An Economic Puzzle – Consumer Confidence Hits Six Year High While Majority of Americans Say U.S. Still in Recession

July 28, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

courtesy: forbes.com

If everyone from the Fed Chairman on down to the average man in the street seems confused about how the economy is doing, well, it’s because they are. The economy is still in a recession, a depression or an emerging boom depending on who you listen to. Two recent news articles published days apart highlight the divergence of opinion on the state of economic affairs.

Consumer Confidence Revisits High Set in 2007

Americans are more confident about the economy than at any time since July 2007, a survey found, suggesting consumers will spend more and accelerate growth in the months ahead.

The University of Michigan said on Friday that its final reading of consumer sentiment in July was 85.1. That’s up one point from June and nearly 13 points higher than a year ago.

Rising home prices and steady job gains are bolstering household wealth and income. The proportion of Americans who expect their inflation-adjusted incomes to rise in the coming year is greater than at any time since late 2007, the survey found. And the percentage of Americans who say their home values have risen is also at a six-year high.

Majority of Americans Say U.S Still in Recession

The economy may be sputtering along. But it hasn’t been in recession for more than four years. More than half of Americans think it still is.

A majority of people — 54% — in a new McClatchy-Marist poll think the country is in an economic downturn, according to the survey conducted last week and released Tuesday.

The McClatchy-Marist poll found that Americans who earn less are more likely to think the economy is in a recession. Of those earning less than $50,000 a year, nearly two-thirds say the downturn is still underway. For those earning more than that, only 47% think so.

Is it any wonder that Bernanke swings from tapering to easing in the same week? The Federal Reserve, packed with PhD economists, seems as equally confused about the state of the economy as the average consumer.

After considering the divergent opinions, two general conclusions regarding the economy are possible here.

-Predicting the future is a fool’s game, and
-Consumers who have well-paying jobs, money in the bank and rising incomes are far more likely to be optimistic about the future than someone with no job and no money.

Gas Prices Near Record High As U.S. Oil Production Surges – Paradox or Price Gouging?

January 23, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

Economics 101 tells us there is an inevitable correlation between supply and demand in a free market. Overproduction of goods relative to demand invariably leads to lower prices. This seemingly iron clad theory is currently being tested as retail gasoline prices approach all time highs even as U.S. Oil Production Rise Is Fastest Ever.

U.S. oil production grew more in 2012 than in any year in the history of the domestic industry, which began in 1859, and is set to surge even more in 2013.

Daily crude output averaged 6.4 million barrels a day last year, up a record 779,000 barrels a day from 2011 and hitting a 15-year high, according to the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group.

It is the biggest annual jump in production since Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well in Titusville, Pa., two years before the Civil War began.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts 2013 will be an even bigger year, with average daily production expected to jump by 900,000 barrels a day.

The surge comes thanks to a relatively recent combination of technologies—horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves pumping water, chemicals and sand at high pressures to break apart underground rock formations.

Despite the huge increase in oil and gas production, the retail price of gasoline is near all time highs.

: Courtesy: ritholtz.com

If demand for oil and gasoline was also rapidly increasing, current high prices would make sense from a demand and supply standpoint, yet this is not the case.

According to the American Petroleum Institute, the demand for oil fell to an astonishing 16 year low in the U.S. during 2012, yet gasoline prices are closing in on all time highs. The drop off in demand for gasoline in the U.S. has been of historic proportions. Gas consumption fell off a cliff when the economy crashed in 2008 and continued economic weakness has driven gas demand to all time lows. Unemployed and underemployed people don’t drive much and the shock of a 100% increase in gas prices since 2009 has far outpaced the growth in paychecks, forced many consumers to take fewer trips by car.

: courtesy: www.theburningplatform.com

Surging oil and gas production in the U.S. combined with much lower demand has resulted in energy companies exporting surplus oil and gas. Exxon Mobil (XOM), the second largest market cap stock in the world, predicts that the U.S. could actually become a net oil exporter by 2025.

The reason why increased oil and gas production has failed to bring down prices, despite an historic decline in demand, is twofold.

Oil prices are determined by the global market and world demand for oil continues to grow.
Virtually all of the increased oil production in the U.S. is based on horizontal drilling and fracking technology which significantly increases the cost of production to around $80 per barrel.

Although it is better to have oil and gas at a high price instead of no oil at any price, it is disconcerting to contemplate how much oil and gas prices could spike from higher demand if the world economy ever comes out of its long slump.

Disclosure: Long position in XOM

Filed Under: Economy Tagged With: fracking, gas demand falls, gas prices, oil prices, oil production up, US gas demand, US oil demand

Optimists On Housing Recovery May Have To Wait Another Decade – Humpty Dumpty Vs The Fed

May 16, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Housing prices were never supposed to decline year over year.

Economic depressions were supposed to be a relic of the past.

If the economy weakened, the Fed would fix everything with lower interest rates and Congress would pass some new laws to create new jobs.

If things got really tough, the government would temporarily increase the debt and the magic of Keynesian economics was supposed to quickly “re-stimulate” the economy.

Our children were expected to lead more prosperous lives. They were not supposed to move back in with Mom and Dad after four expensive years of college – arriving on the doorstep with a diploma in one hand, student loan notes in the other, telling us that they couldn’t find a job.

Day by day, we are discovering that a lot of things that were never supposed to happen are happening and no one seems able to turn things around.

The Federal Reserve and the White House promised to re-inflate the collapsed humpty dumpty real estate bubble with printed money and bailout programs for banks and defaulted homeowners.

An ex Princeton professor, now Chairman of the Federal Reserve, spent his life studying the Great Depression of the 1930’s. He was supposed to know how to prevent another one, or so he assured us.

Fast forward to 2022 – housing prices that were supposed to have recovered a decade ago are still at levels seen more than 20 years ago.

Not possible you say? Optimists and shills for the housing industry might want to consider some inconvenient truths.

Will the U.S. have 20 years of stagnant home prices?

What if real estate prices remain the same for another decade? As I look at economic trends in our nation including the jobs we are adding, it is becoming more apparent that we may be entering a time when low wage jobs dominate and home prices remain sluggish for a decade moving forward. Why would this occur? No one has a crystal ball but looking at the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program, growth of lower paying jobs, baby boomers retiring, and the massive amount of excess housing inventory we start to see why Japan’s post-bubble real estate market is very likely to occur in the United States. It is probably useful to mention that the Case-Shiller 20 City Index has already hit the rewind button to 2003 and many metro areas have already surpassed the lost decade mark in prices. This is the aftermath of a bubble. Prices cannot go back to previous peaks because those summits never reflected an economic reality that was sustainable.

Courtesy: doctorhousingbubble.com

The days of “no doc” loans are long gone and not likely to return anytime soon. Lenders have reactivated a quaint old mainstay of mortgage underwriting and now require borrowers to verify the capacity to service debt payments. Higher home prices require rising incomes but real incomes for many Americans have been declining for decades.

The income of the typical American family—long the envy of much of the world—has dropped for the third year in a row and is now roughly where it was in 1996 when adjusted for inflation.

The income of a household considered to be at the statistical middle fell 2.3% to an inflation-adjusted $49,445 in 2010, which is 7.1% below its 1999 peak, the Census Bureau said.

The Census Bureau’s annual snapshot of living standards offered a new set of statistics to show how devastating the recession was and how disappointing the recovery has been. For a huge swath of American families, the gains of the boom of the 2000s have been wiped out.

Earnings of the typical man who works full-time year round fell, and are lower—adjusted for inflation—than in 1978.

Gary Shilling, who correctly called the housing bubble collapse, tells the Wall Street Journal that housing prices could decline another 20% or more.

It will take a 22% drop to return median single-family house prices to the trend identified by Robert Shiller of Yale University that stretches back to the 1890s and prevailed until the housing bubble began. (It adjusts for inflation and the tendency of houses to get bigger over time.) And corrections usually overshoot on the downside just as bubbles do on the upside.

The problem is excess inventories. They are the mortal enemy of prices, and we’ve calculated an excess of two million housing units, over and above normal working levels of inventories of new and existing homes. That is huge, considering that before the housing market collapsed, about 1.5 million new homes were being built annually, a figure that shrank to 568,000 in February. At current rates of housing starts and household formation, it will take four years to work off the excess inventory, plenty of time for those surplus houses to drag down prices.

Additionally, our inventory estimate doesn’t even include future foreclosures, some five million of which are waiting in the wings. The 49% drop in new foreclosures since the second quarter of 2009 is a mirage, and was partly due to the Obama administration pressuring mortgage lenders to try to modify troubled mortgages to keep people in their homes. (They were largely unsuccessful.)

We can say that “We are not Japan” but every passing day proves otherwise. And for those misguided souls who still believe that the government and Fed can put humpty dumpty back together again, don’t you think that if they could have they would have?

Filed Under: Banking Industry, Bernanke, Economy, Federal Reserve, Japan, printing money Tagged With: Bernanke, depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, gary shilling, Housing Bust, stimulus package, the US is Japan

What Financial Issues Do People Worry The Most About?

March 19, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

Besieged by the rising cost of energy and food, many consumers are barely able to make ends meet. Throw in the fact that for many consumers real wages have been stagnant for decades and you have the makings for the establishment of a permanent financial underclass that is living on the edge of financial disaster.

According to a survey of 2,016 Great Britain consumers done by MoneySupermarket, the financial worries most on the minds of people is the rising cost of fuel and food. Portraying the deep financial distress of the average consumer, only 9% of survey respondents said that they foresaw no financial worries in the next year.

The survey also showed that 8% of people had no one to turn to for help if a financial emergency arose.

The infographic shown below breaks out the financial worries of the survey respondents by age group. It is interesting to note the older respondents had the greatest worries about the cost of fuel, utility bills and food costs, suggesting that the older age groups have less disposable income and/or are worried about having enough money for retirement.

The precarious financial condition of many individuals in the survey is highlighted by the impact that a relatively small amount of money would have on their financial situation. Shown below are the survey results to the question of what respondents would do if they suddenly received 1,000 British pounds, the equivalent of US $1,584. Almost 50% of respondents replied that a 1,000 pound windfall would help to relieve their financial anxiety.

Although the survey does not directly inquire as to what amount of financial assets the respondents had, it appears somewhat obvious from the survey answers that most had very little or no savings on which to fall back on. Nor does the survey report on what is the biggest problem confronting virtually every developed country in the world – the crushing level of debt burdens on consumers and governments.

Central banks have probably prevented a 1930’s style deflationary depression by printing trillions in paper currency to support over-leveraged banks, consumers and governments. Unfortunately, Central Banks cannot manufacture what is most needed in weak economies which is jobs and higher incomes.

Filed Under: Bailout, Deleveraging, Economy, Jobs, printing money Tagged With: consumers, debt, financial distress, financial worries, jobs, money printing, savings

Obama Jobs Plan Bad Joke For Both Employed and Unemployed

September 9, 2011 by admin Leave a Comment

The long awaited and hugely hyped Obama “Jobs Solution Speech”, hastily crafted between rounds of golf on the Vineyard, is unlikely to help either the employed or unemployed.

Obama’s calls his new proposals the “American Jobs Act” but it strongly resembles the $825 billion stimulus spending program of 2009 which was ineffective and failed to stimulate the economy or create new jobs. Taxpayers will likely fail to see the logic of a $447 billion stimulus program working any better than a $825 billion stimulus program.

The latest proposals out of the White House appear to be another desperate Keynesian attempt to keep the economy on life support long enough to boost Obama’s chances in the presidential election race. Expecting voters to buy into Obama’s new program pushes the bounds of credibility. Why would a relatively small $447 billion program work any better than the $4 trillion in deficit financed spending since Obama came into office?

Telling voters that the new half trillion dollar program will be paid for from future mythical budget cuts isn’t likely to fly either after seeing the results of the latest fiasco on deficit reduction talks that lead to a downgrade of the US credit rating.

Half of $447 billion “Jobs Act” program consists of payroll tax cuts for both employers and employees. While probably adding to aggregate spending, the tax cuts do not address the fundamental problems of unemployment and income stagnation over the past decade.

Why Payroll Tax Cuts Won’t Work

What business bases hiring decisions on a 2% drop in the social security (FICA) tax? Any business man stupid enough to decide to hire new employees simply because his share of the FICA tax will be slightly lower is already out of business. New employees are added by businesses when there is added demand for their products and when they are confident that a lasting economic recovery is underway. Today, there is subdued demand and no confidence – a cut in the FICA tax does nothing to change this situation.

Regarding the payroll tax cut for employees, here’s how one Connecticut resident assessed the situation.

“I am currently making $80,600 per year. The recent reduction of 2% in the FICA tax resulted in an increase of $31 per week to my paycheck. Meanwhile, the State of Connecticut just passed the largest tax increase in history, retroactive to the first of the year, which results in paying $17 more per week. My weekly deduction for medical insurance increased by $12 per week since last year and our employer has suspended pay increases.

My net benefit from the FICA tax reduction is $2 a week. Meanwhile, the cost of gasoline, home heating, insurance and groceries has risen at least 6% over the past year. Even if the FICA tax cut was made permanent, an extra $2 per week is certainly not going to motivate me to spend more.

My savings goals for college funding and retirement have been destroyed by a collapsing stock market and zero interest rates on savings. I have to cut current spending in order to meet my savings goals and any extra income would be saved, not spent.”

Did Obama talk to any “real people” outside of the group of Washington elites and millionaire celebrity pals he hangs around with? I think not.

Did Obama talk to any “real businessmen” before coming out with his warmed over and effective stimulus plan? I think not.

Did Obama talk to “Helicopter Bernanke” about how to spread out the $447 billion of borrowed money? The government could simply spend the $447 billion by sending every household in America a check for $3,886 attached with a note telling the recipients to thank their grandchildren whose future has been mortgaged.

Voters are rightfully disgusted by the rapid decline in their standard of living, the debasement of the US currency and the self serving dealings of the ruling Washington elites. To pull out an old campaign slogan, “It’s time for a change”.

There are no easy answers to pulling a debt laden economy out of depression, but increasing transfer payments, small tax cuts, massively increased regulatory burdens, trillions in stimulus spending and zero interest rates have not worked. Maybe the Washington elites should simply step aside, stop micro managing the $14 trillion dollar US economy and allow the creative forces of capitalism to work

Filed Under: Bailout, Confidence, Connecticut, Economy, Government Deficits, Government spending, Jobs, Stimulus Plan, Unemployment Tagged With: Another stimulus plan, consent of the governed, depression, FICA tax, Jobs Act failure, jobs plan, Obama, Obama joke job plan, stimulus, Washington elites

Americans Stubbornly Deny All Time High In Personal Income

March 2, 2011 by admin 1 Comment

American workers should be celebrating the latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Commerce that show personal income at all time highs. Since taking a rather sharp dip during the recession of 2008-2009, personal income has soared to almost $13 trillion, up from $12 trillion in early 2009.

Getting Americans to believe that their incomes have actually increased is another story. While the Department of Commerce is reporting all time highs in income, another survey released by Fannie Mae shows the opposite.

Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) conducts a National Housing Survey every quarter that polls homeowners and renters in depth about their confidence in homeownership, overall confidence in the economy and the current state of their household finances.

The latest National Housing Survey for the fourth quarter of 2010 polled 3,407 Americans and the results do not reflect the rosy income numbers reported by the Department of Commerce.

The survey revealed that 62% of all respondents believe the U.S. economy is on the wrong track, 60% reported that monthly household income was the same as a year ago and 34% said that their monthly expenses were “significantly higher” than a year ago. Only 19% of those polled said their incomes were significantly higher.

Keep in mind that Americans do not normally “inflation adjust” their perception of personal income – when respondents say that their income has not changed, it means they are receiving the same absolute amount of dollars, unadjusted for inflation.

Total personal income may have increased but income gains seem to have been limited to a small minority of Americans.

In any event, if most Americans have not seen an increase in their monthly incomes, there is little reason for comfort going forward. As higher oil and commodity prices work their way through the system, the basic cost of living will increase for everyone. If that’s not enough, once Fed Chairman Bernanke’s obsession with creating higher inflation succeeds, we are all apt to feel poorer.

Filed Under: Bernanke, Economy, Federal Reserve, Housing Tagged With: Americans feel poorer, Fannie Mae, National housing survey, personal income up

Latest Government Scheme For Growth – The Invisible Tax Cut

September 8, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Pulling forward future demand to stimulate economic growth didn’t work with the cash for clunkers program or housing tax credits. Car and home sales collapsed after consumers who were going to buy cars or houses anyways bought today instead of tomorrow. Past stimulus programs have increased government deficits without improving long term economic fundamentals.

Undeterred by previous failures the government is again attempting to pull forward demand, this time with accelerated write offs for new plant and equipment spending.

The new Obama tax break proposals are likely to be even more ineffective than previous stimulus attempts. To “offset” the revenue loss of accelerated deductions, other taxes would be raised, effectively muting the net stimulus that the plan attempts to provide.

NYT – In a speech in Cleveland on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will also make a case for the package of roughly $180 billion in expanded business tax cuts and infrastructure spending disclosed by the White House in bits and pieces over the past few days. He would offset the cost by closing other tax breaks for multinational corporations, oil and gas companies and others.

The “tax cuts” for increased business investment merely accelerate the existing tax write off for business investments that are presently written off over a period of years. If other taxes are raised to “offset” the accelerated tax deductions, the net effect of the plan would be to effectively increase taxes on businesses.

The lure of accelerated tax cuts (which increase cash flow) is not likely to affect decisions on investment spending since corporate America is already sitting on a record amount of cash. Accelerating depreciation deductions will merely pull demand forward from companies that had already planned spending increases for plant and equipment.

Rational consumers and businessmen do not base long term spending decisions on tax deductions. Increased spending by businesses is based on an increase in forecast demand. Consumer spending is ultimately based on confidence in the prospect for increases in future incomes.

For good reasons, neither businesses nor individuals are confident about the future and there is deep skepticism that additional stimulus programs will do little more than increase the government deficit. The latest stimulus plan is conceptually vacuous and likely to decrease public confidence in the government’s ability to formulate a plan for long term economic recovery.

Filed Under: Confidence, Economy, Government Deficits, Government spending, Stimulus Plan Tagged With: Obama's tax cut will raise taxes

Why The Biggest Risk To The Economy Is A Strong Recovery

January 12, 2010 by admin 2 Comments

Concerns about the current economic mess turning into another Great Depression seem to have faded. The consensus view of government officials and private economists seems to be that the economy, although still fragile, is well on its way to a robust recovery. According to Bloomberg,

Companies in the U.S. expanded in December at the fastest pace in almost four years, signaling the economic recovery is gaining speed heading into 2010.

The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc. said today its barometer rose to 60, exceeding the most optimistic estimate of economists surveyed byBloomberg News and the highest level since January 2006. The gauge, in which readings greater than 50 signal expansion, showed companies boosted production and employment as orders climbed.

Stimulus programs and discounting have propelled a rebound in global sales that is reducing stockpiles, which may spur manufacturers to further increase production in coming months.

The world’s largest economy expanded at a 2.2 percent pace from July through September after a yearlong contraction that was the worst since the 1930s, figures from the Commerce Department showed last week. Economists surveyed byBloomberg forecast growth to pick up to a 3 percent pace in the fourth quarter and average 2.6 percent for all of 2010.

Predictions for a strong economic recovery seem to grow by the hour. Recent articles in the press lead one to believe that – unemployment has bottomed, the growth of foreign economies will result in greater demand for U.S. goods and services, inflation will remain subdued, the dollar has stabilized, a recovery in the housing market has started, mortgage rates will remain low, the bailed out banks are in full recovery mode, the Fed will gradually remove excess liquidity from the system, the politicians will get the deficit under control and the stock market will continue to post impressive gains.

Is the bullish consensus getting out of hand or will there be a few surprises on the path to a booming economy? One scenario that could shatter the dreams of the bulls is if private individuals and businesses are crowded out of the debt markets by a U.S. government that needs to borrow seemingly endless trillions of dollars. The latest data on private and governmental borrowing from the St Louis Federal Reserve show that crowding out could slam the brakes on an economic recovery. Businesses and individuals may be unable to borrow in strained capital markets or face much higher borrowing costs as they compete with the government for capital.

Lending by large commercial banks has plunged, a combination of tougher lending standards and reduced loan demand. Any economic recovery would result in increased loan demand by the private sector which strained capital markets may not be able to supply. Competition for funds could lead to a spike in interest rates.

As lending to the private sector has collapsed, government borrowing has exploded.

With no end in sight to new trillion dollar programs being passed by Congress, the financing needs of the U.S. Government are not likely to be reduced any time soon. The recovery of the U.S. economy that many foresee may come to a grinding halt if private sector borrowers are crowded out of the capital markets.

Filed Under: Crowding Out, Economy, Government spending, Interest Rates, Risky lending Tagged With: Crowding out may kill recovery, Economic Boom without lending?, Strong economy - not so fast!

Depression In Commercial Real Estate Results In Bargains For Some

October 14, 2009 by admin 4 Comments

Depression Pricing As Empty Hotels Slash Rates

The recent era of easy lending was not confined to residential real estate. Commercial real estate lending is the next big worry for a banking industry already beset by an avalanche of non performing loans. The banking industry has $1.8 trillion dollars of commercial real estate loans and many analysts believe that banks have reserved for only a small fraction of current and future losses. Recent examples of losses on commercial hotel loans in major travel destinations such as Hawaii and Las Vegas indicate the severity of the problem.

Hawaii Hotel Industry Downturn Worse Than Great Depression

Hawaii Hotels Face Fewer Visitors – For the hotel industry in the continental U.S., this downturn is the worst since the Great Depression. But the Hawaiian resort industry is taking a beating that’s even more severe.

Meanwhile, revenue per available room has fallen nearly 25% in the past two years and now averages $150.75.

Major renovations of existing hotels are common in Hawaii because construction of new resorts has been limited since the 1980s because of steep land prices and local governments’ opposition to expansion. “So the name of the game is to buy, renovate and reposition,” says Joseph Toy, president and CEO of the hotel-consulting company Hospitality Advisors, based in Honolulu. Many of the resorts that changed hands in recent years were built by Japanese owners in the 1980s.

But practitioners of that pricey repositioning strategy now find themselves in a bind due to the recession, the capital crisis and Hawaii’s tourism downturn. “The operating numbers have cratered, the underlying fundamentals aren’t very good, and you have a whole bunch of problem loans,” says David Carey, president and chief executive of Outrigger Enterprises Group, which owns 30 Hawaiian hotels, none in foreclosure.

Las Vegas Hotel Worth 41% Of Construction Cost – Cheaper to Tear Down Than Finish

Doubts Are Cast On Value of Las Vegas’s Fontainebleau – LAS VEGAS—The Fontainebleau the luxury hotel and casino development at the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip, sits more than half-finished after falling into bankruptcy in June.

But as potential suitors consider rescuing the project, they are facing a grim reality: It may not be worth the money it would cost to complete it. More than $2 billion has already been poured into construction.

“It is going to take $1.2 billion to $2 billion to finish Fontainebleau, and it’s not worth that much,” Penn National Gaming Chief Operating Officer Tim Wilmott said. Penn is currently negotiating to take it over from the project’s creditors.

When the 4,000-room Fontainebleau project was first mapped out four years ago, gambling revenues were soaring and Las Vegas barely had enough hotel rooms to accommodate a flood of visitors.

Now, Las Vegas has a surfeit of luxury rooms. Occupancy rates in August fell to 83% from 94.9% two years earlier, and room rates have fallen sharply.

An outside analysis contracted by some of the Fontainebleau lenders last spring found that Fontainebleau would be worth $1.76 billion if it were completed in May 2010, according to a court filing, far less than its $3 billion total cost.

Depression Pricing For Hotels

Overwhelming supply and weak demand have resulted in hotels slashing room rates to keep the cash flow going. In many cases, the cost of lodging at major hotels and resorts has dropped as much as 50% from two years ago and vacancy rates still remain high. For newer resorts that were built during the boom years, the picture is even bleaker, resulting in bargain rates that were previously unimaginable. On a recent trip to Mexico in September, I had the occasion to visit the newly completed and mostly vacant multi billion dollar resort, La Amada Hotel, Playa Mujeres, Cancun. The La Amada website describes the property, which opened in May 2009, as follows:

La Amada Hotel is a 5-star luxury hotel. Here you’ll have a comfortable home base of contemporary luxury. Stylish hotel architecture and decor, generous suites, spotless service, deluxe facilities, and of course, our secluded beachfront setting, all enable you to let your days here happen naturally. Situated just 25 minutes from Cancun International Airport, Playa Mujeres is the newest luxury resort destination in greater Cancun.

This 922-acre (373 hectare) luxury development includes a boutique hotel, upscale residences, a golf, yacht, and beach club, and Cancun’s first marina situated on tranquil Playa Mujeres in the Mexican Caribbean. Envisioned as an exquisitely and carefully developed sustainable community, La Amada is a destination where culture, ecology, history and art are integrated in a stimulating style.

La Amada, located in the Marina section of the Playa Mujeres “master planned’ community, is a 552-unit project of one, two and three bedroom residences, a 110-room five star boutique hotel, and a top of the line spa. In addition, the developers have created a “marina village” with 150,000 square feet of commercial space for restaurants, bars, cafes and shops, creating an ambiance akin to top European resorts such as Puerto Banus and St Tropez. No expense was spared on this spectacular creation; residences can even fly in and land on the properties private helicopter pad.

La Amada is a spectacular luxury resort hotel. Equally spectacular are the discounts – luxury suites are being offered at $280 per night, marked down from $700. Apparently, even at these discounted prices, income stressed consumers are saying no. During three visits to the property, I saw only one couple on an otherwise deserted beach. Finished units remain empty with no guests to be seen. The planned bars, cafes and shops have not opened. Virtually all of the 176 slips in the Marina remain empty. La Amada was built during an era of easy money when it was assumed that prosperity, based on eternal asset appreciation, would never end. There is little doubt that the investors in La Amada have created a truly fabulous resort – far less certain is whether or not they will ever see a return on their investment.

La Amada sign points to empty hotel

Deserted La Amada beach

Beachfront La Amada

Empty boat slips at marina

La Amada - where are the guests?

Discount prices fail to lure guests

Filed Under: Deleveraging, Economy, Housing, Mortgage Defaults, Risky lending Tagged With: depression is time for savers to celebrate, depression pricing for hotel rooms, huge hotel discounts fail to lure customers