A Sense Of Scarcity That Drives An Escalation Of Expectations
The Tribeca Citizen reports from New York. “Last August, I counted 100 available retail spaces in Tribeca. This year, there are 129.* This is sure to inspire comments about ‘greedy landlords,’ but the landlords lose money every month their storefronts remain vacant. Asking rents are clearly too high—landlords think their storefronts are worth more than they are—but as one broker I spoke with pointed out, there’s just enough activity to keep hope alive: ‘Landlord #1 hears that landlord #2 was able to get $150 per square foot, so he wants to wait, even though his space is worth more like $80.’”
“There are likely other factors at work. As another broker explained, a lot of landlords get financing with high expected rents as part of the equation. No one wants to admit he or she overpaid, and it’s not in a landlord’s interest to only make enough rental income to pay the bank—so, in a twist on a banking term, better to extend and pretend. What I wrote last year still feels applicable—and only more so as FiDi turns into a massive mall: ‘Even if Tribeca continues to get aggressively developed, it will never be a high-density neighborhood when developers keep building 4,000-square-foot, single-family apartments. And the lack of corresponding foot traffic is what caps the amount of money any business can make here.’”
The Houston Chronicle in Texas. “One Hermann Place, a new luxury midrise apartment, is slated to open in September on 2.5 acres in the Museum District. Tema Development’s seven-story building is an example of the Class A buildings that began construction during high times in Houston’s economy, when deep-pocketed renters seeking luxury housing were moving to the city by the thousands.”
“The building will offer one to two months free rent for new tenants, but developers hope its proximity to the park will help make the project successful. Nadim Zabaneh, vice president at Tema Development, touted the building’s location near the Texas Medical Center and Rice University. ‘Our location will make us a success,’ Zabaneh said. ‘We do realize that it is a more challenging market.’”
“The rental market — particularly at the high end — has weakened, and economists have warned of a glut of new construction. The ongoing slump in crude-oil prices paired with plummeting job prospects comes at a time when more than 29,000 units are under construction. Many of the 20,000 or so units set to open this year were built to carry rents much higher than the city traditionally has seen, raising concerns that the demand may lag.”
The Mountain View Voice in California. “With favorable polling and two separate rent stabilization measures going before voters this November, the possibility that Mountain View will enact some form of rent control is causing angst among some apartment owners. Some owners say they have been investigating selling their properties and making an exit, but they say buyers who previously would have jumped at the opportunity are now wary of how Mountain View’s rent-control campaign will take shape.”
“A Mountain View resident for more than 40 years, Linda Curtis owns eight apartment units, one of which she lives in with her husband, located one block off Castro Street. They became full owners of the property in 2009 after buying out their partners for about $2 million, she said. Around 2015, the value of their property peaked at around $5 million according to an appraisal they commissioned. But Curtis decided to wait on a sale in hopes of getting a little more.”
“A second appraisal conducted earlier this year indicated their building’s value had dropped to $3.3 million, which she attributed to the growing possibility of rent-control. Curtis says she is having trouble going forward with her plan to sell the apartments to get a mortgage on a new place to live because her property’s value has plummeted. ‘I lost $2 million by just sitting here doing nothing,’ she mused. ‘People have always told me Mountain View won’t ever do (rent control). It never occurred to me that the Tenants Coalition would get this on the ballot.’”
“On the other side of the landlord spectrum are John and Stephanie Sorenson, a young married couple in their 20s and both early in their careers as attorneys. Last November, without knowing a political groundswell for rent control in Mountain View was emerging, the Sorensons said they purchased a four-unit apartment building for $2.55 million. Now Sorenson says he has no idea what his property is worth, and he feels like a ‘nervous wreck’ fretting about what will be left of his investment.”
“‘In pure speculation, I think it’s worth nothing because no one’s buying,’ he said. ‘We worked our asses off, saved up and put forward all this money, and now we’re looking at a loss.’”
From Los Angeles Downtown News in California. “The signs are everywhere. Literally. From a string of spaces in developer Hanover Company’s South Park apartment buildings, to the base of the office tower at 615 W. Sixth St., to the Spring Arcade Building in the Historic Core, the ‘Retail For Lease’ signs have bloomed across Downtown Los Angeles. The surge of both new development and upgraded older buildings in Downtown has brought not only thousands of residents, but hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space.”
“The residential rise and the new retail arrivals have a number of market analysts and Downtown stakeholders feeling rosy about the future. In their eyes, the ‘For Lease’ signs hint at further growth and additional activity.”
“Others, however, are urging caution. While local real estate experts are not using the B word — bubble — more than one pointed to storefronts in seemingly attractive areas that have stood empty for six months or longer, whether because of supply issues or price. This comes as a wave of huge retail projects are on the horizon.”
“Avison Young Principal Derrick Moore has been helping fill retail space in Downtown for a decade, and he’s among the first to laud the real estate boom. That said, he is concerned that landlords both new and old are asking for rents that are unsustainable. ‘Simply put, residential density hasn’t caught up to pricing,’ Moore said. ‘The pricing for retail space is better suited for a more mature market, because it’s too expensive. A lot of new tenants are coming here, but there’s a lot being left on the table.’”
“While some observers blame landlords or developers for jacking up prices and kicking out older tenants, there’s only so much a property owner can ask for before they hit the limits of the market, said longtime Downtown developer Yuval Bar-Zemer, principal of the firm Linear City. That said, Bar-Zemer sees increasingly aggressive deals that he believes are likely to backfire for landlords and tenants alike. ‘The inflation of rent has been so radical that whoever entered in the last two years is probably the most vulnerable,’ Bar-Zemer said. ‘Within the next year, we’re gonna see casualties.’”
“Some of the hottest action in the past two years has come in the Arts District’s retail market, which Bar-Zemer calls ‘hyperinflated.’ He thinks it could be a barometer for other areas of Downtown.”
“‘There’s a sense of scarcity where people think they have to open a store Downtown, and that typically drives an escalation of rents and expectations. Existing landlords that had $1.50 per square foot, if they hear a rumor of $3 around them, that sets an internal standard,’ he said. ‘Plus, new projects are coming to the market with the advice of brokers, but I think pricing is higher than the market can afford. It’s a formula for disaster.’”
‘But Curtis decided to wait on a sale in hopes of getting a little more’
You know what being too greedy gets you Linda?
Santa Barbara County, CA Housing Prices Plummet 6% Countywide
http://www.zillow.com/santa-barbara-county-ca/home-values/
You keep posting these links, but the links don’t seem to support your headlines.
What am I missing?
Our good friend Karen made this simple tutorial for you.
Happy reading my friend. Happy reading.
https://snag.gy/m5EzRB.jpg
Thank you,
That really helps clear up the confusion
Oliver
You’re not missing anything - he makes up the headlines to fit his own personal narrative, just like the MSM does.
Data is irrelevant.
Boots on the ground data my friend. Boots on the ground data.
Seattle, WA Housing Prices Crater 9% YoY On Ballooning Housing Inventory
http://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa-98102/home-values/
Case in point above, oliverks . . .
Hint: there is no ballooning inventory in Seattle. Not even close. No matter how much you twist the numbers. Seattle is still one of the hottest real estate markets on the west coast.
Not hot yet but with more price declines to dramatically lower and more affordable levels it will be.
‘the Sorensons said they purchased a four-unit apartment building for $2.55 million. Now Sorenson says he has no idea what his property is worth, and he feels like a ‘nervous wreck’ fretting about what will be left of his investment.’
‘In pure speculation, I think it’s worth nothing because no one’s buying,’ he said. ‘We worked our asses off, saved up and put forward all this money, and now we’re looking at a loss.’
This is interesting because the mere idea that rents aren’t going to the moon year after year and these apartment prices aren’t going to gallop upward forever causes this a$$ pounding. Guess what? That’s going to happen to every market when a recession comes. And a recession is due around, oh, any time now. The fact is these people seriously overpaid, just like multifamily fools all over the country.
4x$1000/month at best. Easy math to perform. Just an unwillingness to perform it.
dumb.borrowed.money. does unimaginable things but can’t do math.
‘We worked our asses off, saved up and put forward all this money’
Two 20-something attorneys. I’m sure they worked/saved really hard for what, 4 years? What they really did was borrow a bunch of money. I listen to the radio shows. “You CAN NOT LOSE in multi-family” “It’s never, ever going to end”.
Some really good comments follow the Mountain View article, well worth a read…many to the effect that the speculators should not be surprised by this turn of events ( i.e. a push for rent control) following the madness in Silicon Valley and the greater Bay Area
Not to mention the over the top mortgage fraud and crime involved in housing sales there.
‘We worked our asses off, saved up and put forward all this money’
Two 20-something attorneys. I’m sure they worked/saved really hard for what, 4 years? What they really did was borrow a bunch of money. I listen to the radio shows. “You CAN NOT LOSE in multi-family” “It’s never, ever going to end”
A two hour investment reading this blog could have saved
them untold grief and fortune. I’ll spend more time than that researching what barbecue to buy. I guess being an attorney automatically makes you a savvy commercial real estate investor? Doughh!
Right now more like $3K * 4
Well….. not really. Not all.
Remember…. rental rates are slipping lower…. even in Manhattan and SF.
It is easy to figure out what it is worth.
6% cash flow.
Total income (rent) - all expenses
All expenses.
‘Even if Tribeca continues to get aggressively developed, it will never be a high-density neighborhood when developers keep building 4,000-square-foot, single-family apartments. And the lack of corresponding foot traffic is what caps the amount of money any business can make here.’
When I read this it makes me think what the root cause is. IMO, it’s a market mal-functioning due to distortions. When interest rates or prices or too much money creation interferes with all the parts of supply and demand, something is bound to go wrong. Why aren’t they building 4-1,000 square foot apartments? The land costs too much, it doesn’t pencil out. But if there are no shops or places to eat, why own a 4,000 square foot apartment there?
‘While local real estate experts are not using the B word — bubble — more than one pointed to storefronts in seemingly attractive areas that have stood empty for six months or longer, whether because of supply issues or price. This comes as a wave of huge retail projects are on the horizon’
And when a thing is priced artificially high, you’ll get too much of it. The LA article laments that high-end everything isn’t even desirable. You gotta have a taco shop and the like. Every space can’t be Starbucks. But it was bought and built like it could:
‘Many of the 20,000 or so units set to open this year were built to carry rents much higher than the city traditionally has seen, raising concerns that the demand may lag’
Houston, you are in for a world of hurt. It’s not going to lag; think back to those far away days in the 80’s when half-built apartments littered the coastal plain and see-through offices threw shadows on the underused parking lots.
ok tribeca where the internet radio station i worked at was located the 3rd picture red 5 story building on the left.
he sold it for 8.5 million a few years back…lived there like 35 years bought it cheap and rented out some floors lived on the top duplex, but taxes got to be over $60,000 a year..
http://tribecacitizen.com/2016/06/23/hubert-street-mansion-approved/
‘the single-family mansion at 11 Hubert. Designed by architects Maya Lin and William Bialosky, the six-story building will have an exterior “made of Chelmsford stone (from Massachusetts), stainless steel, perforated metal, and glass.’
‘Last month, the Tribeca Trib reported that “its floor plans call for 11 bathrooms, five bedrooms (including two guest rooms), a dog room, separate prep and catering kitchens, wine closet and two bars, screening room, his-and-her studies, fully landscaped courtyard, 5,000-square-foot sports and fitness center in the basement, and a garage.’
It’s a drawing I think. Looks kinda out of place. Next to those crappy old buildings with rickety fire escapes. Look at the graffiti. How long until someone tags the heck out of that Chelmsford stone (from Massachusetts).
I was wondering about the name:
Tribeca /traɪˈbɛkə/, originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its name is a portmanteau from “Triangle Below Canal Street”. The “triangle”, which is actually more of a trapezoidal shape, is bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and either Chambers or Vesey Streets.
11 bathrooms. A little over the top, no? OK, let’s break it down. One for each bedroom, that’s five. One for the sports and fitness center, that’s six. One for the kitchens, that’s seven. One for the studies (his and hers. Wut? Isn’t that gayist? Or lesbist? Or transgenderist? Or something?) that’s eight. One for the screening room, that’s nine.
What’s left? Garage, in case you can’t make it into the house? Sounds like it’s made for Hillary, could be the Manhattan White House. Ok, we’re up to 10. What’s left? Oh, the bars and the dog room. I guess the bars need their own pissoir. Unless the dog is specially trained.
Getting calls from mortgage broker. Wants to refi loan with no cost going from a 3.75% to a 2.875%. Would do lower no cost % if balance was higher or if I wanted to re-extend life of loan.
This is interesting as my son has now lowered his education loan from the high 7% to mid 2%.
Negotiate for negative interest rates like the big banks…
Venice, CA Housing Prices Plunge 7% YoY As Housing Inventory Explodes Across State
http://www.zillow.com/venice-los-angeles-ca/home-values/
Rick Wilson, a longtime GOP strategist who strongly opposes Trump and is now working on the campaign of independent candidate Evan McMullin, called Trump’s shape-shifting on such issues “irritating.”
“He lets people fill in the blanks mentally for what they think he’s saying, not what he’s actually saying,” Wilson said. “So when you hear him saying one day: ‘I’m going to ban all Muslims,’ but then you hear him say another day, ‘Well, I’m going to ban the dangerous, bad ones.’ And then you hear him another day saying, ‘I’m going to ban the ones from the bad countries.’ So it always flips, and then the people that are fanatics about Trump just say, ‘Oh, well, he meant the one that I liked.’ ”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/in-the-latest-shift-trump-campaign-wavers-on-mass-deportations/ar-BBvTu3Y
Heh, what’s “irritating” is the fresh new email dump that Judicial Watch got it hands on courtesy of FOIA, showing the blatant pay for play between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. To the point where one supplicant was actually referred by the State Department to the Clinton Foundation first, THEN come back and we’ll talk. Are you friggin’ kidding me? How is Hillary not behind bars, let alone running for president?
‘So when you hear him saying one day: ‘I’m going to ban all Muslims’
These neocons will say anything. And the neocons have started how many wars and regime changes in Muslim countries?
Let’s see:
Hillary supported and voted for the war in Iraq and has never apologized for it.
Biden supported and voted for the war in Iraq and has never apologized for it.
Kerry supported and voted for the war in Iraq and has never apologized for it.
Trump calls the war a mistake.
Hmmmmm. No differences in this election.
Hillary Clinton says her Iraq war vote was a ‘mistake’
After days of Republican presidential candidates wrestling with questions on the Iraq war, Hillary Clinton weighed in Tuesday, telling reporters that her vote in favor of the war in 2002 was a “mistake.”
“I made it very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple. And I have written about it in my book, I have talked about it in the past,” Clinton told reporters at an event in Cedar Falls, Iowa, adding that “what we now see is a very different and very dangerous situation.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hillary-clinton-iraq-war-vote-mistake-iowa-118109
In other words, Trump and Clinton are the same. They both supported the was at the time and both now say it was a mistake. Of course, if it was the other way around, if Iraq had invaded America and killed a million Americans, we would use words other than “mistake” to characterize that aggression.
What’s worse, “temporarily screening mooslems vs “bombing or invading mooslems”?
I am a fan of neither…but listening the Corps media narratives you have to wonder what are they after?
‘When one thinks of the neoconservatives what comes to mind is their warmongering, and they have indeed been the War Party’s brains since their incubation inside the Democratic party and their defection to the GOP during the Vietnam era. Yet there are other aspects of the neooconservative mind – or, rather, the neoconservative personality – that are significant, and one of these is their viciousness.’
‘These guys (and gals) fight dirty: the smear, the ad hominem argument, is their signature method. Remember the campaign against Chuck Hagel that targeted him as an “anti-Semite” They lost that one, yet they are not the type to change their ways. They tried the same tack with Donald Trump, throwing every smear in the book at him, and their reaction to his amazing victory in the primaries underscores both the primal hatred they feel for their enemies, and their obsession with control of the institutions they infiltrate.’
‘For many months now, Bill Kristol, the neocons’ little Lenin, has been trying to gin up a fifth party candidate who will take enough votes away from Trump to deny him the White House. First there was Mitt Romney, and then was Sen. Ben Saase being floated as the chosen sacrificial lamb, and when they demurred the Kristolians turned to one David French, a scribbler for National Review – who backed out after a week.’
‘But now, finally, the #NeverTrump movement – which was always a neocon front group – has come forth with a willing candidate: Evan McMullin, a 40-something year-old former CIA agent, former House Republican foreign policy director, and former investment banker at Goldman Sachs.’
‘He is the archetypal neoconservative: a full-bore interventionist, who is clearly making foreign policy the centerpiece of his campaign, citing his experience in “fighting terrorism” as his chief talking point – aside, that is, from attacking Trump almost exclusively. In a speech he declared that the US role is to police the world in order to stop “genocide.” Echoing the new cold war rhetoric of the Clinton campaign, and his former boss, ex-CIA director Michael Morrell, he declares that Trump is “bought and paid for by Vladimir Putin.” And as a key player in the neocon wing of the CIA, which ginned up phony “intelligence” to drag us into the Iraq war, McMullin wants us to re-invade Iraq, overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and longs for a US confrontation with Russia in eastern Europe.’
‘He is, in short, the perfect neocon candidate, which is why Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard back him to the hilt.’
‘What is the purpose of the McMullin campaign? There are three goals, and they are, in descending order of importance:
‘1) Deny Trump the White House – The neocons hate Trump, as their voluble participation in the Never Trump movement makes clear enough. They hate his populism; they hate his “America First” foreign policy. And they hate him personally: his “blue collar billionaire” persona offends their delicate sensibilities in the same way it offends their brothers-under-the-skin, the liberal elites of which they are a dissident faction.’
‘2) Assert their power – The neocons have been having a very rough time of it lately. The Iraq war discredited them, and, indeed, made the word “neocon” synonymous with warmongering loser and liar par excellence. By raising their independent banner in this election, they are showing the world that they’re still around, and still a force to be reckoned with.’
‘3) Destroy the GOP – The neocons cannot let a Trumpified Republican party stand. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy views – which are essentially “isolationist,” i.e. noninterventionist – are anathema to them. In this long rant by #NeverTrump GOP operative Rick Wilson, a key player in the “Better for America” PAC that is backing McMullin, writes: “When it’s over, Trumpkins, remember: You’re not purging us. We’re purging you.”
‘This is nonsense: what the Republican primaries showed is that the power of the neocons to determine who is to be “purged” and who is to be anointed is over. Bush Republicanism is a dead as phrenology and non-Copernican theories of the solar system. In short, Republican primary voters, like most Americans, are sick and tired of endless wars, and elitist domestic policy, which is another reason why the McMullin campaign is going to go nowhere. It’s why Marco Rubio went nowhere. And it’s why any Republican candidate who takes his or her talking points from the latest issue of the Weekly Standard won’t stand a chance in the GOP primaries of the future.’
‘Some of the neocons – the ones who value proximity to power over their ostensible commitment to the Republican party – recognize this, and moved quickly to endorse Hillary Clinton. Kristol and his followers, however, are reluctant to give up their hard-won gains in the GOP, and, in a fit of pique, are trying to organize a rearguard defense, which, even if it doesn’t succeed, gives them sufficient cover so that they don’t reveal themselves for the unprincipled power-seekers they truly are. If they can’t continue to control the Republican party, then it must be destroyed – and this is where their inherent viciousness comes into play.’
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/08/14/evan-mcmullin-raising-neocon-flag/
Well, here’s a nifty concept: Leave these countries alone and you won’t have to bring in rapefugees, who are imposed on those citizens of the US least able to defend themselves.
These are sick people running things. And the supporters and enablers are just as sick.
Really, it probably wouldn’t be that hard to delete and replace the power structure. When you think about it, there’s nothing there, really.
Remember the campaign against Chuck Hagel that targeted him as an “anti-Semite” They lost that one, yet they are not the type to change their ways. They tried the same tack with Donald Trump, throwing every smear in the book at him..
If this guy is claiming that there’s no evidence to back up assertions that Trump is a bigot, he’s mistaken.
However, the more important point is that Trump’s statements about war were probably not a significant reason that he won the nomination. Its quite likely that a majority of people who voted for Trump thought that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea, just like Trump did.
Well, here’s a nifty concept: Leave these countries alone and you won’t have to bring in rapefugees, who are imposed on those citizens of the US least able to defend themselves.
We’ve been meddling in other countries for a long time. America became an imperial power in the 1890s when the Philippines, Hawaii and a number of other territories were acquired. This was many years before the term “neoconservative” was coined.
‘If this guy is claiming that there’s no evidence to back up assertions that Trump is a bigot, he’s mistaken.’
Feel free to provide such evidence.
‘a majority of people who voted for Trump thought that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea, just like Trump did’
Trump was against it, unlike the blood soaked Democrat he’s running against.
‘This was many years before the term “neoconservative” was coined.’
Meaning what?
Your getting angrier by the day Mike. Lighten up. Watching Clinton hailed off in chains would be good for the planet.
Donald Trump confronted with past support for Iraq war
Donald Trump, who has made his opposition to the Iraq invasion one of the bedrocks of his campaign, was left scrambling during a CNN town hall when confronted with a newly uncovered interview in which he supported the conflict.
The interview, reported by BuzzFeed, was from 2002 when Trump sat down with radio shock jock Howard Stern and was asked directly whether he advocated invading Saddam Hussein’s country.
Trump replied: “Yeah I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly.”
Asked by CNN moderator Anderson Cooper about the statement, the Republican frontrunner simply responded: “I could have said that.”
Trump then insisted that his past support for the war did not matter because “by the time the war started I was against it”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/19/donald-trump-confronted-with-past-support-for-iraq-war
Is Donald Trump a Racist?
Nicholas Kristof JULY 23, 2016
HAS the party of Lincoln just nominated a racist to be president? We shouldn’t toss around such accusations lightly, so I’ve looked back over more than 40 years of Donald Trump’s career to see what the record says.
One early red flag arose in 1973, when President Richard Nixon’s Justice Department — not exactly the radicals of the day — sued Trump and his father, Fred Trump, for systematically discriminating against blacks in housing rentals.
I’ve waded through 1,021 pages of documents from that legal battle, and they are devastating. Donald Trump was then president of the family real estate firm, and the government amassed overwhelming evidence that the company had a policy of discriminating against blacks, including those serving in the military.
To prove the discrimination, blacks were repeatedly dispatched as testers to Trump apartment buildings to inquire about vacancies, and white testers were sent soon after. Repeatedly, the black person was told that nothing was available, while the white tester was shown apartments for immediate rental.
A former building superintendent working for the Trumps explained that he was told to code any application by a black person with the letter C, for colored, apparently so the office would know to reject it. A Trump rental agent said the Trumps wanted to rent only to “Jews and executives,” and discouraged renting to blacks.
Donald Trump furiously fought the civil rights suit in the courts and the media, but the Trumps eventually settled on terms that were widely regarded as a victory for the government. Three years later, the government sued the Trumps again, for continuing to discriminate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/opinion/sunday/is-donald-trump-a-racist.html?_r=0
‘This was many years before the term “neoconservative” was coined.’
Meaning what?
That Raimondo character appears to have fallen in love with this word “neocon”. He writes as if these “neocons” invented the notion of American imperialism, as if they formed some sort of secret society around the year, took control of America’s foreign policy, and the decided in meddle in half the countries on the planet.
I meant to write:
He writes as if these “neocons” invented the notion of American imperialism, as if they formed some sort of secret society around the year 1970, took control of America’s foreign policy, and then decided in meddle in half the countries on the planet.
You walked right into that one:
‘Nicholas Kristof: War Crimes Enabler’
‘He wants US intervention – on the side of Islamist head-choppers
by Justin Raimondo, August 22, 2016′
‘We all saw the little Syrian boy in besieged Aleppo, wiping blood from his forehead, covered in dust and clearly in shock. How could we help it? Practically every newspaper in the country printed his photo, along with a caption blaming the Syrian military and/or the Russians for his plight. The video is all over the Internet. By the way, little Omran Dagnish is still alive, and is fine physically. But there’s another little boy, a prepubescent child, who hasn’t been dignified with a name, who is also a victim of this war – and he’s dead, beheaded by US-backed Islamist rebels of the “al-Zenki” movement. And the rebels didn’t try to hide this atrocity: they filmed it and put it on the Internet.’
‘These are the people who are defending Aleppo, the rebels we are being told are fighting for “freedom” against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and those dastardly Russians.’
‘The video of Omran went “viral,” while the video of the nameless beheaded boy didn’t. Why is that?’
‘The US media isn’t very interested in publicizing the latter atrocity – because in the information war to provoke US intervention in Syria on behalf of head-chopping Islamists, some children are more equal than others.’
‘And make no mistake: the propaganda campaign is now in full swing, being pushed by the same media outlets openly campaigning for Hillary Clinton – who is on record as calling for funding of Islamist groups in Syria and overthrowing Assad. If she is elected, we’re very likely to see a full-scale US intervention, with US forces openly and aggressively confronting not only Syrian government forces but also facing off with the Russians.’
‘The New York Times, which makes no bones about its political sympathies in this presidential contest, has unleashed well-known “humanitarian” Nicholas Kristof in the effort to gin up sympathy for the “moderate” rebels and force Washington’s hand. He babbles on about the death of his dog and the sympathy he received when he wrote about it, and then writes: “If only, I thought, we valued kids in Aleppo as much as we did our terriers!”
‘Not that he’s trying to manipulate us or anything.’
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/08/21/nicholas-kristof-war-crimes-enabler/
Yes Mike, you keep posting those neocon links and denying that you’ve become a neocon supporter.
No, I didn’t walk into anything. Kristof quotes documents from a lawsuit and things said and written by people who have worked for Trump.
He’s a neocon, you’re a neocon supporter. Jeebus, at least own up to what you are voting for. It’s war criminal Her<-!!
(BTW, she’s starting to look like jabba the hutt).
Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria. Am I missing any? And those are just the Muslim countries. What about Ukraine, the Balkans? The conflicts in South America, like Honduras.
I’d love to see a cadre of these neocons in a cage, airdropped into the midst of Isis territory. Pre-packaged for convenience. Fire or water, I don’t care.
• “Pay To Play”, aka bribery, has been legalized and institutionalized by politicians who wish to remain in power.
• Gerrymandering, where politicians get to choose their voters, instead of voters choosing their politicians, is the second factor which keeps politicians in power.
• The refusal to vote on single-issue bills, instead preferring to horse trade (”you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”) resulting in amendments and riders being attached to the most simple, single-issue bills, also leads to political entrenchment.
• Finally, lack of term limits is the nail in the coffin. The society realized it didn’t not want an imperial presidency after Roosevelt. Having an imperial Congress is just as destructive.
“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.” — Mark Twain
“Society is like a stew. If you don’t stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.” - Edward Abbey
Bribery of public officials has been legalized? Why haven’t I been told?
If you aren’t caught, it’s still illegal.
how about affirmative action who could be against that?
stop all muslim immigration but let all the Christians in until the numbers even up?
I came across this quote recently:
“Naomi Lamoreaux, an economic historian at Yale University, says Cleveland falls into the third category. It led in a wide variety of industries into the 1920s, including cars, chemicals, paints and varnishes, machine tools and electrical machinery as well as iron and steel. It spent money on R&D. But then came a series of external shocks. The Depression destroyed the local financial institutions that had supported Cleveland’s start-ups.“
My reaction was that the financial sector was by far the LEAST important factor here. The know-how and intelligence of the people in the industry, the people willing to innovate and work hard and take risks and build businesses that actually create value, and the legal and enforcement infrastructure to keep things predictable and honest are the difficult to achieve components here. The financial sector which springs up to connect capital to businesses would spring up like a weed - it’s the most commoditized, off-the-shelf, least unusual, least inventive component of prosperity. The other factors are rare to find in the world and hard to create.
Yet so many financial writers act as though the financial sector and lending is the cornerstone or prosperity. It’s a weed. Lending is commoditized, off the shelf. It’s not rocket science or re-invented all the time. Puh-lease.
And yet, surprise surprise, the central bank also treats it as the cornerstone of the economy. Its policies have focused on the protection and funneling of value to the National Treasure companies, which are in desperate need of new management and thinking, yet they are ferociously protected from the free market and their own stupidity and recklessness.
The government also treats the financial sector that way too. It’s more than a coincidence that the financial sector has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest political donor in recent election cycles. And the other factors of prosperity - the important ones - have been ignored.
The financial sector’s lending is commoditized; its gambling operations are purely a zero sum game, like a casino. It’s an attempt to sell “money for nothing”, but there is no such thing as money for nothing. There is no such thing as a free lunch. I admit fleecing small investors is quite lucrative for specific companies but it creates no new value for society.
It’s the legal and enforcement structure and lack of corruption that is hard to create; it’s the innovation and intelligence of people and their willingness to take risks and work hard and start businesses which create value which is rare. Lending will crop up like a weed whenever these factors are present. It’s an important component but by far the most common and least inventive and most easily re-created component of a prosperous society.
And people talk about the importance of “financial innovation”: the “financial innovation” of the past 80-plus years, or more, has been focused on how to offload repayment risk off lenders, onto others, either via the market or the government.
It’s been a long-running exercise in how to privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
Instead of Too Big To Fail, which creates and air of false urgency, I think the TBTF companies should be renamed “National Treasures.”
They’re treated as national treasures and ferociously protected from harm.
They’re protected from the free market so they aren’t damaged by the stupidity or recklessness of their operators, or by the market itself. The operators of the companies at the center of the financial crisis walked away with hundreds of millions despite their frauds. The companies which were too badly looted were carefully shepherded and folded into other companies with minimal disruption to their profits.
With such care and deference and solicitude, and with such a huge backstop of wealth directly or subtly extracted from the society and funneled to these companies and their operators, they should be named based on how they’re treated by the policy makers: “National Treasures.”
A national treasure…
Like the Marines.
And the average worker should be making E-6 pay…
over at CNBC all eyes are back on the FED today. You just have to laugh at this bs anymore. These markets are a joke.
“Around 2015, the value of their property peaked at around $5 million according to an appraisal they commissioned. But Curtis decided to wait on a sale in hopes of getting a little more.”
HAAAAAA, they’re that greedy? 150% increase wasnt enough in just 6 yrs time? Good lord what fools!!!
Just as my friends father is trying cash out (convince the mother to bounce town) up here in Mass, I’ve seen 4 houses up for sale in the last week, all on the same street. More and more people must be sensing the top is/was here.
Little late for that.
Boston Metro Housing Prices Crater 12% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/ma/home-values/