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The Music Stopped, The Party Was Over, The Rates Hit And They Were Left Holding The Bag

A report from KMOV in Missouri. “While winter is a slow time of year, St Louis realtor Cathy Shaw Connely said inventory remains fairly low, despite rising interest rates. ‘Yes, it’s going to affect the amount of house they can buy but prices have dropped as well,’ she said. Those who entered into bidding wars over the last few years, many offering tens of thousands of dollars over the asking price, may not see their return soon, if ever, she said. ‘Those buyers, I can’t see where they’re getting out of it what they put into it, at least right now.'”

KATU Portland in Oregon. “Tim McBratney is a mortgage lender with PacRes Mortgage. McBratney said things have changed since this time last year when a house would list on Saturday and have five offers by Sunday. ‘Sellers are highly motivated right now and we’re seeing sellers willing to pay some concessions such as helping with closing costs. I’ve had sellers pay all of the closing costs, and even additional to buy down the interest rate for a buyer,’ he said.”

KXYZ Detroit in Michigan. “‘Not too long ago, we’re talking eight months ago to a year ago, we’d put a house on the market and it would sell in 10 days and I would receive maybe five offers,’ said Gaston Munoz with Munoz Realty. Munoz says just months ago the average home was selling tens of thousands dollars over asking price as well. However Gaston says low inventory is driving up home prices and higher interest rates significantly slowed things down in the last few months. ‘I think now it’s changing to a buyers market,’ said Munoz. ‘A lot of people are scared of buying a house because the interest rate keeps going up and that is a mistake because now you can buy the house cheaper than you could 6 months of a year ago.'”

The Anchorage Daily News. “This is still a seller’s market, said Larry Burke, president of the Alaska Realtors board. But sales volume has slowed from last year and homes are beginning to sit on the market longer, for a month, he said. Also, for the first time in a few years, sellers are increasingly offering concessions on homes, such as providing help with closing costs or at times reducing the asking price, he said. ‘We’re getting back to a normal market,’ Burke said. ‘It was not normal during the pandemic.’ Now, homes are selling close to their asking price, and multiple offers on homes have become rarer, said D’Ette Owen, president of the Anchorage Board of Realtors. ‘It’s been going through a correction now for the last six months, but it’s not a harsh correction,’ she said.”

The Texas Standard. “It’s not all doom and gloom – and some bright spots may continue into 2023. Adam Perdue, economist with the Texas A&M joined the Standard. ‘Well, so back in December, we heard from Arbor that the city of Austin pricing has already declined on a year-over-year basis through November. And so Austin is the one that’s most at risk just because it saw the highest price appreciation from 2020 and 2021.'”

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “Real estate in the East Bay was a tale of two markets in 2022. In most respects, the power has shifted to buyers. ‘Houses with inherent flaws — located on busy streets, funky layouts, no off-street parking and/or in need of repairs — are taking longer to sell, need price reductions,’ real estate agent Caitlin Crawford of the Grubb Company told SFGATE.”

From Deseret News. “The music stopped. The lights shut off. The party was over. ‘The cops came,’ quipped Dejan Eskic, senior research fellow at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, one of Utah’s leading housing experts. ‘The cops came and busted everyone.’ In early 2022, ‘momentum was slowing’ from 2021, but then ‘the faucet just got turned off.’ ‘2021 was on fire, and in 2022 it’s an empty concert hall,’ he said. If rates had risen to around 4.5%, ‘the train would still go. It would slow, but it wouldn’t be stopped like it is now.'”

“After prices peaked in May, Salt Lake County’s median single family home price hit $650,000. As of November, that figure was down to $569,000 — 14% lower than the May peak but still 4% higher than in November of 2021. They do expect 2023 to be a challenging year, especially for homebuilders that leaned hard into speculative building in 2021. ‘Then the rates hit and they were left holding the bag,’ Eskic said.”

From Fortune. “The fear of further price declines underpins many investors’ decision to remain on the sidelines. ‘From December onwards, the expectation from my side is we’ll have another 10% to 15% decline [in home prices] nationally,’ Tejas Joshi, director of single-family residential at Yieldstreet, tells Fortune. Yieldstreet, which owns over 600 U.S. homes, has put their money where their mouth is. In the second half of 2022, Joshi says Yieldstreet reduced its homebuying levels by more than 90% in the face of falling home prices. ‘We’re pretty much on pause across all [home buying] strategies,’ Joshi tells Fortune.”

From CBC News in Canada. “The price of buying a home in Ontario dropped from its lofty heights during the past year. CREA’s benchmark figure for Ontario has since fallen by nearly 20 per cent, but even that sharp decline only takes prices back to the level they were at in September of 2021. One the supply side, many property owners are reluctant to list their properties given how the prices dropped, yet many investors could be forced to sell due to the higher carrying costs of those high interest rates. RBC economist Robert Hogue noted that Toronto-area prices have fallen 18 per cent from their peak and said ‘any further depreciation is likely to be more incremental.'”

The Star Phoenix in Canada. “Nicole Burgess, CEO of the Saskatoon and Region Home Builders’ Association has seen the issues from two sides of the market. First, sales of new homes screeched to a halt in the third quarter of the year with ‘deals are collapsing’ due to soaring interest rates, she said. Banks are not honouring mortgage preapprovals because interest rates have risen so quickly that the arrangements no longer apply.”

“Chris Guérette, CEO of the Saskatchewan Realtors® Association, pointed to another housing policy that may shift in 2023. ‘To me, it’s particularly interesting to hear some of the banks talk about revisiting the (mortgage) stress test,’ she said. Those applying for mortgages must be approved at two points above the going rate, and many business sectors think that’s too high, she said. ‘There are many calling to reduce it to 1.5 or even one,’ she said. In early December, ‘we heard some banks say maybe it’s time to revisit that. If the banks are saying that, to me, that’s an indication that maybe we are not going to see interest rates lower.'”

From Bloomberg. “The drop for home prices in Sweden continued unabated in the last month of the year, suggesting that 2023 could offer little relief for an already troubled housing market. Prices across the country are now down almost 17% since a peak in the spring, according to state-owned mortgage lender SBAB. The worst slump for the market since the 1990s is nearing territory where the 20% forecasts by most economists — including the central bank — are starting to look too conservative.”

“The Nordic country is far from alone in suffering from falling property values. After booming during the pandemic, central bank interest-rate hikes have triggered a real-estate downturn in a number of nations globally, including in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the region, home prices are also falling in Denmark, Norway and Finland, albeit at a much slower pace. Should unemployment increase significantly ‘in the wake of the approaching recession,’ it could lead to a ‘very difficult’ situation for the housing market if combined with rising mortgage rates Chief Economist Robert Boije said.”

The Global Property Guide. “The global house price boom is now running out of steam. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, it seems that the house price fall is manageable at 7.11%, however if we adjust for inflation, real prices have actually plummeted by a whopping 49.25%. Europe’s house price boom seems to be over, with only 7 out of the 30 European countries included in our global survey showing stronger momentum in Q3 2022 compared to a year earlier. Key European markets such as UK are losing steam, while Germany, Spain and Italy’s real house prices are now falling.”

“Pacific housing markets, which were previously booming, experienced a sharp turnaround this quarter. House prices in both Australia and New Zealand are now falling, amidst falling property demand. Asian housing market conditions are deteriorating. The Middle East is weakening sharply, with notable house price falls in Egypt, Qatar and Morocco. Latin America’s housing markets continue to struggle, with huge house price falls in Argentina and Colombia. 5 of the 15 markets included in the survey and momentum is also weaker in most Asian countries.”

“The biggest y-o-y house price declines were in Buenos Aires, Argentina (-49.25%), Colombo, Sri Lanka (-31.37%), Bogota, Colombia (-15.9%), Hong Kong (-12.82%), and Riga, Latvia (-12.71%), again using inflation-adjusted figures. Other European housing markets which are also struggling include Kiev, Ukraine with house prices falling by 6.11% y-o-y in Q3 2022, Sweden (-6.09%), Denmark (-5.08%), Finland (-4.96%), Montenegro (-4.76%), Netherlands (-4.49%) and Spain (-4.1%).”

Sri Lanka is the second weakest housing market in our global house price survey, amidst the country’s ongoing economic crisis. The average price of high-end condominium unit in Colombo fell by a huge 31.37% y-o-y in Q3 2022. Cambodia’s house market continues to struggle, amidst an oversupply of apartments. The average price of high-end condominium units in Phnom Penh fell sharply by 9.09% during the year to Q3 2022, following annual declines of 11.65% in Q2 2022, 20.43% in Q1 2022, 11.38% in Q4 2021, and 11.2% in Q3 2021.”

Peru’s housing market woes continues with house prices falling by 6.22% during the year to Q3 2022. It followed y-o-y declines of 8.55% in Q2 2022, 8% in Q1 2022, 8.87% in Q4 2021 and 5.58% in Q3 2021. Puerto Rico’s housing market remains weak, with the seasonally-adjusted purchase-only house price index falling by 2.67% in Q3 2022 from a year earlier, following year-on-year declines of 12.67% in Q2 2022 and 6.8% in Q1 2022.”

The Associated Press. “Australia’s property downturn has picked up pace again but Melbourne is the only capital city getting close to erasing the entirety of its pandemic upswing. Home prices plummeted another 1.1 per cent in December, CoreLogic data shows, amounting to a 5.3 per cent total decline in 12 months. The annual decline is the fastest since the global financial crisis, when home values fell 6.4 per cent in 2008. PropTrack economist and report author Anne Flaherty said prices would likely keep falling into 2023. ‘While interest rates are likely to be approaching their peak, the Reserve Bank has signalled the potential for more increases in 2023,’ Ms Flaherty said. ‘Higher interest rates would further erode borrowing capacities and drive prices lower.'”

The Daily Mail. “Wendy, a homeless woman, was candid about the benefits of living on the streets in Portland, including the free meals and ability to use drugs. ‘It’s a piece of cake really that’s why you probably have so many out here really because they feed you three meals a day and don’t have to do sh*** but stay in your tent and party,’ Wendy told Kevin Dahlgren with community engagement organization We Heart Seattle.

This Post Has 159 Comments
  1. ‘Yes, it’s going to affect the amount of house they can buy but prices have dropped as well,’ she said. Those who entered into bidding wars over the last few years, many offering tens of thousands of dollars over the asking price, may not see their return soon, if ever, she said. ‘Those buyers, I can’t see where they’re getting out of it what they put into it, at least right now’

    Wa happened to my winnahs! Cathy Shaw?

  2. ‘Banks are not honouring mortgage preapprovals because interest rates have risen so quickly that the arrangements no longer apply’

    ‘To me, it’s particularly interesting to hear some of the banks talk about revisiting the (mortgage) stress test,’ she said. Those applying for mortgages must be approved at two points above the going rate, and many business sectors think that’s too high, she said. ‘There are many calling to reduce it to 1.5 or even one,’ she said. In early December, ‘we heard some banks say maybe it’s time to revisit that. If the banks are saying that, to me, that’s an indication that maybe we are not going to see interest rates lower’

    See how helpful banks are? They pull the rug on the market and allow borrowers to sink into negative amortization!

  3. ‘It’s a piece of cake really that’s why you probably have so many out here really because they feed you three meals a day and don’t have to do sh*** but stay in your tent and party’

    What could go wrong?

    1. but stay in your tent and party’
      I would think getting the money to “Party on Garth” would be a full time job. Drugs ain’t free.

      1. “Drugs ain’t free.”

        Indeed. Depending on chromosomes ‘ya gotta serve up that vertical smile or steal something to fence.

        1. ‘ya gotta serve up that vertical smile

          Did you see her? Nobody’s going to bang that, much less pay for it. She is absolutely repulsive.

        2. Vertical smile

          I learn new terminology every day.

          But, she just had her dentures stolen, so … is that an asset?

    2. 100% of the time these street people don’t want structure and discipline….. it’s why they’re street people. Offered a job, subsidized apartment and benes out the ass, the answer is always a resounding no.

      1. More homeless = more Democrat-Bolshevik Compassion, Inc. patronage and graft rackets. Ka-CHING!

      2. these street people don’t want structure and discipline….. it’s why they’re street people.
        True. but Crack addicts can easily spend $100 a day on crack. Where is the money coming from? Look at her before you give the obvious answer.

  4. Another NFL player has a heart attack and gets carried off the field.

    100% safe and effective.

    1. They’re trying to sugarcoat it, saying it was caused by a hit to the chest. But players get hit like that all the time, and they wear protective gear. Oh well, off to the memory hole.

      1. “off to the memory hole”

        Are you sure?

        “Nearly half of Americans think COVID-19 vaccines may be to blame for many unexplained deaths, and more than a quarter say someone they know could be among the victims.

        The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that (49%) of American Adults believe it is likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths, including 28% who think it’s Very Likely. Thirty-seven percent (37%) don’t say a significant number of deaths have been caused by vaccine side effects, including 17% who believe it’s Not At All Likely. Another 14% are not sure.”

        https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/public_surveys/died_suddenly_more_than_1_in_4_think_someone_they_know_died_from_covid_19_vaccines

        1. (49%) of American Adults believe it is likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths

          Progress.

          1. “This is a tragic and all too familiar sight right now: Athletes dropping suddenly,” tweeted Charlie Kirk, the head of the Trump-allied Turning Point USA.

            “There have been too many recent #diedsuddenly cases to deny it anymore,” wrote failed Nevada GOP gubernatorial candidate Joey Gilbert.

            “Prior to 2021, Athletes collapsing on the field was NOT a normal event. This is becoming an undeniable (and extremely concerning) pattern,” insisted Lauren Witzke, a conservative commentator and failed Delaware GOP Senate candidate.

            “I know what everyone with any common sense is thinking. This isn’t the first time a pro athlete had this happen,” wrote right-wing commentator Grant Stinchfield”

            “The numbers are basically meaningless,” wrote Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, adding that “this claim has been debunked repeatedly. The story of athletes dropping dead from coronavirus vaccines has its roots in mysterious Austrian websites with ties to that country’s far-right populist party, the Freedom Party. Those stories were then recycled by right-wing media in the United States and then eventually came out of the mouth of a U.S. senator.”

            Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., condemned the conspiracy theorists for trying to use the alarming episode to advance their baseless claims.

            “Sick disgusting human beings. This isn’t politics this is straight up heartless, cold, evil,” he wrote on Twitter.

            https://www.salon.com/2023/01/03/sick-disgusting-human-beings-right-wingers-use-nfl-players-collapse-to-push-anti-vax-conspiracy/

            Kinzinger go prove them all wrong and get boosted. Looser…

        2. How many knew this…i didn’t

          “If you get hit in the chest,” University of Maryland Medical System cardiologist Dr. Scott Jerome said, “if it happens between heartbeats in a very small window, it can put the heart in ventricular fibrillation.

          “The heart stops beating,” said Jerome, an assistant professor of medicine.

          https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/what-happened-to-critically-injured-nfl-player-damar-hamlin-a-cardiologist-explains/ar-AA15UUtC

          1. Shh… HBB doesn’t allow this kind of talk. And aren’t these players assessed up the ying yang for health almost every day? If he had a heart problem, it would have been found before now.

          2. Not to mention they wear armor and padding. One would think that this sort of event would be a lot more common in the NFL.

          3. Ox something like this happened to me in the 10th grade i was in drafting class and someone hit me on the elbow bone with the point of a triangle ruler and i felt woozy and fell to the floor…never happened again.

          4. If he had a heart problem, it would have been found before now.

            Pretty sure they’re not testing for spike protein expression, particularly by heart cells. Care to try again?

      2. They lie to us,
        we know they’re lying,
        they know we know they’re lying,
        but they keep lying to us,
        and we keep pretending to believe them.

    2. And another: Uche Nwaneri

      9/2/21 tweet:
      Ok SO lets get these vaccine
      mandates and Vaccine passports up
      and running ASAP. We seeing
      children DIE daily from the
      unvaccinated selfishness. Pregnant
      women at risk too. PROTECT LIFE.
      MANDATE THE VACCINE. Jail anyone
      who refuses, to protect LIFE

      1. The time for extra-judicial killing is approaching. DO NOT threaten Feds or other elected officials, but Real Journalists and any other loudmouth Blue Checkmarks are fair game.

        It’s a medical genocide, and we’re not gonna wait for the alleged “justice system” because these genocidal tyrants have murdered and maimed millions.

        The last six months, the last four months, of 2021 were a real wake up call. You can delete those old tweets, but they’ve all been archived. Someday soon, your existence is gonna get deleted.

        It’s a medical genocide.

        The Day Of The Rope is coming…

          1. That was why when watching all the old Terminator movies, I thought “Why not just make some virus?”. Blowing everything up seemed to be too much work.

      2. It’s more likely that Uche died suddenly from the vaccine than the current player. FWIW, both the heart problems and the limited effectiveness of the vaccine to stop spread was clear it was clear that the vaccines barely prevented spread by Fall of 2021. It never should have been mandated.

      3. Uche Nwaneri

        Didn’t know who he was. 38 year old ex NFL’er, just died a few hours ago. I don’t think anyone hit him in the chest.

        1. Didn’t know who he was.

          Neither did I, but, you know, professional athletes drop suddenly, sometimes deadly, all of the time.

  5. 𝗔𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗿𝗮, 𝗖𝗢 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟵% 𝗬𝗢𝗬 𝗔𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗱 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗗𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗮

    https://www.movoto.com/aurora-co/market-trends/

    𝘈𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥, “𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘥, 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 60% 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴.”

  6. Those who entered into bidding wars over the last few years, many offering tens of thousands of dollars over the asking price, may not see their return soon, if ever, she said.

    I wonder how the FBs who “won” the 2021-22 bidding wars feel about the same realtors who told them “buy now or be priced out forever!” casually mentioning that those shacks will never be worth what they paid.

  7. ‘A lot of people are scared of buying a house because the interest rate keeps going up and that is a mistake because now you can buy the house cheaper than you could 6 months of a year ago.’”

    Stop lying, realtor. The real mistake would be buying into a bursting housing bubble. The Fed going full Zimbabwe with the M2 money supply is the sole reason for the insane 2021-22 spike in shack prices, and that was always going to end badly once the punchbowl got taken away.

      1. You should both be sterilized

        They probably have no plans to procreate.

        My wife and I live ‘an average life’ in the Bay Area making $320K.

        How much of that do the Feds and State keep? 40%?

        1. How much of that do the Feds and State keep? 40%?’

          in CA at least maybe a little more. 40% of the last dollar or maybe last 100K dollars . CA governor Newsom’s entire budget runs off silicon valley taxes so good luck in 2023 .

    1. at least they are a little self-aware and accepting some (most) of the blame.

      I can’t stand the folks that just complain about their decisions – and blame the government, companies etc.

      1. “It’s the Fed’s fault for raising interest rates to control rampant housing and other risk asset price inflation.”

    2. it gets even better:

      “After coming back from vacation, we didn’t end up relocating to the new house, because I wasn’t sure that I would be able to go that far from my job’s location and from our current friend circle. We decided to continue our stay at the condo we bought in 2016, and we rented our the house we bought this year (monthly mortgage is $4,450 inclusive of everything, however we’re only getting $3,250 in rent). I feel like I made a very bad financial decision and am doubting my skills to manage finances/investments effectively. What should we do?”

      1. “A man’s gotta accept his limitations.” — Clint Eastwood, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

        1. Correction:
          “a man’s got to know his limitations”
          Dirty Harry (Eastwood) in Magnum Force – 1973

      2. If the rent is covering 73% of a recently bought house in Silicon Valley, the dude is doing really well; <50% is typical, and rents are going down.

      3. we rented our the house we bought this year (monthly mortgage is $4,450 inclusive of everything, however we’re only getting $3,250 in rent)

        When I was looking for a rental a little over a year ago, I had one of these types of people offer me a rental house on 5 acres for over $1,000 less than their mortgage. They were up front about it. While I appreciated their honesty, I did not rent the place because I found a much better deal than that from a landlord with a paid off house.

    3. “Question: I was a victim of FOMO during the housing market craziness and bought a house for $200,000 over the asking price.”

      There it is: victim studies, Obama U.

    4. “Question: I was a victim of FOMO during the housing market craziness and bought a house for $200,000 over the asking price.”

      Nice accountability there.

      1. “We closed the deal in March 2022 and went for a vacation because we really wanted to recharge.”

        Cue world’s tiniest violin playing “My Heart Bleeds for You.”

        1. “We closed the deal in March 2022 and went for a vacation because we really wanted to recharge.”

          The entitlement mentality reeks.

    5. $320K might well be average for both of them.
      Median salary for matcha-sipping Twitter employees as of August pre-Sink Day: $146K.

      https://www.zippia.com/twitter-careers-11916/salary/

      (So I guess on average, Elon offloaded about a half billion/year just in salaries not including bennies. He’ll save more in a year when he — one way or another — sheds all that office space.)

  8. ‘Houses with inherent flaws — located on busy streets, funky layouts, no off-street parking and/or in need of repairs — are taking longer to sell, need price reductions,’ real estate agent Caitlin Crawford of the Grubb Company told SFGATE.”

    The biggest inherent flaw of all is having a shack sited in a Commie-run state and municipality where any property owner is low-hanging fruit for the tax man and societal breakdown is accelerating.

  9. ‘2021 was on fire, and in 2022 it’s an empty concert hall,’ he said.

    It should be legal, encouraged, and accepted to kick REIC hacks in the jimmies for making lame housing market analogies, or just on general principle.

  10. After booming during the pandemic, central bank interest-rate hikes have triggered a real-estate downturn in a number of nations globally, including in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

    Gosh, I hope the sheeple who elected WEF puppets don’t turn on their globalist Quisling overlords as they see their shack valuations plummet while resetting interest rates leave them financially overstretched.

  11. Ok – new work year. What are the new management led trends? I think a bunch of the new ones, will lead to continued work-from-home and will impact condo and townhouse prices in larger cities

    Here is one i like. Shopify encouraging employees to get out of meetings (especially re-occurring ones) and large group chats. I think so much staleness in bigger companies are caused by middle managers scheduling meetings and processes.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-03/shopify-ceo-tobi-lutke-tells-employees-to-just-say-no-to-meetings

    As employees return from holiday break, the Canadian e-commerce firm said it’s conducting a “calendar purge,” removing all recurring meetings with more than two people “in perpetuity,” while reupping a rule that no meetings at all can be held on Wednesdays. Big meetings of more than 50 people will get shoehorned into a six-hour window on Thursdays, with a limit of one a week. The company’s leaders will also encourage workers to decline other meetings, and remove themselves from large internal chat groups.

    Large, long and unproductive meetings have become a scourge of today’s hybrid workplace, prompting companies to try and curtail them. Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., household product maker Clorox Co. and tech firm Twilio Inc. are among those that have instituted no-meeting days. Employees spend about 18 hours a week on average in meetings, according to a survey conducted last year, and they only decline 14% of invites even though they’d prefer to back out of 31% of them. Reluctantly going to noncritical meetings wastes about $100 million a year at big organizations, the survey found.

    1. I used to work for -large insurance company- and it was AMAZING how much time was wasted on meetings.

      Then they’d rate you off metrics like how many calls you did or did not answer. It never failed that some idiot would call over and over and over again while we were in said useless meeting and then management would berate us and call us lazy for never answering our phones. *sigh*

      1. Reminds me of when I was a student worker at a factory and the floor supervisor would have these weekly meetings with all the workers to discuss how to produce more. I’d finally had enough of the meetings, so being young and dumb I raised my hand and suggested how much more productive we’d be in man-hours if we quit having these meetings. Good times were had by all.

  12. A reader sent these in:

    We went from – if you don’t buy a home you may never live in a home, to home price growth has slowed, to this is just a little gully, to institutions pausing buying, to home prices will fall a bit, to home prices may fall 20-30% but the bottom is near

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1609965147505975297

    In response to weak demand, Apple cutting Q1 orders for AirPods, Apple Watch, MacBooks – Nikkei

    https://twitter.com/eliant_capital/status/1609975306382606340

    In case anyone was wondering, this is what happened to Tesla’s stock today (in Europe… US markets are closed today, and the stock is expected to crash on open)

    https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/1610002386608594950

    Number of states with negative growth 👇 Current reading has indicated start of a recession in the past. Is it really different this time? Chart. @stlouisfed

    https://twitter.com/MichaelAArouet/status/1609915089200599047

    2022 Returns
    $AAPL: -26%
    $MSFT: -28%
    $MRNA: -29%
    $GOOG: -39%
    $ADBE: -41%
    $ETSY: -45%
    $CRM: -48%
    $AMZN: -50%
    $GME: -50%
    $NVDA: -50%
    $NFLX: -51%
    $AMD: -55%
    $SNOW: -58%
    $SQ: -61%
    $PYPL: -62%
    $ZM: -63%
    $META: -64%
    $TSLA: -65%
    $TEAM: -66%
    $SPOT: -66%
    $SHOP: -75%
    $AMC: -76%
    $SNAP:-81%

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1610028716142333952

    OUCH! US pending home sales tumbled another -4% to 73.9 in Nov, lowest since 71.6 from April 2020. Index was at 118.8 last Nov, so 12mth pace fell further to a -38.6% YoY clip after falling at -36.7% YoY previously. This now eclipses Oct as the fastest pace of decline on record.

    https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1608119100382842887

    Yes, the expansion of US public debt is scary when you see how much faster it’s growing vs GDP….But it’s even more scary when you look at it on a per capita basis. The amount of debt shouldered by each worker in the labor force has pretty much doubled in just the past decade

    https://twitter.com/menlobear/status/1610094726652514305

    And another one bites the dust

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1610122022016937986

    Things I trust more than a zestimate…

    https://twitter.com/fiatisdying1/status/1610126425264369664

    With all due respect, this isn’t 2008 in that it’s likely worse.
    1. Worse demographics
    2. More speculation (real cause of 08)
    3. More homes to population
    4. More homes under construction
    5. Lack of black swan to justify extraordinary welfare for the rich

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1610126715157876736

    Tesla just missed its fourth quarter delivery estimate:
    https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-02/tesla-notches-record-delivering-405-278-cars-in-fourth-quarter
    “We believe that Tesla is facing a significant demand problem…We believe Tesla will need to run its factories below capacity or potentially increase recent price cuts”

    https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1610038440879423492

    It’s only a two year foreign buyer ban with exceptions but still, it’s a long overdue policy change & is the pointy edge of anti money laundering policy via RE.

    https://twitter.com/KiwiPMI/status/1609707339900399616

    Many buying bonds to get ahead of the coming recession in ’23. But if you look through time, the start of Fed easing is a better timing indicator to buy bonds. In inflationary cycles that typically occurs well after recession start. In growth-focused cycles it happens before.

    https://twitter.com/BobEUnlimited/status/1609928636102066182

    Having worked in the SEC Enforcement Division for 18 yrs, including 11 as Chief of the SEC Office of Internet Enforcement, my take is that when crypto trading firms fabricate their own tokens, it’s not innovation, it’s securities fraud and counterfeiting.

    https://twitter.com/JohnReedStark/status/1609912671872188420

    Mortgage rates are 7%. A monthly payment of $2,500 buys you a $375,000 house. Same time last year, a monthly payment of $2,500 bought you a $600,000 house. Crazy.

    https://twitter.com/DecadeInvestor/status/1609909608943951872

    CarDealershipGuy

    Big price drops happening

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1609910594550861825

    CarDealershipGuy

    HONDA just saw its LARGEST sales decline ever in 2022. Down 33% year-over-year. Wild! Hate to say this… But think twice before you buy a new Honda:

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1609900135022051328

    Europe is experiencing its worst heatwave ever recorded. The combined intensity and scale of this winter heatwave is unlike anything in European history.

    https://twitter.com/US_Stormwatch/status/1609829457292066818

    Lance Lambert

    Look at San Francisco 🏡📈📉 At the height of the Pandemic Housing Boom, San Francisco home prices were up +43.3% this decade. As of October, that has been slashed to +27.6%. On an inflation-adjusted basis, San Francisco’s 2020s housing boom could soon be 100% erased.

    https://twitter.com/NewsLambert/status/1610001054841667585

    Lance Lambert

    Yes, housing is seasonal… But once in a blue moon, it’s OK to make a big deal about month-over-month shifts 👇

    https://twitter.com/NewsLambert/status/1610044430786134016

    Just remember, in the 1970s we stayed inverted for years. Fed kept hiking – into growth. Inflation kept rising.

    https://twitter.com/SamanthaLaDuc/status/1609745467646033920

    At a 5 capital city level Aussie housing is falling at a rate about 2.5 months ahead of the U.S housing crash from the onset of the GFC recession. Its worth noting that this data now includes the Lehman implosion and the onset of the worst of the GFC.

    https://twitter.com/AvidCommentator/status/1609753809697533952

    🚨 Druckenmiller’s base case for a hard landing and recession in 2023 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝🚨 Articulates why he would be STUNNED if we didn’t have a recession ….100 sec 📺 MUST watch as the markets are set to open for the first trading day of the year tomorrow. $SPY $QQQ

    https://twitter.com/rhemrajani9/status/1610055275582746624

    * $TSLA Q4 DELIVERIES 405,278 vs. EST. 420,760 (i.e., a miss)

    https://twitter.com/GordonJohnson19/status/1609962472772861953

    Bloomberg

    After years of promises and tens of billions in investment, self-driving cars increasingly look like one of Silicon Valley’s most expensive busts yet

    https://twitter.com/business/status/1609922490272284672

    ‘Wages for work­ers who stayed at their jobs were up 5.5% in No­vember from a year ear­lier, av­er­aged over 12 months, the high­est in­crease in 25 years of record-keep­ing.’ https://wsj.com/articles/stay-

    https://twitter.com/jessefelder/status/1609969243805880320

    Our applications went from 120+ per day in 2020 down to 1,2 or even 0 some days now. My position will be going away in February and I get the feeling this is only the beginning for the Mortgage world. If things don’t turn around by Spring/Summer there will be lots more layoffs.

    https://twitter.com/RephreshedMind/status/1609970728224399361

    Across the street from the Fed.

    https://twitter.com/pdacosta/status/1603124409467797505

    Think anyone realizes 🇨🇦’s “ban on foreign buyers” exempts property used for rental, and has no impact on pre-assignment sales? 🤔😂 … or that it intentionally exempts the increased demand for rural land?

    https://twitter.com/StephenPunwasi/status/1609904463845756928

    John Wake

    I think I see a trend. The median price of single-family houses sold via the Phoenix area MLS was down 3% from a year earlier, according to preliminary data for December 2022. Will Phoenix house prices increase like they normally do in February?

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1609955600527683586

    Tell that to my IRA

    https://twitter.com/CitadelAir/status/1609767719012028419

      1. …. 🇦🇳🇩 🇪🇻🇪🇷🇾 🇨🇱🇴🇸🇮🇳🇬 🇦 🇨🇷🇮🇲🇪 🇸🇨🇪🇳🇪.

    1. “Having worked in the SEC Enforcement Division for 18 yrs, including 11 as Chief of the SEC Office of Internet Enforcement, my take is that when crypto trading firms fabricate their own tokens, it’s not innovation, it’s securities fraud and counterfeiting.”

      – So, let’s expand upon that idea for a fiat $ system. The Federal Reserve System, aka the Fed, conjures $ ex nihilo; out of thin air. Literally “out of nothing.”
      – Only Congress has the power to create currency. This was supposed to be valued only in gold and silver. Only old and silver are sound $. Fiat is then unsound $.
      – So, by e-printing $, the Fed is counterfeiting, which is illegal.
      – Who gave the Fed permission to do this?
      – $ printing, or increasing the money supply (see M2) always and everywhere leads to inflation, but with a lag, as in the current case.
      – inflation is a reduction in the value of $, a reduction in purchasing power. Inflation is debasement of the currency. This is the same as reducing the % silver or gold in coin. Inflation is un-legislated taxation. It’s regressive and outright theft.

      – U.S. Constitution, 5th Amendment. Applies to all levels of Government:
      “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” (The takings clause in bold.)
      – So, inflation is theft and otherwise unconstitutional. It’s enabled by the Fed, itself an unconstitutional, non-government body of unelected and unaccountable private banksters who in no way work for or support labor and private citizens, and in fact solely supports capital (banks and corps.) and unfunded fiscal policies.
      – Congress won’t touch the Fed, since it enables their feckless spending.
      – None of this is even remotely sustainable.

      1. Banks, Mega Corporation, Rich Elites have been in control of the World for a long time. They have socially engineered all wars, rigged economic markets, Globalism, you name it.
        Woodrow Wilson set up the seeds of destruction of the Constitutional Republic over 100 years ago.
        The Communist take over One World Order by treaty is a Declaration of War against Sovereign State Constitutional Republic called the United States of America.
        You don’t need to comply with the weapons of mass destruction used by the enemy.

      1. Your comment to me yesterday seemed random and lacked context, was it directed specifically at me? For the record, I’m not aware of the Dr. you were referring to.

          1. Not everybody is on HBB every day. Might be nice to post a little refresher context in each comment.

    2. “CarDealershipGuy, Big price drops happening”

      Required FICO 750+, 25% down, 8.5% for 36-months? No wonder used wheels aren’t selling. It’s cheaper to buy new with manufacturer financing at 3.5% and a $5k rebate!

      1. Just for kicks I looked the Chevy website. Other than the Bolt EV, nothing came close to a $5000 rebate. The others were between $500-$1500.

        Now, of course, that could quickly change.

        1. We just saw it on the evening news for select 2022 Toyota, but I’m not interested in a hybrid model. I have my eye on a 2018 RAV4, but the seller wants $3k over KBB, for now.

  13. 𝗣𝗮𝗹𝗺 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗿, 𝗙𝗟 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟳% 𝗬𝗢𝗬 𝗔𝘀 𝗚𝘂𝗹𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝗧𝗼𝘅𝗶𝗰 𝗢𝗻 𝗥𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗱

    https://www.movoto.com/palm-harbor-fl/market-trends/

    𝘈𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘛𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘢 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘫𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘥, “𝘞𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴. 𝘞𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘣𝘵 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺𝘴.”

    1. Updated Tue, Jan 3 2023 12:48 PM EST
      S&P 500 gives up gain and slides as Apple and Tesla shares decline
      Carmen Reinicke
      Tanaya Macheel
      Traders on the floor of the NYSE, Oct. 21, 2022.
      Source: NYSE

      Stocks fell Tuesday, giving up earlier gains, as concerns such as rising rates and high inflation that knocked the market down last year continued to trouble investors in the new year.

      The S&P 500 fell 1.14%, slipping from highs of the day when December’s manufacturing index declined at the fastest pace since May 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 284 points, or 0.86% and the Nasdaq Composite shed 1.46%.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/02/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html

    2. Are Wall Street wonks betting on a nearterm Fed pivot making a collosal mistake?

      Don’t fight the Fed!

      1. DOW 30 -0.53%
        S&P 500 -0.77%
        NASDAQ 100 -1.11%

        US stocks will rebound 24% in 2023 as Fed tightening will no longer ‘crush the market’, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee says
        George Glover
        Jan 3, 2023, 4:58 AM
        Tom Lee
        Cindy Ord/Getty Images

        – The S&P 500 could retest its all-time high once the Federal Reserve signals it’ll ease up on its rate-hike campaign, according to Fundstrat’s Tom Lee.
        – Lee expects the benchmark index to rally 24% to reach 4,800 points in 2023.
        – The Fed will no longer “crush the market” as inflation starts to fall, he told CNBC.

        https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-outlook-federal-reserve-pivot-inflation-tom-lee-fundstrat-2023-1

        1. “Fundstrat’s Tom Lee”

          After being so wrong in almost everything in ’22, he is bound to get ‘lucky’ this time around.

          1. There will probably be a dead cat bounce this spring, and then it’ll be back to the debt screws being tightened as rates resume their climb.

      2. Big banks predict recession, Fed pivot in 2023
        wsj 4 min read . Updated: 02 Jan 2023, 04:54 PM IST Dion Rabouin, The Wall Street Journal

        More than two-thirds of economists at 23 major financial institutions expect the US to have a downturn this year

        Big banks are predicting that an economic downturn is fast approaching.

        The firms, known as primary dealers, are a collection of trading firms and investment banks that include companies such as Barclays PLC, Bank of America Corp., TD Securities and UBS Group AG. They cite a number of red flags: Americans are spending down their pandemic savings. The housing market is in decline, and banks are tightening their lending standards.

        “We expect a downturn in global GDP growth in 2023, led by recessions in both the U.S. and the eurozone,” economists at BNP Paribas SA wrote in the bank’s 2023 outlook, titled “Steering Into Recession.”

        The main culprit is the Federal Reserve, economists said, which has been raising rates for months to try to slow the economy and curb inflation. Though inflation has eased recently, it is still much higher than the Fed’s desired target.

        The Fed raised rates seven times in 2022, pushing its benchmark from a range of 0% to 0.25% to the current 4.25% to 4.50%, a 15-year high. Officials signaled in December that they plan to keep raising rates to between 5% and 5.5% in 2023.

        Most of the economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect the higher rates will push the unemployment level from November’s 3.7% to above 5%—still low by historical standards, but it would likely result in millions of Americans losing their jobs.

        Most also expect the U.S. economy to contract in 2023.

        Though the economy has held up relatively well during the 2022 rate increases—jobless claims remain low, for example—economists said the cooling effects of higher interest rates will filter through more noticeably in 2023. U.S. interest rates are still well below historical levels but are the highest since 2008, ahead of the global financial crisis.

        Of course, almost everyone on Wall Street and in Washington got 2022 wrong—from the Fed’s insistence that inflation would be transitory to top Wall Street analysts who projected a banal year of growth for stock and bond prices. The extent to which investors, analysts and economists were wrong-footed has left many looking at the coming year with a sense of unease.

        https://www.livemint.com/economy/big-banks-predict-recession-fed-pivot-in-2023-11672658455000.html

        1. “U.S. interest rates are still well below historical levels but are the highest since 2008, ahead of the global financial crisis.”

          How long does ‘well below historic levels’ last before mean reversion and overshooting happen?

          Stay tuned, and hold onto your hats!

      1. Yahoo
        MoneyWise
        ‘Things were way tougher’: Charlie Munger has a blunt message for whiners worried about ‘hardship.’ Here are the stocks keeping Warren Buffett’s right-hand man happy in tough times
        Jing Pan
        Mon, January 2, 2023 at 7:00 AM PST·5 min read

        It might be a new year, but not everyone is excited for what 2023 may bring. Stocks are down, economic growth seems to be slowing and inflation remains rampant.

        But Warren Buffett’s right-hand man Charlie Munger suggests that we should, in fact, be more content with our current situation.

        “People are less happy about the state of affairs than they were when things were way tougher,” Munger said earlier this year.

        “It’s weird for somebody my age, because I was in the middle of the Great Depression when the hardship was unbelievable.”

        Best known as Berkshire Hathaway’s vice chairman and Buffett’s long-time business partner, Munger also serves as the chairman of Daily Journal, a newspaper publisher with a sizable stock portfolio of its own.

        So if you’re hoping some of Munger’s blunt realism will rub off on you this year, why not borrow some of his investing picks too? If these three stocks can keep the 98-year-old investing veteran happy, maybe they’ll work for you too.

        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/things-were-way-tougher-charlie-150000169.html

    3. Is there still hope for a Santa Claus rally on Wall Street?

      At this point it would have to be a 3 Kings of Orient rally.

    4. The Financial Times
      Tesla Inc
      Tesla shares slide on delivery fears as Apple’s value dips below $2tn
      Electric car maker suffers on first day of trading in 2023 while iPhone maker loses $1tn of market value in 12 months
      A Tesla electric car
      Tesla said it delivered 405,278 new vehicles in the last three months of 2022. Analysts had expected deliveries to reach as high as 430,000
      Richard Waters in San Francisco
      2 hours ago

      Tesla shares tumbled on the first day of trading in 2023 after the group’s new vehicle deliveries fell short of Wall Street expectations, while the US tech rout also pushed Apple’s market capitalisation $1tn below its peak.

      Fears that the electric car maker faces a slowdown in demand sent Tesla shares down nearly 14 per cent on Tuesday. Apple’s market value fell below $2tn in early trading — a stark reversal from the first trading day of 2022, when it became the only company ever to reach a $3tn valuation.

      The tech sector has been hit by investors’ concerns about looming recession, persistently high inflation and rising interest rates, as well as severe disruption to supply chains because of Covid in China.

      Recent months have been chaotic for Apple, which in November said it was experiencing “significant” disruptions in the assembly of high-end iPhones, following an outbreak of Covid-19 at a megafactory in Zhengzhou, which is run by Foxconn, its biggest assembler.

  14. “if you don’t buy a home you may never live in a home, to home price growth has slowed, to this is just a little gully, to institutions pausing buying, to home prices will fall a bit, to home prices may fall 20-30% but the bottom is near”

    The slide into the real estate CR8R is accelerating.

    1. “[from] if you don’t buy a home you may never live in a home, to home price growth has slowed, to this is just a little gully, to institutions pausing buying, to home prices will fall a bit, to home prices may fall 20-30% but the bottom is near”

      “The slide into the real estate CR8R is accelerating.”

      – Classic market bubble stages and psychology.
      – Housing has been converted from shelter to just another financialized asset class, courtesy of *.gov + *fed.org + REIC.
      – Temporary, fictitious paper wealth gains on the way up; evaporating gains on the way down. Same with stonks.
      – Massive wealth transfer reinforcing massive wealth inequality.
      – Financial sector is a service sector. Now dominates the economy of a former manufacturing powerhouse.
      – The deflating of “The Everything Bubble” will be like the dot com bust + housing bubble 1.0 bust combined. The bigger the boom, the bigger the bust.
      – On the Fed: “The lunatics (the Fed) are running the insane asylum (the U.S. economy).”

      “The popularity of inflation and credit expansion, the ultimate source of the repeated attempts to render people prosperous by credit expansion, and thus the cause of the cyclical fluctuations of business, manifests itself clearly in the customary terminology. The boom is called good business, prosperity, and upswing. Its unavoidable aftermath, the readjustment of conditions to the real data of the market, is called crisis, slump, bad business, depression. People rebel against the insight that the disturbing element is to be seen in the malinvestment and the overconsumption of the boom period and that such an artificially induced boom is doomed. They are looking for the philosophers’ stone to make it last.” — Ludwig von Mises (1940)

      “Panics do not destroy capital, they merely reveal the extent to which it has been destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works.” — John Mills (1867)

      “The tendency of an inconvertible paper money is to create fictitious wealth, bubbles, which by their bursting, produce inconvenience.” – Lord Liverpool

      “Having experienced the damage that asset price bubbles can cause, we must be especially vigilant in ensuring that the recent experiences are not repeated.” – Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chair, January 3, 2010

      1. It seems like a housing market repeat of the South Sea Bubble is recurring, but on a far grander and more protracted scale.

        “I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.”

        – Sir Isaac Newton, upon losing a fortune in the South Sea Bubble

        1. So the non-rinos would prefer a dem over mccarthy? Mccarthy sounds real bad, but I suppose there’s no real difference between a dem and mccarthy…that’s the reason, perhaps….

        1. Why don’t you try staying alive with the Deep State and Big Pharma on your a$$. He’s not stupid. JFK Jr was his buddy and Roy Cohn was his mentor.

          1. It’s 2023. If there was anything on DJT conclusively damning, we would know by now. Afterall, it was HRC’s “turn” in 2016. What has so many Ds and RINOs still so scared of him to this day? Pedophilia? Sex trafficking? Treason? All of the above?

  15. Now Is The Perfect Time To Talk About Damar Hamlin:

    “If you’re a professional athlete making millions of dollars and your body is your bread and butter that can get yo mama outta the ghetto, would you risk it all with an experimental injection when you can buy cardboard on Amazon and print your own vaccination card to present to your employer instead or buy one from your neighborhood hustler or teammate?

    Professional football (soccer) teams had their doctors administer shots to players all at once, including Inter Milan where Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen got his shots six weeks before collapsing on the field in front of hundreds of millions of people at the Euros. It was the first very public “sudden collapse” of a professional athlete in June 2021.

    When Damar Hamlin went down last night millions of people around the world were all thinking the same thing.

    And then the narrative managers got right to work to find an explanation that wasn’t the one that millions of people around the world were thinking about.

    People are no longer permitted to believe their own eyes. Millions still don’t.

    Despite hundreds of millions of football hits, the vast majority much harder than the hit Hamlin made, happening over the course of a century, this has never happened before.

    It just doesn’t happen.

    https://thegoodcitizen.substack.com/p/now-is-the-perfect-time-to-talk-about

    Bonus Meme:

    https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/thumbnail_1672753123258blob.jpg

      1. Avoid falling off yer bicycle during the interval between your heartbeats, ‘cuz that could drop you suddenly.
        Jokes aside, I think we are due for some schadenfreude

    1. And then the narrative managers got right to work to find an explanation that wasn’t the one that millions of people around the world were thinking about.

      And they were quick. The poor guy collapsing was bad optics for the narrative. The explanation provided sounds contrived. But, as our resident online safety expert likes to remind us, we aren’t supposed to notice.

      On a related note, regarding how gullible the masses are, I have an anecdote from NextDoor.

      As some of you know, we now have to pay 10 cents for a plastic bag at any retailer in the Centennial state. A poster on NextDoor remarked that he bought a box of generic shopping bags (the ones that say Thank You on them). Something like 5000 bags for $20 or something, and that he keeps a bunch in his car and grabs some before going onto the store.

      Well, it was amusing to see several other NextDoor posters lose their freaking minds over this. They really believe that the 10 cent per bag fee will save the world. Truly pathetic.

      1. Yes, and instead of re-using the plastic grocery bags as trashbags in the house (bathroom, etc) or to pick up dog poop….you now must go buy NEW plastic bags for those purposes.

        So for many (most? I assume most re-use those bags for _something_) it actually isn’t accomplishing anything – the same amount of plastic is out there.

        (Signed, someone with a closet full of plastic grocey bags he adds to regularly)

        1. Yes, and instead of re-using the plastic grocery bags as trashbags in the house (bathroom, etc) or to pick up dog poop….you now must go buy NEW plastic bags for those purposes.
          I know, one of the dumbest things I have heard in a while. I never buy plastic bags.
          By the way i love the “Joshua Tree” when returning to read the new comments.

        2. Lots of us oldsters remember how everything was paper bags (reusable to a point, biodegradable and green) and then the people who think they can save the world told us how bad paper was and we needed plastic bags to save us!

  16. Try not to catch yourself a falling knife buying real estate that is plunging towards the bottom of a deep CR8R.

    1. The Financial Times
      Blackstone Group LP
      University of California invests $4bn in Blackstone’s real estate fund
      Private equity group offers minimum annual return of 11.25% with $1bn backstop to entice endowment
      Blackstone’s headquarters in New York, US
      Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman said the investment was a ‘validation’ of Breit’s portfolio and performance
      Antoine Gara in New York 6 hours ago

      One of the largest endowments in the US is making a $4bn investment into Blackstone’s flagship private real estate investment trust, in a move intended to shore up confidence in a $69bn fund that put limits on investor withdrawals last year after suffering heavy redemptions.

      The University of California’s endowment, which manages more than $150bn of assets, on Tuesday said it would make the investment in the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, or Breit, at its current net asset value. That means it is taking a large position at the same valuation as the fund’s more than 200,000 existing investors.

      However, Blackstone has promised a minimum annual return of 11.25 per cent for six years and is providing a $1bn backstop if the fund does not achieve that target. In exchange, the endowment has agreed to lock up its capital in the fund until 2028, while paying higher overall fees if the vehicle performs well. Other investors do not benefit from the same arrangement.

      1. “…has promised a minimum annual return of 11.25 per cent for six years…”

        Sounds reminiscent of the above market returns the cryptobois offered their clients in recent years. It should be interesting to see if they can make good on that deal.

    2. Streetwise
      Blackstone’s BREIT Highlights Looming Dangers of Private Funds
      In a world increasingly demanding liquidity, Blackstone is selling illiquidity
      The Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust says withdrawals have come primarily from overseas investors, particularly in Asia.Photo: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg News
      James Mackintosh hedcut
      By James Mackintosh
      Dec. 12, 2022 7:13 am ET

      Top executives at Blackstone Inc. declared themselves baffled that so many retail investors want their money back from its giant private property fund, given its strong performance. 

      They shouldn’t be surprised. The very design of the fund encourages investors to withdraw when they see others doing so. My worry is, those same incentives could hit other parts of the financial system as central banks pull back from easy money. 

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackstones-breit-highlights-looming-dangers-of-private-funds-11670847230

      1. “Top executives at Blackstone Inc. declared themselves baffled that so many retail investors want their money back from its giant private property fund, given its strong performance.”

        Hence the term…Rats leaving a sinking ship.

    3. The UC Endowment peops have nothing to fear but fear itself. As all Californians know, real estate always goes up.

        1. For some reason the situation brings to mind the Norwegian pension fund that bought subprime mortgage funds from Wall Street just before subprime imploded in the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

          I know this time is different…

          1. Subprime Worries in Norway? There Are Now
            November 30, 2007, 2:00 a.m. EST 6 Min Read

            The fallout from the credit crunch in the United States has made its way across the Atlantic Ocean and is impacting the coffers of eight small Norwegian communities, which since June may have lost up to half of their initial investment into a municipal tender-option bond trust. Hattfjelldal, which has a population of 1,562 people according to a 2004 census, invested 103 million Norwegian kroner, or roughly $18.9 million, into a Citigroup Alternative Investments off-shore focused TOB. Narvik, a community of fewer than 20,000 residents located north of the Arctic Circle, incurred enough losses through the same investment that it was planning to borrow money to pay municipal employees their December wages. Six other municipalities have come forth saying they were sold the same product and are facing similar losses. According to a Citigroup performance summary of TOB Capital Offshore obtained by The Bond Buyer, total returns in 2007 through September were negative 15.24%. August returns alone were negative 23.46%.

            https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/subprime-worries-in-norway-there-are-now

    4. The 2 REIT Benchmark ETFs End 2022 Down By More Than 25%
      by John Navin, Benzinga Staff Writer
      January 3, 2023 12:35 PM | 2 min read

      Real estate investment trusts (REITs) were deeply affected by the Federal Reserve’s actions in 2022, which led to higher interest rates. Even as investors anticipated an eventual lowering later in 2023 or at least by 2024, sellers remained in control of REIT shares all year.

      Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund
      started the year at $50 and closed at $36.93 for a 26% loss of value from beginning to end.

      iShares U. S. Real Estate ETF IYR
      kicked off the year at $112.50 and dropped to $84.19 by the end of it. That’s a decline of 25.16%.

      The Standard & Poor’s 500 was off by 20% for the year, so both of the major REIT funds did worse than the market as a whole — by more than 5%. 

      When real estate investment trusts are forced to pay more to borrow money it can hurt previous business plans that had worked. As the buying dries up in the sector, the underlying value of properties drops. This adjustment to the new interest rate reality is ongoing and can be seen in the price of REITs.

      https://www.benzinga.com/real-estate/reit/23/01/30261356/the-2-reit-benchmark-etfs-end-2022-down-by-more-than-25

    1. Yahoo
      2023’s Housing Correction Could Be The Largest Since Post-WWII
      Dawn Allcot
      Tue, January 3, 2023 at 8:53 AM PST·2 min read

      If you have been waiting for prices to drop to buy a house, 2023 could be your year. However, the fall in housing prices doesn’t bode as well for current homeowners — or the overall U.S. economy.

      Housing prices in October 2022 were 38.1% higher than they were at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, based on Fortune’s figures. However, they started to fall in November 2022, with prices down 2.4% from the peak in June 2022, according to the Case-Schiller National Home Price Index. Experts are predicting another 10% to 15% drop by the second or third quarter of 2023, according to multiple sources.

      Several other factors point to a further home price correction. U.S. home construction fell for the third straight month in November, Reuters reported. Single-family housing starts fell by 4.1% in last fall, according to a Commerce Department report.

      Additionally, institutional homebuyer YieldStreet reduced buying levels by 90%, while Blackstone-owned Home Partners of America also slowed their purchases. “We’re pretty much on pause across all [home buying] strategies,” Tejas Joshi of Yieldstreet told Fortune.

      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2023-housing-correction-could-largest-165335648.html

      1. “YieldStreet reduced buying levels by 90%, while Blackstone-owned Home Partners of America also slowed their purchases.”

        Does anyone know how many Wall Street outfits were out there hoovering up all available US housing inventory during the pandemic blowout phase of the bubble?

  17. News out of China.
    China admits Covid deaths are huge, and 70% of Shanghai 26 million is infected,
    Now think about those claims.
    First, what does ” huge” mean for starters.
    How could that many get Covid at one time within a month of extreme lock downs.
    How could that many people be tested in short time with a test that remains the inaccurate test for Covid.
    This news articles came from a Doctor ..in a Hospital in China.
    Remember Round One of Covid , where we had the Doctor reporting from China who had mysterious respiratory cases his patients were getting. . Than this young Doctor was showed to of died. Than you saw the footage of people dropping in the streets or being locked in their homes.
    70% infection rate and boy the deaths are
    huge..Sounds scary, new variant strain…
    Seriously, the CCP is in on the Covid Scam…
    I predict they got to get lockdowns going again and vaccine passports and digital currency, etc etc.

    1. China admits Covid deaths are huge, and 70% of Shanghai 26 million is infected

      If true, then by next week they will have achieved herd immunity. No jabs required.

    2. How could that many people be tested in short time with a test that remains the inaccurate test for Covid.

      IIRC, they were requiring that everyone be tested daily, so in theory it could be done. Of course, that assumes that the tests actually work.

    1. Politics
      New California 2023 Retail Law eliminates the ‘Pink Tax’
      The bill ensures women achieve equality by prohibiting businesses from assigning different prices for identical products based on who they are marketed to.
      Author: CBS 8 Staff
      Published: 10:33 PM PST January 3, 2023
      Updated: 10:33 PM PST January 3, 2023

      https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/politics/new-california-2023-retail-law-eliminates-pink-tax/509-07082bc2-121d-40c3-af2b-fd709bbb7c11

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