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BXP's Mort Zuckerman: "The Economy Is Worse Than It Looks"
One would think that if anyone had an interest in painting an overly optimistic picture for the economy in general, and commercial real estate in particular, the Chairman of office uber-REIT Boston Properties would be it. Nope. Morty is about as bearish (or realistic as Zero Hedge likes to call it) as they come. Mort focuses not only on the worse than represented unemployment numbers, but the lower consumption, the lower confidence, and the overall much weaker economy than represented. "The government is addressing not the real economy but the confidence in the economy." Sobering words from a man who knows.
HT: Steven
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Jesus Tyler, how many red pills did u take this morning?
High tolerance...
"The government is addressing not the real economy but the confidence in the economy."
The idiots running government policy these days are trying to CON the consumers into going back to WILD and RECKLESS spending, just like their government, so that will help kick start the economy. The problem is the american public KNOWS they don't have unlimited funds to spend, can't print their own money, and aren't stupid enough to think it work anyway.
the government has created a LACK of confidence in the paychecks of Americans. If you don't have confidence, you're less likely to do anything but hunker down.
Where are the prozac?
Just like they did in the 30's:
http://austrianfilter.blogspot.com/2009/07/blog-post.html
Just like consumers, state and local governments are having to throttle back to a skeleton crew in the hopes of the rations lasting long enough. Kinda funny how consumers and local governments understand the fundamentals, but our federal government can operate on a magical plane of existence. It's also sad that on the one hand, everyone understands they have to reduce their consumption (and have done so at an alarming rate) and on the other hand, these were the same people that had unsatiable consumptive habits prior to the paradigm shift... in short, the knowledge to fix the issue (or at least attempt to) is inherent... it's in there... but who knows when we're going to follow it.
So, if we're so darned "smart," how did this ultra-leftist get elected in the first place? I saw this coming - as did many others - and maybe not to this magnitude, but I'm hardly shocked ...
Obama was elected as a backlash against the Bush/Cheney experience. That's obvious. Swings in politics are not unlike swings in the markets. You can put whatever labels you want on it/them, but its not a one-sided equation.
Economy is in a Depression. Gov, is trying to delude the public into thinking we are exiting a recession. The pain will be tremendous when it all falls apart.
The difference between now and fall of 08 is that our worst fears will have been realized... whereas at least there was plausible deniability before... the potential to wilfully suspend disbelief.
Why are the intellectual people only on Bloomberg?
might be a few intelligent folks on cnbc, however they only get about 20 seconds to make their case. oh, and most of the time they are heartily refuted, disputed, and discredited - by anchors ("talent" or "personalities") with little to no education, training or experience.
but doubt it none - more and more my buddies at other firms say their floors are turning off cnbc and turning on bloomberg.
Refuted? Hell, they're ususally just shouted down without being able to articulate an entire thought or even a sentence.
you (or anyone else) see when they had Hussman on? Huss has had probably top percentile returns the last 1, 3, 5, 7 years (except wasnt exciting when cyclical go-go leveraged garbage was running) and they chastised him when he said he had again positioned the fund in a "fully defensive" maner. CNBC's response? Arent you afraid of missing, healthcare has been dreadful (b/c yea, thats the ONLY way to invest defensively, healthcare stocks - research your guests before they come on, dimwits). they pretty much shut him down when he should be on a pedestal with the other guys that were ACTUALLY calling for a recession and housing collapse way before it actually happened.
don't give bloomberg too much credit - I was listening to the interview w/ Zuckerman on b-berg radio this morning and they had to cut to a commercial break when he got too negative/realistic
If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick
Steinbeck
this is all you need to know.
and i don't include the commercial real estate catastrophe taking place:
http://truthingold.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-prime-time-stage-2-of-us-col...
Yea, Mort from Boston Properties....
I wonder if he contributed in any way to the CRE bubble? Hummmm. I wonder....
Great guy the Mort Zuckerman, playing both sides of the coin.
Gotta love a scumbag like Mort.
Shouldn't be hard to figure out. So why don't you do
before you call him a scumbag. The way I see it he is one of few telling the truth right now.
Maybe you don't understand what "playing both sides of the coin" means.... It's a saying that has a specific meaning.
Blow the balloon up till it pops. Then spend a lot of energy telling everyone it was not your fault for popping it was global warming that made it pop. Then get everyone who believed you to buy you a new balloon. The start blowing again. (Blow hard wink-wink)
Thank you.
This does serve a purpose. Help "deflate" that balloon at a quicker pace than market price discovery (or lack thereof) is accomplishing right now. Then swoop in with your purchasing power, hopefully after everyone has been sufficiently scared off. And take credit for "calling it like it was" when properties sell at a bigger discount than projected.
Kind of like someone putting a stock on their Conviction Sell list, then accumulating it after the dump.
We here at my company, well atleast me in the RISK management department, labeled the start date of the recession as December 2007 (we did this in January of 2008). We also (read me) labeled the start date of the D-E-P-R-E-S-S-I-O-N as December 2008 (we did that in January of 2009).
Zuckerman and another guy were on CNBC a couple of months back. He is a CNBC favorite, but he and the other guy, who I think was Gary Shilling were shooting holes in the China is going to rescue the world story. It is like the mind can overcome physic and we can all fly if we think so. Really, getting back to the GE post, it is let us at GE scam you one more time.
Quite interesting, he said he was doing what was making a mess of the economy. He was doing it because that is how the economy operates. Fractional reserve banking and Keynesian economics always leads to over capacity and bankruptcy. Mort mentioned getting some good deals on real estate and to do so he is going to have to stay in business.
I looked at an email this morning sent out by none other than the wonderboy Ron Insana.
Here is a modified screen shot of the incredible sales pitch.
http://i25.tinypic.com/27y789f.jpg
What a joke this guy is.
Like the station he crawled back to:
“CNBC Advice Equals Holy Grail!”
http://www.michaelcovel.com/2009/07/27/cnbc-advice-equals-holy-grail/
Excellent artwork there old chum !
Seems to me Mr. Zuckerman was one of the victims[?] of
Mr. Bernard Madoff [with my money]. I don't think Mr.
Z's advice is worth spit. Back in 2000 after looking
at Mr. M's 'make big money' scheme I came to the
conclusion that there would have to be at least 3-5
times the options traded in the stocks Mr. M supposedly
held. Mr. Z apparently didn't do due diligence and lost
his rear. As with any financial adviser, you should
always ask for their last 5 years of federal tax
returns to see exactly how much they actually made
trading and not from their advice. Those who follow
advisers telling you to diversify are wrong. All
asset classes will be going down shortly and people
will suffer massive losses. Good trading, everyone!
Thanks to Tyler for relentlessly beating the CRE drum. His conviction and ability to back it with facts, articles and opinions have made, and continue to make it very valuable to me.
She's right--you need to start thinking about putting the red pills in the other end. Otherwise, I'm not going to get anything else done today.
Don't we have serious confounding issues with his advertising numbers being a real indication of economic health? There has been an exit of traditional advertising for a while now. People have quit reading print media. Why would I be paying for advertising in a dying medium?
"We are tired of realities! We want promises!" =)
The gummint does not create jobs... basically what it does
is to collect taxes, fees, et cetera and redistribute
them. All the monies it collects means that there is less
capital to create the necessary jobs that pay the taxes,
fees, et cetera. When you consider the waste and fraud
associated with the gummint and its layers of bureaucracy,
it's no wonder gummint doesn't work. Especially, when you
have an elitist class that doesn't believe in a
Constitutional Republic with a true representative
government. The past administrations have screwed the
people and will continue to do so, well into the future.
Until the voters decide enough is enough, things will only
get worse. Be prepared to for a long, long deflationary
depression. Those still standing with something left will
become the next group of millionaires. Stay liquid and out
of debt if at all possible and don't depend on the gummint,
big business, Wall Street, the banks and the scam artists
out there. Try to be self reliant. It's your only hope.
-B. Eldorado
credit is the new bread line....only much less visible
Oh I like that.
Credit is the new bread line, only much less edible....
Talk about edible, just finished a great new book by Michael Ruhlman about ratios. Check it out.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416566112/ref=nosim/ruhlmancom
http://blog.ruhlman.com/
Thanks for a great blog!
Just a couple of thoughts about the economy : the Internet and digital convergence. I haven't personally seen these two ideas mentioned in blogs.
US consumers can get on the Internet and find web sites that help them save money in many fast and practical ways. Sites like (my favorite) Dollar Stretcher are a great way to get a feeling for how much waste is in the consumer cost structure and also how fast efficiencies in a personal budget can be implemented. During a recession, this access to information for private citizens is unprecedented (the web was still pretty clunky in 2001).
A quick idea that saves (for example) a few dollars a day (for the rest of your life and the lifetime of your kids!) quickly adds up to huge drops in the over-all demand for both tangible goods and intangible services.
The other example I like is the iPhone. When 20 devices are packaged into one device then 19 factories will close.
I've often joked that the primary driver of the information industry companies is sales in buttons, power supplies, plastic boxes and boxes to ship. I would suggest that digital convergence (with the iPhone as an example) is just beginning.
A few passing thoughts from
Namke von Federlein
Most people don't get it! The crew in the Whitehouse wants to destroy the economy so they can be the top dog in the new one world economy. We are now entering in for the last kill. The debtor becomes the slave of another. We have lost because of our greed.
Re: Eldorado post: And when you are the last soldier standing, better watch your back because the hordes of losers will be crawling up your lawn looking to steal it all.
No Place to Hide will probably be the final book published in this wonderful USA.
I guess that's why Mortimer and Edward are dumping their shares in BXP...
30 million bucks worth in the last two days.
http://www.insiderstockdump.com/