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Before Even Accepting An Offer Below Asking Price, Many Sellers Are First Finding They Are Having To Drop The Price To Attract Buyers

A report from KLAS in Nevada. “Housing prices continued to tumble in November, according to Las Vegas Realtors. Prices have nearly fallen to where they were a year ago — a median price of $420,000 in November 2021 — erasing gains that peaked in a record price of $482,000 in May. Home sales were down by more than a half compared to November 2021. ‘Local home prices are starting to look more like they did a year ago. But we’re certainly in a different place than we were last year, when prices were soaring and setting records,’ Brandon Roberts, president of LVR said. ‘Of course, as we said at the time, those conditions were not sustainable.'”

425 Business in Washington. “On King County’s Eastside, the median sales price of single-family homes dropped to $1.3 million in November, down 7.8 percent from a year ago. The Eastside submarket with the highest median price, Bellevue west of I-405, had a median of $3.2 million, down 12.6 percent.”

The Bellingham Herald. “Median home sale prices in Whatcom County plummeted last month, while statewide home prices slightly decreased. Whatcom county’s median home sale price fluctuated throughout November, jumping up to $618,000 on Nov. 7 from a $500,000 median home sale price on Oct. 31. After the extreme increase, prices plummeted back down to $525,500 on Nov. 14, and back up to $555,000 on Nov. 21, according to Redfin. Whatcom County home prices were down 1.8% in October 2022 compared to October 2021. Across Washington state, home prices have decreased by 6.25% between March and September, as September reached a median home value price of $589,900, according to RedFin.”

The Olympian in Washington. “The Thurston County housing market has made a hairpin turn, according to Northwest Multiple Listing Service. The data also shows that buyers aren’t all that interested: Sales here fell 53 percent last month from November 2021. The median price also was unchanged from a year ago at $474,990 — and was down from $500,000 in October. ‘Sellers realize they must actually compete with other sellers to gain a buyer’s attention and an offer,’ said Dick Beeson, managing broker at Re/Max Northwest.”

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “When it first went to market two months ago, 3450 Washington St. boasted a price tag of $45 million, the most expensive home on the San Francisco market. Now, fresh from a $5.5 million price cut, this Presidio Heights mansion could be yours for $39.5 million. Despite the clear opulence on offer, the home did not find a buyer for its $45 million original ask. People have shown interest, however, according to listing agent Antoine Crumeyrolle of Compass, who told SFGATE, ‘We have had over 15 showings in the last 60 days, which is excellent for a house at this price point.'”

“The price cut, said Crumeyrolle, ‘is a sign to let buyers know that the sellers are serious about selling the house sooner than later.’ The discounted price also leaves San Francisco without a single-family home listing over $40 million.”

From Bisnow. “Multifamily has been a darling asset class for U.S. commercial real estate investors for years. As interest rates have shot up, those complex capital stacks could soon lead to overleveraged owners, creating opportunities for distressed asset investors to swoop in for a deal, industry experts said at Bisnow’s Multifamily Annual Conference. ‘That is an incredibly fertile hunting ground right now,’ Harbor Group International Managing Director Matt Jones said. ‘There’s some pretty easy ways to find high probability default or distress situations, even with a generally positive multifamily operating overlay. If you look back over the last 18 months, there’s a lot of capital stacks that are quite precarious relative to the interest rate environment right now and the availability of capital that we have right now.'”

“Now, equity investors and lenders at the event said they are bearish on the multifamily market over the next year or two. If rents start growing again, they could continue fueling persistent inflation, which is precisely what the Federal Reserve is moving aggressively to tamp down with rising interest rates. Its aggressive campaign of rate hikes has driven a rise in negative leverage, which happens when interest payments exceed the underwritten returns on an investment. ‘That negative leverage phenomenon is a real issue for us over the next 12 to 24 months,’ said Tom Noble, senior vice president of Archway Capital. ‘If you’re buying multifamily property today and you’re assuming rental growth, you’re assuming higher rates, and that’s a problem.'”

“The buyers frenzy that occurred before the interest rate hikes also led firms that typically commit to long-term holds to begin selling assets for favorable prices, said Jason Morgan, president of special situations at Morgan Properties. Morgan said the firm, which is typically a long-term owner, sold $1.5B worth of real estate assets over the last 12 to 18 months, sometimes to buyers that would take on a 3% cap rate or less and syndicate out all of their revenue. ‘There was tremendous euphoria out there from a lot of groups,’ Morgan said. ‘They really were expecting rates to stay low for longer, lease trade-outs to continue forever. And it’s just not going to play out.'”

From Reuters. “Blackstone Inc Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman said on Wednesday that redemptions in his firm’s $69 billion non-traded real estate income trust (REIT) were driven by investors roiled by market volatility rather than dissatisfaction with the fund. Blackstone shares have lost 15% of their value since Dec. 1, when the New York-based firm disclosed it had for the first time limited redemptions from the REIT. Large redemptions have been seen at other such funds, with investment firm Starwood Capital informing investors last week that its $14.6 billion non-traded REIT also had raised the gates. There has also been a wave of redemptions at other non-traded Blackstone funds marketed to high net-worth investors.”

“Schwarzman told the conference that individual investors were hit particularly hard by a liquidity crunch in Asia, as the Hang Seng Index nosedived and many also had to cover positions they amassed with debt, causing financial distress. ‘If you are an investor who’s got margin debt and your market goes down 40%, you can imagine what it was like to be one of those individuals … As the world is busy shrinking, people get scared,’ Schwarzman said.”

From NBC News. “The tech industry accounts for about one-quarter of this year’s job cuts, Challenger data show. Approximately two-thirds of the job cuts in tech were announced in November alone. ‘The tech sector was special. They overexpanded and overhired,’ said William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute. ‘They thought their ad revenues would continue forever, and once those started getting cut off in the post-pandemic era, they said, ‘My God, we’ve got too many people.'”

“The automotive industry has had 30,669 job cuts announced, compared with 10,277 through November 2021. And real estate has had 7,919 cuts announced this year, compared with 2,762 in 2021 year-to-date. ‘As interest rates have gone up, Americans are spending less on big ticket items,’ Challenger said. ‘We’ve seen a lot of job cuts around mortgage origination and fintech firms in mortgages. And then also on the housing side real estate agents — cuts around finding, buying and selling property.'”

From CBC News in Canada. “The price of real estate in the London area continued its decline for a ninth consecutive month in November. The London St. Thomas Association of Realtors (LSTAR) said that the average price of a home in the London region was $615,247, down 10 per cent from the same time in 2021. Higher inventories and the dramatically slower pace of sales in November compared with a year ago underscores the spectacular reversal in the housing market over a period of just nine months. The average price of a home in the region has fallen more than $210,000 since the market hit its peak in February.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “111 Whitburn St., Whitby, Ont. Asking price: $1.46-million (September, 2022). Selling price: $1,325,000 (October, 2022). When the neighbours slashed their asking prices from roughly $1.6-million to $1.4-million, agent Judy Weeks grew alarmed her seller might have to drop their price as well. Instead, a workable offer came forward and the sellers cut a deal for $1,325,000 – $135,000 under asking.”

“‘When one house dropped to $1.399-million, the likelihood of us getting $1.4-million or $1.38-million was highly unlikely,’ Ms. Weeks said. ‘The marketing was changing and prices were dropping, but we ended up getting an offer in the nick of time.'”

This Is Money in the UK. “My husband and I are selling our home to downsize and free up capital we need in our retirement. We have seen a couple of places we would like to offer on, but are waiting for our own house to sell before we do so. The estate agent originally advised us to put our house on the market for £550,000 but we have thus far, received very little interest. Just a smattering of viewings and very little feedback. It has only been on the market for about five weeks, but already the estate agent’s manager is telling us that the price is too high and that we need to reduce the price by £50,000.”

“I know house prices might be falling a little but that’s almost a 10 per cent cut. Surely cutting the price to £525,000 would make more sense? And surely five weeks is not long enough to be justification for cutting the price?”

“Ed Magnus of This is Money replies: This is no doubt a conundrum for many sellers up and down the country at the moment. In recent weeks, the number of buyers out house hunting has fallen off a cliff, according to Zoopla. It has found that buyer demand across its website over the past four weeks is 47 per cent lower than what it was this time last year. The number of property sales agreed is down 28 per cent compared to the same time last year. All this, when the stock of homes for sale is apparently up 40 per cent on the same period last year.”

“Before even accepting an offer below asking price, many sellers are first finding they are having to drop the price to even attract buyers. Zoopla says that it is now seeing increasing numbers of sellers opting to bring down their asking prices by 5 per cent or more. Ultimately, you will likely want to avoid your property lingering on the market for too long. Often the longer it remains, the less interest it will attract. Potential buyers may deem the months of marketing as a clear sign there must be something wrong. Who wants to buy something that clearly nobody else does?”

From Fortune. “In an interview with CNBC, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan referred to crypto as ‘a complete sideshow’ and said the broadcaster spends ‘too much time [focusing] on it.’ ‘Cryptocurrencies that don’t do anything, I don’t understand why people spend any time [thinking about them],’ he said, adding that JPMorgan was ‘not even sure that [Bitcoin] is a real market.’ ‘Crypto tokens are like pet rocks,’ he said, adding that people were just ‘hyping this stuff up.'”

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This Post Has 154 Comments

  1. ‘The discounted price also leaves San Francisco without a single-family home listing over $40 million’

    Sacré bleu!

    1. “…a single-family home listing over $40 million.”

      In this category of homes one probably needs a Dun & Bradstreet report in addition to a FICO report.

    1. According to the report, 722 properties are being charged a 100 per cent premium for being empty for more than two years, generating £854,000.

      Still a pittance compared to what one would pay in most of the US.

  3. ‘Whatcom County home prices were down 1.8% in October 2022 compared to October 2021’

    Another sh$thole rolls negative YOY. I think there are a few of those about.

    ‘Prices have nearly fallen to where they were a year ago — a median price of $420,000 in November 2021’

    1. “Another sh$thole rolls negative YOY.”

      Bellingham used to be a nice college town until EZ lending destroyed the cost of living there.

      1. Still a low-wage sh!thole, with a large percentage of the population drinking the housing Kool-Aid while swimming naked. The housing bubble started in all of the city centers, in Whatcom’s case Seattle, then spread like a disease from the epicenter. Speculators descended upon Whatcom.

  4. “Median home sale prices in Whatcom County plummeted last month, while statewide home prices slightly decreased.

    “Plummeted”? Oh, my – that sounds more dire than “price adjustment.”

  5. If rents start growing again, they could continue fueling persistent inflation, which is precisely what the Federal Reserve is moving aggressively to tamp down with rising interest rates.

    How can rents possibly grow when we’re headed into a full-blown economic depression?

    1. I pointed out years ago that these clowns were using ‘proformas'(a fancy word suggesting they actually used math to figure out how to gamble with borrowed money) that included hefty rent increases, year after year. Look at me, Ima running – with scissors!

  6. ‘referred to crypto as ‘a complete sideshow’ and said the broadcaster spends ‘too much time [focusing] on it.’ ‘Cryptocurrencies that don’t do anything, I don’t understand why people spend any time [thinking about them],’ he said, adding that JPMorgan was ‘not even sure that [Bitcoin] is a real market.’ ‘Crypto tokens are like pet rocks’

    I’ve mentioned that because I don’t watch TV, I usually notice things when I travel and get put near one by circumstance. Over the years i would be forced to endure Fox bizness. Then a couple of years ago IIRC, they were chiming in on bitcoin every 5 minutes like it was oil or bonds.

    Now we find out the fox idiots were all in with Sam The Sham. Enjoy yer a$$ poundings!

  7. The average price of a home in the region has fallen more than $210,000 since the market hit its peak in February.”

    Maybe throwing away money on rent would’ve been the wiser choice, FBs.

    1. “The average price of a home in the region has fallen more than $210,000 since the market hit its peak in February.”

      Sing we joyous, all together
      Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la
      cray cray cray cray cray cray cray crater

      🎄🎅

      Atkinson, NH Housing Prices Crater 13% As Northern New England Housing Market Slides Into A Deep Freeze

      https://www.movoto.com/nh/03811/market-trends/

  8. ‘Before even accepting an offer below asking price, many sellers are first finding they are having to drop the price to even attract buyers’

    That is a conundrum Ed. Pick a number so we can laugh in yer face and give you an even lowerball offer. Is lowerball a word?

    ‘It has only been on the market for about five weeks, but already the estate agent’s manager is telling us that the price is too high and that we need to reduce the price by £50,000. I know house prices might be falling a little but that’s almost a 10 per cent cut. Surely cutting the price to £525,000 would make more sense? And surely five weeks is not long enough to be justification for cutting the price?’

    Don’t listen to Ed, wife. He’s a knuckle dragging doom and gloom perma bear. Hold yer ground!

    1. Hold yer ground!

      This is exactly what most “sellers” are doing. I put “sellers” in quotations because they aren’t actually sellers, they’re dreamers. I see houses rotting away on the mls for almost 6 months now, some with nary a price cut, and some with a paltry $15k hacked off an asking price of $885,000. These houses were less than $300k 6 years ago.

  9. ‘Morgan said the firm, which is typically a long-term owner, sold $1.5B worth of real estate assets over the last 12 to 18 months, sometimes to buyers that would take on a 3% cap rate or less and syndicate out all of their revenue. ‘There was tremendous euphoria out there from a lot of groups,’ Morgan said. ‘They really were expecting rates to stay low for longer, lease trade-outs to continue forever. And it’s just not going to play out’

    Says Jason as the bagholder sitting next to him looks at texts demanding payments. How does that 3% cap rate look now?

    1. ‘take on a 3% cap rate or less and syndicate out all of their revenue’

      These guys have their own vocabulary around sinking themselves into more debt.

  10. “I know house prices might be falling a little but that’s almost a 10 per cent cut. Surely cutting the price to £525,000 would make more sense? And surely five weeks is not long enough to be justification for cutting the price?”

    Seeing insanely overpriced shacks shed thousands in Yellen Bux “value” each month as greedhead sellers cling to their delusional wish prices is going to be a thing of terrible beauty.

    1. Meanwhile, WalMart is threatening to leave places like this. At first the local PTB will say “good riddance”, then they will whine about “food deserts”

    2. That’s a depressing piece. It’s difficult to imagine any political party stumping for Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón.

  15. The fact that George Soros is the #1 donor to the Neo-Bolsheviks of the Democratic Party (SBF was #2) says everything there is to say about this subversive, malign criminal enterprise masquerading as a political party.

    EVIL IN OUR TIME: Soros is Funding 253 Leftist Groups to Influence Global Media and Push Their Anti-American Agenda on the Masses

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/evil-times-soros-funding-253-leftist-groups-influence-global-media-push-anti-american-agenda-masses/

    1. KJP only has the job because she ticks the right protected class checkboxes. And it doesn’t matter that she is utterly inept. The press conferences are purely for show, and when she flubs her lines the MSM never reports it.

      We aren’t going to defeat the enemy via mockery or ridicule. They used to get prickly, now they just don’t care. All that matters to them is that they are powerful enough to rig elections.

    1. Unless there is an armed revolt, nothing will change in those countries. As we saw in Canada and Europe, protests are futile. The Canadian truckers failed. The Yellow Vests failed.

      The WEF stooges will stuff their ballot boxes and be “re-elected”. Trudeau, Ardern and others won’t go anywhere. And I fear Brandon the comatose marionette will be “re-elected” in the US as well, and will be succeeded by Newsom in 2028. Be prepared for rationing: energy, food, everything. To save the world, of course,

      2. “It shows what we value.”

        Drug addled vibrant vs. former marine who is a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen.

        1. Putin must be laughing his azz off.

          I’m sure the MSM will be trumpeting this as a huge win for the Brandon admin.

          1. In all fairness, it surely was a huge win for Biden. How much do you reckon Hunter collected for the Big Guy on this deal? I bet it wasn’t cheap.

  20. How is voting for stooges of the banksters & oligarchs working out for ya, UK sheeple?

    UK weather: ‘Cause for concern’ – millions can’t afford to heat their homes as ‘dangerously cold’ weather arrives

    https://news.sky.com/story/millions-cant-afford-to-follow-advice-on-keeping-warm-as-temperatures-plummet-experts-warn-12763765

    Schools have had to close in parts of Aberdeenshire and the Highlands, with snow and ice causing difficulties through until Sunday.

    1. I’m sure if I were to ask the UK relatives about this, they would yammer something inane like: We’re glad to sacrifice (freeze our azzes off) so we can stick it to Putin.

      Yes, they really are that stupid.

        1. They live in Cornwall, which is supposed to have the mildest climate in the UK. Nevertheless, they won’t be allowed to heat the house above 60F, and they might not be able afford even that with current natgas rates.

          Anyway, they are so on board with the Narrative, that if we do Zoom with them and they are bundled up in coats, they will insist that everything is just fine and they are saving the world. One time they visited us, and were LIVID that my city does not do curbside recycling for glass. When they saw me toss an empty glass bottle in the trash you would think that I had tossed a dead baby into the bin by their reaction.

          As Samuel Clemens once said, it’s easier to con people than convince them they’ve been conned.

      1. I believe so. You have to understand, most Brits are so effing woke that they make the US look like the wild west by comparison.

    1. And that’s only what they failed to cover up.

      As I have mentioned, I know someone who keeled over suddenly, and she only survived because she already in the ER when she collapsed. She was in perfect health, and they sent her home with an embedded defibrillator in her chest. I’m gonna guess that her life expectancy has been severely reduced.

      I don’t know anyone who was hospitalized for Covid. No one.

      1. Maybe it’s their falling RE values? I frequently cautioned against excessive RE borrowing at “family-n-friends” gatherings, and I was labeled depressive. This past year nobody wants my opinion.

    1. These books (and the dolls) have been around for a long time. My daughters had them.

      Everything is converged now.

  28. A reader sent these in:

    Liz Ann Sonders

    Homebuilder stocks have accelerated relative to broader market since April (blue) while homebuilders’ expectations for future sales (orange) have continued to plummet per ⁦@NAHBhome⁩
    [Past performance is no guarantee of future results]

    https://twitter.com/LizAnnSonders/status/1600460485962391552

    John Wake Replying to

    When the value of their house increases $100,000, people feel positive emotion. But when it falls $100,000, the negative emotion people feel is twice as strong as the positive emotion they felt.

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1600544556017033216

    The dumb asses who created the word “wealth effect” didn’t even think to measure the net effect of someone else having to spend more for the same goods. Net wash, “wealth effect” is a story made up to justify increasing the asset prices of the rich.

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1600669514680893440

    Things are looking great in Prosper, TX

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1600676480760979457

    US recession alarm getting louder! US yield curve most inverted since 1981: US 2s/10s yield spread at -84bps.

    https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1600647131009880065

    CarDealershipGuy

    Cars have always been depreciating assets. But in current market conditions, cars are depreciating much faster than normal. The accelerated pace of depreciation means creditors would need to act quickly to mitigate losses.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1600614651070382082

    Ron Butler
    @ronmortgageguy
    Here’s the details
    New BoC Prime: 4.25%
    New Retail Bank Prime: 6.45%
    New Average HELOC Rate: 6.95%
    New Low Variable Rate: 5.45%
    New Median Variable Rate: 5.95%
    In March of this year HELOC was 2.95% and Average Variable Rate was 1.45%
    Jesus what a difference!

    https://twitter.com/ronmortgageguy/status/1600507849276375041

    Ron Butler
    @ronmortgageguy
    How Bad Are Variable Mortgage Rate Increases: They Just Blew Past The Stress Test
    If you got a Variable Rate Mortgage in 2021 the Stress Test was 5.25% your real rate was 1.45%
    Seemed impossible to hit 5.25%
    After today’s Increase the a good Variable Rate is 5.45%
    No Bueno

    https://twitter.com/ronmortgageguy/status/1600554882309800017

    Never deleting this app

    https://twitter.com/ParikPatelCFA/status/1600546387774652425

    $SPX has had a message for the bulls all year.

    https://twitter.com/Mayhem4Markets/status/1600566035337330700

    CarDealershipGuy

    Bankruptcy getting closer:
    Carvana’s largest creditors have just signed a Cooperation Agreement (!!!)
    This binds them to “act together in negotiations with Carvana in order to prevent nasty creditor fights”
    Sharks are circling the prey 🦈

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1600485057596198915

    UK house prices dropping at a pace in line with GFC
    Marginal buyers cut out of the market as they can’t afford this combo of mortgage rate + house prices, and leveraged real estate owners start feeling the heat & must sell
    Real estate is the biggest asset class in the world

    https://twitter.com/MacroAlf/status/1600392420469841922

    From “passive income is easy” To “I hope to breakeven”
    In less than a year

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1600610589423947778

    John Wake

    Metro Phoenix
    Median Single-Family House Price Changes
    Nov 2021 to Nov 2022

    Paradise Valley = +17%
    (But went from 39 to 14 sales)

    Litchfield Park = -19%
    (Went from 56 to 44 sales)

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1600606578758934529

    Lance Lambert

    #NEW @KPMG downgrades its U.S. housing market outlook. The firm now expects the “Case-Shiller home price index to drop 20% on a fourth-quarter-to-fourth-quarter basis in 2023”

    https://twitter.com/NewsLambert/status/1600607707354042377

    This clown is in total panic mode to salvage his reputation after all of his ridiculous statements in the past few weeks about SBF and FTX. Now he is pretending to be the outraged victim. @kevinolearytv is mostly concerned about his future marketability for endorsements.

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1600488832260243456

    The European Central Bank staff are “not happy” that their pay increases are not keeping up with the inflation they caused with their monetary policy. 😰 Irony levels are off the charts on this one.

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1600509337344086022

    So far in 2022, this year has been the worst annual YTD return for 60/40 stocks/bonds portfolio in the past 100 years. 🔥🔥🔥

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1600587015082287105

    UK Housing Bubble Is Popping 🚨🚨🚨

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1600601735038394369

    Global Central Bank Update:
    -Canada hiked rates for the 7th time this year, 50 bps increase to 4.25%.
    -India hiked rates for the 5th time this year, 35 bps increase to 6.25%.

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1600589454347014144

    How is the American consumer spending more money over the last year despite inflation outpacing their wages for 20 consecutive months? They’re saving less (savings rate at lowest level since 2005) and borrowing more (consumer credit increasing at fastest pace since 2011).

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1600592633201627150

    Homeowners 2011-2022: “I’m smart, work hard and just made a good decision to buy a house. You are priced out forever and I will rent you one of my four investment properties if you are lucky.”

    Homeowners 2022: “OMG what is the Fed doing their going to crash the economy!”

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1600603699675508736

    Ryan Lundquist
    @SacAppraiser
    Opendoor bought Zillow’s last house in Sacramento 70 days ago, and it’s still not on the market. It was listed by Zillow previously, so it was presumably ready to go. It’s fascinating watching this model.

    https://twitter.com/SacAppraiser/status/1600616734263676928

    Almost 300k home owners are eating cement, buying worthless properties for millions, in the everything expensive debt bubble!

    https://twitter.com/newspads/status/1600617430212026381

    John Wake

    “Blackstone’s Property Bets Are Getting Shakier
    Rent growth is slowing for residential real estate, which makes up over half of the private-equity giant’s portfolio”

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1600609421024931840

    Steve Saretsky

    Bank of Canada delivers what is likely the final nail in the coffin, 50bps. The bear market in housing will continue well into 2023.

    https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1600528037170536448

    As the tide goes out exposing companies like Carvana, it’s important to remember that a guy losing $18 Billion in net worth, probably wasn’t truly worth that in the past. It was hype.

    https://twitter.com/ShlomoChopp/status/1600516866254028802

    OpenDoor $Open stock is now in full on freefall. Another all time low reached today

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1600528984026255361

    What’s wrong with the economy in one post

    OpenDoor founder bought at $33m mansion and their stock is down 87.5% since IPO

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1600535078794207232

    3m10y now more inverted than any previous time in my life.

    https://twitter.com/coloradotravis/status/1600536401988157442

    Diana Olick

    From @tollbrothers earnings call, CEO Yearley: “If the market does not improve, we will need to be more aggressive with price reductions to increase our backlog.”

    https://twitter.com/DianaOlick/status/1600487783298207753

    Heard from a large developer that they’re thinking about stopping all construction and taking the projects to market again to get new bids – could save upwards of 15% based on downstream demand/supply imbalance

    https://twitter.com/chernobelskiy/status/1600546781414445056

    Right when work from home started, the wise people knew this flexibility is a double sword. If you can work from home, your job pool has now become global. Once they opened up the offices, those who knew this rushes to get back in.

    https://twitter.com/alexknicker/status/1600531249965125632

    1. @ronmortgageguy
      Here’s the details
      New BoC Prime: 4.25%
      New Retail Bank Prime: 6.45%
      New Average HELOC Rate: 6.95%
      New Low Variable Rate: 5.45%
      New Median Variable Rate: 5.95%
      In March of this year HELOC was 2.95% and Average Variable Rate was 1.45%

      They ain’t seen nothing yet!

    2. The European Central Bank staff are “not happy” that their pay increases are not keeping up with the inflation they caused with their monetary policy.

      Wait until they find out their groceries will be rationed because of climate lockdowns. Oh, and they can forget about vacationing on the Mediterranean.

    3. #NEW @KPMG downgrades its U.S. housing market outlook. The firm now expects the “Case-Shiller home price index to drop 20% on a fourth-quarter-to-fourth-quarter basis in 2023”

      Subsequent tweet: “That would mark the first national decline in the series since 2011 and push prices to December 2020 levels” writes @DianeSwonk

    4. Real estate is the biggest asset class in the world

      I’m old enough to remember when houses were shelter, not “asset classes.”

    5. “Blackstone’s Property Bets Are Getting Shakier
      Rent growth is slowing for residential real estate, which makes up over half of the private-equity giant’s portfolio”

      These companies need to die. Moving into shelter and jacking up the prices for working people who just need a place to hang their hat and sleep is a pitiful model.

    1. Gosh, I hope Canadian buyers were conservative and didn’t stretch themselves when they bought their shacks.

    1. The Financial Times
      2 hours ago
      US unemployment aid figures hint at cooling job market
      Alexandra White in New York

      The number of Americans on unemployment aid has increased to the highest level since February, suggesting that more people may be struggling to find a job as the employment market cools.

      Continuing claims, which measure the number of Americans actively receiving unemployment aid, increased to 1.67mn in the week ending November 26.

      Tech companies have continued to cut jobs in preparation for an expected slowdown. On Wednesday, Adobe axed 100 jobs, while fintech Plaid cut about 20 per cent of its workforce.
      …

      1. Tech companies have continued to cut jobs in preparation for an expected slowdown.”

        yesterday our big Tech CEO was warning and not happy , seeing cracks. ☠️☠️

        This sucker could go down….

        1. CEOs are currently organizing a circular firing squad. I’ve seen this movie before, from the perspective of an employee wondering which colleagues were on the chopping block, possibly to include myself.

          “…never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

          – John Donne

    2. The Financial Times
      Yield curve
      Bond market points to Fed standing firm in battle against inflation
      US yield curve is at its most inverted since 1981 in sign investors see recession on horizon
      The Federal Reserve building in Washington
      Shifts in the bond market show investors moving more in alignment with what the Federal Reserve has said it expects for the coming year
      Kate Duguid in New York yesterday

      The gulf between short- and long-term US borrowing costs has reached its widest point since 1981, in a sign investors expect the Federal Reserve to stay the course in its battle to tame inflation, even as recession worries mount.

      The two-year Treasury yield traded on Wednesday at 4.2 per cent, while the 10-year yield stood at 3.4 per cent, bringing the difference between the two to 0.84 percentage points. The pattern, known as a yield curve “inversion”, has preceded every US economic downturn of the past 50 years.

      The deepening of the inversion comes after a report last week showing the US economy continued adding jobs at a robust pace in November and an important survey indicating activity in the vast services sector is continuing to grow rapidly.

      While the data paint an upbeat picture of the state of the economy, some investors are worried that it will also encourage the Fed to keep pushing interest rates higher next year, after taking them from near zero to a range of 3.75 to 4 per cent so far in 2022. Higher borrowing costs, in turn, are expected to heap pressure on the economy and potentially trigger a recession.

      “The market had been betting that the Fed would be forced to slow down. The past year has taught us that the market has been wrong over and over again on this assumption,” said Edward Al-Hussainy, a senior analyst at Columbia Threadneedle.
      …

      1. Tech
        Bitcoin could plunge 70% to $5,000, Standard Chartered predicts, in possible 2023 ‘surprise’
        Published Mon, Dec 5 2022 7:57 AM EST
        Arjun Kharpal

        Key Points
        – Bitcoin could drop to $5,000 next year in a market surprise that investors are under-pricing, according to Standard Chartered, marking a 70% plunge from the current level of around $17,000.
        – In a note entitled “The financial-market surprises of 2023,” Standard Chartered outlined a number of possible scenarios that “we feel are under-priced by the markets.”
        – Standard Chartered said rising yields along with a plunge in technology stocks will lead to an acceleration of the bitcoin sell-off and cause further bankruptcies and collapses in the crypto world.
        …
        https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/btc-bitcoin-could-fall-to-5000-standard-chartered-predicts.html

        1. Casual observation: Since Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have no practical use or fundamental value, price predictions are completely arbitrary conjectures on the future dollar amounts speculative gamblers will be willing to pay.

        2. “….Bitcoin could drop to $5,000 next year in a market surprise…”

          Really?. Why stop at $5,000?

          If Bitcoin plunged to 50 cents it would still be overpriced.

          According to todays coinmarketcap, as of today, there are 21,977 different cryptos (including Bitcoin) for you to ‘invest’ in.

          Other than niche markets (like money laundering, organized crime, smugglers, government undercover, etc.), can anyone suggest *why* they would want to own any crypto (other than to pepper up your conversation at all those cool cocktails parties).

          1. pepper up your conversation

            Just imagine that you have some and yammer away like a celebrity. Ought to be as good as believing you have something imaginary.

  33. “Blackstone shares have lost 15% of their value since Dec. 1, when the New York-based firm disclosed it had for the first time limited redemptions from the REIT.”

    🔪 It sux to be trapped inside a falling knife investment fund. 🗡️

    1. Remember, once any organization becomes sufficiently converged, it can no longer perform its core competencies.

  35. As the Pentagon Fails Another Audit, Congress Wants to Spend Even More on “Defense”

    Ryan McMaken
    12/06/2022

    In November, the Pentagon announced it had failed yet another audit. In spite of the fact that the Department of Defense has had years to get its act together, the Pentagon still doesn’t know how it spends or maintains its trillions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded assets and income. As Breaking Defense noted last month:

    Accounting like this, of course, would land most private-sector C-suite executives in prison for various financial crimes. Moreover, this is the same government that insists it has the prerogative to spy on most of our banking transactions and that has even recently started demanding that we report every Venmo and PayPal transaction over $600. But that’s not how things work in the government sector. The Pentagon can fail an audit on literally trillions of dollars, and all that means is “there’s room for improvement.”

    Indeed, rather than tie funding to accurate information about how taxpayer money is spent, Congress this month has mostly been debating how much to increase defense spending.

    https://mises.org/wire/pentagon-fails-another-audit-congress-wants-spend-even-more-defense

    1. Meanwhile, there is an enlistment crisis. I recall reading that the Navy cannot deploy its ships on schedule due to a lack of sailors. And the ones they have are increasingly incompetent. Witness the destruction of the Bonhomme Richard, which caught fire while docked in San Diego and its crew could not stop the fire.

      1. The local governments are struggling after they terminated all of the people who refused the jab. They require the jab for new hires and nobody is applying. The DOT is struggling badly.

        1. Many years ago I applied for a FedGov job, but didn’t get it. I shrugged it off and never applied again. In retrospect that was a huge bullet I dodged.

  36. Jill Biden Clears Up the Debate on Her ‘Very Pretty’ Black Tights: ‘They Weren’t Fishnets’

    Twitter users had a lot of thoughts when the First Lady stepped out in April wearing black sheer stockings

    By Hanna Flanagan
    June 29, 2021

    “And they weren’t fishnets. They weren’t lace. They were very pretty stockings,” she clarified about the look, which got Twitter buzzing with some social media users praising, and others critiquing, the choice.

    https://people.com/style/jill-biden-talks-black-tights-vogue-august-cover-story/

    This clears it up…

    https://youtu.be/K38xNqZvBJI

    1. Say!
      I like sexy patterned hosiery!
      I do! I like them, rms-I-am!
      And I would like them in a boat!
      And I would like them with a goat…
      And I will like them in the rain.
      And in the dark. And on a train.
      And in a car. And in a tree.
      They look so sexy, so sexy you see!

    1. The Wall Street Journal
      Economy
      What’s Going On With the Housing Market?
      Home buyers and sellers are trying to make sense of a downturn that’s full of contradictions: Demand has seized up but supply is still low; prices are sliding but not plummeting; and no one can agree on what comes next
      By Nicole Friedman and
      Nick Timiraos
      Dec. 7, 2022 11:32 am ET

      Home sales have plunged. Buyers, facing the fastest-rising mortgage rates in decades, are scrapping their plans. And forecasters have rarely disagreed so much over where the market goes next.

      By many measures, the housing market entered a sharp slump this summer after the Federal Reserve abruptly ended a real-estate boom fueled by the pandemic and record-low borrowing rates.

      Mortgage rates climbed above 7% to 20-year highs in October and November before ticking lower in recent weeks. Existing-home sales have dropped for nine straight months through October, the longest streak since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this data in 1999.

      It is typical for rising interest rates to cool the housing market. But the speed of this year’s mortgage-rate increase has created a sense of whiplash among buyers and sellers, and that makes it difficult to predict how long the housing slump will last and how bad it will get.

      Contradictory signals abound. Demand has tumbled, but the supply of homes is still low. Prices have fallen but are well above their pre-pandemic levels. Interest rates are sky-high compared with a year ago, but below where they stood in the decades when many older Americans bought their first homes.

      “When prices are rising, people can’t believe housing will ever go down, and then once prices fall, they can’t believe it will ever go up,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive at real-estate brokerage Redfin Corp.
      …

      1. “When prices are rising, people can’t believe housing will ever go down, and then once prices fall, they can’t believe it will ever go up,”

        Glenn is making sh!t up.

    2. Yahoo
      Benzinga
      ‘We’re Not In A Frenzy Anymore,’ Real Estate Agent Says Amid Home Sellers Pulling Properties Off The Market
      AJ Fabino
      Tue, December 6, 2022 at 10:07 AM·2 min read

      According to Redfin Corp (NASDAQ: RDFN) data, a record number of houses are being delisted as sellers confront a significant reduction in interest.

      During the three months ending Nov. 20, 2% of houses for sale were delisted without being sold, according to Redfin. This compared to 1.6% a year ago and is another indication that the decade-long housing bubble is coming to an end.

      Demand has slowed this year as mortgage rates have risen, reversing the global purchasing frenzy that caused bidding wars and propelled house prices to record highs.
      …
      https://www.yahoo.com/video/were-not-frenzy-anymore-real-180756223.html

    3. Home prices, sales to drop for first time in decade, Redfin predicts
      by Danny Schmidt, KOMO News
      Wednesday, December 7th 2022
      A Redfin “for sale” sign stands in front of a house Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020, in Seattle. Several fair housing organizations accused Redfin of systematic racial discrimination in a lawsuit Thursday, saying the online real estate broker offers fewer services to homebuyers and sellers in minority communities, a type of “digital redlining” that has depressed home values and exacerbated historic injustice in the housing market. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

      SEATTLE —
      Redfin expects home prices in the United States to decline for the first time in a decade in 2023.

      The Seattle-based real estate brokerage released its 12 predictions for 2023, and said it anticipates fewer home sales in 2023 than there were in 2022, which would mark the first year-over-year decline in a decade as home sales could fall to their lowest level since 2011.

      Mortgage rates will continue to decrease and sit under 6% by the end of 2023, Redfin predicted. Redfin doesn’t believe a foreclosure wave is coming, despite the dip in home sales and prices, because “homeowners who’ve had their home for at least a few years have fixed low mortgage payments and plentiful home equity after values skyrocketed during the pandemic.”

      Other predictions from Redfin included rent prices dropping due to supply and high mortgage rates, meaning “many prospective first-time homebuyers may instead become move-up renters, upgrading from a small urban apartment to a larger apartment or a single-family rental to fit their growing families.”
      …

  38. Former Twitter CEO Urges Elon Musk to ‘Release Everything’ After Ex-FBI Official’s Exit

    Former Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey called on new owner Elon Musk to release all of the company’s internal files after Musk apparently fired former deputy counsel James Baker on Tuesday for the alleged role he played in suppressing a Hunter Biden laptop report.

    “If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions?” Dorsey asked on Twitter, responding to a statement issued by Musk. “Make everything public now.”

    Other than Dorsey, some users suggested to Musk that he release all the files via a database, similar to what WikiLeaks had provided for leaked federal government documents.

    Last week, Musk handed alleged internal emails and messages to journalist Matt Taibbi, who published several threads revealing how previous Twitter manager’s moved to suppress a New York Post report on Hunter Biden’s laptop and overseas business dealings before the 2020 election. At the time, Twitter content moderators alleged that the Post’s report violated its policy around hacked materials, although it was later revealed that the laptop wasn’t hacked and was merely abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop for more than a year.

    The so-called “Twitter Files” reported by Taibbi and endorsed by Musk, showed that Baker, a former FBI general counsel and Brookings fellow, told Twitter executives to proceed with blocking the story because he suspected it broke Twitter’s rules. Baker was also implicated in court documents filed by special counsel John Durham in a case against former Clinton campaign and Democrat lawyer Michael Sussmann, who allegedly relayed false information about Trump’s campaign to Baker when he was working for the FBI.

    “I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked,” Baker wrote to other Twitter officials in October 2020, according to a screenshot posted by Taibbi. “At this stage, however, it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted.”

    Taibbi also reported that Baker was also headed Twitter’s process of reviewing the “Twitter files” before they were released to journalists. That revelation this week, Taibbi wrote, “surprised everyone involved.”

    Musk on Tuesday evening then wrote that he “exited” Baker from the company due to “concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue,” although it’s still not clear why Baker was tasked with reviewing files under the new ownership. For his part, Baker has not publicly responded to Taibbi’s reporting or Musk’s statement. The Epoch Times has attempted to contact him for comment.

    Later, when asked if Baker was able to explain himself, Musk wrote that “his explanation was … unconvincing.” Minutes later, Taibbi posted his own Twitter thread calling it a “Twitter Files Supplemental.”

    “On Friday, the first installment of the Twitter files was published here. We expected to publish more over the weekend. Many wondered why there was a delay,” Taibbi wrote in a post. “We can now tell you part of the reason why. On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of ‘Twitter Files’ – without knowledge of new management.”

    Taibbi then noted Baker’s history working for the FBI and his ties to the widely discredited Steele dossier and the allegations that the Trump campaign had a secret back-channel to a Russian bank. Baker resigned from the bureau in 2018 and joined Twitter in 2020.

    “Baker is a controversial figure. He has been something of a Zelig of FBI controversies dating back to 2016, from the Steele Dossier to the Alfa-Server mess,” Taibbi added. “The news that Baker was reviewing the ‘Twitter files’ surprised everyone involved, to say the least. New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to ‘exit’ Baker Tuesday.”

    Last week, Taibbi, citing the internal messages, wrote that Dorsey was unaware of Twitter’s efforts to block the NY Post story. He later publicly apologized and said the incident was mishandled.

    Many critics have said the suppression of the Hunter Biden report, which detailed his business ties to then-candidate Joe Biden, by both mainstream news outlets and big tech firms may have been enough to sway the election. The report, much of which was corroborated by a former Hunter Biden associate named Tony Bobulinksi, was heavily referenced by then-President Donald Trump during his second debate with Biden.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/former-twitter-ceo-urges-elon-musk-to-release-everything-after-ex-fbi-officials-exit_4909639.html

    1. “Many critics have said the suppression of the Hunter Biden report, which detailed his business ties to then-candidate Joe Biden, by both mainstream news outlets and big tech firms may have been enough to sway the election.”

      I respectively disagree.

      It may have meant President Trump received 85 million votes but that would have just meant the Biden/Knee Pad ticket would have received 96 million votes. Nothing more than another day of shoving fake ballots through the scanners.

  39. Ok, so on Dec 7 2022, Senator Ron Johnson
    Hosted a Expert Hearing on Covid. You can find that long forum tape on HIGHWIRE.

    It was basically a update by Medical Experts and Scientists on what they know about the Covid, the response and vaccine.
    It gives a good insight and summary into issues that should concern everyone.
    It seems like Rand Paul and Senator Ron Johnson, and the Governor of Florida is trying to get to the bottom of this Covid and the vaccine response to it. .

    For instance , they covered info on why it isn’t a vaccine , but rather expiermental gene altering. How they lied about the injection staying in the arm, when they knew by the prior animal studies that the the junk would go to the entire body and organs like the heart.
    Just all kinds of information delivered in a fast manner that will probably piss you off.

  40. “This is just a grotesque post-modern psy-op and anyone falling for this is braindead”.

    Tucker Carlson, 12/07/22 on Despot Zelenskys Ukraine

      1. I saw that last night.

        What Tucker says at 6:27 leading up to the double-boosted Vax dance at 7:40 describes what is well underway in this country right now.

        1. There is chatter about the Catholic Church being shut down in the US because it promotes “hate”. I don’t think we are there yet, but as we know, things change quickly these days.

          2. What I could envision is an “American Catholic Church” being formed by the government, much like the Chinese do, a church with all the rubrics but controlled by the American government. It would not be in communion with the Holy See.

  42. Ok, so things are getting kinda weird involving Dr Malone.
    Dr Malone has filed a 25 million dollar lawsuit against:
    Dr Breggins
    Dr Jane Ruby
    Red Voice Media (Stew Peters)
    Apparently it’s a slander lawsuit.
    These people expressed opinions that were in dispute to some opinions expressed by Dr Malone.

    At the same time Dr Malone expressed the opinion that the documentary ” Died Suddenly ” was “fear porn.”
    Dr Malone isn’t a psychologist Dr, or has the credentials Dr Breggin has in this field, yet Dr Malone is suing Dr Breggin for having a opinion on mass formation psychosis different than Malone expressed.

    What Dr Malone is saying is these Entities he is suing can’t have free speech opinion
    that disputes Dr Malones opinions in a medical field he has no credentials in.
    Dr Malone even bragged that he made up the term ” Mass Formation Psychosis. ”

    This lawsuit is bizarre in that its attacking
    three of the greatest workers for
    medical freedom and exposing censored information on Covid .
    While we got a lot of information from Dr Malone on how the fake vaccine worked in
    theory, I was getting bugged that he seemed to be a apologist for the industry, always careful to not suggest any bad motive on the part of Big Pharmacy and the health agencies.
    For your information, Dr Breggin had the opinion that if Big Pharmacy was deceiving the masses, its a predator /prey situation , that caused the mass delusion, not psychosis , but fraud essentially.
    I always liked Dr Malone , so Im pretty shocked that he’s attacking these people over a difference of medical opinion.
    Stew Peters basically said that Malone wasn’t getting the job done in getting the clot shot pulled from the market with his approach .
    Dr Malone did repeatedly say that he thought the shots were not safe enough , and he said he himself was injured by taking two shots.
    Is Dr Malone controlled opposition? You decide, I know what I think.

    2. Give it a few months. Right now sellers are still in shock and denial about falling prices. Once they realize this is just the begining, they will race to the exits to avoid further losses.

  45. PROF: RYSZARD LEGUTKO: “Two minutes of truth, of bitter truth” in the European Parliament
    Ryszard Legutko
    Dec 7, 2022
    During ceremony of the 70th anniversary of the European Parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists made cutting criticisms. Speaking on behalf of the Group, Chairman Professor Ryszard Legutko pointed out that in the strict sense it is only a quasi-parliament, alienating millions of voters.

    “Madam President, Prime Ministers. Two minutes of truth, of bitter truth. And the bitter truth is that the European Parliament has done a lot of damage in Europe. It has been sending a false message it represents the European demos. There isn’t, and there won’t be any European demos. The Parliament infected Europe with shameless partisanship and the infection became so contagious that it spread to other institutions such as the European Commission.

    The Parliament has abandoned the basic function of representing people. Instead, it has become a machine to implement the so-called European project, thus alienating millions of voters. The Parliament has become a political vehicle of the left to impose their monopoly with their fierce intolerance towards any dissenting view. No matter how many times you repeat the word ‘diversity’. Diversity is becoming an extinct species in the European Union and particularly in this chamber.

    The Parliament is a quasi-parliament because it rejects the essential principle of parliamentarism, namely accountability. The deputy – let me remind you – is elected by the voters and must be accountable to the voters that elected him. Not so in the European Union. The idea that, say, Spanish, German, French, et cetera, deputies accountable to their own national electorates can dictate something to, shall we say, Hungarian society or any other society to which they cannot be held accountable and which cannot take them to task is simply preposterous.

    Call it what you will. But democracy, it is not. To sum up, the Parliament represents the demos that does not exist, works for the project that ignores reality and law, shuns accountability, turns its back on millions of people and serves the interest of one political orientation. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Having said that, ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHRwl6gdnj4

    4 minutes.

  46. Musk Says Key Bits of ‘Twitter Files’ Were Compromised as He Fires Ex-FBI Twitter Lawyer Involved in ‘Vetting’ the Data

    Twitter boss Elon Musk has revealed that the “most important data” from the social media platform’s internal communications on free speech suppression, known as the “Twitter Files,” was hidden and some may even have been deleted.

    Musk made the remark in a Dec. 7 tweet, in response to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s question as to why the Twitter Files were being dropped in installments instead of being released in their entirety.

    “If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now,” Dorsey said in a post on Twitter.

    Dorsey was responding to a series of comments by Musk, in which the Tesla CEO told his followers to brace for an upcoming release of “Episode 2 of The Twitter Files.”

    Musk reacted to Dorsey’s remarks by saying that key data had been hidden and possibly scrubbed.

    “Most important data was hidden (from you too) and some may have been deleted, but everything we find will be released,” Musk said.

    The exchange between Twitter’s current and former bosses comes hot on the heels of news that Musk apparently fired Twitter’s former deputy counsel James Baker, possibly for the alleged role he played in suppressing a Hunter Biden laptop story.

    Investigative reporter Matt Taibbi, who with Musk’s endorsement posted the first episode of the “Twitter Files” on the platform on Dec. 2, suggested that the holdup with releasing the subsequent part of the disclosures had something to do with Baker’s role in “vetting” the first batch without the knowledge of Twitter’s current management.

    Musk first teased the disclosure of Twitter’s internal files on what he described as the company’s “free speech suppression” at the end of November.

    Days later, Musk shared a thread from Taibbi, which detailed a series of internal Twitter communications—dubbed the “Twitter Files”—that lifted the lid of the social media platform’s machinations around censorship.

    The explosive disclosures also featured Twitter managers’ efforts to block the spread of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

    Republicans had long accused Twitter—and some media outlets—of suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, which included reporting that bolstered claims that the president lied when he said he had no involvement in his son’s overseas business dealings.

    In order to suppress the Hunter Biden report, Twitter executives marked it as “unsafe,” limiting its spread and even blocking it from being directly shared via the platform’s direct message function, Taibbi said. He also noted that such extreme restrictions were normally reserved for content such as child pornography.

    Teasing a follow-on release of more information related to Twitter’s actions around censorship, Taibbi said in his thread that there was “much more to come.” He promised answers to questions around issues like “shadow-banning, boosting, follower counts, the fate of various individual accounts, and more.”

    Musk initially said a second episode of the disclosures would be released shortly after the first data drop. On Dec. 4, Musk updated that it “looks like we will need another day or so.”

    The “hidden” or “deleted” status of some of the Twitter Files, as mentioned by Musk, could be affecting the timing of the release of subsequent episodes of the disclosures.

    In the first set of Twitter Files disclosures, Taibbi shared screenshots of internal communications from and among Twitter managers that showed actions around the platform’s suppression of a New York Post report on a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

    At the time, Twitter content moderators alleged that the Post’s report violated its policy around hacked materials. However, it was later revealed that the laptop wasn’t hacked but was simply abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop.

    The “Twitter Files” disclosures also showed that Baker, a former FBI general counsel and Brookings fellow, told Twitter executives to proceed with blocking the Hunter Biden laptop story because he suspected it violated Twitter’s rules.

    “I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked,” Baker wrote to other Twitter officials in October 2020, according to a screenshot posted by Taibbi. “At this stage, however, it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted.”

    Baker was also implicated in court documents filed by special counsel John Durham in a case against former Clinton campaign and Democrat lawyer Michael Sussmann, who allegedly relayed false information about Trump’s campaign to Baker when he was working for the FBI.

    In the disclosures, Taibbi also reported that Baker headed Twitter’s process of reviewing the “Twitter files” before they were released to journalists. That revelation, Taibbi wrote, “surprised everyone involved.”

    Musk on Tuesday evening wrote that he “exited” Baker from the company due to “concerns” about his possible role in suppressing important information, though the Twitter chief did not go into detail.

    It remains unclear why Baker was tasked with reviewing files after Musk’s takeover of Twitter at the end of October. Baker has not publicly responded to Taibbi’s reporting or Musk’s statement. The Epoch Times earlier attempted to contact him for comment.

    Taibbi said in a Dec. 6 thread titled “Twitter Files Supplemental” that questions have swirled around the delay of the release of subsequent episodes of the disclosures.

    “We can now tell you part of the reason why. On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of ‘Twitter Files’—without knowledge of new management,” Taibbi wrote.

    He explained that after the first set of the files was released, “things became complicated” as he and journalist Bari Weiss, who was another reporter to whom the Twitter Files were disclosed to, struggled with “obstacles to new searches.”

    Taibbi said that it was then discovered that the person “in charge” of releasing the files was James Baker.

    Taibbi then noted Baker’s history working for the FBI and his ties to the widely discredited Steele dossier and the allegations that the Trump campaign had a secret back-channel to a Russian bank.

    Baker resigned from the bureau in 2018 and joined Twitter in 2020.

    “Baker is a controversial figure. He has been something of a Zelig of FBI controversies dating back to 2016, from the Steele Dossier to the Alfa-Server mess,” Taibbi said. “The news that Baker was reviewing the ‘Twitter files’ surprised everyone involved, to say the least. New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to ‘exit’ Baker Tuesday.”

    Musk took to Twitter to say that Baker was “exited” from Twitter due to concerns about his “possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue.”

    Asked if Baker was asked to explain himself first, Musk replied, “Yes. His explanation was … unconvincing.”

    Critics have argued that the suppression of the Hunter Biden report, which suggested that then-candidate Joe Biden knew about and was involved in his son’s overseas business dealings, may have been enough to sway the 2020 presidential election.

    President Joe Biden has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of or involvement in Hunter Biden’s business deals.

    A former Hunter Biden associate named Tony Bobulinski has repeatedly insisted that the elder Biden was lying when he claimed no involvement in his son’s business operations. In particular, Bobulinski has claimed that the president is the “Big Guy” repeatedly referenced in communications found on the laptop.

    Shortly before the 2020 presidential election, Bobulinski came forward with a series of disclosures prompted by messages discovered on the laptop linked to Hunter Biden.

    Among them was correspondence involving Hunter Biden where a 10-percent cut from a Chinese business deal would be “held by H for the Big Guy.”

    The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Bobulinski’s claims.

    In a statement to media outlets in October 2020, Bobulinski said that “Big Guy” was a reference to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

    “Hunter Biden called his dad ‘the Big Guy’ or ‘my Chairman,’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing,” Bobulinski wrote at the time.

    “The Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars from foreign entities even though some were from communist controlled China,” Bobulinski further alleged.

    Both the president and his son have denied any wrongdoing and the elder Biden said during his final debate against then President Donald Trump that “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.”

    Bobulinski insists this is false.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/musk-says-key-bits-of-twitter-files-were-compromised-as-he-fires-ex-fbi-twitter-lawyer-involved-in-vetting-the-data_4911251.html

    1. So that’s why Dorsey wants Musk to release everything, Baker rigged the records before he was fired.

      Machiavelli would be amazed.

  47. ‘Of course, as we said at the time, those conditions were not sustainable’

    Nobody is going back to check Brandon so yer safe. I’m sure you slipped it in late stages, but it wasn’t emphasized. Wear the mantel of shame fer yer con Brandon.

  48. I feel for the crypto whiz kidz who ran FTX. After much reading, I believe they became so intoxicated with the thrill of running a multibillion dollar company that they didn’t see the financial tsunami tide coming that washed them out to sea overnight.

    1. The Boston Globe
      Caroline Ellison, math whiz and Newton native, was bound for success. Then she got into crypto.
      Ally Rzesa
      A drawing of Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm. Ally Rzesa
      By Anissa Gardizy, The Boston Globe
      updated on December 7, 2022

      At an exclusive party in the Bahamas last spring, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was perched atop a patio railing, mingling with pop star Katy Perry and actor Orlando Bloom. FTX was one of the hottest cryptocurrency exchanges of the moment, and Bankman-Fried was surrounded by people vying for attention.

      Across the patio, keeping to herself, was one of Bankman-Fried’s key lieutenants, Caroline Ellison, who ran the crypto trading firm he founded, Alameda Research. She didn’t appear fazed by the celebrities, and party-goer David Micley found it easy enough to strike up a conversation with her.

      “She didn’t seem like a person that took herself too seriously or thought of herself as too important,” said Micley, who works in the crypto industry and described the party scene to the Globe.

      Ellison did not mention her position at Alameda for a few minutes and didn’t say much about her work, Micley said. Instead, the two made small talk after discovering they were both from Newton.

      Seven months later, Ellison is now very much the subject of attention. In a few stunning days, FTX went from being a darling of the crypto industry to filing for bankruptcy — and its close relationship with Alameda is at the center of the collapse.

      A Nov. 2 story from CoinDesk showed that much of Alameda’s assets were held in FTT, the trading token issued by its sister company. That sparked liquidity concerns and a series of cascading events, with investors withdrawing some $5 billion from FTX and a bailout from investors falling through.

      FTX, Alameda, and other subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11, and Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO of FTX. The same day, The Wall Street Journal reported that FTX lent customer funds to Alameda, which was against the exchange’s terms of service agreement. Ellison was fired as CEO of Alameda, and investigators in the United States and the Bahamas are trying to determine what happened.

      Now, those who knew the 28-year-old from Massachusetts wonder how she got involved in the Wild West of the crypto industry in the first place. A child of two members of the faculty at MIT, Ellison sailed through high school, won accolades for her excellence in math, attended Stanford University, and worked on Wall Street.
      …
      https://www.boston.com/news/the-boston-globe/2022/12/07/caroline-ellison-ftx-alameda-research/

        2. THE cryptoverse has some highly informative news

          A manic construct, a universe detached from reality, informs you of things new.

    3. Markets
      CNBC TV
      Watchlist
      Tech
      FTX spokesman Kevin O’Leary says he lost his $15 million payday from crypto firm
      Published Thu, Dec 8 2022 9:51 AM ESTUpdated Thu, Dec 8 2022 11:30 AM EST
      Rohan Goswami

      WATCH LIVE
      Key Points
      – CNBC contributor Kevin O’Leary told “Squawk Box” anchors that he’d lost all of his FTX crypto payday, valued at just under $15 million.
      – Calling the FTX deal a “bad investment,” O’Leary said he fell prey to “groupthink.”
      – O’Leary and other celebrities, such as Tom Brady and Larry David, were sued by FTX investors who say the exchange’s ambassadors should have done more due diligence.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/08/ftx-spokesman-kevin-oleary-says-he-lost-15-million-crypto-payday.html

    4. Now the next article I am about to post is from a MSM source which some people love to hate. But it vividly shows how far and fast SBF fell from grace.

      It’s almost as though everyone hates him due to their unwillingness to face the lack of common sense in their own investing decisions.

      1. Mr. Bankman-Fried at the Crypto Bahamas conference in Nassau in April.
        Credit…Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times

        A Crypto Emperor’s Vision: No Pants, His Rules

        Sam Bankman-Fried is a studiously disheveled billionaire who made a fortune overseeing trades that are too risky for the U.S. market. Now he wants Washington to follow his lead.
        By David Yaffe-Bellany
        May 14, 2022

        NASSAU, The Bahamas — The crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried, who rose to fame by building a $40 billion business in less than three years, stood in the wings at the Baha Mar convention center, wearing his usual schlubby ensemble of shorts and a T-shirt. He was about to take the stage with Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House communications director who rose to fame by losing that job in less than two weeks.

        They were talking about other famous people. A couple of days earlier, Mr. Bankman-Fried had been shooting Twitter videos with Tom Brady, the N.F.L. quarterback. “Brady was awesome,” Mr. Bankman-Fried said. “Maybe we’ll buy a football team together some day.” The Mooch put a fatherly hand on Mr. Bankman-Fried’s shoulder. “You couldn’t get a better guy,” he agreed.

        Next the conversation turned to Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry, who’d joined Mr. Bankman-Fried for dinner earlier that week. “Orlando is really sweet,” Mr. Bankman-Fried said, as a production assistant fiddled with his microphone. They had met for the first time at a party in Los Angeles over Super Bowl weekend. “He just started talking to me.” It turned into one of those awkward situations, he said, where you know you’re supposed to recognize someone but can’t figure out who they are.

        Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30, isn’t hard to pick out of a crowd: Known to the blockchain faithful as SBF, he is perpetually rumpled, with a mess of curly black hair exploding from his head. He founded the crypto exchange FTX in 2019, and has risen to become one of the richest crypto executives in the world. At Baha Mar, Mr. Scaramucci had dispensed with his suit jacket and donned a T-shirt and shorts to match his companion. When the lights dimmed, he and Mr. Bankman-Fried walked onstage to perform what passes for a comedy sketch at an international crypto conference: A bit of semi-scripted banter centered on their matching attire. “The Hanes special,” Mr. Bankman-Fried said.

        The audience roared. It was late April, and Mr. Bankman-Fried was presiding over the first edition of the Crypto Bahamas conference, a showcase for FTX and a vivid demonstration of his growing celebrity and influence. Everywhere he went, crypto entrepreneurs offered handshakes and fist bumps, patting him on the back as they pitched projects or presented him with branded swag. One afternoon, Mr. Bankman-Fried led a panel with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, discussing blockchain technology and the war in Ukraine. “I’m glad you all came out here to see me today,” he said, to laughter from the packed house.

        The laughter has faded. Over the last few days, the collapse of a so-called stablecoin called TerraUSD has sent the crypto market into meltdown, accelerating a dramatic sell-off that tanked the price of Bitcoin and Ether, the two most valuable cryptocurrencies. At Baha Mar, Mr. Bankman-Fried was throwing a giant party for the industry; this past week, he was attempting to restore calm, tweeting long threads about the state of the market.

        It’s a dual role that SBF has been happy to embrace. For years, the crypto industry was dominated by political ideologues, shameless grifters and rich guys with yachts. Mr. Bankman-Fried is hoping to put a new face on the still-chaotic world of digital assets. He lives modestly for a billionaire and has pledged to give away virtually his entire fortune, which currently stands at $21.2 billion, according to Forbes. A growing force in political fund-raising, he has a super PAC that recently gave more than $10 million to a Democratic congressional candidate who supports some of his philanthropic priorities.
        …
        https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/14/business/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-crypto.html

    5. Yahoo
      Business Insider
      FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried explains how he built a $32 billion crypto exchange in 3 years after growing annoyed with ‘crappy’ platforms – making him a multibillionaire at 29
      Harry Robertson
      February 20, 2022·3 min read
      In this article:
      Sam Bankman-Fried co-founded the crypto exchange FTX in 2019.FTX

      – The FTX crypto exchange is now worth $32 billion, despite having been founded only in 2019.

      – Sam Bankman-Fried set it up after becoming annoyed with “crappy” exchanges, he told Insider.

      – The 29-year-old explains how the company grew so quickly, giving him a net worth of more than $24 billion.

      A lot of people have gotten rich quickly in crypto. But few have gotten rich quicker than Sam Bankman-Fried.

      He’s worth $24.5 billion, according to Forbes, although that may be an underestimate.

      “I think it was accurate when they wrote it,” Bankman-Fried told Insider this week. “I think it’s probably a little bit higher right now.”

      At the root of Bankman-Fried’s wealth is the FTX exchange, which he co-founded in 2019 and is now one of the biggest cryptocurrency-trading venues in the world.

      The Bahamas-based exchange reached a valuation of $32 billion last month, when it raised $400 million from illustrious investment firms such as SoftBank, Tiger Global and Temasek. Its US spinoff is worth $8 billion.

      FTX exchange is now more valuable than Twitter, stock-exchange giant Nasdaq, and Germany’s Deutsche Bank. Not bad for a three-year-old company.

      Bankman-Fried graduated MIT with a physics degree, and then landed a job at the Wall Street trading firm Jane Street in 2014. Three years later, he founded crypto-trading firm Alameda Research, which was soon making big money taking advantage of price discrepancies in global markets.

      By 2018, he’d come to the realization that the existing crypto exchanges simply weren’t very good: they were glitchy, unsafe, and had next to no customer support.

      “You felt like, these are really central, important, valuable systems, which are really crappy right now, and we can do better than this,” he said.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ftxs-sam-bankman-fried-explains-090000136.html

  49. My wife showed me a flier that came our way today from a local used home seller in RB 92127. It shows ample sales in early 2022 through July at ever more astronomical prices.

    After July, there were nil, null, nada, zip, zilch, zero sales. It’s like the market dropped off the edge of a cliff.

    Cue up the Glengarry Glen Ross motivational speech! (Samples: “Do you know what it takes to sell real estate? It takes brass balls,” and “Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers.”)

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=elrnAl6ygeM

  50. Panthers DE Henry Anderson says he had a minor stroke in October

    Anderson, 31, said he experienced numbness in his legs and slurred speech on Oct. 22, leading to his wife taking him to the hospital…The cause of the blood clot in Anderson’s brain reportedly remains unknown.

    “‘What is The Jab?’ for $2,000, please, Alex.”

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