friday, page-56

China was another disaster waiting to happen.

BCA called for a decline of about 75% in its markets around the top and I made the argument that although it has a great future it was probably a century behind the US and the odds were that it would sufffer a similar 1929 event and the economic woes the US had way back when it was becoming a giant.

Dubai is going to be interesting. I see it as the excess of all excesses.

All those wonderful man made islands made to be like the map of the world where because of the cost what was supposed to be residential real estate are becoming "resorts" and effluent litters the water's edge as they don't have a system to handle it.

There is talk of stopping work on the tallest tower in the world there. Sound familiar? The Empire State Building in the US was built into the early 1930's.

It seems that building the world's bigggest tower has been and still is a omen of recession or worse. They start in boom and finish in a bust in country after country and I won't list them all.

Reminds me of the biblical Tower of Babylon. The aim was to build a tower to heaven. God was displeased and gave them all different languages to speak and they couldn't communicate and dispersed to form various nations.

At the moment there are a few different view points on ways to fix the system. I suspect as things stay in the doldrums for years that the variety of "tongues" may increase and that the options of various nations will increase and diffent plans may well be tried everywhere.

When it is all over, each will claim success, although the champ will just be Mr Time.

Before that we will of course have a good rally and plenty of hand shaking and "what recession" jokes.