They Need $4-Million To Get Out And They’re Not Worth $4-million
It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Wildfires spared Tim Scanlon’s Altadena home as of Wednesday afternoon. But the music licensing executive worried that the firestorms rampaging across Los Angeles County still will affect his pocketbook, pushing already rising insurance premiums even higher. ‘After this, who knows if I’m insurable anymore,’ Scanlon said. ‘If we can’t get insurance up here, our property values will plummet, and in California, that’s our nest egg.'”
“Even before the fires were sparked, millions of homeowners in the Golden State, especially those in the path of the L.A. infernos, faced double-digit insurance-rate increases, nonrenewals or a dearth of any available private coverage. State Farm last year announced plans to nonrenew 30,000 property policies in California, including 69% of those in Pacific Palisades. Brett Dedeaux, whose house went up in flames, wondered Wednesday, ‘What’s going to happen to insurance now.’ Dedeaux, a commercial real-estate developer who built the home seven years ago, said few home insurers were willing to offer coverage in fire-prone areas. ‘Does it even make sense to own a house here when the insurance is so much?’ It was an attitude echoed by some of the area’s prominent residents. Actor James Woods posted on X that a major insurer ‘canceled all the policies in our neighborhood about four months ago.'”
“As the market for documentaries and other content slowed and work dried up in Hollywood, producer Kourtney Gleason was already worried about making the mortgage payments on the home she bought last year with her boyfriend. Now, as raging fires have halted film and TV production in Southern California and many in the industry have lost homes, she’s terrified that the entertainment business will be set back yet again. Though she’s been in the industry for 12 years, Gleason is now reluctantly looking at restaurant jobs to get by. The complications with fire insurance, combined with the region’s problems with housing affordability and supply, will only be exacerbated by these fires, said Kevin Klowden, executive director of the Milken finance institute, leading some to reconsider whether they can stay in California. ‘It adds up,’ he said. ‘How many more people decide they can’t afford to stay?'”
“A Braintree couple has joined the list of more than a dozen people suing the owner of Success Real Estate weeks after he abruptly shuttered the business. Stacey and Christian Ballerino filed a lawsuit in Norfolk Superior Court this week against Stephen Webster, who had real estate offices in Marshfield and Braintree. Webster last month abruptly closed the real estate business, which employed approximately 140 agents. According to the lawsuit, Webster and Success have faced ‘serious financial difficulties’ in recent years due to a slowing real estate market, outdated business model and overleveraged expenses. In order to fund the business and his own life, Webster started borrowing money from friends, business associates and agents who worked for him. The lawsuit states that he received the loans by falsely representing that he would have the ability to repay them in full.”
“‘In actuality, Webster obtained these loans no different than a ‘Ponzi’ scheme as he was simultaneously embezzling over $1 million from Success’ coffers in order to fund business operations and support his extravagant personal lifestyle,’ the lawsuit reads. The Ballerinos are also seeking an ex parte real estate attachment of $157,000 on three properties owned by Webster to prevent him from selling the property while the lawsuit is ongoing. “
“Southwest Florida builder Beattie Development has collected dozens of lawsuits and millions of dollars in debt. He has left many with unfinished homes and drained bank accounts. In September, we told you Beattie said his company was in $11 million of debt. In October, in a liquidation court hearing, he blamed the downfall of his company on his CFO. Since then, dozens of customers have filed what’s called a ‘proof of claim.’ It’s a way to try and get some of their money back. The Lee County Clerk of Courts website shows 48 proof of claims filed. Others not listed on the website also say they filed. Those asking for money are homeowners and subcontractors, even the City of Cape Coral filed a proof of claim.”
“David Bucci, a former customer of Beattie Development hopes for results after filing the claim saying, ‘Anything is better than nothing.’ Bucci said he knows, he probably won’t get much. ‘We just don’t think there’s just crunching the numbers and doing the math real fast. We don’t think there’s going to be, I mean, he’s $11 million in debt. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything left. You know, it’s just like, I don’t know. We’re just gonna have to see how that pans out. But I just don’t think the money is there,’ Bucci said. It’s still a mystery where the money went. As of now, Paul Beattie is no where to be found. Neither is the money. “
“Fairfax County has tens of thousands of federal workers and a huge government contracting sector, leaving it vulnerable to potential spending cuts from the incoming Trump administration. Trump tapped business leaders Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body that will find places to cut government spending. The president-elect said in December that federal employees who did not return to the office would be fired, and in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in November, the DOGE team wrote that the wave of terminations such a policy would ignite would be ‘welcome.'”
“There are also expectations that the Trump administration could again try to move some agencies out of the D.C. region, as it did under the last administration. ‘I actually had a nightmare about the DOGE. I’m not kidding you,’ Cityline Partners Managing Director Donna Shafer said said at the Bisnow event. ‘I have no idea what the impact will be, when, how, how much, but it definitely keeps me up at night.'”
“Canada’s lacklustre real estate market may see a rebound in 2025, Bay Street forecasts, but so far buyers in the Toronto area are not bringing the heat. The homes that have been sitting tend to be built on speculation, says Patrick Rocca, broker with Bosley Real Estate. Builders bought teardowns a couple of years ago as interest rates and construction costs were climbing, he says. Meanwhile, home prices have softened. The sellers insist on setting an asking price that will give them a profit on their investment but the market has shifted, Mr. Rocca says. ‘They need $4-million to get out and they’re not worth $4-million.’ One such builder consulted Mr. Rocca, who evaluated the house at about $3.4-million. The seller listed with another agent for $3.9-million. ‘It hasn’t sold,’ says Mr. Rocca. ‘That’s one of dozens.'”
“Work on Tadpole Garden Village began just over a decade ago and it has since seen hundreds of homeowners move in. Recently, a sign welcoming visitors to Tadpole Garden Village and advertising Crest Nicholson’s involvement in its construction has had a smaller notice stuck onto it which highlights problems with the area. It lists unfinished and unmarked roads, ‘non-existent’ street lighting, building and construction material dumped ‘on every corner,’and sewerage that is ‘not fit for purpose.’ One unhappy neighbour told the Adver: ‘Residents have had enough of the countless broken promises by Crest! We need to hold these building firms accountable.’ This is not the first time that these issues have been raised.”
“The average Australian property investor will lose money in their first year, with those in the nation’s two largest capitals likely to be more than $23,000 out of pocket in just 12 months. With a mix of stamp duty and land tax outstripping rental returns and major capitals thought to be approaching home value peaks, in many cases it could be years before landlords turn a profit. Property Investors Council of Australia director Ben Kingsley’s figures show that after 12 months owning a $937,289 investment in Melbourne, out of pocket expenses are likely to leave an investor there $26,798 in the red — the worst figure in the country.”
“In Adelaide the $811,059 typical house purchase would leave an investor $17,144 out of pocket a year on, while in Brisbane there would be a $5114 shortfall after investing in the city’s $937,479 median home price. ‘If your capital gains return is 5-6 per cent in Sydney, those numbers look okay,’ Mr Kingsley said. ‘But we know Sydney has run out of puff. And Melbourne is retreating.'”
“A liquidation petition was filed against indebted developer Sunac China Holdings in Hong Kong amid its efforts to restructure its offshore debt for the second time, marking the latest drama for China’s cash-starved property sector. Sunac’s Hong Kong-listed shares slumped 21 per cent to HK$1.38 at the noon break on Friday, after falling nearly 29 per cent in the morning session. The company has told some of its bondholders that it may not be able to meet deadlines for repayment on a dollar bond maturing in September, which was part of the first tranche of the restructured notes.”
“More than 700 billion yuan (US$95.5 billion) worth of property bonds are due for repayment in 2025, down from the 770 billion yuan that matured in 2024, according to the China Academy Index. But home sales of the top 100 developers in China fell 28 per cent in 2024 from a year earlier, according to data compiled by the China Real Estate Information Corporation. A series of bond defaults led to a surge in liquidation lawsuits in 2024 with a total of 13 cases – all related to property bonds – entering the courts, according to a report published by S&P Global Ratings in November. No cases ‘were able to settle out of court,’ as the property downturn and slowing growth pushed defaulters into deeper distress, while about 56 per cent of legal cases related to defaulted property bonds remain unresolved, the ratings firm said.”
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Realtors are liars.
‘It lists unfinished and unmarked roads, ‘non-existent’ street lighting, building and construction material dumped ‘on every corner,’and sewerage that is ‘not fit for purpose.’ One unhappy neighbour told the Adver: ‘Residents have had enough of the countless broken promises by Crest! We need to hold these building firms accountable’
This is in the Swindon newspaper so I guess that’s where unhappy neighbour is being schlonged. It’s in the UK.
God save the king!
Carl Benjamin, aka “Sargon of Akaad,” is based in Swindon.
As for the Tadpole Garden Village, it looks really really nice on Google Maps. Googling around, yes, some of it was under construction in November of 2002, but as of May 2024 it looks finished. I see a lot of street lamps, and some road signage too.
‘‘Does it even make sense to own a house here when the insurance is so much?’ It was an attitude echoed by some of the area’s prominent residents. Actor James Woods posted on X that a major insurer ‘canceled all the policies in our neighborhood about four months ago’
This is what I was saying about insurance and mortgages yesterday. When the SHTF you find all sorts of things shouldn’t have been.
At least it was cheaper than renting*
* My renter’s insurance policy went up 60% on the last renewal, and I don’t live in a “Wildland-urban interface” environment. Must be some combination of inflation, price gouging, and the consequences of living adjacent to a sanctuary city where fentanyl and meth are now legal.
“This is what I was saying about insurance and mortgages yesterday. When the SHTF you find all sorts of things shouldn’t have been.”
– This quote is about the stonk market, but I would say generally applies to all asset classes and especially in asset bubbles. For example, market crashes are when we find out about Ponzi schemes, since no new investors.
“You never know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.” – Warren Buffett
– Oh yeah, there’s a lot of mortgage fraud out there, but I’m told that “it’s different this time.” I think that there’s a lot of fraud out there in everything right now.
– Property insurance has been the elephant in the room that nobody wanted to talk about. Well, that elephant just became visible again… 🐘
– Socialism / DEI / ESG is working out well, as per usual…
“If socialists understood economics they wouldn’t be socialists.” – Friedrich Hayek
“In practice, socialism didn’t work. But socialism could never have worked because it is based on false premises about human psychology and society, and gross ignorance of human economy.” – David Horowitz
“When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice;
when the wicked rule, the people groan.” – Proverbs 29:2
“They sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind. – Hosea 8:7
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H L Mencken
“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.” (Every country has the government it deserves.) Lettres et Opuscules Inédits (1851) (letter of August 15, 1811). – Joseph de Maistre
“The government you elect is the government you deserve.” – Thomas Jefferson
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” – Benjamin Franklin
I think this current fire with it’s vast destruction of homes shows that any smart insurance company would have exited years ago considering that many areas with houses are extremely vulnerable.
When it was decided that Pacific Palisades et al were not going to clear their excess Chaparral resulting from the previous year’s precipitation the insurance companies decided to deny renewal of property policies.
“When it was decided”
Wait, did the City Council, or whatever local government, actively decide not to clear the brush, and then publish that decision publicly? That is much more tangible than “but buh muh climate change.”
By the way, there are aerial photos of a totally destroyed neighborhood making the rounds on the interwebs. I found the place on Google Maps from the shape of the streets. It’s the Pacific Palisades Village Green neighborhood, bordered by Bestor Blvd on the north and Sunset Blvd on the south.
actively decide not to clear the brush
This has been going on for decades all throughout CA so it feeds the climate change narrative.
It’s a code enforcement issue for property owners that the county is not enforcing, IIRC. Plus there’s insurance company requests for metal roofing and vents, closed-off soffits, etc., or there’s no policy offered.
Lots of owner-occupancy fraud!
Prop13 windfall? [no pun intended]
Denied insurance claims.
‘As the market for documentaries and other content slowed and work dried up in Hollywood, producer Kourtney Gleason was already worried about making the mortgage payments on the home she bought last year with her boyfriend. Now, as raging fires have halted film and TV production in Southern California and many in the industry have lost homes, she’s terrified that the entertainment business will be set back yet again. Though she’s been in the industry for 12 years, Gleason is now reluctantly looking at restaurant jobs to get by’
Well it’s still cheaper than renting Kourtney.
“Though she’s been in the industry for 12 years, Gleason is now reluctantly looking at restaurant jobs to get by.”
Yeah, I’m sure that’ll take care of that $7000 mortgage payment.
“Though she’s been in the industry for 12 years, Gleason is now reluctantly looking at restaurant jobs to get by.”
– “Do you want fries with that?” 🍔 🍟 🙃
I wonder if they’ll let her wear a badge that says, “I have a 7k mortgage…please tip accordingly.”
In some kitchens dishwashers don’t get tips.
Dave Ramsey say NEVER buy a house if you are not married….now she will find out how serious the BF was. maybe Karma will get you…..go woke go broke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oPDfEKf2pQ
I tell this to every teenager and young adult I can, especially the girls.
Do not
1. Buy a house
2. Have a baby
3. Quit a career job to relocate*
unless you’re married.
You can extract yourself from almost any other situation. But these are expensive life-altering decisions. I tire of these idiot Millenials women who say “oh, like, we don’t believe in marriage, it’s just a piece of paper, we don’t need it, we’re a team, we’ll never break up.” Sure honey, go ahead and FA. When you hit the wall at age 40-45, you’ll FO. I’m hoping that GenZ will do better.
———–
*I’m distinguishing between a career and a McJob. If you have a successful career and then quit to relocate to “be with him,” you might never be able to replace that job.
so true. never understood the baby mama syndrome, playing on our sympathies for being a single mom. OK if he died in a car accident or a heart attack but that is so rare, its all on purpose.
I have always had very good luck with cat ladies, and always proud to be called a cat man..
recently started building a house
‘marking the latest drama for China’s cash-starved property sector. Sunac’s Hong Kong-listed shares slumped 21 per cent to HK$1.38 at the noon break on Friday, after falling nearly 29 per cent in the morning session. The company has told some of its bondholders that it may not be able to meet deadlines for repayment on a dollar bond maturing in September’
I guess they are still playing the charade that the gringos are going to get their money back. This ‘dollar bond’ thing was hailed as yet another mastermind financial innovation at the time by globalist scum media, like bloomberg. Now everybody is fooked and they have to pay lawyers to try and get back pennies on the peso.
The only valuable asset on this property is the wooden cross hanging on the wall:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3041-Hunter-Fish-Camp-Rd-Marianna-FL-32446/45287659_zpid
This place is much better than the one you posted yesterday, Joe! (not that it’s good overall… I’m not too familiar with this type of property)
Almost 6 acres for under $100K. Well, septic, and electrical lines across the street. 3 miles from a Tractor Supply and 6 miles from a super Wal-Mart. The land needs some cleanup, but it’s not in terrible condition. Not sure I like the alligator pond. Also I’m not sure about the neighborhood.
If you’re a prepper-retiree with money to spare who wants to live quietly in the South and hunt and fish on your own land, this might be a good place. Tear down the freaky “mobile home with a attached wrap around structure,” plop down a small prefab cabin, stock the pond, and live the life. You can probably do it for $250K, and a lot of retirees have that in house equity.
Although, I’m sure someone could find a better property for the same price.
Nice job staging the place!
‘Webster last month abruptly closed the real estate business, which employed approximately 140 agents. According to the lawsuit, Webster and Success have faced ‘serious financial difficulties’ in recent years due to a slowing real estate market, outdated business model and overleveraged expenses…‘In actuality, Webster obtained these loans no different than a ‘Ponzi’ scheme as he was simultaneously embezzling over $1 million from Success’ coffers in order to fund business operations and support his extravagant personal lifestyle’
All Time High Larry.
Poor little rate daters. When will the schlongings cease? 10yr closing in on 4.8. Hello 8% mortgage rates.
+1
That must have been fun all those FB parents explaining to their kidz that Christmas wasn’t happening this year, because they had to buy now or be priced out forever.
At least it was cheaper than renting.
“That must have been fun all those FB parents explaining to their kidz that Christmas wasn’t happening this year, because they had to buy now or be priced out forever.”
– Realtors have no fiduciary responsibility that I’m aware of. I don’t think they can be sued for giving bad advice or guidance, but someone please correct me here if I’m wrong. They’re not certified financial planners, for example; they’re salespersons looking to preserve their (ridiculously high) sales commission. Think used car salespersons and you won’t be far wrong. Caveat emptor.
That reminds me of a news story from the housing crash. In ~2005 a Latino/Hispanic realtor was selling homes to other Latino/Hispanics. In the news segment, the realtor would bring the patriarch to a McMansion. The patriarch took one look at the house from the front yard and said “yes I’ll take it, do it up,” and the realtor did the deal on the hood of his car. The patriarch was probably envisioning housing his entire clan there, and throwing memorable parties with such Joy. My guess is that the patriarch was signing a NINJA IO/Neg-am mortgage with a short 1-2 year grace period before full amortization kicked in at the adjusted interest rate (remember those?). Which is the only way he could afford such a house. It appeared to be a typical deal for the realtor.
A couple years later there was a follow up. This same realtor’s clients were calling him back up. They had of course fallen behind on the mortgage and were asking the realtor “can’t you do something for me, maybe talk to the bank.” Of course, they all thought that mortgages worked on handshakes and “my brother” type friendships. Ha. Welcome to America.
The difference between a 7% and an 8% 30-year mortgage rate might resemble the difference on the Richter scale between a magnitude 7.0 and magnitude 8.0 earthquake. What is it…. ten times as powerful?
“What is it…. ten times as powerful?”
https://sciencenotes.org/richter-scale-and-earthquake-magnitude/
Richter Scale and Earthquake Magnitude
This entry was posted on July 19, 2023 by Anne Helmenstine (updated on July 30, 2023)
“The Richter scale is a logarithmic scale that measures the magnitude of an earthquake, originally developed by Charles F. Richter in 1935. It provides an objective measure of the energy an earthquake releases by quantifying the seismic waves produced. Prior to the invention of the Richter scale, the severity of earthquakes was subjective, often described based on the damage caused or eyewitness accounts, making comparisons across events and over time challenging.”
“Because the Richter scale is logarithmic, each whole number increase in scale is a 10x increase in the amplitude of the seismic waves.”
– BTW, in the economic equivalent, and because of the huge debt load in the U.S. currently – both public and private – higher interest rates are kryptonite here. For example, the U.S. .gov is facing higher interest payments on the national debt as the debt continues to grow. The situation is similar for consumers with high debt also. Even low rates are a problem in a highly leveraged world. High rates = game over.
all depends on the 10yr bond yield. It is up to 4.766% today. If it goes up to 5% and sticks a few months, i am afraid that mortgage rates will get up to 7.5% or more.
Commercial RE will tank badly (much more than today), and then residential with a 1 to 2 yr lag.
Bad news in a lot of big cities
Bad news in a lot of big cities
And lots of properties already selling for 50% or less than prior sales price.
Gonna get even uglier. IIRC Chicago already stated they had a $1B deficit.
Does it seem like Santa Ana conditions have developed in the stock market?
S&P down 1.6% less than an hour after opening.
“This sucker could go down” — George W. Bush
This sucker could go up…in smoke.
Long buttered popcorn.
Fidelity SPAXX has been dropping like a rock too. It was near 5% in the beginning of October; now it’s just above 4%.
Fartcoin popped $0.78 yesterday to $0.84 now, an annualized gain that is, some might say, incalculable.
Missed the boat, eh? We’ll throw you a life jacket and help you back into the boat when it hits $0.87.
Barrons
Markets | The Barron’s Daily
Global Bonds Infected By Soaring U.S. Treasury Yields. The Fallout for Stock Markets and 5 Other Things to Know Today.
L.A. wildfires projected to be costliest In California history, Musk lowers the bar on government spending cuts, and more news to start your day.
Jan. 10, 2025 7:07 am ET
It seems as though when the U.S. sneezes, the world catches a cold. The financial malady of the season is soaring bond yields and Uncle Sam looks like patient zero.
…
https://www.barrons.com/articles/bonds-treasury-yields-stock-market-and-what-to-know-today-36826fe3
Yahoo Finance
JOBS REPORT
US jobs market blows past expectations, adding 256,000 jobs in December
LIVE
Updated 8 mins ago
Yahoo Finance
Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq sell off amid jobs report surprise, inflation worries
Karen Friar and Hamza Shaban
Updated Fri, January 10, 2025 at 7:27 AM PST 2 min read
US stocks plunged on Friday as investors digested a final 2024 jobs report that blew past expectations on hiring, raising more uncertainty about the path of interest rates this year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 1.3%, or over 600 points, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) tumbled 2.3%, leading the sell-off. The three major gauges have erased all year-to-date gains to stand below where they started the year.
…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-sell-off-amid-jobs-report-surprise-inflation-worries-143101557.html
You have to admire the bond vigalantes’ ability to sniff out news indicating higher inflation ahead before it is even reported.
Yahoo Finance
Bloomberg
Bond Selloff Exposes ‘Vulnerability’ in Markets, El-Erian Says
Ye Xie
Fri, January 10, 2025 at 7:14 AM PST 1 min read
(Bloomberg) — A resilient labor market signals the US is leading the global economy, and high US bond yields put pressure on others like the UK, according to Mohamed El-Erian.
US Treasuries sold off across the curve, sending 10-year yields to the highest since 2023, after the job report showed the employment in December advanced by the most in nine months.
“It confirms, one, the economy remains solid, and two, the US continues to meaningfully outperform other advanced economies,” El-Erian, president of Queens’ College Cambridge, said on Bloomberg Television following the job report. “That theme of dispersion is going to become really important as we go forward.”
The US bond selloff is spilling over to other markets. The UK 10-year yield extended an increase after the release of the US job data, pushing up borrowing costs and risking a doom loop for the public finances.
“The US leads a global bond selloff,” said El-Erian who is also a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, adding that higher yields is exposing weaknesses around the world.
…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bond-selloff-exposes-vulnerability-markets-151414954.html
Financial Times
US employment
Treasury yields jump after US jobs report smashes expectations
Bank of America says ‘gangbusters’ figures will dash hopes for further Federal Reserve rate cuts
Chart of US employment growth
Friday’s figures showed the US unemployment rate was 4.1%, compared with 4.2% in November
James Politi in Washington and Harriet Clarfelt in New York 6 hours ago
The US economy blew past expectations to create 256,000 jobs in December, sending yields on US government debt lurching higher as traders and banks trimmed their forecasts for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
The figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday exceeded the consensus forecast from economists polled by Reuters of 160,000 and was above the downwardly revised 212,000 positions added in November.
Treasury yields climbed as investors bet the Fed will be slower to cut interest rates this year. Futures markets pushed back the expected timing of the first quarter-point rate cut to September from June before the data release. The odds of a second cut this year fell to about 20 per cent from roughly 60 per cent.
…
“Friday’s figures showed the US unemployment rate was 4.1%, compared with 4.2% in November”
That’s awesome! Looks like the unemployment rate is decreasing, and the recession which normally follows a yield curve inversion didn’t happen this time…kind of like how the Southern California rainy season didn’t happen this year.
Barrons
Feature
Bond Yields Are Nearing 5%. What That Means for the Stock Market.
The latest surge in yields came in response to a stronger-than-expected employment report for December.
By Jacob Sonenshine
Jan. 10, 2025 3:14 pm ET
It’s off to the races for bond yields. That could easily mean more declines for the stock market.
The 10-year Treasury yield has popped to almost 4.8%, up 1.2 percentage points from a major low point hit in September. It got a boost Friday morning after the December employment report beat expectations, showing the U.S. added more jobs in December than in November, with gains in a variety of industries. It was the latest in a series of economic releases, including higher inflation data, that makes the Federal Reserve less…
https://www.barrons.com/articles/bond-yields-5-percent-stock-market-5ca09b79?siteid=yhoof2
Note that this article does not once mention open borders. Not once.
The Hill — U.S. overdose deaths far outpace other countries (1/9/2025):
“The United States has the highest rate of drug overdose deaths out of 30 countries, according to a new report from the health nonprofit the Commonwealth Fund.
There are multiple reasons why the U.S. has far more overdose deaths than any of the other nations examined in the report.
One possible reason is that other countries have more harm reduction essentials like Naloxone access and drug consumption rooms than the U.S., according to Evan D. Gumas, the research associate at The Commonwealth Fund responsible for the report.
Another is that the U.S. has a larger supply of fentanyl than the other countries listed in the report.”
^ So close, but you JUST CAN’T SAY IT.
“In the report, the U.S. earned the bottom spot with 324 overdose deaths per 1 million residents in 2022”
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5078221-us-highest-overdose-deaths/
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and your 50,000 pink p*ssy hat Highland Moms, your “resistance” shows you only want more of this.
At least you *owned* Orange Man Bad.
“‘After this, who knows if I’m insurable anymore,’ Scanlon said. ‘If we can’t get insurance up here, our property values will plummet, and in California, that’s our nest egg.’”
Is it still safe to assume that California real estate always goes up in value?
But California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara insisted Wednesday, Jan. 8, that this week’s conflagrations won’t make insurance harder to get. “Insurance companies are pledging their commitment to California, and we will hold them accountable for the promises they have made,” Lara said in a statement.
Now that’s a knee slapper!
“…Lara said in a statement….”
Does statement come with a laugh track?
It gets better!
https:// nitter.poast.org/ EytanWallace/ status/ 1877604821546697041#m:
BREAKING: California Insurance Commissioner @RicardoLara4CA has issued a mandatory one-year moratorium that will prohibit insurance companies from enacting non-renewals and cancellations of coverage for home owners within the perimeters or adjoining ZIP Codes of the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County regardless of whether they suffered a loss. The moratorium will expire on Jan. 7, 2026.
Good luck with that mandatory one-year moratorium. Welcome to Marxist Kalifornia!
Los Angeles fires expose inflated US home prices
By Robert Cyran
January 10, 2025 4:59 AM PST
Updated 4 hours ago
…
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/los-angeles-fires-expose-inflated-us-home-prices-2025-01-09/
Next up: The ‘Big one’ earthquake.
Yes, earthquake policies are written separately, but if your home burns down because of subsequent fire, the onus is on you.
Suck a joke how these useless California Gov overpaid administration worker go on the News patting themselves on the back for their lack of success in the CA fire disasters.
And if history repeats itself , the insurance Companies will probably sue State Agencies for neglect practices, and the Ins Companies will get off the hook. And CA Fair Plan only has 200 million, when the liabilty is over 10 billion.
And what about collection of taxes on the fire destroyed properties? This is going to be a mess for a long time.
And imagine living in homeless shelter or a Hotel and try to function by going to work when you might have no car, clothes etc. if you were a fire victim.
Really snarly for a long time. Makes buying real estate a big unknown or even if places with be able to get insurance or how high it will be.
Makes buying real estate a big unknown or even if places with be able to get insurance or how high it will be.
Tell me about it!
“…the liabilty is over 10 billion.”
The current middle-east war expense is well over $10B/month given the two aircraft carrier groups, loitering submarines, land based deployments in adjacent countries, spy satellites, etc., in addition to everything being shipped into Israel.
Harry Truman’s 1948 election, perhaps the most expensive election campaign ever.
Orange tells Beebs “finish the job” that sounds expensive 😻
[This article isn’t housing-related but I like the way it has been written and thought I would share. Enjoy.]
The last American Banker rats are leaving the UN Net Zero Banking club.
https://www.joannenova.com.au/
A few years ago they were all going to save the world from the sixth mass extinction, but now they just want to avoid an anti-trust suit.
Such is the phase change of the Trump win, the largest banks in the USA, JP Morgan and Morgan Chase have now joined Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo the Bank of America, and Citigroup.
Six big US banks quit net zero alliance before Trump inauguration
– The Guardian.
Analysts have said the withdrawals are an attempt to head off “anti-woke” attacks from rightwing US politicians, which are expected to escalate when Trump is sworn in as the country’s 47th president in just under a fortnight.
The giant super-squid of asset management is also thinking of leaving the UN Net Zero Alliance.
BlackRock may exit woke business climate group Net Zero Alliance as backlash over ESG investing widens
By Charles Gasparino, New York Post
BlackRock — which for years has courted controversy with its focus on so-called ESG, or Environmental Social Governance investing — is considering an exit of the so-called “Net Zero” coalition of top corporations who pledge to reach zero-carbon emissions by 2050, The Post has learned.
BlackRock’s likely departure is more significant [than all the other banks]. The world’s largest investment fund, with more than $10 trillion in assets under management, was a leader in ESG investing, with its top executives including Fink evangelizing on the need to use the company’s investing might to force corporations to reduce their carbon footprint.
Mum’s the word:
BlackRock press officials declined comment. A rep for State Street and JPMorgan didn’t return a call for comment. A press official for the alliance declined to comment.
Their lawyers will have beaten them into silence. If the world is facing a crisis they look like cowards, and if the world isn’t facing a crisis they look like crooks for abusing clients funds for ideological quests or worse, traitorous sell-outs to the global oligarchs.
As I said, the Net Zero Banking Alliance was the UN-banker cabal that were colluding to use $130 trillion dollars in assets to bully the first world into sabotaging their economies by buying expensive, unreliable Net Zero electricity. It was dangerously close to being a proto World Government. The club effectively could decide national policies on who could build competitive electricity grids, and who had to do the fantasia plan to control the storms of 2100 with their electricity grid in 2024.
They wouldn’t be jumping ship if Kamala had won.
Pacific Palisades fire may spell an end to cheap homeowners insurance in California
The Pacific Palisades area ravaged by wildfires in Los Angeles is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the U.S., home to Hollywood A-Listers and multimillion dollar mansions. And ahead of this week’s disaster, its insurance costs were among the most affordable in the country, according to a Reuters analysis of insurance and real estate industry data.
That may be about to change. The scale of losses anticipated in the wildfires now ringing Los Angeles, as well as regulatory changes enacted late last year, could spell an end to relatively cheap homeowners’ insurance in areas like the Palisades that are at elevated risk for wildfires, four analysts told Reuters.
Measured against home values, insurance costs are cheaper in the Palisades than in 97% of U.S. postal codes, according to a Reuters analysis of a national database of price data collected by Mulder and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School professor Benjamin Keys as well as home-value data calculated by Zillow, a real-estate firm.
The relatively low cost of insurance in the Pacific Palisades reflects the vagaries of a homeowners’ insurance market in the United States where prices can vary widely because of differing regulatory polices from state to state. Consumer-friendly regulations in California have kept a lid on prices, even in high-risk areas, but have prompted many insurers to scale back coverage.
Sangmin Oh, a finance professor at Columbia Business School, and other researchers found that homeowners in more loosely regulated states effectively subsidize homeowners in states like California, where the industry has been more tightly regulated – despite higher levels of risk.
Compared to home values, the average statewide premium in 2023 was the lowest among all 50 states, according to the Reuters analysis. California’s high property values may make that insurance seem relatively cheap, but even on an absolute dollar basis residents the average annual premium of $2,200 was less than residents paid in 30 other U.S. states.
Homeowners in Pacific Palisades paid a median insurance premium in 2023 of $5,450, according to the data compiled by Mulder and Keys. That’s less than residents paid in Glencoe, Illinois, an upscale suburb of Chicago where homes are two-thirds cheaper and the risk of wildfire is minimal.
It’s also less than residents paid in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, the poor and historically Black neighborhood submerged by floods waters during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – even though the typical Ninth Ward home is worth less than 1/20th of the typical home in Pacific Palisades, according to Zillow.
Patrick Douville, a vice president of insurance with Morningstar, said insurers will try to continue to offer coverage in California, which is one of the most lucrative markets in the country. But they will struggle to provide affordable coverage in areas like Pacific Palisades that will remain risky even after this fire dies out.
“Insurers need randomness,” he said in an interview. “If it’s always the same folks who are targeted, you need to charge them an astronomical premium.”
https://www.aol.com/news/pacific-palisades-fire-may-spell-182853086.html
FHFA Director Thompson to Step Down on Eve of Trump Inauguration
Sandra Thompson, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, will step down on Jan. 19, an agency spokesperson said.
The FHFA oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two key players in the US housing market, as well as the Federal Home Loan Bank system.
If Thompson had opted against resigning, President-elect Donald Trump would have been able to fire her quickly after his Jan. 20 inauguration due to a US Supreme Court decision that made it easier to remove the FHFA director.
Fannie Mae has soared 258% since Trump’s election in November, in large part due to the promotion of Bill Ackman. The Pershing Square Capital Management founder has said the Trump team’s renewed vow to shrink the role of government will help finish what his first administration started in releasing Fannie and Freddie from conservatorship.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/fhfa-director-thompson-to-step-downg-on-eve-of-trump-inauguration/ar-BB1ra3eh
“During Thompson’s tenure, some FHLBanks experienced heightened scrutiny after they had extended loans to other banks that later collapsed as part of a 2023 regional banking crisis.”
As many of you probably know, on March 10, 2023, SVB, with $209 billion in assets at year-end 2022, was closed by the state banking authority, who appointed the FDIC as receiver. Stress at the firm had become apparent a few days earlier, on Wednesday, March 8, when Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) announced a $1.8 billion loss on sale of securities, experiencing the consequences of unrealized losses on those securities, and a concurrent plan to raise $2 billion in capital to shore up its balance sheet. Then, on Thursday, March 9, shares of SVB fell 60 percent, and it experienced a run by uninsured depositors.
Does the following stay in place with the resignation?
The Federal Housing Finance Agency released the 2025 Scorecard for Freddie Mac, which outlines performance criteria and strategic priorities for the company. Key objectives include promoting equitable access to housing, fostering market efficiency, and ensuring business operations are conducted safely. The Scorecard emphasizes the importance of supporting affordable housing, advancing mortgage process efficiency, and enhancing the resiliency and sustainability of the housing stock. It also establishes a $73 billion cap on multifamily loan purchases, requiring a significant portion to be mission-driven, targeting affordable housing initiatives.
“President-elect 47 would have been able to fire her quickly after his Jan. 20 inauguration due to a US Supreme Court decision”
The SCOTUS decision was handed down in June of 2021. Within a year, Biden replaced Mark Calabria with Sandra Thompson. So, if 47 replaces Thompson, it’s a situation of turnabout is fair play.
LA fires underscore how much California has to lose if Trump withholds disaster aid
As wildfires erupted in Southern California, so did a years-long feud between incoming president Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly threatened to cut off disaster funding for California.
He stopped short of that on Wednesday, but in a social media post, he called Newsom “Newscum” and blamed his water policies for the three fires that have destroyed hundreds of homes, killed at least five people and displaced tens of thousands of Californians. Due to environmental regulations, he said, not enough water has reached Southern California and fire hydrants went dry as a result.
“Now the ultimate price is being paid,” he said. “I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA. He is to blame for this.”
The bigger question looming over California is whether Trump’s feud with Newsom will cause him to act on his promise to cut federal disaster aid to the state when he takes office on Jan. 20.
On the campaign trail last year, Trump vowed that “we won’t give (Newsom) money to put out all his fires” unless the Democratic governor agreed to divert more water to California farmers. A president can slow down the process of approving aid, or not declare a disaster, a decision critical to a state receiving federal relief funding.
Federal funding typically pays for around 75% of the costs of rebuilding public infrastructure such as roads, sewers, water systems, parks and fire stations, officials say. That means California would have to come up with billions of dollars in additional money after major disasters if Trump follows through on his campaign rhetoric.
In communities such as Paradise and Santa Rosa that suffered through similar catastrophic fires within the past decade, officials there said their communities wouldn’t have been able to rebuild without federal help.
“If we hadn’t had those types of funds to do the basic infrastructure that we’ve already done and are currently doing, I don’t think we would have recovered at all. It is such a significant piece of recovery,” said Collette Curtis, the recovery and economic development director for the town of Paradise.
Curstis estimates that Paradise has received at least $375 million in federal aid since the fire. A year before the Paradise fire, thousands of homes in the city of Santa Rosa and surrounding communities burned in the Tubbs Fire – another wind-driven inferno that killed 22 people.
The federal government provided at least $366 million in direct aid to communities affected by the Tubbs Fire and other fires that year, according to estimates from the office of U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, a Democrat who represents the region. Santa Rosa alone received $218 million, said Assistant City Manager Jason Nutt.
Without that much federal help, Santa Rosa wouldn’t have recovered, said the city’s former mayor, Chris Rogers, who was just sworn in as the region’s Democratic Assemblymember.
“Without the help of the federal government, not only would we potentially not have been able to rebuild, but we certainly wouldn’t have been able to rebuild as quickly,” Rogers said.
https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/california-fires-donald-trump-money/
Newsom’s hair gel soon to be repurposed.
That’s my girl!! LOL
47 wants to make a deal. It’s his wheelhouse and Gavin doesn’t have a chance.
LA fires underscore how much California has to lose if Trump withholds disaster aid
They hate Trump in CA.
And other people’s money is never the answer. Socialism doesn’t work.
Condo owners don’t deserve low-interest loan bailouts. It rewards bad behavior. | Letters
Low-interest loans proposal just a bailout
The editorial encouraging our Florida state government to step in and provide low interest loans to people living in condominiums that have insufficient reserves to fund long needed maintenance is rewarding bad behavior. These people and their HOAs made a series of poor decisions. Can I get a low-interest loan to fund repairs on my single-family home that I did not do because I did not want to spend my money keeping my home safe? Also, can I get some emotional support so I don’t have to take any responsibility for my selfish actions?
Yes, I know from personal experience that as we get older, life gets harder. I also know that it takes a village to raise a child and protect a grandmother. A government, on the other hand, exists to protect the commons. Our state government needs to address the property insurance house of cards and not get diverted by making laws and earmarking my tax dollars to encourage people to continue to make bad decisions.
John Peebles, North Palm Beach
https://www.yahoo.com/news/condo-owners-dont-deserve-low-183912804.html
Canada’s top economists call for structural rethink in face of Trump’s tariff promise
Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Canadian imports poses huge risk to the country’s economy. But it also provides an opportunity to address structural problems that hold back economic growth, and to double-down on sectors in which Canadian companies can thrive in an increasingly protectionist world.
That’s according to the chief economists at five of Canada’s largest banks, who delivered their 2025 outlooks at an Economic Club of Canada event in Toronto on Thursday.
Beata Caranci, chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, said that Canada should start by improving the competitiveness of its corporate tax structure, to keep pulling investment into the country despite the risk of a thicker border with the U.S.
Policy makers also need to do more to accelerate the development of natural resources, especially critical minerals, she said. That would give Canada products that are in high demand in the U.S. as it tries to wean itself off Chinese battery supply chains. And it would help build out an industrial base that is less susceptible to U.S. attempts to reshore manufacturing industries.
“There’s nothing stopping the U.S. from building a car from beginning to end. They can do it. It requires a restructuring of their labour market; it would lead to higher end-user costs. But there’s nothing stopping them from doing that,” Ms. Caranci said. “What we ultimately have to do is think through the structure of our economy, look at our competitive advantage, what we have, what they don’t, and move our economy in that way.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadas-top-economists-call-for-structural-rethink-in-face-of-trumps/
‘What are we talking about?’ Trump’s ‘economic force’ comments cause worry, disbelief
Incoming U.S. president Donald Trump’s escalating rhetoric around implementing tariffs on Canadian products are sparking worry and disbelief, though some of the companies potentially most affected are staying quiet.
Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, Trump threatened to use “economic force” to annex Canada, while also once again raising issues with the trade deficit and saying the U.S. doesn’t need to buy Canadian lumber, dairy or automobiles.
“They send us hundreds of thousands of cars, they make a lot of money with that. They send us a lot of other things that we don’t need. We don’t need their cars and we don’t need the other products. We don’t need their milk,” said Trump to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Along with threatening tariffs, Trump claimed in his press conference that the U.S. had no need for Canadian goods. He once again raised issue with the U.S. trade deficit with Canada, characterizing it as a subsidy.
“We lose in trade deficits, we’re losing massive,” he said. “We don’t need anything. So why are we losing $200 billion a year and more?” he said.
Canada’s best strategy for now is to take a “wait and see” approach publicly, while avoiding any threats of retaliation, said Fen Hampson, an international affairs professor at Carleton University and co-chair of its expert group on Canada-U.S. relations.
He said Canada benefits when it remains below the radar and does not take the bait.
“When you’re the smaller party, you don’t make threats, which first of all aren’t going to be credible because the big guy can stomp on you like a mess. So we’ve got to be a lot more nimble, we’ve got to be a lot smarter and our Prime Minister should keep his mouth shut.”
https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/what-are-we-talking-about-trump-s-economic-force-comments-cause-worry-disbelief-1.7168246
Heated words about sovereignty and U.S. trade? Sounds a lot like 1988
Donald Trump’s repeated musings about Canada becoming part of the United States have — unsurprisingly — raised hackles in Ottawa.
“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell,” shot back Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while the Finance Minister Dominic Le Blanc noted, “The joke is over.” Opposition leaders are similarly irked, with Conservative Pierre Poilievre asserting “Canada will never be the 51st state” and New Democrat Jagmeet Singh telling the incoming president to “cut the crap.”
Yet the U.S. president-elect keeps pushing Canada’s buttons. He has suggested the highly integrated economies and trading relationship between the two countries is overrated, and has claimed a trade imbalance means U.S. is subsidizing its northern neighbour’s economy.
In doing this, Trump has highlighted a persistent concern raised by some on this side of the border: namely, that Canada’s national sovereignty is jeopardized by being too closely tied to the United States.
This isn’t a new concern — in fact, it will be familiar to anyone who remembers when Canada first eyed a free-trade deal with the U.S. back in the 1980s, long before Trump’s influence extended beyond the Manhattan real estate sector.
“If we move towards a free trade arrangement with the United States, I think the political consequences are very clear,” said Bob Rae, then the leader of the New Democrats in Ontario. “Don’t ask people who are elected provincially or federally to do a great job in managing the economy because all those decisions are going to be made in New York and Chicago and Washington and we are going to simply become a client of the United States.”
Nonetheless, Ottawa entered into negotiations with Washington. A proposed deal was reached in October 1987, and the free-trade agreement was signed by Mulroney and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in January 1988.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trumps-power-play-ignited-debate-000024663.html
Elon Musk praises Poilievre, mocks Trudeau as he steps into Canadian politics
As a giant of industry and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk wields influence across the global economy. He’s now leveraging that success to extend his influence into the democratic process in Canada and elsewhere.
In the past week alone, Musk has dipped into Canadian politics on his social media platform several times; endorsing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, showering him with praise, reposting his tweets and applauding his speeches and media interactions.
At the same time, he has mocked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over his resignation, borrowing president-elect Donald Trump’s language to refer to him as a “governor.” He’s even called Trudeau an “insufferable tool.”
“It’s about positioning yourself on the global stage as a thought leader, in inverted commas, who can rise above politics but also be aligned with it when it suits him,” said Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.
“I think with Musk [his advocacy has] become aligned with what he sees as political movements around the world that share his libertarian anti-state, anti-regulation, anti-legacy media ideology,” Chadwick told CBC News.
In Germany, Musk has endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader, Alice Weidel, who’s a fierce critic of multiculturalism. Some prominent AfD members have been ostracized for their failure to condemn the war crimes of the Nazis.
Last year a German court said the AfD was officially suspected of extremism, allowing the German security services to continue monitoring their activities and communications.
Musk has been accused in Germany of interfering in that country’s upcoming elections on Feb. 23 for his endorsement of the AfD and promise to host a live interview on X with Weidel on Jan. 9.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/musk-canada-poilievre-trudeau-influence-1.7426954
This Calgary newcomer wants to go back home. She isn’t alone
A year and a half after moving to Canada from the Philippines, Ali Quina is strongly considering moving back home. Life here is just so much harder than people made it out to be, she said.
Quina came to Calgary looking for opportunities and a better quality of life. But even after moving here with work experience in marketing and completing a certificate at the University of Calgary, she’s struggling to find a job in her field.
So she’s working part time as a server and said she’s barely getting by.
“My everyday routine would be waking up in the morning, sending applications and then after I would break down and cry.… I can barely afford to pay for my groceries, to be honest,” said Quina. “I’m just basing it off my experience, but Canada is not the land of opportunity anymore.”
Now, she’s sharing a message with other newcomers who feel like the hardship isn’t paying off: “It’s OK if Canada isn’t for you.”
She isn’t the only one who feels that way, according to a new CBC News survey about newcomers’ experiences, conducted by Pollara.
While eight in 10 newcomers have an overall positive experience in Canada, over 40 per cent of newcomers surveyed said they’d be likely to leave Canada if they were given the choice.
They said they struggled with homesickness, discrimination and difficulties finding quality housing and work. Nearly a third said they would leave Canada to return to their home country, while others (20 per cent) said they would go to the United States next.
As for Quina, she’s giving herself a few more months before making a final decision about whether she’s going to leave. She’s leaning toward pulling the plug and moving back home when her post-graduation work permit expires in November, instead of finding another avenue to stay.
In the meantime, she’s sharing her experience on social media, in the hope other newcomers facing the same challenges don’t feel alone.
“It’s OK to give up,” said Quina. “It’s not going to be the end of everything, but rather the start of a new chapter.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/leaving-canada-poll-calgary-1.7424400
“while others (20 per cent) said they would go to the United States next”
Um, NOPE.
Border closes in 10 days. Go home.
Between the huge numbers allowed to enter and Fidelito’s wrecking the Canuck economy, there should be more sob stories like this.
And don’t come to the USA, FJB has also done a Trudeau to the economy.
FJB has also done a Trudeau to the economy.
Agreed looking at CC balances and DQ auto loans but headline numbers don’t show it yet.
likely to leave Canada if they were given the choice.
What does this mean? Can they not even afford a ticket home?
And of course they want to go to the US. Freebies are famous for bettering someone’s quality of life. But everyone is so focused on the deportations that they are forgetting that the freebie spigot will shut on January 21.
The great pretender: Looking back at Trudeau, we see our initial judgment of him when he first entered politics was correct
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Liberal Party of Canada was near death when Justin Trudeau took over as leader. He leaves it near death again. The years between have been a roller-coaster ride, much like his father’s time in office, from the giddy, even nauseating public and media enthusiasm of the early months to the quite unreasoning hatred his name now evokes in certain quarters.
It isn’t as if we did not know what we were getting into. More than most prime ministers, Justin (as he was often called, and is to this day) was a known quantity by the time he took office, having grown up in the public eye – twice, in fact. There was his natural childhood, much of it spent in the prime ministerial residence at 24 Sussex Drive. And there was his political childhood, as it were, between entering politics in 2008 and becoming prime minister in 2015.
Though in his late 30s/early 40s, he seemed strangely adolescent, unformed, unaware: part flower child, part dudebro. He had done little with his life before politics; certainly little that would prepare him for it. There was no evidence that he had thought deeply about any subject, and plenty of evidence that he had not, especially the peculiar public statements to which he was prone: That if he thought Canada were really “the Canada of Stephen Harper” he would become a Quebec separatist himself; that as a Liberal “of course” he preferred the country were governed by Quebeckers rather than Albertans; that the country whose government he most admired was “actually” China, with its “basic dictatorship.”
And of course there was the pouting, the theatrical head-tosses, the costume changes, the breathy displays of sincerity. But there were also, as time went on, signs of an emerging self-discipline. The celebrated 2012 boxing match with Senator Patrick Brazeau looks more bizarre and insensitive with each passing year, but there can be few figures in public life who would have gotten into that ring, or done the training for it beforehand. His handlers gradually reined in some of the self-dramatizing, trimmed his hair, gave him some talking points.
The suspicion that the whole thing was a cynical façade was reinforced by the rapidly growing pile of broken promises. The platform contained a slew of commitments – more than 350 of them, by one count – not all of them well considered or, one suspects, honestly intended. The promise of “two annual deficits of no more than $10-billion” had already become a bitter punchline by the time of the government’s first budget. The promise not to buy the F-35 stealth bomber, but to hold an “open and transparent competition” – only to buy it in the end – was another classic.
But nothing topped the Prime Minister’s spectacular backflip on electoral reform, early in 2017. No promise was spelled out more starkly, with less room for ambiguity, in the platform: The 2015 election would be “the last … conducted under the first-past-the-post system.” No, millions of Canadians did not base their vote on that specific promise. But it was there for a reason – to signal a certain idealism, even radicalism, especially tailored to NDP-leaning voters – and it is no coincidence that the government’s long descent in the polls began then.
The more ruthless and unprincipled Mr. Trudeau, notwithstanding his smiling persona, appeared to be, the more his government’s relentless pursuit of identity politics, its readiness to fire off a volley of trite social justice clichés at the least provocation, came to seem, not mere pious dogma (”Because it’s 2015″), or even a calculating sop to target demographics, but something altogether more sinister: a shield, more than a sword, providing cover for Mr. Trudeau’s own “problematic” predilections.
If, for example, you have worn blackface so many times you cannot remember the exact number – it seems to have been something of a hobby – and you are afraid it will come out some day, what better defence than to advertise your passionate commitment to racial justice at every turn? Credibly accused, in the same vein, of groping a young female reporter? Reinvent yourself as an ardent feminist. As it turns out, people will be less inclined to dismiss you as a hypocrite than to resolve their own cognitive dissonance in your favour.
It worked for a time, until at some point a lot of the things that raised doubts about Mr. Trudeau – the self-centredness, the constant desire for attention, the fake cultural sensitivity – converged. That point was the India trip, and the jaw-dropping series of costumes and performances it produced. It wasn’t exactly racist – the Indians seemed more perplexed than insulted – but it told you of the insular world Mr. Trudeau inhabited, that he could have imagined people would still find this sort of thing charming, as if it were still 2015 and not 2018.
Carbon pricing was another signature achievement, but tainted both by its timidity – carbon pricing was supposed to replace existing regulatory and subsidy schemes, not be tacked on top of them – and by the many carveouts and exemptions that were granted to particular interests, of which the last, on home heating oil, proved politically ruinous.
The alarming deterioration in the government’s finances, on the other hand, never did seem to penetrate Mr. Trudeau’s skull, and in the end cost him his finance minister.
Foreign policy, on the other hand, revealed a prime minister still in the grip of his father’s illusions, notably with regard to China. Liberals came to power besotted with the idea of China as the rising power in the world, and Canada as its beneficiary. There was talk of a free trade deal, even an extradition treaty.
That all came crashing down with the Two Michaels affair, and even more with the revelations of China’s extensive interference in Canada’s domestic politics – interference the Trudeau government seemed strangely reluctant to confront. The evaporation of the China strategy, moreover, did not appear to cause any deep rethink at Global Affairs, which spent two years failing to prepare a coherent Indo-Pacific strategy.
The rest is a blur of incompetence and futility: the rapid expansion of the civil service, yet with measurable declines in service quality (passports, anyone?); the endless bottlenecks, in things like judicial appointments, that came from flowing every decision through a clearly overwhelmed Prime Minister’s Office; quixotic policy choices like trying to regulate the global internet. All spoke of a government that emphasized intentions over action, symbols over substance, ideological hobby horses over practical improvements in people’s lives. A government that looked very much like the man who led it.
The demise of Justin Trudeau was not the product of any one thing, but of a series of incidents – the electoral reform about-face, the India trip, SNC-Lavalin, COVID and its aftermath, the triple-crisis of inflation, housing and immigration. It was the accumulating sense that he was not what he pretended to be – that what he was looked less and less like what people hoped he might become and more and more like what everybody knew he was from the start.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-great-pretender-looking-back-at-trudeau-we-see-our-initial/
Trump’s mysterious relationship with Zuckerberg — and the real reason behind Meta’s shift | Opinion
Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (wearing a $900,000 watch) announced yesterday morning that across their over-7-billion-user-strong social media empire — Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp — they’ll be dialing back on fact-checking. They’re also preparing to promote more “political” content (among other changes that support those two moves, like no longer filtering out trash-talking women, queer people, or immigrants, and moving what’s left of their Trust & Safety team from liberal California to conservative Texas).
Here’s the problem: Republican politicians rely on lies, distortions, and falsehoods to sell most of their policies and candidates.
They must do this because the reality of their actual goals (cut billionaire taxes, increase pollution, gut worker and consumer protections, defund schools and medical care, privatize and cut Social Security and Medicare, subsidize oil companies, outlaw abortion, etc.) are so repellent to most Americans.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has been shockingly scrupulous for decades about telling the truth, at least with regard to policy. The last “big lie” I can remember coming from the Dems was LBJ’s claiming that North Vietnam had attacked us at the Gulf of Tonkin. And that was 60 years ago!
Seriously, can you think of any major Democratic Party lies in the past few decades that Democratic politicians repeated regularly on cable TV shows, op-eds, and in campaign commercials? Particularly, lies about important public policy debates and the structure of our government and its programs?
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/politics/elections/trump-s-mysterious-relationship-with-zuckerberg-and-the-real-reason-behind-meta-s-shift-opinion/ar-BB1r9CzU
This opinion generator’s comments belong over at Babylon Bee.
“Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (wearing a $900,000 watch)…”
Proof that someone scammed Zuck out of $900k.
“The last “big lie” I can remember coming from the Dems”
Um, yeah. The 2020 election was stolen. And it’s been four years and two months of unending lies about it since then.
The 2020 election was stolen.
The winter of death, I won’t pardon my son, you can keep yer doctor, sending bankers to jail will harm financial innovation, America was never great, if we don’t eat bugs we’re all gonna die, Russia, Russia, Russia!
So, question for HBB. Did any of you need Trump to convince you of this “Big Lie” that he was cheated out of the election? Because on election night 2020, I was here. We didn’t need Trump to tell us that there were shenanigans going on. We could all see it for ourselves.
“Big Lie” that he was cheated out of the election
Gaslighting for the MSM-watching morons.
The Dems were here too. They just didn’t see anything wrong with it.
The Dems were here too.
Only one comes to mind.
Lifelong Jacksonville Democrat (now in California) gets why Trump was re-elected | Opinion
I’ve been a Democrat for as long as I can remember. Growing up in Jacksonville, my parents — Indian immigrants — instilled in me a simple truth: Democrats care about working people and help lift families out of poverty. That belief has guided me throughout my life.
Yet as Donald Trump returns to the White House, driven by a multiracial working-class coalition, I can’t ignore the reality: The Democratic base has clearly revolted. How did we get here? The answer may lie in San Francisco.
For the past decade, I’ve raised my family in this Democratic stronghold. What I’ve seen is a toxic combination of bad governance, patronage and privilege that has turned San Francisco into the perfect foil for Trump’s populist message. Trump and the GOP’s warnings about “San Francisco values” resonated with many Americans — even with me, a Democrat.
San Francisco’s leaders have failed at the basics of governance, creating a cautionary tale that many Americans are eager to avoid. Despite a staggering $18,000 budget per resident — more than most states — the city’s core issues (crime, education, cost of living and homelessness) have only worsened.
In large part, it’s a talent and incentive issue. The local Democratic Party values loyalty, staffing highly unqualified people to important roles. Nonsensical environmental permitting rules make it nearly impossible to build new housing. A nonprofit industrial complex distributes stipends (even drugs) to people struggling with addiction, without real plans for recovery or public safety.
High-performing charter schools that deliver better outcomes for kids of color are blocked in the name of “racial justice,” even as traditional public schools struggle with enrollment and achievement gaps. These policies not only fail to help the marginalized communities they claim to protect, but actively harm them.
Meanwhile, San Francisco’s affluent liberals seem largely insulated from the city’s worsening conditions. Well, except for the car break-ins — San Francisco leads the nation in those. Around 32% of the city’s children attend private schools (compared to 8% nationally) at an average cost of $41,000 a year.
To secure spots at these schools, families normalize a rigorous process of interviews, recommendations and donations — for kindergarten. This creates an elite bubble where most people’s work and social circles are devoid of the struggles facing everyday Americans. Conversations about child care costs, job security or juggling grocery coupons are nonexistent.
Instead, the same people who post “Black Lives Matter” signs in their windows see themselves as morally superior while dismissing those who disagree with them as ignorant or bigoted. The ethos of unity that once defined Democrats has been replaced by an attitude of self-preservation and entitlement. This hypocrisy fuels Republican criticism of “out-of-touch elites.”
San Francisco’s disconnected leaders are creating a distorted, self-centered image of our party that’s damaging Democrats nationally. To win back working Americans, we need bold changes, starting here in San Francisco.
Let’s start with the belief that America is a wonderful place with amazing people — not a broken system to be discarded. I’m reminded of my 6-year-old daughter who, after spending a week with her grandparents in Jacksonville, asked: “Daddy, every house there has an American flag. Why don’t we ever see flags at home [in San Francisco]?”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lifelong-jacksonville-democrat-now-in-california-gets-why-trump-was-re-elected-opinion/ar-BB1rdF8Y
Democrats care about working people
Only if you aren’t white, and most of the time not even then.
“This creates an elite bubble where most people’s work and social circles are devoid of the struggles facing everyday Americans. Conversations about child care costs, job security or juggling grocery coupons are nonexistent”
I know some people like this, was talking to one over the holidays who is now in therapy over the results of the 2024 election.
Oh, so he finally figured it out. The Democratic party platform had three major planks, and they lost them all.
1. Champion the working man: Obama abandoned this around 2012. Trump scooped them up. Biden didn’t help by importing millions of illegals to undercut the working man. Dems might never get the working man back.
2. Anti-war. Again, Obama abandoned this after he (commendably) got Bin L and instead started a campaign of low-level but constant peppering of the Middle East, which kept the MIC in juicy contracts. Trump again scooped up the anti-war. Biden only confirmed he was warmongering, and Harris went to far by joining up with the worst war name of all: Cheney. Party Dems will never get those anti-wars back.
3. Social justice: Dems were great when they were working for the basics of reasonable social justice: equality for all races, creeds, sexes, etc, even cross-dressers. But ~2015, when SCOTUS allowed gay marriage, Dems ran out of reasonable social justice, and they went too far. After conducting month-long street o*gies and targeting children for chemical mutilation, the reasonable people said Enough, and Trump scooped them up. After this insanity, Dems might never get reasonable social justice people back.
Subconsciously, THAT’S the Dems are so panicked. It’s not a question of finding new leadership. The problem is, they have no platform left.
‘they have no platform left’
It’s been a pretty unimaginable transformation. IMO it started with Carter. For instance, did you know truckers made good money until he deregulated transportation? He was a serious globalist scum. (President of the CFR when he ran and the media said he was an awe shucks peanut farmer).
Then came Clinton and the working guy got killed. They walked away from every issue that they could tell regular people with a straight face, this is going to make life better.
criticism of “out-of-touch elites.”
Gonna be a tough sell to the fly over country on why we need to help the multi-millionaire elites in LA but not the people in Appalachia.
Parts of GA got hit as did SC and TN so it’s not just NC/Asheville.
Major highways were totally wiped out.
People I know in SC were without power for a few weeks.
From Crain’s New York:
Home of ‘Good Morning America’ joins growing list of defaulted properties
Libtard actress Mandy Moore hits up followers for donations to her relatives who lost their homes to the Malibu fires. The peasantry remind this entitled multimillionaire cow that charity begins at home.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14270893/Mandy-Moore-backlash-LA-fires-GoFundMe.html
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Mandy is good for about $14 million.
IMO that’s a dangerous amount of money to have. It’s enough to do very well for yourself, but not enough to take care of extended family when they come to you with their hands out. Especially if they live in tony Malibu.
It would be a darn shame if an unintended consequence of our latest falsified BLS employment numbers was that the spike in bond yields sent Bank of America’s bond trading losses even deeper into the red.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/bank-of-america-bond-losses-d531ae53
‘After this, who knows if I’m insurable anymore,’ Scanlon said. ‘If we can’t get insurance up here, our property values will plummet, and in California, that’s our nest egg.’”
Gosh, if you multiply TIm’s predicament by a few million more heavily indebted SoCal FBs, I fear the wipeout of Yellen Bux “wealth” could be astronomical. This is my “gravely concerned” face.
“As the market for documentaries and other content slowed and work dried up in Hollywood, producer Kourtney Gleason was already worried about making the mortgage payments on the home she bought last year with her boyfriend.
Horrors! As the public appetite for globalist propaganda packed as “documentaries” or “entertainment” dwindles, Kourtney & her ilk might find their “partners” a lot more fickle about sharing a future with waitresses instead of producers in superficial Los Angeles.
Okay, this is starting to give off a Sodom & Gomorrah vibe.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14271619/California-San-Francisco-Bay-Area-earthquake-deadly-wildfires.html
“Sodom & Gomorrah”
On that subject, look at the legislation sponsored by CA State Senator Scott Wiener (D — San Francisco).
If the back room of a Diddy Party had *another* secret back room, Scott would be in there, LOLZ.
Whenever the globalist scum media & their pulpit prostitutes start clutching their pearls about the rise of fundamentalist religious movements, it’s because of their morbid fear that Bible-based Christian mass movements could emerge as the most formidable bulwark to globalist agendas and the Democrat-Bolshevik view of The State as the supreme authority.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/new-apostolic-reformation-christian-movement-trump/681092/
That’s just BS reporting. I bet there is a 3.7+ magnitude quake somewhere in California about once a week, as most of the state is in a seismic zone. This somehow becomes newsworthy when LA is on fire.
3.7+ magnitude quake
Native Californians don’t notice anything under 4.5. As a 40+ year CA resident, I honestly don’t remember the names or years of earthquakes or fires. It’s a total blur.
+
Suddenly globalist oligarch Mark Zuckerberg is blaming the Biden regime for Meta & FB’s creepy Orwellian censorship of truth-tellers during the scamdemic. He still belongs in prison for election interference.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14271935/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-podcast-joe-biden-censor-memes-episode.html
Never mind that LA’s massive homeless population are responsible for dozens of fires daily – the LAPD isn’t about to point the finger at them for the latest arson fires, since resultant public anger could jeopardize Democrat-Bolshevik Compassion, Inc. patronage & graft rackets.
https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1877777722857980126
Why would any savvy investor speculate on CRE hoping for a 5% cap rate, when they can be assured of such a return risk-free by investing in U.S. bonds?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-30-yield-hits-5-135736165.html
‘I actually had a nightmare about the DOGE. I’m not kidding you,’ Cityline Partners Managing Director Donna Shafer said said at the Bisnow event. ‘I have no idea what the impact will be, when, how, how much, but it definitely keeps me up at night.’”
Good. FedGov employees have been a bedrock of Democrat-Boshevik support. The idea of them being forced to fend for themselves in Paul Krugman’s Strongest Economy Ever doesn’t bother me one bit.
federal employees who did not return to the office would be fired
Political appointees are toast, but I think there’s enough case law floating around to protect the career bureaucrats. Trump won’t be able to fire them at will, not without some wrangling.
Trump might not even be able to compel them back to the office, not by himself. Union contracts which were signed a few years ago cannot be upended by executive order. Congress would have to get involved. And I think they will. At the very least I expect full time remote to be yanked. When that happens, I do expect to see a wave of quits and retirements, possibly enough to please Elon.
As for Vivek, has anyone else notice that he’s largely gone dark since he shot off his mouth in the H1-B firestorm? His heritage works against him here.
enough case law floating around to protect the career bureaucrats
Expect Humphrey’s Executor to be overturned.
he’s largely gone dark
That’ll happen when you’re completely outed as an Indian-first pharma pump-and-dump scam artist.
His heritage works against him here.
Being from Ohio?
It was Vivek’s Indian heritage. There’s a narrative that Indians-only-hire*-other-Indians, with the objective of chain-migrating their way into eventually taking over all of the US. For past 20 years, this had only been only talked about in whispers out of fears of being politically incorrect. But last month’s H1-B debate blew the doors off.
Everyone gave Vivek the benefit of the doubt, because after all he was born in the US and presumably grew up with the American value of meritocracy, which should have overcome the narrative of ethnocentric nepotism. But then, Vivek shot off his mouth, told Americans that they were lazy, and sounded exactly like everyone else — he just wanted to import the bottomless well of cheap labor from India. It will be a while before Vivek regains the trust of the America-firsters.
———-
* Or any other favoritism. I first learned of this 20+ years ago, when a university professor told me that Indians worm their way into gov agencies like the National Science Foundation, specifically to award research grants only to applications with Indian names.
You must have missed his anti-American Twitter post.
I miss everything on Twitter.
The sellers insist on setting an asking price that will give them a profit on their investment but the market has shifted, Mr. Rocca says.
Die, speculator scum.
Sunac’s Hong Kong-listed shares slumped 21 per cent to HK$1.38 at the noon break on Friday, after falling nearly 29 per cent in the morning session.
Fake wealth created by fake money is flying off to whatever afterlife awaits debauched fiat currencies. Heckova job, central bankers!
Los Angeles County Sheriff is declaring a curfew because of looters.
Does the $950 threshhold for shoplifting apply to looting as well? Would be the “progressive, compassionate” thing to do, LOLZ.
Will the IRS go after looters who fail to report the proceeds from their reparations collection?
What is there left to loot?
Not everything burns to the ground in a California firestorm. Wealthy enclaves that didn’t burn but were close enough to burn areas to be evacuated are prime targets for looters.
Per the approved globalist Narrative, climate change, not homeless illegals with blowtorches, are responsible for the CA wildfires.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14270193/homeless-man-blowtorch-la-kenneth-fire-cops-arson.html
Residents say a man was riding around on a bicycle carrying a large blow torch, trying to set multiple old Christmas trees and garbage cans on fire. When the man rode away, neighbors followed him, and eventually stepped in.
“He was very, like, ‘I can’t stop. I can’t stop. I’m not putting this down. I’m doing this,'” one man said. “And [he was] very focused on moving forward with the blow torch. And we’re like, ‘We can’t be doing that right now.'”
Videos from the scene showed officers arriving to arrest the man.
During a press conference Friday morning, LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest the man for arson or suspicion of arson. The man was, however, arrested on suspicion of a felony probation violation. The case is being investigated.
https://www.foxla.com/news/woodland-hills-residents-stop-man-blowtorch-who-may-be-connected-kenneth-fire-officials-say
While “the man” is clearly non-Amish, the LAPD & globalist scum media are being very tight-lipped about his ethnic origin & immigration status. Globalist scum media omissions tell their own kind of truth.
Muh progressive, compassionate, etc.
This being California, I’m shocked they didn’t arrest all the residents who did the zip-tie citizens arrest, for not being muh progressive, compassionate, etc.
And reward the blowtorch pyro with a free apartment, $5,000 debit card, Obamaphone, etc.
“Vote blue no matter who!”
didn’t arrest all the residents who did the zip-tie citizens arrest
Tensions are high enough. That would have been the tipping point.
“Woke” Nike’s flagship sneaker store in downtown LA has been hit by looters. This is the same globalist corporation that funneled millions to sponsor the 2021 BLM-Antifa Mostly Peaceful Protests.
https://x.com/arrowhead03/status/1851889617043366108
Oh the irony: high-net-worth Los Angeles libtards forced to evacuate their upscale neighborhoods thanks to the epic incompetence of Gov. Newsom (D) and Mayor Bass (D) are having Youth for Kamala staging forays from the ‘hood to loot their houses. I am Jack’s complete lack of empathy.
https://x.com/sumnjam/status/1877669551854260699
If the Democrat-Bolsheviks had the power to make memes illegal, like their globalist quisling counterparts in the UK and Commonwealth western countries, rest assured they would throw violators in the gulag.
https://x.com/WallStreetMav/status/1877729141501366450
[Click on the link if you want to see a photo of what an empty reservoir looks like.]
Pacific Palisades Reservoir Was Offline and Empty When Wildfire Exploded.
https://www.cf.org/news/pacific-palisades-reservoir-was-offline-and-empty-when-wildfire-exploded/
A large reservoir in Pacific Palisades that is part of the Los Angeles water supply system was out of use when a ferocious wildfire destroyed thousands of homes and other structures nearby.
Officials told The Times that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades.
A large reservoir in Pacific Palisades that is part of the Los Angeles water supply system was out of use when a ferocious wildfire destroyed thousands of homes and other structures nearby.
Officials told The Times that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades.
The revelation comes among growing questions about why firefighters ran out of water while battling the blaze. Numerous fire hydrants in higher-elevation streets of the Palisades went dry, leaving firefighters struggling with low water pressure as they combated the flames.
Department of Water and Power officials have said that demand for water during an unprecedented fire made it impossible to maintain any pressure to hydrants at high elevations.
Had the reservoir been operable, it would have extended water pressure in the Palisades on Tuesday night, said former DWP general manager Martin Adams, an expert on the city’s water system. But only for a time.
“You still would have ended up with serious drops in pressure,” Adams said in an interview Thursday. “Would Santa Ynez [Reservoir] have helped? Yes, to some extent. Would it have saved the day? I don’t think so.”
A DWP official acknowledged that the reservoir’s absence likely contributed to some diminished pressure and dry hydrants in upper regions of the Palisades.
However, a spokesperson for the utility said in a statement that DWP was still evaluating the effect of the reservoir being placed offline, and that staffers were conducting a root-cause analysis.
“Our primary focus is to provide water supply throughout the city,” the DWP spokesperson said, adding, “The system was never designed for a wildfire scenario that we are experiencing.”
It’s unclear when the reservoir first went offline. Adams said it had been out of service “for a while” due to a tear in the cover and that DWP’s vast storage and supply infrastructure still provided water to residents without disruptions, until this week.
Water pressure in the upper Palisades is sustained with three storage tanks, which hold 1 million gallons each. The tanks, part of a network of more than 100 across the city, are located at successively higher elevations in the coastal, hilly neighborhood, with water pumped up to the tanks, then flowing down by gravity to maintain pressure.
By 3 a.m. Wednesday, all three tanks had gone dry.
DWP Chief Executive Officer Janisse Quiñones said the tanks could not be refilled fast enough and that demand at lower elevations hampered the ability to pump water to tanks at higher elevations. In one case, DWP crews attempting to reroute water to refill a tank had to be evacuated, officials said.
Quiñones said four times the usual demand for water on the trunk line over a 15-hour period led to drops in water pressure.
Had the Santa Ynez Reservoir been in use in that period, Adams estimated, that demand might have been three times as high. Water in the reservoir would have fed the firefighting equipment and helped the pump stations push water to the storage tanks. But the reservoir “wouldn’t have lasted forever and would not have been a fix-all,” Adams said.
“Eventually, you would have gotten to the same place,” he added. Adams cautioned that he was basing his assertion on a rough estimate, and that he had not calculated the specific impact.
Whether the reservoir would have had a meaningful impact on fighting a blaze of such intensity remains unclear. Researchers said urban water systems like DWP’s were not designed to fight wildfires that overtake whole neighborhoods.
The National Weather Service had warned of “life threatening” winds before the fire broke out. By then, Adams said, the DWP’s options were limited. He noted that fire risk is not exclusive to the Palisades but is present across L.A. County.
Had DWP held water in the reservoir with a ripped cover, the water would have been legally undrinkable except in emergencies.
And had the utility opted to start filling the reservoir over the weekend, in advance of the extreme winds, Adams said it was unclear whether the water could have been added fast enough to be useful.
“They would have been betting that there would be a fire that wipes out the whole neighborhood, which of course, no one has ever seen before,” he said. “It would have been a strange bet.”
The reservoir is one of several operated by DWP across the city, which have a combined capacity of more than 4.1 billion gallons of water. Including aqueduct reservoirs, the city can store more than 91 billion gallons across its vast infrastructure. The Santa Ynez complex, at 117 million gallons, is among several sources of water in the area, including a large pipeline from Stone Canyon and a smaller site, the nearby Palisades Reservoir.
The utility designs the system with redundancies and multiple sources of water. In a statement, the agency said that none of its infrastructural assets failed Tuesday and early Wednesday but that the “intensity” of the fire disrupted the contingencies in place.
Joseph Ramallo, a chief communications officer for DWP, said the reservoir was scheduled to reopen in February. The maintenance, he said, was needed to comply with water quality regulations.
Adams said that if the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been in normal use with a fully repaired cover, the water level would likely have been well below maximum capacity.
In the winter, water levels are kept purposely lower because of a seasonal decline in water use by residents. If water remains stagnant in a reservoir, there is a risk that the disinfectant, chloramine, will break down and chlorine will evaporate, leaving behind ammonia that could foster bacterial growth in the water supply.
“You would not have had a whole pile of water just sitting there,” Adams said. “That’s the battle in water storage — you’ve got to keep your tanks and reservoirs fluctuating.”
Furious residents have pointed to the lack of water pressure as one factor contributing to the destruction of 5,300 homes and buildings in L.A., Santa Monica and Malibu. Civic leaders like L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park and developer Rick Caruso have pointed to the issue as a sign of poor infrastructure upkeep.
[A fun rant. Here is a snip:
“Who knew that the best way to convert Utopian Woke Democrats back into a reality-based thought system would be to burn their houses down? The wealthy showbiz folk occupying the moral high ground of the Pacific Palisades voted Democratic by 90-percent. They were fully on-board with the agenda of the Party of Chaos, especially Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion (DEI) and the open border that allowed a deluge of mysterious strangers to flood the country.”]
Apocalypse Still Unspooling.
https://www.kunstler.com/p/apocalypse-still-unspooling
“Life imitates art,” Oscar Wilde quipped, a most insightful glimpse into the human condition delivered as a wise-crack. Very Hollywood. Too bad there were no late-night talk shows in Oscar’s time. It took more than eighty years, but the apocalyptic burning of Los Angeles depicted at the climax of Nathanial West’s 1939 novel The Day of the Locust has finally come — the city of dreams turned into one big flaming nightmare. The adumbrations of this fiasco will darken our national life for years to come.
Who knew that the best way to convert Utopian Woke Democrats back into a reality-based thought system would be to burn their houses down? The wealthy showbiz folk occupying the moral high ground of the Pacific Palisades voted Democratic by 90-percent. They were fully on-board with the agenda of the Party of Chaos, especially Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion (DEI) and the open border that allowed a deluge of mysterious strangers to flood the country.
Now, reports come across the “X” wires that these mystery folk are cruising the wreckage in the canyons on scooters and in cars to loot anything left of value. The police are shown on video capturing a mystery migrant with a blowtorch suspected of starting the latest outbreak named the Kenneth Fire on the edge of the San Fernando Valley. Loud-and-proud DEI firefighters were stymied in their work by neighborhood fire hydrants that were disappointingly not “full of water,” as they put it. Is that how it works? Each hydrant is supposed to get filled up on a regular schedule by water pixies?
You know by now that LA Mayor Karen Bass was unavailable for the early innings of the conflagration, having flown to the West African nation of Ghana for the inauguration of the new president John Dramani Mahama. But she managed to scramble back in time to mourn the smoldering ruins of Malibu. Governor Gavin Newsom dallied on a smoke-filled street with CNN’s disaster specialist, Anderson Cooper, pretending to manage the situation, which was, in fact, completely out of control. Among the things the governor has been criticized for is poor forest and brush management. Mr. Newsom has been lately working to pass a $25-million bill to fund measures for “Trump-proofing” California. For that same $25-million, he could have hired 500 workers at $50,000-a-year to cut brush around Los Angeles County. That is, if he didn’t avail himself of work-gangs from the California penitentiaries.
Even “Joe Biden” was in town, to announce the creation of a new national monument, the Chuckwalla National Monument, south of Joshua Tree National Park — 125 miles out in the Mojave Desert from LA. But he had helpful phone conversations with Governor Newsom. . . promises of federal funding to build Malibu back better. I wonder if the folks still camping out in tents back in the Mountains of Carolina heard about that. This same week “JB” also announced another $500-million aid package for Ukraine. Anybody wondering why “America First” helped get Mr. Trump elected?
You can’t overstate the amount and degree of family devastation to be endured in the months and years ahead. For one thing, many homeowners recently had their fire insurance cancelled. Decades of punitive bureaucracy made rate increases difficult in wildfire-prone areas, so companies like Allstate decided to quit doing business in the state. So, many of the thousands of lost houses will be total losses. A great many of these were multi-million-dollar houses, even modest ones built in the 1960s, due to the extreme desirability of neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades, the Hollywood Hills, and Malibu Beach. Some middle-class people had their entire nest-eggs vested in these houses.
Comedian and podcaster Adam Carolla put out an insightful video rant about just how difficult it will be to rebuild, even if you had homeowner’s insurance — or happened to be a very wealthy Hollywood actor. He put a spotlight on the monumentally obstructive permitting process in Los Angeles County, including additional onerous environmental agency hurdles that anyone would meet attempting to construct a new building in California. Also consider: where are the thousands of competent building contractors going to come from to work on so many replacement houses in one locality at the same time? The bottom-line is that an awful lot of formerly middle-class and even well-off people will be homeless possibly for years ahead. You have not begun to hear about this.
You also have to wonder how this disaster will end up affecting the movie industry. Show business in LA had been on-the-ropes for quite a while preceding the big fire. Woked-up management putting out woked-up movies did enough damage on top of momentous changes in movie exhibition and distribution, writers and actors’ strikes, and super high-priced union labor for movie technicians. The movie business started in LA mainly because of its beautiful Mediterranean climate. You could shoot film outdoors year-round. The industry has been stealthily bailing out of California for years, moving to places like Vancouver and Atlanta. Now, in the smoking ruins, how many showbiz people are ready to run shrieking from the Golden State? And how much is the economic impact of this local disaster a harbinger of a more general national downturn to come? Probably a lot, I’m thinking.
“Among the things the governor has been criticized for is poor forest and brush management.”
This is a major issue.
Bond futures …
https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=BONDS&p=d
Would now be a good time to dump your bonds, or has that ship already sailed?
Barrons
Feature
The 60/40 Portfolio Isn’t Doing Its Job. It May Be Time to Ditch Bonds.
Bonds have a reputation for zigging when stocks zag. But this hasn’t been the case as much in recent years.
By Elizabeth O’Brien
Jan. 10, 2025 11:23 am ET
…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/f26a86f9-9393-356a-9615-9abde99234f0/the-60-40-portfolio-isn%E2%80%99t.html
CNBC — Zuckerberg says Biden administration pushed Meta ‘super hard’ to take down vaccine content (1/10/2025):
“Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan in a podcast published Friday that his company was pressured by the Biden administration to remove content on side effects of Covid vaccines.
In a letter to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee in August, Zuckerberg said the administration “pressured” Meta to “censor” Covid-19 content, adding that he regretted some of the decisions the company made following those requests.
“And they pushed us super hard, to take down the things that were honestly were true,” Zuckerberg told Rogan. “They basically pushed us and said, you know, anything that says that vaccines might have side effects, you basically need to take down.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/10/mark-zuckerberg-says-biden-pushed-meta-to-remove-posts-on-vaccines.html
A little late for you to be asking for a “pandemic amnesty” there Mark.
And yeah, get a haircut. That jeri curl isn’t working 🙁
“That jeri curl isn’t working…”
Yeah, that perm is from another decade or two.
[Governor Newsome: Ya gotta love this guy.]
Newsom orders independent investigation into dry fire hydrants during L.A. fires.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-01-10/newsom-water-fires-investigation
Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered an independent investigation into the causes behind the loss of water pressure to fire hydrants, which hampered firefighting efforts in Los Angeles.
Newsom says: “We need answers to ensure this does not happen again.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered an independent investigation into the causes behind water supply problems that left dry fire hydrants and hampered firefighting efforts during the devastating fires in Southern California.
Newsom’s demand for answers came amid criticism of city officials in Los Angeles over their handling of the disaster and questions about whether local water-related decisions and planning played a role in depriving firefighters of water during the most destructive fires in L.A. history. The governor has also come under fire, largely on social media and in right-wing media coverage, for the state’s handling of the disaster.
“I am calling for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to local fire hydrants and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir,” the governor said in a post on X. “We need answers to ensure this does not happen again and we have every resource available to fight these catastrophic fires.”
The governor said in a letter to Janisse Quiñones, DWP’s chief executive and chief engineer, that report of “the loss of water pressure to some local fire hydrants during the fires and the reported unavailability of water supplies from Santa Ynez Reservoir are deeply troubling to me and the community.”
“While water supplies from local fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas, losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors,” Newsom wrote. “We need answers to how that happened.
The limitations of local water systems complicated firefighting efforts in Pacific Palisades, where scores of fire hydrants were left with little or no water, and in Altadena and Pasadena, which are served by different utilities and where firefighters say they have grappled with low water pressure.
The problems have exposed what experts say are limitations in city water supply systems not built for wildfires on this scale. Water researchers and experts have said the system that supplies neighborhoods doesn’t have the capacity to deliver such large volumes of water over several hours.
Additionally, a large reservoir in Pacific Palisades that is part of the L.A. water system was out of use when the wildfire destroyed thousands of homes and other structures. Officials told The Times that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty.
Whether having the reservoir online would have had a meaningful impact on fighting the blaze is unclear. DWP says staffers are conducting an analysis to evaluate the effect of the reservoir being offline.
The $750,000-a-year LA water czar [DEI hire] is responsible for a raft of failures that contributed to the devastating Palisades Fire, fire department insiders told DailyMail.com.
On Mayor Karen Bass’s orders, the city maxed out its budget to ‘attract private-sector talent’, hiring Department of Water and Power (LADWP) CEO Janisse Quiñones on a $750,000 salary in May – almost double that of her predecessor.
Now, Quiñones is being blamed by LA Fire Department (LAFD) insiders for leaving a nearby reservoir disconnected and fire hydrants broken for months, DailyMail.com can reveal, leading to firefighters running out of water as they battled the devastating Palisades Fire this week.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14272399/LA-water-chief-Janisse-Quinones-fire-hydrants-reservoir-failures-Palisades.html
“DailyMail.com exclusively obtained a memo to LAFD ‘top brass’ sent on Monday January 6, the day before the Palisades Fire began, revealing demands from Bass to cut the department’s budget by a further $49million, on top of $17.6million of cuts already voted on by the city council.”
Wow, bye bye job!
The $750,000-a-year LA water czar
Salary twice as much as the President of the US? Are you sure?
‘After this, who knows if I’m insurable anymore,’ Scanlon said. ‘If we can’t get insurance up here, our property values will plummet, and in California, that’s our nest egg’
It’s these times of mental fortitude that make a winnah! Tim.
Mebbe its time for a reverse Dust Bowl migration out of CA and back to Oklahoma, Tim.
Is it easier to insure against tornadoes than fires?
A looming liquidity crisis would be the Wall Street-Federal Reserve Looting Syndicate’s rug-pull on 47. No wonder the Democrat-Bolsheviks seem so sanguine about handing over the reins and refrained from a repeat of dumping 15 million fraudulent votes in the wee hours of the morning a la 2020.
https://x.com/hmacbe/status/1877785769055580468
‘Bucci said he knows, he probably won’t get much. ‘We just don’t think there’s just crunching the numbers and doing the math real fast. We don’t think there’s going to be, I mean, he’s $11 million in debt. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything left. You know, it’s just like, I don’t know. We’re just gonna have to see how that pans out. But I just don’t think the money is there’
It’s gone Dave.
‘It’s still a mystery where the money went’
It doesn’t matter what Paul spent it on Dave, it’s gone.
Big Challenge For Sellers This Spring (Peel Region Real Estate Market Update)
Team Sessa Real Estate
25 minutes ago MISSISSAUGA
This episode shows the current Brampton, Mississauga, Ajax, Whitby, and Pickering Real Estate home prices and market trends for the week ending Jan 1, 2025. We also discuss how such high levels of inventory with such low sales is creating a recipe for disaster for sellers this spring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF5062t9K0w
10 minutes.
Remember when REIC “experts” quoted in the garbage legacy media told the gullible & stupid that rates would be lower in 2024? “You can always refinance later!” Oops….
https://x.com/AustinWhittRE/status/1877850960581575010
The corrupt senile pedo never had a snowball’s chance against Trump in an honest election. But he’s delusional to the bitter end.
https://x.com/saras76/status/1877860772736319508
Proof: The lights are on, but no one is home.
Hey Joe, the Wizard called, your brain is ready.
Home prices will be HUGE with surge in fire insurance costs, luxury realtor says
Fox Business
4 hours ago
Luxury real estate broker Josh Altman discusses the impact on the Los Angeles real estate market from the wildfires and breaks down the costs of rebuilding and insurance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MebTyrcgW5o
4:15.
“Home prices will be HUGE with surge in fire insurance costs, luxury realtor says”
Do they mean luxury home prices, or rebuilding costs?
It seems like uninsurability would make prices of existing homes go down, due to a drop in purchase demand. Who wants to buy an expensive home if insurance is unaffordable, or even unavailable?
My thought as well, but I keep seeing “low supply, high demand, prices UP.”
Have mortgage rates finally settled down, following all the excitement in the bond markets?
2025 Mortgage Rate Forecast: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Bet on Lower Rates This Year
In today’s unaffordable housing market, are 7% rates here to stay?
Katherine Watt
Jan. 10, 2025 1:00 a.m. PT
…
https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/2025-mortgage-rate-forecast-heres-why-you-shouldnt-bet-on-lower-rates-this-year/
Why is it again that everyone wants to live in California?
Data Graphics
Maps: See how large the California wildfires are
The Palisades Fire is already half the land size of Washington, D.C.
Death toll rises as California wildfires rage
…
https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/california-fire-map-track-wildfires-size-rcna186764
I read something interesting. Because of the fires schools across the metro are closed, to keep kids out of the smoke. So what are some of them doing? Their parents are taking them to Disneyland, drawing record crowds during what is usually a slow time of the year in the theme park biz.
Why is it again that everyone wants to live in California?
It’s the weather. It’s in the 70’s in Orange County, while it’s in the 30’s in Colorado
It’s the weather.
Along with the beaches and a plethora of outdoor activities practically year-round. California is a beautiful state. Democrats have ruined much of it.