| Housing Bubble and Real Estate Market Tracker
Judy Weil submits: Here's our summary of articles and data points on the housing market. It's part of Seeking Alpha's coverage of the real estate market and homebuilder stocks. Like all other topics and stock coverage from Seeking Alpha, you can get this sent to your Blackberry or desktop email by signing up for our no-spam free email subscription service. Quote of the Day- "From the House's Mouth" "The unsolicited tender offer by entities controlled by Carl Icahn to purchase any and all outstanding shares of WCI's common stock is highly conditional, opportunistic and inadequate from a financial point of view to the Company's shareholders." - Luxury Homebuilder WCI Communities Inc. board rejecting billionaire investor activist Carl Icahn's $22-per-share, or $920.8 million takeover offer Thursday.
Russia's Good Fortune: The Flat Tax Reform
Jon Hellevig, a Finnish citizen currently practicing business law in Moscow, sends us this article about the tremendous success of the supply side tax reforms implemented in Russia since 2002. In addition to a better climate for investors and businesses, these changes have given millions of Russians the freedom to travel, to communicate instantly via email and cellphones, and greater access to Western media networks. The social and political consequences of all of this for Russia are now being vigorously debated, but no one can deny that Russia's economy has surged forward in the last six years. -The Editors Putin's efforts to pull Russia out of political and social anarchy and strengthen statehood are starting to pay off transforming Russia into one of the best investment climates in the world while rewarding the nation with unprecedented increases in living standards.
FTC Says It Can't Crack Down On Lenders' Unsolicited Calls
When you apply for a mortgage and get a barrage of irritating and confusing phone calls from competing lenders before noon the next day, can you turn to the government for help?
The Federal Trade Commission issued its long-awaited answer to that question in mid-March, and it's already attracting criticism. The agency, which has regulatory oversight powers concerning consumer credit, says it lacks the legal authority to crack down on unwanted "trigger list" phone solicitations to consumers who have applied for mortgages within the preceding 12 to 24 hours.
.
The Great Game, Gold Arbitrage & Three Little Pigs
"It seems that the game plan (for financial heavyweights) is to buy assets, real things that can't be papered away by the govt, and pay back with depreciated dollars." Ken gets it. Ken understands the Great Game as it is being played at the highest levels of our monetary system. The Game has two halves: going long the real, and short the symbol. That is, going long real assets by owning them, and going short the dollar and the financial system by selective and advantageous borrowing. That way if you are a hedge fund manager, CEO or private equity investor who has essentially gambled the world monetary system on your speculations, and you collapse the financial markets and the value of the dollar when you guess wrong you dont jump out the office window. Instead, you enjoy an extraordinarily lucrative early retirement. Because you still own the real and by destroying the value of the dollar, this just means that you no longer have to pay back most of what you borrowed to buy the real (in inflation-adjusted terms).
|
