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You Can’t Go Back Through In Time, Everyone’s Got To Play Their Chips On The Board

A report from ABC Action News. “A report from the Florida Realtors shows that the slowing condo market is bringing down prices. Barbara Schmal is a Tampa Bay area broker associate who says condos are increasingly becoming harder to sell. ‘I have never seen it this bad,’ Schmal said. ‘We do open houses, we can’t get people to come to open houses, none of the agents that have buyers are even wanting to show the property, and it’s making our sellers very, very nervous.’ She provided numbers that show right now there are 2,660 condos on the market in Pinellas County, of those 869 are in 55+ communities. ‘I currently have 5 listings in the 55 and older communities, the longest one I have on the market, which I listed back in August; it’s been on the market for 151 days, and we’ve had 3 showings,’ Schmal said.”

“Venice condo owner Karen Shipman emailed ABC Action News, worried she may soon be priced out of her condo she and her husband bought to retire here as their last home. ‘Sometimes I’m not sure this will be our last home because our condo fees have gone up, and mainly insurance is a big factor,’ Shipman said. According to the Insurance Information Institute, Master Condo Association Policies are increasing by 100-500% right now. ‘It all gets passed down to the homeowners,’ Shipman said.”

Action News Jax. “Action News Jax is getting a look at new internal documents Georgia’s Attorney General uncovered relating to the Florida real estate company behind the controversial 40-year listing agreements. It’s a new development in a series of investigations on MV Realty that Action News Jax’s Emily Turner has been reporting on for almost 2 years. Now, Emily shows us how those documents confirm that it’s more lucrative for MV Realty when it doesn’t sell a house. Homeowner Willie Berry expected his home to sell quickly, but for 4 months, there were no offers. MV Realty never hosted an open house even though the newly renovated home sits in one of Georgia’s hottest zip codes. ‘I don’t feel like they put in the full effort, you know, to make it sell,’ Berry explained. Berry took his home off the market last week after it didn’t sell and is refinancing his mortgage instead. ‘I even dropped it down to what I sold, what I bought it for,’ he said. Like other homeowners who signed with MV Realty, Berry received an upfront check: $700 in his case. He said this has cost him a lot more than that.”

The Stamford Advocate. “Simsbury developer William Ferrigno, owner of Avon-based Sunlight Construction, has been charged with larceny again in connection with his business practices. Ferrigno, 72, turned himself in to Avon police on Feb. 9 on a charge of first-degree larceny. He allegedly kept more than $160,000 that had been given to him as a deposit to build a house for a customer, Avon police said. According to Avon Police Lt. John Schmalberger, Ferrigno never made any attempt to obtain building permits, start construction, or return the customer’s money. Ferrigno is now facing two felony larceny charges in Avon and three misdemeanor charges filed by the state Department of Consumer Protection for allegedly failing to return deposits requested by customers.”

“Residents of Cambridge Crossing have been complaining for more than a year about conditions in the half-finished neighborhood near the International Skating Center of Connecticut, from incomplete drainage systems and roadways to a lack of street signs or street lights. Ferrigno is also facing 24 civil suits from prospective home buyers, the towns of Avon and Simsbury, as well as PeoplesBank and Liberty Bank.”

From Market Place. “Plenty of people tried to buy their way through the pandemic, if they had jobs and means to do so. Fueled by staying at home and stimulus checks, the average person spent thousands more per year than they did in 2019. There were booms in exercise equipment, air fryers and outdoor heaters. But now that life is basically back to normal, some of those purchases are collecting dust. ‘I try not to regret things as a matter of principle,’ said Michael Selik, who lives in Seattle. ‘But we used to be so carefree.’ Selik is not talking about his Peloton, though he got one of those, too. He’s talking about the home he and his wife Cristina Kendall bought during the pandemic. Like many people, they were lured by low interest rates.”

“‘And we thought ‘oh, well, what if we buy what’s in our budget and we renovate,’ said Selik. You can probably sense where this is going. The house needed a lot of work: a corroded sewer line, flaking lead paint and a closet in the basement that Selik calls ‘a forest of fungus.’ They had a contractor take a look. The quote was $900,000 — close to the original listing price of the house. ‘And I told him you could build a new house for that much,’ said Selik. “And he said, ‘Well yeah, but you like your house.'”

Honolulu Star Advertiser in Hawaii. “A part-time Maui couple’s decision to convert their vacation rentals into longer-term housing for Maui fire survivors followed weeks of frustration, cancellations by repeat loyal visitors over whether they are welcome on the Valley Isle and the threat by Gov. Josh Green to shut down Maui’s short-term rental market. John and Valori Egan—who live on Maui four months of the year during the winter—agreed to lease their three one-bedroom, one-bath ocean-view condos at the Kuleana Resort on Lower Honoapiilani Highway for 18 months to no more than two people for each unit, starting Friday.”

“To convince more property owners to convert their short-term vacation rentals into long-term housing for Hawaii residents, the Egans and others argue that more financial incentives need to be offered to make it financially worthwhile. ‘Government has to do more,’ Valori said. In the meantime, she said, Maui owners of short-term rentals are ‘totally frustrated. They threaten us with a moratorium, and now there’s nobody in them. There’s no communication. It’s probably the most frustrating thing John or I have been involved with. Very, very, very frustrating. And it’s not over yet.'”

Soo Today in Canada. “The City of Sault Ste. Marie may have managed to recoup $616,000 in outstanding property taxes owed by a group of insolvent out-of-town real estate investors with the help of the courts, but local contractors who were stiffed thousands of dollars by the same group haven’t been as fortunate. As first reported by SooToday, the directors behind 11 insolvent corporations — Aruba Butt, Ryan Molony and Dylan Suitor — filed for protection from creditors in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in late-January, claiming they owe approximately $147 million in unpaid loans and have less than $100,000 in the bank amid rising interest rates and falling home prices.”

“Approximately $775,000 of those debts were accrued in Sault Ste. Marie, where a number of local contractors that performed repairs on many of the 152 properties owned by the now-insolvent landlords are owed an estimated $80,000 between them. But that number could be much larger: Rapid City Repair is listed in court documents as a creditor that’s owed more than $14,000 — but in reality, that debt is more like $33,355.87. Owner and operator Cory Furkey says his business has yet to recoup any of that amount owed for a number of heating and hot water tank repairs that were completed at more than a dozen properties in town.”

“‘Basically, all of these contractors kind of feel defeated,’ said Furkey, adding that any optimism they had is now beginning to fade. ‘Right now we don’t know what to do, other than not work for them anymore.’ Furkey says SID Renos and SID Management rushed Rapid City Repair into doing repairs, citing an immediate need to get tenants housed. ‘Against my better judgment, we started these jobs without getting down payments — so we have a lot of jobs that are half paid, and then a lot that they didn’t pay anything at all,’ said Furkey. ‘I guess they duped me into trusting them. It went good for awhile, and then it didn’t. When you call them back for payment or an overdue account, you get to realize how many people they have working for them that can pass the buck.'”

From Reuters. “Two of Sweden’s largest property companies on Tuesday announced multibillion-crown writedowns in their 2023 results, dealing fresh blows to their beaten-down shares even though both voiced hopes the worst is over for Europe’s property rout. Heimstaden’s preferential shares dropped more than 30% after Fitch cut its credit rating deeper into so-called ‘junk’ territory and the company said it would defer hybrid bond interest payments. SBB shares fell more than 4%. For years, property in Europe and particularly Germany and Sweden boomed as interest rates fell, turbocharging demand. A sharp rise in rates has now pricked this bubble.”

Star Weekly in Australia. “The possible liquidation of construction company Apex Homes could leave a Point Cook demolition business more than $20,000 out of pocket. Melbourne Wide Demolition was last year hired by Apex to clear a property in Geelong ahead of construction of a new home beginning on the site. After completing the demolition work, the company submitted an invoice to Apex Homes for $21,450 to be paid by mid January. After the payment deadline was missed and repeated attempts to contact the company failed, Melbourne Wide Demolition director Moira Linton said news of a winding up order being taken out against Apex made her realise the money may never arrive.”

“‘Just gutted actually,’ said Ms Linton of her reaction to the news which she came across while doing a Google search. The North Melbourne based builder has customers across Wyndham, Geelong and other parts of Melbourne, with many now at risk of losing their deposits and homes if it is forced into liquidation. One Apex customer Star Weekly spoke with on condition of anonymity, said they had already paid the company more than $100,000 for a home that may never be built. ‘I don’t even know what to say, I’m so stressed out,’ they said, adding that Apex had emailed them last week saying they would try to fix the problem, but offering no further assurances.”

Radio New Zealand. “An Auckland property developer is offering cashback deals of up to $20,000 in a bid to move unsold apartments in a multimillion-dollar development. There are about 40 unsold apartments in Ockham’s 210-unit Maanaki apartment block in Onehunga. One-bedroom apartments in the development start at around $670,000, with those buyers eligible for $10,000 cash back. The cheapest three-bedroom apartment is about $895,000, with buyers eligible for $20,000 cash back. Ockham Residential co-founder Mark Todd told Checkpoint the property market had been an ‘arm wrestle’ since the end of 2021, with sales down right across the sector. Too many property developers pretend that it’s all peaches and cream. Three quarters of New Zealanders or more cannot really afford housing with the current interest rates,’ he said.”

“Todd said he was offering cashback deals instead of simply lowering the ticket price so he could ‘protect the value’ of the apartments for Manaaki’s 170 existing owners. When asked if he would be offering retrospective cashback deals to those owners, he said he would not. ‘You can’t go back through in time. Everyone’s got to play their chips on the board,’ he said. ‘We’re the ones that borrowed $80-odd million and had $30-odd million of equity in that development to get it built. Everyone took a certain risk profile.’ The sales of those 170 apartments were settled two months ago without any problems, Todd said. ‘What I would say is the purchasers from three years ago bought at lower prices, the price went up and now it’s come down again and it’s worth roughly what it was.'”

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This Post Has 95 Comments

  2. ‘I have never seen it this bad,’ Schmal said. ‘We do open houses, we can’t get people to come to open houses, none of the agents that have buyers are even wanting to show the property, and it’s making our sellers very, very nervous’

    Wa happened to my shortage Babs?

    1. ‘I have never seen it this bad,…’

      – I’m no real estate genius, but owning or buying a condo in FL right now is ‘problematic.’

      – Deferred maintenance leading to BK-worthy COA fee increases and high homeowner’s insurance are probably the biggest issues, but there are others. Salt air + high humidity takes its toll on concrete and rebar over the years. To ignore is whistling past the grave yard and delusional, but here we are… 🙃

      – I really like Ron DeSantis and conservative FL politics in general (f*ck Disney), but housing is a complete mess there right now.

      – Hurricanes are a thing. Remember Ian ? (September 23, 2022).

      – I personally don’t want COA/HOA fees, so will find properties that minimize or don’t have any.

  3. “They had a contractor take a look. The quote was $900,000 — close to the original listing price of the house.”

    Still cheaper than renting

    1. ‘And I told him you could build a new house for that much,’ said Selik. “And he said, ‘Well yeah, but you like your house.’”

      What a comedian.

  4. If you can’t self insure in Florida, its basically going to be over. And of course if you have a mortgage you must carry insurance. Stick a fork in it. The swamps will take it all back eventually.

      1. Blood on the hands of the globalist sc*m media.

        Numerous outlets have referred to the arrested murderer as an “Athens man” which he is not.

        Had he been deported after his arrest in New York City a few months ago, this young woman would still be alive.

          1. As the saying goes, you have to break some eggs to make an omelette. That poor girl is one of the expendables. So is anyone who isn’t one of “the people who matter”.

            Remember when they began to refer to us as “consumers” and not as “citizens”?

        2. This is proof that the Deep State hates us and doesn’t care what happens to us.

          We are expendable to them. Should a nuclear exchange ever happen, they already have a number for acceptable deaths, and it’s in the tens of millions.

        3. The Washington Post is the enemy of the American people.

          Slaying of Georgia student becomes part of U.S. immigration debate (2/26/2024):

          https://archive.is/ZldVu

          No excerpt needed, these people want you replaced, or better yet, dead.

  6. ‘Sometimes I’m not sure this will be our last home because our condo fees have gone up, and mainly insurance is a big factor,’ Shipman said. According to the Insurance Information Institute, Master Condo Association Policies are increasing by 100-500% right now. ‘It all gets passed down to the homeowners,
    Gonna be some homeless boomers. Kicking the can down the road is great, unless you live too long, then it isn’t. It will eventually come back to bite you and I am afraid the US will be finding that out in the next 10 years.

    1. Why economists are warning of another US banking crisis
      Published: February 26, 2024 12:19pm EST
      Ru Xie, University of Bath
      Jay Powell emerging from behind a curtain
      Fed Chair Jay Powell is betting that banks can withstand the end of his rescue programme in March.
      EPA

      March 2024 is making investors nervous. A major scheme to prop up the US banking system is ending, while a second may be winding down. Some economic commentators fear another banking crisis. So how worried should we be?

      The red letter day is March 11, when US central bank the Federal Reserve will end the bank term funding program (BTFP), a year after it began in response to the failures of regional banks Signature, Silvergate and Silicon Valley. These banks were brought down by customers withdrawing deposits en masse, both because many were tech or crypto businesses that needed money to cover losses, and because there were better savings rates available elsewhere.

      This damaged the banks’ profitability at a time when raised interest rates had already weakened their balance sheets by reducing the value of their holdings in government bonds. Silvergate failed first but Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse on March 10 was particularly memorable. It triggered a bank run by announcing it needed to raise capital after being forced to sell bonds at a loss.
      Screenshot of WSJ’s front cover when Silicon Valley collapsed
      Silicon Valley Bank’s demise put investors on high alert. Domenico Fornas

      There soon followed the failures of Signature and also Swiss bank Credit Suisse, which had to be taken over by neighbouring giant UBS. There had been longstanding problems at Credit Suisse, but heightened anxieties on the back of the US upheaval delivered the final blow.
      How the BTFP works

      Investors then feared that other banks would fail. Most US banks were similarly exposed to customer withdrawals and underwater bond portfolios, while the Credit Suisse collapse demonstrated the potential for contagion. The Fed’s BTFP stopped the panic by allowing US banks to borrow from the central bank using their bonds as collateral.

      Not only did this let them quietly access more funding, the scheme also priced the bonds at their original face value and not market value. This effectively negated the interest rate rises and reinflated banks’ balance sheets. Only one more bank, San Francisco’s First Republic Bank, has since gone under.

      So what will happen as the BTFP closes? I suspect it won’t lead to more bank collapses.
      …
      https://theconversation.com/why-economists-are-warning-of-another-us-banking-crisis-224092

  8. “…the longest one I have on the market, which I listed back in August; it’s been on the market for 151 days, and we’ve had 3 showings,’ Schmal said.”

    Hint to sellers: Lower your wishing price…ALOT! ‘Cause higher-for-longer rates aint’t coming down any time soon.

    1. Business
      Average long-term US mortgage rose again this week to highest level since mid December
      A housing development in Okatie, SC, is shown on on Feb. 1, 2024. On Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, Freddie Mac reports on this week’s average U.S. mortgage rates.
      (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
      By ALEX VEIGA
      Updated 9:21 AM PST, February 22, 2024

      LOS ANGELES (AP) — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate rose this week for the third time in as many weeks, driving up home loan borrowing costs in just as the spring homebuying season ramps up.

      The average rate on a 30-year mortgage rose to 6.90% from 6.77% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.5%.

      Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also rose this week, pushing the average rate to 6.29% from 6.12% last week. A year ago it averaged 5.76%, Freddie Mac said.

      The latest increase in rates reflects recent moves in the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing loans. Stronger-than-expected reports on inflation, the job market and the overall economy have stoked worries among bond investors the Federal Reserve will have to wait longer before beginning to cut interest rates.
      …
      https://apnews.com/article/mortgage-rates-housing-interest-financing-home-loan-cc6fc42a0297732e162eeb14a55ac1a0

  9. Just returned from 2 weeks on the Sarasota beaches, they’re pretty this time of year….cookie cutter Fl houses are still selling for 500K on up…..
    I’m too late to that party….
    I run my own small landlord business here in upstate SC , The stuff that can happen is amazing …..i told one very pregnant renter ,before leaving on vacation , that she needs to be sure head to the ER at the first sign of being in labor, since she’s on Medicaid anyway, SC takes very good care of it’s babies ….Well, when I came back ,she was no longer pregnant, the front door was destroyed , we couldn’t make this stuff up….She apparently birthed the baby unattended in the living room, with only the BF there, the next door neighbors hear a crying child, the Police come knocking, after no response , kick the door in ,etc…..
    So that’s why I try not rent to ,or mess with, younger couples….but sometimes fall for the sob stories…

    1. but sometimes fall for the sob stories

      That is what NextDoor is now: an endless litany of sob stories with links to gofundme pages.

    2. ahhh Sarasota beaches . . what memories! Lido, Siesta the biggies.
      N. Lido was my favorite. EZ & free parking if there early. nude sunbathing. (old euro trash perverts in their banana slings! Lordy)

      you could always tell the tourists from locals: they are the ones in the water in Dec/Jan/Feb

      only downside was the occasional “Hey, we’re short at NewTown. Hustle over! ”

      upside: stroll south down the beach. if you’re a decent looking guy in halfway decent shape, the private beach-side lonely cougar condo dwellers, w/their dead husband’s fat pension from up north, stalk the surf line for the next boy-toy.

      good times indeed. ain’t we lucky we got ’em?

    3. FINANCE ECONOMY
      ‘Before any crash it felt great’: Jamie Dimon isn’t sold on the good news coming out of the U.S. economy, saying it may prove a precursor of a recession
      “Remember in 1972 you felt great too.”
      BY ELEANOR PRINGLE
      February 27, 2024 6:45 AM EST
      Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase
      JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is never among the most optimistic on Wall Street, and seemingly rosy economy data isn’t going to change his mind.
      Win McNamee—Getty Images

      JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is rarely among the most optimistic voices on Wall Street—and despite the rosy data coming out of the American economy, he’s not convinced.

      Analysts have been buoyed by better-than-expected labor reports, the resilience of the consumer and hints by Fed chairman Jerome Powell that rates may begin to come down this year.

      This may suggest a “goldilocks” scenario—some economists believe—where the data is neither too hot to lead to rampant inflation nor too cold to grind corporate profits to a halt.

      While some bearish voices have been forced to admit they were too negative, Dimon isn’t satisfied by bullish arguments that the market will sail through the next few years without a hitch.

      Already, the top-paid banking boss has sounded the alarm on the level of government debt, agreeing it’s the “most predictable crisis” currently facing the U.S. economy. This eventuality is some way off, Dimon told the Bipartisan Policy Centre last month, but this week suggested there may be other bumps in the road in the shorter term.

      At JPMorgan’s High Yield and Leveraged Finance conference in Miami this week, Dimon said 2024 had been “so far, so good” with M&A chatter increasing and confidence continuing to grow.

      But “markets change their mind pretty quickly,” Dimon told CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime Report. He added: “Remember in 1972 you felt great too. And before any crash, you felt great, and then things change.”
      …
      https://fortune.com/2024/02/27/jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-chase-american-economy-crash-1972

    4. Finance
      Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Mark Zuckerberg have sold stock worth about $9 billion. They might think markets can’t go much higher.
      Theron Mohamed
      Feb 26, 2024, 6:57 AM ET
      Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, Mark Zuckerberg
      Karwai Tang, Steven Ferdman, Chris Unger/Getty Images

      – Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Mark Zuckerberg have all been selling shares in their companies.

      – The Amazon founder and JPMorgan and Meta CEOs risk sending a worrying message to markets.

      – Executives sell shares for plenty of reasons, from tax and estate planning to personal expenses.

      Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have all sold big chunks of shares in their own companies. How come?

      Bezos is way out in front after offloading 50 million shares of Amazon in just nine trading days this month, pocketing an estimated $8.5 billion.

      Zuckerberg cashed in almost 1.8 million shares of his social-media empire for more than $400 million in the last two months of 2023.

      JPMorgan’s Dimon joined the club this month, jettisoning about 822,000 shares of the bank he leads for about $150 million.

      The sales are striking for several reasons. Dimon’s disposals represent his first sales of JPMorgan stock in his 18 years as CEO.

      Zuckerberg hadn’t sold Meta shares for almost two years prior to his latest transactions. Bezos has gone from selling less than $3 billion of stock annually prior to 2019, to more than $3 billion in four days in early 2020, and now close to triple that figure in nine days.

      All the sales were conducted under trading plans announced months in advance, which executives rely on so they can sell shares without investors thinking it means they have the inside track on bad news ahead — or that the stock has hit unsustainable highs.

      Yet it’s certainly possible that Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Dimon decided to line up sales because their shares had ballooned in value, and cashing out was making more and more sense.

      Meta stock has soared by 186% over the past year, JPMorgan is up nearly 30%, and Amazon has surged close to 90%. All three companies are trading close to record highs.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/bezos-dimon-zuckerberg-amazon-jpmorgan-meta-stock-sales-billionaires-wealth-2024-2

    5. A hard-landing recession is guaranteed as the full impact of Fed rate hikes have yet to hit the economy, Morgan Stanley’s chief economist says
      Jennifer Sor
      Feb 27, 2024, 10:18 AM ET
      Market crash graphic
      Getty Images

      – A hard landing is guaranteed for the US Morgan Stanley’s chief US economist.

      – That’s because the full impacts of Fed tightening haven’t been fully felt in the economy.

      – It could take 18 months after the last rate hike to feel the full weight of higher rates, economists say.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-outlook-economy-inflation-fed-rate-cuts-hard-landing-2024-2

    6. It’s SOL time for highly-leveraged stock market gamblers when noteworthy permabulls start to wax pessimistic.

      1. DOW 30 -0.25%
        S&P 500 +0.17%
        NASDAQ 100 +0.21%

        The ‘Wizard of Wharton’ says a tech bubble may be forming – and AI stocks like Nvidia could crash
        Theron Mohamed
        Feb 27, 2024, 7:11 AM PST
        jeremy siegel point
        Getty Images

        – A speculative bubble in tech stocks may be starting to form, Jeremy Siegel said.

        – The “Wizard of Wharton” said Nvidia could rise further, but the tech rally would eventually stall.

        – Siegel said he isn’t worried about the US economy overheating, and inflation seems under control.

        The breathless hype around technology stocks like Nvidia is nearing dangerous levels, Jeremy Siegel warned.

        “The beginnings of a speculative bubble may be forming but it is impossible to tell when it will end,” the retired finance professor known as the “Wizard of Wharton” said in his weekly WisdomTree commentary on Monday.

        Nvidia stock has soared more than five-fold since the start of last year, vaulting the semiconductor company past Amazon and Alphabet to a $2 trillion market value.

        Insatiable demand for its graphics chips from AI companies fueled a 265% year-on-year increase in its revenue to more than $22 billion last quarter, and an almost 1,000% rise in its operating income to about $14 billion.

        Siegel said it’s unclear whether the frenzy is more like the halcyon days of the internet revolution, or the peak euphoria that preceded the dot-com crash.

        “I do not think we are in a bubble now,” he said. Heady tech valuations are underpinned by strong earnings growth, and Nvidia is a “special company” that doesn’t strike him as “dramatically over- or undervalued” and could keep rising, he added.

        Still, the tech-stock rally will ultimately stall and the correction could be brutal, Siegel said. “In a run such as this, the saying is ‘stairs up, elevator down.’ And that elevator ride can be quite swift!”
        …
        https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/siegel-wharton-stock-market-outlook-tech-ai-bubble-nvidia-crash-2024-2

        1. ‘The “Wizard of Wharton” said Nvidia could rise further, but the tech rally would eventually stall.’

          This guy probably wears a belt and suspenders.

    7. Yahoo Finance
      Fortune
      Warren Buffett says the stock market is increasingly ‘casino-like’—and young investors need to remember this ‘one fact of financial life’ to avoid the mess
      Will Daniel
      Mon, Feb 26, 2024, 1:24 PM PST
      4 min read

      Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett shared a moving tribute to his fallen friend and right-hand man Charlie Munger in his annual shareholder letter over the weekend. The Oracle of Omaha lauded Munger as the “architect” of Berkshire’s success, eulogizing the “abominable no-man” by discussing some of his favorite whipping posts—including his comparison of the modern stock market to a casino.

      “For whatever reasons, markets now exhibit far more casino-like behavior than they did when I was young,” Buffett wrote, adding that “though the stock market is massively larger than it was in our early years, today’s active participants are neither more emotionally stable nor better taught than when I was in school.”
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-says-stock-market-212445057.html

    8. MarketWatch
      Home
      Investing
      Stocks
      Mark Hulbert
      The stock market is overvalued from any perspective
      Published: Feb. 27, 2024 at 10:51 a.m. ET
      By Mark Hulbert
      A monthly review of stock market valuation indicators
      Might there be a way to wriggle out from underneath the bearish message of the stock market’s overvaluation?

      Tantalizing as this possibility might be, it does seem remote. Take the Cyclically-Adjusted Price Earnings (CAPE) ratio, for example, which was made famous by Yale University finance professor (and Nobel laureate) Robert Shiller. It has one of the best historical track records when forecasting the stock market’s subsequent 10-year real total return, and its current level is higher than 95% of monthly readings since…
      …
      https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/the-stock-market-is-overvalued-from-any-perspective-8e63b174

    9. Financial Times
      Goldman Sachs Group
      Goldman CEO warns against getting overly confident of US ‘soft landing’
      David Solomon strikes more bearish tone on economy, citing ‘uncertainty’ on inflationary pressures and geopolitical risks
      David Solomon
      David Solomon said while ‘upper half’ of US economy has been very strong, ‘lower part is a little bit softer’
      Joshua Franklin in New York
      12 hours ago

      Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon has warned investors not to get too confident that the Federal Reserve can engineer a “soft landing” for the US economy in its battle to tame inflation.

      Speaking at an industry conference organised by UBS on Tuesday, Solomon said “the world is set up for a soft landing”, but there was a “higher level uncertainty” due to remaining inflationary pressure in the economy and geopolitical risks.

      “The market is way weighted to a very soft landing. And when you look at the pattern of facts the last three or four years, it’s hard for me to see it’s going to be that simple,” Solomon said.
      …

  14. For the benefit of HBB newbies: In 2007, right before the housing bubble bust caused the 2008 financial crisis, Century 21 put out the most unintentionally honest ad of all time, showing a harpy with a galactic sense of entitlement brow-beating her hen-pecked husband into going along with a disastrous financial decision. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3PNamYe0iQ

    1. ‘ Heckova job, “Zimbabwe Ben” Bernanke, Yellen the Felon, & BlackRock Jay.’

      \\

      – Recall that the Case-Shiller Index is a three month moving average. Data is published with a two month lag, so the data is 2-3 months behind. Current data is from late 2023 when rates were lower.

      – Case-Shiller is a lagging indicator. Pending home sales (PHS) is a leading indicator. January ‘24 PHS data is published this coming Thursday. Current 30 yr. fixed rate mortgage rate is 7.13%. From my experience, it’s better to drive when looking through the windshield vs. in the rear view mirror.

      – That being said, you’re correct that the Fed made this mess with their “wealth effect” policies, starting in 2010 after and in response to the GFC, another fine mess that they caused as well.

      – Recall that the wealth effect cuts both ways; both on the upside and the downside of asset bubbles.

  16. ‘I currently have 5 listings in the 55 and older communities, the longest one I have on the market, which I listed back in August; it’s been on the market for 151 days, and we’ve had 3 showings,’ Schmal said.”

    Must.not.laugh.

        1. safe thing to do

          It wasn’t completely safe. In 1970 I hitched 300 miles home for weekends many times. I got picked up by a pot head one time so stoned he almost wrecked the car at highway speed.

          1. Only did it once, around that same time. We got a lot of offers, but being properly paranoid, the four of us finally accepted a ride from guys in a convertible with the top down. We figured we could jump out if there was a problem.

  17. “To convince more property owners to convert their short-term vacation rentals into long-term housing for Hawaii residents, the Egans and others argue that more financial incentives need to be offered to make it financially worthwhile.

    It’s not gub’mint’s job to make speculator parasites whole on their flopped STR “investments.”

  18. In the meantime, she said, Maui owners of short-term rentals are ‘totally frustrated. They threaten us with a moratorium, and now there’s nobody in them. There’s no communication. It’s probably the most frustrating thing John or I have been involved with. Very, very, very frustrating. And it’s not over yet.’”

    Die, speculator scum. Houses are for living in, not setting up unlicensed hotels in residential neighborhoods and pricing locals out of the market.

  19. – There’s a global housing bubble out there now in the process of deflating. AU, CA, DE, NZ, SE, UK, US, etc., all experiencing housing pressures. Housing is now a commodity vs. shelter. Everything’s been financialized.

    – Super low rates, easy credit, massive debt have done their job, but now the free money party’s over. Enjoyed the (housing) boom? Now enjoy the (housing) bust. Housing bubble as part of The Everything Bubble, aka The Central Bank Bubble.

    – Asset bubbles courtesy of Guberments, including their unelected and unaccountable Central Banks. Gullible and complicit ‘investors’ share the blame. There’s no sustainable get rich quick scheme. There’s no free lunch.

    – Debt isn’t wealth. Wealth = (Assets – Liabilities). Productive investment vs. asset bubbles fueled by unproductive debt. We chose poorly, and there are consequences. Right now NVDA = U.S. economy, but that’s just another part of The Everything Bubble.

    1. Right now NVDA = U.S. economy

      If someone would have predicted this a few years ago my reaction would have been “NVidia? They make high end video cards and video chips for PCs”

      I recall reading that all of NVidia’s manufacturing is in China. I don’t see how anything could go wrong with that.

      So now “cloud computing” has to step aside as yesterday’s news, because there is a new overhyped kid on the block.

    2. “including their unelected and unaccountable Central Banks”

      The Federal Reserve Board was created in a law passed by an elected Congress, and members are nominated by an elected President and confirmed by elected Senators.

      1. ‘The Federal Reserve Board was created in a law passed by an elected Congress, and members are nominated by an elected President and confirmed by elected Senators.’

        – The Fed is the 5th branch of .gov., right after the Deep / Administrative State, as the 4th branch of .gov. Many are appointed, but not elected directly by the electorate, and neither subject to checks and balances, or separation of powers. Both wield too much power, and are unelected and unaccountable to We the People. Congress now falls into that category as well, even though they’re elected. The Fed has destroyed the purchasing power of the $ and with it the housing market and economy.

  20. ‘What I would say is the purchasers from three years ago bought at lower prices, the price went up and now it’s come down again and it’s worth roughly what it was.’”

    All that to say, “You’re schlonged bigly, FBs.”

  22. A reader sent these in:

    This home in Palm Springs, CA sold for $1,300,000 in May of 2023
    It’s now being dumped for $625,000
    It’s an Airbnbust
    Just because it hasn’t happened at scale, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening
    The company (ABNB) is fine. The person who bought this is not

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1761771478607974910

    A historic building in Minneapolis just sold at a shocking 80%+ ‘discount’ – this is not a typo
    The 164k sq ft building sold for $3.8 million or $23 per sq ft
    What did the seller pay for it back in 2017? $19.2 million
    What’s concerning is that even at 70-80% ‘discounts’ there are few buyers at those prices for office buildings across the US…

    https://twitter.com/TripleNetInvest/status/1761737453629853806

    “All-time low interest rates beguiled, seduced and even coerced people into doing things they would not have done perhaps except for interest rates that were not the product of the marketplace but rather the product of the models of the central bankers of the world.”
    – Jim Grant

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1717982314968260962

    “The property owners at some level have some expectation that the government or whomever else is involved in the markets won’t allow their losses to be fully realized…I mean, we had like once in a generation type of interest rate environment when these deals were financed.”
    Let’s try capitalism!
    Plenty of buyers for all this stuff at a 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 market price. Let’s try to discover that price.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1759732839602675858

    “Real estate is such a huge piece of the spending…it’s so dangerous from an inflationary standpoint. If you take a big city where people are spending…50% of income on housing, & you put some inflation into that, it gets really dangerous for standard of living very quickly.”

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1384590719961026562

    A $58.5M loan backed by a 274,442-SF office property in downtown Fort Lauderdale has defaulted, per CRED iQ

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1762189209031332163

    Lenders repossessed nearly 4,000 homes in January, an increase of 13% month/month & first substantial increase since July 2023

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1762114138665373783

    Housing inventory up 15.6% y/y and experiencing an unusually early inventory build

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1762113889334866026

    Hopin, once Europe’s fastest-growing company just a year ago, enters bankruptcy

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1762211710574719258

    Allegheny Wood Products ceasing operations, will lay off almost 1,000 employees in West Virginia

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1761949014470074386

    And Cleveland Cliffs closed a tin plant in WV last week. Another 900 jobs

    https://twitter.com/Kyleeto/status/1761960037713330265

    Expedia Group to eliminate 1,500 jobs – almost 10% of its workforce – CEO resigns

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1762228150015033751

    PepsiCo is reportedly undergoing a large headcount reduction across sales & customer support due to “underperforming accounts”, per employees

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1762215672925258030

    ❖ Fed May Delay Rate Cuts Until After Presidential Election

    U.S. politics could be a reason for the Fed to wait until after the November presidential election to cut rates, Santander’s Stephen Stanley says in a note. “The Federal Reserve is an independent central bank, but monetary policy matters to elected officials, which makes the Fed subject, to a degree, to the election calendar.” He expects the economy and inflation to remain hotter-than-forecast, supporting a delay in monetary easing. Stanley says the Fed’s November meeting was moved back by a day, “creating one additional day of separation from the election.” Assuming there is a clear winner, “I see the FOMC as free to start a new easing cycle at the November FOMC meeting,” he says.

    https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1762212705807577384

    2008 is going to look like a bull market.

    https://twitter.com/great_martis/status/1762244336614588525

    History being rewritten. Bitcoin the only trading vehicle in history to have experienced 2 bubbles in the space of 24 months. I’m guessing not enough meat was collected the first time.

    https://twitter.com/great_martis/status/1762233184681660491

    1. A historic building in Minneapolis just sold at a shocking 80%+ ‘discount’ – this is not a typo

      The only thing shocking about this is that a historic building in Mogadishu on the Mississippi would still retain 20% of its value.

    2. Hopin, once Europe’s fastest-growing company just a year ago, enters bankruptcy

      Never heard of them. Had to look them up. Videoconferencing. That’s been done.

    3. PepsiCo is reportedly undergoing a large headcount reduction across sales & customer support due to “underperforming accounts”, per employees

      Seeing that a 2 liter bottle of sugar water is approaching $4, I’m not surprised they are having “underperforming accounts”

      1. Bingo! $9.99 regular price for a 12 pack of their sugar water at my grocery store. And a bag of chips from their subsidiary Frito-Lay – literal fried potatoes – now easily $4.99. Plus, they’ve gotten smaller.

    4. “The property owners at some level have some expectation that the government or whomever else is involved in the markets won’t allow their losses to be fully realized”

      It’s not just property owners. I firmly believe the reason we see so many going insanely in debt (and thus artificially propping up this economy) is they do not believe they won’t be held accountable. And why wouldn’t they feel that way? We have a couple of generations that have been nothing but bailed out. And the minute the bailouts and handouts stop, because it’s unsustainable, there will be chaos.

      1. And the minute the bailouts and handouts stop, because it’s unsustainable, there will be chaos.

        The Cloward-Piven strategy

  23. What’s concerning is that even at 70-80% ‘discounts’ there are few buyers at those prices for office buildings across the US…

    Let’s try capitalism!
    Plenty of buyers for all this stuff at a 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 market price. Let’s try to discover that price.

    Normalized price? I am afraid that a Normalized price in many leftist $hit holes is negative. I guess we are going to find out but apparently 70-80% reductions aren’t spurring demand so…

  25. Hazmat visited Donald Trump Jr’s house down the road in Admirals Cove yesterday but it was kept as quiet as Hunter’s white substance incident at the White House during Christmas.

    Charlie Kirk
    @charliekirk11

    Hazmat crews were rushed to Don Jr.’s home yesterday to investigate a letter he received containing a death threat and white powder, and barely a whisper of it in any of the legacy news media! Can you imagine if this was Hunter? The DOJ would be rounding up MAGA with wall-to-wall news coverage.

    This is the second time he’s experienced this. The last time was when His father was in office and his family was directly exposed.

    Will anyone be arrested? I won’t hold my breath.

    8:49 AM · Feb 27, 2024

    https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1762475142784127453?s=20

  26. ‘Blood Money’: The Biden Family Bagged $5M from Business Partner of ‘White Wolf’ Chinese Criminal Gang Leader Who Helped Create the Fentanyl Pipeline Decimating America

    WENDELL HUSEBØ
    27 Feb 2024

    The Biden family bagged $5 million from the business partner of the “White Wolf,” a Chinese criminal gang leader who helped create the fentanyl pipeline now decimating the United States, Peter Schweizer detailed in his new book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans.

    While Joe Biden was vice president, the Bidens developed a business partnership with a Chinese tycoon named Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC China Energy Co., which had strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Throughout Ye’s relationship with the Bidens, he “showered” some members of the Biden family with money, Schweizer reported. Hunter Biden received a three-carat diamond worth $80,000; and in July 2017, Ye’s company gave the Bidens a $5 million, interest-free, forgivable loan.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/02/27/blood-money-how-the-biden-family-bagged-5m-from-business-partner-of-white-wolf-chinese-criminal-gang-leader-who-helped-create-the-fentanyl-pipeline-decimating-ame/

  28. Paul Krugman is the enemy of the American people.

    New York Times — The Mystery of White Rural Rage (2/26/2024):

    “This process and its effects are laid out in devastating, terrifying and baffling detail in “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy,” a new book by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman. I say “devastating” because the hardship of rural Americans is real, “terrifying” because the political backlash to this hardship poses a clear and present danger to our democracy, and “baffling” because at some level I still don’t get the politics.”

    Danger to our democracy, eh, soft soft city hands?

    “This feeling of a loss of dignity may be worsened because some rural Americans have long seen themselves as more industrious, more patriotic and maybe even morally superior to the denizens of big cities — an attitude still expressed in cultural artifacts like Jason Aldean’s hit song “Try That in a Small Town.”

    Has Paul Krugman ever set foot in a small town?

    “In the crudest sense, rural and small-town America is supposed to be filled with hard-working people who adhere to traditional values, not like those degenerate urbanites on welfare, but the economic and social reality doesn’t match this self-image.

    Draw attention to some of these realities and you’ll be accused of being a snooty urban elitist. I’m sure responses to this column will be … interesting.

    The result — which at some level I still find hard to understand — is that many white rural voters support politicians who tell them lies they want to hear. It helps explain why the MAGA narrative casts relatively safe cities like New York as crime-ridden hellscapes while rural America is the victim not of technology but of illegal immigrants, wokeness and the deep state.”

    https://archive.is/0jDas

    Soft, soft city hands. Pecking at a keyboard. Tapping on a phone. Paul Krugman is the Parasite Class.

    1. the Parasite Class.

      Unfortunately they have lots of mercenaries with rough hands who are willing to do their bidding. And remember, in some locales illegal immigrants can now be police officers. Let that sink in. Someday, non citizen cops who are in the country illegally (say from Venezuela), might kick your door in and try to arrest you, and maybe shoot you in the process.

    2. “Rural and small-town America is supposed to be filled with hard-working people who adhere to traditional values… the economic and social reality doesn’t match this self-image.”

      The reality matched the image just fine in 1975. But a couple things have happened since then:
      1. The hard-working blue-collar jobs were shipped to China.
      2. Farm labor has been mechanized and flooded with low-cost permanent illegals (not just migrants at harvesttime).
      3. The hard-working blue collar workers are now in their 60s and it’s time for them to live on SS, which is gov dole.

      Meanwhile, the soft city people are getting welfare in their 20s and 30s, right when they are supposed to be contributing the most.

  29. Authored by Ron Paul (remember him?)

    Antiwar — After Two Years, Neocons Desperate For More War In Ukraine (2/26/2024):

    “In a recent CNN interview, the normally very confident US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland sounded a little desperate. She was trying to make the case for Congress to pass another $61 billion dollars for the neocons’ proxy war project in Ukraine and she was throwing out the old slogans that the neocons use when they want funding for their latest war.

    Asked by CNN whether she believes that Congress will eventually pass the bill, Nuland responded that she has confidence that, “we will do what we have always done, which is defend democracy and freedom around the world…”

    What Nuland is attempting here is what the neocons always do. They try to wrap their terrible policies up in the American flag and sell it to the American people as something reflective of “our” values. If you oppose another neocon war, well then you are unpatriotic according to their trickery.

    But Americans are waking up to the lies of the neocons and more and more are realizing that there is no “we” when the neocons are trying to sell another war. It is “them.” The “we” in the equation are the people who are being robbed to pay for what will inevitably be another neocon failure.”

    https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2024/02/26/after-two-years-neocons-desperate-for-more-war-in-ukraine/

    All wars are bankers’ wars.

    1. Related article.

      Russia Today — Nuland accidentally reveals the true aim of the West in Ukraine (2/27/2024):

      “US State Department fixture and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, aka “Regime Change Karen,” apparently woke up one day recently, took the safety off her nuclear-grade mouth, and inadvertently blew up the West’s Ukraine narrative.

      Until now, Americans have been told that all the US taxpayer cash being earmarked for Ukrainian aid is to help actual Ukrainians. Anyone notice that the $75 billion American contribution isn’t getting the job done on the battlefield? Victory in military conflict isn’t supposed to look like defeat. Winning also isn’t defined as, “Well, on a long enough time axis, like infinity, our chance of defeat will eventually approach zero.” And the $178 billion in total from all allies combined doesn’t seem to be doing the trick, either. Short of starting a global war with weapons capable of extending the conflict beyond a regional one, it’s not like they’ve been holding back. The West is breaking the bank. All for some vague, future Ukrainian “victory” that they don’t seem to want to clearly define. We keep hearing that the support will last “as long as it takes.” For what exactly? By not clearly defining it, they can keep moving the goal posts.

      But now here comes Regime Change Karen, dropping some truth bombs on CNN about Ukrainian aid. She started off with the usual talking point of doing “what we have always done, which is defend democracy and freedom around the world.” Conveniently, in places where they have controlling interests and want to keep them – or knock them out of a global competitor’s roster and into their own. “And by the way, we have to remember that the bulk of this money is going right back into the US to make those weapons,” Nuland said, pleading in favor of the latest Ukraine aid package that’s been getting the side eye from Republicans in Congress.

      So there you have it, folks. Ukrainians are a convenient pretext to keep the tax cash flowing in the direction of the US military industrial complex. This gives a whole new perspective on “as long as it takes.” It’s just the usual endless war and profits repackaged as benevolence.”

      https://www.rt.com/news/593261-nuland-nukes-west-ukraine-putin/

      1. “And by the way, we have to remember that the bulk of this money is going right back into the US to make those weapons,”

        Saw this the other day, kinda removes all doubt doesn’t it.

  30. Another Colorado city removes the welcome mat (from the Dumver Post):

    Aurora City Council passes resolution demanding a stop to busing migrants to “non-sanctuary city”

    Councilwoman Danielle Jurinksy during an Aurora City Council meeting on Monday, March 28, 2022. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

    Aurora’s city government wants to make clear that it has no plans to take in or provide services for an influx of migrants coming into the city from other municipalities, according to a resolution that the City Council passed on Monday night, Saja Hindi reports.

    The resolution, which also included people who are homeless getting transported to Aurora from other cities, passed on a 7-3 vote, despite most public commenters on the issue urging council members to reject it.

    “The City Council affirms remaining a Non-Sanctuary City and asserts the City does not currently have the financial capacity to fund new services related to this crisis and demands that other municipalities and entities do not systematically transport migrants or people experiencing homelessness to the City,” the resolution states.

    1. Resident of Arapahoe County but not Aurora, keep Denver’s problems in Denver, we’re not paying for it!

  32. [I ran across this book review …]

    Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

    https://techrig.blogspot.com/2013/11/confessions-of-economic-hit-man.html

    Perkins defines economic hit men as the one supposed to justify huge loans for countries. These loans would be for major engineering and construction projects, which were to be carried out by MAIN and other U.S. companies such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone & Webster and Brown & Root. Then he was supposed to help bankrupt the countries that received these loans after the U.S. companies involved had been paid and only a wealthy few of the country became even wealthier while the rest of the country became more entrenched in poverty and became even more anti-American. This would make sure that these countries would remain in debt to their creditors and would then be easy targets when the U.S. needed favors such as military bases, UN votes and access to natural resources like oil. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. Economic hit men [EHM] don’t actually work for a United States government organization such as the Central Intelligence Agency. It was during the 1960s that we saw the empowerment of international corporations and multinational organizations such as the World Bank. This allowed for governments, corporations and multinational organizations to form mutually beneficial relationships. United States intelligence agencies were able to use these relationships to their advantage.

    Perkins’ first assignment took him took to Indonesia. If the U.S. could gain control of Indonesia (with the debts that would incur thanks to the loans for these huge projects), they believed it would help ensure American dominance in Southeast Asia and save the country from communism.

    In 1972, Perkins was sent to Panama to close the deal on MAIN’s master development plan with the country. On his trip, Perkins met with Panama’s president and charismatic leader, Omar Torrijos. Torrijos was well aware of the EHM practices and knew fully how the game was played. Torrijos did want to invest in huge advancement projects in electricity, transportation and communications for Panama, but he wanted to make certain that these projects benefited his entire country, including those living in extreme poverty. To do so would require huge amounts of money from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.
    Next was Saudia Arabia, in 1973 and during the war, as the U.S. provided Israel with more financial aid, Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil producing countries imposed a total embargo on oil shipments to the U.S. While the embargo was short-lived, its impact was huge as Saudi oil prices jumped from $1.39 per barrel on January 1, 1970 to $8.32 on January 1, 1974. As a result, Wall Street and Washington became obsessed with protecting American oil supplies and the U.S. was forced to recognize Saudi Arabia’s importance to its economy. The U.S. wanted Saudi Arabia to guarantee to maintain oil supplies at prices that would be acceptable to the U.S. and its allies. In exchange for the guarantee, the U.S. offered the House of Saud a commitment to provide complete political and military support. The condition would be that the Saudis buy U.S. government securities with their petrodollars and that the interest earned on these securities would be used to pay U.S. companies to convert Saudi Arabia into a modern industrial power.

    Ecuador’s Jaime Roldos was the ideological match to Panama’s Omar Torrijos. He wanted to redistribute wealth and land to the poor people of his country. Roldos had to fight multi-national oil corporations in his bid to control Ecuador’s vast oil reserves. His biggest competitor was Texaco. It was rumored that in Ecuador the big oil companies had colluded with, and bought out, one group of Christian missionaries. The SIL, or Summer Institute of Language, had a stated goal of teaching English to native tribes people throughout the Central American region. The SIL was accused of persuading indigenous tribes to move off their native lands to central camps in order to receive free food, health care, and education. In return the tribes people had to agree to sign their land over to oil companies for exploration.

    The sudden death of Roldos in a plane crash in spring 1981. The world reacted with the outcry of “CIA Assassination!!”, however, the US media barely covered the event at all. Torrijos stood up to Reagan and rejected the SIL missionaries from Panama. Just a couple months after the strange and freak death of Roldos, Torrijos experienced his own plane crash. Security guards claimed the plane had a bomb on board and once again the world cried out,”CIA Assassination!!”.

    Also Venezuela has been a prized nation by economists and engineers, which has made it a target for EHM’s and the corporatocracy. Until Chavez was elected in the late nineties the country lacked a leader with enough strength and charisma to stand up to the corporate behemoth. Venezuelan oil was being pumped out of the ground for the profit of foreign companies and the country was saddled with immense debts at the time Chavez was elected. Upon taking power Chavez enacted bold and sweeping new laws which strengthened his control over government and its functions and he assumed total control over the state run oil company, Petroleos De Venezuela. Agents of the US government infiltrated Venezuela and worked to foment a strike of oil workers in order to destabilize the government and force people to doubt the intentions of their populist leader. The strike occurred and a coup was attempted. In fact, there were reports that Chavez had been ousted form office, but surprisingly Chavez was able to hold onto the reigns of government and quell the fears of the nation. The CIA has failed. He regained control and fired any government official that he suspected of colluding with US agents.

    Perkins also watched closely throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s as the U.S. tried to get Iraq and Saddam Hussein to buy into the EHM scenario as Saudi Arabia had done before. Hussein refused and when he invaded Kuwait, the U.S. wasted little time and attacked Iraq. Perkins knows that had Saddam have been able to be bought out by the corporatocracy, and accepted their terms, he would still be in power today.
    Perkins fully realized that “the United States is a nation laboring to deny the truth about its imperialist role in the world. The republic offered hope to the world. Its foundation was moral and philosophical rather than materialistic. It was based on the concepts of equality and justice for all. The global empire, on the other hand, is the republic’s nemesis. It is a self-centered, self-serving, greedy, and materialistic, a system based on mercantilism. Like empires before, its arms open only to accumulate resources, to grab everything in sight and stuff its insatiable maw. It will use whatever means it deems necessary to help its rulers gain more power and riches.”

    1. The SIL, or Summer Institute of Language

      I heard about those guys in Mexico. Even back in the 70’s they were known to be multinational operatives.

  36. Yahoo Finance
    WSJ
    China’s Property Crisis: Inside a Ghost Town of Abandoned Mansions
    WSJ
    Wed, Feb 21, 2024, 9:01 PM PST
    In this article:

    China’s property crisis is expected to worsen as new home sales plummet and indebted developers struggle to find funds to complete projects. WSJ’s Jonathan Cheng traveled to an abandoned “ghost town” to see the challenge China’s real-estate slump poses for the government.
    Photo: Antoine Morel for The Wall Street Journal
    …
    https://finance.yahoo.com/video/china-property-crisis-inside-ghost-050100358.html

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