There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
Everybody’s buzzing about that Minnesota Medicaid mess with Gov. Tim Walz. Some are even calling it the largest fraud scandal ever. If only.
Blue-state fraud is undoubtedly a problem, and Walz should be held accountable if he did indeed look the other way. But what happened in the land of 10,000 lakes is tiny compared to the fraud in California under Gavin Newsom.
Heck, it makes Minnesota look like pocket change.
A fresh 92-page bombshell from the California State Auditor lays it all out.
“This latest report was issued by the state auditor, and that’s a nonpartisan position; that state auditor now puts eight state agencies on the high-risk list of agencies to watch out for, for things like fraud and mismanagement as well as waste,” Newsmax correspondent Heather Myers revealed last week.
“Here’s a look at that 92-page report. Newly added to the high-risk list is California’s food stamp program. If the state doesn’t get the improper payments under control, it could cost an extra $2.5 billion. Also on there is the Department of Finance, which was tasked with giving out COVID relief funds. Critics say $32 billion of that was taken by fraudsters. Then there are infrastructure issues like California’s deteriorating dams, and also the high-speed train that’s already cost taxpayers 18 billion without a single section of track complete.”
But wait, there’s more!
“Other reports cite $24 billion spent on the homeless issue that critics claim the state lost track of. More recently, there’s a report that says California cell phone users paid a surcharge for years to upgrade the state’s 911 system,” she added.
Tallied all up, California taxpayers lost $70 billion to fraud.
But here’s where things get really interesting. While pressure is on in Minnesota to get to the bottom of the state’s fraud, California seems to be under the radar.
Now get this. Right in the middle of the fraud apocalypse, a new ballot initiative seeks to impose a one-time 10% wealth tax on billionaires’ assets.
“Billionaires are threatening to leave California, and it’s all because of a possible new ballot initiative in the state. It’s a wealth tax. A healthcare labor group is behind this push, calling for a one-time tax on billionaires equal to 10 percent of their assets. And right now, it does not have enough signatures to get on the ballot,” CNN’s Abby Phillip reported Monday.
“These are big numbers, just to let people know what we’re talking about here. Larry Page, for example, he’s worth $258 billion. His estimated tax would be $12 billion. Peter Thiel, worth $27 billion. His estimated tax would be $1.2 billion. That’s not $1.2 in your pocket. It’s billions of dollars. So, I mean, should they or should they not?”
CNN’s Scott Jennings torched the whole scheme; it’s about covering up the fraud.
“And it is not for the public benefit,” he pointed out.
“In California, the state auditor just found $70 billion in fraud going on in the state. The reason they need a wealth tax is to cover up the fraud. The hole in the budget in California is due to fraud. That’s why they’re trying to tax people.” Boom. Panelists flipped out. Jennings doubled down. Why 5%? Why billionaires? Arbitrary envy tax to paper over Sacramento’s black hole. Imagine handing more cash to the clowns who blew $24 billion on tent cities.”
Make no mistake about it, he’s right. Newsom is going to run for president in 2028. Something tells me that $70 billion in fraud on Gavin’s watch is the kind of thing that won’t sit well in a primary, much less the general election.
Once upon a time potatoes were what the poorest people in society would eat because they were so inexpensive. But now we are being charged an average of $4.19 for a carton of medium fries at McDonald’s. There are many that are very upset about the rapidly rising cost of fries, and this is yet another example that shows that our standard of living is being absolutely shredded. As costs rise, the labor market just continues to get even weaker. So we are being hit with much higher prices at the same time that paychecks are stagnating and mass layoffs are occurring all over the nation. So what is going to happen to our standard of living if these trends continue to intensify during the months ahead?
The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey showed that 44% of middle-income respondents said their financial situation was worse than it was a year ago, while 23% said it was better, based on a three-month average ending in September. Those who feel worse off overwhelmingly said it was because of higher prices.
Federal bureaucrats continue to insist that inflation is low, but everyone can see that is simply not true.
Compared to the year just prior to the pandemic, so many of the things that Americans regularly spend money on have gone up dramatically.
During a recent segment on Fox Business, viewers were shown how much some of the most popular menu items at McDonald’s increased in price from 2019 to 2024…
McDonald’s Price Increases from 2019 to 2024:
Medium French Fry $1.79 -> $4.19 McChicken $1.29 -> $3.89 Big Mac $3.99 -> $7.49 10 McNuggets $4.49 -> $7.58 Cheeseburger $1.00 -> $3.15
Some of this is over a 200% increase in price. This isn’t inflation — it’s legalized robbery.
$4.19 for a carton of medium fries is obscene!
For years, many of us warned that the very foolish decisions that our leaders were making would lead to very painful inflation.
Needless to say, that is precisely what happened.
A cheeseburger at McDonald’s is now more than three times as expensive as it was in 2019.
How are young families supposed to afford that?
How is anyone supposed to afford that?
We have never seen the price of cheeseburgers go up so rapidly.
Not even during the Carter administration did we see this sort of “burger inflation”.
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning, because the size of the U.S. cattle herd has dropped to the lowest level in about 75 years…
Tyson Foods will close a major beef plant in Lexington, Nebraska, with about 3,200 employees in January after U.S. cattle supplies dropped to their lowest level in nearly 75 years, the meatpacker said on Friday.
The closure in the heart of cattle-feeding country signaled that supplies will remain tight, forcing meatpackers to pay steep prices for cattle to process into steaks and hamburgers.
You may think that you will just switch to turkey.
Well, the price of a frozen turkey is 40 percent higher than it was last year…
The USDA recently projected that wholesale prices for frozen whole turkey hens will reach $1.32 per pound in 2025. That’s a 40 percent increase from 2024’s price of 94 cents per pound.
“The 2025 rise in price is a response to lower production with HPAI pressures combined with steady demand,” according to a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation.
When talking heads on television tell us that “inflation is low”, I just want to scream.
Since 2019, the annual income needed to afford a median-priced home in rural U.S. counties has more than doubled…
Homeowners need an annual income of $74,508 to afford a median-priced home in rural U.S. counties, up a staggering 105.8% from before the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, rural buyers only needed to earn $36,206, according to Redfin’s analysis, which compares the third quarter of 2025 with the third quarter of 2019.
The income needed to afford a median-priced home in suburban counties rose 90.9% to $102,120 during that same period. Previously, potential buyers only needed an annual salary of $53,482. The income needed to afford a home in urban counties climbed 87.5% to $118,300. Buyers needed an annual salary of $63,103 prior to the pandemic.
Car prices are trending up and the average cost of a new car is at an all-time high, approaching the $50,000 mark for the first time.
The average transaction price for a new vehicle in October was $49,105, according to data from Edmunds.
In the old days, you could buy an entire house for $50,000.
But now thanks to the widespread adoption of “planned obsolescence”, $50,000 will just get you a “new vehicle” that has been designed to start breaking down shortly after the warranty expires.
Meanwhile, the employment market just keeps getting weaker and weaker.
At this point even the government is admitting that the unemployment rate just reached the highest level that we have seen since the early days of the last pandemic.
Young people are being hit particularly hard, and we are being told that this is the toughest market for college graduates in a very long time…
Rising youth unemployment could be an “early indicator that the economy is slowing down or maybe even heading towards a recession,” said Anders Humlum, assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago.
A college degree is often considered the best pathway to a well-paying job, but that may no longer be as true as it once was, experts say.
“For the first time in modern history, a bachelor’s degree is no longer a reliable path to professional employment,” Gad Levanon, chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute, told CNBC.
I feel very badly for college graduates that are searching for work in this very tough environment.
In fact, I feel very badly for anyone that is searching for work in this very tough environment.
Nobody can deny that economic activity is slowing down all around us…
There are not as many goods moving around the country. Ship counts from Asia to the US are down roughly 30% from last year. Railcar loadings are down roughly 6% against last year. The trucking industry also continues to see shrinking capacity. If there are fewer things to move around the country, then the industry will likewise need fewer drivers, loaders, and various workers. Idle trains and empty containers don’t need a lot of people to mind them.
When less stuff is being moved around the country, that means that the economy is slowing down.
We can all feel it.
Looking ahead, an alarmingly high percentage of Americans are convinced that they will be even worse off next year…
A report by Primerica found that in the third quarter of 2025, just 21% of middle-income Americans believe they’ll be better off financially in the next year, while 34% believe they’ll be worse off and 33% expect their situation to remain the same.
Those figures are notably more pessimistic than the firm’s data from the third quarter of 2020 showed, when 33% of middle-income Americans thought they would be better off financially in the next year versus just 17% who thought they would be worse off and 40% expected they would be about the same.
The mood of the entire country has changed dramatically.
I have heard from so many people that have cut back everywhere that they can, but it still isn’t enough.
The effort to keep up with higher prices feels relentless to Teri Kopp, who lives in Southbury, Conn., and works as an administrator at a synagogue. “I’m tired,” she said.
Kopp and her husband Bill, an HVAC technician, earn a combined $115,000 a year. They often sit in the dark with only strings of LED lights on to save on electric costs. She is considering painting rocks to send to friends as Christmas gifts. Their biggest vacation this year, a road trip to Maine, was mostly covered by cash back from a shopping-rewards program.
Kopp, 59 years old, doesn’t see any way to quickly pay off the $15,000 in credit-card debt the family took on largely to cover medical bills for knee surgeries. She also has $30,000 in debt from her daughter’s undergraduate degree in biology, which has yet to yield any job offers in a tough labor market for new graduates.
It took a long time for us to get here.
We borrowed and spent tens of trillions of dollars that we did not have, and the Federal Reserve just kept shoveling more cash into the financial system.
As a result, the cost of living is out of control and our system is reaching a breaking point.
Our leaders kept kicking the can down the road, but in the process they kept making our long-term problems even worse.
Now a carton of medium fries is more than 4 dollars, and America’s middle class is being systematically destroyed.
Are you old enough to remember when you could buy a really nice house for less than $50,000? Today, the average price of a home in the United States is more than half a million dollars. Of course everything else has become dramatically more expensive as well. I just asked Google, and I was told that the average cost of health insurance for a single person in the United States was just $2,655 in the year 2000. That was for an entire year! Our standard of living has been collapsing for a long time, but at first most people didn’t realize what was happening. But now things are so bad that YouTube and TikTok are filled with thousands of videos of normal people complaining about the cost of living. Unfortunately, I am entirely convinced that things are only going to get tougher as economic conditions continue to deteriorate all around us.
Earlier today, I came across a shocking new survey which discovered that 25 percent of U.S. households are skipping meals so that they will have enough money to pay their bills…
Twenty-five percent of respondents say they or someone in their household has skipped meals to save money in the past year—numbers that rose to nearly 4 in 10 for Hispanics (41 percent) and nearly 3 in 10 for Blacks (29 percent). The youngest Americans surveyed, ages 18–34, are by far the most likely to have skipped meals to pay bills (38 percent), and rates were similarly high for those in households with income below $50,000 per year (39 percent).
25 percent of the country doesn’t have enough food to eat!
How can you possibly spin that number to make it look good?
Let’s get real.
In June, the average price of a pound of ground beef actually surpassed the six dollar mark…
The average price for a pound of ground beef in the Northeast rose to more than $6.05 in June, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a high point in records dating back to 2015.
The price was up more than 10% from June 2024 and more than 3.4% from May. The price jump for beef from May was the biggest among a group of common grocery items that also included eggs, chicken, milk, bread and butter.
When I was growing up, my mother was constantly feeding us ground beef.
Now it has become a “luxury meat” that most Americans cannot afford on a regular basis.
If you can’t see that our standard of living is declining, I don’t know what to tell you.
The same survey that I quoted earlier also found that millions upon millions of Americans are spending a great deal of time worrying about their finances…
A shocking 1 in 4 Americans (24 percent) say they spend at least three hours on a typical day worrying about their finances and ability to afford basic necessities. More than 4 in 10 spend at least one hour per day. Millennials and GenZers are experiencing the greatest anxiety, with 56 percent and 50 percent, respectively spending one hour or more per day focused on financial concerns. While low- and middle-income Americans express the strongest financial concerns, one-third of those with incomes above $100,000 also spend at least an hour concerned about their finances on a typical day.
Most of us want to live the American Dream.
But the American Dream is out of reach for most of the population at this stage.
Back in 1975, the average price of a home in Spokane, Washington was just $22,450…
A Spokane cost of living survey showed that the average rental price of two-bedroom apartment was $135 per month, and the average purchase price for a house was $22,450, The Spokesman-Review reported on July 20, 1975.
Today, $22,450 won’t even cover the average monthly mortgage payment for one year…
Since 2017, the salary needed to buy a home in America has more than doubled.
Fueled by rising unaffordability and high mortgage rates, home buyers need to shell out $2,500 on average for monthly payments. Meanwhile, this soars past $5,000 in coastal cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
Housing has become more unaffordable than it has ever been in our entire history, and that is the number one reason why Americans are so financially stressed right now.
In the old days, we were told to always follow “the 30 percent rule”, but now that is realistic in only a handful of the top metropolitan areas in the United States…
The 30% rule — one in which potential homebuyers limit their mortgage payment to 30% of their monthly income — is a common standard that homebuyers typically follow so that the yearly cost of a home doesn’t put too much of a strain on their finances.
However, according to a new report from Realtor.com, places where homebuyers can follow that recommendation when buying a home are becoming fewer and farther between in the country’s major metropolitan areas.
Affordability in just three of America’s 50 top metro areas is such that households that make the median income can scoop up a home that won’t go above 30% of their yearly earnings, the report found.
Utility bills are rapidly rising as well.
In fact, it is being reported that electricity prices spiked by an average of 6 percent during the first half of this year…
According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, the average price of electricity per kilowatt-hour has risen from $0.179 in January to $0.190 as of June—an increase of around 6 percent.
Between January and February, prices remained steady, according to BLS data. But between February and April, prices rose slightly to $0.181, and then marginally again in May to $0.182.
According to the BLS’s data, prices then jumped noticeably in June to $0.190.
Just about everything has been getting more expensive, and that explains why 83 percent of Americans are experiencing “stressflation”…
A LifeStance Health survey released today reveals “stressflation” is affecting most Americans, with 83% reporting financial stress driven by inflation, mass layoffs, the rising cost of living and recession fears. Millennials and Gen Z report the most significant mental health impacts.
But two-thirds of middle-income Americans are bracing for a recession within a year.
More than eight in 10 expect prices to keep rising.
And nearly two-thirds of middle-income Americans who recently bought a home said they are living paycheck to paycheck.
Sadly, I am convinced that things are going to get even tougher because economic activity is slowing down and employers are conducting mass layoffs all over the nation.
In some cases, large employers have actually been conducting multiple rounds of mass layoffs.
Intel this month officially began to cut down its workforce in the U.S. and other countries, thus revealing actual numbers of positions to be cut. The Oregonian reports that the company will cut as many as 2,392 positions in Oregon and around 4,000 positions across its American operations, including Arizona, California, and Texas.
To put the 2,392 number into context, Intel is the largest employer in Oregon with around 20,000 of workers there. 2,392 is around 12% of the workforce, which is a lower end of layoff expectations, yet 2,400 is still a lot of people. The Oregon reduction rose sharply from an initial count of around 500 to a revised figure of 2,392, making it one of the largest layoffs in the state’s history. Intel began reducing staff earlier in the week but confirmed the larger number by Friday evening through a filing with Oregon state authorities.
Intel’s Oregon operations have already seen 3,000 jobs lost over the past year through earlier buyouts and dismissals.
In an ongoing effort to trim its workforce, Microsoft said as much as 4%, or roughly 9,000, of the company’s employees could be affected by Wednesday’s layoffs. In Washington, 830 employees were let go, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday.
The move follows two waves of layoffs in May and June, which saw Microsoft let go of more than 6,000 employees, almost 2,300 of whom were based in Washington.
Since May, the company has laid off over 15,000 employees companywide and more than 3,100 in Washington.
Early this month the company pushed out several hundred workers from its marketing for both film and television, television publicity, and its casting and development departments.
It was the fourth round of layoffs in the last ten months and came about a month after 200 employees were eliminated in March.
The layoffs in March hit Disney’s ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks unit. That round of layoffs even included the elimination of its once popular “538” website.
A lot of people out there like to criticize me, but they can’t deny the facts that I present because I carefully document them in all of my articles.
After reading all of the facts that I have documented in this article, it should be clear to everyone that our standard of living has been collapsing.
America’s housing market has been in a “deep freeze” for more than a year. The combination of very high interest rates and very high home prices has frozen millions of potential buyers out of the market. As a result, home sales have fallen to extremely depressed levels. When I first warned that we were heading into a housing market depression, a lot of people thought that I was exaggerating. But now the numbers show that is exactly what has happened. The following are 6 signs that the housing market depression in the United States is getting even worse.
#1 Sales of previously-owned homes in the U.S. just fell again. In fact, we just witnessed the slowest April that we have seen since 2009…
The spring housing market continues to struggle amid high interest rates and low consumer confidence.
Sales of previously owned homes in April declined 0.5% from March to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 4 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. That is the slowest April pace since 2009.
In 2009, there were 306 million people living in the United States.
Today, there are 340 million people living in the United States.
So the fact that we have fallen to a level that we haven’t seen since the Great Recession should deeply trouble all of us.
#2 Sales of previously-owned homes are falling even though active listings and new listings are both rising…
Active listings—the total number of homes for sale—last month hit the highest level since March 2020. They climbed 1.2% from a month earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis and rose 16.7% year over year.
New listings rose to the highest level since July 2022, increasing 1.3% month over month on a seasonally adjusted basis and 8.6% year over year—the largest annual gain since May 2024.
“A lot of people are selling their homes and downsizing because they’re worried about the economy,” said Meme Loggins, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in Portland, OR. “During the pandemic, everybody wanted more space for a home office or for their kids to run around, but now people are more focused on saving money. A lot of folks are getting rid of their investment properties, and I’m working with a couple of federal employees who are afraid of losing their jobs, so they’re selling their homes and thinking of moving into condos.”
#3 Most potential young homebuyers have been completely forced out of the market. Shockingly, the average age of a homebuyer in the U.S. has surged to an all-time record high of 56…
The average age of homebuyers in the U.S. has risen by six years since July 2023 — another sign that younger Americans are being priced out of the market due to escalating ownership costs.
The average age of homebuyers is now 56, up from 49 in 2023, according to the National Association of Realtors’ annual state-of-the-market report released Monday. That’s a historic high, up from an average age in the low-to-mid 40s in the early 2010s.
The median age of first-time buyers also rose from 35 to 38, while the share of first-timers dropped from 32% to 24% of all buyers for the year ending July 2024. That marks the lowest percentage since NAR started tracking the metric in 1981.
“In my two decades in the mortgage business, I’ve never seen a more difficult time for millennials to purchase a home,” says Bob Driscoll, senior vice president and director of residential lending at Massachusetts-based bank Rockland Trust.
This is a really bad thing for our society.
If most young couples cannot purchase a home until they are in their late thirties, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
#5 Zillow is reporting that home values have fallen in 27 U.S. states so far this year. Is this the beginning of a price crash?…
Home values fell in half the country as the housing market faces a nationwide downturn.
According to Zillow, monthly home values dropped in 27 out of the 50 states this year. While Florida, Colorado, Washington, D.C., California and Washington state experienced the greatest value declines from March to April, the data could foreshadow a larger housing market shift.
#6 Meanwhile, employers continue to conduct mass layoffs all over the nation, and this is only going to increase pressure on the housing market. For example, Walmart just announced that it will be laying off about 1,500 very well paid corporate employees…
Walmart is laying off around 1,500 corporate employees across various departments within its home office in Bentonville, Arkansas, multiple reports say.
In a memo shared with associates on May 21, Walmart executives said the company is “reshaping” some of its teams in an effort to modernize its business and enhance “associate, customer and member experiences.”
Most of the U.S. population simply cannot afford to shell out several thousand dollars for a mortgage payment every month.
Either interest rates will have to come down or housing prices will.
And if housing prices start falling like we saw in 2008 and 2009, that will cause all sorts of problems for our major financial institutions.
So hopefully the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates before it is too late.
My favorite economist is Thomas Sowell, who is famous for making the findings of academic economists accessible to ordinary people. I always joke to my friends that Thomas Sowell books are like Lay’s potato chips – you can’t read just one. Well, if you’ve read Dr. Sowell’s flagship book “Basic Economics”, you know that the early chapters are about how prices work in the economy.
So, I thought I would link to a VERY good article on price controls by Thomas Sowell. If you’ve never read him, I think you’ll really enjoy how me makes sense of the world for you. Learning how the world works is fun – now you see how to make good decisions.
Those old enough to remember the gasoline crisis of 1979 may recall sitting in long lines of cars at filling stations, waiting — sometimes for hours — to reach the pump. This was one of the most common consequences of price control throughout history — a shortage. Yet how many Americans ever made the connection between the price controls of the 1970s and the gasoline shortages of the 1970s? How many have noticed that they haven’t been waiting in gasoline lines since Ronald Reagan got rid of the price controls on oil?
Why do price controls cause shortages? There are basically two reasons: supply and demand.
People will not supply as much at a lower price as they will at a higher price. Some oil wells that will repay their costs and earn a profit when the price of oil is $25 a barrel will not cover their costs when the price is $15 a barrel. Some people who will rent out a bungalow in their backyard when rents are high will not bother when rents are low. Some farmers will give up farming when food prices are kept below the point where they can earn a living.
On the demand side, people will demand more when the price is kept artificially low by price controls. Before rent control laws were passed in Sweden, less than one-fourth of unmarried adults there had their own separate housing units, but afterwards more than half did. People buy more of anything that is cheaper. With more being demanded and less being supplied, shortages are inevitable, whether with housing, food, medical care or whatever.
It is not just the quantity supplied that declines under price controls. Quality also declines.
When there are more people trying to rent apartments than there are apartments for rent, landlords no longer have to maintain the appearance of their buildings. They do not need to pay for painting, repairs or maintenance as often as they did when there was no housing shortage and they needed to attract tenants.
Sometimes quality deterioration takes the form of waiting — not just cars waiting in line at filling stations, but also sick people remaining on waiting lists for months to get surgery or other medical treatment they need. Cheap medical care is one of the most expensive things there is.
So, if you force producers to charge less for what they are making, you might see a shortage, you might see a decline in quality, or you might see waiting lists.
Now, one of the examples that Sowell uses in his books is the example of rent control. This is when the government responds to people complaining that “the rent is too damn high” by forcing landlords to charge less. If you’re paying attention, then you can predict what will happen next. There will be a shortage of housing, because people with capital invest it in other places, rather than building and renting out places to live. Why? Because there is no money to be made by investing in renting properties when the government is pushing prices down.
So, let’s look at a reverse case, where price controls are removed. What would you expect to see when a country that has had rent control laws for a long time repeals it?
Well, Argentina just elected a new free market capitalist government, and they repealed their rent control laws.
Argentina’s recent repeal of rent control by libertarian President Javier Milei has led to a surge in housing supply, with the freedom to negotiate contracts, previously restricted, directly causing a drop in rental prices.
Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” known for his free-market approach, repealed the 2020 Rental Law, enacted by former leftist President Alberto Fernández, which had imposed restrictions on landlords and led to a significant decline in rental availability.
[…]For many locals, finding a new apartment had become “mission impossible.” But after the repeal, Buenos Aires saw a doubling of available rental units, and rental prices have stabilized. Under the new rules, landlords and tenants have more freedom to agree on lease terms. If the duration isn’t specified, it defaults to two years.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in rental apartments, and in some cases, we had to lower prices in pesos because of fewer viewings,” Soledad Balayan, head of the real-estate agency Maure Inmobiliaria, told Argentine newspaper La Nación.
Since Millei’s repeal of rent control laws took effect on December 29, the supply of rental housing in Buenos Aires has jumped by 195.23%, according to the Statistical Observatory of the Real Estate Market of the Real Estate College (CI).
If you guessed that repealing price controls on rental properties would reverse the shortage and cause an abundance of high quality properties, then you guessed right. This is how the world works! Naturally, as supply increases, consumers have a lot more choice, and they get the benefit of better quality at a lower price, because of increased competition among suppliers of rental properties.
The article notes that Joe Biden has proposed rent control at the federal level, which is exactly the kind of policy that you would epect his successor, Kamala Harris, to push if she is elected President. If you know someone who rents, maybe you should tell them about the consequences of rent control laws?
Critics say inadequate recording methods may be understating the scale of the crisis
The number of homeless people in the United States has reached a record level since the federal government began tracking teh figures in 2007. According to data released this week, almost three quarters of a million people, 771,000 are homeless in America, an increase of 18% compared to 2023, marking the sharpest annual rise in decades.
The figure published by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Friday translates to approximately 23 out of every 10,000 people in the US. The increase follows a 12% rise in 2023, which the department attributed to skyrocketing rents and to the conclusion of pandemic assistance.
A severe lack of affordable housing nationwide is being compounded by “rising inflation, stagnating wages among middle- and lower-income households, and the persisting effects of systemic racism,” natural disasters, and an influx of migrants without access to stable housing, according to the HUD statement.
Median rent was up 20% in January 2024 from rent costs for the same month three years earlier, the National Low Income Housing Coalition wrote in March.
According to the HUD, there has been a 39% increase this year in the number of individuals in families with children who depended on shelters or slept outside. This amounts to approximately 259,000 people, the highest figure recorded since data collection began.
The report also shows that nearly 150,000 children were homeless on the targeted January night, a 33% increase from the previous year’s count. Meanwhile, the number of veterans experiencing homelessness declined by 8% from 2023.
The new homelessness figures come amid the Biden administration’s pledge to increase funding for affordable housing and expand services aimed at preventing homelessness. However, advocacy groups argue that more systemic reforms are needed, such as stronger tenant protections, rent controls, and a focus on mental health and addiction services.
The US Supreme Court ruled in June that cities may ban homeless residents from sleeping outside; more than 100 jurisdictions around the country have since taken steps in that direction, Associated Press writes.
On the campaign trail, then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly pointed to illegal immigration as the cause of high housing costs, vowing that his plan to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history” would lower home prices, as quoted by the New York Post. Immigration “is driving housing costs through the roof,” Trump said at a September rally in Arizona.
The latest Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), reveals that homelessness across the United States has surged to record highs during the Biden-Harris administration. This is largely attributed to the ongoing housing affordability crisis. Additionally, Biden-Harris’ disastrous open southern border policies unleashed untold millions of illegal aliens, compounding the problem as Democrat-run cities are giving free hotel rooms to illegals while their own homeless populations suffer.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that homelessness is up 18% this year.
HUD’s report found 770,000 people were ‘experiencing homelessness’ on a single night in January 2024, an 18% jump from 2023 figures. This number does not include the nation’s entire homeless population because some stay with friends or family.
The figure follows a dramatic 12% rise in homelessness in 2023, and is the highest since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007.
🇺🇸 While American tax money goes to foreign wars in Israel and Ukraine..
This is America!
A pandemic of poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and drug abuse.
“Migration had a particularly notable impact on family homelessness, which rose 39% from 2023-2024,” HUD wrote in the report.
HUD continued, “In the 13 communities that reported being affected by migration, family homelessness more than doubled. Whereas in the remaining 373 communities, the rise in families experiencing homelessness was less than 8%.”
Massively concerning is that 150,000 children experienced homelessness, a 33% jump in 2024 when compared to the prior year. The report does not separate the number of homeless immigrants vs. US citizens.
Robert Marbut Jr., the former executive director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness from 2019 to 2021, told AP News the latest HUD figures over the past four years are “disgraceful.”
“We need to focus on treatment of substance use and mental illness, and bring back program requirements, like job training,” Marbut said in an email response to the media outlet.
While homelessness rose 18% in 2024, Democrat-run cities were giving free hotels to illegal immigrants.
Besides Biden-Harris importing the third world to the first world and the worsening housing affordability crisis amid the government-sparked inflation storm, HUD blamed some of the homelessness on natural disasters.
HUD’s data is nearly a year old, and both the housing affordability crisis and illegal alien invasion have persisted.
Of note, more than half of people experiencing homelessness nationwide resided in just four states: California, New York, Florida, and Washington.
Hey @BernieSanders why is homelessness so much worse in blue states with the policies you advocate versus red states with policies that encourage getting a job?
It’s not just that this story was relevant before the election and they waited, it’s that they’re back to using “homeless” instead of “unhoused.” https://t.co/0V9xn1U8Oa
All over America, our core urban areas are teeming with tent cities, hordes of homeless drug addicts, and vast throngs of newly arrived migrants that don’t have anywhere to go. When I wrote about this topic one year ago, homelessness in the U.S. was at an all-time record high, and it was increasing at the fastest pace ever recorded. It was going to be hard to top that, but somehow we did. Fast forward to today, and homelessness in the U.S. has reached another all-time record high, and it is increasing at an even faster pace. We are literally in the midst of the worst homelessness crisis that our federal government has ever measured, and there is no end in sight.
When the rest of us discuss the economic pain that we are experiencing, many on the high end of the economic spectrum wonder what all the fuss is about because things still seem pretty good to them.
But for many of those on the low end of the economic spectrum, it feels like a full-blown economic collapse has already begun.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development revealed that the homeless population in the U.S. jumped 18 percent in just one year…
Homelessness in the United States soared to the highest level on record, according to government data released Friday.
More than 770,000 people experienced homelessness in 2024, an 18% increase from 2023, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development reported. It was the largest annual increase since HUD began collecting the data in 2007 (excluding the jump from 2021 to 2022, when the agency didn’t conduct a full count due to the Covid-19 pandemic).
If homelessness is at the highest level ever and it is rising at the fastest rate ever, your economy is not okay.
Let’s just be real for a moment.
I am so sick and tired of the Biden administration and the mainstream media telling us that everything is just fine.
More than three-quarters of a million Americans are homeless, and that is just the ones that they are able to find and count.
The true number is certainly far higher.
We are being told that the spike in homelessness is happening because we don’t have enough affordable housing and because we are not able to absorb all of the migrants that have been pouring over our borders.
Migration had a particularly notable impact on family homelessness, which rose 39% from 2023 to 2024, according to the report. In the 13 communities that reported being affected by migration, family homelessness more than doubled.
When we think of the homeless, we tend to think of older men with addiction problems.
Massively concerning is that 150,000 children experienced homelessness, a 33% jump in 2024 when compared to the prior year.
What is wrong with us?
Why can’t we get this crisis under control?
Our politicians like to give speeches about affordable housing, but housing just continues to become more unaffordable…
Rents have continued climbing since briefly dipping lower during the pandemic, as well. As of 2023, nearly half of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing, qualifying them as cost-burdened, according to the US Census Bureau.
Every day, more precious people on the low end of the economic spectrum are being evicted from their homes.
Every day, the homeless population in this country just gets even bigger.
US private sector full-time jobs have DROPPED by nearly 2 MILLION over the past year.
Such a drop has never happened outside of recessions.
The only gain in full-time jobs has been in the government sector.
We aren’t buying the propaganda any longer.
They keep trying to convince us that everything is just fine, but that clearly isn’t the truth.
When Don Lemon tried to convince a random man that he was interviewing that the economy “is actually better under Biden”, the man responded with a “hearty laugh”…
“Four years ago it was a lot better. I made a lot more money than I do now,” the man said.
Incredibly, rather than try to understand the man’s perspective, Lemon argued with him.
“I know you feel that way, but that’s not actually what the record shows,” Lemon said. “The economy is actually better under Biden.”
That prompted a hearty laugh from the interviewee.
We can see the tent cities that are popping up like mushrooms all over our major cities.
We can see the hordes of people that are sleeping in their vehicles in retail parking lots at night.
And we can see that prices at the grocery store are far, far higher than they used to be.
According to a national survey that was just released, approximately 70 percent of U.S. adults believe that the U.S. economy is in poor condition right now…
About 7 in 10 U.S. adults rate the country’s economic state as very or somewhat poor, up slightly from about 6 in 10 in October. Self-identified Democrats are primarily driving the recent negativity. About 6 in 10 Democrats described the U.S. economy as “good” in October. With Republicans on the verge of controlling the executive and legislative branches, only about half of Democrats say that now.
That same survey also discovered that about a third of all U.S. adults are either “extremely” or “very” concerned about being able to “afford groceries over the next few months”…
The new AP-NORC poll shows about one-third of Americans say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about their ability to afford groceries over the next few months. About 3 in 10 are highly worried about being able to afford holiday gifts, gas or electricity.
There are tens of millions of Americans that are barely holding on from month to month.
But for now, those on the high end of the economic spectrum are still living the high life, but it is just a matter of time before they experience severe economic pain too.
Homelessness in the United States has hit the highest level ever recorded as billions of taxpayer dollars are repeatedly shipped to foreign nations.
Despite these problems at home, the United States has sent a total of $106 billion in aid to Ukraine and about $310 billion in total economic and military assistance to Israel since its founding.
“The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) tallied more than 770,000 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2024, an 18 percent increase from 2023 that is likely an undercount,” The Hill reports.
The number of families with children experiencing homelessness also jumped 39 percent — meaning 150,000 children are out on the streets.
“Veterans were the only population where homelessness continued to decline, down 8 percent from 2023. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen 55 percent since HUD started collecting data on veteran homelessness in 2009,” the report noted.
HUD Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman released a statement about the surprising figures, saying, “No American should face homelessness, and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring every family has access to the affordable, safe, and quality housing they deserve.”
“We at HUD deeply appreciate the work of our continuums of care and other community partners to end homelessness, especially given the challenges of 2023,” said Marion McFadden, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development. “You are critical to the success of HUD’s mission to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.”
If you live in a warm home and you have plenty of food to eat, you should consider yourself to be extremely blessed, because millions of others are deeply suffering right now. Most of the country is living paycheck to paycheck, the number of homeless Americans is higher than ever, demand at food banks is back to pandemic levels, and many victims of Hurricane Helene are living in very thin tents and are not getting the help that they need from the government. Children in the mountains of western North Carolina are literally shivering in the freezing cold all night long because their parents have nowhere else to go…
Nearly two months since Helene hit, hundreds of local families are left with nowhere to go.
Now some of these children are living in tents and cars as their parents try desperately to find a new home.
One of those parents is Dana Wunsch.
She showed News 13 the camper where she and her partner, along with her two daughters, are now staying.
We are taxed extremely hard, and one of the things that our tax dollars are supposed to pay for is disaster relief.
But while FEMA personnel in North Carolina are sleeping in heated trailers, many victims of Hurricane Helene are sleeping in extremely flimsy tents that look like they could literally be blown away at any moment.
Could you imagine having your kids sleep in a flimsy tent night after night?
And now snow has arrived in the mountains of western North Carolina…
Some survivors in western North Carolina have had to navigate their recovery efforts around potentially hazardous conditions as snowfall ranging from a light dusting up to about 2 feet has blanketed the area.
In addition to snow, those living in tents have also been facing very high winds…
Additionally, Helene survivors in western North Carolina will also have to manage with powerful winds. Wind gusts are expected to reach 30-40 mph in Asheville, while other areas may feel gusts of 50 mph or greater.
Of course Hurricane Helene is just one of the historic natural disasters that have hit our country here in 2024.
Overall, there have been 24 “billion dollar disasters” in the U.S. so far this year…
During the first 10 months of this year alone, 24 disasters have occurred in the U.S. with losses exceeding $1 billion, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
That’s roughly three times the average annual number since 1980.
Our nation just keeps getting pummeled over and over again.
Is there anyone out there that still believes that this is just a coincidence?
Meanwhile, the homelessness crisis in the U.S. just keeps getting worse, and there are millions more Americans that could soon be joining the ranks of the homeless.
If you can believe it, one recent survey discovered that 22 percent of all U.S. renters say that “all their regular income goes toward rent payments”…
22% of U.S. renters say all their regular income goes toward rent payments, according to a recent Redfin-commissioned survey. 19% of renters report they have worked a job they hated to afford rent.
Just over one in five (22%) U.S. renters say all of their regular income goes directly to paying their rent, according to a recent Redfin-commissioned survey.
Working a second job is also a fairly common way for renters to pay housing costs, with 20% of renters citing that method. Nearly the same share (19%) say they have worked a job they hated to afford rent.
If all of your income is going to paying rent, you are just one step away from being homeless.
Sadly, most of the country is just barely scraping by from month to month at this point.
According to Bank of America, from 2019 to 2024 there was a 10 percent jump in those that are living paycheck to paycheck…
The share of U.S. households living paycheck to paycheck has grown across all income brackets over the past five years, according to a new study from the Bank of America Institute.
A new analysis released by the think tank on Tuesday found that more than a quarter of Americans, 26%, have necessary expenses that chew up more than 95% of their takehome pay, and nearly a third, 30%, of households spend upwards of 90% of their income on critical bills like groceries, housing, utilities, gas, insurance and child care.
The data showed a 10% increase in those living paycheck to paycheck in 2024 compared to 2019.
Economic pain is all around us, and the cost of living just continues to go even higher.
Once upon a time, if you were making $50,000 a year you were doing well.
But now the average American believes that it takes an income of $270,000 a year in order to be “financially successful”…
The average American thinks a salary of just over $270,000 a year qualifies them as “financially successful,” but there are huge disparities between generations, according to a new study.
Needless to say, the vast majority of the population does not make that sort of money.
Instead, the vast majority of us are just trying to survive.
Unfortunately, the outlook for the year ahead is not good because our economic momentum is heading in the wrong direction very rapidly.
In fact, it is being reported that the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has fallen for eight months in a row…
Weakness in the housing market and manufacturing, as well as higher jobless claims, pulled the leading indicators for the U.S. economy down for the eighth consecutive month in October.
The Conference Board said its index of leading indicators dropped 0.3 percent last month. The Conference Board pointed out that over the six-month period between April and October 2024, the index declined by 2.2 percent, slightly more than its two percent decline over the previous six-month period, suggesting that drags on the U.S. economy picked up.
If we are seeing such tremendous economic suffering now, what will conditions be like if the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate?
For decades, we have been living a debt-fueled standard of living that is way beyond what we have actually earned.
It is that time of the year again. The Social Security Administration has finally released the final wage statistics for 2023, and they are quite sobering. According to the report, last year the “median wage” in this country was just $43,222.81. In other words, half of all American workers made less than $43,222.81, and half of all American workers made more than $43,222.81. That is terrible news, because the cost of living has been rising much faster than paycheck have. More people are being squeezed out of the middle class with each passing day, but most Americans don’t even realize that this is happening because the media isn’t really talking about it. Poverty, homelessness and hunger are all growing all around us, and if we stay on the path that we are on the middle class will continue to be systematically eviscerated.
Once upon a time, the vast majority of the country could afford to live a middle class lifestyle.
But now those days are long gone.
A study that was recently released found that it now takes more than $100,000 a year for a typical U.S. household to live “the American Dream” in all 50 states, and in 29 U.S. states it takes more than $150,000 a year…
A household would have to spend more than $150,000 a year to live the dream in 29 of the 50 states, according to an analysis published in April by the personal finance site GOBankingRates.
According to the report, the optimal American lifestyle would cost $137,842 a year in Ohio, $147,535 in Texas, $159,932 in Florida, $194,067 in New York and $245,723 in California.
The state that has the lowest cost of living is Mississippi.
Living the American Dream only costs $109,516 a year in that state.
Needless to say, someone earning $43,222.81 a year is not going to be able to live the American Dream anywhere in the nation.
Even if there are two people earning $43,222.81 a year in the same household, that still isn’t going to get you anywhere close to living the American Dream.
When I was growing up, my father worked and my mother stayed home with the kids, and we were still able to live a middle class lifestyle.
But now most households cannot afford to live a middle class lifestyle even if both parents are working.
After reading that, is there anyone out there that would like to disagree with me about the fact that we have been experiencing a long-term economic decline?
What I have been warning about all these years has been slowly but steadily playing out right in front of our eyes.
Not too long ago, a Wall Street Journal/NORC poll found that only about one-third of the entire U.S. population actually believes that the American Dream “is still alive”…
Only about a third of U.S. adults believe the American dream is still alive, a Wall Street Journal/NORC poll published Wednesday found.
A survey of 2,501 people conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute twelve years ago found more than half of respondents believed the American dream “still holds true,” but now only a third feel that way, according to a recent WSJ/NORC poll of 1,502 adults. The study also found an increasingly large gap between people’s economic goals and what they think is actually attainable — a trend that was consistent across gender and party lines, but was especially common amongst younger generations.
Nobody out there can deny what is happening.
This is our country now, and conditions are getting worse with each passing day.
One of the biggest reasons why the American Dream is out of reach for most of the population is because home prices have gone absolutely haywire over the last four years…
Twenty-four percent of likely voters who rent their homes said that “the cost of housing” is the most important economic issue they’re considering as they decide their vote, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS between September 19 and 22.
That’s no surprise: The US is facing a once-in-a-generation housing affordability crisis. In the four years through August 2024, national home prices have risen 45%, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to the National Association of Realtors, the median sales price of a home in the US hit a record high this summer and now hovers just below that level.
Nor has renting become any easier than buying. Nearly half of US renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing, qualifying them as “cost-burdened,” according to US Census data from September.
In September 2024, the median rent in the U.S. was $2,050 a month.
How are you supposed to be able to afford that if you are making just $43,222.81 a year?
Increasingly, America is being divided into the “haves” and the “have nots”.
If you don’t know which group you belong to, let me clue you in. If you are not making more than $100,000 a year, you are definitely among the “have nots”.
Unfortunately, economic conditions are rapidly getting worse, and we are seeing high profile bankruptcies happen at a pace that we haven’t seen since the global financial crisis. For example, one of the largest crafting chains in the U.S. just filed for bankruptcy…
Joann — the craft store chain formerly known as Jo-Ann Fabrics — has filed for bankruptcy amid ongoing financial troubles.
But DIYers need not worry just yet: The company’s more than 800 stores nationwide will remain open and its website will stay active as the Hudson, Ohio-based company restructures its finances.
As hordes of businesses fail all over the nation, our historic commercial real estate crisis just continues to intensify.
The delinquency rate of office mortgages backing commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) spiked to 9.4% in October, up a full percentage point from September, and the highest since the worst months of the meltdown that followed the Financial Crisis. The delinquency rate has doubled since June 2023 (4.5%), according to data by Trepp, which tracks and analyzes CMBS.
I don’t even have to tell many of you what those numbers mean.
We are headed for a historic meltdown, and it is going to absolutely devastate small to mid-size banks from coast to coast.
Meanwhile, most Americans are just barely scraping by from month to month as our standard of living steadily deteriorates.
We are in far more trouble than most people realize, and the months ahead are going to be extremely challenging.
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