PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Primavera 2024

[Derby]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgdly318jeo

Chancellor says £100,000 not a huge salary in Surrey

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said £100,000 is "not a huge salary" for people in his Surrey constituency.

Mr Hunt said on X, formerly Twitter, he had been making calls as part of his work as MP for South West Surrey.

He said he had been speaking to "a lady from Godalming" about eligibility for the government’s childcare offer, which is not available if one parent is earning more than £100,000, and said: "I am aware that it is not huge salary in our area if you have a mortgage to pay."

Labour said it showed "how desperately out of touch the Tories are".(...)

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/624a05f2-799f-4545-bda8-1f37182c8d8a

The bank argument on the Basel III endgame is bunk

What regulator could be against safer lenders at the heart of our financial system?

How much capital big banks need, or should have, is one of the most hotly debated questions on Wall Street these days. In the wake of three of the largest bank failures in US history a year ago, the US Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are all pushing to increase the capital requirements for the 100 largest banks, which fall under the Basel III regulatory regime. If they succeed in getting their way, it would be regulators’ second success on the bank capital front since the Wall Street meltdown in 2008.

Not surprisingly, the big banks don’t want this to happen. They believe enough is enough. They believe they succumbed to the wishes of the Washington bureaucrats after the financial crisis, but they don’t want to give in a second time. They are fighting back, hard, to avoid having to increase their equity capital, in part by spending many millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers in Washington to put pressure on the regulators. They also have been buying advertisements on popular National Football League games.

Regulators have estimated the new rules will lead to aggregate 16 per cent increase in capital requirements for banks above $100bn. But it’s not that the banks don’t have the capital; many of them do. After all, they’ve been making money hand over fist lately, thanks to the Fed’s policy of keeping interest rates near zero for years and the whopping expansion of assets on the central bank’s balance sheet as part of its quantitative easing programme. They’ve even been able to make money since the Fed reversed course two years ago and started raising rates, improving the margins on their lending.

In 2023, JPMorgan Chase, the US’s biggest bank, had the most profitable year of any bank ever — earning nearly $50bn in net income and just used part of that profit to increase the bank’s dividend to shareholders. But Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive, doesn’t like the proposed capital requirements one bit. “We continue to believe that the recent series of regulatory and legislative proposals, including Basel III endgame, could cause serious harm to consumers, businesses, and markets,” he said in announcing the firm’s 2023 profits. That’s bunk.

What the big banks really don’t like about the regulators’ proposal comes down, as ever, to pay. Many of the executives at big banks are rewarded, in part, on their bank’s return-on-equity calculation. The more equity capital a bank has, the harder it becomes to generate a high ROE, as simple math dictates. So that could mean lower bonuses for executives. No wonder they are fighting it tooth and nail and are enlisting allies in Congress to try to thwart the regulators.

They make other, equally unjustifiable, arguments for not increasing their equity capital, such as that it will somehow result in less credit and less lending being made available, hurting the overall economy. This is absurd. The big banks are lending as much as they can, with the four largest US banks having $4tn of loans and leases outstanding, according to FDIC data.

In fact, according to a 2016 Bank for International Settlements study, increasing banks’ equity capital has led to a corresponding increase in lending. “Banks with higher capital have higher lending growth,” the BIS study concluded.

Dennis Kelleher, the co-founder and CEO of non-profit organisation Better Markets, tells me the tussle over how much bank capital is enough is “probably” the biggest fight over a proposed regulatory rule since the Great Depression. And the banks are fighting hard. “It’s not even 12 months after the failure of three of the four largest banks in the history of the United States and you still can’t even talk about capital without the industry unleashing its coffers in every crevice,” Kelleher says, “It’s unbelievable.”

The truth is that the more capital the banks have, the safer they are and the more likely they are to be able to withstand losses or withstand the kind of loss of confidence that befell the likes of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic a year ago and that befell the Wall Street investment banks back in 2008. What regulator could be against safer banks at the heart of our financial system?

A final decision is probably months away, and what the Fed decides will pretty much dictate what the FDIC and OCC do, too. It’s going to be a close call about whether the big banks get their way, as the debate rages inside the Fed itself. But I’m much more worried about the consequences of another sizeable bank failure and its potential knock-on effects in the wider economy than I am about bank executives’ compensation packages. Last time I checked, bankers always find a way to get paid.

[asustadísimos]

AYUSO Y LOS SUYOS, CASOPLONES... HACIENDO TRAMPAS; Y TÚ Y LOS TUYOS, VUESTRAS MIERDAS DE VIVIENDAS.—

La situación del popularcapitalismo es absolutamente insostenible.

Nosotros, los estructuraltransicionistas, lo sabíamos. Empiezan a saberlo ya hasta los conservadores contestatarios más recalcitrantes, como los ayusers mierdrileños o los zelenskiístas o mileiístas.

Esta insostenibilidad de la contradicción entre sistema capitalista y modelo popularcapitalista ha devenido geopolítica y suenan tambores de guerra mundial. Pero la cosa no es para tanto... salvo para el propietariado. ¡Que se joda!, como los dueños de las dachas de Rabotino.

El dólar ha llegado a un tamaño tal que ya no puede ser honrado razonablemente. Solo pueden atenderse pagos con nuevas emisiones colocadas a los propios acreedores.

¿Hay cuerda para más allá de 2025? No la hay. La inflación, como veladora del ajuste de precios relativos, ha fracasado estrepitosamente. El presidente de la isla geopolítica norteamericana, que salga victorioso en este noviembre electoral, tendrá que lidiar con el reconocimiento de la imposibilidad del imperio crematocrático protestante y rendirse ante el verdadero «capital y trabajo duro», sí, sí, eso que invocan cínicamente los cuestores del popularcapitalismo. ¿No queríais caldo? ¡Tomad dos tazas!

El Pisito hace pobres.

[sudden and sharp]

Excusas...

El propietario de la casa, por el contrario, que también presentó sus testigos correspondientes, aseguraba, contundente, que en la vivienda en cuestión no solo no vivía ningún duende, trasgo, fantasma o demonio, sino que lo que estaba pasando es que el inquilino o arrendatario andaba un poco escaso de fondos cuando decidió denunciar para evitar tener que pagar los 250 ducados del segundo plazo por el que había sufrido ejecución en sus bienes por no hacer frente al pago. Cuenta el propietario que el huésped nunca se había quejado hasta entonces y estaba convencido de que ese era el motivo del follón que montó y la demanda que planteó al juez.

El curioso pleito que anuló la venta de una casa porque en ella vivía el diablo
https://www.larazon.es/castilla-y-leon/curioso-pleito-que-anulo-venta-casa-porque-ella-vivia-diablo_2024032365fd62f209990300013edf67.html

Nihil novum sub sole.   





Atención:

[...]Y es que, según contaban los inquilinos, a veces, cuando preparaban la mesa para comer con los manteles puestos, pero también con el pan, el vino, el queso u otras viandas que comían en la época, cuando iban a sentarse a dar cuenta de los manjares, estos habían desaparecido.

Si bien, al menos, el "demonio de Peñafiel" abonaba lo consumido ya que no le gustaba irse sin pagar. Y es que se cuenta en este caso que "hasta en dos ocasiones" los inquilinos se encontraron con que encima de la mesa vacía de los alimentos había dos cuartos, antigua moneda fraccionaria de España realizada en cobre que tenía un valor de cuatro maravedís cada uno.

Resulta que el diablo sí que paga lo suyo.

[Manu Oquendo]

He venido a resolver un problema a la casa que fue de mi abuela materna y he recogido un enlace que os dedico antes de regresar a Sanse.
Un pequeño homenaje a un folklore hoy tristemente olvidado para rendirnos a las corrosivas modas musicales del imperio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBCe7iBb5DU

¿Comienza a reaccionar la prensa?

https://www.eldebate.com/opinion/20240322/camino-servidumbre_183460.html

¿O es sólo un despiste? El juez Pedraz  cierra Telegram cautelarmente por, supuestamente, usar contenidos sujetos a derechos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7kdccoUNBo&list=RDCMUCKC77AR_zWXRTE2GOD_2Uag&start_radio=1

Estamos en una nueva fase de la gestión del espacio Cognitivo.

El Despotismo autodenominado democrático se quita la careta.

[Derby]

https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2024-03-23/inquietud-pp-gestion-crisis-ayuso-control_3853714/

LA JUEZA IMPUTA A SU PAREJA
Inquietud en el PP por la "errática" gestión de la crisis de Ayuso: "Ha perdido el control"

Barones y dirigentes populares creen que la presidenta madrileña se equivocó al "personalizar" el problema de su pareja y censuran los métodos de su jefe de gabinete

El caso que afecta a la pareja de Isabel Díaz Ayuso se ha enmarañado con el paso de los días y ha activado algunas alarmas en las filas del PP. No tanto por creer que la presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid pueda tener algún tipo de implicación en la investigación contra Alberto González Amador por un presunto fraude fiscal, sino por la "errática" gestión que tanto ella como su equipo han hecho de la polémica. "Da la sensación de que ha perdido el control, que su manual de crisis ha fallado", comentan en el partido.

Es una opinión que comparten dirigentes del PP a todos los niveles, desde barones autonómicos a cargos nacionales, que lamentan que Ayuso esté al borde de perder el "relato" frente a la izquierda por la estrategia comunicativa con la que ha intentado capear el temporal. "El primer error fue intentar defender públicamente a su pareja. Es un ciudadano anónimo, lo ha personalizado como si el problema fuera suyo, y no lo es. Ahí es donde ha errado", lamenta un dirigente regional.

Tras el estallido de la polémica hace casi dos semanas, la presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid exculpó públicamente a su pareja y afirmó incluso que era la Agencia Tributaria la que tenía una deuda de más de 600.000 euros con él, y no a la inversa. Solo un día después, trascendió que González Amador había reconocido el fraude ante Hacienda en busca de un pacto con la Fiscalía. Este viernes, el Juzgado de Instrucción Número 19 de Madrid ha imputado al empresario por dos delitos de fraude fiscal y otro de falsedad documental.

En el PP inciden en la tesis de que la izquierda ha activado ya no un "ventilador", sino "la hélice de un transatlántico" para intentar desviar la intención de sus casos de "corrupción" por la trama Koldo y sus ramificaciones en Air Europa. Insisten en la "inocencia" de la presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid, que "en absoluto tiene que dimitir" por los "problemas fiscales" de su novio.

No obstante, las voces consultadas creen que la evolución del caso y el altavoz que se le ha dado al asunto en la Puerta del Sol no solo puede afectar a Ayuso, sino que también trastoca la estrategia de Feijóo contra Sánchez. "En vez de hablar de amnistía o de Koldo, ahora solo hablamos de Ayuso y de Miguel Ángel Rodríguez", lamenta otro barón.

En realidad, lo que más ha incomodado en el partido han sido las "equivocaciones" del jefe de gabinete de Isabel Díaz Ayuso. "Se le fue de las manos", opina una fuente de peso en Génova. El foco se puso en Miguel Ángel Rodríguez tras las amenazas difundidas por elDiario.es contra una periodista del medio por publicar las investigaciones que afectan a la pareja de la presidenta madrileña. "Os vamos a triturar, vais a tener que cerrar", escribió el asesor. Ayuso le defendió públicamente. "A ver si ahora no nos podemos enfadar con gente de confianza", minimizó. También Feijóo lo circunscribió a "conversaciones privadas".

Pero la polémica no quedó ahí. Pocos días después, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez difundió por WhatsApp un mensaje en el que señalaba con nombre y apellidos a dos redactores de El País por acudir al domicilio de la presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid, a los que acusaba de "acosar a vecinos" y "niñas menores de edad". Y añadía que "empleados encapuchados" de elDiario.es habían intentado acceder al domicilio de Ayuso. Las principales asociaciones de prensa, como Reporteros Sin Fronteras o la FAPE, condenaron el ataque y defendieron a los profesionales de la información.

"Si actúas de esa manera solo demuestra que has perdido el control de la situación", explican desde otra delegación territorial, una tesis en la que coinciden desde otros estratos de la formación popular, donde lamentan que "las formas" del jefe de gabinete de Ayuso "le ha perjudicado" más que ayudado. Otro líder autonómico admite que si esta polémica le hubiese ocurrido a cualquier otro asesor político, "no hubiese salido vivo". "[Miguel Ángel Rodríguez] no es un jefe de prensa como cualquier otro. Es el jefe de prensa por antonomasia de España", ironiza.

El PP de Madrid evitó este viernes, gracias a su mayoría absoluta en la Asamblea de Madrid, que el asesor de Ayuso tuviese que comparecer en el parlamento autonómico para dar cuenta del señalamiento a periodistas. Los populares evadieron la batería de solicitudes de comparecencia solicitadas por la izquierda al entender que Rodríguez no tiene funciones ejecutivas dentro del gobierno madrileño, sino únicamente de asesoramiento a la presidenta regional.

A la pregunta de si la polémica pasará factura a la baronesa popular hay división de opiniones. Algunos reiteran que "su figura política está por encima de cualquier crisis" porque "es la única de todos nosotros cuya popularidad va más allá de un liderazgo político", sostiene un dirigente popular. "Ha conseguido que su victimismo tape todo lo demás", considera otra fuente. Pero hay quien prefiere ser más cauto. "Si no comete más errores saldrá de la crisis, pero es mejor que rebaje el tono y agache un poco las orejas", opina un homólogo autonómico. Porque, advierte, "nadie es invencible".

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/fed-s-bostic-now-anticipates-just-one-rate-cut-this-year

Fed’s Bostic Now Anticipates Just One Rate Cut This Year

*Atlanta Fed chief now sees one, not two rate cuts for 2024
*Said it’s a ‘close call,’ less confident about inflation path

[Derby]

https://www.eastisread.com/p/zhang-jun-advocates-for-household

Zhang Jun advocates for household income focus, discourages infrastructure over-investment

Dean of Economics Dept., Fudan urges boost in real household incomes, debt swaps between local and central governments, faster nominal wage growth, and greater market liberalization.

(...)Observing struggling small businesses and the vast population base behind them, Prof. Zhang recommends that from 2024, the Chinese government implement a comprehensive strategy to increase real household incomes, directing fiscal spending toward families, particularly those from the middle and low-income groups. Specifically, Zhang proposes a significant increase in transfer payments to families and suggests a potential doubling or even quadrupling of basic pensions for the elderly in over 60 million rural households.

Diverging from the traditional policy priority on infrastructure investment to boost employment and income, Prof. Zhang proposes that the government curtail non-essential spending in this sector. He argues against extensive infrastructure projects in 2024 and beyond, describing them as "neither necessary nor practical."

Additionally, Zhang urges debt swaps between local and central governments, faster nominal wage growth, and greater market liberalization to correct price index distortions and promote a healthier, more dynamic economic environment.(...)

[Derby]

Todo un evento de calidad...El Moussa es una estrella televisiva en USA de la reforma inmobiliaria. Y está perdiendo dinero.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-home-flipping-malaise-pinches-reality-tv-stars-contractors-2024-03-23/

US home flipping malaise pinches reality TV stars to contractors


HGTV's Flipping 101, host Tarek El Moussa and his wife Heather Rae El Moussa weigh design options, in Cheviot Hills, California, U.S., November 11, 2022. HGTV/Handout via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights

NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) - While the increase in interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve over the last two years put a damper on the overall U.S. housing market, it took a sledge hammer to home flippers from small contractors to reality TV stars.

Just ask Tarek El Moussa, star of HGTV’s "The Flipping El Moussas" and former co-host of the real estate and renovation focused channel's mainstay, "Flip or Flop."

“How do I account for [interest rates]? I got my ass kicked last year. I lost a lot of money. And that's just the reality of the business,” said El Moussa.

Indeed, house flipping - or investing in, and often renovating, a single-family home with the intent to sell for a profit - has fallen from heights seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of Americans acting as investors in the housing market dived 38.85% between 2021 and 2023’s fourth quarter, according to property data provider ATTOM Data Solutions. Through the fourth quarter of 2023, the share of homes purchased by investors fell 11% on a year-over-year basis, a report from real estate and mortgage firm Redfin said.

Even so, housing investors spent $32.3 billion on homes in the U.S. in 2023, compared with $33.6 billion a year earlier, and flippers bought 26% of the lowest-priced homes during 2023's fourth quarter, Redfin said.

FRENETIC MARKET

HGTV's El Moussa bought 91 homes in 2021 - garnering him a $600,000 average monthly mortgage payment. Then mortgage rates surged, home sales in southern California plunged, and he found himself with inventory he could not offload.

Home flipping does best in a frenetic “buyer’s market,” with prices rising amid increased transactions, said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s senior economist. After the Fed began hiking rates in March 2022 to lower inflation, buyers and sellers held off, creating gridlock in the housing market.

Rates eventually reached a two-decade high near 8% in October, and the resulting market has presented investors with the same issue home-buyers face – limited inventory and lukewarm demand.

Rates have eased somewhat: Freddie Mac said on Thursday the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.87%. Still, the current scene is a striking departure from the onset of the pandemic when sub-4% mortgage rates and heightened demand could promise a juicy profit.

LOWER MARGINS, LABOR TROUBLES

For Elisa Covington, an investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, a return on investment during 2021 often swung between 60% and 70%, she said, occasionally hitting 100%.

"In 2021 and early 2022, my projects were getting much higher returns," Covington said. "But this year the profit margin for most of my projects have been in line with my expectations" of 30% to 40%.

Lack of homebuyer demand would make it easier on investors looking for single family homes, but reduced inventory has largely outweighed that, cutting into acquisition trends.

Julio Martinez, co-owner and broker at JATS Properties in Los Angeles, said "2023 was kind of weird." He acquired just six homes last year and even that was due to several of the properties being in foreclosure. If not for that, "we probably would’ve only done one or two."

Some construction companies say cooling home investment has cut into new business activity. Ghulam Mustafa, owner of New-York based Sahara Builders, said the decline in his firm's full-gut renovation projects since the pandemic has caused a 40% decline in profit since 2021 through the end of 2023.

Last year “was much slower than the pandemic,” Mustafa said.

For contractors who don't build new homes, steady project supply in the absence of gut-renovations is replaced by smaller-ticket refurbishing projects for existing home-owners, RedFin's Zhao said.
For house flippers, meanwhile, lower profits have reduced the labor they can hire for renovations, which can decelerate sales.

JATS Properties' Martinez had to let go of a full-time handyman, he said. In addition to property flipping, his family-owned company operates as brokers and property managers, so that labor loss meant less attention to home-flip projects.

"We had to slow [workers] down on our projects, and lend them out to our clients," said Martinez.

"Typically we take first priority because they're our employees. But when we don't have the funds to cover our own projects, we have them work on our clients' homes. It's taking the burden of expense of those employees off our backs."

FADING STARS

Amid the slow turnover, flippers are diversifying their activities.

Martinez, who saw transaction volume in 2023 fall by half from 2021, began making property-secured loans to aspiring investors. And El Moussa, who needed to gird for losses he knew were coming from unsold flipper projects, shifted to buying home purchase contracts wholesale and selling to investors, deals that typically net smaller margins but are less risky than traditional flipping.

"In order to get prepared for those losses that were coming, I stopped buying houses to flip and I only focused on wholesaling," he said.

The story has changed for the house flipper reality TV landscape as well.

HGTV ad revenue slid from a four-year high of $42.7 million in 2021 to $32.6 million in 2023, according to data from iSpot.TV, a television ad measurement company, though it continues to hold dominant share in its market segment.

Shows like The El Moussas have increasingly incorporated discussions on rates, slow turnover, and price acceleration in Southern California to keep viewers engaged, said Loren Ruch, head of home content at HGTV. Show development focus has turned to standalone secondary homes, for example a guest house, and multi-generational living.

"People might not be spending huge amounts of money on design or renovation projects, so we're also looking into a variety of shows that are more approachable price points that are maybe based on not doing as much demolition, but actually focusing on the space and the configuration," said Ruch.

[Derby]

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2024/03/a-trump-bankruptcy.html

A Trump Bankruptcy?

(...)This is what I think is the most likely move for Trump:  try to delay things in the state court system(s) as long as possible and only actually pull the trigger on a bankruptcy filing once the NY Attorney General actually manages to levy on a property. Trump might be able to get a couple months of delay from the state court system and then he'd only need around 4 months or so out of the bankruptcy system. That's a completely achievable goal. 

Even if the NY Attorney General proceeds with collection on the judgment Trump would still be allowed to continue with the appeal of the judgment, and if he were successful in overturning or reducing the judgment, the NY Attorney General would have to make restitution to him. (I'm not sure what happens with appreciation/depreciation or interest.) So, Trump would still get to appeal, but the NY Attorney General might force the sale of some of his marquee properties.(...)

Bottom Line

If Trump decides that he’d like to try to run the clock, then bankruptcy is likely going to be the best way to do so.  It’s not costless to him, but it’s quite possible, although hardly guaranteed, that he can run the clock several months, long enough to get to the point that the looming election or an electorate victory changes the dynamics of the litigation.  Will he do it? I have no idea, but if he does it’s going to be a very interesting time in the bankruptcy world.

[sudden and sharp]

 



--------------
Aquí hay "otros"...
https://humorcillet.com/2024/03/17/cine-de-barrio-especial-diaz-ayuso/

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/f690097e-7b91-4b02-a61f-bd75cc588c8b

US senators reach deal on $1.2tn spending bill to avert government shutdown

Passing of the bill sparks backlash from Donald Trump’s supporters

US senators passed a $1.2tn spending bill in the early hours of Saturday morning to avert a partial government shutdown, capping a budgetary stand-off that threatened to close non-essential operations of some federal agencies.

The bill’s progress in the upper chamber of Congress, which is controlled by Democrats, followed a tumultuous passage of the legislation in the House of Representatives, which is led by Republicans, on Friday.

The agreement was welcomed by President Joe Biden, who signed the bill on Saturday.(...)

[Derby]

https://twitter.com/Barchart/status/1771537382489166064

[Mad Men]

Imagínese que llama al sr Lobo para resolver el problema 😂.




 



--------------
Aquí hay "otros"...
https://humorcillet.com/2024/03/17/cine-de-barrio-especial-diaz-ayuso/

[Derby]

https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20240324/9581015/psc-junts-elecciones-erc-encuesta-sondeo-ipsos-lavanguardia.html

El PSC ganaría las elecciones catalanas a Junts y ERC, que libran una apretada pugna

El independentismo perdería la mayoría absoluta y el PP pasaría de 3 a 15 escaños