Tuesday, March 09, 2021
The City of Mesa Brags About Highest YOY Increases in Home Values. . .Is this "The Great Re-Shuffling" ??
Soaring home prices are starting to alarm policymakers
The last time the U.S. saw such skyrocketing home prices, the ensuing crash brought down the global economy.
The current pace of home price appreciation is unsustainable, industry analysts say.The booming housing market helped stave off economic collapse in 2020. But soaring prices are starting to worry policymakers, who fear the market could lock a generation of would-be buyers out of homeownership.
Home prices in January — typically a slow month for the market — were up 14 percent over the same month the previous year, while sales jumped 24 percent, despite an unemployment rate that was almost twice as high. Demand for existing homes is so strong that the average residence is on the market for just three weeks, and inventory is at a record low after seeing its steepest drop last year since the data was first tracked in 1999.
It all threatens to freeze broad swaths of the population out of the market, leaving millions of Americans in a less secure financial position, widening the racial wealth gap and forcing millennials, already lagging previous generations in building wealth and forming families, to fall even further behind.
. . .
At first blush, market activity appears reminiscent of the boom before the 2008 credit crisis. Mortgage balances grew by $182 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020, the biggest quarterly uptick since 2007, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest report on household debt. More mortgages were originated in the fourth quarter of last year than in any single quarter since the Fed started tracking it in 2000, surpassing the previous high from 2003.
But the loans being made today are much stronger than they were then: 71 percent of originations in the fourth quarter of 2020 went to borrowers with credit scores above 760, considered a very strong number, compared with 31 percent of mortgages going to such creditworthy borrowers in the third quarter of 2003.
Strict regulations enacted after the crisis are partially responsible for the change. . .
Most analysts expect home prices to continue to increase this year, even as gradually rising mortgage rates temper demand a little bit. But it could be years before the supply of housing can meet demand. In the meantime, millions of people will find themselves priced out.
“One wonders what is the end game, how does this play out given the heated market conditions of too many buyers, multiple offers?” Yun said. “As prices simply outpace people’s income by a large margin, people won’t qualify to get a mortgage.”
"Fat Cats" (There's a business - same name - with a bowling-alley here in Mesa,AZ)
Monday, March 08, 2021
Made In Arizona and Too Dangerous To Release From Jail
- Lamberth cited Chansley's "detachment from reality," writing in his ruling that Chansley repeatedly claimed his actions were harmless and downplayed the six-foot spear he brought inside the Capitol — "undoubtedly, a dangerous weapon," Lamberth said.
- "Defendant characterizes himself as a peaceful person who was welcomed into the Capitol building on January 6th by police officers. The Court finds none of his many attempts to manipulate the evidence and minimize the seriousness of his actions persuasive," Lamberth said.
- "The statements defendant has made to the public from jail show that defendant does not fully appreciate the severity of the allegations against him," Lamberth added, referring to Chansley's recent jailhouse interview with "60 Minutes Plus."
- "To the contrary, he believes that he — not the American people or members of Congress — was the victim on January 6th."
Chansley does not face charges of attacking anyone, but the DOJ maintains that his behavior during the insurrection makes him too dangerous to release.
- The prominent QAnon conspiracy theorist has pleaded not guilty to a six-count indictment.
- Chansley claimed that he merely "heeded the invitation" of President Trump and would not have entered the Capitol building if not for Trump's "actions and words," Lamberth's ruling states.
- Chansley also made news in February for demanding organic food in the Washington jail where he's housed.
It’s been two weeks since Trump lost the election to Biden. But he and his followers are still claiming victory. Jeff Sharlet, who has been covering the election for Vanity Fair, credits two Christian-adjacent ideas for these claims. The first is the so-called “prosperity gospel”: the notion that, among other things, positive thinking can manifest positive consequences. Even electoral victory in the face of electoral loss. But the problem with prosperity gospel, like day-and-date rapture prophecies, is that when its bets don’t pay off, it’s glaringly obvious.
As prosperity thinking loses its edge for Trump, another strain of fringe Christianity — dating back nearly two millennia — is flourishing. Jeff Sharlet says an ancient heresy, Gnosticism, can help us understand the unifying force of pseudo-intellectualism on the right. Sharlet explains how a gnostic emphasis on "hidden" truths has animated QAnon conspiracies and Trump’s base."
This is a segment from our November 20th, 2020 program, Believe It Or Not.
Not-So-Manic Monday: TechDirt Off To A Good Start + 4 More Days To Go!
Crappy US Broadband Is Also Hampering Equitable Vaccine Deployment
from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
As our recent Greenhouse policy forum on broadband made abundantly clear, COVID is shining a very bright light on US broadband dysfunction. The high cost of service, spotty coverage, slow speeds, and high prices are all being felt acutely in an era where having a decent broadband connection is the pathway to education, employment, healthcare, and opportunity. And after 25 years of US apathy to its telecom monopoly problem, COVID-19 is applying pressure on lawmakers and regulators in an entirely new way to do something about the 42 million without broadband, the 83 million under a monopoly, and the tens of millions who simply can't afford service due to limited competition.
But it's not just high prices and spotty coverage that have proven to be an issue in the COVID era . . . Granted part of the problem is monopolization and limited competition impacting broadband availability and price. But the other problem, long discussed here at Techdirt, is the fact that state and federal regulators have done a piss poor job accurately measuring broadband availability.
. . .In this case, our failures to seriously tackle monopolization and regulatory capture are having a very real human cost. And usually, it's the most vulnerable among us who are the first in line to feel the pain, something experts also discussed at length during our recent Greenhouse panel:
"About 27% of American adults over the age of 65 don't use the internet, according to the Pew Research Center. Pew also reported that a third of Black adults in the US lack home broadband. ABC News reported that the situation is even worse for seniors of color. Meanwhile the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people 65 and older, as well as members of racial and ethnic minority groups, are dying at disproportionate rates from COVID-19."
Having co-built DSLReports, I spent every day for fifteen years watching first hand how the broadband industry (and its various policy tendrils at think tanks, consultants, and lobbying shops) spent millions of dollars and countless man hours trying to convince the press, public, and regulators that the US broadband market was perfectly healthy and competitive, and in absolutely no need for reform or meaningful oversight. COVID has, in a very short amount of time, punched that self-serving, bad faith argument squarely in the jaw. Hopefully we learn something from the experience."
Whistleblower: Police Officers Celebrated Shooting People With Badge-Bending, BBQs
from the jesus-fucking-christ-can-you-try-not-being-awful-just-for-a-moment dept
There's a lot of competition for Worst Police Force in America. The NYPD is known for its casual approach to human life and its antagonistic approach to public records requesters. The Chicago PD operated its own black site to separate residents from their rights while interrogating them. The Pasco County Sheriff's Department thinks it should be in the business of turning students into criminals. The list goes on and fucking on.
Enter the Vallejo (California) Police Department -- one that has apparently gamified the shooting of residents.
For a generation, a secretive clique within the Vallejo Police Department has commemorated fatal shootings with beers, backyard barbecues, and by bending the points of their badges each time they kill in the line of duty, an investigation by Open Vallejo has found. The custom was so exclusive, some officers involved in fatal shootings were never told of its existence.
First you have to shoot someone. Then the others who are in on this have to determine whether you can be trusted.
Sources say not every officer who kills is invited to participate in the Badge of Honor ritual. The vetting process is stringent, if straightforward. Those who kill meet its first requirement. Those who can be trusted not to talk fulfill the second. . .
That's the mindset of this PD, which has terrorized residents for years under the guise of preserving law and order. This is the way it has always been. . .
Police violence has cost the city so much money that, in 2018, the statewide insurance pool that helped pay its legal fees took the unprecedented step of raising Vallejo’s annual deductible, from five hundred thousand dollars to $2.5 million, prompting the city to find another insurer. Vallejo is currently facing at least twenty-four use-of-force cases, which it estimates could cost some fifty million dollars.
John Oliver On Drug Raids: Why Are We Raiding Houses For Drug Quantities That Could Be Easily Flushed Down A Toilet?
from the law-enforcement-vastly-overestimating-toilet-capacity dept
John Oliver has demolished many institutions in his time (not literally, unfortunately, in most cases) as the host of HBO's Last Week Tonight. It's rare when a mainstream program chooses to address more esoteric matters often discussed at this website. But Oliver does it more than most and, for that, we truly appreciate him.
His episode from last week dealt with drug raids. Our nation's drug warriors have decided any suspicion of non-violent crime should be met with an uber-violent response, possibly because they've watched just as many Hollywood movies as we have.
When it comes to drugs and drug warrants, it's all hands on deck. Sometimes, law enforcement agencies are able to obtain no-knock warrants, which allow them to enter a residence without announcing their presence in order to "preserve evidence" and limit the possibility of a violent response. . .
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
