In Search of the Perfect Investment

For many of us, cash — U.S. greenbacks — is the needle. The soaring dollar is a good “investment.” It’s now 30% cheaper to travel to, and shop in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. Nice return for 18 months or so.

Investment opportunities stateside are scarcer today. They are more fleeting than ever. Hence, you have to be fast, nimble, cash-available and ready to pounce. You also have to be “out there,’ aggressively looking and promoting yourself as a savvy investor able to move quickly.

I do like residential rental real estate aimed at the great American middle class — nurses, teachers, policemen — especially offering rents from $900 to $1400 a month. I like fast-growing areas like Texas and Florida.

Opportunities still abound. How about this one?

I am writing to provide you with an exceptional equity opportunity to participate in a luxury condo high-rise which is going to be built on the Upper East Side in Manhattan.

The development plan is to build “affordable luxury” which means that the individual condominiums will be priced between $4-$8 million per unit which is the strongest part of the purchaser market.

“The strongest part of the purchaser market”? New York City is nuts. But, trust me, not that nuts.

The stockmarket has ramped up its “gamblessness.” It’s become much harder. My Apple short succeeds. My GE long fails. My Google long succeeds. My Amazon long fails. My Verizon long succeeds. Go figure.

Parliamentary versus Presidential

In Australia, England and Canada, the prime minister is elected from within the party. He/she has demonstrated his ability to work with his party, have a good ideas and get things done with the lawmakers.

In the U.S. it’s different. Sometimes our President has ideas, is persuasive and can work with Congress to get things done. Too often not. We substitute ideology for usefulness, for solving problems. Today we’re into the theater of insults, and Christian evangelism. Practicality (and hence benefiting the American people) has  flown out the window.

Before you dismiss me as a “New York liberal,” please read this piece by David Brooks, published in a recent issue of the New York Times.

What Republicans Should Say

For a few decades, American and British conservatism marched in tandem. Thatcher was philosophically akin to Reagan. John Major was akin to George Bush.

But now the two conservatisms have split. The key divide is over what to do about the slow-motion devastation being felt by the less educated, the working class and the poor.

Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have appealed to working-class voters mostly by blaming outsiders. If we could kick out all the immigrants there wouldn’t be lawbreakers driving down wages. If we could dismantle the Washington cartel the economy would rise.

In Britain David Cameron is going down another path. This month he gave a speech called “Life Chances.” Not to give away the ending or anything, but I’d give a lung to have a Republican politician give a speech like that in this country.

First, he defined the role of government: basic security. In a world full of risks, government can help furnish a secure base from which people can work, dream and rise.

Cameron argued that both sides in the debate over poverty suffered real limitations because they still used 20th-century thinking. The left has traditionally wanted to use the state to redistribute money downward. The right has traditionally relied on the market to generate the growth that lifts all boats.

The welfare state and the market are important, but, he argues, “talk to a single mum on a poverty-stricken estate, someone who suffers from chronic depression, someone who perhaps drinks all day to numb the pain of the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. Tell her that because her benefits have risen by a couple of pounds a week, she and her children have been magically lifted out of poverty. Or on the other hand, if you told her about the great opportunities created by our market economy, I expect she’ll ask you what planet you’re actually on.”

Cameron called for a more social approach. He believes government can play a role in rebuilding social capital and in healing some of the traumas fueled by scarcity and family breakdown.

He laid out a broad agenda: Strengthen family bonds with shared parental leave and a tax code that rewards marriage. Widen opportunities for free marital counseling. Speed up the adoption process. Create a voucher program for parenting classes. Expand the Troubled Families program by 400,000 slots. This program spends 4,000 pounds (about $5,700) per family over three years and uses family coaches to help heal the most disrupted households.

Cameron would also create “character modules” for schools, so that there are intentional programs that teach resilience, curiosity, honesty and service. He would expand the National Citizen Service so that by 2021 60 percent of the nation’s 16-year-olds are performing national service, and meeting others from across society. He wants to create a program to recruit 25,000 mentors to work with young teenagers.

To address concentrated poverty, he would replace or revamp 100 public housing projects across the country. He would invest big sums in mental health programs and create a social impact fund to unlock millions for new drug and alcohol treatment.

It’s an agenda that covers the entire life cycle, aiming to give people the strength and social resources to stand on their own. In the U.S. we could use exactly this sort of agenda. There is an epidemic of isolation, addiction and trauma.

According to an AARP survey, one-third of adults over 45 report being chronically lonely. Drug overdose deaths of people ages 45 to 64 increased 11-fold between 1990 and 2010. More than half the American births to women under 30 are outside of marriage. Poorer parents are too strained and stressed to spend as much quality time raising their kids. According to the sociologist Robert Putnam, college-educated parents spend 50 percent more “Goodnight Moon” time with their kids than less-educated parents.

Meanwhile social support systems are fraying, especially for those without a college degree. Religious affiliation is plummeting. Since 1990 the number of people who declare no religious preference has tripled. Social trust is declining. Only 18 percent of high school seniors say that most people can be trusted.

There are two natural approaches to help those who are falling behind. The first we’ll call the Bernie Sanders approach. Focus on economics. Provide people with money and jobs and their lifestyles will become more stable. Marriage rates will rise. Depression rates will drop.

The second should be the conservative approach. Focus on social norms, community bonds and a nurturing civic fabric. People need relationships and basic security before they can respond to economic incentives.

But Republicans have walked away from their traditional Burkean turf. The two leading Republican presidential candidates offer little more than nativism and demagogy.

David Cameron has offered an agenda for a nation that is coming apart. There desperately needs to be an American version.

Google is a great search engine (?)

Cartoons I find funny.

Harry Newton who’s in sunny California where it’s cold and rainy. We’re here for our annual “Get away from east coast winter” sojourn.Some here have dubbed the Coachella Valley (along with southern Florida) as “God’s Waiting Room.” The main business in the valley used to be building gated communities and golf courses. Millions of golf courses. The meltdown of 2008 and the continuing drought — along with strict water usage rules and huge penalties if you use too much of the stuff — put a swift end to all that. Now the Valley is into “executive” health care, cosmetic surgery, reconstructive dentistry and pricey restaurants offering enormous portions. The world changes very fast. Hang onto to enough cash to finance several years of living expenses. Don’t underestimate your upcoming medical expenses. Everyone, sadly, does.