OUR OLD FRIEND, MONEY

The global flu continues to take its toll, and who the fuck really knows when it will reach its nadir. At times like these, GB Shaw's adage that if you laid all the economists end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion is especially apt. I suppose one's prognostication partly depends on where one lives. My sister and brother-in-law in Phoenix, who are struggling to find investors for a medical technology start-up that he was unlucky enough to jump into 18 months ago, report that the average house price in the Valley of the Sun has dropped to around US$120K - a third of what it was two years ago. For those of us in Edmonton, where the average price has slipped 15% but remains three times as valuable as its Phoenecian cousin, there is the temptation to sell here, rent a place in which to live, and buy a nice bungalow in Scottsdale that could be rented out by the week during the Snowbird season while awaiting its doubling back to normal values. I cannot imagine property values in the sun belt shrinking for long. There will, for another quarter century, be more and more boomers from the snowbelt wishing to spend their final dessicated days under a hot Arizona sun.

That same unalterable demographic will, we hope, also make my brother-in-law's medical startup a go. His company owns the rights to a robotic glove developed by the University of Arizona that recovering stroke victims can plug into a computer. This makes it possible for the patient to do rehab exercises at home - in video game form - while a technologist at a central clinic monitors their progress on-line. This will make stroke rehabilitation much cheaper by cutting down on the face time with expensive therapists. I have no real advice to offer about investments, but it seems to me that any company that addresses death and disease - assuming solid management and low debt load - can't be a bad bet.

(If any of you out there are interested in seeing an executive summary, email me. And, no, I'm not on commission; just trying to make sure my bro-in-law doesn't have to sell the vintage Mercedes convertible that I get to drive on the odd occasion that I'm down there.)

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I visited my erstwhile partner/employer CFF* in his rambling Riverbend house a couple of Saturday nights ago and asked him the when's-it-gonna-be-over question that has economists and politicians all over the world all over the place. CFF considers himself something of a scholar in boom/bust cycles, having made his fortune during the 25 years he was buying apartment buildings at bargain rates during recessions, renovating them, then enjoying increased rents and improved occupancies when the economies boomed back. He figures the current recession will last four to five years, based on his experience. He also claims to have predicted this one - but that's a bit revisionist of him.

When we'd first embarked on our ill-fated business venture together in early 2005, CFF, who'd recently sold most of his apartment buildings to Boardwalk Equities for a great deal more than he'd paid for them, was expecting the bust by the end of that year. Oil prices - the Alberta economy's only meaningful benchmark - were up around $50, almost double what they had been three years earlier, and CFF said they couldn't last. CFF's bust theory is based on the simple premise of a 10-year cycle. The latest Alberta boom had been going since early 1995, he figured, and would end at any second. Which is why he was damned if he would be paying any of the rental or purchase prices then being asked in Edmonton for the properties in which we might put our store.

(As it turned out, oil prices prices would almost treble in the next three years, carrying Edmonton real estate prices up with them. Since then, the price of oil fell to below 2005 levels, but has lately risen back up to those 2005 levels. The price of Edmonton commercial properties, unlike residential properties, has yet to fall much, although those in the business of selling commercial are predicting an overabundance (and thus a price decline) by the third quarter. With oil prices apparently on the uptick, and some bulls predicting they'll pass $70 by fall, Alberta's recession might not be as deep as those elsewhere.)

When I asked him how the recession had affected him, CFF, puffing away on another duMaurier, shrugged his eyebrows, adopted his dismissive, bit-of-couerse Parisian tone, and blithely declared, "It wiped me out." The Frenchman's definition of being wiped out is somewhat less horrific than yours or mine. His investments - heavily skewed towards energy stocks - have dropped by about $18 million, meaning he is only worth $22 million today on paper, compared to $40 million a year ago. But, as mentioned, the price of oil is creeping back up; yesterday's Suncor-Petrocan merger suggests renewed confidence in the tarsands; and presumably the value of CFF's energy portfolio will improve accordingly.

But now he's only worth $22 million, his latest lover has abandoned him, his African businesses and the Edmonton clothing bin business will doubtlessly go poof in due time, and the lack of exercise (he has a bad hip and a big belly) and the two packs a day he smokes probably mean he won't live to a ripe old age. He claims not to care. "I've done everyt'ing," he said to me about six months ago, as he drove us in his 10-year-old Mercedes diesel to the Mac's to buy more smokes. "Everyt'ing that 'appens is the same old, same old. I could die now and I'd be perfectly 'appy." It bothered him not a whit that death, as far as he is concerned, is the absolute end. "There'll be no Santa Claus wating for me in 'eaven and that's just fine with me."

The other Saturday when I saw him, however, he was full of excitement and enthusiam about the clothing bin stores he's starting in Edmonton, and his latest "bitches" - a 35-year-old and a 25-year-old, both from Burundi - whom he will hook up with on his next visit to the orphanage in June. Both are anxious to latch onto CFF - the 25-year-old apparently wants to marry him - and he has no illusions about their motivations. "I'm an old man," he says. "Why else would they be interested? But zat's okay. I get what I want, they get what they want. No one is 'urt." There was also some talk about the nanny - who'd arrived in the Phillipines to find her husband too poor to even meet her at the airport - returning to her sugar daddy.

"So," I say, "It sounds like you are going to be a polygamist - that seems to be quite a trendy thing right now."

"Reek, we are all polygamous. It's natural. So why not?" And he began another rant about the church and its suppression of all things natural, touching on the "great con game" known as Original Sin.

He showed me photos of the two women in question on his computer screen. They were both tall, light-skinned, and very pretty black women.

Suddenly I was not feeling quite so sorry for the poor old love-less Frog. Money may not be able to buy you the real thing, but it does have its compensations.

*The self-described crazy fucking Frenchman.

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For those who may still be interested in buying The Book of Ted: Epistles from an Unrepentent Redneck, there are still copies of the hardcover volume available. $50 a book, $300 for 10 books. Send me a cheque , 15916 Patricia Drive, Edmonton, AB, T5R 5N4, and I'll mail you your copy or copies post haste. If you want the book autographed by Ted, add an extra $10 to the price (he and I will split that portion on beer; I'll toast you, he'll say a prayer). Thanks to all of you who have bought the book so far.