A Series Of Bad Decisions That Are Constantly Being Patched Up And Made Even Worse
A weekend topic starting with the Globe and Mail. “With money so cheap and home appreciation so high, home ownership has taken on a whole new meaning. A key feature is that it’s altered our relationship to mortgage debt. The days of the mortgage burning party are long over, replaced with an acceptance of long-term borrowing, often well into retirement, and even for life. No longer anxious to pay them off, many homeowners refinance mortgages and reset the clock.”
“‘People view it as a piggy bank, because the cost of homes is so high,’ says Victoria mortgage broker Matthew Olberg. ‘They think, ‘we can pay three-per-cent interest on this $1.5-million house, and if we refinance, pull our money out and re-invest in something else, we can make more. A lot of people are going that way, it seems.'”
“Duncan Maclennan, economist at the University of Glasgow, has studied housing markets in Canada, the U.K. and Australia. He says governments have an ‘outmoded’ perception of how home ownership actually operates. ‘Home ownership, when originally introduced as a policy, was about encouraging people to save by mortgages. Home ownership is now a speculation system, and getting into it creates wealth at substantial rates,’ Prof. Maclennan says.”
“He points to a tax structure that incentivizes home investment, and an older demographic that is leveraging their equity. ‘The biggest speculators in Canadian housing markets are actually the Canadians age 50 and upward in terms of holding that extra house. The excess demand for housing as a space is being leveraged up by excess demand for housing as an investment, reflected by investors displacing first-time home buyers and others, but also in terms of groups such as my age group holding onto much bigger houses than they actually require.'”
“About two-thirds of Canadians are homeowners and of those, three out of five have mortgages, says policy research consultant Steve Pomeroy, who’s studied housing for almost four decades. Mr. Pomeroy says that the leveraging of one home for another has its impacts on the overall housing system, including those who can’t get onto the property ladder, which then puts pressure on those who rent.”
“‘Three quarters of buyers are existing homeowners trading up or trading down,’ he says. ‘This divergence between home prices and income, and the capacity to pay, well, that doesn’t really matter, because three-quarters of folks that are buying are bringing a whole bag full of equity that appreciated from them sleeping in bed at night, in their existing house. What is driving up prices is the low cost of finance and the low cost of mortgages – and also the fact that people have accumulated such a large level of appreciation.'”
From News 10 San Diego in California. “Eileen Gomez was living with her mom and sister in a mobile home when she made herself a promise. ‘I didn’t want to stay there and be stuck, so I said I’m going to find a way to own a home,’ she said. Gomez, who works in retail in Mission Valley, found out about a program that will loan qualifying first-time buyers up to 22 percent of a home’s purchase price as a down payment. To be eligible, she had to come up with 3 percent on her own, which involved sacrifice. Gomez came up with the cash and applied to the commission. In December 2020, she bought a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in the College Area for $350,000.”
“The program is open to households making 80 percent of Area Median Income or less. For instance, a three-person household earning up to $87,300 a year would be eligible to borrow up to $150,000 for a down payment. That would increase their purchasing power from $470,000 to $680,000. The down-payment loan, a second mortgage at 3 percent simple interest, is not paid back monthly. Instead, it is due in full in 30 years, upon sale, or if the homeowner no longer occupies the home as a primary residence. There is also up to $10,000 in closing cost grant funding available.”
“For Gomez, Zillow estimates her condo has already grown in value by $109,000. She hopes that equity helps her trade up to a larger home to raise her three children. ‘Now that everybody’s complaining about the prices going up, it’s like, wow, it’s a relief,’ she said. ‘I have something of my own now.'”
From Yahoo News. “Buyers are pulling out all of the stops to make their offers more attractive. Lizzie Ryan of HomeLight explains that her team has seen buyers using unbelievable tactics to win a home. ‘Some of these stories include buyers offering a lifetime supply of candy, a puppy, expensive dinners, and wine,’ she says. ‘More than one realtor has seen buyers pay competing bidders to walk away.'”
“It depends on your financial situation and your ability to predict the home’s future market value, according to real estate broker Egypt Sherrod. ‘Some buyers are rationalizing whether the future appreciation of the property will equate or exceed what they pay for the property today,’ Sherrod explains. Even if you pay $30,000 over market value, she says you may break even in three years with the current rate of appreciation. ‘If they plan to live in the home for five to 10 years, then the overpayment now seems like a sound gamble,’ Sherrod adds. But if you aren’t ‘cash heavy,’ she notes, this may be more than you can pay out of pocket.”
From Bloomberg. “With inflation red-hot, the Fed will be forced to act aggressively, according to Melissa Cohn, a banker at William Raveis Mortgage. ‘You’re dealing with two runaway trains: Real estate prices are going crazy and rates are going crazy at the same time. It does not portend well for the first-time homebuyer,’ Cohn said. ‘If you buy, then you’re probably going to have to compromise, either by buying a smaller house or by stepping out of the market and waiting for things to calm down.'”
From Tech Crunch. “Utah-based proptech Homie has laid off one-third of its staff, according to reports.Hunter Richardson, former director of talent advisory and acquisition at Homie, posted on LinkedIn that he was among the one-third affected but declined to comment on his being let go. The company said: ‘Today, we made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our company based on the impacts of the changing real estate market.'”
“The company is another example of how hard the real estate tech startup community has been hit by the recent changes in the industry landscape. When interest rates were at historic lows, business was booming and there was hiring left and right. But now that interest rates are higher and refinancings have slowed down and inventory shortages abound, companies in the space are clearly taking a hit.”
From NBC Dallas. “Foreclosure rates are creeping back up to the highest levels since March 2020, according to ATTOM. The upswing in people having issues making mortgage payments is clear, whatever those reasons may be. ‘For whatever reason, they’ve stopped making their payments. So it’s typically a loss of a job. Or in America, I think the highest percentage of bankruptcy is caused by medical bills,’ said Mark Johnson, CEO of JPAR Brokerage of Texas.”
From Bloomberg. “Director Giorgio Angelini shines a light on how the U.S. housing market has been manipulated. ‘At architecture school at Rice University I was just consumed by all these conversations about the housing bubble and design, and about the commodification of square footage. In my last year of grad school, I applied for a grant to photograph this abandoned McMansion development in the Inland Empire [in Southern California]. The Inland Empire — I don’t mean this pejoratively — is just miles and miles of central sprawl. Sitting alongside these half-built McMansions, there were these burned down orange groves, and so you saw this kind of commodity shift frozen in time. You could see one commodity, oranges, kind of being transformed into another one, which was air conditioned square footage.'”
“What are the biggest misconceptions that Americans have about the housing economy? ‘I think sometimes we convince ourselves that the housing economy is some sort of divinely ordained system that was bestowed upon us by some more intelligent creator, but it really is just a series of bad decisions that are constantly being patched up and made even worse. The system we have today really was born out of a desperate need for affordable housing coming out of World War II. And basically every decision made after WWII has just been an escalation of poorly, poorly imagined solutions back in the ‘40s and ‘50s.'”
This Post Has 116 Comments
Comments are closed.
‘This divergence between home prices and income, and the capacity to pay, well, that doesn’t really matter’
Click!
‘For Gomez, Zillow estimates her condo has already grown in value by $109,000. She hopes that equity helps her trade up to a larger home to raise her three children. ‘Now that everybody’s complaining about the prices going up, it’s like, wow, it’s a relief,’ she said. ‘I have something of my own now’
Single mother of three, works in retail. Seriously subprime loan, maybe zero skin in the game. Hey Ellie, zillow is a steaming pile.
But aside from that, how would a world look like if an airbox went up 20% every two years? Why we’d have billion $ airboxes pretty soon. Anyone buying that?
found out about a program that will loan qualifying first-time buyers up to 22 percent
I’d put money on this program being either the result of a bank wanting/needing to Earn CRA credits or possibly a non-profit indirectly funded by banks wanting to get CRA credit.
Washington Post last month:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/01/06/housing-market-forecast-2022/
No, the housing market isn’t in a bubble.
“There are big differences between now and then, since today’s lending is mostly plain vanilla 30-year fixed rate mortgages, where borrowers’ credit history, income and appraised housing values are well documented. This is in contrast to the last bubble when adjustable rate loans were made to borrowers with low credit scores — remember the ubiquitous subprime two-year adjustable rate loan — and questionable, even fraudulent, borrower documentation.”
New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/upshot/home-prices-surging.html
“It’s not a bubble, it really is about the fundamentals,”
The “We’re not in bubble” news stories are proliferating rapidly of late. It’s probably time to start collecting them for posterity. We probably need a new word for it at this point anyway since the current global everything bubble lacks a historical parallel.
“We’re not in bubble”
Is there a journalism specialty in writing ‘no bubble here’ real estate fluffer pieces?
“No, the housing market isn’t in a bubble.”
“It’s not a bubble, it really is about the fundamentals,”
– Who you gonna believe, articles in a couple of liberal rags, with RE narratives and axes to grind, your lyin’ eyes, or Jeremy Grantham?
– REIC narratives aside, in my view, it’s intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that the U.S. is currently experiencing the mother of all bubbles (MOAB), conceived, born, and nurtured by the Fed, just like the last two. MOAB includes stonks, RE, bonds, and pretty much every other asset class due to $Ts in QE. Note: The fed is still doing QE (buying U.S. Treas. + MBS). This in spite of the highest inflation since “That 70’s [Sh*t] Show.” However, asset bubbles always burst and I think we’re seeing this now here in 2022.
– But, Superbowl! Bread and circuses: panem et circenses.
https://www.morningstar.com/podcasts/the-long-view/148
Jeremy Grantham: The U.S. Market Is in a Super Bubble
Feb 8, 2022
– excerpts from the transcript:
Ptak: “You’ve said the bursting of the Japanese and U.S. housing market bubbles was devastating because in those cases you had manias in both the stock market and important economic sectors. What about now? Are you seeing the same dangerous combination?”
Grantham: “I have to admit the housing market doesn’t seem to have the kind of psychological accompaniment of a crazy bubble like the stock market does. And it didn’t worry me much back in July of 2020. But then, it decided to go into warp drive, and we’ve just had the biggest move in a 12-month period in the history of U.S. real estate, about 20% in the last 12 months, and quite a bit in the previous five or six months. So, since the U.S. equity market reached two-sigma, bubble territory, the housing market in the U.S. has shot upwards with great determination, and it actually sells at a higher multiple of family income than the housing bubble of 2006-07 because of that 20%. Twenty percent is a lot more in housing than 20% is in the stock market. That is just an amazing move. And it has certainly made the U.S. housing market extremely expensive–the highest price it has ever been as a multiple of your ability to buy at family income.
And history has been pretty straightforward. Whatever you do, don’t have gloriously overpriced housing markets at the same time as you have a stock market bubble. Japan tried it, the biggest land and real estate bubble in history anywhere. Arguably the greatest bubble of anytime anywhere, and simultaneously, they had 65 times earnings it was said at the time in the Japanese stock market. That was the ultimate definition of potential pain as you had to mark them both down, and they did. And as I said, stock market isn’t back to ’89, but the land market isn’t back to ’89, either. So, you had double jeopardy, a lost decade, and you could say that those two bubbles from way back in ’89 are still casting a shadow on the Japanese economy.”
“The problem is, if the U.S. equity market goes down, if it casts a shadow on confidence, if it weakens the economy a bit, if there are other economic problems, then I expect the U.S. housing market to weaken. The way I described this is the potential for write-downs in asset prices and perceived value of your assets. If you are a record distance above trendline price in the U.S. housing market, even though there’s no immediate reason why the house market should collapse, you will expect at some indefinite period and the time when people are pessimistic, the potential is there for substantially lower house prices. And one thing you should bear in mind is that housing is a complete creature of the interest rate through the mortgages. Mortgages–there’s nothing like that in the stock market. Huge leverage. They’re fixed term. They’re completely institutionalized, they’re completely socially acceptable, and they give you a level of leverage that you could only dream about in the stock market on very favorable terms in the case of the U.S. And if they lower your mortgage, why would you not pay more for your house?
Someone says to me today, “What should I do? I need to buy a house.” My attitude is, look, they’re badly overpriced. Here’s the data. They are higher priced compared to your income than they have ever been. But the mortgage is the lowest price it’s ever been. The mortgage, if anything, is more underpriced than your house is overpriced. If you can guarantee to keep it for the life of the mortgage, 30 years, and you are prepared to rent it out if you have to, it’s highly likely that you’ll do OK. You may not do brilliantly, but you should do OK. And you may do very well. So, housing is a complete creature of interest rates. Makes it easier to understand also why interest rates drive asset prices than it is in the stock market where it’s a little more complicated.”
‘Home ownership is now a speculation system, and getting into it creates wealth at substantial rates’
It’s a racket alright. But it doesn’t create any wealth. Somebody has to borrow with interest to pay for that sweet equity, and so on. Meanwhile shack is rotting under yer feet. You got yer insurance, taxes, wear and tear. The Globe piece has this guy going on about cash flow. K-dn shacks at these prices don’t produce any cash flow renting – that’s how out of control this thing has become. It’s solely a greater fool game.
We have the worst politicians in history. Just a miserable crop of cronies who have been in power for close to half a century, and did this to the country. They should be sent to the gallows.
‘Some of these stories include buyers offering a lifetime supply of candy, a puppy, expensive dinners, and wine,’ she says. ‘More than one realtor has seen buyers pay competing bidders to walk away’
Ima thinking Liz is a lion. I’ll go stand around an open shack and wait for somebody to write me a check to go away.
‘Some buyers are rationalizing whether the future appreciation of the property will equate or exceed what they pay for the property today,’ Sherrod explains. Even if you pay $30,000 over market value, she says you may break even in three years with the current rate of appreciation. ‘If they plan to live in the home for five to 10 years, then the overpayment now seems like a sound gamble’
So now yer paying fer a little of that future sweet equity! What could go wrong?
‘I think sometimes we convince ourselves that the housing economy is some sort of divinely ordained system that was bestowed upon us by some more intelligent creator, but it really is just a series of bad decisions that are constantly being patched up and made even worse’
I don’t know anything about this guy. He brings up a point: just when and how did we get this ‘housing economy’? It’s pretty much running on fumes and easy money. People are dreading 4% interest rates.
It’s interesting too that housing used to be the business of choice for those who didn’t have any better ideas. If you couldn’t even open a dry cleaners or pizza parlor, you could at least start by illegally renting that attic. And then if you schemed well, in 20 years you could be making a lot of people your bitch.
Now, housing is “the best idea” big money investors seem to be able to come up with. They want to see if that attic rental can scale.
The difference is, they can and will get out in a hurry when it doesn’t pan out.
On top of that:
‘I applied for a grant to photograph this abandoned McMansion development in the Inland Empire [in Southern California]. The Inland Empire — I don’t mean this pejoratively — is just miles and miles of central sprawl. Sitting alongside these half-built McMansions…’
You can build more of these things? And you can build too many?
Sacré bleu!
I was more disturbed by the burnt-down orange groves. I remember hearing that in 2005: farmers cutting down their citrus trees in California and Florida to build housing because it was more profitable. As for orange juice, meh, we’ll just get it from Brazil. They have no problem outsourcing the juicestuffs of the nation.
They want to see if that attic rental can scale.
Isn’t that the whole purpose of AirBnB?
Now the Fed is about to throw a broomstick into the spokes of the housing bubble sh!t cart.
Its not just housing (in isolation), ‘easy, close to free’ money has inflated the stock market and fundamentally skewed industries like high-tech.
Take a look at the housing prices in Bellevue WA – across Lake Washington from Seattle, and next door to Redmond WA (MSFT HQ campus). The medium Jan prices and Y/Y growth are ridiculous – this is only possible with the extravagant stock appreciation onto of the stock grants.
We now have to think of the multiplier effect – stock appreciation of older grants and low mortgage rates.
This economy just does not make sense and i am not sure how it ends.
https://www.seattlemet.com/home-and-real-estate/2022/02/suburbs-of-seattle-real-estate-prices-bellevue-enumclaw-bridle-trails?utm_content=197660535&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&hss_channel=fbp-52132893805
You’re talking about an extremely thin slice of the population there. Most people are as broke as a joke. That’s what high shelter costs do – they bankrupt people.
“People are dreading 4% interest rates.”
Prevailing rate hit 4.05% yesterday.
This is a pearl clutching article.
Politico — Biden, Trudeau talk convoys as U.S. braces for Canadian-style protests (2/11/2022):
“We see a mobilization of some of the more-challenging political elements,” Trudeau said.
“President Biden and I both agree that for the security of the people and the economy, these blockades cannot continue,” Trudeau told reporters Friday in Ottawa, before later adding: “Everything is on the table because this unlawful activity has to end — and it will end. Of course, I can’t say too much more now as to exactly when or how this ends because, unfortunately, we are concerned about violence.”
The leaders, Trudeau said, discussed what he called a U.S.-based effort to flood 911 phone lines in Ottawa this week, the presence of American citizens in the blockades and the influence of large amounts of foreign cash — especially from south of the border — being funneled toward the convoys’ activities.”
THE HONKING WILL CONTINUE UNTIL FREEDOM IMPROVES.
“The call came as Canadian authorities struggle to contain “freedom convoy” demonstrations that began last month to protest vaccine mandates for truckers at the border. The movement has evolved into a heavily funded, highly coordinated effort to end all Covid-19 restrictions amid calls to bring down Canada’s political establishment.”
Heavily funded? Like Burn Loot Murder? And Pantifa? Oh no no no not *that* kind of funded.
“Meanwhile, the Canadian protesters are encouraging copycat anti-government campaigns around the globe.
U.S. authorities are bracing for an American version of the movement that could launch as early as this weekend and disrupt the Super Bowl.”
NO NO NO NOT the Sportsball game!
“Trudeau warned that some involved in the movement — in Canada, the U.S. and beyond — are trying to “undermine the confidence that people have in their institutions, in their democracies, in their fellow citizens.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/11/biden-trudeau-convoy-protest-00008358
Yes, yes we are undermining confidence. We, the Leaderless Resistance, are breaking our fellow citizens out of their Mass Formation Psychosis.
The Day Of The Rope is coming…
I just saw a video of a Canadian cuck cop talking about how they were seizing all the funds which were supporting these truckers, cutting off their fuel, etc. Politicians and cops are the enemy of the people.
Denverite — Have you been downtown lately? (2/7/2022):
“In 2019, construction ended on a project that would fill one of the last undeveloped areas in downtown. The Coloradan, a 19-story condominium building on Wewatta Street, offers 334 mostly high-end units starting in the high six figures.
Trendy restaurants and bars, a giant Whole Foods, and Union Station are within walking distance of The Coloradan. Its developer, East West Partners, claims on its website that the building is in one of the most desirable areas of the Union Station neighborhood, which is bordered by 20th Street, the South Platte River, Cherry Creek and Lawrence Street.
But three years after The Coloradan opened, its units are decreasing in property value in a city that’s becoming costlier by the day. Residents are so fed up with what they view as the cause — crime, homelessness and drug use in the streets below — that some have organized into the Safe, Clean and Compassionate Committee of the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association. The subcommittee of the registered neighborhood organization advocates for, among other things, more law and order. The group is at odds with the area’s representative on City Council, Candi CdeBaca, who once proposed replacing the police department with a “Peacekeeping Department.”
The City / County of Denver voted 79.55% for Pedo Joe in 2020, sounds like you’re getting exactly what you voted for. Vote like California, become California.
“on the streets and in the bus terminal below, property value is the last thing many are worrying about, considering so few own a home or could even imagine doing so in this pricey city. Instead, as Denverites commute to work, go to the grocery store and eat at restaurants, others are having psychotic breaks, using drugs, and struggling to catch a few hours of uninterrupted sleep while being endlessly awakened by security guards. Many are searching for their next fix or escaping the cold after a night in a shelter.”
Vote like California, become California.
“They came for the culture and walkability. Two years later, they’re repulsed by the feces and disturbed by the needles and people sleeping in tents on the streets, smoking drugs in the Union Station bus terminal, and shouting at passersby.”
Vote like California, become California.
https://denverite.com/2022/02/07/a-swanky-union-station-high-rise-holds-clues-about-how-the-rich-and-poor-will-coexist-or-not-downtown/
Vote like California, become California.
They refuse to accept it. They will continue to vote like California.
LA and SF ruined California, just like Denver and Boulder will ruin (have already ruined) Colorado.
interesting. I have become more and more interested about the ‘insiders’ whether it is bond holders in the city in China or so called real estate pros in US cities. I think that many of us that look at overall fundamentals – are missing how much of the market is being played by insiders.
My BIL is a successful REIC person in Denver – decent guy, but completely bought into this asset type. He pre-bought a 1 bdrm/dev in a fancy condo in this area. He took possession in 2020 and then suddenly, last summer he sells it even though he has a on-time payment tenant. At Christmas he could not explain reasoning for selling it – but suddenly we see all these downtown condo stories. His family is old Denver money (i.e. his dad belonged to the Denver country club)
The insiders seem to know the early trends and the seem to pull the parachute strap well before others. How does this happen? They are not following fundaments or common sense like we are – they just seem to know – or are in the right social circles.
He was probably not cash flow positive on the condo, and got a tap on the shoulder from his CPA that maybe you ought to sell now before you get stucco.
If he bought in 2020, then unless he put 50% down there is no way he was cash flow positive.
When Chinese insiders start dumping, look out below, baggies.
Evergrande crisis: CEO Xia Haijun sold all his dollar bonds before developer’s 2021 default on offshore debt, records show
https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3166510/evergrandes-top-insider-sold-all-his-dollar-bonds-chinese
i am sure that the equivalent CCP agency to the US SEC is on this – and ready to press charges.
… Unless one is his kids is married to a powerful communist party princeling.
I am more and more convinced that making money and skirting the system is all about insiders and proximity to power — and less about IQ, EQ, sensitivity, common sense etc put together.
“I am more and more convinced that making money and skirting the system is all about insiders and proximity to power — and less about IQ, EQ, sensitivity, common sense etc put together.”
Indeed. It’s poverty, graft and corruption!
Oh dear. Now that vibrancy has invaded the upscale neighborhoods of Hollywood’s limousine liberals, they’re suddenly turning on Soros-installed DAs and their hug-a-thug criminal justice policies. Funny how “vote blue, go zoo” can come back to bite you.
Campaign to recall woke LA DA George Gascon after his soft-on-crime policies spark surge in violence, is backed by Democrat Hollywood donors including George Clooney’s producing partner
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504527/Campaign-recall-woke-LA-DA-soft-crime-policies-backed-Democrat-Hollywood-donors.html
Hollywood Democratic heavyweights have thrown their weight behind a campaign to recall the ‘woke’ district attorney of Los Angeles, with Joe Biden’s nominee to be ambassador to Norway and George Clooney’s producing partner among those demanding George Gascon step down.
Gascon, a 67-year-old former assistant chief of Los Angeles Police Department, took over as district attorney in the heavily-Democrat city in December 2020 and immediately embarked on a progressive justice reform agenda – eliminating the use of sentencing enhancements for gang membership, certain uses of guns, and for prior convictions.
I am 100% in support of “follow home” robberies and assaults that target Hollywood celebrities.
Bed. Made. Lie.
I am reminded of Mexico City’s dark days in the 1980’s. I knew of people who would dress poorly and drive a beater VW bug to the downtown office, where they would change into an Italian suit for the workday, then change back into the rags and drive the beater home. The purpose was to prevent getting robbed while in transit and to avoid follow home robberies.
Maybe Hollyweird’s glitterati might have to do something similar.
Even if they recall him, he will be replaced with another Soros anointed DA. Nothing will change.
Nothing will change.
Au contraire. One thing people can always count on in life is change.
Home ownership is now a speculation system, and getting into it creates wealth at substantial rates,’ Prof. Maclennan says.”
The central banks are implementing their globalist puppetmasters’ agenda of creating grotesque wealth inequality and ensuring that under-35s have no stake in the current system. This creates fertile grounds for globalist-sponsored radical-left movements to gain mass membership among disaffected youth and young adults. Again, the parallels between what is happening in America today and the playbook the Bolsheviks followed to seize power in Czarist Russia, are striking.
“For Gomez, Zillow estimates her condo has already grown in value by $109,000. She hopes that equity helps her trade up to a larger home to raise her three children.
Gee, ladies, when you can rely on Uncle Sam’s strong supporting arm, it kinda makes husbands and fathers obsolete – by design. What are those children’s fathers doing to support their spawn? Oh wait: D vote means taxpayers get to fulfill that role instead.
Any military “woke” enough to draft women and put them on the front lines might score propaganda points with approving globalists (whose own children will never, ever be exposed to the horrors of combat). But when the shooting starts, reliance on female front-line combat troops will be an unmitigated disaster, not to mention the treatment these lovelies can expect if they fall into Russian hands.
Meet Ukraine’s gun-toting female soldiers fighting the propaganda war with Russia
https://nypost.com/2022/02/10/meet-ukraines-gun-toting-female-soldiers-fighting-the-propaganda-war-with-russia/
They’ve reached a new low glamorizing military conflict with their women in uniform. It’s beyond shameful.
A good question:
“Who Gets to Decide” What’s ‘Misinformation’?
https://summit.news/2022/02/11/jon-stewart-who-gets-to-decide-whats-misinformation/
(snip snip)
“‘Every few years, there’s a new excuse created to justify censorship,’ commented Glenn Greenwald. ‘The latest is ‘disinformation’ and — as Jon Stewart adeptly explains here — it’s the subjective and elastic nature of this term that makes it both so powerful and subject to abuse.’
“’I will likely never tire of pointing out the fact that the worst and most destructive ‘disinformation’ comes – by far – not from FB or QAnon but from the largest corporate media outlets and their CIA/FBI sources which claim to be battling disinformation,’ he added.”
“It is increasingly becoming clear that ‘fact checkers’ – entities that have been handed the power to ring fence information and silence dissent – aren’t ‘neutral and impartial’ at all, but are merely gatekeepers for the establishment political class.”
Real Journalists.
The Federalist — Why Do 15% Of Voters Still Believe The Corrupt Corporate Media Tells The Truth? (2/11/2022):
“A new poll from The Federalist and Susquehanna Polling & Research out on Friday found that at least 75 percent of American voters rightfully don’t trust the corrupt press because outlets “misrepresent the facts to push a political agenda.” According to the same poll, 15 percent of likely voters still do believe the corporate media tells the truth when communicating news to its readers and viewers.
Fake news outlets have given the people zero reasons to believe they have Americans’ best interests at heart so why isn’t trust in corporate media even lower?”
Why? Probably because they are afflicted with Mass Formation Psychosis.
“Even before the 2020 election, multiple outlets ran interference for the Biden campaign by repeatedly refusing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal because, in their eyes, “it doesn’t amount to much.” When Big Tech also censored the major New York Post story that had the potential to change voters’ minds about casting a ballot for Biden, these same media outlets pumped out defenses of the digital nuking.
In just the last two years, corporate media downplayed the destruction and violence caused by rioters during the 2020 summer of rage, misrepresented the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, cheered on fake fact-checks attempting to silence discussions about election integrity and the Wuhan lab leak theory, which most Americans believe, fearmongered about the coronavirus, and covered up the sins of its own pundits and their kin.”
https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/11/why-do-15-of-voters-still-believe-the-corrupt-corporate-media-tells-the-truth/
President Donald J. Trump was, in fact, correct when he stated that “the media is the enemy of the American people”
‘cheered on fake fact-checks attempting to silence discussions’
The other day I was talking with someone about the fake Kabul jet that was on the TV constantly for a time. This person hadn’t seen it so I went to look it up on the globalist scum search engine. It returned one video showing it was obviously fake and four ‘fact checker’ articles saying it wasn’t fake.
I stopped using Google, and DuckDuckGo isn’t really that much better.
Archived screenshots of Google search results confirm that those globalists went into warp speed overdrive to bury results for “Mass Formation Psychosis” as soon as Dr. Robert Malone and that phrase started gaining traction.
Globalists gonna globe.
Why Do 15% Of Voters Still Believe The Corrupt Corporate Media Tells The Truth?
From what I have observed it’s mostly oldsters (70+) who still watch the TV news and read newspapers.
Once in a while I watch the local news to get a feel for what the propaganda machine is pushing. It’s painful to watch. Then again, just about anything that is broadcast these days on the major networks is painful to watch.
From what I have observed it’s mostly oldsters (70+) who still watch the TV news and read newspapers.
Yep, the FDR generation who still think big government, big corps, big media, big everything are the shining lights to follow.
FWIW, things were a little different back then. I recall Truman and Eisenhower retiring to nice but ordinary homes, and not having multiple mansions, some on the beach even though there is “climate change”, like Obama does. I recall reading that he was so broke before becoming a senator that all his credit cards were maxed out. Now, even though he has in theory always been a public servant, he’s a multi-millionaire. Ditto the Clintons and the Bidens.
Well I must say, if you’re old enough to remember Truman and Eisenhower retiring, you seem to have survived a he!! of a lot of media brainwashing with your common sense intact. We need more like you.
I love to read snips of articles such as this …
“The days of the mortgage burning party are long over, replaced with an acceptance of long-term borrowing, often well into retirement, and even for life. No longer anxious to pay them off, many homeowners refinance mortgages and reset the clock.”
Pukes work hard for their money and then willingly decide to become debt slaves and begin to send huge portions of this hard-earned money to me each and every month for as long as they are working, and even longer.
They willingly become debt slaves for life.
Pukes work, bankers reap. God’s Plan.
Not that long ago, but in a vastly different world than today it used to be known as, “peonage.”
In case you forgot, I’m the one who has already been posting the trial and execution video of Ceausescu here, more than once, and for over months now…
Matt Taibbi — Justin Trudeau’s Ceauşescu Moment (2/10/2022):
“Ceaușescu’s balcony will forever be a symbol of elite cluelessness. Even in the face of the gravest danger, a certain kind of ruler will never be able to see the last salvo coming, if doing so requires any self-examination. The neoliberal political establishment in most of the Western world, the subject of repeat populist revolts of rising intensity in recent years, seems to suffer from the same disability.
There may be no real-world comparison between a blood-soaked monster like Ceaușescu and a bumbling ball-scratcher like Joe Biden, or an honorarium-gobbling technocrat like Hillary Clinton, or a Handsome Dan investment banker like Emmanuel Macron, or an effete pseudo-intellectual like Justin Trudeau. Still, the ongoing inability of these leaders to see the math of populist uprisings absolutely recalls that infamous scene in Bucharest. From Brexit to the election of Donald Trump to, now, the descent of thousands of Canadian truckers upon the capital city of Ottawa to confront Trudeau, a consistent theme has been the refusal to admit — not even to us, but to themselves — the numerical truth of what they’re dealing with.
Trudeau is becoming the ultimate example. Truckers last month began protesting a January 22nd rule that required the production of vaccine passports before crossing the U.S.-Canadian border. Canadian truckers are reportedly 90% vaccinated, above the country’s 78% total, a key detail that’s been brazenly ignored by media in both countries determined to depict these more as “anti-vax” than “anti-mandate” protests (which seem to be about many things at once, but that’s another story). When an angry convoy descended upon the capital, Trudeau dismissed them in a soliloquy that can only be described as inspired political arson:
“The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa, who are holding unacceptable views that they are expressing, do not represent the views of Canadians…who know that following the science and stepping up to protect each other is the best way to ensure our rights, our freedoms, our values as a country.”
“A near-exact repeat of the “basket of deplorables” episode, Trudeau’s imperious description of “unacceptable” views instantly became a rallying cry, with people across the country lining the streets to cheer truckers while self-identifying as the “small fringe minority.”
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/justin-trudeaus-ceausescu-moment
The Day Of The Rope is coming…
‘There may be no real-world comparison between a blood-soaked monster like Ceaușescu…’
I disagree with this completely. When they shut down the hospitals, that was mass murder and I said so at the time. Locking down economies was mass murder, among other atrocities. The experimental gene manipulation is mass murder – ongoing. There’s only one penalty for crimes against humanity.
The experimental gene manipulation is mass murder – ongoing.
Only time will tell just how many victims it will claim. While most of us don’t know anyone who died of Covid, I fear that we will know people who will die because of the jab.
Longer excerpt for some weekend reading.
Alt-Market — Separation Or Purge? Sharing A Society With The Political Left Is Impossible (2/11/2022):
“As I have said from the very beginning of the pandemic response, if even a handful of states or countries can remain free from covid controls they will inspire people around the world and act as proof that the mandates are pointless. Today, as America continues to beat back the covid agenda there are mass protests in Canada and the UK has cut most of their covid restrictions. Freedom spreads like wildfire once the flames are sparked.
Leftists hate this. Covid, like the fantasy of “institutional racism,” is a tempting vehicle to forward their ideology. If you can convince the public that they are a constant threat to themselves and each other, then it is a small matter to convince them that government needs to step in and protect society from itself and from notions of freedom that might put society at risk. Without covid as a foil the political left has nothing, and so they continue to perpetuate the lie that the virus is an imminent threat to the majority of people when the average Infection Fatality Rate is a tiny 0.27%.
The real question here is, when a group of people hate freedom this much how is it possible to coexist with them? The answer is we can’t.
Anyone who defends merit and liberty will always be a target of those that despise merit and liberty. They will never stop. They will forever be looking for ways to undermine both. If covid mandates and race based propaganda don’t work then they will search for another tool to do the job. If one can say anything “good” about leftists, it’s that they do not give up even when they are clearly outmatched and beaten. The problem is that this dedication to their cause is not based in love or truth, but in zealotry and cultism. They are jihadists, and nothing, not logic, not facts, not reason nor moral principle will convince them of the error of their ways.
So what is the solution? One could suggest that we make it easy for them to leave. After all, if they hate America as much as they say they do then why are they still living here? Probably because most other places in the world are abysmal in comparison. But if we keep them around they will drag the country down to the same terrible level. It’s a conundrum. Beyond that, what country would want them? Social justice is seen as a cancer in many countries and an injection of leftist migrants would be a disaster for them economically and socially, even in nations that claim to support leftist models.
Most leftists would also refuse to leave anyway because they believe they should decide the path of America’s future. As much as they hate this country they see themselves as its saviors.
Then there is the option of internal separation, which I see as preferable. This is already happening in many forms as conservatives and moderates from blue states relocate by the millions to red states. In my home state of Montana there has been an influx of migrants from blue states and every single new person I have talked to is a conservative/prepper whose family lived in a blue state for generations and they finally got fed up. The vast majority of people moving are conservative minded and they are now congregating.
Why not carry this process forward to its natural conclusion? Red states break from blue states and red counties break from blue state control and we live our lives the way we see fit. Let the leftists continue with their draconian economic and political models and see how well that goes for them. I guarantee they will be in financial ruins within a decade (the list of most indebted places in the country is dominated by blue states) and they will be begging to return to a union with red states (except for the zealots, which would lose influence as they continue to fail).
But this will not happen peacefully because, again, leftists cannot tolerate free activity. Their OCD will not allow them to be content with living in a collectivist state of their own; ALL states must be collectivist before they are satisfied. People are property to them; property of the collective, and people who are property cannot be allowed to make decisions without oversight.
There are people who will naively argue that the establishment wants America divided and separation plays into their hands. Guess what? There is no reconciliation with tyrants and trying to maintain a union with them is the pinnacle of idiocy. There is no union, it is a figment of your imagination. I think the establishment prefers that we stay within the box; that we continue wasting all our time and attention on on trying to hold a system together that is corrupt beyond repair. We will never be allowed to peacefully repair what has been broken.
Unfortunately, the only path this leaves is one of violence. Leftists will have to be forced out of positions of power and influence and removed from our culture like a cancerous tumor is cut from the body to save the body. I don’t think this should be the obvious choice. I don’t want it to be. What I am saying is, leftists and their partners in government and the corporate world will force the issue because they cannot help it; like the story of the scorpion and the frog, it’s in their nature to destroy.”
https://alt-market.us/separation-or-purge-sharing-a-society-with-the-political-left-is-impossible/
President Donald J. Trump (8/22/2021):
“Everything woke turns to shit”
https://www.bitchute.com/video/P4eooaPYnPep/
But this will not happen peacefully
The Left will never agree to a “national divorce”. They will liken the red regions to the Confederacy, and will shriek that can’t be allowed to happen.
The divorce will have t be unilateral. DC will threaten force and violence to stop it.
With Nebraska’s joining, we are halfway to a quorum of states to force a constitutional convention. It will be interesting to see how the deep state reacts as we approach the the required number (34). Remember Brandon’s threat, that he has nukes and F-15’s
Remember Brandon’s threat, that he has nukes and F-15’s
That demented, pants-shitting old fool doesn’t have jack shit. He’s going to die soon. The fact of the matter is over half of the people in this country don’t like him or his regime.
80-90% of the military would turn on the other 10-20% if Biden tried to do anything inside the US borders.
As soon as liberals know that conservatives are serious and will do what it takes to be rid of them, then there will be no violence. Kind of like Antifa, when it’s 10 against 1 they try to be tough- as soon as 4 or 5 real men show up, they’re crying for the cops. That is liberals in a nutshell.
Conservatives moving to conservative areas is the way to attempt to do this peacefully. I am about to leave Commiefornia, and those of you in Colorado should probably get used to the idea of having to move eventually. Then, if liberals threaten force against conservative states, we have to show them we’re serious, and they would back down almost immediately and we can go our separate ways. And then we build some walls 50 feet tall with machine guns on them. because as that author said, within 5-10 years the liberal entity will be falling to pieces.
I suspect the military would be no better than the police. “Just following orders”.
“I suspect the military would be no better than the police. “Just following orders”.
Where I live (LA County) the sheriff won’t enforce any vaccine BS, and I haven’t heard of the LAPD doing much- and enforcing mandates is quite a bit different than attacking/killing protesters which is what the post was about. So what have the police done that you’ve seen/read about?
Steve Kirsch — Embalmer reveals 93% of cases died from the vaccine (2/12/2022):
“What we have learned so far from the embalmers is troubling: it appears the vaccines have overtaken heart disease as the #1 leading cause of death in America today.
The CDC doesn’t have a clue it is happening. They still think that nobody has died from the vaccine. They refuse to look at the safety signals in VAERS and DMED. They don’t want to see any safety signals and they will not meet with anyone who challenges their point of view.
Death is one of many symptoms. Other side effects are a wide variety of cardiovascular, neurological, and autoimmune diseases, paralysis, loss of limbs, and potentially sterilization and AIDS. After a 90 day honeymoon period, vaccine efficacy turns negative. They also are known to increase cancers.
Stay tuned as we learn more in this clinical trial of the vaccines. I’m sure this isn’t the end of the story.”
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/exclusive-embalmer-reveals-93-of
Happy twenty-three month anniversary of “two weeks to flatten the curve”
93% = 28 out of the last 30
We call it the clot shot for a reason. And get ready for the next generation flu shot, which will be mRNA based. It might be out as early as this year.
Embalmers determine causes of death?
Yeah, Steve’s writing style and topics are a bit too sensational.
Steve’s promoting David Martin too. 🙄
Embalmers determine causes of death?
No, they don’t write death certificates. But they know what corpses are like and what it takes to embalm one. And if “things change”, they will notice.
I suspect it was a rhetorical question.
I certainly am no expert, but an embalmer would get to a corpse after 1-2 days. I would think at that point the blood would be clotted and thickened much more so than any clot could form while alive. So no, not really a rhetorical question, and I doubt the embalmers would be able to tell the cause of death. I have unfortunately met a couple embalmers, I think they know less about science than Biden.
Townhall — Gov. Whitmer Says It’s ‘Downright Dangerous’ for Conservative Media to Be ‘Inciting’ Trucker Protest (2/11/2022):
“Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) told CNN on Thursday that is dangerous for conservative media to be covering the ongoing Canadian truckers protest in a light that doesn’t smear them as lawbreakers or racists.
“Well, obviously, we cannot incite and encourage people to break the law, especially when they are throwing other Americans on it of work and creating an economic crisis that we were just recovering from.”
COVID didn’t destroy the economy. Government destroyed the economy. Governor Whitmer, you personally destroyed the economy of the State of Michigan in 2020.
“Well, it’s dangerous. They’re inciting and encouraging people to break the law. And to do so in a way that devastates so many hard-working people. This is families, this is businesses in America that rely on this commerce free-flowing,” she continued. “This is five days and it is already taken a toll of tens of millions of dollars. That number compounds over time. And any encouragement for people to replicate this and break the law and devastate our economy is not just devastating to our national bottom line but to individual households, to businesses, to agriculture. So it’s incredibly unhelpful and downright dangerous.”
COVID didn’t destroy the economy. Government destroyed the economy. Governor Whitmer, you personally destroyed the economy of the State of Michigan in 2020.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2022/02/11/gov-whitmer-says-its-downright-dangerous-for-conservative-media-to-be-promoting-trucker-protest-n2603167
Remember her “kidnapping plot?” That was a half dozen slack jawed yokels who got roped in by 100 Feds.
Glowies know they are losing this, and losing it badly, so don’t be surprised by some False Flag operations…
More from Townhall.
Indisputable Facts, Unacceptable Conclusions: DHS’ Latest Effort to Stamp Out ‘False or Misleading Narratives’ (2/12/2022):
“the Department of Homeland Security issued its new National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin, which also seeks to chill certain kinds of free speech. This bulletin prioritizes so-called “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors,” as a top domestic security threat, aiming to combat MDM through intelligence gathering and dissemination. By the way, even DHS acknowledges that some of this information is indeed truthful; it just justifies including “mal-information” because this factual information is “used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” So the DHS will also be determining the correct context for narratives. The NTAS Bulletin also provides funding for select nonprofits, presumably ones that would combat this “false or misleading or mal” information. At CASA, we believe that the NTAS has the potential to be a frightening assault on the First Amendment and the expression of legitimate protest and dissent. By definition it seeks to fight any “narrative” that undermines public trust in U.S. institutions, which could include simple and truthful reporting about officials’ misconduct, potential corruption of political leaders, or scientifically-supported statements questioning contentious COVID policies.
What is a “misleading narrative” and who will determine whether true information contributes to a “misleading narrative?” Will this bulletin be the basis to fund groups that purport to “correct” misinformation or articulate the “approved narrative of events?” Will the Nonprofit Security Grant Program be used to hand money to partisan organizations or those with close ties to public officials in an effort to bolster their public communications efforts? Will any of the “collaboration with private sector partners” be used to work with social media companies, as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested at a recent press conference, to censor and identify peaceful but politically active opponents of the Administration?”
https://townhall.com/columnists/adamturner/2022/02/12/indisputable-facts-unacceptable-conclusions-dhs-latest-effort-to-stamp-out-false-or-misleading-narratives-n2603170
The Day Of The Rope is coming…
Well, obviously, we cannot incite and encourage people to break the law
She didn’t seem to mind when Antifa and BLM were burning the country down.
‘They’re inciting and encouraging people to break the law. And to do so in a way that devastates so many hard-working people. This is families, this is businesses in America that rely on this commerce free-flowing’
Kinda like yer lockdowns? And I missed one mass murder earlier: denying and withholding effective therapeutics.
Advocating violence against elected officials is a glow bait glow trap.
Which is why we advocate for arrests, trials, convictions, and executions. Even the Nazis who survived WWII had their day in court.
Advocating violence against unelected globalists is a public service and a gift to humanity.
These people are enemy combatants.
“mass murder” is an understatement.
Gov. Whitmer Says
Remember when this c-word locked down her community, then her husband was down at the boat yard seeking special arrangements to launch their boat for the holidays while everybody else was told to stay cooped up inside? I do. So does the owner of the boat yard, who promptly told them to get in the back of the line.
I guess we know who the brains of the operation were.
New court filings show FBI had at least 12 “informants” in Whitmer “kidnapping” plot
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/new-court-filings-show-fbi-had-at-least-12-informants-in-whitmer-kidnapping-plot/
Hmm, sounds eerily similar to this “satire”:
Trudeau Demands Protesters Stop Shutting Down City So That He Can Shut Down City
https://babylonbee.com/news/trudeau-demands-protesters-stop-shutting-down-city-so-that-he-can-shut-down-city
Goods inflation is at 7.5%. I wonder how wage inflation is going to play into this.
“A lot of people left the labor market and they’re not going to come back, even with a strong bid for their services,” Moynihan said on Thursday during a virtual event hosted by Fortune and the World Economic Forum. “And that’s just the reality we’re going to be facing. We’re going to be chasing that dynamic of not enough people working.”
https://fortune.com/2022/01/21/bank-of-america-ceo-great-resignation-brian-moynihan/?xid=soc_socialflow_facebook_FORTUNE&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=fortunemagazine&fbclid=IwAR0fo-AoYDwsENau86KL7niHGyhY27PzmCiINfmeA8Sev73uHREaWscYqZ0
Goods inflation is at 7.5%
Doesn’t that number exclude “volatile” food and energy prices? I think shadowstats is reporting that using 1980’s metrics, which also excluded food and fuel, it’s about 12%. I’m gonna guess that including food and fuel it’s well over 20%.
Here is an article written just for you HBB proles …
Johnstone: They Don’t Just Lie To Us About Wars, They Lie To Us About Everything | ZeroHedge
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/johnstone-they-dont-just-lie-us-about-wars-they-lie-us-about-everything
Propaganda isn’t just about manufacturing consent for wars and ridiculous governmental measures we’d never normally accept. That’s what most people think of when they hear that word, but there’s so very, very much more to it than that.
The lion’s share of propaganda goes not toward convincing us to accept new agendas of the powerful, but toward keeping us entranced in the status quo dream world which enables the powerful to have power in the first place. Toward normalizing status quo systems and training us to shape ourselves to fit into them like neat little cogs in a well-oiled machine.
And it’s not even a grand, monolithic conspiracy in most cases. The giant corporations who indoctrinate us with their advertisements, their Hollywood movies and shows, their apps, their websites and their news media are all naturally incentivized to point us further and further into delusion by the fact that they benefit from the status quo systems which have elevated them to wealth.
So day in and day out we are presented with media which train us what to value, where to place our interest and attention, what success looks like, and how a normal human behaves on this planet. And it always aligns perfectly with the interests of the rich and powerful.
They don’t just teach us what to believe. They teach us who we are. They give us the frameworks upon which we cast our ambitions and evaluate our success, and we build psychological identities out of those constructs. I am a businessman. I am unemployed. My life is about making money. My life is about disappointing people. I am a success. I am a failure. They invent the test of our adequacy, and they invent the system by which we are graded on that test.
These artificial constructs take up such vast portions of our personal psychology that people will live their entire lives completely enslaved to them, making them their entire focus. This enslavement is so pervasive that people will often even take their own lives based on what those made-up constructs tell them about who they are and what they’re worth.
And it’s all a lie. A dream world, made entirely of narrative, constructed by the powerful for the benefit of the powerful. Things as intimate as the thoughts in our heads and the movement of our interest and attention are controlled and dominated with iron-fisted force, all for the benefit of some stupid made-up games about imaginary money and fictional authority.
So most of us sleepwalk through life chasing make believe goals and fleeing artificially constructed demons. Too preoccupied with the illusion to look up and notice the thunderous majesty of life as it really is, and usually too confused to truly perceive it even on those rare occasions when we snap out of the trance for a moment to make an effort.
Untangling yourself from this dream world isn’t easy. It takes time. It takes work. It takes a deep, sustained curiosity about what’s really going on underneath all the muddled mental chatter, about what life truly is underneath all the stories we’ve been told about what life is, about who we truly are underneath all the stories we’ve been told about who we are.
The difference between what we’ve been told and what we find over the course of this investigation is the difference between dream and waking life. The real world is as different from the status quo narrative about the world as it is from any other work of fiction. The two things really could not be any more different.
And the good news is that just as your false view of yourself and your world shaped your human expression in the service of the powerful, the rolling back of that mind fog shapes your human expression into something else entirely. Something grounded in reality. Something authentic. Something primal. Something that exists not for the benefit of some faceless oligarchic empire, but for the same reason the grass grows and the galaxies spin in the cosmos.
And that’s what humanity looks like on the other side of this awkward transition phase that our species is going through at this adolescent point in its development. Free from illusion. In harmony with the real. Enslaved to nobody. Striding clear-eyed into the mystery of what’s to come.
Living without debt is the greatest middle finger I or anybody can give to these plantation owners.
DEBT IS SLAVERY.
And to think that people used to move to Poway for the schools.
I saw that yesterday. Importantly, parents objected. I was heartened to hear immigrant residents speaking out against CRT during a school board meeting not long ago.
Check out the key note speaker the district planned to bring in for the staff’s Professional Growth Day: Shelley Moore: Transforming Inclusive Education. Because of travel restrictions (she’s in Canada), her visit has been postponed. I have so many issues with her ideas and I’m completely fine with separate but equal for my autistic child.
Every time they get exposed, they just bury it a little deeper and teach it a little more subtly. The girls at my son’s high school have all gone crazy- liberals on steroids. At my daughter’s middle school she has repeatedly heard students say “I hate white people.” Good times in California.
My autistic son is completely oblivious. If ever there was a silver lining.
At my daughter’s middle school she has repeatedly heard students say “I hate white people.”
Is there any more reason needed to leave Clownifornia? It was already s sh!tshow when I bailed out 27 years ago. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live there now.
Making lemonade out of lemons.
‘Home ownership is now a speculation system, and getting into it creates wealth at substantial rates,’
Time will tell if the gravy train can survive the upcoming round of central bank policy tightening. History suggests not.
Meanwhile, in NZ, Barry Manilow is being weaponized against anti-vaxx protestors. Now that’s just wrong.
New Zealand authorities blast out Barry Manilow songs and turn on water sprinklers to try to flush out hundreds of Freedom Convoy protesters camped outside parliament over strict vaccine rules
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10506217/New-Zealand-authorities-blast-Barry-Manilow-songs-flush-hundreds-protesters.html
New Zealand authorities blasted Barry Manilow and turned on water sprinklers in an attempt to to disperse coronavirus vaccine protesters camped outside parliament.
Initial moves to try and flush out several hundred protesters who have been camped on the grounds in Wellington since Tuesday had little effect.
Wouldn’t hip-hop be a better deterrent for truckers?
Time to listen to some Queen, and maybe some other songs too. Queen — Play The Game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-xq9n0IphU
The synth and guitar on this one is just too much…
The Who — Music Must Change:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROG9llPP9qE
The Clash — The Magnificent Seven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1Nf850Lys
Just got back from a romp in the Z3 with the top down listening to ABBA Gold Greatest Hits. 😎 ☀️ 🏖
This has to be awkward for the DNC when its CCP ideological clones censor LGBTQ story lines that are de rigor for any globalist media “entertainment” programming.
Chinese streaming platforms censor LGBTQ plot line about Ross’s lesbian ex-wife and other sexually suggestive lines in ‘Friends’ sparking protests from fans on social media
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10505957/Chinese-streaming-platforms-censored-LGBTQ-Friends-plot-line-sparking-protests-social-media.html
It’s so charming when American Leftists think their values are accepted in other countries.
Has the recent experimental trial of Modern Monetary Theory put us on the fast track to hyperinflation?
NR PLUS Monetary Policy
MMT: A Highway to Hyperinflation
By Jonathan Deluty
February 11, 2022 6:30 AM
Regardless of the economic-theory problems that Modern Monetary Theory presents, it ought to be a political nonstarter.
NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a fringe framework for understanding our money system, is on a charm offensive. The government spent trillions of dollars over the past two years, real bond yields are negative, and inflation is running hot, but MMT’s proponents are apparently taking “something of a victory lap,” according to a glowing new profile of the face of this theory, Professor Stephanie Kelton, in the New York Times.
In response to the victory-less victory lap, the economic problems with MMT have been spelled out over the last few days by eminently qualified academics (for a good summary of the objections to MMT, it’s well worth reading this piece by Noah Smith). The first among its problems is that MMT has no rigorous economic models or schematics attached to it. To say that it is ill-defined is an understatement. Advocates of MMT, for example, use a different definition of “savings” than all other economic schools (not counting investment), and they play games with the notion of the “natural” rate of interest. They make large claims about the long-run non-neutrality of money. Economists from Michael Strain to Paul Krugman have been scratching their heads trying to figure out what exactly it is the MMT crowd believes.
But layered atop the eccentric economic views contained within MMT (to the extent that one can coherently express them) are some equally implausible assumptions about political behavior. The disastrous consequences of these errant assumptions are utterly predictable, and yet MMT advocates assume them anyway.
First, MMT advocates a permanent zero interest rate and elimination of the bond market. Today, if the Fed wants to increase the money supply to spur lending, it can buy treasuries from banks in exchange for loanable funds. To put it simply, the banks, awash in new reserves, are then able to lend more, thereby increasing the supply of money in the real economy and lowering the interest rate. That result is a matter of basic supply and demand. By the same token, if the Fed wishes to reduce the money supply to control inflationary pressures, it can sell treasuries and take those bank reserves out of the market, restricting the supply and raising the interest rate. This policy tool would be eliminated under an MMT regime.
How, then, could the government fight inflation? MMT leaves only one tool to reduce the money supply: taxes. According to MMT, the government doesn’t collect taxes to pay for things; rather, it collects taxes to reduce the money supply and to create a demand for dollars in the first place.
Imagine, then, how the MMT scenario plays out. Inflation burns hot and prices begin rising faster and faster. People watch as the dollars in their bank accounts buy fewer and fewer groceries, gallons of gas, or other necessities of life. Voters ask government to do something to restore their evaporating purchasing power. In response, Congress decides to . . . raise taxes? Take more of their money?
This is beyond implausible: It is the opposite of what would happen. We know the playbook that the party in power uses to avoid blame for inflation. Every week for the last several months, President Biden or Press Secretary Psaki have blamed “corporate greed” and “price gouging” for Americans’ rising expenses on everything from gasoline to meat. Just last week, in the face of the highest inflation rate in 40 years, Representative Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) launched an attack on Starbucks for “price gouging,” as though anyone were forced to buy a Frappuccino. Senators Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.) and Maggie Hassan (D., N.H.) have called for suspending the tax on gasoline. Between price controls, subsidies, and tax cuts, the measures that elected officials most commonly propose in response to higher prices would all result in more money being poured into the economy, which, without monetary tools to curtail it, is an invitation to hyperinflation.
That leads to MMT’s second disastrous idea: directly monetizing government debt. The great institutional change that MMT would implement is an effective merger between the Fed and the Treasury. In technical terms, it would turn the Fed’s liabilities into legal tender, which is currently illegal under the Federal Reserve Act. In other words: money printing.
Currently, all the government’s spending, excessive and bloated as it seems, is debt-financed, not monetized. The Treasury sells bonds at auction and uses the money from those sales to fund its programs. In this arrangement, no new money is created by government spending since purchasers have to pay for the bonds with existing money. Quantitative easing, for example, is when the Federal Reserve purchases bonds or mortgage-backed securities from primary-dealer banks (banks that have an account directly with the Fed) that purchased those assets elsewhere. Fed purchases are more accurately referred to as “asset swaps,” since the bank reserves they swap for bonds are not legal tender. The Federal Reserve cannot spend money directly into the economy. You and I cannot take out a mortgage from the Fed. The Fed can, in essence, sell bank reserves to a bank. Those reserves must be converted into loans and lent into the real economy in order to become new money.
But MMT has no objection to a different arrangement: The Federal Reserve, rather than commercial banks or private citizens, could simply print new money as directed by Congress, and use it to “buy” zero-interest “treasury bonds,” effectively selling money to itself. The government would then spend the newly printed dollars directly into the economy, whether to finance a federal jobs guarantee, a Green New Deal, or take your pick, although under the logic of MMT you really wouldn’t have to. In Kelton’s words: “We can run fiscal deficits without increasing the debt, if we don’t issue the Treasuries.”
This is, to put it mildly, unwise. There is a very good reason that fiscal and monetary policy should be kept separate. Monetizing the debt so that the government can put (allegedly) “idle resources” to use would quickly lead to hyperinflation, which (as mentioned above) the MMT crowd would “solve” with the only tool at hand: raising taxes. This entails the government, which created the inflation by overspending, having to seize an even greater percentage of control over the economy by taking money away from citizens.
MMT’s vision assumes that Congress would, once granted the ability to monetize debt and effectively spend unlimited amounts of newly printed money, spend right up until the economy reaches full employment. At that point, the same political body currently blaming corporate greed rather than itself for increased coffee prices would turn off the money spigot, with no concern for the interest groups reliant on newly created government programs.
What would really happen, as business economist Lacy Hunt says, is that Gresham’s law would be triggered, and bad money would chase out the good. “In very short order,” he warns, “everyone would be totally miserable.”
The end result of this is obvious: a massive increase in the government’s command and control of economic decision-making in the United States.
There are many problems with MMT, even strictly within the scientific discipline of economics. But politically, it ought to be a nonstarter. The policy recommendations of those who advocate it are among the most predictably destructive to come out of any school of economic thought since the time of Karl Marx. MMT should remain on the fringe where it belongs.
…
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/02/mmt-a-highway-to-hyperinflation/
But politically, it ought to be a nonstarter.
It ought to be, but when the regime wants to go on a multitrillion dollar spending spree, who cares about inflation?
It is breathtaking how little time it has taken the Brandon regime to wreck everything. And it’s going to get a lot worse before November rolls around. It’s will take some serious ballot box stuffing for them to avoid total disaster.
Poway Property Update: 13122 Wild Flower Ln, Poway, CA 92064
2/8/2022 Sold $2,120,000 (+12.2%)
1/11/2022 Pending sale $1,889,900
1/7/2022 Listed for sale $1,889,900
The buyer’s agent for Wild Flower was listed as Out of Area on the MLS. A handful of other properties are closing above listing prices as well. Low inventory and perhaps people fleeing LA and SF are keeping things high.
Here’s the full listing for the house with the crossword puzzle on the wall and Christmas ornament chandelier: 17351 Saint Andrews Dr, Poway, CA 92064. They made a big mistake IMO blowing out the walls. We’ll see how they do:
2/8/2022 Listed for sale $1,899,000 (+99.4%)
8/6/2020 Sold $952,500 (+5.8%)
6/26/2020 Pending sale $899,999
6/17/2020 Listed for sale $899,999 (+1.1%)
Wildflower — carpet in a dining room is a no-no. Open gas stove on the island is a dealbreaker for me. Pool is nice. The St. Andrews house is more interesting, but probably too weird for me. Room for a pool..
Pool is nice.
Indeed! One of the reasons I was eyeing it from afar (and Google Earth).
Low inventory and perhaps people fleeing LA and SF are keeping things high.
Isn’t “fleeing” from LA to San Diego like moving from the dining room to the living room when the kitchen catches fire? It’s almost as pointless as moving to Dumver to escape liberalism.
Perhaps more like moving from the front yard to the back yard when the street party gets out of hand?
People can WFH and commute to LA or SF a few days a month.
2 million in Poway. SMH and LOL
If rates get back to “normal”- 5ish%, California is going to drop 50% this time.
Pre-COVID, it would have been $1.3-1.5M. As I noted, the buyer’s agent was “Out of Area.” I suspect the seller’s agent helped with the buyer as well. He did a pocket listing up the hill a few years ago. That property had a cracked slab.
That property had a cracked slab.
Don’t most shacks in California have a cracked slab?
With earthquakes, that’s a good question. AFAIK, this one was undisclosed.
“With earthquakes, that’s a good question.”
Slabs cracking are usually due to expansive soils such as clay or caliche becoming saturated during the rainy season and exerting uneven heaving.
becoming saturated during the rainy season
I don’t think we get that kind of rain.
And people ask why I haven’t bought yet! I’ve been sitting on CASH waiting for the FED to raise rates and stop buying MBS.
“It was 1.3-1.5”
That was before the mass exodus really got going (Practically every conservative I know is thinking about leaving, planning it, or has already left). The COVID lockdowns have killed the economy in California, which eventually will take their toll. And bubbles always overshoot. 50% drop is coming.
I have my eye on a house up the hill. It’s owner is a recent widower in his 80s. We’ve been in the neighborhood 8.5 years and I wouldn’t mind another decade or so here. It has a nice balance between remoteness and convenience.
I’m a bit surprised that something like this didn’t happen earlier in the week:
I Love LA!
“Kodak Black Reportedly Among 4 Shot Outside Super Bowl Party”
Thank God they got the Homeless moved out of sight before the Super Bowl parties erupted.
How many busses they did have to charter to do that? And where did they stash them? Victorville? 😉
I am reminded of the huge Hooverville that formed on the Santa Ana canal in Orange County, just a stone’s throw from Disneyland. There were thousands of them.