Saturday, November 25, 2006

gotta trust in something



It looks like things are getting more dicey for the US economy. What could it mean for us? And particularly, for our RE market? Century 21 Canada president Don Lawby doesn't think it's an issue. He figures that the BC economy is more diverse, and has grown faster than the US economy.

What about US investment in our real estate? Will Americans start dumping their empty condo's, etc. in BC as their payments become more onerous? Their profit-taking will be more profitable in a sense, but will buy them less French wine and Mercedes Benzes. Will American developers continue to build into a flagging economy (just to - y'know - be philanthropic), and keep the economy going?

The US is about to get even more protectionist, and the newly invigourated Democrats are pushing for trade sanctions against China. How will China respond to that? Dump more dollars? It seems as if the horse is already out of the barn.

There will be much less demand for oil, lumber, copper, etc. - all we really have besides tourism, and American tourists will stop coming as their dollar sinks, and the passport requirements kick in.

excerpted from The LA Times -
Another issue dogging the dollar is concern that China and other countries that hold trillions of dollars' worth of U.S. securities may increasingly seek to trim those assets in favor of non-dollar-denominated securities.

"The Chinese have been making noises in recent weeks about diversifying their holdings of foreign reserves," Kasriel noted. A People's Bank of China senior official repeated that theme in comments circulated Friday.

The momentum of a falling dollar could feed on itself because each decline reduces the value of foreigners' remaining U.S. assets.

The risk of a sell-off of U.S. securities by China has been a persistent concern for Wall Street in recent years, but it may be taking on more urgency now that the Democratic Party is about to regain control of Congress, analysts said. Some Democratic leaders are pushing for trade sanctions against China to shrink that country's massive trade surplus with the U.S.
link


In other financial news;
China is considering launching a live pig futures market to stabilize pig prices...

That's comforting.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know what's funnier. The fact that a guy who has admitted to have never owning a real estate inveestment, or personal residence for that matter for decades (if ever) has a blog about the future of real estate in Vancouver, or that what appears to be a sizeable number of people are taking his blog entries seriously.

The existence of this blog is kind of sad as well. Obviously this guy is profoundly upset at having not purchased property in the past few years, to the point of obsessing over it with almost daily entries about the "looming crash" when he'll be able to finally buy something and live happily ever after.

solipsist said...

I don't know what's funnier - a guy who hangs his ass out to be criticized, and freely says that he doesn't know/understand/care about economics, and has some fun writing his musings, or the guy who posts anonymously without telling anything about himself, and slags the former.

I find it interesting that the latter has deduced that the former is profoundly upset. Having written the posts here, I don't remember intimating that I am upset in any way. I do remember making tongue in cheek, cheeky posts for my own, and others's amusements. I don't feel upset. I might be quite upset if I lost all of my net worth on a crashing asset though.

If you find this blog so sad, why bother reading, and posting? Where is your wonderful blog?

If I needed a house to live happily ever after, that would be quite sad.

Are you worried about your inveestments? Are you worried that I am threatening that with my sad little blog?

solipsist said...

Nope. I just went through all my posts, and didn't find anything that could be construed as the obssessive rantings of someone who is profoundly upset. Then again, I am biased, and might not be able to see it because of my hysteria.

I guess I am unqualified to say that a Volkswagen makes more sense than a Rolls Royce either - since I have never owned a Rolls Royce.

Anonymous said...

wow some people are really threatened by truth....

I find it amazing that so many people in B.C. agree a severe U.S. recession is likely, but believe it will have no effect at all on us

solipsist said...

I find it amazing that so many people in B.C. agree a severe U.S. recession is likely, but believe it will have no effect at all on us

But they heard it on the radio - the tv, they read it in the paper. It sounded good with all those big words.

Besides, it can't affect me, I bought in to intellectual properties, and they have doubled in price. I'm not lucky, I'm brave, and smart too.

solipsist said...

Now I really have to laugh at myself for spelling obsessively incorrectly. And I thought that I was smart.

Oh well. I guess I should shut 'er down. My credibility is shot.

Mrs. Hairy Woman said...

I'm laughing my ass off... this is too funny for words....lol