How Will Deflation Play Out?

I received the following question from "Suanny" on Silicon Investor" on December 29th.Note: I cleaned up a few typos, punctuations, etc. to make the following a bit more readable.MishI have been following your views on deflation for some time. You tend to limit the argument expansion and depletion of credit that defines more clearly the discussion so an individual will be able to follow. Trying to debate baskets of goods and their pricing would take the discussion all over the map. You make a great case, however it difficult for me to see how this will play out in the real world.The inflation guys are just the opposite. They seem to be very sure how things play out but have difficulty explaining why or supporting their position. Although most...

Open Skies & Virgin America

The US department of transportation (DOT) ruled on Dec 27th that the UK is a security risk and therefore British owned Virgin America Airlines is not allowed to fly within the US between San Francisco and New York. How flights originating in the US to other US destinations in the US posed security risks to the US was of course not explained (probably because the idea is ridiculous). They did not actually say "security risk" but what else could a law requiring 75% US ownership to fly within the US mean? The expressed concern was over "foreign ownership".Bloomberg picked up the story in Virgin America's Bid to Start Flights Denied by U.S.Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Virgin America Inc., a startup airline partly owned by U.K. billionaire Richard Branson,...

Debating the Flat Earth Society (Part 2)

This is Part 2 in a debate with the Flat Earth Society.Please read Part 1 first if you have not yet done so.This debate came about when I informally responded to the Salt Lake Real Estate Blog on Silicon Investor. Salt Lake (SL) then sent out a "challenge" along with a rebuttal to my brief responses.Part 1 of my response discussed Corporate Balance Sheets and Real Estate Appreciation.Part 2 of my response discusses Building Costs and Rents.My responses were broken in half simply because the amount of material supporting the notion that corporate real estate expansion is NOT about to pick up where residential real estate left of is massive. Even broken in half, each piece is lengthy. Part 2 now resumes with a discussion about Building Costs...

Debating the Flat Earth Society (Part 1)

One of the rules that scientists try and follow is to not debate the flat earth society. It simply lends credence to the idea that there is actually something to debate. For the same reason scientists will not debate creationism vs. evolution either.Occasionally, however, a flat earth society theory actually manages to come into popular belief. This is one of those times. Right now there is a widely held belief in "goldilocks" and that corporate spending and construction will somehow pick up the slack where consumer spending and retail construction left off. Goldilocks is of course a fairy tale but to be fair, I did volunteer to rebut the goldilocks theory as presented on the Salt Lake Real Estate Blog.This debate came about when I informally...

Global Savings Glut Revisited

Ben Stein hopped on the "global savings glut" bandwagon today in a New York Times article entitled The Hedge Kings Are Rich, but Will They Be Noble? Let's take a look.HEDGE fund managers and traders make an astounding amount of money. This is now part of the lore of the nation. Young millionaires, young billionaires, all hunched over trading screens and manufacturing money while the rest of us toil for peanuts.How did it happen? Why do they make so much more money than other people in finance do, or than people in industry in general? Do they deserve it? What will they do with it? And who makes it all possible?These questions would take an entire book to answer. But I’ll just try to give a few answers that occur to me, and I invite anyone who...

Was George Orwell Right?

This post is about RFID chips, video surveillance, and bluetooth wireless technology. Sometimes it is hard to tell sometimes where politics begins and economics leaves off and this post has aspects of both. Surveillance technology and chips of all kinds are big business. How that technology is used can be hugely political. But there is certainly no question that a huge trend is underway in regards to increasing use of such devices, and one of the as aspects of this blog is to look at trends. So here we are.Bloomberg is reporting George Orwell Was Right: Spy Cameras See Britons' Every Move.It's Saturday night in Middlesbrough, England, and drunken university students are celebrating the start of the school year, known as Freshers' Week. One...

Vacancy Theory

I just received the following analysis on vacancies from a friend and would like to share it. Here goes, from Ramsey Su, with a study on San Diego vacancies:The StudyAnalyze all sales in SD, on a monthly basis, to determine the percentage of properties that are vacant at the time of marketing/sale. This study is based on all sales reported in the SD MLS from Jan 2004 thru Nov 2006.The TheoryThe occupant of an occupied property has to seek new shelter upon completion of the sale. This implies that they will be buying or renting something else, creating a positive chain of events for the market. Vacant properties, on the other hand, imply that the occupants had already moved into another dwelling. The sale of a vacant property is not likely going...