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Betting That Property Prices Will Never Fall

A report from KBTX in Texas. “Sales are booming in the Brazos Valley. Laura Walker’s been in the market since mid-May looking at homes for her parents. They’re retired and looking to move from North Carolina. ‘I kind of had to re-evaluate my baseline and what I thought things were worth,’ Walker said. ‘Everything I was looking at I thought, ‘This is overpriced. This is overpriced.’ But then I realized if everything is that price, not overpriced, so I had to realign my brain and get my thinking in order.'”

The Charlotte Business Journal in North Carolina. “The Charlotte region’s frenzied housing demand is redefining the million-dollar market here. ‘A million dollars is what $500,000 was three years ago,’ says Libby Gonyea, an agent with Helen Adams Realty. ‘I feel like Charlotte has become a big-boy city. A million doesn’t get you a ton anymore, and sadly that’s a relatively affordable price range, especially close in town.'”

The Advocate in Louisiana. “Some local Realtors said they see signs the market is cooling off. ‘I’m noticing it slowing down a little bit,’ said Scott Saporito, president of the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtor’s board of directors. ‘It seems to make sense to me. With an all-time historically low number of listings, it’s hard to keep that amount of sales up.'”

“The rising prices are leading to some issues with appraisals, said Ashley LaBorde Vuci with Latter & Blum. People are making offers on homes that are well above the appraised value and lenders are shooting the deals down. That’s causing Realtors to have to do more work to help get the value of the home back up.”

The New York Post. “A federal moratorium on evictions is set to expire on Saturday but New Yorkers who owe back rent have breathing room for at least another month — infuriating landlords who are collectively holding billions of dollars worth of IOUs. Landlord Clarence Hamer, who owns a two-family rowhouse in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, said he’s owed $67,000 in back rent by a tenant who hasn’t paid anything since August 2019 — and he hasn’t been able to press his case in Housing Court due to the pandemic.”

“Olga Someras, general counsel of the pro-landlord Rent Stabilization Association, predicted that the housing courts would be overwhelmed by ‘the sheer volume of cases’ once the moratorium ends. ‘I think what you will see is a lot of people going into foreclosure, being forced to sell to cash buyers or people able to take advantage of landlords who can’t wait anymore for the court to allow their case to proceed,’ she said.”

From 9 News. “‘In Colorado approximately 180,000 people live in households that are behind on the rent,’ said Executive Director, COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, Zach Neumann. Balances some landlords don’t believe will ever be paid. ‘It’s like watching the meter at the gas pump go around. The money that you are putting out. And it’s like this is coming out of pocket. I may have to sell this home at foreclosure because I now can’t afford to keep it,’ said landlord Ann Janitell.”

The Daily Mail on California. “A group of about 40 housing and homeless advocates marched to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco mansion on Saturday to hang an ‘eviction notice’ on her door, demanding she reconvene Congress to pass legislation extending the eviction moratorium. The moratorium expired at midnight on Saturday, and the House Speaker was unable to garner enough support to pass a resolution extending it before Congress adjourned for summer break.”

“She has instead demanded that the Centers for Disease Control, which initially started the moratorium extend it, despite a Supreme Court ruling requiring Congressional authorization. This wasn’t the first time protesters came to Pelosi’s San Francisco mansion – in January, her home was vandalized with a pig’s head surrounded in a pool of red paint, with her garage door defaced with graffiti reading: ‘$2k cancel RENT! We want everything,’ an apparent reference to the stimulus check negotiations at the time.”

The Santa Barbara News Press in California. “Residents, who would never have advertised that they were Republicans by flying the flag in this Democrat stronghold for fear of being canceled by left-wing sympathizers, are now flying American flags year-round. One neighbor went and bought a bigger flag. ‘If you haven’t been canceled here, you haven’t lived,’ she recently told me.”

“Perhaps these flag-flying Democrats also imagine that if the supporters of the June 2020 BLM protest try a repeat performance this summer, they could even march up APS, into our neighborhood, demanding we turn over our houses to them as reparations. The mob would care less that most of the neighborhood leans left. It’s too far for the mob to reach the estates on the other side of Montecito. Perhaps all Americans should be flying their flags year-round until this socialist, communist madness stops.”

From Mansion Global on Canada. “Shattering records for British Columbia’s Lower Mainland region, a 22,000-square-foot Vancouver mansion sold earlier this month for C$42 million (US$33.35 million), Sotheby’s International Realty Canada has confirmed. Known as the Belmont Estate, the home hit the market last year for C$58 million. ‘Before Covid, the majority of interest in this property was from international buyers,’ said Christa Frosch, the Sotheby’s realtor who handled the sale. ‘But because they were unable to travel, and because it became difficult for some of them to move money to Canada, we had a domestic buyer. Our market has taken a huge adjustment because of international people not bringing money to Canada.'”

The Vancouver Sun in Canada. “One of the more shocking examples was the University of B.C. ‘student’ who bought a $31-million house a few years ago in Vancouver. There were also the nine different international students who snagged $57 million in mortgage money from Canadian banks to buy posh dwellings across Metro Vancouver. This is not to mention the countless other proxies who somehow obtained gigantic mortgages from Canadian banks without having to provide evidence they earned an actual income.”

“How can this happen even as ordinary Canadians find it a challenge to prove to banks they earn enough to secure a mortgage? Understanding how people serve as proxies for the real (or beneficial) owners of properties is a key to unravelling why Canadian house prices have spun out of control. At least two questions stand out about this inflationary phenomenon. Are such proxies still able to get whopping mortgages from Canadian banks? And what have been the long-lasting real-estate repercussions of this practice, especially for sought-after markets like Vancouver and Toronto?”

“In evidence before the Cullen Commission into money laundering in B.C., a UBC geography professor emeritus laid out how offshore capital has streamed into Canadian real estate. Up to 2016 ‘banks in Vancouver were giving preferential loan terms to foreign home-purchasers without full disclosure, effectively practising deregulation for non-Canadian clients,’ said author David Ley.”

“Stephen Punwasi, a Toronto-based real estate analyst, has also shown how Canadian banks were eager to give loans to foreign students with no jobs. He even published a photo of a bank branch poster, complete with a dragon-like Pokeman figure, telling international students to sign up for mortgages with ‘no income verification!'”

“North Vancouver-raised Ron Butler, who now heads one of Canada’s largest independent mortgage brokerages, says Metro Vancouver has ‘shown the ost insanity in the mortgage business.’ Another widely used technique for pumping huge amounts of speculative money into Canadian housing, Butler said, is by putting down payments on five to 10 presale condo units at the same time, typically in towers that are five years away from being constructed. The trick, the broker said, is to sell the condos to someone else by so-called ‘assignment’ just before a mortgage is required. By then the speculator, offshore or domestic, has already made a handy profit in Canada’s growing market. ‘I could spin this stuff all day,’ Butler said, explaining the numerous ways global capital has skewed housing affordability.”

From Good Returns New Zealand. “Following a surge in house price growth in recent months, more home loan applications are falling into banks’ ‘high value’ category, requiring a valuation. Cities outside of Auckland are seeing more homes than ever included in the ‘high value’ category. Homes in Tauranga are increasingly passing the $1 million mark, forcing buyers to get hold of a valuation before their loans can be rubber stamped.”

“The need for valuations is causing headaches for clients, with most vendors opting for auctions in a sellers’ market. Buyers are struggling to get the valuations they need on time in order to go unconditional with their offers. A host of mortgage brokers say valuation issues have become even more testing in recent weeks. Joel Oliver of SuperCity Mortgages said e-valuations were taking time to catch up to the market, and said banks had outdated luxury property price caps. He said, ‘$2 million in Auckland is no longer luxury.'”

From Bloomberg. “After a years-long campaign to tame property prices, China is upping the ante to break a stubborn cycle of gains that’s made homes increasingly unaffordable. In recent days, China jacked up mortgage rates in a major city, vowed to accelerate the development of government subsidized rental housing, and moved to increase scrutiny on everything from financing of developers and newly-listed home prices to title transfers. While China has spent years trying to cool property prices, analysts say this round of crackdowns will be different. One clear signal came in Vice Premier Han’s comments on steering away from using real estate to provide short-term boosts for the economy.”

“‘In the past, Beijing has consistently used the property sector to stabilize overall growth,’ Nomura analysts led by Lu Ting wrote in a research note, adding that they expect Beijing to change its playbook. Policy makers won’t lift property restrictions this time partly due to concerns about a systemic financial crisis, the analysts wrote.”

“Another signal came from the unusually large number of government entities that vowed recently to strengthen measures on everything from project development and home sales, to rental and property management services. Eight policy bodies said in a joint statement that they would step up penalties for misconduct. In the line of fire will be developers that default on debt repayments, delay deliveries on pre-sold homes or elicit negative news or market concerns.”

“All signs point to the government’s determination to ensure social stability, even if it spells near-term turmoil for capital markets. Just in June, Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, warned against betting that property prices will never fall. ‘Property is the single most important source of financial risks and wealth inequality in China,’ said Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Securities Ltd.”

From News.com.au in Australia. “Brittney Rigby has been saving for more than 10 years to become a homeowner, but as the Sydney resident watched property prices skyrocketing she wondered if it was ever going to become a reality. ‘This is the biggest purchase you are ever going to make, so it feels incredibly important to make the right decision. Obviously when you are looking at properties and you think it’s within the price range and it’s actually not and the market is willing to pay much more above what the real estate agent is saying or the valuations online are saying, it has felt really disheartening,’ she told news.com.au.”

“With their budget stretched to $950,000 and most places in Parramatta, where they were looking, going above the $1 million mark, the couple had started to think they had been priced out of the market and were on the verge of giving up. A few months ago the couple managed to snag a three-bedroom, two-bathroom property in North Parramatta. Ms Rigby said they simply got ‘lucky’ and are still in disbelief they got it. They can’t move in until November when an existing tenancy ends.”

“She admits, however, that transferring over 10 years of savings was hard. ‘It’s interesting because you know that money is growing towards this one big massive goal, which is the most expensive purchase you will ever make, and it’s hard to imagine that it’s only 5 per cent or 10 per cent of that entire amount,’ she said. ‘The toughest part was transferring money out and psychologically reconciling that it’s a good thing, versus [the fact that] all the money I had saved over a decade was gone.'”

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This Post Has 119 Comments

  1. ‘making offers on homes that are well above the appraised value and lenders are shooting the deals down. That’s causing Realtors to have to do more work to help get the value of the home back up’

    Ahem…

    1. This is the NAR’s idea of “fiduciary duty” towards its “clients.” REIC is an industry of crooks and dissemblers.

  2. ‘Everything I was looking at I thought, ‘This is overpriced. This is overpriced.’ But then I realized if everything is that price, not overpriced, so I had to realign my brain and get my thinking in order’

    You gotta roll with it Laura. BTW I believe this is the College Station area.

    1. I remember looking at a position in College Station a couple of decades ago. An adviser talked me out of it based on weather considerations.

  3. ‘which is the most expensive purchase you will ever make, and it’s hard to imagine that it’s only 5 per cent or 10 per cent of that entire amount’

    You might top it when you pay to get out of the loan Brittney.

    ‘The toughest part was transferring money out and psychologically reconciling that it’s a good thing, versus [the fact that] all the money I had saved over a decade was gone’

    Annnnd it’s died in the arse…

  4. ‘A million dollars is what $500,000 was three years ago…A million doesn’t get you a ton anymore’

    Yeah, there’s no bubble here.

    ‘a photo of a bank branch poster, complete with a dragon-like Pokeman figure, telling international students to sign up for mortgages with ‘no income verification!’

    The photo is at the link. Now that’s some sound lending right there. I’ve got a bit of history following this. It’s pretty much Chinese organized crime groups. They have lots of money supplying fentanyl, so they are responsible for many deaths every day, for years, and have no morals. And the guberment in Canadia has done very little to stop it, or less charitably, encouraged it widely. It’s worth noting the Vancouver Sun was one of the REIC that used to scream “racist!” at anyone who even mentioned “foreign” buyers or money laundering. Perhaps with the public being sick of this sh$t, they did an about face.

  5. “‘Everything I was looking at I thought, ‘This is overpriced. This is overpriced.’ But then I realized if everything is that price, not overpriced, so I had to realign my brain and get my thinking in order.'”

    She was beginning to see the light, but then debt donkey logic infected her brain, and crowded out her rational thinking capacity.

    The evidence that we are in another phase of an unsustainable worldwide bubble in residential real estate prices is as plain as the nose on your face to anyone who is paying attention. When central bankers and their globalist media mouthpieces are openly acknowledging it, you can be pretty sure that the game is in the late innings, and we’re just waiting for the fat lady to sing.

    1. This time is different…

      The Financial Times
      Global Economy
      Pandemic fuels broadest global house price boom in two decades
      FT Series: Low interest rates and extra savings have boosted market, reviving debate over financial stability
      Valentina Romei and Chris Giles in London August 1 2021

      House prices are booming in almost every major economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, forging the broadest rally for more than two decades and reviving economists’ concerns over potential threats to financial stability.

      Of the 40 countries covered by OECD data, just three experienced real-terms house price falls in the first three months of this year — the smallest proportion since the data series began in 2000, analysis by the Financial Times found.
      …
      Is it a bubble?

      Average house prices across the OECD are growing faster than incomes, making housing less affordable. They are also rising faster than rents.

      Adam Slater, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said properties in advanced economies were about 10 per cent overvalued compared with long-term trends. That makes this boom one of the biggest since 1900, he calculated — although nowhere near as big as the run-up to the financial crisis.

      However, he also noted that some factors pushing up prices were temporary, such as government tax incentives and pandemic-related economic dislocations including the disruption to global supply chains caused by delays at ports.

      Credit growth is lower than before the global financial crisis, suggesting “a lower risk of a bust compared to, say, 2006-2007”, he said.

      Mortgage growth was driven largely by people with strong financial positions, and across most advanced countries households were less indebted than before the financial crisis, suggesting a lower risk that the situation would follow the same path with a wave of defaults and fire sales, Igan at the IMF argued.

      One key factor is different from the situation nearly 15 years ago: central banks scarred by the previous housing bust are now more vigilant.

      The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has added house prices to its mandate and the European Central Bank has asked the EU statistics agency to include house prices in its headline inflation calculation.

      Aditya Bhave, economist at Bank of America, said policymakers around the world were “now acutely aware of the risks around housing policy”. In contrast to 2008, that “meaningfully reduces the chances of an adverse outcome”, he added.

    2. Barron’s
      Real Estate
      Up and Down Wall Street
      The Housing Market Is on Fire. The Fed Is Stoking the Flames.
      By Randall W. Forsyth
      Updated July 26, 2021 / Original July 23, 2021

      Driving with one foot on the brake and the other pressing the gas pedal to the floor. That describes the housing market, with the Federal Reserve pumping fuel into the system while supply and affordability constraints slow things down. At the very least, this is costly; at worst, it risks serious overheating and a breakdown.
      …

    3. Finance
      Fed weighs curbing cash machine as critics warn of housing, stock bubble
      Lawmakers are warning that the central bank’s vast purchases of government debt are feeding financial bubbles.
      Housing market
      Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged that Fed policies were contributing to higher home prices but cited other factors as well. | Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo
      By VICTORIA GUIDA
      07/26/2021 04:30 AM EDT

      Shortly after the pandemic struck last year, the Federal Reserve began buying billions of dollars in government debt every month to drive down borrowing costs and keep the economy from collapsing.

      Today, house prices are surging, stocks have continued their stratospheric rise, and banks have more cash than they know what to do with. Yet the Fed is still pumping billions into the economy. Why?
      …

    4. Some officials have read the handwriting on the wall and are opting for preemptive action instead of waiting for circumstances to force another desperation crisis response.

      July 30, 2021 9:37 AM PDT
      Last Updated 3 days ago
      Finance
      Bullard: Fed should taper this fall, go “fairly rapidly” to end early 2022
      Howard Schneider
      1 minute read
      St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard speaks at a public lecture in Singapore October 8, 2018.
      REUTERS/Edgar Su

      WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve should start reducing its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases this fall and cut them “fairly rapidly” so the program ends in the first months of 2022 and paves the way for an interest rate increase that year if needed, St. Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard said on Friday.

      In what amounted to a warning that his Fed colleagues risked a “scramble” to hike interest rates – and possibly spark a recession – if inflation remains high, Bullard said it was time to start accounting for that risk now.

      “We are tilted too much to the dovish side,” Bullard said in comments to reporters, urging the Fed to decide at its September meeting on a plan to phase out its bond purchases by the end of March, 2022. “The whole central bank community has been in dovish mode for a long time. If the data shift against us we may have to move quickly, and that can be disruptive.”
      …

      1. If the data shift against us

        You don’t need rear view mirror “data” to know what is happening, and why.

    5. “She was beginning to see the light, but then debt donkey logic infected her brain, and crowded out her rational thinking capacity.”

      A truly beautiful thing to behold.

      1. “When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”

        ― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

    6. REALITY SHOCK: “Everything I was looking at I thought, ‘This is overpriced. This is overpriced.”
      RATIONALIZATION: “But then I realized if everything is that price, not overpriced.”
      SELF DECEPTION/DENIAL: “So I had to realign my brain and get my thinking in order.”
      This, my dear friends, is the bubble-fed knee-jerk thinking which, unfortunately, can spread across the borg-mind masses brains like a greed and fear-fed viral A-Bomb. Never mind the fallout.

      1. >>”So I had to realign my brain and get my thinking in order.”

        >”It’s something Laura Walker has experienced firsthand. She’s been in the market since mid-May looking at homes for her parents. They’re retired and looking to move from North Carolina.”

        Here’s her chance to ruin their Golden Years!

  6. Are landlords about to enjoy a restoration of their property rights? Maybe rents will come back in line with incomes if people who don’t pay rent are no longer permitted squatter’s rights by government decree.

    I do expect the People’s Republic of California to overturn this somehow, with the result of even more people leaving the state.

    3. They aren’t done with that yet I don’t think. There is another attempt at a lockdown coming and this will breathe new life into the rent moratorium. Everything the central planners have in store for us depends on assuming total control over all aspects of the economy through these lockdowns. I don’t know if they will succeed but it’s a safe bet that they won’t give up trying.

  7. Some Real Journalist or their editor is going to get the ax for straying Off Narrative and calling NYC gang shootings what they are, instead of the globalist-approved term “gun violence.”

    ‘Brazen, coordinated attack’: Spray of bullets injures 10 people in NYC gang shooting

    https://news.yahoo.com/brazen-coordinated-attack-spray-bullets-231500246.html

    NEW YORK — Ten people were wounded when a pair of gunmen fired more than 40 shots down a Queens street in a brazen gang-related shooting, police said Sunday.

    The barrage of bullets on 37th Avenue near 99th Street in North Corona kicked off a bloody night in the city, where 18 people were either killed or wounded in seven separate shootings, police said.

  8. Everything I was looking at I thought, ‘This is overpriced. This is overpriced.’ But then I realized if everything is that price, not overpriced, so I had to realign my brain and get my thinking in order.’”

    A nation of sheep and lemmings.

    2. “Everything I was looking at I thought, ‘This is overpriced. This is overpriced.’ But then I realized if everything is that price, not overpriced, so I had to realign my brain and get my thinking in order.’”

      A nation of sheep and lemmings.”

      Crazy, isn’t it? At first, she “got it,” then the spinning wheels of fear and greed took over. It’s the exact same thinking that got folks into trouble in the Dot-Com Stock Bubble of 2000, RE bubble of 2008 and now the everything bubble. Sad.

  9. “A federal moratorium on evictions is set to expire on Saturday but New Yorkers who owe back rent have breathing room for at least another month — infuriating landlords who are collectively holding billions of dollars worth of IOUs.

    Landlords, were you somehow unaware that your rental properties were located in a Democrat-Bolshevik malgoverned municipality where parasitism and freeloading are enabled and encouraged? Have you tried stamping your little feet?

  10. “All signs point to the government’s determination to ensure social stability, even if it spells near-term turmoil for capital markets. Just in June, Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, warned against betting that property prices will never fall.”

    Ya gotta love it when a communist government is more worried about the distortions caused by central bank meddling in the housing sector than our own Fed is.

    1. “Why tell the truth when lying is easier…. and more profitable.”

      You use what works.

      Lying works best because the current population of dummies has been sufficiently dumbed-down so as to not even think to analyze or even question any statement that is artfully presented to them.

  12. Well you pay the tenants to move….unless down under forbids that.

    They can’t move in until November when an existing tenancy ends.”

  14. Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall-Vogg’s “flair for drama” is raising more questions about the integrity of November’s election in the Democrat-heavy city. It also underscores her cozy and questionable relationship with private “safe and secure” election groups funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

    Ryan Chew, who served as Wisconsin state lead for the Elections Group, wrote Woodall-Vogg a congratulatory email in the wee hours of election night — not long after Milwaukee County’s “lump-sum contribution” turned the tight presidential race between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican President Donald Trump “on its side.”

    “Damn Claire, you have a flair for drama, delivering just the margin needed at 3 a.m.,” wrote Chew in the email at 4:07 a.m., Nov. 4. “I bet you had those votes counted at midnight, and just wanted to keep the world waiting!”

    As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, after the city and county of Milwaukee dumped tens of thousands of previously uncounted absentee and early-voting ballots into the final tally, Trump went from a 109,000-vote lead to trailing Biden by 11,000 votes in pivotal battleground Wisconsin.

    “Once votes were tallied up shortly after 3 a.m., the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission scooped up the results and left the building, with a police escort waiting to take her the short drive to the Milwaukee County Courthouse where votes would be delivered to county officials,” the newspaper reported on Nov. 4.

    The county didn’t finish its full count until around 4 a.m.

    At about 1:30 a.m., Trump told the nation that he had won the election. He said he would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to stop all voting at that point because, “We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list.”

    Chew’s email to Woodall-Vogg sounds particularly troubling in that light.

    Chew didn’t return a voicemail message seeking comment. Nor did Woodall-Vogg respond to Wisconsin Spotlight’s questions.

    Did she indeed deliver “just the margin needed” for Biden to win? Was it just one of those jokes “nonpartisan” elections officials and activists share when they think no one is looking? Does Woodall-Vogg see how the email from such a controversial liberal activist as Ryan Chew might be concerning to voters questioning the integrity of the presidential election?

    All we know is what Woodall-Vogg said in response to Chew’s curious email.

    “LoL. I just wanted to wait to say I had been awake for a full 24 hours!” the Milwaukee Election Commission director wrote. Ahh, just another tireless public official doing the work of the people.

    We know that Chew, former long-time deputy director of Elections for Cook County, Ill., was a fierce critic of Trump and an avid supporter of Biden — based on his tweets in recent months.

    Congressmen @dgvaladao and @RepTomRice, thank you for your votes on impeachment, no doubt difficult for you, but important for the future of democracy. As I understand it, this was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history.

    — Ryan Chew (@ElectionsRyan) January 13, 2021

    In fact, just a couple hours after Chew’s elated email to Woodall-Vogg, the activist excitedly tweeted to Nate Silver, founder of political website FiveThirtyEight, and Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall that Biden was “pulling out Michigan!” Michigan, like Wisconsin, was a key battleground state and, like Wisconsin, was the site of myriad voting irregularities and election integrity questions.

    Michigan’s largest and Democrat-heavy cities also received a lot of grant money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL). The Chicago-based, liberal voting activist organization received $350 million in Zuckerberg donations ostensibly to fund “safe and secure” elections amid the pandemic. But all of those “Zuckerbucks” and the groups involved have raised red flags about the entrenched involvement of left-wing activists committed to taking down conservative Trump.

    Chew’s Elections Group was one of many election tech specialists in CTCL’s network. Wisconsin’s largest cities, “the WI-5”, are facing election complaints alleging they allowed CTCL and its partners to take over administration of the November election. Complainants are worried elections officials in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine delivered “just the margin needed” to swing the election.

    State Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls), who chairs the Assembly Campaign and Elections Committee investigating last year’s elections, said the emails between Chew and the Milwaukee elections director “leave little to believe that Claire Woodall-Vogg is non-partisan.”

    Brandtjen on Monday said further action is warranted to examine the broader issues raised.

    “IP addresses, chain of custody on ballots and audit trail logs must be thoroughly inspected by cyber-audit technicians in order to provide confidence for voters in our elections, both completed and upcoming,” the lawmaker said in a press release. “While Wisconsin is in the process of an election audit, I will be working to ensure that it is augmented with the expertise and resources to ensure a comprehensive, forensic examination. It is critical that the legislature realize the full extent of our current oversight shortcomings on elections.”

    Interestingly, Chew’s email to Woodall-Vogg included a message stamp, a quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “A Republic, if you can keep it.” And this, “Winners always believe they won fairly. The aim of an election official is that losers recognize they lost fairly.”

    https://wisconsinspotlight.com/email-delivering-biden-an-election-win/

    1. “Winners always believe they won fairly”

      In this case I’d be surprised if the “winners” believed that. They know what they did.

      Question: has anyone watched The Deep Rig documentary, and is it worth it? Their website is charging $45 to view, which seems high. I’ll pay it if it’s good, but am wondering if it’s a just a rehash of what we already know.

    2. “just the margin needed” Was all they could do, it was already going to be tough enough convincing over half the Nation that the man who couldn’t fill a parking lot the day before received 81 million votes, most votes ever while winning the fewest counties of any president-elect ever.

  15. 👀 👀 👀

    “The CDC Foundation is an independent nonprofit and the sole entity created by Congress to mobilize philanthropic and private-sector resources to support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s critical health protection work.”

    Check out its philanthropic donors and partners: https://www.cdcfoundation.org/partner-list/foundations

    1. https://www.fnih.org/our-programs/activ/about:

      “Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) is a public-private partnership led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and coordinated by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) to develop a research strategy for prioritizing and speeding development of the most promising COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.”

          1. IIRC, Steve Kirsch, a tech centi-millionaire, has been financially backing fluvoxamine.

        4. The pro-Ivermectin doctors have a strong argument: WHY do you need all these gold-plated studies to prove that Ivermectin works? Ivermectin is already a very safe drug. Even if it doesn’t work for COVID, isn’t that similar to, say, taking a couple ibuprofen even if you don’t have a headache? Or taking extra Vitamin D because there’s a theory it helps the immune system?
          What harm does Ivermectin do, that you need a full-blown COVID diagnosis to take it? Everyone should be able to take in, and indeed they are in India.

          Also consider the hypocrisy. Remdesivir was approved on almost NO evidence at all. The vaccines are being promoted to billions of people on the basis of, at best, abbreviated studies. They are rushing vaccines and drugs because we’re in a health emergency. And suddenly, Ivermectin needs a year’s long perfectly designed RCT?

          Nope, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it one bit.

          2. Also consider the hypocrisy. Remdesivir was approved on almost NO evidence at all.
            You should check the literature before making statements like that:
            https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2015301?query=TOC

            At baseline, patients randomly assigned to the 10-day group had significantly worse clinical status than those assigned to the 5-day group (P=0.02). By day 14, a clinical improvement of 2 points or more on the ordinal scale occurred in 64% of patients in the 5-day group and in 54% in the 10-day group. After adjustment for baseline clinical status, patients in the 10-day group had a distribution in clinical status at day 14 that was similar to that among patients in the 5-day group (P=0.14).
            There was improvement seen, it was small and not statistically significant.
            In patients with severe Covid-19 not requiring mechanical ventilation, our trial did not show a significant difference between a 5-day course and a 10-day course of remdesivir. With no placebo control, however, the magnitude of benefit cannot be determined.

            So they said they need a trial with a placebo group, even though there was an improvement seen.

            https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2015301?query=TOC

            Our data show that remdesivir was superior to placebo in shortening the time to recovery in adults who were hospitalized with Covid-19 and had evidence of lower respiratory tract infection.

            In a larger trial double-blind placebo controlled trial, remdesivir did show a statistically significant improvement in recovery time. It wasn’t great (IMO), but it still was positive.

            The pro-Ivermectin doctors have a strong argument: WHY do you need all these gold-plated studies to prove that Ivermectin works?
            Because too many studies on Ivermectin showed that it didn’t work. This is just one such study:
            https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.27122

            There are dozens of studies out there, I don’t have time to read them all. But the evidence that Ivermectin works is weak–many studies showed some effect, but those results weren’t statistically significant.

            In the world of clinical trials, results that are weak and not statistically significant demonstrate that the drug has marginal effect at best, and none in reality. Nevertheless, more trials are being conducted to prove the effectiveness of Ivermectin.

          3. The pro-Ivermectin doctors have a strong argument: WHY do you need all these gold-plated studies to prove that Ivermectin works? Ivermectin is already a very safe drug.

            Because the NULL Hypothesis is that there is no effect. You don’t practice medicine where you toss the scientific method out the window. If you did that, then you would give the patient 100 medications (that are safe by themselves) just in case one of them works.

            People demand that “science” should be followed. Well you aren’t doing that if you decide that Ivermectin MIGHT work in spite of the fact that its effect in trials is marginal at best, so just give Ivermectin just in case is DOES work.

            The NIH is starting a proper trial of Ivermectin in the people with mild disease. A trial like this is much harder to do because it’s inherently difficult to recruit subjects. People who have minimal Covid-19 might not have the disease at all and they don’t seek any medical care. So they remain unknown.

            The trial that is being done now gets around these difficulties by not being based at medical facilities. I won’t go into the boring technical details. Ivermectin might have a significant clinical effect on people with mild disease who aren’t hospitalized but we’ll have to wait for the clinical trial results.

            And did you consider one of the BIG unintended consequences of you desire to just give Ivermectin to everyone? If you did that, then it would be IMPOSSIBLE to ever know if Ivermectin actually worked since without a placebo group, you can’t determine efficacy.

          4. Ben, this is why doctors who are actually treating Covid-19 patients or drug researchers who are actively involved with clinical trials on Ivermectin or other Covid-19 candidates, will never post comments here. Why? They aren’t going to waste their time arguing with a bunch of laypeople who don’t know anything technical about how medicine is practiced or the drug development process.

            Nobody actually working in this area is going to waste their time trying to convince uninformed people about why clinical trials are done and the justifications for the rules that are set in place. I’m retired without a whole lot to do so that’s why I’m here. But even I don’t like to have to post things about basic science—I never paid any attention to the Oprah crowd while I was working and I’m not going to start now.

    3. I mentioned before I read an LA Times article on the CDC and the eviction moratoriums. Basically they don’t have any authority to do anything. (The Times danced around the obvious cuz they’re globalist scumbags as are the “donors” you posted). Like so many other things that have been dumped on this sh$t cart, it’s was all made up out of thin air.

    1. What happened to “99% of the infected are unvaxxed”?

      What happened is that it’s time to change the Narrative: If you don’t get a booster, you will die!

      I wonder how many more people the booster shots will kill? Plus all the long term harm which is still unknown.

      1. Also, just read on 9News that the City of Dumver now requires all city employees have to receive the clot shot.

        Mayor Michael Hancock (D-Denver) announced Monday all city and county employees, along with private-sector employees in high-risk settings, will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sep. 30.

        The Governor is scheduled to make an announcement later today. I expect it will be more of the same.

        I would ask how can an experimental vaccine be legally mandatory, but I know that there is no true rule of law anymore.

      2. They definitely changed the narrative. It used to be “5% chance of a symptom” and now it’s “5% of going to hospital, but 40% (and rising) chance of a positive PCR test and some unspecified chance of a symptom, and oh by the way you can still spread it.”

        BTW Delta appears to be out-competing the Beta (South African) variant in South Africa. This is very good news. The Beta variant was the one that had most potential for vaccine escape, and escape from previous infection (the JHopkins paper I referenced yesterday).

  17. My worse nightmare came true.
    My Niece came to visit me for the weekend. with her boyfriend. The last time I talked to her she said she would never take one of the vaccines.
    So they arrive and she tells me that both of them had to get the vaccine because their jobs demanded.
    I wish she would of told me before coming because now I’m stuck for two days in my house with vaccine takers. The drove 4 hours to see me, so I didn’t have the heart to turn them away.
    So, if I get Covid or some spike disease you know why.
    But anyway, come to find out her boyfriend she lives wIth is a liberal who thinks the unvaccinated should be forced to get the jab. Than my niece gets in a big fight with him telling him he’s a asshole because he’s been brainwashed. My niece was obviously pissed off because her work mandated she get the jab. All the while I’m setting there not vaccinated , which they both knew I wasn’t while I watch A heated argument between them on should the unvaccinated be allowed choice or not.
    While her boyfriend is a nice guy, he had all the brainwashing of CNN.
    I didn’t express my anger inside that it was wrong they didn’t give me the information they were vaccinated before they came being I’m also a older person. I didn’t hit them with what I know about vaccine either , I just watch two vaccinated people argue over what should be done to the unvaccinated.
    So, if I get Covid or something else, after being careful for 20 months its because I should
    of told them to turn around because it was rude to not tell me what their status was. I am so mad at myself that I put up with this nonsense.
    And come to find out the boyfriend was afraid of me , even when he was vaccinated, .
    So I can imagine all the divide that is going on in this County.
    So now I’m worried about my Niece getting adverse effect down they road , as I am about a lot of friends I know.She had promised me she would get another job if her Company demanded vaccines, but she got pressured into it.
    I got a friend who yelled at me on the phone and hung up because I’m not vaccinated.. These people are so brainwashed that its beyond belief.

  19. I’m surrounded by the brainwashed dumb ass people in California who want to force a big guinea pig injection on me. And they are insanity vicious about it with some thinking the unvaccinated should go to camps or be denied food.
    Now I know how a Nation like Germany could be brainwashed by some nut like Hitler. I always wondered how people could be so dumb . It requires fake censored news, exactly what they are doing. And the people who are being brainwashed daily by the fraudulent narratives have no clue they are victims of fraud and bogus science. They would give up freedoms for collective cult like group think based on fraudulent narratives based on false fear mongering.
    And they have been so deceived to become true believers in this collective insanity, that facts don’t even sway them.
    So the unvaccinated or anyone that still believes in free choice they would like to stone. And if they only knew that the unvaccinated are not the enemy, and that who they worship is the enemy.
    z never seen anything like this in my life.

    1. I’m surrounded by the brainwashed dumb ass people in California who want to force a big guinea pig injection on me.

      If you own a shack, sell it and get out of Dodge. And if you don’t … get out of Dodge.

      1. What if I go to a state and than the Governor of that state turns and make mandates?Or what if that traitor Biden makes a National Mandate. At that point what would be the options. I’m thinking in spike of selling my guns a while back because of my eye site, getting a gun again might be good to do.

        1. You can start here:

          Seven states—Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming—did not issue orders directing residents to stay at home from nonessential activities in March and April 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

    2. I’ve lost friends and bit my tongue to not lose more this last year. Even around family who’ve been jabbed, I have to catch myself mid-sentence to shut up. It sucks.

      1. I’ve said this before: those people are not your friends and they were never your friends. No big loss.

      2. I have notice it doesn’t matter what facts you give them ,they can’t think At one point I told the boyfriend of my niece about all the successful medications they had to combat Covid. He didn’t have a clue. And the kicker was he thought Biden was great. At that point I knew I wasn’t going to accomplish anything . To bad because he is actually a nice guy who treats my niece pretty good.

      3. I really don’t give AF about sharing my feelings about the jab. I tell both vaxxed and unvaxxed that I am unvaxxed and have zero intention of getting the jab. If they ask why I simply tell them that when big pharma was released of all liability and people have no recourse, that I would never, ever take an experiment in my arm.

        1. “To bad because he is actually a nice guy”

          Nice or a passive aggressive do gooder whose niceness is a disguise for his hidden fascist sympathies? Just asking.

          1. “To bad because he’s a nice guy..”
            Funny, but I went into a big lecture about fascism and communism and Mao and how many people they killed. I just wanted to see what he would say.
            While he though that was horrible, he has a disconnect mentally that his vaccine position is that kind of mentally.
            He thinks everything will get back to normal if people will just do what the Gov. needs them to do. I suggested to him that Governments are corrupt and the current Gov. Is wicked and corrupt and the news is just brainwashing people.
            He just looked at me like this couldn’t be true.
            He was raised in a home where they were ra ra government I guess.
            I would need tons of time to deprogram him , and I would never get that time. He’s happy in his Illusions. Dumb ass , but he’s nice to my niece who has had a hard time finding a guy .

          3. And the way that you learn that there are worse things than being alone is be experiencing things that are worse than being alone. Damage already done.

        2. I also like to remind people that while Covid is a nasty virus, that it isn’t the black death and that I fear the vaxx more than the virus itself.

          1. And the Black Death was bacteria, spread by rats, it wasn’t a virus.
            I also get the impression after study, that a number of historic Panademics were caused by toxins in the water.
            Dr Fauci funding gain of function to actually create disease is outrageous, yet this bastard is held up as the Spokesman for this crisis

  21. If this virus is so deadly to people with co morbidities, why aren’t homeless people dropping like flies?

    1. Maybe the homeless are out in the sun more and get more vitamin D. They walk around a lot and get exercise. What kills them is drugs.

  22. Covid Vaccines: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

    The Israeli data shown above indicates that effectiveness against infection and mild symptoms decreases rapidly over time and reaches near-zero levels after about half a year. Most likely, this is because covid vaccines do not achieve mucosal immunity (in contrast to natural infection) and serum antibody levels (i.e. antibodies in the blood) decrease within months (see chart below).

    Thus, the false promise of very high protection against “symptomatic infection”, found during official vaccine trials, was simply based on very high short-term serum antibody levels mimicking mucosal immunity. Conceivably, the pharmaceutical companies may even have known that this was just a (very lucrative) “flash in the pan” and not a lasting protective effect.

    In contrast, protection against severe disease is achieved by lower serum antibody levels in combination with immunological memory (B cells) and cellular immunity (T cells). However, the Delta variant has already achieved partial immune evasion (as did Beta and Gamma, but not Alpha), and future coronavirus variants will likely achieve almost complete immune evasion.

    Thus, vaccine protection even against severe disease will likely further decrease due to new variants, or, in the very worst case, will turn into antibody-dependent disease enhancement (ADE), if high levels of non-neutralizing antibodies aggravate the infection. Indeed, this is what happened in the case of vaccines against SARS-1 and dengue fever.

      1. “In other words, you think a booster tweaked for Delta is a good idea, right?”

        For you, yes, It’s a great idea. Go for it. It’s going to be so awesome for you.

        1. While everyone looks at the Pfizer data and screams about how “the vaccine” is fading, the fail to recognize that Pfizer isn’t the end-all be-all. Benchtop data from J&J supports initial observations that their vaccine improves with time.

          1. Benchtop data

            Too funny!

            Vaccine

            You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means. There are no vaccines for Covids.

      2. you think

        My thoughts on these genetic juice injections should be pretty clear by now: do not take them; if you have taken them, do not take more. They pose more risk than benefit as time goes on. If you get sick, have a telemedicine visit with a doctor who will treat you and have the medications delivered to your door. If you wind up in the hospital, inquire about Regeneron’s antibody cocktail.

      1. drumminj,

        Anything we can do about that? Like unitalicize and decrease the font size?

        2. Anything we can do about that? Like unitalicize and decrease the font size?

          Turn off the JT extension and have a look back at the quotes — the extension is already already shrinking the font size and reducing whitespace 😉

          I tried not to deviate drastically from Ben’s chosen formatting, just clean it up a bit. But I can try to tweak it some more when I have “free” time.

          (hah! my weekends are usually spent driving fenceposts, clearing forest, etc. But I’ll see what I can do)

          2. And finishing the day with a nice glass of red wine?

            Always! Sometimes even middle-ing the day with a nice glass of red wine 🙂

            2017 Antica Terra Pinot Noir tonight. Paired well with the fish tacos.

          3. FYI, I’m working on publishing 4.10.2 that should tweak things a bit – likely not as extreme as y’all would like, but as I said I’m trying not to re-format too majorly.

            But the font size and spacing should be a bit tighter/match regular text now.

    1. The most memorable part of this video: the variants match up with the countries in which clinical trials were conducted. Is that why they switched to the Greek alphabet?! With one variant per month we’ll hit omega in February 2023.

  24. “She admits, however, that transferring over 10 years of savings was hard. ‘It’s interesting because you know that money is growing towards this one big massive goal, which is the most expensive purchase you will ever make, and it’s hard to imagine that it’s only 5 per cent or 10 per cent of that entire amount,’ she said.”

    So if it takes them 10 years of savings to pay for 10% of the cost then it will take them 90 years to pay off the the principal. At least their money is going towards one big realistic goal.

    1. then it will take them 90 years to pay off the the principal

      Only if they didn’t have interest, taxes, insurance, furnishing and depreciation. Saving money has none of these addons.

  25. ” Landlord Clarence Hamer, who owns a two-family rowhouse in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, said he’s owed $67,000 in back rent by a tenant who hasn’t paid anything since August 2019″

    How many of these homes will hit the market after the moratorium is over and owners never want to risk being a landlord again?

    1. My husband, who’s a property manager, has lost 6 homes to sales in 2021 so far. Three properties have yet to go on the market. His two colleagues have also lost a few. And, one of their contractors is putting his house on the market this Saturday and leaving the state.

  26. Rules for thee, not for me:

    Milestone birthdays are always a big deal and a cause for celebration, so former President Barack Obama is throwing himself a 60th birthday party on Friday. But many in the Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts area are concerned that a large, ahem, very large party of over 400 people isn’t the best look amid concerns that the Delta variant cases of COVID-19 are rising rapidly.

    According to CNN, the Obamas plan to follow a strict set of rules for their guests, including holding the event outside, require mandatory testing before entering the party and have “a COVI safety coordinator on site.”

    1. PS – I never include links for my quotes, but you can just copy and paste the quote to find the article source. No need to waste Ben’s time moderating or give money and clicks to globalist cucks.

      1. moderating

        Even without links I have comments that require moderation. I have yet to figure out what triggers it.

        1. I have yet to figure out what triggers it.

          Key words trigger moderation. Hence why we type “raycis” instead of the proper word.

          It is frustrating. I still get burned by it, wonder what bad word I typed.

  27. “Insurrection” my asz. Not a single person was armed nor did they attempt to harm any police or officials. They were taking selfies. What a joke these libtard journalist cucks are.

    WASHINGTON – A District of Columbia police officer who responded to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has died by suicide, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, the third officer to do so.

  28. “by putting down payments on five to 10 presale condo units at the same time, typically in towers that are five years away from being constructed. The trick, the broker said, is to sell the condos to someone else by so-called ‘assignment’ just before a mortgage is required.”

    It occurred to me that this is effectively equivalent to a call option–an option to buy–with similar leverage and volatility.

  29. Interesting developments today with Cuomo. Biden’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t ask Cuomo to resign. If Biden does, will Cuomo go after Biden for similar behavior? 🍿

    1. Ironically, Biden is not Cuomo’s boss. He could just say “That is up to the people of NY.” but he won’t.

      1. Biden’s being asked as the “leader” of the Democrat party, not as Cuomo’s boss.

        1. the “leader

          Ok, if you want to take that slant. Then he should tell Cuomo that these are accusations, not tested in court at all, made by a vicious political rival (the whatshername AG) . Tell him to stand his ground, never surrender.

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