{"id":76892,"date":"2023-01-28T01:15:48","date_gmt":"2023-01-28T09:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=76892"},"modified":"2023-01-30T16:19:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T00:19:32","slug":"black-coffee-28-jan-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id76892-black-coffee-28-jan-2023.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: Welcome to the Fun House"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

I hope everybody had a wonderful week. And with that, let’s get right to this week’s commentary, shall we?<\/p>\n

Numb the dark and you numb the light.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Brene Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Susanna Kaysen<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Ayn Rand<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? American cities are crumbling under the weight of high taxes, a growing homeless population – and the inevitable crime that comes with it. Nowhere is this becoming more evident than downtown Seattle, where both Amazon and Nike have recently abandoned that once-beautiful city<\/a>, as well as a major 16-screen cinema and lots of smaller businesses. In fact, Seattle’s retail vacancy rate is currently 13.5%; that’s up from 2% just four years ago. Imagine that.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Credit:<\/strong><\/span> In other news, it turns out that used car prices, which nearly doubled during the pandemic, actually fell<\/strong><\/em> for most of 2022. Even so, used car prices are still much higher than their pre-pandemic lows. And there are signs prices are set to fall even further as lax pandemic-era auto loan lending standards are coming back to bite lenders<\/a>. That’s<\/strong><\/em> because the percentage of car loans that are at least 60 days delinquent is at its highest point in more than a decade – which may explain why carpools like this<\/strong><\/em> are now growing in popularity … (h\/t: The Honeybee)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n