Posted by Mary Murphy on Mar 14, 2018

Pledge and Invocation 

Long time Burlingame Rotarian, Duffy Offield lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
 
The verbose Peter Comaroto gave us his inspirational thoughts and reminded us to be thankful. We are very thankful for you, Peter.

Guests and Visiting Rotarians

Mary Murphy's guest was her son Robert Doyle.  Colin Asip, assistant to our speaker Carole Rodoni.. Lili Chen, Michelle Beauchamp-Loane and Melinda Horwitz were guests of Mike Horwitz. Pierre Bujian was guest of his son, Alex. Vicki Yee, business director for the Peninsula HeathCare district, was guest of Cheryl Fama. Lina brought her friend Tanya Zubinska. Scholarship recipient, Vivian Torres.

Past member, Phillip Larson couldn’t keep away, and Bonnie Bertetta graced us with her presence.

Announcements

President Mike let the club know that the Board of Directors will meet next Wednesday at 4:30pm at Boston Private Bank, Burlingame.  He reminded the club that next weeks’ lunch meeting at Burlingame High School’s Italian Exchange students will only be for members who sign up as it is being catered. Please go to the website and sign up, or let Stan Moore know before Thursday, March 15th.
President Mike re-introduced the club to Vivien Torres, one of our scholarship recipients with an update. Vivien has not been a slacker…she graduated in 2015 and is attending Berkeley, and now she is thinking about Med-School. She has also been working two jobs one of them as a scribe or personal assistant in a local hospital.  She was delighted to tell us that with our help she had graduated debt free, and she thanked the club. For her extra-curricula activities she babysits and is a student instructor on campus. She will be applying to med-school in 2019 and we wish her continued success.

Program

Today’s speaker is one we’ve heard many times but who never ceases to amaze us with her breathless delivery and intriguing prognostications. She shared with us that for the last 9 years the economy has been moving slowly and for many reasons; the federal reserve has kept interest rates low, employment is up, and the dollar is down abut 10%. The good news is that Europe is beginning to show some positive movement after years in the doldrums, and the stock market is way up.  She praised the lifting of regulations although wages have increased slowly and minimally. But she says that inflation is good because wages will increase, but that will also prices to go up.
Amazon, J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway are teaming up to supply healthcare to their employees, and are buying a pharmaceutical corporation, to shake up the healthcare industry.  She mentioned that the stock market will be at 28,000 by the end of 2018. She reminded us that the recent tax cuts will lead to a $1.4 trillion tax shortfall. But she was encouraged by the fact that the change in the corporate tax will lead to many corporations, like Apple, bringing money back to the USA to invest here. She forecasts that $1 trillion will hit Silicon Valley….good for us. She did the numbers and feels that the tax rates will mean that an average worker will pay about 3% less in taxes this year, but those making more than $250,000 per year will see higher taxes.  
She had some comments on the current President who is from Brooklyn, New York and therefore, not very politically correct. She briefly mentioned the new tariffs but said there will be exemptions for Canada and Mexico.
She sees a rise in the interest rate but nothing that’s a ‘big deal.’ Carole called Silicon Valley ‘Golden’ and said the 80 mile radius around it, will experience ‘magic’ as an economic revolution is changing the way people are living. Revolutions happen about every fifty years; we’ve had the railroads, assembly lines, highways in the 1950s and the Internet. All have changed our lives like the magic of the iPhone and portable apps. Apple, Alibaba, Netflix and Amazon…own the world, and they are transforming it.  Carole shared what it will mean for us. Millennials are driving the Revolution and there are more of them than baby boomers. They congregate in the cities and urban places as they love the neighborhood feel. They like the ‘trendy’ areas and they are driving up home prices.
Carole didn’t feel that there is a real estate bubble as the value in real estate is in the land, and there is not much of it in Silicon Valley. Currently there is only one month of inventory and homes are selling 10 – 20% over the list price.  She feels that the good times will roll until 2020 at least and longer. 50,000 to 60,000 new people are going to be moving into the area.
She told us that Dropbox will go public. Lots of things are coming that are exciting and new. Carole's Stock picks: Deere and Caterpillar, Boeing, Ratheon, Northrup, Target (she predicts that Amazon will buy them), Walmart, McDonalds, Yum!, a company that owns and operates Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut. Also, Costco, Alaska, Alibaba, Bidu, Southwest, Facebook, Google, Roku, Invidia, P.A. Netowrks, Intel and 56.com, one of the largest video sharing websites in China.  Finally she mentioned that Uber is growing stronger and Facebook is opening in Fresno…which means home prices will go up in that area. A lot to take in!