Category: zerohedge

Amazon said it had received more than 3,000 requests for smart speaker user data from police earlier this year, according to a new article from Wired. Even more stunning, Amazon complied with the police’s requests on more than 2,000 occasions, forking over recordings and data that give law enforcement an ear into someone’s household. 

This number marks a 72% increase in these types of requests from the same period in 2016 – the first time Amazon disclosed the data. The number of requests are up 24% year over year. 

Douglas Orr, head of the criminal justice department at the University of North Georgia, told Wired that police look for this smart home data “as routinely as data from smartphones”. Police can continue to collect data if one electronic device (like a phone) leads them to another (like a smart home speaker) simply by amending search warrants, he said. 

Google’s Nest unit has also seen a similar spike in police demands for data from its smart speakers. The company’s annual transparency report shows consistently rising numbers for police requests for data.

Meanwhile, Amazon said that “any number of entities” can request the data, but that they prioritize it based on urgency. Lee Whitfield, a forensic analyst, said: “Things like Homeland Security, they’re going to take high priority. Other law enforcement requests will come in under that. And then things like divorce cases or civil cases, they have a lower ranking.”

Officials value the data on smart speakers because it “can offer a timeline of a person’s activities, their location, if they’re alone, and can verify statements made during questioning.”

Orr said: “Usually the alibi you get is, ‘I was at home.’ Nobody can confirm that. So you ask, ‘Do you have a speaker?’”

He has looked at the types of data that police can get from smart speakers – like the Amazon Echo you may have at your house right now. Voice clips are “only the beginning,” he said. Police can also ascertain time-stamped logs of user activity.

Police are also relying on wearables and smart devides to verify claims people make during an investigation, Orr says. Wired offers this example:

Heather Mahalik, a forensics instructor, recalls a Florida case in which a man killed his wife, then tried to impersonate her. The husband sent texts and Facebook messages from his wife’s phone in an attempt to blur the timeline of her disappearance.

While the woman’s phone activity continued, her Apple Watch showed a sudden drop in heart rate activity that the husband claimed was due to a dead battery. Activity on the man’s phone synced perfectly with when he used the wife’s phone to post to Facebook.

Her phone showed no activity except for when the husband picked it up to post, with timestamps matching his activity to the use of the wife’s phone.

“We were able to tell from his device that he would pick up the phone, take 18 steps, and it corresponded with the time he posted a Facebook post,” Mahalik said.

This connecting of data from multiple devices is now becoming “common practice”, Whitfield said. 

“I just don’t see this going away. I think this is going to be more and more prolific as time goes on,” he concluded.

Authored by Ethan Young via The American Institute for Economic Research,

I’m sure we all remember that fateful month of March. One after another states began to issue lockdown orders, closing businesses, restricting travel, and ordering people to stay home.

That was the month when the United States went from viewing COVID-19 as a minimal threat to issuing some of the most draconian lockdown measures in the entire world. 

Life changed almost immediately. The stock market plummets, the unemployment rate skyrockets, the masks get tighter, the social fabric frays. The government goes on an unprecedented power grab exerting more control over society more viciously and more arbitrarily than ever before.

That’s what many Americans may recall when we think back to late March and early April. What many of us probably don’t recall is what Dr. Anthony Fauci recommended around that same time. During the first week of April, Dr. Fauci made it clear that he believed that every state should issue a stay at home order. 

The Hill reported on April 2nd that in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper regarding stay at home orders he stated

“I don’t understand why that’s not happening. If you look at what’s going on in this country, I just don’t understand why we’re not doing that. We really should be.”

This sentiment was stated a bit more clearly when

“Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Wednesday that the White House coronavirus guidelines should be interpreted as a national stay-at-home order.”

Dr. Fauci and those aligned with him endorsed the use of stay at home orders in all 50 states. Such policies generally aim to 

“Restrict people from leaving their homes for anything other than essential activities. They’re intended to limit people’s contact with each other in order to slow the spread of the disease.”

According to Dr. Fauci all states should have issued a stay at home order. Today there are seven states that have yet to enact such a policy. 

Counterfactuals to Dr. Fauci’s Stay At Home Order 

To assess Fauci’s claims that stay at home orders, in particular, are a model policy that every state should have adopted, we can look to Utah, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, and Arkansas. These are the only seven states to never issue stay at home orders and the results are telling, but not necessarily in Dr. Fauci’s favor.

Here is an excellent and comprehensive source on US restrictions and the timeline. 

Death rates from coronavirus (COVID-19) in the United States as of August 19, 2020, by state (per 100,000 people) Source: Statista

One of the first things that jump out is that all seven of these states are amongst the top performers in terms of minimizing deaths per capita. In fact, the most draconian states such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Michigan, where the governor even banned the selling of seeds, are the worst performing states. Whereas states like Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, and North Dakota, which did not lock down are amongst the best overall in terms of deaths per capita. 

Source: Oxford Covid-19 Response Tracker

Although these graphs are an imperfect and imprecise representation of the specific circumstances and policies enacted in each state, it is still clear that harsh or forceful government action seems to have no correlation with containing COVID-19 deaths. In many cases, highly disruptive and overly involved governments can worsen the pandemic. For example, in states like New York, over 4,500 COVID-19 patients were forced into nursing homes in an ill-planned attempt to alleviate hospital capacity. 

Such a policy was implemented in other pro-lockdown states such as California and Michigan, killing thousands of nursing home residents. Closing down the economy and confining residents to their homes is also incredibly detrimental to mental health leading to increased rates of domestic violence and suicide. 

Alongside having a poor correlation with any sort of desirable health outcomes, states that avoided stay at home orders also fared far better economically than those that embraced them. Provided below are unemployment numbers from July 2019 and July 2020 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Despite COVID-19’s role in the decline of the fossil fuel industry which is a key component in states like North Dakota and Wyoming that didn’t issue stay at home orders, they still managed to maintain better employment rates than many states that did lock down. 

The rest of the states that didn’t issue stay at home orders (Utah, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Arkansas) fared just as well if not better than other states. In particular, Utah and Nebraska did extraordinarily well maintaining a 4.5% and 4.8% unemployment rate, respectively while keeping death rates low.

 In contrast, pro-lockdown states like New York, California, and Massachusetts saw catastrophic unemployment numbers, 15.9%, 13.3%, and 16.1% respectively, alongside high COVID-19 death rates.

Perhaps the most disheartening cases are states like Maine, which issued stay at home orders and overall maintained a high amount of government involvement. The state saw very little cases and deaths much like its neighbors Vermont and New Hampshire. 

All three of these states maintained relatively strict lockdowns even as cases as well as deaths remained low. Instead of being able to live out the pandemic in relative peace, the lockdown policies brought about economic devastation as seen by the 9.9%, 8.3%, 8.1% unemployment rates, respectively. The Maine Policy Institute released a report detailing the unnecessary damage such policies brought on the state in their report.

South Dakota: A Closer Look at an Outbreak That Never Happened

Source: Worldometer

Much like Sweden, South Dakota has maintained a famously lax response to COVID-19, relying more so on the responsibility of its citizens as well as implementing lighthanded policies. Much like Sweden it has also attracted a number of skeptics and doomsday prophets who continue to predict an unprecedented wave of death that never seems to arrive.

One writer from Forbes points out skepticism about South Dakota’s response when she writes

“South Dakota, one of five remaining states yet to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, now has one of the largest coronavirus outbreaks in the United States—with 300-plus cases at the world’s biggest pork processor, Smithfield Foods, raising concern about coronavirus spreading through processed meat and how South Dakota’s meager rural healthcare facilities will fare with the disease.” 

While states with stay-at-home orders begin to discuss economic reopening and flattening of the new coronavirus case curve, South Dakota’s Department of Health says, “The climb is just starting,” with a case peak predicted to occur from May to mid-June, according to Brookings Register.”

Despite the outbreak at the meatpacking plants, which much like nursing homes and prisons are hotspots for COVID-19, the state ended up doing incredibly well as we can see today. The Forbes article was written in mid-April and today South Dakota still maintains some of the lowest death rates despite the meatpacking plant cases and its rural healthcare facilities.

AIER Senior Fellow Robert Wright talks about his experience living in South Dakota during the height of the lockdowns back in March and April when he says:

“What was imposed was no restaurant sit down service for like March and April but we all just ordered delivered or pickup. The biggest loss was no more buffets. Signs and screens went up quickly and most people seemed to follow them. There was no sense of panic, even after the news hit about the meatpacking plant fiasco. The governor was very assuring and the state was very transparent about numbers and there was no sign of padding or downplaying.”

Policies such as ensuring proper and transparent information as well as moving forward in a calm and methodical way is part of a proven pandemic response. Inciting fear and confusion by drastically shutting down society is a recipe for panic as well as disaster. 

The Case of Utah: A Spike in Cases But Minimal Disruption 

Utah is a state that much like South Dakota, did not issue stay at home orders and despite a spike in COVID-19 cases managed to keep its death rate one of the lowest in the nation. Utah also did a stellar job at protecting its economy with an unemployment rate at only 4.5%. Pro-lockdown states like Maine also maintained low case numbers and death rates but suffered from a more than double the unemployment rate at 9.9%. States like Connecticut also employed a harsh lockdown but got slammed with high death rates as well as a catastrophic drop in employment. 

Source: Worldometer

Last month Utah was on a list of “Redzone” states that showed a concerning rise in COVID-19 cases. The list was composed of a variety of states from freer states like Utah to lockdown states like California which further discredits the idea that strong-armed policies have any relationship to mitigating COVID-19 cases and death. 

However, a striking difference is most apparent when compared to a state like Connecticut, which had a similar number of cases but harsh lockdown policies. The numbers are provided above with both states having around 50,000 cases but very different death rates. Utah, which did not embrace stay at home orders and kept its response relatively light-handed, emerges with a far better death rate and economy by an order of magnitude. 

The Utah Governor’s Office said the following,

“Utah has the lowest COVID-19 case fatality rate and has the second-lowest unemployment rate in the nation — dropping from 8.6% in May to 5.1% in June,” the response from the budget office states. “Our goal throughout the entire COVID-19 response has been a balanced approach between protecting lives and livelihoods, and it will continue to be so. A strong economy and a healthy public are inextricably linked. Those hit hardest by the economic fallout of the pandemic are also those hit hardest by this public health crisis.”

Utah shows that spikes in COVID-19 cases are unpredictable. It affects states regardless of their lockdown policies. Stay at home orders seem to have no effect in stopping the virus either. The evidence seems to suggest that the virus is unpredictable in its spread but what states can do is make sure that society emerges as healthy as possible both physically, socially, and economically. 

Summing Up Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming

Source: Worldometer 

The five other states that did not issue stay at home orders also did far better than the rest of the country, especially the states with the harshest lockdowns. Iowa in this case performed the worst but even then its per capita death rate still sits in the middle of overall state death rates between Minnesota and Colorado. 

Despite the unanimous request from the Iowa Board of Medicine to issue a stay at home order, Governor Reynolds of Iowa refused to do so and in the end her state outperformed most of the country. Although Reynolds did enact a series of restrictive and potentially unnecessary regulations, she refrained from going as far as to issue a stay at home order because 

“Reynolds also estimated about 80 percent of Iowa’s workforce would be considered essential under any mandatory order because of sectors in the state such as food production, manufacturing, finance and insurance.

“That’s some of the issues that you have to deal with when you’re making this decision,” she said.

Reynolds also said the negative effects of such an order would affect mental well-being and she indicated it could increase domestic violence: “We know that this has a significant impact on Iowans.”

Although the governor of Iowa was more than willing to issue a number of highly restrictive policies, she stopped short of a stay at home order as she felt that among all the policies, that would be the most extreme.

North Dakota remained relatively open much like its neighbor South Dakota. Both states did exceptionally well compared to the rest of the country, despite factors such as poorly equipped rural areas as well as the presence of Native American tribes which are viewed to be more vulnerable to pandemics. In particular North Dakota’s government stated in a report that 

“The vast majority of North Dakota’s economy remained open through this crisis. Our success hinged on a low-mandate, high-compliance approach, and North Dakotans have done their part.”

The state, much like all those that did not issue stay at home orders, will be emerging comparatively unscathed by either the virus or economic disruption.

The Verdict  

An optimal response to COVID-19 would be one that balances public health and the economy. Minimizing death while keeping the economy alive which at the end of the day affects people’s overall well-being. Stay at home orders are the most extreme of all policies, completely blind to the economic as well as social tradeoffs and only focused on a theoretical application of public health. There are seven states to serve as counterfactuals to Dr. Fauci’s suggestion that there should be a nationwide implementation of stay at home orders. 

All seven states outperformed the majority of the country in both minimizing death as well as protecting their economies. Some of these states even experienced spikes in cases and still managed the disease far better than states with similar caseloads that issued a stay at home order. 

There is no definitive evidence to suggest that stay at home orders are effective at addressing COVID-19. Furthermore, the United States experiment with the policy has yielded results that are not favorable to Dr. Fauci’s suggestion regarding the nationwide implementation of stay at home orders.

As the Trump Administration works to keep the flow of aggressive China-related headlines flowing across social media, Politico reported on Tuesday that the administration is weighing the possibility of labeling Beijing’s treatment of Muslim minority Uighurs a “genocide”.

Of course, for this label to have any real power or affect, it would have to be backed by the UN Security Council. And seeing as China has a permanent seat and veto power, the odds of this ever flying at the UN are virtual impossible.

Yet, the story – which will almost certainly elicit a rebuke from Beijing, and/or in the state-controlled press – also traces other more likely alternatives which highlight the fact that the Trump Administration is taking the issue of the Uighurs human rights’ violations at the hands of an unaccountable regime extremely seriously.

The contrast is clear: Trump is fighting to preserve America’s status as a bastion of liberty in the eyes of the world, while white educated college students work with criminals and other misguided ‘radicals’ to undermine order and confidence in the US, arguing that Trump’s election was such an “affront to Democracy”, that nothing he says or does makes any difference.

Here’s Politico:

The United States is weighing formally labeling China’s brutal repression of ethnic Muslim minority Uighurs a “genocide,” two Trump administration officials said.

Activists and lawmakers have been pushing for the genocide designation in recent months, but mere consideration of the possibility by the U.S. government could further damage badly frayed ties between Beijing and Washington. It also comes in the heat of the 2020 presidential campaign, in which the two sides have jousted over which candidate would be tougher on China. A spokesperson for Joe Biden noted that the former vice president supports the label — a factor that could influence President Donald Trump’s calculations.

The discussion, which reportedly involves several executive branch departments along with the NSC and White House, is still reportedly in its “early stages”.

The internal administration discussions are still at the early stages, involving working level officials at the State Department, the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security, according to the administration officials who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity. If there’s not enough consensus to use the term genocide, the administration could instead accuse the Chinese leadership of other atrocities, such as “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing.”

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien has accused China’s communist leaders of running “concentration camps” for Uighurs in Xinjiang, a northwestern province home to millions of Uighurs. A member of a United Nations human rights panel said in 2018 that China had “turned the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp,” where people are held without charge and little recourse to get legal representation to be released. More than a million Uighurs are believed to be held in such facilities.

Uighur rights groups have accused the Chinese government of torturing many Uighurs, forcing Uighur women to get abortions and be sterilized, feeding some detainees poorly and trying to wipe away their distinct ethnic culture, including forcing many to denounce Islam and chant Communist Party slogans. Beijing also uses extensive surveillance technology to track Uighurs.

Genocide declarations are rare, legally tricky and highly politically sensitive. U.S. officials have at times tried to avoid such declarations in the past, not least because, in theory, international law would compel some sort of American intervention — though not necessarily the military kind.

Given that Politico isn’t a frequent venue for insider scoops from the administration, it’s possible that whoever leaked this story might have an axe to grind against Sec of State Mike Pompeo. Perhaps it’s a crusading bureaucrat frustrated with the secretary’s realpolitik approach.

NSC spokesman John Ullyot also didn’t address the genocide discussion but did say in a statement: “The Chinese Communist Party’s atrocities also include the largest incarceration of an ethnic minority since World War II. Where the previous administration and many other world leaders delivered speeches and empty rhetoric, President Trump has taken bold action.” A DHS spokesman declined to comment.

The term “ethnic cleansing” isn’t found in international law, so it’s effectively meaningless. But the US has used it to denounce ethnic violence in the past. For example, the Trump White House has already used it to denounce the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar by the government run by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Apparently, Sec of State Mike Pompeo has pushed back on labeling the persecution of Rohingya a genocide for fear that it would drive Myanmar closer to Beijing.

But even Politico has a hard time reconciling Trump’s unwavering support for Uighers, a Muslim minority group in a region that is no stranger to terror, with the allegations of “Islamophobia” frequently lobbed at Trump and his administration.

Unsurprisingly, we haven’t seen this story picked up by CNN, or any other mainstream media orgs.

Via InternationalMan.com,

International Man: I’d like to introduce Chris MacIntosh.

After working for many top-tier investment banks, Chris left the corporate world. He has since built and sold multiple million-dollar businesses, built a VC firm allocating $35m into early-stage ventures, and become a full-time trader.

He now manages money for clients of Glenorchy Capital; a macro focused hedge fund. Chris is the founder of Capitalist Exploits, with its flagship investment subscription letter called Insider.

Alright, let’s get into our discussion.

As countries destroy their national currencies, middle- and lower-class individuals will be disproportionately affected.

Are we seeing global destruction of private savings? What are the implications?

Chris MacIntosh: There’s a lot to unpack there.

What we’re seeing is the wholesale destruction of the middle class, certainly in Western democracies.

I think it’s by design.

We’re also seeing a wave of neo-Marxism taking place across the Western world, and they see it as an opportunity.

For anybody who wants an in-depth look at it, I suggest going to the World Economic Forum and looking at what they call The Great Reset.

They see this as an opportunity to rebuild the world in a Communist form.

The destruction of the middle class allows governments to enact all sorts of dangerous policies because the middle class is really what rises up.

When you have a middle class, people fight for that—if they have capital and resources to present some resistance.

If you take that capital away from them, they have less resistance. Certainly, if you take it away from them and then replace it with something like a Universal Basic Income (UBI), people essentially just become serfs of the government. And that’s what they’re doing.

Now, when you look around the world, that’s not what is currently happening in many emerging markets. I wouldn’t call much of Asia an emerging market anymore.

You have non-socialist structures or countries, and the way they deal with this crisis will tell what happens there over the next 10–20 years.

Western countries are dealing with this crisis by increasing debts, increasing social spending—and hence, ensuring the destruction of their currencies and their bond markets—and impoverishing the citizenry along the way.

However, in other countries, and I could pinpoint many—mainly in Asia, Eastern Europe, and even Russia—they’re not handling this in the same fashion.

Many of these countries don’t have social spending programs to the extent that the West does. Hence, there isn’t a belief by the citizenry that the government can or should look after them.

They’re not destroying their balance sheets or creating serfs.

What I think will happen, as the crisis fades with respect to the coronavirus, is many countries will be in poor shape in emerging markets. However, they are laying the groundwork to build and rise up from it because they’re not crushing themselves with social spending plans.

They’re also not crushing people by dis-incentivizing to get up and work. That’s exactly what the UBI does.

On a relative basis, these places are freer—they’re freer in terms of market economics—they’re freer in terms of human capital.

We’re going to see a shift of human capital, as well as capital, from the West to the East.

That’s how I see the national currencies and how middle- and lower-class individuals are affected in this process. I think, quite frankly, that everybody suffers.

The question is, who comes out of it in a stronger fashion?

And what is more conducive to capital formation on a go-forward basis? It’s absolutely clear to me that it’s not the West. It is largely in the East. That’s the longer-term trend.

For the chaos in-between, I think it’s pretty simple—you want to own tangible stuff.

International Man: Aside from the economic trends unfolding—and accelerating—as a response to Covid-19, a cultural, political, and social shift is also underway.

How are these trends connected, and what does it mean in the months and years ahead?

Chris MacIntosh: It’s all accelerating now.

Five years ago, I couldn’t have written a book to explain what’s happening today. And had any logical person read it, they would have said, “Oh, sure. That’s going to happen.”

They would have said, “Well, that’s a bloody great piece of fiction, Chris. Good job.”

And yet, here we are. Again, these trends are in an exponential blow-off top phase.

What does it mean for the months and years ahead?

I think it’s the most dangerous period of time that we’ve ever seen, not just for your capital but also for individual freedom.

That is troubling.

In terms of what it means for capital, we’re going to have extraordinary shortages.

Right now, people are very focused on a deflationary impact because they’re saying, “Well, nobody’s working. Businesses are going bust. There’s this credit contraction.”

That’s being met with a lot of fiscal and monetary stimulus. I don’t discount the fact that people losing their jobs has a disinflationary impact. What is being missed is the extraordinary shutting down of supply.

If you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—it’s food, shelter, energy.

If you look at those components over the last two decades—on a relative basis—against all other sectors, they are the cheapest that they’ve ever been.

Take agriculture, for example.

Agriculture is the cheapest it’s been in about 70 years. Yet we have absolute destruction in supply.

We have governments literally deciding who is essential and who is not essential within the food supply chain. This is not any different from what the Bolsheviks tried. We all know what that resulted in. People can look up the genocide in Ukraine, which was a massive famine caused by the government.

We’re at the cusp of seeing the same sort of thing. Already, the US just had the highest rise in food prices in 50 years. And people are still not paying attention to it. This is going to become a massive problem.

*  *  *

Tens of millions of people have lost their jobs in the US alone, and small to medium-sized businesses have been destroyed. It’s clear that we’re seeing the destruction of the middle class. We’re also seeing a wave of neo-Marxism, which is sure to transform the Western world’s political and cultural nature. The risks that lie ahead are too big and dangerous to ignore. That’s why Chris just released the most critical report on these trends, What Happens Next. This free special report explains precisely what’s coming down the pike and what it means for your wealth and well-being. Click here to access it now.

Palantir, the mysterious data analytics companies that has become one of the most valuable Silicon Valley unicorns despite being for all intents and purposes, a black box, has just given investors the first look inside the kimono.

Pardon our mixing of metaphors – but it really is difficult to understate how eager some investors have been to see these financials. As it turns out, the company, which is also known for receiving some of its early funding from a CIA-backed VC firm, lost $580 million last year.

Looks like they’re going to need to spy on more people.

Palantir was expected to go public this year, one of a handful of Silicon Valley stalwarts, including Airbnb, that missed out on last year’s string of hot IPOs (some of which – Zoom, Peloton – have done quite well in recent months).

The financials leaked over the weekend, but this is the first confirmed look from the company to investors.

For those of our readers who aren’t irredeemable fantasy nerds, Palantir was named after a magical orb from one of “The Lord of the Rings” books. It was co-founded by Peter Thiel in 2004, after he had already succeeded with PayPal and just after he made his career-cementing investment in Facebook.

Here’s what we know so far about the financials so far:

• The company lost $588 million ($580 million on a pro-forma basis) in 2019, according to its S-1 filing. Revenue grew almost 25% from the year earlier while its losses stayed roughly even – no  doubt a good sign that the business is “scalable” (however horrifying that might sound to some). In the first half of 2020, Palantir lost $165 million, or $175 million on a pro-forma basis.
• Palantir has two classes of stock, Class A and Class B, and while each share of Class A stock receives the rights to one vote, each Class A share gets 10 votes. In this way, the structure is similar to Facebook’s, and is really a classic Silicon Valley strategy for retaining founder control. Palantir says it plans to introduce Class F shares as well, which will carry a variable number of votes.

 

 

Miami is seeing a massive surge in supply in its condo market as Covid continues to have profound economic effects in South Florida, according to a new report from The Real Deal. 

The market now has a glut of 30 months worth of unsold condos and 100 months worth of luxury units (units over $1 million), according to an analysis of Multiple Listing Service data by Condo Vultures Realty. The data is ex-pre-construction sales and consists of “the area between Edgewater and Brickell, east of I-95”.

The condo data is based on 711 sales that closed in the first 6 months of this year, which averages out to about 119 sales per month. As of this week, there are still 3,579 condo listings awaiting suitors in Miami. The average asking price is about $758,000 – which contrasts sharply with the average closing price of $511,000 this year. 

The luxury market is in even worse shape than the condo market: only 36 units sold in the first 6 months of the year. There are about 600 luxury condos on the market asking an average of $2.05 million. 26 sales are pending. 

Peter Zalewski, principal at Condo Vultures Realty, told The Real Deal: “This is giving me flashbacks to 12 years ago in 2007, when the Miami condo market started to go bad. Early indications are that this pandemic combined with the oversupply that already existed is going to turn this into a serious buyer’s market.”

Shadow inventory, consisting of units that individual landlords put on the market, which are typically condos, and those that institutional owners will lease out, oftentimes without using the MLS, is also on the rise, according to Zalewski. He says that individual condo landlords and institutional owners are “dropping their prices and offering deals on units”. 

There is about 6 months of supply of shadow rental units listed on the MLS, the report says. An average of 541 leases per month were signed in the first six months of the year. 3,167 remain on the market for rent. 

Zalewski says that more price cuts and deep discounts are on their way: “The day of the all cash buyer is coming, and coming quickly. Those all cash buyers are not looking to pay market value. They’re not even looking for a discount. They’re looking for a haircut.”

“There’s too much product, and people do not want to live in a 500-unit building with 700 people,” Zalewski concluded.

Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

One of the lockdown stories that’s earned a lot of coverage concerns Ian Smith and Frank Trumbetti, who own Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey.  

Because the Wuhan virus is now the status quo, rather than an emerging threat, they have pushed back against Governor Phil Murphy’s insistence that his continuing “emergency” executive powers can force them into bankruptcy.  They re-opened, and, despite observing social distancing, masks, and disinfection rules (and no cases of Wuhan viruses can be traced to their gym), Murphy has engaged in a full-on vendetta against the gym, including yanking their business license.

Help may be on the way, though.  

The gym’s owners have allied with Rik Mehta, a pharmacist who is running for the U.S. Senate. 

 If Mehta wins, he’ll bump Cory “I am Spartawuss” Booker, one of the smarmiest leftists in the Senate.  The gym’s owners and Mehta had a great idea — they’ve turned the gym into Mehta’s campaign headquarters:

The gym will serve as a campaign headquarters and rally spot for Republican US Senate candidate Rik Mehta, a pharmacist who is challenging Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), the owners said.

Gym co-owner Frank Trumbetti, asked whether the pair thought the state might try to mess with them this time around, responded, “We believe they can’t. It doesn’t mean that they’re not going to.”

“We hope it gives us a reprieve until Nov. 3,” he said of potential government interference at the gym. “Everyone who comes in here will be a volunteer for the Mehta campaign, and we’ll be here to exercise our rights.”

“And we’re not requiring masks, either,” Trumbetti added defiantly.

Bravo, guys, for standing up to the petty tyranny of yet another Democrat governor who turned his elder care facilities into slaughterhouses.  (At a certain point, you have to wonder if the Democrat governors who did this were merely stupid or if they were deliberately trying to ease the financial burden that the needs of elderly people can impose on state budgets.)

“We took a stand for our constitutional rights and for the rights of all small business owners throughout the country,” Smith told “Fox & Friends Weekend” Sunday.

“And it wasn’t intended to become political. We were trying to offer a solution to a problem where the government was failing, and it turned political. And that was because of Gov. Murphy’s actions. So now we made it political just as much as he has.”

Without knowing any of the inevitable details about in-kind donations, insurance, etc., it sounds like an excellent idea for GOP candidates to join together with those locally owned businesses that Democrat governors seem determined to destroy.  While the governors are making sure that the big stores (Walmart, Lowes, etc.) see sales soar, they’re systematically destroying restaurants, gyms, hair care establishments, mom-and-pop stores, and all sorts of other places that can’t afford big donations to Democrat politicians.

Oil prices were higher today, driven in large part by significant shut-ins across the Gulf of Mexico. WTI traded back above $43.

As Bloomberg’s Kriti Gupta details, the Gulf of Mexico is responsible for 17% of U.S. offshore oil production, 82% of which has been shut in preparation for the storm (up from 58% yesterday). So the simple explanation for rising crude is less production means less supply and higher prices.

It gets even thornier when you consider that 45% of total U.S. petroleum refining capacity also is located along the Gulf Coast.

This is unlikely to be reflected in any inventory/production data released this week.

API

• Crude -4.524mm (-4.3mm exp)

• Cushing -646k

• Gasoline -6.392mm (-2.7mm exp) – biggest draw since April 2019

• Distillates +2.259mm (-700k exp)

Analysts expected a fifth weekly crude draw in a row and a continuing trend of draws in Gasoline stocks also… API reported bigger than expected draws for Crude and Gasoline (with the latter’s biggest drop in stocks since April 2019)…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI closed at its highest for the front-month contract since early March…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil was trading around $43.35 ahead of the print, and was little changed after the data.

“Markets know that the hurricane shut-ins are usually transient, and it’s a bit too early to know whether the current ones will have a prolonged bearish effect on prices or not,” said Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil markets at Rystad Energy, in a daily note. “Refineries might need to shut-in more runs due to flooding than upstream operators shut in crude supply,” so weaker demand for crude at the refineries may help to offset price-bullish supply constraints.

House Democrats are launching an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s upcoming speech at tonight’s Republican National Convention – not over the content of the speech, but whether it’s in violation of the Hatch Act and a breach of State Department regulations, according to The Hill.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs panel’s subcommittee of oversights and investigations, raised his concerns in a letter to Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun and requested information on the secretary’s planned remarks.

Pompeo is coming under scrutiny for taking time during official diplomatic travel in the Middle East to record remarks to be played at the GOP convention on Tuesday night. –The Hill

Pompeo is believed to have recorded several remarks from Jerusalem, possibly violating his own instructions that appointed State Department officials are barred from engaging in partisan political activities related to US elections. The State Department, however, says Pompeo is acting in his personal capacity and that taxpayer resources were not used for preparing or delivering the remarks.

The State Department prohibition was laid out in two memos, one of which was issued in December, 2019 from the Office of the Legal Adviser, which states in bold and italics that “Senate confirmed Presidential appointees may not even attend a political party convention or convention-related event.”

The second memo, signed by Pompeo in July, reiterates the points.

“It’s absolutely unacceptable that a sitting U.S. Secretary of State, America’s top diplomat, would use official taxpayer-funded business to participate in a political party convention, particularly after the State Department published guidance that explicitly prohibits such activity,” Castro wrote to Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun.

“This action is part of a pattern of politicization of U.S foreign policy, for which President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, that undermines America’s standing in the world. The American people deserve a full investigation,” the letter continues.

“Probably nothing…”

Source: Bloomberg

If you felt like “this is madness,” you’re not alone…

As Sven Henrich noted earlier:

As indices, but not the market, keep crawling higher on the unprecedented market expansion in select stocks imbalances are building that suggest reversion risk is building. Whether this reversion risk sets up for a buyable dip or a change in market character remains to be seen, but the more disconnected charts get the larger the reversion risk in my view.

Call me old fashioned but I still subscribe to an apparently forgotten scientific theory known as gravity.

And be clear, the market cap expansions we’re witnessing in 2020 off of the March lows are without precedent…

While yesterday saw Nasdaq (growth) panic sold at the cash market open after an overnight pump, today’s price action was opposite-land – after overnight weakness, Nasdaq was panic bid at the open and never looked back…

Yesterday’s momo-value reversal eased a little today (value sold, momo bid)…

Source: Bloomberg

AAPL dared to trade lower on the day unable to get back above $500 after its split date…

And if you wondered just how insane things have got – there’s this – AAPL’s put-call skew has never been lower (more skewed to levered longs than any protection ever…)

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar looks like it is coiling up for a move (perhaps into Powell’s Thursday speech) with lower highs and higher lows today…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were higher on the day, but ended well off the early spike highs intraday reversing after Europe closed (with the long-end underperforming)…

Source: Bloomberg

10Y Yields briefly jumped above 70bps before a bid came in…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were clubbed like a baby seal today…

Source: Bloomberg

With Bitcoin back below $11,500…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil outperformed in the commodity complex today (ahead of tonight’s inventory data, amid huge shut-ins for US crude production in the Gulf. Gold was flat…

Source: Bloomberg

Real yields pushed back below -1.00% tpday, remaining decoupled from gold (as the recenthiostoric correlation regime is weakening)…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, shit’s not cheap!!!

Source: Bloomberg