We’re Starting To See Some Foreclosures
The Business News Network reports from Canada. “When Vancouver native Gabrielle Phyo and her husband searched for a home on Bowen Island, B.C. earlier this year, little did they realize that the money they set aside as a down payment would be insufficient in just a matter of months. Phyo and her husband, a British citizen, were just steps away from buying a home and relocating from the U.K. back to Canada when they found out they would have to pay a 15 per cent tax on half of the home’s price. That would have slapped on another $125,000 to the cost, Phyo said.”
“‘We just couldn’t afford it. Vancouver homes are already extremely expensive, and we had to take out a mortgage. The additional amount we have to pay on the tax is almost like having to come up with a second down payment,’ said Phyo. ‘We would not be able to take out a big enough mortgage to afford a regular three-bedroom home in Bowen Island if it was just my name and my income on the mortgage.’”
“Vancouver home sales plummeted 26 per cent in August, compared to the same month a year earlier, according to the latest figures from the Real Estate Board of Vancouver. Yet, that drop in sales activity likely was not due to the foreign buyers’ tax, according to a report by Capital Economics. ‘Home sales were down an even larger percentage in July, before the foreign buyers’ tax was instituted. These trends support the idea that it is debt, and not foreign money that is inflating a housing bubble across Canada,’ Capital Economics said.”
From 640 Toronto. “A chief North American Economist says the foreign buyer’s tax isn’t the reason for the 26 per cent decline in Metro Vancouver home sales last month. In a report by Paul Ashworth of Global Economics, it says media failed to report homes sales were down by 27 per cent in July year over year. And since February, Metro Vancouver’s market has seen a downward trend, proving the foreign levy has made no impact to drive the housing bubble.”
“UBC Economist Tom Davidoff agrees. ‘China is making it harder and harder to get money out, and of course the loonie weakened, it may well have been part of the decline in our market, he’s correct. We hit a peak in transactions prior to the summer.’”
“The report says irresponsible lending and rising domestic debt are also to blame for the steep decline in sales.”
The Globe and Mail. “When the lights go on in the City of Vancouver, it is the dark windows that tend to catch the eye. On any given night, there are a lot of condo towers in the downtown area, particularly along the waterfront in Coal Harbour, where the unlit rooms indicate nobody is at home. According to recent studies, there are an estimated 10,800 empty houses in the city – about 9,700 of which are condos. Short-term rentals, mostly through Airbnb, have taken about another 3,400 units off the housing market.”
“In a city gripped by a housing affordability crisis, with a vacancy rate near zero and rental rates soaring, the large number of dark windows has long been perplexing and troubling. The phenomenon is not unique to Vancouver. In Melbourne, Australia, water-use records have shown that some 64,000 housing units were empty, accounting for the so-called ‘ghost towers’ in the Docklands district where 17 per cent of properties weren’t being lived in. In New York, the city budget office determined last year that nearly 25 per cent of apartments were not used as primary residences.”
The Calgary Herald. “Potential buyers of apartments and attached homes continued to see lower prices and an uptick in selection through Calgary’s resale market in August. The largest savings last month came from the apartment segment, where the benchmark price was $274,900, slipping $21,000 from the same time in 2015, says the Calgary Real Estate Board. or attached homes, the benchmark in August was $331,000, down $16,300 year over year. Attached homes combine activity from the duplex and townhome segments.”
“‘When we look at the demand and supply for both of these segments of the market, it is a bit more weighted on the supply side,’ says Richard Cho, principal of market analysis for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. ‘So we’ve seen some steeper declines in sales and stronger increases in inventory — that’s weighing down prices in the apartment and attached segments of the market compared to the detached (single-family) segment of the market.’”
“The benchmark price on single-family homes in Calgary last month eased to $503,200 from $520,200 a year earlier. Both inventory and new listings for apartments and attached homes, respectively, picked up in August.”
From CTV News Calgary. “ConocoPhillips announced in July that it would cut 1000 staff around the world, 300 of them from Calgary, and has now followed through. Experts say even though the price of oil is starting to stabilize, the tough times for the industry are not over yet. ‘I think we’re bracing for more layoffs coming from the oil patch but more so from some of the peripheral industries, things like construction, manufacturing and professional business services,’ said Todd Hirsch, ATB Chief Economist. ‘I think we’re moving into what will be in hindsight the deepest, darkest days of the recession.’”
“As compensation packages and unemployment benefits dry up for those laid off in the first wave of cuts, Hirsch says expect even more pain across the board. ‘I think we’ll see added strain on consumer spending, things like retail, the bar and restaurant sector, possibly the housing market as some of those families really start running out of cash and resources in that way,’ he said.”
From Okotoks Online. “The housing market in Calgary has seen some slight drops in price over the last few months which has helped some benefit selling and buying homes in Okotoks. Realtor at CIR Realty Brett Murrell says the detached home market has been prospering as of late. The current average price of a single family family home in Okotoks is just over $425,000 and Murrell says that’s quite the drop from the past couple of years.”
“‘They’re down from what we were seeing in 2014 and 2015 definitely. But I think they were getting a little crazy in my understanding in the way I look at it 2014 they were definitely sky rocketing an we’re trying to get back to those values we’re definitely not there yet. We’re down between four to six percent depending on the housing,’ he said.”
“The current economic situation in Alberta doesn’t make life easy for those on the market looking to buy and looking to sell and Murrell says home values may drop a bit more in the coming months. ‘Hearing out the rumours that we haven’t seen the bottom yet only due to severance packages and stuff like that from the Oil & Gas industries, we’re starting to see possibly some foreclosures and obviously some more price correcting.’”
‘I think we’re moving into what will be in hindsight the deepest, darkest days of the recession.’
Good luck up there.
‘The phenomenon is not unique to Vancouver. In Melbourne, Australia, water-use records have shown that some 64,000 housing units were empty, accounting for the so-called ‘ghost towers’ in the Docklands district where 17 per cent of properties weren’t being lived in. In New York, the city budget office determined last year that nearly 25 per cent of apartments were not used as primary residences.’
But there’s a shortage of housing.
“But there’s a shortage of housing.”
No there isn’t. Not here in the bay area anyways.
Cupertino, CA Housing Prices Crater 9%YOY As Housing Inventory Skyrockets
http://www.zillow.com/cupertino-ca/home-values/
64000 empty? No way.
Rental and jingle would call that occupied.
No water usage?
May be they make their own water? They are owner occupied I swear.
Our resident housing bulls are busy with preparations for their delicious Thanksgiving dinner of baked crow.
“But there’s a shortage of housing.”
…and millions of homeless people.
And some 40+% of those homeless are US veterans. What a disgrace! Granted some don’t do themselves favors by turning to drugs, alcohol, getting kicked out of homes for various reasons, etc,etc but still.
Theres plenty of excess empty and defaulted housing to go around. Millions of them.
The bigger question should have been was Hilary a trump’s ruse? How much did He pay? Why would dems select such a bad candidate to begin with?
Crooked Hillary took it. There was no selection.
The Democrats selected a candidate in their own image: corrupt and venal to the core. Hillary was supposed to take the patronage, graft, and redistribution of the wealth to the next level, as well as importing millions of Democrat-on-Arrival illegals and refugees from neocon wars to ensure a permanent Democrat supermajority for future elections. Forward, Soviet!
There’s no path to victory for the dems now. The bigger the lie, the bigger the problem, and they’re lying like crazy:
1) She’s fine
2) Forget what we said before, its allergies
3) Forget what we said before, pneumonia
4) Others have gotten the pneumonia, but forget that point because when pressed we’ll claim its not contagious
Dems and the media have constructed this massive jenga tower of lies. They have to drag her corpse across the finish line or they thoroughly expose themselves to the low info voters that don’t understand servers and classified documents but did watch weekend at bernies and understand lying about someone sick/dead. Any replacement will be seen as a farce - even Bernie. To Bernie supporters, they were betrayed by both the clinton machine and bernie himself in the end.
Stick a fork in the dems, this could be a repub sweep that even adds reps and senators, something no one would have ever guessed.
Hillaryous is unelectable.
They have to drag her corpse across the finish line or they thoroughly expose themselves to the low info voters that don’t understand servers and classified documents but did watch weekend at Bernies and understand lying about someone sick/dead.
Well said, but the sad truth is, Hillary supporters are so ignorant, amoral, and debauched that they associate D on the ballot with more freebies paid for by somebody else. They will vote for her regardless, and thanks to the Great Society and years of liberal destruction of morality and any sense of personal responsibility, they are almost certainly the majority.
“They have to drag her corpse across the finish line”
Even now, plans for CGI Hillary and RoboTaxidermy Hillary are in the works, as the real Hillary takes elective blood transfusions Ecuadoran tweens in an hail mary attempt to keep her alive till november!
SH*T JUST GOT REAL!
Trump raciss.
Late Night Tackles 2016
Stephen Colbert grills Cartoon Hillary Clinton over Clinton’s ‘Lunghazi’ scandal
4:18 a.m. ET
The big political news this week is Hillary Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis, “or as some are calling it, Lunghazi,” Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday’s Late Night, quickly conceding that “not many people” are calling it that, “so far just me, but some.” The real problem on Sunday was apparently dehydration, tied to Clinton’s alleged refusal to drink water, Colbert said, reading a quote from a staffer — “She won’t drink water, and you try telling Hillary Clinton she has to drink water” — then adding: “Challenge accepted.” He talked up the benefits of water, 1980s infomercial-style, ending with the tag line “Water: You need it to live” and the admission, after taking a sip, “I am not a fan.”
…
Go back to your mom’s basement you deplorable.
The deplorable is right, though. Hillary is throwing the election to Trump. They’re pranking the MSM.
I’m going to see Trump speak in Colorado Springs on Saturday.
I wish that many of his supporters weren’t so eager to embrace authoritarianism, but I think this could be really fun
You’ll have a blast!
BTW, if you haven’t read Kurt Vonnegut, please do so. He’s right up your alley. A fine sense of the absurd.
69-year-old woman punched in face outside rally by Trump supporter
WLOS — ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Police say they arrested five people at Trump’s night rally Monday in Asheville, and as of publishing have warrants out for two more people.
Police plan to arrest Richard Campbell of Edisto Island, South Carolina for assault on a female.
That female is 69-year-old Shirley Teter.
She has protested her whole life, she said. Now she adds Donald Trump’s campaign to the list of things she’s protested against.
“Why did I get involved yesterday, at my age? Because I ran into another situation that was sickening my heart,” she said Tuesday afternoon, outside Cafe 64 in downtown Asheville.
Protesters met Trump supporters before the rally, and Teter was having fun.
“Whenever groups of them would start chanting ‘Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump!’ I would chant back, ‘Dump, dump, dump, dump.’ It was kind of comical,” Teter said.
After the rally, Teeter experienced something she had never seen in all of her protests. Peace teetered over into something else.
“I said you better learn to speak Russian, and I said the first two words are going to be, ha ha. He stopped in his tracks, and he turned around and just cold-cocked me,” Teter said.
She was punched in the face.
She says she fell on her oxygen tank and has sore ribs, a sore jaw, and cut her elbow. She later went to the hospital and is thankful she did not break any bones.
http://wlos.com/news/local/69-year-old-woman-punched-in-face-outside-rally-by-trump-supporter
The above sponsored post at 17:59:24 financed and endorsed by the Southern Poverty Law Center:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/16/southern-poverty-law-center-manufacturing-hate-for-fun-and-profit/
Mr. Mike does not work for the Southern Poverty Law Center. He works for the OSF via moveon.org. While we find him to be a dedicated and principled social justice worker and a true believer in our cause, it has become evident to us that his heroic and tenacious efforts to suborn and subvert the amusing but trifling Housing Bubble Blog have failed.
We will shortly be publishing our periodic review of his performance, as we do with all our employees from time to time, and will be recommending re-training and re-assignment, as it has become obvious to us that Mr. Mike’s efforts here have borne little fruit. Our cause is just and the stakes have never been higher. It costs much money to train and deploy our personnel, and our burden is great. We had hoped for more progress and Mr. Mike had felt that he was close to a break-through, but alas, we see that this is not to be.
We will bear in mind the rude and degrading manner in which you have treated this sincere and devoted individual.
Sincerely,
Chief Social Justice Supervisor
Who ever is paying you for this nonsense is not getting his money’s worth.
“…if you haven’t read Kurt Vonnegut…”
If he were alive, he would be sounding the warning on Trump to those who have succumbed to irrational exuberance over his candidacy.
“Police plan to arrest Richard Campbell of Edisto Island, South Carolina for assault on a female.”
She asked for it, as Trump has given his supporters free license to inflict violence on dissenters who protest at his campaign rallies. Certainly this woman was aware that she was coming to the nuisance.
How would you know? Your knowledge of Vonnegut likely extends only to Cliff Notes and PBS appearances. Maybe you saw Slaughterhouse Five so you could seem all hip and knowledgeable at the faculty tea.
However, I’d bet money you raptured up every word written by Kilgore Trout (the mawkish and unreadable Richard Brautigan, who Vonnegut recognized for the pretentious hack that he was.)
Pop goes the Weasel!
‘Trump has given his supporters free license to inflict violence on dissenters who protest at his campaign rallies’
Do you have a link for that?
This is one of many. And I am sure there’s also a propaganda campaign to cover up the history.
The LA Times
Politics
Donald Trump has a history of endorsing violence against protesters
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump points to balcony where protesters were causing a disturbance during a campaign rally Friday in St. Louis.
(Seth Perlman / Associated Press)
Michael Finnegan
March 11, 2016
….
“How would you know?”
For one I have read some of his books. But it wasn’t until we visited the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis, Indiana that I realized we share similar cultural roots in the Midwestern German immigrant farm community.
Lol most of the violent protests candid videos I see are attacking working class people coming to/from rallies/speeches. The attackers are young hooligans who want Free $H1t. Also there are plenty opf videos of minorities turning on their own whom they deem “Traitors” for supporting Trump because of their perception of him trampling their free $H!t.
“Lol most of the violent protests candid videos I see are attacking working class people coming to/from rallies/speeches.”
There is a difference between random videos you can find on the Internet showing acts of violence versus a documented pattern of behavior by one of the candidates to encourage violence at his rallies.
This is one of many. And I am sure there’s also a propaganda campaign to cover up the history.
He also offered to pay the legal fees of supporters who attack protesters at his rallies.
Lol most of the violent protests candid videos I see are attacking working class people coming to/from rallies/speeches. The attackers are young hooligans who want Free $H1t.
I doubt that you can see in those YouTube videos that attackers at Trump rallies want Free $H1t. However, it would be good if we can all agree that those attackers and anyone who encourages them, should not be given great responsibilities, regardless of their class or color.
Irrelevant.
They really thought being married to the “cool” Slick Willy Clinton and being female would be enough to swoop up American votes. What a farce.
“The bigger question should have been was Hilary a trump’s ruse?”
LOL, Butters, great minds think alike. Remember, people were saying (including a couple of geniuses here on the HBB) that Trump was going to throw the election to Hillary, JUST WAIT AND SEE!
After Flopsy’s performance on Sunday, I started wondering if it wasn’t the other way around. After all, Trump did make a donation to the Clinton Foundation at one point. So he has a favor coming.
Her campaign just went into orbit around Uranus with the Pepe the Frog thing. They’ve devoted a whole section on why a green cartoon character is a white supremacist, complete with a Q and A. Holeeee Jeebus! And even better, they got one of their WaPo running dogs to write an article on how Hillary may have been poisoned by Trump AND Putin. And then there’s the H with an arrow campaign logo which is actually just a very slight variation on those road markers that point out the direction where a hospital is.
I’ll say one thing for Hillary, she really knows how to deliver!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6RT8Tm_MxU
PLOP!
WTF. Now Hillary is trying to say hang “Pepe the frog” - an alleged white supremacist symbol - around Trump’s neck. It looks like Pepe is some kind of alt-right icon - and the alt-right seems to be a very nebulous, ill-defined movement except to the Clinton campaign, which calls them all white supremacists and neo-nazis. How “Pepe” ended up being used by Trump supporters, I have no idea, but I suspect as a symbol it started off as something innoculous but then a tiny handful of white supremacists claimed it as their own and now Hillary, true to form, is conflating their actions to smear millions of Trump supporters as white supremacists, when most are nothing of the sort. Anyway, it looks like the Hillary campaign is grasping at straws.
Hillary is throwing the race? MIND BLOWN! Someone alert Alex Jones and Howard Stern!
Why? Because the democrat party is the media and she was and is the media darling!
German bond yields up 101% today. Whoa. Moves like that mean some disturbance in the derivatives force, as if a million hedgies screamed out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmbmkde-10y?countrycode=bx&mod=MW_story_quote
Oh dear…
‘Treasury yields rose to three-month highs after comments from major investors at the CNBC/ Institutional Investor’s Delivering Alpha conference and a weak 30-year auction. LMM’s Bill Miller said he’s shorting the 10-year, and Elliott Management’s Paul Singer said the long end of the bond market was a bubble and Treasurys and other developed market bonds are not safe havens.’
“I think rates are no longer going down,” said Lindsey Group chief market analyst Peter Boockvar.’
“Yesterday’s weak 10-year [auction] was followed by the weak 30-year. A weak bond auction followed by a fragile state in the market is enough to trigger it. The market is handing investors the highest yields in three months and people aren’t biting,” said Boockvar.’
“All you needed to see [Monday] was the 10-year yield did not fall. That was another tell on the state of bonds. [Fed Gov. Lael] Brainard was dovish and the 10-year yield didn’t fall, and the 2-year didn’t fall either,” said Boockvar.’
‘Boockvar said a key to the markets will be whether the Japanese 10-year sovereign returns to positive yields, now that 10-year German bund yields have turned positive. “The 10-year could turn positive for the first time in many, many months. That’s what I’m going to be watching for. Japan is the epicenter of all this [quantitative easing],” he said.’
The DebtDonkeys are quakin’ and shakin’. The CraterGators are snappin’. And I’m a clappin’.
“German bond yields up 101% today.”
What would the capital loss be to someone who owned one?
‘Calgary, Sept 13 : Since there had been a wild fire of the century in the recorded history of Canada, the oil rich Alberta, once the richest province in the whole country had been relegated to a position of a heavily debt ridden province in Canada.’
‘According to a recent statement from the Finance Minister of Alberta Joel Ceci had spelt out in no uncertain terms that the provincial government had been totally helpless in the face of unprecedented loss of employment where thousands of Albertans were out of job.’
‘The dual threat of dwindling oil market and with the Fort Mcmurray wildfire earlier in May this year , the provincial government had been so puzzled, that they could not steer towards any hopeful direction where the economy could be saved from freefall.’
‘The ongoing recession was going to hit third year and there was hardly any light to be seen at the end of the tunnel.’
Healthy people routinely travel with a personal doctor close at hand.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3786445/Is-Hillary-Clinton-s-undercover-nurse-Pictures-unnamed-woman-checking-candidate-s-pulse-performing-neurological-test-collapsed-9-11-memorial.html
Don’t be silly. They were just thumb wrestling.
UK housing prices still soaring, in large part because the country’s globalist Establishment government is still letting in massive numbers of migrants and asylum seekers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/housing-market-cools-in-first-post-brexit-official-figures-but-p/
My SO’s family is all British, she tells me their welfare is so lax they give housing to single mothers. No joke, their little countryside town is filled with these mums and other leeches who get free or severely discounted rent. Of course its expensive when supply is fixed from some 300 yrs ago…
‘According to statistics released by the Calgary Real Estate Board, the Airdrie Real Estate market had a slower month of August with 118 MLS® sales. We are in a tale of two markets right now, with detached homes faring quite well. However, if you are trying to sell an apartment-style condo things are very, very different.’
‘There are 86 apartments for sale representing 20 per cent of our listings. With only three sales last month that leaves us with 28.67 months of inventory. In other words, it might take you more than two years to sell your condo.’
‘Calgary is also suffering with an oversupply of apartments for sale, but the city has only six months worth of inventory. This is another example of how the city has too many apartments. However, more are set to be built over the next few years.’
“Former” Goldmanite Draghi frets that the sheeple are waking up to the massive swindles being perpetrated against them by their EU overlords.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/13/draghi-eu-must-redistribute-wealth-and-strengthen-borders-to-sav/
Stupid, amoral Venezuelans who are reaping the consequences of voting for collectivist kleptocrats seem to lack a sense of humor when their well-fed overlords mock their starvation diets. A preview of coming attractions when Comrade Hillary and the DNC’s Comrades of Proven Worth gain their permanent Democrat supermajority of takers and dependency voters.
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/09/13/nicolas-maduro-makes-diet-jokes/
As a Vancouver guy;
The real estate board really screwed themselves with their constant lying. Had they told the truth about the market slowing, the foreign tax would have been harder to implement. Their constant stream of bullshit probably cost them a king’s ransom in current and future income.
We had some newly found distant family over at the house recently and the woman was basically sizing up our house mentally placing it somewhere relative to her own. This behaviour is so crass, but it is indicative to the mania that has gripped everyone here…
A family friend is running a drywall installing business and he can’t find anyone, or keep anyone. Sometimes, he hires someone and they do not show up because they found a bit higher pay somewhere else. I’ve seen this a few times now moments before the unbelievable goes right ahead and does its thing…
The Chinese money was going to dry up eventually. I don’t know if you saw the Globe and Mail report I posted Sunday, but this thing is crooked as it could be and these ridiculous prices are a result of that.
I read all your posts and pay close attention to the Canadian content. As far as I can tell, the locals are mesmerized by their property assessments and their egos blind them to the unsavory aspect of their new found wealth. Couple that with the local realtor association constantly stroking the soft spots on their naïve heads, and you get the full steam ahead, no holds barred all out full blown mania, even after prices have plummeted less then an hour drive away.
The herd is still bidding each other up and out proclaiming victory signing ever more astronomical mortgages.
People here on the most part are true believers and only years of relentless losses will shift their opinions.
Opinions and imagined and unsaleable asking prices are meaningless.
Nowhere is housing related fraud more evident than in the pacific northwest and California.
True price discovery, when it comes, is going to be cataclysmic for this make-believe “wealth effect.”
Um, doesn’t Ben do a great job of showing how it’s kinda everywhere?
I think what’s unique to CA and the Pacific Northwest is the huge concentration of tech and proximity to East Asia, as US States go.
The only thing unique to CA is the rampant poverty and crime there.
“Vancouver Housing Market Implodes: Average Home Price Plunges 20% In 1 Month”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-18/vancouver-housing-market-implodes-average-home-price-plunges-20-1-month-market-devas
Newcastle, WA Housing Prices Crater 7% yoy
http://www.zillow.com/newcastle-wa/home-values/
This is the lead article on the New York Times website right now:
“Pop-cultural representations of trans people have historically reduced them to objects of pity or scorn. “Over and over again, somebody is crying in the mirror, taking off their wig,” Ernst said over dinner at a gastropub near the Silver Lake home he shares with his partner, Patrick Staff, an artist. “There are these fixations that cis-gender people get that are not the way our lives are being lived at all.” (To be “cis-gender” is to identify as the gender you are assigned at birth; i.e., not trans.) A prime example, he said, is “Dallas Buyers Club,” a critically acclaimed film that earned Jared Leto an Oscar in 2014 for his supporting role as Rayon, an H.I.V.-positive trans woman. “She was a throwaway character,” Ernst griped, “a drug addict who was there to make the protagonist learn about himself, and she was named after a synthetic fabric. That’s not a real person.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/magazine/how-two-producers-of-transparent-are-making-trans-lives-more-visible-starting-with-their-own.html?_r=0
Well yeah, you are a real person. But if a six year old child looks at you and says “mommy that’s a man wearing a dress” then you’re not really convincing other people that you’re the person you claim to be.
And in case you forgot, the Democrat Party is rather cozy with alot of regimes that will imprison or execute people for being gay or trans. But it’s better to just pretend that isn’t true right?
And in case you forgot, the Democrat Party is rather cozy with alot of regimes that will imprison or execute people for being gay or trans. But it’s better to just pretend that isn’t true right?
Caveate: as long as those abhorrent regimes make the requisite payola to the Clinton Foundation or the DNC’s other bribe-taking fronts or “bundlers.”
Free Jon Corzine!
I had a conversation with a psychologist friend a month ago. She told me being gay is desire, lust. Being transgender is identity, not necessarily desire. Why are these lumped together?
And why is this the lead article on the New York Times?
F* who you wanna f* and be who you tell yourself you are, just don’t expect a trophy for it.
Army to provide Chelsea Manning with gender-reassignment surgery, lawyer says:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/13/chelsea-manning-get-gender-reassignment-surgery-ar/
Be who you want to be. It’s a free country. But you can’t legislate other people’s perceptions of what you are…
Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for somebody’s “gender reassignment surgery.”
I agree. Live and let live. But F if my tax dollars are going to this.
Ha, here in Boston as a publicity stunt Tufts Medical offered someone free gender surgery. “Look how nice we are in the face of such bigots, like get with the times man…”
No “smaller government” or “less regulation” or “lower taxes” happening here:
“Israel and the United States have reached an agreement that will provide Israel an unprecedented amount of military aid over a decade.
The State Department said the agreement, known as a memo of understanding, will be signed Wednesday afternoon. Jacob Nagel, Israel’s acting national security adviser, arrived in Washington on Tuesday morning to sign on behalf of his country.
The agreement is expected to give Israel as much as $3.8 billion a year over 10 years, more aid than the United States has ever provided to any country. That represents a significant increase over the $3.1 billion the United States gives annually now, a figure that increases to about $3.5 billion a year with aid supplements approved by Congress. That is also much lower than the $4 billion to $5 billion a year that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/agreement-on-military-aid-for-israel-expected-within-days/2016/09/13/50847ad8-79c1-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html
the $4 billion to $5 billion a year that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought
How do American taxpayers, citizens, voters benefit from this?
This is a serious question. Since 1948 what has been the actual net benefit?
Who is paying for this one? Oh yeah, you are.
Israel and Syria move closer to war:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/13/israel-and-syria-move-closer-war/
Pretty sure we’re paying for this, too, one way or the other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNi8AZgaQ_s
This is some disturbing footage.
Which you will see replayed in Texas circa 2024.
New York and California and D.C. are gonna be some crowded, hungry places to be when the lights go out, and food doesn’t magically grow itself on grocery store shelves, that you can’t pay for with an EBT card that doesn’t work (sidenote LMFAO @ bitcoin).
Time to get real. I can’t be so down about the future.
Let’s listen to some Marvin Gaye:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1ITEhp8SBk
California produces a huge amount of food.
Not after we dam the Colorado River at the Utah state line and say see ya later suckers and good luck living in a f*ing desert.
“This sucker could go down” — George W. Bush, 2008
Then you won’t just be going to war with California. Utah, Nevada and Arizona will be on their side.
Irrelevant
Such a great blog with great comments.
But I just don’t understand all the anti-California stuff here. It’s so over the top, such a strong preoccupation.
Please by all means enlighten me on the city or state that has such honorable policy, noble politicians, and a thriving economy.
We’ve been paying for it. Don’t we give Israel some 44 billion annually in military aid?
I read an article by a analyst firm that puts the true cost of the war, debt interest included, at almost $5 Trillion now.
Sorry meant $4 billion
$38 billion would buy a lot of infrastructure to put Americans back to work. But I suppose tent cities and jobless workers are better.
As I’ve stated before, Israel was a well intentioned idea after WWII.
Giving its Jewish citizens the opportunity to emigrate to the United States (where the 1st Amendment guarantees freedom of religion) and evacuating that place and the whole Middle East and just pulling the plug on it, like Dunkirk, like Saigon 1975, is the best path forward.
Some immigrants assimilate. Some do not. But this could be the greatest infusion of intellectual capital this country has ever seen.
P.S. the Rapture ain’t happening, so get over it…
” Israel was a well intentioned idea after WWII.”
The British started the project after they took the area from the Ottomans in WWI.
“Rampant fraud” in Obamacare. I am Jack’s total lack of surprise. Maybe that was the point all along: serve as the perfect vehicle to generate payola and kickbacks to the Democrat Party.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-13/study-reveals-rampant-fraud-obamacare-exchanges-100-fictitious-enrollees-able-obtain
What percentage of every gov program is fraud ?
Smelly
Yeah, this looks sustainable.
http://www.businessinsider.com/vancouver-condo-prices-rise-for-22nd-straight-month-2016-9
Yet housing prices fell.
“Grocery Prices Have Fallen For Eight Straight Months”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2016/09/12/stock-up-grocery-prices-have-fallen-eight-straight-months/90265872/
Looks like California governor Jerry Brown is building a bolthole for when the financial reckoning day arrives.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article101600907.html
“Oil Prices Fall As IEA Says Global Glut Is Here To Stay”
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/13/investing/iea-oil-prices-glut/
Nothing creates jobs, raises the standard of living and accelerates the economy like falling prices. Nothing.
More positive economic news!
“Copper Prices Fall to a 2-Month Low, Demand Still Stagnant”
https://agmetalminer.com/2016/08/25/copper-prices-fall-to-a-2-month-low/
Dr. Copper is a far better economic indicator than the Fed’s rosy forecasts or our Soviet-style unemployment and inflation statistics.
It’s awesome. Time to encourage Lil’ Sis to load up on more commodities. (She has cash savings and looks to me for guidance on how to invest them…)
No bitcoin for sis?
Jobless proles is an unfortunate necessity and part of the “new normal” in our crony capitalist wonderland, where CEOs get obscene pay for increasing “shareholder value” by buying their own stock with Fed-provided free gambling money. ‘Murica!
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/09/13/falling-employment-projections-by-ceo-business-roundtable/
crushing.housing.losses.
Obama’s Tax Collections
Surpass $20,000,000,000,000; Still Runs Up Debt by $8,878,290,996,028
By Terence P. Jeffrey | September 13, 2016 | 2:45 PM EDT
CNSNews.com) – With the additional $231,327,000,000 in taxes that the U.S. Treasury collected in August, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today, President Barack Obama has now presided over more than $20,000,000,000,000 in federal tax collections during the 91 full months he has served in the Oval Office.
From February 2009 through August 2016, the Treasury collected approximately $20,197,437,000,000 in tax revenues (in non-inflation-adjusted dollars), according to the Monthly Treasury Statements.
During those same 91 months, the federal debt rose from $10,632,005,246,736.97 to $19,510,296,242,765.66—an increase of $8,878,290,996,028.69.
A UK parliamentary report has severely criticised the intervention by Britain and France that led to the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The foreign affairs committee accused the then PM David Cameron of lacking a coherent strategy for the air campaign.
It said the intervention had not been “informed by accurate intelligence”, and that it led to the rise of so-called Islamic State in North Africa.
The UK government said it had been an international decision to intervene.
The action had been called for by the Arab League and authorised by the UN Security Council, the Foreign Office added.
An international coalition led by Britain and France launched a campaign of air and missile strikes against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in March 2011 after the regime threatened to attack the rebel-held city of Benghazi.
But after Gaddafi was toppled, Libya descended into violence, with rival governments and the formation of hundreds of militias, while so-called Islamic State, also known as Isil and Daesh, has gained a foothold.
Mr Cameron has defended his handling of the situation, telling MPs in January action was needed because Gaddafi “was bearing down on people in Benghazi and threatening to shoot his own people like rats”.
But the foreign affairs committee said the government “failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated”, adding that it “selectively took elements of Gaddafi’s rhetoric at face value”.
The government also failed to identify the “militant Islamist extremist element in the rebellion”, the MPs said.
“The possibility that militant extremist groups would attempt to benefit from the rebellion should not have been the preserve of hindsight,” the committee said, adding: “UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence.”
Crispin Blunt, chairman of the committee, told the BBC: “We were dragged along by a French enthusiasm to intervene, and the mission then moved from protecting people in Benghazi, who arguably were not at the kind of threat that was then being presented…
“Indeed, on the basis of the evidence we took, the threat to the people of Benghazi was grossly overstated.”
The committee said “political options” were available once Benghazi had been secured - including through ex-PM Tony Blair’s contacts with Gaddafi - but the UK government “focused exclusively on military intervention”.
By the summer of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change, the committee said.
“That policy was not underpinned by a strategy to support and shape post-Gaddafi Libya.
“The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of Isil in North Africa.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37356873
A total balls up; I’m shocked i tell you shocked who could have predicted that.
Now everybody can be an “investor” in real estate.
http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/how-anyone-can-invest-in-real-estate-2016-9
How come The Trump stopped holding press conferences? I thought he loved speaking his mind directly to the MSM, sans teleprompter.
Junk-bond defaults soar.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/high-yield-defaults-swell-again-as-august-slowdown-was-temporary-blip-2016-09-13?siteid=YAHOOB
The shape of things to come: deep NIRP as central banks escalate their swindles against savers and the prudent.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSFWN1BP0CH
The neocon’s “ill-conceived” war to remove Qaddafi, for which then-Secretary of State Clinton led the charge, made the world more dangerous and destabilized. Maybe that was the point.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3788224/David-Cameron-blamed-rise-ISIS.html
Obama doesn’t want the Saudis to dump their US Treasuries or take their massive arms-buying elsewhere.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/13/obama-to-veto-bill-allowing-families-of-911-attacks-to-sue-saudi-arabia/
Perfect song for Bruce Springsteen to kick off his I’m with her Hillary for President concert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fdZWbIsrFk - 405k -
BTFD!
Brown vetoes help for hard-hit homeowners
STOCKTON
September 14, 2016 6:13am
• Penalizes those who sold homes as short sales
• “Those who short sale or received loan modifications to stay in their homes are taxed on ‘phantom income’”
Legislation that would have protected homeowners from being taxed on “phantom income” after losing their homes has been vetoed by Gov. Edmund Gerald Brown Jr.
State income tax law generally defines cancelled debt as a form of income. Under current law, those who foreclose on their homes are not taxed, but those who negotiate a short sale with their lender, or re-finance their home, are taxed by the state.
Without the legislation to exclude cancelled debt, many Californians are essentially taxed on money they never received.
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=31238
Mike Pence Is Rebuffed as He Tries to Rally G.O.P. Leaders Over ‘Deplorables’
By JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEXANDER BURNS
SEPT. 13, 2016
WASHINGTON — Gov. Mike Pence came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday on a mission to promote Republican unity, attacking Hillary Clinton for describing many supporters of the G.O.P. ticket as bigoted “deplorables” and urging Republicans to rally behind their nominee, Donald J. Trump.
But Mr. Pence struggled to press the attack: In separate news conferences, House and Senate Republican leaders declined to join Mr. Pence, the Indiana governor and vice-presidential nominee, in rebuking Mrs. Clinton over her remark.
Mr. Pence wound up raising the subject only when pressed by a reporter — and then gave a halting answer in which he would not call David Duke, a white supremacist and onetime Ku Klux Klan leader, “deplorable.” He insisted instead that Mrs. Clinton did not have “that bad man” in mind when she assailed Mr. Trump’s supporters.
It was a noticeable break in stride for the Trump campaign, which had zeroed in on Mrs. Clinton’s remark at a Manhattan fund-raiser Friday night — one for which she expressed regret the next day — running a new commercial and dispatching surrogates to attack her for what Mr. Trump has termed a “slander” of his “wonderful, amazing” followers.
Congressional Republicans were even blunter in private.
An otherwise friendly morning meeting with House Republicans turned awkward when Mr. Pence was pressed by Representative Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska about Mr. Trump’s difficulties with women, said two House Republicans who relayed the conversation. Mr. Fortenberry told Mr. Pence that his young daughter had come to him and said, “Daddy, Donald Trump hates women,” according to one of the lawmakers, who both insisted on anonymity to recount a private conversation.
“It’s just not true,” Mr. Pence shot back, arguing that Mr. Trump was improving with women, the two House Republicans said.
Mr. Pence faced resistance again when he met privately with Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas, neither of whom has endorsed Mr. Trump. Mr. Lee pressed the governor on his reluctance to denounce Mr. Duke and the so-called alt-right movement more explicitly, stressing “that Republicans must identify David Duke’s racism as deplorable,” according to Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Mr. Lee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/us/politics/mike-pence-campaign.html?_r=1
MightyMichel
Woofy Blitzer’s Clinton News Network attempt to bail out Hillary’s ‘Deplorables’ problem already failed badly.
O Canada - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwDvF0NtgdU - 171k -
It’s not a problem. Don’t worry.
Irrelevant..
Mighty
Do you get your Talking Points from the same place or do your employers have a different source than the army of outside surrogates?
Shock Video Shows CNN, MSNBC Embracing Role as “Surrogates” of Clinton Campaign
MSM uses exact same phrases distributed by Hillary’s “Daily Message Guidance”
Paul Joseph Watson - September 14, 2016
If this isn’t a brazen and shocking example of how controlled the media is in the United States, then I don’t know what is.
The clip exposes how mainstream media outlets immediately began regurgitating Clinton campaign talking points within hours of Hillary’s infamous collapse in New York on Sunday.
After Clinton campaign staffers began using the term “power through” over and over again in an effort to emphasize Hillary’s strength – a complete 180 of objective reality – network hosts adopted and repeated the phrase themselves.
As David Rutz reported, “Campaign manager Robby Mook and spokespeople Brian Fallon and Kristina Schake all repeated the talking point ad nauseam in their cable appearances on Monday. The media picked it up as well, with reporters on CNN and MSNBC using the phrase to describe how Hillary Clinton bravely reacted to a pneumonia diagnosis on Friday.”
However, the real scandal is how the media regurgitated talking points that were directly distributed by the Clinton campaign.
As Politico reported, “Those phrases, projecting strength, prudence, and vigor, were among the six bullet-pointed talking points about Clinton’s health the campaign distributed to its army of outside surrogates Tuesday morning. The marching orders, part of the “Daily Message Guidance” from Brooklyn headquarters, instructed Clinton allies on how to answer questions about the Democratic nominee’s pneumonia and about how she dealt with the untimely setback.”
So by repeating the exact same talking points, the likes of CNN and MSNBC were confirming and embracing their role as “surrogates” of the Clinton campaign.
Don’t Worry, Hillary Clinton Will Power Through | SUPERcuts! #360 …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E96lAHygeIU - 190k - Cached - Similar pages
1 day ago … The Hillary Clinton campaign has a talking point they want to get into the bloodstream about Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis.