A Xanadu For Tech Capitalists And Developers
A report from CBS San Francisco in California. “Bay Area residents are used to hearing about how red hot the housing market is, but home sales on the Peninsula are taking that trend to a wild new level. Consider a home on Colorado Avenue in Palo Alto. It listed for $2.9 million, but sold for $3.9 million, $1 million over asking price. Another home on Anacapa Drive in the Los Altos hills listed for $2.8 million, but sold for $4.5 million. That is $1.67 million over asking. Finally, there is this home on University Avenue in Los Altos that listed at $7.9 million, but sold for $1.8 million over asking.”
“‘The market has been crazy,’ admitted Deleon Realty CEO Mike Repka. He says it’s a common tactic known as auctioning. ‘Spending three to four million dollars on a 1,800 square-foot house seems crazy. But when you know you’re one of 12 that are bidding on it, you don’t feel isolated,’ explained Repka.”
The Santa Monica Mirror. “It’s already well established that the tax ‘reforms’ now being hashed out in secret by a joint committee of Republicans from the Senate and the House of Representatives will likely cost Californians a net sum of well over $110 billion, an average of more than $2,000 a year for every man, woman and child in the state. The tax change figures to drive prices down by anywhere from 8 percent to 12 percent, says one estimate from the National Association of Realtors, which strongly opposes the bill.”
“But the biggest effect – estimated at about $90 billion by the Budget Committee – will come from eliminating deductions for state and local taxes. ‘The tax incentives to own a home are baked into overall values,’ said Elizabeth Mendenhall, president of the national Realtors’ group. ‘When those incentives are nullified in the way this bill will likely provide, our estimates show home values stand to fall by more than 10 percent, even more in high-cost areas.’”
From Indybay.org. “Under Ed Lee, San Francisco was remade into a playground for tech capitalists and real estate developers. Ed Lee died suddenly while still in office. As San Francisco mayor for nearly eight years, Lee presided over the city’s tech boom, doing more than perhaps any other individual to transform it into a Xanadu for tech capitalists and the real estate developers who followed on their heels. Worse yet, many of the condos developed on Ed Lee’s watch remain vacant while people sleep in tents on the city sidewalks. There are more than 30,000 vacant units in the city — most of them luxury condos owned by speculators, second or third homes owned by affluent jet-setters, or short-term rentals in partial use. Meanwhile, it’s estimated that nearly 8,000 people in San Francisco are without homes.”
“‘The perception was that Ron Conway had too much of a say on Ed Lee,’ says former city supervisor and state assemblyman Tom Ammiano. Conway is an angel investor who has backed Airbnb, Square, Twitter, Zynga, and sixty-five other San Francisco-based tech companies. He was the single largest donor to Ed Lee’s campaigns; news reports called the two a power couple.”
From the OB Rag. “The following is a composite from what several observers sent us and from media reports about the long, long hearing Dec. 12th before the City Council on short term vacation rentals – one of the most controversial and divisive issues in present-day San Diego. During the lunch-time recess, pro-vacation rentals folks were treated to a free box lunch, provided by something called ‘Share.’ One report said the lunches each cost $8 and were being provided by a company that services the Convention Center.”
“At the beginning of the hearing, organizers of ‘We Support Short Term Rentals’ handed out green shirts and signs for their people. One OB observer sat next to a man in a green shirt who fell asleep and spilled his coffee; the guy turned to our contact and told him he was being paid for being there but how boring it all was.”
The Los Angeles Times. “She doesn’t need an alarm clock, Carolyn Cherry says. Her brain is programmed, by years of routine, to sound an internal alarm just before 3 a.m. One hour after rising, she leaves her house in Hemet and drives in darkness to the South Perris Metrolink station, the first leg of her daily journey to work. Cherry then hustles to the Red Line, pops out of the ground at the Civic Center station, crosses Hill Street and reports for duty as a clerical worker at the L.A. County auditor controller’s office by 7:30. 9 hours of work, 6 hours of commuting a day”
“Her rent is just $800 a month. In L.A., a home like hers would be twice, three times or four times as much. ‘It’s usually 8:15 or 8:20 when I get home at night,’ says Cherry, who has been doing this merciless long-distance commute for 16 years, getting by on just 4½ hours of sleep each night. ‘Nine hours of work and six hours of commuting. That’s my story.’”
The Sacramento Bee. “The weekday commute to the Bay Area from the Sacramento region isn’t easy. It can range from a 90-minute train ride to Richmond to a multi-hour slog to Silicon Valley. More than 17,000 Sacramento-area residents make the commute anyway, according to a Bee review of the latest census data. It’s not just IT workers making the commute. In fact, most of the workers who commute from Sacramento to the Bay Area are in the construction industry, census figures show.”
The San Francisco Chronicle. “The law of gravity dictates that what goes up, must come down—but the vagaries of celebrity real estate don’t always adhere to the letter of the law. There’s ‘poor’ 50 Cent, who’s in a class of his own. The longtime housing has-been is still looking for a buyer for his wayward Connecticut mansion. We’re looking forward to a time when the gods of real estate finally smile upon him, which didn’t happen in 2017.”
“Join us as we look back at 2017’s biggest booms and busts in the high-stakes world of celebrity real estate. Beyonce and Jay Z finally found a place to call their own in Los Angeles. Not only did they purchase a 30,000-square-foot estate with eight bedrooms, four pools, a 15-car garage, recording studio, basketball court, and views of the downtown skyline, they also snagged the Bel Air mansion at a $47 million discount. The asking price for the off-market property was rumored to be $135 million, but Bey and Jay offered only $88 million, and a deal was struck.”
“Rapper Eminem, aka Marshall Mathers, is making a triumphant comeback on the music scene, but he can’t claim the same victory when it comes to his real estate investments. He recently sold his 17,500-square-foot mansion in Rochester Hills, MI, for $1.9 million, which seems to be a fair price, considering that it was assessed at $1,763,160 in 2016. However, that sales price is less than half the $4.75 million he paid in 2003 for the five-bedroom, 10-bath property outside Detroit. That’s quite a loss!’
“Retired NBA great Scottie Pippen has had not one, but two luxurious spreads on and off the market for years now, and he hasn’t been able to close a deal on either one. The ex-Chicago Bulls superstar’s Highland Park property is a five-bedroom spread on 2.5 acres. It has an infinity pool, home theater, wine cellar, eight-car garage, and an indoor half-court featuring a rendering of Pippen’s No. 33 jersey. The mansion, which was listed for $3.1 million in June 2016, is currently available for $2,795,000.”
“Then there’s Pippen’s Italian-style waterfront mansion in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The six-time NBA champ has been trying to sell the megamansion, known as ‘Villa del Lago,’ since 2009. Priced at $16 million nearly a decade ago, it was recently languishing on the market for $10.9 million.”
“Country crooner and TV star Reba McEntire is singing the blues. She took a loss on the Nashville-area Starstruck Farm, which she put on the market in 2016 after splitting from her husband and manager, Narvel Blackstock. It turns out, the developer who bought the property is going to subdivide it and likely make a killing. Although McEntire originally listed the 83-acre farm for $7.9 million, the developer wound up paying only $5 million.”
“It took two years, but hip-hop star Lil Wayne finally unloaded his 15,000-square-foot waterfront mansion in Miami Beach, FL, for $10 million—which is $1.6 million less than what he paid for it, and a full $8 million less than the price he listed it for in 2015.”
“Year-end breaking news: 50 Cent has cut the price of his mansion—again! Relisted just this week for $5 million, the albatross on the rapper’s real estate portfolio won’t let go. The mansion with 21 bedrooms, 25 bathrooms, and one stripper pole has spent the past decade on and off the market. He’s now lowered the asking price from $14.5 million to a paltry $5 million.”
‘The tax incentives to own a home are baked into overall values,’ said Elizabeth Mendenhall, president of the national Realtors’ group. ‘When those incentives are nullified in the way this bill will likely provide, our estimates show home values stand to fall by more than 10 percent, even more in high-cost areas.’
https://media1.tenor.com/images/fca6bd7302c4891ec82cb42bcbdf8395/tenor.gif?itemid=4814611
Politicians have pretty much done everything the FIRE sector has asked. You don’t know unless you ask, and politicians have proven quite willing partners. Their interests are the same, higher property values. More money for the FIRE sector, more money for politicians via property taxes and their own personal investments, and more kickback money by a most reliable donor.
All of these enticements to buy houses, even the GSEs I don’t think are responsible for bubble 2.0. I think it’s the world’s central banks injecting money into their financial markets, money finding its way into the asset markets via a myriad transmission mechanisms, that are responsible for this bubbliness. I reach this conclusion by a process of elimination. Other countries without GSEs have bubbles. If it’s population, why did the first bubble start collapsing? And how far would it have gone if central banks hadn’t stepped in (Dow 11K in 2011, Dow 25K in 2017 - like I say, a myriad transmission mechanisms).
That base narratives to support housing are not going to go away (”aint making any more land”, “population only going up”, “paying your landlord’s mortgage”). But if it’s continuous inflows - more money coming into the market than going out - that are in fact causing the bubbles in tradeable objects (physical and logical), what’s going to happen when the money in the market merely levels off, much less is reduced?
I’ve always said they won’t stop fanning the bubble flames unless they have to. Perhaps they’ve seen something that suggests sucking more wealth out of the society and onto their balance sheets, and then injecting it into their favored sector is no longer going to further their interests. Perhaps it has nothing to do with economics. Perhaps its political. If these policies truly had no costs, were simply all benefit, there would be no talk about scaling them back.
‘When those incentives are nullified in the way this bill will likely provide, our estimates show home values stand to fall by more than 10 percent, even more in high-cost areas.’
Hopefully the opportunity to compare reality to all the dire predictions will soon happen.
PS The ten percent price decline prediction is likely an underestimate, as it doesn’t consider all the investors who will dump their holdings if they expect prices to fall which will lead to cratering demand plus a supply glut.
I’m not as sure….speculators are almost by definition optimists, and so most of them will not be quick to leave the market. And I think landlords will still be able to deduct mortgage interest and local taxes as business expenses…
‘More than 17,000 Sacramento-area residents make the commute anyway, according to a Bee review of the latest census data. It’s not just IT workers making the commute. In fact, most of the workers who commute from Sacramento to the Bay Area are in the construction industry’
Waa? I thought there was no construction in Can’t-afornia?
I wasn’t surprised by that, I would do it too if I was trying to make money fast but knew it could all go away at any time…even faster than a tech job.
Right now it seems to me that rents and purchase prices are in line with each other in Folsom even though they are both a little bubbly. The bay area of course is total insanity, particularly on the buy side. Bottom line, that two hour (in light traffic) distance means comparable houses are 1/3 the price. It’s compelling. Not a drive I would be willing to make if there were any alternative though. Luckily for me there is.
From the Folsom Telegraph:
Be aware of overpricing dangers
“Dear Kari:
I am going to be selling my home and I have spoken with a couple of agents. They all say the same thing – I should not price my home too high. I know how buyers are and I want to leave some negotiation room to come down in my pricing so the buyers can feel they have achieved a good deal. The other thing is I do not have to sell, but I would like to. May I have some advice on this topic?”
“Answer:
Selling a home today and bringing it to the closing table may sound easy, however there are many hurtles and aspects to get through besides the asking price. To begin with, the asking price of your home has nothing to do with what you paid for it, or what you think it is worth. It is understandable that for some sellers it is difficult to hear a lesser price on their home as they have most often have emotional ties. Perhaps a seller has made a lot of improvements or upgrades (costing high dollars), but this will not bring a return of the money on the housing market at all. In addition, buyers are compassionate shoppers; they do not want to make a mistake such as overpaying. Buyers know what other homes in the neighborhood have sold for along with all the particulars of each home. Most buyers are prepared to purchase and are pre-approved with a lender, which gives them the upper hand of feeling that they are in the driver’s seat.
If a home is overpriced it is most likely the agents that will not want to show your home because the agents only get paid for homes they sell, not show. Agents may also think if the asking price is too high, then perhaps the sellers will be difficult to negotiate other aspects of the sale process with, or may not be reasonable with any possible needed repairs. Some agents will show an overpriced home only to use your home as a comparison to the new well priced home. This is used to then get a fast sale.
Even if a seller does have all the time in the world to sell their home, know that the clock of days on the market is ticking against them. If a home is on the market too long then the agents along with the buyers will wonder if something is wrong with the home or property. The first question from the buyers as they enter the open house is “how long has this home been on the market?” Buyers are emotional too, and do not want to feel they missed out on a good deal, nor do they want to buy a home that hundreds of other buyers have passed on.
Good agents will tell their buyers honestly which homes are overpriced. Good agents want to be the buyer’s hero. This is so they will tell their family and friends to use them too. If you do obtain a sale keep in mind that the buyer’s lender will send out the appraiser and the lender is only willing to lend on a well-priced home. The appraisal report must provide documentation of several similar homes being sold and have closed escrow to support the buyers and sellers agreed upon price or no loan and no deal. This is used by some buyers who know a home is overpriced and will ask you to reduce it later once in the sale. This is not a good practice because at this point perhaps the sellers have made other plans counting on the higher sales price that will most likely not happen later in the process.”
…many hurtles
Yay! 100m hurtles!
or is it “Its hurtles all the way down”
I suppose her house will hurtle into the abyss before it gets any interest.
Also, “buyers are compassionate shoppers.” Wtf?
I read all these stories about extreme commuters and I just pinch myself and realize how lucky I am. I can walk to work in 8 minutes. I literally live less than 1/2 of a mile away from the hospital I work at. We rent and we have a good deal. I realize that this good fortune is incredibly rare.
I rode the train every Thursday from Sacramento to SF (bus transfer in Emeryville into the city). It made for a long day but I found the train ride fun and much more relaxed and efficient than driving. That was a great 9 years and having an office in SF kept my earnings ob par with the bay area, while I lived in a much lower cost market.
You can read, nap, or socialize with the other regulars….Yeah, a long train ride is nowhere near as bad as a long drive.
I got a lot of work done on my laptop. Very quiet and peaceful environment.
‘DEAR KRIS KRINGLE–I hope you don’t mind me writing you at the California beach house address you slipped me when we met at that Mattel corporate event. I would have mailed this to the North Pole, but I don’t have any international stamps.’
‘I know that most of the letters you get are from kids. So let me start out by saying there is no toy I need. There is something I want for Christmas—not just for myself but for my state. What does California need? We’re a relatively rich place with nearly 40 million residents, which you might think would be more than enough people. Except that it’s not.’
‘With your magically high-volume delivery system and your ability to slip unnoticed past U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Santa Claus is our last, best hope for getting the immigrants California needs. Can you send a million? Or maybe two million?’
‘This is the nasty paradox of California’s success: Growth has made it hard for people to stay. The high cost of living, particularly around housing and transportation, has created a consistent out-migration of residents, with between 50,000 and 150,000 more people leaving California each year than arriving from other states. This out-migration is particularly pronounced among the younger and working-class people who should be the backbone of the state in the future.’
What good is all your home equity if you can’t get anyone to mow the lawn ??
That’s why Californica is the poorest state in the nation.
“California Is Americas Poverty State”
http://www.laweekly.com/news/california-is-americas-poverty-state-7380756
Two (2) weeks to go from what appeared to be a large healthy international company to bankruptcy…
Cheap and easy money taxpayer funds buying private debt.
There maybe is a lesson in there somewhere…
One of many zombie companies.
++++++
ECB Trapped: Steinhoff Liquidity Collapses As Lenders Pull Credit Lines
Tyler Durden’s picture
ZeroHedge - Dec 19, 2017
When yesterday we discussed the latest troubles facing embattled retailer Steinhoff, whose bonds are owned by none other than the ECB, we said that while the company’s bonds mature in 2025, its bankruptcy is at most months away. In retrospect, and in light of the latest news, that may have been optimistic, because it now appears that a bankruptcy may be imminent and is at most just weeks away. According to Bloomberg, Steinhoff - which is facing an accounting scandal that led to the recent departure of its CEO and destroyed most of the company’s value - said lenders are starting to cut off support.
The reason why Steinhoff is suddenly facing not only a solvency but liquidity crisis is that the company which owns Conforama in France, Mattress Firm in the U.S. and Poundland in the U.K. isn’t yet able to assess the magnitude of financial irregularities disclosed two weeks ago, it said in a presentation to lenders in London on Tuesday (presentation below). The South African company also said it didn’t know when it would be able to publish audited results for 2017 and 2016, nor whether additional years will need to be restated.
Needless to say, the last thing secured creditors want, is not knowing the “revised” value of the collateral that secures their loans, especially in the case of a rollup which “suddenly” turned out to also be fraud. Hence: everyone is rushing to get out the back door. Predictably, Steinhoff’s shares - already decimated - resumed their plunge, and ended their recent dead cat bounce by slumping more than 205% in Frankfurt to the lowest since Dec. 8 before paring losses to trade 12 percent lower.
Until then, we will just keep an eye on Mario Draghi for the answer how long he can continue to burn taxpayer money by holding insolvent bonds and pretending that nothing has changed…
Another retailer bites the dust.
I read the other day that Sears/KMart is down to just 1000 stores nationwide, just a few years ago that number was about 6000. Sears has been selling off assets to pay the bills, but it’s running out of stuff to sell. Next year could very well be Sears/KMart’s last year. We have a lonely KMart in my little burg. Even during the year end shopping season the store is a ghost town. I suspect that it remains open because the property has no real resale value.
I suspect that it remains open because the property has no real resale value.
That’s hard for me to believe. But I too wonder why places that are obviously losing money with nothing good on the horizon keep the doors open. I understand inertia…but usually somebody whose money is being squandered will pull the plug. Are there no stockholders who want to liquidate and take what they get? Or is it so bad they know they won’t get anything so nobody bothers pulling the plug? Are they actually squandering other people’s money who don’t currently have a vote?
Or is it so bad they know they won’t get anything so nobody bothers pulling the plug?
I suspect that is the real reason. They are riding that dead horse until it disintegrates.
It Took Five Decades to Build Steinhoff. It Cratered in Two Days
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-18/it-took-five-decades-to-build-steinhoff-it-cratered-in-two-days
There are a lot more things that took decades to build that are similarly fragile.
I’m sure Steinhoff didn’t just suddenly crater. It was most likely a walking corpse for years. What will be interesting to learn is how long have they’ve been fudging their financials.
Steinhoff = Enron.
It’s all Enron-esque now. Google, FB, Scamazon, Apple, Fannie, Freddie, etc.
In theory CEOs can now go to jail and have their assets stripped for fudging numbers, per SarbOx.
Our dead KMart became an AtHome store very quickly.
Isn’t AtHome a Sears furniture store?
KMARTS are usually in the worst part of town. The real estate value can’t be much.
“It listed for $2.9 million, but sold for $3.9 million, $1 million over asking price. Another home on Anacapa Drive in the Los Altos hills listed for $2.8 million, but sold for $4.5 million. That is $1.67 million over asking. Finally, there is this home on University Avenue in Los Altos that listed at $7.9 million, but sold for $1.8 million over asking.”
It’s gonna be a painful day when all these over leveraged on the margin “buyers” have to start selling and only get offers 1MM or more UNDER asking price.
Eight years of feeding the alligator carrying costs…!
But…but…not going to give it away.
++++++++
“Then there’s Pippen’s Italian-style waterfront mansion in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The six-time NBA champ has been trying to sell the megamansion, known as ‘Villa del Lago,’ since 2009. Priced at $16 million nearly a decade ago, it was recently languishing on the market for $10.9 million.”
Especially since he’s retired and the 8 figure annual paychecks and endorsements are gone.
If he’s trying to sell these mansions… then where is he living now? Why not LIVE in those mansions?
then where is he living now?
In a third mansion?
‘The perception was that Ron Conway had too much of a say on Ed Lee,’ says former city supervisor and state assemblyman Tom Ammiano. Conway is an angel investor who has backed Airbnb, Square, Twitter, Zynga, and sixty-five other San Francisco-based tech companies. He was the single largest donor to Ed Lee’s campaigns.’
‘the long, long hearing Dec. 12th before the City Council on short term vacation rentals …One OB observer sat next to a man in a green shirt who fell asleep and spilled his coffee; the guy turned to our contact and told him he was being paid for being there.
‘9 hours of work, 6 hours of commuting a day’
Sounds kinda like a banana republic.
Seeing Square and Twitter next to each other combined in my perception, but it made a good name for a new app: Squatter.
Sounds like a novel idea for tech startup company. Maybe Squatter could function as a highlighting potential squatting locations available to homeless Bay areans that they can set up shop in. Heaven knows there are plenty of vacant units! Come on Softbank, let’s throw some money at this and get it funded!
i wonder which retailer will announce bankruptcy first after another dismal xmas season?
I guess toys r us is closing 200 stores.
Do u guys think executives at sears and kmart have bleed and milked enough equity out of the company to let er go down?
Do u guys think executives at sears and kmart have bleed and milked enough equity out of the company to let er go down?
Is there anything left to milk?
They still have the real estate assets to sell off!
I think they already spun the real estate off to a seperate company and they lease now.
This was a 200 stock not long ago.
They keep losing money just by keeping the doors open.
My guess would be that Sears is now leasing at inflated prices from the spun off RE company and keeping the zombie locations open is motivated by keeping those payments coming in.
private equity firms have already pretty much decimated the balance sheets of these firms with “special dividends” etc, a lot of Romney money was made this way
My current dryer is at least 10 years old and has been fixed twice. I bought a washing machine from Sears a couple years ago. I’m debating buying the matching dryer before Sears kicks it and before my dryer kicks it. Might be the only time I’ll have a matching set.
I predict that Craftsman and Kenmore will survive. Nothing in KMart is worth saving.
I believe that the Craftsman and Kenmore brand names have already been sold off.
along with DieHard and NTB.
yesterday readers of this blog were exposed to a website in connection with porter stansberry. i warned about him then, but i know that many don’t bother to check, so here’s what wiki has to say about him. i’ll won’t post again on him, but please remember to just stay away. he’s a con man.
from wiki:
False Claims & Predictions[edit]
Porter Stansberry claimed to have made a number of successful financial market predictions. In June 2008, Porter claims that he predicted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would go bankrupt in the next 12 months, as well as going on to say that he positioned his clients to profit by shorting stocks, and that he does not know of any other firm that “more accurately forecasted” or warned that the financial crisis was coming.[8] By September 2008, both mortgage companies were placed into government conservatorship.[9] Peter Schiff reviewed all of the newsletters that Stansberry released from 2006-2008 and challenged his “predictions” live on his radio show on the 26th of May, 2011.[10][11]
On October 22 of 2012, Stansberry released a “tip” to his subscribers to invest heavily in gold. The full heading was “Why You Must Buy Gold, or Even Better, Silver, Now”.
Investigative journalist Brian Deer watched his tip and tracked performance. Even as the price fell over a month after his tip, an online interview was published wherein he responded to the question: “When do you suppose the gold price will start climbing again?” with “I don’t have any timetable. I can just tell you that I haven’t sold any of my gold and I won’t until there is a gold-backed, well-financed national currency that offers me a reasonable yield for the risk I take to finance the government.”[12]
End of America[edit]
In 2011, Stansberry published a 77-minute infomercial titled “End of America”.[13] Investigative Journalist, Brian Deer, who dedicated a section of his website as a resource on Stansberry commented: “In this extraordinary video, Porter Stansberry takes the marketing of his newsletters to new heights. Released in late 2010, it was heavily promoted in media as the flagship for a new campaign from the Baltimore-based investment tipster. Among Stansberry’s predictions were the literal collapse of the United States, and among his suggestions - apart from buying gold, silver and other metals - was that investors might want to stock up on canned food. Although no data was released from Stansberry and Associates, all the signs were that the project was a success for the advisor, if of mixed benefit to investors who did not see the fall of western democracy.”[14]
SEC case[edit]
In 2003, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought a case against Stansberry for a “scheme to defraud public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters.”[1][15][15] A federal court, upheld on appeal, found that Stansberry had sent out a newsletter to subscribers predicting one company’s stock, USEC Inc., was going to increase by over 100%. Stansberry maintains that his information came from a company executive; the court found that he fabricated the source.[1] The company’s stock price did not significantly change even after the insider trading information Stansberry was selling came to fruition.[1] In 2007, he and his investment firm, then called “Pirate Investor”, were ordered by a U.S. District Court to pay $1.5 million in restitution and civil penalties. The court rejected Stansberry’s First Amendment defense, saying “Stansberry’s conduct undoubtedly involved deliberate fraud, making statements that he knew to be false.”[15]
At the time of the trial, many media outlets spoke out due to their views that the case was relevant to First Amendment rights. A group of newspaper publishers urged the Supreme Court[16] to reverse the decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that Mr. Stansberry was liable, and signed an Amici Curiae in defense of Stansberry. They claimed that a guilty verdict was “a significant threat to the free dissemination of news about the financial markets and specific investment opportunities” and could lead to a situation that “would be contrary to the spirit of our system of a free and independent press.”[17] When the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, a New York Times editorial column noted that “the implications of the S.E.C.’s action are potentially profound: newspapers or Web sites promising their paying readers stock information that later turns out to be untrue suddenly leave themselves open to fraud charges. Any financial commentator who passes on bad information in good faith could be sued.”[18]
Good information, thanks for sharing TJ.
I can just tell you that I haven’t sold any of my gold and I won’t until there is a gold-backed, well-financed national currency that offers me a reasonable yield for the risk I take to finance the government.
I guess Stansberry might want to consider buying the Venezuelan Maduro’s new “petro”. Apparently it is going to be awesome:
“Venezuela will create a cryptocurrency,” backed by oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves, Maduro said in his regular Sunday televised broadcast, a five-hour showcase of Christmas songs and dancing.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy/enter-the-petro-venezuela-to-launch-oil-backed-cryptocurrency-idUSKBN1DX0SQ
“Venezuela will create a cryptocurrency,” backed by oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves
i promise you he (maduro) has no idea how to make that work.
Yes, I don’t think Venezuela knows how to make anything work. But hey, crypto!
Yes, I don’t think Venezuela knows how to make anything work.
the closer a country moves to communism, the less functional it becomes. and marx said socialism is the path to communism. yet many people claim that while they don’t want communism, they do want socialism. it isn’t logical and eventually it gets to where venezuela is. the left is amazingly shortsighted, crypto or no.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-19/renter-nation-dead-single-family-housing-starts-permits-highest-2007
Could it be that investors are piling into SFR because MFR is dead?
Did Antifa derail the train in WA State yesterday?
https://www.infowars.com/anarchist-group-deletes-article-bragging-about-april-train-track-sabotage-near-monday-derailment/
Nothing to see here, folks…
Most likely a training hitting the 30 mph curve at 80 mph…
Was it a gay engineer texting like in Philly?
Apparently the train was doing 80 in a 30 zone.
If Antifa derailed it, I’m not sure what they are trying to accomplish. Washington is a blue state. It’s not like the train was loaded with Alt Right types.
Yup.
Now we need to once-again ask this question: How many more people have to die before we actually implement Positive Train Control?
No excuses for this one - it’s 100% human error. They ran test-runs of this train for months now without any issues, and yet this still happened.
I’m not saying we should ban all trains, but surely we can all agree that common sense train control is needed. Do trains really need the ability to go 80 MPH? I think not.
I once road on the Eurostar, it went over 180 mph
I once road on the Eurostar, it went over 180 mph
Yeah, that’s about the standard Chinese high speed train too. I will probably be on one around Christmas.
And then there’s the showpiece from the Shanghai airport that is supposed to run 250+mph iirc but they don’t usually run it that fast.
Recently rode a few trains, light rails, and subways in Taiwan, including the HIgh Speed Rail (HSR) between Kaohsiung and Taipei - clean, punctual, safe, and affordable. Pretty much the opposite of mass transit in ‘Muricah. Also no worries of violent gangs storming the trains to rob passengers like BART deals with occasionally
Get on the Trump Train.
The AVE high-speed train in Spain runs at over 300 k.p.h. in some stretches between Madrid and Barcelona. It was very comfortable and clean. Why we can’t have a high-speed train in Florida is a mystery to me. I’m going to be driving I-4 through Orlando tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it. Sometimes I think the people who oppose a train are the same people who travel by helicopter.
Sometimes I think the people who oppose a train are the same people who travel by helicopter.
Maybe. Didn’t the car industry do their best to kill passenger rail back in the day?
How are the (((master planners))) gonna get driver-less cars to work when they cant keep trains from crashing?
And as others have pointed out, public transportation only works in a homogeneous population that hasnt been infected by low-IQ ferals. That will never happen as long as (((scum))) are in charge of this country
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/07/09/bart-withholding-surveillance-videos-of-crime-to-avoid-stereotypes/
“To release these videos would create a high level of racially insensitive commentary toward the district,” she was told. “And in addition it would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains.”
“You can’t handle the truth!”
Question for you: Can you explain what this part of your memo means: “Furthermore, disproportionate elevation of crimes on transit interfaces with local media in such a way to unfairly affect and characterize riders of color,..”
These criminals are probably getting free Bart passes too.
Colin Flaherty YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEbta5E_jqlZmEJsriTEtnw
trying to accomplish
Antifa are domestic terrorists. Huffington Post and Salon are their public relations. And the Southern Poverty Law Center are their legal team.
This is the Alt-Left in a nutshell.
Wouldn’t it then have made more sense to derail a train in a red state?
Just saying that it might have been a case of incompetence.
“Apparently the train was doing 80 in a 30 zone.”
The Titanic’s maiden voyage was in a hurry too.
What happened to the environmentalists saving the trees in California?
”have artificially depressed property values and prevented black families from accumulating wealth in their property over the past half century.”
Eight years of obama + housing bubble = this sh*t
+++++++
‘Racist’ trees separating a black neighborhood from a golf course will come down
Atlanta Journal-Constitution | December 18, 2017 | Corinne S Kennedy
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Palm Springs will remove a row of trees blocking a historically African-American neighborhood from a city-owned golf course.
Many longtime residents of the neighborhood previously told the (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun they believed the trees were planted for racist reasons in the 1960s, and remained a lasting remnant of the history of segregation in the city. Residents said the invasive tamarisks, which block views of the Tahquitz Creek Golf Course and San Jacinto mountains, have artificially depressed property values and prevented black families from accumulating wealth in their property over the past half century.
Ready previously said estimates the city had received for removing the trees were about $169,000. Approval of expenditures more than $20,000 have to go to the city council for the thumbs up, and city officials also have to figure out where, in a city budget stretched thin by rising public safety costs and hundreds of millions of unfunded pension liabilities and retiree healthcare costs, that money will be allocated from.
These same people are gonna complain to high heaven when they start getting their windows broken by errant golf balls.
They will no doubt point out that the golf balls (and by extension, golfing) are racist because they’re. . . white. Then they’ll clamor to get some trees planted to shield themselves from the blatantly racist act of golfing, paid for (again) by . . . white folks.
In a similar vein, if the NFL continues to wallow as the fans tire footing the bill for criminals, are we going to see college football dry up and die too? Without the filthy lucre offered by the NFL the business case for sending dindus to college evaporates.
…or in the spirit of “fairness” start mandating affirmative action into athletics in addition to academics- every roster should have equal numbers of blacks, whites, latinos, asians, arabs, etc.
Not gonna happen with the Animal Farm politics we are living under. The ferals must be free to destroy in order to distract us from the crimes of (((others)))
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/crime/city-council-oks-bill-that-could-force-beer-deli-owners-to-remove-safety-windows-20171214.html
There are only a few solutions to this problem left.
If there wasn’t so much crime in those neighborhoods, there would be no need for such bullet-resistant barriers…
Also, this reminds me of LA and the Rodney King riots. In particular, this tension between Asian American business owners and the black community.
The golf course needs to find an endangered species that lives in the trees. Fight liberal insanity with a different liberal insanity.
LOL….remember when global warming, errrr climate change meant the end of snow? That was sooooo 2000s y’all. The new hotness is global warming, errr climate change is now causing TOO MUCH snow.
No snow, too much snow, drought, flood….Is there anything global warming can’t do?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/climate-change-driving-record-snows-alaskan-mountains-study-100623399.html
In the Great Lakes states, lake effect snow is caused by cold air blowing over warm water. The snow stops when the lake freezes. In a warm year, the lake doesn’t freeze until very late. So there is much more snow early in the season. So yes, global warming can cause more snow.
“… snow is caused by cold air blowing over warm water.
So if more snow falls on the land because the ocean is warmer then the oceans won’t rise after all, right?
LOL….like I said, global warming can cause more and less snow at the same time. No matter what happens that charlatan Al Gore will make more money selling his snake oil to the gullible Grubers out there. They will believe just about any progressive lies.
lake effect snow is caused by cold air blowing over warm water…
That’s not actually how it works. The air coming off the lake is warm and humid until the lake freezes over. The warm air meets cold ground and the moisture precipitates as snow.
The warm air meets cold ground and the moisture precipitates as snow.
Watch weather radar pictures of lake effect snow crossing either Lake Michigan or Lake Erie. The imagery of snow forming over the water long before the winds get to the shoreline is unmistakable.
Whenever the dew point and ambient temperatures are near equal you can expect rapidly changing and possibly dangerous conditions.
Whenever the dew point and ambient temperatures are near equal you can expect rapidly changing and possibly dangerous conditions. I once made a Christmas trip from a humid 60 degrees to a humid 25 degrees (over 12 hours). The gas line in my van froze up.
Bend(Southern Crossing), OR Housing Prices Crater 18% YOY
https://www.zillow.com/southern-crossing-bend-or/home-values/
Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
The Atlantic pearl-clutchers bemoan the lack of “progressive” totalitarian censorship of wrongthink on Twitter:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/12/the-trump-exception/548648/
Twitter, Facebook, Google hate hate hate freedom of speech, and if possible would ban freedom of thought.
Another cultural Marxist narrative from the UK Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/19/reckoning-with-a-culture-of-male-resentment-sexual-harassment
inflating stawk and home prices to get money in folks pockets to consume seems like a no brainer since 70% of the economy is buying stuff.
Straw bale houses, anyone?
https://newatlas.com/straw-bale-house-building/51942/
It certainly sounds good. I think they also have houses in AZ or NM made partially of used tires.
Me, I’m thinking of a tee-pee or yurt.
Ayup. I remember actor Dennis Weaver making a house with used tires way back in the late 1970s. Lots of gruntwork involved as you take a sledgehammer and pack dirt into the tires as they form the walls.
Was that near Ridgway, Colorado?
And now I have the theme to McCloud running through my head.
Isn’t dry straw highly flammable?
And, how can it be a great insulator but also “more breathable than other building materials” ?
Because tiny houses are so, like, yesterday’s newz.
Straw Bale Homes In San Diego Are Not Just For Three Little Pigs
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
By Claire Trageser
When you hear about a straw bale building, you might think of a big bad wolf huffing and puffing. But these houses are not just in fairy tales.
Builders in San Diego County are turning to straw bales as natural and energy efficient insulation.
One such builder, Rebecca Tasker, co-owns the green building company Simple Construct, and is currently working on a straw bale greenhouse for Coral Tree Farm, a nonprofit educational farm in Encinitas.
“The first time I saw a straw bale building I was like, I can do this, it’s like big fuzzy legos, you can just stick the legos together and you have a house,” Tasker said while showing off the building.
She said construction is fairly simple. She builds a foundation, then a frame for the straw bales.
“And then we stacked the straw bales, so it’s just like what you think, they just stack up in the wall,” she said.
…
I can see where they’d make great insulation.
BTW, how’re you and yours holding up out there? This fire situation really suxx. I don’t even live there and I’m very upset about it.
I would guess that they would catch fire quickly in a California conflagration.
There should be a concrete coating over the outside. Not good insulation if they get wet and moldy. There are some of this type of construction 100 years old I believe.
“I would guess that they would catch fire quickly”
Damn straight!
That is one combustible looking shack.
This must be where Straw bale homeowners shop for clothes.
https://www.carhartt.com/category/carhartt-flame-resistant
damn….. Donk would eat herself out of house and home…. literally.
OK, I admit I rather like oxy, but that’s just too funny right there, I don’t care who y’are.
The high end market is not dead in Greenwich. Yet.
https://www.christopherfountain.com/blog/2017/12/19/the-high-end-market-is-not-dead-not-at-all
Just out of curiosity, even if you had the money to afford it, would you want to live in a home like this? I confess, it would give me the stone cold willies. I’d be jumping at every little noise. The older I get, the steeper those stairs look. All I can think of is lying at the bottom moaning “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”. And check out that lawn, Jeebus! (you have to hit the link in the blogger’s comments) Who wants to mow all that?
Just gimme the pool house with the pool and I’m a happy camper.
So I decided to look up the most expensive house listed in Greenwich, Ct. Here it is:
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/521-Round-Hill-Rd_Greenwich_CT_06831_M33007-52821
Seriously? I think I hear those school bells a-ringin’.
It has 40 acres so I guess that’s where the price comes from. The house is kind of meh when compared to other multi-million dollar homes in the area.
Exactly. Looks like one of those old high schools to me. Plus they call the Round Hill area “Rogue’s Hill” now, on account of all the scam artists that live or used to live there.
People who can afford that house hire other people to mow the lawn.
“People who can afford that house hire other people to mow the lawn.”
People who can afford that house hire people who hire other people to mow the lawn.
The older I get, the steeper those stairs look. All I can think of is lying at the bottom moaning “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”.
If you can afford the house, then you can afford to install elevators, electric stairway chair systems, and hire flunkies to keep an eye on old folks to help whenever needed. While you’re at it, hire your own personal fire department, too.
Yes, but what a hassle and what an expense. A single level house is just fine for me. LOL, I got used to living single level when I moved to Florida in my yoot, I don’t think I could go back to staircases now.
Speaking of stairs, Hillary conquers the stairs!
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/image.jpeg
I used to have an aunt who required the same effort to ascend the stairs, I remember it well, the pushing and pulling and holding steady.
but what a hassle and what an expense.
A sufficient amount of personal wealth would make your “hassle” a trivial quibble. The rest of us have to rely on publicly funded fire departments and such…
“Worse yet, many of the condos developed on Ed Lee’s watch remain vacant while people sleep in tents on the city sidewalks.”
Let’s be fair here. If you were to take everyone sleeping on the sidewalk and put them in a luxury condo, San Francisco’s sidewalks would, within a few years, re-fill with people from elsewhere.
That’s where many of the homeless, poor, etc. of San Francisco (and New York) are from — elsewhere, in the U.S.
One thing I never get is why there are any homeless people in cold parts of the country. Just start walking south until you comfortable. If you gotta live outdoors 365 days a year, might as well be in nice weather, no?
Handouts, freebies, and do-gooders not as prevalent in the south.
Hence, Seattle. It’s not that cold, and has lots of liberal do-gooders who have taken the homeless-industrial complex to a whole . . . new . . . . level.
The Seattle Times did an amazing article on homelessness a few months ago, and they totalled up the spending (local, regional, federal) on the homeless in the greater Seattle area.
So what was the grand total?
About ONE HUNDRED NINETY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS per year.
And it’s still not enough!
Lots of young people on the street in NY are fleeing the South or Midwest, often running from domestic violence and sexual abuse, or being thrown out of the house because they find out they are gay.
The big difference here is the influx of native born white homeless young people.
‘Lots of young people on the street in NY are fleeing the South or Midwest, often running from domestic violence and sexual abuse, or being thrown out of the house because they find out they are gay.”
Pardon my French, but where the f*ck is the basis of this comment?
After 12 years of living in The South, I fond them to be much more tolerant of people than Yankees, especially coastal Yankees, where I also lived for quite a while.
The real bigots in this country are coastal white liberals, which is why I detest them so much.
We are getting into the low 20s at night these days… no homeless seen.
“Nevada buses hundreds of mentally ill patients to cities around country”
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.sacbee.com/news/investigations/nevada-patient-busing/article2577189.html
Second most expensive in Greenwich, CT. Yodle-ay-hee-hoo!
Whoops, forgot the link. In all fairness, it’s one of those equestrian estates.
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/404-Taconic-Rd_Greenwich_CT_06831_M41462-32803
Horse people = Big bucks
We got our share of horse people up here, from Ocala north. However, some are selling their large tracts of land to developers. Can’t do that in Greenwich. Well, I guess you could, and get five acre lots, but I don’t think they’d “pencil out” like they used to.
If only in my dreams
There’s now a chance for a White Christmas
By Jim Shay Updated 9:18 am, Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Image 83/83
Anthony Saltarelli and his dog Teddy in Old Greenwich, Conn. on Dec. 9, 2017
Image 81/83
First Congregational Church in Old Greenwich, Conn. on Dec. 9, 2017.
https://www.ctpost.com/weather/article/There-s-now-a-chance-for-a-White-Christmas-12443921.php
Thanks for the pics. Connecticut can be very pretty during the winter.
Schaumberg, IL Housing Prices Crater 9% YOY
https://www.zillow.com/schaumburg-il/home-values/
Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
House prices in London and the south-east will fall next year as the cautious mood that has gripped the property market in recent months continues into 2018, the body that represents surveyors and valuers has predicted.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said that lower prices were rippling out from central London and would spread to the capital’s outer suburbs and the home counties in the months ahead.
In a reversal of the UK’s traditional north-south pattern, RICS said only higher prices in areas where houses are more affordable – Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and northwest England – would prevent a nationwide drop in the cost of property in 2018.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/20/house-prices-to-fall-in-london-and-south-east-in-2018-say-surveyors
o and Uber is a taxi firm, well at least in the EU it is
Uber is a transport services company, the European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled, requiring it to accept stricter regulation and licensing within the EU as a taxi operator.
The decision in Luxembourg, after a challenge brought by taxi drivers in Barcelona, will apply across the whole of the EU, including the UK.
Uber had denied it was a transport company, arguing instead it is a computer services business with operations that should be subject to an EU directive governing e-commerce and prohibiting restrictions on the establishment of such organisations.
Lawyers for Barcelona’s Asociación Profesional Elite Taxi argued that Uber was directly involved in carrying passengers. EU rules on the freedom to provide services expressly exclude transport.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/20/uber-european-court-of-justice-ruling-barcelona-taxi-drivers-ecj-eu
I must be a relic, as I have never used Uber or Lyft. The last time I rode in a taxi was last year in Munich, to get to the airport.
if you are urban it’s cheaper than owning a car
insane cheap
but worth 60 billion
20 TV SHOW HOUSES YOU CAN ACTUALLY BUY, AND HOW MUCH THEY COST
By MATT MELTZER
Published On 12/29/2014
Roseanne
Where to find it: 619 South Runnymeade Avenue, Evansville, IN
Estimated price: $129,000
For the TV buff who may not have a lot of cash but is willing to live in Evansville, IN, the Connors’ old place sold for a measly $129,000 in 2012.
All in the Family
Where to find It: 89-70 Cooper Avenue, Queens, NY
Estimated price: $490,000
While Archie Bunker’s armchair actually sits in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, you can find his entire house — labeled on the show as 704 Hauser Street — located across from a cemetery in the Glendale/Middle Village section of Queens. Although, just so you know, in the show it’s supposed to be Astoria.
https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/real-tv-houses-and-how-much-the-cost
Lee sells all of his light coins
too funny
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/365748-rosie-odonnell-lashes-out-at-gop-senator-over-tax-bill-do-you-think
Where is the outrage at a rich person trying to buy influence in politics with their money?