For as long as I can remember, I have had a dream of being a writer. I just struggled to figure out what I could write about that would capture someone’s interest. I have also just lacked the confidence to put pen to paper (or, rather, fingers to keyboard) and share my experiences. I am glad to have been pushed and encouraged by my wife and my oldest son to get this dream started!
The home page of my website tells you my backstory. I was blind to economic realities in many respects when the global financial crisis hit in 2008. My family and I had just arrived in Hong Kong in early August, where I started a two-year expat assignment heading up Asia real estate for Walmart. And I didn’t personally have any negative impact from the financial crisis until sometime later when I looked at my 401k statement! Seeing the impact on my retirement funds jolted me into educating myself in financial markets and economics. I wanted to recognize the signs the next time the world was on the cusp of another financial crisis.
It took some time for me to find good, reliable sources of information where I could better educate myself. I was lucky to find some really good websites, newsletters, and books, and many of these were free. My goal for this website is to share what I have learned and also share my take on current events.
Now, just a little about me. After graduating from the University of Arkansas, I worked in public accounting for three years before joining the Internal Audit department at Walmart. My 25-year career would include stints in Corporate Finance, Real Estate Accounting, International Real Estate Finance, and International Real Estate. I have worked closely with real estate teams in Asia, Europe, Africa, Canada, Puerto Rico and Central America throughout my career. I also spent four years as an expat in Hong Kong, the first 2 1/2 years in the Asia Regional Office, and then 1 1/2 years in Walmart China in Shenzhen. I spent a great deal of time in China, traveling to 128 different cities during my career. I am now living in Toronto, Canada, working for one of Canada’s largest real estate companies.
For the past few years my concerns have grown about the fiscal path the United States and other countries are on. Governments are no longer concerned with fiscal responsibility, with deficits and total debt growing at an alarming rate in many markets. Even before the pandemic and resulting financial crisis, we were on a path to ever-increasing budget deficits, due to a combination of ever-increasing spending while reducing income due to corporate tax cuts, where the tax savings were primarily spent on stock buyback instead of reinvesting in the businesses to drive economic growth. And now we have a crisis that has resulted in additional trillions of dollars being spent or contemplated, with no discussion at all of how this will be funded. And with growing unemployment and tanking corporate profits, the reduction in tax receipts from corporations and individuals will be significantly reduced in the coming years. I fear this will not end well.
In future posts I will discuss the challenges I see for my country and the world. I fear we are in for a difficult few years financially. My hope is that we have strong leaders that can effectively get us through the coming crisis intact so that our children have a better world ahead.
Best Regards,
Brent
Seay Economics 