401(k) Contribution Limit Leaps By Record Amount As Inflation Rages
The IRS on Friday announced that contribution limits for 401(k) plans and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) are rising in 2023 in response to price inflation that’s running at the fastest pace in about 40 years.
The limits are linked to the headline Consumer Price Index, or CPI-U, and September’s reading saw an 8.2% year-over-year increase.
The boost to the 401(k) maximum is the biggest one ever in both dollar and percentage terms, as retirement investors will be able to contribute $2,000 more in 2023 than they can this year. The limit on so-called “catch-up contributions”– available to those age 50 and over — is rising by $1,000, to $7,500.
That puts 2023’s annual 401(k) limit at $22,500 for workers under 50, and $30,000 for those 50 and older. The same new maximums apply to participants in 403(b) and most 457 plans, as well as the Thrift Savings Plan for federal government employees.
IRA investors will be able to put away an extra $500in 2023, as the limit rises to $6,500. Unlike most other contribution amounts, the IRA “catch-up” for the 50+ crowd isn’t indexed to inflation and will remain at $1,000.
The income ranges that drive eligibility for deductible contributions to Traditional IRAs and contributions to Roth IRAs are also rising. See the IRS announcement for those and other details.
Of course, higher limits are only useful to the extent Americans can actually find the extra money to put away — at the same time when rising prices for gasoline, energy and food are hammering their cash flow.
Hey! The IRS is raising the 401k contribution limit by a record amount! Just what the American people who are struggling to afford basics need.
It’s not as if Americans are even treading water against inflation — they’re already sinking: August saw revolving credit balances soar by 18%, as Americans continue to pay for inflation with credit cards. “Americans are burning up their plastic in order to make ends meet,” writes SchiffGold’s Michael Maharrey.
Meanwhile, a boost in workplace contribution limits is of limited use when salaries and wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation. In a recent Bankrate survey, only 39% of people who received a raise in the past year or moved to a higher-paying job said the boost had kept up with rising prices.
Only about 14% of 401(k) contributors maxed out in 2021, the Employee Benefits Research Institute’s Craig Copeland tells Bloomberg: “It’s really the people making $100,000 and especially those making $150,000 or more who save the maximum.”
All that said, if you’re among those with the capacity to put away more money for retirement, it could make a difference down the road.
Assuming a 5% return, a 40-year-old who boosts his 401(k) contribution by $2,000 a year ends up with roughly an extra $100,000 at age 65. At an 8% return, it’s an extra $159,000.
For a 50-year old who’s already maxing out and takes advantage of the new limits by increasing 401(k) contributions by $3,000, it yields roughly an extra $67,000 at age 65 at a 5% return, and $87,000 at 8%.
Of course, we realize the more fatalist readers of these pages will be more inclined to invest in food, brass and lead.
We’ve warned consistently that Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s inaction on Illinois’ biggest fiscal problems – pensions, property taxes, unbalanced budgets – would eventually come back to bite the state. Sure, he’s used the near-$200 billion in federal Covid bailout money to cover the state’s financial cracks in the short-term, but the governor can’t hide from the reality of his failures on jobs and growth.
At 4.5 percent in September, no other state has a higher unemployment rate than Illinois, according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics release.
Illinoisans have been suffering in one the worst five states for unemployment for several months, but now the state has jumped to the number one position. This is what comes from pursuing policies that drive out companies like Boeing, Citadel, Caterpillar and Tyson.
Gov. Pritzker’s administration is already attempting to spin the data. Below is a quote from today’s press release from IDES:
“Today’s data is a clear indicator that the Illinois labor market continues to remain strong and stable,” said Deputy Governor Andy Manar.
Nothing state officials say can change the fact that Illinois is an extreme laggard both regionally and nationally when it comes to creating jobs.
Nor does it change the fact that Illinoisans are now poised to suffer the most during the next economic downturn. Bloomberg says there’s a 100% probability of a recession within the next 12 months and Illinois’ jobs climate is now the worst-positioned to deal with the impact.
All of Illinois’ neighboring states are in far better shape. Their unemployment rates are significantly below those in Illinois, most notably in Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri, where unemployment is 1 to 2 percentage points lower.
That difference in jobless rates represent a big difference in Illinoisans’ lives. Catching up with states like Missouri would mean 130,000 residents back at work – equivalent to the entire population of Springfield and then some.
Illinois’ worst-in-nation jobs climate was never preordained. With its central location, abundant resources and hard-working residents, it should be leading the nation in jobs and growth.
Until those policy failures are finally addressed, expect both businesses and Illinoisans to continue to leave for better prospects. Which, as of September, means every other state in the nation.
China’s CPC Congress Passes Resolution To Boost Armed Forces, Speed Up ‘Taiwan Reunification’
A final Congress resolution issued Saturday by the Communist Party of China spelled out that the national armed forces will continue to be modernized and expanded with an eye toward preventing Taiwan independence.
While praising efforts over the past half-decade of Beijing devoting “great energy to modernizing” its “national defense and armed forces”, the CPC called for “resolute steps to oppose ‘Taiwan independence’ and promote reunification, maintain the initiative and the ability to steer in cross-Strait relations, and unswervingly advance the cause of national reunification.”
Importantly, Congress spokesperson Sun Yeli said last week leading into the Saturday resolution that China does not rule out the possibility of using force, but it would only be in response to interference from outside countries.
“We do not promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the possibility of taking all necessary measures against the interference of external forces and the extremely small number of pro-Taiwan independence separatist forces and their separatist activities,” Sun had said says before the opening of the 20th National Congress.
President Xi Jinping, who emerged from the Congress even more powerful, securing a precedent-breaking third term, emphasized China reserves the right to use force in certain scenarios regarding Taiwan:
Chinese President Xi Jinping said China reserves the option of “taking all measures necessary” against “interference by outside forces” on the issue of Taiwan.
In a wide-ranging speech Sunday, Xi spoke firmly about China’s resolve for reunification with the self-governed island, which Beijing considers part of its territory...
“We will continue to strive for peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and the utmost effort,” Xi said in Chinese, according to an official translation. “But, we will never promise to renounce the use of force. And we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.”
Consistent with prior statements on the issue, he stressed they key caveat that “This is directed solely at interference by outside forces and a few separatists seeking Taiwan independence.”
BREAKING: Xi Jinping opens CCP summit by announcing full control of Hong Kong has been achieved, that Taiwan is next pic.twitter.com/Y5PGVXg9Sj
With this context being laid out in Xi’s speech, the newly passed resolution reads: “We must enhance the military’s strategic capabilities for defending China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests and see that the people’s armed forces effectively fulfill their missions and tasks in the new era.”
According to our conventional view of history, humans have only walked the Earth in our present form for some 200,000 years. Much of the mechanical ingenuity we know of in modern times began to develop only a couple hundred years ago, during the Industrial Revolution. However, evidence today alludes to advanced civilizations existing as long as several thousand years ago—or possibly even earlier.
“Oopart”—or “out-of-place artifact”—is the term given to numerous prehistoric objects found in various places across the world today that show a level of technological sophistication incongruous with our present paradigm.
Many scientists attempt to explain these ooparts away as natural phenomena. Yet others say that such dismissive explanations only whitewash over the mounting evidence: that prehistoric civilizations had advanced knowledge, and this knowledge was lost over the ages only to be developed anew in modern times.
We will look at a variety of ooparts here, ranging from millions to hundreds of years old in purported age, but all supposedly demonstrating advancement well beyond their time.
Whether these are fact or merely fiction we cannot say. We can only offer a glimpse at what’s known, supposed, or hypothesized regarding these phenomena, in the spirit of being open-minded and geared toward real scientific discovery.
17. 2,000-Year-Old Batteries?
Clay jars with asphalt stoppers and iron rods made some 2,000 years ago have been proven capable of generating more than a volt of electricity. These ancient “batteries” were found by German archaeologist Wilhelm Konig in 1938, just outside of Baghdad, Iraq.
“The batteries have always attracted interest as curios,” Dr. Paul Craddock, a metallurgy expert at the British Museum, told the BBC in 2003. “They are a one-off. As far as we know, nobody else has found anything like these. They are odd things; they are one of life’s enigmas.”
16. Ancient Egyptian Light Bulb?
A relief beneath the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, Egypt, depicts figures standing around a large light-bulb-like object. Erich Von Däniken, who wrote “Chariot of the Gods,” created a model of the bulb which works when connected to a power source, emitting an eerie, purplish light.
In 1852, in what is now known as Rockwall County, Texas, farmers digging a well discovered what appeared to be an ancient rock wall. Estimated to be some 200,000 to 400,000 years old, some say it’s a natural formation while others say it’s clearly man-made.
Dr. John Geissman at the University of Texas in Dallas tested the rocks as part of a History Channel documentary. He found they were all magnetized the same way, suggesting they formed where they are and were not moved to that site from elsewhere. But some remain unconvinced by this single TV-show test and call for further studies.
Geologist James Shelton and Harvard-trained architect John Lindsey have noted elements that seem to be of architectural design, including archways, linteled portals, and square openings that resemble windows.
14. 1.8-Billion-Year-Old Nuclear Reactor?
In 1972, a French factory imported uranium ore from Oklo, in Africa’s Gabon Republic. The uranium had already been extracted. They found the site of origin to have apparently functioned as a large-scale nuclear reactor that came into being 1.8 billion years ago and was in operation for some 500,000 years.
Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, former head of the United States Atomic Energy Commission and Nobel Prize winner for his work in the synthesis of heavy elements, believed it wasn’t a natural phenomenon, and thus must be a man-made nuclear reactor.
For uranium to “burn” in a reaction, very precise conditions are needed. The water must be extremely pure, for one—much purer than exists naturally. The material U-235 is necessary for nuclear fission to occur. It is one of the isotopes found naturally in uranium. Several specialists in reactor engineering have said they believe the uranium in Oklo could not have been rich enough in U-235 for a reaction to take place naturally.
13. Sea-Faring Map Makers Before Antarctica Was Covered in Ice?
A map created by Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis in 1513, but sourced from various earlier maps, is thought by some to depict Antarctica as it was in a very remote age before it was covered with ice.
A landmass is shown to jut out from the southern coastline of South America. Captain Lorenzo W. Burroughs, a U.S. Air Force captain in the cartographic section, wrote a letter to Dr. Charles Hapgood in 1961 saying that this landmass seems to accurately show Antarctica’s coast as it is under the ice.
Dr. Hapgood (1904–1982) was one of the first to publicly suggest that the Piri Reis map depicts Antarctica during a prehistoric time. He was a Harvard-educated historian whose theories about geological shifts earned the admiration of Albert Einstein. He hypothesized that the land masses shifted, explaining why Antarctica is shown as connected to South America.
Modern studies refute Hapgood’s theory that such a shift could have taken place within thousands of years, but they show it could have happened within millions of years.
12. 2,000-Year-Old Earthquake Detector
In 132 A.D., Zhang Heng created the world’s first seismoscope. How exactly it works remains a mystery, but replicas have worked with a precision comparable to modern instruments.
In 138 A.D., it correctly indicated that an earthquake occurred about 300 miles west of Luoyang, the capital city. No one had felt the quake in Luoyang and dismissed the warning until a messenger arrived days later, requesting aid.
11. 150,000-Year-Old Pipes?
Caves near Mount Baigong in China contain pipes leading to a nearby lake. They were dated by the Beijing Institute of Geology to about 150,000 years ago, according to Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com.
State-run media Xinhua reported that the pipes were analyzed at a local smeltery and 8 percent of the material could not be identified. Zheng Jiandong, a geology research fellow from the China Earthquake Administration, told state-run newspaper People’s Daily, in 2007, that some of the pipes were found to be highly radioactive.
Jiandong said iron-rich magma may have risen from deep in the Earth, bringing the iron into fissures where it may have solidified into tubes; though he admitted, “There is indeed something mysterious about these pipes.” He cited the radioactivity as an example of the strange qualities of the pipes.
10. Antikythera Mechanism
A mechanism often referred to as an ancient “computer,” which was built by Greeks around 150 B.C., was able to calculate astronomical changes with great precision.
“If it hadn’t been discovered … no one would possibly believe that it could exist because it’s so sophisticated,” said Mathematician Tony Freeth in a NOVA documentary. Mathias Buttet, director of research and development for watch-maker Hublot, said in a video released by the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Culture and Tourism, “This Antikythera Mechanism includes ingenious features which are not found in modern watch-making.”
9. Drill Bit in Coal
John Buchanan, Esq., presented a mysterious object to a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on Dec. 13, 1852. A drill bit had been found encapsulated in coal about 22 inches thick, buried in a bed of clay mixed with boulders about 7 feet thick.
The Earth’s coal is said to have formed hundreds of millions of years ago. The Society decided that the instrument was of a modern level of advancement. But it concluded that “the iron instrument might have been part of a borer broken during some former search for coal.”
Buchanan’s detailed report did not include any signs that the coal surrounding the instrument had been punctured by drilling.
8. 2.8-Billion-Year-Old Spheres?
Spheres with fine grooves around them, found in mines in South Africa, have been said by some to be naturally formed masses of mineral matter. Others have said they were precisely shaped by a prehistoric human hand.
“The globes, which have a fibrous structure on the inside with a shell around it, are very hard and cannot be scratched, even by steel,” said Roelf Marx, curator of the museum of Klerksdorp, South Africa, according to Michael Cremo’s book, “Forbidden Archaeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race.” Marx said the spheres are about 2.8 billion years old.
If they are mineral masses, it is unclear how exactly they formed.
7. Iron Pillar of Delhi
This pillar is at least 1,500 years old but could be older. It remains rust-free and is of astounding purity. It is 99.72 percent iron, according to professor A.P. Gupta, head of the Department of Applied Sciences and Humanities at the Institute of Technology and Management in India.
In modern times, wrought iron has been made with a purity of 99.8 percent, but it contains manganese and sulfur, two ingredients absent in the pillar.
It was made at least “400 years before the largest known foundry of the world could have produced it,” wrote John Rowlett in “A Study of the Craftsmen of Ancient and Medieval Civilizations to Show the Influence of their Training on our Present Day Method of Trade Education.”
6. Viking Sword Ulfberht
When archaeologists found the Viking sword Ulfberht, dating from 800 to 1000 A.D., they were stunned. They couldn’t see how the technology to make such a sword would have been available until the Industrial Revolution, 800 years later.
Its carbon content is three times higher than other swords of its time and impurities were removed to such a degree that the iron ore must have been heated to at least 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
With great effort and precision, modern blacksmith Richard Furrer of Wisconsin forged a sword of Ulfberht quality using technology that would have been available in the Middle Ages. He said it was the most complicated thing he’d ever made, and he used methods not known to have been used by people of that time.
5. 100-Million-Year-Old Hammer?
A hammer was found in London, Texas, in 1934, encased in stone that had formed around it. The rock surrounding the hammer is said to be more than 100 million years old.
Glen J. Kuban, a vocal skeptic of claims that the hammer was made millions of years ago, said the stone may contain materials that are more than 100 million years old, but that doesn’t mean the rock formed around the hammer so long ago.
He said that some limestone has formed around artifacts known to be from the 20th century, so concretions can form fairly quickly around objects. (Concretions are masses of hardened mineral matter).
Carl Baugh, who was in possession of the artifact, has said the wooden handle has turned to coal (evidence of its great age) and that the metal its made of has a strange composition. Critics have called for independent testing to verify these claims, but so far no such testing has been conducted.
4. Prehistoric Work Site?
Workers at a stone quarry near Aix-en-Provence, France, in the 18th century, came across tools stuck in a layer of limestone 50 feet underground.
The find was recorded in the American Journal of Science and Arts in 1820 by T. D. Porter, who was translating Count Bournon’s work, “Mineralogy.”
The wooden instruments had turned into agate, a hard stone. Porter wrote: “Everything tended to prove that this work had been executed upon the spot where the traces existed. The presence of man had then preceded the formation of this stone, and that very considerably since he was already arrived at such a degree of civilization that the arts were known to him, and that he wrought the stone and formed columns out of it.”
As stated in the case of the hammer above, limestone has been known to form relatively quickly around modern tools.
3. Million-Year-Old Bridge?
According to ancient Indian legend, King Rama built a bridge between India and Sri Lanka more than a million years ago. What appears to be remnants of such a bridge have been seen from satellite images, but many say its a natural formation.
Last-Mile Automation Carnage: Fedex And Amazon Give Up On Delivery Robots
October has been a rough month for the last-mile delivery robot industry as Amazon called it quits on their six-wheeled robot “Scout” for home deliveries. Now FedEx is doing the same.
Robotics 24/7 has obtained an internal memo written by Sriram Krishnasam, chief transformation officer at FedEx, who told employees its last-mile delivery robot, Roxo, will be scaled back.
“Although robotics and automation are key pillars of our innovation strategy, Roxo did not meet necessary near-term value requirements for DRIVE,” Krishnasam wrote in the memo. “Although we are ending the research and development efforts, Roxo served a valuable purpose: to rapidly advance our understanding and use of robotic technology.”
FedEx launched Roxo in 2019 in collaboration with DEKA Research and Development Corp. The robot uses multiple sets of wheels to traverse steps and obstacles while hauling up to 100 pounds. It navigates sidewalks and city streets using cameras and LIDAR sensors. Human operators can intervene with remote controls if need be.
“We are immensely proud of our role in working with DEKA to advance this cutting-edge technology that has put it on the path to future implementation, and we remain committed to exploring last-mile innovations that align with our business strategy,” the company said. “The collaboration with DEKA has been outstanding, and we will continue to explore compelling opportunities arising from the technologies we have developed together.”
FedEx and Amazon are some of the largest shippers moving packages around the country and the world. When these two companies simultaneously decide to axe their last-mile delivery robots, it indicates the program has been a complete and utter failure. This is excellent news for the humans working at FedEx, Amazon, UPS, USPS, Uber Eats, Instacart, and other last-mile companies that your jobs will be safe for now. However, when the Federal Aviation Administration clears airspace for delivery drones, that could be a different story but won’t happen at scale until the end of this decade.
With the 2022 midterm elections less than three weeks away and the alarming dysfunction of urban areas run by Democrats contributing in large measure to the public’s unease as expressed in countless right track/wrong track surveys, Scott says nothing about any of this is accidental.
* * *
Let’s call it Weaponized Governmental Failure. It’s the single most explicative factor in the breakdown of American political consensus in the 21st century, even though it’s been around since the latter part of the 20th century.
The simple definition of Weaponized Governmental Failure is this: it’s the deliberate refusal to perform the basic tasks of urban governance for a specific political purpose.
The crime and the graft and the potholes and the bad drainage, not to mention the spotty trash collection or nonexistent snow shoveling, aren’t incompetence. In fact, none of what you see in the American public sector is incompetence. The people responsible for it are quite highly educated and well-trained in their craft. You just need to understand what their craft is.
It’s a choice to do a poor job with the more mundane tasks of running a city, and an educated and purposeful choice at that. If you do those things effectively, after all, what you will get is middle-class voters moving in. Middle-class voters tend to choose to live in places where they can expect to get actual value out of their tax dollars — good roads, safe streets, functional drainage, decent schools, a friendly business climate, and a growing economy, among other things — and those things are hard to produce when you govern the way the Left does.
Put a different way, middle-class voters are a pain in the ass.
They want lots of things that make for unrewarding grunt work for a mayor, and a Democrat blowhard like a Mitch Landrieu or Ted Wheeler of Portland would rather spend his time on vacuous cultural aggressions like “social change” and offering wealth redistribution and excuses for the bad personal habits that cause so many people to be poor.
Not to mention tilting at bronze statues of better men long dead and nearly forgotten as a means of “making a difference.”
For a Landrieu, or a Kwame Kilpatrick, Marion Barry, Bill de Blasio, or Lori Lightfoot, it is no great loss if those middle-class voters declare themselves fed up and decamp to the suburbs.
Their exodus simply makes for an electorate that is a lot less demanding and easier to control.
That “white flight” is a feature. It’s not a bug. And it isn’t all that white either. Those suburbs the folks are leaving for? Their minority population share usually increases as their population does. Why do you think that is? Simple: the black middle class has no more use for these woke urban Democrats than the white middle class does.
And it’s quite a mutual sentiment, to be sure.
The urban socialist Left wants a manageably small core of rich residents and a teeming mass of poor ones, and nothing in between. That’s what Weaponized Governmental Failure produces, and it’s a wide-scale success. New Orleans votes 90 percent Democrat. Philadelphia is 80 percent Democrat. Chicago is 85 percent. Los Angeles? Seventy-one percent. None of those cities will have a Republican mayor or city council again, or at least not in the foreseeable future.
Because there are very few middle-class voters left in the cities.
Rich voters don’t really ask for anything, because they can generally pay for whatever they need out of pocket (for example, their kids go to private schools, and they’ve got private security in their neighborhoods). All they require is that the WGF politicians give them access and the occasional favor, and they’ll not only vote for them but write campaign checks.
Poor voters? Please. They’re generally unsophisticated and susceptible to government dependency, and thus manipulating them is no great task. Give them the occasional crumbs from the table, and keep them busy with stupidities like bowdlerizing old monuments, or midnight basketball, or Black Lives Matter “defund the police” pandering, and you can get them to vote however you want without ever lifting a finger to provide real opportunity for social and economic advancement.
Or even by vigorously promoting policies and outcomes that actively hold back the social mobility of the urban poor.
You don’t really think the public schools in those cities spend $15,000 or $20,000 per student per year to turn out functional illiterates because the people involved in making all that money disappear are all idiots, do you?
Louis Miriani was the last Republican mayor of Detroit. He left office on January 2, 1962. When Miriani gave up the mayor’s gavel to Jerome Cavanagh following a major upset in the 1961 elections, Detroit was the richest, most productive city in the world with a population of nearly two million. It had the richest black community in the world and an industrial output that dwarfed the vast majority of nations on earth.
By 1967 Detroit was in flames thanks to the 12th Street Riots. Coleman Young, elected as the city’s first black mayor in 1973 and the third in a string of Democrat mayors, which as of this writing appears impossible to break, would oversee such an economic rout that a peculiar tradition called “Devil’s Night” was born. Arsonists would descend upon the city and burn large swaths of its dead industrial base the night before Halloween, with little response from the fire department. This went on for years.
Today, Detroit’s population stands at 639,000, less than a third of what it was when Miriani said his farewell. It’s one of the poorest cities in America; the poverty rate in Detroit in 2019 was 31 percent, compared to 13 percent in Michigan as a whole and 10.5 percent nationally. Detroit’s public schools spend some $14,750 per student per year, ranking among the top ten most expensive in America, and yet in 2018 just 5 percent of fourth graders were proficient in reading and 4 percent proficient in math, the worst scores in the nation.
The more middle-class voters you drive out of the city, and the fewer middle-class voters your public school system creates, the more pliable the electorate becomes.
A pliable electorate is one you can rule forever without successfully governing.
They rule over a ruin, but they rule.
And the Democrat Party barely exists outside of the ruins those urban machines produce. Check out any county-by-country or congressional district-by-congressional district electoral map from the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections, and what you’ll see is a few islands of blue in a sea of red. Even in blue states like Washington, Oregon, Illinois, and Minnesota most of the territory is solidly Republican; it’s the dense population of Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, and the other big cities that always, or at least often, overwhelms Republican votes in the suburbs, exurbs, and small towns.
A U.S. District Court judge has granted a preliminary injunction against Los Angeles County’s pandemic-era eviction moratorium.
The Oct. 19 ruling by District Court Judge Dean Pregerson requires the county to end by Dec. 1 its policy of allowing residents to forego paying rent.
The Apartment Owners Association of Greater Los Angeles and the Apartment Owners Association of California filed a lawsuit in March asking the judge to stop enforcement of the rent moratorium, saying the policy was “unconstitutionally vague.” They also asked for monetary relief.
“There’s no rational basis for the County keeping its eviction moratorium in effect for nearly three years especially since the health crisis ended long ago,” Jeffery Faller, president of the Apartment Owners Association of California, said in a statement.
In the ruling, Pregerson granted the preliminary injunction based on the vagueness of the policy and lack of specific standards for how to legally apply the moratorium.
A “For Lease” sign is posted outside a house available for rent in Los Angeles on March 15, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Los Angeles County enacted the eviction moratorium in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. As a result, many landlords have been unable to collect rent and have lost their properties to foreclosure or fire sales, according to Faller.
Some renters have taken advantage of the situation by not paying rent as they claimed COVID-related impacts and used their money to travel or purchase cars and homes for themselves, Faller said.
The county’s Board of Supervisors voted in January to extend the moratorium through the end of the year while leaving in place some protections until June 2023. California’s mortarium ended in September 2021.
The state’s COVID-19 state of emergency is also expected to end Feb. 28, 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Oct. 17.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, speaks to reporters during a visit the Antioch Water Treatment Plant in Antioch, Calif., on Aug. 11, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The county is reviewing the court’s decision and has no comment on ongoing legal matters, County spokesman Jesus Ruiz told The Epoch Times.
The county encourages renters and property owners who have questions about the county’s COVID Tenant Protections Resolution, which is still in effect, to visit its website or call 800-593-8222 to speak with a counselor at the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, Ruiz said.
The extension allowed COVID-affected tenants to withhold payments and declare themselves unable to pay rent beginning April 1. Landlords were also prohibited from evicting tenants for causing a nuisance, allowing others to live with them, or keeping unauthorized pets.
For landlords, the court’s ruling—coming two months before the moratorium’s end date—is overdue.
“While this ruling is certainly great news for rental housing providers in Los Angeles County, the Court’s decision comes a little too late,” Apartment Owners Association of Greater Los Angeles Executive Director Daniel Yukelson said in a statement.
Graffiti calling for a rent strike is seen on a wall on La Brea Ave in Los Angeles on May 1, 2020. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)
The groups intend to continue pursuing the case and to obtain a final order declaring the county’s ordinance unconstitutional to allow association members to seek compensation to cover billions of dollars in losses, he said.
Cheryl Turner, president of the Apartment Owners Association of Greater Los Angeles and State Senate candidate, said the county “used the excuse of the global pandemic to wield unlimited power over private property owners.”
“No business other than the rental housing business had been singled out and forced to provide services for free,” Turner said in the statement.
There have been other challenges to eviction moratoriums across the United States but none of them have been successful, according to attorney Douglas J. Dennington of Rutan & Tucker of Irvine, who represented the landlord groups.
The Apartment Owners Association of Greater Los Angeles has also filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles challenging the constitutionality of its moratoriums on evictions and rent increases. The case is still pending.
Justin Trudeau Uses “Administrative Action” To Ban All Handgun Sales In Canada
Using mass shooting events in the US as an excuse, PM Justin Trudeau has been tinkering with the idea of banning or “freezing” firearms in Canada since this summer and now it appears that he is ready to take unilateral measures. Trudeau is placing a nationwide freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns, effective immediately and sidestepping legislators and political opponents in parliament.
The measure is considered an “administrative action,” much like executive orders used by presidents in the US as a means to circumvent the constitution and checks and balances in government. Such direct restrictions are often subject to extensive legal obstacles and, at least in the US, can be ignored by states and the public at large (as we witnessed with the covod mandates over the past two years).
“When people are being killed, when people are being hurt, responsible leadership requires us to act,” Trudeau said at a news conference on Friday, announcing the new measure. “Recently again, we have seen too many examples of horrific tragedies involving firearms.”
Again, the trigger for Trudeau’s war on firearms rights in Canada started with mass shootings in the US, not Canada. Though, it might not be far fetched to point out that the Prime Minister and regular attendee of the World Economic Forum took a sudden strong interest in gun control not long after the enormous Trucker Convoy protests against Canada’s draconian attempts at vaccine passport laws.
The trucker protests inspired widespread dissent in Canada and the refusal of freight workers to comply could have paralyzed the country’s supply chain. This led to an attack campaign by the government and the mainstream media, seeking to portray the anti-passport movement as “terrorists” simply for not wanting what they felt was a suspect mRNA cocktail injected into their bodies. As pharma giant Pfizer recently admitted under oath, they never tested the vaccine to see if it prevents transmission.
A realization that non-compliance was far more prevalent than the establishment assumed resulted in numerous bizarre narratives and legislative actions in the US and Canada in an attempt to suffocate rebellion. Gun control has been consistently broached as a primary goal of the same people that were desperate to enforce mandates and passport requirements but failed. It is unlikely that this is pure coincidence.
Canada is one of the few countries in the world with gun access on a wide scale similar to the US, though permits are still required, making firearms more of a privilege than a right. Trudeau is hellbent on whittling away Canadian gun ownership, and seems to be following a model similar to the UK. The UK banned the majority of guns starting with handguns and then incrementally restricting the rest.
Propagandists in the UK and the EU will claim that gun ownership is “legal” when calling for further limitations in the US. This is a bit of a con based on the fact that permits can be had, but are rarely given by the government. In most countries in Europe the ownership of a firearm is relegated to the upper middle class and the rich – People who can afford the permit process, classes and high fees involved. These people usually have a spotless record, own property and must be able to provide a “reason” for owning a gun that government bureaucrats will accept.
A large portion of firearms in private hands in the UK are shotguns, perhaps the most useless weapon for rebellion given its limited range, which is why most authoritarian regimes will still allow citizens to own them long after banning everything else. Permit holders in the UK are only around 3% of the total population.
At bottom, gun control laws tend to follow a pattern which gives the public a false sense that they still have firearms access when the majority of them actually do not and never will. The rich get the guns while the middle class gets nothing, and this is by design. The differences with the US in terms of individual rights is vast. Canada may be going in the same direction as the UK and Europe if Canadians do not act accordingly.
Amid talk that it may be harder to push Ukraine aid through a Republican-controlled House if they win the majority in midterms, lawmakers from both parties are considering passing a new massive piece of legislationbefore newly elected members are sworn in this January.
NBC News reported Thursday that the bipartisan idea under consideration would be to pass a bill for Ukraine aid that could cover an entire year during the lame-duck period. The bill is expected to be worth roughly $50 billion, which would bring total US spending on the war to over $115 billion.
The new aid would likely be attached to an omnibus spending bill. An unnamed Republican senator told NBC that the legislation would make $12 billion of Ukraine aid that was included in a recent stopgap funding bill “look like pocket change.”
News of the plan comes after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested that Ukraine aid may be more difficult to pass in a GOP-majority House by saying they’re not going to “write a blank check” for Ukraine. Other Republicans have insisted that most in the party support shipping billions in aid to Ukraine and that the concerns are more over the lack of oversight.
So far, the Biden administration has not asked Congress for more Ukraine aid. President Biden on Thursday said that he was “worried” a Republican majority House would “cut” Ukraine aid, signaling that a request may be coming soon.
“Just a few weeks ago, our delegation visited the US and had a meeting with Mr. McCarthy. We were assured that bipartisan support of Ukraine in its war with Russia will remain a top priority even if they win in the elections,” Arakhamia said.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov brushed off McCarthy’s comments, chalking them up to campaign rhetoric. McCarthy himself has been very supportive of spending billions on the war in Ukraine, but questioning the policy could appeal to voters in the US as Americans are facing high inflation and gas prices.
CDC Director Infected With COVID, Despite Max Vax And Boosters
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky – who confidently lied last year when she proclaimed “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus and don’t get sick,” has come down with Covid-19 just one month after receiving the latest bivalent ‘omicron-tuned’ booster for the disease.
The CDC said on Saturday that Walensky will isolate at home and attend meetings remotely.
September 22nd: CDC director Rochelle Walensky gets updated bivalent booster that “provides added protection against COVID-19 and the Omicron variant”
October 22nd: CDC director Rochelle Walensky tests positive for COVID-19 https://t.co/9DtXocvC9l
Which makes this clip particularly infuriating in light of revelations that Pfizer never tested their experimental mRNA therapeutic to see if it actually prevented transmission.
5x vaxxed CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky infected with COVID.
Walensky one year ago: “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus and don’t get sick”.
