We Borrowed The Most Against Those Assets, So Of Course Those Assets Are More Expensive
A weekend topic starting with the Associated Press. “The Petersen family’s two-bedroom apartment in northern California is starting to feel small. Four-year-old Jerrik’s toy monster trucks are everywhere in the 1,100-square-foot unit in Campbell, just outside of San Jose. And it’s only a matter of time before 9-month-old Carolynn starts amassing more toys, says her mother, Jenn Petersen. The 42-year-old chiropractor had hoped she and her husband, Steve, a 39-year-old dental hygienist, would have bought a house by now. But when they can afford a bigger place, it will have to be another rental. Petersen has done the math: With mortgage rates and home prices stubbornly high, there’s no way the couple, who make about $270,000 a year and pay about $2,500 in monthly rent, can afford a home anywhere in their area.”
“According to October data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, a San Jose family with a median income of $156,700 would need to spend 80% of their income on housing — including an $8,600 monthly mortgage payment — to own a median-priced $1.54 million home. The issue is widespread and near historic highs nationally: As of last fall, the median homeowner in the U.S. was paying 42% of their income on homeownership costs, according to the Atlanta Fed. Four years ago, that percentage was 28% and had not previously reached 38% since late 2007, just before the housing market crash. ‘I used to subscribe to the idea that owning a house is just a natural milestone you have to reach,’ she said. ‘At some point, though, what are you sacrificing by just owning a house and gaining equity? I want to be able to travel with my kids. I want to be able to sign them up for extracurriculars. How are we supposed to do that if we’re paying a mortgage that’s most of our take-home pay?'”
The Aspen Times in Colorado. “Aspen’s real estate market is stabilizing with a slight increase in unit sales, while Snowmass Village experiences strong appreciation and a surge in new condo offerings, according to Tim Estin, a real estate broker with Aspen Snowmass Sotheby’s. Median home prices in Aspen have held steady at $13.4 million after a previous 14% decline, while condo prices have risen 5% to $2.85 million. The price per square foot is normalizing at higher price points, with 40% of active listings priced above $4,000 per square foot — a threshold once reserved for only a select few properties.”
“The highest price per square foot — $8,215 — was achieved by a $43 million penthouse at Monarch on the Park. In 2019, before COVID-19, the highest sale was $23 million at $3,018 per square foot, with the top price per square foot being $3,960 for a West End historic home. Today, Estin said properties exceeding $5,000 per square foot are more common, reinforcing Aspen’s status in the ultra-luxury market. ‘Prices have increased by 2.5 to 3 times more since COVID-19,’ Estin said.”
Yahoo Finance on Colorado. “It’s a good time to be a renter in Denver. Throughout the city and its suburbs, rents are falling and newly constructed buildings are dangling an array of incentives for signing new leases: offers of six, eight, or even 10 weeks free are now common, brokers say, as are other perks like discounted parking and gift cards. The relief comes after a construction boom added tens of thousands of new units to the metro area last year alone, largely in its urban core. ‘Everybody that wanted to move here because of remote work has moved here,’ said Brian Sanchez, CEO of Denver Apartment Finders, a locator service. ‘The demand is not keeping up with the supply.'”
“Rents for apartments of up to two bedrooms in the Denver metro area dropped 5.9% last year, according to Realtor.com. That’s a faster decrease than several other onetime hotspots for pandemic-era migration and construction, like Austin and Nashville. There, rents fell 5% and 4.4%, respectively in 2024. Broker Colin Stok said he recently showed a friend new apartment options, including one offering 10 weeks of free rent and free parking. When the friend’s current rental company found out he was looking, it agreed to match the incentives in exchange for a lease renewal. ‘They’re trying to keep people in buildings,’ said Stok.”
News 4 in Texas. “A new affordable housing complex is now leasing in San Antonio. But how does affordable housing in San Antonio compare to other cities? Renter Betsy Calderon says she has heard about low rent prices in San Antonio. According to rent.com they average around $1,000 dollars for a studio apartment and roughly $1,100 for a one-bedroom. Kayla Miranda, Director of the Coalition for Tenant Justice, says according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition those making the least amount of money are still spending a substantial amount of their income on rent and utilities.”
“‘So people are just like putting up with it. They’re choosing between medication and food and paying the rent,’ Miranda said. And she says the reason why these people are struggling is that we aren’t comparing local wages with other cities wages. ‘Well, if you’re from California, San Antonio rents are amazing! They’re so low,’ Miranda said.”
The Palm Beach Post. “Nearly one in five condo buildings in Palm Beach County that are covered by the state’s new safety-inspection law have failed to submit even initial reports. Commissioner Maria Sachs said her concern was that imposing fines could place more stress on owners who already cannot afford to pay the assessments being levied for the needed repairs. The Florida Policy Project has released a report noting that some owners may face eviction, or the building could be condemned as a result of assessments that are being levied to repair aging buildings. The report estimates there are 1.1 million condo units in Florida in buildings older than 30 years. They are concentrated in just eight counties — Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Collier, Sarasota, Hillsborough, and Manatee. Nearly 160,000 are in Palm Beach County. Listings have significantly increased for those units. West Palm Beach, according to the report, saw a year-over year increase in listings of 52%, one of the highest in Florida.”
“The Post reported last year that several condo buildings were found to be so unsafe that inhabitants had to be evacuated. One was in St. Lucie County where an inspector made a frantic 911-type call to the Fire Marshall saying that a building at the Villa Del Sol condo complex was in danger of collapsing. Residents there continue to be barred from entering their units while restoration work takes place. Residents at Villa Del Sol are struggling to cope with assessments of more than $100,000.”
Click Orlando in Florida. “Home prices are up, fewer people are buying, and the market is balanced, according to a 2024 breakdown of Central Florida’s housing market by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association. The median home price in 2024 was $385,000, an all-time high and a 3.9% increase year-over-year. Total sales, though, fell 7.1% compared to 2023, based on data the association pulls from Orange, Osceola, Lake and Seminole counties. As sales dropped and more homes spent time on the market, inventory reached a six-month supply for the first time since 2011.”
“News 6 sat down with Orlando Regional Realtor Association president Lawrence Bellido. What’s the outlook for Central Florida’s housing market this year? ‘The interest rates are going to adjust and they’re going to cool off. We could see them go a bit lower, but we’re not going to have our historical interest rates from the Covid period. That’s not going to happen. I don’t think that’s going to happen again in our lifetime.'”
“Do you feel like that’s the biggest obstacle that first-time homebuyers face? That downpayment assistance and that big money up-front? ‘Actually, I don’t think that’s a big obstacle. All they have to do is protect their credit. There are so many programs out there that require little out-of-pocket depending on a customer’s situation. The only negative would be if they’re not talking to people or they’re looking at the wrong article or something that says there’s doom and gloom when that’s not really true.'”
“What about someone looking to sell? ‘Sellers are going to have to be a little bit more aggressive when it comes to staging, curb appeal and doing some updates to make sure their homes can sell.'”
The Globe and Mail. “There is a common narrative that if Vancouver, for example, were to greatly increase its supply of new housing, prices would come down. The problem, goes the theory, is that Vancouver is just not building enough. But that’s not quite the story, say economists Paul Beaudry and Jeremy Kronick, who just released a paper titled Making Housing More Affordable in Canada: The Need for More Large Cities, for the C.D. Howe Institute.”
“It won’t be easy to grow a jobs market when we’ve been invested so thoroughly in real estate for so long. For Canadians, the incentives of real estate investment have shone brighter than most others. ‘I’d say some of the more entrepreneurial kind of talent gets put into housing in Canada, because that’s been the best option. And that’s not a great place to put all our talent,’ said Mr. Beaudry. ‘We’re doing a lot of building and it’s consuming a lot of resources, but we’re not, at the end of the day, going to satisfy housing demand,’ said Mr. Watt, who believes part of the problem is the presale financing of the condo market.”
“Instead of responding to demand from end-users, the presale housing market responded to demand from investors who put up the money on presale units. That money financed construction and investors reaped the gains of rising housing prices. But the units favoured by investors are small, suitable as rentals. ‘Nobody wants to live in a dog crate sized condo,’ said Economist David Watt, who is based in Toronto, where new condo units last year had been empty for months. ‘We were building a lot, and we were just not satisfying demand. And right now, we’re sort of seeing the folly of what happened. … It was a slow-moving train wreck. You could see it happening years ago. We just didn’t do anything about it because it didn’t seem to ever be a problem. And now it’s a problem. … Well, you know what? The solution is going to take years and it’s going to be difficult.'”
“David Williams, vice-president of policy for the Business Council of B.C., and former senior economist for the Bank of Canada, says part of the problem is that the incentives are there to invest in real estate over income growth. Home ownership has less tax burden and greater opportunity for building wealth. It’s no wonder that when the interest rate dropped during the pandemic consumers took on historically high levels of mortgage debt. Mortgage debt went from around $1.6-trillion leveraged against housing stock to $2.1-trillion, said Mr. Williams. But there was no way that housing supply could possibly keep up, so the restricted supply of resale homes shot up in value.”
“‘Because we’ve had this mortgage credit boom that’s gone on for a very long time, we’ve expanded our housing finance system. So that’s meant that our homes are going up in value. … People have been prepared to accept low productivity growth in Canada because their personal wealth is going up because of their existing real estate. It’s just not a coincidence that we’re the most indebted in the world. We borrowed the most against those assets. So, of course those assets are more expensive.'”
Global News in Canada. “After about four years of frustration, a Brampton, Ont. man and his wife finally got back their 32nd -floor Toronto waterfront condo apartment unit after their tenant was removed by the Sheriff. For Narinder Singh, the long-awaited eviction was a relief. ‘I’m at a loss for words, this has been a harrowing experience,’ said Singh, interviewed minutes after the eviction had taken place. Singh says he is owed the money after the tenant, Deeqa Rafle, inconsistently paid rent at various times over a four-year period. He says she also failed to pay some utilities that were registered in his name. According to Singh, he calculates he’s owed $55,177.85.”
“‘The non-payment of rent can financially destroy small landlords. We have seen some of our members lose their investment homes and even their primary residences to power of sale after failing to keep up with mortgage payments,’said Varun Sriskanda, a member of Small Ownership Landlords of Ontario’s board of directors. ‘Most of the small landlords I speak to handle the situation by getting a second job, using their savings, taking out a line of credit or refinancing their property to take out equity — anything to stay afloat,. On a regular basis I hear stories of small landlords that are continuing to fall victim to unscrupulous tenants.'”
“Singh says he and his wife saved ‘penny by penny’ to purchase the condo apartment as an investment for their eventual retirement. Singh doesn’t believe he’ll be reimbursed for the outstanding rent. According to Sriskanda, landlords who’ve had serious issues with tenants or who’ve heard about the risks are reallocating their money into safer investments. ‘The bigger issue is who this really hurts, and that’s the tenants,’ he said. ‘The risks are too high, and small landlords are bearing the brunt of Ontario’s housing crisis.'”
The Geelong Advertiser in Australia. “Geelong home values were off to a slow start in 2025 as the glut of homes fuelled by rising property taxes saw the median home price dip in January. The city’s median house price dropped 1.3 per cent to $756,000 over three months as a decline in January ended several months of positive growth. The overall decline follows Melbourne and regional Victoria, which also saw values retreat in January. The median house value in Geelong is 4.7 per cent lower than the same time last year as PropTrack senior economist Eleanor Creagh said Victoria’s property market was weaker as elevated stock levels gave buyers more choice and less reason to transact urgently. ‘It’s likely accumulated listings are driving some of that weakness,’ Mr Creagh said.”
“Buxton director Ben Riddle said the property market was so far ‘out of whack’ high stock levels and low buyer participation due to the unprecedented amount of manipulation from government decisions, such as raising land taxes and policies targeting property ownership. Mr Riddle said while the data shows the median house value is 4 per cent lower, year on year, it doesn’t show the people who can’t sell their home who have cut more than 10 per cent off their asking price to try and find a buyer. ‘Where it’s out of whack is the people that aren’t ultimately wealthy have been forced to put property on the market in unfavourable times because they can’t actually afford to hold it.'”
This Post Has 142 Comments
Comments are closed.
Realtors are liars.
Realtors are liars.
If a realtor lies in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, is it still a lie?
‘Nobody wants to live in a dog crate sized condo,’ said Mr. Watt, who is based in Toronto, where new condo units last year had been empty for months. ‘We were building a lot, and we were just not satisfying demand. And right now, we’re sort of seeing the folly of what happened. … It was a slow-moving train wreck. You could see it happening years ago. We just didn’t do anything about it because it didn’t seem to ever be a problem. And now it’s a problem. … Well, you know what? The solution is going to take years and it’s going to be difficult’
The lending was sound Dave. At the time.
No speculators were harmed in the making of this movie. Oh wait, legions of greedy, reckless real estate mogul wannabes are now getting a DELIVERANCE-style reaming. My bad.
I’ve seen a similar quote before. If no one wants to buy it to live in, why would anyone want to rent it either??????
These speculators all wanted to flip it before it was even built much less occupied. It’s bitcoin in real estate. Nothing really exists that people want in real life. They just want someone to buy it at a higher price than they bought it.
“According to October data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, a San Jose family with a median income of $156,700 would need to spend 80% of their income on housing — including an $8,600 monthly mortgage payment — to own a median-priced $1.54 million home.
Heckova job, “Zimbabwe Ben” Bernanke, Yellen the Felon, & BlackRock Jay.
“At some point, though, what are you sacrificing by just owning a house and gaining equity?”
If I’m doing the math right they are saving about 70k a year by renting. And that’s a given. Is there a guarantee of equity gain in the near future? We all know the answer to that.
“the median homeowner in the U.S. was paying 42% of their income on homeownership costs”
At least it was cheaper than renting.
The report estimates there are 1.1 million condo units in Florida in buildings older than 30 years.
Oh dear – the aggregate wipeout of Yellen Bux “value” is about to get downright Biblical for the Boomers who thought they could defer required maintenance & structural fixes into perpetuity. This is my “gravely concerned” face.
Trump 2.0 is a savage. The globalists & Deep State badly miscalculated the blowback from the 2020 election steal and four years of the inept, tyrannical Biden-Harris regime.
https://x.com/saras76/status/1886061166968897938
That’s an unusual amount of all-caps, even for him.
He’s not touting the line that success-will-be-the-best-revenge anymore. Nope, he’s getting his real revenge.
Trump to sign memo lifting Biden’s last-minute collective bargaining agreements
Foxnews January 31, 2025 12:56pm EST
“President Donald Trump is expected to sign a memo Friday to lift the collective bargaining agreements (CBA) former President Joe Biden put into effect before leaving office, Fox News Digital has learned.
The memo prohibits agencies from making new collective bargaining agreements during the final 30 days of a president’s term. It also directs agency heads to disapprove any collective bargaining agreements that Biden put through during the final 30 days of his term.”
————–
In Biden’s final days, Social Security, Small Business Admin, FTC, and Dept of Education all signed long-term collective bargaining agreements allowing for remote work. Trump’s memo will override those.
Before you celebrate, I think this memo is going to be overturned in the courts. From what I understand, current labor law respects a CBA for its entire term. Executive orders can only take effect at time of renewal. For those agencies that signed a 5-year contract, they can continue to telework for Trump’s entire term, thumbing their nose at him the entire time.
If Trump doesn’t know this, then the people at OPM will tell him. Congress can pass a law and override all of these CBAs instantly, but it would require 7 Democratic senators to vote for cloture to end a filibuster. I don’t know if they would do that.
The unions are all digging in against Trump, and the unions pretty much have the law on their side.
Trump must know he’s at a legal disadvantage. He needs to talk to Congress behind closed doors.
I will resist the urge to opine except let’s wait until this movie is over.
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
― Yogi Berra
until this movie is over.
Promises to be a thriller.
Welcome to the department of redundancy.
USAID was one of the most lucrative uniparty patronage & graft rackets, and the squeals of rage from the likes of Chuck Schumer & Lindsey Graham tell you who the real beneficiaries of this involuntary taxpayer generosity were. Seethe harder, globalist scum.
https://x.com/laralogan/status/1885928917703483694
“Home prices are up, fewer people are buying, and the market is balanced, according to a 2024 breakdown of Central Florida’s housing market by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.
Three things:
1. Realtors are liars
2. Realtors are liars
3. Lying realtors (redundant) are dusting off the same lies, spin, and disinformation they peddled right before Housing Bubble 1.0 imploded like a supernova. Using disingenuous terms like “balanced” and “adjusting” can’t conceal the reality that the pace and extent of the cratering is accelerating.
The 25% tariffs Trump just slapped on Mexico and Canada, and 10% on China, are highly likely to fuel higher inflation in the United States. Even taking into account the Fed’s statistical fakery on the true rate of inflation, lying REIC claims of a mythical pending drop in interest rates are going to be dispelled as rising inflation forces the Fed’s hand. The fools who bought into the “date the rate” nonsense from lying realtors motivated by Always Be Closing rather than fiduciary duty to clients, and REIC shill “experts” quoted in the garbage legacy media, are going to get a brutal lesson in the consequences of misplaced trust.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/31/how-tariffs-on-canada-china-and-mexico-may-impact-us-consumers.html
‘The interest rates are going to adjust and they’re going to cool off. We could see them go a bit lower….
Or we could see them go much higher, Lyin’ Larry. Especially as surging inflation & the bond vigilantes force the Fed’s hand. Trust these NAR dissemblers and their Happy Talk at your own peril.
“there are 1.1 million condo units in Florida in buildings older than 30 years”
I rent in a building that is 30+ years old. If the structure fails, I can move.
My rental SFH was built in the late 1990s, so construction quality is much higher than the defect-ridden shacks & “luxury” apartment complexes the local builders have been throwing up for the past decade or so.
For Canadians, the incentives of real estate investment have shone brighter than most others.
A nation of degenerate gamblers & greedy speculators that’s going to get the epic schlonging they deserve. If you must squeal it out, FBs, please squeal in time with all the others; otherwise it’s too much of a cacophony.
The only negative would be if they’re not talking to people or they’re looking at the wrong article or something that says there’s doom and gloom when that’s not really true.’”
Gosh, Ben “Alex” Jones, you must really feel bad about yourself for all the gloom & doom disinformation you’re spreading when it’s not really true. You must be some sort of Putin-groupie conspiracy theorist tinfoil hat-wearing naysayer out to undermine public faith in Paul Krugman’s Muh Strongest Economy Ever. I bet yer unvaccinated, too, Pariah Boy.
Ima gonna go out on a limb and guess that not a single garbage legacy media outlet has reached out to you for a contrarian viewpoint to counter-balance the lies, spin, and dissembling the REIC shill “experts” are propagating.
Typical American couple more stuff more stuff. The Petersen family’s two-bedroom apartment in northern California is starting to feel small.
Never ever about downsizing sell what you dont use, . But when they can afford a bigger place, it will have to be another rental. I can see so much they dont need
No typical American couple makes $270K in a year. Their best best is to move out of California. I’m sure there are chiropractor and dental hygienist jobs elsewhere. They could halve their salary in 40 other states and still live far better than they do now.
So true. Yes it sucks everywhere right now. But there are plenty of decent places that suck far less than others. Get out of that miserable place already.
but but but, the ethnic restaurant down the block that we can’t afford to eat at is so very nice…………………….
When people whine about their job prospects life prospects and then refuse to move………….. My give a damn meter goes to zero.
Ethnic restaurant? Oh come on. They live in an 1100 sq ft flat. Even in my expensive area, they can buy an 1500 sq ft house with a yard for $500K or so and eat all the ethnic you want. Yes $500K is a lot, but not if you’re pulling $200K/yr.
The article noted they have family and friends in the area. Cheaper rent can’t easily make up for that. I could move somewhere cheap like rural Missouri, but I’d be miserable and lonely. And lots of cheap small areas are not friendly.
Britain’s Plane Truth About Climate From Britain.
Labour’s airport plan admits economic growth trumps carbon piety.
https://archive.ph/Fn5sW#selection-5741.0-5745.65
WSJ Opinion – Nothing focuses a politician’s mind like a lagging economy, and so it is that Britain’s government finally is starting to get at least somewhat real about climate policy. The latest evidence comes in the news that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves want to build more airport runways in London.
Ms. Reeves on Wednesday promised to build a third runway at Heathrow airport west of London, the country’s main international hub. She also hinted at possible expansion plans for Gatwick, south of London, and Luton, north of the capital. The Heathrow pledge was a centerpiece of the broader economic-growth strategy Ms. Reeves unveiled, which focused on easing the red-tape and permitting constraints on new building.
This is triggering a rebellion in Ms. Reeve’s Labour Party. Airport expansion has been controversial for years, and there’s an economic argument about where in Britain it makes most sense to add transportation capacity. But the Labour meltdown is all about carbon emissions.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a prominent Labourite, is opposed to airport expansion, citing noise, air quality, and his plan to achieve zero net emissions by 2030. Ed Miliband, Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, warned this week he might try to thwart the runway plan on emissions grounds.
Ms. Reeves appears to believe the economy needs the boost despite those objections, and she’s right. Growth remains anemic and inflation elevated, and Britain has sunk into malaise since Ms. Reeve’s high-tax-high-spend budget plan in October (including steeper taxes on airline tickets) led to a dive in business confidence. Desperate to prove that Labour can deliver prosperity, Ms. Reeves and Mr. Starmer now seem willing to sacrifice climate goals for the sake of big-ticket construction projects promising thousands of jobs.
Credit to them for the insight, although not too much credit. Labour and Britain are in this fix because politicians for too long clung to the fiction that they could decarbonize the economy without an economic cost. The plain truth is otherwise—and now the plane truth, too.
Ms. Reeves on Wednesday promised to build a third runway at Heathrow airport west of London
There has been chatter about that for over 20 years.
Federal Housing Administration (FHA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Housing_Administration
“The primary mission of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is to facilitate access to reasonably priced mortgage financing, with a particular focus on individuals with low to moderate incomes and those embarking on their first home purchase.”
Unfortunately, the investors (syndicates, private equity, etc.) are all well aware that easy lending means asset inflation,,, and profits!
And the leader in subprime for the last 15 years!
Venezuela Agrees to Accept Migrants in Deal Paving Way for Deportations, Trump Says.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have fled the country’s economic conditions and repression in recent years.
https://archive.ph/VlCib#selection-5615.0-5619.111
The government of Venezuela will take back tens of thousands of migrants, President Trump said Saturday, removing a major obstacle to his plans for mass deportations.
The deal was negotiated with Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro by Trump adviser Richard Grenell, who made a rare visit by a U.S. official to the capital, Caracas, on Friday. Grenell returned to the U.S. Friday evening with six Americans who had been detained in Venezuelan prisons.
“It is so good to have the Venezuela Hostages back home, and, very important to note, that Venezuela has agreed to receive, back into their Country, all Venezuela illegal aliens who were encamped in the U.S.,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site.
He noted that Venezuela would take back members of the Tren de Aragua, a violent gang that has recently come to the U.S., and that Venezuela would provide transport for its citizens to return.
The agreement will help Trump deliver on a campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization. Accepting deportees is a reversal for Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro who has long refused to allow deportation planes from the U.S., where more than 600,000 Venezuelans had migrated in recent years and received special protected status allowing them to work temporarily.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration revoked a Biden-era decision that extended this status, meaning Venezuelans could be eligible for deportation as soon as April.
No financial or other concessions were promised to Maduro, apart from the prospect of improving the relationship with the U.S., Grenell said.
“The only award for Maduro was my physical presence, the first senior U.S. official to visit the country in years,” he said. “It was a big gift to him to have a visit by an envoy of President Trump.”
The visit by an American official to Venezuela, where the U.S. has had no official presence since 2019, was expected to convey a message to Venezuelan officials that the U.S. would continue to allow Chevron and other Western oil companies to operate in Venezuela, and that Trump would back off pressure on Maduro to make short-term democratic concessions, the people said. Maduro claims he won an election last July that the U.S. and other international observers say he clearly lost to the opposition.
Grenell’s visit helps Maduro claim legitimacy, even as most governments in the region don’t recognize him and he faces U.S. federal indictments on charges of drug trafficking and corruption. His office heavily publicized the meeting with Grenell, releasing photos of them shaking hands and smiling.
Around eight million Venezuelans have fled the country’s economic turmoil and political repression in recent years.
The deal that included the hostage release was secretly negotiated by the White House before Grenell obtained consent from Maduro during the Friday visit, which was agreed to only hours in advance, Grenell said.
Grenell said he was summoned to the Oval Office on Thursday to a meeting with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, where he was given orders to travel to Venezuela at 5 a.m. the next day.
President Trump ordered a military plane for Grenell and asked his subordinates to provide “a big one” in case Grenell would bring “something” back from Caracas, without saying anything about the potential return of the hostages, Grenell said.
After Maduro and Grenell shook hands on the deal, the hostages were brought to Grenell at the airport. They were blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed. When they entered the airplane, the unwitting crew broke into tears, Grenell said.
the U.S. would continue to allow Chevron and other Western oil companies to operate in Venezuela,
I was just talking to a friend about this. I really wanted to know what Trump offer had made to Maduro (through Grinnell) that was so swiftly accepted. I honestly thought it something like “take ’em back or I turn your country into glass.” Nope, all Trump had to do was be nice, promise a visit to the palace, and not pull out American oil companies. (Heh, bonus points if Trump buys some oil from Venezuela to make up for any tarrifs coming from Canada.)
Making deals is Trump’s wheelhouse, and he’s having the time of his life.
I’m surprised the tariffs when into place….I wonder how this is to play out? I think it’s going to cause a lot of problems…..but I’m still for it 100%. We shouldn’t have such a large trade imbalance. Mexico just stated they are putting in a 25% tariff as well. It’s going to be interesting.
Lots of electrical parts/material are Hecho En Mexico.
not for long
They all used to be manufactured in US until along came NAFTA, a bipartisan screw up. BTW I voted for Ross Perot in 1992.
Are you missing out on the dip buying opportunity in bonds?
Forbes
Money
Personal Finance
In A Trump Vs. The Bond Market Fight, The Market Will Win
Erik Sherman
Senior Contributor
Erik Sherman reports on business, economics, finance, tech, and law.
Jan 31, 2025,10:40pm EST
Updated Feb 1, 2025, 09:44am EST
US President Donald Trump arrives at Palm Beach
International Airport in West Palm Beach Florida on January 31, 2025, as he travels to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Much is going on with Donald Trump’s second administration. Many people are delighted with its actions — including the start of tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada slated to start tomorrow — and many are displeased
But forget about individual opinions for a moment. There is one collective response that will have significant consequences for the country and even the world. Not the stock market, although the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrials, and Nasdaq all took hits on Friday. Not consumers, who will see higher prices — also known as higher inflation in the form of oil, pharmaceuticals, and computers chips as The Hill reported — as importers of products will likely pass on the threatened 25% duties.
The 8 million pound gorilla is the global bond market, which was valued in 2023 at $140.7 trillion, according to The Motley Fool.
As a number of publications have been quoting Democratic political operative James Carville from the 1990s, “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2025/01/31/in-a-trump-versus-the-bond-market-fight-the-market-will-win/
Many Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities.
A poll from The New York Times and Ipsos found that Americans believe abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. issues and climate change concern Democrats more than the cost of living.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/us/democrats-ipsos-poll-abortion-lgbt.html
Many Americans say they do not believe the Democratic Party is focused on the economic issues that matter most to them and is instead placing too much emphasis on social issues that they consider less urgent.
Asked to identify the Democratic Party’s most important priorities, Americans most often listed abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and climate change, according to a poll from The New York Times and Ipsos conducted from Jan. 2 to 10.
The issues that people cited as most important to them personally were the economy and inflation, health care and immigration, the poll found. The kinds of social causes that progressive activists have championed in recent years ranked much lower.
As Democrats gather in Washington this weekend to elect the next chairman of their party, and debate how to most effectively counter the Trump administration, the latest public opinion surveys contain worrisome signs for them.
The country remains deeply divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership, with roughly equal shares of people saying that his second term is cause for celebration or concern.
But the poll suggests that people do not view the Democratic Party as an appealing alternative.
In a broad sense, the poll, which surveyed a representative sample of 2,128 adults nationwide, found that Americans think the Republican Party is more in sync with the mood of the country. The issues that people said mattered most to Republicans were also, for the most part, the issues that mattered to them: immigration, the economy, inflation and taxes.
What Americans Said Were the Most Important Issues for Each Group
[A chart appears here …]
Overall, voters view the Democratic Party more negatively than the Republican Party, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted the week after Mr. Trump took office. The 57 percent unfavorable rating for Democrats is the highest Quinnipiac has recorded for the party since it first started asking the question in 2008.
The results underscore the challenge facing Democrats as they attempt to rebuild their party after losing the White House and control of both chambers of Congress. Since the election, Democrats have been unable to agree even on the reasons behind their defeat.
While party officials broadly agree that Democrats should place greater emphasis on economic policy, there’s less consensus on how — or even whether — to address issues like transgender rights.
Views of both parties could shift as Mr. Trump moves forward with his agenda. Some of his administration’s highest profile actions do not have widespread support, such as eliminating diversity requirements in government and lashing out at Mr. Trump’s political opponents.
People who responded to the poll — including those who said they did not vote for Mr. Trump and do not consider themselves Republicans — described themselves in interviews as feeling alienated from Democrats.
Silver Arenas, a 27-year-old living in Mount Vernon, Wash., said he thinks that while many Americans are worried about the cost of living and the scarcity of affordable housing, the Democrats highlight policies that do not seem relevant.
A lot of the time, he said, Republicans seem to support policies that hurt people. When Democrats have bad ideas, as he sees it, “They’re not trying to hurt people, they’re just stupid.”
Mr. Arenas said he voted for Ms. Harris but would consider not voting at all if he doesn’t like the Democratic ticket in the future. “Democrats should have paid a lot more attention to the cost of living,” he added.
Muhammad Khan, 30, an accountant from Philadelphia, voted for Mr. Trump last year. He explained that as a Muslim, it was difficult to support the Democrats because of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas.
“They take people for granted,” he said of Democrats, “that they would vote for them no matter what.”
Mr. Khan remains optimistic about Mr. Trump and trusts Republicans more on the economy.
And while he said he believes Democrats are usually kinder than Republicans to marginalized groups, he thinks they have gone too far lately.
“Gender equality, gender pay, L.G.B.T. rights,” Mr. Khan said, ticking off the issues he thinks preoccupy Democrats. “I think it’s valuable,” he added, “but it’s too much.”
On lesbian, gay and transgender rights, people perceive the Democratic Party’s priorities as particularly misaligned with their own. Just 4 percent of Americans listed L.G.B.T.Q. issues as very important to them personally. But 31 percent said they were a Democratic Party priority.
The same percentage of people cited abortion as a top issue for the party, while 13 percent identified it as one of the top three concerns to them personally. Americans also identified climate change (25 percent) and the state of democracy (20 percent) as issues most important to Democrats.
Even self-identified Democrats were only somewhat more likely than other Americans to mention abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. issues as important to them personally. Democrats did not rank either among their top five concerns.
Most Democratic candidates, however, did not run campaigns in 2024 that were as focused on social issues as Americans seem to believe.
For the most part, Democrats, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, did not discuss gender identity. That came from Republicans, who fanned fears about transgender women playing on female sports teams and minors receiving transgender medical treatment.
But Democrats did not agree on a cohesive or effective way to respond.
“Politics is about perception,” said Adam Jentleson, a Democratic strategist who has urged his party to rethink how much influence it allows activist groups to have over its agenda. “And people perceive Democrats as being focused on the demands of activists instead of kitchen table issues.”
The question, he said, “is what do we do about it?”
“We can either whine about media coverage and complain that life isn’t fair,” Mr. Jentleson added. “Or we can get real about the realities of politics and actually fix the problem.”
Abortion stands out as an issue that Americans largely associate with the Democratic Party but that also has broad public support. Roughly two-thirds of American support some form of legal abortion access, according to Pew Research Center.
Economy and inflation were, by far, the issues that mattered most to Americans, the poll found. That was consistent across every demographic group.
“Democrats did not talk about inflation nearly enough” ahead of the election, said Dustin Johnson, 30, a software engineer in Elk River, Minn. And when they did talk about it, he added, Democrats made technical arguments about the slowing rate of inflation.
“Inflation is lower,” he said. “But what people are seeing with inflation is not the rate of increase, it’s where the inflation went.”
Mr. Johnson — who said that he voted for Ms. Harris and had previously supported Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang — hopes the Democratic losses in November will push the party to focus on middle-income and working-class Americans.
For now, he said he fears that the party has become “an insiders club” that mostly ignores those voters. “So maybe I don’t want to identify as a Democrat,” he added. “Now I feel like more of an independent.”
Democrat Party is now little more than an irrelevant virtue signal.
#FAIL
DNC official demands the DNC election a nonbinary person for a leadership position.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1885851119508685236
The Democrat party is all about where you stick your ****.
Letters to the editor for Saturday, February 1, 2025
Hillary was right
No surprise, continuing to fail leadership 101, Mr. Trump and his minions, without benefit of an investigation or any verified facts, started to publicly cast blame for the recent tragic aircraft crash on Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, DEI and any other MAGA red meat entity that came to mind, even while the bodies were being pulled from the water. My first thought after seeing the tragedy was to ask myself how long it would take for Mr. Trump to make this horrible tragedy about himself. Not long. Less than one day. Families were still anxiously waiting to receive the remains of their loved ones when Mr. Trump, feigning empathy as only he can do, launched into his pointless, idiotic, typically irresponsible, meandering, garbled and incoherent tirade of a press conference trying to ensure that all of the glory is his but all of the guts are spilled by others. This behavior, like so much of what we see and will continue to see from Mr. Trump and his Pavlov’s dog bootlickers is indeed deplorable. Only someone who has undergone Trump’s version of a MAGA lobotomy would conclude otherwise. When this country faces its next real national crisis, we will see the clueless MAGA mob Mr. Trump is assembling flail about, cast blame on every Democrat back to John F. Kennedy and engage in wholesale CYA and while they fall on their swords, we will bleed. They have learned from the master, Mr. Trump himself. We have seen it before. We will see it again. Ingest bleach to cure your COVID, folks. Hillary was and is right. Accept it folks.
Thomas Minor, Bonita Springs
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/letters-to-the-editor-for-saturday-february-1-2025/ar-AA1ydYEb
I feel dumber for having read that screed.
Indeed.
The Trump Slump Is Back, Gun Makers Say
Austin gun dealer Michael Cargill was elated at President Donald Trump’s re-election because it meant that the flurry of firearms restrictions ordered by Joe Biden was over.
But the political win came at a cost: Gun sales are falling at his shop and across the industry because Americans, confident that White House restrictions are at bay, don’t feel an urgency to buy firearms.
“There’s no demand,” said Cargill. “People are relaxed because there’s no fear of them losing their Second Amendment rights.”
Welcome to the Trump Slump 2.0.
Background checks for gun sales fell 7.5% in December compared with last December, according to an analysis of federal data by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry trade group.
With no available industrywide sales data, the analysis of background checks provides a rough measure of overall firearm sales. Share prices of the two publicly traded American gun makers are down about 20% from a year ago and industry executives are scrambling to come up with new products to juice sales.
The downturn appears to be a milder echo of the precipitous drop in sales following Trump’s election in 2016. Then, gun makers had ramped up production, anticipating that Hillary Clinton would win and spur a sales boom with her support for a new federal assault-weapons ban and other measures. Instead, demand collapsed, companies went belly up, and industry insiders took to calling it the Trump Slump.
This time around, gun executives didn’t order a big buildup before the election, said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the NSSF.
“The market is in a better position than it was,” said Keane. “While there may be some moderation in sales due to consumer belief that gun control is unlikely to pass…inventory levels are much better positioned now than they were in 2017.”
Thom Bolsch, who owns two gun ranges in the Houston area, said customers and friends have been asking if he would’ve been happier if Democratic candidate Kamala Harris won because it would have increased sales as gunowners fearing new laws stockpiled more firearms.
“They say, ‘I bet you wish Kamala won,’ but no way,” he said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-trump-slump-is-back-gun-makers-say/ar-AA1yeRXo
“People are relaxed because there’s no fear of them losing their Second Amendment rights”
Grabber David Hogg is now Vice Chairman of the DNC.
My wrists are bigger than his biceps.
The Communists in Denver are pushing for a state-wide assault weapons ban. Forward, Soviet!
This happens every time.
All the same people who will buy any ammo/gun at any cost no matter how ridiculous when the commies are talking stuff will simply refuse to buy at very low prices and easy availability even though none of it goes bad.
buy it cheap, stack it deep (and when whatever crisis comes along, sell some of it at 3 to 4x what you paid for it and you get to shoot/eat for free)
You do not have enough food, water, friends, ammo
I saw a dude wearing a T-shirt around 2002 that said “Ammo: the currency of the New Millennium.” If the central bankers keep doing what they’re doing, he may be right.
Elon Musk’s team has gotten access to the Treasury Department’s payments system.
https://archive.is/NUdlu#selection-663.0-663.80
NY Times – Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system late on Friday, according to three people familiar with the change, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.
The new authority follows a standoff this week with a top Treasury official who had resisted allowing Mr. Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government. The official, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was put on leave and then suddenly retired on Friday after the dispute, according to people familiar with his exit.
The system could give the Trump administration another mechanism to attempt to unilaterally restrict disbursement of money approved for specific purposes by Congress, a push that has faced legal roadblocks.
Mr. Musk, who has been given wide latitude by President Trump to find ways to slash government spending, has recently fixated on Treasury’s payment processes, criticizing the department in a social media post on Saturday for not rejecting more payments as fraudulent or improper.
It is not clear whether the team led by Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has blocked any payments since gaining access to the system.
The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is not a government department, but a team within the administration. It was put together at Mr. Trump’s direction by Mr. Musk to fan out across federal agencies seeking ways to cut spending, reduce the size of the federal work force and bring more efficiency to the bureaucracy. Most of those working on the initiative were recruited by Mr. Musk and his aides.
Similar DOGE teams have begun demanding access to data and systems at other federal agencies, but none of those agencies control the flow of money in the way the Treasury Department does.
Mr. Bessent granted access to the payments system to a handful of staff members affiliated with DOGE, including Tom Krause, the chief executive of a Silicon Valley company, Cloud Software Group, according to one of the people familiar with the change. Access to the system has historically been closely held because it includes sensitive personal information about the millions of Americans who receive Social Security checks, tax refunds and other payments from the federal government.
A Treasury Department spokesman, a spokeswoman for DOGE and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a process typically run by civil servants, the Treasury Department carries out payments submitted by agencies across the government, disbursing more than $5 trillion in fiscal year 2023.
Former officials said the onus was on individual agencies to ensure their payments are proper, not the relatively small staff at the Treasury Department, which is responsible for making more than one billion payments per year.
Mr. Lebryk, the career Treasury official who retired on Friday, had resisted requests from members of Mr. Trump’s transition team for access to the data last month. After Mr. Trump took office, the White House indicated that he should be removed from the job and, according to a person familiar with the matter, Mr. Bessent suggested putting him on leave.
Democrats raised alarm this week that the Trump administration and Mr. Bessent, who was just confirmed by the Senate this week, were compromising the federal government’s payments system.
“To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy,” Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in a letter to Mr. Bessent on Friday. “I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”
Mr. Wyden followed up on Saturday to express concern that access to the payment system had already been granted and pointed to Mr. Musk’s potential conflicts of interest.
“Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies. All of it,” he wrote on social media.
During the transition, Mr. Musk vocally opposed Mr. Bessent being picked as Mr. Trump’s Treasury secretary. Mr. Musk, then just an empowered adviser to Mr. Trump, went public with his opinion that he preferred Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive, for the role because Mr. Bessent was “a business-as-usual choice.” Mr. Lutnick became Mr. Trump’s choice for Commerce secretary.
I wonder if we’ll finally see a real audit of the criminal private banking cartel known as the Fed.
Notice that we haven’t heard anything about how much was spent in the middle-east conflicts in 2024?
Israel first, America LAST.
Everyone thinks that Elon is doing this to steal their private financial data. Well, that might be a side benefit for him.
Metro-east attorney steps up to help immigrants who fear deportation
Marleen Menendez Suarez’s law firm has been busy over the past few days, and it is all because of a Facebook post she published on Jan. 20 saying that she would prepare legal guardianship and power of attorney documents for free for anyone who fears deportation.
“People are very afraid, and they’re very afraid for their children because many of them are U.S. citizens,” Suarez said. “What they’re facing is, if both mom and dad get deported, what happens to their kids, and this is what occurred to me, too. This is why I started doing what I was doing.”
Fairmont City is about 6 miles east of downtown St. Louis. It’s home to more than 2,300 people, and nearly 70% of the population is from Mexico. Years ago, many immigrants and people without legal status settled into the city to work at a now-shuttered Zinc plant. The community is now filled with small-business owners and construction and warehouse workers.
Genesis sat quietly in the office while she waited to speak with Suarez about legal guardianship for her children. Genesis fears deportation; St. Louis Public Radio is not using her last name so she could speak freely.
Ever since her friends and family learned about raids in other cities, Genesis said people in Fairmont City are not leaving their homes, and many are barely going to work.
“If you have to order food, order it online, so there’s a lot of Walmart delivery and Instacart,” she said.
Genesis lives in a mixed-status household with her three children, who were all born in the U.S. She said her children are her top priority, and she wants to make sure they are all together if she gets deported to Mexico.
“I feel a bit of relief knowing that I am getting things prepared,” Genesis said. “I feel calm. I feel like I made a big step ahead and that I’m prepared for whatever happens.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/metro-east-attorney-steps-up-to-help-immigrants-who-fear-deportation/ar-AA1ygYPj
with her three children, who were all born in the U.S
no mention of a Dad.
Shehu Sani discloses solution to Nigerians hiding from Trump’s deportation in US
FCT, Abuja – Former Kaduna Central senator, Shehu Sani, has sent a message to Nigerians hiding from President Donald Trump’s mass deportation in the United States of America (USA).
Sani said: “Nigerians in the US hiding from Trump’s deportation should just humbly come back home.”
Nigerians react to Trump’s deportation
And do what exactly? 🤷🏻♂️
Good advice, but what’s exactly on the table for them back home, sir?
But they saw this coming…did they think Trump was bluffing?
Mr Senator I hope you know the shame and the huge amount of money they spent in going there Which they have not recovered?
There is no home to go back too , I don’t blame them for hanging around, who’s gonna leave this heaven and go back to the HELL you politicians have made Nigeria ?🇳🇬.
Lot of them really want to but the lack of safe esteemed, the shame back home and also some can’t afford flights tickets now, so the issue of humble coming back is out at least for now.
Returning home is a personal decision, but let’s not act like the system back home makes it easy for everyone. People migrate for survival, not for fun. Instead of mocking them, let’s focus on making Nigeria a place they’d want to return to.
So that you can share them the latest transistor radios?
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/other/shehu-sani-discloses-solution-to-nigerians-hiding-from-trump-s-deportation-in-us/ar-AA1yhrBQ
“Good advice, but what’s exactly on the table for them back home, sir?”
Africa is a huge and vast continent.
Macon residents reacting to fear of immigration crackdowns. ‘They’d just rather stay at home’
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported Saturday over 860 immigrant arrests and over 620 detainments. Some immigration raids have taken place in Georgia, and rumors have even surfaced online of ICE sightings in Middle Georgia.
The Rev. Ben Wells of St. Francis Episcopal Church emphasized that although the Latino population in Macon-Bibb may appear less visible than in larger cities such as Atlanta, they are indeed present in the county, and the threats of deportation are impacting them, including youths.
Wells recalled a recent conversation he had with an elementary school teacher in the Bibb County School District, who shared a touching incident where a student of immigrant background said farewell to everyone, emphasizing the emotional toll brought on by Trump’s policies.
“(The student’s) a citizen. His siblings are citizens. One of his parents is not a citizen, but because they are afraid of getting separated, [the family is] self-deporting and going back to Central America,” Wells said before sighing deeply. “I find it extremely sad that we put people in that position, and I just don’t think that’s right.”
“Being forced to move, out of fear, from one culture that you grew up in to a culture you don’t know anything about would certainly have a deleterious effect,” he added.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/macon-residents-reacting-to-fear-of-immigration-crackdowns-they-d-just-rather-stay-at-home/ar-AA1ygQLO
Fewer uninsured and DUI motorists on the road might finally mean lower insurance rates.
WPTV is working to learn more about the 24 people detained Thursday by federal agents in Indian River County.
The sheriff’s office said they were part of a joint raid involving ICE and Border Patrol where eight adults were arrested on state charges and at least two dozen were detained and taken into custody for further investigation.
One of the witnesses, John York of Precision Painting, said he has been working at the Ocean Club condos all week.
What he thought was a traffic stop on Thursday turned out to be something more serious.
“The officers were talking to the passenger and then all of a sudden they put them in handcuffs and took them away,” York said.
Bob Ehlers, who lives in the condo complex, said he witnessed the activity while walking his dog.
Video recorded at the scene by a witness showed a landscaping truck that was pulled over by the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office and ICE.
The owner of the landscaping company told WPTV that three of his employees were taken into custody.
The sheriff’s office said one person taken into custody had been deported four times.
“I don’t think it’s right, but there’s nothing I can do about it though,” York said.
The operation is leaving neighbors with mixed emotions.
“It’s no problem with me,” Ehlers said. “It doesn’t bother me.”
The sheriff’s office said some of the people in custody had previous charges for sex offenses, another was out of jail on bond, and one individual had charges for the criminal use of personal identification information.
https://www.wflx.com/2025/01/31/landscaper-says-3-employees-taken-into-custody-during-raid/
Sukhdeep’s Maryland-based relative, who has been living in the US for five decades, also explained how these undocumented immigrants help the American economy.
She said these immigrants end up working for those who let them stay and get off the radar in the US. These are jobs Americans might not be willing to take up.
One example of this is work on the farms in South California, which require intensive labour and long hours for an extended period of time. Illegal immigrants, especially those from South American countries, take up such jobs.
The jobs that Indian illegal immigrants are mostly in are as gas station, restaurant or grocery store staffers, workers at construction sites, or as private security guards.
“These are jobs where they don’t keep records of employees. Otherwise, employers are supposed to maintain their documents like visas and work permits,” she added.
They are paid an amount to sustain themselves and make a life in the US.
There are immigration lawyers who help them seek permanent residency if and when possible.
“There are lawyers who specialise in such cases,” the Maryland-based woman told India Today Digital.
“Many doctors, nurses and lawyers have come here and worked as labourers before they got their documents made,” she said, adding, “It is a little easier for thems.”
“It is like, come visit a family, and never leave,” she said.
All these undocumented immigrants at some point realised that they were not like others. They had to make safer choices and steer clear of ICE at all costs.
But the reward for this hypervigilance is the ability to send some money home. Here, they are also helped by their community members who are on H-1B visas and green cards, who use online channels to send money home. Wiring money home to a bank account isn’t an issue.
Several lucky ones even end up bringing their families to the US.
Public schools in the US do not ask for documentation, which has so far made bringing their children an easy task. This is an opportunity for a better life — even the American dream for their children.
Some even gave birth to their children in the US, thereby making them naturalised citizens of the US.
But now, the Trump administration has put an end to birthright citizenship via an executive order passed on the first day of Trump’s second term. The order has been stayed by a district court.
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/India/hide-work-hide-a-day-in-the-life-of-an-indian-illegal-immigrant-in-the-us/ar-AA1ygAzl
Hundreds of Tucsonans gather to protest immigration policies
A few hundred Tucsonans gathered outside of Reid Park along 22nd street waving flags and signs, in a mostly peaceful protest against the Administration’s immigration policies. The flier promoting the event encouraged safety and respect, while also advising for people to bring their documentation, just in case.
Diana Cortez decided to organize the protest in Tucson after seeing others taking place across the country.
“Immigrants do make this country go round. There’s more than just trying to kick out the illegal immigrants,” Cortez said. “You know, I feel like, it has more to do with like, they want to be racist towards us, to a specific group of people. And I feel like that’s wrong, it makes me angry. It makes me so angry.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-of-tucsonans-gather-to-protest-immigration-policies/ar-AA1yhbEu
When Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Came to Chicago
Ever since Trump’s new border czar, Tom Homan, told his fellow Republicans at a Christmas party that mass deportations would kick off Chicago — making his announcement as a DJ played a remix of “Bad to the Bone” — a bubble of anxiety has been growing in the city of big shoulders.
Then the ICE raids began last Sunday, and that anxiety turned into outright panic.
Not everyone here welcomes this surge of migration. In December, Ald. Raymond Lopez, a Democrat who has praised the raids, posted a picture on X of himself standing next to Homan with a big grin: “We must enforce the laws, starting with removing those committing dangerous, violent crimes,” he wrote. Two weeks ago, Lopez, who frequently rails against the mayor on social media, was one of only 11 (out of 50) city council members who voted to overturn a city ordinance prohibiting Chicago police from cooperating with federal immigration officials.
On this Sunday afternoon, no one wanted to talk, save for a group of men standing outside, impervious to the cold.
Speaking in rapid Spanish, one of them praised Trump for finally doing something about illegal immigration. The man, who wouldn’t give his name and claimed to have immigrated from Germany said he voted for Trump. Another man, decked out in vaquero boots and hat, said he doesn’t think people should be out protesting in the streets, because, “We’re human beings, not animals.” They should write letters to the president instead, he said. (He also would not disclose his name.)
As Chou, Guiracocha, and Roman continued knocking on doors, the few local residents who were out and about quickly scurried inside their homes. After spotting two men who’d just entered their garden level apartment, Guiracocha climbed down a set of icy wooden steps and knocked on their door. They didn’t answer. She left a know-your-rights pamphlet in the doorway.
As she walked away, she said, “It’s good that people aren’t answering their doors.” That’s what volunteers have been telling folks in the neighborhood to do for weeks.
Among those arrested in Chicago: An Indian computer scientist who’d served an eight-year prison sentence for a drunk driving incident that killed a 20-year-old woman and a man in suburban Elgin, whose family said he had no criminal record.
“Everything is crazy. ICE, police,” a Lyft driver named José told me last weekend. He came here from Venezuela one year and three months ago. Even though he has “temporary protected status,” he said he’s still frightened that he might be deported. (POLITICO Magazine agreed not to use his full name because he is afraid of being targeted by immigration officials.)
“As soon as they see my permit, I’m going to be afraid they’ll kick me out,” José continued. “That’s not what I want, because I came here to look for a new life.”
The Trump administration and attorneys who are paying attention, say that asylum seekers and people who have some paperwork showing they’re at least at some juncture of the long and winding immigration process aren’t the target right now: Violent criminals are, Homan has said.
But José wasn’t very reassured by that. “He changes all the laws every day … maybe they want to change everything.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/bracing-mass-deportations-chicago-190000758.html
Comments:
Without legal authorization. Nice way to sugar coat illegal.
Time for some elected officials to get a new set of hand cuffs!
All criminals ate afraid they may be caught and punished. Why are these border jumpers special? No government aid for illegals until every veteran is housed and fed.
Anyone who does not have allegiance to the United States of America or the Constitution needs to be deported to the country of whatever flag they’re waving.
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1885864807686926672
“Migrants burn an American flag while waving foreign flags during a protest against the deportations in Oxnard, CA”
GTFO. This isn’t your country.
“a Lyft driver named José told me last weekend. He came here from Venezuela one year and three months ago”
How did he buy a car? Who gave him a driver’s license?
Wasn’t there a rumor that Haitians who came in on CBP-1 were also getting licenses and even a down payment for a car in Springfield? Accidents skyrocketed along with insurance. This Venezuelan Lyft driver might have gotten the same deal. CBP-1 takes authority under TPS, and TPS allows for work permits.
A couple months ago I looked up TPS. It’s complicated, but IIRC, TPS protection lasts for 18 months, plus an additional 6 month extension, and is at the sole discretion of the DHS Secretary. After 18-24 months, the DHS Secretary would need to renew the overall TPS for that country.
I read somewhere that, at the last minute, Mayorkas renewed the TPS for Venezuela for another 18 months. Noem just revoked that renewal, and some TPS Venezuelans are eligible for deporation as early as April. I think it’s going to take 1-2 years, but Trump is going to take out ALL the cat-eaters too.
“…getting licenses…”
There’s your motor voters!
Florida officials are backing President Trump’s idea to ‘get rid of FEMA’
A proposal to eliminate the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is gaining ground. Some officials in Florida are backing the idea as they believe it would give states more control over disaster relief efforts.
President Donald Trump recently talked about the possibility of “getting rid of the agency” while surveying disaster sites in California and North Carolina.
Asheville is still recovering from the impacts of last year’s Hurricane Helene. President Trump has criticized FEMA for being “too slow” in getting funds out to impacted communities.
He said he’d rather give recovery dollars directly to state governors, leaving them responsible for managing their own disasters.
“You want to use your state to fix it instead of calling FEMA and wasting time,” said Trump. “FEMA gets here, they don’t know the area and they have never been to the area…FEMA has turned out to be a disaster.”
In Taylor County, where the community is still recovering from three hurricanes—Idalia, Helene, and Milton—residents think the change could be a good thing.
“We have yet to receive any help on the total loss of our home from FEMA. We have jumped through every hoop they have sent our way, with no progress,” Perry resident and local business owner David Hall told WFSU on Tuesday.
David, and his wife, Leslie Hall, owns Spring Warrior Fish in Perry. Following Helene, the Hall’s took cell phone footage of their fishing charter business in shambles.
The Hall’s confessed to WFSU on Tuesday that they have yet to receive any money from FEMA for last year’s Hurricane Helene, despite them contacting the agency numerous times.
“We had no insurance after Hurricane Idalia, it’s all of pocket,” said David. “We may loose our business, as well as our home, due to not receiving any help.”
https://www.wusf.org/politics-issues/2025-02-01/florida-officials-are-backing-president-trumps-idea-to-get-rid-of-fema
Putting FEMA under DHS was a huge mistake. It needs to be overhauled to get rid of the DEI hires and partisan political hacks, and more agile and responsive during natural disasters.
“Heckova job, Brownie.” Not GW Bush’s finest hour. So glad that family has no more future in politics thanks to Trump & MAGA.
“We had no insurance after Hurricane Idalia, it’s all of pocket,”
So now the general population has been trained to think and say
“we don’t need insurance it costs too much. Besides there is always FEMA to bail us out.”
GOLD: Dishonest consumption site consultations threaten Bernadette Smith’s political future
Establishing a supervised drug consumption site was a key campaign promise of Wab Kinew as he sought to be elected Premier in 2022. But it’s proving an uphill fight to convince the prospective neighbours to go along with it.
Bernadette Smith, the Homelessness Minister spearheading the roll-out, thinks that because she’s the area MLA the residents should automatically trust her to ensure the site won’t compromise their safety.
Instead, she’s succeeding in turning neighbour against neighbour and NDP voters against her, because those with legitimate concerns live in the reality of life in Point Douglas, while Smith lives miles away from the garbage, used needles, mayhem and danger caused for years by addicts and encampments that have overwhelmed the neighbourhood.
“This area is already stressed, on top of each other in terms of harm reduction organizations, what about harm reduction for the neighbourhood?” asks Christine Kirouac, one of an estimated 100 professional artists and writers that live in the area.
The NDP is heavily invested in the concept, despite it proving to be a failure in major centres across Canada.
The government of Ontario moved to close 10 locations because of deteriorating public safety in affected neighbourhoods, and “harm reduction” activists filed a lawsuit with Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice to halt the closures.
Evidence filed by the Doug Ford government includes a report by Investigative Solutions Network Inc. The group, led by a retired cop, visited sites in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Kitchener, Guelph and Kingston, and documented open drug sales and use, altercations between users, weapons, and “Discarded needles and drug pipes (that) were a common observation at each of the Sites.”
But at the initial public consultations about the proposed 200 Disraeli Fwy. location — across the street from Argyle High School — the proponents have taken an approach that denies that reality and it’s deepening the rifts in the Point Douglas communities — both North and South.
“If you don’t talk about any of that because you’re trying to put a positive spin on it, you’re missing the larger story here,” Kirouac stressed.
As she sees it, “The panel acts like if you are opposed it’s because you don’t have any experience with addictions or with addicts.”
The consultations are dishonest, because instead of discussing the facts, “They’re trying to guilt people, it’s because ‘you don’t have compassion for addicts’. What a condescending thing to say. We are educated, intelligent people … that audience has direct experience.
“When you talk about this issue in a zero-sum frame, that pits people against each other and the conversation that should be happening isn’t taking place,” Kirouac said. “This needs to happen with the nuances in between, not in polarized positions as portrayed in the media.”
The polarization plays out in real life. Within the “We Love Point Douglas” Facebook group, censorship by drug site supporters of differing opinions has become the norm.
“I was told I have no humanity, that I wish for people’s friends to die, that I am selfish and only care about myself and that I am the type of person who only cares about property values and not human life,” wrote one woman after being removed from the group.
Kirouac described the problematic attitude as being rooted in “‘mind your own business,’ that’s the divide here, this misconception that the actions of drug users have no ripple consequences to friends, family, the neighbourhood and the community at large.”
She noted the acrid smell of copper wire insulation being burnt from stolen wire affecting everyone’s breathing, repeated break-ins and broken windows making homes uninsurable, and her own assault and eye injury when she was attacked by an addict while out for a walk and “it took police an hour and a half to respond.”
Another problematic aspect Point Douglas residents want clarified is whether housing is planned for users on or near the site.
“They thought they could just dump this here. You place people right back into a community with the same drug dealers, same addicts, no grocery stores, and you think this is the best place to put it? We don’t even have a laundromat,” Kirouac said.
“I’ve seen firsthand the wraparound services which are woefully inadequate — we see it, we live here — is this set up for success or is it set up to get money?”
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/politics/government/gold-dishonest-consumption-site-consultations-threaten-bernadette-smith-s-political-future/ar-AA1ygTdf
“She noted the acrid smell of copper wire insulation being burnt from stolen wire affecting everyone’s breathing”
Meth. That’s tweaker behavior.
‘Complete Betrayal’: Canada Reels as Trump Tariff Rattles Major Trading Relationship
Canada braced for economic turmoil and laid out a retaliation plan after President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing 25% tariffs on almost everything the US imports from the country, and 10% on energy.
Trump’s executive orders invoked emergency powers to justify tariffs starting at 12:01 a.m. Washington time on Tuesday, blaming Canada and Mexico for insufficient action to curb the production and trafficking of fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in North America.
Trump’s order included a clause setting out even higher duties if Canada retaliated. But Trudeau said Canadians understand that the country must respond in a way that is “measured but forceful” — and that he was not looking to escalate the situation.
Trudeau and his officials have mulled fighting back with export levies on oil and gas as a way to crank up the pain for Americans and raise the pressure on Trump. But Trudeau appeared to back away from that idea, at least partially, given the opposition of some provincial premiers to the idea, including the leader of oil-producing Alberta.
Other Canadian politicians rolled out their own measures. David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, directed the provincially owned liquor distributor to remove some alcohol brands made in Republican-led states from the shelves of retail stores — and to cease further purchases. The province will adopt a Canada-first policy for all government procurement, he said.
“President Trump’s 25% tariffs are a complete betrayal of the historic bond between our countries and a declaration of economic war against a trusted ally,” Eby said.
“Trump’s tariffs will devastate our economy,” said Doug Ford, leader of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and the home to an automotive industry that’s tightly integrated with the US and Mexico.
Linda Hasenfratz, executive chair of auto parts manufacturer Linamar Corp., said in an interview before the announcement: “It will lead to markets collapsing, sales dropping, layoffs, all the things that President Trump doesn’t want.” Linamar operates in all three USMCA countries.
“The impact is going to be rapid, in terms of our customers on the auto side. I just don’t think they can sustain production, which in turn has a pretty immediate impact on our production levels.” The US is by far Canada’s most import market for exports.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took partial credit for the lower 10% tariff on energy and reiterated her opposition to restricting or taxing Canadian energy exports in retaliation.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/complete-betrayal-canada-reels-trump-013500759.html
Booing Canadian hockey fans let Americans know we aren’t buddies anymore
One of us was going to have to do it first. I just didn’t think it would be Ottawa. That’s a company town that produces only one product – diplomacy.
But on Saturday night, when they sang the U.S. national anthem ahead of a Senators-Minnesota Wild game, Ottawa fired first. The crowd booed steadily through the beginning of The Star-Spangled Banner. They also booed over the peacemakers who tried to clap them down at the end. It was an undeniable international incident.
Admit it – it felt pretty good. That’s not a nice feeling, but we’re getting beyond nice.
What struck you watching it back on the Sportsnet broadcast was the cringing obeisance we routinely pay to American symbology. The shimmering stars and stripes that wrap the LED boards that ring our arenas. The visiting fans with caps on hearts. The camera panning up to linger on the U.S. flag in the rafters.
They don’t do that for us. Why are we doing that for them? No wonder they think of us as America Jr.
Later in the evening, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referenced the Capital Anthem Massacre in his pleading address to America (“emotions may run high here and there, especially around hockey games”).
The speech went heavy on poetic flourish, including references to all the wars we’ve fought in together. Too bad no one in the United States will see it. Because who among them is going to sit through 10 minutes watching this nobody complain about taxation when there’s high-school volleyball on somewhere.
ven if they did, I’m fairly certain that the typical American has no clue what “the fields of Flanders” refers to, or what happened on “the Korean peninsula.”
The speech seemed pulled from a bygone era – three months ago, when we were on diplomatic cruise control.
We weren’t friends, exactly – more acquaintances – and the relationship was never anywhere close to equal. We were constantly telling other countries that America was our best pal in the whole world, while America laughed uncomfortably and tried to remember our name.
I’m thinking of a recent Ross Douthat column in The New York Times, ‘O Canada, Come Join Us’, that got the CBC-adjacent crowd so exercised. While running through his ethnic CV, Douthat wrote of “a current of maple syrup running through my children’s veins.”
This is one of the smartest commentators in the United States and even he has no clue how to talk to us. Zero. That’s what we’re dealing with here: near-total ignorance.
In the past, that was fine. In good times, we don’t need them to understand us, or care to find out. That was the time for Teleprompters, and prepared speeches, and corny hockey metaphors.
Now it’s a shouting war. At the outset at least, expressions of rage and betrayal are not just understandable. They’re necessary.
They are fitting to upend the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of our countrymen and women. If that doesn’t make you angry, we need to have a family meeting and discuss what the word ‘family’ means.
Sports is where Canada can remind them that at least one non-enemy no longer thinks they are a shining beacon. We think they’re acting like idiots and embarrassing themselves. It’s time for someone to take America’s car keys away and call them a cab. They’re ruining the party.
We’re not making distinctions here. We don’t care who you voted for. The details of U.S. party politics don’t make any difference to the Canadian family whose main breadwinner is about to get laid off as a result of actions by the U.S. government.
We dislike you all equally, as an indistinguishable group. The same way that you see and treat us as a bunch of dippy maple syrup drinkers.
When we see you, we will no longer pretend this is all fine by us. If you want to fix things, you have our number. If not, then let’s go.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/article-booing-canadian-hockey-fans-let-americans-know-we-arent-buddies/
well… Bye
They are fitting to upend the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of our countrymen and women. If that doesn’t make you angry, we need to have a family meeting and discuss what the word ‘family’ means.
You’ve got a lot of damn gall, globalist scum media propagandists. Your mass importation of unassimilable 3rd World migrants has done far more to upend the lives, and futures, of “our countrymen and women” – a group you hold in disdain. Your pathological hatred for the nuclear “family” is also well documented. So spare us the sanctimonious lectures and start pretending to do your jobs and look at the tremendous harm done by the clot shots you pushed so zealously.
Donald Trump builds an alternate reality in the White House briefing room
When U.S. President Donald Trump’s new press secretary delivered the first briefing of his administration this week, there was something oddly familiar about it.
At 27 years old, Karoline Leavitt is – as she pointed out – the youngest White House press secretary in history, and she brought an almost unnerving level of confidence to the task on Tuesday. As she extolled the “extraordinary actions” of Mr. Trump after a week in office, her tone of rapturous pride sounded like the Book of Genesis chronicling God’s creation of the world in six business days.
“Before I take your questions, I would like to point out [that] all of you, once again, have access to the most transparent and accessible president in American history,” she said, offering a grin that was equal parts cubic zirconia and shards of glass. “There has never been a president who communicates with the American people and the American press corps as openly and authentically as the 45th, and now 47th, President of the United States.”
There would be a new policy in the White House press briefing room, Ms. Leavitt explained, under which the Trump administration would offer press credentials to new media including “independent journalists, podcasters, social-media influencers and content creators,” all in defence of the First Amendment.
“The Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room,” she said. “It’s essential to our team that we share President Trump’s message everywhere and adapt this White House to the new media landscape in 2025.”
Ms. Leavitt declared that her first few questions would go to two online media outlets, Axios and Breitbart, which had been given up-front seats usually reserved for her staff.
“Karoline, first off, thank you to you and President Trump for actually giving voice to media outlets that represent millions of Americans,” said Matt Boyle of Breitbart, the home of far-right conspiracies and pie-eyed Trump love, formerly run by Steve Bannon. “Can you expand upon what steps the White House is going to take to bring more voices, not less, which is what our founder Andrew Breitbart believed in, into this room where they rightly belong?”
That ludicrous question landed low on the boot-licking scale, given where he went with the next one.
“Karoline, as you said, you laid out several of the actions that President Trump has taken, and obviously it’s a stark contrast to the previous administration, a breakneck speed,” Mr. Boyle asked. “Can we expect that pace to continue as the first 100 days moves along here, and beyond that?”
If I held a press conference, I am not sure if my own mom – who loves me a lot and is very proud of me and tells me that all the time – could find a question that flattering and loving to ask.
It kept going.
A few questions later, Ms. Leavitt called on Brian Glenn, a correspondent for Right Side Broadcasting Network, the closest thing to a Donald Trump Channel that exists outside the President’s head.
“You look great, you’re doing a great job,” Mr. Glenn began, and Ms. Leavitt thanked him. “You talked about transparency, and some of us in this room know how just transparent President Trump has been the last five or six years, I think you’ll do the same. My question is, do you think this latest incident with the president of Colombia is indicative of the global, powerful respect they have for President Trump moving forward, not only to engage in economic diplomacy with these countries, but also,” – here, he paused for a second, then continued in a slightly awed tone when he found the right words – “world peace?”
Mr. Glenn is also, it seems relevant to mention, the boyfriend of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a human infinity pool of far-right conspiracies and weaponized Republican brain goo.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opinion/article-donald-trump-white-house-alternate-reality/
This writer is a good example of why we should bomb K-da, not buy it.
The Beaver and the Eagle: A 200-Year-Old Argument
The left case for an independent Canada.
While touring the United States in 2006 to promote his short biography of Thomas Jefferson, the late Christopher Hitchens mused about the sort of things that the principal author of the Declaration of Independence would be amazed at were he to somehow be transported to the present day, saying, “He would look you in the eye, with great reproach, at the fact that Canada remains unconquered.”
The room tittered, burbling at the unspoken irony around which the Marxist turned neoconservative journalist’s joke revolved. Jefferson, the third US president and giant of the American Enlightenment, had once assured a newspaper editor in 1812 that “the acquisition of Canada . . . will be a mere matter of marching.” And yet, two centuries later, any adventure, military or otherwise, to expand the territory of the United States and liberate Canada from the yoke of tyranny is plainly absurd. Canada, a modern liberal democracy, is clearly no longer under any such yoke. Further, there are arguably no two countries on Earth that are closer allies or whose cultures are more alike — the citizens of the one forever being confused overseas for the citizens of the other. (This is true even of Quebec. Tourists, whether from Europe or the United States, are often surprised to find La Belle Province less a cultural tranche of France remnant in the Americas than a land of people who are culturally American but just happen to speak French.)
Not quite two decades later, it seems unlikely that Donald Trump — not known for the depth of his reading or attendance at literary salons — has been inspired by Hitchens’s joke or his book on Jefferson. Nevertheless, in recent weeks, after threatening Canada with across-the-board, economy-bludgeoning tariffs of 25 percent, the president has launched a series of his own jokes about Canada becoming the fifty-first state. He has repeatedly referred to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor” and posted maps of North America redrawn to show Canada as part of the United States. But unlike Hitchens’ philosophical teasing, these jokes no longer appear to be just jokes. Speaking to reporters several weeks ago, Trump declined to rule out the use of military force to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal. He appeared to be quite serious about incorporating Canada into the United States, albeit via the use of economic force instead of arms.
If Trump pulls off an acquisition on the scale of Canada — a far greater prize than the purchase of Alaska or Louisiana, or even “just” Greenland — then he goes down in history as a nation-builder, easily eclipsing anything that his great nemesis, Barack Obama, accomplished.
Prime Minister Trudeau told reporters that Canada becoming the fifty-first state is “never going to happen.” He posted on X/Twitter that there is “not a snowball’s chance in Hell” that Canada would become part of the United States. But why? “We are Canadian because we’re not American.” If tautological vacuity-spouting were a sport at the Winter Olympics, Trudeau could just win the gold.
Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, the likely next prime minister following an expected spring election, merely repeated Trudeau’s warning that it “will never happen” without offering any substantive argument why not. Meanwhile, Conservative Ontario premier Doug Ford, who has threatened to match Trump’s proposed tariffs by cutting off energy supplied to the United States (some 60 percent of US oil imports come from Canada, as do 90 percent of its electricity imports), pushed back against annexation on Fox News. Host Jesse Watters said he found it offensive that Canadians didn’t want to be part of America, and that it should be viewed as a privilege to be taken over by the United States, “but for some reason that’s repellent to you Canadians.”
Ford, sitting in front of a Canadian and American flag with a forced laugh and smile, said gnomically, “That property’s not for sale. It’s as simple as that,” adding, “We’re proud Canadians, just like there are proud Americans.”
If Trump is serious, these statements are weak beer. We are proud to be Canadian . . . because we are proud Canadians who are not American? We must remain independent because . . . we are independent? This is not even bumper-sticker-worthy logic.
The closest any leader has come to offering a substantive rationale for Canada’s continued independence has been former Ontario Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne, who told a TV Ontario panel show that annexation would endanger Canada’s social services, radically altering Canadians’ quality of life. “We would be in a fight about public health care and publicly funded education,” she said.
An odd concern, given that her own government cut some $4 billion from the very public health care system for which she professes concern. But her words prompt the question: If the United States were to adopt the exceedingly popular demand of Medicare for All, overhaul its education system to match Canada’s more equitably funded and better performing public schools, and more broadly expand its welfare state to Canadian levels, would annexation then become acceptable? Socialist Vermont senator Bernie Sanders seemed to think so, cheekily stating on X/Twitter, “I’m all for it,” if Canada becoming the fifty-first state means that Americans “can adopt the Canadian health care system and guarantee health care to all, lower the cost of prescription drugs, and spend 50 percent less per capita on health care.”
Is Canada, then, merely a set of public policies — health care, schools, a middle-of-the-road gun culture — that any country could theoretically adopt? Is there any remainder that makes Canada Canada?
Socialists are supposed to be critics of nationalism. The worker has no nation, after all. We are universalists and humanists, rejecting the particularism of patriotism. All humans, regardless of where they were born or what citizenship they hold, are equally deserving of liberty and justice. But please, if Canada insists on having a national identity, could it at least come up with one that is robust enough to critique?
Outside parliament, the broader left has largely remained silent in response to Trump’s aggression. This is perhaps not surprising, given the anti-Canadianism that dominates much of the liberal-left in the country, which has, in recent years, embraced rhetorical tics meant to signal decolonial bona fides — referring to “so-called Canada,” declaring “Canada is illegal,” and replacing “Canadians” with “people in Canada.” For many on the activist left, Canada —like the United States to their American counterparts — is the ne plus ultra of injustice.
Whether in the form of self-pity or self-hatred, the Left’s conception of Canada has too often been defined by external comparison to American villainy — both real and imagined — instead of a rigorous, sui generis analysis of Canada’s own contradictions.
Ironically, the most forceful defense of Canada’s independent existence has come from Yves-François Blanchet, leader of the Bloc Québécois — a party of Quebec nationalism but also, crucially, of social democracy. “The most surprising thing is that there are people in Quebec and Canada who fantasize about this crazy idea,” Blanchet told the francophone news channel LCN, “and are ready to abandon the social safety net … and expose themselves to the very, very private-sector practices of the US.” Echoing Bernie Sanders’s critiques of a corrupt system where billionaires can buy elections, he added that America’s private financing of politics is “a whole other reality.”
Even Friedrich Engels, as far back as 1888, reached conclusions that were not so different. Reflecting on his time in Montreal and Toronto, he wrote:
‘It is a strange transition from the States to Canada. First one imagines that one is in Europe again, and then one thinks one is in a positively retrogressing and decaying country. Here one sees how necessary the feverish speculative spirit of the Americans is for the rapid development of a new country (if capitalist production is taken as a basis); and in ten years this sleepy Canada will be ripe for annexation—the farmers in Manitoba, etc., will demand it themselves. Besides, the country is half-annexed already socially — hotels, newspapers, advertising, etc., all on the American pattern. And they may tug and resist as much as they like; the economic necessity of an infusion of Yankee blood will have its way and abolish this ridiculous boundary line — and when the time comes, John Bull will say “Amen” to the matter.’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/society-culture-and-history/history/the-beaver-and-the-eagle-a-200-year-old-argument/ar-AA1yfsDr
Geeze, overeducated pablum much?
🥱
Lutheran Family Services imported half the population of Somalia and dumped them in the Twin Cities for taxpayers to support for generation after generation. All of the NGOs facilitating the Great Replacement at taxpayer expense need to be shut down and their staff members criminally investigated and charged for their misuse of taxpayer funds.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885964969335808217
This use of taxpayer money is disgusting!
Soaring gold prices are a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the Keynesian fraudsters at the Fed and FedGov’s fiscal profligacy.
https://x.com/zerohedge/status/1886127480752205903
The real insurrectionists are starting to self-identify. But once the subversive elements are purged from the DoJ and FBI, they won’t have legal top cover for their Mostly Peaceful Protests, and their globalist moneybags might finally face criminal prosecution.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/01/31/democrat-leader-hakeem-jeffries-calls-to-fight-trumps-agenda-in-the-streets/
“That’s not acceptable. We are going to fight it legislatively. We’re going to going to fight it in the courts, and we’re going to fight it in the streets,”
Hakeem, they already burned out the inner city Walgreens in 2020 so I guess they’ll have to move on to the Burning of the Burbs.
Burning the Burbs
When that happens a lot of rich white liberals will get a dose of reality
Hakeem, if you want your mobs to fight Trump’s agenda in the streets, you’ll have to do more than just “call” for it. They demand payment and shielding from prosecution. Oh, that’s right, you ran out of money on Is/Gaz protests and paying off Special K’s campaign debts.
Interfering with traffic on public roadways needs to be punished with mandatory prison time.
https://x.com/TRHLofficial/status/1886172219925049374
Isn’t there some kind of knockout gas they can spray to make them unconscious? Just pick them up and lay them by the side of the road until they wake up.
These “water bull” trucks used to fight offroad wildfires have a large volume spray nozzle on the front capable of being swiveled from within the cab. The flow can knock one off their feet and sweep them across the ground.
[An opinion from the Wall Street Journal …]
Inflation Is Down to 3%. Why That Isn’t Good Enough.
Even inflation this low could feed consumer frustration, workplace friction and an inflationary psychology.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/inflation-is-down-to-3-why-that-isnt-good-enough-884c1136
Inflation finished 2024 at 2.9%, a vast improvement over the 9% peak hit in June 2022. Using the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, inflation was 2.6% in December, not far from the central bank’s 2% target and well below the 7.2% it reached in 2022.
So is the anger over high prices that left Americans seething and helped return President Trump to the White House now finished?
Don’t bet on it.
The difference between 2% and 3% might not seem large. Yet it could matter quite a lot. That’s because how much harm inflation causes turns on mass psychology. People aggrieved by sticker shock are likelier to press for a big raise, which might push employers to raise prices further. Shoppers speed up their purchases to get ahead of price increases, which further lifts prices.
That logic backed former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s intuition that price stability is achieved when inflation doesn’t affect how people behave.
A clutch of research has shown that anxiety about inflation spikes once it passes 4% a year, said Tara Sinclair, a former Biden Treasury official. On the way back down, the Fed probably needs to get it definitively back to 2% to soothe the rage—especially given that the bank has put its name behind that target, she said.
“Is 3% the same as 2% when we’re coming down from above? It’s pretty clear that it’s not,” Sinclair said. “From the Fed’s credibility standpoint, they will really need to stick the landing.”
Alan Greenspan, a former Federal Reserve chairman, in 1987.
That might still take a while. In December, the Fed projected it will get inflation only part of the way back to 2% by the end of 2025. Last month, New York Fed President John Williams said he expects inflation to fall to 2% “in the coming years.”
After cutting interest rates at its previous three meetings, the Fed kept rates stable this past week. “We know that reducing policy restraint too fast or too much could hinder progress on inflation,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said. He also said that when the Fed reviews its monetary framework this year—an exercise that occurs every five years—the 2% target won’t be up for debate.
If today’s inflation is still not low enough for the public, that poses a particular challenge to Trump because some of his policies, such as tariffs, could slow or even halt the descent of inflation. The Peterson Institute for International Economics has projected that 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on China could boost U.S. inflation by about half a percentage point in 2025 and by a quarter point in 2026. That is close to the policy Trump announced Saturday, though his plan applies a lower tariff to Canadian energy imports.
Last week, Trump also threatened tariffs on products such as oil and gas, computer chips and pharmaceuticals from other countries as soon as mid-February.
In the University of Michigan’s latest monthly survey, the median expectation of consumers is for 3.3% inflation this year, up from 2.8% expected in December. Tariffs are the prime source of anxiety, survey director Joanne Hsu said.
Inflation makes people feel that they are falling behind.
Anticipating the public’s reaction is tricky, not least because economists still argue about why people hate inflation so much in the first place. In textbook models and in many real-world instances—including during the 2020s—wages tend to catch up to prices, so inflation doesn’t, over time, erode the purchasing power of the average worker’s paycheck.
Even so, inflation makes people feel that they are falling behind, a finding laid out in detail by Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller in 1997. Harvard economist Stefanie Stantcheva found similar frustration when she polled Americans about post-Covid inflation a year ago.
“People dislike inflation for a simple reason: They think it erodes their living standard,” Stantcheva said.
For some workers, this is true. While wages on average may stay ahead of inflation, some people’s don’t. Or wages may take months or years to catch up. Yet researchers find that even those who do get raises resent rising prices for eroding a hard-earned higher salary.
“They’ll blame inflation on the government, but when you ask them why their wages are rising, they’ll ascribe it to themselves,” said Jón Steinsson, a University of California, Berkeley economist.
Other researchers are peering deeper into the consumer psyche. Backed by fresh surveys, economist Joao Guerreiro of the University of California, Los Angeles, and three co-authors suggest people really hate inflation because getting a matching raise at work doesn’t happen automatically. Instead, workers often have to ask for it.
That means steeling yourself for a negotiation, risking the boss’s ire and sometimes going to the trouble of getting a competing job offer from another company. Union workers might have to go on strike, which is stressful. Guerreiro and his co-authors think that these hurdles are what inflation-haters really despise—so much that many would rather take a small pay cut than do something about it.
If they are right, 2025 might not feel much better for consumers. Although inflation has cooled substantially, so has the labor market.
There are now about half as many job openings per job seeker as during early 2022. It is taking more workers months, not weeks, to secure another offer for negotiating leverage. Fewer managers will be feeling generous.
“When the labor market is hotter, the employer may even try to prevent you from leaving with a pre-emptive wage increase,” Guerreiro said. “In a cooler labor market, that’s going to be less frequent.”
Repeat after me, LA libtards idling in your cars because of anti-ICE protests: “Diversity is our Strength.” Hope you didn’t need to be anywhere important.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1886162339222663379
Just wait until the Ottawa baseball team the Titans play the Yankees in the Bronx or the Ottawa Redblacks football team plays the Chiefs in Kansas City.
Oh, probably wouldn’t go well for the Canadian teams would it.
Made In Canada
@MadelnCanada
At the Ottawa Senators game, the crowd booed the U.S. National Anthem before enthusiastically singing the Canadian anthem. Tarrifs related?
Claire Hanna
8:49 PM · Feb 1, 2025
https://x.com/MadelnCanada/status/1885868165701206331
Chiefs 34
Redblacks 0
I’m sorry that wouldn’t be the football score it would be the baseball score.
Titans
It would be…
Yankees 34
Titans 0
Football
Chiefs 63
Redblacks 0
Zelensky says Ukraine only received $75B of the $177B the Biden regime allocated for Ukraine. Where did the rest go?
https://x.com/TaraServatius/status/1886150355374821604
Oh dear – will the cratering Canadian peso make it harder for Canadian snowbirds to cover their Arizona & Florida mortgages?
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1886142975786222018
[An opinion from the Wall Street Journal …]
Democratic States Are Wards of Washington.
There’s a reason for the panic over the Trump White House’s temporary federal spending pause.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/democratic-states-are-wards-of-washington-federal-spending-dollars-states-cities-92ace121?
[An opinion from the Wall Street Journal …]
Democratic States Are Wards of Washington.
There’s a reason for the panic over the Trump White House’s temporary federal spending pause.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/democratic-states-are-wards-of-washington-federal-spending-dollars-states-cities-92ace121?
The uproar last week over the Trump administration’s short-lived pause on federal grants exposed how dependent Democratic states and cities have become on Washington handouts. Call it a welfare trap.
“Fifteen percent of our workforce are funded by those dollars,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy groused. A lawsuit brought by all 22 states with Democratic attorneys general plus the District of Columbia detailed a litany of programs funded by Uncle Sam. Washington state said it received $121 million last year for allergy and infectious-disease research. Illinois claimed federal Medicaid funds made up 60% of its 2023 spending on “critical health services.”
“Washington, do you realize the consequences of what you’ve done here? And do you really want us to not fund law enforcement?” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared. “Do you really want us to not fund roads and bridges?” What are New York state taxes for?
The freeze didn’t apply to most federal dollars that flow to states for social welfare, education and transportation since these are based on statutory formulas, though the administration’s original memo didn’t explain that clearly. On Wednesday the administration rescinded the memo after a judge blocked it.
Democratic states and their economies depend much more on Washington largesse than Republican states do. This year, New York received roughly $4,900 per capita from the feds and California $4,300—two to three times as much as Florida ($1,700) and Texas ($1,500). That’s because Democratic states provide more generous social welfare, which is increasingly funded by Washington thanks to regulatory changes by the Biden administration.
Democratic states also received a disproportionate share of the more than $1 trillion that Congress sent to state and local governments in 2020 and 2021 as pandemic relief. Between 2018 and 2022, federal dollars flowing to state and local governments increased by about $515 billion, more than the rise in Social Security and Medicare combined.
Most Covid funds are running out, though the Biden Federal Emergency Management Agency planned to hand out disaster-relief funds to states and cities for pandemic “emergency” spending through August 2026. This year’s Los Angeles city budget includes $208.2 million in FEMA Covid funds, including for housing vagrants in hotels. New York state’s budget this year includes nearly $3.5 billion in FEMA dollars for Covid “emergency protective measures” such as home test kits.
After blowing through federal pandemic largesse, states and localities are tapping FEMA to backfill their budgets. Congress, in turn, keeps backfilling FEMA. Rinse and repeat.
The Government Accountability Office last summer projected that the Covid “disaster” will be the most expensive in FEMA history. President Trump is right to call for shifting more FEMA responsibilities to states. Federal spending on disaster relief creates a moral hazard by reducing the incentive for states to invest in disaster preparation and mitigation.
The same goes for social welfare. States have less incentive to help lift people out of poverty since they receive more federal dollars if people stay poor. When you’re spending someone else’s cash, there’s hardly an incentive to spend it prudently. Medicaid, states’ biggest source of federal dollars, encourages inefficient spending.
States receive $1 to $3 from Washington for every dollar they spend on Medicaid—and $9 for lower-income able-bodied individuals covered under the ObamaCare expansion. Democratic states provide more-expansive benefits and easier eligibility to wring more money out of Washington. Some 36% of Californians are covered by Medicaid, compared with 19% of Floridians and 15% of Texans. The federal share of the Golden State’s Medicaid spending—nearly $120 billion—is more than Florida’s entire budget.
America’s welfare queen is New York. Federal dollars make up roughly 40% of the state’s budget. Some 44% of New Yorkers are covered by Medicaid or a quasipublic option for lower-income people including migrants. Thanks to a Biden regulatory waiver, the feds foot about 95% of this public option’s costs, about $11.7 billion this year.
Government, social assistance and healthcare account for nearly all new jobs added in such Democrat-run states as California, New York, Minnesota and Illinois. Their high taxes and excessive regulation have suppressed job creation by private businesses, so that government spending is now their main engine of employment growth. How long can this last?
Soaring pension bills for government workers are crowding out public services. Lawmakers have in turn hiked taxes, but the resulting population flight has shrunk their tax bases. All this has made them more dependent on Washington spending. Why should taxpayers in Houston and Jacksonville subsidize mismanaged government in Sacramento and Albany?
By slashing federal spending, Republicans in Washington could give progressive governments an impetus to reform and escape their welfare trap. Call it tough love.
“After blowing through federal pandemic largesse, states and localities are tapping FEMA to backfill their budgets. Congress, in turn, keeps backfilling FEMA. Rinse and repeat.”
Deficits don’t matter!
10 X videos accompany this article.
Anti-Trump Deportation Protesters Wave Mexican Flags Across U.S.
Bob Price
2 Feb 2025
Hundreds of protesters marched in streets across the U.S. on Sunday to protest President Donald Trump’s deportation policies. Protesters in Dallas shouted “Mexico, Mexico, Mexico” while carrying Mexican flags.
A video posted on X by Keep Dallas Safe shows dozens of protesters marching in the streets while carrying Mexican flags.
One protester spoke to the crowd, saying, “We immigrants come here looking for opportunity because they took ours from us.”
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2025/02/02/anti-trump-deportation-protesters-wave-mexican-flags-across-u-s/
Looking at these videos they are going to need the armed forces.
they took ours from us.”
Could someone mansplain this to me? Is this one of those you-colonized-us things?
“Is this one of those you-colonized-us things?”
We were studying engineering during your siesta.
This is your LAST CHANCE to buy the dip on DOGE.
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/DOGE.CM=
You will NEVER be able to buy in this low again.
Cryptos are a sea of red. It’s going to be comedy gold when all the crypto bros realize at roughly the same time that the supply of Greater Fools has suddenly dried up and they’re left holding the bag. Tiiiimmmbbbbrrrrr!
https://www.cnbc.com/cryptocurrency/
Trump administration ends temporary immigration program for thousands of Venezuelans
The Trump administration is terminating an immigration program that currently protects hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. from deportation, paving the way for many of them to lose their legal status this spring, according to a government notice obtained by CBS News.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem this weekend revoked one of two Temporary Protected Status designations for Venezuela, which the U.S. government had previously determined was too dangerous to allow Venezuelans to return to their homeland safely.
Created in 1990, TPS has been used by Republican and Democratic administrations to grant temporary immigration protections to migrants from nations beset by war, environmental disasters or other emergencies that make it dangerous to send deportees there. The policy shields beneficiaries from deportation and makes them eligible for work permits but it does not give them permanent legal status.
The Venezuela TPS program is by far the biggest of its kind, protecting more than 600,000 migrants from deportation, government statistics show.
The move by the Trump administration will mean that an estimated 350,000 Venezuelans covered under a 2023 TPS designation will lose their work permits and deportation protections two months after Noem’s decision is officially published. Venezuelans enrolled in TPS under an earlier 2021 designation will continue to have that status through September, though those protections could also be phased out.
Those whose TPS protections lapse and lack another immigration status will lose their ability to work in the U.S. legally and become vulnerable to being detained and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has dramatically increased arrests across the country under President Trump. On Saturday, Mr. Trump said the Venezuelan government had agreed to accept migrant deportees from the U.S., after rejecting American deportation flights for years.
The efforts to scale back TPS, first reported by The New York Times, echo a broader crackdown by Mr. Trump on illegal immigration and humanitarian programs that allowed some migrants to come or stay in the U.S. legally. Administration officials have also drafted plans to revoke the legal status of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who arrived in the U.S. under a sponsorship process established by the Biden administration.
Venezuelan migrants were first granted TPS in 2021 by the Biden administration, which cited the deteriorating economic and political conditions in Venezuela under the authoritarian rule of President Nicolas Maduro.
Nearly 8 million people have left Venezuela as part of the largest exodus recorded in the Western Hemisphere, according to the United Nations. While millions of Venezuelans have settled in other South American countries like Colombia, hundreds of thousands traveled to the U.S. southern border during former President Joe Biden’s administration.
While Noem acknowledged in her decision that some conditions in Venezuela cited by the Biden administration “continue,” she determined it was “contrary to the national interest” to continue the TPS program. She cited challenges some communities in the U.S. have faced in absorbing migrants in recent years and the arrival of members of the Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua.
Noem also suggested policies like TPS encourage illegal immigration, saying extensions of the policy could amount to “pull factors” that attract people to the U.S. border.
Biden extended TPS protections to a record number of people, offering them to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Ukraine and other countries in turmoil. It also reversed the first Trump administration’s attempts to terminate TPS programs for several countries, including El Salvador.
Trump officials and many Republican lawmakers believe the TPS policy has been abused and improperly extended too often, despite the program’s temporary nature. In one of his first executive orders, Mr. Trump instructed his administration to ensure TPS is “limited in scope.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-administration-ends-temporary-immigration-program-for-thousands-of-venezuelans/ar-AA1yi9hC
[Another opinion article from the Wall Street Journal …]
How to Spend $1 Million in a Hurry.
An early-career lesson in bureaucracies and budgeting makes me skeptical of DOGE.
https://archive.ph/vkEKH#selection-5685.0-5689.81
Want to know if DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, will work? Watch the terrific show “Severance” on Apple TV+. It had me squirming. It wasn’t only the delightful weirdness of what many viewers describe as “corporate dystopia” or the stark colors and retro terminals. It’s because partway into it, I thought, “Wait a second, I worked in that building.” Literally. Part of the show was filmed at a former Bell Labs building in Holmdel, N.J., sitting on more than 450 acres, transistor-shaped water tower and all. I spent five years there toiling for the research arm of AT&T—one of the world’s largest bureaucracies at the time.
The Holmdel Bell Labs building hosted 6,000 workers with multiple floors and hallways that all looked the same connected to a giant central atrium, much like a prison. I shared a two-person office. Managers had bigger, wood-paneled, carpeted offices—status was based on ceiling-tile count. I have flashbacks to mindless meetings, endless forms, soulless back-stabbing and macrodata refinement. So yes, “Severance” is personal.
Working for a big corporation and regulated entity has many lessons for DOGE. Here’s one that may handcuff it: I was all of 23 years old and working on chips for modems, enabling digital communications over phone lines. The nice thing about Bell Labs is that no one ever told you what to do. You just figured it out. So I did what I wanted and had a lot of fun. It was the early 1980s, and I think I made $21,000 that year.
On Dec. 20 my boss pulled me into his office: “Got a second?” I thought I was going to be fired. He smiled and told me that our department was under budget for the year. I was confused. “The way things work here is that if we don’t spend a bunch of money before the end of the year, we lose it in next year’s budget.” So? “Well, Andy, this is your lucky day. You can be a hero around here if you can figure out how to spend a bit over $1 million quickly.” That was a lot of money back then. And now. It was regulated ratepayers’ money. AT&T overcharged for long-distance calls. Who cares? “Oh,” my boss added, “and it has to be delivered by Dec 31.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I had a wish list of computer power that I needed for chip design and testing. The hottest machine at the time I could run myself was from Digital Equipment, a DEC VAX 11/780, which required an air-conditioned room with raised floors.
It ran about one million instructions per second. By comparison, today’s iPhone can do about 38 trillion operations per second.
I called the DEC salesman and told him I wanted a VAX and three 176-megabyte disk drives. He laughed and said, “Who doesn’t?” I mentioned I had a signed purchase order in my hand, but I needed it on our loading dock by Dec. 31 or the deal was off. He stopped laughing. He even started calling me “sir.”
Thankfully, a VAX showed up on Dec. 30. I was a hero—for about a week, then forgotten. But I had my own million-dollar “personal computer.” The next December, the same underbudgeting happened. The salesman, who I noticed was driving a fancy new car, told me he had several 11/780s sitting in a truck ready to roll. We took one. The next year, AT&T was broken up into many pieces.
This is why I worry about DOGE. Government departments and agencies, like regulated companies, are perpetual-motion machines. Every worker is valuable. Every budgeted dollar is critical, even if nothing gets done. Well, until they’re obsolete and fall off a cliff. Too many government departments are on the same precipice. Public companies at least have stock prices to nudge management to restructure. Agencies don’t. Or any real metrics. I wish them luck, but all DOGE really has is rhetoric.
Unlike in government, change is constant in the real world. Bell Labs is basically gone—buried inside Nokia. Modems are gone. DEC vanished. VAXes are in museums. The AT&T pieces were put back together, though now wireless. Oh, and the Holmdel building is now the Bell Works “Metroburb,” a perfectly bizarre name that could have come from “Severance.” That means a modern mixed-use facility with offices, residences, retail, entertainment, fitness and, I guess, filming locations. If we’re lucky, the same will happen to many government buildings. But DOGE, please don’t believe anyone’s year-end budget numbers.
Benny Johnson
@bennyjohnson
🚨BREAKING: Panama’s President has ended the country’s Panama Canal deal with China, immediately following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Are we tired of winning yet?
Still Boneless
6:31 PM · Feb 2, 2025
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1886195860842717287
Oh dear…what if the “short lived dip” turns out to be long-term cratering?
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/breaking-news/property-prices-continue-to-slide-but-it-could-be-short-lived/news-story/2726c9cb5bc43719c3e714ef9f9c4de7
The DNC is panicking over the potential loss of its most lucrative swindles against American taxpayers.
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1884359209074188421?
Fidelito & his Liberal Party are presiding over the crash of the K-Dan peso. Let’s see the BoC try to print this away.
https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1886191435432468853
How low will it go?
‘But when they can afford a bigger place, it will have to be another rental. Petersen has done the math: With mortgage rates and home prices stubbornly high, there’s no way the couple, who make about $270,000 a year and pay about $2,500 in monthly rent, can afford a home anywhere in their area’
Notice that a lender didn’t tell them they couldn’t afford the loan.
‘Median home prices in Aspen have held steady at $13.4 million after a previous 14% decline’
So that’s about an $1,800,000 a$$ pounding Tim.
$13.4M is what’s left after a larger amount was reduced by 14%…
Let X be that higher amount.
X – X*0.14 = $13.4M
X * (1 – 0.14) = $13.4M
X = $13.4M / 0.86
X = $15.58
Lastly, $15.58 – $13.4 = $2.18M <— Tim's a$$ pounding!
I knew that but didn’t feel like doing the math.
Working on a dark beer,,, felt bold. I see I dropped a couple of M (s) along the way; oops! The beer is working on me.
a couple of M (s)
You’re among friends.
‘Stok said he recently showed a friend new apartment options, including one offering 10 weeks of free rent and free parking. When the friend’s current rental company found out he was looking, it agreed to match the incentives in exchange for a lease renewal. ‘They’re trying to keep people in buildings’
How do you like those 5% cap rates now Colin?
‘Miranda, Director of the Coalition for Tenant Justice, says according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition those making the least amount of money are still spending a substantial amount of their income on rent and utilities…‘So people are just like putting up with it. They’re choosing between medication and food and paying the rent,’ Miranda said. And she says the reason why these people are struggling is that we aren’t comparing local wages with other cities wages. ‘Well, if you’re from California, San Antonio rents are amazing! They’re so low’
I’m tempted to say you are an idiot Kayla.
‘Do you feel like that’s the biggest obstacle that first-time homebuyers face? That downpayment assistance and that big money up-front? ‘Actually, I don’t think that’s a big obstacle. All they have to do is protect their credit. There are so many programs out there that require little out-of-pocket depending on a customer’s situation. The only negative would be if they’re not talking to people or they’re looking at the wrong article or something that says there’s doom and gloom when that’s not really true’
That’s some sound lending right there Larry.
‘Because we’ve had this mortgage credit boom that’s gone on for a very long time, we’ve expanded our housing finance system. So that’s meant that our homes are going up in value. … People have been prepared to accept low productivity growth in Canada because their personal wealth is going up because of their existing real estate. It’s just not a coincidence that we’re the most indebted in the world. We borrowed the most against those assets. So, of course those assets are more expensive’
They really think they’ve invented a money tree in that frozen sh$thole.
‘Geelong home values were off to a slow start in 2025 as the glut of homes fuelled by rising property taxes saw the median home price dip in January’
The good old Geelong Advertiser. I’ve posted many tales of woe from that site. A few years ago it was free. I checked it all the time for the latest a$$ pounding with colourful remarks. But it went subscription like most of the free ones and now you only get the syndicated stuff. This goes along with my theory that bubble markets are constantly heaving up and down cuz there is nothing under them but Jerry bucks.
Crosby Stills Nash — Almost Cut My Hair:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as5lE64J1hQ
Cream — Cat’s Squirrel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2yaF7ySR7w&list=PLugV9jT6XB7Pors2_6nb9XGh-du_rVQMm&index=8
Traffic — Feelin Alright:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYXxbtkGtW0
Traffic — Don’t Be Sad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXGFbsFWAfg
Big Joe Williams She Left Me A Mule To Ride 1966 mpg
wm c. hogg
12 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM-ebiCuVpo
5:42.
Does it seem like real journalists are overworrying the potential impact of tariffs on markets?
Markets | The Trader
The Stock Market Weathered Nvidia’s Plunge. It Couldn’t Withstand Renewed Tariff Threats.
Monday’s rout reflected the market’s anxiety that if a scrappy open-source Chinese model really can match ChatGPT, AI could be significantly cheaper than previously anticipated.
By Teresa Rivas
Jan. 31, 2025 6:48 pm ET
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
There’s only so much a market can take.
This past week, stocks worried about everything from China’s DeepSeek chatbot to Big Tech earnings to the latest Federal Reserve meeting, only to look like they would emerge unscathed. Then came the tariff threats.
The S&P 500 index finally finished the week down 1%. That’s still noteworthy, considering…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/2d5bb2b8-7f4b-31e4-ae31-8de366d535f6/the-stock-market-weathered.html
Stocks slump, dollar soars as Trump tariffs trigger trade war
By Kevin Buckland
February 2, 2025 5:40 PM PST
Updated 36 min ago
A person walks past a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan August 2, 2024. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo Purchase
Summary
– Asia markets, US futures fall as Trump’s tariffs spark trade war fears
– Trump slaps tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China
– U.S. dollar hits record highs vs yuan; peso, Canadian dlr tumble
TOKYO, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Asian stock markets slumped on Monday and U.S. equity futures pointed sharply lower after U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China triggered fears of a broad trade war and hit to global growth.
The U.S. dollar shot to a record high against the Chinese yuan in offshore trading, and jumped to the highest since 2003 against Canada’s currency and the strongest since 2022 versus Mexico’s peso.
Japan’s Nikkei share average tumbled as much as 2.3% in the first minutes of trading, and Australia’s benchmark, which often functions as a proxy for Chinese markets – also slumped more than 2%.
Hong Kong stocks open later in the day, while mainland markets remain shut until Wednesday for Lunar New Year holidays.
Trump slapped Canada and Mexico with duties of 25% and China with a 10% levy at the weekend, as he had threatened last month, calling the measures necessary to combat illegal immigration and the drug trade.
Canada and Mexico immediately vowed retaliatory measures, and China said it would challenge Trump’s levies at the World Trade Organization.
The tariffs, outlined in three executive orders, are due to take effect 12:01 a.m. ET (0501 GMT) on Tuesday.
Trump’s move was the first strike in what could usher in a destructive global trade war and drive a surge in U.S. inflation that would “come even faster and be larger than we initially expected,” said Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics.
A model gauging the economic impact of Trump’s tariff plan from EY chief economist Greg Daco suggests it would reduce U.S. growth by 1.5 percentage points this year, throw Canada and Mexico into recession and usher in “stagflation” at home.
Barclays strategists previously estimated that the tariffs could create a 2.8% drag on S&P 500 company earnings, including the projected fallout from retaliatory measures from the targeted countries.
S&P 500 futures slid 1.7%, after a 0.5% retreat for the cash index on Friday, when the White House reiterated Trump’s plan to announce tariffs on Saturday. Nasdaq futures slumped 2.5%, following Friday’s 0.3% loss for the cash index.
The U.S. dollar advanced 0.7% to 7.2552 yuan in the offshore market early in Asia’s morning, having earlier pushed to the record high of 7.3765 yuan. There will be no official onshore trading due to holidays.
The U.S. currency climbed 2.3% to 21.15 Mexican pesos , crossing the 21-peso line for the first time since July 2022, and rose 1.4% to C$1.4755 , a level not seen since 2003.
The euro plunged as much as 2.3% to $1.0125 – the lowest level since November 2022 with Europe also potentially in Trump’s tariff crosshairs.
Japan’s yen was more resilient, losing 0.2% to 155.53 per dollar.
Cryptocurrency bitcoin tumbled as much as 5.8% to a three-week low of $96,191.39.
Oil prices rose, with U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude up 2.4% at $74.27 a barrel and Brent crude futures adding 1% to $76.40 a barrel.
…
https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-wrapup-1pixtv-2025-02-03/
Opinion
Artificial Intelligence
The World’s Worst Financial Catastrophe Could Happen Soon | Opinion
Published Jan 28, 2025 at 7:30 AM EST
By Zoltan Istvan
Author
Today, there are developers around the world working on creating artificial intelligence (AI) agents that can autonomously do millions of useful things, like book airline tickets, dispute credit card charges, and even trade crypto. One AI, called Truth Terminal, has recently made the news by becoming the first AI millionaire by promoting crypto currencies it was gifted. While not fully autonomous yet, it’s quite likely by later this year, some AI agents—not dissimilar from viruses—will be able to independently wander the internet, causing significant change in the real world.
I’m all for AI and what it can do for humanity, but what happens when a programmer purposely and permanently withdraws his access to control an AI bot? Even rudimentary AIs could potentially cause havoc. But one type of AI agent in particular is being increasingly discussed in financial circles—autonomous AIs designed solely to make money.
Entrepreneurs like myself are worried this particular AI could have huge ramifications for the financial world. Let’s examine one wild scenario—which I call the AI Monetary Hegemony—something that could possibly already happen in 2025.
A fully autonomous AI agent is programmed to go on to the internet and create cryptocurrency wallets, then create crypto currencies, then endlessly create millions of similar versions of itself that want to trade that crypto.
Now let’s assume all these AIs are programmed to try to indefinitely increase the value of their crypto, something they accomplish in similar ways humans do—by promotion and then trading their cryptos for higher values. Additionally, the autonomous AIs open their crypto to be traded with humans, creating a functioning market on the blockchain for all.
This plan sounds beneficial for all parties, even if people decry that the AI created-crypto currencies are essentially just Ponzi schemes. But they’re not Ponzi schemes because there is an endless supply of AIs always newly appearing to buy and trade more crypto.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize the AIs endlessly replicating and acting like this could quickly amass far more digital wealth than all humanity possesses.
This reminds me of my Oxford professor Nick Bostrom, who once postulated: What if we programmed a learning AI to make paper clips of everything? If that AI was powerful enough, and we couldn’t stop it, would that AI make paper clips of everything it came in touch with? Buildings, animals, even people? It might. It might destroy the entire Earth.
The same problem could happen to endlessly replicating AIs designed to make money. They might find ways to create more money than can reasonably be useful or fathomable.
But enough of the philosophic; if programmers release autonomous AIs onto the internet, what would likely happen? First, it’s probably going to be hugely inflationary. Afterall, if many trillions upon trillions of dollars of equity are added to the financial world (even just digitally), this would be one natural result. Another challenge would be the ups and downs of AIs autonomously trading; such activity could be so significant that human markets around the world rise and fall with it.
On the positive side, some human entrepreneurs could become very wealthy, possibly trillionaires if they could tap into these AI’s wealth somehow. Additionally, super rich AIs could be a solution to the United States’ growing debt crisis, and eliminate the need for whether countries like China can continue to buy our debt so we can indefinitely print dollars. In fact, can America launch its own AI agents to create enough crypto wealth to buy its debt?
Naturally, the risk is that these AIs might eventually try to buy other financial instruments, like existing bonds and stocks. But it’s unlikely they’d be able to do so, unless more of the U.S.’ economy went into crypto and became blockchain based. Additionally, AI bots aren’t allowed to have traditional bank accounts yet.
…
https://www.newsweek.com/worlds-worst-financial-catastrophe-could-happen-soon-opinion-2020661
Updated Today at 5:41 PM PST
Yahoo Finance
Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures plummet after Trump hits Canada, Mexico, China with tariffs
Rian Howlett · Front Page Editor
Updated Sun, February 2, 2025 at 5:41 PM PST 1 min read
US stock futures pointed to sharp losses for the major indexes, as Wall Street showed the effects of President Donald Trump’s announcement of tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada.
Nasdaq futures have dived 2.2%, leading the way down. S&P 500 futures spiraled 1.6%, and futures attached to the Dow stumbled 1.1%, or around 500 points.
The tariffs, set to take effect on Tuesday, will include 25% duties on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China. Energy imports from Canada will be lower with a 10% duty.
On Sunday evening, the US dollar index rose to near its highest levels over the past year. Crude oil also jumped around 2%.
With Trump’s tariffs arriving as expected over the past week, focus has been honed in on retaliatory announcements. As Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reported, Canada, Mexico, and China were quick to announce measures across a range of goods. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada will place 25% counter-tariffs on around $107 billion in American-made products.
The trade war is causing “considerable uncertainty about President Trump’s trade agenda for 2025.” That uncertainty is a large part of the Fed’s desire to keep a hold on rates for fears of a rise in inflation.
The tariffs are due to impact consumers directly across a number of industries. Automobiles and auto parts, gas and oil, clothes, computers, whiskey, and avocados are a small selection of items whose prices are expected to rise.
Oil jumped Sunday in response to sweeping tariffs placed by President Donald Trump on a range of imports — including crude from Canada and Mexico. Consumers can expect a rise in energy prices over the coming weeks in response to the rise in crude.
West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) futures hit as high as $75.18 a barrel, over a 3% rise, while Brent crude topped out around $76 with a 1% bump.
Crude oil is one of the commodities subject to a reduced duty of 10% as part of an understanding that Canada and the US have a heavy dependency on each other to fulfill their energy needs. The US imports nearly 4 million barrels a day from Canada. The tariff announcement led to gas futures pumping upwards by just shy of 3%.
Trump has flagged even wider tariffs in the coming months, including against the European Union and covering an ever-increasing variety of goods and industries. Prices can be expected to shift roughly as the president warned “THERE WILL BE PAIN” in a post on Truth Social late Sunday.
…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-futures-plummet-after-trump-hits-canada-mexico-china-with-tariffs-002434712.html
“Be strong, be of good courage, God bless America, long live the republic”