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What You End Up With Is Urban Sprawl Of Non-Affordable Housing With A Queue Of Citizens Still Waiting For Their Turn To Live Here Affordably

A weekend topic starting with the Globe and Mail. “In the early 1960s, only 4 per cent of countries were subject to economic sanctions imposed by either the United States or the United Nations, accounting for less than 4 per cent of global trade. Today, 54 – a quarter of all the countries in the world – are subject to some form of sanctions, affecting almost a third of global GDP. And at the rate that sanctions are now being applied, it will soon be the majority of trade. The most obvious of those consequences is the resurrection of inflation, which had been long buried for more than four decades. Sanctions were the trigger for its dramatic revival. That in turn has forced a crippling rise in interest rates, as central banks such as the Federal Reserve Board and the Bank of Canada were reluctantly forced to respond by raising their target interest rates from near zero to the 5-per-cent range. And those central bank rate hikes in turn led to the largest correction in the supposedly staid but safe government bond market since before the U.S. Civil War (1860 in the case of the benchmark 10-year Treasuries).”

“But perhaps the biggest casualty of sanctions is the global trading order that our governments repeatedly assured us was the basis of our collective prosperity. While no fewer than 11 (and likely more still to come) rounds of sanctions have failed to shred the Russian economy as promised, they have managed to shred that very global trading order that we supposedly all cherished. Instead of fostering the highly specialized division of labour that globalization compels, sanctions encourage economies to look inward to meet the needs of their domestic markets.”

“If Apple produced its iPhone in its home state of California, where the minimum wage is US$15.50 an hour, instead of in China, where its principal supplier, Foxconn, pays US$1.50 an hour, you probably couldn’t afford to buy it. And that doesn’t hold true just for Apple. That holds true for virtually everything imported from China. Sanctions are no longer the exception. Instead, they have become part of the new normal. And so have their consequences.”

From CBS News. “Kevin Roberts remembers when he could get a bacon cheeseburger, fries and a drink from Five Guys for $10. But that was years ago. When the Virginia high school teacher recently visited the fast-food chain, the food alone without a beverage cost double that amount. Roberts, 38, now only gets fast food ‘as a rare treat,’ he told CBS MoneyWatch. ‘The whole conceit was that you were getting some OK-level of food for a low price and you could get it quick. Now I can’t justify the expense. If I’m paying $15 for a burger and fry and drink and it’s McDonalds quality, forget about it — I’m going home.'”

“Fast-food prices have shot up over the last decade, according to FinanceBuzz. The personal finance site found that the price of a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal from McDonald’s more than doubled in price from $5.39 in 2014 to $11.99 this year. Other restaurant chains also have jacked up their prices, FinanceBuzz said. Between 2014 and 2024, Popeye’s, Jimmy John’s and Subway hiked their food prices 86%, 62% and 39%, respectively. The price of a two-piece chicken combo at Popeyes jumped from $6.49 to $11.39 over that period, while an eight-inch club tuna from Jimmy Johns rose from $5.75 to $9.10, according to FinanceBuzz.”

Go Banking Rates. “Rising grocery prices are making it tougher for middle-class families to pay their bills — and millions are being hit with rent prices they can barely afford. According to TIME, half of all renters in the U.S. were cost burdened in 2022. They were spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Further, over 12 million people in the U.S. were spending at least half their paycheck on rent. U.S. News & World Report said typical rents in the U.S. settled in at $1,957 in December. For comparison, according to a New York Times article from 1973, the median monthly rent for houses and apartments in the U.S. in 1970 was $108.”

“According to Consumer Affairs, when adjusted for 2022 inflation, the average annual income in the U.S. for 1970 was $24,600. The national average salary in the fourth quarter of 2023 in the U.S. was $59,384, according to USA Today.”

The Union Tribune. “The vast majority of low-income renters in San Diego County are spending more than half of their income on rent, said a new study. The partnership said 81 percent of extremely low-income county residents, earning $31,850 a year for an individual, were paying more than half of their income on rent in fiscal year 2022-2023. The same went for 49 percent of very low-income renters ($53,050 a year) and 12 percent of low-income renters ($84,900 a year). California Housing Partnership reasons a tenant in San Diego County would need to earn $47.67 per hour to afford the average monthly average rent of $2,479. However, that figure defines affordability as someone only paying a third of their monthly income on rent — something increasingly rare across the nation.”

“There were similar housing issues throughout the region. The partnership said 494,446 low-income households in Los Angeles County didn’t have access to affordable housing. It also said Riverside County had 51,165 households; San Bernardino County, 58,846; Ventura County, 23,937; and Orange County, 129,693.”

Palo Alto Online in California. “Palo Alto is now the second-least affordable U.S. city to buy a home, according to a new report, which tracked housing affordability by dividing median home prices by the median annual household income for 380 cities across the nation. According to the report, the median home price in Palo Alto increased by 10.5% over the past five years, and now sits at $3.4 million. Meanwhile, the median income for Palo Alto households is $179,707 — resulting in a price-to-income ratio of 19. This means the average Palo Alto family must invest 19 times their annual household income for the purchase of a home.”

“Newport Beach, which has a median home price of $3.2 million and a median household income of $127,353, topped the list with a price-to-income ratio of 25.4. Of the 20 U.S. cities with the highest home-price-to-income ratios, all are in California – including Sunnyvale, with a ratio of 11.8 ($2 million vs. $169,781) and San Jose with a 10.5 ratio ($1.4 million vs. $133,835). For the Midpeninsula region specifically, Palo Alto is the only city included in the study. Statewide, California has an 8.4 ratio, just below Hawaii, which is the least-affordable state at 9.1. By comparison, the national price-to-income ratio sits at 4.7.”

“According to the report, the rate of growth of median income has trailed behind that of home prices for at least the last two decades. From 2000 to 2022, the median annual household income in the U.S. increased by 77.6%, from $41,990 to $74,580, while the median home price nearly tripled — a 170% increase — from $123,086 to $332,826, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Zillow. On an inflation-adjusted basis, household incomes increased by just 4.5% since 2000, while home prices increased by 59.1%, the report reveals.”

From Scripps News on California. “As the 66th annual Grammy awards opened in February, millions of viewers were greeted with a striking sign of an expensive problem challenging cities coast to coast: two in-the-works high rises turned mega-canvas, towering over downtown Los Angeles; each tower covered in floor upon floor of graffiti. The Oceanwide Plaza developmen broke ground in 2015 but building halted four years later when funds apparently dried up. Then, the buildings sat empty for years with little attention paid. That is, until graffiti artists broke in.”

“Carolina Miranda, design columnist for the Los Angeles Times, said she’d been keeping her eye on the Oceanwide Plaza development ever since construction stalled in 2019. ‘What I always check is, are there any affordable units in the mix? In this case there were not,’ Miranda said. ‘What’s concerning about that is housing for normal people not being a priority to the members of government who approve these sorts of projects.'”

“So, how did LA find itself in this situation to begin with? The development was approved when former Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar was in charge of new development approvals in Downtown LA. He was sentenced earlier this year to 13 years in prison for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes related to those approvals. Oceanwide Plaza wasn’t mentioned in the indictment, and prosecutors say the development didn’t come up in related criminal cases, but Huizar pleaded guilty to taking bribes from several developers, including some based in China.”

News & Observer in North Carolina. “For decades, real estate agents gave potential homebuyers a general guideline for how much house they could afford — about two and half times their annual income. But across the nation and especially in the Triangle, that guidance is no longer close to matching reality. Still-rising house prices (and home insurance premiums) are crushing many would-be homeowners’ dreams. In Raleigh, the median home price now sits at $434,407 — up 55.8% over the past five years — as increasing demand and rising land and material costs drive up prices. Meanwhile, the median income is $75,424. That’s a home price-to-income ratio of 5.8, according to a new study by Construction Coverage — more than double what people used to think of as affordable.”

“In Durham, the ratio is at 5.2. The median home price stands at $340,336, while the median income is $65,534. In Cary, where median income is much higher than the rest of the region, it’s significantly lower at 4.7 and on par with the country as a whole. The median home price is $498,838, but the median income is $106,304. Statewide, the median home price is $322,527. The median income is $67,481; the home price-to-income ratio is 4.8. Asheville has the highest ratio (7.2). The median home price is $462,515; and the median income is $64,548.”

Bozeman Daily Chronicle. “Mark Egge, in his enthusiastic advocacy of developer profits, mistakenly links all housing supply with reduced housing prices. He seems to be working from a playbook that promotes unchecked growth to solve the housing shortage, with a bulldozer-on-every-street-corner promotion. Increased housing supply, so far has not reduced the cost of housing to affordable levels, but has flooded the market with higher end, newer, ‘better’ units, perhaps standing vacant, while destroying lower cost housing in the process. Even long-time former residents, discouraged with the build, build, build cacophony, have retreated to alternative Montana destinations in self-defense.”

“Wreaking havoc on neighborhoods and executing on a ‘build, build, build’ strategy doesn’t sound like a win-win. If you materially change the beautiful place that you live to make way for a newer, ‘better,’ more expensive housing, and hoping that developers voluntarily settle for a lower profit margin, then doubtful the housing crisis will ever be resolved. What you end up with is urban sprawl of non-affordable housing with a queue of citizens still waiting for their turn to live here affordably.”

From Barron‘s. “Massachusetts could join the growing number of cities and states with a mansion tax on high-value properties, as it considers a proposal to levy an additional transfer fee on commercial and residential sales above $1 million. The measure, first proposed as part of Gov. Maura Healey’s larger $4.1 billion plan to address affordable housing in the state. The measure follows similar proposals in places like Chicago, Los Angeles and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Boston is now one of the nation’s hottest real estate markets, with housing prices up 43% since 2020. Rents have increased over 20% in two years, according to data from Boston Pads, even as rents level out on a national level.”

“Boston’s pricy housing market makes the $1 million threshold unreasonable, said Craig Brody, a broker with Douglas Elliman. ‘A million dollars is not a mansion,’ he said. ‘It’s unfair to call it that.’ In downtown Boston, for instance, the median price of a condo was slightly more than $1 million in the first quarter of this year, according to Douglas Elliman data.”

The Financial Post. “We find it rather incredible that the Bank of Canada is so nonchalant when it comes to the state of the Canadian economy. The degree of excess capacity is expanding by the month, inflation has swung to disinflation and the economy (in real output per-capita terms) is contracting at a two per cent annual rate. Yet the folks in Ottawa fiddle as the macro landscape burns. Business insolvencies have soared 87 per cent over the past year to the highest level since the peak of anxiety in 2008 when the global financial crisis was raging. The number of people entering the labour market without landing a job has practically doubled those who found one over the past year. That has resulted in more than a 20 per cent year-over-year surge in the ranks of the unemployed and it seems amazing to think that Bank of Canada officials are unaware of that statistic.”

“Any concerns over a resurrection of the housing bubble should be put to rest by now, with home sales in the once-hot Greater Toronto Area chilling 3.4 per cent month over month in April, losing ground in each of the past three months and down five per cent from year-ago levels. At the same time, new listings have ballooned 47 per cent year over year, and this new demand-supply backdrop has created the conditions for a flattening out in residential real estate prices.”

“How is it that the Liberals are so adept at divvying up the national income pie instead of thinking creatively to expand it. It’s as if the term ‘productivity’ to the politicians , bureaucrats and mandarins in Canada is a dirty 12-letter word. Better to pursue supply-side growth through an unprecedented immigration policy stance (never mind that there has been no economic payback, judging by the continuous contraction in real output and income in per-capita terms) than embark on measures to bolster productivity growth, which is the mother’s milk for future prosperity.”

The Telegraph. “Record-high levels of immigration have failed to boost the economy while making the housing crisis worse, a leading think tank has warned. In a report co-authored by former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) urged the Government to introduce caps on legal immigration to stop a drain on British infrastructure and public services that is not offset by economic growth. In particular, high levels of immigration are ‘significantly exacerbating the housing crisis,’ it said. It came after data published showed British consumers are suffering the longest drop in living standards in the G7 as the economy fails to keep up.”

“Karl Williams, of the CPS, said: ‘Traditionally, the Treasury and much of the rest of Government have modelled immigration as an unqualified benefit to the public purse. But this is not the case.'”

The Wall Street Journal. “Beijing’s newfound focus on a housing glut marks a sea change in how senior officials view China’s festering property crisis, setting the stage for rescue efforts that could range from unprecedented easing for home buyers to billions in state spending to buy up unsold projects. Chinese policymakers’ passing mention last week of plans to consider ‘policy to digest existing housing inventory’ has been a much-parsed phrase in recent days, with analysts stressing it marks the first time in a long-running real-estate downturn that top officials have publicly broached the subject of excess apartment supply. They said another part of the study—to ‘optimize policies on new housing supply’”—suggests the government wants more public-housing options.”

“‘It’s the first time the Politburo signaled that reducing housing inventory and improving policies for new supply are a key focus,’ said Bruce Pang, JLL chief economist for Greater China. ‘The good old days of China’s housing market with spectacular growth is over,’ he said. ‘That’s why policymakers believe that unlocking growth potential by blending ‘something old, something new’ could hold the most promise.'”

“HSBC economists said in a research note that Beijing could set up a national platform to absorb housing oversupply, then sell or rent properties in a controlled manner over time to resolve the housing crisis. ‘Given the depth and length of the correction and the weak finances of many local governments, we think a top-down approach by Beijing policymakers may be needed,’ they wrote. ANZ analyst Zhaopeng Xing called that possibility unlikely, saying that precedent and a wide geographical variation in property policy make stimulus the responsibility of local governments. If buying happens, ‘it’s going to be big spending for local governments,’ Xing said.”

Yicai Global. “China’s real estate bubble burst was similar as Japan’s 34 years ago, but it has a huge advantage as many people know about the balance sheet recession, Richard Koo, chief economist of Nomura Research Institute, told Yicai. The balance sheet recession concept Koo coined, which is considered the best explanation for Japan’s ‘lost three decades’ of economic stagnation, has been very popular in China in recent years. Koo starts his new book ‘Pursued Economy: Understanding and Overcoming the Challenging New Realities for Advanced Economies’ with the balance sheet recession and global competition for capital. He explains why the Great Recession lasted so long and why policies that worked so well in the past are no longer suitable.”

“Yicai: What is the right way to cure Chinese economic woes? Koo: When going through schools, we were taught how effective monetary policy is. When I moved to Japan and saw what happened after 1990, what we were taught in schools, how effective monetary policy could be, was incomplete at best because the professors never told us that for monetary policy to work, there have to be plenty of borrowers out there. If there are no borrowers, the monetary policy is completely irrelevant. We found that in Japan first, and we also found that after 2008 in Europe and the US, borrowers all disappeared because they were all repairing balance sheets after the housing bubble collapsed.”

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This Post Has 61 Comments

  1. One problem putting together a post like this is economic commenters like Koo (Yicai) and Rosenberg (Financial Post) are Keynesian’s and probably globalists. Those two articles are worth reading though.

  2. ‘the median income for Palo Alto households is $179,707 — resulting in a price-to-income ratio of 19. This means the average Palo Alto family must invest 19 times their annual household income for the purchase of a home’

    ‘Newport Beach, which has a median home price of $3.2 million and a median household income of $127,353, topped the list with a price-to-income ratio of 25.4’

    The dirty truth of expensive shack towns is it’s all running on subprime loans.

      1. This is generational wealth. By the time the mortgage is paid off ( 100 years ) the heirs will finally be able to live in a paid-off home.

    2. Plenty of pre prop 13 multi generations hanging on in those areas as well as plenty who bought in 20 to 30 + years ago. Price values skyrocketed. I have plenty of relatives in Palo Alto, Los Altos, and surrounding areas who would not be able to live there but for inheriting houses pre prop 13 or buying decades ago and they are all highly paid professionals (M.D.’s etc) They pay $800 to a couple of thousand in annual property tax while neighbors pay $40k and up.

    3. This means the average Palo Alto family must invest 19 times their annual household income for the purchase of a home.”

      Invest? You mean “spend”. Subtle lies in every “news” story.

  4. Fast Food places are a No-No, in the deep South ,for older White men , they dislike us , and don’t mind getting that across, no matter what it takes …..The safest places for food , in the South are those Gas station joints, the owners are almost always present there , for a good and safe experience.

    1. even when we lived in Charleston and Shoney’s big boy all you can eat breakfast how many sausage eggs biscuits with thick country gravy can you really eat if you are not seriously obese? not to mention grits

  5. Roberts, 38, now only gets fast food ‘as a rare treat,’ he told CBS MoneyWatch.

    Fast food becoming a date-night treat – heckova job, BlackRock Jay, Yellen the Felon, & Brandon!

  6. Between 2014 and 2024, Popeye’s, Jimmy John’s and Subway hiked their food prices 86%, 62% and 39%, respectively.

    Meanwhile, our Soviet-style CPI data claims inflation is “only” 3.2%. Imagine if putting out falsified economic data was punishable by hard time in a federal Supermax prison.

    1. “Imagine if putting out falsified economic data was punishable by hard time in a federal Supermax prison.”

      \\

      – Taking that to the next level. Let’s discuss fiat currency and money printing, which is the origin of inflation.

      \\

      U.S. Constitution, Amendment V; The Takings Clause

      “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

      \\

      “Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce…and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.” – James A. Garfield, assassinated president of the United States

      “Inflation is a quiet but effective way for the government to transfer resources from the people to itself, without raising taxes.” – Thomas Sowell.

      “Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. It is made by or stopped by the central bank.” – Milton Friedman

      “The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy.” – Ludwig von Mises

      \\

      – Inflation is theft; it’s stealing. Inflation is taxation without voter approval or representation, but apparently not illegal, if the government does it. This is implemented by money printing. Recall that money printing is counterfeiting, which for all but the government, again apparently, is illegal.

      \\

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinage_Act_of_1792

      “The Coinage Act of 1792 (also known as the Mint Act; officially: An act establishing a mint, and regulating the Coins of the United States), passed by the United States Congress on April 2, 1792, created the United States dollar as the country’s standard unit of money, established the United States Mint, and regulated the coinage of the United States.[1] This act established the silver dollar as the unit of money in the United States, declared it to be lawful tender, and created a decimal system for U.S. currency.[2]”

      “Section 19 of the Act established a penalty of death for debasing the gold or silver coins authorized by the Act, or embezzlement of the metals for those coins, by officers or employees of the mint; this section of the Act apparently remains in effect and would, in theory, continue to apply in the case of “any of the gold or silver coins which shall be struck or coined at the said mint”. (At present the only gold or silver coins struck by the US mint are the American Silver Eagle and the American Gold Eagle coins, some proof coinage at the San Francisco Mint, such as the silver US State Quarters, and much of the Commemorative coinage of the United States.) All other sections of the act have been superseded, as the Coinage Act of 1834 changing the silver-to-gold weight ratio.”

      \\

      – One could argue that money printing is the same as currently debasement, and therefore, Section 19 of the 1792 Coinage Act would apply in this case as well.

      – Congress is full of attorneys, but they’re too busy pursuing lining their own pockets to do anything for (vs. to) the American people. Am I wrong?

      \\

      “Fiat money eventually always goes back to its intrinsic value – zero.” – Voltaire

      – Are we there yet? You will certainly own nothing. Reference: Weimar Republic.

  7. “Rising grocery prices are making it tougher for middle-class families to pay their bills — and millions are being hit with rent prices they can barely afford.

    The important thing is, no more mean tweets.

    1. Meanwhile, they are trying to gaslight us into believing that Brandon is ahead in the polls.

  8. Summer Of Love™ 2024

    Auraria Campus leadership addresses health, safety concerns as encampment grows (5/9/2024):

    “During a news conference Thursday, campus leaders said they’ve received complaints from students and parents regarding the encampment and alleged the majority of protesters are not campus students.”

    ^ Soros paychecks.

    “Fourteen protesters were arrested Tuesday by the Auraria Campus Police Department for trespass and failure to obtain lawful orders. Ashby said they were non-custodial arrests, meaning the protesters were cited and released.

    “So based on the incidents that resulted in arrests, actively enrolled student participation has decreased from 50% on April 26th to 35% on May 7th,” said Ashby during Thursday’s press conference. “This continues to highlight Auraria Campus leadership’s concerns of external influences on the emotionally charged environment that the encampment has created on our campus.”

    They’re not students. They’re there for the Soros paychecks.

    “Pro-Palestinian protesters took their demonstrations outside of the Tivoli Quad encampment Thursday night. According to Ashby, protesters blocked an intersection on Colfax Avenue for nearly two hours. The intersection was clear as of 9:30 p.m. Thursday.”

    https://www.denver7.com/news/coronavirus/countries-struggle-to-draft-pandemic-treaty-to-avoid-mistakes-made-during-covid

    And remember, if any law abiding taxpayer confronts the “protesters” they will get dragged out of their vehicle, beaten, charged as the perpetrator, while the Marxist terrorists will get bailed out of jail.

    Denver is a failed city.

    Den

    1. At the same time the Mayor wants to spend $500M to break downtown out of its doom loop.

      Not sure where that money will come from. Denver is already spending every spare penny it has on caring for invaders.

      1. “Not sure where that money will come from. Denver is already spending every spare penny it has on caring for invaders.”

        \\

        – I’ve been told that we should turn out the Welcome Wagon to all of the “newcomers.” This includes opening our homes to them.

        “Give me your tired, your poor,
        Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
        The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
        Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,”

        – I think most all Americans support LEGAL immigration, but I do emphasize LEGAL. Recall Ellis Island to screen and register LEGAL immigrants in days of yore. This is in start contrast to hordes of invaders streaming across our southern border to become future D voters as part of a One Party system. You are being replaced. Your government love you! Something on the order of 10M under Brandon (Obama 3.0). How’s that tuberculosis workin’ out for ya CA?

      2. The 2020 election was stolen.

        Joe Biden is not, and will never be, the legitimately elected president. You are living under an unelected, illegitimate, occupation regime.

        And January 6th was a JOKE. The real insurrection was in summer 2020, and is returning for summer 2024.

        FJB

  12. There’s too much wine in the world.

    That might not seem like much of a problem to those who enjoy a good drop, but take a drive through Australia’s inland grape-growing regions and you’ll quickly see how a global wine glut has created a crisis.

    Excavators are ploughing through vines, some decades old and laden with fruit, as growers attempt to unburden themselves.

    When Riverina grape grower Bruno Altin explains that farmers here have been receiving prices that amount to about 15 cents per bottle of red wine, you get a sense why.

    “The label’s worth more than that, the bottle is worth more than that … The container deposit scheme is, you know, getting close to what we’re making. If someone can take a bottle and put it in a bin and make what we’re making, it’s pretty sad.”

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-10/what-drinking-less-means-for-winemakers/103826018

    1. IIRC a wine glut was a prelude to a crash in wine prices roughly concurrent with the housing and stock market crashes of the late twenty-ought years. Beanie Babies also crashed.

  13. A slowdown in home repair and remodelling projects has weakened lumber markets, the latest setback for Canadian sawmills struggling financially with depressed lumber prices.

    Lower-than-expected housing starts in Canada and the United States have also eroded lumber demand.

    On the supply side, lumber producers in British Columbia that have coped for years with decreased access to timber in the province will be facing even tighter constraints. “Everybody is holding their breath a bit because of this kind of perfect storm,” Linda Coady, president of the BC Council of Forest Industries (COFI), said in an interview.

    Many sawmills in B.C., which is Canada’s largest lumber-producing province, have been running recently at below break-even levels.

    Cash prices – what sawmills charge wholesalers were at – US$383 last week for 1,000 board feet of two-by-fours made from Western spruce, pine and fir, according to Madison’s Lumber Reporter, a Vancouver-based industry newsletter. That pricing level is down 60 per cent compared with two years earlier.

    Most of the industry’s plants that have lower operating costs are located in the U.S. South, which produce southern yellow pine (SYP).

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-slowdown-in-do-it-yourself-projects-weakens-lumber-markets/

  14. The Associated Press is globalist scum media.

    Associated Press — Countries struggle to draft ‘pandemic treaty’ to avoid mistakes made during COVID (5/10/2024):

    “After the coronavirus pandemic triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions, leaders at the World Health Organization and worldwide vowed to do better in the future. Years later, countries are still struggling to come up with an agreed-upon plan for how the world might respond to the next global outbreak.

    A ninth and final round of talks involving governments, advocacy groups and others to finalize a “pandemic treaty” is scheduled to end Friday. The accord’s aim: guidelines for how the WHO’s 194 member countries might stop future pandemics and better share scarce resources. But experts warn there are virtually no consequences for countries that don’t comply.”

    ^ Experts?

    The only good globalist is a dead globalist ☠️

    “WHO’s countries asked the U.N. health agency to oversee talks for a pandemic agreement in 2021. Envoys have been working long hours in recent weeks to prepare a draft ahead of a self-imposed deadline later this month: ratification of the accord at WHO’s annual meeting. But deep divisions could derail it.”

    https://www.denver7.com/news/coronavirus/countries-struggle-to-draft-pandemic-treaty-to-avoid-mistakes-made-during-covid

    Election year bird flu variant coming soon, your alleged “experts” will decide when its release will have the most impact, because Marxism.

  16. Only Half Of Adults Say They Could Afford Their Childhood Home Today

    FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2024 – 09:35 PM

    There’s an old saying that you can never go home again, yet nearly half of all adults would do just that… if they could only afford it.

    A survey from Zillow had found that 44% of Americans would buy their childhood home if cost were not an issue, yet only half of all adults say they could afford it at today’s prices. An even larger share of millennials and Gen Z adults would buy their childhood home today. It suggests that the nostalgia craze that has swept pop culture, social media, fashion and marketing has reached housing.

    Children of the 1980s and 1990s are the most likely to say they would buy their childhood home today — 62% and 55% respectively. Yet almost half of those born in the ’80s (47%) and nearly two-thirds of those born in the ’90s (62%) say they couldn’t afford it at today’s prices.

    Those would-be buyers now need to earn a six-figure income to afford the typical U.S. home. Younger generations may long for the housing market of their youth when prices were lower, but their parents likely faced similar, if not worse, affordability challenges in the early 1980s. In 1981, mortgage rates soared above 18%, taking the typical monthly mortgage payment amount up to 55% of a median income at the time. Today, a new mover’s mortgage burden represents nearly 40% of a typical income — still well beyond the 30% threshold considered affordable.

    https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1789106935444217858

    1. 2024 Housing Market vs. 2008 Crash: Key Differences
      May 8, 2024
      By Marco Santarelli

      The mere mention of a housing market correction sends shivers down the spines of many. Memories of the 2008 crash are still fresh, conjuring images of plummeting home values, foreclosures, and a financial crisis of epic proportions. But is a 2008 repeat on the horizon in 2024? Experts largely agree: the answer is no. Here’s why the housing market today presents a different scenario, backed up by data sets and tables:
      …
      https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/why-todays-housing-market-in-2024-is-different-from-2008/

    2. This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
      Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff

      Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing, and recovering their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, “this time is different”—claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong.

      Covering sixty-six countries across five continents and eight centuries, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises—including government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes—from medieval currency debasements to the subprime mortgage catastrophe. Reinhart and Rogoff provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations.
      …
      https://www.amazon.com/This-Time-Different-Centuries-Financial/dp/0691152640/

  20. News & Observer in North Carolina.

    \\

    https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article288007640.html
    Real Estate News
    The rule used to be buy a home priced at 3 times your income. Is that possible in NC?
    By Chantal Allam
    Updated April 27, 2024 3:42 PM

    For decades, real estate agents gave potential homebuyers a general guideline for how much house they could afford — about two and half times their annual income.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/how-many-years-of-income-does-a-home-in-your-city-cost

    But across the nation and especially in the Triangle, that guidance is no longer close to matching reality. Still-rising house prices (and home insurance premiums) are crushing many would-be homeowners’ dreams.

    “While the year-over-year wage growth in the U.S. remains above pre-pandemic levels, the benefit has been limited,” the report’s author, Jonathan Jones, said. He cited inflation and house prices that “have skyrocketed” as the main factors driving the ratio higher. “Household incomes have failed to keep up.”

    Statewide, the median home price is $322,527. The median income is $67,481; the home price-to-income ratio is 4.8.

    Incomes trailing behind house-price growth is not a new trend in the U.S. But the rate of change has accelerated the widening affordability gap, say experts.

    On an inflation-adjusted basis, household incomes increased by just 4.5% since 2000, while home prices increased by 59.1%.

    \\

    – Inflation is theft; it’s stealing. Inflation is a policy. Your government (Leviathan) is only interesting in continuously growing and self preservation, all at your expense. How’s that fascism and tyranny workin’ out for ya?

    \\

    fascism /făsh′ĭz″əm/
    noun

    A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

    A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.

    Oppressive, dictatorial control.

  21. Do you worry the Fed may respike the punch bowl by slowing the pace of Quantitative Tightening?

  23. ‘The most obvious of those consequences is the resurrection of inflation, which had been long buried for more than four decades…If Apple produced its iPhone in its home state of California, where the minimum wage is US$15.50 an hour, instead of in China, where its principal supplier, Foxconn, pays US$1.50 an hour, you probably couldn’t afford to buy it’

    So without near slave labor conditions and pay we can’t have walkie talkies? The reason inflation was low for 40 years was globalist dogs were sending our production overseas and cutting the standard of living for working people.

  24. Image file for Jeff — Do It Yourself Edition:

    https://ibb.co/n191BRd

    The demolition work continues. Why pay somebody else to do the work you can do yourself?

    Oh, right. Because that would involve effort, getting your hands dirty, and actually putting in work. So much easier to pay interest on borrowed money instead…

  25. ‘typical rents in the U.S. settled in at $1,957 in December. For comparison, according to a New York Times article from 1973, the median monthly rent for houses and apartments in the U.S. in 1970 was $108…when adjusted for 2022 inflation, the average annual income in the U.S. for 1970 was $24,600. The national average salary in the fourth quarter of 2023 in the U.S. was $59,384’

    So $1,300 a year out of $24,600, versus $23,000 a year out of $59,384.

  26. ‘So, how did LA find itself in this situation to begin with? The development was approved when former Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar was in charge of new development approvals in Downtown LA. He was sentenced earlier this year to 13 years in prison for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes’

    scapegoat /skāp′gōt″/
    noun

    One that is made to bear the blame of others.

    A live goat over whose head Aaron confessed all the sins of the children of Israel on the Day of Atonement. The goat, symbolically bearing their sins, was then sent into the wilderness.

    A goat upon whose head were symbolically placed the sins of the people, after which he was suffered to escape into the wilderness.

  27. ‘in his enthusiastic advocacy of developer profits, mistakenly links all housing supply with reduced housing prices…Wreaking havoc on neighborhoods and executing on a ‘build, build, build’ strategy…What you end up with is urban sprawl of non-affordable housing with a queue of citizens still waiting for their turn to live here affordably’

    Waiting for prices to come way down, a crash, which everybody and their uncle says needs to happen cuz affordable. The shortage people are hardwired to say these things. So what happens to the poor bashtards that bought overpriced shacks with whopping loans after you build so much there is too much?

  28. ‘A million dollars is not a mansion…It’s unfair to call it that’

    Yer about to get schlonged Craig.

  29. ‘Any concerns over a resurrection of the housing bubble should be put to rest by now, with home sales in the once-hot Greater Toronto Area chilling 3.4 per cent month over month in April’

    What happened to prices since minor respiratory illness Dave? He’s gone thornberg on us.

  30. ‘Traditionally, the Treasury and much of the rest of Government have modelled immigration as an unqualified benefit to the public purse. But this is not the case’

    If it was Karl, the Rio Grande Valley would be the richest place in north America. Instead it is the poorest.

  31. ‘Beijing’s newfound focus on a housing glut marks a sea change in how senior officials view China’s festering property crisis, setting the stage for rescue efforts’

    And we’re only 20 years in with hundreds of ghost cities in! Jeebus I love central planning.

    ‘The good old days of China’s housing market with spectacular growth is over’

    Easy come easy go Bruce.

  32. F. CHOPIN (arr. F. Tarrega): Nocturne no. 2, op. 9
    Valentin Novak

    2 years ago

    One of Chopin‘s most famous works, arranged for guitar by Francisco Tarrega, who also added a fun little cadenza at the end. Played by Valentin Novak on a Vicente Carillo 2021 guitar. Enjoy!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIv1waQfbuA

    6 minutes.

    1. I’ve been learning some of Tarrega’s music in recent years. He was a huge fan of Chopin, and wrote his Gran Vals in the style of Chopin’s piano waltzes.

      If you listen carefully, you will hear the original version of the Nokia ringtone in this music from the dawn of the 20th Century:

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eChixk2FDc8

  33. Re: The personal finance site found that the price of a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal from McDonald’s more than doubled in price from $5.39 in 2014 to $11.99 this year.

    Look at a longer time frame and you will learn something.

    Back in 1970, a Big Mac was 50c, a gallon of gas 25c and a middle-class house in Florida was $30,000. Today they all cost around 10 times in nominal US dollar and counting.

    So, what happened in 1971? Yes, after failing to halt the sky-high 2% inflation, Nixon took the USD off the gold standard in order to pay for the Vietnam war with fiat (counterfeit) currency thereby reneging on Bretton Woods and the financial media crowed about this blatantly dishonest act, calling it “Closing the gold window” as if it was an accomplishment (the typical ploy of all crooks) and some guru even opined that gold was valuable only because it was tied to the dollar otherwise it would drop to $2 flat.

    So much for guru opinions and predictions . . .

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