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The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America: “House-Price Inflation” in all its Glory

Written on . Posted in PT Global Economy.

Wolf Street: ouse prices rose by 11.2% from a year ago, the biggest increase since the peak of Housing Bubble 1 in 2006, according to today’s National Case-Shiller Home Price Index for January.

“You have sown much, and bring in little;
You eat, but do not have enough;
You drink, but you are not filled with drink;
You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm;
And he who earns wages,
Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.” Haggai 1:6

The index is a good measure of “house-price inflation” because it’s based on the “sales pairs” method, comparing the sales price of a house in the current month to the price of the same house when it sold previously, thereby tracking the amount of dollars it takes to buy the same house over time.

But house price inflation is not included in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index. While about one-third of CPI is based on housing costs, it tracks rents exclusively, rather than home prices. Even the CPI for “Owner’s equivalent rent of residence,” which accounts for about 25% of CPI, is based on homeowners’ estimates about how much their house would rent for. This CPI for “Owner’s equivalent rent of residence” ticked up only 2.0% year-over-year (green line), compared to the Case-Shiller Index, which soared 11.2% (red line).

So you know what’s going on here: the costs of homeownership are surging, but only a portion are included in our inflation measures, turning CPI as an estimate of the loss of the purchasing power of the dollar into a sad joke. Read More

YouTube Deleted 2.5 Million ‘Dislikes’ From Biden White House Videos, Data Indicates

Written on . Posted in PT World Order.

Epoch Times: YouTube has deleted about 2.5 million ‘dislikes’ from videos on the official White House channel of President Joe Biden, according to data collected and posted online by a researcher who wished to remain anonymous. YouTube recently announced that it’s testing a new page design that hides the dislike count.

‘Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.” Proverbs 10:9

The Google-owned video platform allows users to give videos either a thumb up (like) or thumb down (dislike). For at least two years, it’s had a policy to remove likes and dislikes it considers spam.

“We have policies and systems in place to ensure that the engagement on YouTube is authentic, and remove any fraudulent metrics,” a YouTube spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email, but when asked, wouldn’t go into details on what criteria it uses to make these calls.

The White House videos have seen these kinds of interventions on an ongoing basis, but it appears it’s only the dislikes that are disappearing. Read More

Will Biden’s Spending Spree Shake Confidence In The World’s Reserve Currency

Written on . Posted in PT Global Economy.

Zero Hedge: While the greenback may look forward to supercharged U.S. growth, the spending that’s being unleashed to drive American exceptionalism comes with an eventual cost –- and a big dollar sign in front of it.

“The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.” Deuteronomy 28:12

U.S. Exceptionalism Comes With a Cost to the Dollar

A fiscal push amounting to more than 20% of GDP, towering over those of peers, adds to tailwinds for relative U.S. growth. And a resumption of strong U.S. data can bolster near-term upside, with a robust March non-farm payrolls print kicking it off. That’s as the U.S. braces for a period of unleashed pent-up demand and a transitory surge in price pressures.

Ultimately, U.S. growth boosted by free-flowing fiscal taps comes with an eventual price tag of a weaker greenback.

Ballooning budget shortfalls, the risk of depleted private savings and U.S. strength feeding into widening trade deficits can finally shake confidence in the world’s reserve currency. Read More

Smotrich: Netanyahu’s Whitewashing of Mansour Abbas Will Terminate the Jewish State

Written on . Posted in PT Middle East.

Jewish Press: Religious Zionism chairman Bezalel Smotrich on Friday posted on Facebook that “forming a government that relies on Ra’am and Mansour Abbas will be a catastrophe and a cry for the generations, and we will not allow such a government to be established.”

” … Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, 3 but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.” Malachi 1:2-3

“I will explain in detail,” Smotrich wrote, “but first, in order to understand who Mansour Abbas is and what the Ra’am party is, please watch this speech that was carried by Abbas four days ago in Arabic, to members of Ra’am. It is reminiscent of Yasser Arafat, who gave peace-loving speeches in English, and war-mongering speeches in Arabic.”

Abbas was and remains a supporter of terrorism who goes pilgrimages to embrace terrorists who murdered Jews. He does not accept the right of the Jews to exist as a people in their land in a Jewish state and continues to adhere to the Palestinian narrative, which simply contradicts the Jewish one.

He sees himself as part of the Palestinian people, the establishment of the State of Israel to him is a Nakba (catastrophe), and he does not for a moment intend to give up on this narrative. Even in his honey-dripping speech on Thursday, Abbas did not recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and demanded the recognition of “both narratives,” and in fact tried, in the well-known Arab salami method, to turn Israel into a bi-national state. A state of all its nationalities. The opposite of the Jewish state.

https://youtu.be/RSemTYd-Ahw

His “renunciation” of violence—universal, symmetrical, and bilateral—is simply tactical. Read More

Capitol Attacker Identified, and the Left Won’t Like This

Written on . Posted in PT World Order.

PJ Media: The U.S. Capitol was locked down on Friday after a suspect wielding a knife rammed into a barricade, leaving one officer injured. Another later died from injuries sustained in the attack.

“No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment …” Isaiah 54:17 ESV

Sources tell Fox News that the suspect’s name is Noah Green, 25, who is from Indiana but has ties to Virginia. According to a source in law enforcement, Green identifies himself as a Nation of Islam supporter, and he may have recently lost his job.

Law enforcement officials said terrorism is not suspected.

No motive has been established yet, but almost immediately after reports of the incident appeared on social media, the Left immediately started to blame Donald Trump and the Capitol riot in January for the incident.

US Capitol suspect identified as Noah Green, 25-year-old Indiana man

According to the suspect’s now-deleted Facebook page, he was definitely not a Trump supporter. Read More

ABC loves ‘Satan Shoes,’ promotes twerking with the Devil to ‘combat homophobia’

Written on . Posted in PT World Order.

ABC News host Ashan Singh described a video in which rapper Lil Nas X slides down from heaven to hell on a pole and twerks on Satan as ‘a brilliant maneuver to make something beautiful and inspiring.’

LifeSite News: ABC’s Nightline on Monday proved, yet again, that journalists have no concept of religion or what might be offensive. The late-night news program promoted Lil Nas X and his “Satan Shoes,” as well as the singer’s new video in which he “slides down from heaven to hell on a pole and twerks on Satan.” This, apparently, is only offensive to “conservative Christians,” a label that reporter Ashan Singh uses twice.

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”1 Peter 5:8

As though this were all normal, Nightline co-host Juju Chang hyped, “Lil Nas X taking the old town road to hell. Going viral again and igniting controversy. How the ‘Call Me By Your Name’ singer is confronting homophobia and selling out a special edition of Satan shoes.”

Sounding like PR for the Satan-loving song, Singh touted, “It’s these words and these images where Lil Nas X, who is openly gay, is seduced in the garden of Eden and then slides down from heaven to hell on a pole and twerks on Satan, that has people glued to their scenes.”

He chided, “But the racy song and video has some members of the conservative Christian community up in arms.” At another point, he used the same language: “Some in the conservative Christian community in an uproar over his latest song and music video.” Right, because who else other than conservatives would be bothered by blood-drenched Satan shoes and twerking on the devil?

Lil Nas X's 'Satan Shoes' containing human blood sell out instantly

In addition to the music video, Lil Nas X is cross-promoting demonic shoes: “The shoes allegedly contain a drop of human blood. Read More

Kamala’s Husband Hosts the Virtual Passover From Hell

Written on . Posted in PT World Order.

Front Page Mag: After twenty minutes of dead air, Biden’s Virtual Passover got underway. Biden, who can only be counted on to remain coherent for short stretches of time before launching into a random tirade, only showed up briefly.  And that was the only good thing about Virtual Passover.

“Who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” 2 Thess. 2:4

Virtual Passover, like the Biden administration, makes no sense. But the Biden administration can’t be expected to ruin every aspect of our lives, without also ruining Passover.

Kamala Harris had been delegated to take over the border crisis, and so her husband, Brentwood entertainment lawyer, Douglas Emhoff, took over the job of ruining Passover.

Dubbed a “Virtual Passover Celebration”, it was not a celebration, it had nothing to do with Passover, but it was virtual. The one thing that the Biden administration can be relied on is to be virtual. And by being virtual, to offer nothing real. Passover wasn’t going to change that.8 things to know about America's 1st second gentleman, Doug Emhoff

Hosted by “Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff”, also known as the father of Kamala’s obnoxious stepchildren, his scripted speeches proved that everything he knows about Judaism he learned from leftist anti-Israel radicals and late night reruns of The Nanny.

Emhoff started out by touting Sharon Brous and IKAR. Read More

Report: Biden to revoke Trump sanctions on ICC prosecutor

Written on . Posted in PT Middle East.

Arutz Sheva: The Biden administration plans as early as this week to revoke a Trump-era executive order levying sanctions on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a top deputy, Foreign Policy reported on Wednesday, citing two sources familiar with the decision.

“Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression” Isaiah 10:1 ESV

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in September of 2020 slapped sanctions on top ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and another senior ICC official, Phakiso Mochochoko, after earlier visa bans failed to head off the court’s war crimes probe into US military personnel in Afghanistan.

The sanctions froze the US assets of the two officials, and bar any US individuals from doing business with them.

n June of 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on individuals involved in the ICC investigation into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.

Trump also cited the ICC’s war crimes investigations against Israel when signing the order. Read More

US Dollar’s Status as Dominant “Global Reserve Currency” Drops to 25-Year Low

Written on . Posted in PT Global Economy.

Wolf Street: The global share of US-dollar-denominated exchange reserves dropped to 59.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the IMF’s COFER data released today. This matched the 25-year low of 1995. These foreign exchange reserves are Treasury securities, US corporate bonds, US mortgage-backed securities, US Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities, etc. held by foreign central banks.

Since 2014, the dollar’s share has dropped by 7 full percentage points, from 66% to 59%, on average 1 percentage point per year. At this rate, the dollar’s share would fall below 50% over the next decade:

Not included in global foreign exchange reserves are the Fed’s own holdings of dollar-denominated assets, its $4.9 trillion in Treasury securities and $2.2 trillion in mortgage-backed securities, that it amassed as part of its QE. Read More

 

Biden Puts Susan Rice in Charge of Effort to Expand Vote by Mail

Written on . Posted in PT World Order.

Free Beacon: President Joe Biden put controversial former national security adviser Susan Rice in charge of directing hundreds of federal agencies and departments to expand access to mail-in voting.

“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” James 4:17 ESV

Biden signed an executive order in March that put Rice, now the assistant to the president for domestic policy, in charge of soliciting strategies from federal agencies to produce “relevant information” on expanded voting registration procedures. Federal agencies must submit to Rice “a strategic plan outlining the ways identified under this review that the agency can promote voter registration and voter participation” within 200 days under the terms of the order.

“Agencies shall consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process,” the order states. “The head of each agency shall evaluate ways in which the agency can, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, promote voter registration and voter participation.”

It requires agencies to distribute registration and vote-by-mail ballot application forms, as well as to assist any applicants in completing the forms. It also pushes agencies to allow “approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations and State officials to provide voter registration services on agency premises.”

Biden arrived in the White House thanks in large part to the record number of mail-in ballots in the 2020 election. Read More