Bad Bad News Samira Fatehyar

Lots of data continues to develop. One minute we see the stock market racing up at an amazing momentum and the next minute it’s headed downward and fast. One data set tells us everything is going to be okay and the next says quite the opposite. When we are in the midst of unprecedented times, this will be the case. There is lots and lots of noise. Don’t let it drown out the important factors. 
This week I decided to take a deep dive into housing. I wanted to examine rent debt, mortgage rates, and homeownership by generations, especially as it relates to Millennials and Generation Z. But first, we’ll have our economic update and later we’ll dive into mortgage schemes in Europe as well. I hope you enjoy this episode! 
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Crisis after crisis after crisis. That’s the best way to put what’s been going on over the past several weeks in the US. We are experiencing a vaccine shortage in the midst of a pandemic with different variants now surfacing. Questions like will Covid be something that will never going away? It’s too early to tell is what many epidemiologists have stated. All that aside, it’s been interesting for me to see two different worlds, one in where investors believe wholeheartedly that this market high will continue, and another world where everyday working Americans are tired and losing hope. The war on Wall Street that we talked about last time, is something we need to draw our attentions to more. Compared to other countries, Americans are ranked among the most overworked compared to other developed nations. At some point this does take a toll on our society. 
So now, put this together will an energy crisis that is affecting the Southern United States. Many states experiencing rolling blackouts because of a disastrous winter storm. Parts of Texas reaching temperatures colder than Alaska. This is an issue that we need to examine, because it has lasting economic effects. But before we dive into that, let’s look at a commercial real estate update. Later, we’ll take a look at what’s going on in Europe. 
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Check out the video recordings of our interviews on our Bad Bad News Podcast YouTube Channel!!

I’m a week late, but I think it worked out better this way because of all the unprecedented events we’ve seen happen just within the three weeks. In addition to the global pandemic, the never ending political divide in the US, the increasing income inequality, we now have somewhat a war on Wall Street happening. You may feel down just thinking about all of this. I mean, come on, this is called the Bad Bad News podcast! But I’ve said this time and time again, there are opportunities in every crisis. I truly believe in that. The first step to solving any problem is admitting, or in this case, identifying that there is one. That’s what I’m here for. 
I’m super happy to say that we have not one but two interviews in the podcast surrounding big events that have taken over many headlines! The biggest question on a lot of people’s minds is what happened with GameStop? I will be getting into that with financial advisor Mr. Leydar Aiden Murillo. Another big topic that should be on people’s mind is inflation. We’ll be talking to Dr. Mark Pingle about inflation and what we should expect to see. You can view both of these interviews on YouTube on the Bad Bad News Podcast Channel! And for our ever growing European audience, we will be talking about Italy and France and what’s going on there. 


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I know it’s already been a rollercoaster of the first couple of weeks of the new year. I know everyone is talking about the Capital Riots that took place on January 6th and the 2nd impeachment of President Trump. 2 unprecedented events in a matter of a week. I’ve been wondering if there truly is a way to find unity, again. I hope we do, because I know we are stronger, together. Covid and its impacts will most likely be our new normal for a few years. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my fellow Americans, we are not alone in this disarray of our current political and economic climate. All across the world, there are many countries facing similar things. As you know in this blog, I have a segment dedicated to Europe and as such we will be exploring Europe and how they are faring in the first few weeks of the New Year as well. 
There’s been quite a lot of economic news to sift through in the last few weeks and I want to touch on as many as I can. I’ve received countless questions about the unemployment report that came out, so I will discuss that. But I also want to spend a bit of time talking about the current state of our market in the US while also reviewing major asset classes that have ballooned over the past year. I’ve seen many forecasts for the year ahead and want to share some of them with you. Lastly, I will talk about some interesting real estate trends in Europe. 
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As we shift into the holiday season, many of us aren’t as aware of all that’s been going on in the financial markets. It’s the nature of the season. We should be focusing on the cheer that comes with this merry season. But, the economy never sleeps and that’s probably for the best. We’ve gotten a lot of mixed signals from many economic indicators. We’ve also received some much needed good news about vaccines becoming available soon. But as I’ve stated in the past, the recovery cannot truly begin until people feel safe to go back to work, school, shop, and go about their lives in a somewhat normal fashion. And yes, there will be a so-called “new” normal, but it is my belief that with every disaster or challenge, lots of good can come out of it. Lots of great minds are currently at work and I have no doubt that things will get better, as long as we can identify and admit that there are problems that need fixing. 
In this week’s episode, we’ll start off as we always do with an economic recap. I had the great pleasure to talk with Mr. John Boyd Jr. about the commercial real estate market and the impact Covid-19 has had on it. Finally, we end with the European View where we look at the European Union’s current budget hold out. 
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It seems as if everything has calmed down over the last couple weeks. We’re hearing more and more about the rising Covid numbers and less about the election. We’re also hearing more from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on the status of the economy and how he believes a recovery is going to take a long time. This is what I also believe. The stock market is in its own world and does not accurately reflect what is being experienced on Main Street. People are still struggling to make ends meet and are awaiting another round of stimulus checks, with many worried when the CDC eviction moratorium ends in January. Many are also facing astronomical medical bills due to their Covid diagnosis. But the one indicator that seems to be not telling the whole story is unemployment. We’ve seen a gradual decline over the last few months, but over 10 million are still unemployed. With the rapid technological changes occurring, many will be forced to learn new skills and will have to remain out of the workforce until they are able to acquire those skills. On top of this, those skills are not cheap to acquire, meaning more people will go into debt. This is the unfortunate truth that we need to realize and start figuring out how to deal with it.
As always we’ll start with a quick economic update. We then have the opportunity to talk with Dr. Florina Salaghe, a professor at Benedictine University, about unemployment and what’s really happening within the numbers we are given. We will not have a European View segment this time around but we will next time. 
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