Free Republic

Freddie King said it best. We’re going down. At least the commercial real estate market. As The Fed raises rates to combat inflation, we are witnessing a serious decline in Markit’s CMBX BBB S15 index. We’re going down, at least the commercial real estate market. Here is a photo of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ready to address problems in the commercial real estate market.

The Federal Reserve raised their target rate just once under President Obama until Donald Trump was elected. Then raised their target rate 8 times AFTER Trump was elected. In other words, Bernanke/Yellen kept the target rate near 0% for too long. When you throw the insane level of spending by Biden and Congress on top of the massive Fed stimulus. Now The Fed is trying to remove the excessive monetary stimulus by raising rates which is crushing banks. And then we have Senator Elizabeth Warren calling for an investigation into The Federal Reserve for the banking crisis without taking any...

As The Federal Reserve continues its assault on inflation by raising their target rate, Blackstone Inc.’s $69 billion real estate fund for wealthy individuals said it will limit redemption requests, one of the most dramatic signs of a pullback at a top profit driver for the firm and a chilling indicator for the property industry. Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. has been facing withdrawal requests exceeding its quarterly limit, a major test for the one of the private equity firm’s most ambitious efforts to reach individual investors. The news, in a letter Thursday, sent Blackstone stock falling as much...

SECONDARY school pupils are told that Winston Churchill was a “war criminal” and “a blundering reactionary” in a teaching tutorial shared by thousands of teachers. It is also claimed the wartime leader’s speeches were “poorly received”, he was “drunk” during his “finest hour” message and Bob Geldof is more important to our history. The lesson plan, Winston Churchill: Hero or War Criminal?” appears on the website of global education company Tes. Using halos and red devils’ horns as bullet points, the lesson contains a potted history of the career of what it calls “an intensely controversial figure”. Part of it...

According to researchers, the antibiotic-resistant organism is a local public health threat. APH investigated 37 cases of Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae — or CRE — at Austin-area medical facilities in 2017, with 18 of those being Travis County residents. "Healthy people usually do not get CRE infections – they usually happen to patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare settings," the Centers for Disease Control wrote on its website about CRE. Patients who use ventilators, catheters or those who take antibiotics for a prolonged period of time are most at risk, the CDC said. Individuals can make sure to wash their...

A report today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a small outbreak of carbapenemase-producing carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CP-CRE) at a Kentucky hospital in 2016 highlights multiple introduction of the worrisome pathogen in a rural facility and demonstrates the possible role of cleaning equipment. The investigation by physicians and epidemiologists from the CDC and the Kentucky Department of Health, appearing today in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), describes an outbreak that started on Aug 11, 2016, when two Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC)-producing isolates from clinical cultures were reported from patients in a small community hospital...

he deadliest superbug yet -- Candida auris -- is invading hospitals and nursing homes, killing a staggering 60 percent of patients it infects. Some exposed patients don't succumb to infection but silently carry the germ and infect others. So far, the lethal germ has sickened patients in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts, with 122 cases reported so far this year, up from only six last year. The germ -- a fungus -- lingers on bedrails and on the uniforms and hands of doctors and nurses, ready to attack the next patient. Once it gets inside a catheter...

Going into a hospital? It's getting riskier because of drug-resistant infections -- the kind almost no drug can cure. Despite one federal government "action plan" after another, the germs are winning. Government authorities are clueless about how many infections there are, or how many patients are dying. Alarming new research shows that one of the deadliest families of bugs, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, nicknamed CRE, may actually be striking three times more patients than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us. One lesson from the war against AIDS: Level with the public about the enormity of a problem if you...

A vote for Britain to leave the EU would be a "jump into a void", according to the head of a new pro-European Conservative campaign group. Former minister Nick Herbert has launched Conservatives for Reform in Europe (CRE) to argue the case for the UK to stay under renegotiated terms. Meanwhile, the education secretary is also warning young people could be "cut off from the world" if the UK leaves. David Cameron has said ministers can campaign on either side of the debate. The PM's push to renegotiate Britain's terms of membership of the EU is expected to come to...

on this topic generated plenty of interest (despite the small number of posted comments), so we continue our coverage… Yet another prestigious hospital joins the ranks of those reporting Carbapenem resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infections, linked to endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) endoscopes. On March 4th, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles discovered that four patients were infected with CRE, and 67 others may have been exposed. Lisa McGiffert, director of the Safe Patient Project at Consumers Union, and a longtime activist regarding hospital-acquired infections, said that “It’s highly likely many hospitals around the country have had outbreaks, and they haven’t been...

NBC4’s Dr. Bruce Hensel answers questions about enterobacteriaceae bacteria, which may have contributed to the deaths of two patients at Ronald Reagan-UCLA Medical Center. Medical equipment tainted with a deadly "superbug" may have contributed to the deaths of two patients at Ronald Reagan-UCLA Medical Center, and dozens of other patients may have been infected with the drug-resistant bacteria as well, officials said Wednesday. UCLA Health System officials said 179 patients had been notified about the exposure, which took place between October 2014 and January 2015. The patients were treated for digestive ailments ranging from gallstones to cancers. Doctors used a...

Ugh. Companies issuing negative outlooks for the 3rd quarter outnumber positive outlooks by 5.2-to-1. NEW YORK – U.S. companies are warning about third-quarter earnings at a rate lower than last quarter but still at the second highest level since 2001, leaving estimates well below what they were just three months ago. Companies issuing negative outlooks for the quarter outnumber positive ones by 5.2-to-1, the most negative since the 6.3-to-1 ratio in the second quarter. The second-quarter ratio is the worst since the first quarter of 2001. The third quarter would be the second worst since 2001, according to Thomson Reuters...

Hospitals need to take action against the spread of a deadly, antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacteria kill up to half of patients who are infected. The bacteria, called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae or CRE, have increased over the past decade and grown resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics, according to the CDC. In the first half of 2012, 200 health care facilities treated patients infected with CRE. "CRE are nightmare bacteria," CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement. "Our strongest antibiotics don't work and patients are left with potentially untreatable...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is alerting clinicians of an emerging untreatable multidrug-resistant organism in the United States. There are many forms of Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), but of the 37 forms reported in the U.S., 15 have been reported in less than a year. The CDC said the increase in CRE means health care providers need to “act aggressively to prevent the emergence and spread of these unusual CRE organisms.” Enterobacteriaceae lives in water, soil and the human gut. These “surperbugs” have developed high levels of resistance to antibiotics – even carbapanems. Individuals who usually develop CRE infections...

A sharp jump in the number of rare but potentially deadly types of a superbug resistant to nearly all last-resort antibiotics has prompted government health officials to renew warnings for U.S. hospitals, nursing homes and other health care settings. The move comes just as researchers in Israel are reporting that people colonized with dangerous CRE -- Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae -- can take more than a year before they test negative for the bacteria, making it more difficult to control -- and raising the risk of wider spread. Reports of unusual forms of CRE have nearly doubled in the U.S., the Centers...

A deadly bacteria known as Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, is raising concerns in the medical community. Jennifer Hsu in an Infectious Disease Physician at Sanford Health and has been closely studying this 'super bug' which is best known for it's ability to defy even the strongest of drugs. “What has happened over time with increasing exposure to antibiotics the bacteria have developed ways to evade those antibiotics and they become resist to a certain class of antibiotics,” said Hsu. In the United States, the bacteria have been found primarily in healthcare facilities and hospitals and are known to prey on...

August 13, 2012 Spanish and Italian commercial real estate markets meltdown Rick Moran My jaw dropped when I read this Financial Times report on the commercial real estate markets in Spain and Italy: The Spanish and Italian commercial property markets have all but collapsed with the number of transactions in both countries falling more than 90 per cent in the three months to July as investors worry about the future of the eurozone. Only three property transactions were registered in Spain during the second quarter, down from 58 deals in the previous quarter. In Italy the slide was even more...

Accessing Capital for Commercial Real Estate Is Difficult in the New Normal May 04, 2011 | Staff Writer By Richard Gatto Executive Vice President – The Alter Group With the nation’s banks sitting on between $1.2 and $1.3 billion worth of capital, they are nevertheless reluctant to lend on commercial real estate because of the elevated level of risk and current valuations of properties already on their books. Many banks own portfolios of commercial real estate whose valuations have declined significantly and do not want to increase their exposure. Currently, banks are under pressure to de-leverage and raise their book...

Commercial Real Estate Clouded by Delinquencies Published: Wednesday, 4 May 2011 | 1:28 PM ET By: Diana Olick CNBC Real Estate Reporter Barely a few minutes after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about banks finally opening the "spigot for commercial real-estate," the folks over at Trepp issued their monthly report on the delinquency rate for commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS); let's just say it isn't good. After two months of very minimal rate increases, the number jumped in April, 23 basis points, to 9.65 percent, "the highest reading in the history of the CMBS market," according to...

February 28, 2011, 3:37 pm Commercial Real Estate Breathes Life Into a Moribund Market By SUSANNE CRAIG A crucial part of the securitization market — the Wall Street credit machine that helped set off the financial crisis — is kicking back into gear. In the last few weeks, a number of big banks have successfully bundled and sold new securities backed by commercial real estate loans. Morgan Stanley and Bank of America completed a $1.55 billion deal last month that included office and retail properties. So far this year, financial firms have sold about $5 billion of commercial mortgage-backed securities,...