Tag: @goldbroker

Bidenomics Or How Washington Ruined America’s Future: Interest on Federal Debt Rose 76% Under Biden (US Interest On Federal Debt > 6x EU Defense Spending As Unfunded US Liabilities Exceed $192 TRILLION!)

How badly has Bidenomics and generally Federal spending has crippled the US? An example. The interest on US Federal debt is approaching $1 TRILLION (and Biden/Democrats REFUSE to cut any spending, not that Republicans are much better). To show up how messed up this is, the EU’s defense budget (remember Ukraine?) is far smaller that the US interest payments on their debt. That is, US interest payments alone on the massive Federal debt of over $32 trillion is over 6 times larger than the entire defense budget for the European Union!

United States Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen has an incredible job.  She writes rubber checks to pay America’s bills.  Yet, somehow, the rubber checks don’t bounce.  Instead, like magic, they clear.

How this all works, considering the nation’s technically insolvent, is quite miraculous.  But it works, nonetheless.  Again and again, the Treasury borrows money.  And Washington spends it.

Yellen likely knows that full faith and credit is too good to be true.  The U.S. government’s gross fiscal mismanagement should call the veracity of its notes into question.  But why focus on it when there’s an abundance to be acquired from weekly Treasury bill auctions?

On a recent trip to China, Yellen was spotted by a local food blogger consuming a plate of magic mushrooms.  An aide to Yellen later confirmed that she did, indeed, order them.  The restaurant’s “staff said she loved [the] mushrooms very much.  It was an extremely magical day.”

We don’t know what their acute effects on Yellen were, while she was in Beijing.  But the mushrooms appear to be contributing to her chronic hallucinations about the U.S. economy’s current health.  This week, for example, while attending the G20 meeting in India, Yellen remarked:

“For the United States, growth has slowed, but our labor market continues to be quite strong.  I don’t expect a recession.  The most recent inflation data were quite encouraging.”

These, no doubt, are the fantasies of a person under the influence of mind-altering chemicals.  Either that, or her mind has turned soft over decades of working as a professional economist for the Federal Reserve and the Treasury.

Tempered Perspective

The unemployment rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is, in fact, just 3.6 percent.  Yellen can celebrate the data point.  But the quality of the jobs being created is not the type that will drive economic growth.

Higher-paying technology and finance jobs are being purged.  While leisure, hospitality, and government are the sectors contributing to employment growth.  These jobs may be important.  Still, they will not create new wealth or help America compete with its global rivals.

Yellen, while under the influence, also remarked that she doesn’t expect a recession.  Maybe this is why you should expect one.

Her predictive acumen has missed the target in the past.  If you recall, in 2017 she said she did not believe another financial crisis would happen in our lifetime.  Since then, we’ve had one financial crisis after another, including the most recent bank failures this spring.

Just this week, Bank of America reported its bond losses in the second quarter increased $7 billion to nearly $106 billion.  And Starwood Capital Group just defaulted on a $215.5 million mortgage on an Atlanta office tower.  Probably nothing to worry about, right?

In addition, this week Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the mega chip maker, reported its first profit drop in 4 years.  Revenue slipped 10 percent from a year ago.  What’s more, net income fell 23.3 percent.  Wasn’t AI supposed to drive silicon wafer production to commanding heights?

With respect to what Yellen called ‘encouraging inflation data’.  While under the influence, she was likely referring to the recent CPI report from the BLS, which showed that in June, consumer prices increased at an annualized rate of 3 percent.  This is still 50 percent higher than the Fed’s arbitrary inflation target.

Moreover, the energy commodities component showed a 16.7 percent price decline over the last year.  This has coincided with President Biden draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a 40-year low.  Without these short-sighted actions, the current inflation data would be much less encouraging.

Structural Crisis

In short, the U.S. economy’s prospects do not quite align with Yellen’s positive outlook.  And if you look out further than just the current data reports, you’ll be greeted with a structural crisis of significant consequence.

In fact, simple arithmetic quickly reveals the precarious predicament the 118th Congress is putting the American people in.

The Treasury Department, the agency Yellen oversees, recently reported that for the first 9 months of the 2023 fiscal year, the federal government ran a budget deficit of nearly $1.4 trillion.  That’s a 170 percent increase from the same period last year.

The big surprise, however, was that interest on Treasury debt securities for the first 9 months of FY2023 topped $652 billion.  A 25 percent increase for this period a year ago.

Rapid and repeated interest rate hikes by the Fed to contain the raging price inflation of its own making, has blown out the interest owed on Treasury debt.  Anyone with half an inkling knew this was coming from miles away.

The growth of federal debt has been out of control for decades.  But the rate of debt growth in the 21st century has rapidly accelerated.

The solution that’s commonly offered by the politicians for getting a handle on Washington’s debt problem is for the economy to somehow grow its way out.  Countless policies over the years have generally involved borrowing money from the future and spending it today.

Yet economic growth never manages to outpace the debt increases.  Instead, the debt piles up higher and higher with each passing year.  The simple fact is you can’t grow your way out of debt when the debt’s increasing faster than gross domestic product (GDP).

For example, in 2000 the federal debt was about $5.6 trillion, and U.S. GDP was about $10 trillion.  Today, the federal debt is over $32.5 trillion, and GDP is about $26.5 trillion.  In just 23 years the federal debt has increased by over 480 percent while GDP has increased just 165 percent.

How Washington Ruined America’s Future

Recently, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation attempted to characterize the $32 trillion federal debt.  The number is so large it is difficult to comprehend.  Here is some of what the foundation came up with:

The $32 trillion debt is more than the combined values of the economies of China, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.  It represents $244,000 per household or $96,000 per person in America.  And if every household contributed $1,000 per month towards paying down the national debt it would take over 20 years.

Without question, Washington has run up an impossible tab.  Yet, what does it have to show for all this recklessness?

America’s cities are decaying from the inside out.  The infrastructure is crumbling.  The country has been involved in one overseas quagmire after another.  And the populace is struggling with gender identification pronouns.

The political will to stop this massive debt pileup has been nonexistent.  Democrats and Republicans have both spent like drunken sailors.  There’s been no tradeoffs or compromises to cut spending.  There’s been zero effort to balance the budget.  And now it’s too late.

As mentioned above, interest on Treasury debt securities for the first 9 months of FY2023 topped $652 billion – a 25 percent increase from a year ago.  But this is just the beginning.

As interest rates continue to rise, the annual interest on Treasury debt will soon pass $1 trillion.  That would put this line item at par with outlays for Social Security, the U.S. government’s largest expenditure.

This would also put spending on interest payments above the combined spending of research and development, infrastructure, and education.

Consequently, by repeatedly borrowing and spending money, piling up massive debt, and then being forced to jack up interest rates, Washington has ruined America’s future.

Yippee!  Look Ma, no hands! The face of America decline: Former Fed Chair Janet “Too Low For Too Long” Yellen who is now our woefully inept Treasury Secretary. You know, the Treasury Secretary who bowed three times to a Chinese Communist Party leader.

A reminder of the pickle that our politicians have put us in. US Federal debt is at $32.62 TRILLION … and UNFUNDED LIABILITIES (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc) are at $192.5 TRILLION!!! Yes, the US economy is broken beyond hope of repair, yet dunce voters keep reelecting imbeciles like Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, John McConnell, etc.

CRE Storm? “Nobody Understands Where Bottom Is” For Commercial Real Estate (Fed STILL Slow To Remove Monetary Stimulus)

Where is the bottom for commercial real estate (CRE)?

Starwood Capital Group’s Barry Sternlicht recently told Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein about the ongoing crisis in the commercial real estate sector, equating it to a severe “Category 5 hurricane“. He cautioned, “It’s sort of a blackout hovering over the entire industry until we get some relief or some understanding of what the Fed’s going to do over the longer term.”

Currently, the biggest problem in the CRE space is sliding office and retail demand in downtown areas. Couple that with high-interest rates, and there’s a disaster lurking for building owners. According to Morgan Stanley, the elephant in the room is a massive debt maturity wall of CRE loans that totals $500 billion in 2024 and $2.5 trillion over the next five years. 

Senior markets editor for Bloomberg, Michael Regan, chatted with John Fish, who is head of the construction firm Suffolk, chair of the Real Estate Roundtable think tank and former chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, in the What Goes Up podcast to discuss the biggest problems in the CRE market. 

Fish warned that “capital markets nationally have frozen” and “nobody understands value.” He said, “We can’t evaluate price discovery because very few assets have traded during this period of time. Nobody understands where the bottom is.” 

For a sense of recent price discovery trends, we were the first to point out to readers of a wicked firesale of office towers in the downtown area of Baltimore City: 

As for the overall CRE industry, Goldman Sachs chief credit strategist Lotfi Karoui recently told clients, “The most accurate portrayal of current market conditions with Green Street indicating a 25% year-over-year drop in office property values.” 

Sooooo, Powell and The Fed will likely raise rates this week. And maybe a few more times over the next few months. And The Fed remains defiant about taking away the Covid monetary stimulus.

Bidenomics? Since January 2021, Regular Gasoline Prices Up 57% Under Biden, CRB Foodstuffs Up 55% As Strategic Petroleum Reserves DOWN -46% (10Y-2Y Treasury Curve Inverts To -102.45)

Jared Bernstein was VP Joe Biden’s former Chief Economist and is now chair of the United States Council of Economic Advisers. Pretty impressive! Except that Bernstein is not really an economist. He has a PhD in social welfare from Columbia University. In other words, Bernstein is a Progressive Marxist cheerleader, not a real economist. Perfect for The Biden Adminstration where they installed a small town Mayor with no experience (Buttigieg) as Transportation Secretary.

But Bernstein’s interview with Fox’s Shannon Bream on gas prices under Biden says it all about his economic acumen:

Top economic advisor Jared Bernstein tries and fails to brag about gas prices under Biden.

HOST: “…what about where we started? Because when [Biden] took office, it was $2.39/gallon. Now, it’s about $3.60/gallon…”

BERNSTEIN: “Yes, it depends on what your benchmark is.”

Bernstein’s answer reminds me of the infamous reply of President Clinton about having sex in the Oval Office with Monica Lewinsky: “It depends on what the definition of sex is.”

Well, Jared, here is the data.

Since January 2021, regular gasoline prices are up 57% under Biden’s and Bernstein’s Reigns of Error. CRB Foodstuffs are up 55% under Clueless Joe and Diesel prices 50% under Bully Biden. Meanwhile, the Strategic Petroleum Reserves is DOWN -46% under Hidin’ Biden.

Meanwhile, the US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve has inverted to -102.45 as it does prior to a recession. I would love to hear “economist” Jared Bernstein explain that!

The Chicago Fed’s National Activity index fell to -0.32 in June. That is negative readings for 6 of the last 8 months.

The Fed still hasn’t removed its monetary stimulypto from the market.

Summer Of Strikes? 650,000 American Workers Threaten To Walk Off Job (Bidenomics On Parade!)

Joe Biden loves to tout “Bidenomics” which is a top-down command economy model with massive Federal spending directed primarily at green energy. But remember that a pillar of Bidenomics is support for labor unions. But “Union Joe” will be remembered as “Inflation Joe” as inflation remains hot. But now the labor unions are threatening to stall the recent rise in real weekly earnings (finally above 0%!).

Tensions between employees and employers are heating up this summer. Bloomberg reports 650,000 workers threaten to walk off the job and picket in the streets to secure improved benefits, wages, and other conditions amid the worst inflation storm in a generation. 

So why is 2023 shaping up to be one of the biggest years of strikes in the US since the 1970s? Well, it didn’t happen overnight. Two years of negative real wage growth has crushed the working poor as they drained their savings and maxed out credit cards to make ends meet. 

Unionized workers have taken advantage of upcoming contract expirations with companies to bargain for better wages and benefits. Many unions say companies can boost wages because profits have been off the charts. 

This summer might go down in history as the “Summer of Strikes” because 650,000 American workers are threatening to walk off the job imminently (some have already hit the picket lines): 

A Bank of America analyst warned a United Auto Workers strike is at 90% odds of happening as union contracts with automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis expire in September. Some logistics experts believe Teamsters will reach a deal with UPS, but that deadline (July 31) is quickly approaching. 

Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein, who leads the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, said this summer could “be the biggest moment of striking, really, since the 1970s.” 

What’s shaping up to be a summer of strikes comes as inflation spiked to levels not seen since the 1970s. The good news is that it has cooled in recent quarters. 

Still, two years of negative real wage growth crushed the working poor — many are in rough financial shape.  

So far, strikes have not had a broad economic impact, but that could change overnight. Increasing labor actions are happening across the Western world, also in Europe, for the same reason in the US, due to a cost-of-living crisis sparked by high inflation. 

Under O’Biden (the combined reign of economic errors of Presidents Obama and Biden), we won’t see any strike breaking for the good of the economy. Rather, the Biden Administration will be missing in action (or sending in Kamala Harris or Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to do … nothing.

CRE Storm: Over $800 Billion In Office Space In Nine Cities Could Become Obsolete By 2030 (Office Vacancy Rates Soar As Fed Went Crazy With Stimulus)

Thanks to The Federal Reserve, office property values have gone crazy despite rising vacancy rates.

US office space vacancies (white line) have soared since 2008 as The Fed’s massive monetary expansion (blue and green line) has not helped. But Fed monetary expansion DID help drive office prices! At least until 2022, when office space values began to fall. Notice that office values are falling as The Fed withdraws monetary stimulus.

Then we have this nice ZeroHedge piece on office space.

During the regional bank failures in March, we directed our readership to focus on the next potential crisis: “CRE Nuke Goes Off With Small Banks Accounting For 70% Of Commercial Real Estate Loans.” By late March, Morgan Stanley warned clients of an upcoming maturity wall in commercial real estate, which amounts to $500 billion of loans in 2024, and a total of $2.5 trillion in debt that comes due over the next five years. 

In a recent Bloomberg interview, Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group warned that the CRE space is in a “Category 5 hurricane.” He said, “It’s sort of a blackout hovering over the entire industry until we get some relief or some understanding of what the Fed’s going to do over the longer term.”

The current downturn in CRE could persist for years, if not through the end of this decade. Jan Mischke, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, along with Olivia White, a senior partner at McKinsey, and Aditya Sanghvi, a senior partner and leader of McKinsey’s real estate special initiative, published a note in Fortune, warning “$800 billion of office space in just nine cities could become obsolete by 2030.” 

The authors of the report blame the CRE downturn on the “shift to remote and hybrid work prompted two further shifts in people’s behavior”: 

First, many residents, untethered from their offices and therefore less fearful of long commutes, moved away from urban cores. New York City’s urban core (that is, the dozen densest counties in the metropolitan area) lost 5% of its population from mid-2020 to mid-2022. San Francisco’s urban core (San Francisco County, Alameda County, and San Mateo County) lost 6%.

Second, consumers began shopping less at brick-and-mortar stores–and far less at stores in urban cores, where people were now less likely either to work or to live. Foot traffic near stores in metropolitan areas remains 10 to 20% below pre-pandemic levels, but the differences between urban and suburban traffic recovery are substantial. For example, in late 2022, foot traffic near New York’s suburban stores was 16% lower than it had been in January 2020, while foot traffic near stores in the urban core was 36% lower.

As fewer employees work in the office, demand for office space will fall. By 2030, such demand will be as much as 20% lower, depending on the city–even in a moderate scenario in which office attendance goes up but remains lower than it was before the pandemic.

And as fewer consumers shop at brick-and-mortar stores, demand for retail space will fall as well, according to our model. In the urban core of London, the hardest-hit city, demand for retail space will be 22% lower in 2030 than it was in 2019 in a moderate scenario.

Some of the most significant declines in office and retail space demand through 2030 will be in major US cities such as San Francisco and New York City.

The authors note that the demand for “residential space will suffer less”… Well, according to their forecasting model. 

“The reduced demand will have major impacts on urban stakeholders. For example, in just nine cities that we studied especially closely, $800 billion of office space could become obsolete by 2030. And macroeconomic complications could make matters even worse,” the authors continued. Without office workers in downtown areas, economic recoveries in major cities will be a “U” shape or, in some cases, an “L.” 

The unraveling of downtowns is already underway. We shared a video this week of scenes of San Francisco’s downtown transformed into a ‘ghost town.’ Building owners in the crime-ridden metro area are already giving up and defaulting as vacancies rise, crime surges, and refinancing is near impossible in today’s climate as the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates sky-high to tame the worst inflation in a generation. 

We shift our attention to Baltimore City, where office towers are being dumped in an apparent firesale. 

The authors failed to report that the sliding demand for office towers isn’t just because of “remote and hybrid work” but also due to an exodus of companies fleeing crime-ridden progressive cities that fail to enforce law and order. 

If McKinsey’s predictions are correct, certain segments of the CRE market are expected to experience prolonged turmoil for years. Some US mayors have proposed an immediate solution to convert office towers into multi-family units. However, this transformation could take years due to the time-consuming processes of obtaining permits and construction. 

Yes, the maestros of real estate asset bubbles (Yellen) and eventual deflation (Powell)!

Financial Climate Change! Billionaire Sternlicht Warns CRE Storm Now “Category 5 Hurricane” (Starwood Defaults On $212.4 Million Commercial Mortgage Loan In Atlanta)

No, this isn’t a John Kerry/Greta Thunberg hysterical warning about climate change. But a storm created by 1) Biden/Congress spending splurge and 2) excessive monetary stimulypto by The Federal (Feral) Reserve. Now that The Fed is withdrawing the excess stimulus, we are seeing a world of pain for commercial real estate. A financial climate change!

Days after Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group defaulted on a $212.4 million mortgage backed by an Atlanta office tower, Bloomberg released an eye-opening interview with the billionaire investor about mounting distress in US commercial real estate. 

“We’re in a Category 5 hurricane,” Sternlicht said in an interview on June 28 taped for a July 25 release in an upcoming episode of Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein. 

Sternlicht warned, “It’s sort of a blackout hovering over the entire industry until we get some relief or some understanding of what the Fed’s going to do over the longer term.”

He explained the CRE downturn was sparked by the Federal Reserve’s sixteen months of aggressive interest rate hikes to tame inflation — and unlike past downturns — not due to reckless speculation. 

In early March, during the regional bank meltdown, we penned a note that accurately pointed out stress would materialize in the CRE space, mainly in offices and malls. The note was titled Why Small Banks Are In Big Trouble: As Hedge Funds Pile Into The New “Big Short,” The Next’ Credit Event’ Emerges. And since, we have penned countless CRE notes (some of which are here & here & here) about the unfolding crisis. 

Tighter credit conditions following the regional bank crisis in March have made refinancing existing buildings exceptionally hard for landlords and come as vacancies rise. 

Sternlicht recalled that his firm tried to obtain a bank loan for a small property not too long ago. He said his staff reached out to 33 banks, and only two came back with offers. 

According to Morgan Stanley, the elephant in the room is a massive debt maturity wall of CRE loans that totals $500 billion in 2024 and $2.5 trillion over the next five years. 

As we’ve seen in San Francisco, the inability to refinance as some properties sustain rising vacancies will pressure landlords to sell properties or walk away from them. 

Sternlicht said there’s a very real possibility of a “second RTC” event playing out, referring to Resolution Trust Corp., the government entity that led the effort to liquidate assets of the savings and loan associations that failed three decades ago. 

“You could see 400 or 500 banks that could fail,” he said. “And they will have to sell. It also will be a great opportunity.”

Sternlicht launched his real estate firm during the era of RTC, purchasing multi-family units and flipping them to billionaire Sam Zell 18 months later for triple the price. 

Sternlicht said the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp would likely begin offloading CRE loans on Signature Bank’s books, which failed in March. He said, “The government’s going to prop up the value of that portfolio by providing very cheap financing to it.”

*   *   * 

Transcript of the interview: 

David Rubenstein: 

Sometimes people are saying that the best investment opportunity now is distressed real estate debt — that you can buy the debt from banks at a discount. But do you think it’s too early for that?

Barry Sternlicht: 

You know, we were gonna give back an office building. And they said, “Well, not so fast. If you want to, we’ll restructure the loan. And we’ll cut the loan in half. And you put the money in here. And we’ll take this as a junior note.” Because the banks don’t want the assets back. They’re not set up to carry these assets. It’s not their business.

So you’re beginning to see stuff. We’re going to see this big trade of the [Signature] Bank portfolio. That’s going to be a benchmark for market.

David Rubenstein:

A lot of fortunes were made in the real estate world in’ 07-’08 when people bought distressed real estate. The late ’80s too, when the RTC was here. Do you see funds being formed to buy these assets? But you think they won’t be available for a year or two?

Barry Sternlicht:

Right now you have an unusual situation in the real estate markets because everyone’s sort of looking at the yield curve. And it says rates will be lower later. Everyone says, “You know, survive till ’25. Hold onto your assets.” So transaction volumes have plummeted.

Unless you have to sell something today, nobody wants to sell anything today. They think tomorrow will be rosier. So for the most part, everybody’s pushing any sales back. But what you’re seeing is when a loan is maturing and a borrower can’t cover the current debt service. Something’s gotta give. Unfortunately, we’re also a lender.

David Rubenstein:

Are we going to change the way office buildings are really valued in the future because tenants aren’t going to need as much space? Or do you think eventually the tenants will come back and the employees will come back?

Barry Sternlicht:

The work-from-home phenomenon is a US phenomenon. If you go to England or Germany, rents are up, and vacancy rates in the top German property markets — Berlin, Frankfort, Munich, Hamburg — are less than 5%. People are back in the office. You and I go to the Middle East, they’re full. We have offices in Asia, they’re full. So this is a US situation.

In the US you have two markets. The nice buildings will stay rented and my guess is at pretty good rates. And the B and C stuff is going to be — maybe fields of grain or something. It’ll be very pretty. We’ll have all these little mid-block parks in New York City because there won’t be anything else to do with those buildings.

The other thing about office is AI. AI is going to hit a couple of these industries that have been big users of office space. So that’s sort of a big question mark in the investment equation.

David Rubenstein: 

Let’s suppose I’m an average person. Where should I put my money as an investor in real estate?

Barry Sternlicht:

High interest rates are depressing the number of single-family home units that have been built so now you’re having an ever-increasing scarcity of residential. Given the cost of construction, the whole residential complex — including single-families for rent, multi-family, the housing market, even residential land — I think they make interesting investment opportunities today.

David Rubenstein: 

Is it a good thing for people to now invest in a real REIT?

Barry Sternlicht:

I think real estate has a nice place in the balance sheet of any individual. In the pandemic, we raised a special-situations fund and bought 15 names in the REIT business, and we were up, like 70% at one point. We’re going to do that again. And if you take a long-term view, some of these are good companies with the wrong interest-rate environment. I wouldn’t even say they have the wrong balance sheet, but they are so out of favor. There are some really good buys out there. So if you’re clever, you could buy some public REITs.

David Rubenstein: 

What kind of return should an average REIT investor expect?

Barry Sternlicht:

In the mortgage REIT, Starwood Property Trust, we’re paying a 10% dividend. So you get that and any appreciation in the stock, and the stock’s currently trading below book value. It usually trades above book value. It used to trade at 1.23 times and now it’s trading at .9. So if it reverts, you’ll get a 15% return. We’ve averaged 11.3% over 10 years.

David Rubenstein: 

Why should somebody want a career in real estate? Why is that a good business to be in?

Barry Sternlicht:

You’ve got to find niches, and there are a lot of niches in real estate. And it’s very micro, block by block. If I didn’t have my firm today, could I buy — even in a city like New York — and redo apartments and housing. I could make money doing that. I have a friend of a friend who’s bought 300 homes. He turned living rooms into bedrooms, put them all on Airbnb. He’s earning a fortune and using Airbnb as his distribution set. It’s a giant industry. There’s always something to do.

David Rubenstein: 

You were based in the northeast part of the US for much of your career. You grew up in Connecticut, you were born in Long Island. But you picked up and moved to Miami. Why did you do that a few years ago? And any regrets about moving to Miami?

Barry Sternlicht:

Well, my mom’s down there. And I got divorced. That was one reason. Change your life, start over. There was obviously a tax benefit to doing so. And I had sold an interest in my firm at the time. I was based in Connecticut. I was based in Greenwich, our headquarters was there. I looked at my travel calendar in a normal year and I was only home for about a third of it. So I didn’t think it’d be that hard to move and make that my base of operations. It turned I caught the wave perfectly.

I was an early settler into Miami. And, you know, the home prices probably tripled there. I should have bought everything with my house. I would have had the best-performing real estate fund in the world.

David Rubenstein: 

If your mother came to you and said, “I have $100,000. I need to invest it somewhere. Where should I invest it?” You would say where, real estate?

Barry Sternlicht:

Today if you look at my portfolio, I have a significant amount of cash that I never had before because I’m getting 5% for the cash. Pretty soon I’m going to just start deploying that capital when I can see the sun coming through the clouds of the Fed’s movement. When the Fed basically tells you they’re done, I think real estate will catch a very firm bid.

Greta Kerry? John Thunberg?? They are the same repeater, and non thinker.

Here the real (financial) climate terrorists!! Yellen and Powell.

Bidenomics, Born Under A Bad Sign! US Treasury Yield Curve (10Y-2Y) Inverts To Under -100 BPS Again (Nickel UP 1.78%, Dogecoin UP 5.58%)

I have never seen anything like this. The US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve is deep in inversion and has had a negative slope for 265 straight days. Bidenomics is born under a bad sign!

On the commodities front, heating oil is up almost 2% this morning and nickel (an important element in Biden’s green energy mandates) is up 1.78%.

On the crypto front, Bitcoin is up 0.47% and Dogecoin is up 5.58%.

You can always buy Kamala’s Own Word Salad Dressing!

Bidenomics? Existing Home Sales Crash -19% YoY In June, 23rd Straight Month Of Negative Growth (Median Price Falls To -1.16% YoY) Inventory For Sale STILL MIA

Wasting away again with Bidenomics.

US existing home sales crashed by -19% in June, the 23rd consecutive month of declines.

At least the median price of existing home sales is decreasing as Fed stimultypto vanishes. Just like inventory for sale has vanished.

The face of Bidenomics, code for Federal government reckless green spending. And Biden family members receiving over $10 million from foreign agents.

Shot Through The Heart (Of The Economy)? US Debt UP By Same Amount In Last 4 Years Than It Did In First 221 Years (Minsky Moment When $192 TRILLION In Unfunded Liabilities Hits The Fan

Shot through the heart (of the economy), and they’re to blame. The Fed and Congress give government a bad name.

When I see the faces of Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell, all I think of is …. the Minsky Moment brigade!

From Zero debt in 1776 to $21 trillion in 1997 and just in the last 4 years, debt has gone up by that same $21 trillion. This graph shows the debt explosion, a 63x increase.

And then we have Congress promising >$192 trillion in entitlements (wealth transfers) that will likley be added to the already >$32 trillion in Federal debt.

Bidenomics Strikes! US Housing Starts 1-unit Plunges -7.4% YoY In June For 14th Straight Month Of Declines (Multifamily Starts Down -11.56% From May To June, Permits Down -13.52%)

Bidenomics strikes! Or as Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum sing “I’m going to make (the US) mine!”

Despite the open borders where millions of low wage workers and parasites pour across into the US, we still see 1-unit housing starts plunged -7.4% YoY in June as The Fed continues tightening.

Multifamily starts actually fell worse than 1 unit starts. 5+ unit starts were down -11.56% MoM. Multfamily permits were down -13.52%.

And it just isn’t little girls that Biden is creepy about (like the family member we all keep our kids away from), Biden is creepy towards adult women too! These guys, like most normal people, aren’t digging Old Joe’s creepiness.