Aggregator

If summer road trips have you craving pizza, a new report spotlights key places across the country to stop for the most affordable slice.

A ravenous “Frankenfish” that can “walk” on land and survive outside of water for stretches was caught on Long Island – and now officials are warning the monster can wreak havoc. The Northern Snakehead fish was caught by a fisherman at Lily Pond in Suffolk County last week and now officials are crafting a plan...

He won three NBA championships with the Bulls during their first three-peat in the 1990s.

A progressive Christian denomination is facing sharp internal backlash over a proposed rule that would require ordained clergy to be in monogamous sexual relationships.

The World Cup is quickly approaching, and the Switzerland National Team is ready to go. But players might have to watch where they step.

"The FIFA World Cup may become the event that officially introduces many international visitors to New York’s legal cannabis industry.''

A popular Taiwanese chain is planning to remove its famous Shanghai Rice Cakes from the menu — sparking a petition and sending furious foodies into a frenzy. About 1,700 people have already signed a new petition to bring Din Tai Fung’s beloved dish back after leaving loyal patrons “distraught” after employees of the famous eatery,...

"Believe in the poetry."

The "Summer House" star split from his wife after four years of marriage in January.

The "Summer House" star split from his wife after four years of marriage in January.

Demand is so great that premier office buildings are running out of available space, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Choose One: Housing Is Shelter, Or Housing Is Just Another Asset In A Bubble Economy

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via Of Two Minds,

This will get massive pushback because it's true: either Housing Is Shelter, or Housing Is Just Another Asset in a Bubble Economy - it can't be both. This reality gets pushback because the conversion of housing from shelter into just another asset bubbling higher in a bubble-dependent economy has been so profitable for those inflating the bubble.

The basic pushback goes like this: housing has always been an investment, nothing has changed. This is classic misdirection. This is like saying "stock market options have always been a way to hedge positions" to justify the transition from hedging to extremes of gambling, i.e. zero-day expiration options (ODTE).

Whenever I suggest that housing is being hoarded by the wealthy and corporations as a low-risk asset to park credit-generated capital, I get pushback: no, I'm told, the percentage of housing that's empty most or all of the year owned by the wealthy and corporations is tiny, as is the percentage of housing owned as short-term vacation rentals (STVRs).

The problem with these claims is they're based on completely fraudulent / inaccurate statistics. There is no regulatory system that audits whether owners who obtained "owner occupied" mortgages actually live in the dwelling, or whether owners, especially those hidden behind LLCs and other cloaking mechanisms, are "owner occupants" as claimed.

Owner-Occupancy Fraud and Mortgage Performance (Philadelphia Federal Reserve) Occupancy fraud has been suggested as a contributor to the housing bubble. We show it was pervasive and remains present.

In other words, even the most cursory audits find significant percentages of "owner occupied" housing is vacant most or all of the time or is an unregistered short-term vacation rental. Anecdotally, many upper-middle class households own not just vacation / second homes in rural locales but "investment" homes that are empty or they use occasionally in urban areas, which due to high demand / valuations are hoarded because selling them in a bubble economy means the sellers will be unable to buy back into the market in the future.

The "monetize your empty room" AirBnB idea that began the short-term vacation rental market has transmogrified into a monster consuming the housing market in resort locales. Surveys have found that 15% or more of all available housing in resort locales is now absentee-owner short-term vacation rentals, and two-thirds of condominium buyers are out-of-state.

STVRs Have Destroyed America's Resort Towns

Some argue this doesn't matter because resort housing tends to be in rural regions with few jobs. It matters to local residents who are priced out. But "investment" housing isn't limited to resorts; there are an unknown but consequential number of vacant / STVR "investment" housing units in urban areas with jobs and strong demand for permanent housing.

Cities with rent control such as San Francisco and New York have renters who keep their low-cost flat vacant while living abroad. Since the rent-controlled apartment cannot be replaced once it's surrendered, it makes sense to hoard the rental for future or occasional use. Again, there is no system of auditing who actually lives in a dwelling as a permanent resident, as this is viewed in the US as an invasion of privacy.

(In Japan, local authorities keep close tabs on who is actually living in every dwelling as a matter of course. When we stayed in a friend's temporarily vacant flat for a few days, officials came to the door to check on who we were.)

The monetary policies of suppressing interest rates and expanding credit have favored the wealthy who have the income to support additional mortgages and the need to park their expanding capital somewhere. Housing is attractive because it's less volatile than the stock market and offers higher appreciation in a bubble economy than bonds.

Those seeking housing as shelter cannot compete with wealthy households and entities seeking places to park credit-generated capital for income and/or appreciation. In a bubble-dependent economy, there's no need to go through all the trouble of renting an empty dwelling, as the appreciation alone makes the investment worthwhile. Renting out an "investment" incurs risks and costs that are best avoided - unless the property generates a hefty profit as a remotely managed unregistered short-term vacation rental.

Once again, the pushback is pushback against inconvenient truths that threaten the ownership class that has reaped gains from housing as an asset class in a bubble economy. It's now evident that large corporate owners of thousands of rental units have used predatory pricing - oops, I mean dynamic pricing - to jack up rents in markets they are dominant players in; once the price point is set higher, small landlords push up their rents to the new "market price."

In a non-bubble economy, credit is scarce and expensive, and so asset bubbles can't be inflated as credit inflates. As credit inflates, the pool of money sloshing around seeking a low-risk home for safety and appreciation expands, and this pool sloshes into housing, driving home prices and rents out of reach of those whose income is wages, not wages plus capital-generated income.

Bubbles in housing generate artificial scarcity, scarcity not in the total number of dwellings but in the number of dwellings available and within reach for those seeking shelter, i.e. whatever is left after wealthy households and corporations with access to credit snap up housing as a low-risk place to park capital that offers tax benefits and appreciation.

Housing affordability has reached historic lows.

Housing payments have reached historic highs.

The wealthiest 10% have used their income and credit to bid up assets which bubble higher in bubble-dependent economies.

So here's the truth: we can choose housing as shelter or housing as an asset in a bubble economy, but we can't choose both. Housing as an asset in a bubble economy pushes housing out of reach of those seeking shelter.

And of course there's pushback against the truth that ours is a bubble-dependent economy. For a definitive answer, let's see how well the economy is doing after all the credit-asset-speculative bubbles pop and decline back to their starting point.

My book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free)

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/07/2026 - 13:25

"My eyes were just popping out.”

The advancement of both Republican candidates ensures that voters in each district will see a Democrat-versus-Republican matchup on the November 5 general election ballot.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat launched a damning ad forcing Mayor Zohran Mamdani-backed rival Darializa Avila Chevalier to account for the words in her own nasty "deleted" social media posts.

The crowd cheered and shouted “This is the youth of the pope!” as Leo arrived for the Mass at a central Madrid plaza.

The NYPD is investigating a freak accident that left an elderly pedestrian dead from a falling tree.

CHICAGO — When Greg Vitello watches on television and the camera pans to the Giants’ dugout, he notices an expression on his son’s face. Or, more accurately, a lack of one. “I think he’s done a really good job of controlling his emotions,” Greg Vitello told The California Post. “At this level, you can’t go...

The Rockies’ Tyler Freeman took the brunt of Brewers star pitcher Jacob Misiorowski’s record-setting night on the mound Saturday. In the sixth inning of the Rockies’ 7-1 loss to Milwaukee, Freeman absorbed a 98.2 mph cutter that knocked off his batting helmet. He doubled over for a moment before a trainer promptly came out of...

While there are some clear signs of heart disease, like shortness of breath or chest pain, others aren't as well-known, even when they're in plain sight.