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A new survey conducted by ApartmentList.com recently found that Americans, despite historically low unemployment levels and surging stock indices which would both seem to suggest that ‘everything is awesome’, are having a very difficult time making ends meet.  Per the survey, some 20% of renters admit they were unable to make their monthly payments on time at least once over the preceding three months with the results being even worse among minorities and those lacking a college degree.

• Analyzing data from Apartment List users, we find that nearly one in five renters were unable to pay their rent in full for at least one of the past three months. We estimate that 3.7 million American renters have experienced an eviction.

• Evictions disproportionately impact the most vulnerable members of our society. Renters without a college education are more than twice as likely to face eviction as those with a four-year degree.

• Additionally, we find that black households face the highest rates of eviction, even when controlling for education and income. Perhaps most troublingly, households with children are twice as likely to face an eviction threat, regardless of marital status.

• The impacts of eviction are severe and long-lasting. Evictions are a leading cause of homelessness, and research has tied eviction to poor health outcomes in both adults and children. These effects are persistent, and experiencing an eviction makes it difficult to get back on one’s feet.

• Performing a metro-level analysis, we find that evictions are most common in metros hit hard by the foreclosure crisis and in those experiencing high rates of poverty. Perhaps counterintuitively, expensive coastal metros have comparatively low rates of eviction, in part because strong job markets with high median wages offset expensive rents in those areas.

As ApartmentList notes, some 3.7 million Americans, of roughly 118 million total renters, have experienced an eviction at some point in their life.  Meanwhile, “rent insecurity” is even more prevalent with nearly 30% of folks making less than $30,000 per year saying they have difficultly making monthly rent payments.

3.7 million Americans have experienced eviction, with rental insecurity affecting nearly one in five.

 

Our Apartment List estimates show that 3.3 percent of renters have experienced an eviction at some point in the past, and 2.4 percent were evicted from their most recent residence. With an estimated 118 million renters in the U.S. today, we estimate that 3.7 million Americans have been affected by eviction at some point. If we assume that some share respondents fail to report informal evictions, this estimate is most likely understated.

 

While experiencing eviction is a worst-case scenario with dire effects, a much larger share of renters still struggle with some form of rental insecurity. Our analysis shows that 18 percent of respondents had difficulty paying all or part of their rent within the past three months. The issue is particularly acute for low-income renters, 27.5 percent of whom were recently unable to pay their full rent.

Renters with just a high school diploma are more than three times as likely to have faced an eviction threat in the past year than those with a Bachelor’s degree.

Of those who did not attend college, 4.1 percent cited an eviction as the reason for their last move, compared to just 1.9 percent of those with at least some college education. This trend points to a broader issue of the housing market leaving behind less educated Americans. A recent Apartment List study showed that the gap in homeownership rates between high school and college graduates widened from 1.6 percent in 1980 to 14.9 percent in 2015.

 

A similar trend holds when broken down by income. Of those earning less than $30,000 per year, 11 percent faced an eviction threat in the past year, and 3.4 percent were evicted from their previous residence. In contrast, for those earning more than $60,000 per year, these figures are 3.1 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, households with children were found to be twice as likely to face an eviction threat, regardless of marital status.

Single parent households are at the highest risk, with 30.1 percent reporting difficulty paying rent within the past three months. However, married couples with children do not fare much better, with 27.2 percent struggling to pay rent. For those without children, the rates are 14.7 percent for single respondents and 13.3 percent of married respondents. Our findings are consistent with previous research showing that, among tenants who appear in eviction court, those with children are significantly more likely to be evicted.

 

This result points to the fact the child care represents an essential but often overwhelming expense for many families, even those with both parents in the house. Analysis from Care.com shows that average daycare costs for toddlers range from $8,043 to $18,815 per year. Furthermore, one-third of families surveyed reported that childcare costs take up 20 percent or more of their household income.

Not surprisingly, evictions were found to be most prevalent in metro areas where poverty rates are the highest.  

Of the 50 largest metros in the nation, evictions are most prevalent in Memphis, with 6.1 percent of users reporting a prior eviction. Most of the metros with the highest eviction rates are located in the South and Midwest and include Atlanta, Indianapolis and Dallas. We find that the factors most strongly correlated with eviction rates include (1) the rate of foreclosures from 2007 to 2008, during the height of the foreclosure crisis, and (2) current poverty rates.

 

Memphis, for example, has the highest share of its population living in poverty at 19.4 percent, and it also has the highest eviction rate. In metros with high poverty rates, many households may qualify for assistance through programs such as Section 8, but, unfortunately, only a small share of those eligible for such benefits actually receive them, leaving the majority of low-income households struggling to pay rent.

 

Las Vegas had the second highest foreclosure rate from 2007 to 2008 at 9.2 percent and now has the sixth-highest eviction rate at 5.5 percent. This correlation suggests that many of the areas hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis have had a difficult time recovering. Despite lower housing costs, renters in these areas — some of whom are likely former owners who had their homes foreclosed upon — face a lack of opportunity that makes it difficult for them to pay their rent.

Of course, with rental rates steadily climbing since the great recession, in spite of stagnant wages, it’s hardly surprising that Yellen’s “recovery” hasn’t helped all Americans equally.

via http://ift.tt/2yPYQOF Tyler Durden

Earlier this week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping became the third ruler in the communist country’s history to have his named enshrined in its constitution – and the first to receive this honor while still alive. But as China celebrates its most popular, and most powerful, leader since at least Deng Xiaoping, Kyle Bass, hedge fund manager and noted China bear, told Bloomberg the Communist Party will one day regret standing idly by as Xi consolidated his power.

“Today Xi is celebrated in media reports, but when future historians look back, he will be blamed for recklessly building the Chinese economy on a foundation of sand,” Bass, founder of Hayman Capital Management, said in an email Wednesday.

“Xi desperately seeks credibility, but true developed economies do not impose severe capital controls or move short-term rates hundreds of basis points overnight in attempts to manipulate their own currency.”

Xi, who launched the twice-a-decade National Party Congress last week with a three-hour speech where he laid out his vision for “communism with Chinese characteristics in a new era,” the philosophy that was enshrined in the country’s constitution by a unanimous vote. In a move that seemingly confirms suspicions that Xi plans to break with precedent and seek a third term after his second ends in 22, Xi appointed five new members to the Politburo,

China’s most powerful body, all of whom are too old to be viewed as credible heirs. Typically, Chinese leaders have pointed to a successor or possible successors by the time they begin their second term, ensuring that there’s a clear path of leadership transition.

Of course, Bass and others have been highly critical of the Communist Party’s heavy handed tactics. For example, the PBOC and the Chinese ‘National Team’, which exert powerful influence over the company’s financial market, have successfully tamped down equity market trading volume and volatility in the runup to the Congress, while guiding the yuan higher against the dollar.

However, China’s closed financial system and manipulated markets aren’t the only target of Bass’s criticism. He also pointed to China’s ever-growing pile of debt. Borrowing has swelled to 260 percent of gross domestic product at the end of 2016, Bloomberg Intelligence data show. Earlier this year, the country’s soaring debt burden inspired Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings to downgrade the country’s sovereign credit rating.

In an interview earlier this month, Bass, who has called for a 30% drop in the Chinese yuan, said he expects the government to relax its grasp on the exchange rate after the National Party Congress. He said he believed once Xi consolidates power, he’ll allow natural economic forces to reassert themselves in the country’s banking system.

Since the yuan joined the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket a year ago, China has made little progress in making its currency more convertible and accessible. To wit, the yuan remains a secondary currency for settling global payments.

“China remains an emerging backwater when it comes to global currency settlements,” he said Wednesday.

As Bloomberg pointed out, Bass, who made a fortune betting against U.S. subprime mortgages, said in early 2016 that losses in Chinese banks could be four times bigger than those suffered by American lenders during the global financial crisis. He has said that crucial figures, like the share of non-performing loans, have been understated.

“Recklessly growing a banking system in pursuit of global economic growth and respect will cause severe financial instability in the years to come,” he said on Wednesday.

 

“The dangerous $40 trillion credit experiment with Chinese characteristics will run its course.”

As reported earlier this month, Bass has stuck to his pessimistic views on China (though he has moderated his view a bit, pushing back his expected timeline for signs of instability in the country’s debt market to emerge) while other noted bears reversed their positions as the next big yuan devaluation failed to materialize.

While China bears have underestimated the nation’s unique ability to control its market, the sheer pace and volume of credit creation can’t possibly be sustained forever, Bass said.
 

via http://ift.tt/2gNXBuK Tyler Durden

Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,

Empires get stupider and more corrupt as they age..

Why are US Green Berets, four of whom were recently killed, in Niger? Why does the US have at least 36 bases, outposts, and staging areas in Africa, located in 24 countries? Why does a website, TomDispatch, have to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get that information, which contradicts years of assurances from AFRICOM, the US’s African military command, that the US has only one base in Africa, in the Republic of Djibouti? Why is AFRICOM headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany? How does anything that happens in Niger, or most of the rest of Africa for that matter, affect anyone’s way of life in the US? Why do we say the dead were heroes protecting our way of life when the country where they died poses no threat?

From the AFRICOM website:

The United States and Niger have a long-standing bilateral relationship. Our militaries have been stalwart allies focused on working together to deter and to defeat terrorist threats in the West African nation and across the Sahel region.

A war on a tactic, terror, can provide the rationale for anything. Terror is ubiquitous, it can be fought anywhere. Anyone who uses or threatens to use violence in furtherance of political or economic ends can be deemed a terrorist. Any “terrorist” who yells, “Death to the United States!” can be deemed a threat to Americans. Terrorism will never be eradicated, so the war against it is perpetual. President George W. Bush even arrogated the right to wage that war preemptively, before terrorists actually struck the US or its citizens. And that’s how the US finds itself in Niger, its “long-standing” and “stalwart” ally that 999,999 out of a million Americans can’t find on an unlabeled map.

The noninterventionist counsel in George Washington’s Farewell Address and John Quincy’s “In Search of Monsters to Destroy” speech has been relegated to the historical dustbin. The latest in a long line of justifications for America making the world safe for democracy, liberty, global order, or some other good thing came from John McCain. It might have come from McCain’s hero, Theodore Roosevelt (except that Roosevelt made no attempt to hide his disdain for those he regarded as inferior races). Or it might have come from Woodrow Wilson, either of the Bushes, or John F. Kennedy.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

 

-President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

When a nation has 36 military outposts on the least developed continent and over 800 around the globe, its running an empire, not Kennedy’s altruistic crusade.

It’s an empire for which the US can no longer afford to “pay any price,” if it ever could. The proponents and many beneficiaries of America’s imperial power recoil at mundane accounting considerations. However, the US government has over $20 trillion in debt, a fair proportion of which funded its empire, and over $200 trillion in unfunded pension and medical-care promises. Its biggest adversary may one day be the credit markets.

Costs are not just reckoned in treasure and blood, but the erosion of the US and its government’s stature in the world, encouraged and hastened by the two countries the US regards as its most threatening adversaries: Russia and China. This week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson journeys to Pakistan “…with a demand that Islamabad do more to eliminate militant havens on its territory…” (Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Refocuses on Pakistan ‘Havens’,” 10/21-22/17 ) Outside of Washington most of us have to offer something to get something. Washington’s potentates demand, with an implicit or explicit “or else.” Military and intelligence capabilities that dwarf the rest of the world’s underwrites the hubris and the “or else.”

It’s ironic that the former exemplars of collectivist command economies, Russia and China, are offering the nations in their Eurasian orbit all sorts of goodies in furtherance of their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China will upgrade and expand Gwadar, Pakistan’s Indian Ocean port, and has given Pakistan $230 million to build a new international airport there. A 2,282-acre free-trade area is being established, with the China Overseas Port Holding Company holding a 43-year lease. Quite a contrast to the “demands” of the former exemplar of free trade and voluntary exchange, the US.

There are caveats concerning the BRI. It is being spearheaded by the Chinese and Russian governments. The book Successful Government Projects is thin; Government Boondoggles is a multi-volume set. China will write most of the checks, but it’s carrying a huge debt load that will one day implode. Historically the Eurasian region has been riven with conflict, and it’s not clear if those animosities can be submerged. India is leery of playing ball with long-time rival China.

Europe is the terminus for many proposed BRI infrastructure projects, giving the Europeans yet another reason to question their fealty to the US (see “Europe’s Lost Testicles,” SLL). Job-creating and wealth-building trade with the Eurasian axis, including a shot at BRI contracts, or more terrorism and unwanted immigration from getting along and going along with US interventionism in the Middle East and Africa?

The US’s ham-handed Middle Eastern forays have many nations in that region questioning their allegiance to the US and its petrodollar regime. Strategy regarding ISIS in Syria and Iraq has been particularly maladroit. The US was ostensibly fighting ISIS but actually using it as a regime change agent in Syria. With this contradictory policy the US has simultaneously managed to disappoint and anger both its allies favoring regime change via ISIS: Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies, Turkey, and Israel, and its allies fighting ISIS: Syrian rebels, the Kurds, and Iraq. Sunday Tillerson demanded that Iraq expel the Iranian militias that have so effectively fought ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Russia stood by long-time ally Syria and its leader, Bashar al-Assad, allied with Iran and Hezbollah, turned the battle against ISIS, and revealed US prevarications and ineptitude. Is it any wonder that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and some of the Gulf states are making friendly overtures towards Russia and buying its weaponry, while edging toward the exit on the US and its petrodollar?

And that’s how you lose an empire. Impose prices you cannot pay and burdens you cannot bear upon yourself and your allies. Overestimate your strengths and underestimate your weaknesses. Do the opposite with your adversaries. Demand instead of listen, borrow instead of save, bully instead of bargain, bomb instead of negotiate.

The US could read the writing on the wall, let go of empire, accept inevitable multipolarity, and play a large and constructive role in it. Or it can suffer the fate its tired, delusional Deep State ordains: decay, defeat, the loss of the world’s admiration and respect, and moral, intellectual, and financial bankruptcy.

There’s no cause for optimism. On historical form empires get stupider and more corrupt as they age.

via http://ift.tt/2zS5DHG Tyler Durden

As discussed earlier, nearly 54 years after the assassination of JFK, in a release that was greenlighted by the president himself last week, and which Trump is eagerly awaiting…

The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow. So interesting!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017

While this was met with great anticipation as conspiracy theorists everywhere hoped to close the books on their various ideas surrounding the death of Kennedy, at the last minute President Trump appeared to cave to peristent cross-agency lobbying and announced he would not order the release of the full tranche of records, instead following last-minute recommendations of his national security agencies that some of those records be redacted to give in to pressure from the CIA.

Instead, the National Archives, in its role as custodian, has unveiled a smaller batch of so-called "JFK Files": some 2,891 JFK Assassination records meant to shed more light on what happened in Dallas at 12:30pm on November 22, 1963. While it is hoped that the release will answer some questions about the assassination of John F Kennedy, with virtually everyone in the US who is next to a computer trying to access the files at this moment…

… the last minute delay and blockage is likely to add fuel to dozens of brand new conspiracy theories.

I asked officials whether there were any signs of a conspiracy in secret JFK files. Officials on call with reporters would not comment. https://t.co/mz1TxXceEk

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 26, 2017

How to access the documents:

The National Archives has scanned the them for public consumption. Click here for the main site. In July, a large trove of documents was made public, crashing the Archives site. According to Dallas News, officials say they've strengthened the site for the expected increase in interest today, but be prepared for slow load times and a possible interruption of service. Scroll past those July releases (or download them if you haven't already) to get to the new stuff. The files will be available via .zip drive. The documents will then be saved locally to your computer.

A simpler way is just to search the database, but without knowing what one is looking for, it may be a little tricky.

Prepare for disappointment, however: the Dallas detective who was the first to interrogate Lee Harvey Oswald does not expect much new information to come from the Thursday release of sealed documents pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Speaking to CBS, Jim Leavelle answered questioned surrounding the assassination for five decades. "They’re thinking they’re going to find something new that nobody ever knows about,” said Leavelle. Known for his tan suit and tall cowboy hat, Leavelle was the man to Oswald’s right as Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald. Leavelle was helping transfer Oswald when the shot was fired.

“You got a job to do and I had a job to save that man’s life,” said Leavelle. “That’s what was all going through my mind.”

“We checked it out to my satisfaction and to everybody else,” said Leavelle.

Their hard work has never satisfied some who feel investigators have held back information. There are details they are hoping will surface Thursday when President Trump signs off on the release of the final batch of classified JFK documents.

 

“To tell you the truth, I don’t give it much thought at all because I know pretty much what’s in all of them,” said Leavelle.

 

While he will not talk about everything that is currently classified, Leavelle still does not think the release will reveal much about Oswald’s unexplained trip to Mexico City weeks before the assassination or any other secrets.

 

“A lot of people are going to be disappointed I think,” said Leavelle. “They think they’re going to find a new suspect and all of this and those things and they’re not going to find it…because it’s not there.”

To those who still will not be satisfied, Leavelle has a message. “Well I’ll just tell you’ll have to keep looking and see if you find anything,” said Leavelle. “I can’t help you. I can’t build something that’s not there.”

Of course, there is no better way to confirm or deny the contents of the records, than to personally sift through all of them, which is why for all those seeking answer, remember: if you get a 404 error when clicking this site, just keep clicking – US labor productivity is already abysmally low anyway.

via http://ift.tt/2yNqvlD Tyler Durden

As our elected officials in Washington D.C. continue to debate whether or not Trump’s proposed border wall would be an effective deterrent to those looking to come to the U.S. illegally, the one thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that Mexico’s drug wars are spiraling out of control…a fact that the Trump administration will almost certainly leverage as it seeks additional funding for border security.  As PanAmPost notes, Mexico has recorded a staggering 24,000 homicides in 2017 through September with 73% of those murders being tied to organized crime.

2017 might be the most violent year in Mexican history, one NGO claims. Semáforo Delictivo said that, due to the 24,000 homicides between January and September, the year is proving even worse than 2011, when President Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs led to 22,000 homicides.

 

President of the organization, Santiago Roel, said that 73 percent of murders committed in the first eight months of the year were related to organized crime. He said that in 2007, there were 2,828 executions. Now, a decade later, 18,017 have been reported.

 

All high-impact crimes have increased during the current year, including abductions, homicides and grand theft auto at gunpoint. According to Roel, the main cause of violence and corruption is the “Mérida Plan,” which focuses on eradicating drug cartels.

Califica Semáforo Delictivo al 2017 como el peor año en inseguridad en el país http://pic.twitter.com/64AsbqNKZt

— Marco A.Tlatelpa (@LicMarcoATR) October 24, 2017

Moreover, some 85,000 insured vehicles have been stolen over the past 12 months, with 60% being considered ‘violent’.

According to the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions, violent car robberies are at their highest point in the country’s history. Between October 2016 and September 2017, 85,943 insured cars have been stolen. Sixty percent of the robberies were violent.

 

Recaredo Arias, the association’s Director General, said that elements of organized crime have been identified in these cases, and that more urgent measures are needed to combat the problem.

 

The states of Guerrero, Sinaloa, Mexico City, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Michoacán, Zacatecas, Morelos, Tabasco and Tamaulipas, have the highest numbers of violent car thefts, he said.

Meanwhile, as Fox News pointed out earlier this week, the drug wars south of the border are seemingly on the precipice of becoming way more sophisticated after 4 men were arrested by federal police carrying a drone equipped with an improvised explosive device wired for remote detonation.

The recent arrest in Mexico of four men carrying a drone equipped with an improvised explosive device “ready to be detonated” has stoked fears drug cartels could soon target the U.S. with bombs from above.

 

Mexican Federal Police arrested four men Oct. 20 in Guanajuanto who were driving a stolen vehicle equipped with a 3DR Solo Quadcopter drone attached to an IED, Small Wars Journal reported. The drone had a range of about half a mile, but modifications would have allowed it to fly farther.

 

State Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre confirmed the arrests and the IED attached to the drone.

 

Aguirre said authorities investigated the drone, which contained a “significant amount of explosive and was ready to be detonated from a distance,” AM reported.

 

“It is a drone,” he said. “I have just confirmed that it is an explosive device, with a remote detonator and a large explosive charge.”

En #Salamanca #Guanajuato la policía asegura a4 sujetos con arma larga, cargadores y un drone con explosivos adheridos. @Eloy_Arellano http://pic.twitter.com/QR9GUnhbY2

— TalaJalisco Noticias (@TalaNoticias) October 20, 2017

But, it’s probably nothing…certainly nothing that would rise to the level of requiring increased border security measures…

via http://ift.tt/2zHk40k Tyler Durden

Authored by Michael Owen,

No amount of statistics or facts will sway either side in the gun control debate, because they are all looking for simple solutions to complex problems.

The facts of those complex problems are uncomfortable and nobody really wants to come to grips with them.

For example, we don’t really have a single America with a moderately high rate of gun deaths.

Instead, we have two Americas, one of which has very high rates of gun ownership but very low murder rates, very comparable to the rest of the First World democracies such as those in western & northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, South Korea. The other America has much lower rates of gun ownership but much, much higher murder rates, akin to violent third world countries.

The tough questions are those like, why do we have these two Americas?

But that’s an uncomfortable discussion to have. So instead those on the left favor simple minded restrictions that target first world America, with its high gun ownership but very low murder rate, but don’t address the root causes of third world America’s violence at all. Meanwhile those on the right correctly feel their civil rights are constantly threatened, so they are constantly in a state of “better stock up before they finally ban it” and the guns and ammo fly off the shelves. The left’s constant gun control rhetoric is the greatest thing ever for arms manufacturers.

Meanwhile, over the past 40 years, while the number of guns in private hands has doubled, the murder rate has dropped by half. The left are constantly prattling about “assault weapons” which are almost never used to commit murders (about 1% of gun murders; all rifles combined are around 3%). More murders are committed with baseball bats than “assault rifles”; the vast majority of gun homicides are committed with handguns, but it’s easier to sell restrictions that target “assault weapons”, even though such restrictions, even if 100% effective, would make no detectable change in the murder rate (especially because of substitution effects). They favor ridiculous measures such as bans on “high capacity magazines”, as if magazines weren’t cheap and easily swapped out in a fraction of a second.

The uncomfortable fact is that roughly 80% of the US homicide rate is associated with the drug trade, and the drug trade is violent because the drug war reserves it for violent criminals.

We have a system in place where the government subsidizes poverty in urban areas, imposes economic blight in those same areas through heavy taxes and regulations, renders the residents permanently unemployable via the “criminal justice” (sic) system, and creates a lucrative black market in drugs by restricting supply (not to mention increasing demand as people are desperate to escape their circumstances by getting high), meaning the only game in town is often entering the drug trade. The drug trade is violent because those in it have no access to courts to settle disputes. Powerful industries lobby to keep the drug war going; the top spenders are law enforcement unions, the prison industry, big alcohol, tobacco, and pharma.

Guns are not the proximate cause of gun violence in the US. Childlike magical thinking and simple “fixes” to complex problems will not work. But it is comfortable, and self-righteousness feels so good. So I expect it to continue indefinitely.

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According to a new report from ATTOM Data Solutions published earlier today, vacant property rates are once again increasing in many markets across the country but perhaps not for the reasons you might think.  While so-called pre-foreclosure "zombie" properties have declined some 22% YoY, overall vacant property rates in 54% of the 149 metropolitan statistical areas analyzed by ATTOM actually increased due to, among other things, increasing ownership rates by investors as opposed to actual homeowners.

ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation’s largest multi-sourced property database, today released its 2017 U.S. Residential Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report, which shows nearly 1.4 million (1,367,793) U.S. residential properties (1 to 4 units) were vacant as of the end of the third quarter of 2017 — representing 1.58 percent of all U.S. residential properties.

 

The 1.58 percent vacant property rate nationwide decreased slightly from 1.63 percent a year ago, but vacant property rates increased from a year ago in 81 of the 149 metropolitan statistical areas analyzed in the report (54 percent), including Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Baltimore and Phoenix.

 

The report also shows that the number of vacant “zombie” pre-foreclosure properties — which have started the foreclosure process but have not yet been repossessed by the foreclosing lender — decreased 22 percent from a year ago to 14,312 as of the end of Q3 2017, 67 percent below the peak of 44,030 in Q3 2013. The number of vacant bank-owned properties decreased 48 percent from a year ago to 24,026 as of the end of Q3 2017.

 

“Zombie foreclosures have dwindled dramatically over the last four years as a supply-starved housing has soaked up even some of the most highly distressed properties,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. “There are still pockets of the country with high zombie foreclosure rates, and high vacant property rates in general, primarily in the Rust Belt and parts of the Northeast and Southeast — driven in large part by a high share of non-owner occupied vacant properties in those areas.

 

“There is evidence that the ultra-tight inventory environment in some red-hot markets is beginning to ease just a bit, with vacant property rates nudging higher in markets such as San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Denver,” Blomquist added.

Not surprisingly, some of the highest vacancy rates were observed in mid-western markets like Flint, Michigan and Baltimore.

Among 149 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 100,000 residential properties (1 to 4 units), those with the highest vacancy rates were Flint, Michigan (6.89 percent); Youngstown, Ohio (4.49 percent); Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas (3.80 percent); Detroit, Michigan (3.77 percent); and Mobile, Alabama (3.77 percent).

 

Among 405 counties with at least 50,000 residential properties, those with the highest vacancy rates were Baltimore City, Maryland (8.14 percent); Saint Louis City, Missouri (6.97 percent); Beaufort County, South Carolina (6.94 percent); Genesee County, Michigan (6.89 percent); and Wayne County, Michigan (6.76 percent).

 

Among 13,616 U.S. zip codes with at least 1,000 residential properties, those with the highest vacancy rates were led by three zip codes in the city of Gary, Indiana: 46409 (30.26 percent); 46407 (29.62 percent); and 46402 (29.53 percent), followed by 48505 in Flint, Michigan (29.00 percent); and 44507 in Youngstown, Ohio (25.97 percent).

And while "zombie" foreclosures are down nationwide, a staggering total of 14,312 properties in the foreclosure process remained vacant as of the end of Q3 2017, representing 4.2.% of all properties in foreclosure.

States with the most of these vacant “zombie” foreclosures were New York (3,528), New Jersey (2,261), Florida (1,963), Illinois (999), and Ohio (974).

 

Among 149 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 100,000 residential properties (1 to 4 units), those with the most vacant “zombie” foreclosures were New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA (3,106); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (813), Chicago, Illinois (665), Miami, Florida (571), and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida (477).

Meanwhile, a stunning 24% of "investment" properties in Flint, Michigan found themselves without a tenet at the end of Q3 2017…

Nationwide more than 1 million non-owner occupied (investment) residential properties (1,032,851) were vacant, representing 4.30 percent of all non-owner occupied residential properties and unchanged from a year ago.

 

States with the highest vacancy rate for non-owner occupied (investment) properties were Michigan (9.84 percent); Indiana (9.52 percent); Kansas (7.11 percent); Mississippi (6.92 percent); and Alabama (6.83 percent).

 

Among 149 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 100,000 residential properties (1 to 4 units), those with the highest vacancy rate for non-owner occupied (investment) properties were Flint, Michigan (23.64 percent); Youngstown, Ohio (12.01 percent); Detroit, Michigan (11.88 percent); South Bend, Indiana (10.47 percent); and Indianapolis, Indiana (10.46 percent).

…which presumably makes them not such a great "investment".

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Earlier this week, we speculated that a shift in Russia-related Democratic talking points could be a sign that Congressional investigators, and possibly even special counsel Robert Mueller, might soon confirm what many have long suspected: that there is no evidence of collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

Since then, Congress has launched a trio of new investigations into the Obama-era Uranium One deal, reminding lawmakers of the fact that the Clintons have just as many – if not more – ties to shady Russian entities than the Trumps. And now, the Hill reported just minutes ago that Republicans on the House Intelligence committee are pushing to close their investigation by the end of the year, as investigators have failed to find anything conclusively proving Russian interference in the election.

Congressmen complain that the investigation, which was initially intended to investigate possible Russia ties between both the Trump and Clinton campaigns, has instead meandered in several different directions, like the unmasking of Trump associates by Obama-era officials, and the provenance of the so-called "Trump dossier", which it has been confirmed, was funded and sources by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

The committee announced its investigation into Russian election interference in January. Ten months later, the panel is still digging for information, frustrating members who were never enthusiastic about the probe to begin with. Many say they are ready to close the books on the matter.

 

"I think this investigation has gone excruciating slow," Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) told the Hill. “We've been doing this for more than a year. We started looking at it on the committee in September [of 2016].”

 

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who is leading the Russia review, told reporters he intends to wrap up the investigation “as soon as I can.”

 

“I have no interest in prolonging this one second longer than it needs to,” he said, adding that the committee intends to do a thorough investigation and “that takes some time.”

As the Hill points out, the Intelligence Committee is one of several congressional panels investigating Russian involvement in the presidential election. It even produced one of the most significant public contributions in the Russia saga to date when then-FBI director James B. Comey confirmed the federal investigation into the matter during a March hearing. But more recently, the probe has focused on the possible quid pro quo between the Clintons and Russia-affiliated entities related to the Obama administration’s approval of a deal that ceded 20% of US uranium reserves to Russian control.

Republican Rep. Tom Rooney, who is assisting Conaway in leading the probe since Chairman Devin Nunes recused himself earlier this year, disputed Democratic accusations that the many side investigations had slowed the probe. Rooney added that the probe should be wrapped up by the end of the year.

“At some point you are going to reach a saturation point where the information, the facts and the evidence are all saying the same thing. There’s nothing new and just keeping it open for the sake of keeping it open is spinning your wheels,” he told the Hill.

 

“We owe the American people a report and the intelligence community a report and I would like that to be sooner rather than later,” he added, citing a desire not to waste taxpayer dollars.

 

Rooney expressed confidence that the panel could complete its work by the end of the year — a deadline that the top Democrat on the committee, Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), called “unrealistic.”

To be sure, the committee will soon be inundated with files related to the FBI’s analysis and handling of the Trump dossier, after the agency acquiesced to the committee’s subpoena following a monthslong struggle.

It remains to be seen what the resolution of the investigation will look like. Congress can’t bring criminal charges – that power is reserved for special counsel Mueller, who appears to be focusing on possible financial crimes committed by former Trump campaign executive Paul Manafort. But it can make recommendations about how to prevent foreign powers from meddling in US elections. Notably, the characterization of the investigation provided by the House is at odds with Senate and Mueller, who continue to aggressively pursue the Russia interference narrative. We’ve noted time and time again that the $100,000 in Facebook ads purchased by a purported Russian troll farm with links to the government pales in comparison to the $100 million-plus spent by the Clinton campaign and allied Super PACs. Yet, lawmakers and the media continue to insist that Russia was running a “sophisticated” interference campaign meant to “sow chaos” by "infecting" the minds of swing state voters.

Facebook, Twitter and Google have said they will send their general counsels to testify before a joint session of the House and Senate Intelligence committees next week. But after that, it appears at least one of the three Congressional investigations launched in the aftermath of Trump’s upset victory will finally be winding down.

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With much of America clicking furiously all day Thursday on the website of the National Archives, hoping to be among the first to catch the release of thousands of previously unseen JFK Assassination records, the U.S. government was in danger of missing the deadline to release the trove of previously classified records from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, “adding an unexpected twist to a saga already rife with rumors and conspiracies” according to NBC.

Caving to lobbying pressure by intelligence agencies, Trump announced he would not order the release the full tranche of records, instead following last-minute recommendations of his national security agencies that some of those records be redacted, White House officials said. During a call with reporters, White House officials explained that while some 2,800 JFK records will be released today, the publications of the remaining records has been postponed for 180 days to give agencies more time to figure out what they want redacted. By late Thursday afternoon, the memo specifying which material the CIA, State Department and other agencies still want to keep under wraps had yet not made it to Trump’s desk, intel officials told NBC News.

“There’s a mad scramble going on in the executive branch to get this done,” one official said.

As CBS adds, the delay requests – some of which were registered a couple of months ago and some more recently –  come from agencies throughout the government including the CIA and FBI. Some of the worry seems to center around documents created in the 1990’s, when the congressional committee was crafting the legislation setting Thursday as the release date. Officials told CBS News there is concern the documents may reveal sources and operations from the near past and include current people or operations. Of particular concern, according to officials, are names in the documents.

CBS News’ Chip Reid interviewed JFK scholar Larry Sabato, at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, who said he had been told that “at least most of it will not be released Thursday because not just the CIA, but apparently other agencies, unnamed — I assume the FBI is one — are appealing.”

 

Sabato says that the CIA wants some of the names in the documents redacted, and some of the paragraphs they say reveal the names of sources or methods used by the CIA.

In any case, the reason behind the delay remains a mystery. As CNN’s Jim Acosta notes, senior administration officials declined to discuss the contents of the files that will be released, including whether they contain evidence of a conspiracy surrounding Kennedy’s death.

I asked officials whether there were any signs of a conspiracy in secret JFK files. Officials on call with reporters would not comment. https://t.co/mz1TxXceEk

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 26, 2017

Trump will issue a memo to heads of intelligence agencies saying “the American public expects and deserves its government to produce as much access as possible to the John F. Kennedy assassination records. “I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted” on the records, the memo will say. The President will also note that law enforcement and foreign affairs agencies have requested that certain records remain redacted.

“I have no choice” but to keep those records under wraps, the memo will say. In his memo, Trump will order intelligence agencies to re-review their reasons for keeping the records redacted, and to report back in 180 days.

What will remain classified?

According to CNN, officials said the sensitive information that will remain redacted for now relates to “intelligence and law enforcement” details. That includes the identity of individuals involved in the investigation into the assassination and their roles as informants to law enforcement, a senior administration official said.

It also includes information about foreign partner organizations that were involved in the investigation, the official said.

“The President heard those justifications from the agencies that requested the continuing postponement and he acknowledged that information … requires protection,” the official said. Agencies requesting continued redaction of certain documents will need to submit a report to the archivist by March 12, 2018, explaining why those documents meet that standard, the White House said.

Documents determined to not meet those standards will need to be released by April 26, 2018.

Trump’s decision to keep some documents secret is likely to keep conspiracy theories alive, fueling those who have long questioned official conclusions about the assassination and argued that the government has helped cover up the truth.

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The American poker player, Phil Ivey, ten-time World Series Poker winner, lost his UK Supreme Court case to recover 7.7 million pounds ($10.2 million dollars) of winnings from Crockfords, a casino in London’s prime Mayfair district. Afterwards Ivey – known as the “Tiger Woods of poker” with $23 million of career winnings – complained that British judges have “no experience or understanding” of casinos. Crockfords accused Ivey of cheating, using a method called “edge sorting”.

Wiki explains edge sorting as follows.

Edge sorting is a technique used in advantage gambling where a player determines whether a face-down playing card is likely to be low or high at casino table games by observing and exploiting subtle unintentional differences on the backs of some types of card, after persuading a croupier to cooperate by unwittingly sorting the cards into low and high…(the technique) requires the player to trick the croupier into rotating cards. Many packs of cards produced by manufacturers have unintentional edge irregularities. Typically all the backs of the cards in such a pack are identical, but the two long edges of each card are consistently distinguishable: the pattern is not symmetrical to a 180° rotation (half a full turn).

The FT reports that the case is a landmark judgment in the UK, overhauling how fraud cases are presented and potentially making it easier for prosecutors to secure fraud convictions, according to legal experts.

Mr Ivey won the £7.7m playing a version of the card game Baccarat known as Punto Banco at Crockfords Club in Mayfair in 2012. Genting, the casino’s owner, refused to pay out, arguing that the 40-year old American had used an unfair technique called “edge-sorting” that allows a sharp-eyed player to exploit design irregularities in the cards. The five-judge Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld an earlier majority decision of the Court of Appeal, and dismissed the case on the grounds that Mr Ivey and a fellow gambler, Cheung Yin Sun, had cheated by interfering with the game. More broadly, the judgment has far-reaching implications for fraud cases, where disputes often centre on whether a defendant was dishonest.

Wednesday’s decision found that part of the go-to test of dishonesty, dubbed the “Ghosh test” after a famous 1982 case, should no longer be applied. The two-step test asks whether a defendant knew his actions would be deemed dishonest by a reasonable person, but went ahead and committed them anyway. After Wednesday’s decision, a prosecutor no longer has to prove that a defendant held this particular belief.” The decision represents a “fundamental change to one of the basic facets of criminal fraud law”, said David Corker, a lawyer at Corker Binning who specialises in white-collar cases. “A prosecutor need only place before the court facts about what the accused did and thought and invite the court to hold that he was dishonest. This is a huge shift towards an objective test of dishonesty.

Ivey argued that he exploited the casino’s failure to defend itself again a professional gambler, as the FT explains…

The court judgment said that Mr Ivey and Ms Sun used the pretext that they were superstitious to get the croupier to arrange the cards with the edges of high-value ones all lined up in the same direction. Mr Ivey said the practice was “legitimate gamesmanship”, and he had simply made use of Crockfords’ failure to protect itself against a professional gambler. One of the judges, Lord Hughes, said that Mr Ivey had staged a “carefully planned and well executed sting”. He said Mr Ivey’s actions were “positive steps to fix the deck and therefore constituted cheating”.

 

He added: “If he had secretly gained access to the shoe of cards and personally rearranged them that would be considered cheating. He accomplished the same results by directing the actions of the croupier and tricking her into thinking that what she did was irrelevant.”

When it comes to lawsuits for edge sorting, and losing them, Ivey has “form”.

Mr Ivey said after the judgment:

“It is very frustrating that the UK judges have no experience or understanding of casinos…or the ongoing battle between casinos and professional gamblers attempting to level the playing field.”

Paul Willcock, president and chief operating officer of Genting UK, said:

“We are delighted that the High Court, the Court of Appeal and now the supreme court have all found in Genting’s favour, confirming that we acted fairly and properly at all times and that Mr Ivey’s conduct did indeed amount to cheating.”

He said the judgment “entirely vindicates Genting’s decision not to pay Mr Ivey, a decision that was not taken lightly”. Mr Ivey lost a similar case in the US last year where a district judge ruled that the gambler had breached his contract with a casino in Atlantic City by deploying edge-sorting.

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