The Delusion And Gall That Has Gripped The Market
A report from the Australian. “Australia’s biggest apartment builder, Harry Triguboff’s Meriton, is expecting more buyers to forfeit their deposits and fail to settle off-the-plan units, saying the strong rate of settlements so far had been underpinned by two years of surging prices. The rapid price growth, largely in Sydney and Melbourne, had now come to end, said the founder of apartment builder Meriton Group and Australia’s richest man. ‘The ones who are settling now have made a lot of money; building on those apartments started two years ago,’ Mr Triguboff told The Australian, noting the contract price was struck at that time. ‘We read every day how prices in Sydney have gone up by 10 per cent in the last year. They have not gone up in the last six months.’”
“It was the next wave of apartment development, at a time of waning price growth, that carried the real risk of settlement defaults, Mr Triguboff said. Chinese buyers in particular are being challenged as banks tighten funding and the Chinese government restricts money flowing out of the country. ‘Let’s face it, they (local and mainland Chinese) are the only buyers.’”
The Telegraph on the UK. “Lincoln Plaza, a 31-storey block of luxury flats near Canary Wharf, has been named Britain’s worst new building in the 2016 Carbuncle Cup. While its designers describe it as a ‘prestigious and sophisticated landmark,’ Building and Design, the magazine that launched the annual prize in 2006, wholeheartedly disagrees.”
“‘Were anyone in any doubt as to the delusion and gall that has gripped London’s luxury housing market, then this asinine quotation should settle the matter once and for all,’ it says. ‘Lincoln Plaza is a putrid, pugilistic horror show that should never have been built. In its bilious cladding, chaotic form, adhesive balconies and frenzied facades, it exhibits the absolute worst in shambolic architectural design and cheap visual gimmickry.’”
“The dressing-down continues: ‘Essentially, this building is the architectural embodiment of sea sickness, waves of nausea frozen in sheaths of glass and coloured aluminium that, when stared at for too long, summon queasiness, discomfort and, if you’re really unlucky, a reappearance of lunch as inevitably as puddles after a rainstorm.’”
From Bloomberg on Brazil. “Brazilian investors, seeking an alternative to their country’s risky real estate market, are returning to Florida to invest in property and establish a source of income in dollars. Back in Brazil, the economic crisis and rising unemployment have sent rents down 5.2 percent in the past year, and it’s difficult and time-consuming to remove tenants who can’t cover their leases. In the U.S., ‘if one of these families stop paying, you have legal support to enforce the contracts,’ said Fernando Fiuza, managing director of TRX Residential, which is looking for wealthy Brazilian individual investors to help TRX almost double its $140 million portfolio in the U.S. ‘In Brazil it is the end of the world to evict someone.’”
“The decline in rent, coupled with inflation of about 9 percent in Brazil in the past year, resulted in a 4.4 percent rate of return, an all-time low, according to data compiled by researcher FIPE and real estate website Zap Imoveis. ‘Everybody is renegotiating rental contracts down and not up’ in Brazil, said Alessandra Ourique, a partner specializing in real estate at Hesketh Advogados law firm in Sao Paulo. ‘Not to mention defaults.’”
The Vancouver Courier in Canada. “I return to the city five weeks after Christy Clark’s 15 per cent tax on real estate sales to foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver went into effect to find a once buoyant market in serious decline. The populace of buyers and sellers has been consumed by a certain fear and loathing driven by the premier’s clearly knee-jerk act.”
“For months, if not years, Clark and Finance Minister Mike de Jong refused to do anything about the impact foreign buyers were having on housing affordability. They argued that they didn’t want to tamper with people’s retirement nest egg wrapped up in the value of their homes. In the end, after a couple of weeks, and with David Eby on the opposition NDP benches leading the charge that would hinder a Liberal victory in the approaching election, Clark tossed concerns about retirement nest eggs and laissez-faire markets aside. Instead she hoped to hobble Eby and his party by announcing this new tax — to say nothing of raking a few bucks into the provincial treasury.”
“What you should know is that even before Clark imposed the tax, the heat was coming out of the market. For months, sales have been declining to what the Vancouver Real Estate Board in a release last Friday called ‘more historically normal activity.’ And here is a not uncommon tale: An acquaintance of mine tells me that literally hours before Clark made her tax announcement, a person confirmed a deal to buy his East Side condo. That person was planning on selling their suburban townhouse to eliminate a lengthy commute time getting to work. The closing date for the deal was Oct. 1. The buyer put down a $35,000 deposit.”
“My friend, like many in his position, fully expects that deal will now fall through. That person in the burbs is apparently getting zero interest in their townhouse. At best they will be forced to accept a low-ball offer and stretch themselves even further, if that is possible, to buy the East Side condo. It is either that or give up the $35,000.”
“And let’s not forget the background to this: a real estate industry that for more than a decade under the provincial Liberals had been self-regulating, that allowed a number of unscrupulous agents and agencies to profit mightily by ’shadow flipping,’ that regularly failed to report foreign purchases by concealing the buyers’ country of origin and that failed to report money transfers to the federal body monitoring money laundering.”
“Meanwhile the provincial oversight agency for the industry was being strangled by vacancies in their ranks by government caps on salaries. That point was made by the province’s auditor general Carol Bellringer at the same time Clark was announcing her new tax. Bellringer said: ‘It’s like having a smoke detector in your house, but not buying the batteries.’”
“It is a point B.C.’s Superintendent of Real Estate Carolyn Rogers said she had been making for the past three years. But then there was no election on the horizon.”
‘My friend, like many in his position, fully expects that deal will now fall through. That person in the burbs is apparently getting zero interest in their townhouse. At best they will be forced to accept a low-ball offer and stretch themselves even further, if that is possible, to buy the East Side condo. It is either that or give up the $35,000.’
“‘My friend, like many in his position, fully expects that deal will now fall through. That person in the burbs is apparently getting zero interest in their townhouse. At best they will be forced to accept a low-ball offer and stretch themselves even further, if that is possible, to buy the East Side condo. It is either that or give up the $35,000.’”
All my good friends are up to their neck in debt on a rapidly depreciating house without a buyer in sight.
Oooooph.
Goodbye, $35,000.
One thought. Say you outright owned (no debt) one of those expensive Vancouver houses in a very nice desirable area.
Perhaps you could make a lot of money off the weak buyers who put down large deposits like that, knowing in advance the deals will most likely fall through. You could just keep repeatedly relisting and pocketing $35 grand over and over again. And if one of the deals actually DID go through, no worries, just take your cash and leave.
Problem is Vancouver housing market is cratering.
Meanwhile, the subprime auto bubble is unraveling and will need a new bailout. Will the taxpayers bend over as meekly as they did in 2008?
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-one-trillion-dollar-consumer-auto-loan-bubble-is-beginning-to-burst
Ah heck… what’s another $trillion at this point? ‘Merica.
Short answer: Probably yes, but it will be an invisible bailout. Cars don’t have the same caché as homes do. In society, people don’t seem to have a right to a car in the same way they have a right to a home. Repo-ing a car is much more acceptable than evicting a sob-story family from the house. So no one is going to specifically bail out car owners.
However, on a practical level, the bank losses from the car defaults will be bailed out. They will simply be rolled over into the next round of QE.
GM still owes taxpayers 10 billion
SUCESS
financial engineering and financiers have taken over with unlimited credit and cheap money.
Shirley, MA Housing Prices Plunge 21% YoY
http://www.movoto.com/shirley-ma/market-trends/
“Lincoln Plaza is a putrid, pugilistic horror show”
That one *is* pretty ugly. Though, I kind of like the Saffron Square one. It looks like a Tetris game.
Where do they get these architects? Hiring from the Las Vegas strip?
It looks like something built by the spawn of The Borg and The Ewoks.
They get them from architecture school. In order to get ahead in their careers, architects have to one-up the competition by pushing the envelope on new design. What architect ever got promoted by designing a Georgian apartment complex? This is how you get stuff like Dulles Airport and Disney Hall and that shiny silver lima bean in Chicago.
“Summer Months Bring Rise in SFR Vacancies”
http://www.themreport.com/news/data/08-31-2016/summer-months-bring-rise-in-sfr-vacancies
“Surplus of Manhattan and Brooklyn Rentals Driving Prices Down”
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160811/midtown/surplus-of-manhattan-brooklyn-rentals-driving-prices-down-report-says
“New York leasing typically jumps from May through August as new college graduates move to take jobs in the city and families settle down before the start of the school year. That demand was still there, but this time it didn’t translate into higher rents as it has in years past, said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel. Competition from a surge of newly built towers is forcing landlords to grant more tenant breaks to keep their apartments from going empty.
“The price growth is not there because of the new product that’s coming on,” Miller said in an interview. “At least over the next year or two, we’re challenged by excess supply.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/manhattan-renters-win-as-peak-apartment-leasing-season-fizzles
This guy is taking apart all the Clinton charity fraud, to the tune of about 100 billion. Now you’re talking real money.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-07/clinton-foundation-charity-fraud-epic-proportions-analyst-charges-stunning-takedown
–
Reminds me of the Goodfellas movie:
“We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out.”
That investigator guy should be careful.
The amoral dullards called the ‘Murican electorate will vote for her anyway. And get exactly what they have coming.
This is crazy. Looks like Powell really was telling Hillary how to evade detection, and it sounds straight out of a Goodfellas movie.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-07/democrats-release-colin-powells-instructions-clinton-how-bypass-official-servers-war
About his security handlers:
“On weekends, I drove my beloved cars around town without them following me. I promised I would have a phone and not be gone more than an hour or two at Tysons or the hardware store. They hated it and asked me to sigh a letter relieving them of responsibility if I got whacked while doing that. I gladly did. Spontaneity was my security. They wanted to have two to three guys follow me around the building all the time.”
—
“if I got whacked”. That’s gangster terminology. Trip out.
‘what they have coming’
That’s fatalistic. I refuse to go that route.
Is America at risk of electing a senile-on-arrival president?
2016
Donald Trump’s Shortest Attribute Isn’t His Fingers
People who know him well are starting to ask: Can he focus enough to run the Oval Office?
By Michael Kruse
September 08, 2016
…
Yea its Trump’s health now? BaaaWaaaHAAA….The wicjed witch cant speak without coughing up a lung. Has big Secret Service guys running around with eppi pens and hides her colostomy bag in her North Korean Dictator Pants suit!
It don’t think it is an epi pen. I have seen that doctor with her use what I think is a laser pointer to help guide her. Look up Parkinson’s and laser light on helping with gait and focusing when waking etc and freezing episodes/moments.
Hillaryous is unelectable.
“For months, if not years, Clark and Finance Minister Mike de Jong refused to do anything about the impact foreign buyers were having on housing affordability.”
Better late than never.
Let’s hope U.S. politicians take note and emulate this highly successful policy measure.
“For months, if not years, Clark and Finance Minister Mike de Jong refused to do anything about the impact”
MightyMike de Jong?
This is the Canadian tendency toward softening criticism. These politicians are just as crooked as the REIC scum they protect.
Speaking of the foreign Chinese buyers. It reminds me a little of everyone freaking out back in the 80’s when the Japanese were buying up tons of US real estate.
Lately, they’ve been saying in Australia and other countries that the Chinese buyers are disappearing because the Chinese government is trying to restrict outflows of money from their country. And so we may see those bubbles popping.
Question is — Isn’t China as a country *stuffed full* of US Dollars? Why would they be restricting outflows of it? I’d be spending them as much as I could if I were them.
Ask lenders. It’s all dumb.borrowed.money.
stawks look cheap here.
‘Essentially, this building is the architectural embodiment of sea sickness, waves of nausea frozen in sheaths of glass and coloured aluminum that, when stared at for too long, summon queasiness, discomfort and, if you’re really unlucky, a reappearance of lunch as inevitably as puddles after a rainstorm.’
Shakespeare would have been impressed with this assessment.
“pugilistic”
I had to look that one up. They have some good words too across the pond.
Can the Fed afford to tighten with the ECB on hold “for an extended period”? It seems like not only are the central bankers out of bullets, but they are unable to acquire any new ammunition.
European Central Bank leaves interest rates unchanged
By MarketWatch
Published: Sept 8, 2016 7:49 a.m. ET
The European Central Bank, as expected, left official interest rates unchanged on Thursday. The bank’s main lending rate, known as the refi rate, remains at 0%, while the rate paid on deposits left overnight at the ECB remains at minus 0.4%. The rate on the bank’s marginal lending facility stands at 0.25%. ECB President Mario Draghi will hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m. Frankfurt time, or 8:30 a.m. Eastern. The ECB repeated, in its statement, that policy makers expect rates to remain at present or lower levels for an “extended period.” The bank also repeated that its program of monthly asset purchases of 80 billion euros will continue until at least the end of March 2017.
Did I hear somebody say falling house prices?
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2298-E-Eastman-Ave-Englewood-CO-80113/13031436_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8-Buell-Mansion-Pkwy-Englewood-CO-80113/13142405_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4680-S-Downing-St-Englewood-CO-80113/99670006_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/20-Glenmoor-Cir-Englewood-CO-80113/13149640_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6-Sterling-Ave-Englewood-CO-80113/13149404_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2828-S-Grant-St-Englewood-CO-80113/13028899_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1492-E-Dartmouth-Ave-Englewood-CO-80113/13030757_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12-Cherry-Lane-Dr-Englewood-CO-80113/99661713_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5062-E-Princeton-Ave-Cherry-Hills-Village-CO-80113/2098259867_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/14-Sandy-Lake-Rd-Englewood-CO-80113/13142426_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1516-E-Oxford-Lane-Cherry-Hills-Village-CO-80113/2099258447_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3681-S-Albion-St-Englewood-CO-80113/13123137_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3517-S-Ogden-St-Englewood-CO-80113/2101523702_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/21-Covington-Dr-Englewood-CO-80113/13142318_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2-Martin-Ln-Englewood-CO-80113/13142509_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4656-S-Ogden-St-Englewood-CO-80113/13149199_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2888-S-Ogden-St-Englewood-CO-80113/13030357_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3185-S-Pearl-St-Englewood-CO-80113/13029774_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/27-Covington-Dr-Englewood-CO-80113/13142316_zpid/
Lurkers and newbs, read and learn.
Down $85K so far ($35 and 50 drops). Everything else in our neighborhood has sold (for less, but still ridiculous prices.) Place is like the Ponderosa:
Vegas house
Come for the weed, stay for the heroin:
“Drug use along the Cherry Creek trail in Denver has spiked out of control this summer, and city officials deserve praise for deciding to launch a broad-based crackdown on the pushers and addicts who congregate along this popular recreational amenity and ruin the experience for others.
A staggering 3,500 needles have been collected on the Cherry Creek trail and in other downtown Denver parks this year, officials confirmed last week. Indeed, the department’s temporary directive included a long list of problems associated with the sale and use of drugs, including “assaults, shootings, and other acts of violence or threats of violence, used needles and other drug paraphernalia, people passed out or incapacitated due to drug use, vandalism,” as well as “misbehavior that intimidates and frightens members of the public.”
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/07/crackdown-on-cherry-creek-trail-drug-use-is-appropriate-but-suspensions-arent/
Warmist Warming Thursday:
“Climate change, Mr. Obama often says, is the greatest long-term threat facing the world, as well as a danger already manifesting itself as droughts, storms, heat waves and flooding. More than health care, more than righting a sinking economic ship, more than the historic first of an African-American president, he believes that his efforts to slow the warming of the planet will be the most consequential legacy of his presidency.
During his seven and a half years in office, Mr. Obama said, a majority of Americans have come to believe “that climate change is real, that it’s important and we should do something about it.” He enacted rules to cut planet-heating emissions across much of the United States economy, from cars to coal plants. He was a central broker of the Paris climate agreement, the first accord committing nearly every country to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“When you see severe environmental strains of one sort or another on cultures, on civilizations, on nations, the byproducts of that are unpredictable and can be very dangerous,” Mr. Obama said. “If the current projections, the current trend lines on a warming planet continue, it is certainly going to be enormously disruptive worldwide.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/us/politics/obama-climate-change.html?_r=0
“that climate change is real, that it’s important and we should do something about it.”
Like tax you by the mile in your car, by how cool or warm you keep your home in the summer and winter and by the gallon for your water use.
Once we have extracted trillions from your sorry @sses and have you conditioned to what we will allow you to do our planet will begin to heal.
As I have stated here before, any proposed solution to this warmism will be collectivist and authoritarian.
That message must be paid for by the oil and coal industries. Even if global warming is real, it’s wrong to do anything about it.
Ecosystems have their own natural limits. There’s even a book about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed
“That message must be paid for by the oil and coal industries.”
That wasn’t your message Mighty.
Wow! Obama drives down coal company stocks, and Soros buys them on the cheap
By Thomas Lifson
August 18, 2015
I have always believed that global warming is a gigantic scam, driven by greed and lust for power. Now comes the shocking news, via Steve Milloy writing on Breitbart, that following President Obama’s use of CO2 emissions as a weapon to drive major coal companies near bankruptcy, the ultimate politically connected speculator George Soros is buying up stock in major coal producers on the cheap.
I predicted in this column last week that the left wasn’t going to kill off the coal industry so much as it was going to steal it. That prediction is already becoming true courtesy of billionaire George Soros.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Act filings indicate that Soros has purchased an initial 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and 553,200 shares of Arch Coal, the two largest publicly traded U.S. coal companies. As pointed out last week, both companies have been driven perilously close to bankruptcy by the combination of President Obama’s “war on coal” and inexpensive natural gas brought on by the hydrofracturing revolution.
Under the hypothesis that not even socialists would leave trillions of dollars worth of a perfectly safe and clean energy source in the ground for the sake of the imaginary “climate crisis,” I posited that once the existing coal industry ownership was wiped out by President Obama’s regulatory onslaught, a new politically correct ownership would rehabilitate the fuel by contributing to Democrats.
Enter George Soros, a hardball investor and philanthropist to myriad left-wing causes, including the activist and “clean energy” rent-seeking movements that have helped take down the coal industry. In 2009, for example, Soros announced he would spend $1 billion in “clean energy” technology and create a San Francisco-based advocacy organization called the Climate Policy Initiative.
Less than a year ago the Soros’ Climate Policy Initiative issued a major report concluding that the world could save $1.8 trillion over the next two decades by transitioning away from coal. The report referred to coal reserves as “stranded assets” that were losing value as they were no longer needed.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/08/wow_obama_drives_down_coal_company_stocks_and_soros_buys_them_on_the_cheap.html#ixzz4JfkCi5UN
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
“U.S. Securities and Exchange Act filings indicate that Soros has purchased an initial 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and 553,200 shares of Arch Coal, the two largest publicly traded U.S. coal companies. As pointed out last week, both companies have been driven perilously close to bankruptcy by the combination of President Obama’s “war on coal” and inexpensive natural gas brought on by the hydrofracturing revolution.”
Soros knows that a growing population and increasing living standards both require energy well beyond that supplied by solar panels.
That article is over a year old, and I wouldn’t exactly call it “stealing” the coal industry.
From:
http://www.profitconfidential.com/stock-market/george-soros-bought-shares-of-arch-coal-nyse-aci-peabody-energy-nyse-btu/
“The shares that the billionaire investor bought of Arch Coal Inc. (553,200) are worth approximately $1.3 million at today’s prices. And the one million shares of Peabody Energy Corporation are worth around $1.4 million today.”
–
Those are tiny bets for Soros.
If he hasn’t dumped his positions in those companies already, how has he done on those trades since the article was published in Aug 2015?
Peabody was in the low $1’s, and still is today. Of course, he bought prior to the SEC disclosure, so likely he got his shares at a higher price than that, as Peabody has been in a big decline over the past several years. Similar story for Arch Coal.
Not much of a steal as of yet, and he may be sitting on a loss.
He does look like some kind of Star Wars sith lord though. Hehe.
“Not much of a steal as of yet,”
I wonder if those who owned at $90 a share would agree with you?
Billionaire George Soros warms up to coal as stock prices hit bottom
By Malia Zimmerman Published August 19, 2015
“I find it very interesting that George Soros would buy shares in those coal companies,” said Daniel Simmons, vice president for Policy at the Washington DC-based free market energy group, Institute for Energy Research. “I am confused given the non profits he funds and how hard they have worked to demonize coal.”
Soros, whose Climate Policy Initiative think tank recently urged the world to stop using fossil fuels in general and coal in particular, snapped up 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and half a million shares of Arch Coal, giving him significant stakes in what’s left of the U.S. coal industry.
The trades would have cost Soros a lot more six years ago, when Peabody, which trades under the symbol BTU, was at about $90 a share. Under the Obama administration, which has punished the coal industry with costly mandates and regulation, Peabody shares have fallen to around $1.
Neither Soros nor his New York-based investment firm, Soros Fund Management, would comment on the coal play, citing a longstanding policy of not discussing investments.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/08/19/billionaire-george-soros-warms-up-to-coal-as-stock-prices-hit-bottom.html - 259k -
Time will tell. If he really did orchestrate the multi-year crash in those stocks via connections to Obama, so that he could swoop in and buy on the cheap…
It’s been over a year now, and those stocks are about the same as they were. I’m not defending the guy, just looking at the results so far.
For Peabody stock, a couple of months after Soros’s SEC disclosure, there was a nice little pop to $24. He bought somewhere in the low $1’s.
He could have sold then. I probably would have. Nice quick gain.
It’s been over a year now, and those stocks are about the same as they were. I’m not defending the guy, just looking at the results so far.
The answer must be that Obama is incompetent.
irrelevant
If one is of the belief that:
1) Soros manipulated it to crash it so he could buy on the cheap.
2) There is a new coal bull market ahead of us (after all, why would he buy if he didn’t think he’d make money?).
He just gave you a gift. It’s back in the $1’s again. Buy low, sell high, right?
FWIW, weren’t car smog controls, fuel efficiency requirements and safety standards “collectivist and authoritarian”?
How many people would opt out of having airbags in their cars and pocket the savings if they were optional and you could save a couple of grand on the car? I think plenty would do that.
“I think plenty would do that.”
I think you are right.
Back in the 80s there was a lot of polybutylene plumbing put in houses at least in this part of SE Region IV. It or at least the fittings failed and there was a class action settlement which paid enough to replace the plumbing in the houses with copper and repair the walls that had to be opened up.
As near as I can tell (which is pretty fuqing near) most of the people who did not have problems yet put the check in their account, sold the house at a later date and allowed the new owner to pay for the repairs lock, stock and barrel.
A lot of it is still there to this day.
FWIW, weren’t car smog controls, fuel efficiency requirements and safety standards “collectivist and authoritarian”?
You might add taking lead out of gasoline to that list.
Phony, that’s what happens you simply hand out money. This is why I’m against most voucher programs, and that includes food stamps. Never give them money; always give them stuff.
In other words, as long as you pay your climate taxes, it’s okay to pump out seven kids.
Trump eats babies
Trump is gonna put lead back in the gasoline too.
I read it on Salon and Huffington Post.
“as long as you pay your climate taxes, it’s okay to pump out seven kids.”
If you have enough money you can…
“fly around the world doing good for the environment,”
Leo DiCaprio Vows To Save Environment By Flying All Over The World
Published January 20, 2013
Django Unchained and Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio says he is planning to take a significant break from filming and concentrate on his environmental campaigning.
In an interview with Germany’s mass circulation daily Bild, the 38-year-old American actor said: “I am a bit drained. I’m now going to take a long, long break. I’ve done three films in two years and I’m just worn out.”
“I would like to improve the world a bit. I will fly around the world doing good for the environment,” added DiCaprio, in comments published in German.
http://nation.foxnews.com/leonardo-dicaprio/2013/01/20/leo-decaprio-vows-save-environment-flying-all-over-world - 170k -
My self-proclaimed “environmentalist” friends hate it when I tell them that mountain climbing and skiing are anti-environment. Alot of them have flown to South America, Europe, Asia (I never have) to climb big peaks.
We drove 750 miles last weekend to climb a stupid mountain.
I’ve thought about the hypocrisy of Al Gore getting his 10,000 square foot house LEED certified.
And all DiCaprio flying a private jet “for the environment”.
And people buying an extra car (Prius) to be environmentally friendly (when it would have been better to simply NOT get another car).
I haven’t thought about they hypocrisy of people who believe themselves to be “green” and flying around the world to enjoy nature.
My commute is so short, I could drive a Hummer, and use less gas than someone with a 1-hour Prius commute.
“We drove 750 miles last weekend to climb a stupid mountain.”
Good for you, your buddies, the goats on the stupid mountain and the people whose jobs you supported by driving there.
The goats were gone, very surprisingly. They must have all migrated over the passes into adjacent basins. We passed some hunters hiking in as we were hiking out (day before first day of bow season) and they’re gonna be really disappointed having carried all that gear miles up the valley with no goats to hunt.
Alot of them have flown to South America, Europe, Asia (I never have) to climb big peaks.
Why haven’t you? YOLO, right? Plus I seem to recall you saying that you have so much money that you don’t know where to throw it.
Go for it. Climb Denali or Aconcagua.
Apocalypse Tourism? Cruising the Melting Arctic Ocean:
“On Aug. 16, the Crystal Serenity set out from Seward, Alaska, carrying 1,700 passengers and crew, and escorted by a comparatively minuscule, 1,800-ton icebreaker. She circled west and north around the Alaska Peninsula and through the Bering Strait before heading east into the maze of straits and sounds that constitute the Northwest Passage. For centuries, explorers tried to establish a sea route here between Europe and Asia. Many met with ruin. A few stranded sailors famously ate their boots—and each other. When the Crystal Serenity emerged free and clear of the maze on Sept. 5, there were no accounts of scurvy or cannibalism, only tales of bingeing on themed buffets and grumbles from shutterbugs about the Arctic’s monotonous landscape.
Operated by Crystal Cruises, the Serenity became on that day the first passenger liner to successfully ply the Northwest Passage. As climate change melts Arctic sea ice twice as fast as models predicted, more and larger ships have made their way along these fatal shores.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-crystal-serenity-northwest-passage-cruise/
Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate for president, is a retard, and his running mate, William Weld, is an old-school corporate statist.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-08/gary-johnson-crushes-libertarian-hopes-3-little-words
Did you read the Los Angeles Times editorial board transcript of Jill Stein that I posted yesterday?
I disagree with her position on giving away freebies to everybody with a hand out but she’s the only one talking about cutting off the biggest welfare queen in the world, the Pentagon.
No, I didn’t. Stein showed she’s a clown by vandalizing a bulldozer as part of a protest recently in North Dakota. Grow the f*** up, Jill. Presidential aspirants shouldn’t be running around with spray cans like an alpha precious snowflake.
“Gary Johnson is a retard,”
In what respect, Raymond?
You will never read about this in the MSM: How Soros manipulates Obama’s executive actions to advance their mutual agenda.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/07/leaked-soros-memo-advance-obamas-use-executive-actions/
Soros lost both his lower eyelids in a tragic accident, but fortunately doctors were able to replace them using skin from his scrotum, LOLZ.
“The One Trillion Dollar Consumer Auto Loan Bubble Is Beginning To Burst”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-07/one-trillion-dollar-consumer-auto-loan-bubble-beginning-burst
Nothing is more destructive than borrowing money. Nothing.
If it weren’t for blogs the world would be blind.
The city-data forums censor any discussion of falling house prices.
They censor all kinds of things on city-beta. I have the honor of having been banned from it.
The Tyranny of 9/11: The Building Blocks of the American Police State from A-Z
“We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade the citizenry to march in lockstep with a police state. In doing so, we have proven Osama Bin Laden right. He warned that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”
What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.
The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.
Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.
Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since 9/11.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/08/the-tyranny-of-911-the-building-blocks-of-the-american-police-state-from-a-z/
The United States’ free-will and standard of living were finished when we became involved with the middle-east.
Look at the link below that connects natural disasters in the U.S. with foreign policy actions affecting Israel and Palestine.
There are tens of millions of voters that actually believe this.
Three Dog Night - Never Been To Spain - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm6qw_yeo6o - 396k -
As if you needed another reason to vote Trump.
Amy Schumer Says She’ll “Move to Spain” If Trump Wins!
A Trump presidency would rid our country day one of the clowns below as well as Lena Dunham, Barbra Streisand, and Miley Cyrus!
Information Liberation | Chris Menahan - September 8, 2016
If only we could hold them to those promises to leave.
World Net Daily (Drudge Report likes linking to WND, because Drudge is not a libertarian, Drudge is a neocon, and Drudge wants war with Iran) provides the following narrative of conflicting formats of Sky Wizardry:
“Just as the Roman Empire experienced a series of disasters after it forced Jews from the land, some consider more than coincidental the timing of various events relating to the United States and Israel:
On Oct. 30, 1991, President George H.W. Bush signed the Oslo Accord pressuring Israel to give “land for peace.” The next day, “the perfect storm” hit New England causing damages over $100 million, including 30 foot waves demolishing the home of President George H.W. Bush at Kennebunkport, Maine.
On Aug. 23, 1992, President George H.W. Bush pressured Israel with the Madrid “land for peace” agreement. The same day, Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida causing $30 billion in damages, destroying over 180,000 homes.
On Jan. 16, 1994, President Bill Clinton met in Geneva with Syria’s President Hafez el-Assad to discuss Israel giving up the Golan Heights in exchange for peace. Within 24 hours a 6.9 earthquake devastated Southern California.
On Jan. 21, 1998, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was snubbed at the White House when President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright refused to have lunch with him. The same day, the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted.
On Sept. 28, 1998, Secretary of State Albright detailed another “land for peace” agreement requiring Israel to surrender 13 percent of the West Bank and Gaza. President Clinton met with Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, followed by Arafat telling the United Nations there would soon be a Palestinian state. The same day, Hurricane Georges hit the Gulf Coast causing $1 billion in damages.
On Oct. 15, 1998, Yassar Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu met in Maryland to discuss Israel giving up 13 percent of the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for “peace.” Two days later, tornadoes hit Texas leaving $1 billion in damages.
On Dec. 12, 1998, President Clinton arrived in the Palestinian area to discuss Israel giving up “land for peace.” The same day, President Clinton was impeached.
On May 3, 1999, Yasser Arafat had scheduled a press conference to announce a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the capital. The same day, the most powerful tornado storms to hit the United States whipped through Oklahoma and Kansas.
On June 8, 2001, President George W. Bush sent Secretary Tenet to Jerusalem with a proposal to exchange land for a “roadmap to peace.” The same day, tropical Storm Allison hit Texas causing $7 billion in damage and closing George Bush Airport for two days.
As part of a U.S. brokered deal, Jews were forcibly evacuated from Gaza, with the last Jewish residents being dragged out on Aug. 22, 2005. The very next day, a tropical depression in the Atlantic turned into Hurricane Katrina and headed straight for New Orleans, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate. Property damage in New Orleans exceeded $81 billion. Nearly 2,000 people died. It was one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. Instead of “peace,” Hamas took over Gaza and began digging tunnels and firing thousands of rockets into Israel.”
http://www.wnd.com/2016/09/9th-of-av-think-twice-before-messing-with-israel/?cat_orig=diversions
I think I’ll go outside today and yell something really bad at the sky about Israel.
Maybe it will rain.
I’ll let ya know how it turns out.
What do they say — “the stupid, it burns.”
Is it irrational to want an American foreign policy that is not based on belief in the Rapture?
We spend $600,000,000,000+ (of borrowed money) on the military every year because of the beliefs of a wide swath of the electorate that sincerely believes that one day, soon, they will all vanish up into the sky.
I don’t think anybody in their right minds wants that. Whether our foreign policy is based on that belief, I dunno. Seems like a bit of a stretch.
Wanting the rapture and vanishing up in the sky is extremely mentally lazy. It’s basically saying, “I give up, I don’t even want to try to make this world a good place.”
We spend $600,000,000,000+ (of borrowed money) on the military every year because of the beliefs of a wide swath of the electorate that sincerely believes that one day, soon, they will all vanish up into the sky.
A better explanation is that the corporations that receive that money are good at manipulating DC to convince the government to buy their products.
Just a day to vent a little:
Drive by the farm fields and see the quote non marketable heads of lettuce left in the fields to be plowed under. Don’t worry just give out ECB cards to feed the poor so they can gamble in Vegas.
Find fecal matter (deer, sea gull) and the whole crop is plowed under. Go to the grocery store and buy produce from third world countries and no one cares. Put the American farmers out of production, save that water to run back into the ocean.
Pull a good low flush toilet because you want an elongated bowl vs round or a different color and the old toilet even if it were installed a month ago has to be destroyed. Salvation Thrift stores can’t take, recycled second chance stores at the dumps can’t take. Low income want new subsidized toilets and then within several years look like crap. Sell a house and old toilets have to be changed into low flush ones. Just take ‘um to the dump and throw them into the pile.
Go to a tile store up here in Monterey and the first question is who is your installer? You can look but you will need an installer. Try some plumbing stores for fixtures and you will get the same type of question, who’s you plumber. They are trying to push the trades and most of the tradesmen are inept and produce poor workmanship and have an exalted sense of worth. In bako the car garages charged $75-$95/hr and here I was quoted $300/hr for the same work. After asking old timers I found the best places to have work done.
When my water heater went out I called my home owners policy contact for a new one. There was a $65 dollar deductible. They show up to install: day one,is it leaking. Day 2, it’s on order. Day 4, sent a crew from another county to install. You have to get a permit, we only allow x dollars but the permit is y dollars so you owe us. There is a disposal and haul off fee not included, you owe us. Those new heavy duty copper lines that were installed last year are not legal, you need stainless, you owe us. You don’t have a water trap installed per new regs, you owe us.
An so goes the new world.
Not the world just California. This is the end result of decades of lowering the bar.
Pull a good low flush toilet because you want an elongated bowl vs round or a different color and the old toilet even if it were installed a month ago has to be destroyed. Salvation Thrift stores can’t take, recycled second chance stores at the dumps can’t take.
Try Craigslist.
Maybe you could escape by cutting the barbed wire and going over the wall when the searchlight sweeps the other way. I think tunneling will take too long.
Not a toilet, but I removed the flow-restrictor in my shower head a couple months ago. (don’t tell anyone pls). I felt like such a rebel. Showers are much better now.
MSM has to go after Gary Johnson.
Anti-Trump Mexican: “Kill Trump and as Many of His Supporters as Possible”
“Anywhere he goes just try to bomb the place, shoot up the place, do something”
Paul Joseph Watson - September 8, 2016
Shock video shows an anti-Trump Mexican urging other Mexicans to “Kill Donald Trump and as many of his supporters as possible.”
The video was uploaded to YouTube but was subsequently made private. The version above was captured by a pro-Trump Facebook page.
In the clip, the young man openly calls for the assassination of the Republican presidential candidate.
“We, Mexicans, have to kill Donald J. Trump before he becomes President. He is a threat to every single one of us. There are many Mexican Americans living in the U.S. right now and I’m asking them to kill Donald Trump before he becomes President. The ones in Mexico who have the means, I’m asking you to cross the border and go and kill Donald Trump, and as many of his supporters as possible,” he states.
Anywhere he goes just try to bomb the place, shoot up the place, do something. If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, and kill the Nazis, would you do it? We have a modern day Hitler, and we have to kill him before he gets into power,” he adds.
“So I want you to spread this message, and I’m encouraging every single Mexican out there who has the guts to stand up for the Mexican people and to kill Trump and his Nazi followers. Let’s do this. Viva Mexico! F**k those motherf***ers,” he concludes.
The reference to Hitler underscores the fact that the media’s total demonization of Trump is encouraging lunatics to think that assassinating him is a noble cause.
http://www.infowars.com/ - 172k -