Tell It To Al

Commercial real estate is getting so bad, even the commercial real estate guys have stopped talking up the market.

An online survey released today by Deloitte said 76% of the executives it surveyed expect values and rents to continue declining this year.

Deloitte, via Bayer Consulting, surveyed 327 executives, including 186 executives from real estate companies, on the prospects for a real estate recovery. The survey was conducted between December 2009 and January 2010.

“The commercial real estate market continues to be adversely affected by one of the deepest recessions in decades,” said E.J. Huntley, principal, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP and national leader of the real estate consulting practice. “Increased unemployment has resulted in less demand for office space, reduced rents and an overall decline in commercial property values.”

Could this mean the end of “extend and pretend?” Usually, you can count on the commercial real estate people for a glass-is-half-full view of the world, but now it appears that glass has been knocked over and spilled.

Other findings:

* 74% expect interest rates to rise in 2010.
* 48% expect rates to increase by 50 basis points or more.
* 63% predict that a full recovery of the market will require two to three years.
* 29% believe a full recovery will take four years or longer.
* 8% foresee a full recovery within the next year.
* 47% said they were either investigating potential acquisitions, or expect to begin doing so within the next year.
* 46% said lower prices make it a better time to buy than lease.

There could be no more powerful an icon of our times than a frozen house. Brooklyn artists Gregory Holm and Matthew Radune created that icon this winter when they went to Detroit and blasted an abandoned home with industrial hoses.

Click here to read my column on Ice House Detroit. I also talked about it on The Wall Street Journal’s web show, The News Hub, and on Fox Business News with David Asman:

Have you ever declined to purchase a product or service because you didn’t like the spokesperson?

In a recent survey by Adweek Media and Harris Poll, 28% of Americans said they have chosen not to purchase something because they didn’t like the spokesperson pitching it. Another 22% said they’ve thought about not buying something because of the pitchman.

Click here for more details on the survey.

I can’t believe how many washed-up geriatric actors are selling stuff on TV.

Lee Majors from “The Six Million Dollar Man” is selling hearing aids. Robert Wagner, from “It Takes a Thief” and “Hart to Hart” is selling reverse mortgages. Even the old cowboy Wilford Brimley is selling diabetic supplies for Liberty Medical.

 I really hate commercials from talk radio show hosts. One minute they’re trying to tell you what to think. The next they’re selling you aluminum siding.

Would you buy gold from Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, or how about from that convicted burglar, G. Gordon Liddy?

How about Tiger Woods? I never understood why sponsors started dropping Tiger Woods. Advertising, afterall, is about sex appeal. Tiger uses this shaving cream. Tiger gets girls. You can use this shaving cream, too. Be a Tiger. Rrrrroar!

Actually, though, I hate celebrity endorsements.

I would much rather get my pitches from a professional pitchmen like the late Billy Mays, good ol’ Ron Popeil, fitness guru Tony Little and my very engaging Facebook friend, the Video Professor, John Scherer. At least these guys aren’t pretending to sell you anything other than the products they endorse. At least, with these guys, you know the deal. At least with these guys, they actually are the characters they play on TV. And sincerity goes a long way.

Please tell me what what commercial spokesperson you love or hate and why.

Ford Motor Co. today struck a $1.8 billion deal today to sell it’s Volvo Cars unit to Zhejiang Geely Holding Group.

The deal is a tacit admission from the U.S. automaker that it bungled the brand since Ford paid nearly $6.5 billion for Volvo in 1999.

As Ford eats its Volvo losses, it’s probably going to taste like an egg roll with a lutfisk stuffed inside. But what happens to the brand?

Volvo had long held a reputation for engineering and safety. When the Volvo became just another Ford, Americans became a less enamored with the brand as an upscale import. Does a Chinese Volvo have more appeal?

Click here to read more on the deal from the Associated Press.

Gee, does getting a loan modification hurt my credit?

Um, YEAH!

I talked about this and other subject on Denver’s 9News, via Skype from Phoenix, where I was attending the Society of American Business Editors and Writers Conference. And man, I am not a pretty sight at 6:15 in the morning via Skype.

When I met the Pay Czar last week, I kept asking myself, who does this guy remind me of? And then it hit me: Larry David, producer of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiam.”

Can you imagine an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiam” where David goes to Washington and everyone mistakes him for the Pay Czar? America’s too-big-to-fail companies would never be the same. Click here to read column. And check out the video Fox Business pulled as I talked about the similarities with anchor David Asman:

What do you want? A lower federal budget deficit? Or a job?

Almost two-thirds of the 2,320 adults polled by Harris Interactive say it’s more important for the government to create jobs than to reduce the deficit, at this point in history, anyway.

But does increased government spending actually create jobs?

No, say 49% and 29% said they are not sure.

Keynesian economists have traditionally argued that the government needs to rack up bigger deficits during recessions to reduce unemployment and get the economy moving aain. Government policies – whether you are talking about the Bush stimulus plan or the Obama stimulus plan or the bailouts – have been very Keynesian, to say the least.

The other part of Keynesian economics, however, says governments should pay off deficits during times of prosperity. The Bush administration racked up trillions of debt when times were good.

Looking to the future, two-thirds of the people polled by Harris also believe that that sometime over the next five years, the government should think more about deficit reduction than creating jobs, over the next five years,. But right now, they need a job.

What comes first? The end of the world, or the end of the world for Blockbuster?

Put “2012″ on the list of movies Blockbuster people, from teenage store clerks up the CEO, should watch as the behemoth video store chain slouches toward bankruptcy.

Click here to read column. When was the last time you rented a video from Blockbuster?

No matter how bad things get, it’s always worse somewhere else.

Sure, privately owned businesses in the U.S. have plenty of stress – but not as much businesses in some other places, according to a stress survey of 7,400 businesses in 36 countries by Grant Thornton International.

The survey ascribed the biggest stress index to Mainland China, 76. Then came Mexico, 74, Turkey 72, Vietnam, 72, and Greece, 68.

Greece? What’s Greece got to worry about? Hasn’t the worst already happened?

The least stressful places were Sweden, 23, Denmark, 25, Finland, 33, (isn’t socialism relaxing?), Australia, 35, Canada, 36.

The global average was 50 and the U.S. clocked in at 56. Click here to read more from Grant Thornton.