PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Invierno 2024

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/vivienda-inmobiliario/noticias/12655255/02/24/repsol-y-aliseda-venden-suelo-a-ibosa-para-levantar-vivienda-asequible-en-los-berrocales.html

https://www.eleconomista.es/vivienda-inmobiliario/noticias/12655159/02/24/la-inversion-inmobiliaria-en-alemania-y-reino-unido-se-hunde-y-regresa-a-niveles-de-la-crisis.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12654940/02/24/espana-agota-el-plazo-para-solicitar-30000-millones-en-fondos-europeos.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12654490/02/24/casi-dos-millones-de-espanoles-perdieron-un-empleo-por-despido-o-no-superar-el-periodo-de-prueba-en-2023.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12655178/02/24/las-insolvencias-empresariales-se-mantienen-en-los-niveles-del-covid.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/actualidad/noticias/12655227/02/24/un-tercio-de-espanoles-escogen-la-fp-al-termino-de-su-educacion-obligatoria.html

Saludos.

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-05/powell-tells-60-minutes-fed-likely-to-wait-beyond-march-to-cut

Powell Tells ‘60 Minutes’ Fed Is Wary of Cutting Rates Too Soon

Powell reiterates that a March interest-rate cut is unlikely
2024 rate forecasts probably haven’t changed ‘dramatically’

The US economy is testing bond traders’ faith that the Federal Reserve will deliver a series of interest-rate cuts this year.

The unexpected surge in hiring in January showed there’s little pressure on the central bank to start easing monetary policy just yet, giving it time to see if inflation is headed sustainably toward its 2% target.(...)

[Manu Oquendo]

La gente joven y buena parte de los mayores no recuerda los orígenes de la UE porque nunca nos los contaron y trataron de borrar sus huellas. La historia, como la verdad, es importante. Más de lo que parece.

En los orígenes estuvo un mito: el de los padres fundadores.
Una mentira porque todos los humanos sabemos que necesitamos una madre para nacer y no tuvieron la ocurrencia de darnos una. Mal comenzamos, huérfanos de madre, y lo que mal comienza, mal acaba.

La verdad es que la Unión Europea, como la OTAN, es una creación de los EEUU.

Arranca en 1948, cuando se creó el American Committee on United Europe supervisado por el NSC (National Security Council). El embrión fue creado y dirigido desde los servicios de inteligencia norteamericanos que lanzan tres organizaciones: El European Movement, el grupo Bilderberg y el Action Committeee para unos Estados Unidos de Europa bajo la dirección de Jean Monnet.

Desde dicho comité se pone en marcha la CECA  con objetivos que supervisaban los EEUU y que, por no alargarnos, se centraban en construir una izquierda (partidos y cultura) no soviética y en la promoción de  De Gasperi. Es decir, una Europa unida bajo criterios norteamericanos. Todo ello patrocinado por la International Organizations Division, un departamento de la CIA.

Por eso, hoy, cuando nos preguntamos para quién trabaja la inmensa burocracia de la UE, es conveniente saber la historia y entender que nosotros no somos ni su primer ni su principal objetivo.

Ahora que los EEUU no son lo que eran --ni lo que parecían ser-- poco a poco vamos abriendo los ojos porque la metrópoli se preocupa, lógicamente, de lo que se preocupa y la UE es apenas un instrumento en su interés.

Toca ahora recuperar industria en los EEUU y cortar los lazos europeos con Rusia --tras veinte años de intentar someterla-- y por ello asistimos impotentes a una migración de grandes y pequeñas empresas a los EEUU al tiempo que vamos descubriendo que nos hemos quedado sin capacidad tecnológica y con unos costes fiscales y energéticos  mortales de necesidad y, además, insostenibles.

Este es nuestro entorno y en él hay que insertar las maniobras de mascarones de proa como la Comisión Europea y el BCE que han hecho todo lo posible por crear una criatura servil, hiperregulada e inviable.

La vivienda es realmente un problema que en quince años se resolvió en España desde 1961 a 1975 construyendo 4 Millones de viviendas protegidas.

Luego entramos en la UE, nos desindustrializamos y dejamos de pensar por nosotros mismos y, en consecuencia, nos hicimos  dependientes. Qué casualidad, entramos en la UE y comenzamos a tener problemas con la vivienda y con la industria.

El camino es arduo pero muy claro.

Saludos cordiales

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R2Qtf3UeL0

[JENOFONTE10]

[...]
Les animo a que hagan el crucero fluvial desde San Petersburgo a Moscú —río arriba mucho mejor que río abajo—. En Moscú, vayan a ver tres joyas de la Galería Tretiakov:

Rublev - 1410 - Trinidad angélica (La Hospitalidad de Abraham) - Vid. hipóstasis y homoousion

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip%C3%B3stasis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoousion

El icono de la Trinidad también puede verse virtualmente en la red, sin hacerse presente en Moscú, gracias a otro Andrei, Tarkovski, desde 2:57:30 en su 'Andrei Rublev' (1966):

https://youtu.be/je75FDjcUP4?si=3MNd0wFZwuDhv85s&t=10650

La cámara inicia recorrido horizontal desde mano izquierda del ángel central (Jesucristo). Tras la Trinidad, se fija en la casa de Abraham, el que será padre de pueblos numerosos como las estrellas del cielo y las arenas del mar.
   

Andréi Tarkovski

La inscripción en su lápida, que fue erigida en 1994, fue concebida por la esposa de Tarkovski, Larisa, dice: Al hombre que vio al ángel. Larisa murió en 1998 y está enterrada junto a su esposo.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9i_Tarkovski

El icono de la Trinidad representa el texto inicial de Génesis (Bereshit) 18. El mismo capítulo finaliza con Abraham tanteando el mínimo de ciudadanos justos suficientes para que Dios no destruya Sodoma por su maldad.

El Señor se apareció a Abraham junto al encinar de Mamré, mientras él estaba sentado a la entrada de su carpa, a la hora de más calor. [Génesis 18, 1]
[...]
«Por favor, dijo entonces Abraham, que mi Señor no se enoje si hablo por última vez. Quizá sean solamente diez». «En atención a esos diez, respondió, no la destruiré».
Apenas terminó de hablar con él, el Señor se fue, y Abraham regresó a su casa. [Génesis 18, 32-33]

Saludos.

[tomasjos]

Oficialmente ya estamos otra vez como en 2007

https://www.eleconomista.es/vivienda-inmobiliario/noticias/12657186/02/24/las-familias-espanolas-necesitan-siete-anos-y-medio-de-sueldo-para-comprar-una-vivienda.html

Vuelven a hacer falta ocho años de ingresos brutos de una familia para pagar una vivienda.

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-05/nyc-apartments-go-on-sale-for-50-off-due-to-tougher-rent-control

Why NYC Apartment Buildings Are on Sale Now for 50% Off

Tougher rent control, returning worldwide, destroys $75 billion in property value. Cash-strapped tenants cheer as they maintain a foothold in the city.



Even in the crisp afternoon sunlight, the two-bedroom Manhattan apartment has a ghostly pallor, its cracked walls yellowing like an ancient black-and-white photograph. Paint chips are falling from the ceiling. A dead pigeon lies on the kitchen floor.

Its landlord, Douglas Peterson, is making a stop on a dispiriting tour of a 21-unit building he bought in 2018 for $4.8 million. Peterson’s City Skyline Realty Inc. specializes in a subgenre of real estate investment: properties subject to the New York City rent-regulation system, the oldest and biggest program in America. For this well-situated apartment on West 164th Street in Washington Heights, the quickly gentrifying Dominican enclave immortalized in a Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, he can charge no more than $650 a month, perhaps a quarter of the market rate.

For landlords the playbook had long been simple and lucrative. Buy run-down buildings that are, in New York lingo, rent-stabilized. Fix them up. Pass along the expense to tenants by raising rents, which was allowed under the regulations. Cash out. Repeat. Once rents approached $2,800 a month, owners could charge what the market would bear, and the apartments became a potential gold mine. “You just had to be patient,” Peterson says.

But his bet on raising rents has gone disastrously bad, as it has for landlords across the city. In 2019, alarmed about the decline in affordable housing, New York state lawmakers rewrote the rules. In one key change they sharply reduced how much landlords could raise rents after renovations. In an even more important shift, the apartments no longer leave the program when rents rise high enough.

Peterson—who’s bought more than 40 properties for $300 million over 20 years—is now in distress. He’s falling behind on his mortgages and scrambling to find money for repairs. In October, Fannie Mae, the government-backed home loan company, started foreclosure proceedings against a dozen of his properties, including the building on 164th Street. “My career is over,” Peterson says. “Now it’s just a question of: What’s my legacy going to be? Is it going to be that I abandoned the ship when it was sinking, or that I stayed and fought?”

Last year, New York buildings with at least one rent-­stabilized apartment sold on average for $203,000 a unit, down 34% since 2019, according to Maverick Real Estate Partners, a New York investment manager. By contrast, the price of nonregulated apartments rose 23%. The value of rent-stabilized units declined by as much as $75 billion, Maverick found. In December the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. unloaded $15 billion in loans backed primarily by New York rent-stabilized apartments—at a 40% discount. Last week, amid concern over real estate exposure, shares of New York Community Bancorp Inc.—which holds about $37 billion in apartment loans, half backed by rent-regulated units—dropped 38% in a single day. “A lot of owners I’m speaking with want to walk away from buildings,” says Lazer Sternhell, chief executive officer of Cignature Realty Associates Inc. in the city.

These losses highlight an escalating battle over a kind of affordable housing that provides a foothold for the working class in one of the world’s most expensive cities. To landlords such as Lewis Barbanel, owner of Barberry Rose Management Inc., in Woodmere, New York, tighter rent regulation violates their private property rights and will only worsen the housing shortage by discouraging renovation and construction. His company sold 21 rent-stabilized buildings last year at a loss. Barberry parted with one building in Harlem for $3.8 million, 59% less than the company paid in 2016. “The politicians are defunding these buildings,” says Barbanel, who’s shifting his investments to New Jersey and elsewhere. “They’re trying to create a situation where the owners fail.”

But to tenants, apartment owners are merely paying the price for reckless borrowing that relied on skyrocketing rents that were bound to spark opposition. The new laws shouldn’t have come as a surprise to property investors, says Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator of Housing Justice for All, who helped lead the fight. “We weren’t being very secret that we were trying to change the rules, nor were the lawmakers in Albany,” Weaver says. “I don’t know if it was hubris or not, but laws change, and that impacts markets.”

Rent control is having something of a comeback after losing favor across more than a generation. In 2019, Oregon became the first state to pass a statewide rent control law, which capped annual hikes at 7% plus inflation. Later the same year, California limited increases to 10%. Two dozen states last year considered caps, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council, a trade group for landlords.

Countries including Canada, India and Sweden all have regulation. As rents are climbing in big cities worldwide, governments have looked to expand protections, with mixed results. Denmark instituted a two-year cap in 2023. Berlin in 2020 enacted a five-year freeze, among the world’s most stringent measures. But Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court overturned it the next year.

As a rule, economists hate rent control, saying it distorts markets, leading to housing shortages and higher rents in market-rate buildings. The rules benefit longtime tenants at the expense of newcomers, and they’re an inefficient way to help those who need it most, scholars have found. The International Monetary Fund late last year called on Ireland to abandon its price caps in designated “rent pressure zones” such as Dublin, because restrictions are worsening the housing shortage. Instead, the agency suggested targeted subsidies for poor renters.

But Chris Herbert, managing director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, says the market is failing renters. In classical economics, rising prices should be leading to more construction and moderating rents. But scarce land in attractive cities and zoning rules cause persistent shortages. In this environment, Herbert says, milder rent control, such as tying increases to inflation, could be a compromise.

New York’s history shows the ebb and flow of rent regulation amid shifts in the relative power of landlords and tenants. Two-thirds of the city’s residents rent their homes, double the nationwide rate, giving tenants greater political sway than in much of the US. New York’s efforts have roots in 19th century attempts to improve the lot of immigrants crowded into dilapidated tenements.

New York has had some form of rent regulation since 1943, when the federal government imposed price controls to combat inflation during World War II. After those protections expired in the early 1950s, the state enacted its own measures, which applied to pre-1947 buildings. That older system, known as rent control, severely restricts what tenants pay for as long as they occupy the unit, a feature that’s led some renters to organize their life around an unbelievably cheap real estate deal, sometimes stoking outrage or envy when there are reports of someone affluent or famous living for a song. Only 16,000 of those rent-controlled ­apartments remain.

Rent stabilization, which dates to 1969, covers roughly 1 million apartments, housing a quarter of the city’s population. (Most units have no income restrictions.) Each year landlords submit reports on their income and expenses to the ­mayor-appointed Rent Guidelines Board, which uses the information to help determine how much owners can raise rents. In New York City, tenants paid a third less for rent-­stabilized apartments than they would have for equivalent market-rate apartments, an annual discount adding up to $5.4 billion, according to a 2023 paper from researchers at George Washington University, the University of North Texas and Johns Hopkins University.

n the more market-oriented 1990s, city and state ­lawmakers voted to relax the rules. Landlords could then raise rents by 20% each time a tenant moved out. They could set their own rents once they rose past a certain threshold. For many buildings, owners could also raise monthly rents by $1 for every $40 in renovations, meaning a landlord who invested $60,000 in a vacant apartment could increase the rent by $1,500 on the next tenant.

This system made regulated apartments far more appealing. “A rent-stabilized unit was viewed as an embedded option to increase rents,” says Shimon Shkury, president of brokerage Ariel Property Advisors.

A new class of investors flocked to a market historically dominated by established local real estate families. These latecomers included smaller companies such as Peterson’s as well as some of the biggest names on Wall Street. In 2015, Blackstone Inc. led the $5.3 billion purchase of rent-­stabilized Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Blackstone, which has since spent more than $375 million in improvements, says it remains confident in the investment.

But the city’s soaring housing prices provoked a backlash. Then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Attorney General Letitia James said looser controls provided incentives to harass tenants and promoted gentrification and the deregulation of hundreds of thousands of apartments. A bloc of progressive state lawmakers swept into office, setting the stage for the 2019 changes that distressed building owners. The timing was especially tough for landlords, who soon after had to contend with unpaid rent during the Covid-19 pandemic, along with rising insurance costs and interest rates.

Some tenant advocates welcome the drop in prices for regulated apartments. With government help, nonprofits or tenants could buy buildings at lower prices, as they did in the 1980s, says Sam Stein, a senior policy analyst for Community Service Society of New York. They could then charge more affordable rents.

Landlords have tried, unsuccessfully, to get the US Supreme Court to intervene on their behalf by ruling against the 2019 rent laws. On social media, Jay Martin, executive director of a trade group called the Community Housing Improvement Program, describes opponents as communists and has pledged a “scorched earth” strategy this year to fight them. “There’s too much at stake,” he said recently on X, formerly Twitter. “We must do everything possible to stop individuals destroying New York’s housing.”

Tay Raymond, 35, grew up on West 116th Street, down the block from the famed soul food restaurant Amy Ruth’s as well as a building where condos sell for $1 million. On this same street, Raymond’s three-bedroom now rents for $1,300, about a third of the cost of the unit down the hall. But, in January, there was a gaping hole in her bathroom ceiling that had been a problem for years, and she says mice and roaches run rampant. “They want us to self-evict,” says Raymond, who sells vintage clothing online. “Either because we’re not getting the repairs we need or because we’re afraid of getting priced out.”

In 2018 her landlord, a private equity firm called Sugar Hill Capital Partners LLC, contracted to buy 53 small apartment buildings for more than $250 million in the company’s largest deal. Sugar Hill figured each unit would need at least $60,000 in renovations, enough to upgrade plumbing and electrical systems. But once New York state clamped down on renovation-­related rent increases, Sugar Hill could pass on only $15,000 per apartment.

At the end of 2022, Sugar Hill agreed to sell 13 of its buildings at a 54% discount to the price the company had paid. Managing Partner Margaret Grossman says she’d like to sell the rest of the rent-stabilized portfolio, including Raymond’s building, and focus on new projects such as a luxury apartment building in Brooklyn featuring a rooftop deck with an apple orchard. Grossman says that the inability to charge enough rent makes it difficult for Sugar Hill to invest in buildings but that it does all it can to make repairs. (The company fixed the hole in Raymond’s ceiling after an inquiry about it for this article.)

Victoria Bausch lives with a roommate so she can afford her rent-stabilized apartment in Washington Heights. Last year her rent jumped $300, to $3,300, part of a boroughwide runup that took Manhattan rates to record highs.

On a recent evening, Bausch joins about 15 other tenants in the lobby of her St. Nicholas Avenue building, which includes both regulated and unregulated apartments. There’s a Wall Street executive paying more than $4,500 a month, as well as a retired bus driver and a school administrator. The crowd complains of poor maintenance: water damage in some apartments, as well as a lack of hot water and too little heat. Over the past two years they’ve filed hundreds of complaints with the city. They also would like to roll back what they consider illegal rent increases.

Bausch, an event planner who used to work in theater, has good news: In a settlement with the state attorney general’s office, the building put her unit back into the rent-­stabilization program and reduced her rent. “If things keep going the way they are, we’re going to be priced out of New York City, and I’m not willing to let that happen,” she says.

Peterson’s City Skyline Realty, which last year appeared on a government list of landlords with the most code violations, owns the building. He says that his company promptly addresses complaints and that the city’s tally unfairly penalizes large property owners. The rent ­settlement related to a previous owner, he says.

A 49-year-old Utah native who wears matching golf shirts and hats, Peterson usually has the outgoing bearing of the Mormon missionary he once was when he knocked on doors in declining postindustrial towns in upstate New York. He remembers better days not long ago. In 2014 he bought a building in the Bronx for $8 million and sold it only four years later for a 50% profit.

Peterson hasn’t quite given up on his role as a New York City landlord. On his visit to Washington Heights, he warns a bodega worker about an apparent gas leak and makes small talk with teenagers. Adding a note of dark humor about his deteriorating business, he tells one of his building super­intendents, “You make more money from this building than I do.”

In one of the strange twists of rent regulation that worry economists, Peterson is among the landlords leaving apartments empty because it doesn’t make sense to repair and rent them out at current rates. Thousands of apartments are vacant, according to government and industry estimates.

On West 164th Street, no one has lived in the dead-­pigeon apartment for more than two years. Like other units, it needs $100,000 in renovations, including new plumbing, electrical wiring and lead remediation, Peterson says. He figures he can’t make the economics work without raising the rent. “We should have two tenants in here and be collecting $2,500 a month,” he says, wondering why the city’s politicians have turned against him. “Why the hell wouldn’t they want me to do that?”

[Benzino Napaloni]

Sudden, ¿noticias de renuncias de médicos en otros sitios fuera de Madrid también hay?

Compro sin problema el argumento de que si en provincias no se invierte es entre otras cosas porque los poderes locales no hacen ni el huevo al respecto. También que no hay comunidades perfectas en el asunto de la sanidad. Pero esto de que haya médicos que dimitan porque están quemados y no pueden con ese ritmo, sólo lo he visto en las noticias sobre Madrid.

Estamos al borde del colapso por falta de remeros, y eso no parece ser óbice para que "la Gustafruta" siga echando gasolina al fuego. Está haciendo lo último que se debe hacer para evitar el colapso. A menos que sepan lo que hay y la actitud sea "a follar a follar que el mundo se va a acabar" con total descaro.

Mira lo que dice el gobierno, por escrito:

Uno de los elogios más sorprendentes es el que le dedica el dosier a la Sanidad de Madrid. «Para asegurarnos de que siempre estarás en buenas manos, el sistema sanitario y la red de hospitales de Madrid es una de las mejores del mundo», reconoce el documento enviado a la UE. «En Madrid vivirás más y mejor», sentencia.

El Gobierno reconoce ante la UE por escrito que Madrid tiene «una Sanidad de las mejores del mundo»
https://okdiario.com/espana/gobierno-reconoce-ue-escrito-que-madrid-tiene-sanidad-mejores-del-mundo-12059241










Ecuanimidad, es lo único que pediría.

Es un poco lo que Mad Men decía. No te creas que en Cataluña estamos tirando cohetes (aunque antes se tirasen piedras ). El ejemplo más vergonzoso es el ICAM, el tribunal médico que controla las bajas. La antigua directora acabó cesada después de perder un juicio que planteó una mujer que tuvo un ictus y un infarto, y tuvo que dar por saco hasta el final.

Hasta los cupaires fueron capaces de decir que viendo el porcentaje de altas forzadas que daban, y comparándolas con la media nacional, o la salud de la población en Cataluña es de hierro... o hay órdenes de cortar gastos incluso en casos que no resisten el paso por un tribunal.

Eso sí... aquí no se llegaron a los protocolos de las residencias de ancianos ni las mascarillas a precio inflado, cosa en la que espero que los tribunales lleguen hasta el final. Es un asunto demasiado grave como para no aclararlo al 100%.

Que piense que hay cosas con la sanidad y (algunas) regiones gobernadas por la derecha que huelen mal, no quita que en otras de "izquierda" haya pufos también. Y, por supuesto, que con la jubilación en masa, el sistema sanitario lo va a pasar de pena en la próxima década.

[Derby]

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2024/02/02/cf-chinas-real-estate-sector-managing-the-medium-term-slowdown

China’s Real Estate Sector: Managing the Medium-Term Slowdown
By Henry Hoyle and Sonali Jain-Chandra

Accelerated cleanup of distressed developers and other policies will help smooth the path to a smaller, more sustainable role in the economy

Real estate has long been important for China’s economy, driving its rapid growth in recent decades and accounting for as much as 20 percent of activity.

This reliance has, however, been accompanied by the buildup of significant risks.

Home prices became significantly stretched relative to household incomes in the decade before the pandemic, in part because consumers preferred to invest their considerable savings in real estate given the scarcity of attractive alternative savings options. Expectations of continued increases in home and land prices allowed property developers to borrow rapidly, with land sales providing crucial revenue for local governments.

More recently, the authorities have appropriately focused on containing risks and helping the sector transition to a more appropriate and sustainable size. They took resolute action to rein in excessive developer borrowing and other property sector risks after the start of the pandemic. Real estate activity has since contracted sharply, and most recently the authorities have aimed to boost rental housing, expand affordable housing, and upgrade under-developed urban neighborhoods.



With the property downturn in its third year, progress in downsizing the sector has been rapid in some respects. Housing starts have fallen by more than 60 percent relative to pre-pandemic levels, a historically rapid pace only seen in the largest housing busts in cross-country experience in the last three decades. Sales have fallen amid homebuyer concerns that developers lack sufficient financing to complete projects and that prices will decline in the future.

At the same time, key property sector vulnerabilities have yet to be addressed, pointing to ongoing risks to sustainability. Many developers have become non-viable but have avoided bankruptcy thanks in part to rules that allow lenders to delay recognizing their bad loans, which has helped mute spillovers to real estate prices and bank balance sheets. Home prices have also decreased only modestly in part because some cities have sought to limit price declines through rules and guidance on listing prices.

China’s housing market faces additional pressures in coming years from structural factors, in particular demographic change. The need for additional new housing will diminish in coming years as the population declines and urbanization slows. Large public subsidies in the previous decade helped millions of people move to newer housing from older buildings lacking modern amenities. Such demand will likely be more limited as depressed land sale revenues have tightened local government fiscal constraints and fewer residents live in older housing.

Facing these cyclical and structural adjustment pressures, housing investment is poised to fall further and likely remain subdued. We recently projected new real estate investment into the medium term based on several scenarios for the evolution of fundamental demand as well as the impact of the overhang of inventories and other supply-side pressures. In these scenarios, our analysis shows, real estate investment would likely fall 30 percent to 60 percent below its 2022 level, rebounding only very gradually. This would be comparable to major housing downturns in other countries with similarly sizable slowdowns in starts.



Increases in spending on affordable housing and urban redevelopment that are planned this year could help offset some of the investment decline. But this spending is not likely to sufficiently reduce the large overhang of housing inventories held by troubled developers.

A shorter and smoother transition for the real estate sector is achievable, however. Allowing more market-based adjustment in home prices and quickly restructuring insolvent developers will help to clear the overhang of inventories and ease fears that prices will continue to gradually decline. Rules allowing banks to avoid recognition of bad loans to developers should be phased out.

The authorities should also support viable developers and tighten rules to prevent future build-ups of risk. Insuring homebuyers against the risk that developers fail to complete purchased homes could help restore confidence and ease sales pressures for developers. Stricter escrow rules for the use of presale financing would also help improve legal protections for homebuyers. A nationwide property tax and improved pension or other saving options would help reduce households’ need to invest in housing. Fiscal reforms that close local governments’ structural mismatch between revenues and spending obligations will also be needed to reduce their reliance on land sales and property activity.

[Benzino Napaloni]

El juez que dijo basta por la sobrecarga en los tribunales: “Si no hay tiempo para estudiar el caso, sacas la sentencia y ya está”

Que no son sólo los médicos, que es todo. Sólo con citar esto:

Pregunta (P). Según el Poder Judicial, hay casi cuatro millones de asuntos pendientes de resolver ¿La sobrecarga de trabajo afecta a todos los juzgados por igual?
Respuesta (R). La carga de trabajo no es ni mucho menos excepcional. Actualmente los jueces estamos, en la práctica, con productividades superiores al 200%. Por poner ejemplos, conozco a otra compañera que trabaja en Madrid que ha sacado una productividad del 320% y otro compañero que ha alcanzado una carga del 300%. Estamos con jornadas de 50 horas netas de trabajo a la semana y no nos queda más remedio que dilatar los señalamientos. Prácticamente todos los jueces de España estamos por encima del 100% y la gran mayoría por encima del 200%. No parece razonable cargar con señalamientos que uno no puede asumir.

Tenemos encima un Peak Currantes de la hostia, y los que aún pueden currar están con la peineta cargada. ¿Qué podría salir mal?

[Cadavre Exquis]

Snap To Lay Off 10% of Global Workforce
Posted by msmash on Monday February 05, 2024 @11:45AM from the tough-luck dept.

Social media company Snap said on Monday that it would lay off 10% of its global workforce, or around 500 employees, in part to "promote in-person collaboration." From a report:

The company has executed multiple rounds of layoffs since 2022, most recently in November, when it trimmed a small number of product employees. The company expects it will incur charges ranging from $55 million to $75 million, according to a regulatory filing. The company's last major round of cuts was in August 2022, when it laid off 20% of staff and restructured its business lines.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Businesses
'Europe Regulates Its Way To Last Place'
Posted by msmash on Monday February 05, 2024 @09:44AM from the how-about-that dept.

From mergers to AI, the EU's aggressive rule-making hampers its ability to compete with China and the U.S. Greg Ip, writing for WSJ:

These are humbling times for Europe. The continent barely escaped recession late last year as the U.S. boomed. It is losing out to the U.S. on artificial intelligence, and to China on electric vehicles. There is one field where the European Union still leads the world: regulation. Having set the standard on regulating mergers, carbon emissions, data privacy, and e-commerce competition, the EU now seeks to do the same on AI. In December it unveiled a sweeping draft law that bans certain types of AI, tightly regulates others, and imposes huge fines for violators. Its executive arm, the European Commission, might investigate Microsoft's tie-up with OpenAI as potentially anticompetitive. Never before has "America innovates, China replicates, Europe regulates" so aptly captured each region's comparative advantage.

The technocrats who staff the EU in Brussels aren't anti-free market. Just the opposite: they still believe in free trade, unlike the U.S. or China. Much of their regulation is aimed at protecting consumers and competition from meddling national governments. But there's a trade-off between consumer protection and the profit motive that drives investment and innovation, and the EU might be getting that trade-off wrong. For example, to preserve competition, European regulators have resisted mergers that leave just a handful of mobile phone carriers per market. As a result Europe now has 43 groups running 102 mobile operators serving a population of 474 million, while the U.S. has three major networks serving a population of 335 million, according to telecommunications consultant John Strand. China and India are even more concentrated.

European mobile customers as a result pay only about a third of what Americans do. But that's why European carriers invest only half as much per customer and their networks are commensurately worse, Strand said: "Getting a 5G signal in Germany is like finding a Biden supporter at a Trump rally." Putting European networks on a par with the U.S. would cost about $300 billion, he estimated. This has knock-on effects on Europe's tech sector. Swedish telecommunications equipment manufacturer Ericsson's sales in Europe suffer in part because many carriers are too small and unprofitable to update to the latest 5G networks. "Europe has prioritized shorter-term low consumer prices at the expense of quality infrastructure," chief executive Borje Ekholm told me in Davos earlier this month. "I'm very concerned about Europe. We need to invest much more in infrastructure, in being digital."

Saludos.