Worth the click through – From The Washington Post:
The cities where home prices have changed the most (and least) over the past 130 years
We love historical data! Nothing tickles our fancy more than a line chart with dates beginning in, at the very least, a 1 and an 8.
But in the data world, anything before the First World War might as well be off the edge of the world — systematic data collection becomes so rare that many series going back that far have been cobbled together with spit and spackle.
This even holds true when the data in question addresses one of the biggest, most important economic objects in the known universe: the U.S. housing market.
Despite its centrality to our lives — and the global economy — we could never say with too much confidence if we’d really paid more for our homes than our grandparents had, after inflation, or which cities had the hottest housing markets in the past century.
For years, the best weapon economists had for this type of analysis was a home-price index going back to 1890 compiled by housing data hall of famer Robert Shiller, the longtime Yale economist. But many folks who used it seemed to have forgotten that even Nobel Bob himself had seemed to view the series as provisional.
“The home price index we constructed … is imperfect, and I hope to improve it someday,” Shiller wrote in “Irrational Exuberance,” “but for now it appears to be the best that can be found for this long a time period.”
He was right! The data, while super valuable, was cobbled together — its earliest observations came from a 1934 survey that essentially asked folks to remember what they’d paid for their homes years ago. That approach beats the bejabbers out of having no data at all, but its reliance on the vagaries of human memory obviously leave room for improvement.
Amazing to see the data points from Pittsburgh, Memphis, Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, etc.
At one point these were the highest priced markets in the country.
Highest price because of jobs and economic ladder. Question is the AI bubble. Is it going to be the biggest pile of cash wasted in human history leading to massive global economic collapse? Or does it have legs leading to economic stagnation outside of the top 5%?
While, I digress a bit. Replace Maduro with the Kings name. If the King was competent he would contract Cuban intelligence to set up for him a loyal military.
From WSJ
How Venezuela’s Maduro Became Coup-Proof After Years of Military Purges
Despite U.S. warships offshore, the strongman has prevailed in efforts to unseat him—purging, spying on and paying off officers so armed forces remain loyal
Despite U.S. warships offshore, the strongman has prevailed in efforts to unseat him—purging, spying on and paying off officers so armed forces remain loyal
Follow the WSJ in Apple News
For years, Venezuelans fighting to unseat President Nicolás Maduro have hoped the country’s military would do the job for them. But even with a menacing U.S. Navy buildup currently offshore, the strongman is virtually coup-proof.
The leftist leader has purged officers accused of conspiring against him, jailing and sending them into exile. The vaunted intelligence service of close ally, Cuba, has worked to identify plots and renegades, with intelligence officers placed in every unit.
And the army brass has ensured that officers and soldiers throughout Venezuela’s army know that torture, jail and even death await should they rise up.
“What hasn’t he done? He’s done everything possible and that he is capable of doing to neutralize any kind of action from inside the armed forces,” said Carlos Guillén, a former Venezuelan soldier jailed for conspiring against the regime and now living in exile. “Today in the army there’s incalculable terror. That fear is so deeply ingrained in them that officers in the armed forces don’t dare even think about rising up.”
President Trump implicitly raised the question of a U.S.-supported coup on Wednesday when he said he had authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. Asked by a reporter at the White House if he was planning to topple Maduro, Trump declined to answer.
U.S. intelligence operatives in Latin America have a history of involvement in coups d’état, including Guatemala in 1954 and the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. When Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, was toppled for 48 hours in 2002, the U.S. briefly expressed public approval while denying involvement.
In 2019, the Trump administration worked to spur an uprising among Venezuelan military officers to remove Maduro, who had succeeded Chavez in 2013. Though hundreds of National Guard soldiers and police officers defected, the effort failed because high-ranking army officers commanding essential units didn’t.
In his time in office, Maduro has stolen two presidential elections, electoral monitors and human rights groups contend, while jailing critics and overseeing an economic collapse that caused eight million Venezuelans to emigrate, including to the U.S.
But in some ways, Maduro is more safely ensconced than ever, with most opposition leaders in exile and Venezuelans too fearful to protest as they once did.
The problem for those who see hope in the military rising up is that Maduro has surrounded himself with a fortress of lieutenants whose fortunes and future are tied to his, from Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López to generals, admirals, colonels and captains throughout the armed forces.
Maduro promoted officers at a dizzying pace, primarily based on loyalty rather than competence, former military officers and researchers who have studied the Venezuelan military say. He has allowed them to enrich themselves, either paid off by drug trafficking groups to allow cocaine loads to transit Venezuela or by managing numerous state-run companies. That has made them accomplices in the regime’s widespread corruption.
Maduro has also worked hard to make it almost impossible for disaffected officers to coordinate a coup by seeding highly competent Cuban counterintelligence officers as well as Venezuelan spies among officers as well as the rank and file.
“Maduro has been very adept at managing the military, tying their own fates to his and making carrying out a coup incredibly difficult,” said John Polga-Hecimovich, a Venezuela scholar at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. “Maduro’s opponents have said for years that his days are numbered, but he’s still there.”
In Trump’s initial effort to oust Maduro during his first term, the American president’s team and the Venezuelan opposition tried engineering a military uprising when the U.S. recognized opposition lawmaker Juan Guaidó, and not Maduro, as president.
Venezuelan operatives working with the U.S. strived to get Venezuelan military officers to turn on Maduro. Opposition leaders attempted to move food supplies by truck into the country from neighboring Colombia, hoping Venezuelan troops would rebel.
At one point, John Bolton, the national security adviser who was then in Trump’s good graces, appeared at a press conference with a notepad reading “5,000 troops to Colombia,” fueling speculation the U.S. would take military action from that country.
The international pressure failed to crack the armed forces, though, as the military high command stood by the embattled president.
American and international justice have indirectly helped solidify Maduro’s control. High-ranking military officers have been indicted or sanctioned for drug trafficking, corruption and rights abuse charges, among them Padrino López, the defense minister. Wanted in the U.S. on cocaine distribution charges, he also has a $15 million bounty on his head.
He and other officers would face jail time should Maduro fall.
“It’s an existential matter for them,” said Frank Mora, the Pentagon’s top official for Latin America during President Barack Obama’s first term. “They have gone too far on corruption and human rights abuses. They have gone too far to simply say, ‘We’ve had a good run, we are going home.’ The cost of not staying in power is quite high.”
A businessman familiar with the Maduro government’s thinking said the regime is now looking to call Trump’s bluff.
“They don’t believe the U.S. will do anything to get rid of him [Maduro] or capture him. I also don’t believe it,” he said. “The U.S. has been trying to splinter them. But the result of this is that we’ve put them closer. They’re much closer right now than they’ve ever been.”
The U.S. has offered a $50 million reward for Maduro’s capture, and he has frequently been targeted by dissident officers.
In 2018, rebellious servicemen used drones loaded with explosives to try to kill Maduro as he reviewed a parade. And high-ranking officers, American mercenaries and enlisted personnel in the army have launched everything from a seaborne invasion to barracks uprisings.
Polga-Hecimovich, who wrote “Authoritarian Consolidation in Times of Crisis,” about the Maduro regime, noted that there have been at least nine failed mutiny attempts between 2017 and 2020.
Coup attempts are risky and timing is everything, said Brian Fonseca, an expert on Venezuela’s military at Florida International University.
“The calculation is survival, first and foremost,” Fonseca said. “They don’t want to move too early because if the system doesn’t collapse, they are out, and if they move too late, and there is a regime change, they are also out.”
Even the rumblings of dissent can be costly, as evidenced by the many former military officers now living abroad or in jail in Venezuela. Of the 845 political prisoners that the rights group Penal Forum said were jailed as of Monday, 173 of them are former service members.
Intelligence operatives working with Cuban counterintelligence agents reward those who betray conspirators with jobs, money, cars and even homes, said Edward Rodríguez, a former army colonel who fled Venezuela and lives in exile. Soldiers and officers also know that if they are accused of conspiring, they won’t be the only ones who will suffer.
“They can kidnap your wife, your children, your parents,” Rodríguez said.
Grrrrr
Whether AI is in a bubble, in the near term, has little to do with the long term economic and societal impacts, in the long term. These are not mutually exclusive.
Are there a ton of “AI” companies that are literally worthless today? Yes, absolutely, yet tons of money keeps pouring in. Easy money means even the most marginal of ideas gets funded.
Will AI companies fail? Absolutely.
Does that mean the long term impacts of AI are BS, and that we won’t see significant economic, demographic, and social change? Nope, it doesn’t matter if Nvidia is trading at $50 or $500, it’s coming.
I‘ve been awake but had some actual work to accomplish. The Eagles game was pretty good last night but they were gifted a pick six that gave them a good edge.
In regards to John Bolton, he appears to be in serious legal jeopardy. I know some people here have been critical of the recent indictments of Trump foes, but reading recent articles Bolton is in a world of hurt.
Energy prices here in Germany are through the roof. I don‘t know how retirees can afford to live. The average pension here is very low compared to the US.
re: AI “it’s coming”
“Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… ever, until you are dead!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTROMPq1SAA
Standard Oil and Rockefeller had a lot to do with Cleveland. Being on the lake, Ohio and Erie Canal made it an early hub. Oil, iron, steel, then auto plants. Started seeing the industrial decline in the 80’s. I got out in ‘95 after college.
Had a bunch of my friend’s fathers that worked for Ford or GM. Stay ay home mom, dad working at the plant, nice home in the outer ring of the suburbs. Go out farther for a nicer home on an acre or two, two newish cars and a fishing boat on Lake Erie were the norm. That’s gone, so are most of the people with any brains.
I get back twice a year or so. Took my son to a Guardians playoff game a few weeks ago. Ohio is a dump outside of some small areas of Cleveland, parts of Columbus, and a bit of Cincinntucky.
A few of the old homes on Euclid Ave, “Millionaires Row” are still around.
https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/10
AWS takes a dump on the internet today. US-EAST-1 region the center of the universe was down this morning…
Simple DNS resolution of an AWS DynamoDB API endpoint was failing…
Grim – I am working on an observability platform for AI.
We are concerned about the impending tidal wave of AI lawsuits, so we plan to either buy or build a solution to meet regulatory requirements and establish a well-documented trail of controls surrounding our AI implementation.
Observability, explainability, consent, compliance with the fragmented global and local regulatory frameworks. I think a lot of this is shining a light on gaps that previously existed around compliance, audit, data protection, documentation, governance.
I don’t think anyone has figured this out, I’m seeing logging being described as explainability, companies like service now are trying to twist ITSM to apply to AI, nobody has any idea what the local regulatory landscape will be tomorrow, so what exactly is anyone building to? We absolutely will see a wave of lawsuits, we almost need to. It won’t be until these are settled in court that anyone is comfortable with the management, compliance, governance frameworks being developed. This is especially the case around thinks like explainability, interpretability, and bias. Anyone being asked these questions, while building with black-box models, is scratching their heads right now. You want to laugh? Ask Google’s product team for their bias test results. Good luck with that.
Our approach – build everything as if it will be scrutinized against well known standards like SOC2, Hitrust, PCI, and NIST. Speaking of, I think the NIST AI RMF is probably the best standard to build against at this point.
AI is here flying over your head and heavily armed.
“Ukrainian troops already use AI-based software so that drones lock on a target and then fly autonomously for the last few hundred metres until the mission is over.
Jamming is impossible and shooting down such a small flying object is not easy.
Ultimately, these systems are expected to evolve into fully autonomous weapons that can find and destroy targets on their own.”
https://cepa.org/article/ukraines-ai-drones-hunt-the-enemy/
Seeing lots of internal compliance teams, and client compliance teams, building AI standards in a complete vacuum, setting an impossible to meet standard.
Had one client ask us for copies of all of the agreements we had in place to prove we had rights to all data used to train the third-party AI model they knew we were using.
Dirty little secret of AI development right now is “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Grim – Waves of lawsuits… We have lawyers asking for this, they don’t want to do the work themselves so they leave it up to some “privacy” compliance team who draft documents that are simply well garbage. I tell them that proving the non-existence of something can be difficult or practically impossible, given the nature of data and the concepts of ownership or control of data that is constantly being copied and shared, which is often treated as fungible against for the most part the non-fungible nature of privacy laws.
Amazing to see the data points from Pittsburgh, Memphis, Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, etc.
I can’t see the article. I presume those cities were the boss during industrial peak?
Flying over your head. Here in New Jersey? Heavily Armed?
Yes, Yes and Yes….
A private company at a high-powered Army conference demonstrated a unique aircraft at the event — and allegedly took responsibility for setting off last year’s drone and “UFO” pandemonium in New Jersey, a source told The Post.
https://nypost.com/2025/10/18/us-news/is-this-strange-aircraft-responsible-for-the-drone-and-ufo-scare-in-new-jersey/
https://nypost.com/2025/10/18/us-news/is-this-strange-aircraft-responsible-for-the-drone-and-ufo-scare-in-new-jersey/
Anyone looking to make some money in the near term.
AI Compliance
Screw development, product, platforms, sales, etc.
Also _” local regulatory landscape will be tomorrow,”
We kind of do actaully. It’s save the Robots….. Gavin Newsom is firmly in the pockets of the AI Lords he has been vetoing AI legislation in California for the last few years.
He just vetoed the “No Robo Bosses Act”. as well as the “Ethical AI Development (LEAD) for Kids Act” (No dirty evil chat bots for kiddies).
https://www.fisherphillips.com/en/news-insights/california-governor-vetoes-no-robo-bosses-act.html#:~:text=California%20Governor%20Gavin%20Newsom%20late,to%20discipline%20or%20fire%20workers.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/newsom-says-protecting-kids-ai-120000126.html
Grim – I get hammed by the compliance software vendors.
I also will have my new cert soon in AI Governance.
Ten 400
agree. societal changes is different topic than stock market.
Bill Joy’s Sun Microsystems wrote his famous AI article 20 yrs ago
“ Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”
grim says:
October 20, 2025 at 6:56 am
Whether AI is in a bubble, in the near term, has little to do with the long term economic and societal impacts, in the long term. These are not mutually exclusive.
Are there a ton of “AI” companies that are literally worthless today? Yes, absolutely, yet tons of money keeps pouring in. Easy money means even the most marginal of ideas gets funded.
Will AI companies fail? Absolutely.
Does that mean the long term impacts of AI are BS, and that we won’t see significant economic, demographic, and social change? Nope, it doesn’t matter if Nvidia is trading at $50 or $500, it’s coming.
Skynet.
Holiday in India and AWS is having issues this morning…coincidence? I think they might have assigned some junior seaman to watch the dials on the submarine while the rest of the crew is out on shore leave for five days…. five days of Diwali.
Hughes: You are pretty hard on Ohio.
Looking at the report of the two new jets the coast guard just purchased. NY Times claims it is for Noem to use. Partially true..
Seems the Coast Guard has been on a buying spree for the last several years.
Then again there is a massive fleet of these jets owned by the various branches of govenment. Lots and Lots of C-37B Jets based on Gulfstream 550, and now the newer G700 design.
Here is an older usage report from 2021. Lots of people in government and Congressmen are real ballers flying around on these private jets..pretty much every day.
I bet they all try and pull rank to bump people off these private jet and make them fly commercial.
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/USCG%20-%20Long-Range%20Command%20and%20Control%20Aircraft%20-%20Second%20Semiannual%20FY%202021.pdf
Much like the 2000s dot com bubble, there are a few gems in a sea of hyped up unprofitable crap. If you really want to look to the bubbles around, check out “Quantum Computing”. These things currently have no actual use but the AI bros have somehow convinced people this is the next big play.
Told ya…Cows……
“U.S. President Donald Trump said his administration would import beef from Argentina to help tackle persistently high prices as the supply is throttled by drought, a flesh-eating pest and other issues affecting cattle.
“We would buy some beef from Argentina,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he traveled from Florida to Washington, D.C., on Sunday. “If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down.”
there’s a battle going on in New Hampshire with beef apparently. The process is so backlogged to get your cattle to the slaughterhouse that a lot of this sky high price is artificially created. The farmers in New Hampshire are planning to just slaughter and process themselves and the USDA is preparing for war against them.
BRT – PsiQuantum – They have around 300 employees..It’s not cheap to build a house of cards. $1 billion Series E funding round in September, which valued the company at $7 billion.
BRT – It might kill New Hampshire tourism… I haven’t even seen a $21 dollar hambuger around here.
Worthy buger – Blue Burger $21- 6oz. Local Artisan Blend Beef Patty, Bacon, Blue Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce, Pickles, Crispy Onions, Garlic Aioli
https://www.worthyvermont.com/worthy-kitchen
What compliance course/certificate?
Grim – iapp.org International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) has the AIGP certificaiton.
ISACA – also has a more techical cert AAISM…
ISC2 – just launched one as well with a weird name “Building AI Strategy Certificate”.
Where’s Pumpkin to tout his PLUG? Up from $1 to $3, (while down from $63 in 2021)
Check out DWAVE quantum (Ticker: QBTS). Apparently, they attached their “quantum computer” to a real computer and spit out results. That’s some Theranos crap right there.
BRT – all have sky high vaulations on no revenue.
Trailing-12-month (TTM) returns….
IonQ (NYSE: IONQ): up 633%.
Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI): up 6,770%.
D-Wave Quantum (NYSE: QBTS): up 4,330%.
Quantum Computing, Inc. (NASDAQ: QUBT): up 3,040%.
No One,
he’s currently on twitter pimping some new memecoin BNKR. Take that as a sign.
I saw a statement that Newark was the 14th most populous city in the US in 1910. I bet Newark real estate hasn’t been too good on a 115 year time horizon.
There’s a whole narrative about the evil deeds of Real Estate agents and Federal Agencies leading to its downfall. I think this overestimates the ability of such people to execute any plans, possibly reversing cause and effect.
But how could a city that became increasingly “diverse” ever lead to negative consequences, knowing how wonderful diversity is?
https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2019/09/19-09-02-newark-before-the-comeback-a-city-marked-by-white-flight-and-poor-policy/
Can someone confirm or deny a Newark “comeback” yet? Last few times I drove through there I wasn’t impressed.
No One – Newark “comeback”?
Near mass transit somewhat.
Shaq Towers was built as the first market-rate high-rise housing project in Newark in 50 years. It opened for sure, not sure if it’s fully rented.
930 McCarter Highway is under development for a new 25-story residential building about 265 market rate rental units.
None would be possible without massive tens of millions of dollars in transferrable tax rebates. Aspire awards from the State of NJ. Something eh? Govenment finances like 60% of the cost of building hoping they can get market rate rents?
https://tinyurl.com/384zwr64
not only no revenue, but no demand. Nobody is buying hardware/services from them. Their CEOs are dumping their stock like mad.
My friend lives in an old building in Newark by the Prudential Center. You can tell it was once a spectacular building. Right now, their elevators aren’t working.
Broad Street in Newark looks like it is frozen in time. The shopping storefronts are straight out of the 1960’s. The idea that no major chains of any sort have put down a beach head (maybe Whole Foods?), speaks VOLUMES. You would figure just for the public relations benefit. But not just “no”, it is a “fuck no”. Such a waste. In excusable, and a long term waste of resources. I guess Harrison was smaller in scope, so they basically demo’ed the entire town and started over.
The same politically incorrect approach is needed in Newark. It would pay for itself.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93Xb3wbEBiw&list=RD93Xb3wbEBiw&start_radio=1&pp=ygUbZW1waXJlIHN0YXRlIG9mIG1pbmQgbmV3YXJroAcB
wow – AWS still shitting the bed today. Going to lots and lots of pissed off customers.
Who thought it was a good idea to do a production change on a monday with over a billion people are celebrating a holiday including the entire country of India?
Splendid drive up Skyline Dr to Halfmoon Bay just now.
Gorgeous day here in NorCal. Testing out the new radar detector.
Trump signs a deal for rare earth with Australia.
Does the guy ever stop working?
3:42 Grifting. Does he ever stop grifting?
btw, all those quantum stocks listed went down 6 to 9% today in an upday on the indices
Trump’s net worth jumps $3 billion while in office, raising ethical questions
Ian Price
September 24, 2025
3 min read
President Donald Trump’s net worth has surged to $7.3 billion, a $3 billion increase from last year, according to a recent Forbes report. The financial windfall comes primarily from his crypto venture World Liberty Financial, a memecoin, and booming foreign real estate licensing deals — all while holding the nation’s highest office.
Skyline Dr today: https://imgur.com/gallery/skyline-drive-zsbolDq
We’ll at least he is not grifting, self-dealing, and using his position to enrich himself while in office.
Ex says:
October 20, 2025 at 3:49 pm
Trump’s net worth jumps $3 billion while in office, raising ethical questions
Ian Price
September 24, 2025
3 min read
President Donald Trump’s net worth has surged to $7.3 billion, a $3 billion increase from last year, according to a recent Forbes report. The financial windfall comes primarily from his crypto venture World Liberty Financial, a memecoin, and booming foreign real estate licensing deals — all while holding the nation’s highest office.
5:01 but but but bUrIsMa
Breathtakingly beautiful day:
https://imgur.com/gallery/monday-h5NB3Oz
Opps – Trump can deploy Oregon National Guard troops into the city of Portland, says the 3rd circut court.
DOW up 500 plus, NASDAQ up 310.
Where’s VAG with the breaking news?
Breaking News: Ur Ghey
I worked in Gateway in Newark for a few years. Cheap parking at the Pru center. $80 a month for a spot and a pair of tickets to a Devils game. When I cashed the vouchers in I always told them that I needed an aisle seat as Mrs Fab has bad knees. Most times I would get an upgrade to the lower levels. Got five rows off the glass in one game.
About 100 yards up Ferry St from where that woman is playing keyboards is Ferry St BBQ. Its one of the best in the state.
https://ferrystbarbecue.shop/
Should I start new a memecoin WNKR.
IYKYK
Juice,
I think its ironic that I got hired for Observability, but I’m doing nothing with AI. That is getting covered in another department.
I would aim for the European standards. They are the toughest and most thought out at the moment. Here is a nice article that suggests use NIST for the low hanging fruit and early wins. Its shows you are heading in the right direction. You can then pivot into the higher standard.
https://binaryverseai.com/iso-42001-vs-nist-ai-rmf/
Quantum Computing, Inc. (NASDAQ: QUBT): up 3,040%.
I’m holding a load of this. I was supposed to get out of all my AI plays today, but the day got away from me.