An Irish Perspective On The LA Insurrection; Also Economic Stuff
I may be jumping around, topic wise, today and also trying to address seemingly disparate topics in a relatively brief manner. But it’s all related to the cultural and spiritual civil war in the West. Here I briefly offer some Irish perspective—Philip Pilkington, commenting on the LA Insurrection, but especially the mindset of the Dem insurrectionists. I present it just because PP presents it well and because his view—obviously informed by familiarity with American politics—may stimulate readers’ own thoughts.
Gavin Newsom @gavinnewsom
18h
Donald Trump admits he will arrest a sitting governor simply because he ran for office.
Philip Pilkington @philippilk·
18h
Newsom’s whole account for the past few hours is him posting about how Trump is going to arrest him. Do the Dems think this is effective political messaging or is he genuinely scared of getting arrested? I can’t tell.
Something pretty big seems to be happening in America right now.
We got a hint of this last night with the announcement that a ringleader had been IDed, obviously despite his mask.
It’s really starting to look like @GavinNewsom is losing the plot. This isn’t compelling politics. It looks more like a hostage video. I think American liberals are completely trapped in their Orange Fuhrer fantasies and are starting to unwind.
Let’s shift to the economy—but we’ll do it in a way that’s related to the LA Insurrection. How do you think the LA Insurrection will play with the people who are either in mortgage delinquency or who fear that that may be coming to them? Do they see throwing the country up for grabs at the hands of illegal aliens/Antifa nihilists as the solution? I doubt it, and the logical conclusion would seem to be that Trump—whatever his foreign policy misadventures—could be in a position to benefit politically from this. Of course, in an Empire foreign policy cannot be separated from domestic politics.
I realize that this graph charts the delinquency rate for multifamily housing, but 1) these delinguencies inevitably affect the residents, and 2) I strongly suspect, based on household indebtedness figures, that single family mortgage holders are also very apprehensive:
Bravos Research @bravosresearch
BEWARE: Housing defaults have just hit the highest levels since 2011 This is not looking good.
We’ve been talking about this for the past few days:
Philip Pilkington @philippilk
7h
ECB now highlighting risks to USD as they discuss pivoting toward an increase in euro-denominated lending.
First Squawk @FirstSquawk
ECB's Villeroy: Market Volatility Could Impact Confidence in the Dollar
- Policy and inflation are currently in a "favorable zone."
- Being in a favorable zone does not imply the ECB will remain inactive.
- The ECB will stay as agile as needed.
And for UK readers:
Britain might be entering recession. The next recession is the “big one” for the UK, I think - i.e. the one where living standards adjust sharply downward and do not recover.
Here’s an article that sounds the warning for the UK part of the Anglo-Zionist Empire. It’s simply another version of what has happened in the US, with the difference that cultural differences have allowed a new populist movement in the US to wield more influence. How far that can transform American politics remains to be seen. In the UK, popular discontent has yet to make a true dent in the hold of the Ruling Class—but that may come.
Finance, industry and the global adjustment
The great risk for the U.K. now is that it becomes even more reliant on speculative capital.
Britain accepted capital inflows, and in return, it exported debt, claims on assets, and industrial capacity. It imported not just goods but the insufficient demand of surplus economies — what economist John Maynard Keynes warned against at Bretton Woods in 1944.
Internally, the consequences of this were stark. Capital inflows lifted the pound, making British goods less competitive and imports cheaper. The U.K. evolved into a consumption-driven economy, where financial services and asset inflation — especially real estate — replaced industrial employment as sources of income growth.
London, in particular, benefited enormously from these inflows. Property values soared, banking and legal services flourished, and inequality rose. Meanwhile, the rest of the country — especially the North, Wales and parts of Scotland — bore the cost of this transformation. Built around manufacturing sectors no longer able to compete with industrial and trade policies abroad, they became victims of a national model increasingly dependent on foreign money, foreign imports and speculative finance.
This divergence wasn’t just economic — it was also political.
It is no coincidence that the Brexit vote split so dramatically along regional lines. It reflected not so much a rejection of Europe as a rejection of a global model that left large parts of the country behind.
But now, the global environment that enabled this system is eroding. Washington has made clear that the U.S. will no longer passively absorb the world’s surpluses. And there is a bipartisan consensus in Washington toward reversing the decades-long process that saw the U.S. share of global manufacturing decline.
…
The great risk for Britain now is that it becomes even more reliant on speculative capital. But choosing instead to reverse decades of underinvestment, close regional gaps and reassert control over the direction of the economy would require a dramatic policy shift. It would require confronting the entrenched power of the City, building institutional capacity outside London and prioritizing long-term productive growth over short-term asset inflation.
It might be nice to think that with the right mix of policies, a country could be both a world-beating exporter of debt and national assets, as well as of manufactured goods. But the conditions that lead to one may undermine the other. And Britain must seriously consider what kind of economic power it wants to be.
Multi family is an area I work in and if you want a simple gurus test, ask them about Shadowstats and what the real inflation rate was in the Biden years.
Out of state syndicators are hurting I’ve heard. This is a group that puts money together to buy properties.
What’s happening is multi family outside California was properties were bought at low interest rates, and commercial loans are only for 5 years. And some are variable interest rates. They bought at negative cash flow and assumed rents would continue the astronomical rise. And did not account for the new builds. Or rents falling. Or insurance rates increasing (Florida I’ve heard, and definitely California).
California is pretty solid. The valuations are still sky high, and people are buying at negative cash flow. Cap rates around 6%. Sales are slow. Owners are fleeing La city. New builds were only happening in the luxury segment or government subsidized. In California owners are hurting because costs are increasing, especially in super rent controlled areas. Hiring a person with taxes etc is basically $30 an hour. Insurance has doubled for us. And the legal liability is increasing, where landlords feel you have a target on your back. It’s hard for a small guy to stay up to date on all the laws.
We are seeking to move more into commercial due to the negatives in multifamily. It’s a service business and for small owners it’s exhausting. And using a management company has many costs.
Your comment on the UK is a good summary view from 10,000 ft. Get down to 5,000 ft and the immigration issue begins to stand out. Get down to the ground and you will understand why parts of London are called Londonistan as well as similarly other large regional cities, particularly in the Midlands and North East. These were the heartlands of heavy industry, steel casting, precision engineering, shipbuilding, car manufacturing, offshore oil and gas drilling with onshore engineering etc etc. All mostly gone and mostly as a result of government policies. People used to believe that this was due to Conservative party policies, and are not wrong, except that Labour sold them out under Tony Blair back in 96-97. I read that US tax rates of 40% kick in around $640k income per annum, here they kick in around $100,000 pa. People are truly fed up at almost every single policy that is being pursued yet voting one set of fcks out changes nothing or makes it even worse.