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A Wide Swath Of Once-High-Flyers Are Looking More Like The Walking Near-Dead

A report from the Marin Independent Journal in California. “The median price for a detached home in Marin County wobbled to $1.7 million last month, about the same level it was six months ago and about 20% lower than the prior year. The figure is based on the latest data released by the county’s assessor’s office. The median price in April 2022 was $2.12 million, a peak for the county before the monthly figure fell as low as $1.5 million. ‘We’re still seeing a lack of inventory,’ said Arun Burrell, a 20-year agent whose office is in San Rafael.”

“Around the Bay Area, the median price for a single-family home last month was $1.25 million, a 17% decline from the prior April, the California Association of Realtors reported Thursday. Year-over-year sales volume declined nearly 39%. Other median prices in the region last month included $1.59 million in San Francisco, a 23% decline over the prior April, and $840,000 in Sonoma County, a 3.4% decline from the year before, the association said. Statewide, the median home price last month was $815,340, a year-over-year decline of about 8%. The number of sales fell 36% over the prior year.”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “Downtown San Francisco is in distress. Indicators of urban well-being point in the wrong direction: office occupancy, BART ridership and retail foot traffic are down, as is the city’s population. Every week brings news of another high-profile exit. Now barely a day passes without the San Francisco Chronicle or another publication referencing a ‘doom loop‘ in the city. Like most people who had a good run for too long, San Francisco didn’t see it coming.”

“Technology, the force that propelled San Francisco to the top, also carried the germs of its doom. At the start of the pandemic, tech stocks had been boosted by remote work tools. But when the shutdowns finally ended, they tanked, dragging down everything else — much as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank helped trigger the death spiral that shook confidence in and ultimately took down First Republic. As the seemingly infinite IPO cash tsunami receded, it revealed the city’s less sightly realities that accumulated during the tech boom: homelessness, addiction, deficient public services. The pandemic didn’t help. Yet it didn’t cause the city’s current plight — it merely accelerated existing problems. Now that the tech bubble has burst, the costs are being borne by the rest of us.”

The Telegraph. “Simon Mitchell’s office in Union Square, New York City has had an eerily empty feel since the Covid pandemic. With four in five desks unused in a space with capacity for 300, the marketing manager only goes in when he feels like he might have some company. Union Square was once known for its bustling bars and restaurants, into which office workers would swarm as they enjoyed their fast-paced city lives. The change in the area today is stark.”

“Mr Mitchell, his partner and their one-year-old baby moved to Queens just after the pandemic. He has no intention of returning to the office full time. ‘Rents are sky high and if you can avoid paying City prices on food and have a flexible lifestyle, why would you go into the office more?’ he says. Meanwhile, the level of workers returning to the office has plateaued at around 60pc, data from The Real Estate Board of New York shows. The consultancy group has warned of a coming wave of ‘zombie’ buildings rendered barely functional due to low vacancy rates. Some skyscrapers are already lifeless.”

“There is currently around 22.7 million sq ft of sublet space in New York, with this figure rising as companies look to shrink their office footprints. Agents note that the majority of companies releasing space are in the tech or media industries. According to JLL, around 25 million sq ft of office space in Manhattan alone has sat empty and on the market for more than 24 months.”

Bisnow Boston in Massachusetts. “The problems in Boston’s office sector keep getting worse, with no clear resolution in sight. As tenants continue to consolidate footprints in an effort to brace for more economic pain, top Boston commercial real estate executives told Bisnow they are worried about the future of the city’s office assets. ‘I’m very concerned,’ HYM Investments CEO Tom O’Brien, one of Boston’s largest commercial real estate owners, told Bisnow. ‘We’re in a very different place than we’ve ever been.'”

“In the first quarter, the city’s vacancy rate has matched that of the Great Financial Crisis over a decade ago at 18.8%, according to Colliers. Boston recorded 3.4M SF of negative net absorption during Q1, the fourth consecutive quarter of negative absorption, as more companies have put space back on the market. Cushman & Wakefield Executive Vice Chair John Boyle, a top broker in the firm’s Boston office, said the firm estimates that office demand is at least 50% down from its peak levels. ‘They’re well aware of the challenges that lie ahead,’ Boyle said of Boston’s office owners. ‘These people are very thoughtful, curious, smart people. And they don’t need me to say, ‘You better be careful,’ because they’re well aware of it.'”

“As more space sits vacant in Boston, landlords and city officials have been hit with the difficult challenge of what needs to be done to these buildings to attract people back into the city. The city has 17M SF of Class-B space with a 25.8% vacancy rate as of the first quarter, according to Colliers. Rents for these buildings also fell by 13%. ‘You have new towers, like the one where we’re delivering right now this year, that do well during times like this, but there are Class-B and C buildings, which really are not doing well,’ HYM’s O’Brien said. ‘We have literally millions of square feet of space that will be difficult to fill because of everything that’s happening in the market on all those fronts.'”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Andrew Graham didn’t know it yet, but the swift collapse of a bank 4,300 kilometres away in Santa Clara, Calif., was about to mess with his Toronto-based fintech, Borrowell Inc. The cash infusion wasn’t a matter of life or death; Borrowell was close to breaking even, putting it in much better shape than most startups. But the funding would provide a cushion of financial comfort during what was proving to be a prolonged tech downturn with no end in sight.”

“‘It was a punch to the gut’ and prompted Borrowell to scale back growth initiatives and lay off some staff, says Mr. Graham. He’s since talked to other founders who had recent financing deals fall apart late in the process – but few came as late as Borrowell’s. ‘I know we’re not alone out there.’ He’s right. He’s also one of the luckier ones.”

“And this is just the start of the Great Tech Shakeout. The next year will be a death zone for many young companies as ‘you’ll see a bunch of businesses shut down or sold for next to nothing,’ says Chad Bayne, co-chair of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP’s emerging and high-growth companies practice.”

“According to the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, the value of VC deals in Canada in the first quarter dropped 71 per cent year-over-year as deal volume fell by 24.3 per cent. And that decline still likely has a way to go. VC funding took 10 quarters to bottom out after the dot-com bubble burst more than two decades ago and nine quarters after the Great Recession of 2008-09. We’re five quarters into this downturn, and Crunchbase says global dollar volumes invested crashed by 59 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, to US$76-billion, compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.”

“So what does all this mean for Canada’s tech sector? It finally seemed to be on a sustained roll after significant retreats following the dot-com bust and Great Recession. Well, with the economy in no hurry to rebound, a wide swath of once-high-flyers are looking more like the walking near-dead. It’s a vastly different landscape than what existed 18 months ago, when giant investors such as Tiger Global and Softbank were aggressively throwing huge sums at young companies with relatively little forethought and cheering them on to spend, spend, spend.”

“In early 2022, Andrew McLeod, CEO of Certn (Canada) Inc., got a term sheet from one fund that told him, ‘You have 18 months to spend $150-million,’ he says. Victoria-based Certn operates an online background-check service. ‘There was no way we could efficiently spend $150-million in this business with our fundamentals in 18 months. I think there were certain founders that got caught in the unicorn trap.'”

“RenoRun CEO Eamonn O’Rourke was one of them. The Montreal-based startup ran an online delivery service for general contractors, and it was one of many backed by Tiger in Canada. From the time it received its first venture cheque right up to June, 2022, Mr. O’Rourke told The Globe in March, investors and board members kept telling him to grow faster. Then the downturn hit, starting with a steep drop in publicly traded tech stocks in late 2021. Soon after, it spread to private companies as interest rates rose and demand cooled. The ‘grow at all costs’ mantra went out of fashion quickly. Reaching profitability – or just plain surviving – was the new goal.”

“As companies sought to preserve cash, they laid off waves of employees – and the carnage has continued. So far in 2023, job losses in the sector have topped 197,000 globally, compared to 164,500-plus in all of 2022, according to Layoffs.fyi. A slew of Canadian tech companies have also made senior executive changes. It doesn’t matter that many of the companies seeking cash raised vast sums during the market peak of 2020-21. Many are finding it exceedingly difficult to find the capital they need at palatable terms, even if they’ve cut staff, squelched expansion plans and otherwise reined in their ambitions.”

“For some it’s too late. Ed Bryant, CEO of Ottawa-based Sampford Advisors, a midmarket tech-focused mergers and acquisitions advisory firm, says he’s turning away a growing number of small venture capital-backed companies with less than six months of cash that are looking to sell. ‘We feel quite strongly we can’t sell them – there’s too much risk for us to take,’ he says. ‘They don’t have options. There’s a lot of junk that no one wants to buy.'”

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This Post Has 106 Comments

  1. Even before CCP virus, I used to ask do you have thousands of money losing unicorns because you’re so smart, or because we’ve had the biggest phony money creation in human history? And then comes Jerry the destroyer, who printed up 40% more of the pesos that had ever existed! He wasn’t alone: every tin pot sh$thole around the world did the same thing.

    Inflation was the QE killer. Now these huge sh$thole cities that built up real estate fortunes around that phony money are getting their a$$e$$ kicked.

    ‘They’re well aware of the challenges that lie ahead,’ Boyle said of Boston’s office owners. ‘These people are very thoughtful, curious, smart people. And they don’t need me to say, ‘You better be careful,’ because they’re well aware of it’

    They are fooked John. And it ain’t coming back. Remember when you had county health ‘authorities’ telling millions of people what they could and couldn’t do? Well good luck putting humpty dumpty back together.

    1. “Respiratory virus”

      I like that phrase. Most people don’t read history (most people don’t read anything) but reflecting on the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, public reaction to it, and the available technology of the time, somehow the world didn’t actually end.

      Compare that with the Mass Formation Psychosis of the last three years, and the technology that largely enabled it.

      The future is only getting worse.

      1. And, when you dig deep into the Spanish flu, they had a mass vaccine program for the troops in US, that was causing this mass sickness. Also , people were taking globs of aspirin that was killing off people right and left.Than the Rockerfeller medical system started to try to pawn off their stupid vaccines on the general public at the time.
        But no, all that stuff I researched a long time ago when Covid first hit they have cleaned up and replaced with BS .
        That’s the first thing I researched when Covid first hit.
        And the evidence shows,( by them digging up frozen bodies from that time)) that it was pneumonia that was killing people, not not a virus..
        But , they want to control the narrative and Rockerfeller has got to be one of the most evil mother fuc*ers in history.And to think that devil Rockerfeller established modern day Medical Monopoly, where they want to force injections. Its outragous and clearly points to the old saying of money being the root of all evil.

        Just saying.

  2. ‘We feel quite strongly we can’t sell them – there’s too much risk for us to take,’ he says. ‘They don’t have options. There’s a lot of junk that no one wants to buy’

    Wework was really the best example of the a$$ pounding to come. Remember when the Softbank CEO (the master mind, said the media) met with the coke-head and told him, ‘grow 10 times bigger!’

    ‘You have 18 months to spend $150-million’

    1. Remember when the Softbank CEO (the master mind, said the media) met with the coke-head

      That coked out freak has an incredibly punchable face. I remember reading a story about how employees were only allowed to eat vegan on site, yet that aszwipe had Kobe beef in his office.

    2. I knew that WeWork was done-zo the moment they sent their own staff to work from home during the pandemic, thus negating their own business model.

      1. “…WeWork was done-zo…”

        WeWork will certainly go down as one of the biggest scams ever, with the possible exception of ‘Luxury Student Housing’.

  3. “Now barely a day passes without the San Francisco Chronicle or another publication referencing a ‘doom loop‘ in the city.

    From the top of the ‘doom loop‘ article.

    “Doom loop (noun) — A scenario in which one negative development causes another negative development, which then makes the first problem worse. A vicious cycle.”

    1. See also: Denver.

      They’re electing a new mayor soon. Nothing will change. Nothing will ever get better. Denver is headed in one direction only, and that is down the drain.

      “This sucker could go down” — George W. Bush

      1. They’re electing a new mayor soon.

        Much like Chicago, Dumver will likely end up with a new mayor who is worse than the old one. The exodus to the suburbs of businesses and people will only increase. And the city leadership will blame it on “raycism”. Our good friend,city council woman Candy CdeBaca has already announced that she wants to tax white owned businesses to subsidize black businesses.

        1. Darn white flight! Stick around and pay your fair share!

          Just kidding, all people with the means, regardless of skin, will continue to leave mismanaged cities.

          1. Texas announced yesterday that it is scheduling 19,000 more invaders to arrive in Denver soon.

            Change will come.

          2. The Dumver post is wailing that Dumver isn’t a sanctuary city. While technically correct, Colorado is a sanctuary state since 2019. They should dump the migrants right in front of the governor’s mansion.

            Funny thing, how when it actually starts costing money they yank the welcome mat.

          3. Funny thing, how when it actually starts costing money they yank the welcome mat.

            What, they don’t need more dishwashers?

        2. They’re not leaving Chicago for the suburbs, they’re leaving Illinois completely. The CME Group (commodities exchange) is threatening to leave IL, and McDonalds has hinted quite loudly that crime will make them leave. They are probably the next to go. Allstate just sold its corporate campus and operates on a short term lease in a non-name office building down the road. They hate Chicago and they hate the fat lard gov Pritzker, he thinks he’s gonna be the next progressive prez as he flushes Illinois to the toilets he removed from his million dollar mansion for the tax breaks. It’s bad here, really really bad. All those migrants TX gov Abbott is sending by the bus load are living in the lobbies of police stations. Lice and other diseases are rampant. Look it up, it’s completely collapsing here.

          2. Remind me, how many of Illinois’ governors have ended up in federal prison in the last 20 years?

            The people there keep voting for horrible leaders. It’s no surprise things keep getting worse

          3. The people there keep voting for horrible leaders.

            Have you been paying attention the last 7+ years?!

          4. Have you been paying attention the last 7+ years?!

            To what exactly? I have family in IL (and grew up there) so yes, to a degree, but I’m unclear what point you’re trying to make??

    1. What was the original name of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?”

      Holy Georgia Guidestones!

      1. And to think that millions rolled up their sleeves because this ghoul told them to do so.

    2. The billionaires want the entire planet and all its resources to themselves. They would love nothing more than to see a mass die off of 90% of the world. Ironically, they would no longer enjoy the luxuries they do right now.

      1. If they were to make the culling a slow one, save over decades and targeting people they deem “useless”, I think they could keep their creature comforts. A rapid depopulation would wreak havoc and the lights would go out.

        2. “the lights would go out”

          Electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians are the only people stopping this country from reverting to the year 1880.

          Sure would be a shame if we all just decided to stop working and let it burn…

      2. They think the robots are going to be their new slaves.
        But, I have found that they truly think the resources of earth are for them, and they are all a bunch of a creepy depopulation cult.

        1. They think the robots are going to be their new slaves.
          Can robots maintain and run tractors and tend fields? Can robots run a mining operation? Can robots operate a drilling rig in the middle of the ocean? Can robots do ANYTHING without some human first setting everything up and PROGRAMMING the robots.

          AI and robots are the new “buzz word” that people are being led off the cliff with. People are so gullible. First, the masses believed in the “Globull Warming” god. Then it was the Covid-19 scam. Now it’s AI and robots.

          How exactly is Bill Gates going to get all of that gourmet food that he eats into his frig? Blue fin tuna. Wagyu beef. Last time I looked, tuna fishing boats sure relied on a lot human beings. Our mechanized modern world would literally stop operating without people who do the work to keep things running. AI is a scam.

          1. That aren’t going to kill everyone, but it is possible that AI is another scam in terms of them not being as advanced as you would think.
            But as far as these people who think they rule the earth goes, who says they don’t have a bunch of blind spots as to their sinister plans. That’s what makes these creeps dangerous.

          2. AI and robots are the new “buzz word” that people are being led off the cliff with.

            Agreed. I found it awfully coincidental that this scam began just as the previous one completely ran out of gas.

          3. Still waiting on a robot that can: replace a breaker in a 40 year old panel, identify a loose neutral as the source of the problem and locate that loose neutral, circuit trace an entire commercial space where nothing is labeled or identified, determine when to use a fish steel or jetline or true tape or mule tap or an existing wire in a conduit to pull in new wire, set up a chain hoist in a room with a doorway smaller than the width of the chain hoist to install a transformer, et cetera.

            Still waiting…

          4. Still waiting…

            Seems to me that as we have more and more computers, it takes more and more people to make, manage and maintain them, not less. Let me know when that changes.

          5. Let me know when that changes.

            That is supposed to be the whole selling point with “the cloud”, whether SaaS, IaaS or PaaS. FWIW, mission critical systems are rarely run on the cloud. If anything, on prem is making a come back.

      3. Honestly, I could do without 90% of the general populace as well. People suck these days

        1. Of course he was, he was plowing a young gal his daughter’s age with a tight little body while his wife’s unclothed lower half probably looks like she sat on a grenade. But Bill’s wife was actually the correct match for his bloated body with negative muscle tone.

  5. A reader sent these in:

    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CEOs of large banks more bank mergers may be necessary at a Thursday meeting

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1659579454065192960

    3 years ago: 30-yr mortgage rate was 3.24% & median existing home price in the US was $284k. Today: 30-yr mortgage rate is 6.39% & median home price is $389k. Result: $21k increase in down payment (assuming 20% down) and 97% increase in monthly payment (from $987 to $1,944).

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1659255894851428378

    The mortgage payment needed to buy the median priced home for sale in the US has moved up to $2,573, a new all-time high.

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1659544507107495937

    Stumbled across this month-old article. I about choked when I read this “@ConsumerReports recommends putting down as much as you can afford. A good rule of thumb is 25% down w/a 4-year loan and keeping all car-related expenses to < =10% of your income.” https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1659754757727088644

    SF real estate prices, both commercial and residential must be in death spiral. This should impact all across Silicon Valley. The housing prices there have been out of control for 50 years at least. This should also impact wages for tech workers in the whole region.

    https://twitter.com/langwiser/status/1659663136205438978

    Remember, your home is only worth what someone else is willing and ABLE to pay. Your house that was worth $462,107.54 at 2.7% mortgage rates is worth $280,898.82 at 7% mortgage rates.

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1660066002363912192

    Home prices are a slow moving lagging indicator with the average downturn lasting 33-70 months. We’re in month 12.

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1660035530351083520

    BREAKING: Hundreds of tenants SHUT DOWN the Brooklyn Bridge because the rent is TOO DAMN HIGH!

    https://twitter.com/housing4allNY/status/1659971363258392576

    Bernie Sanders doubled his income last year by writing a best-selling book that condemns capitalism, per BI.

    https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1660012768676958208

    I think, globally, that rents may have been a bigger bubble than home prices

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1660022943223562243

    Friendly reminder that home prices generally bottom after the recession, not before it. Premature to be calling for a bottom in the housing market until we see the extent of the coming recession & rise in unemployment.

    https://twitter.com/dfwaaronlayman/status/1660009092478300160

    Funky things happen when mortgage rates double. Funky things like the “28% rule,” what lenders historically would say is how much income they wanted you to spend on housing, being in total misalignment with the cost of a home purchase at these exorbitant prices. Funky things.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1659943059218644993

    chinese man hangs onto his ex-wife’s car as she drives 70mph down the highway during rainy weather

    https://twitter.com/clipsthatgohard/status/1659637083038957568

    Watching new agents who got into the business to “be their own boss and make easy money.”

    https://twitter.com/TheBrokeAgent/status/1659946420991070215

    Remember in 2012 where the corpos bought up all the distressed housing? Now they own the distressed housing

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1659954090137497602

    I guess a bike with an iPad isn’t a good business after all $PTON

    https://twitter.com/UncommonYield/status/1659735219329540096

    Every cycle: “Not offering risky loans is racist! People need homes!”
    “We have to bail people out of horrible risky loans or its racist!”

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1659933865048420354

    China’s grand plan for winning international influence: 1. Launch money at other countries out of a T-shirt cannon. 2. Hahaha you thought that was a gift? It was a LOAN, now pay us back suckers.

    https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1659781196426137601

    San Antonio home sales down 13% in April. Overall prices down 4% from a year ago. Existing home prices slid 8%, while new home prices were up 7%. Most Texas metro markets will see a 3rd or 4th consecutive month of falling YoY prices in May.

    https://twitter.com/dfwaaronlayman/status/1659752384262701056

    Realtors are quitting.

    https://twitter.com/marty_McFlyyer/status/1659786871134732288

    Uber struggling to sublease 350,000 Square Feet of office space in Dallas, TX.

    https://twitter.com/akm515/status/1659732157189767170

    I did this a few months ago. Googled old articles from the time period. Insane how mainstream completely got the housing bubble wrong. Same people giving advice and taken seriously today.

    https://twitter.com/KevinTartis/status/1659728442009563136

    1. https://twitter.com/encorebubble/status/1660141379803283456?cxt=HHwWgIDQwcDygIouAAAA:

      Median home price in San Diego is 860k right now. Rates are at 6.9%.

      After a 10% down payment, the mortgage payment + taxes etc is $6000/mo or $72k a year.

      That’s 81% of median household income (89k) in San Diego. That’s a hell of a DTI.

      https://twitter.com/encorebubble/status/1660147659544592385:

      To get that DTI under 36% (if you have no other debt) you need 200k household income.

      1. After a 10% down payment, the mortgage payment + taxes etc is $6000/mo or $72k a year.

        Just thinking about that makes my skin crawl.

      1. @6:02
        “…real home prices were more stable in the four decades from 1960 through 2000 before taking on what can only be described as boom bust type growth rising 75% from 1997 through 2006 and rising 78% from 2012 through 2022.”

        Nice data presentation.

    3. Realtors are quitting.

      Good thing they have marketable skills to fall back on, right? Right?

  6. Former co-worker I know told his wife this week that he wants a divorce. She starts crying and the next day when he comes home from work there’s a note saying she took the dogs and is staying at her parents.

    Age 31 years old. Neither of them can afford to keep the house alone on one income. This is in the north Denver suburbs.

    Sad to hear because this is personal, but when you think about, this is probably playing out, or about to play out with, millions and millions of marriages that are doomed.

    Best thing they have going for them is that they didn’t breed.

      1. My co-worker said that too.

        I mentioned the recently hired hottie on the other side of the building who had, “that look.” He said, “I can live on half, but not a quarter.”

      1. 100% safe and effective?

        Where are we now? Thirty eight months into “two weeks to flatten the curve” has been a pretty long two weeks.

        Don’t forget about that pesky $4 trillion of wealth transferred from the middle class and working class to the billionaires. Sounds like a “we’re all in this together” kind of thing.

        #GetBoosted

        1. Don’t forget the $5 trillion in “stimulus” the Fed created out of thin air, stealing value from every honestly earned dollar in existence & further juicing Housing Bubble 2.0.

          1. “Randi Weingarten (born December 18, 1957)[1] is an American labor leader, attorney, and educator. She is president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and a member of the AFL–CIO. She is the former president of the United Federation of Teachers.” —wiki

            This pesky joo is ideally positioned where she can edit the books and educational material that young Americans are exposed to in school. It’s no accident.

    2. Had you walk in specific directions and stand on specific spots in grocery stores

      I ignored those from day 1.

      1. I had a couple people attack me because I was 4 feet away instead of 6 feet. . They just made that shit up.
        I was careful the first two months just in case, and I even wore gloves at first..
        Than it dawned on me for reasons that the whole thing was a big con job..

      2. “Had you walk in specific directions and stand on specific spots in grocery stores…”

        I was chastised at a Fred Meyer in Oregon for walking the wrong direction down a virtually empty aisle

        1. Many people were genuinely frightened when someone wasn’t playing Simon Says properly.

  9. US home prices could tumble nearly 20% and Fed economists warn further rate hikes risk an even worse housing correction: ‘The bubble hypothesis merits attention’
    Phil Rosen
    Feb 28, 2023, 9:56 AM PST
    homes
    Phillip Spears/Getty Images

    – Dallas Fed economists warned of a 19.5% housing market correction in a Tuesday research report.

    – In their view, given the steep growth of price-to-rent ratios, among other factors, “the bubble hypothesis merits attention.”

    – “The possibility of a domino effect, where investors pull out of international housing seeking safety and liquidity elsewhere, also raises concerns of spillovers beyond Germany or the US to the global economy.”
    …
    https://news.yahoo.com/feds-own-economists-warning-19-112000740.html

  11. Bloomberg
    Markets
    Wall Street Fears $1 Trillion Aftershock From Debt Deal
    – Resolution would spur Treasury to replenish coffers via bills
    – Move could drain liquidity from system, hurting riskier assets
    – Biden ‘Confident’ a Debt Deal Will be Reached
    By Liz McCormick and Alex Harris
    May 18, 2023 at 3:00 AM PDT
    Updated on May 18, 2023 at 9:48 AM PDT

    Looming behind market fears over the prospect of a historic US default is the less-discussed risk of what would follow a deal to resolve the debt-ceiling impasse.
    …
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-18/a-1-trillion-t-bill-deluge-is-painful-risk-of-a-debt-limit-deal#xj4y7vzkg

    1. Plenty of money for Ukrainistan (and Israel). This whole debt ceiling “debate” is a joke.

  12. ‘I’m very concerned,’ HYM Investments CEO Tom O’Brien, one of Boston’s largest commercial real estate owners, told Bisnow. ‘We’re in a very different place than we’ve ever been.’”

    Pray tell, Tom: how exactly did Boston arrive at this place it’s at now? And what’s the tipping point where the loss of Yellen Bux CRE valuations starts showing up in mark-to-market accounting and collateral “adjustments”?

  13. “In the first quarter, the city’s vacancy rate has matched that of the Great Financial Crisis over a decade ago at 18.8%, according to Colliers.

    I keep reading data indicating we’re at GFC levels of economic decline, but Old Yellen assured us in 2017 that there would be no new financial crisis “in our time.” One of these things is not like the other.

    1. I keep reading data indicating we’re at GFC levels of economic decline

      Things are just warming up right now. Traffic is insane and people are out and about like nothing is wrong.

      I remember well when the tide went out back then. The streets and shops emptied out like there was a massive drop in population. Nobody was buying anything. I saw trucks with “for sale” signs all over town, with no buyer unless they cut the price to levels unheard of.

      I remember talking to a used car dealer who moved into consignment sales instead of buying at auction. He laughed and told me of a guy who had a Porsche 911 that was losing thousands of dollars a week in value.

      I think peoples’ memories are short and they have forgotten how bad things were. Where we are now makes that first bubble spike look like a small warm-up.

      1. Traffic is insane and people are out and about like nothing is wrong.

        An interesting sign I am seeing are long lines at the warehouse club gas station, which is about 25 cents cheaper per gallon. Saving $4-6 on a fillup seems to be worth the wait to a lot of people.

        Other signs I see: shorter to zero lines at drive thrus. The local Safeway, which is pricier than Kings (Kroger) and WalMart is never crowded.

        People are out and about, but they are clearly keeping their wallets shut, at least around here.

    2. It’s definitely a conundrum. 🤔 We hear about full restaurants and overbooked flights; and at the same time people are all maxing their credit cards. The technical indicators are all blaring Recession, and yet people have no problems finding jobs. People have no problems finding jobs, and yet on food bank day the line of cars blocks the right lane.

      I’m still confused. I can only think that it’s like the ocean receding before the tsunami hits.

      2. don’t be. they have been conditioned to believe that as soon as they run out of money, the government will sent them stimulus checks. lots and lots of free money to bail out the economy. all they need to do is spend, spend, spend…

      4. The technical indicators are all blaring Recession, and yet people have no problems finding jobs.

        I went from a dozen recruiters reach out per month to maybe one.

        Total job listings in my field are clearly down. It is easy enough to get a sub-$70k job, but that is a poverty wage in most of America nowadays IMO, especially if you want a spouse, kids, etc.

  14. We’re five quarters into this downturn, and Crunchbase says global dollar volumes invested crashed by 59 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, to US$76-billion, compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.”

    It was only Yellen Bux.

  15. I think there were certain founders that got caught in the unicorn trap.’”

    Alas, I was 18 months too late bringing my vegan cat food startup to market.

  16. I’ve been following Lucky Lopez & his assessments of the new & used car markets. Dealers gouged customers during the scamdemic by charging thousands over MSRP – now the shoe is on the other foot as the ultra-easy credit of the COVID era has died up.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC0QIJbD268

    1. “…paying 12% interest rates to finance inventory…”

      The discount rate, which is what banks charge to buy used car loans from dealers, is also up considerably.

    1. “The rules have been changing so much,” Eminger said. “Before the pandemic I felt like I very much understood what I was required to do. I always felt very on top of it. Now it just feels like a completely moving target.”

      You’re educated Eminger, so you should be able to understand interest and principal portions of your payments. It’s time to trade your sandals, shorts and t-shirt for cubicle attire and bumper to bumper commuter traffic.

  23. MEDIA MOGULS CONFRONTED AND DINNER PARTY EXPOSED AT BILDERBERG 2023!!!

    First published at 05:09 UTC on May 21st, 2023.

    Zanny Minton Beddoes Editor-in-Chief of The Economist and Mathias Döpfner Chair and CEO, Axel Springer went on a stroll through the streets of Lisbon while on a break from the 69th annual Bilderberg conference and Dan Dicks was there to catch up with them for some questions regarding Bilderberg’s secrecy and Chatham House Rules.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/bnFvmIhMepz2/

  24. ‘And this is just the start of the Great Tech Shakeout. The next year will be a death zone for many young companies as ‘you’ll see a bunch of businesses shut down or sold for next to nothing’

    Maybe even yours Chad.

  25. ‘The ‘grow at all costs’ mantra went out of fashion quickly. Reaching profitability – or just plain surviving – was the new goal’

    Bargaining <- Eamonn you are here.

  26. “I don’t get it.”

    https://youtu.be/v2gCadq9xQM

    New York Magazine Admits Mass Immigration Is ‘Bad for Housing Prices’

    JOHN BINDER
    21 May 2023

    The admission from the left-wing publication comes as years of research has shown that the nation’s admission of more than a million legal immigrants annually, in addition to millions of illegal aliens, helps send housing prices surging for working- and middle-class Americans.

    “Yet one key sector in which immigrants drive higher demand is housing. People need homes,” New York Magazine writer Eric Levitz admitted.

    Rather than decreasing overall immigration levels, as most Americans want, Levitz argues that despite mass immigration being “bad for housing prices,” the U.S. ought to make mass immigration “work” by enriching real estate developers with a dismantling of local zoning laws and rapid construction of multi-family complexes in single-family neighborhoods.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/05/21/new-york-magazine-admits-mass-immigration-bad-housing-prices/

    1. …the U.S. ought to make mass immigration “work” by enriching real estate developers with a dismantling of local zoning laws and rapid construction of multi-family complexes in single-family neighborhoods.

      Sounds like Utah! The illegals and refugees get vouchers worth a thousand per month, the developers get to change established neighborhoods into transient rental areas with density, and prices skyrocket thanks to the subsidies. They flood more and more bodies into the state to keep the system churning.

    1. Default on the Debt?

      My understanding is that we have plenty of revenue to pay the necessary stuff (e.g., debt, Social Security, Medicare, defense). We don’t have enough revenue for the unnecessary stuff (e.g., the Marxist wish list). Like any household, it’s a matter of prioritization rather than getting a credit limit increased. The Biden administration has redefined a debt default to scare the public but at this point I don’t think the public believe them. Boy, wolf, you know.

      1. The Biden administration has redefined a debt default to scare the public but at this point I don’t think the public believe them.

        Can you believe those evil racist Republicans want work requirements for welfare? Come on, man!

      2. but at this point I don’t think the public believe them

        Mr. Market doesn’t seem too concerned. NASDAQ up 0.6%

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