There are four facets of globalization that need to be analyzed in order to understand the magnitude of its impact on the economy of the United States:

1. The World GDP - how does the U.S. rank?
2. The financial markets, specifically the trends in the cost of money;
3. Infrastructure - the quality and availability of infrastructure determines our productivity as a country, impacts our cost of production, and therefore our competitiveness globally;
4. Labor cost - how does our cost of labor compare to the world?

Recently, we reviewed the demographics of the United States of America from 1900 to 2000 based upon the United States Census.  That analysis showed several fascinating facts:

This is the fourth recession we have experienced in our 37 year career in real estate.  From both study and experiencing the cycle four times, we believe the four stages of a real estate cycle are as follows.

For a more complete discussion and our forecast of the real estate market in 2010 and 2011, please download the presentation we made to the Board of a large community bank entitled "RE/set, RE/position and RE/start".

Stage One - Boom

There are Four Forces that need to be considered in forecasting the real estate market.  Earlier we shared two of them.  Here are the other two.  For a more complete discussion and our forecast of the real estate market in 2010 and 2011, please download the presentation we made to the Board of a large community bank entitled "RE/set, RE/position and RE/start".

3.    Capitalism is quite simple: