I Will Never Invest In This Place Again

1. ‘most of the offers she’s received for her house have been fair, at over $1 million, but two were for around $550,000. ‘Why would you think I would be stupid enough to sell you my house for that?’

   That’s right Gwendolyn, be strong, don’t give it away!

   1. There is no law prohibiting a buyer from making a lowball offer. In case buyers are scarce, as presently, the seller may have to accept less than their subjective valuation of what the home is worth, or else wait some indefinite period of time for another prospective buyer.

      My recommended strategy for buyers is to make a series of lowball offers until one is accepted, then drive a hard bargain. Sellers are desperate, and you will eventually find one willing to negotiate rather than never selling.

2. ‘he made no secret about the challenges he faced last month as StoryBuilt’s receiver. ‘Frankly, a lot of the things we’re uncovering are inexplicable,’ he said, referring to the forensic accounting he and his team have been executing on the failed builder’s books’

   Mike it’s pretty simple actually. When a group of crooks runs their books like this, they knew it was going to collapse. Were they stealing, stupid, thought they would sell to a greater fool, who knows? But this dumpster fire was going to happen eventually.

   1. ** “But this dumpster fire was going to happen eventually.”

      drawing moths to flame
      dumpster fire
      slowly, then all at once

3. “In Spring, 2020, when governments around the world – in an unprecedented move to contain a virus – shut down work, schools, commerce, travel, commuting, congregating, church services, restaurant dining and drinking, exercising in gyms, parks, beaches, sports, and holidays. Then the remarkable happened: A home-buying frenzy like no other in real estate history.”

   This remarkable happening might have had something to do with the dumping of enormous quantities of money into the economy. This money that had to go somewhere and some of it – a LOT of it – went into housing.

   Go here:

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

   1. Shut down production, print boatloads of money, and hope inflation won’t become problematic…that’s quite a plan!

   2. “Spring, 2020, when governments around the world – in an unprecedented move to contain a virus”

      Greatest FRAUD of my lifetime.

      And in retrospect, the alleged virus was merely incidental to government overreach (medical tyranny) in response to it.

   3. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/?p=2760830
      New study offers even more proof lockdowns were deadly
      By Brad Polumbo
      January 14, 2023 6:59 am

      In hopes of containing the pandemic, everyone across the country was forced to suffer through lockdown orders, closed schools, and shuttered workplaces in the spring of 2020. In Democratic-controlled areas, many of these restrictions lingered into 2021. Yet they didn’t work. We all got COVID-19 anyway, more than a million Americans nonetheless died of the disease, and in a dark and ironic twist, most COVID-19 spread

      Meanwhile, those restrictions themselves evidently had deadly consequences. A new study from Casey B. Mulligan and Rob Arnett published in the journal Inquiry finds that non-COVID deaths were highly elevated above expected trends in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021. They report that over this period, approximately 97,000 Americans died annually (not including COVID deaths) above the baseline trend, a statistic known as “excess deaths.”

      These deaths included 32,000 deaths from heart disease and hypertension, some of which may have been fueled by the disruption to healthcare services and healthy lifestyles from the COVID restrictions. Meanwhile, deaths due to obesity-related illness, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related causes were all 12,000-15,000 above expected trends. All these factors were heavily influenced by the way COVID-19 lockdowns fueled social isolation, sedentary lifestyles, and mental health issues.

      The data “point to a historic, yet largely unacknowledged, health emergency,” the study concludes. “COVID-19 is deadly, but so were the draconian steps taken to mitigate it.”

      1. So far as I know, fentanyl is way deadlier than covid.

         During the pandemic I attended an outdoor memorial service for a friend’s son, whom we assumed had taken his own life. Just recently a mutual freind of the deceased’s parents shared the actual story with me: The guy did a line of cocaine at a party which it turns out was laced with fentanyl.

   4. https://metatron.substack.com/p/the-definitive-guide-to-excess-death
      The Definitive Guide to Excess Death During the COVID Era
      A summary of excess death from around the world. Spoiler alert – Sweden wins.
      Joel Smalley
      Nov 7, 2022

      \\

      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121180716/swedens-covid19-plan-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-or-a-bold-evidencebased-response
      Sweden’s Covid-19 plan a disaster waiting to happen or a bold, evidence-based response?
      Bevan Shields
      April 22, 2020, • 05:47am

      “Professor Johan Giesecke, who first recruited Tegnell during his own time as state epidemiologist, used a rare interview last week to argue that the Swedish people would respond better to more sensible measures. He blasted the sort of lockdowns imposed in Britain and Australia and warned a second wave would be inevitable once the measures are eased.”

      “”The Swedish government decided early in January that the measures we should take against the pandemic should be evidence based. And when you start looking around at the measures being taken by different countries, you find very few of them have a shred of evidence-base,” he said.”

      “Giesecke, who has served as the first chief scientist of the European Centre for Disease Control and has been advising the Swedish government during the pandemic, told the UnHerd website there was “almost no science” behind border closures and school closures and social distancing and said he looked forward to reviewing the course of the disease in a year’s time.”

      “I think that the difference between countries will be quite small in the end,” he said. “I don’t think you can stop it. It’s spreading. It will roll over Europe no matter what you do.”

      \\

      “Giesecke was almost correct. But, the difference between the countries in the end was not quite small. Sweden did much, much better – ten times better than Chile, in fact, notorious for having the strictest lockdowns “despite” (😂😂😂) also having one of the most “successful” (🤣🤣🤣) vaccination campaigns.”

      “As of reporting date 19-Jun-22, of all the countries analysed by the OECD, Sweden has the lowest overall cumulative excess deaths tally:”

      https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbd44e756-aed1-4fdd-83cf-f7c65499b5be_2601x2601.png

      \\

      – U.S. SARS-Cov-2/COVID-19 policy respone was of course, terrible. The chart shows that at the time the data was published, the U.S. had the second worst outcome after Chile. (Political) science-based. Authoritarian- based.

      – Where’s the accountability for WHO, CDC, NIH? There are real people with names to be named behind these acronyms. What about U.S. NIH funding gain of function research at WIV in China? It’s now widely accepted that the virus was an escape from WIV, and not some tin foil hat conspiracy theory. Where’s the Chinese accountability? What’s to prevent CCP China or any other country/regime from continuing on with their GoF bio weapons research into chimeric viruses? North Korea’s nuclear program seems like choir practice compared to this. Asking for a friend.

      1. “What about U.S. NIH funding gain of function research at WIV in China?”

         What about it?

         The families of the one million who died with an alleged “diagnosis” of CCP Flu should direct their inquiry to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is, in fact, guilty of Medical Genocide.

         This murderer needs to hang ☠️

      2. Missing is India and other places not using the miracle mRNA.

4. The progressive state became the first to decriminalize drug use when the legislature passed Measure 110 in 2020, aiming to focus on recovery over incarceration for addicts.

   Nearly 60 percent of voters approved of the measure at the time, but newer polls have found that they regret that move just three years later.

   https://www.breitbart.com/health/2024/02/03/oregon-gov-tina-kotek-declares-fentanyl-state-of-emergency-three-years-after-drug-decriminalization/

5. “That’s an extra $2,167 per month every month going toward nothing.”

   But isn’t that what they about renting? 😂

   1. I lived on Mt. Helix for a few years. If you drive down the mountain to the west you can drive by the two banks that were burned to the ground during the riots in La Mesa. If you drive down on the northern side to El Cajon you can drive by one of the two Walmarts that are closing in San Diego county due to rampant theft. If you gaze a bit south you can see Mexico and wonder how long until you are overrun. If you travel east you will actually see the invasion occurring. But ignore all that, it’s all about location, location, location! Old stucco boxes on a hill are worth a million! 5k/month is a bargain to live in such a ‘diverse’ area.

      1. Excellent description!

6. ‘We’re in a completely different situation,’ Hurlbert added. ‘There’s no sign of a bubble.’”

   Liar liar pants on fire.

   1. Oh no, I’m sure he believes that shite.

7. Gwendolyn Jones, a 74-year-old Leimert Park resident said most of the offers she’s received for her house have been fair, at over $1 million, but two were for around $550,000. ‘Why would you think I would be stupid enough to sell you my house for that?’ Jones said.”

   $1M for a house in the hood? Buyers be trippin’, yo!

8. Business
   A soft landing seems likely. But Americans will still have to deal with unaffordable housing
   Analysis by Bryan Mena, CNN
   Published 7:30 AM EST, Sun February 4, 2024
   David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images
   Homes in Hercules, California, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. The US 30-year mortgage rate rose to 7.16% last week, matching the highest since 2001 and crimping both sales and refinancing activity.

   Washington, DC CNN —

   After yet another remarkable jobs report on Friday that showed America’s labor market is firing on all cylinders, the runway for the Federal Reserve to land the economy’s figurative plane — gently — is now in clear view. But no matter how smooth the landing, there’s trouble at the destination.

   The US economy is on the cusp of a “soft landing” — inflation slowing to the central bank’s 2% target in a sustainable manner without triggering major job losses.

   But it also leaves Americans to deal with economic hurdles that intensified after inflation erupted in 2021. One of them is a housing market near its most unaffordable point in decades.

   In a letter days before the Fed’s decision Wednesday to hold interest rates steady at a 23-year high, Democratic US senators blasted the central bank for America’s housing woes.

   And even though the Fed’s decisions influence mortgage rates, the central bank’s two mandates are to stabilize prices and maximize employment, not ensure housing affordability, which is also hamstrung by limited housing supply.

   In fact, measures Congress could pass to alleviate some pressure in the housing market, such as tax credits for first-time homebuyers or removing some government red tape, could be much more effective at addressing America’s affordability crisis, than the Fed simply lowering rates.

   In 2021 when the Fed’s key interest rate was near zero, home-price growth soared at a historic double-digit pace, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.

   As it currently stands, housing is simply out of reach for many people, especially young Americans and those on the lower end of the income spectrum.

   A soft landing would mean the labor market remains intact, and that interest rates may ease further, but the issue of insufficient housing supply varies by region and is often nuanced, based on local zoning laws and the presence (or absence ) of innovative policy approaches.

   “The combination of higher incomes and slightly lower mortgage rates has already helped improve conditions, but affordability is likely to remain challenging for quite some time,” Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, told CNN.

   The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 7.79% in late October, the highest level in more than two decades, according to Freddie Mac, but it’s gradually fallen since then, registering at 6.63% last week. That, in and of itself, has already improved sentiment among buyers and sellers, Fannie Mae surveys have shown. But that downward trend may not last.

   Divounguy said that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate will likely not fall below 6% this year.

   Remember, home prices are also key, and they remain elevated nationwide, after exploding a few years ago. Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that the median home sale price in 2023 was $389,800, up about 1% from 2022 and the highest on record. Home prices may not budge in the short term, according to economists.

   “When mortgage rates fall, it’s hard to build new homes because the demand just drives up prices, because with lower rates, people start to compete for the same number of homes and with multiple people competing, prices go up,” Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, told CNN.

   “The sustainable solution is to make it easier to build housing. That way we can actually start heading in the right direction with affordability and have that be sustainable and not just a short-term interest rate phenomenon,” she said.
   …
   https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/04/business/stocks-week-ahead-unaffordable-housing/index.html

   1. Financial Times
      The Big Read Central banks
      Why central banks are reluctant to declare victory over inflation
      Policymakers had begun laying the ground for interest rate cuts, but strong US labour data shows pressure on prices has not yet abated
      European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde, Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell and Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey
      Sam Fleming in London, Martin Arnold in Frankfurt and Claire Jones in Washington February 3 2024

      As Jay Powell faced reporters on Wednesday following the US Federal Reserve’s first policy meeting of 2024, his mood was confident.

      Hailing “six months of good inflation” and predicting more to come, the Fed chair said: “Let’s be honest: this is a good economy.”

      Maybe a little too good. On Friday, markets were stunned by a Bureau of Labor Statistics release that showed the US economy added 353,000 jobs in January — almost double what was expected.

      A March cut to interest rates — already described as unlikely by Powell — was instantly ruled out on Wall Street as a result of the blowout employment data.

      Central bankers around the world had begun preparing for rate cuts on the back of steadily weakening inflation. But as the US jobs numbers demonstrate, hot labour markets are the biggest potential barrier to them hitting their 2 per cent inflation goals.

      Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, says Friday’s data made declaring victory against inflation “a much more fraught” decision for central banks. “The reality is that, with these pressures, it’s going to be very difficult to keep inflation contained unless productivity growth remains strong.”
      …

      1. “The reality is that, with these pressures, it’s going to be very difficult to keep inflation contained unless productivity growth remains strong.”

         Expensive Green energy cancel out productivity growth

   2. Denver and the metro Front Range are in a homeless and housing affordability CRISIS, and adding 40,000 illegal Venezuelan invaders to it isn’t helping anything.

      1. The four steps of the Cloward-Piven Strategy:
         1. Overload and Break the Welfare System
         2. Have Chaos Ensue
         3. Take Control in the Chaos
         4. Implement Socialism and Communism through Government Force

         Overburden the bureaucracy to break the system, create controlled chaos, usurp power as civil unrest peaks, and offer government aid as the only solution. Cloward and Piven wanted to overburden the welfare system at the state level to eliminate state rights. …under this theory, government is encouraged to market a crisis, antagonize the people, and offer a solution. The only solution being to replace capitalism with socialism or communism by which the people would be entirely dependent on government. You will own nothing and be happy.

         1. I heard Colorado Springs started getting some buses last week.

            It’s only fair that Denver share all these “Acts Of Love” with you ❤️

            1. There’s been a visible increase in Democrat-on-Arrival newcomers from various 3rd World cesspools hanging out outside the local grocery stores.

         2. And Frances Fox Piven was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrant parents. You of all HBBers should appreciate that tidbit.

            1. I keep going to moderation. Did I do something wrong?

9. “In Spring, 2020, when governments around the world – in an unprecedented move to contain a virus – shut down work, schools, commerce, travel, commuting, congregating, church services, restaurant dining and drinking, exercising in gyms, parks, beaches, sports, and holidays.

   Lockdowns & clot shot mandates had nothing to do with public health. This was the trial run for seeing how many of the sheeple would mindlessly comply and become active accessories in imposing tyranny on the population while driving small businesses & independent landlords out of business on behalf of the Democrats’ private equity bankrollers.

   1. “nothing to do with public health”

      +1 on that whole paragraph.

      Greatest FRAUD of my lifetime.

10. In La Mesa, excluding Mount Helix, the median price of a home in 2020 was $655,000. In 2022, the median price of a La Mesa home was $872,000 – an increase of 33%.”

    Fake “value” created by the Fed’s scamdemic-era gusher of funny money “stimulus.” The long-term consequences of this Keynesian monetary fraud are going to be incalculable.

    1. Mt Helix is not upscale…more like the upper end of a lower class area.

       And 33% increases over 2020 through 2022 were ubiquitous in San Diego County. In our area they went from around $800K to $1.2 million.

       1. Lived in Poway for a year ( 2009 ) and it was too expensive so moved to Ventura county in 2010 which is now become too expensive . If I had not bought a short sale in 2012 I would be totally screwed by inflation.

          Still retirement on hold as Inflation still bites . Went to Costco yesterday 400 bucks !!!

          1. Good luck!

11. The offers the company received included significant discounts the receiver couldn’t accept.

    Hate to break it to you, bagholders, but those “significant discounts” only get more brutal from here.

12. But Chris, not the developer, is liable for the costs under the terms of his lease – the ‘feudal’ arrangement that allows someone to buy a property on land or in a building they don’t own. ‘The biggest mistake of my life was buying this flat,’ he said. ‘It’s basically ruined my life.’

    If stupid didn’t hurt, fools would never learn, Chris.

13. And exit prices need to be further adjusted down.’”

    Gosh, I fear that such downward pressure on exit prices will further erode the underlying loan collateral, creating a self-perpetuating doom loop and leaving lenders and investors facing insolvency.

14. “‘This has made me lose faith in the housing authorities’ management capabilities as well as real estate,’ the Evergrande home buyer told Reuters.

    Notice he doesn’t blame the real culprits, the CCP, since he’d like to retain his vital organs.

15. Buyers, who paid in full years ago, have been stuck watching and waiting for a lifeline.”

    I think this is where the “acceptance” phase of coming to terms with loss comes into play.

16. Just 18 months ago, the world’s biggest mining company was in a nickel frenzy. BHP Group, to much fanfare, had struck a deal with Tesla Inc. to supply it with the crucial ingredient for electric vehicles. It was about to go toe-to-toe with Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest for control of one of the globe’s most prospective mines.

    For BHP, nickel offered a bright spot. Its management had earmarked the material as a key pillar of growth, a future-facing commodity that would help offset its exit from fossil fuels and let it tap into new demand driven by the world’s race to decarbonize.

    Yet things have quickly soured for BHP and other miners. The nickel market has been thrown into chaos after a flood of new supply from Indonesia — the result of huge Chinese investment and major technological breakthroughs. Mines across the world are at risk of closing, others are asking for state bailouts or going bust. BHP, for one, is now weighing up the future of its flagship Nickel West mine in Australia.

    Until recently, many of the industry’s biggest names couldn’t have been more bullish about the prospects for nickel. The once-boring metal, traditionally used to make steel stainless, is a crucial ingredient for electric vehicle batteries. A supply shortage stretching for years to come was forecast and mining companies jumped at a great opportunity to burnish their green credentials.

    Traditionally, nickel has been split into two categories: low grade for making stainless steel and high grade for batteries. A huge Indonesian expansion of low-grade production led to a surplus, but processing innovations have allowed that glut to be refined into a high-quality product that’s hitting the battery market.

    As a result, prices for the metal have crashed over 40% from a year ago, adding to hurdles in a market that is also wobbling from weak demand and persistent concerns about China’s economy. Macquarie analysts estimate that more than 60% of the global industry is losing money at current prices.

    The scale of the collapse has left some in the industry questioning if there’s a future for most nickel mines outside of Indonesia. It’s also adding to concerns among US and European policymakers about China’s control over key commodities, with its companies leading much of the Indonesia’s production.

    “After watching the tide go out on the nickel world for over a year – with the halving of its metal price – we’ve got some high-cost assets exposed now,” said Tom Price, head of commodities strategy at Liberum Capital Ltd. He added that mines in Western Australia and the French territory of New Caledonia are likely to be the most vulnerable.

    https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/green-hype-bailouts-nickel-industry-230000027.html

17. The problem with government mandates aimed at manipulating free markets is they are typically based in political expediency, not commercial reality.

    As more potholes appear on the road to electric-vehicle nirvana, edicts by lawmakers in Canada and states such as California and New York to require all new-car sales be EVs by 2035 are proving the point: Politically motivated virtue signals rarely withstand pressure testing from real-world market forces.

    Those forces are now schooling government on the scope and timeline for broad adoption of EVs. And if they’re paying attention to what’s happening – and not happening – in the EV world, lawmakers should back off their ill-considered bulls and wake up to the reality of the marketplace, as ideologically sobering as that may be.

    The downsides of swimming against the tide on this threaten the economy. While automakers ramp up EV production to meet the looming mandates, dealers are swamped with huge inventories of unsold EVs – inventories well above the national average for gas-powered or hybrid vehicles. Consumers are balking at high EV prices, high maintenance and insurance costs, and range anxiety exacerbated by lack of charging stations. Some automakers have laid off employees at EV plants or redirected resources because of sagging demand.

    In an open letter to U.S. President Joe Biden late last year, a coalition of more than 3,000 U.S. auto dealers called for the administration to “tap the brakes” on its aggressive EV posture because the enthusiasm of early adopters had stalled.

    “BEVs (battery electric vehicles) are stacking up on our lots,” the dealers wrote. “Today, the supply of unsold BEVs is surging, as they are not selling nearly as fast as they are arriving at our dealerships – even with deep price cuts, manufacturer incentives, and generous government incentives.”

    Signs that mandates are out of step with market reality are everywhere. A week ago, market leader Tesla warned investors of slowing growth in EV sales this year, sending its shares down 12 per cent and wiping out US$80-billion of its market value. Financial results for the most recent quarter disappointed, with adjusted earnings per share down 40 per cent from a year earlier, and revenue falling short of forecasts – the second consecutive quarter the company missed analysts’ forecasts.

    Also last month, rental-car giant Hertz said it would sell a third of its EV fleet – about 20,000 vehicles – and back off its plan to convert a quarter of its global fleet to EVs by the end of 2024. The company cited weak consumer demand for EVs as well as their high maintenance and insurance costs, and lack of charging stations.

    Insuring EVs has become a big cost headache. Bloomberg reported recently car-insurance premiums overall have increased because of the rising costs of EV insurance. In Britain, for example, EVs cost twice as much to insure as fuel-burning cars, and the premiums grew faster for EVs than for gas and diesel cars. The reasons: Hard-to-fix batteries and longer repair times.

    Reliability, too, is an issue. In its annual car-reliability survey of more than 330,000 owners, Consumer Reports said EV owners continue to report far more problems with their vehicles than owners of conventional cars or hybrids. On average, EVs from the past three model years had 79 per cent more problems than conventional cars, including engine, transmission, electric motors, leaks and infotainment systems, the survey said.

    Remarkably, the Biden administration, which has made EVs a centrepiece of its Green Agenda, has been part of the problem, not the solution. Two years ago, Mr. Biden earmarked US$7.5-billion to build a national network of charging stations. So far, only one has been built under this program.

    Adding gravitas to the EV conversation, Akio Toyoda, chairman of Toyota Motor, predicted last week that EVs would, at their peak, capture only 30 per cent of the global market, the remainder filled by hybrid or hydrogen-powered vehicles. A main reason: More than a billion people live in areas with no or limited access to electricity.

    With the global slowing of EV sales, Mr. Toyoda said people are “finally seeing reality” on EVs and reiterated his commitment to a multipathway approach that doesn’t depend on any one type of vehicle.

    “Customers, not regulations or politics” should make the decision on what path to rely on, he said.

    Mr. Toyoda’s may not be a socially popular point of view these days, but when the leader of the world’s largest automaker speaks, lawmakers should pull their heads out of their ideological clouds and listen. He knows a thing or two about how things really work here on Earth.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-pushing-electric-vehicles-is-virtue-signalling-and-fighting-the-free/

18. B.C.’s financial markets regulator is accusing three now-dissolved companies and their sole director of fraud related to the “operation of a purported crypto asset trading platform.”

    The B.C. Securities Commission published its allegations(opens in a new tab) against Michael Ongun Gokturk and his three companies – Einstein Exchange Inc., Einstein Capital Ltd. and Einstein Law Corporation (which, despite the name, was not a law firm) – earlier this week.

    The allegations have not been proven.

    According to the BCSC, Gokturk and the Einstein companies “committed fraud by lying to customers about a crypto trading platform and misappropriating deposited customer assets for their own speculative investments and personal use.”

    “After becoming insolvent in January 2018, (the respondents) operated the platform as a Ponzi scheme by continuing to accept deposits and paying out some customers with money and crypto assets drawn from the pooled bank accounts and wallets,” the BCSC says in its notice of hearing for the case.

    The commission also alleges that Gokturk and his companies “populated customer dashboards with information which falsely suggested that orders had been processed and assets were available.”

    At one time, the companies held more than US$34 million worth of cash and crypto assets on behalf of their customers, according to the BCSC.

    By July 2019, however, they had just US$100,000 in assets, and owed customers a total of US$19.2 million, the commission alleges.

    Both the corporate entities and Gokturk, as their sole director, are accused of committing the fraud.

    https://bc.ctvnews.ca/cryptocurrency-exchange-operated-as-ponzi-scheme-b-c-regulator-alleges-1.6754941

19. People sleeping — or passed out — in downtown Portland hardly get a second glance. Most pedestrians keep their eyes trained straight ahead as they walk past clouds of fentanyl smoke or slumped figures with lolling heads. Maybe they cross the street or look sidelong at someone who starts shouting or throwing things.

    But Nikki is different.

    “Are you okay? Are you sleeping?” she called out, approaching a cocooned form next to the light rail tracks. Somewhere inside the sleeping bag, a man grunted in response.

    Nikki, who has been homeless for two and a half years, repeats this process any time she sees someone lying on the ground, making sure they’re responsive.

    Fentanyl “literally makes people so careless that they will stand over someone who is dead or dying and continue to get high,” she said. It happened to one of her friends, a man in his mid-20s who appeared to be sleeping, but had died. “They were gonna have a lot of life left,” she added.

    Oregon has turned into a battlefield in the war over drug policy since the state became the first to decriminalize drug possession. Nearly 60% of voters approved Measure 110 but, three years later, numerous polls suggest they regret that move. And no other states have followed Oregon’s lead, despite assurances from researchers and decriminalization advocates that the law is not responsible for increased addiction, overdoses and crime.

    State lawmakers are poised to re-criminalize drug possession in a special legislative session that begins Monday, though Democrats and Republicans have drafted competing bills. And Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek declared a 90-day state of emergency this week in downtown Portland, where the fentanyl crisis has been most pronounced.

    “Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly and addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” Kotek, a Democrat, said in a release. “We are all in this together.”

    Fentanyl strikes fear among even longtime drug users.

    “This is creating zombies,” Lori, a homeless woman in Portland, told Fox News last summer. “This sh– should be illegal because they’re killing the mentally ill for a dollar a pill, because I guarantee ya, all these people have some kind of mental illness.”

    https://wfin.com/fox-political-news/crisis-in-the-northwest-fentanyl-killing-the-mentally-ill-for-a-dollar-a-pill-in-state-with-loose-drug-laws/

    1. The precursor chemicals are made in communist China, then shipped to Mexico where the cartels cook it up into fentanyl, then shipped across our open southern border.

       And it’s all intentional and by design.

       Kill off the native poors with drugs, and replace them with illiterate third world rabble who will be dependent on (and voting for) Big Government for life.

    2. The cool thing about dating homeless chicks like Nikki & Lori is that after the date is over, you can just drop ’em off anywhere.

       1. “The cool thing about dating homeless chicks like Nikki & Lori is that after the date is over, you can just drop ’em off anywhere.”=

          The polite thing to do is to slow the car down a bit.

20. Political censorship in the West today is “exactly the same” as it was in China under leader Mao Zedong, artist Ai Weiwei has said.

    The 66-year-old told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that “society becomes so timid, to really avoid any kind of questioning or argument”.

    He was responding to a question about the cancellation of his exhibition by the Lisson Gallery in London in November following social media posts regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict.

    “I grew up within this heavy political censorship,” Weiwei said, referring to the exile of his own family when he was one year old.

    “I realise now, today in the West, you are doing exactly the same,” the activist and documentarian added.

    He was responding to a question about the cancellation of his exhibition by the Lisson Gallery in London in November following social media posts regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict.

    “I grew up within this heavy political censorship,” Weiwei said, referring to the exile of his own family when he was one year old.

    “I realise now, today in the West, you are doing exactly the same,” the activist and documentarian added.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ai-weiwei-censorship-in-west-exactly-the-same-as-in-mao-zedong-s-china/ar-BB1hJVl5

    1. Western liberal democracy is a farce.

    2. North Korean defectors recognize all too well what the end state is for “Our Democracy.”

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4EQSzmKutc

21. Hungary’s parliament will convene an emergency session on Monday to do something its western partners have waited for, often impatiently, for more than a year: to hold a vote, finally, on approving Sweden’s bid to join the NATO military alliance.

    But Hungary’s governing party, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has signaled that it will boycott the session, blocking the chance for a vote and further delaying a decision on Stockholm’s bid. It’s the kind of obstruction of key policy objectives for which Orbán has become notorious within the European Union.

    “We are the sand in the machinery, the stick between the spokes, the splinter under the fingernail,” Orbán said in a speech to tens of thousands of supporters in 2021.

    That “stick between the spokes” tactic, and Orbán’s role as Europe’s perennial spoiler, has brought the EU to breaking point time and again as he has blocked crucial decisions to leverage concessions from the bloc, forcing its leaders to scramble to find workarounds.

    Now, frustrated EU officials are trying to determine what Orbán seeks to achieve with his obstructionist strategy, and how they might overcome it.

    “We have Orbán fatigue now in Brussels,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters ahead of an EU summit on Thursday, where the Hungarian leader threatened to derail plans to provide Ukraine with a major funding package. “I can’t understand, I can’t accept this very strange and very egoistic game of Viktor Orbán.”

    A proponent of an alternative form of populist governance that he calls “illiberal democracy,” Orbán campaigns against the EU at home, portraying himself as a “freedom fighter” against an overzealous Brussels bureaucracy.

    Has railed against what he describes as “woke culture,” and in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest last year, referred to liberalism as a “virus.”

    An anti-Islam populist and Orbán ally won elections in the Netherlands in November, while the far-right Alternative for Germany party has risen to second place in national polls behind Berlin’s mainstream conservative opposition.

    Widely considered to be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, Orbán has been accused by his critics of promoting Moscow’s interests over those of his EU and NATO allies, and of preparing to lead his country out of the EU entirely.

    But in an interview in December, Orbán denied he planned to take such a step. “My plan is not to leave Brussels, but to take it over,” he said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/viktor-orb%C3%A1ns-anti-woke-resistance-has-made-him-the-splinter-under-the-fingernail-of-the-eu/ar-BB1hINdq

    1. Meanwhile, the former USA continues to reap the blessings of open borders & multiculturalism. Even the globalist scum media is starting to clutch its pearls at the prospect of a jihad on the home front.

       https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13043659/Dearborn-mayor-Michigan-America-Jihad-capital.html

22. Talking to one of the supervisors at a big Lennar tract in our city. Told me that with concessions added in they’re about 100k down from peak. And he told me the word is they’ll keep on slashing until there’s no money left. It’s the same as last time. And the reason why new construction will lead the way down to the bottom.

23. A report from The Day. “The leader of the Ledyard-based Eastern Connecticut Association of Realtors sees signs that single-family home prices in the region may not be jumping by double digits this year, as they had for much of the past several years. ‘I see the trend going down on how much single-family prices are going up,’ said Susy Hurlbert, president of ECAR. Hurlbert pointed out that the median price of a single-family home locally last year was $340,000, the highest ever recorded by ECAR, which tracks New London and Windham counties. By comparison, the highest annual median home price recorded before the last local real estate bubble was $255,000 in 2007, one year before the nation’s financial collapse related to the subprime mortgage crisis. ‘We’re in a completely different situation,’ Hurlbert added. ‘There’s no sign of a bubble.’”

    ‘I see the trend going down on how much single-family prices are going up,’

    – Using my Realtor-speak translator, I read that as prices increases are slowing.

    “the median price of a single-family home locally last year was $340,000, the highest ever recorded by ECAR, which tracks New London and Windham counties. By comparison, the highest annual median home price recorded before the last local real estate bubble was $255,000 in 2007, one year before the nation’s financial collapse related to the subprime mortgage crisis.”

    – I fail to comprehend the Realtor-speak logic here. If median price is higher now than during Housing Bubble 1.0, doesn’t that mean that we’re now in another housing bubble: Housing Bubble 2.0?

    – How does this statement follow from the previous one? It seems like the opposite is true.:

    ‘We’re in a completely different situation,’ Hurlbert added. ‘There’s no sign of a bubble.’

    – Also from the article:

    “Total single-family home sales were off about 20% last year compared to a year earlier, yet sellers on average were still getting slightly more than the asking price.”

    and

    “It’s hard to afford to buy a home right now,” she said. “It’s expensive to buy.”

    – Sales volume leads price. It stands to reason that since housing is the most unaffordable ever in the U.S., that sales would decline. Existing home sales (EHS) are the largest part of the market. EHS are largely frozen. New home sales (NHS) are decent, since builders are dropping prices, and providing strong incentives, including mortgage rate buy-downs. Existing homeowners haven’t got the memo yet, but when a mortgage is needed to buy and few can afford the monthly payment – never mind all of the other also much higher costs – then sales will decline. Mortgage applications are a leading indicator. Price follows sales. These are also (way) down. Let’s see how the traditional Spring selling season goes.

    – The Guberment, including the Fed, intentionally blew another housing and stonk bubble. This was the (misguided) policy response to the crash after Housing Bubble 1.0, which the Fed also blew. The inconvenient truth is that Housing Bubble (2.0) is now deflating, as asset bubbles always do, and during a Presidential election year no less. Very inconvenient indeed.

    \\

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110307372.html
    washingtonpost.com > Opinions
    What the Fed did and why: supporting the recovery and sustaining price stability
    By Ben S. Bernanke
    Thursday, November 4, 2010

    “The FOMC decided this week that, with unemployment high and inflation very low, further support to the economy is needed. With short-term interest rates already about as low as they can go, the FOMC agreed to deliver that support by purchasing additional longer-term securities, as it did in 2008 and 2009. The FOMC intends to buy an additional $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by mid-2011 and will continue to reinvest repayments of principal on its holdings of securities, as it has been doing since August.”

    “This approach eased financial conditions in the past and, so far, looks to be effective again. Stock prices rose and long-term interest rates fell when investors began to anticipate the most recent action. Easier financial conditions will promote economic growth. For example, lower mortgage rates will make housing more affordable and allow more homeowners to refinance. Lower corporate bond rates will encourage investment. And higher stock prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can also spur spending. Increased spending will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion.”

24. Fidel Castro’s bastard son has suffered a setback in his plans to accelerate the euthanasia of those who can’t generate wealth for the oligarchy, as his would-be medical minions might be sensing that justice is coming.

    https://nypost.com/2024/02/03/media/canada-halts-assisted-suicide-program-for-mentally-ill-due-to-lack-of-doctors/

25. Washington state diverted $340M in federal COVID funds to migrants

    By Adam Shaw, Fox News
    Published Feb. 3, 2024, 9:40 p.m. ET

    A new report is highlighting how federal COVID funds were used in Washington state to give $1,000 checks to illegal immigrants who were ineligible to receive federal economic impact payments during the pandemic due to their immigration status.

    The report, by the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), points to money administered by the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF), which was created by the American Rescue Plan Act and was intended to help state and local governments with their response and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Washington state received $4.4 billion in funding overall from that program.

    The report from the group, which calls for a smaller federal government, highlighted how $340 million in funding went to a program that sent $1,000 checks to illegal immigrants in the state.

    https://nypost.com/2024/02/03/news/washington-state-diverted-340m-in-federal-covid-funds-to-migrants/#:~:text=Washington%20state%20diverted%20%24340M%20in%20federal%20COVID%20funds%20to%20migrants,-By&text=A%20new%20report%20is%20highlighting,due%20to%20their%20immigration%20status.

    1. Who controls the governorship and state legislature in Washington State?

       A party that gives away taxpayer dollars to illegal criminal invaders rather than taking care of U.S. citizens first, that’s who.

       1. And an image file re-post from yesterday:

          https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=710,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/158/283/131/original/c20e9b9225e72b98.png

          This message approved by the Anti Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center.

          #Noticing
          #Naming

          1. Gotta love NYC: they release invaders who attack police without bail AND they announced they will be giving even more free money to the invaders.

             Now, before we all jump up and say “ha ha, they’re just gonna get more invaders in the big apple”, consider that is exactly what they want. As for where the money will come from: they will raise taxes and reduce municipal services to legal residents who actually pay taxes.

             Isn’t it funny how after Hizzoner the mayor complained that there was no money left to help the invaders they have suddenly announced another round of free cheese? I expect the same to happen in Dumver, whose city council has announced that being a sanctuary city is no longer sustainable and that the migrants need to get on their feet. I expect in a few weeks Dumver will be handing out free prepaid gift cards too, and the invaders will flip the bird to the Denver TV crews as they are handed the free money.

26. A reader sent these in:

    I don’t ever recall losing so much value in a car so quickly out of the many cars I’ve had. 😳
    2022 Tesla Model S Plaid with 25,700 miles and FSD.
    Trade In Value $58,800

    https://twitter.com/MissJilianne/status/1753878408004829280

    Foreclosure auction for 510 units.
    Community located in Kansas City.
    Minimum bid price is $11,994,175.02. Implies ~$24K per door.
    Occupancy appears to be 33% today.
    HUD is conducting the foreclosure / auction.

    https://twitter.com/aryal1994/status/1753814624657363018

    Class C multifamily foreclosure in Houston.
    446 units. $38mm loan.
    Arbor is the lender.
    Loan basis of $85K per door.
    Assuming an 80% loan to value, at least ~$10mm of equity is wiped.

    https://twitter.com/aryal1994/status/1753416009376006150

    AirbnBusted
    Heard a story about a landlord buying a house & turning it into a short-term rental.
    A neighbor somehow found out the mortgage was for a primary residence = mortgage occupancy fraud.
    Neighbor told lender.
    House soon put up for sale again.

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1753596771660636446

    Is it possible to take a worse listing photo?

    https://twitter.com/RealEstateMaxi/status/1753507862125445354

    According to Zillow, there are currently 341 homes available for sale in Palm Springs, CA
    🚨172 of them have been listed or relisted in the last 4 weeks 🚨
    Inventory literally DOUBLED in January in the Airbnbust epicenter

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1753486773811122687

    When threatened by predators or dominant conspecifics, Mitch McConnell will freeze, often in a crouch, utterly devoid of movement except for breathing.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1751286773987365000

    1. Is it possible to take a worse listing photo?

       I don’t know, I kind of like the huge hog in the living room.
       Shows people how their husband/wife will look like in the house.

27. Investing
    Week of Whipsawing Treasurys Casts Doubt on Soft-Landing Trade
    A jobs report pushes yields higher, but dangers continue to create a bid for bonds
    By Eric Wallerstein
    Updated Feb. 4, 2024 12:01 am ET
    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell disappointed investors hoping to get hints of a March interest-rate cut. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

    The strongest U.S. jobs report in a year has dented investors’ hopes that the Federal Reserve will drastically slash interest rates this year, the latest reversal for those betting the economy is on track to achieve a soft landing.

    Data out Friday showed that workers’ wages are rising much faster than economists anticipated, and there are few signs of an economic slowdown. Earlier last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said a rate cut in March was unlikely, disappointing those who had bet cuts were imminent. Bond prices, which had been shored up by the rate-cut expectations, tumbled, sending the 10-year Treasury yield to 4.030% Friday from as low as 3.815% on Thursday. Friday’s rise was the 10-year yield’s largest since September 2022.

    Traders are now betting the benchmark federal-funds rate will finish the year around 4.2%. Just a couple of weeks ago, they wagered it would be below 3.9%. Though U.S. stock indexes have had a robust start to the year, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 2.6% and the Nasdaq Composite up 4.1%, many analysts and portfolio managers worry that further stock advances could be halting if this year’s favorable interest-rate scenario doesn’t materialize.

    “If more people are working and they’re getting paid more, that doesn’t present a great argument for rate cuts,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.

    At the same time, investors remain alert to any signs that more market unrest could lie ahead, and any development that threatens such turmoil tends—as it almost always has—to boost demand for ultrasafe Treasurys and push yields back down.

    Some sectors are feeling the pinch from the highest interest rates in 22 years. Regional bank tremors reignited a rally in U.S. debt earlier in the past week, reflecting in part fears that an economic expansion that has surprised many observers with its persistence could be vulnerable to reduced lending.

    New York Community Bancorp, which took over assets of failed Signature Bank last year, fell 42% last week after reporting dismal fourth-quarter results. That dragged a KBW index of regional banks 7.2% lower, its worst week since June.

    “The market is conditioned to react whenever there’s trouble in the banking system,” said Joseph Wang, chief investment officer at Monetary Macro and a former senior trader at the New York Fed.

    During SVB’s collapse last March, investors piled into Treasurys, as they often do at signs of turmoil regardless of the origin. Investors’ impulse to scoop up bonds at the sign of banking-system trouble clearly remains. What looked to be a one-off concern for a troubled bank percolated across the sector last week when shares of several global banks sank because of a deterioration of their loan books.

    “Bonds are back because they’re a hedge against things breaking,” said Anwiti Bahuguna, chief investment officer of global asset allocation at Northern Trust Asset Management.
    …
    https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/week-of-whipsawing-treasurys-casts-doubt-on-soft-landing-trade-42d6975e

28. Globalist scum media refuses to name the cause of “died suddenly” striking down so many young people with their whole lives ahead of them.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd-Nig9Uwhg

29. JD Vance: ‘Congress Should Have Fought Over’ Multiple Slates of Electors in 2020

    PAM KEY
    4 Feb 2024

    Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that if he had been vice president in 2020, he would have accepted multiple slates of electors because “the U.S. Congress should have fought over it.”

    STEPHANOPOULOS: So it’s very clear, you would have done what Donald Trump asked you to do there, not what Vice President Mike Pence did. You said that that’s about the past, but, of course, Donald Trump —

    VANCE: No, no, George – George, it’s not – no, no, George, it’s not about what – it’s not about what –

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that’s what you just said.

    VANCE: George, it’s not about what Donald Trump asks somebody to do. It’s about, what do we do when you have a problem like what happened in 2020? How do you respond to it? How does the political system respond to this? You can’t have a media apparatus that looks, for example, at the intelligence services working with technology companies to censor Americans and say, well, we just can’t deal with this. There’s no solution to this problem.

    And by the way, George, I don’t want to talk about this stuff because I think what happened in 2020 is far, far less important than what’s happened since 2020. The wide-open southern border, the fentanyl crisis plaguing our communities, the inflation crisis that is making it hard for Americans to afford a good middle class lifestyle. We need to litigate the 2024 election about those issues. You guys are obsessed with talking about 2020. I’m happy to answer the questions, but I think it’s a disservice to the American people that you’re so preoccupied with it.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, it’s President Trump who’s preoccupied with it, too. He’s the one who’s talked about pardoning those who participated in the riots. And you did just answer the question. You would refuse to re-certify the election.

    https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/02/04/jd-vance-congress-should-have-fought-over-multiple-slates-of-electors-in-2020/

    PS

    IMHO he left the Biden crime family’s selling out our country to the tune of millions of $ from China, Ukraine and others along with Biden’s Green war on energy from his list of things he wants “to talk about” like the wide-open southern border, the fentanyl crisis and the inflation crisis leading up to the 2024 election.

    1. The 2020 election was stolen.

       1. 2020 Presidential Election Lawsuits — the Facts

          2020 US Presidential Election Related Lawsuits (Public Version 10-6-23)

30. Markets
    Chinese turn U.S. embassy post into ‘Wailing Wall’ for stock plunge
    Reuters
    February 4, 2024 10:14 AM PST
    Updated 3 hours ago
    People walk past a police officer keeping watch outside the U.S. embassy in Beijing, China August 4, 2022.
    REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

    BEIJING, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Many Chinese are venting their frustration at the slowing economy and the weak stock market in an unconventional place: the social media account of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
    A post on Friday on protecting wild giraffes by the U.S. embassy on Weibo, a Chinese platform similar to X, has attracted 130,000 comments and 15,000 reposts as of Sunday, many of them unrelated to wildlife conservation.

    “Could you spare us some missiles to bomb away the Shanghai Stock Exchange?” one user wrote in an repost of the article.

    The Weibo account of the U.S. embassy in China “has become the Wailing Wall of Chinese retail equity investors”, another user wrote.
    The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

    While Weibo users can publish individual posts about the market and the economy, Chinese authorities regularly block what they view as “negative” online comments when they gain traction.

    The comments function on posts related to the economy or the markets on social media platforms can also be turned off, or only show selected comments, restricting channels in which people can express their opinions.
    …
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/chinese-turn-us-embassy-post-into-wailing-wall-stock-plunge-2024-02-04/

    1. China is in the early stages of its Great Depression where the average joe lost all his money buying condos in tier 3 cities instead of stocks and investment trusts and Florida real estate. I don’t know how this is going to affect the rest of the world when the largest manufacturing county in the world squandered alll its wealth on concrete in shoddily built buildings.

       1. Cascading defaults.

31. ‘median price of a single-family home locally last year was $340,000, the highest ever recorded by ECAR, which tracks New London and Windham counties. By comparison, the highest annual median home price recorded before the last local real estate bubble was $255,000 in 2007, one year before the nation’s financial collapse related to the subprime mortgage crisis. ‘We’re in a completely different situation,’ Hurlbert added. ‘There’s no sign of a bubble’

    It is different this time.

32. ‘The offers the company received included significant discounts the receiver couldn’t accept…As it turns out, most of StoryBuilt’s developments are worth less than their secured debt’

    So yer saying here Mike, there’s nothing left.

33. ‘She said the final straw for her was a request for the builder on a Monday for another $100,000 for the project to be paid that Friday. She pulled out of the project in May 2023 and said the deadline for her deposit to be returned was the end of January 2024. She is now renting a home in Thornbury. ‘The stress was so much, I took time off. And pulled out of the project’

    But local resident, they need that 100k pesos. If you don’t pony up, somebody isn’t going to get paid. And then the same thing happens all down the chain. Yer a heartless renter.

34. ‘The 34-year-old says paying that would leave him ‘homeless, bankrupt and possibly even jobless,’ as going bankrupt would disqualify him from his profession in financial services. But Chris, not the developer, is liable for the costs under the terms of his lease – the ‘feudal’ arrangement that allows someone to buy a property on land or in a building they don’t own. ‘The biggest mistake of my life was buying this flat,’ he said. ‘It’s basically ruined my life.’ Chris said he complained about the roof leaking as far back as 2018 but ‘nothing was done to rectify this’ and the problems are now so bad, the insurance provider ‘is refusing to pay out’

    Chris, it’s always darkest near the dawn. At the end of the day, you are a winnah!

35. ‘Housing prices in one picturesque area on the NSW coast have dropped by up to $187,000 in the past year, according to new data revealing the beachside suburbs where values have fallen the most’

    They do this frequently in this strange little sh$thole country. Oh muh gawd, everything is through the roof mate! And then, oh well it’s down triple a wage in dozens of sh$thole this yeeer.

36. ‘Prospective buyers in Victoria stand to save the most in McCrae on the Mornington Peninsula, where the median home value decreased by $79,000 to $1.13 million. These areas were very popular during the pandemic as lifestyle locations offering tree and sea-change escapes boomed, explained PopTrack senior economist Angus Moore. ‘They were among the strongest performing regions for their respective cities’

    Angus Moore, are you tellin’ us that what goes up, must go down?

37. ‘Evergrande has said it would work to finish ongoing projects despite the order. China has said that completing the unfinished homes is a policy priority. But the project in Shijiazhuang, an industrial city with about 11 million people, shows the scale and difficulty of working through the overhang of unfinished construction left by Evergrande and just how much its downfall has damaged confidence’

    This is a good example of how the globalist scum media miss the point on purpose. China does not need one more airbox built now or probably 40 years or more. The population is shrinking. These people are fooked communists.

    1. John Maynard Keynes suggested boosting employment by paying workers to dig ditches, then shovel in dirt to fill them back up.

       M C Echer provided a great artistic metaphor for this kind of wasted production capacity.

       https://www.escherinhetpaleis.nl/escher-today/ascending-and-descending/?lang=en

       Chinas’s real estate version of the concept is to construct unneeded, never-to-be occupied homes, only to soon tear them down again.

38. Bell & James — Livin’ It Up (Friday Night) (1979):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zboJdibmOU

    1. Dr Dre – Let Me Ride:

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDIMFcrRTuI&list=PLqnKTLvQNFVAak5anui9aOpDx9kzWD2sX&index=4

39. Fun fact: Except for cases where no bidder present is willing to pay any positive amount for an item to be auctioned, Dutch auction with no reserve price is guaranteed to lead to a sale at a price above $0.

    1. China Evergrande Group creditors are likely to recover just a fraction of the billions of dollars worth of the builder’s debt they hold, with most of its assets likely hard to access for liquidators.
       Photo: Bloomberg

       China Business
       China Evergrande: attempts to auction onshore affiliate Fengtao’s assets fail for a third time in 3 weeks

       – No bids were received for Fengtao’s ‘other account receivables’ at the end of the 24-hour deadline on Friday morning, according to auction platform Jingdong Paimai

       – Fengtao made two unsuccessful attempts in January to sell the receivables, which were listed on the auction platform for 11.5 billion yuan (US$6.2 billion)

       Topic | China property
       Yuke Xie
       Published: 12:58pm, 2 Feb, 2024
       …
       https://scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3250680/china-evergrande-attempts-auction-onshore-affiliate-fengtaos-assets-fail-third-time-3-weeks

40. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1866f49db9fec46a8e53eb0c1a6a93691c8a719e900c7ea4d4cef0fcb38f4f5d.jpg

41. User
    Are longterm Treasurys a safe bet, given the US is on an unsustainable fiscal path?

    At least with stocks and real estate investments, one can rest assured they will always go up.

    ChatGPT
    While Treasury bonds are often considered safer investments compared to stocks and real estate, their safety depends on various factors including economic conditions, inflation rates, and government fiscal policies. While Treasurys are generally seen as a low-risk investment because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, it’s essential to consider potential risks such as inflation eroding the purchasing power of fixed interest payments over time or changes in interest rates affecting bond prices. Additionally, while stocks and real estate have historically shown long-term appreciation, they are also subject to market volatility and downturns. Diversification across different asset classes can help mitigate risk in a portfolio.

    Is this conversation helpful so far?

    1. Yahoo
       Bloomberg
       Treasuries Extend Fall as Powell Adds to Jobs Blow: Markets Wrap
       Richard Henderson
       Sun, February 4, 2024 at 4:35 PM PST·4 min read
       In this article:

       (Bloomberg) — Treasuries resumed a selloff early Monday as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned against the likelihood of a rate cut in March, compounding the effect of Friday’s strong jobs data.

       The 10-year Treasury yield climbed around six basis points in early Asian trading as Powell spoke on CBS’s 60 minutes, compounding heavy selling Friday that added around 14 basis points to the yield.

       Powell’s appearance, broadcast Sunday in the US, was recorded prior to jobs data released Friday that showed US companies boosted payrolls in January by the most in a year.

       The heavy selling in Treasuries Friday rippled across Asian debt markets, weighing on government bonds in Australia and New Zealand on Monday. The 10-year Australian and New Zealand yields rose by around 10 basis points in early trading. The dollar strengthened against major currencies early Monday.

       Investor bets for a rate cut in March by the Fed tumbled Friday to around 20% from almost 40% on Thursday, as economic resilience reduces the likelihood of imminent policy easing.
       …
       https://finance.yahoo.com/news/treasury-selloff-hits-asia-pared-223325295.html

    2. TheHill.com
       Powell: ‘The US is on an unsustainable fiscal path’
       by Taylor Giorno 02/04/24 07:24 PM ET

       Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said “the U.S. is on an unsustainable fiscal path” in a “60 Minutes” interview with Scott Pelley released Sunday.

       “The U.S. federal government’s on an unsustainable fiscal path. And that just means that the debt is growing faster than the economy. So, it is unsustainable. I don’t think that’s at all controversial,” Powell said when asked if the national debt is a danger to the economy.

       The U.S. national debt topped $34 trillion for the first time ever in early January, just over three months after surpassing the $33 trillion mark, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury.

       Congress has punted on spending deadlines three times since the end of September as it grapples with how to fund the government amid tensions about the ballooning national debt.

       Under the latest stopgap measure passed in January, funding for four federal agencies will expire on March 1. Funding for the rest of the government is set to run out on March 8.
       …
       https://thehill.com/homenews/4447860-powell-the-us-is-on-an-unsustainable-fiscal-path

    3. Investor’s Business Daily
       Economy
       Fed Chief Powell: The Secret Reason For Friday’s Stock Market Rally
       ED CARSON 07:04 PM ET 02/04/2024
       Meta Platforms (META) and Amazon.com (AMZN) spurred Friday’s big stock market rally, with the S&P 500 racing to a new record high. But give a lot of the credit to Fed chief Jerome Powell.

       The Federal Reserve chairman slammed stocks Wednesday afternoon when he said a Fed rate cut in March was unlikely. But his comments otherwise were dovish.

       “We don’t look at stronger growth as a problem,” Fed chief Powell said. “We have six months of good inflation data.”

       Notably, Powell stressed that “We’re not looking for a weaker labor market.”

       At the time, that comment didn’t seem crucial. Earlier on Wednesday, the ADP Employment Report estimated that private payroll growth slowed to just 107,000 in January.

       But Friday’s jobs report told a different picture. The U.S. added 353,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said, more than twice as much as expected. Average hourly earnings jumped 0.6% vs. December, double forecasts.
       …
       https://www.investors.com/news/economy/fed-chief-powell-deserves-credit-for-friday-stock-market-rally-heres-why/

    4. Is this conversation helpful so far?

       Suggested new screen name for you: Dr. Zoltar.

42. Is China’s stock market collapse contained?

    1. China regulator vows to stabilise market after stocks hit 5-year lows
       Reuters
       February 5, 20241:09 AM PSTUpdated 3 min ago

       SHANGHAI, Feb 5 (Reuters) – China’s securities regulator vowed to prevent abnormal market fluctuations, after Chinese stocks plunged to five-year lows, but announced no specific measures.

       The watchdog also said it will crack down on ill-intended short selling, attract more investment by long-term capital, and earnestly listen to investors’ voices.

       China’s blue-chip CSI300 Index tumbled nearly 5% last week to the lowest since early 2019, amid signs of panic selling and forced liquidation of leveraged trades.

       The market sell-off led many Chinese investors to vent their frustration and anger via social media, including a blog account of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

       The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said in a statement on Sunday it will step up implementing market stabilisation measures, “steady expectations and confidence, and adamantly ward off abnormal market fluctuations.”

       The CSRC also vowed to crack down on misbehaviours such as market manipulation, vicious short selling, insider trading and fraudulent issuance of shares.

       In addition, the CSRC said it will “listen carefully to the voices of investors, and respond to their concerns in a timely matter.

       The CSRC has previously announced a series of measures to support a languishing stock market – including restrictions on share sales by company shareholders, curbs on short selling and slower pace of listings – but has so far failed to stem market slides.
       …
       https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-regulator-vows-stabilise-market-after-stocks-hit-5-year-lows-2024-02-05/

       1. User
          Shouldn’t the Chinese authorities ban selling stocks, rather than short selling per se, if they want to stop the crash underway? My understanding is that short selling involves buying put options to sell a stock at an agreed price. But it is not the purchase of these options which makes stock prices decline, but rather stock owners selling their shares.

          ChatGPT
          Banning the sale of stocks altogether would likely have severe negative consequences for the market and the economy as a whole. It could lead to a lack of liquidity, hamper investors’ ability to manage their portfolios, and create distrust in the market, potentially causing more panic selling once the ban is lifted. Short selling, while often criticized during market downturns, serves a purpose in providing liquidity and price discovery. Instead, regulatory measures to curb excessive speculation and ensure market stability are typically more effective approaches.

          ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.

43. ChatGPT 3.5

    User
    What is shat intelligence?

    ChatGPT
    It seems like you might be referring to a typo or a misspelling. Did you mean “chat intelligence”? If so, it generally refers to the ability of chatbots or conversational agents to understand and respond to human language in a way that simulates natural conversation.

    User
    What is shat?

    ChatGPT
    “Shat” is the past tense of the verb “shit,” which is a vulgar term for defecation. It’s generally considered impolite or offensive language. Is there a specific context you’re referring to?

    User
    Yes: Shat intelligence.

    ChatGPT
    Ah, I see. It appears to be a typographical error. There’s no specific concept or term called “shat intelligence” that I’m aware of. If you meant something else, please provide more context, and I’ll do my best to assist you.

    User
    I just now invented the term.

    ChatGPT
    Got it! As you’ve just invented the term “shat intelligence,” you have the creative freedom to define its meaning. What do you envision “shat intelligence” to represent or entail?

    User
    This conversation was a sort of intelligence test. Intelligent readers don’t need any further explanation.

    ChatGPT
    Ah, I understand now. It seems like you designed this conversation as a test of intelligence or understanding. Thank you for the clarification. If you have any other questions or topics you’d like to discuss, feel free to let me know!

    ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.

44. DOW FUTURES -0.30%
    S&P 500 FUTURES -0.24%
    NASDAQ 100 FUTURES -0.20%

    US Market
    Stocks look ‘highly vulnerable’ and the economy is likely to enter a yearlong recession, a 30-year market veteran says
    Phil Rosen
    Jan 29, 2024, 11:23 AM PST
    Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., February 7, 2017.
    REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
    Thomson Reuters

    – A longtime market veteran anticipates a bear market and recession to hit the US.

    – Jon Wolfenbarger pointed to falling earnings and the inverted yield curve, among other factors.

    – He said the extended duration of the yield-curve inversion suggested a longer recession.
    …
    https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-outlook-economy-recession-bear-market-earnings-tech-bubble-2024-1

    1. Morning Bid: Powell’s prudence spurs a sell-off
       Reuters
       February 4, 2024 9:41 PM PST
       Updated 7 hours ago
       Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference following the release of the Fed’s interest rate policy decision at the Federal Reserve in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2024
       A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Ankur Banerjee

       A sizzling U.S. jobs report and an interview with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell have quashed any lingering expectations of early rate cuts by the Fed, triggering a broad-based stock sell-off in Asia and leading bond yields higher.

       In an interview with the CBS news show “60 Minutes”, Powell said the U.S. central bank can be “prudent” in deciding when to cut interest rates, with a strong economy allowing policymakers time to build confidence that inflation will continue falling.

       “We have to balance the risk of moving too soon … or too late,” Powell said.

       The interview took place on Thursday, before a blowout January jobs report on Friday showed resilience in the U.S. economy and sent Treasuries lower. That sell-off has continued in Asia, with bond prices in other markets also sliding.

       After the Fed surprised the markets with a dovish tilt in December, projecting 75 basis points of cuts in 2024, traders began pricing in March as the starting point for the central bank’s expected easing cycle.

       But a series of strong labour data, culminating in Friday’s payrolls report, and Powell’s pronouncements over the past week have raised doubts.
       Investors are now pricing in an 82% chance of the Fed standing pat on rates in March, the CME FedWatch tool showed, compared with 33% at the start of the year. They also foresee nearly 120 basis points of cuts for the whole year, down from 150 bps a month ago.

       The reality check on the rate outlook lifted the dollar to an eight-week high against other major currencies, while the yen slipped to a two-month low. Asian equities slid, with stocks in China stuck in the doldrums.

       All that sets up a muted open for European bourses, futures indicate, with a series of PMI releases on deck that will showcase the health of Europe’s economy and offer clues on the outlook for the European Central Bank’s rate moves.
       …
       https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/global-markets-view-europe-2024-02-05/

45. Yahoo
    Moneywise
    ‘Uncle Sam is my favorite sugar daddy’: This Las Vegas stripper makes $10K/month — plus $2K of VA disability. But she owes the IRS $100K and has scary levels of debt. Caleb Hammer responds
    Vishesh Raisinghani
    Sat, February 3, 2024 at 3:07 AM PST·5 min read

    To pick an unconventional career, you probably need a wider safety net than most. Earnings can be unpredictable, and taxes can be much more complicated. Unfortunately, many self-employed individuals don’t focus on financial safety and compound their problems with bad decisions and uncontrolled spending.

    Thirty-three-year-old Christa finds herself in just that position. On a recent episode of Financial Audit with YouTuber Caleb Hammer, she talked about her struggles with debt, her career as an exotic dancer and her reliance on Veterans Affairs (VA) disability payments every month.
    …
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uncle-sam-favorite-sugar-daddy-110700698.html

46. USA TODAY
    ‘The economy is different now’: Parents pay grown-up kids’ bills with retirement savings
    Daniel de Visé, USA TODAY
    Sun, February 4, 2024 at 2:13 AM PST·5 min read

    Three-fifths of parents with adult children gave them financial help in the past year, Pew Research reports in a new study.

    The finding illustrates — in case we needed a reminder — that modern parenting does not end when a child turns 18. But supporting an adult child can get costly, financial planners say. And parents need to make sure their own financial needs are met.

    Roughly half of under-30 adults live with their parents, prior Pew research has shown. That figure has spiked dramatically over the years.
    …
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-parents-using-retirement-savings-101329710.html

47. Is the Evergrande fallout contained?

    1. Macro Matters
       Why China’s national team won’t save spiralling markets
       By Tom Westbrook and Summer Zhen
       February 5, 2024 1:09 AM PST
       Updated 4 hours ago

       SINGAPORE/HONG KONG, Feb 5 (Reuters) – For a second day running state-backed buying likely scraped Chinese stocks from multi-year lows. Investors doubt the support will last and warn it leaves markets unbalanced and unstable.

       Formed in response to a market crash in 2015, the so called “national team” of Chinese state-backed investors poured $17 billion into index-tracking funds last month and were piling in on Friday and Monday as markets fell, analysts say.

       On both days, the Shanghai Composite index slid suddenly to five-year lows before recovering simultaneously with surges in turnover at blue-chip stock tracking index funds.

       But analysts and investors say propping up the market with cash can’t be sustained and won’t provide a lasting turnaround as long as the property sector remains weak and a weight on consumer and investor confidence. The task is also giant: mainland stocks are worth nearly $9 trillion.

       “This effect may resemble the outcome observed during the 2015 boom-and-bust cycle,” said Dennis Yang, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

       “The short-term solution is unlikely to be sufficient for restoring long-term confidence among global investors without addressing the underlying issues in the Chinese economy.”

       In 2015 with a vastly more favourable economic backdrop the effect of “national team” buying was debatable and in any case, it took months for markets to find a bottom and more than five years for the blue-chip CSI300 to regain its peak.

       This time analysts say similar buying has been evident for months – with S&P Global Market Intelligence tracking more than $17 billion into blue-chip tracking funds last month – but there is no resolution in sight to the core growth problem.

       “China’s economy is shifting away from infrastructure and property investment and towards higher value-added industries,” said Ben Bennett, Asia-Pacific investment strategist at Legal & General Investment Management.

       “Recent stimulus is trying to ease the transition by focusing on the symptoms such as decelerating credit growth and volatile equity markets. But the transition is still taking place, so such policies can only have a limited impact.”
       …
       https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/why-chinas-national-team-wont-save-spiralling-markets-2024-02-05/

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