Reggie Middleton's blog

Last night, I spent an interesting time with the esteemed and world reknown macro economist, entrepreneur, NYU professor and strategist, Dr. Nouriel Roubini. Nouriel is a very, very bright guy. He has to be, he agrees with many of my viewpoints :-) On a more serious note, this article is the first installment of the valuation of real world, real assets and properties that are actually up for sale. I plan to walk my readers through the potential absurdity that is investing in a bubble that has not finished popping.

Here’s my latest with Max Keiser discussing Goldman Sachs (remember, I was the first and original public Goldman Bear), the race to the bottom for the profligate three (or the Triumvirate of super states looking to crash the other two), the banks as the “new tobacco companies” and the accuracy of my call that banks are choking on Bernanke’s ZIRP flavored medicine…

You just don’t hear this stuff in the mainstream, do ‘ya?

Could a masterfully marketed toy run with the big boys at premium prices if the truth were to leak out? Ask iPad buyers this time next year after the next 400 tablets are released on various platforms for much less money sporting that much more functionality.

Anybody who has been following me since 2006 knows me to be a real estate bear. I was massively bullish from 2000 to 2005, after which I started selling off my investment assets. No, it wasn’t perfect timing, intellect, luck or a gift from God. It’s called a spreadsheet. Simply do the math and the truth will be self-evident!

For those who thought Google was simply a search engine and ad company, I strongly suggest that you read on - Cars, home automation, the leading smartphone OS, toys, TV, music, movies, enterprise computing... It's getting serious folk!

"America Realist!" I really like the ring of that:-) Yesterday, I bluntly called out the European state of economic affairs as I saw them in “Liar, Liar, European Pants on Fire!” Today, I present the article published by Property EU, one of the leading real estate publications in Europe which illustrates much of my thoughts on the topic of how and why Europe is nowhere near out of its economic malaise, and more importantly how this may pull the value of real estate down. Well, you can use your imagination for the Lehman like results…

When I say that much of the EU is lying about their financial prospects and Greece (among other countries) will restructure or default, you may or may not listen (quite possibly to your detriment). When the ratings agencies (who are always accurate and timely) say restructuring is on the horizon (a year after me) and the head of the Euro-zone finance ministers finance ministers outright says 'Of course we're lying', then what do you do?

A amazing as Apple's growth was last quarter during the iPhone release on Verizon's network, Google's Android still gained market share and the two main Android handset vendors doubled and tripled Apple's handset growth. It's fair to say that Android is to Google in 2013 as Windows is to Microsoft in the '90s. Network effect, y'all hear?

As one of my readers noted, single family foreclosures have boosted the multifamily rental market, and of course, speculators are doing the bubble thing again. Damn, that was quick. But what happens when interest rates go up, stagflation becomes more prominent, or housing brings us back to recession (that is assuming you believe we ever left it). Alas, I'm getting ahead of myself...

A reader wrote me complaining about the nonsensical bubble blowing in multi-family properties before the last bubble was even finished bursting. I feel his pain. Let’s run through a quick pictorial of how I see the macro climate for real estate as of right now…Everybody is getting squeezed, businesses, consumers, homeowners… Everybody!

The mobile computing field is growing by leaps and bounds bringing the more innovative along with it, while potential casualties are already limping across the battle field before the second round of ammunition has been fired.

As competition that is as inevitable as gravity itself both validates our contrarian thesis and causes Research in Motion’s stock to imitate amateur base jumpers, sans parachute…

As promised, I am presenting historical justification of the logic behind my call of absurdity in the drastic drop in share price after Google announces a redoubled effort in investment and marketing of its nascent businesses.

I invite all to peruse the mainstream financial media and sell side
Wall Street’s take on JP Morgan’s Q1 earnings before reading through my
take. Pray thee tell me, why is there such a distinct difference?

A regular commentator on BoomBustBlog has been attempting to make the case for a housing recovery based upon rising employment metrics. One of his primary arguments was rising hourly earnings. I thought I would take this time to point out that average hourly earnings can rise due to the fact that less people are working. The aggregate employment in the US has literally fell off of a cliff. Since you know that I love pictures, let’s do this graphically…