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As Is Often The Case, Theory And Reality Are Two Very Different Things

A weekend topic starting with the Daily Record. “As New Jersey marked International Overdose Awareness Day, officials warned of a new, more potent drug that is quickly becoming widespread and dangerous among those battling substance use disorder. Xylazine, an FDA-approved animal sedative and pain reliever not meant for human consumption, is the ‘newest co-murderer’ contributing to overdose deaths along with fentanyl, Morris County Prosecutor Robert Carroll said. Dealers lace heroin and other recreational drugs with fentanyl and xylazine, creating a mix that is exponentially more powerful than users anticipate, he said. Most significantly, xylazine, unlike fentanyl, is immune from the effects of naloxone, a medication commonly known by the brand name Narcan that revives a person overdosing on opioids. ‘What we’ve effectively done here is changed our enemy, so to speak,’ Carroll said. ‘Now we have something that even Narcan can’t control.'”

WFTV in Florida. “One Orlando City Council member says there is a better use for the millions of dollars that could go towards fixing up a facility used to provide services to the homeless. The city is considering spending $ 5.1 million to renovate the Christian Service Center which says it needs the improvements to continue its work. Sonjae Arthur has been a Parramore business owner for close to a decade. ‘One of my customers got spat on because she refused to give money and she doesn’t come here anymore because of that,’ said Arthur.”

The Marin Independent Journal in California. “A federal judge has extended a temporary restraining order over a San Rafael ordinance that restricts how much space homeless campers can occupy. The plaintiffs are the inhabitants of a 33-tent camp at Mahon Creek path that they call ‘Camp Integrity.’ The plaintiffs argue that breaking up large camps exposes the most vulnerable among them to higher health and safety risks. Managers and employees of nearby businesses complained that the campers at Mahon Creek have aggressively harassed them. Christine Miller said out of fear, she doesn’t go to her family business, Marin County Roofing. ‘My staff has had to clean up after them because they don’t clean up after themselves and the city is slow to respond,’ she said. ‘My staff is picking their dirty needles, garbage, and get exposed to their bodily waste.’ Jay Ress, the general manager of East Bay Tire Co., told the City Council in July that some campers have thrown feces and metal objects at the cars of his customers and staff.”

“In July, police arrested a camper at Mahon Creek Path on suspicion of attacking a man with a machete and lighting a tent on fire, police said. Officers also arrested a suspected methamphetamine dealer at the camp in June. There have been additional reports of harassment and vandalism of nearby businesses. In the past three weeks, police have made several arrests for crimes such as assaults, including a stabbing on Sunday that involved residents of the camp, said San Rafael police Capt. Roy Leon. The victim believed the suspect had taken his wallet and an argument ensued. A separate small camp at the Falkirk Cultural Center property and Menzies parking lot on Mission Avenue near City Hall was cleared Aug. 1 after a shooting and surge in criminal activity. Police made six arrests at the site.”

From KOMO News. “The Washington State Department of Transportation closed a 25-acre homeless encampment in south Seattle Tuesday morning. The cleanup of the Myers Way encampment in the Highland Park neighborhood could take weeks as crews remove more than 60 cars and RVs, tons of debris, all while being on guard against potential booby traps in the camp. 25 acres would fit nearly 19 entire football fields inside. WSDOT estimated the encampment had around 50 people living in it and outreach teams were able to connect around 80% of them with housing prior to the camp being closed.”

“People who live around the encampment had been pushing the state to close the camp for months after someone was murdered there this Summer and neighbors reported hearing gunfire nightly. ‘You can’t even sleep at night because something is going on across the street, bang bang bang, boom! Women screaming – I mean, do you want to live next to that? That goes on every night, 24 hours a day,’ neighbor Travis Macklin told KOMO News.”

From Michigan Live. “Ypsilanti police and other officials are asking for grace and patience from the community as they work to address a housing crisis some say has led to an unsafe downtown area. Residents and business owners spoke at a nearly two-hour public comment session during a Ypsilanti City Council meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 5, saying aggressive panhandling, ongoing partying and public defecation has made living and working downtown difficult, particularly around South Washington Street.”

“Jen Eastridge, owner of Unicorn Feed & Supply and Stone & Spoon, both on Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti, said during the meeting she has picked up alleys littered with needles, condoms and liquor bottles and that panhandling and public urination has driven away business. ‘We pay huge taxes for public services, yet we don’t see the police downtown unless we call about a crisis,’ she said. ‘We need to see a regular presence to know that it is not all on us.'”

The Daily Mail. “A Democratic party official who pledged to ‘dismantle’ the Minneapolis Police Department in 2020 is now calling for tougher crime laws after suffering a violent carjacking outside her Minnesota home. Shivanthi Sathanandan, the Second Vice Chairwoman for the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party, took to Facebook on Wednesday to share the graphic outcome of the gunpoint attack on her driveway and to call for justice. Pictured with blood on her face, she said that she had suffered a broken leg, deep cuts on her head and body, and bruising after four young men carrying guns ‘beat me violently down to the ground in front of our kids.'”

“Sathanandan demanded swift consequences, calling to ‘get illegal guns off our streets, catch these young people… and hold them in custody and prosecute them. Period.’ The post went on to thank ‘the incredible Minneapolis 4th Precinct Officers, Mayor Frey, Chief O’Hara, Paramedics, neighbors, friends and DFL family, who all came to our aide during this terrifying experience’. The photo quickly went viral as users pointed back to a 2020 post from Sathanandan’s account calling to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department, writing that ‘MPD has systematically failed the Black Community, they have failed ALL OF US… If you are still disagreeing with that BASIC FACT, I’m not sure what to say to you’.”

The Chicago Tribune in Illinois. “Mayor Brandon Johnson covered everything from soaring office vacancies and crime to the need to develop job-creating industries Thursday in a spirited and far-reaching address. Johnson is considered one of Chicago’s most progressive mayors ever and has been eyed warily by the business community after a campaign in which offered proposals including a tax hike on hotels, reinstituting a city head tax, tripling the tax on high-end real estate transactions, taxing jet fuel and levying tolls on securities trading.”

“Like many large cities, Chicago saw a spike in crime during the pandemic, with 804 homicides in 2021, mostly from gun violence. While homicides declined to 695 last year, theft and carjackings continued to rise, according to data from the Chicago Police Department. The Chicago area also saw the departures of some high-profile corporate headquarters in 2022. Making Chicago safe ‘is something I think about every day,’ said Johnson, who lives in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side. ‘Violence is literally outside my front door.'”

CBS Chicago in Illinois. “CBS 2 has learned the city will spend more than $300 million on migrants from now through the end of the year – including a new plan to house them in tent base camps. The city has already spent $116 million on the migrant matter, while the Chicago Public Schools have spent $1.4 million of their own dollars, and the Chicago Park District $250,000, a source said. Meanwhile, as the city continues their efforts to house migrants, community members are doing their part to help them. ‘We have 300 tamales,’ said Marcos Morales, a member of the Pilsen Hispanic Seventh-Day Adventist Church. ‘We also have a lot of rice, a lot of spaghetti.'”

New York Daily News. “Mayor Adams announced Saturday there would be cuts as high as 15% to all city agencies by next spring — including the police and health departments — in response to the costly migrant crisis, which could further impact the delivery of city services. The mayor made a surprise speech over the weekend telling New Yorkers that the lack of substantial support from the federal and state government regarding the crisis — at a time when COVID aid is drying up — has forced the city to impose austerity cuts. ‘We are in the middle of a humanitarian crisis involving asylum seekers, a crisis that will cost our city $12 billion over three fiscal years,’ Adams said. ‘While our compassion is limitless our resources are not. We already had a homeless population, we already had low-income New Yorkers that were struggling to feed themselves and to stay in their homes.'”

The Center Square. “For several decades, a collection of progressive states, counties and cities have conducted an experiment called sanctuary policies. Based on a preponderance of evidence, especially in the last few years, it is time to declare America’s experiment with sanctuary policies to be a complete failure and seek a better way. The idea of defying federal immigration law and shielding those here illegally from consequences no doubt stroked the egos of intellectuals who see themselves as having superior levels of compassion and charity. Those opposed to the idea were dismissed as captive to the darker human instinct towards ‘otherism’ and xenophobia.”

“As is often the case, however, theory and reality are two very different things. Sanctuary policies in practice have been a disaster, resulting in overcrowding, more crime, maxed out city budgets and unbearable tension in the communities where they are practiced. New York City has become the cautionary tale for this failure. City leaders long thought that, by its sheer size, resources and welcoming spirit, Gotham could absorb the additional illegal alien arrivals who would be drawn to the city’s permissive atmosphere. That all changed in the summer of 2022, when the governors of Texas and Florida sent busloads of aliens to New York. Within weeks the city was on its knees.”

Global News in Canada. “Homeless encampments have been multiplying across Ontario since the pandemic. With widespread service restrictions, the existing affordable housing crisis and income loss, matters became exacerbated, spurring the city to drop some $1 million into makeshift shelters at hotels and the floor of the arena at First Ontario Centre downtown. Of 70 known deaths over two years, reported by health and social service workers as well as hospitals, the Hamilton Homeless Mortality Data Project says more than half of those unhoused fell between the ages of 30 and 49. The overwhelming cause of death was by overdose, with about half of the 70 passing to the affliction since June 2021.”

“The city’s general manager of finance, Mike Zegarac, says that with COVID emergency funding now ‘drying up,’ and even some that being ‘clawed back’ by Queen’s Park, it would require more dips into reserves ultimately ‘depleting them’ within three years at the current rate. Over the next three years, Ontario is expected to spend close to $700 million through its Homelessness Prevention Program (HPP), which targets homelessness and adds community and housing support. Since 2021, the province says it has provided over $123 million under various programs to support vulnerable people in Hamilton.”

CBC News in Canada. “A store manager in Sydney, N.S., says large numbers of international students from Cape Breton University are flooding her with resumes and heartbreaking stories about their desperate searches for housing and jobs. Tasha Myers, who runs the Hallmark card store at the Mayflower Mall near CBU, says it’s difficult having to tell students there are no job openings on a daily basis.Myers said she gets up to a dozen resumes a day when it’s slow and up to 20 or more on a busier day and it’s been that way since the store opened a year ago. ‘I had a student yesterday come in telling me that her recruiter just full-out lied to her saying that the opportunities are crazy and that housing is the best and there’s so many jobs and then she got here and it was the complete opposite,’ said Myers.”

“Franchise owner Liam Vance owns other Hallmark franchises in addition to the one in Sydney and said his stores in Truro, Halifax and Saint John, N.B., don’t have the same problem. He said CBU has obviously struggled with the rapid increase in its student population and should do better. But he also said the federal government has to step in to help the students. ‘Ultimately, it comes down to government action, because they’re the ones that are permitting them to come into the country,’ said Vance.”

Daily Mail Australia. “A flood of temporary visa holders into Australia has placed further strain on the nation’s chronic housing shortage. The number of people entering on student, working holiday and Covid work visas has sky-rocketed by an additional 730,000 since Anthony Albanese was voted in as Prime Minister in May 2022. This means the total of such visa holders jumped from round 1.8 million to approximately 2.5 million by the end of last financial year. The figure equates to bringing in the combined population of the Gold Coast and Tweed Heads area of south east Queensland and northern NSW. The bulk of the extra visas went to 418,000 students and graduates.”

“Meanwhile Australia’s rental vacancy rate recorded its steepest ever drop over the space of a year to be sitting 54 per cent below where it was at the start of the Covid pandemic, REA’s PropTrack Market ­Insight Report revealed. In August AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said immigration-driven population growth was actually making Australians less productive, because it was not properly supported by public and other investment.”

“‘Very strong population growth with an inadequate infrastructure and housing supply response has led to urban congestion and poor housing affordability which contribute to poor productivity growth,’ he said. He also argued that high population growth meant investors were buying homes for capital gain, to take advantage of a housing shortage, instead of ploughing their money into new business ventures or shares. ‘Increased speculative activity around housing diverts resources from more productive uses,’ he said.”

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This Post Has 108 Comments

  1. ‘Dealers lace heroin and other recreational drugs with fentanyl and xylazine, creating a mix that is exponentially more powerful than users anticipate’

    It’s one thing to decriminalize drugs, it’s another to leave it in the hands of the cartels. The guberments are allowing the worst people on the planet to profit in every north American city. They make more money than drugs bringing in illegals and have for over 20 years.

    1. “…those battling substance use disorder.” Left-Progressive speak for “…those stupid enough to ingest the junk.” Missing from the discourse is any shred of acknowledgement of personal responsibility, or lack thereof.

      Your tax dollars at work. Treat the symptoms, ignore the results.

      1. Missing from the discourse is any shred of acknowledgement of personal responsibility, or lack thereof.

        Some get addicted after they were prescribed opioids from medical professionals.

        1. I wonder just how many of them are former six figure professionals who had a knee replaced, got addicted during their recovery and ended up on skid row?

        2. That’s what happened to my sister in law after a bad car accident 12 years ago. Her doctor gave her oxycontin and she got addicted to opioids. The FDA said it was safe and not addictive. Trust the $cience

        3. Take a look at this:
          The promotion and marketing of OxyContin occurred during a recent trend in the liberalization of the use of opioids in the treatment of pain, particularly for chronic non–cancer-related pain. Purdue pursued an “aggressive” campaign to promote the use of opioids in general and OxyContin in particular.1,12–17 In 2001 alone, the company spent $200 million18 in an array of approaches to market and promote OxyContin.

          Go to:
          PROMOTION OF OXYCONTIN
          From 1996 to 2001, Purdue conducted more than 40 national pain-management and speaker-training conferences at resorts in Florida, Arizona, and California. More than 5000 physicians, pharmacists, and nurses attended these all-expenses-paid symposia, where they were recruited and trained for Purdue’s national speaker bureau.19(p22) It is well documented that this type of pharmaceutical company symposium influences physicians’ prescribing, even though the physicians who attend such symposia believe that such enticements do not alter their prescribing patterns.20

          This is from a published article, American Journal of Public Health:
          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/

          A consistent feature in the promotion and marketing of OxyContin was a systematic effort to minimize the risk of addiction in the use of opioids for the treatment of chronic non–cancer-related pain. One of the most critical issues regarding the use of opioids in the treatment of chronic non–cancer-related pain is the potential of iatrogenic addiction. The lifetime prevalence of addictive disorders has been estimated at 3% to 16% of the general population.41 However, we lack any large, methodically rigorous prospective study addressing the issue of iatrogenic addiction during long-term opioid use for chronic nonmalignant pain.4

          It’s a long article, but well worth the reading since it exposes the marketing tactics of Big Pharma. My sister was a drug rep for years–she made a lot of money selling expensive new drugs to physicians. This is where the big bucks are in the healthcare industry.

          1. In 2008, I was on 37.5mg of OxyContin every 4 hours. Could I function at work? No. Did I become addicted? No.

          2. My left ovary was adhered to the wall of my internal body cavity following laparoscopic surgery for an ectopic pregnancy. Fun times! At least 8 trips to the ER that year. Dilaudid, OxyContin and Colace were my friends.

          3. I was on 37.5mg of OxyContin every 4 hours. Could I function at work? No. Did I become addicted? No.

            There are very legitimate reasons for painkillers, obviously, and most people who have needed them don’t turn into addicts. I don’t know exactly why but this has been studied a lot. Perhaps it’s because not everyone who takes these opioids gets any euphoria or high effects. I was given a bottle of Percocet when I had a kidney stone. A quick CT scan and that’s all that the docs needed so they gave me the drug and sent me home. I took one and aside from getting drowsy and feeling not good, the pain was still there. All Percocet did was make everything dull. So I quit taking it and just waited for the stone to pass. Not a very fun thing, but a very, very common occurrence. When I had my wisdom teeth pulled (one was sideways and impossible to get at, so it was left there), the dentist had to really dig away. They sent me home with the warning that “the pain medication will wear off soon” and I should then take the prescribed Vicodin. So I sat around waiting (I wasn’t in much pain) and after a few hours decided to take a pill. Nothing much happened–I could still feel pain and discomfort, but I couldn’t really pinpoint any exact effect.

            So I guess I would be a lousy drug abuser. Or one that wouldn’t be a steady consumer.

    2. And the good news is:

      “Most significantly, xylazine, unlike fentanyl, is immune from the effects of naloxone, a medication commonly known by the brand name Narcan that revives a person overdosing on opioids. ‘What we’ve effectively done here is changed our enemy, so to speak,’ Carroll said. ‘Now we have something that even Narcan can’t control.’”

        1. I have read stories where paramedics saved the life of a junkie with narcan, only to get another call and find the same junkie ODing a 2nd time THE SAME DAY.

    3. Our banking system is as addicted to liquidity from the drug trade as our junkies are addicted to the drugs flooding in from Mexico. Wachovia & HSBC were caught laundering billions from the Sinaloa Cartel, but got off with tax-deductible, slap-on-the-wrist fines because FedGov has no intention of going after the cartels’ enablers in our banking system.

      1. Yet I tried to deposit cash into my landlord’s bank account a few years ago and Bank Of America refused. Yes, banks refuse cash deposits now, from anybody but the account holder. It was bizarre.

      2. HSBC has always been involved in the drug trade since it’s inception. Some claim it is the reason it exists.

        As for the new drug on the scene, I watched a video recently that showed Kensington at 6am. At one point you hear ‘free samples!’ shouted out and a horde of zombies all starts running in the same direction. The narrator explained that some dealers give away the first hit in the morning to get them up and grinding. The high only lasts a couple hours on the new stuff so they will need to revisit the dealer over and over in a day; the earlier they get up the more money the dealer will make.

        The new stuff has them on a constant cycle of steal/prostitute, get high, repeat. The worst part though is the gaping wounds it causes where they shoot it. According to some interviews I’ve watched it is almost impossible to quit it because there isn’t anything that will fill the void during detox like with other drugs. They can see it is going to kill them but their only choice is either wrenching pain or the next fix. It’s all so evil.

  2. ‘You can’t even sleep at night because something is going on across the street, bang bang bang, boom! Women screaming – I mean, do you want to live next to that? That goes on every night, 24 hours a day’

    Other than that Travis, how is yer walk-ability?

  4. Another meth / fentanyl / tranq dope thread?

    This is why I bought property 100+ miles away from Denver. Denver was not responsible for the 2020 presidential election, but at the local level, Denver’s drugs and homeless problem is almost entirely self inflicted.

    The Mayor, the City Council, the District Attorney, Denver voted for all of them. Denver voted for the “compassionate, progressive” approach, because virtue signal, and now they’re wallowing in what they created.

    I don’t know about the walk score thing, but on the bright side it’s 100% legal to mutilate and groom children in Denver. Priorities…

  5. – Thank you Ben for aggregating these related articles this morning. The common themes and threads are notably absent in the MSM, as intended.

    – The Globalists not-so-secret war against Western Civilization and nation states continues apace. They are pure evil. Marxism is evil. Coming to destroy an nation near you. Australia, Canada, U.S., as described in these articles, for example. Europe is it’s own dumpster fire.

    – Yes, these articles are all interrelated. The war on (affordable) housing is just one part of it.

    – The importation of vast quantities of illegal drugs, and illegal aliens is meant to destroy societies and national sovereignty in support of a One World Order plan by the Globalists. The U.S. government is promoting and encouraging this. Just look at our southern border with Mexico. This is policy by the current administration. They are also evil.

    – The homeless encampments of today are in some ways like the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. But back then people were evicted or lost their homes due to the stock market and banking crash. Today it’s due to the purposeful Globalist strategy of making housing unaffordable and everyone’s life miserable. “You will own nothing.”

    – Things are pretty bad here in the U.S. in my view. California is leading the nation down the road to perdition. There are no good intentions as signposts along the way.

    – Meanwhile, we have bread and circuses (panem et circenses).

    – In my view, we’re rapidly approaching the end game. If there isn’t a regime change in Nov., ’24, such that DJT or some other opposing force wins the election, I predict a hot civil war, and there’s nothing to say that won’t happen anyway.

    “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” – Thomas Jefferson


    “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. – Peter 5:8

    When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice;
    when the wicked rule, the people groan.     – Proverbs 29:2

    By justice a king gives a country stability,
    but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down.     – Proverbs 29:4

    2. “Meanwhile, we have bread and circuses (panem et circenses).”

      Get your Taylor Swift and Barbie here! Entertainment to anesthetize the masses.

    3. – Yes, these articles are all interrelated. The war on (affordable) housing is just one part of it.

      Word. Context is everything, and the Fed’s financial warfare against the bottom 95% is part and parcel of the oligarchy’s globalist agenda to destroy the last vestiges of heritage America and our former Republic. Forward, Soviet!

    4. Thank you for the sound look at the evil around us and theHope we find written in so many sections of the Bible.

  6. Epoch Times via ZeroSludge:

    ““It always starts the same way, as a temporary mandate ‘15 days to [slow the spread],’” Kyle Wilkens, a parent in Silver Spring, told The Epoch Times. “I can’t go through this again, my child is not wearing a mask to school.”

    Ms. Wilkens believes the mandate will be extended, though it is set to expire by Sept. 15.

    “The media is already doing its part to fear monger. Now, they are trying to soften us up with scattered mask guidance and requirements here and there. We know from before it will escalate.”

    “Thank god I live in Florida,” Tammy Contreraz of Tampa Bay told The Epoch Times. “I don’t have to deal with all these confusing rules on mandates.”

    In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves (R) has made his opposition to masking abundantly clear, stating there will be no mask mandates in the near future.

    “There are some on the left that still want COVID restrictions… Let me say it again – there will be no mask mandates, COVID vaccine mandates, or lockdowns in Mississippi,” Reeves posted on Facebook.

    “Mississippians will not and should not submit to fear again … If you want to take extraordinary measures to protect yourself from getting sick, God bless you. That is your right and you should do what you think is best. But we are never going back to 2020.”

    Senators JD Vance (R-Ohio), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have cosponsored a Senate bill called the “Freedom to Breathe Act” which would ban federal mask mandates in the United States.

    “We tried mask mandates once in this country. They failed to control the spread of respiratory viruses, violated basic bodily freedom, and set our fellow citizens against one another,” said Vance.

    “This legislation will ensure that no federal bureaucracy, no commercial airline, and no public school can impose the misguided policies of the past. Democrats say they’re not going to bring back mask mandates – we’re going to hold them to their word.”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/americans-divided-mask-mandates-make-comeback-amid-covid-19-surge

    Citizens don’t wear masks.

    Only slaves wear masks.

    1. Despite all the lockdowns, all the mask requirements, and everything else under the sun, it did NOTHING to stop the spread. Why is this conversation not being had in the media and government?

    1. Now they need to mete out the same treatment to the globalist scum who are importing such vermin in their millions.

  8. “The Washington State Department of Transportation closed a 25-acre homeless encampment in south Seattle Tuesday morning.

    These Bidenville homeless encampments are proliferating like toadstools in Colorado Springs, and are trashing formerly beautiful, well-maintained parks. The “campers” include a lot of military veterans of neocon wars who were messed up in the head following their deployments to Iraq & Afghanistan.

  9. New York Times — As Migrants Are Placed Around Massachusetts, Towns Are Welcoming but Worried (9/10/2023):

    “In Massachusetts, the only state with a right-to-shelter law that guarantees every family with children a place to stay, the crisis has been accelerating, with more than 80 cities and towns receiving migrants to date. The number of families living in emergency shelters and hotels statewide has doubled in the past year, to nearly 6,300 last week; the cost has ballooned to an estimated $45 million per month.

    Kelley Hurley, a Woburn teacher, said she saw an opportunity in the migrants’ arrival, to help nudge her changing city toward a warmer embrace of its new diversity. She had observed the trend for years in her kindergarten classroom, where her students spoke eight languages last year. But as she revised her own curriculum to reflect the shift, she worried about stubborn pockets of resistance in a place long defined by its white Irish Catholic and Italian heritage.

    Woburn’s 4,300 public school students were 65 percent white last year, compared with 76 percent in 2013 and 86 percent in 2003.

    “It felt like the city hadn’t quite caught up with the changes, and I thought, ‘Here’s a way to get people involved and excited about it,’” Ms. Hurley said.

    https://archive.ph/NIHnY

    ^The Great Replacement, as advocated by the Anti Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center.

    Don’t be afraid to NAME these organizations, they have no actual authority over you, or over anything.

    1. I have a friend who is a pastor at a Hispanic protestant church in Texas. He tells me that many illegals are choosing to not stay in Texas. One of his flock (most of them are legal) is getting ready to head over to NYC. He asked the guy why and he said that the situation for illegals in Texas has become “difficult”, which I think means “there’s more and better free sh!t in other places”.

      I’m sure NYC mayor Adams’ speech earlier this year where he told “immigrants” that they were welcome in NYC was widely reported in Latin American media. Of course he’s now saying there is no room left at the inn, but that is too little, too late. And to Adams’ surprise, the globalists in DC are utterly unconcerned about NYC’s plight while they continue to waive people across the open border.

  10. This is a pearl clutching article.

    The Guardian — DeSantis backs Florida surgeon general in urging residents against new Covid vaccines (9/9/2023):

    “Covid-19 deaths are inevitable in Florida, Democrats are warning, after rightwing Republican governor Ron DeSantis joined the state’s controversial surgeon general in urging residents to ignore public health advice and avoid new vaccines targeting a resurgence of the virus.”

    Inevitable?

    “The extraordinary advice came at a feisty press conference in Jacksonville this week that was also marred by an unseemly shouting match between DeSantis, a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination, and a Black Air Force veteran.
    Lashing out at what he called the “medical authoritarianism” of mask mandates and other anti-Covid measures, DeSantis accused federal health agencies of being “basically an arm of Big Pharma” as they mulled authorizing the vaccines as early as next week.

    “Pharma will make more money if this thing is approved and they start pushing it on everybody,” said DeSantis, touting Florida’s “freedom” from vaccine mandates.”

    ^this 100%

    “Meanwhile, Dr Joseph Ladapo, the governor’s hand-picked surgeon general and a vaccine skeptic previously found to have manipulated data on vaccine safety, falsely claimed the new booster shots had not been tested on humans, and contained “red flags”.

    https://archive.ph/JvvyV

    Covid vaccines are poison.

  12. A reader sent these in:

    Fed is still sitting on $ 2.5 f@cking trillions of MBS while crying that the current consumption bonanza is extending. Here’s a crazy and totally out of the box idea for them: sell some homies. Why are you sitting on these when house prices are at ATH? What’s the exit plan? What is the Fed doing in the mortgage market anyway? What part of the mandate is that?

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1700193300743880806

    Chart, not completely up to date. Before 2008, the Fed had never owned a single MBS. They were still buying them more than 11 years after Lehman. And people want to blame the ‘free market’ for today’s chaos?

    https://twitter.com/The92ers/status/1700200853594927301

    Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. *However* China’s demand for raw materials, in this case cement, has collapsed. Collapsed collapsed. Property boom over. That’s just the reality that must be incorporated in your 2023-2024 inflation work.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1699944137816936957

    The so-called “Great Moderation” got stomped during Covid. I have no idea on planet earth how a central banker could watch house prices race higher like this and keep rates at zero. But that’s what the Fed did.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1699894518353662209

    Many people who were sleepwalking before Covid lost a ton of confidence in officialdom over the last 3+ years. The lies, the gaslighting, the $9 Cheerios. What happened to our money and what happened to housing frayed trust. When trust frays, booms and busts grow bolder.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1699894520580813035

    August witnessed the 30-year mortgage pierce 7% to the upside again. With it, the homebuilders reported a decline in homebuyer traffic, the first decline all year. It indicates downside for New Home Sales, which had been trying to stage a recovery since last summer.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1699847787733528912

    The Fed is beginning to call banks with CRE concentrations INCLUDING Owner Occupied portions. The game is changing.

    https://twitter.com/commbankerguy/status/1700164918064841202

    1. ‘I have no idea on planet earth how a central banker could watch house prices race higher like this and keep rates at zero. But that’s what the Fed did’

      Ima thinking they wanted to crash the market Jeff, along with everything else.

      1. My theory is that it is convenient for them to do this. In a fractional reserve fiat currency system you need debt to constantly increase but it is impossible to pay it all back and still have a system, right? Also, we know there will always be performance issues with a portion of the debt as well. So it becomes convenient to have a reset every so often and sweep a bunch of it under the rug. If you do it along with the natural credit cycle, most people wont catch on and the game can continue, just need to ‘foam the runway’ a bit. Wash, rinse, repeat. This is why it is important to track the credit cycle and buy during the right phase.

  14. Refugee claimants could account for half of Toronto’s homeless shelter population by the end of the year, according to a new staff report, a situation Mayor Olivia Chow called “desperate” as she pressed the federal government for immediate support.

    The city manager’s report was put before councillors Wednesday at a special meeting where they were set to discuss how to manage Toronto’s beleaguered financial outlook, with the city set to open its 2024 budget discussions with a $1.5-billion shortfall.

    It’s an outlook further clouded by the pressing demands of a shelter system already stretched to its limits, where on an average night this summer more than 200 people go unmatched with one of the city’s 9,000 shelter spaces.

    Ms. Chow says the refugee shelter crisis is only getting more urgent because the city doesn’t have the financial tools to support claimants.

    “We are a billion dollars already in the budget hole,” Ms. Chow said in speech before council on Wednesday. “How are we going to be able to support these refugees properly?”

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto/article-toronto-city-council-debates-financial-future-as-olivia-chow-presses/

    First of all Olive, are you still eating? Just saying.

    2. with the city set to open its 2024 budget discussions with a $1.5-billion shortfall

      And it’s going to get worse Mayor Chow. Much worse.

    1. and again NOT a single word on arresting people with illegal unregistered guns walking the streets…….we all know why…….it begins with the R word. …….and no bail you just sit in the pokey till trial.

      I would like to see 5 years no bail for carrying each illegal gun, 10 years if the serial #s are filed off and double everything if you have priors.

      1. Illegal possession of a gun by a felon or gang member is already a federal crime with 10 yrs in prison and no parole. They simply refuse to prosecute under the existing laws.

        1. They simply refuse to prosecute under the existing laws.

          The Soros DA’s are everywhere and most voters have not a clue.

  16. “In July, police arrested a camper at Mahon Creek Path on suspicion of attacking a man with a machete and lighting a tent on fire, police said.

    If you teach a man to build a fire, he will be warm for an hour. If you light that man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life.

  17. Sponsored content article brought to you by the World Economic Forum.

    The Atlantic — Why Persuading People to Give Up Meat Is So Hard (9/9/2023):

    “For many years, choosing to give up meat meant choosing to stop experiencing its taste. Vegan and vegetarian food had many merits, but tasting like meat was not one of them. In the past half decade, though, some new meat substitutes have come impressively close to the original. When plant-based meat companies and independent testers conducted blindfolded tastings in recent years, my colleague Annie Lowrey reported, they found that many tasters couldn’t tell the difference. Even some chefs have gotten confused.

    But despite science’s breakthroughs in developing juicy, delicious meat substitutes, persuading Americans to go vegetarian or vegan still isn’t easy; even many people who claim to believe in the ethical value of vegetarianism persist in eating meat.”

    https://archive.ph/3WMo7

    And a reminder that at last year’s G20 summit in Bali the attendees dined on wagyu beef.

    2. Not to mention it’s more expensive than meat. Why would a person who can buy $1.99 per pound chicken purchase $10 per pound fake sh!t?

    4. Yummy highly processed chemicals and preservatives. Tastes good and good for you at only double or triple the price of real food.

  18. Shivanthi Sathanandan, the Second Vice Chairwoman for the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party, took to Facebook on Wednesday to share the graphic outcome of the gunpoint attack on her driveway and to call for justice.

    This is glorious. Let these termites in the foundation suffer the consequences of the societal breakdown they’re pushing on behalf of their globalist moneybags.

    1. Apparently, she is requesting that the police patrol her neighborhood.

      These Dirtbags thing they won’t be affected by their society destroying policies, and when they are, they are shocked. That was only supposed to happen in lower class neighborhoods. I suspect she will quietly relocate her family to a much safer suburb that hasn’t defunded its police department.

  19. Johnson is considered one of Chicago’s most progressive mayors ever

    Welp, we already know how this is going to turn out.

        1. Hard to blame on the Republicans when there are currently ZERO out of 50 on the City Council, and at most ONE, at any time in the past 32 years.

          It’s those pesky Republicans downstate with some power in Springfield that block Chicago getting the money and support needed for a glorious future!

          1. Exactly. And logic need not apply. For most Dem voters the GOP is the evil party of big business, rich people and fascism, nevermind that it’s the Dems who fit that description.

  20. KKGB Kitty | @INArteCarloDoss
    Fed is still sitting on $ 2.5 f*cking trillions of MBS while crying that the current consumption bonanza is extending.

    Here’s a crazy and totally out of the box idea for them: sell some homies.

    Why are you sitting on these when house prices are at ATH? What’s the exit plan? What is the Fed doing in the mortgage market anyway? What part of the mandate is that?

    11:04 AM · Sep 8, 2023 · 163.2K Views

    \\

    https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc230906/

    Central Bankers Wandering in the Woods
    John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
    President, Hussman Investment Trust
    September 5, 2023

    “While the Fed has suspended the “zero interest” part of its experimental policies, it has been extraordinarily slow to reduce its balance sheet to a size that would allow it to manage interest rates without hundreds of billions of dollars of annual public expense. The Fed has done only half its job, and seems insistent on maintaining a ruinously bloated balance sheet.”

    “The real problem is that a decade of experimental distortion encouraged unprecedented speculation in every conventional asset class, not to mention fringe speculation in assets detached from any standard of value, including meme stocks, pictures of bored monkeys, and digital Pokémon posing as “currency.””

    “As with every similar episode across history, the unwinding of this bubble in the form of financial crisis is already quietly baked in the cake.”

    “In defending the deranged and experimental notion of an “ample reserves regime,” the Fed is defending continued misalignment between monetary aggregates and economic output.”

    “It is defending exactly the element of monetary policy that contributed to a decade of yield-seeking financial speculation, forced $8 trillion of uninsured deposits into the banking system, encouraged the passive acceptance of enormous government deficits, leaves in place the fuel for future episodes of inflation, and has already produced trillions of dollars of losses both in commercial banks and in the Fed itself – invisible because the assets are not marked to market.”

    “Even as the Fed battles the flames of a fire-breathing dragon, it insists on keeping that dragon as a house pet.”

    “You have one job
    The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
    – Federal Reserve Act, Section 2A, Monetary policy objectives”

    “This is part of the reason I use the word “deranged” to describe the Fed’s experimental “ample reserves regime.” It is wholly outside of the range in which monetary policy has historically operated. It ignores the Fed’s 2A mandate. It breaks the link between open market operations and interest rates, to the extent that it is now impossible to hold interest rates at any level above zero without transferring public funds to the private sector in the form of interest on reserve balances, or accruing small but daily balance sheet losses through “reverse repurchases” with money market funds.”

    \\

    – The Fed has failed in following its responsibilities and constraints as outlined in the Federal Reserve Act. It has rather only grown in power and as a corrupt influence into a 5th branch of government, after the 4th branch of the Deep/Administrative State. If Congress was acting in the best interest of the citizens whom it represents, it would shut down the Fed. IF. Taxation without representation all over again. Am I wrong? Congress? Hello? Bueller?

    \\

    “Rather than targeting the Fed funds rate as Congress intended, through changes in the Fed’s balance sheet, the Fed has shown no concern for restraint, or for keeping its liabilities “commensurate with” GDP. Instead, it’s creating money to pay banks, and has invented an offsetting “asset” (technically, a negative liability) on its balance sheet.”

      1. Definition of irony: the Fed’s private equity & bankster accomplices who bankroll the Democrat Party are seeing their CRE portfolios nuked as Democrat-malgoverned urban cesspools spiral into dystopia.

    1. Some think that Joe will either conveniently die in his sleep or will step down sometime after his renomination, with his replacement swapped in.

      Then again, as long as his polling numbers are high enough so that the magic ballot box stuffing machine can do its trick, why do anything?

      1. Keep in mind that globalist scum media are the source of Biden’s polling numbers, but even so, the Democrats know how unpopular he is, especially with the people who pay the bills & keep the country running. Nothing mail-in voting can’t fix, but nobody is buying the “Most popular president ever with 81 million votes” propaganda.

        https://thehill.com/homenews/4195015

  22. The WEF, has announced they want to dictate what is considered hate speech, disinformation, and what information is allowed.Klaus Schwab has also announced that who controls technology controls the World.
    So if Private Party monopoly corporations under the WEF, in which members include Media and Big Pharmacy , are engaged in a Innsurrection to create a One World Order dictorship and great reset overtake of world, why isn’t their private party rules considered a weapon of war to defraud the populations of the globe.
    Why would private parties be given extra privilege to control information in a way that would defraud the populas and advance a agenda of a One World Order and Great reset enslavement and loss of freedoms .
    Banks who are members of the WEF, have plans to have digital currency, and they will control consumption and peoples money. They want to control the food supply and dictate the populas will eat bugs. They have a end game of no private party ownership, which is Marxism on steroids. They want to implement a United Nations 2030 sustainable earth agenda , that the net result would be withdraw of that which sustains life for billions.
    And the WEF wants a partnership with governments on what they call “Stakeholder Governance” thats takes all freedoms and rights from the populations of the World. Big Pharmacy wants mandated vaccines, without informed consent.
    Biden said that US should lead in the One World Order, and he’s allowing a invasion of our borders.
    So, if private parties control information as to inflict a adgenda of a WEF Cult they are members of, than its a weapon of war for a insurrection of One World Order.
    So ,US Government should be protecting Citizens from enemies, foreign and domestic, that seek a overthrow of the US Constitutional protected Republic.
    They are using declared Global Emergencies of Climate Change and global Panademics as justification for forcing humanity into a enslavement dictorship by a Cult of RICH Entities, under the WEF in collusion with the United Nations.
    And the evidence shows that these Entities are into depopulation and genocide/denocide, and mass starving is a byproduct of their solutions to their declared emergencies.
    So, if our Government doesnt stop this insurrection power grab takeover, secure the borders, take fake poison vaccines off market , protect the 1st and second amendment, than Government is in on attack on Citizens to aid the enemy of US.
    And that Nazi leader of the WEF, (Klaus Schwab) who talks repeatedly about the WEF being the World Power, having the unique opportunity to shape and control the Globe, is Hitler reincarnated.
    Klaus Schwab should be arrested as a criminal enterprise that is a terrorist group leader, attempting to take over world with his group.

    1. Covid vaccines are poison.
      Weather isn’t climate.
      There are only two genders.
      The 2020 election was stolen.

      And yes, Realtors are liars.

    2. The WEF, has announced they want to dictate what is considered hate speech, disinformation, and what information is allowed.

      Well, they have been very, very successful at getting their stooges elected and they control the arious deep states around the world. I would say that they already control the official narrative and media censorship.

      1. As approved globalist narratives lose all credibility and millions of former sheeple get red-pilled by the disconnect between the lies they’re being fed & what they can see happening all around them, the globalists & their shakedown groups like the ADL & SPLC are going to escalate their campaigns to censor, silence, and persecute truth-tellers on social media.

  24. Nobel Prize laureate John Clauser has recently been in the spotlight for challenging prevailing climate models, which he says have ignored a key variable.

    He pinpoints a 2013 Physics Today article (pdf) by Jane Lubchenco and Thomas Karl as pivotal in shaping the narrative, especially during the period when “global warming” was being rebranded as “climate change.”

    “The reason that was given was ‘well, because it’s really more than just warming,'” he said. The article champions a “U.S. Climate Extremes Index,” claiming that anthropogenic climate change led to a significant increase in extreme weather events over the past three decades ending in 2012.

    The index is supposedly backed by a century’s worth of data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and is said to combine various metrics including floods, hurricanes, and droughts.

    Curiously, Mr. Clauser noted, the index leaves out the frequency of EF3+ tornadoes—perhaps because, as highlighted by Mr. Koonin in his book, those were on a noticeable decline. “This, in my opinion, is a rather egregious breach of honesty by the U.S. government by NOAA,” Mr. Clauser said.

    He used data from the article and plotted it chronologically and also in reverse. From this, Mr. Clauser observed that the two plots were virtually indistinguishable, challenging the assertion of an obvious rise in the index.

    “Are you really willing to bet trillions of dollars that you know which [plot] is right? … Is it really increasing? It is clearly not,” he said.

    “Not only, as I understand it, are these extreme weather events not increasing, but our ability to mitigate them has increased. So they’re just not as much of an issue,” Mr. Clauser said, adding later, “This worry about CO2, the worry about methane, the worry about global warming, is all a total fabrication by shocked journalists and or dishonest politicians.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/nobel-winner-refutes-climate-change-narrative-points-out-ignored-factor-5486267

    1. This BS has been around for decades, but I believe that the hard pivot to warmist alarmism in 2023 is just cover for Ukrainistan losing the war.

      Journalists are trash.

      1. One thing that is working for them is that all the alarmism has helped push birth rates around the world below replenishment rates. Even Mexico is now well below the 2.2 rate required to maintain a stable population.

        Now throw in an obesity epidemic in the first world. famine in the third world, engineered viruses, deadly kill shots, etc. and they are well on their way with their population reduction goals, which will be kept as quiet as possible: no one in the media seems to care about the fatpocalypse, instead they publish nonsense articles that claim being morbidly obese is healthy. It really wasn’t that long ago that the MSM complained about the fatpocalypse.

        I remember that the Colorado news media used to brag that Colorado was the “leanest and healthiest state in the country.” I haven’t heard a peep about that in years.

    2. 1500 Scientists recently submitted a Declaration to United Nations that” There is no Climate Change Emergency, ” and it stated the reasons why. This wasn’t worthy of being reported on fake news and censored social media.
      Nothing can dispute the United Nations 2030 sustainable earth agenda .
      These Entities literally want to change human existence into enslavement, consumption control, you will eat bugs, mandated vaccines, forced hacking, withdraw of what sustains human race, no freedoms or choice, based on disputed global emergencies, they allow no dispute to.
      They have all the solutions, but if you do the solutions they want to force, the net result would kill a good deal of the populations of world. Their solutions could turn the planet into a non productive desert .
      They want to reduce crops by 30 to 40 %, but they can’t explain why that wouldn’t produce mass famine. They can’t explain how withdraw of fossil fuel wouldn’t cause mass dysfunction, in that windmills and solar does not replace needed energy.
      They can’t explain how their solutions are saving the world and how it isn’t a slaughter of world populations.
      Its a pre planned agenda, set in concrete, can’t dispute it, because its the plan.
      So, the only thing you can deduce is that they arent saving the Planet for humans, but eliminating humans, so the planet resources are theirs under their One World Order.
      They weren’t saving people from a declared Global Panademic, because their solutions were a disaster genocide/denocide , when they had meds that would of effectively treated their lab produced virus. These Entities are colluding with Goverment of the World to have a One World Order dictorship.
      The narratives are fraudulent, ridiculous, and based on corrupted and bought out Science, perverse incentives and bribes, and extortion, or threat of job loss.
      They have exposed themselves, and what their end game plans are with populations of the World, so compliance that they expect isn’t a option.

  25. Moneywise
    ‘You can’t produce a baby in 1 month by getting nine women pregnant’: Buffett says the key to investing is emotional control — not great talent or effort. 3 ‘forever’ stocks for the long haul
    Vishesh Raisinghani
    Sun, September 10, 2023 at 3:00 AM PDT·4 min read

    Warren Buffett’s wealth wasn’t built overnight.

    Instead, the Oracle of Omaha has been steadily, gradually accumulating over several decades. He’s the undisputed champion of long-term investing. “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time,” he once said. “You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

    Don’t miss

    – Rich young Americans have lost confidence in the stock market — and are betting on these 3 assets instead. Get in now for strong long-term tailwinds

    – Commercial real estate has outperformed the S&P 500 over 25 years. Here’s how to diversify your portfolio without the headache of being a landlord

    – Worried about the economy? Here are the best shock-proof assets for your portfolio. (They’re all outside of the stock market.)
    …
    https://finance.yahoo.com/cant-produce-baby-1-month-100000420.html

      1. The SPR was supposed to be set aside for national emergencies. Biden’s abysmal polling numbers were a lousy reason to drain the SPR.

  29. UK in process of making laws that you can’t question “Climate Change”
    , in addition to ” hate speech” laws being passed.
    So, you could end up in jail if you question or dispute climate change.
    And in US in some States the medical board can come after Doctors if they dispute or question the Covid 19 narratives .
    In New Mexico , the 2nd amendment has just been voided . I always thought in order to add or void a amendment you had to have 75% of States ratify it . Can one State vote to void the Constitution for instance.
    The EU Chief wants digital currency and Covid passports, and wants regulation of AI put in the hands of the United Nations.
    Its all a big display of One World Order in collusion with governments to implement this one world dictorship.
    The One World Order innsurrection will do anything to control everything in this unprecedented power grab to take over globe.

    1. Well, the Brits have neither a constitution nor a bill of rights. They just do as they are told. I can’t wait to hear what my relatives over there are going to say when 15 minute cities are imposed on them. I’m sure they will say that it’s all fine and that they aren’t in an open air prison. that it was a snap to get a visa to leave their town.

  30. ‘My staff has had to clean up after them because they don’t clean up after themselves and the city is slow to respond,’ she said. ‘My staff is picking their dirty needles, garbage, and get exposed to their bodily waste’…some campers have thrown feces and metal objects at the cars of his customers and staff’

    God’s country, right Leslie?

    via GIPHY

  31. ‘could take weeks as crews remove more than 60 cars and RVs, tons of debris, all while being on guard against potential booby traps in the camp’

    Great so now we got Hobo Rambo rigging the ‘camp’ with poison dung on bamboo spikes. God didn’t create Hobo Rambo, the 9th circuit of appeals did!

  33. ‘Like many large cities, Chicago saw a spike in crime during the pandemic, with 804 homicides in 2021, mostly from gun violence’

    That minor respiratory illness was crazy! Shack prices soar, people shooting each other. Good times.

  34. Image file for Jeff — Adventures In Real Estate Edition:

    https://ibb.co/TW6gHbF

    There is a stone bench in the backyard next to the bird bath and mini fire pit, under some nice shady trees. I take breaks to sit there and think about the strategy and schedule for this project going forward the next two months.

    This house was built in 1923. More rooms added on later. The foundation is pretty much toast, there’s no saving or shoring up that.

    “You gotta roll with it” — Caitlyn from Portland, Oregon

    2. “The foundation is pretty much toast, there’s no saving or shoring up that.”

      But what a fantastic canvas you will have not to mention stories for your family for generations to come.

  35. While the Fed’s financially engineered housing price wealth effects have been great for the returns of corporate real estate investors, I don’t know that they have done much to reduce the homelessness crisis.

    1. State needs to join federal and local efforts to address predatory real estate companies
      Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (AP)
      York Dispatch
      Sen. John Fetterman leaves an intelligence briefing on the unknown aerial objects, at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 14, 2023. The Pennsylvania Democrat supports the Stop Predatory Investing Act introduced by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

      Predators in the wild prowl around the edges of a herd of animals, waiting to pick the vulnerable. They may lie in wait, camouflaged until it is time to pounce.

      In real estate, the wolves and hyenas are corporations that buy up properties from the desperate. The bait can be the simplicity of the advertising. Someone struggling to pay the mortgage sees a sign on a telephone poll. “We buy houses,” it says, with a phone number, promising a quick way out of a problem. It isn’t always that easy.

      Predatory residential property companies can be like those wolves that target the injured deer. There can be aggressive, hard-sell tactics. They might take advantage of the elderly or flout state laws about getting out of contracts, according to ProPublica reporting.

      But another problem is when there are too many wolves. In the wild, that can mean overhunting the prey and throwing the ecosystem out of balance. Too many wolves isn’t just bad for the deer. It’s bad for the whole area — including the wolves.

      With real estate, that translates to more and more residential housing being snapped up by corporations, lowering inventory and raising prices.
      …
      https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/opinion/editorials/2023/09/10/state-needs-to-join-federal-and-local-efforts-to-address-predatory-real-estate-companies/70816418007/

    2. Guest editorial | State needs to join federal and local efforts to address predatory real estate companies
      2 hrs ago
      The following editorial appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tribune- Democrat.

      Predators in the wild prowl around the edges of a herd of animals, waiting to pick the vulnerable. They may lie in wait, camouflaged until it is time to pounce.

      In real estate, the wolves and hyenas are corporations that buy up properties from the desperate.

      The bait can be the simplicity of the advertising.

      Someone struggling to pay the mortgage sees a sign on a telephone poll.

      “We buy houses,” it says, with a phone number, promising a quick way out of a problem. It isn’t always that easy.

      Predatory residential property companies can be like those wolves that target the injured deer. There can be aggressive, hard-sell tactics. They might take advantage of the elderly or flout state laws about getting out of contracts, according to ProPublica reporting.

      But another problem is when there are too many wolves. In the wild, that can mean overhunting the prey and throwing the ecosystem out of balance. Too many wolves isn’t just bad for the deer. It’s bad for the whole area – including the wolves.

      With real estate, that translates to more and more residential housing being snapped up by corporations, lowering inventory and raising prices.
      …
      https://www.tribdem.com/news/editorials/guest-editorial-state-needs-to-join-federal-and-local-efforts-to-address-predatory-real-estate/article_be11a454-4e49-11ee-be84-afca1cf95c5a.html

      1. Editor’s Note: The Stop Predatory Investing Act Is a Good Bill
        By Debra Fitzgerald, Peninsula Pulse – August 9th, 2023

        Pardon in advance to anyone out there who owns more than 50 rental homes, but the IRS may cut off your financial incentives in owning those properties.

        That’s mostly wishful thinking. Right now, that threat comes only in the form of a bill called the Stop Predatory Investing Act. It’s co-authored by one of our U.S. senators, Tammy Baldwin, which is how I learned about it.

        There is a shortage right now across the country of 3.8 million homes, according to Baldwin’s research. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) frames the housing shortage more specifically. In a June 2023 report, the NAR said the U.S. housing market is missing 320,000 listings valued up to $256,000: the affordable price range for middle-income buyers (households earning up to $75,000).

        Middle-income buyers can afford to buy less than a quarter (23%) of listings in the current market, the NAR report said. Five years ago, this income group could afford to buy half of all available homes.

        The bill from Baldwin and her colleagues attempts to short-circuit this vicious cycle by amending the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit an investor who acquires 50 or more single-family rental homes from deducting interest or depreciation on those properties. This is intended to demotivate private-equity and other Wall Street–backed outside investors who use technology and all-cash offers to gobble up the affordable starter homes that first-time homebuyers could afford.

        The bill also incentivizes big investors to sell single-family rental homes back to homeowners or nonprofits in the community by allowing those investors to deduct the interest and depreciation for the year in which the property is sold.

        Some of the data fueling this bill comes from a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. The report – “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2022” – notes that the share of purchases made by large investors with large portfolios – a “large” investor is considered one with at least 100 properties – grew from 14% in September 2020 to 26% in September 2021. During the first quarter of 2022, the investor share of homes sold averaged 28%.

        Investors have focused primarily on markets in the South and West, according to the report, but in Milwaukee alone, 14% of rental homes are now owned by out-of-state landlords, according to an analysis by Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. That’s up from 4,600 in 2015, and just 1,500 in 2000.

        “When Wall Street investors buy up houses in Wisconsin, they drive up rent and lock out hardworking families from affordable housing,” Baldwin said in a statement last month announcing her support of the bill. “By eliminating tax incentives for out-of-state landlords and wealthy investors who are interested only in their bottom line, we can better ensure Wisconsin families are able to buy a home in their neighborhoods and create stronger communities.”
        …
        https://doorcountypulse.com/editors-note-the-stop-predatory-investing-act-is-a-good-bill/

    1. CENTRAL BANKS
      Bank of England bond sales creating a ‘selling gold at the bottom’ moment, strategist says
      PUBLISHED MON, SEP 11 2023 1:21 AM EDT
      Elliot Smith

      WATCH LIVE
      KEY POINTS

      Among all the central banks, the Bank of England has been the most aggressive in selling the bonds purchased to bolster the economy during the quantitative easing era, according to Christopher Mahon of Columbia Threadneedle.

      Yields on benchmark 10-year U.K. gilts rose from around 2.99% in early February to a 13-year high of almost 4.75% in mid-August, before moderating slightly. Yields move inversely to prices.

      “In our view, the actions of the … Bank of England could again mark the bottom of the market,” Mahon said.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/bank-of-england-bond-sales-creating-a-selling-gold-at-the-bottom-moment.html

    2. Markets should brace for a turbulent few weeks as slow motion rate shock continues, DataTrek says
      Jennifer Sor
      Aug 17, 2023, 7:51 AM PDT
      Jerome Powell
      Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell delivers remarks during a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Reuters/Carlos Barria

      – Stocks could be in for more Fed-induced turbulence, according to DataTrek research.

      – That’s partly because the Fed is unlikely to stop its quantitative tightening regime.

      – The Fed has reduced its balance sheet aggressively over the past year, which could weigh on stocks.

      The stock market is reacting poorly to August’s run-up in interest rates after key bond yields spent most of this year trending lower in response to the outlook the Federal Reserve is likely close to being done raising interest rates.

      According to DataTrek though, investors should buckle up for even more choppiness ahead.

      That’s because even after the Fed stops hiking interest rates, there’s another policy tool the central bank can use to keep tightening monetary policy: quantitative tightening, the central bank’s practice of reducing its balance sheet to dry up liquidity in markets and tighten financial conditions.

      What’s more, the Fed is running off its balance sheet at a time when the US is issuing massive amounts of new debt, with plans to sell $1 trillion of Treasury bonds this quarter alone.
      …
      https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/stock-market-outlook-fed-put-quantitative-tightening-interest-rate-hikes-2023-8

    1. MarketWatch
      What seven decades of yield-curve history tells us about the business cycle and the stock market, strategist says
      Provided by Dow Jones
      Sep 8, 2023 5:52 AM PDT
      By Jamie Chisholm

      Early Friday futures action shows Wall Street may struggle to break a three-day losing streak. No surprise why: bond yields, which have enjoyed a tight inverse correlation to stocks of late, remain near recent highs.

      At least benchmark long-term interest rates near multiyear peaks suggests the market is sanguine about the health of the U.S. economy. The dominant narrative among investors is that it has been able to absorb the Federal Reserve’s sharp hike in borrowing costs without cracking — the so-called soft landing.

      However, for it to be true that the U.S. economy can avoid a contraction in coming quarters we must accept that the predictive recession message of a deeply inverted yield curve — where short-term Treasury yields are notably higher than 10-years — can now be dismissed by equity investors.

      That would be a mistake, says Michael Darda, chief economist and market strategist at Roth MKM.

      Darda has examined seven-decades of the yield curve and how it relates to the business cycle and equity market performance. Using the spread between 10-year BX:TMUBMUSD10Y and 1-year BX:TMUBMUSD01Y bond yields he found there have been 12 inversions since the 1950’s.

      Importantly, during these occasions the inversion was shown to have preceded the eventual recession by a wide range of between seven to 25 months, with an average lag of 14 months.

      “A look back through the financial news pages shows that soft landing stories were common and the yield curve signal was dismissed going into the 1990-1991, 2001, 2007-2009 and 2020 recessions,” he says.

      “Since we are currently 13 months into inversion, it is woefully premature to presume the yield curve has given a false signal and the fabled soft landing is in the bag,” Darda adds.

      The crucial issue for equity investors is that they should be wary of the average double-digit-percentage-point stock rallies that come in the immediate aftermath of an inversion.

      That’s because Darda’s research shows in nearly seven decades there has never been a post-inversion equity rally that was not completely reversed going into subsequent recessions/bear markets.

      Not even recent action is unprecedented. U.S. stocks rallied 20% from when the yield curve inverted in July 2022 to July this year. But such bounces have happened before, in 1989-90, for a gain of 24%, and 2006-07, up 23%, and both times the post-inversion rallies were wiped out.

      “On average, equity markets ‘bottomed’ about 20% below where they were when the curve first went into inversion. The range of outcomes would be consistent with the S&P 500 having more than 20% downside from the recent market highs,” Darda says.

      “In short, those who are ‘doubling down’ on the soft landing/ongoing bull market call now are making a wager on an unprecedented occurrence.”
      …
      https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20230908311/what-seven-decades-of-yield-curve-history-tells-us-about-the-business-cycle-and-the-stock-market-strategist-says

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