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Sellers Have Increasingly Slashed Their Prices, Faced A Glut Of Competition And A Shrinking Pool Of People Who Can Afford To Buy

A report from WFAE in North Carolina. “Charlotte real estate agent Maceon McCracken said that the market now seems to be finally ‘normalizing.’ She recently helped that same client sign a contract to purchase a home for $40,000 below the list price, a significant shift from just a few weeks ago. Real estate agent and broker Heather Hopkinson said she’s seeing a repeat of what happened after the 2008 market crash, a time when she saw low appraisals and quickly fluctuating home prices. She said that with such a fast-moving market, pricing information about comparable homes is inaccurate after 30 days when prices change, leading to appraisals that may no longer match.”

The Sun Sentinel. “The days of intense bidding wars, and few homes for buyers to choose from in South Florida, are coming to a slow end. ‘I think the slowdown is becoming more apparent,’ said Patty DaSilva, broker with Green Realty Properties in Cooper City. ‘We are having several open houses and people are attending, but the offers just aren’t coming in.’ Sellers might be adjusting their original list price down if it was priced too high, or sellers could be taking a lower offer than what they wanted. ‘Some sellers will say that it’s the only offer they have and the home has been on the market long enough,’ she said.”

“In Palm Beach County, the supply of homes on the market shot up 107% to almost three months’ worth of supply. For Broward County, the supply of homes increased 80% to about 2.7 months of supply. For Miami-Dade County, it jumped nearly 60% to 3.5 months of supply. It’s also taking longer for homes to go under contract.”

“‘In a declining market, you have to be careful not to overprice your home and chase a home down to the bottom, losing money every month the home sits. When the market was increasing, pricing a home above what it was worth was less important. More time on the market could literally catch up to a once-stale overpriced listing,’ said Whitney Dutton, with the Whitney Dutton Group in Fort Lauderdale.”

Prescott Enews in Arizona. “‘Now more than ever it’s important to use a local REALTOR®, like a member of PAAR, who has the experience necessary to navigate this changing market,’ said George Beitzel, 2022 PAAR President. ‘The Quad Cities added almost 500 new listings last month,. A REALTOR® will be there to help you navigate the competition and guide you through the entire process.’ Chino Valley was the only region to experience a slight drop in median sales price last month of 10.5%. However, it led the region in new listings added to the market with a 55.3% increase.”

KPHO in Arizona. “A new report is out by Zillow which is showing how quickly and dramatically home sales in the Valley of the Sun are dropping. As of this week, the average home value in the Phoenix market is around $451,000, a decrease of about 6% since May. The most startling statistic is that pending sales are down 42.4% compared to last September while new listings fell by nearly 10%. A number of price cuts are being seen across the board as well, with nearly half of homes on the market seeing a price reduction.”

The Review Journal. “Southern Nevada’s market appears to be in a logjam, and there’s no telling when it will break through. Following last year’s buying binge, house hunters have faced a sharp jump in borrowing costs and big price gains over the past year, and they’ve pumped the brakes on purchasing. Sellers have increasingly slashed their prices, faced a glut of competition, and dealt with a shrinking pool of people who can afford to buy a place.”

“‘It’s impossible for people in this market to afford these homes, and so something’s gotta change,’ said Nicole Bachaud, senior economist with listing site Zillow. Bachaud said Southern Nevada was once a ‘very affordable area,’ but that’s ‘not the case anymore.’ According to Zillow, 42 percent of Las Vegas-area home listings had a price drop in September, up from just 9.3 percent in February.”

The Orange County Register. “This is my last “Bubble Watch” column. Since May 2018, the trusty spreadsheet has dug into trends to see if any economic or housing market troubles lay ahead. With trouble officially here, a ‘watch’is no longer required. Buzz: The bubble burst. Again. Source: Home values face significant dips as rising mortgage rates and economic unease crush affordability and house hunters’ will to buy. Most notably, the California Association of Realtors forecasts a 9% drop in values statewide for 2023.”

“When homebuying becomes fodder for comedians, be nervous. The housing market has a bad habit of getting too popular. In February 2022, a Saturday Night Live TV skit parodied the housing insanity with a fake ad for Zillow’s online home-search services. The skit suggested online house-hunting was a new amorous thing. At the same time, two public opinion polls suggested searching for homes was more popular than sex.”

“I gave these developments six “stars” on my five-star bubble-warning scorecard. Choice words: When somebody important says ‘bubble,’ take it seriously. In March 2022, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank’s Dallas branch released a report saying ‘house prices appear increasingly out of step with fundamentals.’ The warning was dismissed, shrugged off as overstating the market’s modest risks. Even the report said the ‘fear-of-missing-out wave of exuberance’ wouldn’t be a repeat of the bubble-bursting crash of the 2000s.”

“But report author Enrique Martínez-García told Fortune magazine:’This might be a housing bubble. The evidence suggests it looks like a housing bubble. A little bit like a duck. It walks like a duck, it looks like a duck, it certainly might be a duck.’ When the burst bubble in the 2000s, the statewide median tumbled 59% from 2007’s $594,500 high. It took 11 years for a new record price to be set. But the lesser-discussed bubble bursting of the 1990s cut prices by 20% from 1991’s $211,000 peak. A new high wasn’t seen for eight years. With history stated, I’ll remind you that ‘it’s different this time’ is always true.”

The San Diego News in California. “SFR Market Report:* 92115 College Area; Median home price down 7% from August to $957,000 with closed sales down 21%, and inventory steady at 51 homes currently for sale. * 92119 San Carlos: Median home price down 5% from August to $950,000 with closed sales down 5% to 18 sales, and inventory up 20% to 31 home currently for sale. * 92120 Allied Gardens/Del Cerro Median home price down 7% to $1,050,000 with closed sales up 23% to 27 homes sold and inventory of homes for sale up 31% to 34 homes available.”

From Market Watch. “Even if Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his cohorts stopped hiking policy rates soon, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate still would climb to 10%, according to Christopher Whalen, chairman of Whalen Global Advisors. That’s because the Fed’s torrid pace of rate increases in 2022 takes time to seep back into mortgage rates, especially with the fed-funds rate already jumping to a 3%-3.25% range in late September, from almost zero a year before.”

“‘Lenders only slowly adjust their rates,’ Whalen told MarketWatch. ‘They are not used to seeing rates moving this fast, and typically would change rates only once a month or once every other month.’ ‘There is a lag effect in mortgages,’ Whalen said, adding that even if central bankers decided to hit pause on additional rate increases after their December meeting, the 30-year mortgage rate still would ‘easily touch 10% by February.'”

“Whalen, an investment banker, author and specialist focused on banking and mortgage finance, urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2008 to move complex and opaque derivatives “back into the daylight,” after banks and investors saw hundreds of billions of dollars in losses tied to structured debt, including subprime mortgage exposure. He also provided testimony to Congress in 2009 about systemic risks of the banking industry. Now, Whalen sees another major shakeout coming in mortgage banking as profitability continues to get pinched (see chart) and the housing market sputters. Importantly, Whalen also sees potential for home prices to give back all of their pandemic gains if rates stay high for all of 2023.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Last summer, Hamilton realtor Sean St Cyr promoted a lucrative real estate investing opportunity across a number of Facebook groups. Investors could receive an average annual return of 20.2 per cent, the post stated, if they gave him a minimum of $100,000 to purchase a derelict three-storey building in the city’s east end, an area that has been in decline since a steel plant there started running into trouble decades ago. ‘Have you ever wanted to learn how to make serious money in real estate like the pros?’ Mr. St Cyr said in one of his many promotions for the deal.”

“Mr. St Cyr, a self-described international real estate investor and foodie, is one of the many investors looking for other people’s money, or OPM, on social media to fund real estate deals. He and legions of other promoters have helped fuel the real estate investing craze in Canada that revved up when home prices soared and COVID-19 restrictions led people to spend more time online. Every day, across the country, there’s a steady stream of requests in Facebook groups and personal pages for money to buy rental properties.”

“No one knows how many investors have got involved in real estate because of this explosion of online promotion. But over the first year of the pandemic, investor buying of residential properties doubled in Canada. By the middle of last year, investors accounted for more than a fifth of the country’s home purchases. However, with interest rates rising and real estate markets cooling, promoters may not be able to deliver the profits they have promised their investors.”

“When things go wrong with real estate, they can really go wrong. Tenants, including society’s most vulnerable, can be harshly evicted in the name of investment returns. Investors, many of whom call themselves risk-averse, lose their life savings. And no one has a full grasp of the impact these investors have on the real estate market. Regulators do not appear to be paying attention, either. Many promotions appear to be skirting securities rules. Promoters are either unaware of the rules or know they can get away with not complying with them. Without enforcement, promoters are raising capital with little to no legal scrutiny.”

“Carolyn Robinson relied on one of the many real estate investment influencers in Canada. After selling her house in Maple Ridge, B.C., in 2021, Ms. Robinson moved to Vancouver when real estate and the stock market were on a roll. With inflation increasing, she didn’t want to keep her cash in a chequing account. ‘I didn’t want it to just sit there and do nothing or sit there and shrink,’ she said.”

“She had heard about real estate guru Jodi Vetterl, whose website said she had a 20-year career in high-tech software sales for Fortune 100 companies. Ms. Vetterl’s mantra is to ‘invest only if you understand the investment, ensure that you can sleep at night and determine your exit strategy.’ Ms. Robinson read Ms. Vetterl’s book and paid $5,000 to access training modules and join a network of investors. The book included a chapter on Saskatchewan-based real estate company Epic Alliance Inc., and a description of the company’s investment opportunities.”

“She also researched Epic online, and could only find glowing reviews. So, Ms. Robinson made a sizable investment in a promissory note in mid-September, 2021. In October, she invested in another. Later that month, the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority (Saskatchewan’s securities regulator) issued a temporary cease-trade order telling Epic to stop trading securities. Ms. Robinson was shocked. She had never heard of the FCAA. She said she received an e-mail from Ms. Vetterl, who repeated that investors had to do their own due diligence.”

“What Ms. Robinson did not know was that, according to other investors, in May, 2021, Epic had told investors the FCAA may contact them about their investment. Ms. Robinson had joined Ms. Vetterl’s investor group in June – one month after the Epic disclosure. ‘I wasn’t even aware of it when I joined the group,’ she said. ‘There was no care taken to make sure that I knew.’ A few months later, in January, Epic’s founders shuttered operations, stating the business’s money was gone and it was bankrupt.”

“The company had acquired at least 700 houses in Saskatoon and North Battleford and told investors it was either flipping or renting the homes for profit. But some of the homes had no tenants. And many weren’t generating enough rent to earn the promised returns, according to a report by court-appointed inspector Ernst & Young. Instead, Epic was using funds from share issuances and promissory notes to cover various operating expenses and shortfalls in its business, according to the E&Y report.”

“Reflecting on what went wrong, Ms. Robinson said, ‘I knew that due diligence was important. I had hoped that the track record of people who know more about this added some safety. And I was wrong.’ There’s a school of thought in policing called ‘broken windows’ that says a small sign of disorder leads to more disorder, and eventually more serious crimes. If the broken window does not get fixed, it shows that no one cares and it is okay to break more windows.”

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This Post Has 146 Comments

  1. ‘with such a fast-moving market, pricing information about comparable homes is inaccurate after 30 days when prices change, leading to appraisals that may no longer match’

    You know Heather, Larry is still saying that under 6 months is red hotcakes. Are you saying he’s a lion?

    1. ‘leading to appraisals that may no longer match’

      That’s interesting. Other than differences in material and material quantities and condition, why would an appraisal change?

      Got appraisal fraud?

      Raleigh, NC Housing Prices Crater 28% YOY As Quality Of Life Ranking Slips Three Years In A Row

      https://www.movoto.com/nc/27605/market-trends/

      As one industry insider commented, “The stench of mortgage and appraisal fraud is too obvious to ignore anymore.”

  2. ‘When somebody important says ‘bubble,’ take it seriously’

    He he. Good luck southern California bag-holders and kool aid drinkers, yer gonna need it.

  3. ‘even if central bankers decided to hit pause on additional rate increases after their December meeting, the 30-year mortgage rate still would ‘easily touch 10% by February’

    Well Chris, this is especially true since inflation is way higher than mortgage rates and the MBS are taking a huge a$$ pounding from day one and every day afterward. Sound lending!

    1. It should be interesting to see how the various rosy predictions for slight declines in home prices pan out with 10%+ mortgage rates.

      1. Like the California Association of Realtors’ forecast of a 9% drop in values statewide for 2023 when a handful of cities have already seen that before ringing in the New Year.

  4. Home prices are finally falling. But how low will they go?
    By Anna Bahney
    Published 12:25 PM EDT, Sat October 22, 2022

    The US housing market is in the midst of a major shift. After two years of stratospheric price appreciation, home prices have peaked and are on their way back down.

    But what homebuyers and homeowners alike want to know is: How much lower will prices go?

    The short answer: Prices are likely to drop further, …

    https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/22/homes/us-home-prices-falling/index.html

    1. The people of the town are strange
      And they’re proud of where they came
      Well, you’re talkin bout Garden Grove
      Oh oh oh, Garden Grove

    2. “Housing prices are plunging and we expect prices to be 50 to 70% lower by 2025.”

      Seasons don’t fear the plunger
      Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain… we can be like they are
      Come on baby… don’t fear the plunger
      Baby take my hand… don’t fear the plunger
      We’ll be able to fly… don’t fear the plunger
      Baby I’m your man…

  6. ‘It’s impossible for people in this market to afford these homes, and so something’s gotta change,’ said Nicole Bachaud, senior economist with listing site Zillow. Bachaud said Southern Nevada was once a ‘very affordable area,’ but that’s ‘not the case anymore.’

    I’m curious about this novel concept ‘afford’ Nikkie. So how were people ‘affording’ what went on last spring? Let me guess, appraisers were ‘hitting the numbers’.

  7. The 2020 election was stolen.

    New York Times — For Trump’s Backers in Congress, ‘Devil Terms’ Help Rally Voters (10/22/2022):

    “In vilifying tweets and speeches, G.O.P. lawmakers who contested the election have far outpaced other Republicans and Democrats in fueling polarization …

    there is another side to Ms. Miller’s wholesome image. Since entering Congress, she has routinely vilified Democrats and liberals, calling them “evil” communists beholden to China who want to “destroy” America and its culture. And President Biden’s plan, she seethed on Twitter this spring, is to “flood our country with terrorists, fentanyl, child traffickers, and MS-13 gang members.”

    That’s all true. Where is the problem here?

    “Ms. Miller’s inflammatory words underscore the extent to which polarizing rhetoric is now entrenched among Republicans in the House of Representatives, especially among those like Ms. Miller who voted against certifying the Biden victory, according to an examination by The New York Times of partisan language over the past 10 years.
    The analysis of tweets, Facebook ads, newsletters and congressional speeches — more than 3.7 million items in all — relied largely on natural language processing, a technique that uses software to extract information from large amounts of text. The Times tallied words that were linked in academic research to divisive political content, as well as those identified by linguists and computer scientists to be used in polarizing ways — “fascist” and “socialist,” for example, “far right” and “far left.”

    At the forefront of this polarization are Republicans who voted to reject the Electoral College results that cemented Mr. Trump’s defeat last year. A recent Times investigation revealed how those lawmakers helped engrave the myth of a stolen election in party orthodoxy. Now, a Times analysis shows that the language of the 139 objecting members is markedly more hostile than that of other Republicans and Democrats. In their telling, those who oppose them not only are wrong about certain policies but also hate their country.”

    https://archive.ph/mEmim

    Marxist globalists do hate this country. They want to destroy it, and if you oppose them they want you dead.

    1. Washington Post — Democrats fear the midterm map is slipping away (10/23/2022):

      “The liberal Navigator public tracking poll flashed a major warning sign for Democrats in mid-October, reporting a 20 percentage point jump since September in the share of independent voters concerned about the economy and gas prices.”

      It’s the economy, stupid — James Carville, 1992

      “That was not the only data showing a turning of the tide in the battle for Congress. Regional challenges had shown up in internal Democratic polls from deep blue sanctums in the Pacific Northwest, New York and even Rhode Island, Democratic strategists say. Crime, a major focus of Republican advertising, has also risen as a major issue in several races.

      “The economic concern is definitely worse, and I think that is probably part of what has corroded concern about abortion rights,” said Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, 34, a Democratic candidate for Congress in southern Washington State.
      Perez is a symbol of the Democratic struggles, fighting in a margin-of-error race against exactly the kind of “ultra-MAGA” candidate Democrats have elevated this year — Republican Joe Kent, who denies the outcome of the 2020 election, argues U.S. Capitol rioters have been mistreated and wants a moratorium on all legal immigration.

      “Anybody in the real world is very concerned about crime, very concerned about the price of groceries,” said Perez, whose own auto-repair shop, in northeast Portland, has been broken into four times in the last year.”

      https://archive.ph/QUlFt

      Broken into four times? That’s Democrat Party governing working exactly as intended.

      1. Slipping away, Washington Post?

        Paul Simon — Slip Slidin’ Away:

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

        The Guardian — The ‘election-denier trifecta’: alarm over Trumpists’ efforts to win key posts (10/21/2022):

        “In Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden beat then president Trump in 2020, several Republican candidates who have loudly echoed Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen are trying to win jobs as secretary of state, attorney general or governor in November.

        The distinct prospect of some winning top state posts has triggered alarms from election watchdogs, Democrats and some GOP officials, who also worry about what could happen during the 2024 presidential election – especially if Trump is the nominee.

        Election officials and watchdogs see these election deniers as part of a larger national phenomenon of about 290 candidates running for state and federal positions who have denied the 2020 presidential election results, as the Washington Post reported.

        The secretary of state positions, which twelve election deniers are seeking, pose particular concern. If Karamo, Finchem or Mastriano – who can choose his secretary of state – triumph – at least one prominent purveyor of Trump’s falsehoods would play crucial roles overseeing election procedures for a state that could be pivotal in determining the outcome of the next presidential contest.”

        https://archive.ph/mdF49

        The 2020 election was stolen.

        Archive links provided to deny clicks and revenue to globalist scum media.

        The New York Times, Washington Post, and Guardian are what President Donald J. Trump was correctly referring to when he stated that “the media is the enemy of the American people.”

  8. “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” — Barack Hussein Obama

    New York Post — Disturbing video shows man run, shove stranger onto Brooklyn subway tracks (10/23/2022):

    “The attack happened around 2:40 p.m. Friday on the northbound L-train tracks at the Wyckoff Avenue and Myrtle Avenue subway station, cops said.

    Police released footage of the assailant on Saturday, showing him standing on one side of the platform with his arms folded and back to the tracks as he spots his target on the other side of the platform near another set of tracks.

    The pusher looks both ways as if checking that the coast is clear – then sprints and takes a tackle position, leading with his shoulder and hands to knock the victim off his feet.

    The unsuspecting victim falls to the ground, and tumbles onto the tracks leaving only his sunglasses on the crowded platform. The attacker then runs back to the spot where he began, picks up his backpack, and runs out through the turnstiles.

    “It’s not like he had a confrontation with the person or they were arguing or anything. It was just a random shove. He just got shoved into the tracks — that’s what he said. This guy pushed him into the tracks.”

    https://nypost.com/2022/10/23/nyc-man-pushes-stranger-onto-brooklyn-subway-track-in-shocking-video/

    Another successful production of Cloward-Piven Strategy and Soros purchased District Attorneys.

    It’s the progressive way.

    1. Related article.

      Lee Zeldin slams Kathy Hochul’s subway crime plan as he surges in gov race (10/22/2022):

      “A surging Lee Zeldin slammed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s last-minute subway crime plan as New York’s neck-and-neck gubernatorial race entered its final stretch.

      “Why is Kathy Hochul waiting until the day after the first poll that says we’re in the lead — two and a half weeks before the election — before she’s doing this?” the Republican asked The Post as he left a rally in Rockaway Beach.

      “She should just have been doing the right thing out of the gate,” he said.

      Zeldin ridiculed Hochul’s plan, announced Saturday with Mayor Eric Adams, to flood the subways with cops and cameras, and to establish two new inpatient units at psychiatric centers with 50 new beds to help get emotionally disturbed people out of the subway system.

      “How out of touch are you if you think that providing 50 beds is going to take care of this issue?” Zeldin demanded. “She says nothing about cashless bail … nothing about DAs refusing to enforce the law.”

      https://nypost.com/2022/10/22/lee-zeldin-slams-kathy-hochuls-subway-crime-plan-as-he-surges-in-gov-race/

      DAs refusing to enforce the law? Lee Zeldin sounds like he might be on to something here.

      The New York Post, which is a Murdoch owned publication (UK Daily Mail, Fox News, etc.) identifies Alvin Bragg as the Manhattan District Attorney, but declines to identify who owns Alvin Bragg, who purchased Alvin Bragg: an alleged Hungarian born and now U.S. citizen who has a pair of wrinkly scrotums where his lower eyelids should be.

      Can’t say his name out loud, New York Post? Then we will do that for you: George Soros.

    2. It was just a random shove.

      There is a common denominator in all these “random” attacks: the race of the perps, and the race of the victims.

  9. Note that the Wall Street Journal is also a Murdoch owned publication. If there’s going be twenty links from the UK Daily Mail posted here, every day, they will be identified with a disclaimer that they are Murdoch owned (see also: the son James Murdoch donating over $100 million for Democrat Party in the 2020 elections, just because he allegedly distanced himself from his father doesn’t mean he gave up his trust fund or inheritance, clicking on all those UK Daily Mail links puts money in his pocket, and ultimately, in Democrat Party coffers).

    Hu Jintao’s Exit from China’s Party Congress Causes a Stir (10/22/2022):

    “Retired Chinese leader Hu Jintao, the 79-year-old predecessor to Xi Jinping, was the focus of a highly unusual stir at Saturday’s closing session of the Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress, making an unceremonious exit mid-proceedings.

    Midway through the otherwise carefully-choreographed closing session, Mr. Hu was helped out of his chair next to Mr. Xi and inexplicably led out of the hall. During the congress’s Oct. 16 opening session, Mr. Hu’s ashen look and gray mop of hair stood out, and to some China watchers it seemed to illustrate his faded relevance in the Xi era.

    Footage shot by foreign media in the hall, which wasn’t included in the official China Central Television broadcast, showed Mr. Hu seemingly reluctant or unable to stand up when an aide tried to lift him off his chair. In the commotion, Mr. Xi leaned toward Mr. Hu and appeared to speak with him. Mr. Hu was ushered off the center dais, briefly looking back at Mr. Xi and patting outgoing Premier Li Keqiang on the shoulder as he departed.

    It wasn’t clear why Mr. Hu left or where he went. The incident has gone unmentioned in Chinese state media coverage of the event. China’s State Council didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”

    https://archive.ph/cFgRr

    Erased from the internet by Chinese Communist Party as well, reported by some other sources.

    Just like any official group portrait with Stalin, that gets re-painted later with the disappeared erased from history.

    And just like how Democrat Party rolls if they are allowed to retain power in USA.

    “They’re not sending their best”

    1. China has 50 million vacant apartments and dozens of ghost cities. The U.S. has 66 Biden voters who yearn to live under Communism. I see a match made in heaven, and a win/win for both countries.

    2. “Midway through the otherwise carefully-choreographed closing session, Mr. Hu was helped out of his chair next to Mr. Xi and inexplicably led out of the hall. During the congress’s Oct. 16 opening session, Mr. Hu’s ashen look and gray mop of hair stood out, and to some China watchers it seemed to illustrate his faded relevance in the Xi era.”

      Reminiscent of the SPECTRE meetings in the 007 series where someone gets cancelled for skimming the profits.

      1. Reminiscent of the SPECTRE meetings in the 007 series where someone gets cancelled for skimming the profits.

        It would have been more dramatic had he fallen through a trap door into a piranha tank. 🙂

  10. With GOP skeptics of Ukraine aid poised to gain seats in Congress, lawmakers look to lock in a huge military assistance package

    Oct. 20, 2022, 1:00 PM EDT
    By Dan De Luce, Julie Tsirkin and Scott Wong

    Congress last month approved $12 billion in military and economic aid to Ukraine, but the package being contemplated would be dramatically larger, the sources said.

    The amount would be enough “to make sure [Ukraine] can get through the year,” a Republican senator with knowledge of the matter told NBC News. “It’ll make the $12 billion look like pocket change.”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/gop-ukraine-skeptics-poised-gain-congress-lawmakers-look-lock-billions-rcna53167

    1. Breaking news.

      The Hill — Cheney: ‘McCarthy is going to make himself the leader of the pro-Putin wing’ of GOP (10/23/2022):

      “Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday slammed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for suggesting a Republican-controlled Congress would not guarantee additional military aid for Ukraine, accusing him of aligning with Russia and seeking “political gain.”

      Cheney told NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that McCarthy “always chooses to serve his own political purpose.”

      “The notion that now Kevin McCarthy is going to make himself the leader of the pro-Putin wing of my party is just a stunning thing,” she said, referencing Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s dangerous, he knows better.”

      https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3700027-cheney-mccarthy-is-going-to-make-himself-the-leader-of-the-pro-putin-wing-of-gop/

      The U.S. needs to exit NATO and let Europe solve Europe’s problems.

      Liz Cheney is drenched in blood, and she and her satanic father need to burn in hell for all eternity.

      1. Cheney told NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that McCarthy “always chooses to serve his own political purpose.”

        As opposed to globalist salad-tosser Liz Cheney, a craven stooge for the corrupt and venal elites who have turned America into their private looting preserve.

    2. “It’ll make the $12 billion look like pocket change.”

      Compared to funding Israel’s “qualitative edge” it is pocket change.

  11. Where was the “heightened alarm” over Antifa armed with AR-15s outside a drag queen groomer brunch for children in Texas two months ago? Oh, right, there wasn’t any.

    Armed ‘Poll Watchers’ in Arizona Heighten Alarm Over Right-Wing Voter Intimidation (10/22/2022):

    “Video footage released Friday night showing armed individuals sitting near a ballot drop box in Mesa, Arizona is heightening alarm over right-wing intimidation efforts as early voting kicks off across the United States.

    “This is obviously totally incompatible with liberal democracy and an open society,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes wrote in response to the video.”

    The 2020 election was stolen, Chris Hayes.

    “Two years later, in the midst of the critical midterm election season, Arizona is once again drawing national attention as right-wing groups animated by false fraud narratives mobilize and harass voters. Making matters worse, election deniers are running for key posts in the state, including governor and secretary of state.

    Earlier this week, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs referred to the U.S. Justice Department a report from a Mesa voter who said that a group of people gathered near a ballot drop box filmed and photographed him and his wife as they attempted to vote.

    “While poll watching has been an element of electoral transparency since the 1800s, the practice grew in prominence in the 2020 election cycle due to former President Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations of voter fraud,” the Associated Press reported in August. “Trump’s debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election results were fraudulent has motivated thousands of his supporters to scrutinize elections operations nationwide, intensifying concerns of voter intimidation.”

    “Under the state’s new Election Integrity Act, Georgia citizens can challenge a voter’s eligibility on the state’s voting rolls an unlimited number of times,” The Guardian reported Saturday. “Right-wing groups, spurred by baseless claims that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud, have mounted thousands of organized challenges across the state, putting even more pressure on the election process for voters, poll workers, and election officials.”

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/22/armed-poll-watchers-arizona-heighten-alarm-over-right-wing-voter-intimidation

    The 2020 election was stolen.

    Joe Biden will never be the legitimately elected president of the United States, because the 2020 election was stolen.

    1. “Armed ‘Poll Watchers’ in Arizona Heighten Alarm Over Right-Wing Voter Intimidation (10/22/2022):”

      Ray Epps nephews.

      1. If they weren’t armed, it’s a good bet the Soros Scum rent-a-mobs would be deployed to assault them, which was SOP in Democrat-Bolshevik malgoverned cities before groups like the Proud Boys started breaking commie heads.

  12. The Financial Times
    Currencies
    Japan made intervention of at least $30bn to prop up yen
    Officials have suggested the government has ‘limitless’ funds to defend the country’s currency
    People walk past an electric monitor displaying the Japanese yen exchange rate
    The intervention conducted on Friday came after the yen hit ¥151.94 against the dollar
    Kana Inagaki and Leo Lewis in Tokyo, and Katie Martin in London
    3 hours ago

    Japanese authorities are likely to have spent more than $30bn last week in their second intervention in a month to prop up the yen after it fell to a fresh 32-year-low against the dollar, according to estimates by traders.

    The intervention conducted on Friday came after the yen hit ¥151.94 to the dollar, causing it to briefly surge to ¥144.50 during a typically quiet time of the week for trading. The yen closed around ¥147 on Friday.

    During a visit to Australia over the weekend, Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, said the government would take “appropriate measures” to address excessive volatility in currency markets.

    “We cannot tolerate excessive volatility caused by speculative trading. We are watching developments in the foreign exchange market with a strong sense of urgency,” Kishida said while declining to confirm if an intervention was carried out on Friday.

    Finance ministry officials have not commented on whether they had conducted an intervention on Friday, but two people close to the government confirmed that the action was taken. Authorities had already spent $20bn in September conducting Japan’s first yen-buying operation since 1998.
    …

  13. I got a lot of puddle watching links from our friend in Hawaii:

    What happens when someone borrowed 1 million and the property no longer cash flows? I am hereby requesting a cameo in the upcoming Netflix #Airbnbust documentary

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1584003951581483008

    $0 money down. No W2 or tax return required. AKA: A SUBPRIME LOAN. Don’t say we never tried to warn you about the #AirbnbBubble when it all goes #Airbnbust.

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1583999091532795909

    Got my first call today for someone looking for side jobs. He’s an electrician and his company isn’t getting enough work to keep him above water.

    https://twitter.com/HeyCarrieAnnNV/status/1580221144967192576

    Ali Wolf

    NOT saying this is widespread but still interesting. Was at a conference & a loan officer told me that someone he worked with last year called & said they need to sell asap bc they bought based on the husband’s commission $. That’s way down & they can no longer afford the home.

    https://twitter.com/AliWolfEcon/status/1583153003774631936

    Ali Wolf

    Heading off to Las Vegas, a market where the new home cancellation rate is 35% and the average weekly sales per subdivision is .4, down from 1.2 last year and 1.0 in 2019.

    https://twitter.com/AliWolfEcon/status/1582798017106612224

    Ali Wolf

    Got a reminder from a local here in Korea that the issues we are facing in the US are international. She said “people rushed to buy when IRs were low. Investors scooped up multiple homes. Younger Koreans panicked. Now the market has shifted &home prices are starting to come down”

    https://twitter.com/AliWolfEcon/status/1582145616880095233

    Ali Wolf

    7% interest rates are crushing housing demand. This comment from our builder survey this week stood out: abysmal activity across all buyer types.

    https://twitter.com/AliWolfEcon/status/1582815392329703425

    CarDealershipGuy

    We’re 150 basis points away from car salesmen becoming OnlyFans influencers

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1583928752391606272

    I am ready. I am waiting for a real estate agent in one of these absurdly overpriced mountain towns to tell sellers the truth: prices have to come down 50% to be reasonable. They doubled in 2020. Now STR bookings are collapsing, mortgage rates have doubled and WFH is history.

    https://twitter.com/Stimpyz1/status/1583838659211427840

    Just talked to a navy guy. He owns 3 and told me a marine had 5. 1st was a 4 plex http://primary.Got a conventional loan and heloc for next one. Got a private loan for 3 years with a ballon on 750k. Has 2 of these types.Lots of military are involved in these STR.

    https://twitter.com/TraderBreeze/status/1583856890496561157

    Hedge-fund manager Andrew Barroway has sold this property for $9.26 million, per WSJ. It cost $35 million to build.

    https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1583913038536900608

    Total personal savings dropped from $6.5 trillion to $650 billion. 😳

    https://twitter.com/SJosephBurns/status/1583417347716456449

    If the Fed pivots now due to global crash, they won’t have enough dry powder to bailout the economy. Keep tightening, the crash will be larger. This was the dilemma created by the pandemic bailout. Instead of deleveraging it increased debt. All roads lead to hard landing.

    https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1583858620026224641

    The investment grade corporate bond ETF is now down 23% year-to-date. Before this year its largest loss was a 3.8% decline in 2018. $LQD

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1583154622205526020

    2022 will be the first calendar year decline in the Fed’s balance sheet since 2018. It more than doubled in 2020-21 and now is down 2.5% from its high in April. At the current pace, it would take 4 years to unwind the increase from 2020-21, but few expect QT to last that long.

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1583239758263685120

    Average 30-Year Mortgage Rate in the US…
    1970s: 8.9%
    1980s: 12.7%
    1990s: 8.1%
    2000s: 6.3%
    2010s: 4.1%
    2020s: 3.6%
    —
    Today’s Rate: 6.9%

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1583282151742926849

    CarDealershipGuy

    One of my community members found a 2020 Toyota Tacoma that’s been discounted by NEARLY $10,000 in the last 45 days 🤯

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1583280859859517440

    NEW INTERVIEW W/ @DiMartinoBooth
    AIRING ON MONDAY 🔥
    Her framework: watch out. The securitization market is going to get smoked. And unlike 2007, the Fed will not come to the rescue.

    https://twitter.com/ForwardGuidance/status/1583837329541632000

    Ryan Lundquist
    SacAppraiser
    An image from Redfin for Sacramento County to show the median price this year (black) compared to last year (orange). This is what I talked about on my blog a couple of weeks ago when I said the median price was very close to dipping below last year.

    https://twitter.com/SacAppraiser/status/1583875293793566720

    1. “Just talked to a navy guy. He owns 3 and told me a marine had 5. ”

      Huh? No Chinese? No blackrock?

      When the tide goes out, all the lies get exposed. I remember a poster here saying it was all “organic growth” not long ago.

    2. Just talked to a navy guy. He owns 3 and told me a marine had 5.

      Collecting houses like shoes due to faulty lending and an illegal short term rental industry, with rents consequently shooting the moon to where you need over 6 figures in most locations to afford it. Just a sh!t show of epic proportions which should never, EVER have happened.

  14. Our betters inform that this is what “winning” looks like.

    Russia Today — Russia offers ‘heating points’ in EU cities (10/22/2022):

    “Russian cultural centers in Finland and Luxembourg are welcoming visitors who need to “warm up” as energy prices continue to skyrocket, according to the country’s federal agency for compatriots living abroad and international humanitarian cooperation.

    The body, Rossotrudnichestvo, has opened “heating points”, which provide those in need with an opportunity to get out of the cold while enjoying tea or watching a movie.

    As the energy crisis continues in the European Union, exacerbated by anti-Russia sanctions and a sharp decrease in Russian energy supplies, Rossotrudnichestvo said on Friday. It added that “human warmth from Russia” and its “traditional hospitality” is what “freezing European families” need.

    While the agency emphasized that its Russian houses “are outside of politics,” the head of the agency, Evgeny Primakov, made it clear who he believes is responsible for the unfolding crisis.

    “Europeans, do not freeze because of your stupid and evil leaders! If your children are wrapped in jackets at home and you have started to save heavily on electricity because Ursula von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron gave away your money for weapons for the Ukrainian Nazis, come and warm up in our cultural centers in your capitals,” he wrote on Telegram.

    https://www.rt.com/russia/565158-rossotrudnichestvo-warm-freezing-europeans/

    #Winning

        1. Repeating myself for the unknownth time, dude needs to find something other than Daily Mail for news.

  15. How are people in “fuel poverty” going to pay their rent or mortgages?

    “Frankly Terrifying”: Energy Crisis Could Drag 26M Brits Into Fuel Poverty

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Frankly-Terrifying-Energy-Crisis-Could-Drag-26-Million-Brits-Into-Fuel-Povert.html

    The axing of the energy price guarantee from April next year could lead to almost 11m UK households falling into fuel poverty, campaigners have warned, which is about 26m people.

    It means more than one in three British households face the grim prospect of hardship: there are an estimated 28.1m households in the UK. The average household in Britain has 2.36 people.

    The End Fuel Poverty Coalition described the outlook as “frankly terrifying” and urged the Government to focus on a new package of support and energy market reforms, alongside investment in home insulation and renewables.

    1. “Frankly Terrifying”: Energy Crisis Could Drag 26M Brits Into Fuel Poverty

      WHich is almost half the country. The other half will be cutting back on everything possible to keep the townhouse warm.

  16. “Charlotte real estate agent Maceon McCracken said that the market now seems to be finally ‘normalizing.’

    “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.” — Montoya, “Princess Bride”

  19. “When the burst bubble in the 2000s, the statewide median tumbled 59%”

    That jibes with my thinking we’ll need to see at least a 70% drop to restore sanity this time. But then, we didn’t restore sanity last time, and that’s how we got here.

  20. Real estate agent and broker Heather Hopkinson said she’s seeing a repeat of what happened after the 2008 market crash, a time when she saw low appraisals and quickly fluctuating home prices.

    Fluctuating in one direction isn’t fluctuating, Heather. Enough already with the lies & dissembling.

  21. “A new report is out by Zillow which is showing how quickly and dramatically home sales in the Valley of the Sun are dropping.

    Perhaps a new name is in order: the Valley of the Schlong.

  23. The most startling statistic is that pending sales are down 42.4% compared to last September while new listings fell by nearly 10%.

    Is that a lot?

    1. “Chino Valley was the only region to experience a slight drop in median sales price last month of 10.5%.”

      Is 10.5% “slight” ?

  24. Sellers have increasingly slashed their prices, faced a glut of competition, and dealt with a shrinking pool of people who can afford to buy a place.”

    Ben, we probably shouldn’t discount the possibility that what we’re seeing here is a bursting housing bubble.

  25. “‘It’s impossible for people in this market to afford these homes, and so something’s gotta change,’ said Nicole Bachaud, senior economist with listing site Zillow.

    And with that brilliant flash of insight, Nicole once again validates why she pulls down the big bucks.

  27. By the middle of last year, investors accounted for more than a fifth of the country’s home purchases.

    Die, speculator scum.

  28. Regulators do not appear to be paying attention, either.

    From The Big Short: SEC regulators literally in bed with the financial firms they were supposed to be overseeing. Under the Brandon regime, where endemic Democrat-Bolshevik corruption has reached banana republic levels, the collusion between captured regulators, enforcers, and policymakers is setting us up for a financial crash that’s going to make 2008 look like a walk in the park.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KttoNAiuwRk&t=121s

  29. Swedish government ‘threw out the mad greenies’
    Sky News Australia
    Oct 22, 2022 Sky News host Rowan Dean says the Swedish government “basically threw out all the mad greenies” and is reintroducing non-renewable forms of energy.

    “They’re completely overturning everything to do with the net zero climate policy,” he said.

    Mr Dean described the decision as “fantastic news”.

    “They know in Sweden how cold it can get in winter – and they know in Sweden that you’ve got to have your heating and you’ve got to have your eating and you’ve got to have your cooking.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HnZ3o8JEPE

    5 minutes.

    1. They also threw out Sweden’s “feminist” foreign policy, which has the future cat ladies shrieking like the harridans they are.

  30. Ms. Robinson read Ms. Vetterl’s book and paid $5,000 to access training modules and join a network of investors.

    The stupid, it burns.

  31. “Even if Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his cohorts stopped hiking policy rates soon, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate still would climb to 10%, according to Christopher Whalen, chairman of Whalen Global Advisors.

    Real inflation – as opposed to our fake, Soviet-style CPI stats – is at least 17%, and climbing (heckova job, BlackRock Jay, Yellen the Felon, & Brandon). A 10% 30-yr fixed would still be a negative rate of return in real terms.

  33. Globalist scum media.

    Post Millennial — USA Today mocked Kyle Rittenhouse’s tears, shows sympathy for Waukesha massacre driver after he cried in court (10/22/2022):

    “USA Today has come under fire for biased reporting, as social media users juxtapose their coverage of the trial of the suspected Waukesha Christmas parade terrorist Darrell Brooks to their coverage of the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who shot three men in self defense.

    Rittenhouse, who was just 17 at the time, was armed with a rifle in an attempt to protect local businesses during the Black Lives Matter riots that caused mass unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 25, 2020. He was chased by three men, who he ended up shooting.

    During the trial, the teen appeared to be emotional as he argued that he only acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injured Gaige Grosskreutz. If found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide, he faced a mandatory life sentence, according to Fox News.

    The USA Today piece, authored by Carli Pierson, not only characterized Rittenhouse’s tears as a “melodramatic performance,” but described it as “nauseating” and argued that the “innocent kid act shouldn’t fool anyone.”

    The article covering the trial of Brooks, 39, the defendant who is representing himself against allegations that he was the driver of a van that intentionally crashed into Waukesha, Wisconsin’s annual Christmas parade constructs a much different story.

    Brooks, a convicted sex offender who has had multiple courtroom outbursts as he attempts to deny that he killed six people, including children, and injured 62 others by driving into them, was described more politely as “tearful.”

    The article, titled “Wisconsin Christmas parade defendant gives tearful opening statement: ‘2 sides to every story’,” by Quinn Clark and Jeanine Santucci, paints a kinder picture of the defendant, who was seen by witnesses driving into parade participants and onlookers.

    Under the subhed “Defendant gives emotional opening statement,” the authors described Brooks as “visibly emotional” as he talked about “the impact to the families of victims, the community of Waukesha and his own family.”

    https://thepostmillennial.com/usa-today-mocked-kyle-rittenhouses-tears-shows-sympathy-for-waukesha-massacre-driver-after-he-cried-in-court

    Killed 6 and injured 62, is that a lot?

    Also note that in CNN’s coverage of this, they bleached Brooks’ photo to lighten his complexion, just like they did with half-Peruvian George Zimmerman a decade ago, to make them look more white.

    Globalists gonna globe.

    1. Because this is the HBB and not subject to the censorship of Marxist globalists, some additional background on the three communist terrorists that Kyle Rittenhouse ventilated.

      “The court records say that Rosenbaum was asked to leave his mother’s residence but an acquaintance allowed him to stay at her home, as did her sister and cousin. While there he had “contact with their sons, the minor victims. The five victims range in age from nine to 11 years old.”

      https://heavy.com/news/joseph-rosenbaum/

      “Court records in Wisconsin show that Huber was convicted of disorderly conduct in 2018 as a domestic abuse repeater. It was a misdemeanor. He was cited for possessing drug paraphernalia.

      His most serious case came when he was found guilty of a felony for strangulation and suffocation, domestic abuse. He was also convicted in that case of felony false imprisonment with a dangerous weapon, domestic abuse.

      A charge of second-degree recklessly endangering safety was dismissed and read-in, as was a charge of battery and two charges of disorderly conduct. He was ordered not to possess weapons and no contact orders were issued.”

      https://heavy.com/news/anthony-huber-rittenhouse-victim/

      “It was widely, and falsely, reported on social media that Gaige Grosskreutz is a felon. He was convicted of a felony, but the felony was expunged.

      He does, however, have a prior misdemeanor conviction for intoxicated use of a firearm in Wisconsin, online records show. He received probation in that 2015 case, records reveal.

      His arrest and case history from the state Department of Justice is much longer than what you can currently find through online court records. It shows a string of dismissed cases and an expunged felony conviction from Waukesha County, Wisconsin.

      In January 2021, he was accused of second-offense drunk driving, but the case was dismissed on a prosecutor’s motion.”

      https://heavy.com/news/gaige-grosskreutz/

      More info on the surviving communist (this is a 92 page .pdf file):

      https://www.kenoshacountyeye.com/gaige.pdf

      Assaulting his own grandmother?

      This is who Real Journalists are defending.

      This is Democrat Party.

    2. Court tv has the whole trial up on youtube, it is quality irritainment. The D.B. formerly known as Duhrrel Brooks makes a great study of why it’s a bad idea to (mis)represent your self. You know it’s bad when one of his own witnesses is rumored to become the states best witness yet the state declined to even question him. So much facepalm.

  34. I was surprised t osee this headline in the Colorado Sun:

    The wind turbines on his Colorado farm are 20 years old. Who’s going to take them down?

    The wind industry on the Eastern Plains is running into the same concerns that once plagued the fossil fuel industry.

    3. Cranes the size needed to do windmills are a thousands dollars an hour or more plus setup and tear down. And that’s just the crane guys. And you get billed from them leaving the shop and windmill farms are in the boonies.

      In other words, they are just going to let them rot. When they fall down, they fall down. “sorry, not our problem, that company that owned them went bankrupt 10 years ago”

      What? you thought making a deal with the devil was going to work out Farmer Bob?

      2. Nobody is ringing our phone asking us to mobilize a 600 ton Liebherr to fly dead iron or anything to support demo. Nor will anyone…. ever.

  36. I’m doing a little canvassing here and have two simple questions.

    1) Is a person a liar who claims to be apolitical and flies a Ukrainian flag bumper sticker on their ride?

    2) where can I procure these cool Biden Is A Pedophile bumper stickers?

    TIA

    1. I make my own stickers. Forget giving money to Amazon to buy stickers there.

      Avery labels 1″ x 2-5/8″ are 30 to a sheet and 2″ x 4″ are 10 to a sheet. They are very sticky and surprisingly weather resistant (your mileage may vary).

      It’s a happy day when I revisit a previously stickered location and find that some snowflake desperately tried to scrape it off with a key, so I just put up another new sticker on top of it.

  40. What is Reddit?

    Image file screenshot from sub-Reddit /r/CuckoldCommunity captioned “The bull is HIV positive”

    https://ibb.co/gJ0rLZ1

    This explains a lot of how and why Joe Biden received nearly 80% of the vote in the City / County of Denver in 2020.

    “They’re not sending their best”

  42. Homebuyers in Democrat-Bolshevik malgoverned states and cities should have zero expectation that even the most basic property rights will be upheld by corrupt, incompetent, Soros-subverted judicial or law enforcement bodies with a mandate to encourage and enable unchecked vibrancy and parasitism.

    Maryland couple says strangers have moved into the home they just bought and refuse to leave

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-couple-says-strangers-have-moved-into-home-just-bought-refuse-leave

    The couple’s realtor said it appears the two men have tried to take possession of the home on Dragoo Place and are refusing to leave

    2. Cozy two story home in private forest setting with loads of potential! Perfect for a range of illegal activities. Hurry, wont last!

  48. Walensky, CDC head has announced she has texted positive for Covid, in spite of being vaccinated and boosted.
    This is one of the Health Authorities that said you wouldn’t get Covid.
    So,, Fauci gets Covid
    Joe and Jill Biden get Covid
    Pelosi gets Covid
    CEO of Pizler gets Covid
    I think Harris even said she got Covid.
    So, I don’t believe for one minute that any of the liars above ever took the shots.

    Some kind of fraud to convince people that the vaccines prevented these people from getting a severe symptoms or death case from Covid, in spite of getting Covid.
    And now they just admitted they never even tested the vaccines for stopping transmission.
    What would be the point of mass vaccination of globe if it didn’t stop transmission. Isn’t the whole idea to get herd immunity by vaccines to stop the disease.
    This is a fake vaccine, doesn’t qualify as a vaccine, it doesn’t work ,and its only causing harm.
    They didn’t qualify for EUA on this vaccine because they had medications that cured Covid, that they fraudulently supressed and censored, like Ivermectin.
    They have immunity from damage caused if they call it a vaccine, but it isn’t a vaccine.
    If anything its a expiermental glob of substances, that we don’t know what the hell they put in these shots.

    1. If she did not get saline injections and actually got the mRNA poison, she destroyed her immune system.

      You’re dying from the “vaccines.”

  50. An interesting read …

    https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct22/market-lesson-rats10-22.html

    (a snip that sums up the gist of the article …)

    “The modern iterations of perverse incentives and unintended consequences generally follow this line of development:

    “1. Massive new funding is made available to address a pressing problem: higher education, healthcare, homelessness, intelligence-gathering, national defense, etc.

    “2. This massive influx of new funding creates a new ecological niche free of predators and full of food, enabling the explosive growth of administrators, support staff, consultants and con-artists, all of whom have zero incentive to actually solve the problem and every incentive to expand the problem so their protected Paradise gets more funding.

    “This is higher education, healthcare, homelessness, intelligence gathering and national defense in a nutshell.”

    1. “Authorities then noticed tail-less rats around Hanoi: residents caught the rats, cut off their tails, and then freed them to continue breeding to insure a steady supply of profitable rat-tails.”

      The hoi polloi learn quickly.

    2. “…This massive influx of new funding creates a new ecological niche free of predators…”

      In the Los Angeles area, its the Homeless Industrial Complex.

      Hundreds of millions down bureaucratic ratholes, homeless apartments costing $750K!!!, and endless propositions to perpetuate the problem. (in a few weeks it’s props 26, 27, in the past it was prop HHH).

      A con-artists wet dream come true.

  51. “Maryland couple says mysterious strangers moved into a house they just purchased and now are refusing to leave”

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/maryland-couple-says-mysterious-strangers-181819703.html

    (snip)

    A Maryland couple signed a contract to buy a foreclosed home on Thursday.

    By Friday, there were strangers living in the house with ‘no trespassing’ signs posted.

    “Right now my clients are highly upset and we just don’t know what to do at this point,” the realtor said.

    On Thursday, a couple signed a contract with a bank to buy a vacant home in Clinton, Maryland. By Friday, mysterious strangers had moved in and refused to leave

    The couple — who wish to remain unidentified — first noticed the strangers moving into their new home on Thursday and quickly called their realtor to figure out who the new residents were and how they were able to move into the previously foreclosed home, according to WUSA9.

    Jordan Hart
    Sun, October 23, 2022 at 11:18 AM
    Clinton, MD home
    The house on Dragoo Place in Clinton, Maryland.Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc.
    A Maryland couple signed a contract to buy a foreclosed home on Thursday.

    By Friday, there were strangers living in the house with ‘no trespassing’ signs posted.

    “Right now my clients are highly upset and we just don’t know what to do at this point,” the realtor said.

    On Thursday, a couple signed a contract with a bank to buy a vacant home in Clinton, Maryland. By Friday, mysterious strangers had moved in and refused to leave

    The couple — who wish to remain unidentified — first noticed the strangers moving into their new home on Thursday and quickly called their realtor to figure out who the new residents were and how they were able to move into the previously foreclosed home, according to WUSA9.

    – ADVERTISEMENT –

    “She panicked a little and called me and said, ‘What is happening here?'” realtor Melea King said in reference to the wife, according to the local news station.

    Just one day after the mysterious tenants showed up, King said they put up “no trespassing” and “beware of dog” signs. The news station reported seeing at least two men at the home on Dragoo Place Friday.

    When the couple confronted the men on Thursday, they were shown a document the men claimed was a lease, but King said she doubts its legitimacy. Police were called to investigate the situation.

    “Once the police was on site, they took a look at the lease and it was not accurate. It was not correct,” King said.

    However, Prince George’s County Police told WUSA9 the strange case was more of a “civil matter” for the sheriff to handle. When reporters from the news station approached the men, they weren’t met with many answers.

    The men claimed the lease belonged to an uncle named “Quinn” but were unable to provide a last name. They declined to answer any other questions.

    King said the couple is seeking answers from the bank on how anyone was able to gain access to the home. The house is listed on Long & Foster Real Estate’s website as “pending.”

    “Right now my clients are highly upset and we just don’t know what to do at this point,” King said. “It should not be taking this long for this to be addressed.”

    1. If the new homebuyers are Democrats, they are accessories to the destruction of property rights and should have no legal recourse against freeloaders and parasites who exemplify the ideology shared with the homeowners. Collectivist principles must be put into practice. Forward!

  53. Business Insider
    Buckle in for a brutal free-fall in home prices and US housing is in a massive bubble, experts say. Here’s how bad Jeremy Siegel, Paul Krugman and 5 others think it could get.
    Zahra Tayeb
    Sun, October 23, 2022 at 4:00 AM·5 min read
    Home sales
    Signs of stress are building in the US housing market.

    – The US housing market is cratering, as the Fed’s rapid interest rate hikes send mortgage costs soaring.

    – Home sales have fallen for 8 months, and prices are dropping. But economists say worse is to come.

    – Here’s what Jeremy Siegel, Paul Krugman and 5 other top experts say about how painful things will get.

    The alarm bell is already ringing for American homeowners, as surging mortgage rates scare away buyers — and the slump in the US housing market is only going to get worse, experts say.
    …
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buckle-brutal-free-fall-home-090000513.html

    1. It’s great to see the experts getting on board with what many of us have been saying for much of 2022.

    2. “…surging mortgage rates scare away buyers…”

      Good to know that buyers are merely scared, and a doubling of interest rates had no affect whatsoever on how much they could afford to pay.

    3. ‘Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics

      “Buckle in. Assuming rates remain near their current 6.5% and the economy skirts recession, then national house prices will fall almost 10% peak-to-trough,” he said in a recent tweet.’

      Try to keep up. Last time I checked, the 30-year mortgage rate was around 7.3%, with some other experts predicting a level north of 10% by some point in 2023.

      Also, some other economists are putting the chance of a recession next year at somewhere near 100%, and the Treasury yield curve inversion supports the estimate quite convincingly.

      1. the chance of a recession

        We’re already in one, but that reality is extremely inconvenient for Democrats with upcoming midterms.

      3. Business
        Why mortgage rates could hit 10% by early 2023: expert
        By Thomas Barrabi
        October 21, 2022 10:58am Updated
        Mortgages
        Rising mortgage rates are causing a rapid freeze in the housing market. Getty Images/iStockphoto

        Surging mortgage rates could hit double digits by next year even if the Federal Reserve backs off its aggressive interest rate hikes, a prominent expert warned.

        Fed rate hikes have a “lag effect in mortgages,” Christopher Whalen, chairman of Whalen Global Advisors, said in an interview with MarketWatch published on Thursday. That means the full effect of tightened Fed policy isn’t felt in the housing market for weeks or months after each hike.

        “Lenders only slowly adjust their rates,” Whalen told the outlet. “They are not used to seeing rates moving this fast, and typically would change rates only once a month or once every other month.”

        The Fed has been sharply hiking its benchmark interest rate for months as it looks to cool the economy and tame decades-high inflation. While the Fed’s hikes don’t directly influence mortgages, rates tend to move higher as policy grows more restrictive — resulting in higher costs for prospective homebuyers.

        Whalen said mortgage rates could “easily touch 10% by February” even if Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other policymakers signal a pause in interest rate hikes at the central bank’s last meeting of the year in December.
        …
        https://nypost.com/2022/10/21/why-mortgage-rates-could-hit-10-by-early-2023-expert/

        1. “They are not used to seeing rates moving this fast, and typically would change rates only once a month or once every other month.”

          Technically, with 7.3% mortgage rates and 8%+ inflation, real rates are currently still negative and stimulative for real estate investment.

          Things will get much more interesting when the Fed achieves its goal of getting inflation back down to near 2%, at which point borrowing money at positive real rates of interest to fund falling knife 🔪🗡️ real estate purchases may strike some as a dumb idea.

          Consequently, residential real estate may soon once again become affordable for people who just want a place to live in.

      4. Axios
        Oct 19, 2022 – Economy & Business
        Markets and economists are increasingly certain of recession
        Matt Phillips, author of Axios Markets
        Data: Factset; Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

        Economists and market indicators seem increasingly certain that the U.S. is either already in a cyclical downturn, or soon will be.

        Driving the news: Perhaps the most-watched market indicator for predicting recessions — a so-called inversion of the yield curve between 3-month and 10-year Treasuries — is now near at hand.
        …
        https://www.axios.com/2022/10/19/us-recession-risk-markets-economy

    4. “But economists say worse is to come… and the slump in the US housing market is only going to get worse, experts say.”

      A bear’s gotta love it. 🐻💖

      I guess they don’t call economics the dismal science for nothing.

  54. Kanye West — Gold Digger:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVL4d8P44eM

    In 1966 John Lennon made some comments that the Beatles are bigger than Christ and that Christianity will fade. There were death threats, banning from radio stations, and mass burnings of Beatles records. He was wrong in that Christianity still exists, but people are still listening to the Beatles over half a century later.

    If you don’t like Kanye, don’t listen to his music, don’t buy his albums, don’t buy his Adidas branded sneakers.

    People will still be listening to Kanye a hundred years from now. This YouTube link has over 62 million views. Kanye doesn’t rap about gangbanging and guns and drugs. He raps about Jesus, his mom, the music industry, and the first world problems of wealth and fame.

    Jonathan Greenblatt, a self-appointed censor with zero credibility on anything, will be forgotten a hundred years from now. He will never be anything more than a footnote to the Obama administration, and his only legacy will be a never visited Wikipedia page.

    Jonathan Greenblatt is a nobody, a nothing, a literal who.

    Kanye is eternal, and Jesus is King.

  57. ‘Chino Valley was the only region to experience a slight drop in median sales price last month of 10.5%’

    I know this area well. It was a huge drive from Flagstaff, but there were lots of foreclosures in 2009 and on. So I decided every trip there was an overnighter. I won’t say it’s a sh$thole cuz I saw some pretty nice set ups on 2-3-5 acres when I was foreclosing them. There’s also mobile shack hell on stupid grades full of tweekers.

    1. The Financial Times
      Chinese economy
      China’s GDP growth falls short of target as property and zero-Covid woes mount
      Delayed third-quarter data follows President Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power at party congress
      China’s president Xi Jinping has set a full-year growth target of 5.5 per cent, already the slowest in decades, but analysts say it is unlikely to be met
      Thomas Hale in Shanghai, Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong and Edward White in Seoul
      2 hours ago

      China’s gross domestic product rose 3.9 per cent year on year in the third quarter, far below its full-year target and laying bare the scale of the economic challenges facing the country.

      The release of the data on Monday, delayed from last Tuesday, comes after China’s president Xi Jinping extended his rule for an unprecedented third term and tightened his grip on political power at the Communist party’s 20th congress last week.

      While the government provided no explanation for the delay in releasing the data, the move was widely seen as an attempt to avoid distracting from the congress, which occurs once every five years and overhauls the upper echelons of the Communist Party.

      The year-on-year growth rate, which analysts polled by Bloomberg forecast at 3.3 per cent, falls short of China’s full-year target of 5.5 per cent — already its lowest in three decades.

      China’s economy is grappling with a property crisis and strict zero-Covid controls and lockdowns, which have largely curtailed the spread of the virus but also crippled consumer activity.

      The data release helped spur a broad sell-off in Chinese equities on Monday, with the Hang Seng China Enterprises index in Hong Kong falling as much as 5.1 per cent and the benchmark CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks down as much as 1.5 per cent.
      …

      1. The Financial Times
        Opinion Chinese economy
        China’s economy will not overtake the US until 2060, if ever
        The consensus that Beijing can achieve whatever target it sets ignores the pace of slowdown in recent years
        Ruchir Sharma
        A worker changes reels in a woven bag factory
        China’s growth in the long term depends on improving productivity
        Ruchir Sharma yesterday
        The writer is chair of Rockefeller International

        As he embarks on a third term, Xi Jinping’s goal is to make China a mid-level developed country in the next decade, which implies that the economy will need to expand at a rate of around 5 per cent. But underlying trends — bad demographics, heavy debt and declining productivity growth — suggest the country’s overall growth potential is about half that rate.

        The implications of China growing at 2.5 per cent have yet to be fully digested anywhere, including Beijing. For one thing, assuming that the US grows at 1.5 per cent, with similar rates of inflation and a stable exchange rate, China would not overtake America as the world’s largest economy until 2060, if ever.

        Growth in the long term depends on more workers using more capital, and using it more efficiently (productivity). China, with a shrinking population and declining productivity growth, has been growing by injecting more capital into the economy at an unsustainable rate.

        China is now a middle-income country, a stage when many economies naturally start to slow given the higher base. Its per capita income is currently $12,500, one-fifth that of the US. There are 38 advanced economies today, and all of them grew past the $12,500 income level in the decades after the second world war — most quite gradually. Only 19 grew at 2.5 per cent or faster for the next 10 years, and did so with a boost from more workers; on average the working age population grew at 1.2 per cent a year. Only two (Lithuania and Latvia) had a shrinking workforce.

        China is an outlier. It would be the first large middle-income country to sustain 2.5 per cent gross domestic product growth despite working-age population decline, which began in 2015. And in China this decline is precipitous, on track to contract at an annual rate of nearly 0.5 per cent in the coming decades. Then there’s the debt. In the 19 countries that sustained 2.5 per cent growth after reaching China’s current income level, debt (including government, households and businesses) averaged 170 per cent of GDP. None had debts nearly as high as China’s.

        Before the 2008 crisis, China’s debts held steady at about 150 per cent of GDP; afterwards it began pumping out credit to boost growth, and debts spiked to 220 per cent of GDP by 2015. Debt binges normally lead to a sharp slowdown, and China’s economy did decelerate in the 2010s, but only from 10 per cent to 6 per cent — less dramatically than past patterns would predict.

        China avoided a deeper slowdown thanks to a tech sector boom and, more importantly, by issuing more debt. Total debt is up to 275 per cent of GDP, and much of it funded investment in the property bubble, where all too much of it went to waste.
        …

        1. “Total debt is up to 275 per cent of GDP, and much of it funded investment in the property bubble, where all too much of it went to waste.”

          Where’s AlbuquerqueDan when you need someone to put in a good word for the Chinese economy?

    2. Hong Kong stocks plunge 6% as fears about Xi’s third term trump China GDP data
      By Laura He, CNN Business
      Updated 5:57 AM EDT, Mon
      October 24, 2022

      Hong Kong stocks had their worst day since the 2008 global financial crisis, just a day after Chinese leader Xi Jinping secured his iron grip on power at a major political gathering.

      Foreign investors spooked by the outcome of the Communist Party’s leadership reshuffle dumped Chinese equities and the yuan despite the release of stronger-than-expected GDP data. They’re worried that Xi’s tightening grip on power will lead to the continuation of Beijing’s existing policies and further dent the economy.

      Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng (HSI) Index plunged 6.4% on Monday, marking its biggest daily drop since November 2008. The index closed at its lowest level since April 2009.

      The Hang Seng Tech Index, which tracks the 30 largest technology firms listed in Hong Kong, plunged 9.7%.

      Shares of Alibaba (BABA) and Tencent (TCEHY) — the crown jewels of China’s technology sector — both plummeted more than 11%, wiping a combined $54 billion off their stock market value.
      …
      https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/23/economy/china-gdp-released-xi-third-term-stock-market-intl-hnk/index.html

  60. Are stock HODLers in a state of denial about economic reality?

    I heard that real estate IS the economy, and real estate is getting flushed down the toilet about now.

    1. Yahoo Finance
      Why stock market investing is so bizarre right now: Morning Brief
      Brian Sozzi
      Mon, October 24, 2022 at 4:30 AM·4 min read

      Each Saturday, I have rituals of sorts.

      First, I do two workouts — one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Two, I relax by waxing my car. And three, I rewatch a bunch of the on-camera content I produced from the week. Call it the obsessive pursuit of constant improvement. Did I miss a question to a top executive? Was I too harsh on a company’s quarter? Did I smile when I should have been intensely serious? All questions I debate.

      During this weekend’s analysis, I realized I used the word bizarre a ton when breaking down corporate earnings and the general start to the earnings season.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-investing-bizarre-right-now-morning-brief-093056743.html

  61. Was the central bankers’ Quantitative Easing printing press money really free, or is a day of reckoning in store?

    1. Yahoo
      Bloomberg
      UK Taxpayers Take First Ever Loss From BOE QE Holdings
      David Goodman and Philip Aldrick
      Fri, October 21, 2022 at 1:35 AM·3 min read

      (Bloomberg) — The Bank of England’s mammoth government bond holdings were a drain on the UK’s public finances for the first time on record in September, explaining why the government has had to earmark £11 billion ($12.3 billion) of cash to transfer to the central bank this fiscal year.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-taxpayers-first-ever-loss-063533266.html

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