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Mid-Year Housing Bubble Predictions

What are your mid-year housing bubble predictions? Six months ago: “US housing price declines will continue at an accelerating rate, as investment firms who used leverage to purchase real estate near peak mania levels recognize the need to offload inventories before incurring even more massive losses than they have already.”

Another said. “They’ll never get away with QE again. I think it’s been relegated to the dustbin of history. The damage was too great, too transparent, and the FED is taking enormous heat, even from virtue-signaling billionaires who benefited. Jay Powell has egg all over his face. These people have turned into a laughingstock.”

And another, “1. Inflation will come down to 4 to 5% and the Fed will throw in the towel that this is the best they can do.
2. No recession. With massive gobmit spending, the GDP will be made look positive.
3. Rate cuts will start in second half. We will end at 3% FFR with 4 to 5% inflation by Dec 31.
4. Housing will stabilize. Prices will start to climb in the fall.
5. Stonks, generally up 20% from today.
6. BTC back to 50K.
7. Hunter Biden will be not see a day in jail.
8. SBF will get a light sentence of 1 to 3 yrs.
9. Biden mental decline will be so severe that you will go without seeing him on TV for weeks or months.
10. Dems will lay the massive voter fraud ops for installing Gavin Newsome and his black/latino/trans female running mate as your next overlords.”

One year ago, “1. Fed stays on the interest rate escalator. They simply must. Countries (ruling classes to be more precise) can survive austerity/depressions, but massive inflation brings down governments. They will probably slow down the pace after summer but it will continue to rise. Also you can’t push on a string forever by pulling all this demand forward with 0% rates forever. Nobody invests in anything real. a. This comes as a massive surprise to BSD’s on wall street and some hedgie somewhere gets caught on the wrong side of a trade and some pretty massive dislocation happens. b. the Fed however lies about actually selling their useless MBS because nobody wants them and god forbid they actually get a fair value (cuz that too crashes everything) but they continue to run off 30year treasuries which of course brings up the long end. c. fuel prices are not going down, even with massive demand destruction. Which of course continues to fuel inflation and the recession/depression (4 quarters, which we’ll be at by Dec). Nobody is investing in new O&G production and refining when it can all be removed at the stroke of a pen. d. Lots of zombie/scam companies start to go under. This is a good thing but it’s going to be painful. Free money equals massive malinvestment. Expensive money removes those. 3. Housing prices make a massive dump in late summer but then slow their pace of falling as people freak and realize they are underwater and don’t want to/can’t sell. Housing prices are always sticky and it’s going to take time to go down. Nobody wants to lose 10 to 500k if they can. Plus if you get massively underwater (like in 2008) you just stop paying and it takes months to years for the banks to get off their butt and actually throw you out.”

The Marina Times in California. “Marcus Miller, MA, founder at HELM Real Estate is optimistic. He believes the fact that Google, Apple, and Meta are insisting that employees return to the office — if only for three days a week — means more people will return to San Francisco and the Bay Area’s urban centers. As a consequence, demand for housing will only increase. ‘Eventually, I know we’ll return to some level of normalcy, which means that San Francisco will recover from its current commercial vacancy and residential real estate deceleration issues,’ Miller said. ‘Demand for living in this world-class city will be restored, and the market will take off again — reaffirming real estate as the extraordinary finite commodity that it is when you live in a city surrounded on three sides by water.'”

Market Watch on California. “San Francisco’s reeling commercial real-estate market remains at risk of more falling ‘dominoes,’ according to Moody’s Analytics. Owners of San Francisco’s largest mall and two of its biggest hotels in June walked away from mortgages on their properties, putting the spotlight on a mountain of debt coming due in the city on office properties, where vacancy rates are at record highs and recent distressed sales paint a grim picture. A key concern is that ‘the city is in a bit of a snowball situation which is placing its needed critical mass in question,’ a Moody’s Analytics team led by Thomas LaSalvia, head of commercial real estate economics, wrote in a recent client note.”

The Union Tribune in California. “A group of seven downtown businesses has filed a claim against the city of San Diego, seeking $2.5 million in damages related to the deepening homeless crisis they say has decimated their livelihoods. The businesses want San Diego officials to clean out the encampments in their neighborhood or they will consider taking the city to court. In the claim, the businesses say their neighborhood has become ‘an open-air drug zone’ where ‘laws are violated with impunity’ and residents are subject to violence and property damage as property values have fallen.”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “For borrowers the Supreme Court ruling comes at a time of financial precarity as they struggle to make ends meet — especially in high cost regions such as Los Angeles and the Bay Area — with exorbitant rents and rising food and gas prices. The ruling adds intensifying pressure of their personal budget reckoning, with student loan repayments set to restart in October after a three-year pandemic reprieve. On Friday morning, Sadia Khan, 28, had tried to ignore any news about the ruling. A day earlier, she received a call from Berkeley about a missing payment. Now she is bracing for her return home, where she’ll sit down and figure out how much more she can cut. But she is running thin on options. A trip to the fair with her son this year now looks out of reach.”

“She had urged friends and former classmates to fill out an application for loan forgiveness. Now she feels guilty for giving them false hope. ‘I was getting so many people hyped for it and am now realizing, holy smokes, we’re screwed,’ she said.”

The Boston Globe in Massachusetts. “City leaders are clearly pushing hard to bring excitement back to Boston, to make it more family-friendly, to compensate for vacant offices and dark storefronts. They know they can’t let Boston become San Francisco, where many families, stores, and office workers have decamped for the suburbs. But the magnitude of the post-pandemic problem may be larger than we can yet imagine. And the solutions may have to be far more radical. What’s the problem? Taxes fund services, and Boston’s tax base is facing a serious threat.”

“While most of us think of the pandemic as a thing of the past, the changes wrought by COVID will take years to ripple through commercial real estate. ‘It’s a slow-motion dynamic,’ says Andrew Nelson, a real estate economist. ‘It takes a while to play out.’ Even if employers typically trim their space by only 10 or 20 percent, that will still be a huge hit to the market, Nelson warns. ‘The vacancy rate is basically the highest it’s ever been, and this is at a time when office employment [rates are] at a record. What’s going to happen when we finally have a recession or a slowdown? The pain is going to get worse,’ he argues. ‘There’s no question.'”

From Fox News. “Austin, Texas, is planning to revitalize its historic Sixth Street by amending building codes and making the area more family friendly. Attorney Richard Suttle, speaking on behalf of Stream Realty Partners, said the realty group is planning to revitalize the area and encourage new businesses. During the meeting, he offered a harsh assessment of what Sixth Street has become. ‘Sixth Street has become a real problem, and it’s in what I would call a ‘death spiral’ because you’re not going to get anybody in there,’ Suttle said, according to the Austin Monitor. ‘It has become a shooting gallery.'”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “When Olivia Chow moves into the mayor’s office in a couple of weeks, one of the biggest issues on her desk will be what to do about Toronto’s homeless encampments. Unruly collections of tents and tarps have sprung up in parks, ravines and underpasses around the city. There are a staggering 270 of them, twice as many as a year ago. They are not nice places to live in. Fires, overdoses and fights are common. They are not nice places to live near, either. Neighbours and passersby often complain about noise, garbage and discarded needles.”

“One of the most troublesome is just a few blocks from Ms. Chow’s downtown home. It stands in front of a historic Anglican church, Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields, on College Street in the city’s teeming Kensington Market neighbourhood. Staff at the Westside Montessori School down the block say that they often see people urinating, injecting drugs, fighting or screaming at each other. The school stocks special gloves for picking up the used needles they find.”

“Several times a week the teachers have to bring the kids in from the playground because something is going on in the street or back alley. A serious fire broke out in the camp this spring. Parents dropping their kids off at school come across people smoking from drug pipes right there on the sidewalk. The local city councillor, Dianne Saxe, says the disorder at the camp worsened dramatically earlier this year. ‘What we began to see was horrible, violent outbursts – crimes being committed, people being harassed, the children being frightened, teachers being chased. It’s just not something that we can continue to tolerate.'”

The Telegraph in the UK. “Top economists failed to predict the rate shock – yet many continue to blame millennial and Generation X families for not spotting the ticking time bomb on their mortgages. John Martin, a 46-year-old HGV driver from Long Stratton, said that his bill was about to more than double from £250 to £700 a month. ‘We had a very low deal at 1.5pc which we took out around five or six years ago,’ he said. ‘It was incredibly nerve racking watching the interest rates keep rising, and now we are looking at a deal of 4.25pc. I am the main earner of the house so it depends on me to pay for most of this,’ he added. ‘We had to extend our term by five years in order to afford it – food prices and energy prices have gone up so everything is stretched.'”

“House price to income ratios have rarely been so stretched. The average house price to income ratio was around 3.3 when most baby boomers bought their first homes, according to estimates from the wealth manager Quilter. That rose to 5 for Generation X and then to 6.7 for millennials. Before the pandemic, very few expected rates to climb up so soon – and so quickly – again. A Bloomberg magazine ran a cover story with a picture of a deflated dinosaur headlined ‘Is Inflation Dead?’ in 2019 – just two years before it rocketed to levels not seen in four decades.”

The Australian Associated Press. “At 3.30pm on Friday Ronald Brown learnt the company building his dream house had suddenly collapsed. Along with dozens of other anxious Bentley Homes customers, he started his weekend unsuccessfully trying to reach insurers and liquidators to determine the fate of the partially built homes. ‘Everything we have is in that house, it just breaks your spirit,’ Mr Brown told AAP.”

“He and his wife have paid close to $300,000 for their home in Doreen in Melbourne’s north but are now unsure if they will be able to move in as planned in September. The couple work five jobs between them and fear they will be unable to pay their rent and mortgage if there are any more delays. ‘It’s not like we can just take on more work because we’re already at capacity,’ Mr Brown said. ‘Our biggest concern at the moment is the financial stress and worry about how we’re going to continue paying for everything.’ Mr Brown visited his home under construction early on Saturday and contractors had already loaded materials onto trucks.”

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This Post Has 185 Comments

  1. ‘the businesses say their neighborhood has become ‘an open-air drug zone’ where ‘laws are violated with impunity’ and residents are subject to violence and property damage as property values have fallen’

    America’s finest sh$thole.

  2. ‘Before the pandemic, very few expected rates to climb up so soon – and so quickly – again. A Bloomberg magazine ran a cover story with a picture of a deflated dinosaur headlined ‘Is Inflation Dead?’ in 2019 – just two years before it rocketed to levels not seen in four decades’

    Food inflation was well underway in 2018. Jerry and the girls were still buying MBS years later.

    1. Food inflation was well underway in 2018. Jerry and the girls were still buying MBS years later

      In 2018, the housing bubble was already massive and starting to roll over in many areas. It’s eye-popping what they did to blow it even bigger.

      1. It was 2016 was when I noticed the speculators getting back in the market. They were buying new builds as rentals.

  4. City leaders are clearly pushing hard to bring excitement back to Boston, to make it more family-friendly, to compensate for vacant offices and dark storefronts. They know they can’t let Boston become San Francisco, where many families, stores, and office workers have decamped for the suburbs. But the magnitude of the post-pandemic problem may be larger than we can yet imagine. And the solutions may have to be far more radical. What’s the problem? Taxes fund services, and Boston’s tax base is facing a serious threat’

    ‘While most of us think of the pandemic as a thing of the past, the changes wrought by COVID will take years to ripple through commercial real estate’

    Remember all those discussions about the damages that would be done by locking down the global economy due to minor respiratory illness? Neither do I. Oh well, Boston’s fooked. Not my problem.

    1. “minor respiratory illness?”

      I love this phrase.

      We let them DESTROY the economy and the lives of hundreds of millions of people because of a phony illness with a 99.999998% survival rate.

      Never forgive. Never forget.

    3. As the song goes, Boston you’re my home. Friends in a tony suburb just sold their 1918 1570 sq ft house in 2 weeks for 1.25K…“over asking”. Neighbor of a friend on Cape Cod sold in 1-2 weeks for 1.265K, an 89% increase in 6 years. Zillow reports that house has increased in value a mere 37K since the sale on 6/16/23.

      Few “investors” in the housing cabal here think this sucker could go down. We are blessed to live in Pharma Central, the epicenter of Covid madness. Last night I had a lovely outdoor swim in the town 7 miles from Boston where aforementioned friends sold their 1918 home. Felt like a ghost town as folks split for “the Fawth of July”. I was drying off at sunset on the grassy beach in front of gazillion dollar homes, a few other humans lounging nearby, a peaceful scene. Then three (3) middle-aged people walked by, fully MASKED, sporting white KN95s in summery fashion. I stared at these zombies in a valiant attempt to shame their mentally ill behavior. Nope, they’re in the trance. “Well, maybe they’re immunocompromised!?!” the brainwashed covidians around here would say, leaping to the defense of anti-social nut jobs. All three? I doubt it and besides, You Can’t Effing Get Infected with a Virus Walking on a Deserted Street OUTSIDE, DUMMIES!” I wish I had yelled at them to read the latest Cochrane study.

      Eli Lilly is investing $700 million in the Institute for Genetic Medicine in the Seaport district slated for August 2024. What will be the focus? Duh, mRNA and that other thing, DNA! “…the investment is part of the company’s strategy to advance RNA based therapeutics.” Sorry, you conspiracy theorists, the future is mRNA…whether you like it or not! Roll your sleeves up, prepare for mandates or move to Florida. Here in Boston, we follow “The Science (Tm)” and we kneel at the altar of Lord Faux Chee!

  5. The World Economic Forum Praises CBDCs, Calls For “Public-Private Partnerships,” and Lists “Advancing Cashless Societies” As Motivations For The Tech

    by Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net
    July 1st 2023, 3:28 am

    The conference this week brought attention to the stark reality of physical money becoming a relic, as Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University professor, emphasized during his speech.

    Prasad enlightened the audience on the duality of CBDCs. He marveled at their potential benefits but also cautioned against the possible perils. One of the intriguing aspects of CBDCs, according to him, is their programmability. Governments could engineer these digital currencies with the ability to expire and to dictate what they can or cannot be used for.

    “We are at the cusp of physical currency essentially disappearing,” said Prasad, thereby underlining the gravity of the situation.

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/the-world-economic-forum-praises-cbdcs-calls-for-public-private-partnerships-and-lists-advancing-cashless-societies-as-motivations-for-the-tech/

    1. Remember, the World Economic Forum was never elected to govern anything. They have no legitimate authority over anything or anybody.

      The only good globalist is a dead globalist ☠️

    2. France might be the first western country to lop off the heads of bankers and politicians. This will put an end to the WEF.

      2. “France might be the first western country to lop off the heads of bankers and politicians.”

        Well, the first western county in “modern” times. Heads of state have been lopped off as long as there have been heads of state. In Later Rome it was practically an annual festival.

  6. Death Of U.S. Sovereignty: Biden Border Patrol Filmed Cutting Razor Wire Installed By Tx DPS, Aiding Illegals

    Disturbing footage shows a federal agent helping people enter America

    By Kelen McBreen | INFOWARS.COM Friday, June 30, 2023

    Footage posted to Twitter by Fox News reporter Bill Melugin Friday shows illegal immigrants near Eagle Pass, Texas entering the United States with the assistance of a U.S. Border Patrol agent who cut razor wire to help them break the law.

    https://www.newswars.com/death-of-u-s-sovereignty-biden-border-patrol-filmed-cutting-razor-wire-installed-by-tx-dps-aiding-illegals/

    1. They’re not migrants.

      It’s an INVASION, and yes, it is the Great Replacement that the Anti Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center (the self anointed language police) seem to think they have some kind of legitimate authority (they don’t) to forbid you from discussing.

    2. Y’all will believe anything. Any chance this is a stage? I could stage this in a hour to make retard Biden look bad. He already looks bad. See, we just had the worst 2 presidents back to back.

      1. July 01, 2023

        Border Patrol agent cutting razor wire to let in migrants
        Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez says this is the first they have seen of an incident like this and says it ‘undermines’ DPS’ ability to ‘secure the border.’

        https://www.foxnews.com/video/6330428185112

        1. with all due respect, those immigrants just got caught in the wires trying to brake through. the agent just helped them get out of it, and saved their lives. they’ll be processed and deported. it was the right thing to do. everything else is propaganda. letting those immigrants just die in the heat and the wires wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.

          2. those immigrants just got caught in the wires trying to brake through

            The video says you’re a lion.

  7. “Plus if you get massively underwater (like in 2008) you just stop paying and it takes months to years for the banks to get off their butt and actually throw you out.”

    Hey, I’ve already told some of my friends that if they can get a low to no down loan to go and buy a place and NEVER MAKE A PAYMENT. Using recent history, it’ll take likely years for the bank to throw them out. Last time around I advised many of my former clients (mortgage broker) to stop making payments and advise the bank you’ll take care of the place and not leave it abandoned. A lot of the folks I told this to got 4 to 5 years of no housing expense. And the math makes sense. Even if you put out 20 to 30k out for the small down and closing costs in 12 months you’ve made that up by paying nothing in monthly housing expenses. But some will say “what about my credit?”….Please! Most of the people who were foreclosed on last time around are currently loan-owners again. Those foreclosures of yesteryear didn’t hurt credit much at all, especially since all those foreclosure were “victims”…..remember that? Morally wrong? What does that even mean anymore? The way I see it this will only speed up the crash and expose the massively corrupt financial system we are mired in. So go buy a house, never make a payment, save all those payments for your down on a house at the bottom of the next cycle. Clown world indeed!

    1. In fact, if what has been said here about “you will own nothing” is true, why not stop paying on everything? I think of no better way to bring a debt based economy to its knees than to just stop paying on everything. Besides, the PTB have been encouraging that mindset for years now. It’s all about forgiveness, right? Forgive the student debt, forgive the PPP loans, mortgage forbearance,….you can go on and on. So everyone!!! JUST STOP PAYING!

    2. And while I’m in a mood to rant, let’s talk about $8 coffees. I travel for work and that puts me in a position to be most likely to hit the local barista. And I can definitely afford it. But I refuse on principle alone. I pack an aeropress and a thermos. Yesterday I see a dude in the drive through I’m passing with duct tape for a passenger side window in line for his morning frappe-something. What the……JUST STOP PAYING.

      1. I refuse on general principle to give my money to “woke” corporations that hate me & everything heritage America used to stand for.

      2. “The path to self enlightenment is to vanquish desire” or as you say ‘stop paying’. It is the ego that leads us to constantly want more but the man who wants for nothing is generally contented.

        This kind of philosophy is very dangerous to our hyper consumer society. I’m forwarding your rant to the disinformation committee for review.

    3. What about my credit indeed?

      The same POS who are 91Trillion+ in debt are the ones who have the nerve to give me a credit score.

      Hope this time we all stop paying. We know the banks, To woke to fail corporations, and every NGO/edumucayshun institution suckling at GovCos withered hind teat will get bailed out. Clown world has arrived. I want to say not my circus, not my clown, except that this circus is happening in my town.

  8. $149,900 2 bd 2 ba 768 sqft
    Price cut: $5K (6/30)
    2088 Del Rey Dr, Bullhead City, AZ 86442

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2088-Del-Rey-Dr-Bullhead-City-AZ-86442/8356022_zpid/

    Date Event Price
    6/30/2023 Price change $149,900-3.2% $195/sqft

    6/2/2023 Price change $154,900-1.9% $202/sqft

    5/13/2023 Price change $157,900-1.3% $206/sqft

    12/21/2022 Listed for sale $159,900 $208/sqft

    12/13/2022 Listing removed —

    11/9/2022 Price change $159,900-5.9% $208/sqft

    10/9/2022 Listed for sale $169,900+365.5% $221/sqft

    12/7/2019 Listing removed $725 $1/sqft

    11/14/2019 Listed for rent $725+20.8% $1/sqft

    11/7/2018 Listing removed $600 $1/sqft

    10/19/2018 Price change $600-7.7% $1/sqft
    S
    10/11/2018 Listed for rent $650 $1/sqft

    4/27/2018 Sold $36,500 $48/sqft

    3/16/2018 Price change $36,500-16.9% $48/sqft

    2/13/2018 Price change $43,900-10% $57/sqft

    1/10/2018 Listed for sale $48,800+33.4% $64/sqft

    12/20/2017 Sold $36,590+3.1% $48/sqft

    10/28/2011 Sold $35,500-7.8% $46/sqft

    8/18/2011 Price change $38,500-18.9% $50/sqft

    8/3/2011 Price change $47,500-13.6% $62/sqft

    5/25/2011 Listed for sale $55,000 $72/sqft

    1. “4/27/2018 Sold $36,500 $48/sqft
      …
      10/9/2022 Listed for sale $169,900+365.5% $221/sqft”

      Good luck with that markup.

    2. 2 bd 2 ba 768 sqft

      NYC in Bullhead plus he unbearable heat………middle of town? more like the middle of the trailer park and no bodega even close enough to walk to.

  9. LAKE WORTH BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — A man is accused of beating another man with an aluminum bat after he’s caught in an Airbnb with the man’s wife.

    by Gershon Harrell
    Fri, June 30th 2023, 6:02 PM EDT

    https://cw34.com/news/local/airbnb-john-dimmig-33-accused-of-beating-man-metal-bat-lake-worth-beach-palm-beach-county-sheriffs-office-florida-june-30-2023#:~:text=(CBS12)%20%E2%80%94%20A%20man%20is,weapon%20and%20burglary%20with%20battery.

    I’m guessing the wife visiting Airbnb Dude wasn’t an Allmen Brothers fan.

    One Way Out (Live At Fillmore East, June 27, 1971)

    https://youtu.be/d0En8iD2uVI

    2. The report says Dimmig’s wife pulled him off the victim. The victim said he remembers being told “Don’t ever go near my wife again.”

      Imagine your naked wife protecting the man she was having sex with from you. While I do not condone beating a man with a baseball bat, the image of the naked wife assisting the guy she was cheating with is just creepy. This guy needs a divorce STAT.

  10. Mid-year prediction:

    I will complete above ground demolition on the teardown house in Southern Colorado. I may or may not hire someone to come scoop out the pit and demo the damaged foundation, that might not happen until next year.

    Prediction for Denver: things there will only get worse. More homeless, more crime, more road rage. NOTHING will improve under Mayor-elect Johnston.

    Denver will not escape the “doom loop” that it voted upon itself.

    1. “Tommy Hilfiger’s ex-wife Susie has sold her gorgeous estate in Greenwich, Connecticut for $15 million – less than half the $40 million the 20-acre property was originally listed for.”

      Did she try selling for the Zestimate?

      1. The price history almost reads like the tale of a collapsing real estate bubble:

        Price history
        Date Event Price

        6/21/2023 Sold
        $15,000,000 -16.6% $1,124/sqft
        Source: Greenwich MLS, Inc. #112020

        1/30/2023 Price change $17,995,000 -10% $1,349/sqft
        Source: Greenwich MLS, Inc. #112020

        1/6/2023 Price change $19,999,000 +0% $1,499/sqft
        Source: Greenwich MLS, Inc. #112020

        7/11/2022 Price change $19,997,000 -27.3% $1,499/sqft
        Source: Greenwich MLS, Inc. #116392

        5/9/2022 Price change $27,500,000 -8.3% $2,061/sqft
        Source: Greenwich MLS, Inc. #112020

        8/12/2021 Price change $29,997,000 -25% $2,248/sqft
        Source: Greenwich MLS, Inc. #112020

        1/15/2021 Listed for sale $40,000,000 +33.3% $2,998/sqft
        Source: Sotheby’s International Realty #112020

        5/30/2020 Listing removed $30,000,000 $2,248/sqft
        Source: William Raveis Real Estate #106755

        5/28/2019 Listed for sale $30,000,000 +361.5% $2,248/sqft

    1. Business Insider
      The US could see inflation drop like a rock without hitting a recession, Bank of America says
      Jennifer Sor
      Fri, June 30, 2023 at 5:23 PM PDT·
      2 min read
      In this article:
      A man walks past shop signs showing offers. It’s an indicator of the rising cost of living.
      US inflation rose to 8.3% in the 12 months to April 2022.
      VIEW press / Contributor / Getty

      – The US could see a big drop in inflation without hitting a recession, Bank of America said.

      -;Strategists pointed to the inverted Treasury yield curve, the bond market’s notorious recession gauge.

      – But this time around, the indicator is signaling a hard landing for inflation, not for the economy.

      Inflation could be headed for a big drop, and prices could cool significantly without the US having to deal with a recession, according to Bank of America.

      Strategists pointed to the inverted 2-year and 10-year Treasury yield curve, the bond market’s notorious recession gauge that has successfully predicted numerous downturns, most recently in 1990, 2001, and 2008. When short-term yields rise above those of longer-term bonds, it has historically signaled investors believe a downturn is coming.

      The difference between the yields on the 2-year and the 10-year Treasury just steepened to a full percentage point last week, marking the steepest inversion in over 40 years.

      This time around, though, the indicator is more reflective of a hard landing coming for inflation, the bank said, and the US economy is still probably going to avoid a steep downturn.

      “While curve inversion hear historical extremes has garnered higher recession probabilities from models, we think curve shape is more a function of expectations for declining inflation than a deterioration in growth,” strategists said in a note on Thursday. “A look under the hood suggests that forward real rates do not price elevated recession risk and instead may reflect expectation for softer landing vs consensus.”
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-could-see-inflation-drop-002359113.html

    2. NPR
      Business
      What recession? Why stocks are surging despite warnings of doom and gloom
      July 1, 2023 6:00 AM ET
      David Gura
      Markets have rallied recently as the economy has proved sturdier than expected and as investors have latched onto artificial intelligence-related shares. Here, stock market numbers are displayed at the New York Stock Exchange on June 2.
      Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

      It has been a hell of a year so far. Three regional banks collapsed, the United States came close to defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history, and the Federal Reserve continued to hike interest rates aggressively.

      But despite all that, the stock market surged in the first half of the year. What gives?

      A lot has to do with the economy.

      Despite widespread expectations that the U.S. could be headed for a recession this year, the economy has proved a lot sturdier than many on Wall Street had forecast.
      …
      https://www.npr.org/2023/07/01/1185375741/ai-recession-inflation-interest-rates-economy-wall-street-stocks-rally

    3. A fund manager who’s beaten 99% of his peers over the last 5 years warns stocks face ‘destruction’ as hype around AI stocks lifts valuations to dot-com-bubble levels
      Source
      Insider Business

      Insider tells the global tech, finance, markets, media, healthcare, and strategy stories you want to know. But just about all of the index’s returns since January can be attributed to a few stocks. If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines of this rally, it can be tempting to jump in.

      But it’s best to ignore the animal spirits within you fueling the envy and fear of missing out, says Smead. Not chasing hot stocks has worked well for him over long timelines. For Smead, the signs are obvious that this is a speculative episode. Year-to-date, only seven stocks have driven basically the entirety of the S&P 500’s returns: Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and Alphabet.

      That means bad news for the broader index when the episode is over, he said. He compared the concentration in several stocks to other manias, like the “Nifty Fifty” era in the early 1970s, the dot-com bubble in 2000, and shares of RCA in 1929.

      In the note, Smead shared three charts that show “how late we are in this particularly long-lasting mania for tech stocks.”
      …
      https://headtopics.com/us/stock-market-crash-top-1-fund-manager-warns-destruction-coming-40791721

    4. The Inverted Yield Curve: What It Means and How to Navigate It
      June 27, 2023

      The 3-Month Treasury Bill’s rate of 5.50% is currently the highest among US treasuries as of June 2023. It was 0% at the beginning of last year.

      The 3-month rate is currently higher than the 3-year by 120 basis points. At the end of May, the 1-Month Treasury Bill eclipsed 6% for the first time ever, and was the first treasury instrument to do so since 2002.

      This is a situation known as an inverted yield curve. An inverted yield curve is when shorter-term notes pay higher effective yields than longer-term bonds. The yield curve is considered “normal” when longer-term bonds yield more than shorter-term ones.

      Much like your favorite (or most hated) theme park roller coaster, an inverted yield curve signals that the broader economy might be headed for some twists and turns. Yield curve inversions are regarded by many as warning signs of a recession, as they have consistently preceded US recessions. They also indicate uncertainty in equity markets.

      How much should you worry about this yield curve inversion? Is a recession coming? And if so, how soon? Who tends to be the winners and losers of an inverted yield curve?
      …
      https://get.ycharts.com/resources/blog/inverted-yield-curve-what-it-means-and-how-to-navigate-it/

    5. Financial Times
      Global inflation
      Bond fund giant Pimco prepares for ‘harder landing’ for global economy
      CIO Daniel Ivascyn says the market is ‘too confident in the quality of central bank decisions’
      Daniel Ivascyn, chief investment officer at Pimco, said: ‘This could be more of an old fashioned cycle that lingers for a few years with inflation high but policymakers don’t come to the rescue’
      Mary McDougall and Katie Martin in London 56 minutes ago

      The world’s largest active bond fund manager says markets are too optimistic about central banks’ ability to dodge a recession as they battle inflation in the US and Europe.

      Daniel Ivascyn, chief investment officer at Pimco, which manages $1.8tn of assets, said he was preparing for a “harder landing” than other investors while top central bank chiefs prepare to continue their campaign of interest rate rises.

      “The more tightening that people feel motivated to do, the more uncertainty around these lags and the greater risk to more extreme economic outlooks,” Ivascyn said in an interview with the Financial Times.
      …

  13. “Mid-Year Housing Bubble Predictions”

    \\

    – This seems to be a popular meme of late. There might be something to it…

    \\

    https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Clown%20World
    Clown World
    “The current state of global society: women are men, men are women, the schools teach propaganda instead of classes, left is right and right is left so basically, the reverse-world in steroids. You can see this effect in any collectivist movement like Fat acceptance, these people literally tell people that morbid obesity is healthy for example.”

    “Although there are the typical trolls that say that anything that isn´t right of Ronald Reagan is a leftist abnormal, this theory is becoming more and more true as the time passes, like, a big part of the youth believes that Communism is good and it will solve all of our problems and that dissolving the Police will end racism. If people don´t understand that they are being used as useful idiots for a leftist agenda by the big coorporations, civilization as we know it will cease to exist.”

    \\

    – So, in a nutshell. “This is fine.” “Everything is awesome!”

    1) Global residential real estate (RRE): It’s a big fat ugly bubble.
    2) U.S. RRE: It’s also a big fat ugly bubble; a microcosm of the global one. The U.S. central bank, the Fed, is doing stealth QE already. There are many components of liquidity and stimulus: RRP, BTFP, TGA, Fed acct. losses, GSEs, etc. In a normal world, asset bubbles always burst. The Fed is trying to prevent the collapse of “The Everything Bubble” that they purposefully inflated. If it bursts, then we have some amount of deflation and falling prices. Deflation is kryponite to the Fed. They want to steal your $ via inflation. We’ll see what wins out here. In any case, the outcome won’t be nice. U.S. commercial real estate (CRE), is currently a smoldering dumpster fire that everyone is ignoring. This should turn out OK. /s
    3) Central banks are out of control and are, along with complicit governments, the direct cause of asset bubbles via easy (fiat) money.
    4) Governments are swinging left and embracing Socialism and the globalist agenda.
    5) The Great Reset involves continued wealth transfer from everyone else to the elite class. The end game here is CBDCs. Think 666 and you won’t be far wrong. The collapse of “The Everything Bubble,” ushers in the New World Order.
    7) Of course I could be wrong (hope so). Have a nice day 🙂

  14. “While most of us think of the pandemic as a thing of the past, the changes wrought by COVID will take years to ripple through commercial real estate. ‘It’s a slow-motion dynamic,’ says Andrew Nelson, a real estate economist.

    Stop lying, Andrew. The “changes” weren’t due to COVID – they were due to the orchestrated totalitarian response to it by the globalist scum & their feckless hirelings.

    1. LMAO – you can hear the shouts of “traitor!” all during his lame attempt at a stump speech. Is the Republican base finally riled enough at the endless betrayals by the RINO globalist scum that they’re ready to throw the bums out?

        1. He’s been selling the people of that county down the river for as long as he’s been in the Senate. Maybe they’re finally noticing.

      3. Love the MILF sitting behind Sen. Graham who’s especially passionate & vocal about her disapproval for this loathsome Swamp Creature.

    1. As long as the Keynesian fraudsters at the Fed control our money issuance, inflation is going to outstrip wages and our purchasing power & standard of living will continue to be destroyed. At some point, though, we’re going to reach a tipping point where the “cost of living crisis” – in reality a cost of oligarchy crisis – triggers social unrest. Despite the MSM’s journalistic omertà when it comes to the Fed, even the dullest of the sheeple are eventually going to make the connection between the Fed’s currency debasement & their own dire economic straits.

      1. They know the guillotines will come out and that is why they are pulling all these stunts with the scamdemic, Ukraine, transformers, etc

        Keep the dumbed down masses fighting each other so they don’t notice they’re being robbed blind.

    2. It’s all such a dishonest discussion since inflation is what they exist to do and of course they do it at everyone’s expense. All main stream media on this topic is simply obfuscation of the real issue and not worth reading.

      Overall, inflation is guaranteed to continue. However, every so often it is convenient to deflate some debts. Sweep a whole bunch of troublesome deals under the rug and then start the next cycle. It is important to understand the cycle if you want to actually own real property as an average person with an average income.

      If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered. There is nothing new under the sun.

  17. China Has 400 Million Mortgage Slaves, With 8% Ending Up With Unfinished Properties
    China Observer
    Premiered 90 minutes ago
    In July 2022, the story of a young couple from Zhengzhou, Henan, who bought an unfinished apartment, went viral online. They documented their journey through videos – from the excitement of buying the property, the joy they felt with each new floor built, to the despair they experienced when construction abruptly stopped. Through their videos, people witnessed the gradual extinguishing of the hopeful gleam in this young couple’s eyes. Perhaps the authenticity of their story resonated deeply, making this ordinary couple’s experience a representation of countless families unfortunate enough to buy unfinished apartments.

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

    18:19.

  18. A 19-Point Time Line of Joe Biden’s Infamous Links to the Family Business

    WENDELL HUSEBØ
    1 Jul 2023

    Although President Joe Biden has personally denied involvement in his family’s international business scheme nine times, a time line of events suggests Joe Biden not only is linked to the family’s affairs but is a key member of an “organized crime” operation, as House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) termed it.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/07/01/19-point-timeline-joe-bidens-infamous-links-to-family-business/

  19. Can the Fed bring inflation back to its preferred 2% level wothout tipping over the stock market’s apple cart?

    1. Yahoo
      Business Insider
      Fed’s Powell says inflation isn’t returning to 2% this year or next – suggesting investors should prepare for more interest-rate hikes
      Joseph Wilkins
      Fri, June 30, 2023 at 1:00 PM PDT·2 min read
      Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference after a Federal Open Market Committee meeting on February 01, 2023 in Washington, DC. The Federal Reserve announced a 0.25 percentage point interest rate increase to a range of 4.50% to 4.75%.
      Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

      – The US won’t return to 2% inflation until at least 2025, Fed Chair Jay Powell has said.

      – That suggests the central bank’s fight against inflation is far from over – underscoring the possibility of more interest-rate hikes.

      – Higher rates won’t be good news for stocks, which have rallied amid bets the Fed is close to ending its tightening campaign.

      US inflation is unlikely to fall to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target until at least 2025, according to Jerome Powell.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-powell-says-inflation-isnt-200002808.html

  20. Financial Times
    US society
    Millions of US borrowers brace for the return of student debt payments
    End of a pandemic-era pause and debt-forgiveness scheme will ripple through the US economy as bills come due
    About 27mn people have US student debt that has been in forbearance since the pandemic
    Taylor Nicole Rogers in New York and Colby Smith in Washington yesterday

    This October, after a three-year break, 27mn Americans with student debt will once again have payments due.

    One of them is Jacque Adams, a Dallas public school teacher who owes $103,000 in student debt. “I’m an underpaid teacher,” said Adams, 45. “I have three kids; one is starting on her own college [degree]. I’m going to take these loans to the grave with me.”

    The Department of Education paused student loan repayments when the Covid crisis began in March 2020, and extended it nine times in an effort to provide financial relief to US households throughout the pandemic.

    But that is now ending, after Congress put a halt to the programme as part of an agreement resolving the debt ceiling stand-off earlier this year. Some economists fear that the resumption of payments, combined with a softening labour market and rising interest rates, could dampen consumer spending and raise balances on other consumer debts, weighing on the broader economy.
    …

    1. I predict the student loan debt hangover will create significant drag on entry level homebuyer demand.

      1. Student loan debt was already dragging down homebuying demand even pre-pandemic. Some of those Millenial couples already owed the equivalent of a mortgage in student loans. Of course they can’t take on another mortgage.

      2. NEW SURVEY: Student Loan Bailout Applicants Will Spend More on Vacation, Drugs, and Gambling

        Isabelle Morales
        11/10/2022

        A new survey found that 73 percent of student loan forgiveness applicants would spend the extra money from relief on non-essentials like vacations, eating out at restaurants, buying a new phone, drugs/alcohol, gambling, and gaming systems.

        In sum, working class families will be responsible for subsidizing a $1 trillion student loan bailout to fund the irresponsible spending habits of privileged 20-somethings.

        https://www.atr.org/new-survey-student-loan-bailout-applicants-will-spend-more-on-vacation-drugs-and-gambling/

      3. I thought about this a few years ago….what do you think?

        my plan is to treat your college degree as an asset. and if you default you have to return it, just like a foreclosure or a repo or a bankruptcy..
        cancel your degree in exchange for cancelling the debt, which means you have to give up on your career choice. If the job requires a VALID 4 year or post grad degree and you don’t have one ,you cant sue for discrimination or wrongful termination, if they fire you since you don’t meet the requirements anymore.

        although a lot of jobs one step below doesn’t require the degree, such as give up your JD and be a paralegal, or give up your DDS degree and be a highly qualified dental assistant. you lose the ability to open your own business but then no debt over your head.
        I am fully against writing off the loan in BK without some serious penalties, i paid mine off and so should you.

        I could add give up your ohbama studies and make a career at starbuxxx.

        1. We’ve been over this before. A sheepskin is not an asset. It has no intrinsic value. It cannot be repossessed and sold to cover the debt.

          1. The intrinsic value is the ability to apply for the millions of jobs i cant… teachers for 1 no degree you are an classroom assistant at $15 hr.

          2. ability to apply for the millions of jobs

            Your ability to apply or not for a job that you are or are not trained for is of no value to anyone else.

          3. and how do you get that training, by getting a degree, or apprenticeship a union trades card Most Companies today still have strict rules about education, and skills. What i am proposing is throwing in the towel i give up i don’t want this career anymore, to be a social worker teacher, government worker,lawyer, dentist, doctor, etc. with student loans over my head, so what is a fair but severe trade off?

          4. o what is a fair but severe trade off?

            Paying off the debt willingly assumed.

        2. The ONLY trade-off I would consider even partially fair would be a sort of reverse GI-bill. Join the military for four years and the gov will pay off your existing college loan. In fact they sort of do that now, with public-service loan forgiveness programs.

          The problem is that those Obamastudies majors are useless for anything. And the students are usually too old (30+), too fat, too woke to take orders, and the degree itself has no value for accomplishing anything of military value. Yeah, scratch that.

          No can do — pay the stupid thing off. But I like the idea the gov lowering the interest rate to near-0. Too many of these kids diligently make payments every month and make no dent in principle. No wonder they’re disillusioned.

      4. On reddit there was a thread regarding student loan repayment, and one commenter said the government should continue paying the interest on that debt, and the borrowers could repay their borrowed principal; that comment was down voted! These borrowers are not interested in paying back their student loans and probably won’t, IMHO.

        1. I’ve seen some lib comments to the effect of “the government has the responsibility to educate its citizens… don’t you want the young people to be educated so they can support your in your old age… etc.”

          Yeah, we have that. It’s called K-12.

          1. IME, college is being pushed as early as third grade with “I’m college bound” t-shirts (ironically missing the hyphen) and classrooms associated with different colleges. People pushing for “free” college conveniently forget higher taxes and meritocracy.

          2. I can’t really argue against free college because, not so long ago, college *was* free, or nearly free. In the mid-1990s, I paid $800 per semester for in-state tuition. How did the state cover the rest of the tuition costs back then?

            I believe there’s still room to offer free college tuition today, but only to limited numbers of students. For example, students who have good high school grades, choose from a list of pre-approved majors, and maintain a 3.0 average should qualify for merit-based nearly-free tuition, more like a scholarship. But if you want to party out, then pony up.

          3. TN offers every adult 2 free years of college – no age limit. (evil red state!) There are many paths to free education if one is serious about being financially prudent.

          4. college education and healthcare as practiced in the US are one of the largest scams in human history and have little to do with providing any of the above. it’s simply extortion. the real cost of providing the abovementioned is just a small fraction of what people are charged. the rest is just mass fraud. I have 2 degrees and payed nothing for the first, and some pocket money for the second. a sound society and government has a duty to provide those to their citizens if they want a successful future for their country. of course, I’m not talking about the US government, the most inept, incompetent and corrupt of them all.

          1. Check out the sub /r/LateStageCapitalism.

            Everybody on there expects that after the revolution everything will be free and they’ll all have comfy administrative jobs in air conditioned office as central planners, planning all the actual labor to be done by somebody else.

            They never talk about what actually happened under Stalin or Mao, or that they themselves would have to get their soft, soft hands dirty.

          2. “Check out the sub /r/LateStageCapitalism.”

            I’ll check it out this evening while working on a 20-oz bottle of dark micro brew. Thanks!

          3. “The problem was you were on Reddit – an online wasteland of braindead liberals.”

            Agreed. But rather than ignoring them I do care what they’re thinking and how it will affect me.

          4. Reddit is the worst. People have zero problems sharing what complete losers they are. Even in the most boring of places like the car forums some $hithead will post “so I traded in my totally underwater ford escape today and bought a new Chrysler minivan at 12% interest and $8,000 over msrp, I’m pissed off because I want to return the car because I got fired from my job as a dog walker “

    2. “I’m an underpaid teacher”

      If teaching paid more, people like me would take your job away, Jacque.

      1. Come to the Chicago suburbs where retired teachers get $130,000 a year pensions ….

  21. Pay attention to what is happening in France (from non globalist media) right now.

    This is what the Great Replacement brings. This is what “liberal democracy” is.

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

  23. CDC Altered Minnesota Death Certificates that List a Covid Vaccine as a Cause of Death

    9 MINUTE READ

    BY Aaron Hertzberg
    JULY 3, 2023

    The first fraudulently filled out death certificate offers a crucial detail highlighting not only the fraud but the naked double standards for assigning CoD’s.

    This death certificate identifies both a covid vaccine and covid itself as contributory CoD’s (in the last row highlighted in yellow, vaccine underlined in green, covid in blue):

    This decedent suffered a cardiac arrest that ultimately led to her death *ONE DAY* after being vaccinated.

    This death certificate doesn’t merely identify a covid vaccine, it explains that the decedent “felt sick after the vaccine” and died 4 days later from a heart attack. Yet, no T88.1 or Y59.0.

    This death certificate provides that the decedent received her second dose of Pfizer 18 days prior to her death.

    Here we have a 65-year-old male who was killed by a heart attack 12 days after getting vaccinated.

    This case is especially noteworthy. Someone involved with this death informed me that the family had to pressure the coroner to put the recent covid booster on the death certificate. A family member also filed a VAERS report themselves, after the patient’s doctors declined to do so.

    https://brownstone.org/articles/cdc-altered-death-certificates/

    1. Jeff, guessing you may know about the guy here in MA who via an FOIA request obtained seven years of MA death certificates, showing excess mortality in 2021-2022. I met him last year, an impressive fellow. I believe he was instrumental in assisting whoever obtained and analyzed death records in MN. He was interviewed by Dr. Drew recently on YT, goes by the pen name of Coquin de Chien, his substack is worth checking out.

  24. I predict the recent blip in home prices will prove in retrospect to have been a slow motion dead cat bounce, as the Fed’s efforts to drum inflation out of the economy eventually take out housing demand as collateral damage.

    1. TheHill.com
      Business
      Housing affordability hits another low: report
      by Adam Barnes – 07/03/23 10:54 AM ET

      Nationwide home affordability declined again in the second quarter of the year as rising prices pushed up the wages necessary to afford a home, according to a new report.

      Major homeownership expenses last quarter now require about 33 percent of a family’s monthly income, the report from nationwide property data provider ATTOM showed.

      Homes were less affordable in 98 percent of counties with data to analyze when compared to historical averages. This marks the highest debt-to-income ratio since 2007.

      Buyers needed to earn $75,000 annually to afford the typical home in half of the markets ATTOM analyzed.

      After three quarters of declines, the median single-family home value rose 10 percent from the first quarter to $350,000 — the largest increase in more than a decade, the company found.

      “The U.S. housing market has done an about-face following a downturn that threatened to usher in an extended period of flat or falling prices. With that has come another blow to how much house the average worker around the country can afford,” ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said in a statement.

      “Whether this is just a temporary blip amid this year’s peak buying season or a sign of another extended price surge is anyone’s guess,” Barber continued. “But any predictions of a market demise were certainly premature, and house hunters are feeling the pinch.”

      Home prices fell in the back half of 2022 amid the Federal Reserve’s fight with inflation that pushed up mortgage rates to more than 7 percent in November.
      …
      https://thehill.com/business/4078975-housing-affordability-hits-another-low-report/

  25. Prediction: The AirBnB craze will lead to massive investor losses, due to a combination of overinvestment when rates bottomed out coupled with communities pushing back against neighborhood blight and housing shortages caused by an excess of short term rental conversions.

    1. Especially so in tourist towns. The lake house market in the Midwest has been taken over by air bnb. I know a guy who bought a 2 bedroom lake house in Michigan on a no name lake 20 years ago for like under $100k or something absurd like that. That house today would be several hundred thousand dollars with several investors bidding for it. But people use air bnb, I’ll never use it.

  26. There is no need to worry over the near term prospect of recession. MSM favored experts say gloomsters are overly pessimistic, and missing out on red hot cake stock market gains as a result.

    1. Bloomberg
      Markets
      Treasury Yield-Curve Inversion Approaches Multi-Year Extreme

      – Two-year yield exceeds 10-year by more than a percentage point

      – Gap shrinks a bit in rally sparked by weak ISM factory gauge

      By Michael Mackenzie
      July 3, 2023 at 4:48 AM PDT
      Updated on July 3, 2023 at 11:21 AM PDT

      A key segment of the US Treasury yield curve approached its most inverted level in decades Monday as traders priced in further Federal Reserve policy tightening.

      The two-year note’s yield exceeded the 10-year rate by as much as 110.8 basis points as the shorter-maturity rate reached 4.96%. The inversion touched 110.9 basis points in March, a level last seen in the early 1980s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

      The inversion eased to around 108.5 basis points after the ISM manufacturing gauge for June unexpectedly declined to a three-year low. In a shortened trading session ahead of a US holiday, Treasury two-year yields dropped to as low as 4.84% before climbing to nearly 4.94%. The 10-year yield rose to about 3.85%.

      “The near-term risks are that more rate hikes must be priced, that the Treasury curve flattens more, and that the pace of slowing both within the inflation and employment data does not satisfy policymakers and the markets,” John Brady, manging director at RJ O’Brien, wrote to clients.
      …
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-03/treasury-yield-curve-inversion-approaches-multi-year-extreme

    2. Delivering Alpha
      Most investors believe we are in a new bull market and there will be no recession in 2023
      Published Fri, Jun 30 2023 9:13 AM EDT
      Updated Fri, Jun 30 2023 1:07 PM EDT
      Yun Li and Patricia Martell
      Traders on the floor of the NYSE, June 29, 2023.
      Source: NYSE

      The majority of Wall Street investors believe stocks have entered a new bull market and the U.S. economy will skirt a recession in 2023, according to the new CNBC Delivering Alpha investor survey.

      We polled about 400 chief investment officers, equity strategists, portfolio managers and CNBC contributors who manage money about where they stood on the markets for the third quarter and forward. The survey was conducted over the last week.

      Sixty-one percent of respondents believe the market has entered a new bull run, while 39% think this is a bear market rally.

      Technically speaking, some have already declared a brand new bull market after the S&P 500 met the most simplistic standard by closing up 20% from its October bear market low. However, many investors do not consider it the end of a bear market until the S&P 500 reaches a new high. The all-time closing high for the broader benchmark is 4,796.56. The S&P 500 closed Thursday at 4,396.44.

      The market has managed to climb a wall of worries so far this year, including rate hikes, a debt ceiling debate and a series of bank failures. The S&P 500 is about to end the first half with flying colors, up nearly 15% after four straight winning months in a row. The performance of the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is even more impressive — up 30% this year — amid Wall Street’s obsession with artificial intelligence.

      “There are many reasons to be constructive on U.S. stocks in the second half of 2023, particularly because we have finally started to see more market breadth,” said Carol Schleif, chief investment officer at the BMO Family Office.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/30/most-investors-believe-we-are-in-a-new-bull-market-and-there-will-be-no-recession-in-2023.html

      1. Personal Finance
        Published July 3, 2023 8:00am EDT
        Recession expected by end of 2023: Fannie Mae
        Consumer spending remains unsustainably high
        By Javier Simon
        Despite an ongoing cooling of inflation, it remains far from the Fed’s target range.
        (iStock)

        As the Federal Reserve considers future interest rate hikes to reduce inflation and consumer spending remains high, the nation could soon slip into a recession, according to the Fannie Mae Economic & Strategic Research (ESR) Group’s latest economic and housing outlook report.

        “We expect the continued tightening of credit conditions, slowing bank lending and shrinking money supply will eventually lead to a downward turn in business investment and hiring, eventually leading consumers to pull back on spending, coinciding with a recession,” the ESR Group said in its report.

        In fact, these economists said consumer spending has been unsustainable. Since January 2020, real personal consumption has increased 8.5%, while real disposable personal income has increased by only 2.7%, the ESR Group reported.

        “While households are not overly leveraged by historical standards, the current pace of consumer spending remains unsustainable given current income levels and, to date, has been supported by drawing down pandemic-related savings and tapping into increasing debt,” the ESR Group said in its report.
        …
        https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/recession-end-2023-fannie-mae

        1. The only thing for certain about the US economy for the remainder of 2023 is an epic level of uncertainty.

          1. The Daily Hodl
            Fed Economists Warn Large Economic Shockwave Likely, With ‘High Share’ of Companies Now in Financial Distress
            Daily Hodl Staff
            July 3, 2023

            The Federal Reserve just issued a fresh warning on the state of the US economy.

            A research note published by two Federal Reserve economists says the number of non-financial firms that are now in financial distress is at historic levels.

            “The stance of U.S. monetary policy has tightened significantly starting in March 2022. At the same time, the share of non-financial firms in financial distress has reached a level that is higher than during most previous tightening episodes since the 1970s.”

            The number of distressed firms now stands at 37%.

            And the Fed economists conclude that their math suggests the true impact of the Federal Reserve’s sharp interest rate hikes may be looming and large.

            “Do our results suggest that the monetary policy tightening engineered since 2022 might have substantial effects on investment and employment given the high share of firms currently in distress relative to previous tightening cycles? While answering this question is difficult, back of the envelope calculations indicate that the effects may be large.
            …
            https://dailyhodl.com/2023/07/03/fed-economists-warn-large-economic-shockwave-likely-with-high-share-of-companies-now-in-financial-distress/

    3. DOW FUTURES -0.13%
      S&P 500 FUTURES -0.10%
      NASDAQ 100 FUTURES -0.15%

      Stop worrying about a recession – jobs are resilient and the Fed will achieve a soft landing, Morgan Stanley’s top economist says
      Zinya Salfiti
      Jul 4, 2023, 2:36 AM PDT
      Morgan Stanley
      The US will most likely avoid a recession, according to a Morgan Stanley economist.
      Photo by Oliver Morris/Getty Images

      – The resilient jobs market will help the US economy avoid a recession, according to a Morgan Stanley economist.

      – The Federal Reserve will be able to achieve its dream “soft landing” scenario, Seth Carpenter said.

      – “We’re just not likely to tip over into recession,” he told Yahoo Finance.
      …
      https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/morgan-stanley-economist-us-economy-recession-soft-landing-fed-rates-2023-7

  27. CDC alters death certificates to alter vaccine cause of death.
    Who knew CDC had power to alter cause of death, without any grounds other than they want to.
    Its fraud, and a attempt to cover up death by vaccine. But how can they explain the excess mortality following vaccines, as well as excess disability in the under 54 age group. These are vile fraudsters

  28. Stickiness in post-pandemic housing prices and rents coupled with labor market weakness, rampant drug addiction, and outmigration of the overtaxed middle class will keep California’s homelessness crisis on the boil.

    1. CalMatters
      POSTED IN HOMELESSNESS
      A California city was making a difference on homelessness. Then the money ran out
      Avatar photo
      BY MARISA KENDALL
      JULY 3, 2023

      Gov. Gavin Newsom poured ‘unprecedented’ money into homelessness, but providers say his use of one-time grants does not allow for long-term solutions to the state’s biggest crisis.

      A new homeless outreach program pairing a social worker with a police officer in Grass Valley, a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills, seemed to be working.

      The state-funded effort sent the team to homeless encampments, where they helped build trust among vulnerable people and persuaded them to accept help, according to nonprofit Hospitality House, which ran the program.

      It blew past its goal of engaging 90 people in three years, instead meeting with more than 200. It even helped move some people directly into housing, including an 80-year-old veteran.

      But when the three-year grant paying for that outreach ended in June, there was no money to replace it. So the program came to a screeching halt, to the disappointment of all involved.
      …
      https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2023/07/california-homeless-services/

      1. Meanwhile the government hands free phones, cash, medical care and housing to people who enter this country illegally. There is no “homeless crisis” in this country. What’s happening now is an indication of how successful the liberals/communists are in destroying American society and commerce.

        Homelessness is a FEATURE, not a bug of the Left’s agenda.

        1. Judge Blocks Florida Law that Bans Foreign Nationals from Registering Voters

          JOHN BINDER
          3 Jul 2023

          A federal judge has blocked two provisions of a Florida law that bans foreign nationals from registering voters and makes it a third-degree felony for those collecting voter information to retain a voter’s information for purposes unrelated to voter registration.

          On Monday, Judge Mark E. Walker granted a preliminary injunction against Florida officials, preventing them from imposing the law while the case makes its way through the federal courts.

          Walker, in his decision, said the citizenship requirement and information retention ban provisions are “an assault on the right to vote,” detailing the law:

          https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/07/03/judge-blocks-florida-law-bans-foreign-nationals-registering-voters/

          1. Not trying to be purposefully dense or confrontational to anyone, but….where is a “right to vote” enshrined?

          3. In this instance, the judge is dense. He should know after 3 years of law school and passing a bar exam that only citizens have a right to vote. Unsurprisingly, he’s an Obama appointee.

          4. https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/elections-and-voting/

            Again, not trying to be dense, but I’m not seeing it…the 15th amendment says that one can’t limit the right to vote based on color, and the 19th based on sex. But one could abide by those by not allowing anyone to vote, or allowing/restricting voting based on other criteria.

            I’m not seeing a stated right to vote anywhere in the constitution, similar to other oft-spoken rights (freedom of association, religion, bear arms, etc).

            It seems to me this is like folks saying “healhcare is a right” and somesuch. One is welcome to have that opinion, but that’s different from the enumerated, protected rights in our constitution.

          5. not seeing a stated right to vote anywhere in the constitution

            Thereby leaving the authority to the individual states.

          6. Thereby leaving the authority to the individual states.

            Yes. So why is a federal judge saying something is “an assault on the right to vote?”

          8. oft-spoken rights (freedom of association, religion, bear arms, etc)

            Google Summarizer: On December 15, 1791, three-fourths of the existing state legislatures ratified the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. The amendments were written by James Madison in response to calls from several states for greater constitutional protection for individual liberties. The Bill of Rights contains guarantees of essential rights and liberties omitted in the crafting of the original Constitution. Most of the Bill of Rights concerns legal protections for those accused of crimes, including the right to bear arms, quartering of soldiers, search and arrest, rights in criminal cases, right to a fair trial, rights in civil cases, bail, fines, punishment, rights retained by the people, and states’ rights. The Bill of Rights remains a symbol and foundation of American ideals of individual liberty, limited government, and the rule of law.

          9. Thereby leaving the authority to the individual states.

            Constitution, Article I, Section 4: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the
            Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

          10. but I’m not seeing it

            Via New York Times: The United States Constitution does not explicitly guarantee the right to vote. However, several constitutional amendments, such as the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-sixth, require that voting rights of US citizens cannot be abridged on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude, sex, or age (18 and older). The Supreme Court has recognized an implicit right to vote via the 14th Amendment, enacted in 1868 after the Civil War, which aimed to protect the civil rights of people who had been enslaved and guarantees “the equal protection of the laws.” Qualifications to vote in House and Senate elections are decided by each state, and the Supreme Court has affirmed in Bush v. Gore that “the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States.”

  29. And this government of Bankers, by the installed politicians, for the Hedge Funds, shall not perish from the earth.

  30. A quick search of white substance in white house indicates Hunter may be off the wagon.

    About 585,000,000 results (0.42 seconds)

    In a preliminary test, the substance, a white powder, indicated positive for cocaine, according to an official familiar with the investigation and the recording of a dispatch from a D.C. fire crew that responded to the incident

    .2 hours ago

  32. ANALYSIS: A ‘World Gone Mad’—The Cost of COVID Lockdowns
    A ‘global policy failure of gigantic proportions,’ say authors of report

    The days of COVID lockdowns may be behind us for the time being, but a multinational academic team has conducted a broad analysis of government pandemic actions and found them to be “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,” often driven by state and media-sponsored fear campaigns.

    Their findings, published in a book titled “Did Lockdowns Work? The Verdict on Covid Restrictions,” are based on a worldwide meta-analysis that screened nearly 20,000 studies to determine the benefits and harms from health diktats, including lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates. According to economist Steve Hanke, one of the co-authors, one of the things that drove countries into a state of panic and draconian policies was reliance on mortality models from sources like the Imperial College of London (ICL) that generated “fantasy numbers” showing that millions of deaths could be averted by instituting crippling society-wide lockdowns.

    Prior to the COVID outbreak, “most countries did have a plan to deal with pandemics,” Hanke told The Epoch Times, “but after the Imperial College of London’s ‘numbers’ were published, those plans were, in a panic, thrown out the window.

    “In each case, the same pattern was followed: flawed modeling, hair-raising predictions of disaster that missed the mark, and no lessons learned,” he said. “The same mistakes were repeated over and over again and were never challenged.”

    Hanke is an economics professor and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. The other co-authors of the study are Jonas Herby, special adviser at the Center for Political Studies in Copenhagen, and Lars Jonung, an economics professor at Lund University in Sweden.

    While the meta-analysis surveyed thousands of studies, it found that only 22 of them contained useful data for the study. The report focused on mortality rates and lockdown policies during 2020.

    “This study is the first all-encompassing evaluation of the research on the effectiveness of mandatory restrictions on mortality,” Jonung stated. “It demonstrates that lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society.”

    According to Hanke, the ICL models predicted that lockdowns would prevent between 1.7 million and 2.2 million deaths in the United States. The meta-analysis, however, indicates that lockdowns prevented between 4,345 and 15,586 deaths in the United States. This fits a pattern of overstated predictions from the ICL, which health officials either didn’t know about or overlooked, he said.
    A ‘Long History of Fantasy Numbers’

    “There is a long history of fantasy numbers generated by the epidemiological models used by the Imperial College of London,” Hanke said. “Its dreadful record started with the UK foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in 2001, during which the Imperial College models predicted that daily case incidences would peak at 420. But, at the time, the number of incidences had already peaked at just over 50 and was falling.”

    In 2002, the ICL predicted that up to 150,000 people in the UK would die from mad cow disease; in 2019, the BBC reported that the number of UK deaths from mad cow disease was 177. In 2005, Neil Ferguson, who led the ICL, predicted up to 200 million deaths from the H5N1 bird flu, which had at that time killed 65 people in Asia; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2003 and 2023, 458 people died from H5N1 worldwide.

    The ICL’s habit of “crying wolf” did not prevent the BBC, once COVID-19 struck, from relying on its data to broadcast dire weekly warnings to its 468 million listeners, in 42 languages worldwide.

    “Maybe the Imperial College models are ideal fear-generating machines for politicians and governments that crave more power,” Hanke said. “H.L. Mencken put his finger on this phenomenon long ago when he wrote that ‘the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins.’”
    Your Health Matters
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    While there were some U.S. states that never issued lockdown orders, including Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Arkansas, Sweden was the rare national exception that refrained from forcing people into lockdowns. American governors who refused to lock down their states were harshly criticized in the media, which predicted that this would cause mass deaths.
    A ‘National Stay-at-Home Order’

    In April 2020, under the Trump administration, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had lifted lockdowns in his state, telling NBC’s “Today” show that federal guidelines should be taken as “a national stay-at-home order.”

    Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN at the time that, regarding lockdowns, “the tension between federally mandated versus states’ rights to do what they want is something I don’t want to get into. But if you look at what’s going on in this country, I just don’t understand why we’re not doing that.”

    Left-leaning states like California and New York kept draconian regulations in place longer than most, with New York City even setting up a system of vaccine passports that prevented the unvaccinated from entering public places like restaurants, bars, theaters, and museums. While America’s federal system, which vested health authority with states, prevented the U.S. government from forcing lockdowns on the entire country, President Joe Biden issued vaccine and mask mandates once he took office that were ultimately ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.

    For Sweden, however, the protections from these types of health mandates were written into their constitution, called the Regeringsform.

    This document reads: “Everyone shall be protected in their relations with the public institutions against deprivations of personal liberty. All Swedish citizens shall also in other respects be guaranteed freedom of movement within the Realm and freedom to depart the Realm.” This law permits exceptions only for convicts and military conscripts; in addition, Swedish law does not allow the government to declare a state of emergency during peacetime.

    “Also important in the Swedish Covid case was the lead public health official, Dr. Anders Tegnell,” Hanke said. “His views on public health were the antipode of those held by the Covid Czar in the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci.”

    In a September 2020 interview, Tegnell described lockdowns as “using a hammer to kill a fly,” and said of the rush among virtually every other country to impose them, “it was as if the world had gone mad.”

    Sweden also did not impose mask mandates, while at the other extreme, Australia arrested citizens who went maskless or congregated outside, and Austria made it a criminal offense to refuse the COVID vaccine. At the time, the New York Times called Sweden a “pariah state” and “the world’s cautionary tale.”

    Some of the differences between modeled and actual results come down to what Hanke calls the “hot stove effect.”

    “When someone is warned that a stove is hot, they voluntarily keep their hands off the stove,” he said, citing evidence that, if credibly warned, people tend to take precautions without being forced.

    A Move to Centralize Authority

    And yet, rather than allowing citizens to make their own health decisions, most governments were united in forcing populations to follow behaviors that had not been recommended during pandemics up to that point. This year, 194 nations have come together to negotiate a global pandemic accord and amendments to International Health Regulations (IHR) that would centralize pandemic response within the WHO.

    There is little in the pandemic accord or the IHR amendments regarding civil liberties and the personal protections against state abuses contained in the Swedish Regeringsform, such as the right to free speech, travel, and association, and nothing regarding the right to refuse experimental drugs. Instead, the negotiations focus on concentrating power and policy in the hands of a finite number of health officials in Geneva.

    This includes centralization of medical supply chains, pandemic response policies, and a coordinated suppression of “misinformation.” As the countries of the world, including the United States, proceed down this path, some are questioning the wisdom of centralizing control when the states and countries that reacted to COVID in the least damaging way were the exception rather than the rule.

    “Central planning is based on what Nobelist Friedrich Hayek identified as the ‘pretense of knowledge,’” Hanke said. “The results usually end up in a river of tears. It’s most often prudent to proceed via decentralized experimentation rather than with a global plan.”

    In addition, government policies often are unidimensional; they typically enforce a single-minded goal, such as attempting to stop the spread of a virus, while ignoring side effects and collateral damage. The response to COVID is a textbook case of that.

    “The record of public health officials is pretty dismal,” Hanke said. “Covid policies represent one of the greatest policy blunders in the modern era.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/analysis-a-world-gone-mad-the-cost-of-covid-lockdowns_5368628.html

  33. COCAINE found at the White House: Secret Service preliminary tests reveal white powder that sparked hazmat situation was illegal drug

    By KATELYN CARALLE, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

    PUBLISHED: 07:29 EDT, 4 July 2023 | UPDATED: 08:07 EDT, 4 July 2023

    Far-right Newsmax host Robb Schmitt said: ‘It wouldn’t be a thumpin’ July 4th weekend without Hunter Biden ripping lines off of a bust of Teddy Roosevelt.’

    A Twitter journalist with nearly 200k followers wrote: ‘Cocaine was found at the White House and Hunter Biden currently lives at the White House. FBI has no clue who it belongs to. Anyone want to help them?’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12262549/Secret-Service-preliminary-tests-reveal-COCAINE-White-House-Sunday.html

  35. I predict we have not heard the last of the banking crisis that erupted this spring, then mysteriously dissapeared. The underlying fundamental reality of underwater balance sheets, due to rising rates hammering the value of longterm bonds in banks’ asset portfolios, didn’t magically go away. At some point, this financial volcano will erupt again, accompanied by proclamations that, “Nobody could have seen it coming!”

    1. The Daily Hodl
      $46,950,000,000 Enters US Banking System in One Week As Banks Deploy ‘Expensive Fix’ For Deposit Flight
      Daily Hodl Staff
      July 2, 2023

      Nearly $47 billion has entered the US banking system in just one week as banks deploy new strategies to bring customers back.

      Depositors added exactly $46.95 billion to American bank accounts in the week ending June 21st, according to new stats compiled by the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) system.

      The multibillion-dollar jump is thanks, in part, to new strategies designed to reverse deposit flight, reports Bloomberg.

      Regional banks are borrowing an “eye-popping” amount of cash from the Federal Reserve, and are also relying on third party, brokered deposits compiled by little-known intermediaries to boost their bottom line.

      And although the strategy may be boosting deposits, it will be costly in the long run.

      “An analysis of quarterly regulatory filings for the 84 biggest banks… shows not only how much they were borrowing through those channels at the end of March, but also the toll that it was just starting to take on some of their earnings.

      Those rising costs threaten to turn the most strained banks upside down: leaving them paying more to amass the cash they need than they earn by lending it out.”

      The surge in brokered deposits is most visible at the Los Angeles-based PacWest Bancorp, which recorded a 1,774% increase in quarterly brokered deposits compared to a year earlier.

      In addition to their expensive acquisition costs, brokered deposits are often referred to as “hot money” because they generally don’t sit in bank accounts as long as deposits that are acquired organically.
      …
      https://dailyhodl.com/2023/07/02/46950000000-enters-us-banking-system-in-one-week-as-banks-deploy-expensive-fix-for-deposit-flight/

    2. Financial Times
      Bank of America nurses $100bn paper loss after big bet in bond market
      Sum more than double the cost to other US lenders that channelled flood of deposits to cash
      A Bank of America branch in Brooklyn, New York
      The value of Bank of America’s securities investments was $760bn at the end of the first quarter
      Stephen Gandel in New York
      June 28 2023

      Bank of America is bearing the cost of decisions made three years ago to pump the majority of $670bn in pandemic-era deposit inflows into debt markets at a time when bonds traded at historically high prices and low yields.

      The moves left BofA, the second-largest US bank by assets, with more than $100bn in paper losses at the end of the first quarter, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The sum far exceeds unrealised bond market losses reported by its largest peers.

      The differing results reflect strategies undertaken early in the Covid-19 pandemic, when banks absorbed a flood of deposits from savers. BofA put more money into bonds, while others parked a greater share in cash.

      Now that yields have risen and bond prices have fallen, the value of BofA’s portfolio has plunged. By contrast, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — the nation’s first and third-largest banks, respectively — each had about $40bn in unrealised bond market losses, while fourth-largest Citigroup’s paper losses were $25bn.

      The losses at BofA accounted for a fifth of the $515bn in total unrealised losses in the securities portfolios among the nation’s nearly 4,600 banks at the end of the first quarter, FDIC data showed.

      “[BofA chief executive] Brian Moynihan has done a phenomenal job in handling the bank’s operations,” said Dick Bove, a veteran bank analyst who is the chief strategist at boutique broker Odeon Capital. “But if you look at the bank’s balance sheet, it’s a mess.”
      …

      1. “Bank of America is bearing the cost of decisions made three years ago to pump the majority of $670bn in pandemic-era deposit inflows into debt markets at a time when bonds traded at historically high prices and low yields.”

        In retrospect, does that seem like it was a good time to buy a boatload of bonds?

        Buy low and sell high, they say. Perhaps it doesn’t matter of you are a too-big-to-fail banking behemoth.

  37. It sure doesnt’t seem like commercial real estate has reached the bottom of the CR8R just yet…not by a long stretch!

    1. America’s largest office tenant is embracing remote work, creating more pain for a market already in distress
      Daniel Geiger Jul 3, 2023, 9:30 AM PDT
      Thunderstorm clouds roll over the US Capitol.
      Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
      This story is available exclusively to Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.

      President Joe Biden and Donald Trump might not appear to agree on much, but when it comes to cutting back on office space, they’re aligned.

      For more than a decade, the federal government’s office footprint has been shrinking, as three consecutive administrations — starting with President Barack Obama and continuing under Trump and Biden — have ordered agencies to bring their operations into the 21st century by downsizing offices and digitizing records.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/the-federal-government-is-cutting-back-its-office-footprint-2023-6

    2. Canada’s office vacancy rate climbed to its highest level in nearly 30 years last quarter
      The Canadian Press
      Published Tuesday, July 4, 2023 10:15AM EDT
      Last Updated Tuesday, July 4, 2023 10:59AM EDT

      Office towers, condos and apartment buildings are seen in downtown and the west end of Vancouver, on Thursday, January 19, 2023. A report by commercial real estate firm CBRE says the national office vacancy rate in Canada climbed in the second quarter to its highest level since 1994.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

      A report by commercial real estate firm CBRE says the national office vacancy rate in Canada climbed in the second quarter to its highest level since 1994.

      The firm says the national office vacancy rate rose to 18.1 per cent in the second quarter, up from 17.7 per cent in the first quarter.
      …
      https://www.cp24.com/mobile/news/canada-s-office-vacancy-rate-climbed-to-its-highest-level-in-nearly-30-years-last-quarter-1.6466204

      1. “A report by commercial real estate firm CBRE says the national office vacancy rate in Canada climbed in the second quarter to its highest level since 1994.”

        Did you notice that if you replace B with 8 and E with R, then transpose two characters, the firm’s name changes to a more appropriate moniker?

        CBRE => C8RR => CR8R

    3. As offices sit empty, some banks are more cautious about commercial real estate loans
      Justin Ho 3 hours ago
      Heard on:
      Low-angle view of high-rise office buildings against a blue sky with clouds in San Francisco.

      For months, economists and investors have warned that a meltdown was coming in the commercial office building sector. That’s because vacancy rates remain a lot higher than they were before the pandemic — especially in urban cores.

      A few weeks back, those warnings made their way to the Financial Stability Oversight Council — a panel in Washington chaired by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that’s charged with spotting icebergs that could sink this economy.

      The council heard that banks may be exposed to serious risk because of loans they’ve made for office projects. And smaller banks are holding an awful lot of those loans.

      Commercial real estate loans are different from traditional mortgages. Instead of borrowing at a fixed rate for 30 years, a commercial borrower typically pays the loan back over a shorter period.

      “For my bank, we fix commercial loans for five years at a time,” said Brad Bolton, president and CEO of Community Spirit Bank in Red Bay, Alabama.
      …
      https://www.marketplace.org/2023/07/04/as-offices-sit-empty-some-banks-are-more-cautious-about-commercial-real-estate-loans/amp/

  39. Would go long into an asset at the point when an obvious short squeeze is underway?

    Neither would I.

    1. US housing market defying crash expectations as supply shortage keeps prices high
      Housing prices expected to remain elevated amid limited supply, high demand
      By Megan Henney FOXBusiness
      Wells Fargo Investment Institute Head of Global Investment Strategy Paul Christopher joins ‘Morning with Maria’ to provide his outlook on the markets as the second quarter ends and the release of the May PCE.

      Wells Fargo Investment Institute Head of Global Investment Strategy Paul Christopher joins ‘Morning with Maria’ to provide his outlook on the markets as the second quarter ends and the release of the May PCE.

      The U.S. housing market is defying expectations of a crash this year as limited inventory and high demand keep prices high.

      That is according to Fannie Mae economists, who predicted in a revised forecast that home prices will fall at a slower rate than previously anticipated later this year.

      The government-backed mortgage giant estimated that home prices will only decline by 1.2% in 2023 and 2.2% the following year – a marked improvement from February, when it predicted that prices would tumble 4.2% this year and another 2.3% in 2023.

      “Current housing market dynamics continue to be fueled by the lack of existing homes available for sale, a trend that did not improve during the spring homebuying season, when more homes are typically put on the market,” the Fannie Mae economists wrote in the analysis. “This has supported a return to home price growth in recent months and continued to boost new home construction.”
      …
      https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-housing-market-defying-crash-expectations-supply-shortage-keeps-prices-high

    2. Trends
      As Home Prices Fall, a Whole New Housing Problem Has Just Reared Its Head
      By Margaret Heidenry
      Jun 30, 2023

      Homebuyers finally heard some good news in June: Home prices fell over the course of the month for the first time in six years. But lest home shoppers feel a little too giddy, a whole new problem has just materialized.

      Namely, the number of homes for sale has stopped growing—in fact, it’s shrinking for the first time in over a year.

      “Although the decline rounds to zero, this week marks the first time that there were fewer active listings compared to a year ago in more than a year,” notes Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com®, in her analysis of data for the week ending June 24. “It is notable in that it highlights a key reason why, despite high costs, home prices have not budged much.”
      …
      https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/as-home-prices-fall-a-whole-new-problem-has-just-reared-its-head/

    3. Finance ·Housing
      Housing market economist Ali Wolf is ‘watching closely to see if there’s a double-dip recession in housing’
      BY Lance Lambert
      July 4, 2023 at 9:12 AM PDT
      New home sales in May were up 20% on a year-over-year basis
      Getty Images

      Just days into 2023, homebuilders across the country saw a noticeable uptick in demand, as price-sensitive buyers sought relief from last year’s mortgage rate shock. The combination of builders’ price adjustments—which were substantial in Western markets like Salt Lake City and Boise—and aggressive incentives, like mortgage rate buydowns, were just enough to pull buyers back into the new home market.

      At the halfway mark for 2023, that new construction improvement seems to be sticking. At least for now.

      “Objectively, the housing recession in the new-home space is over. Home sales are rising, [housing] starts are rising, and home prices are rising again,” Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda, recently told Fortune.

      Indeed, new home sales in May were up 20% on a year-over-year basis. The May new home sales figure tied the single highest monthly reading between 2010 and 2019. Leading indicators like homebuilder confidence are also on the upswing.

      However, just because homebuilders have escaped the housing market recession, doesn’t mean they can’t slip back into it.

      “The big question is,” Wolf asks, “is that it? Are we back in growth mode from here? I’m not so sure it is a straight line up. There are still broader economic concerns that could impact housing demand, including potential turmoil following the Federal Reserve’s restrictive policy, a significant pullback in consumer spending, or even the fallout from the commercial real estate sector. We are watching closely to see if there’s a double-dip recession in housing or if demographic-supported demand is enough to withstand wider issues.”
      …
      https://fortune.com/2023/07/04/housing-market-recession-double-dip-ali-wolf-zonda-chief-economist/

    4. What the heck is going on with the housing market?
      Phil Rosen, Noah Sheidlower, and Alcynna Lloyd
      Jul 4, 2023, 3:30 AM PDT
      Neat line of suburban houses in Fairfax, Virginia.
      Robert Knopes/Getty Images

      – The housing market is still surprisingly tight despite mortgage rates at 20-year highs.

      – Demand is high and supply is low as current owners don’t want to part ways with low rates they locked in years ago.

      – “We have a convoluted market where there’s not a lot of demand and people aren’t actively looking to sell, but prices are still up,” a source said.
      …
      https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/housing-market-explained-mortgage-rates-fed-inventory-home-prices-house-2023-6

  40. Here’s when your student loan payments will start again

    By Katie Lobosco, CNN
    Updated 5:32 PM EDT, Fri June 30, 2023

    Washington
    CNN

    After a more than three-year pause, borrowers will have to restart paying their federal student loan bills in October.

    The Biden administration had intended to cancel up to $20,000 of student debt for millions of borrowers before payments resumed, but its proposed student loan forgiveness program was struck down by the Supreme Court and won’t take effect.

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/politics/school-loan-payments-due-october/index.html

    Rolling Stones-start me up

    If you start me up I’ll never stop
    If you start me up
    If you start me up I’ll never stop

    https://youtu.be/ZzlgJ-SfKYE

    1. After a more than three-year pause, borrowers will have to restart paying their federal student loan bills in October.

      I’ll believe it when I see it.

  41. Are central bankers losing their battle to put their inflation genie back in the bottle?

    1. Financial Times
      Global inflation
      Why are interest rate rises not taming inflation?
      Tight labour markets and outright home ownership delay the return to price stability
      Montage of Christine Lagarde, Andrew Bailey and Jay Powell with a chart behind
      The world’s central bankers, including, from left, Christine Lagarde, Andrew Bailey and Jay Powell, have all tried to raise interest rates to tame inflation
      Chris Giles, Valentina Romei and Alan Smith in London yesterday

      Central banks have been raising interest rates at the fastest pace since the 1990s, but the most severe bout of inflation in a generation is yet to be tamed.

      While many were late to spot just how big a problem this wave of inflation would prove, officials representing the world’s 20 largest economies have now increased rates by an average of 3.5 percentage points each since they began tightening borrowing costs.

      However, neither Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell nor European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde expect inflation to return to their common 2 per cent target before the start of 2025.

      While headline consumer indices have fallen, central bankers cite higher core inflation, tight labour markets and pressures in the services sector as evidence that prices will continue to soar for some time yet.

      So what explains inflation’s persistence in the face of aggressive rate rises?
      …

      1. Why are interest rate rises not taming inflation?

        The huge rise in the money supply was caused by a tsunami of cheap and easy credit produced dollars. The debtors must be liquidated to make it go away. Apparently, dancing around the May Pole isn’t enough to do that abruptly.

      2. Fake inflation rates and interest rates relative to real inflation rates too low.

    2. Financial Times
      Opinion Central banks
      Inflation’s return changes the world
      Is this an enduring shift in the monetary environment or a temporary one? At the moment, we do not know
      Martin Wolf
      A shopping trolley collapses under the weight of a huge percentage symbol
      Martin Wolf 6 hours ago

      In high-income countries, consumer price inflation is running at rates not seen in four decades. With inflation no longer low, neither are interest rates. The era of “low for long” is over, at least for now. So, why did this happen? Will it be a lasting change? What should the policy response be?

      Over the past two decades, the Bank for International Settlements has provided a different perspective from those of most other international organisations and leading central banks. In particular, it has stressed the dangers of ultra-easy monetary policy, high debt and financial fragility. I have agreed with some parts of this analysis and disagreed with others. But its Cassandra-like stance has always been worth considering. This time, too, its Annual Economic Report provides a valuable analysis of the macroeconomic environment.

      The report summarises recent experience as “high inflation, surprising resilience in economic activity and the first signs of serious stress in the financial system”. It notes the widely held view that inflation will melt away. Against this, it points out that the proportion of items in the consumption basket with annual price rises of more than 5 per cent has reached over 60 per cent in high-income countries. It notes, too, that real wages have fallen substantially in this inflation episode. “It would be unreasonable to expect that wage earners would not try to catch up, not least since labour markets remain very tight,” it asserts. Workers could recoup some of these losses, without keeping inflation up, provided profits were squeezed. In today’s resilient economies, however, a distributional struggle seems far more likely.
      …

  43. I had more fun on the United States Bicentennial Fourth of July.

    Of course I was 16 years old for the United States Bicentennial Fourth of July so that would stand to reason.

      2. Why does anyone want to HODL real estate when it takes your net worth down by $100K a month? Seems like a great way to throw away money.

    1. Andrea’s legal opinion is as solid as they come!

      Bryan Kohberger Not Guilty? Defense Drops Key New Information in Court Document – Attorney analysis (20m54s)

      In the midst of the disagreement over whether the State has to turn over genetic genealogy evidence it used to target Bryan Kohberger as a suspect, the defense revealed the first official new information we’ve received about the case since the gag order was issued and the search warrants from Pennsylvania and Washington were released … and it’s a stunner. In a publicly filed document, the defense states, “There is no connection between Mr. Kohberger and the victims. There is no explanation for the total lack of DNA evidence from the victims in Mr. Kohberger’s apartment, office, home, or vehicle.”

      This revelation paints an incredibly different picture of the State’s case against Bryan Kohberger than the news coverage of it would have us believe. When he was first arrested, many of us commented on the scantness of the evidence in the probable cause affidavit, but we all expected that the search warrants issued for his car, as well as his cell phone and computers, would rule him either in or out. This brief statement from the defense tells us that those searches did not produce corroborating evidence for the State. Thus, the State’s case apparently no stronger than it was the day Bryan Kohberger was arrested, despite the fact that if these killings occurred the way the State claims, we would very much expect evidence of it to be in those places.

      This is a big, big development in the case. Who do you see reporting on it?

  45. Would you buy stock in a bankrupt company?

    May as well pour your hard earned dollars down the cryptocurrency rathole.

    1. Financial Times
      Retail trading
      Investors spend $200mn on ‘worthless’ Bed Bath & Beyond shares
      Trading in bankrupt US retailer’s stock has continued in ‘mutation of meme stock phenomenon’
      People outside a Bed Bath & Beyond
      An average of 18mn of Bed Bath & Beyond shares have changed hands each day on over-the-counter markets since the retailer went bankrupt in May
      Madison Darbyshire and Nicholas Megaw in New York 8 hours ago

      Investors have spent almost $200mn trading theoretically worthless shares in Bed Bath & Beyond since the homewares retailer went bankrupt at the start of May, in the latest manifestation of the meme stock craze.

      Bed Bath & Beyond was one of a handful of unloved consumer brands that became popular with retail investors during the coronavirus pandemic, with small investors arranging on social media to push share prices far above what most professionals considered rational.

      Many of the companies used the enthusiasm as an opportunity to prop up their ailing businesses by issuing new shares, but Bed Bath & Beyond eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year and was delisted.

      Nevertheless, an average of 18mn of the company’s shares have changed hands each day on over-the-counter markets since then, according to Bloomberg data. Users of the Reddit website have been sharing highly speculative theories about possible turnround plans for the retailer.

      The trading activity comes in an unexpectedly strong year for US stocks, with the Nasdaq Composite recording its strongest first half in 40 years despite a steep rise in interest rates, stoking concerns that the market has become frothy and valuations are too high.

      “It’s an extension, almost a mutation, of the meme stock phenomenon,” said Anthony Chukumba, an analyst at Loop Capital Markets who previously covered Bed, Bath and Beyond.

      “We can have real debates about the value of Tesla, or GameStop for that matter, because it’s still a viable company,” he said, referring to other stocks favoured by retail investors. “We can’t have a debate about the value of Bed Bath & Beyond because we know what that value is.”
      …

      1. “We can’t have a debate about the value of Bed Bath & Beyond because we know what that value is.”

        Like cryptocurrency, the value is $0, regardless of what Millennials are willing to pay to own some.

  46. Will the AI boom save the financial world from the collapsing twin ‘superbubbles’ in stocks and housing?

    And will this happen before or after the AIbots initiate their campaign to exterminate humanity?

    1. The ‘superbubble’ in stocks and housing will burst – but the AI boom might delay the crash, Jeremy Grantham says
      Theron Mohamed
      Jul 4, 2023, 5:02 AM PDT

      – The “superbubble” in stocks, housing, and commodities will eventually burst, Jeremy Grantham says.

      – But the AI craze may keep stocks afloat for a couple more quarters, he told the Wall Street Journal.

      – Grantham’s GMO has bet on bargain assets and wagered against some expensive growth stocks.
      …
      https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/jeremy-grantham-gmo-superbubble-ai-stocks-housing-market-bubble-crash-2023-7

  47. Are the cryptobois getting overly optimistic about the prospects for Wall Street lobbyists winning over the hearts and minds of the SEC to allow cryptocurrencies to go mainstream?

    1. Florence Muchai – July 3, 2023
      2 mins read
      Is SEC Chairperson, Gary Gensler, resigning?
      Gary Gensler

      – Rumors have it that SEC’s chair Gary Gensler is set to resign due to the ongoing internal inquiry.

      – The crypto community had reacted positively to the fake news of Gensler’s resignation.

      – The crypto community is asking for general regulation change than only the removal of Gensler.

      On Sunday, a rumor arose in the crypto market about the likely resignation of US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler. According to reports from an anonymous official at the regulatory entity, the SEC Chair was poised to quit as a result of an internal agency inquiry.

      Gary Gensler’s fake resignation news crush the crypto community

      However, the SEC’s public relations (PR) team disputes rumors of Chairperson Gary Gensler’s resignation, putting to rest speculation in the crypto world.

      Interestingly, the crypto community is requesting a regulatory change rather than a headhunt, citing the possibility that a new SEC Chair will be worse than Gensler in terms of anti-crypto enforcement activities.

      The crypto ecosystem experienced one of the largest enforcement actions in the first week of June 2023, with back-to-back lawsuits against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance. The top two exchanges were charged with securities law violations.

      Eleanor Terrett, a prominent journalist for Fox Business, contacted the SEC’s internal staff via email to confirm the alleged resignation. The SEC responded with an email debunking the claim.
      …
      https://www.cryptopolitan.com/is-sec-chairperson-gary-gensler-resigning/

  48. At what point will Texas find the need to build a border wall to keep out Californians?

    1. A move from California to Texas could save a million dollars. Many Americans are opting in
      Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy
      USA TODAY

      The exodus of people from California to Texas is picking up steam.

      In 2021, it was the most popular interstate move in the country, with 111,000 people – or 300 people a day – headed to the Lone Star from the Golden State, a whopping 80% increase compared to 2012, according to an analysis of U.S. Census and IPUMS data by StorageCafé.

      During the pandemic, as remote work became a reality for many, the trend of people moving from high-cost cities to more affordable areas began started taking root.

      The number of people leaving the Golden State for Texas has grown by 36% between 2016 and 2021 while the migration stream from all other states to Texas did not change, rising a mere 0.1%, according to data from the American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.
      …
      https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/07/04/california-to-texas-move-rising-popularity/70374012007/

  49. Really difficult to predict, or say what is essentially already upon us because housing data lags terribly. I still see many over-priced properties in SoCal. And they are selling. It beggars belief that buyers are paying top dollar for what is no more than a modest home often with a ton of deferred maintenance. Hopefully, buyers will realize that the real price is likely $100k more than they are being asked to pay. The problem with California is lots of people have money, but no sense of value. If they paused just for a minute to contemplate this bizarre flaw, everything would fall into place. But no, the ‘must have’ fever grips the Californian soul with a irrational yearning leaving no room for common sense. It’s called the ‘Koalemos syndrome’, after the Greek god of stup….y.

    When predictions are asked to navigate the absurd, it becomes an impossible task. You can bet against what should happen, but then inevitability has a nasty habit of proving itself right.

    Francis Drake just sailed on by. Perhaps we should too.

    1. Hopefully, buyers will realize that the real price is likely $100k more than they are being asked to pay.

      I’m not following this.

      The problem with California is lots of people have money

      Disagree. California has lots of people willing to take on massive amounts of debt. That’s borrowed money.

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