This Was An Era Of Extraordinary Speculation

1. Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers
   We asked them about it — and they deleted everything.

   https://futurism.com/sports-illustrated-ai-generated-writers

   1. Not long before the models in the swimsuit addition are all AI creations.

   2. Oh, that pesky reverse image search, revealing their fake author accounts.

2. ‘While the median price of existing homes continues to increase, in October, the median new home price was down 17.6% year-over-year, the seventh consecutive month of price declines, and the biggest yearly price drop on record.’ The report from the Census Bureau showed prices fell to a median of $409,300 from the prior month’s $418,800 level. ‘New home prices peaked back in October 2022, with the median sale price at just under $500,000,’ Sturtevant added’

   Is that a lot Lisa?

   ‘The median new house price in October was $409,300, a 17.6% drop from a year ago. That was the largest percentage decline since the government started tracking records in 1964’

   https://nypost.com/2023/11/27/business/new-home-sales-drop-more-than-expected-in-october/

   1. ‘While the median price of existing homes continues to increase, in October, the median new home price was down 17.6% year-over-year, the seventh consecutive month of price declines, and the biggest yearly price drop on record.’

      – Just think about that. New prices are decreasing because builders are motivated to sell. I don’t think these numbers reflect mortgage buy-downs either, so new prices falling more. Meanwhile, used prices are actually increasing. As I recall, new prices are now lower than used prices. This is clearly unsustainable. Used owners will have to cut. Used house TAM is 6x new houses. Used is effectively the market. Used sales are way down. Totally unaffordable to the shelter-buyer using conventional financing ( 30 yr. fixed rate mortgage). Let them sit. Used owners will (eventually) catch on, but still want pandemic prices. Good luck with that. Price is sticky to the downside. This will be changing now if used house sellers are motivated to sell.

      1. “Meanwhile, used prices are actually increasing”

         Where?
         11/21/2023 Sold $475,000
         0/12/2023 Price change $501,000
         9/21/2023 Price change $512,000
         8/31/2023 Price change $521,000
         7/27/2023 Price change $531,000
         7/13/2023 Price change $551,000
         6/29/2023 Price change $553,000
         6/10/2023 Listed for sale $565,000
         4/26/2023 Sold $481,700

         https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/11521-W-107th-Pl-Westminster-CO-80021/13680854_zpid/

         1. “Meanwhile, used prices are actually increasing”
            “Where?”

            – From the article:

            https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2023-11-27/new-home-sales-plunged-in-october-as-prices-fell

            New Home Sales Plunged in October as Prices Fell
            Sales slumped and prices fell in October, but activity was still higher than a year ago.
            By Tim Smart | Nov. 27, 2023, at 11:07 a.m.

            “Even though new home sales have been solid, builders are increasingly having to react to weaker demand amidst growing unaffordability,” said Bright MLS Chief Economist Lisa Sturtevant. “While the median price of existing homes continues to increase, in October, the median new home price was down 17.6% year-over-year, the seventh consecutive month of price declines, and the biggest yearly price drop on record.”

            Here’s the October, ’23 data point from the same source:

            https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2023-11-21/existing-home-sales-slide-in-october-to-lowest-level-since-2010-on-higher-mortgage-rates-limited-inventory

            Existing Home Sales Slide in October to Lowest Level Since 2010 on Higher Mortgage Rates, Limited Inventory
            Although home sales fell, prices increased by 3.4%.
            By Tim Smart | Nov. 21, 2023, at 10:42 a.m.

            “Sales of existing homes fell by 4.1% in October as a shortage of houses for sale and higher mortgage rates dampened activity, the National Association of Realtors said on Tuesday.”

            “The annual level of sales reached 3.79 million, down 14.6% from a year ago when sales were 4.44 million. That marks the lowest level of activity in 13 years. The median price of a house sold, however, rose by 3.4% to $391,800.“

            – This is likely due at least partially to “the mix.” In any case, sales leads prices, so I’m expecting lower prices for both existing and new houses going forward.

            – Caveat emptor:
            “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Mark Twain

   2. And that’s not counting the incentives on top of the price cuts. I saw one story recently where a builder was offering to pay the rent for three years if the investor couldn’t keep the place rented.

      1. ‘offering to pay the rent for three years if the investor couldn’t keep the place rented’

         We’ve read about that for years in the US and many places overseas. It’s a thumb for speculators to suck that the builder will never have to pay off. When the SHTF the phones are the first thing cut.

3. You will own nothing

   1. You will own nothing.

      1. You will own nothing.

         1. You will own nothing, you will eat bugs and like them, you will be all electric and closely rationed, you will comply to all orders and not complain – ever.

            “You have freedom of speech. But freedom after speech, that I can not guarantee.” – Idi Amin Dada

            1. ‘You will own nothing, you will eat bugs and like them, you will be all electric and closely rationed, you will comply to all orders and not complain – ever.‘

               – Just livin’ “The Hunger Games.”

               “Happy Hunger Games! And May the odds be ever in your favor.” – Suzanne Collins, “The Hunger Games”

               “District 12: Where you can starve to death in safety.” – Suzanne Collins, “The Hunger Games”

               – But, America…

4. ‘it’s been 15 years since sponsor sales started closing — years in which billionaires and oligarchs and other assorted LLCs set ever-higher Manhattan records in neighboring buildings like 432 Park and 220 Central Park South. These days, many sellers aren’t even trying to get more than they paid in 2008’

   Tales of woe in this article.

5. ‘Chat Reynders, who’s been a sustainable investor for three decades, calls the downturn in green assets a ‘watershed moment’ for the industry. ‘We’ll look back and say this was an era of extraordinary speculation,’ said Reynders, who helps oversee about $3.5 billion. ‘Whether there was a meme stock or a green stock, everyone was marketing and selling extremely hard’

   Yeah, and you were eating it up with a giant spoon Chat, if that’s yer real name.

6. ‘had successfully constructed more than 170 residential units in the Bay Area and had ambitious plans for an additional 300 single-family houses in Northern California by the close of 2025. The company is poised to shut down its current entity, with an assignee taking charge of asset management and their subsequent sale in the U.S. Investors in the company, including prominent names like Khosla Ventures, Brookfield Growth and Zeev Ventures, are unlikely to recoup any of the $600 million collectively invested. Similarly, Katerra, a Menlo Park-based construction tech startup backed by SoftBank, went bankrupt in 2021 after it raised over $2 billion in funding’

   More silly valley Jerry bucks flying off to money heaven.

   1. IIUC my childhood neighborhood of small split-levels and raised ranches was built out of an early version of modular pieces — and this was in the early 1970s. This is hardly a new idea, and definitely not “tech” in the way that, for example, Google is. Why did it get so much funding? Bernanke Bux?

      The houses in my neighborhood were cheap enough to supply masses of housing to young adult baby boomers. Veev houses are clearly a luxury virtue signal: $600M/170 houses is $3.5 million/house. And while Veev developed a nice structural panel, I don’t see how this can ever be scaled up to supply the masses. We’re better off building the same raised ranches and split levels that we did 50 years ago.

      1. I live in a mid-century split. I wish it had higher ceilings. My main room has a 12′ but the rest is the house is like 7.5.

7. ‘At one recent protest, dozens of people hung banners and shouted slogans such as ‘Zhongzhi, return us our money!’ and ‘contract fraud!’

   I love a good little feets stamping in the mornin. With shouting!

8. ‘New home prices peaked back in October 2022, with the median sale price at just under $500,000,’ Sturtevant added.”

   How many tapped-out Murican debt donkeys with stagnant wages & inexorably rising inflation can swing the mortgage on a half-million dollar shack?

   1. I wonder every day how the hell the plates are kept spinning.

9. In the first three months of the year, listing prices experienced a dramatic drop of 31 per cent year-over-year in Peterborough and the Kawarthas region, from an average of $1.2-million to roughly $855,000.

   Is that a lot?

10. Police in Beijing said over the weekend that they had taken ‘criminal coercive measures’—a euphemism for arrests—against multiple employees of Zhongzhi Enterprise.

    Where are the arrests of the CCP cadres, regulators, enforcers, and auditors who enabled the financial fraud to reach such systemically dangerous proportions?

11. Paul Krugman, eat sh*t and die.

    New York Times — Even Most Biden Voters Don’t See a Thriving Economy (11/28/2023):

    “Presidents seeking a second term have often found the public’s perception of the economy a pivotal issue. It was a boon to Ronald Reagan; it helped usher Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush out of the White House.

    Now, as President Biden looks toward a re-election campaign, there are warning signals on that front: With overall consumer sentiment at a low ebb despite solid economic data, even Democrats who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 say they’re not impressed with the economy.”

    ^ Correction: it’s not a re-election, the 2020 election was stolen.

    “In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in six battleground states, 62 percent of those voters think the economy is only “fair” or “poor” (compared with 97 percent for those who voted for Donald J. Trump).”

    https://archive.is/TrXsI

    Stolen elections have consequences.

    1. “despite solid economic data”

       Could it be that less and less folks trust that the data is really “solid”? Sooner or later you look around and go, “wait a minute….”.

       1. It hinges on the CPI numbers. If they are fake and lower than in reality, then the illusion of economic growth is presented, but with real inflation numbers the economy is shrinking.

          1. In other words, the chocolate ration has grown from 20g to 15g.

             1. Even the free sample cups at Costco are getting smaller.

          2. It hinges on the CPI numbers.

             I think you mean GDP.

             The National Debt is going up $1Tr in a period of three months these days. That’s not what prosperity looks like.

             1. Yeah, that’s how they are papering it over. But now that they will have to soon roll over about 1/3 of the debt things could get “interesting”. If the usual buyers stay home the Fed will have to step in and purchase those maturing bonds, or lending that monet to big banks so they can finance the rollover.conjuring $7T out of thin air. That won’t be inflationary, right?

             2. The dollars we printed in 2009 didn’t trigger inflation largely because China happily took those dollars to build out their industrial plant. That’s not going to happen this time. We’ll have to absorb the dollars ourselves. What is that going to do to housing prices? Inflation says prices go up, interest rates say prices will go down. I really don’t know.

    2. Stolen elections have consequences.

       The election is a year away and the gaslighting is already in overdrive, and it’s only going to get worse. As the Dems polling numbers continue to shrink will we be getting another pre-election summer of love, where we will be told that if we deny that everything is great then we are raycis and mostly peaceful riots will be required?

12. The wall of lies is crumbling.

    https://twitter.com/Risemelbourne/status/1729337006914990526

    1. A new crisis big enough to distract everyone from the previous crisis will have to be created.

13. The New York Times Finally Admits to the Harm Done to Children

    https://brownstone.org/articles/the-new-york-times-finally-admits-to-the-harm-done-to-children/

    1. “Two weeks to flatten the curve”

       Remember that one?

       All of this was intentional, creating a generation of docile slaves, too stupid to recognize the symptoms of their ever increasing enslavement.

14. Salon (via Archive, of course) — It’s a good thing women won’t date Trump voters (11/28/2023):

    “It’s an amusing truth that comes up with regularity: Men who love Donald Trump struggle on the dating market. This is neither surprising nor regrettable. Supporting Trump is much like refusing to bathe, blowing your nose in your hands or farting loudly on purpose. It’s a repugnant habit that makes you repulsive to normal people.

    This should be common sense. Yet our sexist culture remains too enamored by stories of female self-sacrifice to accept that it’s just fine if Trump voters never get laid. Even people who really should know better have taken to bullying liberal women for their refusal to date male Trump voters. “If attitudes don’t shift, a political dating mismatch will threaten marriage,” declared a recent headline of a Washington Post column by the editorial board.

    Marrying a Trump voter isn’t just a matter of minor political differences, or expecting someone to be exactly like yourself. For women, in particular, it’s about being able to be safe and respected inside your own home, which is a very minimum standard all people deserve.

    For a woman, marrying a Trump supporter isn’t about being with someone who has different views on tax rates. It’s bringing someone into your home who ascribes to an ideology in which you are not fully human.

    I have a small sliver of sympathy for the frustration that drives this asinine hope that pity-marriages for Trump voters will save us from the MAGA threat. It’s galling how nothing seems to wake up Trump voters from their fascist stupor. Reason doesn’t change them. Evidence has no impact. Compassion or decency? We’ve tried appealing to their better angels for years, and all we get is “cry harder, libs.” In the face of this MAGA unwillingness to suck less, there can be comfort in “Twilight”-style fantasies that the monster can be made into a man by a woman’s loving touch. But it’s simply not real.

    Worse, it shifts responsibility for male misbehavior onto women. The blame for MAGA is subtly moved away from those who are perpetuating the problem, Trump’s mostly male voters, onto the shoulders of Democratic women who have been doing everything right all along.”

    https://archive.ph/3dXMq

    Doing everything right all along?

    Cats, boxed wine, and anti-depressant meds.

    1. Wow, they must really be worried if they are stooping this low

       1. It’s Salon. I read and post these articles (always via Archive) for our amusement.

          The female target audience of this article will find their beta male, they just won’t be physically attracted to him, and they’ll be getting plowed by Chad on the side, until The Wall inevitably hits.

       2. The real fantasy is that a batsh*t koolaid haired libtard can be domesticated. They idolize an incestuous kid sniffing grifter with a family full of drug addicts and blather on and on that they have the moral high ground. Don’t flatter yourselves leftists, you’re insufferable and completely unattractive. Fortunately, there is no shortage of women who agree.

          1. +1

    2. Only a Salon reader would be dumb enough to believe a woman describing the kind of man she will date or sleep with.

15. FB tales of woe and victimhood from the REIC dupes who just had to get up on that housing ladder to effortless riches.

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-12795783/My-mortgage-ending-home-DAVID-HOLLINGWORTH-replies.html?

16. Being forced to extend credit for the CCP’s extend-and-pretend game to avert a total property collapse won’t end well for China’s financial sector.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-28/china-s-property-lifeline-exposes-banks-to-big-losses-job-cuts?

17. Some Californians leaving for Texas could be replaced by Texans leaving for California

    https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/4328885-some-californians-leaving-for-texas-could-be-replaced-by-texans-leaving-for-california/

    Some 42,279 Texans moved to California in 2022.
    More than 102,000 Californians decided to move to Texas in the same period.
    One major motivator when it comes to relocating is how much residents are paid.

    (KTLA) — While it is known that many Californians looking to leave the Golden State often choose Texas as their new home, new statistics indicate that a growing number of Texans are making their home in California.

    Data obtained from the United States Census Bureau by the Houston Chronicle on state-to-state migration shows that California welcomed 42,279 Texans as new residents in 2022, the most of any state.

    One major motivator when it comes to relocating is how much residents are paid. According to Forbes, the average salary in Texas for 2023 is $57,300, which ranks 24th in the nation. The average Californian’s salary is $73,220, which is the third-highest in America only behind New York ($74,870) and Massachusetts ($76,600).

    Young and wealthy Californians leaving the region for other states, study says

    Forbes analysts say that the average annual salary across the U.S. is $59,428 — around $2,000 more than the average Texas resident — meaning that Texans “often require a handsome salary” to move out west, the Houston Chronicle said.

    While 42,279 Texans resettling in California in 2022 may seem like a lot of people, more than 102,000 Californians decided to move to Texas in the same period.

    Census data revealed that about 475,000 people moved to California from across the U.S. in 2022, but in the same period, 817,000 Californians left the state for somewhere else, leaving the Golden State with a net loss of around 342,000 residents.

    1. ‘new statistics indicate that a growing number of Texans are making their home in California’

       I don’t see anything in this article that indicates the number is growing or that these things are more than churn.

       1. Does the article say anything about demographics? Who is moving to Clownland? And why? Better pay? The 20% pay increase they quote won’t make up for the higher cost of living.

    2. When they saw they were going to get paid more, did they bother to investigate the higher cost of living? Look before you leap.

    3. How much you want to bet that the “Texans moving to California” were originally Californians anyway who went to Texas to “work from home” and then got called back the office in California? In other words, no gain for California.

18. CNBC — ‘Stop the price gouging’: Unelected Occupant hits corporations over high consumer costs (11/27/2023):

    “Any corporation that has not brought their prices back down, even as inflation has come down, even as the supply chains have been rebuilt, it’s time to stop the price gouging,” Unelected Occupant said at the launch of a new White House supply chain initiative. “Give the American consumer a break.”

    As America emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic, prices soared. In the two years starting in April 2021, the average price of all goods rose 13%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average price of food in that same period jumped a whopping 20%.”

    ^ Those numbers are LIES.

    “The price hikes were driven by a combination of pent-up consumer demand, pandemic-era economic stimulus and ongoing supply chain snarls.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/27/white-house-supply-chain-bidenomics-wins.html

    All because of a minor respiratory illness that for the young and healthy has a statistical infection fatality rate of ZERO.

    Greatest wealth transfer in history from the middle class and working class to billionaires and multi millionaires, because of a minor respiratory illness that for the young and healthy has a statistical infection fatality rate of ZERO.

    Your kids can’t read or do math, because of a minor respiratory illness that for the young and healthy has a statistical infection fatality rate of ZERO.

    “Ever getting the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Johnny Rotten, the Sex Pistols, at their last concert ever.

    1. The money supply has been increasing by roughly 30% per year over the past few years. Until that stops and reverses, inflation hasn’t “come down”.

       1. It has reversed.

          https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

          1. There was an interesting inflection point this spring around the time when a banking crisis appeared to be starting.

             1. Thank you for posting this. I consider myself pretty in tune with the financial world but I missed this. The money supply hasn’t contracted in my lifetime. Until several months back. Deflation is defined as the decrease in money supply right? This is deflation.

                Or the numbers are completely fake as everything with the Biden administration and era. Fake or real, There’s got to be some reason why they allowed the money supply to contract. Maybe they saw the hyperbolic trajectory and got worried politically so they let it contract or like the bolsheviks just lie about data for political purposes.

19. ‘I had a client at Vancouver House (a downtown condo tower) that walked on pretty much a million-dollar deposit there,’ Davis said. ‘For the buyer, walking on their deposit is actually less of a damage to them than actually completing on a condo that’s worth considerably less than what they paid for it, and then layering on the financing piece’

    An expensive game of hot potato.

20. Here’s your best news of the day.

    The Hill — Washington Post braces for layoffs (11/28/2023):

    “The Washington Post has been able to attain just half of the job reductions it needs to secure before the end of the year, the newspaper’s leadership said this week.

    In a note to staff shared with multiple outlets on Tuesday, Post interim CEO Patty Stonesifer said the company had accepted 120 voluntary buyouts as it seeks to cut some 240 jobs across its newsroom.

    The Post plans to resort to involuntary layoffs if it does not reach the 240 job threshold by the middle of next month, Stonesifer said.

    “These layoffs would offer significantly less generous benefits than the voluntary package and will be consistent with prior layoff packages at The Post,” she wrote.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/4331300-washington-post-braces-for-layoffs/

    Note that when I use the Archive website to share Post links, it denies them clicks and ad revenue.

    We read the Post for FREE, because we don’t generate revenue for globalist scum media.

    1. “These layoffs would offer significantly less generous benefits than the voluntary package and will be consistent with prior layoff packages at The Post,” she wrote.

       So, where do “real journalists” go after they’ve been laid off or taken a buyout package? All the other dailies are in the same boat. Do they start a youtube channel and hope for the best?

       And now there are rumors that the media is switching to bots to write their narrative compliant pablum. The movie and TV script writers are worried sick about bots, which is why that was a key issue in their strike. They bought time, for now.

21. R u worried that Santa Clause may deliver Wall Street a lump of coal this year?

    1. Crash Warning: Stock Market Weakness Is Lurking Beneath the Surface
       There’s no guarantee that Santa Claus is coming to town this year
       23h ago · By Michael A. Gayed

       Unpopular opinion. After inflation, stocks are nowhere near all-time highs. As a matter of fact, if we take the Nasdaq 100 which has been the clear darling this year and compare it to two years ago, after inflation, it’s still in a 12% drawdown.

       “It’s a new bull market bro we are about to take out the NASDAQ highs.”

       Ok except that’s in nominal terms.

       We are still more than 12% below the INFLATION-ADJUSTED highs in the NASDAQ.

       How do you know for sure we are in a new bull market when we are still in the drawdown?

       It’s all good though. Stocks are “guaranteed” to push higher into year-end according to basement traders with squiggly lines on a chart. After all, Santa Claus is slimmer because of Ozempic and he’s more energized than ever. Interest rate cuts are supposedly coming next, and stocks will cheer the Federal Reserve reversing course.

       What blows me away is that investors appear to be glossing over the conditions that would necessitate these rate cuts in the first place. And while unnaturally low volatility could indeed drive risk assets higher in the short term, I don’t think a Santa Class rally is guaranteed by any means into year-end. If anything, this December could play out like last year, which was the fifth worst in history, or 2018.

       Why am I saying that? Because my risk-on, risk-off indicators look like they may flip to defense mode by the end of the week. Treasurys, which have been steadily moving higher in sync with Fed rate expectations, have not seen a robust “flight to safety” reaction yet, but certainly could if December surprises us. Traders are not fully hedging their bets against market turbulence.
       …
       https://investorplace.com/2023/11/crash-warning-stock-market-weakness-is-lurking-beneath-the-surface/

       1. I’ve always been amused that stock market indices are never adjusted for inflation.

          1. Nor is your cost basis for capital gains :/

    2. Markets
       The stock market could plunge as much as 27% when the economy finally tips into recession, investment research firm says
       Jennifer Sor
       Nov 28, 2023, 10:33 AM ET
       A downturn could cause stocks to plummet as much as 27%, BCA Research predicted.
       Thomson Reuters

       – The S&P 500 could soon face its worst crash since 2008, BCA Research said in its 2024 outlook.

       – That’s because the US economy remains on track to enter a recession as high interest rates take a toll.

       – A downturn could cause stocks to plummet as much as 27%, the investment research firm predicted.
       …

       1. http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-sp500-prediction-recession-2024-us-economy-outlook-2023-11

       2. “…That’s because the US economy remains on track to enter a recession as high interest rates take a toll….”

          Consumer credit card debt has surpassed a record $1Trillion

          Food prices at all time highs. (Story today about $16 for a hamburger, fries and drink from McD)

          Nothing to see here, move along now.

          1. I bought a 4 lb. chicken for under $20 and smoked it for Thanksgiving dinner. It provided about 8 dinner-sized portion servings so far, and we have yet to enjoy the broth I made.

             So $16 for a burger sounds like alot!

22. Saw this headline today:

    ‘Reminiscent Of Prison’: Migrants Refuse to Stay In Democrat-Run City, Demand New Accommodations.

    New York City created an emergency shelter at Floyd Bennett Field to house about 2,000 illegal immigrants, but upon arrival, some migrants refused to stay, expressing outrage at the accommodations.

    So, they came uninvited, oblivious to the realities that awaited them (such as winter) and they have the gall to complain that they are being provided shelter? How about we put you all on a plane and send you home? And please tell your compatriots about how poorly you were treated here, that you didn’t get a free apartment nor a car.

    1. Link …

       https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/reminiscent-of-prison-migrants-refuse-to-stay-in-democrat-run-city-demand-new-accommodations/ar-AA1kDGX1#:~:text=New%20York%20City%20created%20an,expressing%20outrage%20at%20the%20accommodations.

    2. +1

    3. They can demand 4-star hotel rooms all they want, but they won’t get them. So where will they go? Are they going to live on the street?

       1. Oh wait, the article says that the migrant and their advocates are demanding to be housed elsewhere in the state. Let’s see how that works out.

23. If Words Were Violence: Ben Shapiro vs Ben Shapiro
    TurncoatDon

    1 day ago

    Pre October 7 Ben Shapiro vs post October 7 Ben Shapiro.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8RIDwj3Gxs

    2:19.

    1. Ben has become unhinged lately. You can hear it in his voice. He thinks he doing his part for Israel in the war by talking incessantly about his hated of Hamas. I generally like Ben but his show is a lot less interesting when all he talks about is Israel.

       1. “Ben has become unhinged lately.”

          Blind obedient support for g0d’s children is waning likely due to the abundance of camera phones, which are providing imagery typically blocked by censors.

       2. but his show is a lot less interesting when all he talks about is Israel

          I have never liked him. As for his focus being on Israel, are you surprised?

          1. No, not surprised that he’s all on in the israel thing but his show used to be entertaining. I don’t mind him, I like how he often intertwined some of geeky nerdy intellectual stuff into his podcast and radio show. I consume a fair bit of conservative media from all parts of the conservative media ecosphere and Ben’s really the only mainstream guy that will go off on a 10 minute tangent philosophical rant about some issue in the news, it’s refreshing, makes me feel smarter than I actually am LOL. He takes the best of Michael Knowles (who also holds himself out as an intellectual thinker) and plops it into his show.

             1. Also Never DJT origins.

       3. one trick pony? like how NPR became unbearable, screeching about Trump.

          before, during & after.

          and now we read about the local NPR radio station here in Sacramento CA being run into the ground.

          greedy idiots!

24. LILLEY UNLEASHED: Freeland refuses to admit that Canada is poor cousin to U.S.
    Toronto Sun
    15 minutes ago

    Sun political columnist Brian Lilley talks about how Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland won’t answer a question about Canada’s GDP per capita from Conservative MP Philip Lawrence at the House of Commons Finance Committee. Instead, Freeland responds with a lecture.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Eqiu5QxzEM

    2:44.

25. Toronto Real Estate Market Update – Prepare For The Worst – (Nov 2023)
    Team Sessa Real Estate

    33 minutes ago

    In this episode we take a look at the current Toronto Real Estate home prices and market trends for week ending Nov 22, 2023. We also discuss a worst-case-scenario of a home-owner losing their job.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdIPeCn0IMQ

    18:37.

    1. Several months back I perused Redfin for ‘cottage’ listings several hours north of Toronto. I was shocked. There’s a lot of really large homes up there, mansions even, all over selling for millions of dollars. That part of Ontario is like being in northern Wisconsin or the UP. Cold nine months of the year, below freezing 4 months a year, 2 feet of snow on the ground all winter, short summers, lots of bugs. Made me think nearly all of those places up there are speculative. It’s a several hour drive to a mansion up there. And a lot of the homes up there seemed odd too. They were suburban homes on lake. Didn’t even look like a lake house.

26. The Government is Desperate and Scared, Mortgage Charter News, 2023 Canadian Real Estate Market
    Jon Flynn Broker of Record, Flynn Real Estate Inc.

    1 hour ago

    Canada’s real estate market is so bad that buyers are actually happy and relieved when the lose $140,000. New rules come into effect in Canada’s most populated province on Friday. How will it change the real estate market? I also give an update on bank sales and mortgage arrears.

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

    15 minutes.

27. LOLZ@ I witnessed a shoplfting incident and subsequent failed chase at the King Soopers parking lot in Englewood today. This is the #NewNormal as brought to you by the Brandon Economy. Enjoy!

    1. Has Kings closed any stores due to shoplifting, leaving a “food desert” behind? I have a hund that it could be happening sooner than later.

28. Led Zeppelin — The Rover:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK_ZtN9K2EM

29. Uncle Warren’s besty has passed. I always appreciated his example of resilience and self-reliance.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-business/ap-charlie-munger-warren-buffets-sidekick-at-berkshire-hathaway-dies-at-99/

    1. Financial Times
       Berkshire Hathaway Inc
       Charlie Munger: US banks are ‘full of’ bad commercial property loans
       Berkshire Hathaway vice-chair foresees pain in FT interview, but says it will not be as severe as 2008
       Charlie Munger, vice-chair of Berkshire Hathaway, warned that the golden age for investing was over and investors would need to contend with a period of lower returns
       Eric Platt and Harriet Agnew in Los Angeles April 30 2023

       Charlie Munger has warned of a brewing storm in the US commercial property market, with American banks “full of” what he said were “bad loans” as property prices fall.

       The comments from the 99-year-old investor and sidekick to billionaire Warren Buffett come as turmoil ripples through the country’s financial system, which is reckoning with a potential commercial property crash following a handful of bank failures.

       “It’s not nearly as bad as it was in 2008,” the Berkshire Hathaway vice-chair told the Financial Times in an interview. “But trouble happens to banking just like trouble happens everywhere else. In the good times you get into bad habits . . . When bad times come they lose too much.”

       Munger was speaking on the veranda of his home in Greater Wilshire, a leafy neighbourhood of Los Angeles, where he has lived for 60 years since he designed the property himself.

       Dressed in a plaid shirt, Munger held court from his wheelchair as the travails of ailing California-based bank First Republic were playing out in real time on a television screen airing CNBC in the background.

       Berkshire has a long history of supporting US banks through periods of financial instability. The sprawling industrials-to-insurance behemoth invested $5bn in Goldman Sachs during the 2007-08 financial crisis and a similar sum in Bank of America in 2011.

       But the company has so far stayed on the sidelines of the current bout of turmoil, during which Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed. “Berkshire has made some bank investments that worked out very well for us,” said Munger. “We’ve had some disappointment in banks, too. It’s not that damned easy to run a bank intelligently, there are a lot of temptations to do the wrong thing.”

       Their reticence stems in part from lurking risks in banks’ vast portfolios of commercial property loans. “A lot of real estate isn’t so good any more,” Munger said. “We have a lot of troubled office buildings, a lot of troubled shopping centres, a lot of troubled other properties. There’s a lot of agony out there.”

       He noted that banks were already pulling back from lending to commercial developers. “Every bank in the country is way tighter on real estate loans today than they were six months ago,” he said. “They all seem [to be] too much trouble.”

       Munger grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, a few hundred feet from where Buffett now lives. The two met in 1959, when Buffett was 28 and Munger 35. Munger, who at one point worked in a grocery store owned by Buffett’s grandfather, trained as a lawyer before being coaxed into investment by his soon-to-be partner.
       …

       1. “The sprawling industrials-to-insurance behemoth invested $5bn in Goldman Sachs during the 2007-08 financial crisis and a similar sum in Bank of America in 2011.”

          I’m guessing a good bit of this investing took place after the fall 2008 financial meltdown played out and then Secretary of State Hank Paulson got down on his knees to beg Nancy Pelosi to agree to his bailout proposal?

30. The Memo: Newsom and DeSantis prepare to square off for Fox debate

    The most unusual debate of the 2024 election cycle so far is set for Thursday, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) takes on California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Fox News.

    Adding to the spectacle, the moderator for the 90-minute clash will be Sean Hannity.

    The debate, which will air at 9 p.m. ET, will have none of the formality of the three GOP primary debates so far. But there are real stakes for each man.

31. Melania Trump Cast in Angelic Light at Rosalynn Carter Funeral as ‘Evil’ First Ladies Wear Black, Lurk in Shadows

    Infowars.com
    November 28th 2023, 5:31 pm

    The wife of embattled former President Donald Trump appeared alongside Michelle “Big Mike” Obama, Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Joe and Jill Biden, but received a chilly reception from leftists and mainstream publications who complained she wore light attire, while others wore black.

    Phenomenology
    @BerryRazi

    Melania and the Mean Girls

    https://x.com/BerryRazi/status/1729643127546220557?s=20

    1. WATCH: Melania Trump, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, And Bidens Arrive At Rosalynn Carter Funeral

       https://youtu.be/mil9yd-EJLw?si=mHsdlNW6cqBOukoS

32. Are stocks and bonds decoupled yet?

    1. Last Updated: Oct. 26, 2022 at 6:44 PM EDT
       Oct. 26, 2022 at 4:30 AM
       A Key Market Relationship to Watch: Stocks and Bonds are Decoupling
       By Gunjan Banerji

       The lockstep moves in stocks and bonds that have been seen for much of 2022 are easing—for now, at least.

       By one measure, U.S. stocks and bond prices haven’t been this positively correlated—or moving in tandem—since at least 1999, according to Dow Jones Market Data. That’s based on the correlation between the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate bond index and the S&P 500 over the 100 days that ended Thursday.

       That relationship has started to crumble recently. Falling bond prices have sent yields higher, while stocks have staged a rebound. The moves have been surprising because rising 10-year Treasury yields have been a key source of volatility in stocks this year.

       Last week, for example, Treasury prices fell for a 12th consecutive week, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to some of its highest levels since 2008. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 gained 4.7% in its best week since June.

       The S&P 500 hasn’t gained that much in a week when 10-year Treasury yields have jumped at least 20 basis points since June 2020, according to Dow Jones Market Data, during the early stages of the stock market’s recovery from Covid-19.

       It’s unclear how long this will last. On Tuesday, falling bond yields once again helped drive some of the most rate-sensitive corners of the stock market higher.

       Still, Michael Purves at Tallbacken Capital Advisors said in a note to clients that the recent moves show that “we are entering a new equity valuation era” in which the stock market is less interest-rate sensitive and more reliant on earnings growth. The S&P 500 is trading at roughly the same price-to-earnings ratio as it was in June, though the 10-year Treasury yield has jumped since then.

       “We are still in the middle of this transition to this new regime,” Mr. Purves wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. “As with many regime shifts, the transitions are volatile.”
       …
       https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-10-26-2022/card/stocks-and-bonds-have-decoupled-lately-that-puts-investors-in-an-unfamiliar-place-QSI2BEOGeikYua8uIHQD

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