Covid Economic Boom Marches On
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U.S. existing home sales extend decline; house prices race to record high
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. home sales fell for a third straight month in April as an acute shortage of properties drove prices to a record high./snip/
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Home resales, which account for the bulk of U.S. home sales, surged 33.9% on a year-on-year basis. The annual increase was, however, distorted by the plunge in sales in April 2020, when the economy was reeling from mandatory shutdowns of non-essential businesses to slow the first wave of COVID-19 cases.The housing market is being driven by demand for bigger and more expensive accommodations after the COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of Americans to work from home and take classes remotely. But the virus has disrupted labor supply at saw mills and ports, causing shortages of lumber and other raw materials.
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Why didn't we lock down our economy before now, just to stimulate it!
What a rich country we have become since shutting down a significant slice of economic activity. The Dow has gone up by about 80% since its idiotic Covid Panic crash of March 2020; it has gone up about 17% since its previous all time-time on February 14 of last year.
Yes, housing and the stock market have both achieved fantastic growth while total employment plummeted and structurally significant industries like air travel, hotels, restaurants and retail have been devastated.
How can this be? And why haven't we done this before? All we had to do was shut down as much public activity as possible, and then abandon the quaint idea that creating money out of thin air was a dumb thing to do. Facts are facts as the scientists of this board are always quick to remined us, and the undisputable fact is that our economy is booming.
Uncounted trillions of freshly minted greenbacks were the solution all along. Luckily the pandemic came along, allowing the handful of scientists in the government to cure us of our "strong" dollar fetish.
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But wait!
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Fed Signals Eventual Shift From Easy-Money Pandemic Policies
The latest public remarks came ahead of the Fed’s release of minutes from its April 27-28 meeting. The minutes showed general agreement among officials on the need to continue supporting the economy with near-zero interest rates and bond purchases.
But they also dropped the Fed’s first hint that policy makers could soon begin discussing a slowdown in the pace of its Treasury and mortgage-bond purchases, which currently total at least $120 billion a month.
“A number of participants suggested that if the economy continued to make rapid progress toward the committee’s goals, it might be appropriate at some point in upcoming meetings to begin discussing a plan for adjusting the pace of asset purchases,” the minutes said. They noted that many officials echoed Chairman Jerome Powell’s view that the Fed should give markets plenty of advance warning before it begins reducing the purchases.
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120 billion a month, dumped into the credit "market," augmenting the "demand" for housing and equity assets. And it is working like a dream.
If Obama had been wise enough to order an economic shutdown and then to replace the lost cashflow with free money given to banks to loan out to investors and speculators, Hillary would have been elected in a landslide!
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Sarcasm alert if you haven't figured it out yet.
Comments
I find it amazing
that some banks are giving loans that roll the down payment into the loan itself.
There's a young couple down the road from me that purchased a two hundred thousand dollar home with no down payment. Their combined income is less than 40 grand.
I believe the banks know that when the market goes south they'll get these homes for pennies on the dollar while the owners go into bankruptcy.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Fox in control of the henhouse ...
The total disregard of Modern Monetary Theory, coupled with unbridled greed, and no fear of being held accountable produces a very dystopian landscape . . .
And those who lose...
Will likely be the pension funds and such that will have bought up the securitized debt. And those who are or supposedly will receive benefits from such funds. People like, umm, me....
Time was, the banks were assuming at least some of the risk, now it seems they get to offload it as soon as the loan is made.
Apparently Japan has upped the percentage of foreign investment that some of their biggest pension funds are allowed to hold considerably and put the Norinchukin Bank, already one of the biggest investment players in the world in charge of handling overseas investments and it has partnered up with Goldman Sachs...
Gee, what could possibly go wrong? Or, wrong again - Norinchu, which is the bank for thousands of Japanese fishing, forestry and farming cooperatives lost hugely in 2008-9, now they have even more money to play with.
Excerpted bit from an interesting 2019 editorial on a Lyndon LaRouche site:
Source
And all of that, plus demographic implosion even before all the Corona virus insanity.
economy != stock market (& vice-versa);
ditto housing market.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Thwy've run out of stocks to buy
it's no fun looking into a mirror and asking yourself how much you want for your stock. It makes you ask what else is there? how about real estate? And after that?
On to Biden since 1973
As C99's resident multi- billionaire
I'm here to tell you how hard it is to find a safe place to keep my wealth.
I can't keep it all in Greenbacks because I would need a vault the size of a mansion to begin with. And security personnel would be a slow drain on it, plus the value of it continues to plummet.
I can't find anymore stocks to buy because all the corporations have bought back their own stocks. Besides, the market could crash at any moment.
Real estate is skyrocketing, but its just a gamble that increasing value will hopefully outweight the slow drain of property taxes. And the dander of a market crash.
Gold is an option and would require a smaller vault. But other billionaires holding gold could dump theirs and render mine near worthless.
What to do what to do what to do?
This is really difficult and perplexing.
It causes me untold worry and I am constantly fretting over it.
And don't get me started on whom of my heirs to leave it to because I DON'T EVER WANT TO DIE.
Poor me.
s/
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
"What to do what to do what to do?"
Burn it, baby, and never be a billionaire again. I would be ashamed to be a billionaire. Shame on you ! Get poor immediately.
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forgot the snarky sign, just one of my terrible comments
as eyo would say
Peace and love.
I always wonder what comes first, peace or love.
Definitely love, don't you think?
Have errands to do.
Bye.
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