Hoth

Betty White: Am I a joke to you?

Absolutely gorgeous now. Birds are singing, grass is greening up, full sun and pushing 60.

Of flying spiders?

You're at your seasonal high now? How often does that happen in April?

I'm not sure if this technically touched New England, but we got pretty close in '98.

What a freaking round by McIlroy. And what a way to end it!

I thought today was supposed to be sunny and warm. Was I completely out to lunch? Chilly, windy and overcast.

God how I hope that's actually a thing.

If it's the same one I'm thinking of, it was a great storm. We had a lot of banged up cars in Cambridge.

Wasn't expecting this wind.

C-. Roughly average snowfall at ~30". The highlights include the surprise double digit snowfall with 3-4"/hr rates in January, but that gets dinged for being overnight. We also had an insane squall on 2/19. The blizzard was a major letdown. So sick of seeing all these systems with multiple lows. Eff that. Let's fast forward to beaches, beers, babes and bikinis.

I begin to understand how those lake effect belts pick up feet in no time. There’s no substance to this snow. Just total fluff.

Snowing lightly again downtown. The drive in this morning was one of the worst I can remember. There was a thin layer of ice under the snow and the coefficient of friction with my new tires was zero at times. Spun out twice at low speed in Hamden. Cars were off the road in several spots.

Nice little private snowstorm here it appears. Pretty cool.

Wild grauple/hail right now.

Looks like New Orleans taking a multi-vortex tornado right now.

You guys see the video of the red pickup getting spun around in Texas? I half expected to see Bill and Jo hop out afterwards.

The middle one looks more like a boxwood to me. They're more native to the MA and sometimes sustain a bit of damage over the winter. You can trim the yellow bits and it should be fine.

October and March are the new severe months in NE.

It is gorgeous out. Smells like spring.

Yeah, I mean if you're not in a huge rush, it may be worth while waiting for things to cool off a bit. It has been totally insane, as the above examples testify to.

Yeah, congrats. I'm glad you recognize that's insane. I mean that's an unreal return on equity for that asset class with a three year holding period. Jesus. I doubt we saw stuff like that even in 2005-2006.

That's cool; you've built some nice equity. When did you buy? You surely didn't know it at the time, but you were lucky to time your purchase before valuations really went nuts in all the Boston suburbs. My brother lucked out too. Paid 400k for his place four years ago, which is now valued at 725k. This is ridiculous appreciation and totally unsustainable and he knows it, but it gave him a chuckle. Nor'easter is in a different spot, considering entering the market now with already extreme prices, the prospect of rising interest rates increasing borrowing costs and a softening economy. Is it any wonder why home buyer sentiment is at multi-decade lows? Given that prices have gone up much much faster than wages, your average buyer right now is in many cases stretching their means to get a house--especially since they are often competing against large private equity firms that can borrow dirt cheap and put in cash bids above offer. A lot of folks buying now could potentially find themselves in trouble if the economy tanks.

It's a tough call. On the one hand, home prices are quite elevated by historical standards. There is a risk of ending up underwater, at least for a time, if the economy really tanks. If you have a long time horizon and view your home as a shelter and not as a speculative asset, perhaps you won't care that much? If on the other hand you're looking to cash out for a profit in a few years and upgrade to a bigger home, well, there's risk in that. I can't really predict the course of interest rates or inflation, but my guess is that because so much debt has been created in the last decade, the economy will be much more sensitive to small increases in rates. I don't think we're going to see a 1980s style Fed funds rate. Anything much above 3 or 4% would probably cause a significant deflationary event. I'll just add that my folks bought their home in 1981 when the Fed was last fighting inflation. The economy was terrible and they were paying something like 18% on their mortgage. They refinanced a few times over the years and it worked out fine. I don't think they lost any sleep over the day to day valuation of their house because it was their home.

Incompetence and extreme hubris. 2018: Newly appointed Powell finally starts to raise rates and draw down the Fed's balance sheet after it recklessly kept rates historically low for years and years. Markets puke in Q4, Trump gets pissed, Powell capitulates and stops tightening. Market cheers, recovers and gets even bubblier in 2019. 2020: COVID. Market pukes bigtime, bubble really starts to pop. Powell/governments panic even harder, prints trillions out of thin air, creates unprecedented speculative mania. Late 2020: Inflation starts showing up, but Fed doesn't see it. Early 2021 Fed: Okay, we have some inflation, but we actually want inflation to run above target. Mid 2021 Fed: Okay, yeah, inflation's running hot, but it's "transitory." We'll keep printing and keep rates at zero. Late 2021 Fed: Shit, okay, maybe inflation isn't transitory. Time to talk like we're hawkish, but we won't do anything until March. Keep printing. Keep rates at zero. 2022: CPI at highest level in 40 years and climbing, stock/housing/bond bubble starting to pop and the Fed hasn't even begun hiking rates or reducing its balance sheet. Absolute clusterf*ck in progress. No good outcomes here. If Fed doesn't hike aggressively, inflation likely stays elevated, social stability may break down, and we get a recession with inflation. Yuck. If they do hike, say saiyonara to risk assets, house prices, bonds and say hello to recession. Strap on a helmet. It's gonna be ugly for a while. And that's without all the recent Ukraine stuff going down.