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Of Course, Everybody Wants To Live In The Most Beautiful, Desirable Place, And We All Know What Happened

A weekend topic starting with WFAA in Texas. “In the last 12 months, realtors have seen some home values go up 50% in certain areas — almost 10 to 15 times the normal rate. Dallas realtor Courtney Michalek told WFAA that she lost a bidding war for a home on the battlefield of North Texas’ lucrative and booming housing market. And the reason why is unheard of in the Lone Star state. ‘The seller asked my clients and me to take out their option period,’ Michalek said. ‘So we lost the deal to someone who waived their option period.'”

“If you don’t know what an option period is, it’s a specified number of days outlined in a real estate contract that allows the buyer to terminate the contract for any reason. It mainly allows the buyer to do their due diligence on the home, to do desired inspections. Michalek says it’s necessary if you’re planning on living somewhere long-term or if you’re really trying to protect your investment.”

“It’s not the first time Michalek has seen something like this in recent months, and it won’t be the last. ‘The house could have issues with the foundation, the roof could be a mess, there could be mold; I mean, the list goes on and on,’ Michalek said. ‘They want us to say, ‘Oh yeah, you should definitely forgo your option, period the house is just fine.’ I won’t do that.'”

“It’s just the latest tale connected to D-FW’s housing market that seems to be like the Wild West. Forget investing in stocks; real estate is where people in DFW are putting their money.”

The Star Tribune. “As the housing inventory has tightened and prospective buyers scramble to write a winning offer, some turn to the written word — and a vow to love, honor and cherish the property — as a way to flatter the owners, humanize themselves and stand out from the pack in a bidding war. Christina Perfetti began ‘earnestly’ pursuing a starter home last summer. ‘It’s like a cover letter, to set yourself apart and show why you are worthy,’ Perfetti said.”

The Venice Gondolier in Florida. “Builders in new communities from Wellen Park to Lakewood Ranch are releasing lots in small numbers and requiring sealed bids from homebuyers without knowing what the final building cost will be. It pushes frustrated new homebuyers to turn to resales, which further depletes the resale housing supply, already at an all-time inventory low of two weeks. It results in ever escalating prices and multiple bids over list price, be it a $250,000 or $3,000,000 home.”

“Since the first of this year, I have sold over a dozen homes, one of which sold at list price, all others over list and within one — eight days. But a housing bubble? I don’t see it. At the beginning of COVID, the government instituted foreclosure forbearance programs for homeowners unable to make their mortgage payments due to layoffs and other causes accruing from the lockdown.”

“Nearly 5 million homeowners signed up. Many housing bubble advocates predict a doomsday scenario with foreclosures flooding the market, increasing inventory, deflating prices. However, BlackKnight, a leading mortgage analytics firm reports that as of this month, forbearance programs have fallen to 2.2 million homeowners.”

“That does not mean prices are not overheated. They are. Prices are rising too fast. As inflation and/or concerns of inflation rise, I expect the 10-year yield to rise to about 2% and mortgage rates to about 4%; enough to taper, cool down the rate of appreciation, but not stop it.”

The Gunnison Country Times in Colorado. “When Vail Resorts purchased Crested Butte Mountain Resort in 2018, it was widely anticipated the move would heat up the real estate market in the Gunnison Valley. Since then, the twin accelerants of a pandemic-inspired exodus from cities and historically low interest rates have combined to create price and sale volume levels that are approaching incandescence.”

“Property values are notoriously prone to cyclical boom and bust fluctuations, so predicting where any given market is on the curve is critically important to real estate professionals, policy makers and consumers. The problem they all face is that answers are rooted as much in human behavior as hard data.”

“But not all real estate professionals are ready to relax. Ryan Jordi of TAVA Real Estate remembers the last time boom turned to bust. ‘2008 wasn’t that long ago,’ he said. ‘Up until that point I remember that sort of euphoria when the ski area sold to the Muellers and everything was going to turn to gold, and then it just crashed. I was justifying it to myself at that time by saying, ‘Of course, everybody wants to live in the most beautiful, desirable place,’ and we all know what happened.'”

“Gunnison County Assessor’s Office Communications Manager William Spicer picked up that thread. ‘It collapsed, but along about 2012 it kind of got back to where that trend line would have taken you if there hadn’t been this boom-bust thing going on. What has happened since then far exceeds that old-style, organic growth we’d been seeing for probably decades.'”

“That still does not answer the question: is the current market sustainable, or a bubble waiting to pop? Spicer continued, ‘That’s where the discussion should go is to ask, what are the drivers of this kind of behavior? And where does it fit in an underlying economic model? And what does that tell you about whether it is stable or not?'”

“‘That part of the market under $500,000, I hate to say it, but I’m worried for my friends and neighbors because there’s just not much available,’ Berkshire Hathaway’s Teresa Anderson said. ‘When property comes on the market at that price, that doesn’t feel like local housing to me.'”

The Financial Post in Canada. “In February, Tiff Macklem, the Bank of Canada governor, said the following when asked about the housing market: ‘We are starting to see some early signs of excess exuberance, but we’re a long way from where we were in 2016-2017 when things were really hot.'”

“That was then. Canada’s house-buying mob can travel a lot of ground in three months. A new assessment by the central bank shows the real-estate frenzy is now probably more extreme than it was four years ago.”

“On May 20, the Bank of Canada released its annual Financial System Review (the FSR), which amounts to a checkup on the health of the country’s network of banks, shadow banks, asset managers, traders and investment houses. It’s a group over which the central bank has essentially no formal authority. But for one day at least, the FSR gives the governor a bully pulpit from which to attempt to exercise moral suasion.”

“Macklem flagged six ‘vulnerabilities,’ or weak spots, that could cause the system to crumble if hit hard enough with an external shock, such as a recession or the failure of a big financial institution. Two of those vulnerabilities related to housing: the mountain of debt that households have piled up chasing runaway prices, and those runaway prices, which, in some big-city markets, the Bank of Canada thinks are being pushed higher by speculation and naive expectations that home prices only go up.”

“Notably, the Bank of Canada’s most recent research suggests that the froth in at least some markets is now worse than in 2016 and 2017. Policy makers reckon that households with mortgages that are 450 per cent bigger than their incomes are vulnerable to bankruptcy. That group represented 22 per cent of all home loans in the fourth quarter, compared with a previous peak of about 18 per cent in the third quarter of 2017.”

“A mismatch between supply and demand explains most of the surge in house prices, but there is some mania in those numbers. Macklem’s February characterization of what he was starting to see in Canada’s housing market brought to mind a famous description of stock markets in December 1996: ‘How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?'”

“Those were the words of Alan Greenspan, the former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve. It was widely assumed that Greenspan was attempting to signal his discomfort with the market frenzy over internet stocks. It didn’t work. The dot-com bubble burst in early 2000. Good thing many of Canada’s housing markets are only excessively exuberant, and not irrationally so.”

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This Post Has 147 Comments

  1. ‘In the last 12 months, realtors have seen some home values go up 50% in certain areas — almost 10 to 15 times the normal rate’

    As I’ve said, this is an emperors no clothes situation.

    3. Seems like the perfect backdrop for The Fed’s bubble denial routine.

      We watched Ben Bernanke play the lead role in the runup to the 2008 housing-induced financial meltdown, and it got pretty hilarious at points.

    4. Maybe it’s a global fiat money inflationary conflagration. A house near my aunt in Galway in Ireland just sold for 200k euro (almost 50 %) over the asking price. It’s madness.

      1. Wages are cr@p in Ireland. Then again, they are in NZ too. So it can’t be the local Joe 6 Packs who are buying them.

      1. Has anyone seen a house like this?

        https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/10923-Atwood-Ln-Ellicott-City-MD-21042/126228499_zpid/

        It looks normal from the front, at first glance. But look at that 12-foot brick wall extending on either side of the house. It looks like a sound barrier wall for a road running behind it, right? Yup, that’s exactly what it is. But the house itself is built into that same brick wall. I kid you not. I can’t even describe it. In the map portion of the Zillow listing, there’s little box that says “street view.” Click on that to see how this house is actually the wall. No back yard, I mean literally. And NO windows on that entire side of the house. And people are buying this, for $765K!!

        3. That is insane! Why do they have bricked up windows in the back too? From the rear it looks like an abandoned property. Which it will be in a couple of years so I guess they’re getting a head start.

          1. They have no choice but to be open concept. The kitchen is in the back of the house, brick side, with no back window or back door. The only light is coming in from the front through the living room.

        5. Honestly, I would not have believed it unless I had driven by this myself yesterday morning. I was like, “Whut, are those HOUSES??” I actually doubled back and drove on both the roads behind and the street in front just to see the house in front and in back, and to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

          I’m pretty sure that those bricked-in widows were intentional; i.e, not bricked in later. The openings are too big and too symmetrical to match the rooms inside. Many small apartments have windows only on one side. The y put bedrooms are on the window side, and windowless bathrooms and utility rooms in back. This house appears to use the same strategy. It works for a 600 sq ft 1-bed apartment, but for a 4/3 SFH? Come on, man!

          I would be AFRAID to live in a house like that. Sound barrier walls have a few doors or breaks in them; this is solid with no breaks. Could you imagine if BLM wanted to peacefully protest on that street? You would be trapped by your house with no escape out the back OR the side. You would literally have your back against the wall. Worse yet, what if there were a FIRE in the house? I can’t believe anyone would design this, or any municipality would approve it, or that anyone would buy it. For the bargain price of $765K. WHO IS BUYING THIS?

          (I know, I’m rambling, but this is so ridiculous I had to share.)

      2. 2000 sqft and they couldn’t be bothered to fit in more than 2 bedrooms. Place was built in ’83 and the best they could do is upgrade the kitchen a little while keeping vintage cabinetry. The upstairs bathroom has no door, or even a frame for one. And a $564 monthly HOA? Come on, man!

      3. We looked at home in Laguna Hills, listed for 800k, Small 1960’s home, 1400 sq feet but on a big 9000 sq ft lot. Were told sorry no more showings we’re booked. Then it fell out of escrow, so they repriced it to about 1 million. Now it fell out of escrow a second time. But they still have that wishing price.

        If you want to see the canary in the Coal Mine for So Cal, look at TEMECULA. Prices there are falling, inventory is going up, all while sales number decline. Once Temecula peaks its game over as they are last to rise and first to fall.

        It will spread to San Diego, OC, and Riverside over this current year, and absolutely accelerate in Q1 2022.

  2. How are your cryptocurrency HODLings faring, now that the Millennial investor locust swarm has moved on and refocused their collective financial firepower on making GameStonks go back up?

    It’s pretty hilarious to see this merry band of stimulus-funded retail gamblers, coordinated by the visible hand of social media, usurping a role traditionally commanded by Wall Street Megabanks.

    1. The Financial Times
      Equities
      Thrill-seeking traders send ‘meme stocks’ soaring as crypto tumbles
      Amateur investors are chasing momentum instead of particular sectors
      Montage of Daytrader and Gamestop trading, Bitcoin and AMC
      Flashes of volatility have emerged in assets favoured by young, tech-savvy traders
      Madison Darbyshire in New York and Joshua Oliver in London yesterday

      A new breed of day traders chasing thrills in the intense ups and downs of markets is asserting its dominance again, sending shares in popular stocks surging while cryptocurrency prices wilt.

      In January, amateur investors organised online in huge numbers to fire up unloved shares of companies including consoles retailer GameStop and cinema group AMC Entertainment. Now, after a lull, some of that fervour is back.

      Shares in AMC have surged more than 150 per cent since bitcoin began wobbling at the beginning of this month, and have more than doubled this week alone, according to Refinitiv data. GameStop, one of the highest-profile retail plays, rose 26 per cent this week.

      Professional analysts say the rerun shows that the amateur fascination with markets can outlast the social curbs brought in last year to control the coronavirus pandemic. Some now see it as a more durable trend that is having a noticeable effect on the investment landscape.

      “Retail [traders are] creating their own momentum and following it. We have this new dynamic where retail is leading the charge, you can no longer say that retail is the last one to know,” said Dan Pipitone, co founder of US-based brokerage TradeZero.
      …

      2. “Retail [traders are] creating their own momentum and following it.”

        This revelation brings to mind those ginormous California fires that create their own local weather.

        And how at the end of the day, everything in their paths is burned to the ground…

    3. usurping

      Or the public-facing puppet??? We already know Robinhood isn’t what it claims to be.

    4. I am thinking about buying some cryptocurrency as part of what I have conceived as my “Garbage Portfolio”. It is based on the theory that in a period of extreme money printing and monetization that garbage floats to the top by some inexplicable quirk of human psychology. The portfolio will consist of companies with no profits and completely fantastical business models. I am looking for some Solyndra style green energy companies to include in the portfolio. Like some company with Hunter Biden on the corporate board and with a fake wind farm that secretly generates electricity through big underground hamster wheels kept in motion by legions of smuggled illegal alien children. Things like this are where the money is going to be for the next few years.

      1. Things like this are where the money is going to be for the next few years.

        The last few years actually.

      2. With the Fed’s unrelenting rate suppression program, everyone needs a garbage portfolio to position themselves a step ahead of financially engineered inflation.

      3. “…garbage floats to the top by some inexplicable quirk of human psychology.”

        Sh!tty assets are more rate sensitive?

      4. you know what they say, market keeps going up, until it sucks in the last bear who turns bullish before it dumps

  3. “…requiring sealed bids from homebuyers without knowing what the final building cost will be.”

    When I recently mentioned ‘sealed bids’ to describe the insane bid wars we see everywhere between buyers with no idea about the levels of rival offers, I had no idea this was happening literally.

  4. Wall Street Journal — Biden Is the $6 Trillion Man (5/28/2021):

    “Biden is celebrating with the $6 trillion budget he released Friday that, in its willful magnitude, is unprecedented in American peacetime history. Democrats with their narrow majorities in Congress have no mandate for this, but they plan to jam most of it through anyway.

    As the pandemic finally eases due to vaccines, the emergency spending of the last two fiscal years should recede. The booming economy doesn’t need it. Consumers are flush with Covid relief payments and demand is soaring. Yet Mr. Biden wants to keep using the cover of Covid to sneak through an expansion of government that would be historic and permanent.”

    https://archive.fo/we7kU

      1. I’m thinking that Modern Monetary Theory is destined to last for about as long as the Fed can keep the lid on long-term interest rates, and not much longer.

      2. The Financial Times
        US Inflation
        US inflation gauge jumps as recovery accelerates
        Biggest year-on-year rise since the 1990s comes as Biden lays out plan for massive government spending
        A shopper wearing a protective mask pushes a shopping cart in front of a T.J. Maxx store in California
        Policymakers have blamed price rises on temporary factors such as fiscal stimulus and supply-chain bottlenecks
        James Politi in Washington and Colby Smith in New York yesterday

        A US inflation measure closely watched by the Federal Reserve posted its biggest year-on-year jump since the 1990s in April, rising more than expected and fuelling concerns about price increases.

        The commerce department’s core personal consumption expenditure index, which strips out volatile food and energy costs, rose 3.1 per cent last month compared with a year ago. The surge represents a sharp increase compared with the 1.9 per cent annual rise in March, and was higher than a consensus forecast estimating a 2.9 per cent jump.

        The surge in the PCE price index may raise new alarm about the US recovery overheating amid a burst of demand as the pandemic wanes. But Fed officials have signalled that they believe that the factors driving the change are mostly transient, such as heavy fiscal stimulus and supply-chain bottlenecks, and that inflation is likely to fall back later in the year.
        …

        1. Woodathunk a sitting US President would attempt to take pedophilia mainstream. Once is a gaff…PedoJoe is virtue signaling the Biden family history and penchant for pedophilia.

    4. “Mr. Biden is counting on the Fed to monetize all of this debt, but no one knows how long this modern monetary theory can last.”

      — The Wall Street Journal editors

      1. Flooding an economy with currency will enable those most capable of capturing those dollars to capture most of them. And that most capable group is probably already quite wealthy. I guess the central bank expects somehow the wealth will trickle down. Or it could be more prosaic: 1) when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and/or 2) as the face of the fire-gov complex, they’re enriching members of that complex, like a union looks out for its members.

  5. “I expect the 10-year yield to rise to about 2% and mortgage rates to about 4%; enough to taper, cool down the rate of appreciation, but not stop it.”

    Based on what math or economic analysis?

    I’m guessing none…

    1. In matters of homebuying we mustn’t be misled by feelings and emotion, said no realtor ever.

    2. I’m guessing none…
      Your right, he has no F**in clue. If he knew what rates would do he would be on a yacht in the Caribbean surrounded by 20 year old super models!

  7. But a housing bubble? I don’t see it.

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

    ― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

  8. I was justifying it to myself at that time by saying, ‘Of course, everybody wants to live in the most beautiful, desirable place,’ and we all know what happened.’”

    You’re a realtor, Ryan. Realtors are liars. It’s what y’all do.

  9. Two of those vulnerabilities related to housing: the mountain of debt that households have piled up chasing runaway prices, and those runaway prices, which, in some big-city markets, the Bank of Canada thinks are being pushed higher by speculation and naive expectations that home prices only go up.”

    These criminal central bankers blow dangerously unsustainable asset bubbles and encourage the lemmings to take on insane levels of debt, then warn of the systemic risks to financial house of cards that they themselves created. Justice, when it finally comes, needs to be swift and summary.

  10. You don’t say….

    China’s Banking Regulator Warns of Global Asset Bubble Risks

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-29/china-s-banking-regulator-warns-of-global-asset-bubble-risks?srnd=premium-middle-east&sref=ibr3A0ff

    Recent interest rate hikes by emerging economies could lead to a bursting of global financial asset bubbles, according to a senior official with China’s banking regulator.

    Unprecedented pandemic easing measures by developed countries have enlarged such bubbles, Liang Tao, vice chairman of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said at the International Finance Forum in Beijing on Saturday. Developed countries are sticking with ultra-low rates even as emerging economies raised their borrowing costs, potentially resulting in the re-pricing of global assets, he said.

  11. If Satan is the father of the lie, what does that say about these Democratic Party officials who stand the truth on its head and outdo even realtors when it comes to never-ending lies and mendacity.

    Wasserman Schultz: GOP ‘Willing to Abandon Our System of Government’ to Install Trump

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/05/28/wasserman-schultz-gop-willing-to-abandon-our-system-of-government-to-install-trump/

    Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), on Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Ayman Mohyeldin Reports,” argued that the Republican Party would abandon our current system of government to install former President Donald Trump as the head of state.

    Wasserman Schultz said, “Make no mistake, this was a domestic terror attack whose purpose was to overturn the results of a legitimate election. You have an attack that was incited by the then president of the United States, the executive branch on the citadel of our democracy, the United States Capitol, the legislative branch to prevent the end of his own presidential term and overturn an election. If that doesn’t cry out for an independent investigation, I don’t know what does. How will we prevent another attack if we don’t get to the bottom of how this one occurred and do everything we can to put in place measures to make sure it can’t happen again?”

      1. Otherwise known as Republican party protest. (If it had been something like a BLM riot, that favors a Democrat cause, it would have been “mostly peaceful”…)

  12. “Vail Resorts purchased Crested Butte Mountain Resort in 2018”

    Colorado Sun — Here are some of the radical ideas to help alleviate Colorado’s high-country housing crisis (5/25/2021):

    “As buyers continue to snatch up homes across Colorado, an unprecedented housing crisis is unfolding. Workers are losing their rental homes as new owners or investors pay record prices move in or convert them to their work-from-anywhere homes or short-term vacation investment homes. At least two communities are pondering radical strategies to slow the rapid shifts in housing that many see threatening the vitality and even existence of communities that rely on armies of workers.

    In Frisco, leaders are pondering a first-ever official emergency declaration as they liken the unfolding housing crisis to a devastating flood or wildfire. In Crested Butte, workers are whispering about a strike in the middle of the busy summer season.”

    https://coloradosun.com/2021/05/25/colorado-affordable-housing-crisis-frisco-crested-butte/

    Crested Butte used to be called “the last great ski town” in Colorado. AirBnB is a cancer that destroys everything it touches.

    2. communities that rely on armies of workers will be going out of existence, one by one, like shopping malls, unless/until the “workers” have access to nearby housing at prices they can endure.

      2. Here in Salt Lake-Provo we have 2.8% official U6 unemployment and low-wage jobs all over are desperate for workers. But why would anyone who isn’t in a decent or high paid role choose to move here, let alone stick around?

        1. Well, this might well be the catalyst to take the next step in automating menial work. Of course that will work for Corporate America better than for mom n pop.

          1. A couple of customers (including me) in Smith’s (Kroger) got held up briefly by a huge self-driving ride on floor scrubber blocking our way which was controlled by an employee who wasn’t always there (saw him afterwards.) It was weird. Also, everybody was masked except for me; it was a little slow, not a lot of people, but no sh!ts given by them it seemed. I don’t know why they bother.

    1. I don’t understand the mental gymnastics that the “woke” mob must have to go through every day to justify the violence and destruction inflicted on those they view as deserving of such treatment. It is a sick society that puts up with people being harassed or attacked in the streets because they’re Jewish, white, Asian, etc.

      A few years ago a buddy of mine was driving through Nebraska when he got caught in a snowstorm. He pulled over at the next hotel & got a room. A couple of hours later when he want to the front office for some reason it was crowded with drivers who couldn’t get rooms (sold out) but couldn’t drive in white-out conditions, either. Among the stranded travelers was a Muslim guy with a wife & 3 daughters in conservative Islamic attire. A couple of yahoos were keeping up a steady stream of insults to add to this family’s misery. My buddy (a big dude) was pretty pissed that nobody was telling these guys to knock it off, so he stepped in and offered to knock their teeth down their throats if they didn’t shut up. Then he told the manager that he was giving up his room to the Muslim family. Some lady offered to pay him twice the cost of the room if he would give it her instead, and he refused – just vacated it so five total strangers could be spared a miserable night. That’s my idea of a righteous dude – even if Hillary Clinton would describe him as being part of the “basket of Deplorables” so despised by our corrupt elites.

      1. Years ago I got snowed in at the Chicago airport in February. The airline sent me to a hotel on a shuttle bus. There was an elderly Muslim woman on the shuttle who seemed quite scared. When we got off the shuttle the desk clerk looked at her voucher and told her she was at the wrong hotel and there were no more rooms. She didn’t understand.

        I gave her my room and she showed me a letter from the daughter which had a phone number. I called and explained the situation to her daughter and told her I’d make sure her mom got to the airport safely in the morning, which she then explained to her mom.

        The fun part was when I got to rip apart the manager from Air Arabia. He sent a limo in the morning with an Arab speaking escort. I doubt they lost her again.

        Never connect in Chicago in February.

        1. Good on you. In my experience “Deplorables” are far more likely to come to the aid and assistance of the people we supposedly hate than anyone else. In FL last week a concealed carry permit holder came to the aid of a Jewish family that was being attacked by pro-Palestinian punks. That story vanished down the memory hole in record time, as you can imagine.

    2. If they’re willing to say and enforce that Bruce Jenner is a woman, then anything is possible, even the GOP nominating Bruce for Governor.

        1. I hope people are watching this CBS ”60 MINUTES” documentary on the swine flu epidemic of 1976. The same playbook is being used today.

          1. the swine flu epidemic of 1976

            Amazing. There never even was such an epidemic! My dad was forced to get that shot (by his employer) and it made him very very sick.

  16. New York Times — House Hunters Are Leaving the City, and Builders Can’t Keep Up (5/29/2021):

    “In Livermore, on the eastern side of Alameda County, the typical home value is nearing $1 million, according to Zillow. That falls to $500,000 to $600,000 over the hill in places like Tracy, Manteca and Lathrop. The catch, of course, is that many residents endure draining, multihour commutes.”

    https://archive.is/t8o76

    Drive til you qualify is back.

      1. We have close friends who live there in a modest home. Sounds like the Housing Bubble may have made millionaires out of them, as most of the homes there are very modest.

  18. Random thought that occurred to me recently: SPACs are just a modern manifestation of the famous “company for carrying-on an undertaking of great advantage but no-one to know what it is” from the South Seas bubble era.

    History certainly rhymes.

    When too much money is fighting for assets, crazy things happen…

    1. Go here for a quick read of the South Sea bubble …

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company

      (a snip)

      “There was thus no realistic prospect that trade would take place, and as it turned out, the Company never realised any significant profit from its monopoly. However, Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt, and peaked in 1720 before suddenly collapsing to little above its original flotation price. The notorious economic bubble thus created, which ruined thousands of investors, became known as the South Sea Bubble”

      (another snip)

      “A parliamentary inquiry was held after the bursting of the bubble to discover its causes. A number of politicians were disgraced, and people found to have profited immorally from the company had personal assets confiscated proportionate to their gains (most had already been rich and remained so).”

      My favorite part ” … most had already been rich and remained so.”

      😁

    2. It turns out that the 1920s had their own scam investments, similar to SPACs and cryptocurrencies!

      1. Mar 6, 2019
        The Shady, Get-Rich Scams of the Roaring Twenties
        Patrick J. Kiger
        As Americans dreamed of amassing fabulous fortunes, many became vulnerable to cons.

        Contents
        Boom Times Invite Risk
        The Original Ponzi Scheme
        A Millionaire Oil Baron Who Wasn’t
        Florida Land Speculators
        Sales of Elusive Oil Wells
        Wall Street Scams

        The economy boomed during the Roaring Twenties and rising incomes gave ordinary Americans access to enticing new conveniences, including washing machines, refrigerators, cars and other luxuries that would have once seemed unattainable.

        But for many, that wasn’t enough.

        With newly-minted Wall Street millionaires flaunting their mansions and opulent lifestyles in a style akin to the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, it was easy for an average Joe to dream big, too, and envision parlaying a few dollars in hard-earned savings into a similarly vast fortune.

        That eagerness played right into the hands of the Roaring Twenties’ legions of fast-talking promoters, charlatans and outright swindlers, who enticed the would-be wealthy with scores of seemingly foolproof schemes—from stock in companies that didn’t really exist, to speculation in Florida real estate or California oilfields, to Boston-based conman Charles Ponzi’s promise that investors could make a 50 percent return in 90 days’ time by investing in a bizarre plan to redeem overseas postal coupons.
        …

  20. The c.unts over at axios say to just enjoy the inflation.

    Inflation isn’t always and necessarily a bad thing. It’s one of many variables in the economy, and its presence helps some groups of people and harms others. But that kind of nuance is getting lost in the present debate

    1. As long as your paycheck keeps pace with inflation, it’s all good.

      Let’s see, when was the last time that happened …

      1. “As long as your paycheck keeps pace with inflation, it’s all good.”

        Add more paychecks. Polygamy!

  21. If massive inflation is coming
    – and with a $6T budget on top of the Corona trillions printed it is all but guaranteed – real estate isn’t a bad place to be invested in. Last time we had runaway inflation in the 70s real estate kept up with that inflation and then some. Look at what houses sold for in 1970 vs 1980.

    Right now cash is trash and will be for the foreseeable future.

    1. “Right now cash is trash and will be for the foreseeable future.”

      Most loudly stated by those who don’t have any…. And typically owe a lot of it.

      Place it in the trash and I’ll be along to remove it for you.

  23. It should be obvious by now , that starting about 25 years ago, under the Bill Clinton Administration , good laws were eliminated and free trade was advanced to usher in World Monopoly control, rigged markets, and a assault on the US as a sovereign Nation with a job and manufacturing base and anything that resembles capitalism.

    Bailing out the fraudulent Money Changers in 2009, as well as forcing the Communist Obama care just advanced the destruction of capitalism. The founding fathers were against Corporations funding elections, yet that was overturned by the High Court making money the avenue to corrupt Government and their agencies.

    The One World order Monopolies and Money Changers are destroying everything that even resembled government by the people with Constitutional protections and sovereignty of US and its borders. This isn’t capitalism but some kind of looting with rigged markets. And these agendas like Climate Change or fake Panademics is the fraud for mass destruction of this Constitutional republic.
    Isn’t it obvious that all amendments are under attack, or Constitional protections of the individual. This is a all out attack on over half the Country that was deprived of their vote by this criminal overtake of the US by these Entities and the Puppets placed in Government.
    And how can you have a meaningful debate on anything if you have Monopolies controlling or censoring the news so the Cheerleaders for fake narratives control by fraud and fear mongering.

    The entire DC swamp has been corrupted and compromised by this Innsurrection by Monopolies and Money Changers that are trying to pit the populations against each other by using race to divide and conquer. The bribes for one group to attack another , while the attacked group is robbed and looted and is paying for being attacked. Forced paying for health care and benefits for illegals who would vote against the interest of the Citizens that are forced to pay for a Innsurrection against them.

    This all started with the Democratic party buying votes by welfare and now has advanced to recruit illegals to determine elections by similar welfare bribery. But your racist if your trying to prevent your own demise or being looted by forces that want to loot you wealth , than make you eat bugs and get jabbed all the time.

    So these power mongers who have taken over and have crazy agendas and are anti prosperity for US Citizens ,and can’t be deemed as anything but a invasion of the US by treasonous Entities, have shown their true colors wanting to take all freedoms. How do you like a Oligarchy that wants to loot you, than destroy you . And what they call sustainable earth is the elimination of about 7 1/2 billion people , for a total of 1/2 billion , but they never explain exactly how they are going to achieve the reduced population of their vision of sustainable earth, in all the Agenda 21 material lunched about 30 years ago, but never voted on by Citizens of Countries.

  24. Burn Loot Murder is all about extortion and “redistribution of the wealth” at its core.

    ‘She’s taking the money and running’: Tamir Rice’s mom leads black mothers of police shooting victims slamming BLM director Patrisse Cullors for profiting from their dead kids and quitting with $3m property portfolio

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html

    1. He was a BIG KID Tamir was 12-years-old and stood 5’7” and 195 lbs. there’s a black male sitting on the swing. He’s wearing a camouflage hat, a gray jacket with black sleeves. He keeps pulling a gun out of his pants and pointing it at people Tamir was frequently seen playing with a toy black airsoft pistol with a removable magazine that was visually virtually indistinguishable from a real .45 Colt semi-automatic pistol.

      https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-closing-investigation-2014-officer-involved-shooting-cleveland

  25. From the Colorado Sun:

    Colorado cities will be able to require developers to build affordable housing in new rental projects.

    A bill signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis Friday reverses a 20-year-old court precedent, allowing cities and counties to require affordable housing as a part of new rental developments.

    New rental construction already doesn’t pencil out. I can’t wait for the lamentations that “No one wants to build new apartments. Why is this happening?”

    1. I thought low income meant the landlord still gets full price but a portion of it is subsidized by the gubmt. Downside of course is your complex is Section 8 trash and nobody wants to pay full price.

  27. Wuhan Lab Researcher’s Wife Died of COVID-Like Illness in December 2019, Former Lead US Investigator Says

    ‘A Wall Street Journal story on Sunday reported that three Wuhan lab workers were hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, before the first confirmed case of COVID-19 on Dec. 8. The story’s main findings, that WIV workers had possible COVID-19 symptoms in fall 2019, before the first confirmed case, were already in a State Department statement on COVID-19’s origins released in the last days of the Trump administration.’

    ‘The lab workers appear to have been more likely to have had COVID-19 than the flu, Asher said. “How many normal people in their 30s-40s get so sick from influenza that they have to be hospitalized? Lab workers, I am told, are almost certainly getting flu shots.”

    “Moreover, what are the odds that several workers — who happen to be the researchers on enhancing the pathogenicity of COV RaTG13 and associated COVS all fall very sick together?” Asher noted, referring to coronaviruses.’

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/wuhan-lab-researchers-wife-died-of-covid-like-illness-in-december-2019-former-lead-us-investigator-says_3836142.html

    A comment:

    ‘We, we being informed Americans, who do our own research, 17, knew these things a year ago.’

    From another similar thread:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Contagion

    1. “Wuhan Lab Researcher’s Wife Died of COVID-Like Illness in December 2019”

      This has the makings of a great screenplay. Can’t wait for the movie!

        1. ” Jesus God in Heaven, why’d you have to kill such hot sn*tch?” – Heathers, 1989

    2. Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity was sure of a lab leak a year ago. You don’t need to look at sick labworkers or hidden documents. The smoking gun for lab leak is in the structure of the virus itself.

      Short version: a segment of DNA 12 base pairs in length somehow got into the DNA backbone of the virus, making the virus 12 base pairs longer. Mutations can’t do that. This segment can’t be traced to bats or pangolins. And this segment just happens to be made of base pairs that allow the virus to cut its well through a cell membrane. How convenient. Martenson explains it starting at 13:55 in this video:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUJhKUbd0k&ab_channel=PeakProsperityPeakProsperity

      (I’m surprised the video is still up on YT)

        1. It’s the new narrative.

          Exactly. And they will gaslight you, insisting it was always the Narrative.

        2. But, I’m suspicious of the narrative of US funded China lab that was conducting gain of function virus research ,having a accidental release of a man made virus exactly at the time it happened.

          Its possible that it was all staged to create a fake crisis. The Chinese people falling ill in the streets with them locking people in their homes looked so faked. The fact that the so called virus didn’t reek havoc with other major China Cities is suspicious.China was back producing again before anyone else, and they don’t seem to be doing a mass vaccination program like the US and other Countries.
          Since the virus was never isolated under a microscope, and the PCR tests aren’t accurate, who is to say it wasn’t entirely faked.

          I was thinking it would be pretty risky for a Country to release a bio weapon in their own Country. So, the so called accidental leak theory, that has strangely resurfaced after months of fake news denial is suspicious.
          And the strange way Big Pharmacy knew what to create regarding a vaccine , when they didn’t even know the origin of the virus. You mean to tell me your creating a vaccine that you don’t even know if the virus is natural or man made in a lab.
          Nope, the whole Panademic looks like a entire contrived fraud, launched at the exact timing to rig the election, with full corporation with the CCP.

          Now this fake Panademic scheme might of been in the works anyway going back to 2016 when Gates and Fauci were predicting a Covid type Panademic.
          How else were they going to defeat Trump with his good economy that would of likely gotten a second term, with Obama Care and Big Pharmacy being under attack by the Trump Administration. Likewise , Trump pushing back on the China Monopoly and the One World order Globalist takeover , deep State and DC Swamp , was a act of war as far as these Entities were concerned.

          Sorry, but its absurd to think that the demented traitor crook Biden got the most votes of all times, that all came in during the middle of the night.

          So, I think the who damn Panademic is fake . I wouldn’t put it pass them to of created deaths by some kind of toxin. These are criminal Entities that didn’t think twice about the Russian hoax .

          Sorry, but your health care system is hopelessly corrupted by big Pharmacy and is a enemy of the State and humanity now.

      3. I’m questioning this Doctors information that is derived from patient o, that the so called isolated Covid 19 virus was determined by. Who is the scientist that isolated Covid 19 under a microscope and proved it was the virus causing a World wide fast spreading virus. And what was used to create the vaccines that were strangely produced in record time.
        I heard yesterday that India has claimed 362 variants strains now . Where is the proof of all that is claimed and the Scientific method required to show proof, and that its the cause of the disease.

        In the last year I have heard dozens of Drs saying that a lot of medicine science is theory, and they don’t have real proof of many assertions Medicine Science makes. Not to take away from any good stuff they do of course.

      4. Lots of scientists with experience in this area have been saying for a long time that Covid-19 had all the characteristics of being created in a Chinese lab. This is old news. What is new “news” is that the MSM has finally decided that they should talk about it. Martenson was completely wrong with his Doomsday scenarios for America. But I’m sure he got lots of royalties from the makers of 100 year freeze dried survival food manufacturers!

        The only reason why it hasn’t been in the mainstream news is that President Trump was one of the first to speculate that it came from Wuhan and a Chinese lab.

        TDS causes people to instantly react in a reverse manner–Trump says the Sun comes up in the East, then the Left and MSM says that “Everyone knows that it rises in the west”.

        This is all old news.

        1. Martenson was wrong about doomsday, but he knows that and he has freely admitted it. I don’t recall him ever accepting ads from food buckets. [those food buckets are all carbs anyway. You’re better off with freeze-dried meat.] In the beginning, we had to overshoot how bad it might be. Martenson has since changed to a more positive outlook.

          Being wrong, by the way, is TYPICAL for science and engineering. Scientists are wrong, they figure out what’s wrong, try to figure out what the root cause is, figure out how to prevent the root cause, over and over. You guys just never see it because it happens in the lab or in an office. You just see the final product, after all the mistakes have been made.

          1. Lecturing someone who works in the pharmaceutical industry about how science is done. 🙄

          3. Hardly ever the case

            Okay, I’ll say “most” of the mistakes. Imagine how fun life would be if products — drugs, furniture, machines — were released without even trying to correct any mistakes at all.

          4. Ummmm…. if drugs were released without the government protection for pharma cartels,they would get sued into oblivion which would incentivize future pharmaceutical companies to be very careful about releasing new medications. Incentives matter.

          7. “Being wrong, by the way, is TYPICAL for science and engineering.”

            Being typically wrong in engineering means you are not in engineering very long!

          8. “Being wrong, by the way, is TYPICAL for science and engineering.”

            One of your most damning statements. And you’ve made some doozies.

        2. I’m just saying that the whole Covid 19 story from day one , and all the chapters , adds up to one big fraud to achieve many goals, including a rigged election to put puppets in the White House, Senate and Congress. All this to advance a takeover by One World Order Globalist Monopolies, Money Changers ,and God knows who else is involved in this agenda.

  28. “…real estate isn’t a bad place to be invested in. Last time we had runaway inflation in the 70s real estate kept up with that inflation and then some.”

    A big difference is that the 1970s inflation, which was roughly concurrent with the end of the Bretton Woods agreement linking the dollar to gold, the establishment of OPEC sending oil prices skyward, a moral hazard temptation for Uncle Sam to inflate away some dollar-denominated war debt, and Fed leadership willingness to tolerate a protracted period of double-digit inflation, all contributed to a surprise surge in prices that sunk the fortunes of anyone who owned long-term Treasury bonds or was dependent on a fixed dollar denominated income. Inflation which nobody anticipates is indeed good for real estate and other real assets which serve as inflation hedges.

    By contrast, with twelve years and counting of extraordinary stimulus from the Fed, plus a new $6 trillion budget, many have long ago concluded future inflation is inevitable and have already abandoned the dollar for risk assets like stonks, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and houses, driving prices skyward. And I submit that if an asset’s price gets driven sufficiently high, it acquires risk asset characteristics, regardless of the underlying. Similarly, the dollar also becomes a risk asset at a time of great uncertainty over the course of future inflation, and is definitely a superior alternative to a bubble asset at the point of collapse.

    Like it or not, we are all financial gamblers now. May the odds be ever in your favor.

    1. we are all financial gamblers now

      It’s a great time to be out of debt, have a practical skill, have the tools to practice it, need little and want less.

      1. It’s even better if you are blessed with a partner who shares those values, as am I.

  29. Was out and about today. Almost no masks to be seen anywhere. So glag I don’t live in Dumver.

    1. If you can’t do the entire eleven minutes, 8:45 – 11:02 really sums up where we are.

      1. Tucker is dead on when he says “these people don’t mean a word of what they say”. Just like the douche I shut down the other day when I he babbled on about how blm… If they matter so much to you personally, how come you’re not hosting a few of those lives at your house…. or down in the ghetto living with them.

        Silence…. it’s all lip service for something that failed decades ago… but trillions continue to be thrown at it.

        1. “Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good”

    1. Medical Industrial Complex= looting system that controls corrupted Government and fake news.

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