HOUSING PRICES IN SPAIN

El Pais coincides with my opinion that houses prices are set to continue falling in spain next year............... I foresee a lost decade in house prices........... probably more than that in the sense that real money (inflation discounted) houses are going to be less priced in Spain in 2020 than now............but that´s a long shot

El Pais avisa de que no hay que fiarse de que esto ha bajado mucho y se va a lanzar la gente a comprar desesperada,  por ahora lo que se están lanzando es los bancos a vender............... y eso es una buena pista de lo que esperan.    En España las casas están muy caras, y casi todo lo demás tambien.......... hay pocas alternativas a una deflacion en terminos reales, que puede venir con inflación, o sin ella

REVERSE REASONING

Lately the move on the stocks has been something like this: 

- When numbers point we can scape the double deep or the prolonged squeeze stocks go up thanks to the optimist side

- When numbers point we can go to double deep or a prolonged anguish,  stocks go up because the FED will intervene and buy a lot of things putting a massive amount of liquidity in the system (QEII) , though most of the current liquidity does not flow to the economic system, just comes back to the FED trough. overnight deposits.

This has a name, is called complacency and is the most important ingredient for a crash..........

FUTURO ELECTRICO

Interesante articulo de Bloomberg en ingles sobre como BMW ha pasado su equipo de F1 de unas 300 personas a la investigacion y desarrollo del vehiculo electrico.   Leyendolo me resultaba interesante varios puntos:

- Como algunas empresas dudan entre optar por el desarrollo de un motor electrico y otras por dejar la tarea a empresas ajenas al sector automovilistico y centrarse en los demas componentes del automovil y su ensamblaje.   Las implicaciones pueden ser importantes

- Pensaba en la F1, cuando se pasará al vehiculo electrico, si el modelo es mantener el espectaculo de la velocidad y las prestaciones extremas pueden pasar muchos años, tal vez un par de decadas hasta que las prestaciones de un supuesto vehiculo electrico, aun los más avanzados, exclusivos y complejos pudieran tener prestaciones comparables con los actuales F1........ pero este sería un buen indicador de que la tecnología ha dado el salto.

English just commenting the link

Interesting article in Bloomberg about the BMW move after giving up in formula 1, changing its developing team to the electric vehicule research and developing.  They seem cometeed even to the develop of an electric engine, something that for example Mercedez doesn´t have so clear and keeps open the possibilty of using motors developed by other industries and companies.

MICROSOFT AND ADOBE

Steve Ballmer visiting my country, Spain has said that all options are open with adobe, while the stock jump a 11 % in wall street session.  Interesting move, adobe besides of flash an other well know products (reader) has something that would like a lot to the media, is a rival of Apple,  wich would fit perfect to the so mediatic Microsoft and Apple war,  so profitable for both of them............

Rumores de posible affair entre Microsoft y Adobe, ojo al dato que el movimiento es interesante y supongo que una via de reforzar el ecosistema windows para moviles especialmente.

NOBEL PARA PERU

Vargas Llosa ha sido premiado con el Nobel de Literatura.  Algo que me alegra por ser hispano por que me gusta como autor, como articulista y como intelectual!!  Capaz de criticar las dictaduras del signo que sean (incluso aunque lo sean bajo democracias formales como fue el PRI mexicano en su momento) y la corrupcion u otros males que azotan Latinoamerica.   


La Niña Mala, lo ultimo que lei suyo me pareció  una novela de un autor muy experimentado ya, entretenida, interesante relato narrativo de dos vidas muy diferentes que convergen, consiguiendo un completo dibujo de las mismas en apenas 200 paginas.  Pero la que en su momento me pareció un novelon fue La Guerra del Fin del Mundo, bastante extensa eso si.

En su momento Vargas Llosa hizo una incursión en la politica, presentandose a presidente de Peru donde perdió en ultima instancia frente a Fujimori, quien cumple prision ahora tras haberse escapado del pais en plena presidencia tras una ristra de tropelias, corruptelas y ataques a lo que debe ser un sistema democratico.  Recuerdo haber leido explicaciones de el sobre como reflexiono al respecto de la dificultad de ganar las elecciones diciendo la verdad (una restriccion que obviamente Fujimorí no tenia) pero como decidierón no matizar, ni engañar e ir a la batalla electoral sin hacer uso consciente de mentiras, ni prometer lo que era claro que no se podría cumplir (todo esto segun el, claro)  y como perdió...............lo cierto es que las democracias no suelen elegir a intelectuales, y las democracias jovenes en paises no altamente desarrollados se equivocan aún mas.  Lo hubiera hecho como lo hubiera hecho Vargas Llosa de presidente es dudoso que fuera siquiera remotamente tan perjudicial para su pais como fue Fujimori.................... y tambien que de haber ganado le hubieran dado nunca el novel de literatura.

Enhorabuena tambien para el idioma castellano que nuevamente consigue otro autor laureado con el maximo galardón literario mundial y van al menos 3 que yo recuerde, Cela, Garcia Marquez y Vargas LLosa.

English short version

Vargas Llosa has been honour with Nobel Prize, I like it.  Read 2 or 3 books of him, first one some 20 years ago, great novelist, good articulist, and an intellectual with liberal tendences.  Able to criticized dictatorships undistinguished from right or left, quite different for others that consider non-democracies good when the color suits them.

Llosa has frequently attacked corruption and lack of democracy as two of the big problems of Latinoamerica, has pride liberal policies in the economic and the social (sometimes maybe scoring to the right)  and is a bold and interestint intelectual in the spanish speaking world. Congretaluations to his Country Peru, and himself!!

SPAIN GREY FUTURE

OCDE says spain future looks pretty grey, mediocre future for spain economy.............. As we had been commenting around here for a while

La OCDE dice que el futuro economico de España pintá en globo................ Hay mucho que cambiar en España y no se hará en meses................pasarán años, tal vez legislaturas.............

WOMEN ARE MUCH MORE TOCAHUEVOS THAN MEN

According to this USA today piece of news, men apologize less than women, but the interesting question is the reason, mere are a lot less "tocahuevos" than women and don´t get mad for minimal things..............as say for example a man touching our ass :-)

De acuerdo con esta noticia del USA today, los hombres piden menos disculpas que las mujeres, pero es porque basicamente creen que no han ofendido, al igual que se sienten ofendidos en menos casos que las mujeres y no anda hinchando las bolas por cualquier menudencia.

EL TIMO DE LA ESTAMPITA DOMICILIARIA

Most of the offers for making money working from home, are just scams.  Watch out, don´t believe in pretty rich little angels, and specially don´t paid in advance for them............

La mayoría de las ofertas-anuncios para ganar dinero por internet, son estafas, mucho cuidadin.............. y por supuesto nunca de datos de cuentas bancarias tarjetas o similar 

EL CORAZON TAMBIEN MATA A LAS MUJERES

Algo que me ha sorprendido, pensaba que las mujeres tenian sensiblemente menos problemas coronarios, pero al parecer mueren debido a los problemas derivados del corazon en una proporción similar a los hombres,  tabaco, hipertension y diabetis los mayores inductores.........

English version

Seems women death from heart problems in a similar proportion to men, according to recent studies. Diabetics hypertension and smoking have a role in that 

UN MILLIBAND SI PERO EL ERRONEO

Deciamos hace un rato que el partido laborista elegia entre Milliband y el sucidio...........hizo ambas cosas, eligió a Ed Milliband, el hermano pequeño de David con mucha menor capacidad de ganar la batalla al partido conservador, menos capacidad de pactar con los laboristas y mas probabilidades de darse una buena leche electoral en un futuro.  Los partidos ingleses tienen una especial tendencia a elegir mal el lider tras perder elecciones en las ultimas decadas, y parece que la racha sigue.  Buena noticia para Cameron.  Todo es posible en cualquier momento, y si el chico sorprendio hasta aqui puede seguir haciendolo, y tonto desde luego parece que no es. Pero esto apunta a que será muy muy dificil que los laboristas vuelvan a ganar dentro de 4 años y tambien dificil que pacten con el partido liberal, algo que podrían haber hecho más facilmente con David

We said some hours ago that Labour Party in England was about to pick David Milliband or suicide themselves standing apart from power for some 8 years at least..............they elected Ed, David brother´s who must be the person must pissed off in England right now, he had a serious change of became prime minister in some years...........and now this is pretty much gone, because in a future moment of Ed being forced to leave the labour lidership (after loosing elections) few people would be supporting another Milliband.  Ed have much more difficult achieve a electoral victory in coming years or reach an agreement with liberals to reach power that his brother, but at 40 what he have is time..........for now. Time will tell, but looks pretty much a lost decade has started for labour party.

WALL STREET II

Went to see Wall Street II yesterday, is not as good as first one, by far.  The main character is not Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) ,  as I was writing this I recall than in fact he wan´t the main character also in the first Wall Street, it was Charly Seen, formidable interpretation that time, already 23 years ago (time runs fast eh!).   Anyway best of the film is Michael Douglas interpretation and Character, besides the history of the 2008 crisis with the inner fight between wall street clans that led to the bankruptcy of Lehman but later rescue of several better connected financial institutions with an enormous package of money coming from the normal people to those with millions of dollars in bonus and salaries that resulted being paid for the taxes of people wining a few thousands.  Also interesting the moral differentiation between money well invested (now is green energy) and bad investing (greed money for wining money).   What would probably had been different some 10 years ago when the morally well invested money went to allow people without much incomes to buy houses trough risky lending instruments....................... part of the bubble that burst a couple of year ago.

Parecido en español ahora, fui a ver Wall Street II, mucho mas debil que su antecesora la muy interesante Wall Street the 1987 protagonizada por Charly Seen y Michael Douglas.  Lo mejor de está nueva version es precisamente el papel de este ultimo.  La pelicula toca aparte de una historia de amor muy pastelera y previsible, el tema de la codicia y el desmadre financiero del 2008, año en que se pinchó la famosa burbuja inmobiliaria lo que dio paso al Credit Cruch y a la crisis economica actual.  Rollo moralista pero bastante bien tocado, presenta mas o menos lo bueno y correcto como invertir en energia verde y lo malo pues todo lo demás, invertir para ganar dinero como cochinos capitalistas............. que es basicamente lo que hacen los productores de peliculas por otra parte.  Se toca con otros nombres la historia de Lehman y como se le dejo caer mientras que unos meses despues los banqueros mejor conectados lograron arrancar casi un billon de dolares (a trillion in american terms) del dinero del americano medio que paga impuestos para sostener sus bancos quebrados y seguir viviendo con salarios y bonus de decenas de millones mientras los multimillonarios ricos financieros como Buffet et all salvaban sus inversiones con lo que  pueden seguir predicando a las masas como hacerse ricos, deja vu.................. lo que no queda claro es si el tema se ha solventado del todo...............en cualquier caso al igual que antes o despues habrá otra burbuja, probablemente habra Wall Street III

BONDS BILL NOTES

United States is probably the safer borrower in the world. United States has never default on a loan or debt agreement.  So they don´t have much of a problem to get all the money they need to borrow. The difference is in the price,  interestly enough for a profane in economic terms,  now in troubled times, with big deficit and a lot of borrowing the interest rates that USA has to pay for the money the take is relativity small. Why is that? Because in troubled times people, governments, business and other organizations  tend to look for safe heavens to their money.   So they lend the United States of America. 

There´s a web site called Treasury Direct where you can find information about lending money to the US open an account and get rid of the fees and commissions the middlemen charge.  You can easily have an account and invest directly getting paid according to the agreement and results of the auctions that are frequently hold.   I don´t know if the account holding is only for American citizens (probably) but you can for sure easily invest in USA treasuries (that's the name for the American bonds) in different ways, if your country allows it.

What makes me a lot of fun is this site in destined to kids..............they want the young people get used to lend money to the government from the very beginning of your economic life............or even sooner............... some expect the state to need money borrowing for long.

AND THE WINNER IS

In the contest for richest person in America,  uncle Billy is still the one,  has some 54 $ billion (54 mil millones en cristiano que alli cuentan distinto) and that after giving some 28 billion in philanthropy!!!   He´s probably also the most generous in absolute terms (though of course is not the best way of measure generosity)

Link to a very good speech from Billy.  Link to a un video realmente bueno de Bill Gates in Hardvard, en ingles, muy recomendable

MUCHAS SUECAS EN SUECIA

I´ve found this interesting graph comparing US and Sweden GDP per capita in PPP (helps correct currency volatity)...............though Sweden is European reference........... USA outperforme it in wealth generation for the period 1960-1995.  Don´t have actual charts but correlation keeps similar. Acording to world bank data from wikipedia in 2009 Sweden gdp per capita was some 77 % of USA, almost a quarter below

OBAMA TROUBLED TIMES

Obama has a lot of tough work lately. 

Several economic high members of the administration are quiting (or being forced to)  Romer and Summers the most significant of them.  Funny thing the much questioned, Gheitner, keeps the job............... guess with so many difficulties to appoint one in the past, the president doesn´t want to start headhunting again. 

Polls point to a November outcome where democrats can loose control of senate and maybe congress

Popularity of the president is plummeting

On the international side, relations with China are not great about the yuan, Europe seems to be out of Obama focus, the Afghan question is rising comments of americans fed up of dying in a country they don´t know where is, not very relevant for them and with very little odds or wining and reaching a stable situation there in the short run.

This are trouble times for Obama, why?  because he´s the president of the United States, and we are living troubled times worldwide.............

LA COSITA ECONOMICA

Long since I wrote last about economy. Trying to write this post in english, as I´m thinking of a more international approach.  Want to make post short so mention:

- Clouds over recuperation.  We´d been living 2010 with good growth in most of the big economies and areas, but suddenly things don´t look that clear............ some advanced indicators as purchasing manage index (pmi) , business confidence and international shipping are showing we may have already peaked  and started some way down for the short term.

- USA is the focus, as most of the time the biggest world economy is the reference, if they get off the trail Europe is going to follow soon and both combined are the big chunk of the world economy.  The picture now is the growth is dimming, unemployment is high restraining the consume capacity.  The FED is shouting they would do what it takes (lot and lot of money printing) but would this be enough?  At this very moment the most probable scenario is a slow growth for some 2, 3 quarters unemployment and deficits keeping high.  Surprises to the upside or downside are very probably.

- Asia is a star on the rise,  with some 4 billion population concentrates around 60 % of the world inhabitants. The biggest economies there are Japan and China,  a rich stagnant country the first and a fast growing power and economy the second.  China as well as India account for most of the world economy global growth in the last decade.  This two countries alone concentrate a third of the word population and both are growing at good rhythm in what seems to be a structural change.............. so Asia is growing and will continue a good pace, whatever happen in the west side.............but Japan and Corea , 1 and 4 asian economies are developed economies and behave more coordinated with US and Europe, so we will probably assist to a weakening of growth there.

So in brief, we are not bad, because we are growing but the outlook is highly uncertain, pains of past recession unemployment and deficit are going to star around for a while.  Though times!