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People Borrowed Activity From The Future, And Now It Seems The Future Has Arrived

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Median selling prices in July declined 10% from June’s record high of $812,000 for a single-family home. Multiple offers are also down, as well as the number of bidding wars, according to the report. Greater Boston Association of Realtors President Dino Confalone says it remains a seller’s market, but it’s starting to show more price adjustments, and inventory is sitting on the market longer.”

“Some Portland area brokers are experiencing fewer showings, longer sell times and residential properties under contract bouncing back onto the market. Has panic buying and zealous bidding finally reached a stopping point? The third quarter appears to be leveling out,’ said broker Adriana Focke. Focke explains the recent change in pace by pointing to one of her properties for sale. The four-bedroom house on a 3,920-square-foot lot was placed on the market on Friday, Aug 6. ‘I was expecting a busy weekend with back-to-back showings, but … the home is still available,’ she said.”

“Focke said other real estate agents are having similar experiences with their new listings, including those priced under $500,000. ‘I have seen several withdrawn listings in the last two weeks,’ she said.”

“In a sign the Central Texas housing market could be cooling, home sales across the region and within the city of Austin declined last month — the first time that’s happened since May 2020. ‘The level of appreciation we’ve been seeing could taper off a little bit,’ Eldon Rude, a longtime Austin-area housing market consultant. Geof Sloan, an agent with Black Label Real Estate Advisors, said he’s seeing more open houses and more price reductions than earlier in the year — inventory remains in short supply and it’s still ‘an extrememly strong sellers’ market. ‘It’s kind of like going 85 (mph) down the toll road but you slowed down to 70,’ Sloan said.”

“The California Association of Realtors suggests that the region’s housing market may be leveling off. The median cost of a single-family home in the Bay Area dipped 3.6% in July compared to the previous month, the report found, and prices declined or plateaued in all but two of the region’s nine counties. The number of homes sold last month compared to June dropped significantly in several counties, including a 26% decline in Napa County and a 21% dip in San Francisco.”

“The biggest regional price drop in July was a 7.7% decrease in Sonoma County, to a median $761,700 sale price, followed by a 7.3% dip in San Mateo County to $2.1 million. Prices dropped 5% in San Francisco, to a median $1.9 million.”

“Sylvester Stallone is attempting to offload his lavish Beverly Hills mansion, after once having the enormous property on the market for over $100 million but seeing no action. The ‘Rocky’ star first listed the mega estate back in January for $130 million. He ended up slashing the price on it by some $25 million before removing the listing.  Now, Stallone is putting his more-than-modest home back on the market for $85 million.”

“Marcia Riklis has bought a $6.6 million Upper East Side home at Beckford Tower, according to city property records.That’s more than 10% off its $7.49 million asking price. Not bad, especially since Riklis took a hit on her former co-op at 980 Fifth Ave., which she bought for $8.4 million in 2012 and had listed for sale for $6.35 million last year. That unit later sold for the asking price in mid-March.”

“The Toronto-area real estate market feels more sleepy in August than it has in a long while. Rochelle DeClute, broker at Union Realty in Toronto, senses that the ‘fear of missing out’ that fueled the spring chaos has dissipated. One side effect of the slower market appears to be that some people who bought in the spring when the market was at its peak are now having trouble securing financing at closing time. Ms. DeClute has heard from others in the industry that a few deals have fallen through because the buyer paid a lofty price in the spring, only to find the lender’s appraisal a few months later comes in below the sale price.”

“That can happen when the appraiser looks at the prices comparable houses have been selling for in the neighourhood. If some steam is coming out of the market in that area, nearby houses may be trading at softer prices and the lender may ask the buyer to come up with a larger down payment to close the gap. It also creates a crisis for the sellers if they need the funds to close the deal on their next property.”

“Around three-quarters of respondents expected demand for housing to ease across the country this year, including in hot spots like Toronto and Vancouver, while nearly 60% predicted that the chill would linger at least a little while longer. ‘The dramatic fall in interest rates created a sense of urgency to get into the market, so in many ways people borrowed activity from the future, and now it seems the future has arrived,’ said Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets.”

“Two years after his Ralan Group collapsed leaving apartment buyers about $230 million out of pocket, founder William O’Dwyer has been declared bankrupt. Mr O’Dwyer, was made bankrupt on July 28 following a debtor’s petition he made, according to the Australian Financial Security Authority’s National Personal Insolvency Index. At the time of its collapse Ralan had a development pipeline of more than 3000 residential units and debts of more than $560 million, including to secured lenders such as Westpac and Wingate.”

“A 4,600 sq ft luxury penthouse in Hong Kong, which was previously owned by the debt-laden mainland Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, has been put up for sale by creditors.The fully furnished four-bedroom flat is on the 45th floor of 39 Conduit Road, Mid-Levels, one of the most prestigious addresses in the world’s most expensive property market.”

“Third and fourth-tier city property prices in China have dipped this year as indebted property developers dump units to replenish their coffers and in response to local buyers’ diminished purchasing power due to the Covid-19 pandemic. One city’s authorities are intervening in the market in what some see as a bid to prevent a contagion effect across the nation’s wider low-end property market. Yueyang, a prefecture-level city in southern central Hunan province, recently announced a ban on home price discounts of more than 15%.”

“The announcement came soon after Evergrande Real Estate Group offered slash-rate discounts on its apartments in the city in June. At the same time, people have been warned to buy properties in lower-tier cities only for self-use and not as speculative investments, as the oversupply situation in these cities would continue for some more time, according to some mainland economists.”

“In October 2019, Evergrande announced it would slash the prices of its apartments in Yueyang by about 3,000 yuan per square meter.Last year, Evergrande offered more price cuts to potential homebuyers. In February 2021, it launched a nationwide 25% discount on all of its property projects. This year, the company sold its apartments in Yueyang at as low as 5,400 yuan per square meter, similar to the level before the wave of speculation started in 2016.”

“A commentary published by Sina.com said it was understandable that the local government in Yueyang banned property price cuts of more than 15% as a sharp decline in home prices would hurt the government’s land sales revenue. The commentary added that many local governments in lower-tier cities relied heavily on land sales to generate their fiscal income but they would not likely be allowed by Beijing to loosen their property curbs for some more time.”

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This Post Has 98 Comments

  1. ‘recently announced a ban on home price discounts of more than 15%’

    You gotta add a prefecture-level stamping of little feet for it to be effective.

    3. WHOA…

      How long before western “free societies” start copying from their Chinese masters?

      I give it 6 months to a year.

      1. The preferred Western method appears to be printing money so the gov (or a gov lackey like Blackrock) can pay the decreed price.

        1. I am wondering if the Blackrocks will be recruited (with cheap Fed money) to keep buying to prop up the market?

          1. “SHANGHAI (Reuters) -BlackRock Inc has become the first global asset manager licensed to start a wholly owned onshore mutual fund business in China, as the government opens up the country’s $3.5 trillion mutual fund industry”.

            https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/blackrock-becomes-first-to-operate-wholly-owned-china-mutual-fund-biz/ar-AAKVJsD

            In related news I just found out that there is a kosher approval insignia (label) on my dishwashing detergent. One is left to ponder how dishwashing detergent can be rendered “kosher” and why anyone would even bother to do so?

  2. ‘a few deals have fallen through because the buyer paid a lofty price in the spring, only to find the lender’s appraisal a few months later comes in below the sale price…and the lender may ask the buyer to come up with a larger down payment to close the gap. It also creates a crisis for the sellers if they need the funds to close the deal on their next property’

    = yer fooked.

  3. ‘took a hit on her former co-op at 980 Fifth Ave., which she bought for $8.4 million in 2012 and had listed for sale for $6.35 million last year. That unit later sold for the asking price in mid-March’

    That’s some red hotcakes right there.

  4. ‘The biggest regional price drop in July was a 7.7% decrease in Sonoma County, to a median $761,700 sale price, followed by a 7.3% dip in San Mateo County to $2.1 million. Prices dropped 5% in San Francisco, to a median $1.9 million’

    Eat yer crowz Thornberg…

  6. ‘I was expecting a busy weekend with back-to-back showings, but … the home is still available’

    Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
    Mum mum mum mum mum mum
    Get a job, sha na na na, sha na na na na

    1. In 3 months we’ll be doing a trash out. Hold the door Jonesy! We’re gonna give all this shit the heave-ho! Rrrrrrright into the roll off!

      1. Calling Ben “Jonesy” is all the grounds I need for kicking you in the jimmies. Consider yourself warned, my good friend.

        2. Jonesey isa badge of honor in my book. Hearkens back to the genius sonarman in The Hunt for Red October who could see what no one else suspected .

  7. Today is Friday, August 20th and Joe Biden is not the legitimately elected president of the United States.

    The 2020 election was stolen, nobody believes your lies, and you can’t silence us.

    The Day Of The Rope is coming, globalists 🙂

          1. Notice the other cops run for it while the guy disembowels the thug and then gives him a head chop to finish him off.

          3. “aoc is too stupid to know what this means.”

            She definitely fits the mold. The woman has rocks in her head.

          4. https://www.bitchute.com/video/jtAcYghQxX8A/

            “Cornered the rat”.

            Ouch………..

            Boy, that was ugly. It appears that the newly elected “kid” does his homework well. Although it may have been much more humane to just do the lying, old school Dutch politician a favor and quickly end his embarrassment with an ax.

          5. When the only remedy you leave for the peasants is violence, don’t be surprised when they use it.

    2. LMFAO@ the phony DHS wetting the bed about extremist online “chatter” about the stolen election.

      This isn’t Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or Reddit. And the Southern Poverty Law Center was never elected, and has no legal authority over anything.

      There will be trials, convictions, and executions, in that order.

        1. A shakedown racket on speed-dial to the Washington Post, the self-anointed Language Police. Nobody elected these @ssholes, they don’t govern anything.

          We are the ones you can not cancel.

          And you can not silence us…

  8. How To Be Part Of The 5.8 Billion Of Automatic Federal Student Loan Forgiveness

    Alan Gassman
    Aug 19, 2021,06:09pm EDT|780 views

    Today’s press release is relatively straightforward for those who are already receiving Social Security disability payments, but is silent in regards to those whose Social Security disability applications are pending or have not yet been filed. According to the SSA (Social Security Administration) website, it generally takes anywhere from 3 to 5 months for the agency to reach a decision. This is not including any additional time that may be spent filing for reconsideration or waiting for a hearing date. The whole process can take up to 3 years.

    The long awaited announcement comes as a relief to many borrowers who have been unable to obtain and maintain employment due a physical or physiological mental impairment and are therefore unable to pay back their student loans. While borrowers have been previously able to use the Total and Permanent Disability (TBD) discharge program to have their student loans canceled, individuals were required to fill out a formal application and many borrowers were not aware that they even qualified for loan forgiveness.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/alangassman/2021/08/19/how-to-be-part-of-the-58-billion-of-automatic-federal-student-loan-forgiveness/

  10. “Around three-quarters of respondents expected demand for housing to ease across the country this year, including in hot spots like Toronto and Vancouver, while nearly 60% predicted that the chill would linger at least a little while longer. ‘The dramatic fall in interest rates created a sense of urgency to get into the market, so in many ways people borrowed activity from the future, and now it seems the future has arrived,’ said Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets.”

    – So, global central banks dropped mortgage rates to artificially low levels again in order to stimulate housing demand. This has again, predictably, led to a housing bubble, which has, temporarily, stimulated the economy via “the wealth effect.” However, there’s no organic growth when it’s dependent on artificial stimulus. Moreover, all of this demand was pulled forward in time from the future, so now that the bubble has peaked, there’s a huge air pocket in time of where that demand used to be. So, again, predictably, due to lack of demand, sales decline, prices fall, and the bubble deflates. This is called “the anti-wealth effect,” which is mysteriously absent from the Fed’s play book, since they never see bubbles until after they pop and they’re never at fault for blowing them.

    – Unproductive debt-based growth isn’t creating actual wealth. Wealth is a positive balance sheet (assets minus liabilities). Capital and savings are used for productive investments. Excess debt is just debt, which can exacerbate liquidity problems due to leverage, and then lead to insolvency (BK).

    – I think we’ll see this play out largely as it did in housing bubble 1.0, since the cheap credit, lax lending standards, low down payments, mania psychology, etc. also inflated housing bubble 2.0, which is only one component of “The Everything Bubble,” the mother of all bubbles (MOAB).

    “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein (misattributed) – Narcotics Anonymous

    “The four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different.'” – Sir John Templeton

    – The Fed and other central banks are nefarious and dangerous entities with full knowledge of what they have wrought. They should never have been allowed to exist. The pretext was as “lender of last resort” to “prevent” crashes and depressions, when actually they’re blowing massive bubbles and creating worse economic cycles than without them. Recall that The Great Depression (1930s) occurred despite the formation of the Fed in 1913.

    “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” – Milton Friedman

    “The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.” – Lord Acton

    “And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord Acton

    – Thank you HBB for documenting housing bubble 2.0; soon to be a global financial conflagration. Think slow-motion train wreck and you won’t be far wrong. Just like U.S. housing bubble 1.0, only much bigger, as enabled by your local central bank and government.

    “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H L Mencken

    1. “…The pretext was as “lender of last resort” to “prevent” crashes and depressions…”

      If anything, the Fed has morphed in the ‘lender of first resort’ by virtue of creating money out of thin air.

      Red Pill Economics – Thanks for interesting and informative piece.

      1. octal77 – YW. Like the blog host and most posters on this blog, I call ’em like I see ’em. Livin’ the dream (nightmare?).

        “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.” – Groucho Marx 🙂

      1. In Mohave County they call the wooden part an “unapproved addition.” They are more common than not in older Bullhead City shacks.

    2. Oh, Wow. Grab this one before its overrun with rattlesnakes.

      Just gotta’ love the REIConplex description “Needs some work”

      Also of interest is the photo of the ladder and the H20 heater.

      I guess listing agent wanted to make the point that the heater looks brand new.

      1. LOL@ a “war” what a bunch of clowns.

        BTW that Telegram app/website is full of #BadThink. If globalists can’t censor it, you probably shouldn’t be reading it 🙁

    1. Never mind the insane list price or the interminable Dutch auction sale. From $2 million to $47 million over 40 years is an 8.2% annual return, before considering HODLing costs of course. It doesn’t seem terrible.

      “The property’s longtime owner, attorney Leonard Ross, had been trying to sell the property on and off since 2007. Mr. Ross bought the property more than 40 years ago for less than $2 million and listed it for $195 million in 2016, reported The Wall Street Journal.”

      1. Note that $100 million today is of comparable real value to $1 million in 1950. That’s a lot of inflation!

  16. It should be pretty clear by now that a Innsurrection of Globlist Monopolies/Banking Cartel/Elites have been corrupting Governments for a takeover to usher in a One World Order Dictorship by these Entities.

    A unjustified contrived Panademic , and a criminal rigged election to place Puppets in White house Congress and Senate and Corrupted Government agencies including health agencies.

    Monopoly fake and censored news operating in Collusion with Monopoly Innsurrection to take over by fraudulent and fake news for Medical Tyranny as a weapon of destruction of Constitutional protections. Destruction of small business by lockdowns to destroy Monopoly competition. Monopoly looting and relief packages of the tax coffers to enrich the Monopolies over the unjustified lockdowns.
    Fraudulent suppression of cheap drugs that worked against Covid , so Emergency Use Authorization of untested vaccines would be the only solution for the Covid. One Doctor said that this killed probably 500 thousand that could of been saved absent their suppression of cheap drugs that worked.
    Bribery , extortion and threat of job loss to Medical system if they didn’t comply with the contrived Panademic. Fake PCR test used to fake a Panademic.
    Fraudulent cover up of adverse effects from untested vaccines , with corrupted FDA not protecting the Public by pulling the vaccines.

    More unjustified lockdowns coming, with freedoms taken by Monopolies mandating vaccines to keep your job, denial of commerce if you don’t take a untested vaccine, and prison camps being built to house the non compliant to health passports. They also want to vaccine all the children with no regard to the fact they aren’t a risk group for Covid.

    The one thing that stands out about this Innsurrection and dictorship by this collusion of Monopolies is they are no different than any invading army that wants to murder, imprison and destroy their opposition to impose their dictorship. They even collude with Foreign enemies.

    Destruction of Constitutional protections , Fraudulent narratives to divide and conquer, murder and destroy the US and other Countries to come under their dictorship.They have been planning this for a long time, but it was speeded up by the Trump election pushback .

    How do you like the FRAUD and TYRANNY of these Entities that are fraudulent psychopathic monsters . They are the enemy that has a agenda of a One World Order Dictorship of US and other Countries , while they loot , murder and reek chaos and havoc to take over.
    With Government being in the camp of the enemy, no other choice but the People to stop this insurrection . lawsuits are filed to stop it, but the Judiciary is riddled with the enemy. Non compliance by millions and millions would be the only way. Just non compliance might be better than protests in the final analysis. While protest is saying what you don’t like, non compliance is doing what you object to by action, with willingness of consciences.
    In France the Gov is just ignoring the protests and making the ridicules mandates anyway.

    1. And that is not the only way he is cheating. He made tens or hundreds of thousands of non citizens into citizens with the driver license process.
      The DL paper form asks citizenship status.
      The non citizen status was converted after computer entry at the local level. The computers in Sacramento flipped the status to citizen.
      No paper trail as the original document had been destroyed.
      That was about five years or more back and has been hushed up.

  20. Osama bin Laden BANNED al Qaeda from trying to assassinate Joe Biden because he believed he would be an incompetent president and ‘lead the US into a crisis’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9911499/Osama-bin-Laden-predicted-Joe-Biden-lead-America-crisis.html

    Osama bin Laden banned al Qaeda from assassinating Joe Biden because the Democrat would become an incompetent president and ‘lead the US into a crisis’ if jihadists were successful in killing Barack Obama.

    Bin Laden made the remark in a 2010 letter that was found in a trove of documents at the Pakistan compound where he was killed by US special forces in 2011.

  21. “Median selling prices in July declined 10% from June’s record high of $812,000 for a single-family home. Multiple offers are also down, as well as the number of bidding wars, according to the report.”

    A one month decline if 10% represents an annualized rate of decline of 1 – 0.9^12 = 72%.

  22. When will the globalists shunt senile Biden aside and put forward Comrade Kamala as their cardboard cut-out?

    ABC News is accused of editing Biden’s car-crash interview to avoid him seeming ‘incoherent and confused’: Transcripts from unaired segments reveal he mistakenly said his son Beau served in the Navy in Afghanistan not the Army elsewhere

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9910923/ABC-accused-Biden-interview-cover-President-said-son-Beau-served-Afghanistan-Navy.html

    ABC News has been accused of editing its Wednesday night interview with Joe Biden to flatter the president, removing mumbled statements and lapses of memory.

    Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos was criticized for his claim that the chaos in Afghanistan this week was inevitable.

    1. DJT was right when he said while campaigning last year that Pedo Joe belongs “in a rest home.”

  23. Since vibrants in Democrat-Bolshevik malgoverned cities can cavort with impunity, thanks to Affirmative Action police departments and Soros-installed DAs, some special snowflakes might be getting a real-world education in the blessings of multiculturalism.

    Popular Butler University student killed in drive-by shooting

    https://nypost.com/2021/08/20/butler-university-student-xan-korman-killed-in-drive-by-shooting/

    A popular Butler University student, who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” when he was wounded in a drive-by shooting in Maryland over the weekend, died on Thursday, a report and his family said.

    The shooting death of Xan Korman, a photographer and photo editor at Butler’s student newspaper, The Collegian, was announced by his mother in a heartbreaking Facebook post.

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

    Socialist commentator Hasan Piker faces backlash for buying $2.7M home in Hollywood

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hasan-piker-house-socialist

    Left-wing influencer Hasan Piker is facing a wave of backlash after news surfaced that he bought a nearly $3 million home in West Hollywood.

    The outlet Dirt reported last week that Piker purchased the $2.74 million, 3,800-square-foot Mediterranean-style home. Located in the Beverly Grove neighborhood, the home has five bedrooms and 5.5 baths.

  25. I have to point out a collection of bumper stickers I saw earlier today on a Toyota Prius unsurprisingly: Obama rainbow, Biden/Harris and Make American Kind Again. How’s that working out?! DJT is deplatformed but the Taliban isn’t and our allies don’t trust us. Should

    3. President Biden today said they have made an agreement with the Taliban and they are allowing American citizens to go through to the airport, he also said it was in their interest to do so.

      Of course an hour later a Pentagon spokesman responding to a question about Americans trying to get to the airport being stopped and beaten said they were mindful of these reports and they are deeply troubling but they had communicated to the Taliban that this was completely unacceptable.

      Yup, this administration is running like a finely tuned race car.

      1. Is our military composed of soldiers or social workers?

        This kind of nonsense used to be fiction, something you’d see in dystopian movies about the future,

        The future is now.

  26. Has housing achieved peak stupid, defined as a stage of euphoria where anyone who qualifies for a loan is willing to purchase whatever said loan enables them to purchase, no matter how insane the price?

  27. People are stupid …

    Nearly 6 in 10 Gen Z investors — and 9% of baby boomers — admit to trading while drunk – MarketWatch
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-than-half-of-gen-z-investors-admit-to-trading-while-drunk-11629382517

    (snip)

    “According to a new survey, 59% of Gen Z traders claim to have bought or sold an investment while inebriated.

    “According to the Addiction Center, an informational group for people struggling with substance-use disorders and co-occurring behavioral and mental-health disorders, the gamification interface of trading apps like Robinhood could be a factor.

    “’The app’s simplicity and graphic design make trading feel like gaming. The platform has drawn in young investors by presenting complex financial instruments like a fun game,’ the organization wrote in a post. ‘Unfortunately, financial experts believe that instead of helping users, the app is purposely downplaying trading risks. They suspect it to be a method to get users hooked to their platform.’

    “The Addiction Center compares some brokerage-account usage to gambling issues.”

    1. The Financial Times
      Opinion Chinese society
      Xi Jinping takes aim at the gross inequalities of China’s ‘gilded age’
      Reforms designed to ease social tensions and bolster legitimacy of Communist party rule
      People look at a billboard advertising beer in Shanghai. Having spent four decades creating one of the most unequal societies on Earth, Beijing is now seized by a mantra of ‘common prosperity’
      James Kynge August 20 2021

      The new wind of egalitarianism sweeping China was never going to work out well for Kweichow Moutai, makers of a fiery liquor. The problem was not just that boozy business banquets were officially branded as “disgusting” or that one case of corruption involved an official who had taken 4,000 bottles of the liquor in bribes.

      A deeper issue is that the company finds itself on the wrong side of China’s latest great social endeavour. Having spent four decades creating one of the most unequal societies on Earth, Beijing is now seized by a mantra of “common prosperity” — or redistributing spoils to hundreds of millions of have-nots.

      Moutai, which is drunk in shot glasses and can cost thousands of dollars a bottle, has been a pungent symbol of China’s “gilded age”. Toasts of the liquor have helped cement the cosy symbiosis between elite dealmakers and government officials, generating fabulous riches for a charmed few.

      So a recent sharp reversal in Kweichow Moutai’s fortunes may signal the size of the social engineering project that President Xi Jinping has in mind. The market capitalisation of the world’s most highly valued drinks company has shrunk by $207bn since a peak in early February — more than the value of Japan’s Suntory and Heineken of the Netherlands combined.

      “There is a sea-change in the way the Chinese Communist party sees its legitimacy,” said Yu Jie, a researcher at Chatham House, a London-based think-tank. “Xi is addressing ordinary peoples’ agonies over unequal distribution of income and the lack of equal access to basic social welfare and some services.”
      …

  29. This is a good read. It is too long to post all of it so I will offer up a snip or two ….

    oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Why the Wheels Are Coming Off
    https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/08/why-wheels-are-coming-off.html

    (a snip or two)

    “Since the Federal Reserve has gotten away with printing trillions out of thin air to buy the U.S. Treasury bonds that have conjured trillions out of thin air for the government to squander, American Exceptionalism now includes the eventually-fatal hubris that we can always buy our way out of trouble by conjuring another trillion or three out of thin air.”

    “Since there’s no limit on how many trillions we can conjure out of thin air, there’s no limits on how many trillions we can squander and therefore there are no limits on American Exceptionalism or the American Project.”

    “Since everything is for sale, and we can conjure endless trillions, then we can buy whatever is needed to keep the wagon rolling forever.

    “Until the wheels fall off, of course.”

    “Managing narratives has replaced actually solving pressing problems. It’s now impossible in America to actually address pressing problems without stepping on the toes of one politically powerful and politically sacrosanct cartel or another, and so problems fester and multiply to the point they cannot be solved within the status quo, regardless of how many trillions are conjured and squandered.

    “To mask the coming collapse, narratives must be tightly controlled. Since collapse can’t be forestalled without making powerful enemies, the only politically expedient option left is to eliminate any dissent that questions the officially sanctioned happy-stories.

    “When a society and a state give up the search for solutions because real solutions will negatively impact politically powerful cartels, collapse is only one step away. It’s all fun and games in the unwinnable wars and simulacra reforms stage, but managing narratives isn’t the same as managing the real world, and the real world eventually crushes the happy-story narratives and those who actually believed them.”

  31. ‘I was expecting a busy weekend with back-to-back showings, but … the home is still available,’ said Adriana Focke.

    I guess this real estate liar is focked.

    1. That’s the spirit!

      “I recently wrote about the potential for activity in the junk bond market to trigger a large-scale financial crisis in the United States—and around the world. Soon after, I began getting correspondence from readers who pointed to what they saw as similar speculative excesses in the mortgage market. These readers are not wrong. Financial media outlets are already covering the dizzying increase in house prices across the U.S. What’s missing, however, is a systematic breakdown of how big this bubble could be, and its implications.”

    2. It’s difficult for a professed bear to not see an incipient crash in the information presented in this article. For instance:

      “As of the second quarter of 2021, residential construction investment is growing at around 35 percent per year—its highest rate in the past 30 years. Like the housing market, the construction sector is running hot. If prices fall, it seems likely that investment will go into hard reverse.”

    2. FWIW: DJT is speaking at 8PM EST tonight from Alabama. Given his messaging this last week, it’s expected to be more important than originally planned.

    3. You post a link, I refute, you get mad and stalk off. Not sure how much that qualifies as “engagement.” Please keep posting house listings; I like looking at them.

      Now, on to refuting this video:

      The example of Dr. Homer not finding antibodies is fraught with holes. A couple weeks ago, we had a shallow discussion* — initiated by Red, I might add — on antibodies. The relevant point is that there are at least a dozen different antibodies for this virus. Which antibody did Dr. Homer test for? Does he know if it’s the correct one? Did he test whole his blood against Delta pseudo-virus with a neutralizing titer test? ISTM that the neutralization titer test is more clinical and practical because it measures the important thing — actual virus neutralization, regardless of which antibodies you have. Scientists at J&J did do those neutralization studies and found virus neutralization for at least 8 months after injection, not including the t-cell or b-cell immunity. It contradicts Dr. Homer’s n=1 sketchy observation, and I’ll take the word of J&J over Dr. Homer, thanks. And then there’s that South African study of health care workers which showed the effectiveness of J&J (I’m still looking for detail on that).

      If anyone watched the video, did you notice how quickly both of these guys shifted from antibody talk to “spread” and “virus titer levels” to prove this vaccine “doesn’t work?” Yeah well, this is nothing new. The CDC has already admitted that these vaccines “don’t work” in that they are not sterilizing, i.e. they only partially stop the spread of Delta. However, these injections ARE good symptom minimizers. Considering that these are first-generation vaccines that were developed for a different and less contagious variant, this is an amazing development. Symptom minimization prevents 90% of the hospitalization and death, which is what we need right now. Anyone who thinks we could have developed something which is both symptom-free and sterilizing on the first try, this fast, never truly studied science.

      Given the lack of total sterilization, it is unlikely that we will achieve traditional herd immunity, wherein most of the population protects the minority who can’t (or won’t) receive a vaccine. So, to all you vaccine refusers: don’t count on mooching off of a sterilized vaccinated population as you do with polio and mumps. The vaccinated can’t help you this time. Instead, you’re pretty much stuck with protection at the host level, i.e., every man for himself. Strengthen your immune system, solve your co-morbidities, take a symptom-minimizing injection if you want to, grab some horse paste,** and expect to get something.

      By the way, thank you to Steve Bannon for his intelligence and willingness to at least discuss all this.

      —————–
      *in that discussion, Red found a paper where ONE of the antibodies may help the spike protein instead of neutralize it, which is a potential precurser to ADE. However, the authors admitted that there were many other antibodies whose action could cancel out the one rogue antibody.
      **This morning I drove to the semi-rural Wal-Mart to score some more horse-paste. Success!

    4. after J&J jab.

      It got me into Canada to see my love. Their Marxist in Chief Trudeau up here is making speeches that he won’t let the unvaccinated endanger the vaccinated by them sitting together on planes and trains.

      The twisted logic is breathtaking. Perhaps it makes perfect sense to Dr. Donk, but to me it’s a bridge that cannot be crossed.

      2. We have been spoiled by our mature vaccines like MMR and Tdep, which prevent infection, symptoms, AND spread. How easily we forget that these near-perfect vaccines are the result of 60+ years of refining. When a new disease and new vaccine comes along that can’t do it all, we’re all shocked, we don’t know how to behave, and we fall back on traditional ideas that no longer apply. I believe this is where a lot of the disconnect is coming from, especially from our non-science public officials.

        he won’t let the unvaccinated endanger the vaccinated

        Trudeau is off his gourd. It seems that vaccinated people are in almost as much danger from other vaccinated people as they are from unvaccinated people. There is no gain in separating the two. The sooner we realize that we cannot prevent the danger, the sooner we can focus on responding to it. In this case, the response is strengthening the immune system response, and these vaccines are a big part of that.

      3. Dr. Donk

        liberal (il)logic and argumentation skills with Google/YouTube acquired expertise

          1. Shes not. She’s engaging with the people who might be ignorant enough to take your comments seriously.

          2. She’s engaging with the people who might be ignorant enough to take your comments seriously.

            Bingo!

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