Using loan-level data we find that after recent declines in property values following higher interest rates and adoption of hybrid working patterns about 14% of all loans and 44% of office loans appear to be in a “negative equity” where their current property values are less than the outstanding loan balances. Additionally, around one-third of all loans and the majority of office loans may encounter substantial cash flow problems and refinancing challenges. A 10% (20%) default rate on CRE loans – a range close to what one saw in the Great Recession on the lower end – would result in about $80 ($160) billion of additional bank losses. If CRE loan distress would manifest itself early in 2022 when interest rates were low, not a single bank would fail, even under our most pessimistic scenario. However, after more than $2 trillion decline in banks’ asset values following the monetary tightening of 2022, additional 231 (482) banks with aggregate assets of $1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) would have their marked to market value of assets below the face value of all their non-equity liabilities.
Our analysis, reflecting market conditions up to 2023:Q3, reveals that CRE distress can induce anywhere from dozens to over 300 mainly smaller regional banks joining the ranks of banks at risk of solvency runs.
I have seen comments from several veterans of Afghanistan that they and all their fellow vets are discouraging their kids from joining the military. They feel betrayed by the debacle of Afghanistan. Many families have men from multiple generations that served. That may have been broken.
I wonder if white men are avoiding organizations that strongly advocate DEI. If they are getting any guidance from older men or pay attention to the world, they will realize that these organizations actively discriminate against straight white males. Since Universities are the worst organizations with regard to active discrimination and there is also a drop off of white males attending college, I wonder if there is a strong correlation between white male participation and DEI across society at large?
Finally, I wonder about male brotherhood. I never served in the military, but felt the allure of brotherhood it offered.
Certainly you can have men and women in the military that form a very strong bond, but this bond is different than a brotherhood bond the same way you love your sisters and brothers equally but have a different relationship.
The presence of woman destroys the allure of the military for men that prioritize brotherhood. I wonder if this accounts for a portion of the decline in interest.
“Sustainable food” “activists” throw soup on the Mona Lisa on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Heroic French museum staff swoop in to put up black screens to keep visitors from seeing what is going on, while leaving the vandals undisturbed. The painting is displayed behind bulletproof glass and was undamaged.
Whether the soup thrown at the painting was sustainable has not been disclosed. Mona Lisa continued to smile throughout the disturbance. Leonardo da Vinci was unavailable for comment.
Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa marked the rise of Western Civilization, and the shouting New Green Scammers and the pathetic response by Louvre Museum “Security”, mark Western Civilization’s decline.
If only the New Green Scammers learn to feed their brains on a diet of meat, they may discover the error of their ways, and then, perhaps our planet can truly be saved.
My 2022 letter was preoccupied with Yunnan, which is on the other side of mountain ranges from Chiang Mai. This is the same vast highland region populated by marginalized folks who have deliberately tried to put themselves beyond the reach of powerful states, the most domineering of which have been Burmese, Tibetan, and especially Han-Chinese. By moving into rugged terrain and practicing mountain agriculture, they’ve managed to maintain an arms-length relationship with valley kingdoms, taking as much “civilization” as they require. In Yunnan I was in land of the Bai and the Dai peoples; the hill tribes in Chiang Mai include the Karen, Akha, Shan, and Hmong.
These Thai highlands absorbed a wave of new people yearning for statelessness this year. In Chiang Mai, I encountered a great mass of young folks who no longer wish to live in China.
The most important story of China in 2023 might be that the expected good news of economic recovery didn’t materialize, when the end of zero-Covid should have lifted consumer spirits; and that the unexpected bad news of political uncertainty kept cropping up, though the previous year’s party congress should have consolidated regime stability. China may have hit its GDP growth target of 5 percent this year, but its main stock index has fallen -17% since the start of 2023. More perplexing were the politics. 2023 was a year of disappearing ministers, disappearing generals, disappearing entrepreneurs, disappearing economic data, and disappearing business for the firms that have counted on blistering economic growth.
No wonder that so many Chinese are now talking about rùn . Chinese youths have in recent years appropriated this word in its English meaning to express a desire to flee. For a while, rùn was a way to avoid the work culture of the big cities or the family expectations that are especially hard for Chinese women. Over the three years of zero-Covid, after the state enforced protracted lockdowns, rùn evolved to mean emigrating from China altogether.
One of the most incredible trends I’ve been watching this year is that rising numbers of Chinese nationals are being apprehended at the US-Mexico border. In January, US officers encountered around 1000 Chinese at the southwest border; the numbers kept rising, and by November they encountered nearly 5000.
Sadly, “Representative” Omar is not the problem. The problem is she is indeed representative of the hundreds of thousands of voters who elected and re-elected her, even though she is obviously unsuitable for the role. Just like “81 Million” voters elected a sad confused corrupt old man as President.
The real problem is that universal suffrage “democracy” has failed. But there is no way to change that broken system until after the coming catastrophe has struck.
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America…
Technically Yes, under 5 USC 7311 it is a criminal offense to violate the oath of office for any member of the US Government including congress and 18 U.S.C. 1918 provides penalties for violation of oath office described in 5 U.S.C. 7311 which include: (1) removal from office and; (2) confinement or a fine.” The confinement section provides up to 5 yrs imprisonment for violations. However the government doesn’t employ it except in the most extreme cases, for fear it will be used against them. So they don’t and do not broadcast it, in fact they promote that their oath is non-binding so the public does not pursue criminal action against them.
