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This Appreciation Leaves Homeowners With The Illusion Of Greater Wealth

A report from Market Place. “The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, upheld a law in the small southern Oregon town of Grants Pass on Friday that bans people from sleeping or camping in public places such as city parks, streets and sidewalks or in their cars. That’s one extreme result of the ongoing housing crisis in this country — a crisis of affordability. Additionally, the National Association of Realtors reported that pending home sales — a harbinger of housing market health — fell by about 2% in May. According to Lawrence Yun at the NAR, the spring home-selling season is wrapping up, and if you’re the chief economist for the country’s real estate agents, you can say goodbye to it with a Bronx cheer. ‘Home sales activity for spring 2024, it was a sluggish disappointment,’ Yun said. ‘Pending contracts — lowest ever since we began our measurement from 2001.’ Meanwhile, the sale prices listed on those contracts are the highest in U.S. real estate history.”

KDVR in Colorado. “Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on urban camping bans ‘clears the way’ for Aurora’s new ‘tough love’ approach to addressing homelessness, Mayor Mike Coffman said. ‘I think it was the right decision,’ Coffman said. ‘I also do think that communities ought to do what the city of Aurora does and that is have a place for people to go.’ On Monday, Aurora enacted a camping ban that is more strict than its previous one. It will go into effect in about a month. ‘We’re going to have a much tougher policy when it comes to illegal camping on the I-225 corridor. For the first time, people will be ticketed for trespass,’ Coffman said.”

“However, critics argue the Supreme Court’s decision is a step toward criminalizing homelessness. ‘There’s not an alternative to surviving. You have to sleep, you have to cover yourself, you have to do those things,’ said Terese Howard, an organizer with Housekeys Action Network. Howard said a better alternative to camping bans would be for cities, states and the federal government to invest in long-term housing solutions for unhoused people. ‘We know that roughly 90% to 99% of people who are houseless want housing. It’s not a choice, it’s a matter of availability. So to criminalize someone is not a solution,’ she said.”

“In Denver, Mayor Mike Johnston’s ‘All In Mile High’ initiative aims to house 2,000 people by the end of the year. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the city does not need U.S. Supreme Court ‘guidance to know the right way to address homelessness is through compassion and humanity. In Denver, we believe people should sleep in their own beds, not street corners. That’s why we have spent the last 12 months moving more than 1,600 people indoors, including 536 individuals who are now permanently housed.'”

NBC Los Angeles. “Local governments will be allowed to enforce bans on unhoused people sleeping outdoors, the United States Supreme Court ruling decided on Friday. The decision is expected to largely influence the west coast and California particularly, which has about a third of the homeless population in the United States (181,000 people) and more than half of all ‘unsheltered individuals with chronic patterns of homelessness’ in the nation (53,169 people.) Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the Supreme Court’s decision is ‘disappointing’ and called it a ‘crisis.’ ‘This ruling must not be used as an exclusive for cities across the country to attempt to arrest their way out of this problem or hide the homelessness crisis in neighboring cities or in jail. The only way to address this crisis is to bring people indoors with housing and supportive services.'”

“According to The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), the number of homeless people in LA went from 41,980 in 2022 to 46,260 in 2023. Simultaneously, California had the largest increase with nearly a thousand more individuals with chronic patterns of homelessness. ‘It is frustrating to have more people fall into homelessness even as we are investing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and resources into efforts to bring people inside,’ L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn said last year.”

The Union Tribune in California. “For years, whenever San Diego County residents complained about growing numbers of encampments, elected leaders often gave the same response: We can’t push people off public land if shelter isn’t available. That was due to a federal appeals court decision, Martin v. Boise, that tied the ability to cite those living outside with having beds to offer. Now the U.S. Supreme Court has thrown out that rule. The ruling will likely not have an immediate effect on San Diego, which passed a partial camping ban a year ago, but it nonetheless gives officials countywide more flexibility when clearing sidewalks. Both the San Diego City Council and the County Board of Supervisors had symbolically signed onto the case brought by the small Oregon city of Grants Pass.”

“‘This ruling brings much-needed clarity to how the City can enforce our laws,’ Mayor Todd Gloria said through a spokesperson, ‘however, it will not change our strategy on homelessness.’ Alysson Snow, a law professor and head of the Housing Rights Project at the University of San Diego, argued that the decision could nonetheless boost enforcement. ‘They would not have to make as concerted an effort to make sure that there’s housing available,’ Snow, who is also part of the Lemon Grove City Council, said before Friday’s announcement. ‘They would just clean up the streets every day and hand out fines like they were candy.’”

CBS News in California. “The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled 6-3 on the contentious Grants Pass v Johnson case that placing restrictions on unhoused people and where they can sleep is not ‘cruel and unusual’ criminalization of homelessness. The decision is being supported by city leaders in San Francisco that have decried the restrictions placed on them regarding encampments. San Francisco Mayor London Breed praised the ruling. ‘This decision by the Supreme Court will help cities like San Francisco manage our public spaces more effectively and efficiently,’ she said in a statement, adding that her administration has made ‘significant investments in shelter and housing. But too often these offers are rejected, and we need to be able to enforce our laws, especially to prevent long-term encampments,’ she said.”

“Gov. Gavin Newsom also weighed in on the decision on Friday. ‘This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and wellbeing of our communities,’ he said in a statement.”

From Mises.org. “I attended a neighborhood association meeting recently on the inner west side of San Antonio, Texas. The concerns were probably not unlike those of residents in other United States urban centers: crime, public intoxication, vagrancy, etc. One that drew a notable response from the local councilwoman was the cost of housing. This issue provides a good example of how actions of the federal government trickle down and leave collateral damage in our neighborhoods. Housing is a basic good, susceptible to normal market fluctuations just like any other. When government intervenes, though, things get a little more volatile.”

“Out in California, regulations are stifling the addition of more housing. Rent controls do the same. The overarching problem in every state for the last several years, however, has been unstable monetary policy coming out of Washington, DC. Since the dollar has been devalued, it has simply taken more money to buy stuff. Plus, it has compelled more investors to enter the housing market. It’s a safer, less risky investment than an untested invention or new product line. This arguably explains the widening discrepancy between price growth and that of population.”

“The sixteen hundred square foot, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath house I bought with my girls’ mom in 2003 (which I later rented out for several years) cost us roughly $100,000. Zillow now lists it for $265,000. Over that time, the population of Bexar County has grown by just under half. That’s 265 percent versus 43 percent. This appreciation leaves homeowners with the illusion of greater wealth. When they look to cash in, they find that the market around them has moved up as well. Further burdened by rising interest rates, they hunker down, and the market for new homebuyers tightens. This creates an opportunity for local officials to swoop in like heroes and try to fix things.”

“When some of the residents at the neighborhood association meeting complained about homes being turned into ‘quadplexes’ (essentially makeshift apartments), the councilwoman was quick to point out the city’s ‘voter-approved investment in affordable housing’ that can be found going up all over town. One of these developments is going up practically in my backyard here on the far west side. Another is raising a stink on the far north side. Residents there complain of inevitable overcrowding in schools, increased traffic, etc. There is also a perception that more criminal activity is likely to follow.”

“One of the houses I run by in the morning, similar to mine from 2003, is renting for $1,700. The first rent I charged in 2009 was roughly half that. There’s no logical reason for the gap, and it’s certainly not affordable for a family of modest means. If they haven’t already, investors will no doubt swoop in to buy the house when the owner has reached his limit. If a quadplex doesn’t fly with the neighbors, and the market collapses under the weight of a growing glut of apartments, it’s not a stretch to guess what comes next: bankruptcy and government bailouts. We all remember the fallout the last time that happened.”

The Globe and Mail. “Last Tuesday night, in advance of this weekend’s first round of French parliamentary elections, there was a debate featuring the standard-bearers for the country’s three major political groupings. To open the proceedings, each candidate was asked to hold up a picture ‘that symbolizes your project for France.’ The French debate was held just a few hours after the Liberal Party of Canada’s stunning but unsurprising defeat in its former stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul’s, and it got me wondering: What photo would Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hold up? What story would he tell? Why does he want to win another election? What does the current incarnation of the Liberal party, made in his image, stand for? And is that what Canadians want?”

“What slogan comes to mind when voters think about the Trudeau government? ‘Announcements Over Execution’? ‘More Immigration for Higher Housing Prices’? ‘Spent More, Did Less?’ Or what the Liberals to some extent always run on, often successfully: ‘Yeah, But The Conservatives Are Worse’?'”

From ABC News. “The Coalition has for months sought to tie overseas migration to Australia’s housing crisis, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton using his budget reply speech to compare the rate of net arrivals under Labor with the pace of residential construction. Speaking on the day of the budget reply, Shadow Minister for Housing Michael Sukkar said: ‘There have been 265,000 homes built in the first 18 months of this government, and how many migrants do you think this government brought in over that period? About 900,000.'”

From News.com.au. “The Bank of Mum and Dad has never played a bigger part in young South Australians securing their own home, with almost two thirds of homebuyers relying on family financing to achieve the Great Australian Dream. New research from Digital Finance Analytics shows that the percentage of first homebuyers seeking help from the Bank of Mum and Dad has jumped from just 3 per cent in 2010 to 59 per cent now. As if that wasn’t terrifying for parents, the average loan size for a deposit has increased from $23,000 in 2010 to a whopping $107,000 now. This is an increase of more than 365 per cent.”

“According to their research, up until 2015, parents were the only family members providing financial assistance, whereas now, about 11 per cent of those who relied on deposit money from family members got it from grandparents. Policy adviser Michael Cornish said he and his wife were already preparing for how they could support their four year-old son should he want to buy his own home in the future. Mr Cornish said he was expecting to have to support his son purchase down the track.”

“‘I can’t see any way for him to get into a house without our help or at least the help of family, and that is really a good way of entrenching disadvantage and entrenching advantage, because the children who are able to receive family support to get into housing have a massive leg up, not through any thing other than who they happen to be born to – nothing to do with their merit, nothing to do with how deserving or otherwise they are, and nothing to do with, in fact, how hard they happen to work,’ he said. ‘And that’s why something is fundamentally broken.'”

Hampshire Chronicle in the UK. “We were in yet another Government created boom-bust cycle long before the pandemic and war occurred and, like any household, business or country already laden with debt, were found wanting. These boom-bust cycles, which have taken place since the 1970s, are tantamount to state-sponsored Ponzi schemes where the vulnerable ‘have-nots’ in society find themselves even further behind the ‘haves’ when the music eventually stops. Governments sow the seeds of inflation when they over stimulate the housing market with lower Interest rates, Help to Buy schemes and Stamp Duty reductions, culminating in rapidly rising house prices. Buoyed by this, consumers are then enticed into a spending frenzy, often beyond their income, fuelling inflation in the process.”

“This, in turn, leads to the inevitable raising of interest rates, triggering a falling housing market with the rest of the Economy not far behind it which of course leads to the lowering of Interest rates, placing us straight back on this financially suicidal merry-go-round. Like musical chairs, you can only restart the music so many times. We need to get off this ride once and for all, stop using the housing market as the engine room of the Economy, and produce more.”

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  2. ‘They would not have to make as concerted an effort to make sure that there’s housing available,’ Snow, who is also part of the Lemon Grove City Council, said before Friday’s announcement. ‘They would just clean up the streets every day and hand out fines like they were candy’

    Instead of handing out free syringes and narcan Alysson? You commies are trying to destroy yer own cities.

  3. ‘It is frustrating to have more people fall into homelessness even as we are investing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and resources into efforts to bring people inside’

    It must be nice to have that much money flowing in to help you ‘invest’ in something that leaves nothing behind but mounds of toxic trash and piles of poo Janice.

    1. Fentanyl and meth.

      When there are zero consequences for the public consumption of fentanyl and meth, this is what you get.

      1. What will it cost the taxpayers to save these zombies, and make them productive? Will they ever produce anything you’d be willing to purchase? Instead, try relaxing. At dawn each day the city crews can quietly make a pass by the camps to recover the cadavers.

        1. I don’t like to talk about this because it’s so uncomfortable.
          But at this point, our streets are a battlefield, and perhaps the best approach is battlefield triage.

          I support spending housing and resources on those who still have their faculties about them: those who can hold down jobs, or have potential for training, especially those with children or who live in cars and RVs.

          The ones who are too far gone, for example, all those bent-over people on Kensington Ave, should be taken OUT of the cities to a facility out of town and given one shot at rehab. If they fail, put them in a sort of hospice — again out of the city centers — where they are healed of wounds and treatable diseases, and then allow them do their thing in comfort and safety.

          But this idea of spending $600K for a prime apartment for them, or letting them clutter up the streets with rats and Hepatitis while they steal everything for drug money, lingering for years, has got to stop.

          1. we all know the reason Ox, we are so afraid of being called a racis in public. Its time to play the race card. Fair is Fair!

          2. Given strategically placed fentanyl gumball machines the working class taxpayers would be able to drive past these camps and toss quarters out the car window.

    2. Skyrocketing property taxes have generated cash gushers for city halls from coast to coast. When those gushers run dry, expect the hear wailing and gnashing of teeth as budgets get sawed and slashed,

      1. Skyrocketing property taxes have generated cash gushers for city halls
        Cook County (Chicago area) announced that property taxes were increasing about 19.9% on average.

        That is gonna get some people’s attention.

  4. ‘Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on urban camping bans ‘clears the way’ for Aurora’s new ‘tough love’ approach to addressing homelessness’

    I propose a different policy Mike, a tough sh$t approach.

  6. Since they outlawed sleeping/camping in Grants Pass hopefully this will apply to Portland, OR as well.

  7. “The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, upheld a law in the small southern Oregon town of Grants Pass on Friday that bans people from sleeping or camping in public places such as city parks, streets and sidewalks or in their cars.

    A step in right direction, but doesn’t nearly go far enough. Vagrancy needs to be actively discouraged and penalized as communities protect themselves from those who reject any notion of personal responsibility and engage in drug use & criminality.

  8. “Local governments will be allowed to enforce bans on unhoused people sleeping outdoors, the United States Supreme Court ruling decided on Friday.

    We need to start calling things by their proper names. The vast majority of the “unhoused” are bums and vagrants who are also petty criminals and habitual drug users.

    1. I noticed the use of this ‘unhoused’ word a couple of years ago. It’s part of the woke Newspeak.

  9. One that drew a notable response from the local councilwoman was the cost of housing. This issue provides a good example of how actions of the federal government trickle down and leave collateral damage in our neighborhoods.

    The globalist scum media practices a journalistic omertà when it comes to naming the #1 cause of unaffordable housing: the Federal Reserve and its “No Billionaire Left Behind” monetary policies.

  10. What photo would Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hold up?

    A signed photo of his WEF puppetmaster, Klaus Schwab.

  11. These boom-bust cycles, which have taken place since the 1970s, are tantamount to state-sponsored Ponzi schemes where the vulnerable ‘have-nots’ in society find themselves even further behind the ‘haves’ when the music eventually stops.

    It’s almost like the globalist oligarchs & their political prostitutes want to create a seething, disenfranchised underclass with no stake in “Our Democracy” so they can eventually rise up and overthrow “The System,” then replace it with something much worse, a la Lenin’s Reds or Mao’s Red Army.

  13. I think something is happening out there, folks. No Republican presidential nominee has carried the state since 1988.

    Is that about to change? A brand new co/efficient poll released Friday found Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump by a single point in the Garden State, a statistical tied given that the result was well within the poll’s margin of error. 13% remain undecided while 7% chose another candidate. The incumbent’s approval rating is in the toilet at 36% approve, 56% disapprove.

    The survey also discovered Trump performing well across non-traditional Republican groups including earning 19% of the black vote and, astoundingly, 30% of New Jersey’s Hispanic voters. Trump trails among women by 7-points but leads among men by 11-points…

    Don’t immediately dismiss this one as an outlier; an Emerson poll from March did find a 7-point race with Biden leading by single digits despite winning a sold double-digit victory in 2020 (57% to 41%). A younger Biden represented neighboring Delaware in the Senate for decades before becoming vice president, and former Democrat Senate President Steve Sweeney used to refer to him as South Jersey’s third senator. He’s not polling like an honorary son.

    On the actual 2024 Senate side, Democrat Andy Kim is leading Republican Curtis Bashaw by 7-points, 41% to 34%, which is also tighter than what we’d ordinarily see.

    The co/efficient poll was notably conducted almost entirely before the presidential debate which Biden was widely viewed to have lost (badly).

    https://savejersey.com/2024/06/shock-poll-donald-trump-leads-biden-by-1-point-in-new-jersey-debate/

    1. If we had an honest election without widespread, coordinated, deliberate fraud, DJT would get a 1984 electoral college landslide.

      1. If we had honest elections we’d have very few Dim governors. And legislatures, both state and federal would be probably 70-30 R. Not sure if thats good or not based on the last 20 years of most Rs acting like Uni-party stooges.

  15. It’s a real head scratcher for sure…to be resolved in due time.

    “Anything that cannot continue forever will stop.”

    — Stein’s Law

    1. REAL ESTATE
      The US housing market has entered bizarro world
      Matthew Fox
      Jun 29, 2024, 5:16 AM PDT
      The housing market is starting to break free from “rate lock,” Zillow economists said.
      C.J. Burton/Getty Images

      – The US housing market is distorting a core principal of economics: supply and demand.

      – Home prices soared to record highs in May, even as existing home sales fell and supply of homes for sale jumped.

      – “This one is a real head-scratcher,” economist David Rosenberg said.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/us-housing-market-outlook-record-prices-rising-supply-falling-demand-2024-6

  16. Speaking of Grants Pass, southwest Oregon is one of the places I watch closely. The crash has begun here. Most listings are at or below 2021 prices. Distressed listings are popping up everywhere, especially along the coast. There are pockets that are a bit more resilient, like the touristy towns, but even those are starting to take a beating. What’s interesting is some the more popular sites are hiding price history more than usual. And we know why.

    1. At some point, investors are going to cut and run, as they are already doing in places like Austin.

      Next up: CR8R

  17. Reddit thread titled — Yes, Everyone Really Is Sick a Lot More Often After Covid:

    “I use to get sick maybe once a year. I get sick every couple months now.”

    “This thread remind me not to go out, thanks”

    “I wear an N95 everywhere and still somehow caught something that was entirely asymptomatic until it floored me for a few days. nothing respiratory, just insane fatigue and vertigo. i couldn’t sit or stand for hours at a time. went to an urgent care who told me it was anxiety. they did bloodwork and found my numbers completely abnormal, called me, apologized, and said they didn’t know what it was. saw a nurse, told me it was anxiety and i had nothing wrong with me. took three week to get a diagnosis and a steroid pack. i’m on week five and still have symptoms. no idea what the f*ck got me even though i’ve been so safe and isolated.”

    https://old.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/1dgh1zj/yes_everyone_really_is_sick_a_lot_more_often/?limit=500

    That last quoted comment has the following flair:

    I’m fully vaccinated! 💉💪🩹

    Safe and isolated? The mRNA poison you put in your body will kill you whether you go outside or not.

    1. More Reddit from a related thread:

      “Every shot and booster, both Phizer and Moderna, took me out for 36 hours of fever, chills, and fatigue for at least a week. It made me grateful for the shots, though, because if the reaction was that bad, a bad case would be so much worse.”

      “I’m 30, fit, and very healthy. I got the 2 shots and the booster. Everytime it wrecked me with a 102 fever, shaking, aches, and back n forth between melting and freezing for 2 days. However I also did get Covid a bit after and I was just as bad, though it only lasted the same 1-2 days as the vaccine. So idk what to take of that. If I wasn’t vaccinated would it have been way worse?”

      “Moderna makes my entire body hurt so bad like I’ve been hit by a truck. The first ever shot I got during covid had me seeing colors that weren’t truly there. But I’ve gotten the booster every time. This last one was really horrendous. It’s kinda scary tbh.”

      “i still haven’t recovered from my booster last year”

      Don’t forget your flair:

      Boosted! ✨💉✅

      1. Another comment, note that this has 550 upvotes:

        “If they want to pay me to stay home, I will”

        Because remember how well that worked out the last time? 40% of every dollar in existence printed since the release of CCP Flu.

        Who is this “they” of which you speak?

  18. An Oakland businessman and East Bay Democratic Party insider claims he was attacked in two separate incidents earlier this summer, including at the address of the office of recycling company California Waste Solutions.

    California Waste Solutions’ office and Mayor Sheng Thao’s home were the targets of a surprise FBI raid last week. Federal agents also searched the homes of the company’s owner, David Duong, and his son, Andy Duong.

    Juarez’s attorney, Ernie Castillo, said these attacks were attempts on the life of his client, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which first reported this story. Neither Castillo nor Juarez has shared a motive for the assaults. The attacks are being investigated by the Oakland police.

    It’s unclear if there is any link between Juarez and the events of last week. However, records and online materials reviewed by The Oaklandside indicate that Juarez was in business with members of the Duong family in 2022 and that a potential business dispute may have preceded the alleged attacks and the FBI raids.

    In September 2022, David Duong’s sister, Kristina Duong, set up a company called Evolutionary Homes LLC. The business shares the same mailing address as California Waste Solutions. Mario Juarez is named as an organizer of the company in state corporation filings.

    The company appears to design and construct mobile homes. Its website lists David Duong as Chairman and Andy Duong as founder. A November 2023 Vietnamese news broadcast about Evolutionary Homes, which included a lengthy interview with David Duong, explained that the company aims to help solve California’s homelessness crisis.

    David and Andy Duong have not responded to previous requests for an interview.

    “Our construction to move in time is 6-8 months from order, which makes Evolutionary Homes a perfect solution for individuals in need,” the website states.

    In December 2023, Juarez was interviewed by a representative of the Vietnamese American Business Association—a business networking group founded by and controlled by the Duong family. He introduced himself as a co-founder of Evolutionary Homes.

    “A lot of government agencies, they’re interested in doing business with us. They’re doing business with us already,” Juarez said in the video. “And I think it has a lot to do also with the fact that we speak business to government and we have that level of experience working with government agencies.”

    It’s unclear if Juarez is still associated with the company.

    In January, Juarez was charged with felony fraud for allegedly passing bad checks to a mailing company. Prosecutors claim that Juarez hired the company Butterfly Direct Marketing to produce attack ads targeting Loren Taylor, who was running for mayor in 2022. Juarez’s checks for roughly $53,600 bounced for insufficient funds. Juarez’s attorney, Castillo, has said his client is innocent of these charges.

    At some point, someone set up a website criticizing Evolutionary Homes—specifically David Duong.

    “Unfortunately, David Duong has failed to meet his obligations towards his employees in Mexico, including non-payment of salaries and withholding of wages, resulting in their termination without any form of compensation and leaving with outstanding labor and tax debts,” the website says. “Such actions are unacceptable and violate basic ethical and legal standards.”

    The website offers no proof for this claim and we were unable to locate any records about unpaid wage claims. The site includes a credit to an attorney named Diego Chavez. There is no David Chavez in the California State Bar, and we were unable to locate him.

    The Evolutionary Homes LLC website also claims to employ Julie Wedge and Chris Wedge in “government relations.” The Wedges run a consulting firm near Sacramento that specializes in political and nonprofit compliance services. The Wedges declined to speak on record.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/before-fbi-raids-the-duongs-may-have-feuded-with-an-oakland-businessman/ar-BB1p5LDg

  19. Hot on the heels of the Conservatives’ stunning byelection victory in the riding of Toronto—St. Paul’s(opens in a new tab), new seat projection data from Nanos Research(opens in a new tab) show ridings considered previously safe for the Liberals are increasingly up for grabs.

    On the latest episode of CTV News Trend Line, Nanos Research chair Nik Nanos(opens in a new tab) said the latest numbers point to “difficult times if you’re a Liberal.”

    “What we’re seeing is the Liberal fortress Toronto basically under siege,” Nanos said. “So maybe Toronto—St. Paul’s is the canary in the coal mine.”

    On Monday, Conservative Don Stewart defied the odds to win the closely watched Toronto-area byelection, setting off political shockwaves by claiming victory in a longtime Liberal stronghold riding.

    The byelection result, Nanos said, could in retrospect be considered “a referendum on the government and on Justin Trudeau.”

    The loss for the Liberals also reinvigorated rumours party leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could step down before the next general election, currently slated for October 2025.

    “We can’t project a byelection onto the general election,” Nanos warned, but added it’s noteworthy how much better the Conservatives did in Toronto—St. Paul’s compared to the last general election, and likewise how poorly the Liberals did compared to three years ago, which “speaks to where the momentum is.”

    “But I think the Conservatives and (leader) Pierre Poilievre want to run against Justin Trudeau,” he also said. “They basically, by winning, created conditions that put pressure on Trudeau to step down or to be pushed out. And that kind of resets everything.”

    Nanos said a Trudeau resignation would change the “political calculus” for all parties, but especially the Conservatives, who have largely framed their message around Poilievre against Trudeau.

    In addition to the surprise win in Toronto—St. Paul’s, Nanos said, the new data shows the Conservatives “being much more competitive in Toronto.”

    The Conservatives are also challenging “very strongly in a number of Ottawa ridings outside the immediate downtown, which could prove to be races to watch whenever Canadians head to the polls.

    Nanos said the Liberals could also be in store for a setback in Atlantic Canada, with both Cape Breton and Halifax in play.

    Regardless, the Conservatives are likely to pick up “a number of” seats out east.

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-liberals-under-siege-across-the-country-with-conservatives-cracking-red-fortresses-like-toronto-and-vancouver-nanos-1.6944758

  20. “200 years ago, before colonization there wasn’t even a concept of homelessness,” said Corrina Gould, talking chief/spokesperson of the confederated villages of Lisjan/Ohlone and co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust and Family Elders Council member of Homefulness.

    So-called Grants Pass, Oregon itself is of course stolen land.

    “This (ruling) is horrible, sleep is a body’s survival need,” said warrior shero Martha Escudero, houseless leader with Reclaiming Our Homes in occupied Tovaangar (LA). “If unhoused people are a concern then provide housing for them or truly affordable housing options. Rent is too high and wages are low there are too many people struggling that may be unhoused soon. Elders are the highest population growing as unhoused because they can’t pay rent with their pensions.”

    Not having a home and being forced to sleep on the street is only a crime in this stolen land governed by a colonial system that criminalizes poverty and commodifies Mama Earth.

    “Today, the Court stated that these ordinances that criminalize poverty are not “unusual” because they remain the “usual mode[s]” for punishment,” said Andrea Henson, a lawyer with Where Do We Go? “Historically, the ‘usual modes of punishment’ in this country have been slavery, lynchings, mob violence, Jim Crow, LGBTQ persecution, gender discrimination, the genocide of indigenous communities, the shunning of the poor, disabled, those with mental illness. Now is the time that we stand up for those experiencing homelessness and those who are in desperate need of affordable housing. Today, we fight, “

    Houseless people have already been terrorized by hundreds of laws, like the Sit-Lie Law and the Encampment Ban, LA Municipal Code 41:18, and Prop 1, and that’s just the current ones. These lies (laws) were all written on the backs of hundreds of years of settler colonial hate for poor people, that creates the criminalization of the so-called public space, as well as the racist, classist codes for the public.

    It’s not illegal for people in a park who don’t look houseless to sleep on the grass or for luxury RV’s to park in paid parking lots, private beaches, and luxury campgrounds across the US.

    https://48hills.org/2024/06/the-brutality-of-criminalizing-homelessness/

    1. ‘Not having a home and being forced to sleep on the street is only a crime in this stolen land governed by a colonial system that criminalizes poverty and commodifies Mama Earth’

      The quotes in this article are hard to understand cuz they talk gibberish.

  21. Former President Donald Trump reveled Friday in his debate success against current President Joe Biden, saying their primetime showdown watched by nearly 50 million Americans demonstrated that the Democratic incumbent is simply not up to the job.

    “Man, that was a big one,” Trump told thousands of supporters who trekked to a farm in southeastern Virginia, a state Trump hopes to take from Biden in November. In his Virginia speech, Trump made fun of Biden over his intelligence, honesty, and economic policies; at one point, Trump joked that age was not Biden’s problem. “It’s his competence,” Trump said.

    Trump and his allies say they believe they can flip a few Biden states, though their list includes long-time Democratic bastions like New York and New Jersey.

    Virginia (and Minnesota) seem more realistic given large pockets of Republican voters. Virginia also elected a Republican governor in 2021, Glenn Youngkin.

    Trump and his aides are even more confident about Virginia – and other states – in light of Biden’s struggles during the debate. “The (Virginia) race is now tied,” said senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita.

    Trump backers who braved a hot afternoon to see Trump speak at the local farm told USA TODAY they thought the Republican won the debate, especially given Biden’s troubles.

    “There were times when he did not seem like he was fully present and that he was really struggling,” said Elizabeth Skertic, 37, a Virginia voter who attended Trump’s rally on Friday. “If they keep with Biden, I think it’s going to be a pretty easy win [for Republicans] for most of Virginia,” she said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-gloats-and-mocks-biden-in-first-post-debate-rally/ar-BB1p5j9D

  22. Democrats at all levels of the party spent the hours following the first presidential debate dodging questions about President Biden’s fitness to lead the party and struggling respond to a debate performance that almost uniformly disappointed the party.

    Despite widespread concern about Biden’s performance, top leaders are publicly standing by the president.

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, asked about Democrats calling for Biden to drop out, said “that’s not my position.” When asked if Democrats can win back House with Biden on ticket he simply responded “yes.”

    But the questions that started Thursday night following the debate have not faded.

    More publicly optimistic Democrats have pointed to then President Obama’s disastrous first debate performance against Mitt Romney, the Republican standard bearer in 2012, and how he recovered from it to win re-election. Others have pointed to candidates who seemingly won the debates, but lost the election.

    But as one Democratic strategist told Montanaro via text: “Sometimes the spin don’t spin.”

    https://www.npr.org/2024/06/28/g-s1-7055/democrats-struggle-biden-debate-performance

  23. Suddenly Democrats – their standard-bearer wounded, their electoral prospects in free fall, their assumptions about the November elections shattered – are in a Rudyard Kipling moment, consumed with a mood of despair that has thrust them into the subjunctive mood:

    If Joe Biden recognizes that his performance on Thursday night was startling and shocking, perhaps he will stand down from the fall campaign.

    If Jill Biden concludes that her husband is facing political and cultural mortification following his failure to sweep away gathering doubts about his physical and mental capacity, perhaps she will convince him that his dignity requires him to abandon what he deeply believes is his two-term destiny.

    If a delegation of Democratic giants repeats the 1974 journey to the White House that persuaded Richard Nixon to acknowledge that he had lost his base of support, perhaps Mr. Biden will come to understand that he has no alternative if the Democrats are to offer an alternative to another term of Donald Trump in the White House.

    If the public doubts that have haunted Mr. Biden from the start of his presidency – and that grew exponentially from the very start of the CNN debate – congeal into a public outcry, as they almost certainly will, perhaps Mr. Biden, his wife and Democrats will conclude that the choice has been made for them and that a proud President’s stubbornness is yet another reason he must relinquish his party’s nomination.

    This juncture summons Kipling’s If poem – written in 1898 about another disaster, the doomed British Jameson Raid in Southern Africa – but with a dramatic difference. The poet of imperialism preached forbearance in the face of criticism, keeping “your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you”– and trusting “yourself when all men doubt you.”

    Mr. Nixon’s agony is the obvious analogue to the despair surrounding the White House in the hours after the debate.

    In Watergate-consumed Washington, a sad and sober delegation of Republican leaders made the difficult trek from Capitol Hill to the White House. There, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona (the Republicans’ 1964 presidential nominee and the symbol of the party’s conservative wing), Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania (the Senate minority leader and a symbol of Republican moderation), and Representative John Rhodes of Arizona (the House minority leader and thus the leading GOP figure in the body that was about to impeach the president) delivered the sobering news that Mr. Nixon had lost the last shreds of his political support.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-after-the-presidential-debate-biden-and-the-democratic-party-are-left/

    1. Greasy Gavin will be the nominee.

      Not Heels Up Harris, not Big Mike, it’s gonna be the Great White Hope with an established record of fealty to Communist China.

      Remember how they cleaned up San Francisco for a week when Pooh Bear came? Not for the residents or taxpayers (any of those left?) of SF, but only for his communist master.

    2. ‘If Jill Biden concludes that her husband is facing political and cultural mortification following his failure to sweep away gathering doubts about his physical and mental capacity, perhaps she will convince him that his dignity requires him to abandon what he deeply believes is his two-term destiny’

      There’s little pity party everybody is throwing, but I’m not buying it. He was a senile corrupt pedophile years ago. Who did you think was going to show up at the debate? A 40 year old pedophile? He brought our legal system and politics into the new banana republic stage. He gave us several winters of death. He yells at every body, the other day he threatened to throw a reporters phone, in the white house. He’s got cocaine getting in there, covering up for his low life son who had porn on his laptop that would land anyone else in prison, not to mention the giant piles of cocaine. He ruined peoples careers for refusing the death injection. A thousand or two ukranistan fools get their heads blown off – every day! He’s been touching little girls, on camera, for many years. Then the globalist scum media covers for him as he stares off with his open mouth, walks in the wrong direction, shakes hands with invisible people. And now serprize, he’s fooking idiot who can’t complete a sentence. Who knew?

      Any one paying attention, that’s who. Let this sack of sh$t get everything that’s coming to him. He deserves that and much more.

      1. Let this sack of sh$t get everything that’s coming to him. He deserves that and much more.

        Probably the most that will happen is that he will lose the election. If anyone tries to prosecute him, they will play the dementia card.

        1. One quote I heard was ‘if Trump is the existential threat you say he is, I will never forgive the democrats for running this man’. It’s the party that faces ‘political and cultural mortification’.

          mortification /môr″tə-fĭ-kā′shən/
          noun

          – A feeling of shame, humiliation, or wounded pride.

  24. After she got divorced in 2021, Sora Lee bought a brand new Tesla Model 3 for just over $70,000. But she now wishes she had spent the money differently.

    “I just really wanted a Tesla because it’s something my ex wouldn’t let me [have], and I regret buying that full price,” the 34-year-old tells CNBC Make It. “Huge mistake.”

    Lee currently makes $400,000 a year as the global head of product marketing at TikTok and has invested her way to an $843,000 net worth. But that number may have been higher if she didn’t buy the Tesla.

    It wasn’t necessarily that she couldn’t afford the car or the approximate $1,000 a month she puts toward the loan. She was working for Meta at the time and earning over $200,000 a year.

    But in retrospect, she says buying a shiny new car wasn’t a very smart investment. As of June 2024, she still owes around $36,000 on the car — more than it’s worth, according to an Edmunds estimate.

    “I like the car, but I would have bought it used or would have thought about it a little bit more because now that I’m paying for it and looking at my monthly statements more closely, a thousand [dollars] a month is a big deal,” she says. “If I had put that into something else, I would have been making more money in terms of my investment return.”

    Unfortunately, Lee had to learn the hard way what many money experts preach: Buying a new car is generally a bad financial decision. In fact, it might be the “single worst financial decision millennials will make,” money expert and self-made millionaire David Bach previously told CNBC Make It.

    That’s because, as Lee now knows, cars are a depreciating asset. Generally speaking, they lose value over time and you’ll rarely recoup your purchase costs if and when you want to resell them. Most new cars lose about 20% of their retail value in the first year of ownership, according to Kelley Blue Book.

    Electric cars, and Teslas specifically, may depreciate even faster. Electric vehicles lose their value at an average rate of 49% in the first five years, compared with about 39% for all vehicles, a 2023 study by iSeeCars found. Teslas are among some of the worst at retaining their value, with Model 3s losing an average 43% of their value in five years.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/34-year-old-earning-400-000-a-year-i-regret-buying-a-brand-new-tesla-it-was-a-huge-mistake/ar-BB1p4mLS

    1. “Lee currently makes $400,000 a year as the global head of product marketing at TikTok”

      Just that sentence alone speaks volumes on what is currently so wrong with the world that surrounds us.

      1. Just that sentence alone speaks volumes on what is currently so wrong with the world that surrounds us.

        Don’t like capitalism and people making what they are worth in the marketplace?

        1. If she is truly worth that salary. I recall that Musk fired a lot of people like her after he bought Twitter and almost no one noticed.

          1. Envy of people who earn big money is pathetic and un-American.

            If the job is not valuable, eventually it will be cut.

    2. “…it’s something my ex wouldn’t let me [have]…”

      I’ll show him! I’ll show them all!!

    3. $70k for a model 3? I thought that was supposed to be the “affordable” Tesla. Anyway, being that her nest egg is already $800k and she’s still in her 30’s, I don’t see what she’s complaining about.

  25. Tractor Supply is ending an array of corporate diversity and climate efforts, a move coming after weeks of online conservative backlash against the rural retailer.

    Tractor Supply said it would be eliminating all of its diversity, equity and inclusion roles while retiring current DEI goals. It did not elaborate on what was entailed in eliminating DEI roles.

    The company added that it would “stop sponsoring nonbusiness activities” such as Pride festivals or voting campaigns — and no longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign, the largest advocacy group for LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S.

    The Brentwood, Tennessee-based retailer, which sells products ranging from farming equipment to pet supplies, also said in a statement Thursday that it would withdraw from its carbon emission goals to instead “focus on our land and water conservation efforts.”

    These changes mark a stunning shift in policy and messaging from Tractor Supply, which once touted its diversity and inclusion efforts. Just earlier this month, Tractor Supply President and CEO Hal Lawton maintained that the company remained “very consistent” in how it approaches its own DEI and ESG — environmental, social and governance — programs for a number of years.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/tractor-supply-is-ending-dei-and-climate-efforts-after-conservative-backlash-online/ar-BB1p4Wr4

    1. Tractor Supply is ending an array of corporate diversity and climate efforts

      Corporate America is nearly 100% infiltrated by the left. I seriously doubt that Tractor Supply management simply slapped themselves on the forehead and decided to change course. More likely there was a small civil war in their management and the left lost.

  26. The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Friday to overturn a 40-year-old legal doctrine used by the federal government to defend some of its regulatory actions in court.

    The doctrine, known as “Chevron deference,” had been sharply criticized by businesses.
    What is Chevron deference?

    The doctrine called for judges to defer to federal agency interpretations of U.S. laws deemed to be ambiguous.

    The doctrine, among the most important principles in administrative law, arose from a 1984 Supreme Court ruling involving oil company Chevron CVX-N. Conservatives and business interests had opposed it while liberals, favoring robust corporate regulation, championed it.

    Democratic U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Mazie Hirono and Elizabeth Warren have issued a full-throated defense of the doctrine, describing it as key in allowing Congress to rely on agency “subject matter expertise” to help carry out the broad policy objectives of lawmakers as U.S. industries grow more complex.

    “Administrative regulations reined in dangerous industry activities, and our society became safer and more prosperous,” the senators said, describing the bid to overturn the doctrine as “a decades-long effort by pro-corporate interests to eviscerate the federal government’s regulatory apparatus, to the detriment of the American people.”

    The senators also took aim at the “theatricality of the industry-funded campaign” against the doctrine. They cited a dissent written by a judge on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who described Chevron deference as the “Lord Voldemort of administrative law,” invoking the fictional wizard from the Harry Potter books who is so evil people that are afraid to utter his name.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/us-business/article-what-is-chevron-deference-and-why-did-the-us-supreme-court-overturn-it/

    Senator running deer heap angry!

  27. A co-chairman of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign says it’s unlikely that the president will be replaced by another Democrat after Thursday night’s debate performance.

    Mitch Landrieu, national co-chair of the Biden Campaign, told CNN, “I don’t think that you can call the debate a great time for President Biden,” adding, “I think he had a rough time—there’s no question about it.”

    But he said calls to replace President Biden are premature, and strongly signaled that it won’t happen. When asked if Democrats should consider a replacement, he said it is “not likely” that will happen.

    David Axelrod, a top strategist for former President Barack Obama, told CNN on Thursday night that “there are gonna be discussions on if he should continue.” Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, wrote in an opinion article that in order to stop former President Donald Trump, “the president has to come forward and declare that he will not be running for reelection.”

    But under current Democratic Party rules, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace President Biden as the party’s nominee without his cooperation or without party officials being willing to rewrite its rules at the August national convention.

    The president won the overwhelming majority of Democratic delegates during the state-by-state primary process. And party rules state that “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”

    Speaking to reporters at a Waffle House location in Atlanta hours after the debate, President Biden said of his performance, “I think we did well.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/bidens-campaign-co-chair-says-its-not-likely-president-will-step-down-5677008

    2. “If you’ve got a business…you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” —Barack Obama, fmr president

  29. WATCH: Gang of Armed Hispanic Thieves Raid Colorado Jewelry Shop

    by Dan Lyman
    June 29th 2024, 7:30 am

    A Colorado jewelry shop was targeted by a gang of armed thieves with “Venezuelan accents” who made off with millions in merchandise after they beat and threatened to kill employees, according to reports.

    The shocking heist unfolded at around 2 p.m. on Monday in Denver.

    Authorities believe eight male suspects in theirs 20s carried out the brazen robbery at Joyeria el Ruby, ultimately swiping around $2.5 million worth of jewelry in a matter of minutes, 9News reports.

    Surveillance footage has been released by the owners.

    Myrna Munoz said a lone man first walked into her family-run shop and shortly after, three more men wearing sunglasses entered the security cage at the entrance.

    “They all pulled guns, the individual here pulled a gun then the other three did as well,” Munoz explained.

    Four more suspects charged into the store and began piling jewelry into bags while customers were held at gunpoint.

    Munoz can be seen fleeing through a back door, grabbing her 18-month-old son and pushing her daughter outside as her cousin and mother barricaded a connecting door.

    Two suspects eventually broke through and began pistol-whipping the women and threatening to kill them if they tried to hit the panic button.

    Munoz’s sister was also beaten and robbed.

    “He grabbed her by the hair, took her up the stairs and told her not to move or he was going to kill her,” she said. “While she was face down on the floor, he was yanking all of her personal jewelry off.”

    Munoz told authorities she thought the men were speaking with “Venezuelan accents.”

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/watch-gang-of-armed-hispanic-thieves-raid-colorado-jewelry-shop/

  30. Haitian migrant accused of raping teen girl in Boston freed on $500 bail

    By Jennie Taer and Olivia Land
    Published Ju ne 28, 2024

    A Haitian migrant accused of raping a 15-year-old at a Massachusetts shelter has been released on bail — despite a request from federal immigration officials to keep him in jail.

    Cory Alvarez, who had been held without bail since his March arrest, was freed on a measly $500 bail on Tuesday after the Plymouth County Superior Court ignored a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep the suspect in custody, the Boston Herald reported.

    Alvarez was released following a dangerousness hearing, a spokesperson with the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office told The Post Friday.

    “We then requested that Alvarez be held on $10,000 cash bail with numerous conditions of release. The judge set bail at $500,” they explained.

    ICE sources, meanwhile, are fuming about the migrant’s release.

    One source blasted it as “standard Democratic bulls–t” which makes it “almost impossible to do our jobs.”

    “The dumba– judges are the ones causing a lot of these issues by ignoring the root of the problem,” the source lamented.

    “California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and other blue states all do this bulls–t. If we run records checks on people out of those states, they have policies that are in place to prevent sharing of any information.”

    Former ICE field office director John Fabbricatore said Alvarez’s release is emblematic of “a concerning trend of inadequate and failed vetting procedures.”

    “In particular, this recent case involving an accusation of rape by a Haitian national admitted under the Bideinals rather than safeguarding law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.”

    Alvarez’s entry documents indicated he would be living with a sponsor in Elizabeth, NJ, but he eventually ended up at the Comfort Inn in Rockland, Mass., which had been converted into a migrant shelter.

    He was arrested at the shelter on March 13 in connection with the rape of a disabled teenage girl.

    “He raped me,” the victim told investigators at South Shore Hospital, according to the Herald. “I asked him to leave me alone but he didn’t stop.”

    https://nypost.com/2024/06/28/us-news/haitian-migrant-accused-of-raping-teen-girl-in-boston-freed-on-500-bail/

  33. Joe Biden on Trump’s club championships and the game of golf…

    Poor golfers are just as talented as white golfers.

  34. ‘Home sales activity for spring 2024, it was a sluggish disappointment…Pending contracts — lowest ever since we began our measurement from 2001’

    Are you sure Larry? All time high prices.

  35. ‘Howard said a better alternative to camping bans would be for cities, states and the federal government to invest in long-term housing solutions for unhoused people. ‘We know that roughly 90% to 99% of people who are houseless want housing. It’s not a choice, it’s a matter of availability. So to criminalize someone is not a solution’

    This has been such a non-rational discussion all along Terese. They aren’t criminalized because they are in a tent. It’s not where it should be, probably dangerous in some way, unauthorized, trespassing even, and they are covered with filth, doing hard drugs, screaming at people, hurting, killing anyone who is unfortunate enough the be around. And they pee and sh$t anywhere they please.

    1. I’ll add this. It is unacceptable that it took the court system and especially the supreme court took so many agonizing years, with all the death and destruction we read about every day, to come to this decision.

    2. “…unhoused people.”

      What was wrong with, “homeless people?”

      BTW, I am currently un-mansioned, and I want someone to correct this injustice right now, hehe!

  36. ‘In Denver, Mayor Mike Johnston’s ‘All In Mile High’ initiative aims to house 2,000 people by the end of the year. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the city does not need U.S. Supreme Court ‘guidance to know the right way to address homelessness is through compassion and humanity. In Denver, we believe people should sleep in their own beds, not street corners. That’s why we have spent the last 12 months moving more than 1,600 people indoors, including 536 individuals who are now permanently housed’

    That’s fantastic Mike, more than that came through Brownsville Texas today.

  37. ‘San Francisco Mayor London Breed praised the ruling. ‘This decision by the Supreme Court will help cities like San Francisco manage our public spaces more effectively and efficiently,’ she said in a statement, adding that her administration has made ‘significant investments in shelter and housing. But too often these offers are rejected, and we need to be able to enforce our laws, especially to prevent long-term encampments’

    I bet those get really stinky London. Good to prioritize the worst stuff. You probably gave up on the bum urine proof lamp posts long ago.

  38. ‘This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and wellbeing of our communities’

    That’s a good point Gavin, thanks for sharing. So every/city town gets scared of being sued. It’s expensive. No law has been passed. Just a judge here or an appellant court there issued some gotdam ruling that lawyers will drag yer a$$ into court for years, while everything goes to sh$t in front of our eyes.

    So how do these bums have lawyers Gavin?

  39. ‘When some of the residents at the neighborhood association meeting complained about homes being turned into ‘quadplexes’ (essentially makeshift apartments), the councilwoman was quick to point out the city’s ‘voter-approved investment in affordable housing’ that can be found going up all over town. One of these developments is going up practically in my backyard here on the far west side. Another is raising a stink on the far north side. Residents there complain of inevitable overcrowding in schools, increased traffic, etc. There is also a perception that more criminal activity is likely to follow’

    More density mayhem. Affordable housing, central planning!

  40. ‘What slogan comes to mind when voters think about the Trudeau government? ‘Announcements Over Execution’? ‘More Immigration for Higher Housing Prices’?

    August 20, 2023

    http://housingbubble.blog/?p=7762

    Canadians have finally fallen out of love with Trudeau. The shine has come off a career that at times seemed to defy political gravity. Instead of Trudeaumania, the nation is suffering from Trudeau fatigue. The Liberal prime minister’s approval ratings have slumped below 30pc among voters aged 18 to 34, according to national polling group the Angus Reid Institute. This is the group whose enthusiasm helped get Trudeau elected in 2015, re-elected in 2019 and again – just about – in 2021. Disillusionment has been fuelled by economic factors, including soaring interest rates and a housing crisis.”

    “Mortgage costs on an average home in Canada now eat up 60pc of typical incomes, according to the National Bank. The figure is 90pc in Toronto and over 100pc in Vancouver. For first-time buyers, prices are simply unaffordable. Their rage is focused on the man they trusted with their votes, not once but thrice. Canadian voters have been slowly souring on their prime minister for a while. The cult of personality that has surrounded Trudeau, which was assiduously cultivated by him on social media, became a bad joke when historic photographs of the future PM in ‘blackface’ surfaced in 2019. Suddenly his wokery resembled hypocrisy and the idolisation of ‘Social Justice Justin’ gave way to mockery.”

    “The population has just passed the symbolic 40 million mark and is due to increase by another 1.5 million by 2025. After Russia, Canada has the world’s second largest landmass and so it seems to have plenty of room for more. Canada’s immigration policy is a cynical gamble, which has been described as ‘human quantitative easing.’ Last year its headcount rose by 700,000, just 200,000 fewer than the US – which has a population eight times as large. For ordinary Canadians, it is per capita GDP that matters – and this has shown practically no growth per capita during his administration.”

    “In major cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal, house prices are unaffordablly high for anyone who is not already on the property ladder. The average house price in Canada is C$754,800 (£440,000) – more than 11 times the average household income after taxes

    1. ‘Canada’s immigration policy is a cynical gamble, which has been described as ‘human quantitative easing’

      This is maybe the most dehumanizing term I’ve ever heard.

      2. My boss’s dad lives in Canada and has been in and out of the hospital this past year. My boss is appalled at the low quality of care in Canada. “Free healthcare” sounds good when you don’t need it, but when you do …

    2. Canadians have finally fallen out of love with Trudeau.

      And it only took 9 agonizing years. Better late than never, I suppose.

      1. And here is what it going to happen: the conservatives will win the election and do their best to right the ship. It won’t be great, but it will be far better than now. And once that happens the voters will throw the conservatives out and replace them with liberals. Trudeau might even return as PM.

  41. ‘The Bank of Mum and Dad has never played a bigger part in young South Australians securing their own home, with almost two thirds of homebuyers relying on family financing to achieve the Great Australian Dream…the percentage of first homebuyers seeking help from the Bank of Mum and Dad has jumped from just 3 per cent in 2010 to 59 per cent now. As if that wasn’t terrifying for parents, the average loan size for a deposit has increased from $23,000 in 2010 to a whopping $107,000 now. This is an increase of more than 365 per cent’

    Gosh, I hope no one overpaid in such an environment.

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