US Real Estate

This was an analysis taken from Wealth Daily. This is followed by my analysis.

1.The National Association of Realtors' chief economist, Lawrence Yun, just forecast 716,000 housing starts this year on sustainable job growth, the increasing population, and continued low interest rates driving construction. 

That's great news if the existing supply burned down. Bulldoze the supply, rebuild the homes, and those numbers look great.

2.Fannie Mae believes "home prices probably will start to gain in 2011’s third quarter and rise 0.6 percent for the year, the first annual advance since 2006.”

They also expect housing starts to increase 17.3% this year, hitting 710,000.

I'll be sure to heed the well-researched "guess" of Fannie Mae, that respected bastion of real estate know-how.

3.These predictions are the stuff of delirious daydreams. Truth is, with a glut of properties still on the market and more Americans heading to the poor house on imbecilic inflationary actions of the Fed, adding more glut to the market and/or assuming that housing prices will appreciate is delusional, plain and simple.

4.the large backlog of foreclosures along with the backlog of non-distressed properties — held back for an improving market — will only glut the market much longer than any one realizes. Sure, you could argue that lower prices and low mortgage rates could spur home buyers. But that's not likely with much higher credit standards and much larger down payment requisites.

5.And David Rosenberg told the Financial Times: “If home prices don’t decline at least another 10 per cent, then the laws of supply and demand will end up being repealed as far as it pertains to residential real estate.” Housing will not recover until 2012 — at the earliest.

6.Do not buy into housing bullishness... not yet. The bulls are getting way ahead of themselves.

My Analysis: There is no such thing as perfect timing in any market. There are only buy and sell areas accompanied by risk. If there was a way of calculating timing by looking at the numbers, it would be the best kept secret on the planet. The buy opportunities to look for are usually "When blood is running in the streets" (Hypothetically, for all the politically correct). based on this, US real estate is in the "buy area zone".

One might ask oneself, where is the money going to come from? The Dow has rallied from 6500 to 12100 since the crash of 2008. The US dollar has been strongly devalued over the period sending up the price of commodities including food. At the same time world population continues to grow, exacerbating inflation. Central banks are in the printing mode. The rising markets are telling me that they sense inflation is on the way, so cash is now looking for ways to protect itself. Gold was the forerunner, followed by other commodities and then the equity markets. Whats left? With all these rising prices, and a rush to real assets (Art, diamonds etc.) Its just a matter of time until the markets discover US real estate. So at the risk of getting ahead of myself, my suggestion is to carefully diversify one's portfolio to include US real estate.

And the risk? There is always risk. Usually it is an unforseen risk. Something like a major confrontation between nations or a sudden collapse in the US bond market. Thats why diversification is so important.

Don't believe that the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing - it was here first - Robert Jones Burdette

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The Muslim World

1.Manama Bahrain has arrested 127 people, mainly gays from the Gulf countries, for holding a "depraved and decadent" party. The revellers hired a sports hall in Hidd, a conservative village on Muharraq island in the north of Bahrain, and organised on Wednesday evening a fee-paying party that brought together gay men from the Arabian Gulf countries.

COMMENT: Reports out of Bahrein's censored media say leaders in Bahrein are upset that western news media ignored this tidbit.

2.News agencies cite Middle East experts as saying that the Mubarak family's personal wealth at $70 billion. Much of the wealth is deposited in UK or Swiss banks, or in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles, and on the shores of the Red Sea. Last year, Egyptian daily "El Ahbar" reported that Mubarak owns properties in Manhattan and homes on Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive. His two sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also both billionaires.

COMMENT: Egypts foreign currency reserves stand at $35 billion. Egypts foreign debt balance is $36 billion.
Quite the shocker, is it not? Pharaoh or not? According to wikileaks, Erdogan of Turkey has 8 accounts in Swiss banks.

3.Qatar invests in Israeli and international companies operate in the West Bank, Palestinian Authority Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat says. He added that he possesses documents that prove his claim and will publicize them at the appropriate time. Qatar recently exposed documents pertaining to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations through its al-Jazeera network.

COMMENT: A falling out amongst the thieves?

4.Tunisia's Defense Ministry called up recently retired troops Monday as the country struggled to contain unrest that has persisted even after the ouster of the North African country's dictatorial regime.

COMMENT: So the riots continue in Tunisia. Why you ask? Its simple. The problem is not democracy or freedom, Its culture and food inflation.

5.A new Christian nation Is born in Africa: South Sudan votes 98.83% to secede from the arab muslim north.Three quarters of Sudan's considerable oil reserves are likely to end up in the new southern Sudan.Sudan is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Oil is currently the main export and production is increasing. Agriculture production is the most important sector for the economy, employing 80% of the workforce.

COMMENT: This is going to be interesting. North Sudan is mostly desert while the South is green and fertile.

Thought for the day - Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers; what you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.

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Israel - Follow The Money

 

1.Disney invests in Haifa entertainment complex

 The city of Haifa is already on the tourist map of Israel, but now it's likely to get an even bigger chunk of the market with its new Disney-style theme park. The Walt Disney Company investment arm Shamrock Holdings and the Israeli New Lineo cinema chain have announced plans to build a $168 million amusement park and a multiplex movie center in the port city. "If things go as planned, Haifa's landmark sites such as the Bahai Temple or the Carmelite cable car could soon be replaced by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and friends.

COMMENT: A Saudi Arabian cleric has declared Disney's Mickey Mouse to be an “agent of Satan.” As such, he has put a fatwa (Death sentence) on him. I always maintained that Mickey Mouse was a zionist agent.

2.Israel to train Indians in modern harvesting methods

New joint Indo-Israeli project aims to help rural farmers transition into modern agriculture, boost trade between countries. India to finance program, while Israel to supply technology, equipment

INDIA – A new Indo-Israeli center of agricultural excellence was inaugurated Monday in Haryana state, north of the Indian capital of Delhi. Some 3,000 farmers from Haryana attended the ceremony, along with Indian Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Haryana Governor Bhupinder Singh and Israel's Ambassador to India Mark Sofer.

3.Israel helps African farmers fight desert 

Shalom Simhon, Israel's minister of agriculture and rural development, said sharing know-how, especially in irrigation and water management, was his focus on a recent tour of Senegal, Ivory Coast and Gabon.
His trip comes as some 10 million people in West and Central Africa face food shortages due to failed rains.
"Israel is the only country in the world that has been able to conquer the desert. More than 50% of our exports are coming from semi-arid areas. This is our strength – this we would like to bring here."

COMMENT: To all those arab dictators.....if you snooze, you lose....

4.Israel's cleantech mega-plan

The country is investing billions to become a world leader in renewable energy technologies and oil alternatives.

Israel currently holds the chairmanship of Eureka, the European R&D program, of which more than 40 countries are members. This highlights the importance of the conference being organized by the European Friends of Israel in Jerusalem this week, in collaboration with "Globes." The conference is beng attended by about 500 of the European Parliament's 736 members. This is no small thing, given that they represent a market of 375 million consumers, who could help promote Israeli technology.  

5.Delta reopens Egyptian factory

Delta Galil Industries Ltd. (Pink Sheet: DELTY; TASE: DELT) today reopened its textiles factory in Egypt. The company closed the factory last Sunday, as the uprising in Egypt gained momentum. Delta's share price rose 3.8% by early afternoon on the TASE to NIS 31.50.

COMMENT: Looks like business as usual.

6.Beekeepers take sting out of Israel-Turkey relations

Next week Israel will host the second joint Israel-Turkey bee growers' convention. The first convention was held in Antalya, Turkey last year. Surprisingly the Turkish Foreign Ministry is sponsoring the convention and sending hundreds of Turkish beekeepers and experts to Israel.

NO COMMENT

Pessimism never won any battle - Dwight D Eisenhower

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Thank You Egypt

Without you, the truth may have stayed hidden. They all warned Israel. The geniuses at The New York Times. The brilliant diplomats. The think tanks. Even the Arab dictators warned Israel. For decades now, they have been warning us that if you want "peace in the Middle East," just fix the Palestinian problem. A recent variation on this theme has been: Just get the Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to "freeze" their construction, and then, finally, Palestinian leaders might come to the table and peace might break out.

And what would happen if peace would break out between Jews and Palestinians? Would all those furious Arabs now demonstrating on the streets of Cairo and across the Middle East feel any better? Would they feel less oppressed? What BS.

Even if you absolutely believe in the imperative of creating a Palestinian state, you can't tell me that the single-minded and global obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the expense of the enormous ills in the rest of the Middle East hasn't been idiotic, if not criminally negligent.

While tens of millions of Arabs have been suffering for decades from brutal oppression, while gays have been tortured and writers jailed and women humiliated and dissidents killed, the world - yes, the world - has obsessed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As if Palestinians - the same coddled victims on whom the world has spent billions and who have rejected one peace offer after another - were the only victims in the Middle East.

As if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has anything to do with the 1,000-year-old bloody conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or the desire of brutal Arab dictators to stay in power, or the desire of Islamist radicals to bring back the Caliphate, or the economic despair of millions, or simply the absence of free speech or basic human rights throughout the Arab world.

While self-righteous Israel bashers have scrutinized every flaw in Israel's democracy - some waxing hysterical that the Jewish democratic experiment in the world's nastiest neighborhood has turned into an embarrassment - they kept their big mouths shut about the oppression of millions of Arabs throughout the Middle East.

They cried foul if Israeli Arabs - who have infinitely more rights and freedoms than any Arabs in the Middle East - had their rights compromised in any way. But if a poet was jailed in Jordan or a gay man was tortured in Egypt or a woman was stoned in Syria, all we heard was screaming silence.

Do you ever recall seeing a U.N. resolution or an international conference in support of Middle Eastern Arabs not named Palestinians?

Imagine if those Israel bashers, during all the years they put Israel under their critical and hypocritical microscope, had taken Israel's imperfect democratic experiment and said to the Arab world: Why don't you try to emulate the Jews?

Why don't you give your people the same freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom to vote that Israel gives its people? And offer them the economic opportunities they would get in Israel? Why don't you treat your Jewish citizens the same way Israel treats its Arab citizens?

You can preach to me all you want about the great Jewish tradition of self-criticism - which I believe in - but right now, when I see poor Arab souls being killed for protesting on the street, and the looming threat that one Egyptian Pharaoh may be replaced by an even more oppressive one, I've never felt more proud of being a supporter of the Jewish state. Thank You Israel....7 million people against billions. A shining light!

Thanks to David Suissa for his excellent input. 

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Egypt....Where to Now?

1.Three decades ago, President Jimmy Carter urged another staunch American ally – the shah of Iran – to loosen his grip on power, only to see his autocratic regime replaced by the Islamic Republic. More recently, U.S.-supported elections have strengthened such groups as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and anti-American radicals in Iran.

2.Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as 'the president who lost Iran,'" the analyst Aluf Benn wrote in the daily Haaretz this week. "Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who 'lost' Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled,"
COMMENT: Recognise any similarities between the two presidents?

3.The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the "American and Israeli intervention in Egypt" and warned that "any measure against the popular movement in Egypt would lead to waves of rage throughout the world." 

COMMENT: Obama and Iran both support the opposition in Egypt. Strange bedfellows....Who do you think understands the Islamic world more?

4.Mubarak described Obama as a very good man, but when asked by ABC if he felt that the United States had betrayed him, he said he told the US president: "You don't understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now."

Analysis: With the last statement we reach the crux of the matter. Obama understands the problem, but is held prisoner by his own political dogma, so instead of calling a spade a spade he tries to walk a thin line. Mubarak is a proud Egyptian who knows his people and understands that democracy (I use that word delicately), if at all possible, needs to come slowly. The Muslim Brotherhood have been suppressed for decades and this is their opportunity to take power (anybody who claims that this movement cares about democracy and the people is a complete idiot). They also know that if the military regime maintains power, they are walking dead men. Therefore they will stay in the square and fight to the end. Mubarak knows that the Genie has escaped the bottle, so he will attempt to force it back. His lifes work and legacy depend on it. So he is not going anywhere soon, not while he still controls the army and the police. You can count on it.

P.S. The two main candidates to take over from Mubarak, assuming he maintains control, are his VP Omar Suleiman, and the head of the military and former defense minister, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons." - General MacArthur 

The Primary trend - The Truth About Money

1.There's no problem with lying to Americans. Americans have no idea what the dollar is doing. Furthermore, Americans are told by their government that there is no inflation. The government's proof is the CPI (Consumer Price Index), which is manipulated to show that inflation in the US is zero (food and energy are left out of the CPI).

2.In other countries where their currency was severely devalued, their stock markets surged dramatically, and I'm talking about South Korea, Argentina, Malaysia and Indonesia. So watch the US dollar.

3.Last Thursday two credit agencies (S&P and Mood's) warned that they might have to do the unthinkable -- lower the AAA rating of the US. Japan's credit rating has just been lowered.

4.Somebody's got money. The art market is booming big time. Christie's auction house announced on Thursday that it sold a record $5.25 billion worth of art in 2010. A new record. 

5.The national Research Council reports that life expectancy in the US has improved, but the improvement lags the improvement in 21 other nations. The average man in the US, starting from birth, can expect to live to be 75.64 years of age, women to 80.78. Japan has the highest life expectancy -- men in Japan live to be 79, women to 86.

6. Egypt is the worlds largest importer of wheat. So floods in Australia, hoarding in Russia, the big freeze in the US and a hungry world is not going to help the situation.

Don't tell your problems to people; eighty percent don't care, and the other twenty percent are glad you have them - Lou Holtz

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Egyptian Democracy at Work

Its time to paint a picture.

1.The Muslim world is struggling to compete with other economic blocs. Hundreds of millions of financially poor people controlled by military regimes and dictators.

2.The uprisings are inspired by first of all, food inflation. Booming population growth, bad weather, and now hoarding by many countries has led to rising prices. Arab Goverments generally subsidise food and gas. Subsidy cuts led to rising prices and let  loose the dogs of anarchy.

3.Under the guise of freedom and democracy, and cheered on by western media, certain elements immediately jumped on the bandwagon of "democracy". For example, The Muslim Brotherhood now talks democracy...but they themselves do not elect leaders democratically. They are a religious tyranny. SHHHHH...You are interupting the party....

4.Forty percent of Egyptians earn 2 dollars a day. Offer them bread and freedom, and point them in the direction of the government. This is the result. By the way, the army is well fed so we can risk a guess who they will support.

5.The Iranian tyranny is licking its lips and cheering (careful what you wish for). The western media intellectuals are rubbing their hands and preparing patronising speeches while pushing their own personal agenda's.

6.Then...Oy vavoy!  Tens of thousands of pro-Mubarak demonstrators attack anti-Mubarak demonstrators and CNN reporters, and all hell breaks loose. The anti goverment dems (excuse the pun), forget their so-called lofty ideals, pocket their twitters and cellphones, and start digging up the pavement stones in the square to turn them into rocks. Hundreds injured....

7.That, ladies and gentlemen, is called Democracy - Egyptian (Arab) Style. And of course, don't  forget, Israel is to  blame!

A STRONG DEMOCRATIC ISRAEL IS NOT ONLY A US INTEREST.... ITS EVERYBODY'S

Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really frightening - Gertrude Stein

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