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For Many People, These Just Become A Noose Around Their Neck

A report from NBC News. “It’s a red-hot real estate market — so why are home sales plunging? ‘Given the housing shortage and strong demand — there’s nothing to suggest home prices will be falling,’ National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun said. ‘We want to make sure that people who are making financially responsible decisions should have access to homeownership. We need to build more, and more consistently, so home prices come down.'”

From Non-Profit Quarterly. “A significant portion of hidden wealth touches down to earth in the form of real property and luxury real estate. Across the world, skyscrapers and mansions are rising in globalized super-cities, a form of ‘wealth storage’ for the world’s wealthy who are seeking to diversify their asset holdings. These are not people looking for homes so much as wealth parking spots.”

“Perhaps the original super city for buying shell real estate was London. Entire neighborhoods—such as Kensington and Mayfair—were transformed into ghost towns of absentee-owned properties, many of them empty. As the UK cracked down on anonymous ownership by announcing the creation of a beneficia”l ownership registry, global investors looked elsewhere. US and Canadian luxury real estate markets became more and more attractive.”

“In 2014, 54 percent of real estate purchased in New York for more than $5 million was acquired in the name of anonymous shell companies. In the 6 most expensive condo projects in the city, the owners in a majority of units were hidden by shell companies, including 77 percent of the units in One57 and 69 percent of the units at The Plaza.”

“In my hometown of Boston, thousands of units of luxury housing are rising around the central city, with over 5,000 high-end units in the permitting and construction pipeline. High-end rental and luxury condos have transformed the Seaport area into a neoliberal neighborhood, with virtually no public space, coastal access, or services such as schools and libraries. In an analysis of eight luxury buildings, with condos starting at $2 million, over 35 percent were owned by shell companies or anonymous trust entities. In one building, Millennium Tower, anonymous ownership makes up closer to 80 percent of the units.”

“One report found more than 103,000 vacant units in Los Angeles with over 41,000 not on the market. Tens of thousands of housing units are being withheld from the market by speculators and anonymous ownership entities (including trusts, LLCs and shell corporations) that are simultaneously overproducing luxury housing and fueling displacement, homelessness and a crisis in housing affordability. Of the 25 luxury condominium buildings profiled in the report, 2,399 of 3,244 units, or 71 percent on average, are sitting effectively vacant—they are not anyone’s primary residence.”

“Seattle is experiencing a luxury boom, with thousands of new luxury units in the pipeline. In a 2019 report that I coauthored, we sampled eight new luxury building projects containing 1,635 units, all costing $2 million or more. Limited liability companies or trusts that masked the real owners and beneficiaries owned over 12 percent of units. In one luxury tower, the percent of anonymous ownership was as high as 47 percent—with only 19 percent of all owners registered to vote there. In all of the 1,635 units, only 39 percent of owners are registered to vote at the property, a figure nearly 40 percent lower than that of Washington State as a whole.”

From Boston Agent Magazine. “April was another strong month for home sales in Massachusetts. Year over year, single-family home listings increased 70.1%, and condo listings were up 124.8%, according to the report, which also showed an 11.5% increase in single-family home sales and a 46.9% increase in condo sales.”

“There were 3,923 closed single-family sales in April and 6,721 new listings, compared to 3,385 closed sales and 5,804 new listings in March. April condo transactions grew to 2,109 closed sales and 3,394 new listings, compared to March’s 1,959 closed sales and 3,040 new listings.”

The Real Deal on New York. “Steep discounts can still be found in Manhattan’s surging luxury market — at least if you’re buying from the U.S. Marshals. Earlier this month, authorities offloaded a condo caught up in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal for roughly half of what it was sold for nearly a decade ago, property records show.”

“U.S. Marshals closed a deal on the unit, located in the Park Laurel at 15 West 63rd Street, for $16.8 million on May 5. Its previous owner, Riza Aziz, a producer on ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and stepson of a former Malaysian prime minister, paid $33.5 million for the property in 2012 — using funds he allegedly embezzled from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.”

“To avoid criminal charges, Aziz agreed to forfeit $60 million worth of assets, the Department of Justice announced last year, including the Upper West Side condo as well as an 11,000-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion and a four-story townhouse in London. Between Aziz and other suspects Jho Low and Khadem Al-Qubaisi, the total sum of recovered assets was roughly $1.1 billion as of September.”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union scored a sale, but not a profit, in Sherman Oaks. They just unloaded their Mediterranean-style villa for $5.5 million, or half a million shy of what they paid in 2018.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Taylor Biggar, chairperson of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, says house hunters need to be patient. ‘Everyone’s getting really wrapped up in the craziness and I think that these times don’t last that long,’ he says. The real estate market is cooling slightly, he says. Already, patience is paying off for buyers who waited out the frenzy in March. We’re going to start tapering off,’ Mr. Biggar says. ‘There’s only so many buyers and sellers out there.'”

The Irish Times. “The Irish Pensions Authority has confirmed that it is investigating potential ‘pension scheme trustee issues’ in relation to the collapse of Hanover-based German Property Group (GPG), which resulted in 1,800 Irish investors losing as much as €107 million. GPG, formerly known as Dolphin Trust, collapsed last year after taking €1.5 billion from investors in the Republic, the UK, Asia and elsewhere since it was set up by businessman Charles Smethurst in 2008. Mr Smethurst’s home was raided by German police in March as part of an ongoing investigation into suspected investment fraud.”

“When GPG collapsed last year it was sitting on 70 properties, mainly run-down and not developed, according to a report submitted to the Bremen bankruptcy court by a preliminary insolvency administrator, Gerrit Hoelzle, last October.”

“‘The originally pursued business model collapsed years ago,’ Mr Hoelzle said. ‘Obviously as a result of the increasing financial shortage, the business model, which was initially focused on real estate transactions, gradually developed into a pyramid scheme.'”

From Domain News in Australia. “Melbourne property experts are warning home-buyers against taking advantage of new stamp-duty discounts on unsold inner-city apartments unless the aim is to find a ‘city bolthole for their own use’ and not financial gain. The concessions were announced in a bid to lure buyers back to the CBD, where an estimated 8000-10,000 apartments are sitting unsold and vacancy rates peaked at 14.6 per cent in October last year, before falling to 11.4 per cent in March.”

“Buyer’s advocate Jarrod McCabe said an oversupply of apartments in Melbourne’s CBD, long before COVID-19 hit, meant city units have been underperforming for years. ‘Many of these city apartments are not saleable, let alone now when our borders are closed and international student numbers have dropped,’ he said. ‘For many people, these apartments just become a noose around their neck because they don’t appreciate in value and many of them can be worth less than what they were purchased for, eight to 10 years down the track.'”

“Public records reveal Melbourne apartment owners have offloaded inner-city units at losses of up to 40 per cent in recent months, as some apartments continue to sit empty more than a year since Melbourne first went into lockdown.”

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This Post Has 122 Comments

  1. ‘Year over year, single-family home listings increased 70.1%, and condo listings were up 124.8%, according to the report, which also showed an 11.5% increase in single-family home sales and a 46.9% increase in condo sales’

    ‘There were 3,923 closed single-family sales in April and 6,721 new listings, compared to 3,385 closed sales and 5,804 new listings in March. April condo transactions grew to 2,109 closed sales and 3,394 new listings, compared to March’s 1,959 closed sales and 3,040 new listings’

    Wa happened to my shortage Boston?

    ‘They just unloaded their Mediterranean-style villa for $5.5 million, or half a million shy of what they paid in 2018’

    That’s some red hotcakes right there.

    2. Seems like the lid blew off the supposed housing shortages in Boston and San Francisco.

      How long will it take cities across the rest of the country to catch up to these trend leaders?

  3. ‘roughly half of what it was sold for nearly a decade ago’

    Safe deposit boxes in the sky.

  4. ‘In all of the 1,635 units, only 39 percent of owners are registered to vote at the property, a figure nearly 40 percent lower than that of Washington State as a whole’

    Depending on how they are calculating this, does this mean 21% of shacks and airboxes in Washington are empty?

  7. “National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun said: ‘We need to build more, and more consistently, so home prices come down.’”

    Yeah, right. There is no way this puke wants house prices to come down.

    One of the main attractions of home ownership is the perception that house prices always go up. This is the modern way in which wealth is created, replacing the old fashioned way that involved the expenditure of (gasp) labor.

    1. With high prices, transactions dry up. The NAR needs transactions more than they need high prices. Realwhores are starving right now.

        1. There is an interesting detail not to be overlooked, which is the point around 2007 when prices start to plateau as transactions volume begins to slide downwards. Shortly thereafter, prices followed transactions volume down the tubes, up until when Quantitative Easing housing market reflation measures kicked the trends back up again.

          At the right end of the figure, you see the beginnings of another divergence between steadily increasing prices and slowing transactions, but I believe the figure ends before COVID-19 started and the March 2020 stimulus measures kicked in.

          It will certainly be interesting to see if slowing transactions volume precedes the next leg down in prices, and also to see whether the Fed doubles down on mortgage market stimulus in response!

          1. “…around 2007 when prices start to plateau…”

            As I remember, the economic stall began in the Spring of 2006 when the easy money tap began tightening. Looking back, the fed probably regrets not refilling the punch bowl. Greenspan also retired early in 2006. Alea iacta est, i.e., “The die has been cast.”

          2. “Greenspan also retired early in 2006.”

            And left his successors with a few parting shots on his 19 years tenure as Fed chairman (1987-2007)…

          3. First appointed Federal Reserve chairman by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring on January 31, 2006, after the second-longest tenure in the position (behind William McChesney Martin).

      2. That’s my impression, based on the looks I have recently seen on the faces of the used home sellers I know personally.

        When housing bubbles pop, there is a collapse in sales, followed by massive price declines, with droves of underwater borrowers owing more on their loans than their houses are worth.

      3. Yup – going to be an interesting time. Especially if the 20/80 rule is correct – 20% of realtors do 80% of the business.
        NEW YORK – The number of real estate agents working in the U.S. housing market has surpassed the number of homes for sale.

        This phenomenon reflects both the extremely tight supply of homes on the market, and how surging prices persuaded tens of thousands more Americans to try their hand at selling real estate.

        The National Association of Realtors®’ (NAR) membership count has exceeded the number of homes on the market only once before, in December 2019, when the number of agents dipped slightly but the inventory of homes for sale declined even more. It happened again last October and has held ever since.

        At the end of January, the U.S. had 1.04 million homes for sale, down 26% from a year earlier and the lowest on record going back to 1982, according to NAR. In January, NAR had 1.45 million members, up 4.8% from a year earlier.

        The rise in real estate agents comes amid a booming housing market, which suggests there is a lot of money to be made selling homes. NAR says business is fluid. About 15% of its membership turns over every year, and the number of agents tends to roughly correlate with the performance of the housing market.
        Source: Wall Street Journal (03/21/21) Friedman, Nicole

    1. ** “The station reported that a worker for the homeowner was on the property Monday and said he was changing the locks. KIRO added that a home security technician also there.”
      “Somehow these squatters who are living in this residence have as much rights as the homeowner. And that’s very difficult for any of us to understand,” Pingrey added to the station. “It could happen again somewhere else, and this is where people in communities really need to be diligent.”

      thats a HELL of a story, NYCdj. good find! and just further underscores owner property rights are null & void if you have spineless / weak / corrupt law enforcers, rotting like fish, from the head first.

      I installed several NVR video cameras last year at my relatives vacant property which I’ve been rehabbing, and I check them often each day. Living here in California we are subject to the same hand-wringing emotion-based law enforcement directives but at least I would (hopefully) not be totally blindsided by squatters.

      what made me shake my head in disgust was changing the locks AFTER the horse has left the barn; I mean, given the legal options in the area, why bother!?

    2. Gotta love it. You could go on vacation, only to return and find squatters in your house, and you have no recourse to have them removed.

  9. ‘Given the housing shortage and strong demand — there’s nothing to suggest home prices will be falling’

    ‘We want to make sure that people who are making financially responsible decisions should have access to homeownership’

    ‘We need to build more, and more consistently, so home prices come down’

    So which is it Larry? And why do prices need to come down? Are they too high?! What’s the point of “access” if yer only going to get an a$$ pounding?

    I know, this is REIC gibberish for the REIC media. Instead of using resources to overbuild, just cut the guberment loan gravy and crater. Overnight. Oh no! Just a little, right?

    This is where you end up with manipulation. Searching for that soft landing that never comes. So Ben, what would you do? Let the market decide what a shack in Oregon or where ever is worth to the buyer. No interest rate crap from the central bank, no Fannie Mae or subprime FHA. Too drastic you say? We only did it that way for decades and everything was fine.

      1. That was a meme of course. But Biden literally is paying people’s mortgages with endless stimulus and unemployment. And we all know there will be a forgiveness program for anyone who deferred payments due to the Wuhan (Lab) Virus. No way Dems let millions of deadbeats get foreclosed on.

        I do wonder how many people stopped paying mortgage on House A and went and bought House B which is rented out or on AirBnB. Has to be a decent number.

        1. There are no rules. They change as we go. See GM bankruptcy. See forbearance forever. See no evictions. This is the problem. How can anyone plan when the rules aren’t even clear.

        2. Which classes of debt do you expect the upcoming debt jubilee to cover?

          1. Student loans
          2. Home loans (aka mortgages)
          3. Car loans
          4. Credit card debt
          5. Payday loan debt
          6. Other

          And do you think the money will come from the U.S. Treasury (i.e. other people’s tax payments will be used to pay off the loans), the Fed (the debt will be securitized and pulled onto the Fed’s balance sheet), or some other means of payment?

        3. I think the gov will bail out the months of unpaid rent, but not mortgage payments. I suspect that homeowners will simply have those back payments tacked on to the end of the mortgage. As for expenses due to the forbearance, I’m sure the banks themselves will be bailed out — if they aren’t already.

          1. I have two friends that each could very well pay their mortgages but took the forbearance because it would just be tacked on at the end. How many other people are doing this? Could this be another reason, along with all the stimmys, why there’s so much extra money sloshing around?

          2. Could this be another reason, along with all the stimmys, why there’s so much extra money sloshing around?

            Makes you wonder how many on forbearance went out and bought a new car?

    2. “I know, this is REIC gibberish for the REIC media. Instead of using resources to overbuild, just cut the guberment loan gravy and crater. Overnight. Oh no! Just a little, right?”

      “This is where you end up with manipulation. Searching for that soft landing that never comes. So Ben, what would you do? Let the market decide what a shack in Oregon or where ever is worth to the buyer. No interest rate crap from the central bank, no Fannie Mae or subprime FHA. Too drastic you say? We only did it that way for decades and everything was fine.“

      +1K

      – “Free markets, I hardly knew ya!”

      – Recall that centrally-planned, command and control economies don’t fare well. Sure, in the short-term everything is awesome, and “to the moon,” but economic gravity still applies. “We’re still dancing.” Meanwhile, posterity gets the bill.

  10. I’ve been hearing about a glut of condos in Seattle for years. As of last month the median days on the market in Seattle is 6. Someone is buying them, probably Chinese nationals.

    1. If you share a wall with anyone for any reason you don’t own shit and it isn’t worth it. My opinion only. HOA fees slavery

      1. Those waste plumbing lines that your vibrant neighbor has been pouring grease down for 10+ years straight are your financial problem, too.

      2. I’m with you I would never buy a condo. But I learned long ago that just because I don’t like something, doesn’t mean nobody likes it.

        1. It’s not lost on me that SFH appear to be reddest and hottest of the hotcakes. In “uncertain times,” 😒 people revert to what they have been doing for thousands of years: run for the hills and look for land.

          1. The home ownership worked great during the seventies when the dollar vs gold marriage was dissolved, and the real economy was strangled by the OPEC oil crisis. This period marked the beginning of the end for Joe Sixpack’s standard of living, IMHO.

  11. Portland, OR Housing Prices Crater 10% As West Coast Cities Become Hotbed Of Mortgage Fraud

    https://www.movoto.com/or/97227/market-trends/

    As a noted economist stated, “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 assets like houses.”

  12. ‘Given the housing shortage and strong demand — there’s nothing to suggest home prices will be falling,’

    What about all of the recent reports about insane bid wars where fifty people made sealed bid offerss (i.e. without seeing what others were offering), waived inspections, and somehow were qualified for loans at much higher percentages of their incomes than traditional lending standards allow. And all of this frenzy was driven by the prospect of capturing double-digit home equity wealth gains for years to come.

    Isn’t there a pretty good chance that quite a few people overpaid, driving prices out of reach of any future buyers’ willingness or ability to pay?

      1. The good news is that stonks are up, despite the gloomy news on pending home sales. There was a day not long ago when Wall Street would have sh!t a brick over such a big miss on housing, but I guess they have moved on from housing to even bubblier assets.

        1. Bubbles gonna bubble…

          The Financial Times
          Markets Briefing Equities
          Meme stock revival captivates traders as US equities advance
          AMC shares jump by more than one third
          Cinema chain AMC was one of several companies caught up in a retail investor trading frenzy in January
          © REUTERS
          Aziza Kasumov in New York and Naomi Rovnick in London
          an hour ago

          Shares in the cinema chain AMC, which teetered on the verge of bankruptcy just months ago, surged to their highest in four years on Thursday, as investors chased companies benefiting from the economic reopening and resurrected the “meme stock” trades of earlier this year.

          The 35 per cent move came as the broader US market advanced for a third day, sending the S&P 500 up 0.3 per cent by lunchtime in New York, after similar gains in Europe. Nasdaq was up 0.2 per cent and government bonds softened.

          AMC was one of several companies caught up in a retail investor trading frenzy in January, along with the video games retailer GameStop, as day traders pushed stocks higher and inflicted heavy losses on hedge funds that were betting against them.
          …

          2. Then AMC will be sold to a public pension group, the top brass will land on their feet under golden parachutes, the share holders will get a close haircut and the retirees will be left with the scraps.

      2. You almost have to wonder if the same financial meltdown that hammered SPACs and cut cryptocurrencies down by half blew the top off the housing bubble. We won’t know for at least a few months, because real estate statistics are reported with a lag.

        1. When I look at Bitcoin and I see $40,000, I don’t see a crash, I see a grotesquely overpriced widget that needs to fall $39,950 or so.

  13. The globalists have ordered their MIC partners to indoctrinate their white male employees into the “woke” movement. Forward!

    Lockheed, the nation’s largest defense contractor, sends key executives on a mission to deconstruct their “white male privilege.”

    https://www.city-journal.org/lockheed-martins-woke-industrial-complex?wallit_nosession=1

    Last year, Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation’s largest defense contractor, sent white male executives to a three-day diversity-training program aimed at deconstructing their “white male culture” and encouraging them to atone for their “white male privilege,” according to documents I have obtained.

    The program, hosted on Zoom for a cohort of 13 Lockheed employees, was led by the diversity-consulting firm White Men As Full Diversity Partners, which specializes in helping white males “awaken together.” The Lockheed employees, all senior leaders in the company, included Aaron Huckaby, director of global supply chain operations; retired Air Force lieutenant colonel David Starr, director of the Hercules C-130 military transport program; retired Air Force lieutenant general Bruce Litchfield, vice president of sustainment operations; and Glenn Woods, vice president of production for the Air Force’s $1.7 trillion F-35 fighter jet program. (Lockheed Martin did not return request for comment.)

      1. I have seen people do this in zoom … OK, they were from HR, so maybe they don’t count as people.

  14. ‘We want to make sure that people who are making financially responsible decisions should have access to homeownership. We need to build more, and more consistently, so home prices come down.’

    This is actually quite a promising change of message from Mr. Yun, who used to seem to think that it was best when real estate prices always went up.

    Home price deflation to realign housing costs with Millennial budgets is the way back from the brink for our country. If shelter was affordable once again, the birth rate could rebound from recent record low levels, and our society could end dependence for its future survival on a steady influx of immigrants.

    If some foreign or institutional investors get burned because of falling prices housing prices, they should accept that nobody forced them to join the collective effort to price American families out of home ownership.

    1. The silver lining of falling prices for Mr. Yun and the used home sellers he represents is that the rate of home sales could drastically increase if prices fell by enough to trigger an inventory dump, like we are already seeing the beginnings of in the Bay Area. I personally know realtors who are moving out of state because business has dried up. A used home seller can’t survive on high prices if nothing is selling.

      1. A used home seller can’t survive on high prices if nothing is selling.

        I keep getting cold calls asking me if I would like to sell.

  15. I think the USA is over with. There is no more contract law, and the shenanigans and illegal activity are off the charts. You can’t even keep up with all the crime anymore. With no rule of law, a country cannot survive.

  16. U.S. President Joe Biden’s pension bailout might do more than just support troubled retirement plans. It could also spur tens of billions of dollars in demand for corporate bonds with the lowest investment-grade ratings, according to Citigroup Inc.

    Struggling multi-employer pensions, which are often tied to unions, will be able to apply for special financial assistance, thanks to the $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill signed into law in March. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insurers the plans, will make a single lump-sum payment to eligible funds.

    Citigroup estimates that roughly 230 pensions will be eligible to receive $86 billion as early as 2022, though the amount may change when the pension insurer releases application guidance in July, strategists Daniel Sorid and Jason Williams said in an interview. The plans will have to invest the money in high-grade bonds or other securities approved by the agency.

  18. Lower-income homeowners could potentially save hundreds of dollars a month on their mortgage under a government refinancing initiative that starts on .

    Fannie Mae, one of two government-sponsored and publicly traded enterprises that buys and sells mortgages, will open its “RefiNow” program on June 5 with the intention of helping an estimated 2 million homeowners lower the interest rate they pay on their mortgage — and, therefore, the amount they pay monthly. Households earning 80% or less of their area’s median income are generally eligible if they can meet some other requirements.

    “Many homeowners in lower income brackets may believe they can’t afford to refinance, be convinced they won’t qualify, or be unaware of the potential monthly savings,” according to a statement from Fannie Mae.

    1. If you earn less than 80% of median income you have no business owning a home. This is the problem right here. And the govt as always takes a problem, comes in to help and makes the problem twice as big.

      But then again all the money saved with a refi will be spent wisely or invested in retirement funds. The money will in no way be used to buy things like car stereos or video game consoles.

  19. This woman is crazy
    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged congressional leaders on Thursday to step up spending, saying that the government is operating on a budget that is more than a decade behind the times.

    In remarks to a House panel that will have large sway over spending, Yellen said that inflation-adjusted spending has remained stagnant for 11 years.

    Noting the aggressive programs Treasury already has implemented to carry the economy through the Covid-19 pandemic, she asked for still more expansive fiscal policy across a variety of areas.

      1. There’s a method to the madness. Dusting off their playbook from the 1917 “Russian” Revolution, the globalists must first destroy the productive economy in order to create the conditions for a successful Communist insurrection. Once their useful idiots on the Left have expropriated all private property for “The State,” the globalist oligarchs can then acquire it for for pennies on the dollar when the socialist state inevitably collapses under the weight of its own fraud and lies, further consolidating the concentration of all wealth and power in their own hands.

        1. According to my Soviet refugee college Russian professor’s account, life in the Old Country under Stalin was no picnic.

          For starters, it was no fun to sleep at night when you were constantly worrying about that knock on the door that signaled your father was about to incarcerated and trucked off to the gulag.

          And the joy of standing in line for many hours to pick up your “free” allocation of bread and other subsistence rations is hard to overstate.

          Reportedly the folks assigned to chip in their labor on the collective farms were also permitted to grow their own crops on small backyard plots. Turns out the backyard farming operations far outproduced the massive collective farms that were the primary food source for the masses.

          Communism sux, and requires machine guns to retain the subjects.

          Capitalism works, and requires walls to keep out the hordes seeking opportunity.

          Take your pick.

    3. She should be dragged through the streets, bloody dirty and bruised, to her date with the guillotine.

    4. “she asked for still more expansive fiscal policy across a variety of areas.”

      – Expansive monetary policy.
      – Expansive fiscal policy.
      – The Fed is buying U.S. debt to finance line item 2.
      – The historical record on this shows that it doesn’t end well, but it’s the only option short of a total collapse. Enjoy your morning coffee.
      – Buy gold.

    5. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged congressional leaders on Thursday to step up spending

      Meanwhile:

      Larry Summers is urging Washington to tap the brakes on stimulus — or risk unleashing a serious burst of inflation.

      Tap the brakes? How about slamming on them?

      But it’s obvious that MMT types have taken over. There is already talk of another check, plus whatever largesse they can stuff into that bill. They are even talking about monthly stim checks, which is UBI by another name.

      So, how much will ground beef (assuming its sale hasn’t been banned by then) will cost next year?

      1. We have total crackpot financial terrorists destroying the country in real time. Something drastic needs to be done with these people, and soon.

      1. It’s interesting how a measly $6000 increase per person in government largess can drive a 20% nationwide increase in housing prices plus an incredible runup in stonks and cryptocurrencies.

        Something tells me that $6000 per capita increase was not evenly distributed.

  21. Facebook No Longer Banning Posts Suggesting COVID-19 Was Man-Made

    ‘The social media company in February announced in a blog post that it would take down posts that contained what it called false information about COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, including that COVID-19 is man-made, and that vaccines could be dangerous.’

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/facebook-no-longer-banning-posts-suggesting-covid-19-was-man-made_3832848.html

    2. But don’t DARE suggest it was simply the seasonal flu that was rebranded to support a globalist narrative.

      1. It was the seasonal flu alright…with an anamolous 10X higher death toll than the worst recent season, despite everyone staying home for a year and hiding out in their bedrooms.

        1. ‘with an anamolous 10X higher death toll’

          Yeah, that’s why you see life insurance companies folding left and right.

          No more people died in the last year than any other year. Interesting how that isn’t mentioned much.

          2. Yeah, the NYT never lies about anything. Where are the life insurance busts? No where.

          4. life insurance

            I was just reading about this. It’s business as usual with zero changes because of COVID-19.

    1. As long as the “little people” remain invisible, Boulder will be just fine. It’s the white privilege virtue signal capital of the state.

  24. The northern suburbs of Virginia are lousy with gub’mint workers, ivory tower libtards, and Deep State operatives who have turned Virginia blue while effectively disenfranchising the conservative pro-2A rural red counties. However, encroaching vibrant cultural enrichment might bring a long-overdue reality check to suburban D-voters.

    Virginia police name suspect after military couple shot dead in cold blood outside their home

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-military-couple-shot-dead-in-cold-blood-outside-their-home-police-say

    Police in Virginia have identified a suspect in the double murder of a husband and wife – both military veterans – who were shot outside their home in Springfield on Wednesday morning.

    Ronnie Keandre Marshall, 20, is wanted in connection to the brutal murders, the Fairfax County Police Department tweeted Thursday amid the ongoing manhunt. Police said Marshall is considered armed and dangerous.

    3. Wokeness: “Virginia became the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty Wednesday, 3/24/2021, after Governor Ralph Northam signed legislation that would end the use of capital punishment in the commonwealth.”

  25. This made me smile:

    An Atlanta city councilman – who is aiming to be the city’s next mayor – had his car stolen by children in broad daylight Wednesday, according to reports.

    Councilman Antonio Brown was attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony at an event in northeast Atlanta around noon when at least four kids jumped into his car and took off, FOX 5 of Atlanta reported.

    “You don’t immediately think, ‘Oh, these kids are going to steal my car,’” Brown said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

    …

    Last year, he voted in support of an ordinance to withhold $73 million from the budget of the Atlanta Police Department.

    1. Most usually, government types drive expensive cars.

      Meanwhile, while Councilman Antonio Brown was pontificating to the press, Atlanta car parts strippers reduced his auto to a small pile of scrap metal.

      1. Most usually, government types drive expensive cars.

        Per the article, he had a Benz.

  26. Methinks the globalist oligarchs that are funding BLM, Antifa, etc. need to hire auditors to make sure their funding is going for Communist insurrection as intended, not fraud and graft on the part of their hirelings.

    BREAKING NEWS: BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors RESIGNS as executive director over ‘right wing attacks’ – after her $3 million housing portfolio was revealed

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9627361/BLMs-Patrisse-Cullors-step-movement-foundation.html

  27. Are you well-positioned for a sudden, completely unanticipated return of bear market conditions?

    Including negative interest rates, right here in America?

    1. CR8R

      The Financial Times
      Repo market
      US investors park cash at Fed as market wrestles with negative yields
      Demand for central bank’s reverse repo facility hits record as rates on short-term debt plunge
      Montage of Federal Reserve logo and dollar bills
      Some short-term US government debt was quoted at yields of minus 0.01 or minus 0.02 percentage points on Thursday
      Colby Smith and Eric Platt in New York
      8 hours ago

      A facility that allows money market funds and banks to park their cash at the Federal Reserve was tapped in record size on Thursday, underlining the dearth of options for investors given the collapse in yields for the ultra-safe, short-term securities that they typically invest in.

      Some 50 participants parked $485.3bn at the US central bank through its reverse repurchase programme (RRP), according to data from the New York branch of the Fed. The figure eclipsed the record $474.6bn drained from the system on New Year’s Eve in 2015 and marked an uptick from the more than $400bn placed there overnight on both Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

      Demand has soared for the facility in recent months as yields on Treasury bills — which mature in one year or less — and the rate at which investors swap high-quality collateral such as Treasuries for cash in the repo market have slid below zero. The RRP pays 0 per cent interest on the cash deposited overnight.

      “The surge in demand for the Fed’s RRP operations has been incredible,” said John Canavan, an analyst at Oxford Economics. “It is also not over yet.”
      …

    2. Did the bulls collectively go into hiding?

      Wha happened? Is there a sudden shortage of viagra?

    3. I keep thinking back on the financial hurricane that was spawned by the Lehman Brothers collapse back in 2008.

      Could the recent 50 percent collapse in cryptocurrency valuations send off similar financial shockwaves, especially if margin calls are forthcoming?

      Or is cryptocurrency too small to matter?

      1. Considering it is easy to borrow USD against your crypto holdings, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

  29. Will Biden allow small backyard gatherings on the Fourth of July in Wuhan where Fauci funded gain of function research that altered the COVID virus to make it more transmissible to humans and deadly?

  30. While the world hid under their beds, the price of copper doubled in the past year. Higher now than the blow off top a decade ago.

  31. A disease so deadly, you have to be tested to find out if you have it.

    A vaccine so safe and effective, you have to be offered $1.5 million to take it.

    from the Guardian:

    California has become the latest state to offer a vaccine lottery to incentivize getting the coronavirus vaccine – launching the nation’s most valuable single prize draw: $1.5M. The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced on Thursday that residents will be eligible for a total of $116.5m in prize money giveaways, a windfall aimed at getting millions more vaccinated…

    1. $116 million? That’ll get people rolling up their sleeves … and voting for him in his recall election.

      COVID is a disease deadly enough that you have to be tested to make sure you don’t have flu. COVID looks a lot like flu — until your lungs clog up.

    2. “A disease so deadly, you have to be tested to find out if you have it.”

      🙂

      LMAO

      Never thought of it that way.

      I’m going to use that in my part of Region IV if you don’t mind.

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