Tema: PPCC-Pisitófilos Creditófagos-Invierno 2022

[Manu Oquendo]

La institucionalización de la falsedad.
No hay en España nadie que se esté alimentando hoy por menos del 135% o 140% de esos mismos precios hace un año. Lo mismo con el transporte y con toda la manufactura.


Una cuestión silenciada por  el PSOE, --y en lo que les toca también por el PP---, es que los males que nos aquejan se derivan directísimamente de las Políticas Públicas impuestas por Bruselas y ejecutadas fielmente por los correspondientes gobiernos nacionales.

En paralelo, es vergonzoso, por connivente, el intento del BCE de reducir, vía política monetaria, una inflación  cuya causa está en las Politicas Públicas (Fiscales, Energéticas, Regulatorias y Climáticas). ¿Quién paga todos estos costes siempre crecientes?

De hecho estamos viendo que el tipo de interés sólo está estrujando a los hipotecados, como si fuera otro impuesto y a los empresarios pequeños con proyectos de inversión. Es decir, más del 95%. La destrucción de Europa está en marcha y dirigida por los esbirros de la UE como estamos viendo cada día.

Ahora resulta que lo mejor de nuestra industria corre a establecerse  en los EEUU que, casualmente, es donde puede ir  y se les incentiva con el "Buy American".  ¿Con amigos así quién quiere enemigos?


Los precios de la vivienda en toda Europa --quizás España sea donde menos según los datos de Eurostat traídos por Derby en la página 22-- se han disparado al tiempo que se deprecia el valor del trabajo y se nos miente descaradamente sobre los incrementos de precios que afectan a los ciudadanos.
No hay en España nadie que se esté alimentando hoy por menos del 135% o 140% de esos mismos precios hace un año. Precios de marca blanca. Lo mismo con el transporte y con toda la manufactura.

¿Han visto ustedes un Sindicato que haga como en su día hacían los alemanes?(negociar sobre incrementos de precios reales y muy distintos del IPC). No lo verán porque son sindicatos comprados y algunos de ellos demostradamente corruptos justo cuando nos deja un gran hombre: Nicolás Redondo.

¿Han visto ustedes un Medio de Comunicación que diga la verdad sobre esta cuestión?. No. Ni lo han visto ni lo verán porque sus ingresos dependen en gran medida de los gobiernos de turno y muy especialmente del actual.  Un gobierno en el que sorprende aquel de sus miembros que fehacientemente  haya aprobado el bachiller o hecho una carrera seria.
Solo basta con escucharles hablar porque ni tan siquiera eso saben hacer mientras desgranan mentira tras mentira sin que la prensa lo diga en titulares.

Es más, hasta los medios supuestamente de derechas como Esradio o Libertad Digital que se despachan a su gusto contra el Bolivarianismo monclovita, están "comprando" el perdón a través de su desaforada propaganda y ocultaciones pro OTAN y serviles hacia Zelensky.

Mientras tanto ¿Qué hacen los terminales políticos de la Izquierda en el poder?

Sencillo, hacen lo de siempre, sembrar la discordia ciudadana y tapar las responsabilidades gubernamentales. Culpar a pequeños propietarios ocultando la realidad y las razones de la creciente escasez de trabajos de valor añadido real. Trabajos de rendimientos crecientes que ya son prácticamente inexistentes e imposibles.

Sé perfectamente que no es este un mensaje popular pero es que ya está bien de contar trolas interesadas que solo persiguen perpetuar la discordia civil de los sometidos mientras los chorizos siguen gobernando.

¿Será que son "nuestros chorizos" y tienen bula?

Lo que viene es a peor.
Hace unos días, en Birmingham, una joven sola es arrestada por tres policías por estar rezando en silencio delante de una clínica de Planned Parenthood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXURFRSUS9U

Ayer, como se ve en otro hilo de este foro, Wanderer nos trae a Jordan castigado por su Colegio Profesional en Ontario por criticar a Trudeau y otros personajes semejantes.

¿Vale de algo la Libertad de Pensamiento y de Expresión o estamos ya al nivel de Rusia o China?

En mi opinión nos queda muy poco para no tener nada que envidiar a Rusia o a China y por lo tanto hasta en eso nos mienten.

Por cierto, sus ciudadanos no tienen que tragarse la obligatoriadad de ver a sus hijos adoctrinados en las tesis de Butler.

Es decir, la culpa es nuestra por renunciar a la verdad  y aceptar la inmundicia.

Llega un momento en el que todos debemos mirarnos al espejo y ver si damos la talla moral de la que con tanta frecuencoa presumimos sin merecerla.

Saludos cordiales


PS. Hoy en prensa: Bolaños dice que "de ninguna manera" van a cumplir lo que dice la Constitución: Al menos doce jueces elegidos por ellos mismos. Cada vez más Caracas y más Polonia.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/8fc83eba-d947-4926-9b9c-d0d97581334d

‘Shadow economy’ drives record jump in Spain’s tax revenue

Pandemic pushes informal business on to the books in a country where underground activity is rife

Spain is enjoying a record surge in tax revenue that is unmatched by its European peers after the pandemic forced underground business activity out of the shadows.

The country’s net tax revenues hit their highest level since records began from January to November last year, jumping 15.9 per cent from the same period in 2021 and delivering an extra €33bn to the public coffers.

The expanded tax haul is especially welcome for Spain given its massive public debt load, but whether it becomes permanent depends on the durability of changes in behaviour inspired by Covid-19. Tax revenues also climbed from 2020 to 2021, increasing by 14.9 per cent or €27bn over the same period, according to data from the country’s tax agency.

Putting the figures in perspective, Spain’s Socialist-led government is seeking to raise annual sums of just €3.5bn from windfall taxes on banks and energy companies, coming into force in 2023.

One reason for the rise in tax revenue is economic growth, with the government this week estimating that gross domestic product increased by more than 5 per cent in 2022. Another cause — accounting for half of the increase according to some calculations — is high inflation, a factor present everywhere. But Financial Times research shows that Spain’s proportional gains in 2021 exceeded increases in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Greece even when accounting for inflation.

Economists and finance ministry officials attribute the difference in part to changes in the shadow or grey economy, a murky zone of unregistered activity that spans everything from informal farm workers to plumbers failing to declare cash income and restaurants that pay some wages off the books.

Its invisibility has long facilitated tax evasion, to the consternation of governments, but Covid and related economic support policies created new pressures and incentives that revealed underground activity to tax collectors and public statisticians.

“People realised during the pandemic that if they had legal contracts and were above the ground, so to speak, then if things got tough they could ask for help from the government,” said Ángel de la Fuente, executive director of Fedea, an economic think-tank.

Formalising business and employment meant being able to gain access to Spain’s furlough programmes for workers who were sent home but still received some pay, known as ERTEs. It also opened the door to liquidity support for businesses provided by the government.

In October 2022, Jesús Gascón, secretary of state for finance, said: “If you’re not on the radar, you’re not receiving the aid.”

Announcing its latest data in late December, the tax agency said higher tax revenue reflected increases in the collection of sales tax, personal income tax and corporate income tax — all of which would show the impact of once underground activity that had become official. It confirmed that the new figures marked a record in a data set that stretches back to 1995.

Ignacio de la Torre, chief economist at investment bank Arcano, highlighted a discrepancy in employment figures. According to labour ministry payroll figures that do not include the shadow economy, the number of workers in Spain grew by an annualised 2.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2022. But separate data from the national statistics institute, which is based on surveys and includes underground work, showed there was zero change in employment.

“This might be showing that previous workers in the underground economy are now regularised,” he said.

Underground transactions — known as “paying in B” in Spain — also declined owing to fears of cash becoming a vector for Covid germs.

The pandemic accelerated a trend of consumers using less cash. A European Central Bank study published in December showed that in 2021-22 the amount spent via in-person card transactions overtook purchases in notes and coins for the first time. The decline in cash use was sharpest in southern Europe, with the proportion in Spain down 18 percentage points from 2019.

According to a 2018 IMF study, Spain’s shadow economy was equivalent to 17.2 per cent of GDP, a smaller share than in Italy, Greece and most of eastern Europe, but larger than in Portugal and the rest of western Europe.

Informal activity in Spain grew in the 1980s and early 1990s after a tightening of tax rules, as the government sought to bring the country into line with European norms following the end of dictatorship and a return to democracy. The largest underground economies are Andalucía and the Canary Islands, two regions where tourism supports many restaurants and bars and grey payments tend to be rife.

Although all rises in tax revenue are helpful, the contraction in shadow commerce will not, on its own, cure Spain’s unhealthy fiscal position.

Public debt is equal to 116 per cent of GDP, according to the Bank of Spain. Raymond Torres, director for macroeconomic analysis at Funcas, Spain’s savings bank foundation, forecasts that the country’s budget deficit will rise to 4.6 per cent of GDP in 2023 from 4 per cent last year, partly due to rising interest rates.

Torres said Spain could not keep deferring a serious attempt to bring down the deficit, but added that regional and national elections in 2023 meant the government of prime minister Pedro Sánchez was unlikely to confront the challenge.

Last week Sánchez unveiled a €10bn set of measures to ease the cost of living crisis. The third such support package of 2022, it included cuts in sales tax, an extension of subsidies for public transport, and a one-off payment of €200 for 4mn households.

Torres does not expect an increase in tax revenue this year to match 2021 and 2022. “What we’ve been seeing is an increase in the size of the taxable income base, but not an increase in the rate of income growth.”

There is also no guarantee that the advantages of formalised payrolls and digital transactions will endure for all. “There can be relapses in the underground economy. Some activities can go back to being undeclared,” he said.

[Derby]

https://www.americanbanker.com/news/ofr-wants-daily-reports-on-most-repo-transactions-from-biggest-banks

OFR wants daily reports on most repo transactions from biggest banks

WASHINGTON —  The Office of Financial Research issued a proposed rule Thursday that would require certain financial institutions to report daily transaction-level data on their non-centrally cleared bilateral repurchase agreement trades to gain greater insight into an often opaque yet crucial financial market.  

The proposal would compel both bank-affiliated and nonbank broker-dealers to submit daily reports with trade and collateral data on pending non-centrally cleared bilateral repurchase agreement transactions. The would apply to roughly 40 of the largest broker-dealers, the office said.

"The OFR is proposing to fill this data gap and provide regulators with more insight into Treasury market functioning, by requiring the largest institutions in the repo market to submit data on their non-centrally cleared bilateral transactions to the OFR each day," said James Martin, deputy director of operations.

Repo transactions are a critical tool for financial institutions to exchange assets as collateral for short-term borrowing. Bilateral repo transactions — those that are conducted between two parties without a central counterparty or triparty custodian — are the most common and least supervised segment of the market, the research office said. and enhanced reporting requirements are meant to empower regulators to mitigate risks to the financial system.

"This initiative to provide better visibility into this opaque financial market segment is vital to helping ensure financial stability," James said. "When significant stress on U.S. Treasuries spilled into the repo market in March 2020, regulators didn't have full insight into the segment of the repo market where participants were most active, namely the non-centrally cleared bilateral segment. This was due, in part, to the lack of data reported to officials on these transactions."

In 2019, the office began collecting data on centrally cleared repo transactions, but this left the majority of the market still invisible to regulators. Thursday's notice indicates the office wants to go further, expanding such oversight to the majority of repo transactions by the biggest financial institutions.

The multitrillion-dollar Treasury repo market serves bank and nonbank liquidity needs and is one of the most important cogs in the global financial system. It is also the underlying market from which the Secured Overnight Financing Rate is based. SOFR is one of the main interest rate benchmarks to replace the defunct Libor interest rate, which is slated to sunset entirely later this year.

The Office of Financial Research was established as part of the Dodd-Frank Act to serve as an independent research arm of the Financial Stability Oversight Council aimed at detecting sources of risk to the broader financial system. The Trump administration sought to fold the agency under the Treasury Department, and cut its budget and staff. The OFR's move to increase its visibility into the repo market could be the beginning of the Biden administration's attempt to reinvigorate the agency. 

The OFR will take comment on the proposed rule for 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

[Derby]

https://www.redfin.com/news/home-seller-concessions-january-2023/

A Record Share of Home Sellers Are Giving Concessions to Buyers

Buyers received concessions—such as money for repairs and mortgage-rate buydowns—in a record 42% of home sales in the fourth quarter, up from 31% a year earlier. Pandemic boomtowns including Phoenix and Las Vegas saw among the biggest increases in concessions.

Home sellers gave concessions to buyers in 41.9% of home sales in the fourth quarter—the highest share of any three-month period in Redfin’s records, which date back to July 2020. That’s up from just over 30% in both the previous quarter and the fourth quarter of 2021, and outpaces the prior 40.8% high from the three months ending July 2020, when the housing market nearly ground to a halt due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.



This is according to data submitted by Redfin buyers’ agents across the U.S. A concession is recorded when an agent reports a seller provided something that helped reduce the buyers’ total cost of purchasing the home. That could include money toward repairs, closing costs and/or mortgage-rate buy-downs. It does not include situations in which sellers lowered the listing price of their home.

Concessions have made a comeback as rising mortgage rates, inflation and economic uncertainty have dampened homebuying demand, giving the buyers who remain in the market increased negotiating power.

That’s a stark shift from the pandemic homebuying frenzy of late 2020 and 2021, when record-low mortgage rates fueled fierce competition, forcing most buyers to bid over the asking price and waive every contingency just to have their offers taken seriously.

“Buyers are asking sellers for things that were unheard of during the past few years,” said Van Welborn, a Redfin real estate agent in Phoenix. “They’re feeling empowered, partly because their offer is often the only one, and partly because they know sellers have built up so much equity during the pandemic that they can afford to dole out sizable concessions.”

Welborn continued: “I recently helped one of my buyers negotiate a $10,000 credit for a new roof and a handful of other repairs. We originally asked for $15,000, but were happy with $10,000 because the homeowner also agreed to sell for less than their asking price.”

Homeowners are increasingly selling for below their desired price as the housing market slows. A record 22% of home sales recorded by Redfin buyers’ agents in the fourth quarter included both a concession and a final sale price below the listing price, while a record 19% included both a concession and a listing-price cut that occurred while the home was on the market. A record 11% included all three.



(...)

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/b9f17616-3654-4a04-a778-e7fa66d8a898

China’s housing market teeters between boom and bust

Citizens are still willing to pour their life savings into property, as long as prices keep rising

A significant change is on the cards for China’s real estate sector in 2023, according to reports from the country’s recent Central Economic Work Conference — the landmark event which sets the economic course for the coming year. The delegates insisted on one hand that “housing is for living not speculation”, but on the other, emphasised the critical importance of real estate to China’s economic growth. This statement sent real estate developers’ shares multiplying, to the delight of global investors.

But even if the worst time for China’s real estate sector is behind us, the country’s housing bubble remains a serious structural problem. Just this week, a local government finance vehicle in Guizhou province was allowed exceptional approval to delay its loan repayment to banks by 20 years.

Until the “three red lines” introduced two years ago to reduce borrowing, Chinese housing developers enjoyed a degree of leverage higher than that of their Japanese counterparts in the 1980s or US peers in 2008, especially if one accounts for presale and informal financing. To make things worse, Chinese homebuyers were offered versions of intergenerational and zero-deposit mortgages in much larger volumes than official statistics suggest.

Chinese first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, have become some of the most expensive in the world, with widening house-price-to-income ratios which are frustrating youngsters trying to get into the market. The media has even coined a new term, “six wallet”, to describe the way young couples have to tap their own two wallets, and those of all four of their parents, to buy a property.

Nonetheless, Chinese households are still willing to pour their life savings into property, as long as house prices keep rising. Camouflaged under the term “improvement housing”, which is supported by the CEWC, many Chinese homebuyers are expressly chasing potential returns from the investment they have known over the past two decades. This is strikingly similar to the behaviour of investors during the Japanese and US housing booms.

Managing speculators’ expectations during a run of rising prices is an art. If the message is too blunt and hawkish, it runs the risk of scaring the market and piercing the bubble. However, if it is not stern or explicit enough, the market may shrug off warnings and continue its buying spree. This is the Chinese government’s dilemma.

To cool housing speculation, policymakers have in the past 15 years implemented a series of curbs, all of which were eventually dropped. After all, China’s housing sector has become too big to fail. Following a few such curb-relax cycles, even the early sceptics are convinced that housing prices will never fall, and that government support will remain steadfast.

Their rationale is that since the housing sector brings critical fiscal revenues to local government and gross domestic product growth to Beijing, then as long as policymakers are pursuing high-speed growth, they cannot afford to withdraw their support for the housing market.

But that has changed. While the speed of growth remains an important policy goal, it is no longer the only one. Over the past few years, China has started a transition into a more financially sustainable, environmentally friendly, and socially inclusive growth.

The economic slowdown in 2022 presents some real tests for policymakers, not just concerning the real estate sector, but China’s future growth model. Recent policies are targeted at stabilising the housing market. However tempting it might be, returning to the mindset in which property is an engine of investment and growth would just be dangerous.

[Derby]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-jobs-report-confirms-that-the-soft-landing-has-arrived-if-the-fed-has-the-wisdom-to-embrace-it-11673023989

The jobs report confirms that the soft landing has arrived — if the Fed has the wisdom to embrace it

Fewer hours worked plus smaller pay raises mean the Federal Reserve has weakened the labor market and licked inflation



The U.S. labor market is weakening, just as the Federal Reserve wants.

Job growth is slowing, wage growth is slowing, and the number of hours workers are putting in is actually falling. With the inflation rate declining rapidly, it’s time for the Fed to step back and allow the economy to glide in for the soft landing that everyone wants.

Unfortunately, the Fed thinks it can’t do that. It can’t show any weakness. It feels trapped because its policy relies on perceptions of strength, not on actual victories on the battlefield of the economy.

Markets do the Fed’s job

The slowdown in the economy has largely been accomplished by the financial markets driving bond yields higher and stock prices lower. But if financial markets were to believe that the Fed is wavering, then stocks and bonds would rally and all the good work the Fed has accomplished in corralling inflation would be lost.

Looser financial conditions are a recipe for more inflation. Or so the thinking goes at the Marriner Eccles Building.

The Fed has expressed its fears that inflation could remain stubbornly high if wages were to rise rapidly. Those higher wages would fuel more demand for goods and services, and push prices higher, the Fed believes.

The good news in the jobs report

Those fears should be alleviated by the data released Friday.

Average hourly wages rose 0.3% (or 3.5% annualized). Over the past three months, hourly wages have risen at a 4.1% annual rate, down from 5.9% at the beginning of 2022. If workers’ productivity increases at the usual percent or two, then that path of wage growth is not inflationary, or so the market believes.

While hourly wages are important, what counts for both working families and for the Fed is the weekly paycheck, which is determined by the hourly rate and by how many hours are worked. Lately, the average number of hours worked has dropped from 34.8 hours at the beginning of 2022 to just 34.3 hours, which is below the long-run average

In December, private-sector companies added 220,000 workers, but the total number of hours worked in the private sector fell at an annual rate of 1.1%, the second decline in a row. This is a key leading indicator of growth, because output depends in part on the total effort made by workers.

The total amount of wages paid to private-sector workers rose in December at an annual rate of 2.1%, about half the increase that was usual before the pandemic. Over the past three months, the total wage bill has increased at a 3.7% annual rate, down from 9.1% at the beginning of the year. From an inflation point of view, this may be the most revealing statistic in the jobs report.

Demand is not rising faster than supply

What do all these numbers mean? Simply put, the effective demand from working families is not rising faster than the supply of goods and services.

That means inflationary pressures from wages are receding, not growing. That means that the Fed has met — at least for now — its goal of preventing a wage-price spiral that would keep inflation unacceptably high.

Unfortunately, the Fed can’t publicly acknowledge what’s going on. It’s afraid that any admission of success will only encourage the stock market bulls. The Fed fears that exuberance on Wall Street would goose the economy too much and let inflation get out of control again.

The Fed is fighting the last war. In 2021, it got inflation wrong, thinking it was “transitory.” In 2023, it’s getting inflation wrong in the other direction, thinking inflation is permanent.

It isn’t.

When conditions change, smart policy makers have the wisdom to change their minds.

[Derby]

https://mishtalk.com/economics/december-jobs-employment-rises-by-717000-all-of-them-part-time

December Jobs: Employment Rises by 717,000 All of Them Part Time

Nonfarm jobs rose by 223,000 and employment jumped but huge divergences continue for the 9th month.

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-05/relentless-rents-leave-few-choices-for-americans-relying-on-assistance

Relentless Rents Leave Few Choices for Americans Relying on Assistance

Renters under the Section 8 voucher program are struggling to find apartments that meet their needs and fall within a tight budget

Government programs designed to support the lowest-income Americans have been no match for the relentless post-Covid US rental market. 

Already plagued by years-long wait times, those who receive so-called Section 8 housing choice vouchers are struggling to use them to find apartments with rents at or near records nationwide. While demand for assistance soared to historic levels in 2022, the share of tenants successfully finding housing dropped, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds the program that supports more than 2 million households annually.

Rents are rising at some of the fastest ever rates, according to the consumer price index, emerging as one of the main drivers behind overall US inflation. And while several real-time measures show prices on new leases aren’t growing as fast as they were, and are even declining in some markets, existing prices are still extremely high and pushing many families to the brink of homelessness.

“There's a huge backlog of people who need assistance and not enough resources allocated by Congress to actually provide vouchers to those people,” said Mary Cunningham, a housing expert at the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

Valerie Savedra is one of them. After becoming wheelchair-bound at age 53, she needed a new apartment — a first-floor unit with no stairs, doors wide enough to fit her wheelchair and an extra room for a home aide. Savedra waited about six months to receive her Section 8 voucher after applying in February. But in the competitive rental market in Tucson, Arizona, she struggled to find a place that the voucher would cover.

“Some days I just felt like just rolling out to the middle of the street because I didn't know where else to turn,” Savedra said.



The Section 8 program, named for the eighth section of the US Housing Act, was created in the 1970s as an answer to public housing failures, meant to give low-income renters more choice in where to live. Tenants in the program, who don’t need to be employed for eligibility, pay 30% of their income on rent and utilities each month, and vouchers handle the rest.

But they can only be applied to certain apartments that are priced around a region’s “fair” market rent, which the government sets each year at just under the area’s median. Most public housing authorities — which receive the funds from HUD and administer the vouchers locally — use an entire metro area to determine the rate instead of calculating by zip code. That ends up rendering many neighborhoods “completely unaffordable,” said Philip Tegeler, executive director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, a Washington-based civil rights law and policy organization.

The government defines anyone who spends more than 30% of their income on housing as “cost burdened,” which constituted over 40% of renter households, or 19 million, from 2017-2021, according to Census Bureau data released in December.

HUD, which budgeted $25.8 billion for the voucher program in 2022, adjusts the caps annually to take into account inflation and rent changes captured by a Census survey. But last year — amid extreme market volatility and with Census data muddied by Covid adjustments — the agency started incorporating private housing-market data from the likes of Zillow and Apartment List into their calculations. The leap was dramatic. Fiscal year 2023’s fair market rents, in effect as of October 2022, jumped a record average of 10% across the country.

The new formula “will make it easier for voucher holders facing this challenge to access affordable housing in most housing markets, while expanding the range of housing opportunities available to households,” HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said in a September statement. The changes “reflect the reality of housing unaffordability for many households, while supporting our efforts to improve affordability and accessibility for all Americans.”

In Tucson, where the average monthly rent was about $1,300 for a two-bedroom unit in October, the fair value was adjusted to $1,175 for 2023. Savedra’s rent is $1,050 — she pays $297 for rent and utilities, which is about a third of her monthly income from Social Security Disability Insurance. The voucher covers the rest.

As hard as securing a voucher is, it’s no guarantee that a landlord will accept it. There are no federal housing protections against sources of income discrimination, so in most jurisdictions, landlords aren’t mandated to rent to Section 8 tenants. Many choose not to, in part because of stigmas around low-income residents, or an unwillingness to deal with the government regulations that come with the program.

In the depths of the pandemic when rents were falling in most metropolitan areas, that calculus changed, since landlords knew they could at least rely on some portion of the rent to paid by a housing authority even if the tenant’s own income was disrupted, said Eva Rosen, an associate professor of public policy at Georgetown University. But with the market more competitive now than ever, the environment is less friendly to tenants in need.

While increasing voucher caps can help existing Section 8 renters, it risks shrinking the overall pool absent greater investment.

“If rent costs are increasing, then we don’t want to just be helping fewer people afford the higher price it costs to live in this country, but to actually consider whether we need to allocate more money to this program,” said Rosen, author of The Voucher Promise, a book on Section 8.

The Biden administration is trying to do so. While it’s a fraction of his initial proposal before the House, the 2023 budget includes $130 million for 11,700 additional vouchers targeted towards people most at risk for homelessness and survivors of domestic violence. That follows the 19,000 extra vouchers the department awarded to public housing authorities in 2022.

By the time fair market rates changes went into effect in October — increasing Savedra’s voucher amount by $200 — she finally found a new place to live: a duplex that meets her disability requirements and has a backyard. It took her three long months, looking for apartments by day and sleeping on a couch at night, worrying she’d become homeless.

“Nobody deserves this treatment,” Savedra said. “We're humans and we deserve a safe place to live regardless of what they think.”

[sudden and sharp]

[ $65 Billion... so far. ]   

[Derby]

https://twitter.com/AndreasSteno/status/1611386131353948163

[Derby]

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/flexport-ceo-warns-container-shipping-great-recession

Flexport CEO Warns Container Shipping In "Great Recession"

Flexport founder and co-CEO Ryan Petersen warned a global shipping downturn is underway. He said the container shipping industry is in "recession" as a glut in capacity plagues major shipping lines. This comes right after Baltic Exchange's dry bulk sea freight index crashed on Tuesday, an ominous sign the global economy could be headed for turmoil.

(...)

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/baltic-index-crashes-most-record-recession-alarm-flashes

Baltic Index Crashes Most On Record As Recession Alarm Flashes

The Baltic Exchange's dry bulk sea freight index crashed on Tuesday in the worst decline on record, sinking on prospects of a global recession.

Baltic Dry Good Index is a measure of global shipping and economic health. The overall index, which tracks rates for capesize, panamax, and supramax shipping vessels carrying dry bulk commodities, plunged 17.5% to $1,250, the most significant daily decline since 1984. (...)

[Derby]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/bruising-house-price-crash-could-just-what-tories-need/

A bruising house price crash could be just what the Tories need

Rishi Sunak must win over millenials if he wants to triumph in the next election

By all accounts, the Tories are heading for a heavy and humbling election defeat. Britain is simply fed up with paying over the odds in tax and receiving what seems like very little in return.

Yet if a week is a long time in politics, then there still is plenty of time in 2023 to turn things around before the next election.

The cost of living crisis has put our personal finances at the heart of British politics, but the key to restoring the nation’s fortunes now requires a monumental shift of focus from the fortunes of baby boomer voters to millennials and their money.

And a bruising house price crash could do just that.

The Conservatives need to find a new generation of supporters who, like their predecessors, have a sense of prosperity to preserve. But the most valuable asset most of us will ever own, bricks and mortar, has long been out of reach for many.



The Tory party has always had a problem with voters under 40, and it is understandable. After 12 years in power they have few if any economic successes to show for it; wages are stagnant, inflation is sky-high, taxes are suffocating, militant unions are running riot, and to many, the kind of wealth previous generations enjoyed seems out of reach.

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, needs to betray the boomers, call time on the state pension triple lock, and target fiscal spending at the young voters who still have aspirations left.

If the Tories want to set themselves some sort of road to recovery or even respectability, they need Britain to be good value for money again. There is hope on the horizon. Inflation is expected to halve this year, mortgage rates are dropping, energy prices are tipped to fall and even the stock market is showing signs of life.

Yet above all, a house price crash, in one fell swoop, could be the push to prosperity and motivation so many need to start saving.

YouGov polling last month revealed that only 5pc of Britons think it would be a good thing if house prices kept rising.

Among Conservative voters, 42pc think it would be a good thing if prices dropped – while seven in 10 of all 18-to-24-year-olds think cheaper property would be a good thing.

Economists are broadly predicting a house price drop of around 10pc this year, but some have said a worst case scenario would be a 30pc crash. Worst affected would be those who have recently bought with large home loans who now need to remortgage, but older people would also lose out, especially if they have buy-to-let properties.

Without owning property or amassing any savings to protect, the young have little reason to vote Tory.

Yet despite the need to win over the millennial vote, Mr Sunak started the year by abandoning childcare reforms that would have made life easier for young parents.

There’s no denying that the boomer generation has done well for itself  –thanks in part because of soaring property prices and a bygone era of final salary pensions. For the Tories to stand a chance in the next election, millennials need a taste of the good life too.

[Derby]

Pero el bréxit también ha sido objetivamente la resistencia de un Estado-carroza a ser reducido a estado-calabaza y a que su reina se convirtiera en cenicienta. Al final, se quedan con el pisito, sí, pero con bicho: la hermanastra de 'corniayes'.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/04/nobody-wants-confront-truth-britain-becoming-poor-country/

Nobody wants to confront the truth: Britain is becoming a poor country

It is good that Rishi Sunak wishes to reverse our decline but his solutions so far are dangerously limited

(...) Unlike that of America, our economy hasn’t recovered from the financial crisis: 2008 was our annus horribilis, and we have severely underperformed ever since. Our failure has not only been statistical: our economic culture has also decayed, with a collapse in service standards, a blunting of our entrepreneurial zeal and the demise of the hard-work ethos that was the hallmark of our Anglo-American exceptionalism. Covid has turbocharged this trend: nothing gets done, we have grown lazy, and everything appears broken. We have adopted an ersatz European social democracy with none of the upsides and all of the downsides. Brexit was an attempt at forcing the establishment to tackle our decline, but so far political parties and the Blob have acted as a cartel to maintain the status quo.

[sudden and sharp]

 

[asustadísimos]

[Aviso de reedición del comentario '2022 HA SIDO EL ÚLTIMO AÑO DE DÍAS DE PERRO. 2023 VA A SER EL AÑO DE LOS CABALLOS. ¿NO LOS OYES? ¡CORRE!'.
https://www.transicionestructural.net/index.php?topic=2583.msg208886#msg208886
Es solo un ligerísimo retoque de puntuación que no cambia nada.

También, se añade que la escultura de Eduardo Chillida en la Cancillería alemana simboliza la reunificación de las dos Alemanias —por cierto, su hermano, Gonzalo fue un gran pintor, amigo de un servidor, del tiempo que viví en San Sebastián, aunque podía ser mi padre—. Recordemos que la 'Cancillería' famosa fue el monstruo construido por Speer para gloria del führer y que en su patio trasero estaba el búnquer donde cometió su suicidó compartido. Tiene gracia que la obra de un donostiarra español, exjugador de la Real Sociedad, sea tan simbólico. Berlín no es cualquier ciudad en Arquitectura.

Respecto a la dialéctica de ortogramas de Estados en la crítica de la guerra de Ucrania, un estructuraltransicionista de bien no puede allanarse a la tesis mistificadora de que es la causa de la causa de la inflación —falacia causal Nº 1— y, por tanto, de todos los males —tipos de interés, falacia Nº 2, y disnea económica, Nº 3—. Debe al menos aceptarse la discusión sobre si hay o no tongo-pinza (EEUU-Rusia), sin contradicción con el ortograma chino, y que ello no es inconveniente, sino lo contrario, para una transición estructural pacífica del popularcapitalismo a la Era Cero (es al euro al que le va a tocar apechugar con una sobrevaloración indeseable).

'Cadavre esquis' ha posteado un artículo de Expansión
https://www.transicionestructural.net/index.php?topic=2583.msg208879#msg208879
cuyo título es 'Qué depara (sic, no deparará) 2023 al sector de la vivienda', escrito por un autodenominado 'Head of Residential en Knight Frank' (¡puaj!, qué 'cringe', te quedas a mitad de camino entre principal y cabezón, y decir solo 'residential' es como cuando en vez de sociedades dicen mercantiles, finísimo, elegantísimo, además esa preposición en, no de, te lo imaginas en una mesa de un área diáfana entre la impresora colectiva y una estantería de angular ranurado). Bueno, pues, en el artículo no se habla de lo que dice el título, para nada. Solo se ve sin pudor el miedo insalvable que se ha apoderado de los jugadores. Al final se abusa de la palabra inversión manipulando su sentido de darse la vuelta. Denota cómo se produce el engaño en el timo inmobiliario, cómo se nubla aposta a los 'himbersores', en este caso, con el tipo de cambio. Y se introduce un nuevo concepto, importante en nuestra opinión, el de respiro y, por extensión, el de disnea. Ya hablaremos de ello. En nuestra opinión, el oxígeno inmobiliario no son los tipos de interés. La avaricia y el miedo son sustanciales, pero no son el oxígeno. ¿Ustedes qué creen que es? ¿Qué es lo que da respiro al sector inmobiliario? Desde luego, ellos se ponen muy interesantes con los tipos hipotecarios, pero es una correlación DLSP (de la señorita Pepis, que nos perdone el gran 'senslev', cuyas —en mi opinión, pocas— aportaciones son geniales, como la última, la de la interpelación al ministro canadiense y como la de GPT, y tantas otras:
https://www.transicionestructural.net/index.php?topic=2583.msg208786#msg208786
https://www.transicionestructural.net/index.php?topic=2583.msg208569#msg208569

Por cierto, GPT se equivoca. El dinero no es una forma de moneda. Es al revés. Por ejemplo: el pobre pide monedas al podrido de dinero. Y se puede ser desorganizado, pero tenerlo todo ordenadísimo; aparte de que ser una persona organizada te permite desordenarte sin grandes problemas, enseguida vuelves al orden. Los máximos responsables de casi cualquier cosa — psicópatas hoy ya casi todos— suelen estar siempre en modo GPT. Obtienes de ellos información de calidad cuando simulas entrar en su juego —que siempre consiste en chuparte la sangre— pero les sorprendes sacándoles de sus casillas, siempre con una red de seguridad, claro está —es superdifícil: lo mejor es correr y no parar de correr en cuanto veas que alguien carece de resonancia emocional, cosa que disimulan bien—.

Reinicido en la cuestión de las ciudades popularcapitalistas como contenedores de 'hactibos' ahora ya maduros —concepto de los timos piramidales—, solo para jugadores y huérfanas de quienes las dan vida. ¿O no es verdad que en París-París y Nueva York-Nueva York ya solo hay turistas y población flotante atendida por sin-sueños con sueño, todos viviendo lejos en los dos sentidos de lejanía: el mezquino bernardosiano y la soledad? Añadan que McDonalds ha inventado en Texas la tienda servida solo por autómatas. Estamos educados para odiar el juego, no a los jugadores, sí, ¡pero que les den y mucho! Llevamos demasiados años de días de perro. Y 'the dog days are done'. Los caballos ya están aquí. Esta metáfora se la debemos a Derby que es quien nos ha traído este enlace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leXoCCk8tx8

Por último, 'wanderer' atinadamente trae materiales sobre el declive catalán. Lo que ha pasado está inseparablemente unido, no a ningún ortograma de ninguna nación errante, sino a la mezquindad de una, solo una diada separatista, la de de 2012, que se centró contra la obligación de acabar con las Cajas de Ahorros impuesta en el Memorándum de Entendimiento del Rescate-UE. Tal como ha sucedido con el bréxit y Trump, el 'procés' consiguió su verdadero objetivo, que no era separarse, sino defenderse atacando. El Reino Unido goza de su Estado con mayúsculas, soltero y entero, y de su monarquía 'corniorejuda'. EEUU está regado con fentanilo cual Hong Kong victoriano. En La Caixa no ha hecho falta aprender Derecho Penitenciario —a los politiquillos neoprovincianos, sí— y la institución sigue en pie travestida de catalana del sur, intacto su capitalismo paternalista de integración vertical de clases y raíz étnico-cultural. Los 'himbersores' disfrutan como enanos en Londres, Nueva York y Barcelona, ciudades limpias de obreros gracias a los precios de la vivienda, perdón, cotizaciones. Ahora, en la Era Cero, que se jodan las mayorías naturales resentidas echadas al monte británicas, estadounidenses y catalanas. Para antiestatalismo están inventadas las izquierdas ortodoxas. Lo mismo podemos decir de los falsoliberales neoliberales, especialmente de los individualistas anarcoides.]