Re: Tema: PPCC - Pisitófilos Creditófagos - Primavera 2023

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-27/banking-crisis-raises-concerns-about-hidden-leverage-in-the-system

Banking Crisis Raises Concerns About Hidden Leverage in the System
Loans have been layered up during era of low interest rates
Deeper probes, stress tests likely after recent bank turmoil

As traders rush to identify where the next bout of volatility will come from, some watchdogs think the answer may be buried in the huge pile of hidden leverage that’s been quietly built over the past decade.

More than a dozen regulators, bankers, asset managers and former central bank officials interviewed by Bloomberg News say shadow debt and its links to lenders are becoming a major cause for concern as rising interest rates send tremors through financial markets. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg and BlackRock Inc. Chairman Larry Fink have called for more scrutiny in recent public comments.

The concern is that private equity firms and others were allowed to load up on cheap loans as banking regulations tightened after the global financial crisis — without enough oversight into how the debt could be interconnected. Though each loan may be small, they have often been layered up in such a way that investors and borrowers could suffer if banks or other credit providers suddenly pull back.

“A slight downturn and an increase in interest rates will make some corporates default,” said Ludovic Phalippou, a professor of financial economics at Oxford University. “This puts their private debt providers in trouble and then the bank that provides leverage to the fund in trouble.”



Questions about the potential threat gained urgency following the demise earlier this month of Silicon Valley Bank, a major provider of financing to venture capital and private equity funds. Credit Suisse Group AG, which fell into difficulties a few days later, also provided various forms of credit lines to fund managers. Although neither bank’s problems were caused by those debts, the worry is they could have triggered wider contagion if the lenders hadn’t been rescued.

The decision to guarantee SVB’s depositors raised concerns that something wider has been missed around the systemic risk posed by the lender, according to a former Bank of England official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because that person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

Unlike banks, private equity and credit funds are protected in crises by the fact that their investors commit capital for lengthy periods of time. But the ignorance around potential problems and frailties that shadow banking poses to the financial system worries watchdogs, another former Bank of England official said.

The recent turmoil will likely lead to deeper probes into shadow lending globally, which includes credit provided by private equity firms, insurers and retirement funds, according to a different official with knowledge of the matter. That means identifying where the risk ended up after it moved off bank balance sheets following the financial crisis. Regulators also want to examine the credit risk to banks from the loans they made to buyout firms during the boom in alternative assets, the person said.

To help spot potential problems, the BOE plans to stress test nonbank lenders including private equity firms for the first time this year. Further details are expected to be announced in the coming days.



Fund managers are also concerned. A systemic credit event poses the biggest threat to global markets, and the most likely source of one is US shadow banking, according to a survey of investors published last week by Bank of America Corp.

The US government’s top financial regulators signaled in February that they would consider whether any nonbank firms merit tougher oversight as systemically important institutions.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council will put “nonbank financial intermediation” back on the table as a priority for 2023, according to a statement from the Treasury Department. The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Financial Stability Board declined to comment for this story.

European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos warned in an interview with Business Post published on the ECB website Sunday that nonbanks “took a lot of risks” during the era of low interest rates and potential vulnerabilities “can come to the surface” as monetary policy changes.

Layers of Debt

Debt has always been an important part of the business model pursued by private equity firms, but in recent years the borrowing hasn’t just been limited to loading up new acquisitions with loans to try to boost performance.

Institutions at each level of the private markets food chain — from debt and private equity funds themselves to their management, the businesses they own and even investors into their funds — can now access a wide variety of leverage from banks and other debt specialists.

An increasingly popular area is net-asset-value lending, a type of borrowing where buyout firms raise money against a bundle of assets they own. As sponsors struggle to sell businesses amid rising rates and challenging financing markets, they increasingly rely on such loans to shore up portfolio companies and keep distributing money back to their investors.

The loans are modest compared with the types of leverage in circulation before the global financial crisis, but similar types of investors provide the debt at each level, meaning a serious pull-back due to an unforeseen event could cause profound strain across the entire ecosystem, said some of the people. One concern is that private equity leverage could trigger a tightening in credit conditions if the firms were caught up in a bout of volatility that made them unable or unwilling to lend or buy assets, one of the former Bank of England officials said.

Even before the recent turmoil, some finance providers were starting to rethink their exposure to the shadow banking sector. Banks were less willing to extend fund-level leverage to direct lenders in January and there’s been a wider pullback by private lenders, some of whom have ceased making new leveraged buyout loans, Armen Panossian and Danielle Poli, managing directors at Oaktree Capital Management LP, wrote in a memo.

Competition among private lenders is starting to drop as companies face “declining revenues, shrinking margins, and high input costs,” Panossian and Poli said in the note published in January.

Hidden Risks

Banks also began trying to offload positions in leveraged funds from about September, according to one asset manager who has been approached by lenders, adding that it gave him some concern as it was the first time he had seen them try to do so.

The pullback hasn’t left funds short of financing options for now because debt funds, other banks and institutional investors have still been willing to allocate additional capital.

Regulators are still worried though that there are hidden risks in a sector that has been left to its own devices. Private credit will be an area of focus this year, one watchdog said, in part because it is predicted to double its assets under management to $2.7 trillion by 2026.

“Warning signs are developing in what is a completely unregulated segment of the financial markets with substantial amounts of hidden leverage and opaqueness,” asset manager VGI Partners Global Investments Ltd. said in a letter to investors at the end of January. “Private equity funds may prove to be a hidden risk in the system.”

[Derby]

https://www.pymnts.com/economy/2023/23percent-of-working-americans-now-have-side-jobs/

23% of Working Americans Now Have Side Jobs

The side hustle has never been more germane to the U.S. consumer, as large numbers of employed people have taken on extra work in the face of 40-year inflationary highs.

In “New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report — The Supplemental Income Edition,” a PYMNTS and LendingClub collaboration, our latest survey in this series finds that as the number of consumer living between checks has remained relatively consistent, more people are taking on second jobs or extra work to take some of the pressure off of those primary paychecks.

Per the latest study, “Nearly two-thirds of consumers report being employed, and close to half of this group also have a side job or other source of supplemental income. While almost one-quarter of consumers have a side job, 17% have other types of supplemental income, and paycheck-to-paycheck consumers are most likely to have such additional sources of income.”

We found that among consumers living paycheck to paycheck, 35% of those with issues paying their bills have now an additional source of income. It’s the same with 33% of those living without difficulty, with each share above the average of 29% for all consumers surveyed.

[sudden and sharp]

[...] just weeks after TuckerCarlson aired exculpatory January 6th video that his defense attorneys claim they never saw.
https://www.geo.tv/amp/479801-donald-trumps-son-celebrates-capitol-rioter-qanon-shamans-release







 

[Derby]

Por debajo de Italia están España y Corea del Sur.

https://www.ft.com/content/cf234ec0-ce06-4ce4-bd3c-e33f28680005

Italian births drop to lowest level since country’s unification

Decline will fuel concern that a rapidly ageing population will compound strain on public finances

(...) New births in Italy have been dropping steadily since the 2008 financial crisis, triggering fears that a shrinking and rapidly ageing population will put a further strain on the state’s finances. Italy now has 22,000 centenarians — people aged 100 and above — around three times more than two decades ago.

“Women are just having fewer children,” said Maria Rita Testa, a demographer at Rome’s Luiss University. “Some of them decide to remain childless. Others postpone the time of starting to build a family and when it comes time, it is too late.”

Italy is not alone among advanced economies in seeing fertility rates decline to historically low levels.

World Bank figures show that in 2020 the average number of children per woman was below 2 in all advanced economies with the exception of Israel. At 1.24 for every woman, Italy has the third lowest fertility rate in the OECD, behind Spain and South Korea, which has just 0.8 children for every woman.(...)

[Derby]

https://twitter.com/heimbergecon/status/1644581227616190464

@heimbergecon The profit share of businesses in the eurozone has increased to 42%, higher than ever before in the last decade.

[Mistermaguf]

En línea con pp.cc.:

“La desigualdad contemporánea es una realidad estructural que supera la lucha contra la pobreza, porque el binomio compuesto de ricos y pobres está pasado de moda”. Formulada casi como un principio, esta declaración vertebra el informe elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas), que debe guiar al Gobierno en la lucha contra los desequilibrios sociales. Este tipo de estudios se efectúan de forma periódica, pero los expertos socioculturales han ampliado ahora el marco de su labor. No solo han analizado variables como el empleo, los ingresos y la educación. Han incluido, además, el capital social (a quién conoces), el capital cultural (dónde encajas) y el capital personal (la salud y el atractivo) de los ciudadanos para elaborar un mapa de Países Bajos distinto al habitual. Un espacio de 17,8 millones de habitantes donde hay, en su opinión, siete clases sociales.

https://elpais.com/economia/negocios/2023-04-08/y-de-repente-paises-bajos-descubre-que-tiene-siete-clases-sociales.html

Ejem...

Según el artículo, las sietes clases sociales son las siguientes:

“Los que están en el escalón superior del empleo (20%); jóvenes con buenas oportunidades (9%); los que viven de sus rentas (12%); nivel medio de ocupación (25%); pensionistas con pocos estudios (18%); trabajadores sin seguridad (10%); los precarios (6%)”.

El informe ha sido elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas).

No se sabe cuál es la base teórica y menos aún la metodología de tal análisis, pero esas "clases sociales" me han hecho acordar poderosamente al relato Borgiano "El idioma analítico de John Wilkins" https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_idioma_anal%C3%ADtico_de_John_Wilkins, del que recomiendo enfáticamente su lectura.

En él se cita a una presunta antigua enciclopedia china llamada Emporio celestial de conocimientos benévolos, de la cual recoge una curiosa clasificación de los animales, que es la siguiente:

"los animales se dividen en: (a) pertenecientes al Emperador, (b) embalsamados, (c) amaestrados, (d) lechones, (e) sirenas, (f) fabulosos, (g) perros sueltos, (h) incluidos en esta clasificación, (i) que se agitan como locos, (j) innumerables, (k) dibujados con un pincel finísimo de pelo de camello, (l) etcétera, (m) que acaban de romper el jarrón, (n) que de lejos parecen moscas."

En fin, tal vez podríamos agregar tambien algunas clases sociales más, como "listos y seguros de sí mismos", "autovictimizados con paguita" y "adaptados con sueldo previsible", por poner algunos sin ánimo de excluír otras más imaginativas aún.

[sudden and sharp]

Por debajo de Italia están España y Corea del Sur.

https://www.ft.com/content/cf234ec0-ce06-4ce4-bd3c-e33f28680005

Italian births drop to lowest level since country’s unification

Decline will fuel concern that a rapidly ageing population will compound strain on public finances

(...) New births in Italy have been dropping steadily since the 2008 financial crisis, triggering fears that a shrinking and rapidly ageing population will put a further strain on the state’s finances. Italy now has 22,000 centenarians — people aged 100 and above — around three times more than two decades ago.

“Women are just having fewer children,” said Maria Rita Testa, a demographer at Rome’s Luiss University. “Some of them decide to remain childless. Others postpone the time of starting to build a family and when it comes time, it is too late.”

Italy is not alone among advanced economies in seeing fertility rates decline to historically low levels.

World Bank figures show that in 2020 the average number of children per woman was below 2 in all advanced economies with the exception of Israel. At 1.24 for every woman, Italy has the third lowest fertility rate in the OECD, behind Spain and South Korea, which has just 0.8 children for every woman.(...)

Los campeones de la productividad...   











... y de la promoción del medio ambiente.  [... y de la longevidad...  * ]







------------
[ "Dientes", dientes... que es lo que (más) les jode. ]

[sudden and sharp]

En línea con pp.cc.:

“La desigualdad contemporánea es una realidad estructural que supera la lucha contra la pobreza, porque el binomio compuesto de ricos y pobres está pasado de moda”. Formulada casi como un principio, esta declaración vertebra el informe elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas), que debe guiar al Gobierno en la lucha contra los desequilibrios sociales. Este tipo de estudios se efectúan de forma periódica, pero los expertos socioculturales han ampliado ahora el marco de su labor. No solo han analizado variables como el empleo, los ingresos y la educación. Han incluido, además, el capital social (a quién conoces), el capital cultural (dónde encajas) y el capital personal (la salud y el atractivo) de los ciudadanos para elaborar un mapa de Países Bajos distinto al habitual. Un espacio de 17,8 millones de habitantes donde hay, en su opinión, siete clases sociales.

https://elpais.com/economia/negocios/2023-04-08/y-de-repente-paises-bajos-descubre-que-tiene-siete-clases-sociales.html

Ejem...

Según el artículo, las sietes clases sociales son las siguientes:

“Los que están en el escalón superior del empleo (20%); jóvenes con buenas oportunidades (9%); los que viven de sus rentas (12%); nivel medio de ocupación (25%); pensionistas con pocos estudios (18%); trabajadores sin seguridad (10%); los precarios (6%)”.

El informe ha sido elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas).

No se sabe cuál es la base teórica y menos aún la metodología de tal análisis, pero esas "clases sociales" me han hecho acordar poderosamente al relato Borgiano "El idioma analítico de John Wilkins" https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_idioma_anal%C3%ADtico_de_John_Wilkins, del que recomiendo enfáticamente su lectura.

En él se cita a una presunta antigua enciclopedia china llamada Emporio celestial de conocimientos benévolos, de la cual recoge una curiosa clasificación de los animales, que es la siguiente:

"los animales se dividen en: (a) pertenecientes al Emperador, (b) embalsamados, (c) amaestrados, (d) lechones, (e) sirenas, (f) fabulosos, (g) perros sueltos, (h) incluidos en esta clasificación, (i) que se agitan como locos, (j) innumerables, (k) dibujados con un pincel finísimo de pelo de camello, (l) etcétera, (m) que acaban de romper el jarrón, (n) que de lejos parecen moscas."

En fin, tal vez podríamos agregar tambien algunas clases sociales más, como "listos y seguros de sí mismos", "autovictimizados con paguita" y "adaptados con sueldo previsible", por poner algunos sin ánimo de excluír otras más imaginativas aún.

Nadie ha dicho que no sea mejorable.


Va en línea de que no todo es patrimonio inmobiliario... también está la formación, la red social de contactos... etc. [ Para "iconoclasta", yo mismo.    ]

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/e1c6b39d-00ca-4976-bf10-0034727f9272

The Wealth of Greedflations

And a DIY invitation to hunt the price gouger

(...)The starting point this time is Bureau of Economic Analysis data that showed US fourth-quarter non-financial profit margins still running very hot relative to cost pressures, which was in contrast to market data that had suggested a cooling:



As per the above, labour shortages and higher commodity prices usually squeeze margins as an economy heads towards recession. That’s what companies have been reporting, but it’s not what the BEA data are saying.

The adjustments BEA makes to get an underlying picture of corporate profitability are to remove the profit and loss effects of inventory management, and to put depreciation on an economic rather than an accounting basis. Edwards suggests also narrowing the view to domestic profit only, reasoning that local profit is what drives the local business investment cycle.

This measure — which BEA terms profits from current production — suggests US underlying profitability has been clinging to a record high:



“One key feature of the BEA whole economy profits data is that it LEADS the stockmarket data, partly because smaller unquoted companies have no pressure to massage their results higher,” Edwards writes — which got us thinking. Which companies are we talking about? Who’s still over-earning, who's massaging, and where might price controls bite hardest?

Here’s a very simple screen of margins across more than 1,000 global large-caps (Excel format, Bloomberg data). We’ve taken the quick and dirty approach and used only reported net profit, where the previous periods are the year-ago figure rather than annualised. Anyone contesting the value of this methodology is invited to share their own.

The screen shows net margins recently returning to a long-run average of 13.5 per cent, having been suppressed during the 2017 tech nonsense then inflated through the late-stage pandemic.



But on a granular view it also shows 52 per cent of global companies are still earning above their 10-year average margin, with the average excess of 2.15 percentage points.

Trend outliers are the obvious ones. There are startups that have recently hit breakeven (Tesla, Uber, Palo Alto) and unprofitable startups that have been reducing cash burn (Snowflake, Workday). There are pandemic stories (Moderna, AirBNB, Hapag-Lloyd) and restructuring stories whose net profit comparison is probably not like-for-like (Prudential, GE, Emerson Electric). There are also lots of banks and energy companies, whose current margins are either hyper-cyclical or inexcusable depending on your politics.

Here’s a horrible chart that shows the distribution…



... and another that tops and tails from +20 to -20 percentage points:



... and another that adds scatter:



The above shows if nothing else that profiteering’s easy to talk about from the top down, but very difficult to pinpoint. Our (admittedly very crude, as price controls tend to be) methodology offers only weak evidence that companies across the board have been over-earning relative to historical norms. And the outliers it highlights would be writing letters to the editor if we were to accuse them of anything, because mitigating circumstances abound.

That’s why we’ve taken the coward’s approach and turned the data over to you. Slice it however you wish and report any interesting findings in the comment box. The future of capitalism may or may not depend on it.

[Derby]

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/08/green-mortgages-can-finance-an-energy-efficient-home-and-save-money.html

How green mortgages can help finance an energy-efficient home and save money

*A green mortgage, or an energy-efficient mortgage, allows borrowers to finance certain green improvements at the same rate and terms as their mortgage.

*If the home you’re considering needs various energy-efficient upgrades — as many houses do — it pays to see what a green mortgage can offer.

*For example, if a home needs a new air conditioning unit, a prospective buyer might instead consider installing a heat pump and rolling the cost into a mortgage.

(...)A green mortgage — also known as an energy-efficient mortgage — is different than a conventional mortgage in that it allows borrowers to finance certain green improvements at the same rate and terms as their home purchase. For many homebuyers this could mean making environmentally-friendly upgrades sooner than they might otherwise be able to afford, while also reducing their monthly energy costs.

Here is what you need to know about green mortgages and financing a home purchase.

How energy upgrades are rolled into a housing loan

If the home you’re considering needs various energy-efficient upgrades, as many houses do, it pays to see what a green mortgage can offer. In the past, buyers may have walked away from a home purchase because the windows were in rough shape or because the water heater was old, said Kevin Kane, chief economist with Green Homeowners United, a residential energy efficiency construction firm in West Allis, Wisconsin.

With an energy-efficient mortgage, homebuyers can finance these types of improvements on better terms.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, one of the entities that offers energy-efficient loans, cites the example of a couple who bought a California home for $150,000. They got an FHA loan for 95% of the property’s value. Based on estimates from a required home energy assessment, the lender set aside an extra $2,300 for the improvements, bringing the total loan amount to $144,800, from $142,500. The couple’s monthly mortgage payments rose by $17, but they are saving $45 a month due to lower utility bills.

To be sure, green mortgages won’t be appropriate for everyone. This includes consumers who are buying a new construction or a renovated house that’s Energy Star-certified.

The Inflation Reduction Act and home improvements

The Inflation Reduction Act — an expansive climate-protection effort by the federal government — makes green improvements even more advantageous for would-be homebuyers.

Kane offers the example of a home that needs a new air conditioning unit. Instead of replacing it outright, a prospective buyer might instead consider installing a heat pump and rolling the cost into a mortgage.

The homeowner could then be eligible for a tax credit of up to $2,000 and a rebate, depending on income, that amounts to 50% to 100% of the unit’s cost up to $8,000.

“You can do it now and not shell out the cash upfront because the bank rolled it into your mortgage, and you can get the incentives which make it a lot more advantageous,” Kane said.

Financing requirements and restrictions

There are restrictions on what can be financed, and there are caps on what can be included in a green mortgage.

For example, Fannie and Freddie Mac’s specifications say that the maximum available energy financing is 15% of the “as completed” value of the property, which is the appraised value of the home once the upgrades are finished. So, under these programs, an eligible buyer with a home valued at $100,000 after upgrades can receive up to $15,000 from the mortgage transaction.

There’s also an extra step that typically has to happen before financing is approved. That is a home energy assessment by a trained professional to analyze the home’s energy usage and recommend energy-saving improvements. The evaluation projects the cost and potential savings for each improvement.

Additionally, to comply with the terms of the mortgage, homeowners have to be committed to finding contractors and completing the work on an existing structure in a set period of time, generally three to six months, said John W. Mallett, a mortgage broker and founder and president of MainStreet Mortgage in Westlake Village, California. This might not be appropriate for people who want to take their time fixing up their house. They might be better off with a different type of financing later on, he said.

Most lenders should be able to offer green mortgages, but it’s helpful to work with one that does them regularly, said Drew Ades, senior advisor at RMI, a nonprofit that focuses on accelerating the clean energy transition. The lender can refer you to a home energy assessor it has worked with in the past, and the lender will also be familiar with how to maximize benefits for homebuyers, Ades said.

Be sure to compare costs and rates from multiple lenders before choosing a provider, Ades said, adding, “Just because someone is offering you this product doesn’t mean you are getting the best rate.”

Refinancing into a green mortgage

Existing homeowners looking to make energy-efficient upgrades may also want to consider refinancing with a green mortgage to include the cost of the updates. This most likely won’t be a cost-effective option for someone who refinanced when rates were at or near all-time lows since rates have moved significantly higher.

However, there are some scenarios where refinancing could still make sense, Kane said. He offers the example of first-time homebuyers who couldn’t afford to do improvements when they first bought their home and who haven’t owned it long enough to take out a home equity loan. They could refinance and roll the green improvements into the mortgage. If their interest rate is already 6.5%, a new rate might be around the same, and even if they pay $2,000 to $3,000 in closing costs, they may be able to unlock a similar amount in tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, he said.

[Negrule]

Lectura interesante.


Qué nos dice la industria de los semiconductores del futuro de la economía

La noticia económica de 2022 no fue ni la guerra en Ucrania, con la subida del precio de la energía que acarreó, ni la fuerte inflación. La clave fue el recrudecimiento de la batalla por el control de la industria mundial de los semiconductores

https://blogs.elconfidencial.com/economia/la-mano-visible/2023-04-08/futuro-economia-microchips_3607191/

[Mistermaguf]

En línea con pp.cc.:

“La desigualdad contemporánea es una realidad estructural que supera la lucha contra la pobreza, porque el binomio compuesto de ricos y pobres está pasado de moda”. Formulada casi como un principio, esta declaración vertebra el informe elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas), que debe guiar al Gobierno en la lucha contra los desequilibrios sociales. Este tipo de estudios se efectúan de forma periódica, pero los expertos socioculturales han ampliado ahora el marco de su labor. No solo han analizado variables como el empleo, los ingresos y la educación. Han incluido, además, el capital social (a quién conoces), el capital cultural (dónde encajas) y el capital personal (la salud y el atractivo) de los ciudadanos para elaborar un mapa de Países Bajos distinto al habitual. Un espacio de 17,8 millones de habitantes donde hay, en su opinión, siete clases sociales.

https://elpais.com/economia/negocios/2023-04-08/y-de-repente-paises-bajos-descubre-que-tiene-siete-clases-sociales.html

Ejem...

Según el artículo, las sietes clases sociales son las siguientes:

“Los que están en el escalón superior del empleo (20%); jóvenes con buenas oportunidades (9%); los que viven de sus rentas (12%); nivel medio de ocupación (25%); pensionistas con pocos estudios (18%); trabajadores sin seguridad (10%); los precarios (6%)”.

El informe ha sido elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas).

No se sabe cuál es la base teórica y menos aún la metodología de tal análisis, pero esas "clases sociales" me han hecho acordar poderosamente al relato Borgiano "El idioma analítico de John Wilkins" https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_idioma_anal%C3%ADtico_de_John_Wilkins, del que recomiendo enfáticamente su lectura.

En él se cita a una presunta antigua enciclopedia china llamada Emporio celestial de conocimientos benévolos, de la cual recoge una curiosa clasificación de los animales, que es la siguiente:

"los animales se dividen en: (a) pertenecientes al Emperador, (b) embalsamados, (c) amaestrados, (d) lechones, (e) sirenas, (f) fabulosos, (g) perros sueltos, (h) incluidos en esta clasificación, (i) que se agitan como locos, (j) innumerables, (k) dibujados con un pincel finísimo de pelo de camello, (l) etcétera, (m) que acaban de romper el jarrón, (n) que de lejos parecen moscas."

En fin, tal vez podríamos agregar tambien algunas clases sociales más, como "listos y seguros de sí mismos", "autovictimizados con paguita" y "adaptados con sueldo previsible", por poner algunos sin ánimo de excluír otras más imaginativas aún.

Nadie ha dicho que no sea mejorable.


Va en línea de que no todo es patrimonio inmobiliario... también está la formación, la red social de contactos... etc. [ Para "iconoclasta", yo mismo.    ]

En eso estamos de acuerdo, pero no es en absoluto novedoso; de hecho en términos sociológicos las clases sociales son constructos muy complejos y cruzados por infinidad de factores no sólo económicos. También es significativo que se identifique un sector social como "rentista" y se le dé categoría de clase, lo cual no deja de ser una novedad a efectos prácticos.

Pero tal como está descrito en el artículo, la clasificación parece un fárrago conceptual sin pies ni cabeza. Por decir algo, "los que viven de sus rentas" ¿no pueden ser al mismo tiempo "jóvenes con buenas oporuinidades" o "pensionistas con pocos estudios"? Solo esta observación invalida conceptualmente lo que allí se afirma.

Claro que habría que ver qué dice realmente el paper original.

[Derby]

Claro que habría que ver qué dice realmente el paper original.

https://english.scp.nl/publications/publications/2023/03/07/summary-contemporary-inequality

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-08/a-1-5-trillion-wall-of-debt-is-looming-for-us-commercial-properties

A $1.5 Trillion Wall of Debt is Looming for US Commercial Properties

*Morgan Stanley sees refinancing risks front and center
*Office, retail property valuations could fall as much as 40%

Almost $1.5 trillion of US commercial real estate debt comes due for repayment before the end of 2025. The big question facing those borrowers is who’s going to lend to them?

“Refinancing risks are front and center” for owners of properties from office buildings to stores and warehouses, Morgan Stanley analysts including James Egan wrote in a note this past week. “The maturity wall here is front-loaded. So are the associated risks.”

The investment bank estimates office and retail property valuations could fall as much as 40% from peak to trough, increasing the risk of defaults.

Adding to the headache, small and regional banks — the biggest source of credit to the industry last year — have been rocked by deposit outflows following the demise of Silicon Valley Bank, raising concerns that will crimp their ability to provide finance to borrowers.

The wall of debt is set to get worse before it gets better. Maturities climb for the coming four years, peaking at $550 billion in 2027, according to the MS note. Banks also own more than half of the agency commercial mortgage-backed securities — bonds supported by property loans and issued by US government-sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae — increasing their exposure to the sector.

“The role that banks have played in this ecosystem, not only as lenders but also as buyers,” will compound the wave of refinancing coming due, the analysts wrote.

Rising interest rates and worries about defaults have already hurt CMBS deals. Sales of the securities without government backing fell about 80% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

Amid the gloom, there are some slivers of good news. Conservative lending standards in the wake of the financial crisis provide borrowers, and in turn their lenders, with some degree of protection from falling values, the analysts wrote.

Sentiment toward multifamily housing also remains much more positive as rents continue to rise, one reason why Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust had a positive return in February even as rising numbers of investors lodge withdrawal requests. The availability of agency-backed loans will help owners of those properties when they need to refinance.

Still, when apartment blocks are excluded, the scale of the problems facing banks becomes even starker. As much as 70% of the other commercial real estate loans that mature over the next five years are held by banks, according to the report.

“Commercial real estate needs to re-price and alternative ways to refinance the debt are needed,” the analysts said.

European real estate issuers, meanwhile, have the equivalent of more than €24 billion due for repayment over the remainder of the year, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tolu Alamutu wrote in a note.

“We are definitely seeing real estate companies do all they can to delever - scaling back investment programs, more joint ventures, bond buybacks and where possible, dividend cuts,” she said in an email. “Disposals are a key focus too. Some recent comments from real estate issuers suggest it’s still not easy to sell large portfolios.”

[wanderer]

En línea con pp.cc.:

“La desigualdad contemporánea es una realidad estructural que supera la lucha contra la pobreza, porque el binomio compuesto de ricos y pobres está pasado de moda”. Formulada casi como un principio, esta declaración vertebra el informe elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas), que debe guiar al Gobierno en la lucha contra los desequilibrios sociales. Este tipo de estudios se efectúan de forma periódica, pero los expertos socioculturales han ampliado ahora el marco de su labor. No solo han analizado variables como el empleo, los ingresos y la educación. Han incluido, además, el capital social (a quién conoces), el capital cultural (dónde encajas) y el capital personal (la salud y el atractivo) de los ciudadanos para elaborar un mapa de Países Bajos distinto al habitual. Un espacio de 17,8 millones de habitantes donde hay, en su opinión, siete clases sociales.

https://elpais.com/economia/negocios/2023-04-08/y-de-repente-paises-bajos-descubre-que-tiene-siete-clases-sociales.html

Pues yo niego la mayor: la desigualdad no es por sí misma ningún problema, sino la pobreza. A mí que haya más o menos megarricos me da lo mismo; no tener lo básico, eso sí me preocupa.

Pero claro, queda mucho más pintón decir que se lucha contra la desigualdad que contra la pobreza.

Mis dos céntimos...