Biden’s Act II – Subsidize Housing for the Poor, Take from the Rich – Adding Gas to Inflation

June 26, 2024 — bunkerville

When in economic doubt, tinker with Housing, so goes Janet Yellin in her latest attempt at getting Biden elected. We have seen this movie before. Take from the rich – by subsidizing “first time home buyers and first generation home buyer” with risker loans. Making the rest of us pay higher interest rates.

The fact that more than 15 million illegals now require housing apparently does not effect a housing shortage in any way. Here we go:

“The US housing market is stagnating, but I think a bigger risk to homebuilders and related industries is the tinkering that the Biden administration has promised to do,” Peter Earle, senior economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the DCNF.

“One part of the plan is having the Federal Home Financing Association (FHFA) order Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lower the interest rate on high-risk borrowers by raising the interest rate on low-risk borrowers. They’ve also been instructed to increase the amount of credit extended to high-risk borrowers.”

The Biden administration, through the FHFA, instructed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae starting in May 2023 to essentially subsidize higher-risk borrowers with lower credit scores to help them take out home loans in the more expensive market, raising the amount of debt higher-risk borrowers can take on and attracting more Americans to the market. The subsidization of riskier loans puts the broader market in danger by lending out possibly more than people can afford, running the risk of creating a housing bubble while also increasing demand and costs.“

The President has put forward bold proposals to make housing more affordable, including a plan to build over 2 million new homes, which would lower costs by increasing supply, and a new tax credit for first-time homebuyers and first-generation homebuyers.

The Biden administration requested in March $258 billion in funding to help boost housing supply as part of the president’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2025. The flood of cash would not spur new growth but crowd out private-sector construction, adding to an already ballooning deficit that many economists believe is driving a significant portion of inflation.

Read more

Here we have one of my favorite Congressmen try and explain some basic facts to Yellin about three weeks ago, as only he can. “You want to give the country a sugar high just before the election.” Seems so as she works at cross purposes to reign in inflation.

This reminds me of a post I did recently back in May

Jared Bernstein, Economic Adviser, Cannot Answer Basic Question on Monetary Policy

Meet Jared Bernstein who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Problem? For starters, he is not an Economist. Bernstein graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied double bass with Orin O’Brien. Throughout the ’80s, Bernstein was a mainstay on the jazz scene in NYC. He also earned a Master of Social Work from Hunter College as well as a DSW in social welfare from Columbia University’s school of social work.

Just for laughs and giggles.  “We can’t go bankrupt because we print our own money.”

And if you are still hanging with me…. and want to see the true jiggering of our economy that most anyone can understand….

‘SABOTAGE’: Economist warns what Janet Yellen is doing ‘never works’

The very best of the swamp.

Posted in Liberal Loonies. Tags: , , . 22 Comments »

U.K.: Migrants Must Be Housed in Three Star Hotels; U.S. Holds Hearing on Using National Parks.

September 28, 2023 — bunkerville

What to do with the troublesome issue of the “migrants.” housing. We have come a long way from “illegal aliens.” The British require a minimum level of luxury. Here in the U.S.? Let’s look at our National Parks since especially in New York, the hotels and other opportunities are now filled to capacity. 

The Biden administration is slashing through environmental protection rules and worries about policing and the health of illegal immigrants as it rushes to erect a migrant camp on a national park site in New York City, local lawmakers told Congress on Wednesday.

The National Park Service signed an agreement to lease Floyd Bennett Field, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area in Brooklyn, to hold a tent city housing up to 7,500 adult men, giving New York a place to stash at least some of the cataclysmic flow of migrants cresting over the city.

Here we go in the U.K.:

The British paper The Telegraph reviewed the most recent contract that was issued by the Home Office and found this clause under the “mandatory requirements” for hotels that were booked for migrants: “The location of the accommodation will be carried out at locations close to amenities and transport networks. Contracted venues should be at least a minimum of three stars.”

..

And while this is a U.K. problem, the roots of one of the largest drivers of illegal immigration by boat to the country -(UK) could be said to be a failure of President Joe Biden’s administration, as well — namely, the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

According to the numbers, Afghanis represent the largest number of asylum seekers in the first half of 2023, with 3,326. Another roughly 3,200 applications came from Iran, with India, Bangladesh and Pakistan trailing them.

However, in 2022, Albanians made up the largest group of asylum-seekers crossing the English Channel, with 12,301 from the European nation making the dangerous journey — roughly 28 percent, according to the BBC.

….according to LBC Radio, an independent radio broadcaster in the U.K., a new report pegs the government’s spending on illegal immigrant hotel rooms at £3 billion a year, or roughly $3.67 billion U.S.

“We need to stop the boats to relieve the unsustainable pressure on our asylum system and accommodation services, which is costing over £3 billion a year,” the report reads.

From WND

How is it going here in the U.S. and the housing of so called migrants? National Parks are now up for consideration.

“Regardless of personal or political beliefs on immigration or migrant policy, there is common ground in keeping our national parks — some of America’s most treasured spaces — out of this debate,” the letter said. “All national parks, whether in rural or urban areas, exist for visitors to experience wonder, to recreate and find joy, or to simply learn more about the great history of our nation. National parks are not, however, a place to temporarily or permanently encamp persons experiencing a lack of housing options.

The Governor of New York has gone on the record about the DOI’s reluctance to accommodate the request, due to statutory restraints. We agree that the use of NPS lands to house unsheltered migrants is outside of the NPS statutory authority.”

Original Location: Rep. Bruce Westerman calls NYC plan to house illegal immigrants at national park ‘far Left’s worst idea’

The House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on Wednesday on using national parks to house migrants.

The best of the swamp.

Posted in Immigration. Tags: , , , , . 20 Comments »

Phila to Ban “Gentrification Symbols” of Balconies and Bay Windows UPDATE!

June 10, 2019 — bunkerville

 

There goes the old neighborhood.  Apparently councilman Johnson didn’t get paid a big enough payoff. That’s how Philadelphia rolls. Yes those dilapidated row houses are just cute as a button. Anyway, we don’t want those white folks moving in now do we?

In Philadelphia, city councilman Kenyatta Johnson has pushed for the city to ban balconies and bay windows from new apartments and condos, saying that they are a “symbol of gentrification” that causes anxiety, as he criticizes the new housing developments being built in the city.

Meanwhile, the “blame whitey” ban on balconies and bay windows passed out of committee and is now on the mayor’s desk, waiting to be signed into law. Johnson added “I call them pop-out windows, that’s where we have these monstrosity developments with windows with aluminum siding that are green or orange or blue, and they don’t fit on these blocks that are all red-brick rowhouses.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

Johnson, who represents much of South Philadelphia, introduced a bill during City Council’s May 23 session that would ban balconies and bay windows across Point Breeze and Grays Ferry. The two architectural features would still be allowed outside of those two neighborhoods, but according to the bill, the distance from which they can project from a building would continue to be regulated.

Johnson’s legislation comes amid unprecedented change in his district, which stretches from the fast-gentrifying neighborhoods of Graduate Hospital and Point Breeze, to areas farther south and west, including the Navy Yard and Eastwick. Thousands of new rowhouses have been built, adding taller and showier structures to older and modest rowhouse blocks. The boxy, bump-out bay windows that Johnson aims to legislate have become a well-known architectural feature of Philadelphia’s construction boom, just as aluminum siding and roof decks have.

For some homeowners in the market for newly constructed homes, balconies and bump-out bay windows offer two things that a traditional rowhouse can’t: additional space and light.Other people see these architectural features as a defining symbol of gentrification — bringing with it anxieties about cost-of-living increases and displacement. And yet others worry that the features disrupt the appearance and character of older blocks.

Bay windows “are absolutely reflective of the change that has happened in that [area] in the last 15 years or so,” said Patrick Grossi, advocacy director for the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. “They are an icon of that change, and maybe for a lot of people, they are an icon of unwelcome change

Wander over to the full thing if you want to read about all of the corruption. But I bet you have the drift by now.

More at Gateway Pundit

UPDATE: Couldn’t resist “Little Boxes” as it came to mind.

 

Want to bet the Mayor signs the bill?

Posted in Government. Tags: , , . 14 Comments »

Oregon Looking to be the First in Nation for State Wide Rent Control

January 26, 2019 — bunkerville

 

For today’s flashback I chose the happenings of Oregon, soon to become the next Venezuela apparently. It was an easy one since this week there are two headline stories that you would have heard about if not for Russia Russia Russia. So let me get you up to speed. First the latest news then a few of memory posts from days gone by. While we hear about California, it is Oregon that is setting the pace car for a Marxist State. Complete with the support of Soros. Here we go:

As home and rental prices rise across the country, more and more locales are giving serious consideration to a policy long denounced by economists: rent control. That includes Oregon, which increasingly looks likely to become the first state in the country to adopt rent control statewide.

“We are long past the point when we should have passed meaningful tenant protections,” state House Speaker Tina Kotek (D–Portland) says to Willamette Week. “Clearly more needs to be done statewide to give renters more security and stability.”

Snip…. This is what happens:

A 2018 Stanford study of rent control in San Francisco found that the city’s supply of rental housing fell by 15 percent as owners converted their rent-controlled properties into pricier condos. Citywide rents went up, not down.

If you want housing to be more affordable, the thing you really want is more supply.

Indeed, in Portland—the largest city in Oregon—record apartment construction in the last two years has resulted in a fall in rents. According to the website Apartment List, year-over-year rents in Portland declined by 1.2 percent and are likely to keep falling.

ECONorthwest estimates that only 5 percent of buildings in Portland increased rents above what would be allowed by SB 608 in 2018. That compares to 25 percent of buildings in 2015 and 2016. More at Reason

Just this week I posted this:

Oregon Mandatory Universal Home Visits – Coming For Your Newborns

January 24, 2019 

The ultimate intrusion by the government. Not just “at risk” babies, but every single baby born in Oregon.This is only the beginning. Next will come the determination of a safe home. I am sure guns will be next on the ban for any baby in a home. Ultimately government raised children. Not opt-out, three visits.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown introduced a new bill that will allow in-home inspections and ‘guidance’ of the families of newborn babies. It is another costly Big Brother initiative to butt into the lives of every family with a newborn in Oregon.

IT’S AN EMERGENCY FOR PUBLIC SAFETY

They describe it as an “emergency” to preserve “the public peace, health, and safety.”

And next?

Hmmm wonder who could be supporting all this nonsense in Oregon?

Oregon Governor gets Soros donation three days before refusing to send the National Guard to protect our borders

April 9, 2018 — bunkerville

Governor Kate Brown

The Oregon RNC reported on Monday April 2nd, 2018, that the Oregon governor received a large donation from former Nazi collaborator and creepy billionaire George Soros –

Willamette Week is reporting that Governor Kate Brown has accepted “an unprecedented” campaign check from George Soros, a billionaire left-wing hedge-fund manager and campaign donor who resides in New York. This is Soros’ “first direct involvement” in Oregon.

“Kate Brown has consistently ignored problems facing everyday Oregonians and has instead used the office of Governor to make herself a national left-wing celebrity. Now, Brown is cashing in and taking big campaign donations from notorious leftist puppet master, billionaire George Soros,” stated Oregon Republican Chairman Bill Currier.

Creepy and sinister Soros may have gifted Governor Brown to encourage her to encourage Oregon to keep his voting machines in place too. Oregon is one of 16 states that use Soros related voting machines.

Its website includes a flow-chart that describes how the company has contributed to elections in the U.S. from 2006-2015 with “57,000 voting and counting machines deployed” and “35 million voters assisted.”

Among the “case studies” that Smartmatic lists on its website as examples of its work are Venezuela, where it has been facilitating elections since 2004 when it “won a bid to provide Venezuela with a reliable voting system.”

It also lists Cook County, Illinois as another success story, when in “in 2006, Smartmatic signed what at the moment was the largest election automation contract in US history.

More of Soros machines  at Daily Caller

Finally-

Cliven Bundy case declared a mistrial, Misconduct by FBI, BLM

December 21, 2017 — bunkerville 

A lesson for all of us. This is what happens when a government goes out of control. Take a few minutes to view the video. Levoy Finicum slaughtered by the deep state. First the good news, then a refresher:

A federal judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the case of a Nevada rancher accused of leading an armed standoff against the government in 2014, blaming prosecutors for withholding key evidence from defense lawyers, including records about the conduct of FBI and Bureau of Land Management agents.

The decision is the latest in a string of failed prosecutions in Nevada and Oregon against those who have opposed federal control of vast swaths of land in Western states.

Jurors got a glimpse of the claims when Ryan Bundy, who represented himself, spoke at opening statements about seeing government snipers and surveillance cameras positioned on hilltops surrounding his family home in the days before armed supporters answered his family’s calls for help.

Just a refresher:

Two camera angles of LaVoy Finicum shooting – Video

March 12, 2016 — bunkerville 

Finicum was shot three times in the back. He was an Arizona rancher who took part in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover in Oregon.

Finicum was driving the truck that carried Ryan C. Bundy, 43, Ryan W. Payne, 32, Shawna Cox, 59, and Victoria Sharp, 18. In the Jeep behind them was driver Mark McConnell, 37, Brian D. Cavalier, 44, and Ammon Bundy, 40, the public face of the occupation. They were bound for a community meeting 100 miles north of the refuge in John Day.

Here is a video that I bet few have seen. For the first time we see not just the fuzzy unclear overhead police angle, but actually footage and words of those taken inside the Finicum car at the exact time of the police ambush. And really that is what one can only conclude if one watches this side-by-side clip of the two angles. Here tis:

Two camera angles of the LaVoy Finicum shooting demonstrate what tends to happen when people fail to prevent the government from becoming overgrown.

 

The Oregonian

Published on Mar 8, 2016

SUBSCRIBE 78K
In a video shown at a Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office press conference today, the aerial FBI video of the LaVoy Finicum shooting has been synced with a cellphone video Shawna Cox recorded from within Finicum’s truck.
Posted in Deep State. Tags: , , , , . 16 Comments »

Obama’s last gasp – Giving white suburbs a crack house in every neighborhood

May 9, 2016 — bunkerville

This is old news for us political wonks. The administration had been telegraphing that they planned to move Section 8 housing into the upper class neighborhoods. No wait, not the gated communities of the rich. No the middle class. While we heard this rumbling for months what did the Congress do? Paging Paul Ryan. Paul, Paul… did you do anything to get a bill together to stop this? And you are unhappy with Trump? And all of you who don’t mind throwing the Supreme Court away by staying home this fall and not voting, the Supremes will not help us. Supremes ruling – turning nice neighborhoods into ghettos June 30, 2015

In a 5-4 ruling, the court said certain housing policies that put minorities at a disadvantage, even if they aren’t expressly intended to discriminate, can be challenged in court.

The court sided with a community organization alleging that Texas’ housing department had improperly clustered Section 8 housing in low-income, high-crime areas — essentially preserving the segregation that federal housing law was designed to end.

Back to the latest:

Hillary’s rumored running mate, Housing Secretary Julian Castro, is cooking up a scheme to reallocate funding for Section 8 housing to punish suburbs for being too white and too wealthy.

The scheme involves super-sizing vouchers to help urban poor afford higher rents in pricey areas, such as Westchester County, while assigning them government real-estate agents called “mobility counselors” to secure housing in the exurbs.

Castro plans to launch the Section 8 reboot this fall, even though a similar program tested a few years ago in Dallas has been blamed for shifting violent crime to affluent neighborhoods.

It’s all part of a grand scheme to forcibly desegregate inner cities and integrate the outer suburbs.

Keep reading…

Posted in Liberal Loonies. Tags: , , , , . 25 Comments »

Obama tells landlords they must rent to criminals

April 5, 2016 — bunkerville

First, employers are getting to the point they can no longer question criminal records of applicants. A Criminal Record May No Longer Be A Stumbling Block To …

So let’s get the bad guys into our work places without notice, and into our neighborhoods.

The Obama administration released a warning Monday telling the nation’s landlords that it may be discriminatory for them to refuse to rent to those with criminal records.

The Fair Housing Act doesn’t include criminals as a protected class, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says refusing to rent based on a criminal record is a form of racial discrimination, due to racial imbalances in the U.S. justice system.

“Because of widespread racial and ethnic disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system, criminal history-based restrictions on access to housing are likely disproportionately to burden African-Americans and Hispanics.

H/T: Daily Caller:

Posted in Government. Tags: , , . 18 Comments »

Congress up to vote on stopping Obama from taking over zoning laws

December 10, 2015 — bunkerville

While our attention has been elsewhere, one of the most draconian acts of this administration can be stopped by Congress with the Gosar Amendment. Obama has plans to create “utopian” communities and decide who and what lives and is built in our communities. Please write your Rep. Please read the embedded links in the post below for this chilling attack on our freedom. Here we go:

This week marks the moment of truth for the effort to defund President Obama’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation — a stunningly ambitious attempt to force Americans to change the way they live. AFFH seeks to use the power of the national government to create communities of a certain kind, each having what the federal government deems an appropriate mix of economic, racial, and ethnic diversity.

Stanley Kurtz frames the issue this way:

Who controls the zoning in your town — your local elected government or Barack Obama? Who controls decisions in your neighborhood about where schools, shopping malls, and apartment buildings are located — your local elected government or Barack Obama? Who controls whether you live in a densely packed neighborhood with real barriers to travel by automobiles, or a car-friendly bedroom suburb — you or Barack Obama? That’s what Congress is about to decide.

The Obama administration’s Housing & Urban Development department is embarking on a social engineering experiment that wipes out one of the fundamental functions of local government – making neighborhood zoning decisions.

Through its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation, the president is seeking to diminish both liberty and local autonomy – hoping to supplant the foundational American ideal of equality of opportunity with the far left’s vision of imposed egalitarian outcomes.

The moment of truth has arrived because this week the Republican congressional leadership will decide how hard to push to include Rep. Paul Gosar’s amendment defunding AFFH in the Transportation Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. The House passed the Gosar amendment this spring. However, it is far from clear that the Gosar defund language will be retained. That depends on how committed Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are to its retention.

Ken Blackwell (the former mayor of Cincinnati) and Rick Manning make the case for insisting on the Gosar amendment here. They argue that the amendment is necessary to protect the most fundamental function of local governments – to control over where and what is built in their community.

More at Powerline blog

Posted in Liberal Loonies. Tags: , , , . 17 Comments »

German woman get eviction notice to make room for ‘migrants’

October 5, 2015 — bunkerville

The Blaze brings us this story. Think it can’t happen here?  Think about the earlier story I posted about Seattle getting rid of single-family zoning. Utopia soon to follow

“We can still be a city for everyone, but only if we give up our outdated ideal of every family living in their own home on a 5,000 square foot lot,” a draft letter from the committee co-chairs reads.

According to a draft letter, the city needs to move away from the idea that all families can live in their own home on a piece of land, the Times reports.

But I digressed. Think Bernie Sanders is a joke? Attracting thousands? Think again.

A German woman is protesting the eviction notice she received informing her she has until the end of the year to vacate the government-owned apartment she rents in order to make room for migrants who have arrived seeking asylum.

“I think it’s a scandal to throw tenants out of their apartments,” Gabriele Keller, 56, told Germany’s SWR television. “I can’t see the sense of it.”

Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that Keller has lived in the same home in the city of Eschbach for 23 years and has now hired a lawyer to fight the eviction.

According to news reports, she was told that she was being asked to move because building a new shelter would be too expensive for the municipality. Instead, the building will be converted for migrant housing.

Europe is facing the most challenging migrant crisis in decades, as countries scramble to cope with the influx.

German officials estimate 800,000 migrants will arrive in Germany by the end of the year.

Keep reading…

Posted in Liberal Loonies. Tags: , , , . 21 Comments »

HUD welcomes the Trayvon Martins and their ilk into our ‘hood

July 22, 2013 — bunkerville

Just when one thought the news from this regime could not get more grim, another so-called “Rule.” So now Billions of dollars will go to insure that our homes decrease in value so we can move the hoodlums into our hood. Welcome Trayvon Martin and his ilk, and they will get free money to be our neighbors no doubt. The dictates will come down fast and furious now.

To ensure that “every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of,” HUD has published a new fair-housing regulation intended to give people access to better neighborhoods than the ones they currently live in. –

“Make no mistake, this is a big deal,” Donovan said. “With the HUD budget alone, we are talking about billions of dollars. And as you know, decades ago, these funds were used to support discrimination. Now, they will be used to expand opportunity and bring communities closer to the American Dream.”

Under the Fair Housing Act, HUD requires grantees, such as cities, that receive federal housing funds to “affirmatively further fair housing.”

Under the proposed rule, the neighborhood data provided by HUD will be used to evaluate patterns of integration and segregation, racial and ethnic concentrations of poverty, and access to “valuable community assets.” HUD wants to know if existing laws and policies — such as zoning, financing, infrastructure planning and transportation — create, perpetuate or alleviate segregation.

Under the Fair Housing Act, HUD requires grantees, such as cities, that receive federal housing funds to “affirmatively further fair housing.”

Under the proposed rule, the neighborhood data provided by HUD will be used to evaluate patterns of integration and segregation, racial and ethnic concentrations of poverty, and access to “valuable community assets.” HUD wants to know if existing laws and policies — such as zoning, financing, infrastructure planning and transportation — create, perpetuate or alleviate segregation.

The proposed rule explicitly incorporates fair-housing decision-making into existing planning processes and “other decision-making that influences how communities and regions grow and develop.”

“This proposed rule represents a 21st century approach to fair housing, a step forward to ensuring that every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of – where they have a fair shot at reaching their full potential in life,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

“For the first time ever,” Donovan added, “HUD will provide data for every neighborhood in the country, detailing the access African American, Latino, Asian, and other communities have to local assets, including schools, jobs, transportation, and other important neighborhood resources that can play a role in helping people move into the middle class.”

More at CNS News

Posted in Government. Tags: , , , , , . 16 Comments »

Cuba to lift ban on buying property

August 2, 2011 — bunkerville
 
Here is our solution. Once we get our Fat Cats, millionaires and billionaires to sell their corporate jets and share in the rest of the sacrifice by paying the remaining 30 percent of the national tax burden to the Government, we too can live as the Cubans do. What a novel idea, just trade our almost worthless homes with each other.
 
Cubans will be allowed to buy and sell property for the first time in more than 50 years.

In Cuba, the most common way to buy a new home is to barter your old one for it, as selling property is illegal.

But due to a change in the law, Cubans for the first time in more than 50 years will be allowed to purchase property. Note the lady in the clip who catches on that by fixing up her home it will be worth more. Ah, the nasty seeds of a free market economy

Change is coming slowly apparently.  From Al Jazeera

Posted in Liberal Loonies. Tags: , , , . 4 Comments »
« Older posts