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The Money Has To Come From Somewhere

A report from the Coeur d’Alene Press in Idaho. “Kristen Johnson, Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors president said there aren’t as many competitive offers on homes as there were earlier this year, so the market is seeing some price reductions. It’s important to price accordingly, based on comparable properties, to avoid making price adjustments or watching a home sit on the market for an extended period, Johnson said. ‘Most homebuyers have seen dozens of properties and can recognize one that’s overpriced,’ Johnson said.”

The Los Angeles Times. “Southern California home prices were essentially flat in August from the previous month, as the market cools slightly from its torrid pace earlier this year. ‘Where maybe we’d see 10 to 15 offers [before], now we see two to five,’ said Jennifer Eckert, a Los Angeles real estate agent.”

“Real estate agents say some home buyers have called it quits after engaging in bidding wars they never could win. And many analysts predicted home price gains would moderate soon, because incomes can’t support continued price appreciation at the 20% levels seen earlier this year.”

From People on California. “Jeff Lewis has relisted his L.A. home with a price cut of $500,000 in an effort to sell it before he expands his family. ‘So I reduced my house half a million dollars so I can get out of here,’ the Bravo star said during the episode. ‘I talked to [realtor] Matt Altman about it. I’m not going to sit here and hang on to a little bit of money when I really need to get it moving.'”

The Epoch Times. “Pacaso offers ‘the modern way to buy and own a second home.’ After identifying a home to purchase, Pacaso sets up an LLC to acquire the property, then sells eight equal shares of it to interested buyers. Each share ranges from $250,000 to $1,000,000 and above, plus monthly service fees. ‘We believe they’re nothing more than a glorified timeshare. If I were a real estate agent, I would tell people this is a terrible investment,’ said Sonoma homeowner Nancy Gardner. ‘They’re paying a huge amount of money for an eighth share of a home, and you don’t even know who else will be living there.'”

The Evening Standard. “It is taking longer to sell a home in London than anywhere else in the UK, as the capital’s housing market stays ‘sluggish.’ There are early signs that the supply-demand imbalance maybe settling across the UK. The number of new listings in the first two weeks of September, on average across the country, was 14 per cent higher than the last two weeks of August. ‘As we enter the busy autumn period, there are early signs of more properties coming to market, which may help to slowly rebuild buyer choice,’ says Tim Bannister of Rightmove.”

The Sydney Morning Herald. “Over the past nearly two decades, I have spilt considerable newspaper ink arguing Australia’s housing market is not in a ‘bubble.’ Bubbles, as I’ve said, must – by definition – go ‘pop.’ And our housing market just hasn’t. Nor is it likely to. Our Reserve Bank is also tasked with financial system stability, but it’s not particularly worried either. Nor is it at all interested in lifting interest rates to stop runaway home values.”

“‘Some analysts have suggested we might lift the cash rate to cool the property market,’ Governor Philip Lowe observed last week. ‘I want to be clear that this is not on our agenda.’ But Lowe’s reluctance to intervene on home values runs much deeper than he appears prepared to publicly admit. It’s not just that he doesn’t want to sacrifice jobs in the service of cheaper housing. Our central bank doesn’t actually want home values to fall at all – not right now, anyway.”

“The truth is, Australia’s property market is less likely to go ‘bang’ than it is to exert a slowly building stranglehold over all of our lives. Like the proverbial frog in the slow boiling pot, we all of us need to stop to consider the following question: what are we giving up, as a society, by letting home values inflate so high? Those dollars we now must spend simply putting a roof over our heads – to what other ends could they be put?”

“Could they have been invested into starting a business, or furthering our education? Might we have enjoyed spending them on enjoyable experiences or products? Could we just have worked a little less? We need to pause and ask ourselves: what is the ‘opportunity cost’ of our obsession with housing? Because it’s getting bigger by the day.”

From Bloomberg. “The families behind Hong Kong’s four top property giants saw $6.7 billion wiped off the value of their assets on Monday as investors headed for the exit, fearful that Beijing will order housing price controls.”

From Reuters on China. “Some have been protesting at Evergrande offices, refusing to accept the company’s plan to provide payment with discounted apartments, offices, stores and parking units, which it began to implement on Saturday. ‘I bought from the property managers after seeing the ad in the elevator, as I trusted Evergrande for being a Fortune Global 500 company,’ said the owner of an Evergrande property in the conglomerate’s home province of Guangdong surnamed Du.”

“‘It’s immoral of Evergrande not to pay my hard-earned money back,’ said the investor, who had put 650,000 yuan ($100,533) into Evergrande wealth management products (WMPs) last year at an interest rate of more than 7%.”

“More than 80,000 people – including employees, their families and friends as well as owners of Evergrande properties – bought WMPs that raised more than 100 billion yuan in the past five years, said a sales manager of Evergrande Wealth, launched in 2016 as a peer-to-peer (P2) online lending platform that originally was used to fund its property projects. Some 40 billion yuan of the investments are outstanding, said the person, declining to be named as they were not authorized to speak with the media.”

“Other highly leveraged Chinese conglomerates including HNA Group, which declared bankruptcy early this year, and China Baoneng have used similar products. In a petition to various government bodies, a group of WMP investors in Guangdong accused Evergrande of inappropriately using money that should have gone to the issuers to fund its own projects, and not sufficiently disclosing the risks.”

“They also complained that they were misled by the stature of its chairman, Hui Ka-yan, noting that he was seated prominently during a 2019 celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. ‘The investors trusted Evergrande and bought Evergrande’s WMPs out of our love for and faith in the Party and government,’ they wrote.”

The Epoch Times. “China’s tech behemoths are handing months of profits to the regime in Beijing to demonstrate loyalty to the Communist Party. Popular actors have been erased from internet history with their devoted online fan groups disbanded. Young gamers now are allowed no more than three hours of playtime per week. Across Chinese classrooms, 147,000 newly minted inspectors have been deployed to oversee the national dissemination of the ideology of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.”

“Be it e-commerce, entertainment, education, or gaming, few areas of Chinese society have been left unscathed amid Beijing’s torrent of regulatory activity in recent months. As authorities clamped down on the offending actors, stock markets tumbled with hundreds of billions wiped out, while companies and individuals have scrambled to assess the new rules, lest they tread on the regime’s toes.”

“A ‘profound revolution’ is underway in China, declares nationalist essayist Li Guangman, a former editor for an obscure state newspaper. In a recent commentary quickly promoted on prominent Chinese state media websites, he hailed the regime’s campaign as a ‘return to the original intent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) … and the essence of socialism,’ and offered up two potential targets: housing and medicare.”

“As with past measures, the Chinese regime has framed the series of actions as necessary for the public good. But the pace of the activity has been dizzying, with a thoroughness unseen in China’s recent memory. It looks like the ‘opening days’ of a cultural revolution, said June Teufel Dreyer, a political science professor at the University of Miami.”

“A pressing cash problem is also forcing Beijing to turn on the rich, according to Antonio Graceffo, an analyst of China’s economy and Epoch Times contributor who has spent more than two decades in Asia. Beijing’s costly strategy of shutting down cities and quarantining every positive case has disrupted travel and dented tourism, a once booming industry contributing to roughly a tenth of China’s economy in 2019.”

“Sales growth and factory output in August both hit a one-year low as authorities toughened social restrictions to curb surging virus outbreaks. China’s overall debt meanwhile grew to about 270 percent of its GDP in 2020, a jump by about 30 percent over one year. Monthly data from August showed that one in every seven young urban workers —those aged 16 to 24—have failed to find employment. The move against the private tutoring industry has put some $140 billion at stake and triggered waves of layoffs.”

“Such signs suggest ‘the brink of an economic crisis,’ Graceffo told The Epoch Times. ‘The money has to come from somewhere. I think that Xi Jinping is reaching for anything to make money.'”

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This Post Has 98 Comments

  1. From the last link:

    ‘Clad in a gray Maoist suit during the Party’s centennial, Xi warned that foreign forces would figuratively get their “heads bashed” if they dared to bully China. The regime’s recent policies give off a sense of growing wariness toward Western influence.’

    ‘Gone are English-language tests from Shanghai’s primary schools; in is a new course on Xi Jinping Thought—mandated from grade school through college nationwide.’

    So tourism, 10% – poof. Airboxes, 29% – poof. Factories – crater. It’s piling up fast.

    Shot yerself in the fook Xi, with this CCP virus.

    1. Sounds like Xi is trying very hard to kill the goose that lays golden eggs. Too bad, so sad, for folks who put their faith in China’s transition to a modern economy open to foreign investment.

    2. “…in is a new course on Xi Jinping Thought…”

      Where do I sign up for my Winnie the Pooh studies course?

    3. As powerful as this guy is, he’s still a slave to his human nature, his human form. He has feelings he seeks to satisfy.

      My curiosity in the US has always been, despite the cleverness of financial elites in government, Wall Street and the Fed, they are also slaves to their human nature. They seek ever more (hah – maybe a new company name, to accompany the Evergiven and Evergrande), and the economy is a competition of resources. They have a backdoor into seizing those resources that street robbers could only ever fantasize about.

      So, will their being driven by their human nature – the lust for ever more power and money and winning competitions – lead to a financial corner, leading to going off the rails? I dunno. Maybe they have restraint but… betting on the restraint of politicians and business elites does not seem like a safe bet.

        1. No , they don’t have restraint, they don’t have morals, and psychopathic tendencies have prevailed. They are parasites of the most evil . Now they attempt to kill their long time humanity host , or want to gene alter them , or replace them with robots.
          They have always been the cancer in Society , creating every conceivable injustice or crisis. Now they want to take over and rule.
          They are capable of killing of human race , because their arrogance and insanity knows no bounds.
          And they say that there is only about 3000 of them that are the main String Pullers.
          They have corrupted everything , and they are making major moves right now, and rigging a election is easy for them.
          Their fraudulent narratives with censorship of dispute is necessary to pull off their harm.
          And what they offer is not what humanity would ever want. Basically slavery with no freedoms.

  2. ‘They also complained that they were misled by the stature of its chairman, Hui Ka-yan, noting that he was seated prominently during a 2019 celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. ‘The investors trusted Evergrande and bought Evergrande’s WMPs out of our love for and faith in the Party and government’

    The peer to peer lending, gone. Nobody mentions these bubbles come and gone. The wealth management products, crater. It’s not so much money has to come from somewhere, it’s wealth. You can’t print wealth or the commies would just do it. You can only print claims on wealth.

    China is a dead man walking. Globalism has failed.

    1. BTW where some clown is sitting near the poohbear seems kinda medieval as to investing. Did he also have an aura? Were there leprechauns on his shoulder?

    2. An evergrande contagion in the global financial system will provide perfect cover for the Fed to launch another “liquidity” deluge. Get ready it’s coming. The CV19 liquidity tsunami is already ebbing away and the system is going to collapse in a few months if they don’t launch another category 5 bubble storm.

  3. ‘Each share ranges from $250,000 to $1,000,000 and above, plus monthly service fees. ‘We believe they’re nothing more than a glorified timeshare’

    It is a time share Nancy. Boy, isn’t that a new concept?

    2. $250K for 1/8 of a vacation home… why?

      Vacation home? For upward of $5400/night? For comparison, $7400 will buy you a night at the 2-bedroom 1900 sq ft full-service Prince of Wales apt suite at the 5-star Ritz London. Appreciation? A $2M house would have to double to $4M to break even. Doesn’t pencil.

      This HAS to be some kind of money laundering scheme.

    3. > But with a recent infusion of $125 million from investors such as SoftBank, Pacaso now has its eyes on properties in Spain, Mexico, and the Caribbean; as well as areas of interest in France, Italy, and the UK

      So Softbank didn’t learn anything from from it’s embarrassing $13 billion investment in wework and decided to pour millions into a timeshare operation in a tech startup wrapper.

      I have to admit I’m starting to admire these hucksters who manage to get billions from VC and investment firms for startups that are barely a step above the things you used to see advertised in the pages of comic books marketed to gullible young boys.
      I

      2. barely a step above the things you used to see advertised in the pages of comic books marketed to gullible young boys.

        You mean those x-ray specs don’t work!?

        1. >You mean those x-ray specs don’t work!?

          My new startup, XrayOS, just needs $4 billion in VC money to have a working prototype in a few years. Get in on the ground floor now!

          BTW, they’re not just xray specs, they’re blockchain Xray specs as well as being carbon neutral. XrayOS covers all the buzzwords!

    4. My wealthy relatives invited us to spend a couple nights at one of their 1/8 places. The next year, apparently not happy with something (we always theorized it was our complete inability to reciprocate), they invited us again but asked us to foot the bill for housekeeping. It was pretty close to the price of a nice hotel!

  4. Melbourne Australia: Protestor Shot in the Back with Rubber Round, hmmmm in the Back, COWARDS!!

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/wyrcmLMK15sJ/

    A comment:

    ‘Rubber bullets. How nice of them. Utterly demolish the pigs, their families and their homes. Take them out once and for all. Yes they have guns. Do they have tens of millions of people on their side down under? No. They are f***ked then aren’t they? These sh*t trash governments all across the world are in this together not just down under. They are “all in” on this and they are going for it. They are going to try to send in “peace keeping” [yeah right that’s believable isn’t it?] forces by the UN for uprisings and not just down under. The UN peace keeping scum they will send bleed and die just like everyone else. Things are going to get very vicious the world over in places with uprisings. I say “uprisings” only because that’s probably what they will call them. But make no mistake. What they really are is only the people enforcing THEIR law. The coppers are trash and therefore no longer represent the law. The people are the law. That’s what we were all taught right? Time to enforce the law. Talking, being nice, trying to reason is not enforcing the law when the enemies are evil trash that are trying to usurp the people. F*** them all. Kill them all. And their families. Enforce your, the people’s law.’

    Seem extreme? Just when do you fight back? When they shot you in the back with regular bullets?

    FJB

    1. SHOCKING: Lt Governor Mac Miller being assaulted today at the Clark County Commissioners meeting

      https://www.bitchute.com/video/6jbSvf4mUBHC/

      A comment:

      ‘Mack Miller was thrown out of the Clark County Commission Office’s meeting. The committee declared in a 5-2 decision that spreading COVID-19 misinformation is a public health crisis. Protesters at the meeting claim that this is a violation of their First Amendment rights and is pushing only one side of the agenda. Miller was ejected from the meeting after apparently joining the protests.
      In a video shot by a citizen attending the meeting, Miller is seen being manhandled out of the meeting, before crashing into a metal detector which is lifted off the floor by the weight of the impact.’

      1. I’m sorry, Ben, while I appreciate that Bitchute can operate without censorship, I can’t trust their news without verifying with a more credible source. plus I can’t get to it at my work puter.

        Here’s a better news source, with pix: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10015585/Nevada-Lt-Gov-hopeful-violently-thrown-metal-detector-meeting-COVID-19.html

        Correction: Mack Miller is a CANDIDATE for Lt. Governor, not the Lt. Governor.

        Where’s BLM, ACLU, SPLC, Jesse, Al? Why isn’t Rachel Maddow all over this?

        1. The video says it all. Why are people getting body slammed by cops in a public setting for what they say? This isn’t China and these people keep feeding the bears. Listen to what people watching are saying in the video.

        2. plus I can’t get to it at my work puter

          How are you working if you’re trying to watch Bitchute videos? Weird what’s called “work” these days…

    3. “All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force.”
      ~George Orwell

      The highly targeted countries are white western civilizations. Too intelligent, too independent, too inventive.

      1. Nice quote.
        And the fraudulent narratives are starting to crack .
        But, they are well skilled at diversions , and censorship of dispute to these ongoing fraudulent narratives .
        But many lives are at stake over this epic Medical Fraud with the unconstitutional Mandates of job threat if you don’t take a experimental injection.
        The newest insane response by CNN, is “Don’t do research.”
        5 years ago the fake news narratives were ridiculous, but now they are mass murder.

    4. From a UK Guardian article yesterday:

      “However, the initial rally appeared to have been hijacked by far-right extremists, allegedly including neo-Nazis and anti-vaccination groups, who organised on Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp.

      The former union boss and ex-federal opposition leader Bill Shorten blamed far-right groups for driving the protest and the violence that ensued. Shorten labelled the protesters “man-baby Nazis”.

      Globalists gonna globe.

        1. They aren’t going to televise the Revolution.

          10 million came out in rebellion in South America recently, and it didn’t hit main stream news.

          They aren’t going to televise the Revolution.

  6. The move against the private tutoring industry has put some $140 billion at stake…

    It’s been North Americans tutoring English online. Xi can’t afford to let that much money leave the country and he can’t afford to raise any Anglophiles. He knows what is coming.

    2. I see it as also a power move. English as an international language is necessary for world travel, international finances, etc., and those who are illiterate in English are ill equipped to leave China (or primarily Mandarin speaking regions).

  7. Hey Jonesy….. any chance you could unlock Daniel A. Crowman’s RageCage for a day? It would be fun…. for just a day.

      1. What agency other than the FDA has the power to stop this injection crime against humanity. Can the Judicial branch of Government stop it?

        What is the recourse over a Government agency like FDA , that isn’t stopping this vile expierment injection.
        Its outrageous that booster shots were approved for the plus 65, and they are moving forward for the two shots for the 12 and under.
        The FDA knows they have meds that treat Covid, so that would normally disqualify EUA on this expierment with these failure vaccines. And the Biden Mandates that you lose you job if you don’t inject this risky expierment , that Biden says is safe and effective is vile.
        And I suppose that when they take Biden out , he will be excused for his crimes because he had dementia.
        So, it might of been very deliberate to put a scape goat Biden in to do outrageous damage , than he’s excused because he had dementia. Meanwhile the damage is done and the New World Order advances their outrageous agenda.

        So, its putting the public in the position of being the force that has to combat these crimes. And no doubt they are trying to bring on rebellion so they can declare a Innsurrection , when they are the criminal innsurrection.

        They no doubt have pre planned ever move, and its on a time line. There is a race against time to get a shot in every arm before its known just how vile these shots are. Than they can blame everything on a new variant or the unvaccinated , while they censor the news.
        So, the medical system is starting to rebel because its becoming increasing harder to deny the truth of this mass harm .
        All I know is that for every day this goes on without it being stopped, innocent people are killed or injured, or lose their job, or whatever punishment inflicted.
        I can’t stop looking at it because its the most vile, evil thing I have ever seen .

  10. With Wall Street stocks rising for a second straight day, is it safe to assume the Evergrande crisis has blown over without any lasting damage to the global financial system?

    1. 5 things to know about Evergrande, the Chinese business empire on the brink
      By Michelle Toh, CNN Business
      Updated 3:50 AM ET, Wed September 22, 2021
      Security personnel form a human chain as they guard outside the Evergrande’s headquarters, where people gathered to demand repayment of loans and financial products, in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China September 13, 2021

      Hong Kong (CNN Business)
      The troubles of Chinese conglomerate Evergrande have dominated headlines after it warned once again that it could default on its astronomical debt because of a cash crunch.
      Experts have characterized the firm’s struggles as a major test for Beijing that risks turning into China’s Lehman Brothers moment, sending shockwaves across the world’s second biggest economy.

      This week could be critical for the company. It was supposed to repay interest on some bank loans on Monday, according to Bloomberg. The news outlet recently reported that Chinese authorities have told major banks that they won’t receive those payments.

      Evergrande did not immediately respond to a request from CNN Business for comment about those payments.

      And interest payments totaling more than $100 million are due Thursday on two of the company’s bonds, according to data provider Refinitiv.

      Here’s what you need to know about Evergrande, and how it got to where it is now.

      What is Evergrande?

      Evergrande is one of China’s largest real estate developers. The company is part of the Global 500 — meaning that it’s also one of the world’s biggest businesses by revenue.
      Listed in Hong Kong and based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, it employs about 200,000 people. It also indirectly helps sustain more than 3.8 million jobs each year.

      The group was founded by Chinese billionaire Xu Jiayin, also known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, who was once the country’s richest man.

      Evergrande made its name in residential property — it boasts that it “owns more than 1,300 projects in more than 280 cities” across China — but its interests extend far beyond that.
      Outside housing, the group has invested in electric vehicles, sports and theme parks. It even owns a food and beverage business, selling bottled water, groceries, dairy products and other goods across China.
      In 2010, the company bought a soccer team, which is now known as Guangzhou Evergrande. That team has since built what is believed to be the world’s biggest soccer school, at a cost of $185 million to Evergrande.
      …
      How did it run into trouble?

      In recent years, Evergrande’s debts ballooned as it borrowed to finance its various pursuits.
      The group has gained infamy for becoming China’s most indebted developer, with more than $300 billion worth of liabilities. Over the last few weeks, it’s warned investors of cash flow issues, saying that it could default if it’s unable to raise money quickly.
      That warning was underscored last week, when Evergrande disclosed in a stock exchange filing that it was having trouble finding buyers for some of its assets.

      In some ways, the company’s aggressive ambitions are what landed it in hot water, according to experts. The group “strayed far from its core business, which is part of how it got into this mess,” said Mattie Bekink, China director of the Economist Intelligence Unit.

      Goldman Sachs analysts say the company’s structure has also made it “difficult to ascertain a more precise picture of [its] recovery.” In a recent note, they pointed to “the complexity of Evergrande Group, and the lack of sufficient information on the company’s assets and liabilities.”
      But the group’s struggles are also emblematic of underlying risks in China.

      “The story of Evergrande is the story of the deep [and] structural challenges to China’s economy related to debt,” said Bekink.
      The issue isn’t entirely new. Last year, a slew of Chinese state-owned companies defaulted on their loans, raising fears about China’s reliance on debt-fueled investments to support growth.
      And in 2018, billionaire Wang Jianlin was forced to downsize his conglomerate, Dalian Wanda, as Beijing clamped down on firms borrowing heavily to push overseas.

      In a note last week, Mark Williams, Capital Economics’ chief Asia economist, said that Evergrande’s collapse “would be the biggest test that China’s financial system has faced in years.”

      “The root of Evergrande’s troubles — and those of other highly-leveraged developers — is that residential property demand in China is entering an era of sustained decline,” he wrote. “Evergrande’s ongoing collapse has focused attention on the impact a wave of property developer defaults would have on China’s growth.”
      …

      1. How many U.S. firms are employing the Evergrande business model of leveraging to the hilt and using the proceeds to hoover up residential housing units far and wide?

        ‘Evergrande made its name in residential property — it boasts that it “owns more than 1,300 projects in more than 280 cities” across China —’

  12. Got a chuckle and was also gratified when I saw this story about the Haitians at the border, because it provided confirmation for my understanding of how the world works: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/haitian-migrants-released-united-states/

    Also, here’s a google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=US+officials+at+border+say+haitians+being+released

    The incongruity I saw was, “Why would a Democratic president and Congress be aggressively expelling future Democratic voters?” as they claimed? Then a few days later, the pictures of Border Patrol agents purportedly brutalizing Haitians, evoking antebellum American imagery, again oddly out-of-character for the current government leadership. And then the DHS secretary stating a pro-enforcement line. And then the media and activists being generally silent (imagine the reaction if these pictures came out a year ago. Turns out the Border patrol does not carry whips and lassos, those things they were holding were the horses’ reins, confirmed by the Democratic mayor of the local town).

    Well, it was disinformation as the story above shows. And that makes sense.

    1. Fox just showed video of Haitians from the border on different flights out of Texas to cities all over the United States.

      1. Yet millions of homeless AMERICANS are left to die on the streets. The Democratic Party is the enemy of the American people.

    2. I don’t know why they insist on calling them migrants, which sort of implies that are just passing through. The term “arrivals” would be more accurate since I doubt they’re trying to get to Canada and the US is in the way. I can think of a lot of other terms for them also.

  14. “what is the ‘opportunity cost’ of our obsession with housing?”

    Realtor, I have so much money left after “throwing money away on rent” every month that I don’t know where to throw it.

  15. Does it seem like the Chinese economy is staring into the maw of a prolonged depression? I’m thinking about how Japan fared in the early 1990s in the afterglow of a protracted real estate boom. Wasn’t pretty!

    1. The Financial Times
      The Big Read
      Evergrande Real Estate Group
      Evergrande and the end of China’s ‘build, build, build’ model

      Valued at $41bn in 2020, the spectacular unravelling of the property group exposes deep flaws in Beijing’s growth strategy

      James Kynge in Hong Kong and Sun Yu in Beijing yesterday

      A dramatic video filmed in the southwestern city of Kunming in August hints at the scale of China’s property bubble. Onlookers can be heard screaming in awe as 15 high-rise apartment blocks are demolished by 85,000 controlled explosions in less than a minute.

      The unfinished buildings, which formed a complex called Sunshine City II, had stood empty since 2013 after one developer ran out of money and another found defects in the construction work. “This urban scar that stood for nearly 10 years has at last taken a key step toward restoration,” said an article in the official Kunming Daily after the demolition.

      Such “urban scars” are common all over China, where Evergrande — the world’s most heavily indebted property company — is suffering a liquidity crunch that could prove terminal. The crisis at the company, which as recently as two years ago ranked as the world’s most valuable property stock, highlights both the speed at which corporate fortunes can unravel and the deep flaws in China’s growth model.

      Evergrande, for all of the high drama of its meltdown, is merely the symptom of a much bigger problem. China’s vast real estate sector, which contributes 29 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, is so overbuilt that it threatens to relinquish its longstanding role as a prime driver of Chinese economic growth and, instead, become a drag on it.
      …

      1. Luckily here in America we steer clear of property bubbles. So we needn’t worry about anything like the Evergrande scenario playing out here.

        1. Well, we don’t have ghost cities, where no one ever lived. At least not yet.

          I wonder how many high rises in China will have to be demolished?

          1. What about those luxury airboxes in the sky that Mr. Jones often chronicles? Are you sure those are fully occupied? Maybe the residents turn in early, explaining the dark towers at 8pm.

          2. Also, wouldn’t a true believer in Keynesian economics consider those unused towers to represent future economic opportunity, in the work it will take to demolish them? Seems like the Keynesian ditch digging opportunity of a lifetime. Never mind that it’s all costs with no social benefits produced, aside from sending some Powell bux up to money heaven and returning some natural resources back to the ground.

          3. What about those luxury airboxes in the sky that Mr. Jones often chronicles?

            Yeah, there are some of those, mostly in places like Manhattan. But Manhattan isn’t a ghost town. What I meant is that we haven’t built cities from scratch that can house 1,000,000+ and where nearly no one lives.

        2. https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/coronavirus-trailer-parks-netflix-palm-springs-statue/mobile-homes-wall-street-investment

          Even trailer parks succumbing to Wall Street financialization. Next Blackstone will start buying up camping gear operations so when you end up homeless cuz you can’t afford the trailer park anymore and your pension and SSI check is only worth three days worth of food you’ll have to rent a tent, sleeping bag. and a tin cup from them.

          1. The homeless are starting to camp out in my little burg’s tiny downtown. Merchants are livid but city hall is nowhere to be found when it comes to dealing with it.

          2. “starting to camp out”

            It was only a matter of time until they made it into the nicer neighborhoods of Larimer County.

            You have no idea how bad it is in Dumver now unless you are down here driving around different parts of the city every day. And these aren’t combat veterans missing a leg, it’s young opioid / meth addicts.

            I may or may not renew my lease next spring, it might be time to move…

          3. You have no idea how bad it is in Dumver now

            Last time I was there I saw tent camps under several underpasses.

            What’s so funny about the downtown in my little burg is that over the past 10 years it has been heavily gentrified. Several large “luxury” apartment buildings were built, a boutique multiplex with full restaurant and bar service to your theater set opened, a fancy Marriott opened, etc. Now all these rubes who moved downtown have to deal with meth heads and other scum. I suppose that if it gets worse merchants will pull up their stakes and leave downtown.

    2. The concept of government stimulus-fueled growth plus real estate as the basis for increasing prosperity seems very much flawed because:

      1) The economy grows around the injected stimulus. Ancillary growth seems minimal. Take away the stimulus teat and the economy goes hungry as it has focused on getting money from the stimulus teat and has not developed otherwise.

      2) Real estate price growth driven by debt… this seems like an excellent wealth transfer mechanism from purchasers, generally younger, to asset holders for as long as you can keep pushing interest rates down.

      Start down this road and generate huge debt and and economy grown around the stimulus teat and… there’s no changing direction without significant disruptions. Like trying to wean off a highly addictive drug.

      Why the manufacturing hub of the world would go down this financialized route is a puzzle. I think financialization does make politicians and the financial sector wealthy as it allows them to extract wealth from the society via taxes and directly by capturing stimulus. Did China’s leaders just give into their human nature and let this happen?

      When (real estate) debt gets too big and pervasive in society, and you’re out of ideas about how to increase economic growth, I could see policy makers choosing financialization as a last ditch effort that also happens to make themselves wealthy. But as an explosive growth manufacturing hub to the world? I guess the Chinese leadership just got sloppy and self-indulgent to let it get to here.

  17. What if they all look overpriced? Would it make sense to keep renting until home purchase prices come back down to earth?

    “‘Most homebuyers have seen dozens of properties and can recognize one that’s overpriced,’ Johnson said.”

  18. Oh come on, they know that the real estate market is going to crash and other markets also.

    That’s what the Great Reset is all about. Somehow they want to insure that they are left holding the power and resources. YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING AND BE HAPPY.
    Excuse me, but this doesn’t sound like the Communist Utopia they bribe with, with Social Justice for all .
    Forcing Gene altering injections , in their grand expierment , is just the most outrageous and sinister assault on humans.
    How can the people with the needles be stopped?
    Notice Congress/ Senate Judges etc are exempt from the jab Mandates.
    Your punished if you lose your job, but your punished by risk if you comply and take the jab. Either choice has undeserved conquences.

    1. Ironically, there didn’t have to be a real pandemic for all of this to happen. The plan was all in place for how to scare the sheep into the corner of the barnyard. To a very large extent it worked. Was there a large scale die off? No. I think the videos that China sent us of apartments being welded shut and people falling dead in the street were totally bogus.

      Was there a miracle “vaccine”? No. Did the mandates work at all? No. Did wearing chip deflector visors save anyone? Did taping useless paper masks to our faces protect us? Does standing six feet from someone who has the flu make a flipping difference?

      The intellectuals among us are all tied up in their underwear discussing the fine nuances of what is little understood. The game is to divide us at every level. Lies and contradictions. Is there anything coming from the government that seeks to unite us???

      I believe we are in a battle for the republic. I hope I am ready.

      1. I believe we are in a battle for the republic.

        It might be more than just that. Republics come and go. This is global.

  19. https://www.vaxtestimonies.org/en/

    The Testimonies Project was created to provide a platform for all those who were affected after getting the covid-19 vaccines, and to make sure their voices are heard, since they are not heard in the Israeli media.

    We hope this project will encourage more and more people to tell their story.

    1. RR
      I watched every last one of the these testimonies. The pain and suffering that has been caused by these vaccines is sadistic and cruel. Just unbelievable

  20. So now PVC is at an all time high and the poor builders can’t find it or afford it. I am so tired of the shenanigans these people pull and until the mopes out there stop buying houses it will continue.

    Your house is not an “investment.” It’s a structure with lots of hidden costs that you swear won’t hurt you in the end. If most people added up their maintenance, taxes and insurance they would never crow about all the money they made off the sale of their house.

    I pay no maintenance or upkeep charges on my stocks and options and I can sell them with one mouse click. Learn to trade suckers.

    1. +1

      “added up their maintenance, taxes and insurance”

      I buy light bulbs and cleaning supplies for Casa 401, and I haven’t mowed a lawn or raked a leaf in over a decade.

      1. “or raked a leaf in over a decade.”

        I haven’t raked a leaf in almost four decades. I have however picked up more than my share of palm fronds.

      2. My landscaper and I (I helped too!) de-thatched my lawn twice with his Bluebird machine, and manually raking up the debris after each iteration, which filled his 6-yard trailer to heaping full. Then I went over the thick areas with a thatching rake, and even more debris comes out! Finally, it was time for a final low-cut mowing with the catch bag. Phew!

    2. “If most people added up their maintenance, taxes and insurance they would never crow about all the money they made off the sale of their house.”

      DonkeyMath softens the blow. If they had to do a real accounting they’d throw themselves off a bridge.

  21. World
    The Evergrande Group’s Debt Issues Could Be A Drag On China’s Economy
    September 22, 20214:12 PM ET
    Heard on All Things Considered
    Emily Feng at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., March 19, 2019.
    (photo by Allison Shelley)
    Emily Feng
    Audio will be available later today.

    Half-finished apartment towers are part of Evergrande’s Taicang Cultural City real estate project. The firm has run out of money to finish the buildings as regulators force developers to pay back debts.
    Emily Feng/NPR

    TAICANG, China – The one-bedroom apartment was to be Penelope Wu’s retirement home, an escape from the bustle of Shanghai – or, at least, that’s how Evergrande, the Chinese property developer, painted it. To jump in line ahead of hundreds of other prospective home buyers, Wu paid the sticker price of about $200,000 in full last year, before construction had even broken ground.

    “It did strike me as weird that Evergrande wanted the cash up front. I did not know then that they were so desperate for money,” Wu says as she walks her dog outside her uncompleted building in Taicang’s Cultural City project. The mixed-development project, an hour’s drive from Shanghai, has been halted mid-construction as Evergrande scrambles to pare down its debt under orders from Chinese regulators.
    …

  22. Late Night TV Elite Team Up to Push Cringe ‘Climate Night’ of Propaganda Disguised as Comedy

    by Paul Joseph Watson
    September 22nd 2021, 1:54 pm

    “After four years of the same anti-Trump ‘jokes’, viewers would be forgiven for thinking that America’s late-night ‘comedy’ hosts were all reading from the same script,” reports RT. “On Wednesday, they literally will be. Seven primetime hosts across multiple networks will focus their shows on climate change, blending jokes with liberal lecturing to tackle “the world’s hottest problem.”

    TBS’ ‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’, ABC’s ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’, NBC’s ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’, Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show with Trevor Noah’, CBS’ ‘The Late Late Show with James Corden’, CBS’ ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’, and NBC’s ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon will all take part in ‘Climate Night’ – devoting their shows to pushing hysterical fearmongering about carbon dioxide (plant food) in the same week that Joe Biden vowed to double funding to fight climate change.

    Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Jimmy Fallon and others will team up to push a cringe ‘climate night’ of global warming propaganda disguised as comedy, proving once how late night legacy media entertainment is now just a vehicle for establishment propaganda narratives.

    Respondents to the announcement lashed out at its transparent elitist condecension.

    “I say this with all due respect of course: It is nearly impossible to imagine a group of individuals who are more insufferable in how unfunny they are. Wokeism is a form of mind cancer,” said Professor Gad Saad.

    “A bunch of celebs who fly private, own multiple large homes, and emit way more carbon than the average person are going to talk about their religion tonight on TV,” commented Patrick Gleason.

    As if Kimmel, Colbert, Noah and their ilk will do anything to adjust their own privileged, luxurious lifestyles. They’ll continue to fly private wherever possible and gorge themselves on fine dining while telling you that you’re bad for taking a holiday and eating meat.

    As we document in the video below, the hysteria generated around man-made climate change is one long con game designed to enrich the elite while impoverishing the masses as they’re forced to comply with an onerous social credit score system that restrict their movements and lifestyle choices.

    https://www.infowars.com/

    2. How many people still watch those shows? From what I have read their ratings have been in freefall since Letterman and Leno retired. Then again, the propaganda appears to be working on the masses.

  24. Evergrande investors…Next time you’ll know, When it sounds too good to be true, it is.

    Tough you greedy bastards. I never felt sorry for a Ponzi investor. They are just another type of flipper. Trying to make money screwing someone else.

  27. Early morning Australia post to bump into the next thread.

    “A Melbourne man who was flung headfirst to the ground by a police officer who approached him from behind amid a high-intensity anti-protest operation was “calling for his mum” when he woke up from being unconscious, according to a “distressed” witness.

    Shocking footage has emerged of an officer walking up behind the man standing in Flinders Street Station yesterday, before violently slamming him headfirst into the ground.

    The video — which police say they are investigating — is being spread widely on social media and was filmed during widespread unrest in the city.

    The victim appears to be standing in the station, calmly talking to several other police officers, when the officer approaches from behind.

    Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police Shane Patton today confirmed police are reviewing the footage

    “We’ll investigate that,” Mr Patton told 3AW. “I don’t know what the full circumstances are. There’s always context to everything.”

    Mr Patton said police by and large were responding proportionately in an environment that was dynamic, threatening and frightening.

    “I couldn’t be prouder of them. What they’ve done and the way they’ve conducted themselves,” he said.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/video-emerges-of-cop-throwing-man-headfirst-into-the-ground-in-melbourne/news-story/a9b73be96d8ab5615f186db867de2262

    Dynamic, threatening and frightening?

    This isn’t over until all you globalist pigs are hanging from ropes…

  28. The bulls on Wall Street seem very party hardy these daze, especially with the prospects of Fed tapering and Evergrande debt default under regular discussion. Does some kind of waterfall lie ahead in the river, with no way to see it before you’re over the lip and tumbling uncontrollably?

    1. The Financial Times
      Evergrande Real Estate Group
      Evergrande deadline sends chills through $400bn Asian debt market
      – Corporate dollar bonds hit as crisis at sprawling Chinese property developer escalates
      – Montage of Evergrande building and US dollar
      – Traders fear extensive fallout from an Evergrande default as concerns build over dollar-denominated debt
      Thomas Hale and Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong yesterday

      Deepening worries over Evergrande have ignited selling in a $428bn corner of the Asian debt market, underscoring how the crisis at the Chinese property developer is spreading to other assets as traders and investors brace for a crucial payment deadline on Thursday.

      Yields on US dollar-denominated bonds issued by riskier Asian borrowers have soared to almost 12 per cent this week, the highest level since a jump during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, according to an Ice Data Services index.

      The jolt from 7 per cent at the start of the year came as traders fretted over the potential fallout if Evergrande begins missing payments on the billions of dollars of debt it has outstanding on international markets.

      A failure to make an interest payment due on Thursday on one of its offshore dollar bonds could spark China’s biggest-ever debt restructuring. It would also mark the most severe shock to date across a market to which international asset managers had been enticed by lucrative returns as global bond yields sat near historic lows.
      …

      1. Not to suggest that history will repeat itself, but if you look it up, you will discover that a junk bond selloff preceded the Black Monday event in 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 20 percent in one day.

    2. The Financial Times
      Evergrande Real Estate Group
      – Xi Jinping weighs future of Evergrande as he targets third term
      – China’s president fears bailout of property developer will set an expensive precedent
      – Xi Jinping has offered no reassurances that his administration will intervene to prop up the indebted developer Evergrande
      Tom Mitchell in Singapore, Edward White in Seoul and Sun Yu in Beijing yesterday

      Just a year away from an unprecedented third term in power, Xi Jinping is taking one of the biggest economic gambles of his presidency by letting Evergrande teeter on the edge of bankruptcy.

      A collapse of the heavily indebted Chinese developer would have grave consequences for hundreds of thousands of property buyers and retail investors, as well as financial stability and economic growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

      Yet Xi’s administration has yet to offer any reassurances that it will intervene to stabilise the situation, as it recently did with two other large conglomerates that almost collapsed under the weight of their significant debts.

      “Senior officials are very concerned about Evergrande,” said one government adviser, who noted that China’s debt-to-gross domestic product ratio had surged from 250 to 290 per cent in less than two years.

      “But it is only the tip of the iceberg,” he added. “If something really dramatic happens to Evergrande, the risk premium for other developers’ debt will be much higher, creating another drag for the sector.”

      After sharp falls in Hong Kong early this week, Chinese markets were relatively stable on Wednesday as Evergrande said it would make an onshore bond payment due on Thursday. But the private-sector developer, founded and led by billionaire Hui Ka Yan, gave no such reassurance about an offshore bond payment also due on Thursday.
      …

    3. The Financial Times
      Federal Reserve
      The Fed prepares to tighten: five takeaways from its latest meeting
      Chair Jay Powell reveals US economy is probably strong enough for taper announcement in November
      Fed chair Jay Powell
      …

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