thehousingbubble@gmail.com
Blog

All Hell Will Break Loose If We Start Doing That!

A report from Fox 13 News in Florida. “Home values throughout the Tampa Bay area are increasing by the day. Real estate agent Vincent Arcuri says around 90% of homes are selling over the asking price. ‘It’s at a frenzy like I’ve never seen before in 30 years!’ Arcuri told FOX 13 News. Arcuri said it’s an ‘obscene increase in property values’ in a relatively short time period.”

“For example, he recently sold a 4-bedroom Carrollwood home for $492,000. However, the buyers decided they liked Sarasota better and never moved in. Four months later, he relisted the house and sold it for $600,000. ‘This person made a $100,000 profit in a very short period of time,’ Arcuri explained.”

“Stories like this lead many people to wonder if the market is going to burst soon. ‘We are definitely in a housing bubble and it’s a bubble that is starting to rival the bubble that we had in the early and mid-2000s,’ says Christopher Jones, an economist and instructor at the University of South Florida Department of Economics.”

“‘We are really close to the peak. It’s only a matter of time before you see that rubber band of the market snap back and home prices start to plummet,’ Jones said. Arcuri agrees and says we may soon see the market hit the reset button. ‘People’s incomes are just not keeping up with the price of real estate increases. In five years, if it continued at this pace, who’s going to be around? Who can afford to buy the homes?’ he wondered.”

From Community Impact on Texas. “Economist Elliot Eisenberg spoke at The Greater Houston Builders Association’s mid-year economic forecast luncheon, addressing the skyrocketing demand for housing statewide, including the Greater Houston area. ‘Demand is insatiable. It’s bigger than it’s ever been. But there’s nothing in the inventory existing to sell,’ Eisenberg said ‘There’s infinite demand, and you cannot possibly meet it.'”

“The number of homes that are sold but have yet to be started is at an all-time high, he said. ‘So what do you build? All you build are expensive homes,’ Eisenberg said. ‘There’s nothing cheap being built.’ ‘We’ve never had a cohort of people so large that wants to buy a house as the cohort we’re about to see,’ Eisenberg said. ‘But if you look further than that, on the very far left, the problem goes away because no one’s having any children.'”

From News 3 in Nevada. “‘I’m definitely seeing more inventory coming on the market,; explained Keller Williams Southern Nevada realtor, Cristi Jessee. Jessee has seen firsthand the increase in the number of homes hitting the market this year. Though, she adds, it’s going to take more time for the buyer to even the playing field. ‘While we are seeing more inventory coming on the market, we’re still at a record low,’ she said.”

“Between January and May 2021, Las Vegas REALTORS is reporting nearly one thousand more homes to market for the month. ‘In January it was 2,800 homes (to market), in February we brought 3,017 — so that was 200 more homes than the previous month. In March we brought 3,500 homes to market, so that already was increasing that number by another 500 properties,’ said Las Vegas REALTORS president Aldo Martinez. ‘In April we brought 3,600 to market and here we go in May, we brought 3,700 homes to market. So, every month we’re bringing more homes to market to be sold, it’s just being absorbed.'”

The Four States Homepage on Missouri. “Across the country, the four states included, there are a lot more people looking to buy a house than there are houses for them to chose. But that could chance in a matter of weeks. Drive around any four state neighborhood and you’ll notice a lot fewer homes for sale than normal. The pandemic has had a lot to do with that. It’s lead to a shortage in many of the products that go into building homes. And it’s lead to a moratorium on the sale of homes that were in the foreclosure process.”

“Now this isn’t the first time there’s been a moratorium on the sale of repo houses but Richard Calvert III, Realtor, Keller Williams, says it’s definitely the longest lasting in recent years. He says the one put in place after the 2008 housing market crash didn’t last as long. ‘The expiration is supposed to be the end of June, it has been extended twice already I believe, but there’s no indication currently of another extension, uh at that stage we’re looking at the possibility of millions of foreclosures across the country,’ Says Calvert.”

“Which is great news for home buyers. ‘Yeah, I mean it’s going to put assets back in a market that is asset starved,’ Says Calvert. But not so much for people who got behind on home payments because they lose jobs because of the pandemic, which was the reason the moratorium was enacted in the first place.”

From DS News. “On Wednesday, the Five Star Institute presented the 2021 Government Forum: A Virtual Event, bringing together leaders from the mortgage servicing sector and government representatives for a day full of impactful conversation on the industry’s most pressing issues. Among the topics of discussion brought up by Five Star Global Chairman Ed Delgado was that the industry is heading toward a ‘Housing Crisis 2.0.'”

“‘There are too many similarities to what the industry was going through back in 2008,’ said Delgado of the current state of the marketplace. ‘This crisis is born not from subprime lending or irresponsible credit, but more from the long-term and last effects of a prolonged forbearance plan.'”

“The Mortgage Bankers Association recently reported that approximately 2.1 million homeowners are in some stage of forbearance, and that, according to Rep. Steve Bartlett, Senior Advisory Board Member for Treliant, is a challenge. ‘With the clients we work with at Treliant, the last thing we want to do is foreclose on someone, except in extreme circumstance where someone has abandoned the property,’ said Bartlett. ‘The last thing an originator or servicer should do is foreclosure because, as we say in Texas, ‘All hell will break loose’ if we start doing that! That’s a different mindset than we have had historically with mortgages, but that’s the mindset we have to go into now.'”

“Closing out the Government Forum was the ‘Eye on the Horizon’ session where industry leaders discussed key takeaways from the day and presented their outlook for what lies ahead for the housing market. ‘During the pandemic, web-based and mobile technologies really helped keep borrowers connected and engaged,’ said Maria Fernandez, Senior Associate Director, Office of Housing and Regulatory Policy for the FHFA. ‘Quite frankly, it also helped keep mortgage credit flowing.'”

From Staten Island Live in New York. “At the corner of a quiet West Brighton block is a home that has been vacant and mostly unkempt for a decade and, in recent weeks, been attracting illegal squatters. It is what is known as a zombie home — residences that fall into disrepair after a foreclosure or negligence of a property owner who does not live on-site. The owner of 77 City Blvd. died seven years ago.”

“Neighbors tracked down the owner’s next of kin who resides in Florida but was uninterested in taking over possession of the home. Legally, the home now belongs to the mortgage servicer, Carrington Home Solutions, who did not respond to a request for comment for this article. It also did not return a request for comment three years ago when the Advance/SILive.com first highlighted the City Boulevard zombie home.”

“‘…The house is still unsecure with an entire family having keys and telling the neighbors that they now live there. There is electric and cable in their name,’ one neighbor, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said. ‘This property has been a vacant zombie home for over 10 years. Vermin have lived there for years, the elements have rendered this property unlivable and beginning in 2018, the property was finally secured after many complaints filed by the neighbors to the city and state. Back then we had a similar squatter situation that we were able to deal with. Now, we have it again, however this time, it appears that the house was made unsecure,’ the neighbor continued.”

“Neighbors are worried – on more than one occasion in recent weeks individuals have gained access to the home and showed what they said are lease papers, despite the home being boarded up and still under contract with the mortgage servicer. ‘Our peaceful neighborhood has quickly deteriorated because of lack of care for this property,’ one neighbor said.”

“Of the 305 homes currently on HPD’s zombie home list, 53 notices were sent to mortgage servicers to inform them of non-compliance. Seven properties were referred to the Law Department for litigation after the mortgage services disregarded maintenance requirements and notices from HPD about legal action. Additionally, HPD sealed six properties that were identified at open/unguarded and the city Department of Sanitation (DSNY) performed six lot clean-ups based on referrals.”

Related Posts
This Post Has 83 Comments

  1. Get in there you dumb f.ucks and buy

    As the housing market intensifies and home prices skyrocket, there are concerns that the market could be entering into a housing bubble. But mortgage experts say there’s nothing to fear.

    “Despite what you may have heard, we are not in a housing bubble,” mortgage billionaire and United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia said in his monthly video message. “The housing market crash of ‘08 was the result of a faulty foundation the mortgage industry was built upon. The CFPB implemented significant industry reforms in the following years to prevent a similar collapse from ever happening again. It’s still a great time to buy and more inventory will open up this year in Q4 and Q1 of 2022.”
    https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/homebuyers-great-time-to-buy-housing-bubble-fears-mortgage-billionaire

  2. ‘There’s infinite demand, and you cannot possibly meet it’

    Now that’s some economic-izing right there.

  3. ‘In January it was 2,800 homes (to market), in February we brought 3,017 — so that was 200 more homes than the previous month. In March we brought 3,500 homes to market, so that already was increasing that number by another 500 properties…In April we brought 3,600 to market and here we go in May, we brought 3,700 homes to market. So, every month we’re bringing more homes to market to be sold, it’s just being absorbed’

    As we learned from Aldo yesterday, the total sales of airboxes and shacks in Las Vegas last month was 2,000.

    1. With gambling and everything else basically everywhere now, the idea that Vegas will be a “thing” in the future compared to the past is absurd. Probably one of the worst places to buy imo

    2. Imagine when the eviction moratorium ends. By the way, why in the fock is there an eviction moratorium anymore anyway? A record 10 million jobs are available and these deadbeats are still being coddled with stimmie checks and free rent? What a JOKE.

      1. why in the fock is there an eviction moratorium anymore anyway?

        Democrats don’t want to give up their emergency powers.

        1. When you think about it, free rent is a form of property confiscation. All they need to do is keep insisting that the pandemic hasn’t ended (because variants) and rent stays
          free forever. Sure, Mr. Banker will eventually foreclose on Mr. Landlord, but the the tenant won’t be evicted.

          Now roll out “equity”. Brainwash the kids to believe that the fact that their parents own a house is because of privilege and has nothing to do with thrift or hard work. They will throw their own parents out of their homes and turn them over to vibrants.

      2. “By the way, why in the fock is there an eviction moratorium anymore anyway?”

        A couple of reasons, IMHO:

        Reason: #1)
        – 1) Here’s the “top 10” list. Guess which one’s at the top?

        http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/TenPlanks.html

        The Ten Planks of the 
        Communist Manifesto
        1848 by Karl Heinrich Marx

        First Plank: 1) Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.

        – Null and void contract law eliminates basic rights and ownership of private property, and politicians can pander to their base (renters) at the expense of property owners (landlords). It’s a win-win situation for the local apparatchiks and their cause.

        Reason #2: TPTB know that if all of the renters that are under the eviction moratoria, rent deferrals, etc. were to have to settle accounts, that most would be out on the street. This would lead to social unrest, “mostly peaceful” protests, and a further breakdown of the social fabric in America.

        – IMHO, this was the same reason that the student loan bubble was inflated; to prevent an “Arab Spring” event in the U.S. by taking young, unemployed and disenfranchised people off the street and to move them into Communist indoctrination centers, learning absolutely no useful skills, but becoming part of the army of “useful idiots.”

        – In other words, just more “can kicking,” but at some point they run out of runway, but everyone hopes it’s after their term in office.

  4. ‘Four months later, he relisted the house and sold it for $600,000. ‘This person made a $100,000 profit in a very short period of time’

    This thing got away from them. And there’s yer appraisal fraud for every one to see.

    2. Have you noticed that the mere mention of appraisal fraud raises anxiety to extreme levels?

      Why is that?

      1. I dunno. The 2020 Bloomberg writer actually looked around and found plenty, with people willing to go on the record and admit how widespread it was. We live in a contrived reality as far as the media goes. In one of these articles above some guys says “they’re not handing out loans like” yadda. They just stopped calling it subprime. Voila! And 95%+ of the defaults last decade were prime loans! We don’t have anywhere near 95% prime loans now.

        I always laugh when I recall an appraisal fraud episode in Phoenix long ago. Some UHS actually said, it’s no big deal cuz they’re just resulting in the ever higher prices that are going to happen anyway! A couple years later they were all broke a$$.

        2. ‘Some UHS actually said, it’s no big deal cuz they’re just resulting in the ever higher prices that are going to happen anyway! ‘

          A very concise statement. Sums up the whole thought process going on now for buyers.

  5. ‘There are too many similarities to what the industry was going through back in 2008…This crisis is born not from subprime lending or irresponsible credit, but more from the long-term and last effects of a prolonged forbearance plan’

    March 26, 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    1. This crisis is born not from subprime lending or irresponsible credit, but more from the long-term and last effects of a prolonged forbearance plan’

      I have recently become aware of what a ripoff the PPP plan was. Essentially it didn’t have to go to wages, and the beneficiaries could keep it and buy real estate, toys – whatever they wanted. And the total value of the PPP package was well over half a trillion. That alone juiced the economy and big ticket purchases the likes we’ve never seen before.

      1. My husband knows of a contractor who used it to pay his workers to renovate his own home.

  6. ‘Quite frankly, it also helped keep mortgage credit flowing’

    That’s all that matters, isn’t it Maria? Keep the suckers going. These idiots don’t even hide how they use housing to goose the globalist sh$t cart of an economy.

    Shack loans produce no wealth netted out. You can’t print wealth. You can shoehorn fools into loans they’ll never be able to pay. The easiest tip off to see in a mania is get rich quick.

    1. The next tipoff to see is to watch greater fools get poor even quicker, then claim victimhood status and clamor for bailouts, because “we’re all in this together.”

    2. You can’t print wealth.

      Money printing strikes me as a bit like Keynes’ putting money in bottles and burying them, and having people dig them up, as an economic stimulus.

      Can’t quite put my finger on it.

  7. ‘It’s at a frenzy like I’ve never seen before in 30 years!’

    2021 – 30 = 1991, a recession year which kicked off a five year real estate bust.

    Ok, Realtor…

  8. “‘We are definitely in a housing bubble and it’s a bubble that is starting to rival the bubble that we had in the early and mid-2000s,’ says Christopher Jones, an economist and instructor at the University of South Florida Department of Economics.”

    Jeebus…I hope he has solid tenure. Otherwise, a few more honest comments to the press like that one could get this guy canceled.

    1. He may. There’s a Robert Jones listed as Faculty at USF Tampa. His email is rcjones, so Christopher might be a middle name. Not sure what they mean by “instructor” in this context.

  9. ‘Gallagher said that the main question he keeps getting asked by journalists is not about an Oasis reunion or the 10 year anniversary of High Flying Birds, but “how much of a c**t is Prince Harry?”

    “Prince Harry is coming across like a typical f***ing woke snowflake, f***ing arsehole,” said Gallagher, adding that Harry should stop attacking his own family.’

    “Just don’t be f***ing dissing your family because there’s no need for it,” he said, before joking, “This is what happens when you get involved with Americans. As simple as that.”

    https://summit.news/2021/06/10/noel-gallagher-slams-prince-harry-as-a-fking-woke-snowflake/

  11. Last night Beanie Boy was talking about how shell companies like Blackrock have started buying up individual homes again, with the intention of renting them out. But unlike the previous crash, they are bidding far over asking. The theory is: since these banking entities have access to Fed munnies and consumer families do not, they can bid up the price, freezing out the public and forcing the public to rent. This furthers the Great Reset objective of owning nothing and being happy.

    I was lucky(?) enough to buy before this all kicked in. I’m sure I will be considered a kulak and treated as such.

    1. “I was lucky(?) enough to buy before this all kicked in. I’m sure I will be considered a kulak and treated as such.”

      No you weren’t
      No you won’t

      You will be a fool spending money you don’t have on a depreciating ‘asset.’

      1. IIRC, she bought her shack shortly after the previous crash and she is a FedGov employee. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that she easily afford the monthly payment.

    2. But unlike the previous crash, they are bidding far over asking. ”

      yea that’s what they ( Blackrock) did around here in 2012 . pretty sure I got this short sale because I had the selling realtor also represent me as the buying realtor so a double commission motivated her to throw all other offer’s in trash . Blackrock was buying foreclosures which the house I bought was a couple days away from. Someone showed up and though I was the old owner . They were not happy. Wasting my time etc etc I was “yea excuses me I moving in. ”

      BTW the realtor was worthless I worked 100% with the bank on this.

  13. ZeroHedge tweet this morning: The last time goods inflation was this high, Volcker hiked rates to 20%

    1. CPI has always been fake as the yobs data or facebook clicks. They manipulate any way they want to support the narrative.

      1. It’s a lot more than narrative. If CPI included what it used to include, they would have to raise the Social Security COLA far beyond what the gov can afford. Now imagine the number of baby boomers — with failing pensions — who are just about starting to take SS. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to change CPI again to exclude even more.

        1. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to change CPI again to exclude even more.”

          No need to exclude anything. Hedonic adjustment will take care of that.

          “I am really hungry and can’t afford to buy a sandwich for lunch. Well I suppose I will just watch nextflix in my fold-able iphone69, that should take care of the hunger.”

    2. Their first move was to deny inflation. The next was to say that they are going to “let it run hot.” Then they said “it’s the good kind of inflation” (like there’s a good kind of inflation). Now they’ve run out of excuses.

    3. “The last time goods inflation was this high, Volcker hiked rates to 20%”

      – Yes but Volcker was serious about killing the inflation monster, and higher rates then wouldn’t and didn’t drive the economy into a depression.

      – Today things are a lot different, but primarily, the national debt is much higher (debt to GDP, or other metric). The U.S. and global economy “can’t handle the truth” of even incrementally higher interest rates now, so the Fed is trapped:

      Bad scenario #1: The Fed raises rates and the economy goes into depression.

      Bad scenario #2: The Fed keeps rates at ZIRP levels, along with QE buying $120B UST + MBS a month, which further inflates The Everything Bubble and results in moar inflation and a bigger crash when it deflates. The Fed has chosen “Door #2.” The Fed didn’t choose wisely, but then again, either way, it’s a bad outcome, because pretty much they’re both nefarious (think Bank of Evil) and imbeciles (think Wile E. Coyote, super genius).

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA7J0KkanzM
      Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (10/10) Movie CLIP – He Chose Poorly (1989) HD
      2,331,490 views
      •Jun 1, 2016

      1. but then again, either way, it’s a bad outcome

        Which is why they always choose to kick the can.

  14. Let’s enjoy the ride. We all know the rocket hits maximum velocity the same time the fuel runs out…and it will continue to ascend on momentum alone.

    Should be quite colorful on reentry.

  16. LOL@ I read that if Buckhead secedes from Atlanta it will take away 40% of Atlanta’s property tax revenue.

    NO MORE GIBS FOR YOU!

  17. they have invented something new – Buyer Burnout. Just read the crap in the following Denver article


    Van Lewis, a broker associate with RE/MAX Alliance in Aurora who is working with Diaz and Clark, said in his 45 years in the business he has never seen a housing market as manic as this years. Managing the expectations, disappointments and morale of buyers in a market where the odds are hugely stacked against them has become one of the toughest parts of his job. And unless agents get a buyer into a home, they don’t get paid, raising their frustration level as well.

    “It’s nothing short of exhausting,” Lewis said. “Reality dictates going 15% or more (above list) for really good listings, but is the buyer qualified for that?”
    https://www.denverpost.com/2021/06/10/denver-metro-housing-market-real-estate-buyer-burnout/

    1. You need to stretch that budget to the max. Maybe you just don’t want the home enough. Wait till these folks see cash flow issues. Buying your max is a recipe for failure. Doesn’t matter what your budget is

  19. Institution and Pension funds buying homes – 20% of homes dont go to traditional home buyers

    D.R. Horton Inc. built 124 houses in Conroe, Texas, rented them out and then put the whole community, Amber Pines at Fosters Ridge, on the block. A Who’s Who of investors and home-rental firms flocked to the December sale. The winning $32 million bid came from an online property-investing platform, Fundrise LLC, which manages more than $1 billion on behalf of about 150,000 individuals.

    The country’s most prolific home builder booked roughly twice what it typically makes selling houses to the middle class—an encouraging debut in the business of selling entire neighborhoods to investors.

    “We certainly wouldn’t expect every single-family community we sell to sell at a 50% gross margin,” the builder’s finance chief, Bill Wheat, said at a recent investor conference.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-you-sell-a-house-these-days-the-buyer-might-be-a-pension-fund-11617544801
    “You now have permanent capital competing with a young couple trying to buy a house,” said John Burns, whose eponymous real estate consulting firm estimates that in many of the nation’s top markets, roughly one in every five houses sold is bought by someone who never moves in. “That’s going to make U.S. housing permanently more expensive,” he said.

    The consulting firm found Houston to be a favorite haunt of investors who have lately accounted for 24% of home purchases there. Investors’ slice of the housing market grows—as it does in other boomtowns, such as Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas—among properties priced below $300,000 and in decent school districts.

    “Limited housing supply, low rates, a global reach for yield, and what we’re calling the institutionalization of real-estate investors has set the stage for another speculative investor-driven home price bubble,” the firm concluded.

    2. Every time I check on zildo, the price of my shack has gone up. I get cold calls to sell my shack.

      This isn’t going to end well.

      2. “This isn’t going to end well.”

        +1

        – The Fed’s reverse repo broke the $0.5T level yesterday ($503B). This has been climbing for a while now. RR indicates that there’s too much “liquidity” in the system. It’s the opposite of QE. They must be pissing themselves at this point.

        – The Fed is trying to micromanage the economy as we teeter on the precipice. The Fed thinks that they’re all geniuses and can actually run the economy without a blow-up. That didn’t work out so well in 2000, 2008-9 either. Of course, some people believe “it’s different this time.” Instead of crow, they’ll be eating black swan for dinner soon. The main problem is that they’ll take us all down with them this time. Long Au + Pb.

        “Stability leads to instability. The more stable things become and the longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits.” – Hyman Minsky

        1. The Fed isn’t trying to “micromanage” the economy. They’re implementing their one and only prime directive since their clandestine 1913 founder by a cabal of NYC robber barons: to serve as the oligarchy’s chief instrument of plunder against the 99 percent.

        2. Pb

          My husband mentioned that the Pb he purchased for 23 cents a round is $1+ a round if you can find it.

        3. “The Fed thinks that they’re all geniuses and can actually run the economy without a blow-up.”

          The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

          — Friedrich August von Hayek

    1. “Gain-of-function” is the euphemism for biological research aimed at increasing the virulence and lethality of pathogens and viruses.

  21. Also, almost all home buyers today are forced to put 20% down, unlike the reckless lending practices that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

    Really? Could have fooled me.

  22. Suburban libtards reaping what they voted: Atlanta edition. Vibrants don’t care about your virtue-signaling yard signs, libtards.

    Wife of man shot while jogging in Atlanta’s wealthiest neighborhood Buckhead says residents are fleeing the area ‘because they feel unsafe’ amid growing calls for it to SECEDE from the city and get its own police force

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9674449/Wife-man-shot-jogging-Atlanta-says-residents-fleeing-feel-unsafe.html

  23. Half of all unemployment money was stolen by criminals during pandemic, experts say | Fox Business
    https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/unemployment-benefits-stolen-coronavirus-pandemic

    (snip)

    Unemployment fraud surged during the coronavirus pandemic, with billions of dollars likely ending up in the hands of foreign crime syndicates based in China, Russia and other countries, experts say.

    (snip)

    “Fraud is being perpetrated by domestic and foreign actors,” Blake Hall, CEO and founder of ID.ME, told FOX Business. “We are successfully disrupting attempted fraud from international organized crime rings, including Russia, China, Nigeria and Ghana, as well as U.S. street gangs.”

    Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solution, suggested the bulk of the money – about $250 billion – went to international criminal groups, most of which are backed by the state. The money is essentially being used as their slush fund for “nefarious purposes,” such as terrorism, illegal drugs and child trafficking, Talcove said.

    The criminals have been able to access the money by stealing personal information and using it to impersonate claimants or buying it on the dark web. The groups also use an army of internet thieves to submit fraudulent claims. States, which administer the aid, may be prepared to combat fraud from individuals who are trying double-dip or cash in on benefits they don’t need, but not international criminals using the dark web to exploit the system.

    1. If you add all the registered members of the criminal enterprise masquerading as a political party known as the Democrats, I’m guessing way more than half of the pandemic “relief” money disappeared into the pockets of criminals.

    2. We didn’t have this problem when you had to show up to the unemployment office in person.

      1. Isn’t the cloud great? What a joke this entire system has become. Online storage media is the worst idea ever.

      2. Many of the support efforts were aimed at people who were working “under the table” or “day laborers.” Los Angeles county alone has over 1-million of them.

      3. We didn’t have this problem when you had to show up to the unemployment office in person.

        Wouldn’t that be raycis or something?

  24. The Comrades of Proven Worth (D) in our NEA indoctrination mills hate being exposed for the commies that they are.

    ‘It’s a new Cultural Revolution’: Mom who survived Maoist China’s purges rages against woke Loudoun County School Board for pushing ‘neo-racism’ and teacher warns against ‘indoctrination camps’ in classrooms

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9672569/Virginia-mom-survived-Maoist-Chinas-purge-slams-Critical-Race-Theory.html

  26. ‘The expiration is supposed to be the end of June, it has been extended twice already I believe, but there’s no indication currently of another extension, uh at that stage we’re looking at the possibility of millions of foreclosures across the country,’

    Not to worry! Just remember, a closely watched pot never boils over.

  27. Any thoughts on why GME and AME catered today? And why Treasury yields are falling when inflation fears are rising?

    My hunches:

    1) Markets are reading the handwriting on the wall for the end of pandemic stimulus.

    2) The “dump” phase of the “pump&dump” has arrived.

    3) Like cryptocurrencies, meme stonks have begun the process of reverting to fundamental value, which is much nearer to $0 than recent levels have been.

    4) Financial regulators are preparing to lower the boom on the speculative financial gambling frenzy spawned by the Fed’s COVID-19 stimulus measures.

    1. Almost forgot:

      5) I’m on vacation, and by some accident of history that keeps repeating itself, the weather is usually perfect and financial bubble assets almost always crater when I go on vacation.

      This subjective empirical regularity defies analysis or explanation.

    4. The Financial Times
      Hedge funds
      US bond rally eases pressure on emerging market hedge funds
      Pharo Management pares losses but main funds still in the red this year
      Laurence Fletcher in London
      2 hours ago

      Falling US bond yields and a weakening dollar are helping drive a recovery in emerging market-focused hedge funds, after some managers including $12bn-in-assets Pharo Management struggled following a tough start to the year.

      Emerging market funds gained 1.9 per cent last month, according to data group Eurekahedge, ahead of a 1.1 per cent gain among hedge funds more broadly. That leaves them up 5.4 per cent this year, still behind average hedge fund gains of nearly 8 per cent.

      Emerging market managers have been benefiting from a recent decline in US Treasury yields, which soared earlier this year as the easing of coronavirus lockdown restrictions raised investor expectations of a strong US economic recovery and rising inflation.
      …

  28. How is the plan among environmental extremists to end all fossil fuel consumption by 20XX* working out?

    * XX = pick a fantasy number of your choice

    1. The Financial Times
      Oil
      Oil demand to surpass pre-pandemic levels by end of 2022, says IEA
      Consumption expected to rebound by 5.4m barrels a day this year
      Oil pumpjacks in California
      The International Energy Agency warned that slow vaccine distribution could jeopardise any rebound
      Anjli Raval, Senior Energy Correspondent June 11, 2021

      Oil demand is expected to exceed pre-coronavirus levels by the end of 2022, the International Energy Agency said on Friday, with the body calling on world producers to “open the taps”.

      Consumption declined by a record 8.6m barrels a day last year as coronavirus raged around the world. It is expected to rebound by 5.4m b/d this year as vaccines are rolled out and countries open up again.

      In 2022, the IEA expects a further 3.1m b/d increase, to average 99.5m b/d with an increase at the end of the year that will surpass the level of demand before the coronavirus crisis took hold.

      Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, ticked 0.2 per cent higher to $72.66, after closing at its highest since May 2019 on Thursday.

      The agency reiterated that Opec and its allies needed to “open the taps” to boost oil production and keep the world well supplied. The so-called Opec+ group is expected to raise production by 2m b/d between May and July.

      Still, the Paris-based body warned in its monthly oil market report that “the recovery will be uneven not only among regions but across sectors and products”.

      Slow vaccine distribution, it said, could “jeopardise” any rebound.

      The aviation sector would be the slowest to recover as governments kept in place certain travel restrictions “until the pandemic is brought firmly under control”, the IEA said. Petrol demand could also take longer to recover as work-from-home practices continue and the rising adoption of electric vehicles offsets increased mobility.
      …

Comments are closed.