The foreclosure crisis brought to you by BlackRock
https://t.co/yfce0VvwVY pic.twitter.com/KenABvkrV1
— genxgmom (@genxgmom) August 1, 2021
Millions of Americans face imminent homelessness, after Democrats left Washington without extending an eviction moratorium, set to expire on Saturday. However, America’s largest corporate landlords are about to make a killing.
An 11-month eviction moratorium that prevented tens of millions of Americans from losing their homes during the coronavirus-induced economic shutdown expires on July 31, after Congress left Washington for recess without passing a bill to extend it.
The moratorium was put in place by the Donald Trump administration last year and extended by the Joe Biden administration in June, but a Supreme Court ruling that same month stated that further extension would require “clear and specific congressional authorization.” President Biden asked his allies in Congress this week to pass a bill extending the eviction ban, and House Democrats had enough votes to do so, but nevertheless didn’t. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put the failure down to not having “enough time to socialize it within our caucus as well as to build the consensus, especially in a time of Covid.”
Pelosi’s typically Washingtonian answer will do little to assuage the millions of Americans behind on their rent. A precise figure here is hard to nail down, but Moody’s estimates that six million tenants are in arrears, while more than 3.5 million people told the US Census Bureau earlier in July that they face eviction within the next two months. As of Saturday, they are no longer protected from being turfed out onto the streets.
The moratorium also applied to homeowners behind on their mortgages and facing foreclosure, two million of them to be precise, according to figures from Harvard University.
Eight million homes may soon be vacant, and some of America’s largest corporate landlords are likely waiting to snap them up. Staggeringly wealthy pension funds like BlackRock and Blackstone have spent the pandemic buying up homes, often at well over market price, with a view to renting them out to the same Americans now priced out of the market. The eviction moratorium was a double-edged sword in some cases, with small-time ‘mom and pop’ landlords unable to collect rent from their tenants facing no choice but to sell to BlackRock and its ilk.
This process has been underway since the 2008 economic downturn, and beyond the borders of the US. The UN in 2019 accused Blackstone of “wreaking havoc with tenants’ right to security and contributing to the global housing crisis.”
This time, they’re eyeing the market atop even bigger war chests. BlackRock, for instance, was hired by the Federal Reserve last year to buy up mortgages on its behalf, ostensibly to shore up the US economy from the virus-induced downturn. The Fed turned to BlackRock in 2008 as well, and the partnership proved lucrative. BlackRock now manages more than $7 trillion in assets, up from $1.3 trillion at the time of the last economic crisis.
The American middle class still holds more than double the wealth of the top one percent of the country, and home ownership is universally recognized as the first step toward acquiring membership in this class. The US government has long acknowledged this, with the Department of Housing and Urban Development stating all the way back in 2004 that buying a house can be the “most important source of wealth accumulation and ultimate financial security” for lower-middle income families.
Put simply, a nation of renters is not a financially secure nation, and when corporate landlords buy up houses to rent indefinitely and in doing so price independent buyers out of the market, they’re redistributing wealth from the middle class to the fraction of a percent at the top.
Curiously, no political will seemingly exists to fight the corporate-backed dehousing of America. Republicans who profess to defend the freedom of America’s middle class have remained largely silent, all the stranger given the fact that a nation of renters falls right in line with the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ initiative, an ambitious plan to reshape the world’s post-pandemic economy into one where the average citizen “owns nothing.” Incidentally, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is a trustee of the WEF.
Pelosi being Pelosi to our face.
Ensuring every American has a roof overhead is a value that unites the Democratic Party. That's why I led a relentless campaign to extend the CDC eviction moratorium. In an act of pure cruelty, Republicans blocked this measure — leaving children and families out on the streets.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) August 1, 2021
Democrats believe in safe and affordable housing for all as the country recovers from the pandemic and we #BuildBackBetter. The Biden-Harris Admin and @HouseDemocrats will continue to search for solutions to protect vulnerable renters from eviction during this crisis.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) August 1, 2021
Interesting if true:
Nancy knew it wouldn’t pass because she used unanimous consent which means that just one person can block it. She of course is blaming republicans for its failure.
And then Blackrock will buy the property and rent to you. You will own nothing and eat bugs. Welcome to the Great Reset. Funny how COVID happen to come along just at the right time. https://t.co/Xh9MhJyxAM
— RAMZPAUL (@ramzpaul) July 31, 2021
Here are 9 fascinating facts to know about BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager
BlackRock, the world's largest investment manager, has become an increasingly influential Wall Street player in Washington, DC as a poster child of the revolving door between finance and politics.
The firm has hired notable policy-makers over the years, and at least three leaders with the New York-based asset manager on their resumes now hold prominent roles in President Joe Biden's cabinet.
Former BlackRock investment executive Brian Deese leads Biden's National Economic Council, effectively serving as his top advisor on economic matters. Biden also tapped Adewale "Wally" Adeyemo, a former chief of staff to BlackRock chief executive and longtime Democrat Larry Fink, to serve as a top official at the Treasury Department.
Meanwhile Michael Pyle, BlackRock's former global chief investment strategist who had worked in the Obama administration before joining the firm, serves as chief economic advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris.
But unlike Goldman Sachs, a household brand name synonymous with executives leaving finance to go shape public policy, BlackRock isn't as well-known to people outside the investment industry.
1. BlackRock controls $9 trillion, making it the largest money manager in the world.
2. It runs a massive technology platform that oversees at least $21.6 trillion in assets.
3. BlackRock has hired many former government officials into senior roles.
4. The firm played a significant role in aiding the Federal Reserve last year.
5. The Federal Reserve tapped BlackRock during the last financial crisis, too.
6. Fink has been vocal on matters of climate change, urging other companies' leaders to consider the associated risks.
7. But his firm has been scrutinized for its record on supporting shareholder requests for climate-related disclosures.
8. It has long been rumored that Fink himself will head to DC.
9. BlackRock has made lots of acquisitions.
BlackRock has bought lots of property management businesses and that does not bode well for renters either. Or maybe it was Blackstone that did it as well as buying up whole neighborhoods which doesn’t either. Either one renters are going to get screwed.
Evicting millions of people during an epidemic is pretty much murder in my opinion because it’s going to put lots of people at risk of getting Covid and even worse things. On top of the millions being evicted there are tens of thousands more people who have lost their homes because of the massive wildfires, flooding and other disasters caused by climate change that is ravaging the planet and home prices have been rigged out of people’s reach.
As gjohnsit has stated in his essay many cities have made homelessness a crime. Debtor's prisons are already back in style and gawd only knows what will happen to people arrested for putting tents where they are not allowed. But since there’s a shortage of people willing to work jobs that don’t pay living wages companies have started using prison labor to work for them.
It’s Social Murder or basically genocide of the unwanted or unneeded. They already culled many of the elderly and disabled people by putting Covid infected people into nursing homes and not just here in the USA. Instead of treating every person who had Covid they sent them home to infect their families making sure that it would spread to more people
‘recover' and only return if they got worse. They also censored any medications that would help people survive the Rona which caused millions of unnecessary deaths. Well unnecessary for us and our families. It went according to plan for them.
And guess what else is happening? People who were hospitalized now have massive bills that they can’t possibly afford to pay and many of them will have to declare bankruptcy and there will be the vultures ready to take their homes for pennies on the dollar which will save them lots of the money that congress has transferred to them in order to do this heinous, beyond despicable acts and crimes against humanity! Housing is a human right for god’s sake! But not any longer.
Comments
The Great Re-Set
in action.
I hate saying important people have no soul, since goofy Biden sort of owns that soulness phrase...
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Biden: is anyone at home upstairs in his brain’s speech center?
[video:https://youtu.be/37sHTnz1P0U]
I think Biden is nuts for reasons
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Biden's more of a Build, Back, Better guy
Does this scare anyone?
https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=33422227
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
looks like a psyop
with CIA trolls
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
O MI GOD
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
As long as Hedges can safely talk and write
I am not giving up to hope.
https://www.euronews.com/
BlackRock = largest stockholder in Vonovia, to whom I pay rent
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/04/23/blackrock-vanguard-co-...
(My apartment in Dresden is in one of the old, now-privatized, East German socialist housing projects.)
Thus my complaint --
-- before the 2020 election -- about the Nice Liberals with Big Egos weeping and wailing and gnashing their collective teeth about an election which was of some consequence, but in actual fact of very little consequence to America, painting the Left as America's Scapegoat if Biden loses, America's Savior if he wins.
ACTUAL ELECTION OUTCOME
Before: rule by neoliberal social climbers of the (R) persuasion, with neoliberal social climbers of the (D) persuasion in a supporting role
After: rule by neoliberal social climbers of the (D) persuasion, with neoliberal social climbers of the (R) persuasion in a supporting role
You can see how it's like night and day (/snark). There was, of course, the fact that Donald Trump was greatly empowering to anti-vaccination, anti-mask, climate-change-denying nutcases. For that fact he was going to lose anyway. All of those Nice Liberals with Big Egos putting on Superman costumes and pretending to fly through the air, saving America from Lex Luthor (R)? Well, they apparently didn't save America from corporate real-estate buyers. Oh well.
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
Exactly.
NYCVG
are you’re saying that if people voted 3rd party
then the foreclosures wouldn’t be happening? And it’s their fault for voting dem or republicans? Is that correct? If so then they deserve what is happening? Oh well indeed.
Anything to say about the topic of the essay?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Uh.....
It is The Top versus the bottom. The Rich versus the poor. always. Whichever party is at the helm does not change the dilemma.
NYCVG
The foreclosures will be occuring with a vengenace --
As for your first and second questions, yes, it would be nice if we put an end to the periodic charades displayed by the Two-Party Dictatorship. The Blame Game, however, is merely another "weapon" in the arsenals of the Nice Liberals with Big Egos, who distinguish themselves by proclaiming themselves the Vanguard of All That Is Good In The World while in fact being of little consequence to that world. All of the bad things in the world, they argued last year, were caused by people who do not vote for Joe Biden. Well I'm not playing. Write that in your notebook.
Voting for a third party would be nice if there were a third party. The Green Party is now on the ballot in twelve states in any secure sense. The People's Party is petitioning now to be on the ballot in six states. Maybe getting these parties on the ballot could be something the vast multitudes of newly-homeless could do in their spare time.
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
Is it by design?
Sadly I think so.
There are two players that we need to be aware of, BlackRock and BlackStone.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-BlackRock-and-Black...
The two are related...
Larry Fink’s BlackRock started as part of Blackstone.
I sure feel lucky to own our place in these days and end times. Thanks for the essay SD.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The US Military Budget Defends
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cia_v4vxfE]the Wealthy Few Against the Rest of Us. Same as the Roman soldiers guarded their empire and the Sheriff of Nottingham kept the landowners fowl out of the hands of the starving peasantry.
We can cluck about Biden's weaknesses and cheer Chris Hedges' truthful and important words, but we cannot make any headway against the structure that is in place. Deep down, we all know this. Even as we debate with each other about sometimes inconsequential minutia.
This is a blessed place for it allows us to say and share what we are seeing on the ground as it all unfolds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cia_v4vxfE
The song is a love song but it seems oddly appropriate to my mood.
NYCVG
Ro Khanna's
comment is right on the money, snoop.
King Cuomo fully intended to funnel the money into his own pocket.
The guy you highlighted Adeyemo killed that dream when he announced that if the money is not spent by the deadline, the Greedy Govevernors will have to give it back. That was in the NY Times today.
The same Governor's concern is also for the real estate interests who will benefit if everybody is forced back into their empty office towers, and will buy up the foreclosed real estate.
For Snoopydawg---If my remark to Cassiodorus went off-topic, that is not what I intended to do.
NYCVG
good on ya snoop!
i's seen the RT com exposé this a.m., and had been trying to get back to gjohnist's thread (but RL) to tell you and on the cusp that you'd nailed it, Great Reset and all!!
i will offer that i am a major detractor of ro khanna's, and as far as AOC's virtue signaling on the issue, she can shelter evicted homeless in one of her three homes, and i use that term advisedly.
Pelosi showed her true colors with this:
but in other coverage she'd claimed that she hadn't 'hadn't had time to meet with colleagues to socialize about the issue' or some clap-trap. she gets 17 Pinocchios.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNYmrtoQ7y4]
'behind on mortgage payments' death knell as well: hello blackrock, goodbye house!
(sorry likely typos)