Baltimore is likely only the start of more race riots in cities. After what was clearly a political charging of the cops, there was a series of statements by the prosecutor that she was responding to the rioters when she said –I heard you. She made other statements of clear support for the mobs. Obama and Holder have, from the early incident when Obama called the Boston cop stupid, and had the black professor to the White House, a narrative that cops are bad and should be vilified. In Ferguson Holder made it clear cops and white governments are at fault. In Tarvon Obama made it clear he sided with Travon. In each case it was shown that the cops were not at fault, the holder Ferguson report was nothing but a racist rant proven false by Baltimore, and now we have Obama meeting with Al Sharpton to encourage him to do what he gets paid to do- rouse the trouble makers to riot. We will see much more of these riots in other cities before this calms down.

If you are a developer and considering investing in inner city areas, think twice. Yesterday at the demonstrations which were billed as a victory rally, speaker after speaker called for more demonstrations. One speaker said- CVS ain't done anything for me so why should we do anything for CVS. Pay attention to that statement. If you decide to build in one of those inner city areas, you have great risk these days. Kids were applauded for throwing rocks and injuring cops at the rally. That word goes out on TV to other cities. The prosecutor made it very clear she made the charges in response to the riots and protests . Her words at the end of her press conference essentially said, next time start riots and force prosecutors to charge the cops. We now have rule by riot, not by law.

Who in his right mind is going to invest in these areas now. So you can get burned down. The senior citizens building they burned was for local people. It was to be the keystone to a larger area development. So they burned it down. It was black sponsored and black money invested. If they would burn that down do you think you are going to be exempt. Do you think you will get insurance. Do you think you will ever be able to sell the asset.

Compare New York and what Giuliani did, to the Obama, Holder and Sharpton approach. Giuliani took a dysfunctional crime ridden city and made it the premier city in the world. How? By his broken windows policy. You do anything illegal and you go to jail. Today Harlem and Brownsville, and now even Crown Heights are seeing economic growth, redevelopment, low crime, and jobs. New York is vibrant. Baltimore, run for 40 years by black liberals is burning down. That is not by accident of location. It comes down to when people become middle class or better, if there is high crime they flee. In New York under Giuliani they returned and converted the west side of Manhattan from a dangerous crime ridden area into a top value, beautiful, safe neighborhood. It all starts with preventing crime and doing tough policing to make these neighborhoods safe and vibrant again. Is not about more wasteful poverty programs. It is not about paying bigger pensions to teachers.

When you think about your next project see who the mayor is and what is the crime and policing policy. Then you can judge to invest or not.

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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.