Too Many Houses Standing Without Buyers
The Global News reports from Canada. “Global News obtained MLS sales data from several key Metro Vancouver markets and found the number of homes sold during the first two weeks of August in Greater Vancouver dropped by 85 per cent on average. Richmond experienced a 96 per cent drop in the number of sales and Burnaby North fell by 95 per cent. Vancouver’s West Side, West Vancouver, and Coquitlam also took major hits. East Vancouver’s Nina MacDonald echoes that belief telling Global News she hasn’t had any nibbles on her $1.28 million, 59-year-old bungalow on Napier Street that she’s owned for over 20 years. She’s even cancelled an upcoming open house because she felt like it would be pointless.”
“She initially wanted to sell because the real estate windfall would allow her to purchase a turnkey property and pay the down payment on houses for her grandchildren. ‘I went from having a phone call every day [from realtors] to not having any,’ she said.”
Bloomberg on China. “Chinese policymakers have resorted to traditional levers to juice the economy this year: investment, public-sector spending, and monetary expansion. But there are growing signs the property market has slowed down, while imbalances in the sector are growing, according to analysts.”
“Bloomberg Intelligence analysts suggest policy makers face significant headwinds in addressing imbalances in the sector in the months ahead. ‘China’s property sector may deliver the worst of both worlds: a speculative top tier that churns existing apartments without generating new construction, and moribund second and third tiers that leave the market swamped in unsold apartments.’”
The Korea JoonAng Daily. “By 2019, the property market is expected to face an oversupply of up to 670,000 residential units. Budongsan 114, a real estate information provider, estimates market supply in the next three years will total 1.65 million residential units. However, the government says demand will only reach 1.16 million units.”
“‘The aftermath in areas where there has been huge interest by potential homebuyers due to favorable factors [that help apartment values rise after purchase] such as KTX and industrial development will be severe if the population moving in the area doesn’t meet its potential [resulting in a large number of unsold apartments],’ said Kwon Dae-joong, a real estate professor at Myongji University.”
From Leadership Nigeria. “The fact that no economy can develop without a successful private sector has made the lingering glut in the nation’s property market more worrisome. The bleak outlook of the housing sector has further threatened the survival of the businesses of housing developers and realtors in the country. The nation’s two distinct arms of private sector are in business either to make money by adding value to the country’s economy or to make money at the expense of the society have been churning out housing units in different parts of the country.”
“In highbrow areas in Lagos like Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki which over the years has been the toast of the super-rich and choice areas for expatriates most properties there now carry the ‘to-let’ or ‘for sale’ tag and the tag has been on them for months or years with one asking questions about the properties. Beyond Lagos, Abuja the nation’s Capital Territory is not exempted from the glut. Although it is often described as one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, most of the houses and estates in high-brow areas like Asokoro, Gwarinpa, Maitama, , Wuse II, Utako, Katampe districts are unoccupied years after completion as a result of the high cost of renting or leasing.”
“LEADERSHIP checks showed that houses and estates in Gaduwa, Apo, Dei-Dei, Gwarimpa, Lugbe, Kubwa, Gudu, Life Camp, are also in economic limbo as a result of no buyers or renters. Not amused by the bleakness portended by the prevailing situation, the chief executive officer, FESADEB Communications Limited, Festus Adebayo said most of those who built the estates not occupied in Abuja particularly are looking for buyers, but cannot get buyers.”
“Adebayo reasoned that, ‘they cannot get buyers apparently because the houses are not affordable; obviously, the purchasing power has gone down. When a two-bedroom apartment is put at N14 million, how can it be affordable, and even when you are asked to pay 20 per cent or 30 per cent of the amount, it is still not easy for many people to afford.’”
“‘The danger is this; these too many houses that are standing without buyers due to lack of purchasing power, the prices of houses may crash. According to simple law of economics, when the supply is high and demand is low, prices will be forced to crash. Some of the owners of those estates that are not being occupied got the money from somewhere.’”
“‘I must be very candid, it is not all of them that are public treasury looters, and some got the money from banks, so they cannot continue to hold the banks’ money, considering the high interest rate while the houses are standing. So, I foresee prices coming down.’”
‘In highbrow areas in Lagos like Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki which over the years has been the toast of the super-rich and choice areas for expatriates most properties there now carry the ‘to-let’ or ‘for sale’ tag and the tag has been on them for months or years with one asking questions about the properties’
This was the world’s most expensive housing market in 2014. I recently posted an article with a guy saying buyers used to snap up 10 luxury units and not bother to rent them out. Boy, no one could see this crash coming. From the Canada report:
‘News of the foreign buyer tax has spread to China, where Chinese real estate website Juwai now promotes other Canadian cities as foreign capital destinations. The website used to promote Vancouver as one of the best places for wealthy Chinese to invest, but has now switched to publicizing Calgary and Alberta due to the tax.’
“According to the National Bank of Canada, Chinese buyers [are] estimated to have bought up one third of Vancouver homes in 2015 … However, a recently imposed 15 per cent foreign buyer tax in British Columbia to cool the soaring housing prices in Vancouver may turn the tide, causing Chinese property investors to search for better options elsewhere in Canada,” the company wrote online in a blog post.’
‘Juwai says Calgary offers “better value for money when compared with the inflated housing prices in Vancouver.”
These are houses you fools, not stocks or bonds. The whole problem is people all over the world are gambling on something that should be as boring and ordinary as used cars. There shouldn’t be TV shows on flipping houses. This is mass insanity. Wake the heck up governments!!
“The whole problem is people all over the world are gambling on something that should be as boring and ordinary as used cars.”
Houses are a far wilder gamble than cars, as capital losses on a car are limited to the sticker price. By contrast, thanks to crazy levels of leverage, a small percentage decline in the price of a home can generate a capital loss in excess of the price of a car.
Easily offsetting the price of a car. Maybe in my case, by factoring in my PITI and maintenance on six years of house payments more than double the rent I was paying before that house, my losses could have bought me two cars!
Renting is freedom.
And those who already bought houses are going to see the values drop. This is what happens when something is so good that everyone is doing it. The government puts a stop to profiting.
For many years I had a tax break that effectively set my state and federal income tax combined to somewhere less than 15% on $150,000 or more.
But I did not explain my tax break details for fear it would be used more often.
You keep quiet about a good thing so that it can continue.
Maybe the Chinese will buy up Yuma, Arizona?
Only if they can somehow be imbued with an insatiable hunger for lettuce.
In highbrow areas in Lagos like Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki
Who pays top dollar for a mansion in Lagos, Nigeria? The place is the definition of sh!thole.
It’s going to get really ugly when the global real estate investing craze that drove prices to bubble peaks in pretty much every country where houses are built and sold gives way to widespread panic in the face of price declines.
The cracks in the dam are clearly visible and leaking.
The precipitous decline in public morality for the past generation, best evidenced by the readiness of tens of millions of morally bankrupt idiots to vote for a collectivist kleptocrat sociopath and serial influence peddler, Hillary Clinton, is going to lead to tens of millions of people shirking their debts and financial obligations and walking away from their underwater houses. That means the banksters who own the Republicrat duopoly will scream for another bailout, but this time around the Fed has already expended its ammunition. While the voters are even more docile and stupid than they were in 2008, the shrunken tax base reflects eight years of our Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs “recovery” and is not up to the task of bailing out the TBTF banks. This is going to get ugly.
“That means the banksters who own the Republicrat duopoly will scream for another bailout, but this time around the Fed has already expended its ammunition.”
What’s the real constraint on the use of the electronic printing press? For example, suppose $4 trillion is needed to buy up bad debt in the aftermath of a burst bubble. The Fed ‘expands its balance sheet’ by that amount and snaps up all the bad debt that otherwise would have bankrupt a bevy of systemically risky firms, and buries the toxic assets that it purchased at above-market price on its balance sheet forever. No inflation was created, as the money never went into circulation (or did it!?). And no economic harm resulted from bankruptcy of systemically risky firms.
Where’s the downside? And what’s to prevent this same scenario from playing out once every few years?
Apparently not everyone sees the pure upside to our housing finance system of periodic bailouts and taxpayer-provided government guarantees.
Housing in America
Nightmare on Main Street
America’s housing system was at the centre of the last crisis. It has still not been properly reformed
Aug 20th 2016 | From the print edition
Timekeeper
WHAT are the most dysfunctional parts of the global financial system? China’s banking industry, you might say, with its great wall of bad debts and state-sponsored cronyism. Or the euro zone’s taped-together single currency, which stretches across 19 different countries, each with its own debts and frail financial firms. Both are worrying. But if sheer size is your yardstick, nothing beats America’s housing market.
It is the world’s largest asset class, worth $26 trillion, more than America’s stockmarket. The slab of mortgage debt lurking beneath it is the planet’s biggest concentration of financial risk. When house prices started tumbling in the summer of 2006, a chain reaction led to a global crisis in 2008-09. A decade on, the presumption is that the mortgage-debt monster has been tamed. In fact, vast, nationalised, unprofitable and undercapitalised, it remains a menace to the world’s biggest economy.
The reason the danger passes almost unnoticed is that, at first sight, the housing market has been improving. Prices in America have crept back up towards their all-time high. As a result, the proportion of households with mortgage debts greater than the value of their property has dropped from a quarter to under a tenth. In addition, while Europe has dithered, America has cleaned up its banks. They have $1.2 trillion of core capital, more than double the amount in 2007, which acts as a buffer against losses. The banks have cut risk and costs and raised fees in order to grind out decent profits. Bosses and regulators point to chastened lenders and boast that the problem of banks “too big to fail” has been solved. Taxpayers, they say, are safe.
Only in their dreams. That trillion-dollar capital buffer exists to protect banks, but much risk lies elsewhere. That is because, since the 1980s, mortgage lending in America has been mainly the job of the bond market, not the banks as in many other countries. Loans are bundled into bonds, guaranteed and sold around the world. Investors on Wall Street, in Beijing and elsewhere own $7 trillion-worth.
When those investors panicked in 2008, the government stepped in and took over the bits of the mortgage-guarantee apparatus it did not already control. It was a temporary solution, but political gridlock has made it permanent. Now 65-80% of new mortgages are stamped with a guarantee from Uncle Sam that protects investors from the risk that homeowners default. In the heartland of free enterprise the mortgage system is worthy of Gosplan.
The guarantees mean there is unlikely to be a repeat of the global panic that took place in 2008-09, when investors feared that housing bonds were about to default. Only a madman in the White House would think that America gained from reneging on its promises. And parts of the system are indeed safer. The baroque derivatives that caused huge damage, such as mortgage-based CDOs, have shrivelled away. At least 10,000 pages of new rules exist to police reckless conduct.
The dangers of a nationalised system are more insidious (see article). The size, design and availability of mortgages is now decided by official fiat. Partly because the state charges too little for the guarantees it offers, taxpayers are subsidising housing borrowers to the tune of up to $150 billion a year, or 1% of GDP. Since the government mortgage machine need not make a profit or have safety buffers, well-run private firms cannot compete, so many banks have withdrawn from making mortgages. If there is another crisis the taxpayer will still have to foot the bill, which could be 2-4% of GDP, not far off the cost of the 2008-09 bank bail-out.
Faced with this gigantic muddle, many politicians and regulators just shrug. The system is mad, but the thicket of rules and vigilant regulators will prevent crazy lending from taking place, they argue. Households have deleveraged, leaving them able to service their debts more efficiently.
That seems wildly optimistic.
…
‘It’s going to get really ugly when…’
When? I remember when a single crack would generate enormous news attention. Like when I found an obscure article about a Miami condo reverting to apartments. Two days later it was a blaring report from the New York Times. Now similar things are happening all over the world and it hardly gets noticed.
Let me talk about ugly. Yesterday I was driving and listened to a show about online ruptures over politics. It isn’t just in the US, it’s global. The masses know something is wrong. Look at you guys here. At each others throats over an election we have almost no control over. Practically no one hears your angry never ending arguments. Yet you go on and on. I’ve tried to make it clear arguing on the internet is stupid, but you can’t control yourselves. I say that signifies something. We are all caught up in a global angst and squirming that looks like it is coming to a head. The housing markets are blowing up left and right. And on the HBB I see you guys ripping into each other over polls! WTF?
Look at yourselves. Consider your emotions. What you are getting you blood pressure up about isn’t rational. Many millions around the world are in a similar state. Think about what that means.
Sobering dispatch right there.
But it’s a kind of non-sensible dispatch. I can’t figure out what Ben is trying to say.
My best rough translation is
We’re effed.
The media is hiding stories to show us we’re effed.
The electoral system makes sure we continued to be effed.
HBB knows we’re effed,
But HBB is complaining about polls,
Which the wrong thing to complain about.
Because HBB has no control over the effing electoral system.
So, are we supposed to suffer our effness in silence? Start a movement like Bernie Sanders did? Target our complaints toward the root of the problem, which is globalism?
From what I can tell, the people ARE waking up to globalism. It was proved by Brexit, the opposition to the TPP, the rise of Trump, country of origin labeling on some foods, and even Wal-Mart’s made-in-America PR campaign. So maybe we’re already seeing a movement.
lol@donk.
Now similar things are happening all over the world and it hardly gets noticed.
I think it’s getting noticed, but any news that conflicts with the Oligopoly’s Narrative is not going to get printed or “noticed” in the MSM. The Narrative says we are seeing a robust recovery, thanks to The Great and Mighty Oz at the Fed. Any inconvenient truth that belies this sanguine official and corporate view is going to get buried or consigned to the memory hole. And when our financial house of cards comes crashing down, these same truth-makers will lament in unison: Nobody saw it coming.
Thanks, Ben. I personally skip all comments not housing related. One prolific poster in particular is easily skipped over. Some of the persistently wacko stuff does discourage recommendation of the blog. I’ve been in the UK three weeks - the building around london city airport is insane. News stories fairly often but nothing different enough to post.
The non-housing off topic posts are easily obscured by our good friend drumminj’s app the JT extension.
People always want someone to blame.
‘discourage recommendation of the blog’
I don’t care if anyone recommends this blog. It has evolved into a chronicle of this mania, and all the related things. When I first started it, I didn’t have comments. It didn’t seem necessary. Someone talked me into allowing it and about 3 months in I started to get some really nasty comments. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had no idea even one person could get upset because I was saying there was a housing bubble. Turned out, it was much bigger and more devastating than I imagined.
I kept those early negative comments. I figured it told us something; social mood, that kind of thing. It foretold what we were going to experience years later. What I’m saying is this mood - the mood many of you reading this are exemplifying right now, is telling us something too. I don’t know exactly what it means. But I also heard a guy saying it’s global. Like with the Brexit vote. There are common references to an anti-establishment, or populist impulse. I think it’s interesting the huge amounts of references to “elites”, like we live in the 16th century.
If I had to guess, I’d say the failure of globalism is the root of it. And as we’ve discussed many times, these bubbles may have been to mask the negative effects of globalism. Now we have even Chinese FB’s wailing here and there. Even the so-called winners of globalism aren’t happy as a group.
“Now we have even Chinese FB’s wailing here and there.”
They are yelling and screaming in my neighbors’ case.
The anger can usually be traced to economic hardship. I remember back when I started commenting online about the bubble at your site and others, 2005 I think. The moment people realize that their financial house of cards is crumbling, they lash out at anyone and everyone who is only stating the obvious. The level of anger can be quite disturbing. There is usually little personal accountability with these types.
Just try to interrupt the relentless patting of backs going on by the landlords/realtors on City-data (Las Vegas) re: “the housing market recovery” and see what you get. The explosion of anger is such that if those people could hunt you down they’d shoot you without a second thought. Sometimes your contradictory info or article is simply deleted.
Heh heh. I remember the troll sposedly living in Carmel.
“At each others throats over an election we have almost no control over.”
I think you nailed it. How did we end up with two candidates who both rank among the least popular in history? America’s two-party political system is a prisoner’s dilemma game that ends in Nash revulsion.
‘two candidates who both rank among the least popular in history’
It’s telling. The list is endless; we’re told how rich we are, when a record number of people are spending a record amount on rents in the midst of the biggest apartment construction boom in 40 years. I know Californians don’t like to hear it, but you have the most expensive house prices matched by the highest poverty rate in the country. And that poverty is driven largely by the cost of housing!
There is discontent. We know something isn’t right. We are not accepting the answers we are being given by the “elites”. There have been waves of (call it) populism throughout history. We’re in one right now and it’s global. I don’t think it’s a coincidence it is happening near these bubbles and the greatest money creation in human history. It’s all linked, IMO. It’s so big I find it difficult to step back far enough to take it in. It’s one of those things that an outside observer could see more clearly because he or she isn’t involved in it.
“…a record number of people are spending a record amount on rents in the midst of the biggest apartment construction boom in 40 years.”
Having one of our kids just graduate from college after sharing an off-campus two-bedroom apartment with two roommates with a combined rent exceeding our rent on a four br home in SD, we were recently on the receiving end of this scam.
The younger generation is typically the most screwed by cleptocratic schemes.
The moment of clarity I had was when I read that 60% of Americans don’t even have $500 in savings to cover an emergency expense. Up until I read that I had no idea that many people lived so close to the edge of financial ruin. Someone in the family loses a job or their car breaks down, that’s it; they’re done.
I’ll bet none of the “elites” that speak of how well the economy is doing and how prosperous the country is have a problem coving a $500 emergency expense. Yet the majority of the population do. So why should we accept the answers given by the “elites”?
The term “elites” is impossibly annoying. Even more disgusting is that they were self-anointed as such.
I propose calling them the “deletes,” because they should all be deleted from their jobs at the bare minimum. Some deserve a much worse fate, but I digress…
The younger generation is typically the most screwed by cleptocratic schemes.
This society has allowed business and government to prey on the young. That is like “eating one’s seed corn.”
Stay right on it Jonesy. There are real resources dedicated to shutdown or divert from the discussion and it’s deliberate.
Remember “Never agrue with an idiot, people may not be able to tell the difference.”
“agrue”
Agree or argue? Hard to tell from your speling.
Remember….
Buy a house today and face a lifetime of incalculable losses.
Breckenridge looks to vacant office spaces for potential housing
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/19/breckenridge-vacant-office-spaces-potential-housing/
I met someone in Leadville recently who commutes over the pass to Frisco every day because Summit County is so unaffordable for people who work there, LOLZ.
The sheeple vote for a plutocracy, then scratch their throbbing lobotomy scars and wonder why they keep slipping further down the socioeconomic scale.
http://www.businessinsider.com/national-housing-federation-uk-private-rental-prices-housing-shortage-low-income-2016-8
The world’s most expensive house hits the market, yet Yellen the Felon and her fellow Keynesian fraudsters see no bubble.
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/property/701988/most-expensive-home-in-the-world-goes-on-sale-saint-jean-cap-ferrat-south-of-france
The implications of the spread of Zika could be profound. What woman of child-bearing age is going to want to live in a zone where she has to risk giving birth to a lifetime Democrat dependency voter?
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/florida-governor-confirms-zika-transmission-miami-beach-164347828.html
Hope n’ change comes to the marginalized rural areas where economic distress is leading to hopelessness and blighted lives. Forward!
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-west-virginia-overdoses-20160817-snap-story.html
Meanwhile, America’s longest war continues. How many perpetual, ruinously costly wars will Neocon Queen Hillary get us into?
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/taliban-seizes-khanabad-afghanistan-kunduz-160820074048659.html
Let’s fire all the truckers. Of course these self-driving trucks won’t stop to help ladies change their tires, or spend money at highway restaurants, and we’ll have a new class of unemployed to support, but hey, the trucking company CEOs can pay themselves bigger bonuses and stock options!
http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-otto-self-driving-truck-technology-miracle-2016-8
Can these trucks change their own tires when the have a flat? I guess there will be increased business for the AAA guys.
Here is another scenario that crossed my mind: some years ago a colleague moved from San Diego to Windsor, CO. It was a company move and HP payed for professional movers.
So, the trailer that had all his stuff in it caught fire (a brake malfunction). The driver saw the flames in his mirrors, pulled over, detached the trailer and pulled away. The trailer burned to the ground.
Would a self driving truck do that, or would it just keep going?
On the other hand, drunk driving or amphetamine use shouldn’t be a problem with self-driving trucks. They may be safer overall than trucks with drivers.
The population may also be willing to put up with less safety to have cheaper food on the shelves of their supermarkets. The number of traffic fatalities had to be much lower before cars and trucks replaced horses.
They may be safer overall than trucks with drivers.
That’s a big maybe. What we do know is that they will be consistent, which means that undetected programming bugs will be present in all of them.
Given how buggy computers, tablets and smartphones are, I am stymied by the faith some people have in the computers that control self driving cars. Especially that guy in the Tesla that plowed into a semi.
But my original question stands. How well will self driving trucks handle the unexpected? I could see a self driving truck in flames, while the computer happily continues to drive, causing mayhem on the road.
“The population may also be willing to put up with less safety to have cheaper food on the shelves of their supermarkets.”
Hahahahahaha!!! You mean you’re thinking that the savings are going into the customers’ pockets?!! Hey, we’ve got a live one here!
Don’t be silly, all of those “savings” are going right into corporate bonuses and shareholder value.
I don’t see these self-driving trucks working too well when the roads are icy. I’ve seen truckers pull over to put chains on the wheels. Self-driver trucks can’t do that.
The article says that the self-driving truck is mainly an autopilot to allow the driver to sleep on the road, saving some time and increasing safety. So there’s a still a driver, but it’s not clear if/how they are paying him when he sleeps. The driver is needed to back into a loading dock and — more importantly — sign off on the paperwork that the load was delivered complete and undamaged.
So these self-drivers might only be useful on long straight stretches of road in good whether. At that point, we may as well put the effort into expanding the existing freight rail system directly into the warehouses and eliminating most of the long-distance trucking altogether. But that’s not very sexy now, is it.
Hey Donk.
Do these things pump their own fuel, too?
I was privy to a briefing by some university researchers in Australia who had automated the driving of the giant mining trucks they use - the kind with tire diameters of something like 10′ or more. They said they were surprised to find how much they saved in fuel costs but optimizing scheduling/routes as well is in wear and tear of things like the tires - which are astronomical in cost. This was over a decade ago, and I thought places like the port of Los Angeles would really benefit from this, but knowing how corrupt things are, it would. never. happen. USSA for the win!
U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-army-fudged-accounts-trillions-dollars-auditor-finds-150803338–finance.html
Trillions of dollars?
Just for the army? In one year?
The entire defense department budget for 2015 was about $600 billion
A crusade isn’t cheap… even in the 21st.
BTW, this current one is all on Dubya.
Real journalist: “One older man delivered a punch to the side of a protester and received several in return.”
Obviously not a Real journalist: “Trump supporters were forced to run a “gauntlet,” with many, including elderly women, being punched and pelted with garbage.”
VIDEO: Agitators bang on doors at Trump fundraiser, punch attendees in ‘gauntlet’
August 20, 2016
By Kyle Olson
Leftist agitators employed fascist tactics at a Donald Trump fundraiser in Minneapolis on Friday night.
Video shows protesters banging on the doors of the Minneapolis Convention Center where Trump was speaking to attendees.
When the event concluded, Trump supporters were forced to run a “gauntlet,” with many, including elderly women, being punched and pelted with garbage.
Here’s video posted by Renee Jones Schneider, a photographer for the Star Tribune:
http://theamericanmirror.com/ - 77k -
And now a Real journalist
Donald Trump holds a private fundraiser in his first visit to Minnesota
By Rachel E. Stassen-Berger | rstassen-berger@pioneerpress.com and Jaime DeLage | jdelage@pioneerpress.com
PUBLISHED: August 19, 2016 at 8:54 pm | UPDATED: August 19, 2016 at 11:22 pm
With occasionally loud protests outside the Minneapolis Convention Center, Donald Trump brought a private message to several hundred high-dollar Minnesota donors on Friday evening.
In Minnesota, about 100 protesters stood in the shelter of the convention center portico carrying “Dump Trump” signs and chanting. As donors arrived for the event in the light rain, protesters swarmed and shouted, forcing attendees to push their way to the doors under the protection of security staff. At times, the protestors banged on the glass doors of the convention center causing echoes inside.
While most of the pre-event protesters were loud but peaceful, some of the protesters who remained to harass people leaving the event were more aggressive. Trump supporters leaving the fundraiser faced angry crowds that pressed against them and shouted insults. One older man delivered a punch to the side of a protester and received several in return. Many of the most animated protesters shouted anti-American slogans, and a group burned an American flag.
Soros must’ve written some big checks lately.
I completely renovated my secret lair with my check!
Thanks, George!
Russ
I don’t think Mighty is going to give up his paying gig here so perhaps you could approach his people with a …
WILL POST FOR FOOD
campaign
“Soros must’ve written some big checks lately.”
Going global.
Last week Trump had a rally in Connecticut. Yesterday it was Minneapolis. In a few days it will probably be San Francisco. After all, California has the greatest number of electoral votes.
It’s called, Winning!
All he has to do is hop on his own private plane (thing is his travel is paid by the campaign…he’s probably making money on that deal) spout nonsense for half an hour in front of large crowds…dominate news cycle and Clinton and her minions have no freaking clue how to react except continue to raise money from saudi arabia and spend on useless tv ads.
You’re partially right about that. The important thing that you missed was that his domination has not been working out well for him. That’s why he felt the need to issue a vague apology.
It’s working out perfectly. Either way he’s in the noos. The people at pravda can’t get enough of him. They think it’s hurting him…they have no freakin’ clue.
‘his domination has not been working out well for him’
See how caught up in this you are. How many minutes today will you spend thinking about Trump? I noticed yesterday your comments were particularly angry. Why? You aren’t changing anything about all this. Right now you can go to any internet comment thread and it will be stuff just like this. The article can be on canning peaches and the comments will devolve into exactly this same stuff. I find it incredibly bizarre.
I took a quick look at the 23 comments that I made yesterday. The words don’t appear to express much anger, even after I was accused of being a “George Sorass paid lackey.” If I were go over yesterday’s comments in detail, I could probably identify at least half a dozen people who expressed much more anger than I did.
Regarding the amount of time that I spend thinking about Trump - it’s due to the fact that I read the news daily and he’s in the news a lot. His popularity is also part of the phenomenon that some people call American Exceptionalism, which is something that I’m interested in. The attitude of Trump fans towards the polls is also part of that phenomenon.
Donald Trump Says He Doesn’t Believe in “American Exceptionalism”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/donald-trump-american-exceptionalism
AE is neocon code for empire, policing the world, etc.
“I took a quick look at the 23 comments that I made yesterday. The words don’t appear to express much anger, even after I was accused of”… Blah blah blah
Hey Mighty
Did the same people who wrote the Hillary server excuses and the Eric Holder Project Gunrunner executive privilege “not a smidgen” Lois Lerner dog ate my email Johnathan Gruber etc. excuses write those 2 paragraphs for you?
Cause it sure sounds like it.
‘Donald Trump says he Doesn’t Belive in “American exceptional ism.”‘
Yet he wants Edward Snowden executed.
He is on record of saying he will renew the “patriot act.” He also backs the surveillance state.
Is he going to end TSA. DHS?
He could if he wants to if he is elected.
He does not want to. So much for his not believing in “American Exceptionalsm”
Then don’t vote for him. I just posted that because Mike mentioned it.
Did the same people who wrote the Hillary server excuses and the Eric Holder Project Gunrunner executive privilege “not a smidgen” Lois Lerner dog ate my email Johnathan Gruber etc. excuses write those 2 paragraphs for you?
Where do you come up with this nonsense?
Also, you’re trapped in the past with this Lois Lerner stuff. Obama’s almost gone. Isn’t there something new? Doesn’t Hillary have people like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers around her?
Irrelevant.
Then don’t vote for him.
If I am not mistaken, Bill is on record for not voting at all.
“I took a quick look at the 23 comments that I made yesterday. The words don’t appear to express much anger,”
Anger? No.
Your words as usual are of the instigator ankle biter variety.
Comment by MightyMike
2016-08-19 09:06:12
It’s just another lie.
Comment by MightyMike
2016-08-19 13:15:16
So you think that at least 2% of British voters were voting again President Obama? That sounds highly unlikely.
Comment by MightyMike
2016-08-19 08:54:45
You need to define who the “let the freedom ring” crowd are.
Comment by MightyMike
2016-08-19 11:39:23
Yeah, I think that the theme song to Sean Hannity’s radio show is a country song in which “let freedom ring” is repeated a few times.
Comment by MightyMike
2016-08-19 13:19:02
Ah more wishful thinking….LOL
Yeah, the polls are all BS. Not even Rasmussen can be trusted this time around. Then when Trump loses badly, it will be because the election is rigged.
Comment by MightyMike
2016-08-19 16:09:12
So you agree, corps media hides bad stuff from dems?
No, the right wing crackpot media makes up lies.
“The article can be on canning peaches and the comments will devolve into exactly this same stuff.”
We’ve been told that everything is political for so long, is it any wonder people believe it?
Every action is politicized, and thereby open to vehement criticism from people who disagree. Because you’re not just canning peaches. You’re taking a stand against GMOs, monopoly supermarkets, conventional gender roles and high fructose corn syrup. Or do you want your kids to eat processed canned fruit?? Even Hitler wasn’t that evil.
What started out as a combination of feel-good marketing (”you are what you eat”, “your energy star washing machine is saving the earth”) and a get-out-the-vote effort (”everyone who doesn’t agree with you is stupid and evil and dangerous”) has turned pervasive, dark and ugly. And now the people in power are scared of the monster they created because it’s turning on them and itself.
American Exceptionalism has a few different meanings. I have may not be using the term the way that it is most often used. I was referring to the ways that America is different from other developed Western countries. The most important part of that is the way that big business runs the country with less interference than in other countries.
Final scene from the 2011 cult classic “God Bless America”:
“My name is Frank. That’s not important. The important question is: who are you? America has become a cruel and vicious place. We reward the shallowest, the dumbest, the meanest and the loudest. We no longer have any common sense of decency. No sense of shame. There is no right and wrong. The worst qualities in people are looked up to and celebrated. Lying and spreading fear is fine as long as you make money doing it. We’ve become a nation of slogan-saying, bile-spewing hatemongers. We’ve lost our kindness. We’ve lost our soul. What have we become? We take the weakest in our society, we hold them up to be ridiculed, laughed at for our sport and entertainment. Laughed at to the point, where they would literally rather kill themselves than live with us anymore.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPhkI77K8uQ
Winning in your mind only counts in your personal fantasy.
BVM (Black Votes Matter)
The Fix
It’s hard to imagine a much worse pitch Donald Trump could have made for the black vote
By Philip Bump August 20 at 8:00 AM
At a rally Friday night in Dimondale, Mich., Donald Trump repeated a version of a plea to black voters that he had offered 24 hours earlier in North Carolina.
“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton’s policies than African Americans,” he said, apparently pointing to individuals in the crowd. “No group. No group. If Hillary Clinton’s goal was to inflict pain to the African American community, she could not have done a better job. It is a disgrace.”
“Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime, number one,” he said from a city 90 minutes away from Detroit with a population that is 93 percent white. “This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by crooked Hillary Clinton.”
…
You guys are missing the elephant in the room. What is The Donald doing holding fundraisers at all? I thought that he didn’t *need* money because he had plenty of his own. That he could self-fund his campaign and not be beholden to ANY donors.
In fact, he made it a major plank in his personal platform a year ago, and was a big part of the reason he attracted so many primary votes in the beginning. If people know that he was going to beg for donations, like every other politician, Trump may never have survived New Hampshire, and we might be discussing Clinton vs. Cruz.
But now he’s holding fundraisers, and changing his campaign staff at the bidding of his Mercer donors. This alone is a major departure from his original appeal.
“What is The Donald doing holding fundraisers at all? I thought that he didn’t *need* money because he had plenty of his own.”
That is correct. He is just like a wealthy Chinese real estate investor who didn’t *need* money to make their all-cash investment purchase of a California McMansion.
Cash is king!
How do you ‘hide’ that cash. It seems like anyone with cash is subject to very high costs (hospitals etc. when insurance won’t pay). Where those without insurance ‘get it done’ for free. You can be ‘dead broke’ in a matter of months no matter how much you have. So, again, where can you hide it. Real estate does work. Where else?
Concealing worth to avoid paying for a service you receive is the end result of government fixing and rigging the price of medical services at grossly inflated levels.
And it’s also illegal.
See how government interference in housing and medical destroys demand and collapses employment?
Brokerage account, t bills and mattress.
Simple. Cash in hand, not in the bank. Only have traceable assets which are protected from medical bankruptcy. Go “naked” without coverage, period, paying the Obamacare penalty if necessary. Fight fire with FIRE.
FBI Probes Firm Belonging To Brother Of Clinton Campaign Chair For Ukraine Corruption Ties
Isn’t it amazing how both the Clinton and Trump campaigns could simultaneously have Ukraine corruption ties? What a coincidence!
It’s amazing considering Trump has never held office nor had any political power for pay to play.
That Trump never voted to go to war in Iraq or bombing of a single muslim country.
But to progressives and liberals they are both same…why even talk about it?
You sure did forget about Manager’s Ukraine ties in a hurry.
Manafort (dang cell-phone autocorrect!)
That Trump never voted to go to war in Iraq or bombing of a single muslim country.
That’s true of 99.99% of the American population.
[raymond kessel] No, you DID vote for the war in Iraq because you’re one of the 95% of the electorate who are sheeple and bent over to voted for the Republicrat Duopoly. So it’s all your fault [/Kessel]
Nice job channeling me. The real issue is, where do we go from here? Either we continue down the disastrous road the neocons have been taking us since 9/11, or we have a fundamental rethink of who we are as a nation and how we are going to engage with the world.
Hillary is an arch-neocon with a string of disastrous foreign policy fiascos on her watch, most notably Libya. Trump has called for an “America first” foreign policy instead of globalism, but his propensity for antagonizing and alienating entire categories of people - Muslims, Mexicans, etc. - and inflammatory comments and erratic behavior do not inspire confidence in his character or judgement. The world is a dangerous place, and we desperately need a statesman in the White House who will avoid “needless foreign entanglements,” per George Washington, while also being strong enough to deter potential aggressors. Unfortunately, once again we have a choice between ghastly and appalling. I may sit out this election, as I certainly can’t vote for Hillary but Trump is a deeply flawed candidate and human being.
I agree with the idea of putting a reincarnated George Washington into the WH. What he accomplished on both the world stage and in his personal sphere was amazing. (Albeit he had the help of LOTS of slaves around Mount Vernon.)
“Isn’t it amazing how both the Clinton and Trump campaigns could simultaneously have Ukraine corruption ties? What a coincidence!”
Money talks, BS walks.
It seems crazy that both the Trump and Clinton campaigns have suspect ties to Ukraine. Seems like another example of how little choice there really is between the two candidates.
FBI probing possible U.S. ties to corruption by former Ukraine president -CNN
by Reuters
Friday, 19 August 2016 22:53 GMT
…
Lowell George & Linda Ronstadt, - Willin’ - Live 1975 WHFS FM …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fTPQ0fVeN8 - 297k -
No dogs up here, just goats:
http://imgur.com/a/85ukn
Goats are cool.
Mikey has an unwholesome fondness for goats.
President Obama Violated The Law With His Ransom Payment To Iran
Silly prole. The law only applies to the likes of you and me.
Bay Area housing costs force high school students into 70-mile commutes
Three hours before her 8 a.m. classes begin, senior Mya Shiloh is already on her way to San Jose’s Lincoln High, nestled into her favorite seat on the morning’s first ACE commuter train and trying to grab a few winks after waking up at 4 a.m. at her home in Tracy.
She’ll be back on the train by 3:30 p.m., and home more than 12 hours after she left. Her schedule cuts into activities she loves, including school clubs and drama, as well as socializing and sleep — but it’s the price she’s chosen to pay to stay in her beloved high school after rent hikes priced her family out of San Jose.
Mya, 17, is among thousands of schoolchildren who have been uprooted by the Bay Area’s high housing costs, and one of a small but growing number who embark on long daily commutes this month as they go back to school.
A tight and astronomically expensive housing market is forcing families to face wrenching choices: to uproot, make marathon drives or cram together. But the market is also reshaping the size and makeup of some Bay Area schools, as displaced families leave and re-enroll their children elsewhere.
http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_30267773/bay-area-housing-costs-force-high-school-students
No high schools within seventy miles of where these California housing market victims live?
California must be even more impoverished than I realized.
The article does say that the family moved away but chose to keep their daughter in the San Jose high school, rather that transfer her to a school in Tracy. Sounds a bit draconian to me, but people make strange choices.
There are a couple of great articles on the U.S. housing situation in this week’s dead tree edition of The Economist.
Housing in America
Comradely capitalism
How America accidentally nationalised its mortgage market
Aug 20th 2016 | From the print edition
Timekeeper
THE most dramatic moment of the global financial crisis of the late 2000s was the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15th 2008. The point at which the drama became inevitable, though—the crossroads on the way to Thebes—came two years earlier, in the summer of 2006. That August house prices in America, which had been rising almost without interruption for as long as anyone could remember, began to fall—a fall that went on for 31 months (see chart 1). In early 2007 mortgage defaults spiked and a mounting panic gripped Wall Street. The money markets dried up as banks became too scared to lend to each other. The lenders with the largest losses and smallest capital buffers began to topple. Thebes fell to the plague.
Ten years on, and America’s banks have been remade to withstand such disasters. When Jamie Dimon, the boss of JPMorgan Chase, talks of its “fortress” balance-sheet, he has a point. The banking industry’s core capital is now $1.2 trillion, more than double its pre-crisis level. In order to grind out enough profits to satisfy their shareholders, banks have slashed costs and increased prices; their return on equity has edged back towards 10%. America’s lenders are still widely despised, but they are now in reasonable shape: highly capitalised, fairly profitable, in private hands and subject to market discipline.
The trouble is that, in America, the banks are only part of the picture. There is a huge, parallel structure that exists outside the banks and which creates almost as much credit as they do: the mortgage system. In stark contrast to the banks it is very badly capitalised (see chart 2). It is also barely profitable, largely nationalised and subject to administrative control.
That matters. At $26 trillion America’s housing stock is the largest asset class in the world, worth a little more than the country’s stockmarket. America’s mortgage-finance system, with $11 trillion of debt, is probably the biggest concentration of financial risk to be found anywhere. It is still closely linked to the global financial system, with $1 trillion of mortgage debt owned abroad. It has not gone unreformed in the ten years since it set off the most severe recession of modern times. But it remains fundamentally flawed.
The strange path the mortgage machine has taken has implications for ordinary people, as well as for financiers. The supply of mortgages in America has an air of distinctly socialist command-and-control about it. Some 65-80% of all new home loans are repackaged by organs of the state. The structure of these loans, their volume and the risks they entail are controlled not by markets but by administrative fiat.
No one is keen to make transparent the subsidies and dangers involved, the risks of which are in effect borne by taxpayers. But an analysis by The Economist suggests that the subsidy for housing debt is running at about $150 billion a year, or roughly 1% of GDP. A crisis as bad as last time would cost taxpayers 2-4% of GDP, not far off the bail-out of the banks in 2008-12.
…
Time for the impoverished state of CA to get out of the housing interference business and get those excess, empty and defaulted houses on the market.
CA will likely do the opposite - more command and control, courtesy of the benevolent politicians. Its really reverting to a plantation economy but everyone is too pissed off stuck in traffic commuting to crummy jobs that pay for the insane living expenses imposed by their masters to notice.
Too bad, so sad, for California housing market victims who no longer qualify for “mortgage forgiveness” income tax relief (i.e. taxes must now be paid on formerly tax-free income obtained by stiffing creditors on mortgage loan proceeds).
Opinion
Commentary
No tax relief bill for distressed homeowners
By Dan Walters | 11 a.m. Aug. 19, 2016
FILE - This May 21, 2015, file photo, shows a house for sale in Culver City, Calif. Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell this week amid continued turbulence in global stock markets. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dipped to 3.92 percent from 3.97 percent a week earlier.
(AP Photo/Nick Ut, File) The Associated Press
Senate Bill 907, which had won unanimous approval of the state Senate, died in just a few seconds last week, and that angers Peggy Spatz.
She and her husband, George, took out a $150,000 second mortgage on their modest suburban Sacramento home 11 years ago, only to see home values and their retirement investments crash in the Great Recession that struck shortly thereafter.
They, like millions of other Californians with underwater homes, eventually negotiated a settlement with their lender to write down the loan, only to learn that the canceled debt was what’s called “a taxable event.”
Congress had declared that loan write-downs, short sales and other forms of mortgage relief would be free of federal income taxes. The California Legislature and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger followed suit for several years, extending relief through 2013.
However, when Jerry Brown returned to the governorship, facing an immense budget deficit, he refused to continue the tax exemption for any relief actions since 2013, last year vetoing a bill that would have added two years to the window. It created, a Senate staff analysis said, “a fine mess.”
Brown said the state budget “has remained precariously balanced (and) I cannot support providing additional credits that will make balancing the state’s budget even more difficult.”
…
I’ll ask the question articles like this never bother to ask:
Why on earth would anyone take out an extra $150,000 mortgage on a modest home? Insanity or abysmal financial ignorance are the only explanations that come to my mind.
looks like they got a principal reduction so they shouldn’t be b@tching about paying some taxes. sound like a bunch of freeloaders. something for nothing crowd.
World’s Smallest Violin
They are upset because they have to pay state taxes on what is literally free money.
I’m upset because they don’t have to pay federal taxes on free money. What gives Congress the right to create tax loopholes that providee massive moral hazard incentives for taxpayer-guaranteed debt? What does it say about Congress when Jerry Brown is more fiscally conservative?
This is an interesting case. Typically when groups of people howl about something in the FIRE market, the government reliably responds to firehose them money.
BUT - this case reveals the dichotomy: When a business complains about taxes, some politicians can be sent donations and the tax law will be quietly amended. But when groups of citizens complain about those taxes, it’s met with stony silence.
The difference? One group is the cattle, and one group is the farmers. When the farmers complain, the government responds. But the cattle are the source of the value. Being able to keep value to themselves undermines the current social and financial paradigm. Being able to extract value from the cattle is something individuals in charge find beneficial.
Morrison, CO Housing Prices Crater 8% YoY As Housing Inventory Balloons Nationally
http://www.zillow.com/morrison-co/home-values/
What’d I miss?
The BBC
US election: Has Donald Trump already blown it?
Nick Bryant
New York correspondent
19 August 2016
From the section US & Canada
Last summer, Donald Trump could do no wrong. What a difference a year makes.
…
Reading New York City Creature Hand Signals
Beware the chaos gesture!
Did you miss the anonymous statues of naked Donald Trump that popped up in major cities? The NYC Parks Department released one of the best public statements of the election.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/18/politics/naked-donald-trump-statue-nyc-parks-department/
“NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small,” said Sam Biederman, a parks spokesman.
President trump will FIND Sam Biederman, and he won’t be park spokesman any more.
NY is a complete chithole anyway, they were just trying to beautify it.
Thanks for posting…I saw the story during a bout of insomnia last night but forgot to post this morning.
“What’d I miss?”
MightyMike’s cry for help.
Comment by MightyMike
2016-08-20 10:48:48
“If I were go over yesterday’s comments in detail, I could probably identify at least half a dozen people who expressed much more anger than I did.”
Twelve Steps of ANGER Anonymous
Published on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26, 2015, by Jay W.
http://www.safetyandhealthfoundation.org/AngerAnonymous.html
The following are the original twelve steps as published by newly-created ANGER Anonymous:
1. We admitted we were powerless over OUR ANGER — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and we became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other ANGRY PEOPLE, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Gee, phony, your confusion level today is high. Up above at 14:29:00 you wrote “Anger? No.” as your judgment on the same topic.
That was before I picked this out…
Comment by MightyMike
2016-08-20 10:48:48
“If I were go over yesterday’s comments in detail, I could probably identify at least half a dozen people who expressed much more anger than I did.”
ANGER Anonymous
I’m not THAT bad!
Minimization and downplaying of the problems connected with anger fill in the gaps and take up the slack left by the failure of psychotic denial to adjust reality completely to the requirements of the anger. The rageaholic admits that difficulties exist - but he stoutly maintains, frequently in the face of an astonishing and rapidly accumulating mountain of evidence to the contrary, that they are not really as bad as others make them out to be.
I am glad you are finally asking for help.
crushing.housing.losses.
Chevy Chase(Washington DC), MD Housing Prices Plunge 9% YoY As Mortgage Losses Mount
http://www.movoto.com/chevy-chase-md/market-trends/
if you sold your house 5 years ago u left a lot of free money on the table.
Classic DNC tactic: If you don’t like the message, smear the messanger.
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/08/dems-tactic-of-accusing-adversaries-of-kremlin-ties-and-russia-sympathies-has-long-history-in-us/
Meanwhile, the massive south-to-north population flow continues. Where are we going to house all these people, and who is going to pay for it?
http://fusion.net/story/338529/whole-families-are-fleeing-this-tiny-country-and-entering-the-u-s-in-massive-numbers/