thehousingbubble@gmail.com
Blog

Fleeing The Communist Government Of XYZ

A report from NBC News. “One of the first signs Barb Carter’s move to Florida wasn’t the postcard life she’d envisioned was the armadillo infestation in her home that caused $9,000 in damages. Then came a hurricane, ever present feuding over politics, and an inability to find a doctor to remove a tumor from her liver. After a year in the Sunshine State, Carter packed her car with whatever belongings she could fit and headed back to her home state of Kansas — selling her Florida home at a $40,000 loss and leaving behind the children and grandchildren she’d moved to be closer to.”

“Carter, who describes herself as a ‘middle of the road’ Republican, said she learned to keep her opinions to herself. ‘You cannot engage in a conversation there without politics coming up, it is just crazy. We’re retired, we’re supposed to be in our fun time of life,’ she said.”

“For some Florida newcomers though, politics is the main draw to the state, said John Desautels, who has sold real estate in Florida for decades. While politics never used to be a topic for homebuyers, Desautels said it is now a regular subject his clients bring up. Rather than asking about schools or amenities in a community, prospective buyers are asking him about the political affiliations of a certain neighborhood. One of the first things they say is, ‘I don’t want to be in one of them X or Y political party neighborhoods,’ Desautels said. I spend hours listening to people vent to me about fleeing the communist government of XYZ and they want to come to freedom or whatever.'”

The Union Tribune in California. “When Eric Dargan took over more than a year ago as San Diego’s chief operating officer, the city’s top nonelected position, he quickly flagged several issues. Crumbling infrastructure. Aging fire facilities. Police recruitment. These would be his priorities, he thought. Then he asked residents about their biggest worries. ‘Nine out of 10 people would tell me, ‘homelessness,’ he said in an interview. ‘If that’s your number one concern, then that needs to become my number one concern.'”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “One year ago, Los Angeles’ ‘mansion tax’ took effect. The transfer tax, formally known as Measure ULA, levies a 4% charge on all property sales above $5 million and a 5.5% charge on sales above $10 million, with proceeds funding affordable housing and homelessness initiatives. Critics, including many L.A. real estate professionals, claim the tax has hampered the market — not just luxury home sales, but also multifamily developments and commercial properties, since the tax applies to all property sales above $5 million. In Beverly Hills, single-family sales dropped 24%. In Santa Monica, single-family sales dropped 29%. In Malibu, single-family sales dropped 28%. ‘My clients are leaving L.A.,’ said Jason Oppenheim, a luxury real estate agent. ‘We can’t keep pushing the wealthy out of our city.'”

From Oregon Live. “Washington County’s recent track record of sheltering far more people in need hasn’t spared its large cities from the visible consequences of the state’s housing and addiction crises. The intersection of Southwest 5th Street and Tucker Avenue, near the downtown Beaverton library and the Beaverton Community Center, is a prime example, police say. While the city’s troubles with homelessness and substance use disorder are not nearly to the scale of Portland’s, pressure is mounting to respond quickly in Beaverton, Beaverton Mayor Lacey Beaty said. A visible rise in the suburban homeless population — while still relatively small — and Beaverton’s high rate of homeless youth demand solutions, Beaty said.”

“In another small sign of how things have changed, Beaverton’s officers now carry two doses of naloxone, which can be used to reverse an opioid overdose. ‘We used to only carry one because heroin only required one,’ Bike Sgt. Chester Lamb said. ‘Fentanyl often requires more.'”

The Seattle Times in Washington. “Ballard is a bit of an anomaly. Despite being one of the wealthier residential neighborhoods in Seattle, a lot of people are living outside there. That juxtaposition has sparked debate around homelessness that at times feels more intense than anywhere else in the city. Homelessness has increased about 60% across King County over the past decade. Many in Ballard noticed a significant change around the mid- to late-2010s. Lisa Pekar, who for 17 years has managed Haven Salon, a block from Ballard Commons Park, said she saw the first tents appear there around this time. Jean Johnson, owner of Tea Cozy Yarn Shop next to the salon, said that’s when she stopped seeing children and families at the park.”

“After the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instructed cities to stop clearing encampments to prevent the spread of COVID-19, an encampment formed at the Ballard Commons that ballooned to dozens of tents with 85 people sleeping there at one point. ‘To have that happen right in my backyard, in this little quaint Ballard, was very, very upsetting,’ said Pekar at Haven Salon, who said she felt unsafe at the time. Pekar used to live in Ballard but has since moved to Magnolia, another wealthy area of Seattle, which she said ‘doesn’t have any homeless people.’ She and others blame Ballard’s homelessness on programs like St. Luke’s Edible Hope Kitchen. ‘Wherever you hand food out for free, that’s where you’re gonna get your homeless people,’ Pekar said.”

From El Pais. “‘Gringo go home,’ reads a huge graffiti in Roma, Mexico City’s trendy neighborhood that has become a mecca for short- and long-stay global tourism. ‘I wish someone nationalist would come along and introduce these little shits to their fate,’ people comment on social media in response to a gringo inviting his compatriots to visit the capital. ‘I hate you fucking gringos,’ others say succinctly. In the collective imagination, gringos are the cause and reason for the rising cost of housing in Mexico City. And it is thought that expelling them represents an important part of the solution to the problem.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “After three decades as an emergency physician at Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital, Louis Hugo Francescutti has come to realize that medicine alone is not health care. For years now, he has watched an alarming spike in the number of homeless patients coming through his ER’s doors. Just as troubling, he says, is that of the nearly 9,000 patients with no fixed address who visited Edmonton emergency rooms last year, many of them wound up sent back to the same illness-inducing circumstances that landed them in the ER in the first place – only to see them return again, sicker.”

“To break that cycle, last winter, Dr. Francescutti and his colleagues launched a local pilot program that provides transitional housing for patients that would otherwise be discharged from hospital into homelessness. In short, physicians are reckoning with what UHN physician Andrew Boozary calls ‘the heart and soul’ of medicine, in a country that prides itself on universal health care. ‘We can’t really talk about universal health care without housing as a human right.'”

CBC News in Canada. “Timmins and Sudbury have some of the highest rates of opiate use in Ontario, but after this weekend, the cities will no longer have funding for their supervised consumption sites. The Spot in Sudbury and the Safe Health Site Timmins offer spaces with supports and care for people to use toxic drugs safely, but funding for both runs out after March 31. Timmins and Sudbury have an opioid toxicity mortality rate nearly three times the provincial average, according to data from the Office of the Chief Coroner. Kevin Peltier was a client at the Spot, and says he’s worried about what could happen if he doesn’t have a supervised site to use drugs. ‘I just felt safer, you know, knowing that there was, you know, trained medical staff on site,’ he said. Staff at the Timmins site told CBC in early March that since opening in 2022, they had managed over 350 overdoses.”

DPA International. “Located between meadows and trees, at the outskirts of the northern German town of Bramsche, is a refugee and migrant reception facility. According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), some 329,000 people applied for asylum in Germany last year, more than at any time since 2016. Nisar Ahmad from Pakistan is unhappy about the accommodation. The shower rooms are far away from the rooms and dirty, the food inedible, he complains. Ahmad repeatedly stresses that his wife is pregnant and that the driver who was supposed to pick her up and take her to a doctor’s surgery in nearby Osnabrück arrived late. ‘Life is very tough,’ he says. ‘Every day is very tough.'”

“He leads us to the room that his family of five currently calls home. Several beds are placed next to each other on the PVC floor, opposite a cupboard with several missing doors. Ahmad points angrily to discolouration and dirt on the walls. Then he goes to the cupboard to look for a document, his Bachelor of Laws that’s been idly sitting around. Ahmad says he expected more from Germany.”

From Magyar Nemzet. “New crime statistics for the city of Frankfurt, Germany, reveal shocking figures on foreigners and serious crime, including one particular figure, which shows foreigners are responsible for 100 percent of serious sexual violence crimes and 57.4 percent of all crimes. As for crimes against life, 54 percent of the murders were committed by foreigners, while they were responsible for 64.8 percent of other homicides. Foreigners were also far over-represented when it comes to sex crimes in Frankfurt, with 64.1 per cent of rape cases and 100 per cent of grave sexual violence cases committed by foreign nationals, according to the figures.”

“Foreigners were responsible for 64.4 per cent of cases of sexual abuse and 57.1 per cent of cases of abuse of minors. The proportion of persons with a migrant background in robberies is also very high: 65.5 percent of robberies, 75.6 percent of aggravated robberies, 93 percent of car thefts, 87.5 percent of handbag thefts, 93 percent of pickpocketing, 87.5 percent of forced entry, 80 percent of daytime burglaries and 72.9 percent of street thefts were attributed to foreign nationals, but migrants also committed 75 percent of all counterfeiting offences and 62.5 percent of sexual extortion cases.”

“Last week, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann stated that foreigners are responsible for a vastly higher share of crime compared to their share of the population. ‘We will not accept the increase in crime, even if it is a nationwide trend for which foreigners and immigrants are particularly responsible,’ Herrmann said. The crime statistics make it clear that uncontrolled immigration also has a negative impact on the security situation, he added. ‘It is particularly important to take those foreigners who pose a threat to public safety out of the country as quickly as possible after serving their sentence. In addition, we finally need a fundamental change of course in asylum policy and, above all, an effective containment of illegal migration,’ Hermann stressed.”

Eastern Daily Press. “Plans for hundreds of new homes in Norwich are stuck in limbo because City Hall does not consider them a priority for an anti-pollution scheme. Officials have admitted they have been forced to put 67 planning applications on hold because Norwich City Council has not come up with ways to ensure they do not breach tough rules introduced by Natural England. The revelation has angered small-scale builders who have accused the council of ignoring them at the expense of large-scale developments as it tries to ensure all new housing schemes achieve so-called ‘nutrient neutrality’, whereby their polluting impact is offset by environmental measures.”

“Property director Tristan Gordon – who has been waiting for two years for permission to convert offices in St Faith’s Lane into three three-bed flats – said: ‘I’ve been going back and forth with the city council’s planning department and I’m getting increasingly frustrated. People like me have been left in limbo.’ The Norfolk Environmental Credits scheme has itself attracted controversy, after it emerged it had paid a farmer almost £1m not to farm pigs on his land, near Caistor St Edmund. The idea behind the move was that it would offset the polluting impact of new homes, by removing a comparative amount of pollution produced by the pigs, which was flowing into the rivers Yare and Tas.”

Related Posts
This Post Has 72 Comments

  1. ‘In another small sign of how things have changed, Beaverton’s officers now carry two doses of naloxone, which can be used to reverse an opioid overdose. ‘We used to only carry one because heroin only required one,’ Bike Sgt. Chester Lamb said. ‘Fentanyl often requires more’

    Ban narcan! When I saw this Florida article I thought I can go along with that. Pointing out all the globalist scum sh$tholes in the US and the world is like shooting fish in a barrel.

    1. Here is a fun one to keep an eye on. Short version: NYC based ‘investor’ buys up over 50 malls and shopping centers and doesn’t pay the electric bill or taxes on many of them. Power routinely gets shut off for the dwindling number of shops that are still open. Here is just one example but lots of other similar stories come up for other Kohan properties.

      https://www.timesrepublican.com/news/todays-news/2023/11/mall-ownership-group-has-checkered-history/

      It looks to me like he has a serious cash flow problem and someone is going to have to eat some big losses.

    2. I was just reading the article on the Canadian doctors trying to find housing for the homeless frequent flyers to the ER. It seems that the entire world is in a sad state of mental and physical health. Every country is just full of people who drain far more out of the system that they put in. Is there even a solution to this? I dunno, maybe some kind of triage.

      1. This isn’t an accident or the result of incompetence. The PTB are doing everything they can t mak elife utterly miserable for as many people as possible. This of course helps discourage family formation, which is one of the goals.

  2. ‘‘Gringo go home,’ reads a huge graffiti in Roma, Mexico City’s trendy neighborhood that has become a mecca for short- and long-stay global tourism. ‘I wish someone nationalist would come along and introduce these little shits to their fate,’ people comment on social media in response to a gringo inviting his compatriots to visit the capital. ‘I hate you fucking gringos’

    But what is the walk-ability?

    3. “I wish someone nationalist would come along and introduce these little shits to their fate”

      Be careful what you wish for. The nationalist that comes along might well be Donald Trump, who’s going to introduce you to your fate of caring for the little shts who will be Remaining in Mexico.

  3. How Inflation Buzzwords Manipulate

    https://schiffgold.com/guest-commentaries/how-inflation-buzzwords-manipulate/

    [snip snip]

    Followers of the Austrian school of economics know that the term inflation refers to increasing the quantity of money or money substitutes. The result being a rise in the price of goods and services or a fall in the value of money. But, in the modern era, this rise in prices is called inflation and as Ludwig von Mises wrote, “This semantic innovation is by no means harmless.” The semantic change has people looking everywhere but where they should to blame for higher prices.

    Bloomberg’s Enda Curran writes, “A prolonged period of elevated inflation has left consumers cranky and eager to cast blame.” With the term inflation evidently getting tiresome, Curren lists some new price increase buzzwords and phrases.

    “Shrinkflation” This is the President’s favorite. He even mentioned it in his State of the Union speech. The White House posted on X, “President Biden is calling on companies to put a stop to shrinkflation.” In other words, put more cookies back in the bag or make Snickers bars the same size they used to be. Even Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster has complained his cookies were getting smaller.

    “Drip Pricing” These are fees which are added for your luggage when you fly or resort fees added on to your hotel bill. Processing and service fees were called junk fees by President Biden in last year’s State of the Union speech and he vowed to fight “those hidden surcharges too many companies use to make you pay more.” As if the hotel clerk puts a gun to your head at checkout time.

    “Greedflation” Ms. Curren says “It’s a modern take on profiteering — “‘making an unreasonable profit on the sale of essential goods especially during times of emergency.’” Of course, price is how goods are distributed during a shortage or any other time as opposed to, as the Economist magazine wrote,” something worse, such as rationing or queues.”

    “Excuseflation” This one sounds a lot like the above-mentioned “greedflation.” Curren cites a paper by UBS AG chief global economist Paul Donovan, who claims developed economies are in a period “when some companies spin a story that convinces customers that price increases are ‘fair,’ when in fact they disguise profit margin expansion.” A baker in Chicago said on an Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast that global news events allow him to raise prices “without getting a whole bunch of complaining from the customers.”

    “Sellers’ Inflation” This term is credited to Isabella Weber, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts who claims large corporations have market power and “have used supply problems as an opportunity to increase prices and scoop windfall profits.” Her solution is price controls, which would lead to long lines and rationing.

    “Disinflation” Prices are rising but at a lower rate of change.

    Immaculate disinflation. Curren says this is the “optimistic notion” that Jerome Powell and the economists at the Eccles Building can bring prices under control without putting a bunch of people out of work. The Federal Reserve can either create money fast or create money slow. That’s all it has. Jerome Powell is not the economy’s Geppetto.

    Murray Rothbard explained where inflation comes from everywhere and always:

    The fault of inflation is not in business “monopoly,” or in union agitation, or in the hunches of speculators, or in the “greediness” of consumers; the fault is in the legalized counterfeiting operations of the government itself. For the government is the only institution in society with the power to counterfeit — to create new money. So long as it continues to use that power, we will continue to suffer from inflation, even unto a runaway inflation that will utterly destroy the currency.

    Inflation, or whatever you want to call it, is nothing more than government taxation in stealth form. Only the government can conjure up new money from nothing, using it to bid away resources from private individuals.

    2. Yeah, and it’s interesting how rising stock prices are never considered inflation. When stocks are up that means everything is awesome and excellent and wonderful. But what causes those stock prices to rise? A major factor is obviously rising corporate profit margins, which often mean that companies are charging more and providing less value for the same product or service. How come the politicians and pundits never make this connection?

  4. Gross Domestic Income Shows America Is In Stagnation

    https://www.dlacalle.com/en/gross-domestic-income-shows-america-is-in-stagnation/#:~:text=The%20divergence%20between%20headline%20GDP%20and%20Gross%20Domestic,GDI%20only%20bounced%200.5%25%2C%20effectively%20signaling%20economic%20stagnation.

    In a recent CNN poll, 48% of respondents stated that they believe the economy remains in a downturn, and only 35% said that things in the country today are going well. The disparity between somber economic sentiment and a surprisingly strong headline unemployment rate and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) can be easily explained.

    The divergence between headline GDP and Gross Domestic Income (GDI) is staggering. While GDP suggests a strong economy, GDI reveals a stagnant economy. Both measures used to follow a similar pattern, but this changed drastically in 2023. While GDP rose 2.5% in 2023, GDI only bounced 0.5%, effectively signaling economic stagnation.

    According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real GDI increased only 0.5% in 2023, compared with an increase of 2.1% in 2022. If we use the average of real GDP and real GDI, it increased only 1.5% in 2023, compared with an increase of 2.0% in 2022. Not a recession, but certainly a weak economy.

    The unemployment figures show weakness as well. Real wage growth in the past four years has been negligible, at 0.7% per year, four times weaker than the previous four years. Furthermore, the labor force participation rate remains below the pre-pandemic level at 62.5%, the same as the employment-population ratio at 60.1%. Poor real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.6% in the average workweek resulted in an uninspiring 0.5% increase in real average weekly earnings in the year to February 2024.

    There is also a weak trend in profits. In 2023, profits from current production (corporate profits with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) increased $49.3 billion, compared with an increase of $285.9 billion in 2022, according to the BEA. Profits of domestic nonfinancial corporations increased $66.6 billion, compared with an increase of $247.6 billion in 2022. This is a very weak trend.

    All these figures indicate that the US economy is performing significantly better than the euro area, but it is still far below expectations.

    Keynesianism is working against the potential of the United States economy. The accumulated $6.3 trillion deficit of the past four years had a negative impact on the economy. Rising taxes and persistent inflation are eroding the average American quality of life. More citizens need to hold more than one job to make ends meet, and the number of multiple jobholders has reached a multi-decade record.

    Gross Domestic Income proves the economy is stagnant, and if we look at GDP and GDI excluding the accumulation of debt, they show the worst year since the 1930s.

    How can an economy be stagnant with 2.5% GDP growth? Here is the failure of Keynesianism in all its glory. Headline aggregated figures are optically strong due to the accumulation of debt, and employment figures are bloated by government jobs, disguising a struggling private sector and a weakening purchasing power of the currency.

    Cheap money is very expensive in the long run, and discontent rises as Keynesianism focuses on increasing the public sector while the productive economy suffers higher taxes and more challenges to pay the bills.

    Inflation is a consequence of the misguided increase in government spending and debt monetization in the middle of a post-pandemic recovery, leading to an aggregate loss of purchasing power of the currency that is close to 24% in the past four years. The government is taking in inflation what it promises in entitlement spending. The result? You are poorer.

    It is dangerous to blame Americans’ discontent on a lack of information. Americans are suffering a prohibitive tax wedge as well as the hidden tax of inflation just because the government decided to play the oldest trick in the book: promise “free stuff” and print new currency through deficit spending, which makes the allegedly free programs more expensive than ever.

    The failure of Keynesianism is evident. Sadly, politicians will promise more Keynesianism and present themselves as the solution to the problem they have created.

  5. In Beverly Hills, single-family sales dropped 24%. In Santa Monica, single-family sales dropped 29%. In Malibu, single-family sales dropped 28%.

    Is that a lot?

      1. I turned a thousand dollars into ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS.

        You sound like sour grapes.

        1. I am, as are many other who never hopped the crypto train.

          I still recommend that you take some profits. If masses of regular joes pitching into BTC ETFs cannot sustain the price above its ~$70K ATH, then what else is there to drive BTC to the moon?

          BTW, I’m taking a survey.
          1. In your opinion, is Bitcoin an asset or a currency?
          2. In your opinion, what is Bitcoin’s inherent value?

          2. I bought 25 shares of FBTC the day it started training, I can’t loose more than $1,000.

            The potential for gainz is infinite, perhaps incalculable…

          3. “1. In your opinion, is Bitcoin an asset or a currency?
            2. In your opinion, what is Bitcoin’s inherent value?”

            Are fiat dollars a currency? Yes. Are they an asset? For now, until they aren’t.

            Can’t answer the inherent value, because nobody really knows. The amount of electricity needed to “mine” them is excessively wasteful, and will become more so with the next few “halving” events the next of which happens this month.

            Where am I supposed to put my money? I own shares of an S&P index fund, physical silver, cash in CD’s and money market, and a buildable lot with existing utilities.

            And every month I exchange fiat dollars to rent a place in a city that I will never own property in.

          4. OK, I thought you had bought some btc back in the pizza days of ~2013 or so. Folks who did that did very well.

            As for inherent value, I maintain that Bitcoin’s inherent value is the potential of it becoming a fully adopted currency that replaces all other currencies.

            The $21 trillion dollar question is whether this will actually happen. Until we get a definitive yes or no, the greater fool bros will happily stack and brag, and the traders will happily sell to those greater fools. Of course neither party wants the question to be definitively answered yea or nay, because that’s the end of the game.

    1. Can Lil’ Fidel in Canada terminate your fiat assets?

      Yes, and he will, he’s already proven that.

      Can he lock you out of an imaginary electronic asset (remind me again how this has less value than fiat?) that remains to be seen.

      1. The electronic asset has less value than fiat because the fiat has some friends with some very nice boats and airplanes.

  8. “One year ago, Los Angeles’ ‘mansion tax’ took effect. The transfer tax, formally known as Measure ULA, levies a 4% charge on all property sales above $5 million and a 5.5% charge on sales above $10 million, with proceeds funding affordable housing and homelessness initiatives.”

    If I were a millionaire, I would try to figure out how to get by in a home priced south of $5 million, like some of my millionaire San Diego neighbors manage to do. The likely unintended consequence is a convergence in market value between homes intrinsically valued anove $5 million and those in the slightly below $5 million range, with an upward pull on the market value of homes priced below $5 million due to wealthy people avoiding the effort to soak them, at least the ones who don’t leave XYZ = California.

  9. That FL article hits with me. Moved here in summer 2022 to help my son with college. Came with an open mind about maybe staying long term if I liked it, but then the insurance mania started. I came from the Philly/NJ area and thought I’d seen the worst drivers, but in FL it’s on another level. They are aggressive, hostile, and every other car has a huge dent in it. Home prices are insane, rents are cooling but were insane when I got here (and are still too high compared to salaries – thankfully I got to keep my NE job when I moved). There are pros in addition to the cons, but for me the cons outweigh the pros so I’ll be one of those “fleeing” at some point.

  10. “In the collective imagination, gringos are the cause and reason for the rising cost of housing in Mexico City.”

    That sounds familiar, as immigrants to the US are often blamed for our rising cost of housing, plus many other societal woes. Blaming the ‘other’ is the oldest political trick in the book.

    1. Except the number of gringos living in Mexico is trivial compared to the number of Latinos living in the US, one million vs. 50 million latinos in the US.

      They might be visible in trendy places like Colonia Roma, but they are non existent in most other locales. And there is no “press 1 for English” when calling any service provider.

    1. Stocks
      The Stock Market’s Magnificent Seven Is Now the Fab Four
      It is a bullish signal that the market is rallying without the likes of Apple and Tesla, some investors say
      By Hardika Singh
      Updated April 1, 2024 12:07 am ET
      By some metrics, Nvidia has displaced Tesla as the most popular stock among individual investors. Photo: ritchie b tongo/Shutterstock

      The Magnificent Seven trade is beginning to fizzle—and yet, the stock market is still heading higher.

      The S&P 500 climbed 10% in the first quarter, its best start to a year since 2019, even though two of its biggest constituents suffered double-digit declines. Apple (AAPL -0.65%decrease; red down pointing triangle)
      shares fell 11% in the first three months of the year, while Tesla (TSLA -0.23%decrease; red down pointing triangle) dropped almost 30%. Alphabet shares sputtered for much of the period before making a run in the past three weeks and ending up 8%.

      The other four big tech stocks in the group known as the Magnificent Seven—Nvidia, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Amazon.com — continued their meteoric run and outpaced the broader market. Some market strategists have dubbed them the new Fab Four.

      Some investors say it is a bullish signal that the market is still rallying without the likes of Apple and Tesla because it means other groups are taking part. All of the S&P 500’s sectors, except real estate, logged gains in the first quarter. Small-caps, industrial and financial-services stocks are among those that jumped, fueling bets that the broader market might have more room to run.

      Much of the enthusiasm is tied to hopes that the economy has escaped a deep recession and that the Federal Reserve will soon pivot to cutting interest rates, even if not at the pace some investors had previously hoped. A frenzy over the future of artificial intelligence has added to the zeal.

      “If you’d have told me eight weeks ago that Apple and Tesla would be down as much as they are, oh and by the way, you’re punting when you’re going to do the rate cuts and you’re getting less rate cuts, I would have assumed the market would be down,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group.

      To be sure, some investors worry the divergence in the big tech stocks is a sign of exhaustion in the rally and question whether future gains will be harder to achieve from here. The S&P 500’s market value has swelled more than $9 trillion since late October, and the index has set 22 record closes in 2024.
      …
      https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-stock-markets-magnificent-seven-is-now-the-fab-four-2dff87ac

    2. “It is a bullish signal that the market is rallying without the likes of Apple and Tesla, some investors say”

      It is a bearish signal when whatever happens is interpreted as a bullish signal…like the friendly neighborhood alcoholic who finds a reason to celebrate every day of the year.

  12. “a block from Ballard Commons Park, ”

    You can see the tents on Google street view. Seriously, how did all this homelessness and drug use happen so fast? It wasn’t nearly this bad in, say, 2010. I never even heard of fentanyl until Prince died from it in 2016. How are all these people getting on these strong drugs? I still refuse to believe they all had surgery or pain and got hooked on perc.

  13. [Nuthin’ to do with housing …]

    JK Rowling could be investigated by police for misgendering trans people, SNP minister says.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/jk-rowling-could-investigated-police-104029460.html

    JK Rowling could be investigated by police for misgendering trans people under Scotland’s new hate crime law, an SNP minister has said.

    The party’s community safety minister, Siobhian Brown, had previously claimed that misgendering – for example, using the pronoun “he” when talking about a trans woman – would not count as a hate crime, but she has now said it would be a police decision.

    Speaking as the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into force on Monday 1 April, Ms Brown told Radio 4’s Today programme: “It could be reported and it could be investigated. Whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland for that.”

    The legislation was passed in 2021, while Humza Yousaf was serving as justice secretary in Nicola Sturgeon’s government. It is only now being implemented after Police Scotland spent time training its officers.

    The new law covers hatred on the basis of age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

    Women were not listed as a protected group in the legislation, in a move that has been described as “astonishing” by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.

    On this point, Ms Brown admitted that “more work needs to be done” and said a misogyny bill would be introduced.

    But the legislation has raised concerns that the definition of a hate crime is too ambiguous, and could threaten free speech, with prominent critics including Rowling, podcaster Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, the owner of X.

    Harry Potter author Rowling has frequently argued online that trans women are not women and last week vowed to continue “calling a man a man” despite what she called the “ludicrous law”. She said she would not delete social media posts that could breach hate crime laws.

    In response to the new law coming into force on Monday, Rowling posted a series of tweets about trans women who are convicted paedophiles and rapists, writing: “The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex…

    “The re-definition of ‘woman’ to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women’s and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors.”

    The writer, who lives in Edinburgh, added: “I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment… #ArrestMe.”

    Rowling has long been a fierce critic of the Scottish Government’s gender reform plans, arguing the proposals infringe on women’s safety.

    She has previously stated that she would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.

    Her latest public row was with trans activist India Willoughby, whom she deliberately misgendered.

    “India didn’t become a woman,” she wrote on X. “India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is.”

    Willoughby responded to Rowling’s comments, writing: “Genuinely disgusted by this. Grotesque transphobia, which is upsetting. I am every bit as much a woman as JK Rowling. Recognised in law, and by everyone I interact with every day. The debate about whether JK Rowling is a transphobe is over.”

    1. It’s so amusing to see libtards getting bitten in the keister by the golem they helped create.

  14. Among other worries , our government is trying to “Do us in” , by releasing bird flu into the milk industry . cows…in several states now .
    we are raw milk drinkers ourselves , hopefully they won’t shut our local small raw milk source , they have a herd of 40 free ranged Brown Jersey cows ,it’s not only delicious ,it’s got to be good for you…

  15. Justin Trudeau’s political allies have turned on him over his “net zero” tax policy, as his Liberal Party slumps in the polls.

    The Canadian prime minister is facing a rebellion within his own party over the unpopular 23 per cent carbon tax rises, which will see drivers charged more for fuel from Monday.

    The federal carbon price is set to bump up from Can $65 (£38) to Can $80 (£47), meaning the extra charge on gasoline will increase from 14.3 cents to 17.6 cents per litre.

    As things stand, Mr Trudeau’s Liberal Party is heading for humiliation in Canada’s federal elections, which are due to be held by October next year.

    According to one poll, the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, are on course for a crushing victory, gaining 92 seats, while Mr Trudeau’s Liberals lose 96.

    Canadian voters appeared to accept the carbon taxes – charging businesses and citizens for using fossil fuels – when they were first introduced five years ago.

    But with the country facing a cost of living crisis, Mr Trudeau’s flagship policy has become a political millstone around the Liberal Party’s neck. Mr Poilievre and his allies have dubbed the latest rises an “April Fool’s tax hike”.

    More worryingly for the 52-year-old, key Liberals across the country are voicing their opposition to the next batch of increases.

    Earlier this month, Andrew Furey, who leads Newfoundland and Labrador as the last remaining Liberal premier of a province, published an open letter pleading for a rethink.

    He said the tax was a “net negative” at a time when prices were soaring and wages were stagnant and would do little to encourage people to adopt renewable energy options.

    “In the absence of the ability to change, what does the tax really accomplish?” he asked reporters.

    Bonnie Crombie, the leader of Ontario Liberals has ruled out introducing a carbon tax on consumers if she becomes the province’s premier in 2026.

    “We will ensure major polluters pay, but we will not have an Ontario carbon tax on consumers,” she said.

    Doug Ford, the current Ontario premier, of the centre-Right Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, said the tax increase will doom the Liberals.

    “If they don’t start putting money back in people’s pockets instead of filling their pockets, guess what? They’re going to get annihilated, as I’ve said before, they’re done,” said Mr Ford. “They’re done like dinner.”

    While the imminent hike in carbon taxes is a hot button issue in Canadian politics, there is a growing sense that Mr Trudeau’s political brand is becoming toxic and one-time allies are trying to distance themselves from the premier.

    Justin Trudeau entered office in 2015 as the poster boy for the liberal Left. But by late last year, polls were rating him the country’s worst leader in 50 years.

    His Covid restrictions were regarded by critics as over-draconian, triggering a massive protest from truckers which immobilised the heart of the Canadian capital, Ottawa, in 2022.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/justin-trudeau-s-allies-turn-against-him-over-carbon-tax/ar-BB1kQ5Cw

  16. They’re coming by the thousands,” Trump says in the video, posted on his social media site. “We will secure our borders. And we will restore sovereignty.”

    But in a potentially worrying sign for Biden, Trump’s message appears to be resonating with key elements of the Democratic coalition that Biden will need to win over this November.

    Roughly two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of how Biden is handling border security, including about 4 in 10 Democrats, 55% of Black adults and 73% of Hispanic adults, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March.

    A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45% of Americans described the situation as a crisis, while another 32% said it was a major problem.

    Vetress Boyce, a Chicago-based racial justice activist, was among those who expressed frustration with Biden’s immigration policies and the city’s approach as it tries to shelter newly arriving migrants. She argued Democrats should be focusing on economic investment in Black communities, not newcomers.

    “They’re sending us people who are starving, the same way Blacks are starving in this country. They’re sending us people who want to escape the conditions and come here for a better lifestyle when the ones here are suffering and have been suffering for over 100 years,” Boyce said. “That recipe is a mixture for disaster. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.”

    Gracie Martinez is a 52-year-old Hispanic small business owner from Eagle Pass, Texas, the border town that Trump visited in February when he and Biden made same-day trips to the state. Martinez said she once voted for former President Barack Obama and is still a Democrat, but now backs Trump — mainly because of the border.

    “It’s horrible,” she said. “It’s tons and tons of people and they’re giving them medical and money, phones,” she said, complaining those who went through the legal immigration system are treated worse.

    Priscilla Hesles, 55, a teacher who lives in Eagle Pass, Texas, described the current situation as “almost an overtaking” that had changed the town.

    “We don’t know where they’re hiding. We don’t know where they’ve infiltrated into and where are they going to come out of,” said Hesles, who said she used to take an evening walk to a local church, but stopped after she was shaken by an encounter with a group of men she alleged were migrants.

    Trump will campaign Tuesday in Wisconsin and Michigan this week, where he is expected to again tear into Biden on immigration. His campaign said his event in the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids will focus on what it alleged was “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.”

    The former president calls recent record-high arrests for southwest border crossings an “invasion” orchestrated by Democrats to transform America’s very makeup. Trump accuses Biden of purposely allowing criminals and potential terrorists to enter the country unchecked, going so far as to claim the president is engaged in a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”

    He also casts migrants — many of them women and children escaping poverty and violence — as “ poisoning the blood ” of America with drugs and disease and claimed some are “not people.” Experts who study extremism warn against using dehumanizing language in describing migrants.

    In the meantime, there are people like Rudy Menchaca, an Eagle Pass bar owner who also works for a company that imports Corona beer from Mexico and blamed the problems at the border for hurting business.

    Menchaca is the kind of Hispanic voter Biden is counting on to back his reelection bid. The 27-year-old said he was never a fan of Trump’s rhetoric and how he portrayed Hispanics and Mexicans. “We’re not all like that,” he said.

    But he also said he was warming to the idea of backing the former president because of the reality on the ground.

    “I need those soldiers to be around if I have my business,” Menchaca said of Texas forces dispatched to the border. “The bad ones that come in could break in.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-immigration-rhetoric-makes-inroads-with-some-democrats-that-could-be-a-concern-for-biden/ar-BB1kR9sZ

    1. But he also said he was warming to the idea of backing the former president because of the reality on the ground.

      So not even border Hispanics believe in letting everyone enter., especially when it hits them in the pocket book

      1. Opportunity
        Market News
        GameStop (NYSE:GME) Sinks After Earnings Disappointment
        GameStop slides further as its earnings reports disappoint and its fundamental business is in jeopardy by changing conditions.

        A few years ago, GameStop investors were watching shares soar into the stratosphere, fueled by stimulus money and “diamond handed” investors out to beat the shorts. Now, GameStop has come back down to Earth, as the game retailer lost over 4.5% in Monday afternoon’s trading following a deeply unpleasant earnings report.
        …
        https://www.tipranks.com/news/gamestop-nysegme-sinks-after-earnings-disappointment

  18. A brief sign of sanity. From the Colorado Sun:

    Abill to ban new oil and gas drilling in Colorado after 2030 — which sparked a spate of industry TV ads with dire warnings — was rejected Thursday by a bipartisan majority of the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee after a marathon hearing.

    The legislation, Senate Bill 159 — sponsored by two Democratic senators, Kevin Priola, of Henderson, and Sonya Jaquez Lewis, of Boulder County — would have required state oil and gas regulators to stop issuing new drilling permits starting in 2030, with those permits to be used by 2032.

  19. ‘Carter packed her car with whatever belongings she could fit and headed back to her home state of Kansas — selling her Florida home at a $40,000 loss and leaving behind the children and grandchildren’

    It may seem like a big a$$-pounding now Barb, but yer probably one of the lucky ones.

  20. ‘Wherever you hand food out for free, that’s where you’re gonna get your homeless people’

    They are getting a lot more than free food Lisa. And the guberments are paying for it all. We’ve always had people that needed help and we found a way to do that. This situation is taking able bodied young people and sustaining their destruction on top of what fate gives us to care for.

  21. ‘Kevin Peltier was a client at the Spot, and says he’s worried about what could happen if he doesn’t have a supervised site to use drugs. ‘I just felt safer, you know, knowing that there was, you know, trained medical staff on site,’ he said. Staff at the Timmins site told CBC in early March that since opening in 2022, they had managed over 350 overdoses’

    Look at the photo of Kevin. He’s a young guy. Should have his life in front of him.

  22. ‘Several beds are placed next to each other on the PVC floor, opposite a cupboard with several missing doors. Ahmad points angrily to discolouration and dirt on the walls. Then he goes to the cupboard to look for a document, his Bachelor of Laws that’s been idly sitting around. Ahmad says he expected more from Germany’

    Ahmad sounds like a great hire Fritz! His wife has a bun in the oven too.

    1. his Bachelor of Laws that’s been idly sitting around

      Which law, Sharia?

      the food inedible, he complains

      They all arrive with big expectations, don’t they? It is more than evident he is unemployable and expects to get free cheese.

  23. Does the latest bear steepener of the Treasury yield curve have you wondering if it was wise to go all in on stocks?

    1. Markets
      CNBC TV
      Watchlist
      Updated Mon, Apr 1 2024 4:38 PM EDT
      Dow closes more than 200 points lower to begin April as Treasury yields pop: Live updates
      Pia Singh
      Samantha Subin
      Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., April 1, 2024.
      Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

      The Dow Jones Industrial Average
      dipped Monday to kick off the second quarter, with traders weighing fresh U.S. inflation data amid fears the market rally could slow down.

      The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 240.52 points, or 0.6%, and settled at 39,566.85. The S&P 500 dipped 0.2% to close at 5,243.77. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, on the other hand, added 0.11% to finish at 16,396.83.

      Investors remain cautious about the pace of the Federal Reserve’s rate-cutting timeline this year and how soon central bankers will be able to meet their 2% inflation target. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that economic growth remains strong and inflation is still above target.

      “That means we don’t need to be in a hurry to cut,” the central bank chief told public radio’s “Marketplace” program. “The economy is strong right now, and the labor market is strong right now. And inflation has been coming down. We can and we will be careful about this decision because we can be.” Indeed, fed funds futures data suggests a 58% probability that the central bank will cut rates at its June meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

      Treasury yields rose Monday as investors considered Powell’s earlier remarks and a key inflation reading. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was last up nearly 13 basis points at 4.319%.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/31/stock-market-today-live-updates.html

  24. If you’re going to rent, don’t rent from out of state corporations. I used to drive by this building every day as it was being built.

    Bell Cherry Hills promised luxurious and secure living. Residents say they got overflowing trash, broken doors and fire hazards instead (4/1/2024):

    “Complaints at the complex come as the management company, Bell Partners, Inc., looks to continue expanding nationwide. The North Carolina company already owns and manages 10 properties in Colorado, many of which include online reviews complaining about similar issues to those at Belly Cherry Hills.

    Bloomberg reported in 2023 that the company raised $1.3 billion to buy apartments across the country, targeting 14 cities, including Denver.

    According to a press release from the company in 2023, it plans to focus on multifamily apartments and “investment in transitioning neighborhoods.”

    Representatives for Bell Cherry Hills and Bell Partners, Inc., did not respond to Denverite’s requests for comment.”

    https://denverite.com/2024/04/01/bell-cherry-hills-apartment-hazards/

  26. ‘I Didn’t Do That’: Biden Claims Never Issued ‘Trans Day Of Visibility’ Proclamation – Internet Has Receipts

    by Adan Salazar
    April 1st 2024, 3:24 pm

    Philip Melanchthon Wegmann
    @PhilipWegmann
    ·
    “I didn’t do that,” Biden said when asked about proclaiming Easter Sunday ‘trans day of visibility.” Asked about Speaker Johnson’s claim otherwise, the president replied, “he’s thoroughly uninformed.”
    12:08 PM · Apr 1, 202

    https://x.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1774831239632912815?s=20

    https://x.com/JacquiHeinrich/status/1774830015298916388?s=20

    https://x.com/redsteeze/status/1774834324161839107?s=20

    https://x.com/Mithrandir48/status/1774835412642517197?s=20

    https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1774844112878866753?s=20

    Andrea E
    @AAC0519

    Replying to @PhilipWegmann

    It’s easy to deny the truth when the media won’t forcefully push back.
    12:19 PM · Apr 1, 2024

    https://x.com/AAC0519/status/1774834069550911645?s=20

  28. I wonder how wealthy Californians feel about their hard earned tax dollars getting funneled into the FB creation program at $150,000 a pop?

    And in case the housing market CR8Rs, the way it did previously in the 1990-1996 period and the 2007-2012 period, you can bet your bottom dollar the same FBs who benefited from down payment assistance will cry bloody murder over losing money on the investment properties they were incentivized to putchase.

    1. California Gives Homebuyers $150,000 to Buy Houses
      Published Apr 01, 2024 at 5:00 AM EDT
      By Suzanne Blake Reporter, Consumer & Social Trends

      Time is running out for California homebuyers looking for down payment assistance on their first home purchase this year.

      The California Dream for All Shared Appreciation loan program launched last year and quickly drew attention. In just 11 days, first-time homebuyers went through all of the $300 million available.

      However, on April 3, the program opens once again, and qualifying homebuyers can score up to 20 percent off their down payment fees. The grant is available for up to $150,000 on any down payment.

      All applications will be accepted in a lottery system until May.

      Qualifying homeowners can apply as long as they never owned a home or owned a home three or more years ago and sold it. You also cannot be an investment property owner and must instead plan to live in the house you’re purchasing.

      You’ll also have to meet the income requirements for your specific county, which are typically 120 percent or less of the area median income. One of the homebuyers must also be a first-generation homebuyer.

      Last year, the California Dream For All program helped 2,182 homebuyers, and 55 percent of the group were from communities of color, the program said.

      There are some further stipulations to the program, though. If a homeowner ends up selling their house, for instance, they’ll need to share a percentage of their profits. That means if your home didn’t grow in value, you’d be on the line to pay back the initial 20 percent.
      …
      Read more: What is a Mortgage? Types & How They Work
      …
      https://www.newsweek.com/california-homebuyer-down-payment-assistance-program-deadline-1880999

      1. “…55 percent of the group were from communities of color,…”

        Therefore it will be discriminatory if anyone who takes advantage of this program ultimately loses money on the investment property they are enticed into purchasing.

    2. Yahoo Finance
      Moneywise
      ‘We’re leaving!’: Rich Americans are ditching California and ‘taking their tax dollars with them — and now the tax rates they’re fleeing have been raised even higher
      Bethan Moorcraft
      Fri, Mar 1, 2024
      6 min read

      The Golden State has lost its shine for its wealthiest residents.

      In 2023, California’s population dipped below 39 million, the lowest count since 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Data shows the state lost 75,423 residents last year — continuing a dramatic trend that started with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

      What’s concerning is not how many people are leaving — the state has experienced lopsided out-migration for decades, according to the Los Angeles Times — but who is leaving.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/leaving-rich-americans-ditching-california-163000441.html

    3. Business
      Tens of thousands of residents moved out of San Diego County last year — almost double the number a year earlier
      San Diego skyline in March.
      Amid escalating housing costs, tens of thousands of residents left San Diego County between 2022 and 2023 — a level not seen in nearly three decades, with the exception of the first year of the pandemic.
      (Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
      New Census Bureau data reveal that a combination of births and immigrants moving into the county over the last year wasn’t enough to make up for the unexpectedly high exodus of residents who left the county between 2022 and 2023.
      By Lori Weisberg, Phillip Molnar
      March 14, 2024 5 AM PT

      Against the backdrop of soaring housing costs in the last year, tens of thousands of San Diego County residents decided to take a big leap.

      They left.

      New estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that close to 31,000 more people moved out of the county than moved in between July of 2022 and July of 2023 — almost double what it was a year earlier. With the exception of the first year of the pandemic, when the net outflow exceeded 33,000, that volume of people exiting the county hasn’t been seen in nearly three decades..

      The net effect was a slight dip in San Diego County’s overall population last year— just a year after the region had returned to population growth following a COVID-19-fueled decline. As of July, the county’s population was estimated to be 3.27 million, down by nearly 7,100 from 2022.

      Were it not for the unexpectedly huge outflow of locals, San Diego might have had a shot at a modest increase in population. The county’s natural growth — the number of births outpacing deaths — approached 13,000 between 2022 and 2023. And, in a departure from years past, international migration jumped to nearly 10,800. But together, those two growth components weren’t enough to overcome the wave of people leaving the county.

      The last time San Diego County saw a comparable exodus of residents was in the early 1990s, when the region was mired in a deep recession and the jobless rate had surged to nearly 8 percent.
      …
      https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2024-03-14/tens-of-thousands-of-residents-moved-out-of-san-diego-county-last-year-almost-double-the-number-a-year-earlier

    4. Fox Business
      California
      Published March 24, 2024 8:08pm EDT
      California leads nation in unemployment after slower job growth than anticipated
      California is also facing a multi-billion deficit

      California now has the highest unemployment in the nation, after new data revealed that job growth in the Golden State was much lower in 2023 than previously believed.

      Data from the state Employment Development Department indicates California reached 5.3% unemployment last month.

      Meanwhile, federal data showed that California added just 50,000 jobs between September 2022 and September 2023, far less than the 300,000 initially shown.

      California lost 2.7 million jobs at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s draconian stay-at-home order that forced many businesses to close. Since then, the state has added 3 million jobs, per the EDD.
      …
      https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/california-leads-nation-unemployment-slower-job-growth-than-anticipated

    6. United States | The struggling state
      California is gripped by economic problems, with no easy fix
      Rising unemployment, a growing deficit and persistent outmigration are a painful trinity
      Street view of Hollywood, California at dusk.
      Photograph: Philip Cheung/The New York Times/Redux/Eyevine
      Mar 31st 2024|Sacramento

      HOME TO MANY of America’s most progressive policies, from criminal justice to vehicle emissions, California serves a unique role as a punchbag for right-wing politicians. Every few years it becomes fashionable to declare that it is a failed state, or that the California dream is turning into a nightmare. This rhetoric is often overblown: in terms of pure economic heft California remains the most powerful American state. But for all its continuing prowess in innovation (not least in artificial intelligence), California again appears to be entering one of its periodic rough patches.

      The state faces three overlapping challenges: rising unemployment, growing fiscal strains and population outflows. All of these should abate over time, but for now they mark out California as a pocket of relative weakness in an otherwise robust American economy.
      …
      https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/03/31/california-is-gripped-by-interlocking-economic-problems-with-no-easy-solution

    7. California Sees Huge Spike in People Losing Their Jobs
      Published Mar 07, 2024 at 4:57 PM EST
      By Alexander Fabino
      Reporter, Economy & Finance

      California saw more than 47,360 individuals filing for jobless benefits last week, an uptick of 6,150 over the previous week, reinforcing a growing concern in the state’s labor market.

      As businesses nationwide grapple with rising borrowing costs and tighter credit, leading to strain in sectors like technology and retail, California stands out as one of only two states with an increasing unemployment rate over the past year, according to economic data issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The data suggests a weakening labor market compared to the rest of the country, where jobless rates remained flat or decreased.
      …
      https://www.newsweek.com/california-jobless-claims-spike-layoffs-tech-retail-sectors-1877101

    8. Opinion
      Commentary
      California’s Crazy ‘Fast Food’ Minimum Wage Takes Effect
      A Burger King franchise will have to pay burger flippers $20 an hour. The corner diner won’t.
      By David Neumark
      March 31, 2024 3:07 pm ET
      California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs the fast-food bill in Los Angeles on Sept. 28.
      Photo: Zuma Press

      California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s higher minimum wage for fast-food workers takes effect Monday. On top of California’s already high $16 minimum wage, the minimum wage for fast-food workers will increase to $20 an hour, the highest minimum wage in the U.S.

      Minimum-wage advocates parrot the claim that this is a win for fast-food workers. They cite a few studies to argue that those workers will earn more and suffer no job loss, and that poverty will fall. But a growing body of research demonstrates that the small number of studies advocates rely on are flawed.

      The favorite study of minimum-wage advocates, which is also most germane to California’s situation, is David Card and Alan Krueger’s 1994 study of the fast-food industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This study claimed not only that there was no job loss when New Jersey raised its minimum wage, but also that New Jersey fast-food employment rose substantially. On its own, this baffling conclusion should have been enough to arouse suspicion. Subsequent research I did with William Wascher established that data flaws from a poorly designed telephone survey were responsible for the dubious findings. Fast-food franchisees’ payroll records showed that fast-food employment fell, with each 10% increase in the minimum wage reducing employment by nearly 2%.

      The second paper advocates often cite is a 2010 study of restaurant workers that also claims higher minimum wages don’t cost jobs. This study argues that you can get the “right” answer on the employment effects of minimum wages only by comparing areas where the minimum wage went up with nearby areas (counties on either side of state borders) where the minimum wage didn’t change. Doing this, the authors concluded, demonstrates that there’s no evidence that higher minimum wages reduce restaurant employment. This study has been touted as “one of the best and most convincing minimum wage papers.” Yet paralleling the unraveling of the New Jersey fast-food study, in recent work we find that the cross-border strategy this paper uses biases the results against finding that minimum wages cost jobs. Once corrected, we again find that each 10% increase in the minimum wage reduces employment by about 2%—and perhaps more over time.

      Advocates claim that a higher fast-food minimum wage (and higher minimum wages generally) will reduce poverty. Again, they are highly selective in citing research, relying on a single study published in 2019 by Arindrajit Dube that contradicts most other work in finding a large poverty reduction effect from higher minimum wages. But Richard Burkhauser and co-authors have evaluated this work and found that its conclusions were highly sensitive to the period studied and the factors controlled for (or not) in the analysis.

      The best evidence much more decisively shows that minimum wages don’t reduce poverty. Minimum wages obviously raise wages for some workers. But most minimum-wage workers aren’t poor, and in a very large share of poor families nobody works, so the minimum wage, even under the best of circumstances, can’t help poor families much. And the job-loss effect of minimum wages only makes things worse.

      California’s fast-food minimum wage will make a bad policy even worse. It will reduce employment at fast-food restaurants, while failing to lift families out of poverty. Other research shows that it will raise fast-food prices and suggests these price increases are borne disproportionately by low-income families.

      Aside from these adverse effects, it is difficult to fathom any reason for special treatment of fast-food workers. Why should a hamburger flipper at Burger King earn a higher mandatory wage than one at the corner diner? Whatever policy choice we make, policies should treat people in similar economic circumstances the same. A general minimum wage does this. A higher fast-food minimum wage doesn’t.

      Mr. Neumark is a distinguished professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution.
      …
      https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-crazy-fast-food-minimum-wage-takes-effect-negative-repercussions-7ae3e9ae

      1. NBC Bay Area
        Minimum wage increase in California could lead to layoffs
        Some fast food restaurants in California could raise their minimum wage from $16 to $20 an hour
        By Robert Handa
        • Published March 25, 2024
        • Updated on March 26, 2024 at 4:48 am
        NBC Universal, Inc.
        California will soon begin requiring fast food restaurants to raise their minimum wage from $16 to $20 an hour. But restaurants say a higher wage could mean fewer workers. Robert Handa reports.

        California will soon begin requiring fast food restaurants to raise their minimum wage from $16 to $20 an hour.

        But restaurants say a higher wage could mean fewer workers.

        Amir Samadi runs a popular Round Table Pizza shop in San Jose near the Oakridge shopping center.

        He considers himself a good employer, through good times and bad. For example, Samadi points out he did not lay off any workers during the pandemic, or cut their hours.

        But now, as the state gets ready to up the minimum wage for fast food workers, he is not sure if he can afford that change.

        “As an owner or employer, you have to have coverage to pay them. If you cannot, you have to shut your door, or, they’re gonna lose hours,” said Samadi. “Any way, it’s going to a lose for both sides, either employer or employee.”

        Some have suggested the wage hike could be covered by raising prices, but Samadi said passing the cost to customers is not as simple as it might sound.
        …
        https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/california-fast-food-restaurants-minimum-wage/3491757/

      2. Competitive Enterprise Institute
        California laggin’: As Golden State minimum wage rises, so does unemployment
        Blog
        Sean Higgins • 03/29/2024
        Labor and Employment
        Photo Credit: Getty

        California has been a pioneer in raising the minimum wage for decades, consistently putting its state-wide minimum well above the federal rate. Over that same period, the Golden State has lagged behind the rest of the nation in creating jobs, consistently posting higher unemployment rates than the rest of the nation. Funny how these things work out.

        We’re about to get more evidence of how much raising minimum wages affects employment rates now that California is phasing in a $20 minimum wage for fast food restaurants. It takes effect April 1. The early results suggest raising the wage destroys jobs.

        As recently as 2006, California’s minimum wage was just $6.75 an hour, compared with the then-federal minimum rate of $5.15 an hour. The California rate rose to $7.50 in 2007 and $8 an hour the year after that. The California rate moved roughly in tandem with the federal rate, which rose to $7.25 an hour by 2009 and has remained at that level ever since.

        None of these were living wages even then, but ideally the minimum wage isn’t supposed to be one. It’s an entry-level wage for people’s first jobs. The stereotype of a minimum wage earner being a teenager who still lives at home and flips burgers at a fast food joint didn’t emerge from a vacuum.

        California legislators didn’t see it that way and, starting in 2014, began regularly hiking the state minimum wage on the theory that this would turn the minimum into a “living wage.” The California rate rose to $9 an hour in 2014 and has had an increase at least every other year ever since then. The main state-wide rate is now $16 with a special $20 rate directed at fast food stores kicking in now.
        …
        https://cei.org/blog/california-laggin-as-golden-state-minimum-wage-rises-so-does-unemployment/

Comments are closed.