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You Better Sell Now Before It Gets Worse

A report from WPTV in Florida. “‘If you go into pretty much any neighborhood across the Treasure Coast, you’re going to find multiple properties for sale,’ said Kelley Decowski, a real estate agent. Decowski believes the buyer’s market is due to a large number of listings available. ‘If there are 25 homes for sale and one buyer, that means the demand’s going to be low, and the buyer is really going to be able to call the shots and figure out which of those 25 homes is going to give them the best deal,’ Decowski said. There are 6,232 homes listed on the Treasure Coast as of January. For available townhomes and condos, Indian River County has up to 11 months of inventory with St. Lucie County closer to 10 months of inventory and Martin County close to eight months.”

The Ledger in Florida. “Lakeland resident Misty Wells has a $10,000 check from her flood insurance to begin rebuilding her home along Lake Bonny’s canal that was flooded by Hurricane Milton. Except, she hasn’t started. She can’t. Its foundation cracked in half. For four months, Wells has appealed to her flood and homeowner’s insurance companies, who have denied coverage. Without the funds to repair the foundation, the $10,000 check to rebuild the walls sit uncashed. Wells and her family live in a camper overlooking the home they are unable to repair. FEMA inspectors have come out to Nikki Aldahonda-Ramirez’s home five times in the past four months. Upon a second inspection, paperwork shows the Honeytree Drive home was listed as having been affected at the lowest damage level and FEMA issued her a check. ‘They gave me $9,400 to fix my house, my whole house. My entire house for $9,400,’ she said.”

Houston Chronicle in Texas. “A couple of years ago, when Sherry Thompson decided to shop around for home insurance after her annual policy with Geico was renewed at $15,000, the advice she got from insurance agents to lower her rate was blunt. ‘Get out of Seabrook,’ she recalled them saying. The question on her mind quickly became, who could afford to move in? Jamie Terry, a real estate agent in League City, said roughly 10% of the deals she represented last year fell apart because of the cost of insurance. ‘This year, it’s really been a factor of, can a buyer really afford this home?’ said Teresa Riddle, a Pearland real estate agent. ‘They cannot afford what they used to be able to afford and they’re having to go down in price.'”

“In Seabrook, an idyllic city of 14,000, online forums are filled with people’s anxiety over the rising cost to insure their most valuable asset. The city is known for its good schools and natural beauty, but almost every property is in a flood zone. ‘You see people making comments on social media, like, we have to leave,’ said Matt Hearon, who has lived in Seabrook since 2012. ‘You better sell now before it gets worse.’ A few months ago, Thompson’s neighbor left Seabrook and put her house on the market. It sat there for months. ‘I’m shocked it hasn’t sold,’ Thompson said. ‘It does make you worry.'”

From ABC News. “Jewlz and Terry Fahn said they will need to file a claim under the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort. The Fahns had to sign on after State Farm opted against renewal of their fire policy last fall, just a few months before the fire destroyed their home. For her part, Jewlz Fahn said she knows that her claim through the California FAIR Plan won’t cover everything that she lost in the fire. Fahn said she’s still struggling to understand why her insurance company wasn’t there to provide a safety net. ‘I’m still very scared thinking about how little we are going to get and what we should be getting for our home and for our loss,’ she said. ‘Insurance companies are supposed to protect you. That’s why they’re there,’ she went on. ‘So it makes no sense why they would drop us or anyone else, especially when they have the funds to insure people.'”

NBC San Diego in California. “Residents of University Heights say that they’ve called on city and state leaders for years for help about a homeless encampment in their community, with no result. John Rinaldi’s University Heights dream home, which offers a panoramic view of the city, also gives him a window into an unsightly scene across the canyon. ‘You shouldn’t have to contend with people defecating and sunbathing nude, and sitting out here cooking and running solar panels, and putting us at risk of fires,’ said Rinaldi, who told NBC 7 that he lost at least one potential buyer for his home, which is up for sale.”

“Neighbor Charles Warner showed NBC 7 pictures of cooking pots, batteries and solar panels he believes help to power the encampment’s creature comforts, which include a television. ‘I’ve seen a TV on down there…,’ Warner said. ‘It’s like he has an apartment.’ All of this is happening about 50 yards from Warner’s home. ‘It’s frustrating to have somebody put your life and your property at risk 24/7, and then to have no response from the city,’ Warner said. ‘We need to speed up the process if they’re doing anything,’ Rinaldi said. ‘It cannot take four years when it’s a fire danger and a threat to life. That can’t happen.'”

The Denver Post in Colorado. “Metro Denver’s housing market experienced a surge in new listings last month as sellers rushed the field ready to make a deal. But buyers, hobbled by a lack of affordability, increasingly stayed on the sidelines. Sellers, by contrast, were ready to make a move. They placed 4,339 homes and condos on the market in January, which represents a 135.4% increase from December and a 32% increase in new listings from January 2024. ‘Sellers in this market need to be realistic about pricing,’ said Amanda Snitker, chairwoman of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and a local Realtor. Testing the market by over-pricing a home has become a riskier proposition that often leads to more time spent on the market and price reductions.”

The Gazette. “The red-hot pace of Colorado Springs-area apartment construction turned ice cold last year. Until 2024, multifamily developers were riding high — attracted to the Colorado Springs area. Apartment projects sprang up in several fast-growing areas, including north and northeast Colorado Springs, Fountain to the south of the city and Monument in northern El Paso County. For areas such as downtown, where thousands of new apartments have opened, owners are offering up to two months of free rent to tenants who sign 12- to 15-month leases to fill up their new complexes. ‘In this building frenzy, did we build enough affordable units? Probably not,’ said Tatiana Bailey, executive director of Data Driven Economic Strategies. Developers are ‘building high-margin properties with rents of more than $2,000 a month’ that teachers, police and other middle-income workers might not be able to afford, she said.”

News & Observer in North Carolina. “Plunging property values, high interest rates, the rise of hybrid work and weak tenant demand since the pandemic have pushed the nation’s office vacancy rates to a new record 20.4% in the fourth quarter — the highest since at least 1979, when Moody’s Analytics began tracking. In the Triangle, it’s even higher at 21% — up from 20.6% in the previous quarter and from 18.9% a year ago, according to CBRE. Across all corners, office buildings, new and old, are sitting empty. In December, Raleigh investor Andy English, with his Perkins Fund, purchased a 160,000-square-foot building in West Raleigh for $6 million, Triangle Business Journal reported. Just five years earlier, the previous owner, Atlanta-based Bridge Commercial Real Estate, paid $33 million for the building — an 80% drop in price. And last June, Atlanta-based Bridge Commercial Real Estate sold a pair of Class A office buildings on Falls of Neuse Road for $12.25 million combined, TBJ reported. That’s more than $17 million below what they paid in 2020 when the combined price was nearly $30 million.”

The Kingston Whig-Standard in Canada. “During the darkest days of the year many people like to escape to warmer, sunnier destinations, such as Florida in the United States. One Kingston family has decided to avoid that part of the south and instead spend their money in Mexico. ‘I have no interest in going to the United States at this point in time and honestly, I will focus on spending all of the money I make on things that will help people in our own country,’ said Mat Clancy. Clancy is a real estate agent in Kingston but has experience working on cruise ships in the United States. His main concern is how the proposed tariffs could hurt different sectors of the economy here in the Limestone City.”

“‘The real estate industry is fairly invulnerable because I’m either helping people buy a house or I’m unfortunately maybe going to have to sell some houses because people aren’t going to be able to afford them. They get laid off from their job and they can’t afford their mortgage payment anymore,’ said Clancy. According to Eugene Lang, a professor in the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, Canada hasn’t experienced a tariff from the United States since the 1930s. ‘Back then we were more integrated with the U.K. economy than the U.S. It was a completely different era. Now, just to put some numbers on it, 34-35 per cent of our GDP is trade dependent and 75 per cent of it is with the U.S. We are extremely dependent on them in a way that they are not dependent on us,’ said Lang.”

The North Hampton Chronicle in the UK. “A father of three living on an unfinished housing estate in Northampton has criticised the developers over ‘broken promises’, ‘excuses’ and a ‘lack of communication’. Residents of the 139-home Lancaster and Harvester Way housing development by Watermeadow Homes in Far Cotton have repeatedly expressed frustration over prolonged delays and the incomplete state of their estate. Dad Dean Foskett is now speaking out after nearly three years of living on the site, having paid £338,000 for the house in August 2022 and moving his young family in. The 41-year-old said: ‘The site as a whole—there are potholes, uneven roads, high curbs, unkept land, fencing. It looks like we’re living in a constant building site. We’ve gone from being excited about our new home to considering moving because nothing’s happening. They snapped up the money, then pushed us to the back of the pile.'”

Radio New Zealand. “Average Wellington house values have plummeted nearly 25 percent over three years, according to latest official valuations. On average compared to the 2021 valuations, the value of residential housing had decreased 24.4 percent with the average house value now sitting at $1,086,000. The average land land value decreased 36.7 percent to an average of $621,000 over the same period. Lowe and Co managing director Craig Lowe told RNZ the changes in house prices matter most to those that bought during the peak of the property boom in 2021. Lowe said that was due to the potential for those people to be now faced with a situation where they could have negative equity or the majority of their equity wiped out. ‘That’s where this would be affecting those people quite negatively.’ Many of those property owners may be in a position where they would have to wait for house price inflation over time to restore equity in the property before selling, he said.”

The Daily Mail. “Another Australian home builder has collapsed, owing millions of dollars to creditors and leaving homes left unfinished or with defects. Clarke Homes, based on the NSW Central Coast, was placed in administration, with a meeting of creditors held on Wednesday. Many of the creditors are tradespeople, contractors and suppliers, with one local firm claiming it’s owed around $60,000 by the home builder. ‘We’re just trying to see if we can recoup some of the money so we can keep going,’ the unnamed creditor told the Daily Telegraph. ‘We’ve been busting our a***s to stay afloat because, with the cost of living many people are not spending.'”

“Among the creditors owed are Alesha McNamara and her husband who spent almost $400,000 on their ‘dream home’. The couple and their baby boy have been living in the home since early 2024, but there are a lot of defects. Ms McNamara said that during the building process, ‘every trade (person) we spoke to was owed money’. Though the house was habitable, Ms McNamara said defects such as holes in the ceilings would cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix. As she is on maternity leave at the moment, so the couple cannot afford to get these problems fixed right now. ‘It’s definitely cost us a whole lot more than what paying for a different builder might have,’ Ms McNamara said.”

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This Post Has 106 Comments

  1. ‘Rinaldi’s University Heights dream home, which offers a panoramic view of the city, also gives him a window into an unsightly scene across the canyon. ‘You shouldn’t have to contend with people defecating and sunbathing nude, and sitting out here cooking and running solar panels, and putting us at risk of fires,’ said Rinaldi, who told NBC 7 that he lost at least one potential buyer for his home, which is up for sale’

    The good new John is UHS say it’s a red hotcakes sellers market in San Diego and you can always sell.

    1. According to goog-maps, that’s an artsy-fartsy section of the city. Also, that area has some tiny communities of small shacks. That is, it looks like a developer took a slightly larger lot, like 0.2 acre, and built 5 small square houses 600 sq ft, surrounding a sidewalk courtyard. It’s very cute.

      Don’t get me wrong, the shacks are probably cheap rentals, so the residents are probably low-income gov cheese-eaters who are destroying the shacks. But still, it’s an attractive setup.

      1. “…that’s an artsy-fartsy section of the city.”

        Would you expect anything less for our Volvo driving, wine sniffing, orators of philosophy and rhetoric, would you?

  2. ‘In this building frenzy, did we build enough affordable units? Probably not’…Developers are ‘building high-margin properties with rents of more than $2,000 a month’ that teachers, police and other middle-income workers might not be able to afford’

    They paid too much fer the land Tatiana. I’ve been saying that since 2012. Anybody with a calculator could have seen this coming.

      1. It’s the new math as taught in progressive schools:

        Everyone’s a winner!

        If you run out of money, you can sign up for the gov’t cheese.

    1. ** ” Another Australian home builder has collapsed . . ”

      Great Caesar’s Ghost! (nod to Vice Grip Garage) Are there ANY reputable home builders even left in OZ !?

      At this point, the only “Builder” I’d trust would be LEGOS.

  4. Protection Racket Media Update: USAID Funded NY Times, BBC Too; UPDATE: AP Too.

    https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2025/02/05/protection-racket-media-update-usaid-funded-ny-times-bbc-too-n3799517#google_vignette

    Well, well, well. So much for the value of an “independent press.” It turns out that even the most vaunted organizations within that industry covertly sucked at the taxpayer teat while supposedly reporting without fear or favor on the bureaucratic state that supports them. And they did that while the bureaucratic state targeted debate and dissent everywhere else.

    Now that the US DOGE Service (USDS) — its actual name, which will become important later — has begun number-crunching federal outlays, this corrupt arrangement has become much clearer. Beege wrote about Politico’s income from its absurdly priced Politico PRO subscriptions, but a new pass through the data shows that both the New York Times and even the BBC had seven-figure income streams from USAID, too:

    [A chart and some other stuff appears here …]

    The BBC? Why is a state-owned media outlet in the UK receiving American government funding at all? The UK forces British subjects to underwrite the BBC through license fees, which calls the BBC’s credibility into question as a watchdog already. American taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to participate in that activity, too.

    Here’s another, far more inscrutable look at this data on the NYT:

    [Some more stuff appears here …]

    Charts like these are why DOGE uses twenty-something geniuses rather than sixty-something bloggers. And the Department of Defense also sent millions of dollars to Reuters, although not to their news division:

    [More stuff …]

    Reuters is actually a very large conglomerate, but don’t be surprised if we find money that went to their news org.

    Let’s not forget the context in which all of these funds have flowed to the supposedly “independent” news media. The State Department actively worked to suppress criticism of news orgs like the NYT and Politico through its Global Engagement Center and the Global Disinformation Index it produced to scare advertisers away from truly independent platforms that challenged the Biden administration’s policies and positions. Now we know that USAID and the State Department provided funding for the Protection Racket Media through various guises, including in Politico’s case $12,000 subscriptions to their paywalled articles.

    We knew about the racket. Now we see the payoff.

    Small wonder that the media and the Left are screaming over DOGE and Elon Musk’s attempts to expose the funding. This is very reminiscent of the screaming that took place when Musk exposed the Big Brother-Big Tech Censorship Complex after purchasing Twitter. The motives are the same — to keep the corruption from getting fully exposed.

    Is all of this legal, however? Has Musk somehow usurped executive or legislative power and illegally accessed confidential data in this effort? Speaker Mike Johnson scoffed at the idea this morning, calling it an exercise in executive stewardship over public spending:

    [More stuff …]

    As for Musk and usurpation, attorney and activist Tom Renz points out that the Trump administration planned carefully for this effort. Trump took an existing agency from the Obama era that focused on software development and tasked it instead to do a deep data dive on federal spending. He then made Musk a partner to the US DOGE Service — told you it would be important — to facilitate the effort (via Twitchy):

    [Stuff …]

    Assuming this checks out, the real lesson from this is that the executive branch has too much authority over too-huge amounts of discretionary spending. That also means that the executive branch can rescind those spending decisions unilaterally, however. So far, it appears that the USDS has been careful to avoid spending that Congress specifically directs in statute or in budget line items, and instead is taking aim at everything else. That has been the case in every single department that DOGE has touched, especially at USAID, where spending is not only discretionary but has never been effectively checked by executives at State or the White House.

    All of the screaming misses the point. None of this funding should have been kept under wraps, especially not the USAID or other government funding directed toward domestic media orgs. This should not have needed a DOGE to provide long-overdue transparency. Even Congress appears to have been kept in the dark about the nature and targets of this funding, just as they apparently were on the targeting of Americans for their speech and dissent.

  5. ‘Dark Woke’ is the Left’s delusional answer to Trumpism.

    https://archive.ph/6CMup

    UnHerd – Shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, #DarkWoke emerged as the newest entry in the growing, accursed vernacular of the President’s second term. Much like its Right-wing counterpart, the “Woke Right”, #DarkWoke manages to be grating in all the wrong ways.

    Over the weekend, what began as a ham-fisted joke metastasised into something more serious: an earnest call for a harsher, meaner Left. “I think the ‘dark woke’ stuff had to happen eventually because the liberal side of the culture war has not been overtly cruel enough to fit into American politics,” wrote Liv Agar. She wasn’t alone. A few voices floated borderline accelerationism: if Republicans want to drive us into chaos, let’s crank up the dial and maybe that’ll finally spur a revolution. Some even invoked the Black Panthers.

    Of course, for anyone not on the Left this whole thing feels like bad sketch comedy. It’s not the disapproval of Trump’s policies, which can be taken for granted with Left-wingers. Instead, it’s the idea that the reason the Left lost is because it wasn’t “mean enough”, whether “mean enough” means their language was too sensitive or they didn’t care enough about retribution. That the problem wasn’t messaging, candidate choice, policy preferences, or practically anything else, but simply that progressives hadn’t been cruel enough to their political opponents.

    For all the Right’s faults, the Left deserves most of the blame for the cultural climate of the last 10 years. Plenty of moderates and freshly-minted conservatives can attest that from 2015 until relatively recently, one misstep could demolish a career. Where the Right might dogpile and insult you online, the Left will contact your employer and try to get you fired. Its members will deplatform you and do so gleefully. We’ve seen it happen to journalists, academics, artists — people who weren’t Right-wing at all, but who veered too far off the accepted script. Lives were ruined.

    Since the election, it feels like many people on the Left have all been explicitly asking: “Why doesn’t anyone like us?” The same tone-deafness that animates #DarkWoke also animates the question of why there’s no Left-wing Joe Rogan — someone who can speak to the everyman, make progressive ideas accessible, and bridge cultural divides. Excuses abound: no money, no audience, bad premise. But the real reason is simpler. The Left doesn’t have a Joe Rogan because it holds Rogan’s demographic in contempt. In fact, far too many on the Left hold anyone who doesn’t agree with them — exactly as they wish to be agreed with — in contempt. At best, they view them as pathetic.

    Many prominent Leftists believe that anyone who votes Republican is not just misguided, but morally bankrupt. If they lose their job, their platform, or their ability to function in polite society, well, that’s justice. Trump voters, in this view, become a monolith: all equally irredeemable, all fit for ridicule or worse.

    The irony is that this culture war shuts down any chance to address what really matters: policy. “Dark Woke”, then, is not only misguided — it’s fuelling the very culture war its side created in the first place.

  6. [A view from Down Under …]

    NGO’s emerge as The shadow government.

    https://www.joannenova.com.au/2025/02/ngos-emerge-as-the-shadow-government/

    By Jo Nova

    It turns out the Non-Government Organizations were really The Government.

    The word for that is GONGO — a government organised non-government organisation.

    Hands up who is still reeling with the news that USAID had 50 thousand million dollars of political and media influence? The annual budget of $50 billion dollars in the hands of unaccountable activist NGOs buys a lot of “journalists”, editors and teenage protestors. Suddenly a lot of global patterns make more sense.

    Today we found out that news outlets like Politico, and the New York Times were being given millions of dollars from the US government.

    Benny Johnson says:

    This is the biggest scandal in news media history: No employee at Politico got paid yesterday. First time ever the company missed a pay period. This is a crisis. Now we learn Politico — a “news company” — which spent the last 10 years trying to destroy the MAGA Movement was being massively funded by USAID.

    It seems some $27 million dollars went to Politico during the Biden years — and that’s just the subscriptions (not the USAID). Truly, Politico charges as much as $10,000 for a single “Politico Pro” subscription — and so the taxpayers fork out big bucks to pay for politicians “work expenses”, and the money ends up covering the salaries of journalists who are working hard to deceive the hapless taxpayers.

    As ZeroHedge reminds us, Politico went in hard in the 2020 election to cover for the Hunter Biden laptop from hell.

    They also point out that the Blob has many other ways to keep newspapers toeing the line…

    It’s not just the subscriptions: there are huge “ad contracts”, dinner parties DC throws itself under the guise of “media conferences”, sponsorships, etc all paid for by taxpayers. Once done with Politico look at its spawn Axios, founded by Politico veterans.

    [There is a bit more to this article. Hit the link if you want to read it.]

  7. “Fahn said she’s still struggling to understand why her insurance company wasn’t there to provide a safety net.”

    These people are just being willfully obtuse.

    1. “Insurance companies are supposed to protect you”

      Nope. It’s a business. They could care less about you. Insurance is a numbers game. They’re there to make a profit. And outside of what your policy states they are obligated to do they really don’t give a rip. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Once you accept that then you can start making some decent decisions.

      1. Probably <<1% of all policy holders actually read the exclusion riders and the fine print.

        But, but, but my salesman told me I would be covered!

        1. I bet it’s less than that. I’ll read the statement that comes on renewals that says “we changed this and this” or ” you should consider this additional rider and I’ll call up and ask AND THEY HAVE NO IDEA
          they always have to call main office support. This is a big busy agent.

          Meaning I’m the only person to ask.

          1. “…and they have no idea…”

            I got my H/O insurance for well over 50 years from a small mom/pop agency that really knew their stuff and were *honest*.

            Mom / pop grew old and sold to a giant (well known for dropping policy holders in the current news) conglomerate.

            Now, If I need to call, I lucky to talk to someone who understands math and speaks acceptable english.

    2. “I just couldn’t believe it. We’ve been a State Farm customer for more than 20 years,” Jewlz Fahn said. “We paid on time. We never made a claim. There’s no reason for them to drop us. It’s just unfathomable.”

      I’m sure you brushed with Crest too, Jewlz. The issue is the rebuilding costs have been rising in the double digits, but your Insurance Commissioner has limited policy increases to 7%.

      1. ‘Insurance companies are supposed to protect you. That’s why they’re there,’ she went on. ‘So it makes no sense why they would drop us or anyone else, especially when they have the funds to insure people.’

        All for-profit companies, including the insurance companies are not there to protect you. They assess risk and gamble on the likelyhood of profit. It is their money. It might have been wiser to investigate limits of coverage (contracted not verbal) and not just pick the cheapest quote.
        Do what every other at-loss person does; go whine to the government and file a claim with FEMA.

  8. Wells and her family live in a camper overlooking the home they are unable to repair.

    I’m starting to think home “ownership” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

    1. Not if you live in Seabrook, TX, which is located right on Galveston Bay, elevation 0 feet. Hurricane-scale rainfall would wash most of these houses right into the Gulf of America.

      1. Galveston Bay

        It’s 20 years since I was there, but at the time my local colleague told the ground had sunken 12 ft in his time, due to water wells.

  9. ‘They gave me $9,400 to fix my house, my whole house. My entire house for $9,400,’ she said.”

    Taxpayers are under no obligation to make you whole on your shack losses, Misty.

    1. **” They gave me $9,400 to fix my house, my whole house. My entire house for $9,400,’ she said.”

      reminds me of the outrage in the food market in Soylent Green:
      ” – They gave me a quarter of a kilo. I stood in line the whole lousy day, and they gave me a quarter of a kilo! Do you believe that?”

      the scoops are coming.
      the scoops are coming.

  10. [From Scott Adams …]

    Democrats are terrified of DOGE and Musk because they have never witnessed this degree of competence. It looks alien to them.

    I mean that literally. People with experience see in DOGE a process that is necessarily messy but 100% on target in terms of speed, talent, and energy applied.

    To the inexperienced, it probably looks like a combination of chaos and a bank heist.

    I pity the inexperienced.

    https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1887498890808861124?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1887498890808861124%7Ctwgr%5E9431080570c7b93574d03b15f4064108481c98ce%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F700804%2F

  11. ‘I’m shocked it hasn’t sold,’ Thompson said. ‘It does make you worry.’”

    When it’s priced to sell, it’ll sell, Sherry.

  12. “Plunging property values, high interest rates, the rise of hybrid work and weak tenant demand since the pandemic have pushed the nation’s office vacancy rates to a new record 20.4% in the fourth quarter — the highest since at least 1979, when Moody’s Analytics began tracking.

    Is that a lot?

    1. And those vacancy rates are just what is being paid for, not the actual occupancy. People are rather fast and loose with what it means to come to the office.

  13. Just five years earlier, the previous owner, Atlanta-based Bridge Commercial Real Estate, paid $33 million for the building — an 80% drop in price.

    It was only Yellen Bux.

  18. Anecdotal: as of this week I am officially OSHA 30 certified.

    The greatest jobsite hazard I see is the total lack of situational awareness with apprentices. They would rather get run over by a forklift than miss the next ten seconds of TikTok videos.

    2. They would rather get run over by a forklift than miss the next ten seconds of TikTok videos.
      My son programs fork lifts in huge warehouses so, theoretically, the forklift will stop before hitting clueless employee.

  19. Shut. It. Down.

    A new type of bird flu has been found in dairy cows in Nevada (2/5/2025):

    “A variant of H5N1 bird flu that has circulated widely in wild birds — and in several instances led to severe illness in humans — has turned up in dairy cattle for the first time.

    The findings were relayed in a short update from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which traced the new variant back to dairy herds in Nevada.”

    https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/02/05/nx-s1-5286265/bird-flu-cow-cattle-nevada

    Close the schools and all small businesses. Cull the herds. ALL the herds. Beef and dairy are only for the People Who Matter, and that doesn’t include YOU.

    1. EET ZEE BUGZ.

      Also be sure to fall for the latest medical hoax brought to you by the easily manipulated PCR test.

  20. ICE arrests suspected Venezuelan gang member in Easton for indecent assault with a minor

    EASTON, Pa. – ICE officials slapped the handcuffs on 22-year-old suspected Venezuelan gang member Luis Gualdron-Gualdron Friday.

    He was arrested in Easton back in May and charged with indecent assault on a person less than 16 years of age and harassment.

    According to the Northampton County District Attorney, the victim in the case did not wish to cooperate or testify and Gualdron entered a plea of guilty to harassment.

    Gualdron was taken into custody by ICE immediately after he was released from Northampton County Prison.

    According to the Philadelphia office of enforcement and removal operations:

    “The arrest of Luis Gualdron-Gualdron, a suspected Tren de Aragua gang member with a serious criminal record, exemplifies our commitment to public safety and immigration law enforcement,” said acting director Brian McShane.

    ICE says Gualdron entered the U.S. illegally and was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol near Brownsville, Texas, in December of 2023.

    But because he was traveling with his family he was released on an order of recognizance.

    Gualdron’s arrest isn’t the first time someone believed to be connected to the Venezuelan gang has made headlines in Pennsylvania.

    On Jan. 12, Venezuelan national Lionardo Hernandez Zarata was killed during a barrage of gunfire at a birthday party at a Pocono Summit rental.

    Monroe County District Attorney Mike Mancuso says two Venezuelan men were wounded in the incident and six Venezuelan nationals were taken into custody.

    All of them saying they were afraid of Tren de Aragua.

    In a Facebook post, Mancuso said there was a similar incident in May where another group of Venezuelan nationals booked a short term rental and had a party that was also busted up by gunfire.

    Tran de Aragua is well known in the US.

    Last week, ten members and associates of the gang were indicted for allegedly running a gun trafficking operation in New York City that stretched across the country.

    https://www.wfmz.com/ice-arrests-suspected-venezuelan-gang-member-in-easton-for-indecent-assault-with-a-minor/article_bd929c3c-e33e-11ef-9cce-3bb66bc224e5.html

    1. ICE carries out raid in Colorado, 100 members of Venezuelan gang targeted for arrest: Officials

      U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeted for arrest more than 100 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua during an early morning raid at an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, on Wednesday.

      Dozens of federal agents were seen going door to door and speaking to residents in their apartments.

      ICE was supported by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Customs and Border Protection and the FBI, the agency said.

      Volunteers with the Colorado Rapid Response Network, an immigrant rights group, were also seen using megaphones to advise residents to not speak or open their doors.

      On Tuesday, the Trump administration sent its first flight of migrants to Guantanamo Bay, alleging the 10 individuals were members of Tren de Aragua.

      https://www.yahoo.com/news/ice-carries-raid-colorado-arrests-175308837.html

      1. California parole agent allegedly tricks transgender woman into leaving home, leading to arrest by ICE agents

        LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Calif. – What seemed like a routine request quickly unraveled into a calculated trap.

        “I just need you to sign… and I go, and that’s it,” Natalie Marinero was told.

        Those were the words a California parole agent used to lure Marinero, a transgender woman from El Salvador, out of her home on January 26. But waiting outside were ICE agents, ready to take her into custody.

        Susan Burton, founder of A New Way of Life, expressed outrage at the deception.

        “It’s hard to find the words to say how the government called here, tricked Natalie, and lured her outside where ICE was waiting for her,” Burton said.

        Marinero had been living at A New Way of Life, a facility supporting formerly incarcerated women. She was rebuilding her life after serving 17 and a half years in California state prison for a second-degree murder conviction in 2005.

        Burton lamented the abrupt end to Marinero’s fresh start.

        “Natalie got caught in a bad situation where she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. She paid her debt to society, and now she was trying to start anew.”

        Susan Hefner, the housing supervisor, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing Marinero’s efforts to turn her life around.

        “Natalie paid her debt, yeah, and she’s been making great choices, really working on herself, internally, externally, like the whole package.”

        Now detained in Otay Mesa, Marinero faces deportation back to El Salvador, a country where she fears for her life.

        “They told me I was getting deported,” Marinero recounted in a phone call. “I said, ‘You can’t deport me. I’m going to get tortured in my country.'”

        Burton voiced deep concern over Marinero’s fate. She said, “I am so saddened by ICE coming and taking Natalie away. It’s just horrifying to think of what will happen to her if they return her to El Salvador.”

        https://www.foxla.com/news/california-ice-arrest-deportation-transgender-woman

        1. “Natalie got caught in a bad situation where she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. She paid her debt to society, and now she was trying to start anew.”
          .
          He can start anew in El Salvador. If he doesn’t want to go there I’m sure there is a bed for him ar Gitmo

        2. Shelters, schools, churches, etc, are no longer sanctuary. If the parole agent hadn’t tricked this person to come outside, then ICE would have the jurisdiction to go inside, possibly endangering other people there. And there’s nothing the social justice warriors can do about it.

          Anyone want to speculate what this transgender murderer was planning to eventually do to the women? I wouldn’t bother with Gitmo. I hear that Beds by Bukele is quite the business these days.

    2. “charged with indecent assault on a person less than 16 years of age”

      This is who Selena Gomez is crying for.

  21. Numerous public threats’ prompt ICE raid targeting multiple locations, metro Denver gang members (2/6/2025):

    “There was a massive show of force Wednesday across the metro Denver region as federal agents conducted surprise operations targeting Venezuelan gang members and other undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

    FOX31 began receiving calls right away from immigrant advocates saying people were being awakened to door knocking and agents asking for proof of citizenship.

    Among the federal agents present for the operation was U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Caleb Vitello.

    “We are here today to conduct an at-large enforcement operation here looking for Tren de Aragua, the gang members from Venezuela,” Vitello said in an ICE Denver post on X. “Unfortunately, we have to come to the communities because we don’t get the cooperation we need from the jails. It would be so much easier and so much safer for our agents if we could take these people into custody from a safe environment. But if we have to come out in the community that is what we are going to do.”

    Colorado law prevents local law enforcement from holding someone solely for the purpose of a civil immigration detainer issued by a federal agency, like ICE.

    https://kdvr.com/news/local/numerous-public-threats-prompt-ice-raid-targeting-multiple-locations-metro-denver-gang-members/

  22. Trump’s rapid dismantling of USAID leaves workers around world concerned for safety and futures

    The Trump administration’s rapid moves to dismantle the US Agency for International Development have left thousands of workers scrambling to figure out what comes next and scores of those posted in dangerous hotspots around the world afraid for their safety.

    “We are all emotionally distraught,” one USAID diplomat posted overseas told CNN. “We feel like psychological warfare is being waged against us.”

    “It’s beyond surreal. It feels like a cruel joke,” said another USAID official posted in a sensitive location. “I am US diplomat, here on a diplomatic passport, and yet I am now kicked off of all embassy systems designed to keep diplomats and their families safe?”

    Over the last few days, thousands of contractors, including those who function as diplomats abroad, have been put on leave or locked out of critical agency systems, including those that alert them to threats.

    On Tuesday evening, officials who are direct hires of the US government began receiving leave notice. Later that night, the agency informed its workforce that “all USAID direct hire personnel,” with a few exceptions, “will be placed on administrative leave globally” on Friday at 11:59 p.m.

    “I cannot say for sure whether they [the embassy] are responsible for my safety and evacuation, if needed,” a USAID contractor posted in a dangerous location echoed.

    “My Scry [security app] panic button appears to be working, but I have not yet confirmed with security — the app is tied to my USAID email which is deactivated,” they told CNN, noting they have heard from colleagues in other hotspots that “theirs is not working.”

    Sources have also expressed fears about the impact of Trump and Musk’s demonizing rhetoric against USAID and its employees.

    “It is a shameful, vile, unprecedented way to treat public servants, whose safety is at stake following vicious, defamatory Musk statements,” one USAID official said.

    The USAID official posted in the Middle East said they have an entire team working in one country in the region that “is sitting there with no clue where they’re going to be, or how they’re going to get home, or if they’re going to get home.”

    USAID diplomats stationed abroad are often on yearslong postings, meaning their children would be enrolled in local schools or their spouses may have gotten local employment. But now everything is upended.

    Shutting down programs takes time, “can’t just turn off the tap,” said one USAID official. “We have bills to pay, we have to do an orderly closeout.”

    Administrative leave has never been used in this way before, Chester from AFSA told CNN, so USAID diplomats posted abroad do not know what will happen if they are among those put on leave Friday night.

    “People are concerned that they could be summarily asked to leave their housing, because all of our housing is sponsored by the US government, and if we’re not allowed in government buildings, then by extension, people are wondering, are we allowed to stay in our house?”

    For those who technically work as contractors abroad, the concern and confusion is equally as great.

    “With my contracting arrangement, I’m responsible for paying my hotel bill (at a hotel I am obliged to stay at) and expenses and seeking reimbursement and per diem thereafter — due to the uncertainty around my contract status, I am unsure if and how I will be able to seek reimbursement,” the USAID official in a dangerous location said. “I’m weighing checking out and sleeping on a colleague’s hotel couch just in case.”

    AFSA’s Chester said Wednesday that “nobody’s got operational details yet, because the folks who do all this arranging and missions, they don’t know what to do yet.”

    “Every (diplomatic) mission has a certain amount of budget that they get from headquarters to spend on these things, and since this was unplanned, no one’s clear on where the money is actually going to come from and how it’s going to be paid for,” he explained. “It’s really hard to start buying plane tickets and arranging for good transportation when you’re not sure where the money is.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-s-rapid-dismantling-of-usaid-leaves-workers-around-world-concerned-for-safety-and-futures/ar-AA1yw2Kh

    1. Why are USAID workers in diplomatic positions? I thought those functions were a direct part of the State Department.
      Also from what I understand, those workers are put on administrative leave which means they will still receive their wages and benefits until some later disposition. Is that a wrong assumption?
      Media leaves out important details.

    2. No matter what they were doing, they were operating under the auspices of the US Gov, and I’m confident that Marco Rubio will at least get these people home safely. Let the hammers fall after they are safe on American soil.

      1. These scum bags were funding gain of function and spending hundreds of million$ a year bringing in illegals among many other illegal acts. Take em straight to gitmo!

          1. In order to provide for pet care and build hotels to stay in, wouldn’t a country already have some kind of stable infrastructure? How much aid do they need?

  23. ‘Holding Us Hostage’: Inside Trump and Musk’s USAID Shutdown Fiasco

    President Donald Trump and Elon Musk tore through much of the federal government over the past two weeks – effectively shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the government’s foreign aid department.

    Now that nearly all of the agency’s staff has been put on leave, USAID employees aren’t sure whether they’ll still be paid – and have no real way of getting answers. Meanwhile, the agency’s thousands of overseas employees are being recalled and wondering what happens next: How will they get back to America? Are they going to be stranded? Will they have to leave their pets behind? Many have had their jobs terminated.

    Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump’s biggest donor, has called USAID a “criminal organization” and “a ball of worms,” and claimed that he and his team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) received Trump’s blessing to “shut down” the agency.

    At the moment, a USAID employee tells Rolling Stone, it’s not clear whether anyone will be around to certify employees’ hours in the payroll system while they’re all on leave. “We don’t know if they’ve left anyone in place to actually do that,” the employee says, adding: “If someone finds a new job, how do they resign? They’re holding us hostage.”

    Matters are even worse for USAID’s overseas staffers, who make up roughly two-thirds of the agency’s 10,000-person workforce.

    Rolling Stone interviewed a USAID staffer based in Kenya who helps administer humanitarian relief to Sudan as part of the Disaster Assistance Response Team. The staffer had just received notice his job was being terminated within 30 days.

    He described the “gut punch” of the sudden, chaotic shutdown. “We are in heartbreaking meetings in the embassy. People are shaken – local and U.S. staff,” he said. “The feeling is real – saying goodbye to each other as we’re trying to obey orders and be out from post back to our homes in the next few days, unless some miracle happens.”

    The staffer described a shambolic wind-down: “There is absolutely zero guidance coming out of our Washington offices and we quite frankly feel very isolated alone. Most of headquarters is shut out of their email and even our sister team doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “We are the violin playing orchestra on the Titanic deck sinking currently.”

    In recent days, Facebook groups and other online forums of Americans working overseas, including for USAID, exploded in panic and utter bafflement. Many of the overseas workers learned about the recall from news reports, and not from any official channels, according to interviews and screenshots shared with Rolling Stone.

    Per the posts, virtually none of the workers know exactly how to get themselves, their family members, or even their pets home under the new Trump-era orders. The USAID employee says the overseas workers may, indeed, be forced to leave their pets, noting that “the contents of their homes are going to be in limbo for who knows how long.”

    “Bringing back all of our overseas staff is going to be insanely expensive,” the USAID employee notes, adding that employees “are all having to mobilize – while being called worms and criminals and lunatics in public – to figure out emergency housing for 1,500+ families that are about to get dropped on D.C. with little warning.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/holding-us-hostage-inside-trump-and-musks-usaid-shutdown-fiasco/ar-AA1ytIVb

    1. “Bringing back all of our overseas staff is going to be insanely expensive,” the USAID employee notes, adding that employees “are all having to mobilize – while being called worms and criminals and lunatics in public – to figure out emergency housing for 1,500+ families that are about to get dropped on D.C. with little warning.”

      If they think that is rough, they should see what it’s like in the private sector, where a layoff can happen at any time.

      1. I don’t think even the private sector would strand employees overseas. Bring them home and then lay them off. Bringing them home might be “insanely expensive,” but I’m sure it will cost less than USAID’s $50 billion budget.

        Has anyone seen a breakdown of exactly how much of that $50 billion was spent on direct physical food/medical aid, how much of the charity money translated to physical food/medical aid, how much was spent on employees, and how much was just handed out to shadow charities that pocketed it?

        I don’t have a problem with sending physical aid, but I hear that any physical aid is just hijacked by local warlords anyway. So I don’t see a solution here.

        2. “I don’t have a problem with sending physical aid, but I hear that any physical aid is just hijacked by local warlords anyway. So I don’t see a solution here.”

          The truck driver likely sends a text to the warlords asking where to go to facilitate the looting.

        3. “I don’t think even the private sector would strand employees overseas.”

          Yes, they do. It happend to me.

          1. I’m sorry to hear that, and I wonder if there’s some ground to at least sure for return travel costs. Or maybe they buried something in the fine print for CYA.

  24. Here come the Spring selling season listings. Will there be as many buyers, or is housing still the most unaffordable ever? It’s not rates, it’s the price, stupid!

    Note to DOGE: Eliminate FHFA, FNMA, FMCC, HUD, etc. Reduce or eliminate conforming loan limits. Also eliminate the Federal Reserve System. Screwed-up housing market brought to you by your government. Return housing, and the rest of the economy to the private sector. The result would be lower housing prices, and smaller and lower cost government. See Rahn and Laffer curves. Xavier Milei in Argentina has the right idea…

    https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-new-listings-increase-demand-declines/
    New Listings Post Biggest Increase of the Year While Homebuying Demand Declines, Leading to Big Pool of Supply
    February 6, 2025 by Dana Anderson

    New listings of U.S. homes for sale rose 7.9% from a year earlier during the four weeks ending February 2, the biggest increase since the end of last year.

    The uptick in new listings and lack of sales is contributing to a growing pool of supply for homebuyers to choose from. There are 5 months of supply on the market, up from 4.4 months a year earlier and the most in six years, except the prior four-week period.

    There are several reasons would-be buyers are holding off. First, even though homes are typically selling for under asking price, costs are still near record highs. Stubbornly high home prices and mortgage rates have pushed the median monthly housing payment up to $2,784, up 8.3% year over year to just $21 shy of the all-time high.

  25. Seventeen State Attorneys General Unite to Challenge Biden’s Preemptive Pardon, Vow to Prosecute Serial Liar Anthony Fauci.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/seventeen-state-attorneys-general-unite-challenge-bidens-preemptive/

    Seventeen state attorneys general have formally requested aid from Republican congressional leaders to delve deeper into the origins of COVID-19 and explore possible legal actions against Dr. Anthony Fauci at the state level.

    This concerted effort, spearheaded by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, aims to circumvent the preemptive pardon issued by Joe Biden on his last day in office, which sought to shield Fauci from federal prosecution.

    This pardon covers any federal offenses Fauci may have committed between January 1, 2014, and the date of the pardon.

    “President Biden’s blanket pardon of Dr. Fauci is a shameful attempt to prevent accountability,” said Attorney General Wilson.

    “We are fully prepared to take appropriate action to ensure justice is served if our findings indicate violations of state laws.”

    The state attorneys general emphasize that the federal pardon does not preclude state-level legal actions and are actively seeking further details from Congress to facilitate state investigations and potential prosecutions.

    In a forceful letter addressed to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the attorneys general praised Congressional efforts to uncover potential misconduct and urged cooperation to pursue any violations of state laws.

    The letter reads:

    We, the undersigned Attorneys General, write to commend your work to promote transparency and accountability in studying the response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

    As part of your continued efforts in holding malign actors accountable for their actions arising out of the Pandemic, if you believe that further findings or direct evidence that suggests there may have been any violation of state laws, please include us in any actions taken so that we may evaluate state-level courses of action.

    Although former President Biden attempted to shield potential bad actors—like Dr. Anthony Fauci—from accountability via preemptive pardons, we are confident that state laws may provide a means to hold all actors accountable for their misconduct.

    With respect to your work thus far, we read with great interest the findings of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.1 We commend Chairman Brad Wenstrup and the subcommittee for their excellent work in exposing the fraud, waste, and abuse that plagued the pandemic response.

    Equally as important, we commend the subcommittee for its attempt to hold government actors accountable, highlighting misrepresentations, evasions, and potential deceitfulness by high-ranking government officials.

    The initiative follows the release of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic’s final report, which paints a damning picture of failure and possible misconduct at the highest levels of government, including by Dr. Fauci himself.

    The report suggests that Fauci was involved in misleading public statements about the origins of COVID-19, mismanagement of funding at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and suppression of scientific debate regarding vaccine risks.

    Key findings from the Congressional report include:

    Origins of COVID-19: There is suggestive evidence that Dr. Fauci worked to discredit the “lab leak” theory despite growing evidence in favor of it.
    Misleading Congress on NIH Funding: Allegations that Dr. Fauci provided false testimony regarding NIH-funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
    NIH Oversight Failures: Reports of mismanagement involving taxpayer funds intended for EcoHealth Alliance, which indirectly supported the controversial Wuhan lab.
    Suppression of Scientific Dissent: Accusations that prominent scientists who voiced concerns about vaccine risks were systematically silenced, curbing public discourse on potential adverse effects.
    The coalition of attorneys general includes:

    Alan Wilson, South Carolina
    Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee
    John Guard, Acting Attorney General of Florida
    Liz Murrill, Louisiana
    Ken Paxton, Texas
    Steve Marshall, Alabama
    Raúl Labrador, Idaho
    Drew Wrigley, North Dakota
    Derek E. Brown, Utah
    Todd Rokita, Indiana
    Marty Jackley, South Dakota
    Tim Griffin, Arkansas
    Austin Knudson, Montana
    Andrew Bailey, Missouri
    Kris Kobach, Kansas
    John B. McCuskey, West Virginia
    Mike Hilgers, Nebraska

    1. Does Pam Bondi take requests? I would like to see an investigation into the suppression of any research results pertaining to hydroxy chloroquine and ivermectin. There was massive motivation for Big Pharma to suppress these mostly successful medications in order to obtain the emergency authorization of the vaccines.

      Also, there might be some grounds to investigate the manipulation of HCQ research to make it look like it didn’t work. There’s a motive there too. They had to make sure the HCQ didn’t work in order to promote their own useless drug (remdesivir), and bonus, to deny DJT a win in the 2020 election season.

    2. So it looks like they aren’t going to challenge the constitutionality of the blanket pardon itself. But if they do, they need to challenge other pardonees in addition to Fauci. The reason is simple: these cases can take years, and Fauci is in his 80s. If he passes away while it’s being litigated, the case would be dropped for being moot.

      1. I thing the Constitution gives President unlimited and absolute power to pardon. Of course, as we all have seen, the Constitution is viewed as a nuisance to accomplishing political goals.

          1. I think we may have an answer (did not say correct answer) from courts after 600 lawsuits, 100,000 highly paid lawyers, and 10 years in court. Biden may be DOA before round 3 and courts will all drop litigation since mootness or something.

  26. Elon Musk is part of a ‘coup’ we must respond to, Kalamazoo County leader says

    KALAMAZOO, MI — The Chair of the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners said people have to respond to a “coup” within the federal government, calling out people making changes she believes are unconstitutional.

    During the Tuesday, Feb. 4, Kalamazoo County commissioners meeting, Chair Jen Strebs shared criticism of Elon Musk’s canceling of federal programs and systems.

    “That access and authority over government payments and systems, there’s one way you can define that in political speech and that is a coup,” Strebs said. “The government is under threat and the Constitution is under threat.”

    Changes should be made under the authority of the Constitution, said Strebs, a Democrat. Democrats have a 6-3 majority on the board.

    If behavior outside the bounds of the Constitution continues, we are obligated to respond to it, she said, urging people to contact their government representatives and find ways to exercise freedom of speech.

    Strebs made it clear where she stands with groups feeling threatened since Trump took office, saying she loves members of the trans community and other groups.

    “The immigrant community, both documented and undocumented, you are valued,” Strebs said. “You are loved for your humanity and you are part of our community.”

    The county and other local governments are bracing for possible federal funding impacts as Trump and Musk make sweeping changes within the government, including cutting some federally funded programs.

    About a quarter of the county budget comes from state and federal funds, county officials said.

    Vice Chair John Taylor said officials will have to have some difficult conversations as they work to address any impacts.

    “If cuts come down from the federal government, I am committed 100% to restoring that with local dollars to be sure the most vulnerable in our community are made whole,” Taylor said.

    He speculated whether federal funds would be cut because the county has a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program or because they’re helping poor people with subsidized rent.

    “We’re going to have to step up as a local government to take the place of things we kind of took for granted with the state and federal dollars,” Taylor said, and they need to talk about what can be saved.

    There was a brief talk Tuesday about the idea of Kalamazoo County being designated as a “sanctuary county.”

    Commissioner Monteze Morales said she would advise against the idea for now, because it could be “more risk than good.” She urged officials to include other groups and stakeholders of the issue in talks about possible action.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/elon-musk-is-part-of-a-coup-we-must-respond-to-kalamazoo-county-leader-says/ar-AA1ytupP

    1. They know that the free money flow from DC is ending, and are in a panic because many of them will lose what they thought were high paying jobs for life, not to mention the sweet, but still unvested, pensions at 55.

  27. Google owner Alphabet’s share price drops overnight – have investors had enough of spending on AI?

    The parent company of Google, Alphabet, saw its share price open on Wednesday more than seven per cent lower than Tuesday’s close, following their latest financial results release.

    Despite further rises in both revenue and profits, shareholders were not impressed. The exiting of positions in after-hours trading began immediately, with the sell-off knocking somewhere around the $175bn (£140bn) mark off the total value of the company.

    But their expenditure on AI was already ahead of the curve. The FT reported AI-related spending was $14.3bn in the fourth quarter, over a billion dollars more than had been expected.

    Tesla, Amazon and Apple haven’t been too impacted in share price terms just yet, and Meta saw a slight rise after their earnings report last week.

    But Microsoft is down more than seven per cent in a week since their release, where they announced AI spending would be $80bn for the year.

    “In a period when we have seen AI supposedly become less capital intensive with the introduction of DeepSeek, Alphabet has committed a 43 per cent increase in capital expenditure for 2025. This is great news for the likes of Nvidia, but for Alphabet we are yet to see a real return on investment on AI spend, so there is a risk that it could be money not being well spent and disappear into a virtual black hole,” said Quilter technology analyst Ben Barringer.

    At AJ Bell, Dan Coatsworth offered similar thoughts.

    “Alphabet is being punished for missing quarterly revenue expectations […] and for going heavy on AI-related spending. Investors expect flawless execution from the tech giant, yet weaker than expected growth in cloud computing implies the AI craze isn’t automatically turning into big bucks for infrastructure providers.

    “Equally worrying was the $75bn guidance for capital expenditure. Previously, large capex would have been taken as a positive sign that Alphabet was doing everything it could to capitalise on the hot AI trend. Now the reverse is true. There are fears it might be digging itself a big hole and potentially wasting money if rivals like DeepSeek have shown it is possible to do things a lot cheaper.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/google-owner-alphabets-share-price-drops-overnight-have-investors-had-enough-of-spending-on-ai/ar-AA1ysHzP

  28. Tariff threats may drive Canadian businesses to Buffalo

    BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The recent threat of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadians has led Canadian manufacturers to look at Buffalo as a possible place to set up shop.

    President of Invest Buffalo Niagara Thomas Kucharski said when the potential tariffs were announced back in December, he got a surge in Canadian businesses interested in moving to the United States.

    One site they have their eyes on is Sumitomo Rubber in the Town of Tonawanda.

    “From these conversations we’re having at this point, it’s like, well, it’s either Western New York or we’re just not going to do an expansion,” Kucharski said.

    Kucharski said he received at least a dozen calls in the past six weeks from Canadian companies seriously exploring opening operations in the Buffalo Niagara area.

    Kucharski said at the end of the day, it’s about maximizing profits and minimizing risk.

    “The ease of operating in the U.S. and the quality of our workforce — most of the folks are going to be employees of Western New York,” he said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl/tariff-threats-may-drive-canadian-businesses-to-buffalo/ar-AA1yqAxp

  29. In trade-dependent Windsor, Trump’s tariff threats rattle residents and businesses

    The machinery runs 24/7 at Laval, a manufacturer of equipment and auto parts. But the din offers little comfort to company president Jonathon Azzopardi.

    Roughly 85 per cent of Laval’s products are exported to the United States and the threat of a bilateral trade war still looms large. Although U.S. President Donald Trump paused his plan to impose punitive tariffs earlier this week, Mr. Azzopardi is preparing to absorb millions of dollars in extra costs to preserve Canadian jobs and U.S. customer relationships should the worst come to pass.

    Also weighing on him is the knowledge that any future impediment at the Canada-U.S. border would harm every family in Ontario’s Windsor-Essex region – whether their incomes are tied to manufacturing, farming or any other sector.

    “It’s like a funeral. That’s what it feels like,” Mr. Azzopardi said in an interview Wednesday afternoon. “It’s so sombre right now that nobody knows what to say or do. There aren’t really words that describe when somebody dies. Well, in this case, something that’s so important to a community is about to die or potentially could die.”

    Windsor is one of Canada’s most trade-dependent cities. Each day, some 8,000 trucks carrying an estimated $400-million worth of goods flow across the city’s land border with Detroit – amounting to one-third of bilateral trade.

    As the clock ticks down on Mr. Trump’s 30-day reprieve, tens of thousands of jobs remain in jeopardy. That lingering uncertainty about the risk of swift and severe economic fallout continues to rattle residents of this border city.

    But Windsorites aren’t just angry about business, they feel betrayed on a personal level, too. For decades, their daily lives have seamlessly spanned both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Detroit is their second home. As a result, the current trade tensions risk cleaving important social, cultural and family ties.

    “We have people here who are scared out of their minds with respect to what would happen to their jobs and their families,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said. “Twenty-five per cent is a catastrophic tariff for us. It’s not a minor annoyance – it is catastrophic.”

    Windsor’s economic development strategy, Windsor Works, is predicated on the city’s integration with Detroit. What’s more, some 6,000 nurses, doctors, engineers and other local professionals cross the border each day to work in Detroit.

    Additionally, Canada’s first EV battery factory is being built in Windsor. Improvements are also taking place at the city’s airport, while the new Gordie Howe International Bridge is expected to open to traffic later this year.

    Mr. Dilkens recently used his mayoral veto to cancel the Windsor-Detroit tunnel bus. Although the transit service is used by 40,000 people to cross the border each year, the vast majority of riders are Windsorites.

    “I’m under economic assault by the United States. I am not going to subsidize bringing people over there to spend their money,” he explained. “Basically, Donald Trump killed the tunnel bus.”

    The region’s greenhouse vegetable producers, which are scheduled to be in full production by the third week of March, are also struggling to make contingency plans.

    Roughly 505 million kilograms of fresh greenhouse produce, including cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers, are grown in Ontario each year with a critical mass of growers located in Essex County. About 85 per cent of that greenhouse produce, worth $1.6-billion, is exported to the U.S.

    “The population, based in Canada, would not be able to consume all the vegetables that we grow here,” said Richard Lee, executive director of Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-trump-tariff-threats-leave-windsor-ontario-rattled/

    1. Everyone wants to be a net exporter to the US.

      But Windsorites aren’t just angry about business, they feel betrayed on a personal level, too

      There it is, the entitlement.

      Maybe becoming a US territory (not a state) wouldn’t be such a bad thing. You might even be able to keep your beloved socialized healthcare.

  30. Germany needs an economy that works for young people

    On February 23, German voters will elect a new federal parliament, and many expect the country’s established political parties to lose ground. In recent elections – for the European Parliament in June and in the East German Länder (federal states) of Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg in September – young voters flocked to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland. In the three eastern states, for example, 31-38% of voters under the age of 25 voted for the AfD.

    It was a shocking shift: in the 2021 federal election, young Germans largely supported the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), which won, respectively, 23% and 21% of the vote among 18-24 year olds and 21% and 15% among 25-34 year olds. Building on this success, the Greens and the FDP formed a new government with the Social Democrats.

    Hopes were high that the Ampelkoalition, or traffic-light coalition, for the three parties’ colors, would address the economic concerns of the young voters who helped bring it to power.

    That did not happen, and young Germans – like their counterparts across the democratic West – have swung to the right, into the arms of the populist AfD. A 2023 study suggests that the growing appeal of such parties can be explained by zero-sum thinking.

    The belief that groups gain only if other groups lose is deeply embedded in populism, which sets itself against global elites, the deep state, or foreigners whose success is believed to come at the expense of locals.

    The study’s authors found that zero-sum thinking tends to prevail when resources are scarce. That is certainly the case in Germany, where the economy has stagnated since the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving young people with limited job prospects and little chance of moving up the income scale. Even if the German economy were growing robustly, young people would still be facing one of the lowest rates of social mobility among OECD countries.

    Compounding young people’s plight is the fact that almost one in five Germans between the ages of 20 and 34 have no vocational qualification, which often results in below-average earnings.

    https://www.msn.com/en-xl/money/topstories/germany-needs-an-economy-that-works-for-young-people/ar-AA1yp4ZC

    1. Compounding young people’s plight is the fact that almost one in five Germans between the ages of 20 and 34 have no vocational qualification, which often results in below-average earnings.

      Official apprenticeships are a big thing in Germany. Of course when businesses are hyper regulated they won’t take on apprentices.

      And this is the story across the EU. Only the most highly qualified can find middle class jobs.

  31. Ben Wikler lost, it won’t matter

    The new Democratic National Party chair won’t be in a position to improve the party’s fortunes either

    It’s been a tough year for Wisconsin and the year just got started. First, in January the Packers fizzled out in the playoffs, coming up short on sky high expectations at the beginning of the season. Then, last weekend. Wisconsin’s own Ben Wikler, the favorite going in, lost a vote of the Democratic National Committee to become the party’s new chair. Wikler lost to Ken Martin, his counterpart as state chairman in Minnesota.

    It’s a disappointment for the home team, but it doesn’t mean much in terms of the fortunes of the party. Both Wikler and Martin are Midwest political pros and mostly technocrats. Neither would have been in a position to change the party’s policy positions or its fundamental message. The chairperson’s job is mostly technical — raising money, finding candidates, organizing the ground game. These are all things the Democrats already do pretty well. Their problem is not on the technical side.

    Still, the vote of the 448-member DNC, which Martin won easily, might have been somewhat significant because of who backed Wikler. His supporters included the party’s Senate leader Chuck Schumer, House leader Hakeem Jeffries, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and billionaire funders George Soros and Reid Hoffman.

    The latter two each gave Wikler $250,000 for his campaign. One wonders why a guy needs a half million dollars to court fewer than 450 people, and it could be that the DNC members from around the country wondered the same thing and were rebelling against the party establishment — even while they sort of are the party’s establishment.

    The Democratic candidate lost the popular vote for president for the first time in 20 years.

    Kamala Harris lost every one of the seven hotly contested swing states, including Wikler’s Wisconsin, which couldn’t have helped his cause.

    Democrats lost ground with Black, Hispanic and blue collar voters — the very groups they say they champion.

    The party has become the party of college graduates. That’s a problem because college grads make up less than 40% of adults.

    Only 31% of voters have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, compared to 43% who think favorably of Republicans.

    The reason for that, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll, is that voters think that Democrats are focused on issues that aren’t important to them. They felt that Democrats were most concerned with abortion, LGBTQ rights, climate change and health care, while the top issues for most voters were inflation, the economy, immigration and health care. Most voters saw the Republicans as better aligned with their concerns.

    One thing Martin will have to do is referee a debate within the party about how it should respond to all this. I think that’s probably a fool’s errand. Anybody who reads the Quinnipiac poll, or several others like it, would conclude that the Democrats need to pull back on their progressive social agenda and become less preachy about climate change. But that just won’t happen because those things are sacred to the party’s activist base.

    The party will end up responding without any overall strategy and without any discipline. Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi will say stuff. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will take a different tack. All of the various activist interest groups will demand that their cause be mentioned. It’ll be a mess and there’s nothing Ken Martin can do — or Ben Wikler could have done — about it.

    https://isthmus.com/opinion/citizen-dave/ben-wikler-lost-it-wont-matter/

    1. Democrats need to pull back on their progressive social agenda and become less preachy about climate change. But that just won’t happen because those things are sacred to the party’s activist base

      Yup, they’re gonna double down on their unpopular policies. Works for me.

  33. [From Down Under …]

    USAID gave $68 million to the WEF billionaires ski club at Davos.

    https://www.joannenova.com.au/2025/02/usaid-gave-68-million-to-the-wef-billionaires-ski-club-at-davos/

    By Jo Nova

    Another day, another racket
    As Elon excavates the Motherlode of global funding, the pieces start to fit together.

    Kanekoa the Great wonders why USAID gave $68 million dollars to the World Economic Forum — a group of networking billionaires who meet in January each year to ski in Davos. They turn up in private jets to discuss how they can stop the average man flying. You vill own nothing!

    Jo Nova wonders why no media outlet on Earth seemingly figured this out for themselves. Perhaps it was the millions in funding the government paid some media outlets, presumably, to say nothing at all the right moments?

    [A chart and other stuff appears here …]

    It’s almost like we already had One World Government all along, we just didn’t know it.

    As Mike Benz said we’ve lived our whole life in “the Truman show”. We think we have free press. We think US foreign aid buys tents for refugees and food for starving children. Then we find out the “aid money” was paid to media hacks, academics and billionaires.

    And we see pictures like these:

    [A picture appears here …]

    USAID also help fund the Soros prosecutors. (So sweet of them to help fund a billionaires dream, not to mention helping homeless guys with rocket-launchers.)

    If Trump and Musk manage to turn off the funding spigot from the US, it will be felt around the world. A huge burden will be lifted.

    NGO’s spared no excess,
    In funding left woke and left press,
    And any DEI project,
    Tax dollars no object,
    All paid from USAID largesse.

  34. [I snooped across the Net and found this …]

    More on USAID and the connection between the Tides Foundation with George Soros

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/usaid_helped_fund_the_soros_prosecutors.html

    “Nearly $170 million in government grants has passed through a liberal dark money behemoth that houses numerous left-wing groups, including the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, tax forms show.
    The taxpayer-funded grants were disbursed to groups through the Tides Center, a San Francisco-based nonprofit incubator that wealthy liberal donors use to bankroll progressive causes. A number of radical left-wing groups have fallen under the auspices of the Tides Center, which acts as a “fiscal sponsor” to nonprofits by providing its 501(c)(3) tax and legal status. This arrangement lets the groups under its umbrella avoid registering with the IRS.

    [snip]

    [Scott] Walter [president of the Capitol Research Center] noted that the Tides Center’s recipient profile on USASpending.gov, which posts government grants, shows $34 million in federal funding since 2008. The grants were primarily from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Health and Human Services.”

    1. Spewing non stop lies for two minutes must take a special form of talent.

      Does one need to be a sociopath to be a leftist, or does it just help?

  36. Tillis Uses SpaceX Explosion To Urge D.C. To ‘Learn From Failure’ And Get Comfortable With DOGE Cuts

    Forbes Breaking News

    1 hour ago

    During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) spoke about Elon Musk and unelected members of DOGE promoting ‘reform’ in the federal government.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKy7p61oj0

    9:17.

  37. Border Chief Homan Says Raid on Tren de Aragua Gang Was Leaked, Vows Accountability

    Border czar Tom Homan promised on Feb. 6 to find those responsible for leaking the details of a raid targeting members of the Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang and hold them accountable.

    “This isn’t a game,” Homan told reporters outside the White House. “When operations get leaked like that, it puts our officers at great risk.”

    The Venezuelan gang has become increasingly active in the United States amid a years-long surge in illegal immigrants crossing the southern border. It is one of several high-threat groups the Trump administration has prioritized for deportation.

    “We know that TDA is dangerous. Everybody can agree to that,” Homan said. “But when they get a heads up that we are coming, it’s only a matter of time before our officers are ambushed.

    “Their job is dangerous enough, so we are going to address this very seriously.”

    The raid in question took place on Feb. 5 in Colorado. Before approaching the gaggle of reporters, Homan told Fox News that his team had already identified the source of the leak, which is not the first to hinder the border czar’s operations.

    Before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Homan’s plans for immigration enforcement in Chicago were leaked, prompting him to change things up.

    Homan suggested that future media access to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could be limited if the leaks continue.

    “Look, I said from day one, we want to be transparent with the American people,” he said. “We’ve invited numerous media outlets along, but right now, it’s all about operational security.

    “So we may have to stop the media ride-alongs because—I’m not pointing the finger at them—but the less people that know about these operations, the safer it is for our agents.”

    Homan said roughly 11,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested since Trump took office on Jan. 20. That figure, he added, will go up as the leaks and public safety threats are addressed.

    “As the aperture opens up beyond criminals, you’re going to see more arrests,” he said. “I’ve made it clear that if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/border-chief-homan-says-raid-on-tren-de-aragua-gang-was-leaked-vows-accountability-5805561

    1. The citizens and taxpayers of Arapahoe County are ready to help.

      I’ll bet money that the “tipsters” preventing these arrests are a net drain on taxpayers, food stamps, Obamaphones, etc.

  38. ‘There are 6,232 homes listed on the Treasure Coast as of January. For available townhomes and condos, Indian River County has up to 11 months of inventory with St. Lucie County closer to 10 months of inventory and Martin County close to eight months’

    Wa happened to my shortage Kelley?

  39. ‘They gave me $9,400 to fix my house, my whole house. My entire house for $9,400’

    Ennio Morricone – the ecstasy of gold

    theItalyWiki

    14 years ago

    Ennio Morricone conducting his own composition, “The Ecstasy of Gold” from the film, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.

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

    3:45.

  40. ‘I’ve seen a TV on down there…,’ Warner said. ‘It’s like he has an apartment.’ All of this is happening about 50 yards from Warner’s home. ‘It’s frustrating to have somebody put your life and your property at risk 24/7, and then to have no response from the city,’ Warner said. ‘We need to speed up the process if they’re doing anything,’ Rinaldi said. ‘It cannot take four years when it’s a fire danger and a threat to life. That can’t happen’

    So is he using the rabbit ears thing Charlie or is he using somebodies cable jack? It’s only been 4 years. Guberment will keep you safe. It’s all they talk about.

  41. ‘English, with his Perkins Fund, purchased a 160,000-square-foot building in West Raleigh for $6 million, Triangle Business Journal reported. Just five years earlier, the previous owner, Atlanta-based Bridge Commercial Real Estate, paid $33 million for the building — an 80% drop in price. And last June, Atlanta-based Bridge Commercial Real Estate sold a pair of Class A office buildings on Falls of Neuse Road for $12.25 million combined, TBJ reported. That’s more than $17 million below what they paid in 2020 when the combined price was nearly $30 million’

    How do you like those 5% cap rates now boys?

  42. ‘I have no interest in going to the United States at this point in time and honestly, I will focus on spending all of the money I make on things that will help people in our own country’

    We would prefer it that way Mat.

    ‘Clancy is a real estate agent in Kingston but has experience working on cruise ships in the United States. His main concern is how the proposed tariffs could hurt different sectors of the economy here in the Limestone City…‘The real estate industry is fairly invulnerable because I’m either helping people buy a house or I’m unfortunately maybe going to have to sell some houses because people aren’t going to be able to afford them. They get laid off from their job and they can’t afford their mortgage payment anymore’

    Now who’s being naive Mat?

    1. One Kingston family has decided to avoid that part of the south and instead spend their money in Mexico. ‘I have no interest in going to the United States

      Just watch out for the cartels while there.

  43. ‘The 41-year-old said: ‘The site as a whole—there are potholes, uneven roads, high curbs, unkept land, fencing. It looks like we’re living in a constant building site. We’ve gone from being excited about our new home to considering moving because nothing’s happening. They snapped up the money, then pushed us to the back of the pile’

    It’s still way cheaper than renting Dean.

  44. ‘On average compared to the 2021 valuations, the value of residential housing had decreased 24.4 percent with the average house value now sitting at $1,086,000. The average land land value decreased 36.7 percent to an average of $621,000 over the same period. Lowe and Co managing director Craig Lowe told RNZ the changes in house prices matter most to those that bought during the peak of the property boom in 2021. Lowe said that was due to the potential for those people to be now faced with a situation where they could have negative equity or the majority of their equity wiped out. ‘That’s where this would be affecting those people quite negatively.’ Many of those property owners may be in a position where they would have to wait for house price inflation over time to restore equity in the property before selling’

    Lots of potential titles in there.

  45. These New Listings Have A Massive Problem (York Region Real Estate Market Update)

    Team Sessa Real Estate

    1 hour ago VAUGHAN

    In this episode, we look at the current Vaughan Home Prices, Richmond Hill Home Prices & Markham Home Prices and real estate market trends for the week ending Jan 29, 2025. We also discuss the problem with re-listing properties as they have gone stale.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AatDX5gAFY

    13 minutes.

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