Purchasing Power

  

Global Real Estate Deals
   The President of the United States is ridiculing some countries and is, in turn, being ridiculed for his ridiculous idea of simply buying some places he wants. It may be, however, that he was a better student of history than he was a businessman.  Such deals have been done. Louisiana and Florida were purchased, as was Alaska, and the Danes sold to the Americans their much warmer properties in the Caribbean. 

  It is generally thought these days that areas were simply possessed (mainly by Europeans), rather than purchased. That was not aways the case. For examples see the Wikipedia entry for: "List of Territory Purchased by a Sovereign Nation From Another Sovereign Nation." 
Post Script:
  When Wikipedia first appeared it was also the subject of ridicule and feared, particularly by those who answered questions in libraries. It seems, however, that it works well and I doubt if AI alone would have come up with a list such as the one provided above. If you don't have enough money to buy even a bungalow, perhaps a donation to Wikipedia would make you feel better. Then, to make sure it is still around for a while, send some money to the Internet Archive since you may have noticed that some things that you used to look at on the Internet are now found only on the Internet Archive. Both are provided free from non-profit organizations that exist mainly because of volunteers. 

Signs of the Times

     

   I remember years ago, when our conversations were richer, that someone realized we were talking about real estate. Horror of horrors! That was many years ago, before Trump, so I have no idea what we went on to discuss. It could have been about some medical malady, since our conversations may not have been as rich as I remember.

  Whether we are richer now than we were then involves philosophical and economic issues which I am not prepared to deal with, so we will stick with real estate. That subject came up again recently and it never really disappeared from the salons of which I am a member. In this instance, it appears that a short piece about a local property had been overlooked (or perhaps avoided) by the participants, all of whom were homeowners.

What Goes Up

   I will provide here some information which indicates simply, that in this case the property value went down. That is a scenario difficult to imagine, particularly for property owners, who think they perhaps should have taken the opportunity to invest in the more stable option, crypto-currency. 

   Among aspiring homeowners, schadenfreude did not achieve full force since the house that had fallen in value, was still far too expensive for them. As I said, whether we are richer now than we once were is a matter for debate, but perhaps we would all be better off if a house was considered as a place in which to live, rather than in which to invest.

Source:
   "This London House Dropped $300,000K in Less Than 2 Months: Sharp Rise in Interest Rates Punishing Owners Who Bought in Early 2022," Andrew Lupton, CBC News, Nov. 9, 2023.

Bill Gates: The Farmer

   I have not posted anything in about fifteen days and no one has noticed or complained. I am back at work, however, because doing this beats doing some of the other things I should be doing. It is also the case, I am sure, that hundreds have been waiting at the door of my blog for something new, if only to avoid having to read anything more about the Royal Couple.

   You probably noticed that Mr. Gates has published another book: How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.  It is a good thing that a person of his wealth and prominence has called attention to the fact that we may have a problem. We should have listened to him back in 2015 when he made this statement: "If anything kills over 10 million people over the next few decades, it is likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than war." 

Land Nerd

   You probably did not notice what I am about to present; that is why this blog is so valuable to you. When Bill Gates wasn't writing he was out shopping: 

"Bill Gates, the fourth richest person in the world and a self-described nerd who is known for his early programming skills rather than his love of the outdoors, has been quietly snatching up 242,000 acres of farmland across the U.S. — enough to make him the top private farmland owner in America....

While it may be surprising that a tech billionaire would also be the biggest farmland owner in the country, this is not Gates’ only foray into agriculture. In 2008, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced $306 million in grants to promote high-yield, sustainable agriculture among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The foundation has further invested in the development and proliferation of “super crops” resistant to climate change and higher-yield dairy cows. Last year, the organization announced Gates Ag One, a nonprofit to advance those efforts."

   That seems like a rather generous gesture and in his new book he points out that the world's poorest people are likely to be harmed most by the changing climate. Once again, you may not know that some people think that Bill Gates is more evil than George Soros. They argue that he is really trying to kill-off the African people and "One outlandish belief is that he is using the pandemic to push a vaccine with a microchip that would control people's minds or track their location." Given my general glibness you may assume that I am joking and making this up.  I am not. Nor do I think that Gates and Soros are evil. 

Sources:

 The quotation about the property purchases is from; "America's Biggest Owner of Farmland is Now Bill Gates," Ariel Shapiro, Forbes, Jan. 14, 2021.

About the conspiracy theories involving Gates, there is plenty: 
"Bill Gates' Daughter Jennifer Jokes About Conspiracy Theory After Getting COVID-19 Vaccine," Eric Levenson, CNN, Feb. 15, 2021. (the source for the "outlandish belief.")

"How Bill Gates Became the Voodoo Doll of Covid Conspiracies," Jane Wakefield, BBC, June 6, 2020. 

Bill also has a blog and you can learn more about the book there. 

The Bonus:

Given that small bits of land and, little dilapidated houses around here are going for very big bucks, it is amazing that anyone has wealth enough to make such big, bulk purchases of property. Many can't afford to even rent a place.

"According to a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there isn't a single American state in which a person working full time for minimum wage can afford a one-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent." From: "Trailer-Park Trades," by Sheelah Kolhatkar, The New Yorker, March 15, 2021.