getting quite active with Ramadan promotions…”

    1. ‘On top of the decline property values have seen in the last two years, that 10-20 per cent discount comes to quite a decent saving for a buyer’

      Dubai prices headed down in 2014 and never stopped. If you wanted a perfect example of pulling off two monumentally stupid, back to back housing bubbles, Dubai is the place. The article says they “guarantee” a 10% ROI. By the time their phone stop working, it’s be too late.

      And this 10 or 20% does what to previous buyers?

  9. ‘These properties have been sold for prices that are almost 25% lower than pre-demonetisation levels. ‘Rental yield is just about 1.5 percent per annum. This barely takes care of inflation levels and depreciation of the Indian rupee. Since the last eight-nine years, both the property prices and currency have depreciated’

    Yep, prices out there have been sinking like a turd in a well for over 10 years, and still worser. Before London, before Hong Kong, residential prices in Mumbai were the highest on the planet.

  10. Fast forward to January 2021, and One57 set new records: A unit sold for more than 50 percent below its previous purchase price, a record resale loss at the tower.

    The REIC shills who assured us 50% drops were un-possible are long gone. If it wasn’t for the trillions in Powell bux being pumped into the financial system, the crater would be even more epic.

    1. Created in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, dogecoin was intended to be used as a faster but “fun” alternative to bitcoin. It has since found a growing community online.

      And now, defying all odds, dogecoin has a total market value of $34 billion, according to crypto market data site CoinGecko, adding about $19.9 billion in the last 24 hours. The digital token reached an all-time high above 28 cents Friday morning, more than doubling in price from a day ago.

      Doubling in price in 24 hours. The Elon Musk effect i guess. How badly will this end

      1. “…adding about $19.9 billion in the last 24 hours.”

        These bubbles are rapidly expanding towards the point of collapse!

    2. Dumb question of the day: Will the Fed have to acknowledge crypto has reached systematically risky status and grant it premium-free too-big-to-fail bailout insurance?

      1. There are three ways to kill Bitcoin:

        1. Establish various ETFs where people can trade in “paper” bitcoins, similar to precious metal ETFs like GLD and SLV. For precious metals, it is theorized that the paper market has diluted the physical market to where the price of physical gold and silver are about 1/5 of what they should be — or more, if you calculate using actual #paper ounces vs. physical ounces. If you do the same to crypto, bitcoin would drop to about $12K. That oughtta throw a wrench into the trading algos.

        2. Refuse to adopt Bitcoin as a central currency. As Jim Rickards says, BTC will never be a legal currency because the 21mil-coin limit means permanent deflation, and therefore no bond or debt markets. The whole point behind debt is to borrow and then pay it back in inflated dollars (or local currency). What if Bitcoin was fully adopted but remained limited? Even more people worked more man-hours, there’s no way to pay them more wages. People would get paid LESS (fewer) bitcoin every year. It would become harder to pay off a mortgage or a credit card, not easier. Business couldn’t raise prices to pay off business loans because no one could pay those prices. How would anyone lend money or charge interest or even grow? The economy would collapse into unending Depression, and Bitcoin would be reduced to just another barter tool: Tide Pods for the rich, if you will.

        3. Hack into the blockchain code to create unofficial bitcoins. That 21-mil coin limit is Bitcoin’s only saving grace. Create just ONE counterfeit bitcoin and the whole thing fails overnight. Oh sure, it will never happen, right? The very suggestion of such blasphemy must mean that I “don’t understand” enough about crypto and I need to “educate myself” in blockchain. It’s all open-source and can’t be broken, right? But I do know this: if man created it, then man can evade it or destroy it. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are a few thousands hackers in China trying to do this very thing as we speak (and if they succeeded, they would quietly counterfeit and redeem BTC while the world is blissfully unaware). In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Satoshi himself* designed in a secret vulnerable pathway into the heart of blockchain, so that if it go too big, he could infiltrate and destroy it in an instant (hey, it worked in Star Wars).

        Which of these do I think will happen? All three.

        ——————-
        *Features of the original blockchain concept point more to a secret group of experts, possibly state-sponsored, than to an individual person. Jim Rickards jokes that “Satoshi Nakamoto” might be a top secret hacker group at Raytheon.

        1. There are three ways to kill Bitcoin

          This is what happens when one falls into the vortex of fantasy & too much isolate at home.

      2. too-big-to-fail bailout insurance?

        They can bail out their friends without propping up the so-called asset.

  13. Riot season is starting early this year.

    Chicago Tribune (4/15/2021):

    ”
    Video of Adam Toledo’s fatal shooting by police was released to the public Thursday (warning: link contains graphic content), more than two weeks after the teen’s killing left the neighborhood in anguish and Chicago on edge.

    Authorities released extensive video from body-worn cameras, surveillance footage, gunfire detection data and 911 recordings. Taken altogether, the video appears to show Toledo with a gun that he discards as he turns toward the officer with his empty hands raised.

    And the city’s focus inevitably turned toward the crucial split second showing the shooting itself — the grainy, graphic end to the life of the youngest person fatally shot by Chicago police in years.”

    https://archive.is/17iEk

    Real Journalists do not once, never once, ask what was a 13 year old doing out on the streets at 2:45am.

    This now deceased product of low investment parenting, known by his street name “Lil Homicide” was with his 21 year old friend at the time of the shooting.

    Low investment parenting, and the Chicago public education system, created this, and Chicago taxpayers property taxes paid for it.

    “They’re not sending their best”

      1. Low investment parenting. Why even try when you know that the taxpayer funded public education system functions as a free babysitter and meal program?

        Illinois has a pension solvency problem. Imagine paying property taxes to the city of Chicago, LOLZ.

    2. Or never ask what did you do with the $100,000 “Liberated” home equity you got last year. …Its the banks fault for giving it to us.

      Real Journalists do not once, never once, ask what was a 13 year old doing out on the streets at 2:45am.

    3. what was a 13 year old doing out on the streets at 2:45am.

      Are you saying he was “asking for it?”

      1. He was far more likely to be shot by other “youths”. That of course, would have been just a statistic and wouldn’t have been newsworthy.

      3. “asking for it?”

        Parents should tell their children not to run from the police, especially not with a cocked gun in your hand.

    4. Found online somewhere but haven’t verified it. It does match a Dan Rather shenanigan pretty well, though:

      Body cam footage released this week appears to show Toledo holding a weapon moments before he was shot, but CBS News posted a clip to its website and Twitter page that cropped out the footage showing the teen’s alleged firearm.

    5. https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/04/16/who-is-adam-toledo/:

      • Adam Toledo, a seventh grader at Gary Elementary School, was shot in the chest and killed by a Chicago Police officer around 2:30 a.m. on Monday, March 29, in an alley near 24th Street and Sawyer Avenue in Little Village.

      • A family attorney said Adam lived with his mother, grandfather, and two siblings, and Adam wanted to become a police officer.

      • Adam was reported missing by his mother, Elizabeth Toledo, on Friday, March 26. He returned home the following day, but his mother did not call police to report he had returned home. Officers found out he was home when they called the home to check on the missing persons report filed the night before. On March 31, detectives again called Elizabeth Toledo to say that the description of her son resembled an unidentified person in the morgue. Elizabeth then told detectives she hadn’t seen her son since he had left home again, either late on March 27 or early on March 28. She did not report him missing a second time.

      • The Toledo family viewed body cam video of the police shooting on Tuesday, April 13, at the headquarters of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

    6. It’s also being suggested that the kid had special needs and fell threw the cracks. Since “gentle giant” doesn’t apply here, this’ll work instead.

  14. MarketWatch — How do you compete with home buyers who can pay in all cash? Skip inspections and appraisals (4/16/2021):

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-hot-housing-market-means-buyers-are-making-offers-with-risky-waivers-what-to-know-before-trying-this-strategy-11618449586

    No article excerpt needed, it’s the same recycled financial suicide narrative we’ve all seen before.

    The recent articles reporting that a third of new loanowners are experiencing regret are the real story…

    1. Another article from the same site. What a mess – is FOMO really that strong? Cant you rent for a couple of years

      “We were seeing the cost of houses increase even in the couple of months that we were looking, and we were worried about getting priced out if we didn’t get something quickly,” Resnick, 30, said.

      They quickly realized that, at a minimum, they would need to include an appraisal waiver in whatever offer they made. The Austin real-estate market is as competitive as ever. Buyers from pricier markets including California and New York are coming in, ready to make all-cash offers. Same goes for investors, looking to convert properties into rentals or flip them for a profit.
      https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-hot-housing-market-means-buyers-are-making-offers-with-risky-waivers-what-to-know-before-trying-this-strategy-11618449586?mod=real-estate-personal-finance&link=sfmw_fb&fbclid=IwAR1c9eQI-UYduZUZEvHielSx-pUCTYKNHGeqEN3EAw8_8i7jyxhNHqf1LVc

      1. If an appraisal waiver is risky, why are Fannie and Freddie waiving something like 40% of appraisals? These organizations are deeply corrupt.

      2. The biggest investment of your life…

        No need for an inspections or title search…

        What could go wrong? YOLO!!!!!

        1. “…No need for an inspections or title search…”

          Go ahead, make your REIConplex agents day, don’t make that title search!

          What happens then when loan owner discovers 10 years hence that the seeping oil in his back yard is because his land was once a oil sump dump?

          Don’t laugh. There are whole sections of undocumented oil dumps and drill pipe going back to the 1920’s (when oil was discovered) in Huntington Beach, (Calif), just off of GoldenWest and PCH that are now covered with $1mm++ shacks. Just one big overdue earthquake to break loose this mess.

          I am sure there are many more examples all over the country in former oil patch areas, that are, in effect, toxic waste dump time bombs.

          1. The southwest part of Salt Lake Valley was a mining dump for years and now they build $400k townhomes there. People buy it apparently.

            You are advised to not grow food in the ground and to use elevated planters because of the toxic soil.

        2. The biggest investment of your life…

          This is where it goes wrong. It’s not an investment…it’s a place to live!

      3. What a mess – is FOMO really that strong?

        It is. My kids tell me that all their friends are buying shacks in Dumver they can’t afford, meaning they are taking out 500K+ loans.

        My kids see what the monthly nut would be and they shake their heads.

  16. Joe Hogsett (D) Indianapolis Mayor reading his statement this morning.

    “of this horrific crime. What we are left with is grief. Grief for the families of those killed, grief for the employees who have lost their coworkers, and grief for the many Americans struggling to understand how tragedies like this continue to occur again and again.”

    “the assumption that this is simply how it must be and that we might as well get used to it.”

    1. “part and parcel of living in a big city”
      — Mayor of London on muslim terrorist attacks

      Funny how the narrative changes.

      1. Once all the legal guns have been grabbed, then we will be told that violence is here to stay and there is nothing that can be done about it. But since a knife or a hammer will be the weapon, then all is OK

          2. Word:

            Read more: https://www.ammoland.com/2012/12/americans-never-give-up-your-guns-a-warning-from-a-russian/#ixzz6sIYbKPWc
            Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
            Follow us: @Ammoland on Twitter | Ammoland on Facebook

            Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear.

    3. Looks like the Indianapolis shooter targeted Sikh FedEx employees. The fact FedGov & media haven’t published a pic of the perp this many hours after the event indicates the shooter did not suffer from melanin deficiency, thus this non-Narrative compliant story will quickly be memory-holed.

  17. As I mentioned on the news of Bernie Madoff’s demise, if you are going to get involved in a Ponzi scheme, make sure that it is sufficiently pervasive, with participation and support from from high levels of government, in order to avoid having the blame land squarely on your shoulders at the point of collapse. Real estate bubbles are a great choice in this regard.

    And apparently Charles Ponzi and Bernard Madoff failed to follow this principle.

    1. Bernie Madoff was a piker compared to Zimbabwe Ben Bernanke, Yellen the Felon, and Jerome Powell.

  18. “Condominium prices in Boston continued to fall precipitously to start the year. The average price per SF of a downtown Boston condo fell 22% year-over-year to $991 per SF while inventory rose 44% in the same period, according to Miller Samuel/Douglas Elliman figures. ‘Sales are surging, but you have prices declining,’ Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller said.”

    Wow! Any thoughts on when this falling knife will reach the ground? I have a buddy who works and rents in the Boston area who might consider bottom fishing for a place to live in…even if it’s a condo.

    1. My guess is that actual deals will start becoming available starting early next year. There might be bump in the market after the unmasking starts somewhere around June/July, tempered by foreclosure forbearances ending. After that it’s all about the economy.

  19. ‘Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order on April 1 last year locking down the Sunshine State for 30 days amid a global panic about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus outbreak. Sitting in his office exactly a year later, he told The Epoch Times that the lockdowns were a “huge mistake,” including in his own state.’

    “We wanted to mitigate the damage. Now, in hindsight, the 15 days to slow the spread and the 30—it didn’t work,” DeSantis said. “We shouldn’t have gone down that road.”

    ‘Florida’s lockdown order was notably less strict than some of the stay-at-home measures imposed in other states. Recreational activities like walking, biking, golf, and beachgoing were exempted while essential businesses were broadly defined.’

    “Our economy kept going,” DeSantis said. “It was much different than what you saw in some of those lockdown states.”

    ‘The governor nonetheless now regrets issuing the order at all and is convinced that states that have carried on with lockdowns are perpetuating a destructive blunder.’

    ‘After the 30 days of the initial lockdown in Florida lapsed, DeSantis commenced a phased reopening. He faced fierce criticism at each stage from establishment media and his own constituents beholden to the lockdown narrative.’

    ‘The governor fully reopened Florida on Sept. 25 last year. When cases began to rise as part of the winter surge he did not reimpose any restrictions. Lockdown proponents forecast doom and gloom. DeSantis stood his ground.’

    ‘The governor’s persistence wasn’t a leap of faith. Less than two weeks after Florida’s full reopening in late September, scientists from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford went public with the Great Barrington Declaration, which disavowed lockdowns as a destructive and futile mitigation measure. The declaration, which has since been signed by 13,985 medical and public health scientists, calls on public officials to adopt the focused protection approach—the exact strategy employed by DeSantis.’

    ‘Despite dire predictions about the pandemic in Florida, DeSantis has been vindicated. On April 1, 2021, Florida ranked 27th among all states in deaths per capita from the CCP virus, commonly known as the coronavirus.’

    ‘The ranking’s significance is amplified because the Sunshine State’s population is the sixth oldest in the United States by median age. California—the lockdown state often compared to Florida due to its lower per-capita death rate—is the sixth youngest. The risk of dying from the CCP virus is highest for people over 55, with the group accounting for 93 percent of the deaths nationwide.’

    ‘While Florida is doing either better or relatively the same as the strict lockdown states in terms of CCP virus mortalities, the state’s economy is booming compared to the crippled economies in California and New York. Though less quantifiable, the human suffering from the lockdown-related rise in suicides, mental health issues, postponed medical treatments, and opioid deaths is undeniably immense.’

    “It’s been a huge, huge mistake in terms of policy,” DeSantis said. “All I had to do was follow the data and just be willing to go forward into the teeth of the narrative and fight the media,” he added. “As people were beating up on me, what I said was I’d rather them beat up on me than have someone lose their job. I’d rather have them beat up on me than have kids locked out of school. I’m totally willing to take whatever heat comes our way because we’re doing the right thing.”

    ‘The Epoch Times spent a day embedded with DeSantis as he crisscrossed the state on April 1, jetting southeast from the seat of state government in Tallahassee to a press conference in Titusville and then back north to the Clay County Fair on the outskirts of Jacksonville.’

    ‘Across dozens of encounters with Floridians from all walks of life, one trend persisted. People thanked DeSantis for his work and his policies. Business owners praised him for not shutting them down.’

    ‘Chris Allen, the owner of Java Jitters, opened a coffee shop in Orange Park Mall during the pandemic. “We could not have done that if it wasn’t for Ron DeSantis,” Allen told The Epoch Times after personally thanking the governor during an encounter at the Clay County Fair.’

    ‘At the time of the interview, Florida’s unemployment rate was 4.7 percent compared to 6.2 percent nationally. Lockdown states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California had some of the highest rates in the country—8.9 percent, 7.8 percent, 7.3 percent, and 8.5 percent respectively.’

    “I have a tough time paying for a meal in Florida just because I saved a lot of these restaurants from oblivion,” DeSantis said. Hours after this claim, a curly fries stand at the fair declined to charge the governor.’

    ‘DeSantis said some people get emotional when they meet him. Several of the interactions with the governor at the Clay County Fair resembled that description. An visibly moved elderly veteran urged the governor to not “let them roll over us.”

    “If we hadn’t stood up, these people may not have jobs, the businesses may have gone under, the kids wouldn’t be in school, there’d be all these things,” DeSantis said. “This really, really impacts people in a very personal way. And I don’t think anything prior to COVID that I’ve seen in politics can quite do it on this level. And it’s really unfortunate that there were governors that had power [who did] the opposite. It really shouldn’t depend on the governor.”

    ‘Reopening the state wasn’t as easy as lifting his own stay-at-home measures. When DeSantis issued the final reopening order in late September last year, he signed a companion order prohibiting local Florida governments from restricting people from working or operating a business. The order had far-reaching consequences across the state, especially in densely-populated, liberal-leaning locales where the local authorities imposed their own strict measures.’

    ‘DeSantis adopted a hands-off approach to local regulations at first, thinking that voters would ultimately hold local authorities responsible. It became obvious eventually that some places would remain locked down despite the data showing that doing so would have no positive impact on the spread of the virus.’

    “They weren’t going to open this stuff up unless I pried it open,” DeSantis said. “We had the data. We talked to some of the best scientists in the country,” DeSantis said, referring to Martin Kulldorff from Harvard, Jayanta Bhattacharya from Stanford, and Sunetra Gupta from Oxford. “Every Floridian has a right to work. Every business has a right to operate.”

    ‘In areas that were forced to reopen as a result, the economies are now booming with new hotels and restaurants opening, DeSantis said. DeSantis received a law degree from Harvard and is a textualist when interpreting the Constitution. He believes barring the local authorities from placing restrictions on the people and businesses was squarely within his authority.’

    ‘Standing behind the desk in his office in Tallahassee, DeSantis leafed through a folder of praise he’s received from around the nation and across the globe. Hanging on the walls around the relatively small space was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as well as the uniform the governor wore as the captain of the Yale baseball team.’

    When asked why he chose Lincoln, DeSantis said the president is the best example of a leader who had to make difficult decisions in a time of crisis. When asked why some of the leaders today have continued with lockdowns even with ample evidence of their ineffectiveness, the governor theorized that the people involved have committed too much to the narrative and have made it impossible to change course.

    “You have a situation where if you’re in this field, the pandemic, that’s something that you kind of prepare for and you’re ready for. And a lot of these people muffed it,” he said. “When push came to shove, they advocated policies that have not worked against the virus but have been very, very destructive. They are never going to admit they were wrong about anything, unfortunately.”

    ‘Elected leaders aren’t the only ones to blame, according to the governor. The media and big tech companies played a major role in perpetuating fears about the virus while selectively censoring one side of the mitigation debate. DeSantis said the media and tech giants stood to benefit from the lockdown as people stayed home and consumed their products.’

    “It was all just to generate the most clicks that they could. And so that was always trying to do the stuff that would inspire the most fear,” DeSantis said.’

    ‘Two weeks after the interview, an undercover video recorded by Project Veritas showed a technical director at CNN talking about the boost the network received due to its pandemic coverage. “It’s fear. Fear really drives numbers,” CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester said. “Fear is the thing that keeps you tuned in.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/desantis-lockdowns-were-a-huge-mistake_3777926.html

    1. “Fear is the thing that keeps you tuned in.”

      Never let a good crisis go to waste.

      — Sir Winston Churchill

    2. “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

      ― H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women

    3. This is excellent.

      BTW my cousin down in St Petersburg who works in the restaurant biz just got a promotion and a fat raise, so happy for her.

      1. Soon.

        And when it does, it’s going to be hilarious.

        Did I mention current demand for dimensional lumber isn’t any higher than it was two years ago?

  21. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
    — George Orwell, ANIMAL FARM

    ‘Marxist’ Black Lives Matter co-founder DEFENDS her property empire and says she didn’t use BLM funds to buy the four homes – before breaking down in tears after revealing she has ‘spent the last week with security’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9479179/BLM-founder-defends-property-empire-reveals-spent-week-security.html

    Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors has responded to criticism over her property empire saying it is ‘categorically untrue’ and ‘incredibly dangerous’ to suggest she may have used any of the organization’s funds to buy her homes.

    Cullors described the scrutiny over her $3 million empire of four homes as a ‘racist and sexist’ attack by the ‘right-wing media’ in an interview with Marc Lamont Hill for Black News Tonight on Thursday.

    1. ‘racist and sexist’ attack by the ‘right-wing media’

      Ironically, it was the leader of the NYC cell of BLM (formerly known as The Weather Underground) that blew the whistle on her.

    2. Burn Loot Murder, now also known as Buy Large Mansions.

      Facebook is blocking the sharing of this story, because globalists gonna globe.

    3. ‘Marxist’ Black Lives Matter co-founder DEFENDS her property empire and says she didn’t use BLM funds to buy the four homes

      Yea, I’m sure she sold some of her Google RSU’s to pay for the shacks.

  23. Money
    Apr. 12, 2021
    There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble Welcome to the non-fungible, memeified, cryptodenominated, degenerate future of finance.
    By Max Read
    What Is the Meaning of All This Money?
    A series about the ever-more-chaotic future of finance.
    Illustration: Cryptical Hit

    Pity the financially literate! Imagine their email and SMS in-boxes over the past few months as friends and distant relatives seek guidance through the strange new set of acronyms that define the COVID economy. “Can I buy an NFT?” a parent wants to know. (An NFT is a “non-fungible token” — essentially, a digital asset whose uniqueness, and therefore its value, is stored cryptographically on the digital ledger known as the blockchain.) “Should I invest in GME and AMC?” a cousin wonders. (Those are the ticker symbols for GameStop and the theater chain AMC, two “meme stocks,” a.k.a. “stonks,” that were sent to inexplicably high prices earlier this year by a mass of gleefully irrational investors on Reddit.) “What is a SPAC, and why is it merging with my employer?” a friend who works at a start-up media company asks. (A “special-purpose acquisition company,” a shell corporation created to buy a private company so it can go public without the scrutiny of a traditional IPO.) “Can I SPAC GameStop with my NFTs?” an uncle emails. (Better to just ignore this one.)

    Every day, some new money weirdness crosses our feeds: teenage TikTok stars apologizing for recommending a Star Wars–themed cryptocurrency that turned out to be a scam, a longhair trader best known as DeepF___ingValue and Roaring Kitty testifying before Congress, the R&B singer Akon announcing he’s building a new city in Senegal that will operate on his proprietary cryptocurrency. Naturally, the Jack Bogle of this moment is the fratty founder of Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy, who launched an exchange-traded meme-stock fund earlier this year and whose sex tape was recently blamed for a dip in the stock of a gambling company he’s heavily invested in. His biggest rival for meme-economy influence is Elon Musk, who has the ability to tweet a single phrase — for example, “Use Signal” — and cause a defunct penny stock to rise 6,000 percent. Of course, they are not the only stars of the moment. There’s Beeple, the millennial artist whose animated-GIF NFTs sell in the tens of millions of dollars. And following a sort of nursery-rhyme logic that seems as rational as anything else about the economy, Shaq has launched a SPAC in partnership with one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s sons.
    …

  26. Its clear that Dr Fauci and the Medical Pharmacy Cartel agenda is to set up that you have to take constant vaccines every 6 months or yearly and the Pandemic never ends.

    Even some Hospitals are saying if you don’t take the jab they can refuse medical services. Some employers are saying if you don’t get the jab your fired. Food stores are still requiring masks to go in the store. So , now its private Big Business dictating a policy of discrimination against people who don’t want to take a experimental vaccine.

    It will take a while for these cases to get to the high Court, so in the meantime Big Business is doing what they want. So, Biden and other Traitors are moving to pack the Court to get the rulings they want for the Oligarch Government.

    So, the transformation that Biden promises is one that forces Medical Procedures by a Profit making Company being Big Pharmacy, under a Public Health emergency that doesn’t follow the Science.

    Mass vaccination of the Globe repeatedly would be a dream come true for the Pharmacy Industry and the likes of Bill Gates, who also wants to tell the World they should eat bugs, and the Sun should be blocked out.

    Also Big Pharmacy likes the new vaccine technology because its a lot cheaper to produce this type of vaccine than the old technology. Basically , it isn’t time tested and its tricking the body into making a version of the virus, rather than them having to make a dead version of the virus in the vaccine , which is the old technology.
    Also people don’t understand how some bugs don’t alter very much, unlike viruses that mutate all the time like the cold virus group. The new vaccine just sets up the need for constant dependency on repeated vaccines. So, it more than just responding to a Pandemic, its setting the populations up for long term repeated need to take the jabs because they have altered your immune function to combat mutations.
    I don’t think they are explaining how these vaccines work and Dr Fauci keeps skirting questions that are being asked . Also, the adverse reactions to this new technology are being downplayed by FAKE NEWS, and long term effects aren’t even known.
    I truly hope the vaccines turn out good for anyone that took the vaccine . My friend that took the vaccine now all of a sudden has 4 styes on his eye, thats kinda unusual. The doctor said he might have to go to the hospital for antibiotics treatment. So, is this extreme infection related to taking the vaccine. I don’t know, but I’m wondering.

    1. if you don’t take the jab they can refuse medical services

      Hopefully, not. I suspect I’ve torn my right ATFL. I tore my left ATFL four years ago and it required surgery.

  27. Thanks for the info Refilled.

    When one reads about these cases it seems like its linked to taking the vaccine, but they seem to downplay that link. Totally healthy people dying within days of taking the vaccine, come on.

    I’m watching my friend and yesterday he said he felt really bad and he had to go back to bed. I’m worried that its vaccine related, but his Dr is on the case watching him. The couple that lives next door to me said they took the first round of the vaccine and they both got sick.
    Everybody on the block I live on has taken the vaccine. I hope they all end up ok.

    1. but his Dr is on the case watching him

      My father is an optometrist. I sent him a text about your friend. His response: 4 styes on one eyelid is uncommon. This person needs to be evaluated by an MD or OD. If they indeed turn out to be styes, this person has significant lid margin disease that will require long term management.

  28. Thanks. The Dr is seeing him again this Thursday. He told me the condition is going down a little today after being on oral antibiotics for 3 days. The Dr. said it was 4 styes, which sounded kinda unusual to me also.

    1. More from my dad: Typically it’s a staph infection. Almost everyone has some form of blepharitis.

    2. “…4 styes…”

      Your friend likely has poor hygiene habits, e.g., for starters he doesn’t wash his hands well enough, and he should use eyelid towelettes. That said, people who develop mobility issues quit taking daily showers due to the challenges. Baby wipes can really help between showers.

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