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By Not Only Accepting But Helping To Troubleshoot The Current Order, Problem-Solving Theories Legitimize And Entrench The Status Quo

A weekend topic starting with the Coeur d’Alene Press in Idaho. “Some would say there are three categories of unintended consequences. The unexpected benefit, which is a positive, but unplanned, outcome. The unexpected drawback, in which we create a problem that is apart from the problem we wish to solve. And perverse results, where, in trying to solve a problem, we actually make it worse. United Van Lines, reported 45% of traffic was outbound from Idaho to other states. Those numbers are consistent with the Idaho Transportation Department findings that more than 57,000 told Idaho ‘see you later,’ citing cost and affordable housing as the top reasons why Idahoans are fleeing. It seems people have gotten fed up with the nauseating cost of living here, largely driven by outrageous home prices and unreasonable rental payments.”

NBC DFW in Texas. “Many families across DFW are currently being priced out of affording a home. A local nonprofit on the frontlines of the housing crisis is sharing insight on the issue. ‘Ten years ago, the median sales price for a home was $150,000 in the DFW area. Now, it’s upwards of $350,000 and has even gone up to 390 I think at the top of last year. So it is, you know, virtually impossible for working families to be able to enter the market,’ said Donna Van Ness, CEO of Housing Channel Fort Worth.”

The Star Telegram in Texas. “Nationwide, the rental market is finally cooling. But slight decreases from record highs still result in an expensive rent payment. The same trend is at play in Fort Worth. More than 20,000 new rental units came online in the last year, according to MRI ApartmentData. Of the 72 new communities, 93% are classified as Class A or luxury apartments.”

From Barron‘s. “In September of 1998, the Federal Reserve went to unprecedented lengths to rescue the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management and avert a global financial meltdown. For Wall Street, it was a turning point for risk-taking. After this, there was a growing perception that the Fed, by intervening to save systemically important institutions, was protecting the stock market from big declines. As LTCM’s 25th anniversary approaches, critics say the problem is that everybody knows the Fed will do everything in its power to avert a financial meltdown. It creates a moral hazard: Investors, with little fear of losses, engage in reckless risk-taking. This creates bubbles (in stocks, housing, everything) that burst and start the cycle all over again.”

“‘Greenspan and subsequent Fed chairs have never seemed to realize that excessive financial asset inflation (i.e., financial bubbles) is as damaging to the economy as is excessive real asset inflation,’ the financial analyst Richard Bernstein said by email. ‘Any form of excessive inflation—real or financial—damages the economy because there is ultimately a gross misallocation of capital,’ Bernstein argues. ‘Does the U.S. economy really need Elon Musk going to Mars or Richard Branson taking space vacations?'”

The Center Square. “When Ben Bernanke caved to political pressure, and gobbled up home loans to bail out the housing industry, he protracted the Great Recession in 2008. After the recession, banks stopped traditional lending, which ceased creating money and America’s money supply went south. To counter and replace the lack of new money, the Fed created billions of phony dollars through a scheme called Quantitative Easing (QE). A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds government benefits from QE and consumers pay dearly for it.”

“What the Fed failed to reveal is that unlike the stock market, the economy only benefits from the higher stock prices if increases in asset prices stimulate new investment. New investment occurs if investors see the lower price of new capital as a substitute for purchasing existing assets. This does not happen with phony paper money created by The Fed. Conflating QE-induced wealth affects borrowing costs that arise through conventional channels. Bernanke conveniently swept aside risk taking, especially for those acquiring assets and investing. And the government hopes that ‘the people’ never learn: ‘The Federal Reserve System is not Federal; it has no reserves; and it is not a system at all, but rather, a criminal syndicate.’ – Eustace Mullins.”

The Walrus. “In a news article titled ‘The Middle-Class Housing Crisis,’ the Toronto Star warns that ‘if rent control were suddenly to cease, many families would suddenly be confronted by the danger of eviction or the necessity to find other accommodation because they could not afford to stay where they were.’ An investigative news story in Maclean’s contends the ‘housing crisis,’ which ‘shows no immediate signs of easing,’ is fuelling tenant organizing across the country. In Quebec, Le Devoir reports on a press conference organized by tenant committees demanding provincial investment in affordable housing. A commentary published in a BC magazine argues that ‘we must have more homes and we must have them at prices people can afford to pay.'”

“All of this fuss conceals the fact that political struggle over housing is old news. The Toronto Star article is from 1950, the Maclean’s story appeared in 1969, the Montreal press conference took place in 1980, and the BC commentary dates back to 1911. More importantly, the problem with all of this crisis talk is that there is no actual ‘housing crisis.’ That’s right—there is no crisis. The word crisis suggests something that is infrequent, surprising, and widely undesirable—something that leads to dire consequences unless it is brought under control. Canada’s ‘housing crisis’ is a permanent state of affairs.”

“How we talk about these issues shapes what we conceive as possible and desirable responses to them. A ‘housing crisis’ suggests the need for a technical solution and coordination between various stakeholders, all of whom desire the same outcome: the end of the crisis. Nobody is at fault. The right policy mix, backed by adequate government funding, is the only way forward; it would benefit everyone. This is, by far, the dominant view of how to deal with housing issues in Canada.”

“Canadian political economist Robert Cox famously said, ‘Theory is always for someone, for some purpose.’ He was criticizing studies that take the existing social order and institutions as a given. Problem-solving theories, as he called them, don’t ask how things came to be, who benefits from the way things are, or whether things could be different. Instead, the focus is on smoothing out any troubles with the existing institutions. By not only accepting but helping to troubleshoot the current order, problem-solving theories legitimize and entrench the status quo. While priding itself on being value free and offering practical solutions to concrete problems, this type of research serves the interests of those who are comfortable with the way things are and would rather avoid substantive changes.”

“The widespread use of ‘housing crisis’ also helps to preserve the status quo. It reinforces the idea that Canada’s housing system worked well at some point but something unexpected happened, bringing about unseen and widely undesirable outcomes. That’s not true. For a large share of the population, the housing system never worked, and the current state of affairs is making lots of people rich, like very rich.”

The Jakarta Post. “The meaningful exchange of truly diverse ideas and perspectives has withered over recent decades. Unorthodox thinking is increasingly trashed or disregarded, even as the chattering class’s fear- and force-predicated approaches repeatedly prove inadequate to cope with the true complexities and crises of the modern world. Consider the world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A panic-stricken lockdown orthodoxy far too soon took hold, and those whose policy proposals deviated quickly were labelled ‘COVID deniers.’ Governments that went the farthest were feted by public intellectuals and in newspaper opinion pages.”

“The obvious downsides to universal lockdowns were ignored by those striving to garner credit for simple-minded immediacy of response. Thus, we saw increases of inequality in income distribution and wealth, widespread loss of employment, substantive declines in spending and general deterioration in economic conditions; serious declines in mental health and well-being, delayed and diminished access to health care, and record high levels of domestic violence. The education of children was particularly affected.”

“We need to have a serious conversation about our manner of response before the next crisis —pandemic or otherwise— to ensure that the cure is not much worse than the disease. Consider the alarmist treatment of climate change. Campaigners and news organizations play up fear, in the form of floods, storms and droughts, while neglecting to mention that reductions in poverty and increases in resiliency mean that climate-related disasters kill ever fewer people: Over the past century, deaths have dropped 97 percent.”

“Fear-mongering and the suppression of truly inconvenient truths are pushing us dangerously toward the wrong solutions. The United Nations promises everything imaginable in the form of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): the end to extreme poverty, hunger, and disease; reduction of inequality and corruption; cessation of war; amelioration of climate change; universalization of education—even ease of access to urban parks. But a plan that makes of all problems the same compelling crisis without prioritization is no plan at all, merely a recipe for the appearance of action and virtue.”

“Enough panicked fear-mongering. We can focus on what is truly important and attainable, initiate and reward a more nuanced global discussion regarding the problems that will always beset us, and look forward confidently to a world more abundant, more laden with opportunity, more sustainable and more hopeful.”

Naples Daily News in Florida. “Metro Home Builders in Naples has called it quits, leaving its customers in a lurch. Customers have been left in limbo, with unfinished homes and unfulfilled warranty work. Some have taken to social media to complain and ask for help. The locally owned custom builder is in the midst of filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy to sell off its assets and pay off its debts. In an email, Naples attorney Gregory Champeau, who represents the company, confirmed the bankruptcy case is ‘in the final stages of preparation. It will be filed imminently,’ he said, declining to comment any further.”

“Metro Home Builders had been in business for nine years. It had a 4.2 rating, based on Google reviews, but most of the reviews are years old. The latest review, posted 10 months ago, isn’t flattering. In it, Dennis Kilcoyne complained of ‘very poor quality,’ and a lack of response, giving the builder one star. ‘They may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for. Concrete was screwed up, walls were crooked, windows were ordered wrong, one thing after another,’ he lamented. ‘My daughter made the mistake of building a second home with them and it took two years with excuse after excuse.'”

“The Better Business Bureau has received one complaint against the builder. In April, a customer complained that she’s not satisfied ‘at all.’ She described the warranty on Metro’s work as ‘very poor.’ ‘There are cracks throughout the house that we had to pay for to get corrected. Two other issues were to be addressed and denied as well. I would never recommend them to build a shed for me,’ she stated. Reacting to the bankruptcy news, Ileana Fibla asked if anyone knew an attorney who could help, with a Metro home that’s far from done. ‘They left me hanging less than half done and owe me money … any idea what to do?’ she asked the group, getting one reply, in a private message, from another customer with an unfinished home, who has hired an attorney.”

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This Post Has 170 Comments

  1. The editorials above are worth reading in full.

    ‘More than 20,000 new rental units came online in the last year, according to MRI ApartmentData. Of the 72 new communities, 93% are classified as Class A or luxury apartments’

    This has been the case at least since I started to follow it in 2014. So well over 90% of new airboxes are luxury and nobody asks how did this get so fooked up and who is responsible? Older stuff is paint slapped and rents jacked up.

    2. “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon is said to have told President Herbert Hoover—according to Hoover, anyway—after the Crash of 1929. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system.…enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

      Today, both the dollar and Wall street would lose its status around the world as safe haven for investors given a hands-off crash.

      2. Today, both the dollar and Wall street would lose its status around the world as safe haven for investors given a hands-off crash.

        Fine let that happen. Question, whose currency and market will replace the dollar and Wall Street? You see, that’s the real problem, everybody everywhere is overvalued and leveraged to the breaking point. It’s one big scam and soon nobody will be able to control it.

    3. “This year, Silicon Valley Bank and two other midsize lenders were taken over due to worries of further contagion in the financial system. To critics, these banks were built on the high-tech bubble—much of their deposits came from Silicon Valley start-ups—and rescuing them simply rewards reckless risk-taking.”

      Silicon Valley Bank was not a normal retail bank. It’s primary business was start-up IPO “pump and dump” operations that left smaller investors hold the bag when the excitement faded.

  2. ‘Fear-mongering and the suppression of truly inconvenient truths are pushing us dangerously toward the wrong solutions. The United Nations promises everything imaginable’

    Paul Adams is a retired professor and a former Globe and Mail reporter in Ottawa and the Middle East. He has owned an EV since 2020.

    It was before dawn on April Fool’s Day when I set out from Wawa, Ont., for Thunder Bay in my 2020 all-electric Nissan Leaf. It was the third day of my planned 14,000-kilometre journey from Ottawa to Victoria, returning through the United States.

    The temperature was minus nine and there was a howling wind off Lake Superior to the south, blowing sheets of powdery snow across the highway. When I was planning this trip, I knew that this was the day when there would be the fewest opportunities to charge.

    In the showroom, they will tell you that my model of Leaf can get 400 kilometres on a charge. Perhaps in perfect conditions — in the city on a pleasant spring day. But electric vehicles get less mileage in the cold and at highway speeds. When I left Wawa, the algorithm in the car told me my range was likely a little more than 300 kilometres, but I could quickly see my projected range dropping much more quickly than the distance to my destination.

    I was aiming for the Ivy chargers in White River, 93 kilometres out. I knew from experience in Southern Ontario that the Ivy Charging Network (a joint venture of Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation) was not especially reliable. But my hope was to do an insurance charge-up there so I could get to the charger after that, a Petro-Canada in Marathon.

    Even before I reached White River, I was starting to worry. The temperature had dropped to minus 13. I turned off the electric luxuries like the warmers for the seat and the steering-wheel and then, as I got more nervous, I dropped my speed to 85 kilometres an hour and started turning off the interior heat from time to time.

    This B.C. Hydro charger in Field, B.C. was the only one in the entire trip that you could call beautifully situated. And there was a public restroom nearby.

    When I reached White River, I pulled up to the Ivy chargers. Their video screens were an empty dull grey, and when I went on the Ivy app to put in my co-ordinates, it said the chargers were “unavailable.”

    It was almost another 100 kilometres to Marathon.

    I now dropped my speed to 65 to save battery power. When semi trucks appeared in my rear-view mirror, coming in at full speed, I would put on my flashers and pull over to the shoulder so they could whiz by. I was turning my heater off for longer periods and my feet were getting painfully cold. I would give the windshield a brief zap every now and again to keep it clear.

    I began to worry whether my clothes were warm enough if I got into real trouble.

    When I finally reached the charger in Marathon, it was minus 20 with the wind chill and my teeth literally chattered as the Petro-Canada app refused to open on my phone. Nor would the terminal recognize my credit card. But finally, it did accept the card in my phone wallet. I was charging.

    That was the worst day in 10 mainly wonderful weeks that included all the joys of a long-distance road trip: seeing old friends, exploring new places, hiking, taking pictures and crossing the Rockies twice.

    But that day north of Superior illustrated some of the problems that face North America as the rush is on to replace our vast gas-guzzling fleet of vehicles with EVs. In pursuit of our climate goals, Canada has mandated that 60 per cent of new car sales be EVs by 2030, just seven years away, and 100 per cent by 2035. But the fast-charging network is not nearly as robust as it needs to be. There aren’t enough chargers in enough places, and way too many of them don’t work well or don’t work at all.

    When I am at home in Ottawa, the car is perfect. It cost me only a little more than the average car sold nowadays in Canada, in part because of the $5,000 federal subsidy. I have a Level 2 charger at home that will fill the battery overnight on 240 volts. The charging unit cost me about $1,500 to install, including an upgrade to my electrical panel, and since then I have spent about a quarter of what I would to fuel a regular car.

    But as soon as I hit the road – which I am doing more these days because I am retired and because I am trying to cut back on air travel, also for environmental reasons — life becomes complicated.

    First of all, there’s the time it takes even at a “fast-charger.” When I got the car, I thought, well, I love to walk. I’ll just go for a stroll whenever the car is charging. I had not thought that the chargers are usually located on service islands where there’s nowhere to go or in dreary retail strips where there’s nowhere you want to go.

    Then one day on a trip to Quebec City with my daughter, Sophia, I noticed that when we stopped to charge, she popped open her laptop and did some school work.

    Unsold electric vehicles are piling up – people like the idea but are not buying them

    So, I decided to post periodically on the Substack platform about my trip, and pass the time writing and processing my photographs. This worked well, at least when there was a coffee shop or restaurant nearby and if I was charging just once or twice in a day; but admittedly it got a little old if I charged a third time. And the more often you charge, the slower it goes as the car throttles up to keep the battery from overheating. You hope you won’t have to stop for more than half an hour; occasionally it can be more like a full hour.

    But for me, a bigger issue was the sheer mental exhaustion of constantly planning where to charge — and what to do if something went wrong. In Merritt, B.C., the specific connector I needed for my car was broken at the Canadian Tire. Across the street, the Petro-Canada chargers were down. Luckily, my last option, a brand new charger at a convenience store, did work. If it hadn’t, it was another 63 kilometres to the next charger, and who’s to say what condition it was in?

    In Canada, I drove mainly along the Trans-Canada Highway, which is better served than elsewhere. I abandoned a plan to drive the Icefields Parkway between Banff and Jasper for lack of chargers. I had a similar issue in the U.S. with the Great Plains states.

    A friend and I had arranged to meet up and tour around the Palouse region of eastern Washington state — a photographer’s dream for its painterly landscapes. I had used my PlugShare app, which is generally reliable for identifying charger locations, and saw there was a lonely pair of ChargePoint chargers in the region at a casino near the sister cities of Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Washington. (Yes, Lewiston and Clarkston — get it?) But when I got there, the chargers hadn’t been set up. I felt defeated when I suggested to my buddy that we rent a gas-powered car for a few days as the only practical way to tour the region. We rented a Nissan Sentra for two days. It was definitely worth it.

    Even where there are chargers, they can be frustrating to use. In the American Midwest, I needed to use a charger from a company that was new to me. I downloaded the app but it wouldn’t take my Canadian credit card. Luckily the operator at the help line answered promptly and was able to start the charge remotely.
    Open this photo in gallery:

    Frankly, I do not understand why all the charging networks don’t allow you just to tap and pay. You can do this with the Electrify America chargers in the United States, which I also found to be the best maintained. (The Electrify America network, mostly based in Walmart parking lots, emerged from the Volkswagen emissions scandal and is part of the company’s settlement.)

    One issue I did not encounter, which I often hear discussed by non-EV owners, is lineups at charging stations. That happened to me just once in 2½ months. Still, it is hard to know the future as the number of chargers grows but so does the number of EVs. It is difficult to imagine that this will be perfectly synchronized.

    My Tesla-owning friends serenely tell me that with their longer-range cars, faster charging and seamlessly efficient charging network, they face none of these problems. But the solution to our climate challenge can’t possibly be that everyone runs out and buys an $80,000 car.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/drive/mobility/article-in-the-city-my-ev-is-perfect-when-i-hit-the-open-road-as-i-did/

    1. Nothing can replace the internal combustion engine for the efficiency of personal mobility and the transport of goods.

      Electric vehicles are nothing more than an expensive virtue signal.

      Everything about the phony climate “crisis” is the road to your total enslavement.

    2. If the prospect of being forced to purchase an EV with limited range and not enough charger stations seems terrifying, just imagine how terryfing it seems in really hot or cold environments (i.e. not Coastal California), where getting stranded when you run out of charge could have truly life threatening consequences.

    3. But the solution to our climate challenge can’t possibly be that everyone runs out and buys an $80,000 car.

      The solution is that you not have a car at all.

    4. The wealthy globalists and environazis, under the guise of “green,” “climate change,” etc., have a history of eliminating much needed and useful products and replacing them with garbage, oftentimes with worse results for the earth.

      Exhibit A would be “no spill” gas can spouts. I have never spilled so much gasoline with the advent of these useless pieces of plastic garbage. The old metal spouts which you could bend to any position worked perfectly, but now I am forced to try to twist and push a device at the same time, while hooking it around/propping it on the rim of the tractor/mower, etc. until it slips off and spills a large amount on the machine/ground, etc.

      I want to see one of these liberal women who mandated this BS try to hold 5 gallons of fuel upside down in order to use these useless pieces of garbage. As a strong man, I can suspend 5 gallons of fuel in the air for some time to try to use these miserable pieces of sh!t, but it is definitely tiring and annoying.

      1. I have some gas cans on the boat that are sold only for “off road” use. They’re just fine.

      2. Exhibit A would be “no spill” gas can spouts. I have never spilled so much gasoline with the advent of these useless pieces of plastic garbage.
        Me too, I hate those things and spill gas every d@mn time.

  3. This country is in a cost of living CRISIS.

    How much has your standard of living deteriorated since January 2021? The cost of FOOD is up somewhere from 40-60%. LOL@ trying to buy a car, or pay for $4 gas.

    C-SPAN is airing a segment right now about recent reports of outstanding credit card debt topping $1 trillion, and it is depressing.

    They’re doing all of this on purpose. The CCP Flu “disease” was merely incidental to the greatest wealth transfer from the middle class and the poor to billionaires.

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

  4. World-renowned auction house Sotheby’s is being sued alongside several major celebrities for the auction of over 100 images of cartoon monkeys.

    According to The Times, Sotheby’s has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit alongside celebrities such as Madonna, Paris Hilton and Justin Bieber, who promoted the non-fungible token (NFT) collection Bored Ape Yacht Club.

    A series of 10,000 collectable, digital monkey artworks, Bored Ape Yacht Club by Yuga Labs was for a long time considered to be among the most valuable NFT collections in the world.

    The lawsuit is a sign of times, marking the sentiment of angry investors with nowhere else to turn as NFT values have plummeted over the last few years.

    Investors claim that promotions by celebrities “artificially inflated” the price of the NFTs leading to financial losses. Scott+Scott claims that thousands of investors could collectively be owed more than $2 billion.

    As for Sotheby’s, the auction house is being targeted for having “misleadingly promoted” the Bored Ape collection and attempted to “manipulate the price” of the collection, according to a US court filing submitted last Friday.

    “The Sotheby’s stamp of approval played a big part in the deceptive promotion of the NFT collection as a legitimate investment,” said Sean Masson of the law firm Scott+Scott, which is representing investors. “Unfortunately, Sotheby’s over-hyped auction turned out to be a farce that served as the starting point for the massive scheme alleged to have defrauded investors.”

    Then in September 2021, Sotheby’s held an online auction via their metaverse marketplace for 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. The collection was sold to an anonymous buyer for £24.4million or $51.7m, far exceeding the expectation that the NFTs would fetch between $20-30m.

    This is where the issue becomes pointed. Investors allege that following the auction, Max Moore, a Sotheby’s staff member, made a claim on social media that the items had been bought by a traditional buyer, that is, someone from the non-crypto world.

    The lawsuit filing states that in reality the NFTs are believed to have been purchased by the collapsed crypto exchange FTX.

    “Representations that the undisclosed buyer was a ‘traditional’ collector misleadingly created the impression that the market for BAYC NFTs had crossed over to a mainstream audience,” the filing claims. “The misleading promotions of the auction by the company [Yuga Labs] and Sotheby’s successfully induced additional purchases of the BAYC NFT collection.”

    A common ‘flex’ among the elite who want to show their taste-making abilities, owners of Bored Apes reportedly include Snoop Dogg, Jimmy Fallon, Post Malone, Mark Cuban, Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Aoki, Gwyneth Paltrow, and DJ Khaled, among others. It is not yet clear whether these names are also named in the lawsuit.

    The most expensive Bored Ape NFT ever sold, Bored Ape #8817, reached a whopping $5.7million on the Sotheby’s metaverse marketplace. According to statistics site DappRadar, it is worth approximately $444,446 today.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/300948989/sothebys-madonna-paris-hilton-and-justin-bieber-sued-over-bored-ape-nfts

  5. ‘She described the warranty on Metro’s work as ‘very poor.’ ‘There are cracks throughout the house that we had to pay for to get corrected. Two other issues were to be addressed and denied as well. I would never recommend them to build a shed for me,’ she stated. Reacting to the bankruptcy news, Ileana Fibla asked if anyone knew an attorney who could help, with a Metro home that’s far from done. ‘They left me hanging less than half done and owe me money … any idea what to do?’

    Ileana, head between knees, kiss yer a$$ goodbye. Didn’t we recently have a puddle watching comment saying a Naples builder was going down?

  6. ‘The word crisis suggests something that is infrequent, surprising, and widely undesirable—something that leads to dire consequences unless it is brought under control. Canada’s ‘housing crisis’ is a permanent state of affairs.’

    ‘How we talk about these issues shapes what we conceive as possible and desirable responses to them. A ‘housing crisis’ suggests the need for a technical solution and coordination between various stakeholders, all of whom desire the same outcome: the end of the crisis. Nobody is at fault. The right policy mix, backed by adequate government funding, is the only way forward; it would benefit everyone. This is, by far, the dominant view of how to deal with housing issues in Canada’

    It’s everywhere in the US too. For how long has K-forna passed laws to ‘solve’ shack prices by building more! It never works so we gotta do more. Ban single family shacks, we’ll all live in container cans stacked a hundred high and tiny clap board boxes that cost the guberment $700k each. That’s literally what has happened.

      1. They built some tiny bum shacks in LA not that long ago and it cost $700k each. No word later means they probably scraped the idea.

      2. The chronic street people have multiple dysfunctional issues, and those who advocate helping them don’t realize that these dregs of society will never amount to anything other than an expense. The helper is the enabler.

  7. Of the 72 new communities, 93% are classified as Class A or luxury apartments.”

    That’s because marketing research indicated 93% of Muricans are high income earners.

    Oh, wait….

  8. ‘Ten years ago, the median sales price for a home was $150,000 in the DFW area. Now, it’s upwards of $350,000 and has even gone up to 390 I think at the top of last year’

    This sounds right. In 2013 the really stupid K-forna type prices weren’t in Texas. Now the whole dam state is priced like that. Progress! What changed?

    Federal shack loan guarantees. Every time they go up, shack prices eventually go there. I’ve been pointing this out since 2006.

    1. I bought a 2700sf house in Collin Co for $175K in the last crash. Now they’re going for $475K for the same model houses in the same neighborhood. Houses in the new developments around here are $700K to $1 million. Property taxes are $25-30K/yr on those. There’s a new development just breaking ground near where I’m renting with plans for 3200 homes priced at $600K to $1.2 million. This is insanity. I have no idea how the average family can afford this. Around 15 years ago, a $300K house in Texas meant you were an upper middle class professional or successful business owner.

  9. ‘The Federal Reserve System is not Federal; it has no reserves; and it is not a system at all, but rather, a criminal syndicate.’ – Eustace Mullins.”

    Truer words were never spoken. Nothing changes until the sheeple wake up and realize this criminal private banking cartel has been robbing them blind with its fiat currency fraud since 1913. Got gold? Got silver? Got lead & brass?

  11. Alt-Market — Never Forget: Leftists Showed Their True Authoritarian Colors During Covid (8/11/2023):

    “Everything government officials told us during the pandemic was a lie. It was not a mistake, it was not bureaucratic confusion, it was a lie. Even after this information became available, they KEPT GOING – They kept people locked down, kept them masked and they even tried to force-vaccinate the population. There were some Republican politicians that also went along with the panic, many of them Neocons (fake conservatives). However, the majority of red states quickly ended the restrictions once the contradictory data was made public. In the meantime, the blue states looked ridiculous and paranoid as they desperately clung to the mandates.

    I believe the only reason Biden, the Democrats and globalist institutions eventually stopped was not because they realized their science was incorrect; it was because they realized millions of conservatives and independents were ready start a shooting war over the mandates and they knew they would lose.”

    ^ Sounds about right.

    “Even today, months after Biden was forced to finally end the national emergency status on covid, there are still a lot of people out there running around with masks, still isolating in their homes and still complaining all over social media that the public has moved on from the pandemic hysteria. Where does this behavior originate? And why did so many Americans (mainly leftists) jump on the authoritarian bandwagon when it comes to lockdowns and forced vaccination?

    Leftists are quick these days to change the subject or outright deny their authoritarian activities during covid. It makes sense, they view the next election as a defining election and they want people to forget that we almost lost what remains of our constitutional rights because of their policies. But again, we can’t allow these things to fade into the ether.

    As many leftists openly admitted, the goal was to make life so difficult for the unvaccinated that they would eventually comply in order to survive. In this way, establishment elites and leftists could claim that people “volunteered” for the vaccines and no one was forced. What they really meant was, no one was forced at gunpoint, but we all knew that threat was coming next. In fact, polling showed that a large percentage of Democrats were willing to scrap the Bill of Rights altogether and declare war on the unvaccinated…

    Finally, the vast majority of leftists supported Biden’s vaccine passport executive orders for workers in companies with 100 employees or more, which would have ultimately led to vaccine passports for everyone. This would have destroyed the constitution as we know it and created a society in which economic participation is completely controlled by the government. Keep in mind, all of this was being justified by a virus with a tiny 0.23% median death rate.

    Since the political left views the Bill of Rights as an obstacle to the majority of their political goals, I argue that they simply saw the pandemic as a vehicle they could exploit to remove constitutional protections they always wanted to get rid of anyway.”

    https://alt-market.us/never-forget-leftists-showed-their-true-authoritarian-colors-during-covid/

    Never forget.
    Never forgive.
    No amnesty.

      1. “Consider the world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A panic-stricken lockdown orthodoxy far too soon took hold, and those whose policy proposals deviated quickly were labelled ‘COVID deniers.’

        All intentional and by design.

        It’s a medical genocide.

    2. I’m reading “The Tragedy of Liberation” by Frank Dikotter, Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong at the time the book was published in 2013. He made extensive use of Chinese provincial archives to tell the history of the “Chinese” revolution of 1945-1957 – in reality the imposition of an alien ideology, Marxism. If you want to understand the playbook the globalists & their Democrat-Bolshevik Quislings are using, and what awaits the FUSA if they ever get the absolute power they crave, this is the book to read.

    3. Leftists fall into 2 camps: evil bullies or willing slaves

      Evil bullies will always exist. Some are on the left, some are on the right.

      The willing slaves are the real problem. What person in their right mind would want to have their life micromanaged by a bureaucrat, scientist, or anybody else? Yet we saw this cultish behavior in a large portion of the population.

    1. I wonder how many Asians have RE, debt, and equity investments in the West that will need to be liquidated. It’s not just the billionaires. The Chinese have been trying to get their wealth out of reach of the CCP for the past 15 years. The US and Canada were the primary destinations.

      1. The US and Canada were the primary destinations.

        Don’t forget Australia + New Zealand. They are similar time zones, closer flights, and extremely accommodating of foreign capital.

  15. Climate scientist Judith Curry, once the darling of environmental advocacy groups, says the doomsday consensus around climate change is “manufactured”. In a bombshell interview with John Stossel, she speaks openly about being part of the government-funded climate alarmism complex. Here’s an excerpt from Stossel’s piece about the interview:

    We are told climate change is a crisis, and that there is an “overwhelming scientific consensus”.

    “It’s a manufactured consensus,” says climate scientist Judith Curry in my new video. She says scientists have an incentive to exaggerate risk to pursue “fame and fortune”.

    She knows about that because she once spread alarm about climate change.

    Media loved her when she published a study that seemed to show a dramatic increase in hurricane intensity.

    “We found that the percent of Category Four and Five hurricanes had doubled,” says Curry. “This was picked up by the media,” and then climate alarmists realised, “Oh, here is the way to do it. Tie extreme weather events to global warming!” …

    “I was adopted by the environmental advocacy groups and the alarmists and I was treated like a rock star,” Curry recounts. “Flown all over the place to meet with politicians.”

    But then some researchers pointed out gaps in her research – years with low levels of hurricanes.

    “Like a good scientist, I investigated,” says Curry. She realised that the critics were right. “Part of it was bad data. Part of it is natural climate variability.”

    Curry was the unusual researcher who looked at criticism of her work and actually concluded “they had a point”.

    Then the Climategate scandal taught her that other climate researchers weren’t so open-minded. Alarmist scientists’ aggressive attempts to hide data suggesting climate change is not a crisis were revealed in leaked emails.

    “Ugly things,” says Curry. “Avoiding Freedom of Information Act requests. Trying to get journal editors fired.”

    It made Curry realise that there is a “climate change industry” set up to reward alarmism.

    “The origins go back to the… U.N. environmental programme,” says Curry. Some U.N. officials were motivated by “anti-capitalism. They hated the oil companies and seized on the climate change issue to move their policies along.”

    The U.N. created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

    “The IPCC wasn’t supposed to focus on any benefits of warming. The IPCC’s mandate was to look for dangerous human-caused climate change.” …

    The researchers quickly figured out that the way to get funded was to make alarmist claims about “man-made climate change”.

    https://dailysceptic.org/2023/08/12/its-a-manufactured-consensus-scientist-admits-to-spreading-alarm-about-climate-change/

    1. The fires in Hawaii are the result of arson.

      The fires in Canada (also from arson) are fizzling out, and the muh hottest day in recorded history narrative is fizzling out now that July is over and the Northern Hemisphere is approaching autumn.

      80 people dead and some 1,500 missing, that’s nothing more than a speed bump on the road to a globalist power grab.

      They murdered millions with the phony vaccine, do you think they’d have any moral objection to burning people alive?

    2. “It made Curry realise that there is a “climate change industry” set up to reward alarmism.”

      There was an article posted on this blog during the Obama years on this subject. A small Northeastern college’s president said if you wanted government grant money the study had to support Climate Change or Global Warming or whatever it was called at the time.

      1. Just like there’s a ‘homeless’ industry to soak up money while making things worse. We’re spending billion$ every year and wonder why it’s going backward.

        1. Just like there’s a ‘homeless’ industry

          I’ll bet that industry creates a lot of 6 figure jobs, with all expense paid trips to conferences, etc. Meanwhile, the number of homeless continues to grow.

          1. “…expense paid trips to conferences…”

            Welcome to the Homeless Industrial Complex, close cousin to the REIConplex.

          2. “I’ll bet that industry creates a lot of 6 figure jobs…”

            Those university victim degrees need employment too.

  16. The lawsuit is a sign of times, marking the sentiment of angry investors with nowhere else to turn as NFT values have plummeted over the last few years.

    It would take a heart of stone to read about bagholders who “invested” based on celebrity touts losing huge sums, and not laugh.

  17. there is a massive shortage of entry level starter homes and apartments, some of us don’t need luzzurie, some of us like to put a full size kitchen table in the kitchen, to have friends over, and like the home i grew up in, we don’t have as much stuff as 10 years ago, boy have i downsized stuff going digital,
    —————————
    If we want to build affordable homes for this generation, we need to be able to build more homes on less land.

    1. If we want to build affordable homes for this generation, we need to be able to build more homes on less land.

      Most McMansions are built on postage stamp sized lots.

      1. postage stamp sized lots

        Lots so close you could reach outside your bathroom window and ask your neighbor for a roll of toilet paper if you run out.

    2. Good posts today, people need to start thinking CRITICALLY about all of these things. One very easy line of thought that would solve the entire ‘crisis’ is removing illegal invaders. While I realize this is unlikely to happen, it is important to understand that in places like CA, the official foreign born population is now 27%. This doesn’t include all of the anchor children. Even removing half of these people would solve the ‘housing crisis’. Of course, this would immediately be considered a crisis to other interest groups but this is just one example that cuts through the b.s. and easily shows that it is a crisis of our own making and could be quickly resolved if we weren’t our own worst enemies.

      1. I’m pretty sure DJT is campaigning on having the largest round up of illegal aliens this country has ever seen.

        1. It sounds great but realistically it is unlikely to happen. IMO he failed to fix the problem when he had four years to do it. There is no need to debate why he failed, we all saw what happened, but that was our best chance at fixing it. I don’t believe this country has the will to resolve the problem.

          Generally I think the problem will continue to grow exponentially along the same trend that it has been until the system fails. Each person that makes it in then brings in more as they call up their friends and family. The millions that are currently arriving will bring in millions more. It’s a dynamic process.

          Isn’t it funny how not so long ago they said we shouldn’t have any children due to overpopulation but now they want half the world to move here? We are being robbed.

          1. they want half the world to move here

            Curious, as the sanctuary cities are mobbed by the newcomers, those in charge of those sh!tholes are starting to demand that something be done at the border. I still remember how last winter leftist Denver city government very quietly put the newly arrived “refugees” on chartered buses and sent them elsewhere.

  18. A reader sent these in:

    Average 30-Year Mortgage Rate in the US…
    1970s: 8.9%
    1980s: 12.7%
    1990s: 8.1%
    2000s: 6.3%
    2010s: 4.1%
    2020s: 4.3%
    —
    All-Time Low (Jan 2021): 2.65%
    Today’s Rate: 6.96%

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1689743426529693696

    The US government continues to spend money like a drunken sailor w/ the budget deficit widening to $2.3 trillion. This is occurring when the economy is still in an expansion with the Unemployment Rate near a 54-year low at 3.5%. What happens to the deficit when a recession hits?

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1689716997171593218

    Why is Shelter CPI still elevated while actual rents are down YoY? Shelter CPI is a lagging indicator that wildly understated true housing inflation in 2021 & first half of 2022. Shelter CPI has been playing catch up but still only shows a 18.5% increase since the start of 2020 vs. a 23.4% increase in actual Rents & a 44% increase in Home Prices (nationally).

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1689625642231345152

    Looks like contagion among China Construction names is at play in the wake of Country Garden default – will put some thoughts together later. As I had already outlined in that China thread, this is a momentous moment for China and while it’s way too late to make money on this given how advanced it is, what matters here are the global deflationary impulses at play. Cogard next one to fold

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1689936145432403968

    Massive bubble bursting is so painful it takes another generation of naive investors for mania of such proportions to happen again 👇 Human nature doesn’t change, only the bubbles change.

    https://twitter.com/MichaelAArouet/status/1689915772745785344

    By popular request: Best 0% finance deals right now 👇

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1690049328277053440

    Only 16% of Californians Can Afford to Buy a Home. Buyers need $208,000 income to qualify for a 30-year loan:

    https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1690108119156772864

    Guy is wondering why he can’t rent his 5000/month home – blames properties manager for absurd rent 🤦‍♂️

    https://twitter.com/BirSignup/status/1689832139427299328

    My landlord wanted to increase my rent from $1,375/mo to $1,415/mo. I said no thanks and moved out. He now has my room for rent for $1,200/mo after 4 months of vacancies. All’s right with the world.

    https://twitter.com/FilledWithMoney/status/1690046455765946388

    Airbnb map in San Diego is WOW. And you can see why residents in neighborhoods with a lot of STR hate it.

    https://twitter.com/JulieChangRE/status/1689809297679716352

    🇺🇸 United States
    1960
    Median family income: $5,600
    Median cost of a house: $11,900
    2023
    Median family income: $70,700
    Median cost of a house: $416,000

    https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1690111343662366720

    Bought this for 85k
    Lost money 💰 every year I owned it
    Sold it for 63k
    Don’t jump into this without knowing your #’s
    The Cleveland market…..wasn’t kind to me

    https://twitter.com/Thefrugalgay11/status/1690129791520051201

    Paypal $PYPL getting really close now to taking out a 6-year low of $59.34

    https://twitter.com/Barchart/status/1690101365240975360

    So if the 2008 housing crisis was caused by investors/speculators
    We had more documented speculation 2020-2022 than any time in history
    An additional 50% are likely fraudulent AND those are 75% MORE likely to default.

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1690129550536245249

    President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari: CBDCs don’t solve any actual problems, other than enabling central bankers to monitor all transactions, and deduct taxes directly from people’s accounts.

    “I keep asking anybody, at the Fed or outside of the Fed, to explain to me what problem this is solving… I can see why China would do it. If they want to monitor every one of your transactions, you could do that with a central bank digital currency. If you want to directly tax customer accounts, you could do that with a central bank digital currency. So I get why China would be interested. Why would the American people be for that?”

    https://twitter.com/wideawake_media/status/1689932611609587712

    They always say the same sh$t , even the wording is all the same

    https://twitter.com/theyhatemetoo/status/1690114764704481281

    1. “United States
      1960
      Median family income: $5,600
      Median cost of a house: $11,900
      2023
      Median family income: $70,700
      Median cost of a house: $416,000”

      Looks like a central banking and globalist success story to me.

      1. Also the size of new houses doubled.

        In 1960 you could still get a mortgage at 3%, as the recovery from the Great Depression was still in progress. Most people were well aware of the dangers of debt, by first or second hand experience. Today, those people are all gone.

        1. My first house after marriage was in 1966. We purchased a house using FHA financing. The house sale price was $12,750, down payment $750 and FHA checked with my parents (and my wife’s) that no money was contributed by them. They verified my employment with both my then present employer and the one previous.
          I was the only breadwinner and I was making $3.25/hr.

          2. “The house sale price was $12,750…”
            “I was the only breadwinner and I was making $3.25/hr….”

            So ($3.25 * 80) * 26 = $6,760 per yr, which means your income was roughly half the house purchase price. Fortunately, you weren’t black, and you didn’t get killed in the ’68 Tet offensive.

    2. My landlord wanted to increase my rent from $1,375/mo to $1,415/mo. I said no thanks and moved out. He now has my room for rent for $1,200/mo after 4 months of vacancies.

      For a single ROOM? No wonder there are so many homeless. This is absurd.

  19. Is it safe to say now that inflation is contained and interest rates will soon be coming down?

    1. Yahoo
      Bloomberg
      US 30-Year Treasury Auction Signals Weak Demand to Wrap Up Week of Big Sales
      Michael Mackenzie and Ye Xie
      Thu, August 10, 2023 at 2:22 PM MDT·3 min read

      (Bloomberg) — US Treasuries came under renewed pressure, pushing yields higher, as the market struggled to absorb this week’s final leg of new debt sales.

      The moves extended a volatile session Thursday, when soft inflation data for July initially pushed yields lower and fueled speculation that the market would easily accommodate the $23 billion auction of 30-year bonds at 1 pm New York time.

      But even with the bonds sold for a yield of 4.189%, the highest since 2011, the amount allotted to primary dealers was the largest since February, a sign of weak demand. Afterward, 30-year yields jumped as high as 4.26% late in New York.

      The sale was the biggest test of this week’s auctions, when the Treasury sold a combined $103 billion of new 3-, 10- and 30-year debt, because the long maturity securities usually appeal to select investors such as pension funds and insurers. The size of the 30-year bond sale was $2 billion larger than last new-issue offering in May, and the market expects further increases given the expected deficits the US government is facing.

      “It’s a case of refunding digestion,” and with shorter-dated Treasury yields higher, “you are getting paid to keep duration short,” said Gregory Faranello, head of US rates trading and strategy for AmeriVet Securities. He said the sale also reflects weak summer liquidity.

      Treasury yields dropped early in the trading day after the consumer price index’s advance was in line with expectations, supporting anticipation that the Federal Reserve is likely done raising interest rates. Ten-year Treasury yields dropped as much as 6 basis points to 3.94% before reversing course and jumping back to as much as 4.11% in the late afternoon.

      “The selloff feels likes a reaction to the weak auction,” said Subadra Rajappa, head of U.S. rates strategy for Societe Generale. “It caught me by surprise. Dealers had to take down a big chunk of the paper. It feels like there’s not enough of real money participation.”

      But, she added, “it’s hard to draw a conclusion for an auction in August” when investors leave for vacations.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-30-treasury-auction-signals-191111698.html

      1. “He said the sale also reflects weak summer liquidity.”

        Good thing the fed stands ready as the buyer of last resort.

        2. Financial Times
          The QE retreat
          Investors brace for turbulence as Fed balance sheet shrinks by $1tn
          Central bank will continue shedding Treasuries at a time of significant US government borrowing
          The Fed aims to cut another $1.5tn from its balance sheet by mid-2025
          Kate Duguid and Nicholas Megaw in New York yesterday

          The Federal Reserve’s drive to shrink its swollen balance sheet is poised to hit $1tn this month, a significant milestone in the US central bank’s attempt to reverse years of easy pandemic-era monetary policy as investors warn further reductions threaten to shake financial markets.

          The US central bank bought trillions of dollars of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities to help stabilise the financial system during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, but last spring started letting its holdings mature without replacing them.

          As of August 9, the Fed’s portfolio had shrunk by $0.98tn since the portfolio’s peak of $8.55tn in May last year, and analysis of weekly data suggests it is on track to pass $1tn before the end of the month.
          …

    2. The Wall Street Journal
      10 days ago
      Global Policies Lift Long-Term Bond Yields to 8-Month High
      By Eric Wallerstein, Reporter

      The yield on the 30-year Treasury rose 0.09 percentage point to 4.104% on Tuesday—its highest level since November 2022. What’s called a bear steepener* appears to be in full effect after moves by international policy makers.

      The Treasury Department shocked much of Wall Street by raising its borrowing estimate for the third quarter by more than a quarter-trillion-dollars to about $1 trillion. Additional supply of long-term Treasurys dents prices of bonds currently floating in the market, boosting yields.

      With the Bank of Japan allowing its long-term yields to rise after years of capping them, Japanese investors have less reason to scoop up U.S. Treasurys. That can reduce demand stateside, hurting prices and lifting yields.

      *A bear steepener occurs when long-term yields rise faster than those on short-term bonds, steepening the yield curve but with rates climbing across maturities. That can be bearish for stocks.
      …

    3. Mortgage rates rise to just short of 7%
      By Anna Bahney, CNN
      Updated 3:06 PM EDT, Thu August 10, 2023

      Washington, DC CNN —

      US mortgage rates rose for the third week in a row but stayed just under the 7% threshold.

      The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.96% in the week ending August 10, up from 6.90% the week before, according to data from Freddie Mac released Thursday. A year ago, the 30-year fixed-rate was 5.22%.

      Elevated mortgage rates in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s historic rate-hiking campaign have taken home affordability to its lowest level in several decades. Buying a home is more expensive because of the added cost of financing the mortgage, and homeowners who previously locked in lower rates are reluctant to sell. The combination of low inventory and high costs has squeezed would-be homebuyers.

      Rates have been above 6.5% since the end of May, and this week’s average rate matches the highest level since November.

      “There is no doubt continued high rates will prolong affordability challenges longer than expected,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “However, upward pressure on rates is the product of a resilient economy with low unemployment and strong wage growth, which historically has kept purchase demand solid.”
      …
      https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/homes/mortgage-rates-august-10/index.html

    4. Financial Times
      Opinion The Long View
      Bonds are no longer the safe option
      In 2023, US equities have wiped the floor relative to the government IOUs
      John Plender
      The US treasury market is regarded as the safest bolt hole on the planet
      © Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
      John Plender yesterday

      Bond investors have been on the rack in recent days and weeks. So much so that you have to ask why economists and professional investors continue to refer to government bonds as safe and risk-free investments, relative to supposedly riskier equities.

      The charge against these government IOUs is pretty damning. Take the US treasury market, regarded as the safest bolt hole on the planet. But the return on US treasuries in 2022 was minus 17.8 per cent compared with minus 18.0 per cent on stocks in the S&P 500 index. Fractionally safer, then, to the point of meaninglessness. Clearly bonds offered no diversification relative to equities.

      Yes, bonds offer a contractually fixed income and, in the corporate market, rank before equities in a winding up. Yet the reality is that bonds and equities are both risky, with nuanced differences.

      In 2023 so far, US equities have wiped the floor relative to bonds. This is partly illusory because the bounce in both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq indices has been driven almost exclusively by the seven biggest technology companies. Quite a turnaround.

      At the start of the year, the conventional wisdom was that rising interest rates were shrinking the present value of tech companies’ future income streams, since higher interest income today reduces the attraction of dollar earnings in the time ahead.

      In effect, this seemingly ineluctable mathematical logic has been overridden by the power of the artificial intelligence story.

      The enthusiasm for AI reflects a level of market euphoria uncomfortably reminiscent of the dotcom bubble, when tech stocks showed stellar performance in the face of tightening monetary policy. In the meantime, fears of recession are in retreat.

      But to return to bonds — the great bull market that started in the 1980s is clearly over. And recent nervousness has many causes ranging from the Fitch rating agency downgrade of US treasuries, to worries about endemic budget deficits and the withdrawal of Japanese capital from the US (a response to the Bank of Japan’s loosening of its yield curve control policy).

      The more fundamental point, made by William White, former head of the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements, is that the world is moving from an age of plenty to an age of scarcity.

      Numerous trends since the end of the cold war — the expansion of global supply chains, growth in the global workforce, trade growth outstripping increases in gross domestic product, less spending on guns and butter — are now going into reverse.

      At the same time, energy supply is constrained by concerns about climate change and security, while record levels of both private and public debt restrict policy options as well as being a drag on growth.

      This paves the way for a more inflationary world, in which inflation and interest rates are likely to be more volatile.

      White foresees continuing inflationary pressures and higher real interest rates for much longer than most people now expect. If he is right, the bond market’s ability to inflict financial instability bears thinking about.

      In the US, there has been a phoney peace since Silicon Valley Bank and other regional banks foundered in March because of the collapse in the market value of their securities holdings.

      Yet the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation estimates that unrealised losses on American banks’ securities amounted to $515.5bn at the end of March, equivalent to 23 per cent of the banks’ capital.

      This is quite a deadweight at the start of a looming commercial real estate disaster that will soon inflict further damage on bank balance sheets. That problem is replicated across much of the developed world.

      It is central banks, however, that are suffering the biggest balance sheet damage due to rising bond yields, as a result of their asset purchasing programmes. On March 31st, for example, the mark-to-market losses on the Federal Reserve’s securities holdings stood at $911bn. That is nearly 22 times its mere $42bn capital.
      …

    5. Bonds
      Treasury yields increase after producer prices are a touch hotter than expected
      Published Fri, Aug 11 2023 3:54 AM EDT
      Updated Fri, Aug 11 2023 4:29 PM EDT
      Alex Harring
      Samantha Subin
      Elliot Smith

      U.S. Treasury yields rose on Friday as traders assessed a slightly higher-than-expected measure of wholesale inflation.

      Treasurys
      MATURITY YIELD CHANGE
      U.S. 1 Month Treasury 5.385 0.012
      U.S. 3 Month Treasury 5.43 -0.007
      U.S. 6 Month Treasury 5.482 -0.008
      U.S. 1 Year Treasury 5.354 0.018
      U.S. 2 Year Treasury 4.895 0.074
      U.S. 10 Year Treasury 4.158 0.076
      U.S. 30 Year Treasury 4.264 0.031

      The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note added nearly 8 basis points to 4.16%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasury note ticked up more than 7 basis points to 4.895%.

      The producer price index rose 0.3% for July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. That came in slightly ahead of the 0.2% month-over-month increase expected by economists polled by Dow Jones.

      The report follows Thursday’s consumer price index, which indicated that prices rose by 3.2% year-on-year in July, slightly below the 3.3% consensus forecast among economists polled by Dow Jones. However, the core CPI reading, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased by an annual 4.7%.

      Tiffany Wilding, managing director and economist at Pimco, said the Thursday data would be welcomed by the Federal Reserve. Traders are closely watching several key data points to gauge whether the central bank will need to hike interest rates again in September and for how long monetary policy will stay tight.

      “After inflation was stubbornly firm in the first part of the year, the U.S. economy continues to look on track for meaningful disinflation in the second half of the year,” Wilding said.

      “We continue to expect core CPI to end the year around 3.3% y/y. Still, we think Fed officials are likely to remain in data dependence mode for now, and will wait for further evidence of the economy slowing before declaring victory.”
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/11/treasury-yields-rise-after-the-cooler-than-expected-july-inflation-print.html

  20. From the lead-off piece regarding Idaho: “Folks in California are moving to Idaho. Folks in Colorado are moving to Idaho. Most are working from home and shopping online and that is OK. Just know that most of their dollars are not being spent locally.”

    The equity locusts are ravaging the place!

    “A survey conducted by Boise State University revealed people ages 21-30 are going. They are leaving Idaho at alarmingly higher rates than any other age group, and 17,000 moved out.”

    There goes the foundation of the population pyramid, oh my!

    1. “the population pyramid”

      Not to worry. Jonathan Greenblatt has a plan to replace them.

      1. Here’s to hoping our beloved mountain climbing HBB dog Beau is having a nice relaxing retirement nap this afternoon filled with good dreams of when he appeared on this blog running around in some of the most awesome scenery that can be found on this planet.

        1. He’s probably dreaming more about my brother grilling some steaks, and the last time he got a nice bone to gnaw on.

          Napping under a tree in the back yard, yes.

  21. “Problem-solving theories, as he called them, don’t ask how things came to be, who benefits from the way things are, or whether things could be different. Instead, the focus is on smoothing out any troubles with the existing institutions.”

    Here’s a theory; burn the whole thing to the ground. Again, the definition at insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

    1. the focus is on smoothing out any troubles with the existing institutions.

      Bingo. Most proposed solutions don’t step back far enough to see the big picture. Corporate law needs to go. Social Security and Medicare need to go. The Federal Reserve needs to go. That should be enough to get us started.

  23. Can another hair-of-the-dog hangover cure revive China’s debt-saddled property sector? I guess time will tell.

    1. Finance
      China July new bank loans tumble, credit growth weakens further
      By Kevin Yao and Qiaoyi Li
      August 11, 2023 4:42 AM MDT
      Updated a day ago
      Coins and banknotes of China’s yuan are seen in this illustration picture taken February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration/File Photo

      Summary

      – Weak credit readings add to flurry of gloomy economic data

      – July new loans 345.9 bln yuan, lowest since 2009

      – July M2 money supply +10.7% y/y, vs forecast of +11.0%

      – Central bank pledges to maintain support for economy

      – More rate cuts expected but appetite for borrowing very weak

      BEIJING, Aug 11 (Reuters) – China’s new bank loans tumbled in July and other key credit gauges also weakened , even after policymakers cut interest rates and promised to roll out more support for the faltering economy.

      Chinese banks extended 345.9 billion yuan ($47.80 billion) of new yuan loans in July, tumbling 89% from June to the lowest since late 2009 and falling far short of analysts’ forecasts, data from the People’s Bank of China showed on Friday.

      Analysts polled by Reuters had expected new loans last month to fall sharply from 3.05 trillion yuan in June to 800 billion yuan, after record lending in the first half as the central bank tried to shore up sputtering consumption and investment.

      The reading was also much lower than 679 billion yuan in July 2022.

      While lending in China typically tends to fall back in July for seasonal reasons, the weak credit readings come days after other grim data which showed the world’s second-largest economy slipped into deflation last month while exports and imports plummeted, adding pressure on Beijing to roll out more forceful stimulus measures.

      “China’s bank loan growth fell to its lowest in seven months in July, while broad credit growth dropped to a record low,” Capital Economics said in a note to clients.

      “We expect further policy rate cuts (as soon as next Tuesday) and a spike in government bond issuance in the coming months, but unless there is a wider improvement in business and household sentiment, this probably won’t lift credit growth much.”

      Hobbled by weak demand at home and abroad, China’s economic momentum has faltered in recent months despite strong bank lending in the first half.

      Household loans, mostly mortgages, contracted by 200.7 billion yuan in July, after rising 963.9 billion yuan in June, as a debt crisis in the property sector deepened, while corporate loans slid to 237.8 billion yuan last month from 2.28 trillion yuan in June, central bank data showed.
      …
      https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/china-july-new-bank-loans-tumble-credit-growth-weakens-further-2023-08-11/

      1. “…tumbling 89% from June to the lowest since late 2009 and falling far short of analysts’ forecasts…”

        Is 89% alot?

        1. It’s sort of like the haircut that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette got at the Place de la Concorde

  24. Some Reddit /r/Denver comments on a thread about an article I posted here the other day (in sequence of replies):

    “yeah well that’s what happens when people can’t afford housing”

    “What, they immediately start sh*tting themselves, smoking fentanyl on the W line and shoplifting from Walgreens?”

    “Yeah I’m sure the 20-something violent meth head with face tats was an upstanding, bill-paying citizen just a few months ago before he got laid off from his tech startup job”

    “Right? I’m so effing sick of this argument. I look out my window and see a dozen able-bodied dudes aged 20-50 rolling up tin foil all day. This isn’t just a housing issue and we need to stop pretending that’s all it is.”

    1. You never see any attractive women in these camps.

      “I want a man who’s kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?” —Zsa Zsa Gabor

    2. I’m nt sure how our local coyotes and mountain lions would feel about the intrusion of unhoused humans into their habitat.

      1. We’ve got coyotes, wild hogs, rattlesnakes, and copperheads. The smaller critters like tarantulas, scorpions, and centipedes can be dangerous too.

  26. Yahoo
    Benzinga
    Homebuyers Now Require $117K In Annual Income To Purchase A Median-Priced U.S. Home — Up Nearly $20K From Last Year. Here’s A Cheaper Way To Invest In Residential Real Estate
    Jing Pan
    Thu, August 10, 2023 at 9:54 AM MDT·3 min read

    High interest rates can cool down the housing market. Yet despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes, homes aren’t getting more affordable.

    The median existing home price in the U.S. was $375,400 in March 2023, according to The State of the Nation’s Housing 2023 report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The amount represented a 1% decline year over year.

    But with the impact of higher interest rates, the monthly mortgage payment on a median-priced home in March was $2,300, up 29% from the $1,780 a year ago.

    Homeowners are on the hook for more than the mortgage payment. The Harvard researchers estimated that after factoring in property taxes and insurance, the total monthly ownership cost for a median home in the U.S. would be $3,000.

    To afford such a home, you’d need an annual income of $117,100, according to the study. A year ago, the annual income required to afford payments on a median-priced home was $97,400.

    And that means millions of households are now priced out of the market.
    …
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/homebuyers-now-require-117k-annual-155411655.html

    1. Are you missing the chance to grab some 5%+ yield on super safe TBills? Seems like a much better plan yhan gambling on 5% cap rates in highly leveraged, falling knife real estate investments.

      1. HOMEPAGE
        Premium Home
        Markets
        Bonds offer risk-free returns of over 5% for the first time in two decades. Here’s how to capitalize on the easy money without tying up your cash for years at a time.
        William Edwards
        Aug 11, 2023, 2:30 AM MDT
        A trader at the CBOE. Scott Olson/Getty Images
        This story is available exclusively to Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.

        Thanks to one of the most aggressive Federal Reserve tightening cycles in history, investors can now cash in on some meaningful returns in government bonds.

        That’s especially the case for short-term Treasurys with durations of one year or less, which tend to track closely with the fed funds rate and therefore now offer risk-free annualized returns of more than five percent. Government bonds are generally considered risk-free as the US government has never defaulted on a debt payment, though concerns over the riskiness of longer-duration bonds have grown in recent weeks following the debt-ceiling standoff in Congress earlier this year.
        …
        https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-invest-in-bonds-5-percent-treasurys-risk-free-2023-8

      2. Yahoo
        Yahoo Finance
        T-bills look even better for savers after the Fed’s latest interest rate hike
        Kerry Hannon
        August 3, 2023·5 min read

        Savers looking for a safe, steady, angst-free investment for a year or less can now get the best yields in years from Treasury bills — thanks to the Federal Reserve.

        Not even a downgrade of the US credit rating could derail those returns.

        Treasury bill yields are above 5% after the Federal Reserve lifted its benchmark lending rate by a quarter-point last week, pushing interest rates to their highest level in 22 years.

        A one-year T-bill is now yielding 5.36% versus 3.09% a year ago. A six-month T-bill was at 5.52% compared with 3% a year ago, and the three-month T-bill was yielding 5.53%, up from 2.56% a year ago.

        While these short-term securities issued by the federal government are not a swing-for-the-fences type of investment, T-bills currently offer savers a better yield than most online savings accounts and short-term certificates of deposit.

        “Cash-like assets, including T-bills, can provide investors with a sense of safety and control during market volatility, but it’s important to separate emotions from strategy,” James Martielli, head of investment trading services at Vanguard, told Yahoo Finance. “Recent rate hikes have increased returns across this category, but the role of these assets remain unchanged.”

        Even after Fitch Ratings agency this week lowered the US sovereign debt rating to AA+ from its top score of AAA, experts expect the move will have “no material impact on Treasury yields.”

        “The US Treasury market is the global safe haven,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told Yahoo Finance. “Sure, the US has significant fiscal problems and our politics are a mess, but that’s nothing new. It’s been that way, more or less, since the nation’s founding. The US Treasury has been good money, through thick and thin, and global investors know it.”

        Here’s what else to know.

        What are T-bills
        …
        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-bills-look-even-better-for-savers-after-the-feds-latest-interest-rate-hike-184807315.html

      3. Sadly, cash-strapped real estate investors, including homemoaners, may have to miss out on this opportunity.

        1. The Motley Fool
          Here’s 1 Investment Billionaires Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and Bill Ackman Agree On
          By Keith Speights – Aug 12, 2023 at 5:54AM
          Three smiley faces.
          Image source: Getty Images.
          Billionaires’ favorite rich uncle

          Key Points

          – Buffett, Musk, and Ackman all think that short-term U.S. Treasurys are attractive.

          – These bonds offer safety and high yields.

          – Motley Fool Issues Rare “All In” Buy Alert

          These super-wealthy men have a favorite rich uncle.

          Herding cats is probably a much easier task than herding ultra-wealthy humans. Billionaires often have strong opinions reinforced by strong personalities. And they frequently disagree with each other.

          However, that’s not always the case. Here’s at least one investment that billionaires Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and Bill Ackman agree on.

          Musk ranks as the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of around $225 billion, according to Forbes. Buffett is No. 5, with a net worth of close to $120 billion. Ackman is the “poorest” of the three, with Forbes pegging his net worth at $3.6 billion.

          These three billionaires have quite different mindsets. The 92-year-old Buffett focuses on finding attractively priced businesses to invest in with a long-term perspective. Ackman is known as an activist investor who likes to shake things up. Musk is an eccentric innovator who’s frequently controversial.

          So what investment do they all agree on? Short-term Treasury bonds issued by the U.S. government.

          Buffett told CNBC earlier this year that his company Berkshire Hathaway buys short-term Treasurys “every Monday.” As of June 30, 2023, Berkshire owned nearly $122 billion in short-term Treasury bills.

          Ackman posted on X (the social platform formerly known as Twitter) on Aug. 2, 2023 that his hedge fund was shorting 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds. He called it a hedge against the impact of higher long-term interest rates on stocks.

          But when another X user contrasted his view with Buffett’s the following day, Ackman replied that he and Buffett were actually on the same page. He noted that his hedge fund is also investing in short-term Treasurys. Musk then chimed in on the conversation, stating that “short term T-bills are a no-brainer.”
          …
          https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/08/12/heres-1-investment-billionaires-warren-buffett-elo/

  27. In the accompanying video, the CNN reporter looks like she is drinking Castor oil as she is forced to listen to IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler’s answers and looks angry as she reads her pre written rebuttals designed to poke holes in his story.

    IRS Whistleblower: Special Counsel Appointment Proves AG Garland & Weiss Lied About Hunter Probe

    Infowars.com
    August 12th 2023, 10:53 am

    The appointment of U.S. attorney David Weiss to special counsel in the Hunter Biden case proves Attorney General Merrick Garland and Weiss lied when they asserted Weiss had full authority to charge Hunter, according to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley.

    Shapley joined CNN’s The Source on Friday to explain how he and fellow IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler were vindicated by the special counsel appointment because they had claimed Weiss did not have full authority to charge Hunter Biden, a concern that compelled them to come forward to the House Oversight Committee in the first place.

    https://www.infowars.com/

  28. ” Climate Change Fraud”
    Climate Change and Panademic fraud is the pathway for these powers to change the systems, enslave and control humans, and override all freedoms and Constitutional protections.
    As I write, 193 Countries are sneaking around transferring by Treaty incredible power to the United Nations/WHO to dictate Climate and Panademic response, that will be finalized Dec 1 of this year.
    These fraudsters are ridiculous, and they are attacking rice in spite of it feeding a good portion of world.
    This One Word Order wants to control all resources of earth, and literally dictate that people eat bugs and fake food, as they eliminate all other sources of food , and depriving energy also.
    Its a pre- planned scheme on how to take over the world and override all freedoms and Constitutional protections for their manufactured emergencies.
    That actually are trying to force this extreme change on humans based on this fraud that they are saving the world from Climate Change and disease.
    They won’t allow any dispute to their ridiculous and absurd narratives, and what they propose the bogus solutions are.
    In a sane and civil world you wouldn’t set up withdraw of all that sustains humans. But they don’t allow any dispute to their ridiculous solutions to their fake narratives.
    And they actually think people will give up everything, and just comply with the biggest frauds in history.
    And, they think they have the technology to pull this off as well as the means to brainwash and fear monger the populations into submission.
    Just because they have been planning this takeover for years, doesnt mean they will be sucessful in their end game.
    Starving massive amounts of people, or freezing people, or making systems not function , or forcing people to eat bugs , or poisoning people is not sanity, and people will rebel against their power grab, because the survival instinct will kick in.

  29. Ok, so Christine Anderson and Ron Johnson are a couple of Politicians who are being very vocal about Global Elite, under one % take over of World by their fake emergencies.
    Anderson said in summary that Covid was a “beta test” on how far our enemy could go on taking freedoms and getting compliance over their manufactured emergencies.
    Anderson is saying in essence to not comply with this group that is attacking the human race.
    Ron Johnson is declaring similar things over here in the USA.
    So, as much as it’s hard to get ones head around this outragous assault on humanity, by a relatively small group of mega money elites, probably in collusion with China, its pretty evident its happening.

    1. Anderson said in summary that Covid was a “beta test” on how far our enemy could go on taking freedoms and getting compliance over their manufactured emergencies.

      It was the rehearsal for the climate lockdowns. This time they are going for all the marbles.

  30. A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds government benefits from QE and consumers pay dearly for it.

    I prefer the term “citizens”.

    1. They are definitely going after all the marbles, and that is why it has to be a One World Order/ Great Reset, thats ridiculous.
      Its a take over without resorting to military invasion by getting everybody to comply to their “Save the World” nonsense.
      Lock down the world to save old people with comorbibities, who probably didnt have much lifespan left. Convince over 99% of populations that they were carriers and at risk, using inaccurate PCR tests. Stop any cheap med cures for the so-called virus, and kill people in hospitals that could of been cured.
      These powers are working on their stupid timelines to accomplish their stupid agendas and everything is planned . Their distractions are planned .
      They must be very encouraged by how much they accomplished by Covid, and how much compliance they got.
      They offer nothing to humanity, or this earth , and they are nuts on top of everything.

      1. They must be very encouraged by how much they accomplished by Covid, and how much compliance they got.

        Which is why they are getting ready for a climate lock down. The propaganda is being steadily ramped up and already far too many are buying into it. “The world is boiling” is the warmist version of the doctors screeching on the news saying that everyone has to be jabbed.

        They already know they can fool enough people all the time. And unlike a pandemic lockdown, a climate lockdown never has to end.

        1. “never has to end”

          Time to go full breakup of Yugoslavia in the USA then.

          New York and California can keep their Ukrainistan and monkeypox and vaccine passports (the Excelsior Pass was briefly, actually a thing in New York) and GTFO because real America doesn’t need them.

          MTG was right about a “national divorce” I don’t want to live in a country (Denver) where people wear masks while driving alone in August 2023. I don’t want to be subject to who these masktards vote for.

  31. NW FL – Looking for a 30 year old mobile home on 2+ acres for 300K? Actually, the realtor listed it as a “ranch style home” – but its a mobile. Hundreds of mobile homes in that area. Many look nice, but many others are dilapidated and have junk scattered all over the yard. I wouldn’t mind living in a mobile home if the price, condition, and location aligned to my satisfaction. I’ve ridden my motorcycle through that area quite a few times. Not a location where I would choose to spend 300K.

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9561-S-Trace-Rd-Milton-FL-32583/47880098_zpid/

    Price history
    Date Event Price
    8/12/2023 Listed $300,000
    11/9/2022 Sold $80,000

  32. Oh Jerry, is that a large bubble in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me? This listing shows what a whopping bubble that Janet and Jerry have produced. Nice house, but 444K? This bubble’s going down.

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5605-Michael-Dr-Milton-FL-32583/55752427_zpid/

    Date Event Price
    8/12/2023 Listed $444,000
    12/3/2020 Sold $325,000
    12/30/2015 Sold $177,000
    2/4/2015 Sold $156,000
    3/5/2014 Sold $125,100
    11/21/2005 Sold $76,400

    1. Huge lot. I could easily imagine a commercial with Charlie Sheen mowing the that lawn, and then morphing into Martin Sheen by the time he’s finished.

    2. The bubble was starting to deflate circa 2012, when the Fed began targeting Quantitative Easing on the mortgage market.

      Maybe this time will be different, and the Fed won’t ride in to the rescue with a housing price put? Time will tell…

  35. ‘It seems people have gotten fed up with the nauseating cost of living here, largely driven by outrageous home prices and unreasonable rental payments’

    It’s all fun and games until you get there.

    ‘Any form of excessive inflation—real or financial—damages the economy because there is ultimately a gross misallocation of capital,’ Bernstein argues. ‘Does the U.S. economy really need Elon Musk going to Mars or Richard Branson taking space vacations?’

    Good point Dick. And just what are imaginary coins doing for the economy? But on the bright side with all this money sloshing around at least we finally found a cure for cancer!

  36. I live in Coeur D’Alene and that CDA Press a-hole can go to hell. That newspaper might as be called the “we want to turn Coeur D’Alene into Los Angeles Press”. It’s hard left and always pushing woke garbage, higher taxes and their current favorite: more dense housing. Sadly the city council is in the pockets of developers and it is happening. In the last 5 years or so there have been thousands of apartment units built including a lot of “affordable housing”, ie Section 8 housing. With predictable results. Crime is growing exponentially, garbage on the street and a general decay in the quality of life. They’re getting their wish. It’s slowly turning into a mini-LA compete with newly arrived illegals.

    Housing industry jackals have destroyed what was once a small slice of heaven.

    2. I can remember when the drive between Coeur D’Alene and Spokane was rural. Now it’s just another sh!thole filled with franchisees.

      1. Along with endless subdivisions and apartment complexes. I’m not exaggerating when I say that any empty piece of land over a couple of acres is being turned into either apartments or postage sized stamp lot homes thrown together in a week by illegals.

        You could drive 65-70 mph on I-90 at 5pm on a weekday, 10 years ago. Today it’s 45 if you’re lucky. In another 10 years it will be 20.
        I’m surprised people are still moving here. They’re escaping California to what? New California but with 5 months of snow, lol.

        1. “I’m surprised people are still moving here.”

          They are coming from really crowded places with a standard of living that we can’t begin to imagine. Look at some YT videos of kids getting ear wax removed by a doctor; that’s because they don’t, or can’t, take a shower.

  37. ‘Even before I reached White River, I was starting to worry. The temperature had dropped to minus 13. I turned off the electric luxuries like the warmers for the seat and the steering-wheel and then, as I got more nervous, I dropped my speed to 85 kilometres an hour and started turning off the interior heat from time to time’

    I paid extra for that!

  39. ….” a climate lockdown never has to end.”
    Right , they have to have the Climate Change fraud narrative to take food, energy, etc , control movements, take over resources. They would of liked to of kept the Covid scam going longer, and they are trying to hype it up again, and add a bunch of other threatening panademic scares.
    The Climate Change narrative is really ridiculous, but so was Covid.
    People are tiring of all their narratives, including the transgender nonsense, high crime, racism BS, you name it.
    They want people in a constant state of reaction to them bombing us with their bullshit.

    1. them bombing us with their bullshit.

      Granted I’m anchored where I can connect and read your comment, but I took a long walk on a white sandy beach today. There is an America where you can’t hear them. Just turn it off and focus on living. That’s what they fear the most.

      1. If we don’t put an end to it, the mob will eventually come for us or they’ll send their government goons with guns

    1. The Wall Street Journal
      China
      China’s Home Buyers Are Waiting Out the Property Slump
      Potential home buyers are expecting prices to fall, depressing new homes sales and complicating policy efforts to revive the economy
      By Cao Li
      Updated Aug. 12, 2023 12:00 am ET
      The deepening property slump is complicating policy makers’ attempts to revive economic growth.
      Photo: Cfoto/DDP/Zuma Press

      After a short-lived sales rebound earlier this year, China’s property market has fallen back into a deep slump, developers are having more cash-flow problems and Chinese authorities are trying more ways to revive housing demand.

      Potential home buyers are expecting prices to fall and think better deals will emerge if they sit and wait.

      Real-estate agents in China and economists say home sales are declining again because Chinese citizens have come to expect more property-purchase subsidies from local governments, price cuts from developers and cheaper mortgages from banks.

      That is making the situation worse, because real-estate developers desperately need to sell more homes to bring in cash and avoid defaulting on debt. Country Garden, the country’s biggest surviving developer, said this past week that it is having liquidity problems after its apartment sales fell for four consecutive months. The company’s financial distress sent fresh tremors through the property market, which will likely further delay its recovery.

      “It’s not that they don’t want to buy houses. They have the purchasing demand, but they are just waiting,” Yan Songsheng, a sales manager at a Chinese state-owned developer, said of his clients.

      The deepening property slump is complicating Beijing policy makers’ attempts to revive economic growth. China is already struggling with high youth unemployment, falling exports, and a deflationary environment. “Home buyers’ increased aversion toward the sector could also weaken effects of any potential supportive measures by the government to stabilize property sales,” credit-ratings firm Moody’s Investors Service said in a report Friday.

      China’s housing market has been in a downward spiral for two years. Last month, the country’s 100 largest property developers sold new homes worth the equivalent of $49 billion—the lowest monthly sum in three years, according to China Real Estate Information, a private industry tracker. The sales were down a third from June and from the same period a year ago. They were also 59% less than the total in July 2021.

      July tends to be a slower month for new-home sales in China, because developers often try to boost June sales to report better first-half results. In June, a developer in the eastern city of Hangzhou offered to give people 2.2 pounds of gold—worth the equivalent of about $70,000—if they purchased homes exceeding 1,000 square feet in floor area.

      The magnitude of the latest declines was still surprising. Country Garden’s July contracted sales plunged 60% from a year ago, a far bigger drop than in the past few months.

      Yan, who is based in the city of Zhuhai in China’s southern Guangdong province, said his team’s sales in July were less than a quarter of their monthly average for the first half, even though his company offered bigger discounts on the properties it marketed.

      The wait-and-see attitude of home buyers is worrying, say economists, as it could prolong the recovery in the housing market and correspondingly, the Chinese economy. China has also slipped into deflation, which could be damaging if falling consumer prices make people expect to pay less for a range of goods.

      To draw home buyers, property developers have been doling out perks like free parking and household appliances. Property agents said that has trained people to expect such freebies, and sales decline whenever the deals go away.

      Chinese commercial banks have also slashed rates on home loans to the point that the average mortgage rate is now below China’s five-year loan prime rate, the benchmark that longer-term debt is typically pegged to. The national benchmark has also been lowered several times in the past two years.

      Average prices of new and resale homes across 70 major Chinese cities have declined in the past few months, and policy makers have become more vocal about the need to support the housing market.

      Chinese authorities late last year dialed back a deleveraging campaign that had caused dozens of property developers to default on their debts, and rolled out measures to stimulate demand and support surviving developers with ample financing.

      That, along with China’s post-Covid reopening and pent-up purchase demand, caused housing sales to pick up in the first few months of 2023—a welcome relief for developers and stock and bond investors.

      The housing market began to weaken again in April. As prices fell, more people began to realize that there were still big problems in the real-estate market, said Wei Yao, a China economist at Société Générale.

      “Coupled with a lackluster overall economic recovery, people’s lower expectations and outlook for income and employment, people have become more realistic, and all those concerns may have erupted in July,” she said.

      In late July, China’s Politburo, its top-decision making body, said it was time to adjust property policies and omitted a long-held mantra that “housing is for living, not for speculation” for the first time in years. Cities across the country responded by offering measures including cash subsidies and tax rebates on home purchases, raising limits on how much home buyers can borrow from banks, and removing restrictions on additional home purchases.

      China’s annual housing demand is estimated to be between nine and 10 million units a year, according to Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley, versus a peak of 14 million units a year in 2021—a level that included speculative purchases. The pace of sales this year has fallen short of the estimated normalized demand, Xing said.

      Until the housing market turns, home buyers have little incentive to take action, said Bruce Pang, chief China economist at Jones Lang LaSalle. “The more it falls, the more people lose confidence. The more confidence is lost, the less likely people are to make a purchase,” he said.

      Wang Tao, a 24-year-old property agent in Hefei in Anhui province, said many of his clients are waiting for an indicator that shows where the market is going. “They told me that the current price is unstable, and you don’t know whether it will rise or fall. So they would rather remain still to cope with a changing environment,” he said.
      …

      1. “The more it falls, the more people lose confidence. The more confidence is lost, the less likely people are to make a purchase,”

        It sems like letting real estate investors lunp their losses while
        collectively waiting for prices to reach the bottom of the CR8R is the ticket to a sustained Chinese real estate market recovery.

  41. Exclusive — Bernie Moreno: Tying Ukraine Aid to Disaster Relief Best Example of D.C. ‘Uniparty’

    SEAN MORAN
    12 Aug 2023

    Ohio businessman and Senate Republican candidate Bernie Moreno said on Breitbart News Saturday that tying more Ukraine aid to American disaster relief to appease Republicans and Democrats represents exactly how the D.C. “Uniparty” works.

    Moreno spoke to Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle as President Joe Biden has asked for $40 billion in supplemental funding, $24 billion of which would go to military and economic aid for Ukraine, $12 billion to replenish a federal disaster relief fund, and $4 billion for the southern border to boost services for migrants and counter-fentanyl efforts.

    Moreno said that this effort to appease Republicans and Democrats represents the worst of the Washington, D.C., “Uniparty.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/08/12/exclusive-bernie-moreno-tying-ukraine-aid-to-disaster-relief-best-example-of-d-c-uniparty/

  43. Bidenomics

    My youngest daughter who is not political in any way, shape or form came home from Publix today and said…. It is so sad to see so many people who can’t pay for things. People running and switching to store brand and putting things back at the register, Moms telling kids you can’t have that it’s too expensive put it back and one lady who just broke down crying because she couldn’t pay the bill etc. I think she has seen this over the last week or so but it’s the first time she’s mentioned it.

    2. Ok, so someone just texted me that news article came out that Michelle Obama is going to run, you know Mike.
      Well, at least transgenders will be represented if she/he wins.

          1. Dude ripped them drums.

            The horn section reminded me of a road trip to the University of Connecticut in the late 70s. The guy we were visiting talked us into buying and doing acid (for the first time never knew what was coming) well an hour or two into this trip complete with hallucinations uncontrollable laughter and paranoia we fled the dorms to get away from people. Unfortunately we ended up at the student union where there were not only more people but Dizzy Gillespie blowing his trumpet on four color TVs. I remeber staring at him for God knows how long and thinking… He’s gonna blow.

            Dizzy Gillespie – Salt Peanuts – LIVE!

            https://youtu.be/PF3XC_oEhgU

      1. “Isn’t Publix kind of pricey compared to others?”

        Yes it is, now it’s a much nicer, cleaner store than say Walmart but pricey it is. What do they say… Pride goeth before a fall?

        1. I’ve been to one too. Very nice store. Pricey, but I was on vacation and it was convenient.

          But if someone is counting their pennies, are they too proud to shop at WalMart, Food Lion, or any other chain with lower prices?

          1. But if someone is counting their pennies, are they too proud to shop at WalMart, Food Lion, or any other chain with lower prices?

            The WalMart out here carries a wide range of food items–the prices are only slightly better than the regular supermarkets and not always. WalMart usually carries a good selection of Choice steaks and even a small selection of Prime Beef steaks. WalMart has a bigger selection than other supermarkets like Heinz hamburger dill chip pickles that I can’t find anywhere else. They carry duck and goose fat, and truffle oil. So they aren’t really a “discount” market with bottom barrel products and prices. Like everything else, you have to shop around to get the best prices, selection and quality.

            If you cook most of your meals from scratch, you can save big bucks compared to if you use packaged or prepared food items. It’ll take a little longer, but it’s a lot cheaper. When we were growing up, my mom cooked almost everything from scratch because in the 1960s there weren’t that many prepared and processed foods in the stores. I remember when Hamburger Helper first came around.

    4. Hi jeff
      I think it’s disgraceful how old people are cut out of grocery discounts bc they’re not computer literate. I helped a woman find an item at the grocery store that happened to have a coupon that you had to load to your loyalty card to get $ off. When I mentioned it, I could tell she had no clue. Same thing with the Medicare Advantage OTC items. To get your $75-100 worth of stuff every three months online, you have to have a lot of patience. I’m sure this is calculated.

      1. You sound like a pretty savvy shopper Tarara.

        If the price of food, gas, windstorm insurance, FPL bill etc. go any higher I myself may ask you for some pointers because at Wiin Dixie or Publix my bargain shopping is pretty much contained to what the butcher tells me (I am and stay good friends with them) and whatever happens to be buy one get one that particular week.

        1. IDK about that, but if there’s a deal to be had, I’m getting it. Can be worth it to take the time to electronically clip those coupons even though it’s a PITA; I usually shave a nice chunk off the bill.

          When I’d bring my daughter grocery shopping, she’d say, “Do we always have to buy the one on sale?” Yes, we do. And as my grandmother used to say (jokingly), “We ain’t Scotch for nothing!”

      2. a coupon that you had to load to your loyalty card to get $ off

        FWIW, I believe WalMart doesn’t play that game.

      1. It might just be me, but contrary to the gooberment’s claim that inflation has been tamed, I’m seeing grocery prices shoot up again.

    6. Well there’s always food stamps. Those same ones seem to be covered in tattoos and have highly manicured talons, neither of which are cheap

      1. 👍🏻 Been going on forever. At my first job (16/1970) it used to burn that I was working until midnight on a school night for min wage, while the customers were better dressed, the nails, etc. buying lobster with food stamps. If you were as nasty as they were to you, they’d threaten to wait for you outside when your shift ended. Good times.

    1. Financeflux | On August 12, 2023
      $99,000,000,000 Withdrawal Goes Viral As JPMorgan Chase Accused of Initiating Massive Transaction and Freezing Bank Account
      By Daily Hodl Staff

      An apparent banking blunder is going viral after a Reddit user reported a truly massive withdrawal from his JPMorgan Chase account.

      A post shot to the front page of Reddit after the user said the bank abruptly withdrew over $99 billion from his checking account.

      According to the user, the withdrawal automatically caused his account to freeze, and all attempts to contact customer support for an explanation have failed.

      Source: Reddit
      “My checking account has been like this since last Monday and I’ve called Chase and been transferred to five different departments and nobody knows WTF is going on.

      And I’ve got a mortgage due at the first of the month. Once this clears up, because of Chase’s incompetence I’m considering switching to Wells Fargo.”

      This wouldn’t be the first time a JPMorgan Chase account has been overdrawn by $99 billion.
      …
      https://dailyhodl.com/2023/08/12/99000000000-withdrawal-goes-viral-as-jpmorgan-chase-accused-of-initiating-massive-transaction-and-freezing-bank-account/

  45. Is it possible for stocks to crash because too many bulls follow the herd into the stampede-over-the-cliff trade?

    1. HOMEPAGE
      Markets
      A former BlackRock stock chief shares 3 indicators that tell him it’s too early to abandon his recession call despite the economy’s strength — and warns the stock market’s rally is doomed for a reversal
      William Edwards
      Aug 12, 2023, 3:00 AM MDT
      A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) a day after the market closed for over three hours yesterday due to a ‘technical glitch’ on July 9, 2015 in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

      As the US economy continues to prevail through a hawkish Federal Reserve regime, market observers are getting more cheery about the prospect of a soft-landing outcome where a recession is avoided altogether.

      The recent optimism is perhaps best visible in two of Wall Street’s biggest economists — Bank of America’s Michael Gapen and JPMorgan’s Michael Feroli — taking back their recession calls earlier this month.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-recession-indicators-yield-curve-lei-doll-blackrock-2023-8

    1. Americans are about to have a much harder time paying their bills
      Juliana Kaplan, Madison Hoff, Noah Sheidlower, and Ayelet Sheffey Aug 9, 2023, 6:00 AM ET

      – Americans held over $1 trillion in credit card debt in the second quarter of 2023, a new record.

      – That’s according to the latest report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

      – More debt is languishing unpaid for months, as Americans prepare to resume student loan payments.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/paying-bills-credit-card-debt-student-loans-2023-8

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