WHAT COULD GO WRONG? As Home Prices Rise, Flippers Make a Comeback.

The number of investors who flipped a house in the first nine months of 2016 reached the highest level since 2007. About one-third of the deals were financed with debt, a percentage not seen in eight years.

Now Wall Street, which was nearly felled by real-estate forays almost a decade ago, is getting back into the action. A number of banks are arranging financing vehicles for house-flippers, who buy and sell homes in a matter of months. The sector is small—participants say roughly several hundred million dollars in deals have been made in recent months—but it is expected to keep growing.

“The floodgates have opened,” says Eduardo Axtle, a 35-year-old former telecom entrepreneur in Oakland, Calif., who has taken out about 50 home loans over the past five years. These days, he is bombarded with unsolicited emails from brokers offering him access to financing, and fellow flippers invite him to get-togethers that are advertised with YouTube videos showing off recent projects.

Just try not to be the last flipper left unflipped.

IN 2017, A TEST FOR DEMOCRATIC PARTY GOVERNANCE IN BLUE STATES:

Unions and groups that benefit from the need to hire additional employees and lawyers to coordinate procurement contracts, change orders, and other issues don’t want a new system that saves money by cutting labor costs.

Labor is the biggest driver of infrastructure costs, and you can’t save much money without touching it. Over the past few decades, private firms across industries have become more efficient by replacing people with machines and by streamlining processes so they don’t have to hire as many workers and outside consultants. Because of pressure from special interests and organized labor, governments (blue and red) haven’t been able to realize these efficiencies. As the cost of hiring a single employee continues to skyrocket thanks to health care and pension expenses, the urgency of reducing labor needs grows.

Both New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and Cuomo have come around to supporting design-build, but special interests continue to stand in the way. How blue politicians manage this opposition will be a key determinant of the future of Democratic Party. The old system is unworkable, and states that rely on it are bordering on ungovernable in some ways—if the government can’t afford to maintain public roads, what is it good for? But the new system weakens core Democratic constituencies by reducing the government payroll.

In a contest between effective government and opportunities for graft, I know which side I’m betting on.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Army Abrams Tanks to Control Robotic Attack Drones.

Algorithms are progressing to the point wherein they will be able to allow an Abrams tank crew to operate multiple nearby “wing-man” robotic vehicles in a command and control capacity while on the move in combat.

Army researchers, engineers and weapons developers are preparing to prototype some of these possibilities for future Abrams tanks, Maj. Gen. David Bassett, Program Executive Officer, Ground Combat Systems, told Scout warrior in an interview.

“As I look to the future and I think about game-changing technologies, manned-unmanned teaming is a big part of that. There’s a set of things that we think could be really transformational,” Bassett said.

This kind of dynamic could quickly change the nature of landwar.

Autonomous or semi-autonomous robotic vehicles flanking tanks in combat, quite naturally, could bring a wide range of combat-enhancing possibilities. Ammunition-carrying robotic vehicles could increase the fire-power of tanks while in combat more easily; unmanned platforms could also carry crucial Soldier and combat supplies, allowing an Abrams tank to carry a larger payload of key combat supplies.

All that’s lacking is repairbots and refuelbots, and the ability to swap out tired human crews for fresh ones — and you’d have an armored formation able to fight nearly 24/7, denying the other side the ability to rest.

Either that, or one heck of a big reason for Skynet to smile.

LAME DUCK LEFT OUT IN THE COLD: Russia, Turkey Agree On Syria Ceasefire Plan, Snub Washington.

In the latest snub of president Obama and the US State Department, on Wednesday Turkey and Russia reached an agreement for a ceasefire in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister said, and according to Anadolu News Agency, will aim to put it into effect by midnight. Anadolu, citing sources, said the two countries have reached a consensus that will be presented to participants in the conflict on expanding the ceasefire that was established in Aleppo earlier this month.

There may be a hurdle however: Ankara would not budge on its opposition to President Bashar al-Assad staying in power. The comments by Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday appeared to signal a tentative advance in talks aimed at reaching a truce, but the insistence that Assad must go will do little to smooth negotiations with Russia, his biggest backer.

Not content with isolating the US, Russia, Iran and Turkey also made a mockery of the UN when they said last week they were ready to help broker a peace deal after holding talks in Moscow where they adopted a declaration setting out the principles any agreement should adhere to. Arrangements for the talks, which would not include the United States and be distinct from separate intermittent U.N.-brokered negotiations, remain hazy, but Moscow has said they would take place in Kazakhstan, a close ally.

“There are two texts ready on a solution in Syria. One is about a political resolution and the other is about a ceasefire. They can be implemented any time,” Cavusoglu told reporters on the sidelines of an awards ceremony at the presidential palace in Ankara.

While Turkey’s insistence has been that Assad must go, perhaps in legacy support of US and NATO positions, with Cavusoglu saing that “the whole world knows it is not possible for there to be a political transition with Assad, and we also all know that it is impossible for these people to unite around Assad”, Turkey’s position appears not set in stone, and last week, Russia’s foreign minister said Russia, Iran and Turkey had agreed that the priority in Syria was to fight terrorism and not to remove Assad’s government.

Elsewhere today, John Kerry is still scheduled to make a speech outlining his vision for the Middle East — which Russia has already rejected.

MAD DUCK: Obama’s 7 Deadliest Lame-Duck Sins.

SHOCKER: Cristina Kirchner, Argentina’s Former President, Faces Corruption Charges.

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OR IS HE POSITIONING HIMSELF FOR 2020? Joe Biden Admits: Hillary Lost Because She Failed to Reach Out to the White Working Class.

21ST CENTURY CRIME: Chinese traders charged with insider trading on hacked information.

The suspects in the alleged criminal marriage of cyber-hacking and securities fraud targeted at least seven law firms and other entities that handle the sensitive and often lucrative legal work of advising companies pursuing mergers and acquisitions, according to a 13-count superseding indictment unsealed in New York.

Operating from April 2014 through late 2015, the alleged scheme ultimately gained access to secret information from two law firms about pending corporate deals, prosecutors charged.

The suspects allegedly prized, targeted and gained access to the emails of attorneys directly involved in the deals. Prosecutors charged they exchanged a list of partners who performed such work at one of the firms before hacking into that firm’s computer system.

Using that information, the suspects allegedly bought stocks in the companies involved in the deals, and ultimately sold the investments at a profit when the mergers or acquisitions were announced.

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a formal statement said the allegations spotlight the vulnerability of highly-sensitive law firm records to the efforts of determined cyber criminals.

You might at least hope that high-powered law firms would have better security and smarter users that our government does.

AT AMAZON, Year-End Deals in Clothing.

WHY ARE DEMOCRATS SO BIG INTO PROSECUTORIAL OVERREACH? Wisconsin John Doe probe will never be over for furious Democrats.

Multiple courts have ordered the probe shut down, and in October the U.S. Supreme Court made quick work of rejecting a petition for review by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, the Democrat who launched the politically motivated probe in August 2012.

But the John Doe case is never over in the minds of liberals like Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, who can’t let go of a burning disdain of Walker or the pounding the Republican governor and his fellow conservatives have given the left over the past six years.

Last week, WisPolitics.com reported that Dems are criticizing calls by Republicans to investigate the leak of “John Doe II documents” in September to liberal British newspaper The Guardian while passing over conservative activist Eric O’Keefe for disclosing details of the probe.

Chisholm and his assistants also are furious that documents showing the partisan nature of the investigation were obtained and published by Wisconsin Watchdog and the Wall Street Journal.

Why do these people still have jobs?

MOST EVERYTHING: What China Didn’t Learn From the Collapse of the Soviet Union.

THE PERILS OF PROHIBITION: Toxic liquor kills at least 32 in Pakistan.

The dead, mostly minority Christians, consumed the homemade liquor in the city of Toba Tek Singh.

Muslims are forbidden from buying or drinking alcohol in Pakistan – and minorities need a permit to buy liquor.

With alcohol sales tightly regulated, cheap homebrewed spirits often contain poisonous methanol.

It’s the latest case of deadly alcohol poisoning in Pakistan after 11 died in October, also in Punjab province.

To paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm, I’m simply saying that vice finds a way — and that way is usually worse than vice left alone.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A Plan To Make Students Great Again: Replace Loans With Income Shares, Force Colleges To Spend 5% Of Their Endowments Each Year.

CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES, SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE YOU: SEIU plans 30 percent budget cut during Trump administration.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Trump: Obama ‘lost’ in key swing states for Clinton.

Rust Belt Obama voters who broke for Trump last month proved to be the key constituency, and Obama’s failure to deliver for those “bitter clingers” played in a big part in their redshift.

NEW YORK’S “GRAVITY KNIFE” REFORM BILL IS ON ANDREW CUOMO’S DESK, and the Knife Rights folks want people to call and encourage him to sign it.

Background here.

JOURNALISM: CNBC’s John Harwood Claims Democrats Lost Due to ‘White Fear.’