Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

they would rather raze the buildings

mookieproof otm, there’ll be a few years of stories about developers and owners having done feasibility studies that “prove” it to be “impossible” to convert these buildings into anything other than cubicle farms, with the “impossible” being read as “not as profitable as tearing them down to put up another shopping complex or ‘luxury’ condos”

no more cake in the breakroom

I don’t care if they are new condos at least it’ll add to the supply of housing. All private new housing is “ luxury” when it’s built I’m sure my thoroughly middle-middle class condo community was considered luxury when they were new.

Would love massive public investment in new housing that normal people can afford though!!!

Yeah I'm just so skeptical that any of it would turn into truly affordable housing stock. All of the business parks I've worked in or experienced around here are already in predominantly white, upper middle class suburbs that sure as fuck are filled with NIMBYs and zoning laws that will make sure they aren't filled up with the "undesirables".

I remember reading that office properties are not the easiest to retrofit into housing. IDK if they're harder than converting warehouses into loft apts or anything.

I guess so long as it's easier/cheaper than tearing down the building and building new housing, there's a case for doing it.

Oh I'm sure they aren't "easy", they condensing of toilets and utility chases in the center of the building (as one example) would probably mean lots of extra plumbing and utility expansion, but I would imagine there must be ways to do it that don't require wholesale razing.

interesting part of this dynamic - I'm guessing here - is that the most expensive cities (LA, SF, NYC etc) are probably the ones with the most empty office space, just due to the more privileged workforce that can play hardball with work-at-home demands

And of course these expensive areas are the places most acutely in need of housing stock

But boardrooms to bedrooms? I seriously doubt this will be attempted on any meaningful scale

All I keep coming back to is that architects, developers and landlords have spent decades figuring out how to convert any structure imaginable - barns, gas stations, abandoned theaters, garages, etc. - into profit generating retail spaces. Let's use some of that ingenuity to reverse engineer wasteful office space into affordable housing.

Cleveland has been losing office space even before the pandemic because lol Cleveland. In almost every case the buildings have been converted to apartments (but not necessarily low cost ones) or condos or in some cases, little hotels. It’s happened so often that I just expect a building that’s having trouble renting office space to just start converting to apartments.

Cleveland has been losing office space even before the pandemic because lol Cleveland. In almost every case the buildings have been converted to apartments (but not necessarily low cost ones) or condos or in some cases, little hotels. It’s happened so often that I just expect a building that’s having trouble renting office space to just start converting to apartments.

Sorry for double post there.

I was going to say that hotels or apartments would probably totally work in an office setting.

they could rebrand them as 'live/work' spaces and just install murphy beds and hotplates right in the cubicles

I think buildings that predate the 1960a are easier to convert, just based on what I see on the East Coast here. A lot of downtown Baltimore’s beautiful early-20th century office buildings are housing now.

Surely the traditional "downtown high rise" is more easily converted and more attractive for occupants, I'd be most interested to see creative solutions to turn sprawling suburban office complexes into walkable mini neighborhoods that are truly affordable and push those ring areas ever further away from car dependence.

Yeah, agreed. A crappy 70s office park inside the Beltway in Montgomery County MD turned a long vacant lot into townhouses. There’s no Metro access but decent bus service and you can actually walk to some shopping.

every stock in the S&P 500 is red right now pic.twitter.com/vhrfVc1NIz

— Katie Greifeld (@kgreifeld) June 13, 2022

🐦[every stock in the S&P 500 is red right now pic.twitter.com/vhrfVc1NIz🕸
— Katie Greifeld (@kgreifeld) June 13, 2022🕸]🐦

Holy shit, forget the S&P -- I looked at biggest gainers on Yahoo Finance:

https://finance.yahoo.com/gainers

There is literally one stock there. Can that be right? Only one stock went up today?

I guess that's with certain filters set and not literally everything, but still crazy to have one stock show up in "gainers"

i guess the used car bubble is winding down

Down 92% YTD is just insane to see pic.twitter.com/9S93zP0lp5

— Bucco “Buyback” Capital (@buccocapital) June 13, 2022

I *think* Carvana has other issues at work, since the used car market has most definitely *not* cooled down yet. Cars are still in super short supply. In fact, I recently heard that insurance companies have started OKing repairs they in the past would have passed on, because people have been forced to hold on to their damaged cars.

carvana's business model was fucked from jump iirc

yeah prices are still high, but seem to have peaked in april or may, and the stock in a company like this would be a leading indicator.

of course carvana is also a tech company, and tech is down like 50% on the year, which probably doesn't help. but if you're down more than *coinbase* on the year then you're in a tough line of business.

eh, flipping cars is a good business model while prices are rising.

https://www.motorious.com/articles/features-3/carvana-vroom-serious-trouble/

"An industry source told us “Carvana is no longer allowed to sell in some states because of their title issues.” That’s backed up by multiple reports across the country. For example, Illinois recently suspended Carvana’s dealership license after an investigation concluded the company has been failing to transfer vehicle titles to customers while abusing out-of-state temporary registration permits. Carvana reportedly will have to correct these problems before the suspension will be lifted.

Carvana has had hundreds if not thousands of complaints filed against it in states like Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas. Chalk it up to logistical problems as the company has set up dealership locations all over the nation, but many customers have complained that after months of waiting, they still didn’t receive their vehicle title and couldn’t register their new ride in their state."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2022/05/21/carvanas-chaotic-zoom-firing-ernie-garciacaps-companys-struggles-amid-market-downturn/?sh=9e0890c4c1ac

"Indeed, Carvana’s mass firing was a sign of much bigger problems at the company, according to 10 former employees (most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity) and several industry analysts. They describe a spendthrift business, whose growth-at-all-costs mentality undermined business operations and sowed the seeds of its recent layoffs.

“It always seemed like no one ever had a real game plan or reasoning behind the decisions they made when it came to policy changes or additional training,” said one former call center worker. “It was always just someone’s quick idea and that would be put into place with no additional planning.”"

Fwiw, iirc the Carvana suspension in Illinois was only for two weeks, and I think has already long passed. Def. a logistics/organization issue.

I recently heard that insurance companies have started OKing repairs they in the past would have passed on, because people have been forced to hold on to their damaged cars.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, June 13, 2022 11:38 AM

aaay this is how my ‘09 pontiac got saved from the scrapyard after my batshit neighbor did $5k+ damage to it

Bitcoin, Ethereum crash over 70% from peaks; crypto investors lose over $2 trillion in 8 months

how could they lose two trillion when the shit wasn't worth anything anyway

if you set your money on fire you lost some money

Duh, now is the time to buy!

This time is different, you guys, really.

Just got an e-mail from Robinhood (where I've had one penny stuck for ~four years) blaming the bear market on the dastardly STIMULUS.

interesting... I would've blamed it on investors dumping stocks in a rabid frenzy, but what do I know

Hmmm. Lemme see. So it turns out that rescuing tens of millions of mainly poor and vulnerable people from unemployment and eviction, while keeping hundreds of thousands of small businesses afloat during the worst public health emergency in a century was, uh, bad for stock market! Wow! I guess crashing the economy into a brick wall was the right option then.

On Sunday, the cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network announced that it was pausing all withdrawals and transfers between accounts in order to “honor, over time, withdrawal obligations.”

Straight-up Ponzi shit right there

how could they lose two trillion when the shit wasn't worth anything anyway

Among the True Believers, cryptocurrency X was worth Y per unit. IT'S STILL REAL TO THEM, DAMMIT!

I'd be amused if this wasn't having broader effects on the market. And while no cryptocurrency investors should be eligible for Federal relief, I'll eat my words if the government completely refuses any such requests.

But crypto true believers wouldn’t want any of that made up fiat money, right????

How many of the big crypto whales are true believers? How many are Wall Street fat cats who were chasing this shiny new thing, and have well-established hotlines to the Fed and zero shame about demanding bailouts?

TBH I think there have to be a good number of true believers. My impression is that the wall street fatcats were latecomers. It's a little too elaborate to have been planned out all along as a ponzi.

then I want a bailout for my beanie babies losses

sure, but the venture capitalists were on it early, and they love a good ponzi scheme

I don't necessarily think it was intended as a pyramid scheme - there was some wide-eyed utopian naivete going on there. It just went in that direction, and the ones who cashed out early came out on top, while the hold-steady folks and late comers were left holding the bag

As has been pointed out previously, stocks have intrinsic value, gold/silver, pork bellies, whatever... even U.S. greenbacks - all have something backing them. Ethereum is just a shared delusion of value, there's nothing there but ether

xp were they? I didn't get the impression that venture capitalists got into crypto that early, am I wrong?

guess it depends what "early" is

I'm kind of surprised there isn't also more news about the SPAC crash and burn. Another inevitable crash, perhaps even more inevitable than crypto, but still.