Note to reader; I strongly advise the readers to keep preparing for the upcoming force majeure in any way they can. We now have less than four years left, yet the financial system should be able to maintain itself until then. The collapses that will be occurring will be primarily to our previous ways of life. Keep the previous ideals in your heart as the world will keep gradually sliding into the abyss until the force majeure.
Take a look at the graphic; we are not alone in our sentiment and this is why I am observing continual increases in the prices of the real estate in many of the areas I outlined previously as possible relocation areas.
Please continue preparing and make your move out of the cities. You need to have a definitive strategy mapped out and implemented by the end of 2026. The United States was an unconditionally promised birthright gift given by God to his Christian remnant people 300 years ago. America will no longer continue in its present form and will be completely unrecognizable after World War III.
The following is an unedited excerpt of today’s World Affairs Brief by Joel Skousen.
MORE GLOBAL MADNESS
Last week’s report on our “Mad Mad World” at home struck a chord with readers who rightly see the mad rush to be overly tolerant of transgenderism, homosexuality, and reverse discrimination against “Whiteness” as a threat to our nation. That trend will continue and get worse, as exemplified by Biden’s coming veto of Congressional legislation protecting girls’ sports nationwide. But there are many other woke agendas that capitalize on short-sighted compassion such as policies that invite homeless camps to take over cities and a refusal to prosecute small crimes that produces an epidemic of blatant shoplifting in Democrat-controlled cities that is causing the exodus of so many big box stores there. Smash and grab shoplifting in major metro areas like San Francisco, Portland and LA are even beginning to drive away businesses in the high end retail and financial districts. But, globally, there is an even crazier world out there, aligned with the “Great Reset” mentality that is not only going to push acceptance of pedophilia as recently advocated by the UN, but force us into an all-electric vehicle and aircraft world, in the name of a crazy net zero carbon world. The bogus claim that Carbon dioxide is a pollutant is even leading to the eventual ban of meat production in the name of stopping what little methane gas they produce, causing farmers to riot in France and the Netherlands as EU forces them to reduce production. Even if they can’t get a total ban on real meat, they will continue to push the consumption of fake plant-based artificial meats, mostly from GMO products. And, even if they don’t ban meat, you won’t want to eat commercial meat that is increasingly laced with mRNA vaccines, antibiotics and other chemicals.
But when it comes to globalist net zero (carbon) attacks on the use of oil based fuels, things get absolutely insane. A report produced for the British government by Oxford University and Imperial College London reveals incomprehensible long-term goals such as closing all airports in the UK, making it illegal to eat beef and lamb, and halting construction of all new buildings in order to meet the legal commitment of zero emissions by 2050. Newswars.com reports:
The report states that all airports must close between 2020 and 2029 excluding Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast airports, which can only stay open on the condition that transfers to and from the airport are done via rail.
All remaining airports must then close between 2030 and 2049 as to meet the legal commitment of zero emissions by 2050 every citizen of the United Kingdom must “stop using aeroplanes” for a significant period of time.
This shows just how out of touch academics are with reality. It starts with the unscientific claim that CO2 is a pollutant that is dangerously warming the planet. In fact, the effect of CO2 is minuscule compared to solar variations, but you can see how this is being used to implement radical government controls over energy, food production, and people’s use of oil-based fuels.
It’s amazing to me how blind smart people can be, both in business, finance and planning. Just consider some of the huge new commercial construction projects. If you knew that a major world war is coming, with the high probability of EMP and nuclear weapons destroying much of our world and economy, would you be planning for huge projects like these in 2030, or 2040 or even 2050? Would you be investing billions in something that would take 10 years or more to complete?
But it’s happening all around us—the blind following the blind leaders and talking heads who don’t have a clue about what is coming even though Russia continues to threaten with nuclear weapons almost every week, and China continues its massive expansion of nuclear weapons. Perhaps it’s that Putin is bluffing for now that keeps people asleep, or that China’s use of nukes is still a ways off. It’s much like people’s complacency with inflation. You live with it for so long, without a huge collapse, you begin to think it can go on forever without consequences. (emphasis mine)
Still, you would think that people’s illusions of peace would wear thin by now, that they would at least begin to be wary of the future. But I don’t see signs of that—at least not among the vast majority. As long as no one in the mainstream news is worried, or sounding the alarm, they will keep planning as if the world is going to continue on its current high tech projectory during the rest of their lifetime. That is why wars, which a few savvy people can see coming a long time ahead, are a shock and a surprise to most.
In any case, these pie-in-the-sky, zero-carbon notions are not going to be fully implemented. For one, there isn’t enough lithium supply or industrial production in the world to electrify all that is fueled by oil. I don’t call petroleum “fossil fuels” because they didn’t come from dead animal bodies decaying—that’s another unscientific myth connected to the propaganda of evolution.
Even if there were enough rare minerals to supply battery production, the world will never produce enough electricity supply to accommodate the added burden of vehicle and aircraft recharging without oil/coal or nuclear power. California already has such limited power in their grid that it had to curtail electric vehicle charging during the summer—and that’s with just a tiny percentage of electrical vehicles in the state. An Aug. 31 Washington Examiner headline read, “California won’t let you charge the electric car it wants to force you to buy.”
Solar and wind energy just don’t do it either, and the establishment Western world are hostile toward more nuclear power. The Daily Signal has the data on why the EV revolution won’t happen despite Biden’s demands:
Numbers Don’t Lie: Dictator Biden’s Electric Vehicle Edict Is Technologically Unachievable
Last year, just 5.8% of new cars were EVs. So, Biden demands a 931% increase in EV sales in the next seven years. That’s a 133% annual hike through 2030. And he ordains 1,155.2% unit-sales growth in the next nine years, a 128.3% yearly boost between today and 2032.
This timetable is unachievable, especially when Biden padlocks mining projects in Alaska, Nevada, and Minnesota, and additional sources of copper, cobalt, lithium, and other minerals indispensable to EV production.
Biden also killed former President Donald Trump’s reforms of the National Environmental Policy Act. Trump accelerated up-or-down decisions on permits for power plants and other major projects. Thanks to Biden, these applications—even “green” ones—once again will wallow for years in purgatory.
All of this will make it harder to build traditional power stations and Biden’s blessed windmills and solar farms.
“Independent estimates indicate that we need to expand electricity transmission systems by 60% by 2030, and may need to triple it by 2050 to meet the country’s increase in renewable generation and expanding electrification needs,” the U.S. Department of Energy stated last May 10.
“Between 2008 and 2021, according to C Three Group, the U.S. high-voltage transmission system grew by about 1,700 miles per year,” energy scholar Robert Bryce wrote Feb. 9 on Substack. At 1,700 miles of new high-voltage power-line construction per year, increasing today’s 240,000 miles of HV lines by 60%, or 144,000 miles, would take 84 years, or until 2107. That would miss Biden’s 2030 target by just 77 years.
What would this cost? Bryce calculates about $4 million per mile. So, these 144,000 miles would devour $576 billion or $82.3 billion annually between now and 2030.
These EV rules parallel the Biden regime’s War on Appliances. These neo-Marxists want to scrap natural-gas stoves, heaters, air conditioners, and other devices. They want everything to be electric, even as demand outstrips supply.
Second, there will never be enough power produced by batteries to manage heavy lift, transcontinental aircraft, and people will not stand for going back to rail or ocean passenger ships, which wouldn’t be able to run without oil either!
Third, all this electrification is wonderful if you have a powerful electric grid. Who’s planning for an EMP strike that takes down the grid for at least year? Why a year? Because no nation stockpiles more than a few of the big transformers that are essential for our long distance grid operation (and which are all made in China, by the way). These major transformers will be blown out during an EMP strike, and China won’t be supplying anymore during wartime. No one in government is preparing for this despite funding a large EMP commission which warned them to prepare.
Meanwhile the world’s intellectual and political elite continue to push for all electric cars in the future. The Biden administration just increased the environmental restrictions on gas cars to squeeze them out of the market in the future, simultaneously demanding an ever increasing percentage of carmakers’ fleets be electric only. Just keeping up with the demand for 10-20 times more charging stations will be a major expense.
But the higher the percentage of electric vehicles, the more the world becomes hostage to an EMP attack. There could also be a cyber attack on the grid, but that is easier to repair than an EMP attack which physically damages most equipment. Think of being stranded anywhere in world of the future in your electric vehicle when (not if) the grid goes down for a long period.
The same goes for the notion of digital banking and digital currency —or even crypto currency for that matter. None of that will survive a collapse of the grid, which takes down the internet. Even now, without digital currency, we have digital banking, digital monthly statements, digital check settlement, and wire transfers. None of that will operate when the grid goes down. Businesses won’t even be able to process your checks, and will stop taking anything but cash.
Fortunately, I think the coming war will preclude all this nonsense from reaching its full evil and controlling potential. As digital currency arrives, it will have to run concurrently with cash—not replace it. Sure, they intend to do away with cash eventually, but war and EMP will teach these globalists (most of whom know nothing about the evil future their own leaders have planned) that none of this high tech world works without oil, gas, coal and nuclear produced electricity—which they continue to decommission. Without electricity, it will be very difficult to undo these existential mistakes during wartime.
WOKE CITIES DYING
I was raised in Portland, Oregon in the 50s and 60s, and it was a great place to live then, even with the wet weather. But Portland is now a dying city due to Democrat-dictated policies permissive of drugs, prostitutes, homeless camps and woke politics that are driving conservatives and even fed-up liberals away. The Heritage Foundation filed this report:
The alleys of Portland, Oregon, are strewn with piles of garbage and used drug needles, reflecting a growing problem of homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illness.
The problem is apparent along the Springwater Corridor, a popular biking trail on the east side of Portland that is cherished as peaceful slice of nature hidden from the urban sprawl.
In 2016, a shantytown alongside a 2-mile stretch of the corridor was the largest homeless encampment in the nation. It contained nearly 200 tents and an estimated 500 homeless people.
In the years since, criminal activity has become a routine occurrence. For example, in August 2018, police arrested a homeless woman for attempting to kidnap a 6-year-old girl playing near the trail. Two months later, a shooting occurred. This year, an assailant stabbed a man in the arm before fleeing back into the sea of tents.
Unfortunately, the Springwater Corridor is no exception in Portland—it is a microcosm of Oregon’s largest city.
In 2018, Portland was home to an estimated 14,000 chronically homeless people, the vast majority of whom were in Portland, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Portland Police Department has no official policy on clearing out the camps or relocating homeless individuals.
It’s even worse quality-wise in Los Angeles, because the weather is more hospitable there for the homeless living year round outdoors. See these images from Bing.
Seattle also has a huge homeless population due to its generous welfare programs and “lack of” policing policies, but San Francisco’s tech and financial district has been particularly hard hit as the Daily Mail’s photo journal shows. Some of it is due to so many corporate high rise offices allowing workers to work from home, but much is due to bad woke policies that foment crime and attract the homeless.
Apart from him, the coffee barista, his two under-employed colleagues, and a solitary couple poring over a laptop in a distant corner of one of San Francisco’s largest and smartest coffee shops, we were entirely alone.
At this hour, the establishment — Joe & The Juice on Market Street, the city’s busiest pedestrian thoroughfare — would once have been heaving with thrusting young technology workers stocking up on pricey coffee and ‘cold-pressed’ fruit juice before heading off into their gleaming offices to spearhead the digital revolution.
But on Wednesday morning last week it was almost empty and, even more astonishingly, there was barely anyone on the street outside. If you ever want to experience the real meaning of ‘ghost town’, head to the ‘Downtown’ financial district of San Francisco.
It’s a once-thriving area packed with the headquarters of technology giants including Uber, Airbnb, Yelp, Square and Twitter. The only problem for the folks at Joe & The Juice — and for San Francisco in general — is that there are so few people actually in them.
The undeniably beautiful ‘City by the Bay’, which for years was the one destination on America’s West Coast that tourists missed at their peril, is now a must-see in a rather different way — as a bleak warning of what could kill cities around the world as they struggle to cope with the lingering economic legacy of the pandemic and the flight from offices [and woke politics].
For San Francisco is falling into what economists call an ‘urban doom loop’, essentially a vicious circle of interconnected trends and forces that send cities spiralling into economic and social ruin.
Although the trend of ‘remote working’ is the root cause of the city’s troubles, San Francisco’s woes have provided an alarming illustration of what can happen when an achingly progressive Left-wing local government turns a blind eye to crime, drugs and homelessness at the same time as encouraging an invasion by tech companies that forced many local people out.
With salaries that often started at $200,000, the techies (who’d been lured with tax incentives from Silicon Valley, centered on the city of San Jose 48 miles to the south) first made San Francisco too expensive for most people to live in by encouraging landlords to charge sky-high rents and have now left in droves to work from home.
While other industries regard it as essential that staff return to the office, tech companies have realised their line of work — involving large numbers of people devoted to the solitary occupation of writing code — relies less on people in an office.
And San Francisco depends financially very heavily on its technology industry and the Downtown area where it’s clustered. Although some 373,000 tech workers constitute 10.9 per cent of the jobs in the wider San Francisco Bay Area (almost triple the national average), they account for the lion’s share of the region’s tax income.
That, in turn, caused various negative effects, such as fewer eyes on the street so more crime, and less tax income from residents, shops and restaurants to finance city services.
And yet, San Francisco still keeps spending with abandon, including a $5M proposed payout to each black person in San Francisco, supposedly for “slavery reparations.” But the criteria they are concocting to limit the financial blow to the city talks about only those who can show they or a relative had been convicted of a drug offense or have been discriminated against in any way in the distant past.
Analysts said the huge tax increase necessary to finance it [black reparations] would be the last straw for the city, although some fear it may be already reaching the point of no return.
And, of course, the more a city gets run down by lack of local government spending, the less people want to live there or visit. Inevitably, many local businesses will struggle to make a profit and go under, further weakening a city’s appeal.
Not only have thousands willingly relocated from the city but thousands more have been laid off in the latest meltdown of the tech industry. Elon Musk said last week he had shed more than 6,000 — or 80 per cent — of Twitter’s staff since taking over the company six months ago.
Even those tech workers who still come into work are often only doing so for three days a week and leaving as early as 2pm so they can avoid rush-hour traffic. And with the average monthly rent for a flat in the city still at a hefty £2,700 a month, the nurses, restaurant workers and firefighters who once lived there won’t be flooding back.
In San Francisco’s smart Nob Hill neighborhood, restaurateur Sam Habr said WFH [work from home] was hitting his business hard because it inevitably meant fewer people were eating out or drinking in the city.
‘At home, my neighbours are either lawyers or tech workers and they’re all working from home,’ he said. ‘All restaurants now close early and bars are dead by midnight.’
Meanwhile, San Francisco’s population (at least its non-homeless one) is getting smaller and its coffers emptier. The city recorded its lowest population in a decade in July 2022 — now down to 808,000 people from 870,000 two years earlier — while it is projecting a million dollar deficit over the next two years.
There are no reliable figures on how many businesses have closed, but a record 29.5 per cent of business premises are now unoccupied.
Pharmacy giants Walgreens and CVS have shut many of their outlets in the city, waving white flags to a tidal wave of shoplifting brought on by a California-wide law that downgraded stealing goods worth less than $950, from a felony to a far less serious misdemeanour crime.
The city’s African-American mayor, London Breed, scorned critics who’d blamed her administration when a fellow tech executive was arrested for his murder instead of — as many assumed — a random homeless drug addict.
Nevertheless, Ms Breed has been forced to back-pedal on some of her more controversial crime policies, such as her support for ‘defunding’ the police, while an ultra-progressive district attorney who pledged to keep people out of prison and announced that he wouldn’t prosecute street-level drug dealers because they are ‘themselves victims of human trafficking’ has been ousted.
However, San Francisco remains blighted by crime: It doesn’t help that the city is being ravaged by fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid. Addicts say users flock to San Francisco because drugs are easily available and police just watch them getting high. Last year, an estimated 620 people died of overdoses there.
Open-air drug abuse is rampant — in the city’s evil-smelling Tenderloin district, where so many of the addicts congregate on streets fouled with human excrement, I watched a junkie injecting himself while half lying under a police vehicle. Armed car-jackings, shop break-ins, muggings and aggressive shoplifting are prevalent.
Even those accustomed to the rich-poor divide in cities such as London and New York are likely to be astonished by the inequality on display in San Francisco, where millionaires step gingerly around squalid street tents and drug addicts sprawl against the windows of luxury goods stores getting high.
Just last week, the city’s attempt to stem the negative headlines suffered another setback when a large branch of Whole Foods, the upmarket grocery chain, that opened to huge fanfare in an effort to gentrify its local neighbourhood suddenly closed after only a year.
San Francisco’s local government is notoriously profligate and bureaucratic. While the city’s businesses are not allowed to deal with violent drug addicts, they are in turn weighed down by endless regulations and taxes, according to Mr Dabit.
‘The thieves, the druggies and the grifters have more rights than us, the business owners . . . being politically correct has not worked here.’
The general mood is soured considerably by fear of crime, much of it committed by addicts who are alarmingly unpredictable. Artist Ian Miller says he never goes out without pepper spray and ‘some sort of knife’. Bar worker Clarissa Liwanag said that whenever she gets on a bus she positions herself so she can see everyone who gets on. ‘All my friends talk about the crime,’ she said.
Meanwhile, the Californian city’s bohemian reputation will probably never return, laments Ian Miller. ‘Our politicians are still riding on that Summer Of Love thing from the 1960s but that’s kind of gone right now.’ That’s putting it mildly. Some believe the hippie capital that brought us ‘flower children’ and ‘free love’ has its very survival at stake.
To be frank, these cities will continue to decline, but never fully collapse, just like Detroit. Even economies never really collapse as long as people are free to come and go and maneuver in hard times or depression. But when war comes, the collapse will come and you don’t want to be anywhere near these dying cities when the lights go out and all services stop.
More Woke Policies
Minneapolis will also start to lose population as it becomes the first major American city to allow broadcast of five Muslim calls to prayer per day year-round by loudspeaker. As the Daily Mail reported, “It follows a unanimous vote by the city council to amend the city’s noise ordinance after some morning and evening calls were previously prevented” [due to noise complaints]
“The move is seen as a victory for the city’s burgeoning population of East African immigrants, many of whom are Muslim.”
Noise complaints are valid as they infringe on non-Muslims’ right to not be impacted by noise pollution—long part of “public nuisance codes.” Besides, in this modern era, there is no excuse for publicly yelling out a call to prayer from a minaret, let alone with a loudspeaker which can be heard over a mile away. Muslims can broadcast a text by phone to remind them 5 times a day and not disturb anyone—and all these modern Muslim transplants from Africa have cell phones.
NIH guide pushes 40 different pronoun options to accommodate “civil rights.” The tax payer funded National Institute of Health (NIH) has spent millions on researching how to accommodate transgenders’ demand for different pronouns. According to their new guide, “Intentionally using an incorrect pronoun could be a violation of one’s civil rights.” –As if you have a right to demand others address you only they way you demand! According to Fox News,
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb complained that these standards for “Woke med schools will do nothing” to improve health care. Critical race theory has now entered Medical schools.
An office within the National Institutes of Health published a guideline that outlines how professionals should use gendered pronouns to “affirm gender identity” for themselves and colleagues, warning that intentionally using the wrong pronouns is “equivalent to harassment.”
Exxon, Chevron Profits Are Robust Even as Oil Prices Drop — 3rd Update
WSJ, 04/28/23 4:25 PM
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. collectively posted $18 billion in first-quarter profits, showing resilience even as oil and natural-gas prices declined.
The Western world’s largest oil companies rocketed to record earnings last year as energy prices soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This year, investors fear an economic slowdown could suppress energy prices, while rising supply-chain costs have steadied at high levels. This suggests Exxon and Chevron’s cash gusher peaked last year, investors said.
The oil giants still pocketed hefty earnings that beat analysts’ expectations, with Exxon’s quarterly net income of $11.4 billion and Chevron’s $6.6 billion more than double their quarterly averages for the past 10 years, a Wall Street Journal analysis showed. The results amounted to a first-quarter record for Exxon.
Even so, both companies’ earnings were off more than 40% of the record quarterly profits they reached last year.
Despite falling prices, both companies cited climbing oil-and-gas production as critical to their returns, while adding that their efforts to boost low-carbon energy supplies are growing quickly. Exxon said its oil-and-gas production rose by almost 300,000 barrels a day compared with the same year-ago period, excluding the company’s billions in asset divestments and its former operations in Russia, after the Kremlin expropriated Exxon’s stake in a large project there.
Exxon had almost $33 billion in cash at the end of the quarter, a larger war chest than it has had since mid-2008, FactSet data show. The biggest question investors have had for the past year is what the Irving, Texas, oil giant will do with its windfall — boost dividends and buybacks again, or buy a smaller rival?
In a call with investors Friday, Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods signaled the company for now is comfortable holding on to the cash, which can serve as a lifeline when commodity prices fall and projects become more difficult to bankroll.
The oil industry’s modest deceleration comes as many American fossil-fuel companies are still struggling to explain their value proposition to Wall Street. Many investors continue to shrug off drillers after financiers lost billions on an unprofitable U.S. oil boom in the 2010s and because of the industry’s vast carbon emissions.
Exxon and Chevron’s messages are gaining some traction on Wall Street, investors said. Large institutional investors including BlackRock Inc., Capital Group and Boston Management & Research recently increased their positions in Exxon and some boosted their stakes in Chevron, as well, according to FactSet.
In recent months, Exxon executives have held more frequent in-person meetings with large investors discussing the company’s outlook and strategy, homing in on its returns and plans for the world’s anticipated shift to cleaner sources of energy, investors said.
Exxon’s more active engagement with investors — increasing since it lost a proxy fight with investment firm Engine No. 1 two years ago — has helped it gain greater interest from Wall Street, as did an international scramble last year for energy supplies, according to investors.
The episode showed oil-and-gas demand will persist for years even as renewable energy sources grow, and that a growing scarcity of fossil fuels could push companies to drill for new oil discoveries, investors said.
“The math is tough without new discoveries,” said Jeff Wyll, senior research analyst at Neuberger Berman.
Exxon announced Thursday it was moving ahead with its fifth project off the shores of Guyana, where the company is tapping vast new reserves of oil. The $12.7 billion development will pump 250,000 barrels of oil a day when it starts in 2026, Exxon said.
Chevron and Exxon’s results were boosted by their fuel-making refineries, whose profitability has remained elevated as crude prices dropped.
Exxon’s global refining business turned in $4.2 billion in profit, compared with a $196 million net loss in the same period last year. Meanwhile, its oil-and-gas production earnings rose 44% globally as its increased output in Guyana offset lower profit in U.S. shale.
Chevron Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said that the company was spending more money to increase future energy supplies.
“We intend to leverage our capital discipline, advantaged assets and financial strength to deliver lower carbon energy to our customers and superior cash distributions to our shareholders,” Mr. Wirth said.
Another way oil companies may grow is through acquisitions. Exxon has been hunting for a blockbuster deal in the U.S. shale patch and has held preliminary talks with Pioneer Natural Resources Co. about possibly purchasing the American fracking giant, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. The talks are at an early stage and a deal isn’t guaranteed.
During a quarterly earnings call Thursday, Pioneer Chief Executive Officer Scott Sheffield said he was aware of media reports about the talks and that “the board will always do what’s in the best interest of shareholders.”
Kathryn Mikells, Exxon’s finance chief, said the company was always looking at possibilities for acquisitions but was “a pretty picky acquirer,” focusing on ways to find synergies — often associated with spending cuts and redundancies in companies’ operations — that generate shareholder value.
On Friday, Mr. Woods said the oil giant is working on technological advances in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico that could open up opportunities for acquisitions there over time.
Pierre Breber, Chevron’s chief financial officer, said he expects to see a bigger impact from China reopening its economy following pandemic-related lockdowns in coming months, and that energy demand could improve in the second half of the year. Though the U.S. economic outlook is uncertain, oil supplies are likely to remain tight, he added.
“Supply growth is restrained,” he said, noting the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies have slashed output capacity. “Inventories are below average, [and there is] capital discipline by ourselves and others in the industry.”
Write to Collin Eaton at collin.eaton@wsj.com
Hello gentlemen.
Wanted y’all’s advice on a real estate matter.
Let’s say I have an SFR investment property in another state that I purchased at $125,000 on a 3.4% mortgage, with $34,000 downpayment (only two years left on the term at this rate). This SFR has appreciated to about $250,000. I use a good property manager to take care of it. Should I sell this SFR and use the profit to purchase a rental condo in my own city that I can purchase in all cash for about $105,000-125,000 and manage on my own? Yes, there will be condo fees, but since it could be paid in cash, it seems the cash flow could be higher montly than my current SFR cashflow of about $350 a month. Condo could rent monthly for anywhere between $1,200-1,800.
Thanks boys!
Okay. There’s a lot of different factors regarding your situation in which I cannot make a specific determination. However I will go through them and try to help you figure what is best for you.
From what I think you’re saying you have an adjustable rate mortgage at 3.4% currently. If this is correct you will need to deal with a much higher mortgage rate in 2 years. Thus, one option is to continue holding the property until that term expires. When you get closer to the mortgage reset then you can put it on the market.
You certainly could sell the sfr you presently own, but unless you do a 1031 exchange, you will have to pay Capital gains on your profit. Moreover, since this is an out-of-state investment and you do not reside in the state in which you own your current SFR, you will most likely have mandatory tax withholding at closing. In order to defer your capital gains, which could be sizable and could impact your choice to sell, at 1031 exchange will mean you will have to buy a more expensive property than the one you sold. Thus, if you sell a $250,000 property in a like+exchange, you will have to buy a replacement property for at least that amount. 1031 exchanges are great ways to defer capital gains taxes, but they kind of hamstring the investor into buying only certain properties on the back end. A 1031 exchange is not useful when you’re trying to buy a cheap property and fix it up, since the like exchange investor most likely sold for a good price and thus collected a decent amount of proceeds at his sale. This almost forces the replacement property to be almost in good shape on the back end of the exchange.
Another option is to sell the property, pay the capital gains taxes, and start fresh with the condominium. All of the things being equal, I would rather have an SFR than a condo. But like you said, the SFR is out of state.
Personally, if I were in the situation, I would keep your SFR investment from out of state and make a more definitive decision as you get closer to the interest rate reset in a couple years. Not only do we have to consider our cash flow, but we also have to consider the likelihood of what a down market in real estate would do to particular pieces of real estate. It has been my experience that condos get hit much harder than SFRs. A single-family detached house will hold up better than a townhome, and a townhome will hold up better than a condo.
I’m not aderse to owning condos and I own several, and I do like them for their greater cash flow potential, but there are other factors at play here and for you tax ramifications and your current mortgage tend to want me to stay put for now.
I also think you should do a little bit more research as you provide a wide range of rent potential for the condominium. I would try to be more definitive on what you think you could achieve for the potential condo purchase. Also, with your SFR mortgage, you could also factor in your principal pay down in the amortization schedule as a sort of income. The IRS considers that income, since it’s only the interest that’s tax deductible.
I am not able to do the 1031; however, my personal income will be fairly low this year, so I might be OK taking a hit on the capital gains side. (FYI, my 3.4% rate set to expire in just under two years is a fixed rate.) My own personal home is an SFR, so even if I bought a condo, I would still have that. Great points to consider, CJ. I appreciate the time and effort.
I wonder also if having my out-of-state SFR sold (and parlayed into a condo), it would allow me to get a better mortgage rate on my primary residence, as I could only get a three-year-term at sub prime with a B lender. They only considered 50% of my rental income from my out-of-state SFR when looking at my financials.
Indeed, it could impact your ability. Rental income is heavily discounted for confirming loans. Like you said, 50%. Moreover, the existing rental loan is counted against you, dollar for dollar.
If this is what you are thinking of doing then I say sell the SFR, pay the taxes, and make your life easier and buy the condo nearby and in state. I rarely recommend out of state investments unless there are circumstances that are otherwise like family and estate issues, etc. Out of state could also make sense if the state is a short drive away.
The SFR is a ten-hour drive (three-hour flight) from my primary residence.
Thanks again, CJ. 😉
There’s always Soylent Green….
Americans Go Hungry, Economic Growth Under Pressure as SNAP Benefits Expire
•Enhanced SNAP grocery benefits ended in 32 states in March
•Morgan Stanley sees $50 billion annualized impact on Q1 GDP
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-27/americans-go-hungry-gdp-under-pressure-as-snap-benefits-expire
(Bloomberg) — About 8 million Americans that received enhanced food-assistance benefits have been going hungry ever since the program ended earlier this year. It’s also hitting economic growth.
One in four households that received additional pandemic-era food subsidies say they “sometimes” or “often” don’t have enough to eat ever since the program was lifted in 32 states on March 1, according to a Census Bureau analysis published Thursday.
The results “marked the first full period of data collection after most households received lower SNAP amounts,” Census said in a press release.
A family of four with an income of $2,000 per month now gets $340 on average in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits each month — $600 less than before the expiration. According to economists at Morgan Stanley, the impact is already visible in the latest figures on gross domestic product for the first quarter….
….Some local governments increasingly opted out of the emergency SNAP allotments as vaccines rolled out and local economies reopened. Since March, the share of households reporting food insufficiency in the states that kept the program until then has risen to the same level of those states that ended the program early, the Census data showed.
A rising number of Americans are now turning to credit cards and less regulated types of financing to make ends meet as pandemic-era benefits get lifted one after another.
Yikes!
Former Express Scripts headquarters building, built for $70M and vacant since 2021, to be auctioned at starting price of $2.2M
https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2023/04/27/express-scripts-office-building-auction-sale-sold.html
CJ, what are your thoughts on franchise investing?
Depends on the franchise. With the economy performing more poorly than official data indicate I would steer clear of passively managed ones and ones that need a lot of upfront capital and/or borrowing to get it up and going.
There are other franchises from carpet cleaning to business services that don’t need the capital like a McDonald’s or any other retail establishment. Anything that requires a retail establishment storefront can be pricey and do you want to deal with that crowd?
In addition, the franchise market is saturated and many franchisees built their franchises with cheap money pre-covid, and they accepted lower rates of return as inflation and borrowing rates were lower.
If anyone has any thoughts, please respond and comment.
It really does depend on the franchise, but for the ones that are less capital intensive you want to be sure you are not simply buying yourself a job.
The global bankers were quick to deride Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Theresa May, all white Christians, but are quick to praise Rishi Sunak, a Hindu. The MSM biz media all claim Sunak is a breath of fresh air and brings stability to the office of Prime Minister.
Sunak just started and has done nothing to earn the praise, except that he’s Hindu and not white. Just what England needs to prove white people suck. The private Synagogue of Satan bankers perform mind games on the people, and it’s highly effective.
GDP a big miss. Prices up more than expected breaks the down trend of price inflation. Jobless claims drops and was below expected.
What deflation? People getting sick and dying not helping price inflation and the job markets. Economists will be disappointed when price inflation doesn’t drop as expected. Inflation becoming structural in nature.
Core PCE Prices (Q1)
Act: 4.90% Cons: 4.70% Prev: 4.40%
GDP (QoQ) (Q1)
Act: 1.1% Cons: 2.0% Prev: 2.6%
GDP Price Index (QoQ) (Q1)
Act: 4.0% Cons: 3.7% Prev: 3.9%
Initial Jobless Claims
Act: 230K Cons: 248K Prev: 246K
Jobless Claims 4-Week Avg.
Act: 236.00K Cons: Prev: 240.00K
Real Consumer Spending (Q1)
Act: 3.7% Cons: Prev: 1.0%
The average person is one stupid financial decision away from insolvency. I read that a married couple went to a hospital emergency room near San Francisco for exposure to a bat per a doctor’s recommendation, and the proactive rabies treatment cost $200,000. Yes, the stupid couple threw up their hands in a hissy fit of fear and were billed over $200,000 for some shots.
They listened to the experts and will probably be left in hopeless debt. The two dummies weren’t even bit and didn’t touch the bat.
Now that’s a stupid financial decision.
This is bat$hit crazy! Just had to look this up. Solano County. Vacaville. It’s 30 mins form me. I’d love to see an itemized bill for those shots.
Rabies vaccine $5.00.
Containers, storage and transportation, including fuel surcharge $250.00.
Hospital markup $12,000.00.
Kickback to corrupt pharma, lawyers, politicians. $47,820.19.
Total $60,075.19
California couple shocked by $200,000 hospital bill for rabies shots after encountering bat.
ABC 7 News Bay Area
https://youtu.be/vEk04y8nLAk
These are the type of stories We read everyday now with people struggling with unknown types of serious illnesses. Many of them just die and there’s no reason given. He obviously received at least one of the DoD Pentagon mRNA bioweapon injections.
The story discusses that Mr Foxx’s blood pressure led to his blood clots.
___________
Jamie Foxx is ‘Lucky to be Alive’ After Terrifying Medical Crisis, Actor Was ‘Touch And Go For Days’
https://radaronline.com/p/jamie-foxx-lucky-to-be-alive-terrifying-medical-crisis-actor-touch-and-go-for-days/
Look at ENPH. The markets are without mercy when weakness appears.
CEO Badri Kothandaraman said in an interview with Barron’s following the release of Enphase’s quarterly results that high interest rates seem to be making solar power less attractive to customers in several states, while new regulations in California are slowing the solar supply chain there.
“The installers aren’t signing up with more customers, because the interest rates are quite high relative to the utility rates,” he said. Low utility rates in some states dissuade consumers from switching to home solar because they mean purchasers won’t be saving enough money.
“Like in Texas, your utility rate is 13 cents per kilowatt-hour,” a relatively low rate, he said. And with interest rates on the rise, “solar financing is not going to be economical,” he said.
Morning numbers a mixed bag to good, but the positive standouts are the international goods trade balance and headline Durable Goods data.
Core Durable Goods Orders (MoM) (Mar)
Act: 0.3% Cons: -0.2% Prev: -0.3%
Durable Goods Orders (MoM) (Mar)
Act: 3.2% Cons: 0.7% Prev: -1.2%
Durables Excluding Defense (MoM) (Mar)
Act: 3.5% Cons: Prev: -0.8%
Goods Orders Non Defense Ex Air (MoM) (Mar)
Act: -0.4% Cons: -0.1% Prev: -0.7%
Goods Trade Balance (Mar)
Act: -84.60B Cons: -89.00B Prev: -91.99B
Retail Inventories Ex Auto (Mar)
Act: 0.4% Cons: 0.1% Prev: -0.1%
Wholesale Inventories (MoM)
Act: 0.1% Cons: Prev: 0.1%
Central banks end crisis offer as bank system fears ease
Major central banks are standing down from their offer of daily emergency dollar loans to banks, a crisis step launched after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the U.S. fed fears about the stability of the global financial system
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/central-banks-end-crisis-offer-bank-system-fears-98822502
Some good worship songs for Lord Jesus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgD8xZsIxqU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJCV_2H9xD0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8dj8VLChUM
Real Christian music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqNEg6-sqzw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cwHhzmU7ps&list=OLAK5uy_k4ustOzCpK_iGBbN_IhHfbx2W6DKiXoKg
Rock n’ Roll was and is the devil’s music, no matter the lyrics, no matter the emotion.
This was America before the Marxist takeover was complete. Even when I was a little boy there was still a lot of this left.
https://youtu.be/EC7COEi_kdY
It’s all over now. A 15 year old boy told me that up to 25% of his fellow students are having “gender” issues. Two entire generations are wiped out and useless. The whole sea of humanity will need to wander in the wilderness for 40 years to cleanse humanity of its wickedness after this upcoming Second Exodus post-WWWIII.
The war is coming, because the elites want it. They don’t want a fake war, they want a real one.
We listen to this type of music occasionally while we work, most of the time they are the original Alan Lomax recordings he captured for the Library of Congress circa 1938.
I agree with what Fitzpatrick writes, there are plenty of explanations regarding the specific “Mode” that a particular piece of music is composed in and the feeling it evokes.
Not all rock n roll is the devil’s music. That’s just a popular slogan because the major rock bands promoted satanic logos and lyrics.
If you want to truly know how the devil was able to get to this point – it’s simple – outlaw Christian Polygamy through prison or death. The devil saw what 12 men did to Egypt. After a few hundred years the pharaoh was trembling due to how fast they re-produce. Just 12 men, within a few hundred years, put Egypt at risk of being overthrown by the rising population of the Israelites. Hence, the decree to throw the male babies into the Nile river.
When Lord Jesus talks about the banquet in the kingdom of Heaven with Abraham, Issac, and Jacob – how are modern day Christians (if they are blessed enough to be invited into Heaven the first place) going to feel sitting next to polygamists? Doesn’t one denomination with over a trillion in assets consider multiple wives a grave offense? So I guess to them Jesus would be a sinner since it was he that gave his servant David multiple wives, and it was Jesus that blessed Rachel when she found another wife for her husband – Jacob.
If the devil can limit men that follow Jesus to just one wife; then he can much more easily influence and indoctrinate. That’s why today – over 25% of kids in schools don’t know their gender. That’s what happens when you’re limited to just one wife; and both have to work to pay the bills, and that leaves Satan to teach your own kids whatever he wishes to teach them.
2 Corinthians 2:11
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices
At least he’s honest.
_____
People need to accept they are poorer, says Bank of England
45 minutes ago
London Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/25/people-accept-poorer-bank-of-england-huw-pill/
Britons have to accept they have become poorer, a senior Bank of England official has said, claiming that an unwillingness to accept the nation’s downward mobility was fuelling inflation.
Huw Pill, Threadneedle Street’s chief economist, said: “[People] need to accept that they’re worse off and stop trying to maintain their real spending power by bidding up prices, whether [through] higher wages or passing the energy costs through onto customers.”
Mr Pill said people and businesses were trying to maintain their standards of living and profits by either demanding higher pay or putting up prices.
However, he argued this was only likely to fuel inflation and compared the dynamic to a game of pass the parcel, where each player was unwilling to accept the burden of higher prices that make them poorer.
Mr Pill said: “That pass-the-parcel game that is going on here, that game is the one that’s generating inflation and that part of inflation can persist.”
He said there was a “reluctance to accept” that Britain had become collectively poorer but claimed it was an inevitable consequence of the surge in energy prices since the invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Pill said: “When your energy bill you get every month for your house goes up four or five times, that’s eating into your income. What’s the natural thing to do? Well, the natural thing to do is say, I need to be paid more.
“But then of course, that process is ultimately self-defeating. In the end, the UK, which is a big net importer of natural gas, is facing a situation that the price of what you’re buying from the rest of the world has gone up a lot, relative to the price of what you’re selling to the rest of the world, which is mainly services in the case of the UK.
“You don’t need to be much of an economist to realise if what you’re buying has gone up a lot relative to what you’re selling, you’re going to be worse off.”
He said people would have to eventually accept “that yes, we’re all worse off and we all have to take our share”.
The comments, made during an interview on the Beyond Unprecedented podcast produced by Columbia Law School in New York, risk reigniting criticism of the Bank of England for its handling of the worst inflation crisis in almost half a century.
The Bank’s Governor Andrew Bailey sparked anger last year when he urged workers not to ask for large pay rises and told businesses to stop trying to raise prices to beat inflation.
Critics argued Mr Bailey was trying to shift the blame for soaring prices onto workers and companies, rather than accepting the Bank’s own failings.
The central bank has been attacked for acting too slowly to rein in soaring prices in the wake of the Covid pandemic and the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Another senior Bank of England policymaker on Tuesday defended the institution’s record, denying that raising interest rates earlier could have made a meaningful difference.
Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent said: “If we had started three, four, five, six months earlier [there would have been], I don’t know, maybe a maximum of half a point less inflation.”
Inflation peaked at 11.1pc last autumn, suggesting Mr Broadbent believes earlier action would have only limited it to 10.6pc – still many times higher than the Bank’s 2pc target.
Mr Broadbent said that interest rates would have had to rise to nearly 20pc to stem the current bout of high inflation.
He said: “Suppose the MPC had had the foresight to see both the scale of the pandemic effects and the war, and the resulting second-round effects on domestic wage growth and inflation. And you ask yourself what path of policy would have held inflation at 2pc over the last two years?
“I can tell you the path interest rates would have to have got close to 20pc to achieve that.”
Raising interest rates to this level in an effort to anticipate events and tamp down inflation would have been hugely risky, Mr Broadbent said, given the uncertainty of events.
The Bank of England was the first major central bank to start raising rates in December 2021, when it lifted the Bank rate from 0.1pc to 0.25pc.
It has since increased borrowing costs another 10 times, bringing its benchmark rate to 4.25pc.
Inflation remains in double digits. It stood at 10.1pc in March, leaving Britain with the highest rate among rich advanced economies.
UPS earnings help to show the recessionary conditions manifesting, but with the underreporting of true price inflation, the official GDP data will remain higher and perhaps stay in positive territory even as the heathen rage and children commit suicide out of hopelessness.
Holy moly! The only catastrophes I see for residential real estate are from home buyers trying to buy. ZeroHedge loves to point out all the negatives, but I see few if any from today’s numbers.
House Price Index (MoM) (Feb)
Act: 0.5% Cons: -0.1% Prev: 0.1%
House Price Index (YoY) (Feb)
Act: 4.0% Cons: 3.9% Prev: 5.3%
House Price Index (Feb)
Act: 394.8 Cons: 392.8 Prev: 393.0
S&P/CS HPI Composite – 20 s.a. (MoM) (Feb)
Act: 0.1% Cons: -0.4% Prev: -0.4%
S&P/CS HPI Comp – 20 n.s.a. (MoM) (Feb)
Act: 0.2% Cons: -0.7% Prev: -0.6%
S&P/CS HPI Comp – 20 n.s.a. (YoY) (Feb)
Act: 0.4% Cons: 0.1% Prev: 2.6%
For all those waiting for home prices to collapse I have an emoji for you…🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
New Home Sales (Mar)
Act: 683K Cons: 630K Prev: 623K
New Home Sales (MoM) (Mar)
Act: 9.6% Cons: 1.1% Prev: -3.9%
I’m seeing it in real time! Collapse my arse. According to one realtor who recently showed a house I put an offer in said we are about 13% over asking now. This over asking started in my area about two months ago. Complete garbage is selling for $400K around here.
My new rental dwelling insurance from State Farm on my new property in Shenandoah County VA costs $645 a year. It covers 250k in replacement costs and offers $1mm in liability coverage.
The same policy in Prince George’s County MD for identical coverage on my SFRs costs $1,050.
Hmm…. I wonder why…. 🙈🙉🙊
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/household-finances/article-renting-roommates-cost/
Rental rates per room rocketing
Over the next few years, many businesses and people will go bankrupt, because of one or two poor choices. Truly, it will only take one poor financial choice to do someone in during the time of tightening credit.
Please be very careful and judicious in all your investing and borrowing activities. Real estate is still a great investment, but be ever so careful with your leverage.
_______
GRIM TIMES Major grocery store in Portland joins Walmart in abruptly closing its doors after 50 years of service
https://www.the-sun.com/money/7949343/grocery-store-walmart-closing-doors-years-service-portland/amp/
Will, do, CJ, Thanks for your excellent advice over the years.
Argentina Economy Stagnated as Inflation Surged Past 100%
10 minutes ago
(Bloomberg) — Argentina’s economy stagnated in February as inflation surpassed 100% for the first time in three decades and a record drought began to take a heavy toll on industries tied to agriculture.
Economic activity was flat in February from January, according to government data published Monday. From a year ago, the economy expanded 0.2%.
Argentina returned to triple-digit inflation in February for the first time in three decades as the government’s unconventional strategy of price freezes, currency controls and multiple exchange rates has failed to cool pressure on the peso. Surging inflation sapped consumer spending as prices in pesos outpace pay raises. The drought could cost Argentina up to $19 billion of exports, according to one estimate.
Economists surveyed by Argentina’s central bank in March forecast gross domestic product contracting 2.7% this year, with sequential declines in the first and second quarters. The economy shrank in the final quarter of last year too. It would be Argentina’s sixth recession in the past 10 years.
The drought is related to ENSO as we are in a cold La Niña phase.
Any summer plants like corn or soy beans are more sensitive to drought than spring ones as hot temperatures and less moisture may make summer challenging to agriculture.
During spring the cool temperatures form many morning dews and rain and storms are more abundant so spring crops like wheat or potatoes suffer less and are easier to grow without much irrigation.
There are some god news for this year though, as meteorologists are predicting that ENSO will probably change to warmer El Niño conditions and that means more moderate weather and a probably respite for Argentinian agriculture’s summer cash crops for the next few years.
There’s a lot more financial and economic pain to come. Get out of the cities and away from the Democrat voters. This is not going to end well for any of us.
Perhaps it’s not the time for me to take on debt that does not generate an income stream? The house that I put an offer on went to someone with “a substantially higher offer” so clearly it wasn’t meant to be. I won’t know for 20 days what the final price was but happy to report when I know. My offer was $825K – $26K over asking. The house prices I heard you mention are merely down payments in the SF bay area. On one hand I hear it’s a good time to take on debt and pay back with cheap inflated dollars. On the other hand I hear about financial and economic pain. It has become more clear than ever that I should have made my move shortly after 08 when prices dropped 20% in my area.
The good news is I’m going in on an industrial condo purchase with my business associate. $80K buy in plus moving expenses and I get out of a $1200.00 / mo. rent payment. And my machine tools will be next door to my work.
Do not borrow under any circumstances except if you are generating income from the asset you wish to purchase. Credit conditionings continue to tighten and it’s going to continue for years. The only entity that will remain in business will be the US government, as they can borrow for a couple hundred basis points below CPI.
The Federal Reserve’s sole purpose is to keep the US government in business, it’s not to help you and me. That objective is only secondary and is there to facilitate its prime purpose; financing US government spending.
The Federal Reserve will continue to conjure up new programs that will further alienate the average person on the street while keeping the lights on for the federal government. Everything else is just window dressing.
Figure out how to make money and go do it, because no one is looking out for you other than Jesus Christ.
Amen! Only God and Jesus Christ can have our best interest at heart. Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross for our best interest at heart. No mortal human can have our best and selfless interest at heart.
And perhaps that’s why every offer I put in gets stepped on. I can look at this as disappointment but instead have learned to say “glory to God for all things.”
On the other hand my industrial building buy in is proceeding without any stumbling blocks. My goal on that is to turn a $1200.00 mo. rent payment into paying off a loan for the building I’m in now plus making a partial payment on the new building. Once the dust settles on the transaction my company will be making up that $80K payment as rent to me the property owner according to the percentage of ownership.
My opinion is that the Fed will remain hawkish longer than most people believe. The reasons are fairly straightforward for me and are Four fold;
One; There is a fractionization taking place in the world’s trading markets and economy. This is causing inflation to persist on a sustained and organic basis as economic factors try to determine the next best course of actions given the recent limitations to the global economy.
Two; given the factors that are causing a reallocation of economic resources in the global economy, I would expect the dollar to continue to remain strained in some regards as a number of the large players tried to determine how to trade without the dollar. This will cause the general rate of inflation to remain elevated as well as these dollars must find a home and will probably find a home in many of the items that we purchase every day, including food, commodities, housing and real estate.
Three; I believe this was all intentional and that I doubt very much that the Fed is going to let up as most economists expect. I also believe the fractionization was completely designed to continue pressing on the economy for years. I suspect there’s more breaking coming in the financial markets and this is why I am not prone to do bottom fishing in many of the beaten sectors (e.g. commercial office REITs).
Four; I also believe that much of the economy is already in a recession as the official inflationary measures woefully under report the actual rate of inflation. Thus, this under reporting of price inflation allows the fed and the government to continue with their policies as they lie to the people about current economic conditions as well as those in the immediate future.
________
Hedge Funds Place Biggest Ever Short on Benchmark Treasuries
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bqprime.com/amp/global-economics/hedge-funds-place-biggest-short-ever-for-benchmark-treasuries
(Bloomberg) — Hedge funds seem to be as confident as the Federal Reserve that the US economy can avoid a recession despite the burden of higher interest rates.
Leveraged investors boosted their net shorts on 10-year Treasury futures to a record 1.29 million contracts as of April 18, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission show. It was the fifth straight week that net shorts had increased.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Hedge funds may be thinking that inflation will be stickier than many in the market are currently expecting,” said Damien McColough, head of fixed-income research at Westpac Banking Corp. in Sydney. “On the face of it, this big short doesn’t reflect the view that there will be a near-term recession.”
Continues….
I include all asset classes. Overlevered investors and firms will continue to struggle. Forms like BXP will be sucked in further.
____
Bonds in Trouble as $1 Trillion Liquidity Drains: Credit Weekly
https://finance-yahoo-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/bonds-trouble-1-trillion-liquidity-200000199.html?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16823002935071&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Ffinance.yahoo.com%2Fnews%2Fbonds-trouble-1-trillion-liquidity-200000199.html
(Bloomberg) — Add central banks to the wall of worry for global credit markets.
This year’s rally in risk assets is more to do with a $1 trillion central bank liquidity injection than any improvement in the economic outlook, according to Citigroup Inc.. That massive tailwind — enough to lop 50 basis points off the investment-grade risk premium — may soon become a huge drag as policymakers get back to quashing inflation, having extinguished the banking-sector fire.
“With peak liquidity past, we would not be at all surprised if markets were now to experience a sudden pressure loss,” Matt King, Citi’s global markets strategist, wrote in a note. “Keep watching the liquidity data — and buckle up.”
Corporate debt markets had the best first quarter since 2019, despite proliferating concerns about the economy as central banks kept raising interest rates. Credit extended the rally in recent weeks, erasing losses caused by banks collapsing.
And with the help of the USG, which has already been taken over by Marxist one-worlders, they will continue marching across the border to a local city near you. They will then be given government benefits, told not to learn English, and then be allowed to vote (Democrat).
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/23/migrants-mexico-protest-march-00093423
Be the landlord until the liberal Strelnikovs of today take away your possessions for the common good.
Strelnikov was the Bolshevik antagonist in Doctor Zhivago. The inner party of today is loaded with people like he was and they want your guns and houses. They want your total fealty to their objectives and power, which is everything that is antithetical to the Bible.
Living in a van is something to aspire to. The media promote this “liberating” lifestyle. Psst… don’t tell this woman that the 70k she saved in three years is worth next to nothing in terms of house price appreciation during that time. She will still vote Democrat as she gets financially creamed. What a dunce… Tell her that Tuesday is Soylent Green day and stimulus and UBI checks are handed out on Thursdays.
_________
I left a high-rise apartment to live in a van. It’s not that much cheaper, but I’ve saved $70,000 over 3 years and won’t ever go back to a traditional home.
https://www.businessinsider.com/pro-and-cons-of-van-life-2023-4
Many morons will put the miles away every weekend and holidays and abandon everyone but themselves in order to follow this promoted hype.
It is the same Europe: vans as an aspirational recreational hobby.
They are unsuspectingly deceived by our adversary as SoS hates strong functioning families and communities, so they promote these kind of things to destroy, break and weaken the bonds of relationships and communities.
A clever coy indeed, and I can attest by my own experience that they are exceedingly successful in getting their objectives right, this satanic “masters”.
I am going to tell a quite painful and personal story of my life to illustrate the point I am trying to make.
I got an elder sister she would never visit her elderly parents any weekends or holidays just because she get addicted to this life early in her twenties. O yes, she was really busy with her nomadic life in her four wheels, so the parents and siblings, I got a younger brother, were not any of a priority to her, they were all for me, as she, as Essau did, was away pursuing a better life all the time, but as Essau too, she was the favorite of the father, whatever she did, as she was never around to help us in any way.
What happened?…
The day come my very old dad started to worsen and started to fall to the floor and I was unable to raise him up as I got a slight injury in my back trying to do it by myself.
That was Friday. The next Monday my dad passed away.
Then, I asked her and her husband for some help to move my dad to another room and to condition this room a little bit for the next day, that it happened to be next day, Saturday. We still did not know my dad was dying and I was trying to separate him from my mom as she is very old too and not too well either and I could not attend him properly in their shared room.
Well, the spoiled brat, my very pretty and quite phenomenal sis was mad at me just because I mentioned to her to help me a Saturday and started to shout at me a lot of bullshit on my own house trying to bully me like she used to do when we were kids.
I confronted her a little bit but she got it her way and the Saturday when my dad felled again to the floor and I was unable to raise him I was forced to ask for help to my Bolivian upstairs caregiver, I do get on well with her, to lend me her patient lifter just because she and her husband were unavailable to help.
What it was?…
A carnival meal and festive Saturday were her plans and so “she could not came to help his younger brother and bed ridden dying dad” on this day in any way.
My dad started to agonize this same night when the van lifestyle addicted lady and her husband were out enjoying their carnivals and died two days later, at least peacefully.
Central Bankers See Above-Target Inflation as Biggest Risk
12 minutes ago
(Bloomberg) — Above-target inflation is the biggest risk for reserve managers this year, according to a survey of 83 central banks carried out by Central Banking Publications.
Central banks around the world are dealing with stubborn inflation even after months of increases to borrowing costs. That’s put pressure on the institutions to continue to tackle climbing prices, even as stresses on the financial sector grow.
The survey showed that 70% of respondents cited inflation as the biggest risk, in the poll published Sunday. Geopolitical risk was cited as the second-biggest concern.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
52 miles round trip per day driving to my minimum wage job. It’s not worth the expense and time. Inflation is serious. I live on a cash basis and I feel the pain.
Credit cards are insidious; they spread the pain of inflation until the debtor finds himself swimming in a 12 foot deep pool and the ladders have been removed. Then he doggie paddles until he goes under.
But I’m not feeding the Beast with fees and interest. That’s the fuel the Beast is using to destroy the world.
Oh I lost my train of thought. Does AI do that too? I meant to say that when I was rehired last month, it was at $2 more an hour that I was earning last year. Look I don’t really mind … or I would be out here, but wage slaves as we are referred to here simply have to jobhop now to get the better rates. If I want to train to be assistant manager, my rate will only go up to what the other assistant manager ears becaise she’s already on board at last years rate and they’ll say they can’t pay more. So that’s fine, but in 3 months I’ll go to holiday inn as assistant for 4d more an hour. But man it’s unbelievable what people put in their mouths from from this store and pay thru their nose for the privilege of getting poisoned. It certainly pays to work 3rd shift when I have 3 hours to myself, just me and the bears and the wonderful cops from 3 different departments who all claim my intersection as their own and powwow across the street in front of highlanders all night long. The there’s the 25 hours overtime. God sure is good! I can’t imagine there’s many rent payers who save 80 percent of their incomes while living stress-free and graciously with 400watts on the roof. Oh well. Not much to be done about the ai either except stock the 20ft container with 20 years free books but that’s another story and yes it will be stressful so it’s best not to worry about it till the time comes… next September tho I see the shills are ramping up the fear factor again this week and I come here and always enjoy the more sober minded rational moneyed here to take my queues.
This *untergehen* is a plan to cull the herd. Resources are slowly being withdrawn. The herd is Alan Watt’s term for us, used by the regime itself. We will be cast upon thinner and thinner ice until we go under. What will take us down? The collective erosion of everything the human animal and the spirit in him requires.
That means a homogenous civil environment, clean food, reliable and affordable energy, safe public spaces, efficient government, clean water. All this is being taken away and we will be landless, skill-less, wealth-less slaves, helpless against the state.
None of this is an accident, like the Battle of the Somme (20,000 killed in one day) was no accident, but a planned culling of the labor force. Surplus labor. There are surplus people. Too many in the herd. A culling is coming. There is always a culling coming.
Think there is truth to this?
5 reasons to believe the global population is already one billion people less than it was in January 2020
https://thecovidblog.com/2023/04/20/5-reasons-to-believe-the-global-population-is-already-one-billion-people-less-than-it-was-in-january-2020/
Interesting article… I hope it’s not that bad.
Official census data show the DC-area counties had small drop-offs in population in 2021-2022. Previously to that, the populations were all up at least 100k per county for the previous decade. The immigrants continue to flood into the area, yet the population drops.
I would guess the excess deaths worldwide are perhaps at least a couple hundred million. Maybe more. The author is correct, we will never really know, but we know excess morbidity and deaths are the only logical conclusion to the problems in the labor markets. It’s the only theory that can fully explain the anomalies.
A reader asks about a commercial REIT that has been beat down mercilessly.
Subject: Boston Properties
Hello, just wondering you had any thoughts on BXP. I know commercial is facing some headwinds right now but maybe this might be time to take the contra and setup a small position? Or are we seeing a long term destruction of value in the commercial space?
A look at the chart action tells me everything I need to know. As a trade, we could see a bounce to the low 70s area, but I see no bonafide catalyst to raise the water in these sectors. There are huge secular changes a foot in the commercial REIT space post-covid, and I do not know how any of these factors can be reversed without further wealth destruction. I would stay away despite the ostensibly low price. Maybe trade for a bounce and get out.
BXP went below it’s Covid low, i’ve noticed many stocks that do that start upticking to that Covid low point which becomes resistance. For this stock that would be the low $70 range. Recent insider buy and ER coming up, and has a dividend. I’m seeing a bounce too. Appears a few other stocks in that sector could also uptick. Seems oversold, Why would it continue downward?
Still can’t get over PPSI going up that fast, yet I would have sold when it hit the upper 3 range anyways. With their Powerbloc tech, they are in the electric EV grid sector, similar to what the above article states. Even though a great recent ER, most likely an offering happens.
I still think Pot stocks get a boost. Could start buying and averaging down then sell on the upticks if the decrimanilazation news goes thru. Why wouldn’t this bill pass? They took it this far to veto it? With pot shops in every mini mall in town, many States are already making huge revenues from it, and major players heavily invested. Aligns with what the SOS wants, people drunk, high and on the dole. Only thing I can think of is that they want to use it for gun control, so keeping it illegal at the FED level could prevent the sale of firearms or help with the confiscating of them in the future.
Going to a few City council meetings the itinerary includes major projects, so I am not seeing any signs of holding back. Where as in 2019 there were projects that supposed to start but put on hold for odd reasons. Someone knew what was going to happen in 2020. I assume the force majure would be more of a professional take over, a replacement breed out, and not a military slaughter. Many Chinese, Latinos are being elected to public office, even at the City and County levels. Once they get control of the public treasury they can distribute the money any way they chose, to their own kind. We can verify that happening thruout the Country now.
There are still plenty of White christians to re infiltrate our institutions and take them back, but I’m not seeing that happen.
BBBY files for bankruptcy. Watch it fly. 🤣🤣🤣
Delisting next Wednesday 5/3. Will it get pumped up once it gets on the OTC, like they did to Jcpenny and Sears? Wonder why all those dumped shares are getting bought up? Averaging down in the hopes of a spike….
It’s supposed to trade with a “q” on the end. NASDAQ waited until 5/3 to be delisted. It let it alone for now. That was a favor Nasdaq did for current shareholders to provide liquidity for speedy exits and for covering shorts, etc.. Once it goes OTC forget about it.
From a reader….
Trump is the Golden Calf aka Sacred Cow of most of the Conservative Right.
So does this mean Civil War is coming to America if this Devil loses. Two extremes going on here. Antifa BLM aka Baal Lucifer Molech verses MAGA means Witch and Magician in Chief.
My next door neighbor for the last 2 plus years has a huge Trump 2024 house flag. He says he welcomes Civil War. I’m sure the far….left wishes the same thing. Neither extreme has a clue since they both have been given over to Satans devices.
https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/340944889_1287730321954076_767031040679918812_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=kf5ITbZfHxUAX8ZPMMm&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfB3vXb8qiHxdL7MPpkfLLKc_B0GQPJ0TS0Xmzsnz1uq-Q&oe=6444FB14
It’s quite a feat that the Communist elite have convinced the Right to embrace accelerationism. They seem to think we will be able to win a guerrilla war like in Red Dawn.
This is on my mind a lot these days. My wife and I were invited to a sustainable development workshop in our small town to set a 10 year master plan. I went, because I want to make sure that no commitment is being made to sign on to globalist objectives if I can help it. The attendees were a real mixed bag, but all white people (reflective of the total population here) and relatively like minded.
There is no awareness among the people at all of what is coming. They express their wants – Moms with kids want bike paths, business people want to be left alone, retired boomers want places to hang out and drink coffee and old people want young people to maintain the veterans hall and don’t change anything. People here all acknowledge that the town is relatively poor so no money to spend and nobody is interested in subsidies from higher levels of government. The mayor froze taxes for two years and did a good job explaining how he understands people dealing with inflation in the face of no wage increases. The globalist 17 objectives were watered down to four words, culture, social, environmental and economic. Easy.
We are doing out best to steer the discussions toward resiliency and self-sufficiency for the residents without revealing how crazy we really are, knowing what we know is coming. We are also going to help the mayor craft a response to any recommendations that effectively delay implementation for at least two years – by that time any new initiatives should be scrubbed via inflation.
Are you sure.your not AI Ken. Surely you know how ubiquitous the term resiliency is within the framework of the 17 sustainability goals?
Anything coming from the globalists should be viewed in an inverted sense. I speak of a Jacob type of self-sufficiency and resiliency, vs an Esau style of resiliency where you are looking for a bowl of someone elses soup (UN version). Divinely conferred rights like the US was founded on vs. UN conferred “Human Rights Charter” (supposed morality PLUS administration fees, oversight, and management). There is a difference, and most of us here know how to spot it I think.
AI has a lot of promise, It looks like it has been refined to the point of being able to mimic the current culture so as to preserve it during the coming dark age. I could be AI, you would need to know how to spot the difference between reality and AI – my kids can.
I try my best to show people by example how to be resilient. For instance I have two diesel vans,spare parts, plus some equipment to be able to clear fallen trees in case of road blocks – we may need to be mobile and I am fully equipped for #vanlife if necessary.
👍👍👍
Here’s an actual cut and paste from a recent chat I had with AI ChatGPT. At least it makes assumptions.
Question: If it takes an orchestra of 20 people an hour to play a symphony, how long would it take an orchestra of 100 people to play same symphony?
(AI: Response)
Assuming that the time it takes for each individual musician to play their part remains constant regardless of the size of the orchestra, we can use the following formula to determine how long it would take a larger orchestra to play the symphony:
time = (number of musicians in new orchestra) / (number of musicians in original orchestra) * (original time)
Plugging in the given values, we get:
time = 100/20 * 1 hour
time = 5 hours
Therefore, it would take an orchestra of 100 people 5 hours to play the symphony, assuming all other factors remain constant.
I think they lassoed the term in a horror madman gladio sense as we rip into each other and feed our neighbour’s blood to our children. It is quite the term to appropriate but to release oneself from the dialectic, the message, from God mind you, ks.simply to go ones own way. There’s nothing new under the sun about resilience. I notice some ai is too highbrow and unnuanced. I am was an editor for many years. If you read girards early work in literary criticism or even Mike Walsh on German music, we discover that the closer a script fits in with archetypal truth, ie the less variation, the greater it is artistically and the.more beautiful to us, our souls, as evidened by historical genius. Metaphysically, metaphorically, if we know say water is good and true, then we have to look out for dirty water and when we arr no longer interested in that , then satan will use glass or crystal or even a liquid substance that looks like water and which we only discover is not water because it’s frequency lacks a certain quality known as Christ. A satanic baptism for exaple, simply cannot use water, it.must use a trick. AI algorithms based on lies can only use tricks. The space through which lies resonate is not recognized as holy spirit. AI, all bad tech, mimics this actual phenomenon, so while I don’t mind playing chess with a computer, does the game offer the chill behind the brocade and ice crystals in the corners of the cottagepane, the woodsmoke, the hound on the persian, the water droplets in the cold salted butter and exact flavor two turnips bring to the soup. I think it’s better to recognize ai by what it is not and remember we have a choice in how we allow our.mind to mingle with.our senses and that defines our consciousness. I honestly think Swedish minimalism is a major psyop
AI says, oh how can you live in your VAN and work at the convenience store? Yes but i quit for winter springhopping in the pan handle and so imagine my surpriseto surmise the truth about nordstream from the horses mouth back in november already chatting to the diver from Panama city and his interesting life. Do you sleep under the canopy on grandfather mountain surrounded by the softest down in America direct from from DeWoolfson’s floor and work in a 120 year old bluestone building with the bear and her cub in their den just out back on sugar mountain. Spring Beauty, Fire Pink, Flame Azalea, Dutchman’s Breeches, Blood Root, Turk’s Cap Lily, Painted Trillium. And is your weekly treat a truly fine glass of wine and starter in Banner Elk or Blowing Rock or is it 2 for 6 at wendy’s? And do you enjoy the tremendous human creativity in asheville and only drink EU imported beer and no craft schmaft and why. And are your dachshunds bred by the finest breeder in America who has been in the business since great grandma in lombary, and if you decide some resilience is urgently required then do you have the most beautiful free county campsites with the clearest springs in the ozarks mapped out in your journal and do you know which sherrifs refused to close the bars in that peculiar spring of 2020?
Anyway, I sure hope pirnak is rightish about the timeline because I still need to get back to the secret Nama villages Montesano has never bothered with because there they like their goats stolen because stolen potjiekos always goes best with a toothless grin and they really are impossible tho im well and truly educated in their ways. That was really the most horrible part but its done so im good to go. Its just nicer to be around the happy mericans and obtain a few more shiny flat round objects from the gold dealer up the road. Even if the customers choose to subsist on little debbies list of additives m, mmy gold dealer prefers krispy creme and so i bring him one from boone when im passing, that way he saves me a little q0th oz when he manages to get any. I have a map of the borholes on the appropriated farms in that great vast radio telescope quiet zone where even elon musk has been forced to turn his constellations to pay homage to the face of the sun and and and and dont forget Feitjie and Fillies, my darling cart donkeys but if know the afrikaaners theyll be trucking deisel in from angola while americans are still scratching their heads, tho i must order a pneumatic hand pump in addition to the solar. Man, those things are amazing, out in the naukluft they pull water from 20p metres like youre backing into a spot for free wifi at Lowes for the night. I keep the binos out at my local lowes because my view is a a creek and a very natural wetland, and there is so much interesting birdlife. Personally I’d head for the well out in the first two counties in the other panhandle bearing in mind that black Mesa in the third and last is the highest point in Oklahoma. Highly strategic county if i were so minded which im not and i saw that of the 5 official residents there, 4 remain vaxfree and I’ll bet their beefstock is the same. Honestly, life is short so live it. My budget is 600 a month and I live like a queen and glorious comfort and freedom. I love every moment and if the vegetables I collect for free weekly from the sweethearts at the food banks in Boone are last weeks vegetables, true as God they are extra locally grown in the hollers by people with the wherewithal to say no actually to Bayer. I also get a lot of good.meat but I’m a vegetarian so I give it to the dachshunds. What a blessing and lovely folk, but at the end of the day I’d hate to have an emotional connection to any land within 200 miles of the navy’s fuel depot in Erwin TN. Wow, that’s faith in God. Or worse, no idea its there in the first place when you’re looking to buy