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New England Met Autumn 2023 Banter


bristolri_wx
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5 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

5 years ago W MA and VT still had plenty of bargains and then Covid hit and the wealthy Tri-Staters came in and bought everything, often sight unseen.   I literally watched house and lot prices almost double.  What sucks is a lot of residential homes were bought as vacation houses that are maybe used a total of 30 days a year.  Makes it tough on the local working populations.  A friend of mine is a police officer in Wilmington VT and he said they have a hard time recruiting police and fire because there is no real estate available in S VT.

You really can’t find any housing stock available on the wages of the people who actually allow these towns to function. The worker-bees. 

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30 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

You really can’t find any housing stock available on the wages of the people who actually allow these towns to function. The worker-bees. 

Yeah, it's bad.  W MA is tough but my VT friends say the rental situation there is dire. 

Another screwed up situation is the commercial real estate market.  Brattleboro, Greenfield, Northampton all have tons of commercial real estate vacancies because the landlords want outrageous rents.  Rather than lower rents they let the properties sit empty and take a tax right off. Northampton commercial store front rents are not far off of Boston prices.  One particular POS property mogul (Eric Suher) has basically been holding downtown Northampton (and to some extent Holyoke and Easthampton) hostage for years.  Lots of articles about him in the local press.  Northampton finally forced him to sell some of his properties through a series of legal maneuvers. 

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52 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

You really can’t find any housing stock available on the wages of the people who actually allow these towns to function. The worker-bees. 

If we didn’t buy our house when we did in early 2019 we’d have no shot. No kids with a low six figure income combined and we’d be able to afford next to nothing in this are currently.

the condo we rented in 2018-2019 before we bought our house was $1400 a month. It was up for rent again last month and the asking price per month is now $2500 per month.

$1100 increase per month in rent in just four years. It’s just not sustainable long term.

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32 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

If we didn’t buy our house when we did in early 2019 we’d have no shot. No kids with a low six figure income combined and we’d be able to afford next to nothing in this are currently.

the condo we rented in 2018-2019 before we bought our house was $1400 a month. It was up for rent again last month and the asking price per month is now $2500 per month.

$1100 increase per month in rent in just four years. It’s just not sustainable long term.

There isn’t too much that is sustainable long term financially since Covid began and federal spending has run wild . 
 

Not sure if there is a candidate in the world that would have the character to return fiscal spending to something that is just reasonable bc that is a recession with job losses and ..otherwise we just see continued inflation rising interest rates and Payments on that federal debt and that reinforces itself .

IF folks do the short term math and if federal spending keeps increasing and inflation stays hot for another 6 or so years the tide keeps rising as more and more rungs on the socio economic ladder go underwater from rising prices .


The US has just silly levels of treasury issuance to fund its spending (2.7 trillion currently forecast for 2024) and the market response has been a rapid rise in interest rates (above the fed funds rate / disconnected ) and Quickly rising rates Certainly increase the chance of something “blowing up “ in “markets / banking sector” 

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5 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

There isn’t too much that is sustainable long term financially since Covid began and federal spending has run wild . 
 

Not sure if there is a candidate in the world that would have the character to return fiscal spending to something that is just reasonable bc that is a recession with job losses and ..otherwise we just see continued inflation rising interest rates and Payments on that federal debt and that reinforces itself .

IF folks do the short term math and if federal spending keeps increasing and inflation stays hot for another 6 or so years the tide keeps rising as more and more rungs on the socio economic ladder go underwater from rising prices .


The US has just silly levels of treasury issuance to fund its spending (2.7 trillion currently forecast for 2024) and the market response has been a rapid rise in interest rates (above the fed funds rate / disconnected ) and Quickly rising rates Certainly increase the chance of something “blowing up “ in “markets / banking sector” 

Economies can’t always grow and bring good times.  A healthy period of struggle that we haven’t even sniffed yet, is likely the catalyst for realistic change/resetting of the markets.

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1 hour ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

There isn’t too much that is sustainable long term financially since Covid began and federal spending has run wild . 
 

Not sure if there is a candidate in the world that would have the character to return fiscal spending to something that is just reasonable bc that is a recession with job losses and ..otherwise we just see continued inflation rising interest rates and Payments on that federal debt and that reinforces itself .

IF folks do the short term math and if federal spending keeps increasing and inflation stays hot for another 6 or so years the tide keeps rising as more and more rungs on the socio economic ladder go underwater from rising prices .


The US has just silly levels of treasury issuance to fund its spending (2.7 trillion currently forecast for 2024) and the market response has been a rapid rise in interest rates (above the fed funds rate / disconnected ) and Quickly rising rates Certainly increase the chance of something “blowing up “ in “markets / banking sector” 

What are you going to cut that actually impacts the numbers? The only three that matter are defense spending, Medicare and SS. 
 

which one you going to cut?
 

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10 hours ago, psv88 said:

What are you going to cut that actually impacts the numbers? The only three that matter are defense spending, Medicare and SS. 
 

which one you going to cut?
 

I understand your point clearly , thou you are missing one area .

There is one other large category of government spending that has just reared its ugly head . Interest payments on debt service . This years Payment is over 650 Billion, next years is projected to be 750 billion. That is a simply massive number that (Next year ) is close to our total defense budget ! This Payment was 350 B in 2021 with huge debt but low rates .

With the fed funds rate around 5-5.25% all the debt Uncle Sam has accumulated in last 10 years now is coming home to roost as rising rates led to an exponential increase in debt service in last 2 years. So the fed is going to come under HUGE (but probably not public) pressure to cut rates 

The corporate lobbying and pricing power pharma and defense has worked so hard for has made prices of defense weapons and drug a literal embarrassment. If we ( US govt) were paying fair prices for Drugs and weapons then the costs would be cut about 50 and 25 % respectfully but one persons (in this case government ) costs is another persons profit and big pharma and defense companies Have successfully charged what they want. 
 

They will also raise taxes on the wealthy and the IRS will be focused on clawing back money from the top 5-10% . 
 

Also ending silly extensions of suspending student debt payments that went on several years will increase Federal coffers by 50-70 Billion . Suspend them for a year or 18 Months but this was just silly 

also things like the inflation reduction act will not be palatable bc that bill had higher short term funding costs that are simply not affordable to fund if you want any sort of fiscal responsibility 

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23 minutes ago, mikeysed said:

Heading to Salem this weekend from NJ. Looks like rain... how bad will it be Friday and Saturday? NJ actually looks like the rain may be worse Friday and then clearing for Saturday.

Salem, Ma?
It will be a sh.it show regardless of the rain.  The usual 10's of 1000's of people for an October weekend, plus most of the cast of the movie Hocus Pocus will be in town Friday night and Saturday.  

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21 minutes ago, Cold Miser said:

Salem, Ma?
It will be a sh.it show regardless of the rain.  The usual 10's of 1000's of people for an October weekend, plus most of the cast of the movie Hocus Pocus will be in town Friday night and Saturday.  

Hi there, yes Salem MA. Get out really?  GF will love that. I will need beer or cocktails. I will be among the masses (sigh)

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7 minutes ago, mikeysed said:

Hi there, yes Salem MA. Get out really?  GF will love that. I will need beer or cocktails. I will be among the masses (sigh)

lol. Yeah, it's a fun place if you handle getting in the right way.  I am a big Halloween/ horror fan so I like the cheesiness of it all.  We take the train from a few towns south. Makes life much easier. 

I think the cast are actually going to be signing autographs in Salem Common on Saturday. 

Right now Saturday doesn't look to great weatherwise, but that can obviously change between now and then.  

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On 10/17/2023 at 10:07 PM, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Yeah, it's bad.  W MA is tough but my VT friends say the rental situation there is dire. 

Another screwed up situation is the commercial real estate market.  Brattleboro, Greenfield, Northampton all have tons of commercial real estate vacancies because the landlords want outrageous rents.  Rather than lower rents they let the properties sit empty and take a tax right off. Northampton commercial store front rents are not far off of Boston prices.  One particular POS property mogul (Eric Suher) has basically been holding downtown Northampton (and to some extent Holyoke and Easthampton) hostage for years.  Lots of articles about him in the local press.  Northampton finally forced him to sell some of his properties through a series of legal maneuvers. 

Husband and I were just talking about this yesterday. The place we rented for a year in 2016 while we house searched is now $450 more a month than our mortgage! And it's a poorly run, dirt bag crappy area of West Springfield that shouldn't cost over $1200 a month... Used to find heroin bags in the parking lot...  and it's right across the street from the police station. Beautiful area :lol:

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10 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Yeah, that’s weird. You would think that a boat on a river is a lot easier to find than somebody in a car or on foot.  
If the search drags on it will be torturous for the people in that area. 

Especially with the dams on the river. Looks like your bound to a 15-20 mile stretch in that section. 

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