Latest news with #Anglosphere
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Peter Thiel warns of ‘catastrophe' in US real estate — but sees ‘windfall' for 1 class of boomers.
Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below. As a co-founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook, Peter Thiel is widely recognized for his expertise in the tech world. But lately, the billionaire venture capitalist has been sounding the alarm on an entirely different sector: real estate. During an interview with The Free Press, Thiel drew upon the insights of 19th-century economist Henry George to underscore the gravity of America's real estate crisis. Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has an important message for the next wave of American retirees — here's how he says you can best weather the US retirement crisis Nervous about the stock market in 2025? Find out how you can access this $1B private real estate fund (with as little as $10) 'The basic Georgist obsession was real estate, and it was if you weren't really careful, you would get runaway real estate prices, and the people who owned the real estate would make all the gains in a society,' Thiel said. The core of the issue, Thiel explained, lies in the 'extremely inelastic' nature of real estate, especially in regions with strict zoning laws. 'The dynamic ends up being that you add 10% to the population in a city, and maybe the house prices go up 50%, and maybe people's salaries go up, but they don't go up by 50%,' he said. 'So the GDP grows, but it's a giant windfall to the boomer homeowners and to the landlords, and it's a massive hit to the lower middle class and to young people who can never get on the housing ladder.' Thiel warned that this 'Georgist real estate catastrophe' is playing out across many 'Anglosphere countries,' including the U.S., Britain and Canada. The surge in U.S. home prices has been nothing short of alarming. Over the past five years, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index has climbed by over 50%. More recently, the leading measure of U.S. home prices reported a 3.9% annual return for December 2024. This sharp rise in home prices creates significant challenges for prospective buyers, but renters aren't immune to the impact either. It's all part of the broader cost-of-living crisis gripping many Americans. Thiel broke it down, stating, 'There's a way you could talk about inflation in terms of the prices of eggs or groceries, but that's not that big a cost item, even for lower middle class people. The really big cost item is the rent.' At its core, Thiel argued, the issue boils down to supply and demand. 'If you just add more people to the mix, and you're not allowed to build new houses because of zoning laws, where it's too expensive, where it's too regulated and restricted, then the prices go up a lot,' he said. 'And it's this incredible wealth transfer from the young and the lower middle class to the upper middle class and the landlords and the old.' Thiel isn't the only one raising the alarm. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has highlighted similar concerns. 'The real issue with housing is that we have had, and are on track to continue to have, not enough housing… It's hard to find — to zone lots that are in places where people want to live… Where are we going to get the supply?' Powell said at a press conference in September. The gap in the housing market is significant. A recent report by estimated the U.S. housing shortage to be 3.8 million homes as of 2024. Read more: You're probably already overpaying for this 1 'must-have' expense — and thanks to Trump's tariffs, your monthly bill could soar even higher. Here's how 2 minutes can protect your wallet right now Beyond soaring home prices, elevated mortgage rates are another major obstacle preventing many Americans from 'getting on the housing ladder,' as Thiel described. The good news? The U.S. Federal Reserve has been cutting interest rates, providing opportunities for potential buyers. Freddie Mac recommends shopping around by obtaining quotes from three to five lenders to secure the best mortgage rate possible. New investing platforms are also making it easier than ever to tap into the real estate market. For accredited investors, Homeshares gives access to the $36 trillion U.S. home equity market, which has historically been the exclusive playground of institutional investors. With a minimum investment of $25,000, investors can gain direct exposure to hundreds of owner-occupied homes in top U.S. cities through their U.S. Home Equity Fund — without the headaches of buying, owning or managing property. With risk-adjusted internal returns ranging from 12% to 18%, this approach provides an effective, hands-off way to invest in owner-occupied residential properties across regional markets. If you're not an accredited investor, crowdfunding platforms like Arrived allows you to enter the real estate market for as little as $100. Arrived offers you access to shares of SEC-qualified investments in rental homes and vacation rentals, curated and vetted for their appreciation and income potential. Backed by world-class investors like Jeff Bezos, Arrived makes it easy to fit these properties into your investment portfolio regardless of your income level. Their flexible investment amounts and simplified process allows accredited and non-accredited investors to take advantage of this inflation-hedging asset class without any extra work on your part. Another option is First National Realty Partners (FNRP), which targets necessity-based commercial real estate. With a minimum investment of $50,000, investors can own a share of properties leased by national brands like Whole Foods, Kroger and Walmart, which provide essential goods to their communities. Thanks to Triple Net (NNN) leases, accredited investors are able to invest in these properties without worrying about tenant costs cutting into their potential returns. Simply answer a few questions – including how much you would like to invest – to start browsing their full list of available properties. Access to this $22.5 trillion asset class has traditionally been limited to elite investors — until now. Here's how to become the landlord of Walmart or Whole Foods without lifting a finger Rich, young Americans are ditching the stormy stock market — here are the alternative assets they're banking on instead Are you rich enough to join the top 1%? Here's the net worth you need to rank among America's wealthiest — plus a few strategies to build that first-class portfolio This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Peter Thiel warns of ‘catastrophe' in US real estate — but sees ‘windfall' for 1 class of boomers.
Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below. As a co-founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook, Peter Thiel is widely recognized for his expertise in the tech world. But lately, the billionaire venture capitalist has been sounding the alarm on an entirely different sector: real estate. During an interview with The Free Press, Thiel drew upon the insights of 19th-century economist Henry George to underscore the gravity of America's real estate crisis. Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has an important message for the next wave of American retirees — here's how he says you can best weather the US retirement crisis Nervous about the stock market in 2025? Find out how you can access this $1B private real estate fund (with as little as $10) 'The basic Georgist obsession was real estate, and it was if you weren't really careful, you would get runaway real estate prices, and the people who owned the real estate would make all the gains in a society,' Thiel said. The core of the issue, Thiel explained, lies in the 'extremely inelastic' nature of real estate, especially in regions with strict zoning laws. 'The dynamic ends up being that you add 10% to the population in a city, and maybe the house prices go up 50%, and maybe people's salaries go up, but they don't go up by 50%,' he said. 'So the GDP grows, but it's a giant windfall to the boomer homeowners and to the landlords, and it's a massive hit to the lower middle class and to young people who can never get on the housing ladder.' Thiel warned that this 'Georgist real estate catastrophe' is playing out across many 'Anglosphere countries,' including the U.S., Britain and Canada. The surge in U.S. home prices has been nothing short of alarming. Over the past five years, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index has climbed by over 50%. More recently, the leading measure of U.S. home prices reported a 3.9% annual return for December 2024. This sharp rise in home prices creates significant challenges for prospective buyers, but renters aren't immune to the impact either. It's all part of the broader cost-of-living crisis gripping many Americans. Thiel broke it down, stating, 'There's a way you could talk about inflation in terms of the prices of eggs or groceries, but that's not that big a cost item, even for lower middle class people. The really big cost item is the rent.' At its core, Thiel argued, the issue boils down to supply and demand. 'If you just add more people to the mix, and you're not allowed to build new houses because of zoning laws, where it's too expensive, where it's too regulated and restricted, then the prices go up a lot,' he said. 'And it's this incredible wealth transfer from the young and the lower middle class to the upper middle class and the landlords and the old.' Thiel isn't the only one raising the alarm. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has highlighted similar concerns. 'The real issue with housing is that we have had, and are on track to continue to have, not enough housing… It's hard to find — to zone lots that are in places where people want to live… Where are we going to get the supply?' Powell said at a press conference in September. The gap in the housing market is significant. A recent report by estimated the U.S. housing shortage to be 3.8 million homes as of 2024. Read more: You're probably already overpaying for this 1 'must-have' expense — and thanks to Trump's tariffs, your monthly bill could soar even higher. Here's how 2 minutes can protect your wallet right now Beyond soaring home prices, elevated mortgage rates are another major obstacle preventing many Americans from 'getting on the housing ladder,' as Thiel described. The good news? The U.S. Federal Reserve has been cutting interest rates, providing opportunities for potential buyers. Freddie Mac recommends shopping around by obtaining quotes from three to five lenders to secure the best mortgage rate possible. New investing platforms are also making it easier than ever to tap into the real estate market. For accredited investors, Homeshares gives access to the $36 trillion U.S. home equity market, which has historically been the exclusive playground of institutional investors. With a minimum investment of $25,000, investors can gain direct exposure to hundreds of owner-occupied homes in top U.S. cities through their U.S. Home Equity Fund — without the headaches of buying, owning or managing property. With risk-adjusted internal returns ranging from 12% to 18%, this approach provides an effective, hands-off way to invest in owner-occupied residential properties across regional markets. If you're not an accredited investor, crowdfunding platforms like Arrived allows you to enter the real estate market for as little as $100. Arrived offers you access to shares of SEC-qualified investments in rental homes and vacation rentals, curated and vetted for their appreciation and income potential. Backed by world-class investors like Jeff Bezos, Arrived makes it easy to fit these properties into your investment portfolio regardless of your income level. Their flexible investment amounts and simplified process allows accredited and non-accredited investors to take advantage of this inflation-hedging asset class without any extra work on your part. Another option is First National Realty Partners (FNRP), which targets necessity-based commercial real estate. With a minimum investment of $50,000, investors can own a share of properties leased by national brands like Whole Foods, Kroger and Walmart, which provide essential goods to their communities. Thanks to Triple Net (NNN) leases, accredited investors are able to invest in these properties without worrying about tenant costs cutting into their potential returns. Simply answer a few questions – including how much you would like to invest – to start browsing their full list of available properties. Access to this $22.5 trillion asset class has traditionally been limited to elite investors — until now. Here's how to become the landlord of Walmart or Whole Foods without lifting a finger Rich, young Americans are ditching the stormy stock market — here are the alternative assets they're banking on instead Are you rich enough to join the top 1%? Here's the net worth you need to rank among America's wealthiest — plus a few strategies to build that first-class portfolio This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
ABC News
24-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Labor's thumping win exposes how broken the right is in this country
Australia's political right spent much of the past three years lamenting and fomenting over what it diagnoses as the collapse of Western order. "Wokeism", identity politics, "support for" radical Islam and belief in climate change and renewable energy top a long list of "deluded" obsessions driving the Anglosphere over the edge, assert our contemporary Hanrahans. Newspaper columns and cult-like conferences headlined by people called Jordan and Niall reinforce the idea that deranged "leftists" are sending the world to hell in a handcart. "Disunity is death," declared former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister John Anderson in the Menzies Research Centre's annual "John Howard Lecture" in 2020. "My friends, I think we all share a deep concern that those elites who hold the bulk of the microphones and, it seems the cultural heft in the West today, seem determined to divide us — not unite us — at every turn," he asserted. "We are, it seems, at war with one another: men versus women, race versus race, and generation against generation." Two consecutive federal losses and it's clear Australians aren't buying what Anderson is selling — a dark and bleak interpretation of our circumstances. But he might be right in so far as Labor's thumping win exposes how broken the right is in this country. As much as the issues he identified influenced voters' choices on the May 3 election, the results pretty much speak for themselves. The elites that voters worry most about are on the Coalition's side, it seems. People instead picked a government that said and demonstrated how it was focused on the more prosaic but relevant issues of importance to households. Fire and brimstone over the future of civilisation be damned. The savage ballot box rebuke three weeks ago continues to reverberate. A result so dramatic and painful for one side was always going to send certain players over the edge. The surprise has been how far they were prepared to leap. Over the past few days the Coalition's behaviour has resembled a clown show. Actually, scrap that, let's describe it accurately. Like chimps. In a room. Flinging faeces. At random. While seeking applause. On Tuesday the National Party's night-watchman leader David Littleproud wrote to supporters saying that "after careful consideration" the party room had decided now was not the time to continue the decades-old alliance with the Liberals. Much better to strike out solo. As a minority party. With fewer staff and less financial backing. Less than 48-hours later, presumably after more careful consideration, Littleproud announced the party room had changed its mind. It may not have been such a good idea after all. When voters kicked Labor into the dust at the 2013 election, a deeply divided and internally shattered party quickly regrouped around Bill Shorten. Three years later, despite its own internal divisions, Shorten came tantalisingly close to unseating the Coalition. Anderson's 2020 lament about disunity was aimed at Labor and the Greens. But in 2025, it's the National Party — Anderson's old stomping ground — that is providing Australians with the strongest evidence of decay, dissipation and dubious moral clarity. Sadly for its supporters, the Coalition's melodrama has further to go. Even if Littleproud and Liberal leader Sussan Ley renew the agreement between the two parties, as now seems likely, the policy and personality divisions remain unresolved. Across the four big points of difference with the Liberals — the policy hill that Littleproud appeared so willing to die on — the most significant is on climate. Both parties state they support net zero by 2050. But there is no plan on how to get there, let alone what its position will be on the pending 2035 national emissions target the government will soon take to the UN. Voters rejected Peter Dutton's promise to build seven nuclear power stations. But rather than dumping nuclear energy, the Nationals and Liberal party rooms decided they will continue to advocate for the energy source. Albeit in a much more limited way — by arguing for the repeal of John Howard's 1999 nuclear power moratorium. It is not clear how this revised position will deliver on the broader net zero goal or any interim targets the country signs up to under Labor. Another area of supposed tension — supermarket divestiture powers — the Liberals remain in the ideological box seat with a mutually-agreed policy that will only allow for the break-up of large retailers if there are no job or shareholder losses. Some critics in the Nationals recognise that for what it is; a clause that ensures the divestiture powers are dead-letter law. Then there's the $20 billion regional Australia "Future Fund". Announced during the federal election, the fund will start with $5 billion in "seed capital" before growing over time thanks to "windfall" commodity tax revenues. If you believe this will ever happen, the National Party would like to sell you a bridge. Aside from the policy debates — and it's not obvious that any of the things mentioned above address things voters care about — leadership remains the most egregious issue for both Coalition parties. Littleproud and his leadership team, which includes Bridget McKenzie and Kevin Hogan, have been seriously tarnished inside the party this week. Already there's open discussion about replacing Littleproud, even if there is no obvious contender. Sources tell this column that Littleproud's week of living dangerously has wounded him in other ways. They say he failed to level with his own party room about all the demands he put to Ley. Many Nationals only learnt from leaks to the media via the Liberals that cabinet solidarity was one of the sticking points. And others say they were not told about the "four demands" at the meeting on Tuesday when they agreed to break from the Liberals. Those items only became apparent after the fact. Many are also wondering about Littleproud's performance under pressure — perhaps for the first time — in the full frontal glare of the nation's media this week. 'He's been outwitted and encircled by Ley's office,' said one National Party source. It was only two weeks ago that Littleproud saw off a leadership challenge from Matt Canavan. The subsequent split and reunion with the Liberals appears to have divided many of his own backers. That does not mean he's about to lose his job, say Nationals insiders, especially as the Coalition appears to be back on track. But it does mean the next time leadership comes up, Littleproud may not be able to rely on all the party room members that backed him over Canavan. A recipe for more chaos from the centre right, now well and truly in its dark night of the soul.
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Business Standard
06-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Silver linings emerge in oil, politics, and trade
There's a strange beauty to waking up just before the sun. The world is still draped in yesterday, the sky unsure whether to stay grey or start glowing. It's a moment of in-betweens. The silence after the storm, the stillness before the stir. And yet, just then, a sliver of light appears at the edge of your window — small, steady, and insistent. A reminder that every long night has its crack of dawn. Today's stories feel similar. Let's dive in. Take oil, for instance. After months of volatility, Opec+ is nudging prices lower again with a 400,000 barrels-per-day production increase for June. The push, led by Riyadh, isn't just about economics, it's also about enforcing discipline on overzealous producers like Iraq and Kazakhstan. And for big oil importers like India, this softening is a blessed relief, easing inflation and soothing the current account deficit, notes our first editorial. It's not a full sunrise, but it's enough to warm your hands. Politics, meanwhile, is shifting too, defiantly, highlights our second editorial. Voters in Canada and Australia have shrugged off Trump-style politics in favour of centre-left steadiness. Mark Carney in Canada reversed a polling deficit after anti-Trump sentiment took hold, while in Australia, conservative hardliner Peter Dutton couldn't hold his own seat. Even Nigel Farage, the perennial populist disruptor, is keeping a cautious public distance from his American inspiration. The Anglosphere may still be divided, but its spine appears to be stiffening. Yet amid these hopeful turns, the US itself is weathering an economic and geopolitical tornado. Akash Prakash observes how Trump's second term has brought back tariff-era uncertainties, with markets soaring even as recession risks loom. But perhaps this chaos is also carving out a once-lost path for India, an overdue shot at integrating into global supply chains. Now, maybe, just maybe, dawn is returning. Still, seizing that dawn won't be easy. As Prosenjit Datta points out, India's caught between two giants — America's push for decoupling and China's not-so-subtle threats. The country must chart its own course, building manufacturing muscle and strategic autonomy. It's a tightrope, no doubt, but also a rare alignment of opportunity and urgency. And speaking of memory and new beginnings, Neha Kirpal's review of Farewell Karachi: A Partition Memoir reminds us that silver linings aren't always loud. Bhawana Somaaya's memoir of Partition-era displacement offers something raw and luminous: stories of women silenced, of homes abandoned, and of identities stitched together in the dark. Stay tuned, and remember, no matter the darkness of the night, the sun is always on its way!
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Conservative losses in Australia and Canada have shocking parallels
The last few weeks brought two extraordinary political events in the Anglosphere: federal elections in Canada and Australia in which entrenched liberal incumbents survived against the odds, surging populist right-wing opposition parties fell short and, in a striking symmetry, both opposition leaders lost their own parliamentary seats. At first glance, these results might seem like isolated national stories. But dig deeper and a shared narrative emerges — one that reveals how the 'Trump effect,' once a galvanizing force, is beginning to falter abroad. Nowhere is that clearer than in the way defense policy factored into these elections: visible, yet incoherent on the populist right; present, yet perfunctory from the incumbents. In Australia, Peter Dutton led the center-right Liberal-National Coalition into the federal election with a campaign laser-focused on crime, immigration and cost-of-living pressures. It was the kind of scorched-earth populism that echoed Trump's rhetorical playbook: blunt, combative and heavy on culture war themes. But it didn't land. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Labor government — despite middling economic performance and mounting criticism over energy and housing policy — held on to power. Dutton not only failed to unseat the government but lost his own Brisbane-area seat of Dickson, a working-class suburban district that had been trending away from the right for years. Even on defense, where Dutton might have claimed credibility as a former defense minister, his party failed to articulate a compelling vision that moved beyond vague promises of spending increases and into the realm of strategic foresight, especially in the face of a rising China and a more volatile Indo-Pacific. Meanwhile, in Canada, Pierre Poilievre suffered a nearly identical fate. The Conservative leader had campaigned with populist swagger, stoking public anger over inflation, carbon taxes and government overreach. He weaponized frustration with Justin Trudeau's long tenure, and for a while the polls seemed to tilt his way. But as the campaign wore on, Poilievre's angry edge alienated moderate voters. The Liberals — led by an uncharismatic but disciplined Mark Carney — squeaked out a minority government. Poilievre not only failed to win the country but lost his own seat in Carleton, Ontario. And while defense wasn't the defining issue of the campaign, it mattered. The Liberals made just enough noise about meeting NATO commitments and modernizing NORAD to appear credible, while Poilievre fumbled the file — caught between promising fiscal restraint and the need to re-arm. He said the right things about submarines and the Arctic, but offered no pathway to implementation. Voters noticed. That two opposition leaders could fall in such spectacular fashion in such similar democracies, and at nearly the same moment, is more than coincidence. It's a symptom of a broader pathology — and a warning sign for conservatives everywhere. The short version is this: The Trump effect is running out of gas abroad, even as it regains traction at home. Neither Dutton nor Poilievre is a carbon copy of Trump. But both tried to ride the same wave that swept the American right to power in 2016 and 2024. Each ran campaigns premised on rage: at elites, at rising prices, at immigration and identity politics. They courted conspiracy-adjacent voters while offering little in the way of serious economic or national security policy. They performed well on social media, but confused virality with victory. The real problem wasn't style, though that surely hurt them. It was strategic substance — or the lack of it. In Australia, Dutton never developed a coherent vision for national security, climate or energy. His party leaned on platitudes about military modernization and AUKUS without grappling with what that would mean in budgetary or strategic terms. In Canada, Poilievre railed against carbon taxes and central bankers but had no credible defense platform to anchor his talk of sovereignty. His promises to rebuild the armed forces and invest in Arctic defense lacked follow-through. He had no clear answer to the question of how Canada would meet its NATO and NORAD obligations under his leadership — or how to square that with his anti-government crusade. In both countries, the populist right mistook indignation for strategy and paid the price. At the same time, these defeats were not a rebuke of conservatism. In Canada, the Liberals were returned with fewer seats and a much weaker mandate and will need support from a decimated New Democratic Party. Carney's victory was narrow, conditional and likely unstable. In Australia, Labor's majority shrank, and Albanese is now vulnerable to pressures from the Greens and independents. The populist opposition didn't win, but the centrist establishment is hardly secure. What we're witnessing isn't a leftward lurch — it's a crisis of political coherence. In both Canada and Australia, center-right parties tried to borrow Trumpist aesthetics without understanding its American context. Trump's brand of grievance politics works (when it does) because it's rooted in a specific set of American cultural fault lines that don't transplant easily. In Australia and Canada, the political right imported the style but forgot the soil. The result was electoral collapse. So what lessons should conservatives draw from all this? First, populism without discipline is a dead end. Outrage can fuel a movement, but it doesn't govern — and in multiparty democracies like Canada and Australia, it doesn't even win elections. Second, opposition parties need serious, hardheaded policy platforms. Voters want answers, not just attitude. That means clear, actionable defense policies — not just gestures. Third, the politics of the Anglosphere are converging in strange and sometimes contradictory ways. Trump's influence is felt everywhere — but it mutates in transit. What works in Mar-a-Lago often fails in Mississauga or Melbourne. The defeats of Poilievre and Dutton are strategic lessons about the limits of mimicry and the dangers of mistaking performative populism for power. They show us that political realignments are messy, nonlinear affairs — and that the American right's path is not necessarily a roadmap for its cousins abroad. But they also show us that all is not well with the liberal order. Both Australia and Canada emerged from their elections more fractured than before, with weaker governments and stronger undercurrents of discontent. The populist right may have lost the battles, but the war is far from over. The Trump factor still haunts the politics of the English-speaking world. But what we're seeing now is not a triumph — it's a test. A test of whether conservatism can evolve beyond Trumpism without collapsing into irrelevance; whether liberal democracies can offer more than just managerial continuity in a world demanding strategic courage; and whether voters, fatigued by theatrics and fear, are ready to reward seriousness again. The jury is still out. But if Poilievre and Dutton are any indication, the path forward will require more than slogans but what neither man could offer: substance, humility and a willingness to articulate defense and foreign policy in terms voters can respect. That might not go viral — but it might just win. Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, and a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
