First....back in the summer of 2023....fresh out of the Covid-era....two high-class hotels in San Francisco....Parc 55 San Francisco (a Hilton property with 1,024 rooms) and the Hilton San Francisco Union Square (with 1,921 rooms), owned by Park Hotels & Resorts, defaulted on a $725 million non-recourse loan.
The holder basically handed the keys to the bank and said that reduced tourism and remote work trends killed off their business plan.
Earlier this month....the two hotels were sold at a steep discount. A partnership between Newbond Holdings and Conversant Capital acquired both properties for a combined $408 million. If you were wondering....it's a bout 25-percent of the 2016 appraised value.
General plan? The owners say the two need renovation, and around $200-M will be poured in over the next year. They left open the reopening plan....I would assume....spring 2027.
The game-plan dependent on tourism returning to SF? Yeah....otherwise, this effort will collapse by the end of the first year of operation.
Second story....not front-page news.....vehicle repossessions (for 2025) are at the highest level since 2009.
In case you were wondering....since 1945....2009 is the 'record-year'....with 2.1 million cars taken in that year.
Also, if you were wondering....lenders usually only recover about 30-percent of the loan value....after they pay the tow-guy, storage fees, and sell off the vehicle. So....somewhere in the numbers game....lenders have to make up for losses.
Third story.....oddly....AI-related investment now accounts for half of GDP growth in the US. Some folks....talk of a speculative bubble and overvaluation. Payback/savings? Well....you need to un-employ people (like the PhD crowd)....to get some real savings.
Reality? If the AI-boom for 2025 investments had not occurred....we probably would be in a recession period right now.
Fourth story....in case you were wondering...since 1945, there have been 12 official recessions. The last? Spring 2020....primarily due to Covid.
Since finishing high school....I've been through six.
The longest since 1945? Nov 1973 to Mar 1975 (over a year). Most last 3 to 6 months.
Also, in case you were wondering....the triggers usually lead back to the Fed tightening their money-policy, energy chaos/problems, heavy speculation on Wall Street, and bank failures (loaning out funds that end up in failed results).
I'm of the mind that folks over age 60....have probably seen these come and go, and are LESS stressed-out than those in the 18-to-30 age group. But adding to reality....if you asked a thousand college-kids (age21) to explain a recession....less than 1-percent could give a simple explanation.
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Acceptance of the Biden era moving the goal posts?
From Newsweek..
When the government released data in May 2022 showing six months of shrinking GDP, NBC's "Meet the Press" had Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the show. There, Yellen infamously stated, "This is not an economy that's in recession, but we're in a period of transition in which growth is slowing."
I got into economics/finance late in life (age 57)...spending 30-odd years in the mil-intelligence arena. My perception....from mid-2021 on....elements of the Biden crew used USAID to inflate GDP in a thousand ways to fake the public that we emerged out of the Covid era....when numbers were flat.
Its like you bring in several million migrants....paying hotels to house them....when normal travel/guests were marginalized. Colleges got fake students....inflating their income. On paper....GDP looked decent, but it was faked-up USAID projects.
So, I'll just say it....Covid-era recession never really ended....Trump is standing there with a limping 'horse' (limping since summer of 2021)....AI is in the shadows, and will replace probably one-third of all office jobs by 2030, and we have ten-odd million folks with unsellable skill-sets. 2026 is a motivational thrilling year....with recovery by the fall. This ought to be story number one....but that UAP/alien stuff probably out-ranks the approaching recession.
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