INDIAN WELLS, CA-The commercial real estate industry is doing well, despite what has happened in Washington, DC. That's the good news.

The bad news is that our futures are tied to a bunch of self-important opportunists that make public policy. GlobeSt.com content director John Salustri was not mincing words when he spoke here at the recent SIOR conference.

His words: "Despite their best efforts...despite their posturing and posing on their 11th-hour deal making over such issues as sequestration and before that final fiscal cliff and before that the debt ceiling, and before that ad nausem, our elected officials couldn't derail the economic recovery."

But, he added, that won't mean they won't continue to try as they now face such issues as tax reform ("And we all know how well that works out once Congress get its hands on it," he stated), carried interest and REIT tax exemptions.

Let the elected officials do what they want. The commercial real estate industry is doing just fine, thank you. The main problem that we face as an industry is uncertainty in the national political environment, according to Salustri.

Regardless of these problems, Salustri rattled off information about the commercial real estate industry that proved things are charging ahead in the last year:

• The financial situation in Europe has improved;
• Interest rates are still low;
• CMBS lending is up...so far it is $30 billion in 2013, compared with $48 billion all of last year;
• Commercial real estate transactions were up 35% from last year.

This proves that the commercial real estate industry will move on, while things in Washington stay stagnant.

"This is a cyclical industry," he concluded. "We don't know what great unknown 'something' can come along to derail the still-young, still-slow recovery, including the decisions of wrong-headed politicans. Until that happens, enjoy the ride."