thehousingbubble@gmail.com
Blog

We Have More Loans Nationwide Ready To Foreclose Than We Did In 2007 And 2008

A report from Salt Lake City Weekly. “As Utah’s real estate market sizzled during the COVID pandemic, Matthew Borsodi, a compliance officer at one of Utah’s largest mortgage lenders, filed a federal complaint alleging that his former employer skirted rules aimed at protecting consumers. Borsodi claimed Intercap Lending failed to follow federal appraisal independence requirements established by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. Borsodi believed Intercap was not alone, that other mortgage lenders were also sidestepping these rules.”

“Peter Christensen, a Montana-based attorney who focuses on real estate valuation services, said there is an incentive for mortgage lenders to chase higher values during the heat of the market. ‘They can get the loan if they can get the value that they need,’ Christensen said. He added that while federal appraisal independence requirements strictly adhere to the letter of the law, the flip side is no one is really enforcing that law. ‘It’s possible there could be regulatory examination … telling lenders they need to do a better job,’ Christensen said. ‘But as far as chasing down violators, I haven’t seen that happen. I think they’re just not interested.'”

“Mike Carter has more than three decades of experience in the mortgage industry—as a banker, mortgage lender, head of a title company and, since 1996, a certified residential appraiser. In a recent interview, Carter defended Intercap. He then described his work and what he viewed as a somewhat flawed process. As demand for homes outpaced supply, a snowball effect kicked in. In recent years, Carter said he saw a sharp uptick in purchase contracts where a buyer agreed to pay as much as $50,000 above the appraised value.”

“‘I came in low on plenty of deals because the values just weren’t there. People were willing to pay more than the property was worth—and that’s their choice,’ Carter said. But those higher sales prices then become the comparables for subsequent appraisals. ‘The inflated sales price becomes the fact,’ Carter said. ‘That’s … how that whole thing went so rapidly out of control.'”

“With recent indications that the market is slowing down, Carter foresees a bumpy road ahead and is concerned that some recent buyers could find themselves upside down in their loans. By last summer, Carter said in a phone interview, ‘We have more loans nationwide ready to foreclose than we did in 2007 and 2008.’ According to UtahRealEstate.com, in June 2022 the median price of single-family homes sold in the Beehive State hit $594,000, up an astonishing 19.5% over the previous June. But by November 2022, median sales on single-family homes had dropped to $525,000.”

The Washingtonian. “You’re likely familiar with tales from Washington’s nutso Covid-era real-estate market: homes selling for six figures above list price, buyers waiving all contingencies, open-house lines stretching down the block. That changed when interest rates started rising last spring. Suddenly, buyers and sellers paused instead of diving headfirst into the market, leading to a decline in activity that especially slumped toward the end of 2022.”

“This isn’t to say we’re in a bad market now, agents caution—just a more level one. That means sellers shouldn’t expect bidding wars, and buyers no long­er need to resort to insane contortions to score a house. ‘We were in a time we probably will never see again in our lifetime,’ says Compass agent Kate Bohlender about the Covid real-estate shakeup. ‘That was just bananas.'”

The Street. “Skyrocketing real estate prices in Hawaii may finally be catching up with the state. The average single-family home in the Hawaii capital of Honolulu costs $1,198,000 — it would take a household with the median income a decade to save enough for just a standard down payment. In the rest of the state, the median home price is just slightly lower at $1.06 million by the summer of 2022 but this is still an increase of nearly 40% since 2019.”

“Years of unfettered growth are bound to come to a head at some point and Hawaii may finally be seeing that shift. By February 2023, the median price of a single-family home dropped to $970,000 while a median condo price fell to $495,000. This is, according to local analysts, more of a correction from overly inflated prices than a return to any sort of affordability since even a double-digit drop will not get prices down to what they were pre-pandemic.”

Bisnow New York. “After three years of pandemic-induced paralysis for office owners, more are finally beginning to lower the asking price on their buildings and accept prices far lower than they paid. ‘It’s a frightening tsunami of problems coming at us, because there’s not a lot of demand for office — especially for Class-B and C buildings,’ said Adelaide Polsinelli, vice chair at Compass. ‘This is absolutely the new normal where properties, especially office, are selling at losses and definitely selling at prices way below what they were at between 2016 and 2018. Valuations have dropped significantly.'”

“Now, lenders are allowing for ‘short sales’ — swallowing a loss — instead of the long-winded process of foreclosing, sending properties to special servicers or navigating the process of handing the keys back, Avison Young Tri-State Investment Sales Group Head James Nelson said. ‘We’re starting to see a lot of those types of deals happen now, and lenders allowing for those sales to happen is expediting the process,’ he told Bisnow. ‘For office properties that are upside down, it makes sense.'”

The Real Deal on California. “Ocean West Capital Partners rushed to sell an office building in Hollywood just five days before the City of L.A.’s new transfer taxes went into effect. The trade off? A 60 percent loss on the building. The Santa Monica-based investment firm sold the 12-story Taft Building at 6280 West Hollywood Boulevard for $28 million, or $222 a square foot, according to the buyer. Ocean West bought the 126,000-square-foot property for $70 million in 2018 from DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners, or about $555 a square foot, records show.”

From Silicon Valley in California. “For Matt Rubenstein, a real estate agent in Contra Costa County — where the median home price was $760,000, down 19% from $935,000 last year — concerns about the economy are the main thing on the minds of many of his buyers. Despite the lower rates now, he’s had two deals on homes over $1 million in Lafayette and Walnut Creek fall through in recent weeks because buyers backed out. ‘Does a little bit of a rate drop offset the nervousness people are feeling about what’s going to happen with the banking situation?’ Rubenstein asked. The median home price in Santa Clara County was $1.5 million in February, an 18% drop from $1.82 million last year.”

The Welland Tribune in Canada. “Here’s how downtown Toronto’s housing market performed in March 2023 compared to February 2023 and March 2022, according to the latest data from Toronto Regional Real Estate Board: Annex and Yonge-St. Clair home prices averaged $1.51 million, down 11.4 per cent monthly and down 10.9 per cent annually. Rosedale and Moore Parkhome prices averaged $1.73 million, down 17.9 per cent monthly and down 25.1 per cent annually.”

“Annex and Yonge-St. Clair: Detached houses (↘) averaged $2.52 million, down 37.7 per cent or $1.52 million month-over-month and down 32.1 per cent or $1.19 million year-over-year. Semi-detached houses (↘) averaged $1.57 million, down 19.5 per cent or $380,891 month-over-month and down 32.5 per cent or $754,260 year-over-year. Attached houses (↘) averaged $2.06 million, down 14.8 per cent or $357,500 month-over-month and down 16.7 per cent or $414,000 year-over-year.”

From Newshub. “Annual New Zealand house prices have plummeted further, decreasing by double-digit percentage points from this time last year. Annual house price declines remained strong in the north, with double-digit downturns in Wellington (down 20 percent), Auckland (-13.1 pct) and Tauranga (-10.6 pct). Solid price decreases were also recorded in Hamilton, down 8.4 percent in a year. House prices also continued to decline in the south. Annual prices fell 11.1 percent in Dunedin.”

Australian Associated Press. “Would-be home owners are angry and confused following a disastrous meeting with Porter Davis liquidators that left them with more questions than answers. Melbourne woman Natalie moved into her Bayside house in October last year, with more than 100 defects awaiting action. And while she doesn’t regret accepting the house in less than perfect condition, Natalie fears she and others in a similar position will be forgotten.”

“‘We think it would be over $100,000 to rectify those issues because of all the trades that will have to come out, that includes plasterers, caulkers, window people, plumbers – the lot,’ she told AAP. ‘That wasn’t in the budget, because we thought Porter Davis would fix them like they said they would. I feel so sorry for those in limbo and set to lose money, but I think we are also part of a forgotten group of customers that the collapse affects. It is wide-ranging.'”

The Wyndham Star Weekly in Australia. “Home builder Porter Davis was placed into liquidation on Friday, March 31, leaving more than 1500 unfinished projects across Victoria and homeowners in limbo. Werribee homeowner Julie McDonald purchased her property with Porter Davis in January and said the final inspection was scheduled for April 14. Ms McDonald is a single mother to three teenagers and said she recently gave notice to leave her short-term rental. ‘I’m paying storage fees, pretty soon I’m going to be paying for a house I haven’t got.'”

Related Posts
This Post Has 105 Comments

  1. The first link is definitely worth reading in full. (A Mitt Romney connection). When I first went through it I realized, this is what journalism used to look like.

    There is no way prices went up 40% or more in a year all over the place without massive appraisal fraud.

    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. “There is no way prices went up 40% or more in a year all over the place without massive appraisal fraud.”

      Ditto for the lenders and mortgage bond investors who wouldn’t touch this steaming pile of odorous excrement without those fed.gov guarantees.

  2. By last summer, Carter said in a phone interview, ‘We have more loans nationwide ready to foreclose than we did in 2007 and 2008.’

    But…but…but Yellen the Felon assured us in 2017 there would be no new financial crisis “in our time.”

    3. ‘We have more loans nationwide ready to foreclose than we did in 2007 and 2008.’
      If he is correct, wow!

  3. ccording to UtahRealEstate.com, in June 2022 the median price of single-family homes sold in the Beehive State hit $594,000, up an astonishing 19.5% over the previous June.

    Not gonna lie: I want to see every single bubble chaser who bought a shack in 2022 get financially destroyed.

    1. That’s the major reason I took my income tax revenue and expenditure out of Utah. I could not keep up with 20%+ annual raises. No matter how many times I cancelled Netflix, worked overtime, and got new skills. Half my old neighborhood was empty. Homeless were sleeping on the lawns. Needles and other nonsense everywhere.

      Those speculators should burn and go bankrupt.

      1. “Homeless were sleeping on the lawns. Needles and other nonsense everywhere.”

        I thought the god fearing folks of Utah were above that behavior.

        2. I thought the god fearing folks of Utah were above that behavior.

          I lived in Salt Lake City at the time. The further out from the downtown cores of Ogden, SLC, and Provo were definitely nicer.

          Lots of empty houses all over though. When we still wanted to live in Utah and looked at suburban homes on weekends we seldom saw children and people.

  4. ‘This is absolutely the new normal where properties, especially office, are selling at losses and definitely selling at prices way below what they were at between 2016 and 2018. Valuations have dropped significantly.’”

    Gosh, I hope this doesn’t impair the underlying loan collateral. I’d sure hate to see the banksters getting a DELIVERANCE-style reaming.

    1. The calls to convert unused office buildings in to multifamily homes are getting louder. FoxNews reported on an op-ed from the San Francisco Chronicle:
      ——
      “The editorial board suggested investing in office-to-housing conversions and demolishing office buildings for new projects, which would require financial help from the state government.

      Last year, San Francisco topped a list of cities that homebuyers wanted to move away from. 24% of buyers in a Redfin report were looking to leave San Francisco.

      Alexandria Real Estate Equities founder and CEO Joel Marcus had told Fox Business in January that redeveloping older office buildings into multifamily homes could solve the housing crisis.”
      ——-

      Yeah, they actually used the word “projects.” Because that’s where these downtowns are headed back to: projects and dying druggies in the downtown, poorish but industrious up-and-comers in the first ring of older suburbs (generally Hispanic/Latino), and rich folks in the outer burbs. That doesn’t exactly mesh with Klaus’s dream of 15-minute cities.

      1. I’ve read enough articles on this to know it won’t work for at least 80% of buildings. The plumbing is wrong, the layouts. Want windows? Most airboxes wouldn’t have one. And they’ll have to be luxury priced. Have you ever seen how these office areas clear out at night? You are really gonna swing the population around? Doubtful.

        Here’s what’s missing: who planned this mess? Guberments. Who is ‘getting louder’? Guberment worshipers. The usual ‘tax credits can solve anything’! So the idiots that came up with this whole thing (urban living, etc) now have the solutions! I’ve posted articles showing entire towers in Dallas CBD have been empty for over a decade.

        Here’s an idea: quit building the dam things.

        1. it won’t work for at least 80% of buildings. The plumbing is wrong, the layouts. Want windows? Most airboxes wouldn’t have one. And they’ll have to be luxury priced.
          I spent years working in some of those building (at least similar) and I don’t see how it will work either.

        2. I’ve read enough articles on this to know it won’t work for at least 80% of buildings. The plumbing is wrong, the layouts.

          I’m pretty sure they want to convert these things into homeless shelters, to get the tents off the streets. Sounds good, until one of the buildings goes up in flames because a meth lab blew up or the tenants overloaded an extension cord.

          Then the office buildings will be burnt out husks, and before you know it your downtown area will resemble Gotham from a Batman movie.

          2. Speaking of meth, SIL works in largest hospital in bedroom community to left coast Portland. Yesterday fire alarm went off in MICU because patient had lit up her fentynl pipe same time as her HI FLOW OXYGEN mask was in near proximity or maybe it was still on her face unsure but SIL said ICU Dr was rolling his eyes saying they should just call it the meth floor bc 3/4 of their patients are meth heads in complex withdrawal or what have you. She said her patient that day, a different one than who set off the alarm- was on 4 diff IV drugs in a medical induced coma,just one of which would knock your or I off our feet.
            Same day I was approached by a twitchy fellow in a store and asked if we went to school together. We had. I asked about one of his friends “oh, let’s see he went to….” Paused to look down for my toddler and he helpfully filled in “…..prison?” Me: “uh…no, the Air Force?” (Turns out I’d confused two classmates) anyway the fellow was twitchy and stuttered but dressed decently. Later a friend of mine said a 30 sec search showed he’d done 13 months for meth posession. Par for the course in Jay Insleez state

        3. I don’t know if “gubermints planned all this.” The basic structure of downtowns, with offices and luxury dwellings and small service stores, evolved a hundred years before computers were invented, much less Microsoft TEAMS.

          But it does seem as if gubermints deliberately choosing to not solve the problems of homelessness, drugs, and crime.

          1. “But it does seem as if gubermints deliberately choosing to not solve the problems of homelessness, drugs, and crime.”

            Hey love, did that just click this morning?

        4. I’ve posted articles showing entire towers in Dallas CBD have been empty for over a decade.

          Why are BK processes not clearing out that malinvestment? Cause if there are no tenants, we can be damn sure that the underlying debt is not being serviced.

          Who owns the debt?

          1. Who owns the debt?

            Didn’t the fed take MBS at par as collateral/deposits in the last bust? Anyone know if anything happened to unwind that?

          2. Aren’t they rolling over the debt into new loans at like 1%? Same reason there are empty storefronts on the high-end shopping strip. It’s cheaper to borrow money than to deal with a tenant. This can’t go on much longer.

    2. The Fed will buy all of the bad debt at par and sell the properties to Blackrock for pennies on the dollar. You will own nothing and you will be happy

        1. “controlled opposition”

          Dated British aristocracy, Jemima Goldsmith (both brothers married to Rothschilds, father rumored to be Princess Diana’s real father, genetics don’t lie) and does extensive voice-over work for Illumination Entertainment.

      1. It’s going that way already. Just wait until they roll out CBDCs, where they give you money and force you to spend it or it disappears. And you can only spend it on approved climate-friendly products.

        1. And you can only spend it on approved climate-friendly products.

          Roasted cockroaches!

  6. The median home price in Santa Clara County was $1.5 million in February, an 18% drop from $1.82 million last year.”

    It was only Yellen Bux.

    1. Democrat Party is a hate crime.

      “Trannies are the soul of our nation”

      FJB and f* everybody who voted for that sniffing groping daughter diddling pedophile.

  11. A reader sent these in:

    Remember, it’s never the central bank or the regulator’s fault. NEVER

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1643571182476705797

    And yes, Fed failed to reduce size of it’s balance sheet. Fed had a manageable B/S in 19 ($ 4 t), they then went exponential to $ 9 t in a jiffy. Ofc this did not cause the 21 financial bubble and massive inflation burst (🤡). Then they wanted to get clean, so they started QT. Their (and everyone else’s) expectation was for a B/S reduction of at least a couple billion. 1 year of assiduous QT and they had almost brought it back down to…$ 8.4 t but then a black swan that no one foresaw happened (🤡) (in reality it was obvious) and they reluctantly had to bring B/S back up towards $ 8.75 t. So no reduction to speak of really….wish Japan good luck…

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1643678539877687311

    The office vacancy rate in downtown Toronto, Canada, has reached its highest point since 1995, per Bloomberg.

    https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1643634850618802176

    As a 53 year old, it’s surreal reading about real estate markets from 22-26 year olds who never went to college. It’s scary af as they say. I don’t want to patronize anyone or fear monger, but a lot of young people in real estate are playing with fire. 3rd degree burns coming.

    https://twitter.com/constantraise/status/1643665698370224128

    Costco down after hours on weak sales data – look at last 5 weeks – significant declines in sales across US/Canada and especially through Ecom channels – wen recession?

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1643731980859715584

    Sen. Ron Johnson to Janet Yellen: “You are going to drive the debt to $50 Trillion? ” Yellen: “Yes, but…” 🔊…😅

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1643763894932873221

    JUST IN: Corporate bankruptcy filings in the first 2 months of 2023 hit a 12 year high. 111 bankruptcies were filed in January and February alone. We are on track for the most bankruptcies in year since 2011.
    Meanwhile, this is getting very little attention. (a thread)

    https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1643628827573211141

    Most Realtors: Thinking of selling?
    Seller: No! I have a locked in 30 year rate at 2.5% Rates around 7% NO THANKS!
    Most Realtors: Thinking of Buying?
    Buyer: No! Rates are near 7%. ANd home prices are so high! I cant/won’t be able to afford it. Most Realtors:

    https://twitter.com/valeriebrownre/status/1643669724604280832

    Morgan Stanley: ‘Worse than in the Great Financial Crisis’ for commercial real estate

    https://twitter.com/danjmcnamara/status/1643668477096468487

    So what happens to prices when mortgage rates fall into a recession?

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1643665655529639936

    ZIRP baby discovers leverage is bad.

    https://twitter.com/qcapital2020/status/1643614713773785089

    Zillow Chief Economist Skylar Olsen has said that short-term strategies like home-flipping won’t work anymore, per BI.

    https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1643647433262637058

    Once again. It’s NOT that certain CRE sectors of CRE aren’t safer vs office. It’s that cap rates fell to the lowest in the history of mankind. Valuations matter. Period. “The $3.9B in sales came at an average of $150 per square foot. Last year at this time, sales totaled $9.1B.”

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1643650932574388235

    Surprisingly a bearish article from @realtordotcom. They finally seem to recognize the double edged sword for the housing market between high rates and a hard landing of the economy, none of which is good for today’s inflated home prices.

    https://twitter.com/traderpete/status/1643397829858041856

    This is what happens when you grow up with TikTok and Instagram 🙃:
    Gen Z is more likely to buy a Luxury car than any other generation:
    Gen Z: 39%
    Millennials: 29%
    Gen X: 27%
    Boomers: 12%

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1643366700480360450

    Goldman Warns Of A Shocking Surge In Tomorrow’s Initial Jobless Claims

    https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1643807518152335360

    “The remaining balance of many floating-rate loans will come due this year, and borrowers whose buildings aren’t bringing in enough cash every month might have to sell their buildings to pay off their debts.”
    Sounds like a typical $ABR borrower.

    https://twitter.com/NingiResearch/status/1643702789917343744

    I don’t normally lecture people on leverage but when I do it’s because leverage blew me up

    https://twitter.com/concodanomics/status/1643695290321362946

    1. “This is what happens when you grow up with TikTok and Instagram 🙃:
      Gen Z is more likely to buy a Luxury car than any other generation:
      Gen Z: 39%
      Millennials: 29%
      Gen X: 27%
      Boomers: 12%”

      If it doesn’t have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, a turbocharger and heated seats then it’s not worthy of consideration.

      1. If it doesn’t have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, a turbocharger and heated seats then it’s not worthy of consideration.

        I would avoid all those features, especially the turbo, like the plague. All future repair expenses

  12. Yesterday, we witnessed the ex-director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), under oath, directly blame Dr. Fauci and the U.S. government for the deaths of millions of people.

    However, if you went to the headlines of Google News—there was nary a news story. I guess Google felt it wasn’t important enough to warrant above-the-fold status. Seems like they had to make room for important news items, like the ones above.

    The actual testimony of Redfield was explosive. Yet none of these headlines belie the gravity of Redfield’s testimony. Redfield directly linked gain-of-function research and the creation of SARS-CoV-WIV to Fauci, and to the U.S. government—including the Department of Defense (DOD). He absolutely believes and gives sworn testimony to the effect that Fauci and Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and soon be the chief scientist at the World Health Organization, covered up the lab leak information. Redfield himself was excluded from the meetings when the processes, strategy, and tactics for covering up the lab leak were developed.

    This winter, we had a high-level federal employee on the farm. He/she came to me anonymously to express concerns about what had happened in the execution of this corrupt and failed public health response, and in particular to how the vaccines were developed and implemented. She/he discussed how all of the high-level meetings on the clinical trials, the safety of the vaccine, and the public health response, were all done under complete secrecy. Recorders were turned off, plus cell phones and computers were not allowed in the meetings. So there are literally NO RECORDS of these meetings.

    This person believes that finding evidence of the malfeasance in the meeting minutes or recordings is going to be difficult. So when the New York Times headliner (above) cynically states that the Republicans lack a “smoking gun,” I believe they know damn well why. The New York Times reporting and editorial staff are many things, but they are not stupid.

    But here is the thing, I do speak to people working on these issues in Congress. I have been told that the federal government has a large paper trail that documents the corruption over the past three years.

    But what happened yesterday is explosive—let’s start with the video of Congressman Jim Jordan speaking to Redfield.

    Note: these clips are not available elsewhere yet, so I am sorry for the ones from Twitter—I know that some here aren’t on it.

    Then listen to Redfield speaking: “In Sept. 2019, three things happened in that lab. One is they deleted the sequences. Highly irregular, researchers don’t like to do that. The second thing is they changed the command and control from civilian to military. Highly unusual. The third, which is very telling, is they let a contractor redo the ventilation system in that laboratory. Clearly, there was strong evidence that a significant event happened in that laboratory in September.”

    But there is more: Redfield clearly states that the gain-of-function research received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the DOD.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/dr-redfields-bombshell-testimony_5112580.html

  13. Perhaps poorly edited by me but I think it’s worth a click and reading or listening.

    TUCKER CARLSON: War against Russia will be the last war we can afford to fight

    Tucker voices concerns about the value of the dollar

    Published April 5, 2023 10:42pm EDT

    America printed the U.S. dollar. We controlled the global reserve currency and that meant that for us, money was cheap. We had privileges that nobody else in the world had. It’s been very nice, but what would happen if it ended? You don’t even really want to think about that because the consequences would be too ugly, really ugly, but we started to worry about it about a year ago, really the day the Russian military rolled over the Ukrainian border.

    Now, by itself, that was a destabilizing event. War always is a destabilizing event. It always challenges the existing order, but it was the West’s reaction to the Russian invasion that seemed too ominous. Policy makers in the U.S. went insane. Joe Biden, helped by his Republican allies in the Senate, appear to be determined not simply to topple the Russian government in some kind of regime change war, but to blow up the postwar economic order that had served the U.S. so generously for so long. So, we thought at the time that the real threat to our future wasn’t just the billions we were sending to Zelenskyy. That was reckless, but probably not going to end America. The real threat was the unprecedented economic sanctions that Joe Biden was allowed to, in fact, encourage to impose. Those sanctions, you’ll recall, were supposed to hurt Russia, but even in March of last year, it seemed obvious they were going to hurt the United States much more than they hurt Russia. Here’s what we said 13 months ago.

    We should prepare to lose our position as holder of the world’s reserve currency. That is happening in slow motion. It’s unmistakable. Now, the Biden people seem to have no idea this is going on or maybe they want it to happen. Joe Biden was up there at the State of the Union bragging about how he took 30 points off the Russian ruble in a single day. Hurray. Good for us, but once we stop celebrating our win, the destruction of the Russian economy, they deserve it. You have got to wonder, is there a downside to this? Could it be a pyrrhic victory? Let’s see. These policies have driven Russia, China, India, Turkey and other countries to accelerate their flight from the U.S. dollar. Let’s be clear. That’s the majority of the global economy. This may be the most reckless and destructive thing any American president has ever done to the United States.

    So, they can barter if they needed to? A year later, despite the sanctions, you were told are the greatest ever devised, the Russian ruble is just as strong against the U.S. dollar as it was before the war in Ukraine. So, we didn’t really hurt Russia with those sanctions, certainly not long term, but we hurt ourselves.

    Brazil, which has a brand-new government supported by the Biden administration, announced it will do the same thing. Brazil’s largest economy in the hemisphere after hours. Pakistan is doing the same thing. That’s a longtime U.S. ally. India and Malaysia, two of the biggest economies in the world, announced they’ll be settling their trade in their own currencies, not the dollar. Even France, which we liberated, is using Chinese currency in a new liquefied natural gas trade. China and Saudi Arabia are now major business partners and again, etc., etc., etc.. This is happening around the world and all of it is shutting out the U.S. dollar and it’s happening a lot faster than anybody could have predicted and yet no one in Washington seems aware that it is happening. So, if you want the rest of the world to trust your currency, the last thing you would do is use it as a weapon or print too much of it. Printing too much of your currency causes inflation and that saps the value of the currency. No one wants to hold a currency that is worth less consistently every year. That’s sixth grade economics, but Joe Biden can’t be bothered with that. So, he’s printing more money. Here he is last week announcing another $10 billion check. Not for you or his Palestine or anyone in our country who needs it, but for foreign governments.

    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-war-against-russia-last-war-afford-fight

  14. “Companies announced nearly 90,000 layoffs in March, a sharp step up from the previous month and a giant acceleration from a year ago, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday.

    Planned layoffs totaled 89,703 for the period, an increase of 15% from February. Year to date, job cuts have soared to 270,416, an increase of 396% from the same period a year ago.

    The damage was especially bad in tech, which has announced 102,391 cuts so far in 2023. That’s a staggering increase of 38,487% from a year ago and good for 38% of all staff reductions. Tech already has cut 5% more than for all of 2022, according to the report, and is on pace to eclipse 2001, the worst year ever amid the dotcom bust.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/layoffs-are-up-nearly-fivefold-so-far-this-year-with-tech-companies-leading-the-way.html

    Get woke, go broke.

    1. From the linked 2003 IMF report:

      “The essay finds that equity price busts occurred on average every 13 years, lasted for 2 1/2 years, and were associated with GDP losses of
      about 4 percent of GDP. Housing price busts were less frequent, but lasted nearly twice as long and were associated with output losses that
      were twice as large, reflecting greater effects on consumption and banking systems, which are typically heavily exposed to real estate.”

  16. World’s Worst Polluter China Leads Global Stampede for Coal

    SIMON KENT
    6 Apr 2023

    Forget solar, wind, hydro, and wave power. The capacity to burn coal for electricity generation rose in 2022 despite global promises to phase out the fuel with a defiant China leading the way, a report Wednesday set out.

    The coal fleet grew by 19.5 gigawatts last year, enough to light up around 15 million homes, with nearly all newly commissioned coal projects in China, AP reports citing the Global Energy Monitor, an organization that tracks a variety of energy projects around the globe.

    New coal plants were added in 14 countries and eight countries announced new coal projects. China, India, Indonesia, Turkey and Zimbabwe were the only countries that both added new coal plants and announced new projects.

    This boom in coal use defies a direct order from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who in 2020 demanded the world must stop building new coal power plants and instead embrace green alternatives in a post-coronavirus reset world.

    China accounted for 92 percent of all new coal project announcements, AP records, and has been building capacity for the last decade and longer.

    As Breitbart News reported, a joint report by the U.S.-based Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and Helsinki-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) in 2021 found China built over three times as much coal-fired electrical power capacity in 2020 as the rest of the world combined.

    https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2023/04/06/worlds-worst-polluter-china-leads-global-stampede-for-coal/

  17. “‘I came in low on plenty of deals because the values just weren’t there. People were willing to pay more than the property was worth—and that’s their choice,’ Carter said. But those higher sales prices then become the comparables for subsequent appraisals. ‘The inflated sales price becomes the fact,’ Carter said. ‘That’s … how that whole thing went so rapidly out of control.’”

    Wait, so is that why the Cartel Barrio known as West Valley City in Salt Lake County became a place for the rich almost overnight? Fun neighborhoods over there. Failing schools, lots of shootings every week, hit and runs, etc. America at its finest.

  18. Via ZH: RFK Jr Files To Challenge Biden For 2024 Democratic Nomination

    RFK Jr v. DJT would be quite interesting.

    1. RFK Jr. will not live to the end of the 2024 primaries if he starts gaining traction. I’d bet money on it.

      2. Years ago, I would have thought no one would dare, given the two Kennedy assassinations, but now, yeah, they’d do it. I was very young when JFK was killed, but I remember when and where I was when I heard it really, really well, even if GWB didn’t.

        Now, with the short attention span and lack of education of so many today, ehh – no frame of reference, so no biggie, what’s new?

          1. 👍🏻 That Sunday I dutifully and tremendously unenthusiastically trudged off to church. Came back just in time to see my mother losing her mind since she just saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on live TV.

  19. Semi-detached houses averaged $1.57 million, down 19.5 per cent or $380,891 month-over-month and down 32.5 per cent or $754,260 year-over-year.

    Is that a lot?

  20. Melbourne woman Natalie moved into her Bayside house in October last year, with more than 100 defects awaiting action.

    If I found 100 defects in my rental shack, I’d just move someplace else. Must be great peace of mind settling into a defect-ridden house for which you massively overpaid.

    1. Sounds like my rental shack, though probably not 100. Inspection scheduled with the new property manager on the 28th, joy. I’m at the point that IDGAF 😊

      Nine months left on the lease.

        1. I haven’t listened to that in decades so all I remembered was the 25 miles to go not the “I got a woman waiting for me” sorry.

          If I knew how to put one of those blushing face emojis it would be here.

          1. Thanks for posting that. It’s been a long time. I used to hitch 300 miles back east on weekends to see my sweetheart when that song was playing in 1970.

  21. So it turns out white males are refusing to enlist or re-enlist in our “woke”, feminized Armed Forces where they can expect to be systematically marginalized, discriminated against, labeled “domestic extremists,” and expected to take orders from officers selected on the basis of “inclusivity” and “diversity” instead of merit. Wait until the Brandon regime & its globalist puppetmasters realize too late that the petrodollar’s long reign as world reserve currency was predicated on US military might, and neocon wars become a recipe for disaster when you’ve driven out your most capable and dedicated warriors.

    https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2023-02-23/army-recruiting-soldiers-enlistment-9233311.html

      2. I suspect that there are plenty of white males who have their eyes on the 20 year mark (pension earned) who will hang on until then.

    2. It’s like reliving the Carter years, only worse. Plus Carter was a single termer, he was run out by voters because of his ineptitude. I fear that they could put Joetato in a wheelchair and never have him speak and they would “win” in 2024.

      1. Yep this guy will win again even in a wheelchair. If things are so bad, they may ‘lose’ once in a while to guy like Romney or GW, but real ‘change’ candidate will never happen in Amerikka. Those days are over.

        1. Posted a few times before. Elections have been a sham for decades and really became efficient when computerized. (I remember talk of vote fraud in the NYC news in the 70s.) Before then, they used other means (duh).

          Vote Scam – The Stealing of America’s Elections
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oA4nDuuBOg

  22. ‘I came in low on plenty of deals because the values just weren’t there. People were willing to pay more than the property was worth—and that’s their choice,’ Carter said. But those higher sales prices then become the comparables for subsequent appraisals. ‘The inflated sales price becomes the fact,’ Carter said. ‘That’s … how that whole thing went so rapidly out of control’

    It would appear there was a hole in the sound lending! one could drive a nation through.

    1. Notable people discussed: Pierre Omidyar (eBay founder and The Intercept funder), Peter Thiel, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.

      1. Wouldn’t be surprised in the least. I made a comment about Russell Brand (are everybody’s posts taking a long time to get out of moderation? Is that a WP thing?) that hasn’t shown up yet.

    1. Is there evidence it _was_ a hate crime? That folks were targeted because they’re christian or straight/white/etc?

      I don’t condone the violence at all (and live in the area), but I also am not a fan of “gotcha” sound bytes either.

  25. ‘Let Us In!’ – Watch: Troopers Block Protesters at TN State Capitol Ahead of Vote to Expel Dems

    BREITBART NEWS
    6 Apr 2023

    Protesters stormed the Tennessee state capitol in Nashville on Thursday ahead of a vote to expel three Democrat lawmakers accused of leading a gun control protest on the House floor last week, disrupting the session.

    In video captured by Odessa Kelly, Tennessee Highway Patrol officers can be seen holding the line against an angry crowd, blocking the entrance to a stairway.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/06/let-us-in-watch-troopers-block-protesters-at-tn-state-capitol-ahead-of-vote-to-expel-dems/

    1. This was all over WTOP news radio today. The reports are all implying that the legislators were tossed out because they were black.

      1. They really want people to take the bait. Expect a lot of “mostly peaceful protests” this summer, along with pallets of bricks mysteriously appearing on sidewalks at key locations.

      1. Banks are in turmoil but a bigger financial crisis may be brewing elsewhere
        By Anna Cooban, CNN
        Updated 12:03 PM EDT, Thu April 6, 2023

        London CNN —

        The International Monetary Fund warned this week of “vulnerabilities” among so-called non-bank financial institutions, saying global financial stability could hinge on their resilience. The Bank of England called attention to the same issue last month.

        And global investors surveyed by Bank of America in the middle of the recent banking crisis pointed to a group of US non-banks — rather than traditional lenders such as the newly defunct Silicon Valley Bank — as the most likely source of a credit crisis.

        But what exactly are non-banks and how risky are they?

        The term encompasses financial firms, other than banks, that provide all manner of financial services, including lending to households and businesses. It’s a diverse cast list: non-banks range from pension funds and insurers, to mutual funds and high-risk hedge funds.

        And the sector is big. According to the Financial Stability Board (FSB), a body of global regulators and government officials, non-banks had about $239 trillion on their books in 2021, accounting for just under half of the world’s total financial assets.

        The sector has grown strongly since the global financial crisis in 2008, with its asset base expanding by 7% a year on average, according to FSB data.

        As interest rates hit rock-bottom in the years that followed the crisis, many savers and investors turned to non-banks in search of higher returns. Meanwhile, as regulators placed more restrictions on bank lending, certain types of borrowers, such as riskier consumers, increasingly sought out non-banks for finance.

        Non-banks that provide credit are known as “shadow banks,” although the term is often used imprecisely to mean all non-banks. It is this type of institution that is worrying the investors polled by Bank of America.
        …
        https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/business/non-banks-shadow-banks-risks-explainer/index.html

      2. The Financial Times
        Opinion Property sector
        Shadow banks could yet cause trouble
        Concerns about commercial real estate will start to expose other vulnerabilities in the financial system
        Rana Foroohar April 2 2023

        If you asked a few months ago where the next financial crisis might emanate from, most people probably wouldn’t have said regional banking. Rather, they might have guessed at the shadow banking sector, which has grown dramatically since the global financial crisis of 2008. It remains far less regulated than the traditional banking sector.

        When the pandemic hit, non-banks such as hedge funds and open-ended money market funds pulled out of key credit markets, forcing governments to intervene to stabilise things. As Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said in a speech last week, “Put simply, the Covid shock reaffirmed the significance of structural vulnerabilities in non-banks.” Yellen pointed out a number of ways in which US regulators are trying to better monitor hedge fund leverage and address liquidity mismatches in open-ended funds and money markets. These can, when under pressure, “break the buck”, leaving small investors with big losses.

        It’s good that policymakers are focusing on shadow banks, because I’d still bet that this is where the real nexus of risk in 2023 and beyond will lie.
        …

    2. “Are concerns contained over runs on US bank deposits?”

      They are for Gavin Newsom.

      California Gov. Gavin Newsom failed to publicly disclose his SVB ties while lobbying for a bailout

      Mattathias Schwartz Mar 14, 2023, 3:02 PM

      California Gov. Gavin Newsom lobbied the White House and the Department of the Treasury about the pending bailout of Silicon Valley Bank, even as three of his private wineries had apparently been among the bank’s clients, according to a Tuesday report by Ken Klippenstein of the Intercept.

      According to Klippenstein’s reporting, Newsom’s personal relationship with SVB went beyond the wineries. One anonymous former employee who handled Newsom’s finances told Klippenstein that Newsom “maintained personal accounts at SVB for years.”

      https://www.businessinsider.com/gavin-newsom-svb-biden-silicon-valley-bank-wineries-bailout-lobbying-2023-3

  28. Have you recently found yourself on the phone going around in circles with AI bots who don’t know sh!t and won’t provide access to a human being who could answer your question im 30 seconds?

    Just thinknof the cost savings to the company while your time is wasted and your blood pressure rises.

    1. Ideas
      Technology
      Pausing AI Developments Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down
      Illustration for TIME by Lon Tweeten
      By Eliezer Yudkowsky
      March 29, 2023 6:01 PM EDT
      Yudkowsky is a decision theorist from the U.S. and leads research at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He’s been working on aligning Artificial General Intelligence since 2001 and is widely regarded as a founder of the field.

      An open letter published today calls for “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”

      This 6-month moratorium would be better than no moratorium. I have respect for everyone who stepped up and signed it. It’s an improvement on the margin.

      I refrained from signing because I think the letter is understating the seriousness of the situation and asking for too little to solve it.
      …
      https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/

    1. American Bolshevism. We need to excise these Marxists who are a cancer in our constitutional republic.

Comments are closed.