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Reckoning With Decisions They Made When Money Was Abundant And Rates Were Low

A report from the Journal Sentinel in Wisconsin. “VineBrook Homes Trust, Milwaukee’s largest single-family landlord, might not be able to pay its bills next year. With a $1.2 billion debt coming due in 2024, VineBrook’s Dallas-based executives told regulators in November they weren’t sure VineBrook could ‘continue as a going concern’ in the next 12 months. To cover its debt, VineBrook plans to sell somewhere between 1,700 and 2,100 of its homes across the country in the next year, according to its third-quarter filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Just a few years after entering the Milwaukee market, ‘they’re bleeding cash,’ said Francine McKenna, a CPA and former Wharton lecturer who reviewed VineBrook’s recent financial statements at the request of the Journal Sentinel. ‘These guys are having to borrow like the dickens because they’re running ahead of the train, and the train is coming fast behind them,’ McKenna said.”

Gulf Shore Business on Florida. “Overall inventory of homes in Naples for November increased 38.8% to 3,795 properties from 2,734 properties in November 2022, according to Naples Area Board of REALTORS, which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island). Buyers have not enjoyed a level of choice since September 2020. The month also included 1,080 price decreases resulting in a 3.3% decrease in overall median closed price. New listings increased 23% to 1,174, while overall closed sales decreased 6% to 537. Properties spend an average of 59 days on the market, up by 28%.”

From Newsweek. “The housing market has proven to be a tough terrain in Joshua Tree, California, evidenced by a house that sold for $340,000 in December after being purchased for $600,000 in 2021, marking a $240,000 loss. Initially listed at $625,000 in early 2023, the home, situated east of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert, saw multiple price reductions over the year, finally settling at $340,000 in December, a 47.3 percent decrease from its 2021 purchase price.”

From Moneywise. “California’s once-glorious Golden Gate City is a shadow of its former self. Office towers sit empty, hotels are closing their doors, shops are boarded up to prevent crime and San Franciscans are ditching their beloved city in search of safe and affordable housing elsewhere. And the California city’s decline hasn’t gone unnoticed. Business leaders have been open about the problems eating into their bottom lines, such as the shrinking population and the lack of affordability in both commercial and residential properties. According to real estate company Savills, San Francisco had one of the lowest office availability rates in the U.S. before the pandemic at 9.5%; however, vacancy is now at 36.3%, up from 35.1% reported last quarter.”

“Another factor that caused retailers, in particular, to ditch downtown San Francisco during the height of the pandemic was crime — in particular, a huge surge in shoplifting incidents. While retail crime levels have since receded, many retailers, like Whole Foods, Walgreens and Nordstrom shuttered stores when things got bad.”

The Wall Street Journal. “Doak Hartley usually can’t go to a restaurant, grocery store or even church in town unnoticed. The chairman of Industry Bancshares gets stopped by customers asking about how to get a loan or where the economy might be headed. Lately, the questions are more complicated. Some want to know how many of Industry’s deposits are insured. (Between two-thirds and three-quarters at each of its banks.) Others have heard that Industry has a negative net worth and want to know what that means. (The bank owes more money than it has.)”

“Industry Bancshares, with some $5 billion in assets, is the parent company of six banks with more than two dozen branches scattered across stretches of farms and ranches in eastern Texas. It is one of the small banks in rural America whose local focus has long been a strength, inspiring years of loyalty from their neighbors to keep money down the street. Many of these banks are now reckoning with decisions they made when money was abundant and rates were low, crunched by the Federal Reserve’s rapid interest-rate increases.”

“Industry is currently more than $75 million underwater because it piled into long-term bonds when rates were low. Those bonds plunged in value and the bank’s liabilities have been exceeding its assets since soon after the Fed started to hike rates in 2022. In the wake of the pandemic, that business model has proven problematic. The banks were flooded with deposits. But loan growth had been slow, so banks turned to parking deposits in Treasurys, mortgage-backed securities and municipal bonds. While normally considered safe, the market value of those securities fell when interest rates climbed. That left many banks sitting on billions in paper losses, raising regulator and investor concerns.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Jessica lives with her pet Dachshund in a 600-square-foot condo she owns in Burlington. But despite making about $80,000 annually, plus benefits, she says the monthly struggle to cover her mortgage and other expenses means she’s still essentially living paycheque to paycheque. She takes home about $2,430 every two weeks after taxes. ‘One of my paycheques is dedicated to housing and the other is for everything else,’ she says. ‘Housing is like 50 to 60 per cent of my income.'”

“Jessica bought the place in 2020 with help from her family. She’d saved up about $21,000 in her RRSP, partially thanks to maxing out matching contributions at a past job, and her mom passed along $60,000 in inheritance after the death of her grandmother. She combined both for her down payment. Her father co-signed her mortgage. ‘That $80,000 down payment brought the monthly payments down to something I could afford,’ says Jessica, whose mortgage has a fixed interest rate of 2.5 per cent until 2025. ‘It was incredible timing. I am nervous that if interest rates don’t come down, I will have to sell my place.’ With her tight budget, she finds it hard to think about retirement. ‘If I can afford to retire, it’s going to be great, but somehow I doubt that’s going to happen.'”

News.com.au in Australia. “A homeowner left financially ruined from millions of dollars worth of building defects in her apartment block is disappointed that the government has rejected her plea for early access to her superannuation. Tamara Railton-Stewart, 48, believes she has now exhausted most of her options to scrape her way out of a lifetime of debt. The mum-of-one is among a number of victims involved in the collapse of Melbourne building company Shangri-La Construction, which went into liquidation in March this year. ‘I think people in my position should have access to their super,’ she lamented to news.com.au. ‘I am not asking for a hand out, but simply access to my own money.'”

“But earlier this month, Ms Railton-Stewart received a hammer blow from the Australian Treasury, which denied her plea for early release superannuation on compassionate grounds. ‘The treasury department will release superannuation to people for a boob job (and) a liposuction’ Ms Railton-Stewart said, referencing an incident from earlier this year where assistant treasurer Stephen Jones warned that people were gaming the early release super system to do just that. ‘But we’re looking at a lifetime of financial f***ness because we can’t get access to it.'”

South China Morning Post. “In an effort to boost a stagnant housing market, China’s local governments have been urging residents to sell their old homes in exchange for new ones, but the call has so far yielded lacklustre results with prospective buyers fearing that poor market sentiment will force them to offer hefty discounts on their old homes. While the scheme has been gaining traction over the past few months, notably in larger cities such as Nanjing and Wuhan, it has also sparked scepticism among prospective buyers and netizens.”

“‘I’m a bit hesitant to sell my current home because the market price has fallen a lot lately,’ said Yang, who owns property in Suzhou, a major city in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, which unveiled its exchange scheme in November. ‘It’s not the brokerage firms that are cutting prices,’ he said. ‘It’s just what the market is like at the moment. If you want to get eyeballs and sell your property fast, you’ll have to take big cuts on prices.'”

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This Post Has 94 Comments

  1. ‘It was incredible timing. I am nervous that if interest rates don’t come down, I will have to sell my place’

    Now Jessica I might be a little more sympathetic if I believed you weren’t stuffing expensive food in yer pie hole every day. Maybe even more than once a day!

  3. ‘I’m a bit hesitant to sell my current home because the market price has fallen a lot lately…It’s not the brokerage firms that are cutting prices,’ he said. ‘It’s just what the market is like at the moment. If you want to get eyeballs and sell your property fast, you’ll have to take big cuts on prices’

    Dammit Yang, don’t do it. I can tell yer thinking about giving it away.

  4. Just a few years after entering the Milwaukee market, ‘they’re bleeding cash,’ said Francine McKenna, a CPA and former Wharton lecturer who reviewed VineBrook’s recent financial statements at the request of the Journal Sentinel.

    Die, speculator scum.

    1. Why exactly are they bleeding cash? Milwaukee is really ghetto, it’s murder rate is at or near record levels since st Floyd of fentenyals death…maybe they can’t find anybody to knock on doors to collect rent on da first of da month?

  5. “Overall inventory of homes in Naples for November increased 38.8% to 3,795 properties from 2,734 properties in November 2022, according to Naples Area Board of REALTORS, which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island).

    Is that a lot?

  6. Initially listed at $625,000 in early 2023, the home, situated east of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert, saw multiple price reductions over the year, finally settling at $340,000 in December, a 47.3 percent decrease from its 2021 purchase price.”

    Not sure what’s more heartwarming: watching puppies playing with kittens, or watching greedhead sellers chase the market down.

        1. That’s not even a 1 bedroom – looks like a studio to me. I can see the kitchen from the “bedroom.”

          Driveway isn’t even paved. Backyard looks like you’ll be fighting dust storms when it’s windy or mudslides when it rains.

          I’ve lived in the High Desert and it’s not good outside weather for a lot of the year unless you MAYBE live in a paved, mature subdivision with a pool and overhead shelter. This looks just miserable to hang out in.

          Maybe $34,000. MAX.

          1. The suckers who bought this place in 2021 paid around $925 sq/ft. At least they don’t have to worry about lawn care.

    2. finally settling at $340,000 in December, a 47.3 percent decrease from its 2021 purchase price.”

      See, the “experts” were right. a 50% decrease is Unpossible!

  7. New York Times (via Archive) — Blinken Heads to Mexico as Migrant Caravan Moves Toward U.S. Border (12/27/2023):

    “Wednesday’s meeting will also include Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, and Liz Sherwood-Randall, the White House homeland security adviser.

    A huge caravan that began its journey north on Sunday is a sign of the enormous challenges in stemming the tide of migration. Local officials and news media reports in Mexico estimate that somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 people are making the trip.

    The southern border has been a consistent political vulnerability for President Biden, who promised on his first day in office to “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system” after the broad restrictions of the Trump years.

    The caravan, roughly 1,000 miles south of the U.S. border in the state of Chiapas, includes migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela and Haiti, among other countries.”

    https://archive.is/Tri9I

    10,000 future doctors and astronauts, right globalist scum media?

    They’ll be going door to door in YOUR neighborhood soon. And they won’t take no for an answer…

    1. Related article.

      The Hill — What to know about the migrant caravan heading to the US (12/26/2023):

      “But according to local reports, the caravan is in part motivated by Mexican enforcement actions in Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala.

      According to Diario del Sur, a local publication, more than 100,000 migrants are stalled in the city, awaiting paperwork allowing them free transit through Mexico.

      According to reports, the caravan’s leaders are carrying banners calling the movement an “exodus from poverty,” and it is mainly composed of people from Cuba, Haiti and Honduras.”

      https://thehill.com/latino/4377805-what-to-know-about-the-migrant-caravan-heading-to-the-us/

      100,000 is that a lot?

      1. 100,000 is that a lot?

        Tapachula is a city of about 300,000 people. I can see why they are eager for that mob to move north. But more will come. This is a Camp of the Saints event.

      2. According to reports, the caravan’s leaders are carrying banners calling the movement an “exodus from poverty,”

        These people are going to riot if they are denied membership in the Free Sh!t Army.

      3. Local update: the squeegee boys are out in force at Alameda and Santa Fe again today. Looks like they have farmed the women / girls out to the nearby corner median strips to beg now too.

        Some of them look like minors, Mayor Mike Johnston doesn’t care.

        1. Mayor Mike Johnston doesn’t care.

          He has his marching orders from the swamp: absorb as many invaders as possible.

          1. Does Castle Doctrine extend to the inside of one’s vehicle? If you’re trapped at a stoplight, you can’t really flee.

    2. They’ll be going door to door in YOUR neighborhood soon. And they won’t take no for an answer…

      You know how homes in the third world have a brick fence surrounding them, with bits of broken glass cemented to the top? Guess why they do it.

      Maduro and other banana republic tyrants must be ecstatic about offloading millions and millions of their useless eaters onto us.

      1. Yup, I do a LOT of street view google-mapping, in second-world countries too. All I see on the “residential” “streets” is wall-to-wall… wall.

        “Residential” <– I think people live there, but the whole “block” looks like it was strafed with a chopper 30 years ago and never rebuilt.
        “Street: <– Bare dirt that doesn't have scrub on it. You can kinda see that it's kindaofa path.

        As for not taking "no" for an answer, well, there are ways to prep for that.

        1. All I see on the “residential” “streets” is wall-to-wall… wall.

          Having the front of your house openly exposed to the street is very first world.

  8. Federal income taxes.

    Antiwar — Netanyahu Says He’s Looking For Countries To ‘Absorb’ Palestinians From Gaza (12/26/2023):

    “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a meeting of his Likud party on Monday that he’s working to bring about the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and looking for countries willing to “absorb” them, Israel Hayom reported.

    “Our problem is countries that are ready to absorb them, and we are working on it,” Netanyahu said. His comments are the latest sign that Israel’s ultimate goal is to cleanse Gaza of its 2.3 million Palestinian residents.

    Last month, Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel penned an op-ed for The Jerusalem Post calling for the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to other countries around the world. Two members of the Israeli Knesset wrote a similar op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that said Western nations should accept Palestinian refugees.

    A leaked document drafted by Gamliel’s Intelligence Ministry said pushing all 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza into Egypt was the ideal scenario for the Israeli government. But Egypt has refused to take in any Palestinian refugees, forcing Israeli officials to look elsewhere to facilitate their planned ethnic cleansing.”

    https://news.antiwar.com/2023/12/26/netanyahu-says-hes-looking-for-countries-to-absorb-palestinians-from-gaza/

    2.3 million is that a lot?

    1. “…cleanse Gaza of its 2.3 million Palestinian residents.”

      That might save U.S. taxpayers a few shekels over the long haul.

        1. +1. I’m 95% sure that B!b! was implying just that. You can almost hear it being whispered in the background. You say you’re a friend of I*****? Well then here you go.

        2. Why not send them to the West Bank where they won’t need to learn another language, and they can still throw rocks?

  9. That left many banks sitting on billions in paper losses, raising regulator and investor concerns.”

    After the 2008 financial crash, not a single Fed official, banker, ratings agency dissembler, auditor, or policymaker went to prison for causing the housing bubble bust & banking system meltdown. Meanwhile, hundreds of J6 protestors are rotting in the gulag for taking an unguided tour of the Capitol Building. One of these things is not like the other.

  10. “Jessica bought the place in 2020 with help from her family. She’d saved up about $21,000 in her RRSP, partially thanks to maxing out matching contributions at a past job, and her mom passed along $60,000 in inheritance after the death of her grandmother. She combined both for her down payment. Her father co-signed her mortgage.

    Jessica has no inkling she’s about to become a cautionary tale for the consequences of unsound lending and buying into a speculative asset bubble.

    1. From the globe and mail regarding her miscellaneous expenses:
      “…$20 on cannabis…”

      “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.” —Gilbert Shelton, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

  11. In coming 2 years “rich” baby boomers will flood the housing market with their “luxury” houses, particularly in golden state and will go …, that will start the crash… buy the popcorn…

    1. Markets
      CNBC TV
      Markets
      10-year Treasury yield dips to kick off final week of 2023
      Published Tue, Dec 26 2023 5:54 AM EST
      Updated Tue, Dec 26 2023 4:11 PM EST
      Samantha Subin
      Fred Imbert
      Traders watch prices in the Ten-Year Treasury Note options pit at the CME Group.
      Getty Images

      The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped on Tuesday to kick off the final trading week of 2023.

      The yield on the benchmark note
      dipped about 2 basis points to 3.893%. The 2-year note yield inched up more than a basis point to 4.352%.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/26/treasury-yields-dip-as-final-week-of-the-year-kicks-off.html

    2. Yahoo
      Motley Fool
      The Bond Market Just Sounded Its Most Severe Alarm in 50 Years. It Could Signal a Big Move in the Stock Market in 2024
      Trevor Jennewine, The Motley Fool
      Mon, December 25, 2023 at 3:55 AM PST·6 min read
      In this article:
      Market Red

      Recent signs of economic resilience have more and more investors giving credence to the “soft landing” narrative, a scenario in which the Federal Reserve successfully tames inflation without causing a recession. This growing conviction in this rather rare outcome helped propel the three major U.S. financial indexes higher in 2023.

      Year to date, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 13% and set new all-time highs, the broad-based S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) increased 23%, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite soared 42%.

      Yet, analysts at JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, among other financial institutions, still see a recession as a distinct possibility in the next 12-18 months. They are concerned that the impact of higher interest rates has yet to fully make its way through the economy, and consumers have propped up the economy so far with outsized spending that is depleting savings and causing many to take on added debt. Some analysts argue that an economic downturn is possible (or even probable) as those situations evolve.

      A potential confirmation of the analysts’ fears can be seen in the bond market, which is sounding its most severe recession alarm in decades. Read on to learn more.

      The Treasury yield curve remains inverted
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bond-market-just-sounded-most-115500585.html

      1. The Bond Market has been signaling the Great Apocalyptic Biblical Armageddon End Of Days Last Judgment Depression for 10+ years now.

        The Bond Market can go Elon itself.

    3. Why Morgan Stanley thinks the US economy could face a shock hard landing in 2024
      Jennifer Sor
      Dec 27, 2023, 6:50 AM ET
      graphic illustrating market downturn
      Getty Images

      – The US economy could slip into a surprise recession in 2024, Morgan Stanley warned.

      – The Fed and Treasury merely delayed a recession this year by propping up economic growth.

      – The Fed could slash interest rates next year as a downturn strikes.

      The US economy could be in for a surprise recession in 2024 that will put pressure on the Fed to drag interest rates lower, according to Morgan Stanley strategists.

      The bank listed its “Top 10 Surprises for 2024” in a note earlier this month, and among them is that a hard landing “arrives in style.”

      “The biggest surprise of 2024 may be that the elusive hard landing finally arrives after all – just after most investors concluded that ‘this time was different indeed,'” the bank said. “It took most of the year for the consensus to fully embrace the soft landing narrative – a consistent feature of our base case since 2022. But it won’t take that long for investors to kick themselves for having been fooled again.”
      …
      http://www.businessinsider.com/us-economy-outlook-2024-shock-hard-landing-recession-morgan-stanley-2023-12

  14. ‘It’s just what the market is like at the moment. If you want to get eyeballs and sell your property fast, you’ll have to take big cuts on prices.’

    That reminds me of some San Diego Zestimates I have recently seen. What does it mean for the owners of a home if the Rent Zestimate is $4,099, but the last 30-day change in market value is -$13,887?

    Simple arithmetic suggests a net monthly loss of at least $13,887 – $4,099 = $9,788, not considering other ownership costs or that the home is not currently rented out. On an annual basis, 12 * $9,788 = $117,456, which is more than the San Diego median income of $98,928. Good thing for real estate investors that they are all rich enough to shoulder such massive gambling losses!

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9060-Buckwheat-St-San-Diego-CA-92129/16808889_zpid/

    https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2023/09/14/income-increase-california-census

    1. Business
      San Diego rent prices have dropped 5 months in a row. See if they dropped in your neighborhoods
      One of San Diego’s newest apartment buildings, Casa Verde in North Park.
      San Diego rents are down, or flat, to end the year. Pictured: One of San Diego’s newest apartment buildings, Casa Verde in North Park.
      (Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
      Forecasts have rents continuing to drop in the first half of 2024. San Diego County rarely has rent drops in its history
      By Phillip Molnar
      Dec. 27, 2023 5:30 AM PT

      There’s a chance it might be easier to be a San Diego renter next year.

      San Diego County rents are ending the year down from previous highs, following a national trend. The average monthly rent for a county apartment is $2,397 a month, said real estate tracker CoStar. That’s down from $2,406 a month to start the year.

      A 0.4 percent drop in rents in a normal market would be hardly notable, but this is San Diego we’re talking about. Rent was up 13.4 percent in a year to start 2022, and it’s rare to find much historical precedent for drops. In CoStar records going back to 2000, the biggest drop was a 2.2 percent annual reduction in the third quarter of 2009.

      Most of the rent reductions have only happened in the last half of this year, with December marking five months of rent declines in San Diego County.
      …
      https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2023-12-27/san-diego-rent-prices-have-dropped-5-months-in-a-row-see-if-they-dropped-in-your-neighborhoods

  15. Capitol Alert
    California lawmakers finally tackle reparations. Will $68 billion budget deficit get in the way?
    By Lindsey Holden
    Updated December 27, 2023 7:29 AM Watch: California reparations task force dives into what is owed
    After more than a year delving into history and studies to make its case for reparations to California descendants of enslaved Black people, a first-in-the-nation task force begins deliberations Dec. 14, 2022.
    By Fox KTVU via VideoElephant

    California lawmakers next year face huge political and financial challenges as they seriously consider reparations for Black descendants of slaves. While Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative lawamakers tend to agree there’s a great historic injustice that needs to be righted, implementing any reparations policy faces these flashpoints:

    ▪ The budget. The $68 billion state budget gap could make the already daunting task of paying for any reparations a lot tougher.

    ▪ The voters. They’re about to start casting primary election ballots in a just a few weeks, and Californians have mixed opinions about how to handle the issue.

    ▪ The governor. As Newsom actively seeks to boost his national stature, will he be eager to defend reparations?

    The Legislative Black Caucus next month plans to unveil the first handful of bills addressing recommendations the state’s reparations task force spent years developing.
    …
    Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article283400763.html#storylink=cpy

    1. People leaving California moving here in record numbers, data shows
      By Alexa Mae Asperin
      Published 17 hours ago
      Updated 53 mins ago
      FOX 11
      – People leaving California to Arizona in record numbers
      – More Californians are flocking to the Grand Canyon State.

      LOS ANGELES – Californians looking to escape the high cost of living are apparently moving in droves to Arizona more than anywhere else in the U.S., new data shows.

      That’s according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which estimates Phoenix has been a popular relocation destination not only for Californians but all Americans between 2017 and 2021.

      Of that figure, 1 in every 5 people (about 184,000 people) who relocated to Arizona during that time frame came from California. The state with the next highest number of movers was Washington at just over 50,000. Texas, Illinois, and Colorado rounded out the top five states.
      …
      https://www.foxla.com/news/california-residents-moving-relocating-arizona-phoenix-us-states-data-shows

    2. ▪ The budget. The $68 billion state budget gap could make the already daunting task of paying for any reparations a lot tougher.

      With property values headed down, especially commercial, I expect that $68B to continue to get worse. I recall the deficit being the the 31.5 B range earlier in the year.

      From May 12th 2023
      How Gavin Newsom wants to close California’s $31.5 billion budget shortfall

  16. Free sh*tters gonna free sh*t.

    CNBC — It’s a ‘massive student debt strike’ activist says, as millions of borrowers still aren’t making payments (12/27/2023):

    “The Supreme Court in June blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt per borrower — and those warnings are now becoming real. To that point: just 60% of people with federal education loans, with payments due in October, paid their bill by mid-November, U.S. Department of Education data published this month show.

    Outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. now exceeds $1.7 trillion, burdening Americans more than credit card or auto loan debt.

    The repayment problems for borrowers are “unfortunately unsurprising,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director at the Student Borrower Protection Center.”

    Deputy executive director? WTF is this, the Free Sh*t Industrial Complex?

    “Neither borrowers nor the student loan system were prepared to resume repayment,” Yu said.

    Yu pointed out that Biden’s plan to cancel student debt was designed to alleviate borrower hardship, and she blamed the legal challenges to the president’s relief and the Supreme Court’s decision for the current situation.

    “What we see happening is the natural consequence of the right wing’s effort to kill debt relief,” Yu said.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/27/millions-of-student-loan-borrowers-still-arent-making-payments-.html

    The right wing.

    If you borrowed $80,000 for a Masters Degree in Obama Studies, you deserve everything you signed up for.

  17. Top 5 Biden Corruption Stories the Media Ignored in 2023

    WENDELL HUSEBØ
    27 Dec 2023

    1) Report: ABC, NBC, CBS Morning News Ignore Chinese Money Wired to Joe Biden’s Address

    In September, Breitbart News reported cable morning news shows on ABC News, NBC News, and CBS News apparently ignored the bombshell revelation that President Joe Biden’s home address received two bank wires totaling $260,000 in 2019 from Biden family Chinese business partners.

    2) ABC, CBS Evening Programming Ignores Bombshell Whistleblower Claims of Hunter Biden’s ‘Preferential Treatment’ from DOJ

    3) WaPo, NYT, Politico, CNN, MSNBC’s Main Front Pages Fail to Feature IRS Whistleblower Claims Against Biden’s DOJ

    4) Politico Ignores Allegations of Bribery While Praising Biden’s European Wardrobe

    5) White House, Democrat, Media Claims of “No Evidence” to Support Biden Impeachment Inquiry Contradicted by Mountains of Evidence

    In September, Breitbart News reported the White House, Democrats, and their allied media outlets pushed outright disinformation by claiming there is “no evidence” to support an impeachment inquiry into Biden, contradicting mounds of evidence uncovered by House Republicans and already in the public sphere.

    Stories the establishment media ignored in 2022 are here.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/12/27/top-5-biden-corruption-stories-media-ignored-2023/

    1. I’m way past the point of caring what the legacy media has to say about anything. All my news comes from other sources. These days, twitter. Heck, my weather forecasts come from twitter. And they’re predicting a long, sustained polar vortex in North America the first week of January with lots of snow. Winter is coming folks.

      1. The Columbia Basin is experiencing a warmer than usual winter this year with little snow, mostly fog and drizzle. It took forever for the leaves to drop this Autumn.

  18. Of Course: Far-Left ‘Disinformation’ Operatives Tied To EU Investigation Of X, Receive White House Christmas Card

    WEDNESDAY, DEC 27, 2023 – 07:45 AM

    As regular readers know, in large part thanks to former Senate investigator Paul Thacker (at the Disinformation Chronicle), and Matt Taibbi’s crew at Racket News, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) ‘think tank’ is nothing more than a partisan censorship operation whose goal is to silence dissent. Truly evil stuff, particularly considering that the Biden White House peddled obvious foreign lies created by CCDH – smearing 3rd party Biden rival Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as part of their ongoing efforts to support the establishment.

    And so, it should come as no surprise that CCDH, founded by former Labour party official Imran Ahmed, has helped the EU open ‘formal infringement proceedings against X.’

    “The @CCDHate team has been briefing EU officials since October 7, using our research on the tidal wave of hate and disinformation coming from social media,” wrote Ahmed.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/course-far-left-disinformation-operatives-tied-eu-investigation-x-receive-white-hou

    Paul D. Thacker
    @thackerpd
    A Christmas card from his friends in the White House…

    What exactly is the relationship between the Biden administration and Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate? https://tinyurl.com/mvye44zr

    https://x.com/thackerpd/status/1737091667130208353?s=20

  19. Ms Railton-Stewart received a hammer blow from the Australian Treasury, which denied her plea for early release superannuation on compassionate grounds.

    I had to look that up. Early release superannuation is the Outback equivalent of taking money from a compulsory 401K, except you need gov permission to do it.

    Lemme guess. The Aussie gov is short on cash too and can’t let go of any of its deposits.

    1. Yeah, instead of social security Aussies are forced to save into a 401K like program and upon their retirements they can purchase an annuity with the proceeds. In other words, no guaranteed monthly benefit amount, just like a 401K or an IRA.

  20. Southern Man
    @MagicBelle1

    Has Steven Hutcherson, the 36-year-old black man who screeched “I want all the white people dead” and “I want to sit next to the crackers” prior to stabbing two white teenage girls on Christmas Day been charged with a hate crime yet?

    https://nypost.com/2023/12/26/metro/two-girls-14-and-16-stabbed-at-grand-central-on-christmas/?fbclid=IwAR0aWyDAn71y_2DjYZwzVaXbn0a0lSER4Yi2RyF3QZon7L3WeElcItsiJn8

    https://x.com/MagicBelle1/status/1740032412124434733?s=20

  21. VineBrook Homes Trust, Milwaukee’s largest single-family landlord, might not be able to pay its bills next year. With a $1.2 billion debt coming due in 2024, VineBrook’s Dallas-based executives told regulators in November they weren’t sure VineBrook could ‘continue as a going concern’ in the next 12 months.

    Finally, confirmation that these large specu-vestors were using dumb borrowed money with much shorter duration.

    I can’t wait to watch them all head for the exits at the same time… This may make it harder to manipulate the market than the last time around! Fingers crossed–sure hope so!!

    1. If their average shack debt is 400K, that’s 3000 shacks, though it’s probably more shacks than 3000.

      I wonder if they will try to sell them to the occupants, assuming that enough of them can qualify for a loan.

      1. Milwaukee is a dump with a record high murder rate. They can’t collect rent is my guess. The entire town is a ‘collect the rent in person on the first of the month” kind of town. Although the city is democrat, The western suburbs are really red. You can see there is one road west of Waukesha I believe that’s the dividing line, to the west is solid red, to the east is solid blue.

  22. CIA accused of hiding records that analysts took ‘monetary incentives’ to bury COVID lab leak finding

    By Social Links forJosh Christenson
    Published Dec. 26, 2023

    The think tank’s Oversight Project filed a federal lawsuit against the CIA Dec. 22, alleging the agency did not comply with its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about analysts who allegedly “received monetary incentives to change their position on the origins of the virus,” according to a copy of the complaint first reported Tuesday by the Daily Caller.

    The suit in Washington, DC, federal court asks for “a preliminary and permanent injunction compelling” the CIA to expedite the production of records requested by Heritage within 20 days or “by such other date as the Court deems appropriate.”

    “The Biden Administration has refused to be transparent with Congress and the American people over the origins of COVID-19,” said Kyle Brosnan, chief counsel for the Oversight Project.

    “A CIA whistleblower has made serious allegations that the agency bought off employees of the agency to further obstruct efforts to get to the truth of the virus’s origins. This obstruction cannot stand and we’re fighting in federal court to get to the bottom of this.”

    https://nypost.com/2023/12/26/news/cia-accused-of-hiding-payments-to-bury-covid-lab-leak-report/

          1. Amazing to think he survived the Allies bombing Dresden while a POW there, and lived to write about it.

          2. I have read that novel, one of the most gripping perspectives on human existence I have experienced.

  23. It’s interesting that despite its reputation as a hellhole of social decay and depravity, California cities don’t necessarily rise to the top in terms of crime risk.

    1. The 10 Least Safe US Cities Over Holidays Named by Security Firm
      Dec 27, 2023 at 7:30 AM EST
      By Benjamin Lynch

      St. Louis, Missouri, was the most dangerous city for Americans over the holiday season, according to a new study.

      Analysis by a security firm looked at the volume of property crime, Google Trends and numbers from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to rank the most unsafe cities in the United States during the holidays.

      At the top of the list compiled by security firm Vivint with the highest “risk score” was St. Louis. Newark, Delaware, was next, followed by Salt Lake City, Utah, Denver, Colorado, and Seattle, Washington.

      “Among the 182 U.S. cities we analyzed, St. Louis, Salt Lake City and Denver topped the list of the riskiest cities for crime during the holiday season. Focusing on the specific risk factors contributing to these rankings shows that different cities present unique security challenges,” Vivint said.

      The top 10 cities are as follows:

      St. Louis, Missouri
      Newark, Delaware
      Salt Lake City, Utah
      Denver, Colorado
      Seattle, Washington
      Burlington, Vermont
      Rutland, Vermont
      Atlanta, Georgia
      Minneapolis, Minnesota
      Portland, Oregon
      …
      https://www.newsweek.com/most-dangerous-cities-united-states-holiday-season-1855740

      1. 5 of the coolest places in America where you can still buy a home for $175K or less
        Updated: April 10, 2023 at 10:17 a.m. ET
        By Brienne Walsh
        The housing market is challenging right now. But we’ve found spots that are still affordable.
        There are still affordable spots to buy a home. Getty Images/iStockphoto

        Most of the real estate news aspiring home buyers read these days is, well, ugh. But here are a few more promising points: Mortgage rates have dipped for the last four weeks, according to the National Association of Realtors, and are down from their highs earlier this year (see the lowest mortgage rates you can get here). And home prices are 2.6% below their peak last June, according to Black Knight data. And while you may be priced out of cities like Austin, Raleigh or Phoenix, there are still plenty of cool places around the United States where you can find houses for less than $175,000.

        If you’re looking for a family-friendly spot: St. Louis, Missouri
        St. Louis downtown city skyline at twilight. Getty Images/iStockphoto

        Best known for the Gateway Arch, which rises 630-feet above the city, and honors the legacy of the explorers Lewis & Clark, St. Louis offers plenty to do for families, including encounters with aquatic life at the St. Louis Aquarium, playtime on the multi-story playground at the City Museum, St. Louis Cardinal games at Busch Stadium and movies in the Omnimax at the Saint Louis Science Center. Full of festivals including PrideFest in June and the Fair Saint Louis in July, which calls itself “America’s Biggest Birthday Party,” the city also prides itself on its culinary scene, with Food & Wine readers recently naming it the next great food city. Great restaurant options include iNDO, which serves Southeast Asian food, and Vicia, which has a months-long waiting list.

        Average home value: $148,441
        Population: 302,787
        Cost of living: 17.3% lower than the U.S. average
        …
        https://www.marketwatch.com/picks/5-of-the-coolest-places-in-america-where-you-can-still-buy-a-home-for-150k-or-less-01657222747

      2. Newark, Rutland, and Burlington are surprising. What kind of crime is going on in a small town like Rutland? Opioid issues?

        1. I found it surprising to see Salt Lake City on the list. I have spent a fair amount of time there, and one of my sons completed college there. We have neither witnessed nor been victimized by crime.

          A fellow grad school alum’s child was the victim of a horrendous crime there several years ago, but it struck me as an anomaly, not part of a pattern.

      3. If you want your car to get stolen, Dumver is your town. Park it at an airport parking lot to increase the chances of it being stolen.

  25. ‘Jessica bought the place in 2020 with help from her family. She’d saved up about $21,000 in her RRSP, partially thanks to maxing out matching contributions at a past job, and her mom passed along $60,000 in inheritance after the death of her grandmother. She combined both for her down payment. Her father co-signed her mortgage. ‘That $80,000 down payment brought the monthly payments down to something I could afford,’ says Jessica, whose mortgage has a fixed interest rate of 2.5 per cent until 2025. ‘It was incredible timing. I am nervous that if interest rates don’t come down, I will have to sell my place.’ With her tight budget, she finds it hard to think about retirement. ‘If I can afford to retire, it’s going to be great, but somehow I doubt that’s going to happen’

    Yer kind of a mess Jessica.

    1. ‘It was incredible timing. I am nervous that if interest rates don’t come down, I will have to sell my place.’

      She dated the rate, and the rate screwed her.

  26. ”she has now exhausted most of her options to scrape her way out of a lifetime of debt. The mum-of-one is among a number of victims involved in the collapse of Melbourne building company Shangri-La Construction, which went into liquidation in March this year. ‘I think people in my position should have access to their super,’ she lamented to news.com.au. ‘I am not asking for a hand out, but simply access to my own money’

    ‘But earlier this month, Ms Railton-Stewart received a hammer blow from the Australian Treasury, which denied her plea for early release superannuation on compassionate grounds. ‘The treasury department will release superannuation to people for a boob job (and) a liposuction’ Ms Railton-Stewart said, referencing an incident from earlier this year where assistant treasurer Stephen Jones warned that people were gaming the early release super system to do just that. ‘But we’re looking at a lifetime of financial f***ness because we can’t get access to it’

    You gave yer money to the guberment Tamara, and they fooked you.

  27. Brampton, Mississauga & Durham Real Estate Update – Things Don’t Look Great (Dec 20, 2023)
    Team Sessa Real Estate

    49 minutes ago

    In this episode we take a look at the current Brampton, Mississauga, Ajax, Whitby, Pickering Real Estate home prices and market trends for week ending Dec 20, 2023.

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

    12 minutes.

  28. For reference, the post-2009 to 2023 period was analogous to the Roaring 20s, and the Fed tightening is most likely the beginning of the end of the boom, not the beginning.

    1. Markets
      The Roaring 20s are so back, baby! (Probably. Ok, maybe…hopefully?)
      Matthew Fox
      Dec 27, 2023, 4:40 AM PST
      Read in app
      The Great Gatsby
      Warner Bros. Pictures/Roadshow Entertainment

      – The Roaring 20s could be back as the stock market and economy show signs of strengthening.

      – The end of a global pandemic, a strong US consumer, and record highs in the stock market are just a few similarities between the 1920s and today.

      – But while the Roaring 20s ended with a stock-market crash and the Great Depression in 1929, experts say this time is different.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-economy-decade-outlook-roaring-20s-investors-crash-chances-2023-12

    2. Six months is when it will all begin. There’s too many anecdotal stories of woe and reduced consumer spending for it to not break. Closed car repair shops, struggling salons, pain everywhere I look. Even my farm to table consumer meat purveyor lowered their prices this month. $15 for a 16 oz bone in rib-eye which is half price.

  30. Vivek Ramaswamy

    @VivekGRamaswamy
    If you’d have told me nearly 3 years ago when I was just a CEO that Jan. 6 was an inside job, I would’ve said that’s crazy talk. It’s not. There is now clear evidence that there was at the very least entrapment of peaceful protestors, similar to the fake Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot & countless other cases. The FBI won’t admit how many undercover officers were in the field on Jan 6, Capitol police on one hand fired rubber bullets & explosives into a peaceful crowd who they then willingly later allowed to enter the Capitol. That doesn’t add up & the actual evidence turns the prior narrative upside down: if the deep state is willing to manufacture an “insurrection” to take down its political opponents, they can do anything. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
    1:38 PM · Dec 27, 2023
    ·
    1.7M
    Views

    https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1740079766911303712?s=20

  31. Do you stay up nights worrying that US housing prices may slide into a ginormous CR8R, as they already have done in China and Germany?

    1. Financial Times
      Chinese economy
      Sliding Beijing home prices spur alarm in China’s property sector
      Discrepancy between broker testimony and official data fuels fears authorities are playing down extent of crisis
      Residential buildings under construction in Beijing, China
      A drop in home prices in Beijing, where well-paid government workers have been protected from wider economic turmoil, has been particularly notable
      Sun Yu in Beijing December 20 2023

      House sellers in Beijing are cutting prices aggressively, according to brokers, despite official statistics that show the housing market in the Chinese capital remains buoyant.

      Interviews with more than two dozen real estate brokers across the capital, long one of China’s most desirable real estate markets, show transaction prices have fallen between 10 and 30 per cent from their peak in 2021.

      Their testimony runs counter to a widely watched National Bureau of Statistics index of existing home sale prices in Beijing and adds to concerns about the impact of the property market slowdown on the broader Chinese economy’s struggle to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

      According to the NBS, Beijing’s existing home prices dipped 1.4 per cent in November year on year, and were up 5 per cent from two years ago.

      “That is very different from what the public feels,” said Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank China. “The government may want to use official numbers to restore confidence in the market.”
      …

    2. German home prices tumble amid property rout
      By Tom Sims and Rene Wagner
      December 22, 2023 1:03 AM PST
      Updated 6 days ago
      Construction sites are photographed in Frankfurt, Germany, July 19, 2023. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

      FRANKFURT, Dec 22 (Reuters) – Residential property prices in Germany continued their fall, dropping 10.2% in the third quarter from a year earlier in a further grim sign for the real-estate sector in Europe’s largest economy, data on Friday showed.

      It was the fourth consecutive quarter of declines and the biggest since Germany’s statistics office began keeping records in the year 2000, underscoring the nation’s biggest property crisis in decades.

      “Until 2022, there was a speculative price bubble in Germany, one of the biggest in the last 50 years,” said Konstantin Kholodilin from the macroeconomics department of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

      “Prices have been falling ever since. The bubble has burst.”

      For years, the property sector in Germany and elsewhere in Europe boomed as interest rates were low and demand strong.

      But a sharp rise in rates and costs has put an end to the run, tipping developers into insolvency as bank financing dries up and deals freeze.

      The decline for single- and two-family homes in major German cities was especially pronounced in the third quarter – 12.7%, while apartment prices fell 9.1%.
      …
      https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-home-prices-fall-record-102-third-quarter-2023-12-22/

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