Many market participants continue to bury their head in the sand and ignore the events unfolding in Eastern Europe. Putin continues to build his military forces along the Russian border and they consist of the exact formations one would have to launch a full scale invasion. It is the exact formation that NATO was created to counter. The head of NATO and the Chairman of the House Intelligence committee have both said the scenario for Russia to take over southern and then eastern Ukraine and Transnitia and more parts of Georgia to form a complete land bridge and then possibly link further with Iran, is a very real scenario which is highly likely to happen. The fact that Putin called Obama is ominous in that he called out of strength not weakness. He possibly said let these areas vote to join Russia as Crimea did or I will continue to build my forces and I will act if there is a threat to the well being of Russians in these areas. Obama keep talking about international law as though Putin gives a damn, which he clearly does not. Obama and Western Europe have demonstrated they will fold and do nothing other than meaningless sanctions. Obama prefers to not allow drilling and gas and oil production than he cares about providing fuel products to Europe to not be dependent on Russia. For Putin he sees no reason to stop and he will push and intimidate Europe and Obama will continue to say a lot of nothing and do nothing meaningful.

So what does all this mean to US real estate investors. Potentially a lot. We are reentering a new form of the cold war. Obama can claim Russia is only a regional power, but Europe and NATO today are hollow and not even a regional military power. Russia will proceed and this will disrupt the European economy. Investments that seem to hold great promise in Europe today are at risk. Not of a Russian invasion of Europe, but of economic disruption and a requirement for ramped up defense spending by NATO once Putin makes it clear he is not stopping because of some wimpy sanctions. The price of gas in Europe is already twice that in the US, and Putin can make it even higher, thereby making German manufacturing too costly. Many months ago I said the risk reward for investing in Europe could prove too high vs investing in the US, and here we have a black swan event that clearly shows the possible level of risk that really exists.

If the Russians do as is predicted by Mike Rogers, the Chair of the Intelligence Committee, and they do take control of major parts of Ukraine and surrounding areas of other countries, then the US economy will be heavily impacted to the negative as the world becomes destabilized and trade is potentially restricted. Since Obama did not allow LNG export facilities to be built all these years, will prevent the US from what could have been a huge boost to the US economy by exporting billions worth of gas to Europe. The situation will lead to even more uncertainty by corporations which will inhibit investment in new facilities and in hiring. It will eventually crimp growth in GDP, it will inhibit gains in the stock market and in the ability of companies to do new capital raises.

While all this is going on the Iran nuclear talks are going nowhere good. Syria is worse than ever. China continues to pressure its neighboring countries to cede control of offshore areas for oil and fishing. In short, the bad guys see the US failing to lead, shrinking its military capacity and they see an opportunity they have not had since the eighties to be expansionist. This creates a more destabilized world and that is never good for the economy or investing.

Putin is going to act soon. He is not suddenly pulling back or out. He is going in. Iran is moving ahead with enrichment and research and construction. China continues to build its military capacity and its asymmetric weapons and tactics to try to deny US Naval vessels and air assets the use of close in areas to contain China.

This a time to be careful and cautious, not expansionary in your risk taking. The risks are ramping up rapidly now and the likelihood of a major black swan event is growing daily. The chance of a major bad event in the world in the next 60 days far outweighs the chance of good news for the US economy.

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Joel Ross

Joel Ross began his career in Wall St as an investment banker in 1965, handling corporate advisory matters for a variety of clients. During the seventies he was CEO of North American operations for a UK based conglomerate, and sat on the parent company board. In 1981, he began his own firm handling leveraged buyouts, investment banking and real estate financing. In 1984 Ross began providing investment banking services and arranging financing for real estate transactions with his own firm, Ross Properties, Inc. In 1993 Ross and a partner, Lexington Mortgage, created the first Wall St hotel CMBS program in conjunction with Nomura. They went on to develop a similar CMBS program for another major Wall St investment bank and for five leading hotel companies. Lexington, in partnership with Mr. Ross established a hotel mortgage bank table funded by an investment bank, and making all CMBS hotel loans on their behalf. In 1999 he formed Citadel Realty Advisors as a successor to Ross Properties Corp., focusing on real estate investment banking in the US, UK and Paris. He has closed over $3.0 billion of financings for office, hotel, retail, land and multifamily projects. Ross is also a founder of Market Street Investors, a brownfield land development company, and has been involved in the acquisition of notes on defaulted loans and various REO assets in conjunction with several major investors. Ross was an adjunct professor in the graduate program at the NYU Hotel School. He is a member of Urban Land Institute and was a member of the leadership of his ULI council. In 1999, he conceived and co-authored with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Hotel Mortgage Performance Report, a major study of hotel mortgage default rates.