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The Potent Fuel That Propelled Markets Is Evaporating

A weekend topic starting with Fox 43 in Maryland. “The Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since 2018. ‘Just get into the house without paying any extra fees or points if you have to, just get in with the least amount of cash out of pocket as possible as far as your closing costs,’ said Rebecca Foote, vice president of mortgage lending for Foote Capital Mortgage Company. ‘Then we’ll refinance you later down the road for a lower interest rate.'”

From 13 News Now in Virginia. “‘The reality is that interest rate increases and financial conditions hurt the people that can least afford them,’ explained Andrew Root, an assistant professor at Regent University. According to Root, one specific example of the impacts to the housing market goes like this: if someone were to invest $100,000 toward a home equity line of credit, because of increased interest rates, in one to two years, that person could pay $1,000 to $2,000 more to hold the same line of credit balance (on top of the interest they were already paying in the first place).”

“‘It’ll slow down all aspects of the housing market. Current borrowers will feel an increase immediately, new borrowers will apply for loans and will qualify for slightly lower mortgage value than before yesterday,’ Root said.”

The Times Standard in California. “‘February) was the first month since October 2020 that our sales price was under the list price,’ Joshua Cook, board president of the Humboldt Association of Realtors, told The Times-Standard. ‘We are seeing a little bit of a slowdown in demand now,’ Cook said, ‘just because of the interest rates creeping up and the uncertainty in the market with what’s going on in the world.'”

From Yahoo Finance. “The more than quarter-point hike in rates in the last week is a blow to many homeowners who may have waited too long to refinance their loan. ‘The potent fuel that propelled real estate markets to new highs over the past couple of years is evaporating,’ said George Ratiu, Realtor.com manager of economic research. ‘Record-low mortgage rates helped many first-time buyers stretch their budgets in 2020 and 2021,’ Ratiu said. But ‘the days of sub-3% interest rates are firmly behind us, and we have yet to solve the market fundamentals of supply and demand.'”

The Washington Post. “‘Things are so overheated right now — we’re seeing 15, 20 offers on a single house — that the Fed has got to throw some water on the fire,’ said Paul Skeens, a mortgage lender in Waldorf, Md. ‘I expect by fall you’re going to see a very different market.'”

From Market Watch. “David Rosenberg is convinced that the Fed will beat inflation so hard that the U.S. economy will slide into recession as early as this summer. MarketWatch: ‘Demand destruction’ means bursting asset bubbles and that typically means lower valuations for housing, stocks and other cherished investments. You’re on record about residential real estate being at ‘peak housing.’ What convinces you that the U.S. housing sector is in a bubble?'”

“Rosenberg: ‘The housing market is in at least as big a bubble as the stock market. When you look at price action, it’s absolutely incredible. The year-over-year trend in nationwide home prices is 19%. We’ve already taken out prior bubble peaks in the late 1970s, mid-’80s and mid-2000s. Relative to overall inflation, housing is overvalued by 35%, and 27% relative to wages. Home prices relative to residential rents are 25% overvalued by the standards of the past. A single-family home now absorbs more than eight years of Americans’ personal income, which is almost 50% higher than the average going back to 1968.'”

“‘Housing, like equities a long-duration asset and benefitting from years of accommodative monetary policy, is again ensnared in a mess of a price bubble. The price-to-income multiple is just about where it was in 2006 and 2007. Nobody wanted to believe it then, and talking about housing being in a bubble today, it’s as if I told somebody that their kid was ugly.'”

“Rosenberg: ‘Historically, home prices go up one- to two percentage points above the inflation rate. Right now it’s going up 12 percentage points. Residential real estate is a great hedge against inflation. But the excess is practically unprecedented. The laws of mean reversion are telling you that we’re going to have anywhere from a 20% to 30% bear market in residential real estate, and that’s being charitable. And once again, nobody seems to believe it, let alone prepare for it.”’

“‘What ultimately pulls the rug out from under the housing market is the Fed, because housing is the most interest-rate-sensitive segment of the economy. Each Fed-induced pricking of the real-estate bubbles also played a big role in the eventual recession when you consider the importance of this sector and its multiplier effect on the broader economy.'”

The Globe and Mail. “David Rosenberg: Personal wealth in the U.S. has grown to absurd levels – and a reckoning is coming. Everyone talks about how strong U.S. personal balance sheets are, but that is because of the unprecedented inflation in asset values, which have now gone parabolic. Household net worth relative to disposable income surged from 797 per cent in the third quarter to an unheard-of 826-per-cent ratio in last year’s fourth quarter. A year ago, it stood at 760 per cent. When the pandemic started, try 665 per cent. Never before has the net worth-to-income ratio soared this much in a two-year span, and the data go back to 1948.”

“Who could ever have imagined that the most horrible epidemic in a century could have made so many people so rich? Does that make any sense to anyone?”

“Well, of course it does when the U.S. Federal Reserve, since the ‘Powell pivot’ in 2019, eased policy to an extent that it de facto cut rates the equivalent of 865 basis points, 70 per cent of which came via the increasingly bloated central bank balance sheet. What happens now, with the movie reel about to be run in reverse?”

“Putting that 826-per-cent ratio into perspective, it has now far eclipsed the 669-per-cent housing bubble peak in 2007 and the 615-per-cent dot-com mania peak in 2000. We are in dangerous territory because the mean-reversion that lies ahead can be expected to be rather pernicious. Think of the decisions people made on the way up with this ratio, and what happens when it comes down.”

“The power of U.S. central bank policy lies in its ability to generate inflation in assets, which it can do when consumer inflation is below target. But the times, they are a-changin’. We had years (if not decades) of ultralow consumer inflation that co-existed with rampant asset inflation. The tables are soon to be turned. And what happens in this coming period of history is not a ‘wage-price’ spiral but rather asset-price deflation, as the power of mean reversion takes hold, impairing consumer spending, wealth effects and confidence in the process. Even with lingering global supply restraints, this will sow the seeds of demand destruction, leading to a future of deflation.”

From News.com.au. “Melbourne house prices are the fifth-least affordable in the world for those on a median wage, a new report has found. Victoria’s capital had median house price that was a staggering 12.1 times higher than the median household income. Sydney placed second-highest with a median house price 15.1 times higher than median income. Hong Kong was the most expensive city on the list, with an eye-watering median price 23.2 times higher than the average household income. Canada’s Vancouver and San Jose in California, United States rounded out the top five least-affordable cities.”

“Propertyology founder Simon Pressley said a more accurate indicator of affordability was a buyers’ ability to afford the mortgage, not the total property cost. ‘It’s not can you afford the property, it’s can you afford the repayments,’ Mr Pressley said. He added that for many people, the bigger issue was that ‘they can’t afford the deposit or the stamp duty.’ But Mr Pressley predicted internal migration out of Melbourne and economic impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic ‘aren’t going to have a positive impact on Melbourne property prices.'”

“‘Melbourne, for the last 10 years, has been the second most expensive capital city in Australia,’ he said. ‘But it probably won’t hold that title for much longer.'”

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This Post Has 135 Comments

  2. ‘Who could ever have imagined that the most horrible epidemic in a century could have made so many people so rich? Does that make any sense to anyone?’

    This is how globalist scum media/guberments operate. A full court press to make everybody believe the unbelievable. How does CCP virus make everybody rich? It doesn’t. So what happened then? The largest spasm of money creating in human history, in just under 2 years. And it’s going away.

    1. If you don’t believe me, look at China. Even bloomberg is saying the RE bubble has popped. Stocks too.

      1. In China’s case, I’d say their bubbles have pooped. But not everyone has caught on just yet. The rear view mirror is necessary for the masses to notice collapsed bubbles.

    2. “globalist scum media/guberments”

      The phony war is not a “get out of jail free” card for the supporters and enforcers of unscientific medical tyranny. There will be arrests, trials, convictions, and executions.

      Weekend long reads from a Substack I recently discovered:

      https://iceni.substack.com/p/covid-19-a-web-of-corruption

      https://iceni.substack.com/p/covid-19-deep-dive-part-i-pathophysiology

      https://iceni.substack.com/p/covid-19-deep-dive-part-ii-vaccine

      https://iceni.substack.com/p/covid-19-deep-dive-part-iii-criminal

      https://iceni.substack.com/p/covid-19-deep-dive-part-iv-mind-control

      Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, you are all going to hang.

    4. ‘Who could ever have imagined that the most horrible epidemic in a century could have made so many people so rich? Does that make any sense to anyone?’

      I have been watching the money flows the entire time. the Woohoo was a green light for the well-connected to fleece their respective treasuries for previously unheard of financial gains. Jerome Powell and his brethren were day trading their own policies, front running the markets. This is corruption never before seen in the US – banana republic level. The moment they were busted, they should have been removed from office. Instead, he was rewarded with another term. CONgress was in on it. All of these people were sharing info on what to buy and sell to get rich.

    5. “How does CCP virus make everybody rich?”

      The people in my little berg (very small town in SoUtah) got almost $600,000.00 in PPP monies. Many are listed as having businesses that I personally know don’t exist.

      For what it’s worth our local hospital presently has 4 Covid-19 patients and according to the daily posted info all were vaccinated.

  3. Denver7 — Business owners say RV, trash situation in south Denver has worsened (3/18/2022):

    “Business owners in Denver’s Ruby Hill neighborhood say the RV and trash situation has only gotten worse since Denver7 first reported on the problem just two weeks ago.

    “Some people are actually down on their luck, but most of these people are young, healthy males or females that could totally be working,” Mark Holligan said Friday.

    Holligan works along South Huron Street, where it appears the number of people living in RVs has grown, along with other streets nearby.

    “We’re tired of the needles, the bottles of urine and feces that we got to look at,” he said. “It’s just a bad look on the street. It’s a bad look for Denver.”

    https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/its-a-bad-look-for-denver-business-owners-say-rv-trash-situation-in-south-denver-has-worsened

    Needles and feces?

    Vote like California, become California.

    1. What do you do when you have to take a dump at 3 am and there’s no bathroom? You take a dump on the sidewalk. When mother nature calls, mother nature calls. The problem is not the dump on the sidewalk, that’s the side effect. The problem is homelessness, the lack of affordable housing, and addiction. It appears that the next demographic of homeless quickly making gains is single older women.

      1. “It appears that the next demographic of homeless quickly making gains is single older women.”

        Where do they house their dogs?

  4. ‘We’ve already taken out prior bubble peaks in the late 1970s, mid-’80s and mid-2000s. Relative to overall inflation, housing is overvalued by 35%, and 27% relative to wages. Home prices relative to residential rents are 25% overvalued by the standards of the past. A single-family home now absorbs more than eight years of Americans’ personal income, which is almost 50% higher than the average going back to 1968’

    So basically all US loans are subprime. Hong Kong, K-da, Australia and New Zealand too.

    1. The media has been cheerleading this thing the entire time. I actually saw a media image of Jerome Powell – one of the chief architects of this everything bubble – in a flight suit and the cockpit of a plane with a caption of something like “Jerome Powell is going to attempt a soft landing.” WTF?

    2. “Home prices relative to residential rents are 25% overvalued by the standards of the past.”

      Thanks for that nugget of wisdom. I’m planning to keep renting for now, and encourage my young adult children to do the same, until the prediction of Herbert Stein’s Law is finally realized in the U.S. housing market:

      ‘Anything that cannot continue forever will stop.’

  5. From the Globe piece:

    ‘What keeps me up at night most is one number: 43 trillion. As in, the unprecedented US$43-trillion of equities, both directly and indirectly, that U.S. households own on their balance sheet. I should say “owned” and not “own,” because that was third-quarter data; that exposure grew to US$45-trillion in the fourth quarter. It has increased by 85 per cent since the end of 2018 and increased 252 per cent from a decade ago. Almost 40 per cent of the financial asset mix is now loaded up on stocks; the historical norm is 21.8 per cent.’

    ‘And that is because the retail investor was lured by the pied pipers that populate Wall Street to believe in FOMO (fear of missing out), TINA (there is no alternative) and that the Fed has your back at all times. The household sector never rebalanced their portfolios in this cycle, as throwing caution to the wind also swept away that dirty 15-letter word – diversification.’

    ‘Then tack on the super-inflated real estate valuation on the household balance sheet – topping US$42-trillion for the first time, up more than 15 per cent on a year-over-year basis, an increase that matches the bubble peak in 2007 when that valuation was pegged at US$25-trillion. The number of homeowner households since that 2007 housing bubble peak ‎has expanded 10 per cent; but the valuation of residential real estate on the household balance sheet has absolutely exploded by 70 per cent.’

  6. A reader sent this in:

    ‘Now that the refi boom is over for ALL the mortgage lenders it’s time for them to open up the credit box for Non-QM lending, loans that don’t qualify for Fannie/Freddie. This is how it starts, gang! h/t @RJWholeLoans
    Take note @DiMartinoBooth Here comes the debt monster!’

    https://twitter.com/TheBondFreak/status/1504447867926335489

    Here’s the article referenced:

    ‘As the potential mortgage origination market shrinks because of rising interest rates, some wholesale lenders are coming out with products to serve borrowers outside of the conforming footprint.’

    ‘United Wholesale Mortgage is offering a bank statement loan for self-employed borrowers only. Loan limits are up to $3 million, and borrowers can have a 90% loan-to-value ratio with no mortgage insurance required. It is a non-qualified mortgage product.’

    https://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/wholesalers-bring-out-new-nonconforming-offerings

    Morer subprime!

    1. Loan limits are up to $3 million, and borrowers can have a 90% loan-to-value ratio with no mortgage insurance required. It is a non-qualified mortgage product.’
      Someone has to buy this stuff because United Mtg can’t put it on its balance sheet.
      I big questions I have are: Who will be/are the buyers and how high are the rates?

      1. Who will be/are the buyers and how high are the rates?

        Pension funds like CALPERS. They are always the bagholders.

    2. Scott Walters on YT recently said that he spoke to a lender that is offering adjustable rate mortgages.

      1. My online bank sends a weekly email asking me to get a mortgage with them. Last week it included adjustable rate mortgages.

      1. New York Post — 51 ‘intelligence’ experts refuse to apologize for discrediting true Hunter Biden story (3/18/2022):

        “the 51 former “intelligence” officials who cast doubt on The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter really were just desperate to get Joe Biden elected president. And more than a year later, even after their Deep State sabotage has been shown again and again to be a lie, they refuse to own up to how they undermined an election.

        The officials, including CNN pundit and professional fabricator James Clapper — a man who was nearly charged for perjury for lying to Congress — signed a letter saying that the laptop “has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

        https://nypost.com/2022/03/18/intelligence-experts-refuse-to-apologize-for-smearing-hunter-biden-story/

        The punishment for treason is DEATH.

        Not a few years in jail, not probation, not getting cancelled (and falling into a Deep State net with a golden parachute), it’s DEATH.

        Ben, what does it take for these globalist scum to start getting killed?

        The only good globalist is a dead globalist.

        The Day Of The Rope is coming…

  8. The Federalist — The U.S. Is Mindlessly Marching Toward War With Russia (3/18/2022):

    “There’s been a shift in Washington. The talk is no longer about sanctions on Moscow but how best to escalate U.S. involvement in the war …

    there is something else behind this celebration of Zelensky. His speech, after all, was a rather straightforward request for the United States and our North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to intervene on behalf of Ukraine. “In the darkest time for our country, for the whole of Europe, I call on you to do more”

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/18/the-u-s-is-mindlessly-marching-toward-war-with-russia/

    Your grandfathers stormed the beaches at Normandy to liberate Europe from fascism.

    This unelected globalist installed into office by the World Economic Forum wants your children and grandchildren to fight and die for drag queen story hour, trannies raping kids in school bathrooms, and the 6’2″ NCAA “female” swimming champion with a very intact penis and pair of testicles.

    “They’re not sending their best”

    1. This is a We Need Other People’s Children And Grandchildren To Fight And Die In A Phony War article.

      Politico — Republicans try to out-hawk Biden on Ukraine aid (3/16/2022):

      “This is not a time for partisan rhetoric,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, after Zelensky’s address. “This is a time to unify as a nation to unify behind Ukraine against one of the most evil forces we’ve seen since my father’s war, and that’s World War II.”

      https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/16/republicans-out-hawk-biden-ukraine-aid-00017831

      The same lies we all heard from 9/11/2001 up through the criminal invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

      1. The same lies we all heard from 9/11/2001 up through the criminal invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

        Except this time we would be going against a deadly foe.

    2. I saw an article a few days ago about what parts of the US were targeted by Russian nukes.

      The article basically said that Russia was targeting our nukes, and that most cities would be left unscathed. Right, I’ve seen maps where Fort Collins is labelled a potential target.

      These MoFos want a war with Russia. and are lying to the people about the danger. They either are deluded an believe they can win the war without nukes flying, or they just flat out want a nuclear war.

      1. They either are deluded an believe they can win the war without nukes flying, or they just flat out want a nuclear war.

        As always, follow the money. The people running the show are the Shylocks. The Shylocks have been stealing everything of value from the people all over the entire world. They’ve taken it to the very end, and now they are out of good options in terms of the fiat currencies. A world war would give them cover for a complete destruction of the US dollar and a new currency.

        1. True, but if the world war gets out of hand, most of their assets could be vaporized.

          Now, if all they want is a nice little proxy war, and they can keep it that way then yeah, they’ll make a lot of money.

    3. the deep state knows there a very strong chance that most of them will face the gallows unless WWIII gets started. they see it as their only way out. and they’ll strike first with nuclear weapons to avoid that fate. that’s how depraved the deep state is.

      imagine that… russia just sitting there quietly a few days before the election, and suddenly our deep state just sends the nukes. why? probably because they think it’s the only distraction strong enough to work. and they’re probably right about that. and the thing is, biden probably won’t even be in the loop. it will happen whether he wants it to or not. he’s not in charge. he’s never been in charge. he just pretends to be. puppet biden. the installed figurehead. handpicked by george soros.

      1. they’ll strike first with nuclear weapons to avoid that fate

        Do they really think there will be no consequences? Who knows? Perhaps they really believe they can take Russia out before it launches its counterstrike.

        1. they are daft, but i really believe that they believe that their bunkers will save them. in any event, they see the gallows as a very real probability if ‘the masses’ aren’t distracted. that’s why i think they’d rather take their chances with nuclear war. they know they’re guilty as sin, and they really, really don’t want to be hung.

          i know it’s ‘crazy talk’, but that’s how it think they look at it.

          1. Tj, what you say is wrong because they do not think or feel the same way that your brain and spirit work (nor mine).

          2. What percentage of the Deep State have bunkers? Does the typical alphabet agency stooge have one? Sure, the billionaires do, but what about your average swamp dweller?

            As for distractions, once the Ukraine kerfuffle is over, they will have the next crisis ready to deploy. Maybe a “climate emergency” or a new and improved virus? They know that’s it’s easy to bamboozle the majority.

          3. zelensky goes full schwab. if this is true he’s a snake.
            ps. sorry for the typos above.

            https://gettr.com/post/p10umg78aea

            “Zelensky has just signed into law the first steps of Schwab’s Great Reset. He announced he is introducing a Social Credit Application combining Universal Basic Income (UBI), a Digital Identity & a Vaccine Passport all within their Diia app. He also says that because so much money is coming into Ukraine as he has become an international celebrity, he has legalized cryptocurrencies in Ukraine. He will allow foreign and Ukrainian cryptocurrencies exchanges to operate legally, according to the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.”

            villains straight out of james bond movies are moving at breakneck speed to put us all under their boot. this is our ‘great unity’. everyone under one whip.

  10. Free Sh*t article for all the Free Sh*tters.

    Politico — Dems fret Biden’s inaction on student debt will burn in midterms (3/18/2022):

    “We’re continuing to push very hard on student loan debt. We know that, you know, we think there’s a good chance for a continued extension of the pause,” she said. “But we also think that we should cancel this debt and a significant portion of the debt and that it would really drive economic recovery, and racial equity, because so much of student loan debt is significantly worse for Black folks than then for white folks.”

    For now, Williams said the top thing Biden’s administration needs to do is make sure borrowers are prepared for a restart of payments. Student loan debt, Williams said, is the second-most pressing issue she hears about from her Atlanta-based constituents, where the racial wealth gap is yawning, right behind voting rights.”

    Make whitey pay. And pay and pay and pay.

    “It’s not a silver bullet, but there is something to keeping your word. And the days of engaging young people and engaging black people and engaging Latino folks when it’s time to vote by saying everything you want to hear and then not doing it are over”

    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/18/student-loan-payments-debt-biden-00018586

    You owe $80,000 for a master’s degree in Obama Studies and can’t get a better job than Starbucks?

    Don’t worry, snowflakes. Because in a few generation when whitey goes extinct, you’ll be shivering in the dark, digging with sticks to find bugs to eat, and telling folk tales about how when whitey went extinct, he took all the electricity and running water with him…

    “They’re not sending their best”

    2. I think once these equity “professionals” die off or retire they will not be replaced by colleges to save $$$$… so these sjw’s will never have any opportunities to use their degrees.

    3. When my husband and I started dating (he’s a black man from a big city) I quickly learned that he had 6 figures in student loan debt. I almost dumped him over it multiple times.
      But then I made him give me all his financial info and I started combing through his budget. I asked him where all his money was going and why he wasn’t making 4 figure payments on his student loans with his income. He just kind of looked at me like he had no idea such a thing was possible.

      I basically told him the following:
      1. You took out the loans. You owe them in full whether you like it or not. Period. Your stupidity is no one else’s fault. Not to government’s. Not society’s. No one’s. It’s yours.
      2. You’re an idiot for taking out that much debt.
      3. If you pay back $xxx per month and you put all your tax returns and bonus money into your student loans you’ll have them paid off in ~4 years.
      4. I’m not giving you ANY money for your loans. This is all yours. You owe it. Period.

      Since we started dating and got married I think my husband has become more conservative than ~95% of white people I know.
      It’s also been less than 4 years since we started dating, and his loans will be completely paid off in ~2 months. He did it all on his own- with a major kick in the pants. But I think he’s going to feel a huge sense of accomplishment once the loans are gone.

        1. He’s a very kind man with many amazing qualities himself. I think we’re both equally lucky- just in different ways. 🙂

      3. More power to you. Could I sign up my daughter for a student loan counseling session? (My sons are nearly debt free, but my daughter somehow tuned out my advice…)

        1. Sounds like she may have to learn the hard way, I’m afraid. She can always do a debt avalanche/snowball.

  11. ‘A report released by the UK government has confirmed that 9 out of every 10 deaths related to COVID-19 are found in those who are fully vaccinated. Although the virus variant is the same and the UK approved only one different vaccine (AstraZeneca) from the United States, the data in the U.S. are different. This may be due in large part to the CDC definition used to identify who is “vaccinated.”

    ‘U.S. data are also likely to become even more sparse in the coming weeks and months. In addition to the CDC hiding data, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) quietly decided in early February to stop recording deaths attributed to COVID-19.’

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/9-in-10-covid-deaths-are-in-vaccinated-people-report_4339503.html

    1. The reason why the Globalists are so fraudulent is because the people would not vote for their agenda against humanity. They have to take over by fraud, trickery, extortion and bribery, rigged elections, scapegoating, fear mongering, mass psychosis, divide and conquer, brainwashing, corruption of government and agencies, fake emergencies to supersede Constitutional protections, destruction of sovereign states, open borders, etc.
      A One World Order where these anti human psychopaths destroy current systems for this enslavement of humans , where all free will and even life is taken for their vision of a “Build Back Better World, Great reset, 4th Industrial Revolution.
      Of course the human species wouldn’t vote for murder, genocide, lab ran expierment injections , loss of freedoms for rule by a small insurrection of hijackers that want to turn humans into slaves with no free will.
      Has anyone ever asked Klaus Schwab why he doesn’t consider himself another Hitler, Mao, or Stalin in his World rule by Corporate Stakeholders Governance, and he’s just one more homicidal Nazi gang member , who is a menace to the globe.

      1. I have a jabbed friend who can’t attend a conference on April 30th because she’ll be quarantining for two weeks before a trip to DC on May 7th. “I’ll be home trying to not get covid!” SMDH.

  12. Very strange but I’ve started receiving e-mails from builders in Augusta, GA and Dallas, TX touting free upgrades and properties with price cuts. I’ve also started receiving e-mails from a local Augusta realtor begging me to buy a home now before interest rates go up. Then I received two phone calls from realtors in New Braunfels, TX asking me if I was still in the market for a new home telling me that they could cut their commission a half point etc, etc.

    I haven’t received correspondence like that in 5 years. I wonder what’s causing it? Maybe the foundation of the REIC bubble is starting to crack.

    1. There is that, but also another factor indicating the end of a bubble. Like the principle behind the shoeshine guy offering stock advice, when your neighbors drop-out kid has become a realtor or loan officer you know the bubble is toast. I’m sure everyone is hearing stories daily of friends and family quitting jobs (if they even had one) to become a LO or realtor. Now, instead of too many deals for too few agents and LO’s, there’s too many agents for too few deals. Expect the calls and desperate deals to increase in the days ahead because it’s gonna take a while for these fools too realize that their totally hosed. Like the California gold rush of the 1800’s, by the time the crowd joined he party it was over.

      1. To me, the end is when the day-trading crypto job thing all falls apart. For whatever reason, it is alive and well. I really don’t get it.

  13. “…goes like this: if someone were to invest $100,000 toward a home equity line of credit,”

    So, taking out a loan against your house is “investing” in the loan.

    Thanks for the morning laugh!

    1. You may enjoy a morning laugh but the next guys who hears of this may think it is a nifty deal.

      Using what works. It doesn’t have to work all the time, just enough times.

    2. I see tons of clickbait saying cr@p like: “Don’t borrow from the bank, borrow from yourself!”

    3. Not to mention “investing” that loan into paying off credit card debt and buying new cars and taking vacations. Investing dumb American style.

  15. ‘Just get into the house without paying any extra fees or points if you have to, just get in with the least amount of cash out of pocket as possible as far as your closing costs,’ said Rebecca Foote, vice president of mortgage lending for Foote Capital Mortgage Company. ‘Then we’ll refinance you later down the road for a lower interest rate.’”

    And what happens if shack values are cratering later down the road?

    2. And what happens if shack values are cratering later down the road?

      Whoa now, the term we’re gonna need you to use is “temporary gully”.
      I’ll be schadenfreuding when rates rise and all these idiots’ homes flood the mkts and shack prices finally tank again, so I can finally buy something without thinking I’m being taken advantage of. And I know many of those idiots will be bailed out again and the national debt will will hockey stick upward since nobody knows how to math anymore.

  16. “‘The reality is that interest rate increases and financial conditions hurt the people that can least afford them,’ explained Andrew Root, an assistant professor at Regent University.

    Yet the lower income strata vote mainly for Democrat-Bolsheviks who are destroying the economy. Poetic justice that Blacks who voted overwhelmingly for Brandon are the ones getting shafted hardest by inflation and the influx of millions of Democrat-on-Arrival illegals across our open borders.

  17. “David Rosenberg is convinced that the Fed will beat inflation so hard that the U.S. economy will slide into recession as early as this summer.

    Are piddly .25% rate hikes David’s idea of “beating inflation”?

    2. Are piddly .25% rate hikes David’s idea of “beating inflation”?

      It’s a virtue signal saying “Hey, we tried!”

    3. Never listen to anything a central banker says, always watch what they do. They are lying psychopaths just like Fraudci and Gates.

  18. “David Rosenberg: Personal wealth in the U.S. has grown to absurd levels – and a reckoning is coming. Everyone talks about how strong U.S. personal balance sheets are, but that is because of the unprecedented inflation in asset values, which have now gone parabolic.

    Trillions in fake wealth created by fake money is going to get vaporized once the Keynesian fraudsters at the central banks can no longer defer the inevitable financial reckoning day caused by their radical monetary experiments.

    1. Never talked about is the fact that most of this “wealth” is parked on the balance sheets of the top .1%. Most people are much, much poorer now than they were 3 years ago.

  19. Okay, so I’m experiencing cognitive dissonance. The globalist media, which has featured numerous stories on the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion defending the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, is now describing this unit – which from all indications is putting up ferocious resistance – as being “ultra-nationalists” who are incorporated into the Ukrainian defense structure. So apparently “nationalists” in Ukraine are good, while those in ‘Murica need to be put on boxcars & shipped to the gulag. Similarly, armed Ukrainian civilians using “assault rifles” (gasp!) to defend their homes & their country’s sovereign territory are good, but any Deplorable who owns a “weapon of war” should be regarded as boxcar-ready. Did the Azov Battalion find redemption in the eyes of CNN, etc. by offering prayers & supplication to St. Greta & St. Floyd of Fentanyl?

    https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-16-22/h_f75e1f2e1d92b8d88122de2089d9037c

    2. Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion defending the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol

      They are not “neo”. They are the same organization that ran Germany in WWII.

      1. And according to declassified documents shown in Oliver Stone’s Ukraine on Fire facilitated by our CIA.

    3. Okay, so I’m experiencing cognitive dissonance.

      This war is full of so many contradictions that it makes one’s head spin.

      We are told that the Ukrainians are kicking the Russkie’s butts and in the same breath are told that unless NATO intervenes Ukraine will fall.

      2. We are told that the Ukrainians are kicking the Russkie’s butts and in the same breath are told that unless NATO intervenes Ukraine will fall.
        I know. I can’t tell what is going on/who is doing what, but then again, I’m not spending much time thinking about it.

  21. World Outraged As 462-Ranked Biological Man Becomes Women’s Swimming Champion

    Infowars.com
    March 19th 2022, 11:07 am

    The true upside-down world of the globalists’ transhumanist movement is about making us accept that up is down and down is up so we will submit to even greater absurdities and tyrannies in the future.

    Biological male William “Lia” Thomas trounced his female competition by winning the NCAA Division I championship on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania team at the women’s 500-yard freestyle swimming event on Thursday.

    Though the mainstream media lauded 22-year-old Thomas as a “national champion” and a “resilient” transgender athlete, others grounded in reality saw his victory for the farce it was: the disenfranchisement of actual female athletes.

    Comedian Adam Carolla simply noted with a graphic on Twitter how Thomas went from a national ranking of 462 in men’s swimming to becoming number 1 in the women’s category.

    Adam Carolla
    @adamcarolla
    Hi

    https://twitter.com/adamcarolla/status/1504952424477298688?s=20&t=0mzl1kZBk5TBaXDZDKCSsg

    Jake Blackie
    @jacob61582
    Replying to @adamcarolla
    Imagine being the dad in that crowd… “that’s my girl!”

    https://twitter.com/jacob61582/status/1504956217864691716?s=20&t=oB-SDN5xp5ofXipGJKt40g

    Mark J Britton
    @MarkBri03610899
    Replying to @SirajAHashmi

    My Cat, Sid! Winner of Westminster Dog Show.

    https://twitter.com/MarkBri03610899/status/1505012293007982597?s=20&t=e1m6S5lUlhI_daCU2JdqZQ

      1. Here is my reasoning. The first question is How are records broken? Incrementally, a 1/4 inch here a 1/10 of a second there…a hundredth of a point over there.

        So with that logic, if “her” performance was degraded to that of a bio woman, ( such as full surgery and HRT) and would win in a photo finish i could accept that since next time out “she” could lose by a nose or a 1/10 of a second .

    2. World Outraged As 462-Ranked Biological Man Becomes Women’s Swimming Champion

      I can imagine how the foreign press reacts to it: “The Americans have lost their minds, and they have nukes”

    3. If they want true gender equality, men should just be allowed to compete in womens’ events, too. Fair’s fair. Cutting of yer junk is just window dressing. Are they checking peoples’ pants, by the way? What did they see in this freak’s swim trunks? Ugggh….don’t tell me.

  22. The other day I was wondering how many people take out ginormous home loans because they think they can retire and gain income from HELOCs. Is this how people think? Do people do this?

      1. I’m just tuning this out until they announce that Kiev has been taken and Zelensky the Dancer has fled to Poland.

          1. I’d be somewhere else if Putin’s thugs were trying to hunt me down and assassinate me. God invented the internet for a reason!

          2. The dude is supposed to be married with kids, but I have to wonder if his “family” are just props. According to the media they are heroically staying in Kiev.

      2. I recently saw a video clip of an Asian woman with long legs, and then a replay of the same footage without the “long legs” [ai-cgi] filter being applied. No more “leggy” mail order brides!

  24. Silly feminists. Democrats care only about what their globalist bankrollers & puppet masters tell them to care about, which most certainly isn’t you.

    Feminists protesting Lia Thomas say they are politically homeless: ‘Democrats don’t care about women’

    https://www.foxnews.com/sports/radical-feminists-protesting-lia-thomas-politically-homeless-democrats-women

    ATLANTA – A group of feminists protesting outside the women’s NCAA swimming championships told Fox News they have “walked away” from the Democratic Party and believe many others have as well.

    “I was historically liberal. I would say I’m politically homeless now because I don’t think the Democrats care about women and girls,” one activist with the group Save Women’s Sports told Fox News.

    1. Why don’t they create a Womyn’s party and fight their own battles, instead of always expecting the Democrats to play favorites with special genders and sexual practices?

    2. Feminists protesting Lia Thomas say they are politically homeless: ‘Democrats don’t care about women’

      Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

  25. Now that the Ukraine invasion is over and the Fed is through tightening up its protracted period of low risk premiums, is it safe to pile back into stonks and real estate investments?

      1. You know, The Narrative: Ukraine is kicking Russia’s butt. Except when they plea for NATO help.

          1. Headline news on Twitter:

            https:// twitter. com/ i/ events/ 1483255084750282753
            War in Ukraine · LIVE
            Russian attack on Ukrainian base in Mykolaiv kills dozens
            Russian forces continue to strike Ukraine after invading the country in February. Hundreds of civilians have been killed and three million Ukrainians have fled the country, according to the United Nations. Russian and Ukrainian officials are intermittently holding cease-fire negotiations.
            Photo via @afpfr

    2. I was just reading a forum where someone was saying she and her husband were pouring their investment money into rental properties because rents are going up, mortgages are going up, and inflation is high. IMO that is exactly when I wouldn’t be taking out a ton of mortgages on rental properties. Maybe they know something I don’t, but I’m not so sure.

      1. Those are the kind of people who will be completely wiped out. They are liquidating their cash at the peak of the market into assets which are going to fall 75% in price. High rents are not sustainable, because they are dependent upon incomes.

        The chatter everywhere is that the FED will only be able to hike less than 2% before the stock market and everything else unravels, then they will reverse course and go back into QE. But inflation doesn’t give a rat’s asz about that. If that were indeed true, then you can kiss the US dollar goodbye and the entire country goes Venezuela.

        In an event like that, Jerome Powell and his buddies would be running for their lives, literally. That would mean the end of the USA as we know it. They don’t want that. When the rubber meets the road, they will be forced to protect the currency over the stock market or any other asset. There is nothing more important.

        When you consider the current inflation rate vs the Fed Funds Rate, it’s clear they are so far behind the curve that they’re going to have to aggressively raise rates, and sooner rather than later. As these inflation readings fail to subside over the course of this year, I’d imagine multiple 50+ basis point hikes are in the offing. They may even go a full 100, and soon.

        2. I am 100% on board with what you’re saying. It sounds like the people are trying to buy in at the very top of a speculative bubble. I’ve learned to stop talking and just let them do what they are going to do.

    3. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday as Russian forces pushed deeper into the beleaguered southern port city of Mariupol, with heavy street battles shutting down a major steel plant and hampering rescue efforts.

      Russia is wiping the floor with Ukraine, then they are going to wipe their asz with them. This isn’t even a contest. This puppet is squealing like a pig right now. The idea that Ukraine is even putting up a hearty resistance is laughable.

          1. The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the earth,” Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin said in a video filmed Friday that was authenticated by The Associated Press..,”There is currently no military solution to Mariupol,” Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said late Friday. “That is not only my opinion, that is the opinion of the military.”

            Boy, Ukraine is really taking it to those Russians, huh? It’s pathetic that the US and other countries are egging the Ukraine on, encouraging them to fight. They are using them as pawns, certain to become cannon fodder.

          3. “It’s pathetic that the US and other countries are egging the Ukraine on, encouraging them to fight.”

            Look at the assessment benefits. We are learning plenty about 2022 Russian capabilities and tactics, and our weapons manufacturers have an opportunity to test their products in combat. The only advantage the Russians have are quantity of equipment and soldiers. The sanctions have their economy breathing through a proverbial straw, so time is on our side. Our focus should be on China.

          4. The sanctions have their economy breathing through a proverbial straw, so time is on our side.

            They will still sell all their stuff, like oil at $100. In a sense, our sanctions are making them more money.

    4. The Financial Times
      US interest rates
      Fed’s Bullard says rates should top 3% this year to combat inflation
      Policymakers offer wide-ranging views on tightening but insist US economy can withstand the process
      James Bullard: ‘The combination of strong real economic performance and unexpectedly high inflation means that the committee’s policy rate is currently far too low to prudently manage the US macroeconomic situation’
      © Bloomberg
      Colby Smith in Washington yesterday

      A top Federal Reserve official has called for the US central bank to raise its benchmark interest rate above 3 per cent this year, arguing that policymakers need to move quickly to combat inflation and avoid “losing credibility”.

      James Bullard, president of the St Louis branch was the lone dissenter at the Fed’s meeting this week, when the central bank raised rates for the first time since 2018 in what officials signalled would be the start of a series of increases at all of the remaining six meetings this year. At that pace, the fed funds rate would rise to 1.9 per cent.

      In a statement released on Friday, Bullard, a voting member of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee, said a half-point rate rise — a tool that has not been used since 2000 — would have been “more appropriate” than the Fed’s quarter-point increase, given the strength of the labour market and broader economy, as well as the “excessive” level of inflation. At 5.2 per cent, the Fed’s preferred core personal consumption expenditures index is well above the central bank’s 2 per cent target.
      …

      1. From Wikipedia:

        On 15 February 2011, CBS News released a statement that Logan had been beaten and sexually assaulted on 11 February, while covering the celebrations in Tahrir Square following Hosni Mubarak’s resignation.[21] CBS 60 Minutes broadcast an interview with her about it on 1 May 2011; she said she was speaking out because of the prevalence of mass sexual assault in Egypt, and to break the silence about the sexual violence women reporters are reluctant to report in case it prevents them from doing their jobs.[22][23][24][25]

        She said the incident involved 200 to 300 men and lasted around 25 minutes. She had been reporting the celebrations for an hour without incident when her camera battery failed. One of the Egyptian CBS crew suggested they leave, telling her later he heard the crowd make inappropriate sexual comments about her. She felt hands touching her, and can be heard shouting “stop”, just as the camera died. One of the crowd shouted that she was an Israeli, a Jew, a claim that CBS said, though false, was a “match to gasoline”. She said that they tore off her clothes and, in her words, raped her with their hands, while taking photographs with their cellphones. They began pulling her body in different directions, pulling her hair so hard she said it seemed they were trying to tear off chunks of her scalp. Believing she was dying, she was dragged along the square to where the crowd was stopped by a fence, alongside which a group of women were camping. One woman wearing a chador put her arms around Logan, and the others closed ranks around her, while some men who were with the women threw water at the crowd. A group of soldiers appeared, beat back the crowd with batons, and one of them threw Logan over his shoulder. She was flown back to the U.S. the next day, where she spent four days in the hospital.[23][24] She was contacted by President Obama when she arrived home.[26] CBS said it remained unclear who the attackers were, and unlikely that any will be prosecuted.[23][24]

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