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For Some, The Consequences Of Participating In That Bubble-Producing Market Frenzy Will Be Catastrophic

A report from the Los Angeles Times. “For the first time in a decade, Southern California homeowners, and those across the country, are seeing their equity fall en-masse. Justin Bragg and his wife stretched to buy a home in Boyle Heights late last year. Now, after hearing of multiple shootings at parks near their home, they wonder if they made a bad choice. Bragg, a high school teacher, feels unsafe just bringing their 3-year-old daughter to their neighborhood playground. But he worries they won’t be able to sell or find a renter who’ll cover their mortgage. ‘Are we stuck in this place?’ Bragg, 42, said.”

Pacific Coast Business Times in California. “Santa Paula-based Limoneira, with real estate development operations, in addition to its citrus growing, packing, selling and marketing agribusiness, closed the sale of its real estate development property known as ‘Sevilla,’ in Santa Maria, for $2.6 million in cash proceeds Nov. 30, the company said. The company said it recorded an immaterial loss in the fiscal first quarter of 2023.”

The Dallas Morning News. “Dallas-Fort Worth single-family home sales fell 30% from November 2021 to 2022, the sharpest decline since immediately after the Great Recession. The last home sales decline of more than 30% was in July 2010, Texas A&M records show. The median sale price of a single-family home dropped almost 9% from a record $435,000 in May and June to $396,500 in November. Shana Acquisto, president of the Collin County Association of Realtors said sellers who are on the fence about selling their homes may be ‘kicking themselves a little bit’ because they missed the best time to sell, especially if they aren’t willing to get their homes in pristine condition.”

The Waco Tribune in Texas. “Ameritex Homes President Tara Williams said pandemic-related labor and supply shortages have hampered construction progress for the company, leading to the partially completed houses that can be seen around Waco. Ameritex has permits to build between 70 and 80 houses on infill lots in developed neighborhoods, primarily in North Waco and East Waco. City planning officials expect to meet with the developer next week after local housing advocates pointed out the stalled projects throughout town, including Mike Stone, director of Grassroots Waco, which runs homebuilding and repair programs, in addition to offering financial literacy classes and other programs.”

“Stone said Ameritex has started work on all but eight of the homes it has permits for. Waco Planning Director Clint Peters said his department has the authority to void building permits if work has not started after six months. Permits do not come with deadlines for work to be completed. A trio of Ameritex lots on North 11th Street have trenches and plumbing components in the ground, no foundation, and stacks of lumber for framing waiting on standby. ‘You want to build a house to minimize all your holding costs so that you can make a better return on your investment, and the longer it takes, the less you’re going to be able to make on the house,’ Stone said.”

Bisnow Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. “Very few new construction projects have started in Philadelphia over the past three or four months, and very few look to begin in the first half of next year, multiple industry experts told Bisnow. For the vast majority, projects that have the entitlements and planning done are on hold. ‘Money costs double today from what it did a year ago,’ Tower Investments CEO Bart Blatstein said. ‘The lender pool has shrunk. Will it pass? Of course. Will it pass in a year? I don’t know.'”

“Ongoing projects are keeping construction companies busy right now, but if new starts don’t recover by the end of next year, the subsequent loss in cash flow would force construction companies to make cuts for survival. If that happens, developers would be hard-pressed to pick up where they left off.”

New Channel Nashville in Tennessee. “During the pandemic, Crossfire Cleaning was busy clearing out gutters and pressure washing. But now, business is slowing down. Small business owner Zach Hays said his clients likely don’t have as much cash flow. ‘I’m sure it’s just the recession, and everybody’s scared about what’s going to happen,’ Hays said. ‘I think everything’s more expensive, and with the rates, you can’t borrow money as easily, so people are really holding on to their money.’ To attract new clients, he’s dropped his prices 30 to 40% and is willing to negotiate. ‘We’re all pretty slow so it’s a good time to hire any contractors really,’ Hays said.”

From KTVB in Idaho. “For the first time since October 2014, the median sales price for homes in Ada County has dropped year-over-year. The median price during the month of November 2022 was $525,000, down 2.5% compared to November of 2021, according to Intermountain MLS. That price is also 6.5% less than the median for October of this year. The number of homes sold in November in Ada County, 548, was 39% lower than a year ago. Of those, 380 were existing/resale homes and 168 were new construction. The decrease in sales of existing homes (44.9%) was sharper than the decrease in sales of new construction (19.2%).”

“‘To attract the buyers who remain in the market, sellers are adjusting prices accordingly or offering buyer incentives like closing cost credits to buy down the interest rate,’ said Boise Regional REALTORS president Becky Enrico Crum.”

The Chatham Daily News in Canada. “Brantford is among the Ontario communities that have seen some of the largest declines in property values after they skyrocketed earlier in the pandemic, according to the Royal Bank. Prices in Brantford have seen an 18 per cent decline. Cambridge prices are down 22 per cent, and London 18 per cent. Kitchener-Waterloo, Kawartha Lakes and Hamilton/Burlington have all had a 17 per cent drop in prices. While Toronto’s decline has been 11 per cent, prices are expected to fall further.”

The Toronto Sun in Canada. “And just like that, with the most recent 50 bps hike, any hope that what we have been looking at the past nine months was to be but a blip should be extinguished forever. To suggest this is a been-there-done-that type situation glosses over the truth of just how unaffordable Toronto has become. And it’s no longer just Toronto. Since 2020 alone, prices have absolutely flared in the suburbs and exurbs. Million dollar mortgages in Bancroft, Ont. simply weren’t a thing the last time around.”

“Stories abound of people who, in pursuit of a whole new lifestyle, made the big move only to regret it. Turns out that baking sourdough and connecting with friends on Zoom could grow old eventually. So when the market stats show 40% declines in average sale prices in areas outside of the city, you’re seeing the impacts of that bubble bursting. The demand was never real.”

“The consequences for buyers now upside down on their mortgages, however, are absolutely real. The people selling at a 40% loss aren’t doing so because they want to; circumstances are forcing their hand. Hopefully the worst is now over, but for some the consequences of participating in that bubble-producing market frenzy will be catastrophic. For some this may turn out to be a blip. For many others it will be life altering.”

From Fortune. “The phone just won’t stop ringing, beams Zach Bradford, the CEO of Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark. The calls are from other mining bosses—and they’re panicking. After Bitcoin crashed and energy costs spiraled over the summer, mining firms that took out expensive short-term loans to buy hardware during the bull run now teeter on bankruptcy. Lenders are breathing down their necks, and the miners need quick cash. But only a handful of companies are buying mining rigs these days.”

The Washington Post. “When Miami Mayor Francis Suarez unveiled an 11-foot, 300-pound black fiberglass reproduction of the Wall Street bull last spring, he hailed it as a symbol of the city’s arrival as the ‘capital of crypto.’  The value of bitcoin has plummeted, a blow to Miami residents who bought into Suarez’s call to invest in digital currencies. MiamiCoin — the city’s own cryptocurrency — is now essentially worthless. ‘A bunch of con men, selling imaginary coins and magic beans is not that interesting of a story,’ said Billy Corben, a documentary filmmaker and longtime skeptic of Suarez’s embrace of bitcoin. ‘But the fact is the government, and its elected officials were complicit in it, and dragged the city in it.'”

From ABC News. “Tens of thousands of Australian investors with superannuation and savings tied up in cryptocurrency remain in suspense, as a major Australian broker collapses into voluntary administration. Digital Surge froze the trading accounts of its 30,000 clients last month. This means people with money in the broker cannot access their funds. Now, a month later, the Brisbane-based cryptocurrency broker has entered voluntary administration. Voluntary administration is generally something a company does when it is either at risk of insolvency or is already insolvent.”

“Kamal Jain has all of his superannuation – more than $150,000 – sitting frozen in a Digital Surge account. ‘I lost everything,’ he said. ‘It’s a big setback and there’s nothing I can do.’ ABC News has spoken to other distressed investors in Digital Surge who have hundreds of thousands of dollars wrapped up in the scheme.”

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This Post Has 122 Comments

  1. ‘A trio of Ameritex lots on North 11th Street have trenches and plumbing components in the ground, no foundation, and stacks of lumber for framing waiting on standby. ‘You want to build a house to minimize all your holding costs so that you can make a better return on your investment, and the longer it takes, the less you’re going to be able to make on the house’

    This is another ‘demand was an illusion’ thing Mike. Those shacks are never getting finished.

  2. ‘For the first time in a decade, Southern California homeowners, and those across the country, are seeing their equity fall en-masse’

    Eat yer crowz southern California.

    ‘Justin Bragg and his wife stretched to buy a home in Boyle Heights late last year. Now, after hearing of multiple shootings at parks near their home, they wonder if they made a bad choice. Bragg, a high school teacher, feels unsafe just bringing their 3-year-old daughter to their neighborhood playground. But he worries they won’t be able to sell or find a renter who’ll cover their mortgage. ‘Are we stuck in this place?’

    Firstly Jason magic 8 balls says yes. But let me guess: you had to make an offer over asking, promising to name yer next child Greedy Dumbass Bragg.

    1. “Underscoring the importance of home equity in a society where many lack savings and face eye-popping medical bills, one study found that cancer patients with no equity are more likely to refuse treatment and die than patients with positive equity, who tend to pull money out of their homes and are more likely to accept treatment.”

      The southern California ATM machine!

    2. Mike Park, 40, bought a $777,500 home in Lakewood in May. He noted all the nonfinancial benefits he’s enjoying, including his garage, a yard on a “huge lot” and the ability to do with his property as he pleases. “Even if I am overpaying a little bit, whatever, I still have my own house,” the digital marketing specialist said.

      And you can paint it any color you want too!

      1. “…an paint it any color you want…”

        No worries.

        You only need [sometimes multiple] approval[s] from your HOA.

        God help you if you dare plant a small rose bush in front your gas meter. [Personal experience]

      2. Looks like the selling frenzy may be on in Lakewood:
        https://www.zillow.com/lakewood-ca/

        Nothing more than a bunch of old, small post WWII homes on postage sized lots that probably still have the prior original owners “death stink” that many Lakewood homes were known for back in the early 2000s.

        The FBs that brought their HGTV magic to this formerly inexpensive neighborhood, in pursuit of big equity, are not going to like living out the future that they have chosen for themselves.

    3. “Tony took another job at an industrial bakery and, in three to five years, the couple in their early 60s plan to sell at a profit and move to a cheaper state to comfortably retire.”

      The smartest people are in California. LOL

      1. We live in the other 20%. Nice neighbors, stable demographic mix, not crime free, but no sounds of gunshots in the streets at nighttime.

  3. ‘Ongoing projects are keeping construction companies busy right now, but if new starts don’t recover by the end of next year, the subsequent loss in cash flow would force construction companies to make cuts for survival. If that happens, developers would be hard-pressed to pick up where they left off’

    ‘But now, business is slowing down. Small business owner Zach Hays said his clients likely don’t have as much cash flow’

    Quick question Zach: what is this cash flow thing? Can I get rich in, like, a day or two? I understand cash and flow. What happens between the cash and the flow?

    1. No cash flow is needed if you invest in cryptocurrencies. Just buy the dip and HODL until the price sails past the moon.

      1. No cash flow is needed if you invest in cryptocurrencies.
        What I remember of crypto pre FTX is it was paying 8-9% interest on the bitcoins. Obviously this was a huge WTF is going on in my mind. Maybe I just don’t/didn’t understand how crypto works.

  4. ‘To suggest this is a been-there-done-that type situation glosses over the truth of just how unaffordable Toronto has become’

    K-dns are funny. 20 years of to the moon Rudolph the Raindeer!, 9 months of crater and back to the moon! Right.

    ‘Million dollar mortgages in Bancroft, Ont. simply weren’t a thing the last time around’

    Sound lending!

    ‘Turns out that baking sourdough and connecting with friends on Zoom could grow old eventually. So when the market stats show 40% declines in average sale prices in areas outside of the city, you’re seeing the impacts of that bubble bursting. The demand was never real’

    Whoa Nellie, are you saying a minor respiratory illness did NOT make these igloo clusters worth a million K-dn pesos?

    ‘The consequences for buyers now upside down on their mortgages, however, are absolutely real. The people selling at a 40% loss aren’t doing so because they want to; circumstances are forcing their hand’

    Ennio Morricone – Ecstasy of Gold (The Good, the Bad, the Ugly)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNGe7iK1O-4

    1. ‘The consequences for buyers now upside down on their mortgages, however, are absolutely real. The people selling at a 40% loss aren’t doing so because they want to; circumstances are forcing their hand’

      Ennio Morricone – Ecstasy of Gold (The Good, the Bad, the Ugly)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNGe7iK1O-4

      —

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1NJwEi6nw
      For A Few Dollars More // The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live)
      1,085,733 views Jan 26, 2018
      #DNSO #DRKOncerthusetLive
      For A Few Dollars More
      Composed by Ennio Morricone
      Arranged and orchestrated by Thommy Andersson
      Conducted by Sarah Hicks

      – “For a few dollars more [I speculated in real estate].” 🙂

      —

      “Once a boom is well started, it cannot be arrested. It can only be collapsed.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

      “Participants in the speculative situation are programmed for sudden efforts at escape. Thus the rule, supported by the experience of centuries: the speculative episode always ends not with a whimper but with a bang. There will be occasion to see the operation of this rule frequently repeated.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

      “The rule will often be here reiterated: financial genius is before the fall.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria

      “Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later.” – Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

      “Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.” – Charles Mackay

      “No warning can save people determined to grow suddenly rich” – Lord Overstone

      —

      “As a dog returns to its vomit,
          so fools repeat their folly.”       – Proverbs 26:11

      “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” – Aldous Huxley

      “What’s past is prologue.” – William Shakespeare, The Tempest

      “What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;” – Ecclesiastes 1: 9

      “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana

      —

      – Thus endeth the lesson, which will no doubt be forgotten again as the next Fed-induced asset bubble inflates with cheap $. 🙂

    2. ‘Million dollar mortgages in Bancroft, Ont. simply weren’t a thing the last time around’

      It is different this time.

  5. Rose✨McGowan
    @rosemcgowan
    And yet @jack
    you deactived a assault victim’s account (mine) 4 days after I went public. If that’s how your Twitter ran, why should we believe you now? @elizableu
    @elonmusk
    @Cernovich
    #VF

    This is about a lot more than banning ‘conservatives.’

  7. A reader sent these in:

    The Fed AND ECB are going to double team markets this week. Should be interesting. 4x the rate hikes that imploded markets in December 2015 and 2018.

    https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1601742451244355586

    Last December the Fed predicted 1% rate hikes in 2022. One year later rates are 5x higher than predicted.

    Dec. ’21:
    https://cnbc.com/2021/12/15/follow-along-to-real-time-updates-of-the-big-fed-decision-and-powells-press-conference.html

    “It’s time to buy, said Tom Lee of Fundstrat” Fool me all the time, shame on me.

    https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1601721883774185472

    In just 30 days, 3 prominent crypto people died mysteriously.
    – 30-year-old crypto billionaire (died in his sleep)
    – 29-year-old well-known developer (drowned in Puerto Rico)
    – 53-year-old entrepreneur (helicopter crash)
    What’s going on here? Let’s take a look 🧵

    https://twitter.com/GRDecter/status/1601699299187838976

    Real estate values will do what everything else did: return to pre-COVID levels. That $500k house that inflated to $1 million will be a $500k house again by 2024. This isn’t rocket science.

    https://twitter.com/SMB_Attorney/status/1601619049225785344

    Quote from James A. Garfield (The 20th President of the US) 2 weeks before his assassination. 🧐

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1601771404743315456

    Live look at the soft landing narrative

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1601325513410105344

    Real estate WINTER is coming next year folks. Homes down 20% in a year – absolutely collapsing, there are no buyers. Short it to zero.

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1601633078019252224

    txchick57

    @NipseyHoussle – biggest joke of a market in the US

    https://twitter.com/txchick57/status/1601558390786134016

    QE will not happen. Folks should prepare for borrowing rates to return to the pre-2008 long term averages. We had too much cheap debt for too long. Powell has been signaling this for months.

    https://twitter.com/Cribdilla/status/1601589653668507649

    Housing crash is CANCELED! SHORTAGE is BACK!

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1601590550972334081

    *admits STR pushes up housing costs for owner occupiers/families/teachers*

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1601600048252715008

    Kira Mason
    @kmasonrealtor
    Another Saturday, another empty open house.

    https://twitter.com/kmasonrealtor/status/1601624212824653824

    Sellers decide on comps. The sellers today are not primary owners (ie selling the 🏡 they live in). The sellers are IBuyers, flippers in the red, builders with too much spec, failing STRs and folks offloading 2nd/3rd homes AKA folks willing to cut $ every week until it sells

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1601652318856163328

    This will be a common question over the next ten years given all the MEW over the last 24 months

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1601656445690183680

    Sitting directly next to an airport lol

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1601664255258136576

    Rent control is going to pass in Omaha. Just can’t believe it..I get more pessimistic as months pass. We don’t want to solve problems in this country anymore. We want the easy solution promised by Big Brother.

    https://twitter.com/nebraskabryce/status/1601623285632241666

    What to do?

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1601763748888612864

    Liz Ann Sonders
    Official
    Used car prices have contracted for six straight months per ⁦Manheim_US index … streak hasn’t been seen in pandemic era

    https://twitter.com/LizAnnSonders/status/1600796944791642114

    Lance Lambert

    February 2022: 100% of homebuilders were raising home prices. December 2022: Essentially, 0% of builders are raising prices.

    https://twitter.com/NewsLambert/status/1601700463094943744

    Phoenix Metro housing about to negative YoY

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1601716217991303168

    I want to vomit
    Quote Tweet
    Nick Huber
    @sweatystartup 22h There is a MAJOR correction in real estate asset values happening right now. Very tough decisions being made. Wars going on between banks and owners. It’ll be a train wreck in slow motion playing out over the next 18 months if the QE doesn’t come by mid 2023.

    https://twitter.com/ShlomoChopp/status/1601728249981464576

    Replying to
    @sweatystartup
    You mean to tell me people who were posting self congratulatory posts about “winning bidding wars” may have overpaid? You don’t say…

    https://twitter.com/TotalSaaShole/status/1601587707599544320

    QE would just exacerbate the liquidity crisis ever further. No, I stick with my estimate of 50-60% crash from peak to trough. We are already in prelim conversations with mort services to do trash outs.

    https://twitter.com/realAAAbbott/status/1601589012409380864

    DouglasTodd

    “I calculate in 1976 it would have taken a (typical) worker 6 years to save for a down payment on an avg. single-family home. In 2020 it would have taken 17 years. If that worker lived in Greater Toronto or #Vancouver, it would have taken 28 and 30 years, respectively.”

    https://twitter.com/DouglasTodd/status/1601402635193810944

    “We have more units available through Airbnb through short-term rentals than we do as far as just available rental units in the city. That’s a concern” STR Regulations are coming to a city near you. This isn’t going away

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1601604249770758146

    The Kobeissi Letter

    This week, Walmart said that theft has gotten so bad they may need to shut some stores. It is estimated that theft from Walmart exceeds $3 billion annually. Just 3 weeks ago, Target said they lost a shocking $400 million to theft this year. Consumers are feeling the recession.

    https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1601706776520724481

    The Kobeissi Letter

    Housing market update:
    1. Average home sells in 37 days, up from 17 in June
    2. New listings down 22% this year, largest drop since 2020
    3. Pending home sales down 35% this year
    4. Median rent up 14% this year
    5. Mortgage demand down 40% this year
    The Fed’s plan is working.

    https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1601635717817708545

    CarDealershipGuy

    Used car prices are now 15.6% lower than they were in January 2022! If we look at historical trends… Price declines will likely accelerate into Jan, rebound around tax-refund season (March-ish), and then continue declining all the way through end of Summer.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1601604142316879879

    The bond market is signaling that a huge policy error is happening …
    Biggest yield curve inversion since 1980 🚨

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1601578397951721473

    When you’ve been protesting your whole life 🔥

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1601735536498335745

    BREAKING: Over 115,000 postal workers have gone on strike in the UK to demand higher wages in the face of 11% inflation strike notices are increasing, threatening to paralyze the country during Christmas 🚨🚨🚨 Inflation is probably way higher than the official 11% rate.

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1601738401921007616

    So SBF wants to sell more tokens created out of thin air to repay creditors and depositors? And then once depositors have left the platform what happens to token-holders? This is literally just selling equity in something worthless without even selling equity…

    https://twitter.com/ParikPatelCFA/status/1601225761372848128

    Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker ♟

    Fun Fact Friday: It has been 29 days since FTX collapsed and here is what’s happened since:
    – $10B in client money still lost
    – 8 puff piece articles on SBF
    – 200+ minutes of SBF saying “I’m sorry”
    – 10 tweets from Politicians “demanding” answers
    Happy Friday Everyone✌️

    https://twitter.com/PelosiTracker_/status/1601294105044058112

    Fed Expected to Keep Peak Rates for Longer, Dashing Hopes for 2023 Cuts

    https://twitter.com/AlessioUrban/status/1601493120587554816

    Just got this today from an agency in Tahoe. We have been on their mailing list for several years. This is a first.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/politenomoreUSA/status/1601656807901929473

    Confluence of macro factors hitting at once in the resort towns
    I tried to tell people it was coming
    Smart hosts are already positioning themselves to fight for survival
    Novice hosts will be blindsided

    https://mobile.twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1601657406819565568

    CMBS Are Getting Hit as Investors Worry About Credit Risk @business
    Commercial mortgage bonds could get clobbered in the coming months, and investors are backing away from the securities.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/danjmcnamara/status/1601285715438235648

    “one thing I’m certain of the housing market is collapsing at a level I haven’t seen since 2008. I haven’t seen this kind of drop since 2008.” – Gary Friedman, RH CEO

    https://mobile.twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1601692566562304005

    In fact, there is a high probability of a bear markets like correction in prices come spring in many resort markets that saw prices double in 2020 when work from home and 2% mortgages hit these regions like a train. Prices must fall by AT LEAST 50% to clear these markets…

    https://twitter.com/Stimpyz1/status/1601632766193377280

    When it thaws in the spring real estate prices will melt with it. Sellers will be truly shocked by the magnitude of mean reversion back to pre-Covid levels and then some. Banning fractional ownership is next. The resort markets in Colorado are hilarious. The pain wont be.

    https://twitter.com/Stimpyz1/status/1601604929872723973

    Agreed. This was a few weeks ago at our favorite beach resort. This hasn’t happened in 10 years. Usually this place is booked over any holiday well in advance. This community is primarily short term rental condos. Most financed using projected rental income. No bueno.

    https://twitter.com/THETubbyMcGee/status/1601648504388345856

    “Once inflation goes above 5%, it has never come back down without the Fed Funds Rate exceeding the CPI” Stanley Druckenmiller
    US CPI (inflation) for Sept was 8.2%

    https://twitter.com/WinfieldSmart/status/1580950865371725824

    W. Virginia is the perfect place to check the idea that a housing shortage caused current housing/rent price spike.
    Since ’18:
    total population -30k
    total employed -7k
    Housing prices +35%
    —On declining population, declining employed, growing housing units…prices soared.

    https://twitter.com/Econimica/status/1601523998688702464

    1. Housing prices +35% —On declining population, declining employed, growing housing units…prices soared

      Sound lending!

      Like so many other markets, this would not be possible without massive appraisal and loan fraud. It just wouldn’t have happened.

      1. “Like so many other markets, this would not be possible without massive appraisal and loan fraud.”

        You ‘just don’t know how appraisals work!’ 🤣

        Sacramento, CA Housing Prices Crater 17% YOY As The Bottom Drops Out Of California Housing Market On Rampant Appraisal Fraud

        https://www.movoto.com/ca/95820/market-trends/

        Realtors and mortgage pimps are already disclaiming any responsibility in this and blaming the appraisers. I don’t think it’s gonna fly.

      1. Foreclosure trash outs. I’ve done a lot of those. Tip: only buy a self dumping trailer. You’ll thank me.

        1. I see where you were going with the truck thing. A good substitute for truck/trailer is a used mason dump. Basically a 1-ton pickup with a wide hydraulic box.

          1. Wouldn’t work. Sometimes the trailer is being loaded and the truck is needed elsewhere. I can leave a trailer overnight. I’ve seen them used on jobs I’m paying for, non-foreclosure like demo. They definitely have applications and smart companies have one beat up dump truck.

    4. “Last December the Fed predicted 1% rate hikes in 2022. One year later rates are 5x higher than predicted.”

      Too bad, so sad for those who believed them and invested accordingly.

  8. Journalist Matt Taibbi published the third volume of the so-called “Twitter files” on Friday, exposing the social media platform’s censorship and deplatforming of former President Donald Trump.

    The latest disclosure revealed that Twitter executives used the platform’s formidable “visibility filtering” powers against Trump ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections and that engagement with the FBI intensified before Trump was permanently suspended.

    Endorsed by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk, the “Twitter files” have exposed the social media company’s censorship machine.

    The new report, report titled “The Removal of Donald Trump,” is the first of three specifically examining the actions of Twitter executives during the period from October 2020 to when Trump was deplatformed on Jan. 8, 2021.

    Internal Slack chats at Twitter reveal that engagement between the company’s executives and federal law enforcement and intelligence organizations surged during this period.

    “Whatever your opinion on the decision to remove Trump that day, the internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import,” Taibbi wrote. “Even Twitter’s employees understood in the moment it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech.”

    “Is this the first sitting head of state to ever be suspended?” one Twitter employee, whose name is redacted, asked in a Slack chat that day.

    The messages show that Twitter executives removed Trump in part because of what one executive called the “context surrounding” the actions of Trump and his supporters “over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.”

    In a message to Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former head of legal policy and trust, one executive whose name is redacted provided a “quick take” formulated by internal researchers and external academics to help decide whether to censor a Trump tweet or use it “as a last straw” before banning him.

    The executive said the “decision on whether to pull that particular tweet” or use it “as a last straw” for Trump depends on “the overall context and narrative in which that tweet lives.”

    “Context matters and the narrative that [T]rump and his friends have pursued over the course of this election and frankly last 4+ years must be taken into account,” the executive said, according to a screenshot of internal messages.

    Before Trump was banned, Twitter also created a new tool to censor the then-sitting president after the election when he was vocal with his claims of election fraud. Internally, executives referred to the tool as “L3 deamplication.”

    The new tool was announced on Dec. 10, 2020, when “Trump was in the middle of firing off 25 tweets saying things like, ‘A coup is taking place in front of our eyes,’” Taibbi wrote.

    On Thursday, The Free Press editor Bari Weiss, another reporter handpicked by Musk as a conduit for releasing the files, published her report on the extent of Twitter’s tools for censorship, revealing the social media company’s secret blacklists. Her report noted that executives refer to “shadow banning” as “visibility filtering.”

    The FBI sent reports to Twitter executives flagging particular tweets, which were then discussed internally, resulting in action taken to censor some tweets or have warning labels slapped on others.

    Twitter executives set up a dedicated chat group in October 2020 to discuss election-related removals, the files show.

    Neither the Trump campaign, the Trump White House, nor “Republicans generally” sent moderation requests to Twitter, Taibbi noted.

    “We looked. They may exist: we were told they do. However, they were absent here,” he wrote.

    The framework for justifying banning Trump was built in the months before January 2021, when federal agencies were meeting with Twitter executives more often, according to Taibbi.

    At one point, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, noted in a Slack message regarding Twitter’s censorship of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story that he had “weekly sync” meetings regarding election security with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and office of the Director of National Intelligence.

    “As the election approached, senior executives—perhaps under pressure from federal agencies, with whom they met more as time progressed—increasingly struggled with rules, and began to speak of ‘vios’ as pretexts to do what they’d likely have done anyway,” Taibbi wrote.

    Internal Slack chats suggest that communication lines between Twitter executives and the FBI were more intense after Jan. 6, 2021, and the chats illustrate executives’ attitudes toward the meetings.

    One screenshot of internal messages showed a Slack chat from Roth about how difficult it was for him to conceal his FBI meetings in his calendar.

    “I’m a big believer in calendar transparency,” Roth wrote. “But I reached a certain point where my meetings became … very interesting … to people and there weren’t meeting names generic enough to cover.”

    An employee whose name is redacted, leaning into the joke, replied: “Very Boring Business Meeting That Is Definitely Not About Trump ;).”

    “Preeeeeeeetty much,” Roth replied. “DEFINITELY NOT meeting with the FBI I SWEAR.”

    Roth’s colleague replied, “lmao,” to indicate they found it amusing.

    According to Taibbi, the findings expose “the erosion of standards” at Twitter, as well as actions that were undertaken by high-level executives that violated the company’s own policies in the months leading up to the events in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, prompting Twitter to ban Trump indefinitely.

    Screengrabs of internal messages revealed that as soon as Twitter executives banned Trump, they began planning to ban future presidents—with one executive noting that then-incoming President Joe Biden’s administration “will not be suspended by Twitter unless absolutely necessary.”

    Taibbi’s report on Trump’s ban, the first of three, on Twitter provided a number of examples, sharing screengrabs from internal Twitter communications as evidence.

    Taibbi, Weiss, and author Michael Shellenberger are the three authors Musk is using to release the inner workings of Twitter prior to his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.

    On Friday, Taibbi said he, Weiss, and Shellenberger would publish three volumes dedicated to the censorship of Trump on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on Twitter.

    Shellenberger’s follow-up report on Saturday “will detail the chaos inside Twitter” on the day Twitter banned Trump, while Weiss’s report on Sunday will “reveal the secret internal communications from the key date” of Jan. 8, 2021.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/elon-musk-exposes-twitters-censorship-of-former-president-donald-trump_4915308.html

    1. The 2020 election was stolen.

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

      The 2020 election was stolen.

    1. As an America-hating Democrat-Bolshevik (redundant), the Kremlin prolly figured Brittney Griner was more valuable to them as a termite in the foundation, rather than cooling her heels in a Russian penal camp.

  10. Colorado Springs, CO Housing Prices Crater 21% YOY As Wave Of Inventory And Mortgage Defaults Flatten Colorado Housing Market

    https://www.movoto.com/co/80906/market-trends/

    As a distinguished economist explained, “Nothing accelerates the economy and creates jobs like falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels. Nothing.”

  11. Are we stuck in this place?’
    I understand that people value things differently but i have “gotta” tell ya, I LOVE the independence of renting.

    1. There’s a certain serenity, not to mention schadenfreude, that comes from sitting in my spacious rental, for which I’m paying a more than reasonable rent, as 30% of the denizens of Colorado Springs who bought into the insane housing bubble of recent years are already underwater on their shacks. Inventory is elevated at around 2,700, but greedhead buyers are still clinging to their delusional last-Spring wish prices. I don’t think the fear is going to set in until early next year, when it’s clear no Spring Miracle Revival is coming to save the housing bubble. Got popcorn?

  13. UK “homeowners” who stretched to get up on that housing ladder are getting crushed between soaring inflation and increases to their mortgage payments, while shack prices are falling.

    Interest rates could soar to 3.5% next week: Bank of England is expected to raise base rate by 0.5% to its highest level for 14 years – piling even more pressure on mortgages

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11525871/Bank-England-expected-raise-base-rate-0-5-week-highest-level-14-years.html

  15. more than $150,000 – sitting frozen in a Digital Surge account. ‘I lost everything,’
    I’d like to feel bad for these guys but, some how I just can’t. I try but I can’t.
    They made the choice without really understanding what was involved. So, as has been said on this blog many times in different form: “Stupidity should hurt, it’s the only way people learn”

  16. Bragg, a high school teacher, feels unsafe just bringing their 3-year-old daughter to their neighborhood playground.

    As an educator, Bragg is almost certainly a Comrade of Proven Worth (D) who not only votes D, but also inculcates the special snowflakes in radical left ideology. Yet like most Neo-Bolsheviks he’ll keep toeing the globalist line even when the societal decay it is wreaking is washing up at his own doorstep.

  17. “Dallas-Fort Worth single-family home sales fell 30% from November 2021 to 2022, the sharpest decline since immediately after the Great Recession.

    Is that a lot?

  18. In 2011, an estimated 30% of mortgaged U.S. homes, or 16 million, were underwater, according to Black Knight data. At the end of September, that percentage stood at 0.84%, about back to where it was at the start of the pandemic.
    How are HELOCs (the latest thing rather than refis) factored in here. Does an open line count in aggregate, are they ignoring them, or do they grab the current balance owed in their calculations.

  19. Small business owner Zach Hays said his clients likely don’t have as much cash flow. ‘I’m sure it’s just the recession, and everybody’s scared about what’s going to happen,’ Hays said.

    Un-possible! Yellen the Felon has assured us we are not in a recession, and Dementia Joe says our economy is “strong as hell.”

        1. She was on one of the late night talk shows recently, and seemed plenty spry.

          There was no discussion of her failed 2017 prediction that financial crises were a thing of the past.

          1. She was on one of the late night talk shows recently, and seemed plenty spry.

            At that age, things can change suddenly. She might live to be 100, or she might die next year.

  20. “‘To attract the buyers who remain in the market, sellers are adjusting prices accordingly or offering buyer incentives like closing cost credits to buy down the interest rate,’ said Boise Regional REALTORS president Becky Enrico Crum.”

    You keep using that word “adjusting,” REIC shills. Since precision in language matters, how ’bout we use accurate words like “lowering” or “slashing.”

  21. While Toronto’s decline has been 11 per cent, prices are expected to fall further.

    I’m going to enjoy seeing Canadian cucks turning on their WEF puppet regime, especially Lil’ Fidel.

  22. ‘Bragg, a high school teacher, feels unsafe just bringing their 3-year-old daughter to their neighborhood playground. But he worries they won’t be able to sell or find a renter who’ll cover their mortgage. ‘Are we stuck in this place?’ Bragg, 42, said.”’

    I wonder if they got stucco?

    1. Imagine bringing your 3-year-old daughter to a playground littered with dirty hypodermic needles from the homeless junkies who are a feature, not a bug, of every Democrat-Bolshevik malgoverned municipality.

  23. Hopefully the worst is now over, but for some the consequences of participating in that bubble-producing market frenzy will be catastrophic.

    These reckless shack speculators caused the prudent and responsible to be priced out of decent housing. Seeing them get financially destroyed is going to be poetic justice.

  25. “The phone just won’t stop ringing, beams Zach Bradford, the CEO of Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark. The calls are from other mining bosses—and they’re panicking.

    These scam digital gambling tokens were only possible in a world awash with Yellen Bux funny money.

  27. Well isn’t this special: globalist rag in Democrat-Bolshevik malgoverned Pittsburg urges employees to return to their downtown offices so they can run the daily gauntlet of vibrants and the homeless mentally ill given free rein by the Soros-installed DA to rob and assault the cubicle-dwellers. I’m thinking most of the drones will take a hard pass on doing their “civic duty.”

    https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2022/12/11/return-office-downtown-urban-core-golden-triangle/stories/202212110108

  28. From the comments to yesterdays post:

    CorporateShill
    December 11, 2022 at 7:49 am

    I am reflecting on the commemtor that said that the HBB had become politicized. I have to say it was not us with classical liberal, conservative, libertarian, AnCap views that politicized the entire world. We just wanted to be left alone and now we have to figure out how to survive and thrive in a world where kid phuqing monsters who praise the CCP and have busts of Lenin on their desks try to turn the world into an anti-human dystopian hellscape. You broke it. You bought it.
    Reply

    Redpilled Redhead
    December 11, 2022 at 9:06 am
    Well said!

    Ben Jones
    December 11, 2022 at 9:21 am

    More than that: we started talking about election fraud because we couldn’t talk about it elsewhere. We talked about the CCP virus hoax for the same reasons. That hospitals were killing thousands of people by closing to those about to die without surgery. That this injection, that one couldn’t criticize on the internet, was actually an experimental gene manipulation. I’m more glad everyday I didn’t let any of those murdering bashtards get near me with a needle.

    Oh and those lockdowns, that are still killing millions, weren’t necessary and actually very damaging to everyone involved, especially children, the poor and elderly. That all of our civil and legal rights had been violated for years. Here we could talk about the marxists riots that went on forever. All these things we weren’t ALLOWED to talk about in the globalist scum media. Imagine that, in the good old US of A.

    So pardon me if I refuse to be shamed by some anonymous troll who pops by once every 10 years. What rock have you been under? When we have our most critical rights, our ability to put food on the table, denied us by an out of control bunch of lying globalist scum, we should be talking about it on every street corner and blog we can.

    Ben Jones
    December 11, 2022 at 9:27 am

    Plus we learn from time to time such things as shooting a microwave full of tannerite might be a bad idea:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_kzOJJ54PM

    44 seconds.

    1. Elon Musk via Twitter: My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci

      Next #TwitterFiles on Fauci and suppression of COVID “disinformation.”

      1. #TwitterFiles

        I’ve typed out the embedded image because there’s always more to what Elon says and does then what the general public sees.

        https://twitter.com/chancery_daily/status/1601801289645506560:

        when I say the ERISA-nonsense is a year-long silencing campaign during which Elon can feel freer to throw former tweeps under the bus w/out a counter-narrative, don’t misunderstand the more fundamental fact, as perfectly laid out in a convo I was having with an anon fren ⤵️

        Just as on some level it did not seem that Elon understood that a merger agreement was binding and enforceable, it also seems that on a deep level Elon doe s not understand that when he acquired Twitter he also acquired Twitter’s liabilities.

        If new liabilities are uncovered – if there is a toxic chemical plume under their data farm, or wage theft, or, as Elon seems to allege, some sort of child exploitation – those are *Elon’s* liabilities. Even if there were no indemnity with the former corporate officers, those guys have a trivially small amount of money in the context of Twitter’s exposure. The $44bn Elon paid is gone, and all that criticizing Twitter does now is increase the hole.

        In some ways, he seems to be arguing [with the Twitter Files, etc.] that the deal should be reversed – that is was, in his words, a house full of termites.

        In the residential real estate analogy he seems to have in his head, maybe you could sue the guy who sold you the house and get the transaction annulled. “Hey, you misled me, the house is full of termites.” Maybe he’d give you your money back and you’d give him his termite-ridden house back and you’d go on your way.

        But having bought a public company, there’s no owner sitting there with a $44bn bank account. The money is gone. Poof.

        He still hasn’t moved on from the idea that Twitter is his adversary. It’s like he is psychologically in May, and if he just sh!ts on them enough they’ll go away.

        https://twitter.com/chancery_daily/status/1601714662902419457:

        If you wonder what might be motivating Elon’s recent revenge-porn-style dirt-digging-in-Slack-archives hype-apalooza, you should familiarize yourself w/what’s going on—i.e., $140m owed to execs if Elon can’t prove they were fired for cause, frfr.

      2. The cognitive dissonance on Twitter this morning is off the charts!

        E.g., “I love Elon Musk, but he’s slowly sucking me into the world of right wing conspiracy theories. Need my sanity back.”

  29. Fauci’s Deposition Lies and the Stunning Allegations of Li-Meng Yan

    It’s been a long time since something I was reading kept me up all night in the way that the mysteries of Raymond Chandler and Arthur Conan Doyle did in my youth. And never—you can be sure—was it a legal deposition.

    But last night, I was riveted by every word in the deposition that Dr. Anthony Fauci gave in a lawsuit—initiated by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana—that alleges that our government acted in collusion with Big Tech to censor and even massively discredit its critics, including many eminent doctors, regarding COVID-19.

    I was riveted even though Fauci, despite being of an obviously high IQ, suddenly was having memory loss almost as extreme as our president, repeating some version of “I don’t recall” as his answer to questions so often that it may have gone over a thousand times in the 446-page document.

    While you could call it a masterpiece of James Comey-style prevarication, it became so obvious that you could predict almost every variation on this theme before the longtime (1984) director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the president’s chief medical adviser even said it.

    Either he “didn’t recall” having discussed any of the hot-button issues of the COVID-19 pandemic (lockdowns, masks, hydroxychloroquine, and so forth) with his associates, despite appearing on many emails between them on those very subjects, or he denied knowledge because it was “not in his lane.”

    The latter excuse is risible since he was in charge of everything and appeared before us on television and nearly everywhere else constantly opining on all things COVID for two straight years. Indeed, he hasn’t stopped.

    But the risible turned to the ludicrous—and Fauci shot himself in the foot, despite his obvious laborious preparation for the deposition—when it came down to the heart of the matter.

    By that, I mean his relationship with Dr. Peter Daszak of the propagandistically named EcoHealth Alliance through whom Fauci is alleged to have helped fund what’s known as gain-of-function research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    The importance of this question is well known, as is Fauci and his colleague’s determination to point away from the increasingly accepted lab leak theory of the origin of the pandemic to a zoonotic (animal-based, as in bats) cause.

    Attaching Fauci to even part of the instigation of the lab leak theory would, of course, make him culpable in what has arguably been the greatest worldwide disaster in the recent history of the human race.

    It wouldn’t merely be guilt by association. It would be guilt by covert, arguably illegal, financing.

    (My reference to Li-Meng Yan in the title of this piece takes this to yet another level. More in a moment.)

    At first, Fauci did his best under questioning to paint his relationship with Daszak as vague and remote at best, with no personal contact he could remember, maybe one or two emails.

    But then he was confronted by an exhibit demonstrating that he had personally appeared alongside Daszak to discuss the pandemic on a podcast hosted by none other than former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

    Incredible as it sounds, again Fauci claimed he couldn’t recall. Not only was this ludicrous. It was outrageous. The only way a man of Fauci’s intelligence couldn’t recall such an event that had occurred so recently is that he would have had to have had a lobotomy since.

    Even in the transcript, you could sense this man’s entire house of cards disintegrating before his eyes. He was panicked.

    Where this will go I know not, but in the midst of my concentration on his testimony, my wife entered my home office wondering if I had watched Tucker Carlson, as I usually do.

    She told me that Carlson had an extraordinary interview with a Chinese woman named Li-Meng Yan that I had to watch.

    Yan was a virologist at a lab at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health, which provides coronavirus research for the World Health Organization. Her work involved the study of the influenza virus and vaccinations, and later on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In 2020, she fled Hong Kong an sought asylum in the United States.

    She purports to have inside knowledge of what may have gone on at the lab in Wuhan. Thanks to Roku, I was able to replay her interview a short time later.

    The nub of what she was saying was that the cause of the COVID-19 leak had been changed to an “incident” from an “accident”—by whom, it was unclear; although Li’s English is good, she has a thick Chinese accent.

    Nevertheless, what I understood her to say, in essence, was that the virus had been deliberately designed at the Wuhan lab, even before any of us had heard anything about COVID-19 in any of its forms, lab or zoonotic.

    This was done, she asserted, by an element of the People’s Liberation Army under orders of a general who has just been promoted.

    It was also unclear how she knew this. I have heard similar rumors before but never heard them told with this assurance on what has been the most popular cable news show for some time.

    But if true, or even partly true, it’s an astounding revelation of global proportions—evil at its purest.

    It also means that Fauci’s involvement, again at whatever level, is even more nefarious than we thought. What did he know and when did he know it?

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/faucis-deposition-lies-and-the-stunning-allegations-of-li-feng-yan_4909814.html

    1. This was done, she asserted, by an element of the People’s Liberation Army under orders of a general who has just been promoted.”

      This doesn’t surprise me , Stupid people get promoted all the time.

  31. From this morning’s Washington Journal:

    https://www.c-span.org/video/?524615-5/washington-journal-jonathan-greenblatt-discusses-rise-antisemitic-rhetoric

    He makes some valid points, but he does not speak to the Marxism of his organization, the Anti Defamation League.

    This guy was never elected to anything, yet he has his hands all over the FBI, local jurisdictions law enforcement, and local school curriculums, all while parading under the banner of being an alleged civil rights organization.

    And more importantly, the First Amendment supercedes anything he is advocating for. You’re not the speech police, Jonathan.

    Whatever well intentions of him and his organization are completely negated by his assumption of authority, and assumption of authority that is not legitimate.

    Just another shakedown artist like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, that’s all you’ll ever be, Jonathan.

    1. It’s bone chilling cold and raining cats and dogs in SoCal today. If this is the result of climate change, then bring some more, please. I’m looking forward to a beautiful spring next year with a massive wildflower bloom.

  37. China’s Zero Covid Nightmare Was For NOTHING!
    China Fact Chasers
    Dec 11, 2022
    As the Chinese government backpedals on their zero covid nightmare policy they are also back pedalling on previous statements they made about how the west is dealing with the virus. The Chinese government needs to make up their mind!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgbVxH9buuU

    7:38.

    1. Fortune
      China’s former CDC head predicts 90% of population could get COVID as Beijing eases restrictions: ’It’s going to be inevitable’
      Nicholas Gordon
      Thu, December 8, 2022 at 12:05 AM·4 min read

      Investors and businesses may be welcoming China’s surprise pivot from years of COVID-era lockdowns, mass testing, and isolation, but one of the country’s top medical advisers is warning it’ll come with a cost: a massive wave of COVID cases that will occur as containment measures are lifted.

      On Wednesday, Beijing announced sweeping changes to its COVID restrictions. Those with mild and asymptomatic cases would be allowed to isolate at home, rather than be sent to government isolation facilities. Officials would no longer require PCR tests and the ubiquitous health code app to enter public venues or travel between Chinese cities. Lockdowns would be limited to individual floors or buildings, rather than entire districts.

      Feng Zijian, a former deputy head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention and one of Beijing’s key medical advisers, predicted on Tuesday that 60% of China might be infected with COVID in an initial surge of cases as China loosens its policies.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-former-cdc-head-predicts-080543977.html

      1. “…90% of population could get COVID…”

        If this happened and 1% died, the number of deaths would be

        1% × 90% × 6 billion = 54 million.

        Hopefully both the prediction and my scenario are way off.

        1. Your scenario is likely very close as 1% of people die every year, every year. It’s just a matter of labeling, which is what scientists love to do!

  38. Remember when Jack Dorsey testified under oath before Congress that Twitter did not engage in suppression of free speech against conservatives? I’m sure our Bolshevik-subverted DoJ will get right on that cut-and-dried perjury case.

    Twitter had ‘secret blacklists’ to limit users, journalist claims

    https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/12/9/twitter-had-secret-blacklists-to-limit-users-journalist-claims

    Independent journalist Bari Weiss says platform restricted visibility of ‘disfavored tweets’.

  39. Who are the globalists?

    The overwhelming majority of them, while not professing any specific faith, trace their ancestry to white European Christians.

    And via Marxism, they have an ingrained self-hatred for being white, and a rabid, frothing hatred of America.

    Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, they’re all descended from white Christian ancestry, but they represent what I perceive as Deep Globalism.

    Their agenda, and their actions, can not be ascribed to any minority religion or ethnicity.

    What unites them, what motivates them, is their hatred of humanity as a species.

    1. Who are the globalists? ” The super rich who won’t suffer the consequences of their bad ideas .

      I don’t think democracy will work without a middle class just this weird
      Bread and circus government .

  40. A message to Justin Trudeau
    Eppic
    Dec 4, 2022
    Justin Trudeau… I am a Canadian who wants change. You’re making a lot of bad decisions that have made my home a really hard place to live. Can you please leave so I don’t have to. You can afford it much easier than I can.

    Anyone else in this boat?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpmmQc65ot0

    4:52.

    1. AWealthOfCommonSense.com
      What Happens If Housing Prices Fall 20%?
      Posted December 9, 2022 by Ben Carlson

      Nationwide price declines in the US housing market are relatively rare.

      Since 1987, there have been just three times when the Case-Shiller National Home Price Index has been in a state of drawdown:

      The first was in the early-1990s when housing prices fell a little more than 2% nationally. Then you have the housing crash at the end of the 2000s when prices fell nearly 27%.

      Now prices are dipping again.

      And while housing prices rarely go down, they’ve never gone up as much as they did during the pandemic either:

      From April 2020 through June 2022, housing prices in the United States rose more than 41%.

      That was basically a decade’s worth of price gains in a little over two years. You simply cannot have that happen for the most important financial asset for the majority of U.S. households.

      There is a possibility that home prices simply stagnate for a while to work off these gains.

      However, the rapid rise in mortgage rates also increases the probability of a more substantial fall in prices.

      If mortgage rates stay in the 6-7% range for an extended period of time, many housing experts are now forecasting a drawdown of 10-20% in housing prices.
      …
      https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2022/12/what-happens-if-housing-prices-fall-20/

      1. “From April 2020 through June 2022, housing prices in the United States rose more than 41%.”

        The percentage decline in prices needed to undo that is

        1-1/1.41 = 29%.

        “That was basically a decade’s worth of price gains in a little over two years. You simply cannot have that happen for the most important financial asset for the majority of U.S. households.”

        That’s an odd claim. Evidently you can have a decade’s worth of price gains in a little over two years, if we just witnessed it.

        1. Lots of experts are saying that there will be 20% housing price declines, even though simple arithmetic shows a larger drop is needed to undo the excessive gains of the pandemic bubble. Unless the Fed decides to abandon its effort to get inflation under control and restarts Quantitative Easing focused on MBS purchases to support housing price inflation, it seems like larger than 20% declines are a likely prospect, especially in markets that became a bit frothy during the pandemic.

          1. Fed Chair Jerome Powell Holds Press Conference
            Drew Angerer/Getty Images
            7 minute read
            September 19, 2022
            Written by Sarah Foster
            Edited by Mary Wisniewski
            The Bankrate promise

            The Federal Reserve is making headlines by raising interest rates at the fastest pace in a single year since the 1980s, concerning investors and consumers alike with fears the central bank could go too far, too fast.

            But it’s another lesser-known decision — albeit a substantially more complex one — that could have an even greater influence over how expensive it is to borrow money. And it’s all coming to a head this month.

            Over a three-month period, the Fed has been letting $47.5 billion worth of assets every 30 days roll off its massive near-$9 trillion bond portfolio, more formally known as the balance sheet. But starting in September, the Fed kicked the process up a notch, doubling how many Treasury and mortgage-backed securities it’s rolling off to $95 billion.

            Why does the Fed’s shrinking balance sheet matter?

            It’s the antithesis to the Fed’s massive bond-buying campaign during the coronavirus pandemic. Across three different programs, the Fed amassed almost $4.6 trillion worth of assets such as Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. Those moves bolstered liquidity and kept the system awash with credit, helping push interest rates on products the Fed normally doesn’t directly control — including on things like mortgages and student loans — to rock-bottom levels.

            But what goes down must come back up. Experts say shrinking the balance sheet could be just another lever that pushes interest rates higher. That’s because the endeavor effectively reduces the money supply and the availability of credit in the financial system.

            This month’s ramp up could be one of the many factors behind the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage barreling to 6.12, the highest level since November 2008, according to national Bankrate data. One indication of just how much extra tightening the Fed’s balance sheet run-off is providing: The spread between the 10-year Treasury yield and 30-year fixed rate mortgage is almost a full percentage point higher than it should be, according to Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

            “With the Fed being one big liquidity provider and no longer being there, it’s making mortgage rates even higher,” he says.

            It’s a sacrifice the Fed is willing to make to help cool the rapid inflation that’s spent six straight months at levels not seen since the 1980s. The process is often dubbed quantitative tightening.

            “It’s also another way in which the Fed is pressing on the brakes in an effort to slow the economy and reduce inflation,” says Greg McBride, CFA, Bankrate chief financial analyst. “Over time, this is going to be more impactful than raising short-term rates.”
            …
            https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/how-shrinking-fed-balance-sheet-impacts-your-finances/

          2. “…the Fed has been letting $47.5 billion worth of assets every 30 days roll off its massive near-$9 trillion bond portfolio…”

            Not to suggest that the Fed will fully wind down its massive balance sheet befor throwing in the towel on Quantitative Tightening, but it might be instructive to calculate how long it would take to unwind it at the current rate:

            $9 trillion divided by $47.5 billion per month translates to
            9000/47.5/12 = 15.8 years.

            That calculation assumes there is no interest on the Fed’s bond portfolio, which seems like it might not be the case. For comparison, you could pay down your mortgage a lot more quickly without having to make those pesky interest payments to the people who loaned you the money.

          3. the guys who believe the burble is actually only the 2019-2022 are delusional. by 2019 we already had a massive bubble. prices will loose anywhere between 40% to 50% in the next 3-4 years. it’s going to be a mess, and only very high inflation will make it look like it’s not loosing more that that.

          4. “prices will loose anywhere between 40% to 50% in the next 3-4 years. it’s going to be a mess, and only very high inflation will make it look like it’s not loosing more that that.”

            Good observations!

            And yes, high inflation will mask real dollar losses in excess of 50%.

    2. U.S. housing prices could plunge 20%, Dallas Fed warns
      moneywatch
      By Aimee Picchi
      November 16, 2022 / 4:10 PM / MoneyWatch

      America’s home prices could plunge as much as 20% due to the sharp rise in mortgage rates in 2022, which are drastically increasing home ownership costs and “boost the odds of a severe house price correction,” according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

      To be sure, the potential for the nation’s homes to shed as much as one-fifth of their value represents a “pessimistic scenario,” Dallas Fed economist Enrique Martinez-García noted in a report on Tuesday. But other economists have signaled similar fears, with Pantheon Macroeconomics Chief Economist Ian Shepherdson earlier this year predicting a similar slump in home prices.

      The pandemic created an unusual elixir for the real estate market, with record-low mortgage rates and work-from-home orders whipping up a surge in demand for home ownership. At the height of the market, some buyers even waived traditional contingencies such as inspections and offered tens of thousands of dollars over asking prices in order to win their bids — a “fear of missing out” mentality that fed into a “bubble,” Martínez-García said.

      A steep decline in housing prices would likely have a ripple effect on the broader economy as well as further undermine the real estate sector. If home prices dropped 15% to 20%, under Martínez-García’s pessimistic scenario, personal consumption could drop by 0.5 to 0.7 a percentage point, he estimated. 

      “Such a negative wealth effect on aggregate demand would further restrain housing demand, deepening the price correction and setting in motion a negative feedback loop,” he cautioned. 
      …
      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/housing-home-prices-could-drop-20-mortgage-rates-dallas-fed/

      1. “Such a negative wealth effect on aggregate demand would further restrain housing demand, deepening the price correction and setting in motion a negative feedback loop,”

        It seems like that negative feedback loop could eventually drive housing prices down by more than 20%. Smart people try not to catch themselves falling knives. And by now the housing market is running low on buyers with buckets of money and boxes of stupid who didn’t already catch themselves a falling knife real estate purchase during the pandemic bubble.

    1. The Federal Reserve continues to keep a close eye on Bitcoin and the crypto market.
      Image: Shutterstock
      Bitcoin, Ethereum Jump as Fed Chair Signals Slowing Rate Hikes
      BitcoinBTC (24h)
      $17,249.27+0.37%
      EthereumETH (24h)
      $1,281.82+0.71%
      Binance CoinBNB (24h)
      $290.73+0.91%
      XRPXRP (24h)
      $0.3883-0.07%
      DogecoinDOGE (24h)
      $0.09699-0.02%

      Bitcoin, Ethereum Jump as Fed Chair Signals Slowing Rate Hikes
      The wider crypto market jumped with stocks Wednesday after Jerome Powell hinted at less aggressive interest rate hikes to come.
      By Mat Di Salvo
      Nov 30, 2022
      2 min read
      The Federal Reserve continues to keep a close eye on Bitcoin and the crypto market. Image: Shutterstock

      Bitcoin and the wider crypto market jumped Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a speech that December would likely bring smaller interest rate hikes. 

      The biggest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading for $17,102 at the time of writing—up 2% in the hour after Powell’s speech and over 4% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

      Ethereum, the second largest digital asset, jumped even more and was up over 6% in 24 hours, trading hands for $1,287. 

      Every other major digital asset was up following the comments by Powell. “The time for moderating the pace of rate increases may come as soon as the December meeting,” he said. 
      …
      https://decrypt.co/116096/bitcoin-ethereum-jump-fed-interest-rates

      1. The cryptobois are betting along with other degenerate gamblers in high risk Ponzi assets that the Fed will soon crank up the electronic printing press to high blast, inflating away the dollar and making cryptocurrency HODLers look like the smartest guys in the room.

        Good luck with that plan!

  47. This is what The West “winning” looks like.

    Russia Today — Thousands of ‘warm banks’ opened in UK (12/11/2022):

    “Some 3,300 ‘warm banks’ have been opened across the UK, as millions of people face the prospect of fuel poverty this winter. The Met Office predicts that temperatures could drop to -10 degrees Celsius in some locations over the next week.

    Organized by a coalition of Christian groups, the Warm Welcome Campaign has seen community organizations, churches, libraries, and businesses open their doors to people desperate to come in from the cold. Some of these spaces offer free tea and a space to work, and according to a report by The National on Saturday, many are “a third or even half full.”

    “There’s little doubt that we are heading towards a moment of crisis this winter in the face of energy and fuel inflation,” Christian activist Carl Beech stated on the campaign’s website. “People will be facing a stark choice between food and warmth. Creating warm and super welcoming spaces…is going to be an absolute necessity.”

    According to figures from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, 16.4 million people in the UK will be unable to afford heating this winter.”

    https://www.rt.com/news/568052-uk-warm-banks-heating/

    16.4 million is that a lot?

    I’m told (our betters inform) that this is winning.

    This is what winning looks like, right? Klaus Schwab won’t be cold tonight. He won’t be going to bed hungry.

    #Winning

    1. 16.4 million is that a lot?

      That’s 1 out of 4 Brits. And it’s not just the UK. I attended a Zoom meeting last week. The Euros were all wearing coats indoors in their homes.

      Of course they blame the situation on Putin. Meanwhile, in the UK, the current Prime Minister reinstated the fracking ban that his predecessor briefly removed. And the worst thing, the majority really do believe that it’s wrong to reinstate fracking in Britain, they would rather freeze.

      What’s the saying? You can’t fix stupid?

      1. You can’t fix stupid

        I wonder how many people out of a hundred have a clue how to stay warm without utility hookups.

    2. He won’t be going to bed hungry.

      I found out why there is an egg shortage in the Centennial state. Earlier this year, the state assembly and state senate very quietly passed a bill that will ban the sale of “cage eggs” in the state, starting on Jan 1st. Of course the pricey cage free ones are sometimes available, and are very expensive. Meaning that if you are one of the little people, the Dems don’t want you eating eggs. One more step towards being forced to eat bugs.

      It’s coming. Like I have said, they won’t ban good things to eat, they’ll just regulate them so only the well off can afford them.

  50. The Wall Street Journal
    The Crypto CrisisFallout from FTX
    SBF Interview
    Fall of Bankman-Fried
    Global Clash
    SBF to Testify
    Caroline Ellison
    A Doomed Empire

    Cryptocurrency
    Binance Is Trying to Calm Investors, but Its Finances Remain a Mystery
    Crypto exchange has begun releasing data to shore up confidence following collapse of FTX
    Crypto’s Crash Has Been Swift but Largely Self-Contained. Here’s Why.
    Crypto imploded in 2022, as investors lost faith in digital assets and the industry was plagued with crisis. But unlike other collapses, it has largely avoided rippling into other markets. WSJ explains how crypto became so interconnected.
    Illustration: Mallory Brangan
    By Jonathan Weil
    Updated Dec. 10, 2022 12:30 pm ET

    Binance recently made a commitment to transparency, but it has a long way to go before it discloses enough meaningful information to give investors confidence in its future, accounting and financial specialists say.

    The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is seeking to reassure customers about the safety of their holdings after the collapse of FTX. Binance’s position means its success or failure will weigh heavily on the entire crypto market.
    …

  51. “But its auditor will not vouch for the reserves nor the methodology demanded by Binance.”

    Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence to hear that.

  52. Does it make you nervous that inflation isn’t contained, the Fed isn’t through tightening, and the stock market has yet to capitulate?

    1. Markets
      CNBC TV
      Watchlist
      LIVE UPDATES
      Updated Mon, Dec 12 2022
      12:34 AM EST
      Stock futures slip to start the week with Fed meeting, key inflation data on deck
      Jesse Pound
      If we get through next week, we could rip into the end of the year, says Ritholtz’s Josh Brown

      U.S. stock futures were fractionally lower early Monday ahead of a week with several anticipated events in the ongoing fight against inflation.

      Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 3 points, or 0.01%. Those for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 edged 0.07% and 0.1% lower, respectively.

      The move in futures comes as investors will be focused on inflation this week. On Tuesday, the November consumer price index will be released, and traders will be looking for a sign that inflation is slowing.

      The Federal Reserve has a two-day meeting starting the same day. The central bank is expected to announce another rate hike on Wednesday, though traders are anticipating a smaller move than in recent months.

      In addition to the expected rate hike, the Fed’s updated economic projections and Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference could be key signals for what the central bank wants to do in the coming months.

      “Financial conditions have eased dramatically since the October CPI reading released last month, so the Fed will likely use the December FOMC meeting to walk those back. …We think the markets are too sanguine on rates after the first quarter and we expect Powell to take a more hawkish tone and for the dots to indicate higher rates for a longer period of time than what is currently being priced in by the futures markets,” said Cliff Hodge, chief investment officer for Cornerstone Wealth.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/11/stock-market-news-futures-open-to-close-live-updates.html

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