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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (94734)	9/18/2012 8:58:03 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Respond to of 218908

If you feel exhausted, imagine how the people about to vote yet again for borrow and Hope and Change are going to feel after another few years of depredations that they vote for. <in truth i am getting a bit exhausted of my overarching macro view, that which has tracked too well since 1999 november> While you were buying gold with hard-earned cash, they were borrowing the money you got rid of, leveraging up with Borrow and Hope and spare change, to buy over-priced unreal estate up Highway 15 and along the Florida beachfront with the expectation of high capital gains on low capital input and no sweat equity. They might claim to be exhausted now, but imagine how exhausted they'll feel if they experience the reality of life in the hutongs up close and personal, for a few years, with no apparent way out, other than voting yet again for more Big Brother economic management of their lives. Greece led the way on democracy and is now leading the way on the demise of big government democracy with everyone freeloading on the state. The USA is still far from Greecian ways. But it's not clear how they will avoid more of the same. Greeks did not vote for paradigm shift and the USA looks set to maintain course over the financial Niagara Falls fiscal cliff, without a padded barrel for protection. But sometimes countries do turn on a dime, democratically. New Zealand in 1983 was in much the same situation. The electorate changed course, the economic system was broken open, the place took off, but unfortunately on debt, which led just a few years later to an implosion in 1987 which left swarms of people bust. It took another decade to come right. Even now, 30 years later, people are still [laughably] blaming Roger Douglas for it all, even as bludgers, debts and fiscal deficits boom with irrational exuberance as airliners cart 10s of 1000s to Oz and beyond to escape the financial black hole. Japan had a comparable black hole in 1989 which has rumbled along for quarter of a century, gradually being reset. But they didn't go with a gold standard. I expect a combination reset of various styles leading to a rumble bumble Japan/Greece/NZ style reset with chastened people with no vast drama. But the USA always does things BIG, so if there's a bust to be done, they might just go for world record implosion. They have the ammunition. Meanwhile, I'll carry on with mobile Cyberspace and milk products for people. My GNOM Complete Genomics being taken over by some China company at a 20% loss to me is annoying but better than a total loss. Human DNA is the next big thing. China might be the place to do it, now that they have got hold of GNOM. So I have to revise my CDNA strategy [cyberDNA]. I guess the new owner of GNOM thinks they can hire 100 or 1000 DNA machine operators at a small fraction of the cost that GNOM has had to pay people in the USA with high expectations. Mqurice

To: TobagoJack who wrote (94734)	9/19/2012 6:27:48 AM
From: THE ANT	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 218908

US property went to 10X the value of similar property in the developing world.I dont see why that figure could not invert

To: TobagoJack who wrote (94734)	9/20/2012 3:21:42 PM
From: Riskmgmt	2 Recommendations Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 218908

Real Estate as an investment my take. While I have a great respect for Ramsey Su and some other notable people who have expressed a dim view of this asset class I feel compelled to add a few comments of my own to the contrary. Firstly, we must realize that Real Estate is a broad term, so I am going to be more specific and restrict my comments to single family residences (houses) Secondly the USA has 50 States and 3.74 square miles with such diversity that it renders the macro view mostly useless to the local market investor. For example a house in Detroit may sell for a few hundred dollars whereas one in Manhattan, Hawaii or San Francisco may sell for sixty million. Real Estate is always local and so I am going to address my local market SE Florida and as Ramsey says "why bother" I will list why investors here do bother. Our local market of SFH's had a lot of easy financing driving prices to unsustainable levels during the boom and was targeted for refinancing constantly leaving the majority of HO underwater when the bust came. Prices have dropped some 70% in some areas. This is finally coming to the attention of some international players such as Mark Faber He mentions distressed assets and the southern USA towards the end of this. Mark Faber bloomberg.com also recently there has been stories of Private investors and Hedge funds coming in to this area, such as Pacifica buying 699 homes from Fannie Mae. costar.com Rental returns never so high. Prices have dropped but rents have gone up some 20% in the last 18 months alone. A 10% net income return is available today in this area, some investors have returns of 15 to 18%. All this in an world of 2% CDs Tax advantages are too numerous to list and of course Florida has no State tax. QE3 has made inflation all but a certainty so Real Estate is going to be sort after again as an inflation hedge and banks will be lending again sooner or later now they have an outlet for the toxic stuff on their books. Lastly, my favorite is CONTROL. Remember Enron, M.F. Global, etc. By no means a complete list, certainly not as professionally written as some I have read but then I am not trying to win any popularity contest. Lastly I leave you with this. Jim Rogers says he try's to buy things that are cheap, Marc Faber says he looks for undervalued assets. Luxury Residential Prices Hong Kong $2,783 sq ft Singapore $2,159 sq ft Beijing $899 sq ft Source CBRE In my local market some former Luxury residences in very good areas sold for as little as $100 a sq ft. And for those of you who aren't interested in being a Landlord at any price you might consider financing some of the guys that do. 8-10% per annum returns on 50% loan to value.