So, the average consumer’s home buying power has been cut in half. Two real estate broker friends, one specializing in high end, the other, a notch below, say the market in Las Vegas is dead.
Stormy Monday or Finally a Pivot?
FXHedge tweeted Saturday, “CREDIBLE SOURCE SAYS A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT BANK ON THE BRINK -ABC AUSTRALIA “
Housing: Is it a Correction or Worse?
Big builder Lennar sent out a sales flier via email, advertising 3.99% mortgage interest from Lennar Home mortgage plus price reductions of $40,000 to $50,000 a unit. These reductions included units in subdivisions selling from the $300,000s all the way to over $1,000,000.
Political Strategists On the Road
once relatively anonymous political strategists now have star power that had previously only been accessible to those at the tippy-top of the presidential strategist ladder, people like Lee Atwater or Karl Rove or James Carville or Paul Begala,” Miller writes.
The Fed's Thumb Prints
The dollar’s value is a symptom, and when it goes up, “what that tells you is that there’s tightening in the global monetary system for a variety of reasons, usually self-reinforcing reasons,” Snider explained. Money is tight, markets are risk averse, with the result being a recession is coming forthwith.
Too Good to be True, Too Good to Resist
Get rich quick schemes never go out of style. Robbing Peter to pay Paul excels in its simplicity. Forget gauging the winds of the markets or the bouncing ball on a roulette wheel. Phony promises work on a gullible public to this day. “We are all gamblers,” Ponzi believed. “We all crave easy money. And plenty of it. If we didn't, no get-rich-quick scheme could be successful.”
The NFL Draft: Grappling with Uncertainty
The draft seems dreadfully dull to watch for even the most ardent fans. But, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) figures the town will clean up hosting three nights of player picking on the water. It’s being compared to New Year's Eve with attendance of one million people (with some double-counting).
Clarence Darrow vs. The State
“Clarence Darrow is the lawyer every law school student dreams of being: on the side of right, loved by many women, played by Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind. His days-long closing arguments delivered without notes won miraculous reprieves for men doomed to hang.”
Erdoğan opens the FDR/John Law monetary playbook
Mr. Nebati figures there is three hundred million dollars worth of gold under the beds of the Turkish populous, and the government would like to trade more than ten percent of the hoarded yellow metal for their flimsy paper lira.
George Hearst: Entrepreneur in the Mises Mold
For the first half of Bernstein’s very readable, and richly footnoted, book, Hearst was either bankrupt or rich, there was no inbetween. He made and lost fortunes, but nothing slowed him down. He had a natural nose for finding gold and silver.
Rising Rents & Cheap Money Flowing, Apartment Prices are Soaring
Fannie Mae announced today it provided nearly $70 billion in multifamily financing last year. Fannie Mae apartment loan pricing and terms are attractive: the 5-year fixed rate starts at 2.74% to the 30-year fixed starting at 3.81%. The larger point is with the CPI at 7% in December, the real interest rate on these Fannie Mae loans is negative.
Elon and NFL play LVCVA for a Sucker
For $50 million Musk’s company is contractually obligated to move 4,000 people per hour for 13 hours a day during major trade shows, but recent data showed it’s moving more like 1,300 people per hour.
When Higher Prices are Not Inflation
“You have this huge imbalance of supply and demand which is causing the prices to skyrocket,” Sundaram told CNBC Make It. The question is, is this inflation? Austrians would say no. These price increases are the normal process of a market clearing when supply, for whatever reason, isn’t satisfying all of the demand. Consumers who can and most desire the product will pay more for the limited supply.
RIP Betty White: Good in Match Game's "Hard Seat"
The author describes the last seat occupant as “a strong character,” women celebrities “with an offbeat imagination whose function on the panel [was] to conclude with an original remark.” Betty White was perfect for the role, being “game show royalty” having appeared in numerous Mark Goodson-Bill Todman shows over the years.
Will Artificial Intelligence Create a Socialist Paradise?
Victor Shvets believes computing power has caught up and “technology could soon create an environment where state planning might be able to deliver acceptable economic results while simultaneously suppressing societal and individual freedoms.”
Speculation, on Earth and the Metaverse
Mark Twain and Will Rogers are both credited with “Buy land, they're not making it anymore.” Both men have passed. But, has their land wisdom left us as well? Ms. Kamin writes, presumably with a straight face, “real estate investing in the metaverse still is highly speculative.”
The Public Drowns in Dollars, while Bitcoin is the Monetary Lifeboat
If Bitcoin is our lifeboat, indeed, as Ms. Demirors emphasizes, “Not owning Bitcoin is now irresponsible.”
Housing Hubris
Mari’s piece chronicles the trials and tribulations of millennials (who are now the largest generation) simply trying to buy a home. In some cases, the offers are made long distance on the basis of images from their computer screens. Nationwide home prices have soared nearly 25 percent. But, where the jobs are, in medium-size metropolitan areas such as Boise, Phoenix, Austin, and Salt Lake City, prices have soared 46 percent; 36 percent; 35 percent; and 33 percent, respectively.
Biden is Not at Fault for Higher Gas Prices...Yet
Gas prices increased considerably during the last few months of the Trump regime and have continued during Biden’s term. Why? That annoying economics thing, supply and demand. Americans are driving more since the pandemic has abated, like, for instance, to work. Vehicle miles driven has nearly doubled from a low of just over 160 billion miles in April 2020 to 290 billion in July of this year.
With Government Common Sense Not Required
The book, authored by vice president of distressed debt and convertible securities trading at Lehman Brothers Larry McDonald, with Patrick Robinson provides an eye-witness account of the nation’s largest bankruptcy, a tripped domino which provided some semblance of an Austrian Theory style malinvestment flushing.