When Is a Housing Market Like P. Diddy?

 

"Fraud is generally a key component of a bubble. As mania kicks in, people's concerns over fraud lessen as the perceived risk diminishes. Over time, bad actors crowd out those foolish enough to follow the rules and the market becomes dominated by fraud. This was the case with the 2000s subprime bubble and the 1980s savings and loan bubble. It's the case now, too."

P. Diddy, Puff Daddy, Sean Combs, Puff Adder etc. wasn't quite what he purported to be and Katt's prediction is proving to be spot on - Diddy was surrounded with various enablers and "playa's" and our presently busting housing bubble is also full of "bad actors". Can't wait to see who is involved in both clusterfucks.

If you are a "bubble denier", you are either in a market that hasn't as yet been affected or you are a low IQ real estate "professional" or both.

Post Debate Headlines

 

So, first let's make this statement:  I did NOT watch the Trump Harris Debate.  Not interested - watched House of the Dragon episodes with the family instead.  Our minds are made up - we are not voting for a FOURTH Obama term because voting for Kamala Harris is just that - a vote for a fourth term for the Magical Kenyan of Chicago and his crew.  He was a joke back then and he's a joke now - an articulate and clean (Joe Biden's description of then candidate Obama) joke who can give an eloquent speech but nothing more.

I was mostly interested in reading headlines the day after.  Most media outlets imply or simply state that Trump is washed up - lost the debate by a wide margin, no sense going out and voting for the loser, might as well just stay at home or capitulate and go along with the enormous number of Pro-Kamala voters who are destined to win the upcoming election...nothing to see there, just Vote Harris and the "D" ticket and allow the "Joy" to kick into high gear.

This nation's media is an absolute joke.  Exactly how much more bullshit can they heap on the public?  I know that Americans are pretty dumb but you would have to be Joe Biden brain dead to not know that your circumstances today are MUCH worse than they were in 2019.

Inflation That The Fed Once Claimed to be "Transitory" Is Now "Tamed" - My Response "Pffffffttt"

 

But, to be fair to the Federal Reserve, Congress is part of the problem.  It tasks the Fed with an impossible "dual mandate" of currency stability AND maintaining low unemployment.  So, Congress is part of the problem and since Congress is a representative body of the voting public, a large portion of the public is part of the problem.

I've written this several times over the course of several years - after observing the actions and habits of "Great Americans", the U.S.A. does not deserve the privilege of having the world's reserve currency and our rivals (China, Russia, Brazil, etc.) throughout the world agree.  The dollar will not disappear but its privilege of being recognized as the world's reserve currency is on life support (and deservedly so).

2 Year vs 10 Year Inversion - July 6, 2022 to August 28, 2024

That inversion that I've been prattling on and on and on about for what I'm sure feels like an eternity has finally ended.  

R.I.P. Covid-19 Treasury Yield Inversion.

...but don't get too comfortable just yet.  Those inversions have a bad habit of climbing out of their graves.

Quite Possibly Worse Than 2008

 

I blame the "Yellowstone Effect" - every hayseed and bumpkin with a few acres surrounding their home now thinks of it as "a ranch".

Yesterday, I had a "conversation" via text with a friend who lives in Waller County, Texas.  It is a far flung suburb of Houston with small acreage homes and some tract suburban homes with "better than Houston school districts" (like that is saying much - sort of like an average, normal kid getting into the special Olympics and beating the hell out of all of the retarded children or a biological man getting into the boxing ring and beating the shit out of a bunch of biological women).

My Waller County friend is convinced that her very modest home (manufactured double wide that is in need of either serious repair or replacement...like 10 years ago) which sits upon 20 acres of open cow pasture is somehow worth roughly 16 million dollars.  Her rationale is that at some point, someone paid $40,000 per acre for Waller County dirt and her cow pasture is worth millions.

I am new to Texas so, what do I know???  Maybe it's different here?  Maybe it's different this time?  Maybe it's different here this time?

I have a phrase for this - Texas booms big and it also busts big.  Everything is big in Texas, right?

Just for grins and giggles, I "mosey'd" on over to Zillow to check out the number of listings in Waller County, Texas and OMG do they have an absolute cow shit load of listings.  There is a whole haystack of homes with asking prices well over $400,000 that have been on Zillow for well over three months.  There are quite a few with "new price" or "price reduced" in their descriptions as well.

I don't think this ends well for the debtors or the debt holders who are signatories on all of that mortgage paper.

The Burns Bungle Part Two

 

Powell is on the cusp of fucking up (again).  That "transitory inflation" he yapped about a few years ago is proving to be a real boo-ga-loo.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

The Lower Slobovians of American Society have been feeling the pinch for quite a while now.  Up until now, the latte drinking beautiful people have remained untouched.  But, make no mistake, the squeeze comes for all eventually.

When the Hoi Polloi are out of credit and can no longer buy the "gee-gaws" that the Beautiful People import from their slave labor fed factories in the Far East, even the Beautiful People will know what it is like to run out of juice.

The comical aspect for observers like your old Uncle Kenny is that many of them will blame anyone and everyone (except themselves) for their situation.