Dubai has opened up its economy. The crown prince of Dubai has, for example, finally allowed 100% freehold interests in certain properties there. The government has also created free-trade zones, where there are exemptions on import/export duties, no personal income taxes, no restrictions on the repatriation of profits and 50-year exemptions on corporate taxes. In [...]
December 13th, 2007 | Chris Mayer | 1 comment | ContinuedArchive for Chris Mayer
Chris Mayer is a veteran of the banking industry, specifically in the area of corporate lending. A financial writer since 1998, Mr. Mayer's essays have appeared in a wide variety of publications, from the Mises.org Daily Article series to here in The Daily Reckoning. He is the editor of Mayer's Special Situations and Capital and Crisis - formerly the Fleet Street Letter.
Sam Zell Says, Buy Brick and Mortar Overseas
They call him the “Grave Dancer.”
It was a tag pinned on Sam Zell by an article in 1976 describing his exploits in buying up busted real estate projects on the cheap. The name stuck. It’s a good image for Zell’s style. As Hilary Rosenberg describes in The Vulture Investors, “Zell made his first fortune by [...]
Northwest Passage Reopens Shipping Routes With Global Economic Impact
It started with a Russian expedition planting the Russian flag in a polar seabed. Though largely symbolic, it touched off a scramble among a handful of nations, all trying to lay claim to the Arctic. Among these claimants: the U.S., Canada, Russia and Denmark.
Why the sudden interest in the Arctic? There are two big reasons. [...]
U.S. Fed Interest Rate Cut Will Do Little to Stoke Economy
As the market began to buckle at the knees in late July, certain CNBC commentators and other observers of the financial world began to howl like whipped dogs for a rate cut. Specifically, they wanted the United States Federal Reserve to cut the federal funds rate target, a key interest rate from which many other [...]
October 1st, 2007 | Chris Mayer | 2 comments | Continued
Brookfield Asset Management Spins Off Brookfield Infrastructure Partners
Infrastructure… It’s a big word and a big opportunity.
Bruce Flatt, CEO of Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM), calls it “the backbone of the global economy.” It includes things such as transmission lines, dams, roads, bridges, etc. Often neglected, rarely appreciated, except when they fail; these things are vital.
As investments, infrastructure assets offer long-term and sustainable [...]
Cresud Set to Profit from South American Agriculture Boom
China’s last emperor, Pu Yi, loved his soybeans. They were a staple of the Manchurian diet in Northern China. In the 1930s, a forward-thinking Brazilian friend asked Pu Yi if he could take some soybeans back to Brazil. Pu Yi agreed. The beans eventually made their way to bustling Rio de Janeiro.
In Brazil’s fertile soils, [...]
Bull Market in Agriculture Only Just Beginning
If we were sitting at a bar enjoying a beer - a good beer - and I had to tell you only one reason why you should have money invested in the agricultural boom in some way, I think I would say this: grain inventories are near all-time lows.
And if you shook your head and [...]
Railroad Investing Is Suddenly Fashionable and Profitable
Imagine it. Chinese engineers laid 1110 kilometres of track from Golmud, in the Qinghai Province, to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. They did it in less than four years. In typical Chinese fashion, that was three years ahead of schedule. About 38,000 workers advanced more than half a mile a day. At times, they had [...]
July 4th, 2007 | Chris Mayer | 1 comment | Continued
Russian Stock Market on Fire, No Longer as Dependent on United States
Harvey Sawikin runs the Firebird Fund. Firebird has been one of the top-rated funds of the last five years - netting investors a 35% annual return. I heard Sawikin speak at a recent luncheon.
Firebird focuses on the Russian stock market in the old Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. And those markets have been on fire over the [...]
China Oil & Commodity Demand Opens a New “Silk Road”
In importance and influence, the new Silk Road may stand to rival its namesake. As with the old Silk Road, the new one will make some investors rich.
The old Silk Road was not even a road in the normal sense of that term. It was, as travel writer Colin Thubron describes it, “a shifting fretwork [...]
