thehousingbubble@gmail.com
Blog

Artificial Booms Lead to Busts

A weekend topic starting with the Times-Independent in Utah. “For Kaitlin Myers, the developments were at opposite ends of the Moab Valley but signaled the same trend. One was a small subdivision just a mile from the San Juan County border in Spanish Valley. The other, ensconced in downtown Moab, was a block of condominiums next to the Center Street Ballpark. Miles apart, one in unincorporated Grand County and the other in the heart of Moab, the two luxury developments connoted to Myers the crisis that would — had already begun — subsuming or intensifying all other crises: housing. ‘We’ve always kind of seen luxury subdivisions come in, but for me … those were two big indicators that that is firmly the direction we’re heading now,’ said Myers, the executive director of the Moab Area Community Land Trust.”

“Those developments took shape in 2020 and 2021 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic when real estate values in Moab and throughout the West soared. Two years later, local housing experts agree that the sizzling market has fizzled somewhat: prices have plateaued and inventory is rising, partly due to an influx of construction projects. That’s not to say that housing was particularly affordable in 2020 or 2021. At that time, Moab — alongside many other Western communities and rural resort towns — was experiencing a booming real estate market. ‘2021 was just a shotgun market,’ said Rachel Moody, an associate broker with Berkshire Hathaway. ‘Everything was just moving so fast you couldn’t keep up with it.'”

“According to data from the Utah Realtors Association and Zillow Home Value Index, housing values and sales prices both skyrocketed about $100,000 from 2020 to 2021 alone. Previously, it had taken four years for values to rise that much. But much of that behavior changed abruptly in spring 2022. That’s when the Federal Reserve started a roughly yearlong hike of its interest rates from near zero to higher than 5%. The resultingly high mortgage costs stifled buying. ‘You’ve gone from a complete seller’s market to pretty much a buyer’s market,’ Moody said. ‘…Everything just changed. It was a total whiplash.’ Since that boomerang moment, local housing experts agree that Moab’s home prices have plateaued as the real estate market cooled. ‘A lot of people put brakes on,’ Moody said. She estimated that much of the Moab market has dipped about 10% in price.”

“‘We have a lot of new construction right now and the new construction is from pent-up demand,’ Moody said. She said her brokerage now has 133 residential units for sale, compared to 12 to 15 in early 2022. ‘2023 is definitely the year of inventory,’ she added. And there’s likely more coming. Elissa Martin, the director of Planning and Zoning for Grand County, said there’s an ‘astonishing’ number of approved but unbuilt units in the Moab Valley.”

The Mountain Times in Vermont. “Trailside Drive in Killington has turned out to be a popular place for homebuyers, given the proximity to the ski trails and the opportunity to ski in/ski out — a type of real estate that’s rare in Killington. Multiple homes on Trailside Drive in Killington have sold for over $2 million and one, listed and sold by real estate agent Bret Williamson, broke a record, selling for $3.75 million in October. In fact, Trailside has been so popular that Nathan Mastroeniof Sotheby’s International Realty has nicknamed it ‘Millionaire’s Row.’ The Trailside Drive homes reflect the overall market in Killington. The median price of homes was $735,000 over the past six months — that’s almost double the home prices in the same period in 2018, when the median home sold for $371,000, according to Mastroeni.”

From WPBN. “High rents and even higher home purchase prices are nothing new. We hear about it around town. We talk about it, but unless it is you that is paying the price, you may not realize the impact it has here now and may have on our economic future. It is a graphic created by Patrick Bowen that stops most people in their tracks. He is hired in communities like ours to dig deep into the data and find out what the housing situation is really like. Sometimes he presents at events like the recent Housing North Housing Summit in Traverse City. ‘So, we looked at the most common jobs or occupations in Northwest Michigan. We took the top thirty-five occupations and then looked at what their wages were, and then ultimately looked at what can those folks afford to rent or what they could afford to buy’ says Bowen.”

“He took the top 35 jobs in our area, across 10 of our counties, took the average pay and then the average rent or cost to buy a home and on the graph, a green check mark means it’s possible and red x, impossible. ‘Virtually no one could buy a house in these top 35 occupations on their own. But the other thing that was interesting was it is like what if we doubled it and said there were two wage earners in the household? They helped on the rental side to some degree. But that also said you better have somebody else in that house, earning a wage with you, where you better get a second job’ says Bowen.”

“Buying was out of the question for every job in nine out of the ten counties with Wexford County being the exception. That may be understandable as the data uses a single income earner, but Bowen says even if they got a huge pay bump the results were not much different. ‘Triple that income of a typical worker that’s holding a cashier’s job or retail job. They cannot buy a home in virtually any case across the entire ten county region’ says Bowen. ‘Housing is not a housing only problem. This is an economic problem’ says Bowen.”

The Review Journal. “Apartment rental rates in Clark County dropped this year, but 2024 will likely be another story, according to data from the Nevada State Apartment Association. One of the biggest trends currently hitting the rental market in Las Vegas, and across the US, is the rise of rental concessions. Data from the Nevada State Apartment Association shows that approximately 40 percent of apartment landlords are now offering some type of concession, be it extra perks or a free month’s rent, to lure renters during the rise in vacancy which came about from a pandemic construction boom within the multifamily market.”

“The future is most definitely uncertain, said Robin Lee, executive director of the Nevada State Apartment Association , given the current macroeconomic climate of high interest rates and construction costs largely stalling the pipeline for apartments, outside of luxury builds. ‘I don’t feel like the municipalities are necessarily trying to restrict the development of affordable housing,’ she said. ‘They just need the ability to open things up, and a lot of it is our neighbors, our neighbors need to be open to the idea of building affordable housing in their area. The only thing really out there right now for developers to build are those luxury units, which is the only thing that pencils in for them these days.'”

From Money Sense. “The Toronto real estate market has experienced remarkable growth over the past two decades. The average home price in Toronto surged by a staggering 489% from 2000 to 2022, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board (TRREB). This rapid price growth has raised concerns about the future of affordable homeownership. For instance, the average Toronto home in 2021 was $1,095,175, while the median household income was $84,000, which equates to a price-to-income ratio of 13. To put that in perspective, the price to income ratio in 2010 was 7.4. The fact is: wages have not kept up with home prices. For future generations, the goal of owning a home in the Greater Toronto Area is looking more like a pipe dream. This has prompted many who live here to wonder: are we on the brink of a bubble ready to burst, or is this simply a passing phase of the Canadian real estate landscape?”

The Guardian Australia. “My parents were married in 1951 and, with a war service loan, bought a block of land in South Oakleigh, eight miles from Melbourne’s central business district.I don’t know what my dad was making then, but apparently the average wage in 1951 was about 6 pounds, 11 shillings a week, or £341 a year. And judging by average prices back then, they would have paid about £1,000 for the land. (By the way, the median house price had more than doubled in 1950, recovering from the big fall caused by price controls during the second world war, on which more later.)”

“Dad was a carpenter and built the house himself, including making the bricks, working on weekends and at night, and Mum and Dad lived in a garage, to which I was brought home when I was born and where I spent the first three years of my life. But if they had bought a house and land package, which was rather more common than building it yourself, they would have paid about £1,250. So, like the median family at the time, they would have paid about 3.5 times household income (Mum didn’t work) for their first house, which was about average for the time.”

“When my wife and I bought our first house, in 1980, we paid roughly the median house price of $40,000, and I was making around the average weekly earnings as a young journalist – $220 a week, or $11,500 a year. So we also paid about 3.5 times my salary for the house, although we were better off than my parents because my wife was working, for about the same salary as mine, and my mum didn’t, which was normal for both times. Workforce participation for 30-year-old women had increased from 32% to 50% by 1980, as a result of the social/sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s.”

“Over the past four years our three children and their partners all bought their own first houses. They’re doing it later than we did, and much later than my parents, so they’re making better money, and both partners are working, of course, but they paid about 7.5 times each income for their houses. That is typical: in August 2023 the median Australian house price was $732,886, which was 7.4 times annualised average weekly earnings.”

“In other words, my children – and all young people today – are paying more than twice the multiple of their income for a house than their parents – and their grandparents – did, and it’s only vaguely possible because both partners work to pay it off. It is impossible to overstate the significance to Australian society of what happened then. The shift that began in about 2000 in the relationship between the cost of housing and both average incomes and the rest of the economy has altered everything about the way Australia operates and Australians live.”

“Six per cent compound annual growth in the value of houses over the past 23 years versus 3% annual growth in average incomes has meant that household debt has had to increase from half to twice average disposable income, and from 40% of GDP to 120%. High-priced houses do not create wealth; they redistribute it. And it’s meaningless because we can’t use the wealth to buy anything else – a yacht or a fast car. We can only buy other expensive houses: sell your house and you have to buy another one, cheaper if you’re downsizing, more expensive if you’re still growing a family. At the end of your life, your children get to use your housing wealth for their own housing, except that we’re all living so much longer these days it’s usually too late to be useful. And much of this housing wealth is concentrated in Sydney, where the median house value is $1.1m, double that of Perth and regional Australia.”

From Mises.org. “In contrast to mainstream beliefs that monetary authorities can successfully iron out business cycles via interventionist policy, the Austrian school of thought recognizes such efforts to stimulate growth as inherently counterproductive and ultimately destructive. Inflationary booms inevitably sow the seeds of their own destruction and systemic collapse. Fear the booms, not the busts.”

“The Core of the Theory: Artificial Booms Lead to Busts. The cycle begins when central banks artificially force interest rates below their natural market level, disconnecting the cost of credit from genuine consumer time preferences and real resource availability. Artificially low rates strongly incentivize increased investment spending and highly speculative borrowing fueled by easy access to cheap debt. Businesses are thus induced to embark on new projects that would normally be entirely unprofitable under rationally higher financing costs. This surge of malinvestment driven by inflationary credit creation leads to overexpansion in various sectors, driving up asset prices and further feeding the frenzy of the boom mentality.”

“In this way, tampering with interest rates profoundly disrupts the critical balance between savings and investment in the real economy. The volume of investments funded by inflationary credit creation far outstrips the pool of real savings available. This leaves the boom without firm foundations, as monetary inflation creates an illusory mirage of prosperity. The seeds of collapse quietly take root under the surface during the boom years.”

“Eventually, the credit expansion fueling the artificial boom decelerates, and interest rates rise back to natural levels that reflect actual resource scarcity. The monetary illusion fades away as grim economic realities reemerge from their slumber. Investments justified solely by cheap money begin to fail without their inflationary propellant, exposing their underlying unprofitability. Speculative bubbles pop as expectations of endless monetary expansion confront reality. The economy initiates its long-delayed convalescence by finally purging the accumulated distortions and excesses seeded throughout the boom.”

“These lessons remain highly pertinent in the present day, as decades of ultraeasy money have possibly inflated the largest asset bubble in modern history. Policymakers face continued pressure to reflate the bubble to avoid economic fallout. Yet, Austrian theory offers a stark warning that market forces cannot be ignored perpetually. Artificially stimulated booms only set the stage for even harsher busts when the unavoidable correction finally culminates. Therefore, understanding the seeds of collapse inherently embedded in inflationary booms provides urgent insight into our precarious economic trajectory. Despite its political unpopularity, the economic downturn remains an inescapable presence on our journey, a path lined with reckless enthusiasm and the false promise of easily accessible credit.”

Related Posts
This Post Has 84 Comments

  1. ‘Those developments took shape in 2020 and 2021 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic when real estate values in Moab and throughout the West soared. Two years later, local housing experts agree that the sizzling market has fizzled somewhat: prices have plateaued and inventory is rising, partly due to an influx of construction projects. That’s not to say that housing was particularly affordable in 2020 or 2021’

    The bubble was trying to pop in 2020. I’ve come to see these manias as in perpetual crater: the markets are always trying to correct. Which is natural in economics. It’s supply/demand forces balancing toward equilibrium. This is literally Econ 101. As is the business cycle (a central bank phenomenon). Jerry and the central bankers aren’t economists. They are globalist scum witch doctors.

    1. The bubble was trying to pop in 2020.

      No coincidence that the engineered unleashing of the scamdemic gave the Fed the pretext to pump $4.5 trillion in created-out-of-thin-air “stimulus” funny money into the financial system, goosing the Fed’s asset bubbles and Ponzi markets. And now with the system looking shaky again, right on cue, a new “white long pnuemonia” makes its appearance in yet another election year. But connecting the dots and “noticing” might be bad for your social credit score.

    2. It’s Econ 101, tempered by Keynsian-inspired central bank intervention in perpetuity to steer markets a different direction than organic market forces would otherwise naturally take them. Because central bankers know better than the rest of us what best serves the common good…like perpetually unaffordable housing prices, for example.

    3. “As is the business cycle (a central bank phenomenon). Jerry and the central bankers aren’t economists. They are globalist scum witch doctors.”

      – This 👆

      – I have no quotes in support of Central Banks, except from Central Bankers and Communists. Anyone who loves freedom and liberty will know them as the evil, destructive force that they are.

      “The establishment of a central bank is 90% of communizing a nation.” – Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin

      “The surest way to destroy a nation is to debauch its currency.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

      “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

      The Ten Planks of the 
      Communist Manifesto
      1848 by Karl Heinrich Marx

       5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

      “I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. … You are a den of vipers and thieves.” – Andrew Jackson, 1834, on closing the Second Bank of the United States; (unabridged form, extended citation)

      “The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government…are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.” – Andrew Jackson

      “The Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson

      If progressives take over the central bank, they will have power beyond their wildest dreams to advance their destructive ideological agenda through economic policy that bypasses Congress. – Miranda Devine

      A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. – Ron Paul

      “There is no housing bubble” – Ben Bernanke 2006

      ‘We will not have any more crashes in our time.’ – John Maynard Keynes, 1927

      “Under the Federal Reserve System we shall have no more financial panics.” – Charles Hamlin, the first head of the Federal Reserve in 1915.

      “Interventionism inevitably leads to socialism, central banking inevitably leads to hyperinflation, total cashlessness inevitably leads to total surveillance, and “guaranteed income” inevitably leads to guaranteed enslavement. A deadly poison remains a deadly poison even when ingested in a gradual manner.” – Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski

      “The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth.” – Alan Blinder, former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 1994 on the PBS Nightly Business Report

      “Quantitative Easing is the last desperate gambit in this game of stimulating asset prices.” – Jeremy Grantham

      “Market analysis has now become central bank analysis. All the old methods of analyzing markets have given way to deciphering what the Fed or ECB will do next.”
– Richard Russell in one of his last Dow Theory Letters, October 2015

      “Earnings don’t move the overall market; it’s the Federal Reserve Board… Focus on the central banks and focus on the movement of liquidity… Most people in the market are looking for earnings and conventional measures. It’s liquidity that moves markets.” – Stan Druckenmiller

      “Investors know that we are there to prevent serious losses” – Jay Powell 2012

      https://news.yahoo.com/inflation-democracies-die-charlie-munger-205848064.html

      Inflation is how ‘democracies die’: Charlie Munger
      Yahoo Finance Video
      February 16, 2022

      Video Transcript
      CHARLES MUNGER: “Inflation is a very serious subject. You can argue it’s the way democracies die. So it’s a huge danger once you’ve got a populace that learns it can vote itself money. If you look at the Roman Republic, they inflated the currency steadily for hundreds of years. And eventually, the whole damn Roman Empire collapsed. So it’s the biggest long-range danger we have probably, apart from nuclear war. The safe assumption for an investor is that over the next 100 years, the currency is going to zero. That’s my working hypothesis.”

      “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” Attributed to Groucho Marx

  3. Workforce participation for 30-year-old women had increased from 32% to 50% by 1980, as a result of the social/sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s.”

    At some point the sheeple might start asking questions who orchestrated and promoted said “social/sexual revolution,” and what motivated this agenda that has caused incalculable harm to society.

    1. ‘He took the top 35 jobs in our area, across 10 of our counties, took the average pay and then the average rent or cost to buy a home and on the graph, a green check mark means it’s possible and red x, impossible. ‘Virtually no one could buy a house in these top 35 occupations on their own. But the other thing that was interesting was it is like what if we doubled it and said there were two wage earners in the household? They helped on the rental side to some degree. But that also said you better have somebody else in that house, earning a wage with you, where you better get a second job’

      Wives had to go into the workforce because of the cost of living, not a ‘sexual revolution’.

      2. People used to work 6 days a week. I heard that schools were 5 days + half a day on Saturday. Some Asian countries still follow this. Apparently, during the depression years the work week was reduced to 5 days. Not sure what the main underlying reason for this change was, but it seems that more people could have jobs if everyone worked less.

        1. during the depression years the work week was reduced to 5 days.

          And just like today, 25% of working age men were out of a job.

      3. “Wives had to go into the workforce…”

        Really started in the 70s after the Yom Kippur war and the Arab Oil Embargo put inflation into over-drive.

  4. “…Investments justified solely by cheap money begin to fail without their inflationary propellant, exposing their underlying unprofitability…

    No surprise, this is exactly what is going on in the tech sector.

    Cheap money has allowed big organizations to acquire smaller startups with sketchy prospects. That [inflated] helium balloon won’t travel all the way up to the sun.

  5. It’s been a rough couple of months for President Joe Biden and his feckless foreign policy team. Israel is going its own way in its war against Hamas, with renewed bombing in Gaza, and the American public is bitterly divided, all of which is reflected in polls that continue to be unfavorable to the White House.

    Meanwhile, the president and his foreign policy aides have also been left on the outside as serious peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have rapidly gained momentum.

    “Everyone in Europe is talking about this”—the peace talks—an American businessman who spent years dealing with high-level Ukrainian diplomatic and military issues in the government told me earlier this week. “But there are lots of questions between a ceasefire and a settlement.” The veteran journalist Anataol Lieven wrote this week that the battlefield situation in Ukraine and thus “a ceasefire and negotiations for a peace settlement are becoming more and more necessary for Ukraine.” He said that it was “exceptionally difficult” for the Ukrainian government headed by Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to talks, given its repeated refusal to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    The driving force of those talks has not been Washington or Moscow, or Biden or Putin, but instead the two high-ranking generals who run the war, Valery Gerasimov of Russia and Valery Zaluzhny of Ukraine.

    https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/general-to-general

  6. ‘According to data from the Utah Realtors Association and Zillow Home Value Index, housing values and sales prices both skyrocketed about $100,000 from 2020 to 2021 alone. Previously, it had taken four years for values to rise that much…‘We have a lot of new construction right now and the new construction is from pent-up demand,’ Moody said. She said her brokerage now has 133 residential units for sale, compared to 12 to 15 in early 2022. ‘2023 is definitely the year of inventory,’ she added. And there’s likely more coming. Elissa Martin, the director of Planning and Zoning for Grand County, said there’s an ‘astonishing’ number of approved but unbuilt units in the Moab Valley’

    Another reason bubble prices can’t hold: you can build more of these things.

    1. It’s a lot harder to build more in California, but it still happens at the tail end of a boom…even in Poway!

      1. Poway, CA new construction homes for sale
        236
        Homes
        Sort byRelevant listings
        Built by Century Communities
        1501 Wingwood Lane, Vista, CA 92083
        to be built
        tour available
        For sale
        From $819,990
        3bed
        2.5bath
        1,877sqft
        …
        https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Poway_CA/shw-nc/radius-25?cid=sem_15645899420_126561909730_570990944843:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!15120!3!570990944843!e!!g!!new%20construction%20homes%20in%20poway&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyKurBhD5ARIsALamXaEkXIh5QPSMlc1nkEjX97t1i1m6QGyQ3aFGaOhdNtyPORcn6nNYke0aApLnEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

        1. “to be built”

          Didn’t China get into a mountain of trouble with sales of preconstruction homes, just before the onset of an epic bust?

          1. China Economy
            China’s unfinished property projects are 20 times the size of Country Garden
            Published Tue, Nov 14 2023 11:58 PM EST
            Evelyn Cheng

            Key Points

            – The size of unfinished, pre-sold homes in China is about 20 times the size of developer Country Garden as of the end of 2022, Nomura analysts said.

            – “We estimate that there are around 20 million units of unconstructed and delayed pre-sold homes,” the analysts said.

            – Country Garden has been the largest non-state-owned developer in China by sales.
            …
            https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/15/chinas-unfinished-property-projects-are-20-times-the-size-of-country-garden.html

      2. With 100Ks of Californians packing up and permanently exiting the state every year, it’s hard to imagine where demand for new homes priced from the $1 millions will originate.

    2. “…Housing values and sales prices both skyrocketed about $100,000 from 2020 to 2021 alone.”

      This sounds like a bubble to me, but what would I know. Oh, wait, I recognized the mid-00’s bubble too, so maybe I do have a clue.

    2. Markets Roundup
      The latest news & analysis
      Today’s Action
      Market Data
      Stocks
      Quick Takes
      Personal Finance
      Your Money
      Newsletter Signup

      LIVE UPDATES | CONCLUDED
      Stock Market News, Dec. 1, 2023: Dow Finishes Above 36000, Indexes Post Weekly Gains
      Ulta Beauty shares rise; Dell, Marvell, Pfizer fall
      Last Updated:
      Dec. 1, 2023 at 7:28 PM EST

      A weekslong rally in stocks and government bonds has shown no signs of slowing down.

      The Dow rose for the fifth consecutive week, its longest winning streak since 2021. The S&P 500 jumped to its highest closing level since March 2022 after setting a new yearly high on Thursday. Read the week’s full markets roundup here.

      Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered the strongest signal yet that officials are likely done raising rates, saying the central bank’s policy is “well into restrictive territory.”
      …
      https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-12-01-2023

      1. Stock indices are never adjusted for inflation.

        Per the official CPI inflation calculator, $36,000 in September 2023 equals $2,023.46 in September 1929.

        The Dow Jones Index peaked at 381 in September 1929. So one could argue that there has been a net increase in value. But to what extent is that due to changes in the DJI line-up, or other factors?

        For one thing, it’s open to debate whether the CPI measurement and calculator are accurate; actual inflation over the years may well be higher than their numbers.

  11. “This has prompted many who live here to wonder: are we on the brink of a bubble ready to burst, or is this simply a passing phase of the Canadian real estate landscape?”

    Your price to income ratio is 13 and your idiotic enough to wonder if you’re in a bubble or not? Wow.

  13. From Vox Day’s website. Take it with a grain of salt:

    A US Secret Service agent who wished to remain anonymous has revealed to DCWeekly details about the arrangements being made for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s relocation to the United States. The agent claims that the Biden administration has issued orders to ensure the safety and accommodation of President Zelensky’s family starting in the spring of 2024.

    1. No SS protection for RFK, but Z gets the ‘streets paved with gold’ treatment. Why cant he employ his own Nazis for this? Every other oligarch in the world does.

      Once Z runs away to Paapa Joe does that mean Russia gets all of the Ukroid, not just the small part they were after?

      1. [A snip from the above article …]

        The agent, speaking anonymously, expressed deep concern about this order, as it goes beyond the typical protection provided to foreign dignitaries. He mentioned that many of his colleagues are equally troubled by the plan and have attempted to convey the impracticality of this arrangement to their superiors without success. The operation involves various divisions responsible for the security of foreign leaders, presidential security, and even the Citizenship and Naturalization services within the Department of Homeland Security. Essentially, Zelensky will be granted the privileges of a foreign politician while also enjoying the status of an American citizen. This marks an unprecedented development in US history, and the agent is apprehensive about setting a precedent that could lead leaders of US allied states to demand similar special treatment and pension plans. Fulfilling all the requested conditions will require a substantial allocation of budget funds and the involvement of a significant number of personnel.

        Zelensky himself is expected to take up residence in Florida, alongside his wife and two children. A lavish estate located in Vero Beach along the Atlantic shore, estimated to be worth $20,000,000, will be provided for this purpose. In addition to accommodation, American taxpayers will cover Zelensky’s security, transportation, domestic staff, and a personal assistant.

        The agent further reveals that the Office of Protective Operations has an annual budget of approximately $200,000,000. He estimates that the total expenses related to President Zelensky’s stay in the US will amount to at least $20,000,000, which represents a significant 10% of the office’s annual budget. While such expenditures could potentially be justified for the short-term visit of a foreign leader to the United States, the agent points out a concerning aspect: the government order did not specify an end date for Zelensky’s stay in the US. This lack of clarity arises from the operation’s involvement in the process of granting citizenship to Zelensky and his family, with their Certificates of Naturalization already issued.

        1. I suppose the message is “We take care of our vassal puppets even after they are no longer useful to us, so don’t be afraid to join team globo-homo. You will get rich and when it all comes crashing down you can spend your exile living in the lap of luxury in the USA and we will pay for it.”

          Of course, the question is, how long will he be protected and provided for by the US taxpayers? Will he be expected at some point to crack open his own wallet?

          1. I don’t care if he gets to live in a golden prison until some sniper picks him out early one morning. IMO this is the question we all deserve to have answered:

            We were told this war was necessary to keep the US from having to fight Russia. So when are we loading up the girly men to ship over there? Oh, we’re not going to do any such thing! Neither are the Germans or the French or any one else.

            So the whole basis for this was made up BS. We got several hundred thousand dead Russians. Several hundred thousand dead Ukrainians. And it was all for nothing.

            Remember that proxy warriors of the world. The US guberment will be happy to pay for you to lose a huge chunk of yer population and when it all goes to sh$t, and it always does, they will drop you like you never mattered. Which you never did.

          2. The article claims that Zelensky and his family have already been granted US citizenship. If that is true then the end is near.

            The golden prison reference is apt. He won’t be invited to any parties in Florida or in DC. It won’t even be safe enough for him to take the family to Universal or Disney.

            And to make matters even worse, he’s a member of the tribe, so most leftists won’t even talk to him.

            That compound will need some big walls around it.

          3. Remember that proxy warriors of the world. The US guberment will be happy to pay for you to lose a huge chunk of yer population

            I don’t think that bothers Zelensky for even a second. He has his offshore bank accounts and, apparently, a US Passport in his pocket. Would he have preferred to win the war and remain president of Ukraine in perpetuity? Of course. But the consolation prize isn’t bad, assuming he has the sense to bail before he is Ceausescu’d.

          4. I don’t expect it to. Now that Russia has prevailed and ended up stronger than ever, why aren’t we going to war? Because they aren’t a threat and never have been. Their economy is the size of Spain’s.

            This is a yuuge fail for the globalist scum and ‘foreign policy establishment’.

          5. For allegedly having such an anemic economy, comparable to basket case Spain, they were able to withstand everything the US threw at them: economic sanctions, destroying Nordstream, sending billions to Ukraine, etc.

            But I agree, they are not a threat. As to why the Western Left has been so determined to destroy Russia,it’s probably because they want to stipmine it the way they have done with other vassals.

            Anyway, another proxy war is headed for the ash heap and all we have to show for it are trillions more of debt.

          7. He could encounter the fate of the late Mussolini before leaving the country.

            The time to leave is now.Ego and the desire to rule the place for the next 40 years might make him stay until it’s too late.

          8. Zelensky and Victoria Nuland will be dining on shrimp scampi and wine while the Ukrainian officers are lined up and shot.

        2. “American taxpayers will cover Zelensky’s security, transportation, domestic staff, and a personal assistant”

          He needs to die before he can set foot in the United States. And if he doesn’t someone needs to hunt him down and kill him.

  15. Oh right and we aren’t going to audit were the over 200 billion went in the Russia/ Ukraine War.

    1. 200 billion? Like most things involving the garbage elite, the number is probably closer to a trillion. Maybe they could just mint a couple special platinum coins with 1trillion$ face value to pay it off.

      Whites killing Whites. General Butler was right, “All wars are Banker wars.”

  17. White House: High Prices Are ‘a Challenge’ But There Are ‘a Lot of’ Indications ‘People Are Optimistic’

    IAN HANCHETT
    2 Dec 2023

    During an interview with Bloomberg TV on Friday, White House Council of Economic Advisers member Heather Boushey stated that higher prices are “a challenge” “and it’s taken a while for things to get to a more steady state” after the pandemic, “And I think that has been hard on folks,” but there’s “a lot of economic news that indicates that people are optimistic.”

    Co-host Romaine Bostick then said, “There’s what the president has done and there’s also, though, what the president communicates. And I’m sure, as you know, Heather, we could sit here and parse the data and see the disinflationary trend. But, for a lot of folks, we know they’re just looking at absolute price levels. And if you go to them, and you ask that proverbial question, are you better off now than where you were four years ago or even a year ago, there are a lot of people, rightly or wrongly, that are going to say no.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/12/02/white-house-high-prices-are-a-challenge-but-there-are-a-lot-of-indications-people-are-optimistic/

    1. a lot of people, rightly or wrongly, that are going to say no.”

      Sorry Romaine, we all know how much is in the bank.

      Who names their kid after a vegetable?

  18. Steve Kirsch Gives Historical Speech to MIT Students – 30th November 2023

    Data bombshell from Steve Kirsch in speech at Kirsch Auditorium at MIT

    Watch an exclusive special episode of VSRF LIVE as we come LIVE from Kirsch Auditorium at MIT for a speech by VSRF Founder Steve Kirsch where he will deliver a data drop that according to Dr. Pierre Kory has the potential to change the entire narrative on the Covid-19 vaccines. The record level data will be revealed for three countries.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/7S7DyVXwnpmq/

    2 hours 25 minutes.

      1. Easy to say when it wasn’t tested.

        I only got through the first half hour so far, but it is very interesting and convincing. Damning is a better description.

        2. And when they plead that “mistakes were made, we need to put this all behind us”, remember that they wanted you fired from your job if you refused the experimental jab, and that if there are no consequences for this they will try to do it again. Guaranteed. IIRC they have legal teams drafting the next mandates to help ensure that they won’t be overturned by a judge.

          3. That’s what an Emergency Use Authorization means.

            I think he meant that they have been tested on the general population. Hence those nasty batch related death percentages out of New Zealand

          5. they have been tested on the general population

            Deployed is the more precise verb. I don’t see any efforts towards mass data collection.

          6. I don’t see any efforts towards mass data collection.

            Oh, I’m sure the data has been collected. Shared with the public? Not so much.

  20. ‘You’ve gone from a complete seller’s market to pretty much a buyer’s market…Everything just changed. It was a total whiplash…A lot of people put brakes on’

    Was it like somebody flipped a light switch Rachel? I always keep my eye out for that one.

  21. ‘I don’t feel like the municipalities are necessarily trying to restrict the development of affordable housing…They just need the ability to open things up, and a lot of it is our neighbors, our neighbors need to be open to the idea of building affordable housing in their area. The only thing really out there right now for developers to build are those luxury units, which is the only thing that pencils in for them these days’

    Yer paying too much for the land Robin.

    1. When you think about it, municipalities and counties have a vested interest in rapidly rising prices, as it means more property tax collected without having to provide all that much more service. And one way to accomplish that is to make subdividing as hard as rocks.

      1. They can use those extra property taxes to fund blue ribbon bureaucracies to sit around and discuss “affordable housing”, without ever coming up with a solution. And now, they can also fund the homeless industrial complex. Lots of good paying jobs at city hall, though all they do is burn money.

  22. Re: Inflationary booms inevitably sow the seeds of their own destruction

    Which gives the phrase “lowering the boom” an entirely new meaning . . .

    1. ‘It’s time for a correction’: The bull market in stocks may be on its last legs as consumers start to tap out
      Matthew Fox
      Dec 1, 2023, 11:19 AM PST
      Golden 3D model of bull and bear shadow on wall. Red chart with descending trend. Investing and stock market concept.
      OsakaWayne Studios

      – It’s time for a correction in the stock market, according to Wells Fargo investment strategist Chris Harvey.

      – Harvey said the US consumer is about to tap out and the Federal Reserve won’t be cutting interest rates anytime soon.

      – “The VIX is at 13, everyone’s really happy, and it’s time for either a correction or some sort of pullback as we enter the new year,” Harvey said.

      The stock market is due for a correction as the end of the year approaches, according to Wells Fargo investment strategist Chris Harvey.

      Harvey told CNBC on Thursday that a near-tapped out consumer and overly optimistic projections about interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve means now is not the time for investors to be chasing risk.

      Yet that’s just what they have done over the past month, with the S&P 500 jumping 8.9% in November, representing its 18th biggest monthly gain since 1950. Stocks continued their gains on Friday, with the the major indexes advancing by about 0.5%.

      Harvey said the VIX, also known as the stock market’s fear gauge, is hovering at the historically low level of 13. That’s a sign that investors might be getting too complacent at a time when they should be worrying about an economic slowdown.
      …
      https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-bearish-outlook-correction-now-bull-rally-ending-2023-12

Comments are closed.