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[arthur]

Good 1, Arthur san...me too got the same feeling like you...even though my asset from properties growth quite abit since this year but i dun feel comfortable.

The way it go, i fear that the musical chair might stops faster than we expected......actually i expected the property bull to run for another 2 yrs, but now ??? Hmms, Hawk closely at the American suspect that they might come out dirty tricks again come next year.

Koh-san.

The way I look at it is simply at 5 sectors of the world economic region.

1. USA: Their QE 1, 2 to infinity will have repurcussions later on. No such thing as printing trillions USD and hoping the magic dollar will solve everything. I just hope they find a way to drain all the excess $$ out of the world. The employment numbers might get better and the States could slowly recover though, thereby leading to another consumerism boom again.

2. Euro region: The austerity measures and threats of sovereign defaults are still in existence. Austerity measures will decrease fiscal measures of which Keyensian theory holds will decrease GDP growth. The sovereign defaults threats on the other hand, may possibly lead to a Euro break up. What happens next is a good guess.

German citizens are well aware of a clause during the Euro region estabishment that says the committment to stick within the Euro region shall be nullified if any country falsely declare their debt to GDP ratio. I think practically every Euro country did that. Germans do not wan to be the bail out nation for Europe.

3. Asia: China, India, Australia and Japan. China is well aware of its properties bubble and taking positive steps to rectify them. Kudos to the CCP but whether they can manage to solve it in time is risky. Their interest rate maneuver should provide another volatility round in coming months. India has implemented its austerity measures to a certain extent. However, it is more well placed than CHina due to its large private sector hand in guiding the economy than the "China model".
Australia is having its commodities boom due to China demand. In other words, high correlation growth with China. Japan on the other hand.. is rowing their sampang along as usual. Nothing will change. They are still in deflationary mode. Nikkel 225 is like a sine curve.
We don't talk about Singapore or SEA. These countries don't lead the world economy, contrary to what the garment and Straits Times are subtly implying.

4. Latin America: Brazil, Chile & Venezula. Brazil and Chile are practically having a commodities boom due to China growth. In fact they are more tied to China than America up north. Another high correlation. Venezula is all about oil. Mr Chavez is just keen to show off how big his balls are and nationalising all Western firms, esp oil and selling to China.

5. Africa: South Africa is the only country that matters and they are also depending on the commodities boom. Rest of Africa excluding Nigeria (OPEC member) doesn't matter cos they are too poor and mismanaged to matter in the 1st place.

The last economic boom was due to China's insatisable demand for everything including oil, copper, steel etc. We had China to drive the economic forces of the world.

The previous bull in the 90s was due to a IT revolution happening in USA that increases trememdously the productivity and connectivity of the world and in returns, bring unknown fortunes and speculations to be made in the technological sector. You, I and all readers wouldn't be reading this if not for the advent of internet and emails.

Unless we can identify a new economic bullish reason.. which till now I could NOT find yet as of now. (If anyone could identify, pls share) I guess the next recession could be earlier than before.
When it is is up to God but the craziness over investment locally is getting my skin to crawl up abit.

Cheers.