CMR is the leading provider of funding and management support for small to medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Los Angeles residents have had enough of living in a crumbling, graffiti-covered wasteland where basic services have collapsed under years of Democrat mismanagement.

In a display of pure ingenuity, citizens are fighting back by tagging over blighted areas with "Vote Pratt," betting that Mayor Karen Bass will rush to erase any sign of support for her political rival far faster than she addresses the endless decay.

This clever workaround shines a harsh light on the priorities in a city drowning in filth, where open drug markets and rat-infested encampments flourish while taxpayers foot the bill for billions in ineffective "solutions."

Not AI. pic.twitter.com/jUJhkGnjo7

- Thomas Hawk (@thomashawk) May 24, 2026

pic.twitter.com/mLQhnVnWQS

- Make L.A. Great Again ?? (@lalovestrump) May 23, 2026

The idea took off after one resident pointed out the obvious: if neighborhoods are blanketed in graffiti that the city ignores, simply spray "Vote Pratt" over it and watch the cleanup crews mobilize within minutes.

One post noted, "This could possibly do the trick," while others highlighted how quickly political messaging gets scrubbed compared to everyday blight.

I just took this photo today at Runyon Canyon ? "Spencer Pratt for Mayor" had been covered up a few time but someone just writes it again. pic.twitter.com/jjZyFe0y8n

- Freddie Corso ? (@freddiecorso) May 24, 2026

Videos and images circulating on X show the extent of the problem and the creative response, with AI-generated visuals encouraging more residents to test the theory.

pic.twitter.com/uPZDmJ1Gp9

- D Scott Dorgan (@DScottDorgan) May 23, 2026

The same tactic could target potholes, now mockingly dubbed "Bass-holes" due to the mayor's reluctance to release funds for basic road repairs.

pic.twitter.com/pV9OAhoUJJ

- HowlingPeterman (parody) (@JacoboPeterman) May 23, 2026

? Great idea! pic.twitter.com/kYYy3IXVlZ

- Oddland66 ?? (@Oddland66) May 23, 2026

The citizen hack represents more than a workaround - it exposes the deep dysfunction where political optics trump governance. In a city blessed with resources and climate, decades of open-border-friendly policies, soft-on-crime approaches, and unchecked spending have produced predictable decay.

This grassroots push to elect Pratt comes as no surprise to anyone following LA's descent. Just days ago, reports painted a grim picture of massive homeless encampments overrun by rats, open-air drug markets operating brazenly near police stations, and public spaces rendered unusable by tents, trash, and crime.

Helicopter footage has captured post offices swallowed by encampments, blocking mail access and parking. Residents describe navigating urine-soaked doorways blocked by belongings just to enter their own apartments, with police unwilling or unable to intervene under current policies.

Despite California dumping an estimated $24 billion into homelessness programs between 2018 and 2023 - with LA spending hundreds of millions annually - the results are nonexistent. The county reports around 72,000 homeless individuals, many unsheltered, with over half originating from out of state, according to critics of the system.

One man who moved to California openly admitted the appeal: easy access to food stamps, cash assistance, and a lifestyle where "they pay you to be homeless." These incentives have created what detractors call a Homeless Industrial Complex - a self-perpetuating system of nonprofits and bureaucrats motivated to manage the crisis rather than solve it.

EXPOSED ? California Democrats are paying people to be homeless

Homeless man moved across country to California to be homeless

"How long you been in San Francisco?"

Homeless man "Since June. If you're gonna be homeless, it's pretty f*cking easy here. I mean, if we're gonna be... pic.twitter.com/X7j9ut09pm

- Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) May 20, 2026

Mayor Karen Bass has come under fire for broken promises to end street homelessness. When confronted on CNN about missed targets, she cited unanticipated "bureaucratic barriers." In another exchange, she advised residents not to trust their own eyes but official statistics instead, despite visible evidence to the contrary.

? LMAO! CNN brutally rips Karen Bass for the homeless crisis in Los Angeles.

CNN: "Your goal was to end street homelessness in LA by 2026. It's now 2026. We haven't ended it, and we're not close. How are you so off?"

BASS: "When I said that...I didn't realize the bureaucratic... pic.twitter.com/DD3fJcKQu6

- The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) May 20, 2026

Enter Spencer Pratt, the mayoral candidate whose name is now central to this cleanup hack. Pratt has called for a no-nonsense approach: a short grace period after taking office followed by mass enforcement against crime, open drug use, and disorder. He has emphasized clearing streets and involving homeless individuals directly in cleanup efforts rather than feeding another layer of bureaucracy.

? JUST IN: LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt announces Los Angeles criminals and homeless degenerates will have 2-3 WEEKS after he gets into office before MASS ARRESTS ensue

"First 3 weeks: signups, no nakedness, no drug use, no robbing, no dog abuse."

Love this guy MORE AND... pic.twitter.com/exoqW3j28e

- Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 10, 2026

Real change requires rejecting the failed ideologies that enabled this mess: endless tolerance for lawlessness, incentives that import problems, and a bureaucracy that thrives on failure.

Authored by Evgenia Filimianova via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The head of the UAE's state oil company said on May 20 that a major new oil pipeline designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz is nearly 50 percent complete, as regional tensions and competing maritime controls reshape global energy routes.

Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said during an interview at the Atlantic Council that the project is being accelerated toward a planned 2027 completion date.

"Right now, too much of the world's energy still moves through too few choke points," Al Jaber said. "That is exactly why the UAE made the decision more than a decade ago to invest in infrastructure that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz."

Al Jaber said the UAE's second west-east pipeline is already "almost 50 percent complete."

The project comes as the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted following months of conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States.

The UAE said last week that it would accelerate construction of the pipeline to expand export capacity through Fujairah, a port city on the Gulf of Oman outside the Strait of Hormuz.

The country's existing Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, also known as the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, already allows the UAE to bypass Hormuz for a portion of its exports.

The new project is expected to significantly expand that capacity.

Al Jaber warned that global energy systems remain vulnerable because too much oil and gas infrastructure depends on narrow maritime chokepoints.

"Energy security is no longer just about your ability to continue to produce," he said. "It is about routes, access, storage, and redundancy."

He said global spare oil production capacity remains dangerously low while energy storage levels continue falling.

"In just two months, the world drew down around 250 million barrels from storage," Al Jaber said. "We have 30 to 35 days of effective cover. We need to at least double that."

The comments followed warnings from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that oil markets could enter a "red zone" this summer if disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz continue.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said on May 21 that more than 14 million barrels of oil per day had been removed from global markets because of infrastructure damage and restrictions linked to the conflict.

UAE Moves Beyond OPEC

The pipeline expansion also comes weeks after the UAE formally exited OPEC and the broader OPEC+ alliance.

The UAE announced on April 28 that it would leave the organization effective May 1, describing the move as a "sovereign responsibility in a new energy age."

Al Jaber said the decision would give the UAE greater flexibility to expand production and invest globally.

"Ultimately, real strength is not measured by the abundance of resources, but by how they are harnessed to serve the nation," he said.

The UAE said ongoing instability in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz influenced the decision.

"Outside OPEC, the UAE will remain what it has always been, a disciplined, responsible, credible, reliable, and a stabilizing force in the global energy markets," said Al Jaber.

He also described relations between the UAE and the United States as increasingly integrated across energy, infrastructure, defense, and technology sectors.

Iran Expands Strait Oversight

The pipeline expansion coincides with Iran's efforts to formalize oversight of maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran announced in May the creation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, or PGSA, a new body tasked with supervising transit through the waterway and coordinating shipping permissions inside Iranian-designated control zones.

The PGSA said on May 20 that Iran had defined a maritime supervision area stretching from Kuh Mobarak in southeastern Iran to the southern coast of Fujairah in the UAE on the eastern side of the strait, and from Qeshm Island to Umm al-Quwain in the UAE on the western side.

The authority also said vessels operating within that area must coordinate transit frequencies and obtain permits from Iranian authorities before crossing the waterway.

Iranian Ambassador to France Mohammad Amin Nejad told Bloomberg on May 21 that Tehran and Oman are discussing a permanent tolling system for the strait.

Zones Of Control

The Iranian supervision zone appears to overlap at least partially with areas where U.S. naval forces are operating under Washington's blockade targeting Iranian ports.

U.S. Central Command said in an April 12 statement that American forces would blockade vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports beginning April 13.

It said the blockade applies to ships traveling to or from Iranian ports in both the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, while stating that U.S. forces would "not impede freedom of navigation" for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to non-Iranian destinations.

Iran's newly declared PGSA supervision zone covers much of the same shipping corridor through which U.S. naval forces monitor and intercept commercial traffic linked to Iranian ports.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on May 21 that an Iranian tolling system would be unacceptable and warned it could derail negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

"It would make a diplomatic deal unfeasible," Rubio told reporters before departing for NATO meetings in Sweden.

Rubio described the proposed toll system as a "threat to the world" and "completely illegal."

Rubio said after meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Helsingborg, Sweden, on May 22 that Western allies hope to reach an agreement with Iran that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

He warned, however, that governments also need contingency plans if Iran refuses to restore maritime access.

Rubio said that if Iran continues restricting passage or threatens vessels that refuse to comply with Iranian demands, "something has to be done about it."

Several countries represented at the NATO meeting, he said, would be even more affected by prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz than the United States because of their dependence on Middle Eastern energy supplies.

Rubio added that NATO members must begin preparing for scenarios in which "Iran decides, 'We don't care, we're going to keep the Straits closed.'"

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The number of residential zombie foreclosures in the second quarter of 2026 marginally increased from the previous quarter, with such foreclosures rising in the District of Columbia and 38 out of the 50 U.S. states, real estate analytics company ATTOM said in a May 21 statement.

"Out of the country's 104.9 million residential properties, 245,376 were in the foreclosure process in the second quarter. Of those, 8,312 properties, or 3.4 percent, were 'zombies,' meaning the owners had abandoned the properties before the end of their foreclosure proceedings," ATTOM said. "The second quarter zombie rate was slightly higher than the 3.3 percent rate posted in the first quarter."

Among states with at least 100 zombie residences, Georgia recorded the largest quarter-over-quarter increase, with the number of such properties rising by 98 percent. Zombie foreclosures rose by 67.2 percent in North Carolina, 42 percent in Indiana, 35.5 percent in Iowa, and 15.4 percent in South Carolina.

In states with at least 50 zombie homes, only two saw a dip in such properties in the second quarter - Washington and New York, which declined by 13.1 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

A zombie foreclosure typically happens when a homeowner receives a pending foreclosure notice and decides to leave the home before the legally required exit date, leaving the home vacant.

As long as the foreclosure is not completed, the owner continues to be the title holder of the property. The owner can usually pay a lump sum to the lender and pull the property out of foreclosure.

However, if the lump sum is not paid, the property will end up with the lender. Following this stage, the homeowner has to leave the place when the lender requires them to.

ATTOM's analysis of 138 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 100,000 residential properties and at least 100 properties in the foreclosure process showed that Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had the highest share of properties in zombie status at 13.2 percent.

This was followed by Wichita, Kansas, at 12.9 percent; Youngstown, Ohio, with 11.4 percent; and Cleveland and Akron, both in Ohio, at more than 10 percent each.

ATTOM's data also showed that almost 1.4 million homes in the United States were vacant in the second quarter, which represents 1.3 percent of America's residential properties.

"The increase in zombie foreclosures across most states may reflect a foreclosure market that is slowly returning to more normalized levels," Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM, said.

"At the same time, overall vacancy rates remain relatively steady nationwide, while zombie foreclosures still represent only a small share of homes in the foreclosure process."

According to a Jan. 18 post by Rocket Mortgage, the owner of a zombie property under foreclosure will still be responsible for bills.

For instance, the owners must pay property taxes, failing which they could face a tax lien. Homeowners' association fees must be paid; failing which, the association could file a lawsuit. Similarly, bills for trash removal, maintenance, and other services should be paid as well.

The owner's credit score could get negatively hit, potentially impacting their ability to secure loans in the future.

"The best way to steer clear of a zombie foreclosure is to stay current on mortgage payments. During the mandated waiting period after you receive a foreclosure notice, you can put a halt to foreclosure by paying a large lump sum," the post said.

"Also, a deed-in-lieu agreement can sometimes prevent foreclosure even after the process has started. This is when you turn ownership of your home over to the lender to avoid foreclosure."

Meanwhile, mortgage delinquency is rising in several states, according to a May 21 statement by financial services company WalletHub.

The findings are based on mortgage data from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026. During this period, the average number of delinquent mortgages rose by 12.32 percent in Vermont. This was followed by Delaware, with a 6.92 percent jump, and Louisiana, with a 4.4 percent rise.

"If you are delinquent on mortgage debt, you typically have until the debt is 30 days past-due, meaning you have missed two payments, in order to get current. After that, the lender will report the delinquency to the credit bureaus, which will damage your credit score," Chip Lupo, analyst at WalletHub, said.

"Therefore, it's important to try to get current on your debt as quickly as possible. If you are experiencing financial difficulty that prevents you from paying, ask your lender if they will allow temporary forbearance until you get back on your feet, which may prevent you from being reported as delinquent."

Authored by Steven Edginton via RealClearInvestigations,

Mary, a veteran Silicon Valley marketer who can't find a job, considers herself a victim of an H-1B visa program run amok.

Her story, a U.S. native replaced by a foreign-born employee who is willing to work at a significantly lower wage, has become commonplace, particularly in the tech industry. Adding insult to injury, she says, her CEO, who hails from India, told her to train the man he selected to replace her before laying her off.

Despite stints at Google and Cisco and two years of job hunting, Mary can no longer compete in a job market saturated with foreign-born H-1B visa holders. "I had experience. I should have walked right into these corporate jobs, but I didn't. Why? Because Silicon Valley is flooded with people who work for two-thirds of the price, or even half price," said Mary, who asked to be identified only by her first name.

U.S. tech workers like Mary are at the center of a battle brewing in Washington, D.C., over reforming the troubled H-1B visa program, which is designed to fill highly skilled positions when qualified American workers can't be found. The controversy pits tough-on-immigration Republicans and some Democrats against the most formidable of opponents - Big Tech, the primary beneficiary of a program considered by critics to be little more than a pipeline of cheap labor.

In the last few decades, the California dream has gone global as U.S. tech firms have filled their ranks and C-suites with employees born abroad. Intel is no longer the company of its founders, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, but of Malaysian-born Lip-Bu Tan, its CEO since March 2025. Microsoft is led by Satya Nadella; Alphabet Inc. by Sundar Pichai; Adobe by Shantanu Narayen; IBM by Arvind Krishna; YouTube by Neal Mohan; and T-Mobile US by Srinivas Gopalan - all of whom were born in India.

All told, a remarkable two-thirds of the Valley's nearly 400,000 tech jobs are now held by those born abroad, according to a 2025 report from the think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley. Today, more tech workers were born in India (23%) and China (18%) combined than in the U.S. (34%).

Low-Cost Talent

The influx of low-cost Asian talent has clearly helped fuel profits in one of America's most influential sectors. But there is a downside to this tech boom - the sidelining of U.S. workers thanks to the H-1B visa program that's no longer working as intended. Created in 1990, the federal program has morphed into a vehicle for employers, particularly in the nation's tech centers, to recruit much cheaper foreign labor at the expense of U.S. tech workers, according to Harvard economist George J. Borjas.

While the H-1B program spans multiple industries, it's overwhelmingly concentrated in tech. Last year, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Tata Consultancy, and Google were the biggest visa users, with Amazon alone recording more than 13,000 applications. These companies find the savings from hiring foreign workers hard to resist. The job of software developer, for instance, accounts for 38% of all H-1B visa workers, according to a 2026 paper by Borjas. And these foreign software developers earn about 30% less than their U.S. counterparts, the economist estimates.

Since many of these tech jobs pay six figures, the savings quickly add up. Borjas estimates that companies, on average, save nearly $100,000 per worker over six years by hiring an H-1B worker rather than an American. The arrangement "redistributes wealth from those who compete with immigrants to those who use immigrants," Borjas wrote in 2016. That, in turn, helps account for the soaring stock prices of Big Tech since the 2008 financial crash.

False Rationale

The vaguely written H-1B law has been easy for companies to exploit. Hassan Abdullah, an immigration attorney and H-1B advocate, said the supposed congressional basis of the law - to fill highly skilled jobs with foreigners if Americans aren't available - has always been a fiction. "The regulations don't necessarily say that," said Abdullah, who helps companies get the visas. "Throughout all my years, I've never had to even consider that as a factor."

One of the most glaring weaknesses of the law, critics say, is that most companies applying for these visas are not required to demonstrate that they were unable to find qualified American workers. Only companies with more than 15% of their workforce on H-1Bs must make small efforts to recruit U.S. citizens, such as publicly announcing open positions.

Companies are required to pay foreign workers at least the "prevailing wage" for the occupation and region, a provision that should theoretically reduce the incentive to hire employees from Asia. But the process relies on self-reporting and has been easy to manipulate because salaries are calculated using broad regional averages that often fail to reflect real market wages in the technology sector.

As a result, the number of H-1B visa workers has skyrocketed. When an annual cap of 85,000 new visas is combined with renewals, 2025 was a banner year with 406,348 approved visas, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Seventy percent of those visas were issued to Indians. That compares with a total of 275,317 visa approvals in 2015.

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, who's part of the MAGA wing of the GOP, reacted to these numbers on X, calling the program "a national security nightmare. Enough. No more flooding the market with 400k+ H-1B visas while our people and our sovereignty gets screwed."

With criticism of the visas dovetailing with broader anti-immigration sentiments, the Trump administration has made the most serious move yet to restrict the program. Six months ago, the USCIS announced a new $100,000 fee that companies must pay per new H-1B worker living outside the U.S. While official figures have not yet been released, some immigration experts estimate that the fee may lead to a 30% to 50% decline in new visa applications.

"This is the first year we have not filed any H-1B visas for people outside the U.S. because tech companies don't want to pay the $100,000 fee," said immigration attorney Navdeep Meamber, who is based in Silicon Valley.

But companies have found a workaround. Meamber said she has seen an uptick in the number of clients filing for the visas for workers already in the U.S., particularly those such as students who transferred from other visa types to H-1Bs.

"The $100,000 fee is not reducing the numbers because foreign students, especially those who get on the Optional Practical Training program, can move into the H-1B pipeline without paying that fee," said attorney Rosemary Jenks, a campaigner for immigration reform with the Immigration Accountability Project. "So there are still plenty of H-1B visas being issued every year."

American Ingenuity

Silicon Valley wasn't always dominated by foreigners. Some claim the true birthplace of Silicon Valley can be found in a garage at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto. It was there that David Packard, a native of Colorado, and Bill Hewlett of Michigan founded Hewlett-Packard in 1939. Robert Noyce, a native son of Iowa and co-inventor of the integrated circuit, critically made from silicon, gave name to the valley after the substance. With his colleague, Gordon Moore of San Francisco, they founded Intel in 1968.

Throughout the post-war years, America's booming tech industry was largely pioneered by natives. By the 1980s, however, concerns were raised about the dwindling number of young people available to fill STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) jobs in the future. Erich Bloch, director of the National Science Foundation, told the American Council on Education in 1985: "The pool of potential students from U.S. schools will become smaller. Demographic projections, of which you are all aware, show the number of 18-to-24-year-olds declining by about 20% over the next decade."

The 1990 Immigration Act, signed by George H. W. Bush, created the H-1B visa, a temporary work visa lasting a few years aimed at filling the labor shortages Bloch had warned about. Since then, as in many industries, tech firms have sometimes struggled to find employees, particularly specialized engineers, during times of rapid growth. But whether the industry faces a persistent shortage of American workers is a matter of debate among economists and labor analysts.

Major technology companies reject the criticism that the H-1B system is primarily a source of cheap labor. Executives stress that the program allows American firms to recruit engineers and researchers with advanced technical expertise in areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductor design, and complex software development, where qualified talent can be scarce. They also contend that many H-1B workers are paid high salaries and that access to global talent helps keep American companies competitive against rivals in China and elsewhere.

Critics of the visas point to waves of layoffs, today driven by AI, accompanied by the growth in H-1Bs, as evidence that a labor shortage is nothing more than a fig leaf. Michael Capuano of the Federation for American Immigration Reform wrote in a blog post last year that "Google laid off 951 U.S. employees in 2024, but found room for 1,058 new H-1B workers. Apple laid off 735 people in 2024, but signed on 864 new H-1B employees. Microsoft laid off 3,426 workers from 2022 to 2024 and hired 3,259 new H-1Bs during that same period."

A 2023 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute similarly found that the top 30 H-1B employers hired more than 34,000 new H-1B workers in 2022 while laying off at least 85,000 employees during the same period.

In addition to cheaper talent, critics say H-1B visas also provide a captive workforce. Because employers can sponsor visa holders for permanent residency, many workers become heavily reliant on keeping their jobs in order to remain in the United States. Critics argue this dynamic discourages employees from changing companies or demanding higher wages, with some likening the system to a form of indentured servitude.

Tribalism At Play?

Critics say favoritism has also contributed to foreign dominance of the tech sector. After foreign-born employees take on leadership roles, including CEO, they sometimes attract and hire more foreigners by tapping their own professional and social networks.

Kevin Lynn, executive director of the Institute for Sound Public Policy, argues that "professionalism doesn't exist in these IT departments anymore," adding that "when you look at the hiring, it becomes very tribal; It's really India versus the rest of the world."

Microsoft saw the number of decisions on H-1B applications rise from 2,983 in 2014, when Nadella became CEO, to 6,258 in 2025. Google's numbers jumped from 2,309 in 2015, when Pichai took the top job, to 7,868 in 2025. During these years, these companies also grew, making it hard to know if the percentage of foreign workers increased. At IBM, H-1B decisions have remained consistent since Arvind Krishna was named the leader.

Meamber, the immigration lawyer, disputes the idea that companies run by foreign-born leaders are more likely to rely on labor from their home country. "The CEO doesn't even know who is being hired. These decisions are being made at a lower level by the HR team and by the recruiters," she said.

Stephen Vivien, an engineer, said he witnessed Indian employees help each other get hired by sharing interview questions when he worked at Google. "There were a lot of H-1B workers and they created their own little network," he said. "[When] one Indian guy would be coming up for his interview, the other Indian guys who had [already] gotten hired would call and share the questions."

In April, a New York jury found New Jersey-based Cognizant Technology Solutions liable for $8.4 million after a former executive sued the company, which was founded in India, for discrimination against non-Indian and non-South Asian workers. The executive argued he was passed over for a promotion and was later fired for raising concerns about bias against non-Indian employees.

The decision follows a separate successful lawsuit brought by three other employees against Cognizant in 2017, all similarly claiming discrimination against non-Indian workers, though the company is appealing and denies all allegations. In both lawsuits, juries found in favor of claims that Cognizant had used the H-1B program as a tool to discriminate against American workers. Since 2009, the company has received tens of thousands of H-1B visa approvals.

Reformers Vs. Big Tech

While restrictions to the program, including last year's $100,000 fee, have yet to meaningfully slow its growth, some Republicans have called to abolish it. In February, Florida representative Greg Steube introduced the EXILE Act, which would end the H-1B visa program entirely.

A proposed reform that might gain more bipartisan support targets the ineffective prevailing wage requirement that allows firms to underpay foreign workers. One idea floated by Republicans would create a minimum salary requirement for H-1B workers that's much higher than the current pay scale, thus removing the financial incentive to replace U.S.-born workers.

Ro Khanna, the Democratic congressman representing much of Silicon Valley, said on the All-In podcast last year that "there's definitely abuse [that] needs to be corrected" in the H-1B program. Khanna said a new prevailing wage standard would be a reform he could support.

But legislation that would raise labor costs would be opposed by Big Tech, armed with its war chest of money and influence in Washington. Jenks, the lawyer, said H-1B reformers face a tough fight. "The donors on this issue include all of the high-tech companies, whether it's Microsoft, Facebook, all of them," she said. "They put millions and millions of dollars every year into lobbying."

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

While leasing activity and vacancy trends suggest the U.S. commercial real estate market is stabilizing, office values are still well below post-pandemic peaks, recent reports show.

As owners scramble to make payments on under-occupied office buildings, many lenders are reluctant to foreclose to avoid the headache of taking ownership and reselling the properties, according to David Marino, cofounder of Hughes Marino, a San Diego-based corporate real estate advisory firm.

According to Cushman and Wakefield, a global commercial real estate services company, national office sublease inventory in the first quarter declined by 13.6 percent year over year, to 101 million square feet, while vacancy may have peaked. Sublease space peaked in January 2023, at 189 million square feet, according to the commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group.

A February report from the financial data and research company MSCI also shows that office prices are showing signs of stabilization, though they are still well below their post-COVID-19 pandemic peak. Commercial property prices rose by 0.3 percent year over year in January, but downtown office values declined by 1.3 percent, and were down by 40.2 percent from three years ago.

Massive Perks

Speaking recently with Siyamak Khorrami, host of EpochTV's "Market Insider," Marino said the commercial real estate market is still challenging, as the pandemic has made remote work a new normal. "The horses are out of the barn and never coming back," he said.

An April 1 report from job search platform FlexJobs shows that remote-job postings in the first quarter increased by 20 percent month over month, with 65 percent of positions targeting experienced workers. The platform predicts continued growth in the work model for the rest of the year.

An April 16 Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that 22.6 percent of workers teleworked or worked from home, a measure commonly described as remote work, in March.

Marino said about 85 percent of companies in the United States have had their leases expire in the past six years and have been able to resize, leaving many office markets with 20 percent to 30 percent availability. As a result, commercial landlords have been offering potential tenants massive perks, including free rent packages.

"I just represented a client in an engineering firm for 14,000 square feet, which is basically space for about 7,065 people. And the landlord that just bought a building down the street was in escrow and wanted to win this deal," Marino said. "They gave us an eight-year lease with a year free. In other words, my client moves in at the end of this year and doesn't pay rent in all of 2027."

In addition, Marino said the landlord paid for all of the tenant improvements to remodel the space, plus a cash moving allowance.

'B' Loans

However, banks and lenders can face an even bigger problem when loans cannot be repaid. Rather than pursuing immediate foreclosure proceedings, many lenders are resorting to creative solutions that allow landlords to retain ownership of these buildings, he said.

Marino noted that there have been "hundreds and hundreds of foreclosures" throughout the country, in particular during the past three years. Typically, he said, commercial loans include a "balloon" provision, which requires repayment or refinancing within seven to 10 years, or the property must be sold.

"What's happened in the last three years is a lot of owners have hit that balloon mark and interest rates went from 3 to 6 percent, so if your occupancy goes from 90 to 60 percent, you're immediately underwater," he said. "Lenders in those situations have generally foreclosed on the properties and resold them at a big discount."

In some cases, lenders don't want to foreclose because they don't want to become landlords. As an alternative, Marino said, they may split an existing loan into two pieces. In this scenario, a lender could, for example, take a $100 million loan and set $30 million of that aside as a "'B' loan," treating it as a different loan.

"What I've seen in the last three years is the lending community getting very creative, trying to salvage what they can," he said. "The lenders don't want to foreclose on the real estate, nor do they want to put somebody into default unnecessarily."

According to Marino, some metro areas are affected more than others. In San Diego, he said, 11 high-rise office buildings have already been foreclosed or are going through a forced-sale process when the loan hit the balloon payment stage.

A couple of those buildings are being converted to residential use, which Marino describes as a "micro trend" and not a significant impact on office inventory nationwide. He noted that close to a third of quality buildings in the city have already transitioned through financial negotiations with lenders.

Downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco have also experienced their share of office building foreclosures, Marino said.

"There's still going to be more, and the developers that own these things, frankly, are handing the keys back," he said. "There [are] some really ugly tax consequences."

For example, he said, if a buyer purchased a building for $200 million with $150 million in debt and today the building is worth only $80 million, the owner would rather walk away.

"These are typically individual assets with their own individual Partnership Agreement, and they're collapsing all over the country," he said.

No Signs Of Systemic Fallout

To Khorrami's question about how this will impact banks and lenders, Marino said it would depend on the percentage of the lenders' assets allocated toward commercial real estate.

"The rollover of the debt is typically distributed over many, many years, so you don't have all these loans really expiring at the same time within one financial institution," he said. "My experience so far is that we're not going to see a collapse of the banking sector because of commercial real estate."

While the road could be bumpy, he said, it's not going to be a trigger effect like it was during the early 1990s. Many of the older vacant office buildings are being sold at land value, minus the cost of demolition to start over and convert them into residential projects.

RentCafe, a rental housing research platform owned by Yardi, estimated in a March report that about 90,300 apartment units were in the office-to-residential conversion pipeline nationwide at the beginning of this year, marking another record year for such projects.

The warehousing market, meanwhile, appears to be booming, Marino said. He noted that the rise of online shopping has created an escalating demand for huge warehousing space.

"You look at an Amazon distribution building, and some of these things are a million square feet," he said. "They're some of the biggest buildings in the country."

The issue is that construction, including land acquisition, permitting, and design, can often take up to three years, he said.

From 2020 to 2025, Marino noted, 1.2 billion square feet of warehouse buildings were being constructed across the country. In another five years, he predicts, the country could see an unprecedented amount of massive warehouse construction.