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Monday, December 28, 2015

THE MOST EVIL MAN IN THE WORLD HAS SOME ADVICE FOR YOU–IF YOU DARE TO LISTEN

A Nervous George Soros Lashes Out At Donald Trump: He Wants You To Be Afraid

This is the guy to be very afraid of, George Soros the Nazi Jew Hunter – Hang ’Em High

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/28/2015 11:15 -0500

It appears The Establishment has decided to bring in the big guns to dislodge The GOP's nightmare scenario as Donald Trump goes from strength to strength in the polls. Writing in an op-ed for The Guardian, billionaire puppet-master George Soros urges Americans "to resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump,"adding that "the terrorists and demagogues want us to be scared. We mustn’t give in."

Authored by George Soros, originally posted at The Guardian,

It’s not easy to resist the threats and the hysteria that surround us, but we must do, as fear is the greatest danger to open society
Open societies are always endangered. This is especially true of America and Europe today, as a result of the terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere, and the way that America and Europe, particularly France, have reacted to them.
Jihadi terrorist groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaida have discovered the achilles heel of our western societies: the fear of death. Through horrific attacks and macabre videos, the publicists of Isis magnify this fear, leading otherwise sensible people in hitherto open societies to abandon their reason.
Scientists have discovered that emotion is an essential component of human reasoning. That discovery explains why jihadi terrorism poses such a potent threat to our societies: the fear of death leads us and our leaders to think – and then behave – irrationally.
Science merely confirms what experience has long shown: when we are afraid for our lives, emotions take hold of our thoughts and actions, and we find it difficult to make rational judgments. Fear activates an older, more primitive part of the brain than that which formulates and sustains the abstract values and principles of open society.
The open society is thus always at risk from the threat posed by our response to fear. A generation that has inherited an open society from its parents will not understand what is required to maintain it until it has been tested and learns to keep fear from corrupting reason. Jihadi terrorism is only the latest example. The fear of nuclear war tested the last generation, and the fear of communism and fascism tested my generation.
The jihadi terrorists’ ultimate goal is to convince Muslim youth worldwide that there is no alternative to terrorism. And terrorist attacks are the way to achieve that goal, because the fear of death will awaken and magnify the latent anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe and America, inducing the non-Muslim population to treat all Muslims as potential attackers.
And that is exactly what is happening. The hysterical anti-Muslim reaction to terrorism is generating fear and resentment among Muslims living in Europe and America. The older generation reacts with fear, the younger one with resentment; the result is a breeding ground for potential terrorists. This is a mutually reinforcing, reflexive process.
How can it be stopped and reversed? Abandoning the values and principles underlying open societies and giving in to an anti-Muslim impulse dictated by fear certainly is not the answer, though it may be difficult to resist the temptation. I experienced this personally when I watched the last Republican presidential debate; I could stop myself only by remembering that it must be irrational to follow the wishes of your enemies.
To remove the danger posed by jihadi terrorism, abstract arguments are not enough; we need a strategy for defeating it. The challenge is underscored by the fact that the jihadi phenomenon has been with us for more than a generation. Indeed, gaining a proper understanding of it may be impossible. But the attempt must be made.
Consider the Syrian conflict, which is the root cause of the migration problem that is posing an existential threat to the European Union as we know it. If it was resolved, the world would be in better shape. It is important to recognise that Isis is operating from a position of weakness. While it is spreading fear in the world, its hold on its home ground is weakening. The United Nations security council has unanimously adopted a resolution against it, and the leaders of Isis are aware that their days in Iraq and Syria are numbered.
Of course, the outlook for Syria remains highly uncertain, and the conflict there cannot be understood or tackled in isolation. But one idea shines through crystal clear: it is an egregious mistake to do what the terrorists want us to do. That is why, as 2016 gets underway, we must reaffirm our commitment to the principles of open society and resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, however hard that may be.

We eagerly await The Donald's tweeted retort, which will surely propel him even higher in the GOP primary rankings.

http://crimeresearch.org/2015/12/concealed-handgun-permit-holders-stop-four-crimes-in-five-days/

Mythbusters: Do We Elect Kings or Servants?

Report: 191M voter records exposed online

By Katie Bo Williams - 12/28/15 09:50 AM EST

Security bloggers and researchers claim to have uncovered a publicly available database exposing the personal information of 191 million voters on the Internet.

The information contains voters’ names, home addresses, voter IDs, phone numbers and date of birth, as well as political affiliations and a detailed voting history since 2000.

While in most states, voter registration lists are a matter of public record, many have regulations restricting access and use.

For example, South Dakota requires those requesting access to voter data to confirm that the information “may not be used or sold for any commercial purpose and may not be placed for unrestricted access on the internet.”

Security researcher Chris Vickery discovered the breach and reported it to DataBreaches.net, which has since reached out to law enforcement, as well as the California attorney general’s office.

“When one of their attorneys asked, ‘Well how much data are we talking about?’ and I read her the list of data fields and told her that we had access to voter records of over 17 million California voters, her response was ‘Wow,’ and she promptly forwarded the matter to the head of their e-crime division,” writes DataBreaches.net’s anonymous admin.

Steve Ragan, a security blogger for the security and risk management website CSO, has alsoinvestigated the breach, noting that none of the political database firms he identified and reached out to in connection with the database claimed ownership of the IP address where the files are posted.

“What Vickery has discovered is worse” than the recent breach of Hillary Clinton’s voter data by a member of Bernie Sanders’s campaign, Ragan writes, “because the data he discovered isn't a client score — it's a complete voter record for 191 million registered voters.”

“The problem is, no one seems to care that this database is out there and no one wants to claim ownership,” he says.

Because some states charge high fees for access to voter data, campaigns often turn to third-party vendors to purchase huge swaths of information at a lower price. They can then use the information to develop sophisticated data sets to help them gain an edge, much the way President Obama’s campaign did in 2012.

The exposed data set, for example, could be used as the backbone of a database for an issue-oriented campaign. Such databases can contain deeply personal information, such as whether you’re a gun owner, religious or believe in abortion.

Such information can then be used by criminals to target victims of the breach.

A police officer speaking to DataBreaches.net said that he intentionally keeps his address and other personal information off of the Internet to protect his family.

“I deal with criminals every day who know my name,” he told the site’s admin. “The thought of some vindictive criminal being able to go to this site and get my address makes me uncomfortable.”

Both Ragan and DataBreaches.net believe the dataset originated with the third-party vendor Nation Builder but that the poor configuration that resulted in its exposure was done by a customer that purchased the information.

“Nation Builder is under no obligation to identify customers, and once the data has been obtained, they cannot control what happens to it,” Ragan writes.

"While the database is not ours, it is possible that some of the information it contains may have come from data we make available for free to campaigns," Nation Builder CEO Jim Gilliam said in a statement acknowledging the breach. "From what we've seen, the voter information included is already publicly available from each state government so no new or private information was released in this database.”

Privacy experts have warned that unlike the commercial sector, campaign data remains a kind of Wild West, with the candidates under no obligation to safeguard the information.

There are several major discrepancies between how campaigns and the commercial sector are expected to handle personal data — in some cases putting voter information at risk.

Campaigns are largely exempt from many of the communications laws that apply to businesses, such as anti-SPAM laws.

It’s also unclear who would have responsibility for oversight of campaign data collection. There’s no consensus on what federal agency, if any, would take enforcement action against a campaign in the event of a hack.

Some question whether commercial standards for data protection are adequate for voter or campaign data, since the information given to campaigns is often far more personal than a credit card number.

“Is the commercial standard sufficient for politics?” Ira Rubinstein, a fellow at New York University who has written extensively on privacy in the big data era, asked while speaking to The Hill for a previous story on this topic.

“We’re not talking about which sneaker I want to buy. We’re talking about exercising the right to vote as a basic democratic right.”

The database is currently still live, according to a Monday morning post on DataBreaches.net.

--Updated at 2:44 p.m.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/264297-report-191m-voter-records-exposed-publicly-online

Turkey Should Not Hope for an Easy Year – German Media

15:00 28.12.2015(updated 20:29 28.12.2015) Get short URL

The past year has been difficult for Turkey in many aspects - ranging from the fight against the Kurds to the attack on the Russian plane and subsequent conflict with Moscow. The next year will hardly be any easier, journalist Thomas Seibert wrote for Tagesspiegel.

"The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Syria, the European Union, Russia: this year was a difficult one for Turkey. The next will hardly be easier," Thomas Seibert wrote for Tagesspiegel.

Why 'Turkey Can Easily Become a New Syria'

In his opinion, the country may expect challenges on several fronts, particularly, in domestic policy. Most likely, the Turkish authorities will continue their persecution of journalists and other critics of the government who allegedly insult President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the journalist wrote.

In December, it became known that the Turkish authorities convicted three journalists of the Turkish newspaper Birgün for their article in which they called Erdogan a murderer and a thief.

Seibert also stressed that the possibility of an escalation of the conflict between the Turks and the Kurds is very high.

With regard to the Syrian conflict, he argued, Turkey will have to recognize that its original purpose, namely, the overthrow of the Assad regime, is causing distrust among many parties involved: not only Russia and Iran, which support the Syrian government, but also Turkey's Western partners, whose position on the matter does not correspond with the objectives of Ankara.

Bosphorus Bridge and Turkish Flag

Bringing Up Baby Frankenstein: Daesh May 'Consume' Turkey One Day

For example, the US cooperates with the Syrian Kurds in its fight against Daesh terrorists, while Turkey views the Kurds as its most serious enemy, Seibert wrote.

According to the journalist, difficulties are awaiting Ankara in its relations with the European Union as well. Brussels admitted that the EU needs Turkey to deal with the refugee crisis, but Ankara seeks to get much more in return, including a visa-free regime with Europe and assurances of their future membership in the union.

In the long run, the goals of the EU and Turkey may become incompatible and result in the deteriorating relations between both parties, Seibert wrote.

Over 120 Wounded Syrian Rebels to Undergo Treatment in Turkey

Russia Prepares Additional Measures Against Turkey Over Su-24 Downing

Civilian Casualties Mount as Turkey Continues Assault on Kurds

Safe Place? Another Anti-Daesh Syrian Activist Assassinated in Turkey

Tags:

Kurds, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey, Russia

WHAT A JOKE!! State Dept. counts 'bringing peace' to Syria as a 2015 win

Secretary of State John Kerry played a large role in Syrian peace talks. | Getty By ELIZA COLLINS

Updated 12/28/16 02:39 PM EST

The State Department is counting "bringing peace" to Syria as one of its wins in 2015.

A boastful recap of the State Department’s accomplishments, written by spokesman John Kirby, includes the bold subheadline of "Bringing Peace, Security to Syria" above a more modest entry talking about U.S. aid for those affected by the country's turmoil and the U.S. push for a political transition from President Bashar Assad.

While Secretary of State John Kerry has played an integral role in the Syrian peace talks, the country remains embroiled in a nasty civil war and terrorized by the Islamic State.

“The United States and many members of the international community have stepped up to aid the Syrian people during their time of need — the United States has led the world in humanitarian aid contributions since the crisis began in 2011,” Kirby said.

Kirby wrote that the Syrians have “borne a heavy load” but that under Kerry’s stewardship the United Nations passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution to create a road map for Syria going forward.

The apparent declaration of a win echoes comments from President Barack Obama, who has been heavily criticized for calling the Islamic State a "JV team" in a January 2014 article and for calling the group's territorial expansion efforts "contained," just days before the Paris attacks.

Kirby also explicitly touched on the Islamic State, also called ISIL, saying that the U.S. is “winning [the] fight against violent extremists.”

“Although challenges remain, we have made positive strides over the last year, including in our fight against ISIL,” Kirby said. "This forward progress will only continue as more countries pledge resources to the anti-ISIL effort and as citizens around the world increasingly reject ISIL's misguided ideology.”

Kirby cited the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, hosted in February, which he called “monumental.”

Other things the State Department is counting as wins: re-establishing ties with Cuba, protecting the Arctic, clinching the Iran nuclear agreement, stopping the Ebola outbreak, committing to U.N. development goals, securing a free trade deal, preserving ocean health, and reaching the climate agreement.

Magnets for murderers - Columbia Daily Tribune | Columbia Missouri: Op-Ed

Magnets for murderers - Columbia Daily Tribune | Columbia Missouri: Op-Ed

By JOHN R. LOTT JR. and MICHAEL R. GORDINIER
Sunday, December 27, 2015 at 12:00 am

Would you post a sign announcing that your home is a gun-free zone? Would you feel safer? Criminals don’t obey these signs. In fact, to criminals, gun-free zones look like easy targets.

In the Tuesday Tribune, Edward Lawlor argued such signs make us safer. He claimed the research of one of the authors here, John Lott’s “More Guns, Less Crime,” has been “refuted.” But he ignores that more than two-thirds of the peer-reviewed research by criminologists and economists that look at national data support those findings and that not a single study finds a bad effect on murders, rapes or robberies.

Since at least 1950, all but two public mass shootings in America have taken place where general citizens are banned from carrying guns. In Europe, there have been no exceptions. Every mass public shooting has occurred in a gun-free zone. And Europe is no stranger to mass shootings. It has been host to three of the six worst K-12 school shootings and by far the worst mass public shooting perpetrated by a single individual.

With dozens of cases where permit holders have clearly stopped what would have been mass public shootings, it is understandable that killers avoid places where they can’t kill a large number of people.

What might be surprising is how killers often openly talk about their desire to attack where guns are banned. The Charleston killer’s first choice was to target the College of Charleston, but he chose the church instead because there were armed guards at the college.

Just a few months ago, the diary of the Aurora, Colo., “Batman” movie theater killer, James Holmes, was finally released. He turned down his first choice, an airport, because he was concerned about its “substantial security.” Out of seven theaters showing the Batman movie premiere within 20 minutes of the suspect’s apartment, he attacked the only one that had banned concealed handguns.

Or take a couple of cases from last year. Elliot Rodger, who shot to death three people in Santa Barbara, Calif., explained his own choice. In his 141-page “Manifesto,” Rodger turned down targets because he worried that someone with a gun would cut short his killing spree. Justin Bourque shot to death three people in Canada. His Facebook page made fun of gun bans, with pictures of defenseless victims explaining to killers that they weren’t allowed to have their guns.

Lawlor puts emphasis on polls of people who have no expertise in the area. Policeone, the country’s largest private organization of police, with 450,000 members, found that 80 percent of their surveyed members thought that letting permit holders carry at schools would likely reduce casualties.

In late 2013, Ron Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, noted two means of protecting people from mass shootings: “One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves [should be] so secure that in order to get into the soft target, you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security.”

But Noble now realizes it was virtually impossible to stop killers from getting weapons.

There is extensive evidence to back this up. I joined University of Chicago economist Bill Landes in studying the effects of 13 types of gun control laws on public mass shootings from 1977 to 1999. Permitted concealed handgun laws were the only effective measures in preventing or reducing the harm caused by these attacks. Attacks occurred in those tiny areas where victims weren’t able to protect themselves.

Today, 12 states mandate that permit holders are allowed to carry guns on public college campuses. An additional 21 states leave it up to the universities. But these legal restrictions didn’t exist before the early 1990s.

Lawlor fears that students with permits will lash out violently at others, but he can’t point to one time that has happened at schools where permits have been allowed. Despite Lawlor’s concerns, there has never been a case where a student with a permit has threatened a professor over grades or anything else. The same concerns were raised for permit holders generally before Missouri enacted concealed-carry in 2004; after 10 years of experience, permit holders have proved to be extremely law-abiding.

Indeed, a study this past year by the Crime Prevention Research Center found that college-age permit holders in Michigan, Nevada and Texas (three states that break down revocation data by age) are at least as responsible as older permit holders.

Accidents over the decades are exceedingly rare. There were four accidental discharges by teachers or staff — one each at universities in Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi and Utah. All cases involved very minor injuries. None involved others getting a hold of the guns.

Gun-free zones are a magnet for murderers. But a year after permit holders are allowed to defend themselves and others, everyone will wonder what all the concerns were about.

John Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, and Michael Gordinier is a senior lecture at the Washington University Business School.

© 2015 Columbia Daily Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Posted in Oped on Sunday, December 27, 2015 12:00 am.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Americans! This Better Piss You Off! | TERrafirmaUSA

Americans! This Better Piss You Off! | TERrafirmaUSA

Unless you want to bury everything America stands for, unless you are for RE-enslaving women and your daughters, unless you believe the punishment for rape and homosexuality are death, and unless you believe that civilized men should return to the dark ages you better STAND UP! Your world is about to be rocked! The enemy is within the White House, your government, your communities and within the conditioning you receive on a daily basis. Turn off their mouthpiece: the television; the radio; the buy or meme of the day!!!! They would rather you stay asleep and do nothing than to right this injustice being inflicted upon us. They would rather have you comply and bowing on bent knee than standing to fight! Your way of life is about to become extinct if you let it!! DO NOT COMPLY! SPEAK YOUR VOICE! Stand up to tyranny and to those who do not represent the greater good. There is a clash of cultures coming, will you be ready?

#DoYourHomework

What is Sharia-Ism

Brief Islamic History From 622 A.D. to Now

Monday, December 21, 2015

‘Diabolical’ Obama Actions Lead to Weakening of America – US Media | TERrafirmaUSA

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Putin Shares His View on Russia's Role in Emerging World Order

Putin Shares His View on Russia's Role in Emerging World Order
20:12 20.12.2015(updated 20:19 20.12.2015)

The new documentary film “World Order” was aired on Rossiya 1 television channel Sunday. Vladimir Putin was among those interviewed for the documentary. For your convenience Sputnik compiled best bits and pieces of the interview with the Russian president.

Putin emphasized the importance of being careful when it comes to nuclear weapons, stating that although Russia has its nukes ready, it "never either swung or would never swing its nuclear club at others."

"I hope no person is insane enough on Planet Earth who would dare to use nuclear weapons," Putin said.

On the issue of foreign interference into internal affairs of countries, the Russian president said a national government's drawbacks shouldn't be a reason for an intervention.

"The most important thing is not to undermine legitimate governments, not to destroy their statehood even if it appears to be imperfect," the president said.

"I think that no one should ever impose any values, which he/she considers to be correct, on others. We [Russia] have our own values and our own ideas about justice," Putin explained.

Some countries out there have "lost a sense of reality" thinking that they could tell Russia how to conduct its politics. That isn't going to happen, according to Putin.

© AP PHOTO/ ALIK KEPLICZ

Putin: West Continues Cold War Approach Despite Bipolar System Collapse

"I guess that political nouveaux riches have lost a sense of reality… There are some countries and nations that will never accept a secondary role, a role of an occupied country or some kind of a vassal. It will end sooner or later. Soon enough, I guess," Putin said

Geopolitics is an important issue the world has always faced. Putin thinks if the geopolitical struggle cannot be avoided, then it should at least be civilized, with its principles uniformly understood and supervised.

"It is essential for future development to build relations of the so-called geopolitical struggle. The fight is inevitable and it is normal. It is only necessary to conduct it in compliance with the civilized rules," Putin said.

Obviously, Ukraine was also on Putin's mind.

"In relation to Ukraine and the post-Soviet countries in general, I am convinced that the position of our Western partners — Europe and the US — is not to do with the protection of Ukraine's interests, but with attempts to prevent the re-creation of the Soviet Union. And nobody wants to believe us that Russia doesn't aim to re-create the Soviet Union," the president said.

© AP PHOTO/ DUSAN VRANIC

Russia's Stance on Syria Not Changed: Syrian People Will Decide Their Fate

According to Putin, the West has now realized that it made a mistake by supporting an anti-government coup in Ukraine. However, now the West isn't willing to admit it.

"You cannot improve anything by organizing a coup. Has anything improved in the country? The power is in the hands of oligarchs," Putin said.

"Nobody wants to financially support Ukraine… At the same time, they [the West] want to shift the financial burden to Russia… Let's share the risks, we said. We are ready to restructure Ukraine's debt to us… They do not want to share this risk."

Putin also touched upon his neighbors on the European continent, stating that "Europe's problem is that it doesn't have independent foreign policy. At all."

"The role of Germany, which can and should act at international stage, cannot be ignored in order to change the existing international climate to increase stability," Putin said.

Related: Putin: Eastern Europeans Using Anti-Russia Propaganda in Politics As Putin Extends Olive Branch, Will the West Grasp it? Russia Identifies Over 320 Foreign Agents in 2015 – Putin US in Syria: ‘America Surrenders and Putin Wins Again’

Tags:

foreign intervention, documentary, interview, Syrian crisis, Ukrainian crisis, Vladimir Putin, World, Russia

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151220/1032059345/putin-documentary-world-order-interview-highlights.html#ixzz3usykWvLd

Obama Abruptly Waives 1980 Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act | Zero Hedge

Obama Abruptly Waives 1980 Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act | Zero Hedge

Obama selling out America to the highest "Foreign" buyer. There goes the rug!!!

Submitted by Gordon T. Long of the Financial Repression Authority

Obama Abruptly Waives 1980 Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act

The Financial Repression Authority has consistently shown that Regulatory changes which “Ring Fence” US investors choices is a cornerstone of the Macro-Prudential Policy of “Financial Repression”. Through stealth programs like FATCA and PFIC the US government has steadily and quietly limited Americans ability to take cash out of the country and to invest abroad, other than through profitable public exchange traded products sold by the financial industry. However, it is one thing to shut the doors to American investing abroad but it is quite another to fully open the doors to foreigners! It begs the question why, why now and why the change needed to happen so urgently?

This week, as the BOJ, ECB and PBOC all continued to aggressively expand credit the Federal Reserve was “full ahead” in the process of withdrawing approximately $1 Trillion of liquidity to achieve its December FOMC decision to increase the Fed Funds rate by 0.25%. To counteract this policy initiative and the alarming collapse in the HY & IG bond market, the US government immediately opened the floodgates to easy foreign credit in a major policy reversal. A policy decision which was rushed through congress with almost no time for congressional debate. Obviously what was not lost on the White House was the fact that the now troubled $2.2 Trillion of High Yield bonds peddled to yield starved investors since the financial crisis matches 2/3’s of the $3.5 Trillion increase in the Federal Reserves balance sheet during the same period.

FIRPTA was implemented during a better era for Americans in response to international investors in the late 1980s and early 1990s buying U.S. farmland, as well as the more publicly visible buying of trophy U.S. property by the Japanese. The US government has now expediently waived FIRPTA.

Bloomberg reports:

President Barack Obama signed into law a measure easing a 35-year-old tax on foreign investment in U.S. real estate, potentially opening the door to greater purchases by overseas investors, a major source of capital since the financial crisis.

Contained in the $1.1 trillion spending measure that was passed to avoid a government shutdown is a provision that treats foreign pension funds the same as their U.S. counterparts for real estate investments. The provision waives the tax imposed on such investors under the 1980 Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act, known as FIRPTA.

“FIRPTA has historically made direct investment in U.S. property a non-starter for trillions of dollars worth of foreign pensions,” said James Corl, a managing director at private equity firm Siguler Guff & Co. “This tax-law modification is a game changer” that could result in hundreds of billions of new capital flows into U.S. real estate.

Foreign investors have flocked to U.S. real estate since the global economic meltdown, drawn by the relative yields and perceived safety of assets from office towers and shopping centers to apartments and warehouses. The demand has helped drive commercial real estate prices to record highs. Many foreign investors structured their purchases to make themselves minority investors and bypass FIRPTA.

REIT Purchases

The new law also allows foreign pensions to buy as much as 10 percent of a U.S. publicly traded real estate investment trust without triggering FIRPTA liability, up from 5 percent previously.

“By breaking down outdated tax barriers to inbound investment, the FIRPTA relief will help mobilize private capital for real estate and infrastructure projects,” Jeffrey DeBoer, president and chief executive officer of the Real Estate Roundtable, an industry lobbying group, said in a statement.

Cross-border investment in U.S. real estate has totaled about $78.4 billion this year, or 16 percent of the total $483 billion investment in U.S. property, according to Real Capital Analytics Inc. Pension funds accounted for about $7.5 billion, or almost 10 percent, of the foreign total, according to the New York-based property research firm.

“Foreign pensions are such a low percentage of foreign investment in U.S. real estate because of FIRPTA,” Corl said.

Investment Surges

Foreign investment has surged from just $4.7 billion in 2009, according to Real Capital. Foreign buying this year as a percentage of total investment in U.S. real estate is about double the 8.1 percent average in the 10 years through 2012.

Despite a perception that FIRPTA was a response to the wave of Japanese buying of trophy U.S. property in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach, the act was actually passed in 1980 in response to international investors buying U.S. farmland. Under old rules, foreign majority sellers had to pay 10 percent of gross proceeds from the sale of U.S. real estate as well as additional federal, state and local levies that could increase the total tax burden to as much as 60 percent, according to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.

The change “is a huge deal,” said Jim Fetgatter, chief executive of the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate. “There’s no question” it will increase the amount of foreign investment in U.S. property, he said.

Warning

The FRA predicts that Americans will face significant increases in US property taxes over the next five years starting in 2016. With the change in FIRPTA Americans should additionally expect property values to increase in 2016-2017.

Clearly, foreigners, the “1%” and property owners will all gain from this, but most Americans will simply face significantly increasing property taxes on elevated asset values to fund the ever increasing government debt burden.

Americans owning a house can be expected to initially focus on their net worth being higher, and not that they once again will have even less disposable income. Some will learn painfully why the number one killer of small business is cash flow, not profits..

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