Free Republic

Michael Jordan's enormous house in Chicago is still on the market after 10 years. Jordan has tried to sweeten the pot by cutting the price nearly in half and throwing in a complete set of Air Jordans with the purchase of the house. And yet, it remains unsold and he pays more than $100,000 in annual property taxes. The house was originally listed for $29 million and has every bell and whistle you can think of. Some "over-improvements" and the house's location are making it hard to sell the property.

California’s cannabis industry is in a free-fall, with some municipalities in the northern part of the state making plans for significantly reduced tax revenues as a result of a collapse in wholesale prices. Once selling for more than $4,000 per pound, bulk buyers are now shopping in the $300 to $500 range for fresh harvests, according to experts, and some growers reported clearing out their crops for less than $200 per pound for fear of being stuck with product. The price represents a sharp drop from recent years, according to industry insiders. “It’s been a steady decline since we got...

Foreclosure notices ticked up nationwide in the first quarter of the year with more than 65,000 properties beginning to go through the process. There were 36,617 new filings in March, which marks the 23rd consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in foreclosure activity, according to a recent report from ATTOM. They were up 3 percent from the previous quarter and 29 percent year-over-year. Housing downturn: Home seller profits at two-year low: report Yet economists say housing market conditions are different from the 2008 housing crash partly due to enormous equity homeowners gained in their homes in recent years and overall...

One of North Jersey's most unforgettable transplants elevated a modern Park Ridge townhouse from posh to presidential. Put up for sale at the end of March, 23 Sherwood Downs was the final home of former President Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Patricia. The asking price is $1.2 million, twice what the couple paid in March 1991. Located deep within the gated Bears Nest community, the three-bedroom, five-bathroom home was the second Bergen County residence for the Nixons. The pair lived in a 15-room home on 4 acres in Saddle River for nine years before they sold it in November...

While the Biden administration cannot force you to buy an electric car, it can, by capping tailpipe emissions and other coercive measures, compel producers to severely curtail the manufacturing of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and drive up the cost of gasoline-powered cars. This will likely result in a fundamental restructuring of America’s automotive industry, which accounts for about 3 percent of U.S. GDP and employs more than 1.7 million Americans. The Biden administration’s auto industrial policy features a combination of ever-tightening emissions regulations, subsidies to electric vehicle (EV) auto manufacturers, and government payments to EV consumers. The Infrastructure Law,...

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) issued a scathing rebuke Monday of President Joe Biden’s administration after it approved a scaled-down version of an oil drilling project in a petroleum-rich region of northern Alaska. Markey, a climate hawk and cosponsor of the failed Green New Deal, called the administration’s approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project, a multibillion-dollar oil drilling endeavor in the federal North Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a “disastrous decision.”

Publishers have reported that audiobook sales are up for the 10th straight year. Details of the increase come from the Audio Publishers Association’s (APA) Sales Survey conducted by InterQ. The survey shows how audiobook revenue in 2021 was $1.6 billion, marking a 25% increase and the tenth straight year of double digit growth. There were around 74,000 audiobooks sold in 2021, which is 6% more than in 2020.

China is the largest market for electric vehicles in the world. Germany was the second until the US just displaced Europe's largest economy as EV sales accelerated. BloombergNEF data shows the US is now the world's second-largest EV market, shifting Germany down to the third spot. Last year, nearly one million EVs were sold in the US, compared with 650,000 in 2021.Not surprising is Tesla's dominance in overall sales. Elon Musk's automaker sold a whopping 510,610 vehicles last year. Ford Motor Company was number two with 74,000. "The US is poised for a breakout year in 2023 with new EV...

(Reuters) - Vanguard Group's decision last month to quit a key climate change coalition underscores how the retail investors who dominate its client base focus less on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) priorities than institutional investors. Vanguard said last month it would drop out of the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative, whose members commit to making their investment portfolios emission-neutral by 2050. It said 80% of its close to $8 trillion in assets are in its index funds, which primarily attract retail investors. These funds generally do not have discretion to include or exclude stocks beyond a pre-set...

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) clashed with billionaire Elon Musk in an online exchange Sunday, telling the world’s richest man to “fix your companies or Congress will” after Musk mocked the senator’s complaints about Twitter. On Friday, Markey sent a letter to Musk asking for more information about how accounts on Twitter are being verified and accusing the social media company’s new owner of allowing the spread of disinformation and “putting profits over people.”

With soaring borrowing costs, the Federal Reserve has slammed the brakes on the once-booming used car market. The latest data on wholesale used-vehicle prices show October's decline on a year-over-year basis was the worst since the financial crisis over a decade ago. The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index for October declined to 200, or about 10.6%, the worst decline since December 2008 when the global economy was melting down (and the 5th largest decline ever)... The Fed's rapid pace of rate hikes this year is slowing demand, as Edmunds data showed the average annual percentage rate on used-car loans was...

MARKET EXTRA The Federal Reserve on Friday confirmed what many investors were saying for some time: the $24 trillion Treasury market has been experiencing low levels of market liquidity in recent months. The central bank has been rapidly increasing interest rates since March as part of a fight to bring inflation down from a 40-year high. The hope has been that such steps can cool consumer demand enough to tame prices, without throwing the economy into a painful recession, or spark a financial crisis. But since May, cracks in liquidity in Treasurys, the biggest, deepest part of the U.S. bond...

Treasury-market liquidity is drying up and it’s going to get worse. The problem is bigger than it seems. Liquidity in the U.S. bond market, the world’s largest, has been deteriorating since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates earlier this year. The end of massive monthly bond purchases followed by the start of quantitative tightening has worsened the problem as the Fed tries to extricate itself from Treasury and mortgage markets after buying a third of each. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently said she was “worried about a loss of adequate liquidity in the market,” as Treasury supply booms to...

The US housing market remains in “free fall” after a survey showed a “disastrous” decline in homebuilder confidence, a prominent economist warned on Tuesday. Homebuilder confidence plunged for the 10th consecutive month in October, falling to its lowest level since 2012, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ monthly survey. The latest downtick came as mortgage rates spiked to levels not seen since the Great Recession. The survey’s results were “disastrous” and indicated there is “no bottom yet” for the housing market’s current slump, according to Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “The plunge in the NAHB index...

The S&P 500 fell more than 1% to its lowest level since November 2020 early in the session but regained some losses to trade down 0.59%, hurt by weaker tech stocks such as Meta Platforms, whose high valuations are sensitive to rising rates. The Nasdaq slipped 1.5%, hitting a fresh 52-week low, weighed down by tech and semiconductor stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 61 points or 0.21%, uplifted by jumps in Amgen and Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Stocks fell on Monday with the Nasdaq Composite index falling to the lowest level in two years as tech shares continue to be the hardest hit in this bear market because of a spiking interest rates. The Nasdaq Composite fell more than 1.3% to touch its lowest levels since September 2020, weighed down by a slump in semiconductor stocks such as Nvidia and AMD. The S&P 500 also fell, dragged down by semi stocks and dips in major tech names Apple and Microsoft. The benchmark lost about 0.78%.

Sept 23 (Reuters) - The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 20% from its Jan. 5 intraday record high on Friday amid worries that aggressive policy tightening by the Federal Reserve will push the economy into a recession. The index would confirm it has been in a bear market if it closes more than 20% below the record high close, according to a widely used definition.

The US housing market is in the midst of a “deep recession” that could put pressure on the Federal Reserve to ease up on interest rate hikes, a prominent economist warned on Monday. Homebuilder confidence declined for the ninth straight month in September as surging mortgage rates and steep prices pushed many buyers out of the market, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Builder confidence fell to its lowest level since 2014 when excluding the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the index showed. The prolonged downturn in confidence shows the housing market has been “in a tailspin...

Stocks tumbled Tuesday after an August inflation report showed higher consumer prices than expected, as investors worry the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates even higher to combat rising prices. Inflation reached a four-decade high of 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June, leading the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates even more to combat surging prices. Core inflation, which does not include volatile food and energy prices, increased 0.6% on a monthly basis in August, twice as much as economists predicted and double July’s 0.3% rise, though gas prices fell from record highs this summer.

A “superbubble” appears dangerously near its “final act” after the recent rally in U.S. stocks lured some investors back into the market just ahead of potential “tragedy,” according to Jeremy Grantham, the legendary co-founder of Boston-based investment firm GMO. Grantham, who has repeatedly warned investors of a bubble in markets, said in a paper Wednesday that “superbubbles are events unlike any others” and share some common features. “One of those features is the bear-market rally after the initial derating stage of the decline but before the economy has clearly begun to deteriorate, as it always has when superbubbles burst,” said...