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The Real Horror Show Today

A report from KVUE on Louisiana. “There is a slight shift happening in the housing market. Realtors on the North Shore report a lot of homes returning to the market with reduced pricing, homes under $300k returning to the market due to insurance issues, and fewer people buying due to rising interest and mortgage rates. ‘Before it was like you had to buy it and make a decision within a day,’ said Lisa Martinez, a realtor with ReMax. ‘So I think it is going to correct itself and it’s going to take a little while to do that, but I’m starting to see a turn in the market and it’s not as much as the seller’s market anymore.'”

From AZ Family. “Arizona’s hot housing market is cooling down quickly. In the past 28 days, 11,845 new residential listings were added in the Greater Phoenix area, according to the Cromford Report. ‘We are absolutely in the middle of the shift,’ said Trevor Halpern, a Phoenix-based real estate agent. ‘We are see seeing a rapid cooling of our market. We are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of listings, the highest percentage in the number of listings that we’ve seen since the Cromford Report was tracking that since 2011.'”

The Herald Tribune in Florida. “For the second month in a row, the number of homes for sale in Sarasota and Manatee counties increased, a trend that indicates some cooling of the local housing market, according to a monthly report. Joe Murphy and his wife have been involved with Sarasota real estate for about 20 years. The Coldwell Banker Realty agent said in January and February, the number of new homes entering the market every day was in the single digits. Over the past week, he’s seen 30 or 40 each day come to market.”

From ABC 4. “As Utah’s housing market continues changing, one housing market has seen the largest growth of inventory in the nation — Salt Lake City. According to RE/MAX, Salt Lake City saw a 110% increase in the number of available homes to purchase year-over-year. ‘Transactions naturally fell while both established and new development inventory returned to normal levels in a very short amount of time,’ says Josh Horner with RE/MAX Masters in Salt Lake City.”

“Across the U.S., inventory also grew with the number of homes for sale in May 2022 up 16.3% from April 2022. The five markets that saw the biggest year-over-year increase in 2022 inventory are: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho —111.9%, Salt Lake City, Utah —110.8% , Bozeman, Montana — 92.9% , Denver, Colorado — 81.0%, Las Vegas, Nevada — 72.6%.”

From NBC Bay Area in California. “Something had to give and it turned out to be housing prices. Zillow said back in April less than 5% of homes selling in San Jose took a price cut. By May, sellers cut the prices of more than 8% of the listed homes.”

From Eastsider LA in California. “How Low Will They Go? $56k cut City Terrace Triplex; $51k off on Mount Washington contemporary and $410k chop on Silver Lake Modern. Now asking $2,489,000.”

From Culture Map on Texas. “In a bit of good news, the Austin market saw active listings grow by a whopping 146 percent year-over-year in May, pushing the area’s housing inventory above the one-month mark for the first time in seven months. ‘This slight increase in inventory and active listings point to the market beginning to normalize,’ says Adam Perdue, a research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. ‘Given this growth and continued increases in prices, the sales decline appears to be more likely a supply issue than a demand one and does not indicate a bubble bursting.'”

From The Hill. “‘It’s a perfect storm right now,’ said Jerry Konter, a Savannah, Ga., residential property builder who chairs the National Association of Home Builders. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many red flags at one time in my entire career.'”

From Bisnow. “Proptech unicorns that raised boatloads of cash and went public with promises to disrupt the multitrillion-dollar commercial real estate industry have seen their valuations plummet in recent months. Six venture capital executives and four proptech startup founders who spoke to Bisnow for this story say the fundraising market today is virtually unrecognizable from last year’s. Some are struggling to raise money to keep operations going — and risk going bankrupt if the market doesn’t improve soon, insiders say. Investors and startup founders say the worst is yet to come.”

“‘Valuations have significantly dropped, and it felt like it was overnight … We’re not seeing 10% drops, we’re seeing 50-plus percent drops,’ JLL Spark partner Laurent Grill said.’There are going to be some companies that may not make it through this, and they would have otherwise because it was such a frothy market.”’

“‘Once it became apparent that interest rates were going to continue to rise … panic set in,’ said Nick Durham, senior associate at a proptech VC firm. Alpaca VC General Partner Ryan Freedman said investors made a mistake during the last cycle by placing tech-sized valuations on companies that don’t have the profit margins or scalability of a tech company. But he said even for high-margin software companies, this is still a difficult time to raise money. ‘The reality is everything’s getting punished right now,’ Freedman said.”

The Globe and Mail. “The average Canadian home has shed 12.9 per cent of its value in just three months, according to the latest Canadian Real Estate Association report. That’s almost 1 per cent a week. If you’re selling a home and not getting any bites, your blood pressure is probably rising – especially if you need the equity from that home to buy a new one. For those in such a pickle, one solution is a bridge loan. That’s where a lender loans you enough money to cover your down payment on a new purchase. But here’s the problem. If you don’t have firm purchase and sale agreements on both your new and existing homes, mainstream lenders usually won’t offer you a bridge.”

“And here’s where it gets tricky. Nonprime bridge lenders usually only lend 75 per cent to 80 per cent of your property to be mortgaged. Although sometimes they’ll secure their bridge mortgage to both properties. Barring a dramatic turnaround in home prices, more Canadians than ever will face problems bridging their purchase and sale. That’s on top of the fact home appraisals are now routinely coming in below estimates.”

“‘The real horror show today is that we’re running into roughly 1 in 30 purchasers in the GTA where the sale of their existing home simply fails,’ says veteran mortgage broker Ron Butler, of Butler Mortgage. Buyers are defaulting on unconditional purchase obligations because they’re financially tapped out. You’ll hear more tales of buyers walking away from deposits, and getting sued, in the months to come.”

From Bloomberg. “As central banks around the globe rapidly increase interest rates, soaring borrowing costs mean people who were already stretching to buy property are finally reaching their limits. The effects are being seen in countries such as Canada, the US and New Zealand, where once-hot residential real estate markets have suddenly turned cold. An analysis by Bloomberg Economics shows that 19 OECD countries have combined price-to-rent and home price-to-income ratios that are higher today than they were ahead of the 2008 financial crisis — an indication that prices have moved out of line with fundamentals.”

“In March, Jonathan Milne decided it was time to sell a family home in the Auckland suburb of Onehunga and purchase a larger house nearby for NZ$2 million ($1.3 million). He and his wife, Georgie, were optimistic of a speedy sale and a good price for their old home, which was valued by the local government at NZ$1.8 million. Milne’s house was meant to be sold in May via auction, a popular method of home sales in New Zealand, but not a single bidder showed up for the event.”

“‘What we didn’t anticipate was that it would be so hard to market and sell our house,’ said Milne, the 47-year-old managing editor of a news website. ‘We knew that every week that passed would knock another NZ$100,000 off the price.’ At the end of last month, they accepted an offer that Milne described as ‘dramatically’ below the government valuation.”

“The housing market in Canada has turned so fast some buyers are losing money on their properties before the sales even close. ‘People are actively trying to get out of deals,’ said Mark Morris, a Toronto-based real estate lawyer who cited one example where a property’s assessed value came in C$200,000 ($155,000) less than the purchase price agreed to only a couple months before. That left the buyer willing to give up their C$100,000 deposit to avoid closing, he said. ‘I’m called several times a day by various people who feel that they’ve paid too much.'”

“Mabel Melendi could tell the housing market in Cape Coral, Florida, was slowing after a week went by and she still hadn’t received any inquiries or offers on a newly constructed home she listed in mid-April. Just three months ago, she received a bid on a similar property within three days of putting it on the market.”

“But after three price cuts — knocking the asking price down to $425,000 from $510,000 — and more than two months after the initial listing, she was still looking for buyers in mid-June. One offer that came in over Memorial Day weekend fell through after the buyer couldn’t qualify for a large enough mortgage. ‘Most of the people don’t qualify for what they used to qualify for before,’ Melendi said.”

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This Post Has 140 Comments

  1. From the 7 minute video above:

    SURREY
    The Biggest Real Estate Bubble In 40 Years!
    Premiered 14 hours ago Is the 2022 Fraser Valley real estate market on track to suffer a similar fate to that experienced in the early 1980s in what looks to be the biggest real estate bubble seen in 40 years?

    1. You will report in to a Comrade of Proven Worth (D) when you check in each night to your high-density slum tower and climb into your pod for some shut-eye after downing your Victory Gin and eating a protein bug bar. Your microchip will keep tabs on you and your CBDC ensures you can be cut off from the financial system and your funds expropriated should you fail to maintain the required social credit score.

  4. ‘Transactions naturally fell while both established and new development inventory returned to normal levels in a very short amount of time’

    I though if you had more shacks you could sell every one? Naturally fell?

    1. The Financial Times
      Norges Bank
      Norway makes surprise 50 basis point rise
      Policymakers in Oslo announce biggest rate increase in almost two decades
      A woman walks by Norges Bank in Oslo
      Norges Bank announced a bigger rise in borrowing costs than was expected to help tackle surging inflation
      Richard Milne, Nordic and Baltic Correspondent
      3 hours ago

      Norway has become the latest central bank to surprise markets with a bigger-than-expected rate rise, increasing borrowing costs by 50 basis points as it warned of the possibility of inflation moving even higher.

      Norges Bank raised interest rates by a half percentage point for the first time in almost two decades on Thursday, leaving benchmark borrowing costs at 1.25 per cent.

      “Prospects for a more prolonged period of high inflation suggest a faster rise in the policy rate than projected earlier. A faster rate rise now will reduce the risk of inflation remaining high and the need for a sharper tightening of monetary policy further out,” said Ida Wolden Bache, governor of Norges Bank.
      …

      2. Norway makes surprise 50 basis point rise

        These central banker focks screwed the pooch. The producer price index in Germany came in at over 33%. Their official CPI is 7.9%. CPI has to catch up to PPI because otherwise companies go out of business. There’s an inflation firestorm on the way and these aszholes caused it.

  6. ‘the biggest year-over-year increase in 2022 inventory are: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho —111.9%, Salt Lake City, Utah —110.8% , Bozeman, Montana — 92.9% , Denver, Colorado — 81.0%, Las Vegas, Nevada — 72.6%’

    There can’t be a bubble in every town and city in the US can there? Yes, and I made the point as we went along that blindness to all these sh$tholes going up 30-60% in 2 years was going to be a disaster. This is not limited to Florida, Arizona and California.

    1. I made the point as we went along that blindness to all these sh$tholes going up 30-60% in 2 years was going to be a disaster.

      And all of these Harryhowmuchamonths are counting on the FED and .gov to save their bacon and not allow house prices to fall. Got moral hazard?

    2. That list will turn out to be ground zero for sob stories in a year or two. It’s sad that Denver has decided to throw itself in with that lot.

  7. ‘The real horror show today is that we’re running into roughly 1 in 30 purchasers in the GTA where the sale of their existing home simply fails,’ says veteran mortgage broker Ron Butler, of Butler Mortgage. Buyers are defaulting on unconditional purchase obligations because they’re financially tapped out. You’ll hear more tales of buyers walking away from deposits, and getting sued, in the months to come’

    When the SHTF, all the attention turns to credit.

  8. ‘In the past 28 days, 11,845 new residential listings were added in the Greater Phoenix area’

    I could say a lot about this. Consider this is the worst time of the year to put a shack up for sale. Half (at least) are vacant. This is speculators getting their a$$es kicked.

    1. “This is speculators getting their a$$es kicked.”

      This is a story that warms my jaded heart.

    2. “This is speculators getting their a$$es kicked.”

      – To Realtors and speculators everywhere: “Bless your heart.” Meant in the sarcastic sense of this utilitarian Southern phrase. 🙂

    3. What will the peak inventory be 100,000? They will be maintaining a sizeable shadow inventory just to make it look like things aren’t completely busted. If you desire to live in a sweltering hell hole, keep an eye on Phoenix!

        1. It’ll be over 100 for the next 5 days. Sweltering. Hope the jackholes from the Bay Area who rushed into Sac enjoy it.

  9. “There is a slight shift happening in the housing market. Realtors on the North Shore report a lot of homes returning to the market with reduced pricing, homes under $300k returning to the market due to insurance issues, and fewer people buying due to rising interest and mortgage rates.”

    Shift happens.

    The housing market is in deep shift.

    The shift show is just beginning.

  10. Westword — Colorado’s Soaring Cost of Living and What Worries Residents Most (6/22/2022):

    “this year, we’re seeing a feeling of people being overwhelmed by the increased cost of living, and especially the cost of housing. They have a rosier picture of the economy itself, but they have their own personal financial insecurity that showed up in a lot of ways.”

    For instance, more than 40 percent of Coloradans said they were worse off financially than they were the previous year — a 19 percent increase over 2021. In addition, almost 40 percent of respondents expressed concern that they might not be able to afford enough food to feed themselves and their families on a regular basis — a 15 percent spike over last year. And 16 percent of those who participated in the poll admitted to skipping meals over the past twelve months because they couldn’t afford to eat, when last year just 9 percent said the same.

    Still, while 30 percent of poll takers listed food and fuel/gas as their top concerns, 50 percent put housing first.

    “These are really troubling numbers,” Woodrum notes. “We heard so many people saying, ‘I’m afraid I might lose my home.’ And with renters, the numbers were even higher.”

    https://www.westword.com/news/colorado-cost-of-living-in-2022-and-what-worries-residents-most-14329066

  12. ‘the fundraising market today is virtually unrecognizable from last year’s. Some are struggling to raise money to keep operations going — and risk going bankrupt if the market doesn’t improve soon, insiders say. Investors and startup founders say the worst is yet to come’

    ‘Valuations have significantly dropped, and it felt like it was overnight … We’re not seeing 10% drops, we’re seeing 50-plus percent drops’

    We read about these ‘profitless’ companies like it’s analyzing something normal. None of this would exist if the central banks hadn’t lost their minds. We shouldn’t have so-called trillion$ companies that stumble along for decades of puddle watching. How many of these zombies are there? I doubt any one person could name them all. That’s how much neeked swimmers we got!

    1. “We read about these ‘profitless’ companies like it’s analyzing something normal. None of this would exist if the central banks hadn’t lost their minds“

      – Exactly! Hit the nail on the head.

      – Zombie Cos. are more than 20% of total. Means they don’t have enough revenue to service their debt. Kept alive/enabled by ultra-low rates. Oh wait! Rates are rising! What happens next?

      – Recessions are necessary to clear the dead wood. Start anew. Creative destruction. Hasn’t happened for 13 years. The business cycle can be extended with cheap credit, but not prevented. Eventually, the chickens come home to roost.

      – A centrally-planned, command-and-control economy is doomed to fail. References: (former) USSR. Current USSA. End the Fed.

      – The slow-motion train wreck of the bursting of “The Everything Bubble” continues inexorably. Humpty Dumpty.

    2. I remember when startups were startups, meaning they started small, as in a garage, with no employees, just the entrepreneur(s). Then, once they were profitable, they would begin to grow and hire employees. If not, they folded.

      Now, some yahoo with an “idea” gets hundreds of millions in funding, and burns through it until it’s gone. If he’s lucky, he sells out to a larger company. If not, he has to ask investors for more money, and was likely to get more.

      But now the music has stopped, and there is suddenly an acute shortage of chairs.

      1. “started small, as in a garage”

        I thought that was always a myth that startups were started in a garage. It’s just a nice story.

        Most if not all always had deep pockets backing.

        1. “I thought that was always a myth that startups were started in a garage.”

          Precisely. Nothing more than Happy Talk.

        2. I know personally of a few that started in a garage. I even worked at one. That was in the 70’s and 80’s.

          The garage where Hewlett Packard began is a landmark.

    4. It’s time to hold central bankers accountable, and neuter them. The problem is that CONgress is in on the scam. I’m not sure how it could happen, but it needs to. All of these people are destroying our standard of living for their own personal financial gain.

  13. Re-post from the last thread, because this topic generates so many emotional responses.

    The Atlantic — A Recession Could Kill the Work-From-Home Revolution (6/23/2022):

    “In the near future, then, management may regain the upper hand from labor. Company culture will more resemble what bosses want, rather than what workers want—and that could mean a lot more butts in seats. According to surveys by the Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, nearly 80 percent of employees say they prefer to work at home at least one day a week. But managers are roughly split on the question of whether remote workers are as productive as office workers.”

    https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/06/could-recession-kill-the-work-from-home-revolution/661361/

    Hey Jeff, how is that hanging drywall from home working out for you?

    Wait? What? You need workers to be physically present on the jobsite to hang that drywall?

    People keep telling us it would be “more productive” if you would hang that drywall from home, instead of having to drive to jobsites every day, right?

      1. That was a joke.

        I worked over 5 years as a federal government contractor in an office before CCP Flu and you could lay off half the people in that office and the same amount of work could get done.

        The only people who should be allowed to work from home are in sales, and that’s for top performers only.

        1. Employers who try to play hardball with highly qualified STEM employees to force them to come in to the office are likely to lose them to other employers with flexible telework policies, recession or no.

          2. They won’t even miss them.

            Yeah, the code will write itself, the circuits and machinery will design themselves.

        2. So the issue is unproductive staffers, not WFH’ers. One has nothing to do with the other.

          In fact, it’s even possible that the unproductive workers were unproductive because they were exhausted by the commute. I’ve had jobs where the commute was so difficult that I felt my major accomplishment for the day was getting into the office and I really shouldn’t have to do much work when I got there. I would have been a lot more focused and motivated working remotely.

          2. “I felt my major accomplishment for the day was getting into the office and I really shouldn’t have to do much work when I got there.”

            Well your “feelings” don’t pay the owners bills.

          3. I’ve had jobs where the commute was so difficult that I felt my major accomplishment for the day was getting into the office and I really shouldn’t have to do much work when I got there.

            Just WOW. Talk about a sniveling whiner. Go work on one of those oil rigs for a while, like Ben posted a video for. The commute is a luxury compared to that hard work.

          4. my major accomplishment for the day was getting into the office and I really shouldn’t have to do much work when I got there

            You weren’t being paid to commute. That was your choice. Suck it up, buttercup.

        3. The only people who should be allowed to work from home are in sales

          “Account executives” usually work from home, at least in my industry, except for when they visit customers face to face, and Covid put a damper on that.

          The new thing in my industry are coders working from home. Before the pandemic it was considered an uncommon perk, now it’s pretty common and seems to be rather entrenched.

        4. At a company I worked for years ago, the sales people were given the crappiest desks. The reason my boss gave was “They shouldn’t be here – they should be out selling!”

        5. I did well before WFH was a thing. Then again, I was sales and wrote my own paycheck.

    2. My company leverages the national labor market rather just local. Seems smart to me. Why limit yourself geographically in certain lines of business?

      1. Obviously a similar strategy applies internationally in the IT field. My impression is that penny pinching American companies underinvest in English proficiency. There’s nothing worse than getting on an IT call with someone who can’t communicate in English.

        1. My groups tech support is mostly located in the US and Europe. There is some in Asia, though they mostly serve Asian customers. This Tech support is not free. A service contract is required. Some contract$ provide for on site support. Of course hardware (I’m not talking about laptops) support can require someone actually show up in person.

          These contracts are very expensive. We don’t charge for the software (a UNIX operating system), but $upport will co$t you.

    3. People keep telling us it would be “more productive” if you would hang that drywall from home, instead of having to drive to jobsites every day, right?

      + a million. The people who make this world go around don’t “work from home.” Scam.

  14. The Financial Times
    Opinion Central banks
    Complacency led policymakers to misdiagnose inflation
    Politicians and central bankers took their eyes off price problems but running a high pressure economy is dangerous
    A basket of goods in a supermarket
    Central bankers bear particular responsibility in this messy tale
    Chris Giles yesterday

    A year ago, inflation appeared under control. Published annual consumer price rises stood at 2 per cent in the eurozone and 2.1 per cent for the UK in May 2021. The 5 per cent figure for the US was higher than normal, but the Federal Reserve dismissed concerns, saying price rises reflected “transitory factors” with chair Jay Powell highlighting lumber and used car prices that were temporarily high and airline and hotel costs that were just climbing back to normal.

    What has happened since has surprised all the main advanced economy central banks. The latest published inflation rates stand at 8.6 per cent in the US, 8.1 per cent in the eurozone and 9.1 per cent in the UK. Instead of always blaming something out of their control, central bankers are now taking action.

    We should therefore use this moment to take stock. What were the mistakes made in thinking over the past year? And what does this mean for policy and the economic outlook?

    Fundamentally, we have rediscovered that resource constraints are real and they matter. With unemployment at multi-decade lows in North America and Europe, there was less scope than after the global financial crisis for households, government or companies to increase spending without generating significant inflationary pressure. Sometimes, of course, resource constraints have also been caused by supply chain bottlenecks, but both represent demand exceeding supply and both are inflationary.

    Instead of focusing closely on the constraints, politicians and central bankers placed too much emphasis on the data from after the 2008-09 global financial crisis showing unemployment changes had little impact on wages or prices. Inflation had been low and steady both when joblessness was high and when it came down. Policymakers misdiagnosed this “flat Phillips curve” as a regularity, and that led to complacency. The thinking was that inflation was dead and there were few risks in running a high-pressure economy. We now know this was dangerously wrong.

    Central bankers bear particular responsibility in this messy tale. For the past two decades, they convinced themselves the public believed them to be such wonderful price controllers that they could sit back and relax. No company would seek to push prices higher and no worker would seek inflation-busting pay rises because they knew it would be defeated by the central bank.

    They believed their credibility was rock solid, so low and stable inflation was a self-fulfilling prophesy. That theory has failed and they are now in a fight to regain public trust. It is not surprising, for example, that net satisfaction with the Bank of England’s inflation management has fallen to its lowest level on record.
    …

    1. “None of this would exist if the central banks hadn’t lost their minds.”

      Yep. Mindless central bankers rule the world.

    2. ‘They believed their credibility was rock solid, so low and stable inflation was a self-fulfilling prophesy. That theory has failed and they are now in a fight to regain public trust. It is not surprising, for example, that net satisfaction with the Bank of England’s inflation management has fallen to its lowest level on record.’

  15. Globalists have made actual reality so miserable to live in, that now globalist Mark Zuckerberg thinks you will pay him money to exist in his fake reality.

    CNBC — Mark Zuckerberg envisions a billion people in the metaverse spending hundreds of dollars each (6/22/2022):

    “Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday that the metaverse could be a considerable part of the social network operator’s business in the second half of the decade.

    “We hope to basically get to around a billion people in the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars of commerce, each buying digital goods, digital content, different things to express themselves, so whether that’s clothing for their avatar or different digital goods for their virtual home or things to decorate their virtual conference room, utilities to be able to be more productive in virtual and augmented reality and across the metaverse overall”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/22/mark-zuckerberg-envisions-1-billion-people-in-the-metaverse.html

    This is the globalist plantation that these unelected globalist bureaucrats wish to imprison you on.

    Remember, you’ll never be seen as anything more than cattle to these globalists.

    Globalists gonna globe.

    2. Give me light
      Give me action
      At the touch of a button.
      Flying through hyper-space
      In a computer interface.
      Stop living on video
      Stop integrated circuits.
      Stop sur un faisceau de lumieres
      Stop is this reality?
      Traveling in a light beam
      Laser rays and purple skies.
      In a computer fairyland
      It is a dream you bring to life.
      Stop living on video
      Stop integrated circuits
      Living on video sur un faisceau de lumieres
      I see your glitterring blue eyes
      You look at me with a smile.
      It’s a computer fantasy
      It is waiting for you and me.
      Living living on video
      Living living on video
      Living living on video
      Living living on video stop

  16. Matt Gaetz was on fire 🔥 yesterday.

    Newsweek — GOP Senators Who Favor Gun Bill Called Traitors, Confiscators by GOP Peers (6/22/2022):

    “Republicans are lashing out at GOP senators backing bipartisan gun legislation as “traitors” who are helping Democrats to “confiscate” firearms.

    “Republican Senators who voted to back Red Flag Laws are traitors to the Constitution and our country,” Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, tweeted on Wednesday.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-senators-who-favor-gun-bill-called-traitors-confiscators-by-gop-peers/ar-AAYLiS7

    Yes they are, Matt Gaetz, yes they are.

    Cold dead hands, you globalist sh*tbags, because we are taking our country back.

    1. Next will be immigration. They are itching to get something passed after the election and before new congress in Jan.

      1. “Next will be immigration.”

        “First Guns, Now It’s Immigration”: GOP TX Senator John Cornyn Advances Gun Control Bill, Plans Mass Amnesty Next

        by Chris Menahan | Information Liberation
        June 22nd 2022, 4:34 am

        GOP sellouts are uniting with Democrats to ram through new gun control legislation and are planning a mass amnesty for illegal aliens and DACA recipients next.

        Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were seen shaking hands on the Senate floor on Tuesday evening after voting to advancing their new gun control bill.

        A “smiling” Cornyn reportedly told Sen. Alejandro Padilla (D-CA), “First guns, now it’s immigration.”

        https://www.infowars.com/posts/first-guns-now-its-immigration-gop-tx-senator-john-cornyn-advances-gun-control-bill-plans-mass-amnesty-next/

    1. We’re gonna need a bigger gulag.

      Remember it was in the UK where police were arresting people for picnicking in a vast and empty field without the government’s permission in the early days of the pandemic.

      The whole island is already a gulag. It was pretty evident when I last visited back in 2017. I’m not planning on going back. Plus it would be pointless, as I don ‘t have a QR code.

  19. Frisco Texas Market Update – June 2022

    Jun 22, 2022 The real estate market is shifting! What does that mean? Watch to get the real data straight from the MLS on what’s happening in Frisco, TX.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qmev_AfEg0

    8 minutes. At 1 minutes gets into inventory. Up from 263 one month ago to 391 today. Cancelled/expired up from nothing in the past month, mentions price reductions.

    I believe this is the formerly redhotness north of DFW. Shack median over $700,000.

    2. If you back out to the monthly view you will see the forming of a cup and handle pattern – and it’s a big one. This predicts the potential of price to go up 50% from here. Personally, I wouldn’t bet against it.

    2. Take a look at natural gas futures …

      Still 50% higher than they were back in March.

      It’s easy to lie with “data” when you truncate axes to distort relative values and focus on narrow windows into the data :/

  22. Should I buy a house now?! – Denver housing market update June 2022

    Jun 23, 2022 When opportunity knocks, do you know the sound? Even with rates hitting 6% in the last few days, that just kicks open the door even wider for Buyers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRxBO2MSJ1M

    17 minutes. The usual crater stats. At 5:20 she reads a letter from a local builder.

  23. One time a male and female bird built a nest close enough to my window that I could observe all activity.
    When the babies hatched from the little eggs, I
    observed something I will never forget. Shorty after the birds hatched from the eggs, a whole group of about 20 birds lined up to see the new births . It was as if they were welcoming the new arrivals to that bird community, with a vow that the community would protect the new arrivals. .

    Later on my hunch proved true when I saw one of the babies who had just started to fly being attacked by a much bigger bird. Immediately three birds from the community who viewed the births swooped down and attacked the bigger bird in mid air , and it flew away.

    Now I’m comparing the birds to the FDA approving killer shots for children under 5 to the bird community that I observed.

    1. Covid vaccines are poison.

      And the parents doing this to their children are murderers.

  25. Any thoughts on why Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin are all headed deeper into the CR8R today?

    2. ‘Epic Failure’—Ethereum Founder Issued A Serious Bitcoin Price Prediction Warning Amid BNB, XRP, Solana, Cardano And Dogecoin Price Crash
      Billy Bambrough
      Senior Contributor
      I write about how bitcoin, crypto and blockchain can change the world.
      Jun 23, 2022, 07:15am EDT
      …
      https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2022/06/23/epic-failure-ethereum-founder-issued-a-serious-bitcoin-price-prediction-warning-amid-bnb-xrp-solana-cardano-and-dogecoin-price-crash/?sh=5a7e8b1e31f4

    3. Bitcoin, Ethereum Mixed, Dogecoin Soars: Can An Apex Coin Short Squeeze Revive Battered Crypto Markets?
      by Shivdeep Dhaliwal, Benzinga Staff Writer
      June 21, 2022 9:18 PM | 3 min read
      Zinger Key Points
      – Global crypto market cap up 0.8% at $912.5B over 24 hours
      – Signs of breakthrough emerge but bottom not in – Justin Bennett
      – There is an increased possibility of a short squeeze – Global Block’s Marcus Sotiriou
      …
      https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/22/06/27805724/bitcoin-ethereum-mixed-dogecoin-soars-can-an-apex-coin-short-squeeze-finally-revive-batter

    4. If the Fed raises rates again in July, I expect Bitcoin to slip even more.

      I was hanging on to $30K for a while, until it suddenly and quickly dropped to $20K. I expect the next leg down will be to $10K, which is still ridiculous.

      I sometimes remember BillInLA. I wonder if he bailed out at some point, or if he became a HODLER and is riding BTC back down to 0.

      1. This is just a half hearted tug of war before it begins the next leg down. Got to burn up some more money and then down it goes. I don’t think it will even last two weeks. My guess is 5 or 6 days from the initial ‘recovery’. By this time next week, if it is as weak as I think, it will be firmly back in the teens and falling. I would be very surprised if it maintains support through the end of the month. Place your virtual bets! (No one bets real money on this, right?)

        1. I can’t imagine anyone in his right mind trading actual money for cryptocurrency (aka fake virtual non-currency).

          1. I can’t imagine anyone in his right mind trading actual money for cryptocurrency (aka fake virtual non-currency).

            Are you calling FRNs “actual money” here?

            Not a bitcoin supporter, but is it really all that different from BTC? At least BTC is theoretically limited in supply, unlike FRNs

    5. The Financial Times
      Opinion Cryptocurrencies
      Crypto enthusiasts are betting the house on creative destruction
      Despite the recent rout, private digital money seems more likely to mutate than die
      Illustration by Efi Chalikopoulou of a graveyard with a bitcoin headstone among others
      Gillian Tett 7 hours ago

      Earlier this year, an Irish company that organises an annual tech conference in Toronto called Collision decided to celebrate cryptocurrency’s “day in the sun”, as the blurb said, by inviting its luminaries to speak.

      Oops. By the time Collision finally happened this week, 35,000 attendees turned up, but eight of the dozen-odd top crypto speakers suddenly dropped out, citing “family” and “health” reasons.

      And instead of basking in the sun, crypto enthusiasts were confronting winter. The sector’s market capitalisation has shrunk by $2tn, or 70 per cent, since last November; the bitcoin price has tumbled below $20,000, the terra and luna stable coins have imploded; crypto lenders such as Babel and Celsius have halted withdrawals; and hedge funds like Three Arrows Capital face margin calls.

      Moreover, the carnage would be even worse were it not for the fact that Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old billionaire founder of the FTX crypto platform, is bailing out crypto lenders such as Voyager and BlockFi with big loans. This echoes the moves that John Pierpont Morgan made during the 1907 American banking crisis to rescue other lenders, in the absence of any central banking backstop.

      All this is distinctly embarrassing for crypto evangelists. And it has inevitably sparked schadenfreude from crypto-critics such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. It has also left some regulators voicing doubts about whether private cryptocurrencies really have any social utility — future.
      …

  26. ‘World Health Organization (WHO) Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reportedly admitted to a senior European politician that the virus that causes COVID-19 most likely came out of a Wuhan lab. The Daily Mail reports that Tedros made the admission citing a catastrophic lab accident.’

    ‘The disclosure comes on the heels of a WHO investigative report that was published earlier this month, concluding that the pandemic may have started at a Wuhan lab and that Chinese authorities have been blocking access to crucial data.’

    ‘At the same time, Jeffrey Sachs, leader of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19, now says that he is convinced that the pandemic started in a lab and that SARS-CoV-2 was created with the aid of U.S. biotechnology.’

    ‘Sachs made his stunning admission last week at a conference in Spain where he had been invited by former Spanish prime minister José Luís Zapatero.’

    ‘The admissions from two of the world’s most prominent COVID-19 authorities, who also happen to be establishment stalwarts with a record of appeasing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is a significant development in the search for the origin of the pandemic.’

    ‘Early in 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to unfold, Xiao Botao, a whistleblower from China, published an article claiming that the virus had come out of a Wuhan lab. The whistleblower’s paper was quickly removed from the internet and an all-hands-on-deck effort to scrub and censor the idea of a lab leak quickly ensued.’

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/who-and-lancet-commission-chiefs-come-out-in-support-of-lab-leak-theory_4548666.html

    ‘The whistleblower’s paper was quickly removed from the internet and an all-hands-on-deck effort to scrub and censor the idea of a lab leak quickly ensued’

    This was a crime against humanity and need to be prosecuted to the full extent as such.

    1. the virus that causes COVID-19 most likely came out of a Wuhan lab. The Daily Mail reports that Tedros made the admission citing a catastrophic lab accident.

      Lab, yes.
      Accident, no.

      It was a golden opportunity to get billions to beg for the kill shot.

  27. On the Fence about Selling??

    Jun 22, 2022 If your on the fence about selling… I don’t blame you!! Even us in the industry have no idea for sure what will happen with housing prices and inventory, but this is my take on it!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTfsS0ZBg1E

    3 minutes. At 20 seconds “sellers are starting to get a little freaked out.” “Hosting 20 open houses today in Buena Park.”

    The one she’s in is new. Her webpage says it’s somewhere in California.

    1. Buena Park

      Home to Knott’s Berry Farm. Not to far from Disneyland in Anaheim. Both in Orange County.

    1. 300 employees times say $100K each is $30M. That alone won’t make a dent. In house shows being cancelled, now that will cut some costs. It is rumored Netflix spent as much as $70M on the disastrous live action version of Cowboy Bebop. Overspending on lots of crappy shows is the real rat hole for Netflix.

      1. DisneyPlus is also spending like a drunk on its in house programming. From what I have read, Disney’s streaming service is still losing a lot of money, with a break even nowhere in sight.

      2. 300 employees times say $100K each is $30M

        My understanding is Netflix pays a lot more than $100k for engineering roles. Doesn’t change your point comparing whatever amount to the cost of production of a single show, however.

      3. You of all people should know that salary is only part of a total compensation package. All those other benefits are costly.

        1. All those other benefits are costly.

          Make it 200K per employee. Netflix still spends more on a single season of a show.

          1. As I’ve said before, Netflix is globalist propaganda outlet and slush fund. “Content” is unquestionably its biggest expense.

  29. New Construction Homes – $000,000’s of discounts and price drops!

    Jun 20, 2022 If you want to live in a brand new home in the Houston, Texas area, but want to pay less and or want $000,000 of dollars in discounts, you need to contact me. We know the builders who are eager for your business.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7YeU_7moHs

    2:44. This is an odd one. The video just shows around some shack while there’s a party going on. But this is what the text says.

  30. As fixed mortgages end and rates rise, many risk losing their homes |ABC News

    Jun 23, 2022 Almost 40 per cent of Australians with mortgages who have locked in ultra-low fixed interest rates will roll off them as soon as next year. If more people default on their home loans, economists warn that could create financial system instability.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hkpECAzqa0

    3:42. The first lady says payments going up $20,000 a year.

    1. As fixed mortgages end and rates rise, many risk losing their homes

      Many in Oz already had their backs to the wall. This will break them.

  31. Boat packed with hundreds of American migrants runs aground in Haiti

    By Ted Hisson and Kristina Cookie
    March 7, 2022

    Port-au-Prince, March 7 (Reuters) – Haitian authorities are investigating what appeared to be one of the largest human smuggling attempts off Haitian shores in years, after a boat packed with 356 American migrants ran aground in Port-au-Prince on Sunday.

    Among the passengers, 158 jumped from the boat and attempted to swim toward the shore despite rough seas. They were rescued from the water and detained by the Haitian Border Patrol, according to Haitian Customs and Border Protection (HCBP). The other 198 remained on the boat and were taken into custody by the Haitian Coast Guard.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/boat-packed-with-hundreds-haitian-migrants-runs-aground-florida-2022-03-07/

  32. Wall Street’s bubble may be gone, but stocks can still fall
    By: The Associated Press
    June 23, 2022

    The good news for stocks is that this year’s sell-off means they no longer look eye-wateringly expensive.

    The bad news: That won’t matter if corporate profits give out.

    A stock’s price rises or falls for essentially two reasons: how much cash a company generates and how much an investor is willing to pay for it.

    So far, Wall Street’s focus has been only on that second part.

    With the Federal Reserve jacking up interest rates to knock down inflation, investors are much less willing to pay sky-high prices for stocks when safe bonds are offering better returns.

    Analysts and professional investors look at something called the price-earnings ratio to gauge investors’ willingness to own stocks. It shows how much investors are paying for each $1 of a company’s earnings, with a few variations.

    Across the largest 1,000 companies, one measure has investors paying nearly 29% less for the median than in November, according to Scott Opsal, director of research and equities at Leuthold.

    That meant their drop in stock prices, a median of roughly 25%, was entirely because of investors’ decreased willingness to pay high prices. On the profit side, analysts actually raised their forecasts.

    “Investors are coping with the problems of the day by letting the air out of bubbly valuations,” Opsal wrote in a report.

    Some pockets of the market still look pricey, such as high-growth and smaller stocks, according to strategists at Credit Suisse. But across the S&P 500 index, stock valuations are now only marginally above their average for the last 50 years, after earlier soaring to their most expensive levels since the 2000 dot-com mania.

    The risk for Wall Street going forward is that even though a lot of air has come out of the bubble, more could still leak out. Another dangerous possibility is if corporate profits weaken sharply.

    If that were to happen, investors could get hit with a double-whammy pulling down both stock price levers.
    …

    https://libn.com/2022/06/23/wall-streets-bubble-may-be-gone-but-stocks-can-still-fall/

  35. Are you concerned that double digit inflation rates will force central bankers to increase interest rates to economy crushing heights?

    1. The Financial Times
      UK inflation
      UK inflation hits 40-year high of 9.1% as food prices jump
      Figure in line with forecasts of it reaching double digits by the autumn
      A woman with a shopping trolley full of groceries in a supermarket aisle in Cardiff
      Bread, cereals and meat are rising the fastest in price
      Chris Giles in London yesterday

      The UK’s inflation rate hit another 40-year high in May, reaching 9.1 per cent, amid rising food and fuel prices.

      The price growth in May, up from 9 per cent in April, was in line with economists’ expectations. They are predicting inflation will hit double digits by the autumn.

      The Bank of England expects the inflation rate to exceed 11 per cent in October, significantly higher than other similar countries in the G7.
      …

    2. The Financial Times
      US Inflation
      Jay Powell warns US recession is ‘certainly a possibility’
      Fed chair says economy is resilient but factors beyond his control raise risk of inflation surprises
      Jay Powell listens during a hearing at the Senate banking committee on Wednesday
      Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell: ‘We will strive to avoid adding uncertainty in what is already an extraordinarily challenging and uncertain time’
      Colby Smith in Washington yesterday

      Jay Powell said a US recession is “certainly a possibility” and warned that avoiding a downturn largely depends on factors outside the Federal Reserve’s control.

      In testimony to the Senate banking committee on Wednesday, the Fed chair acknowledged it was now more challenging for the central bank to root out soaring inflation while maintaining a strong job market.

      He argued the US was sufficiently resilient to withstand tougher monetary policy without sliding into a downturn but acknowledged that outside factors, such as the war in Ukraine and China’s Covid-19 policy, could further complicate the outlook.

      “It’s not our intended outcome at all, but it’s certainly a possibility,” Powell said, responding to a question about the risk the Fed’s plans to raise rates this year could lead to a recession.

      He added that because of the “events of the last few months around the world”, it was “now more difficult” for the central bank to achieve its goals of 2 per cent inflation and a strong labour market.

      “The question of whether we are able to accomplish that is going to depend to some extent on factors that we don’t control,” he said, in a reference to soaring commodity prices stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and clogged-up supply chains because of China’s lockdowns.

      Lawmakers pressed Powell several times about the burden imposed by the Fed’s recent moves to combat inflation, now at 8.6 per cent, the highest in four decades. The central bank last week put in place the biggest interest rate increase since 1994, signalling its support for what is set to be the most forceful campaign to tighten monetary policy since the 1980s.

      “You know what’s worse than high inflation and low unemployment? It’s high inflation and a recession with millions of people out of work,” said Elizabeth Warren, the progressive Democratic senator from Massachusetts. “I hope you will reconsider that before you drive this economy off a cliff.”
      …

  36. I’m called several times a day by various people who feel that they’ve paid too much’

    ‘Most of the people don’t qualify for what they used to qualify for before’

    I think we are at capitulation.

    ca·pit·u·la·tion
    /kəˌpiCHəˈlāSH(ə)n/

    noun: capitulation; plural noun: capitulations

    -the action of surrendering or ceasing to resist an opponent or demand.

    2. And to think that people used to pay a hefty premium to live in Poway just for the schools.

      When I worked at HP in RB 20+ years ago I would get an earful from coworkers about how amazing Poway schools were.

      1. Parents, at least, are pushing back on the Marxist agenda of the state and district. I’d be far more vocal if it mattered for my son.

  38. CarMax (KMX) reports earnings tomorrow. What impact rates have had should be interesting. At least to me as I’m holding Oct & Dec Puts on most dealership aggregators.

  39. first a trickle, then a flood: the vaccine adverse events dam is breaking

    for every 6.4 people moderna kept out of hospital for covid, it inflicted 15.1 serious AE’s.

    for every 2.3 people pfizer kept out of hospital, it inflicted 10.1 serious AE’s.

    moderna’s ratio is terrible.

    pfizer’s is tragic.

    these vaccines fail massively on the most rudimentary harm-benefit analysis, and harms here look significantly suppressed and the placebo arms look salted with extras to make divergence appear less. there are lots of signs of pfraud in the trials.

    2. Overwhelming evidence that the Covid vaccines are vile, and have caused death and unimaginable injury and suffering to victims of this medical crime .
      Time is of the essence in stopping this killing spree
      that just added 6 month old babies to 5 year olds ,now being targeted for injection.

    3. I’ve mentioned this before: I wonder how many people the jab alone has removed from the workforce. Not killed or maimed, but just messed up enough that they can no longer perform a full time job, but not ill enough to get SSDI.

  40. Can anyone recall what was happening in the housing market during the winter of 2008?

    1. Mortgage rates rise again, pricing more buyers out of the housing market
      By Alicia Wallace, CNN Business
      Updated 12:41 PM EDT, Thu June 23, 2022

      Mortgage rates continue to climb as the Federal Reserve seeks to tame unwieldy inflation.

      The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.81% in the week ending June 23, edging up from 5.78% the week before, according to Freddie Mac.

      This time last year, rates averaged 3.02%, and the last time rates were this high was in the winter of 2008.
      …
      https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/economy/mortgage-rates-june-23/index.html

    1. The Financial Times
      Opinion The Long View
      Investors yearn for the catharsis of hitting a market bottom
      Some believe that if pain is to come, it is better for it to hit sooner than later
      Katie Martin
      Traders inside the New York Stock Exchange
      The week may end up mildly positive but the real turn in fortunes remains elusive
      Katie Martin an hour ago

      For a minute there, at the start of this week, markets looked . . . what’s the technical term? OK?

      A brutal sell-off in stocks, which made the previous week the worst since the pandemic struck in the spring of 2020, suddenly turned round. A holiday in the US on Monday kept a lid on trading, but Tuesday brought that rarest of things: a sudden lurch higher.

      Perhaps under the influence of the delightful sunshine gracing London at the time, one banker took this as a reason to be cheerful. “Give summer another chance!” he enthused in a note to clients. “Players want to buy equities again. Will it be more sticky this time around? We shall see.”

      Reader, it was not more sticky this time around. The positive mood did not even leak into the following Asian session. But the brief moment of cheer reflects a sense that investors are growing slightly desperate for the horror show that is the first half of 2022 to be over. Haven’t we suffered enough? After all, if you exclude the first quarter of 2020, this has been one of the worst quarters for global stocks since 2008. Surely the hour has come for heroes to time the market to perfection and buy?
      …
      But not yet, alas. The week may end up mildly positive but the real turn in fortunes remains elusive. UBS, like many other investors, remains “neutral”, noting a significant risk of large further falls from here.

      Tatjana Puhan, the deputy chief investment officer at French asset manager Tobam, describes herself as an optimist by nature. “My glass of water is half full,” she says. But she is baffled at the urge to spot an end to the bleeding in markets.

      “I find it ridiculous,” she says. “The financial TV was saying ‘markets are positive, maybe we’re through the worst’. Are you kidding me? Why would you be positive all of a sudden?”

      She has a point.
      …

    2. The Financial Times
      Global Economy
      Recession in US and Europe ‘increasingly likely’, warn economists
      Aggressive rate rises and European energy supply worries are leading to sharp downgrades
      A coal-fired power plant in Peitz, Germany
      A coal-fired power plant in Peitz, Germany. The country is preparing to reopen more coal plants if Russia carries out its threat to cut gas supplies to the EU
      Valentina Romei in London, Colby Smith in Washington and Martin Arnold in Frankfurt yesterday

      The risks of the US and Europe sliding into recession have picked up sharply, economists have warned ahead of the G7 summit that begins this weekend in Bavaria.

      Economists on both sides of the Atlantic told the Financial Times they had become increasingly pessimistic following the Federal Reserve’s decision to go big on rate rises to counter soaring inflation, and on mounting concerns over Europe’s gas supply in the run-up to winter.

      Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, said the balance had now “tipped” in favour of an economic contraction next year in the US and Europe. “What used to be a rising risk has now turned into the base case.”

      Goldman Sachs doubled the risk of the US entering a recession this year from 15 per cent to 30 per cent, with a 48 per cent probability of a recession over a two-year horizon in the wake of the Fed’s first 75 basis point rise since 1994.

      “US recession risks are uncomfortably high and rising. I would put them at 40 per cent in the next 12 months, and more or less even odds over the next 24,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. He added that Europe was even more vulnerable.

      “To avoid recession, the global economy needs a bit of luck and for the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and Russian aggression to wind down quickly, along with some deft policymaking by the Fed and other central banks,” Zandi said.
      …

    3. Newsletter
      Money
      As Interest Rates Rise, How Likely is a Recession? Depends on Who You Ask
      Written By
      STOREYS Editorial Team
      Published: 9:56 AM Jun 23, 2022

      Whether or not the economy is set to experience a recession is a growing question in the minds of consumers and economists alike. However, it’s clear that rising interest rates are set to cool both the housing market and consumer spending, while other key indicators are starting to flash warning signals.

      “I would go as far as to say I don’t think it’s potentially looming. Unless there’s a material shift, there’s a recession underway,” said Calum Ross, a leverage wealth expert and VERICO broker with Mortgage Management Group. He points out that the yield curve — a measure of U.S. Treasury yields that captures investors’ risk sentiments — has inverted, meaning shorter term debt is now priced higher than long-term. Historically, an inverted yield curve has been an accurate indicator of an impending recession.
      …
      https://storeys.com/interest-rates-rise-how-likely-recession/

    4. My take:
      1. There are more shoes to drop before this is over.
      2. The market is chronically surprised whenever shoes predictably drop.
      3. It ain’t over till it’s over.
      4. People who pick bottoms wake up with smelly fingers.

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