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Now You Have The Same Pattern As Before, Working In Reverse.

A report from WHSV in Virginia. “As we enter into the last three months of the year, what had hopeful signs of declines in interest rates is no longer the case throughout this year. ‘We had heard from a lot of the national economists and lenders that you know the rates were going to come down and they just haven’t and now there’s speculation too well, will they? I think it’s probably safe to assume the rates that we’re looking at are probably not going to drop drastically anytime soon,’ Brent Loope, president of Harrisonburg-Rockingham Association of Realtors said. He said they are starting to see an increase in inventory giving buyers more to choose from. He said interest rates have nearly doubled since Jan 2022, but buyers are becoming more patient leading to more price reductions in houses on the market.”

From Newsweek. “There are signs of an uptick in new listings and a decline in prices in September, according to Zillow. ‘This fall’s high rate of price cuts either means buyers have pulled back, sellers have overreached with too-high list prices, or some combination of both,’ wrote Jeff Tucker, a senior economist at Zillow. Austin, Texas, saw the highest fall in value of homes for sale in the largest 50 metro areas in the country. As fall ushers in the changing of the leaves, it could also mean a change in the dynamics of the housing market as more listings and motivated sellers offer better options for buyers. For sellers, the cooling of the weather could also mean the loss of heat for the housing market. ‘Sellers this fall may rue their timing, as this summer’s surprisingly favorable selling conditions fade into memory along with their summer freckles,’ Zucker wrote.”

WFSB in Connecticut. “An Avon developer is accused of taking deposits to build homes, but not actually building them. Many people say they paid him over a hundred thousand dollars each and have been waiting years for those houses to be completed or even started. Now the I-Team has learned the Avon Police have an active arrest warrant for the developer, William Ferrigno, charging him with first degree larceny in one case out of Avon. The homes are part of a private development in Simsbury called Cambridge Crossing. Katie Barcelo is taking us inside what should be her in-laws finished home. A home that sits right next to Katie’s, the two were meant to be almost identical.”

“The homes are part of a private development in Simsbury called Cambridge Crossing. ‘My in-laws can’t get a response, their realtor can’t get a response, their attorney can’t get a response,’ says Barcelo. ‘My office window looks right out at this (home) and I see it every day, and every day it just makes me mad that they’re sitting here desperately waiting to get into their home and all we have to show for it is two by fours and wire.’ That’s not the end of the story. There are people living in the completed homes in Cambridge Crossing who are having problems that need to be addressed by the homeowners’ association. Guess who’s the president?”

The Real Deal on New York. “Harry Macklowe landed a $300 million inventory loan for the many unsold apartments at his office-to-residential conversion at 1 Wall Street in the Financial District. ‘Beginning in about 2017, condo projects have struggled to make money,’ said Urban Standard Capital founder Seith Weissman. ‘The best ones are breaking even.’ The new inventory loan brings the total cost of 1 Wall Street to around $2.6 billion, adding to the possibility of massive losses at the project, with Macklowe’s ambition to sell an office-to-residential conversion at top dollar unrealized and costs outstripping sales by possibly hundreds of millions of dollars. Although that isn’t necessarily the fault of the developer or equity investor, said Weissman, ‘it is their problem.’ Some 479 of the building’s 566 units remain unsold, according to loan documents.”

Westword in Colorado. “Back in December 2021, a neglected and derelict house at 1350 Newton Street in Denver’s West Colfax neighborhood began catching the attention of neighbors — and the Denver Police Department. A family that lives next door continuously reached out to the owner — in an attempt to warn them about there being fire hazards and other dangerous things at the address — but their cries fell on deaf ears. In January, a blaze lit up the West Colfax house. Jeffrey Moore, one of the concerned family members, was concerned for the responding firefighters and officers, as well as the people who had been squatting in the home. But he was also upset because he and his partner, Evie Burr, had been trying to get the property owner, Eric Ely, to properly board up the home for months over their safety concerns.”

“‘He admitted to having received all of our notifications and emails warning him but not having responded at all,’ Burr recalls. ‘He says, ‘Yeah, I’m kind of sitting on this property. I’m having some cash flow issues. It’s kind of a pain in my butt right now.’ … It was just such a mind-blowing, out-of-touch conversation.’ Moore and Burr say Ely’s business partner was at the meeting, too, where they blamed the lack of care at the Newton Street property on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even after the fire, the neglect continued: In one text exchange, Burr told Ely the property needed to be boarded up again, and he texted back, ‘Feel free to deal w it! im out of the country.'”

The Union Tribune in California. “The price of a resale single-family home in San Diego County hit a record high in August of $958,000. The overall median price for San Diego County was actually down 1.2 percent in August to $840,000. That was entirely the result of newly built home prices dropping by nearly 40 percent to a median of $731,250.”

Los Angeles Magazine in California. “On a recent sunny afternoon in Los Angeles, real estate developer Danny Fitzgerald paced the halls of one of his 11,000 square foot Hollywood Hills mega mansions and reminisced about the famous influencers who once roamed its halls. Now, several of his most luxurious properties, which housed generations of content creators, stand empty. Lately there are signs the boom may be over. Some of Los Angeles’ most iconic content mansions, like those owned by Fitzgerald, remain without tenants. ‘It’s not the [content house] golden era anymore,’ said Walid Mohammed, CEO of The Breadwinners Club, an advertising agency in Los Angeles. In November 2020, Clubhouse, a Beverly Hills mansion full of TikTok stars, became the first publicly traded content house. Its stock price is currently down 99% from its 2021 peak of $16.24 per share. Fitzgerald is looking beyond influencer tenants. ‘I would love to rent to a family, even for half-price right now,’ he said.”

From Bisnow. “It’s one of the toughest questions plaguing commercial real estate today: What is to be done with a pileup of maturing — or past-due — loans worth hundreds of billions of dollars when refinancing is all but impossible? One form of deal that could rise to prevalence is the discounted payoff, or DPO, debt negotiators told Bisnow. Extensions and short-term forbearance agreements are still the most common resolutions being reached this autumn, as the holidays rapidly approach and complex deals seem less likely to get done before the end of the year, sources told Bisnow. But the longer lenders delay their final decisions, the more appealing DPOs could become. ‘We’re starting to see more banks calling us, saying, ‘Uh-oh, we should have sold that loan a year ago,’ Newmark Loan Sale Advisory Group Executive Managing Director Brock Cannon said.”

Reuters on Canada. “Greater Toronto Area (GTA) home prices rose in September for the first time in four months but the level of sales fell to the lowest since January. On a year-over-year basis, home prices were up 3%. Still, they have fallen 16.1% from a peak hit in February 2022. New listings jumped 44.1% year-over-year, while home sales were down 7.1%. ‘GTA home selling prices remain above the trough experienced early in the first quarter of 2023,’ Jason Mercer, TRREB chief market analyst, said in a statement. ‘However, we did experience a more balanced market in the summer and early fall, with listings increasing noticeably relative to sales. This suggests that some buyers may benefit from more negotiating power, at least in the short term.'”

From Kent Online. “With demand having peaked amid the pandemic, as droves of Londoners sought to move to the Kent coast, new research suggests the market may have turned. Four towns in the county are seeing some of the highest numbers of major cuts to asking prices in the UK, according to Zoopla. In Thanet, more than one in five properties on the market (just shy of 21%) have had their asking prices slashed by 5% or more in the past 90 days – the highest ratio in the country. In second is the Dover district, with 19.8%, while Maidstone and Canterbury come in at 18.6% and 18%, placing them seventh and 10th in the UK-wide list respectively. So why is it a struggle to sell houses in these parts of Kent? The ‘crazy’ Covid boom.”

“Charlie Bainbridge, director of Charles Bainbridge estate agents, told KentOnline there was a noticeable peak in the market post-Covid. Mr Bainbridge says locations which traditionally commanded a premium are now seeing some of the most significant drop-offs. ‘Now, you have the same pattern as before, working in reverse. More property is becoming available, buyers have more to choose from, so sellers have to be more competitive in prices. It’s not as if a bubble has burst – it’s just really the impact of those elements.'”

ABC News in Australia. “Another month of interest rates remaining steady is little comfort for thousands of borrowers who are already struggling with higher repayments, including Jalal Ahmed. After migrating from Bangladesh in 2015 with his partner and son and renting for years, the family decided to build their first home on Melbourne’s outskirts. They have been living there since 2018 but, after welcoming a second son two years ago, the family began searching for a bigger home for their growing family — encouraged by former RBA governor Philip Lowe’s now-infamous forward guidance that interest rates would not rise until 2024. Mr Ahmed settled on a house and land package to build their bigger family home, and put down a $30,000 deposit.”

“‘That was the hope Philip Lowe gave us, that we have a certain window to shift our requirements, our needs, but unfortunately that’s not happened, and due to that assurance, the land price, house prices have gone [up] almost 20 to 30 per cent in my area,’ he said. ‘Now we are struggling to get another loan to settle the land. That’s a really stressful situation for us. We put all our savings into the new plan. I have to settle the land, otherwise the developer will take away my deposit money. I don’t know what to do. Maybe we have to lose our deposit money.'”

“Already, Mr Ahmed is cutting back on essentials. ‘I’m just cutting some of our expenses, like we cut back the kids’ activities … we are not dining out, we are not going for holidays, we are just spending time with family,’ he said. ‘This is the only thing we’re doing, but it’s still not enough. We came here for a safer life, but the situation is going in that direction that we don’t feel safer anymore here.'”

Stuff New Zealand. “A first home buyer couple have been waiting three years for their new build, but now that it has finally been finished the developer has suddenly gone silent on them. Richard and Meg Maher’s home in Ormiston, Auckland, has received its Code Compliance Certificate (CCC), but not its “practical completion”, meaning the purchase hasn’t been settled. Meanwhile, the sunset clause date in the sale and purchase agreement has passed, leaving the couple wondering if the developer is about to pull out and leave them in the lurch. ‘The alarm bells have been ringing for me since the updates stopped in June,’ Richard Maher said. ‘Last time we stopped getting updates, the developers went into receivership.'”

“The couple’s house is one of 56 outstanding KiwiBuild homes that were supposed to be delivered as part of “The Neighbourhood Ormiston’s” first stage. Maher said he and his wife have been left feeling ’emotionally drained and depleted’ by the ordeal, and just want answers from the developers about why their house had been finished, but not settled. The Mahers got married in March 2021. They were going to wait until they were in the house to have their first child, but went ahead, imagining they would be in by at least January 2022. ‘We have pinned our whole lives around this bloody house.'”

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This Post Has 116 Comments

  3. ‘say Ely’s business partner was at the meeting, too, where they blamed the lack of care at the Newton Street property on the Russian invasion of Ukraine’

    Oh, well. We must mind that.

  5. The new inventory loan brings the total cost of 1 Wall Street to around $2.6 billion, adding to the possibility of massive losses at the project, with Macklowe’s ambition to sell an office-to-residential conversion at top dollar unrealized and costs outstripping sales by possibly hundreds of millions of dollars.

    It was only Yellen Bux.

  6. ‘In November 2020, Clubhouse, a Beverly Hills mansion full of TikTok stars, became the first publicly traded content house. Its stock price is currently down 99% from its 2021 peak’

    Wa?

    ‘Fitzgerald is looking beyond influencer tenants. ‘I would love to rent to a family, even for half-price right now’

    Just great Danny, yer giving it away.

    1. “Publicly traded content house.” A concept only viable in a world awash with Yellen Bux funny money “stimulus.”

      1. I had to look it up too. From the article:

        ” Content houses, (also known as collab or hype houses) are a long-running tradition in the influencer world. Groups of YouTubers, TikTok stars, Twitch streamers and so on, live together and create content on a near 24-7 basis, while supporting each other, appearing in each other’s videos and collectively landing brand deals.”

  7. ‘We’re starting to see more banks calling us, saying, ‘Uh-oh, we should have sold that loan a year ago’

    Turn those machines back on!

  8. ‘I’m just cutting some of our expenses, like we cut back the kids’ activities … we are not dining out’

    Ah-HA Jalal, you are eating!

  9. ‘Maher said he and his wife have been left feeling ’emotionally drained and depleted’ by the ordeal, and just want answers from the developers about why their house had been finished, but not settled. The Mahers got married in March 2021. They were going to wait until they were in the house to have their first child, but went ahead, imagining they would be in by at least January 2022. ‘We have pinned our whole lives around this bloody house’

    Well it’s still cheaper than renting Dick.

    1. The reliterz in our area keep floating stories about Apple employees moving here and driving home prices skyward. With growing evidence of a tech downturn, count me as doubtful.

    2. “The FAST unit, which has roughly 600 employees, worked on developing custom chips to equip Meta’s devices”

      TBH, this set of layoff sounds like scientists in a materials lab, not the wokerati who sit in meetings. The lab couldn’t create silicon as good as competitors and will be cut, it seems. They’re laying off the wrong folks.

  11. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused new interim Speaker Patrick McHenry on Tuesday night of kicking her out of her workspace in the Capitol just hours after the chamber’s abrupt change in leadership.

    Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement that she was told she had to “immediately” move out of her so-called hideaway office in the Capitol. NBC News has viewed an email purportedly from the House Administration Committee to Pelosi’s staff ordering her to move out of the workspace — which is controlled by the speaker’s office — by Wednesday.

    “The Speaker pro tempore is going to re-assign H-132 for speaker office use. Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed,” the email reads.

    https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/politics/pelosi-accuses-interim-house-speaker-of-ordering-her-to-give-up-office-in-capitol/3319853/

    1. “Mandates were a illusion.”
      The Corp. my Niece worked for mandated the jab, or your fired.
      Does this mean all these Employers are liable for a illegal jab mandate, because Gov is saying they didnt mandate it.
      I remember seeing Joe Biden mandating vaccines for Corps over 100 employees on TV. They had a High Court Case over it, that the High Court struck down the mandate.

    2. CNBC (10/4/2023):

      “Moderna on Wednesday said its combination vaccine targeting Covid and the flu will move to a final stage trial in adults ages 50 and above this year after showing positive results in an early to mid-stage study.

      The biotech company hopes its shot, mRNA-1083, can win approval from regulators in 2025.

      Moderna and other vaccine makers like Pfizer
      believe combination vaccines will simplify what people can do to protect themselves against respiratory viruses that typically surge around the same time of the year.

      “Combination vaccines offer an important opportunity to improve consumer and provider experience, increase compliance with public health recommendations, and deliver value for healthcare systems,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/04/moderna-combination-covid-flu-vaccine-shows-positive-data.html

      Increase compliance? GFYS

      1. These people STILL think the COVID resurges with cooler fall weather. It does not. Jesus, we knew this over three years ago, when people were getting COVID in hot Brazil and hot India. In fact the best thing to do is catch this mild COVID in summertime when you’re happy and healthy and full of Vitamin D and can fight it off. Then you’re immune until the next even milder variant comes along.

        And oh by the way, a couple weeks ago, COVID cases and hospitalizations were increasing a little and the media was up in arms, saying “get-your-shot.” Well guess what, cases are coming back down and hospitalizations are stabilizing. Pretty soon we’ll all just get a sniffle and not bother to be tested.

          1. Yes, pretty much. However, I don’t agree that COVID was a “mild respiratory virus.” It might be mild NOW, but that’s after 4 years of evolution. In the beginning it was much worse.

          2. The FEAR was much worse.

            The information we were given was so full of lies as to be worse than useless.

          3. When I was a teen I recall having bugs that kicked butt far worse than when I had the coof in 2021. And I was a teen, not the geezer I am now.

            Yeah, yeah, I know, some people died. Personally, I don’t know know anyone who died. Zero. But I knew a few people who died of the flu, in years prior, but I didn’t go lose my mind when that happened.

          4. than when I had the coof in 2021.

            Because you’re the only person on earth who had the coof, right? Or maybe, you had a relatively mild case, therefore everybody had a mild case, right?

          5. Because you’re the only person on earth who had the coof,

            Please reread my comment. Didn’t I acknowledge that some people died?

    1. I notice from the video that the Antifa GF didn’t bother to help out her guy while she was being attacked. She just stood there all frightened and expected her man to take care of her.

      Silly me, aren’t they supposed to be Strong Women Who Didn’t Need Men? What happened to Girl Power?

      2. I wonder if his corpse was tested for Covid and returned a false positive, and his death cert says he died of Covid?

  17. One in eight US households saw drop in income last month

    https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/one-in-eight-us-households-drop-income-last-month-101696412148191.html

    he increase in income — to 11.8% last month from 10.7% in August — was driven primarily by high- and middle-income households and the West region

    The share of US adults with decreasing incomes has ticked higher in recent weeks, another sign that the labor market is slowly cooling.

    The increase — to 11.8% last month from 10.7% in August — was driven primarily by high- and middle-income households and the West region, according to a survey of the US labor market from data intelligence company Morning Consult. Among adults with an annual income of $100,000 or more, close to 20% say they expect their incomes to fall in the next four weeks.

    The poll also pointed to a slowdown in business activity, with the share of workers who reported working over 35 hours falling to 46.7% — the lowest level since the spring of 2021 and down more than 12 percentage points from September 2022. The most cited reason by respondents was soft business conditions.

    Still, American workers remain confident about their ability to get raises. The data show a strong uptrend in workers’ perceptions of their own bargaining power, with more believing that their employer would match or raise their pay if they were to get an external offer.

    More workers are also testing the labor market. Job search activity among prime-age adults from August to September rose to the highest level since a least September 2020. Higher shares of workers actively applying for new positions is generally viewed as a sign of labor market strength.

    Union workers in particular are feeling more emboldened. The Morning Consult survey found union members were almost twice as likely to have asked for a raise this year, compared to all employed adults. They were also much more likely to have asked for a promotion, bonus or additional paid vacation days in the past 12 months.

    The data on lost pay and income is from a weekly Morning Consult survey of about 20,000 US adults. The data on hours worked per week and on labor market confidence is from a survey of 1,224 employed US adults conducted in the week ending September 13.

    1. Among adults with an annual income of $100,000 or more, close to 20% say they expect their incomes to fall in the next four weeks.

      Sounds like those who earn commissions know they won’t be closing as much.

  18. A reader sent these in:

    Markets in a very dangerous spot here. Statistical risks flashing red. Banks and Utilities too. Credit starting to move. Lev loans liquidity sucked out. CRE unwind accelerating and housing market about to freeze. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1709266299199590889

    Everyone is focusing on Citi, but don’t forget BAC which is trading like it’s 2008 all over again…

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1709202702784147556

    BIG Jump In Canada Bond Yields On Market Open. Fixed Mortgage Rate Increases may not be far behind. This move was expected, Canadian Trading was closed for a Federal Holiday yesterday but the US Market was open and Bond Yields rose South of the Border. What does it mean?

    https://twitter.com/ronmortgageguy/status/1709198402699833788

    “Maybe China is behind the rise in US long rates…China has fewer dollars to recycle into Treasuries. In fact, China has been selling $300bn in Treasuries since 2021, and the pace of Chinese selling has been faster in recent months,” selling $40bn since April: Apollo’s Slok

    https://twitter.com/lisaabramowicz1/status/1709167357514440820

    Law firm Cravath, which pays more than 50% of the rent at Worldwide Plaza, will move to Hudson Yards when its lease expires next year. Nomura, which contributes almost 30% of the building’s rent, wants to downsize. The building has a $1.2 billion mortgage

    https://twitter.com/lisaabramowicz1/status/1708923554555662638

    I don’t know why, but I have this funny feeling our government is going to try and solve our debt problem with more debt.

    https://twitter.com/dougboneparth/status/1708843044043104697

    From US to Germany to Japan, once unthinkable bond yields now new normal. Selloff has been so extreme it’s forced bullish investors to capitulate & Wall St banks to tear up their forecasts. Yields on 10y German debt close to 3%, a level not reached since 2011. Their US equivalent back in line w/avg from before GFC, within striking distance of 5%.

    https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1708386157271060663

    In case you missed it: The past few months have brought a very significant tightening of US financial conditions; the Goldman Sachs Financial Conditions Index is now at the most restrictive point since Nov 2022.

    https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1708462635996361167

    Large developer in my area in US, several hundred residential lots planned for imminent ground breaking.. just announced 18 *month* delay d/t current environment.

    https://twitter.com/0xrezz/status/1709342996473254244

    Solution: eat your losses like a good boy

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1709380308565446770

    Males took over a women in tech career conference by registering as non-binary.

    https://twitter.com/rottengirl/status/1709195019792318622

    This was front page of WSJ last week

    https://twitter.com/theyhatemetoo/status/1709378652775805108

    *China home mortgage loan growth has collapsed – infact, it’s neg. As households feel sinking property prices, they’re not buying more real estate (amplifying the decline). consumer credit has slowed sharply amid saving/deleveraging. This will weigh in growth

    https://twitter.com/RadicalAdem/status/1709360523094212640

    NOT owning a home is about to become cool again.

    https://twitter.com/JonFlynnREstats/status/1709347213053252005

    Mortgage rates have seemed to do the exact opposite of what so many people predicted this year.

    https://twitter.com/SacAppraiser/status/1709305106922098895

    Janet Yellen is to Economics what the Chicago Bears are to Professional Football.

    https://twitter.com/RJRCapital/status/1709318523154010521

    Blackstone’s Massive CRE REIT Records Eleven Months Of Outflows

    https://twitter.com/danjmcnamara/status/1709169254740721875

    “REX claims its business was damaged when non-MLS listings on Zillow were relegated to a secondary search results tab, limiting traffic…”
    “Instead of marketing homes through the MLS, the company used digital technology to market directly to consumers”

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1709313438286319659

    Arizona school district unveils new homes built for teachers. “the median price for a home in Prescott was about $630,000. For rent, it’s nearly $2,000, according to Zillow. Our starting teachers start around $51,000”

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1709310976003330088

    Let’s hit 8,000 come on Phoenix LFGOOOOOOOOO

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1709304990651879746

    💡💡 What happens if governments in Canada are forced renew their $2.1T trillion debt at today’s rates of 5%? They’ll owe $105 Billion per year in interest. This is roughly equivalent to the amount that the Federal government collects from corporate income tax and GST combined

    https://twitter.com/Tablesalt13/status/1709249895972958526

    “Housing Construction on the ground in the Toronto Area” 👇🏽

    https://twitter.com/ShaziGoalie/status/1709228785470407155

    being a landlord is simple during boom times, but is a irritating, liability during recessions and drawdowns. many dont know this.

    https://twitter.com/rccalhoun/status/1709288505044857279

    The following regions/boards have suffered over $300K in Avg. residential price losses from the peak…
    Durham Region -$316,000
    Cambridge -$305,000
    S. Georgian Bay -$301,000
    Runner ups…
    Peel -$288,000
    Oakville/Milton -$286,000

    https://twitter.com/JonFlynnREstats/status/1709190259852951688

    This is the stage in the cycle when 30-year Treasury Bonds start to beat the S&P 500.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1709271066659455270

    Oh yeah, NAR fights tenant protections because 26% of Realtors are landlords.

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1708994575094919352

    I’ve lost all patience with the gaslighting about shoplifting—it’s just 1% of revenue, it doesn’t hurt anyone but rich investors, blah blah blah. Using numbers from Lowe’s 2022 10-K, here’s a quick analysis showing how destructive it really is, including killing 1,500+ jobs. 👇

    https://twitter.com/RobertMSterling/status/1709227965446336794

    Prepared to bid at auction for a foreclosure property… auction cancelled due to no competing bids… opening bid minimum was down 67% from last appraisal. No bids. Real estate is fine… /s

    https://twitter.com/profplum99/status/1709212460945723792

    It’s a ‘red alert’ on the homebuilders too $XHB

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1709262880749875653

    NO POLICITIANS talking about PPP anymore. I wonder why? The biggest taxpayer heist in US history

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1709266298272969031

    How do people think doing QE again would fix anything? All it would do is create more inflation and increase the Fed’s balance sheet. The bond market might even take the long end rates higher if the Fed tried it. Don’t get your hopes up that QE would save the day.

    https://twitter.com/StealthQE4/status/1709260132993892572

    Realtors don’t realize it now, but every time they try to convince people prices aren’t going down (ignoring basic math/economics) they’re slowly ensuring they’ll be unemployed soon. At current prices/rates and resulting sales, there are 700,000 too many realtors.

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1690460851889967104

    From “you’re just jealous and should have bought sooner.” To “oh woe is me all the financial stress.”

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1709258280575660440

    Had someone tell me that starter homes are selling for $200k over ask in this market and they’ve seen it first hand. When I asked for the specific addresses to verify, the person responded with “well, my realtor told me”

    https://twitter.com/ibie43/status/1709249604762694151

    Now we know why Kevin O’Leary likes SBF so much. He was paid nearly $1 million per hour to shill for Sam. All time grifter.

    https://twitter.com/coffeebreak_YT/status/1709249158505259337

    Year over Year Changes in total U.S. Construction Spending 🚨

    https://twitter.com/multi_finance/status/1709248180167258598

    1. “NO POLICITIANS talking about PPP anymore. I wonder why? The biggest taxpayer heist in US history”

      Not to mention ERC up until recently. Ticks me off. You want to keep your impotent government open? Then go after all the billions, possibly trillions in stimi fraud.

    2. “the median price for a home in Prescott was about $630,000. For rent, it’s nearly $2,000, according to Zillow”

      🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

    4. This was front page of WSJ last week

      After shopping 68 carriers, a condominium complex in Mission Valley just had an 8x increase in its insurance.

  19. (WARNING: This article about the Settled Science has nothing to do with housing,)

    Climate Models Wrong on East Pacific… “We Don’t Know Why This Cooling Is Happening”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/10/04/climate-models-wrong-on-east-pacific-we-dont-know-why-this-cooling-is-happening/

    German online agriculture information site agrarheute.com here asks whether the climate models wrong since the East “East Pacific has been cooling down more and more over the past 30 years” and this “contrary to all predictions”.

    Modern agriculture knows that oceanic cycles have significant consequences for global agriculture.

    No explanation for cooling

    “Why does this part of the eastern Pacific contradict climate models, scientists ask, and they can’t find a simple explanation,” reports agriheute.com. The cooling of the East Pacific has defied the forecasts made by climate models, which predicted a warming due to “greenhouse gas” emissions.

    The region of cooling is the ocean area that “stretches west of Ecuador” and “could reduce greenhouse gas warming by 30 percent”. The false prediction by climate models risk misleading the agriculture industry, as it is known that ocean temperatures impact growing conditions around the world.

    Major impacts around the world

    “The steady cooling also has global implications. The future of the cold region could determine, among other things, whether California is hit by a permanent drought or Australia faces increasingly severe wildfires,” agrarheute.com adds. “It affects the intensity of the monsoon season in India and the likelihood of droughts and famines in the Horn of Africa. It could even change the scale of climate change worldwide by altering the sensitivity of Earth’s atmosphere to rising greenhouse gas emissions.”

    Relying on faulty climate models could put farmers totally on the wrong track.

    Lots of unknowns

    “The problem is that if we don’t know why this cooling is happening, we don’t know when it will stop or if it will suddenly turn into warming,” said Pedro DiNezio of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

    If natural phenomena are causing large oceanic regions to cool, then it is not a stretch of the imagination to think that natural factors are likely causing other regions to warm. It’s the cycles, stupid!

  20. (WARNING: Yet another article that has absolutely nothing to do with housing.)

    EV Owners Facing Soaring Insurance Costs

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/10/04/ev-owners-facing-soaring-insurance-costs/

    Driving an electric car should be a win-win, saving money and the planet. So David* was shocked when the insurance on his Tesla Model Y came up for renewal, and Aviva refused to cover him again, while several other brands turned him away.

    When David did secure a new deal, the annual cost rocketed from £1,200 to more than £5,000.

    “My insurer was Aviva from July 2022 to July 2023, but when it was coming up for renewal, I received a letter stating that they would not be covering the Tesla Model Y any more,” David says. “I am a member of a Tesla UK owners forum, and lots of other people seem to be having the same issue.”

    In the Facebook group, members share stories of horror renewal quotes, with increases ranging from 60% (up to £1,100) to a staggering 940% (a jump from £447 to £4,661, according to a screengrab shared by one driver).

    “I spent weeks on every comparison site as well as trying individual insurers and specialist brokers, but either they wouldn’t cover the car or the quotes were £5,000 or more,” says David, whose only change in circumstance was three points on a licence.

    Privilege, Vitality, Axa and the specialist broker Adrian Flux were among the brands he found were “unable to insure him at this time” before he nailed down a policy with Direct Line, albeit at a price.

    “The best quote I could get was from Direct Line at £4,500,” he says, adding that the total cost exceeded £5,000 once the interest for paying monthly was included, “because who has got that kind of money in one go?

    But it is not only owners of Model Ys – which with a starting price of about £45,000 was the bestselling electric car in the UK last year – who are finding that, like the government, insurers are wobbling about the cost of net zero.

    Alex Gerlis, who bought a Smart EQ Forfour last year, had insurance from John Lewis Finance but, before the mid-August renewal date, it advised him it would not be able to offer a renewal because it was not insuring electric cars

    It comes as all motorists face soaring insurance costs, with prices said to be at an all-time high. A recent cost of living bulletin from the Office for National Statistics revealed that the price of car insurance – which for many Britons is one of their biggest household bills – is up by 52.9% in the last 12 months.

    However, this average masks bigger increases for electric car owners, according to Confused.com. Its figures, derived from quotes, show that insurance premiums for electric vehicles are 72% – or £402 – higher than this time last year, at a typical £959. Meanwhile, for petrol and diesel car drivers, the increase is 29%, or £192, taking the figure to £848.

    I have no sympathy for these fools, who have been more than happy to taxpayer subsidies for their cars and avoid paying thousands of pounds in fuel duty, and then preen themselves under the illusion they are saving the planet.

    The trouble is that all of this is coming our way as well in the not too distant future.

    1. While the Narrative tells us that EV’s are awesome and safe, actuaries at insurance companies know the truth.

        1. Curiously, after that Indiana based life insurance company mentioned that unexpected deaths were up substantially, they fell silent and no other insurance company said a peep. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were muzzled. Talk about it with the press and you will lose your job and be blackballed..

          But rising insurance premiums don’t lie and unless the government is willing to subsidize them there is no way to hide them. Of course, unlike say auto insurance most life policies are term so the rate is predetermined. I have a policy through work (non long term) and the price changes every year during open enrollment. It has gotten pricey, granted that’s what happens when you get old. Accidental death insurance, which I also buy at work, is much, much cheaper.

    1. DOW 30. -0.29%
      S&P 500. -0.13%
      NASDAQ 100. +0.43%

      Stock market carnage isn’t over yet as soaring bond yields send investors into ‘extreme fear’ mode
      Matthew Fox
      Oct 4, 2023, 7:27 AM PDT
      Stock traders
      (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

      – The stock market isn’t going to recover from its recent rout soon as three headwinds remain, according to JPMorgan.

      – The bank highlighted that valuations are still too high, and interest rates are too restrictive.

      – Investors have entered “extreme fear” mode as interest rates surge to a new cycle-high.
      …
      https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-selloff-higher-bond-yields-extreme-fear-oil-recession-2023-10

      1. S&P 500 to Dip Out of Bull Market as 30-Year Rate Nears 5%: What’s Next?
        Michael Kramer | Oct 04, 2023 02:19AM ET

        Well, rates continue to increase following a hotter-than-expected and very volatile JOLTS data point. Now, rates are at a point where the economy will start to slow, and financial conditions are finally tightening.

        At this point, the 2/10 spread is still -35 bps, and that means that the 10-year could still rise 35 bps from here to get us back to where it is flat with the 2-year.

        There is no reason it couldn’t get there. This spread tops when the 10-year is 3% above the 2-year. Now, I’m not trying to suggest that the 10-year is going 8%, but what it tells us is that if the 2-year doesn’t start to come down at some point, there could be a lot more the 10-year can rise from here, and that would bring a lot of pain to equities.
        …
        https://m.investing.com/analysis/sp-500-dips-out-of-bull-market-as-30year-rate-nears-5-whats-next-200642366

        1. “This spread tops when the 10-year is 3% above the 2-year.”

          Put that in your pipe and smoke it before you jump back into stonks.

    3. Finance · markets
      Top strategist sees ‘echoes of the 1987 crash’ in today’s stock market. ‘All you can do is brace yourself and hope for the best’
      BY Will Daniel
      October 4, 2023 at 2:01 PM PDT
      The New York Stock Exchange on October 19, 1987 as stocks are devastated during one of the most frantic days in the exchange’s history.
      Maria Bastone—AFP/Getty Images

      On Oct. 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Index plummeted 22.6% in what would later become known as Black Monday. The causes of the crash are still debated to this day, but the severity of its impact is not. Stock market losses in October hit $1.7 trillion globally as 19 out of the 23 major markets experienced drops of over 20% for the month.

      Now, Albert Edwards, a global strategist at the French investment bank Société Générale, is worried history may repeat itself. The stock market’s strength in 2023 despite the economy-slowing effects of higher interest rates is a combination that feels awfully familiar to the days when Ronald Reagan was president, the typically bearish and often sardonic strategist warns.
      …
      https://fortune.com/2023/10/04/top-strategist-1987-crash-black-monday-repeat-potential-societe-generale-albert-edwards/

      1. One key difference between now and October 1987: There was no internet back then where scary articles like the one I just posted could be widely disseminated. So far as I can recall, Black Monday struck like a lightening bolt out of the blue. But it is possible that I simply wasn’t part of the conversation with those who saw it coming. The reach of such conversations is far greater now, thanks to the internet, potentially leading to a “boy who cried wolf” effect of a crash, in case one does occur.

  22. Scientist Kariko and Weissman awarded Nobel prize for Covid 19 vaccines. ….
    In the fraudulent science world we live in ,a totally failed technology vaccine, that has killed millions and injured millions, is being celebrated by creators winning Nobel Prize.
    Climate Change science is based on similar science fraud and the censoring of dispute to the models of a Climate Change Emergency.
    The evidence shows that there is no Climate Change Emergency based on co2 emission, and Covid shots are a unsafe failed technology that is deliberate expierment in Genocide.
    In spite of China being held up as the model for health response to Covid, China didnt mass vaccinate their population with the expiermental fake vaccine gene therapy. In spite of being ground zero for Covid , with a giant population, China had a extremely low death rate from Covid. This is actually a control group showing the failure of the Western Vaccine, same with other Countries that didnt use the failed technology vaccine.
    Lockdowns and masks , also a failed response to Covid , causing immeasurable harm, is now starting up as a response to the newest Covid variant.
    And how do you explain FAUCi funding bio-weapon research with a rival Country China , that is released on globe, with Fauci cover up of origins of release of Covid.
    Actually we still don’t know the truth of the Covid Saga, because its all one big story that doesn’t add up.
    What it adds up to actually is that Governments, health agencies, institutions , Science, media , Corporations , Rich Elites, United Nations have been captured by a One World Order force taking over the World, using fraudulent narratives as justification to have a enslaved population under a new Global Dictorship.
    Klaus Schwab recently announced no cars in LA by 2030, and freeways will go back to nature. So, the end game is no cars, rather than electric car replacement.
    You have to look at their end game that they have exposed repeatedly. They control all resources, humanity owns nothing, eats bugs, enslaved , vaccine mandated, humanity hacked and altered with controlled grid by Technology and AI.
    This is a game of takeover by increments until total capture of human populations .
    Their timeline for total capture appears to be 2030.

    1. Scientist Kariko and Weissman awarded Nobel prize for Covid 19 vaccines.

      Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine: Factcheck

      “For their discoveries concerning nucleotide base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19”

      6. The demonstrable falsehoods employed by the Nobel Prize committee to justify this award indicates that the decision was not based on scientific and medical fact, but rather reflects non-scientific and medical considerations other than those cited by the committee.

      7. Pfizer is a major donor to the Karolinska Institute.

      1. I see the Nobel prizes in the same light as beauty contests: rigged and no one cares about them anymore.

  23. Jobs, jobs, jobs:

    “Private payroll growth tailed off sharply in September, according to an ADP report Wednesday that provides a counterweight to other signs that the labor market is still running strong.

    The payroll processing firm said job growth totaled just 89,000 for the month, down from an upwardly revised 180,000 in August and below the 160,000 estimate from economists polled by Dow Jones.

    “We are seeing a steepening decline in jobs this month,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.
    “Additionally, we are seeing a steady decline in wages in the past 12 months.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/04/private-payrolls-rose-89000-in-september-much-fewer-than-expected-adp-says.html

    1. The economy is collapsing, and yet the illegitimate regime in the White House is allowing 1+ million a month CRIMINAL INVADERS most of whom are single, military age males, to break into our country, steal jobs from Americans, in addition to endless gibs from Uncle Sugar.

      Replacement theory is not a theory, this government, and other nebulous globalist forces, want you dead, and the nation your ancestors founded and built turned into a communist prison state.

      1. 1+ million a month CRIMINAL INVADERS

        I’ll bet that every metro area in the country is getting them shipped in by the busload. Most mayors, like Dumver’s mayor, are not yet demanding that the border be sealed, but as the invaders pile up and cause mayhem going into election season I expect the cries to intensify. Will the possibility of losing control of the Senate plus losing even more seats in the House and possibly the White House persuade Joetato’s string pullers to close the spigot? Or do they have that much confidence in the Amazing Ballot Box Stuffing Machine?

  24. I don’t recall anyone asking for this nasty skank’s opinion.

    “Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the current wrangling in Congress over funding Ukraine as it continues to fight a war against Moscow is working in the interest of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    “I think Putin is not only thrilled by the divide over whether we continue, and at what levels, to fund Ukraine. I think he is fomenting it as well,” Clinton told PBS Newshour in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

    While Clinton recognized that most lawmakers still favor continued U.S. support for the war-torn country, she also noted the “partisan political divide” over the issue.

    “Honestly, I don’t understand any American siding with Putin, but we have seen it, and we have heard it, and we have to fight against it,” Clinton added.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-putin-ukraine-aid_n_651d46bae4b00421f663318e

    Worried about losing her cut on the kickbacks, probably. Are her grandkids old enough to enlist?

    2. Related article.

      Russia Today — Quoting Russia Today plays into Putin’s hands – Hillary Clinton (10/4/2023):

      “Former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin is “thrilled” by the growing political divide in Washington over aid to Ukraine. She also alleged that the Russian leader “scores points” whenever Americans reference views shared by outlets such as RT.

      In an interview with PBS’s Geoff Bennett released on Tuesday, the former secretary of state and principal architect of the Russiagate conspiracy theory was asked how she thinks Russia perceives the growing opposition among US lawmakers to funding for Kiev.

      Clinton suggested that Putin was not only pleased with the rift among American politicians, but was also “fomenting” it in order to “undermine democracy” and “suborn political leaders.”

      “When I see people parroting Russian talking points that first showed up on Russia Today [RT] or first showed up in a speech from a Russian official, that’s a big point scored for Putin,” Clinton said.

      https://www.rt.com/russia/584039-clinton-rt-ukraine-aid/

      You’ll get more truth from Russia Today than you ever will from the New York Times or Washington Post.

      The latter two, DJT wisely and correctly once described as “the enemy of the American people”

  25. Chris Menahan
    InformationLiberation
    Oct. 03, 2023

    Ryan Carson, a social justice advocate who described himself as the “COO [Chief Operating Officer] of Antifa,” was allegedly stabbed to death by a black male suspect in an unprovoked attack on Monday morning in Brooklyn.

    Mrgunsngear
    @Mrgunsngear

    GRAPHIC WARNING: NY Post obtains and releases video showing fatal stabbing of Leftist activist Ryan Carson in front of girlfriend on NYC street late-night after wedding…

    #NewYork #NYC #RyanCarson

    https://x.com/Mrgunsngear/status/1709327906847985884?s=20

  26. Sounds like TREASON to me.

    The Hill — Unelected Occupant says he’s concerned about Ukraine support amid House chaos (10/4/2023):

    “President * on Wednesday said he’s worried that the disarray on Capitol Hill could mean he can’t deliver the aid promised to Ukraine’s war efforts, adding that he will give a speech on the issue shortly.

    “It does worry me, but I know there are a majority of members in the House and Senate in both parties who have said that they support funding Ukraine,” * told reporters.

    * said his speech will focus on “why it’s critically important for the United States and our allies that we keep our commitment.”

    “I knew that the majority of the American people still supported Ukraine”

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4238466-biden-says-hes-concerned-about-ukraine-support-amid-house-chaos/

    ^ That last sentence is a lie. Nobody outside the Beltway supports Ukraine. Nobody.

    $33+ trillion national debt. 1+ million illegal criminal invaders crossing the border every month. Economy mired in stagflation.

    Nobody supports Ukraine.

  27. A court in Switzerland sentenced a writer and commentator to 60 days in jail for calling a journalist a “fat lesbian,” and the decision is being lauded by LGBTQ+ groups.

    On Monday, French-Swiss polemicist Alain Bonnet, who goes by Alain Soral, was sentenced by the Lausanne court for the crimes of defamation, discrimination and incitement to hatred after he criticized Catherine Macherel, a journalist for Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures, in a Facebook video two years ago.

    “This court decision is an important moment for justice and rights of LGBTQI people in Switzerland,” said Murial Waeger, co-director of a lesbian activist group. “The conviction of Alain Soral is a strong signal that homophobic hatred cannot be tolerated in our society.”

    This is one reason why the Left wants to shred the Constitution and with it the Bill of Rights. They want to be able to muzzle us without needing the help of private sector proxies.

  28. From the Dumber Post:

    Migrant arrivals in Denver have increased so quickly that the city asked for help from the National Guard

    If they think it’s bad now … just wait until the end of the month.

    1. Although I do reside in Arapahoe County and not in Denver proper, I want OUT of this city.

      Doom Loop incoming, take yer money and run, far, far away.

      1. Doom Loop incoming

        Just wait until the local number of refugees invaders hits 10,000+, that’s when the panic will set in. There will be no money to house and feed them and temperatures will start to drop. Will the mayor ask residents to help out by opening their doors, or will all those “Refugees Welcome Here” lawn signs be replaced with “No Trespassing” signs?

          1. The area under the canopies, AKA: The Terminal (not the concourses where the gates are) is very big.

  30. The ‘Bond King’ warns US consumers are headed down ‘a death spiral’

    https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/bond-king-warns-us-consumers-161510945.html

    In an exclusive interview on “Mornings with Maria,” Wednesday, DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach – better known as “The Bond King” – cautioned of a weakening economy in 2024 and Americans embarking on a “death spiral” over their personal finances.

    “I think that everything but employment is showing stresses, and it’s been going on for a while now ever since they did the stimulus,” Gundlach told host Maria Bartiromo. “I think that’s because the government response was so ridiculously outsized. It was really the 2021 free money that is puzzling because it brought on inflation, which anyone sensible, you should’ve known that it would.”

    “But the consumers have ramped up their credit card spending tremendously to fill that gap, which is not sustainable. It’s the classic tractor pull,” he added. “Once you start borrowing on a credit card to pay a credit card, you’re basically in a death spiral with your personal finances.”

    Traditional macroeconomic indicators are “strongly suggestive” of more volatility, the market leader argued. The yield curve, which depicts the ultimate yields for long-term and short-term bonds, remains inverted, and the unemployment rate is reaching a plateau.

    “So suddenly, short rates start to be relatively lower versus long rates,” Gundlach started to explain. “And that has happened in a way that is pretty convincing that we should see economic weakness, say, in the first half of next year.”

    “The one that’s left is employment,” he continued. “It’s moved above its average of the past year, which is a reason to start paying close attention to it. If it goes up even a few tenths of a percentage point more, it would be in a context historically that has never avoided a recession.”

    Hiring by U.S. companies slowed more than expected in September, pointing to a labor market that is starting to cool in the face of higher interest rates, according to the ADP National Employment Report released Wednesday morning.

    Companies added 89,000 jobs last month, below the 153,000 gain that economists surveyed by Refinitiv predicted. That is also much lower than the revised 180,000 increase recorded in August.

    It marked the worst month for job creation since January 2021, painting a grim picture over the September jobs report on Friday.

    “When the unemployment rate goes up from its low by only one-half of 1% or more, there’s been a recession every single time,” Gundlach said. “Based upon that, I think that we’re probably looking at the economic slowdown in the first half of next year… I think recession’s what I mean.”

    The billionaire investor also warned over “too much competition for the markets” currently, claiming the price-to-earnings ratio on stocks “has gone to the sky” and that bond yields are up anywhere from 400 to 600 basis points.

    “There’s been 4x revaluation of stocks versus bonds, and it favors a fixed-income side where you can get pretty decent returns without a lot of risk as a consequence of what the Fed has done so far,” he said. “The risk-reward is so much far superior to where it was two years ago relative to the equities.”

    Federal Reserve officials, including Chairman Jerome Powell, have opened the door to at least one more rate hike this year – and have signaled that rates will remain elevated for longer as they assess whether high inflation has retreated for good.

    1. The one that’s left is employment

      It’s been a while since I mentioned it, but we lost 10 million people from the workforce. They never came back.

      1. I wonder how many of them were injured sufficiently by the jab that they became unemployable.

    2. “Once you start borrowing on a credit card to pay a credit card, you’re basically in a death spiral with your personal finances.”

      Throw in the biggest interest rate spike over a generation and you have the ingredients for a perfect storm, tornadic death spiral.

      1. tornadic death spiral

        Anyone reading here for the past decade and a half, who didn’t get out of debt…

  31. Shostakovich – Piano Concerto No. 2: II. Andante
    imusiciki
    15 years ago

    Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
    Dmitri Shostakovich’s son, Maxim Shostakovich conducts Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major which is performed by Maxim’s son, Dmitri Shostakovich Jr. and accompanied by the I Musici de Montreal.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlMHjo7Jwhk

    6 minute.

  32. Applications for home loans have plunged to the lowest level since 1996 as mortgage rates notch 23-year highs
    Jennifer Sor
    Oct 4, 2023, 10:20 AM MDT
    A mother and her daughter walk past a ‘for sale’ sign.
    The 30-year fixed mortgage rate notched 7.53% over the last week, per the latest MBA data.
    Scott Olson/Getty Images

    – Mortgage applications just plunged to their lowest level since 1996 last week, per the MBA’s latest survey.

    – That comes as the 30-year mortgage rate touches 7.53% in the past week, the highest in 23 years.

    – Experts say the housing affordability crisis won’t improve until mortgage rates dial back significantly.
    …
    https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/us-housing-market-slowdown-loan-applications-mortgage-rates-unaffordability-crisis-2023-10

    1. “Applications for home loans have plunged to the lowest level since 1996 as mortgage rates”

      1996 was 27 years and two housing busts ago, for those keeping track.

      1. “1996 was 27 years and two housing busts ago…”

        This was right about the time housing turned into an investment scam rather than just a place to sleep.

  33. (As you can see this is a long read. Also it is not housing related.)

    Contempt for Press Freedoms: U S Officials Bar Tucker Carlson from Interviewing Putin

    https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Galen_Carpenter/2023/10/02/contempt-for-press-freedoms-u-s-officials-bar-tucker-carlson-from-interviewing-putin/

    Tucker Carlson reports that the U.S. government prevented him from interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Carlson told the Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche that he had sought to arrange an interview with Putin, but U.S. officials blocked him. “I tried to interview Vladimir Putin, but the U.S. government prevented me from doing so. Think about [the implications],” Carlson told the newspaper on September 24. Worse, according to Carlson, no one in the U.S. news media supported his right as a journalist to report on the Russian leader’s views regarding the Ukraine conflict.

    Such obstructionism reflects a growing contempt on the part of officials in the United States and other supposedly liberal democratic countries for freedom of the press. It is merely the latest episode in a lengthening parade of restrictions, ranging from petty to truly alarming. The highest priority targets are critics who dare condemn or even dispute the accounts that Western leaders put forth regarding key foreign policy objectives

    European Union governments have been even more brazen than Washington in their efforts to impede critics. Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EU banned the two most prominent Russian outlets, RT and Sputnik. The official rationale was that those organizations were Kremlin controlled and were disseminating “disinformation” regarding the war in Ukraine. EU officials even ordered the removal of RT and Sputnik material from search engines.

    More than 300 million inhabitants of EU countries were thus deprived from accessing Russia’s views about the war or its causes. Conversely, EU authorities did not impose the slightest restrictions on the tsunami of propaganda coming out of Kyiv regarding the war. Such gross imbalance has been a transparent effort to rig public opinion on a major international issue.

    U.S. officials have been somewhat more subtle in their efforts to squelch dissenting views, especially on Russia, but they have been bad enough. The FBI, the CIA, and other agencies have engaged in a two-front assault on freedom of the press. One method is to emulate the EU and take direct action against alternative news outlets and other dissenters. The other strategy, which has become increasingly pervasive over the past decade is to pressure or collude with social media platforms to harass, marginalize, or eliminate sources that Washington dislikes. Such censorship by proxy is both insidious and dangerous.

    The FBI took a major step toward implementing the first approach in October 2017. FBI leaders created a new Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) in the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division. The FBI subsequently considered any effort by states designated by the Department of Defense as major adversaries (Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea) to influence American public opinion as a threat to U.S. national security. Targets for suppression were not confined to publications and outlets that were indisputably under the control of one of those hostile powers.

    However, censorship by proxy has become by far the U.S. national security state’s preferred method. The U.S. national security apparatus has even actively assisted Volodymr Zelensky’s Ukrainian regime to undermine the constitutional rights of Americans. CNN noted a worrisome revelations in a July 2023 report from the House Judiciary Committee. “The committee says SBU [Ukraine’s top security agency] sent the FBI lists of social media accounts that allegedly ‘spread Russian disinformation,’ and that the FBI then ‘routinely relayed these lists to the relevant social media platforms, which distributed the information internally to their employees in charge of content moderation and enforcement.’”

    In other words, the FBI served as a willing conduit and facilitator for Kyiv’s overseas censorship efforts. Moreover, U.S. officials did not make even a minimal effort to vet Kyiv’s allegations before pressuring social media companies to shut down the accounts of targeted organizations and individuals.

    Revelations from the so-called Twitter files, confirm the extent of such ideological collusion between federal agencies and social media companies. Among other unhealthy aspects was that the FBI had paid Twitter $3.4 million. In a so-called fact-check, USA Today conceded that “the FBI flagged Twitter accounts the agency believed violated Twitter’s terms of service. Second, another document shows the FBI paid Twitter $3.4 million for Twitter’s processing of information requests the FBI made through the Stored Communications Act.” However, “fact-checker” Molly Stelino concluded that the FBI was not using Twitter for censorship purposes, insisting that “the $3.4 million is unrelated to the FBI flagging accounts.” Such an argument deserves an award for gullibility.

    The extent of the government’s collusion campaign was even more apparent because Yoel Roth, the Twitter executive in charge of content moderation and members of his staff met weekly with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It is a safe bet that those meetings were not to discuss the weather. Such meetings also cast even more doubt on the allegedly benign nature of the FBI’s $3.4 million payment to Twitter for processing “information requests.” Yet even Roth apparently balked at some of the FBI’s more far-reaching demands. Roth contended that the list of alleged Russian disinformation offenders even included “‘a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. [Grayzone’s] Aaron Mate),’ and said that Twitter would focus on rule violations and inauthentic behavior (i.e., bots).”

    One interaction between the FBI and Facebook was as alarming as the collusion with Twitter. The FBI worked to discredit the New York Post’s blockbuster story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg later reported that FBI officials had approached him with a warning that Russia was conducting a concerted disinformation campaign during the 2020 U.S. election cycle, just as the Kremlin did in 2016. It was hard to miss the government’s implication that the laptop probably was part of the latest disinformation effort, and that Facebook should take down posts or algorithmically throttle accounts contending that revelations contained in the files were genuine. Yet there was no evidence at the time or subsequently that the laptop involved Russian disinformation. The allegation further poisoned relations with Russia, though, as well as stifled debate on a crucial issue.

    In an early September 2023 ruling, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Biden administration’s meetings with social media companies had violated the First Amendment. That is an encouraging development in the battle against censorship by proxy, but it is unlikely that agencies in the national security apparatus will abandon their efforts to curb dissent, especially on controversial issues related to Washington’s role in the world. Freedom of the press clearly is under siege even in supposedly liberal, democratic countries.

  34. (Another long article + it’s not housing related.)

    Biden’s latest moves on student loan forgiveness leave borrowers unimpressed

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-live-president-biden-updates-163427976.html

    President Biden is in murky water with student loan borrowers and advocates after revealing his next avenues for relief may not be available for everyone the way he originally promised.

    Just before student loan payments turned back on after a more than three-year pandemic pause, the administration announced its initial policy considerations for its next debt forgiveness plan. The announcement showed the Department of Education is looking to forgive debt for certain groups of borrowers, but for now apparently backing away from universal relief.

    While there is time for plans to change — or for additional ones to emerge — the proposal rattled advocates and supporters who now question if Biden will ever be able to help all 45 million borrowers after the Supreme Court struck down his previous proposal.

    “This is the way the student loan swamp in Washington, D.C., operates. They want to put forth a face like they’re really wanting to cancel loans, but the fact of the matter is, the Department of Education has no real desire or intentions of actually canceling any loans, if they can possibly get away with not doing that,” said Alan Collinge, founder of Student Loan Justice.

    The new proposal by the administration is set to target “student loan borrowers in need,” including those who entered repayment decades ago, borrowers whose balances are greater than what they originally owed, borrowers who are eligible for relief under specific programs but didn’t apply, those under financial hardship and those who went through programs that didn’t give financial value.

    Biden gave remarks on student debt and his administration’s efforts to tackle it on Wednesday. View his address in the video above.

    Natalia Abrams, president and founder of the Student Debt Crisis Center, said, “We hope that these questions will not narrow the approach the committee — and ultimately the administration — takes when issuing regulations to provide needed relief to borrowers.

    “We must and should cancel student loan debt,” she added.

    The administration stresses that it is still very early in the negotiated rulemaking process and it is a long way off from knowing what the final plan will look like.

    “We have said we want to reach as many borrowers as possible. The questions outline key concepts we are seeking feedback on. We look forward to the negotiated rulemaking process to help develop a robust final product,” an Education Department spokesperson told The Hill on Monday. “The Administration continues to fight to make the cost of higher education affordable for all, but it is too early to estimate the size of those that will be affected by the negotiated rulemaking — it will depend significantly on the details and that is where we are considering feedback.”

    The Biden administration has already forgiven $127 billion in student loans, including a latest announcement on Wednesday morning that gives $9 billion in relief to 125,000 borrowers who have been on an income-driven repayment program (IDR), Public Service Loan Forgiveness program or have been determined total or permanent disabled.

    The new efforts, however, fall short of the at least $10,000 in forgiveness the president had pledged on the campaign trail.

    “Additionally, we should forgive a minimum of $10,000/person of federal student loans, as proposed by Senator Warren and colleagues. Young people and other student debt holders bore the brunt of the last crisis. It shouldn’t happen again,” Biden had said in 2020.

    The policy considerations will be discussed at the first Student Loan Relief Committee meeting on Oct. 10 and Oct. 11.

    “Now, we are diligently moving through the regulatory process to advance debt relief for even more borrowers. Today, after considering more than 26,000 public comments on how to tailor this relief, we are releasing this additional information about this effort. We’re committed to standing up for borrowers and making sure that student debt does not stop anyone from climbing the economic ladder and pursuing the American dream,” said Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

    If there aren’t any changes, the Biden administration could see greater pushback from other Democrats who have called for transformative action on the issue. Leading liberals such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) previously called for Biden to use an executive order to give universal student loan relief of up to $50,000.

    “It was pretty clear that Biden was never very sincere about wanting to counsel loans administratively by executive order in the first place. And I think that’s true of many establishment Democrats,” said Collinge.

    But others are hopeful that student loan advocates will recognize the tight situation the president is in and won’t hold the change in relief plans against him.

    “It’s the extreme Republican majority who do not want to lend a hand to help the least of these marginalized communities, working class folks. Those are the people who split power, unfortunately, so [Biden’s] very limited to what you can do as president,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic political strategist and founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC.

    Republicans have been adamant in their opposition to student debt relief, arguing it is unfair to those who either paid off their debts or never went to college.

    Biden’s mass debt relief that was struck down by the Supreme Court was challenged by Republican attorneys general who argued the financial repercussions that could exist from student loan forgiveness.

    And while some might be upset Biden isn’t fulfilling his whole promise, it is certainly more relief than what would be given by a Republican president, making the moves possibly inconsequential in the next election cycle.

    “The Biden administration has to recalibrate and determine what is the best proposal that it can put forward. So, I would say, my hope is that there’s not distrust in the Biden administration or in efforts to provide some level of student debt relief, but a recognition as well […] that there’s an effort to recalibrate and bring something to the table that will help, hopefully, some young people and maybe not as many as initially intended,” said DeNora Getachew, executive director of DoSomething, a youth-centered activism organization.

  35. Saw this in the Colorado Sun:

    Denver International Airport expects to add four new walkable concourses with 100 total gates by 2045 to accommodate double the number of passengers passing through the airport today.

    So, it’s going to take at least 22 years to complete this project? Why do I get the sinking feeling that not only will it never be completed, but that there is also a very good chance that there will never even be a groundbreaking?

    And I’ll bet that lots of protected class consultants and designers will be paid hundreds of millions for also incomplete work.

    And why expand it? My betters keep telling me that airliners are destroying the world and we should only be allowed to fly four times in our lives. Of course I am also told that the people who matter will be exempt from that restriction because reasons.

    2. Do you lie awake nights worrying the
      yield curve may be headed towards a fatal dis-inversion?

      1. Opinion
        John Authers, Columnist
        The Yield Curve Moves to a Fatal Dis-Inversion
        As a sign of recession, this is when the relationship between two-year and 10-year Treasuries really gets dangerous.
        October 5, 2023 at 12:13 AM CDT
        By John Authers
        John Authers is a senior editor for markets and Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief markets commentator at the Financial Times, he is author of “The Fearful Rise of Markets.”
        …

      2. MarketWatch
        Treasury yield curve is un-inverting for what’s shaping up to be the wrong reasons, SocGen says
        Provided by Dow Jones
        Sep 28, 2023 3:18 PM CDT

        One of the bond market’s most reliable gauges of impending U.S. recessions is less deeply negative than it has been in months. The difference between 10- year and 2-year Treasury yields narrowed to minus 47.5 basis points as of Thursday. The result is a less inverted or deeply negative 2s/10s spread relative to March and July, when it fell to below minus 100 basis points.Simply put, long-term Treasury yields are gradually catching up to where shorter-term ones are trading, though they’re still lagging. Other spreads in the roughly $25 trillion Treasury market have either gone less negative or turned positive since the Federal Reserve’s Sept. 20 policy update, as investors adjust to a higher-for-longer environment on rates.

        This week’s selloff in long-term government debt, which pushed 10- and 30-year yields to multi-year highs, is helping the Treasury curve to re-steepen. Yield spreads typically invert, or go below zero, when there’s greater pessimism about the economy. They un-invert or slope upward, with long-term rates trading above short-term ones, when the market tends to be more confident about the outlook.

        This time around, however, the difference between long- and short-term yields is shrinking as a reflection of rising financing costs that will hit everyone from home buyers to corporations, rather than less pessimism about the economic outlook or a reduced likelihood of a recession, according to Subadra Rajappa, head of U.S. rates strategy at Société Générale (FR:GLE) in New York. “This to me feels like it should lead to a tightening of financial conditions, with a sharp rise in real yields and commodity prices, even though the Fed has told us it isn’t going to be hiking a lot more,” she said via phone. “So the propagation of this pain is going to be through the markets, such as the mortgage market or credit market, where issuance is linked to benchmark yields like the 5- or 10-year rates. They are all going to start coming under pressure.

        “The Treasury curve can re-steepen in two ways. One is when long-term yields are increasing at a faster pace than short-term rates, in what’s known as a bear steepener — which is what has recently happened. Bear refers to the sentiment behind the trade, which is to sell long-term Treasurys, and steepener describes the shape that the curve then takes. The other way is when short-term yields are falling by more than long-term yields on expectations of a recession or a policy interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve, or what’s known as bull steepener. Bull refers to the buying of shorter-term Treasurys.”We were very much on board with the view that the yield curve would steepen, but it’s turning out to be an environment of bear steepening, not bull steepening,” Rajappa said.

        The magnitude of the selloff in long-term Treasurys “is catching markets by surprise and the risk of a 10-year rate that could go above 4.5% had not been fully appreciated by the markets or myself. We need yields to move meaningfully higher before we see financial conditions tighten meaningfully from here, and it will take a bit longer for other assets to adjust to the new interest-rate regime.”
        …
        https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20230928531/treasury-yield-curve-is-un-inverting-for-whats-shaping-up-to-be-the-wrong-reasons-socgen-says

        1. ‘The magnitude of the selloff in long-term Treasurys “is catching markets by surprise and the risk of a 10-year rate that could go above 4.5% had not been fully appreciated by the markets or myself.”‘

          Translation: The Treasury yield curve’s bear steepening has flatfooted and flummoxed Wall Street’s soft landing group thinkers.

          “We need yields to move meaningfully higher before we see financial conditions tighten meaningfully from here,…”

          Not sure how tight she is thinking things will get, but they seem pretty tight already. Case in point, from post above: *Applications for home loans have plunged to the lowest level since 1996*

          “…and it will take a bit longer for other assets to adjust to the new interest-rate regime.”

          Interesting to note that bond prices adjust instantaneously to higher yields: the relationship is deterministic, and requires only high school algebra to calculate.

          Thanks to a plethora of clueless traders armed with groupthink and dumb, borrowed money, *other* asset prices typically adjust far more slowly, including stocks (at least months) and real estate (years).

          1. Financial Times
            US Treasury bonds
            Treasury yields fall back from 16-year high after weak US jobs data
            Bond markets recover part of recent losses as hiring slowdown eases concern over ‘higher for longer’ interest rates
            A montage of the US Treasury building and the logo of the Department of the Treasury
            Yields on benchmark 10-year US Treasuries touched their highest level since 2007 before slipping back to trade marginally higher on the day
            Mary McDougall in London yesterday

            Bond yields on both sides of the Atlantic fell back after touching their highest levels for more than a decade on Wednesday, as weak US labour market data helped ease investors’ concerns over the Federal Reserve’s “higher for longer” message on interest rates.

            Yields on benchmark 10-year US Treasuries were down 0.08 percentage points in late afternoon trading in New York at 4.73 per cent, having earlier hit a 16-year high of 4.88 per cent. German 10-year Bund yields — a benchmark for the eurozone — fell to 2.92 per cent, after reaching 3 per cent in early trade, the highest level since 2011. Yields rise as prices fall.

            The move down in bond yields came after data on Wednesday showed private sector employers in the US increased hiring at the slowest pace in more than two and a half years as large companies shed jobs, signalling a cooling labour market ahead of Friday’s official non-farm payrolls report.
            …

          2. “Yields on benchmark 10-year US Treasuries were down 0.08 percentage points in late afternoon trading in New York at 4.73 per cent, having earlier hit a 16-year high of 4.88 per cent.”

            So much for recent worries the 10-year Treasury yield might breach 4.5%…

      3. Barclays warns that only a stock market crash could save bonds
        Investing.com | Author Senad Karaahmetovic
        Editor Ambhini Aishwarya
        Published Oct 05, 2023 06:33AM ET

        Barclays warns that only a stock market crash could save bonds

        U.S. stocks finally stopped falling yesterday following data indicating a slowdown in job growth, which alleviated concerns about the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy direction and put a halt to the recent surge in bond yields.

        Still, strategists at Barclays warn that the bond market is likely to continue selling off, which will likely send stocks further lower.

        “We do not see a clear catalyst to stem the bleeding,” the strategists wrote in a note.

        Barclays economists still expect the Fed to hike at least once. Hence, they were of the view that the bond markets were pricing in far too many cuts in 2024. As a result, the rate strategists continuously urged Barclays’ clients to stay short bonds.

        “But after the 10y reached 4.6%, we turned neutral on duration… Bonds were not compellingly cheap, but finally seemed fairly priced.”

        The strategists highlight two key factors why bonds are falling: 1) Higher for longer regime adopted by the Fed, and 2) Rising term premia due to the worsening in the U.S. fiscal situation.

        They are adamant that the Fed won’t step in to save the bond market.

        “In our view, there is little chance that the Fed will suddenly stop QT, and even less of a chance that it will re-start QE. Moreover, it would be counterproductive. Monetary policy would suddenly turn far less restrictive, while the economy is still growing above trend and inflation is far from 2% – a recipe for higher yields,” they added.

        “The only way the Fed could help longer yields is by hiking so aggressively that markets are convinced a recession is imminent and rush to buy longer rates. But that is extremely unlikely as well. The Fed is likely simply to stay the course.”
        …
        https://m.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/barclays-warns-that-only-a-stock-market-crash-could-save-bonds-3191071

      4. Why Wall Street investors are freaking out
        Analysis by Nicole Goodkind, CNN
        Updated 2:26 PM EDT, Wed October 4, 2023

        New York CNN —

        October has a long history of spooking Wall Street, and this week’s market action is serving up a particular dose of terror for traders.

        Markets fell sharply on Tuesday. The Dow lost 454 points, or 1.3%, notching its biggest decline since March and turning negative for 2023.

        CNN’s Fear & Greed Index, which tracks seven market indicators, sank to an “Extreme Fear” reading of 14, which marks the index’s lowest level since last October.

        And with bank earnings reports beginning on Friday the 13th, and the next Federal Reserve policy meeting starting on Halloween, this spine-tingling season may be a long one for the markets.

        Here’s why investors are freaking out:

        Rates and the Fed: A surge in corporate debt sales and rising bond yields have sent stocks lower. Stocks often struggle when government bond yields are elevated, since it means investors can get high returns on less risky assets.

        Meanwhile, stronger-than-expected jobs data has exacerbated anxiety that the Fed will decide to keep interest rates higher for longer. Mortgage rates are racing towards 8%, after hitting their highest level since 2000 last week. High interest rates tend to eat into corporate profits and drag stock values lower.

        Government dysfunction: Adding to the volatility is chaos in America’s Congress. Markets continue to reel from a narrowly avoided federal government shutdown last weekend over the fiscal budget. And Tuesday, House Republicans voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his role because he worked with Democrats to avoid the shutdown.

        “The news out of the House today once again highlights the difficult political backdrop in addressing such issues,” said Michael Reinking, manager of NYSE research.

        Moody’s, the only major credit rating firm to keep a perfect score for the United States, has warned that a government shutdown would be “credit negative” for the United States. More political disorder could also potentially trigger a downgrade.

        On top of that, about 43 million Americans will face their first student loan bill since 2020 next week, potentially stymieing consumer spending.

        Geopolitical risks are still elevated as Russia’s war on Ukraine continues and relations between the United States and China remain tense. Oil prices, meanwhile, are still sitting near their highest level in more than a year.

        But even as the woes mount up, some analysts still think this downturn is mainly about seasonality.

        The “October Effect”: Several historic stock market crashes have haunted the autumnal month. Black Tuesday, the 1929 market plunge that led to the Great Depression, 1987’s Black Monday and the beginnings of the 2008 financial crisis all took place in October.

        October also marks the end of the fiscal year for many mutual funds in the United States. This sometimes leads to so-called “window dressing,” where fund managers sell poorly performing stocks and purchase better-performing alternatives to improve the appearance of their portfolios.

        These events have led investors to fear the cursed “October Effect,” a perceived tendency for the stock market to decline through the month. Statistical evidence doesn’t quite support the phenomenon, but the level of superstitious caution on Wall Street is real.

        That can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. As investors become wary of the effect, their heightened caution or predisposition to sell off at the first sign of volatility could lead to downturns.

        Yes, but: While October has seen sharp declines on occasion, it has also seen substantial market recoveries and gains. Over the long term, October’s performance, when averaged out, isn’t as dire as the reputation might suggest.

        No particular month can really claim to be the worst.

        As Mark Twain wrote way back in 1894, “October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks,” adding that “the others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.”
        …
        https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/04/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html

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