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A report from Realtor.com. “‘The market feels frozen in Colorado Springs,’ says Andrew Fortune, a real estate agent who says buyers and sellers are still adapting to the new post-pandemic normal. ‘Many real estate agents have moved on to other careers, as we have over 5,000 registered users in our MLS, but only around 1,000 homes sold every month.’ Southern California has remained slow, too. ‘Even though sellers have made price reductions and are motivated to sell, it hasn’t been enough to motivate the buyers to step into the market,’ says Cara Ameer, a real estate agent who works in both California and Florida. “Many are waiting for further interest rate decreases and remain ‘on hold.'”

“There is an influx of new inventory on the market, with 34% more homes actively listed in September compared with a year ago. The increase in pending sales and the increase in inventory ‘could signal that the window for major negotiation advantages may be narrowing,’ says Mike Wall, an agent with eXp Realty in Dayton, OH. ‘For sellers, it’s a reminder that there’s still demand, but you may need to be realistic about pricing to get deals done.’ ‘The 3.5% uptick in contract signings in September signals a cautious optimism among buyers who feel more confident about their ability to negotiate, despite high rates,’ says Scott Waters, a real estate agent in Glen Allen, VA. But the latest uptick in inventory is also a warning to sellers. ‘This is a wake-up call for sellers: Overpricing in a slow market won’t work,’ says Waters. ‘Contracts are being signed because sellers are finally bending on price. If this trend continues, buyers should expect more room for negotiation as the market rebalances.'”

Hawaii Public Radio. “Honolulu lawmakers have approved a controversial measure to establish an ’empty homes’ tax on Oʻahu. The Honolulu City Councilʻs Bill 46 would create a property tax on homes not occupied by long-term residents for at least six months out of the year. The empty home would be taxed at 1% of its tax-assessed value in the first applicable year, 2% for the second year, and 3% every year afterward. Oʻahu resident and business owner Roland Kuroda said he and his wife bought a second home that friends and family can use but is meant for their kids and grandchildren to eventually use as long-term housing. ‘ If I understand the bill as written, with our annual property tax plus the empty home tax proposed, we will have to pay $100,000 per year to keep the home in the use that I have right now. … I had to do (the math) over and over again because I couldn’t believe it,’ Kuroda told the council.”

WLRN in Florida. “Tim Johnson has owned his condo in Miami Beach for nine years. It’s about 900 square feet and has a balcony facing west. The building has 225 units. It was built in 1968. Johnson owns his unit outright. He does not have a mortgage. But he spends $1,200 a month on assessments. And that’s before his own insurance and property taxes. Johnson’s $1,200 in monthly fees for his Miami Beach condo is made up of two parts. The regular fee is $884, which he said was increased 26% this year. He also pays $315 a month for a special assessment. And he will continue to pay that for the next 15 years. It goes toward a $10 million project his condo association board approved about a year and a half ago. He thinks a portion of it goes toward building up the building’s budget reserves. ‘Since I’ve owned this apartment, there has been a special assessment almost the entire time, of one kind or another,’ he said.”

The Canadian Press. “Cleanup efforts are continuing on Florida’s west coast after two hurricanes made landfall in recent weeks. However, it appears Canadian snowbirds are divided on whether they want to stay or rethink their decision to own property in the state as worsening weather and surging property costs become a bigger fact of life. Martin Kinal, a Mississauga, Ont., resident, sold his Venice, Fla., vacation home earlier this year. Though his property is more inland and less susceptible to floods, he had a close encounter with Hurricane Ian. Kinal said one of his Florida neighbours decided to move to Arizona the following year because they realized ‘sooner or later, one will hit our area.’ ‘We decided to sell in May this year due to costs associated with keeping a vacation home in Florida,’ he said. ‘Since the pandemic hit, cost of everything seems to double.'”

“Ontario resident Ray Ferris, who owns a property in Treasure Island, Fla., says he’s concerned about what he will find when he heads south this winter. But he adds that he’s eager to get down there and help the city rebuild. Ferris and his wife spend two to three months a year at their vacation condo, which they bought in 2021, to escape the gloomy northern winters. For the rest of the year, they rent it out, but the latest storms could impact that. Ferris said renting out the condo helps keep up with condo fees, ongoing maintenance and insurance but he’s now worried he won’t be able to find renters. ‘We’re now concerned that nobody is going to vacation on Treasure Island, if it is in fact a ghost town,’ he said.”

Longview News-Journal. “The big cities of Texas attracted more home buyers than any other metro areas in the country during the pandemic, and housing prices exploded accordingly. Homes in Austin, Houston and Dallas fetched record valuations in 2021. But what came up also came down. Demand outstripped supply and expensive mortgage rates compounded the slide. Asking prices in Austin dropped by 10% between summer 2022 and spring 2023, the steepest decline in the U.S., according to RedFin. Neither the sharp price spikes nor the subsequent whiplash was felt in Longview.”

“In other states with low or no property taxes, rising values are a win for current homeowners. In Texas, however, high property tax rates can make sudden rises in property values painful if they outstrip growth in household earnings. ‘We don’t need to appreciate year after year in large numbers because we can’t keep up with the taxes that come associated with that,’ said Lori Keebaugh, who runs the Longview-based Keebaugh & Co. real estate brokerage. ‘Basically, if prices increase faster than what we’re moving up, we won’t have much movement in the market.'”

From Fortune. “Here’s a now not-so-funny joke from 2011. It’s a signed cartoon painting of three executives in the parking lot of a branch of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), all chasing little Dr. Seuss characters with ‘Yield 1’ and ‘Yield 2′ written on them. A reminder: SVB famously failed in March of 2023, at least in part, because it chased yield. SVB invested heavily in long-term bonds that offered slightly higher yields instead of safer short-term options, seeking a better return on investment from their deposits—’chasing yield.’ Then, when interest rates rose in 2022, the value of those long bonds plummeted, resulting in significant losses that made the bank unable to cover its deposits, sparking a bank run in the spring of 2023.”

“While regulators, skittish depositors, and the Federal Reserve’s rapid rate hikes have all been blamed for SVB’s collapse, Felda Hardymon, a veteran venture capitalist—and Ken Wilcox, who spent 30 years at SVB, including a decade as CEO between 2001 and 2011—both had a simpler explanation. As Wilcox put it in an interview with Fortune: ‘I just think it was bad judgment … which is the polite way of saying stupid.’ Hardymon claimed the painting was a joke about how he was always reminding SVB’s leadership not to chase yield when he was on the finance committee in the 2000s and early 2010s. ‘I can confirm that in the finance committee we were often pushing back on ideas to use deposits, to invest deposits in a more aggressive manner. Let me just put it that way,’ he said.”

“By the end of 2022, SVB had invested more than 90% of its held-to-maturity securities portfolio in mortgage backed securities, municipal bonds, and Treasuries with maturities of over 10 years. It was a big risk, all for a paltry 1.63% return. As the Fed raised interest rates the value of SVB’s long-term holdings quickly fell, leaving the bank with billions in unrealized losses and a liquidity problem that ultimately sparked a bank run. In other words, their investment went bad and they needed more money to operate. After years of warnings and inside jokes about chasing yield, crisis finally struck SVB on March 10, 2023. Just two days later, Hardymon received a message from Michael Descheneaux, SVB’s CFO from 2007 to 2017 and president thereafter until the bank’s failure. It read simply: ‘Sad days.’ The former SVB board member’s response? ‘Yes. You shouldn’t have chased yields. Hope you are okay.’ Descheneaux didn’t respond.”

Business Insider. “Richard Barkham, the chief global economist of commercial real estate investment firm CBRE, says he sees an upheaval of Class B office buildings — a segment of office properties that struggle to attract tenants, mainly due to being older and in need of renovation. These second-tier properties have vacancy rates as high as 80%, he said, predicting that many could be ripped down or transformed over the next decade. ‘The banks are going to have to dispose of that real estate,’ Barkham told Business Insider in an interview. ‘So we will see. I think over the next — and this will pay out over two to three years — I think we’ll see a wave of offices going back to banks, and I say, they’ll be firesold and either demolished or converted.'”

“A CBRE analysis of planned, ongoing, and completed office-to-residential conversions since 2016 estimates that 1.38 billion square feet worth of office space could be converted. Barkham said the evolution could take around a decade to fully take place in cities. Still, for landlords facing a glut of unwanted space, it could be worth it to try to covert it. ‘There’s a solid base of really badly performing offices that’s going to go bust over the course of 2025,’ Barkham added. ‘It’s quite clear that we don’t need as much office space in the United States as we did. You will see vacant buildings, and you will see see-through offices for some considerable time.'”

Silicon Valley in California. “An office tower in downtown Oakland and a nearby parking garage have landed a new owner in a deal that provides a forbidding new sign of a weak Bay Area office market. The 15-story highrise and its parking garage have been bought for no more than $99.6 million, according to documents filed on Oct. 10 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office. In 2019, Harvest Properties and AXA Investment paid $175 million for the office tower and the parking garage, Alameda County real estate documents show. At the time of that purchase, the Bay Area office market was riding a crest of tenant demand and investor optimism that helped to propel rents and values skyward.”

“That frothy exuberance began to dissolve in 2020 when government-ordered business shutdowns to combat the spread of the coronavirus chased away companies from countless workspaces, leaving office buildings empty. Even after government officials lifted the restrictive lockdowns, workers have returned to their offices at an uneven pace at best — and sometimes not at all. As a result, sky-high vacancies, faltering rents and a collapse in property values now haunt the Bay Area office market and its empty work sites. Office vacancy levels have reached record highs in the Bay Area’s three primary office markets, a new survey shows. In the July-through-September third quarter, San Francisco’s vacancy rate was the region’s worst, at 34.5%. Downtown Oakland had a 29.1% vacancy rate. Silicon Valley’s vacancy rate was 22%, reported JLL, a commercial real estate firm.”

Business in Vancouver in Canada. “The BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) is currently proceeding with at least 18 hearings against real estate agents and sub-mortgage brokers, alleging they worked with an unregistered broker and, in some cases, applied to lenders with fraudulent income documents, sometimes on their own behalf. At least two cases had gone to a hearing as of press time. Those cases revealed that the respondents had conducted business with former sub-mortgage broker Jay Kanth Chaudhary, who, between 2009 and 2018, allegedly arranged over half a billion dollars in mortgage loans with lenders based on falsified income records as an unregistered, so-called ‘shadow’ broker.”

“Last July, a BCFSA tribunal panel found realtor Rashin Rohani had bought five North Vancouver homes for herself using falsified income documents provided by Chaudhary. Rohani is appealing that decision, with a new hearing date to be determined. On September 25, realtor Qing Xing (Michael) He went before a tribunal to address allegations that he had submitted a mortgage application in July 2017 with falsified income information in relation to the purchase of his Surrey home.”

“BCFSA counsel alleged He knew of the false income documents submitted on his behalf by Chaudhary’s spouse Mana Erfani—a matter He contested at the hearing. Ultimately, He was able to acquire a $900,000 loan in 2017 having reported just under $30,000 of income in 2016, according to BCFSA counsel. As like Rohani, He has claimed he did not know Chaudhary provided lenders with false information, and said he did not know Chaudhary was unlicensed.”

“During testimony, counsel raised the name of sub-mortgage broker Shane Christopher Ballard as having worked with Chaudhary on He’s file. Ballard was issued a hearing notice on October 8, 2019, and is finally scheduled to appear before a panel on January 27, 2025. It is alleged by BCFSA that Ballard ‘submitted to lenders income and banking documents and employment information, including Notice of Assessments, T1 General Income Tax and Benefits Returns, Bank Account Statements, and Letters of Employment, in support of mortgage applications … when he knew or ought to have known that the documents and information were not genuine.'”

“Chaudhary was summoned to the Cullen Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in February 2021, where he admitted he systemically falsified mortgage applications. Chaudhary told the commission he understood his clients to be able to afford their mortgages because they often had undeclared income to sustain the payments. ‘Everyone wins and no one gets hurt,’ Chaudhary said at the time, adding that his conduct could have been prevented if lenders (such as banks) were able to verify income with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Chaudhary’s home was raided in 2018 by BCFSA investigators and police, where they found an Excel spreadsheet of his clients indicating he arranged $511 million in mortgages, generating $5.3 million in client fees from 875 files.”

News.com.au in Australia. “According to PropTrack’s automated valuation model, the majority of suburbs or towns in three states or territories experience a house or unit value decline over the past quarter. The data shows house or unit prices in 55 per cent of all Tasmanian suburbs or towns the company has data for dropped for the quarter, while 62 per cent of those in the ACT also experienced value drops. But the most challenged market was clearly Victoria, with 79.5 per cent, or 770 of the 969 suburbs it has data for, recording a value drop over the past quarter. The greatest value loss was for houses in Bronte, NSW, where prices are down $485,601 or 7.8 per cent over the past three months to a $5.733 median.”

“PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said seeing such mixed results across the nation was fascinating. ‘If we look at Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, were really seeing an excess of demand relative to the supply of homes for sale,’ she said. ‘That means it’s still a really competitive market for buyers, with buyers having to put in offers fast and put in competitive offers to be successful in buying a property. On the other hand in Melbourne, there’s a huge amount of properties for sale at the moment, so buyers have a lot more breathing room and can be a lot more conservative in putting their offers in and can take their time a little bit more compared to other markets.'”

“Edge Realty’s Mike Lao said Adelaide’s northern suburbs had traditionally been affordable, and still offered the state’s, and in some cases the nation’s, most affordable housing. However, like many other places around Australia, that was changing. ‘The growth has been extraordinary,’ he said. ‘When I started in 2008, houses in Davoren Park were between $100,000 and $200,000. In 2019 they were still $100,000 to $200,000 and now some of them are selling for more than $700,000.'”

“Retail manager Lawrence Chan, 33, and his supermarket supervisor wife Lilisha Malla, 27, have recently built a home at Davoren Park, in South Australia, and Mr Chan says he was happy to hear of the suburbs solid growth – with house values up 8.8 per cent for the quarter and 30.9 per cent over the past 12 months. ‘The [SA Government’s] stamp duty exemptions allowed us to bid higher and will really help get more young people into the market,’ Mr Chan said. ‘It’s a fantastic family-friendly area and I think there’s quite a bit of room for the suburb and prices here to grow yet.'”

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This Post Has 134 Comments

  2. The Fortune SVB article is worth reading in full

    ‘Homes in Austin, Houston and Dallas fetched record valuations in 2021. But what came up also came down…’In other states with low or no property taxes, rising values are a win for current homeowners. In Texas, however, high property tax rates can make sudden rises in property values painful if they outstrip growth in household earnings. ‘We don’t need to appreciate year after year in large numbers because we can’t keep up with the taxes that come associated with that’

    The California model of wealth creation was never going to work in Texas. But they tried it anyway.

  3. ‘Ferris and his wife spend two to three months a year at their vacation condo, which they bought in 2021, to escape the gloomy northern winters. For the rest of the year, they rent it out, but the latest storms could impact that. Ferris said renting out the condo helps keep up with condo fees, ongoing maintenance and insurance but he’s now worried he won’t be able to find renters. ‘We’re now concerned that nobody is going to vacation on Treasure Island, if it is in fact a ghost town’

    Ray and his wife are K-dn speculators looking for that sweet Florida equity.

  4. ‘bought for no more than $99.6 million…In 2019, Harvest Properties and AXA Investment paid $175 million for the office tower and the parking garage, Alameda County real estate documents show. At the time of that purchase, the Bay Area office market was riding a crest of tenant demand and investor optimism that helped to propel rents and values skyward’

    ‘That frothy exuberance began to dissolve in 2020 when government-ordered business shutdowns to combat the spread of the coronavirus chased away companies from countless workspaces, leaving office buildings empty’

    The media doesn’t talk much about this ‘frothy exuberance’ in office buildings. But it was real and is a big reason they are in such trouble now. Around 2018 IIRC, the WSJ had an article on appraisal fraud in CRE loans saying some were 30% inflated. It was based on a University of Texas analysis. That report was never discussed again.

    1. “Around 2018 IIRC, the WSJ had an article on appraisal fraud in CRE loans saying some were 30% inflated.”

      Those public pension funds et al needed a good screwing!

  5. ‘This is a wake-up call for sellers: Overpricing in a slow market won’t work’

    This is from Realtor.com! They aren’t part of the national UHS association, so it’s hard to know where they are coming from. Larry isn’t talking anything like this.

  6. The increase in pending sales and the increase in inventory ‘could signal that the window for major negotiation advantages may be narrowing,’ says Mike Wall, an agent with eXp Realty in Dayton, OH.

    1. Mike is a realtor
    2. Realtors are liars
    3. Buying now, even with so-called “major negotiation advantages,” would be a colossal mistake, as the downside risk for shack prices vastly outweighs any upside potential – especially if Comrade Kamala ends up being our next “selected, not elected” president.

  7. The empty home would be taxed at 1% of its tax-assessed value in the first applicable year, 2% for the second year, and 3% every year afterward.

    This needs to happen in every municipality where speculator scum are denying housing to locals.

  8. ‘ If I understand the bill as written, with our annual property tax plus the empty home tax proposed, we will have to pay $100,000 per year to keep the home in the use that I have right now.

    Cry me a river, speculator scum. Houses are for living in. Empty house owners need to be hit with punitive taxes for sitting on vacant houses and pricing legitimate buyers and renters out of the market.

  9. ‘Since the pandemic hit, cost of everything seems to double.’”

    How many of the sheeple understand the cause-and-effect relationship between an engineered public health “crisis” and the Fed flooding the financial system with created-out-of-thin-air “stimulus” deliberately intended to further enrich the already super-wealthy at the expense of everyone else?

    1. The alleged “virus” was merely incidental to the Big Government response to it, and for the young and healthy, has an infection fatality rate of ZERO.

      More people died from the phony “vaccines” than died from their alleged virus.

      When you see someone wearing a mask, safe to assume they are stupid (vote blue no matter who!) NPC’s incapable of having an independent thought.

    2. The sheeple would rather believe that “gouging” is the cause of CPI increases. Otherwise the gooberment would have to cut back spending and cancel programs, which means those checks they get could simply stop. From their perspective those checks, even if eroded by inflation, are better than no checks.

  10. A reminder: SVB famously failed in March of 2023, at least in part, because it chased yield.

    Any competent risk manager would’ve steered clear of SVB’s reckless and ill-advised yield-chasing strategy, but “wokeness” was the priority at SVB and countless other financial institutions. To add insult to injury, Yellen the Felon used FDIC funds to make the banks’ uninsured depositors – mostly high-net-worth libtards and Democrat Party donors – whole on their uninsured losses.

    https://www.businesstoday.in/silicon-valley-bank/story/get-woke-go-broke-silicon-valley-banks-top-woman-executive-lgbtq-activist-gets-targeted-for-lenders-failure-373067-2023-03-12

    2. “But, biased critics have hit out at Ersapah’s apparent preoccupation with LGBTQ+ issues. One Facebook user, Paul Tucker, wrote: The [SVB] Board of Directors is filled with diversity hires who are there because of their woke credentials. They all have pronouns in their bios, which are filled with corporate newspeak. I hope the depositors at this failed bank enjoy all of that diversity, because diversity is your strength, eh? He signed off the post: Get woke, go broke.”

      There’s no replacing meritocracy.

  11. “Many are waiting for further interest rate decreases and remain ‘on hold.’”

    Prices, not rates are the biggest concern. FOGS is becoming firmly entrenched.

  12. “According to PropTrack’s automated valuation model, the majority of suburbs or towns in three states or territories experience a house or unit value decline over the past quarter.

    But…but…muh generational wealth!

    1. These days, I’m sure Brandon’s handlers are putting his food in a blender so that he doesn’t choke on the pieces.

    1. We aren’t being told the whole story. Most likely Aussie builders borrowed lots of money to expand their business capacity, probably expecting interest rates to stay close to zero for the long haul.

      Then interest rates rose back to historic norms and paying customers shriveled up. The cost of servicing the debt on new trucks and equipment suddenly became onerous, especially as inflation ate into their margins. I’m sure those who stayed debt free are probably faring much better

      Dave Packard, one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard, once said that a lot of firms die of indigestion. Packard hated taking on debt and mentioned in his book “The HP Way” that he and Bill Hewlett passed up on some opportunities because it would have required borrowing lots of money. Unfortunately Dave and Bill are long gone, and those who have run HP since: cough, cough, Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd (RIP) went crazy with borrowing and acquiring other firms (cough, Compaq).

        1. Lew Platt was an engineer. He was Carly’s predecessor. He was described as stodgy and old school, while Carly was called a “rock star CEO”. HP was profitable under Platt and there were no layoffs.

          HP had it’s first quarterly loss and mass layoff under Carly’s watch. When she was fired people partied in the halls at HP. Unfortunately her replacement. Mark Hurd, was no better. He was fired for squeezing the Charmin’, and was hired by his tennis buddy Larry Ellison. Hurd began laying people off at Oracle, until he came down with some sort of cancer and passed away.

          Curiously, Carly also had a bout with cancer, though she survived. After getting axed at HP she was damaged goods. She tried getting into politics, but also cratered.

    1. Downtown Asheville has special bricks above head level on the corners of historic buildings to denote the high water mark of that flood. One interesting aspect of this whole situation is that the rivers were all at flood stage before the hurricane arrived because it had been raining for days already. Sites like Ventusky make it very easy to see how much rain will fall per hour from any storm and where it is going to hit, most of this could have been easily predicted. There are lots of well paid people across this whole region whose job it is to run the numbers. How did everyone fail so badly to understand what was going to happen? Unfortunately no one wants to discuss that so it is unlikely that much is going to be done to rectify it.

  17. Police in Portland prepping for election violence, regardless of who “wins” the election.

    Smells like Soros paychecks.

    1. Keep Portland Weird Dysfunctional.

      This is what the Left and the deep state want to do to the whole nation. I expect that a big chunk of the 20+ million “newcomers” are going to become professional rioters.

    2. The BLM-Antifa rent-a-mobs stopped showing up when they stopped getting paid to show up. I suspect the globalist oligarchs and “pass-through” organizations like Thousand Currents are gearing up to fund the REAL insurrectionists if Comrade Kamala loses by a big enough margin that even wholesale electoral fraud can’t alter the outcome.

        1. ummm good?

          If you’re still in a blue city at this point, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ve had 4 years of warning. It’s way past time to be gone.

  18. A reader sent these in:

    This person gets it. My parents in 1994 had 4 kids and one income and brought a brand new 2,200 square ft. House with an unfinished basement that put it over 3000 sq. Ft.

    It was on 1/4 acre and was bought on a single income. My dad had bachelor’s degree and no student debt.

    https://x.com/BankerWeimar/status/1845141863843397911

    Talk about options! Almost 60 active listings within a 1 mile radius in a rural town near Nashville.

    Other than housing shortage, what’s the first word that comes to mind?

    https://x.com/AustinWhittRE/status/1845192902307090461

    The message is that you actually want to sell your house.

    https://x.com/GayBearRes/status/1845188744074182798

    China says will ‘significantly increase’ debt to revive economic growth

    https://x.com/FirstSquawk/status/1845084404130918647

    “Oregon again says students don’t need to prove mastery of reading, writing or math to graduate, citing harm to students of color.”

    https://x.com/eyeslasho/status/1845103593897996521

    Are you ready to build your dream home in Florida????
    Well……
    Do your due diligence and don’t complain if you purchase a house built on a swamp.

    https://x.com/penske2005/status/1845074099468402902

    Fed should be selling off Treasury holdings, not just allowing runoff. Engaging in open market operations forces the Fed to engage with markets and ensures that banks evaluate the trustworthiness of other banks. Bring back specific reserve requirements instead of perpetuating regulatory ambiguity and calling for an “ample reserves” environment. Bad news when monetary officials control interest rates by dictate—through “administered” rates—rather than letting market forces of supply and demand for loanable funds determine interest rates and money supply.

    https://x.com/judyshel/status/1845092916022346125

    This is a pretty big deal

    NAR head economist Lawrence Yun just suggested 6% mortgage rates may be “the new normal”

    If that indeed proves the case, home prices are going to have to come down when/as transactions increase

    https://x.com/menlobear/status/1845277794886091189

    1. “Oregon again says students don’t need to prove mastery of reading, writing or math to graduate, citing harm to students of color.”

      Ignorance is Strength!

      Orwell warned us.

    2. Fed should be selling off Treasury holdings, not just allowing runoff.

      The problem is: who would buy them?

      We are clearly approaching the tipping point, where the Fed will be essentially funding all future deficit spending.

      If you think we have a cost of living crisis now …

    3. When i went to college, avg rates were in the teens (late 80’s) by the time I bought a house (with multiple roommates mind you) I think it was like 9%. Which I thought was very reasonable. Next house (03) was 5.125% (no points, no fees, I miss countrywide0, and I thought that was a smoking deal. And this was when deficits were a few hundred million (or even zero, late 90’s).

      now? And if NAR think it’s “normal” it’s probably going way higher.

    4. “NAR head economist Lawrence Yun just suggested 6% mortgage rates may be “the new normal”

      Historically 6% is a great rate. Prices, not rates, are the problem.

    5. NAR head economist Lawrence Yun just suggested 6% mortgage rates may be “the new normal”

      Mortgage rates should probably be in the 8 to 10% range or more to account for risk due to over-indebtedness of families, their employers and their local and state governments.

      2. On Reddit, there was a 20yo living at home in WA thinking he could buy an investment property in Las Vegas for passive income with only 3% down. It’s crash time.

  19. More families are taking on debt to pay for groceries

    You’ve likely been tempted to use Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) on a pair of designer sneakers or during a spending flurry during the holidays. But what about to put food on the table? It turns out that tapping into payment plans and other forms of debt to pay for groceries is more common than you think.

    According to a report released by the Urban Institute, many US households are tapping into payday loans, BNPL, credit card debt, and their savings to cover living essentials. Breaking it down, 60.5% of adults resorted to credit card spending, 19% had to pull from their savings and 3.5% covered their groceries with Buy Now, Pay Later.

    The spike in the cost of essential goals, particularly groceries, can cause low-income folks who are experiencing food insecurity to get into a debt cycle.

    “While we see the inflation rate slowing, in 2023, when we collected this data, families were paying over 25% more for food than they did before,” says Kassandra Martinchek, a senior research associate with the Center of Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute.

    With food being the third largest household expense–behind housing and transportation — more families are feeling the financial strain.

    https://www.salon.com/2024/10/12/more-families-are-taking-on-debt-to-pay-for-groceries/

    1. I”ve said this before but if you go to walmart (or any grocery store) the last day of the month it’s completely and heavily stocked and it’s a ghost town. Nobody has any money left (EBT reloads 1st of the month for most states).

      1. I posted a report from bay aryans a few weeks ago that had a similar situation. It was an ‘advocate’ saying it was easy to get the bums into the shelters near the end of the month because they didn’t have any money left until the first. Then they could buy drugs again and didn’t want to go to the shelter. Guberment is paying bums to be there.

          1. That’s another advantage of private owned versus socialist media. I’ve said what I want for 20 years. We are the internet.

    2. “According to a report released by the Urban Institute, many US households are tapping into payday loans, BNPL, credit card debt, and their savings to cover living essentials.”

      Probably NO dental check-ups and cleanings.

      1. I had a root canal a few weeks ago. The total cost was about $1400, of which I paid about $300, and the rest was covered by my insurance. For the lest fortunate, I expect such a tooth would simply be removed.

  20. Oakland negotiated a richer deal for the Coliseum. Then Mayor Sheng Thao’s opponents pounced

    Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao recently announced new terms of the deal to sell the city’s share of the Coliseum that appeared to include wins for the city: The price went up $15 million, the closing date moved a year sooner and the buyers agreed to help the city retire millions of dollars of debt on the facility.

    Yet, after Thao’s announcement, her opponents criticized the new deal as a ploy to deceive voters as the mayor faces a recall vote, pointing to a walk-away date for the buyers, a group of local Black developers and investors, that falls one day after the election.

    “One of the terms of the deal is that they can walk away in November, get out of the deal and just terminate the deal completely the day after the election,” said Loren Taylor, who ran unsuccessfully against Thao in 2022. “If that doesn’t raise eyebrows, I don’t know what does.”

    Thao and the buyers have denied that the November date has anything to do with the election.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/oakland-negotiated-a-richer-deal-for-the-coliseum-then-mayor-sheng-thao-s-opponents-pounced/ar-AA1s94MN

    1. No one is going to buy that white elephant.

      Maybe in 2000 years it can be an archeological landmark, like the Roman Coliseum. Future archeologists will find old Gatorade bottles in an abandoned locker room and wonder what they were.

      1. White elephant or not, but Bill Graham put on the best Day on The Green concerts there that will never be duplicated. I was lucky to attend quite a few and have the hearing loss to prove it. Damn I’m old.

    2. That whole deal is sketchy AF. Essentially the negro consortium missed their first scheduled payment and had to come up with a good story to get things delayed. The problem is the city needed the funds on the original schedule to avoid downsizing. The Mayor is trying to sell it as a win but it is really a giant fail. It is my understanding that the friendly negroes still have not actually made the payment yet. I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding. 🙂

  21. Assisted suicide lawsuit uses Charter challenge to go after Charter right to MAID

    A new lawsuit argues that the expansion of access to assisted suicide for disabled people in Canada actually violates the Charter rights of Canadians with disabilities.

    The legal battle will likely answer a key question: Are the Charter rights of disabled people best protected by eliminating their access to assisted suicide or by allowing disabled people to seek MAID if their suffering is intolerable?

    The lawsuit, filed by a coalition of disability activists — and two people with disabilities themselves — argues that allowing people with disabilities to die violates the Charter protections available to all other Canadians and may induce them to end their lives prematurely, based solely upon their disability.

    A 2019 Quebec court case, which led to the legislation the lawsuit is tackling, acknowledged the fears of disability activists but concluded that restrictions limiting assisted suicide only to those who are dying imminently was a “flagrant contradiction of the fundamental principles concerning respect for the autonomy of competent people.”

    “MAID is portrayed as a no-fail, painless way to alleviate suffering which may incentivize death over other options,” the new lawsuit argues. “Death should not be a solution for disabled people who experience intolerable suffering but are otherwise not at the end of their lives.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/assisted-suicide-lawsuit-uses-charter-challenge-to-go-after-charter-right-to-maid/ar-AA1sbqt4

    1. There is little doubt that the PTB want to cull the herd and have many tools at their disposal: collapsing birth rates, mRNA jabs, the fentanyl/opioid crisis, and now in the more progressive societies they are legalizing medically assisted suicide.

  22. Mayoral candidate Keith Wilson says he can end unsheltered homelessness. Critics raise doubts

    Years before running for Portland mayor, Keith Wilson began traveling the country and overseas to learn how other municipalities significantly reduced the number of people camped out on city sidewalks, in public parks and under bridges.

    The more Wilson learned about homelessness, its root causes and its potential solutions, the more discouraged he was with Portland’s situation. He became convinced that with enough shelter beds and tighter enforcement of a citywide camping ban, it would be possible to end unsheltered homelessness in his city.

    “We can fix this,” Wilson said to applause. “For less than a 10th of what we’re currently spending, we could care for our community members.”

    At the root of Wilson’s belief is his certainty that people living outside will respond to repeated offers of shelter by eventually choosing warmth and safety.

    While Wilson would prefer to avoid the threat of jail as a primary motivator to get people into shelter, he said by email that he believes some arrests will be necessary to enforce the city’s laws. Still, he thinks that if people are told firmly that they must stop camping in a certain spot and simultaneously offered shelter, most will honor the “social compact” of that request.

    Andy Goebel, chief executive of Sunstone Way, which operates three village-style shelters, a motel shelter and a congregate shelter in Portland, said he has been impressed with Wilson’s willingness to listen to feedback and adjust course. Goebel has run shelters out of church basements – one of the things Wilson thinks Portland should do more – and believes they can provide a helpful first step to bring people inside.

    “It is appropriately aggressive,” Goebel said of Wilson’s plan. “I think it would be a good addition to what we already are doing as a city.”

    State law only allows exceptions to the notice rule in cases where there’s “illegal activities other than camping” or “immediate danger to human life or safety.”

    Wilson said he believes Portland police should be more frequently executing the faster camp removals that would be legal under those exceptions. To do so, Wilson said by email that arrests will likely be necessary, at least initially.

    “The threat of arrest or actual arrest is an important piece to ensure the community understands our codes are meaningful,” Wilson wrote to The Oregonian/OregonLive. “Because we have not enforced our camping ordinance for so many years, it will take time and most likely arrests.”

    Wilson believes the need for shelter will lessen as people are moved into housing – much of which still needs to be built – or leave town when camping on Portland’s streets is no longer “fostered” by the city.

    “When you foster the behavior of somebody living in a tent and (with) addiction, it’s really hard for people to recognize that it might be time to come in,” he said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mayoral-candidate-keith-wilson-says-he-can-end-unsheltered-homelessness-critics-raise-doubts/ar-AA1s9j2A

    1. At the root of Wilson’s belief is his certainty that people living outside will respond to repeated offers of shelter by eventually choosing warmth and safety.

      Most of those people are destroyed and cannot kick their addictions. Most will reject a bed in a flophouse because it will come with conditions they will refuse to meet.

      1. One thing they never talk about is getting the hard drugs off the street. Here where I live they charge the dealers with murder and have ordinances that allow them to go to drug houses, pull the occupancy permit and board them up. Often times they even demolish the home if it racks up too many incident reports. They handle nuisance bars in the same manner. We still have the problems but they don’t take over the whole city they are kept in check. With that said, we still have a jaw dropping number of OD deaths here. That is another thing the western cities don’t discuss much, they try to gloss it over.

        1. With that said, we still have a jaw dropping number of OD deaths here.

          Part of the plan to cull the herd

          1. “Part of the plan to cull the herd”

            Nobody will miss these conniving, thieving, drug users other than their mothers.

  23. As attitudes toward immigrants shift, this Ottawa shelter is just trying to keep them warm

    Ashley Potter looks through a rack of donated winter clothing, where there are more than a few Ottawa Senators jerseys hanging amid the winter coats and sweaters.

    Soon, new immigrants to Canada might find themselves supporters of Ottawa’s hockey team.

    “We have to make sure that we’re getting people dressed properly to be able to brave the elements of their first Canadian winter,” Potter told CBC Radio’s The House.

    Rexford has been sleeping at the Mission for the last five months. CBC has agreed to use only his first name because, as a refugee claimant, his immigration status is under review and he worries it will affect his asylum claim.

    He fled Ghana after the country passed a law in February making it illegal to identify as 2SLGBTQ+. He arrived in Ottawa in May.

    Rexford came straight to the Ottawa Mission from the airport and started his life in Canada by sleeping on the shelter’s chapel floor. He’s currently on a waiting list for housing.

    While the Mission is committed to helping anyone in need who comes to their door, new arrivals like Rexford displace existing vulnerable clients, Potter said. Many suffer from addiction and struggle even more when there’s no room at the shelter.

    “They’re not going to put the time into waiting in line for what could be many hours to be able to see if they access a bed,” Potter said. “They try to go to another shelter, or we see them just using [drugs] out on the street.”

    Over the last two years, Potter said, the shelter’s responses to overdoses have gone up 500 per cent. Sometimes, those overdosing are people who are “new to the country and they’re very optimistic and they want to get to work,” Potter said.

    “And then, you know, two, three months later, I see their name on an overdose report,” he said. “I can only imagine what the journey was from optimism to despair to now seeing addiction coupled with it.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/as-attitudes-toward-immigrants-shift-this-ottawa-shelter-is-just-trying-to-keep-them-warm/ar-AA1s9TLc

    1. “We have to make sure that we’re getting people dressed properly to be able to brave the elements of their first Canadian winter,” Potter told CBC Radio’s The House.

      Whoa, whoa, whoa! I thought all these people were future doctors and astronauts. Are you now telling me that Canada has been importing millions of unemployable and semi-illiterate sponges who will be suckling at the taxpayers’ teat for the rest of their lives?

  24. Stellantis is having a tough year. Here’s a look at all the issues facing the automaker.

    Stellantis has been in the news a lot lately, but not in ways that please shareholders, company executives, rank-and-file workers and most others with a connection to the company.

    No, it’s been a noisy, turbulent and troubling year for the automaker that owns the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands, and the future isn’t exactly clear. Stellantis, which celebrated its third anniversary in January following the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot, is already shopping for a new CEO.

    Stellantis has seen both sales and market share decline, a trend underway before this year. Stellantis ended 2023 as an outlier among its competitors for its sales losses, and its market share declines dropped below not only General Motors, Toyota and Ford but also South Korea’s Hyundai. Since then, Stellantis has seen consecutive quarterly reports of 20% or more in declining sales in the United States, and the company recently dropped below Honda in market share as well. That seems significant for a company that includes the Chrysler legacy and one of the most valuable brand names in the industry in Jeep.

    Stellantis’ eye-popping profits last year — almost $20 billion and an 11% bump from the year prior — helped secure a $39.5 million total compensation package for CEO Carlos Tavares, who is now under fire as those profits have dropped significantly from the same period in 2023. The company also recently lowered its financial guidance for the year.

    Those high profits, which made Stellantis such a standout, are one of the issues that Stellantis’ U.S. dealers raised in their blistering letter in September calling out Tavares over the direction of the company. The dealers wrote that they’d been sounding the alarm for years.

    They attributed “reckless short-term decision-making” in order to secure those profits as leading to the “rapid degradation” of the company’s American brands. The company, in response, touted some recent improvements in market share and sales and in reducing inventory, which has become a big drag on the company. It also scolded the dealers for airing their grievances publicly.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/stellantis-is-having-a-tough-year-heres-a-look-at-all-the-issues-facing-the-automaker/ar-AA1s8Nhj

    1. They attributed “reckless short-term decision-making” in order to secure those profits as leading to the “rapid degradation” of the company’s American brands.

      Dodge, Ram and Jeep were junky long before the merger with Fiat. And given the current prices, trucks are now a hard sell.

      A few years ago one of my neighbors bought an RV. He told me that we was thinking of trading in his current truck, a Silverado with the small V8, for something with a bigger engine (for towing the RV). He still has the Silverado, which is about 10 years old now.

    2. They haven’t really developed anything new (in a long time),
      they shut down most of the V8 powered goodness being their one main differential with others
      Their prices are crazy high. (70k for a jeep? GTFOH)
      Their quality still sucks.

      And now interest rates are high, it’s hard to finance people and their entries are not interesting. If you are just going to sell boring crap that looks and drives like everything else, well I might as well buy a Honda or Toyota.

      1. “Their prices are crazy high. (70k for a jeep? GTFOH)”

        Yep, $95k for a diesel pickup truck, and they’re losing money!

  25. Clare Muldoon has delivered a scathing assessment of Keir Starmer’s first 100 days as Prime Minister, labelling his administration an “utter omnishambles” on GB News.

    The commentator suggested that Starmer should step aside and allow Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner to take the helm. Muldoon’s criticism comes as the Labour government faces mounting challenges, including a donations scandal and staffing issues.

    Her remarks reflect growing public dissatisfaction, with recent polls indicating a significant drop in Labour’s popularity since taking office on 5 July. Muldoon also claimed that 63 per cent of Britons now have “buyer’s remorse” over the Labour government.

    These challenges have contributed to a lack of public confidence, with Muldoon asserting that the situation is “worse than when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown took over” following Labour’s last landslide victory.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/keir-starmer-told-to-step-aside-and-let-angela-rayner-take-over-as-gb-news-guest-lets-rip-at-labour-omnishambles/ar-AA1s9fwS

    1. Her remarks reflect growing public dissatisfaction, with recent polls indicating a significant drop in Labour’s popularity since taking office on 5 July.

      Well, that honeymoon didn’t last. Not to worry, UK voters, you can throw those bums out in 2029

  26. The European project is approaching a tipping point. A combination of political paralysis, external threats and economic malaise is threatening to end the European Union’s ambitions to become a global force in its own right — pushing member states toward defending their own interests instead.

    After decades of warnings and sub-par growth, the region’s leaders are suddenly confronting a barrage of evidence that decline is becoming unstoppable.

    France’s europhile president has surrendered veto power over his government to the far right; Germany’s biggest carmaker is talking about shuttering factories at home for the first time ever; US tech giants are turning their backs on the European market because of its new restrictions on artificial intelligence.

    Those developments all underpin the EU’s failure to act as a cohesive and dynamic economic bloc, eroding its status and degrading its capacity to respond to a wide range of threats from Chinese industrial policy to Russian military aggression, or even a future antagonistic administration in the US.

    Recent apathy or pushback by governments after former Italian premier Mario Draghi’s wake-up call for more investment and common bonds to combat feeble productivity growth underscore how the region has all but given up trying.

    “If you wanted to be a geopolitical power, then economic might is the key ingredient,” says Guntram Wolff, a professor at the Free University in Brussels and senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank. “Productivity growth has just been a disaster. Europe is still rich, but these differentials over 20 years have massive implications.”

    The fundamental problem is that the world is experiencing the dramatic shifts of climate breakdown, demographic change and the move to a post-industrial economy — all phenomena where Europe’s ability and willingness to respond are lagging.

    “Something is changing very, very dramatically and very, very deeply in this world,” former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said in an interview. “We can’t react correctly, because we are too slow.”

    “I really believe we are at risk,” French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this month on a panel in Berlin. “In the two to three years to come, if we follow our classic agenda, we will be out of the market. I have no doubt.”

    It’s not just euroskeptics like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, a perennial thorn in the bloc’s side. Officials in core European countries are starting to view the EU as an obstacle they need to get around — rather than the source of prosperity and protection it has represented until now.

    The EU’s relative decline has been unceasing over the quarter century since monetary union. An analysis by Bloomberg Economics shows that the bloc’s economy would be about €3 trillion ($3.3 trillion) bigger if it had kept pace with the US — enough to boost the income of the average worker by about €13,000 a year.

    “The foundations on which we built are now being shaken,” Draghi said in the introduction to his report. “This is an existential challenge.”

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-almost-time-defend-place-080028521.html?guccounter=1

    1. And don’t forget net zero edicts from Brussels that would seriously curtail agricultural production, because reasons. On the bright side, they’re going to be a lot thinner.

      As bad as things are here, when I look at the EU I realize it could be a lot worse.

  27. Just shy of nine years ago, Justin Trudeau led his Liberals to a majority government with 39.5 per cent of the popular vote. Today, depending on which poll you prefer, the Liberals have lost a shade less than half of that support. Where did it go, and why?

    Liberal support began leaking during Mr. Trudeau’s first four-year term. The result of the ensuing election was a minority Liberal government. Since the last election, in 2021, which produced another minority, the Liberals have tried many tricks in the political book and unveiled a range of policies designed to meet social needs, as the party sees them, and to tickle the electorate’s fancy. Politically speaking, nothing has worked. The party has at most one year left before the next election to avoid a crushing defeat. Recently, the Liberals lost by-elections in seats they had long held in Toronto and Montreal, a harbinger of electoral disaster.

    Observers of politics will point to a number of issues and decisions that have soured about 80 per cent of the voters on the Liberals, including the obvious fact that 60 per cent of those who voted in 2015 chose other parties. Presumably, they never liked the Trudeau Liberals in the first place, and what they have since seen has left them still unimpressed. It’s the voters who have left the Liberals in the intervening decade who have imperilled the party’s hold on power. Many factors explain this decline, among which four stand out. Call them the Four “I”s: Incumbency, Inflation, Immigration and Identity.

    Too many years in office affronts the deepest sentiment in politics: time for a change. Democracy, after all, is about change: of leaders, policies, approaches. Issues change, challenges change, personnel change. What seems like a defensible policy today gets overtaken by events: to wit carbon pricing designed to induce people to alter car-buying-and-driving habits in the name of lowering emissions, something economists would draw up from their textbooks. Except that in the wake of COVID-19, many products’ prices rose and stayed high so that a refundable carbon tax – and the carbon tax is refundable – gives too many Canadians sticker shock. The same reaction helped to do in Conservative prime minister Joe Clark in 1979, whose minority government imposed an excise tax on gasoline to nudge consumers to change their habits. A lot of consumers-cum-voters changed the government instead so that the Liberals won in 1980. Circumstances changed; government policy did not.

    Any government makes decisions that segments of the electorate dislike. They err, sometimes in small and superficial ways, but with the media and opposition parties alert to pounce and often exaggerate, these mistakes make for injurious headlines that stick in voters’ memories. The nicks and scrapes of political debate take their toll. The government’s mantra to “control the message” turns ministers into cardboard mannequins, spouting lines that make them, and their government, seem on autopilot. We’ve heard that a hundred times, voters might say of a government whose repetitions deaden rather than energize. Everything in modern politics presents the paradox of governments endlessly struggling, usually unsuccessfully, to get the public’s attention by using the same language, slogans and clichés, as if by repetition alone can a message be conveyed. Government therefore seems formulaic, and no one suffers from the resulting boredom factor more than the prime minister who remains constantly in the spotlight. After a while – there is no defining moment – the public gets weary and irritated, having heard it all before, looking for someone if not better then at least new.

    The first of the “I”s is therefore incumbency, the constraints of which grow tighter with time and the escape from which becomes more difficult with every passing day. British prime minister Harold Macmillan coined a phrase that morphed into a cliché. What did you worry most about, he was asked. “Events, dear boy, events.” He might have replied, “Time, dear boy, time.”

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-blame-the-four-fatal-is-of-justin-trudeau-for-the-lacklustre-state-of/

    1. Canuck voters bought his “something for nothing” promises, and what they got instead was hardship and tyranny. It took them 9 years to figure it out. Better late than never I suppose.

  28. Trump’s secret fanbase: NY Democrats crave his win to take heat off their failures

    Former President Donald Trump is gaining in swing-state polls — and you can bet one group is secretly pleased: New York’s elected officials.

    The city’s Democrats use big, bad Trump as a cartoon foil to district the public from their own failures.

    Last week, Trump announced a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, two weekends before Election Day.

    State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, whose Manhattan district includes MSG, immediately lodged a complaint via Trump supporter Elon Musk’s X.

    “Allowing Trump to hold an event at MSG is equivalent to the infamous Nazis rally at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939,” Hoylman-Sigal whined.

    The rally will “endanger the public safety of New Yorkers and has the potential to incite widespread violence . . . I demand The Garden keep our city safe by cancelling the Trump rally.”

    This “demand” — ignored by MSG — is rich.

    It’s not that Hoylman-Sigal is wrong: Voters in his district are terrified about “public safety” and “widespread violence.”

    It’s just that they know these crises have nothing to do with Trump.

    How’s the crime rate in Manhattan’s 14th precinct, which includes MSG?

    So far this year, the area has suffered four murders, twice the number seen by this time last year. In 2022, over the same time period, it clocked six murders.

    That makes an average of three killings annually every year through early October since early 2020, when New York City abruptly became more dangerous.

    For the previous decade, for comparison, the average number of annual murders in the district through each fall hovered between one and two.

    Three of this year’s murders were on or near 8th Avenue, in a stretch of five blocks from 38th to 43rd Streets — minutes from MSG. The fourth killing was at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue, just off the MSG property line.

    The victims included a 22-year-old woman stabbed on the avenue around 10:00 p.m. in June and a 55-year-old man stabbed by a fellow resident of a “supportive housing” hotel in July.

    Felony assaults in the area, at 409 in 2024, are higher than at any time since at least 1998. They are nearly three times 2019’s levels.

    This year’s assaults include the stabbing of a tourist on 8th Avenue by a supportive-housing resident with a long arrest history and the shooting of another tourist by a migrant shoplifter.

    Anyone who walks 8th Avenue regularly knows that The Post is right to call it the “strip of despair.”

    Until five years ago, police would have intervened in drug dealing, drug use, public drinking, disorderly conduct and menacing before it escalated to felony assault or murder.

    Now people are sometimes arrested — but they get put right back on the street, as judges release suspects without bail.

    We can forget about deterring lower-level crimes: Petty larceny, at 3,347 incidents year to date, is the highest it’s been in a decade, 45% higher than in 2019.

    National Democrats tell us that the big rise in crime after 2020 was an aberration, an artifact of COVID-19 lockdowns.

    Maybe — national crime data is inconsistent — but one thing is sure: It’s not an aberration in the area Hoylman-Sigal represents.

    And much of the change is due to policies he supports: Easing up on using the criminal-justice system to incapacitate criminals, while ignoring the fact that New York is still failing to use the mental-health system to handle some of them instead.

    But it’s easier to play off Trump.

    Gov. Hochul does it, too: In August, she used her speech at the Democratic National Convention to castigate Trump as a “fraud, a philanderer, and a felon. He wasn’t raised with . . . New York values.”

    Her rhetoric deflects attention from her failure to deal with the migrant crisis and the subway-murder crisis — nine this year, five times the pre-COVID level — and New York’s continued loss of middle-income residents.

    But this “Look! Trump!” tactic may not be working so well anymore. Voters are tired of Democrats shouting “Trump!” to divert attention from the mess they control.

    https://nypost.com/2024/10/13/opinion/trumps-secret-fanbase-ny-dems-distracting-from-failure/

    1. While watching some college sportsball yesterday, I saw an anti-Trump ad that basically said he would get us into WW3 and that he was too dangerous to be the commander in chief. There also had some neocons denouncing him as dangerous.

      It’s a good thing my eyeballs are firmly attached to my head, as they might have fallen out as I rolled them.

      1. Libs on Twitter/X are starting to “speculate,” that Vance will 25th Trump as soon as he takes office. They are planting the seeds of VDS already.

          2. Yes, Vance Derangement Syndrome. Liberal Twitter is becoming more shrill by the day. Their newest narrative is that DJT has dementia and Vance is going to exploit that to take over and execute Project 2025.

          3. I am not sure what your message here is but I am a Trump supporter and I do not believe he will be vulnerable to a coup; although if assassination attempts keep up , one may succeed. In no way can I be accused of VDS which I did not know meaning of that term until now what you meant!

          4. I am a Trump supporter and I do not believe he will be vulnerable to a coup

            As am I and I agree. Only a fool would betray Trump like that.

          6. Like Pence?

            What’s he doing now? FWIW, I suspect Pence was forced on Trump by the Republican establishment so I don’t consider Pence’s decision on J6 to be a betrayal. Vance pulling the 25A would be.

  29. Poland: Tusk plans to suspend right to asylum

    Faced with a new wave of illegal border crossings from Belarus, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reportedly pledged a “merciless” fight against illegal migration. Tusk also called for suspending the right to asylum.

    Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Saturday announced plans to temporarily suspend the right to asylum. The move aims to limit the number of people crossing the country’s border with Belarus and seek refuge in the European Union.

    Over the past three years, Poland — a NATO member and EU state — has accused Belarus and Russia of helping thousands of migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, to try to enter to country via the EU’s eastern flank. Warsaw has labeled it a “hybrid attack.”

    Polish news agency PAP reported that Tusk told a party congress of his liberal Civic Coalition (KO) that his government plans a new migration strategy to help wage a “merciless” fight against illegal immigration.

    “I’m saying loud and proud that our migration strategy will include the temporary suspension of the right to asylum on our territory,” he added.

    The prime minister didn’t expand on the plans, but vowed that “the state must regain 100% of the control over who enters and leaves Poland.”

    Tusk pointed to the alleged misuse of the right to asylum “by [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko, by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, by smugglers, human smugglers, human traffickers.” which he said was “completely contrary to the actual essence of the right to asylum.”

    Tusk, who is the former president of the European Council — the Brussels-based body that steers the EU’s political direction — added that Warsaw would also “demand recognition in Europe for this decision.”

    Referring to the bloc’s new asylum and migration pact, which seeks to establish a bloc-wide asylum policy, he warned: “We are not going to respect or apply any European idea that… hinders our security.”

    Poland and the Czech Republic this week demanded tougher restrictions than those laid out in the new EU pact, which is due to take effect in 2026.

    Tusk said he would present his migration strategy to the Cabinet on Tuesday, telling delegates that “we will reduce illegal migration in Poland to a minimum.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/poland-tusk-plans-to-suspend-right-to-asylum/ar-AA1s9HXj

    1. Tusk also called for suspending the right to asylum.

      Right to asylum? Have government leaders lost their minds? Asylum is a privilege, a gift. No one has a right to it. If there is a right to asylum then over half the world can claim to have the right to move to the USA.

      Anyway, I’m glad Tusk has come to his senses.

  31. Another man arrested at a TRUMP California Rally , with two guns. The man said he wanted to kill the President. So, is that attempt number 3?

    I noticed from the picture that they have a bullet proof clear screen in front of Trump now. So, they better watch out for drones coming from the top.

    2. At the moment it appears to be fake news. Either it wasn’t a real attempt, or it’s a false flag/set up of some kind.

      1. How social media assassination conspiracies are uniting pro- and anti-Trump voters
        22 September 2024
        Marianna Spring
        Disinformation and social media correspondent
        BBC / Getty Images A composite image showing Donald Trump in the centre, with a streak of blood across his face after shots were fired at him, while in the background are images of Camille tinted in Democrat blue and Wild Mother in Republican red.
        BBC / Getty Images

        Wild Mother – the online alias of a woman called Desirée – lives in the mountains of Colorado, where she posts videos to 80,000 followers about holistic wellness and bringing up her little girl. She wants Donald Trump to win the presidential election.

        About 70 miles north in the suburbs of Denver is Camille, a passionate supporter of racial and gender equality who lives with a gaggle of rescue dogs and has voted Democrat for the past 15 years.

        The two women are poles apart politically – but they both believe assassination attempts against Mr Trump were staged.
        …
        https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvglm0rjy2go

    4. https://nitter.poast.org/TheChiefNerd/status/1845609237088739505#m (w/ 1m28s video):

      NOW – Sheriff Chad Bianco Slams Reporters Trying to Downplay Trump’s 3rd Assassination Attempt

      “He showed up with multiple passports with different names, an unregistered vehicle with fake license plate and loaded firearms. If you’re asking me right now, I probably did have deputies that prevented the third assassination attempt…And I’m going to be accused of being dramatic? We have a serious, serious problem in this country because this is common sense and reason.”

      1. “…multiple passports with different names…”

        This is no easy deal especially if they’ll work at the airport.

  32. ‘There’s a solid base of really badly performing offices that’s going to go bust over the course of 2025,’ Barkham added. ‘It’s quite clear that we don’t need as much office space in the United States as we did. You will see vacant buildings, and you will see see-through offices for some considerable time’

    The problem of oversupply/obsolescence had been there for a long time, but who knows how many years minor respiratory illness commies sped it up?

  33. ‘“Last July, a BCFSA tribunal panel found realtor Rashin Rohani had bought five North Vancouver homes for herself using falsified income documents provided by Chaudhary’

    A realtor, no!

    ‘He was able to acquire a $900,000 loan in 2017 having reported just under $30,000 of income in 2016’

    More sound K-dn lending!

    ‘he admitted he systemically falsified mortgage applications. Chaudhary told the commission he understood his clients to be able to afford their mortgages because they often had undeclared income to sustain the payments. ‘Everyone wins and no one gets hurt,’ Chaudhary said at the time, adding that his conduct could have been prevented if lenders (such as banks) were able to verify income with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)’

    Whoa there Jay, we don’t like yer verifying when it comes to financing igloos and doublewides up here! So yer saying these are NINJA loans.

    ‘Chaudhary’s home was raided in 2018 by BCFSA investigators and police, where they found an Excel spreadsheet of his clients indicating he arranged $511 million in mortgages’

    Is that a lot for one spreadsheet?

  34. ‘The growth has been extraordinary,’ he said. ‘When I started in 2008, houses in Davoren Park were between $100,000 and $200,000. In 2019 they were still $100,000 to $200,000 and now some of them are selling for more than $700,000′

    Yer saying it is different this time Mike.

    ‘The [SA Government’s] stamp duty exemptions allowed us to bid higher and will really help get more young people into the market,’ Mr Chan said. ‘It’s a fantastic family-friendly area and I think there’s quite a bit of room for the suburb and prices here to grow yet’

    That’s the spirit Larry and Lilisha, you are destined to be rewarded fer yer overbidding by becoming winnahs!

    1. Economy
      Inflation rate hit 2.4% in September, topping expectations; jobless claims highest since August 2023
      Published Thu, Oct 10 2024 8:32 AM EDT
      Updated Thu, Oct 10 2024 11:33 AM EDT
      Jeff Cox

      KEY POINTS

      – The consumer price index increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both were 0.1 percentage point higher than forecast.

      – Excluding food and energy, core prices rose 0.3% on the month, putting the annual rate at 3.3%. Both core readings also were 0.1 percentage point above forecast.

      – Initial filings for unemployment benefits took an unexpected turn higher, hitting as seasonally adjusted 258,000 for the week ending Oct. 5, the highest total since Aug. 5, 2023.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/10/cpi-inflation-september-2024.html

      1. What’s worse: Higher-than-expected core inflation, or higher-than-expected initial claims for unemployment?

    2. Do you worry overoptimistic stock traders would freak out if the soft landing scenario collapsed, putting overvalued stocks at risk of a hard landing on the bottom of the CR8R?

      1. Markets
        A 32-year market vet shares 5 labor market indicators showing the US economy is barreling toward a recession — putting an overvalued stock market at risk for major declines
        William Edwards
        Oct 12, 2024, 2:00 AM PDT
        trader yell angry upset phone
        Reuters

        – The September jobs report exceeds expectations, adding 254,000 jobs and boosting investor confidence.

        – But Jon Wolfenbarger says trends still point to a recession ahead.

        – This is while S&P 500 valuations remain high, putting the market at risk for big declines.
        …
        https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-recession-warning-signs-job-market-indicators-unemployment-2024-10

    3. Markets
      A portfolio manager at a $21 billion firm warns the odds of a recession have risen to 40% from 20% as inflation and geopolitical concerns surge — and shares where he’s investing
      Christine Ji
      Oct 12, 2024, 3:08 AM PDT
      NYSE Traders working during the opening bell.
      JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images

      – Some economists and strategists are increasingly confident that the US economy will avoid recession.

      – However, Zehrid Osmani is raising his recession odds over the threat of rising inflation.

      – The Martin Currie PM shares 4 stocks he believes will be resilient during this period of volatility.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-odds-rising-inflation-geopolitcal-concerns-surge-investing-strategy-volatility-2024-10

    4. The Sahm Rule: What It Is and What Investors Need to Know

      The Sahm Rule is a simple rule of thumb for detecting the early stages of a recession – and it was recently triggered.
      By Scott Ward
      Reviewed by John Divine
      Sept. 27, 2024
      Benjamin Franklin face on USD dollar banknote with red decreasing stock market graph chart for symbol of economic recession crisis concept.
      Getty Images|iStockphoto

      Claudia Sahm developed the Sahm Rule back in 2019 to help policymakers detect a recession.

      Consumers don’t care for negative surprises. That’s why so many companies affix carefully worded warning labels on everyday goods, ranging from hot coffee cups to hand mixers. And for safety reasons, it’s also why Van Halen buried article 126, also known as the no-brown-M&M’s rider, in their performance contract in the 1980s – the article served as Van Halen’s tripwire: If a concert production crew failed the M&M’s test (a simple snack requirement), they couldn’t be trusted to implement the band’s detailed, precautionary stage requirements.

      Informally, the Sahm Rule functions as a warning label for investors who are on the lookout for a recession. Here’s a bit on how it’s calculated and why it’s relevant today:

      What Is the Sahm Rule?

      The Sahm Rule was developed by economist Claudia Sahm back in 2019 to provide policymakers with a general framework with which to forecast a recession. Its application is quite simple: When the three-month average for the U.S. unemployment rate increases by 0.5% or more from its 12-month low, a recession is looming.

      If you’re a believer in the Sahm Rule, you’ll be displeased to know that those conditions were triggered on Aug. 2, when the Labor Department reported an unemployment rate of 4.3%, surpassing the unemployment rate’s 12-month low by 0.53%.

      Looking back over recessions over the past 70 years or so, the Sahm Rule has a good track record for lining up closely with recessions, although it’s not always exact. But for the 11 recessions between 1953 and 2020, the Sahm Rule triggered every time within eight months of the recession’s onset. On 10 of those occasions the rule was triggered after the onset of the recession.

      To her credit, Claudia Sahm promptly clarified the rule’s current application in a Bloomberg opinion piece on Aug. 7: “The U.S. is not in a recession, despite the indicator bearing my name saying that it is. The Sahm Rule, which was triggered with Friday’s weaker-than-expected jobs report, joins a long list of economic tools skewed by the unusual disruptions of the past four and a half years.” She added, “That said – and I say this with a mixture of humility and concern – the Sahm Rule is still relevant. The risk of a recession is elevated, strengthening the case for the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.”
      …
      https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/what-is-the-sahm-rule

    5. The most well-known recession indicator stopped flashing red, but now another one is going off
      By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN
      4 minute read
      Published 6:00 AM EDT, Fri September 13, 2024
      When this economic phenomenon happens at that same time as the Federal Reserve cutting rates, a recession tends to kick in not long afterward.
      Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg/Getty Images

      New York CNN —

      For much of the last two years, the 2-year US Treasury yield has traded above the 10-year yield. When that happens, it historically has meant a recession is looming. So you’d think that investors and economists would have celebrated last week when that warning sign stopped flashing.

      Yet red flags are now being raised over the fact that Treasury yields are moving back in a direction that’s considered “normal.” (Yes, you read that correctly.)

      When the 2-year Treasury yield trades above the 10-year, it’s a phenomenon known as an inverted yield curve, meaning investors see the more immediate future as more of a risk than farther out. That’s because, when risks are elevated, investors will demand a higher payout, or yield, to invest in US Treasury notes.

      After Friday’s jobs report, which showed the unemployment rate edged down slightly in August and employers continued to hire fewer workers compared to the prior years, the 2-year yield fell below the 10-year, resulting in an “uninverted” yield curve. But that inflection point didn’t happen suddenly. The expectation of lower rates, which investors have been pricing in for months now, have caused shorter-duration yields like the 2-year to move down.

      The jobs report, along with the release of mostly positive August inflation data this week, added more certainty that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates at its meeting next week — and also raised the likelihood of further cuts at later meetings this year.

      But there’s a problem with that. When the yield curve, which is the difference between the 10-year and the 2-year, turns positive, or uninverts, right before the Fed starts cutting interest rates, a recession tends to kick in not long afterward.
      …
      https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/13/economy/inverted-treasury-yield-recession-indicator/index.html

      1. Market Valuation: Is the Market Still Overvalued?
        by Jennifer Nash, 10/4/24

        Market valuation indicators are used by investors and analysts to gauge whether markets are overvalued, undervalued, or fairly valued relative to historical norms. Here is a summary of the four market valuation indicators we update monthly.

        – The Crestmont Research P/E ratio (more)

        – The cyclical P/E ratio using the trailing 10-year earnings as the divisor (more)

        – The Q ratio, which is the total price of the market divided by its replacement cost (more)

        – The relationship of the S&P composite price to a regression trendline (more)

        To facilitate comparisons, we’ve adjusted the two P/E ratios and Q ratio to their arithmetic means and the inflation-adjusted S&P composite to its exponential regression. Additionally, we’ve plotted the S&P regression data as an area chart type rather than a line to make the comparisons a bit easier to read. It also reinforces the difference between the line charts — which are simple ratios — and the regression series, which measures the distance from an exponential regression on a log chart. Thus the percentages on the vertical axis show the over/undervaluation as a percent above mean value, which we’re using as a surrogate for fair value.

        Based on the latest S&P 500 monthly data, the market is OVERVALUED somewhere in the range of 103% to 170%, depending on the indicator, up from last month’s 98% to 164% range.
        …
        https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2024/10/04/market-valuation-is-the-market-still-overvalued

      2. Having seen the market extremely overvalued for such a protracted period of time, does it seem difficult to imagine it reverting to more normal valuation levels or worse?

    1. This is pretty old news by now.

      No big deal. We’re witnessing another party switch it seems. Similar to what happened in 1912-1920 or so.

      1. The Democrats moved to the far left, abandoning the center.
      2. The Republicans, led by DJT, also moved to the left to recapture that center.
      3. The far right Republicans, that is, the traditional warmongers, are now party orphans.
      (a) The warmonger are oining the Dems out of spite. e.g. the Cheneys and Kristols, or RINOs like Adam Kinzinger.
      (b) The traditional Rs, who were very polite losers, are seething in silence as Nevert DJTers, e.g. Pence.

      It’s going to take another 5-10 years to sort it out.

      1. It’s not about D vs R. It’s about Marxist Globalist vs Nationalist. We don’t have 5-10 years for this to “sort out.”

    2. he Democratic Party now stands for the values of Dick Cheney and John Bolton and that can’t be my party anymore.

      And those two neocons insist the DJT is “dangerous”.

      1. Liberal twitter/X likes to use that narrative too, i.e. “Well Bolton and 90% of DJT’s old cabinet is against him so he’s literally you-know-who.”

        But DJT supporters already know that these old characters were RINOs who stabbed DJT in the back years ago. DJT is done with them. I think that’s why libs had to revert to the dementia narrative.

        Also, lib X loves to complain about how Elon turned their beloved twitter into a right-wing misinformation platform. Which is funny — my doomscroll feed is 60% left-wing crap.

  38. JD let Martha Raddatz have just enough rope to do the job before he pulled the floor out from under her.

    ‘Do you hear yourself’: JD Vance slams ABC News anchor

    Oct 13, 2024

    “I’m going to stop you because I know exactly what happened. I’m going to stop you. The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns. A handful of problems,” she said.

    Vance quickly shut down Raddatz’s comments, with him defending Trump’s comments and slamming Vice President Kamala Harris.

    “Martha, do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris’ open border,” Vance said.

    https://youtu.be/lLAXSub78Tg?si=uo3wOHQHq_Md0grP

  40. Gnarly broken leg video. You’ve been warned.

    MLFootball
    @_MLFootball
    WARNING: GRAPHIC🚨

    #Lions star Aiden Hutchinson appears to suffered one of the most gruesome leg injuries we have ever seen.

    No leg is meant to go in certain directions.

    💔🙏

    Brutal.
    From
    Jeff Mueller, PT, DPT

    6:32 PM · Oct 13, 2024
    ·
    https://x.com/_MLFootball/status/1845593495681069168

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