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Some lenders won’t survive the purchase mortgage market of 2022

HousingWire interviewed over a dozen analysts, mortgage executives, loan officers, and consultants to answer the trillion-dollar question: who is positioned…

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Consolidation in the mortgage industry is likely in 2022, analysts and lending executives said.

Justin Woodward has experienced the best and the worst of the mortgage industry in only 18 months.

A seasoned retail and commercial banking salesman in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the 39-year-old Woodward joined Interfirst Mortgage as a loan officer in October 2020 after a recommendation from an old college friend.

“I had not done first mortgage lending before, but I was familiar with the basics of real estate lending. So, it wasn’t a huge leap for me,” he told HousingWire. 

The work was not complex, he said. Interfirst purchased refinance leads and sent them to Woodward to close. 

“When I began with Interfirst, it was all refis. I can count on one hand the number of purchases that I did.”

It worked well for Woodward – and Interfirst – for about one year. 

Then, the mortgage industry showed why it is called a cyclical business: in the second half of 2021, the Federal Reserve signaled an increase in interest rates and an easing of the purchase of mortgage-backed securities, choking the refi market. 

“We know that the mortgage industry is about boom and bust,” said Woodward. “It is just the nature of the industry, but it’s still not pleasant.” 

In fall of 2021, Chicago-based Interfirst laid off hundreds of employees. For Woodward, the pink slip arrived in October.   

He was unemployed for only a few weeks. Woodward quickly landed a job as an LO at American Pacific Mortgage, a California-based lender that had just opened a branch in Fort Wayne. But Woodward struggled to originate purchase loans. 

“I hadn’t developed a network for mortgage lending with Realtors,” Woodward said about his work at Interfirst in Indiana. “Without that being built, I was starting from scratch. And the rates started to go the wrong way. It just has not gone well.”

Triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, a “gray swan” event that resulted in near-zero interest rates and the central bank buying mortgage-backed securities, mortgage originators – including Interfirst Mortgage – spent the last two years building up capacity to originate trillions of dollars in refinancings. 

Tens of thousands of workers were hired, new technologies were piloted and operational processes implemented to capitalize on what was a historic moment for the industry. Origination volumes eclipsed $4.3 trillion in 2020 and then $4.4 trillion in 2021, the vast majority of business coming from refis.

With an abundance of refis, virtually no mortgage company in America lost money in 2020 or 2021. Taking advantage of the euphoria, half a dozen companies went public, raising billions of dollars and creating billionaires overnight.

But things change quickly in mortgage. By the fourth quarter of 2021, rates had climbed into the high 3% range, several top originators reported thinning margins and shed thousands of jobs. It was inevitable that the cycle would end and a challenging period would begin. But few thought it would end so quickly. 

To close more purchase loans, forward-thinking lenders have invested gobs of money in technology, increased marketing budgets, and retooled their operations to reach new homebuyers in recent months. Spoiler alert: some companies seem to be ready for the transition, while others struggle, and others still will likely go under. 

HousingWire interviewed over a dozen analysts, mortgage executives, loan officers, and consultants to answer the trillion-dollar question: who is positioned to win in the purchase market, and who is at risk of biting the dust?  

The closer, the better

Competition will be intense over the next 12 to 24 months, driving gain-on-sale margins down even further, Moody’s analysts wrote in March. Profitability may resemble the market in 2018, when around one-third of nonbank lenders failed to turn a profit.

“Companies with above-average capitalization, strong market positions, and scale will be better able to navigate the challenging operating environment,” the Moody’s analysts wrote. 

The consensus from mortgage executives and analysts alike is that lenders who did well with purchase mortgages in 2021 – and appear well-positioned to ride out the storm in 2022 – are those who can get closer to the borrower. 

Following this logic, the correspondent channel has an advantage, as this group is formed by local banks and credit unions where people go in their communities to get a new loan.

“The whole industry is going to struggle with the transition from refi to a purchase market,” Bose George, mortgage finance analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW), told HousingWire. “But some channels just have more purchases, such as the correspondent, and are in a better position to fight the headwinds.”

That is why, so far, California-based nonbank mortgage lender Pennymac has been the leader in purchase originations, with $106.3 billion volume in 2021, up 33.7% year over year. That was just over 45% of the company’s mix, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. 

Pennymac estimates it has 17% market share in the correspondent channel, compared to 1.4% in consumer direct and 2.3% in the broker channel. 

Originators whose loan officers have close relationships with a professional network, such as real estate agents and financial advisors, are also in a good position to win in a purchase market, industry observers told HousingWire.  

It is not a coincidence that United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), a pure-play wholesaler, was the second-biggest purchase lender in America last year, with $87.2 billion, up 103.3% year-over-year. Purchases were 38.5% of UWM’s mix in 2021, and company executives expect that number to grow in 2022 as rates climb. 

“We think the wholesale market is very well positioned here because the brokers are the people that have a close relationship with Realtors,” Brian Violino, equity research associate at Wedbush Securities, said. “We are not at a point yet where people are fully ready to purchase a mortgage completely online.” 

Traditional banks have proximity to borrowers due to a preponderance of local branches across the country. However, they are hampered by comparatively poor technology and the slow speed at which they can close a loan, analysts said. 

Wells Fargo was the third-biggest purchase lender in 2021, according to IMF, originating $86 billion in volume, down 15.2% compared to 2020. J.P. Morgan Chase, with $75.2 billion in origination volume, and up 63.8% year-over-year, was No. 5. The purchase share in these banks’ mix was around 41% in 2021, according to IMF. 

Nonbank lender NewRez/Caliber was No. 4 in the 2021 purchase volume ranking, with $77.6 billion in purchase volume in 2021, more than four times the total in 2020. In August, the company announced the payment of $1.675 billion to acquire Caliber, a heavy-hitter across multiple origination channels, with $80 billion in origination in 2020. 

The numbers suggest Guaranteed Rate, the No. 7 purchase lender last year, is well-placed to take advantage of a purchase environment. The retail lender originated $56.6 billion in purchase mortgages last year, with a 75.8% increase compared to 2020. Its overall mix of purchase mortgages was 49.5%, the IMF data shows.  

Earlier this year, Guaranteed Rate decided to discontinue its third-party wholesale channel Stearns Lending and laid off 348 workers, only one year after acquiring the company. The lender’s focus has been in tripling down on its network of top retail LOs. 

And Shant Banosian is king of the hill. The Massachusetts-based top LO funded more than $2 billion last year, half of which was refi business. He expects to repeat the volume this year, but with only a 20% share of refis. In a purchase market, he emphasizes strong communication with clients and referral partners, such as Realtors and financial planners. 

“As a loan originator, you have to do what you can to best support and service your clients and referral partners, being able to close super fast,” he told HousingWire. “Our goal is always to make our clients as appealing as possible to a seller to help increase their conversion of getting their offer accepted. So, to me, in the purchase market, it’s all about speed, availability and great communication.”

Others that leaned purchase in 2021 included depository U.S. Bank (53.3% of the mix), CrossCountry Mortgage (54.6%), Guild Mortgage (52.8%), multichannel lender Fairway Independent Mortgage (61.7%), and Movement Mortgage (67.3%). 

Of this group, Violino highlights California-based Guild, which “has a branch-based strategy so that you have agents that are in the communities, forming relationships with homebuyers,” he said.

Violino added: “If a retail-focused company is able to tap into the purchase market, find a more effective way to do it without sacrificing margins, hypothetically, that combination would be better from an earnings perspective.” 

During a conference call with analysts in early March, Guild’s CEO Mary Ann McGarry said the company has “local infrastructure and boots on the ground, which engenders strong relationships and superior client service which has expanded across the country.” 

The company had $243 million in cash and $1.5 billion of unutilized loan funding capacity as of Dec. 31, 2021. It is looking for mergers and acquisitions, mainly businesses with a decent market share in their coverage areas.

A hard mission

Some companies need to pivot quickly from refis to purchase and other products to keep their heads above the water. That transition will be particularly painful for refi-heavy lenders, who are still trying to cash in on the product. 

“The refi boom is not entirely behind us,” Joe Garrett, partner at Garrett, McAuley & Co., told HousingWire in early March. “It’s diminished hugely, but you have a lot of lenders now switching to cash-out refis, particularly call center lenders. But it looks like they will have some limited success.” 

A Black Knight report showed that lenders originated $1.2 trillion in cash-out refis in 2021, up 20% compared to the prior year, the highest volume since 2005. 

Direct-to-consumer lenders and digital-only lenders typically struggle in purchase-focused markets. When it comes to selling more complex loan products, buyers still feel more comfortable with loan officers at banks and broker shops. 

A recent survey from ICE Mortgage Technology found that 31% borrowers were more likely to choose a bank and 25% a broker to close their loans. Meanwhile, only 13% mentioned an online entity.  

“As an industry, we need to continue to deploy digital offerings – but not at the expense of relationships, which are still an important factor in choosing a lender,” Joe Tyrrell, president of ICE Mortgage Technology, said in a statement. 

Better.com is perhaps the poster child of the coming conflict. Overall, just 19.9% of the company’s originations in 2021 were purchase loans, the third-lowest percentage after Rocket Mortgage and Freedom Mortgage among the 25 largest lenders in America. Better originated $10 billion in purchases in 2021, up 213% year-over-year, according to the IMF data.

But having made limited headway with purchase lending, Better laid off almost 4,000 employees over the last few months, 900 of them via an infamous Zoom meeting conducted by the CEO, Vishal Garg. In its most recent cost-cutting plan, the company is now asking staff if they would simply volunteer to quit (so long as they receive benefits).

There are several top 10 lenders in America that have feasted on the refi boom, but will have to prove to skeptics that they can pivot their operations to a purchase market.

New Jersey-based Freedom Mortgage, which is the leading Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) lender in the country, was No. 23 among lenders in purchase volume in 2021, originating $19 billion, a 21.9% increase compared to 2020. Purchases were only 16.7% of the lender’s total mix last year, and its sweet spot of government loans aren’t as competitive as agency product in a low-inventory environment.

California-based LoanDepot was the 10th largest purchase lender in America in 2021 per IMF, with $39.3 billion in originations, up 38.9% from the prior year. But it was refi heavy – just 28.7% of its originations were purchase loans last year. Its executives say the lender will capitalize on its lead generation potential and diversified channel strategy to attract more purchase business in 2022. 

During the most recent earnings call, company founder Anthony Hsieh pointed out that loanDepot increased its market share in total originations last year to 3.4%. 

“If you look at our model, we are fishing from a lot more ponds,” he said. “Last year we generated over 10 million top of the funnel leads, and we expect to have at least that level going forward this year in a market that’s decreasing 30-plus percent,” he said.

The challenging landscape inevitably reaches the top originator in the country, Rocket Mortgage. The company took advantage of the refi boom arguably better than anyone, but its executives know they’ll have to ramp up purchase business in a big way in 2022. 

The company had only 16.2% of purchases in the mix last year, according to IMF data. In total, the lender originated a record $56.9 billion in purchases, up 42.7% year-over-year. Rocket announced plans to become the No. 1 retail purchase lender, excluding correspondent, in the nation by 2023. 

To get there, Jay Farner, CEO of Rocket Companies, said its strategy includes brand awareness and lead generation; operational systems that get clients a verified approval, such as an overnight underwriting; and the “pro network,” which includes brokers, real estate agents, credit unions and other financial providers. 

“We’ve taken our technology, and we’ve put it in the hands of all of these individuals that tend to be there when someone’s buying a home, and they can all send their clients through our Rocket platform, leveraging the technology and the client experience that we provide. That’s how we continue to grow down in this purchase market,” Farner told HousingWire. 

Analysts say Rocket has some key advantages in the purchase market. The company, which does most of its business through consumer direct retail, is also the second-biggest player in wholesale. Per IMF data, it originated about $113.5 billion in the broker channel in 2021.

It also has scale and technology to deal with competition, with systems to deliver loans quickly. “Typically, industry averages are in the 40 days, and their averages are just below 20 days. The technology they filled out will help them either maintain or increase their market share,” said Kevin Heal, senior analyst and fixed income strategist at Argus Research. 

Beyond vanilla 

In a more competitive environment, originators are also changing up their product mix, offering reverse mortgages, home equity loans, and home improvement loans. These products provide higher margins and a more stable origination volume than the traditional, vanilla 30-year-fixed rate mortgage. 

Finance of America (FoA) has been particularly active in diversifying its products portfolio, mainly through reverse mortgages, investor loans and commercial loans.

“They’re going to be a bit steadier in their contribution to earnings. What’s going to be volatile is traditional mortgages,” Patti Cook, FoA’s CEO, told HousingWire. 

Last year, the company originated $13.3 billion in purchase loans, comprising 45.5% of the mix. Its purchase volume increased about 35% over 2020. In 2021, the company’s best performing segment was commercial originations, increasing from $855 million to $1.7 billion, up 107%. Reverse originations also increased 57% year-over-year, to $4.26 billion. 

Other lenders are exploring non-agency loans to give their broker partners a better shot at serving homebuyers. Wholesalers UWM and Homepoint, for example, are developing new products for non-qualified mortgage borrowers, including bank statement loans for self-employed borrowers, and investor cash flow loans. 

Like most top originators, Homepoint did the bulk of its business in refis last year. It originated $29.8 billion in purchase loans, and its overall mix in 2021 was just 31% purchase mortgages. Interestingly, the Ann Arbor-based wholesaler managed to increase its purchase originations in Q4 to $7.7 billion from Q3’s $7.1 billion, which was rare among originators and might be a sign of good things to come.

Diversifying the portfolio to include non-QM loans is a smart strategy, but it will not “move the needle” much in the short term, observers said. The truth is that the transition from a refi to a purchase business can take years, mainly because it is challenging to build a network to reach new borrowers, for example, the relationship with Realtors. 

“There are many ways to get business, and we don’t have any secrets. Making the switch from refinancing to purchase business doesn’t happen overnight. But you can cut your cost overnight,” said Garrett. 

Less money coming in, but less money going out

Cutting costs has meant reducing the ranks of processors, underwriters, LOs and closers at some lending shops. At least a half-dozen mid- or large-sized lenders have cut staffers in the last six months, though nothing at the scale of a Better.com layoff. 

In early March, HousingWire reported that Pennymac Financial Services would be laying off 236 employees at six different offices in five California cities. Also, retail lender Movement Mortgage, the 24th largest mortgage lender in the country in 2021, laid off between 165 and 170 employees in March, sources told HousingWire. Freedom Mortgage also trimmed its staff in the latter portion of 2021 and NewRez ousted 386 workers following the Caliber merger.

Several smaller non-QM lenders have also given employees pink slips, largely due to the challenges presented by rapidly moving rates and the narrow window during which they can securitize assets.

Inevitably, pay days are getting smaller for many in the industry as origination volume wanes. 

“Usually, professionals will have their base employment plan. And, then, they’ll have an addendum that describes how they’re going to be paid a variable compensation, which is normally driven, the most part of it, by volume,” said Lori Brewer, CEO at LBA Ware, a software firm that offers incentive compensation management and BI software for the mortgage industry. 

The changes affect loan officers, processors and underwriters, but also top executives. Guild’s CEO Mary Ann McGarry, for example, went from a compensation package of $8.15 million in 2020 to $3.23 million in 2021, including salary, stock awards, non-equity incentives, and other compensations, according to a document filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Her salary remained the same, at $500,000, but the variable compensation was reduced by the challenging landscape. 

In some cases, however, cutting costs will not be enough. In the 2022 mortgage industry, there will likely be consolidation. 

“Some of the smaller guys will have to be either laying off employees, or gonna be tougher to survive and they will get taken out. You might see some private equity guys come in and purchase them if it becomes cheap enough,” said Heal, the analyst at Argus Research. 

The market had already claimed its first victim in February: Santander Bank announced that it was shutting down its mortgage lending business in the U.S. and laying off its divisional staff.  

But, for the most part, the biggest mortgage lenders in America have cash from 2020 and 2021 and can gain market share. In addition, the switch from a refi to a purchase market is a relatively normal occurrence in the business, even if it’s jumping from one extreme to another. 

“I’ve been in this business now for 26 years. The cycles are kind of all the same. What drives the underlying mortgage market is purchase. And what drives purchase businesses is physical distribution,” Phil Shoemaker, president of originations at Homepoint, told HousingWire. 

Woodward knows first-hand how it is difficult to win in a purchase market. After his annual salary decreased by around $20,000 in the last 18 months, he has decided to change – again. He landed a branch sales manager position at Partners 1st Federal Credit Union, where he is tasked to originate not only mortgages, but car and personal loans as well.   

“In all fairness, I’m the guy who’s leaving the mortgage company because I couldn’t get enough purchase business. But, as far as I can see and know of the industry at this point, it is about being connected to Realtors and doing a good job with the clients that you have. There’s not a new secret sauce.” 

James Kleimann contributed reporting to this story.

The post Some lenders won’t survive the purchase mortgage market of 2022 appeared first on HousingWire.

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International

Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says “Copper’s Time Is Now”

Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says "Copper’s Time Is Now"

After languishing for the past two years in a tight range despite recurring…

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March 15, 2024

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Copper Soars, Iron Ore Tumbles As Goldman Says "Copper's Time Is Now"

After languishing for the past two years in a tight range despite recurring speculation about declining global supply, copper has finally broken out, surging to the highest price in the past year, just shy of $9,000 a ton as supply cuts hit the market; At the same time the price of the world's "other" most important mined commodity has diverged, as iron ore has tumbled amid growing demand headwinds out of China's comatose housing sector where not even ghost cities are being built any more.

Copper surged almost 5% this week, ending a months-long spell of inertia, as investors focused on risks to supply at various global mines and smelters. As Bloomberg adds, traders also warmed to the idea that the worst of a global downturn is in the past, particularly for metals like copper that are increasingly used in electric vehicles and renewables.

Yet the commodity crash of recent years is hardly over, as signs of the headwinds in traditional industrial sectors are still all too obvious in the iron ore market, where futures fell below $100 a ton for the first time in seven months on Friday as investors bet that China’s years-long property crisis will run through 2024, keeping a lid on demand.

Indeed, while the mood surrounding copper has turned almost euphoric, sentiment on iron ore has soured since the conclusion of the latest National People’s Congress in Beijing, where the CCP set a 5% goal for economic growth, but offered few new measures that would boost infrastructure or other construction-intensive sectors.

As a result, the main steelmaking ingredient has shed more than 30% since early January as hopes of a meaningful revival in construction activity faded. Loss-making steel mills are buying less ore, and stockpiles are piling up at Chinese ports. The latest drop will embolden those who believe that the effects of President Xi Jinping’s property crackdown still have significant room to run, and that last year’s rally in iron ore may have been a false dawn.

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg notes, on Friday there were fresh signs that weakness in China’s industrial economy is hitting the copper market too, with stockpiles tracked by the Shanghai Futures Exchange surging to the highest level since the early days of the pandemic. The hope is that headwinds in traditional industrial areas will be offset by an ongoing surge in usage in electric vehicles and renewables.

And while industrial conditions in Europe and the US also look soft, there’s growing optimism about copper usage in India, where rising investment has helped fuel blowout growth rates of more than 8% — making it the fastest-growing major economy.

In any case, with the demand side of the equation still questionable, the main catalyst behind copper’s powerful rally is an unexpected tightening in global mine supplies, driven mainly by last year’s closure of a giant mine in Panama (discussed here), but there are also growing worries about output in Zambia, which is facing an El Niño-induced power crisis.

On Wednesday, copper prices jumped on huge volumes after smelters in China held a crisis meeting on how to cope with a sharp drop in processing fees following disruptions to supplies of mined ore. The group stopped short of coordinated production cuts, but pledged to re-arrange maintenance work, reduce runs and delay the startup of new projects. In the coming weeks investors will be watching Shanghai exchange inventories closely to gauge both the strength of demand and the extent of any capacity curtailments.

“The increase in SHFE stockpiles has been bigger than we’d anticipated, but we expect to see them coming down over the next few weeks,” Colin Hamilton, managing director for commodities research at BMO Capital Markets, said by phone. “If the pace of the inventory builds doesn’t start to slow, investors will start to question whether smelters are actually cutting and whether the impact of weak construction activity is starting to weigh more heavily on the market.”

* * *

Few have been as happy with the recent surge in copper prices as Goldman's commodity team, where copper has long been a preferred trade (even if it may have cost the former team head Jeff Currie his job due to his unbridled enthusiasm for copper in the past two years which saw many hedge fund clients suffer major losses).

As Goldman's Nicholas Snowdon writes in a note titled "Copper's time is now" (available to pro subscribers in the usual place)...

... there has been a "turn in the industrial cycle." Specifically according to the Goldman analyst, after a prolonged downturn, "incremental evidence now points to a bottoming out in the industrial cycle, with the global manufacturing PMI in expansion for the first time since September 2022." As a result, Goldman now expects copper to rise to $10,000/t by year-end and then $12,000/t by end of Q1-25.’

Here are the details:

Previous inflexions in global manufacturing cycles have been associated with subsequent sustained industrial metals upside, with copper and aluminium rising on average 25% and 9% over the next 12 months. Whilst seasonal surpluses have so far limited a tightening alignment at a micro level, we expect deficit inflexions to play out from quarter end, particularly for metals with severe supply binds. Supplemented by the influence of anticipated Fed easing ahead in a non-recessionary growth setting, another historically positive performance factor for metals, this should support further upside ahead with copper the headline act in this regard.

Goldman then turns to what it calls China's "green policy put":

Much of the recent focus on the “Two Sessions” event centred on the lack of significant broad stimulus, and in particular the limited property support. In our view it would be wrong – just as in 2022 and 2023 – to assume that this will result in weak onshore metals demand. Beijing’s emphasis on rapid growth in the metals intensive green economy, as an offset to property declines, continues to act as a policy put for green metals demand. After last year’s strong trends, evidence year-to-date is again supportive with aluminium and copper apparent demand rising 17% and 12% y/y respectively. Moreover, the potential for a ‘cash for clunkers’ initiative could provide meaningful right tail risk to that healthy demand base case. Yet there are also clear metal losers in this divergent policy setting, with ongoing pressure on property related steel demand generating recent sharp iron ore downside.

Meanwhile, Snowdon believes that the driver behind Goldman's long-running bullish view on copper - a global supply shock - continues:

Copper’s supply shock progresses. The metal with most significant upside potential is copper, in our view. The supply shock which began with aggressive concentrate destocking and then sharp mine supply downgrades last year, has now advanced to an increasing bind on metal production, as reflected in this week's China smelter supply rationing signal. With continued positive momentum in China's copper demand, a healthy refined import trend should generate a substantial ex-China refined deficit this year. With LME stocks having halved from Q4 peak, China’s imminent seasonal demand inflection should accelerate a path into extreme tightness by H2. Structural supply underinvestment, best reflected in peak mine supply we expect next year, implies that demand destruction will need to be the persistent solver on scarcity, an effect requiring substantially higher pricing than current, in our view. In this context, we maintain our view that the copper price will surge into next year (GSe 2025 $15,000/t average), expecting copper to rise to $10,000/t by year-end and then $12,000/t by end of Q1-25’

Another reason why Goldman is doubling down on its bullish copper outlook: gold.

The sharp rally in gold price since the beginning of March has ended the period of consolidation that had been present since late December. Whilst the initial catalyst for the break higher came from a (gold) supportive turn in US data and real rates, the move has been significantly amplified by short term systematic buying, which suggests less sticky upside. In this context, we expect gold to consolidate for now, with our economists near term view on rates and the dollar suggesting limited near-term catalysts for further upside momentum. Yet, a substantive retracement lower will also likely be limited by resilience in physical buying channels. Nonetheless, in the midterm we continue to hold a constructive view on gold underpinned by persistent strength in EM demand as well as eventual Fed easing, which should crucially reactivate the largely for now dormant ETF buying channel. In this context, we increase our average gold price forecast for 2024 from $2,090/toz to $2,180/toz, targeting a move to $2,300/toz by year-end.

Much more in the full Goldman note available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 14:25

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Government

Moderna turns the spotlight on long Covid with new initiatives

Moderna’s latest Covid effort addresses the often-overlooked chronic condition of long Covid — and encourages vaccination to reduce risks. A digital…

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March 15, 2024

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Moderna’s latest Covid effort addresses the often-overlooked chronic condition of long Covid — and encourages vaccination to reduce risks. A digital campaign debuted Friday along with a co-sponsored event in Detroit offering free CT scans, which will also be used in ongoing long Covid research.

In a new video, a young woman describes her three-year battle with long Covid, which includes losing her job, coping with multiple debilitating symptoms and dealing with the negative effects on her family. She ends by saying, “The only way to prevent long Covid is to not get Covid” along with an on-screen message about where to find Covid-19 vaccines through the vaccines.gov website.

Kate Cronin

“Last season we saw people would get a flu shot, but they didn’t always get a Covid shot,” said Moderna’s Chief Brand Officer Kate Cronin. “People should get their flu shot, but they should also get their Covid shot. There’s no risk of long flu, but there is the risk of long-term effects of Covid.”

It’s Moderna’s “first effort to really sound the alarm,” she said, and the debut coincides with the second annual Long Covid Awareness Day.

An estimated 17.6 million Americans are living with long Covid, according to the latest CDC data. About four million of them are out of work because of the condition, resulting in an estimated $170 billion in lost wages.

While HHS anted up $45 million in grants last year to expand long Covid support initiatives along with public health campaigns, the condition is still often ignored and underfunded.

“It’s not just about the initial infection of Covid, but also if you get it multiple times, your risks goes up significantly,” Cronin said. “It’s important that people understand that.”

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Government

Consequences Minus Truth

Consequences Minus Truth

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“People crave trust in others, because God is found there.”

-…

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March 15, 2024

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Consequences Minus Truth

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“People crave trust in others, because God is found there.”

- Dom de Bailleul

The rewards of civilization have come to seem rather trashy in these bleak days of late empire; so, why even bother pretending to be civilized? This appears to be the ethos driving our politics and culture now. But driving us where? Why, to a spectacular sort of crack-up, and at warp speed, compared to the more leisurely breakdown of past societies that arrived at a similar inflection point where Murphy’s Law replaced the rule of law.

The US Military Academy at West point decided to “upgrade” its mission statement this week by deleting the phrase Duty, Honor, Country that summarized its essential moral orientation. They replaced it with an oblique reference to “Army Values,” without spelling out what these values are, exactly, which could range from “embrace the suck” to “charlie foxtrot” to “FUBAR” — all neatly applicable to our country’s current state of perplexity and dread.

Are you feeling more confident that the US military can competently defend our country? Probably more like the opposite, because the manipulation of language is being used deliberately to turn our country inside-out and upside-down. At this point we probably could not successfully pacify a Caribbean island if we had to, and you’ve got to wonder what might happen if we have to contend with countless hostile subversive cadres who have slipped across the border with the estimated nine-million others ushered in by the government’s welcome wagon.

Momentous events await. This Monday, the Supreme Court will entertain oral arguments on the case Missouri, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al. The integrity of the First Amendment hinges on the decision. Do we have freedom of speech as set forth in the Constitution? Or is it conditional on how government officials feel about some set of circumstances? At issue specifically is the government’s conduct in coercing social media companies to censor opinion in order to suppress so-called “vaccine hesitancy” and to manipulate public debate in the 2020 election. Government lawyers have argued that they were merely “communicating” with Twitter, Facebook, Google, and others about “public health disinformation and election conspiracies.”

You can reasonably suppose that this was our government’s effort to disable the truth, especially as it conflicted with its own policy and activities — from supporting BLM riots to enabling election fraud to mandating dubious vaccines. Former employees of the FBI and the CIA were directly implanted in social media companies to oversee the carrying-out of censorship orders from their old headquarters. The former general counsel (top lawyer) for the FBI, James Baker, slid unnoticed into the general counsel seat at Twitter until Elon Musk bought the company late in 2022 and flushed him out. The so-called Twitter Files uncovered by indy reporters Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and others, produced reams of emails from FBI officials nagging Twitter execs to de-platform people and bury their dissent. You can be sure these were threats, not mere suggestions.

One of the plaintiffs joined to Missouri v. Biden is Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and professor at the Harvard Medical School, who opposed Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He was one of the authors of the open letter called The Great Barrington Declaration (October, 2020) that articulated informed medical dissent for a bamboozled public. He was fired from his job at Harvard just this past week for continuing his refusal to take the vaccine. Harvard remains among a handful of institutions that still require it, despite massive evidence that it is ineffective and hazardous. Like West Point, maybe Harvard should ditch its motto, Veritas, Latin for “truth.”

A society hostile to truth can’t possibly remain civilized, because it will also be hostile to reality. That appears to be the disposition of the people running things in the USA these days. The problem, of course, is that this is not a reality-optional world, despite the wishes of many Americans (and other peoples of Western Civ) who wish it would be.

Next up for us will be “Joe Biden’s” attempt to complete the bankruptcy of our country with $7.3-trillion proposed budget, 20 percent over the previous years spending, based on a $5-billion tax increase. Good luck making that work. New York City alone is faced with paying $387 a day for food and shelter for each of an estimated 64,800 illegal immigrants, which amounts to $9.15-billion a year. The money doesn’t exist, of course. New York can thank “Joe Biden’s” executive agencies for sticking them with this unbearable burden. It will be the end of New York City. There will be no money left for public services or cultural institutions. That’s the reality and that’s the truth.

A financial crack-up is probably the only thing short of all-out war that will get the public’s attention at this point. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it happened next week. Historians of the future, stir-frying crickets and fiddleheads over their campfires will marvel at America’s terminal act of gluttony: managing to eat itself alive.

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Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 14:05

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