Jim, thanks. If you understand that, then you should be on the House banking panel because they sure don't seem to get it.
OK, my big point No. 2 is I read recently (don't remember where) that there is now 3.5 million square feet of vacant office space in Silicon Valley. Let's analyze this.
In my town, little more than a wide spot in the road, we have, or shortly will have, two mall anchor tenants, a major grocery store and a big, fat Kmart all standing vacant. I estimate those four properties total about a half-million square feet. If they don't, I can throw in a closed Western Auto.
My point is, to me, 3.5 million square feet in the entire Valley just doesn't sound like much.
What's important here, I think, is the trend. I will bet you 10 dollars that at the bottom of this recession, the amount of vacant office space in the Valley is going to be a heck of a lot more than it is now.
And, lest we forget, Boston is the mutual fund capital of the world, yet I've only heard of a trickle of layoffs in that industry.
Want to bet me again on that trend having only just begun?
That's what I'm thinking, anyway. No such thing as a sure thing, of course, but with the short-term debt problems that some of the big, household-name telcos and utils are having, we're still closer to the beginning of these trends than we are to the end.
And I didn't even mention Japan's banks and insurance firms.
Only my opinion.
PB |
