Poland Is Quietly Mobilizing Its Army Reservists | Zero Hedge
Poland Is Quietly Mobilizing Its Army Reservists | Zero Hedge.
It seems the words of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warning that “the world stands on the brink of conflict, the consequences of which are not foreseen… Not everyone in Europe is aware of this situation,” are a little more real than some (US equity buyers) might suspect. As The Week’s Crispin Black reports, at least 7,000 Polish workers in Europe have received call-up papers as army reservists in the last few weeks. Polish authorities dismiss it as “routine” but the men note this has never happened before.
As The Week’s Crispin Black goes on to note,
At least 7,000 reservists have been recalled to the colours for immediate exercises lasting between 10 and 30 days.
They’re told by the Polish authorities that the call-ups are “routine”: but the men say they haven’t been asked before and they’re well aware of the growing alarm in Warsaw at President Putin’s aggression.
Three weeks ago, their Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, called a press conference to warn that “the world stands on the brink of conflict, the consequences of which are not foreseen… Not everyone in Europe is aware of this situation.”
My own view is that Putin was initially more concerned with righting a specific historical wrong in Crimea than starting a new Cold War. This is still probably the case despite thedawning truth that the EU/Nato Emperor really has no clothes at all.
But in the worst case scenario of a truly revanchist Russia, Poland certainly has the borders from hell. Starting from the top, it abuts Kaliningrad (the Russian exclave on the Baltic carved at the end of the war from East Prussia), Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.
None of these borders relies on any natural barriers like rivers or mountain ranges – they are just lines on a map drawn by Stalin in the full flush of victory. No wonder the Poles are feeling vulnerable.
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Poland Is Quietly Mobilizing Its Army Reservists | Zero Hedge
Poland Is Quietly Mobilizing Its Army Reservists | Zero Hedge.
It seems the words of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warning that “the world stands on the brink of conflict, the consequences of which are not foreseen… Not everyone in Europe is aware of this situation,” are a little more real than some (US equity buyers) might suspect. As The Week’s Crispin Black reports, at least 7,000 Polish workers in Europe have received call-up papers as army reservists in the last few weeks. Polish authorities dismiss it as “routine” but the men note this has never happened before.
As The Week’s Crispin Black goes on to note,
At least 7,000 reservists have been recalled to the colours for immediate exercises lasting between 10 and 30 days.
They’re told by the Polish authorities that the call-ups are “routine”: but the men say they haven’t been asked before and they’re well aware of the growing alarm in Warsaw at President Putin’s aggression.
Three weeks ago, their Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, called a press conference to warn that “the world stands on the brink of conflict, the consequences of which are not foreseen… Not everyone in Europe is aware of this situation.”
My own view is that Putin was initially more concerned with righting a specific historical wrong in Crimea than starting a new Cold War. This is still probably the case despite thedawning truth that the EU/Nato Emperor really has no clothes at all.
But in the worst case scenario of a truly revanchist Russia, Poland certainly has the borders from hell. Starting from the top, it abuts Kaliningrad (the Russian exclave on the Baltic carved at the end of the war from East Prussia), Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.
None of these borders relies on any natural barriers like rivers or mountain ranges – they are just lines on a map drawn by Stalin in the full flush of victory. No wonder the Poles are feeling vulnerable.
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Are Nation States Beginning to Splinter? |
Are Nation States Beginning to Splinter? |.
Venice just held a ‘non-binding’ referendum on whether the city should once again become an independent city-state and secede from Italy. An astonishing 89% voted ‘yes’ (which makes the outcome of the Crimea referendum no longer look ‘strangely one-sided’). This happens just as Scotland’s vote whether to remain part of the UK is approaching and Catalonia is preparing to vote whether to remain with Spain.
“Venetians have voted overwhelmingly for their own sovereign state in a ‘referendum’ on independence from Italy.
Inspired by Scotland’s separatist ambitions, 89 per cent of the residents of the lagoon city and its surrounding area, opted to break away from Italy in an unofficial ballot.
The proposed ‘Repubblica Veneta’ would include the five million inhabitants of the Veneto region and could later expand to include parts of Lombardy, Trentino and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The floating city has only been part of Italy for 150 years. The 1000 year–old democratic Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia, was quashed by Napoleon and was subsumed into Italy in 1866.
Wealthy Venetians, under mounting financial pressure in the economic crisis, have rallied in their thousands, after growing tired of supporting Italy’s poor and crime ridden Mezzogiorno south, through high taxation.
Activists have been working closely with the SNP on their joint agendas, even travelling to Scotland alongside Catalonians and Basque separatists to take part in pro independence rallies. Campaigners say that the Rome government receives around 71 billion euros each year in tax from Venice – some 21 billion euros less than it gets back in investment and services.
Organisers said that 2.36million, 73 per cent, of those eligible to take part voted in the poll, which is not recognised by the Rome government. The ballot also appointed a committee of ten who immediately declared independence from Italy. Venice may now start withholding taxes from Rome.”
(emphasis added)
And while the Scottish and Catalan pro-independence forces are toying with the idea of joining the EU, there is another part of Italy that wants to secede as well and wants to definitely get out of the EU – in fact, this goal appears to be one of its motives. The island of Sardinia – which contrary to Venice is actually quite a poor place – wants to leave Italy and join Switzerland instead (this would of course be a brilliant move for the Sardinians):
“As familiar as it is, however, the secessionist spirit has never manifested itself in quite the way a small group of activists is advocating in Sardinia. Angered by a system they say has squandered economic potential and disenfranchised the ordinary citizen, they have had enough. They want Rome to sell their island to the Swiss.
“People laugh when we say we should go to become part of Switzerland. That’s to be expected,” said Andrea Caruso, co-founder of the Canton Marittimo (Maritime Canton) movement. While many have dismissed the proposal as a joke, its supporters insist they are serious. “The madness does not lie in putting forward this kind of suggestion,” said Caruso. “The madness lies in how things are now.”
A ruggedly beautiful gem in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sardinia – one of Italy’s five autonomous regions – has always had a strong identity of its own. DH Lawrence, visiting in 1921, described it as “belonging to nowhere, never having belonged to anywhere”. For a minority of Sardinians, independence remains the island’s best chance for success. Caruso and Enrico Napoleone, the two 50-year-old school friends behind Canton Marittimo, disagree with them. After decades of keeping faith in Rome, they now believe that staying in Italy can do no good- but fear that going it alone could end badly, too.
The answer, they say, lies more than 1,000km to the north. “Having good teachers is something which in life everyone considers positive. We don’t educate our children at home; we try to find the best teacher in the school,” said Caruso, a dentist from Cagliari. “Why, when we have this mentality with our children, do we have to renounce it when talking of our people? “We think of Switzerland as a good teacher who could lead us on a path of excellence.”
As the 27th canton, Sardinia, so goes the argument, would bring the Swiss its miles of stunning coastline and untapped economic potential. Sardinia could retain considerable autonomy, while also reaping the benefits of direct democracy, administrative efficiency and economic wealth.
The fact that Switzerland is not in the EU is “definitely” a plus, say the activists. Like many Italians, they no longer believe in Brussels’s ability to deliver the dream – both economic and cultural – they once thought it could.
(emphasis added)
One of these days, one of the secessionist movements in Europe is likely to succeed and then a domino effect may be let loose. The Crimea’s recent change of allegiance has probably energized these movements further.
Italian States prior to Italy’s unification – click to enlarge.
Anachronism Nation State
And it is about time, too. The concept of the centralized, large-scale nation state is anachronistic and should be abandoned. The increasing centralization of the EU is going in the wrong direction. Once again it must be stressed that for the individual citizen, it matters not one whit whether self-important EU politicians and bureaucrats can ‘throw around their weight on the international stage’.
What matters far more is that they would likely be treated a lot better and become more prosperous if everything fell apart into tiny independent territories. That would definitely not mean that there could be no free trade zone, or that every region would necessarily use a different currency. The main goals of the founders of the EU, namely free trade and free movement of capital and people need not be abandoned – on the contrary, they would likely be adopted without hesitation (see below why). When a great many small territories compete with each other for citizens, then they are all going to be forced to make a good offer that makes people want to stay. Large declines in taxes would be an immediate effect, but not the only effect that could be expected.
As Hans-Hermann Hoppe points out in this interview, the unification of the German states (Germany consisted of over 360 independent territories before 1794, and 39 were still left prior to the 1871 unification) was in many ways a big mistake in hindsight:
Q: “You want a return to “Kleinstaaterei”, the system of mini-countries of the 19th Century?
A: “Take a look at the economic and cultural development. In the 19th century the area of what Germany is today was then the leading region in Europe. The major cultural achievements came at a time when there was no great central state. The small territories were in intense competition with each other. Everyone wanted to have the best libraries, theaters and universities. This region was significantly more advanced culturally and intellectually than France, which by then was already centralized. All culture in France is focused on Paris, the rest of the country fell into cultural obscurity.”
Q: ‘But free trade would be threatened by secession and a return to fragmented nations
A: “On the contrary. Small states have to trade. Their market is not big enough and they are not diversified enough to live independently. If they are not running free trade, they are finished after a week. However, a large country like America can be largely self-sufficient and is therefore less dependent on free exchange with other states. In addition, small and sovereign states cannot permanently dump the blame on others when something goes wrong with them. In the EU, Brussels is often blamed for all sorts of ills. In independent small states governments would, however, have to take responsibility for abuses in their own country. This has a pacifying effect on the relations among nations.”
Q: “If small states have their own currencies, that would be the end of the integration of capital markets.”
A: “Small states could not afford their own currencies because of the transaction costs. They would therefore strive for a common currency that is independent of and uninfluenced by the individual governments. There is a high probability that they would agree on a commodity money such as gold or silver, whose value is determined in the market. Kleinstaaterei leads to more market and less state intervention in the monetary system.”
Q: “If Europe were a collection of small states then on the international stage it would have no economic clout next to the large states.”
A: “How then do Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Singapore manage to be economically at the top? My impression is that these countries are wealthier than Germany and that the Germans were wealthy before they embarked on the adventure of the euro. We should free ourselves from the idea that business takes place between states. Business takes place between people and companies that produce here and there. Economies don’t consist of states competing against states but companies against companies. It is not the size of a country that determines its prosperity, but the ability of its citizens.”
(emphasis added)
Indeed, the facts support every one of Hoppe’s contentions.
Secession Brought to its Ultimate Conclusion
In ‘Power and Market’, Murray Rothbard discusses among other things whether the free market could provide judiciary, police and defense services. In this section of the book there is also an interesting remark on secession. Rothbard not unreasonably asks why it is e.g. not held that Canada and the US are in a ‘state of anarchy’ relative to each other. After all, they don’t have a single, centralized government. Why is it fine for Canada to be independent, but not, say for Texas? However, he follows this thought further to its ultimate conclusion:
“[…] once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as being in a state of impermissible “anarchy,” why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighborhood? Each block? Each house? Each person? But, of course, if each person may secede from government, we have virtually arrived at the purely free society, where defense is supplied along with all other services by the free market and where the invasive State has ceased to exist.”
(emphasis in original)
Indeed, there is no reason why one could not arrive at a stateless society at some point. Small territories such as those Germany consisted of prior to 1794 could probably no longer really be called ‘states’ anyway.
Germany prior to the 1871 unification – 39 independent states (and they all used precious metals as money, so it didn’t matter whose face was on the money – it was a unified currency anyway).
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Are Nation States Beginning to Splinter? |
Are Nation States Beginning to Splinter? |.
Venice just held a ‘non-binding’ referendum on whether the city should once again become an independent city-state and secede from Italy. An astonishing 89% voted ‘yes’ (which makes the outcome of the Crimea referendum no longer look ‘strangely one-sided’). This happens just as Scotland’s vote whether to remain part of the UK is approaching and Catalonia is preparing to vote whether to remain with Spain.
“Venetians have voted overwhelmingly for their own sovereign state in a ‘referendum’ on independence from Italy.
Inspired by Scotland’s separatist ambitions, 89 per cent of the residents of the lagoon city and its surrounding area, opted to break away from Italy in an unofficial ballot.
The proposed ‘Repubblica Veneta’ would include the five million inhabitants of the Veneto region and could later expand to include parts of Lombardy, Trentino and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The floating city has only been part of Italy for 150 years. The 1000 year–old democratic Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia, was quashed by Napoleon and was subsumed into Italy in 1866.
Wealthy Venetians, under mounting financial pressure in the economic crisis, have rallied in their thousands, after growing tired of supporting Italy’s poor and crime ridden Mezzogiorno south, through high taxation.
Activists have been working closely with the SNP on their joint agendas, even travelling to Scotland alongside Catalonians and Basque separatists to take part in pro independence rallies. Campaigners say that the Rome government receives around 71 billion euros each year in tax from Venice – some 21 billion euros less than it gets back in investment and services.
Organisers said that 2.36million, 73 per cent, of those eligible to take part voted in the poll, which is not recognised by the Rome government. The ballot also appointed a committee of ten who immediately declared independence from Italy. Venice may now start withholding taxes from Rome.”
(emphasis added)
And while the Scottish and Catalan pro-independence forces are toying with the idea of joining the EU, there is another part of Italy that wants to secede as well and wants to definitely get out of the EU – in fact, this goal appears to be one of its motives. The island of Sardinia – which contrary to Venice is actually quite a poor place – wants to leave Italy and join Switzerland instead (this would of course be a brilliant move for the Sardinians):
“As familiar as it is, however, the secessionist spirit has never manifested itself in quite the way a small group of activists is advocating in Sardinia. Angered by a system they say has squandered economic potential and disenfranchised the ordinary citizen, they have had enough. They want Rome to sell their island to the Swiss.
“People laugh when we say we should go to become part of Switzerland. That’s to be expected,” said Andrea Caruso, co-founder of the Canton Marittimo (Maritime Canton) movement. While many have dismissed the proposal as a joke, its supporters insist they are serious. “The madness does not lie in putting forward this kind of suggestion,” said Caruso. “The madness lies in how things are now.”
A ruggedly beautiful gem in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sardinia – one of Italy’s five autonomous regions – has always had a strong identity of its own. DH Lawrence, visiting in 1921, described it as “belonging to nowhere, never having belonged to anywhere”. For a minority of Sardinians, independence remains the island’s best chance for success. Caruso and Enrico Napoleone, the two 50-year-old school friends behind Canton Marittimo, disagree with them. After decades of keeping faith in Rome, they now believe that staying in Italy can do no good- but fear that going it alone could end badly, too.
The answer, they say, lies more than 1,000km to the north. “Having good teachers is something which in life everyone considers positive. We don’t educate our children at home; we try to find the best teacher in the school,” said Caruso, a dentist from Cagliari. “Why, when we have this mentality with our children, do we have to renounce it when talking of our people? “We think of Switzerland as a good teacher who could lead us on a path of excellence.”
As the 27th canton, Sardinia, so goes the argument, would bring the Swiss its miles of stunning coastline and untapped economic potential. Sardinia could retain considerable autonomy, while also reaping the benefits of direct democracy, administrative efficiency and economic wealth.
The fact that Switzerland is not in the EU is “definitely” a plus, say the activists. Like many Italians, they no longer believe in Brussels’s ability to deliver the dream – both economic and cultural – they once thought it could.
(emphasis added)
One of these days, one of the secessionist movements in Europe is likely to succeed and then a domino effect may be let loose. The Crimea’s recent change of allegiance has probably energized these movements further.
Italian States prior to Italy’s unification – click to enlarge.
Anachronism Nation State
And it is about time, too. The concept of the centralized, large-scale nation state is anachronistic and should be abandoned. The increasing centralization of the EU is going in the wrong direction. Once again it must be stressed that for the individual citizen, it matters not one whit whether self-important EU politicians and bureaucrats can ‘throw around their weight on the international stage’.
What matters far more is that they would likely be treated a lot better and become more prosperous if everything fell apart into tiny independent territories. That would definitely not mean that there could be no free trade zone, or that every region would necessarily use a different currency. The main goals of the founders of the EU, namely free trade and free movement of capital and people need not be abandoned – on the contrary, they would likely be adopted without hesitation (see below why). When a great many small territories compete with each other for citizens, then they are all going to be forced to make a good offer that makes people want to stay. Large declines in taxes would be an immediate effect, but not the only effect that could be expected.
As Hans-Hermann Hoppe points out in this interview, the unification of the German states (Germany consisted of over 360 independent territories before 1794, and 39 were still left prior to the 1871 unification) was in many ways a big mistake in hindsight:
Q: “You want a return to “Kleinstaaterei”, the system of mini-countries of the 19th Century?
A: “Take a look at the economic and cultural development. In the 19th century the area of what Germany is today was then the leading region in Europe. The major cultural achievements came at a time when there was no great central state. The small territories were in intense competition with each other. Everyone wanted to have the best libraries, theaters and universities. This region was significantly more advanced culturally and intellectually than France, which by then was already centralized. All culture in France is focused on Paris, the rest of the country fell into cultural obscurity.”
Q: ‘But free trade would be threatened by secession and a return to fragmented nations
A: “On the contrary. Small states have to trade. Their market is not big enough and they are not diversified enough to live independently. If they are not running free trade, they are finished after a week. However, a large country like America can be largely self-sufficient and is therefore less dependent on free exchange with other states. In addition, small and sovereign states cannot permanently dump the blame on others when something goes wrong with them. In the EU, Brussels is often blamed for all sorts of ills. In independent small states governments would, however, have to take responsibility for abuses in their own country. This has a pacifying effect on the relations among nations.”
Q: “If small states have their own currencies, that would be the end of the integration of capital markets.”
A: “Small states could not afford their own currencies because of the transaction costs. They would therefore strive for a common currency that is independent of and uninfluenced by the individual governments. There is a high probability that they would agree on a commodity money such as gold or silver, whose value is determined in the market. Kleinstaaterei leads to more market and less state intervention in the monetary system.”
Q: “If Europe were a collection of small states then on the international stage it would have no economic clout next to the large states.”
A: “How then do Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Singapore manage to be economically at the top? My impression is that these countries are wealthier than Germany and that the Germans were wealthy before they embarked on the adventure of the euro. We should free ourselves from the idea that business takes place between states. Business takes place between people and companies that produce here and there. Economies don’t consist of states competing against states but companies against companies. It is not the size of a country that determines its prosperity, but the ability of its citizens.”
(emphasis added)
Indeed, the facts support every one of Hoppe’s contentions.
Secession Brought to its Ultimate Conclusion
In ‘Power and Market’, Murray Rothbard discusses among other things whether the free market could provide judiciary, police and defense services. In this section of the book there is also an interesting remark on secession. Rothbard not unreasonably asks why it is e.g. not held that Canada and the US are in a ‘state of anarchy’ relative to each other. After all, they don’t have a single, centralized government. Why is it fine for Canada to be independent, but not, say for Texas? However, he follows this thought further to its ultimate conclusion:
“[…] once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as being in a state of impermissible “anarchy,” why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighborhood? Each block? Each house? Each person? But, of course, if each person may secede from government, we have virtually arrived at the purely free society, where defense is supplied along with all other services by the free market and where the invasive State has ceased to exist.”
(emphasis in original)
Indeed, there is no reason why one could not arrive at a stateless society at some point. Small territories such as those Germany consisted of prior to 1794 could probably no longer really be called ‘states’ anyway.
Germany prior to the 1871 unification – 39 independent states (and they all used precious metals as money, so it didn’t matter whose face was on the money – it was a unified currency anyway).
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The Fallacy of Homeownership
Many people have a weird obsession with homeownership.
When it comes to buying a house, they are willing to overlook, or even completely throw out, a bunch of financial values and principles they claim to hold dear.
The unfortunate truth is, for many middle-class folks, buying a house is often a very silly financial decision, especially if they are young (in their 20s or early 30s), or have a low net worth.
A well diversified portfolio
The most mind-boggling thing I’ve come across is that most people who punt the importance and wisdom of home ownership, will also tell you they believe you should have a well diversified investment portfolio.
You know…
“Spread your investments over many asset classes.”
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
And so on.
Well, for the average middle-class-30-year-old Joe, buying a house is akin to gathering up all his eggs, borrowing another 9 times as many, and putting them all together into one basket.
Not only is the the average middle-class-30-year-old-home-owner Joe way over-invested in exactly one asset class (residential property), he is also completely undiversified within that asset class, since he owns exactly one property, in exactly one area, based in exactly one town, located in exactly one country.
In short, it’s just about the most undiversified investment portfolio a person could dream up and manage to get himself into.
Leverage
Leverage basically comes down to borrowing money to invest in something.
If you invest R1,000,000 in something, but you borrow R900,000 and only use R100,000 of your own money, then you have an investment in which you are leveraged 10:1.
That 10:1 is called the leverage ratio of your investment. And it is 10:1, since the thing you’re investing in is worth 10 times as much as the cash you put in.
Leverage is great if the thing you invested in grows a lot in value over a short period of time, because it allows you to make a lot of money by investing only a small portion of your own cash!
Unfortunately, the reverse is also true.
If the thing you invested in loses value, then it is very easy for you to lose a lot of money – even more than the initial amount you put in!
While Warren Buffet’s ethics may be a stinker, I do agree with his views on employing leverage:
- If you’re smart, you don’t need leverage. If you’re dumb, you have no business using it.
- Warren Buffet
Even though, over the long-term, returns made on equities outperformed returns made on property, by far, almost no sane person will leverage themselves 10:1 to invest in equities (i.e. shares).
For most people, this is way too nerve wrecking to even consider. If you suggest such a thing, you might be labelled a gambler, or worse, a madman.
And yet, everyday, average middle-class-30-year-old Joes all around me are buying properties in which they are leveraged 10:1 (and even more), without a second thought.
After spending many months thinking about this phenomenon I can only put it down to the fact that the truth doesn’t matter.
It’s just another asset class
In case you think I have a deluded and deep seated mistrust of property that most likely stems from a childhood nightmare of being swallowed by a house, let me just make my position official:
I have zero issues with investing in residential property.
Residential property is just another asset class.
I don’t currently, but I have in the past allocated a portion of my investment portfolio to residential property (both locally and abroad), by buying shares in publicly listed companies whose business it is to buy and rent out houses and flats.
I just don’t view residential property as a magic-unicorn-galloping-over-a-rainbow-of-profits type of investment with which “you can never go wrong”.
I’ve spent a significant portion of my adult life looking for investments like those, but unfortunately I haven’t found one yet.
Liability and Liquidity
If you are still adamant that you want to invest in residential property, then I have a great suggestion for you:
Why don’t you just buy some shares in publicly listed companies whose business it is to buy and rent out residential properties?
If you do some research and choose a good one, chances are that they are better than you at spotting and buying well-priced properties and collecting rent, because that is what the people who work for those companies do for a living.
There are also some other advantages about investing in residential property by buying shares in publicly listed companies.
- You can have a more diversified investment portfolio: By only buying a few shares you are able to limit your exposure to residential property to a reasonable percentage of your net worth.
- You have limited liability: If the company goes bust, you will not be liable for any losses. Comparatively, if you buy a property using debt and, for whatever reason, become bankrupt and can’t afford to make the bond payments, then you most likely have quite a few years of hell to look forward to.
- Shares in publicly listed companies are liquid: If you ever need to do so in a hurry, it will only take you about 5 minutes and a few key-strokes to sell all the shares you hold in almost any publicly listed company. Selling a house, on the other hand, is a ludicrously expensive multi-month administrative nightmare.
Interest rates and timing your property purchase
Residential property is an asset class that is very directly influenced by the cost of borrowing money.
In our society, it is considered a perfectly normal and responsible thing for a person to finance the purchase of a house by getting a 20-year loan from a bank.
In fact, it is considered such a normal thing for the average middle-class-30-year-old Joe to be a debt slave for most of his life, that if you had to suggest to him that he should save up for a house and only purchase it once he had saved up enough money to buy it outright, using cash, he will probably think that you are crazy to even suggest such a thing.
But, I digress.
My point is, the vast majority of residential properties are paid for using borrowed money.
Because of this, when interest rates go up, so do monthly bond payments. When bond payments go up, some people can’t afford to make their bond payments and they are forced to sell their homes, or default on their bond. A few actually do default, resulting in a seizure and forced sale of their properties by the bank.
To summarize: When interest rates go up, property prices fall (or increase very slowly, usually at a rate lower than inflation), because the available supply of residential properties increases, while at the same time the demand for residential properties decreases. Conversely, when interest rates go down, residential property prices usually go up quickly, because more people can afford to take out bigger loans!
The first rule of business is: buy low, sell high.
This is such an obvious concept and yet, in practice, it is very difficult to do, because it usually means doing the exact opposite to what everyone around you is doing.
If you are going to buy a property, for whatever reason, then at least buy it at the best possible time.
And when would that be?
Well, of course, a few months after interest rates hit their peak after having risen quickly for two or three years in a row.
Take a look at the graph below, which shows the prime interest rate in South Africa over the last few decades.
2014 started with interest rates at record lows and just entering an upward cycle.
In my opinion, the present is just about the worst possible time for anyone to be invested in residential property.
You will know it is the right time to buy your dream home by looking for a few of these signs:
- Interest rates are starting to stabilize at a high rate, after rising steadily for two or three years in a row.
- Many people are trying to sell their properties, some in a real panic, because they are struggling to make their monthly bond payments.
- You hear many tales of properties being foreclosed on, also in neighbourhoods where people are considered to be wealthy.
- People around you are generally feeling quite negative about owning property.
When the blood is in the streets, my friends, that is the ideal time to buy your dream home.
Paying rent is simply throwing away money every month
I often hear people making this argument. I’m sorry, but that is just a silly thing to say.
Upon purchasing the average middle-class-suburbia home, you’re not only paying a massive amount of TAX to the government, you’re also forking over a significant amount in fees for bond registration, deeds and a bunch of other stupid banalities. Never mind the commission that goes to the estate agent.
Property tax, commission and other fees can easily add up to over 15% of the purchase price of a house. This makes residential property one of the most expensive asset classes to invest in, at least as far as up-front costs are concerned.
Then, once your bond is registered and you are the proud owner of your new home, you’ll be paying interest to a bank, every month, until your bond is paid off.
And don’t forget about maintenance! You know… paint starts peeling, roof start leaking, toilet stops flushing, that type of thing.
Lastly, you’ll also be forking out on a monthly basis for rates & taxes. Which,as property owners in Greece found out just recently, can easily go up by sevenfold in two years, if your government is anything like most governments are.
Safe-haven investment my ass.
Except for squatting on someone else’s land, there’s no such thing as living for free.
So are you saying no one should ever own a house?
No, of course not.
I’m saying people should save up for their family homes and buy them cash.
The saving part should be done by building a well diversified investment porfolio and the home buying part should be treated as an expense, rather than the purchase of an asset.
I know… in the world we live in I’m very much on my own in suggesting such a boring and outdated thing.
But I’ve looked at the facts, and even though I’m well aware that the truth doesn’t matter, I also know that nothing matters to anybody until it matters to everybody – and by then it’s too late.
If you disagree or find a flaw in my logic, please leave a comment below. I’d love to be proven wrong, and I’m willing and eager to consider any counter arguments.
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25 years later, oil spilled from Exxon Valdez still clings to lives, Alaska habitat | State News | ADN.com
BY SEAN COCKERHAM
FILE – In this April 9, 1989 file photo, crude oil from the tanker Exxon Valdez, top, swirls on the surface of Alaska’s Prince William Sound near Naked Island. The 987-foot tanker, carrying 53 million gallons of crude, struck Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m. on March 24, 1989, and within hours unleashed an estimated 10.8 million gallons of thick, toxic crude oil into the water. Storms and currents then smeared it over 1,300 miles of shoreline. Twenty five years later, the region, its people and its wildfire are still recovering. JOHN GAPS III, FILE — AP Photo
-
1:48Gulf spill leaves local people stranded on spring break
A gulf spill in the Galveston Bay has shut down the busy port,…
Andy Wills was sleeping on a friend’s couch in Cordova, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, ready to head out and harvest spring herring in Prince William Sound.
“My buddy had just handed me a cup of coffee in the morning and we’re watching ‘Good Morning America,’ ” Wills said. “And there’s the Exxon Valdez on TV, spilling oil.”
“We were like, ‘No!’ It was just the start of a nightmare,” Wills said.
The herring of Prince William Sound still have not recovered. Neither have killer whales, and legal issues remain unresolved a quarter of a century later. Monday is the 25th anniversary of the disaster, in which the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef and spilled at least 11 million gallons of oil into the pristine waters of the sound.
Prince William Sound today looks spectacular, a stunning landscape of mountainous fjords, blue-green waters and thickly forested islands. Pick up a stone on a rocky beach, maybe dig a little, though, and it is possible to still find pockets of oil.
“I think the big surprise for all of us who have worked on this thing for the last 25 years has been the continued presence of relatively fresh oil,” said Gary Shigenaka, a marine biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The question of how well Prince William Sound has recovered from what at the time was the nation’s largest oil spill is a contentious one. Exxon Mobil Corp. cites studies showing a rebound.
“The sound is thriving environmentally and we’ve had a very solid, complete recovery,” said Richard Keil, senior media relations adviser with Exxon Mobil.
Government scientists have a different view.
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, a state-federal group set up to oversee restoration of Prince William Sound, considers the pink and sockeye salmon to be recovered, as well as the bald eagles and harbor seals. Several other species are listed as recovering but not recovered.
Sea otters have had a rough time. Thousands died in the months following the spill, and the population has struggled to recover in the 25 years since. The U.S. Geological Survey reported earlier this month that the sea otters of the area had finally returned to their pre-spill numbers.
Listed as still not recovering are the herring, a group of killer whales and the pigeon guillemots, a North Pacific seabird.
Rick Steiner, an oceans activist and former professor at the University of Alaska, said the “spill is not over. The damage persists in quite remarkable ways.”
Wills, who fished salmon as well as herring, said the spill left a huge mark on those who made a living from Prince William Sound.
Exxon compensation checks were too late and too little, he said.
“A lot of people got real hurt. I know a lot of guys committed suicide and all that stuff. I got divorced, had an ulcer. It was rough,” said Wills, who now runs a bookshop and cafe in Homer, Alaska.
Among the scientific puzzles of the spill, the fate of the herring is a particular mystery. It’s a vital species for the ecosystem, giving protein to whales, salmon, birds and others.
Prince William Sound was home to a lucrative spring herring fishery that supported fishermen badly in need of cash coming off the long winter in between fishing seasons.
Researchers found lesions and larval abnormalities in herring exposed to the oil. Then, four years after the spill, the herring population crashed dramatically. The reasons are a subject of intense debate, with suggestions that the effects of the spill could have made the herring vulnerable to disease.
“No other stock in Alaska crashed in 1993, so that’s indirect evidence it is spill-related,” said Jeep Rice, who studied the spill for more than two decades as a federal scientist. “That’s kind of weak, and yet it is about as good as we can get in terms of explaining why it happened in that year.”
The herring never really recovered, and the current population is too low to overcome predators. Herring fishing, with a brief exception, has been closed for more than 20 years.
The killer whales of Prince William Sound also have suffered. Two groups were hit especially hard. Scientists saw killer whales from one of the groups swimming through heavy sheens of oil. A Los Angeles Times photo showed whales from the other group swimming near the tanker as it gushed oil. Populations dropped dramatically in the year after the spill.
“The evidence is pretty compelling that it was a spill-related effect on those two groups of killer whales,” said federal marine biologist Shigenaka.
One of the groups continues its slow recovery. The other numbered 22 killer whales at the time of the spill and is down to just seven. Scientists now expect it to go extinct, the end of a genetic line that researchers say has hunted in the area for thousands of years, maybe since the last Ice Age.
The federal and state governments are still weighing the science of the spill’s effects and deciding whether to seek more money from Exxon Mobil for cleaning up remaining oil.
If there is evidence the spill is causing unexpected, continuing damage, the company could be forced to pay up to $100 million on top of the $900 million civil settlement that Exxon paid in 1991. The case lives on in the courts.
The federal and state governments have said more studies are needed, a frustration for federal Alaska District Court Judge H. Russel Holland.
“The court is dismayed that so few of the projects that the governments had expected to be completed by now have been completed,” Holland wrote in a filing last year.
Studies measuring the effects on sea otters and harlequin ducks have now been completed and are awaiting peer review before being released to the public, the federal and state governments said in their latest court filing last week. They said they are still awaiting a study on the effectiveness of techniques for lessening the remaining oil; they figure it is at least two months away from release.
The governments said they are reviewing the results of other studies and will be consulting with the Department of Justice about whether to proceed with seeking money from Exxon Mobil.
They told the judge their next update on the case will be in October, as it approaches 26 years since the Exxon Valdez became the most notorious tanker in history.
Sean Cockerham is a reporter in the Daily News Washington bureau. Emailscockerham@mcclatchydc.com.
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25 years later, oil spilled from Exxon Valdez still clings to lives, Alaska habitat | State News | ADN.com
BY SEAN COCKERHAM
FILE – In this April 9, 1989 file photo, crude oil from the tanker Exxon Valdez, top, swirls on the surface of Alaska’s Prince William Sound near Naked Island. The 987-foot tanker, carrying 53 million gallons of crude, struck Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m. on March 24, 1989, and within hours unleashed an estimated 10.8 million gallons of thick, toxic crude oil into the water. Storms and currents then smeared it over 1,300 miles of shoreline. Twenty five years later, the region, its people and its wildfire are still recovering. JOHN GAPS III, FILE — AP Photo
-
1:48
Gulf spill leaves local people stranded on spring break
A gulf spill in the Galveston Bay has shut down the busy port,…
Andy Wills was sleeping on a friend’s couch in Cordova, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, ready to head out and harvest spring herring in Prince William Sound.
“My buddy had just handed me a cup of coffee in the morning and we’re watching ‘Good Morning America,’ ” Wills said. “And there’s the Exxon Valdez on TV, spilling oil.”
“We were like, ‘No!’ It was just the start of a nightmare,” Wills said.
The herring of Prince William Sound still have not recovered. Neither have killer whales, and legal issues remain unresolved a quarter of a century later. Monday is the 25th anniversary of the disaster, in which the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef and spilled at least 11 million gallons of oil into the pristine waters of the sound.
Prince William Sound today looks spectacular, a stunning landscape of mountainous fjords, blue-green waters and thickly forested islands. Pick up a stone on a rocky beach, maybe dig a little, though, and it is possible to still find pockets of oil.
“I think the big surprise for all of us who have worked on this thing for the last 25 years has been the continued presence of relatively fresh oil,” said Gary Shigenaka, a marine biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The question of how well Prince William Sound has recovered from what at the time was the nation’s largest oil spill is a contentious one. Exxon Mobil Corp. cites studies showing a rebound.
“The sound is thriving environmentally and we’ve had a very solid, complete recovery,” said Richard Keil, senior media relations adviser with Exxon Mobil.
Government scientists have a different view.
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, a state-federal group set up to oversee restoration of Prince William Sound, considers the pink and sockeye salmon to be recovered, as well as the bald eagles and harbor seals. Several other species are listed as recovering but not recovered.
Sea otters have had a rough time. Thousands died in the months following the spill, and the population has struggled to recover in the 25 years since. The U.S. Geological Survey reported earlier this month that the sea otters of the area had finally returned to their pre-spill numbers.
Listed as still not recovering are the herring, a group of killer whales and the pigeon guillemots, a North Pacific seabird.
Rick Steiner, an oceans activist and former professor at the University of Alaska, said the “spill is not over. The damage persists in quite remarkable ways.”
Wills, who fished salmon as well as herring, said the spill left a huge mark on those who made a living from Prince William Sound.
Exxon compensation checks were too late and too little, he said.
“A lot of people got real hurt. I know a lot of guys committed suicide and all that stuff. I got divorced, had an ulcer. It was rough,” said Wills, who now runs a bookshop and cafe in Homer, Alaska.
Among the scientific puzzles of the spill, the fate of the herring is a particular mystery. It’s a vital species for the ecosystem, giving protein to whales, salmon, birds and others.
Prince William Sound was home to a lucrative spring herring fishery that supported fishermen badly in need of cash coming off the long winter in between fishing seasons.
Researchers found lesions and larval abnormalities in herring exposed to the oil. Then, four years after the spill, the herring population crashed dramatically. The reasons are a subject of intense debate, with suggestions that the effects of the spill could have made the herring vulnerable to disease.
“No other stock in Alaska crashed in 1993, so that’s indirect evidence it is spill-related,” said Jeep Rice, who studied the spill for more than two decades as a federal scientist. “That’s kind of weak, and yet it is about as good as we can get in terms of explaining why it happened in that year.”
The herring never really recovered, and the current population is too low to overcome predators. Herring fishing, with a brief exception, has been closed for more than 20 years.
The killer whales of Prince William Sound also have suffered. Two groups were hit especially hard. Scientists saw killer whales from one of the groups swimming through heavy sheens of oil. A Los Angeles Times photo showed whales from the other group swimming near the tanker as it gushed oil. Populations dropped dramatically in the year after the spill.
“The evidence is pretty compelling that it was a spill-related effect on those two groups of killer whales,” said federal marine biologist Shigenaka.
One of the groups continues its slow recovery. The other numbered 22 killer whales at the time of the spill and is down to just seven. Scientists now expect it to go extinct, the end of a genetic line that researchers say has hunted in the area for thousands of years, maybe since the last Ice Age.
The federal and state governments are still weighing the science of the spill’s effects and deciding whether to seek more money from Exxon Mobil for cleaning up remaining oil.
If there is evidence the spill is causing unexpected, continuing damage, the company could be forced to pay up to $100 million on top of the $900 million civil settlement that Exxon paid in 1991. The case lives on in the courts.
The federal and state governments have said more studies are needed, a frustration for federal Alaska District Court Judge H. Russel Holland.
“The court is dismayed that so few of the projects that the governments had expected to be completed by now have been completed,” Holland wrote in a filing last year.
Studies measuring the effects on sea otters and harlequin ducks have now been completed and are awaiting peer review before being released to the public, the federal and state governments said in their latest court filing last week. They said they are still awaiting a study on the effectiveness of techniques for lessening the remaining oil; they figure it is at least two months away from release.
The governments said they are reviewing the results of other studies and will be consulting with the Department of Justice about whether to proceed with seeking money from Exxon Mobil.
They told the judge their next update on the case will be in October, as it approaches 26 years since the Exxon Valdez became the most notorious tanker in history.
Sean Cockerham is a reporter in the Daily News Washington bureau. Emailscockerham@mcclatchydc.com.
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Major oil spill after million-gallon barge collides with ship in Texas | wwltv.com New Orleans
Major oil spill after million-gallon barge collides with ship in Texas | wwltv.com New Orleans.
wwltv.com
Posted on March 23, 2014 at 5:57 PM
Updated yesterday at 6:01 PM
McALLEN, Texas — A barge carrying nearly a million gallons of especially thick, sticky oil collided with a ship in Galveston Bay on Saturday, leaking an unknown amount of the fuel into the popular bird habitat as the peak of the migratory shorebird season was approaching.
Booms were brought in to try to contain the spill, which the Coast Guard said was reported at around 12:30 p.m. by the captain of the 585-foot ship, Summer Wind. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Kristopher Kidd said the spill hadn’t been contained as of 10 p.m., and that the collision was still being investigated.
The ship collided with a barge carrying 924,000 gallons of marine fuel oil, also known as special bunker, that was being towed by the vessel Miss Susan, the Coast Guard said. It didn’t give an estimate of how much fuel had spilled into the bay, but there was a visible sheen of oil at the scene.
Officials believe only one of the barge’s tanks was breached, but that tank had a capacity of 168,000 gallons.
“A large amount of that has been discharged,” Kidd said. He said a plan was being developed to remove the remaining oil from the barge, but the removal had not begun.
The barge was resting on the bottom of the channel, with part of it submerged. He said boom was being set up in the water to protect environmentally-sensitive areas and that people would be working through the night with infrared cameras to locate and skim the oil.
The barge was being towed from Texas City to Bolivar at the time. The Coast Guard said that Kirby Inland Marine, which owns the tow vessel and barge, was working with it and the Texas General Land Office at the scene.
The Coast Guard said six crew members from the tow vessel were in stable condition, but it offered no details about their injuries.
Jim Suydam, spokesman for the General Land Office, described the type of oil the barge was carrying as “sticky, gooey, thick, tarry stuff.”
“That stuff is terrible to have to clean up,” he said.
Mild weather and calm water seemed to help containment efforts, but stormy weather was forecast for the area on Sunday. Suydam said almost every private cleanup outfit in the area was out there helping out under the coordination of the Coast Guard and General Land Office.
Bruce Clawson, the director of the Texas City Homeland Security, told The Daily News in Galveston that the barge sank, but that there is no danger to the community, which is about 40 miles southeast of downtown Houston. Suydam said he could not confirm whether the barge sank.
Tara Kilgore, an operations coordinator with Kirby Inland Marine, declined to comment Saturday.
On its Facebook page, Texas City Emergency Management said the dike and all parks on the water are closed until further notice. And the Coast Guard said that part of the Houston ship channel was closed to traffic.
Richard Gibbons, the conservation director of the Houston Audubon Society, said there is very important shorebird habitat on both sides of the Houston ship channel.
Audubon has the internationally-recognized Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary just to the east, which Gibbons said attracts 50,000 to 70,000 shorebirds to shallow mud flats that are perfect foraging habitat. He did not know how much oil had been spilled, but said authorities were aware of the sanctuaries and had practiced using containment booms in the past.
“The timing really couldn’t be much worse since we’re approaching the peak shorebird migration season,” Gibbons said. He added that tens of thousands of wintering birds remain in the area.
Monday marks the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill off the coast of Alaska. Suydam said that spill spurred the creation of the General Land Office’s Oil Spill and Prevention Division, which is funded by a tax on imported oil that the state legislature passed after the Valdez spill. The division does extensive response planning including pre-positioned equipment along the Texas coast.
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Major oil spill after million-gallon barge collides with ship in Texas | wwltv.com New Orleans
Major oil spill after million-gallon barge collides with ship in Texas | wwltv.com New Orleans.
wwltv.com
Posted on March 23, 2014 at 5:57 PM
Updated yesterday at 6:01 PM
McALLEN, Texas — A barge carrying nearly a million gallons of especially thick, sticky oil collided with a ship in Galveston Bay on Saturday, leaking an unknown amount of the fuel into the popular bird habitat as the peak of the migratory shorebird season was approaching.
Booms were brought in to try to contain the spill, which the Coast Guard said was reported at around 12:30 p.m. by the captain of the 585-foot ship, Summer Wind. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Kristopher Kidd said the spill hadn’t been contained as of 10 p.m., and that the collision was still being investigated.
The ship collided with a barge carrying 924,000 gallons of marine fuel oil, also known as special bunker, that was being towed by the vessel Miss Susan, the Coast Guard said. It didn’t give an estimate of how much fuel had spilled into the bay, but there was a visible sheen of oil at the scene.
Officials believe only one of the barge’s tanks was breached, but that tank had a capacity of 168,000 gallons.
“A large amount of that has been discharged,” Kidd said. He said a plan was being developed to remove the remaining oil from the barge, but the removal had not begun.
The barge was resting on the bottom of the channel, with part of it submerged. He said boom was being set up in the water to protect environmentally-sensitive areas and that people would be working through the night with infrared cameras to locate and skim the oil.
The barge was being towed from Texas City to Bolivar at the time. The Coast Guard said that Kirby Inland Marine, which owns the tow vessel and barge, was working with it and the Texas General Land Office at the scene.
The Coast Guard said six crew members from the tow vessel were in stable condition, but it offered no details about their injuries.
Jim Suydam, spokesman for the General Land Office, described the type of oil the barge was carrying as “sticky, gooey, thick, tarry stuff.”
“That stuff is terrible to have to clean up,” he said.
Mild weather and calm water seemed to help containment efforts, but stormy weather was forecast for the area on Sunday. Suydam said almost every private cleanup outfit in the area was out there helping out under the coordination of the Coast Guard and General Land Office.
Bruce Clawson, the director of the Texas City Homeland Security, told The Daily News in Galveston that the barge sank, but that there is no danger to the community, which is about 40 miles southeast of downtown Houston. Suydam said he could not confirm whether the barge sank.
Tara Kilgore, an operations coordinator with Kirby Inland Marine, declined to comment Saturday.
On its Facebook page, Texas City Emergency Management said the dike and all parks on the water are closed until further notice. And the Coast Guard said that part of the Houston ship channel was closed to traffic.
Richard Gibbons, the conservation director of the Houston Audubon Society, said there is very important shorebird habitat on both sides of the Houston ship channel.
Audubon has the internationally-recognized Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary just to the east, which Gibbons said attracts 50,000 to 70,000 shorebirds to shallow mud flats that are perfect foraging habitat. He did not know how much oil had been spilled, but said authorities were aware of the sanctuaries and had practiced using containment booms in the past.
“The timing really couldn’t be much worse since we’re approaching the peak shorebird migration season,” Gibbons said. He added that tens of thousands of wintering birds remain in the area.
Monday marks the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill off the coast of Alaska. Suydam said that spill spurred the creation of the General Land Office’s Oil Spill and Prevention Division, which is funded by a tax on imported oil that the state legislature passed after the Valdez spill. The division does extensive response planning including pre-positioned equipment along the Texas coast.
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U.S. could start energy war with Russia – Winnipeg Free Press
U.S. could start energy war with Russia – Winnipeg Free Press.
By: Washington Post
Posted: 03/23/2014 1:41 PM |
A woman holds a banner that reads: “Putin is Occupier” during a rally against the breakup of the country in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 11, 2014. (DARKO VOJINOVIC / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES)
RELATED ITEMS
Debate has raged over whether the United States can fight Vladimir Putin on the Russian president’s most favourable ground: energy politics. It can, and it should, particularly because there’s an obvious path forward that coincides with American — indeed, world — economic interests. That path is lifting irrational restrictions on exports and making it easier to build natural gas export terminals.
For years, Putin has used his nation’s wealth of oil and natural gas as a cudgel to bully his neighbours. At present, the European Union’s large imports of Russian natural gas discourage a forceful Western response to Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the United States is tapping massive reserves of unconventional natural gas. That has not only made the U.S. self-sustaining in gas, but also driven down the price of U.S. gas to a point well below what Europeans are paying for the Russian stuff. If the federal government allowed more of it to be liquefied and exported, would the Russians lose a share of the European market?
The story is more complicated than that. Russian gas, which doesn’t need to be liquefied to move (by pipeline) into the European market, would enjoy significant price advantages over imported U.S. gas. The interaction of private buyers and sellers would probably direct U.S. exports to places where gas is more profitable to sell, such as Japan and Korea. The result would be a bounty for the U.S. economy and an improved American trade deficit — but not much direct displacement of Russian gas in Europe.
But that’s also not the end of the story. The U.S. entry into the Asian market would diminish Russia’s opportunity to profit there, as it aims to do. Contributing to an already widening and more diverse global supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) would also give European importers more flexibility in sourcing their fuel — from the United States, Qatar, or others — the sort of market conditions that have already enabled Europeans to renegotiate gas contracts with Russia. The Council on Foreign Relations’ Michael Levi points out that Putin might end up with an uncomfortable choice between maintaining market share in Europe and slashing his prices more.
Ramping up U.S. exports would take years, but the effects would not only be long-term, as some critics charge. Action that communicates a certain intent to allow more LNG exports would send a signal that “the U.S. is open for business,” as the Eurasia Group’s Leslie Palti-Guzman puts it. That could deter Putin from playing the energy card and help many buyers in negotiating long-term contracts.
The economic case for allowing natural gas exports is compelling on its own. Doing so would bring money into the country and uphold the vital principle that energy resources should flow freely around the globe, making the markets for the fuels the world economy needs as flexible and robust as possible. The more major suppliers there are following that principle, the less control predatory regimes such as Putin’s will have over the market.
Olduvaiblog: Musings on the coming collapse 