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It’s Whatever Works At The Time, And It Keeps Changing

A weekend topic starting with two reports from ERR. “Estonian construction volumes exceeded pre-crisis levels in the previous quarter with the production value of construction enterprises in Estonia and abroad increasing 15 percent year-on-year. Developers say that as long as demand keeps up, apartments and other buildings will continue to be constructed. LHV private finance department head Kätlin Vatsel said purchasing power is key. ‘If we compare purchasing power with the previous crisis, it is more than double, meaning that a client earning the average wage can buy more square meters.'”

“The home loans business is booming in Estonia, with the average loan sum now exceeding €100,000. However, rapid growth of the loan volume and maximum loan burden of low-income households is worrying the Bank of Estonia. The loan sums of borrowers in the lowest quintile by income have grown the most. The Bank of Estonia is worried to see a lot of loans granted to low-income household where the monthly payment is close to its 50 percent of monthly income cap.”

“‘We have seen the relative importance of loans where the monthly payment is closer to the 50 percent of income ceiling grow in the last three quarters. Volumes have grown faster in the case of lower-income households. And as concerns smaller banks,’ Gaili Grüning, economist for the Bank of Estonia, told ERR.”

“The central bank finds that Estonian banks LHV, Coop and Bigbank have more high-risk clients. ‘Credit risk assessment is the most important thing we look for and we are acting responsibly there. While banks are allowed to make exceptions regarding the 50 percent of income cap, we have not made any,’ said Catlin Vatsel, head of private loans at LHV.”

Daily Reckoning Australia. “In May last year, four major high-rise developments in Melbourne were fast-tracked for approval by the ‘Building Victoria’s Recovery Taskforce’. That alone is a strong indication that we’re entering an unprecedented building boom for the second half of this cycle. The timing of the tallest residential buildings opening to the public always and unequivocally gives the timing of the next economic recession.”

“The pattern is easy to understand. The tallest buildings are approved when times are good and easy money is sloshing around. Usually, at the start of the real estate cycle. However, because of the extended construction timeline, they typically open at the end of the cycle, when times are not quite so sunny. High-rise blocks also tend to go up in clusters. It leads to a lot of units hitting the market at one time.”

“It’s one reason why in downturns, you’ll see a capital city’s vacancy rates rise suddenly and disproportionally. Because the ‘tallest’ is a much-publicised event, the pattern above has become known as ‘The Skyscraper Curse’. The theory has been around as long as skyscrapers have been around.”

From Stuff New Zealand. “Economics is sometimes referred to as the dismal science, but economist Shamubeel Eaqub has a different view when it comes to some tools of the trade: ‘There is no science, it’s all made up, right?’ Eaqub says. ‘I mean, it’s whatever works at the time, and it keeps changing.'”

“He is talking about the traditional role of central banks in keeping inflation low by hiking interest rates. It is obviously a hot topic now, because we are facing steep interest rate hikes to combat rising inflation. Fisher Funds head of fixed interest David McLeish says the central bank’s tools aren’t suited for this either, because post-Covid we are dealing with a supply-side inflation shock rather than anything caused by the Reserve Bank.”

“”So it’s already hurting us, this inflation, and then what the central bank then goes and says is your debt servicing cost is now higher as well, we’ll take more money out of your back pocket. That doesn’t fix the problem; that potentially makes it worse. It certainly makes the demand side of the economic equation worse.'”

“Before the 1980s, the economy didn’t have enough capital. Now we have solved that problem, but we have another one in its place: the extra capital investment isn’t going anywhere useful. There has been a glut of mortgage borrowing to fund a mass swap of second-hand houses, but there has been severe underinvestment in technology and other productivity-enhancing tools, not to mention infrastructure.”

“Undoubtedly, governments will be tasked with taking a more active interest in these problems, as they did in Germany and Japan after World War II, when capital was allocated to particular uses and industries. Such government intervention would fly in the face of what is politically acceptable today. It is not that the old prescription was wrong, but there seems to be a good argument that it has had its time.”

From KTVB in Idaho. “Two of the Treasure Valley’s fast-growing cities were ranked among the nation’s top-ranked boomtowns in a report.In the rankings, Meridian was tied for third place while Nampa was ranked second, which city leaders said is an indicator that they’re reaching their goals. While the median home price in Ada County has slightly decreased by 2% in October, a $530,000 home is something few can afford. ‘We really do need to continue to attract good quality businesses that pay high family waged jobs, that’s really our focus,’ said Cameron Arial, the city’s community development director.”

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This Post Has 107 Comments

  1. ‘If we compare purchasing power with the previous crisis’

    Help me out here Kätlin, which crisis are you talking about? There are so many all the time I’ve lost count.

    ‘it is more than double’

    Sound lending!

  2. ‘While the median home price in Ada County has slightly decreased by 2% in October, a $530,000 home is something few can afford. ‘We really do need to continue to attract good quality businesses that pay high family waged jobs, that’s really our focus’

    That’s the ticket, everybody move out and let rich people move in. Problem sol-ved!

  3. ‘Before the 1980s, the economy didn’t have enough capital. Now we have solved that problem’

    As I see it we made a huge mistake letting the central banks get away with QE and the like. Long ago I read a central banker say monetizing the US debt would be illegal. And remember when even Greenspan would say over and over, the fed doesn’t set long term rates. Boy that’s gone out the window. All this “unprecedented” crap is destroying the economy.

    Maybe that’s the plan.

    ‘but we have another one in its place: the extra capital investment isn’t going anywhere useful’

    There is that. Central bankers are useless idiots.

    ‘‘There is no science, it’s all made up, right?’ I mean, it’s whatever works at the time, and it keeps changing’

    1. “Zimbabwe Ben” Bernanke lied under oath when he told Congress the Fed wouldn’t monetize the debt. I hope post-collapse tribunals like the Pecora Commission convened after the Great Depression finally give these gold collar criminals at the Fed & Treasury the justice they deserve.

      1. An interesting chart. While the CREATION of M2 has greatly expanded in recent years its CIRCULATION has contracted.

        Q. So, if lots of money was created but it was not circulated then where did this money go?

        A. A lot of it went into creating wealth-creating price increases. In our stupid and pervasive Price equals Value economic thinking an increase in the price of an asset automatically and magically creates an increase in value of that asset as well as an increase in value of all comparable assets. Much of this “wealth” will be cashed-out and and spent but not all of it, which means the velocity of this money will not keep up with its creation.

        Money is like fertilizer; It needs to be spread around for it to do any good. Money locked up in an asset will not get spread around unless it somehow gets unlocked. And luckily for everybody I, Mr. Banker, am the guy that possesses the key.

        Bankers rule, others drool. God’s Plan.

        2. I am part of the problem. I earned a bunch of money but didn’t spend it all. It is stacked up here and there and I will spend it later, when I want something. Until then, it doesn’t have any Velocity.

  4. ‘While banks are allowed to make exceptions regarding the 50 percent of income cap, we have not made any’

    Sure. 50% is bat sh$t crazy. And loan officers have never been known to fudge documents, right?

  5. ‘McLeish says the central bank’s tools aren’t suited for this either, because post-Covid we are dealing with a supply-side inflation shock rather than anything caused by the Reserve Bank’

    ‘So it’s already hurting us, this inflation, and then what the central bank then goes and says is your debt servicing cost is now higher as well, we’ll take more money out of your back pocket. That doesn’t fix the problem; that potentially makes it worse. It certainly makes the demand side of the economic equation worse’

    Me thinks Dave has a massive shack loan. A guy said once that central banking is based on the idea you can get something for nothing. And it’s true. From the NZ link:

    ‘For an example of how tricky it might be to use interest rates to hold asset prices down, research out of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco looked at the 2008 housing bubble and financial crisis, and whether early interest rate hikes might have prevented it.’

    ‘The answer is yes – if interest rates had been hiked by 8 percentage points in 2002.’

    ‘Such a hike would have prevented the housing bubble, but it would also have caused the greatest contraction in economic activity since the Great Depression.’

    I never heard of this study before. I wonder why. But didn’t we get the greatest contraction in economic activity since the Great Depression anyway? And I’m not so sure it would have played out that way. This forced addiction to low interest rates hurts people in many ways. They always leave that out.

    1. “…post-Covid we are dealing with a supply-side inflation shock rather than anything caused by the Reserve Bank’”

      The Quantitative Easing liquidity tsunami goosed demand at the same time the supply side was squeezed by government-mandated COVID-19 measures. Whatever inflation was already in the pipeline due to the negative supply shock was exacerbated by the financially engineered bump in demand.

    2. ‘The answer is yes – if interest rates had been hiked by 8 percentage points in 2002.’

      Why not study what kind of economic catastrophe would have resulted from a 30 percent interest rate hike, instead of a measly 8 percent? Strawmen are so much scarier when you go big!

  6. New York Times — How Austin Became One of the Least Affordable Cities in America (11/27/2021):

    https://archive.md/Q6P6Q

    Those apartment buildings pictured in the article look as soul-less as the people moving there. See also: Denver.

  7. “He is talking about the traditional role of central banks in keeping inflation low by hiking interest rates. It is obviously a hot topic now, because we are facing steep interest rate hikes to combat rising inflation.

    The Fed since its surreptitious 1913 founding on Jekyll Island, SC, by the Wall Street robber barons of the era has had one role only: to serve as the oligarchy’s chief instrument of plunder against the 99 percent. In that it has been a brilliant success, while printing us down the road to Weimar Republic 2.0.

      1. Citizen! Looks like you’ve had a little too much to think.

        The Biden Crackdown on Thought Crimes

        https://jimbovard.com/blog/2021/11/22/the-biden-crackdown-on-thought-crimes/

        The Biden administration is seeking to radically narrow the boundaries of respectable American political thought. The administration has repeatedly issued statements and reports that could automatically castigate citizens who distrust the federal government. We may eventually learn that the new Biden guidelines spurred a vast increase in federal surveillance and other abuses against Americans who were guilty of nothing more than vigorous skepticism.

  8. PETER HITCHENS: The panic-makers long for another shutdown… but it won’t do any good

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10249543/PETER-HITCHENS-panic-makers-long-shutdown-wont-good.html

    You can almost hear the BBC presenters drooling at the prospect of yet another of the shutdowns they long for and enjoy so much.

    Reports of a new variant of Covid, combined with the frenzy of medical repression on the Continent, have filled them with hope that England can once again be closed down for Christmas.

    1. Media saying new African strain of Covid more contagious, as deadly as Ebola. But the word is mild symptoms actually. So this reminds of the news videos from China of people falling in the streets and being locked in their homes, when they were trying to launch the original Covid scam.
      Oh, so spooky Ebola like from Africa.
      Repeat, scare, lockdown ,mask, destroy business, loot, forced mandates of vaccines/boosters , promise of new vaccines , distract from real data on failure on current fake vaccines .
      Step it up a notch to justify Police/Military enforcement of the new response to the new threat of Ebola like more contagious like strain of Covid.
      Destroy rebellion that was getting started World wide and objection to. jabbing of children, loss of job vaccine mandates. and vaccine passports.
      Bribe hospitals to kill people with no valid treatment or diagnosis of cases of vaccine injury or death.
      They got to be stopped.

        2. Right Bill, those who lie to us are not well trusted.

          By the way, what makes you think that you are synonymous with our government and our health care system?

          1. Remember when Bill Gates & other software developers used to create viruses, then market anti-virus subscriptions to counter them? Wonder what he’s been up to lately.

          2. By the way, what makes you think that you are synonymous with our government and our health care system?

            Because he and his fellow travelers own our “elected” officials.

          3. what makes you think that you are synonymous with our government and our health care system

            Grants of his tax-exempt wealth.

        3. Bill Gates calls it a “test” , interesting choice of words.
          A test of trust in Politicians and health care system?
          Since the Politicians and Health Care System/Big Pharmacy/ Dr Fauci protocols was such a tragic failure, the trust has been replaced with a need for hangings for crimes against humanity.

        4. From the comments:
          Irideashovel wrote: “Anyone remember clackers? the 2 balls on the end of a string , I can’t wait to see Billy Boy and Fauci on the end of the same rope thrown over a bridge.”

          LMFAO!!

  11. The globalists & their Democrat-Bolshevik hirelings are taking the Orwellian creepiness to a whole new level. Challenging The Narrative is evidence of “information disorder” that must be treated, preferably in a secure gulag location. Katie Couric – who openly advocated for “re-educating” 75 million Trump supporters – is naturally one of the “experts” heading up this effort.

    https://jonathanturley.org/2021/11/18/fighting-information-disorder-aspens-orwellian-commission-on-controlling-speech-in-america/

    1. …“disinformation” and “misinformation,” which are remarkably ill-defined but treated as a matter of “we know when we see it.”

      “In addition to Couric, the Commission was headed by Color of Change President Rashad Robinson and Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

      This URL above is worth reading in full. Whew!

  12. He brought disaster wherever he went
    The hearts of Trump voters to hell broken sent
    They all were censored so no one would know
    It left only Marxists and of Maskless-@ss Joe

    [Chorus]
    If it hadn’t been for Maskless-@ss Joe
    I’d filled my tank up a long time ago
    Where did you come from? Where did you go?
    Where did you come from, Maskless-@ss Joe?

    President Biden caught on video flagrantly violating mask mandate. Again.

    PAUL SACCA
    November 27, 2021

    President Joe Biden was caught not wearing a mask while shopping at a Massachusetts store that explicitly required face coverings to be worn inside. This is not the first time that the Democratic president was spotted violating an indoor mask mandate.

    President Biden was shopping inside Murray’s Toggery Shop in Nantucket on Saturday. Video shows Biden inside the crowded upscale clothing store with his face mask around his neck. The angle of the video perfectly juxtaposes the maskless president with a large sign on the door of the store that reads: “REQUIRED FACE COVERING.” It appears that everyone else in the store is wearing a mask.

    https://www.theblaze.com/news/president-biden-violates-mask-mandate-video

      1. “Except that it is poorly photoshopped.”

        You sure about that? Watch the video.

        Published 18 hours ago

        By Andrew Mark Miller | Fox News

        President Joe Biden was spotted shopping inside a store over the weekend without wearing a mask which he has repeatedly urged Americans to wear.

        The president was seen inside Murray’s Toggery Shop on the island of Nantucket Saturday with his mask around his neck and not covering his mouth despite a visible sign outside the door instructing patrons to wear a mask.

        According to the White House press pool, Biden walked out of the shop at 4:45 p.m. with his mask down and drinking what appeared to be a milkshake.

        The president ignored a question on what more needs to be done to stop the rising omicron variant as he walked down the street to another store.

        Nantucket, where Biden is spending his Thanksgiving holiday, re-instituted an indoor mask mandate earlier this month.

        https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-spotted-in-nantucket-shopping-indoors-without-a-mask-despite-sign-mandating-them

        Now back to your regularly scheduled NFL Social Justice avoiding activities.

        1. You sure about that? Watch the video.

          It looked photoshopped to me. The shadows were wrong. The video is clear enough, even if the still was doctored.

  13. I just drove over the county line from Jefferson County (west Denver suburbs) into Park County, where there is (as of yet) no mask mandates.

    CCP Flu isn’t a disease, it’s a virtue signal.

  14. November 26, 2021 4:54 PM PST
    Last Updated 2 days ago
    Business
    Stocks tumble on new coronavirus variant fear
    By Chuck Mikolajczak
    3 minute read
    Summary
    — Travel, banking, energy stocks lead declines
    — Pfizer hits record high
    — Dow eyes worst day since October 2020
    — Indexes fall: Dow 2.5%, S&P 1.8%, Nasdaq 1.4%
    …

      1. 2.5% isn’t much of a drop, so likely not.
        Now, for supposedly being a safe haven asset 🙄, Bitcoin’s 8.5% drop was an overreaction. I guess we just need to “educate ourselves” a little more.

  15. The home loans business is booming in Estonia, with the average loan sum now exceeding €100,000

    To purchase crumbling apartments built in the Soviet era.

    1. The flood of easy money from the leading central banks’ indefinite Quantitative Easing money printing binge since 2009 has inundated every corner of the global financial system.

  16. Even though the article isn’t about China, for some reason it brings the Chinese real estate situation to mind.

    “It’s one reason why in downturns, you’ll see a capital city’s vacancy rates rise suddenly and disproportionally. Because the ‘tallest’ is a much-publicised event, the pattern above has become known as ‘The Skyscraper Curse’. The theory has been around as long as skyscrapers have been around.”

    1. October 27, 20211:18 AM PDT
      Last Updated a month ago
      China
      China cracks down on vanity-project super skyscrapers
      Reuters
      2 minute read
      Buildings are seen in Shenzhen, China September 18, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

      BEIJING, Oct 27 (Reuters) – China has restricted the construction of extremely tall skyscrapers in smaller cities as part of a crackdown on wasteful vanity projects by local governments.

      Without special approval, cities with populations of less than 3 million must not build skyscrapers taller than 150 metres (492.13 ft), and cities with larger populations must not construct buildings higher than 250 metres, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said on Tuesday.

      The measures go further than an existing ban on buildings of more than 500 metres.

      Officials who approve such projects in violation of the new rule “will be held accountable for life”, the ministry said, which would mean officials were subject to any future punishment decided in relation to the breach of rules.

      China has some of the tallest buildings in the world, including the 632-metre Shanghai Tower and the 599.1-metre Ping An Finance Center in Shenzhen.

      While China acknowledges that high-rise buildings promote more intensive use of land resources, it is increasingly concerned that local officials are blindly pursuing construction with little attention to practicality and safety.
      …

    2. China
      Panic as 300-metre-high skyscraper wobbles in China
      SEG Plaza in Shenzhen, one of country’s tallest buildings, evacuated after it inexplicably starts shaking
      The SEG Plaza in Shenzhen was evacuated after it started shaking on Tuesday.
      People flee in panic as 300-metre skyscraper wobbles in China – video
      Agence France-Presse
      Tue 18 May 2021 13.19 EDT
      Last modified on Tue 18 May 2021 16.15 EDT

      One of China’s tallest skyscrapers was evacuated on Tuesday after it began to shake, sending panicked shoppers scampering to safety.

      The near 300 metre (980ft) high SEG Plaza in Shenzhen, southern China, inexplicably began to shake at around 1pm, prompting an evacuation of people inside while pedestrians looked on open-mouthed.
      …

    3. Home
      Real Estate
      China has at least 65 million empty homes — enough to house the population of France. It offers a glimpse into the country’s massive housing-market problem.
      Lina Batarags
      Oct 14, 2021, 12:44 AM
      Ghost town in China
      Unfinished buildings and vacant streets in Xiangluo Bay. Yujiapu & Xiangluo Bay, a new central business district under construction in Tianjin, was been expected to be China’s Manhattan. Now it’s a Ghost city. Zhang Peng / Contributor / Getty Images
      — One-fifth of the homes in China — at least 65 million units — are empty.
      — That amount of empty real estate is enough to house the population of France.
      — The ghost cities are a testament to China’s reliance on real estate as a driver of economic growth.
      …

      1. China has at least 65 million empty homes — enough to house the population of France

        And that would provide an entire home for each Frenchman. If you factor in that most people do not live alone, then China’s vacant homes could probably house 200m people, which would be the combined populations of France, the UK and Spain, with some room to spare.

    4. Live
      Economy|Property
      China property sector woes could spell trouble for global cities
      Many Chinese developers who went on a spending spree to pick up projects across the world are now facing a cash crunch.
      Chinese developers like Guangzhou R&F Properties have unfinished projects in global cities [File: John Sibley/Reuters]
      Published On 1 Nov 2021

      China’s property sector woes could spell trouble for prestige megaprojects in London, New York, Sydney and other top cities as the developers behind them scramble for cash.

      While China Evergrande Group’s struggles have dominated the crisis, the risk to multitrillion-dollar global property markets stems from some of its rivals that have spent the last decade competing to build ever taller and grander skyscrapers.
      …

    1. Everybody who gets a third “booster” shot of this mRNA poison should expect to be dead within 6 months.

      Happy twenty one month anniversary of “two weeks to flatten the curve.”

      1. Everybody who gets a third “booster” shot of this mRNA poison should expect to be dead within 6 months.

        And will be replaced by unvaxxed, third world vibrant immigrants.

        1. Or, be replaced by artificial intelligence. They don’t think they need humans anymore after thousands of years of feasting off their productive efforts.

          1. Or, be replaced by artificial intelligence.

            Some will be replaced by automation, such as the Burgermatic 3000. But as we have seen, AI still can’t reliably do something as simple as driving a car.

          2. AI still can’t reliably do something as simple as driving a car.
            Or something as simple as value a stationary object. (see Zilliow for any further explanations)

          3. see Zilliow for any further explanations

            I’m not sure Zillow ever claimed that it was an AI. All I recall is that it was an “algorithm”.

        1. One year from now, we will see vaccinated children ages six months to four years dying from full on A.I.D.S.

          “We’re all in this together!”

          1. One year from now, we will see vaccinated children ages six months to four years dying from full on A.I.D.S.

            And their parents will say “We’d do it again. It was the right thing to do.”

          2. “We’d do it again. It was the right thing to do.”

            All these virtue signalling parents will be Facebook live streaming or posting on Instagram or TikTok of fatally poisoning their children.

            Remember, at Jonestown they squirted syringes full of cyanide poisoned Flavor Aid into the mouths of infants too.

            Let’s Go Brandon!

  19. Fauxahontus Warren gains a soul sister.

    Canada’s indigenous health expert Carrie Bourassa loses job when ancestry claims prove false

    https://nypost.com/2021/11/27/canadian-indigenous-health-expert-carrie-bourassa-fired-for-faking-heritage/

    She’s Sitting Bulls-t.

    A Canadian medical researcher who rose to become the nation’s top voice on indigenous health has been ousted from her government job and her university professorship — after suspicious colleagues investigated her increasingly fanciful claims of Native American heritage and learned she was a fraud.

    1. “It started to unravel in 2019, when she appeared in full tribal regalia — draped in an electric blue shawl, with a feather in her partially braided hair — to give a TEDx Talk at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.”

      She’d make a great realtor.

  20. Libtards reaping what they voted: MN edition. Now the vibrants are starting to stage smash & grab raids in smaller municipalities outside the main Commie-run big cities. I think I see where this is going.

    ‘Flash mob’ of 30 looters rampage through two Minnesota Best Buys: Thieves take TVs, tablets and hoverboards as smash and grabs spread beyond California

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10250243/Group-30-looters-rampages-two-Minnesota-Best-Buys-flash-mob-robbers-California-craze.html

    Dozens of looters descended on a mall in Minnesota and brazenly marched through two Best Buy locations, taking whatever they liked with them off the shelves.

    One incident occurred near the Burnsville mall in suburban Minneapolis with about 12 people rushing in to steal items, while a second incident occurred in Maplewood – about 25 miles northeast – on Friday night with a larger group of 30 people looting electronics.

  21. The Wall Street Journal
    Markets
    The Evergrande Blueprint Worked for Other Chinese Developers, Until It Didn’t
    After borrowing heavily to fund breakneck growth, they are suffering financial meltdowns as credit grows scarce and home sales decline
    By Quentin Webb
    Nov. 28, 2021 5:30 am ET

    China’s property boom has spawned numerous developers that, like industry giant China Evergrande Group , borrowed heavily to fund breakneck growth.

    Now they are inflicting unprecedented losses on international investors as credit grows scarce and sales of new homes decline. Investors have dumped their bonds, setting off alarms over the companies’ finances.
    …
    To Read the Full Story Subscribe

    1. Are you worried that the Chinese real estate virus may prove contagious and set off a global real estate pandemic?

    2. “China’s property boom has spawned numerous developers that, like industry giant China Evergrande Group , borrowed heavily to fund breakneck growth.”

      And this breakneck made a lot of people very, very rich.

      “Now they are inflicting unprecedented losses on international investors …”

      International investors = Other people’s money.

      “… as credit grows scarce and sales of new homes decline. Investors have dumped their bonds, setting off alarms over the companies’ finances.”

      And as for what happened to the people who got very, very rich off of this massive borrowed-money boom. Bahahahahahahaha … what do you think?

        1. Home
          Real Estate
          The founder of Evergrande is said to have used $1.1 billion of his own money to pay down company debt, pledging mansions and selling art to raise funds
          Huileng Tan
          Nov 17, 2021, 11:44 PM
          Hui Ka Yan
          China Evergrande Group’s chairman, Hui Ka Yan. Xiaomei Chen/South China Morning Post via Getty Images
          — Evergrande’s founder, Hui Ka Yan, has been selling personal assets or pledging them to raise funds.
          — The money has gone toward bond interest and staff salaries and to keep building projects going.
          — A report last month indicated Chinese authorities told Hui to use his money to pay company debt.
          …

          1. “The founder of Evergrande is said to have used $1.1 billion of his own money ”

            Skin in the game? Will any American owner/fraudpreneur do the same?

          2. “A report last month indicated Chinese authorities told Hui to use his money to pay company debt.”

            “Will any American owner/fraudpreneur do the same?”

            Bahahahahahaha … Shirley, you are such a jester.

            Hey, it’s China. He can either choose to pay in money or pay in lead. American “owner/fraudpreneurs” are not presented with such an, er, incentive.

          3. The difference between China and America is that in China, the government owns the banking industry. In the US, the banking industry owns the government.

          4. “The founder of Evergrande is said to have used $1.1 billion of his own money ”

            He’s frantically trying to save his organs.

  22. then goes and says is your debt servicing cost is now higher as well, we’ll take more money out of your back pocket

    I’ll bet buying a million dollar shanty in Auckland with a variable rate mortgage doesn’t seem like it was such a great idea after all.

      1. I don’t know what happened to the second caravan of Haitians but I saw a busload from the first round of more than 10000 mostly Haitian migrants who were dispersed from under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas traveling southbound on I-95 in Jupiter Fl. They were in a Greyhound bus with Texas plates a few days after they were dispersed from under the bridge.

        2. Hundreds of thousands of military age males crossing into our country illegally is not immigration, it’s an invasion.

          See also: the late Roman Empire.

      2. From what I have read about the caravans:

        1) There has been a cold snap it Mexico, and the migrants are not prepared for walking in the cold, so they’ve hunkered down. I guess Soros forgot to sign a check to pay for buses to whisk them to the Texas border.
        2) Many have decided to accept asylum in Mexico.

  25. People: Dumb ’em down, and profit.

    “A Fearstorm is upon us.”

    https://freemansperspective.com/a-fearstorm-is-upon-us/#more-11377

    (snip snip snip)

    “A Fearstorm Is Upon Us

    “I just sat down at my computer and saw that a new fearstorm is upon us. I saw signs of it earlier in the week, and now it has arrived. And so, briefly, I’d like everyone to understand how these things operate.

    “Firstly, please notice that fearstorms are coordinated; they arrive in terrifying clusters, with more or less every elite-driven bullhorn saying the same thing, playing up the same terrifying ‘possibilities.’ And notice that your emotional reactions entirely discount ‘possibilities.’ You’re feeling nearly the same shock you would if the terrors were certain. Humans have a weakness for that, and the people behind these fearstorms know it.

    “The goal of a fearstorm is for you to stop thinking rationally and to act reflexively. Fear does that to us, and the people driving fearstorms can conjure more fear any time they want. Imagined fears are infinite, after all. Take out a pad of paper some time, and see how many terrifying things you can come up with in half an hour.

    “So, if you allow yourself to be tossed about by possibilities, you’ll be tossed about forever. The people who produce these things know this, and that’s their winning strategy.

    “Instead of listening to ‘the news’ and reacting to social media (outfits that monetize your fear), use your eyes and ears to see what’s happening in the real, physical world. Has the world you see and hear changed over the last day?

    “Now, before I send this, I’d like everyone to get this viscerally:

    “A fearstorm is sucker-punch.

    “So, why is this hitting today? Perhaps because protests are breaking out in Europe? Perhaps because more vaxxed people are dying than the unvaxxed? Because soccer players are dropping like flies?

    “I don’t know, but I do know that the world I see hasn’t changed since yesterday… at all.”

    1. Fearstorms offer the prospect of a welcome relief to the risk loving insanity that HODLers in Bitcoin, stonks, and real estate have recently exhibited.

  28. Lying globalist propaganda outlets say COVID-19 is what sparked a housing crisis. WRONG: 13 years of central bank easy money policies and the resultant speculative asset bubbles that made housing unaffordable for the working poor are what caused the housing crisis.

    Rental market Australia: Covid-19 pandemic sparks housing crisis

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/surging-rents-in-regional-australia-causing-housing-crisis-experts-warn/news-story/1751e61f2fb2a5169dc359a54affa49b

    Australia is in the grips of a housing crisis, with one vulnerable group in particular ‘just trying to get out’ because of this issue.

  29. With the ginormous COVID-19 stimulus measures, including $120 bn a month in Quantitative Easing since March 2020, is inflation irrevocably baked into the cake?

    1. The Financial Times
      Opinion US Inflation
      Inflation always punishes America’s left
      Biden’s lowest-cost remedy is to get tough on Covid
      Edward Luce 11 hours ago

      America’s inflation hawks are always prone to crying wolf. Since they spent the post-2008 years forecasting hyperinflation that never arrived, it was no surprise that so few people sat up when they issued the same warnings last year. Now the hawks are right but for the wrong reasons. The recent US inflation surge has little to do with the Federal Reserve’s easy money, as they claimed. Democrats should nevertheless resist letting their ingrained scepticism cloud their sense of self-preservation. Sustained inflation could ruin their chances of holding on to power.

      Historically, inflation has done far greater damage to leftwing governments than to rightwing ones, even when the blame should be evenly divided. Republican Richard Nixon did as much as his Democrat predecessor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, to stoke inflation in 1972 when he bullied the Fed chair, Arthur Burns, to cut rates in the build-up to his re-election. It was Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, who sent inflation-slayer Paul Volcker to the Fed, which contributed to Carter’s 1980 defeat. The beneficiary, Republican Ronald Reagan, tried unsuccessfully to get Volcker to cut rates in the build-up to his 1984 re-election.
      …

      1. Sustained inflation could ruin their chances of holding on to power.

        I’m sure that spending another $2T on “Build Back Better” along with keeping west coast shipping ports constipated will do wonders for inflation. If they think people are angry now, they ain’t seen nothing yet. They’d better start printing fake ballots for next November.

  30. It just makes sense Henry Rollins, the famously intense and happily solitary former lead singer of the pioneering hardcore punk band Black Flag and, later, the somewhat less hardcore Rollins Band, would make his home in a bunker-like lair cleaved to a precipitous slope, with no immediate neighbors, in L.A.’s quiet and rustic, though still quite convenient Nichols Canyon.

    https://www.dirt.com/gallery/entertainers/musicians/henry-rollins-house-los-angeles-1203438670/henryrollins_nc18/

    1. Today is Monday, November 29th and COVID is the greatest fraud ever perpetuated in my lifetime.

      There is no “new variant” it is just a cover for all of the millions of people who are now dying from their their third “booster” shot of the mRNA poison.

      The vaccine *IS* the virus.

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