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When The Music Stops, There’s Nothing To Distribute

A report from Floor Daily. “With Millennials being young, the price point of the home is not typically up the food chain, generally in the $250,000 to $400,000 price range, depending on the market and region. The impact, says Andy Hogan, CEO of FEI Group, the nation’s largest network of interior and exterior finish contractors, is that in an effort to churn out homes, a lot of which are spec homes, upgrades are limited. Hogan adds, ‘There’s very little upgrade ability and full flooring selections. Typically, you’ll have standard and then maybe a first- and second-level upgrade and that’s about it if they’re spec homes. So, it’s limiting profitability. The majority of homes that are being built are spec homes, whereas, seven or eight years ago, it was reversed and the majority of homes that were built were not spec and the upgrades back then were maximized.'”

The Idaho Statesman. “Idaho’s largest home builder will take a $600,000 loss for backing out of a deal to buy 282 acres of state-owned land near Caldwell. Back in June, Corey Barton offered $35.2 million — nearly six times the $6 million appraised value for two parcels of farmland. Barton forfeited $500,000 put up as earnest money and an additional $100,000 for extensions that gave him more time to pay, Sharla Arledge, a spokesperson for the Idaho Department of Lands, said by phone.”

“After Barton withdrew, Toll Brothers was offered the property but declined to buy it, she said. So the land will be offered at another auction later this year.”

From KSL on Utah. “The Beehive State’s housing market is catching its breath, according to the Utah Association of Realtors. ‘The big story from the August report is we’ve got sales that have slowed a bit from earlier this year,’ said Deanna Devey, the association’s director of communications. ‘The biggest difference you find is that, instead of getting 30 offers on a home, it might take you a couple weeks, instead of one weekend, to get an offer,’ said Dave Robison, who was the 2020 president of the Utah Association of Realtors. ‘You might still end up with a couple offers.'”

“‘Between now and December, we’re actually going to see the builders put a lot of inventory on the market,’ Robison said. The reason, Robison said, is that many builders switched to spec homes earlier this year because of the rapidly rising prices, and now, those homes are nearing completion. ‘I think that we’ll see more inventory coming on to the market and that’s great news for buyers,’ Devey said. ‘We’ve had some awesome homebuilding that’s happened this year.'”

From Fox 13 Tampa Bay in Florida. “It’s an excellent time to buy a home because buyers who are frustrated with no inventory, there’s a lot more inventory on the market now than the summer, when the houses were selling almost instantaneously, said Realtor Vince Arcuri. His advice, for buyers who may be burned out from the hot market? ‘I’d say don’t give up,’ he said. ‘We’ve had people who have tried to buy 12 to 13 houses and now there seems to be much more of a selection with inventory on the rise.'”

From WTBW in South Carolina. “Real estate experts along the Grand Strand have recently been tracking a shift in the booming housing market. Sloan Realty Group said it’s starting to see a change in trends after August numbers have come in. The realty group has tracked two straight months of decline in single family home sales and three months of decline in condo sales. That’s as inventory for single families has been rising over the last two months, according to Sloan.”

“Sloan Realty said prices haven’t been impacted yet, but it’s keeping a close eye on the trend. This means it could be time to sell if you’ve been waiting for the market to peak. Buyers may soon find a more favorable market. ‘A lot of buyers have been waiting in the wings for prices to correct or the market to soften a bit, or maybe even just the competition to go down,’ Director of Sales for Sloan Realty Group Alex Prout said. ‘So you’re not competing with so many multiple offers.'”

“Prout said the changing season and interest rates could be factors behind the shift. ‘We’re looking at a sharp up spike as far as interest rates go for lending, which is going to deplete the buyer pool and impact affordability as well.'”

From Fox 40 in California. “Financial expert explains ‘buyer fatigue’ in Sacramento housing market. After a year of skyrocketing prices and bidding wars over homes in our area, signs are finally starting to show a cooldown. Brandon Haefele, the CEO of Catalyst Mortgage, joined Mae to share some of the data and where we could go from here. Haefele said the housing market is seeing ‘buyer fatigue,’ presenting a great opportunity for people who have been sitting on the sideline to jump in.”

The New York Post. “A 93rd-floor unit in the world’s tallest condo tower has sold for $28.58 million — more than a quarter off the initial asking price of $38.75 million. The four-bedroom, 4½-bathroom unit is at Central Park Tower, which rises 1,550 feet tall at 217 W. 57th St. The 4,296 square feet comes with a relatively modest monthly maintenance fee of $6,336 a month. So far, 15% of its 178 units have sold.”

“Condo units on Billionaires’ Row have been taking a hit lately, as the US government slightly tightened its anti-money laundering laws to make it a little less easy for anonymous entities to stash dirty cash in American real estate, which helped transform some towers into personal piggy banks for global kleptocrats.”

“‘Manhattan new developments offered a 10.3% discount on average in Q2, so this transaction at Central Park Tower isn’t an anomaly,’ said Kael Goodman, CEO of Marketproof. ‘Billionaire’s Row has the city’s highest concentration of units asking above $20 million and there is abundant shadow inventory at that price point. Developers looking to make a sale are likely to continue offering discounts, even if they’re selling what’s considered a premium product.'”

The Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania. “National Realty Investment Advisors is known in Philadelphia for the thousand-plus rowhomes it has built for investors to rent out and as the owner of one of the city’s biggest development sites. But there is much that NRIA hasn’t highlighted in its messaging. Federal prosecutors have charged a key executive, Thomas Nicholas Salzano, 63, with fraud, saying he used phony loan papers to try to reel in an investor. Salzano helped lead NRIA after he settled with federal regulators in a previous financial fraud.”

“The FBI and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as financial regulators from three states, are investigating the firm. NRIA itself cited those probes in a recent prospectus for potential investors. No criminal charges or civil complaints have been made against the company.”

“Few of its biggest projects, so far, are contributing to those payouts. The former casino site in South Philadelphia, for one, where NRIA has said it plans a ‘private gated community’ of three big apartment buildings, remains unbuilt. Consequently, NRIA has another way of paying its existing investors: cash from new investors, as it noted in the prospectus, published in July. Experts say it’s risky for an investment fund to operate this way, since it may require ever more participants to be brought on board, rather than making money from its business.”

“Claiming credit for at least some of NRIA’s recent regulatory scrutiny is self-styled corporate whistleblower Barry Minkow, who has himself been imprisoned for running scams of his own — twice. ‘This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Minkow said of the firm’s alleged activities in an interview. ‘And I’m a crook.'”

“It’s unusual for funds to use investor contributions, rather than income from the assets they manage, to make payouts to members, said Christophe Terlizzi, a veteran Philadelphia commercial real estate banking executive who now works as a consultant. Unless or until such funds’ actual businesses start turning a profit, they’re stuck chasing down ever larger numbers of new investors to avoid defaulting on existing ones, which they may not be able to continue doing indefinitely, Terlizzi said. ‘When the music stops, there’s nothing to distribute,’ he said.”

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This Post Has 136 Comments

  1. ‘There’s very little upgrade ability and full flooring selections. Typically, you’ll have standard and then maybe a first- and second-level upgrade and that’s about it if they’re spec homes. So, it’s limiting profitability. The majority of homes that are being built are spec homes, whereas, seven or eight years ago, it was reversed’

    I’m a little behind this morning, due to vast amounts of crater and sketchy internet. But I’ve learned I have to slow down and go through these articles. I have to read a bunch of obscure stuff to find gems like this above. These guys are fooked and the media doesn’t have a clue.

    ‘After Barton withdrew, Toll Brothers was offered the property but declined to buy it, she said’

    Yer bubble has popped.

    ‘The reason, Robison said, is that many builders switched to spec homes earlier this year because of the rapidly rising prices, and now, those homes are nearing completion’

    Utah fooked too.

    1. Corey Barton, or CBH Homes as he styles himself nowadays, is known locally as a builder with very low standards, both in construction and customer service. Flimsy CBH cracker boxes are slapped together by teams of guats and meth heads.

    4. “Barton forfeited $500,000 put up as earnest money and an additional $100,000 for extensions that gave him more time to pay…”

      Ouch, I hate it when that happens!

      1. Reminds me of that guy who sat in his car looking up at the water dripping around his sun roof, “I paid extra for that!”

    5. “many builders switched to spec homes earlier this year”

      Funny how not long ago one of the main reasons the “experts” were claiming it can’t be a bubble was because no one is building spec homes.

  3. ‘We’re looking at a sharp up spike as far as interest rates go for lending, which is going to deplete the buyer pool’

    Wa? Interest rates zero forevah? Lenders always break it off in yer a$$ when the gig is up.

    2. Wa? Interest rates zero forevah? Lenders always break it off in yer a$$ when the gig is up.

      FBs walking away from underwater shacks will have the last laugh. Patient renters will have the best laugh.

      2. How many more years does my patience have to last? Rents are like global warming graphs around here… hockey stick.

        1. The best deals are about 5-6 years away. Try to be patient and you will be rewarded. Build a war chest while you wait and low ball with a vengeance.

        1. 3 years waiting

          Hopefully you have lived life in full all that time, rejoicing that you’re not stupid enough to enter a life of crushing debt for an overpriced house!

  4. BTW, there’s plenty of international crater and Chinese foot stamping, but it’ll have to wait: too much US news today. You may have noticed I haven’t had space for CRE crater lately, but it’s out there – mucho forecloso. I also came across a forbearance article that will probably be a weekend topic on its own.

    2. “…Remember when we treated the flu…”

      When I was a kid my dad made what he called a ‘hot tod’ which was a mixture of whiskey and lemon slices heated in a mug. Worked like a miracle.

    3. Meanwhile, we are ceding power to a non profit.

      “The CDC Foundation operates independently from CDC as a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization incorporated in the State of Georgia.“

  6. Which branch of government oversees foreign money laundering into U.S. real estate?

    “…the US government slightly tightened its anti-money laundering laws to make it a little less easy for anonymous entities to stash dirty cash in American real estate, which helped transform some towers into personal piggy banks for global kleptocrats.”

  7. FJB

    ‘Joe, do you distrust Americans so much that you need to know when they buy a couch?’ GOP Senator Cynthia Lummis hammers Biden’s proposal for banks to report every transaction over $600 to the IRS

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10041521/Cynthia-Lummis-launches-tears-Biden-proposal-report-transaction-600-IRS.html

    Wyoming Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis tore into Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen on Tuesday for her support of a Biden proposal to require banks to hand over transaction data over $600 on individual bank accounts.

    ‘Banks do not work for the IRS,’ Lummis said. ‘This is invasive of privacy. Wyoming’s people literally will find alternatives to traditional banks just to thwart IRS access to their personal information, not because they’re trying to hide anything, but because they are not willing to share everything.’

    1. Prediction: Convoys of buses packed with Haitian migrants will shortly be rolling into Nebraska. Biden and the DNC won’t abide the resistance from red states seeking to protect their residents from globalist-collectivist attempts to impose their creepy surveillance state to facilitate more efficient wealth extraction from the productive – changing the demographics by packing in Democrat-on-Arrival dependency voters will be the fate of such holdouts. Forward, Soviet!

      Thanks, but no banks! Nebraska becomes the first state to say they will NOT comply with Biden’s snooping plan to have banks report every transaction over $600 to the IRS

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10046087/Nebraska-says-NOT-comply-Biden-plan-banks-report-transactions-600-IRS.html

      Nebraska is already promising to defy a Biden proposal that would require banks to hand over data on transactions over $600 on individual bank accounts to the IRS.

      ‘My message is really simple. The people of Nebraska entrusted me to protect the privacy of these accounts and I am not going to comply with this. If the Biden administration sues me, we will take it all the way to the Supreme Court. We are going to fight every step of the way,’ state treasurer John Murante told FOX Business.

    3. If you’re Joe Biden, you are distrustful because just about every transaction you’ve ever made was fraudulent.

  8. I was able to track down this REO:

    174 S First East Street
    Fredonia, AZ 86022

    3 beds 1 bath 1,177 sqft ~1/2 acre lot $67 per sqft 1920 build

    Foreclosure $79,900

    ‘This 1920s house features three bedrooms, inside laundry, larger lot, and two car detached garage. Nice, lofty ceilings with plenty of space to expand. Great opportunity for investors or owner occupant with some sweat equity. Priced for quick sale, make an offer today.’

    https://www.estately.com/listings/info/174-s-first-east-street

    This is truly BFE, Morman style. It’s so bad I wouldn’t even go up there last decade. After driving for several hours, no phone service most likely. Which means you can’t get approval for anything when you find a disaster. Some lucky lender dropped 79k pesos on this worthless rat hole. You couldn’t give me this thing.

    1. Basement:
      Yes Basement
      Description: Full

      Utilities:
      Sewer: Sewer – Public
      Water: Pvt Water Company

      Looks like another “water haul” property. Full basement? More likely a storm cellar. I dunno, maybe it’s a good place for some our guests from south of the border?

      1. • I am of the opinion that interest rates are the biggest driver of house prices. A piece of evidence for that is non-trivially coordinated movements of house prices in selected Western economies.

        • If mortgage interest rates are at or close to their lowest bounds ( https://www.macrotrends.net/2604/30-year-fixed-mortgage-rate-chart – the conventional wisdom is that they track US 10 Year treasuries: https://www.macrotrends.net/2016/10-year-treasury-bond-rate-yield-chart ), there is not much upside left in the market. I’m certainly not expecting a crash but I don’t think the prices leaping higher year after year for a decade is going to continue. I predict (hah) a plateau and perhaps even a slow decline, as happened after WWII (to real house prices ( https://imgur.com/upGMs2d ) – and even nominal prices were flat ( https://imgur.com/0XveGbz )), for 30 years.

        • That could induce more inventory to come to market as speculators decide to lock in gains (houses have carrying costs in taxes and maintenance and fees). Note: Sales are at bubble highs ( https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/existing-home-sales – select “Max” as range) on 3 to 5 percent fewer listings from the immediately preceding years. That’s a high pressure market. Combine with bored lockdown’ed people and rapidly dropped mortgage interest rates at their (I think) lower bounds and you get a frenzy.

        • On the other hand – the government always raises conforming loan limits and they’ll do so in 2022. Population is always increasing. The pandemic left people with lots of time to cruise Zillow (Zillow humor from SNL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEfsaXDX0UQ ). If they have more work to do and less time to fantasize about real estate, they’ll be less inclined to move. They had a historic sales year so there will probably be some buyer satiation. Unless a lot of houses come on the market from forbearance ending (forbearance runs in 3 month chunks up to 12 months, Sept 30 is the latest you can apply, unless the government extends it: https://time.com/nextadvisor/mortgages/mortgage-news/deadline-to-apply-forbearance-sept-30th/ ), people who want to move won’t have a place to move. So, there’s a possibility that the market could remain “high pressure”. But the upward price pressure from ever declining mortgage rates will be removed.

        2. The essence of a bubble is the irrational belief that enormous profits will be made. Interest rates merely set a ceiling on the insane lust fest.

          1. “I am of the opinion that interest rates are the biggest driver of house prices.”

            You can use high school math to show the relationship between the monthly payment and the related loan proceeds that can be raised to fund a home purchase. Basically, with higher interest rates, more of a given size monthly payment goes to paying interest, leaving less principle to apply to the purchase.

            Not to suggest that most used home sellers are smart enough to do the calculations, or honest enough to advise their clients about the risk of buying when mortgage rates are at an all time low…

      2. Nonetheless, if appreciatively higher than recent levels, even an increase to above 3% can knock the legs out from under demand at the crazy asking prices sellers have come to demand.

  11. “as the US government slightly tightened its anti-money laundering laws to make it a little less easy for anonymous entities to stash dirty cash in American real estate, which helped transform some towers into personal piggy banks for global kleptocrats.”

    So the conspiracy theory was a conspiracy fact? Finally they admit money laundering was in fact a ‘preferred’ business model for housing. Amerikka, what a country….never fails to disappoint you.

  15. “It’s unusual for funds to use investor contributions, rather than income from the assets they manage, to make payouts to members, … Unless or until such funds’ actual businesses start turning a profit, they’re stuck chasing down ever larger numbers of new investors to avoid defaulting on existing ones”

    Huh, that rings a bell. I think there’s a special name for this scheme ..🤔. Can anyone jog my memory?

  16. Today is Thursday, September 30th and Joe Biden is not the legitimately elected president of the United States.

    The 2020 election was stolen.

    1. ‘The number of voters whose existence could not be verified in a database used by Arizona auditors far outnumbers Joe Biden’s supposed “lead” of 10,457 votes in the state of Arizona in the 2020 election’… Fox News infamously called the state of Arizona for Biden early on election night, enraging its conservative viewers and making it clear that the fix was in. (REMEMBER: Fox’s Washington Executive Actively Campaigned For Former Boss Joe Biden).’

      “All voters within the Final Voted File, or VM55, was cross-checked against a commercially available data source provided by Melissa called Personator and 86,391 individuals were found with no record in the database for either their name, or anyone with the same last name at the address in the VM55 file,” according to page 56 of the report entitled “Maricopa County Forensic Election Audit: Volume III: Result Details.”

      https://nationalfile.com/arizona-audit-voters-with-no-record-of-their-existence-in-database-far-outnumber-bidens-lead/

        1. Getting harder for the globalists & their Democrat-Bolshevik Quislings to maintain the “most popular president ever!” fiction in the face of such massive, vocal popular disdain.

    2. I saw a story out of Georgia yesterday that they had surveillance footage of a ballot drop box which was visited by a total of 24 people but had over 19000 votes deposited in the same time period.

  17. Arbitrary, capacious COVID-19 preventive measures have given psychopaths in positions of authority the opportunity to be who and what they really are.

    Heartbreaking timeline of the murder that shocked Britain: How killer policeman abused Covid powers to snare Sarah Everard… before trying to cover up his monstrous crime

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10042893/How-killer-policeman-abused-Covid-laws-snare-Sarah-Everard-trying-cover-crime.html

  18. Bedwetting article from Salon (using the archive site to deny them clicks) It’s time to start firing unvaccinated people: Trump fans are overdue for a lesson in consequences (9/27/2021):

    https://archive.is/Snzwi

    The author of this article has a name, and an address. Perhaps the weaponized autists of 4chan should look into that…

    1. Now that the globalists & their Quislings have established a precedent for labeling an entire category of people as undesirables and marginalizing them accordingly, the labeling, and coersive repression, is only going to get worse from here. With the CDC head already talking about her plans to address guns from a “public health” standpoint – using “studies” from the usual globalist-funded “think tanks” – it’s not hard to see where this is going. “First they came for the unvaccinated….”

        2. Most of the cases of cardiomyopathy are asymptomatic. Drs are telling people who are diagnosed that it’s temporary. But we don’t know that yet. The prognosis for cardiomyopathy is generally poor with a mortality rate of ~50% after 5 years I believe. Whether the kielbasa induced condition follows the same course we don’t know yet. If it does, we will start to see a wave of deaths from cardiac events in 20-40 year olds in about 6 months to one year. But we just don’t know right now because this is an experimental kielbasa with no long term safety data.

          1. Post-viral myocarditis has been known for many decades. Most cases resolve. The cases that don’t resolve can turn into life threatening myocardiopathy. I imagine the same thing will wind up being true for COVID-19. Pity that so few autopsies are done to track down outcomes.

        4. Remember, as of this week YouTube is banning all content questioning vaccines.

          YouTube are globalists owned by globalist Google. Let’s stop using links from them and support alternative platforms without censorship.

      2. what these arrogant ivory-towered arseholes are not yet grasping is the simple fact that FJB is gaining traction among the working class.

        yep, you know, the ones that make things. the ones that produce. the ones that keep this country running.

        these people are not the takers. the useless eaters. the eternal welfare scam crowd.

        just like Rome, when these productive people have had enough of useless voting, when their complaints fall on deaf ears, they will also just stop working & walk away.

        I know I have. what’s the point of producing more if you keep less? what’s the use of working hard when the govt forces you to hand it over to those that do not & will not earn their share?

        there is none. I, for one, will no longer comply.

        I am an cognizant, thinking, citizen who has free will and I will not surrender that condition.

        I am not a “consumer”. I am not a “product”.
        though the tide in the affairs of men will ebb & flow, I insist upon charting my own course through life.

        it’s just that simple

        2. there is none. I, for one, will no longer comply.

          Great post. I’m with you on this, and will stop producing for “the man” this year.

          1. I’m with you on this

            Here as well. A ways down the path on this. Not by genius, just by what I want to do with my days. For me.

        4. when these productive people have had enough of useless voting, when their complaints fall on deaf ears, they will also just stop working & walk away. As the Roman Empire was collapsing, some of their “productive people” had already stopped working in the Empire and moved in with the barbarians. In a few generations, their descendants were back in what used to be called the Roman Empire.

          1. Germania was too far north, and the chain of command had to absorb corruption at each hop along the way. Same can be said of the U.S. trying to “own” Afghanistan despite modern communication and air superiority. Hubris comes with a high cost.

  20. Prices crater but ppsf remains the same or make a nominal move lower like 2%? Also smaller houses are usually less luxurious in quality and amenities so it would fit that ppsf is less

    1. Houses aren’t transacted by unit price.

      Burlingame, CA Housing Prices Crater 21% YOY As Rampant Appraisal Fraud Ravages Bay Area

      https://www.movoto.com/burlingame-ca/market-trends/

      As a distinguished economist said so eloquently, “Nothing accelerates the economy and creates jobs like falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels. Nothing.”

  21. Has the Biden regime started importing CCP advisors to assist our transformation into a socialist paradise?

    REVEALED: Biden’s nominee for Comptroller of the Currency thinks the Fed should ‘end banking’, admires the Soviet Union’s economy because there was ‘no gender pay gap’ and says hedge funds are an ‘a**hole industry’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10045817/Biden-pick-oversee-banks-thinks-Fed-end-banking-calls-Wall-St-hole-industry.html

    A Cornell University law professor who advocated ending banking ‘as we know it’ and praised the Soviet Union’s financial system over its lack of a gender pay gap has been tapped by the White House to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

    Saule Omarova’s nomination to head the regulatory agency overseeing the country’s largest banks is a controversial choice that’s alarmed banking groups.

      1. Blowing up vacant skyboxes – malinvestment at its finest.

        Demolished buildings expose alarming problem for China amid Evergrande crisis

        https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/chinas-evergrande-fiasco-exposes-alarming-problem-facing-beijings-growth-model/news-story/c11fdf966f666b642610308edb8592de

        The potential collapse of Chinese property titan Evergrande has dominated headlines – but it has exposed a much deeper problem facing Beijing.

        1. Blowing up vacant skyboxes – malinvestment at its finest.

          People who recommend malinvestment as a path to prosperity (invariable via central planning) … I think they lack a “smell test”. As in “Does this pass the smell test?” I think this applies to a number of high profile economists (the original was Keynes with his filling bottles with money and digging them up). They’re very smart, well-read, usually quite good at math (the modern day Latin). But they advocate things that seem nonsensical to the “Swabian housewife” model of thinking, which I think is most people.

          I get that people work for the slips of paper (money); put more slips of paper in the economy, you get more work and you get more value created. That’s the theory anyway that leaders have had over the millennia for debasing the currency and printing more of it.

          But… people are trying to improve their lives. These money-shuffling schemes don’t seem to me to be reliable ways to do it, any more than trying to win the shell game is a good way to make money. People who do believe they can reliably win at gambling perhaps are more optimistic.

          1. These money-shuffling schemes don’t seem to me to be reliable ways to do it, any more than trying to win the shell game is a good way to make money.

            I forgot one very important caveat: These are hugely profitable to The House.

          3. “Swabian housewife

            Is that the legendary German frugality?”

            Indeed. From theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/17/angela-merkel-austerity-swabian-housewives (prepend it with a www, don’t want to put yet another item into moderation)

            “In the sleepy, picturesque towns and villages of south-west “Germany, the paragons of thrift are doing what they do best. They shop frugally, use credit cards rarely and save up to a third of a property’s value before applying for a mortgage.

            The schwäbische Hausfrau – southern Germany’s thrifty Swabian housewife – is frequently invoked by Angela Merkel. The German chancellor argues that Europe has been living beyond its means and can learn from these women’s frugal housekeeping and balanced budgeting.”

  25. AFT Dispatch
    We’ve made several videos about shipping containers and container ships piling up in the Port of Los Angeles, Ports of Long Beach, different Chinese ports. We’ve talked about San Francisco Bay, Port of Seattle, Port of Tacoma, as well as the Yantian International Container Terminal, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Ningbo, Zhoushan, and Meidong.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfkAFdr76aU&t=29s

    1. The west coast ports are controlled by the ILWU, one of the worst unions in the country. They barely worked before the scamdemic and are a total joke of a workforce. They are democratic darlings though so these facts will never be discussed in any of the hysteria articles. I would cite some examples of how bad they are but you wouldn’t believe me.

      2. I would cite some examples of how bad they are but you wouldn’t believe me.

        How about starting your own blog and filling it with your examples. Over the years I have picked up many clues that what you describe is the truth, but it’s never been collected in one spot. The breakdown of our West Coast port functions could well be subversion masking as mere inefficiency.

  26. So natgas prices are up about 400% in green Europe. Maybe they’ll be able to keep warm this winter by lighting St. Greta votive candles.

    Also, some UK government minister said that there won’t be any black outs … which means there will be black outs this winter in the UK. So they will be shivering in the dark while they wait in line. Hey, maybe the booster shot centers will be heated?

      1. “Customers are protected from sudden hikes in wholesale gas prices through the energy price cap, which is the maximum price they can be charged on a standard tariff.”

        You just know that the elites shorted these energy suppliers before they enacted the tariffs.

  27. Yet one more reason to avoid Clownifornia. From latimes:

    Many members of the Los Angeles City Council voiced support Wednesday for a sweeping proposal that would require people to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 to go inside restaurants, shopping centers, movie theaters, hair and nail salons, and a range of other indoor venues in Los Angeles.

    The vote was delayed, but we all know it will pass. Do grocery stores count as shopping centers?

      1. I’m sure it’s coming. That said, I never have any business in Dumver, other than to catch a plane or pick someone up at DIA.

        Speaking of DIA, I read they’re going to blow a wad on a seventh runway. Maybe they should finish remodeling the terminal first.

        And why do they need a seventh runway? Yeah, it’s a busy airport, but it’s never been that busy, especially now. Probably another graft deal.

    2. The business owners are the ones getting screwed. Libtards are the dumbest people on the planet. They are destroying the economy. Just obliterating it.

      1. Libtards are the dumbest people on the planet. They are destroying the economy

        You’re assuming this is an oversight. Maybe…maybe not…

  28. Are Californians ready for the Japonification of their housing market?

    Four families under one roof, here we come!

    1. “What does the end of single-family zoning look like?
      Posted by Bethany Correia |
      Sep 27, 2021
      What does the end of single-family zoning look like?

      As California’s housing crisis and political divisions deepen, its lawmakers are trying every legislative trick in the book to get any relief to stick.

      Senate Bill 9 (SB 9) is the latest of these efforts. The bill is only part of the California Senate’s Building Opportunities for All housing package, a multi-faceted approach to combat the state’s housing woes.

      More specifically, SB 9 aims to ease the process and ability of homeowners to create a duplex or subdivide their single-family residential lot into up to four units. Proponents tout the bill’s potential to increase affordable housing stock in a tight real estate market and open up additional income sources for homeowners.

      SB 9 was approved by the California Assembly on August 26, 2021, in a 44-16 vote, then approved by the Senate on August 30 in a 28-7 vote. Opponents of the bill hoped the recall of Governor Newsom would make the bill null and void, but in the wake of Newsom’s win, that strategy has met a dead end. Newsom officially signed SB 9 into law on September 16, 2021.

      Now that SB 9 has been signed into law, how its effectiveness and reception unfolds in the long term remains to be seen.
      YIMBY vs. NIMBY

      Yes-in-my-backyard (YIMBY) activists view this law as a progressive step in the right direction, modernizing communities and making homeownership more accessible and affordable. They argue bans on duplexes perpetuate the legacy of redlining by making it more difficult for people of color to afford to live in high-opportunity neighborhoods.

      High-opportunity neighborhoods are those classified as providing access to community attributes and amenities often indicative of increased economic mobility. These attributes and amenities include higher job density, higher income, lower poverty and unemployment rates, increased completion of higher education and are predominantly white in population.

      In contrast, lower-opportunity neighborhoods are characterized by lower job density, lower income, higher poverty and unemployment rates, decreased completion of higher education and are predominantly populated by people of color. While these are not hard and fast rules, the pattern — and its discriminatory outcome — is hard to ignore.”

  30. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2021
    The Market Crash Nobody Thinks Is Possible Is Coming
    The banquet of consequences is being served, and risk-off crashes are, like revenge, best served cold.

    The ideal setup for a crash is a consensus that a crash is impossible–in other words, just like the present: sure, there are carefully measured murmurings about a “correction” but nobody with anything to lose in the way of public credibility is calling for an honest-to-goodness crash, a real crash, not a wimpy, limp-wristed dip that will immediately be bought.

    What I’m calling for is a rip your face off, weeping bitter tears over the grave of the speculative wealth that you thought was forever crash. All those buying the dip because the Fed will never let the market go down will be crushed like scurrying cockroaches and all those trying to rotate into the next hot sector or asset class will also be crushed like scurrying cockroaches because when the Everything Bubble pops, well, everything pops. There is no shelter in a risk-off cascade.

    The crash is coming as a result of multiple mutually reinforcing dynamics, the first being that no “serious person” believes a crash is possible, much less imminent. In no particular order, here are a raft of other causally consequential triggers of a cascading market crash:

    1. As I noted in my call for the top, Is Anyone Willing to Call the Top of the Everything Bubble? (September 6, 2021), there is no history to support the widespread confidence that the extremes of over-valuation, leverage, euphoria and speculation last forever, or even much longer than the lifespan of a cockroach. We’re well past that benchmark into unprecedented insanity. So what happens next: squish.

    Just for the record, the Dow topped out on August 13, the S&P 500 topped out on September 2 and the Nasdaq topped out the day after my call, September 7. (Close enough for gummit work…)

    2. The credibility of the Federal Reserve is in the dumpster, which just caught fire. As I explained in The Fed Is Fatally Corrupt– And So Is the Rest of America’s Status Quo (September 10, 2021), the Fed is corrupt on multiple levels–thoroughly, completely corrupt, and so are all its minions, proxies, apparatchiks, toadies, apologists and lackeys.

    This is finally leaking through the Fed corruption containment vessel as even the lackeys in the billionaire-owned corporate media are now fearful of losing whatever tattered shreds of credibility they still possess by refusing to acknowledge Fed corruption, over-reach and hubris. And so at long last, the Fed no longer walks on water. The Fed’s fraudulent travesty of a mockery of a sham scam has finally breached the three-foor thick containment walls and the putrid stench of Fed corruption can no longer be bottled up.

    Like any good kleptocratic Politburo, the Fed cashiered the two most indefensible scapegoats to divert attention from the equally corrupt incumbents presiding over the collapse of Fed credibility. Don’t be surprised if the scapegoats are airbrushed out of official photos, per officially approved propaganda.

    3. As I detailed in The U.S. Economy In a Nutshell: When Critical Parts Are On “Indefinite Back Order,” the Machine Grinds to a Halt and Sorry, Fed, Inflation is Already Embedded, the fuel of the inflation rocket has just ignited and the clueless, corrupt Fed is watching the boost phase in abject, humiliating confusion, as the Fed is now completely powerless, having blown the opportunity to get ahead of the curve by reducing their making billionaires richer “stimulus” a year ago.

    Inflation is not just embedded, it’s global. Natural gas prices could triple in entire regions without even breathing hard, and the costs of other essentials could just as easily triple without breaking a sweat.

    Inflation crushes risk-on speculative markets like, well, scurrying cockroaches. Squish.

    4. The Fed has lost control of yields. We all know that liars reveal their dishonesty via micro-signals, and with this is mind, slow down the video of Fed Politburo speakers, starting with Chairperson Powell. Wealth inequality soaring? It’s not our doing! etc.

    Oops, the cat is out of the bag: the Fed has lost control of yields. Trust in the Fed’s god-like powers is wavering, as punters and players realize the Fed’s shuck-and-jive has finally lost its power to wow the greedy and the credulous.

    Rising yields crush risk-on speculative markets like, well, scurrying cockroaches. Squish.

    5. China is not “saving the world” this time. As I explained in What’s Really Going On in China (September 23, 2021), China has other fish to fry and it isn’t bailing out global markets as it did in previous bubble pops. Squish.

    6. The rising US dollar is Kryptonite to speculative markets, emerging market debt and risk-on euphoria. Sorry about that, but you know what happens next: Squish.

    7. The retail bagholders are now all-in. As I noted in Please Don’t Pop Our Precious Bubble! (September 8, 2021), the retail punters have finally gone all-in on the “this bubble will never pop” Everything Bubble. As I observed in August, The Smart Money Has Already Sold (August 18, 2021) as the retail bagholders have poured more cash into the Everything Bubble than they did in the past decade or two.

    This is of course the most reliable signal that a bubble is about to pop. Sorry about that: squish.

    8. The buy the dip crowd has been so well-trained that they will provide the necessary buying to keep the cascade from gathering too much momentum. A stairstep down that sucks in buy the dip buyers is ideal for those profiting from the decline. First up: a rally to close the quarter positively to make it appear that every money manager beat the index funds. And so on.

    But the net result is still: squish. Consequences can be put off for quite some time, but the rot beneath the machinations only amplifies the eventual collapse.

    The banquet of consequences is being served, and risk-off crashes are, like revenge, best served cold.

    oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: The Market Crash Nobody Thinks Is Possible Is Coming
    https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-market-crash-nobody-thinks-is.html

  31. “What does the end of single-family zoning look like?
    Posted by Bethany Correia |
    Sep 27, 2021
    What does the end of single-family zoning look like?

    As California’s housing crisis and political divisions deepen, its lawmakers are trying every legislative trick in the book to get any relief to stick.

    Senate Bill 9 (SB 9) is the latest of these efforts. The bill is only part of the California Senate’s Building Opportunities for All housing package, a multi-faceted approach to combat the state’s housing woes.

    More specifically, SB 9 aims to ease the process and ability of homeowners to create a duplex or subdivide their single-family residential lot into up to four units. Proponents tout the bill’s potential to increase affordable housing stock in a tight real estate market and open up additional income sources for homeowners.

    SB 9 was approved by the California Assembly on August 26, 2021, in a 44-16 vote, then approved by the Senate on August 30 in a 28-7 vote. Opponents of the bill hoped the recall of Governor Newsom would make the bill null and void, but in the wake of Newsom’s win, that strategy has met a dead end. Newsom officially signed SB 9 into law on September 16, 2021.

    Now that SB 9 has been signed into law, how its effectiveness and reception unfolds in the long term remains to be seen.
    YIMBY vs. NIMBY

    Yes-in-my-backyard (YIMBY) activists view this law as a progressive step in the right direction, modernizing communities and making homeownership more accessible and affordable. They argue bans on duplexes perpetuate the legacy of redlining by making it more difficult for people of color to afford to live in high-opportunity neighborhoods.

    High-opportunity neighborhoods are those classified as providing access to community attributes and amenities often indicative of increased economic mobility. These attributes and amenities include higher job density, higher income, lower poverty and unemployment rates, increased completion of higher education and are predominantly white in population.

    In contrast, lower-opportunity neighborhoods are characterized by lower job density, lower income, higher poverty and unemployment rates, decreased completion of higher education and are predominantly populated by people of color. While these are not hard and fast rules, the pattern — and its discriminatory outcome — is hard to ignore.”

  32. CR8R

    “The Beehive State’s housing market is catching its breath, according to the Utah Association of Realtors.”

    1. Markets
      Veteran investor Jeremy Grantham warns of an epic market bubble, bemoans the meme-stock boom, and touts venture capital in a new interview. Here are the 12 best quotes.
      Theron Mohamed
      Sep 29, 2021, 7:45 AM
      – Jeremy Grantham warned of a historic market bubble in the US.
      – The veteran investor said domestic stocks, bonds, commodities, and real estate are all overpriced.
      – Grantham sounded the alarm on a global housing bubble and ridiculed the meme-stock trend.
      …

      1. “…and touts venture capital…”

        If history is any guide, then venture capital will get flushed harder and faster than most other risk assets when the toilet bowl is emptied.

    1. Sep 30, 2021,
      07:45am EDT|20,572 views
      Goldman Flags $8.2 Trillion Threat Worse Than China Evergrande
      William Pesek
      Senior Contributor
      Asia
      I write about economics, markets and policymaking throughout Asia.

      The real worry concerning the China Evergrande default drama is the inevitable where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire paranoia that accompanies debt stumbles.

      The most worrisome such blaze, say analysts at Goldman Sachs, is surging local government debt levels that President Xi Jinping’s men have done their best to hide. The default troubles at the globe’s most indebted property development seem like small embers compared to the $8.2 trillion worth of local government financing vehicles outstanding.

      And that’s just the LGFVs we know of. The data that Goldman’s Maggie Wei highlights is as of the end of 2020. Clearly, the tally is higher now—perhaps markedly. Ten months ago, these shadowy investment schemes had reached 53 trillion yuan, up from 16 trillion yuan, or $2.47 trillion, in 2013. They now amount to roughly 52% of China’s gross domestic product, topping the official amount of outstanding government debt.

      In other words, as scary at the $300 billion Evergrande story might be, Xi’s government has much bigger problems on its hands. The most acute: keeping GDP this year from falling too far below the 6% Beijing hoped to produce without adding to the nation’s bubble troubles.
      …

      1. “The real worry concerning the China Evergrande default drama is the inevitable where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire paranoia that accompanies debt stumbles.”

        Cockroach Theory
        By James Chen
        Updated August 30, 2021
        Fact checked by Suzanne Kvilhaug

        What Is the Cockroach Theory?

        The cockroach theory refers to a market theory that states when a company reveals bad news to the public, many more related, negative events may be revealed in the future. Bad news may come in the form of an earnings miss, a lawsuit, or some other unexpected, negative event. The term cockroach theory comes from the common belief that seeing one cockroach is usually evidence there are many more.
        …

    1. Alessio Arena
      @AlessioArena86
      ·
      7h
      Replying to
      @PeterSweden7
      First Australia, then Canada… Who’ll be next? Maybe we, italians?

  38. The Financial Times
    Eurozone inflation
    German inflation hits 29-year high of 4.1%
    Economists expect overall eurozone inflation to reach 3.3% when figures are released on Friday
    Crowds in front of the Reichstag on the occasion of the German reunification in October 1990
    The last time German prices rose this fast, the country had only recently reunified
    Martin Arnold in Frankfurt
    15 hours ago

    German inflation hit 4.1 per cent in September, its highest level for 29 years, prompting some economists to question whether central bankers are right to assume the surge in prices is only temporary and will disappear next year.

    The last time inflation in Germany was as high, Helmut Kohl was still chancellor, the Deutschemark was still in use and the country had only reunified a couple of years earlier, sending prices up sharply in the east.

    “The worst is yet to come,” said Jörg Krämer, chief economist at Commerzbank, adding that even if price growth does slow somewhat next year, “in the long term, we expect an inflation problem for Germany and the euro area”.
    …

      1. At the time of reunification, one Deutschemark could be purchased for approximately five Ostmarks, essentially increasing the value of the Ostmark by 500%.

        1. A German colleague of mine said at the time “This year I could buy a nice car, or next year buy a nice bicycle.”

  39. If new investors willingly offer to eat Evergrand losses by purchasing their debt, then the need for bailouts is gone…right

    1. The Financial Times
      Evergrande Real Estate Group
      Evergrande bonds snapped up by distressed debt investors
      Funds bet Beijing will come to rescue of the world’s most highly leveraged developer
      Evergrande missed a payment on a dollar bond due last Friday and has made no announcement on a separate payment on another bond that was due on Wednesday. The delay has set the stage for what could be China’s biggest ever debt restructuring
      Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong, Edward White in Seoul and Joe Rennison in New York yesterday

      Distressed debt funds and individual investors are flocking to bonds issued by Chinese property developer Evergrande, betting that Beijing will be forced to rescue the country’s most indebted company.

      The rush to buy Evergrande debt comes as many pension funds, insurers and other more conservative institutional investors have distanced themselves from the group amid fears of contagion in the Chinese property market and the global financial system.

      “Evergrande is an incredibly interesting, but highly complex situation that will likely play out over several years,” said Jason Friedman, partner at Marathon Asset Management, one of a clutch of funds that has built a position in Evergrande.
      …

  40. Gee, What Could It Be? UK Newspaper Reports, “MYSTERY Rise in Heart Attacks from Blocked Arteries”

    by Adan Salazar
    September 30th 2021, 9:05 pm

    The Times of London reported Thursday doctors in Scotland are baffled by a “mysterious” rise in heart attacks stemming from blocked arteries.

    Meanwhile, the paper omitted any possible links to the Covid-19 vaccine, which has been blamed for deaths linked to blood clots throughout the summer, and which numerous doctors have warned would produce blood clots in a majority of vaccinated people.

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/gee-what-could-it-be-uk-newspaper-reports-mystery-rise-in-heart-attacks-from-blocked-arteries/

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