Introducing ATLANTIC PLAYBOOK, a new substack by Chad focused on US + European econ and politics. Subscribe below. https://atlanticplayboo...

 



Introducing ATLANTIC PLAYBOOK, a new substack by Chad focused on US + European econ and politics. Subscribe below. https://atlanticplaybook.substack.com/

Have We Seen The Worst In The Housing Market? The Epoch Times By Chadwick Hagan Jan 23, 2024 As soon as the Fed started raising ...

Have We Seen The Worst In The Housing Market?
The Epoch Times
By Chadwick Hagan
Jan 23, 2024

As soon as the Fed started raising rates, I expected to see a housing market correction. Luckily, this never happened. I believe asset managers like BlackRock - who have been buying up the housing supply - have buoyed housing demand and stabilized prices. This has also caused average rental rates across America to skyrocket. 

December 2023 was the worst for home sales since 1995, but according to a January 18th report from Fannie Mae, the situation is improving. The report from the Fannie Mae Economic and Strategic Research Group stated: "The housing market is expected to begin a gradual return to a more normal balance in 2024, following years of significant oscillations in mortgage rates and divergences of key housing market measures from their historical, pre-pandemic relationships.” 

I’ve been curious about the mortgage market, so I spoke with a well-known Atlanta-based mortgage specialist - Mike Rishel - about the market. Here is what he said:

Chad: How is the mortgage market right now? With rates going from historic lows - the 15-year mortgage rate was at 2.19 percent, and the 30-year rate was at 2.73 percent in February of 2021 - to very high rates, the situation seems dire.

Mike Rishel: We are excited because rates have come down enough in the past two months to stir up the business. I have more pre-qualified buyers from applications taken in the past two months than in the previous six months. 

Read the full article below

https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/business/have-we-seen-the-worst-in-the-housing-market-5572101?utm_source=andshare

A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support,...



A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support, followed by Nikki Haley with 28%. Haley has gained ten points since November, while Trump has lost five. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign on Wednesday evening, received 12% of voter support. Ron DeSantis holds 7%, and Vivek Ramaswamy holds 4%, while five percent remain undecided.

“Haley’s support has grown in New Hampshire from 4% in August to 28% with under two weeks until the primary,” Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling, said. “Haley’s base is among older voters, independent voters, and those with postgraduate degrees. Haley leads Trump 38% to 35% among those over 70, leads among voters with postgraduate degrees, 40% to 31%, and among independent voters, 37% to 31%.”

Trump’s support is highest among young Republicans: 

54% of voters under 30 support Trump, while 20% support Haley, 8% Christie, 6% DeSantis, and 6% Ramaswamy.

Trump leads Haley among male Republican Primary voters by eleven points, 42% to 31%, and by 20 points among women Republican Primary voters, 46% to 26%.

Among the 12% of Chris Christie’s supporters, 52% name Nikki Haley as their second choice, 12% Hutchinson 10%, DeSantis and 2% Trump; 16% are undecided. 

In the Democratic Primary, 49% of voters plan to write-in President Biden, as he will not appear on the ballot. Sixteen percent plan to vote for Dean Phillips, 5% Marianne Williamson, and 3% plan to vote for someone else. Twenty-seven percent are undecided. 

“Voters who plan to write-in Joe Biden increase with age: from 16% of voters under 30, to 35% of voters in their 30s, 43% of voters in their 40s, 57% of voters in their 50s, 74% of voters in their 60s, and 77% of voters over 70s,” Kimball noted. “Forty-one percent of voters under 30 are undecided, while 32% support Dean Phillips.”

Twenty-nine percent of New Hampshire presidential primary voters say the economy is the top issue facing the state, while 21% find housing affordability to be the most important issue, 15% find ‘threats to democracy’ to be the top issue, 10% immigration, 7% healthcare, 6% education, and 6% find abortion access to be the top issue.

Resignation of President Biden for health reasons    President Biden withdraws sometime between Super Tuesday and the November election, cit...




Resignation of President Biden for health reasons   
President Biden withdraws sometime between Super Tuesday and the November election, citing health reasons. Biden passes the torch to a replacement candidate named by the Democratic National Committee. Biden has a low approval rating for a President with ~10% job creation since his inauguration, although that figure is the by-product of his inauguration coinciding with the rollout of COVID vaccines and a reopening US economy. 

1. The US dollar remains stable

2. The DoJ/FTC win a big antitrust case

3. President Biden withdraws from the November election

4. The driverless car backlash is coming

5. Broadly syndicated loan losses rise above private credit losses for the first time

6. Argentine dollarization will fail if implemented

7. Russian invasion of Ukraine drags on with no ceasefire in 2024

8. Despite storm clouds over US regional banks, their stock will do well

9. Due to retirement of dispatchable power, major cities will face electricity outages and/or natural gas outages

10. Researchers will complete work on an inhaled Covid vaccine


Chief Justice Roberts Issues 2023 Year-End Report Sometimes, the arrival of new technology  can dramatically change work and lif...



Chief Justice Roberts Issues 2023 Year-End Report

Sometimes, the arrival of new technology  can dramatically change work and life for the  better. Just one century ago, for example,  fewer than half of American homes had electricity. During the New Deal, the federal government set out to “bring the light” to homes across rural America. Representatives recruited farmers to join electricity co-operatives for $5 each. 

Then came teams of men to clear  the brush, sink the poles, and wire homes to the  still inert grid. As Robert Caro relates in The Path to Power, in some places the project took so long  that many forgot about it, or were certain they had been duped. 

Read the rest here

Published at The Epoch Times December 22, 2023 Income and wealth inequality are contentious issues in the United States. The mai...

Published at The Epoch Times
December 22, 2023

Income and wealth inequality are contentious issues in the United States. The mainstream media often declares that millionaires, billionaires, and capitalists take more than their fair share of income and wealth, but this is highly inaccurate.

While income inequality is a reality in every country, wealth distribution in America is relatively equitable compared to other nations.

Pre-pandemic numbers showed that 100 million Americans were in the top 10 percent, and over 19 million Americans were in the top 1 percent globally.

According to 2021 figures, the top 1% in the U.S. holds 35.1% of wealth, in contrast to Germany (31.7%), China (30.5%), and Canada (25.1%). More extreme disparities exist in Russia (58.6%), Brazil (49.3%), and India (40.6%).

Concerned leftists obsessing over inequality should tackle rampant inflation and stop supporting the destruction of our local economies and regional small businesses. If they really care about average Americans, robust tax incentives for working married couples with children could be a valuable step. 

Furthermore, why don’t they work on a robust home-buying and affordable mortgage program for working families with children instead of allowing crony corporations to purchase all the single-family homes and shock the system by gobbling up the housing supply and jacking up rental prices?

Inequality exists even in socialist and communist countries, making it impossible to eliminate all forms of inequality worldwide. According to Edward Paul Lazear of the Hoover Institute, China’s shift from a communist system to a market-oriented economy between 1985 and 2010 led to an annual income growth of 9.6 percent.

The fact stated above is one of the best examples of the magic of a market-based economy over the false promise of socialism. China’s transition from a communist economy to a hybrid (state-supported) market-based economy proves that what Adam Smith, Hayek, and dozens of other free market economists have been saying for hundreds of years is irrefutable. The free market works.

 https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/business/the-truth-about-income-inequality-in-america-5551920?utm_source=andshare

War often leads to inflation, and while inflation is not directly responsible for recession, price increases and decreased economic activit...




War often leads to inflation, and while inflation is not directly responsible for recession, price increases and decreased economic activity often lead to a recession.

When I wrote about the resilience of the U.S. dollar weeks back, I had no idea we would step into another conflict. Granted, the Israel conflict is a conflict I support and understand, but it does not take much to figure out that bombing a territory while simultaneously sending billions in aid to the territory being bombed—Gaza—makes for an interesting narrative.

The United States has spent more than $75 billion on the Russia–Ukraine war, and that amount does not count the money given to allies to support the effort.

Between Jan. 24, 2022, and July 31, 2023, the United States has sent $26.4 billion in financial support, while $46.6 billion has gone to military expenses.

Now, President Joe Biden has asked Congress for $105 billion for Ukraine, Israel, and the border.

For a $180 billion, where does this leave us?



Since the arrival of cryptocurrencies, it caught worldwide eyeballs from being proposed as an alternative currency and digital m...


Since the arrival of cryptocurrencies, it caught worldwide eyeballs from being proposed as an alternative currency and digital money to becoming one of the lucrative investment choices.

Apart from regular users, it also caught the eyeballs of hackers and cyber attackers. As a result, several crypto exchanges, crypto companies, blockchain networks, and others face crypto hack attacks from time to time.

So, how many crypto hacks usually occur in a year? How much amount has been lost to crypto hacks? What are the popular types of hacks?

Let’s find out all these in this mega crypto hacks report:

Key Insights and Stats
In 2023 alone, $1.89 billion was lost in 297 crypto hack attacks. That is $289K lost every hour due to crypto hacks this year.
In 2022, crypto hacks reached an all-time high of $3.5 Billion stolen in 284 heist incidents.

Since 2011 to till date, Crypto companies and exchanges have lost a total amount of $12.36 billion in 1207 incidents.

Since 2011, about 192 crypto exchanges have been hacked and lost $3.80 billion in total.

2018 was the worst for crypto exchanges as they collectively lost $1.1 Billion to hacking and theft incidents.

There is also a significant rise in DeFi or decentralized finance hacks – the number stands at 93 and 76 for 2022 & 2023, respectively, leading to a collective loss of $1.12 billion.

Talking about lost Bitcoin and Ethereum, since 2011, there has been a total loss of 1,454,762 BTC and 1,175,082 ETH to different hacks. If you look at these numbers from today’s BTC & ETH price points, the numbers will stand at $40.27 billion and $1.93 billion, respectively. 

Contract vulnerability and flash loan attacks are two common hacks, leading to a cumulative loss of $2.75 billion since 2011.

The division among producer, transit, and consumer states of illicit drugs has clearly broken down since the late 1980’s. The 19...

The division among producer, transit, and consumer states of illicit drugs has clearly broken down since the late 1980’s. The 1990’s produced a globalization of illicit drug markets, with at least 134 countries and territories facing drug abuse problems in the 1990’s. Seventy-five percent of all countries 
report the abuse of heroin and two-thirds the abuse of cocaine. 

Whereas previously Western Europe and 
the U.S. were the primary consumers of heroin, there has been a dramatic increase in heroin addicts in countries that previously had no problem, e.g., Pakistan and Iran. At the global level, heroin and cocaine are the most significant drugs in terms of treatment demands, drug mortality, and drug related violence, including organized crime.

Opiates are the primary problem drugs in Western and Eastern Europe. On average, opiates account for three quarters of all treatment demand, and are also responsible for the large majority of drug-related mortality and morbidity cases. 

In the years since its independence, Ukraine has become a significant conduit for Southwest Asian (Afghanistan and Pakistan) heroin bound for European markets. 

The volume of Southwest Asian heroin available for world markets has increased sharply in recent years and growing amounts are smuggled through Ukraine. Porous borders, understaffed and under funded counter-narcotics entities and the rise of organized crime syndicates have enabled traffickers to utilize Ukraine as a viable transit point. 

Further, Ukraine has become an opiate producer in its own right, cultivating approximately 300 new hectares of illicit poppy in 2000 (Khruppa).

Full report by Abt Associates

The death of the U.S. dollar has been greatly exaggerated. The death of the U.S. dollar has been greatly exaggerated, especially as of late....





The death of the U.S. dollar has been greatly exaggerated.

The death of the U.S. dollar has been greatly exaggerated, especially as of late. While COVID-19 and recording breaking spending from Washington D.C. has only empowered countless rumors of the U.S. dollar's impending doom, it is clear the U.S. dollar is still very much the world's de facto reserve currency.

In July, data from SWIFT, the global transfer network, reported “transactions involving the dollar at 46%,” an all-time high. By comparison, just over 3 percent were settled in China’s Yuan.

America’s economy is incredibly diversified. Internationally we have petrodollars, which are dollars paid to oil exporters for oil imports. This is unlikely to change and enhances the U.S. dollar's liquidity, not to mention, solidifies the narrative of the U.S. dollar as the unchallenged global reserve currency.

Naysayers can attack all they want, but the OPEC member countries of Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela need petrodollars. The United States is the largest consumer of oil in the world, and these OPEC countries count on oil exports to the United States as their main source of revenue.

You hear lots of rumbling about changes in Saudi Arabia, but with nearly 15 percent of the world's oil reserves, and more than 85 percent of revenues from oil sales, at the present moment, Saudi Arabia can only dream of independence from the United States, and the U.S. dollar.

Canada has evidence linking Indian diplomats to killing of Sikh activist  According to the Guardian: "Canada has evidence l...

Canada has evidence linking Indian diplomats to killing of Sikh activist 



According to the Guardian: "Canada has evidence linking Indian diplomats to killing of a Sikh activist."

Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, denied the allegation but stated: "elements linked to organised crime, linked to terrorists, secessionists or extremists who are operating freely, are being politically condoned, they seem to have a free run”.

This is quite interesting. India comes in with a Russian-like heavy hand, and kills in another country. While all countries are involved in covert state affairs, the most recent countries to act like this have been Russia and Saudi Arabia. Both of those countries are known to be heavy handed (to put it lightly). 

The statement from Bagchi is also revealing. On one hand he denys any involvement, and then follows with a critique of Canada's liberal laws. As a Westerner, I find myself at a crossroads toleraring terrorists, and allowing counterinsurgency operations to take place in the very country they intend to target. Still, assassinations are fascinating to read about, but bonkers to think about as a reality. 

- CH


Above image from AP Photos. "Secret Service agent brandishes a submachine gun while agents and police subdue John Hinckley behind him after he shot President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington on March 30, 1981." 

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