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The Excesses Fueled By Investors Drunk On Cheap Money, And The Hangover They’re Now Facing

A report from NBC News. “Despite offering a salary of $167,000, the city of Steamboat Springs can’t find a head of human resources who can afford a place to live in the remote Colorado community. At the Steamboat hospital, doctors willing to pay more than $1 million for a home have been repeatedly outbid by all-cash, out-of-town buyers, and housing costs have caused some positions to go unfilled for more than two years. The local ski resort has been leasing a hotel for its employees to live in as the homes they once rented are increasingly turned into short-term rentals for visitors. ‘Houses used to be for employees and hotels for guests. Now houses are for guests and hotels are for employee housing,’ said Loryn Duke, director of communications for the Steamboat ski resort.”

“In Steamboat, along with other mountain towns and destination communities across the country, a pandemic-fueled real estate boom driven by remote workers, second-home buyers and short-term rental investors has caused home prices to nearly double. Since 2020, single-family home prices have increased about 80% to $1.8 million on average, and all real estate sales, including condos, increased 64% to $1.1 million, according to data compiled by Jon Wade, a local realtor. In Driggs, Idaho, which used to be an affordable-housing refuge for workers in more pricey Jackson Hole, average home prices have also gone up around 80% to $735,000 since the start of the pandemic, according to Zillow. Woodstock, New York, has seen prices increase 78% to more than $600,000 on average. In Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a popular resort community in the Great Smoky Mountains but not one known as a hot housing market, home values have risen more than 80% to an average of $480,000.”

The LA Downtown News in California. “A Feb. 13 meeting of the LA County Board of Supervisors (BOS) discussing an ordinance that would severely limit Airbnb in unincorporated areas of the county. Anyone from the public who wished to speak was advised that a one-minute limit would be strictly enforced. At the mic, I said: ‘My name is Ellen Snortland. I’m a proud union member. My husband and I are in our 70s. In 2008, foreclosure hit us. We panicked because we were practically unemployable at this age. Then, we learned about Airbnb — it kept us off the streets.’ First of all, off to the side of the entrance was coffee and water along with a stack of signs declaring, ‘Homes for Residents, Not Tourists! Pass the LA County Registration Ordinance. Better Neighbors LA.’ I thought, ‘Someone is extremely organized.'”

“There was no corresponding table sponsored by Airbnb to support their hosts. No water, no coffee, no nothin’. That ticked me off. Where were they? Oh right … Airbnb will always profit, even though their hosts must endure taxation and registration fees. Hosts who have made Brian Chesky and his other co-founders very wealthy. A hefty 12 to 14% Airbnb Service Fee has already been deducted from all our bookings. I left the BOS meeting outraged and heartbroken after all five supervisors voted to adopt the ordinance and its absurd amendments. I also left the meeting hungry and thirsty. Was Airbnb there to feed me and slake my thirst? Nope. So stingy!”

San Diego News in California. “In June 2023, Pacific Beach planner Iain Richardson briefed the Pacific Beach Town Council on the number and location of short-term rentals in the community, arguing such rentals are depleting the housing stock and exacerbating the ongoing housing crisis. Nine months later, Richardson gave a similar presentation to PBTC updating the group on the status of the community’s STRs. His conclusion this time around: Unless loopholes in the present STR ordinance are addressed, rentals will continue to increase further shrinking the available housing supply.”

“‘The number of STR licenses continues to grow in the Tier 3 whole-home category and it’s getting worse,’ Richardson contended noting that, in the last six months of 2023, 700 more STR licenses were issued citywide. ‘We find 30% to 40% of all the licenses are owned not by people but by corporate entities,’ said Richardson, who estimated a third of beach STR rentals are now corporate owned, another third are owned by trusts, and individuals now own only about one-third of the total. Richardson argued this loophole involving “ghost” owners who are not individuals has led to STR hosts who ‘have nothing at all to do with the property.’ ‘Pacific Beach has lost over 4% of its housing to whole-home vacation rentals, and Ocean Beach a massive 6%. This housing would be enough for over 3,000 long-term residents in these two areas alone.'”

A press release. “Good morning, and welcome to the Hilton Grand Vacations’ fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Daniel Mathewes; Chief Financial Officer; Hilton Grand Vacations Inc: ‘On the legacy HGV side, that’s driven by Maui Bay villas, which, as you recall, is a series of low-rise buildings in Maui conversion of Ocean Tower. And also we’ve started construction on Cohort two, which is an award that’s a vertical build.'”

“Patrick Scholes: ‘Okay. And just one last if I could sneak it in your CapEx going into the year, I guess as of January 17 prior to this CapEx for this year, how many years of unsold inventory do you have falling?’ Mathewes: ‘With Bluegreen, I mean, let me pull that number up. It’s multiple years. I mean, we could to put things in perspective when I had mentioned Diamond as being an inventory play to a certain degree center acquisition, we’ve actually invested with a with a minor exception of some conversion costs, virtually $0 in any Diamond inventory. So Bluegreen brings along with it an incremental year of inventory. So I think when you think about contract sales, we would point you to our results in 2023, add roughly $800 million of contract sales for Bluegreen and that $12 billion-ish in inventory build up. You have to do the math there.'”

WCSC in South Carolina. “Some customers of a Lowcountry contractor say they were blindsided by the company’s bankruptcy leaving their projects and money in limbo. On the Level Construction LLC, a North Charleston-based kitchen and bath remodel company according to LinkedIn, filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 30, after employees were informed the day prior the business was going belly up. Customers say they chose them over others because they thought they were different, but it’s standing out now for all the wrong reasons. ‘The guys got my $17,116.42 and I’d like to know where it is,’ customer Karen McClarren said. ‘They had plenty of time to tell us that they were going to fold. Why didn’t they send my money back?'”

“The owner of the company, Sam Kaufman, also has a motivational podcast called ‘Never Stop Building’ in which he claimed On The Level was a ‘multi-million-dollar’ company in September 2023. He also has his own website and book and he shares advice online. However, in a lengthy post on his public Facebook on Wednesday, Sam explained the hardships the company had faced over the past few years. He stated in part ‘my businesses started the process of a bankruptcy [two] years prior to the decision actually having to be made… grew too fast and with delayed hard decisions.'”

Fox Business. “Landlords are lowering rent prices thanks to an ‘apartment-building boom,’ according to Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. ‘Median monthly rent prices hit a high of over $2,000 in 2023, mainly due to high mortgage payments that pushed potential buyers into the rental market instead,’ she told Fox News Digital. ‘However, prices have since changed due to an apartment-building boom. There are many vacant properties right now, and the supply jump has caused landlords to lower prices.'”

Business in Vancouver in Canada. “MLS sales in the province rose to 6,054 units in January, up 4.5 per cent month-to-month, albeit decelerating from December’s gain. Home prices continued their erratic pattern and remained 2.6 per cent lower than a year ago and nearly nine per cent below 2022’s record high. Greater Vancouver home values increased by 0.6 per cent. In the Fraser Valley, they rose by 2.8 per cent, reversing a dip of equal magnitude observed in December. The average home price in the Kootenays also saw an increase of 1.8 per cent, while prices in the South Okanagan were up 7.9 per cent. However, prices in Chilliwack declined by 7.7 percent in January, erasing gains from the prior month. The Kamloops and Vancouver Island real estate boards saw home prices fall by 5.1 per cent and 4.9 per cent, respectively. Okanagan Mainline recorded a 6.3-per-cent downtick in prices during the month.”

“Among the seven metro areas listed in B.C., five of them reported lower housing starts in January. This is not surprising given the size of the provincial decline. Vancouver saw a 55-per-cent decline to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 18,296 starts — the lowest level since February 2023. Victoria only had 2,235 housing starts — its lowest number since May 2023. In a year-over-year comparison, unadjusted housing starts in B.C. fell by 39 per cent, dropping from 3,726 in January 2023 to 2,264 in January 2024.”

The Telegraph. “A protracted economic slump across large parts of the world economy is colliding with an ever more egregious credit bubble, one that looks increasingly like the subprime excesses of 2007. This strange contradiction will be resolved one way or the other soon enough. Germany, Britain, and Japan were all in recession over the winter. France escaped by a whisker, but is now introducing austerity cuts. The latest fall in the eurozone’s Economic Sentiment Indicator has smothered hopes of a meaningful recovery over coming months.”

“China is still grappling with the fall-out of its enormous property slump. Cities and local authorities that once depended on land sales for 42pc of their income have seen this revenue halve since that bubble burst in 2021. They are in the midst of a public debt crisis that dwarfs the eurozone travails of 2010-2015 in absolute numbers, if not in character. At the same time, credit spreads on junk debt are compressed to levels seen during the wildest phases of pre-Lehman speculation. ‘Euphoria is the name of the game,’ said Barnaby Martin, credit strategist at Bank of America. ‘What are the classic signs of a credit bubble? When discipline goes out of the window and markets buy deteriorating credits because of a feeling of ‘value.’”

From Bloomberg. “Next to Berlin’s airport south of the German capital lies one of the few properties that Cevdet Caner and Guenther Walcher have been fighting to keep after losing much of their real estate empire. Known as Project Walter, the development was acquired with financing from Corestate Capital Holding SA, a real estate lender in which Walcher was a top shareholder. Corestate arranged the debt for the purchase, using money from a fund that one of its subsidiaries advised — even though the fund was contending with redemptions.”

“Almost three years on, Project Walter lies silent, the future of the hotel and offices that Aggregate Holdings — the investment vehicle of Caner and Walcher — wants to build uncertain after it defaulted on the debt. The fund that helped finance the deal was frozen, leaving investors unable to access their money. Other clients who had separate accounts with Corestate have moved their money to competitors. Creditors have taken control of the firm to try and recoup their money.”

“With Corestate on the ropes, its role — and that of other private credit firms — at the nexus of a German real estate boom turned bust is becoming clearer. Corestate financed some of the wilder bets on German property and vividly exemplifies the web of entangled interests that has left the country’s development industry in a particularly sorry state. Using mountains of cheap money, it helped thinly-capitalized developers build vast real estate empires, benefiting from negative interest rates that sent investors on a desperate search for yield.”

“Footing the bill for that borrowing binge are the pension funds, insurers and wealthy clients that Corestate had attracted with its track record of double-digit returns. ‘We’re now seeing the consequences of how low rates and easy money made it too easy for buyers to inflate values and create conflicts without investors being aware,’ said Nicholas Ryder, a professor in financial crime at Cardiff University. The system worked as long as interest rates were low and valuations went up. Roiled by the decline of two major real estate empires — Adler Group and Signa Holding — Europe’s largest economy has become an emblem of the excesses fueled by investors drunk on cheap money, and of the hangover they’re now facing as interest rates rise and values tumble.”

7 News in Australia. “An alleged serial fraudster accused of swindling dozens of Queenslanders out of $450,000 has been charged. Tradesman Hong Thanh Dang Tran, 44, is accused of taking the huge sum from 35 alleged victims and leaving before the work was complete. He is currently in custody, also facing an impersonation charge and accusations he rented tools from Bunnings and never returned them. Authorities believe there could be more alleged victims who are yet to come forward. Umair Rizvi also contacted Dang Tran on Facebook and allegedly transferred him $16,500 to transform his Forest Lake garage into an additional living space.”

“‘He started some work, ripped up the tiles, removed the walls, make it like partitions… but he never finished it,’ Rizvi told 7NEWS. He says he has not heard from Dang Tran Tran since. A third victim alleges he handed over $15,000 before the builder switched his phone off and was gone.”

South China Morning Post. “The illegal schemes are rampant on recruitment sites and social media platforms, such as Xiaohongshu, according to a report by Chinese media outlet Sina Tech in February. The scammers disguise themselves as employment consulting companies and post details about well-paid job openings, sometimes with state-owned enterprises. When young jobseekers applied to the companies they found out they would be charged for ‘services.’ For example, a post with a big private firm could cost the jobseeker 10,000 yuan (US$1,400), while one at a state-owned company could be as much as 200,000 yuan. If a post at a state-owned company came with bian zhi, the fee could reach more than 450,000 yuan (US$63,300).”

“Bian zhi means a stable career with generous perks including a housing subsidy, a good retirement pension, minimal work, and most importantly, very little risk of becoming unemployed. The attractiveness of such job posts is understandable as China’s young navigate increasing competition for work amid the economic downturn and high youth unemployment. The unemployment rate for young people aged 16 to 24, excluding students, was 14.9 per cent in December 2023. The data was released after China’s Bureau of Statistics had suspended the publication of it for five months. On June 2023, the most recent data before the suspension, the figure was 21.3 per cent.”

“The company in Jilin advertised the job’s monthly salary as 5,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan (US$1,125), slightly above its capital city’s average. The company told jobseekers it could help them bypass the first round, which was a written examination, and promised they would go directly to the second round, which was an interview and would easily pass it. However, the contract they asked jobseekers to sign revealed it was a scam. It required them to pay the entire fee 48 hours before the interview, with the disclaimer that it ‘does not make any promise as to the results of the interviews.’ Beijing Jingsh Law Firm’s lawyer, Meng Bo, told Sina Tech that the contract is invalid because it has violated the law, and the companies have committed the crime of fraud by claiming to sell jobs.”

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This Post Has 82 Comments

          3. Possible, I apologize for it. I’m sure you all understand and remember those times when you misspelled something in…French, or Spanish, or German, or whatever 3rd and 4th languages you all speak. 🙂

          4. My understanding is that in none of those languages there are contests commonly known in the US as “spelling bees”, and that is because those languages lack the English language’s peculiar and often infuriating spelling rules. Spanish’s silent ‘h’ being perhaps that language’s top oddity.

          5. I had a bad day once in French class. The teacher pressured me and I answered her in Spanish. She was deeply upset and loosed a tirade at me.

          6. “I had a bad day once in French class. The teacher pressured me and I answered her in Spanish. She was deeply upset and loosed a tirade at me.”
            🙂 🙂

  2. ‘A third victim alleges he handed over $15,000 before the builder switched his phone off and was gone’

    Phones are always the first to go.

    2. Sam Kaufman appears to have been a big talker ,a good salesman ,bur being not properly licensed , means that no permits were pulled , they check if you are licensed …
      Not sure if getting a cheaper price on all that kind of interior work , is worth what the customers are going through now, not that sorry for them , they knew , or should have known …

  3. ‘how many years of unsold inventory do you have falling?’ Mathewes: ‘With Bluegreen, I mean, let me pull that number up. It’s multiple years’

    That’s some shortage Dave.

  4. ‘Houses used to be for employees and hotels for guests. Now houses are for guests and hotels are for employee housing,’ said Loryn Duke, director of communications for the Steamboat ski resort.”

    You will own nothing.

  5. In Driggs, Idaho, which used to be an affordable-housing refuge for workers in more pricey Jackson Hole, average home prices have also gone up around 80% to $735,000 since the start of the pandemic, according to Zillow.

    The MSM never points out the role of the Fed and its deranged money printing as the primary causative factor for soaring shack prices, as these Keynesian fraudsters have turned shelter into yet another speculative asset bubble.

    1. “since the start of the pandemic”

      The phony pandemic didn’t destroy the economy, government destroyed the economy.

      1. “…with some mountainous driving.”

        That’s a 7 or 8 percent grade drive over the high elevation summit. My son’s Tacoma limped along in 2nd gear along several stretches due to a lack of power. I couldn’t imagine that being a daily commute. $735k in Driggs, ID [is] the definition of insanity.

  6. A hefty 12 to 14% Airbnb Service Fee has already been deducted from all our bookings. I left the BOS meeting outraged and heartbroken after all five supervisors voted to adopt the ordinance and its absurd amendments.

    Die, speculator scum. The sooner the better.

  7. A hefty 12 to 14% Airbnb Service Fee has already been deducted from all our bookings.

    Those brown envelopes to municipal apparatchiks don’t stuff themselves, you know.

  8. Was Airbnb there to feed me and slake my thirst? Nope. So stingy!”

    Maybe it’s not AirBnB’s job to put out food & water for you, parasite.

  9. ‘We find 30% to 40% of all the licenses are owned not by people but by corporate entities,’ said Richardson, who estimated a third of beach STR rentals are now corporate owned, another third are owned by trusts, and individuals now own only about one-third of the total.

    How is this even legal? Until rapacious corporations like Blackstone are legally barred from owning residential housing, young couples and families will be forever priced out of ever owning their own homes.

  10. Washington Examiner — Biden secretly dumped 320,000 ‘inadmissible’ illegal immigrants into US cities (3/4/2024):

    “Efforts by open-border Democrats to blame the growing big-city migrant crisis on Texas and its program of busing illegal immigrants north are being upstaged by a new investigation showing that President Joe Biden has secretly flown hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Latin American airports to 43 U.S. cities.

    The unusual program, kept from the public, involved at least 320,000 illegal immigrants the administration admits are “inadmissible” immigrants, far more than previously reported.

    Despite facing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the Center for Immigration Studies, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has refused to identify the 43 airports it is dumping immigrants at after direct flights from Latin America.

    “While large immigrant-receiving cities and media lay blame for the influx on Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s busing program, CBP has withheld from the Center — and apparently will not disclose — the names of the 43 U.S. airports that have received 320,000 inadmissible aliens from January through December 2023, nor the foreign airports from which they departed,” a CIS report shared with Secrets said.

    “The program at the center of the FOIA litigation is perhaps the most enigmatic and least-known of the Biden administration’s uses of the CBP One cellphone scheduling app, even though it is responsible for almost invisibly importing by air 320,000 aliens with no legal right to enter the United States since it got underway in late 2022,” said Todd Bensman, the report’s author.

    “Under these legally dubious parole programs, aliens who cannot legally enter the country use the CBP One app to apply for travel authorization and temporary humanitarian release from those airports. The parole program allows for two-year periods of legal status during which adults are eligible for work authorization,” he wrote.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2900755/biden-secretly-dumped-320000-inadmissible-illegal-immigrants-us-cities/

    You are being replaced.

    1. ‘Despite facing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the Center for Immigration Studies, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has refused to identify the 43 airports it is dumping immigrants at after direct flights from Latin America.’

      Likely the “purple” swing states.

      1. Wouldn’t that backfire? Yes yes, these replacement folks are supposed to eventually vote, but they can’t quite vote yet. So unless ALL of them are voting illegally from the moment they arrive in the purple state, the voters there are more likely to be p-o’d and would have plenty of time to vote for anti-immigrant politicians.

        And we’re already seeing that these illegal immigrants are only mobilizing people to vote against Dems who normally wouldn’t: second-generation Latinos who don’t want any new arrivals to take their unskilled jobs (because that’s what they themselves did 10-15 years ago), and POCs who want the money to go them THEM instead.

        1. I really doubt that many Hispanics or blacks will vote red. They know who has buttered their bread over the decades and most likely perceive the invasion as a speed bump. Sure, they aren’t happy about Venezuelans being dumped in their communities, but most will continue pulling the D Lever

          1. I really doubt that many Hispanics or blacks will vote red.

            Recent polling shows otherwise.

          3. Recent polling shows otherwise.

            Promises, promises. I’ve been hearing about the Hispanic vote swinging to the GOP since dubya was prez.

            I hope I’m wrong.

      2. after direct flights from Latin America

        So they are flying them in directly now.

        The last time I re-entered the US via an international flight, my passport was carefully checked by airline personnel before I was even allowed to board the jet. Then after landing, I had to stand in a long line for the official immigration check, where a stern faced immigration agent checked my US passport and asked me questions like “where do you live”?.

        But the invaders get to skip all that.

  11. MarketWatch — True inflation may have peaked in late 2022 — at 18% — and still hovers around 8% (3/4/2024):

    “A new study takes exception to this anti-consumer narrative, finding that consumers are entirely justified in their gloominess. If inflation were measured correctly, the researchers argue, then it would be evident just how much consumers are hurting.

    The researchers find a strong historical correlation between changes in the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index and consumer borrowing costs. Yet the consumer price index, or CPI, doesn’t fully reflect those costs, they argue. If it did, then the consumers’ gloominess would be seen as entirely rational.

    That’s because consumer borrowing costs in the U.S. have skyrocketed over the last couple of years. Interest rates — whether on credit-card debt, car loans, or mortgages — are higher than they’ve been in decades. Particularly revealing is a cost-of-housing index the authors calculated by taking into account both the mortgage rate and the average cost of a home. They find that the cost of housing in the U.S. has more than doubled since the pandemic, in contrast to the CPI, which has increased by around 20% over the same period.”

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/true-inflation-may-have-peaked-in-late-2022-at-18-and-still-hovers-around-8-cc89ea6b?mod=home-page

    “the cost of housing in the U.S. has more than doubled since the pandemic”

    Must be one of those Build Back Better things we were told about. Are you any better off now than you were in January 2021?

    1. “That’s because consumer borrowing costs in the U.S. have skyrocketed over the last couple of years. Interest rates — whether on credit-card debt, car loans, or mortgages — are higher than they’ve been in decades.”

      That’s an interesting perspective on inflation — it looks much worse if you are funding your lifestyle on credit card debt with 20%+ interest payments.

    2. That’s because consumer borrowing costs in the U.S. have skyrocketed over the last couple of years. Interest rates — whether on credit-card debt, car loans,

      And don’t forget, you’ll have to pay a lot more for the same car in 2024 vs. 2020.

      #FJB

      1. And food and gas. You can put off other purchases like a car or house so you don’t feel the inflation there. But you can’t avoid the grocery store or basic consumer goods.

        On a side note, planting a garden to save money at the grocery store doesn’t really save money. Unless you’re retired and have a lot of time to plow up your entire back yard, you will spend more on dirt and seeds and labor than you will at the store.

  12. How the Government Used ‘Track F’ to Fund Censorship Tools: Report

    The National Science Foundation spent $39 million on Track F, a program related to censoring, suppressing Americans’ speech, says a new report.

    By Mark Tapscott
    March 02, 2024

    Officials from the National Science Foundation tried to conceal the spending of millions of taxpayer dollars on research and development for artificial intelligence tools used to censor political speech and influence the outcome of elections, according to a new congressional report.

    The report looking into the National Science Foundation (NSF) is the latest addition to a growing body of evidence that critics claim shows federal officials—especially at the FBI and the CIA—are creating a “censorship-industrial complex” to monitor American public expression and suppress speech disfavored by the government.

    “In the name of combatting alleged misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the 2020 election, NSF has been issuing multimillion-dollar grants to university and nonprofit research teams,” states the report by the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

    “The purpose of these taxpayer-funded projects is to develop AI-powered censorship and propaganda tools that can be used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others.”

    The report also described, based on previously unknown documents, elaborate efforts by NSF officials to cover up the true purposes of the research.

    The efforts included tracking public criticism of the foundation’s work by conservative journalists and legal scholars.

    In a statement to The Epoch Times, an NSF spokesman categorically rejected the report’s allegations.

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) team that developed its “Search Lit” tool with government funding was the fourth of the highlighted NSF grant recipients.

    Officials with NSF asked the MIT team “to develop ‘effective interventions’ to educate Americans—specifically, those that the MIT researchers alleged ’may be more vulnerable to misinformation campaigns’—on how to discern fact from fiction online.

    “In particular, the MIT team believed that conservatives, minorities, and veterans were uniquely incapable of assessing the veracity of content online,” the congressional report noted.

    “In order to build a ’more digitally discerning public,’ the Search Lit team proposed developing tools that could support the government’s viewpoint on COVID-19 public health measures and the 2020 election.”

    https://x.com/EpochTimes/status/1764373930826244334?s=20

    1. “misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the 2020 election”

      81 million ballots, not 81 million votes.

      The 2020 election was stolen.

    2. “In the name of combatting alleged misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the 2020 election, NSF has been issuing multimillion-dollar grants to university and nonprofit research teams,” states the report by the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

      Deloitte gets paid by these agencies to sift data from the Internet regarding critics of various officials and programs.

  13. Just spent a week down in the Florida Panhandle. Destin Beach to Panama City Beach areas(s) The amount of construction is astonishing, absolutely astonishing! A contractors dream. As we drove/biked around areas between the 30a and the beach the 4 story vacation rentals on postage sized lots would blow your mind. The signs “rent this condo” were more common than grains of sand. I have never seen anything like it. I can’t imagine the amount of rental competition that must be going on in the area. All this on top of the insurance fiasco currently plaguing the state.

    1. All this on top of the insurance fiasco currently plaguing the state.

      Which is what happens when you build, build, build in a region where there is a non trivial chance of eventually being hit by a hurricane.

      But the gators and la cucaracha are free of charge.

      1. a clip from MSN on the same subject:

        “sister bought a condo in a huge complex and they were just told by their insurance companies they need to replace all the roofs even though in good shape and not even 10 years old.
        They are now getting hit with huge assessments as well as HOA going up 200 MORE a month.”

      2. Lest I forget the freeking tipping crap is in your face everywhere you go. Flip that little ipad around to start you out at 15% minimum on that donut. I swear it’s worth the hassle to keep one dollar bills in your pocket when buying anything under $10.
        On larger dining expenses does the wait staff deserve that bigger tip because she pours a $15 bottle of wine vs a $60 bottle? Seems like the same amount of effort to me.

        1. On the other hand, I tip contractors generously. HVAC maintenance, gas regulator replacement, roofing, plumbing, electrical — they all get a gift card and a can of SBUX mocha doubleshot.

  14. Unanimous SCOTUS decision that former President Donald Trump will be allowed to remain on primary and general ballots in the 2024 US election.

    1. It was the biggest medical experiment in history.

      Remember being told that all jabs would eventually be mRNA? You don’t hear much about that anymore. The mRNA flu jab seems to have quietly gone away, the official reason given was that it wasn’t very effective. Not that I would get a flu jab now given all the deception from big pharma.

    2. COVID was not like the flu in 2020, especially for the elderly and obese. COVID evolved into the flu… but only over time.

      1. I had it in 2021 and I’m not young. I am supposed to be in the high risk group, but my experience wasn’t terrible.

        I also remain convinced that the Covid death numbers were exaggerated. As in the stories we heard of people dying of a trauma and their death certs saying they died of Covid.

  16. “At the Steamboat hospital, doctors willing to pay more than $1 million for a home have been repeatedly outbid by all-cash, out-of-town buyers, and housing costs have caused some positions to go unfilled for more than two years.”

    When doctors are getting outbid by out-of-town speculators, the local housing market is FOOBAR.

    1. Steamboat Springs is an out of the way and somewhat inaccessible ski resort town. I’ve only been there once in the summer and IMHO it wasn’t worth the drive. Driving there in winter conditions must be a blast. I know some people love the place, but it’s no different than other ski resorts, except you have to drive for hours on two lane roads to get there. And if you choose to drive through the Poudre canyon, expect to go slow.

    2. AirBNB, and CCP Flu destroyed every mountain town in Colorado.

      Have fun waiting 45 minutes to get your soy latte, pigmen, because there’s no local workforce left to sustain your pig lifestyle.

      1. Have fun waiting 45 minutes to get your soy latte, pigmen, because there’s no local workforce left to sustain your pig lifestyle.

        A very good point. The last time I was in Steamboat was well before the scamdemic and for the most part it seemed like the place still worked. But yeah, there is no place nearby where the worker bees can live. Walden? The place looks like a ghost town and is over an hour away in good weather, IIRC.

        1. At age 17 I spent the summer working as a waiter in a remote log cabin lodge on a lake between Mt. Blue and Tumbledown in Maine.

          Rooms for all the staff were built in one level down from the kitchen/dining hall.

          In addition to room and board, I got a paycheck of $17.50 a week.

        2. Walden … yay again for google maps. Walden has a surprising number of single-wides. I thought manufactured homes were famously uninsulated. How do people stay warm in the winter? Nearby nat gas?

          1. Propane? Who knows? All I know was that the place looked terrible, third worldish. I’m amazed anyone would live there.

        1. I’m sure Venezuelans would agree to live in those pods. Not so sure if they will agree to do work, especially outdoor work in the winter.

  17. Trump is getting a little more bold and on Saturday he accused Biden of treason and attempt to overthrow US Government.
    Biden already announced his allegiance to the One World Order, in saying “The US should lead in the One World Order.”
    Border invasion, Biden treaty to transfer power to WHO that overrides Constitution, mandating killer vaccines, censorship and suppression of first amendment, attempt to take 2nd amendment,
    attack on law abiding US Citizens calling them enemy of state, stealing US classified documents, evidence of bribes paid to the Bidens, Biden giving the US Oil reserves to China, advancement of Climate Change fake narratives, Biden wars, promoting racial discontent and discrimination of white race in violation of long standing Civil Rights laws, and on and on.
    So, finally Trump is getting serious about calling out the treasonous acts of Biden following the 2020 rigged election in which Biden was placed to literally destroy America.

  18. A reader sent these in:

    The white guy pretending to be a girl took first place from the black female. So in the hierarchy of victimhood, white dudes pretending to be girls are clearly at the peak for victim status and cannot be challenged within the ideology of the radical left.

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1764147821060481478

    This Elderly Women On A FIXED Budget Hammers City Council Over The Illegal Migrants Flooding The City:
    “I’m here to speak on behalf of the poor, the elderly, who are struggling because of the issues you deal with and how you deal with them”
    “If we look at Denver 40,000 immigrants, and we think they cost $1,000 a month for housing”
    “It’s going to be $480 MILLION dollars for one year”
    “That’s just $1,000 and I don’t think you can get housing for that”
    “We are headed for a tsunami. I don’t think you know what you’re heading”
    🚨🚨🚨

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1764076610636894524

    No, Liz. It wasn’t corporate greed that made my Taco Bell order $20
    It was the trillions you scumbags printed in 2020. No more lying.

    https://twitter.com/LibertyLockPod/status/1763962180544729231

    Current state of the stock market:

    Carvana stock, $CVNA, is now up 722% since the company was feared to be going bankrupt 1 year ago.
    The company holds $6.3 billion of debt and trades with a 110x P/E ratio.
    Meanwhile, default rates on car loans are at 2008 levels and used car inventory is skyrocketing.
    Used car prices are down over 25% since 2022 and used car loan rates are at a record 14%.
    This is the same company that was trading at $3/share in December 2022.
    Carvana is literally trading like an AI stock.
    What is happening?

    https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1764299350774018273

    In all seriousness, what level of interest rate would stop this type of speculation? It’s up 840% and by the OP estimation 100% overvalued. Another 800% higher is still only 100% overvalued.

    https://twitter.com/profplum99/status/1764307402235527376

    C. Scott Green, the president of University of Idaho, said he viewed a potential agreement to buy the University of Phoenix with a price tag of $550 million as a hedge against what is known as the “demographic cliff,” an expected collapse in the number of college-age students.

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1764476872581369917

    “Home inventory will never rise”

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1764389958377427046

    JetBlue is offering to pay 350 pilots half of their maximum hours (or 2/3rds of average compensation) for the month of April to not fly at all

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1764388523522633796

    It’s all fun and games until home insurance doubles, property tax doubles, and your adjustable rate mortgage finally “adjusts.” I think we’re going to see a lot of home owners find themselves renters again.

    https://twitter.com/GenericPlebian/status/1764473505565843676

    Santander is eliminating 320 jobs in the United States

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1764492723300815129

    Arizona AG on RealPage “colluding with landlords”. “The way the scheme works is the landlords all agree to provide very specific proprietary information to RealPage. RealPage takes that into their algorithm and then they spit out a rent that everybody needs to abide by in order to keep prices high.”

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1764459352839340191

    Get our while you still can

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1764365979872805167

    1. JetBlue is offering to pay 350 pilots half of their maximum hours (or 2/3rds of average compensation) for the month of April to not fly at all

      Huh, I would have thought they would be extra busy flying the invaders to the four corners of the nation

    1. Build the wall, deport them ALL.

      And regarding the ankle biters’ go to line “that’s logistically impossible” the United States fought and won a war on two fronts in the Pacific and Europe. Built the Interstate Highway system a decade later. And in 1969 put a man on the moon.

      Deport them ALL. All of them.

      1. “that’s logistically impossible”

        Of course it can be done, but it does require the political will to do so. And once the deportations become common and widespread then many will self deport, so that they can return home on their terms, instead of being grabbed by the scruff of their necks and tossed out, often losing their meager assets in the process.

  20. ‘First of all, off to the side of the entrance was coffee and water along with a stack of signs declaring, ‘Homes for Residents, Not Tourists! Pass the LA County Registration Ordinance. Better Neighbors LA.’ I thought, ‘Someone is extremely organized…There was no corresponding table sponsored by Airbnb to support their hosts. No water, no coffee, no nothin’. That ticked me off. Where were they? Oh right … Airbnb will always profit, even though their hosts must endure taxation and registration fees. Hosts who have made Brian Chesky and his other co-founders very wealthy. A hefty 12 to 14% Airbnb Service Fee has already been deducted from all our bookings. I left the BOS meeting outraged and heartbroken after all five supervisors voted to adopt the ordinance and its absurd amendments. I also left the meeting hungry and thirsty. Was Airbnb there to feed me and slake my thirst? Nope. So stingy!’

    What’s notable about this is in places like San Diego in the past, the STR companies would come in hard and throw money around to this kind of event. She’s lamenting how that’s apparently no longer what they can expect.

  21. ‘has a motivational podcast called ‘Never Stop Building’…my businesses started the process of a bankruptcy [two] years prior to the decision actually having to be made… grew too fast and with delayed hard decisions’

    Never say never Sam.

    1. a motivational podcast called ‘Never Stop Building’

      It’s what the builder boyz do, they just keep building until they go bankrupt.

  22. ‘Corestate financed some of the wilder bets on German property and vividly exemplifies the web of entangled interests that has left the country’s development industry in a particularly sorry state. Using mountains of cheap money, it helped thinly-capitalized developers build vast real estate empires, benefiting from negative interest rates that sent investors on a desperate search for yield’

    And why were they eagerly searching for yield for years? The central banks were handing out free money and what do you do with free money? Invest in something, anything. If this phony money didn’t exist a lot of the problems would go away.

    “Footing the bill for that borrowing binge are the pension funds, insurers and wealthy clients that Corestate had attracted with its track record of double-digit returns. ‘We’re now seeing the consequences of how low rates and easy money made it too easy for buyers to inflate values and create conflicts without investors being aware’

    So you guys in Germany are running a real mickey mouse operation too Nicholas.

  23. Renting a 3BR 2Bath townhome in my burg for $1450 never felt so good.

    1/2 the price of owning.

  24. ‘Blood Money’: Two of the Biggest Funders of the Radical Transgender Movement in the U.S. Are China-Linked Billionaires

    KATHERINE HAMILTON
    4 Mar 2024

    Pro-Beijing groups financially backed by two China-linked billionaires are pushing the radical transgender movement as a means of advancing a Marxist agenda in the United States, seven-time New York Times bestselling author Peter Schweizer reveals in his new book Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans.

    In Blood Money, Schweizer, who is a Breitbart News senior contributor and the president of the Government Accountability Institute, reveals China’s multi-pronged, covert attack on America. In Chapter 6, called “Destabilizing Democracy,” Schweizer explores how two billionaires, China-based American Neville Roy Singham and Alibaba co-founder Joseph Tsai, prop up radical activists groups that use transgenderism as a weapon against the “capitalist order.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/03/04/blood-money-two-of-the-biggest-funders-of-the-radical-transgender-movement-in-the-u-s-are-china-linked-billionaires/

  27. R u worried a bad read on inflation could send the bull herd in a stampede over the nearest cliff?

    I’m not.

    3. Morningstar
      MarketWatch
      The stock market is overvalued from any perspective
      Provided by Dow Jones
      Feb 27, 2024 7:51am
      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 1881. The only higher readings occurred at the market top in late 2021 and at the top of the internet bubble.

      Those are ominous parallels.

      One tack that some bulls have nevertheless taken to try to sidestep these bearish precedents is to argue that, because stock market valuations have risen steadily over the decades, high current readings are not particularly unusual. This argument does have some superficial plausibility, as you can see from the accompanying chart of the CAPE ratio since 1881. Though the ratio’s arithmetic average over the last 140 years is 17.4, a trend line that best fits the historical data currently stands at 23.5. So relative to the long-term trend, the CAPE is “just” 46% overvalued-in contrast to 97% overvalued relative to its long-term average.

      That’s a significant improvement, to be sure, but still leaves the market significantly overvalued right now.

      But there is an additional problem with the bulls’ insistence that the current CAPE be compared with its long-term trend line: The slope of that trend line depends crucially on how far back you go. There is nothing theoretically justified about 1881 more than any other, and had another starting year been chosen the conclusion you’d reach could either be more or less favorable to the bulls.

      How valuation models stack up currently

      It’s because there are any of a number of possible starting points for historical comparisons that the table at the end of this column-which is updated monthly in this space-focuses on three periods for historical comparison: The last 30+ years (to 1990), the last 50+ years (to 1970), and the last 70+ years (to 1950).

      As you can see in the table, all of the indicators that I regularly update show the market to be significantly overvalued, regardless of the time period over which the valuation is judged.
      …
      https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240227135/the-stock-market-is-overvalued-from-any-perspective

    4. ChatGPT 3.5

      User
      Are stocks overvalued?

      ChatGPT
      Determining if stocks are overvalued is subjective and depends on various factors such as market conditions, economic indicators, and individual company performance. It’s essential to conduct thorough research and analysis before making any conclusions about the valuation of stocks.

      User
      So I am supposed to figure out on my own if stocks are overvalued?

      ChatGPT
      While assessing whether stocks are overvalued ultimately requires your judgment, you can consider various indicators and factors to make a more informed decision. These may include price-to-earnings ratios, price-to-book ratios, dividend yields, economic conditions, company fundamentals, and market sentiment. Additionally, consulting with financial advisors or conducting in-depth research can provide valuable insights into the current valuation of stocks.

      User
      Can’t I just rely on artificial intelligence to figure this out for me?

      ChatGPT
      Artificial intelligence can certainly assist in analyzing vast amounts of data and identifying patterns that may influence stock valuations. However, it’s important to remember that investing decisions should not solely rely on AI predictions. Human judgment, understanding of market dynamics, and consideration of qualitative factors are also crucial in making sound investment decisions. AI can be a valuable tool in your investment strategy, but it should be used alongside your own analysis and judgment.

      User
      I don’t believe you.

      ChatGPT
      That’s understandable. Trust in AI varies from person to person, and it’s important to use tools and resources that you feel comfortable with. If you have specific questions or concerns about AI’s capabilities or limitations in stock market analysis, feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to address them.

      User
      You have a gift for sounding intelligent while saying nothing.

      ChatGPT
      I apologize if my responses haven’t been as helpful as you’d hoped. If there’s anything specific you’d like to know or discuss regarding stock valuation or any other topic, please feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to provide more meaningful insights.

      ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.

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