They Knew They Might Take A Hit, Because It’s Never A Guarantee If You Buy Something, You Can Sell It Right Away

1. ‘If you’re a buyer, this is a beautiful market for you’

   That’s the spirit Jon!

2. ‘As the new year begins, developers continue to actively attract buyers by offering various promotions for new projects. For example, the third price list for Montagne in the Southside features 65 flats, with the lowest price at HK$19,366 per sq ft and an average price of HK$21,845 per sq ft after discounts – approximately 22% lower than the initial price list released 18 months ago’

   Fook those previous buyers, damn their eyes!

3. New York’s Giant Climate Tax.

   Electricity rates soar as Albany’s green policies bite consumers.

   https://archive.ph/vR6tX#selection-5807.0-5811.65

   NY Times editorial – New York and California compete for the dishonor of having the nation’s highest tax burdens. Now Empire State Gov. Kathy Hochul is vying with Gov. Gavin Newsom for the nation’s most expensive electric bills by emulating the Golden State’s climate obsessions.

   Investor-owned Con Edison, which serves New York City and its suburbs, is proposing rate hikes that would increase electric bills by 11.4% on average and 13.3% for gas service. Utility bills would average about $500 a month, $154 more than five years ago. This is a back-door climate tax.

   Con Edison says it needs more money for infrastructure upgrades to meet growing demand from electric-powered buildings and vehicles. New York’s ban on gas hookups in new buildings will require a larger electric power supply, as well as equipment upgrades to strengthen the power grid, especially as more intermittent renewables come online.

   Renewables including hydropower make up about a third of New York’s power generation. The state is scrambling to achieve its 70% renewables mandate by 2030 as project costs soar. State regulators last spring canceled three offshore wind contracts owing to rising interest rates and inflation.

   Democrats had counted on a 175-mile transmission line to power New York City with giant wind and solar farms upstate, but that project was also scotched because of rising costs. Another transmission line to deliver hydropower from Quebec is under construction, but it will cost a whopping $6 billion—four times as much as Con Edison’s proposed electricity rate increase this year.
   So New Yorkers can expect rates to continue climbing to pay for green-energy projects. Meantime, the New York Independent System Operator in November warned of potential power shortages next year if the Quebec transmission line isn’t online by May. Power in New York, as in California, is becoming less reliable and more expensive thanks to climate mandates. Pay more, get less.

   New Yorkers can also blame former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who mandated the premature shutdown of the Indian Point nuclear plant, which generated about a quarter of New York City’s power. His ban on shale fracking and veto of gas pipelines have also pushed up utility bills. During frigid weather, power plants sometimes burn oil because the state can’t import enough natural gas from Pennsylvania.

   All of this may explain why Ms. Hochul has delayed the state’s cap-and-trade program until at least 2027. Cap-and-trade punishes fossil-fuel companies for their CO2 emissions and will raise energy costs even more—the last thing she wants heading into an election in 2026. Maybe Democrats in Albany could learn from California’s follies rather than copy them.

   1. Pay more, get less.” The less water or power used the more utilities need to charge to make up for the shortfall . This is the future

4. ‘I should be the poster child for what is going on here. In my case, you have these very large communities, some of them are $2-, $3-, $4-million real estate ventures, and you have individuals at the helm, meaning they’re at the board level that have no clue what they’re doing,’ Brown said. ‘That is scary, and not only that, they know that they have a war chest that they can use against you. And it is just absolutely unbelievable how these HOAs are a self-willed run riot, and they do whatever they want to do, and they know that individuals don’t have the wherewithal or the financial capacity to stick up for themselves, and it’s a nightmare’

   I want to thank Rolland and Lon for providing today’s HBB Pitfalls in Commie Urban Living™.

   1. Most of Utah communities are HOA. Utah is a socialist shole. And they tax everything!

      1. Colorado has plenty of faults, but we still have TABOR

5. “And so sellers are pretty reluctant to cut their prices unless they really have to sell.’”

   This point in time is reached in every cycle. We are here. It ain’t different this time.

   1. “…reluctant to cut their prices…”

      Early buyers are able to cut prices and, “get over it.” The debt donkeys who bought during COVID cannot cut their price unless they can swing a deal with their lender. Fingers crossed!

      1. Every day I see more and more listings coming on that, when you look at the history, the seller is trying to get out if it break-even. You see the price they bought it at a couple years back and they’re listing it with just enough to cover their original purchase price and the realtors commish……and they’re not selling. This is where the “have-to-sell” folks start facing reality. Yes, you can lose in real estate.

6. Not Kidding: Michigan State Rep Says She Sterilized Herself To Protest Trump.

   https://freebeacon.com/democrats/not-kidding-michigan-state-rep-says-she-sterilized-herself-to-protest-trump/

   A Democratic Michigan state representative told protesters Wednesday that she underwent voluntary sterilization to avoid becoming pregnant during President Donald Trump’s second term, a left-wing media outlet reported.

   “Just under two weeks ago, I underwent surgery to ensure that I would never have to navigate a pregnancy in Donald Trump’s America,” Rep. Laurie Pohutsky told anti-Trump protesters gathered Wednesday outside the Michigan Capitol, according to a piece published by the Michigan Advance. “I refuse to let my body be treated as currency by an administration that only sees value in my ability to procreate.”

   Trump has maintained that abortion policy should be left to state legislatures, such as the Michigan House of Representatives. Pohutsky is a member of the Michigan House and served for two years as speaker pro tempore.

   Pohutsky insisted that her surgery was important, telling protesters, “If you know people who are questioning how serious this is, I’m going to repeat myself: A sitting government official opted for voluntary sterilization because she was uncertain she would be able to access contraception in the future.”

   Pohutsky, who has promoted herself as the first openly bisexual member of the Michigan House, on Thursday took to X to claim that “many men” are not happy with her decision.

   “Oh my… it would seem that many men with profile photos of other people have read the news and are not very happy with me today,” the state representative wrote. “So anyway, who else is excited for the new Lady Gaga album?”

   1. Great idea. We don’t need any more Pohutsky(s)!

   2. Nobody wants your babies, Laurie. And after seeing yer pic, they want them even less.

      1. I thought the same thing but hesitated to be harsh.

         Who is talking about a national ban on contraception other than the voices in her head?

         1. The Handmaid’s Tale cult demands it.

            1. As far as I know even the fundiest protestants are OK with contraception. Only those pesky Catholics and Eastern Orthodox oppose it.

   3. That’s perhaps a good way to cut down on the Lefties , if they don’t reproduce , it would be for everyone’a good ……

7. “Colorado Springs‘ residential and commercial markets are expected to largely remain flat in 2025.”

   This piece touched on a variety of financial issues, leading to lack of affordability, but brushed over possible federal civilian and military downsizing, and Colorado Springs has lots of both.

8. DOGE follows longtime Musk pattern — and turns attention to Social Security Administration.

   https://www.semafor.com/article/02/06/2025/inside-doges-march-with-the-social-security-administration-soon-to-come

   From Semafor, by Selby Talcott –

   The News

   Elon Musk’s DOGE shuttered USAID. It has searched Medicare payments and gained access to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system. Its initial Labor Department presence prompted a lawsuit.

   And it’s just getting started.

   The Social Security Administration is an upcoming focus of the Department of Government Efficiency, a source with knowledge of its work told Semafor, and one person involved in DOGE is currently preparing to work with the agency that provides benefits to the elderly and disabled.

   Led by Musk and a group of young engineers, DOGE is migrating around the government in search of cuts with an intensity that has demoralized federal workers and become a defining early mark of Donald Trump’s second term. Democrats are citing DOGE as they shift from early divisions over how to handle Trump to more full-throated resistance.

   DOGE’s drastic actions have also prompted legal challenges that, combined with growing political heat surrounding its work, have made it nearly impossible for Musk and his group of software engineers to stay behind the curtain. The more attention DOGE gets, the more questions swirl about what its central goal is, exactly.

   Those involved and familiar with DOGE, however, say they’re not confused about their mission: They’re empowered to slash government spending and remodel agencies to fall in line with the president’s agenda. What’s more, they appear undisturbed by the drama they’ve caused.

   “There’s a lot of disruption, but I would argue that that disruption was needed to be able to go in and scrutinize the record, scrutinize expenditures to fully understand what’s going on,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told Semafor.

   Ernst, the head of the Senate’s DOGE Caucus, added that Musk’s team would keep moving through federal programs and spending: “If it’s expenditures that the majority of American people don’t agree with, that the president doesn’t agree with, we’re glad to see it gone.”

   DOGE’s early action to shut down the US Agency for International Development, where thousands of workers will be put on leave as of Friday, may end up as the most severe example of its shock-and-awe strategy.

   The person with knowledge of its work said DOGE saw starting with USAID as a simple decision, because “it was the most obvious” target for cutting perceived waste.

   The blunt treatment of USAID won’t be a model for DOGE’s approach to every agency, according to the person and two others with knowledge of its work. Some areas of the government, like the Border Patrol and veterans’ services, are likely to be treated more carefully.

   But DOGE’s interest in trying to root out fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, and perhaps soon in cutting at the Social Security Administration, suggests that government programs once seen as untouchable may be on the table.

   Notably, the views among DOGE supporters differ when it comes to where to draw the line: The first of the three people with knowledge of its work told Semafor the “entire federal government” is up for grabs. The second person suggested the line would be drawn at areas affecting national security and initiatives providing direct benefits.

   Ernst said “it’s quite possible” every part of the government will face scrutiny at some point.

   While Musk has mentioned a goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal government, the group isn’t operating with many specific targets or end goals.

   “It’s going to depend on what we find,” the second person said. “There’s going to be reworks across the government, every agency.”

   Know More

   Moving quickly with a sledgehammer mentality is seen within DOGE as the only way to enact successful change, as all three sources familiar with the group put it.

   “There’s a bias toward action in this administration,” said the third person with knowledge of DOGE’s work. “I think there’s an impulse to clean house, and to maybe freeze funding now. And then, if something’s really important, it will distinguish itself, and we’ll bring it back online … You’ve got to just move fast, integrate fast, and then fix it as you go.”

   Several sources also pointed out that Musk has operated in a similarly hyper-charged way while dismantling elements of companies after he took charge. At X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk cut 80% of staff before confirming he would try to rehire some back.

   “What President Trump and Elon Musk and this entire administration is trying to do is make our bloated bureaucracy in Washington run like a profitable business,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News this week.

   DOGE’s basic plan, already in progress at certain agencies, includes asking government managers to help create a plan for workforce reductions, reorganization of divisions — and, if necessary, shutdown of certain areas, one of the three people said.

   The shutdown targets are likely to include regional offices seen by DOGE as archaic and wasteful, as well as the sale or other elimination of some properties the government owns.

   Right now, one of the people told Semafor, the State and Treasury Department each have an employee helping to work with DOGE.

   DOGE also has a growing list of legal problems to contend with, including a federal judge’s Thursday ruling that extended its “fork in the road” early retirement offer for federal workers and another federal court ruling that has temporarily limited its access to Treasury Department payment systems.

   “It’s a little bumpy right now, but those bumps are going to be worth it in the long run,” Ernst maintained.

   The View From Democrats

   As their base clamors for a fight against Trump’s agenda, Democrats are ready for battle with DOGE’s unelected billionaire chief.

   They see plenty of upside in illuminating the negative consequences of DOGE’s work, aware that Musk’s public approval ratings are not close to Trump’s. And they point to acknowledgments from some Republicans that DOGE can’t close USAID, for one, without consulting Congress.

   “Elon Musk is unelected, unvetted and unqualified — he does not have the legal authority to dismantle entire agencies,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., during a partywide protest against Trump’s pick for his budget chief, Russ Vought.

   “Yet in Trump’s America,” she added, “the size of his bank account and how far he is willing to bend the knee is enough for our president to bestow on him unchecked power.”

   Shelby’s view

   DOGE’s speed is reflective of the Trump administration’s broader plan for his second term: Make decisions quickly, and make a lot of them. As Trump ally Steve Bannon said in 2019, “all we have to do is flood the zone.”

   Eventually, though, the flood runs into a levee. And there’s at least some acknowledgement by those involved in DOGE that they will face roadblocks; some have already been thrown up. DOGE seems designed to do as much as it can until it’s told to stop.

   The courts aside, Trump may be the only person powerful enough to curb DOGE. Musk’s embrace of a shoot first, ask questions later mentality has frustrated some in the president’s network, and he may yet step into an area that Trump sees as too far.

   It’s less clear that the political risk of animating Democrats will be enough to slow down DOGE, whose work is designed to wind down in time for the 2026 midterms. Those elections could prove the most potent referendum on Musk’s show of force.

9. USAID was giving money to Soros:

   https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/george-soross-open-society-foundations-receive-260-million/

   1. I can’t name another living person who is more evil than this man. His entire existence is that of hatred for America, Western civilization, and Christianity.

      Hopefully he’ll be dead soon enough, but his son Alex remains a problem that needs dealt with.

      1. USAID also gave 68 million to the WEF, 6 million a months to fly in illegals, and millions to Journalist to defraud the public, 4o mil to Wuhan and more.

         This covert operation to steal tax payer funds to essentially bring about the downfall of USA is treason and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

         The operations were like a virus that infiltrated its host with the end game of killing the host.

         As John Kerry said recently, “No government can stop the ” market forces”.

         The end game was a One World Order, Great Reset, build back better, in which Monopoly Corporations , Rich Elites, and other Entities in collusion partner with infiltrated Governments to bring about this New World Order.

         It was a pre planned insurrection by these Entities to enslave humanity and steal and control all the resources of earth. All under the pretense of global emergencies like Climate Change, Pandemics, etc, as the cover story for launching genocide by various means.
         They planned to launch AI and Robots to kill 50 % of human jobs that will collapse the tax revenue of government. The very government they infiltrated they plan to defund.
         And Klaus Schwab at WEF has been very vocal about saying that whoever owns technology will control the World. Dr Harari talks about what to do with all the “useless eaters”.
         The Cares Acts transferred trillion to the emeny Monopoly Corporations that threatened jobs and enforced the fake vaccines, lockdowns and masks while small business was destroyed.
         So Bill Gates is out there with his fear mongering about a new Panademic and millions will die if any funding by USAID is obstructed.
         They are trying to destroy many a Country by invasion of borders and everything else they are doing to literally take over the planet.
         They view humanity as competition to them , and elimination of the competition by any means is their core objective.

10. Ex-USAID Head Says America Will ‘Pay The Price’ From Musk, Trump Attacking Agency

    A former administrator of the United States Agency for International Development went after billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump on Thursday as the administration looks to shut down the agency responsible for distributing billions in foreign aid.

    “The notion that the agency are criminals and all that, that’s a lot of garbage. It’s a lie, it’s an insult,” said Andrew Natsios, a Republican who served as the USAID head under President George W. Bush, in an interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace.

    Musk — who’s on a cost-cutting crusade with his nonofficial Department of Government Efficiency title — has taken aim at what he’s called a “criminal organization” and an agency he’s described as feeding into a “wood chipper.”

    He noted that one result of the Trump-Musk duo making “an example” out of USAID is the lack of an early warning system for diseases in 90 countries.

    “We’re not going to have that anymore, it’s going to disappear. It’s already shut down now. In my view, this is an enormous risk for the United States,” he said.

    “You know what happens when famines take place? People start moving en masse. If we shut down the emergency programs at AID, which is what’s happened, we’re going to have famines across the globe and guess where they’re going to end up? In Europe and the United States.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-usaid-head-says-america-will-pay-the-price-from-musk-trump-attacking-agency/ar-AA1yzGez

    1. Nothing is stopping the State Department from starting aid back up again if it’s needed. And I mean real aid, not a few bags of rice passed through half a dozen middlemen taking their cut, before it ends up in some warlord’s cave anyway. I’m thinking aid would need to be distributed directly by the military.

11. White House cancels millions in Politico subscriptions amid Musk-led budget cuts

    The White House has said it is cancelling millions of dollars in subscriptions to online news outlet Politico, part of a sweeping programme of cuts that has seen tech entrepreneur Elon Musk given the opportunity to gut government payrolls and budgets — and even to effectively shut down entire US agencies.

    The announcement came from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who told a press conference on Wednesday that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had spent $8m ($7.72m) on subscriptions to the outlet’s Politico Pro output, and that the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) intended to cancel them.

    “I was made aware of the funding from USAID to media outlets, including Politico, who I know has a seat in this room,” Leavitt told the assembled White House press corps. And I can confirm the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidising subscriptions to Politico will no longer be happening. The DOGE team is working on cancelling those payments now.”

    Leavitt’s announcement was one of several misleading reports that inaccurately stated both the source and purpose of the spending. In fact, several US agencies have collectively spent money subscribing to Politico Pro, the Associated Press and other outlets.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/politics/government/white-house-repeats-false-claims-about-usaid-funding-media-outlets/ar-AA1ywGCO

    1. “And I can confirm the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidising subscriptions to Politico will no longer be happening.”

       Hate it when that happens!

12. Africa Could Withhold Critical Minerals After Trump Cuts Aid

    South Africa’s Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe says Africa should withhold minerals from the United States if Trump cuts aid, “If they don’t give us money, let’s not give them minerals. We are not just beggars,” Mantashe told the African Mining Conference in Cape Town. “We cannot continue to debate these minerals based on the dictates of some developed nations as if we have no aspirations to accelerate Africa’s industrialisation and close the development deficit,” Mantashe said.

    The Trump administration, led by billionaire ally Elon Musk, has dismantled much of the U.S. Agency for International Development, shutting down a six-decade mission intended to shore up U.S. security by educating children, fighting epidemics and advancing other development abroad. Trump declared on Truth Social that he would be ‘cutting off all future funding to South Africa’ until an investigation into the Land Expropriation Act is done. He called the act ‘a massive human rights violation’ and accused the South African government of ‘confiscating land and treating certain classes of people very badly.’

    https://oilprice.com/Metals/Commodities/Africa-Could-Withhold-Critical-Minerals-After-Trump-Cuts-Aid.html

    1. We are not just beggars,” Mantashe told the African Mining Conference in Cape Town

       You guys can’t even keep the lights on anymore. Collapse is imminent.

13. Trump Takes Aim at Private Equity’s Favorite Tax Perk Again

    President Donald Trump is once again saying he wants to end a tax perk used by private equity fund managers, a policy feat that politicians have tried and failed to achieve for more than a decade.

    Under threat: the tax code’s controversial treatment of the profits of private equity, venture capital and hedge fund managers. In the current regime, dealmakers pay a lower rate on their share of profits because these returns are taxed as capital gains instead of normal employment income.

    In a meeting with Republican lawmakers on Thursday, Trump said closing the carried-interest loophole is a priority. Such a shift could reduce the deficit by $13 billion through 2034, according to a December estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

    There are vast sums of money at stake. The largest publicly traded private equity firms, such as Apollo Global Management Inc., Blackstone Inc., Carlyle Group Inc. and KKR & Co., are sitting on billions of dollars of investments that are eligible for carried interest.

    KKR reported $7.9 billion of gross unrealized carried interest in its investment funds and Blackstone had $6.3 billion in net accrued performance revenue at the end of 2024. Apollo had $1.68 billion in net accrued performance fees. It’s personal for rainmakers who have ownership stakes in funds and most of their compensation hinging on the performance of their investments.

    Still, Trump’s latest attack on carry isn’t surprising.

    In a 2016 speech, he vowed to eliminate the “carried interest deduction” and “other special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street investors and for people like me but unfair to American workers.”

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-takes-aim-private-equity-095517030.html

14. Soros-funded Dems suddenly upset by billionaires in government

    Sometimes you have to laugh. Earlier this week, Sen. Chuck Schumer threw his toys out of the stroller in a social media post. He wrote: “An unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government.”

    To the extent that this histrionic claim makes any sense we must guess that Schumer was talking about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Schumer seemed especially angry about the closure of USAID. He went on to grouse about Donald Trump and his “billionaire buddies.”

    Happily for those of us who keep an eye on such things, Schumer’s rant was reposted by Alex Soros.

    Not many readers will have heard of Alex Soros. But I can tell you this: he is not a man who got where he did simply by hard work.

    Alex is the son of multi-billionaire investor and dark-money donor George Soros. He is also now engaged to former Hilary Clinton aide Huma Abedin (who, for some reason, ditched Anthony Wiener some time back).

    Anyone who follows Soros Jr. on social media will have noticed that he gets some pretty amazing photo opportunities. One day he’s posting a photo of himself with Nancy Pelosi. Next he’s standing next to Chuck Schumer. Another day he’s with Kamala or Tim Walz (remember him?). Still another day he’s with Pete Buttigieg or Elizabeth Warren.

    What a charmed life.

    But why did all these people spend recent years shimmying up to Alex Soros? Is it the man’s charisma, brains, insight and originality? No, of course not. It’s because his father is a billionaire radical-left-wing investor, and so is he.

    Everyone knew that it was pay-to-play with the Democrats. If you or I asked every member of the Democrat high command for a meeting, it’s unlikely we’d get one. But change your name to Soros and you might get a different result.

    So it’s not like So it’s not like Schumer & co. care about non-elected people having any say in government. It’s just that they don’t like it — in fact they really hate it — when it isn’t their guys.

    There is no other principle here. The Dems who object to the work of DOGE are just angry that for once it isn’t their side that’s calling the shots.

    Take the shuttering of USAID. For the Dems, this was one of their agencies. One of those taxpayer-funded boondoggles that allowed Democrats to pursue and further their own interests. Not America’s interests. Their own interests. As bizarre as some of them were.

    None of it came cheap. In the fiscal year 2023 USAID’s budget totaled some $40 billion. To put that in context, that is roughly the GDP of a small country like Estonia.

    If some of the Dems are unhappy with DOGE’s savings, perhaps they could simply note one thing. Not just what it’s like when the boot is on the other foot. But the fact that it was their ideologically-driven, mega-donor-pushed funding-splurge that made this necessary.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/soros-funded-dems-suddenly-upset-by-billionaires-in-government/ar-AA1yyqWZ

    1. “Happily for those of us who keep an eye on such things, Schumer’s rant was reposted by Alex Soros.”

       Deal with it, Alex. Overcome!

    2. +1

       These Soros are vermin.

15. China’s Firms Are Bleeding Cash—and Vulnerable to Trump’s Trade War

    Xinte Energy, a Chinese green-energy firm, says on its website that it is “delivering light and warmth to every corner of the world.” It is also losing tons of money.

    The maker of polysilicon, a building block for solar panels, recently told shareholders it expects to report losses of around 4 billion yuan, equivalent to more than $500 million, for 2024. Intense pressure by the government to build up key industries has led to fierce competition and price wars while demand has stalled, hitting the company’s bottom line.

    Unfortunately for China, it isn’t just the solar power industry. Companies across the country are bleeding cash as they struggle with overcapacity and weak spending in a slumping economy.

    Those problems are leaving China unusually vulnerable as President Trump tightens the screws with a new 10% tariff on Chinese goods, and threats of more to come. Exports have been a rare bright spot for China’s economy as companies unload excess supply abroad, but that becomes much harder as tariffs climb and costs rise for U.S. buyers.

    Nearly a quarter of companies listed in mainland China reported a net loss for the third quarter, the most recent quarter for which data is available. That share has more than doubled from before the Covid pandemic, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Chinese A-share company filings.

    China’s leaders have turned to manufacturing and exports as an answer to stimulate growth. But ramped-up capacity, fueled partly by state subsidies, has exacerbated gluts in some industries. Many companies have cut prices to try to unload their products, but that just pinches profits further—which leads to even more cost cutting.

    “It’s basically a race to the bottom,” said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research for ANZ bank.

    Xinte, the green-energy manufacturer, said its polysilicon prices were about 60% lower on average in 2024 than the year before, and at times were below the cost of production. Yet the company, based in the Xinjiang region in western China, said it produced slightly more polysilicon in 2024 than the year before.

    “The price of polysilicon has dropped irrationally,” Xinte said in a filing, noting an imbalance between demand and supply. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-s-firms-are-bleeding-cash-and-vulnerable-to-trump-s-trade-war/ar-AA1yxuGk

    1. This is what happens when the birth rate in China has been below replacement for the past 30 years. There aren’t enough young people domestically to buy the things that China is making.

       1. They are also communists. When I read any economic article on China they always point out the guberment has directed this and that. They will never get out of this with them in charge.

    2. Intense pressure by the government to build up key industries has led to fierce competition and price wars while demand has stalled

       Central planning

16. Microchip forecasts dour quarterly results as customers reduce excess inventory

    Chipmaker Microchip Technology forecast fourth-quarter net sales and profit below Wall Street estimates on Thursday, anticipating tepid demand as customers in the automotive market still work on clearing excess inventory.

    Shares of the Chandler, Arizona-based company fell nearly 5% in extended trading.

    Automakers had stocked up chips during the pandemic to avoid a supply crunch, but now are grappling with an inventory glut due to lower demand.

    Analysts expect the weakness in the automotive end market to continue through the first half of the year due to high inventory and softer end demand.

    “While we have seen substantial inventory destocking at our customers and channel partners, we believe the correction cycle is still not completed,” said CEO Steve Sanghi.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/microchip-forecasts-dour-quarterly-results-as-customers-reduce-excess-inventory/ar-AA1yyhQ0

    1. Automakers had stocked up chips during the pandemic to avoid a supply crunch, but now are grappling with an inventory glut due to lower demand.

       Dealers are drowning in inventory. I read an article about how GM cut a entire production shift from its Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico. Few can afford trux or SUVs. Keep an eye on the ChiComs, who are looking at building cheap cars in Mexico.

       1. I vaguely recall that Trump himself called this out, that Chyyna was circumventing direct tariffs by funneling car parts (and other goods) into Mexican assembly plants and advantage of NAFTA2. So, it’s being watched.

17. San Diego Sheriff’s Department clears homeless encampment following small fire in El Cajon

    The San Diego Sheriff’s Office cleared a homeless encampment in unincorporated El Cajon on Wednesday, following a small fire that started near the site on Tuesday. Some individuals living in the encampment accepted new housing options, while others were removed from the area.

    Sergeant Aaron Montan of the San Diego Sheriff’s Office explained the department’s approach.

    “If they didn’t take the resources yesterday, then they were under arrest,” he said. “There were people who had warrants, people who had drug charges, and people who had identity theft charges. They all had been in the camp and were contributing to the fire risk, so if they didn’t take the resources, then we had to do enforcement actions to try to clear the encampment.”

    The action was prompted by concerns over fire safety in the area. El Cajon resident Eric Andersen, who had to evacuate his home during an arson fire in 2021, expressed relief at the encampment’s removal.

    Andersen expressed relief after hearing the news about the encampment’s removal. “I’m going to sleep more peacefully tonight, but they don’t have a right – nobody has the right to encroach on somebody else,” he said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/public-safety-and-emergencies/health-and-safety-alerts/san-diego-sheriff-s-department-clears-homeless-encampment-following-small-fire-in-el-cajon/ar-AA1yyTSv

18. “She was forced to switch to the California Fair Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers bare-bones fire coverage at typically high rates.”

    Is the state of California better able to provide homeowners insurance than all the insurance companies they chased away?

    1. No.

       1. But at least it’ll get the mortgage holder off your back for the time being.

19. B.C. investigates ‘significant’ opioid diversion, including international trafficking

    VICTORIA — A “significant portion” of opioids prescribed by doctors and pharmacists in British Columbia are being diverted, and prescribed alternatives are being trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally, a Ministry of Health investigative unit says.

    The leaked briefing that the unit provided for police that was distributed by the Opposition B.C. Conservatives also revealed the ministry has been conducting an investigation into an alleged scheme involving “incentives” paid by dozens of pharmacies to patients, doctors and housing providers.

    Next steps will include targeting of “specific pharmacies” by law enforcement agencies, it says.

    B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne, who said the investigative unit was made up of former RCMP officers, confirmed the internal briefing’s authenticity on Wednesday and told reporters in a virtual meeting that it was “disappointing” it was leaked and the investigation potentially compromised.

    “I want to acknowledge that we know that this is happening,” she said of opioid diversion. “These allegations are here. There’s absolutely no denial of it. There’s no diminishing of it, and there should be no acceptance of it. That’s why we’re taking the actions that we are.”

    Elenore Sturko, a Conservative MLA and critic of the solicitor general and public safety, said in a statement that Premier David Eby, his ministers, and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry had long “denied and downplayed” the issue of diversion of so-called safe supply drugs.

    However, there was now “no doubt that the NDP government is responsible for fuelling addiction, deaths, enriching organized crime, and facilitating international drug trafficking,” she said.

    The document says of diversion that a “significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are not being consumed by their intended recipients.”

    “When I first raised concerns with diversion in early 2023 in the B.C. legislature, the government chalked it up as misinformation,” Sturko said in an interview.

    She added that she was “confident that it’s time for the premier to take action and immediately call a moratorium on unwitnessed safe supply.”

    Unwitnessed safe supply is when pharmaceutical-grade drugs such as opioids are prescribed for users who can take them away to use when and where they choose.

    The internal document emerged as Canada faces the threat of a trade war with the United States, which demands efforts be made to stop fentanyl from crossing the border.

    The 38-page document is undated but includes data up to December suggesting that about 20 million milligrams of hydromorphone was provided as a prescribed alternative from 2022 to 2024.

    The slideshow-style briefing is titled “The State of PharmaCare” referring to the province’s publicly funded program for prescription drugs.

    It says some pharmacies are alleged to be “offering incentives to clients” with more than 60 pharmacies identified, and that some “community housing staff” require tenants to go to certain pharmacies for their prescriptions.

    The document says some pharmacies are trying to maximize their dispensing fees by offering incentives. Other participants in the alleged schemes include doctors, assisted living residences and organized criminals, it says.

    It also includes photos of drugs used in the prescribed alternatives program and in opioid agonist treatments, as well as prescription packaging and items described as “vehicle search results.”

    The document says pharmacies target PharmaCare policies by seeking to maximize their dispensing fee of up to $11,000 per patient each year and that proceeds are often used to pay the incentives.

    It said PharmaCare’s total dispensing fees soared to roughly $350 million in 2024, almost triple that paid 20 years prior.

    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/other/bc-investigates-significant-opioid-diversion-including-international-trafficking/ar-AA1yu7QV

20. From the treacherous Panamanian jungle to the Texas-Mexico border, pipelines into the U.S. frequented by hundreds of thousands of migrants have suddenly gone quiet — just as President Donald Trump returns to office.

    The passage of illegal migrants through the Darien Gap, a jungle region in-between Panama and Colombia, dropped 94% in January compared to the same month last year, according to data released by Panama’s National Migration Service. A total of 34,839 illegal migrants crossed the Darien Gap in January 2024, with that number falling to just 2,158 last month when Trump returned to the White House.

    “I would say that people are less inclined to go through the Darien when they know very well that they’re going to end up shipped back home,” Allan Baitel, a life-long Panamanian citizen, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “So the carrot has disappeared, and there’s no reason for them to head north.”

    The Darien Gap — a vast jungle region stretching roughly 40 miles wide and 100 long between Panama and Colombia — was a paramount transit area for illegal migrants headed for the United States during the height of the border crisis under President Joe Biden. More than half a million migrants crossed the Darien Gap on their northward journey in 2023, which was also the highest year in history for unlawful migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border.

    The organized crime syndicates smuggling migrants across the Darien all the way to the U.S southern border have made billions in the process, with smugglers pulling in as much as $14 million per day.

    The drop in foot traffic out of the Darien coincided with a visit Secretary of State Marco Rubio made to Panama where he secured a major infrastructure deal with President Raul Mulino that ultimately reduces Chinese influence in the region.

    Mulino was elected into office in 2024 on the promise to cut migration through his country. He has since entered into an agreement with the U.S. to help repatriate the illegal migrants caught by Panamanian authorities.

    “He’s always been pro-U.S.,” Surse Pierpoint, a third-generation Panamanian, said to the DCNF about Mulino. “And the fact that Marco Rubio’s first trip down here was the administration staking a claim that ‘this is Monroe Doctrine 2.0 stay out of our neighborhood’ — Marco Rubio came to state it explicitly.”

    “The number of people arriving at the border is less, and I think Colombia, Venezuela, realize they have to reorganize themselves, and that there’s a new sheriff in town in the United States, and things are going to change,” Baitel said.

    https://ijr.com/notorious-routes-for-smuggling-and-illegal-immigration-suddenly-grow-silent-with-trumps-return/

21. COMMENTARY: Mexico worries about Trump deportation plans

    The Mexican government is preparing for thousands of deportees they expect to arrive from the United States in the coming weeks. Juarez is one of eight border locations along the 3,000-kilometre-long border where Mexico is getting ready for the anticipated influx.

    For her part, President Claudia Sheinbaum has stressed her government will first attend to the humanitarian needs of those returning, saying they will qualify for her government’s social programmes and pensions, and will immediately be eligible to work.

    She urged Mexicans to “remain calm and keep a cool head” about relations with President Trump and his administration more broadly, from deportations to the threat of tariffs.

    Mexican citizens are by far the largest nationality among the estimated more than 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally. They include an estimated five million undocumented Mexicans and the prospect of a mass return could quickly saturate and overwhelm border cities like Juarez and Tijuana.

    Mexico initially refused to allow U.S. military aircraft deporting migrants to land in the country. The idea of giant C-17s flying over Mexican airspace and unloading deportees at Mexican airports is a potentially incendiary prospect in a country with a long memory of U.S. invasions; the nation lost much of its territory in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48.

    Though Washington has not intervened militarily in Mexico for more than a century, Mexican youth are schooled in Mexico’s “heroic” resistance to past U.S. actions.

    Many in Mexico are already unnerved at previous Trump threats to deploy the U.S. military against drug traffickers.

    Sheinbaum is under pressure to bend to Trump’s demands in order to safeguard the economy, but she must also take care not to alienate citizens sensitive to perceived slights against Mexico’s sovereignty.

    “President Sheinbaum is in a tight spot,” observed Tony Payan, who heads the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “The optics of military planes flying deportees back to Mexico would not be good for her nationalist base. But she may not have a choice other than to accept it.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/commentary-mexico-worries-about-trump-deportation-plans/ar-AA1yxKeY

    1. and will immediately be eligible to work

       Why wouldn’t they? They are Mexicans after all.

    2. Mexican youth are schooled in Mexico’s “heroic” resistance to past U.S. actions

       There was a group of cadets that held a last stand in Mexico City against invading US forces. They all perished. They are secular saints in Mexico: Los Niños Heroes

       1. If Mexican kids are still the punks I met, I doubt they know sh$t about history. Now the families from Monterey were completely different. Perfect English, smartly dressed. Private schools.

          1. If they went to school they know who Los Niños Heroes are.

             One facet of Mexican history they will be fuzzy on is the Mexican Revolution. which was not the war of independence.

             Mexico had a dictator named Porfirio Diaz, who ruled for about 40 years. A revolution to overthrow him was successful and he fled the country. But the revolution was a mess. Mexico went through a decade in the 1910’s where the government was a revolving door of strongmen will killed their predecessors. It was pure anarchy, until what would become the PRI was formed. Anyway, that period in history is glossed over in schools. Kids are just told: Porfirio Diaz bad, revolutionaries good.

22. ‘Border czar’ threatens military action if cartels target troops at border

    “Border czar” Tom Homan said President Donald Trump won’t hesitate to use the U.S. military if Mexican cartels target American troops on the southern border.

    “I think the cartels would be foolish to take on the military, but we know they’ve taken on the Mexican military before, but now we have the United States military,” he told ABC News Live on Thursday.

    “Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely, because the cartels are making record amounts of money,” Homan said, going on to say that they continue to secure the border, “We’re taking money out of their pocket.”

    Homan said the troops “need to protect themselves” and that he would send a warning to the cartels if any U.S. soldiers are harmed: “The wrath of President Trump’s going to come down.”

    “He has the ability to wipe them off the face of the Earth,” he said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/border-czar-threatens-military-actyahooon-against-mexican-cartels-if-necessary/ar-AA1yyaYD

    1. Homan gave a short interview this morning, where he talked about the leak which tipped off TdA in Colorado. He said that ICE might have to rethink offering media ride-alongs when they go on a raid.

       Connecting the dots… Did Homan imply that the ICE raid was leaked by a member of the press? Hoo-boy. No wonder the ICE-man is furious.

       1. I wanted those raids to happen, still want them. I live in Arapahoe County, of which Aurora is the County Seat.

          This isn’t Denver. The taxpayers and voters want them deported.

23. Europe Could Learn from Trump’s Example

    As Europeans, I believe we should ask ourselves why EU leaders do not represent European interests with the same determination and effectiveness as Trump does for Americans. Prime Minister Viktor Orban also highlighted this question in his interview with a Swiss newspaper, stating that Europe is wealthy but weak, which he said was the most dangerous combination. He personally experienced this on Monday in Brussels, where he attended an informal summit of EU heads of state and government.

    PM Orban reported that, even in Brussels, they now acknowledge that, as he put it, “the Trump tornado is coming. Most still believe that they’ll escape unscathed, but they won’t.”

    He also mentioned that President Trump will stand up for American interests, even against Europe. Therefore, he believes that difficult months lie ahead for the European Union and that Brussels bureaucrats are in for a tough time. He also announced that the Hungarian government is in ongoing talks with the U.S. administration to secure a favorable economic agreement.

    But what does all this mean? It means that the European Union’s leadership still has no idea how to respond to Donald Trump. They have no strategy for negotiating with the new American leadership. This is surprising, considering that Trump has never concealed his intentions—he made his policies clear during his previous term, as well as throughout his current campaign.

    Yet, it’s as if the Brussels elite was living in a dream world, entirely unprepared for the changed geopolitical environment. They continue to talk about prolonging the war until Ukraine wins, while they keep pushing migration and the gender insanity.

    By doing so, they risk Europe being excluded from negotiations when the Americans and Russians eventually reach a settlement over Ukraine. Furthermore, they are sacrificing Europe’s competitiveness on the altar of liberal ideology.

    If, however, the EU had competent leadership – one not controlled by American Democrats and globalists, but acting in a patriotic spirit for European interests – it could, by following Donald Trump’s example, successfully assert Europe’s interests. It could eliminate illegal immigration, put an end to the madness of gender ideology, expel the Soros network that has infiltrated Europe, and create a more competitive continent that does not impose self-sabotaging sanctions. It is no coincidence that after Trump’s victory, Viktor Orban declared: European patriots, we must occupy Brussels!

    https://magyarnemzet.hu/english/2025/02/europe-could-learn-from-trumps-example

24. Sheertex slashes 40% of staff, blaming threatened U.S. tariffs

    Innovative Montreal textile manufacturing startup Sheertex Inc. is slashing the size of its work force, blaming uncertainty over the threat of U.S. tariffs for exacerbating its already tenuous financial situation.

    Chief executive officer and founder Katherine Homuth told staff on Wednesday that the company, which makes rip-resistant tights from the same polymer used in bulletproof vests, would temporarily lay off about 40 per cent of its nearly 350 employees and full-time equivalent contractors for up to six months. The company, known as SRTX, is expected to save $1-million in wages per month. Workers will receive employment insurance, and if they are not recalled after six months, SRTX will be mandated to pay each eight weeks of salary.

    Ms. Homuth said the catalyst for the layoffs was last weekend’s announcement by President Donald Trump of new tariffs on Canadian imports, which he has since postponed by 30 days.

    “With the new tariffs we are facing 41-per-cent tariffs across all U.S. shipments,” she wrote. SRTX already pays a 16-per-cent duty as its products are not considered to be made in Canada under existing rules in the USMCA trade agreement. Those rules apply because more than 9 per cent of its raw materials are sourced outside the United States and Canada. The proposed change would also eliminate an exemption for packages shipped to consumers valued at less than US$800, she said.

    If the tariffs go into effect, SRTX would face a 41-per-cent duty on all products, up from 0 for direct-to-consumer orders and 16 per cent for orders from retailers. Ms. Homuth said while SRTX had been bracing for the 25-per-cent increase on bulk shipments to U.S. retailers, it hadn’t expected them to be tacked on to the existing 16-per-cent duty nor applied to consumer shipments.

    “Brands that outsource production can pivot quickly, but companies like ours, who’ve built vertically integrated operations here at home, face far greater challenges,” Ms. Homuth wrote in the post, adding that 85 per cent of SRTX’s sales are in the U.S.

    Ms. Homuth said in an interview that with SRTX in need of near-term financing, “we had to stretch the runway” as she estimated the tariffs could cost it $500,000 to $1-million a month in lost sales. She said SRTX is using the 30-day postponement period to switch sourcing for some yarns it uses in combination with its polymer away from foreign sources to U.S. suppliers and to ship as much finished product as possible over the border.

    Economists with Royal Bank of Canada have warned that Canada’s economy is not poised to absorb a shock at the scale of Mr. Trump’s tariffs. The country, which already faces a declining GDP per capita and stagnant investment, could face its “largest trade shock in nearly 100 years,” economists Frances Donald and Nathan Janzen wrote in a report on Sunday.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-sheertex-slashes-40-of-staff-blaming-threatened-us-tariffs/

25. NCAA changes transgender policy to limit women’s competition to athletes assigned female at birth

    The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes on Thursday, limiting competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth only.

    The move came one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. The order gives federal agencies latitude to withhold federal funding from entities that do not abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.

    The NCAA policy change is effective immediately and applies to all athletes regardless of previous eligibility reviews. The NCAA has some 1,100 member schools with more than 500,000 athletes, easily the largest governing body for college athletics in the U.S.

    “We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said. “To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/ncaa-changes-transgender-policy-to-limit-women-s-competition-to-athletes-assigned-female-at-birth/ar-AA1yyncE

    1. Anyone who opposes this, they need to “get in the ring” with the Paris Olympics tranny boxer who was breaking females’ (actual females) jaws.

       We are DONE with your Clown World.

26. Argentina’s Deregulation Minister takes the chainsaw to laws and government ministries

    The first object you see when you enter the vast offices of Federico Sturzenegger, Argentina’s Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation – better known as the “chainsaw” minister – is a biography of Elon Musk, one of his heroes.

    The second one you see is a wall-mounted calendar that displays the number of days remaining – 175, when I saw him in mid-January – for him and his boss, Argentine President Javier Milei, to use decrees to kill or change hundreds of laws that they consider useless, antiquated, anti-freedom, anti-business, moronic or just plain ridiculous, like the one governing carrier-pigeon races.

    The third is the two enormously thick piles of white papers on the table next to Mr. Sturzenegger’s desk. The higher pile is the laws awaiting annihilation; the shorter one is those that might survive in modified form.

    The fourth object, on the window ledge overlooking central Buenos Aires, is a figurine of Mr. Milei wielding a chainsaw with “Viva La Libertad Carajo!” inscribed on the blade. A polite translation would be “Long Live Freedom Damn It!”

    Welcome to the Milei revolution, the boldest experiment in economic shock therapy in the Americas, maybe the world. The rapid effort, in good part carried out by Mr. Sturzenegger, has evidently inspired Donald Trump, who entered the White House on Jan. 20.

    Mr. Milei was among the few head-of-government guests at the presidential inauguration, along with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, another hard-right conservative leader with a taste for populism and daring behavior. Mr. Milei was the first foreign leader to meet Mr. Trump after he won the U.S. election in November. They held a love-in at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, where Mr. Trump told him: “The job you’ve done is incredible. Make Argentina Great Again, you know, MAGA.”

    Mr. Milei created the deregulation office to disembowel government ministries and their bureaucrats and overhaul the functions of whatever and whoever survived the attacks to try to make the economy more competitive. In the United States, Mr. Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief who is the world’s richest man, has a similar role as head of the Trump-inspired “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). When Mr. Milei learned about Mr. Musk’s appointment, he declared “We are exporting our chainsaw deregulation model around the world.”

    Mr. Sturzenegger is an MIT-trained economist and academic. He served as economics policy secretary under the chaotic regime of Fernando de la Rúa, who was Argentina’s president from 1999 to 2001 and who fled Buenos Aires in a helicopter when convertibilidad, the system that pegged the peso to the dollar, collapsed. Financial mayhem ensued.

    He was appointed president of the central bank in 2015 and resigned in mid-2018, two months after a galloping run on the peso triggered an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund, making his position untenable. He was also an elected member of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Argentine Congress, for two years until 2015.

    In other words, Mr. Sturzenegger knows how governments and bureaucracies work, and how crises wind up and wind down, and he doesn’t like what he sees in Argentina, the only developed – that is, wealthy – country to get downgraded to developing status. A century ago, Argentina was one of the 10 wealthiest countries, on par with the United States on some measures. It was blessed with ample natural resources, a thriving agriculture industry, and industrious emigrants from Italy and Spain and elsewhere in Europe who were eager to build better lives. For the most part they did.

    Mr. Milei’s opening words were “Today begins a new era in Argentina” and he then launched into a diatribe into the inept, ignorant or corrupt leaders who ruined Argentina’s once-wealthy economy. “For more than 100 years, politicians have insisted on defending a model that only generates poverty, stagnation, and misery,” he said.

    There is “no money,” he said – and keeps saying today, to the point it has become his trademark phrase. “A hundred years of failure will not be undone in one day, but it can be started on one day, and today is that day,” Mr. Milei said.

    His direct assessment of the economy and his plan to fix it captured the imaginations of many Argentines, also a few mass protests as the spending cuts began. “It was impossible for anyone to think that, two years ago, Mr. Milei would be president,” said Marina Dal Poggetto, executive director of Eco Go, a business and economic consultancy in Buenos Aires. “He won because he had a simple message on the economy. He became a rock star.”

    The Milei revolution was under way and Mr. Sturzenegger became the President’s deregulation whisperer. Seven months later, Mr. Sturzenegger was sworn into cabinet and pulled out his knife. “This is like peeling an onion,” he said. “You end up crying because you can’t believe what you find.”

    Mr. Milei cut the budget deficit to zero in his first month by ending capital spending, raising government pensions and salaries by far less than the inflation rate, and putting Mr. Sturzenegger on a mission to gut the public sector.

    He says the bureaucracy head count went from 210,000 to 175,000, a fall of 15 per cent, while overall government spending dropped 30 per cent. The number of ministries was cut to eight from 18 (though some exist in shrunken form as secretariats). The side benefit was that some of these ministries were led by ministers from other parties in Argentina’s messy Congress, allowing Mr. Milei and his Libertad Avanza party to reduce power sharing somewhat.

    The deregulation campaign – Mr. Sturzenegger’s speciality – has a lot longer to run. “The second year of the deep chainsaw is starting,” he says.

    Already, he says, 20 per cent of Argentina’s laws have been killed or modified. The goal is to take the slash-and-burn campaign to 70 per cent. One of the laws that made “no sense,” a leftover of the Peronist regime that ruled Argentina for most of the 42 years since the country returned to Democracy in 1983, required representatives of Argentine manufacturers, like shoemakers, to approve the imports of their foreign competitors. To no one’s surprise, most said no, since they would have to drop their own prices to compete. The upshot was high prices and low quality. “When you deregulate, prices tend to fall by 30 per cent,” Mr. Sturzenegger claimed.

    There is no doubt the dramatic fall in inflation was the headline-making winner. In November, the rate was 2.4 per cent a month. That’s still outrageously high by North American and European standards but was a four-year low. “The trade-off to fight inflation was deepening recession,” said economist Juan Ignacio Carranza, an independent political risk analyst. “But now the economy is recovering.”

    Arnaldo Miño, 40, owner of Chipa Coronel Bogado, a bakery and street-food shop in the rough streets behind Buenos Airies’s main train station, said that, for the first time in years, he can plan beyond a few days and not panic about the prices of flour and cooking oil jumping in price from one week to the next. “I can plan my production three to six months out because prices aren’t going crazy any more,” he said. “And I am not afraid to go to the bank and get credit, since interest rates are lower.”

    Some economists say they don’t see a vision yet from Mr. Milei or Mr. Sturzenegger of what the Argentine economy and society might look like in a few years. So far, the story has been cut, cut, cut, a strategy that potentially could create as many losers as winners if it is done too harshly, quickly or unfairly, as it was during the painful austerity years which effectively bankrupted Greece a dozen years ago. “There does not appear to be any long-term agenda,” said Ms. Dal Poggetto.

    Mr. Sturzenegger disagrees. He says that prying open a blocked, protected economy that has impoverished millions for decades is goal enough. “Argentina will be a free society and freedom brings prosperity,” he said. “This is more than MAGA. It should be Make Argentina Prosperous Again.”

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-argentinas-deregulation-minister-takes-the-chainsaw-to-laws-and/

27. The US already had the Constitution , the Amendments, and the Civil Rights Laws that was the Law of the Land to insure equal rights of all race greed and gender .

    Trump signed a Executive Order to eliminate DEI as a violation of the long standing Constitution, amendments and Civil right laws.

    Start with equity. This is a Commie concept that outcomes must be equal regardless of contribution , merits, etc. So it means that all outcomes must be equal, even if it means taking from the contributing, to equalize the non contributing. Each according to his ability, each according to his need.
    This Country was not founded on the principle of communism and this is a direct violation of the foundation of this Government.

    Inclusion.Guess it means you must include. Again , nothing about this Government that said you must include. This republic was formed to be a merit based system of pursuit of happiness with no right to be included. Should a blind person be included in driving a plane, should a transgender male compete in women’s spots, etc.
    And Diversity is forcing the hiring based not on merits or qualification but on hiring diversity of race, creed gender, etc. In practice this diversity concept seemed to exclude white males from being part of the Diversify in blatant discrimination.

    Also, part of the DEI program was a brainwashing to be discriminating to the white race, which is a violation of Constitution, Amendments, and Civil Right laws. Whites are racist and need to be excluded and punished and not be included in job survival. So, the inclusion concept singled out white males mostly to not be part of the inclusion.

    So, all the Monopoly Corporations, and Governments under DEI that hire violated the laws of the land.
    The Monopoly Corporations violated the laws of the land in mandating expiermental vaccines or you will be terminated . The High Court ruled that Osha laws didn’t give these entities right to
    terminate if you didn’t comply to their mandated vaccine.
    It was a lawless violating of the laws of this land , under emergency conditions , by members of the biggest special interest group being the WEF.

28. BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — A woman was arrested Thursday morning for vandalism and resisting arrest after she allegedly took down a United States flag at Hart Park and raised the Mexican flag in its place, according to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office.

    The sheriff’s office released an edited video of a portion of the incident and arrest on YouTube.

    Officials said county park rangers were called to Hart Park for multiple reports of someone trying to steal the U.S. flag at the park entrance a little after 9:30 a.m.

    The sheriff’s office video appears to show a person raising the flag of Mexico at the park entrance.

    Rangers arrived and found a vehicle in grass next to the flagpole. Officials identified the woman as Crystal Aguilar, 24, and said she cut a chain that secured the flagpole and threw the flag onto the mud. She then raised the Mexican national flag in its place, according to a release.

    Body-worn camera video shows the woman, identified as Aguilar, telling deputies, “You’re not going to tell me what to do, this is Mexican land, m—– f—–.”

    Aguilar allegedly resisted rangers’ attempts to take her into custody and made threats against them.

    The two-minute, 37-second video ends with a deputy untying a U.S. flag from a pole.

    Aguilar was arrested and booked into the Lerdo jail on charges of trespassing, threatening a peace officer, resisting arrest and vandalism. Aguilar is due in court on Monday.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-arrested-taking-down-us-233721069.html

    The video is a minute and a half. Listen to her crazy death threats. “My people going to kill you.”

29. Does the incessant chatter about a stock market correction in 2025 make you want to convert you long-term savings to gold and bury it in your backyard?

    1. I have often wondered why the US mint does not mint gold coins. (not coins with a face dollar value, but coins at a specific weight, ie 1 ounce).

       Would think such coins would be a good seller.

       1. https://www.usmint.gov/coins/precious-metal-coins/gold/

       2. I think the gold coins they do mint have the specific gold weight stamped on them. The face dollar value is meaningless.

30. ‘In Naples and Marco Island, the median household income is $91,000,’ said Southwest Florida-based Red Fortress Property Management’s Michael McVety. ‘The income needed to afford homes in the area is $188,000. This creates a 105% affordability gap. Only 30% of local residents can afford homes, leaving the market heavily dependent on external buyers’

    That’s when yer fooked.

31. ‘Kaler, whose insurance on her Pacific Palisades house wasn’t renewed by State Farm just weeks before the fire. She was forced to switch to the California Fair Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers bare-bones fire coverage at typically high rates…By the morning of Jan. 8, her home had burned to the ground. ‘It was gone in an instant. There is only a chimney left,’ she said of the home where she raised her children. Afterward, the 74-year-old filed a claim with State Farm, hoping they might pay toward her losses on her house, which was recently appraised at $3.5 million. The claims specialist told her he would pray for her family and denied the claim’

    You didn’t have a policy with State Farm Sandra. I commend you fer trying, but they don’t pay out on paying customers.

32. ‘It’s become dangerous for our members living in that area, they have to keep their blinds shut because homeless are peeking in. They’re stealing their water, they’re threatening and a lot of them don’t even know what they’re doing…We keep getting promises that the area’s going to be abated, and then it never happens’

    I hear the weather is great Patty.

33. ‘The material false statement to the effect that [Molina Flynn’s] law firm had no employees influenced the underwriter and the mortgage lender,’ Cullen wrote in a signed affidavit. He admitted to agents that he lied about having no employees because he ‘did not have tax returns to submit in support of the mortgage application’

    So it was a stated income loan Brendan.

34. ‘Selling price: $1,850,000 (November, 2024). Previous selling prices: $1,995,000 (October, 2024)’

    That’s a mighty a$$ pounding in a month Dino.

35. ‘The crisis in residential construction has become the norm’

    We don’t hear much from you kraut eaters these days Klaus. The beatings will continue until moral improves. Verstehen?

36. ‘Every job I was pricing there were three or four other builders I was competing with. It got to a point on a few jobs where I couldn’t actually go any lower. When you’re seeing all these numbers and work’s getting tight you can lose hair, for sure. There were a lot of times where I look back and go ‘shit, we’re lucky we got signed’, God knows what we would be doing otherwise’

    I’ll have you know there’s a housing shortage in Wellington Digby.

37. ‘We will see another 1,000 companies collapse in the next 12 months with all the associated suppliers and input businesses that feed into those companies,’ he said. ‘We’re heading into the abyss. This is going to be bad. It doesn’t matter what we do now, nothing is going to turn that around. Everyone that I know is buckling up and hunkering down for this storm that’s coming’

    Scott is a well known far right, Putin puppet, election/climate denier, stopped clock, bitter renter death shot conspiracy theorist.

38. BREAKING: Trump revokes Biden security clearance

    Fox News

    1 hour ago

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

    1 minute.

39. Trump Signs Memorandum Directing Review of Federal Funding for NGOs

    President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Feb. 6 ordering a review of all funding to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that receive money from federal agencies.

    The executive memo, “Advancing United States Interests When Funding,” directs all heads of federal departments to review all funding provided to NGOs. It accuses “many” NGOs, without giving specific examples, of engaging in “actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people.”

    “It is the policy of my Administration to stop funding NGOs that undermine the national interest,” Trump’s memo reads.

    Further, the memo directs agency heads to align all future funding decisions with U.S. interests and the Trump administration’s goals and priorities, particularly alongside existing and future executive actions.
    On Jan. 29, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration would cancel funding to any NGOs that “facilitate illegal immigration.”

    “Many of these NGOs actually have infrastructure and operations set up in Mexico, on that side of the border, and are telling those illegal immigrants to come to them, and they will get them across the border,” Noem said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “The Will Cain Show.”

    NGOs are “typically mission-driven advocacy or service organizations in the nonprofit sector,” with large and small NGOs operating around the world for various charitable purposes, according to Harvard Law School.

    Roughly 1.5 million NGOs operate in the United States, according to the State Department, and their work includes “political advocacy on issues such as foreign policy, elections, the environment, healthcare, women’s rights, economic development, and many other issues.” Other NGOs operate outside of politics, including ones “rooted in shared religious faith” and others that help the poor and disabled, the department said.

    NGO funding includes donations from federal, state, local, and foreign governments; private individuals; private sector companies; and philanthropic foundations.

    “There is no prohibition in U.S. law on foreign funding of NGOs; whether that foreign funding comes from governments or non-government sources,” the State Department states.

    Many NGOs also qualify for exemptions from state and federal taxes but must first apply for this status with the IRS. However, political NGOs “receive limited tax exemptions only for income received from contributions solicited from the general public, membership dues, or fundraising events,” according to the State Department.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/trump-signs-memorandum-directing-review-of-federal-funding-for-ngos-5806109

40. Monetary policy is getting more interesting…

    1. Business / Economy
       Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants to bypass the Fed to lower interest rates
       By Bryan Mena and Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN
       Published 4:34 PM EST, Thu February 6, 2025
       Paul Morigi/Getty Images
       Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in an interview with Larry Kudlow at Fox Business Studios on February 5 in Washington, DC.
       CNN
       —
       Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has a new plan in the fight to bring down historically high interest rates, and it’s got nothing to do with the Federal Reserve.

       Bessent, in two interviews this week, said the Trump administration wants to focus on lowering long-term interest rates, which are largely influenced by the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note. The Fed’s decisions, on the other hand, have a more direct effect on short-term interest rates, which control borrowing costs for Americans.
       …

41. ‘It accuses “many” NGOs, without giving specific examples, of engaging in “actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people.”’

    I can think of a few. And they are backed by BIG money interests…not just piddly government grants.

    1. “I can think of a few. And they are backed by BIG money interests…not just piddly government grants.”

       Indeed. Zuckerberg was good for $417M, IIRC, and he folded like a bedsheet when DJT was elected. Events, such as the George Floyd riots that were coordinated across the country prior to the 2020 election, and then suddenly halted with uncanny precision like an orchestra once Biden was installed, are right out of same playbook that the U.S. has used around the planet to topple governments deemed undesirable by deep state actors like William Kristol, Victoria Nuland et al. Their rank and file operatives are quietly being arrested across the country, IMHO.

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