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One Of The Greatest Policy Errors Of All Time

A weekend topic starting with WPTV in Florida. “Genide Nazaire has been house hunting for two years. The latest figures show mortgage rates have hit a 20-year high, forcing Nazaire to stay put. ‘We have just renewed our lease, which we did not plan on doing two years ago,’ said Nazaire. ‘Everything is so high. So, homes that were initially going for like 250 to $300,000 back in 2018/2017 are now 5 to $600,000. We may be kicked out of Palm Beach. We may have to consider moving elsewhere.'”

From KXNET. “‘For first time home buyers, it’s been fairly aggressive,’ said Brandon Dettlaff, Director of Homeownership Division at the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency. ‘We have seen one of the largest interest hikes in history,’ said Bill Dean, a local realtor. ‘So, what’s happening is we came from all-time low interest rates, which allowed people who normally wouldn’t buy houses buy houses.'”

The Journal News in Ohio. “Home sales in Butler and Warren counties are changing as the average national interest rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages rise to their highest level in over a decade. As a result, Warren County Auditor Matt Nolan is expecting his county’s housing market to continually change more than it already has. Nolan said Warren County properties are beginning to sit on the market for longer than they had when interest rates were low and the seller’s market was booming.”

“‘For a while there, [prospective home buyers] would have to bid on a property, pay above list price, and there would be 15 people bidding on it,’ Nolan said. ‘That’s not happening right now. Houses are sitting on the market again for a little longer, people are looking at them closer.'”

From NBC News. “Home buyers feeling financially squeezed by higher interest rates are increasingly being steered by real estate agents and mortgage brokers to potentially riskier types of mortgages, similar to those seen ahead of the 2008 financial crisis. Among the loans being promoted to home buyers are adjustable rate mortgages. ‘You have to sit down and really make a hard, rational, nonemotional evaluation of your circumstances, and act accordingly,’ said James Gaines, a research economist at the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. ‘Or just admit to yourself you’re taking a big gamble and go for it.'”

Fox 5 in Nevada. “A worker at a Las Vegas moving company says high interest rates are having a negative impact on the business and his ability to earn a living. According to Steven Bradshaw, business has been plummeting because interest rates are so high. ‘The self-generated computer leads that we would normally get are just diving,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I went from getting five appointments a day to getting five in a week.’ Bradshaw said people are looking to cut corners to compensate for the high interest rates. ‘I am noticing a lot of haggling,’ Bradshaw said. ‘A lot more of can you give me this for free or if I get rid of this piece of furniture, can I get lower price?'”

“Bradshaw said he’s been left with no choice but to take on another job. ‘I have to drive for Lyft now. I get up about 3 o’clock in the morning and drive everyone to the airport or get them to work. Then I do my job and as soon as I get off, I have to start driving again to keep the money coming that I had been used to.'”

South Boston Online in Massachusetts. “‘Some things even surprised me,’ said long-time South Boston realtor Jackie Rooney. ‘The big change is the number of sales is down 30%.’ Rooney warned that there are storm clouds ahead. ‘When we look at current inventory, days on the market have gone up … 81 percent from 22 to 38 days, and we see quite a few price drops.'”

The Boston Herald in Massachusetts. “The Boston Public Health Commission and other Mass-and-Cass-area institutions are giving out pipes for smoking crack and meth in addition to an array of other paraphernalia. Domingos DaRosa, who’s worked with kids in the area and picked up needles in the Mass and Cass area for years, said all of these items just end up strewn everywhere. He said that one of the kids he coaches got pricked with a needle at practice just a few days ago and now is on the cocktail of drugs that’s needed to fend off any diseases he might have caught.”

“‘It’s part of the ‘harm reduction,’ but it’s causing more harm than anything,’ he said, adding that he’s found various broken crack pipes in parks there. ‘Kids are finding these things in the parks and playgrounds. And not just finding them – there’s still product in them. We’re just giving people the tools to get high,’ he continued. ‘It’s not designed to reduce the population on the street here.'”

The Daily World. “Home buyers in Grays Harbor County and in Western Washington may finally have some relief from the booming housing prices of the last few years. Several factors spiked home buying during the pandemic — not only in Grays Harbor County but across the country. ‘I’ve never seen real estate prices climb as fast as they did in the last three years,’ said Dan Lindgren, Grays Harbor County Assessor. But inventory has finally had a chance to equalize the market. The number of active listings in September for residences in Grays Harbor was significantly higher than a year ago, growing by almost 90% in both Aberdeen and Hoquiam and by roughly 60% in Ocean Shores, where 144 homes were listed, the most of any town in the county.”

“One indication of the slowing market, said Travis Jevolich, owner of Windermere Real Estate, Aberdeen and Ocean Shores offices, is seller behavior at the time of initial listing. September sellers were more ‘tuned in’ to market listing prices as opposed to setting initial listings at abnormally high marks. ‘The days of throwing it on the market and hoping you get something close to it, those are done. Buyers are a lot more tuned in with what’s going on and they’re not going to overpay,’ Jelovich said.”

KING 5 in Washington. “Trash bags are piled up on the sidewalk of 35th Avenue Northeast in Lake City. There are bikes with missing tires next to the line of RVs that line the busy Avenue. Neighbors have been reaching out to city officials, councilmembers and lawmakers looking for help in cleaning up the encampment, but they’ve gotten nowhere.”

“‘It is really disappointing and it’s not the Seattle I knew growing up,’ said Lily Crawford who grew up in Lake City and came back to Seattle after twenty years to raise her family. ‘It gets very volatile there, especially in the evenings,’ said Crawford. Her kids aren’t allowed to roam the neighborhood like she did as a child. ‘And we have to explain things to kids that are uncomfortable like why people are having fires there, why the police are always there, why trash bags are there, why people are putting needles into their bellybuttons.'”

NBC Bay Area in California. “A drop in housing prices by about 7% translates to more than a $100,000 in savings on a typical Bay Area home. For many, especially young buyers, the drop in housing prices is still not down far enough. ‘If I do well in my job, I can save up and eventually buy a house,’ San Jose resident Julien Chairez said. ‘But in this economy, and in this market in this area, I still don’t think it’s possible.'”

“San Francisco resident Samantha Styles told NBC Bay Area that her family is now on a month-to-month lease. Styles said her issue isn’t prices but the quality of life. ‘The reason that we want to leave is because the drugs are everywhere. I’m here with my daughter. We love San Francisco because we get to walk everywhere. Like that’s why I love this city. Now, I don’t carry a purse anymore. I put my wallet in my pocket. I don’t feel safe,’ she said.”

The New York Post. “Earlier this month, old-fashioned Xeroxed copies of a newspaper article appeared across the Mid-Market neighborhood in Downtown San Francisco. The article, from the San Francisco Chronicle, featured the headline: “S.F. D.A. Brooke Jenkins says she’ll consider murder charges for fentanyl dealers.” The article was taped to walls on neighborhood corners regularly frequented by drug dealers. At least one of those Xerox copies had the headline translated into Spanish — all the better for the dealers in question, most of whom are Honduran nationals, to get the message.”

“Strange as it might sound to most non-San Franciscans, the kind of overt political opposition to open drug dealing that Dorsey and Jenkins represent is a challenge to the city’s political establishment. San Francisco is governed by a leadership that is so enamored of the city’s progressive, humanitarian self-image that the idea of enforcing basic laws — even ones that save people’s lives like controlling drug sales and consumption — has come to be regarded as reactionary. But conditions in the city have gotten so bad that San Francisco’s voters have begun to revolt. Living in a city whose downtown doubles as an outdoor drug den is becoming intolerable even for many notoriously tolerant San Franciscans.”

“‘Open drug use has been normalized to the point there are blocks where the entire sidewalk is filled with people passed out or getting high,’ said Kevin Lee, a San Francisco resident who is in recovery himself. ‘There is not enough emphasis on creating access to treatment.'”

From CBC News in Canada. “Walk, drive or cycle through Toronto on any given day and you’re bound to come across examples of public infrastructure or amenities not working as they should. Construction debris littered across a sidewalk. A pothole-filled road. A broken garbage bin stuffed to the brim. A drinking fountain that doesn’t spout water. A locked washroom in a public park. A bike lane that abruptly ends.”

“A city spokesperson says these are mostly isolated, temporary issues that quickly get fixed and that Toronto is generally in ‘very good shape.’ But for some residents, it feels like the place they call home is falling into a state of disrepair. ‘You walk … in New York City years ago and it was disgusting. Now we are looking the same way,’ Alistair Francois told CBC Toronto in an interview outside city hall last week. ‘We used to be the city that people admired worldwide; now we’re not.'”

The Toronto Sun. “There’s an adage that ‘inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods.’ If there are too many consumers and not enough goods or services to go around, prices go up. And up. Now consider another fact: According to Bank of Canada numbers, the money supply (the number of dollars in circulation in Canada) grew by more than 22% between the start of the pandemic and spring this year. That means more than one in five dollars currently in circulation in Canada didn’t exist pre-pandemic. When you think about it, that’s a staggering amount.”

“As the Trudeau government kept spending (and spending and spending) on pandemic related ‘relief’ programs, the Bank of Canada kept pumping out more and more new money to cover this orgy of government expenditure. While the Trudeau government and the Bank of Canada have spent more than a year denying any blame for inflation, the truth of the matter is the biggest single cause of Canada’s inflation is the tsunami of extra cash the government and the bank pumped into the economy.”

“That money is mostly still sloshing around out there. It’s also one of the biggest reasons housing prices have skyrocketed: There are hundreds of billions of dollars on the market and a limited supply of housing. The Trudeau Liberals spent almost $400 billion on pandemic subsidies – by far the most, per capita, in the developed world. They didn’t have an extra $400 billion to spend. They didn’t tax an extra $400 billion from Canadians. What they did was issue bonds in that amount (a form of borrowing) and because there weren’t enough private or institutional investors interested, the Bank of Canada chipped in and created enough new money to cover Justin Trudeau’s massive overspending.”

“Even though the bank claimed repeatedly that it wasn’t responsible for inflation, surely its staff had to know that all this extra money flooding the economy would lead to waaaay too much money chasing goods.”

From Market Watch. “The Nobel Memorial Prize awarded to Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig is controversial, to say the least. Mainstream economists are generally delighted that the Nobel Committee has at last honored research into banks and their fragility. But heterodox economists who have spent years trying to change prevailing beliefs about banking and finance are spitting blood. This time, I am firmly on the side of the heterodox economists. I do not think this prize is deserved. No, I would go further. I think it is actively harmful. It confers authority on models that misrepresent how banks actually work, and makes it much harder for heterodox economists — including the brave researchers at the Bank of England who have done so much to advance understanding of modern monetary economics — to counter the pervasive myths about banking and finance that have too often led to damaging policy errors.”

“Diamond and Dybvig’s paper on bank runs spawned an entire literature on financial frictions. Bernanke’s work draws on theirs and adds insights into the link between credit and economic performance, though only for economic downturns — he largely ignores credit booms, with, as we shall see, unfortunate consequences.”

“But all their work relies on the ‘pure intermediary’ model of banking. And we now know that this model of banking is dangerously wrong. It omits the leveraging effect of bank credit creation. This is the key feature of the credit booms that always precede disastrous collapses like the Great Depression and Great Recession. Models that ignore bank credit creation, or worse, omit banks completely — as Bernanke’s paper with Gertler and Gilchrist on how credit markets propagate shocks through the economy does — cannot possibly explain how financial crises happen and why they are so devastating.”

“Belief that banks merely ‘channel’ savings to borrowers, rather than actively creating purchasing power through lending, led central bankers to ignore the build-up of leverage prior to the Great Financial Crisis. And it also led central bankers and governments to mishandle the recovery. Instead of supporting households and businesses, they threw money at banks. I regard this as one of the greatest policy errors of all time.”

“We now know that QE works not by stimulating bank lending, but by supporting asset prices. In the immediate aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, this short-circuited a disastrous debt deflationary spiral and probably did prevent a second Great Depression. As a result, Bernanke has been credited with ‘saving the world.’ But this was more by accident than design. What he was actually trying to do was blow up another credit bubble. We know this, because it’s what his academic work recommends. The work for which he has been given a Nobel prize.”

“Uncontrolled bank lending such as that which preceded the Great Financial Crisis isn’t normal. Central banks shouldn’t encourage it. And economists shouldn’t get Nobel prizes for recommending it.”

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This Post Has 129 Comments

  1. ‘homes that were initially going for like 250 to $300,000 back in 2018/2017 are now 5 to $600,000…’So, what’s happening is we came from all-time low interest rates, which allowed people who normally wouldn’t buy houses buy houses’

    ‘‘The days of throwing it on the market and hoping you get something close to it, those are done’

    We’ve seen quotes like this: UHS will say ‘you used to could ask fer the moon and get it.’

    And that’s not a bubble? There is a lack of discussion about this whole thing. Shack prices weren’t low before CCP virus. This insane episode is still sitting on top of what was a deflating bubble.

    As usual, we’ll get the ‘libtards get what they voted for good and hard.’ I’ve probably read that a hundred thousand times. Well guess what buddy: there’s fentanyl in yer hood, it’s in every hood. Those colorful pieces of paper in yer wallet: the life is getting sucked out of them. Waving this off as a liberals – bahh! issue is missing several key points.

    Recall the convergence of communist ‘movements’ like cancel rent and defund the police? They literally were using marxist slogans. And I got a bad feeling these globalist scum are in on it. This destruction of cities is not an accident, IMO.

    Fook that dog bernak-ie and the limo he rode in on.

    1. ‘homes that were initially going for like 250 to $300,000 back in 2018/2017 are now 5 to $600,000…’

      Mortgage math problem:

      If you cut mortgage rates by half, home prices roughly double.

      If you double mortgage rates, what happens to home prices?

    2. there’s fentanyl in yer hood, it’s in every hood.

      Drugs are definitely a problem even in the rural conservative areas of Pennsylvania.

      1. we all did drugs in college, a few went overboard and died or turned into junkies, but the rest got real responsible jobs and met women who were not into cigarettes or drugs and over time it was not a part of life anymore.

        1. That’s overly simplistic. I’m a libertarian. I’ve always thought drugs, even hard drugs should be legalized. So had I as a libertarian put together the current state of drug policies in these cities and it resulted in what we are seeing now, everybody would be saying you libertarians are nuts, look at the needles and filth! But somehow it gets this way through I don’t know what kinda ideology, and it gets worse very day.

          A libertarian realizes drug use has to come with self responsibility. You have to obey the laws. You can’t sleep on the streets. You can’t steal to pay for drugs. And you could say the same thing about bums. OK, you want to sleep outside, find a place where you are doing that without breaking laws.

          It’s a different motivation to say we don’t want to criminalize homelessness. If yer sh$ting on someones doorway, you just broke a law, homeless or not. And no amount of faux compassion can change that. Sh$tting on doorsteps is illegal, and it will always be illegal. So just how far are we going to let this run? Like a lot of things, I suspect this is being done to destroy. Like the pointless riots/lockdowns. Who would want to destroy without regard to sustainability, solutions or laws? Marxists. That’s the only conclusion I can see because this is not ‘progressive.’ Plus they exposed their communist background fer all to see.

          1. I really agree with you, I have always been in favor of legalizing drugs, I have never considered myself as a Demo Or Repub, even Libertarian was always in favor of a woman right to choose, and the same with bums, find a nice park out of the way almost nobody uses and live there,. Why it may be simplistic this was my experience once i got a responsible job at a tv station where i had to get up at 430am your priorities change real fast.

          1. Other than some weed in HS, never indulged, and don’t intend to. Always had too many responsibilities to go down that road.

      2. Agree, it’s everywhere. I just read that in Maine of all places drug overdoses are at record highs. I’m 56 and yes many of did drugs….me it was only weed which I still enjoy every now and then……but the stuff that’s out today did not exist in the 80’s. Even the weed is crazy now….one toke and I’m good….with a few beers. Lol.

        1. Drugs are bad here… and NH. Really bad. So like everything else that was deliberately allow to go to $hit in the name of getting rid of DJT, LE decided for whatever reason no to go after drug dealers. Who is going after them now? FBI. At least here in ME but there was a year or so nobody did anything about drug running and it exploded.

          Speaking of shitting on the front stoop and men pretending to be women, etc, pick any day or time and walk into the supermarket in downtown portland and you’ll see at least one guy dressed up in womans clothing, heels, etc. It’s truly fuqqed up here. They love their beggars here…. they’re at every intersection. And the one thing that stands out above all else is this….. the weirder you act here, the more accepted you are. It’s like a competition to see who can be the weirdest…. Oh yeah….they are drug dens on every corner… Legalized. That is no exaggeration.

          And the other thing…. Housing prices and rental rates are tanking every bit as quickly as they are in Boston. Especially rental rates. Landlords have very recently become accomodating to us. We rent houses and apartments from VA to ME…. Here and boston theyre looking to “work with us because we’re such good customers”.🤣

          1. 46&2 mentioned people living in vehicles etc. In Portland, roll into Walmart lots or heavy retail areas and you have scores of locals shacked up in vehicles, vans, etc. They’re mobile so during the day you’ll see them setup at the many parking/walking areas across ME and NH.

            Economic carnage indeed.

        2. Illegal drugs encourage drug running, violence, and death of law enforcement. If it’s illegal, “a little now and then”, contributes to death.

        3. Street drugs today are a Russian roulette because it could be fentynal or cut with it. Back in the days the risk of street drugs was getting weak or fake drugs. Now the risk is that you’re getting more than you asked for that could possible kill you.

          1. Street drugs today are a Russian roulette because it could be fentynal or cut with it
            Lots of ways to test your drugs availabe to the street user today. No reason unknown Fentnal should occur if they take the time to test.

    3. ‘Everything is so high. So, homes that were initially going for like 250 to $300,000 back in 2018/2017 are now 5 to $600,000. We may be kicked out of Palm Beach. We may have to consider moving elsewhere.’”

      Everybody is moving everywhere to try to escape high prices. What a piss poor way to run an economy.

  2. ‘Or just admit to yourself you’re taking a big gamble and go for it’

    You tell em Jim, date the rate!

  3. ‘So, what’s happening is we came from all-time low interest rates, which allowed people who normally wouldn’t buy houses buy houses’

    That sounds very familiar to subprime loans Matt.

    1. Same thought occurred to me we on reading that.

      Plus Uncle Warren’s advice:

      “You can’t tell who has been swimming naked until the tide goes out.”

    2. The Nobel Memorial Prize awarded to Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig is controversial, to say the least.

      “Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has expressed the view that very low short-term interest rates will be with us for a long time yet. Bernanke “does not expect the federal funds rate…to rise back to its long term average of around 4% in [his] lifetime,” Reuters quotes a source as saying.”

      https://www.aei.org/economics/how-much-can-interest-rates-change-in-bernankes-lifetime/

      “Given the fundamental factors in place that should support the demand for housing, we believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited,” Bernanke said.

      https://www.forbes.com/2007/05/17/bernanke-subprime-speech-markets-equity-cx_er_0516markets02.html?sh=53a83e5410e1

  4. ‘The self-generated computer leads that we would normally get are just diving…I went from getting five appointments a day to getting five in a week’

    Just as Las Vegas prices are rolling over and supply is through the roof.

    1. Re-post repeat, this article needs more attention.

      Heavily armed Antifa militants ‘stand guard’ outside Texas ‘kid friendly’ drag show (8/29/2022):

      “Kris Cruz from Blaze TV reported that Antifa militants armed with AR-15s acted as “bodyguards” and escorted attendees to their vehicles. He added that Antifa and the staff worked together to provide “protection” for attendees.

      Kruz also reported that Antifa was placed strategically during the “kid friendly” drag show and “was armed like snipers on the 3rd floor of the parking garage.”

      https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-heavily-armed-antifa-militants-stand-guard-outside-texas-kid-friendly-drag-show

          1. Actually GB New is Great Britain, so she’s got MI5 to worry about. Just as Feckless as our arsehole FIB

    2. Under NZ’s Ardern government, a judge declares a 12 year can consent to sex with an adult

      I’ll bet that anyone who tries to diddle one of Ardern’s kids will wind up in an unmarked grave.

  6. A reader sent these in:

    FT Economics

    Annual mortgage bills to rise by £5,100 for 5mn UK households, study shows

    https://twitter.com/fteconomics/status/1581058902367834112

    Heard a story today about a couple who just bought a house toward the peak last spring. Both work in mortgage biz. Both laid off. Each have a rental house—that they rent to someone they know from the mortgage biz. Who are now also laid off.

    https://twitter.com/urbnist/status/1580722038074769408

    I have had more brokers pitch me CRE deals in the last 2 weeks than all of 2021 and the rest of 2022 combined. Liquidity is getting thin everywhere.

    https://twitter.com/RJRCapital/status/1581038920552570880

    Stephen Punwasi 🪧🗳😻 | Toronto Mayoral Candidate

    I think I finally got it.

    Canada is…
    – 5 banks,
    – 2 telecom monopolies,
    – 3 oil companies,
    – 2 grocery barons,
    – 4 real estate developers,
    – 3 organized crime syndicates,
    – 6 political dynasties, and
    – 2 housing bubbles

    … in a trench coat.

    https://twitter.com/StephenPunwasi/status/1395499826045886468

    2. “Canada is…”

      Full of trd worlders.

      Invite them, become one. Same saga in every western country.

    3. The mortgage people buying at the peak with rental houses renting to mortgage people is so true. It’s like they are all so deeply involved they just can’t see it.

      And realtors are always the last to know (notice)

    4. Heard a story today about a couple who just bought a house toward the peak last spring. Both work in mortgage biz. Both laid off. Each have a rental house—that they rent to someone they know from the mortgage biz. Who are now also laid off.

      What we have found is that the people in all of these businesses with hyperinflated prices – houses, cars, RVs, etc. – have been the ones buying and driving prices higher. Just like last time when all the REALTWHORES had handfuls of houses. Encouraging speculation in shelter is bad policy.

  7. “We may be kicked out of Palm Beach. We may have to consider moving elsewhere”

    Cheer up Genide, this is Joe Biden’s United States and his open borders fentanyl policy appears to have a unit opening up for you in Boynton Beach.

    Boynton Beach woman arrested after 10-month-old girl ingests fentanyl and dies, authorities say

    By: Matt Papaycik
    Posted at 11:48 AM, Oct 12, 2022

    BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. — A Boynton Beach woman is under arrest after authorities said a 10-month-old infant in her care ingested the highly dangerous and toxic drug fentanyl and died.

    Kelly Kirwan, 32, was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail late Tuesday on a charge of aggravated manslaughter of a child.

    Palm Beach County detectives and crime scene personnel executed a search warrant at Kirwan’s apartment and found an empty capsule on the bed in the master bedroom, and a second capsule “appearing to have chew marks on it” floating in a toilet.

    A baby pacifier was found on the bed near the empty capsule.

    https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/boynton-beach/boynton-beach-woman-arrested-after-10-month-old-girl-ingests-fentanyl-and-dies-police-say

  8. Is it safe to assume that a Fed pivot is just around the corner, and interest rates, and particularly mortgage rates, will soon fall back to rock bottom levels that fueled the pandemic housing boom?

    1. The Federal Reserve
      Hopes of Federal Reserve pivot fade in face of alarming US inflation figures
      Central bank unlikely to soften aggressive tightening programme any time soon, say economists
      The US Federal Reserve building
      Federal Reserve officials appear united in their resolve to maintain an aggressive stance as long as necessary to cool the US economy
      Colby Smith in Washington
      October 13 2022

      For a central bank looking for signs that the worst inflation problem in decades is starting to slowly recede, Thursday’s report on US consumer price growth was about as bad as it gets.

      While the annual pace was little changed at 8.2 per cent, the index showed another alarming jump on a monthly basis, suggesting underlying inflationary pressures are still accelerating. Stripping out volatile items such as food and energy, the “core” CPI measure was up 6.6 per cent compared with the same time last year.

      The larger than expected increase leaves the Federal Reserve with little choice but to press ahead with a fourth consecutive 0.75 percentage point increase at its upcoming policy meeting in early November.

      Economists say it is also likely to push the US central bank to continue its supersized rate rises beyond that point and at least until there is more clear-cut evidence that price pressures are easing.

      “There is a persistence in inflation that if you are the Fed has got to be deeply worrying,” said Ajay Rajadhyaksha, global chair of research at Barclays. “Most people have felt like we are just about to turn, whether it be on jobs or on inflation, and it doesn’t happen and it doesn’t happen and it doesn’t happen.”
      …

      1. I mean, you run a financial orgy for 20years with super-low rates, 20T newly printed money, and free helicopter money for everyone, and simply expect the consequences to go away in three minuscule rate hikes and a few months? They can’t be that ignorant! Can they?
        It’ll be decades of pain a misery before this will be all sorted out.

        1. That’s what’s so hilarious about the pivot people. They think a few months of rate hikes then it’s back to rate cuts and QE. If that were the case, the FED wouldn’t even bother with the rate hikes, they’d just continue stoking inflation. The people calling for a pivot are the ones getting barbecued financially.

    2. The Fed continuing from here with three quarter point hikes seems about as likely as the Padres defeating the Dodgers in the playoffs.

    3. With mortgage rates near 7%, the housing party is over. Now it’s hangover time
      Updated October 13, 2022 10:19 AM ET
      Chris Arnold 2016 square
      4-Minute Listen

      Mike Johansen stands by the door of the camping trailer where the couple is living while they wait for construction on their new home to be finished.

      These days Andrea and Mike Johansen are not living their best life. It’s temporary but the couple is crammed into a small camping trailer at her parents farm in western Massachusetts, across from a barn with 100 very noisy chickens.

      “It starts at like 4:30 in the morning,” Andrea says. “You’re trying to have zoom calls for work and when the sun starts going down, they start all over again… going bonkers.”

      The Johansens thought they’d be in a newly built house by now. But with supply chain delays it’s not finished. And so what was supposed to be a quick stay in the camper between homes is dragging on.

      For the Johansens it’s looking like a $360,000 mortgage is going to cost them about $800 more on the monthly payment. And that’s going to be tough.

      “We’re living in the trailer because we can’t afford to live anywhere else,” Andrea says. “Our belongings are in storage and that’s almost $1000 a month.”

      Mortgage rates have gone through the roof. The weekly average for a 30-year fixed rate loan is now 6.92% according to a closely watched report released today. That’s the highest in 20 years, and up from 3% at the start of the year. Rising rates have slowed the pace of home sales for 7 straight months as frustrated buyers throw up their hands and give up, unable to afford the bigger payments.
      …
      https://www.npr.org/2022/10/12/1128139117/mortgages-housing-prices-hangover-party-rates

      1. “That’s the highest in 20 years, and up from 3% at the start of the year.”

        That’s back to 2002 levels, before Housing Bubble 1.0 really ballooned.

        Multi-trillion dollar question:

        Is the Housing Bubble finally ending, or will the Fed eventually pull off another hair-of-the-dog hangover cure to keep it going?

        1. “or will the Fed eventually pull off another hair-of-the-dog ”

          Yes they will in Spring ’23. What’s worse is Treasury and state/local governments will do all they can until the Fed ‘pivots.’

          1. There’s no “pivot” coming, Butters. You keep moving the goal posts. It’s high interest rates for a decade or more.

      2. Is it bad of me to feel no empathy for the trailer people who find themselves facing massive rate hikes on the mortgage on their unfinished house?

        It seems like they made a risky plan that didn’t work out for them. Whose fault is that?

        1. I’ve never built a house on credit, but I would have assumed the financing details would be set before purchasing land and starting construction.

          1. You can’t get a normal home mortgage on something that’s not built yet, and for good reason — there’s no collateral other than the land and perhaps building materials.

            Instead you can get a short term construction loan with higher rates due to risk of not completing the house, and refinance that into a normal mortgage once there is actually a house to serve as collateral. You can’t lock the rate on that until construction is complete, so if rates move against you in the meantime, that’s a problem.

          2. You can’t lock the rate on that until construction is complete, so if rates move against you in the meantime, that’s a problem.

            Date that rate!

          3. ou can’t get a normal home mortgage on something that’s not built yet, and for good reason — there’s no collateral other than the land and perhaps building materials.

            Not 100% true. We got a construction-to-perm loan, rate locked, only one closing. We paid cash for the land…the loan is against the constructed house – draws are done as construction happens, with the constructed house (and the land – an important part) as collateral.

      3. “Mike is a CPA and Andrea works as an engineer. They can afford the higher mortgage payment, but it will mean they can’t spend or save money for other important things.”

        Sounds they’re stretching too much, i.e., house poor?

    4. The Financial Times
      Opinion The FT View
      Global economic warning lights are flashing red
      Policymakers need to be level-headed and focus on building resilience
      The editorial board
      Central bank heads Haruhiko Kuroda, Christine Lagarde, Jay Powell and Andrew Bailey
      The editorial board 35 minutes ago

      “Polycrisis”: this was the description Jean-Claude Juncker gave the nexus of challenges facing the EU in 2016, when he was European Commission president. Last week the International Monetary Fund underscored how multiple clouds — including the European energy crisis, rapid interest rate rises and China’s slowdown — have been gathering over the global economy. What has seemed like separate crises emerging from many different regions and markets are now coalescing: we may be facing a polycrisis on a global scale.

      It is rare for so many engines of the global economy to be stalling all at once: countries accounting for one-third of it are poised to contract this year or next, according to the IMF. Indeed, its outlook for the largest economies — the US, the eurozone and China — is bleak. As global inflation rates have touched their highest in 40 years, central banks have been raising interest rates this year with a synchronicity not seen in the past five decades, and the US dollar has hit its strongest level since the early 2000s. These forces are driving the gloomy forecasts and creating new strains.

      Emerging economies have been saddled with higher dollar-denominated debt burdens and disruptive capital outflows. Meanwhile, mortgage rates and corporate borrowing costs have surged across the world. Many gauges of financial market stress are also flashing red, as the rapid snapback in rates from lows during the pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities. Fire-sale dynamics are an ongoing risk, as UK pension funds recently demonstrated.
      …

      1. tl;dr: “I think they are going to keep raising interest rates. If you are [the] Federal Reserve, you are playing a global game, and what you have to do is protect the reserve currency status.”

      2. “a Fed pivot is just around the corner”

        Wishful thinking. Their goal is to keep the boomer demographic from emptying the US Treasury and get them 6 foot in the ground as quickly as possible. The winner(fed gov) takes all.

        Did you really think that demanding “your” social security was going to work? And isn’t it odd the way people think? Their sense of entitlement? 40 years of bought down subsidized rates and all these broke people talk about pivots? SS barely works with 8% rates. Yup…. broke assed debt donkeys were promised by the Feds the social security “obligation” would be met…… They simply omitted the fact it won’t be worth much.

        Pividiots.

  9. “So, what’s happening is we came from all-time low interest rates, which allowed people who normally wouldn’t buy houses buy houses.’”

    All-time low interest rates combined with all-time low inventory numbers. Both of which are long gone. And idiots and relitters and idiotic relitters (redundant I know) think that some portion of the gains from the last two years will not evaporate into thin air.

  10. “The number of active listings in September for residences in Grays Harbor was significantly higher than a year ago, growing by almost 90% in both Aberdeen and Hoquiam”

    Aberdeen, home to Kurt Cobain and voted the most depressing city in Washington, where it rains about 80 inches per year and everyone is a meth head, had a housing bubble? Well, color me surprised.

    1. “where it rains about 80 inches per year and everyone is a meth head, had a housing bubble? Well, color me surprised.”

      That’s funny. Thank you.

  11. Are you enjoying the latest incarnation of the Fed’s magical wealth effects? They were a lot more fun back when Quantitative Easing was first introduced.

    1. Markets
      DOW 29,634.83 1.34%
      S&P 500 3,583.07 2.37%
      NASDAQ 10,321.39 3.08%

      Fear & Greed Index
      A ‘tectonic shift’ in global wealth that will take years to recover from
      By Nicole Goodkind, CNN Business
      Updated 10:09 AM EDT, Fri October 14, 2022

      New York CNN Business —

      Markets plunged on Thursday morning after red-hot inflation data raised fears on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve would continue hiking interest rates aggressively. Then, something strange happened.

      Stocks staged a massive comeback. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 1,500 points from peak to trough and the S&P 500 posted its widest trading range since March 2020, ending the day up more than 2%.

      What’s happening: The consumer price index, or CPI, rose 0.4% in September from the previous month, double the 0.2% estimate from analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. On an annual basis, inflation was up 8.2%.

      The Fed can’t be happy about the report. In the minutes of the its September meeting, released on Wednesday, officials expressed concern about the “risk of significant adverse effects on the economic outlook” if inflation continues to accelerate.

      So what explains the sharp divergence between markets and seemingly terrible inflation data? Investors could be betting that the stronger-than-expected inflation report means price increases are near their peak. The rollercoaster market illustrates how investors are desperately grasping for clues about what the Fed will do next.

      In the meantime, unbridled inflation is hitting households hard, highlighting a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street.

      The big picture: Household wealth is on track for its first significant reduction since the financial crisis in 2008, according to a new report by financial services company Allianz.

      Global assets are set to decline by more than 2% in 2022, Allianz reports. That means households, on average, will lose about a tenth of their wealth this year.
      …
      https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/14/investing/premarket-trading-stocks/index.html

      1. Is the US Stock market heading towards a disaster?
        October 14, 2022 3:58 pm UTC, Michalis Efthymiou, Market Analyst at NAGA
        September’s CPI figures came in worse than expected, taking the US stock market on a rollercoaster ride. NAGA’s market analyst, Michalis Efthymiou thinks about it

        NAGA’s market analysts have been speaking about the level of inflation and its effect on the stock market since the very beginning of summer 2022. Another set of CPI and Core CPI figures have been made public and what they’ve shown us is that inflation is not showing signs of slowdown. The situation does not seem to be any better and interest rate hikes don’t really seem to be working. So what does this mean for the US equities market?

        Well, when the CPI figures were published, US indices declined up to 4.7% within 75 minutes. This definitely consists of one of the sharpest declines of 2022. The large downward movement eventually triggered pending orders and investors looking to benefit from the discounted price. But why have investors reacted this way and will the market remain under pressure going forward?
        …
        https://financefeeds.com/is-the-us-stock-market-heading-towards-a-disaster/

      2. households, on average, will lose about a tenth of their wealth this year

        For the fortunate few who have stored some wealth against a rainy day, that won’t crush them. For those steeped in massive debt, the approaching implosion will vaporize their so-called assets.

        1. households, on average, will lose about a tenth of their wealth this year”

          At least twice that but it wont crush me.

        2. “households, on average, will lose about a tenth of their wealth this year”

          Notice how they talk about things that dont exist? Anyone that babbles about their ‘loss of wealth” are insolvent to begin with.

    2. Money Investing
      The Stock Market Is a Hot Mess. 5 Experts Predict What’s Next

      ‘Further declines’, or ‘reasonable returns?’ Experts have varied predictions for the months ahead.
      Rebecca Safier headshot
      Rebecca Safier
      Oct. 16, 2022 4:45 a.m. PT
      6 min read

      An investor pulling out his hair while reviewing a stock ticker
      It’s been a rough year for the stock market.
      Naomi Antonino/CNET; Witthaya Prasongsin/Getty Images

      This story is part of Recession Help Desk, CNET’s coverage of how to make smart money moves in an uncertain economy.

      Investors were left spinning again this week as the stock market dropped into bear territory once more. Global uncertainty, high inflation and rate hikes have marked a dizzying year for the market.

      Now we’re wondering: What comes next?

      With inflation still uncomfortably high and another aggressive rate hike expected from the Federal Reserve next month, the market is likely in for a bumpy ride.

      “Investors should brace themselves for more market volatility,” said Mahesh Odhrani, certified financial planner and president of financial planning firm, Strategic Wealth Design.

      The market’s short-term fate is contingent on multiple factors, so any predictions about what comes next are simply educated guesses. The Fed has raised interest rates five times this year in an effort to curb inflation. Now, a recession seems more likely than a “soft landing,” according to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. And though it’s impossible to say how deep that recession might be or how long it will last, such a downturn will definitely inflict more pain across the board, including an uptick in unemployment.
      …
      https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/investing/the-stock-market-is-a-hot-mess-5-experts-predict-whats-next/

  12. ‘So, what’s happening is we came from all-time low interest rates, which allowed people who normally wouldn’t buy houses buy houses.’”

    You mean, it allowed the non-creditworthy to sign mortgages for insanely overprices shacks they’ll never be able to afford and will end up losing to foreclosure. Real sound lending there.

    1. Certainly the victims of their own poor decisions to buy overpriced houses they can’t afford will soon be offered personalized bailouts.

  13. As a result, Bernanke has been credited with ‘saving the world.’ But this was more by accident than design. What he was actually trying to do was blow up another credit bubble.

    The Fed has had one true “mandate” since its 1913 clandestine establishment by the robber barons of the era: serve as the oligarchy’s chief instrument of plunder against the 99 percent.

  14. Does anyone besides me find it patently insane to use valuable electricity resources to mine imaginary currency?

    1. Business
      A Huge Glut of Bitcoin Mining Rigs Is Sitting Unused in Boxes
      The situation is further disrupting the economics of a sector already hit by low crypto prices and high energy costs.
      By Eliza Gkritsi
      AccessTimeIcon
      Oct 14, 2022 at 12:09 p.m. CDT
      Updated Oct 14, 2022 at 12:13 p.m. CDT

      Hundreds of thousands of brand new mining rigs that could be generating bitcoin (BTC) have never been used, further skewing the economics of cryptocurrency mining, a sector that has been hit hard by sinking prices for bitcoin and other tokens and by high energy costs.

      Last year, miners struggled to buy enough rigs. Manufacturers couldn’t fulfill orders fast enough. Now, Matt Schultz, executive chairman of bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK), figures 250,000 to 500,000 mining rigs are still sealed up in boxes in the U.S. alone, based on his conversations with analysts. Ethan Vera, chief operating officer of mining services firm Luxor Technologies, put the number at 276,000 worldwide in September.

      Whatever the exact number is, this much is clear: The economics at the core of crypto are completely out of whack. More evidence of that came in September when Compute North, which runs data centers that host mining computers, filed for bankruptcy.

      The reasons aren’t hard to follow: The price of bitcoin and other tokens have plunged dramatically, making the digital assets that miners earn less valuable. And miners’ costs have risen because of skyrocketing energy prices. It takes a lot of electricity to mine bitcoin, a process that involves specialized computers, known as mining rigs or machines, guessing the answer to an equation to receive bitcoin as a reward.
      …
      https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/10/14/a-huge-glut-of-bitcoin-mining-rigs-are-sitting-unused-in-boxes/

    1. Attorney General Merrick Garland is the enemy of the American people.

      His primary loyalty is not to the United States.

      Merrick Garland is an agent of white genocide. He hates white people, he hates Christianity, and he hates America.

    2. Sir, are you somehow insinuating that a criminal enterprise masquerading as a political party, whose entire business model is built on patronage, graft, and unchecked corruption, would engage in electoral fraud? After the MSM Ministry of Truth has assured us these accusations are “baseless”? Could one of our HBB ladies lend me your pearls, that I might clutch them?

      Stacey Abrams’ PAC Paid Thousands of Dollars to a Director’s Family and Friends for Little or No Work Performed

      https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/10/15/stacey-abrams-pac-paid-thousands-of-dollars-to-a-directors-family-and-friends-for-little-or-no-work-performed-n1637302

  17. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti Defamation League are Marxist terrorist organizations whose primary mission is the extermination of America’s white, Christian population.

    They are the servants of Satan.

  18. Any thoughts on how soon the sh!tstorm brewing in the housing market will hit Wall Street? It took quite a while in the 2007-2009 episode.

  19. “I think, therefore I am.” — Descartes

    “I lie, therefore I sell real estate.” — Every NAR dissembler

    1. Wouldn’t it be: “I sell real estate, therefore I lie”

      Not all liars sell real estate. Some sell used cars. Others are members of the Democrat party.

  21. Two years ago we had $2 gas, 2% inflation and mean tweets by the President.
    Today we have $4 gas, 8.1% inflation (🤣), and a new President threatening nuclear war.

    Thanks Democrats.

    1. Remember, these people all have NAMES.

      They have names, addresses, commuting routines, always visit the same Starbucks and dry cleaners.

      They have observable behavior patterns, and they’re probably not armed while walking the dog in their neighborhood at 7pm.

      4chan has all of this information. It’s up to the leaderless resistance to decide what to do with it.

      P.S. this isn’t your country, globalist sh*tbags.

  22. “Bradshaw said he’s been left with no choice but to take on another job. ‘I have to drive for Lyft now. I get up about 3 o’clock in the morning and drive everyone to the airport or get them to work. Then I do my job and as soon as I get off, I have to start driving again to keep the money coming that I had been used to.’”

    Gee, not everyone is an overpaid politician, banker, or high school dropout actress? Some actually work?

    1. Just think of how advanced medical science would of been had the Rockerfeller created , Big Pharmacy Monopoly not prevailed.

      Fake Covid 19 Pandemic declared based on fake PCR testing.
      Fake lockdowns and masking and looting of tax coffers by this pre planned fraud.
      Fake vaccines.
      Fraudulent suppression of cheap safe drugs that cured Covid , that would of disqualified EUA of a expiermental vaccine.
      Cover up of massive death and injury from vaccines , that in a sane world would of taken the deadly vaccine off the market.
      People like in the Military, other government workers, and health providers are still under mandate to take the shot or lose their job.
      The Declaration of Covid Pandemic was just reinstated, so they are not going to stop this assault on humanity.
      And , under the Climate Change fraud, we are to just watch famine and freezing, just like we are watching death and injury from the fake vaccines.
      And all this death, destruction and mayhem is the agenda of unelected International Mega Corporations, Banks and Rich Entities infiltration and corruption of Governments and Government Agencies and the UN.
      This insanity was pre-planned , as the evidence shows.

      1. They’re trying to scare us with a new variant they claim can get around natural immunity and previous jabs, so get the latest booster before it’s too late! Nevermind that the current booster isn’t for the new variant.

        I think I’ve seen this episode before, more than once. Meanwhile the infection rate, even with bogus numbers, continues to decline.

  26. U.S. B-52 Stratofortress Bombers to Lead NATO Nuclear Drills over Europe

    SIMON KENT
    16 Oct 2022

    U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers will lead fighter jets from Belgium, Germany, and 12 other countries across Europe’s skies on annual nuclear exercises Monday, amid reports Russia has increased the number of strategic bombers close to its border with NATO-member state Norway.

    The annual NATO training is going ahead despite rising fears President Vladimir Putin might consider a real nuclear strike in Ukraine.

    Up to 60 aircraft are taking part in training flights alongside the American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bombers over Belgium, the North Sea and Britain to practise the use of U.S. nuclear bombs based in Europe, Reuters reports.

    The jets will be escorted by other warplanes along with refuelling aircraft and spy planes.

    “Steadfast Noon” is likely to coincide with Moscow’s own annual nuclear drills, dubbed “Grom”, which are normally conducted in late October and in which Russia tests its nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles.

    NATO said the Western drills were not prompted by the latest tensions with Russia but simply a continuation of training schedules.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/10/16/u-s-b-52-stratofortress-bombers-to-lead-nato-nuclear-drills-over-europe/

    2. Zelensky’s parents live in a $8 million house with a $12,000 a month security detail.

      Who paid for that? You did. Your American tax dollars are paying for all of it.

      You will never be seen as anything more than cattle to these people. Your existence is only tolerated to provide tax revenue to fund the destruction of the nation that your ancestors founded.

      Go back to work on Monday, slaves. Pay more taxes to send that money to Zelensky, suckers.

    1. He said the rate of uptake for fourth doses by Ontarians aged 70 and older — around 16 per cent — was “not acceptable”

      Even the geezers understand that it’s over. Clearly, the PTB haven’t obtained the sudden death count they were targeting, so get the booster before it’s too late.

      1. Speaking of geezers, I have a 70+ neighbor ( a refugee from the People’s Republic of Boulder). She felt deathly ill after the second jab and has told me that “she’s done with them”

    1. Why shouldn’t he lie? Does he care if he “gets slammed”? Do any of them care? Does Fetterman care that it was pointed out that members of his staff are convicted murderers?

      They don’t care. In fact, they laugh.

  29. Canada is a cuck nation. They have pictures of the queen on their money, and soon King Charles.

    Ontario’s top doctor urges mask wearing, warns mandate could return:

    “Ontario’s top doctor fears rising COVID-19 cases and the approach of winter could further jeopardize the province’s struggling health-care system, forcing the Ford government to potentially re-implement a mandatory masking policy if the situation worsens.

    In an interview with Global News, Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s medical officer of health, urged people to get vaccines, boosters and wear a mask to avoid an unmanageable surge in hospital admissions.

    He said the rate of uptake for fourth doses by Ontarians aged 70 and older — around 16 per cent — was “not acceptable” and said public health measures like mandatory masking could return “if necessary.”

    “Sixteen per cent is absolutely not acceptable to me,” he said, urging people to book an appointment.

    https://globalnews.ca/news/9196496/ontario-covid-19-kieran-moore-booster-masks/

    Citizens don’t wear masks.

    Only slaves wear masks.

    1. fourth doses by Ontarians aged 70 and older — around 16 per cent

      I don’t think it’s much higher than that in the general population. Too many people holding “unacceptable views” these days. I was up there for Canadian Thanksgiving last week and heard some of it.

      Word about myocarditis (SP?) from the vax is leaking out in Ontario. The new official narrative is that you’ll get it six times as bad if you catch covid. I asked if the vax would help, since it doesn’t stop transmission. Met with a glazed look of course.

      1. Sounds like Ford and Trudeau will soon be expressing that they are “losing their patience” with the unjabbed and unboosted in Ontario and Canaduh in general and that no jab, no job mandates are the next step.

        Word about myocarditis (SP?) from the vax is leaking out in Ontario.

        I read on Vox Popoli’s website that the sudden death count for young and healthy canuck doctors is up to 80 and is growing.

  30. Gateway Pundit — Facebook Suspends Wife of FBI Whistleblower Steve Friend After She Responds in Private Message to Post Asking if Family Needs Help (10/16/2022):

    “In July FBI whistleblowers revealed to Congressional Republicans that FBI leadership is ‘pressuring’ agents to artificially pad domestic terrorism data.

    According to the FBI agents the Bureau is weaving a narrative that helps the Biden Regime while painting Trump supporters as terrorists. This really comes as no surprise since we are living this in real time.

    According to the latest whistleblower, the FBI is moving agents off of child sexual abuse investigations to instead pursue political investigations.

    The whistleblower says the FBI is creating a false narrative by reclassifying Jan. 6 cases as separate instances of “domestic terrorism.”

    The FBI whistleblower described how a “manipulative” practice by the FBI overstates the “domestic violent extremism” (DVE) threat nationwide by categorizing Jan 6-related cases as originating in field offices around the country rather than “stemming from a single, black swan incident” in Washington, D.C.”

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/facebook-spying-facebook-suspends-wife-fbi-whistleblower-steve-friend-responds-private-message-post-asking-family-needs-help/

    “Garland” is not Attorney General Merrick Garland’s ancestral surname. It certainly was something else before his family arrived at Ellis Island.

    You’re not fooling anybody. That fake Irish / Anglo sounding name isn’t fooling anybody.

  31. A Democrat Virginia state delegate has backed down from introducing a bill to expand the definition of child abuse to include inflicting “physical or mental injury” on children due to their gender identity or sexual orientation.

    In her interview with local ABC7 on Thursday, Del. Elizabeth Guzman (D-Prince William) said parents who didn’t affirm their children’s choice of gender identity could incur Child Protective Services (CPS) charges that might cause harm to the parents’ employment.

    She added that she wanted to do this to counter the transgender student policy recently released by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). The draft policy requires public schools to acquire written parental consent before treating a student as a different gender.

    “Children are scared. Governor Youngkin and Republicans are putting LGBTQ kids at serious risk of harm and homelessness by encouraging schools to out children to their parents,” Guzman said in a tweet on Friday. She didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’s inquiry.

    On the same day, Virginia House Minority Leader Don Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said that he spoke to Guzman, and she had assured him that she wouldn’t introduce the reported bill. In addition, he called the bill “unnecessary” and “a distraction” to key Congressional races in Virginia.

    Stacy Langton, a Fairfax County mother of six and a Republican, has been fighting to remove obscene books in the county school libraries. She told The Epoch Times, “I would like to take this moment to thank Delegate Guzman for committing the Terry McAuliffe gaffe for the 2022 midterm elections.”

    She was referring to former Virginia Gov. McAuliffe’s debate comment that is generally believed to have cost him a second term. “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” McAuliffe said in September 2021, during the early voting period of the gubernatorial election.

    “Thank you for winning us all the elections in Virginia. Literally, the damage is done. She can’t undo what she did. And she just did a Terry McAuliffe-size gaffe!” Langton added. “It’s Terry McAuliffe part two! Terry McAuliffe 2.0!”

    Guzman’s proposal has attracted national attention. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Guzman’s proposed legislation “Utterly horrifying.” “These zealots think they are your children’s parents, and they’ll put you in jail if you disagree,” he said in a tweet on Friday.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/virginia-democrat-lawmaker-backs-down-from-lgbt-bill-parent-terry-mcauliffe-size-gaffe-for-midterms_4798837.html

    1. On the same day, Virginia House Minority Leader Don Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said that he spoke to Guzman, and she had assured him that she wouldn’t introduce the reported bill. In addition, he called the bill “unnecessary” and “a distraction” to key Congressional races in Virginia.

      “Are you f***ing nuts!?” He told her. Too late. This will make for great final stretch campaign ads in Virginia.

        1. Accompanying video worth a look for anyone interested in either side of this discussion.

          Tucker Carlson: Joe Biden says 8-year-olds can be transgender, despite increased rates of suicide

          Propaganda by Facebook and Google keep Americans from seeing research into the effects

          Tucker Carlson By Tucker Carlson | Fox News
          Published May 25, 2021

          If you ask questions about the wisdom of gender reassignment surgery, you’ll be accused immediately of pushing the vulnerable toward self-harm. In fact, there’s quite a bit of evidence of the opposite. Gender reassignment surgery and chemical castration cause depression and exacerbate mental illness. This is known. Just five years ago, a study by the Obama administration found no positive health benefits from this kind of so-called treatment. In a 2016 document called the “Proposed Decision Memo for Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery,” Obama officials concluded that,

          “Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence available at this time, there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria.”

          Why wasn’t there enough evidence? The Obama administration found that many sex change patients were quote, “lost to follow-up.” Why is that? Many of those patients had likely killed themselves.

          Researchers in Sweden found the same thing. After ten years of study, the Swedes concluded that people who underwent sex reassignment surgery were 19% more likely to commit suicide. Their risk of psychiatric hospitalization was nearly three times greater. In other words, it was an utter disaster.

          Yet strikingly, most Americans are not aware of these numbers. They’ve never seen this research. They’re not allowed to see it. Instead, they see a daily barrage of propaganda, most of it online, made possible by Google and Facebook. That propaganda has a very specific effect, as intended.

          https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-joe-biden-8-year-olds-transgender-increased-rates-suicide

          1. From the video…

            Another person who spoke to “60 Minutes,” a man identified as Garrett, told Stahl that doctors rushed him into a sex-change operation. After just three months of taking female hormones, they castrated him.

            LESLEY STAHL: Garrett from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, went from taking hormones to getting his testicles removed, he says in just three months, whereas the current guidelines call for continuous use for a year.

            GARRETT: I had never really been suicidal before until I had my breast augmentation. And about a week afterward, I wanted to, like, actually kill myself. Like, I had a plan and I was gonna do it but I just kept thinking about, like, my family to stop myself. It kind of felt like how am I ever going to feel normal again, like other guys now?

            Three months to castration. And then, a week after the surgery, he was suicidal. Now, that makes sense, and yet it is the precise opposite of what activists claim. The opposite of the justification for these procedures in the first place.

  33. High rates are not a purchase budget constraint, they are merely a mental hurdle…something like a figment of your imagination, I guess.

    1. Yahoo
      MoneyWise
      ‘The numbers just don’t work’: While rising mortgage rates have some homebuyers giving up, others think they’ve found a workaround
      Nancy Sarnoff
      Sat, October 15, 2022 at 8:00 AM·5 min read
      ‘The numbers just don’t work’: While rising mortgage rates have some homebuyers giving up, others think they’ve found a workaround

      America’s most popular home loan got more expensive again this week, striking yet another blow to haggard home shoppers at the steepest borrowing costs in 20 years.

      The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate — now flirting with the 7% mark — is more than double what it was at the beginning of the year.

      Even as the surge in home prices continues to slow down, dramatically higher financing costs are pushing buyers onto the sidelines — or out of the market entirely.

      “The numbers just don’t work for them anymore,” says Lisa Sturtevant, an economist with Bright MLS in the mid-Atlantic region.

      “That 7% line is also something of a mental hurdle for buyers, even those who still qualify,” she says. “They may be waiting to see if rates are going to come down.”
      …
      https://www.yahoo.com/video/numbers-just-don-t-while-130000719.html

  36. ‘I’ve never seen real estate prices climb as fast as they did in the last three years,’ said Dan Lindgren, Grays Harbor County Assessor. But inventory has finally had a chance to equalize the market. The number of active listings in September for residences in Grays Harbor was significantly higher than a year ago, growing by almost 90% in both Aberdeen and Hoquiam and by roughly 60% in Ocean Shores, where 144 homes were listed, the most of any town in the county.”

    I wish I could accurately describe what a poverty-stricken, economic wasteland Grays Harbor County is, but you’d have to just drive through Aberdeen, WA on a gloomy winter’s day to understand. It is truly a place where you could once buy a $25,000 3/2 fixer upper. There are no good jobs there.

    The economic carnage inflicted on the poor locals and their struggling community by speculators unleashed by the FED’s deranged money-printing can only be described as a crime against humanity. All across western WA they have made shelter a luxury which few low income folks can afford. There are now vast reports of people – entire families – living in local campgrounds, cars, busted up RVs, etc. A lot of them are the working poor. Sickening.

    The fact that Ben Bernanke, champion of “the wealth effect” and the pusher man of QE, received a Nobel Prize is perhaps the ultimate and final insult to the American public. These people should be swinging from the gallows.

  38. Kari Lake Spars With CNN’s Dana Bash Over 2020 Election Fraud

    Infowars.com
    October 16th 2022,

    On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Bash falsely claimed there was “no evidence” of fraud or malfeasance in the 2020 election, and asked Lake why she keeps claiming there was.

    “You called the 2020 election corrupt, stolen, rotten and rigged, and there was no evidence of any of that presented in a court of law or anywhere else that any of those things are true. So why do you keep saying that?” Bash asked Lake.

    Unfortunately for Bash, Lake had receipts.

    “Well, there’s plenty of evidence,” Lake responded. “We had 740,000 ballots with no chain of custody. Those ballots shouldn’t have been counted.”

    Bash ignored her answer and charged ahead with the same line of questioning.

    “Are you undermining faith in elections by saying that the 2020 election was stolen when there’s absolutely no evidence to support that?” Bash asked.

    Lake replied, “In 2018, Stacey Abrams never conceded. She still hasn’t. I don’t hear CNN calling her an election denier.”

    “We have the right — it’s protected with our First Amendment — to question our government and to question elections,” Lake continued. “We still have the First Amendment, and when you start seeing the media cancel people for questioning their government, then that’s when we have a problem.”

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/kari-lake-spars-with-cnns-dana-bash-over-2002-election-fraud/

  39. Three Illegal Aliens Charged with Murdering 28-Year-Old Man in Texas

    JOHN BINDER
    16 Oct 2022

    Three illegal aliens, all linked to human smuggling, are charged with murdering a 28-year-old man in El Paso, Texas while a fourth is on the run in Mexico.

    On September 20, El Paso County Sheriff’s Office deputies discovered the body of 28-year-old Martin Iran Carreon Adame in a deserted area of town. According to police, Adame’s body had multiple gunshot wounds.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/10/16/three-illegal-aliens-charged-with-murdering-28-year-old-man-in-texas/

  40. Attention whore and First Skank Jill is out on the field at the Dallas/Philly game…. nothing is sacred anymore.

    1. The Financial Times
      Markets Briefing Equities
      Stocks lose steam as survey points to higher US inflation pressures
      Friday’s falls push S&P 500’s decline for the week to 1.6%
      A woman shops at a dollar store in California
      Inflation concerns outweighed more positive survey results on overall US consumer sentiment
      Nicholas Megaw in New York and Ian Johnston and Harriet Clarfelt in London October 14 2022

      Wall Street stocks fell on Friday, reversing earlier gains after a downbeat survey of inflation expectations renewed concerns about the Federal Reserve’s planned interest rate rises.

      The University of Michigan’s monthly survey of US consumers showed expectations for price rises over the next 12 months had risen to 5.1 per cent, from 4.7 per cent. The Fed has been aggressively rising interest rates in an effort to bring down inflation, and keeps close tabs on consumer expectations, which can fuel worker wage demands and make it harder to reduce the inflation rate.

      The inflation concerns outweighed more positive survey results on overall consumer sentiment, which beat forecasts from economists, and solid earnings reports from several of the country’s largest banks.

      The broad S&P 500 index fell 2.3 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite, which is dominated by technology stocks that are more sensitive to interest rate expectations, shed 3.1 per cent.

      Friday’s falls pushed the S&P 500 to a decline of 1.6 per cent for the week, despite a sharp rally that surprised many traders on Thursday. The blue-chip index initially dropped more than 2 per cent in response to worse than expected inflation data, before reversing course to close up 2.6 per cent.

      Several investors said Thursday’s moves were exacerbated by technical factors, and did not reflect a substantial change in the economic outlook.

      Greg Boutle, US head of equity and derivative strategy at BNP Paribas, said: “We were in an oversold market and that drove a capitulation of some of the more bearish positioning [but] we wouldn’t read too much fundamentally into that.”

      Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America, wrote that stocks were “simply so oversold” after weeks of declines, but predicted the “ultimate lows ain’t seen yet”.

      Markets are now pricing in expectations of a fourth consecutive 0.75 percentage point interest rate rise from the Fed in November.
      …

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