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The Change In Price-Setting During The Pandemic Caught Central Bankers Off Guard

A weekend topic starting with Bloomberg. “A changing of the guard among the biggest buyers of US Treasuries has Wall Street veterans bracing for further pain in the world’s largest bond market. Increasingly absent are steady-handed investors including foreign governments, US commercial banks and the Federal Reserve. In their place, hedge funds, mutual funds, insurers and pensions are piling in. Market watchers are quick to note that unlike their more price-agnostic predecessors, the new buyer base is likely to demand a heavy premium to finance Washington’s spendthrift ways, especially with debt sales set to surge as deficits swell.”

“‘We have an abnormal supply-demand situation in that the quantity of debt the government has to sell is a lot’ and will ‘remain a lot,’ Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, said earlier this month’ He expects 10-year yields to exceed 5% in the near future. ‘The buyers are less inclined to buy the debt, for a variety of reasons’ including that ‘many have gotten whacked. There’s lots of losses.'”

Business Insider. “A Treasury bond auction Thursday saw weak demand, adding to growing alarms that the explosion in the supply of US debt could overwhelm Wall Street. The US sold $20 billion of 30-year bonds, but dealers had to take up 18% of the supply, more than the typical share of about 11%, after investors balked. The auction tail, or the gap between the lowest bid price versus the average, was the narrowest since November 2021, according to the Financial Times. The yield on the 30-year Treasury jumped 12 basis points to 4.856%, and the 10-year yield surged 10 basis points to 4.7%. Thursday’s results followed other soft Treasury auctions this week, including a $46 billion sale of three-year notes and a $35 billion sale of 10-year bonds.”

Market Watch. “U.S. homes may be wildly unaffordable for first-time buyers, but mortgage bonds backed by those same properties could be dirt cheap. Shocks from the Federal Reserve’s dramatic rate increases have walloped the $8.9 trillion agency mortgage-bond market, the main artery of U.S. housing finance for almost the past two decades. ‘It’s really, really struggled,’ Nick Childs, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, said of the agency mortgage-bond market during a Thursday talk on the firm’s fixed-income outlook. Banks awash in underwater securities have pulled back too. The repricing of similar bonds helped hasten the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March. ‘Banks have been not only absent, but selling,’ said Child.”

Multi-Housing News. “Near-term survival loomed as a major concern for small and medium sized multifamily businesses at the Middle Market Multifamily Forum’s sixth annual Northeastern conference. High interest rates, inflated construction costs and substantially decreased transaction volumes are among the hazards facing the sector, said panelists. Many speakers attributed the state of the dealmaking landscape to the Federal Reserve’s policies, which have led to the highest funds rate in more than two decades. As of the second quarter of 2023, investment sales were down by 71.8 percent year-over-year, according to a report from Newmark. Those numbers seem unlikely to rebound soon and waiting out the storm may not be an option.”

“‘Survive to ‘25 is not even enough,’ reflected Ira Perlmuter, Chief Investment Officer at IJP Family Partners, a family office based private equity firm. ‘You are going to see 36 months of really tight problems,’ he added. On a separate panel, a group of capital markets and investment management experts explained how they are adjusting to the current landscape, making the most of stringent lending terms and scarcity of debt. ‘Your best lender is your existing lender,’ said Gary Newman, Managing Director of BrightSpire Capital. ‘There is such a dislocation in the market between the bid and the ask that there are not a lot of sales or investment transactions that make a lot of sense to us.’ All of this is taking place at the same time that more than $1 trillion in existing loans face maturation.”

From Bisnow. “This isn’t your father’s financial crisis. As distress proliferates across the U.S. and a wall of debt comes due, today’s owners are faced with a different — and more complicated — calculus about whether they can hold on to their buildings. Some are throwing in the towel and choosing to sell. But unlike prior downturns, the velocity of transactions has been slow going amid an air of uncertainty that has negotiations frozen in place. Net charge-offs and delinquency rates for bank-held CRE loans increased in the second quarter, with all major property types showing greater distress, according to Trepp. Meanwhile, MSCI is tracking $1.4T worth of CRE debt set to mature between 2024 and 2026.”

“‘The capital markets are severely dislocated,’ BH3 Management co-CEO Greg Freedman said. ‘We have not seen the illiquidity on the debt side of CRE how it is today since 2008, 2009. The last chapter of this crisis has not been written yet,’ Freedman said. ‘If this financial crisis is a 20-chapter book, we are probably on Chapter 3 or 4. There’s a lot to continue to unpack.”

Coastal News Today in Florida. “With concrete blocks stacked on the left lot, and a near-finished house on the right, Jim Toto opens the door of the canal-front, Gulf-access home for a tour. Toto, owner of Toto Custom Homes, bought five adjacent lots earlier this year and went right to work, trying to satisfy a seemingly unquenchable thirst to build, build and build some more across Southwest Florida … despite interest rates that keep climbing and costs that are doing the same. The northwest portion of Cape Coral, off Burnt Store Road, continues to fill with new homes similar to the ones Toto has been building. ‘First and foremost, I think it’s because the prices of property, not too long ago, were very affordable,’ Toto says. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, lots in this region were selling for $60,000 to $80,000. Now, they are going for $225,000 to $500,000, depending on the location and whether they come with a seawall.”

The Messenger on California. “Across Los Angeles’ most exclusive neighborhoods, multimillion-dollar mansions are increasingly sitting on the market. Inside their gates, salt water pools have gone all summer without a single swimmer, private movie theaters screened neither Barbie nor Oppenheimer and the pins in home bowling alleys have stayed steadfastly upright. The issue? Now more than ever, these homes are not for sale, but for rent. A concoction, consisting of high interest rates, a new transfer tax on sales, and the end of the pandemic, has been poisonous to the area’s ultra luxury rental market.”

“‘A property that would otherwise be coming on the market for sale is really coming on the market for lease,’ said Billy Rose, co-founder of residential real estate brokerage The Agency. ‘I’m one of those people.’ Rose, who is looking to move to Santa Monica and downsize, is currently renting in the area while looking for a buyer for his Westwood Hills home. ‘If there were a point where I couldn’t sell it for a number that I felt comfortable selling, I would just lease it out,’ Rose said.”

“In Beverly Hills, especially, supply has skyrocketed. In January 2012, 254 properties at that price point were available to rent. As of Oct. 11, there are 1,035 properties. The growth in supply was much needed during the pandemic, when affluent residents of Los Angeles and across the country chose to camp out in mansions. Between August 2020 and July 2021, total spending volume on rents in Beverly Hills exceeded $12 billion monthly. In August 2021, that plummeted to $3 billion. It’s since fallen further. Last month, Beverly Hills’ ultraluxe rental market brought in $1.7 billion.”

“‘In the higher end market, short term rentals have really compressed in terms of the nightly rate,’ said Stuart Heller, CEO of Stay Awhile Villas, a luxury vacation rental company in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles and Malibu. ‘Properties that were possibly $7,000 a night are probably $3,000 a night, and the properties that are worth $3,000 per night are more like $1,500 per night.’ Real estate agents say the main culprit in the rise in rentals is high interest rates, which lock homeowners into what’s referred to as ‘golden handcuffs.’”

“‘Renters have pretty good negotiating power right now. I’m seeing a lot of homes where somebody will come and see the home and they’ll try to go, ‘I will give you $20,000 less than ‘you’re asking for a month,’” said Compass agent Megan Majd. ‘It obviously is up to the owner and based on their needs, but I’m finding that sometimes owners need to realize that the market is not as strong as it was.'”

The Daily Voice. “The number of homes bought over the third quarter of 2023 declined in Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess Counties, according to the Houlihan Lawrence Westchester-Putnam-Dutchess Q3 Market Report. According to Houlihan Lawrence CEO Liz Nunan, it is an ‘opportune time to sell north of New York City,’ as long as prices are not set too high. ‘While the demand might suggest otherwise, buyers remain discerning. Accurate pricing remains critical as overly inflated prices can cause homes to be overlooked and seller disappointment,’ Nunan said.”

From CBC News. “Canada’s housing market continued to cool last month, new numbers from the Canadian Real Estate Association show Friday, as the number of homes sold has now fallen for three months in a row and benchmark prices slipped lower, too. Benjamin Reitzes, an economist with Bank of Montreal, agrees with the assessment that the housing market is in for a bumpy ride as long as interest rates remain at their current level. ‘The current level of interest rates and prices don’t mix well. One of the two needs to come down, and it doesn’t look like the Bank of Canada is poised to cut rates any time soon,’ he said. ‘Housing could be in for a rough winter, though as usual, location matters a lot, with some provinces likely to struggle more than others.'”

“Vassil Staykov, a realtor in Toronto, says the main theme of the housing market right now is a vast disconnect between sellers who are stubbornly trying to get the high prices they have their hopes pinned on, and buyers looking for a bargain. ‘We’re coming off of three years of skewed data that have changed our perception of everything, but the real story is lack of absorption — stuff is just not selling.’ Staykov says buyer fatigue is settling in, but not of the usual type, where buyers stop trying after being disillusioned from losing in multiple bidding wars. Instead, they’re getting fed up because sellers are refusing to accept that the market has cooled. ‘I’m getting low-balled left, right and centre on three listings right now, and I’m also low-balling a bunch of listings myself,’ he said.”

The Globe and Mail. “Bank of Canada deputy governor Nicolas Vincent said that companies continue to raise prices more frequently than before the pandemic and warned that this behaviour could become ‘self-perpetuating,’ making it harder to get inflation back under control. In his first speech since becoming deputy governor, Mr. Vincent described how business price-setting changed during the COVID-19 pandemic and after restrictions lifted, with companies raising prices more frequently and by larger amounts than usual.”

“‘If you continue to expect your suppliers and competitors to make frequent price changes, you might be more prone to do the same yourself, creating a feedback loop,’ Mr. Vincent said, according to the English translation of the speech. ‘Under certain conditions, this could make prices even more sensitive to shocks. In other words, if recent pricing behaviour settles into a new normal, it could complicate our return to low, stable and predictable inflation.'”

“The change in price-setting during the pandemic caught central bankers off guard. Economists rely on models to predict inflation, and the Bank of Canada’s models assume prices are relatively ‘sticky’ – that is, companies change them infrequently because of competitive pressures and because it costs money to change prices. This core assumption was challenged during the pandemic and the reopening of the economy as COVID-19 receded. Health-related shutdowns fractured supply chains and changed consumer spending habits, while government support measures juiced demand throughout the economy.”

“This confluence of events led to a steep rise in business costs, a higher willingness to pay on the part of consumers, and weaker competitive forces as inflation become widespread and price-signals malfunctioned. ‘During the recovery from the pandemic, firms started to mention that they were experiencing a rapid increase in their costs as well as high demand for their products and services. Meanwhile, customers had few choices because supply was low across several industries,’ Mr. Vincent said. ‘This may explain why firms told us that their customers, aware of the widespread cost pressures firms were facing, appeared willing to pay higher prices. Confronted with these changes in their business environment, firms reacted by raising prices more often than usual and by larger amounts.'”

Insauga in Canada. “A pair of lakeside homes in Bowmanville and Ajax and a threesome of Oshawa condos make up the least expensive homes sold in Durham Region in September, with sale prices of the five properties ranging from $425,000 to $525,000. The fifth-highest selling property sold in Durham in September was the first to top the half-million mark, with this three-bedroom townhouse at 1010 Glen Street in south Oshawa selling last month for $535.000. The renovated townhouse features plenty of space inside – including a finished basement – and more outside with a spacious backyard. The property last sold 13 years ago for just $89,900.”

This Post Has 69 Comments
  1. ‘Before the COVID-19 pandemic, lots in this region were selling for $60,000 to $80,000. Now, they are going for $225,000 to $500,000’

    You really fooked up this time Jerry.

      1. I spent a lot of time on a barrier island. A seawall is all you got. If they get a big storm, local guberment might dig up some sand elsewhere and reestablish some dunes. Water goes right around dunes.

        1. I was thinking that, if you have to have a seawall, maybe you shouldn’t be building there, or living there, and definitely not buying there.

  2. ‘I’m getting low-balled left, right and centre on three listings right now, and I’m also low-balling a bunch of listings myself’

    That’s the spirit Vassil, if you can’t beat em, join em!

    1. The crowd went quiet when Shaw spoke about National’s likely victory.

      ”It does seem all but certain that the first Green Government is drawing to a close,” he said. ”Our friends in the Labour Party are having a very tough time. A lot of good people will not return to Parliament next week.”

      https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/election-2023-results-green-party-strong-ahead-in-wellington-and-auckland-central-electorates/ar-AA1icps5

      New Zealand election: Disillusioned voters eye shift away from the left

      They said hello, smiled and shook hands for the cameras.

      Then after New Zealand’s prime minister moved on, sweeping through the food court in Auckland’s city centre, the couple fell back. “Yeah honestly, we’re probably not voting for him,” said Ian, who was there with with his partner Trina.

      “There’s good and bad in both parties, and I think it’s really close,” Trina said. “But for us young working professionals, we’ve got a daughter now and we have to think about her future.”

      Whether measurably true or not, many New Zealanders believe their country is in the doldrums. Political scientists says the clearest indicator of public pessimism has been a poll question on New Zealand’s future, which a majority are now responding negatively to: “They feel the country is heading along the wrong track,” says Lara Greaves from the Victoria University of Wellington.

      Speaking to voters in the biggest city Auckland this week, “the economy’s cooked” or some variant of that is often the first thing mentioned.

      https://www.aol.com/news/zealand-election-disillusioned-voters-eyes-161143806.html

  3. ‘A property that would otherwise be coming on the market for sale is really coming on the market for lease,’ said Billy Rose, co-founder of residential real estate brokerage The Agency. ‘I’m one of those people.’ Rose, who is looking to move to Santa Monica and downsize, is currently renting in the area while looking for a buyer for his Westwood Hills home. ‘If there were a point where I couldn’t sell it for a number that I felt comfortable selling, I would just lease it out’

    You stick to yer guns Billy, don’t screw up the comps!

    1. But they are screwing up comps…the rental comps. I’m seeing this in our area and loving it. Rental prices are dropping big time with the rental inventory swelling. And the more they drop the more potential buyers drop out of the market and settle into renting. Why bother with buying? Especially when you’ve got your landlord by the balls. These idiots who are not dropping their prices now and selling their properties, but instead thinking they can just rent it out are screwing themselves over in a large way.

  4. Increasingly absent are steady-handed investors including foreign governments, US commercial banks and the Federal Reserve.

    What kind of moron “invests” in U.S. debt that’s going to be inflated away by the Fed?

  5. <em? ‘The buyers are less inclined to buy the debt, for a variety of reasons’ including that ‘many have gotten whacked. There’s lots of losses.'”

    As the Fed & Brandon regime hurtle us down the road to Venezuela del Norte, the whacking of those who foolishly invested in the debt of a corrupt banana republic only gets worse from here.

  6. ‘it is an ‘opportune time to sell north of New York City,’ as long as prices are not set too high. ‘While the demand might suggest otherwise, buyers remain discerning. Accurate pricing remains critical as overly inflated prices can cause homes to be overlooked and seller disappointment’

    But you can always sell in Hudson Valley Liz. Wa happened to my CCP virus premium?

  7. ‘Between August 2020 and July 2021, total spending volume on rents in Beverly Hills exceeded $12 billion monthly. In August 2021, that plummeted to $3 billion. It’s since fallen further. Last month, Beverly Hills’ ultraluxe rental market brought in $1.7 billion’

    Is that a lot?

    ‘In the higher end market, short term rentals have really compressed in terms of the nightly rate,’ said Stuart Heller, CEO of Stay Awhile Villas, a luxury vacation rental company in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles and Malibu. ‘Properties that were possibly $7,000 a night are probably $3,000 a night, and the properties that are worth $3,000 per night are more like $1,500 per night.’ Real estate agents say the main culprit in the rise in rentals is high interest rates, which lock homeowners into what’s referred to as ‘golden handcuffs’

    Jerry broke it off in yer a$$ Stuart.

  8. ‘The change in price-setting during the pandemic caught central bankers off guard. Economists rely on models to predict inflation, and the Bank of Canada’s models assume prices are relatively ‘sticky’ – that is, companies change them infrequently because of competitive pressures and because it costs money to change prices. This core assumption was challenged during the pandemic and the reopening of the economy as COVID-19 receded’

    On top of massive money printing, Tiff and the girls cut rates 3 times in one month in early 2020.

    1. CCP Flu didn’t destroy the economy. Government destroyed the economy.

      In Canada, in the US, and many other developed countries.

      Because of a minor respiratory illness with an infection fatality rate of 0.000000000001%.

      1. In NZ, at least, the peasants have revolted & sent Jacinda Ardern’s tyrannical globalist Quisling regime packing.

        1. They sent the Communists packing, though the victorious National party is hardly what I would call conservative, more like what the Dems were 20+ years ago.

  9. Net charge-offs and delinquency rates for bank-held CRE loans increased in the second quarter, with all major property types showing greater distress, according to Trepp.

    BlackRock Jay & Yellen the Felon might not be able to print this away.

  10. ‘Properties that were possibly $7,000 a night are probably $3,000 a night, and the properties that are worth $3,000 per night are more like $1,500 per night.’

    Die, speculator scum. Just die already.

    1. “…‘Properties that were possibly $7,000 a night…”

      Never understood why people would pay these insane nightly rates when they spend most of their time at the property sound asleep.

      Must be missing something… Are these 24hr parties?

      1. That’s the impression I get, that these mansion rentals are for parties, the kind where fire arms might be used.

        1. Such parties often are marred by gunplay as sectarian tensions erupt between Amish & Mennonite party-goers.

  11. “Punxsutawney Paul” Krugman – a person who has shamelessly turned economics into a partisan subject. He keeps saying the same things repeatedly – yet no one thinks of him as a forecaster anymore… You’ll recall Krugman recently called for the Fed to abandon its inflation target and simply declare victory.

    It seems that Krugman is getting impatient. He wants to claim victory…

    He needs to.

    So, yesterday, Krugman – a Nobel Laureate who should know better – tried to celebrate victory and claim “Six more weeks of Bidenomics spring.”

    This may be the single most disingenuous economic post I’ve ever read.

    We did it! Inflation is over!

    All you must do to believe this nonsense is strip out everything that matters to American consumers.

    Just don’t count energy… food… housing… or how you get to work into the inflation battle. Americans don’t need any of those things, right?

    Instead, live in a hollowed-out big-screen television and eat the copper wiring for sustenance.

    https://moneymorning.com/2023/10/13/the-economic-groundhog-explores-new-lows/

    1. “Just don’t count energy… food… housing… or how you get to work into the inflation battle. Americans don’t need any of those things, right?”

      This country is in a cost of living CRISIS, all because of government overreach in response to a minor respiratory illness, the fatalities to which, had an average of four co-morbidity factors.

      Nobody young and healthy died (except from the vaccines).

      What the government did to us, and only because we allowed it, was an economic suicide and a medical genocide.

      1. Edit to add: the only response to any future lockdowns, for any reason whatsoever, must be mass violence.

        You’ll never comply your way out of tyranny.

      2. This country is in a cost of living CRISIS,

        While I agree, last night I ordered some Mexican takeout. When I arrived to pick up the goods, there wasn’t an empty table in the house and there was a line out the door. Granted it was Friday and it was payday. Still, I was surprised.

        The Carnitas plate is now $17. Before the Coof it was $12.

    1. Here’s hoping that he will be sent packing, but my fear is: conservatives take over and after much blood, sweat and tears they right the boat. Then the electorate hands power back to the Marxists.

  12. “Fog on the horizon”: CEOs brace for recession

    A soft landing looks elusive as geopolitical risk raises bets of a recession.

    https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/fog-on-the-horizon-ceos-brace-for-recession-113059765.html

    Wall Street’s great debate of 2023 — whether the U.S. economy is headed for a recession — is resurfacing amid escalating unrest in the Middle East.

    Heightened geopolitical risk, along with unabating inflationary pressures, surging bond yields, and the Federal Reserve’s “higher for longer” vision, has business leaders bracing for a contraction.

    “There’s a lot of fog on the horizon,” KPMG U.S. CEO Paul Knopp told Yahoo Finance Live, citing geopolitical tensions as one of the top risks to the economy.

    72% of CEOs are preparing for a US recession over the next 12-18 months, according to The Conference Board’s survey of business leaders. While that’s an improvement from the start of the year, expectations about the short-term economic outlook have darkened.

    Big bank CEOs are among those weighing in on a more uncertain economic outlook. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon pointed to a number of potential risks, including a sober warning on geopolitical crises abroad. Citigroup (C) CEO Jane Fraser noted “an increasingly cautious consumer” in the bank’s earnings release Friday.

    Fraser’s note of cracks beginning to form in consumer spending is something that’s been highlighted recently. Constellation Brands (STZ) CEO Bill Newlands told Yahoo Finance Live this week that shoppers are already “spending a little less” while being more “careful” about what they buy.

    The reason this is problematic is because the resilient consumer has helped the U.S. economy defy recession predictions so far this year, as consumer spending accounts for nearly 70% of U.S. GDP.

    And if you look at the recent sentiment data, it’s not too encouraging. Consumer sentiment plunged in October to its lowest level in five months, driven in large part by households expecting higher inflation next year.

    And sticky inflation is not just an issue for consumers, but for the Fed too. The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed prices held steady at 3.7% in September, well above the Fed’s goal of 2%.

    “With the Fed committed to returning inflation back to its long-run target of 2%, this would raise the odds of rate increases this year, extend the duration of restrictive monetary policy, and increase the chances of a recession occurring down the road,” Oxford Economics lead US economist Michael Pearce wrote in a note to clients this week.

    To sum it up: The probability of a recession is still anyone’s guess, but it’s safe to say the economic outlook remains murky. Sofi’s (SOFI) Head of Investment Strategy Liz Young put it perfectly: “We are not out of the woods just yet,” she told Yahoo Finance. “It could still get worse before it gets better.”

  13. Young Americans cut spending, shun restaurants as prices rise -study

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/young-americans-cut-spending-shun-130517116.html

    Most young Americans have cut their spending in response to persistent inflation over the past year, a Bank of America survey showed on Friday.

    Seventy three percent of Gen Z consumers between the ages of 18 and 26 have changed their lifestyles because of increased prices, according to a Bank of America poll of more than 1,100 respondents.

    Of those, 43% chose to cook at home instead of dining out, 40% spent less on clothes and 33% pared down grocery purchases to the essentials.

    “Gen Zers are definitely looking for ways to improve their financial health,” said Holly O’Neill, president of retail banking at Bank of America told Reuters. “They are proactively making lifestyle changes to combat inflation.

    Gasoline and food prices have been rising in the U.S., eroding consumer finances, prompting the Fed to keep interest rates elevated.

    Bank of America’s CEO Brian Moynihan said last month that consumer cash balances are coming down, even though their finances are healthy.

    “Consumer repayments still remain strong,” O’Neill added. “From a delinquency perspective, we are still not where we were pre-pandemic. Even though there has been a change in spending and payment behavior, the consumer is still very healthy.”

    Nearly four out of 10 Gen Z respondents also experienced a financial setback in the last year, prompting them to stop saving or take on more debt.

    They also remain less optimistic on economic conditions improving. A majority of respondents said the economy was unlikely to improve over the next year.

    While Gen Z is cutting back, older generations, including Boomers, increased spending as much as 5%, the report showed.

    1. “Seventy three percent of Gen Z consumers between the ages of 18 and 26 have changed their lifestyles because of increased prices”

      If enough people in this age group could put down the weed and porn and video games, they could successfully launch a revolution that will entail the execution of the alleged “elites” that stole and destroyed their future.

      The only good globalist is a dead globalist ☠️

  14. New York Refuses To Give Big Oil More Money For Offshore Wind Projects

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/New-York-Refuses-To-Give-Big-Oil-More-Money-for-Offshore-Wind.html

    The New York state authorities have rejected a request by Orsted, BP, and Equinor for raising the price of electricity in future power purchase contracts featuring offshore wind energy.

    Offshore wind developers have been pressured by rising raw material and component costs, and higher borrowing costs, which has cast doubt over the viability of many projects. Indeed, Reuters reported that some projects planned for the waters off the coast of New York may need to be reconsidered in light of the authorities’ decision.
    “Sunrise Wind’s viability and therefore ability to be constructed are extremely challenged without this adjustment,” Orsted told Reuters.

    Sunrise Wind is an offshore project with a planned capacity of 924 MW that could supply electricity to 600,000 households. According to Orsted, it would also involve several hundred million dollars in investments in the state and 800 jobs.

    “These projects must be financially sustainable to proceed,” the president of Equinor Renewables Americas told Reuters, referring to the offshore wind projects the Norwegian energy major is leading in the U.S.

    Per Reuters, Equinor is involved in three projects with BP—the 816 MW Empire Wind 1 and the 1.26 GW Empire Wind 2, as well as the Beacon Wind farm, with a projected capacity of 1.23 GW.

    Indeed, rising costs have compromised the financial sustainability of many wind power projects and earlier this year led to the cancellation of a large-scale one off the coast of the UK.
    Swedish Vattenfall, which led the Norfolk Boreas project, said it would quit it after it saw costs rise by 40%, which made the project unviable.

    To tackle the rising cost problem, wind developers have turned to governments, asking for additional tax incentives and higher electricity prices, busting the myth of cheap wind power.

    The New York Public Service Commission said that if they had agreed to do what the wind developers wanted, that would have added 6.7% to New Yorkers’ electricity bills, which are already among the highest in the State

    1. The New York state authorities have rejected a request by Orsted, BP, and Equinor for raising the price of electricity in future power purchase contracts featuring offshore wind energy.

      Well, by golly, you mean it costs more, and electricity prices are already sky high?

      Gee, I hope they didn’t already bulldoze those old coal power plants.

  15. Ex-Walmart CEO Says US Consumers Reaching ‘Breaking Point’

    https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/ex-walmart-ceo-says-us-consumers-reaching-breaking-point

    The all-mighty American consumer, whose spending drives the economy, is reaching a breaking point and is on the verge of folding, according to former Walmart CEO Bill Simon.

    Mr. Simon told CNBC in a recent interview that a series of factors—political polarization, inflation, and high interest rates—were all working together to undermine consumers and their propensity to spend.

    “That sort of pileup wears on the consumer and makes them wary,” Mr. Simon told the outlet. “For the first time in a long time, there’s a reason for the consumer to pause.”

    Consumer spending is a major driver of the U.S. economy, accounting for roughly two-thirds of gross domestic product (GDP).

    Mr. Simon, who now serves on the Board of Directors for Darden Restaurants and Hanesbrands Inc., said that, after a long period of cheap money cut short by the Federal Reserve’s rapid rate hikes in response to soaring inflation, consumers are now beginning to buckle.

    “Consumers had an incredible 10-, 12-year run,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money” program. “Markets were buoyant. Interest rates were low. Money was available.”

    But now, the music has stopped, and the party is grinding to a halt.

    Faced with soaring inflation that remained persistently high despite predictions that the price spike would be short-lived, Fed officials have pushed the benchmark federal funds rate quickly from near zero in March 2022 to its current range of 5.25–5.5 percent.

    Despite all the monetary tightening so far, inflation remains uncomfortably high.

    The government released the latest data on inflation on Thursday, showing that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.7 percent in September, matching August’s pace. While that’s down from a recent peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022 and lower than the 8.2 percent pace a year ago, it’s still well above the Fed’s inflation target of 2 percent.

    Even though a number of Fed officials have, in recent days, suggested that the rate-hiking cycle may have reached its peak, newly released minutes detailing internal discussions during the Fed’s latest rate-setting policy meeting in September show most of them think one more rate increase is in store—followed by a period of higher interest rates for “some time.”

    The higher-for-longer interest rate environment means tighter financial conditions, marked by more expensive borrowing and reduced lending, putting a damper on economic activity. It also tends to mean less consumer spending.

    Inflation ‘Still Above Comfort Levels’
    Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that even though inflation has fallen from its recent peak, it’s still well above many consumers’ comfort level.

    “For consumers trying to manage their personal finances amid inflation, the situation with prices is a bit like battling illness. Being past the worst of it isn’t the same as feeling better or robust,” he said.

    Many economists see a relatively high probability of a recession in the coming year, with signals like waning consumer confidence an often-cited canary in the coal mine.

    Waning Consumer Strength?
    With persistently high inflation and a deteriorating economic outlook, September saw consumer confidence fall for the second consecutive month to hit a four-month low, according to the Conference Board.

    Also, expectations about the economic outlook over the next six months dropped below the Conference Board’s recession threshold of 80, reflecting waning confidence about business conditions, job availability, and earnings.

    “Write-in responses showed that consumers continued to be preoccupied with rising prices in general, and for groceries and gasoline in particular. Consumers also expressed concerns about the political situation and higher interest rates,” Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board, said in a statement.

    All that consumer worry is likely to translate into reduced spending if it hasn’t already. The latest consumer spending data is for August, and it shows personal consumption expenditures (PCE) growing 0.4 percent that month, less than half of July’s pace of 0.9 percent.

    A recent survey carried out in September by CNBC-Morning Consult found that 92 percent of U.S. adults have cut back on spending over the past six months.

    Looking forward, over three-quarters of those polled said they plan to cut back on spending for non-essential items.

    Further, a recent survey of consumer expectations from the New York Federal Reserve shows that more U.S. households report being financially worse off now than they were a year ago.

    Forty-one percent of households say they’re financially worse off than a year ago, up from 40 percent in August.

    Unsurprisingly, given the Fed’s series of aggressive rate hikes and speculation that more could be in store, households’ perceptions of and expectations for credit conditions deteriorated.

    The survey also gauged consumer spending intentions one year ahead. While these remained unchanged in September at 5.3 percent, they generally fell steadily from a peak of 9.0 percent in May 2022.

    A number of large retailers, such as Target, have reported a drop in discretionary spending.

    “There is some real concern about weakness in the consumer,” Sarah Hunt, a partner at Alpine Saxon Woods, told Bloomberg TV in an interview at the end of September.

    “There’s a real spending issue coming up and I think that’s going to impact earnings.”

  16. (This post is not at all related to housing but is nevertheless is full of a lot of fun.)

    Clemson University students march on campus after TAMPONS were quietly removed from the MEN’S bathroom

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12630561/Clemson-University-students-campus-tampons-MENS-bathroom.html

    Clemson University students have rallied to demand the return of menstrual products in the men’s bathroom
    At least 50 students attended the protest after dispensaries were removed
    An onslaught of outrage was triggered after the Clemson College Republicans posted a picture of the dispenser to X

    Clemson University students have rallied to protest sanitary products being stripped from male bathrooms on their South Carolina campus.

    Dressed in bright colors while clinging to signs with messages such as ‘hello, it’s the 21st century’, around 50 students attended the protest this week, calling for the reinstatement of sanitary products in the men’s bathrooms.

    The feminine hygiene dispensaries were quietly taken away after the Clemson College Republicans slammed their presence on social media and triggered an onslaught of criticism.

    Take Back Pride, who organized the event, claim machines were vandalized with ‘hateful slurs towards the transgender community’ soon after the post before the university removed them entirely.

    ‘Today, we are marching for the reinstatement of the menstrual products in the men’s restrooms in Cooper Library and throughout campus,’ Pan Tankersley, from the group’s march committee, told her fellow demonstrators.

    ‘Students are still not safe on campus. They still experience harassment, hate and all of those things.

    ‘If anything, the university needs to step up and needs to protect its students.’

    Another student called for the dispensary to be put back in the bathroom, saying it created an environment where people did not feel included.

    ‘We demand the reinstatement of the menstrual dispensers that were unjustly removed from the men’s bathrooms at Cooper Library,’ they said.

    ‘Queer people on this campus are not just going to magically disappear. So instead of working against us, like taking away menstrual products from the men’s bathrooms, making people feel unwelcomed, there should be support for the community that is already fighting to feel safe here.’

    The female health products were removed from the male facilities at Cooper Library three days after the Clemson College Republicans post generated outrage.

    ‘If you weren’t aware already, Clemson University has tampon/pad dispensers in the MEN’S restrooms located in Cooper Library,’ the conservative student organization wrote online on September 13.

    It added: ‘We truly live in [clown emoji] world.’

    The post was seen by a Republican member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, April Cromer, who reportedly approached campus leaders to discuss the issue.

    Clemson’s Dean of Students and President of Student Affairs Chris Miller supported his classmates exercising their right to free speech.

    ‘It’s always good that our students have access to their campus,’ Miller told the College Fix after the protest.

    ‘The ability to assemble and speak freely unencumbered just goes to the heart of what a university is and what a university is for.’

    Clemson University spokesperson Joe Galbraith said there are no plans to reinstall the dispensers in the male bathrooms.

    The uproar is yet another saga seen across the country as schools redefine bathroom polices.

    Just last week, the the family of a teenage girl who was raped in her high school bathroom by a ‘male student wearing a skirt’ launched a $30million lawsuit.

    Scott Smith, the victim’s father, alleges Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia failed to adequately investigate his daughter’s claims and attempted to cover up the sexual assault.

    He claims a biological male, who was wearing a skirt in a women’s bathroom, raped his daughter in the girls’ bathroom at Stone Bridge High School in May 2021.

    In September, hundreds of students in Pennsylvania walked out of school in protest over a new rule allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice.

    High school students in Perkiomen Valley School District staged the protest after officials opted not to adopt a policy that would force students to use restrooms which correspond with their biological sex.

    They accused education chiefs of ‘compromising’ their rights and putting female students at risk during the demonstration last week.

      1. Future historians are going to have a field day with the west, comparing our collective decadence, depravity and insanity with the fall of the Roman Empire.

  17. Is anybody not clear about the One World Order Cult implementing their Great Reset, build back better, take over of Globe dictorship.
    Nothing is a random event, all pre-planned by this outragous enemy of humanity and the earth.
    Its not like they haven’t exposed what their evil plans are and what the end game is, they almost brag about it. Their are the saviors, here to save the earth from Climate Change , pandemics, and useless eater carbon emitters.
    Its so fraudulent and ridiculous and evil.
    These Globalists that are seen and unseen really need to be stopped and not allowed to proceed with their evil take over.

  18. Looking back at the rise and fall of FTX, does it seem SBF succeeded in applying effective altruism to maximize utility for the greater good of all humanity?

    1. Financial Times
      Sam Bankman-Fried
      ‘I felt trapped’: Caroline Ellison steps out of Sam Bankman-Fried’s shadow in star witness turn
      FTX founder’s close colleague and one-time girlfriend gives her testimony of the former crypto tycoon’s rise and fall
      Caroline Ellison arrives at court in Manhattan. She testified for three days in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried
      Joshua Oliver in New York yesterday

      Cameras flashed through the courthouse windows as Caroline Ellison waited tensely in the security line, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled down to conceal her face. But when she entered the 26th floor half an hour later, she tried to show the jury that she had nothing left to hide.

      Over three days of testimony in New York, Ellison painted a picture of Sam Bankman-Fried, her ex-boyfriend and former boss at cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research, as the mastermind who instructed his employees to cover their tracks and saw nothing wrong with stealing billions from customers of his FTX crypto exchange.

      The 28-year-old recalled how Bankman-Fried reduced her to tears in the study of the Bahamas penthouse they shared during a conversation about Alameda’s trading losses in August 2022, and how he screamed “shut the fuck up” at another female employee who strenuously objected to an alleged scheme to bribe Chinese officials to unlock frozen crypto funds — and then cut the employee’s payout when she quit.

      Ellison’s painstaking testimony — including walking the jury through spreadsheets, internal documents and private Signal chats — described a years-long criminal conspiracy by the one-time crypto golden boy.

      A slight woman with large glasses, Ellison described being pulled further into that conspiracy and crushed by the fear of what would happen if Bankman-Fried’s empire was revealed to be a house of cards.

      “I felt trapped,” she said. “I was in sort of a constant state of dread . . . Every day I was worrying about the possibility of customers withdrawing from FTX . . . the possibility of this getting out . . . and the people who would be hurt by that.”

      She said she was pulled into his warped moral worldview. Bankman-Fried thought that “the only moral rule that mattered was doing whatever would maximise utility” — meaning “the greatest good for the greatest number of people”, she said.

      “He believed that the ways that people tried to justify rules like ‘don’t lie’ and ‘don’t steal’ within utilitarianism didn’t work.”

      Years of working for Bankman-Fried made Ellison “more comfortable” with actions that her past self would have rejected, like sending false balance sheets to lenders and taking customer money, she said.

      Bankman-Fried was also willing to take huge gambles on the slightest advantage of probability, she said. “He would be happy to flip a coin, if it came up tails and the world was destroyed” as long as the world would be twice as good if the coin came up heads, Ellison told the court.

  19. ‘unlike their more price-agnostic predecessors, the new buyer base is likely to demand a heavy premium to finance Washington’s spendthrift ways, especially with debt sales set to surge as deficits swell’

    More price-agnostic. I suppose using money at zero cost would bring that out. This could be an interesting situation as I can remember when congress couldn’t spend as much as it wanted without consequences.

  20. Rand Paul: Unraveling Government Lies and Cover-ups During the COVID Pandemic | Ep. 19
    Independent Institute
    Oct 13, 2023
    Dr. Atlas interviews Senator Rand Paul on exposing the egregious malfeasance and cover-up by government, public health bureaucrats, and university scientists in the COVID pandemic. They discuss COVID’s origins, NIH funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, conflicts-of-interest involving government officials receiving royalties from pharmaceutical companies, and more.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw4KsQGiPpI

    19:37.

    1. This is on YouTube? This is the type of content that bald manlet Tim Pool self censors on, because YouTube.

      And why we stream BitChute and Rumble instead. YouTube is admittedly good for finding links to audio files of obscure songs, and not much else…

        1. From the businessinsider article…

          “Wojcicki and Troper paid $600,000 to buy a four-bedroom, 2,000-square foot house, at 232 Santa Margarita Ave. To help pay the mortgage, Wojcicki rented the garage to two Stanford doctoral students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were working on their new search engine company, called Google.”

          “Wojcicki charged the two $1,700 a month to rent her garage space. In a 2013 commencement speech, Wojcicki recalled “late nights together in the garage eating pizza and M&Ms, where [Brin and Page] talked to me about how their technology could change the world.”

        2. Susan Wojcicki’s sister, Anne, is the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe and was married to Sergey Brin.

  21. From the Dumber Post

    In an alternate reality, Denver’s overhaul of the 16th Street Mall would be more than halfway done by now. Retailers and restauranteurs would only have until the end of 2024 to endure dusty, noisy, at times odorous construction work before enjoying the strip’s long-planned update.

    As it stands, work on some segments of downtown Denver’s 1.2-mile-long pedestrian mall and commercial nerve center is now expected to carry over into the fall of 2025. The updated schedule was released in July, city officials said.

    We truly have become the “can’t do” nation. And it’s only going to get worse.

    And what will the “overhaul” accomplish if the homeless and junkies are still there?

    1. And that reminds me, the Denver airport remodel began around 2018 and it still isn’t done.

      The Can’t Do Nation

  22. Would you rather have inflation, where prices keep getting ever higher until you can no longer afford to eat or pay rent?

    Or deflation, where everything you might want to buy becomes ever more affordable?

    Don’t count on deflation, AKA central banker cryptonite, happening.

    1. Personal Finance
      Deflation is the anti-inflation. Here’s where prices fell in September 2023 in one chart
      Published Fri, Oct 13 2023 12:37 PM EDT
      Updated Fri, Oct 13 2023 2:43 PM EDT
      Greg Iacurci

      Key Points

      – Consumers saw some prices deflate in September 2023, according to the consumer price index, issued Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

      – Deflation is the opposite of inflation. It measures how quickly prices are falling.

      – Largely, deflation has happened among consumer goods, not services, economists said.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/13/deflation-is-the-anti-inflation-heres-the-september-2023-breakdown.html

    2. Can a dedicated plunge protection team fashion a hair-of-the-dog treatment to save China’s stock market from underlying fundamental realities?

      1. Financial Times
        Chinese economy
        China proposes stock stabilisation fund to lift economic confidence
        Regulators’ plan to boost domestic markets comes as inflation and trade data show recovery still fragile
        A shopper uses a digital payment service to purchase food at a stall in Beijing
        Beijing has released a steady stream of piecemeal support for the world’s second-largest economy but failed to generate strong consumer spending
        Sun Yu and Joe Leahy in Beijing and Cheng Leng, William Langley and Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong
        October 13 2023

        China’s financial sector authorities have proposed setting up a stock market stabilisation fund to boost flagging confidence among domestic investors, as a new release of data showed the recovery in the world’s second-largest economy remains fragile.

        Four people familiar with the matter have said Beijing is considering the plan, which would probably invest in domestic equities through existing financial institutions and professionally managed funds, according to one of the people. The government money would be matched by its partner funds and institutions, the person added.

        Two of the people said that financial sector regulators including the stock market watchdog — the China Securities Regulatory Commission — and the Ministry of Finance have submitted the proposal to the State Council, China’s cabinet, which would ultimately decide how the proposed fund would operate.

        Two people familiar with the proposal said the programme would need to raise at least Rmb1tn ($137bn) to be effective. “The fund needs to be big enough to influence the market. A few hundred billion yuan isn’t enough to boost confidence. We need at least Rmb1tn,” said a government adviser involved in designing the fund.

        Regulators have discussed the idea of a stabilisation or intervention fund since 2015, but the proposal gained new ground this year.

        Beijing has struggled to rekindle confidence in China’s capital markets and the broader economy as a property market crisis and slumping foreign trade weighed on the country’s recovery from pandemic controls.

        That weakness was underlined by an official data release on Friday that showed China again teetered on the edge of deflation last month, with the consumer price index unchanged year on year in September. The producer price index, which measures the price of goods sold by manufacturers, declined 2.5 per cent year on year.

      2. Yahoo
        Reuters
        Analysis-IMF warning on China puts ‘Japanization’ risk in spotlight
        Leika Kihara
        Fri, October 13, 2023 at 10:02 AM PDT·3 min read
        A businessman walks inside the Japan bridge at La Defense financial and business district in Puteaux
        Window cleaners are seen next to a high-rise apartment building in Tokyo
        Analysis-IMF warning on China puts ‘Japanization’ risk in spotlight
        Window cleaners are seen next to a high-rise apartment building in Tokyo
        By Leika Kihara

        MARRAKECH, Morocco (Reuters) – Hiroshi Wanatabe, Japan’s former top currency diplomat, recalls how Chinese policymakers eagerly studied ways to avert a Japan-style burst of an asset bubble that led to prolonged deflation and economic stagnation – until around 2015.

        “Then they stopped. In the past seven to eight years, they seem to be ignoring everything they learned,” said Watanabe, who retains close ties with incumbent policymakers. “Under the Xi administration, China probably shifted its attention away from economics,” he told Reuters.

        Now, China may be paying the price. Inflation is stalling and its deepening real estate crisis was identified as among the biggest risks to global growth during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting being held in Marrakech Oct. 9-15.

        The world’s second-largest economy is in the spotlight as a country on the brink of “Japanization,” a term describing Japan’s 15-year period of low growth and deflation after the burst of an asset-inflated bubble in the late 1990s.

        Some Japanese policymakers are voicing concern partly since a prolonged slump in Japan’s biggest trading partner will deal a huge blow to their export-reliant economy.

        “What’s fast emerging is the risk of China slipping into deflation, or the ‘Japanization’ of its economy,” Bank of Japan (BOJ) board member Asahi Noguchi said on Thursday.

        “It’s not clear yet whether China is heading toward a situation similar to Japan. But it’s true China’s real estate sector – the backbone of its economy – is slumping, youth job losses are rising and inflation is weakening,” he said in Japan.

        In its World Economic Outlook, the IMF cut China’s growth forecast for this year to 5.0% from 5.2% in April, and warned that its property sector crisis could deepen with global spillovers. It projects growth to slow to 4.2% next year.

        Data showed on Friday China’s consumer inflation was flat in September, missing forecasts for a 0.2% gain, highlighting the deflationary pressure China faces even as many other countries combat too-high inflation.

        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/analysis-imf-warning-china-puts-170205929.html

      3. China’s Country Garden warns of default again as property sales plunge
        By Laura He, CNN
        4 minute read
        Updated 6:47 AM EDT, Tue October 10, 2023
        China’s economic growth forecast for next year downgraded by World Bank
        02:29 – Source: CNN
        Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.

        Hong Kong CNN —

        For the second time in just over two months, Country Garden has warned investors that it could default on its $190 billion debt in a reminder that China’s real estate crisis is far from over.

        The company said it had not made a repayment of 470 million Hong Kong dollars ($60 million) due to overseas bondholders by Tuesday.

        The troubled developer, formerly China’s largest, is battling a liquidity crisis and has dodged multiple defaults in the past month. But persistent weakness in the property market and a difficult refinancing environment have hobbled its ability to raise enough cash to service its billions of dollars of debt.

        It said sales of apartments fell by 81% in September, compared with the same month last year.

        Country Garden “expects that it will not be able to meet all of its offshore payment obligations when due or within the relevant grace periods,” it said in a Tuesday filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

        “Such non-payment may lead to relevant creditors of the Group demanding acceleration of payment of the relevant indebtedness owed to them or pursuing enforcement action,” it warned.

        The deepening woes at Country Garden offer more evidence that China’s all-important property market is languishing in a persistent downturn, which poses a major threat to the country’s growth prospects. Analysts say it could take years to climb out of this crisis, as housing demand is waning because of an aging population.

        The risks were underscored when a group of creditors of Evergrande, which defaulted in 2021 and is trying to fend off liquidation, said in a statement sent to CNN that the developer could suffer an “uncontrollable collapse” because of “botched” efforts to restructure its vast debts.

        https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/10/economy/country-garden-debt-restructuring-intl-hnk/index.html

        1. “Analysts say it could take years to climb out of this crisis, as housing demand is waning because of an aging population.”

          It seems like the US housing market faces a similar demographic challenge. I wonder what keeps our property prices so high, especially in the face of much higher interest rates than a couple of years back?

  23. Chart of the Week – US yield curve disinverts as markets reprice bond risk
    By ANDREW CRAIG 10.10.2023

    US 10-year Treasury yields rose as high as 4.88% in the first week of October, their highest level since 2007 and up by around 100 basis points relative to their level in July. The result has been a significant tightening of financial conditions in the US economy. The extent and speed of the move means negative economic consequences cannot be excluded (see turmoil in US banking in March 2023).

    It may be a desire to reign in the tightening in financial conditions that led Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan to note on 9 October that the surge in long-term Treasury yields may lessen the need for the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rate again. Her comments were followed by observations from Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson, who pointed out that the tightening of financial conditions and the sharp increase in long-term real yields were doing some of the hard work for the Fed. In his view, the “fabled sufficiently restrictive level” has been reached.

    In the wake of these comments, and the latest events in the Middle East, US 10-year yields fell as much as 18 basis points to 4.62%, the biggest one-day decline since March. Two-year yields slipped 16 basis points to 4.92%.

    The rise in US bond yields over the last two months has nonetheless brought about a comprehensive shift in longer-term rates. As the chart of the week shows, from an inversion of the US yield curve as recently as July of around 108 basis points (the extent to which 2-year yields exceeded 10-year yields), the difference fell to 32 basis points, the least inverted the yield curve has been in almost 12 months.

    This change in the yield curve has been driven by a ‘bear steepening’ of the yield curve. That is, yields of longer-dated bonds rising faster than those of short-dated US sovereign debt. This is partly explained by a rise in the term premium – the compensation investors require for the uncertainty inherent in holding a long bond. During the quantitative easing era the term premium was suppressed. Today, quantitative tightening, debt sustainability worries, and structural inflation risk arising from deglobalisation and the energy transition, for example, may be among the factors pushing the term premium higher. Should this trend overshoot, it could inflict serious damage to risk assets and the economy. Hence perhaps, the efforts from Fed members to reign in the tightening in financial conditions.

    https://viewpoint.bnpparibas-am.com/chart-of-the-week-us-yield-curve-disinverts-as-markets-reprice-bond-risk/

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