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Fourth Turning 2022: Bad-Moon Rising

Fourth Turning 2022: Bad-Moon Rising

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society..

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Fourth Turning 2022: Bad-Moon Rising

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society. The ancients knew that, without periodic decay and death, nature cannot complete its full round of biological and social change. Without plant death, weeds would strangle the forest. Without human death, memories would never die, and unbroken habits and customs would strangle civilization. Social institutions require no less. Just as floods replenish soil and fires rejuvenate forests, a Fourth Turning clears out society’s exhausted elements and creates an opportunity.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

“Institutions will be increasingly bossy, limiting personal freedoms, chastising bad manners, and cleansing the culture. Powerful new civic organizations will make judgments about which individual rights deserve respect and which do not. Criminal justice will become swift and rough, trampling on some innocents to protect an endangered and desperate society from those feared to be guilty. Expect a loss of personal privacy. Fourth Turnings can be dark times for the free spirit: Just as one kind of official may have new authority to do something for you, another kind—some hastily deputized magistrate—may have new authority to do something to you.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

It’s been almost a year since my annual look ahead at the upcoming year. Last year’s article FOURTH TURNING DETONATION was a big picture overview of where we stood during the thirteenth year of this ongoing Fourth Turning Crisis. I had given up trying to make specific predictions because the twenty-year length of a Crisis period does not lend itself to specificity within a given year. My comment at the beginning of the article was:

“Predicting the actual events which will occur over a short-term time frame is a fool’s errand, so I prefer to try and discern the direction and amplitude of the ongoing Crisis to gauge how we should prepare for what is coming.”

The consistent drivers of this Fourth Turning are the three unequivocal factors – debt, civic decay, and global disorder. The specific events creating the daily trials and tribulations of this Fourth Turning all have their basis in one or more of these three driving factors. As we entered 2021, my big picture view was:

“The globalist elite want to keep the fear at a high level to institute their global reset, where you will own nothing and be happy, or you will be brought to heel by the truncheon.”

It is clear I nailed that one. The fear level was ramped to 11 on the volume dial. It was truly one of the worst years for liberty minded, critical thinking, self-sufficient individuals in the last eighty years. We know history does not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. Fourth Turnings always sweep away the existing social order and we are in the midst of a whirlwind of transformation with an entirely uncertain outcome that could result in reviving the founders’ idea of the Republic or mark the end of this experiment born in the blood of patriots in 1776.

The thirteenth year of this Fourth Turning saw a dramatic increase in the intensity of conflict between competing factions in this ongoing war of wokeness, disinformation and globalist machinations. It was a fantastic year for Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, as they raked in billions of profits and their executives got rich as their stock prices soared. It wasn’t a great year for the tens of millions of people duped into believing their experimental concoctions disguised as vaccines would protect them from the covid flu.

The captured media mouthpieces appear to be suppressing some easily reportable data points that do not jive with their narrative of safe and effective vaccines. If the vaccines worked, how could there be more deaths after the vaccine rollout than before the rollout? The gyrations and warped rationale used by the vaxxed to explain why their vaccines do not work is a wonder to behold.

The ever-changing description of what a vaccine is supposed to do and the revisionist history regarding what was promised by mass murderer Fauci, dullard Walensky, Dementia Joe and Kackling Kamala about the vaccines stopping covid, keeping you safe from covid, and ending the pandemic is an example of a corrupt, immoral, deceitful establishment hell bent on achieving their real goal at any cost of lives or national treasure. Their real goal all along has been the implementation of the great global reset, as laid out by Schwab, Gates, Soros and their Davos cronies inhabiting the financial, corporate, media, military, and health rackets.

This has never been about health or protecting the world’s population from a highly marketed weaponized annual flu, marginally lethal to really really old people, the extremely obese and people too stupid to do research regarding cheap, safe therapeutics. It has been and continues to be about power, control and wealth. They want more and want you to have less. Joe Biden was installed as president through the use of the covid flu as a means to steal the election through mail-in ballot fraud.

He supposedly won by promising to defeat the virus through vaccines, masking, mandates, and lockdowns. He has failed miserably. More deaths after mass rollout of vaccines. The vaccines, masks and lockdowns have been complete and utter failures. Their mantra has been “trust the science”, but in reality, it has been obey our demands, disregard actual science, and believe our narrative. Or we will destroy your life.

If these supposed “vaccines” worked how could there be 440,000 deaths “with covid” in 2021 after the vaccine rollout versus 385,000 in 2020 with no vaccine and a more potent variant of the flu? According to the CDC, 62% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated (whatever that means) and this is what we’ve achieved.

Cases are currently 200% higher than they were at the January 2021 peak when virtually no one was vaxxed. The contortions being employed by the Covidian Cultists to rationalize the complete and utter failure of these Big Pharma genetic concoctions is a lesson in how mass formation psychosis intersects with a corrupt Sick Industry Complex, government bureaucrats with a Napoleon complex, and totalitarian minded politicians living out their dreams of dictatorship power.

The back peddling on the definition of a vaccine is despicable, and the Big Pharma bootlickers in the propaganda spewing corporate media not holding Fauci, Walensky, Biden, and the rest of the vaccine cheerleader sycophants accountable for their blatant lies and misinformation proves they are not journalists, but bought off peddlers of lies and false narratives. And now we have Supreme Court justices regurgitating the lies during crucial hearings about un-Constitutional vaccine mandates. We’re a nation descending into madness.

There has been no fair and balanced reporting about this pandemic of the ignorant by anyone in the corporate media, beholden to Big Pharma advertising revenue and the bottomless pot of funds (from unborn generations) dished out by the government for the never-ending fear mongering covid marketing campaign. The fear porn has been ratcheted up to obscene levels by the covid pimp Fauci and his journalistic $2 whores in the mainstream media.

What you will only find out in the alternative truth telling media is omicron 3.0 is a dud, no worse than a common cold and less lethal than the annual flu. Luckily for the ruling elite, math, common sense, and critical thinking are not strong points among the ignorant masses. They are attributing 1,600 deaths per day to covid with cases at 700,000. Last January they were attributing 3,300 deaths per day with cases at 250,000. The death rate is 85% lower than a year ago. Why don’t we hear this being reported by Tapper, Maddow, and the rest of the mainstream media toadies? Because it doesn’t fit the approved Globalist Great Reset narrative and agenda.

The pandemic of the unvaccinated tripe being peddled by the bumbling senile fool occupying the White House is patently false misinformation. While our pants shitter president and the apparatchiks pulling his strings can spread lies and mistruths on social media with abandon, truth tellers using factual data like Dr. Robert Malone, Alex Berenson, Steve Kirsch, and dozens of others are censored and banned for telling the truth and questioning the establishment approved narrative.

The unequivocal hard evidence the vaccines have injured over a million Americans and killed over 100,000 is denied by those colluding to achieve some sort of diabolical outcome with their campaign to vaccinate the world. The majority of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are among the vaxxed. The vaxxed are more likely to catch the omnicron variant than pure bloods. Because the vaccines have been such an epic failure at doing what they were advertised to do, they are now pushing boosters which have even less efficacy than the original jabs. Israel is up to a 4th booster and look how well that is working out. Cases are at an all-time high because the vaccines are working.

The most loathsome aspect of this scamdemic is the all-out assault upon children, who have a 99.999975% survival rate from covid, but have been abused by being forced into remote learning, masked eight hours per day, and now jabbed with a gene altering cocktail with no data on its long-term effects. If Big Pharma didn’t know their gene therapies would stop working within six months, how do they know the long-term impacts on their victims?

Fauci and his Big Pharma co-conspirators know children have virtually zero risk from covid. So why are they pushing these jabs so hard for those at no risk? Why is the imbecile Supreme Court justice Sotomayor stating there are 100,000 children in serious condition and on ventilators from covid when less than 3,500 children are hospitalized with covid, most with mild symptoms? The number of children killed by the vaccine already exceeds the number of children who have died with covid. Is this only about Big Pharma profits, or is there a more malevolent hidden agenda?

The question in my mind is when will this madness end? There has been much discussion about mass formation psychosis, as Dr. Robert Malone discussed during his three hours of unadulterated truth telling with Joe Rogan after he had been banned by Twitter for stating facts counter to the covid narrative peddled by the ruling elites.

What I find amazing is how so many people think this is a new concept when Charles Mackay wrote about it in his 1841 classic tome on crowd psychology Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. He documented the South Sea Company Bubble, Mississippi Company Bubble, and the Dutch Tulip Bubble. The madness of crowds is a common theme throughout history and is cyclical in nature. His description below encapsulates the covid madness which has consumed the world for the last two years.

“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” ― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Dr. Malone’s supposition is 30% of the population in the western world has become hypnotized by the narrative regarding the safety and effectiveness of experimental genetic therapies imposed and enforced by totalitarian politicians, captured science “experts”, Big Pharma goliath corporations, and fake news propaganda media. This unholy alliance of malevolence controls the narrative to such an extent through modern technological means, they can just erase history, accuse truth tellers of thoughtcrime, and suppress anything contrary to their fear narrative designed to drive the masses mad.

Every media story must conform to the narrative or provide a caveat to the facts if they are inconvenient to the ruling class. If the truth accidentally slips through, you just edit the story and pretend the original story never existed. It is clear to any critical thinking person the vaxxes do not work as proclaimed by the highly compensated “experts” and their Big Pharma benefactors.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” ― George Orwell, 1984

Dr. Malone hypothesizes that mass formation psychosis of the population follows a general distribution, based upon studies conducted by legitimate honest scientists:

  • 30% are brainwashed, hypnotized, indoctrinated by the group narrative.

  • 40% in the middle are persuadable and may follow if no worthy alternative is perceived.

  • 30% fight against the narrative.

I have been in the 30% fighting against the narrative since day 1 and can prove it by the articles I was writing in March 2020. I smelled a rat from the beginning. It all seemed premeditated, organized, and designed from the outset, almost as if they had simulated how it would play out. Maybe that’s because Gates, Fauci, Soros, Johns Hopkins, and the corporate media conducted Event 201, a pandemic simulation, in October 2019 to figure out how to get the biggest bang for their buck from a pandemic.

The 30% Covidian Cultists who have been hypnotized and brainwashed into believing a virus with a 99.7% survival rate was the biggest threat of their lifetime and unflinchingly and unthinkingly bowed down and embraced every lie put forth by Fauci, Birx, Walensky, Biden, and the media talking heads, have been used as pawns in this Big Pharma profit orgy and the Davos Great Reset scheme. They have been driven mad by fear and are incapable of critical thought or reason. They triple mask alone in their cars after two jabs and a booster. And they are still thankful for the “vaccines” after they contract covid anyway. The lunatics are running the asylum.

These Covidian Cultists, whose lives must have been so pathetic and worthless prior to latching onto their covid identity, are so consumed by their newfound life of believing they are noble and brave by masking, locking themselves in their homes, standing six feet apart, ordering food to be delivered, getting themselves injected with an experimental Big Pharma cocktail, and believing every word uttered by their patron saint Fauci, even though he contradicts himself every other day.

The brainwashed 30% are incapable of processing any factual information which contradicts the narrative they’ve embraced with all their hearts. Their lives were so shallow, with no social connections, hidden anxiety, and deep-seated anger towards those displaying critical thinking abilities, they latched onto the covid narrative as a means to focus their superficial lives into a groupthink enterprise to defeat the evil virus.

Emotions and feelings trump thinking and facts. They attack family, friends and co-workers who have the gall to actually use real scientific data to point out the flaws and lies in the official narrative. The 30% truly awoken “conspiracy theorists” have been proven right every step of the way over the last two years. There is truly a war already going on between the willfully ignorant 30% Covidian Cultists and the 30% critical thinkers who aren’t buying the bullshit being shoveled by those who have weaponized this flu for their own demonic purposes.

We are at an extremely perilous turning point within this Fourth Turning. The crisis is coming to a head. The Covidian Cultists are being led by Fauci and Biden and have the corporate legacy media and the Silicon Valley social media censorship tyrants at Facebook, Twitter and Google manning the battle stations with their technological weapons. This is all being driven by globalist billionaires who control the global banking systems and have rigged the system so they will have it all and you will have nothing. They are now culling the herd with these “vaccines” to initiate their Great Reset agenda.

The brainwashed 30% call this a conspiracy theory, as their mass formation psychosis has made them feel as if they are part of an aspirational quest to rid the planet of the dreaded virus through any means necessary. They are the perfect dupes for the ruling elite, as their uncontested madness leads them to supporting totalitarian government politicians inflicting dictatorial mandates on the citizens and encouraging atrocities to be committed against those not in their group (the unvaxxed).

Australia, New Zealand, and numerous countries in Europe are already enforcing authoritarian measures and committing atrocities against their people using the power of the police state. Compliance and obedience are demanded by those pulling the strings, with explicit support of the indoctrinated 30%.

This madness reveals itself in the glee proclaimed by the Covidian Cultists when an unvaxxed person dies from covid, when the unvaxxed are denied entrance to dining and entertainment venues, and when those who refuse the jab are fired from their jobs. These hypnotized non-thinking masked zombies refuse to break free from their religious like beliefs even as the narrative crumbles before their very eyes.

Those in control of the crumbling narrative have been doubling down and producing bigger and bigger lies to keep the fear level at eleven. Cases at all-time highs and fear porn about children on ventilators is the latest tactic of the Faucites, even though omicron is no worse than the common cold and virtually no children are sick. The Covidian Cultists refuse to believe their worldview of sickness and death is based on a false narrative and continue to lash out at those refusing to go along with their delusional beliefs.

The 40% in the persuadable middle, through most of this pandemic, have been heavily influenced by the Bernaysian propaganda campaign launched by the government, funded by Big Pharma, the Fed, and the taxpayers, and flogged unceasingly 24 hours per day on the boob tube with commercials, news reports, and interviews with paid off false prophets disguised as medical experts. The fear campaign was hugely successful, as demonstrated by the 62% fully vaxxed rate, indicating 32% of the persuadable 40% were scared into joining the brainwashed 30%.

The strident, defiant, non-compliant 30% have unrelentingly continued to use facts and scientific data to counter the narrative and are on the verge of breaking the hypnosis of some in the brainwashed cohort and are clearly persuading many of the persuadables the vaccines don’t work, are dangerous and vaccine mandates are irrational and idiotic. This is borne out by the fact only 38% of those eligible for the boosters have chosen to get them. Many are realizing boosters are proof of vaccine failure.

The tell on whether the forces of good are winning the battle is how the forces of evil are reacting through their control of the legacy and social media platforms. Whenever you see a fact check by the mainstream media outlets and proclaimed by Twitter as proof, you know they have circled the wagons to protect their false narrative. Dr. Malone and Joe Rogan struck a raw nerve, and this was at the top of my Twitter page this morning.

The audacity of such a headline reveals the desperation of those peddling the covid narrative. The madness of crowds has been documented numerous times throughout history, in addition to Charles Mackay’s examples from centuries ago. Recent examples include the Dot.com bubble, the housing bubble and now the everything bubble. The madness which encompasses Fourth Turnings usually leads to a bloody outcome.

The Roaring 20’s madness led to the Great Depression, which led civilized people to allow their leaders to sacrifice the lives of 65 million people in a war with no real purpose. The Civil War Fourth Turning saw over 600,000 men killed in four years of brutality as citizens of the same country were convinced to kill each other over state’s rights, slavery, or whatever narrative the ruling class needed to accomplish their goals.

People are driven mad by greed, anger, or fear on a regular basis, so Twitter, Reuters, and the Associated Press are once again spreading misinformation in a frantic inept attempt at discrediting the highly credible Robert Malone and Joe Rogan, who are swaying the masses back towards regaining their senses. The herd went mad over the last two years, but with truth tellers like Malone, Rogan and hundreds of other intelligent patriotic Americans, the deceit being perpetrated upon the world by evil men will be revealed and defeated.

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” ― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

In Part 2 of this article, I will attempt to anticipate how this mass formation psychosis will play out during 2022, as this Fourth Turning appears ready to ratchet up conflict to a new level.

*  *  *

The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation.EN

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/10/2022 - 16:30

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Congress’ failure so far to deliver on promise of tens of billions in new research spending threatens America’s long-term economic competitiveness

A deal that avoided a shutdown also slashed spending for the National Science Foundation, putting it billions below a congressional target intended to…

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Science is again on the chopping block on Capitol Hill. AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz

Federal spending on fundamental scientific research is pivotal to America’s long-term economic competitiveness and growth. But less than two years after agreeing the U.S. needed to invest tens of billions of dollars more in basic research than it had been, Congress is already seriously scaling back its plans.

A package of funding bills recently passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden on March 9, 2024, cuts the current fiscal year budget for the National Science Foundation, America’s premier basic science research agency, by over 8% relative to last year. That puts the NSF’s current allocation US$6.6 billion below targets Congress set in 2022.

And the president’s budget blueprint for the next fiscal year, released on March 11, doesn’t look much better. Even assuming his request for the NSF is fully funded, it would still, based on my calculations, leave the agency a total of $15 billion behind the plan Congress laid out to help the U.S. keep up with countries such as China that are rapidly increasing their science budgets.

I am a sociologist who studies how research universities contribute to the public good. I’m also the executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science, a national university consortium whose members share data that helps us understand, explain and work to amplify those benefits.

Our data shows how underfunding basic research, especially in high-priority areas, poses a real threat to the United States’ role as a leader in critical technology areas, forestalls innovation and makes it harder to recruit the skilled workers that high-tech companies need to succeed.

A promised investment

Less than two years ago, in August 2022, university researchers like me had reason to celebrate.

Congress had just passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act. The science part of the law promised one of the biggest federal investments in the National Science Foundation in its 74-year history.

The CHIPS act authorized US$81 billion for the agency, promised to double its budget by 2027 and directed it to “address societal, national, and geostrategic challenges for the benefit of all Americans” by investing in research.

But there was one very big snag. The money still has to be appropriated by Congress every year. Lawmakers haven’t been good at doing that recently. As lawmakers struggle to keep the lights on, fundamental research is quickly becoming a casualty of political dysfunction.

Research’s critical impact

That’s bad because fundamental research matters in more ways than you might expect.

For instance, the basic discoveries that made the COVID-19 vaccine possible stretch back to the early 1960s. Such research investments contribute to the health, wealth and well-being of society, support jobs and regional economies and are vital to the U.S. economy and national security.

Lagging research investment will hurt U.S. leadership in critical technologies such as artificial intelligence, advanced communications, clean energy and biotechnology. Less support means less new research work gets done, fewer new researchers are trained and important new discoveries are made elsewhere.

But disrupting federal research funding also directly affects people’s jobs, lives and the economy.

Businesses nationwide thrive by selling the goods and services – everything from pipettes and biological specimens to notebooks and plane tickets – that are necessary for research. Those vendors include high-tech startups, manufacturers, contractors and even Main Street businesses like your local hardware store. They employ your neighbors and friends and contribute to the economic health of your hometown and the nation.

Nearly a third of the $10 billion in federal research funds that 26 of the universities in our consortium used in 2022 directly supported U.S. employers, including:

  • A Detroit welding shop that sells gases many labs use in experiments funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense and Department of Energy.

  • A Dallas-based construction company that is building an advanced vaccine and drug development facility paid for by the Department of Health and Human Services.

  • More than a dozen Utah businesses, including surveyors, engineers and construction and trucking companies, working on a Department of Energy project to develop breakthroughs in geothermal energy.

When Congress shortchanges basic research, it also damages businesses like these and people you might not usually associate with academic science and engineering. Construction and manufacturing companies earn more than $2 billion each year from federally funded research done by our consortium’s members.

A lag or cut in federal research funding would harm U.S. competitiveness in critical advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Hispanolistic/E+ via Getty Images

Jobs and innovation

Disrupting or decreasing research funding also slows the flow of STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – talent from universities to American businesses. Highly trained people are essential to corporate innovation and to U.S. leadership in key fields, such as AI, where companies depend on hiring to secure research expertise.

In 2022, federal research grants paid wages for about 122,500 people at universities that shared data with my institute. More than half of them were students or trainees. Our data shows that they go on to many types of jobs but are particularly important for leading tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Intel.

That same data lets me estimate that over 300,000 people who worked at U.S. universities in 2022 were paid by federal research funds. Threats to federal research investments put academic jobs at risk. They also hurt private sector innovation because even the most successful companies need to hire people with expert research skills. Most people learn those skills by working on university research projects, and most of those projects are federally funded.

High stakes

If Congress doesn’t move to fund fundamental science research to meet CHIPS and Science Act targets – and make up for the $11.6 billion it’s already behind schedule – the long-term consequences for American competitiveness could be serious.

Over time, companies would see fewer skilled job candidates, and academic and corporate researchers would produce fewer discoveries. Fewer high-tech startups would mean slower economic growth. America would become less competitive in the age of AI. This would turn one of the fears that led lawmakers to pass the CHIPS and Science Act into a reality.

Ultimately, it’s up to lawmakers to decide whether to fulfill their promise to invest more in the research that supports jobs across the economy and in American innovation, competitiveness and economic growth. So far, that promise is looking pretty fragile.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Jan. 16, 2024.

Jason Owen-Smith receives research support from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Wellcome Leap.

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What’s Driving Industrial Development in the Southwest U.S.

The post-COVID-19 pandemic pipeline, supply imbalances, investment and construction challenges: these are just a few of the topics address by a powerhouse…

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The post-COVID-19 pandemic pipeline, supply imbalances, investment and construction challenges: these are just a few of the topics address by a powerhouse panel of executives in industrial real estate this week at NAIOP’s I.CON West in Long Beach, California. Led by Dawn McCombs, principal and Denver lead industrial specialist for Avison Young, the panel tackled some of the biggest issues facing the sector in the Western U.S. 

Starting with the pandemic in 2020 and continuing through 2022, McCombs said, the industrial sector experienced a huge surge in demand, resulting in historic vacancies, rent growth and record deliveries. Operating fundamentals began to normalize in 2023 and construction starts declined, certainly impacting vacancy and absorption moving forward.  

“Development starts dropped by 65% year-over-year across the U.S. last year. In Q4, we were down 25% from pre-COVID norms,” began Megan Creecy-Herman, president, U.S. West Region, Prologis, noting that all of that is setting us up to see an improvement of fundamentals in the market. “U.S. vacancy ended 2023 at about 5%, which is very healthy.” 

Vacancies are expected to grow in Q1 and Q2, peaking mid-year at around 7%. Creecy-Herman expects to see an increase in absorption as customers begin to have confidence in the economy, and everyone gets some certainty on what the Fed does with interest rates. 

“It’s an interesting dynamic to see such a great increase in rents, which have almost doubled in some markets,” said Reon Roski, CEO, Majestic Realty Co. “It’s healthy to see a slowing down… before [rents] go back up.” 

Pre-pandemic, a lot of markets were used to 4-5% vacancy, said Brooke Birtcher Gustafson, fifth-generation president of Birtcher Development. “Everyone was a little tepid about where things are headed with a mediocre outlook for 2024, but much of this is normalizing in the Southwest markets.”  

McCombs asked the panel where their companies found themselves in the construction pipeline when the Fed raised rates in 2022.   

In Salt Lake City, said Angela Eldredge, chief operations officer at Price Real Estate, there is a typical 12-18-month lead time on construction materials. “As rates started to rise in 2022, lots of permits had already been pulled and construction starts were beginning, so those project deliveries were in fall 2023. [The slowdown] was good for our market because it kept rates high, vacancies lower and helped normalize the market to a healthy pace.” 

A supply imbalance can stress any market, and Gustafson joked that the current imbalance reminded her of a favorite quote from the movie Super Troopers: “Desperation is a stinky cologne.” “We’re all still a little crazed where this imbalance has put us, but for the patient investor and owner, there will be a rebalancing and opportunity for the good quality real estate to pass the sniff test,” she said.  

At Bircher, Gustafson said that mid-pandemic, there were predictions that one billion square feet of new product would be required to meet tenant demand, e-commerce growth and safety stock. That transition opened a great opportunity for investors to run at the goal. “In California, the entitlement process is lengthy, around 24-36 months to get from the start of an acquisition to the completion of a building,” she said. Fast forward to 2023-2024, a lot of what is being delivered in 2024 is the result of that chase.  

“Being an optimistic developer, there is good news. The supply imbalance helped normalize what was an unsustainable surge in rents and land values,” she said. “It allowed corporate heads of real estate to proactively evaluate growth opportunities, opened the door for contrarian investors to land bank as values drop, and provided tenants with options as there is more product. Investment goals and strategies have shifted, and that’s created opportunity for buyers.” 

“Developers only know how to run and develop as much as we can,” said Roski. “There are certain times in cycles that we are forced to slow down, which is a good thing. In the last few years, Majestic has delivered 12-14 million square feet, and this year we are developing 6-8 million square feet. It’s all part of the cycle.”  

Creecy-Herman noted that compared to the other asset classes and opportunities out there, including office and multifamily, industrial remains much more attractive for investment. “That was absolutely one of the things that underpinned the amount of investment we saw in a relatively short time period,” she said.  

Market rent growth across Los Angeles, Inland Empire and Orange County moved up more than 100% in a 24-month period. That created opportunities for landlords to flexible as they’re filling up their buildings. “Normalizing can be uncomfortable especially after that kind of historic high, but at the same time it’s setting us up for strong years ahead,” she said. 

Issues that owners and landlords are facing with not as much movement in the market is driving a change in strategy, noted Gustafson. “Comps are all over the place,” she said. “You have to dive deep into every single deal that is done to understand it and how investment strategies are changing.” 

Tenants experienced a variety of challenges in the pandemic years, from supply chain to labor shortages on the negative side, to increased demand for products on the positive, McCombs noted.  

“Prologis has about 6,700 customers around the world, from small to large, and the universal lesson [from the pandemic] is taking a more conservative posture on inventories,” Creecy-Herman said. “Customers are beefing up inventories, and that conservatism in the supply chain is a lesson learned that’s going to stick with us for a long time.” She noted that the company has plenty of clients who want to take more space but are waiting on more certainty from the broader economy.  

“E-commerce grew by 8% last year, and we think that’s going to accelerate to 10% this year. This is still less than 25% of all retail sales, so the acceleration we’re going to see in e-commerce… is going to drive the business forward for a long time,” she said. 

Roski noted that customers continually re-evaluate their warehouse locations, expanding during the pandemic and now consolidating but staying within one delivery day of vast consumer bases.  

“This is a generational change,” said Creecy-Herman. “Millions of young consumers have one-day delivery as a baseline for their shopping experience. Think of what this means for our business long term to help our customers meet these expectations.” 

McCombs asked the panelists what kind of leasing activity they are experiencing as a return to normalcy is expected in 2024. 

“During the pandemic, shifts in the ports and supply chain created a build up along the Mexican border,” said Roski, noting border towns’ importance to increased manufacturing in Mexico. A shift of populations out of California and into Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Florida have resulted in an expansion of warehouses in those markets. 

Eldridge said that Salt Lake City’s “sweet spot” is 100-200 million square feet, noting that the market is best described as a mid-box distribution hub that is close to California and Midwest markets. “Our location opens up the entire U.S. to our market, and it’s continuing to grow,” she said.   

The recent supply chain and West Coast port clogs prompted significant investment in nearshoring and port improvements. “Ports are always changing,” said Roski, listing a looming strike at East Coast ports, challenges with pirates in the Suez Canal, and water issues in the Panama Canal. “Companies used to fix on one port and that’s where they’d bring in their imports, but now see they need to be [bring product] in a couple of places.” 

“Laredo, [Texas,] is one of the largest ports in the U.S., and there’s no water. It’s trucks coming across the border. Companies have learned to be nimble and not focused on one area,” she said. 

“All of the markets in the southwest are becoming more interconnected and interdependent than they were previously,” Creecy-Herman said. “In Southern California, there are 10 markets within 500 miles with over 25 million consumers who spend, on average, 10% more than typical U.S. consumers.” Combined with the port complex, those fundamentals aren’t changing. Creecy-Herman noted that it’s less of a California exodus than it is a complementary strategy where customers are taking space in other markets as they grow. In the last 10 years, she noted there has been significant maturation of markets such as Las Vegas and Phoenix. As they’ve become more diversified, customers want to have a presence there. 

In the last decade, Gustafson said, the consumer base has shifted. Tenants continue to change strategies to adapt, such as hub-and-spoke approaches.  From an investment perspective, she said that strategies change weekly in response to market dynamics that are unprecedented.  

McCombs said that construction challenges and utility constraints have been compounded by increased demand for water and power. 

“Those are big issues from the beginning when we’re deciding on whether to buy the dirt, and another decision during construction,” Roski said. “In some markets, we order transformers more than a year before they are needed. Otherwise, the time comes [to use them] and we can’t get them. It’s a new dynamic of how leases are structured because it’s something that’s out of our control.” She noted that it’s becoming a bigger issue with electrification of cars, trucks and real estate, and the U.S. power grid is not prepared to handle it.  

Salt Lake City’s land constraints play a role in site selection, said Eldridge. “Land values of areas near water are skyrocketing.” 

The panelists agreed that a favorable outlook is ahead for 2024, and today’s rebalancing will drive a healthy industry in the future as demand and rates return to normalized levels, creating opportunities for investors, developers and tenants.  


This post is brought to you by JLL, the social media and conference blog sponsor of NAIOP’s I.CON West 2024. Learn more about JLL at www.us.jll.com or www.jll.ca.

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Government

Buyouts can bring relief from medical debt, but they’re far from a cure

Local governments are increasingly buying – and forgiving – their residents’ medical debt.

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Medical debt can have devastating consequences. PhotoAlto/Odilon Dimier via Getty Images

One in 10 Americans carry medical debt, while 2 in 5 are underinsured and at risk of not being able to pay their medical bills.

This burden crushes millions of families under mounting bills and contributes to the widening gap between rich and poor.

Some relief has come with a wave of debt buyouts by county and city governments, charities and even fast-food restaurants that pay pennies on the dollar to clear enormous balances. But as a health policy and economics researcher who studies out-of-pocket medical expenses, I think these buyouts are only a partial solution.

A quick fix that works

Over the past 10 years, the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt has emerged as the leader in making buyouts happen, using crowdfunding campaigns, celebrity engagement, and partnerships in the private and public sectors. It connects charitable buyers with hospitals and debt collection companies to arrange the sale and erasure of large bundles of debt.

The buyouts focus on low-income households and those with extreme debt burdens. You can’t sign up to have debt wiped away; you just get notified if you’re one of the lucky ones included in a bundle that’s bought off. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reviewed this strategy and determined it didn’t violate anti-kickback statutes, which reassured hospitals and collectors that they wouldn’t get in legal trouble partnering with RIP Medical Debt.

Buying a bundle of debt saddling low-income families can be a bargain. Hospitals and collection agencies are typically willing to sell the debt for steep discounts, even pennies on the dollar. That’s a great return on investment for philanthropists looking to make a big social impact.

And it’s not just charities pitching in. Local governments across the country, from Cook County, Illinois, to New Orleans, have been directing sizable public funds toward this cause. New York City recently announced plans to buy off the medical debt for half a million residents, at a cost of US$18 million. That would be the largest public buyout on record, although Los Angeles County may trump New York if it carries out its proposal to spend $24 million to help 810,000 residents erase their debt.

HBO’s John Oliver has collaborated with RIP Medical Debt.

Nationally, RIP Medical Debt has helped clear more than $10 billion in debt over the past decade. That’s a huge number, but a small fraction of the estimated $220 billion in medical debt out there. Ultimately, prevention would be better than cure.

Preventing medical debt is trickier

Medical debt has been a persistent problem over the past decade even after the reforms of the 2010 Affordable Care Act increased insurance coverage and made a dent in debt, especially in states that expanded Medicaid. A recent national survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that 43% of Americans lacked adequate insurance in 2022, which puts them at risk of taking on medical debt.

Unfortunately, it’s incredibly difficult to close coverage gaps in the patchwork American insurance system, which ties eligibility to employment, income, age, family size and location – all things that can change over time. But even in the absence of a total overhaul, there are several policy proposals that could keep the medical debt problem from getting worse.

Medicaid expansion has been shown to reduce uninsurance, underinsurance and medical debt. Unfortunately, insurance gaps are likely to get worse in the coming year, as states unwind their pandemic-era Medicaid rules, leaving millions without coverage. Bolstering Medicaid access in the 10 states that haven’t yet expanded the program could go a long way.

Once patients have a medical bill in hand that they can’t afford, it can be tricky to navigate financial aid and payment options. Some states, like Maryland and California, are ahead of the curve with policies that make it easier for patients to access aid and that rein in the use of liens, lawsuits and other aggressive collections tactics. More states could follow suit.

Another major factor driving underinsurance is rising out-of-pocket costs – like high deductibles – for those with private insurance. This is especially a concern for low-wage workers who live paycheck to paycheck. More than half of large employers believe their employees have concerns about their ability to afford medical care.

Lowering deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums could protect patients from accumulating debt, since it would lower the total amount they could incur in a given time period. But if the current system otherwise stayed the same, then premiums would have to rise to offset the reduction in out-of-pocket payments. Higher premiums would transfer costs across everyone in the insurance pool and make enrolling in insurance unreachable for some – which doesn’t solve the underinsurance problem.

Reducing out-of-pocket liability without inflating premiums would only be possible if the overall cost of health care drops. Fortunately, there’s room to reduce waste. Americans spend more on health care than people in other wealthy countries do, and arguably get less for their money. More than a quarter of health spending is on administrative costs, and the high prices Americans pay don’t necessarily translate into high-value care. That’s why some states like Massachusetts and California are experimenting with cost growth limits.

Momentum toward policy change

The growing number of city and county governments buying off medical debt signals that local leaders view medical debt as a problem worth solving. Congress has passed substantial price transparency laws and prohibited surprise medical billing in recent years. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is exploring rule changes for medical debt collections and reporting, and national credit bureaus have voluntarily removed some medical debt from credit reports to limit its impact on people’s approval for loans, leases and jobs.

These recent actions show that leaders at all levels of government want to end medical debt. I think that’s a good sign. After all, recognizing a problem is the first step toward meaningful change.

Erin Duffy receives funding from Arnold Ventures.

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