Trust is everything

There are no bond vigilantes. None.

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"Those at the top have become so disconnected from reality that they don't appreciate how wide spread the the pain really is today."

Peter Atwater

Here's a table with the number of days of a 1% or greater change in either direction and the number of days of corrections (down 10% or more from the record high) going back to 2013.”

I was talking the other day to AT&T support, and the guy who was helping me was very chatty and friendly. He asked me what I did and for some reason I just said, “Real Estate,” and he started telling me about his small Tennessee town, and how expensive it had become in the last few years, partly due to an influx of outsiders. I asked him how much housing had risen over that span, and he said - ballpark - a 2BR, 2BA had gone from $150K to $250K, and a 1 BR apartment had gone from $400 to $650. I asked if wages had gone up and he laughed. Barely. He said they never really had a homeless problem and now they do. People can’t afford housing any more. He’s union, so he’s doing better than most, but his community has been permanently altered, and not for the better. We talked for a long time.

He hopes the new arrivals won’t vote for the same policies of the states they left. He also mentioned that his very sleepy downtown had a number of fancy new businesses spring up, peaking in 2022. Most are now closing. Nobody local has the money to support them. I tried to offer him some hope of a return to normalcy (meaning some housing deflation, or at least a retreat from utter insanity), but that’s all it was - hope. Now multiply my conversation by thousands of communities across America.

“There are no bond vigilantes. None.”

Steve Eisman

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If you don’t get the paid version, and are curious. go through my substack archive and check out all the free stuff I have written (the ones without a padlock.) I started in 2022 and there’s a bunch of free stuff, including a number of single-topic writeups. I previously had done daily emails to friends and friends’ friends from from 2009 to 2021 (and even before that to a much smaller audience.) Those emails were similar to what I do here on the Substack.

With the paid version, you get lots of eclectic charts, interviews, news, music you don’t like, odd pictures, and brilliant commentary! (from other people, not me.) Each edition should generally tide you guys over for a week or so. No rush. It’s a buffet, not a shot. Believe me, I leave a lot out.

I try to include things that pop out to me, but aren’t done to death in the MSM (e.g., I don’t pore over things like “the jobs numbers” much.) Like my Twitter (which is even more eclectic and weird), I try to post stuff I’d like someone else to post for me to read. Mostly it’s financial-related, but not always. To be honest, as a skeptic (not a cynic), I tend to have a glass half-full - but cracked - view of markets (by the way, this does not necessarily mean a bearish view) - but if you want Bubblevision® (thank you, Bill Fleckenstein), there’s always CNBC.

I think next I’ll work on Part 2 of “Before the Deluge.” I may un-paywall Part 1 shortly. Stay tuned. Also I may eventually write something short on Stefan Zweig’s, “The World of Yesterday,” and may do some short housing-anecdote posts. It’s mostly stream of consciousness, like Kamala Harris.