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This Is The End Of The Evil Real Estate Empire

A report from the Herald Tribune. “Throughout much of Florida, including nearby markets such as Tampa and Orlando, standing months of inventory remain comparable to national levels and are moving in tandem. However, in Sarasota and Naples, we are witnessing something far different, which implies we have turned a corner. In both cities, the number of homes currently on the market has increased approximately 60% since January 2023 and between 300% to 500% over January 2022. For sellers, it is a dose of reality: it is no longer 2021 and the aspiration of obtaining more for one’s home than the neighbor who sold last year is increasingly unrealistic. In fact, we are witnessing far more price reductions early in the listing period to align more rapidly with true market values.”

The Palm Beach Post in Florida. “The Broward, Palm Beaches and St. Lucie Realtors group found the months supply of inventory of single-family homes in January to be 4.2 months, which is 23.5% higher than in January 2023 and nearly the same as January 2020. Mae Ferguson, senior global real estate advisor at Sotheby’s International Realty in Palm Beach, said some homes in price ranges between about $2.5 million and $7 million aren’t moving unless they have unique qualities or have been completely renovated. Still, Ferguson said ‘people are out looking, finally.’ ‘They are starting to realize that we were in a bit of a unicorn situation before with those super low interest rates,’ Ferguson said.”

The New York Post. “A once high-flying Florida builder is behind bars for allegedly bilking ‘Below Deck’ star Sandy Yawn and more than a dozen others by failing to finish their upscale homes in a brazen $15 million swindle, officials said. Spencer Calvert, 51, was taken into custody Thursday afternoon at his $3.3 million gated Jacksonville mansion and charged with several larceny and fraud raps. The news thrilled Yawn, who said she paid $1.6 million for her home in Nocatee that was left half completed and unlivable before Calvert suddenly went dark. Others who contracted with Calvert told The Post they had been left insolvent after paying for their projects upfront and having little to show for the purchase years later. One couple paid more than $1 million for their plot of land and a deposit on their dream home — but Calvert still hadn’t filed construction permits a year later.”

“A tour of the area earlier this month revealed plot after plot of untouched and half-finished projects, with the parcels sitting completely dormant. Contractors have also been scrambling after Pineapple’s collapse, telling homeowners that they completed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work for Calvert and were never paid. Officials said contractors have been hitting homeowners with liens for the unpaid work done on their properties, compounding their misery.”

The Real Deal on New York. “Title insurers Riverside Abstract and Madison Title are facing a bigger problem with Fannie Mae than they have let on, according to a memo from the agency obtained by The Real Deal. ‘Until further notice, we will not accept delivery of any mortgage loan closed using Madison or Riverside in any capacity,’ Fannie Mae deputy general counsel Jeff Goodman wrote to lenders. The reason, he wrote, is that New Jersey-based Riverside and Madison participated in real estate closings orchestrated by Boruch Drillman that were deemed fraudulent by the Department of Justice. A recent press release about Drillman that named Riverside and Madison detailed a sweeping fraud scheme by the real estate investor in which he bought properties, then used bogus documents to show he paid more than the actual price. With those documents, he allegedly obtained larger loans from lenders than they would have otherwise made.”

The Review Journal. “A second federal class-action ‘copycat’ lawsuit that has the potential to drastically change the residential real estate industry has been filed in Nevada. Multiple real estate agents interviewed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal said Department of Justice officials were in Las Vegas on numerous occasions issuing subpoenas and interviewing brokers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic related to commissions charged by brokerages. A Las Vegas real estate agent, who has worked in the industry for decades and is one of the top-selling brokers in the valley spoke to the Review-Journal under the condition of anonymity, and said these lawsuits have the entire industry in a state of panic. The agent said the Department of Justice appears to be rekindling a federal case around the same issue that was paused due to the pandemic, which could further compound the issue brought forth by the wave of lawsuits.”

“The agent said if real estate brokers are decoupled from NAR’s commission structure due to legal ramifications by either continuous class-action lawsuit rulings, a multi-jurisdictional ruling, or a federal case, as much as 80 percent of the industry nationwide may find themselves out of the job. ‘This is the end of the real estate empire,’ the agent said. ‘Or to put it more accurately, this is the end of the evil real estate empire.'”

Bisnow on Massachusetts. “A series of sales have made clear downtown Boston’s property values are falling, and a new report found it suffered the largest price decrease in the world last year. Property prices in Boston’s central business district in the fourth quarter were down 30.4% year-over-year, according to MSCI’s RCA CPPI Global Index report. Central Chicago saw an 11.7% decrease, Central D.C. saw a 14.7% decrease, Manhattan saw a 2.5% decrease and San Francisco saw a 24% decrease. In Q4, Boston saw its lowest level of office leasing activity for the year with a 47.5% decrease from 2022 and a 17% office vacancy rate. A 38K SF building on West Street sold for a 74% discount in October, an office building near TD Garden sold for a 40% discount in January to Rhino Capital Advisors LLC and Synergy Investments acquired One Liberty Square for $45M, representing a 17% discount.”

The Commercial Observer. “Another office bites the dust, proverbially speaking. TPG Angelo Gordon and Ocean West Capital Partners have sold a nine-story office building in Orange County, Calif., for $31 million, or $146 per square foot, property records show. That’s 42.5 percent less than the $54 million it traded for in April 2019. Ocean West recently completed a $2.5 million renovation on the property, according to its website. There are no office projects currently under construction in Orange County, according to CBRE’s fourth-quarter market report. Other than the COVID-constrained 2020, last year was the only time in more than a decade that Orange County saw negative annual office absorption at 1.7 million square feet.”

Insauga in Canada. “While no one would argue that homes in the GTA are cheap (the average home price in the region currently sits at $1,026,703), it does appear that some stylish and upgraded homes in in-demand cities such as Mississauga, Brampton and Ajax are selling for significantly less than their listing price. Homes in Markham and Toronto also made the list. 1447 Santa Rosa Crt. – Mississauga: This East Credit house sold for $2,000,000 after being listed for $2,299,999, meaning it sold for close to $300,000 under asking. 50 Sunset Blvd. – Brampton: This Brampton West home sold for $1,060,000 after being listed for $1,150,000, meaning it sold for about $100,000 less than its asking price.”

The Wirral Globe in the UK. “Neighbourson a quiet residential road have slammed a pallet company for turning it into ‘an industrial area.’ In 2023, Chris Reynolds Pallets set up a new site on which has reportedly been a commercial yard for nearly 100 years. The site had previously been operated by William Dodd Builders who went into liquidation in August 2023. Plans had been approved on the site in September 2020 to build 14 homes but never went ahead. David Wilde, who has been getting people to sign a petition, said the situation was frustrating, adding: ‘It looks like an industrial area. I look out of the garden and all you can see is pallets everywhere. It’s a mess, it’s a disgrace. Now we are thinking of downsizing but no one is going to buy my house looking at that mess over the road.'”

South China Morning Post. “Chinese investors who have borrowed from the bank to buy a house abroad are facing a double-whammy as they contend with an economic slowdown at home and surging interest rates across the globe that are hampering their ability to pay for their purchases, according to analysts. In a growing number of cases they are having to sell their overseas property, unable to free up the funds to service the higher mortgage repayments. These dynamics seem to be playing out for a number of Chinese home owners in Australia, where the central bank has hiked interest rates on 13 occasions since 2022.”

“In the popular Sydney suburb of Bondi, known for its famous beach, one Beijing resident had bought a two-bedroom apartment for A$1.3 million (US$848,000) in 2015, according to Peter Li, general manager of Plus Agency, a property company with more than A$200 million in annual sales. They were recently forced to sell – at a significant loss when the costs of renovation work are factored in. ‘So they bought the property and took out a mortgage, but the property was off-plan and they [later] discovered some defects, and then Covid happened,’ Li said. ‘They wanted to rent out the property but they needed to fix it first. They started to do that, but in 2023 they realised they had ran out of cash to fund the project.'”

“After their Australian bank account ran dry early last year, the bank set them a deadline to sell the property by this month. ‘The purchase price plus the cost [of repairs] meant that they needed A$1.7 million to A$1.8 million [to break even],’ Li said. Just last week, they agreed to let go of the property for A$1.4 million.”

From AFP. “The Chinese government had big plans for its real estate—so how did it end up with hoards of abandoned mansions across the country? Take the State Guest Mansions, a development envisioned as the palatial homes for the upper crust of society. Now their only residents are hurdles of cattle and the occasional adventure explorers meandering like ghosts around the arched verandas and stone façades of hundreds of abandoned villas. Located around the hills of Shenyang (about 400 miles northeast of Beijing), the development was originally planned by Greenland Group, a Shanghai-based real estate developer, and broke ground in 2010. But as AFP reports, within two years the project had come to grinding halt, leaving the half-formed skeletons of imitative royalty in its wake. Today the crumbling estates are still abandoned, left in an eerie series of rows appearing like an architectural cornfield.”

“The irony of this formation will only grow more apparent as the seasons begin to turn, as local farmers have begun plowing the land between villas for future crops. Would-be garages of the abandoned mansions are now repurposed as storage for hay bails, and modest two-rail fences corral herds of cows between properties. In what would have been the sales center, a model of the completed 260-villa neighborhood still sits. ‘These (homes) would have sold for millions—but the rich haven’t even bought one of them,’ a farmer named Guo told AFP.”

“The State Guest Mansions are just a number of deserted developments scattered around China, an occurrence that speaks to a growing real estate crisis in the country. Nearby is an abandoned high-rise complex, which Jonathan Cheng, a reporter for the the Wall Street Journal, visited recently and documented in a video on the paper’s website. ‘This is just another of the residential property developments in Shenyang that have frozen in their tracks,’ Cheng says, pointing at a collection of dozens of roughly 15-story buildings. With concrete frames and nonexistent windows, the buildings look like empty oversized brutalist doll houses, waiting for someone to come sprinkle life into their interiors. But like a toy cast aside long after a child grows up, it’s unlikely that the project will get picked up again.”

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This Post Has 85 Comments

  1. ‘For sellers, it is a dose of reality: it is no longer 2021 and the aspiration of obtaining more for one’s home than the neighbor who sold last year is increasingly unrealistic. In fact, we are witnessing far more price reductions early in the listing period to align more rapidly with true market values’

    But taylorbowl? Spring selling season? Weather!

  2. ‘A recent press release about Drillman that named Riverside and Madison detailed a sweeping fraud scheme by the real estate investor in which he bought properties, then used bogus documents to show he paid more than the actual price. With those documents, he allegedly obtained larger loans from lenders than they would have otherwise made’

    Senator running deer heap angry.

    1. Other than bloviating for the cameras, what has Fauxahontus done to curb rampant fraud in the REIC sector?

  3. ‘A series of sales have made clear downtown Boston’s property values are falling, and a new report found it suffered the largest price decrease in the world last year’

    Wa happened to my red hotness Boston?

  4. Others who contracted with Calvert told The Post they had been left insolvent after paying for their projects upfront and having little to show for the purchase years later.

    But…but…muh generational wealth!

  6. ‘This is the end of the real estate empire,’ the agent said. ‘Or to put it more accurately, this is the end of the evil real estate empire.’”

    The NAR is an industry of dissemblers and racketeers that should’ve been held accountable for its swindles decades ago. As the Fed pauperizes the former middle & working classes with its “No Billionaire Left Behind” monetary policies, more and more homebuyers are going to balk at being defrauded by the NAR and its shady practices.

  9. Property prices in Boston’s central business district in the fourth quarter were down 30.4% year-over-year, according to MSCI’s RCA CPPI Global Index report.

    Is that a lot?

  10. Central Chicago saw an 11.7% decrease, Central D.C. saw a 14.7% decrease, Manhattan saw a 2.5% decrease and San Francisco saw a 24% decrease.

    There seems to be a common denominator here, but I just can’t put my finger on it.

  11. TPG Angelo Gordon and Ocean West Capital Partners have sold a nine-story office building in Orange County, Calif., for $31 million, or $146 per square foot, property records show. That’s 42.5 percent less than the $54 million it traded for in April 2019.

    At what point is the wipeout of fictitious Yellen Bux “value” from CRE in Doom Loop cities going to start taking down banks & pension funds?

    1. Few things are as glorious as seeing globalist scum media “journalists” who have been the most fanatical proponents of open borders and unrestricted immigration by unassimilable 3rd World benefits spongers getting culturally enriched by their pet creatures.

    2. Nice of the Woke news crew to walk away and leave the disabled wheelchair driver who saved their @ss from the migrant thugs to fend for himself.

  14. The BBC:

    Discharging untested patients to care homes during the Covid-19 pandemic was “a form of genocide”, a front-line doctor has said.

    Intensive care doctor Laura McClelland said three things still made her angry four years on from the start of the pandemic.

    She added doctors had little option but to discharge patients as they struggled to “rustle up” carers who were willing to risk their lives for minimum wage jobs.

    She was speaking ahead of the UK Covid inquiry’s three-week visit to Wales, which begins on Tuesday.

    When the pandemic broke out, Dr McClelland was working at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, one of those that bore the brunt of the first wave.

    She also featured in a BBC Wales documentary made during that time.

    She finds it difficult to talk about some of her experiences – the toll on staff, patients and loved ones is not easily forgotten.

    And while she is proud of the sacrifices she and colleagues made to adapt and cope, her second source of anger is the impact it had on families, and those left grieving alone, under strict rules to minimise contact.

    Trying to establish a rapport with relatives over a video link, as their loved ones were dying from Covid was “deeply inhuman for everybody involved,” she said.

    Establishing eye contact was near impossible as her visor meant all people saw were reflections bouncing off the plastic.

    “I just have to hope the compassion got through,” she said, recalling that even voices were muffled through the layers of PPE and background noise. “It’s something I don’t think we will ever be able to get over”.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/form-of-genocide-in-care-homes-during-covid-doctor/ar-BB1iPvqD

    2. A genocide, did you say?

      Dr. Anthony Fauci is responsible for the gain of function research conducted at the Wuhan lab (funded by U.S. taxpayers) to engineer corona viruses to make them more lethal.

      Via the virus, and the vaccines, he is guilty of murdering millions.

  15. Editor’s note: Deadline is launching a new series, Hollywood Contraction, which examines the toll the job losses caused by the ongoing industrywide cost-cutting has had on different sections of the entertainment community, starting with actors.

    Most of the college-bound aspiring actors from the high school class of 2020 received their acceptance letters in the first days of the pandemic. Their early studies and stage training were disrupted by Covid, with many classes moving online. Four years later, the same class is graduating from college and facing an even bigger challenge – a contracted TV marketplace post-strike.

    “It’s so f*cking hard out there. There is so little work. It’s a brutal time in the business. There are no jobs,” I hear consistently from agents, managers and actors.

    On top of fewer shows and virtually no pilots, the available acting gigs pay less than they used to amid rising cost of living, talent sources say, making it hard for many working actors to afford their rent or mortgage and support their families.

    As Deadline reported in September, accelerated contraction and reeled-in budgets made for a bumpy re-entry into the TV marketplace post-strike. Things only got worse by November when tens of thousands of SAG-AFTRA members started looking for jobs after the actors union reached an agreement with the studios.

    The wave of series cancellations during the dual Hollywood strikes has continued amid sweeping cost-cutting, including layoffs and content removal, by traditional media companies and some belt-tightening among the tech-based streamers too as their once sky-high series budgets have come down to earth.

    A decade ago, as many as 100 broadcast pilots would be casting right now. This year, we have a total of three, all at NBC. In addition to a shot at an on-air series, a casting in a pilot provides a life line for hundreds of actors with a paycheck that helps them qualify for the union’s health insurance.

    Broadcast networks had already been pulling away from pilots – they don’t really factor into Fox’s development model, and the new CW’s scripted slate relies predominantly on international co-productions. (With few exceptions, basic cable networks, which also employ pilots, have retreated from original scripted programming altogether.)

    The current TV budget cutbacks follow a decade of escalating prices fueled by the streaming wars as attracting big talent and big shows was considered paramount in the pursuit of subscribed growth. (The end of packaging several years ago also is said to have contributed to the push for higher actor salaries to keep the pay comparable after commissions.)

    With the focus now shifting to profitability, the market is undergoing what many describe a correction. The question is how long it will last.

    Presenting his annual tally, FX’s John Landgraf’s recently declared Peak TV over, revealing that there were 516 original English-language scripted titles in 2023, down 12% from 2022, and projecting a further slide to 400-450 shows within the next few years. Those are levels from a decade ago, and the trend would mean acting jobs going down roughly 30% from the peak of 2022.

    As a veteran rep put it in September, “The bubble seems to have burst.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/hollywood-contraction-actors-struggle-to-find-jobs-as-tv-castings-dry-up/ar-BB1iESDf

    1. “It’s so f*cking hard out there. There is so little work. It’s a brutal time in the business. There are no jobs,” I hear consistently from agents, managers and actors.

      Maybe putting out “woke” drek and globalist propaganda packaged as “entertainment” isn’t a viable business model.

    2. I read that old TV shows are handily outdrawing new shows on streaming channels. No one wants to watch the new woke garbage, so they are making less and less of it. Problem is, they have forgotten how to make shows and movies people want to watch.

      1. The lady who represents insurance companies says they are losing big money on these multi-unit policies. We are seeing that on the coasts and in yer thin air sh$tholes too. It’s HOA’s that can’t get coverage.

    1. That house and swimming pool appear juxtaposed almost like a photoshop job. A few clucking chickens would be a better match.

  19. From a /r/Denver Reddit thread titled “Would you buy this house?”

    “I like my weekends to have them filled with projects. When we bought our last house, which was completed in 1954 I had a spreadsheet of things we needed to fix or upgrade with 124 items on it. Some were big (replacing the existing electric baseboards with a boiler and hot water heat) some were small (replacing the front door with something that didn’t belong in Florida). At the end of year one, we’d spent $44,000 and completed exactly 67 items on the list. The list was now 110 items long as we learned a whole plethora of things we didn’t know about while working on the house. The next year we finished 24 items on the list and found another 19 items. So at the end of the second year of ownership, the list stood at 165 items. By this time I was sick of sacrificing my weekend. I literally took vacations just to work on the house sometimes.

    Eventually it became a matter of living with problems until they were a crisis and then dealing with them then since we needed a break. After 11 years in the home, it played a role in my divorce. The resentments building around weekend projects vs actually enjoying ourselves and doing something fun became too much. She still owns the house and I couldn’t be happier to be rid of that money pit. Since the divorce she’s spent no less than $80,000 in projects on the house and still works on it most weeks. It’s nicer now than when I lived in it, but I now have a life.”

    At least it was cheaper than renting.

    1. “I like my weekends to have them filled with projects”

      I have seen more than my share of these weekend warrior projects.

      I owned a place from 1983 – late 2005 and from – June 2012 through today. The stint when I was renting between the two had me looking at a bunch of mostly overpriced houses, many of which had been “remodeled” by the homeowners which left me looking at more WTF did they do fuqed up sh#t than I could possibly believe. Since I wasn’t making any offers on these mostly way overpriced hideous remodeled homes I didn’t even look for any wiring, HVAC or plumbing problems that undoubtedly would have been present. It all looks easy and comes out great in the Home Depot commercials but not so much in real life.

      1. Working on my burnt out shell of a house this weekend, I found: electrical wires piped in 1/2″ rigid and set in 1″ thick plaster feeding an outlet.

        Never seen that one before. LOL@ trying to bid on repairing / replacing something like that in an existing house.

  20. and San Francisco saw a 24% decrease.
    Odds of that repatriation office seems to be dimming more everyday as does the Plan to pay $5MM each.

    1. They always run out of other people’s money to spend.

      Meanwhile, the state is facing a $60B+deficit, with no end in sight. At some point Gruesome is gonna have to to start sawing and slashing the state budget, and that could mean mass layoffs.

  21. [Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! It’s Seattle!]

    Homeless man Steven Irwin builds cabin in Seattle public park after digging up site with excavator in find treasure

    https://nypost.com/2024/02/25/us-news/seattle-homeless-man-steven-irwin-builds-cabin-in-public-park-months-after-digging-up-site-with-excavator/

    [snip snip snip snip]

    A Seattle homeless man built a “ticking timebomb” cabin — featuring a washing machine and a treadmill — at a public park months after he allegedly stole an excavator to tear up part of the site in his pursuit of gold.

    Steven Irwin, 41, claimed he had permission to build the structure in Dr. Jose Rizal Park, despite the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department recently paying $15,000 to repair the damage Irwin had done when he illegally dug up the land in Oct. 2023, according to KOMO News.

    Irwin was arrested for the rogue construction and charged with theft of a motor vehicle only to reclaim the space with some interesting upgrades.

    The illegal cabin now features fireplaces, propane heaters, a washing machine, multiple generators, and a treadmill.

    Following his arrest, Irwin was released and returned to the same site to start building up his cabin.

    “He is digging into the slopes, building structures, tearing down trees, undoing thousands of dollars in repairs,” Andrea Suarez of We Heart Seattle, a homeless outreach group that has offered assistance to Irwin, told the outlet Friday.

    “There’s also a risk for him being in that environment. There are smells of kerosene, propane, and gasoline – there are three different forms of fuel down here, wires everywhere,” Suarez shared — adding the spot is “a ticking timebomb.”

    Irwin’s cabin goes beyond wanting just a cozy place in the park, Suarez explained.

    “He’s dreaming up that this is a gold mine, that he’s mining for diamonds, and that he is going to find gold and strike it rich,” Suarez said.

    Irwin was busted in Oct. 2023, after multiple 911 calls flooded in from concerned neighbors about destruction he was causing at Dr. Jose Rizal Park.

    The Seattle Parks and Recreation Department recently paid $15,000 to repair the damage Irwin caused while digging up the land.

    In October, Irwin was busted after multiple 911 calls flooded in from concerned neighbors about destruction at Dr. Jose Rizal Park — which is about 3 miles away from the iconic Seattle Space Needle.

    “He was driving a little crazy with this heavy piece of machinery,” said park steward and volunteer Genevieve Courtney last year, who just happened to come across Irwin while he dug up the land.

    He would later admit to police that he cleared the space for his cabin with the excavator, still holding strong to his belief he had permission to change the face of the land for his cabin.

    The danger of the situation has also dawned on neighbors living near the park

    Since his release and return to his encampment, Irwin has been using power and hand tools to clear away areas in the park, according to the outlet.

    The danger of the situation has also dawned on neighbors living near the park, who have tried tirelessly to get the city’s attention on the issue.

    “This guy is just getting away with it, and I don’t understand that. We are absolutely frustrated. We need some civility here, we need police action,” Brian Hartman told the outlet.

    Andrea Suarez, executive director of We Heart Seattle, said the situation should serve as a wake-up call to local leaders in the crime-ridden city.

    Dr. Jose Rizal Park is about 3 miles away from the iconic Seattle Space Needle.

    Suarez, who wants the situation resolved due to the potential danger Irwin may unintentionally inflict on himself and others, says the homeless man has no plans to stop his building.

    However, she said that could only be achieved if the city steps up to the plate and enforces the law.

    “This is a call to action by law enforcement and Seattle Parks and Recreation to do something,” Suarez told the outlet.

    1. To do something? That sounds like everyone is expecting someone else to do something. Sounds like Irwin is staying put.

  22. Former US State official on censorship — “What I’m describing is military rule”

    https://joannenova.com.au/

    By Jo Nova

    One of the most extraordinary interviews I’ve ever heard. Take everything you thought you knew …

    Tucker Carlson talks to Mike Benz who worked in the cyber portfolio at the US State Department. He calmly lays out the dark power of the US intelligence network. This is the inside story of how and why the military industrial censorship complex grew in the last thirty years.

    It’s obviously hard to confirm what he says, but we already know Twitter and Facebook were effectively acting as arms of the US government. We’ve got the emails showing they were colluding with US state agencies and the legacy media on a daily basis to cover up government failures and corruption, and to censor Americans. We know the CIA withheld a report on China because it might have helped Donald Trump, and we know the CIA has been feeding the media “misinformation” for 50 years because another insider told us so.

    Mike Benz seems to be able to explain so many details on the forces that shaped history.

    At first the agencies liked free speech
    In 1991 the apparatus of the US State thought the internet and free speech was a great tool. It made it easier to fuel revolutions in foreign countries and overturn inconvenient governments. And so the CIA worked out that if they controlled the social media and legacy media in “problem” countries they could put sympathetic governments into place. It was cheaper than sending in tanks. Thus a giant specialist program of expertise in censorship grew in order to control elections.

    Given that this foreign interference was unprincipled, being undemocratic and anti-free speech, it is no surprise that a generation later the same expertise would morph into a malignant agency (or two) used against “Americans who threatened democracy”.

    Then they started to fear the rise of the populist right
    By 2016 the internet was vastly more mature and influential. Instead of being a tool of the intel agencies it was a tool of the masses, and they were voting the wrong way. The spooks could not “pull a story” by leaning on one editor, or asking friends at Facebook to de-amplify a meme.

    Then Brexit lit a fire in the intelligence world — they feared France, Spain and Italy would also leave, the whole EU would disintegrate and worst of all, NATO and the “rules based international order would collapse” (which is another way of saying these meddling people would lose their jobs, their grants and their power). Then of course, months later, Mr Trump was unexpectedly elected, and the world teetered on the edge of functional democracy. A disaster…

    [A video appears here …]

    There is a transcript which is 29 pages for people who don’t like to watch — but Benz is an exceptional speaker — cutting to the point, without wasting time. It makes a great podcast converted into mp3.

    Notice here, in his list of the great fears of the intelligence agencies — the point of NATO is to be the army, essentially, of the global bankers.

    Brexit would give rise to “Frexit” in France with Marine Le Pen, to “Spexit” in Spain with a Vox party, to “Italexit” in Italy, to “Grexit” in Germany, to “Grexit” in Greece.
    The EU would come apart so NATO would be killed without a single bullet being fired.
    And then, not only that, now that NATO is gone, now there’s no enforcement arm for the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, or the world Bank.
    So now, the financial stakeholders who depend on the battering ram of the national security state would basically be helpless against governments around the world.

    They have redefined democracy.

    Instead of the “will of the voters” — they are trying to define democracy as the infrastructure and the institutions of democracy. So anything that threatens “trust” in the institutions is a threat to democracy. See how this works? If you criticize mail-in-voting you are undermining elections. If you criticize your rulers you are a cybercriminal, a terrorist.

    1. “ At first the agencies liked free speech
      In 1991 the apparatus of the US State thought the internet and free speech was a great tool. It made it easier to fuel revolutions in foreign countries and overturn inconvenient governments. And so the CIA worked out that if they controlled the social media and legacy media in “problem” countries they could put sympathetic governments into place. It was cheaper than sending in tanks. Thus a giant specialist program of expertise in censorship grew in order to control elections.”

      There was no internet or social media in 1991.

      1. There was no internet or social media in 1991.

        I’m not sure how to parse your sentence, but there was Internet in 1991. I got my first email address in 1986.

        1. You may have had email in 1986, and the internet connecting people in academia may have existed then, but the article he is quoting is discussing 21st-century things.

  23. A reader sent these in:

    Will be interesting to watch Palm Springs over the next several months – inventory booming & looks like a full on AirBNB meltdown, lots of condos down 100K+ from the 2022 peak. Almost 800 listings in the area.

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1761621531560444220

    Who remembers the lithium boom ? ✍️ AI awaits the same fate in the not to distant future. Few understand this .

    https://twitter.com/great_martis/status/1761145436222746629

    Now a German spy balloon has entered U.S. airspace.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1622478316153499648

    We can’t beat the Vietnamese, we can’t stop 19 guys with boxcutters, we can’t beat the Taliban, we can’t stop a balloon – what the hell is the defense budget going towards?

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1621593716392591363

    PENTAGON SAYS IT IS REVIEWING OPTIONS OVER CHINESE SPY BALLOON, MAY INVADE IRAQ IN RESPONSE – CNN

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1621619677322518529

    The demand at Denver food banks is higher than ever

    https://twitter.com/denverpost/status/1761040691826753759

    Richardson ISD (Dallas metro) to shut down 5 schools and reduce teachers in 2024-2025, with the potential for more as enrollment declines.

    “On any given day, there are more than 9,000 empty seats in Richardson ISD classrooms, [representing half of our seats at some schools]”

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1761439242431983936

    I deleted the prior post about Volvo.

    While the source was confirmed and their position at this specific Volvo dealership was verified, it’s clear that this type of content requires a lot more context.

    I attempted to share this information as objectively as possible by writing “Presented without comment” as the caption.

    But that didn’t quite work as people jumped to conclusions given the missing context (I should have expected that).

    My goal has always been and will continue to be to uplift automotive for consumers and dealers by creating the largest destination for transparent insights.

    If I miss the mark (like I did today), it’s just as important for me to own that.

    I appreciate the feedback (truly).

    More to come on this topic as I collect more information.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1761790507934490656

    Sir .. did Volvo dealers beg you take it down or what? you’ve hidden my comment now 😂😬 .. seems unlike you — what’s the missing context?

    https://twitter.com/TimboNotes/status/1761791613540401409

    We are in the middle of the fastest housing crash in recorded history.

    Only 5 periods in our house price records (since 1963) have housing prices dropped by more than 2% over any 12 month period. 1969, 1990, 2008, 2019, 2024.

    Let’s take a look – a 🧵

    https://twitter.com/ejbowlin/status/1761407502162317372
    Inventory levels near GFC lows, balance sheets collapsing and savings drying up, mortgage apps collapsing. What else would you like me to know about? I’ve only owned several hundred rental properties and studied economics at the PHD level, not sure what else you expect from someone.

    https://twitter.com/ejbowlin/status/1761532380085473777

    Falling car prices have (yet again) led to weird behavior in the car world:

    1) Smart dealers are taking the medicine and accepting lowering prices.

    More importantly, they’re laser-focused on inventory management and maintaining a quick turn-time.

    2) Foolish dealers are playing wait-and-see. They’re waiting for a miracle that won’t arrive.

    3) Dumb dealers are removing online prices completely.

    Be a smart dealer.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1761428201249652936

    Canada

    https://twitter.com/SallyMayweather/status/1761752209513980114

    1. “The demand at Denver food banks is higher than ever”

      Are you any better off now than you were in January 2021?

  25. Bill Melugin
    @BillMelugin_

    NEW: Per three ICE & DHS sources to me & @GriffJenkins, Jose Antonio Ibarra, the suspect charged in the murder of nursing student Laken Riley, is a Venezuelan national who crossed illegally into El Paso, TX in September 2022 & was released into the U.S. via parole.
    We reached out to ICE for an official statement confirming these details yesterday – and they are telling us today they “do not have any comment”.
    Additionally, yesterday, DOJ charged Ibarra’s brother, also an illegal alien from Venezuela, with having a fake/fraudulent green card.

    Feb 24, 2024

    https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1761407972671115548?s=20

    1. It will be memory holed by tomorrow. Remember that illegal who shot and killed a woman on a SoCal pier, who claimed he found the gun on the pier and when he picked it up it randomly discharged? He walked. I’ll bet he still brags to his friends about how he killed her.

    1. Happy FOUR YEAR Anniversary of “two weeks to flatten the curve” coming up next month.

      “We’re all in this together”

      What a f*ing joke.

  28. Shadow of Ezra
    @ShadowofEzra

    NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says ‘Ukraine will join NATO.

    With Russia approaching victory, Ukraine may see this as their last resort. The Deep State does not want peace.

    Russia has warned that Ukraine joining NATO would lead to prolonged issues. Vladimir Putin, speaking to Tucker Carlson, expressed no intention to attack Poland or Latvia unless they were to initiate hostilities against Russia.

    2:37 PM · Feb 24, 2024

    https://x.com/ShadowofEzra/status/1761475340424073311?s=20

    1. “Ukraine will join NATO. It is not a question of if, but of when,” he said in a video message.

  29. ‘Officials said contractors have been hitting homeowners with liens for the unpaid work done on their properties, compounding their misery’

    Pay up you flops!

  30. ‘It looks like an industrial area. I look out of the garden and all you can see is pallets everywhere. It’s a mess, it’s a disgrace. Now we are thinking of downsizing but no one is going to buy my house looking at that mess over the road’

    Dave, you are the winnah! here. It was cheaper than renting, you had pride of ownership, you stuffed money in yer trousers like mad and that money they took – you can write it off yer taxes!

  31. ‘In the popular Sydney suburb of Bondi, known for its famous beach, one Beijing resident had bought a two-bedroom apartment for A$1.3 million (US$848,000) in 2015…They were recently forced to sell – at a significant loss when the costs of renovation work are factored in. ‘So they bought the property and took out a mortgage, but the property was off-plan and they [later] discovered some defects, and then Covid happened,’ Li said. ‘They wanted to rent out the property but they needed to fix it first. They started to do that, but in 2023 they realised they had ran out of cash to fund the project’

    ‘After their Australian bank account ran dry early last year, the bank set them a deadline to sell the property by this month…The purchase price plus the cost [of repairs] meant that they needed A$1.7 million to A$1.8 million [to break even],’ Li said. Just last week, they agreed to let go of the property for A$1.4 million’

    2015 and it’s a major a$$pounding. But the Auss-end media will tell you we’ve had never ending booms that entire time.

  32. Yale reinstitutes standardized test requirement, says test-optional policies hurt some students

    https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/yale-reinstitutes-standardized-test-requirement-says-test-optional

    [A snip …]

    Yale is now instituting what it calls a “Text-Flexible Policy” that will allow applicants to choose between four different tests to submit scores.

    [Another snip …]

    “Yale’s research from before and after the pandemic has consistently demonstrated that, among all application components, test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades,” the university said.

    [Who would’ve thought?]

    1. Yale is now instituting what it calls a “Text-Flexible Policy” that will allow applicants to choose between four different tests to submit scores.

      Other than the SAT and the ACT, what other standardized tests are there?

      1. A local pie shop burned down. There was one brick wall left standing and the owner cleaned up the site by tearing that wall down and removing all the debris.

        Surprise! With one wall remaining he could have rebuilt the entire building with a standard building permit. Without it, a comprehensive environmental impact study was required.

        It remains an empty lot at the country crossroads.

  35. We have RottenTomatoes for movie and TV show reviews, but nothing for real estate listings. It would be great if after viewing a property we could go online and provide a review. It would certainly help others from over paying for a potential money pit, and may even help bring down prices.

  36. Are you used to the housing market’s new normal, with 7% mortgage rates and all?

    And by the way, I have seen a lot of Open House signs around San Diego recently. It should be interesting to see how it works out when all of these new listings collide with the buzzsaw of 7% mortgage rates!

    1. REAL ESTATE
      Welcome to the housing market’s ‘new normal’ — 7% mortgage rates and all
      As the busy spring season nears, buyers and sellers are starting to make peace with high rates rather than hold out for sweeter deals.
      Feb. 25, 2024, 7:00 AM EST
      By Emily Pandise and Christine Romans
      Mortgage rates are high and housing inventory is tight, but some experts see the market’s deep freeze starting to thaw this spring.

      Homebuying started to pick up during and after the holidays. Existing home sales increased 3.1% from December to January, according to the National Association of Realtors. Meanwhile, the inventory of unsold existing homes rose 2% from December to January, totaling around 1 million at the end of last month, slightly expanding buyers’ options.

      “While home sales remain sizably lower than a couple of years ago, January’s monthly gain is the start of more supply and demand,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in a news release Thursday.

      “This might be the market’s first steps toward a ‘new normal’– a world where inventory remains rather scarce by pre-pandemic standards, but buyers are not exactly swarming the doorway of every open house like in 2021 and early 2022,” Zillow senior economist Jeff Tucker wrote in a blog post last week.

      “More revived supply should help meet the returning demand, and head off the risk of renewed overheating,” he said.

      For the last few years, limited housing inventory and low rates have put the housing market on ice. Many homeowners who’d otherwise be eager to sell have hesitated to shake off the so-called golden handcuffs of mortgage rates as low as 2% or 3%.

      That’s finally starting to change, experts say — even though rates are now much higher, climbing again past 7% in recent weeks.

      “Markets are just kind of recalibrating for the reality that the Fed is not going to cut interest rates right away,” said Greg McBride, Bankrate’s chief financial analyst. For many buyers and sellers alike, it’s beginning to sink in that “we’re not going back to three and four percent mortgage rates” anytime soon, he said.

      In many cases, lifestyle factors — like empty-nesters looking to downsize or growing families hunting for more space — are pushing people to move, rather than wait around for sweeter deals.

      “It’s a new cycle for real estate,” said Bess Freedman, CEO of Brown Harris Stevens, a real estate agency that operates throughout the East Coast. Already, she said, that shift in mindset has started to put some more “good opportunities out there. The people who are serious about it are getting into the market and taking advantage of it.”

      Experts expect buyers to have a bit more leverage this year compared to last. Data from Zillow shows that 1 in 5 home listings saw a price cut in January, and the typical home was on the market for 29 days — longer than during last year’s buying frenzy, but 19 days shorter than the average before the pandemic.

      You don’t need to feel pressed into making an offer on the spot.
      …
      https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna140169

      1. “As the busy spring season nears, buyers and sellers are starting to make peace with high rates rather than hold out for sweeter deals.”

        I guess prices are headed down, as 2022 prices are unsupportable off 7% mortgages.

  37. Ben, I thought I posted a link to a great discussion between Todd Sachs and Adam Taggart but I’m not seeing it.

    1. Housing Market’s Bucking Historical
      Trends
      Mortgage Rate Predictions Change as Housing Market Stalls
      Published Feb 22, 2024 at 11:19 AM EST
      Updated Feb 22, 2024 at 2:02 PM EST
      By Alexander Fabino

      Homebuyers are bracing for a tougher market as mortgage rates inch higher, experts say, reflecting the Federal Reserve’s cautious stance on interest rate cuts amid fluctuating economic signals.

      In the wake of the Fed’s meeting minutes issued on Wednesday showing a consensus on the central bank not cutting rates too quickly, the housing market is hitting a slowdown, with mortgage applications plummeting and rates climbing to their highest in months. The Fed’s guarded optimism about inflation control and the subsequent recalibration of rate cut expectations have sent ripples through the U.S. 10-year treasury, and subsequently the typical 30-year mortgage rate.

      As mortgage rates nudge upwards to 7.14 percent, according to Mortgage News Daily, potential buyers are caught in a bind, adjusting to a market where higher borrowing costs and limited supply dampen affordability and accessibility. The Fed’s deliberations and market reactions signaled a shift in the market, creating an uncertain landscape that both buyers and industry professionals must navigate.

      Experts say this is a new reality, and it’s not going to change any time soon.
      …
      https://www.newsweek.com/mortgage-rate-predictions-housing-market-stalls-fed-caution-1872190

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