Homeowner equity is being erased. As higher interest rates continue to put pressure on borrowers, the ability of the average person to afford a mortgage diminishes.  Higher mortgage rates lead to downward pressure on residential home values as fewer borrowers can afford higher payments.  Simultaneously, commercial real estate is dropping in value as vacancies continue increasing.

Put both of these issues together and already tenuous banks holding mortgage bonds as assets can become more unstable.

This dynamic creates the continual tremors in the background of an economy already suffering from high inflation and low consumer purchasing of durable goods.

A perfect storm starts to realize.

(Wall Street Journal) – Sales of previously owned homes fell in April from the prior month and prices declined from a year earlier by the most in more than 11 years.

U.S. existing home sales, which make up most of the housing market, fell 3.4% in April from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.28 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. April sales fell 23.2% from a year earlier.

The national median existing-home price fell 1.7% in April from a year earlier to $388,800, the biggest year-over-year price decline since January 2012, NAR said. Median prices, which aren’t seasonally adjusted, were down 6% from a record $413,800 in June. Home prices have fallen the most in the western half of the U.S., while prices continue to rise from a year earlier in many eastern markets. (read more) 

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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Those of you who are keen financially minded individuals will note exactly what is happening in these recent reports, HOME DEPT HERE – TARGET HERE.  Those of you who are retail investors in the stock market might also see the bigger picture.

Home Depot and Target essentially share the same customer base or market audience. They service a larger segment of the American middle class.  Both companies are reporting negative financial outcomes as a result of low comparable sales, or same store sales comparisons, to last year.   This should not be a surprise, yet Wall Street is seemingly caught off guard.

Right now, we are on the tail end of the massive inflation cycle that took place in 2021 through 2022.  Current inflation, as measured by the rate of price increase over the same period last year, is lower.

Now we are starting to see companies reporting sales comparable without the benefit of massive inflation to assist.

Example – when inflation is running at 10%, a company can report 8% sales growth, and everyone smiles.  However, the sales growth was created by the inflation.  The actual unit sales of goods have declined; the store is reporting higher sales because the prices are higher.  When the sales cycle through to lower inflationary comparisons, the drop in unit sales shows up as drops in topline sales.   This is the cause of both Target and Home Depot now reporting lower than expected comparable sales versus last year.

In real terms, this is why using sales data as a measure of economic growth is less valuable during periods of high inflation.  Significant inflation hides the diminished sales of units, which should be the true measure of sales growth.  I have been tracking unit sales as a measure of economic activity, and the truth is that unit sales have been declining since the fourth quarter of 2021.

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Perhaps it’s the Ron DeSantis national pretending 2024 campaign driven by a “book tour.”  Perhaps it’s the international travel that distracts a sitting governor from supporting a Republican candidate in the largest geographic metropolitan area in the state.  Whatever the reason, the Jacksonville Florida mayoral contest was won by a Democrat, Donna Deegan.

I have warned, against some of the most vitriolic pushback, that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is setting up the state of Florida for some major problems in the future. There are lots of granular points that I can reference, but the bigger picture they create is one that will be very damaging in the future.  The class division in Florida, the distance between the haves and have-nots, is growing exponentially.

Lower and middle-income Floridians are being crushed as the ‘Instagram selfie-my-lunch’ crowd, the largest coalition of support for Ron DeSantis, ignores it.

Believe me on this, DeSantis Republicans representing the financially elite and being condescendingly dismissive of the non-elite, is not a path to future Republican electoral victory.  From my perspective the backlash is visible. It only takes a few thousand voters staying home in protest to make a difference.

Those same enforcement police, newly empowered with tools against ANTIFA woke protests, will hold those same tools when it’s Joe the plumber protesting his economic status.

JACKSONVILLE – Democrat Donna Deegan won the Jacksonville mayor’s race Tuesday night, a shocking upset that hands Florida Democrats a major shot of energy less than six months after they were trounced in the 2022 midterms and considered left for dead by the national party.

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Paul Sperry at RealClearPolitics has an article today citing one part of the Durham report that deserves a little CTH attention.

I hope you will forgive my indulgent snickers, as the graphic you see below was created by me in early 2018, a full five years before the release of this Durham report.  I even referred to the Steele Dossier as the Nellie Ohr Dossier. lol

As noted by Sperry, “According to the 306-page report, former Justice Department prosecutor Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr first plowed the ground for the dossier with a series of research reports she wrote for Fusion GPS, the D.C.-based opposition research firm the Clinton campaign commissioned to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia.”

[…] Durham suggests Nellie Ohr planted the seeds of sourcing for the most explosive allegations leveled by the dossier against Trump, including the oft-cited notion that he and his campaign were engaged in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” with the Kremlin. The dossier attributed this, falsely, to Millian. Durham found that the Belarusian-American realtor was never a source for the dossier and was simply invented as one, along with the allegations attributed to him.

In fact, Durham says that Millian initially wasn’t even on the radar of Steele and his dossier “collector” Igor Danchenko, a former Brookings Institution analyst who’s admitted much of the information he provided Steele was alcohol-lubricated gossip. Millian was called to their attention by Nellie Ohr, who the prosecutor said “implicated” Millian through her own reports. Durham suggests Steele and Danchenko merely followed her leads. 

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“I’m not being arbitrary; I’m just not going to pretend. These people know exactly what is going on. Their action is not an outcome of some esoteric thought process. They are corrupt & acting to retain the corruption with specific intent & full understanding of the consequence.” ~ Sundance

Now, let us get down to the business of understanding; let us uncomplicate the complex; and, more importantly, let me propose the outline of a solution.

♦ SILO #1 – Inspector General Michael Horowitz was given instructions by outgoing President Barack Obama, to review the internal decision-making inside the FBI, Main Justice and DOJ-NSD as it pertained to the Hillary Clinton classified document scandal.

In early January 2017, IG Horowitz was tasked to review the FBI decisions during the Clinton exoneration and deliver a report on his findings.

First, it is important to remember the DOJ inspector general can only review internal government conduct. The IG does not review or investigate outside involvement and has no authority to compel investigative compliance from outside parties.  The Office of Inspector General is an internal review agency.

Second, it is important to remember the DOJ inspector general was not authorized to conduct any oversight of the Dept of Justice National Security Division, DOJ-NSD. During the Obama era, when the DOJ-NSD was created by Attorney General Eric Holder, through the entirety of the Obama era, there was no inspector general oversight into any operations conducted by the DOJ-NSD; that included the FISA process.  It was not until later in 2017 when the Trump administration granted the OIG authority to conduct oversight into the DOJ National Security Division.

Think of IG Michael Horowitz as an investigative silo.  You will see why this matters.

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In advance of an effort to bring sunlight to events, and with full appreciation to the credo of our assembly, The Truth Has No Agenda, a few points of personal emphasis.

Everything you read and review upon these pages is free for the taking. Anyone, for any reason, can take any content I produce and use it to advance the honest effort of providing raw unfiltered truth to their audience.

Everything is available for use free, without any attribution or citation needed.

All that I provide is free and can be modified, changed, enhanced in part or whole to meet your needs. Images, writing, research, analysis, all of it is provided, along with no expectation of citation or attribution dependent on your motives and intents.

Make the words your own, use them in part or modify to make a more intelligent or comprehensive outline. All the accompanying graphics are available to use as would suit your interests. All the research is cited and verifiable.  We are not going to save this republic by demanding or restricting information via self-important perspectives on citation or attribution. I simply do not care about such issues. Make it your own in whatever manner or format fits your interests.

I am currently working on a big picture article that should explain why this is important. There is something key and critical that is being missed and overlooked by those who are communicating the importance of events that took place over the past several years, through today.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)