Terry Mock

Global Markets in Review: Economy, Markets

There's a Reason for the Pessimism...

Humbled Masters of the Universe
www.sldi.org/newServic...

Founded in 1971, the World Economic Forum meets annually in Davos, Switzerland to bring together top business and political leaders as well as intellectuals, economists, journalists, and others. Its recent 2009 meeting attracted over 2500 participants from 91 countries, including over 1170 CEOs and chairpersons from the world’s most powerful companies.

This year’s official Davos theme - “Shaping the Post-Crisis World” – might well have been – “How could the giants of capitalism have been so stupid?” For many, Davos this year was “where the pent-up dismay and anger over what Wall Street wrought boiled to the surface” despite efforts to contain it. The rock stars here this year, surrounded by adoring fans, were two economic analysts, Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who saw the disaster coming before most everyone else, as documented in this column previously. Implying but not naming America, China’s Wen Jiabao said the financial crisis was “attributable to inappropriate macroeconomic policies of some economies and their unsustainable model of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption; excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit.”

Back in the US, the news about our local leaders wasn’t any better. Time magazine profiled iconic Palm Beach County as “The New Capital of Florida Corruption” In just the past two years, four city and county commissioners have been convicted of federal corruption charges related to “pay for play” land development schemes, and a fifth could soon join the others in serving time. While in power, these public officials “alienated the general public and took a haphazard view of development — a common South Florida practice that’s indelibly tied to helping those companies and private interests that supported them.” Unfortunately, this practice is not limited to one area of the country, or one political party. According to the current Palm Beach County GOP Chairman, “I think that what everyone has realized, the general reaction is, America has a problem. We are corrupt from coast to coast and border to border.”

Back room deals and corruption, perceived and real, often inhibit progress and change. In a transparent and public proposal offered to President Obama’s administration, SLDI has offered a public-private partnership, its Sustainable Land Development Best Practices System, and the breadth of its research and collective knowledge to combat the country’s economic woes, enhance environmental stewardship and increase social responsibility - all at the same time.

Your participation and comments are welcome.

Terry Mock
Executive Director
Sustainable Land Development International
SLDI.org

Markets Overly Optimistic About Obama's Infrastructure Plans - JP Morgan

Sustainable Infrastructure: Building a Bridge to a New Global Culture
www.sldtonline.com/con.../

In answer to the worldwide call for sustainable development to combat the current financial crisis, Sustainable Land Development International (SLDI) respectfully offers a solution that balances the needs of people, planet and profit - for today and future generations.

SLDI, a developer-led and cooperatively-owned technology and information resource organization, is now fully positioned to transform the industry that creates the very infrastructure of our civilization. Sustainable development starts with our global infrastructure. If it is unsustainable, ultimately nothing else can be. Featured products and services include clean energy technology, carbon sequestration technology, soil enhancement technology, water purification and retention technology, sustainable land development best practices systems and certification programs.

Your participation and comments are welcome.

Terry Mock
Executive Director
Sustainable Land Development International
SLDI.org
SLDTonline.com
SURmag.com
LDBreakthroughs.com
SLDI Newsletter - www.sldi.org/newServic...

Promoting and enabling land development worldwide that balances the needs of people, planet & profit - for today and future generations.

Why Didn't We Stop the Market's Chain of Events?

From Sustainable Land Development International November Newsletter
On Election Day: Balance in Contentious Times
www.sldi.org/newServic...

In what surely will be noted as one of the most remarkable stretches in history, we have had a collapse in the housing market, which triggered a meltdown in our financial systems, which has now created a slowdown in economies around the world -- all in short order. With all these financial woes weighing on investor confidence, I couldn’t help thinking of what President Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

Fast forward to 2008, specifically to former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s recent testimony to a House Oversight Committee hearing on the roles and responsibilities of federal regulators in the current financial crisis. He acknowledged to the hostile panel of questioners that the crisis exposed flaws in his thinking about the working of the free market system, telling the Committee that his belief that the banks would be more prudent in their lending practices because of the need to protect their shareholders had been proven wrong by the crisis.

This “once-in-a-century credit tsunami” has come to a head just weeks before the electorate goes to the polls to pick both local candidates for office and a new U.S. President. Whichever party wins will make history as well. The barrage of extraordinary events makes for fascinating times and presents a rare opportunity for strategic long term investment, according to seasoned experts such as Warren Buffett. But politically, it can be treacherous sledding, as personal angst and partisan fervor are unleashed full blast. In his Farewell Address, George Washington was particularly adamant in warning the nation that this “spirit of party” was “not to be encouraged” because it was - “A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

T. Boone Pickens, Al Gore and the Sierra Club are creating strange bedfellows and setting an example of non-partisan collaboration by discussing the combination of domestic wind power and natural gas in an aggressive US domestic energy plan. In a related effort to provide a bridge from the current inefficient, carbon-heavy electric grid toward more sustainable development, SLDI-member HBH Gas Systems is partnering with land developers nationwide to provide central community propane gas systems - bringing clean-burning gas fuel to communities where it was otherwise not available.

Innovative collaboration is the answer. See the featured article at the above URL on the SLDI Pilot Sustainable Land Development Best Practices Model.

Your participation and comments are welcome.

Terry Mock
Executive Director
Sustainable Land Development International
SLDI.org
SLDTonline.com
SURmag.com

Promoting land development worldwide that balances the needs of people, planet & profit - for today and future generations.