Crypto News: America's housing market has flipped but not flopped

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Existing homes for sale are hard to find.
Worry about China, not US farmland.
The 15-minute city conspiracy theory is ridiculous.
The war in Ukraine sped up Europe's green transition.

Imagine you're a producer for HGTV. You make shows about people who want to renovate, buy and sell homes. But in 2020, the pandemic hit, and — at first — it stopped all the renovating, buying and selling. So you halted production. Postponed air dates. Told hosts to use iPhones to film their testimonials. Things were bad! But they were also good for reality TV. People around the world were stuck indoors. Some were in their apartments, wishing to escape the city. Others were in their homes, wanting to take a torch to their 20-year-old wallpaper. These people wanted a change. And they started turning to HGTV for inspiration.

The flip-or-flop fanatics stormed Home Depot, their pockets deep with Covid money. They bought the cabinets. The paint. The privacy fences. The supply chain couldn't keep up with the demand. Lumber costs soared. Contractors and builders were swimming with business, but there weren't enough workers or supplies. Still, mortgage rates were low and people were willing to pay a premium for whatever homes they could find — even the ugly, moldy ones that needed gut renovations.

But as Covid faded, things got ugly-ugly. Inflation stuck around. Mortgages went from ultra-cheap to sky-high, and applications slumped to a 28-year low. Existing homeowners clutched onto their cheap mortgages, making the inventory of existing homes scarce. As the world opened back up, people were spending more on experiences (restaurants! vacation!) and less on lawn mowers and leather couches. For someone who produces shows about home renovations, this shift probably worries you. And it should! But there's always a twist: Less inventory is good news for people who want new homes, Conor Sen writes. The supply chain issues have been fixed and builders are eager to give prospective homeowners incentives to buy. Toll Brothers, a luxury homebuilder, said its new orders in January were the highest for the month in any year from 2006 to 2020. "For buyers brave enough to proceed despite 2023's high rates, new construction is becoming the only game in town," Conor writes. America's supply of bargain mansions and cheap old houses may have run dry, but there's still a thirst for housing — even if it's not in need of fixing.

It's no secret that China is constantly building its global influence. There are spies all around us — not just in the sky. And TikTok and Huawei are just the start. "No major Chinese company is truly independent of the state," Alex Joske, an Australian risk analyst, told Tobin Harshaw recently. Just this week, Ernst & Young's Beijing-based staffers were asked (I imagine not kindly!) to wear their Communist party badges to work in order to "illustrate their loyalty."

Suspicions about China are justified, but there might be some instances where the US is getting ahead of itself. Officials are contemplating blocking foreigners from buying plots of farmland, just in case China has grand plans of curbing America's food supply. But ears of corn aren't espionage. And China doesn't own nearly enough land to cause a food crisis:

"Government officials should resist needlessly exacerbating public anxieties and paranoia. The US has enough real threats to worry about without concocting new ones," Bloomberg's editorial board writes. Read the whole thing.

Bonus China Reading:

Xi Jinping might think Joe Biden's leadership is inferior, but America's not the only one with a debt ceiling problem. — Shuli Ren
China is offering Russia a bogus path to peace in Ukraine. — Hal Brands

Conspiracy theorists love cooking up rumors about weirdly specific things. Take 15-minute cities, for example. Lara Williams says the urban-planning principle — a rather innocent attempt at creating greener neighborhoods — is under fire for being "deeply illiberal" and "socialist." But while people are busy pillorying bus routes and bike lanes, a much larger green transformation is taking place right under their noses. Clara Ferreira Marques and David Fickling write that Putin's invasion of Ukraine has dramatically redrawn the world's energy map, as this graphic by Elaine He shows:

History is repeating itself. In the 1970s, a great oil shock led to a reconfiguration of the energy landscape. Europe and the US used nuclear power and coal to buttress power networks and increase energy efficiency:

This time around, we're seeing a similar substitution take place, with Europe ditching Russian oil for renewables:

Wind and solar had a record 2022, accounting for a fifth of electricity generation in the EU. "Renewable output will grow at 9% a year to reach more than a third of the generation mix," Clara and David write. That's a level of momentum that no conspiracy theory can stop. Read the whole thing.

The Department of Energy's Covid lab leak report comes with an asterisk. — Faye Flam

I talked to Norfolk Southern's CEO about the Ohio train derailment. Here's what he said. — Brooke Sutherland

Pfizer is smart to try and swoop up cancer-drug maker Seagen. — Lisa Jarvis

Is Warren Buffett running out of things to say? The length of his shareholder letter seems to say yes. — Justin Fox

The bird flu has an obvious solution. If only the US would use it. — Adam Minter

Gautam Adani isn't the only Indian tycoon with a massive debt pile. Just look at Anil Agarwal's Vedanta. — Andy Mukherjee

High-earning UK taxpayers are leaving a lot of money on the table. — Stuart Trow

Britain has high-tech ambitions. But plans to execute those ambitions leave a lot to be desired. — Martin Ivens

Elon Musk is back on top.

San Francisco debates $5 million reparations.

Hurricanes are heading north.

Snapchat's AI bot has hallucinations.

DeSantis controls Disney's corporate kingdom.

I think I'm in love with you…*thumbs up*

The ooey, gooey history of slime.

Airport meals are getting grim.

Black-coffee drinkers are a shrinking minority.

Scientists attempt to solve the Chaco Canyon mystery. (h/t Scott Duke Kominers)

Notes: Please send slime and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net.

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