You can’t get away from it. The media fawn over it. Rational neighbors drool unexpectedly. Ads flood the airwaves. “Learn our simple three-step system on how to flip homes,” the announcer says. Everyone knows: untold riches are waiting for you. “Right here in the Bay Area,” he says. It’s hot, so hot that people will get burned. And banks will get hit (again).
California
Whose Capital Will Get Destroyed? Wall Street Tries To Cash Out Of Newfangled “Asset Class”
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Whose Capital Will Get Destroyed? Wall Street Tries To Cash Out Of Newfangled “Asset Class”
Oaktree Capital and Carrington Mortgage are trying to dump a portfolio of 500 single-family homes they’d bought out of foreclosure. They’re trying to get the heck out of the once hot buy-to-rent trade. Blackstone, which gobbled up 32,000 of these homes, is trying to get its money out. They all are. That trade is turning sour. Trouble in the housing market!
Surveillance Society: If You Drive, You Get Tracked
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Surveillance Society: If You Drive, You Get Tracked
A technology that surreptitiously captures data of people out on the street, combines it with other data, and mines it ad infinitum? Local and federal government agencies love it. It’s increasingly sophisticated and cheap. It’s spreading. And it led a professor at West Point to warn: “We don’t have a police state in this country, but we have the technology.”
The Next Big Thing: The Fear Of Climate Change
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Next Big Thing: The Fear Of Climate Change
The last big thing was green tech – from wave-power generators to the smart grid. Hyped in the bipartisan stimulus bill, it promised gobs of jobs, billions in revenues, and untold riches. Private investors plowed in billions too. It ended up in a massive pileup of capital destruction. Fatalities were everywhere.
Broke Public Pension Funds And Exotic Boondoggles
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Broke Public Pension Funds And Exotic Boondoggles
That state and local government pension funds are going broke isn’t a new problem. That it’s much worse than reported by those pension funds isn’t a new problem either. Last June, Moody’s determined that the already dizzying unfunded pension liabilities were actually three times higher than reported. To top it off, trustees are blowing a bunch of retiree money on an exotic boondoggle.
Chevron Whacked By Record Fine so Small it Might Not Notice
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Chevron Whacked By Record Fine so Small it Might Not Notice
The California Division of Occupational Safety & Health just slammed Chevron with massive, record-breaking penalties related to the refinery in Richmond—the one that ended up in a fireball last August and caused 15,000 people to seek medical treatment. Purpose: to teach the mega-company an excruciatingly painful lesson. Alas….
The Worldwide Spectacle Of Banning San Francisco’s Naked Soul
by Wolf Richter • • 3 Comments
Rarely has a city council received so much worldwide attention as San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. Yesterday, accompanied by booing and heckling and shouts of approval, they voted 6 to 5 to ban public nudity. A close decision, after months of hot debate. And protests, when it wasn’t too cold, by naked people outside City Hall. “Ban” in the San Francisco sense.
For-Profit Colleges: A “Business Model” That Blew Up
by Wolf Richter • • 9 Comments
Career Education, when it reported its quarterly results, shed light on an industry that had ruthlessly taken advantage of the American way of funding higher education, and that had preyed on gullible prospective students who were trying to better their lives. Then it handed the tab to the taxpayer. A perfect scam. Now the industry is in a vise between government crack-downs and reluctant students.
California’s Ballyhooed Recovery? Oh Dude!
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on California’s Ballyhooed Recovery? Oh Dude!
Radioactive Contamination On San Francisco’s Treasure Island: A Tale Of US Government Obfuscation & Willful Ignorance
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Radioactive Contamination On San Francisco’s Treasure Island: A Tale Of US Government Obfuscation & Willful Ignorance
On Treasure Island, a former naval base in the San Francisco Bay, there’s a spot the Navy calls “USS Pandemonium Site I,” occupied by multi-family housing units. Potential contaminants: Radium-226 and cesium-137. Contamination, according to the Navy, is “unlikely.” But the Health Department finds 93 spots where radiation is up to 2.7 times the normal exposure level. In one area, it’s 4,380% above the annual dose limit.