If rates rise, watch housing fall

Interest Rate Recovery: Home ownership in the U.S. is back where it was two decades ago. How low can it go? As go interest rates, so goes the U.S. real estate market. If the 30-year fixed mortgage rate hits 5 percent, the real estate market will dive.

From Canada to China, as the global economy slows, red-hot housing markets will cool and bubbles will burst. These are the trends as we see them. Is now a good time to buy or sell? Only you can decide what’s best for you.

Geopolitical Trend

Powder Kegs: Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain are, to varying degrees, in civil war. Should NATO, Israel, the Arab League, Lebanon and the United States continue their active roles in supplying money, men or material to the conflicts, civil wars will spread beyond their borders, destabilizing the region.

More intervention and more bloodshed. Has your government fixed the myriad problems plaguing your country? Once politicians are capable of fixing up their home front, then, and only then, do they have the moral right to suggest how other nations should behave or intervene in their business. If you want your money going to improve your country, and not to war, stand up and speak out because the trend line is clear: War is on the horizon and intervention is in the cards.

Currency Trend

Broken China: China’s economy, the world’s second-largest, is poised for the weakest expansion in nearly a quarter of a century.  One of the engines for global growth following the Panic of ’08, its stock market is on a $750-billion losing streak. With the country’s per-capita income 88 percent lower than in the U.S., an economic contraction will not only be bad for world business, it could lead to mass domestic unrest.

Rather than risk civil disorder, we forecast China will pour trillions of yuan into its economy to keep it growing. The more they print, the weaker their currency. What’s bad for the yuan is good for gold. Demand for gold bars and coins in China is at an all-time high. And according to the World Gold Council, China is expected to overtake India as the world’s top bullion consumer this year.

Is buying gold better than holding paper currencies? We vote for gold.

Crime trend

Riding the Prevention Wave: Social scientists claim there is no scientific proof that as the economy declines, unemployment grows, and that as more people go into poverty, crime doesn’t rise. Want to bet? “Copper theft ‘like an epidemic’ sweeping U.S.” (CNBC).

The crime prevention business in all its forms — alarm systems, security services and even self-defense courses — is on track for strong and sustained growth.

Lifestyle trend

Clean Food: The anti-GMO trend in America is gaining momentum.  Chinese parents are scouring the world to find safe baby formula. Europeans who thought they were eating beef were eating horsemeat, and Chinese who thought they were eating lamb were eating rats. The bottom line: demand for organic, farm-fresh, all-natural products will increase as food safety concerns grow.