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Some Guilt-Free Schadenfreude For You

A report from the Real Deal. “A digital lending platform is laying off 200 employees as a historic surge in mortgage rates tamps down applications. Blend Labs is letting go of roughly 10 percent of its staff to shed $34.5 million in annual payroll. Layoffs have swept the industry in recent months, most visibly at Better.com. Movement Mortgage in April laid off around 170 employees, primarily affecting employees in the processing, underwriting and closing departments in the South Carolina-based company. Interactive Mortgage and Freedom Mortgage had previously reduced headcount.”

“Fannie Mae analysts said this week that they expect lenders to refinance $889 billion in mortgages this year but only $558 billion next year, an 80 percent drop from the $2.8 trillion in 2020.”

From Bloomberg. “Negative yields have vanished from the world’s corporate bond market as investors brace for monetary tightening. It’s a dramatic turnaround from August, when more than $1.5 trillion of debt, most of it in Europe, came with a sub-zero yield. It marks the end of an era fueled by easy money and extraordinary central-bank policy meant to hold down borrowing costs and stimulate inflation. Now it’s all going in reverse. Bond yields are soaring around the world and investors are worried that inflation is getting out of control.”

“Investors in Asian dollar debt have lost $155 billion over the past 9 months, pummeled by weakness in China in addition to the global selloff in fixed income seen around the world as interest rates rise. U.S. junk bond investors saddled with losses so far this year can take heart from new Wall Street estimates for a big decline in U.S. offerings.”

The Associated Press. “The average weekly rate on the benchmark 30-year mortgage has risen swiftly since the first week of this year, when it stood at 3.2%. Last week it climbed to 5% for the first time in more than a decade. This week it rose to 5.11%, a 12-year high, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. A year ago, it was 2.97%. ‘That was a tailwind in the housing market that generally drove turnover,’ said Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American. ‘That tailwind now turns into a headwind.'”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “For almost 150 years, it’s been Angelenos’ universal Topic A. Buying it, selling it, looking at it, yearning over it — a pastime, a hobby, and a preoccupation, and everyone has a story to tell. It’s a genre in reality TV. Today, what was once a working family’s dream home, like the two-bedroom houses in the planned postwar city of Lakewood, is now a ‘starter’ house, priced at a lunatic $700,000 for under 900 square feet.”

“Now, here is some guilt-free schadenfreude for you, instances when high-flyers have taken an Icarus nosedive.”

The Toronto Star in Canada. “Daniel Foch, a Markham-based realtor, has noticed a recent change in the buying behaviour of his clients: most used to bid on homes at a feverish pace — eager to get in the market while interest rates were low — but now they’re taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, carefully calculating the right time to buy. Two months ago, the broker at Foch Family Real Estate saw bidding wars with as many as 20 potential buyers. Today, that number has, on occasion, dropped to as little as two offers.”

“‘There’s far less urgency than there was a few months ago,’ Foch said. ‘Some buyers are being rewarded for their patience now.'”

The Guernsey Press. “I’m a very simple man with only a limited amount of formal education, having taken my last exam at the age of 17 in 1972. Which probably explains why I can’t get my head around our housing crisis. However, in an attempt to get to the bottom of it I have channelled my inner Digard and, rather than just making stuff up as usual, I have actually done a little bit of research. Over the last decade our population has grown by about 700 souls. Well there’s your answer then. No wonder there aren’t enough homes. Sorry folks, very short column today but issue already covered.”

“Hang on, I wonder if the number of homes has increased at all? Well knock me down with a feather, it has gone up by about 1,400. I know my maths is a bit rusty but I make that about one additional domestic property unit for every half a new person. On the face of it, we seem to be building twice as many new houses as we need, even with a massive margin for error. And though I don’t get out much these days, with the aid of medical intervention and big pharma I have managed four car rides this year so far. Double last year’s record. And blow me down, there are new builds everywhere.”

From Stuff New Zealand. “First home buyers who bought into a $37 million affordable housing development in west Auckland might think they are watching their houses being built, but they have actually been watching a completely different project in motion. One buyer, who did not want to be named, because he is concerned it could affect his future relations with Reed Myers, says he is on antidepressants, and has been experiencing sleepless nights because of the ordeal.”

“But he does believe the company’s assurances that the development will be built. ‘Obviously I am angry, but what can I do? … I need my development, I need my house to live in.'”

“However, property investors Eddie Simpson and Annie Zaloum, who own the land at Triangle Rd, say the Reed Myers development there is dead. They say all those buyers who think they are witnessing their homes being built are actually watching work take place on a completely different project.”

“‘We’ve got nothing to do with Reed Myers,’ Simpson says. ‘Nobody wants to buy the land, so we’re going to have to break it up and sell it on, that’s what we’re going to do.'”

From Bloomberg. “A stabilization of flows for China bonds should occur in the next couple of months after global funds cut their holdings by record amounts the last two months, BlackRock Inc.’s Asia head of credit Neeraj Seth told Bloomberg TV. ‘The broader story around China as a diversification element and the integration of Chinese debt capital markets in the global debt capital markets’ isn’t going away, he said during an interview.”

“China’s overall policy stance toward the property sector hasn’t changed and any fine-tuning is ‘still aimed at containing risks and promoting the long-term health of the industry rather than to bail out distressed players,’ said Moody’s Investors Service. As authorities push for a durable fix to reduce financial risks without triggering a systemic collapse, troubled companies long used to being rescued by the state are realizing Beijing will no longer stop them from going bust. The message is clear: Defaults are crucial to curb moral hazard and reprice risk despite the short-term pain.”

Related Posts

Buyers & Sellers On Different Planets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5g6Dl-9_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElxiLlN-NEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOxaVFFS36U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W32Ffu3JHE0

This Post Has 112 Comments

    3. You will own nothing and like it and never will because you rent everything from the bank.

      Laguna Hills, CA Housing Prices Crater 24% YOY As Southern California Submerges In A Cauldron Of Soaring Housing Inventory And Mortgage Defaults

      https://www.movoto.com/laguna-hills-ca/market-trends/

      As one SoCal broker explained, “We have soaring inventory and not a buyer in sight at any price.”

      1. Food shopping sticker shock. The small bags of frozen medium raw shrimp at Aldi went from 4.99 to 6.49 in one jump last week.

  2. “‘There’s far less urgency than there was a few months ago,’ Foch said. ‘Some buyers are being rewarded for their patience now.’”

    My body. My choice

    1. ‘Some buyers are being rewarded for their patience now.’

      Translation: Falling prices are sucking in the knifecatchers.

  3. ‘Two months ago, the broker at Foch Family Real Estate saw bidding wars with as many as 20 potential buyers’

    The winnahs!

    ‘Today, that number has, on occasion, dropped to as little as two offers. ‘There’s far less urgency than there was a few months ago,’ Foch said. ‘Some buyers are being rewarded for their patience now’

    Behold, a rare day indeed when the star admits it is no longer red hotcakes.

  5. ‘he does believe the company’s assurances that the development will be built. ‘Obviously I am angry, but what can I do? … I need my development, I need my house to live in’

    Now who’s being naive? Yer money is gone too buyer. But you still have yer little feets.

    1. i sold him some pots & pans from my franchise, to bang in anger, so he has . . something. for now
      until mr banker repo’s them as he sleeps in his barcalounger in the front yard like will ferrell

  6. ‘Now, here is some guilt-free schadenfreude for you, instances when high-flyers have taken an Icarus nosedive’

    You’ll have to go to the link to read all the a$$ poundings.

    ‘On the face of it, we seem to be building twice as many new houses as we need’

    I’m not sure what country this is, so I left it as is. No shortage on Guernsey!

  7. A reader sent this in:

    ‘Updating the bond market’s 2022 carnage. The total return of Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index, $68T in assets and >28k bonds, has lost >10% YTD. Nothing remotely close like this has happened before.’

    ‘The total return of the Bloomberg US Aggregate Index, $25T in assets and >12.5k bonds, has lost 9.49% YTD. This is now worse than 1980 (monthly calculation), the year that “scarred” bond investors for a generation.’

    ‘2021 was worst year ever (red) for the 2yr. This year is far worse. Who buys a 2-year note? Someone with a lot of leverage (carry trade) like a hedge fund or bank. For all three charts, the system is not designed for these kinds of losses. How much more can it take?’

    https://mobile.twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1518233493976895488

      1. Credit cards getting maxed out. HELOCs tapped. Housing and general cost of living at sky high prices. How long before the AirBNB hoteliers see a dramatic fall in bookings? Vacations and subscriptions are the first thing to go when things are tough.

        1. Here a fun one, in Eastern TN, take a look at the clustering of recent price drops. Lots around Sevierville , which is Airbnb central.
          The “investors” know the gig is up and they are trying to head for the door.

    3. 10% loss in four months is a correction, not a bear market, at a very slow rate of burn.

      I.e., who cares?

      1. People are going to suckered into thinking this is the crash we’ve all been warned about. Not me. This is the correction before the melt-up. THEN we’ll see the real slope down.

    4. The Fed owns about 2.8T in MBS. I think the largest bank holding of MBS is BofA with 350-400 billion.

      The major banks are already maxed out on MBS holdings now surpassing what they held in the last bubble.

      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/big-u-s-banks-government-backed-mbs-holdings-hit-record-high

      The only way the Fed can wind down its MBS balance sheet is a government bail out.

      S&P MBS index chart

      https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/fixed-income/sp-us-mortgage-backed-securities-index/#overview

      March 2021

      Why MBS market will not be affected by higher interest rates. There were quite a few of these articles last year. Didn’t age well.

      https://www.ai-cio.com/news/special-report-mortgage-backed-securities-will-shrug-off-higher-rates/

      The ten year treasury now has a higher yield than the top MBS ETFs

      https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081215/top-3-mortgage-backed-securities-mbs-etfs.asp

  8. ‘The broader story around China as a diversification element and the integration of Chinese debt capital markets in the global debt capital markets’ isn’t going away’

    Yer fooked Neeraj. The Chinese aren’t paying you gringos and have told you to pound sand. Globalism is dead.

    1. Hope they stick to their zero covid policy. The invented the virus to begin with. Let it take their economy to zero.

        1. This is of course true. Unfortunately one world government is the constant. You think communism is just there and then you look at our media and leaders and you realize its hell you live in.

      2. Zero-COVID policy is near-suicidal. It might have worked with the not-really-contagious Wuhan strain, but not with Omicron. Are they going to shut down all the factories the moment someone gets a positive test? Are they going to shut down international travel so that multinat managers can’t even visit their production facilities?

        Face it, we need the Chinese “junk.” My local Wally’s was fully stocked, but I’m guessing that stuff was made and shipped a few months ago, before all these lockdowns. We’ll see shortages in the fall, and it’s going to be another empty-shelf winter. It will be a year before production can be moved, or until China allows its entire 1+ billion population to get sick, immune, and back to work.

        1. You are right oxide, that the US is not prepared for disruption of production from China.
          Its was madness to allow a manufacturing monopoly in China, while the US jobs and manufacturing was gutted. Its a National Security violation to leave the US this vulnerable to any potential reason a foreign Country would cut us off, with no self sufficiency and independence.
          Independent sovereign states that act in self interest is necessary.
          Its the evil of Rockerfeller Monopoly principal of elimination of competition . The US was eliminated as competition so the Globalists could destroy us.
          Now I see that every step was planned to set up the crazy One World Order and Great reset.
          And than when you ad the Medical Tyranny, climate change , and any other means to destroy current systems, than what axe is going to fall.
          I think your right to be concerned about food.
          Its times like this that I wish I lived on a self sufficient farm.

  9. First signs of deflation appearing as tapped out debt donkeys are foregoing purchases they can’t afford? Central bankers & degenerate reckless shack gamblers won’t like that one bit.

    Supermarkets slash hundreds of prices as customers face cost-of-living crisis: Asda and Morrisons reduce price of tea-bags, eggs, meat and cereal by up to 13% on average

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10750395/Supermarkets-slash-hundreds-prices-customers-face-cost-living-crisis.html

    1. This article is about grocery prices in the UK?

      Because here in the USSA, there is no 13% reduction in the price of meat.

    2. This week ordered online two pairs of sale winter mittens for my kids from rei…they threw in an entire box of energy bars for free. 24 of them. Item Not even on the packaging slip. They can’t even that sell that stuff at reduced prices in an inflation. The value of unwanted crap in an inflationary environment is zero because few have extra money to spend.

  10. ‘For almost 150 years, it’s been Angelenos’ universal Topic A. Buying it, selling it, looking at it, yearning over it — a pastime, a hobby, and a preoccupation, and everyone has a story to tell’

    https://www.ntd.com/californias-vanished-dream-by-the-numbers_770496.html

    ‘Even today amid a mounting exodus among those who can afford it, and with its appeal diminished to businesses and newcomers, California, legendary state of American dreams, continues to inspire optimism among progressive boosters.’

    ‘But most Californians, according to recent surveys, see things differently. They point to rising poverty and inequality, believe the state is in recession and that it is headed in the wrong direction. Parting with the state’s cheerleaders, the New York Times’ Ezra Klein, a reliable progressive and native Californian, says the Golden State’s failures are “making liberals squirm.”

    ‘Reality may well be worse than even Klein admits. In a new report for Chapman University, my colleagues and I find California in a state of existential crisis, losing both its middle-aged and middle class, while its poor population faces dimming prospects. Despite the state’s myriad advantages, research shows it plagued by economic immobility and inequality, crushing housing and energy costs, and a failing education system. Worse than just a case of progressive policies creating regressive outcomes, it appears California is descending into something resembling modern-day feudalism, with the poor and weak trapped by policies subsidized by taxes paid by the rich and powerful.’

    ‘California may conjure images of Rodeo Drive and Malibu mansions in the public imagination, but today the state suffers the highest cost-adjusted poverty rate in the United States. The poor and near-poor constitute over one third—well over 10 million—of the state’s residents according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Los Angeles, by far the state’s largest metropolitan area, and once a magnet for middle class aspirations, has one of the highest poverty rates among major U.S. cities. A United Way of California analysis shows that over 30 percent of residents lack sufficient income to cover basic living costs even after accounting for public-assistance programs; this includes half of Latino and 40 percent of black residents. Some two-thirds of noncitizen Latinos live at or below the poverty line.’

    “In California, there is this idea of ‘Oh, we care about the poor,’ but on this metric, we are literally the worst,” Stanford University’s Mark Duggan, principal author of an economic comparison of California with Texas, told the San Francisco Chronicle.’

    ‘The state’s poverty and associated dysfunction are on full display in leading cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where a large underclass now inhabits the streets—the once-iconic locales having become poster children for urban dysfunction. Beyond massive homeless camps, crime has become so bad that the LAPD has warned tourists it can no longer protect them. San Francisco, meanwhile, suffers the highest property crime rate in the country. Businesses like Walgreens have shut down numerous Bay Area locations due to “rampant burglaries.” Homelessness and crime increasingly dominate the state’s political discourse, particularly in these two deep blue bastions.’

    ‘In the interim, people are fleeing the state. Demographer Wendell Cox notes that since 2000, California has lost 2.6 million net domestic migrants, more than the current populations of San Diego, San Francisco, and Anaheim combined. In 2020, California accounted for 28 percent of all net domestic outmigration in the nation, about 50 percent more than its share of the US population.’

    ‘California’s total fertility rate, long above the national average, is now the nation’s 10th lowest. Los Angeles County alone has lost three quarters of a million people under 25 over the past twenty years. California today is as old as the rest of the country and aging 50 percent faster than the national norm. It is rapidly replacing the surfboard with a walker.’

    Remember the CA guy who said his hair was falling out recently? A university in SD is warning about STDs. So we gotcher bald, infertile, diseased, broke a$$ Californians telling us they are the model?

      1. The only people who want to move to California are members of the Free Sh!t Army, and even they are reconsidering and choosing other destinations.

    2. Laura Tyson, the longtime Democratic economist now at the University of California at Berkeley, praises the state for creating “the way forward” to a more enlightened “market capitalism.”

      I’d like to hear her professional opinion regarding government guaranteed debt, e.g., mortgage and student loans.

      1. Pay up debt donkeys. No one forced you. Grandma needs her bed pan emptied btw and send in the reverse mortgage man to her after you do it. Thanks

    3. The destruction is on purpose. Drives out middle class Republican voters. Only Democrats remain.

  11. “But he does believe the company’s assurances that the development will be built. ‘Obviously I am angry, but what can I do? … I need my development, I need my house to live in.’”

    Well, you can stamp yer lil’ feet…but it’s not “your house” until your last mortgage check clears. Gosh, it’d be a shame if your developer folded like so many others as the insane Kiwi housing bubble implodes.

  16. Word to the wise: never trust the gub’mint to look out for your wellbeing in emergency situations.

    Shanghai Residents Falling Ill After Eating Government Food Rations

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-04-25/shanghai-residents-falling-ill-after-eating-government-food-rations?srnd=premium-europe&sref=ibr3A0ff

    It started, as many things do in China, in a group chat.

    Residents living in the same housing compounds, all of whom have been locked down in their homes for weeks now in Shanghai as the city battles its worst virus outbreak ever, started to ask in group chats this week if others had fallen ill after eating government food rations.

    One after another, people across several neighborhoods in the eastern half of the city reported that they had suffered diarrhea and stomach pains after consuming items like braised duck and meatballs sent out by local officials to alleviate food shortages.

      1. Here in the US it’s a feast….. a Debt Donkey Feast of Crow, CraterTaters And Rate Raisin Casserole.

  17. Re: It marks the end of an era fueled by easy money and extraordinary central-bank policy meant to hold down borrowing costs and stimulate inflation.

    Ah, so. “Stimulate inflation”, eh? The cat is finally out of the bag. So the Jacka$$ Hole crowd at the FED (including Transitory Powell) knew it all along even though they had feigned ignorance and treated inflation as an act of God and looked everywhere except at themselves. Ironically, it is poor Joe Hiden in his Delaware basement who will end up being the fall guy even though he is just as clueless about it as all other politicians.

    And why “stimulate inflation” anyway? Is it something of an achievement? There is nothing extraordinary about it though. Just substitute the word Idiocy for Policy and everything will become crystal clear.

    Although they have no problem at all when inflation is “skyrocketing”, now they will attempt a “soft landing” and will give the bubble just a teeny tiny prick so as not to make it collapse all on a sudden . . .

  18. Johnny Depp really knows how to pick them btw. Its too bad the two of them couldn’t be left on an island forever.

  19. Anacortes, WA Housing Prices Crater 22% YOY As Seattle And Vancouver, BC Housing Market Turns Toxic On Soaring Inventory And Mortgage Defaults

    https://www.movoto.com/anacortes-wa/market-trends/

    As a leading economist explained, “Get long term rates back up into the 12% to 15% range and most of these problems go away on their own.”

    1. Good little socialists. Wipe it all out….But why stop there? Why not X all the debt. No one forced you into lesbian studies? But no one forced me to get that 3rd boat on credit either.

    2. I support doing something with the interest rates so that $50K doesn’t balloon to $150K. I guess that counts as “supporting government action.” But no way in heck should they get off scot free.

      1. so that $50K doesn’t balloon to $150K

        Doesn’t that only happen when a borrower doesn’t make any payments for years and years? Then they act soooo surprised when their balance balloons. If you default on a car loan it gets repossessed in just a few months.

        I paid my student loan in a timely fashion and my balance never went up, only down, until it was zero.

        1. “I paid my student loan in a timely fashion and my balance never went up, only down, until it was zero.”

          I paid mine off within 5-yrs, and that was while also supporting my stay at home wife raising two children. No new cars in our driveway!

          2. These days we buy “one owner” leather trimmed vehicles with 30k miles or less, and I still do basic repairs and service on our cars. I chose Civil Engineering as a career, and as you might be aware our country has turned its back on Infrastructure spending. A huge mistake on my part; I should have known better!

          3. “our country has turned its back on Infrastructure spending. A huge mistake on my part; I should have known better!”

            🤣

            You’re joking right?

          4. “You’re joking right?”

            The college of civil engineering had lots of promotional materials citing various long-term projects in the pipeline, so I took the bait. I was counting on the “end of the cold war” savings to be spent on infrastructure; again, a huge error on my part.

          5. I paid off my student loans in under 3 years, but they were under $20K total. Loans are just a lot more now, and I really do think the students need SOME sort of break. If payments are going to reach to the level of a mortgage, at the very least, the students should be able to pre-pay on principle as they do on mortgages or credit cards.

    4. A friend of mine has two kids neither of which has paid a dime on their student loans since the pandemic suspension of payments, which Biden just extended. They are fully convinced the government is going to eventually erase their loans.

    1. The Financial Times
      Markets Briefing Equities
      Global stocks drop as China lockdowns trigger growth fears
      Wall Street equities follow Europe and Asia lower as US government debt rallies
      An electronic board showing the FTSE 100 outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan
      Concerns over a slowdown in economic growth pushed investors to search for safety
      © Toru Hanai/Reuters
      Naomi Rovnick in London, Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong and Nicholas Megaw in New York 12 minutes ago

      Global stocks dropped and the US dollar and Treasuries rallied as new lockdowns in China and fears of a slowdown in economic growth pushed investors to search for safety.

      Wall Street’s S&P 500 share index dropped a further 1.5 per cent in lunchtime trading having shed 2.8 per cent on Friday in its second-worst trading day this year. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.9 per cent.

      The declines followed steep falls in European markets and the biggest one-day decline in mainland China’s CSI 300 since February 2020. Panic-buying gripped Beijing on Sunday and Monday as residents braced for harsh social restrictions similar to those in Shanghai.
      …

    2. The Financial Times
      Opinion Unhedged
      Investors brace for the Fed’s slowdown
      What everyone thought would happen is happening now
      Robert Armstrong and Ethan Wu yesterday

      Good morning. Friday was horrific for markets — US indices down 2.5 per cent or worse — but not surprising. The markets are telling an increasingly if not completely consistent story. If we’re missing something, email us: robert.armstrong@ft.com and ethan.wu@ft.com.

      What happened and why

      Sometimes the simplest story is the best. The US stock market had a bad day on Friday — and has had a bad week, month, and year — because of an increasingly hawkish Federal Reserve. The Fed’s Volckerian turn will both slow the economy and pull liquidity out of the financial system, hitting stocks and other risk assets with a one-two punch. This was going to have to be priced in eventually, and it is happening now.

      It has not been, and probably never is, a smooth process. The last week saw the market give up, all at once, the last of its hopes for gentle rate increases.

      According to the CME’s FedWatch tool, futures markets now reflect a 90 per cent chance the fed funds rate will be at 1.5 per cent in June, implying a half-point increase at each of the next two meetings. A week ago the market implied the probability of this was less than one in three. There is now a 75 per cent probability the Fed will cross the 3 per cent threshold by year end; a week ago, the probability of that was 4 per cent. The market was sleeping on the Fed. It is wide-awake now.
      …

      1. “The US stock market had a bad day on Friday — and has had a bad week, month, and year…”

        And all of this has happened before the Fed actually has done much yet to end highly accommodative negative real interest rates (i.e. Fisher equation:
        real rate = nominal rate – inflation).

        The poor HODLers…

  23. The Globalists could never sell their end game agenda, so they continue with fake news, fraud and disinformation to dissolved current systems , render society dysfunctional, and bat shit crazy. .
    The Globalists are the ultimate anarchist , planning to reset civilization into high tech slavery .
    You will own nothing and like it, , bugs and fake meat diet, , no free will, hacked and injected against your will , depriving of energy, social credit score with digital currency to force behavior , trans humanism to alter humans , etc.
    Humans would never vote for such a agenda , so the Globalists fraudsters and con artists have to trick the people into compliance with their anti humanity agenda, which no doubt includes some depopulation.
    The Governments have been corrupted and captured by these private party Entities , so governments are in collusion with the Globalist.
    Their might be a small amount of people in Congress and Senate that are working for the people, so they can’t be very effective against the bought out treasonous majority in the Swamp DC.
    A total purge is required. Term limits and forced retirement of demented and corrupt long term politicians is necessary.
    The Government needs to be reset , so as to prevent the treason sell out to money by Politicians.
    Big Pharmacy bought off the news and they were responsible for 70 % of the ad revenue.

      1. Marketwatch has a headline which says Trump is “not interested” in returning to Twitter. 🤣 I think Musk will reinstate the account and dare Trump to take it or leave it.

        How long can Trump refrain from that lovely account waiting for him, calling for him? About as long as Hunter can refrain from crack.

        1. The New York Post story that Twitter and all of globalist corporate media censored in 2020 included photos of Hunter Biden seated naked on the bed with his niece Natalie Biden, who was 14 years old at at the time.

          Hunter Biden was also screwing his dead brother’s widow.

          Last Christmas, the Biden White House took down social media posts about the grandchildren’s Christmas stockings after emerging chatter asking why there was not a a stocking for the bastard granddaughter that Hunter Biden fathered with a stripper.

          This is who the globalist corporate media, and globalist social media, are running cover for.

          Globalists gonna globe.

          1. New York Post — Wikipedia deletes entry for Hunter Biden investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners (4/23/2022):

            “Wikipedia editors removed the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners earlier this week on the ground that it was “not notable,” archived comments from its Talk Page reveal.

            The deletion happened Wednesday. The investment company co-founded by Hunter Biden has been at the heart of numerous questions surrounding his overseas business dealings.

            “This organization is only mentioned in connection with its famous founders, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz,” said a Wiki editor identified only as Alex who additionally warned that “keeping it around” ran the risk of the page becoming “a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.”

            https://nypost.com/2022/04/23/wikipedia-deletes-entry-for-hunter-biden-firm-rosemont-seneca-partners/

          3. Wikipedia deletes entry for Hunter Biden investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners

            Controlling the memory hole can be quite handy.

        2. Trump is becoming more irrelevant every day. If he got his twitter back, he’d just post self-ingratiating garbage about Operation Warp Speed and endorsements of establishment creeps like Dr Oz who is advocating for CCP style lockdowns in US cities.

        3. He’s gotta play coy as if he’s not interested in returning to Twitter. But with Twitter he had most of the world at the edge of their seats, waiting to see what he would say, sometimes at ungodly hours of the night/morning. His first new tweet should be, “Miss me yet?”

          1. He’ll be back, and Twitter’s revenues will soar, making the world’s richest man ever richer.

        5. I suspect Trump has been on Twitter for some time under the handle @PapiTrumpo, although it looks like that account has recently been suspended.

        1. In response to: “They’ll really shift a brick when Orange Julius gets his account reinstated.”

  25. Fire and Ice
    By Robert Frost

    Some say the world will end in fire,
    Some say in ice.
    From what I’ve tasted of desire
    I hold with those who favor fire.
    But if it had to perish twice,
    I think I know enough of hate
    To say that for destruction ice
    Is also great
    And would suffice.

    1. Morgan Stanley warns of potential bear market in US stocks
      By Matt Egan, CNN Business
      Updated 2:18 PM ET,
      Mon April 25, 2022

      New York (CNN Business)
      Stock markets are turbulent and Morgan Stanley is warning clients the ride is about to get even bumpier.

      Investors have “very few places to hide” in markets right now, with even defensive stocks succumbing to the pressure in recent days, Morgan Stanley equity strategists led by Mike Wilson wrote on Monday.
      “The market has been so picked over at this point, it’s not clear where the next rotation lies,” Wilson wrote. “In our experience, when that happens, it usually means the overall index is about to fall sharply with almost all stocks falling in unison.”

      Morgan Stanley says the backdrop “suggests” the S&P 500 will enter a bear market, signaling a 20% decline from previous highs. Recent selling may support the view that markets are moving into a “much broader sell-off phase,” the bank said.

      US stocks fell sharply last week — including a drop of nearly 1,000 points on the Dow on Friday alone — on worries about the aggressive steps the Federal Reserve will take to tame very high inflation. Including Monday’s modest losses, the S&P 500 is down about 12% from record highs set in early January.

      The S&P 500, the broadest gauge of US stocks, has been in a bull market since late March 2020 when the Federal Reserve came to the rescue with unprecedented support amid the deep recession caused by Covid-19.

      However, the Nasdaq tumbled into a bear market in early March as oil prices skyrocketed and inflation fears mounted.
      Morgan Stanley said investors are buying into the bank’s fire-and-ice narrative of an overheating market and economy that get dramatically cooled off. The closing chapter, Morgan Stanley said, is a “fast tightening Fed right into the teeth of a slowdown.”

      https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/investing/bear-market-stocks-morgan-stanley/index.html

  26. The Financial Times
    US Dollar
    US dollar hits highest level in more than 2 years
    Expectations of tighter Federal Reserve policy and demand for haven assets have boosted US currency
    Packs of freshly printed $20 notes at the US Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington
    The dollar typically benefits when US interest rates rise and the economy performs better than other countries
    © Eva Hambach/AFP/Getty Images
    Kate Duguid in New York yesterday

    The US dollar rallied to its highest level since March 2020 on Monday and is on track for its best month since January 2015, buoyed by expectations that the Federal Reserve will have to lift interest rates aggressively to tame inflation.

    The dollar index, which tracks the US currency against six others including the euro and sterling, rose by as much as 0.8 per cent to a high of 101.86. The index has risen roughly 12 per cent in the past year.
    …

    1. The Financial Times
      War in Ukraine
      ‘At war with the whole world’ — why Putin might be eyeing a long conflict in Ukraine
      Stalling peace talks and new offensive suggest Kremlin could escalate its ‘special operation’ into a ‘war’ against the west
      © FT montage; AFP/Getty Images
      Max Seddon in Riga yesterday

      Despite Russia’s failure to break down Ukraine’s defences, heavy casualties and a series of military defeats, the Kremlin has kept up a refrain: the goals of Vladimir Putin’s invasion will be reached in full.

      Russia’s territorial targets have appeared to shift depending on the short-term gains Putin feels his troops can achieve on the battlefield. He scaled back an initial plan to seize central areas including the capital, Kyiv, in favour of a new assault focused on the eastern Donbas region.

      But Russia’s goals, which the Russian president has made clear include ending Ukrainian statehood, remain unchanged, according to people involved in efforts to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv.

      This means, they assessed, that he is prepared for a protracted conflict going much further than the recently outlined target of “liberating” the Donbas. Putin wants to capture all of south-eastern Ukraine to cut the country off from the Black Sea and create a platform for further attacks, they say.

      “He’s a tactician . . . a judoka . . . He wants to feint and throw you over his shoulder,” one of the people said, referring to Putin’s love of judo. “He’s not reasonable, he has a distorted picture of the world in his head [ . . .] and the scenarios have changed. Appetite comes during the meal.”
      …

    2. “Is it safe to assume the Ukraine unrest is almost over?”

      The goal isn’t to overwhelm Russia’s military igniting a larger conflict. Rather a steady attrition will devour their aircraft, armor and unfortunately their young men while giving us a working laboratory for weapons testing while documenting their failures. I hope we also document the NATO corruption that fomented this invasion in the first place.

      1. Well, I guess it’s better if Putin’s generals die in a battlefield near Moscow rather than farther afield.

          1. “The heavy fighting in Ukraine has taken a heavy toll on Russian troop formations as well as with their general officers. If this latest claim by the Ukrainians is true, that would push the number of Russian generals killed in two months of combat to 10.”

            Is 10 generals dead in two months’ time alot? It seems like generals are a dime a dozen in Putin’s army.

          2. “The Soviet/Russian system is a top-down driven level of leadership where senior officers keep junior officers in perpetual fear so that there is no independent thinking or decision making.”

            Yep, leaders vs managers.

            You see it in the workplace too. Leaders know how to get things done and inspire those around to learn from them. Managers usually don’t know how to perform the tasks at hand, and push others to accomplish those tasks through fear of retaliation.

      2. “I hope we also document the NATO corruption that fomented this invasion in the first place.”

        It seems plausible that NATO greatly prefers Russia fight a war of attrition with a former Soviet Socialist Republic than pose a serious standing threat of invading Western European nations. And so far, Putin’s army seems like a laughing stock compared with Hitler’s army of WWII vintage.

    1. The Financial Times
      Hong Kong economy
      Mainland China property companies pull back in Hong Kong
      Cash-strapped developers sell up and shun land sales after Evergrande liquidity shock
      The Two International Finance Centre building and other skyscrapers in Hong Kong’s Central district in 2021
      Hong Kong is suffering from lower demand for premium office space from a wide range of tenants
      © Paul Yeung/Bloomberg
      Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong yesterday

      Mainland Chinese property companies are scaling back their presence in Hong Kong as they struggle to deal with a liquidity crisis that has rocked the sector and forced the world’s most indebted developer Evergrande to default.

      Cash-strapped property company Kaisa, the Chinese sector’s second-biggest offshore bond issuer after Evergrande, sold an entire floor at The Center, a prime office tower in Hong Kong’s central district in December.

      Property agents said China Aoyuan, a developer based in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, has tried to sell a 117,000 sq ft office building in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district that it had been hoping to redevelop.

      Land sales, which account for a large proportion of Hong Kong’s tax receipts, have also been affected. None of the tendered sites in the government’s land sale programme this year and last year were awarded to mainland developers. In 2020, at least eight of the 15 tendered sites were awarded to mainland-linked companies.

      “Less demand is expected from mainland developers at least within 2022 and 2023,” said Hannah Jeong of property agency Colliers in Hong Kong.

      Mainland developer Evergrande defaulted on its overseas bonds in December amid a liquidity crisis that has spread across China’s vast real estate sector.
      …

      1. “…and forced the world’s most indebted developer Evergrande to default.”

        Wha!!? I thought Evergrande always remained current on its debt repayments?

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