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This Home-Loan Crater Is Deeper Than Anything We Witnessed During The Bubble-Bursting Housing Meltdown Of The Mid-2000s

A report from the Colorado Springs Gazette. “Sellers are slashing asking asking prices on hundreds of homes for sale in neighborhoods throughout the Pikes Peak region. Price reductions of thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars are common, Realtor.com’s website shows. ‘Whether it’s new homes or resales, we’ve seen a big shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market,’ said Chad Thurber, board president of the Housing & Building Association of Colorado Springs.”

“‘You may look at somebody and say, gosh, my neighbor sold for $680,000, I should be able to get $680,000,’ said Dean Weissman, a real estate agent in Colorado Springs. ‘In the height of the market you would have, but you probably are now going to get $650,000. But if you look at year-over-year, it still appreciated. It’s still tremendous appreciation. What’s gone is the fluff money.'”

“Large institutional investors who’ve purchased hundreds of Colorado Springs-area homes are another potential housing-market landmine, said Patrick Muldoon, broker/owner of Colorado Springs real estate company Muldoon Associates. In many cases, they paid top dollar in order to beat all offers, which helped drive up prices across the market, Muldoon said. If they determine they’re not getting enough of a return on their investments because rental prices are falling, institutional buyers might cash out and begin to dump properties, he said. ‘We’ve got economic issues out there that we really need to be following closely,’ Muldoon said. ‘Sure, maybe it’s not a subprime mortgage crisis (which helped trigger the Great Recession), but when you’re running debt that we’ve never seen, you’re running inflation that we haven’t had, you’re running sentiment that we haven’t seen since then, those are canaries in the mine for me, as a person going back to 2008.'”

From Business Insider. “Opendoor CEO Eric Wu says the company’s algorithm didn’t predict housing market shifting so quickly. The quick market shifts rivaled those of the housing crisis of 2008, he said. ‘We’ve seen a once-in-a-40-year move in home prices on top of a move in velocity that we’ve actually never seen in housing,’ Wu told Ben Thompson. According to Wu, Opendoor tested previous market conditions, but the speed of the most-recent shift was far greater than previous shifts — including the 2008 financial crisis.”

“‘We did have models that said that’s possible, but we didn’t say it was likely,’ Wu said. ‘There was uncertainty about where the rates would end up and buyers just sat out. That was a shift that we hadn’t seen before in any of the back testing and any of the data that we analyzed from previous home price depreciation, even the [Great Financial Crisis].'”

The Orange County Register. “Californians in 19 metro areas took out 177,566 mortgages from July through September. That’s the second-slowest slowest three months of the century. It’s also a stunning 63% nosedive from the year-ago period, making this the biggest 12-month drop on record. Yes, this home-loan crater is deeper than anything we witnessed during the bubble-bursting housing meltdown of the mid-2000s. By the way, this is not some California-only trend. Every U.S. metro tracked by Attom saw fewer mortgage deals cut in the past year. The nation, minus the California metros, had 1.8 million mortgages made this summer – a 44% drop over 12 months, also the largest decline on record.”

Bay Area Newsgroup in California. “Add tech company layoffs to the list of headwinds facing the Bay Area housing market. Prices in San Francisco fell 7% to $1.7 million, while an Mateo home prices tumbled 10% to $1.9 million. In the region’s other Silicon Valley county, Santa Clara, prices were flat year-over-year at $1.6 million — but were down 4.4% from the month before. ‘We have clients who have been in and out of looking at buying,’ said Silicon Valley realtor Mary Pope-Handy. ‘One of them works at … Facebook, and they said. ‘I didn’t get laid off, but it doesn’t look like a good time to make a big purchase.'”

WFAA TV in Texas. “Dallas-Fort Worth home sales broke a new record in October, falling 27% from the same month a year ago as higher mortgage rates continue to pour cold water on the housing market. October was the third straight month of declining home sales across DFW, and the percentages of the drops are growing. Home prices are up year-over-year but down for the third straight month.”

“Many of my buyer clients are waiting right now instead of buying, said Todd Luong, an agent at Re/Max DFW Associates. ‘Because of the higher interest rates, they cannot afford the hundreds of extra dollars they would have to pay each month. The longer they wait, the more leverage they will have with sellers because homes are sitting on the market longer and inventory is slowly increasing, especially as we head into the holiday season.'”

“Listings in the office Luong works in are getting 1.4 showings per week on average, he said. ‘It currently takes about 18 showings before one of our listings will sell,’ Luong said. ‘If you do the math there, you will quickly see that the days of sellers getting 20-plus offers on the first weekend are long gone now.'”

KUTV in Utah. “Home prices are typically measured year over year, and for a long time in Utah, they’ve risen dramatically. The drop in Weber County is obviously not a big one, and the rest of the Wasatch Front saw year-over-year price growth in October, according to the latest data. But prices are coming down as home sales plunge due to higher mortgage interest rates. ‘It’s all about the interest rates,’ said Steve Perry, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. ‘It really affected everything.'”

“The median price for a single-family home in Salt Lake County was $580,000 in October, up about six percent from the year before. But prices have dropped from their peak in May. ‘Sellers are having to give concessions. Builders are giving concessions,’ Perry said. ‘Builders are doing things that they hadn’t been doing in a couple years.'”

The Fredericksburg Free Lance Star in Virginia. “Prices have become more realistic. No more bidding wars, at least for the moment. In fact, buyers in most markets can often seek a reduction in the asking price – and get it. What last spring’s real estate frenzy amounted to, at least in many cases, was panic buying. I recently talked to a lady who bought a $1 million house, sight unseen. The photos looked great and the location was right, so she and her husband outbid several other buyers in what amounted to an eight-hour bidding war. Now she is finding things she doesn’t like about the house.”

“‘If we had it to do over again, we would have added a contingency on some aspects of the house,’ she lamented. But then reality took hold. ‘But if we had, we wouldn’t have gotten the house.’ Not that the house had any real defects, but inspections don’t take into account personal taste. Now this couple is spending more money to get the things they really wanted.”

“I know another couple that just could not resist putting their house on the market when a realtor told them how much they could get for it. And they got it. Then, suddenly, they were faced with finding another home and ended up having to settle for a house that was inferior to the one they sold. Desperate, they ended up buying a house they really didn’t like.”

From Moneywise. “Real estate agents have witnessed a distinct shift in the market. They’re no longer seeing line ups to view houses or extreme bidding wars on homes. Instead, there seems to be some stabilization. ‘It’s just … adapting to change,’ notes Bradley Watson, a broker and investor in the Greater Toronto Area in Canada. ‘In a balanced market, you don’t see much price growth. Where you maybe saw your neighbor selling $100 or $200 [thousand] in some areas higher … you can’t expect that because that was the product of a very, very tight seller’s market, which we’re not in anymore.'”

“‘In the heat of the market, we’re looking at least five or 10 multiple offers and no conditions,’ Watson says. ‘In the hottest areas, we saw financing conditions were gone. Home inspection conditions were pretty much gone. I think there [were] a lot of properties with issues that were sold and buyers just accepted it.'”

Canadian Real Estate Magazine. “The real estate market in Canada is notoriously inflated, with many experts saying that the housing market is in a bubble and is set for a major correction. The price of detached homes in the GTA has gone down by 10% compared to last year, hitting $1,369,186. Very high detached home prices and steep price declines are driving the price decreases in some of Toronto’s most expensive neighborhoods. Prices are falling faster than the median annual household income. In some areas, such as the exurbs of Toronto, housing prices are actually falling faster than median household incomes.”

“Townhouse condos in Peel and York are the most reasonable, with average prices clocking in at $616,876 and $687,843. In Toronto, the typical cost was $744,092 back in August. Average sale prices in August were down around 20% since February.”

From The Local. “Property prices in France appear to have peaked, with some experts predicting falls of up to 10 percent in some regions in 2023, though new-build prices continue to rise. But, with interest rates rising, even discounted property prices may not be enough to tempt buyers in the short term – the number of mortgages approved in October was down 40 percent on the previous month, with the higher cost of borrowing blamed for the marked dip.”

“Immobiliers (real estate agents) across the country have factored in falling prices for existing properties next year as supply outstrips demand. The Fédération Nationale de l’Immobilier (FNAIM) predicts a 5 percent average decline in property prices in 2023 – with larger cities bearing the brunt of the decline after years of rocketing prices. Over the past three years, older properties have seen price rises, on average of 23 percent, according to data from national statistics provider Insee.”

“The boss of the L’Adresse network of agencies predicts a drop could be as high as 10 percent. In fact, prices are already falling in Paris, Lyon and Nantes, while the market in and around Bordeaux has stagnated, according to agents. In Paris, prices are already falling down nearly 2 percent year-on-year to October, according to Fnaim – a situation unlikely to be helped by the expected 50 percent hike in property taxes.“

“In Lyon, Toulouse, Nantes, too, prices are dropping while they have stagnated in Bordeaux, Fnaim added. It said that difficulties in accessing borrowing will inevitably end up forcing sellers to lower prices. The reason – oversupply. For the first time since Covid-19, the Bien’ici property site has noted a sharp increase in supply – with an jump of 12 percent in property for sale year-on-year and, at the same time, a sharp drop in demand, with searches dropping 15 percent on average, and 29 percent in searches specifically for houses. Prices are falling, too, in a number of Brittany departments, but falls – Notaires de Bretagne has said – are mainly confined to larger urban areas.”

Vietnam Express. “Thousands of Vietnamese investors have been shocked to see their investments disappear after bottom-fishing FTT tokens, having no clue that FTX, once the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, would go bankrupt. Hanoi resident Thanh Tuan invested $1,000 in buying FTT after seeing the token’s value drop from $22 to $4 on November 8-9, hoping to sell them for a profit when the price went up again.However, on November 16, the value of FTT tanked to around $1.6. Worse still, almost no trading was taking place because there were only sellers and no buyers. Today, the 32-year-old investor regrets his decision and is afraid he might be left with nothing.”

“Tram Anh of Da Nang still refuses to believe that her savings of nearly ten years have vanished. The 30-year-old said she joined the crypto market in 2017 and chose FTT as her go to token since she trusted Bankman-Fried’s vision. She had deposited roughly $3,000 worth of USDT (popular stablecoin pegged to the US dollar) in cryptocurrency exchange FTX. She also invested a ‘heavy chunk’ of money in ‘promising’ FTX-related projects like Solana, Near, Aptos and others. However, these are currently selling for three to five times less than they did before FTX declared bankruptcy.”

“Vietnamese investors are frustrated that the FTX platform has halted withdrawals. Many went to the official FTX Telegram account for the Vietnamese community, with nearly 10,000 members, to vent their anger. However, all they found was a pop-up message that said the group had been deactivated and questions should be directed to the worldwide support staff. Many left the group, realizing that nothing could be done.”

From Bloomberg. “Once seen as the world’s go-to ­economic crisis fighters, central bankers are now desperately trying to contain a problem they allowed to happen: inflation. That’s eroded their credibility in the eyes of investors and society at large. Officials have offered mea culpas. US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged in June that ‘with the benefit of hindsight, clearly we did’ underestimate inflation. Christine Lagarde, his counterpart at the European Central Bank, has made similar concessions, and Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe said in May that his team’s forecasts had been ’embarrassing.’ In October, South African Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago warned at a monetary policy forum that it takes a long time for central bankers to build ­credibility—but that it can be lost abruptly.”

“Central banks’ independence is harder to justify after such a failure of ‘analysis, forecasts, action and communication,’ Allianz SE’s chief economic adviser, Mohamed El-Erian, tweeted in October. The tragic result, he says, is ‘the most front-loaded interest­-rate cycle that we have seen in a very long time, and it didn’t need to be.'”

“The first step for the newly humbled monetary policymakers is getting prices back under control without creating economic havoc. Next they must transform the way central banks operate. For some experts, that means three things: paring down their mission, simplifying their messaging and preserving flexibility. ‘Do more by trying to do less’ is how former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan describes his advice to central bankers.”

“Rajan says central bankers simply lost sight of their primary role, which is maintaining price stability. ‘If you told them, ‘That is your job, focus on that and leave all this other stuff aside,’ they would do a better job,’ he says.”

“Stephen Miller, a former head of fixed income at ­BlackRock Inc. in Australia who’s now at GSFM Pty, says he’s been poring over spreadsheets of economic indicators such as the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s consumer price index measures in a way he hasn’t done for more than three decades. The reason: He doesn’t trust the forecasts and guidance coming from central banks. ‘For me, the alarm bells started ringing on inflation long before central bank language changed,’ Miller says.”

“And broken promises can do real harm to investors’ confidence. GSFM’s Miller cites RBA Governor Lowe’s failed guidance as an example. ‘Phil Lowe saying no rate increases to 2024? Those kinds of messages are dead,’ says Miller. ‘Markets can no longer take central bankers at their word,’ given that they’ve pretended to be ‘all-seeing.'”

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This Post Has 161 Comments

  1. ‘Californians in 19 metro areas took out 177,566 mortgages from July through September. That’s the second-slowest slowest three months of the century. It’s also a stunning 63% nosedive from the year-ago period, making this the biggest 12-month drop on record. Yes, this home-loan crater is deeper than anything we witnessed during the bubble-bursting housing meltdown of the mid-2000s. By the way, this is not some California-only trend. Every U.S. metro tracked by Attom saw fewer mortgage deals cut in the past year. The nation, minus the California metros, had 1.8 million mortgages made this summer – a 44% drop over 12 months, also the largest decline on record’

    See, it is different this time.

    1. ‘That was a shift that we hadn’t seen before in any of the back testing and any of the data that we analyzed from previous home price depreciation, even the [Great Financial Crisis]’

      Different this time, again!

  2. ‘Listings in the office Luong works in are getting 1.4 showings per week on average, he said. ‘It currently takes about 18 showings before one of our listings will sell’

    It’s too early fer calculators Todd, but does this mean it’s taking many weeks to sell a shack? That’s a lot longer than UHS are admitting.

  3. ‘prices are coming down as home sales plunge due to higher mortgage interest rates. ‘It’s all about the interest rates,’ said Steve Perry, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. ‘It really affected everything’

    Wa happened to my shortage Steve? It was “all about” supply and demand, remember?

  4. ‘You may look at somebody and say, gosh, my neighbor sold for $680,000, I should be able to get $680,000,’ said Dean Weissman, a real estate agent in Colorado Springs. ‘In the height of the market you would have, but you probably are now going to get $650,000. But if you look at year-over-year, it still appreciated. It’s still tremendous appreciation. What’s gone is the fluff money’

    Sound lending!

      1. Nope, purchased my home 18 months ago for $624k, just sold for $790k, we did a reno of $125k, so we got out just in time, headed to Charleston SC, maybe one of the barrier islands, prices aint cheap there either.

    2. When people at the Air Force Academy or Petersen AFB get transferred they will have to sell their shacks.

      2. While I realize it is a ways away from C.S. I was looking up season pass info for Aspen Snowmass last night. $1349 is what they want for a pass that allows you one day a week. If you want to go 2x a week it is $1979. A Premier Pass is $2799. These are the early bird prices, the price goes up in December. A Premier Pass will cost you $3099 on Dec 3rd. Seems reasonable.

  7. ‘Tram Anh of Da Nang still refuses to believe that her savings of nearly ten years have vanished. The 30-year-old said she joined the crypto market in 2017 and chose FTT as her go to token since she trusted Bankman-Fried’s vision. She had deposited roughly $3,000 worth of USDT (popular stablecoin pegged to the US dollar) in cryptocurrency exchange FTX. She also invested a ‘heavy chunk’ of money in ‘promising’ FTX-related projects like Solana, Near, Aptos and others. However, these are currently selling for three to five times less than they did before FTX declared bankruptcy’

    Denial <- Tram, you are here. 'Vietnamese investors are frustrated that the FTX platform has halted withdrawals. Many went to the official FTX Telegram account for the Vietnamese community, with nearly 10,000 members, to vent their anger' I love some little feet stamping in the mornin'. 'However, all they found was a pop-up message that said the group had been deactivated and questions should be directed to the worldwide support staff. Many left the group, realizing that nothing could be done'

    1. Related article. Original content from Revolver News discussing Tether the “stable coin” that is allegedly “pegged” to a value of U.S. $1. And which will soon be reverting to its intrinsic value of $0.

      “The story that Revolver is about to tell you is even bigger and more spectacular than all the other fascinating storylines listed above. In fact, dear reader, FTX may not even be the biggest scam in crypto. Another, even more spectacular scam may still be live, ready to collapse at any moment… if anyone decides to take a real look at it.

      The story you’re about to hear concerns the third-largest crypto-currency on the planet, which you’ve probably never heard of. It is a story of how a former Disney child-actor — a Jeffrey Epstein associate who was embroiled in an under-age sex scandal — bizarrely emerged as one of the world’s strangest crypto-currency moguls. It is the story that raises serious questions as to whether an entire cryptocurrency is a scam — effectively a private money-printer. And to top it all off, there is reason to believe that if this cryptocurrency is the scam that it appears to be, it will nonetheless be allowed to continue because of this particular cryptocurrency’s usefulness to intelligence agencies in funneling money to foreign rebel groups and jihadis with plausible deniability.

      USDT, or Tether, is what is known as a “stablecoin.” A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency that, instead of fluctuating in value, is intended to hold to a consistent price. Tether is a USD stablecoin — each Tether is supposed to be equal in value to one U.S. dollar. While most cryptocurrencies are wildly speculative and backed by essentially nothing, each Tether is supposed to be backed directly by a U.S. dollar, or an extremely liquid, reliable investment like a U.S. treasury bond.

      These USD stablecoins are used on cryptocurrency exchanges to conduct on-the-blockchain trades in lieu of using actual U.S. dollars. Without stablecoins like Tether, the current crypto ecosystem simply would not exist. There are multiple USD stablecoins, but Tether is by far the most popular. According to coinmarketcap.com, Tether has the third highest market cap of any crypto currency at $66 billion, trailing only Bitcoin and Ethereum. Today, fully half of all bitcoin trades globally are executed using Tether.”

      https://www.revolver.news/2022/11/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-on-steroids-is-cryptocurrency-tether-joe-biden-crypto-bcci/

      Sell it all now, or you will loose everything.

      1. Brock Pierce and friends history. A lot of revolting stuff here, all revealed during Pizzagate (officially debunked 🤬)

        OpDeathEaters | Jun 29th 2020
        https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1277758781284184064.html

        This thread is a combination of what appear to be very established (alleged) rings of child rapists and traffickers (Collins-Rector, Singer, Epstein), financial links (Goldman-Sachs, crypto) and speculative links to power (Clinton, Trump, Bannon), spies and Hollywood.
        Besides everything linked here, it is worth investigating the networks of Goldman-Sachs in comparison to the networks of Deutsche Bank, with special focus on criminal activities and suicides. Is there collaboration or a gang war?

      2. GBtR thanks for posting this article. This is one of the best research articles I have ever seen on crypto. It lays out the whole thing, the totally opaque unauditable financial operations, the connections to drug trafficking, pedos, funding proxy wars, etc Please everybody read that whole article.

      3. Revolver News discussing Tether the “stable coin” that is allegedly “pegged” to a value of U.S. $1. And which will soon be reverting to its intrinsic value of $0.

        This is what Darren Beattie was teasing earlier in the week.

      4. https://news.bitcoin.com/jeffrey-epstein-confidant-ghislaine-maxwell-reddit-post-bitcoin/

        “Now it seems that (Ghislaine) Maxwell was a Reddit connoisseur and used the platform quite a bit. Her alleged last post on June 30, was specifically about bitcoin, when her ostensible account posted a Vice article called “Someone Mysteriously Sent Almost $1 Billion in Bitcoin.” The Reddit post was Maxwell’s last post on the platform, but according to the Twitter user Joe Leonard, Maxwell was an avid Reddit user.”

    2. “Tram Anh of Da Nang still refuses to believe that her savings of nearly ten years have vanished.”

      Some people who lose an arm or a leg say it feels like it’s still there years later too.

    4. Sorry if these links were already posted

      “It’s not the sort of corporate structure that would be constructed for anything other than hiding funds and playing shell games.”

      “There appears to have been loans made to company executives in the hundreds of millions of dollars range. There was no corporate board. There was no human resources department. There was no accounting department. There was no real tracking of customer funds.”

      “Shortly after the bankruptcy was announced funds started moving on-chain. A lot of funds. Over $600 million left FTX affiliated wallets, moving to fresh wallets. The speculation was that there was a hack, perhaps by an insider looking to get the last of what they could out of FTX.”

      “As the insanity deepened, FTX posted on Twitter that they were processing a small amount of withdrawals to customers in the Bahamas as requested by local authorities. A week later we found out this was a lie, there was no request, but even at the time it seemed likely to be a way for insiders to exit their funds before the inevitable bankruptcy.”

      https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/ftx-post-mortem-part-1-3-wtf-really-happened

      “According to Ray, he has located “only a fraction” of the digital assets of the FTX Group.”

      “Bankman-Fried often communicated through applications that auto-deleted in short order and asked employees to do the same, according to Ray.”

      “In the US there are requirements for companies to prepare timely and accurate financial statements.  Auditors confirm these results and issue reports describing their work and what is being confirmed.  It is important for the financials to be accurate and timely.  FTX apparently didn’t do this.”

      “WHAT’S GOING ON? FTX Debtors File Motion to Hide the Names of FTX Creditors”

      https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/going-ftx-debtors-file-motion-hide-names-ftx-creditors/

  8. “Large institutional investors who’ve purchased hundreds of Colorado Springs-area homes are another potential housing-market landmine, said Patrick Muldoon, broker/owner of Colorado Springs real estate company Muldoon Associates.

    How is it even legal for “large institutional investors” with access to unlimited cheap Yellen Bux to compete with first-time buyers in the housing market?

  9. If they determine they’re not getting enough of a return on their investments because rental prices are falling, institutional buyers might cash out and begin to dump properties, he said.

    Already had one Zillow belly-flop in my ‘hood. Would love to see these institutional buyers & flippers get absolutely destroyed.

  11. “Opendoor CEO Eric Wu says the company’s algorithm didn’t predict housing market shifting so quickly. The quick market shifts rivaled those of the housing crisis of 2008, he said.

    “Nobody could’ve seen it coming.” Here we go again.

    2. “‘We did have models that said that’s possible, but we didn’t say it was likely,’
      Apparently Wu learned something, but not enough to prevent disaster, from the GFC housing Crash. Opendoor had models say a crash was possible. This is a start, because During the last Crash Countrywide did not have one modeled scenario where housing prices went down nationally.

      1. The infallible computer algorithm fiasco dates back to at least the Long Term Capital Management Collapse. Cryptocurrency is actually just another variation of this ridiculous premise.

        https://www.businessinsider.com/the-fall-of-long-term-capital-management-2014-7#in-two-years-ltcm-had-risen-to-over-140-billion-in-assets-the-firm-guarded-their-trades-to-the-extreme-refusing-to-give-details-to-any-banks-or-investors-3

        In two years, LTCM had risen to over $140 billion in assets. The firm guarded their trades to the extreme, refusing to give details to any banks or investors.

        The idea for LTCM began with John Meriwether, who ran bond arbitrage at Salomon Brothers. He resigned from that bank after an employee was discovered deliberately deceiving the U.S. Treasury.

        However, Long-Term was very secretive about its operations, to the point where banks found it extremely frustrating to work with them….The partners even bought back photos used in Business Week to erase themselves completely from the media.

        In 1997, Merton and Scholes were awarded the Nobel Prize in economic science for their model in determining derivative values.

        In one day, Long-Term lost $553 million, 15 percent of its capital. In one month it lost almost $2 billion…In only a few weeks, Long-Term was facing $1 trillion in default risks.

  12. It’s also a stunning 63% nosedive from the year-ago period, making this the biggest 12-month drop on record.

    Is that a lot?

  13. The nation, minus the California metros, had 1.8 million mortgages made this summer – a 44% drop over 12 months, also the largest decline on record.”

    1.8M households are going to be boarding ye olde bullet train to Schlongville. It’s incomprehensible to me how anyone could be stupid enough to buy into a bursting housing bubble, though I suspect emotion-based decision-making was a prime factor.

  14. ‘It currently takes about 18 showings before one of our listings will sell,’ Luong said.

    Instead of dealing with time-wasters, maybe you should price your shacks for the current market, Luong.

  15. Linked from Revolver News.

    Google attempts to deter ‘election fraud’ searches with suggestions like ‘ejection fraction’ (11/17/2022):

    “Google appears to be attempting to deter searches on “election fraud” by using auto-fill suggestions unrelated to elections.

    Upon typing “election fr” or “election “fra” into Google’s search engine, instead of auto-suggesting phrases that begin with “election,” as would be typical, Google primarily suggests variations of “ejection fraction.”

    After typing in “election frau” or “election fraud,” Google’s auto-filled suggestions disappear entirely, another unusual occurrence.”

    Unusual? Like Cyndi Lauper unusual?

    “Ordinarily, during a Google search, suggestions are automatically listed to complete the already-typed letters with words, phrases or sentences understood to be commonly searched spin-offs of what has already been typed.

    This is clearly seen, for example, when one types in “election gu,” which Google then suggests can be completed with “election guide 2022,” or “election guidelines sample,” “election guy,” etc.

    Google’s above-noted auto-completions “ejection fraction” would theoretically ordinarily be because searches on “election fraud” are so rare as to be virtually nonexistent.

    This seems not to be the case, since many Americans have recently openly shared their belief that fraud affected some of the results of this month’s midterm elections, such as in the case of Arizona’s gubernatorial race.

    Indeed, a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted during and after the 2022 U.S. midterm elections found that 57 percent of the U.S. “likely voters” surveyed said they think it is likely that cheating affected election outcomes, including 30 percent who believe that it is “very likely.”

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/google-attempts-to-deter-election-fraud-searches-with-suggestions-like-ejection-fraction/

    The 2022 election was stolen.

    And Google is EVIL.

    1. And Google is EVIL.

      Years ago, a Millenial told me about Google’s motto: “Don’t be Evil”. I laughed in his face.

  16. FBI director ‘very concerned’ by Chinese ‘police stations’ in U.S.

    By Michael Martina and Ted Hesson
    November 17, 20225:17 PM EST

    WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) – The United States is deeply concerned about the Chinese government setting up unauthorized ‘police stations’ in U.S. cities to possibly pursue influence operations, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers on Thursday.

    Safeguard Defenders, a Europe-based human rights organization, published a report in September revealing the presence of dozens of Chinese police “service stations” in major cities around the world, including New York.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-pushes-back-fbi-claims-chinese-police-stations-us-2022-11-18/

    1. I’m “very concerned” by a corrupt FBI that serves as the DNC’s Deep State Chekists in targeting “enemies of the people.”

    2. The United States is deeply concerned about the Chinese government setting up unauthorized ‘police stations’ in U.S. cities

      I would rather hear them say “The US is going to shut down every Chinese police station in the country, and arrest everyone involved with them.”

  17. Globalist scum media.

    New York Times Editorial Board — There Are No Lone Wolves (11/19/2022):

    “The killer had written a manifesto explaining that he was motivated by the fear of great replacement theory, the racist belief that secretive forces are importing nonwhite people to dilute countries’ white majorities.”

    It’s not a theory, New York Times.

    “There has been a steady rise in political violence in the United States in the years since Donald Trump became president. Threats against sitting members of Congress have skyrocketed. The husband of the speaker of the House was assaulted in his home by a man wielding a hammer. This year, venues from school board meetings to libraries have been the sites of physical clashes. The majority of the political violence in the past few years has come from right-wing extremists, experts say.”

    More lies. Antifa and Burn Loot Murder are the brownshirt terrorist arm of Democrat Party.

    “The country cannot accept violence as a method of mediating its political disagreements. There are steps the United States should take now, including cracking down on illegal right-wing paramilitary groups and weeding extremists out of positions of power in law enforcement and the military. Extremists succeed when they have access to power — be that positions of power, the sympathy of those in power or a voice in the national conversation. They should be denied all three.”

    SHUT IT DOWN.

    “Violent right-wing extremists harbor a variety of beliefs, from a loathing of the government to explicit white supremacy. During his time in office and in the years since, Mr. Trump and his political allies have not only encouraged political violence, through their silence or otherwise, they have also helped bring explicitly white supremacist ideas like the “great replacement” into mainstream politics and popular culture. “This extremism isn’t going to go away or moderate until the people who have normalized it realize their culpability in the things that it inspires,” Oren Segal, the vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League, said in an interview.”

    Remember, the ADL and SPLC are not government agencies. They are not elected offices or appointed positions authorized by Congress.

    Their self-anointed, alleged authority on anything is nothing more than a delusion.

    “This tension is evident around efforts by social media companies to crack down on extremist content. When mainstream companies like Facebook ban content, it can push people who are interested in extremist or offensive material to lesser-known platforms, like 4chan, where moderation is less aggressive and moderators have fewer resources.”

    Hat tip to 4chan. You’ll read more truth there than you ever will in the New York Times or Washington Post.

    “There is hope, however, that better automatic monitoring of content and enforcement of platforms’ terms of service, which take freedom of expression concerns into account, can push extremist material to the fringes.”

    https://archive.ph/ZSPec

    Replacement theory is not a theory.

    There are tens of millions of young white males in this country that have had their future stolen from them by globalists, and many of them are waking up and naming names.

    Globalists want them numbed and neutered with psych drugs and video games and weed and porn.

    Replacement theory is not a theory. It is an active genocide, enacted by globalists.

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

    2. “The country cannot accept violence as a method of mediating its political disagreements.

      “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” — John F. Kennedy

    3. There are steps the United States should take now, including cracking down on illegal right-wing paramilitary groups

      The Founding Fathers explicitly foresaw how armed militias might become necessary to serve as a check on government tyranny, and enshrined this right in the 2nd Amendment.

    4. Extremists succeed when they have access to power — be that positions of power, the sympathy of those in power or a voice in the national conversation. They should be denied all three.”

      Whoop, there it is. First we classify anyone who doesn’t toe the globalist line as “extremist,” then we censor, ban, and disenfranchise them. Then wonder why those who have “no voice in the national conversation” (of which the globalists are the sole arbiters) decide they’re not going to go quietly into that Long Goodnight the elites have in store for them.

  18. Many left the group, realizing that nothing could be done.”

    Au contraire – crypto baggies can always stamp their little feet!

  19. Wall Street Journal pimping the poison.

    Loads of Covid-19 Boosters Are Going Unused This Fall and Here’s Why (11/17/2022):

    “Uptake of fall Covid-19 booster shots remains anemic well into November, frustrating public-health experts who blame the lackluster interest on pandemic fatigue and insufficient outreach from officials.”

    Sad trombone boo hoo.

    “About 31 million people in the U.S. have gotten the updated shots, or roughly 10% of people ages five and older, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    “It has been pretty dismal,” said Rupali Limaye, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who studies vaccine demand and acceptance.

    https://archive.ph/steI0

    COVID “vaccines” are not vaccines they are deadly experimental mRNA gene therapy designed and intended to kill you.

    1. Many of my relatives who were vaxx true believers have quietly announced they won’t be getting any more boosters.

  20. Today, the 32-year-old investor regrets his decision and is afraid he might be left with nothing.”

    Stupid should hurt, Thanh. That’s the only way fools ever learn.

  21. “Once seen as the world’s go-to ­economic crisis fighters, central bankers are now desperately trying to contain a problem they allowed to happen: inflation.

    Ever since its misbegotten 1913 clandestine founding by the robber barons of the era, the Fed has had one prime directive: serving as the oligarchy’s chief instrument of plunder against the 99 percent.

    1. Their wholesale price is about 50 US cents per kilowatt hour, meaning the end price charged to users is even higher.

    2. Seemed like just 10-yrs ago that France generated upward of 70% of its electricity with nuclear plants. Wonder if the Fukushima disaster affected their reliance on nuclear?

        1. Their plants are clearly old these days, and I’m sure it’s difficult to secure funding for new plants after Fukushima. And they are certainly vulnerable if Europe and Russia cannot, “get along,” in Rodney King parlance.

      1. “Colorado” didn’t do this. Some nut job did.

        And now that our wise voters have legalized shrooms in the Centennial State, expect even more nut jobs.

    2. The timing of this is a little too coincidental to have not been committed by someone recruited and groomed by Feds.

      Glowies gonna glow.

  24. considering just the mort rates make a home 30% more expensive this correction is pretty tame.
    Not much action here in 22151.
    For sale Inventory is 22
    par is 30
    and crash would be 40

    1. Not much action here

      People just need to sit tight and wait for the government to let house prices go up again! They will do this until they hit a wall. Takes time.

      1. In case it’s not obvious by now, the pace of adjustment in the real estate market is glacial compared to that of the stock market. We’re talking about years for prices to catch up with financial reality.

        And today’s stock market also adjusts at a surprisingly slow pace compared to shifting fundamentals, perhaps reflecting myriad safeguards against rapid adjustment that regulators have introduced.

        All told, today’s markets are quite retarded when it comes to catching up with obvious changes in fundamentals.

        Reference: The Big Short

  25. Russia Today — Is there a link between ‘Aid to Ukraine,’ the US Democratic Party and the suspicious collapse of the FTX Crypto exchange? (11/18/2022):

    “The crash has shaken the crypto market, lost institutional investors billions – and individual customers millions – led to official investigations of FTX in several countries, and made some question whether the Bitcoin sphere might crash and burn outright, and perhaps cause wider problems for the financial system.

    Some take the view that FTX was a fraud all along, ever since its launch in April 2019. If that’s the case, it has grave implications for the US Democratic Party and Ukrainian government, as the company’s corrupt activity may have been used to fund both, openly and secretly.

    On March 14, FTX launched a new online portal for cryptocurrency donations, Aid for Ukraine, in partnership with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. Through this, crypto traders, both large and small, could donate bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which FTX would convert into cash for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to spend on weapons and other war-related expenses.

    Very rapidly, the fund claimed to have amassed “over” $60 million in donations. By April 14, it was reported that just over $45.15 million of that sum had been splurged on digital rifle scopes, thermal imagers, monoculars, rations, armor, helmets, military clothing, tactical backpacks, fuel, communication devices, laptops, drones, medical supplies, and a “worldwide anti-war media campaign.”

    The same records show a further $10 million was spent over the next three months – leaving around $5 million in the bank, so to speak. An Aid for Ukraine social media post on November 15 said this sum was still held in reserve, and that $60 million remained of the total amount of donations received through the portal to date.

    This seems very odd, particularly given that Ukraine was reported to have received $100 million in bitcoin donations, and then spent almost all of it, between February 24 and March 11 alone, before Aid for Ukraine’s establishment.

    Are we to believe that – over the course of seven months, from the time the $60 million figure was first publicized to today – no further funds at all have been donated through Aid for Ukraine? Despite the entire crypto community having been able to do so, and being actively encouraged to do so that whole time?

    https://www.rt.com/news/566626-ftx-and-ukraine/

    Stop noticing.

    Seriously, you’re not allowed to notice, so STOP NOTICING.

    1. Seriously, you’re not allowed to notice, so STOP NOTICING.

      That’s also what we were told to do regarding the coof: stop noticing!

  26. Then, suddenly, they were faced with finding another home and ended up having to settle for a house that was inferior to the one they sold. Desperate, they ended up buying a house they really didn’t like.”
    No way they were going to rent. They are too good for that, besides, if they rented they would have been surrounded by Riff-Raff.

  28. A reader sent these in

    BBG: “Carvana’s debt prices are saying default,” said Eric Rosenthal, senior director of leveraged finance at Fitch Ratings. “The debt prices in the secondary market are one of the best indicators of what you’re going to see happen with the company.”

    https://twitter.com/AlessioUrban/status/1593716628595908610

    Danielle DiMartino Booth

    For those who believe Multifamily indemnified. Of $52B of maturing CRE debt, “~1/2 properties are multifamily w/roughly 1,450 properties (debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) at the property level is =<1.25x). Additionally, $17B of $52B has occupancy <80%"

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1587815404222701571

    I guess it has come down to this… $VIX 2022 vs. 2008

    https://twitter.com/MichaelMOTTCM/status/1593406796634492929

    Maxine Waters blows a kiss and waves at Samuel Bankman-Fried. Nothing to see here🤣🤣

    https://twitter.com/kingojungle/status/1593348164492443655

    Re: Inflation/Real Estate-Train Wreck In Progress. Today, I participated in a 2nd private panel for Real Estate investors/operators as the “macro guy.” This thread focuses on US CRE sectors in both public and private markets. Chatham House Rules apply. (THREAD)

    https://twitter.com/UrbanKaoboy/status/1593413297025429504

    despite the recent slowdown in starts, the number of housing units under construction remains at a record high

    https://twitter.com/lenkiefer/status/1593619781999104003

    Did you ever stop to wonder if the Feds reckless monetary policies of the last 20 years led to everything we are seeing today, where risky bets and businesses were encouraged? Or will that take 10 years for the PhDs at the Fed to figure out for you?

    https://twitter.com/Stalingrad_Poor/status/1593618182375297024

    Supposedly Twitter has lost 90% of its staff (7.5k to 750). The fear is this app stops working soon. Or is the real fear that it does not and it sends a powerful message to the rest of Silicon Valley, and even all of corporate America, about true staffing needs?

    https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1593567140950540288

    US Home Sales Are Crashing At Their Fastest Pace Since Lehman

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1593643015184195586

    Toll Brothers Las Vegas

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1593679062307729408

    California home prices about to go negative YoY

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1593696235965120514

    10s-2s Yield Curve now at ….. -0.702% ⚠️

    https://twitter.com/AyeshaTariq/status/1593699733448495106

    Sam Bankman-Fried personally took $300M out of the $420M raised in FTX’s 2021 funding round, WSJ reports.

    https://twitter.com/WatcherGuru/status/1593691628451012610

    CarDealershipGuy

    Used Tesla prices have declined 13.75% over the last 90 days. By far the worst of any OEM. Even crazier: Nearly half of that decline has happened in the last 30 days. Buckle up boys and girls 🥴

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1593633241487101953

    1. “it sends a powerful message to the rest of Silicon Valley, and even all of corporate America, about true staffing needs?”

      Yes yes and yes. They have hired too many, and many fluff projects are only possible with zirp/nirp.

      Another thing I am hoping is how many users/clicks/views are actually bots. I never trusted FB/GOOG and their stats about userbase and clicks….I think the advertisers are being fleeced as a result. I hope we get some true picture on the number of bots in social media.

      1. and many fluff projects are only possible with zirp/nirp

        Those fluff projects were the cool places to be, as opposed the the bread and butter lines of business that actually generate revenue and profit for a firm. And no, just like that, being profitable is very important again.

      2. “…many fluff projects are only possible with zirp/nirp.”

        Exactly…such as cryptocurrency bubbles, for instance…

    2. “Did you ever stop to wonder if the Feds reckless monetary policies of the last 20 years led to everything we are seeing today”

      I am also of the same belief that “wealth effect” is the main cause of inflation we are seeing today. Supply chain issue is just a small part of it.

    3. Politics
      Published November 16, 2022 1:20pm EST
      Maxine Waters dodges question on FTX, Democrat ties and claims ‘both sides’ got money
      FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried hit with class-action lawsuit Wednesday
      By Kristen Altus FOXBusiness
      Democrats’ ties to FTX taint oversight efforts. FOX Business’ Hillary Vaughn with more on the crypto exchange company’s collapse. video

      With some Democrats deciding to re-commit funds from FTX donations towards charity or other party campaigns after the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told FOX Business she doesn’t “want to get into that” topic.

      Waters avoided reporter Hillary Vaughn’s question when asked if Democrats who received campaign cash from FTX should give it back, saying, “Well, I don’t want to get into that. As a matter of fact, both sides, Democrats and Republicans, have received donations. So thank you.”

      The Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, however, did claim that lawmakers will be putting together a hearing to “explore exactly what has taken place” with FTX.
      …
      https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/maxine-waters-dodges-question-ftx-democrat-ties-claims-both-sides-got-money

      3. Heard in a yearly planning meeting. “Let’s take employees’ visa into consideration when reducing staff.”

        Yes he used to be on visa.

    5. “Sam Bankman-Fried personally took $300M out of the $420M raised in FTX’s 2021 funding round, WSJ reports.”

      Was that legal?

  32. Property developer CCRE lays off thousands, cuts wages 40% without prior notice
    Spotlight on China
    Nov 20, 2022
    Central China Real Estate (CCRE), the largest real estate firm in the country’s central Henan province, has recently let 7,000 employees go and sliced salaries by 40% without any prior warning.

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

    2:17.

  33. “‘You may look at somebody and say, gosh, my neighbor sold for $680,000, I should be able to get $680,000,’ said Dean Weissman, a real estate agent in Colorado Springs. ‘In the height of the market you would have, but you probably are now going to get $650,000.”

    RAL

      1. think rates may head towards 5%

        Rates will have to be in the double digits for many many many years to counter the Great Money Expansion these perps created.

    2. Bloomberg: Business News Daily
      Markets
      Beyond the Crypto Crash, a Big Squeeze Jolts Stock Markets Anew

      – Hedge funds cover short wagers at the fastest rate since 2021
      – Thinly positioned investors play catch-up via call options

      By Lu Wang and Isabelle Lee
      November 18, 2022 at 1:12 PM PST

      Being glued to crypto news this week meant missing adventures in regular markets that while lacking the same high drama, made up for it in terms of money at stake.

      In case you missed it, stock and bond traders spent the last five days still caught in the thrall of an event that may be hard to recall for people mesmerized by the FTX.com collapse: Nov. 10’s inflation report, which ignited a short squeeze among traders expecting a worse number. Reverberations continued to be felt in terms of positioning, trading in derivatives and probably also in wrongly prepared portfolios.
      …
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-18/beyond-the-crypto-crash-a-big-squeeze-jolts-stock-markets-anew?leadSource=uverify%20wall

    3. Axios
      Updated Nov 18, 2022 – Economy & Business
      Bearish bets build in the stock market
      Matt Phillips, author of Axios Markets

      The market is actually up this month, but bearish bets are building fast.

      The big picture: A measure of sentiment from the options markets shows that bets on falling stock prices have sharply outpaced those expecting prices to rise.

      – This measure, known as the CBOE U.S. equity put/call ratio, has hit the highest — or most bearish — level on record in recent days.

      How it works: The measure is a ratio of bets on falling prices, or “puts,” versus bets on rising prices, known as “calls.”

      – During the zaniest days of the meme stock boom in January 2021, the put/call ratio fell to some of the lowest levels on record.
      – That reflected near-manic levels of optimism, especially among retail investors, who were dominating the market.
      – Now, the put/call ratio is telegraphing incredibly depressed expectations for the stock market.

      Yes, but: That might sound like a reason to run away from stocks. But oddly, market analysts usually see extreme levels of bearishness in investor sentiment as good news for stocks.
      …
      https://www.axios.com/2022/11/18/bearish-bets-stock-market

    4. The US economy may not be screwed after all — but the stock market sure is
      Illustration of a downward stock market arrow falling into a growing pit of fire.
      Tyler Le/Insider
      Linette Lopez
      5 hours ago

      It doesn’t matter if the US economy goes into recession or not: The stock market — for the foreseeable future — is royally screwed.

      On the surface, the problems facing the market and the economy may seem the same. Both are trying to deal with excesses, but those excesses are wildly different.

      On the economy side, the US is experiencing a violent bout of inflation created by the pandemic; pent-up demand collided with a lack of everything from workers to widgets. Like a swarm of locusts, inflation is eating up economic growth, pushing up prices and nullifying wage increases. But some of the pandemic-related conditions that got us here — like clogged supply chains — are normalizing. And there’s a chance we can solve the dislocations of the past two years without barreling into a full-blown recession.

      The turbulence the stock market is experiencing is different. It’s a ferocious correction over a decade in the making — the comedown after a superhigh. We knew that the stock market had formed a bubble and that it was going to pop as interest rates went up. What we did not know was how violent the comedown would be — the inflation bedeviling the economy has prompted the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates faster than Wall Street had imagined. That, in turn, pushed the stock market off a cliff so steep that we still cannot see the bottom.

      “It doesn’t matter whether it’s technically a recession,” one legendary fund manager told me. “It’s a bear market. We sit in the middle innings.”
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-wall-street-2023-us-economy-avoids-recession-2022-11

      1. a violent bout of inflation created by the pandemic

        I’m pretty sure the sniffles do not cause inflation at all.

    5. Work
      Amid mass layoffs, the Big Tech dream job is losing its luster
      Published Thu, Nov 17 2022 1:30 PM EST
      Updated Thu, Nov 17 2022 5:32 PM EST
      Jennifer Liu
      The Twitter logo is seen on the exterior of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, California, on October 28, 2022.
      Constanza Hevia | Afp | Getty Images

      For decades, Silicon Valley tech darlings like Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter set the gold standard of making it in the tech space. Employees wanted to work for innovative leaders, enjoy vast campuses that catered to their every need and use their talents to build some of the most influential technology in the world.

      But the last several years, and especially the pandemic, have begun to show the cracks in the facade to unveil each company’s shortcomings, from data leaks to worker mistreatment lawsuits to leadership tumult.

      And with the latest round of layoffs from the likes of Twitter, Meta and Amazon within a matter of weeks, it could be enough to tarnish the once-lauded dream companies seemingly everyone wanted to work for.

      For example, after Twitter laid off 3,700 employees on Nov. 4, 11% of remaining employees said they believe the company will succeed under Elon Musk’s management, according to a survey of 442 U.S. Twitter workers on Blind, the anonymous employee discussion board, from Nov. 7 to 10. (Blind users must provide their work email email address, job title and employer when joining the platform, and are occasionally sent prompts to re-verify their accounts.)

      Just 2% would recommend Twitter as an employer to their friends, and 1% believe the company treated employees with dignity and empathy during the layoff.

      After Meta cut 11,000 employees on Nov. 9, 31% of remaining employees said they would recommend their employer to a friend, and 55% believe the company acted with care during the layoff, according to a survey of 1,179 U.S Meta workers on Blind from Nov. 10 to 11.

      Beyond public scrutiny and scandal, layoff news could have an outsized impact on whether people say a certain company is a good place to work, and the latest round of dramatic cuts could indicate that Silicon Valley’s Big Tech darlings are losing their luster.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/17/amid-mass-layoffs-the-big-tech-dream-job-is-losing-its-luster.html

      1. 11% of remaining employees said they believe the company will succeed under Elon Musk’s management

        #clustermusk

    6. Axios
      Nov 17, 2022 – Economy & Business
      Yield curve that matters is predicting a recession now
      Matt Phillips, author of Axios Markets
      Data: FactSet; Chart: Axios Visuals

      It happened. The section of the U.S. Treasury yield curve that most accurately predicts economic downturns has “inverted,” or gone negative.

      – And not for an intra-day blip — it’s stayed that way for a couple of days now.

      Why it matters: This part of the yield curve — the difference between yields on 10-year Treasuries and 3-month bills — has accurately predicted every U.S. recession since 1955.

      – When it has gone below zero, a recession followed over the next two years.

      Yes, but: Some thought its predictive streak would end when it last went negative in late 2019.

      – The economy was basically fine, until the COVID crisis hit, sending it into a sharp — but brief — collapse that preserved the curve’s perfect recession-calling record.

      The bottom line: It’s just an indicator, not an infallible omen that dooms us. But still, it’s worth watching.
      …
      https://www.axios.com/2022/11/17/yield-curve-that-matters-is-predicting-a-recession-now

    7. Data & Analysis
      BUILDER
      Housing Market Update: Recession Likely in 2023
      Home price appreciation, inflation, and rising mortgage rates highlight affordability concerns in the housing market as builders adjust with price cuts and realigned starts to accommodate slower sales paces.
      By Vincent Salandro

      While inflation has begun to cool, it still remains up between 6% and 8% compared with last year, and the overall economy has not yet returned to a more healthy level. During Zonda’s most recent Housing Market Update, chief economist Ali Wolf says that Zonda’s expectation is the economy falls into a recession, which includes job losses on a national basis, in 2023.

      “While we do have inflation numbers that look a little bit better, the Federal Reserve governors don’t want our financial markets to just fully rebound that quickly because from the Federal Reserve’s point of view, we still have a long way to go until we’re at a point where the economy is back under control and back to something that is more healthy,” Wolf says.

      While overall inflation is beginning to cool, several major components of inflation—including basic living expenses such as transportation, food and beverage, and housing—have high year-over-year inflation levels. Housing accounts for a large share of inflation data, and inflation in the sector remains 8% higher on a year-over-year basis. While data suggests rent growth is beginning to soften on a month-over-month basis, Wolf says the shelter component in inflation usually lags changes in the for-sale housing market by about a year.

      “If we want the Federal Reserve to say ‘we need to stop,’ they’re not going to until we see this overall level [of the shelter component] come down,” Wolf says. “Going into the first and second quarter of next year, we may still be reevaluating [the shelter inflation component] numbers and rechecking to see if we’re seeing enough of a cooling effect.”
      …
      https://www.builderonline.com/data-analysis/housing-market-update-recession-likely-in-2023_o

      1. I like the way the writer of this article connects the dots between the Fed’s inflation reduction campaign and the housing market outlook. Unlike most real estate writers, he doesn’t seem to be trying to paint 💄 on a 🐖.

        On another note, today’s Wall Street HODLers have yet to grasp the implications of the housing market slowdown for the overall financial sector or the broader economy. The last housing bust, which started its downhill slide in 2006, didn’t show up in any big way on Wall Street until fall 2008 (reference: The Big Short). Perhaps the options market has something to do with the apparent lag time between an incipient CR8R event and its appearance in share prices of the affected companies. On a similar timing, fall 2024 may be a turbulent period on The Street.

        1. Just wait until all these companies have to roll their debt over at the new rates. They barely make money now at 0%, how is that going to work at 5 or 7%???????? yeah, toast and no one seems to care, but it’s coming.

    2. ‘The term chemsex refers to sexual encounters that include the use of recreational drugs such as GHB/GBL, mephedrone and crystallized methamphetamine. According to the LGA, “where drug use takes place in a sexual context the risk of transmission of HIV, hepatitis B and C and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) increases.”’

      Well d’oh…

  39. How TF did a guy with a prior arrest for making bomb threats have access to an AR-15? In almost all of these spree-killer mass shootings there were red flags, but somehow they still got their hands on firearms. Sometimes it seems like the Dimms don’t WANT to prevent these incidents, since it feeds into their “gun control” (disarm the law-abiding) narrative.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11449337/Five-dead-18-injured-gunman-opened-fire-inside-gay-club-Colorado-Springs.html

    1. He was recruited and groomed by Feds to do this.

      The glow of this incident can not be ignored.

      Glowies gonna glow.

    2. The responses poured in. “I want to scream because of climate change and economic inequality,” one woman wrote. “Because of real estate agents and landlords,” said another. “My fiancé decided he didn’t love me anymore,” read one reply. Miller said she received more than 100 messages in the first hour.

      So, brittle people who have never endured a true hardship want to go out in public and scream.

  42. Have you all noticed the misleading MSM characterization of the FTX collapse as a “run on the bank”?

    FTX was supposed to be an exchange, not a bank or a hedge fund. If SBF hadn’t misdirected investor funds to his sometime-girlfriend’s company, there would have been no reason for the misnamed bank run, as there would have been no incentive for HODLers to withdraw their devalued cryptocurrency assets at a loss if they weren’t concerned about the Ponzi scheme collapsing before they had a chance to get their money out.

    1. Crypto.com becomes latest bank run victim, but CEO says it is business as usual

      Kris Marszalek dismisses talk Crypto.com is insolvent, saying we operate a different, more prudent business model to FTX.
      Samuel Wan
      Nov. 14, 2022 at 10:33 am UTC
      Crypto.com becomes latest bank run victim, but CEO says it is business as usual

      Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek held an AMA on Nov. 14, addressing concerns about marketwide insolvency pressures. He said the platform is operating as usual, only at a heightened level under the current market situation.

      Concerns grow over Crypto.com

      On Nov. 11, Marszalek made a partial disclosure of the company’s reserves in a bid to quell insolvency rumors. However, questions remain on the efficacy of Proof of Reserves in general. Namely, assets held at a snapshot in time do not give a holistic view of balance sheet health.

      On Nov. 12, it emerged Crypto.com had sent a 320,000 ETH transfer of funds to Gate.io, with 285,000 ETH later returned. Some say the purpose of the transfer was to assist Gate.io fake its Proof of Reserves by bolstering its balances sheet assets.

      Marszalek later said the transfer to Gate.io was made accidentally and should have gone to a new cold wallet storage address. Addressing the shortfall in return of funds, he said the difference has now been sent back, and “we have single digit USD million balance on Gate as of now.”

      “New process and features were implemented to prevent this from reoccurring.“

      Responding to the accusations of accounting impropriety, Gate.io said the transfer occurred weeks before its Proof of Reserves snapshot and was not included as a result.
      …
      https://cryptoslate.com/crypto-com-becomes-latest-bank-run-victim-but-ceo-says-it-is-business-as-usual/

    2. Crypto exchange giant FTX collapses, files for bankruptcy, after equivalent of a bank run
      Published: Nov. 12, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. ET
      By Associated Press
      Politicians and regulators are ramping up calls for stricter oversight of the crypto industry
      The FTX logo appears on home plate umpire Jansen Visconti’s jacket at a baseball game with the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, in Minneapolis. Embattled cryptocurrency exchange FTX, short billions of dollars, is seeking bankruptcy protection, Friday, Nov. 11, following its collapse this week. AP/Bruce Kluckhohn

      Referenced Symbols
      BTCUSD -1.14%
      COIN -7.24%
      HOOD -2.96%

      It took less than a week for FTX to go from the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world to bankruptcy court.

      The embattled cryptocurrency exchange, short billions of dollars, sought bankruptcy protection after the exchange experienced the crypto equivalent of a bank run. FTX, the hedge fund Alameda Research, and dozens of other affiliated companies filed a bankruptcy petition in Delaware on Friday morning.

      FTX US, which originally was not expected to be included in any financial rescue, was also part of the company’s bankruptcy filing.

      CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned, the company said.

      Bankman-Fried was recently estimated to be worth $23 billion and has been a prominent political donor to Democrats. His net worth has all but evaporated, according to Forbes and Bloomberg, which closely track the net worth of the world’s richest people.

      “I was shocked to see things unravel the way they did earlier in the week,” Bankman-Fried wrote in a series of posts on Twitter.

      FTX’s unraveling is causing ripple effects. Already companies that backed FTX are writing down their investments. Politicians and regulators are ramping up calls for stricter oversight of the crypto industry. And this latest crisis has put pressure on the prices of bitcoin (BTCUSD, -1.14%) and other digital currencies. The total market value of all digital currencies dropped by about $150 billion in the last week, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

      FTX’s failure goes beyond finance. The company had major sports sponsorships as well, including Formula One racing and a sponsorship deal with Major League Baseball.

      Miami-Dade County decided Friday to terminate its relationship with FTX, meaning the venue where the Miami Heat play will no longer be known as FTX Arena.

      Mercedes said it would remove FTX from its race cars starting this weekend.

      FTX and Bankman-Fried, as well as his brother, were also early investors in Semafor, the high-profile news startup run by former BuzzFeed editor-in-chief and New York Times columnist Ben Smith.

      Bankman-Fried has other problems as well. On Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission were looking into FTX to determine whether any criminal activity or securities offenses were committed. The person could not discuss details of the investigations publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

      The investigation is centered on the possibility that FTX may have used customers’ deposits to fund bets at Alameda Research. In traditional markets, brokers are expected to separate client funds from other company assets. Violations can be punished by regulators.
      …
      https://www.marketwatch.com/story/crypto-exchange-giant-ftx-collapses-files-for-bankruptcy-after-equivalent-of-a-bank-run-01668228971

    3. The Wall Street Journal
      Heard on the Street
      Crypto Has Reinvented Bank Runs
      FTX’s crisis is a reminder of what is right about traditional finance
      Sam Bankman-Fried in Talks to Raise More Funding
      Earlier: Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of crypto exchange FTX, speaks at WSJ Tech Live about the company’s deal-making and focus on balance-sheet utilization. Photo: Nikki Ritcher for The Wall Street Journal
      By Telis Demos
      Nov. 9, 2022 1:41 pm ET

      Cryptocurrency is an industry often powered by extraordinary belief, yet losses of faith are increasingly common.

      The latest example is also one of the biggest: The sudden liquidity crunch for FTX and its subsequent takeover agreement with rival Binance. The exact sequence of events that led up to the agreement isn’t totally clear. They seemed to accelerate when Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, tweeted that Binance was going to sell FTX’s own cryptocurrency called FTT. That appears to have prompted a series of events that culminated in what The Wall Street Journal described as a “run” on FTX by users and a deal with Binance.

      FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, in a tweet about the deal being struck, wrote that the combined teams were “working on clearing out the withdrawal backlog as is. This will clear out liquidity crunches; all assets will be covered 1:1. This is one of the main reasons we’ve asked Binance to come in.”
      …

    4. Metaverse
      Cybersecurity
      Tech Forward
      Tech ·cryptocurrency
      Scammers are targeting desperate FTX customers by pretending to be the DOJ and promising access to funds
      BY Steve Mollman
      November 19, 2022 at 10:31 AM PST
      Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
      Craig Barritt—Getty Images

      FTX customers around the world no doubt regret their decision to sign on with the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. Adding insult to injury, they’re now the targets of scammers pretending to be the U.S. Department of Justice.

      Police in Singapore on Saturday warned about a website pretending to be hosted by the DOJ—and supposedly helping FTX users recover their funds. The site instructs visitors to log in with their FTX username and password. It then claims they’ll be able to withdraw their funds after paying legal fees.

      “The site is likely a phishing website for collecting login credentials,” said the police, according to Channel News Asia.
      …
      https://fortune.com/2022/11/19/ftx-investors-targeted-scammers-pretending-doj-police-warn/

      1. Bahahahahahahahahaha … there is an obvious selection process at hand.

        The stupid pukes who bought into this crypto scam thingy have proved to scammers everywhere their extreme stupidity and their vulnerability to fall for future scams and thus have been selected out for the follow-up scammers to do their thing.

    5. That’s what I’ve been getting about with the jail thing. From a fiduciary viewpoint, they don’t have a leg to stand on. Also, I’m not buying this ‘no accounting department’ stuff. Without something in place, they would have been bouncing checks left and right, missing transfers, etc. There was an accounting department and probably were audited.

      1. Cryptards are a close second to used house loanowners in bragging about their infinite, trees grow to the sky gainz. They deserve to loose everything.

    6. Yahoo Finance
      From Temasek to Genesis, here’s the direct impact of FTX failure on other corporates
      David Hollerith
      Sun, November 20, 2022 at 2:20 PM·2 min read

      Over the first two weeks of November, crypto exchange FTX went from leading crypto exchange to a $16 billion bankruptcy – this year’s largest so far.

      Insiders, customers, the press, and regulators are still piecing together what caused the largest corporate failure in crypto’s 14-year history and what such a fallout means as it ripples across the digital assets market.

      So far the fallout has meant the loss, freeze, or write down of at least $1.8 billion in funds comprising mostly equity investors from past funding rounds and firms who held money with FTX. It also accounts for the hundreds of millions of dollars in credit, loans, and acquisition financing between FTX, its U.S. subsidiary, Alameda Research, and outside parties.

      Here’s the damage so far.

      Equity Investors

      Equity investors stand to lose the most capital from FTX in bankruptcy, but they are also by far the largest investors, a complete write-down of their investment is little more than a scratch to their bottom lines. In a Thursday statement, Temasek disclosed that its $275 million investment in FTX and related businesses, which is the second largest yet reported, accounted for just 0.09% of its $403 billion net portfolio value.

      On the other hand, the fallout is worse for smaller crypto-specific equity investors like Paradigm and Multicoin Capital, which also maintained a portion of their funds with the platform.
       
      Firms with funds stuck on FTX

      Over the past week dozens of crypto firms have announced they still have funds stuck on FTX’s platform Ranging from a couple million to Genesis Trading’s $175 million, these companies are now unsecured creditors in FTX’s Chapter-11.

      It’s unclear what the ramifications will be for most of these players. One way to think of it according to Noelle Acheson, author of a crypto and macroeconomics newsletter, is “a domino effect.”

      “They are going to have clients whose funds are going to be stuck who will also have clients who are going to be stuck and so on,” Acheson told Yahoo Finance.

      These firms should also be expected to play a larger role during, sometimes in opposition, the fight for how FTX’s remaining assets should be divvied.

      Indirect Ripple effects

      Since FTX first stopped processing customer withdrawals, crypto lender BlockFi has also frozen customer accounts due to its $250 million credit line, Crypto.com has also faced higher customer withdrawals and scrutiny while Genesis, the industry’s largest crypto lender, has paused customer withdrawals.
      …
      https://news.yahoo.com/from-temasek-to-genesis-heres-the-direct-impact-of-ftx-failure-on-other-corporates-222025555.html

  43. ‘The longer they wait, the more leverage they will have with sellers because homes are sitting on the market longer and inventory is slowly increasing, especially as we head into the holiday season’

    That’s the spirit!

  44. ‘Very high detached home prices and steep price declines are driving the price decreases in some of Toronto’s most expensive neighborhoods. Prices are falling faster than the median annual household income. In some areas, such as the exurbs of Toronto, housing prices are actually falling faster than median household incomes’

    Good mornin’ igloo clusters, time fer work! Yer shack is losing more than you earn. Have a good day, eh?

  48. Federal Trade Report: Globalization Cripples American Towns as Free Trade Moves Jobs Overseas, Crushes Wages

    JOHN BINDER
    20 Nov 2022

    Globalization of the United States economy has had a crippling impact on American towns as free trade makes it easier for companies to move production and jobs overseas, a report from the U.S. International Trade Commission details.

    The report, which assembled union representatives, economists, and others to discuss the impact of decades-long U.S. free trade policy, was requested by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and conducted in March and April of this year.

    Among other findings, the report found that U.S. free trade policy has allowed companies to more readily move American jobs overseas and keep wages low for jobs that remain in the U.S.

    When U.S. free trade policy enables companies to offshore production, the report states, American employees are not the only ones directly impacted by such moves. Towns and communities as a whole, along with Americans in supporting industries, feel the devastating impact as well.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/11/20/federal-trade-report-globalization-cripples-american-towns-as-free-trade-moves-jobs-overseas-crushes-wages/

    1. “Among other findings, the report found that U.S. free trade policy has allowed companies to more readily move American jobs overseas and keep wages low for jobs that remain in the U.S.“

      Cheap labor kept our inflation low too.

    2. It’s been so for what, 40 years?

      Move the jobs overseas to make a few extra cents on the dollar. We pay a little less for crap. We (those of us still working in the good old USA) pay a ton more for social services here at home. The living standard goes down. Somebody makes a ton of money.

  49. 🤣

    By Fred Dunkley – May 09, 2022, 12:00 PM CDT

    “Some 88% of institutional and 75% of retail investors surveyed believe that crypto will undergo mainstream adoption in a decade. A further 80% of institutional investors agreed that cryptos will overtake traditional investment vehicles.

    Since the pandemic started, cryptocurrency has been the fourth most-traded asset, following real estate, stocks, mutual funds and bonds. Indeed, a survey by deVere shows that nearly 90% of millennials and younger Generation Z-ers really do prefer bitcoin to gold as a safe-haven asset.

    “The survey results show that crypto is a long game and we need to be building for the next 50 to 100 million customers… the industry needs to enable the infrastructure that supports that next wave of investors,” Bitstamp’s CEO Bobby Zagotta said.

    1. Why would anyone champion a counterfeit currency that supports countless fraud and Ponzi schemes, encourages unproductive gambling activities that leave gullible investors broke and angry, funds illegal activities, costs more to mine than it is worth, uses huge amounts of electricity and generates large quantities of greenhouse gases in its production?

      I’m understanding the costs but missing the benefits.

      1. Warren Buffett’s right-hand man blasted crypto, praised Elon Musk and Tesla, and defended the Fed in a rare interview this week. Here are the 14 best quotes.
        Theron Mohamed
        Nov 19, 2022, 3:14 AM

        – Charlie Munger called out fraud and delusion in crypto, days after Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX imploded.

        – Warren Buffett’s right-hand man said bitcoin and other crypto should never have been legal.
        …
        https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/charlie-munger-warren-buffett-bitcoin-crypto-ftx-elon-musk-tesla-fed-11

      2. FBI Charges Investment Manager in $10M Crypto Ponzi Scheme
        By PYMNTS November 20, 2022

        Federal authorities have charged an Ohio man with taking part in a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme that raised at least $10 million from investors.

        According to a news release from the U.S. Justice Department, Rathnakishore Giri, 27, is accused of misleading investors by falsely claiming to be an expert in cryptocurrency trading specializing in bitcoin derivatives.

        He is charged with five counts of wire fraud and faces up to 20 years in prison on each count if convicted, the department said.

        “Giri falsely promised investors that he would generate lucrative returns with no risk to their principal investment amount, which he guaranteed to return,” the release said. “In reality, Giri often allegedly used money provided by new investors to repay old investors — a hallmark of a Ponzi scheme.”

        Authorities also allege that an FBI investigation found that Giri had a lengthy history of losing investors’ principal contributions, and misled investors about why he couldn’t let them cash out their investments or get a return on their “guaranteed” principal.

        The charges against Giri come as federal authorities are gearing up for a much larger crypto investigation, involving the collapsed exchange FTX and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (or SBF, as he’s often called).

        “While the scandal and its fallout occurred across cryptocurrency marketplaces,” PYMNTS wrote recently, “the tactics SBF and FTX are being accused of deploying resemble those of a standard Ponzi scheme rather than a blockchain-
        based, crypto-native scam.”
        …

      3. JPM’s Jamie Dimon: Regulators Have Done ‘Nothing’ to Stem Crypto Fraud

        The outspoken JPMorgan CEO said Sam Bankman-Fried triggered a long-brewing disaster that could have been averted by regulators
        by Michael Bodley
        November 18, 2022 06:46 am
        EST

        In perhaps his most incendiary remarks yet in a history of outspoken crypto critiques, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in Texas this week said Sam Bankman-Fried will probably end up in jail — adding that regulators “haven’t focused on crypto at all” and have instead “done nothing,” according to a source familiar with the matter.
         …
        Dimon — meanwhile — opined on digital assets in a bank meeting during his Texas roadshow of sorts, privately meeting with current and prospective clients, as well as bank executives. 

        Cryptocurrencies are “dirty,” according to Dimon, and do not “hold value.” JPM’s top executive suggested there’s a strong argument for digital assets to be banned outright, saying there’s little, or nothing, cryptocurrencies are capable of that his investment bank is not.
        … 
        Dunking on crypto

        The chief executive’s barrage arrives on the heels of the remarkably fast collapse of crypto exchange FTX, which Bankman-Fried until this week owned. The now-fallen face of crypto resigned this week as FTX declared bankruptcy after rival Binance backed out of its bid to purchase the formerly lucrative company for just $1. 

        FTX’s blowup has, in short order, triggered a ballooning crypto contagion.

        US regulators have been scrambling, in particular, to investigate growing allegations that FTX traded on customer funds via sister asset manager, Alameda Research.

        “It is worthless,” Dimon said. “I am shocked that governments allow it, by the way. Not that they stop a digital currency — we have a digital currency. JPMorgan moves $10 trillion a day around the world. Every day. As we’re speaking, we’re zipping and zapping money all around the world.”

        Dimon — who has dubbed cryptocurrencies a “Ponzi scheme” and reiterated that categorization in the meeting — favorably compared JPMorgan’s existing system for facilitating transactions to crypto’s capabilities.

        The bank employs a series of systematic risk controls, he said, including cyber safeguards and financial fraud protections. Digital assets, in Dimon’s view, have been a hospitable home to quite the opposite.

        “You don’t know the exact number of terrorists [using it], tax avoidance, sex trafficking, drug money,” he said. “It’s pretty large.”

        Added Dimon, to loud laughter: “So, that’s legitimate use. Everything else is speculation.”
        …
        https://blockworks.co/news/jpmorgan-dimon-regulators-crypto-fraud

      4. The Financial Times
        Cryptocurrencies
        FTX businesses owe more than $3bn to largest creditors
        Collapsed crypto group’s 50 largest creditors are all customers and are all due more than $20mn
        Representations of crypto coins in front of a dropping stock graph and an FTX logo
        FTX’s clients included large financial groups that traded cryptocurrencies, such as hedge funds
        Joshua Oliver in London and Sujeet Indap in New York 11 hours ago

        Sam Bankman-Fried’s businesses owe more than $3bn to their largest creditors, according to court filings, as the cryptocurrency group’s huge bankruptcy process gets under way.

        The crypto exchange FTX and linked companies founded by Bankman-Fried filed a list of their 50 largest creditors on Sunday, all of which are customers and owed more than $20mn, with two of them due more than $200mn. The companies’ total liabilities are estimated at more than $10bn, according to earlier filings, and it may have more than 1mn creditors.

        Publication of the list as part of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware had been delayed as bankruptcy practitioners struggled to locate reliable records at FTX group, which collapsed earlier this month after a liquidity crisis and accusations it mishandled client funds.
        …

      5. The Financial Times
        The Henry Mance Interview Cryptocurrencies
        Stephen Diehl: Crypto is the ‘commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime’
        The software engineer has denounced crypto assets as vehicles for pure speculation. But his views have made him a target of harassment — including death threats
        Henry Mance an hour ago

        “Cryptocurrency is a giant scam, although a complicated scam . . . ” So begins Stephen Diehl’s diatribe against the crypto industry.

        When he published it in June, Bitcoin and other crypto assets were trembling. Since then, the collapse of FTX, the second-largest crypto exchange, has created a potentially existential crisis. Billions of dollars of customer assets seem to have been incinerated, along with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s status as an altruistic visionary. Is crypto all just a mirage?

        Like Bankman-Fried, Diehl is a thirtysomething American with a nerdy manner and unbrushed hair. But while Bankman-Fried urged US lawmakers to carve favourable new regulations for crypto, Diehl pulled the other end of the rope. He lobbied for crypto to be regulated like other assets. In June he co-ordinated a letter of 1,500 technologists to senior members of the US Congress, urging them to look past “the hype and bluster of the crypto industry” and understand its “inherent flaws”.

        Diehl has the grasp of programming and economics to question crypto from first principles. He has tried to sell blockchain technology — the distributed databases on which crypto is built — and believes that he could have ridden the crypto wave: “Anybody who looks like a nerd like me can probably go to the Valley and raise $50mn from some very credulous [venture capitalists] to pump a token and make a life-changing amount of money.”

        Instead he stood on the sidelines, blogging about crypto’s failings. That won him a following — but also harassment, including death threats. “The past three years have been hell,” he says, naturally shy. “It’s not easy being a crypto sceptic.”

        Diehl’s book, Popping the Crypto Bubble, traces Bitcoin’s emergence during the global financial crisis to the post-2016 crypto gold rush, which he refers to as the “Grifter Era”. He argues that crypto is slow (it relies on broadcasting transactions across decentralised networks) and unreliable (individuals are responsible for securing their assets; when they lose passwords or die, there is much less recourse than with, say, a bank). It cannot be both a great investment, which goes up and up, and a viable currency, which offers stable value. He argues that crypto assets’ price is based largely on there being an even greater fool who believes the hype.

        “After 14 years, it is still a solution in search of a problem. It’s not building a new financial system. It’s not building a new internet. It’s not an asset uncorrelated with the market. It’s not a hedge against inflation. It is a vehicle for pure, naked speculation detached from anything in the economy. It’s a casino that’s wrapped in all of these lies. When you tear back those lies, what’s left looks like a net negative for the world.”

        You may not be interested in crypto, but you should be. “It reveals a lot of our dark tendencies,” Diehl says. “And it’s a mirror for a lot of the political struggle in society.”
        …

      6. Still not sure what crypto is? Join the club
        Analysis by Allison Morrow, CNN Business
        Updated 4:56 PM EST, Tue November 15, 2022 

        Over the past few years, the world of cryptocurrencies has ballooned from a niche experiment to a sprawling, trillion-dollar financial sector, complete with its own heroes and villains and warring tribes.

        You know it’s buzzy — Matt Damon and Tom Brady promoted it during the Super Bowl. And you know that it’s controversial because you don’t live under a rock. (See: the train wreck that is FTX)

        But maybe you find yourself nodding along at parties when the conversation turns to the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire, or the merits of proof-of-stake versus proof-of-work. (Or better yet, maybe your parties aren’t dominated by insufferable nerds?)

        At any rate, it’s 2022, and a lot of people still can’t really wrap their heads around cryptocurrencies. If you’re one of them, stick around. We’re breaking down what this industry is and why it matters, even if you have no intention of ever investing in it.

        So, what is crypto?
        …
        https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/business/what-is-crypto-ctrp/index.html

    1. Markets
      Crypto Main Characters Drop Like Flies as Bear Market Turns One

      Say happy birthday to the crypto bear market as we recap adventures of some of the industry’s biggest names
      by Jack Kubinec
      November 9, 2022 11:51 pm
      EST

      Key Takeaways
      – ‘Deploying more capital — steady lads’
      – Bull or bear, crypto character worship is dangerous

      One year ago today, the total crypto capitalization hit an all-time high just shy of $3 trillion, marking the beginnings of the current bear market.

      The $69,000 bitcoin peak last November ushered in a golden phase for digital assets, a place where eccentric characters plowing billions of dollars into promising — and risky — startups and protocols banked historic returns. 

      Since then, compounding liquidity crises have driven capital out of crypto markets, and crypto collectively plummeted by two-thirds. The real question is what — if anything — industry participants have learned from the nostalgia-tinged good times and the rocky prices that have persisted ever since. 

      “The past year was defined by the wunderkind,” said Patrick White, chief executive at crypto services firm Bitwave.

      No wunderkind was bigger than FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who ran a popular centralized crypto exchange and was revered for his trading chops. 

      “He got his start as an arbitrager,” White told Blockworks. “Arbitrage is hard, daily grind kind of work. And I sort of always thought of him as a very disciplined person.”

      Iconic enough to be known only as SBF, the former Jane Street quant slept on bean bags at his Hong Kong office and pledged to give away the majority of his billions.

      In mid-2021, Bankman-Fried said his quickly-ascending company could consider buying Goldman Sachs once it overtook its more-established rival, Binance. When markets peaked a few months later, the FTX hype seemed justified, and a colorful group of characters were striving alongside Bankman-Fried to control a chunk of the decentralized future.
       
      It’s been a wild few years for crypto

      Upstart crypto lending platform Celsius had to expand its Series B round after over-fundraising its $400 million target. Its serial entrepreneur founder, Alex Mashinsky, published a book on using crypto to achieve financial independence, “The Mashinsky Method.”

      The somewhat novel Terra stablecoin launched on Cosmos alongside its associated Luna token. Its brash founder, Do Kwon, enjoyed giddily shooting down any and all doubters.

      When Kwon told a Terra skeptic to “have fun staying poor” on Twitter, it became a popular refrain among so-called LUNAtics, a group of young, very-online investors who thought Terra was their way out of uninspiring economic conditions. Considering crypto is ever-cyclical, Kwon, of course, had borrowed the maxim from Bitcoin maximalists. 

      “That was a demographic that genuinely feels like the world is not really set up for them anymore,” White said.

      One of Terra’s chief investors was the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, run by millennial former Credit Suisse traders Kyle Davies and Su Zhu. Hailed for its enormous growth, the Singaporean fund became an in-demand backer for crypto projects before the bear struck.

      Zhu and Davies made a down payment on a $50 million yacht meant to be bigger than any in Singapore. Opulent spending had become a part of crypto’s MO: Luxury watch prices would languish when crypto fortunes dried up. The free-spending “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli emerged from prison and launched a crypto project around the same time.

      Zhu became notorious for his poetically bullish crypto tweets, once writing, “If you don’t understand crypto and refuse to learn, it’s gonna be a tough century for you.”
      …
      https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-main-characters-drop-like-flies-as-bear-market-turns-one

    3. The Financial Times
      Cryptocurrencies
      Crypto should be regulated with existing law, says former FDIC head
      Sheila Bair says collapse of FTX shows danger of US agencies waiting for legislation to protect investors
      Sheila Bair, a former head of the FDIC, said it was a mistake for US president Joe Biden’s working group on digital assets to say legislation was needed to regulate crypto
      Brooke Masters in New York yesterday

      The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX shows that US regulators must combine forces and use existing powers to protect investors rather than wait for new laws, urged Sheila Bair, who helped lead the regulatory response to the 2008 financial crisis.

      “The regulators need to swallow hard and get an agreement and then start implementing, using the authorities they have now,” Bair, formerly head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, told the Financial Times.

      “Set a framework, publicly announce it, implement it through rule changes and policy announcements. But get on with it because more and more people are getting hurt.”

      Federal regulation of cryptocurrency-related products and trading has been stalled by claims that it falls between the jurisdictions of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and banking regulators. When senators asked US regulators this week who had been monitoring FTX, once worth $32bn, there was an awkward pause.

      There is also a fraught debate on whether agencies should produce crypto-focused regulation, with some lawmakers and industry figures calling for more guidance while markets regulators argue existing laws are sufficiently clear.

      Most Americans attracted to bitcoin and other digital tokens have been trading through entities headquartered outside the US, including FTX. That company filed for bankruptcy last week, sending the digital assets market into crisis. The group’s new chief executive said in a court filing that FTX displayed “a complete failure of corporate controls” and was subject to “faulty regulatory oversight abroad”.

      “It’s doesn’t surprise me and it saddens me,” said Bair. “It was a mistake when the president’s working group [on digital assets] said we need legislation and we’re throwing a hot potato back to Congress.”

      Some opponents of regulating cryptocurrencies worry that government oversight would give digital assets undeserved credibility. Bair said she strongly disagreed, based on her experience with consumer lending. “I really don’t like payday loans, but . . . I don’t think it’s validating payday loans by providing some regulation over it. They’re trying to prevent people getting hurt.”

      Bair said she does not expect the collapse of crypto prices to cause broader financial instability. “To date most crypto has never really had any real world applications, so the economy doesn’t rely on it the way that we rely on our regulated financial system.”
      …

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