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Bill’s commentary:
“This is a pretty big OOPS!”
Blackstone Inc. defaulted on a €531 million ($562 million) bond backed by a portfolio of Finnish offices and stores as rising interest rates hit European property values.
Blackstone, which acquired landlord Sponda Oy in 2018, sought an extension from holders of the securitized notes to dispose of assets and repay the debt, according to people with knowledge of the plan. Bondholders voted against a further extension, the people said, asking not to be identified as the sales process was not public.
Property values are dropping in Europe as rising interest rates put off buyers until a clearer picture about how far rates will rise emerges. That’s led to wide gaps between bids and offers, crimping deal volumes and putting pressure on owners with loans that are maturing. About a third of all loans in commercial-mortgage backed securities maturing in 2023 and 2024 face high refinancing risks, according to a study published by Scope Ratings in January.
Bill’s commentary:
“Yet counter-party risk is barely if ever spoken of these days?”
It’s become almost like clockwork: every two weeks we get some news that send Credit Suisse stock to new all time lows.
At the beginning of February, the stock of the second largest Swiss bank plunged after it reported its losses would unexpectedly continue well into 2023 if not 2024, and that the bank run revealed at the end of 2022 was much worse than the bank had previously admitted, prompting some analysts to call it “staggering.”
Bill’s commentary:
“Simple math, higher interest rates foisted upon the most over levered system in all of history will be a death knell!”
The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage jumped back over 7% on Thursday, rising to 7.1%, according to Mortgage News Daily.
Growing fears that inflation is not cooling off are pushing bond yields higher. Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury.
“Rates continue to move at the suggestion of economic data, and the data hasn’t been friendly. This is scary considering this week’s data is insignificant compared to several upcoming reports,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily.
Bill’s commentary:
“”One is none, two are one …and three are unstoppable”! I know the price tag sounds stupid crazy and I thought so too, but what is the value of your family’s lives or your own for that matter?”
Before Arteom Bulgadarian bought his Sherman Oaks home, it belonged to baseball star Yasiel Puig, who was burglarized of $170,000 worth of jewelry and other items while he was out of town.
So Bulgadarian, 44, has been vigilant about security since moving in, especially with three young children and a job running an aerospace manufacturing company that often necessitates late nights at the office. He owns several guns and has equipped his nearly 5,000-square-foot, six-bedroom house, set behind an iron gate, with surveillance cameras and an alarm system. A neighborhood watch group patrols the area around the clock.
And then there’s Rocky.
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Bill’s commentary:
“Mortgage applications?”
‘If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.’ Steven Wright. (1955-)
Bill’s commentary:
“Ayn Rand was full of quotes!”
Who is Ayn Rand? Born to a middle-class Russian-Jewish family in 1905, Rand was treated to a front-row seat to the wonders of communism in action. Rand fled with her family to the Crimea following the “liberation” of her father’s pharmacy but ultimately returned to Saint Petersburg where she could attend university when she wasn’t busy starving. Due to her life experiences, Ayn Rand’s quotes are some of the most thought-provoking in the world.
Rand was granted a visa to visit her relatives in Chicago in 1925. Upon her arrival the next year she was driven to “tears of splendor” by the sight of Manhattan’s skyline. Needless to say there was no going back for the young woman, who upon witnessing American cinema set out to become a Hollywood screenwriter.
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Bill’s commentary:
“Surely looks like some very unusual moves over the last couple of years! But no worries, all is well?”
“A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.” G. Gordon Liddy. (1930-2021).
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Bill’s commentary:
“Are you better off now than from a year ago?”
‘It is not true that Congress spends money like a drunken sailor. Drunken sailors spend their own money. Congress spends our money.’ Dr. Arthur Laffer. (1940-).
Happy Anniversary!
Bill’s commentary:
“Do you understand what is happening? The US has bullied and pillaged the world for many years. The rest of the world led by China and Russia are standing up to the bully. Are you ready for a drastic change in your standard of living?”
A massive, 4000-word scathing critique of American foreign policy was circulated by Chinese embassies hosted in Western countries this week, including to American officials and media. It included a lengthy laundry list of US crimes abroad and imperialist tactics.
The long essay was first published in state-run Xinhua News agency, and is entitled “U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils”. It heavily focuses on Washington’s recent wars in the Middle East, which have killed many tens of thousands of people, as well as bullying sanctions on countries like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia which have had a strangling effect on entire populations.
For a sampling of the kind rhetoric contained in the essay, which at this point has semi-official status as a Chinese government document (again, given it’s being circulated by the Chinese embassy in D.C., among others), one section begins: “So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population.”
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Bill’s commentary:
“Our good pal Dave from the Saturday recordings checks in with some reality. And yes make no mistake, WWIII is already underway financially. Militarily will surely follow without Divine intervention …”
Yep as I have said over and over the US is the evil Satan Putin knows it as does any one who has paid attention sorry to say it but the world as we knew it is over.The other speech came from Putin, who spoke for a whopping two hours on Tuesday evening, in which he reiterated his commitment to total victory over Ukraine and how the United States was ruled by “satanists” and “pedophiles.”
Unsurprisingly, most Western media outlets simply refused to cover the speech. Those few that did were openly derisive. The speech certainly was Castro-esque in its loquaciousness and was tinged with quasi-religious accusations against the West that would make most Iranian mullahs blush, but there was substance in Putin’s words.
He not only signaled that his commitment to the conflict was as strong as ever, but that he was escalating it, in response to what he viewed as an American escalation.
In fact, Putin issued his first significant threat toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): He told his American rivals that they were to remove their offensive long-range weapons systems in Ukraine, otherwise Russian forces would begin directly targeting those systems.
Bill’s commentary:
“Commercial real estate? No, this is a global default on its way!”
Amid the recent record surge in interest rates, the residential housing market may have frozen – as the gap between bids and asks stretches to unprecedented levels – but it is hardly in freefall, courtesy of several years of ultra-low rates which allowed homeowners to lock in low rates for the foreseeable future, even if it means aspiring and new homeowners remain locked out indefinitely of a housing market that has never been more unaffordable (and instead are forced to rent).
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Bills’ commentary:
“Is this any way to treat your biggest creditor?”
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Thursday that the United States would redouble its efforts to marshal global support to help Ukraine and warned that China would face repercussions if it helped Russia evade American sanctions.
She spoke as top policymakers from around the world gathered in southern India for a meeting that is expected to focus largely on accelerating a global economic recovery after three years of international crises. The warning to China underscores how the impact of the war continues to reverberate, straining ties between the world’s two largest economies as they were attempting to stabilize their relationship.
Bill’s commentary:
“What does it mean when debt and money supply go moonshot? You will soon have your answer!”
A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.’ Heraclitus. (536-470BC).
Bill’s commentary:
“Is Erik describing ‘The Sound of Music’?”
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Bill’s commentary:
“Well here’s a complete shocker!”
Britain’s elite cultural institutions – the BBC, universities, the national trust – are dominated by the woke. Since smart people tend to get ahead in life, you might assume the woke would have higher intelligence. Not so, according to a new study.
Louise Drieghe and colleagues surveyed 300 North Americans adults using the platform Mechanical Turk. To measure participants’ cognitive ability, they administered the Ammons Quick Test, which involves correctly assigning words to pictures. Previous studies have shown that people’s scores on the test correlate strongly with their scores on more comprehensive IQ tests, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.
Bill’s commentary:
“Yes, why?”
A man who lives nine miles away from where the Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in eastern Ohio reached out to The Gateway Pundit to sound the alarm on the bizarre coincidences that continue to pile up surrounding the incident.
Bob Moore, a 70-year-old farmer and longtime resident of East Palestine, initially ignored local news reports urging residents to sign up for “MyID” to receive a new biometric tracking device that provides first responders updates about an individual’s health conditions amid an emergency or “major disaster.”
But the suspicious timing of the government’s distribution of this health-monitoring digital ID, exactly a week before the disaster, warrants answers, Moore told TGP in an exclusive interview.
Bill’s commentary:
“Some truthful opinion from Mr. Kunstler”
Secret Agent Man “Joe Biden” turned up in Kiev Monday morning after landing in Poland and riding an overnight choo-choo train across the Ukraine frontier to avoid the hazardous pomp of landing Air Force One in a war zone. One might try to guess the message Victoria Nuland sent her errand boy to deliver. My guess is that “JB” was there to tell Wolodymyr Zelensky the USA stands behind him one hundred percent — an obvious whopper — being exactly the opposite of the developing reality that, short of setting off nuclear Armageddon, there is really nothing the USA can do to prevent Russia from concluding our ill-conceived project on its own terms. Who better to deliver an arrant falsehood than the master, “Scranton Joe,” he who once battled and vanquished the tyrant Corn-Pop!
Bill’s commentary:
“Does anyone see WWIII being declared here?”
U.S. President Joe Biden visited Poland on Tuesday, reaffirming his commitment to Ukraine and contending Moscow would “never” win as the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion approaches.
His remarks come a day after he made a surprise visit to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced a new military aid package worth about $500 million.
Bill’s commentary:
“From the WSJ. are they just now figuring this out?”
A series of high-profile events on the international stage has laid bare the perilous state of great-power relations as Russia and China challenge the U.S.-led global order and raised the prospect that they could deteriorate further.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia would suspend its participation in the last remaining nuclear-arms treaty between Moscow and Washington, a vestige of the security architecture that has helped keep the peace for decades.
With strains worse than at any time since the Cold War, Mr. Putin’s threat to arms control in a speech in Moscow came a day after President Biden traveled to Ukraine and vowed “unending support” for Kyiv in a fight Mr. Putin considers an existential one for Russia.
Bill’s commentary:
“This is a very interesting Twitter thread. They know, and they have known for a long time. Do you still ask, “why” can’t the powers that be continue their manipulations forever?”
Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”
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Bill’s commentary:
“Does this show confidence in the US dollar?”
China’s U.S. government bond holdings hit the lowest in over 12 years at the end of December, while its gold trove grew against a backdrop of American interest rate hikes and bilateral tensions.
Chinese holdings of Treasury securities fell for the fifth straight month in December to $867 billion, data published Wednesday by the U.S. Treasury Department shows.
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Bill’s commentary:
“So if I am reading this correctly, the Treasury owes the Fed money? Or does it just mean the Fed has an upside down balance sheet?”
‘Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other!’ Ronald Reagan. (1911-2004).
Bill’s commentary:
“It’s OK, you knew it was all bullshit anyway. Makes it easier going forward to sniff it out …based on experience!”
(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Judy Monro-Leighton, one of three women who accused now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, was found to have lied during a congressional investigation and is now being charged with making materially false statements and obstruction.
According to The Beltway Report, a letter written by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, made a criminal referral against Monro-Leighton, who admitted that she “just wanted to get attention.”
She also admitted that an anonymous letter she sent to then-Sen. Kamala Harris describing a graphic sexual assault by Kavanaugh and a friend was not written by her, despite her original claim of being “Jane Doe from Oceanside, California.”
Bill’s commentary:
“Why wasn’t this available to previous defense teams? Mistrials coming?”
Three undercover Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers joined the march of protesters up the northwest side of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—including one who climbed over a barricade and pushed others toward the Capitol and another who walked behind Ashli Babbitt and predicted that “someone will get shot,” according to newly disclosed court documents.
New filings by Jan. 6 defendant William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, also show MPD bicycle officers stopping four armed men in plainclothes on Jan. 6. The men turned out to be federal agents. Video included with Pope’s filings also shows uniformed MPD officers saying, “We were set up [to fail on Jan. 6].”
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Bill’s commentary:
“A stark choice, tyranny versus revolution…”
Bill’s commentary:
“Ah yes, the ‘science!’”
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? One potential answer is that the chicken was first, and the egg was in it. So it is with our current dilemma: which came first, the corruption of science or the censoring of speech?
It appears they’ve walked hand-in-hand for quite some time, becoming all the more apparent with the consolidation of social media power and the collective efforts of federal bureaucrats who wish to control not only what you think but especially what you say. During no time in human history was this more obvious than during the COVID-19 crisis where social engineering tactics were used against the American public, not to limit your exposure to a virus, but to limit your exposure to information that did not fit within a government sanctioned narrative.
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