September 20, 2016

The Argument For Demand Exceeding Supply Is Unfounded

A report from Bloomberg on China. “China’s attempts to slow runaway home-price growth in major cities are showing little sign of success, stoking the threat of a housing bubble that could destabilize the economy. Home prices rose in 64 of 70 cities tracked by the government, up from 51 the previous month. Shanghai prices surged a record 4.4 percent for a year-on-year gain of 31 percent, while Beijing’s climbed 24 percent from a year earlier. ‘The more immediate risk of a sudden and steep downturn in the economy comes from the threatened bursting of the property market bubble,’ Pauline Loong, managing director at research firm Asia-analytica in Hong Kong, wrote in a report. ‘And bubble it is. The real question for investors is when and what will pop the bubble?’”

“One difficulty in reining in the home-buying frenzy is the larger leverage residents used through commercial banks with a growing appetite on mortgage loans, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts led by Zhu Haibin wrote in a note. Buyers in second- and third-tier cities are able to obtain the same mortgage discounts as in largest hubs, normally between 10 to 15 percent, a sign that a liquidity surge has backed up the rally, Nomura’s Gao said.”

“‘What’s different in the current round of credit easing is even home purchase in third-tier cities enjoyed a relatively large discount,’ Gao said, citing Guizhou province. ‘This is a strong signal of a widespread ease in credit.’”

The New Zealand Herald. “It’s becoming harder for Aucklanders to borrow money for a new house if they haven’t already sold their current home. Mortgage brokers say they have noticed banks are tightening their lending conditions - a direct result of a cooling of the hot property market where there has been a big drop in houses available for sale, and fewer homes selling at auctions.”

“East Auckland mortgage broker Bruce Patten said he was getting about 12 calls a week from people having trouble getting bridging finance from their banks to buy a new home before selling their old one. ‘With auction clearance rates starting to drop they run the risk of being left with two houses and big debts, or selling for less than expected and a much larger debt,’ he said. ‘I think the banks think that things have peaked and that is why they are pulling back.’”

“Hayden Broadbelt of Elite Auctioneers, which runs auctions for several real estate firms across Auckland, said auction clearance rates had dropped to the same levels as October last year when the banks were adjusting to the first LVR tightening. Although 72 per cent of properties in South Auckland were still selling at auctions, clearance rates were only 60 per cent in central and East Auckland and 55 per cent on the North Shore.”

“‘The numbers of people bidding are reducing,’ he said. ‘There are still a lot of people attending auctions, and we are seeing properties sell 24 to 48 hours afterwards, but there is actually a gulf at the moment between owners’ expectations and what the [buyer] is prepared to pay.’”

The Australian Financial Review. “After high level of construction activity since the late 2000s, with multi-unit residential commencements rising by 6.8 per cent a year over the five years to 2016-17, developers - particularly in Melbourne and Brisbane - are now holding back developments and delaying project starts due to an oversupply of products. Developers and owners of projects have ’started slashing prices of apartments,’ according to the Multi-Unit Apartment and Townhouse Construction in Australia report.”

“The construction of apartments in the major Australian cities will slow down heavily in 2017 and 2018 as the apartment industry heads into a correction, according to a report by IBISWorld. ‘The industry has moved into a sharp cyclical correction in the current year, stemming from the recent completion of several large-scale developments and the accumulation of unsold and unleased apartments. The industry is in the midst of a sharp correction that is expected to continue through to a deep cyclical trough in 2017/18.’”

“As the industry picks up again after 2016/17, the strongest returns will come from large-scale developments of up-market apartment complexes in Sydney and Brisbane, particularly riverside, harbour-side and themed developments. ‘However, the majority of multi-unit housing developments are likely to be valued near the lower end and rental market, well below the average values of the late 2000s,’ the report warns.”

The Vanguard in Nigeria. “Amid increasing glut in the Nigeria’s property market as a result of the economic recession currently facing the country, the Chief Executive Officer of Sujimoto Construction Limited, a Lagos-based real estate development company, Mr. Sijibomi Ogundele, has revealed that the surge in the number of empty apartments in Ikoyi, Lagos, is due to over pricing.”

“Ogundele added that this disturbing phenomenon must have prompted the well-informed and educative research publication of economy watch, Financial Derivatives Company Limited recently, which informed that ‘The number of vacant properties in the upper class real estate neighbourhoods of Lekki, Victoria Island and Ikoyi has risen by 72 percent over the last 18 months.’”

“Describing the situation as a case of quality versus quantity, said ‘A developer who compromises on quality of materials, no matter how highbrow the property’s location, has no right to place an exorbitant price on it. Thus, the argument for demand exceeding supply, as far as empty apartments in Ikoyi go, is unfounded.’”

“‘While the cost of a nice three-bedroom apartment in Johannesburg would go for about $350,000, the same apartment in Ikoyi would want $1 million. If the cost of construction materials is the same all over the world, the price of marble, granite, cement, tiles, kitchen, doors, paints etc, why is cost in Nigeria about 300 per cent higher?’”

“‘With the oil price plummeting, and major economies across the world experiencing down turn, individuals and organizations no longer have loose money to throw around. And with the current downsizing by companies, prospective tenants demand full value for their hard-earned money.’”




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110 Comments »

Comment by Ben Jones
2016-09-20 15:46:26

This guy in the Nigeria article is a hoot:

“You cannot offer a Toyota for the price of a Bentley. One might argue that both cars will eventually ply the same road but the efficiency and prestige of a Bentley speaks for itself. Luxury sells itself. For us at Sujimoto, our biggest marketers are our clients. Listen, I have sold crap before and I have sold luxury and I can tell you from experience that it is easier to sell luxury than crap.”

Comment by In Colorado
2016-09-20 22:28:43

If I was driving in Nigeria I would take the super reliable Toyota over the snooty Bentley any day.

 
Comment by snake charmer
2016-09-21 07:17:06

“While the cost of a nice three-bedroom apartment in Johannesburg would go for about $350,000, the same apartment in Ikoyi would want $1 million. If the cost of construction materials is the same all over the world, the price of marble, granite, cement, tiles, kitchen, doors, paints etc, why is cost in Nigeria about 300 per cent higher?”
___________________________________/

Because of all the bribes that have to be paid?

 
 
Comment by Professor Bear
2016-09-20 17:19:10

‘And bubble it is. The real question for investors is when and what will pop the bubble?’

The amount of nattering over the supposedly nonexistent bubble is no short of astonishing.

Comment by bill, just south of Irvine
2016-09-21 12:02:43

‘What will pop the bubble?”

An honest real shortage of professionals in the job market. That includes qualified from overseas. I worked with a few first generation Americans and they can hardly speak English and they are very poor at writing. Those with poor communication skills are not mobile. They have to be very stellar performers to make up for poor communication but the problem with that is they specialize in products that go obsolete. Great communication can more than make up for average performance.

So back to my thought: The shortage of professionals with good communication skills is the thing that will pressure wages to go up because boomers are not retiring like people thought. Within ten years though, a lot of boomers will indeed retire. The leading edge will be approaching 80 and there is a rapid drop off in attention from most people who have not taken care of their health over the decades.

The increases in wages will cause the rates to go up as the fed has to battle inflation finally.

That will increase the interest payments on treasuries and help crowd out spending on permanent war.

Inflation could be a real doozy within ten years. Like none of us ever seen before.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-20 17:22:45

BREXIT is crushing London’s high-end housing market. Forgive my misty eyes.

http://www.businessinsider.com/savills-brexit-is-crushing-londons-luxury-housing-market-2016-9

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-20 17:28:57

Meanwhile, millions more Democrat-on-Arrival refugees from neocon wars are on the way.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/20/george-soros-to-invest-500-million-in-help-for-refugees-through-his-open-society-foundations.html

 
Comment by LA John
2016-09-20 18:03:43

Livin’ in a dump dump…. Living in a dump it’s a put on.

Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 03:56:14

Come and meet the Realtor baby

Dressed to sell

Dressed to sell…

 
 
Comment by Jim Jr
2016-09-20 18:49:00

Amazing how everywhere in the world, including freaking Nigeria, property is overvalued, but the media explains all markets as justified solely based on local supply and demand issues.

Comment by Ben Jones
2016-09-20 20:16:38

‘including freaking Nigeria’

Lagos was the most expensive housing in the world in the summer of 2014. More than London, Manhattan or Shanghai.

Comment by oxide
2016-09-21 06:56:43

But why? Are the Chinese laundering money in Nigeria too? Seems like an odd country for it.

Comment by Ben Jones
2016-09-21 07:00:19

Nigerian crooks are laundering money from that country. The article touches on it. They were rolling in oil money until the bust and these guys were skimming. Arabs were speculating there too. Dubai, etc.

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Comment by Jim Jr
2016-09-20 19:45:48

Wall Street’s newest alchemy: Bundling people’s cellphone bills into bonds

Cellphone backed securities, what could go wrong?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-streets-new-raw-material-for-bonds-is-your-phone-bill-2016-09-19

Comment by oxide
2016-09-21 08:39:16

I couldn’t tell if they were securitizing the installment payments for the physical phone, or the bills for the actual service. BTW, buying the phone on installment is new to me. That explains why I see all these fancy $400+ phones. Aren’t these people the same ones who can’t come up with $400 of emergency cash?

I wonder how Dodd-Frank is going to affect this. If I understand this correctly, after October 1 Verizon will have to retain 5% of all those securities that they are bundling — no exemptions. (the only exemptions from 5% credit risk retention are auto and RE)

 
Comment by octal77
2016-09-21 10:59:59

House loan debt, Student loan debt, Car loan debt, Credit card debit,
Medical debt, Household appliances debt, and now phone debt.

Is there anything left?

How about Grocery store debt?

The sellers of money won’t declare victory until 100% of your income is used to service debt.

Slavery in the most literal sense.

 
 
Comment by Don!
2016-09-20 19:57:52

If I have 1,000 Styrofoam cups of Purple Drank and tell you 3 of them will kill you, will you take a handful?

Comment by Mike
2016-09-20 20:54:41

Ray Hessel will call them, “The Styrofoam Comrades of Proven Drank.”

Comment by Ben Jones
2016-09-20 20:57:00

Are you moving to Canada if Trump wins?

Comment by scdave
2016-09-21 07:44:36

if Trump wins ??

If he does it will be a Pence presidency in the near term…Trump will either quit or get impeached…Either way, the republican right will cheer…

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Comment by Ben Jones
2016-09-21 07:56:08

‘As in most places around the state, a Sunday in September was not an ideal time to talk politics. Most voters on this street, though, welcomed the opportunity to share their strongly held opinions on the election.’

“I would be an old Democrat, maybe a new Republican,” said Carmen Larubbio, a 50-year-old registered Democrat turned Trump supporter. “We’ll see what the new Republicans are like.”

‘Some held the belief that Trump was a madman — but that did not necessarily mean they were planning to vote for Clinton. Several had withdrawn from an election altogether, describing it as a “circus.”

‘For the voters Trump had won over, their support for him had less to do with policy and more with a disdain of the status quo and a cultural connection he has established despite his millionaire Manhattan pedigree.’

“There is just a cultural divide and Hillary Clinton hasn’t found a way to talk to people in this kind of situation,” said Ned Hill, an economist at Ohio State University.

‘In Struthers, 82-year-old James Burrell fit the profile of a registered Democrat: an affable Army veteran-turned-steelworker-turned-truck driver, he is a lifelong Teamster. With a chuckle, Burrell listed the ways the Democratic Party had failed him. He was paying more for his medications than ever before and every factory he had ever worked in had closed, forcing him into truck driving, a job he never liked.

“It takes you backwards when you lose your good paying jobs,” Burrell added. “I definitely think Trump will bring back jobs,” he said.’

‘their support for him had less to do with policy and more with a disdain of the status quo’

People want change. We’ll see who prevails.

 
Comment by snake charmer
2016-09-21 08:42:08

The dirty secret is that an appreciable percentage of Trump voters are registered Democrats. But it’s far easier to criticize those of us who are voting for Stein, because then nobody in charge has to ask any serious questions about the direction the Democratic Party has taken over the last thirty years.

 
Comment by MightyMike
2016-09-21 08:57:54

The dirty secret is that an appreciable percentage of Trump voters are registered Democrats.

That was probably true of McCain voters and Romney voters.

 
Comment by Blue Skye
2016-09-21 09:08:27

It’s not about Trump. He isn’t a creation of the Republican Party. He is something the misfits and deplorables are throwing at a corrupt government.

 
Comment by Carl Morris
2016-09-21 09:53:46

Kind of like what monkeys throw?

 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-20 21:47:10

Nonsensical posts from Dan! and you.

 
 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 03:59:18

1,000 Styrofoam cups of Purple Drank

Are you at Lil Wayne’s post-Grammy Awards party?

That’s alot of Purple Drank.

Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 07:27:10

“Lil Wayne ingested an extraordinary amount of lean in the hours leading up to his multiple midair seizures … according to witnesses close to the rapper.

We’re told Weezy was cruising around with five 16 oz bottles of Promethazine/Codeine syrup during his club appearance in Milwaukee over the weekend … with one onlooker telling us Wayne downed 3 bottles just by himself.”

https://www.tmz.com/category/lil-wayne-seizures/

 
 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 04:11:54

Obama’s sons were out protesting this last night per ABC News:

“Charlotte police went to the complex about 4 p.m. looking for a suspect with an outstanding warrant when they saw the man — not the suspect they were looking for — inside a car, department spokesman Keith Trietley said in a statement.

Officers saw the man get out of the car with a gun and then get back in, Trietley said. When officers approached, the man exited the car with the gun again. At that point, officers deemed the man a threat and at least one fired a weapon, he said.

The man, identified as 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott, was taken to Carolinas Medical Center and pronounced dead.”

Comment by taxpayers
2016-09-21 04:17:13

Abc had 5 minutes of “trump bad” and no mention of hitlery
Fair n balanced

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 06:06:18

Only tools still get their news from the corporate media.

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Comment by Don!
2016-09-21 07:00:56

Obama’s sons

Eggs Zactly

Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 07:23:36

WTF is this doing on the CNN website?

(About this iReport
Not verified by CNN)

“The high from Purple Drank is sometimes referred to as a “swooning euphoria.”

The reason this formulation is also nicknamed “Lean” is that it causes some people to want to lean on objects for support.

It is also known that Trayvon Martin had discussed with a friend on how to get codine (photos 2 & 3). Was he on “lean” when the confrontation with George Zimmerman broke out?”

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1005472

“Trayvon, with his hoodie up, grabs two items from the shelves of 7-11. One is the Skittles. The other is Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail. The media avoid the name of the real drink — possibly because of the racial implications of the word “watermelon,” but possibly to avoid probing the real reason for Trayon’s trip.

Trayvon, in fact, had become a devotee of the druggy concoction known as “Lean,” also known in southern hip-hop culture as “Sizzurp” and “Purple Drank.” Lean consists of three basic ingredients — codeine, a soft drink, and candy. If his Facebook postings are to be believed, Trayvon had been using Lean since at least June 2011.

On June 27, 2011, Trayvon asks a friend online, “unow a connect for codien?” He tells the friend that “robitussin nd soda” could make “some fire ass lean.” He says, “I had it before” and that he wants “to make some more.” On the night of February 26, if Brandy had some Robitussin at home, Trayvon had just bought the mixings for one “fire ass lean” cocktail.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/06/what_the_media_choose_not_to_know_about_trayvon.html#ixzz2ZS2scXcS

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Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 07:42:08

As reported by real journalists:

“Sybrina Fulton, mother of the late Trayvon Martin, endorsed Hillary Clinton for President on Monday, calling the former secretary of state the candidate best positioned to “stand up to inaction from Republicans and indifference from the NRA” on gun control.

“With so many of our children’s lives on the line or taken, we simply can’t afford to elect a Republican who refuses to even acknowledge the problem of senseless gun violence. The rising generation of our young people need a President who will stand up to inaction from Republicans and indifference from the NRA,” Fulton writes in a CNN Opinion piece about the endorsement. “I believe that person is Hillary Clinton.”

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/11/politics/hillary-clinton-trayvon-martin-sybrina-fulton-endorsement/index.html

Because when you are a Social Justice Warrior and / or a paid employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center, any distinction between Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddy Gray, is FORBIDDEN.

You will adhere to the narrative scripted for you. And any revisions to the narrative will be accepted without question. Even if the newly scripted narrative entirely contradicts the old narrative, you will believe the new narrative.

Listen to your betters.

 
 
 
 
Comment by MightyMike
2016-09-21 08:47:22

If I have 1,000 Styrofoam cups of Purple Drank and tell you 3 of them will kill you, will you take a handful?

How big are the cups?

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-20 20:40:54
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-20 20:50:43

Chicago: emblematic of corrupt Democrat-maladministered urban hellholes.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chicago-driving-the-us-murder-rate-2016-9

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-20 21:46:08

Crooked Hillary needs overwhelming support among blacks and Latinos, but way too many of them are on to her and despise her for good reason, even if they are lukewarm on Trump.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/barber-florida-slipping-support-blacks-hispanics-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-orlando-tampa-a7318366.html

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-20 21:49:31

We must import millions more foreign-born Muslims who call us Kuffar and want us dead. Fundamental transformation demands this.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/09/20/exclusive-new-jersey-bombers-notebook/

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 00:52:54

Dozens of minions being laid off at the Clinton Family Crime Syndicate. Hopefully some of them will be pissed off enough to spill the beans about the pay-to-play schemes they witnessed.

http://www.businessinsider.com/clinton-foundation-layoffs-2016-9

Comment by In Colorado
2016-09-21 08:25:39

That’s a good way to end up with a bullet in your head.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 01:08:27

Freight volume and rates - a true metric of the real economy, vice the Fed’s rigged speculative casino - continue to sag.

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/09/20/u-s-freight-falls-worst-since-2010-cass-freight-index/

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 01:09:54

The Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs “recovery” is pauperizing the vanishing middle class. Hope n’ change, bitchez!

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/09/20/or-well-lose-the-whole-middle-class-gallup-ceo/

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 01:11:24

Italy, unlike Greece or Portugal, is too big to be bailed out. Can you say “systemic contagion” boys and girls? I knew you could….

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/09/20/italy-banking-woes-could-crush-faltering-domestic-demand/

 
Comment by palmetto
2016-09-21 04:14:39

And the award for best performance in a hypocritical morality play goes to (drum roll, please):

Elizabeth Warren!

Comment by Cracker Bob
2016-09-21 06:38:12

She makes a lot of sense. If I created a few thousand phony bank accounts, they would lock me up. If you are a 1%’er, then no problem; you get to keep your giant bonus for creating those accounts. Before you call me a lefty, that is not capitalism - it is bank fraud.

Remember “It’s a Wonderful Life” when Uncle Billy lost that $5,000.00, it meant prison for George, the S&L president. Not anymore.

Personally, I do not want crooks creating accounts in my name.

How has Senator Warren affected your life?

Comment by palmetto
2016-09-21 07:39:09

Well. That certainly went right over your head.

Comment by MightyMike
2016-09-21 08:42:10

That’s probably because it’s all inside your head.

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Comment by oxide
2016-09-21 11:17:25

Actually Palmetto could you clarify where Warren would be hypocritical? Yes, I know she’s a millionaire, but she got there through her work, and comparatively, she isn’t all that wealthy. She didn’t pressure or fire low-level workers to make obscene profits, which is what she harangued Wells Fargo about.

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Comment by Don!
2016-09-21 04:21:54

She does love her Muslims.

Comment by Overbanked
2016-09-21 04:39:30

Indians aren’t Muslim, and neither are Sikhs, Jains, and a lot of other people who wear “funny headgear.” They generally aren’t particularly fond of Muslims either.

Donald Trump, Jr. should start tweeting the Jain Emblem.

Comment by Mole Man
2016-09-21 07:13:10

Ahimsa: Nonviolence. I will not harm you.
Anakantevada: Nonviolence of mind. I will not project my issues on you.

Not sure that sounds like him.

 
Comment by snake charmer
2016-09-21 07:20:48

Some Indians are Muslim. According to Wikipedia, 172 million of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 04:53:00

Uh, most Indians are Hindus are Sikhs. Are you a recent graduate of our public education system, snowflake?

 
 
Comment by dandroidz
2016-09-21 04:28:48

I just think the supply-demand argument can be easily dismissed when its been proven FACT by the Govt’s very own labor reports that show our economy, labor participation, and wages have decreased.

Yeah more and more people sure are lining up to buy rising home prices when most are earning less than a decade ago. That just simply does not compute. Plus factor in 25 million foreclosures from just a short 10 years ago, and more joining the ranks…

Comment by azdude
2016-09-21 05:07:47

We have a sh@tload of leverage right now. Everyone is levered up.

Borrowing cheap money and buying risk assets has worked for awhile.

It is totally unstable but trying to predict when it unravels will drive u insane.

We are a lot closer to a top than a bottom.

The media is portraying that the FED can somehow stop the deleveraging process when it starts. They are acting as if they are a safety net.

 
 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 04:32:53

A nation of broke @ss loosers. But I bet all those pics of that house you borrowed too much money to buy (and can’t afford) got alot of likes on Instagram so it’s all good bro?

“It’s hard to feel sorry for someone making six figures, but a new survey attempts to drum up some sympathy for the deflated bank accounts of these high rollers. Close to half of those who earn from $100,000 to $149,999 a year have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts. Some 18 percent of them have socked away absolutely nothing.

The study, from financial services website GoBankingRates, found that those who earn over $150,000 annually don’t fare much better: Some 29 percent have less than a grand in their savings, and 6 percent have nothing saved at all. The study surveyed 7,052 Americans in early August.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-20/make-six-figures-there-s-a-decent-chance-you-ve-got-almost-nothing-in-the-bank

Comment by Ethan in Northern VA
2016-09-21 10:07:51

The high paying jobs are in high cost areas. Everything is scaled up. Everything costs more, from taco bell to gas. And taxes are a killer.

 
Comment by oxide
2016-09-21 11:35:40

This is a BS article. They purposely asked how much people had saved in a *passbook* savings account, knowing full well that most people with cash invest the cash in money market or retail mutual funds. Then the article launches into the usual “how to save money” tips that haven’t changed for decades.

Total waste of wiggling electrons.

 
 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 04:41:34

No single man with assets who doesn’t want children should ever marry:

“The number of divorces in the U.S. soared in 1970s and 1980s as the Baby Boom generation entered adulthood. More recently, the annual divorce rate has fallen—but that’s largely because fewer people are getting married and doing so at later ages. Assuming Millennials follow more or less the same pattern as their Boomer parents, about half of American marriages will continue to end in divorce, according to a recent estimate by University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen.

Multiple studies have found that about two-thirds of all divorces are initiated by women. “We sometimes have the idea that it’s always men leaving women, but that’s only a third of cases,” said New York University sociology professor Paula England.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-20/beyond-brad-and-angelina-why-couples-get-divorced

Think you can have it all? Yeah, well think again:

“Older Americans are nearing retirement with increasingly concerning levels of debt,” wrote Annamaria Lusardi of George Washington University and Olivia Mitchell of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in a forthcoming paper. Older women today, they found, are more indebted and “financially fragile” than older women were in the past.

Borrowers from 50 to 80 saw debt loads rise about 60 percent from 2003 to 2015, even as younger borrowers’ debt loads fell somewhat. Two-thirds of people 65 to 74 have debt, and people 65 and older are the fastest-growing group of bankruptcy filers. And women with debt—particularly mortgage debt—are more likely to end up working at age 65, Lusardi and Mitchell found.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-14/why-more-women-than-ever-are-putting-off-retirement

Those granite countertops you paid for with the cash-out refi will be a great place to eat cat food and cut your pills in half :)

 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 04:52:46

Associated Press real journalists provide the following narrative:

“In a closing dispatch to the world he’s tried to shape, President Barack Obama conceded Tuesday that the United States and other major powers have only limited ability to solve the world’s most profound problems, including Syria’s civil war. He lamented the “cycles of conflict and suffering” that seem to kick in every time humanity finally seems to be getting it right.

“Perhaps that’s our fate,” Obama said in his last speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

Four months before leaving office, Obama called for a “course correction” to ensure that the unstoppable forces of globalization don’t lead nations to entrench behind their borders and ignore the most vulnerable. He chided foreign leaders for stoking ethnic and religious divisions while faulting Russia for a brutish approach to its role on the world stage.

Still, Obama insisted it was critical not to gloss over “enormous progress” on economics and global cooperation that he said formed a template for tackling the problems of the future.

In a less-than-subtle jab at Donald Trump, the Republican running to replace him, Obama said, “A nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-swan-song-global-stage-final-un-speech-081337116–politics.html

Neocon globalist Weekly Standard has a podcast titled “Obama’s UN Speech: A Job Interview For Secretary-General?” which is something I’ve been predicting for a long time.

Obama is only 55, so he’s potentially got decades to use Bloomberg / Soros cash to herd the deplorables back onto the plantation or into the camps.

Registration, confiscation, extermination is the traditional sequence.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 07:21:49

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

 
Comment by snake charmer
2016-09-21 07:50:39

“President Barack Obama conceded Tuesday that the United States and other major powers have only limited ability to solve the world’s most profound problems, including Syria’s civil war.”
______________________________/

What an admission. We probably should stop causing or inflaming some of the world’s problems, then, including the Syrian civil war, because our international interventions over the past fifty years generally haven’t gone well.

Whatever one might think about Russia, the country is no longer our ideological enemy and has a much better understanding of its interests and limitations than we do.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 05:00:28

Public unions will not react well when they find out their pension funds existed only on paper.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-20/dallas-police-pension-verge-collapse-record-number-cops-seek-full-withdrawals

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 05:04:02

There is no difference between the two oligarch-owned wings of the Republicrat duopoly. Both are neocons, corporate statists, and crony capitalists, on the make and on the take, with no core principles or convictions other than a desire to fool enough of the sheeple into giving them another term at the trough.

http://www.shtfplan.com/conspiracy-fact-and-theory/inbred-two-party-system-heirs-unite-to-onto-power-elder-bush-endorses-daughter-in-law-hillary_09202016

 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 05:07:25

Up the mountain with GoPro:

“Woodman refers to lofty concepts like chi and reincarnation when talking about the company’s newly unveiled drone – and suddenly it becomes pretty clear that GoPro didn’t just stumble upon the name Karma because it sounded good or was in a Radiohead song. Woodman says he believes in the power of his company’s technology to effect positive impact on its users’ lives. Toward the back where I’m seated, a woman in GoPro clothing passes out complimentary Coors Lights.

GoPro certainly knows how to throw a party, and the company’s made the international press a part of the festivities. It’s all a big to-do, away from the usual conference room meetings. A big and almost certainly costly undertaking, though between the rock climbing and ziplines, most of the international press members present don’t seem too put upon with the long trek to the Sierra Nevadas, even if it’s a rather resource intensive undertaking to try out a pair of new cameras and score a few precious minutes with the company’s new drone.

The day’s extreme sporting events dotting the pine tree blanketed mountain high above the California/Nevada state line are punctuated by high fives and hollers. A guy walks around with a speaker strapped to his chest, echoing electronic music through the Squaw Valley off-season. Employees unironically toss words like “sick” and “stoked” into casual conversation. The Red Bull flows like wine.”

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/instant-karma/

If you are snowboarding with a GoPro on a selfie stick, yes, you are a douche.

Comment by snake charmer
2016-09-21 08:00:27

I stifled a laugh when I heard it was named “Karma.” There’s bad karma, too. Bringing a drone along for your hiking or camping expedition sounds like bad karma to me.

Eastern philosophy as just another marketing gimmick.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 05:13:16

Another Fed “success story”: people living in vans because they can’t afford housing.

http://circa.com/whoa/the-bizarre/people-are-ditching-apartments-to-live-the-van-life

Comment by Carl Morris
2016-09-21 10:01:33

I seriously considered giving it a try in San Jose. I have an uncle getting rid of a nice Dodge Cummins truck with an Alaskan camper on the back…made me think a little. In the end decided to stay a little more conventional.

Comment by redmondjp
2016-09-21 12:48:31

Well, it certainly is one way to avoid those pesky ever-increasing property taxes . . .

Better snag your van-sized parking lot along the river, as they are not making any more riverbanks!

Comment by Carl Morris
2016-09-21 14:33:52

One thing I’ve noticed about San Jose compared to China is that the parking lots around the industrial buildings are huge and half empty. Including that of my employer. While meanwhile just across the street 2br/2ba rents for 3k/mo. Makes you think.

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Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 05:13:18

Warmist Warming Wednesday:

“Yesterday, 375 of the world’s top scientists, including 30 Nobel Prize winners, published an open letter regarding climate change. In the letter, the scientists report that the evidence is clear: humans are causing climate change. We are now observing climate change and its affect across the globe. The seas are rising, the oceans are warming, the lower atmosphere is warming, the land is warming, ice is melting, rainfall patterns are changing and the ocean is becoming more acidic.

These facts are incontrovertible. No reputable scientist disputes them. It is the truth.

Despite these facts, the letter reports that the US presidential campaign has seen claims that the earth isn’t warming, or it is only a natural warming, or that climate change is a hoax. These claims are false. The claims are made by politicians or real estate developers with no scientific experience. These people who deny the reality of climate change are not scientists.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/sep/21/375-top-scientists-warn-of-real-serious-immediate-climate-threat

Comment by phony scandals
2016-09-21 06:32:21

“In the letter, the scientists report that”

I like it, I love it,
I want some more of it,
I try so hard,
I can’t rise about it.
Don’t know what it is
‘Bout that Climate Change funding,
But I like it, I love it,
I want some more of it.

Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 06:52:37

Real journalists script the narrative, not you.

And it doesn’t get any more real than the New York Times.

August Ties July for Hottest Month on Record:

“An increase in greenhouse gas emissions and El Niño, a weather pattern that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean, has contributed to temperature increases in 2016, scientists said earlier this year.

The records being set continue to stack up.

August and July are now the hottest months on record.

Every month since October 2015 has set a new monthly high-temperature record.

The first six months of this year beat 2015 for the hottest half-year ever recorded.

Both 2014 and 2015 set new heat records, and 2016 is on pace to continue the trend.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/science/august-hot-record-temperature.html?_r=0

Know. Your. Narrative.

Comment by phony scandals
2016-09-21 10:44:44

I don’t have a satellite so I drove the 9 minutes over to the Atlantic Ocean and it is right where it was when I moved here in 1982.

The Coming Ice Age - 1978 - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kGB5MMIAVA - 366k -

Region IV

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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 05:14:44

Forfeiture laws are officially sanctioned theft.

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/22779

Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 05:52:37

Outside Legal Counsel claims the seized property “lacked any realistic connection to the pot plants and seeds of Steven’s grow.”

Washington Post real journalists (surprisingly) published a series of articles about civil forfeiture.

And nobody cares. Maybe because there isn’t a good Facebook profile pic overlay graphic for it.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 06:08:59

In a country where a brain-dead 95% vote for the crony capitalist status quo election after election, did you really expect anyone to care about the 4th Amendment of that dead letter known as the Constitution?

Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 06:18:05

did you really expect anyone to care

Selective outrage / celebration.

I have alot of millennial FB friends and after the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage everybody was rocking the rainbows.

“Today Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) reintroduced the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act, which would revise federal civil forfeiture law to give property owners more protection and reduce the profit incentive that encourages law enforcement agencies to seize assets. “The federal government has made it far too easy for government agencies to take and profit from the property of those who have not been convicted of a crime,” Paul said. “The FAIR Act will ensure that government agencies no longer profit from taking the property of U.S. citizens without due process, while maintaining the ability of courts to order the surrender of proceeds of crime.”

http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/27/rand-paul-reintroduces-bill-aimed-at-cur

Too bad he’s not tall enough to ever become president.

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Comment by taxpayers
2016-09-21 06:24:38

that leaves 5%+ to vote lp.org

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Comment by snake charmer
2016-09-21 08:01:28

+1

 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 05:19:17

But…but…all the Establishment mouthpieces warned UK voters that BREXIT would result in the sky falling. Could they have LIED?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/21/japanese-shares-jump-as-bank-of-japan-overhauls-stimulus-package/

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 05:21:03

The prices of London’s most expensive homes won’t rise until 2019, say the “experts.” Horrors!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/prices-of-londons-most-expensive-homes-wont-rise-until-2019/

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 05:23:02

The poors have to be cleared out to free up housing for Silicon Valley tech types.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/21/silicon-valley-eviction-facebook-trion-properties

 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 05:24:55

“The problem is, it isn’t working (or it isn’t working well enough), the tried and true “Hitlerization” tactic. Perhaps it’s the fact that Trump is an American. Hitlerization works much better on foreign “Hitlers,” like Ho Chi Min, Noriega, Milosevic, or Saddam Hussein. Or maybe they’ve just used it too often. I mean, sure, you can trick people into believing that someone is a “modern day Hitler” six, maybe seven times running, but eventually they start to feel like suckers who keep falling for the same crap over and over. Norman Solomon wrote a book about this, back in 2005, I believe … but whatever, this is no time for history or critical thinking. There’s too much at stake.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Immediately after being sworn in as President, so right there on the Capitol steps, as a horrified nation watches on TV, Trump declares a National State of Emergency “to deal with the illegal immigrant threat,” dissolves the U.S. Congress, suspends the Constitution, and appoints himself “Leader of the Western World.”

Saturday, January 21

Trump appoints David Duke both Director of the Department Homeland Security and Chief of Staff. Duke promptly orders the DHS logo to be revised to prominently feature “Pepe the Frog.” Meanwhile, the Clintons, and most of the Democratic Party leadership, are arrested by Trump’s personal “Security Forces,” charged with sedition, and spirited away to an undisclosed location.

Sunday, January 22

By Sunday morning the spirited but strictly non-violent anti-Trump protests that erupted overnight around the country have been brutally crushed by the U.S. military, which just mindlessly follows the obviously insane orders of recently unretired General Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Wisps of smoke rise from the National Mall, where David Duke and his Department of Homeland Security stormtroopers, most in full Klu Klux Klan regalia, conducted some sort of mass cross burning during the night.

Monday, January 23

America wakes to finds its streets occupied by Russian soldiers, most of whom are clearly drunk. Trump and Putin appear together on the lawn of the White House, both of them shirtless, looking like they’ve been up all night, and announce a new bilateral arrangement whereby the two of them will rule the world “with iron fists of decisive greatness.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/21/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-trumpian-reich/

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 06:10:12

PB will be clutching his pearls and swooning.

Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 06:23:05

We keep it pretty civil here out of respect for our gracious host.

As crude as they may be, the comments section on Breitbart articles and The_Donald subreddit are the last places where free speech exists.

Comment by MightyMike
2016-09-21 08:44:18

There is life beyond the Internet, you know.

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Comment by palmetto
2016-09-21 08:52:57

“the comments section on Breitbart articles and The_Donald subreddit are the last places where free speech exists.”

I don’t know about Breitbart, but I can assure you that free speech does NOT exist in The_Donald subreddit.

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Comment by Young Deezy
2016-09-21 08:02:18

The plan in the article sounds like a winner. Are they hiring?

 
Comment by snake charmer
2016-09-21 10:20:53

Awesome, especially the reference to T.S. Eliot:

Thursday, January 26

The Trumpocalypse … the end of all life on Earth. This is Humanity’s final punishment for ignoring the warnings of neoliberal pundits and refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton. Trump, sensing the end is nigh, and (like every other megalomaniac) wanting to take all of Creation with him, launches his remaining nukes at Putin. He does this from the open bomb bay of a Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. As Putin launches his retaliatory strike, cursing the soul of his former puppet, Trump rides the snow white B83 thermonuclear gravity ordnance, Slim Pickens-style, down out of the heavens, wearing a “Make America Great” cap to keep his hair from looking silly …
Shantih … shantih … shantih …

 
 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 06:28:05

“Global economic growth will flounder this year and next at rates not seen since the financial crisis as the march of globalisation grinds to a halt, the OECD warned on Wednesday.

Long a motor for the global economy, trade growth is set to lag growth in the broader world economy this year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in an update of its main economic forecasts.

Mann said that while voters could easily see losses from increased trade in the form of job cuts, the gains - lower prices for goods and more choice - were less visible.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/oecd-says-productivity-and-globalization-slowing-2016-9

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2016-09-21 06:30:34

Translation: our financial house of cards is collapsing under the weight of its own fraud and artifice.

Comment by In Colorado
2016-09-21 09:26:27

I would say that it’s the global house of cards that is crashing. The bubble is pretty much worse everywhere than in the US. When things start crashing, money flows into the safe haven, and that is the US. We’ll be the last ones go under.

Comment by Jesus Navas is my Lord Savior
2016-09-21 11:31:50

Only because of the military might. Ours is worst in corruption, fraud and lies. We are the worst.

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Comment by oxide
2016-09-21 11:55:20

“collapsing under the weight”

There’s that dang ol’ physics again. Just how much does an economy weight? Metric units, please.

 
 
 
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 06:42:22

The aviation people can debate this one, I’m not an engineer and my only concern is the cost of this, $400 billion is alot of money.

F-35 pilot disputes leaked DoD memo that claims the F-35 may never be combat ready:

“The program is actually not on a path toward success but instead on a path toward failing to deliver the full Block 3F capabilities for which the Department is paying almost $400 billion by the scheduled end of System Development and Demonstration (SDD) in 2018.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-dod-memo-f-35-may-never-be-combat-ready-and-an-f-35-pilot-doesnt-disagree-2016-9

See also:

“Yesterday I wrote a piece that analyzed the potential cost of Donald Trump’s Pentagon spending blueprint. The costs of Hillary Clinton’s approach are less clear, but under her current proposals, Pentagon spending would definitely increase.

As for Hillary Clinton, her web site calls for “ending the sequester for defense and non-defense spending in a balanced way.” This mirrors President Obama’s position, as well as that of many Congressional Democrats. It should be noted that the sequester mechanism - the imposition of across-the-board cuts triggered by a failure to meet specific deficit reduction targets - has not been the real issue. What Clinton is probably referring to is a desire to eliminate the caps on Pentagon spending that were imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-hartung/how-much-would-a-clinton_b_12102118.html?

Comment by taxpayers
2016-09-21 07:50:04

both candidates are spend-a-holics

relief lp.org

Comment by phony scandals
2016-09-21 10:54:56

Clinton campaign raced through $50 million last month

By JULIE BYKOWICZ and CHAD DAY
Sep. 21, 2016 4:09 AM EDT

FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2016 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks… Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton spent $645,000 more a day than her opponent Donald Trump last month, but even with her $50 million campaign outlay, she has not been able to pull away from him in the race for the White House.

Clinton’s campaign had its most expensive month to date in August, eclipsing its previous monthly high by more than $12 million. And combined, Clinton and the national Democratic Party paid out $78 million in August, while Trump and the Republican National Committee spent about $47 million.

 
 
Comment by snake charmer
2016-09-21 08:03:40

The F-35 is a welfare program, not a weapon.

 
 
Comment by MightyMike
2016-09-21 07:04:21

Donald Trump Called Debate Moderator Lester Holt a Democrat. He’s Actually a Republican.

Zeke J Miller @ZekeJMiller Sept. 20, 2016

Holt is a registered Republican voter

Republican nominee Donald Trump called first presidential debate moderator, NBC News anchor Lester Holt, “a Democrat” Monday, despite public records that indicate otherwise.

New York State voter registration documents show that Holt has been a registered Republican in the state since 2003.

Trump’s comments to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, which were offered without any evidence to support the claim, are part of a time-honored tradition of alleging moderator bias and expectations-setting before a presidential debate.

“By the way, Lester is a Democrat. It’s a phony system. They are all Democrats. It’s a very unfair system,” Trump said of the debate moderators.

The NBC newsman, regarded by both parties as a straight shooter, is set to moderate the first debate on Sept. 26.

http://time.com/4501616/donald-trump-debate-lester-holt-democrat/

Comment by Don!
2016-09-21 08:12:00

He’s not voting for Trump, and when Trump challenges him at the debate he will lie and say he’s undecided, because as an informed journalist he doesn’t have enough information today.

Comment by MightyMike
2016-09-21 08:38:50

I don’t think that real journalists usually say that they’re undecided. They usually are registered as independents. It would be pretty odd for Trump to ask him who he’s going to vote for.

 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
Comment by Apartment 401
2016-09-21 07:53:14

You can’t post these ZeroHedge links here.

David Brock’s employees at Correct The Record will be here soon to provide you with the correctly scripted narrative from this morning’s staff meeting.

 
Comment by Jesus Navas is my Lord Savior
2016-09-21 10:04:13

Government, what a racket!

1. Bomb other countries unnecessarily
2. Invite them to your country
3. There will be blow-back
4. Propose more wars

 
 
Comment by taxpayers
2016-09-21 07:34:06

mort apps crash 7%
due to interest rates skyrocketing !
I missed the second part

 
Comment by Justme
2016-09-21 10:31:08

What is “mortgage discounts” in China ? Do they mean a reduction in interest rates?

 
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