Buyers Are No Longer Willing To Pay Those High Prices And Offers Are Coming In Below The Asking Prices

1. ‘Transactions are also falling apart due to skyrocketing insurance premiums and disagreements between buyers and sellers over necessary repairs. Overall, buyers hold a lot of the cards right now, and sellers are having to give out more concessions to close the deal’

   That’s the spirit Heather, keep up the good work!

2. ‘In the very early years it was commercially viable…But then a few years ago people started talking about ghost cities, and those were the very first observations that a lot of unnecessary building was going on or that construction was going faster than the capacity of the economy to absorb it’

   How many years ago did 60 Minutes do that story on ghost cities George?

3. “The frenzy may be gone from the real estate market, thanks to mortgage interest rates that have more than doubled in the last two years, but experts say Southern Nevada is still a seller’s market.

   Remind me who signs these “experts'” paychecks.

   1. Vegas is toast. A third grader could do that math.

4. At the top of the charts was Atlanta, Georgia with 24.4% home deals that fell through.”

   Is that a lot?

   1. Seeing that a lot locally. Maybe not quite 25% of pending deals, but more than usual falling out of escrow. Here in The West tons of listings sitting for a long time. Price reductions galore and still little activity. Not seeing a big increase in new listings…..yet! And recently foreclosures popping onto the MLS. Haven’t seen that in a while. But the signs are everywhere. Get ready for the plunge.

      1. I too have seen a bunch of foreclosures lately in my local AO. And apparently it takes months for the banks to actually put them back on the market after the foreclosure. It hasn’t even gotten hard yet and some of these foreclosures should be money good. (i.e. the people could have sold and paid off the loan even after all the realtor fees, etc).

         1. ‘apparently it takes months for the banks to actually put them back on the market after the foreclosure. It hasn’t even gotten hard yet and some of these foreclosures should be money good. (i.e. the people could have sold and paid off the loan even after all the realtor fees, etc’

            I was in the foreclosure biz in Flagstaff AZ in late 2007. At first it was let’s get these shacks secure. The feds put the brakes on and it all went to sh$t.

5. Steinman lived in an upscale spread that just got a pretty steep price cut. The property was listed initially in 2022 for $5,555,569, and now it’s exactly $1 million less.

   “All Of The Prices Have Gone Up (But We Can’t Pay That)” – Meat Loaf classic [written by the incomparable Jim Steinman] adapted by Marsh Family

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ROP5Z-8Jl0

   1. Young Jim Steinman’s breakout song (sung by Meat Loaf): “More than You Deserve,” for a short-lived off-Broadway musical. Song begins at 1:30.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy54I-VRi0Y&t=206s

   2. I’ve never heard of the guy, but I have to respect a show business person who lives in the same house for 30 years. Usually these celebrities are selling at a loss after less than 5 years and never even living there. And it’s a pretty interesting house. Long and rambly on the outside, kinda (?) cool on the inside.

6. “Upscale apartments” used to mean safe. Not anymore.

   https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12664557/Long-Beach-apartment-complex-harassed-teens.html

   1. Pay $2 million to be harassed and robbed by junkies and gang members

7. You will own nothing

   1. You will own nothing.

      1. They will own everything

8. “….all G7 governments are selling a glut of bonds at the same time…”
   “….without central banks, who are less sensitive to returns, the bond market is dictated more by investors who are more sensitive. Massive federal deficits going forward mean the US must continue flooding the bond market with fresh debt….”

   What happens when China (currently 2nd largest US debt holder at $859 billion), joins in and starts dumping?

   1. Is a high-level purge underway in China?

      https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1716778903602106537

   2. the bond market is dictated more by investors

      Does he mean that the central banks are being dragged around by their feet?

      1. “…dictated more by investors…”

         Presume that ‘investors’ are large pension funds and such.

         But are there enough of them, with sufficient resources, to absorb all this debt coming to market?

9. Oh dear….

   https://www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/article/microsoft-office-space-s-f-18442968.php

   1. “the city’s growing office vacancy rate, which hit a record-high 34% in September”

      34% is that a lot?

      Doom loops gonna doom loop.

10. Debt, Currency Debasement & War—The Timeless Pillars of Failure

    https://goldswitzerland.com/debt-currency-debasement-war-the-timeless-pillars-of-failure/

    Below, we follow the breadcrumbs of simple math and bond market signals toward an oft-repeated pattern of how once-great nations become, well…not so great any more.

    Debt Destroys Nations
    Debt, once it passes the Rubicon from extreme to just plain madness, destroys nations.

    Just ask the former Spanish, British or Dutch empires. Or ask the inter-war Germans. Ask the Yugoslavians of the 1990’s or ask a historian of Ancient Rome or a merchant in modern Argentina.

    It’s all pretty much the same story, just different a different stage or curtain call.

    Like Hemingway’s description of poverty, the process begins slowly at first, and then all at once.

    Part of this process involves currency debasement needed to pay down more desperate issuance of IOUs, a process evidenced by rising rather than “transitory” inflation.

    Thereafter, comes increased social unrest, and hence increased centralization from the political left or right in the name of “what’s best for us.”

    Sound familiar?

    Centralization—The Last, Failed Act
    Centralization never works in the long run, but that has never stopped opportunists from trying.

    Just look at our central bankers.

    In a centralized rather than free market, the very name “central bank” should be a dead give-away as to their real role and profile.

    As private central banks have been slowly increasing their hidden power and control over national markets and hence national welfare, the very notion of free price discovery in bonds, and indirectly in stocks, is now all but an extinct financial creature in the neo-feudalism which long ago replaced genuine capitalism.

    How the Central Game is Played—From Temporary Prosperity to Permanent Ruin
    When central banks like the Fed repress rates and print gobs and gobs of money, bonds are artificially supported, which means their prices go up and their yields are compressed.

    When yields are low, rates are low, which means the cost of credit is cheap, allowing otherwise profitless names in the stock markets to borrow money and time for years of temporary prosperity—like a 600% rise in a post-08 S&P…

    In short: central bank repressed rates are a profound tailwind for otherwise mediocre risk assets.

    But when central banks like the Fed raise rates (ostensibly to “fight inflation”), the opposite effect happens—and things break. I mean really break.

    I’ve written and spoken ad nauseum about what has broken, is breaking and will continue to break; furthermore, I’ve written and spoken at length about the quantifiable irony that Powell’s so-called war on inflation will only end in more inflation.

    Yep, the ironies just abound in this world of so-called experts, which is little more than an island of misfit toys.

    Postponing Pain Only Heightens It
    In normal, free-market cycles devoid of central bank “support,” bonds and hence rates rise and fall naturally based on natural demand and natural supply.

    Imagine that?

    This leads to frequent but healthy moments of what von Mises and Schumpeter described as “constructive destruction”—i.e., a cleaning out of debt-soaked and crappy enterprises in naturally occurring recessions and naturally occurring market drawdowns.

    But central banks somehow thought they could outlaw recessions by printing money out of thin air to support bonds and repress yields. You know—solve a debt crisis with more debt. Brilliant…

    This was hubris at the highest level, and the stupid just became a habit and even received a fancy name to justify it—Modern Monetary Theory.

    Natural Market Forces Are Stronger than Central (Bank) Forces
    But the longer central banks postponed pain to win Noble Prizes and ego-lifting acclaim from the un-informed, the greater the natural pain (ticking time bomb) these central planners created as they now slowly realize that the bond market, like an ocean, is more powerful than a band of unelected market stewards.

    In fact, a bunch of FOMC officials (Kashkari, Bostic, Waller et al.) are now running around like headless chickens and declaring that higher bond yields may now be more powerful than the Fed Funds Rate.

    In other words, after months of hawkish chest-puffing, they are saying that perhaps enough is enough with the “higher for longer” meme…

    Central bankers, it seems, are beginning to realize what informed credit market jocks have always known, viz: The bond market is stronger than any central bank.

    Price Matters
    That is, eventually central bankers lose control of artificial bond pricing.

    Which means that eventually the great weight of sinking bonds and hence rising yields and rates becomes more powerful than central bank money printers to keep those bonds artificially “supported.”

    I’ve been saying this for years despite “journalists” at the WSJ and Financial Times calling math-based realists like me “kooks.”

    But recently even the fine folks at the WSJ or Financial Times (FT) are beginning to worry out loud as UST supplies far outstrip natural demand, causing bond prices to fall and yields and rates to rise fatally higher than central bankers once thought safely under their control.

    We’ve warned of this for years—and this grotesque supply and demand mis-match has only risen exponentially in recent months.

    America: Running Out of Takers/Suckers for Its Ever-Increasing IOUs?
    The trillions in spending forecasted for year-end and into 2024 just don’t have any real money behind it, which means more IOUs will be spitting out of DC with less and less love/demand for the same.

    This, of course, has been a real problem hiding in plain site for a long, long time.

    As supply outpaces demand for sovereign bonds, their prices sink, their yields rise and hence interest rates—the cost of debt—becomes fatal rather than just painful.

    The journalists at the FT, most of whom never sat at a trading desk, however, still have a very hard time imaging the unspeakable—i.e., a total implosion of sovereign bonds, and hence a total implosion of the financial system.

    Thinking About the Unthinkable
    They still see the UST as too big to fail—or to use their own words, any failure of this sacred US Sovereign bond is “unthinkable.”

    Well…think again.

    But at least the main-stream-financial pundits are crying that any real threat to Uncle Sam’s IOUs “would force the state to act.”

    For once, I actually agree with these “journalists.”

    But let’s clarify what “forcing the state to act” really means—i.e., in simple speak.

    When There’s No Good Acts Left to Take
    In short, this means the “state” would have to “act” by saving the bond market in particular and the global financial system in general via trillions and trillions of printed dollars to purchase otherwise unloved IOUs from Uncle Sam.

    In other words, the only way to save bonds is to kill currencies.

    This, by the way, is a now familiar trajectory to any one paying attention (think of the September 2019 repo crisis, the March 2020 Covid crash or the 2022 Gilt crisis in the UK) the implications of which we’ve been warning well ahead of the pundits.

    Such “state action,” of course, slowly kills the USD—but as I’ve also warned for years, the last bubble to pop in every centralized, debt-soaked financial failure throughout history is always the currency.

    The once exceptional USD, sadly, is no exception. It just takes longer, a lot longer, to bring down a world reserve currency.

    This, by the way, is not “gold bug sensationalism” but simple history supported by simple math—two disciplines our leaders, financial journalists and even bankers either don’t grasp or do their best to ignore, cancel or dismiss.

    Again, with the ironies.

    Even the Media Can’t Deny the Obvious
    But at least the main stream pundits are catching on. This is only because the problem of unprecedented deficits alongside rising bond yields and hence debt costs are now too obvious to ignore.

    The WSJ recently wrote that “deficits finally matter.”

    Hmmm. They have mattered for a long time—just saying…

    Telegraphing a Weaker USD?
    In the end, and as warned over and over and over (and as confirmed, it seems, even by the squawking Fed officials above), the facts and Fed-speak all point toward a talking down of the USD in favor of Uncle Sam’s broken IOU.

    That is, the media is already planting the seeds for the USD’s painful endgame.

    This comes as ZERO surprise, despite the Greenback’s relative status as the best horse in the global glue factory.

    And, at least for now, that USD is breaking well off its prior uptrend…

    (A chart goes here …)

    This weaker USD will provide needed liquidity relief for an over-stretched UST market.

    But the USD (and DXY) will have to come down much further, in my opinion, to buy sovereign bond markets needed time.

    Pick Your Poison: Busted Financial System or Neutered USD?
    Eventually a choice will have to be made between saving the system (of which sovereign bonds are the foundation) or sacrificing the currency.

    In other words, get ready for more dollar-destroying “state action” from that non-state/private enterprise otherwise known as the Fed—all in the form of direct magical mouse-click money.

    The Postponed Pivot Already Began
    For over a year, this inevitable Fed pivot toward QE was delayed by back-door QE-like measures from Yellen’s Treasury Department (i.e., refilling the Treasury General Account with T-Bills) or the dual (and multi-trillion) accounting tricks of BTFP bank-bailout (by which Uncle Sam guaranteed par value return to the banks but market value losses to the suckers on Main Street…)

    Or War Might Be in Order? Ask Hemingway
    In fact, the only thing that could publicly justify (and partially absorb) another massive dose of 2020-like money printing (and hence currency debasement) would be a big, fat, ugly war with war-like “emergency measures” whereby our leaders can blame decades of debt-addiction on battle smoke (or COVID, Putin, and men from Mars) rather than their own bathroom mirrors.

    Again, Hemingway was likely onto this trend long before the WSJ or FT:

    (A photo of Hemmingway and one of his quotes goes here …)

    Around and Round We Go
    But with conflicts now red hot in both the Ukraine and Israel, Biden and his broken bond market are hitting an inflection point where the USA just can’t really afford more war support to its allies without thinning the USD and over-stretching its UST.

    And so, folks… around and round we go in the ultimate vicious circle within which all debt-soaked nations throughout history ultimately find themselves.

    That is: 1) poorly managed nations get too drunk on debt, and then 2) debase their currency to pay their debt; thereafter, 3) inflation comes, followed by 4) rising rates to fight that inflation, which in turn means 5) higher debt service costs, which means 6) more inflationary currency creation is rolled out to pay those higher rates.

    Stated more simply, the USA has hit the Fiscal Dominance arc of the debt-cycle vicious circle wherein fighting inflation just creates more inflation.

    The World Is Catching On…
    We, of course, are not the only ones who see this.

    In fact, pretty much the entire world is catching on, with the BRICS+ nations making the first steady moves (de-dollarization) as eastern and other central banks continue to stack physical gold at record-levels in preparation for the slow but steady decline (not death, nod to Brent Johnson) of the World Reserve Currency.

    As I recently wrote, just like kings bring horses and canons to their borders to defend against an approaching invader, central banks are stacking physical gold to defend against a debased USD.

    It’s just that obvious.

    This may explain why gold continues to rise in London and NYC despite so-called “positive real rates” and a still relatively strong USD.

    That is, the world, including the Shanghai gold exchange, is seeing the golden lighthouse through the smoke of burning currencies.

    Are you?

11. (This makes for a long but worthwhile read. It is too long to post it all here.)

    Death from overfunding: An obituary for Convoy

    https://www.freightwaves.com/news/death-from-overfunding-an-obituary-for-convoy

    (Here is a snip or two …)

    Convoy’s story, on the other hand, offers a cautionary tale of a meteoric rise to burnout in just eight years. For most of that time, it was respected, loathed and feared by industry insiders, both wary and weary of how a war chest of capital can disrupt the economics of the industry.

    For a few years, that’s exactly what happened.

    1. Thanks for sharing the link. Knew a few folks (former coworkers) that went there a while back

       1. How’d those RSUs work out?

          1. Easy come, easy go.

             1. Unlike jobs in a recession.

          2. Don’t know, to be honest. Could be they had an opportunity to liquidate/sell during one of the funding rounds (had that happen at one of my previous companies).

             Most likely it all just went to zero.

12. The 2024 election was stolen:

    “An agency set up under Donald Trump to protect elections and key U.S. infrastructure from foreign hackers is now fighting off increasingly intense threats from hard-right Republicans who argue it’s gone too far and are looking for ways to rein it in.

    These lawmakers insist work by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to combat online disinformation during elections singles out conservative voices and infringes upon free speech rights — an allegation the agency vehemently denies and the Biden administration is contesting in court. The accusations started in the wake of the 2020 election and are ramping up ahead of 2024, with lawmakers now calling for crippling cuts at the agency.

    “CISA has blatantly violated the First Amendment and colluded with Big Tech to censor the speech of ordinary Americans,” Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which oversees CISA, said in a statement to POLITICO.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/22/conservatives-cyber-cisa-politics-00122794

    Note this article uses the phrase “hard right” multiple times as if those words actually mean anything beyond any shred of resistance to the deep state uniparty.

    Yoel Roth could not be reached for comment.

13. Does the looming prospect of financial disaster worry you?

    1. Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman warns of sticky inflation and looming recession – and flags the threat of financial disaster
       Theron Mohamed Oct 23, 2023, 9:45 AM ET
       Download the app
       leon cooperman
       Leon Cooperman. Rick Wilking/Reuters

       – Leon Cooperman warned of sticky inflation, higher interest rates, and a potential recession.

       – The billionaire investor blamed senseless fiscal and monetary policy in an interview with Insider.

       – Cooperman called on US authorities to clean up their act before they plunge the country into crisis.
       …

    2. The Wall Street Journal
       HEARD ON THE STREET
       There’s Never Been a Worse Time to Buy Instead of Rent
       It is now 52% more expensive to buy a home than to rent one because of climbing mortgage rates
       By Carol Ryan
       Oct. 22, 2023 9:00 pm ET
       From New York to Austin, America’s biggest cities are littered with vacant plots of land. WSJ explains the unseen role property taxes play in the country’s housing shortage.
       Photo Illustration: Amber Bragdon

       Getting on the property ladder has rarely been tougher for first-time buyers. But a tight housing market isn’t turning out to be a bonanza for landlords either.

       The cost of buying a home versus renting one is at its most extreme since at least 1996. The average monthly new mortgage payment is 52% higher than the average apartment rent, according to CBRE analysis. The last time the measure looked out of whack was before the 2008 housing crash. Even then, the premium peaked at 33% in the second quarter of 2006.
       …

       1. The “property ladder” is still an apt illustration. What a lot of people don’t understand, though, is they’re stepping onto the top rung of that ladder and the only place to go is down. So if losing money is your thing, then by all means get on that property ladder.

       2. This article contains some useful buy vs rent charts …

          https://www.visualcapitalist.com/buying-vs-renting-house-in-america/

14. Rand Paul: What They Didn’t Want You To Know About Covid, the Lab Leak, and Fauci
    John Stossel
    2 hours ago

    Top scientists tried to cover up the origin of Covid, according to Senator Rand Paul.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1pRw9hTfIs

    6 minutes.

    1. Anthony Fauci is guilty of medical genocide and he needs to HANG ☠️

       1. A trial shouldn’t take long. RFK Jr. did all the leg work for the prosecution. Future Attorney General? 🤔

          1. He already has round the clock bodyguards. I wonder if one day he and the Mrs. will suddenly vanish

15. Delusion still runs deep here in Seattle. I took a quick peek at Redfin, and the multi-family properties are hallucinating about selling at a 4% cap rate in a world where my 4mo T-bills are yielding ~5.6%. Seriously??!? Good luck with that.

    Sample:
    https://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/7415-8th-Ave-NW-98117/home/2088321

    1. Hey Prime.

       I’m not a Realtor, but at a glance it seems they cannot add the rents up correctly.

       I guess this “cap rate” thing assumes a rosy 100% occupancy and zero maintenance. Brilliant!

16. ‘There were three distressed loans with loss severities of 100 percent, involving two office properties and one hotel’

    Are we there yet?

17. ‘A significant number of buyers (including my own clients and friends) were unaware of the situation even being so dire…Those I’ve informed expressed their shock and disbelief as there was no communication from the developer regarding any delays yet in construction.’ The One was expected to be completed in 2022 at a cost of approximately $1.4-billion’

    It was a dead giveaway when 2022 went by and yer looking at a skeleton ’ Rahim.

18. ‘Two years ago, the market was flooded with buyers looking to take advantage of the low interest rate with offers flowing in, and prices climbing’

    Two years ago. The bubble crest recedes into the sunset.

19. ‘Nonthaburi and Samut Prakan’s new condo price index has fallen for four consecutive quarters due to an excess of unsold units in older developments, especially in price ranges hit hard by negative factors…older projects that have been on the market since before 2021 are a contributing factor to the continued drop in the price index for the two provinces. Unsold condo units were plentiful in complexes that had been on the market for more than three years in these states’

    You read it here second.

20. ‘The dangerous bubble which for years has been brewing in China’s housing market is bursting, changing the country’s economy in a way that’s still hard to predict, even for economists. According to data, China’s property sector is the single largest asset class in the world, as Adem Tumerkan, editor at Speculators Anonymous, told Newsweek. ‘It’s estimated to be worth over $60 trillion—far more than China’s bond and equity markets combined’

    Adem, China-ron was almost all the global GDP growth for the last twenty years.

    1. I always subtracted debt increase from my growth rate. Guess I’m not hip to modern maths.

    2. “According to data, China’s property sector is the single largest asset class in the world, as Adem Tumerkan, editor at Speculators Anonymous, told Newsweek.”

       Gulp!

21. It’s 52% more expensive to buy than rent in this housing market and shoppers are pulling out of contracted offers left and right

    https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/52-more-expensive-buy-rent-185659127.html

    Near-record-high home prices and spiking interest rates aren’t just driving home sales down to their lowest levels in well over a decade—they’re also leading increasingly more buyers who actually had offers accepted to drop out of their agreements as they reassess their budgets and find home ownership doesn’t necessarily fit anymore.

    An estimated 53,000 home purchase agreements fell through in September, over 16% of homes that went into contract that month, according to real estate brokerage Redfin. That’s the highest rate of cancelations—defined as pending sales that fell out of contract, as a percentage of overall pending sales—since last October.

    That’s no surprise, as the average 30-year mortgage rate surpassed 7% in September, the highest in two decades (and then went even higher, to 8%), and prices remained sky-high.

    In fact, it’s cheaper to rent than to buy in nearly every major market in the U.S., with The Wall Street Journal reporting that the high mortgage rates make buying 52% more expensive on average than renting in this climate, citing a CBRE analysis.

    Median rents have been dropping across the country, improving affordability for tenants and helping them rethink their desire to enter the housing market at this profoundly pricey time. Homebuyers must earn north of $114,600 to afford the median-priced U.S. home, according to a separate Redfin analysis.

    Ever-increasing insurance premiums and disagreements on who’s responsible for needed repairs are also behind the cancelation rate, Heather Kruayai, a Redfin Premier Agent in Jacksonville, Fla., said in the report. Given the astronomical prices, homebuyers are being more cautious, Kruayai said. “Buyers hold a lot of the cards right now, and sellers are having to give out more concessions to close the deal.”

    Speaking of high insurance costs, the metro areas with the highest share of cancelations include Atlanta (24.4%), Jacksonville (24%), Orlando (23.6%), Tampa (22.7%), and Fort Lauderdale (22%), well over the already-high national average cancelation rate of 16.3%.

    Also in September, existing-home sales dropped to their lowest figure since 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors, and closed sales overall fell to the lowest level since the Covid-19 pandemic began, per Redfin’s report. When every aspect of home ownership is increasing with seemingly no end in sight, buyers are finding the prospect less and less attractive.

    Despite the cancelations, there still just isn’t that much inventory, even with new listings inching up last month. That’s keeping prices high and more buyers on the sidelines.

    1. it’s cheaper to rent than to buy in nearly every major market in the U.S

       Probably misleading. The renter and the “buyer” (speculator) don’t go for the same properties.

22. Kinda related, I”m in trucking and interact with many drivers and lemme tell you they ALL say it’s slow. Almost all the megas have hiring freezes/hiring slowdowns (which rarely happens, it’s a constant churn) and rates (for O/O’s) are low. (which also means it’s slow).

    A driver today, on a Tuesday, got told there were so many empty drivers ahead of him (in Texas no less) that if he wanted he could just deadhead (empty) to the terminal (like 300 miles) and start his home time early. This NEVER happens, dispatch never lets you go early, they would rather you sit (for free) and wait if a load comes available and it’s certainly not weather related. (since winter hasn’t even started).

    Jan/Feb is the usual slow time for trucking. This should be peak season for dry van/reefer. (although flatbed slow dramatically after thanksgiving). It’s starting awful early this year.

    1. I’ve heard anecdotally that the smaller trucking companies are getting crushed. Very slow out there

    2. Cardboard box demand has been falling since last December.

    3. Interesting . Thanks for the info

23. Time Running Out For Toronto Home Sellers – Oct 18
    Team Sessa Real Estate
    1 hour ago CANADA

    Toronto Real Estate Market Report for the week of Oct 12 – Oct 18, 2023.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byLyMDC94os

    21:32.

24. Awkward: DC Mayor U-Turns ‘Defund Police’ With New Crime Bill After Murder Chaos Spreads

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/awkward-dc-mayor-u-turns-defund-police-new-crime-bill-after-crime-tsunami

    Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser will finally enforce ‘law and order’ or some variant after her disastrous progressive ‘defund the police’ policies have transformed the nation’s capital into a crime-ridden hellhole.

    On Monday, Bowser revealed a new anti-crime bill, the Addressing Crime Trends (ACT) Now Act, which seeks to end out-of-control retail theft, open-air drug markets, surge in violent crime, and slap criminals with additional charges for wearing masks.

    “Metropolitan Police Department continues to be a leader in fair and constitutional policing across this nation. They continue to work every day to have and keep the trust of our city. And this legislation won’t change that. It will, however, support the department in dealing with some of the negative consequences of the Comprehensive Police Adjustment and Injustice Amendment Act. Some of the changes that were made just don’t match the daily practice of safe and effective policing,” Bowser said while revealing ACT.

    However, officials told Bloomberg that the ACT’s goal is not to entirely reverse the DC Council’s progressive priorities but to dial back some of the radical reforms. The DC Council is expected to vote on the proposed legislation soon.

    This year, the nation’s capital has recorded a surge in violent crimes: Homicides hit the highest level in two decades in the first six months, and carjackings are out of control. Several lawmakers and staffers have been robbed.

    DC’s U-turn on failed progressive policies is yet another metro area that is being forced to restore law and order. San Francisco had to reverse course a few months ago.

    Meanwhile, Democrats take zero accountability for their disastrous progressive policies. And so be it. The exodus out of cities by law-abiding citizens and companies only leads to a revival of suburbia. Let the cities implode on themselves as fiscal budgets are set to be strained. NYC is learning through budget cuts.

    1. Seattle Kicks Off Anti-Drug Push With Dozens Of Arrests As Portland Business Owners Beg For Help

       https://www.zerohedge.com/political/seattle-kicks-anti-drug-push-dozens-arrests-portland-business-owners-beg-help

       Elected officials in Portland and Seattle are beginning to regret turning their cities into crime-ridden hellholes, after their response to Trumpism and the BLM riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death was to defund or otherwise hinder police, elect DAs who refuse to prosecute a variety of crime, and promote rampant drug use.

       Now, they’re dealing with the predictable hangover.

       In Portland, 25 businesses have banded together for a strongly worded letter to elected officials, who they’ve demanded address their concerns over the city’s crime wave that has decimated foot traffic to businesses such as Ace Hotel, Central Office, Crafty Wonderland, Courier Coffee, Mimi’s Fresh Tees and Multnomah Whiskey Library, according to KGW8.

       The situation in Portland is so bad that residents have been told not to call the police unless their lives are at risk thanks to the city’s overwhelmed 911 system. In May, Portland officials figured out that defunding the police was pure idiocy, and attempted to reverse course after cutting the PD budget by $15 million, like idiots.

       Portland has also experienced a spate of major stores leaving the region, including REI, Walmart and Cracker Barrel.

       “Revitalizing downtown businesses necessitates a multifaceted approach that addresses various aspects of their operations and environment,” reads the letter from the 25 businesses, which includes ideas for garnering more financial support from government in general amid a shrinking customer base that’s killing foot traffic.

       (Click on the link to read the rest of the article.)

    2. Let the cities implode on themselves as fiscal budgets are set to be strained.

       Many will soon be backpedaling on promises to financially assist the tidal wave of “immigrants”, who have risked life and limb to join the US Free Sh!t Army.

25. Crosby, Stills & Nash — Pre-Road Downs:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP569PHmoFQ

    1. Traffic — Don’t Be Sad:

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

       1. Jimi Hendrix — Crosstown Traffic:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxJPaXE4Uoc

          1. Chicago — Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FzCWLOHUes

26. Is home ownership more of a dream or a nightmare?

    1. Yahoo
       Grant Cardone Says Home Ownership Should No Longer Be Part of the American Dream: ‘For Most People It’s a Nightmare’
       Gabrielle Olya
       Mon, October 23, 2023 at 12:00 PM PDT·3 min read

       For many people, the “American Dream” includes a home with a white picket fence. But Grant Cardone, author of the upcoming book “The Wealth Creation Formula,” believes that the white picket fence ideal is actually a money trap.

       “The very things that symbolize the middle class — cars, homes and college — are strangling, suffocating and dismissing the middle class as a wealth class,” he told GOBankingRates.

       Here’s why he doesn’t believe that owning a home is the key to financial security and wealth that it’s long been considered to be.

       ‘You’re Trapped for 30 Years’

       One of the reasons Cardone sees homeownership as a trap is that you are physically trapped in the same place, usually for 30 years.

       “You have to live in the same place every day for 30 years and pay for it,” Cardone said. “It is a terrible, terrible investment. What about if, in year three years, you have this great opportunity to move to another part of the country or part of the world in order to have a better job — you couldn’t, because you have 27 years left on your loan. It would be much smarter to pay $2,000 a month rent for the next 30 years.”
       …
       https://finance.yahoo.com/news/grant-cardone-says-home-ownership-190004676.html

       1. In case you missed the key point, here it is again:

          “It is a terrible, terrible investment. What about if, in year three years, you have this great opportunity to move to another part of the country or part of the world in order to have a better job — you couldn’t, because you have 27 years left on your loan. It would be much smarter to pay $2,000 a month rent for the next 30 years.”

          1. Drama queen. You sell the house and move for the better job.

27. Did burgeoning interest rates torpedo your stocks?

    1. Updated Wed, Oct 25 2023 5:59 AM EDT
       S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures fall as traders weigh Microsoft, Alphabet results: Live updates
       Hakyung Kim
       …
       https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/24/stock-market-today-live-updates.html

    2. Marketplace
       Why are bond yields so high right now?
       Sabri Ben-Achour
       Oct 23, 2023
       For a while, bond markets expected a weaker economy and possible rate cuts by the Federal Reserve in 2024.

       For the past couple of days, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury debt has flirted with and briefly exceeded 5%. The last time the yield on 10-year Treasurys was that high was June 2007 — 16 years ago. As bond yields soar, they’re taking all kinds of other interest rates with them. Mortgages, for starters: Those are at around 8%. So why is this happening right now?

       Ten-year Treasurys have to look good … for 10 years. They have to look good, in other words be competitive, compared to the interest rates of today and the interest rates of the future. Right now, yields on the 10-year note are high, in part, because people believe the interest rates of the future will also be high. The Federal Reserve has been signaling this for months.

       “People are taking the Fed seriously,” said Scott DiMaggio, co-head of fixed income at AllianceBernstein. For a while, bond markets didn’t believe the Fed would keep future interest rates high.

       “We go back four, five, six months ago, the market was working with a narrative of a recession and significantly slower economic growth. They were forecasting that the Fed would have to reduce rates next year by five or six times,” DiMaggio said.

       So why did bond investors suddenly start believing that interest rates would not fall in the future, but instead would stay high?
       …
       https://www.marketplace.org/2023/10/23/why-are-bond-yields-so-high-right-now/

    3. Yahoo
       Yahoo Finance
       The inverted yield curve is reversing course: Why it matters
       Brad Smith and Eyek Ntekim
       Tue, October 24, 2023 at 8:25 AM PDT

       One of Wall Street’s most-watched recession indicators is the inverted yield curve. An inverted yield curve is when the yield on a shorter duration Treasury, such as the 2-year, are yielding more than those on a longer duration, such as the 10-year. The yield curve has been inverted for several months, but now it’s starting to “uninvert,” In the video above, Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer explains why it’s important for investors to take note.

       Video Transcript
       BRAD SMITH: Large moves on the 10 year. They have pushed yields closer to un-inverting. But that might not be a good sign for the economic outlook. Yahoo Finance’s Markets Reporter Josh Schafer is here with a closer look at the recession indicator. Hey, Josh.

       JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, Brad. So I spoke with the founder of the recession indicator last night, Professor Campbell Harvey, and I asked him, you know, what happens when these yields un-invert? You remember back, since last November, we’ve been talking about the inverted yield curve, meaning that yields on the three month– on the three month treasury have actually gone below what we see, or sorry, higher than what we see on the 10-year treasury.

       So that’s been inverted that yield curve. But what happens when we un-invert? So, if you look right now at the inverted yield curve, right now, we’re showing you the 10 and the two year. And you can see that it’s getting closer and closer to an inverting at the end of your screen on your right there.

       But what’s interesting here is what’s happened before the last four recessions, those gray vertical lines we have on our chart here. Before the last four recessions, we’ve actually seen the yield curve un-invert. So what happens when it un-inverts, and the key to understand here the Professor Harvey was talking to me about, is why it un-inverts?
       …
       https://finance.yahoo.com/video/inverted-yield-curve-reversing-course-152533265.html

    4. An economic warning sign that preceded two past recessions is flashing ominously red again
       The last time Treasury bond yields climbed so far, so fast, the nation plunged into back-to-back recessions.
       BY YE XIE , MICHAEL MACKENZIE , AND BLOOMBERG
       October 24, 2023 6:37 PM EDT
       Treasury yields are soaring. JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images

       There’s a good reason why investors are amazed that something hasn’t broken in the economy yet: The last time US government bond yields climbed so far, so fast, the nation plunged into back-to-back recessions.

       The 10-year Treasury yield — a key baseline for the cost of money across the financial system — has jumped more than four full percentage points over the past three years, briefly pushing it this week over 5% for the first time since 2007. It’s the biggest increase since the run up in the early 1980s, when Paul Volcker’s efforts to slay inflation pushed the 10-year yield to nearly 16%.

       In one sense, the similarities are no surprise, since Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s interest-rate hikes have been the most aggressive since then. In another, it underscores just how much times have changed.

       In the 1980s, the monetary policy onslaught set off two recessions. Now, the economy has continued to defy pessimistic forecasts, with the Atlanta Fed’s estimate showing that in the third quarter it likely even gained steam.

       Of course, policy was more restrictive during the Volcker era. Adjusted for consumer-price increases, the “real” 10-year Treasury yield — or what it paid after inflation — was around 4% by the time the second downturn of the period started in mid-1981, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It’s around 1% now.
       …
       https://fortune.com/2023/10/24/treasury-bond-yields-economy-us/

       1. briefly pushing it this week over 5% for the first time since 2007

          That’s about the time I started to wonder when and how I could retire. I based my maths on a 5% return on savings.

          Adjustments were made.

28. Now that Bloomberg agrees, is the Xountry Gardens default real?

    1. Business
       Country Garden default on dollar bond declared for first time -Bloomberg News
       FILE PHOTO: The company logo of Chinese developer Country Garden is pictured at the Shanghai Country Garden Center in Shanghai, China August 9, 2023. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
       Listen to this article
       1 min
       25 Oct 2023 03:27PM
       (Updated: 25 Oct 2023 04:44PM)

       :Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings has been deemed in default on a U.S. dollar bond for the first time, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing a notice.

       Country Garden’s failure to pay interest on the note within a grace period that ended last week “constitutes an event of default”, Bloomberg reported citing the notice to holders from a trustee.

       Country Garden did not immediately reply to a query by Reuters on Wednesday.

       A grace period ended last Wednesday as Country Garden was due to settle a $15 million coupon payment on a bond due in September 2025, but two bondholders told Reuters they did not receive the money as that deadline expired.

       Non-payment would put the developer at risk of default on its nearly $11 billion of outstanding offshore bonds and could trigger one of China’s biggest corporate debt restructurings.

       A group of investors holding about $2 billion of Country Garden’s offshore bonds has hired PJT Partners as financial adviser to lead discussions with Country Garden for debt restructuring plans, Reuters reported previously.
       …
       https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/country-garden-default-dollar-bond-declared-first-time-bloomberg-news-3871466

       1. discussions with Country Garden

          Discussions likely to be brief.

29. Dawg

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