Greetings Flea Marketeers and those wandering the furthest reaches of the matrix! In Part 2, the slowly approaching and inevitable 2027/2028 real estate correction/crash in single family homes, the continuing MAGA Mutiny and political/economic disruption following the greatly anticipated 2026 midterm elections, with some MAHA/HHS surprises on the side. Ain’t we got fun?! Not as much as Trump and his ClownCom administration is about to have! The global disruption ripples ClownCom has created are just beginning to reset who will be sitting at the head of the global economic table in two to five years time!

The Proper Application of Interest Rate Band-Aids and Willful Ignorance to Housing Un- Affordability

Don’t you love deja vu moments? Waaaay back in 2006, a couple of years before the last crash in housing, I was one of the few challenging the Kiyosaki and mainstream media “expert” narrative on the “wisdom” of buying a home in that hot “buy and flip” housing market. “Hey, everybody’s doing it! Look! Housing prices! Up Up and Awaaaaay!!”, just before many speculative suckers went face plant in 2008/2009 foreclosure. I personally witnessed a few and just might have saved a few aspiring speculators from financial distress. 

From my vantage point as a Southern California general contractor (kitchen remo specialty), overpriced homes and the unrealistic anticipation of the trend continuing was baffling to me as the hype continued. Yes, there were still a couple of juicy years to go for those very skilled in flipping fast when I was warning anyone who was considering taking the media bait and buying, that overpriced homes had to crash. Collateralized Debt Obligations and the tranching/grading of mortgages was just starting to enter the mainstream conversation. Shorting Country Wide (RIP) was very (woulda shoulda) appealing. 

This time around, once again, I was a bit premature in my housing bubble warning when I posted “Tipping Point Ahead?… Single Family House of Cards” back in March of 2024. I continue to be in the minority when I insist that affordability is the problem with the housing market, NOT interest rates as Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent is fond of insisting! Many real estate agents also seem to be living in a parallel universe of affordability denial blaming higher lending rates instead of the unaffordable housing reality as being responsible for the dramatic slow down in the sale of homes.

Sayeth Scott c. November 2025, “The Fed has caused a lot of distribution problems with their policies. We have seen the biggest hindrance for housing here that are mortgage rates. So, if the Fed brings down mortgage rates, then they can end this housing recession.” Bingo! End the housing stalemate simply by lowing mortgage rates on artificially (shhhh. Algorithms!) overpriced homes!… What a horribly naive government OAF-icail!

It seems today’s inevitable housing crash on the horizon is a bit different and moving a bit slower than the events leading to the 2008 crash. It’s a different Wall Street slight of hand that depends less on risky, tranched “financial vehicles” sold to large, gullible institutions and everything to do with deep pocket, private equity players finally figuring out how to make single family and multi-family home property management work, thanks to innovations in computer modeling that allow them not to get their hands dirty dealing face to face with unpredictable tenants and city governments. Ahhh, the wonders of “beneficial ownership” and predictive, Yieldstar/RealPage pricing! Well, at least until Mr. Market starts doing the long overdue cost/benefit analysis and the supply and demand math.

For the last several months, maybe close to a year, in my neighborhood in LA metro, I have never seen so many homes for sale or homes/condos/apartments for rent/lease as I’m seeing now. I’ve been here for 25 years, so that includes the 2008 aftermath. Homes are taking much, much longer to sell these days. And all those single family and multi-family projects currently only in the framing stages; woe to those contractors and lenders who do not have these projects completed and SOLD by Q1/Q2 2027! The situation is even more dire for uncompleted commercial projects. “Stranded assets” all over, ripe for the private equity picking?! As dire as China’s Evergrande collapse?

Homes aren’t selling because household incomes have not appreciated as much as home prices have, period! Concerning income vs home prices, in 2022 Clever Real Estate had this to say, “Median home prices have increased at four times the rate of household incomes since 1960, leading to imbalanced price-to-income ratios in most major metropolitan areas.” And hot off a recent Epoch Times story, “Hidden Costs of Owning a Home Rise Nearly 32 Percent in 5 Years. Monthly fees for insurance, maintenance, and property taxes could tack on about $1,380 per month to the mortgage payment.” Gee whiz. Sometimes I can’t help wondering if this is all by neo-feudalist design. “I owe my soul to the company store” (Sixteen Tons, TE Ford) is going to be the inflation legacy of the Trump and Biden administrations (Covid Coup through the current 7th inning). 

The bottom line, if wages/household income can’t keep up with the price of housing, there goes the Main Street American Dream of home ownership! The demand is there (heh heh heh, for now), the supply is there, and maybe even, “coming soon!”, oversupply, but until incomes increase and/or home prices get back down to earth (20-50% lower than current cost), the real estate math says, “sorry Main Street American Dreamers, Unaffordable.” Interest rates, where they are currently at, have very little effect on that part of the equation! Once again, It’s Affordability, Stupid!!

Trump and Obama, smooth talking, bull shitting, birds of a feather after all?!

What remains to be seen, post next housing bubble bursting, will Trump go Obama and once again allow Wall Street private equity first access to the rising tide of underwater homes instead of giving the current owners first rights to the “American Dream” of home ownership? Alas, hard working, Main Street Flea Marketeers, first fkd by Obama, only to be double fkd by Trump’s continuing to green light Wall Street’s greed!! “Life is so unfair”, cry his unsuspecting, willfully ignorant, remaining MAGA’s! It’s a little less unfair to those whose business it is to keep their eyes wide open.

From Eric Salzman/ The Racket, 4/25, “Private equity companies have a well-deserved reputation for cutting expenses in the best of times. Those traditional cutbacks will pale in comparison to what private equity managers will do if they can’t sell their companies or refinance their debt in a weakening economy.” That was in early 2025 when world trade was just starting to figure out management of Trump’s tariffs and the economy was a bit more robust than it currently is due to the economic uncertainty created by Trump’s “No War” double speak betrayal of America First. And now that those PEM’s may not be able to sell their properties at a profit, let alone break even, and can’t refi due to higher interest rates… the deal no longer makes sense in an environment just entering what looks to be a very real, and perhaps very long economic reset. 

Will Yieldstar and other assorted predictive pricing algorithms make allowances for Mr. Market’s suggestion that it’s time to lower rents and maintain break even occupancy (assuming that option is part of the code) or will private equity landlords begin to quietly abandon ship and sell before their properties hit the rocks and find themselves in the Straits of Stranded Assets? Hmmm, more inventory coming to “supply” as demand continues its downward trend?! Maybe enough to flood the market by the end of 2027? If all the new, unsold supply remains overpriced and unaffordable, it’s still out of Main Street consumer’s reach. “Nationally aggregated inventory is up +5.6% on a year-over-year basis between September 30, 2025 and September 30, 2026. That marks a mild acceleration from June”, according to housing market watcher, Resiclubanalytics. 

But, but, but… the media continues to insist America has a housing shortage!! “Build more housing!! Build more apartments!!” Cute. Reuters recently reported, “Slumping sales have led to a glut of unsold houses on the market, further reducing the incentive for developers to break ground on new single-family housing projects. Despite the overhang of new single-family homes, there is a national housing shortage, which is keeping home prices elevated.” Fun with data? I’m beginning to suspect a credibility shortage is what is really happening here!

And speaking of “demand”, The Economic Policy Institute mentioned late 2025, “The U.S.-Born labor force will shrink over the next decade: Achieving historically ‘normal’ GDP growth rates will be impossible, unless immigration flows are sustained”. Sounds like another ding in housing/rental housing demand to me, pending Trump abolishing ICE. (Ha! I make bad joek)

Implied in that quote is the concurrent falling fertility rates amongst Americans adding another slower moving ding to demand in the years to come. Less babies means less future American Dream homeowners! Yet we continue to be told America desperately needs more housing built to keep up with demand. I’m beginning to think (hope) that in five years time, the United States will have an oversupply of housing, just like Japan does in much of it’s country, also due to a decline in population and an aging labor force. More affordable housing choices me and my Flea Marketeers! A decline in population typically means a decline in demand which should also result in a decline in home prices, barring any unforeseen hanky panky by greedy, Wall Street, private equity. And in Japan, much of that housing is ten cents on the dollar cheap!

Getting back to “eyes wide open”, slowing demand in housing and the high probability of a crash in home prices coming Q 2027/2028 soon, here’s a recent warning from an entity that has just a bit of real estate street cred, the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Looking ahead, demographic trends are weakening the foundations of housing demand. Household formation is expected to slow over the next decade due to population aging, low fertility rates, smaller younger adult cohorts, and reduced immigration…  If construction remains elevated, supply growth could outpace demand growth, pushing home prices lower.” It gets better, “Construction decisions made today reflect current price signals, which we do not believe have fully accounted for the demographic shifts already visible in the data. The demand picture may look materially different by the time those units are completed and delivered. We expect that this will lead to falling prices for both single family and multifamily housing at the national level.” BINGO! And like I mentioned earlier, IF IF IF those existing projects are completed before the housing reset really picks up momentum. Have you seen those pictures of massive uncompleted housing projects that hit the Straits of Stranded Assets, rusting and rotting all over China ? 

Yep. An eventual decrease in demand and an increase in supply, seems to sum up what I’ve been saying here and for the last couple of years. Validation, thank you very nice! But will it come in time to put some wind in the sails of the American Dream of home ownership for most Americans? I know I’m hoping it will. Meantime, how about those Mid-Term elections… and the anticipated aftermath?!

The “America First, Zionists Out!” Mid-Term Elections and the California Governor’s Race for the 4th Largest Economy (as of today) on the Planet 

“America First or Bust!!” Have the stakes ever been higher? All the speculation, all the noise. Will it get worse before it gets better? 

Being that we still have over two years of Trump’s unpredictable ClownCom ahead of us, ably assisted by his sadist in chief, Field Marshall Stephen Miller overseeing the future mischief, I’m going with worse. No telling what surprises these power trippin punks have planned, but gotta give em credit for very successfully deceiving and fkng their MAGA base and all the political shades of red, purple and blue Main Street America in the process, only to have much of MAGA wake up and vote “MUTINY!”. Makes me feel so good. Maybe there is an expiration date on true believer, willful ignorance after all! Now, what remains to be seen, will the “Voting is Useless!”, politically apathetic amongst us finally get off their asses and vote in this election, letting the powers that shouldn’t be know that even they want there voices heard?

The silver lining to all this chaos? The post Trump/Sadistic Stephen, Q1 2029 PARTY!!!… and the aftermath of the new, pissed off congress making Trump’s life even more miserable than Netanyahu’s is now. Yes!!! Will Trump’s being forced to abandon his imaginary America’s “hero” self image to the reality of being a global “zero” over the next two plus years break his spirit? Or will he have an Ebenezer Scrooge nightmare epiphany that makes him sincerely repent for his betrayal of America First and his MAGA’s true believer trust by embracing Noblese Oblige legislation by 2028 and giving Wall Street, Big Tech and Big Pharma a final “Fuck You!” by way of raising taxes on easy money wealth, reinstating Glass-Steagall (when have you heard ANY economist, besides me, discussing that?!), enforcing existing regulation on poisoning and polluting entities, and just maybe going after the fraud and corruption amongst his fellow greedy elites instead of just the low hanging, typically legal/illegal immigrant, little people? 

Yeah, the later is unlikely, but having experienced so many surprise matrix movements, “it ain’t over till it’s over” continues to be how I live my life. I mean, who would have thought that American citizens would finally have Zionism Inc on the run in this election? Amazing!! We’ve come a long way, baby, but still have much, much further to go.

America First gives Zionism Inc its eviction notice at Midterms?! After sixty plus years, FINALLY!! Could this be the first step in making America Great Again?!

What an absolutely perfectly timed moment in American history as we continue to consider and contemplate our 250th Anniversary of Independence from England and the overdue acknowledgement of Israel/Zionism Inc having embedded itself in our Washington DC social and political system. Parasites will be parasites. Says ten out of eleven American doctors, “removing the zionist parasite is essential to the health of American Sovereignty and this midterm election is the perfect time to do it! Citizens… scalpel, please”.

From recent USA Today, “Opposition to AIPAC has intensified in the years since the U.S. ally launched a war in Gaza responding to the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks against Israel. About 60% of U.S. adults said they hold an unfavorable view of Israel, according to a Pew Research Center survey released in April, up from 53% last year. Many candidates endorsed by AIPAC during the 2026 midterms have faced stiff opposition, with some rejecting any money from the organization.” 

But wait! Something sinister this way comes! The article continues, “A new group called American Priorities, which was started this year to support anti-AIPAC candidates, said the reason for the retreat is that an endorsement from the pro-Israel group has become a liability. (heh heh heh!) It argues that shifting away from endorsements and other direct contributions allows AIPAC to be less transparent.” Oh oh! Heads Up!! “Less transparent” means covert work arounds!!

From recent Reuters/CNBC headline, “Hackers target FEC as campaign money system goes dark before midterms”. A genius work around maneuver to hide last second AIPAC/Zionism Inc, and assorted sleazy money campaign contributions? Of course it is! Note the timing, “In the final 20 days before an election, candidate committees must report certain contributions or loans of $1,000 or more within 48 hours, while political committees and outside groups must disclose certain spending within 24 hours. Those rules are designed to give voters a near-real-time view of the money flooding into races when it matters most. For example, Elon Musk’s America PAC reported nearly $6.8 million in independent expenditures for communications disseminated Oct. 20, according to a CNBC analysis of FEC filings.” And now that tracking campaign spending transparency has suddenly been disabled with no way of knowing (?) what entities are giving how much to who… is anyone surprised?  

“Spending on that scale normally becomes public almost immediately, but with the filing system down, new money can pour into races while the public stays in the dark.” A genius workaround by… AIPAC/Zionist Inc? Big Pharma? Koch Inc? Nothing like keeping We the Pee-ons in the dark till after the elections. All is “by any means necessary” fair in love, war and politics? Except when it’s illegal. May the fkrs be thoroughly exposed!! 

State Measure 40 – An additional 5% tax on California billionaires. Is that all?! To Make America Great Again, just maybe we ought to FUND IT, Fairly!!

“No society can surely be flourishing or happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” Adam Smith, “The Wealth of Nations” 1776. Note the year.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the ultra wealthy kick and scream like spoiled deadbeats when it’s legislated that they pay a fair share of their personal income taxes, just like everyone else. In order to make our country work, as everyone since our Founding Fathers has fantasized, it needs to be fairly funded, period. What’s fair taxation for those barely making ends meet at the poverty level will not be the same as fair taxation for those in the middle, working class, nor for those in the higher, white collar professional class. For those in the exclusive ultra wealthy, billionaire class, many of whom have the luxury of being able to exploit their proprietary computer algorithms that are doing all the easy money making for them, shame on many of them for being so god dammed selfish and greedy! “No on 40!”? Really?

To put the periods of American economic greatness in perspective, consider that during the 1950’s, early 60’s Eisenhower administration, the tax on the wealthy was 91% and America’s post war economy was still humming along nicely, as I mentioned in my March 2020 post, “To make America Great Again, Fund It!!” During the 1980’s Reagan administration, the tax on the wealthy had been cut to 50% and even with Ronnie’s failed Trickle Down economic experiment, the USA and it’s citizens still had some middle-class, economic muscle (Ronnie eliminated his earlier tax cuts during his last year in office. Ha!). Then in 1999, along comes Bill Clinton and his abolishment of the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated retail from investment banking, and damned if that didn’t have the desired effect of kicking the door open for the financialization of anything that can be monetized and data digitally entered on a software spread sheet. Wham! The 2000 dotcom crash! Wham! The 2008 housing crash! Wham! The 2020/2021 Covid Coup crash. Have you noticed that the more the Wall Street banksters can get “creative” with their post Glass-Steagall funny money finance “vehicles”, the more precarious the US economy becomes. Thanks Billy boy for fkn Main Street America just as much as Bush/Cheney did with the Iraq War!

Currently, a ten second google search on the current federal billionaire tax says, “Billionaires in the U.S. pay an average effective federal individual tax rate of 24% according to recent academic administrative data (such as studies tracking the Forbes 400), though estimates vary widely depending on how income and unrealized capital gains are measured.” Heh heh heh, that’s finance speak for saying that the effective tax rate on billionaire wealth is likely to be much lower than the 24% referenced. Just ask Elon or Zuckerbutt, etc etc. It should be pretty obvious that today’s current 24% tax on wealth is half of Reagan’s 50% tax rate and approximately 22% of Eisenhower’s 91% tax rate on wealth, when America was a social and economic powerhouse. 

Is it just coincidental that America’s slow moving economic decline in greatness perfectly tracks the decline in how much the wealthy pay in personal income taxes, while those of us in the middle working class do not experience that same decline in the percentage of taxes we pay over that same period of time? Please to pardon my Flea Market/Construction Site speak, but… No Fucking Way!! It’s not coincidental! Reducing personal income taxes on wealth has been a MAJOR factor in the slow moving demise of America’s social and economic greatness! Greatness MUST BE PROPERLY FUNDED and Responsibly Managed!! When it’s not, well, welcome to Trump’s America as it continues to experience economic entropy in real time.

A 5% increase to whatever the billionaires effectively pay in personal taxes is still a long long way from Reagan’s 50% tax on the wealthy. All the California billionaire’s who claim to want to make America great again need to quit making excuses for being tax avoiding deadbeats and pay a fair share just like us Main Street/Flea Market worker bee’s do! Whatever happened to the concept/practice of Noblesse Oblige, the “unwritten responsibility to act honorably, generously, and kindly toward those with less”?

For a slightly deeper dive on the importance of funding American Greatness, please to read my March 2020 FME post “To Make America Great Again, FUND IT!!” A sample quote, “We can’t make America great again until we Make America FAIR Again. And we can’t make America Fair for All, let alone restore it to greatness, unless we INVEST in it! Unless we FUND it!” A 5% addition to already bargain billionaire taxation seems very reasonable to me.

And barring a failure to fund America’s return to greatness, Plan B?! My August 2020 post, “Debt Forgiveness or Quantitative Easing? Making America Work Again!” mentions, “Now that the vicious cycle of an unregulated free market meets quantitatively eased debt appears to have run it’s course, the challenge now, the fork in the road; to try to salvage the remaining integrity of our neo-capitalist economic system or create a new regenerative economic system out of the chaos. (Ha! Just in time for the Middle East/Iran/BRICS/SCO/China/Russia, etc global reset!!) We appear to be approaching the end of our debt rope, kids. Do we now hang ourselves with brutal austerity measures as Trump, McConnell and their Koch allies would prefer, cutting as many social safety nets as possible… you know, (earned benefits like) Social Security, the Post Office, Obama Care, Vets Administration, your kids education, infrastructure, etc etc… all those annoying government administrative functions they insist would be better “privatized”? Or do we press the green “reset” button and start from economic scratch, working toward finally creating economic equality for all by enacting a last resort measure, Massive Global Debt Forgiveness?” Owwww! wouldn’t that be interesting?!

MGDForgiveness?!! Now there’s something to get yer head around. And to think that I suggested that in mid 2020 when the covid fear campaign and the PCR tests were running intentionally and artificially HOT. Interesting. Over the last few months I believe I’ve heard that some central bankers are throwing around the idea of Massive Global Debt Forgiveness as a means to escape the consequences of allowing the inflationary debt they’ve all contributed to, to grow and grow and grow and…. Just goes to show that a flea market prophet is rarely recognized in his own home. 

Some brief thots on who will be the next governor/mananger of the world’s 4th largest economy

What’s really weird to me about California being the fourth largest economy on the planet is that the manager, the CEO of this 4th largest economy, the California governor, does not have a seat at the table at the annual G7 and G20 economic trade meetings! California is just not that special?! The 4th largest global economy gets no recognition and has no say (?) at those trade events?!! Really?! Dude, WTF?!! Here’s a thought; California starts and hosts it’s very own annual global trade summit, The California Economic Trade Summit, ONLY inviting the governor/manager of the most prosperous state in each of the most prosperous G7, G20 countries, and maybe even some states from developing nations showing alot of inovative promise! No Prime Ministers, Presidents, Treasury Secretaries, corp CEO’s allowed!! For the record, I’d be happy to MC that event!

Ok, in this corner, Republican nominee Steve Hilton, once endorsed by Donald Trump (Yikes!!), currently endorsed by the Health Freedom coalitions for his support for the sovereign right to say NO to junk science vaccines (YAY!).

In the Democratic corner, Xavier Becerra, a proponent of getting Wall Street private equity OUT of the California housing market (YAY!!), but unfortunately, had the dubious distinction of supporting Covid Lockdown’s and covid mRNA vaccine mandates and who still may be harboring a repeat performance should another CCP/Gates Plandemic arise (BOO!!).

Alas, what’s a un-vaxxed, California affordable housing proponent to do? Hmmm, go ask RFK Jr/HHS?

The HHS/RFK Jr. Surprise??!!

Post midterms, I’m not sure if it’s just my wishful thinking, but I have sneaking suspicion that Bobby and Team HHS are about to take off the gloves and do what they can to kick Big Pharma’s ass out of the Vaccination Habituation business in their two remaining years. Wouldn’t revoking vaccine indemnification for these poison peddlers be wonderful?! Wouldn’t watching a corresponding drop in chronic disease in the US population be a hard won, undeniable vindication?! Damn right it would!! Go, Bobby, Go!! HHS still has two plus years to kick some ass!

And don’t forget, Play Nice, Damnit!! 

“The person who doesn’t want to consign anyone to hell for a voting choice, believes problems are fixable, and thinks a handful of happy moments still make life worthwhile – we need more of those folks in America, not fewer. Why villainize them?” – Matt Taibbi, Racket reporter. If anything is going to demonstrate to the world that America still has some down home greatness left in it’s bones, it’s going to be by dropping our individual and collective ego’s and start doing a little more listening and much more cooperating, starting with ourselves. We American citizens really need to grow up. Ya can’t have Democracy without Diplomacy! (gee whiz, did I just say that?!)

Oh yeah, if you don’t mind, Sharing! Cuz I don’t do un-social media. 

All Rights Reserved. © Dismal Dave Lancon October 2026