Year: 2023

The US Housing Crash Cometh

Karl Denninger explains why, and in the process, also explains why people had so much money to spend over the last 3-4 years.

All Real Estate is local.

But — it got a lot less specifically-local in the last three years, and bifurcated basically two ways: Blue and not-Blue.

The problem is that the dynamic of virus restrictions along with wildly ridiculous fiscal and monetary policy drove a dynamic that was utterly unsustainable and, fundamentally, stupid as a whole although for the people doing it the act looked smart at the time. There were several elements of this:

  • Work-from-home on a near-universal basis was forced by many employers. This, in high-cost areas, drove employees to think they could arbitrage their higher salary (a result of the high cost of living where they were, such as in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and similar) and keep it while moving somewhere much cheaper, such as Tennessee or Florida. For those who pulled this it was a massive windfall, provided they could sell their home in the high-cost place.
  • Forced-low interest rates meant mortgages were extraordinarily cheap. The brokers of same — banks, independent shops and similar — feasted on the fees, both for purchase money (see above for the flow on that!) and refinances. Many of those refinances were strategically wise, being committed just a few years after origination and not materially-lengthening the amortization clock. All of them wildly increased available consumer funds for spending, however, by reducing the monthly payment amount.

These two dynamics skyrocketed home prices. The All-US index went from ~450 to 625, a roughly 40% increase in two years. That is much greater than the explosion higher during the last couple of years of the housing bubble; that was a mere 14%. There were plenty of areas, including where I live, that prices of “real” (not AirBNB friendly) single-family homes roughly doubled and some of those “short-term rental opportunities” were even more-obscene with some of them tripling in three years time.

All of this was ridiculously stupid. The premise that employees operated on — that they’d never have to set foot in an office again — was crap. As the pandemic ended so did the curtailment of occupying office space and the cities could not survive with all that office space empty; the tax revenue plus all the retail business activity associated with those people being in the buildings during the day is utterly essential to their fiscal survivability.

Those who thought they could arbitrage their cost of living while keeping their “bonused up” salary are now getting a rude shock: Come back to the office, which we have leased and have to pay for, or be fired. Except….. those employees now live hundreds or even a couple thousand miles away! Worse, they bought houses on <3% mortgages and spent the rest and, while their “price paid” is what it is nothing is moving.

Around here I looked at recent sales. Among single-family homes there are an effective zero from roughly April forward. The top of the Realtor.com page for this county comes up with sales from March, February, May, a couple the first two weeks of June and a couple of (wildly-overpriced cabins) recently. This is the second week of August and Memorial Day to Labor Day, which is a couple of weeks away, is prime closing season here because the kids are out of school and similar.

The market is basically locked up and the reason is quite-clear: Those who bought at the top can’t move; they have 3% mortgages and that $500,000 place has a $2,100 payment. The same $500,000 house at 7% carries a payment of $3,326!

The net present value of that payment on their house today is $316,000, a $184,000 loss!

Translation: things aren’t looking so great for your new neighbors from California who arbitraged the location delta into an overpriced home in your community. Or for the banks that hold their mortages. It should be worse than 2008.

The higher interest rates were inevitable and unavoidable. However, it remains to be seen if the minor premise was false and employers are going to be able to force their employees back into the office. I remain skeptical about the “back to the office” scenario, because I think it’s more likely that the corporations will break their leases, pull out of the cities, and decentralize. They certainly have no dearth of other reasons to do so.

DISCUSS ON SG

Then They Came for Wranglerstar

Miles Klee of Rolling Stone gets Wranglerstar banned from Tik Tok and goes after his YouTube account with a hit piece written on behalf of Jared Holt, the social media hit man who was previously “instrumental in getting social media and other internet platforms to give Infowars the boot” from Apple, YouTube, Facebook, and Spotify, among others.

While his comments are a mixed bag of supporters and detractors, there’s no telling whether someone will put Crone’s more irresponsible recommendations into practice. “It’s alarming to see content that he offers instructions for doing damage paired with content that promotes a generally paranoid worldview,” says Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who studies the intersection of tech and U.S. political extremism. “That can be a volatile cocktail, and I worry that it normalizes types of violence.” 

After Rolling Stone brought the UN helmet video and other clips to TikTok’s attention, the company deleted Crone’s page. A TikTok representative confirmed that Crone was banned for “repeatedly violating” their policies, though did not enumerate which rules he had broken. The TikTok representative also reported that Crone had never made money on the platform. “While our investigation is ongoing, I can confirm that it did not monetize through our product features this year, and we’ve so far not found an indication it did so before that,” the rep said. Another Wranglerstar-branded TikTok account with more than 200,000 followers has preserved clips including a guide on breaking into buildings and a screed about “pushing back” against police officers by showing up to their houses to confront them. (It’s unclear whether Crone operates the account or someone else is reposting his content.)

YouTube, for its part, did not remove any of Crone’s videos or issue him a warning, and continues to generate revenue from his brand. (Crone, who has had an ad partnership with the site for at least a decade, was previously featured as an “On The Rise” influencer and on YouTube’s “Spotlight” channel.) In a statement to Rolling Stone, YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon says Crone’s videos have not violated the site’s community or the advertising-friendly guidelines for official YouTube Partners. “As such, they will remain on the platform,” Malon says.

According to the site’s policy guidelines, YouTube forbids “content intended to praise, promote, or aid violent extremist or criminal organizations is not allowed on YouTube,” though notably, Crone does not seem to identify with any particular radical group. YouTube also prohibits “content encouraging others to commit violent acts.” Whether Crone risks violating this policy with material like the arson clip — which falls into something of a gray area — is an open question. Malon’s statement did not address the assessments YouTube made of any individual video.

Holt tells Rolling Stone that Crone is “crossing or edging on the line of policies that platforms have against what’s usually called ‘dangerous’ or ‘harmful’ content,” but that such rules are useless without rigorous enforcement. If YouTube doesn’t see fit to remove this kind of content, says Holt, it would “be responsible to at least down-rank it in sorting.”

Though Holt emphasizes that “most people who view this sort of content will not be compelled to act, and even fewer will be violent,” he says a slim minority may feel emboldened to take action “in harmful or violent ways.” For YouTube to allow this content on their platform, he explains, is “to provide the next would-be attacker or vigilante with the tools they need to act,” comparable to “scattering instruments all over a stage and inviting musicians into the theater.”

Of course, Holt cautions, we can’t say for sure that this is what Crone intends — which gives him the plausible deniability to continue operating on YouTube without interference. As long as he is ambiguous enough in his prophecies, avoiding direct imperatives to act or praise for known terrorist groups, he comes across as just another eccentric, gun-loving conservative. This way, Crone is able to walk a thin line, seeding extremist propaganda while separately laying out strategies for an anticipated clash with authorities, leaving his audience to connect the dots. Unlike his less-filtered TikTok channel, his YouTube presence relies on the power of what remains unsaid.

He Taught People to Make Bombs — And YouTube Is Helping Him Cash In, ROLLING STONE, 11 August 2023

When, as they like to say, there is no place in their society for us, it is clear that there is no place for them in our society. It’s not paranoia when they really are out to demonetize, deplatform, and destroy you. This is why it is foolish to rely in any way upon enemy platforms; there is more to preparation than building a cabin in the deep woods. Fortunately for us, our half of the global economy is much bigger than the one they have coopted; the two leading BRICSIA nations, Russia and China, have already declared war on their Empire of Lies.

It’s fascinating to see the Imperial SJWtroopers intensifying their attacks and expanding their range of targets at the same time that the companies they utilize as weapons are in decline and increasingly desperate to bring people, including those they previously banned, back to their platforms. Just this week, one major platform unsuspended an account that was frozen in 2020 and tried to get us back on the platform; we declined and took advantage of the unsuspension to cancel it for good. Just as it’s a mistake for consumers to subscribe to Disney+ or ESPN, or drink Bud Light, it’s a mistake for a non-SJW creator to become reliant upon YouTube, Facebook, or any other converged platform.

Big Bear and I have warned other creators about this for years. Most of them didn’t heed those warnings. But it’s just going to keep getting worse as the US continues to implode internally and the external pressure on its various institutions and corporations grows. Is it going to be easy at first? No. Are you going to take an initial hit in terms of every single metric? Yes. But that’s the price of playing the long game that ensures you’ll be around in the future.

DISCUSS ON SG

Professionally Anti-Trump

Ben Shapiro’s organization has been paid $110,429 to attack Donald Trump since July 2021.

Did you know @realDailyWire is paid by @RonDeSantis?

In case you were wondering why so much of their content these days is ANTI TRUMP.

DeSantis has paid @benshapiro’s Daily Wire over $110,000!

Wow! That’s a lot of money for a lot of LIES!

How very strange. One would have assumed that The Littlest Chickenhawk would do it for nothing. I’m as skeptical of the 5D Chess narrative as anyone, but there has to be a reason that the neocons, the Republican Establishment, and the Democrats are attacking him so relentlessly.

DISCUSS ON SG

No, They Haven’t Always Died

Young people have died of heart attacks before, but never anywhere close to this extent. Excess cardiac deaths are higher than they have ever been before.

Sudden Cardiac Death in 0 – 54 yr-olds.

  • 30.4% excess (28.2% 5 wks ago)
  • Magenta line shows RXX erosion (none)
  • 20 sigma excess

In other words, too many young persons are dying suddenly, & without Covid CDC can’t find a place to hide these deaths in the ICD catalog.

DISCUSS ON SG

Stop Playing Stupid

It’s getting a little tiresome to repeatedly listen to these grieving parents and family members pretending that they have absolutely no idea why a perfectly healthy individual died of “suddenly”:

Helen Smart’s heartbroken parents say they ‘cannot comprehend’ how Olympic swimmer died suddenly aged 43 as they pay tribute to their ‘pride and joy’: ‘How could she simply go to sleep and never wake up?’

No further details have been released yet regarding her death. 

There is at least one easy answer: she got vaxxed. And the mRNA technology in the vaccine created blood clots that led to a stroke or a heart attack. That’s the most likely reason for her death, and for the tens of thousands of similar excess deaths around the world.

And the people who are responsible are not only going to get away with it, they’re going to do it again, if those they have victimized don’t stop playing dumb and pretending that they have no idea what could possibly have killed their loved ones.

DISCUSS ON SG

MY SISTER SUPREMA Now in Print

MY SISTER SUPREMA marks the very first Arktoons-only digital comic to appear in a print edition. But it will not be the last.

Randy is a bright young boy who devours comics and dreams of becoming a superhero. One day, he discovers a secret formula on the Internet that claims to be able to endow an individual with superpowers. After assembling all the ingredients and technology required, he experiments with the process, but the whole thing goes terribly wrong. Somehow, by accident, his big sister Cecelia ends up with the very superpowers he’d been seeking for himself. And she has no idea what to do with them.

So it falls to Randy to help her figure out what her powers are, select a costume, choose a superhero name, and teach her what it means to be a superhero. But while Randy and his sister are trying to figure things out and hide her new powers from their parents, the villain whose formula Randy inadvertently discovered is hunting for the thieves who stole his secret.

Written by The Legend Chuck Dixon and illustrated by Anthony Gonzales-Clark, MY SISTER SUPREMA is a unique and charming superhero origin story.

The 60-page print edition now available in the USA direct from Arkhaven. All other locations: available from Amazon and local bookstores.

MY SISTER SUPREMA appears regularly on Arktoons.

DISCUSS ON SG

Are the Lahaina Fires Fake?

Miles Mathis thinks so and provides a paper to make his case:

What’s wrong there? Well, why is the “after” photo in black and white? Do you really think they were filming this with B&W film? No, it isn’t really in B&W because we can see some gold in the lower right. Which means they jacked with this on purpose, removing most of the color to sell you the idea of this fire. I guess you are supposed to think the ash turned the entire ocean to gray. But it doesn’t work like that. The ocean is way too big and in too much motion to turn completely to gray, even that near shore. We have confirmation of that from helicopters flying over and filming: the films aren’t B&W like this. Also see the photos above, where the ocean is the same color before and after, even near shore. If anything, the ocean goes from blue to purple in the second photo, so we see manipulation even there. The very fact they are jacking with these photos tells us something is up. They are hiding something or promoting a story, at the very least. At the most they have faked this whole thing. How could they fake this whole thing? Same way they are faking the war in Ukraine. Same way they faked the bombs dropping on Japan. Same way they faked the war in the Pacific. In fact, this whole story may be staged as a test, to see if their film faking techniques are now good enough to sell this story to people already on the lookout for just such a fake.

Now, I have no opinion on this, beyond my basic principle that the only thing we can be absolutely sure didn’t happen is what the media is reporting as the official story. In other words, there were no fires in Hawaill started by the combination of downed power lines and global boiling. While my mother graduated from Punahou in Honolulu, I’ve only been to Maui once, so as far as I know, the island in question might not even exist. But Miles Mathis is correct to point out the digital effects being utilized as well as the implications of that utilization. Fortunately, the Committee helpfully provides us with a falsifiable metric to serve as a means of testing his analysis.

But surely people on the ground would know if this was some sort of project? It has to get out. But the truth about Japan has never gotten out to the mainstream in 78 years. They did the same basic thing there: staged it on a island and controlled all information out. We only know what the governments of the world want us to know. Even the locals in Maui would be pretty easy to fool. They admit they evacuated everyone from that Kukui peninsula, so none of the locals saw this. They are getting their information just like you are.* You will say they have to be allowed back in to get any of their stuff that survived, but my guess is they won’t. They will be told nothing survived and the government will insure most of those who weren’t insured. Only a few government agents will be allowed back in, to do their interviews and make their reports and continue the conjob. Unlike in Ohio, Biden has already signed off on disaster relief (that was fast!) and federal funds “will be pouring in soon”, according to mainstream media. My guess is that peninsula will be blocked off for the “rebuild”, with no road in and a no-fly zone over.

From SocialGalactic:

Road closure, reopen to limited people, then reclose when people started trying to look around is true. It’s somewhat early yet, but I haven’t heard of anyone known to my friends confirmed dead.

One of the ways to be certain after the fact about an event being faked and/or false-flagged is if the evidence is destroyed. We know that access to the peninsula is already being restricted and homeowners are not being permitted to return to their homes; if that continues indefinitely then it will be necessary to take the Committee’s analysis of this event seriously.

UPDATE: However absurd the idea of the fires being faked may appear, it’s not as absurd as what people are being expected to swallow about the fires.

They are telling us only 2 of the 96 bodies found so far can be identified. That’s sort of strange, right, since they are also telling us many of them were incinerated in those cars we keep seeing. So why can’t they identify them from their cars? License plates and VIN numbers burned right off I guess, even though the letters are raised on license plates to prevent that, you know. Their teeth were burned right out as well, I guess, preventing use of dental records.

UPDATE: Don’t dismiss The Committee too fast.

On Monday, Hawaiian governor Josh Green announced that his administration was considering acquiring properties in the seaside resort town of Lahaina that had been destroyed by the recent wildfires. He vowed to prevent foreign buyers from swooping in to exploit the tragedy, suggesting the state was better suited to take control of the land. “I’m already thinking of ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to the people who were lost,” Green said while standing amongst the rubble.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Risk of Computerized Cars

Mercedes just shut down its software services to all Russian dealers:

German auto giant Mercedes-Benz has completely disconnected Russian dealers from its software, the Izvestia daily reported on Monday, citing the press service of the company’s distributor in Russia.

Access has been suspended to online systems used for maintenance and identification of problems, Mercedes-Benz Russia reportedly told the outlet. Izvestia sources said Germany’s BMW Group has also restricted Russian dealers’ access to its software.

“Dealers have indeed been disconnected from the manufacturer’s online software systems. In some cases, the lack of access to online systems will increase repair times,” Mercedes-Benz Russia was quoted as saying. Car repairs and maintenance will be based on “accumulated experience and knowledge,” the dealer noted.

Given the way things are clearly developing, it won’t be long before your ability to access automative services is as subject to deplatforming as your ability to upload YouTube videos or make posts on social media. We already have to build our own platforms in the unauthorized economy, and soon we will also need to service our own cars.

Which is why it is better to buy older cars instead of newer ones. I’ve never owned a Mercedes-Benz, and this new policy ensures that I never will.

UPDATE: Driverless cars will be even worse.

DISCUSS ON SG