Housing Bubble

There is just one very big problem with this "solution"...

The news out of Canada - and especially out of Alberta, the heart of the country's oil patch - has just gone from disturbing to downright terrifying. 

"This is a dangerous movie for Wall Street, the government, and the establishment in general. ... cuts through the crap and reveals those in power to be corrupt, greedy weasels who aren’t really as smart as they want you to think they are. The finale of the movie is sobering and infuriating."

It's grim up north... and getting grimmer. Amid soaring suicide rates, Canada's once-booming oil patch is rapidly accelerating its downward trajectory. "Canadians should be concerned in times like these," warned Tim McMillan, president and chief executive of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, noting that the oil and gas sector will see 100,000 job losses by the end of this year. Apart from the protracted price declines, Alberta’s oil and gas sector has also had to contend with a 20 per cent hike in corporate taxes, increased provincial royalties, a carbon tax and new regulatory policies to limit rein in carbon emissions... and now a new competitot from US exports.

It appears Swedish banks are falling over themselves to get rid of excess cash. We noted Swedish banks refusing to open bank accounts in September, and warned in October of a "giant wave of money" heading into Sweden thanks to the Riksbank-ECB policy divergence, and now, Swedish banks are paying each other to take cash off their balance sheets into year-end, as 1-week STIBOR crashes to -1.792%.

Financial fraud is any method by which deception or duplicity induces those with money to "invest" in a scheme...   

Manipulating the PR optics (i.e. perception management) as a substitute for an open market doesn't make you omnipotent, it makes you a hubris-soaked fool.

If you’re an observer of the political aspect of the Fed policy, you’re likely aware that central bankers like to stay out of the spotlight.  Spotlight creates political pressure, something Fed technocrats publicly dislike. But in connecting Federal Reserve interest rate policy since the 1950s with inflation and employment conditions, some interesting results materialize. Of the interesting findings is that the Fed has presidents it wants to be tough on and presidents it likes to show charity to.

Over the last two decades the Fed’s interventionism has created artificial booms and real busts. Their dreadful mistakes are “fixed” by currency debasement, lower interest rates, and money printing – creating even worse mistakes. They have successfully gutted the American economy and left a hollowed out shell. The coming collapse will be three pronged as stocks, bonds, and real estate are all simultaneously overvalued. Junk bonds are the canary in a coalmine. High end real estate in NYC has topped out. New and existing homes sales growth has stalled out. Retailers desperately slash prices to maintain sales, while destroying their profits. Corporate profits are falling. The stock market is teetering on the edge.

"We aren't going to sugar coat this, as you can see by the photos, this is a basement crawl space and the ground is un-even. My roommate Neil has agreed to help out and level off the dirt crawl floor and we have some scraps of rug to throw down. There is a decent amount of room for a mattress and night stand..."

The fear in both the GOP and Democratic party is visible at the surface when it comes to Trump, and it's not that he's any of what they've accused him of.  No, it's really much simpler than that, and both Republican and Democrat parties, along with the mainstream media, are utterly terrified that you, the average American, is going to figure out what underlies all of these institutions in America.

The real problem for the Fed will be how foolish it will look if it does raise by 25 basis points and is then forced by a slowing economy to lower rates back to zero soon after liftoff. At that point, the markets should finally understand that the Fed is powerless to get out of the stimulus trap it has created. But it looks like the Fed would rather look foolish later when it's forced to cut rates, than look foolish now by not raising them at all. The Fed’s rocket to nowhere will hover above the launch pad for a considerable period of time before ultimately falling back down to Earth.

The lies we tell ourselves are only exceeded by the lies perpetrated by those controlling the levers of our society. The country has been living a Big Lie since the day Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, eliminating any vestiges of constraint upon central bankers and politicians.

Duh. It was so obvious looking back. This is not a consequence-free environment... it’s time to find safety.

First it was Australia (closest to China), then Miami, then London, and now New York appears to have been hit by the sudden withdrawal of a bid-at-any-price, stash-my-cash, launder-my-money foreign flood of money to buy real estate. Manhattan apartment vacancies reached their highest level in more than nine years, according top broker Miller-Samuel, a sign that the post-recession run-up in rents may begin to cool. "We're reaching the point where things can't go up as much," Miller said in an interview. "The economics don't make much sense anymore." Did they ever?