Clearly this is not the only, or even necessarily the best way. But some people take it to this level.
“American families pay more to send their kids to college than anywhere else in the world. “
“But for wealthy families, the costs start long before that very first college-tuition payment, according to Town & Country.”
“T&C published a list of expenses for getting a child from birth through college based on education costs. The story was a refresh of a 1973 article where the magazine conducted the same analysis and came to a figure of $300,000.”
“The 2017 version tallied to an eye-popping $1.7 million per child. The analysis aimed to show how wealthy families approach the competition to get their kids into the Ivy League.”
Real Estate
WSJ – Daily Shot: BMO Wealth Management – US Cities Housing Price Change from Pre-Crisis Peak 11/29
“Don’t panic, but there is now a 70% chance of a U.S. stock market correction, according to research conducted by fund giant Vanguard Group. There is always the risk of a correction in stocks, but the Vanguard research shows that the current probability is 30% higher than what has been typical over the past six decades.”
“‘It’s about having reasonable expectations,’ Davis (Joe Davis, Vanguard chief economist) said of the research, which attempts to provide investors with a view of what can occur in the markets in the next five years. ‘Having a 10% negative return in the U.S. market in a calendar year [within a five-year forward period] has happened 40% of the time since 1960. That goes with the territory of being a stock investor.’ He added, ‘It’s unreasonable to expect rates of returns, which exceeded our own bullish forecast from 2010, to continue.'”
“In its annual economic and investing outlook published last week, Vanguard told investors to expect no better than 4% to 6% returns from stocks in the next five years, its least bullish outlook since the post-financial crisis recovery began.”
“For Vanguard the research is a chance to remind investors that overreaching is no better a solution for a lower-return environment than getting out of the market entirely. Davis worries some investors will hear ‘lower returns’ and view it as a catalyst to become more aggressive as a way to generate the returns they have been used to in recent years.”
“As long as an investor is in a financial situation in which they can cope with a single down year, ‘you need to stay invested, because of lower expected returns,’ Davis said. But he added, ‘Don’t become overly aggressive. The next five years will be challenging, and investors need to have their eyes wide open.'”
“One of the main reasons why millions of people jump on investment manias and get crushed by them is because of a simple Fear Of Missing Out. Your co-worker made $10,000 investing in Fidget Spinners and now you feel like you weren’t enough of a dumbass with your dumbass money so you invest your dumbass money in something that is truly for dumbasses and you lose your (dumb) ass.”
“Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has pledged to rid the world of Islamist terrorism as he launched a military alliance that critics fear will deepen rifts between the kingdom and its arch-rival Iran.”
“Prince Mohammed has vowed to restore moderate Islam in the kingdom, where puritanical strains of the faith that encouraged violence have been promoted for decades. The launch of the alliance follows Friday’s jihadist attack on a mosque in Egypt that left more than 300 people dead. ‘The greatest danger of extremist terrorism is in distorting the reputation of our tolerant religion,’ the prince said.”
“One of Europe’s leading energy consultancies has estimated that Tesla’s electric haulage truck will require the same energy as up to 4,000 homes to recharge, calculations that raise questions over the project’s viability.”
“The US electric carmaker unveiled a battery-powered lorry earlier this month, promising haulage drivers they could add 400 miles of charge in as little as 30 minutes using a new ‘megacharger’ to be made by the company.”
“John Feddersen, chief executive of Aurora Energy Research, a consultancy set up in 2013 by a group of Oxford university professors, said the power required for the megacharger to fill a battery in that amount of time would be 1,600 kilowatts.”
“That is the equivalent of providing 3,000-4,000 ‘average’ houses, he told a London conference last week, ten times as powerful as Tesla’s current network of ‘superchargers’ for its electric cars.”
“Pressured by low yields and political issues at home, cash-rich private investors from China and Hong Kong are snapping up trophy buildings in the U.K. capital. Often prepared to spend whatever it takes, these wealthy investors are pricing institutional investors out of the market. And because they don’t need to borrow to buy, U.K. lenders are feeling the pinch.”
“Of the £12.2 billion ($16.1 billion) spent on central London offices in the first three quarters this year, almost half came from private Chinese and Hong Kong buyers, according to real-estate consultant Knight Frank. That is a big jump from last year, when the group accounted for just less than a quarter of overall spending, and from 2015, when the figure was 7%.”
“By borrowing money at home, Chinese and Hong Kong investors have also pushed down property lending in London. According to a report by De Montfort University, the volume of new loans in the U.K. has fallen 18% year-over-year in the first half of 2017 due to a ‘slowdown in purchasing activity of new properties requiring debt during 2017’.”
“U.K. institutional investors such as asset managers are also dialing back. In all, they have bought £880 million of central London real estate so far this year, out of a total £15.68 billion spent by all investors, according to www.propertydata.com. Two years ago, U.K. institutions bought £2.89 billion worth of property.”
“’London is a two-tier market right now—the Asian investors and everybody else,’ said Joe Valente, head of research and strategy of European real estate at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, adding that the firm is waiting for the prices to fall before entering the market again.”
Finance
WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – Commercial and Industrial Loan Growth 11/27
“Japanese companies are scouring the country for workers and offering more attractive permanent contracts as they struggle to overcome the worst labor shortages in 40 years.”
“Companies across a range of sectors — from construction to aged care — have warned in recent days that a lack of staff is starting to hit their business.”
“The hiring difficulties highlight Japan’s declining population and the strength of its economy after five years of economic stimulus under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.”
“’Delays to construction projects are becoming chronic,’ said Motohiro Nagashima, president of Toli Corporation, one of Japan’s biggest makers of floor coverings.”
“One way companies are tackling shortages is by offering more generous permanent contracts, which provide job security and pension benefits. That policy has broken a decades-long trend towards more part-time and contract work.”
“The way companies are responding — using every means other than wage increases — suggests that shortages will not yet turn into higher inflation.”
“Irregular work has risen relentlessly from about 19% of total employment when Japan’s bubble burst in 1990, to a peak of 37.9% in 2015.”
“But there are now signs of stabilization, with the percentage of irregular staff falling to 37.4% in the third quarter of this year.”
“Sales of nontraded real estate investment trusts are headed for their worst year since 2002, with the industry on track to raise just $4.4 billion in equity in 2017, about $100,000 less than a year earlier, according to data from Robert A. Stanger & Co.”
“Making matters worse for the industry is that one newcomer to selling nontraded REITs, The Blackstone Group, has the highest sales for the year to date through September. Blackstone had almost $1.4 billion in sales with its new REIT, the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, over the first nine months of the year, according to Stanger.”
“That means traditional nontraded REIT managers – including Griffin Capital Co., Carter/Validus Advisors, Cole Capital and others – will likely raise about $3 billion this year, about one third less than the 2016 total. And independent broker-dealers are struggling without the lucrative commissions formerly generated by product sales.”
“In 2002, $3.8 billion worth of nontraded REITs were sold. Nontraded REIT sales were $11.5 billion in 2007, according to Stanger, just as the real estate crash was beginning. Sales of nontraded REITs hit their peak in 2013, when independent broker-dealers sold $19.6 billion of the products.”
In addition to an accounting scandal at industry behemoth, American Realty Capital (ARC), new securities rules have hurt sales.
“New securities industry rules and regulations, including the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, have hurt sales of high commission products like nontraded REITs. The fiduciary rule has flattened the levels of commissions that brokers charge clients for products such as mutual funds.”
“The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority also recently put into place a new rule, known as 15-02, that makes pricing of illiquid securities like nontraded REITs more transparent to investors. In the past, client account statements showed illiquid securities like REITs at the value they were bought by the client and did not subtract commissions, which were high.”
“With the DOL fiduciary rule flattening commissions, many REIT managers began selling T shares, which cut the upfront load by more than half. After initially paying a 3% commission, the broker is then paid up to 7% over several years. An annual commission of 80 basis points is paid from the return generated by the REIT manager.”
“Many economists have long predicted an end to the dollar reign that was established after World War II, especially after President Richard Nixon unpegged the greenback from gold in 1971. The creation of the euro in 1999 and the breakneck growth of the Chinese economy led many analysts to say the dollar would need to share the limelight.”
“But the euro became politically unpopular during the European debt crisis, and Chinese capital controls to peg the yuan are anathema to global investors. Meanwhile, the share of official reserves held in dollars recently stopped its multiyear decline, and in the second quarter of 2017, foreign-country dollar-denominated debt rose to an all-time high of $8.6 trillion, according to the BIS.
“’The dollar’s downward trend of the last 40 years is over,’ said Paresh Upadhyaya, fund manager at Amundi Pioneer, Europe’s largest asset manager.”
“A one-currency dominance challenges economic models that see global financial markets as a flat surface where, on average, investors shouldn’t be better or worse off depending on which currency they trade.”
“The thefts — which occur on average more than once an hour and are often staged by scores of criminals carrying assault rifles — have reportedly forced the national postal service to stop street deliveries in some neighborhoods of Rio, while supermarkets have raised their prices by up to 20 per cent to pay for the losses.”
“Recession-induced budget crises across governments in Latin America’s largest economy have led to the spike in crime, analysts say. One state — Espírito Santo — recorded 128 murders during eight days of uncontrolled street crime in February when police went on strike after budget cuts.”
“Cargo theft in Rio de Janeiro, whose greater metropolitan area has a population of 12m people, has increased sharply from 5,890 incidents in 2014 at the start of the economic downturn to a record 9,862 last year, says the local industry association Firjan. The state is on track to top a similar number this year, with food, beverages, electronic appliances and cigarettes among the preferred targets.”
“According to a 2017 report by the Inter-American Development Bank, crime and the efforts to combat it cost Brazil some $120bn a year, three times the toll on Mexico, which is ravaged by drug-cartel violence.“
Is this what happens when a society becomes too unequal? Politicians play their hand at their ability to regulate with intent to collect personal payoffs – graft becomes endemic – the people go on a corruption hunt – political infrastructure suffers – basic services decline – theft and looting become common place. I would imagine that the walls around the wealthy compounds are getting higher with more armed guards.
WSJ – Daily Shot: Moody’s – Higher Ed & Not For Profit Debt Rating Changes 11/19
“College debt continues to get downgraded. Some suggest that this could become a severe problem if the economy slows (colleges are no longer able to raise tuition at the rate they used to). Will we see colleges consolidating or even going under?”
“According to Gallup, Americans’ trust in mass media peaked at 72% in 1976, the year All The President’s Men hit cinemas. By last year, that figure had plunged to 32% — just 14% among Republicans.”
“America is not unique in this, but in few countries are views of journalists more defined by party allegiance and in no other has a president so weaponized that mistrust.”
“A Politico/Morning Consult poll in October found 46% of Americans believe news organizations fabricate Trump stories, and more than three quarters of Republicans think we are making it up. Far more Americans now define ‘fake news’ as sloppy or biased reporting than White House spin.”
“Knowing the consequences my colleagues and I would face if we fabricated a story, I find such polls baffling and alarming. It is tempting to quibble with the methodology or even to despair of those who don’t understand how we work. But it feels more important to examine how we became so vulnerable to the ‘fake news’ charge.”
“The issue isn’t whether the market will crash, it is how much money investors will make, or lose, in the coming years. With cash sloshing around the global financial system, prices can go higher, but investors who buy at those prices shouldn’t expect their returns to match those earned in the past few years.”
“More than 168,000 people have flown or sailed out of Puerto Rico to Florida since the hurricane, landing at airports in Orlando, Miami and Tampa, and the port in Fort Lauderdale. Nearly half are arriving in Orlando, where they are tapping their networks of family and friends. An additional 100,000 are booked on flights to Orlando through Dec. 31, county officials said. Large numbers are also settling in the Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach areas.”
“With so many arriving so abruptly, the migration is expected to transform Orlando, a city that has already become a stronghold of Puerto Ricans, many of them fleeing the island’s economic crisis in recent years. The Puerto Rican population of Florida has exploded from 479,000 in 2000 to well over one million today, according to the Pew Research Center, with the better part settling in Orlando.”
WSJ – Daily Shot: Moody’s – Global Demographic Shifts 11/17
Essentially, depends where you live and how disciplined you are with your savings. Further, if you live in a part of the world where home price appreciation has lagged, there is value in having flexibility to move to parts of the country where it hasn’t (which of course further builds on that trend).
“…Then there is the evangelical vote. Mr Trump appears single-handedly to have changed their moral position. In 2011, 70% of white evangelicals said bad private behavior should disqualify an individual from public office, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. That had dropped to just 28% last year. It is perhaps the most astonishing sea change among any group of voters in recent years. It is also a good example of ‘negative partisanship’ — no matter how bad your candidate might be, he or she could not possibly be worse than the other party’s.”
“China’s central bank outlined sweeping new regulations aimed at curbing financial risk in the asset management industry on Friday, in the latest signal of its determination to rein in the country’s runaway shadow banking sector.”
“The new rules, affecting $15tn of asset-management products, are aimed at unifying regulatory practices across the financial industry and will come into force in June. They will prohibit asset managers from promising investors a guaranteed rate of return, while also requiring them to set aside 10% of the management fees they collect for provisioning purposes.”
“Fears about the potential impact of regulatory tightening have contributed to a recent spike in Chinese sovereign bond yields, with the China 10-years rising through 4% this week for the first time since 2014.”
“On Thursday the PBoC injected almost $50bn into the financial system to calm investor fears, its largest intervention in almost a year. But Friday’s regulations indicated that Mr Xi’s administration will not back away from the more stringent approach it has adopted towards risk management.”
“In a party congress speech last month that marked the beginning of his second five-year term in office, Mr Xi indicated that his administration was prepared to accept lower rates of economic growth in order to defuse financial risks.”
“In August the International Monetary Fund warned that non-financial sector debt was poised to exceed 290% of GDP by 2022, compared with 235% at the end of last year.”
South America
WSJ – Daily Shot: Venezuelan Household Purchasing Power 11/17
“Leonardo da Vinci’s rediscovered portrait of Jesus Christ sold at auction for $450.3 million, making it the most expensive work of art ever sold.”
“The estimate for the work was around $100 million. But before Wednesday night’s sale in New York, dealers had wagered the image of an enigmatic Christ dressed in a blue robe and holding a crystal orb could sell for far more—given that da Vinci is a household name, fewer than 20 of his paintings survive and this is the last one deemed by him in private hands.”
“The price more than doubled the $179.4 million spent two years ago for Pablo Picasso’s 1955 ‘Women of Algiers (Version O),’ as well as an earlier record of $170.4 million for Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917-18 ‘Reclining Nude.’ In private sales, paintings by Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin have commanded as much as $250 million and $300 million, respectively.”
“Alex Rotter, chairman of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department, fielded the winning telephone bid after a 19-minute bidding war with at least five rivals in which bids were initially lobbed in $10 million increments. Billionaire collectors in the saleroom watched with their cellphone cameras held aloft as though they were at a rock concert.”
“’I’ve been going to auctions for decades, and I’ve never heard that room let out a collective gasp like they did when it sold,’ said Joanne Heyler, founding director of the Broad, a Los Angeles museum. ‘It’s hard for me to even comprehend that level of bidding.’”
“’Salvator Mundi’ isn’t instantly recognizable, like da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ or ‘Mona Lisa.’ This painting was considered a plum for its rarity. Auction records show only a trio of da Vinci’s 2,500 drawings have ever even come up for sale—the highest fetched $11.4 million in 2001—and no authenticated paintings have entered the market in at least a century.”
“Da Vinci painted the portrait around 1500, and it bounced among European royals for hundreds of years before shoddy cleaning efforts and overpainting rendered it almost unrecognizable.”
“When it surfaced in 1958 at Sotheby’s, it sold as a ‘school of da Vinci’ work for only £45 (about $125 at the time). But in 2005 a group of Old Master dealers and a conservator took a closer look and campaigned for its reauthentication. Ultimately, they won validation from museums and da Vinci scholars.”
“’Salvator Mundi’ comes from the collection of Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian fertilizer billionaire.”
More information on the seller. Rybolovlev purchased the painting for $127.5 million in 2013, part of his $2 billion art collection. Which he has been in the process of trimming.
WSJ – Daily Shot: RadioFreeEurope – Where Do IS Foreign Fighters Come From 11/16
“Buoyant financial markets meant that global wealth rose by 6.4% in the 12 months to June, the fastest pace since 2012. And the ranks of the rich expanded again, with 2.3m new millionaires added to the total, according to the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s global wealth report.”
“The report underlines the sharp divide between the wealthy and the rest. If the world’s wealth were divided equally, each household would have $56,540. Instead, the top 1% own more than half of all global wealth. The median wealth per household is just $3,582; if you own more than that, you are in the richest 50% of the world’s population.”
“America continues to dominate the ranks of millionaires with 43% of the global total. Both Japan and Britain had fewer dollar millionaires than they did in June 2016, thanks to declines in the yen and sterling. Emerging economies have been catching up in the millionaire stakes; they now have 8.4% of the global total, up from 2.7% in 2000.”
“In the 12 months covered by the report, the biggest proportionate gains in wealth occurred in Poland, Israel and South Africa, thanks to a combination of stock market and currency gains. Egypt is by far the biggest loser, having lost almost half its wealth in dollar terms. Switzerland is still the country with the highest mean and median wealth per person.”
“There is a wide generational gap: millennials (those who reached adulthood in the current millennium) have a lot of catching up to do in the wealth stakes. Americans currently aged between 30 and 39 years of age are calculated to have amassed 46% less wealth on average in 2017 than the equivalent cohort had gathered in 2007.”
“Higher student debts and the difficulty of getting on the housing ladder have made it harder for millennials to build a nest-egg. That disparity might come back to bite the baby-boomer generation, who are fast moving into retirement. When baby-boomers want to cash in their assets, they may find millennials can’t afford to buy them at current prices.”
“China has been in the grips of a metro-building binge with more than 50 cities working on over 1 trillion yuan ($150.8 billion) worth of projects, after population restrictions were loosened last year to allow more cities to have metro systems.”
“Such infrastructure spending has helped to shore up economic growth but is now being scrutinized more closely after the government pledged to clamp down on financial risks.”
“China has hit the brakes on subway projects in at least three cities and Beijing is asking others to slow down their plans, local governments and media have reported, indicating concerns over high debt from city-level infrastructure spending.”
“Developers hoping for a Diwali revival were left disappointed. Enquiries surged to their highest since demonetization during the festival season. Sales didn’t.”
“Fewer apartments were sold in the top eight cities in the quarter ended September, according to property research company PropEquity. Sales declined 13-60% in the three months, according to its data. Sales haven’t picked up since January even as initial cash crunch after the note ban began to ease. New launches that contribute the bulk of the demand plunged as well.”
“The housing market continues to hurt from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to outlaw old high-value bills and a new housing law. Demonetization had hit real estate the hardest as buyers had to pay up to 40% cash upfront – unaccounted. The Real Estate Regulation Act that followed protects customers against false promises and bars builders from shifting funds from one project to another (a good thing). A combination of the two triggered a cash crunch, bringing down demand and new launches.”
Japan
WSJ – Daily Shot: Topdown Charts – Japan Labor Force Participation 65yrs and older 11/16
“Standard & Poor’s has declared that Venezuela is in default after it missed two interest payments and following a meeting in Caracas that left investors with little notion of how a default on its $60bn debt pile can be avoided.”
“S&P, which is the first rating agency to say the country is in default, said on Tuesday that Caracas had failed to make $200m in coupon payments for global bonds due in 2019 and 2024 within the 30-calendar-day grace period.”
“The agency said it had downgraded the issue ratings on those bonds to D from CC and cut the country’s long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating to selective default, or SD, from CC.”
“’Our CreditWatch negative reflects our opinion that there is a one-in-two chance that Venezuela could default again within the next three months,’ said S&P.”
“Sweden’s decades-long housing market boom is over, two of the country’s bank bosses admit, while trying to reassure investors that their institutions will not suffer a painful hangover of defaults even if the cheap mortgage-fueled party is finished.”
“Swedish house prices have been red hot, rising almost 6% a year on average since 2007, while a surge in household indebtedness from 1.2 to 1.6 times disposable income has attracted intense scrutiny from regulators.”
“Swedish house prices fell 1.5% in September, the first decline for several years, reflecting the impact of measures introduced by regulators to constrain riskier mortgage lending as well as a recent increase in the supply of new homes.”
Japan
WSJ – Daily Shot: Bank of Japan Balance Sheet as % of GDP 11/14
More than “…two million…Venezuelans…have left the country since 1999, the year Mr. Chavez gained power, according to Tomas Paez, a Venezuelan immigration expert. That exodus is roughly twice the number who fled Cuba in the two decades after the revolution there, and is set to worsen.”
“Venezuela has been falling behind on debt payments in its prolonged economic crisis. Some payments have come late. Others haven’t arrived at all. The South American country has said it wants to restructure its remaining debt, which analysts put as high as $150 billion. But observers say Venezuela’s debt crisis could be one of the most complicated in history.”
“Cash-strapped Venezuela and its state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA, have been putting off making interest payments on their debt, taking advantage of 30-day grace periods to save money.”
“The most likely outcome, investors and analysts say, is a protracted period of financial limbo with a restructuring precluded by US sanctions and Venezuela facing a barrage of lawsuits that will tie it up for years to come.”
Another example of how easy it is to manipulate people. Seemingly the spread of the internet was meant to give people access to factual information to make better decisions and to be better informed. Rather it seems that while more information is available, the habit of selection bias has only amplified.
“The oil price has risen by almost 20% over the last four weeks. Does anything in the market justify such an increase, or is the change driven simply by speculation about the dangers of a direct conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran?”
“The real explanation for the rise in prices clearly lies not in the physical balance of supply and demand but in speculation. Once again traders have been bidding up prices on the basis of fears about what could happen next.”
“An open conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran would expose numerous oil fields and installations on both sides of the Gulf to attack. The Straits of Hormuz are still a potential choke point for the global flow of oil. Some 17m barrels a day – almost a quarter of world traded oil – goes through the straits.”
“War would be an illogical step, but since when has logic been the ruling force in the Middle East? If the risk of conflict recedes so will the oil price – there is nothing in the fundamentals to justify a price much over $50 or $55 a barrel. But if open war between the two major Gulf powers did break out the price rise we have seen so far would look trivial.”
“When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke to his nation six months ago, he pledged to crack down on corruption. ‘I assure you that nobody who is involved in corruption will escape, regardless if he was minister or a prince or anyone,’ he said.”
“But few people could have expected the sudden storm this month when a new anti-graft committee ordered the arrest of more than 200 suspects, including princes, prominent businessmen and former senior officials, on allegations related to at least $100bn in corruption.”
“The arrest of so many big names has been hailed within the country as proof ‘no one is above the law’. But others have raised questions about the motivations behind a probe that also targeted a member of the royal family once seen as a contender for the throne.”
“Executives estimate that anywhere between 10% and 25% of the value of government contracts is routinely skimmed, with the proceeds used to fund lavish regal lifestyles, channel money to loyal tribes and grease the palms of favored functionaries. ‘This is how the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has balanced power historically,’ said one executive.”
“While fully eliminating corruption is unlikely, experts say limiting the presence of princes in government could help. King Salman has significantly decreased the number of family members in cabinet — today only the ministers of defense, the interior and the national guard are royals.”
“Some suggest that, even if corruption by the royals continues, the crackdown could still bring important dividends.”
“’Centralized corruption is better because you have one rent-seeker on top.’ said Steffen Hertog, an expert on Saudi political economy at the London School of Economics. ‘That actor has an interest in keeping the whole system efficient and stable, and keeping it from collapsing.’”
“After plunging as much as 29% from a record high following the cancellation of a technology upgrade on Nov. 8, the largest cryptocurrency came roaring back in early trading Monday before fluctuating between gains and losses.”
“While multiple reasons are being cited for the price volatility, one of the more viable is that some investors are switching to alternative coins. Bitcoin cash, an offshoot of bitcoin that includes many of the technical upgrades being debated by developers, has more than doubled in the same period.”
“The resulting volatility has been extreme even by bitcoin’s wild standards and comes amid growing interest in cryptocurrencies among regulators, banks and fund managers. While skeptics have called its rapid advance a bubble, the asset has become too big for many on Wall Street to ignore. Even after shrinking as much as $38 billion since Nov. 8, bitcoin boasts a market value of about $110 billion.”
Real Estate
WSJ – Daily Shot: Homeownership and Apartment Vacancy Rates by US Region 11/12
“Stronger Chinese economic growth will push global greenhouse gas emissions to a record high in 2017 after remaining flat for three years, dashing tentative hopes of a turning point in the world’s efforts to curb climate change.”
“A new report by the Global Carbon Project, an international research consortium, predicts that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry will rise 2% this year. The report was released at the UN climate change meeting in Bonn on Monday.”
“The increase — which is largely caused by China and developing countries — suggests the world is straying further from the course set at the landmark UN conference in Paris two years ago.”
“This year’s rise is especially disappointing as it follows three years of almost no growth in emissions despite a world economy expanding at a steady clip. In 2016, emissions were flat even though the world economy grew 3.2%. One explanation for the uptick is that China’s economic slowdown in the middle part of this decade was more pronounced than official figures suggested.”
“The GPC report concludes: ‘The world has not reached peak emissions yet.’”
“It finds that carbon dioxide emissions decreased in 22 countries accounting for 20% of global emissions, but rose in 101 countries that together represent 50% of pollution. China is predicted to see a 3.5% jump in emissions in 2017. As the biggest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, China plays a crucial role in shifting the global trend.”
“Italy’s economy is doing its best for years, but Italians are still pouring out of the country.
Gross domestic product is growing faster than at any point since 2010, employment is back to pre-crisis levels and the labor inactivity rate is close to an all-time low.”
“So why has the number of Italians living outside the country reached 5.4m — a figure that represents almost 10% of the population and which grew 3.5% last year?”
“The data highlight a story of a dysfunctional labor market, a society in which young, ambitious people often feel unfairly treated, and an economic recovery from which, in large part, they have yet to benefit.”
“Overall, the official figures show that 1.5m people have moved abroad since the crisis broke in 2008.“
“Nor is that the end of it. Foreigners are also leaving: 45,000 non-Italians left the country in 2015, more than three times as many as the figure for 2007.”
“The consequences of the phenomenon could be grave, despite Italy’s recent economic good news.”
“Since the country has long contended with low fertility rates, emigration is a particular threat to Italy’s workforce. Italy is second only to Japan in terms of the proportion of the population accounted for by people aged 65 and over, and in the 25 years to 2015 the working age population as a share of the total population dropped 5 percentage points.”
“In the past five years alone, the number of those aged between 18 and 44 contracted 6%, while the overall population rose 2%.”
“Both the Italian and the British data also show that young people account for the bulk of Italian emigration. The UK National Insurance statistics show that since 2002 more than 90% of Italians registering to work in Britain were under 44 years old. Some 77% were aged between 18 and 34 years old.”
“Italian emigrants are also more highly educated than the overall Italian population and university trained people are leaving in increasing numbers. Graduates make up about 30% of emigrants from Italy, up from 12% in 2002, according to official statistics.”
“The causes of this brain drain are deep-set, writes Guido Tintori, Research Associate at Fieri — International and European Forum on Migration Research, in a forthcoming academic paper on the issue.”
“He argues that skilled young Italian graduates ‘not only are underemployed and underpaid, but constantly frustrated by a society and a labor market that hinge on relationships and seniority over competence’.”
“Furthermore, the economic recovery has yet to touch them. The proportion of young people who are unemployed in Italy is a daunting 35% and has barely changed over the past year.”
“The share of under-34s who are neither in employment nor in education is the highest in the EU and more than half of under-25s in employment are working under temporary contracts. Nearly one in four is working part time because of the unavailability of a full-time job — a higher proportion than in any other high-income economy.”
“Riskier ‘covenant-lite’ loans now account for about 70% of new leveraged loans, up from 30% before the Lehman Brothers crisis. Protections that were standard back then have now vanished altogether.”
“’As long as investors keep buying these loans, there’s nothing really to put the brakes on,’ says Derek Gluckman, a vice-president at Moody’s. ‘Things just keep getting worse.’”
“’Loan terms never got this bad in ‘07,’ says Mr. Cohen (founder and CEO of Covenant Review). ‘The contracts … are the worst they’ve ever been. Period, full stop.’”
“A string of natural disasters from Hurricane Harvey in the US to earthquakes in Mexico have left the insurance industry facing one of its most expensive years on record.”
“The catastrophes have wiped more than $35bn from insurers’ profits, according to a Financial Times analysis of third-quarter results that have laid bare the scale of the damage. Berkshire Hathaway, run by billionaire Warren Buffett, and AIG were among the hardest hit in the US, while in Europe Swiss Re and Munich Re face large claims. Lloyd’s, the London-based insurance market, expects to pay out a total of $4.5bn.”
“Insurers say the final cost is likely to be larger and push up premiums. Commercial insurance and reinsurance have suffered from years of falling rates, as excess capacity and a lack of big claims combined to drive prices down.”
“’The losses have been extensive across reinsurance, commercial insurance and personal lines,’ said Kurt Karl, chief economist at Swiss Re. ‘There were $20bn of natural catastrophe losses across the industry in the first half. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, combined with the earthquakes in Mexico, will create about $95bn of insured losses.’”
“Added together, the industry is facing more than $110bn of insured losses from natural catastrophes. Only 2005 — when Hurricane Katrina hit the US — and 2011 — when there were earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand — were more costly.”
“The $35bn figure, taken from company reports, does not include losses from unlisted companies, or from insurance-linked securities in which investors’ capital is used to directly back insurance risk.”
“This year, the ozone hole is the smallest it has been since 1985. NASA and NOAA scientists have been studying the ozone layer and monitoring its hole over Antarctica for years. This year, the ozone hole is the smallest it has been since 1985.”
“Here’s a rare piece of good news about the environment: The giant hole in the Earth’s protective ozone layer is shrinking and has shriveled to its smallest peak since 1988, NASA scientists said.”
“The largest the hole became this year was about 7.6 million square miles wide, about two and a half times the size of the United States, in September. But it was still 1.3 million square miles smaller than last year, scientists said, and has shrunk more since September.”
“Warmer-than-usual weather conditions in the stratosphere are to thank for the shrinkage since 2016, as the warmer air helped fend off chemicals like chlorine and bromine that eat away at the ozone layer, scientists said. But the hole’s overall reduction can be traced to global efforts since the mid-1980s to ban the emission of ozone-depleting chemicals.”
“The ozone hole was largest in 2000, when it was 11.5 million square miles wide, according to NASA.”
“As Indian politicians squabble over who is to blame for the thick smog that has descended over the north of the country this week, citizens have been looking enviously over the border at China, where particulate levels have been falling for years.”
“Many in India believe Beijing has been better able to combat its air pollution problem because it does not get bogged down in political infighting. They blame India’s problems on the country’s raucous but inefficient democracy.”
“This week, pollution in Delhi literally went off the charts, hitting the top reading of 999 on the US embassy’s air quality index. Anything over a reading of 100 is considered unhealthy.”
“By Wednesday afternoon, Delhi saw airborne levels of tiny damaging particles known as PM2.5 hit 833 parts per million, while in Beijing the level was 76. Anything over 50 is considered unhealthy, and anything over 300 hazardous.“
“The difference between the two cities reflects a broader divergence over recent years, during which Delhi has taken over from Beijing as the world’s most polluted megacity.”
“’Indian politicians have this very weird idea that we will do something about pollution when we are developed, but we won’t develop unless they invest in public health,’ says TK Joshi, director of the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health in Delhi.”
“He adds: ‘Beijing has tackled this problem much better, but then it is much easier to control things in an authoritarian regime than in a democracy, especially one like India, where 50% of the people are so badly educated about the problem.’”
“The Saudi government is aiming to confiscate cash and other assets worth as much as $800 billion in its broadening crackdown on alleged corruption among the kingdom’s elite, according to people familiar with the matter.”
“The country’s central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, said late Tuesday that it has frozen the bank accounts of ‘persons of interest’ and said the move is ‘in response to the Attorney General’s request pending the legal cases against them.’”
“Much of that money is abroad, which will complicate efforts to reclaim it, people familiar with the matter said. But even a portion of that amount could help Saudi Arabia’s finances. A prolonged period of low oil prices forced the government to borrow money on the international bond market and to draw extensively from the country’s foreign reserves, which dropped from $730 billion at their peak in 2014 to $487.6 billion in August, the latest available government data.”
