A Formula For Grotesque Over-Capacity
A report from KETV Omaha in Nebraska. “With two growing kids and only one bathroom, Andrea and Aaron Boschult are looking to size up. ‘Two bedroom, two bath,” Andrea Boschult said. ‘A little bigger yard and maybe a garage.’ ‘It doesn’t have to be a massive yard,’ Aaron Boschult chimed in. They’ve been looking for about six months and are finding it difficult with a budget of around $250,000. ‘You got to go into it like ready to go,’ Aaron Boschult said. ‘Yes, at or above asking price. This house we were able to offer lower and we got accepted,’ Andrea Boschult said.”
“But the housing market has changed since then. Realtor Derick Lewin said the Boschult’s situation is not uncommon. ‘We’re coming down from an extreme seller’s market more to in the middle. We’re starting to see sellers are able to pay some of the buyer’s closing costs and that’s helping bridge that gap. We need a more balanced market,’ Lewin said. For the Boschults, they are even looking at other options if they can’t move. ‘We’ve talked about should we just finish our basement and put a bathroom in our basement. Would that be easier,’ Andrea Boschult said. ‘Maybe even cheaper,’ Aaron Boschult said.”
The Hollywood Reporter in California. “As interest rates soared and Measure ULA (aka the mansion tax) scared off potential sellers, 2023 became the year of the luxury rental in Los Angeles. ‘Interest rates got so high, and then there was so much buyer fatigue,’ says Kevin Krakower of Douglas Elliman. ‘People just got exhausted, and they decided just to lease.’ ‘The problem becomes no one’s going to treat a house like you would as a landlord,’ says The Agency’s Zach Goldsmith. ‘So, your house can get trashed. There could be damage. People may not want to get out. We have that instance right now where we’re doing a sale … and the guy who’s leasing won’t leave.'”
“Real estate brokers are seeing a new glut of luxury rentals from $20,000 and above, with the many of the highest-end homes sitting empty, waiting to be rented out. ‘So many owners of luxury property have decided not to sell because of the mansion tax and maybe they have a good loan, so they have put their properties on the market for lease instead,’ says The Oppenheim Group founder and Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim. ‘So you’ve got an oversupply of properties available to prospective tenants in the luxury space.'”
The Detroit Free Press in Michigan. “A succession of luxury apartment buildings have opened in the past nine months, greatly expanding options for those with the desire and financial means to live in new amenity-filled buildings with stunning views, impressive addresses and rent prices that might startle longtime Detroiters. Many of the latest buildings have yet to lease up, with developers seemingly holding out for tenants who will pay close to their full asking rent. Some are dangling one-time move-in discounts, rather than adjust their rents to a lower baseline.”
“And the market’s biggest test still lies ahead. Later next month, a newly constructed 25-story, 496-unit luxury apartment building, The Residences at Water Square, is expected to open at the former Joe Louis Arena site on the downtown riverfront. This giant glass tower will have some of the highest-ever asking rents in Detroit, with one-bedroom, 668-square-foot units on upper floors starting at over $4,000 a month. One of the developers, Hunter Pasteur CEO Randy Wertheimer, was asked at the grand opening whether he thinks Detroit’s upscale housing market could be getting oversaturated. ‘I hope not,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll find out in the next six to 12 months.'”
The Real Deal on Tennessee. “Nashville has more than 16,000 vacant apartment units, and that figure could drastically increase in the next couple of years, given that another 18,000 units are in the pipeline, the Nashville Business Journal reported, citing data from CoStar. The multifamily vacancy rate in Nashville is nearing 11 percent. ‘Last year saw 7,200 units absorbed. Let’s couple that figure with the arrival of another 9,000 units this year and another 8,000 units in 2025. Even if [absorption] continues at this rate, we’re still not going to get anywhere near being full,’ said Michael Cobb, CoStar Group’s Nashville director of market analytics.”
Community Impact in Texas. “The Houston office market has grappled with persistent challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic began, as reported in a Jan. 9 office market update from the Greater Houston Partnership. Highlights include a decrease in occupied space, increased availability of office space and the impact of the work-from-home trend. The vacancy rate for newer buildings completed in the past 15 years before the fourth quarter of 2023 averaged 17.3%, while the vacancy rate for older buildings completed before 2008 was 27.2%, according to the GHP report. Older buildings requiring longer commutes have encountered difficulties, contributing to increased vacancy rates in that segment, Winthrop Realty Group Principal Andrew Armour said. The challenges faced by these offices are reflected in negative net absorption and higher availability rates. The oversupply of office space coupled with the absence of rent growth has limited landlords’ ability to increase rents, hindering office construction, Armour said. These offices have struggled with negative net absorption and stagnant rent growth since 2014.”
CTV News in Canada. “A B.C. senior who has spent more than $3.4 million on the construction of a home on the Sunshine Coast has been granted an injunction against the former co-owners of the property, who have contributed only $115,000 to the project. Maria Sandberg Jones and the two men she bought the property with in May 2020 – Leslie Thomson and Andrew Press – are involved in ongoing claims and counterclaims against each other in B.C. Supreme Court. While the litigation is still ongoing, Justice Anita Chan granted Jones an injunction earlier this month that requires Thomson and Press to vacate the property, which will allow Jones to sell it and recover some of her investment.”
“‘Ms. Jones can no longer afford to live in the home once it is complete,’ Chan’s decision reads. ‘She needs to sell it, before she defaults on the RBC construction loan. She has been advised by a realtor that to list it now.’ Chan found it’s possible that Jones will not be able to recover her full investment in the property even if she’s able to sell it. ‘There is evidence that the plaintiff has already suffered monetary damages that cannot be cured,’ the decision reads. ‘The defendants obtained an appraisal for the property in October 2023 which put the appraised value at $2.85 million. The evidence is the plaintiff has put in approximately $3.47 million.'”
“‘If the injunction is not granted, the plaintiff continues to suffer from the stress and anxiety of the mounting costs, and when she is no longer able to make the monthly payments on the RBC construction loan, the property will be foreclosed,’ the decision reads. ‘The plaintiff will receive less from any foreclosure sale. If the plaintiff is eventually successful on this action, based on the evidence, she will not be able to collect any damages from the defendants.'”
Eastern Daily Press. “The number of property millionaires plummeted in East Anglia last year, amid higher mortgage costs and tougher housing market conditions. By the end of 2023, there were almost 10,000 fewer homes valued at £1m or more than the previous year, bringing the total number of properties in this price bracket to 62,812. The 13pc reduction comes following a bumper few years for the local housing market. In 2020, more million pound homes were sold in Norfolk than any other county in the UK, due to a sudden surge in demand for countryside properties during the pandemic.”
“Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills said: ‘The race for space and dash to the countryside from mid-2020 drove a sharp increase in the number of £1 million homes outside of London and other urban settings. However, increased mortgage costs and a rebalancing of demand back to city living have meant about 30% of those whose homes crossed the £1 million threshold, have, for the time being at least, become aspiring million pound homeowners once again.'”
Domain News in Australia. “Interest rate rises have taken the heat out of the NSW regional property market, pushing house prices lower in a string of once-rising towns. Lismore, which continues to feel the impact of unprecedented floods, recorded the largest fall in prices again. House prices in the regional local government area dropped 19.2 per cent to a median $493,000, from $610,000 in December 2022. That was followed by Yass Valley (down 12.3 per cent), Murray River (down 10.7 per cent) and Armidale (down 9.6 per cent). More popular coastal areas of Ballina, Mid-Coast and Byron Shire all recorded less than 10 per cent declines.”
“KPMG’s director of planning and infrastructure economics Terry Rawnsley said regional NSW was now in a boom and bust cycle – especially in sought after lifestyle locations. ‘The 20 per cent drop we’ve seen in the last two years is more of an adjustment of where it would have been without COVID taking place.'”
The Telegraph. “Chinese equities have been a ‘value trap’ for an eternity. The Shanghai Composite index has halved since 2007 even in nominal terms. Xi Jinping’s erratic political assaults on China’s wealth producers have been calamitous. Debt-deflation has done the rest. The market has decoupled drastically from US, Japanese, and European equities. A study by Capital Economics found that all the key indicators of economic deformity are as bad today as they were 15 years ago, and must be tackled in far less auspicious circumstances: the debt ratio has doubled to 300pc of GDP; the world is less willing to tolerate predatory Chinese mercantilism; the demographic dividend has been spent. The workforce contracted by 6.6m in 2023, and will shed 7.9m on average each year through to 2030.”
“Investment was 43pc of GDP in 2023, higher than it was when Wen Jiabao deemed it a dangerous addiction. No major country in modern history has been close to this. It is a formula for grotesque over-capacity. Real estate and construction are still taking 46pc of the pie, just as they did in 2007. Cement output per capita remains three times higher than in most societies. The incremental capital output rate (ICOR), measuring how much investment is needed to generate each extra unit of GDP, was two in the 1990s, three in the early 2000s, and is now nine. Government credit policy has lost all traction.”
“Some of us have been arguing for a decade that China mania was a naive extrapolation of untenable past growth rates, and that the country would not displace the US as the world’s economic superpower by mid-century as long as the Party clung to Leninist control and allocation of credit. The failure is now beyond doubt.”
South China Morning Post. “China’s capital market, valued at US$13 trillion at its peak in December 2021, has withered by one third since then. Stocks listed in Shanghai, the largest of three mainland bourses, lost US$1.45 trillion of their value since the peak. Blossoms Shanghai, Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai’s hit about the heady opportunities and possibilities during the early 1990s in China’s financial hub, has captured the collective nostalgia of an entire nation, in more ways than one. Set in 1992, Blossoms tells the story of A Bao, who struck it rich by punting on the earliest stocks listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, highlighted by a concoction of buying craze, wild price swings and insider trading subplots.”
“China was minting dollar billionaires like the fictional A Bao in Blossoms Shanghai at the rate of almost one every day in 2020, before everything came crashing down. ‘It is all tears and sorrow now, when people like me look back at the stock market,’ said Lu Shunxi, a stock punter since trading first began in Shanghai in November 1990. ‘The birth of China’s stock market gave an opportunity to novice investors who were drawn to a casino-like market to gamble and prosper.'”
“‘Trading shares has become my biggest mistake in life since I keep losing money over the past two decades,’ said Li Yan, an employee with a state-owned media company in Shanghai. ‘I have had to deposit more money into my brokerage account to try to overturn the losses. But the attempts have all resulted in more nightmares.’ Li is not alone. Even veterans and hedge fund stars have been brought to their knees in China’s market slump for misreading the tea leaves.”
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‘You got to go into it like ready to go’ …‘Yes, at or above asking price’
Andrea and Aaron, you guys are definitely winnahs!
‘increased mortgage costs and a rebalancing of demand back to city living have meant about 30% of those whose homes crossed the £1 million threshold, have, for the time being at least, become aspiring million pound homeowners once again’
You know Lucian, aspiring isn’t a bad thing. Being a shack loser just makes them want to be winnahs! even more.
‘The 20 per cent drop we’ve seen in the last two years is more of an adjustment of where it would have been without COVID taking place’
I’ve mentioned before that the way people talk about minor respiratory illness is like nothing before. Dropping the words now alludes to a mythical era, where shack prices rose like a fart in a windy stadium. Do you even remember the period? Global imprisonment in yer shack. Close yer business and SHUDDAP about it! Oh yeah, great times.
“the way people talk about minor respiratory illness is like nothing before. Dropping the words now alludes to a mythical era”
Mass Formation Psychosis.
User
Will a large influx of corporate investors into an asset class traditionally owned and occupied by American families potentially drive prices and rents out of reach for young households who just need a place to live?
ChatGPT
Yes, the large influx of corporate investors into residential real estate can potentially impact prices and rents, making it more challenging for young households to find affordable housing. When corporations and institutional investors acquire significant portions of the housing stock in a particular area, they may drive up prices by competing with individual buyers and pushing the market value of properties higher. Additionally, these investors often focus on maximizing rental income, which can lead to increased rents for tenants.
Furthermore, the purchasing power and resources of these large investors may enable them to outbid individual homebuyers and investors, reducing the availability of affordable homes for purchase. This situation can exacerbate housing affordability issues, especially for young households and low- to moderate-income families who may struggle to compete in the housing market.
In areas where housing supply is limited and demand is high, the presence of corporate investors can further strain housing affordability by reducing the number of homes available for owner-occupation and driving up rental prices. This can ultimately make it more challenging for young households to find suitable and affordable housing options.
Human Interest
My family of four can no longer live comfortably on $230,000 a year — here’s how much the American Dream really costs
By Andrew Court
Published Jan. 27, 2024, 8:00 p.m. ET
…
https://nypost.com/2024/01/27/lifestyle/my-family-of-four-cant-live-comfortably-on-230k-a-year/
Yep, federal and state income taxes, private schools and bareback health insurance. $230k/yr is a lot of money if you have to earn it.
That’s his first problem right off the bat.
He and his wife are retired, living off the interest on their savings. They didn’t have to live in the Bay Area. They could have moved somewhere else that is nicer, safer and much cheaper. They chose to remain in that unbearable sh!thole.
“The good thing about living in San Francisco is that there are so many career and money-making opportunities… There’s just too much excitement to leave to a lower cost area of the country to try to save money at the moment.”
His words.
My guess is that the real reason they stayed is because they are Asian.
Good point.
“…impressive addresses…”
Really? LOL
If AirBnB Was Honest | Honest Ads (4m33s)
“If anybody could crack the code to build a $250,000 three bed, two bath home and make a profit doing that, they’d be an overnight sensation,” Lewin said. ………For the Boschults, they are even looking at other options if they can’t move. ………”We’ve talked about should we just finish our basement and put a bathroom in our basement. Would that be easier,” Andrea Boschult said………”Maybe even cheaper,” Aaron Boschult said.
——————————–
The average SFH tract homes across the street where i grew up had that happen the last few years after decades of nothing, then at least 10 houses had finished basement, glassed in back porches or they opened the roof to add more bedrooms…..
And now some good news for a Sunday.
Politico — The News Business Really Is Cratering (1/27/2024):
“Journalists across the country burst into flames of panic this week, as bad news for the news business crested and erupted everywhere all at once.
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire publisher of the Los Angeles Times, laid off 20 percent of his newsroom. Over at Time magazine, its billionaire owners, Marc and Lynne Benioff, did the same for 15 percent of their unionized editorial employees. This latest conflagration had ignited at Sports Illustrated the previous week as catastrophic layoffs were dispensed via email to most staffers. Business Insider (whose parent company Axel Springer also owns POLITICO) jettisoned 8 percent of its staff while workers at Condé Nast, Forbes, the New York Daily News and elsewhere walked out to protest forthcoming cuts at their shops.
The news business has always been cyclical, dipping during economic downturns and then improving on the upswing. But not so anymore, as our economy has been surprisingly strong of late. Nearly everywhere you look — the Washington Post, NPR, Vice, Vox, NBC News, Texas Tribune, WNYC, Barstool Sports, just to name a few — companies have axed huge swathes of staff. Newsroom employment is down more than 26 percent since 2008. Buzzfeed News is dead. The magazine business has atrophied, too, as newsstand revenues have fallen from $6.8 billion in 2006 to $1 billion in 2022. Looking on as the media business bleeds out, journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, a man who once evangelized for the industry’s electronic future, folded his hands in his lap like a mortician and asked in his blog if it was time to give up on old news. Citing the dark layoff news, Jarvis tidied the corpse-in-the-making. Trust in journalism has melted, he noted, and private equity shops like Alden Global Capital are cannibalizing their newspapers.
The cause of the business’ decline is simple. As tech analyst Benedict Evans succinctly put it in a post this week, “There’s very little you can say about the finances of the newspaper industry that you couldn’t have said 15 or 20 years ago. The old model went away: you had an oligopoly over both advertisers & readers, and real-estate agents and car dealers paid for your social purpose. Now they don’t need you.”
As journalism falls into eclipse but does not completely vanish, newsrooms will continue to contract. This is terrible for the workers who will be discarded. But worse still, it sends a market signal to aspiring journalists that they should avoid the profession because there are no vacancies to fill.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/27/is-the-journalism-death-spasm-finally-here-00138187
But worse still, it sends a market signal to aspiring journalists that they should avoid the profession because there are no vacancies to fill.
Well, that’s how market economies work.
If you want guaranteed work, along with never ending shortages and breadlines, go to a communist nation.
Sometimes an entire industry rolls over. I heard a recent professional leather ball throw around was streaming only. That would have been unthinkable fairly recently. Cable TV might go away. ‘Network news’ isn’t very informing nor interesting unless you like watching people set their hair on fire. Newspapers and magazines are even more useless now.
‘News’ all sells the same product with varying degrees of Biden affirming propaganda. No need for dozens of new outlets when one or two Biden approved publications will suffice.
The streaming nfl game was to drum up interest in nbc’s fledging Peacock steamer. Again, all the streamers sell the same product with varying degrees of wokeness. No need for 20 different streaming services.
The German government coalition may be on thin ice: social tensions are increasing while means are finite and tight because money is simply running out, said Bence Bauer, Director of the Hungarian-German Institute for European Cooperation of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC). According to the expert, there has been overspending in recent years (Ukraine, re-arming, migration, accelerated energy transition), and now there are hardly any funds left to tackle specific social and economic crisis issues.
While it is impossible to make clear generalizations on a national level because of the East-West divide, how can one describe the political mood in Germany at the moment?
The mood is at rock bottom, with 82 percent of those polled considering the work of the Olaf Scholz led federal government to be bad. Discontent and social frustration are running very high, especially in the East. According to the latest national opinion polls, the CDU/CSU party alliance stands at around 30-32 percent at the federal level, while the three governing coalition parties collectively barely hit that figure: SPD 13-14 percent, Greens 14 percent, FDP four to five percent. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is between 22 and 24 percent, and clearly has much more support in the East, i.e. there is a West-East divide, with the AfD much more popular in the East, while the Greens are particularly disliked there.
For months now, the Alternative for Germany party has been relentlessly gaining ground. When will this stop and can it continue until 2025?
The party was founded in 2013 and was initially able to successfully take off on the euro bailout issue. Later on, it focused attention on the migration crisis with all its problems, such as public security, social services, education, housing, but especially the financial burden and irresponsible spending involved. If the traditional parties, especially the governing ones, cannot address this problem very quickly, they will drive support for AfD even higher. The AfD has from the very beginning highlighted the problems of migration and all its consequences. Unfortunately, events have proved the AfD right.
https://magyarnemzet.hu/english/2024/01/germanys-domestic-politics-thickens
The mood is at rock bottom, with 82 percent of those polled considering the work of the Olaf Scholz led federal government to be bad.
Vote for commies, that’s what you get. I’m sure their promises were seductive: net zero without any cost, millions of hostile migrants easily absorbed, etc.
Of course, instead of “tapping the brakes”, gold old Olaf is doubling down on everything that fails.
Methinks that if support for the current coalition is only 30%, then support for the AfD is higher than polling indicates. They are probably on track to win the next elections, which is why the current government is panicking and keeps yelling that the AfD are Nahtzis and have to be banned to save “democracy”.
migrant family has been camping in broad daylight outside the Midtown headquarters of billionaire George Soros’ lefty advocacy group Open Society Foundations — which poured tens of millions of dollars into pushing loose immigration policies, shocking video footage shows.
The video, posted Wednesday on X by activist and political consultant Jason Curtis Anderson, shows a mother he claims is a Asian migrant sitting in the freezing cold on a gray blanket spread along the sidewalk outside of Soros’ grant-making network’s offices on West 57th Street near Broadway.
“They pride themselves on taking care of the homeless and immigrants’ rights, but they’re letting people literally die on the sidewalk 20 feet from the front door,” said Anderson, who works nearby.
“George Soros has enough money to take care of our entire homeless budget, but instead of spending money on housing and doing the things [migrants] need, he’s only spending money on the [open borders and immigrant rights] advocacy work — but not on housing and services.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/migrant-homeless-family-camped-outside-george-soros-lefty-group-s-nyc-offices/ar-BB1hm4Co
“not on housing and services”
Cattle tax slaves, that’s YOUR responsibility.
Go watch your sportsball games today, then tomorrow it’s back to work to generate taxes to fund your replacement. You are being replaced.
Related article.
Biden Admin Rolls Out Record-Shattering Border Report in Friday Afternoon News Dump (1/27/2024):
“The report, released on Friday afternoon, shows that Border Patrol agents along the southwest border with Mexico apprehended 249,785 migrants who illegally crossed the border in December between ports of entry. This is up by 12 percent from the 222,018 migrants apprehended one year ago and more than 11 percent compared to the Biden-era record of 224,370 set in May 2022.
The December report brings the southwest border total for the first quarter of FY24 to nearly 630,000 migrant encounters. More than half of these encounters (325,739) were classified as single adults.”
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2024/01/27/biden-admin-rolls-out-record-shattering-border-report-in-friday-afternoon-news-dump/
Single adults, did you say?
The graph accompanying the article notes that approximately 4 million single adults have entered the U.S. illegally from FY21 through FY24 YTD.
4 million is that a lot?
Experts?
Great Replacement can’t happen fast enough for these globalists, time to bring in some experts (they’re all phony credentials).
HuffPaint — Right-Wing Talk Of An ‘Invasion’ And ‘Civil War’ Risks Rise In Vigilantism, Experts Say (1/26/2024):
“Right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, leader of the MAGA youth groups Turning Point USA and Students for Trump and the host one of the most listened-to podcasts in the United States, encouraged his listeners this week to take up arms in preparation for an “invasion” of immigrants at the southern border.
“The break-ins, the looting, the murder, the rapes, the arson, it’s — by the way, this is just getting warmed up,” Kirk said Wednesday on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” echoing white supremacist talking points depicting immigrants and asylum seekers as inherently criminal. “You got 15,000 fighting-age males that are getting deployed all across the country. Native-born Americans, you better buy weapons, everybody. Have a lot of guns at your disposal. I would never leave your home without a weapon. It’s the new country we live in. It is ‘Mad Max.’ [President Joe] Biden is creating ‘Mad Max.’ You’re on your own.”
The day before, Tucker Carlson, who had hosted the former Fox News prime-time juggernaut “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” had also suggested it was time for civilians to take matters into their own hands.
“It’s unanimous: Everyone in power, from the White House, to the hedge fund managers, to the Supreme Court of the United States, has decided to destroy the country by allowing it to be invaded,” Carlson told his 11 million followers on X (formerly Twitter). “That leaves the population to defend itself. Where are the men of Texas? Why aren’t they protecting their state and the nation?”
Kirk and Carlson — both of whom have long promoted the “great replacement theory,” falsely suggesting Democrats are bringing migrants into the country to “replace” white people — were responding to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this week that said the federal government could remove dangerous razor wire Texas had installed along its border with Mexico.
In his response to the ruling, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) released a statement Wednesday that used language eerily reminiscent of Southern states’ statements of secession ahead of the Civil War: He threatened to defy the Supreme Court decision, declaring that the “federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States.” The next day, Republican governors from 25 states issued a joint statement supporting Abbott, praising him for “stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and terrorists entering our country.”
It was the latest, most dramatic escalation between Abbott and President Joe Biden over the situation at the border — an escalation experts say has corresponded with increasingly dangerous rhetoric from prominent conservatives that could encourage violent vigilantism targeting immigrants.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-vigilantism-invasion-immigrants-greg-abbott_n_65b3f960e4b0d407294f09d9
Sponsored content article provided to you by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti Defamation League.
One pearl-clutching article deserves another. Globalist scum media are recoiling in horror at the backlash developing to the Biden regime’s mass importation of 3rd World benefits spongers and criminal invaders. “Christian nationalism” is the latest bugbear the usual “experts” funded by the likes of Soros are claiming as a mortal threat to “Our Democracy.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9adk/trucker-convoy-eagle-pass-texas-border-dispute-christian-nationalism
There was an article that kept appearing on my news feed, about a petition to US Catholic bishops to not support the Orange Man because “kristchun nashionalis” (sorry for the deliberate misspelling, just trying to keep this post out of moderation.)
According to the article headline, over 12,000 “kristchuns” have signed the petition, and the two thoughts crossed my mind:
1) What a pathetically low number
2) I’m gonna guess they are clergy from leftist denominations.
Biden Admin Rolls Out Record-Shattering Border Report in Friday Afternoon News Dump
Saw this in the Daily Mail:
I seriously doubt these people came over because of what they saw on old American sitcoms and movies: a prosperous middle class. They came because UN funded NGO workers blew in their ears, with tales of joining the Free Sh!t Army once they successfully broke into the US, and maybe even financially and logistically helping them get to Mexico. I wouldn’t be surprised if old, obsolete cruise ships were chartered to bring them across the ocean.
Soros is funneling millions of dollars to treasonous far-left groups in Texas to facilitate the Great Replacement.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/george-soros-pours-millions-texas-shifting-power-dems
China has had a population decline for the second straight year. It’s a symptom of a much bigger issue. After seven years of a dropping birthrate and an increasing death rate, the nation is headed toward a demographic collapse, reports Reuters.
The National Bureau of Statistics said that the total number of people in China dropped by 2.08 million, to 1.4 billion, in 2023 and is likely to continue dropping to just around half a billion by 2100.
In 2023, there were nine million births in China, less than half of the total number of babies born in China in 2016, reports The Associated Press. Meanwhile, the death rate continues to rise, hitting 11.1 million in 2023, which is the highest level since the Cultural Revolution of 1974.
Additionally, the marriage rate fell by nearly half from 2013 to 2022 and the nation’s total fertility rate is 1.09, far below the 2.1 “replacement” birthrate needed to keep a population stable. The working-age population is falling, while the percentage of the population over age 60 is greater than 20%.
Communist Party lectures on “family values” are having little effect, reports The Wall Street Journal. President Xi Jinping told women last October that they must “start a new trend of family” but China’s young women aren’t buying it.
Financial incentives like cheaper housing, tax benefits and straight cash payments are not changing the minds of China’s women. There are other factors as well, including economic uncertainty, a youth unemployment rate of 21%, and ongoing discrimination against women.
The government is even going as far as calling and texting women to “encourage” them to have more children. One woman, who hid her second pregnancy a decade ago, and was fined $10,000 when officials found out, now gets text messages from government officials encouraging her to have more children. She deletes them in anger.
“I wish they would stop tossing us around and leave us ordinary people alone,” she told The Washington Post.
Concerned about “over-population,” China implemented a policy in 1979 that restricted families to just one child. The policy was softened in 2015, allowing families to have two children, and then in 2021, families could have three children.
China is now facing the fallout from that policy.
Male children were more highly valued than female children, leading to sex-selected abortions (hundreds of millions), and infanticide of baby girls born alive. The male preference also impacted girls post birth, resulting in neglect of health care and nutrition, “often ending in premature mortality,” found an academic study from 2011. Families were punished for having more than one child with fines, loss of jobs, beatings, imprisonment and torture of relatives, reported NPR in 2021.
Yuan Xin, a professor at Nankai University and vice-president of the China Population Association, added that “the downward trend in China’s total population is bound to be long-term and become an inherent characteristic.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/after-the-one-child-policy-china-s-population-is-heading-toward-demographic-collapse/ar-AA1nbUOQ
‘infanticide of baby girls born alive’
You’ve got blood on yer hands globalist scum.
When the one child policy was implemented decades ago, this demographic time bomb was predicted.
THere is a documentary called the “Imagineering Story”, about the history of the various Disney theme parks around the globe. It documents that when they designed the Shanghai park, it was created for the following family visit demographic: 4 grandparents, two parents, one child.
Now isn’t that a nice upside down pyramid? China’s demographic collapse has only just begun.
Their version of Rape of the Sabines will be stealing all the US west coast Asian women back to China….
Foreclosure Sale
1164 West Lil Ben Trail
Flagstaff, AZ 86001, Coconino County
3 Beds 2.5 Baths 2,180 Sq. Ft.
https://www.auction.com/details/1164-w-lil-ben-trl-flagstaff-az-1402488
“Lil’ Ben Trail.” Clearly, Ben, this shack was meant for you.
Clearly !! why, its the perfect shack to practice that violin outside at night with the cay-otes.
Flagstaff is at a high elevation, but I imagine their winter season is short given their latitude.
‘The defendants obtained an appraisal for the property in October 2023 which put the appraised value at $2.85 million. The evidence is the plaintiff has put in approximately $3.47 million.’”
But…but…muh generational wealth!
Will posting a Texas flag to your social media account land you on “a list”? What will be the impact to your social credit score? Asking for a friend.
The border convoy, albeit well intentioned, sounds like another alphabet agency Fedsurrection entrapment scheme.
Proceed at your own risk…
Agreed.
Question election integrity. False flag #1.
Question open border. False flag #2.
‘It is all tears and sorrow now, when people like me look back at the stock market,’ said Lu Shunxi, a stock punter since trading first began in Shanghai in November 1990.
Fake wealth created by fake money was always unsustainable in the long run. When the Fed’s Everything Bubble implodes for real, even the dullest of the retail investor muppets will finally recognize these gold collar criminals as charlatans and frauds of the highest order.
Our friend in Hawaii sent me this:
🇨🇦 didn’t look like this 5 years ago.
Canadians need to remove every single politician in charge if they want a shot at not falling behind.
https://twitter.com/StephenPunwasi/status/1751444706414715326
The globalists are going to conjure up another global emergency, and try to cancel as many elections as they can
3 U.S. military killed at an “outpost” in Jordan near the Syrian border overnight.
War pigs already blaming Iran. Get ready for $5 gas, peasants.
Man in white coat: “These Russians, Nancy…are they in the room with us now?”
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-784082
Globalist scum media is reporting a US base in Jordan was attacked, but the Jordanians are saying the post that was attacked was not on its territory. Curiouser & curiouser.
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2024/01/29/Jordan-condemns-attack-on-US-military-seeks-US-support-against-Iranian-influence
Has China’s stock market finally turned the corner?
Financial Times
Chinese equities
Chinese regulators curb short selling as market downturn deepens
Measures come into effect from Monday and are designed to ‘create a fairer market order’
A person flies a dragon kite in Shanghai, China
The change comes as regulators face increasing pressure to arrest a stock sell-off
Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong 7 hours ago
Keep up with the latest news on Asia’s biggest economy.
Explore the China Focus hub
China has moved to officially limit short selling after informal efforts failed to stop a worsening stock market sell-off.
Investors who buy shares will not be allowed to lend them out for short selling within an agreed lock-up period, the Shenzhen and Shanghai bourses said on Sunday.
The measures, which will come into effect from Monday, are designed to “create a fairer market order”, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said. Further limitations on securities lending will be introduced from March 18, the regulator added.
Regulators are coming under increasing pressure to halt the stock sell-off, which has been fuelled by uncertainty over the country’s economic growth prospects.
China’s premier Li Qiang last week promised to deliver “more forceful” state support for the market. But shares fell on Friday, ending a three-day winning streak and suggesting that investors were not convinced by Beijing’s stimulus measures.
The benchmark CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks closed 0.3 per cent lower on Friday, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises index in Hong Kong dipped 2 per cent.
The CSI 300 fell 11 per cent in 2023, its third consecutive year of decline. The Hang Seng index, where many of China’s biggest companies are dual-listed, fell 14 per cent over the same period, its fourth consecutive annual fall.
Sunday’s announcement marks an escalation by the regulator, which has been using informal curbs to try and stem outflows since October. Regulators have been issuing private instructions — known as “window guidance” — to some investors, preventing them from being net sellers of equities on certain days.
More recently, Chinese authorities have tightened capital outflow movements by limiting access to funds that invest in offshore securities.
…
https://www.ft.com/content/1f9775a8-1dc9-48c1-aa74-c633ca95390f
From the Dumver Post:
Sounds like Denver is quickly running out of other people’s money to spend on the invaders. Meanwhile, TABOR refunds are are about $4B this year. If only they could keep that money and spend it!
Boycott Denver.
Just stop spending money there that contributes taxes to that doom loop. No more sales taxes, and (obviously, for me) no property taxes.
Onward Christian Soldiers.
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1751691808210362484
Securing the Realm!
Every time creepy Orwellian tech companies jettison “woke” workers who are Big Brother’s Little Helpers when it comes to heavy-handed social media censorship and deplatforming of truth-tellers, an angel gets its wings.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5ynvw/google-cuts-search-results-algorithm-quality-rater-jobs-appen-contract
‘‘So many owners of luxury property have decided not to sell because of the mansion tax and maybe they have a good loan, so they have put their properties on the market for lease instead…So you’ve got an oversupply of properties available to prospective tenants in the luxury space’
I understand it’s tough to get an a$$pounding like that Jason, but you go don’t giving it away!
‘was asked at the grand opening whether he thinks Detroit’s upscale housing market could be getting oversaturated. ‘I hope not,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll find out in the next six to 12 months’
That could be interesting Randy as you probably have a loan coming due with a whopping big interest rate change.
‘Last year saw 7,200 units absorbed. Let’s couple that figure with the arrival of another 9,000 units this year and another 8,000 units in 2025. Even if [absorption] continues at this rate, we’re still not going to get anywhere near being full’
Sux to be you Mike, how do you like those 5% cap rates now?
‘and the two men she bought the property with in May 2020…are involved in ongoing claims and counterclaims against each other…’Ms. Jones can no longer afford to live in the home once it is complete,’ Chan’s decision reads. ‘She needs to sell it, before she defaults on the RBC construction loan. She has been advised by a realtor that to list it now.’ Chan found it’s possible that Jones will not be able to recover her full investment in the property even if she’s able to sell it. ‘There is evidence that the plaintiff has already suffered monetary damages that cannot be cured,’ the decision reads. ‘The defendants obtained an appraisal for the property in October 2023 which put the appraised value at $2.85 million. The evidence is the plaintiff has put in approximately $3.47 million’
‘If the injunction is not granted, the plaintiff continues to suffer from the stress and anxiety of the mounting costs, and when she is no longer able to make the monthly payments on the RBC construction loan, the property will be foreclosed,’ the decision reads. ‘The plaintiff will receive less from any foreclosure sale. If the plaintiff is eventually successful on this action, based on the evidence, she will not be able to collect any damages from the defendants’
So judge Anita, yer saying Maria is set for a major a$$pounding on a 2020 spend? Wa happened to my minor respiratory illness?
‘Xi Jinping’s erratic political assaults on China’s wealth producers have been calamitous. Debt-deflation has done the rest’
And don’t leave out the videos of 16 million people screaming out their windows in one city in indefinite lockdown. It wasn’t just the rich that suffered by a long shot.
‘It is all tears and sorrow now, when people like me look back at the stock market…The birth of China’s stock market gave an opportunity to novice investors who were drawn to a casino-like market to gamble and prosper’
They saw you coming from a mile away Lu. You sound like the kind of person who walks into a sign pole.
Are there any California cities where it would be best to avoid buying a home?
Yahoo
Housing Market 2024: Avoid Buying a Home in These 4 California Cities
Heather Taylor
Sun, January 28, 2024 at 2:05 PM CST·3 min read
The new year is still young, but predictions are already emerging about what to expect in the 2024 housing market.
One popular forecast involves determining which cities offer the most affordable housing compared to cities where home prices will continue to rise. This is especially of interest to buyers planning to purchase real estate in California. If you want to buy a home in California this year, which cities should future homeowners avoid?
Redding
In January 2024, CBS reported key findings from real estate firm CoreLogic detailing 20 U.S. cities where there are likely to be pricing gains for residential real estate. The top gainer was Redding, a city in Northern California.
According to CoreLogic’s predictions, home prices in Redding could rise as much as 7.3% in 2024. Zillow data shows the current average Redding home value is $375,981, down 0.2% over the past year.
San Francisco
San Francisco’s reputation for exorbitantly expensive real estate doesn’t have plans to decline significantly anytime soon.
Redfin reported San Francisco was among the least affordable housing markets in 2023. One of its key findings revealed San Francisco homebuyers with the typical local income would need to spend over 80% of their pay on monthly housing costs.
Though data from Realtor.com predicts San Francisco may experience a projected decline of -5.2% in home prices this year, it may not be enough of a decrease to sway buyers.
San Francisco ranks at sixth place in U.S. News’ 25 Most Expensive Places to Live in the U.S. 2023-2024. The Bay Area city also ranked in 10th place as one of the 10 most expensive cities in the world in the EIU’s Worldwide Cost of Living 2023 report.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, which ranks in second place as one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S., continues to struggle with a high cost of living and lack of affordable housing.
The average Los Angeles home value is $918,087, according to Zillow data, which is up 3.5% over the past year. Insurance company The Zebra recently put Los Angeles in sixth place on its list of the 10 most expensive cities to own a home in for 2024, citing issues like a tight housing inventory and expensive property taxes as deterrents to interested buyers.
Los Angeles also took sixth place in the Worldwide Cost of Living 2023 report.
San Diego
There are several good items to watch out for in the San Diego 2024 housing forecast.
Data from Realtor.com indicates San Diego is among the top five Californian metros and is expected to have a 13.1% average sales growth. The city also emerged as a leader for veteran households utilizing VA loans to purchase homes last year. Realtor reported San Diego had a 16.5% share of VA loans, almost double the largest 100 market average.
However, housing price tags may simply be out of reach for many buyers. Zillow data shows the average San Diego home value is $960,202. This is up 7.1% over the past year and it is the highest value of any cities mentioned on this list.
…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/housing-market-2024-avoid-buying-200508083.html
Has China finallly turned the corner on its real estate debt crisis?
Evergrande: Crisis-hit Chinese property giant ordered to liquidate
By Mariko Oi
Business reporter
29 January 2024, 02:43 GMT
Updated 3 hours ago
China Evergrande Centre sign in Hong Kong.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
China’s property sector contributes roughly a quarter of the world’s second biggest economy
Debt-laden Chinese property giant Evergrande has been ordered to liquidate by a court in Hong Kong.
Judge Linda Chan said “enough is enough” after the troubled developer repeatedly failed to come up with a plan to restructure its debts.
The firm has been the poster child of China’s real estate crisis with over $325bn (£256bn) of liabilities.
When Evergrande defaulted two years ago it sent shockwaves through global financial markets.
The latest decision is likely to send further ripples through China’s financial markets at a time when authorities are trying to curb a stock market sell-off.
China’s property sector contributes roughly a quarter of the world’s second biggest economy.
Evergrande shares fell by more than 20% in Hong Kong after the announcement. Trading in the shares has now been suspended.
Liquidation is a process where a company’s assets are seized and sold off. The proceeds can then be used to repay outstanding debts.
Ahead of today’s ruling, China’s Supreme Court and Hong Kong’s Department of Justice signed an arrangement on mutual recognition and enforcement of civil and commercial judgments between mainland China and Hong Kong which comes into effect today.
However, whether this process is followed may depend on the Chinese government and the liquidation order does not necessarily mean that Evergrande will go bust and collapse.
…
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67562522
Yahoo
Reuters
After 14 years, Lehman Brothers’ brokerage ends liquidation
Jonathan Stempel
September 28, 2022·1 min read
FILE PHOTO: Lehman Brothers in London
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The liquidation of Lehman Brothers’ brokerage unit has ended, 14 years and 13 days after its parent’s bankruptcy helped trigger a market freefall and global financial crisis.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman in Manhattan closed the brokerage’s estate on Wednesday and awarded final payments to the trustee who oversaw its liquidation and his law firm.
…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/14-years-lehman-brothers-brokerage-162030527.html
Financial Times
Evergrande Real Estate Group
Chinese developer Evergrande ordered to be wound up by Hong Kong court
Indebted property group fails to agree restructuring plan with creditors
An Evergrande housing complex in Beijing
An Evergrande housing complex in Beijing. The property developer has been issued a winding-up order
Chan Ho-him, Kaye Wiggins and Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong and Thomas Hale in Shanghai an hour ago
A Hong Kong court has ordered China Evergrande to be wound up, opening a new and unpredictable phase in the collapse of the world’s most indebted property developer.
The liquidation order comes just over two years after the company’s official default, which triggered a cash crunch for Chinese developers that is still hobbling the world’s second-largest economy.
High Court Judge Linda Chan issued the order on Monday after the developer failed to come up with a restructuring plan to satisfy international creditors despite lengthy negotiations.
“It would be a situation where the court says enough is enough,” Chan said. “I consider that it is appropriate for the court to make a winding-up order against the company, and I so order.”
…
Financial Times
Chinese equities
Chinese regulators curb short selling as market downturn deepens
Measures come into effect from Monday and are designed to ‘create a fairer market order’
A person flies a dragon kite in Shanghai, China
The change comes as regulators face increasing pressure to arrest a stock sell-off
Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong yesterday
China has moved to officially limit short selling after informal efforts failed to stop a worsening stock market sell-off.
Investors who buy shares will not be allowed to lend them out for short selling within an agreed lock-up period, the Shenzhen and Shanghai bourses said on Sunday.
The measures, which will come into effect from Monday, are designed to “create a fairer market order”, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said. Further limitations on securities lending will be introduced from March 18, the regulator added.
Regulators are coming under increasing pressure to halt the stock sell-off, which has been fuelled by uncertainty over the country’s economic growth prospects.
China’s premier Li Qiang last week promised to deliver “more forceful” state support for the market. But shares fell on Friday, ending a three-day winning streak and suggesting that investors were not convinced by Beijing’s stimulus measures.
…
CHINA MARKETS
Evergrande shares halted after Hong Kong court orders liquidation
PUBLISHED SUN, JAN 28 2024 9:42 PM EST
UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO
Shreyashi Sanyal
KEY POINTS
– Shares of China Evergrande were briefly halted after plunging over 20% in early trading.
– Hong Kong court decision comes after it was reported that Evergrande’s overseas creditors failed to reach an 11th-hour deal this weekend to restructure.
…
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/01/29/evergrande-shares-halted-after-hong-kong-court-orders-liquidation-.html
“Evergrande’s overseas creditors failed to reach an 11th-hour deal this weekend to restructure.”
If memory serves, a similar failure to reach a deal doomed Lehman Brothers to liquidate in 2008.
User
Did a failure to reach a deal doom Lehman Brothers to liquidate in 2008?
ChatGPT
The failure to reach a deal did contribute significantly to Lehman Brothers’ collapse in 2008. The lack of a viable rescue package or acquisition deal led to Lehman filing for bankruptcy, which ultimately resulted in its liquidation.
China limits short-selling in latest effort to stem a stock market rout
By Laura He, CNN
3 minute read
Published 1:19 AM EST, Mon January 29, 2024
A Chinese national flag flutters outside the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) building on the Financial Street in Beijing, China July 9, 2021.
A Chinese national flag flutters outside the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) building on the Financial Street in Beijing, China.
Tingshu Wang/Reuters/File
Hong Kong CNN —
China’s top securities regulator has limited short-selling, in its latest effort to stem a protracted $6 trillion-dollar stock market rout that began in 2021.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission announced Sunday it would “fully” suspend the lending of restricted shares on bourses in mainland China.
The curbs, which came into effect on Monday, will impact shares that are held by company employees or strategic investors and are prohibited from being traded in the stock market for a certain period, but can still be lent to others for short-selling.
Short sellers borrow shares from a broker, then quickly sell them with the hopes of buying them back later at a lower price before they have to return the shares.
The regulator also told securities financing firms that borrow shares from institutional investors to wait one day before providing them to brokerages, which can then lend them to short-sellers. Previously, these shares could be immediately made available to brokerage firms.
China had earlier placed some limits on short-selling of shares held by strategic investors in October but the stock markets continued their meltdown — and analysts worry the new moves will also fall flat.
“The [mainland Chinese] markets were largely muted to this policy change,” said Ken Cheung, chief Asian foreign exchange strategist for Mizuho Bank in Hong Kong.
On Monday, the Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.3%, while the Shenzhen Component Index was down 1.6%. Investor sentiment has also soured after a Hong Kong court ordered Evergrande, the poster child of China’s property crisis, to liquidate.
…
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/29/business/china-stock-market-slump-short-selling-limits-intl-hnk/index.html
Chicago Booth Review Topics
Capitalisn’t: Is Evergrande Really China’s Lehman Moment?
October 27, 2021
CBR – Economics
In September China’s second-largest real-estate developer, Evergrande, missed an $83.5 million debt payment. Critics of China’s economy have long said that its property market, which makes up some 30 percent of GDP, is over-leveraged and overheated. Evergrande’s missed payment and big debt obligations have prompted some to ask whether this could be China’s equivalent to the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
On this episode of the Capitalisn’t podcast, hosts Luigi Zingales and Bethany McLean speak with two people who hold different views on that question: Jim Chanos, founder of investment advisor Kynikos Associates, and Chicago Booth’s Zhiguo He.
…
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/capitalisnt-evergrande-really-chinas-lehman-moment
China Economy
As China’s property crisis plagues its economy and financial system, is a ‘Lehman Moment’ looming?
– China Evergrande Group reported losses of 812 billion yuan (US$112 billion) for 2021 and 2022, while fellow property developer Country Garden is on the verge of a bond default
– A so-called Lehman moment – where one company’s problems become everyone’s problems – is seen as unlikely, but mounting problems are set to test Beijing
China’s economic recovery
Frank Tang
in Beijing
Published: 8:00am, 23 Aug, 2023
…
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3231900/chinas-property-crisis-plagues-its-economy-and-financial-system-lehman-moment-looming