It wasn't that Mosler and his fellow "Resetting InvestmentStrategies" panelists necessarily ruled out the potential long-termeffectiveness of the federal government's trillion-dollar effortsto stabilize and jump-start the economy. Tom Flexner, global headof real estate at Citigroup, noted that Wall Street hasn't beenenthusiastic about the Obama administration's residential mortgageplan, but called it "absolutely a step in the right direction." Healso gave a vote of confidence to the Treasury Department's newlylaunched TALFprogram, although to date it hasn't included the commercialsector. However, Flexner said the unprecedented size of thegovernment's role in shaping the world in which commercial realestate will operate is also the primary source of the currentuncertainty about what that world will look like.

Flexner charted two possible outcomes to the federalgovernment's economic recovery program: it will lead tostabilization and will help the industry find the floor on pricing,or it will help create "a very severe environment" for the longhaul. In the near term, he predicted that "we're going to reach apoint of clarity in the market" over the next three to sixmonths.

Along a similar timeline, Mosler told the audience that we'llsee rents reach the bottom over the next six to nine months. That'salso the time frame in which the effects of TARP will begin to maketheir way through the system, he said. If the markets correctthemselves, office vacancy rates will peak at about 16%, comparedto 20% to 25% in the trough of the 1980s.