A weekend topic starting with two reports from the Globe and Mail. "Berkeley Loh, 29,…
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From the first 9:20 video:
Q3 2022 San Francisco Bay Area Housing Market Update: Is now the right time to buy?
Palo Alto California
Oct 24, 2022 You’re looking at the San Francisco housing market and wondering: is this the prime time to buy? There are a lot of factors to consider before deciding to purchase a home in the Bay Area. Today, we’ll talk about shifts in the housing market, rising interest rates, and other elements that play key parts in deciding to buy a home in the Bay Area.
Timestamp:
00:00 Welcome
00:30 Interest rates
3:48 Home Prices
8:45 Reach out
The second 10:13 video:
Realtors STOP! You don’t know where rates are headed.
Rick McHone
Streamed live on Oct 24, 2022 I don’t know when rates will drop. You don’t know when rates will drop and either to traders of bonds. So why are Realtors saying they will drop next year??
The third 11 minute video:
Is Cornwall’s Housing Market Boom About To CRASH?
Wendall Explores
Oct 25, 2022 Between 2020 and 2022, the housing market In Cornwall has experienced an unprecedented boom. Prices have increased by 35% and demand for houses in this beautiful coastal county has become insatiable. A staycation boom influenced by coronavirus travel restrictions and an upsurge in Brits relocating to rural locations from their traditional urban dwellings to work remotely have been influencing factors. But.. what goes up must come down. Late 2022 and the cost of living crisis ravaging the finances of everyday Brits has meant a cooling of the market. Properties are not selling at anywhere near the same rate as consumers are nervous. Will this see the booming Cornwall housing market CRASH?
The last 14:35 video:
Will Interest Rates Go Even Higher? House Prices Continue to Decline. 2022 Canadian Housing Market
Jon Flynn Broker of Record, Flynn Real Estate Inc.
Oct 25, 2022 As house price continue to make new lows, buyers are hedging their bets with lower offers and setting new price points to the downside. Canada’s Finance Minister warns of “difficult days ahead” as the economy slows and rates rise. CPI is still well above target as the Bank of Canada approaches their next interest rate announcement.
Realtors STOP! You don’t know where rates are headed.
Smash his like button so more people will see this.
Musk On Housing Bubble Burst: ‘They Dug Their Own Graves – A Lesson We Should All Take To Heart’
On Aug. 27, 2020, the Fed changed its long-standing policy and allowed inflation to exceed its 2% target, reasoning that inflation had been consistently below the target for an extended period. Before inflation exploded, the Fed’s singular focus was on driving the unemployment rate as low as possible. It apparently believed that if inflation rose above the 2% target, as allowed in its new policy framework, the increase would only be moderately above 2% and easily reversed. Instead, inflation quickly spiraled out of control.
The Fed’s attempt to fine-tune inflation failed miserably. Its current policy reversal, aggressively increasing its target interest rate, suggests shock and panic.
The Fed’s expanded mission likely will introduce an inflationary bias into its policy. Pursuit of its new objectives will require stimulative policies with emphasis on driving down the unemployment rate. Studies of the 1970s experience have demonstrated the folly of setting the unemployment target too low, with the only lasting result being inflation.
Mission creep also appears to be heading toward expanding regulations that selectively allocate credit. Market forces will be circumvented to supply credit to favored firms and industries. The Fed’s past experiences with credit controls uniformly have been judged to be failures, as anyone versed in monetary policy history would know.
“We’ve been teaching banking and monetary policy for a combined 75-plus years and believe the Fed’s mistakes are caused by systemic problems. First, the Fed has lost its focus on the largely bipartisan dual mandate of price stability and high employment. Second, its chief decision-makers are increasingly partisan. And third, many of them are not monetary-policy specialists.”
That can’t be good for the country.
“price stability”
Code language. Shouldn’t need to explain it.
“Mission creep also appears to be heading toward expanding regulations that selectively allocate credit. Market forces will be circumvented to supply credit to favored firms and industries. The Fed’s past experiences with credit controls uniformly have been judged to be failures, as anyone versed in monetary policy history would know.”
Isn’t that the special lending window we’ve seen before?
I also expect that our senators and other deep state phat-cats will preemptively purchase shares in these favored firms and industries before the lending window is created.
HSBC sets aside $1.1bn for bad debts in wake of China property crash
The Daily Telegraph|22 hours ago
HSBC has been forced to set aside $1.1bn (£970m) to cover bad debts in the wake of rising interest rates and a weak Chinese property market, prompting its share price to slump. The high street bank’s decision to put aside the money for expected credit losses stands in contrast to the release of $659m a year earlier as the Covid pandemic receded.
“If you look at national statistics for a small to mid-sized city like Grand Rapids, we’re still doing extremely well,” Brown said, later adding that housing prices likely won’t be falling anytime soon. “Right now, there’s demand from other states, like New York State, California, Colorado, because of high tax rates on their property. They’re leaving there and buying property here in Michigan, that’s also helping hold the property values up.”
The city’s growing industry and high-paying jobs are not only attracting Michiganders, but those from out-of-state who are willing to pay those high prices. Brown said he encourages able renters to consider investing in a home, and to not dwell on the currently high interest rates.
“If you’re renting right now and you have the ability to purchase a home, you’re crazy not to because rent is 100% interest,” Brown said. “There’s no asset – you’re just giving it to your landlord… If you’re renting, and you could buy – I would buy. Find a way to buy, talk to a realtor, get connected with a good lender and get a get a mortgage preapproval so that you can go buy, it’ll take some time. But you have to start the process.”
Like the rest of the province, the Interior real estate market is undergoing adjustments. Inventory is low, but due to rising interest rates, so is the number of prospective buyers.
“The condo market in the Interior is following trends, especially in the greater Kelowna or what we would call central Okanagan area,” said Lyndi Cruickshank, president of the Association of Interior Realtors.
“We’ve certainly seen a decline, not only in prices, but number of units sold. The two typically go hand-in-hand. The other indicator is how long something takes to sell.”
“Cambria’s a little different than most of San Luis Obispo County. We’re definitely seeing a slow down. We’re not seeing inventory come on the market in the way we need it,” said Joe Prian, RE/MAX Pines by the Sea broker and owner.
High interest rates are pushing many first-time home buyers out of the market.
“I recently had a pre-qual letter come in for an offer on a listing that I have and that pre-qual letter had a not-to-exceed interest rate of 7.99%,” said Prian.
Prian says it is highly likely that buyer will be pushed out of the market if interest rates continue to rise.
“So if the interest rates go above that, then it drops that buyer out of the market for the season until hopefully interest rates come back down,” said Prian.
He says it’s not a bad idea to wait to buy.
“For those that are borderline with their mortgage payments and their interest rates, taxes and all of that, uh, yeah, wait,” said Prian.
He says it’s not a bad idea to wait to buy.
“For those that are borderline with their mortgage payments and their interest rates, taxes and all of that, uh, yeah, wait,” said Prian.
Good advice from a UHS? I do believe it is!
Kudos to him.
San Luis Obispo County is a retirement destination. Outside of the government sector, there are few family supporting jobs in the area.
Those looking to buy a house in either Grand Traverse, Leelanau or Antrim Counties, have been seeing more price reductions than new homes on the market.
“That’s something that’s affecting obviously home sellers, but the inventory levels are continuing to be low. We’ve seen more construction happen, but we’re still not caught up. So the inventory levels are still pretty low, but the prices are starting to come down a bit,” Hodges says.
Creig Northrop, President of Northrop Reality, said three things are cooling off the market right now.
“You have an inventory problem, still. You have an inflation problem, and you have an interest rate problem,” said Northrop.
Northrop said the inventory problem is causing homes to sell slightly above the listed sale price because there is still a need for housing.
Last week, the interest rate on a 30-year mortgage reached 6.94%.
Northrop said it is becoming a balanced market. “Buyers are bringing back inspections, they’re bringing back appraisal – things that we needed to do anyway – but inventory has to grow,” said Northrop.
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KJCT) – The fallout from the pandemic mixed with record high inflation means more Mesa County homeowners can’t pay their mortgages. Experts don’t see any relief for homeowners anytime soon. Now, a troubling trend between economic events and people forced to let their homes slip into foreclosure.
Sheila, from Mesa County Treasures office, said the massive jump is likely aftershocks from the pandemic. “Currently what we’re seeing is probably the effects of the COVID crisis and some of the natural foreclosures that would happen if they were allowed to go forward over the past couple of years.”
“Experts don’t see any relief for homeowners anytime soon.”
Is it time to short the mortgage securities markets?
There’s nothing good to say about the newly-released national test scores in reading and math for fourth- and eighth-graders, showing sizable declines in the vast majority of states as a result of the pandemic.
“The results … are appalling, unacceptable, and a reminder of the impact that this pandemic has had on our learners,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said after the scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, were released Sunday.
But there’s another danger suggested by the reactions to the NAEP scores: the danger of using the results to justify school policies that were made on ideological grounds and based on what are by any standard incomplete and confusing data.
For example, here’s Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a sworn opponent of anti-pandemic public health measures, crowing on Twitter that his state’s NAEP results “prove that we made the right decision” to keep schools open.
Since Gov. DeSantis took pains to declare victory, let’s compare his state’s record to that of California. The two states could not be further apart in their approach to pandemic-era schooling. As my colleague Paloma Esquivel reported, in California, the vast majority of schools were closed until spring 2021; in Florida, schools could reopen starting in fall 2020.
“It was pretty clear by the fall of 2020 that schools were not locations of significant COVID spread, so it was possible to have them open,” Oster told me. “Keeping schools closed past that point was understandable, since it was a very complicated time, but it was not necessary from the standpoint of data, in my view.”
This writer is a piece of sh$t on legs. Playing politics with everybody’s lives. The rope is coming scumbags.
national test scores in reading and math for fourth- and eighth-graders, showing sizable declines in the vast majority of states
Yeah maybe they can’t do math or read, but they know what a drag queen, the 82 genders and how to twerk so not all is lost.
What a drag queen “is”
OOPS, Apparently I can’t read and write. Must have been the Pandemic.
Maff be hard!
The MBA is forecasting that mortgage rates will end 2023 at 5.4% after more than doubling in 2022.
“The slowdown in housing activity and higher mortgage rates will quickly cut the rate of home-price growth. MBA expects national home prices will be roughly flat in 2023 and 2024, allowing household incomes some much-needed time to catch up to elevated property values,” said Kan. “However, many local markets will see home-price declines, even if national price measures remain largely unchanged.”
According to Kan, first-time homebuyers will make up the glut of demand over the next few years, given current trends. The combination of still-low levels of for-sale inventory and slowing new construction activity means that housing supply is likely to remain constrained for some time.
“Origination volumes have declined, revenues have dropped, and expenses continue to rise,” said Walsh. “Lenders have started to shrink excess capacity by reducing staffing levels, exiting less profitable channels or exiting the business entirely.”
The MBA further predicts that mortgage employment will drop an additional 25-30%, given the decrease in production problem from record levels which occurred in 2020 and 2021.
On the servicing side of the business, profits have rebounded in 2022. Mortgage servicers are benefitting from slower prepayments and low delinquencies that have helped boost mortgage servicing right (MSR) valuations.
“The national mortgage delinquency rate reached a record-low in the second quarter of 2022 but will likely increase with the uptick in unemployment and the destruction caused by Hurricane Ian in Florida, South Carolina, and other nearby states.” Walsh concluded.
Yeah, where is inflation? Yer gonna make loans and lose 2-4% just to inflation, not to mention the crater, every year for 30 years? Sound lending I tells ya!
That’s what I call whistling past the graveyard.
“The forceful deceleration in U.S. housing prices that we noted a month ago continued in our report for August 2022,” Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P DJI, said in a media statement.
“The -2.6% difference between those two monthly rates of change is the largest deceleration in the history of the index (with July’s deceleration now ranking as the second largest),” Lazzara added.
“As the Federal Reserve moves interest rates higher, mortgage financing becomes more expensive, and housing becomes less affordable,” Lazzara said. “Given the continuing prospects for a challenging macroeconomic environment, home prices may well continue to decelerate.”
The two biggest craters on record in just a few months.
Red hotcakes!
“As we move into the colder months of the year, we can expect further declines in home sales and continued downward adjustment in prices,” said George Ratiu, manager of economic research at Realtor.com.
Homebuilders have been hit by the sudden market slowdown. PulteGroup Inc. reported Tuesday that canceled deals spiked and third-quarter orders plunged as demand faltered.
“Home prices were still up 12.7 percent annually in the San Diego metro, the eighth highest in the survey’s 20-city index. Yet that is a big change from March when prices were up 30 percent in a year.”
Metro? Index? Prices my good friend prices!🤣
San Diego, CA Housing Prices Crater 18% On Surging Inventory And Mortgage Defaults
Additionally, housing supply is jumping considerably, with new homes for sale up 50% since February while the number of existing homes for sale is up 64% since the October 2020 low, according to the note.
“This means we are moving from a market that was suffering from significant excess demand to one where there is a risk of modest excess supply dominating the story over the coming year, especially if recessionary forces result in rising unemployment,” Knightley said.
With the median price for an existing home 5.3 times the median level of household incomes, Knightley projects a 20% decline in home prices would get the house price-to-income ratio back to its long-run average of about 4 times.
Now that Paris Hilton is 41, there is no longer a velocity (or frequency) comparison of her falling panties with housing prices à la 2008.
PulteGroup Inc. reported plunging demand for its homes and a spike in canceled deals for the third quarter. The shares rose, showing just how the bar has been “lowered” for builders navigating the US housing slump.
Contracts were canceled in 24% of deals in the period, up from 15% in the second quarter, the Atlanta-based builder said in a statement Tuesday. Purchase contracts fell 28% from a year earlier to 4,924, missing the average estimate of 5,715 from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
“It’s likely that the 28% decline in orders was better than feared, given the massive order declines we saw” recently from competitors, such as KB Home and Toll Brothers Inc., Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Drew Reading said. “Still, better than feared does not mean good, and we expect current challenging market conditions to persist for the foreseeable future.”
More than 1,200 Plymouth companies are in financial trouble and the situation is getting worse. The latest Red Flag Alert report shows construction firms are struggling the most, as the economy struggles with inflation, hikes in interest rates and waning consumer confidence.
Canadian homebuilder Mattamy Group Corp. saw a huge decline in orders during the summer months, the latest signal of a rapid slowdown in North American housing. Mattamy’s net sales orders decreased 65% from a year earlier, to just 605 homes, in the fiscal first quarter ended Aug. 31, according to a statement. Its order backlog fell below 7,000 homes for the first time in two years. The closely held company, founded by Peter Gilgan, builds condominiums and single-family homes in more than a dozen markets in Canada and the US, including Toronto, Calgary, Dallas and Phoenix.
Rising mortgage rates have sapped demand for homes in both countries as central banks try to quash inflation. Home owners are reluctant to move because they would have to take on significantly higher rates than their current loans. That’s causing activity and prices to fall.
In the greater Toronto region, 5,038 existing homes were sold in September, down 44% from a year earlier. Prices have fallen nearly 9% in six months on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to data from the national real estate association. The suburbs around Canada’s largest city, where Mattamy has a number of current projects, have seen even steeper price declines.
A dark parallel world exists beneath the luxury hotels and casinos of Las Vegas: An estimated 1,500 homeless people live in an extensive labyrinth of tunnels. A visit to the dark side of Las Vegas.
That one guy has a complete bed down there, box spring, mattress, comforter and pillows. It’s good to be, ‘da King!
And while working-class voters of color have been a reliable Democratic bloc in recent years, they are also among the hardest hit by rising rents, gas prices and grocery bills. Now, Democratic strategists worry that they may not vote, or that Republicans can peel them off at the margins, because of it.
“If Democrats can’t win in Nevada, we can complain about the white working class all you want, but we’re really confronting a much broader working class problem,” said a national Democratic pollster, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “We’re struggling with them, regardless of race.”
Sean McElwee, a Democratic pollster, called Nevada “ground zero” for this problem, “where non-college voters or working class voters” are “moving away from us.”
I know the answer Sean. Start telling their little children they can be a boy or girl, show them pervert porn and change their sexes with a surgery or 5! Oh, and make em start riding the bus and tax their farts.
Addiction on the streets in Redding: Violence, theft, and drug use
October through November is known for prime fishing on the Sacramento River, the principal river in northern CA. It draws people from all over the country to get a shot at a large steelhead or salmon. However professional fishing guides say tents, sleeping bags laid out, trash accumulation, and homeless people using the bathroom out in the open are some of the first things their out-of-town clients see when they come to Redding.
Human traffickers coerced eight Cuban migrants into prostitution in Florida as part of a “modern-day” slavery plot, Hillsborough Sheriff Chad Chronister said on Monday.
Deputies arrested Amet Roman Maqueira De La Cal, 34, and Rosalia Leonard Garcia, 29, on Thursday in Tampa and rescued the women, ages 18 to 24, who lived under the threat of violence, Chronister said.
“All of the trapped women were working as prostitutes, and strippers and forced to perform other types of sex acts to pay off their debt of $60,000 each, which is what the smuggling cost,” Chronister said.
Five of the women were living in one room, three in another and they all shared one bathroom, Chronister said.
“This is one of the worst trafficking cases that I have seen. It hits on every element when we are training law enforcement and prosecutors across the state in what to look for in one of these cases,” Moody said.
Leonard Garcia and Maqueira De La Cal are facing 47 charges, including human smuggling, sexual battery, false imprisonment, prostitution, and the unlawful use of a two-way device.
Any radio or mobile phone, I believe, used to commit a crime.
The billion-dollar tech unicorn is becoming rare again
The Washington Post|2 hours ago
The shaky economic outlook is spurring belt-tightening in Silicon Valley, and the number of billion-dollar start-ups has dived. The age of the tech unicorn may be over.
Wa happened to my money losing concept stocks?
billion-dollar start-ups
I’m old enough to remember when start ups actually started in a garage on a shoestring budget.
Recently, financial guru Ramit Sethi told a story of a couple he knew who purchased a house, realized they couldn’t afford it, and had the opportunity to sell it for the exact same price they bought it for. The problem? The couple was actually looking at a $100,000 loss in the process. Here’s why.
Meanwhile, when you sell a home with the help of a real estate agent, you pay a fee for that service. Often, that fee amounts to 5% to 6% of your home’s sale price. If you’re selling a very expensive home, that fee alone could amount to $100,000.
A second Iowa credit union cuts staff, citing weak mortgage market
American Banker|16 hours ago
Another large Iowa credit union has announced layoffs as concerns about a weakening mortgage market persist. Collins Community Credit Union in Cedar Rapids said Monday that it laid off 38 employees, primarily in its mortgage lending division. In September …
Real estate unicorn Roofstock cuts its workforce by 20%
HousingWire|16 hours ago
SF-based digital real estate unicorn Roofstock laid off 20% of its workforce shortly after announcing its first NFT-powered property sale.
Jennifer Sey was Levi’s brand president and on track to be the jeans company’s CEO. But when she complained online about extended school closures and their effect on children, she was attacked and falsely labeled a “COVID denier” who wanted to get former President Donald Trump re-elected. Levi’s management gave her a choice: Shut up or leave. As she explains in her new memoir, “Levi’s Unbuttoned,” Sey felt she had to quit her dream job on principle. In this exclusive excerpt, Sey explains how many of today’s CEOs — lacking any backbone, yet desperate to be seen as “good” — cave to performative woke mobs.
“Woke capitalism” is corporate America’s attempt to profit off Millennial and Gen Z activism, often passive keyboard activism.
It exploits social-justice politics and transforms it into social-justice consumerism — and ultimately, investor profit. Companies purporting to care about “progressive values” are really doing nothing more than striking a superficial pose meant to signal virtue while distracting from any company’s true motive: financial gain for shareholders.
Somehow, some way, despite all the evidence of greed and corruption, business leaders have managed to re-brand themselves as altruists. Never mind that in 2020, CEOs made 351 times more than the average worker at their company — up from 21 times more in 1965. Indeed, in the last 30 years, their average compensation has grown over 1,000%, even as they have burnished an image as humanitarians.
In this new Gilded Age, journalists — themselves often politically biased and ethically compromised — have continued to spread the fiction that corporate leaders and entrepreneurs are not just “good” people but near god-like figures. The public eats it up, because it helps to fill the gaping religion-size hole in our increasingly secular culture.
Of course, the beauty of it all is that simultaneously it endows consumers with a false sense of nobility, encouraging them to believe that buying the right stuff is actually activism. “You like T-shirts? Here — buy this organic cotton T-shirt that also shows you support the LGBTQ+ community because it has our logo but with a rainbow!”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not against capitalism. Far from it. I’m against the charade that is social-justice capitalism.
They lay claim to inscrutable labels, like demisexual and recipromantic (you guessed it, you only like someone after knowing they like you), which demand we all listen to them because they know things we don’t. They have lived lives of oppression that we stodgy cisgender parents would never understand.
So we better listen up, or they won’t visit us. Worse, they’ll cancel us. Many of us are desperate to prove that we do not deserve this dismissive “OK Boomer” meme. We are “with it,” serious-minded “virtue”-osos, too.
But as C.S. Lewis said, “I’d rather live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.” Amen to that.
Why do they do it? Because, as author and economist Thomas Sowell has said, those “who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior.”
By doing close to nothing — wearing the right T-shirt, affixing one’s social media profile with the right badge (for example, “I am vaccinated” or “I stand with Ukraine”) and by canceling the “wrong” people by generating outrage with a finger tap, they are saved.
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For their part, the CEO dads (yes, 95% of CEOs are men) are not social media experts. Their Corporate Communications leads manage their LinkedIn accounts, and they scan their wives’ Facebook accounts on occasion to check out what the kids are up to. And that’s the extent of their social media prowess. Which makes it all the easier for the woke mob to cow them online — and even in their own offices.
The outrage generated through call-out culture and social media cancellation is real. And very satisfying for those who invoke it. But it also isn’t real. It passes quickly for the most part, if its targets have the fortitude to hunker down and bear it. As Dave Chappelle says: “Twitter’s not a real place.”
But the CEOs don’t know that. Their harried communications leaders present them with tweets and comments, and they have no sense of context. It’s words on a “page.” Could be in the New York Times or on CNN for all they know. It’s bad stuff on the screen, with the potential to prompt reputational harm, causing the stock price to plummet. And they panic.
Most CEOs lack the moral courage to hold their ground. Because they know, deep down, that they aren’t do-gooders, and they don’t want that curtain lifted. So they kowtow to the very vocal minority — the scant few employees marching outside of headquarters or emailing the head of Human Resources. These CEOs are frauds and have no actual courage.
The gutsy stance — tilting at windmills and fighting injustice — is a just a persona, a public facade, a wealth-generating marketing strategy. They love money, and they fear the angry mob because that mob may interfere with their ability to produce inter-generational private-plane wealth. They want to make as much money as possible, but they want everyone, including their kids and their kids’ cohort, to think that they really just want to make a difference in the world. “Oh gee, aw shucks, I happened to make gazillions of dollars. But that’s just ’cause I’m really, really good at heart.”
“Most CEOs lack the moral courage to hold their ground. Because they know, deep down, that they aren’t do-gooders, and they don’t want that curtain lifted. So they kowtow to the very vocal minority — the scant few employees marching outside of headquarters or emailing the head of Human Resources. These CEOs are frauds and have no actual courage.”
Tactics copied from the Rainbow Coalition’s playbook!
“Most CEOs lack the moral courage to hold their ground.”
This is the main reason for the proliferation of minority & women ceo’s. Hard to criticize colored people or women in general.
From the first 9:20 video:
Q3 2022 San Francisco Bay Area Housing Market Update: Is now the right time to buy?
Palo Alto California
Oct 24, 2022 You’re looking at the San Francisco housing market and wondering: is this the prime time to buy? There are a lot of factors to consider before deciding to purchase a home in the Bay Area. Today, we’ll talk about shifts in the housing market, rising interest rates, and other elements that play key parts in deciding to buy a home in the Bay Area.
Timestamp:
00:00 Welcome
00:30 Interest rates
3:48 Home Prices
8:45 Reach out
The second 10:13 video:
Realtors STOP! You don’t know where rates are headed.
Rick McHone
Streamed live on Oct 24, 2022 I don’t know when rates will drop. You don’t know when rates will drop and either to traders of bonds. So why are Realtors saying they will drop next year??
The third 11 minute video:
Is Cornwall’s Housing Market Boom About To CRASH?
Wendall Explores
Oct 25, 2022 Between 2020 and 2022, the housing market In Cornwall has experienced an unprecedented boom. Prices have increased by 35% and demand for houses in this beautiful coastal county has become insatiable. A staycation boom influenced by coronavirus travel restrictions and an upsurge in Brits relocating to rural locations from their traditional urban dwellings to work remotely have been influencing factors. But.. what goes up must come down. Late 2022 and the cost of living crisis ravaging the finances of everyday Brits has meant a cooling of the market. Properties are not selling at anywhere near the same rate as consumers are nervous. Will this see the booming Cornwall housing market CRASH?
The last 14:35 video:
Will Interest Rates Go Even Higher? House Prices Continue to Decline. 2022 Canadian Housing Market
Jon Flynn Broker of Record, Flynn Real Estate Inc.
Oct 25, 2022 As house price continue to make new lows, buyers are hedging their bets with lower offers and setting new price points to the downside. Canada’s Finance Minister warns of “difficult days ahead” as the economy slows and rates rise. CPI is still well above target as the Bank of Canada approaches their next interest rate announcement.
Realtors STOP! You don’t know where rates are headed.
Smash his like button so more people will see this.
Musk On Housing Bubble Burst: ‘They Dug Their Own Graves – A Lesson We Should All Take To Heart’
https://www.benzinga.com/media/22/05/27206984/musk-on-housing-bubble-burst-they-dug-their-own-graves-a-lesson-we-should-all-take-to-heart-2
On Aug. 27, 2020, the Fed changed its long-standing policy and allowed inflation to exceed its 2% target, reasoning that inflation had been consistently below the target for an extended period. Before inflation exploded, the Fed’s singular focus was on driving the unemployment rate as low as possible. It apparently believed that if inflation rose above the 2% target, as allowed in its new policy framework, the increase would only be moderately above 2% and easily reversed. Instead, inflation quickly spiraled out of control.
The Fed’s attempt to fine-tune inflation failed miserably. Its current policy reversal, aggressively increasing its target interest rate, suggests shock and panic.
The Fed’s expanded mission likely will introduce an inflationary bias into its policy. Pursuit of its new objectives will require stimulative policies with emphasis on driving down the unemployment rate. Studies of the 1970s experience have demonstrated the folly of setting the unemployment target too low, with the only lasting result being inflation.
Mission creep also appears to be heading toward expanding regulations that selectively allocate credit. Market forces will be circumvented to supply credit to favored firms and industries. The Fed’s past experiences with credit controls uniformly have been judged to be failures, as anyone versed in monetary policy history would know.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/fed-mission-creep-turned-monetary-policy-into-failed-mission
“We’ve been teaching banking and monetary policy for a combined 75-plus years and believe the Fed’s mistakes are caused by systemic problems. First, the Fed has lost its focus on the largely bipartisan dual mandate of price stability and high employment. Second, its chief decision-makers are increasingly partisan. And third, many of them are not monetary-policy specialists.”
That can’t be good for the country.
“price stability”
Code language. Shouldn’t need to explain it.
“Mission creep also appears to be heading toward expanding regulations that selectively allocate credit. Market forces will be circumvented to supply credit to favored firms and industries. The Fed’s past experiences with credit controls uniformly have been judged to be failures, as anyone versed in monetary policy history would know.”
Isn’t that the special lending window we’ve seen before?
I also expect that our senators and other deep state phat-cats will preemptively purchase shares in these favored firms and industries before the lending window is created.
HSBC sets aside $1.1bn for bad debts in wake of China property crash
The Daily Telegraph|22 hours ago
HSBC has been forced to set aside $1.1bn (£970m) to cover bad debts in the wake of rising interest rates and a weak Chinese property market, prompting its share price to slump. The high street bank’s decision to put aside the money for expected credit losses stands in contrast to the release of $659m a year earlier as the Covid pandemic receded.
“If you look at national statistics for a small to mid-sized city like Grand Rapids, we’re still doing extremely well,” Brown said, later adding that housing prices likely won’t be falling anytime soon. “Right now, there’s demand from other states, like New York State, California, Colorado, because of high tax rates on their property. They’re leaving there and buying property here in Michigan, that’s also helping hold the property values up.”
The city’s growing industry and high-paying jobs are not only attracting Michiganders, but those from out-of-state who are willing to pay those high prices. Brown said he encourages able renters to consider investing in a home, and to not dwell on the currently high interest rates.
“If you’re renting right now and you have the ability to purchase a home, you’re crazy not to because rent is 100% interest,” Brown said. “There’s no asset – you’re just giving it to your landlord… If you’re renting, and you could buy – I would buy. Find a way to buy, talk to a realtor, get connected with a good lender and get a get a mortgage preapproval so that you can go buy, it’ll take some time. But you have to start the process.”
https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/grand-rapids-housing-market/69-066c9757-f2d5-414f-a3bc-36297814f0bb
Like the rest of the province, the Interior real estate market is undergoing adjustments. Inventory is low, but due to rising interest rates, so is the number of prospective buyers.
“The condo market in the Interior is following trends, especially in the greater Kelowna or what we would call central Okanagan area,” said Lyndi Cruickshank, president of the Association of Interior Realtors.
“We’ve certainly seen a decline, not only in prices, but number of units sold. The two typically go hand-in-hand. The other indicator is how long something takes to sell.”
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/finance-real-estate/what-dollar500000-will-get-you-in-the-okanagans-real-estate-market/ar-AA13njoC
“Cambria’s a little different than most of San Luis Obispo County. We’re definitely seeing a slow down. We’re not seeing inventory come on the market in the way we need it,” said Joe Prian, RE/MAX Pines by the Sea broker and owner.
High interest rates are pushing many first-time home buyers out of the market.
“I recently had a pre-qual letter come in for an offer on a listing that I have and that pre-qual letter had a not-to-exceed interest rate of 7.99%,” said Prian.
Prian says it is highly likely that buyer will be pushed out of the market if interest rates continue to rise.
“So if the interest rates go above that, then it drops that buyer out of the market for the season until hopefully interest rates come back down,” said Prian.
He says it’s not a bad idea to wait to buy.
“For those that are borderline with their mortgage payments and their interest rates, taxes and all of that, uh, yeah, wait,” said Prian.
https://www.ksby.com/news/local-news/housing-market-slowing-down-after-record-setting-year
He says it’s not a bad idea to wait to buy.
“For those that are borderline with their mortgage payments and their interest rates, taxes and all of that, uh, yeah, wait,” said Prian.
Good advice from a UHS? I do believe it is!
Kudos to him.
San Luis Obispo County is a retirement destination. Outside of the government sector, there are few family supporting jobs in the area.
Those looking to buy a house in either Grand Traverse, Leelanau or Antrim Counties, have been seeing more price reductions than new homes on the market.
“That’s something that’s affecting obviously home sellers, but the inventory levels are continuing to be low. We’ve seen more construction happen, but we’re still not caught up. So the inventory levels are still pretty low, but the prices are starting to come down a bit,” Hodges says.
https://www.9and10news.com/2022/10/25/local-housing-broker-reacts-to-20-year-high-mortgage-rates/
Baltimore:
Creig Northrop, President of Northrop Reality, said three things are cooling off the market right now.
“You have an inventory problem, still. You have an inflation problem, and you have an interest rate problem,” said Northrop.
Northrop said the inventory problem is causing homes to sell slightly above the listed sale price because there is still a need for housing.
Last week, the interest rate on a 30-year mortgage reached 6.94%.
Northrop said it is becoming a balanced market. “Buyers are bringing back inspections, they’re bringing back appraisal – things that we needed to do anyway – but inventory has to grow,” said Northrop.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/heres-whats-slowing-down-the-increase-in-home-prices-says-one-expert/ar-AA13naqU
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KJCT) – The fallout from the pandemic mixed with record high inflation means more Mesa County homeowners can’t pay their mortgages. Experts don’t see any relief for homeowners anytime soon. Now, a troubling trend between economic events and people forced to let their homes slip into foreclosure.
Sheila, from Mesa County Treasures office, said the massive jump is likely aftershocks from the pandemic. “Currently what we’re seeing is probably the effects of the COVID crisis and some of the natural foreclosures that would happen if they were allowed to go forward over the past couple of years.”
https://www.kjct8.com/2022/10/26/climbing-number-foreclosures-mesa-county/
“Experts don’t see any relief for homeowners anytime soon.”
Is it time to short the mortgage securities markets?
There’s nothing good to say about the newly-released national test scores in reading and math for fourth- and eighth-graders, showing sizable declines in the vast majority of states as a result of the pandemic.
“The results … are appalling, unacceptable, and a reminder of the impact that this pandemic has had on our learners,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said after the scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, were released Sunday.
But there’s another danger suggested by the reactions to the NAEP scores: the danger of using the results to justify school policies that were made on ideological grounds and based on what are by any standard incomplete and confusing data.
For example, here’s Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a sworn opponent of anti-pandemic public health measures, crowing on Twitter that his state’s NAEP results “prove that we made the right decision” to keep schools open.
Since Gov. DeSantis took pains to declare victory, let’s compare his state’s record to that of California. The two states could not be further apart in their approach to pandemic-era schooling. As my colleague Paloma Esquivel reported, in California, the vast majority of schools were closed until spring 2021; in Florida, schools could reopen starting in fall 2020.
“It was pretty clear by the fall of 2020 that schools were not locations of significant COVID spread, so it was possible to have them open,” Oster told me. “Keeping schools closed past that point was understandable, since it was a very complicated time, but it was not necessary from the standpoint of data, in my view.”
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-10-25/those-math-and-reading-scores-were-horrible-but-watch-out-for-the-political-spin
This writer is a piece of sh$t on legs. Playing politics with everybody’s lives. The rope is coming scumbags.
national test scores in reading and math for fourth- and eighth-graders, showing sizable declines in the vast majority of states
Yeah maybe they can’t do math or read, but they know what a drag queen, the 82 genders and how to twerk so not all is lost.
What a drag queen “is”
OOPS, Apparently I can’t read and write. Must have been the Pandemic.
Maff be hard!
The MBA is forecasting that mortgage rates will end 2023 at 5.4% after more than doubling in 2022.
“The slowdown in housing activity and higher mortgage rates will quickly cut the rate of home-price growth. MBA expects national home prices will be roughly flat in 2023 and 2024, allowing household incomes some much-needed time to catch up to elevated property values,” said Kan. “However, many local markets will see home-price declines, even if national price measures remain largely unchanged.”
According to Kan, first-time homebuyers will make up the glut of demand over the next few years, given current trends. The combination of still-low levels of for-sale inventory and slowing new construction activity means that housing supply is likely to remain constrained for some time.
“Origination volumes have declined, revenues have dropped, and expenses continue to rise,” said Walsh. “Lenders have started to shrink excess capacity by reducing staffing levels, exiting less profitable channels or exiting the business entirely.”
The MBA further predicts that mortgage employment will drop an additional 25-30%, given the decrease in production problem from record levels which occurred in 2020 and 2021.
On the servicing side of the business, profits have rebounded in 2022. Mortgage servicers are benefitting from slower prepayments and low delinquencies that have helped boost mortgage servicing right (MSR) valuations.
“The national mortgage delinquency rate reached a record-low in the second quarter of 2022 but will likely increase with the uptick in unemployment and the destruction caused by Hurricane Ian in Florida, South Carolina, and other nearby states.” Walsh concluded.
https://dsnews.com/news/10-24-2022/mba-prediction
‘mortgage rates will end 2023 at 5.4%’
Yeah, where is inflation? Yer gonna make loans and lose 2-4% just to inflation, not to mention the crater, every year for 30 years? Sound lending I tells ya!
That’s what I call whistling past the graveyard.
“The forceful deceleration in U.S. housing prices that we noted a month ago continued in our report for August 2022,” Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P DJI, said in a media statement.
“The -2.6% difference between those two monthly rates of change is the largest deceleration in the history of the index (with July’s deceleration now ranking as the second largest),” Lazzara added.
“As the Federal Reserve moves interest rates higher, mortgage financing becomes more expensive, and housing becomes less affordable,” Lazzara said. “Given the continuing prospects for a challenging macroeconomic environment, home prices may well continue to decelerate.”
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/us-sees-record-slowdown-home-143136662.html
The two biggest craters on record in just a few months.
Red hotcakes!
“As we move into the colder months of the year, we can expect further declines in home sales and continued downward adjustment in prices,” said George Ratiu, manager of economic research at Realtor.com.
Homebuilders have been hit by the sudden market slowdown. PulteGroup Inc. reported Tuesday that canceled deals spiked and third-quarter orders plunged as demand faltered.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/us-home-price-growth-slows-130033881.html
San Diego home prices are dropping at a pace not seen since the Great Recession.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/san-diego-home-price-has-biggest-monthly-drop-since-great-recession/ar-AA13mXZR
“Home prices were still up 12.7 percent annually in the San Diego metro, the eighth highest in the survey’s 20-city index. Yet that is a big change from March when prices were up 30 percent in a year.”
Metro? Index? Prices my good friend prices!🤣
San Diego, CA Housing Prices Crater 18% On Surging Inventory And Mortgage Defaults
https://www.movoto.com/ca/92131/market-trends/
Additionally, housing supply is jumping considerably, with new homes for sale up 50% since February while the number of existing homes for sale is up 64% since the October 2020 low, according to the note.
“This means we are moving from a market that was suffering from significant excess demand to one where there is a risk of modest excess supply dominating the story over the coming year, especially if recessionary forces result in rising unemployment,” Knightley said.
With the median price for an existing home 5.3 times the median level of household incomes, Knightley projects a 20% decline in home prices would get the house price-to-income ratio back to its long-run average of about 4 times.
https://www.yahoo.com/video/inflation-could-fall-back-feds-183533535.html
The long term average is not 4 times. The REIC are lying dogs who would sell their grannies for another months commission.
SF home prices dropping faster than any other city in America: Data
https://news.yahoo.com/sf-home-prices-dropping-faster-070234445.html
Now that Paris Hilton is 41, there is no longer a velocity (or frequency) comparison of her falling panties with housing prices à la 2008.
PulteGroup Inc. reported plunging demand for its homes and a spike in canceled deals for the third quarter. The shares rose, showing just how the bar has been “lowered” for builders navigating the US housing slump.
Contracts were canceled in 24% of deals in the period, up from 15% in the second quarter, the Atlanta-based builder said in a statement Tuesday. Purchase contracts fell 28% from a year earlier to 4,924, missing the average estimate of 5,715 from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
“It’s likely that the 28% decline in orders was better than feared, given the massive order declines we saw” recently from competitors, such as KB Home and Toll Brothers Inc., Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Drew Reading said. “Still, better than feared does not mean good, and we expect current challenging market conditions to persist for the foreseeable future.”
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/pultegroup-rises-builders-results-better-142255199.html
More than 1,200 Plymouth companies are in financial trouble and the situation is getting worse. The latest Red Flag Alert report shows construction firms are struggling the most, as the economy struggles with inflation, hikes in interest rates and waning consumer confidence.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/more-than-200-plymouth-building-firms-in-significant-financial-trouble/ar-AA13nKd7
Canadian homebuilder Mattamy Group Corp. saw a huge decline in orders during the summer months, the latest signal of a rapid slowdown in North American housing. Mattamy’s net sales orders decreased 65% from a year earlier, to just 605 homes, in the fiscal first quarter ended Aug. 31, according to a statement. Its order backlog fell below 7,000 homes for the first time in two years. The closely held company, founded by Peter Gilgan, builds condominiums and single-family homes in more than a dozen markets in Canada and the US, including Toronto, Calgary, Dallas and Phoenix.
Rising mortgage rates have sapped demand for homes in both countries as central banks try to quash inflation. Home owners are reluctant to move because they would have to take on significantly higher rates than their current loans. That’s causing activity and prices to fall.
In the greater Toronto region, 5,038 existing homes were sold in September, down 44% from a year earlier. Prices have fallen nearly 9% in six months on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to data from the national real estate association. The suburbs around Canada’s largest city, where Mattamy has a number of current projects, have seen even steeper price declines.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/homebuilder-orders-plunge-65-canadian-172657854.html
A dark parallel world exists beneath the luxury hotels and casinos of Las Vegas: An estimated 1,500 homeless people live in an extensive labyrinth of tunnels. A visit to the dark side of Las Vegas.
https://www.nzz.ch/english/the-misery-of-the-homeless-in-las-vegas-living-in-tunnels-ld.1708954
I recall stories of the tunnels from last time.
That one guy has a complete bed down there, box spring, mattress, comforter and pillows. It’s good to be, ‘da King!
And while working-class voters of color have been a reliable Democratic bloc in recent years, they are also among the hardest hit by rising rents, gas prices and grocery bills. Now, Democratic strategists worry that they may not vote, or that Republicans can peel them off at the margins, because of it.
“If Democrats can’t win in Nevada, we can complain about the white working class all you want, but we’re really confronting a much broader working class problem,” said a national Democratic pollster, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “We’re struggling with them, regardless of race.”
Sean McElwee, a Democratic pollster, called Nevada “ground zero” for this problem, “where non-college voters or working class voters” are “moving away from us.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dems-working-class-struggles-shake-nevada-e2-80-94-and-threaten-the-whole-party/ar-AA13o8QK
I know the answer Sean. Start telling their little children they can be a boy or girl, show them pervert porn and change their sexes with a surgery or 5! Oh, and make em start riding the bus and tax their farts.
Addiction on the streets in Redding: Violence, theft, and drug use
October through November is known for prime fishing on the Sacramento River, the principal river in northern CA. It draws people from all over the country to get a shot at a large steelhead or salmon. However professional fishing guides say tents, sleeping bags laid out, trash accumulation, and homeless people using the bathroom out in the open are some of the first things their out-of-town clients see when they come to Redding.
https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/addiction-on-the-streets-in-redding-violence-theft-and-drug-use/article_f7403a4c-546c-11ed-8883-b30519230882.html
Human traffickers coerced eight Cuban migrants into prostitution in Florida as part of a “modern-day” slavery plot, Hillsborough Sheriff Chad Chronister said on Monday.
Deputies arrested Amet Roman Maqueira De La Cal, 34, and Rosalia Leonard Garcia, 29, on Thursday in Tampa and rescued the women, ages 18 to 24, who lived under the threat of violence, Chronister said.
“All of the trapped women were working as prostitutes, and strippers and forced to perform other types of sex acts to pay off their debt of $60,000 each, which is what the smuggling cost,” Chronister said.
Five of the women were living in one room, three in another and they all shared one bathroom, Chronister said.
“This is one of the worst trafficking cases that I have seen. It hits on every element when we are training law enforcement and prosecutors across the state in what to look for in one of these cases,” Moody said.
Leonard Garcia and Maqueira De La Cal are facing 47 charges, including human smuggling, sexual battery, false imprisonment, prostitution, and the unlawful use of a two-way device.
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/10/25/human-traffickers-force-8-cuban-migrants-into-prostitution-police-say/
and the unlawful use of a two-way device
Whatever does that mean?
unlawful use of a two-way device
Any radio or mobile phone, I believe, used to commit a crime.
The billion-dollar tech unicorn is becoming rare again
The Washington Post|2 hours ago
The shaky economic outlook is spurring belt-tightening in Silicon Valley, and the number of billion-dollar start-ups has dived. The age of the tech unicorn may be over.
Wa happened to my money losing concept stocks?
billion-dollar start-ups
I’m old enough to remember when start ups actually started in a garage on a shoestring budget.
Recently, financial guru Ramit Sethi told a story of a couple he knew who purchased a house, realized they couldn’t afford it, and had the opportunity to sell it for the exact same price they bought it for. The problem? The couple was actually looking at a $100,000 loss in the process. Here’s why.
Meanwhile, when you sell a home with the help of a real estate agent, you pay a fee for that service. Often, that fee amounts to 5% to 6% of your home’s sale price. If you’re selling a very expensive home, that fee alone could amount to $100,000.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/this-couple-sold-their-home-for-the-same-price-they-bought-it-and-lost-100k/ar-AA13o9ww
Ramit Sethi
@ramit
I spoke to a couple who recently bought a house & now realize they can’t afford it
Although they can sell for the same price they bought for, they’ll lose $100,000
I asked them: “Do you think people realize you can sell for the same price you bought & still lose $100K?”
“No”
https://twitter.com/ramit/status/1583468903577300992
A second Iowa credit union cuts staff, citing weak mortgage market
American Banker|16 hours ago
Another large Iowa credit union has announced layoffs as concerns about a weakening mortgage market persist. Collins Community Credit Union in Cedar Rapids said Monday that it laid off 38 employees, primarily in its mortgage lending division. In September …
Real estate unicorn Roofstock cuts its workforce by 20%
HousingWire|16 hours ago
SF-based digital real estate unicorn Roofstock laid off 20% of its workforce shortly after announcing its first NFT-powered property sale.
Jennifer Sey was Levi’s brand president and on track to be the jeans company’s CEO. But when she complained online about extended school closures and their effect on children, she was attacked and falsely labeled a “COVID denier” who wanted to get former President Donald Trump re-elected. Levi’s management gave her a choice: Shut up or leave. As she explains in her new memoir, “Levi’s Unbuttoned,” Sey felt she had to quit her dream job on principle. In this exclusive excerpt, Sey explains how many of today’s CEOs — lacking any backbone, yet desperate to be seen as “good” — cave to performative woke mobs.
“Woke capitalism” is corporate America’s attempt to profit off Millennial and Gen Z activism, often passive keyboard activism.
It exploits social-justice politics and transforms it into social-justice consumerism — and ultimately, investor profit. Companies purporting to care about “progressive values” are really doing nothing more than striking a superficial pose meant to signal virtue while distracting from any company’s true motive: financial gain for shareholders.
Somehow, some way, despite all the evidence of greed and corruption, business leaders have managed to re-brand themselves as altruists. Never mind that in 2020, CEOs made 351 times more than the average worker at their company — up from 21 times more in 1965. Indeed, in the last 30 years, their average compensation has grown over 1,000%, even as they have burnished an image as humanitarians.
In this new Gilded Age, journalists — themselves often politically biased and ethically compromised — have continued to spread the fiction that corporate leaders and entrepreneurs are not just “good” people but near god-like figures. The public eats it up, because it helps to fill the gaping religion-size hole in our increasingly secular culture.
Of course, the beauty of it all is that simultaneously it endows consumers with a false sense of nobility, encouraging them to believe that buying the right stuff is actually activism. “You like T-shirts? Here — buy this organic cotton T-shirt that also shows you support the LGBTQ+ community because it has our logo but with a rainbow!”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not against capitalism. Far from it. I’m against the charade that is social-justice capitalism.
They lay claim to inscrutable labels, like demisexual and recipromantic (you guessed it, you only like someone after knowing they like you), which demand we all listen to them because they know things we don’t. They have lived lives of oppression that we stodgy cisgender parents would never understand.
So we better listen up, or they won’t visit us. Worse, they’ll cancel us. Many of us are desperate to prove that we do not deserve this dismissive “OK Boomer” meme. We are “with it,” serious-minded “virtue”-osos, too.
But as C.S. Lewis said, “I’d rather live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.” Amen to that.
Why do they do it? Because, as author and economist Thomas Sowell has said, those “who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior.”
By doing close to nothing — wearing the right T-shirt, affixing one’s social media profile with the right badge (for example, “I am vaccinated” or “I stand with Ukraine”) and by canceling the “wrong” people by generating outrage with a finger tap, they are saved.
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For their part, the CEO dads (yes, 95% of CEOs are men) are not social media experts. Their Corporate Communications leads manage their LinkedIn accounts, and they scan their wives’ Facebook accounts on occasion to check out what the kids are up to. And that’s the extent of their social media prowess. Which makes it all the easier for the woke mob to cow them online — and even in their own offices.
The outrage generated through call-out culture and social media cancellation is real. And very satisfying for those who invoke it. But it also isn’t real. It passes quickly for the most part, if its targets have the fortitude to hunker down and bear it. As Dave Chappelle says: “Twitter’s not a real place.”
But the CEOs don’t know that. Their harried communications leaders present them with tweets and comments, and they have no sense of context. It’s words on a “page.” Could be in the New York Times or on CNN for all they know. It’s bad stuff on the screen, with the potential to prompt reputational harm, causing the stock price to plummet. And they panic.
Most CEOs lack the moral courage to hold their ground. Because they know, deep down, that they aren’t do-gooders, and they don’t want that curtain lifted. So they kowtow to the very vocal minority — the scant few employees marching outside of headquarters or emailing the head of Human Resources. These CEOs are frauds and have no actual courage.
The gutsy stance — tilting at windmills and fighting injustice — is a just a persona, a public facade, a wealth-generating marketing strategy. They love money, and they fear the angry mob because that mob may interfere with their ability to produce inter-generational private-plane wealth. They want to make as much money as possible, but they want everyone, including their kids and their kids’ cohort, to think that they really just want to make a difference in the world. “Oh gee, aw shucks, I happened to make gazillions of dollars. But that’s just ’cause I’m really, really good at heart.”
https://nypost.com/2022/10/24/former-levis-top-exec-reveals-how-woke-mobs-took-over-corporations/
“Most CEOs lack the moral courage to hold their ground. Because they know, deep down, that they aren’t do-gooders, and they don’t want that curtain lifted. So they kowtow to the very vocal minority — the scant few employees marching outside of headquarters or emailing the head of Human Resources. These CEOs are frauds and have no actual courage.”
Tactics copied from the Rainbow Coalition’s playbook!
“Most CEOs lack the moral courage to hold their ground.”
This is the main reason for the proliferation of minority & women ceo’s. Hard to criticize colored people or women in general.