Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Father of Gazelle buys more grazing land.

Actually, the "grazing land" is The Chrysler Building - and I suppose the land its built on - an Art Deco icon of the New York City skyline, and its been sold to a fund controlled by The Abu Dhabi Investment Council, a sovereign wealth fund controlled by the oil-rich sheikdom, for $800 million. Abu Dhabi, which in Arabic literally means, "Father of the Gazelle", is the capital and second most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), after Dubai.

The building, completed in 1930 for the automotive company Chrysler, was briefly the tallest building in the world. Overlooking the corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, the Chrysler Building's ornamental arches and the stylised eagle sculptures that jut out from near the top of the tower, were made famous in the musical, "Annie".
Middle Eastern investors have spent $1.8 billion this year on commercial real estate in the US, more than other international buyers, Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based property research firm, told Bloomberg. Two years ago furor erupted when Dubai Ports World sought to buy a London company that operated six shipping ports on the east coast of the US. The deal died over national security concerns.

And in May, a consortium of US interests and Kuwait and Qatar the General Motors building and three other midtown towers for $3.95 billion. In 1989 Japanese investors bought Rockefeller Centre, a suite of buildings home to NBC, General Electric and other high-profile compaines.

Instead of selling property to the Arabs, why don't we sell our grain for $136 a bushel? Might even out the $136 a barrel OPEC sells oil for (we currently sell grain for $7.00 a bushel).

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