Market Analysis

Current Market Conditions

May 2008.

The Twenty-First Century is firmly in place, and it's name is "chaos".

Or, so it seems.

I think it's just that there's no road map, yet, and we seem, as a people, to have ignored
our editing function, for several years. We need to exercise our questioning spirits, and
to think about all this data that's washing over us, pretending to be information. Until
we scan it, edit it, make sense of it, it's just endless data, and doesn't become
information, something that might be useful to us, until we bring ourselves to the
equation.

Every day, if not every hour/every minute, seems to be a richochet of data, some of it
replayed endlessly, in CNN style cable news reporting.

People are concerned. They're worried. Many feel powerless.

It's global warming, it's depleting oil reserves (oil which propels our industrial
complex, and fills our cars/transportation oriented consumer society), it's a massive
credit crunch (with banks/financial institutions writing off monumental debt, so large
that the reporting of consistent 1+ billion write-offs begins to sound ludicrously
meaningless), it's a printing press on overdrive, re paper money (how much is being
printed? what's backing it? what about inflation?), it's hourly stock market volatility,
where people's life savings/retirement income can be wiped out in seconds, it's...well,
that's probably enough.

The subprime issues which caused the massive U.S. housing crisis, with prices in some
areas having lost 1/2 their value, and foreclosures continuing everywhere, is another huge
concern. It seems that wherever we turn, there's "bad news", all reported in shrill tones
of impending doom, and such consistency of fearfulness begins to numb us. The latest
headlines are now about a food crisis, with starvation on the increase, and riots erupting
throughout the developing world, based on escalating prices for staples.

Locally, we find the outcome of the credit crunch, perhaps all across Canada, in the
reluctance of banks to lend. In the past two year period, the main sales activity on Salt
Spring was in the low to midrange priced properties, with little interest in undeveloped
land or in the "high end" opportunities. This year, it's the opposite, and one reason for
the lack of interest in the lower end residential market could be the difficulty in a
buyer achieving a mortgage. Banks do not lend easily, at the moment.

For those buyers of the "higher end" parcels, it seems as if the purchase is based on a
"preservation of capital" need, and this might also be why there's an interest in
purchasing gold.

Protected investment areas, in real estate, are attracting that global buyer, who is able
to purchase a second or even a third or a fourth home, and such a buyer is looking for the
unique.

Salt Spring Island & the Southern Gulf Islands enjoy that wonderful microclimate ('cool
Mediterranean"), and they are part of the "preserve & protect" mandate, by the Provincial
Government, for all of the Canadian Gulf Islands. Inventory is capped, and so this no
growth policy implies protected investment. It may be a reason why, locally, it is busy in
the "high end", and the unique property options. A purchase is about preservation, not
about short term appreciation, it seems.

Marshall McLuhan was right, back in the 60s and 70s, when he forecast a totally
interlinked global community. He called the world a "global village", and this immediacy
of data, and of economic fallout, is a characteristic of this post-internet world.

Time and geography have been erased, and everything is "always" & "always right now". In
having immediacy, one is forced to respond to stimulus immediately, too, and this is why
that editing function that lurks in our brains needs to be retrained. The 21st Century has
deleted the luxury of time. One has to consider an outcome in the same blink of the eye
that sees the data.

Are our schools and education system teaching students how to think?

When drowning, in data, it's important to rest the mind, so that it can peruse and make
valid decisions. Otherwise, it's just a reactive measure, and this isn't going to be
helpful, at all.

The human animal can make a difference, and the individual response is a microcosm of the
"group" response. If Ghandi's individual work can result in the creation of a country
(India), and if the Dalai Llama's persistent preservation of the Tibetan culture can
result in the world's attention, and if Al Gore can bring the world's attention to the
global warming issue, and if Rachel Carson could start the process back in the 60s, then
each of us can make a difference, no matter where we live or what language we speak or
what our material worth might be.

It's about being proactive. It's about looking for the door in the wall, and finding a way
through to a new paradigm. It's about making sure that we are active in our concerns and
are taking a meditative pause, to really see beyond the ceaseless flow of data, so we can
be interpreters, turning it into information which can be acted upon.

It seems that no one's really in charge, right now.

Maybe we are? As individuals?

Your thoughts?

Always welcome!

(Remember to read my daily Blog)