Booba

How to Profit from the Commercial Real Estate Fallout

SRS perfomance sucks big time! This is my own experience, not "statistics"!
I was lucky: I didn't loose too much on stocks, and I even won something on reverse ETFs.
Bot SRS proved top be terrible terrible idea! SRS was my number 1 money looser, way ahead of other ETFs.
I learned one lesson: stay away form it!


On Jun 18 01:43 PM ezee wrote:

> David, very good insights. Maybe you could write another piece to
> elaborate on SRS and its performance in the last 3, 6 12 months?
>
> I am searching for some ETF that can execute on that vision but run
> into difficulties.

Resurgent Russia Discharging Dollars

Just one comment.
"With neither a rising generation nor much immigration and rapid deaths the Russian population is disappearing."
"Russia is a regional powerhouse but disappearing because of demographic factors. "

Where did the author find this information?
Russian is the SECOND biggest immigrant's nation in the world!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Only America has more immigrants than Russia!
Besides, Russian Government recently passed a law that encourage birth rate by giving families significant financial and other perks, and some data indicates it started working.

Emerging Market Toxic Assets: The IMF Questions Russia

This is ridiculous: IMF "questions" Russia, the country that has HUGE budget surplus, no debts and one of the biggest currency and gold assets. Isn't it funny?
IMF would rather shut up and stay quiet!
Who are adviser there? American "experts" from rotten Wall St. financial institutions?
Did they "question" recent bubble, American budget deficit and melting inflated Wall St financial infrastructure?
All their "advices" borough Argentina to financial collapse and caused enormously tough times for Russia after USSR was collapsed.
China didn't listen to them and it didn't have any crises as Argentina, Russian, Ukraine and other nations that listened to IMF did!

OPEC Cuts, Oil Falls: Something's Not Sustainable

"to fight China, Russia and India for the world’s dwindling supplies"
yeah, as most Americans this guy is good when it comes to economy, but looks so, sorry, stupid when it come to something outside of baseball "World" series :)
1) Ok, you defeated China and India, so what's next? They are NOT suppliers of oil, my dear "expert"! All you can do is to prohibit them to consume oil, if you can occupy them! :)
2) Fight Russia? I don't want even mention fate of Napoleon and Hitler after they tried to do that. I just want to let you know, my dear "expert", that Russia can annihilate America in 1 hour. Literally! Russia preserved the Soviet era nukes completely.
If you don't know that, too bad!
Stupid Bush And Co., instead of supporting puppets (that BTW don't obey its master!) like Saakashvili, would rather establish good ties with Russia!
If they don't know how to do that they can ask American astronauts and NASA guys that work successfully with Russians since 1975 in space!
Anti-Russian propaganda in America in its peak now, although all Russian leaders, whatever you hear of them from CNN and AP, keep calling America "our partner" and keep saying that all they want is to have good relationship with us!
It is America that does whatever it can to worsen relationship with Russia by being arrogant, ignorant and just plain stupid sometimes!
I hope Obama and Co. will finally stop confronting Russia and make it our ally!

'The Shallowest Generation': A Rebuttal

This article is blah-blah-blah, no more, in the best style of Sarah Palin who's red neck husband, thanks God, will not become our President!
I cannot see the author has something to say, but just mocking a few statements form the original article.
I'm sorry, but only an idiot will deny that reckless consumerism led America to current crisis, and, naturally, not only baby boomers are blamed for this.
Only idiot will deny that baby boomers rule America now, and that later generations will pay for their stupidity and arrogance.
Read what the author says:
"That is capitalism: use someone else’s money, not your own, especially when you have your own."
Wow, this is a huge discovery in economic science! :):)
I thought before that capitalism is something different.
BTW, by saying "someone else's money" the author means, I guess, taxpayer's money?

Auto Sales: Good News on the Horizon?

"Cars depreciate with age. Holding onto a car longer means more repairs, and less value down the road. Consumers will begin to feel the pressure of the trade-in value of their car, good deals on new cars, and repair costs that could be mounting."
I'm sorry but this statement sounds ridiculous.
Holding car longer means saving more money!
It was estimated if you drive your car up to 200,000 miles you save average $20,000 over the years you keep it.
I drive 1999 Camry that has 195,000 miles, and I spend money mostly on maintenance, not fix. I estimate I spend no more than $80 per month on maintenance. If I buy a new Camry I'll pay at least $250-300 per month fro 3-6 until I pay it off, not to mention I'll have to put some 5-7K as down payment.
Not to mention the car's value falls some 5% just after you drove out of dealership.
But even if you are new cars freak, you must have pretty good credit history now to get auto loan.
Did the author hear about credit crunch and that banks are not willing to give money to anybody who can move?
"I will project that auto sales will begin their rebound in December, and that by Presidents Day in 2009, the auto industry will be stabilized."
This prediction is also ridiculous and sounds like "predictions" of notorius National Association of Realtors :)
Why will happen in December or by President Day 2009? People will start getting higher salaries? Banks will start reckless lending again?
And why by President Day? Why not by New Year or Easter or Valentine Day? I personally prefer the latter! :)

Opportunities to Profit from the New Cold War

I'm sorry, but it seems like this guy has no clue what he is talking about!
1) "Georgia, which had been well run economically"
Yea, it is so "well run" that hundreds of thousands of Georgians went to Russia to find work!
And some other facts:
"Corruption is perceived as significant. Georgia now ranks 99th out of 163 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2006".
"Judicial corruption is still a problem despite substantial improvement in trying to raise the level of efficiency and fairness in the courts. Both foreigners and Georgians continue to doubt the judicial system's ability to protect private property and contracts."
www.heritage.org/index...
More over, Georgian President was accused in corruption and and seizing property illegally:
www.guardian.co.uk/com...
The fact that World Bank controlled by American Government prises Georgia doesn't mean this is true.
This is well-known fact that Georgia is tightly US-controlled "project" with President that graduated in America and his wife is an American citizen (not naturalized one) with tight political connections in Washington.
2) "especially since Vladimir Putin looks a lot more dangerous than the sluggardly Leonid Brezhnev."
Really? And what did you make you think so? The conflict with Georgia?
Let me remind you what have happened there. Georgina troops started shelling and bombing City of Tshinvali. Most of its residents are Russian citizens. What should Russia do? Whatch and relax?
What else makes this guy think that "Putin is dangerous"? What about Bush then that invaded Iraq and Afghanistan? Look at the map: where is South Ossetia and Russia, and where is Iraq and Afghanistan and America? So, who is "dangerous"?
If you do an economy analysis, you shouldn't put all of that CNN-style "we all hate Russians and Putin" bullshit here!
Brezhnev's USSR openly declared that it supported all countries that "chose socialism", and it did. Does Russia or Putin says or do that?
3) "Only the Ukraine seems to be trying its best to remain pro-Western, with its president, Viktor Yushchenko, flying in to Tbilisi to express solidarity with Georgia."
My poorly informed "analyst", "Yuschenko" does not mean "Ukraine". His approval rating is around 10% now, and even those who fiercely supported him now very disappointed. Not to mention that "pro-Western" president prohibited to use Russian language, the native language of 60% of Ukrainian residents, on TV and in commercials completely. Imagine what would happened if American President prohibited to use Spanish on TV and in commercials?
4) "Investing in Russia has always been a bit like visiting Las Vegas – but now it’s like wagering large amounts of money in a casino you know to be controlled by the Mafia"
Investing, my friend, is ALWAYS risky!
Sure, investing in mortgage-backing securities with AAA rating was completely safe, right? :)
5) "At some stage, oil prices will reverse – at which point Russia, with its thuggish approach and expensive military machine, is likely to run out of money quite quickly"
This is another very observation!
Russian gold and hard currency reserve holdings hit a record of 483.9 billion US dollars, having increased by 2.6 billion USD in a week, the Central Bank said. Russia has the world’s third largest gold and hard currency reserves after China and Japan.
www.globalfirepower.co...
This means that Russia has 3,500 USD of hard currency/gold reserves per capita.
How many thousands dollars of deficit per capita Americans have?
6) "As with Venezuela, foreign investors will then be the most obvious people to loot."
As with Venezuela????? I cannot see any similarities between Russia and Venezuela! Russia works with America and other Western nations in G8 trying to resolve global problems and spending money to fight famine, poverty, global warming, nuclear weapon control, etc. Russia works with America in space. Russia has been sharing intelligences with America and other Western nations that help them to fight terrorists. "Dangerous" Putin was first that called Bush to express his support his sympathy after September 11 and later went on to help American troops in Afghanistan.
Did Venezuela do anything like that?
7) "this time Putin may find he made a major mistake in timing his invasion of Georgia to coincide with China’s Summer Olympic showcase."
Oh, boy! Did the author forget WHO started it exactly when the Olympic Games was opening? Putin? Even CNN and AP say that Saakashvili started first!
8) "The United States will also need to boost its defense spending"
Really? And why we need to do that? To fight with Russia?
9)"One enormous advantage is that Russia alone is much smaller than the former Soviet Union, both in terms of population and its weight in the world economy."
So what? Russia is still able to evaporate this lil' blue planet!
There is NO advantages to have second Cold War and especially call for it, as you do in your article!
Nobody win it this time because post-Cold War history clearly showed Russia that in reality the West doesn't want to see Russia other than weak and humiliated. So, I doubt second Gorby will emerge from Russia!

Events in Russia Could Push U.S. Toward a Clearer Energy Policy

"The reason NATO is feckless, obviously, is that most if not all NATO countries must have Russia’s oil and gas exports"
With all my respect the major reason why NATO is "feckless" is obviously the simple fact that Russia is a nuclear superpower. It means Russia can literally annihilate NATO in a few hours with it huge nuke arsenal.
Also, I was disappointed to find on this board the same cheap dirty anti-Russian propaganda we can see on CNN, Fox News or AP about Russian-Georgian conflict.
The beauty of Seeking Alpha is its authors usually much smarter and more independent thinkers than their colleagues from mainstream "independent" mass-media.
Unfortunately, it seems to me the author of this article used cheap mass-marked CNN as a source of info about Russia-Georgia conflict instead of less hysterical and more intelligent sources like, say, Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, Time Magazine, Guardian, Times, etc.
And the last but not least.
If Russia wanted to "putting us at great risk", as author claims, it would have disrupted or at least approached major pipelines in Georgia. Russians didn't do that although they easily could do that and push oil prices to stratosphere. They didn't do that because I guess they wanted to send a signal to the West: "Guys, we play according to the rules. We don't fight YOU! We only fight your reckless bloody puppet that forgot how to behave yourself".
They didn't even overthrow Saakashvili, despite of his hysterical complains translated by American mass-medias, as Americans did with Saddam.
I'd suggest author to clear his brains from Cold War prejudice and stop seeing Russians as enemies. Prejudice, fear and hate are bad allies of analytical brains!