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Are We Just Simply Hoping That The Scaffolding Put Up There Is Going To Protect People From Themselves?

A weekend topic starting with the Telegraph. “Stephen Schwarzman, the chief executive of the world’s largest private equity firm, is not someone who takes kindly to criticism. So when Blackstone was last month forced to limit investor withdrawals from its $69bn (£58bn) real estate fund, the combative billionaire came out swinging against his company’s detractors. ‘The idea that there is something going wrong with this product because people are redeeming is conflating completely incorrect assumptions,’ he said. ‘This was not meant to be a mutual fund with daily liquidity. These are pieces of real estate.'”

From Bloomberg. “The world’s pile of negative-yielding debt has vanished, as Japanese bonds finally joined global peers in offering zero or positive income. The global stock of bonds where investors received sub-zero yields peaked at $18.4 trillion in late 2020, according to Bloomberg’s Global Aggregate Index of the debt, when central banks worldwide were keeping rates at or below zero and buying bonds to ensure yields were repressed. Japan’s yields were the last to leave the sub-zero club because policy makers there had stuck so long with ultra-loose settings brought in even before the pandemic.”

“Investors are now betting the Bank of Japan — the world’s last uber-dovish monetary authority — is inching toward normalization. The European Central Bank exited its negative-rate policy in July, followed by its counterparts in Switzerland and Denmark in September. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark by 4.25 percentage points last year, the most since 1973.”

From Reuters. “Aiming to fortify broad labor market gains among U.S. minority groups over the previous decade, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in 2020 engineered a historic promise to try to maintain that progress by giving ‘broad-based and inclusive’ employment a status equal if not superior to the central bank’s pledge of low inflation. Amid a still-raging escalation in prices, however, that commitment has taken a blow.”

“The minutes from last month’s meeting, however, may be a warning of what lies ahead, and stand as a blow to the job-friendly framework formally adopted by the Fed in mid-2020 and crafted with the view that a strong job market and low inflation can coexist. That was the case through the record-long expansion that began in 2009 and was still underway when the pandemic hit.”

“Officials then expected inflation to rise for any number of reasons, from the Fed’s own massive bond purchases to a steadily falling unemployment rate. It didn’t, and remained so persistently low that policymakers worried they might face Japan’s fate, where the central bank’s inability to raise inflation to the 2% target presented risks of its own.”

“The new framework aimed to fix that with a built-in bias against raising rates until inflation had not just returned to the 2% level but exceeded it, allowing loose credit to power the economy, and prices, higher. In theory, more jobs and lower joblessness would also result. That approach, embodied in policy statements in the critical months when rising inflation took hold in 2021, has been criticized as anchoring the Fed to a course of action officials were too slow to abandon.”

“Policymakers have acknowledged as much, even as they also argued it would have made little difference if they had mobilized against inflation a few months earlier. What they fear developing now is a different problem altogether: Inflation that may become driven by the very labor market conditions they promised to encourage.”

“The notion of a ‘wage-price spiral’ remains disputed, since inflation so far has exceeded average wage gains. But as inflation ebbs from what Fed officials hope will prove a mid-2022 high point, Powell and others await a moderation in wage gains too.”

From Business Insider. “The Federal Housing Finance Agency raised its conforming loan limit values for mortgages in 2023. In most of the US, the agency raised the conforming loan value from $647,200 to $726,200. Under the The Housing and Economic Recovery Act, the FHFA is required to raise their baseline ceiling loan limit — or CLL value — each year to reflect adjustments to the average US home price. Due to the rapid home price growth seen over the past year, the agency raised the CLL value for one-unit properties by 12%, going from $647,200 to $726,200 in most of the United States. However, in high-cost areas of the country, such as New York City or San Francisco, the loan limit ceiling has been changed to $1,089,300.”

“But while these new changes may be encouraging to some, Melissa Cohn, the regional vice president of William Raveis Mortgage, warns that it could spell trouble for borrowers who are looking to stretch their budgets to qualify for the most home they can at the time. ‘The bank will help you stretch, but how far do you really want to stretch and is it comfortable?’ she told Insider. ‘What Fannie and Freddie deem you can afford versus how you can really live are two different things.'”

The Island Packet in South Carolina. “Last year, the Beaufort County housing market witnessed towering mortgage rates, soaring inflation, record-high prices and even a Zillow economist calling Hilton Head the ‘new Hamptons.’ For the past two years the market was largely fueled by a petrol pump of cheap debt, which ran out when mortgage rates hit 7% in October, and the newfound ability to work from home. In 2023, experts say, Beaufort County’s real estate market won’t be able to rely on low interest rates or buyers’ interest in working remotely.”

“‘When you remove an unprecedented factor, like COVID, that drove every market red hot, you come back into a mode where some markets simply do better than others,’ Collins Group Realty owner Chip Collins said. ‘That begs the question of ‘What’s going to happen here?'”

“Since 2008, lending standards have changed. Nationally, precautions were made. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was passed in 2010 to target financial system sectors believed to have caused the 2008 crisis. USCB Business Administration Chair George Smith isn’t convinced lending standards will prevent a housing crisis.”

“‘I think one of my big issues is when I look at people. Are people really different as they’re making these decisions, or are we just simply hoping that the scaffolding put up there is going to protect people from themselves?’ he asked. ‘U.S. consumers tend to have short memories, and they don’t tend to retain many of the lessons from what happened before.'”

From Mansion Global on California. “The drumbeat of layoffs at companies such as Meta, Robinhood, Adobe, Salesforce and Twitter is especially loud in the San Francisco Bay Area. While real estate agents don’t see a mass exodus from the area, there are bargains to be found in the luxury market in some parts of the city and its surrounding suburbs. The price per square foot declined from an average of $1,901 for homes and condos that sold in the third quarter of 2021 to $1,631 during that same period in last year, according to Carrie Goodman, a real estate agent with Sotheby’s International Realty in San Francisco.”

“It’s not a sellers’ market anymore, and buyers have a little more leeway with their offers,said Jill Fusari, a real estate agent with The Agency in the Bay Area. ‘You can get a better price on every property now than you could in 2021,’ Ms. Fusari said. ‘It could be 20% or even 40% less than in 2021, but that market was an anomaly and people were paying well over asking prices.'”

The Maple Ridge News. “Dec. 29, marks a fun anniversary – on this day in 1989, the Japanese Nikkei stock index hit its highest point before that country’s asset bubble began to really deflate. I’ve been going back and reading articles and retrospectives about the Japanese bubble years during the last little while because, well, have you taken a look at our economy lately? Now, the Japanese bubble was different in a lot of ways from what B.C., or Canada, or the developed world in general, has been going through in recent years.”

“But you’d have to clap both hands over your eyes to miss the similarities. In broad strokes, this is what happened in Japan in the 1980s: A country that was getting wealthier and wealthier from a large trade surplus, for various reasons, also slashed interest rates, while loosening up its financial controls. This unleashed a torrent of speculation in property, especially in the biggest cities. This then led to fears of inflation, which in turn led to sharp increases in interest rates.”

“Lots of differences to our situation, of course, but it does rhyme. And one thing was definitely the same – lots of people who should have known better insisted that the good times were here to stay forever. They weren’t. Starting in 1989, the Nikkei began trending down and it never quite recovered. In 1991, property prices began to drop. They didn’t start to rise again until around 2007, but they still aren’t back to anywhere near the peak. Considering that Japan’s population is shrinking, it’s doubtful they ever will, at least in real, inflation-adjusted terms.”

“So here in Canada and North America more generally, we’ve seen very low interest rates for years (which are now being raised at a shocking speed) a massive run-up in the stock market (which has been crumbling) and absurd housing valuations (which are now starting to erode).”

“Where we end up is anyone’s guess. In Japan, the economy suffered what they called the Lost Decade, then the Lost 20 Years, then the Lost 30 Years, as growth slowed to a crawl. We also might see a long, sustained period of doldrums. It should be a warning to us not to let our economy run white-hot, especially the real estate sector. But by the time it ends, we’ll probably have forgotten why that’s a bad idea.”

The Globe and Mail. “A couple of years ago, we talked about the massive global fiscal response to the COVID-19 crisis as a de facto policy experiment in modern monetary theory (MMT). Today, surveying the economic damage, it’s easy to declare that experiment an abject failure. Easy, yes. And hasty. And oversimplistic.”

“Yet that’s what the Institute of International Finance did in a recent research note. The Washington-based finance-industry group wrote that 2022 marked ‘an abrupt halt’ to the ‘illusion’ of MMT: that ‘the ability to run up debt without consequences … is limitless.’ The huge expansion of government debt during the pandemic, supported by low interest rates and money creation by central banks, has resulted in the high inflation, soaring interest rates and looming recession. ‘The reality is that fiscal space is a scarce and valuable commodity to be used sparingly, the opposite of the MMT zeitgeist that has been so influential in recent years.'”

“The fiscal experiment that has taken place during the pandemic, far from exposing MMT as an ‘illusion,’ has tested those limits. The ‘failure’ of the experiment, as MMT opponents would frame it, has not marked the death of MMT; rather, it has demonstrated to what extent MMT-like fiscal expansion can be pushed. Perhaps it’s not as far as many MMT proponents had hoped. But it’s no debunking.”

“As I wrote in that 2021 article, government actions in the face of the pandemic had rapidly put many of MMT’s key concepts into action: ‘The pandemic demonstrated that, at least over the relatively short term, governments actually can spend as much as they deem appropriate, and they can create the money to do so almost instantly. Central banks, as the agents that issue debt and create currency on behalf of those governments, can do both as much as is necessary.'”

“What we hadn’t yet seen was the inflationary impact. It’s now clear that the huge global fiscal expansion in response to the crisis, and the money growth at central banks that facilitated it, helped ignite an inflation explosion not seen in decades. Nevertheless, it does appear that MMT-like fiscal policy exceeded its non-inflationary limits. MMT can, indeed, unleash an inflation monster about which critics of the theory had always warned. While no reasonable voice in the debate had ever claimed that debt and money creation was limitless and consequence-free, we have now seen how quickly and easily those expansions can let inflation loose, and how difficult and costly it can be to get it back in its cage.”

“This experience has also demonstrated perhaps the biggest weakness in MMT-influenced fiscal policy: it is a cumbersome tool to apply to managing inflation. Unlike interest rates, which can be adjusted within a matter of weeks to address inflationary pressures, government fiscal plans unwind over years.”

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This Post Has 99 Comments

  2. ‘The bank will help you stretch, but how far do you really want to stretch and is it comfortable?’ she told Insider. ‘What Fannie and Freddie deem you can afford versus how you can really live are two different things.’

    Sound lending!

  3. ‘You can get a better price on every property now than you could in 2021…It could be 20% or even 40% less than in 2021’

    Good thing everybody put 50% down.

    ‘but that market was an anomaly and people were paying well over asking prices’

    It still happened Wave It Off Jill. Explain how yer gonna climb down 40% without taking an a$$ kicking.

    1. It’s hilarious how she mentions “buyers have a little more leeway”, and then goes on to mention 20 to 40 percent cuts. That’s more than just a little wiggle room sis!

  4. ‘While no reasonable voice in the debate had ever claimed that debt and money creation was limitless and consequence-free’

    You’ve never heard of Space Aliens Krugman?

  5. ‘we have now seen how quickly and easily those expansions can let inflation loose, and how difficult and costly it can be to get it back in its cage’

    Note how these people talk about inflation. Like it’s a big iguana that need to be rounded up or a ‘genie out of the bottle.’

    It’s money, you know that paper stuff we all work for to live? So when you create 40% of the pesos that ever existed in months, undoing that means money destruction, as I see it. How do you destroy that much money? Crater and lots of it. And the globalist scum media never mentions this: it wasn’t just Jerry and co. that did QE for over a decade – it was every tin pot banana republic peso bandit country on the planet.

    1. “How do you destroy that much money? Crater and lots of it.”

      Check out 2022 losses on stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies and housing, to name a few examples of wealth destruction.

      1. Markets
        CNBC TV
        Personal Finance
        2022 was the worst-ever year for U.S. bonds. How to position your portfolio for 2023
        Published Sat, Jan 7 2023 9:00 AM EST
        Greg Iacurci

        Key Points
        – 2022 was the worst year on record for bonds, according to Edward McQuarrie, an investment historian and professor emeritus at Santa Clara University.
        – That’s largely due to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates aggressively, which clobbered bond prices, especially those for long-term bonds.

        Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 21, 2022.
        Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 21, 2022.
        Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images

        The bond market suffered a significant meltdown in 2022.

        Bonds are generally thought to be the boring, relatively safe part of an investment portfolio. They’ve historically been a shock absorber, helping buoy portfolios when stocks plunge. But that relationship broke down last year, and bonds were anything but boring.
        …
        https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/07/2022-was-the-worst-ever-year-for-us-bonds-how-to-position-for-2023.html

      2. Goodbye 2022 – and good riddance. Markets close out their worst year since 2008
        By Nicole Goodkind, Julia Horowitz and David Goldman, CNN
        Updated 4:15 PM EST, Fri December 30, 2022

        New York CNN — 

        Wall Street has said goodbye — and good riddance — to 2022, a year most investors would rather forget.

        All three major averages were down on Friday, clocking their worst year since 2008 and ended a three-year winning streak.

        The Dow fell 73 points, or 0.2% Friday, the last trading day of the year. In 2022, the Dow fell about 9%.

        The S&P 500 was 0.3% lower Friday, leaving it down about 20% for the year.
        …
        https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/investing/dow-stock-market-2022/index.html

      3. Aaryamann Shrivastava
        FXStreet

        FTX collapse leads Q4 2022 losses as hacks wipe out $3.7 billion from the crypto market
        Cryptos | 1/7/2023 12:42:00 AM GMT
        Join Telegram

        – FTX and BNB Chain were responsible for about 75.3% of all losses noted between October to December 2022.
        – Immunefi reported that of the overall $3.9 billion losses in 2022, $3.7 billion were lost due to hacks alone.
        – FTT price established another all-time low as the impact of the bankruptcy proceedings failed to initiate any recovery.

        FTX not only brought unimaginable losses this year but also led the market in the same category. However, according to the report from Immunefi, most of the losses were not even born out of FTX but still led the crypto space.

        FTX led Q4 losses
        …
        https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/ftx-collapse-leads-q4-2022-losses-as-hacks-wipe-out-37-billion-from-the-crypto-market-202301070042

      5. The Financial Times
        US equities
        Wall Street behemoths’ dominance poses risks to markets
        High flyers shed $4.9tn last year and some are still falling in 2023
        Nasdaq logo with arrow pointing downwards with Microsoft, Tesla and Apple logos
        Mega-cap stocks, such as Microsoft, Tesla and Apple, struggled in 2022
        Jennifer Hughes in New York yesterday

        Losses in heavy-hitting US tech stocks have extended in to the early days of 2023, with warnings of much more pain to come for market titans, including electric-car maker Tesla.

        The 10 biggest stocks by market capitalisation in the benchmark S&P 500 at the index’s peak in early 2022, including Tesla, Apple and Microsoft, lost a combined $4.9tn last year. So far in 2023, these companies’ market capitalisation has shrunk a further $110bn.

        The clutch of mega-caps dominates Wall Street equities, with the top 10 stocks accounting for about 30 per cent of the S&P 500 near the peak of the bull market at the end of 2021. Now this pullback hints at a market where such intense concentration will start to fade away.

        “There’s been some de-concentration but it’s very minor compared with what has built up,” said Tatjana Puhan, deputy chief investment officer at TOBAM, a Paris-based asset manager. “We are at the beginning of this, we’re not yet near the end.”
        …

    2. I wanna know when these crooked central bankers all decided “fook it, let’s just print.” Did it start with Greenscvm? It fooked the entire world. Now there’s hell to pay.

      1. When the dust settles on the deflation of the Everything Bubble, the world will owe today’s Fed a debt of gratitude for ending the policy of making Wall Street bulls whole every time a stock market selloff sends a reminder that they gambled foolishly and lost.

        1. MarketWatch
          The Fed delivered a message to the stock market: Big rallies will prolong pain
          Provided by Dow Jones
          Jan 7, 2023 6:34 AM PST
          By William Watts

          ‘The proverbial Fed put is officially dead and gone’: strategist

          It was a “don’t make me come back there” moment from the Federal Reserve.

          A line from the minutes of the central bank’s December policy meeting released Wednesday afternoon was taken by analysts and economists as a warning to financial market participants that bets on a policy pivot in 2023 aren’t welcome. And, to the extent that equity rallies and other financial market developments loosen overall financial conditions, those wagers will only force the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee to prolong the pain necessary to bring down inflation.

          Read: No Fed official expects an interest-rate cut to be appropriate this year, meeting minutes show

          Here’s the line: “Participants noted that, because monetary policy worked importantly through financial markets, an unwarranted easing in financial conditions, especially if driven by a misperception by the public of the Committee’s reaction function, would complicate the Committee’s effort to restore price stability.”

          In plain English? “Translated from Fedspeak, the FOMC members do not like stock market rallies, since they fear it could result in potentially inflationary consumer spending,” said Louis Navellier, president and founder of Navellier & Associates, in a Thursday note.

          And what can the Fed do about it?

          “Said differently, if equities continue to rally on bad economic news, the Fed will need to push forward to an even higher terminal rate and unofficially add ‘weaker stocks’ to the mandate,” wrote Ian Lyngen and Benjamin Jeffery, rates strategist at BMO Capital Markets, in a Wednesday note.

          “The minutes revealed another deliberate effort to dissuade the market of the notion that the Fed ‘put’ will be triggered in 2023,” they wrote.

          Archive: Fed must ‘inflict more losses’ on stock-market investors to tame inflation, says former central banker

          Investors have talked of a figurative Fed put option since at least the October 1987 stock-market crash prompted the Alan Greenspan-led central bank to lower interest rates. An actual put option is a financial derivative that gives the holder the right but not the obligation to sell the underlying asset at a set level, known as the strike price, serving as an insurance policy against a market decline.

          “Embedded in this discussion is the question of how much downside in U.S. equities the [Federal Open Market Committee] is willing to weather in its effort to re-establish the forward price stability assumption — [Wednesday’s] official communiqué lowered the level in stocks at which investors will look for a Fed pivot,” the BMO strategists wrote.

          The minutes made clear that the “proverbial Fed put is officially dead and gone,” said Kent Engelke, chief economic strategist at Capitol Securities Management, in a Thursday note.
          …
          https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20230107277/the-fed-delivered-a-message-to-the-stock-market-big-rallies-will-prolong-pain

  6. ‘When you remove an unprecedented factor, like COVID, that drove every market red hot, you come back into a mode where some markets simply do better than others…That begs the question of ‘What’s going to happen here?’

    It was a minor repository illness that could be cured in days with safe drugs that have been around fer 60 years Chip. It didn’t have a thing to do with shack prices.

    1. Only in Clown World is the response to a global epidemic the biggest housing and financial mania in all history.

    2. “It was a minor repository illness that could be cured in days with safe drugs that have been around fer 60 years…”

      Why someone hasn’t pointed this out to Chairman Xi?

    3. It was a minor repository illness that could be cured in days with safe drugs that have been around fer 60 years Chip. It didn’t have a thing to do with shack prices.

      They had this whole money-printing sham in queue, just waiting for an excuse to do it.

  7. ‘Smith isn’t convinced lending standards will prevent a housing crisis. ‘I think one of my big issues is when I look at people. Are people really different as they’re making these decisions, or are we just simply hoping that the scaffolding put up there is going to protect people from themselves?’

    It’s worse than that George, there was a yuuge bubble before CCP virus:

    March 26, 2020

    “As America heads into a deep recession, the $11 trillion residential-mortgage market is in crisis. Investors who buy home loans packaged into bonds are dumping even those with federal backing because of panic that millions might not make their payments. Yet one risky sector had started to show cracks long before the coronavirus pandemic sparked the worst financial meltdown in 12 years: the federal government’s largest affordable-housing program, whose lenient terms are geared toward marginal borrowers.”

    “As real estate prices soared in recent years, working-class adults everywhere have increasingly relied on mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration — and U.S. taxpayers. Since 2007, the FHA’s portfolio has tripled in value to more than $1.2 trillion, almost 11% of the market. While private lenders make these loans, they are packaged into Ginnie Mae bonds, common in mutual funds and pensions.”

    “Before Covid-19 started roiling China, a November FHA report found that 27% of borrowers last year spent more than half their incomes on debt, a level it describes as ‘unprecedented.’ The share of FHA loans souring in their first six months has doubled over the last three years to almost 1%.”

    “Not long ago, Alex Castillo drove his shiny black Infiniti SUV through an office park north of the San Antonio airport, along a busy seven-mile stretch of highway that loan officers call ‘Mortgage Row’ because of its abundance of small independent mortgage companies that dominate FHA lending. Castillo, who has the words ‘The Dream Starts Here’ stitched into his jacket, works for Pennsylvania-based American Residential Lending. Oddly, amid the pandemic, his business is booming. His customers locked in FHA mortgages after interest rates plunged this month — adding to federally backed mortgage debt.”

    “‘If the government tells me you’re good enough to get a loan, I have to trust and believe in the government,’ Castillo said. ‘Then we just hope and pray that the client doesn’t get foreclosed on.’”

    “In downtown San Antonio, scores of investors stood on a parched lawn beside the city’s historic granite-and-red-sandstone courthouse. It was the first Tuesday of February, the day of the foreclosure auction. Matt Badders, a San Antonio lawyer who represents lenders, auctioned off two houses. The failed mortgages remind him of the run-up to the financial crisis 12 years ago, when lending to customers with spotty credit nearly brought down the world’s financial system. ‘We’re almost back to 2007, when mortgage originators are waking people up on park benches, saying sign here,’ Badders said.”

    “At the auction, the crowd bid on 338 homes, a third with FHA mortgages, according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service. One house had dual master bedrooms, a game room and granite kitchen counters. It sold for $202,000 — $52,000 less than the homeowner borrowed only two years ago. The taxpayer-backed FHA insurance fund will take a loss.”

    “Dave Stevens, FHA commissioner under President Barack Obama and former chief executive officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said a recession will expose hidden risks in home lending. ‘This should be an alarm bell to policymakers,’ Stevens said. ‘Sometimes you get blinded by a good economy and suddenly look at it and see a bubble of defaults coming.’”

    “The federal government has decided it doesn’t want to pursue — and has asked a judge to dismiss — a lawsuit against Utah-based Academy Mortgage Corp. The judge refused. The suit claims the company’s staff would repeatedly feed information into an automated federal underwriting system, manipulating it until the computer gave the green light. ‘Decline is a curse word,’ Plaintiff Gwen Thrower, a former underwriter, quoted a manager as saying. ‘We don’t use it.’”

    http://housingbubble.blog/?p=3070

    1. ‘Before Covid-19 started roiling China, a November FHA report found that 27% of borrowers last year spent more than half their incomes on debt, a level it describes as ‘unprecedented.’

      Sound lending – again!

    2. “The suit claims the company’s staff would repeatedly feed information into an automated federal underwriting system, manipulating it until the computer gave the green light.”

      This is exactly how cars were sold back in my repo days. It took me a while to catch-on until one account I saw a debtor’s last name had two characters transposed, and when I pointed it out I was told that wasn’t a mistake, that it was done to get “the green light!”

    3. The virus will be a convenient scapegoat for the collapse of a property bubble that was a quarter of a century in the making.

  8. The idea that there is something going wrong with this product because people are redeeming is conflating completely incorrect assumptions,’ he said.

    The lady doth protest too much.

  9. Joe Biden’s America.

    New York Times — Tranq Dope: Animal Sedative Mixed With Fentanyl Brings Fresh Horror to U.S. Drug Zones (1/7/2023):

    “Over a matter of weeks, Tracey McCann watched in horror as the bruises she was accustomed to getting from injecting fentanyl began hardening into an armor of crusty, blackened tissue. Something must have gotten into the supply.

    Switching corner dealers didn’t help. People were saying that everyone’s dope was being cut with something that was causing gruesome, painful wounds.

    In her shattered Philadelphia neighborhood, and increasingly in drug hot zones around the country, an animal tranquilizer called xylazine — known by street names like “tranq,” “tranq dope” and “zombie drug” — is being used to bulk up illicit fentanyl, making its impact even more devastating.

    Xylazine causes wounds that erupt with a scaly dead tissue called eschar; untreated, they can lead to amputation. It induces a blackout stupor for hours, rendering users vulnerable to rape and robbery. When people come to, the high from the fentanyl has long since faded and they immediately crave more.

    More than 90 percent of Philadelphia’s lab-tested dope samples were positive for xylazine, according to the most recent data.

    “It’s too late for Philly,” said Shawn Westfahl, an outreach worker with Prevention Point Philadelphia, a 30-year-old health services center in Kensington, the neighborhood at the epicenter of the city’s drug trade. “Philly’s supply is saturated. If other places around the country have a choice to avoid it, they need to hear our story.”

    https://archive.ph/HnyBA

    2. So, stupid question: are there any signs of the US running out of drug addicts? I mean seriously, with fentanyl with this new tranq stuff, wouldn’t addicts die quicker than new people get addicted? At some point they’re going to run out of demand.

  10. ‘remained so persistently low that policymakers worried they might face Japan’s fate, where the central bank’s inability to raise inflation to the 2% target presented risks of its own.”

    “The new framework aimed to fix that with a built-in bias against raising rates until inflation had not just returned to the 2% level but exceeded it, allowing loose credit to power the economy, and prices, higher’

    via GIPHY

      1. I was there in 2014. It felt safe to me then, but things changed. It’s sad. London really is a beautiful city.

  16. Joe Biden’s America.

    Denver7 — His daughter’s car was stolen right in front of him. So he followed the thieves (1/5/2023):

    “Car theft has continued to explode in Colorado, with at least 14,884 cars reported stolen in Denver in 2022, according to the Denver Police Department. That constitutes about a 70 percent increase over the previous three-year average.”

    70 percent is that a lot?

    “Meanwhile, only 9.4% of thefts resulted in an arrest, according to data from the Common Sense Institute. This has some victims tempted to take matters into their own hands to get their stolen cars back, despite police warning strongly against it.”

    Only 9.4% that’s what your property taxes paid to the City of Denver are not paying for.

    “Law enforcement warns that many car thieves are armed and dangerous, and asks victims to not attempt to retrieve their own stolen vehicles. According to the Colorado Metropolitan Auto Theft Task Force, 74% of those arrested for auto theft are also charged with another felony crime — often violent crimes.

    Commander Mike Greenwell with the Colorado Metropolitan Auto Theft Task Force said police departments are facing two other major challenges in the fight against auto theft. First, many departments are understaffed and do not have the resources to address the immense volume of stolen cars in real time, as they must prioritize threats to life and physical safety. Second, he said even when a perpetrator is arrested for the theft, they are usually released on bond with no consequences.

    “We have offenders stealing multiple cars in the same day,” Greenwell said. “Then a judge releases them on no bond or a PR bond.”

    https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/his-daughters-car-was-stolen-right-in-front-of-him-so-he-followed-the-thieves

    Released on bond with no consequences? George Soros approves, because he purchased those judges.

    2. The chemtrailing in San Diego has been epic for the last six months. The entire sky is a kaleidoscopic swirling checker board zig zag criss cross of slowly expanding airborne detritus from planes overhead. By early afternoon every time I look up it’s like someone dosed my Wheaties at breakfast. There hasn’t been a horizon to horizon blue sky out here like I used to see all the time in months.

  17. A reader sent these in:

    BREAKING: The SEC is no longer investigating trading by former Senator Richard Burr. Wild. On Feb 12 2020, he converted 76% of holdings to US Treasuries. A day later, he sold $1.1M equity, went from 83% to 3% of equities. Minutes later, he called his family to do the same.

    https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1611498344299532288

    Beginning Jan. 8, all Scottsdale short-term vacation rentals will need to be licensed with the city. But as of Jan. 3, a license has been sought for less than 20% of the city’s 5,000 listings, according to officials.

    https://twitter.com/JulietteRihl/status/1611394213467549700

    Nasma Ali

    This is going to be catastrophic. The worst year to break this kind of record.

    https://twitter.com/nasmadotali/status/1610662277849432066

    Eventually the fear of this will kick in

    https://twitter.com/eliant_capital/status/1611516950051536896

    * Tesla Falls as China Price Cuts Drop Models 40% Below US Cost

    https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1611343001007132672

    🇨🇦 adds 104,000 jobs in Dec….more than 10x consensus. Unemployment rate falls to near record lows. Tiff loading up for another big hike on the 25th

    https://twitter.com/BenRabidoux/status/1611355378909958147

    National Mortgage News

    Fed’s George says rates should stay above 5% well into 2024

    https://twitter.com/NatMortgageNews/status/1611411321924231168

    “There’s a housing shortage”

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1611454712657883136

    Buy land, they’re not making it any more. Soon you’ll be locked out of the housing market. Prices always go up. — some guy to Lenin in 1916 (probably)

    https://twitter.com/StephenPunwasi/status/1611457251683799041

    According to the great Milton Friedman, “Inflation is the most destructive disease known to modern societies. There is nothing that will destroy a society so thoroughly and so fully as letting inflation run riot.” Take a listen:

    https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1611392156048015362

    2/ Homebuyer traffic has collapsed. A 30-year mortgage at 6.48% is absolutely backbreaking for a bubble built on 3%. I would not be surprised to see something like home prices falling in every single month of 2023.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1611460805848866835

    This is horrific craftsmanship @tollbrothers. In this Rialto house for less than 5 years and NONE of the sinks were braced in.

    https://twitter.com/Landmannery/status/1611425980622540802

    You wanted stimulus, you got stagflation. @mises

    https://twitter.com/dlacalle_IA/status/1611443496732266499

    Starting to see 15%-20% price corrections in Phoenix. Bottom falling out

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1611475907608473601

    Founders of Worthless Fake Fiat Ponzi-scheme Money

    https://twitter.com/JeffGreenlee18/status/1611467016782618627

    This is bearish. Don’t go long here.

    https://twitter.com/dana_marlane/status/1611506662631772160

    The cryptocurrency experience

    https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1611453577914109952

    📢Parcl Labs Weekly Market Update
    🔵 All major metros are down in Q4
    🔵 # of listings substantially higher than # of buyers
    🔵 New York ‘new homes’ down 33% quarter over quarter

    https://twitter.com/ParclLabs/status/1611457708925788172

    10Y vs 3MS – 🚨 When it goes negative it is predicting bad news. You don’t need to understand the why to recognize the pattern. This week it took a turn for the worst. 🔥

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1611484478840492039

    Construction labor market continuing to loosen up. Keep an eye on this.

    https://twitter.com/2x4caster/status/1611187501338877952

    Oops

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1611205335632445440

    Can’t help but notice the interest rate increase on my HELOC seems to be quite a bit more than the one on my savings account with the same bank.

    https://twitter.com/jasoncoxnc/status/1611050603119247360

    “We project lower rates and rising inventory levels as two positives for households wanting to buy a home in 2023,” said Bob Broeksmit, @MBAMortgage president and CEO.

    https://twitter.com/AdamJDeSanctis/status/1611381807332704266

    Anybody who has ever run a sizable business knows that temps are always fired first, therefore it’s a much better leading recession indicator than the overall employment which is lagging. We are almost there 👇

    https://twitter.com/MichaelAArouet/status/1611406104843403270

    3 things important to understand about Fed going forward:
    1- gradually for longer is the new mantra
    2- hurdle to repeat 70s mistake of stopping early is much higher than what market thinks
    3- Median, sticky and broad inflation are all equally important to headline prints

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1611412594849366033

    Presented without comment

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1610793781183365120

    Hint: Not good

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1611067601437790211

    The *first* 24 cities where it will become harder to own or manage a short-term vacation rental in 2023

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1611383262542176260

    This is probably my favorite STR regulatory attempt I’ve seen so far. Most are disincentivizing—more taxes, stricter permitting requirements, caps. Sedona tried offering a cash incentive

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1611406153170255872

    Joe, you are good because you understand the plumbing. Take a minute and go REALLY macro. Is the system worth saving the way it is constructed? Banks have no business anymore. They are not perfect, but they have worked pretty well for 4000 years.Non bank lending is a disaster.

    https://twitter.com/Stimpyz1/status/1611400314154016769

    2022 saw mortgage rates increase 3.2 percentage points over the course of the year, the biggest increase in over 50 years. the previous high was 1981 (up 2.1 percentage points over the year), but then in 1982 rates ended up falling 3.7 percentage points

    https://twitter.com/lenkiefer/status/1611401174615212042

    CarDealershipGuy

    Look closely. From this morning. Used cars still NOT doing the money at dealer auctions. Lots of “No Sales”. Expect more price decreases on the horizon.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1611390610644307968

    But labor markets this tight will continue to put upward pressure on wages over time. And that continued wage pressure combined with low productivity will continue to create an imbalance between nominal demand and real supply of labor over time – and that requires tighter policy.

    https://twitter.com/BobEUnlimited/status/1611369657801244672

    #airbnb is a bad thing. Post and profit from illegal listings, spend $$$ to hide bad 💩 that happens at their listings evades taxes, flouts local laws, magnet for criminals #airbnbsucks

    https://twitter.com/STRReform/status/1611310389823774720

    Builders are dropping their pants on pricing.

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1611407612284899329

    The banks are laggards with loss rates that are assumed to be zero, or even negative, and portfolios of nothing but UST. Dont even THINK about what the stocks will look like when spreads start to widen. The good news is the non banks are worse. And the Fed doesnt care.

    https://twitter.com/Stimpyz1/status/1611407535680163840

    Ryan Lundquist
    @SacAppraiser
    Sharp change? The median price rose 43% from 2020 in Sacramento County. Since May it dropped 15% (easily 3x faster than normal). The median is still up 21% from March 2020. Keep in mind median change doesn’t always mean value change (look to the comps).

    https://twitter.com/SacAppraiser/status/1611407901331173376

    Question: Why does the Federal Reserve choose to reward asset price inflation/manipulation over actual production? Question: How is inflating home prices anything other than a wealth transfer? One person has more assets, the other has to service higher debt to afford. Net 0

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1611419864643825664

    John Downs – Mortgage Advisor

    That’s what I’m seeing. I think the season of stubbornness from sellers is behind us. They now see real settled comps proving the new world. Their automated valuation tools are starting to refresh lower…all part of the emotional cycle.

    https://twitter.com/AdvisorJohn/status/1611420321084542980

    The FED is NOT going to stop raising rates. Here’s why:

    https://twitter.com/GRDecter/status/1611420980898832384

    BREAKING: Canadian economy added 104,000 jobs in December vs. 5,000 estimate. Unemployment rate fell to 5.0% from 5.1%

    https://twitter.com/StephHughes95/status/1611355037795770370

    Samsung -70% profit collapse, far worse than expected. “The dismal profit estimate by the world’s largest memory chip, smartphone and TV maker — a bellwether for global consumer demand — sets a weak tone for other technology firms’ quarterly results.”

    https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1611349883092434946

    We never learn

    https://twitter.com/ParikPatelCFA/status/1610292967302139908

    1. Used cars still NOT doing the money at dealer auctions. Lots of “No Sales”.

      I noticed that those “no sale” cars had 50K miles on them, even though they were 2021 model years. That they used to fetch asking prices shows how insane the used market was not too long ago.

      1. The second-most favorite financial lesson* that the gurus like to lecture us with is that a new car loses x% of its value the minute you drive it off the lot. So, when I looked to buy my first car in 2007, I looked for a used Corolla. Even the newer used cars 2004-2006 had massive milage, upwards of 40K miles/year. I said forget it, I’ll buy new. Did the same with my next car; bought new. Do I care if it loses value as new? Nope. Dave Ramsey can go F himself.

        ————-
        *the favorite is the $5 Sbux everyday keeping people poor.

        1. Do I care if it loses value as new? Nope.

          That’s an interesting perspective. Most of my driving life, the cost per mile while I owned it was more important. Having a bunch of kids will do that to you I suppose.

        2. *the favorite is the $5 Sbux everyday keeping people poor.

          It should be a favorite, because it’s a horrendous waste of money for a lot of people who can’t really afford it. And it’s $8 now, not $5. That doesn’t even count the fuel wasted in the drive-thru, wear and tear on the car, etc. Every time I look at a Starbucks drive-thru, it’s all women in SUVs.

          At $8 per day, every day (some people go multiple times if you can imagine that), you’re spending about $3,000 per year on a sugary drink. It’s insanity. That could almost buy you a new car until recently.

          1. $8 gets me 2-3 ten ounce Café Bustello bags of espresso. Made in my $15 stovetop espresso pot that’s at least 50-60 sixteen ounce Café Americana for the car ride.

      2. The no sale car auctions are interesting. Means that the dealers (who sent their cars to auction) are setting their reserves too high. (lucky lopez did a couple vids on this). But time marches on and the prices continue to decline. NO matter if the car has 50 or 100k it’s worth SOMETHING and the market says it’s worth way less than what people want for it right now. And sooner or later as those dealer’s floor plans interest rates go up they are simply going to have to sell it.

        It’s not going to be worth more next week than it was this week.

        1. It’s not going to be worth more next week than it was this week.

          They only need one sucker, just one. And up until now they’ve been finding them.

          1. Just a few months ago I was seeing comps to my 10 year old KIA (with 47K miles). Asking prices were $15K! The car cost $18K when it was new. I’m now seeing $12K comps, which is still utterly absurd.

        2. At least 3 used car lots near me have leased additional adjoining properties to keep their bulging inventory.

    2. Starting to see 15%-20% price corrections in Phoenix. Bottom falling out

      This same scenario is playing out all over the west. I just saw data for Reno/Sparks NV. Median price for December just came in at $518,000, down from a peak of $615,000 in May, and down 4.9% year-over-year. So, the median buyer in May has lost almost $100k in equity/house value in 7 months. The Professor can do some math on decline rates, etc. Bloodbath doesn’t even begin to describe it.

  18. 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗹, 𝗖𝗢 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟲% 𝗬𝗢𝗬 𝗔𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗗𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗮

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

    𝘈𝘴 𝘢 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥, “𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘴𝘬 $50𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 10 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘷𝘺 𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘶𝘱 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘺𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦? 𝘚𝘰 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘴.”

  19. Joe Biden’s America.

    New York Post — Texas dad fears ex-wife plans to ‘chemically castrate’ 9-year-old son (1/6/2023):

    “A Texas father at the center of a bitter, years-long gender transition case claims his ex-wife had moved to California planning to “chemically castrate” their 9-year-old son, James, who identifies as a girl named “Luna.”

    Younger claimed that his ex-wife had deliberately relocated his son and the boy’s twin brother to California just days before the state’s “trans refuge” law went into effect on New Year’s Day.

    The law is designed to protect transgender children and their families “if they’re being criminalized in their home states,” Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who sponsored the bill, tweeted after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it.

    According to Younger, his ex began “transitioning” James when he was just 2 years old and tried to enroll him in a gender clinic in Dallas at age 5.

    A gender therapist who evaluated James recommended that he begin transitioning by wearing dresses and going by “Luna” after his mom said the child requested a “girl’s toy” and wanted to be one of the female characters from the Disney film “Frozen.”

    https://nypost.com/2023/01/06/texas-dad-fears-ex-wife-plans-to-chemically-castrate-9-year-old-son/

    Remember, when you buy a house, your property taxes are paying to promote this in the public schools. And you don’t have any choice, because if you dare protest, Attorney General Merrick Garland will toss yer @zz in the January 6th gulag.

    Scott Wiener that’s not a Christian sounding name.

    Dr. Richard Levine that’s not a Christian sounding name.

    Merrick Garland’s grandparents picked up a phony name at Ellis Island a century ago, but that name isn’t fooling anybody.

    The NOTICING will continue, and because voting your way out of this is no longer a possibility, the Christian Nationalist Homeland will emerge from the ashes of Weimar America.

    1. Joe Biden’s America.

      Washington Examiner — The Biden administration wants to censor people who oppose gender transitions for children (12/28/2022):

      “The next step in “misinformation” censorship is going to come with government officials attempting to silence any debate about mutilating children in the name of transgenderism.

      This is the biggest takeaway from the recently leaked video of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine. Levine was speaking about “misinformation” and “gender-affirming care” in a May address to the Federation of State Medical Boards in New Orleans. In her comments, Levine said that “the positive value of gender-affirming care for youth and adults is not in scientific or medical dispute” and that anyone questioning it is “dangerous to the public health.”

      Its name isn’t Rachel. Its name is Richard.

      Richard was born with a penis and testicles, and every cell in Richard’s body is encoded with an XY chromosome.

      “Levine then said that “we need to use our clinician’s voice to collectively advocate for our tech companies to create a healthier, cleaner information environment.” Translated to normal English, he was calling for “experts” to pressure Big Tech companies to censor people who think it is unwise to permanently mutilate children with “gender-affirming healthcare.”

      https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-biden-administration-wants-to-censor-people-who-oppose-gender-transitions-for-children

      Weimar America ends when WE end it.

      Meanwhile, keep paying those property taxes, slaves. You will never be seen as anything more than cattle to these globalists.

    2. Texas dad fears ex-wife plans to ‘chemically castrate’ 9-year-old son

      Why do mothers hate their sons so much?

  20. “‘The idea that there is something going wrong with this product because people are redeeming is conflating completely incorrect assumptions,’ he said. ‘This was not meant to be a mutual fund with daily liquidity. These are pieces of real estate.’”

    Try not to catch yourself a falling knife.

    1. “It was cool for Joe Biden to blackmail mail the president of Ukraine, but it’s an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquires about it.”

      Indeed. Nailed it!

    1. …
      From cryptocurrency experts and hedge fund managers to economists and investment banks, the easy money era was filled with bulls who believed the good times would never end. Here’s a look at some of their strangest calls. 

      The Bitcoin bulls

      The cryptocurrency boom of 2020 and 2021 was unprecedented. Between January 2020 and the peak of the crypto fervor in November 2021, the industry’s total value grew to over $3 trillion and Bitcoin prices soared roughly 800%. 

      The crypto faithful were sure that the party was just beginning. Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper said in June 2021 that Bitcoin would hit $250,000 by the end of 2022. “I think I’m going to be right on this one,” he assured CNBC’s Jade Scipioni.

      Bitcoin ended up finishing 2022 just above $16,500, but just last month, Draper repeated his call for Bitcoin to hit $250,000—this time he said it would be by the middle of 2023. 

      “I expect a flight to quality and decentralized crypto like bitcoin, and for some of the weaker coins to become relics,” Draper told CNBC.

      Tim Draper did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

      Draper wasn’t the only leading figure to jump on the Bitcoin train during the easy money era and make lofty forecasts either. ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood was the first public asset manager to gain exposure to Bitcoin via the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) as a part of her tech-focused exchange-traded ETFs in 2015.

      The bet led Wood to face serious criticism from her peers, but barring a brief crypto winter in 2018, it paid off as Bitcoin’s price soared to over $65,000 by November 2021.

      Wood was sure that the good times would last throughout the bull market. In November 2020, she told Barron’s that institutional adoption of crypto would drive Bitcoin’s price to $500,000 by 2026 and repeatedly “bought the dip” whenever Bitcoin prices fell. Wood even told The Globe and Mail in a February 2020 interview that Bitcoin was “one of the largest positions” in her retirement account. 

      The ARK Invest CEO remained bullish even at the start of 2022, when Bitcoin prices had fallen from their highs of over $65,000 to just under $50,000. She argued that the leading cryptocurrency would touch $1 million by 2030 in ARK’s “Big Ideas 2022” annual research report.

      Since then Bitcoin’s price has dropped more than 60%, but Wood and her team aren’t fazed, and still believe that their prediction is fair.

      “We think Bitcoin is coming out of this smelling like a rose,” Wood told Bloomberg in December, arguing that institutions will eventually buy into Bitcoin after it is “battle tested” by the crypto winter.

      Cathie Wood did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

      Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, who previously served as chief equity strategist at JPMorgan and spent over 25 years on Wall Street, has also been a perennial Bitcoin bull. In early 2022, he predicted that Bitcoin would hit $200,000 in the coming years. 

      And despite the recent fall, which he admitted has been “horrific” for investors, Lee told CNBC in November that he still believes Bitcoin will come out of the current downtrend and hit his target. But while many crypto forecasters are sticking by their lofty estimates, Wall Street has been walking back some of theirs.

      Tom Lee did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
      …

  25. “This was not meant to be a mutual fund with daily liquidity. These are pieces of real estate.”

    Schwarzman: I’m shocked that investors want their money!

    Employee: Sir, the proceeds from the sale of your shares.

    Schwarzman: Thank you.

  26. New York Post — Yoel Roth, ex-Twitter exec, forced to flee home amid ‘Twitter files’ release (12/13/2022):

    “Twitter’s former head of trust and safety was reportedly forced to flee his home due to rapidly intensifying threats from Elon Musk and his supporters.

    Yoel Roth, who resigned from Twitter in November, and his family left their Bay Area home this weekend over safety concerns spurred in part by the release of the “Twitter Files.”

    Roth has faced mounting threats following the release of the site’s internal documents, which only intensified over the weekend when Musk misrepresented Roth’s academic writing in a tweet, baselessly claiming Roth has a favorable view of pedophilia.

    “Looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis,” Musk tweeted Saturday with a screenshot of Roth’s dissertation, the Washington Post reported.

    A barrage of threats were sent to people Roth had replied to on Twitter, and the menacing became so intense that several of his family and friends had to delete their Twitter accounts.

    Roth, who is gay, suggested in his dissertation that gay dating apps like Grindr should adopt safety policies to accommodate teenagers — who already use the apps underage — as a form of harm reduction on social media.”

    https://nypost.com/2022/12/13/ex-twitter-exec-yoel-roth-forced-to-flee-home-amid-twitter-files-release/

    His name is Yoel Roth.

    What is his name? Yoel Roth.

    Where is Yoel Roth right now? Where are you Yoel?

    1. “I’m Just Saying, We Fly Over Those States That Voted for a Racist Tangerine for a Reason” —Yoel Roth

    2. Where is Yoel Roth right now? Where are you Yoel?

      I’m gonna guess he has taken his stash of cash and left the country, and maybe has a new, assumed ID, complete with a foreign passport.

    1. C’mon! We all know it’s because of capitalism. Once we implement True Communism(TM), which has never been tried before, everything will be perfect!

  29. Article by Andy Ngo. Interesting that this was published yesterday, but it’s not on the main page of the New York Post website.

    Arson attack destroys 117-year-old church in latest symbol of Portland mayhem (1/6/2023):

    “Cameron David Storer, a trans woman also known as “Nicolette Fait,” was arrested following an investigation by the Portland Fire & Rescue Fire Investigations Unit. The 27-year-old is charged with two counts of first-degree arson, one count of second-degree arson, and two counts of second-degree burglary — all felonies.

    According to prosecutors, Storer walked into the Multnomah County Detention Center and confessed to setting the church on fire using a lighter.

    “Storer stated that they heard voices in their head saying they would ‘mutilate’ Storer if they did not burn the church down and that they had planned it up to one day in advance,” said the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office in a press release. Storer allegedly told investigators she was taking oxycodone and had a history of mental illness.

    https://nypost.com/2023/01/06/117-year-old-church-burns-down-in-latest-portland-mayhem/

    “They’re not sending their best”

    1. Apparently, the church was not used by any congregation at the time, which answered my question: What? They still have churches in Portland?

      Also, interesting that the arsonist who appeared to be male, was repeatedly referred to as “they”. Perhaps he has multiple personality disorder? /sarc

  32. “Today, surveying the economic damage, it’s easy to declare that experiment an abject failure.”

    Some of us saw it coming. The idea that you can borrow without limits or consequences is so abjectly idiotic, it is amazing how many nominally smart people glommed onto it.

    “Easy, yes. And hasty. And oversimplistic.”

    Nice try at spinning a sow’s ear into a silk purse. It’s time to give this failed theory a proper burial so that it doesn’t come back to haunt our children’s generation.

  33. Last July i started tracking houses for sale and pending in my little valley (middle of nowhere, inter-mountain west). In July approx 60 homes for sale at any one time and another approx 60 homes in pending (under contract).

    by Nov/Dec that number was pretty constantly 100 homes for sale and another 40 or so in pending/under contract.

    Now it’s still about 100 homes for sale but there are only 20 pending/under contract. Most of the last few that closed in late December took MONTHS to close. put under contract in September and finally closing at the end of December. Most close under listing price (which was not true in July).

  34. 𝗟𝗼𝗴𝗮𝗻, 𝗨𝗧 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟰% 𝗬𝗢𝗬 𝗢𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗰𝘆 𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 𝗔𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗨𝘁𝗮𝗵

    https://www.movoto.com/logan-ut/market-trends/

    𝘈𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘵 𝘓𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥, “𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴.”

  37. ‘This experience has also demonstrated perhaps the biggest weakness in MMT-influenced fiscal policy: it is a cumbersome tool to apply to managing inflation. Unlike interest rates, which can be adjusted within a matter of weeks to address inflationary pressures, government fiscal plans unwind over years’

    You aren’t the guberment central bankers. So if you screw up, how do we address that?

    1. You aren’t the guberment central bankers. So if you screw up, how do we address that?

      I have a hunch that anyone who tries to address that will disappear or wind up suicided.

  39. Lots of “for sale” signs driving through Rancho Bernado’s 55+ communities to get gas this afternoon.

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