Very likely you dismissed my last Rant as unnecessarily concerned and that continued investment in Europe was going well and will continue to yield good returns. If Paris did not get you to realize what is happening then I am not sure if anything will until it is too late. I am well aware that good returns have been made in Ireland and Spain and probably in some other countries over the past two years, but Paris needs to be you wake up to reality. It is the start of what MI5 and CIA and the French say is a coming wave of terror attacks across Europe and especially France and England. We have now seen it in Canada, the US, Australia, France and other places and this is just the start of a series of incidents which will cause people to limit their travel, limit being in certain stores, and generally not be helpful to the struggling EU economy.

The EU is already suffering from economic issues which are not going toi get resolved for several years. There are underlying structural issues which they have never been able to work through dud to the widely differing political agendas, ingrained power of unions in places like Italy and France, and massive youth unemployment in Spain and Italy which is not going to get improved even with QE program by the ECB. The issues are socialist labor laws and regulations which prevent business from operating well, and a unionization of key industries which has the power to stop any reform as we have just seen in Italy.

In addition, in France there are 71 Muslim ghettos where police and other government agents are no go. It is the same in Sweden, Norway, Britain and Germany. These ghettos are breeding grounds and safe havens for terrorists. There is total alienation from the surrounding society, high unemployment, no assimilation, and a growing isolation which now will be even greater as white Christian French and others shun anyone who is Muslim. The divide will grow and breed more disaffected youth who will go to Syria and Yemen and return to kill Jews and others who they decide is against them. As we saw from the grocery store attack, the Jews are once again under attack and the exodus this time is already underway. Latest numbers are that 10,000 Jews have already left France. Thousands more have left other countries, and this will now accelerate. Capital is also leaving, and it is not just Jewish capital. These Muslim ghettos are a huge mistake by the Europeans, and only serve to further alienate Muslim immigrants and to build hatred. This is going to become the source of more attacks.

There is nothing good about Europe now. Some say that there is a bottoming showing up, that GDP may have stopped falling, there are signs of consumer spending. Maybe, but after Paris, one wonders what happens after the next major attack. Maybe next time they kill a lot more. Maybe they blow up a department store, or a stadium. Nobody knows what we don't know. Bottom line is the risk is clear and now out in the open on TV everyday. If you choose to just overlook it, do so at your own peril. We are at war with radical Islam and it is a real war with real people getting murdered in the heart of Europe. This is not just an isolated incident of one crazy guy. It is a religious movement as real as Fascism was, and the devotees are even more committed to kill and wipe out everyone in the way of their beliefs. It is only getting started and going to get worse. If you think I am over stating the danger, the head of MI5 just made this exact speech this week. There is a reason the US is seeing so much capital inflow. Everyone is running here, why are you running there?

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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.