Lead Story – Down Goes Greece? Talks between Greece and it’s creditors ended at an impasse this past weekend sending financial markets into a tailspin. Greece has now shut down it’s banking system, established capital controls, and will have a referendum election on the terms offered by the ECB later this week. Based on past history, what happens there is anyone’s guess. For anyone who hasn’t been following this Greek Tragedy the last few years, there are 3 things you should know before you flip out: 1) Saying that Greece is in default is like saying water is wet (Greece has almost always been in default throughout it’s history), 2) Greece’s entire economy is basically the size of that of Atlanta, 3) Greece only got admitted to the Eurozone by obscuring the scope of their debt problem through a derivatives transaction with Goldman Sachs (they never should have qualified in the first place, 4) Both the Eurozone and Greece are probably better off separating.
Economy – International Edition
Not Just Greece – Closer to home, Puerto Rico is basically screwed. The US territory has little economy to speak of meaning that people are leaving in droves, lowering the tax base and exacerbating their debt problem further. Just for the record, it’s never encouraging when your governor says that your debts are “not payable.” Greece (and for that matter Puerto Rico) just might push an already tepid Fed to delay raising rates further.
Commercial
Rise of the Machines: The warehouses of the future look like something out of a science fiction movie.
Not Getting the Memo: Apparently, the apartment market hasn’t gotten the memo that it’s supposed to be slowing down (at least not yet). The latest Yardi Matrix monthly report showed that rents are still going HAM and rental demand is still rising.
Residential
High as a Kite: Despite the general strife in the rest of the world, the housing market continues to slowly improve. Pending home sales in the US have just hit their highest level in 9 years. However, price increases are beginning to slow down.
Drought
Dear Dickhead….. LADWP just sent some scolding letters to the top 1% of residential water users in their service area.
Profiles
The New Pete Rose? Phil Mickelson got busted transferring nearly $3MM to an illegal gambling and money laundering operation. Tiger Woods noted that he might have cheated on his wife, ruined his marriage, destroyed his golf game and made a good run at Wilt Chamberlain’s record of 20,000 women but at least he didn’t do THAT.
Quote of the Day: “I fear no man, no beast or evil, brother” – Hulk Hogan That might all be true, but he is quite afraid of people seeing his sex tape and is in a potentially huge lawsuit with Gawker Media over the release of it in 2012.
Charts of the Day
Greece has a wee bit of an unemployment problem (and a banking crisis) on their hands.
WTF
Shawshanked: Richard Matt (shot and killed) and David Sweat (shot and injured) aren’t on the run anymore. Take a guess which state has the most prison escapees at large (it isn’t even close).
Another AirBnB Nightmare: This time renters using the service turned an Australian house into a brothel.
Darwin Award Candidates: Idiots are now taking selfies with great white sharks of Huntington Beach.
Billboard FAIL: If you operate a billboard, it’s generally a bad idea to watch a porno on the computer that you use to control it.
Tip of the Day: If you have an iPhone, ask Siri what zero divided by zero is. Trust me. It’s awesome.
Landmark Links – A candid look at the economy, real estate, and other things sometimes related.
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