This has to be the most impressive chart I've ever seen created.
And Timmy seems shocked and outraged that people would be unhappy with him...
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Never Mind!!!
The wonderful comedienne Gilda Radner left us with happy memories, and hysterically funny characters created from her fertile imagination.
My favorite was Emily Litella, the old lady, hard of hearing, who would rant during the news segments 'anchored' by Chevy Chase. He often struggled to keep a straight face while she demanded to know what all the fuss was about Russian Jewelry, or Endangered Feces. Every routine would end with him gently correcting the old girl: 'That's Russian Jewry, or Endangered Species. At which point she would smile sweetly at the camera and deliver the payoff line: Never Mind! followed by gales of laughter and applause.
This week, Associated Press quietly brought us one of those 'Never Mind' moments.
Pfizer decided to locate a major facility in New London, CT. Downtown, where other people owned the real estate. So the city fathers decided to condemn and seize the property. You know, for the 'greater good', since Pfizer would generate more tax revenues than the local proles.
Pfizer's pharmaceutical research center, which opened in 2001, was a catalyst for a planned multimillion-dollar private development that was to include residential, hotel conference, research and development space and a new state park. City officials decided they needed 90 acres adjacent to the Pfizer center to complement the building.
Many homeowners in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood sold to accommodate the wrecking crews, but seven fought the city all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in 2005 that cities could use eminent domain to take property for private development.
In the end, great damage was done, as the principle was established that a government could seize property from one private party, and hand it over to another private party, all in the name of increasing the tax revenue base. For the 'greater good', you know...
Anyone smell moral hazard in any of this yet? Have there been any instances in which real estate developers paid off local officials for zoning preferences, for instance?
So, here we are in 2009, and Pfizer decides they're not going to go through with the project, after all. How many millions spent in legal fees? And, the city now owns the property they seized from the previous landowners, and are out the money they spent buying the more cooperative ones out.
Bet they'll have an easy time selling all that 'Prime Commercial Property'.
To quote Emily: Never Mind!
We have a cultural problem, in that the Constitution has been reduced to something used to line the birdcages of the powerful.
This creates economic quandries. Eventually. Inevitably.
If we could just say 'Never Mind', smile and move on...
My favorite was Emily Litella, the old lady, hard of hearing, who would rant during the news segments 'anchored' by Chevy Chase. He often struggled to keep a straight face while she demanded to know what all the fuss was about Russian Jewelry, or Endangered Feces. Every routine would end with him gently correcting the old girl: 'That's Russian Jewry, or Endangered Species. At which point she would smile sweetly at the camera and deliver the payoff line: Never Mind! followed by gales of laughter and applause.
This week, Associated Press quietly brought us one of those 'Never Mind' moments.
Pfizer decided to locate a major facility in New London, CT. Downtown, where other people owned the real estate. So the city fathers decided to condemn and seize the property. You know, for the 'greater good', since Pfizer would generate more tax revenues than the local proles.
Pfizer's pharmaceutical research center, which opened in 2001, was a catalyst for a planned multimillion-dollar private development that was to include residential, hotel conference, research and development space and a new state park. City officials decided they needed 90 acres adjacent to the Pfizer center to complement the building.
Many homeowners in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood sold to accommodate the wrecking crews, but seven fought the city all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in 2005 that cities could use eminent domain to take property for private development.
In the end, great damage was done, as the principle was established that a government could seize property from one private party, and hand it over to another private party, all in the name of increasing the tax revenue base. For the 'greater good', you know...
Anyone smell moral hazard in any of this yet? Have there been any instances in which real estate developers paid off local officials for zoning preferences, for instance?
So, here we are in 2009, and Pfizer decides they're not going to go through with the project, after all. How many millions spent in legal fees? And, the city now owns the property they seized from the previous landowners, and are out the money they spent buying the more cooperative ones out.
Bet they'll have an easy time selling all that 'Prime Commercial Property'.
To quote Emily: Never Mind!
We have a cultural problem, in that the Constitution has been reduced to something used to line the birdcages of the powerful.
This creates economic quandries. Eventually. Inevitably.
If we could just say 'Never Mind', smile and move on...
The Casino Is Back In Business, Only It's Our Money Buying The Chips
This dispassionate account of newly bankrupt hustlers buying real estate with FHA guarantees is brought to us by The YewNork Times.
I never fail to marvel that East Coast media types can laconically report outrages of this magnitude with the same lack of passion they would use in reporting the scores of the Friday high-school football scores in South Dakota.
Do they understand what is at stake morally, much less economically, for the country?
Think of the passion expended by the Times on the folks who supported Hoffman in the still-unresolved NY 23 by-election.
Or the outrage expressed over the outing of a non-covert CIA agent.
Or...you fill in the blank....
Soooooo...
Long story short, each of three guys put up 11K to get in the game. The article tells the rest of the tale:
Their building, for which they paid $963,000, is on a quiet street in the up-and-coming Hayes Valley neighborhood, close to fashionable restaurants they have already been trying out. The friends plan to live in the bottom unit and rent out the top. Thanks to rock-bottom interest rates, none of them will pay much more than a thousand dollars a month. “Everyone should have the chance to do this,” Mr. Kurland said.
Everyone may get a chance.
A few weeks ago, Congress extended the higher lending limits for another year. Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that he planned to introduce legislation next year raising the maximum F.H.A. loan by $100,000, to $839,750.
His bill would make the new limits permanent.
33K down to purchase a 963K building. 33/963=.0342679. My calculator is smoking...
3.4% down payment on a property whose value is destined to fall, and if our intrepid young men default, or decide to walk away, or someone gets unhappy the with the arrangement, or falls ill, or moves back home, then the taxpayer gets to eat the cost of the failure.
FHA has done this 107,000 times in California this year. Six a week in San Francisco.
FHA was not set up to support high-end real estate plays. People are supposed to do that sort of stuff on their own dime, aren't they?
Is all this o.k., because Obama and Barney Frank say so?
My children, and my grandchildren, will end up paying for these guys sampling the restaurants of San Francisco. I doubt these guys will get around to settling down and procreating their own children to help foot the bill.
I never fail to marvel that East Coast media types can laconically report outrages of this magnitude with the same lack of passion they would use in reporting the scores of the Friday high-school football scores in South Dakota.
Do they understand what is at stake morally, much less economically, for the country?
Think of the passion expended by the Times on the folks who supported Hoffman in the still-unresolved NY 23 by-election.
Or the outrage expressed over the outing of a non-covert CIA agent.
Or...you fill in the blank....
Soooooo...
Long story short, each of three guys put up 11K to get in the game. The article tells the rest of the tale:
Their building, for which they paid $963,000, is on a quiet street in the up-and-coming Hayes Valley neighborhood, close to fashionable restaurants they have already been trying out. The friends plan to live in the bottom unit and rent out the top. Thanks to rock-bottom interest rates, none of them will pay much more than a thousand dollars a month. “Everyone should have the chance to do this,” Mr. Kurland said.
Everyone may get a chance.
A few weeks ago, Congress extended the higher lending limits for another year. Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that he planned to introduce legislation next year raising the maximum F.H.A. loan by $100,000, to $839,750.
His bill would make the new limits permanent.
33K down to purchase a 963K building. 33/963=.0342679. My calculator is smoking...
3.4% down payment on a property whose value is destined to fall, and if our intrepid young men default, or decide to walk away, or someone gets unhappy the with the arrangement, or falls ill, or moves back home, then the taxpayer gets to eat the cost of the failure.
FHA has done this 107,000 times in California this year. Six a week in San Francisco.
FHA was not set up to support high-end real estate plays. People are supposed to do that sort of stuff on their own dime, aren't they?
Is all this o.k., because Obama and Barney Frank say so?
My children, and my grandchildren, will end up paying for these guys sampling the restaurants of San Francisco. I doubt these guys will get around to settling down and procreating their own children to help foot the bill.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Pope Benedict Reminds Us Why All Those Cathdrals Exist
Joseph Ratzinger gets the Green Shoots nomination two weeks in a row, reminding us all that that outpouring of beauty found in the Middle Ages cathedrals was an expression of deep faith.
These were never intended to be museums. Some still aren't, like Ely, north of Cambridge, where the Queen visited yesterday to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the Diocese of Ely.
Ratzinger ends his address thus:
Dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord help us to rediscover the way of beauty as one of the ways, perhaps the most attractive and fascinating, to come to encounter and love God.
Full article follows here:
Ahead of Meeting with Artists, Pope Benedict Acts as Docent
These were never intended to be museums. Some still aren't, like Ely, north of Cambridge, where the Queen visited yesterday to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the Diocese of Ely.
Ratzinger ends his address thus:
Dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord help us to rediscover the way of beauty as one of the ways, perhaps the most attractive and fascinating, to come to encounter and love God.
Full article follows here:
Ahead of Meeting with Artists, Pope Benedict Acts as Docent
Good Golf This Weekend from Dubai
We could take some time off from watching football and basketball this weekend.
It really won't hurt us. Besides, the tour golfers can read, write, speak standard English. They even manage to stay out of jail.
Who deserves more of our time and attention?
I've been working away, keeping half an eye on Golf Channel's broadcast of the European Tour event from Dubai.
Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood were paired up, and they had one of those great rounds where they fed off one another, sort of like NASCAR drivers drafting one another around the track at Daytona. They spent the day splitting the fairways, and pouring in the putts. It was as good a round of golf as I've seen in years.
McIlroy, at age 20, is just sensational, and with those boyish good looks and charm, will soon become a star.
Westwood scrambled out of deep trouble a couple of times, sort of England's answer to Phil Mickleson without the space-cadet dimension...
Westwood ended the day at -6, McIlroy at -4.
Here's hoping they keep it up. We all could use some inspiration.
It really won't hurt us. Besides, the tour golfers can read, write, speak standard English. They even manage to stay out of jail.
Who deserves more of our time and attention?
I've been working away, keeping half an eye on Golf Channel's broadcast of the European Tour event from Dubai.
Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood were paired up, and they had one of those great rounds where they fed off one another, sort of like NASCAR drivers drafting one another around the track at Daytona. They spent the day splitting the fairways, and pouring in the putts. It was as good a round of golf as I've seen in years.
McIlroy, at age 20, is just sensational, and with those boyish good looks and charm, will soon become a star.
Westwood scrambled out of deep trouble a couple of times, sort of England's answer to Phil Mickleson without the space-cadet dimension...
Westwood ended the day at -6, McIlroy at -4.
Here's hoping they keep it up. We all could use some inspiration.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Welcome to Paris at UCLA (14 Arrested, 1 Tasered)
A group of students caught on camera protesting the a 32% hike in tuition. Difficult to say how many there were, or who they were, but they certainly made some noise.
The taser came out on this one. Wouldn't you love to be the campus security officer photographed doing this, and returning to work on foot patrol next week?
As reality arrives on ground level, people will be upset.
This reminds me of the Left Bank riots of Paris. Never thought we'd see it here...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post, Definitely Not Amused by ObamaCare
Robert J. Samuelson is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on political, economic and social issues. His column appears on Wednesdays.
Samuelson joined The Post on the business desk in 1969. In 1976 he became an economic reporter for National Journal, where he began a weekly column, which began appearing in The Post in 1977. In 1984, Samuelson became a columnist for Newsweek.
In other words, no one can call him a 'Teabag Person', or 'AstroTurf' and pass the laugh test.
He is not amused by ObamaCare.
The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president, his advisers and allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.
This from an icon of the East Coast Media.
What are Obama and Pelosi to do? Do they put Samuelson on the enemies list? Do they declare The Washington Post 'not a news organization'?
The wheels, blessedly, may be coming off the train. There is hope yet.
Samuelson joined The Post on the business desk in 1969. In 1976 he became an economic reporter for National Journal, where he began a weekly column, which began appearing in The Post in 1977. In 1984, Samuelson became a columnist for Newsweek.
In other words, no one can call him a 'Teabag Person', or 'AstroTurf' and pass the laugh test.
He is not amused by ObamaCare.
The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president, his advisers and allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.
This from an icon of the East Coast Media.
What are Obama and Pelosi to do? Do they put Samuelson on the enemies list? Do they declare The Washington Post 'not a news organization'?
The wheels, blessedly, may be coming off the train. There is hope yet.
Andy and Jon, Children of The Bubble
Meet Andy.
Andy is 28, used to work in advertising, and now works on a political campaign. He's an Activist.
Meet Jon.
Jon is 34, used to work on Wall Street until recently. He's a Lawyer.
Neither have any memory of a world in which residential property values did not rise at a pace well past any other investment. It's as if one has a right to buy a house for Price A(say 75K) refi it a few times, touch it up a bit, and sell it for a multiple of A(say 295K). Anyone or anything who gets in the way of that would be just so, well, unprogressive, don't you think?
So, how do Andy and Jon's paths cross? They both moved to Louisville, and each bought one of those charming little frame shotgun houses in Butchertown, in the district traditionally associated with the stockyards and slaughterhouses.
Now, Andy and Jon and their fellow Butchertown Children of the Bubble have problem on their hands. There is still a meat-packing plant in Butchertown!! OMG!!! It's been there since 1969, and it..it..it SMELLS LIKE A PACKING PLANT!!
It employs 1400 people, but, you know, they're those kind of people, who don't have college educations, but are likely to have pot bellies and speak English with funny accents and drink beer and raise children. A lot of them go to church! Some of them smoke! OMG, they must go! They will just ruin our property values!
So, Andy the Activist, chair of the local homeowners association, and Jon the Lawyer get together to file complaints with the zoning commission, and lawsuits against the zoning commission, and generally stomp their feet to demand, DEMAND I SAY, that this nuisance be removed from their presence forthwith!
Now, it will cost the firm some $350 million to build a new plant, but that's a small price to pay in order to make Butchertown a 'Walkable Neighborhood', near the proposed botanical gardens, with each of those little shotgun frame houses selling for $500k. After all, we're Young Professionals, the sort of people a city wants, unlike those smelly worker types, with their smelly children.
So, the packing plant is spending hundreds of thousands dealing with the neighbors, the city, the lawsuits, etc., while employing 1400 people who actually produce something. Every day, live pigs go in one door, and bacon and ham depart the other. People buy and eat bacon and ham. People can't buy and eat inflated real estate valuations, generally.
Time was, those little shotgun houses actually housed families with children. Their dads worked in the plants. They worked to support their families, eventually own their little house bought with the help of the local S&L, and hopefully launch their kids and grandkids to a better life than theirs. That was the deal. That was The American Dream.
The Bubble killed much of that off. The workers commute from the south side, not from 'Walkable Neighborhoods', where they try to raise their kids. The Young Professionals remodel their houses in their Walkable Neighborhoods, oddly empty of children and young mothers, and harrass anyone who dares cross their path.
Even if that anyone happened to have been there first, for some decades.
Until we address the raw narcissism of the culture, the Fed and government can hose the economy down with cash, stimulus programs, tax credits, jobs programs, health reforms, bailouts, what have you.
It won't matter.
I'm to the point of thinking that the sooner the air is let out of the real-estate bubble, and values return to the mean, the better. Then and only then will sanity begin to have a fighting chance.
Andy and Jon will just have to adjust, and perhaps produce something with their lives beside litigation.
OMG!!!
Andy is 28, used to work in advertising, and now works on a political campaign. He's an Activist.
Meet Jon.
Jon is 34, used to work on Wall Street until recently. He's a Lawyer.
Neither have any memory of a world in which residential property values did not rise at a pace well past any other investment. It's as if one has a right to buy a house for Price A(say 75K) refi it a few times, touch it up a bit, and sell it for a multiple of A(say 295K). Anyone or anything who gets in the way of that would be just so, well, unprogressive, don't you think?
So, how do Andy and Jon's paths cross? They both moved to Louisville, and each bought one of those charming little frame shotgun houses in Butchertown, in the district traditionally associated with the stockyards and slaughterhouses.
Now, Andy and Jon and their fellow Butchertown Children of the Bubble have problem on their hands. There is still a meat-packing plant in Butchertown!! OMG!!! It's been there since 1969, and it..it..it SMELLS LIKE A PACKING PLANT!!
It employs 1400 people, but, you know, they're those kind of people, who don't have college educations, but are likely to have pot bellies and speak English with funny accents and drink beer and raise children. A lot of them go to church! Some of them smoke! OMG, they must go! They will just ruin our property values!
So, Andy the Activist, chair of the local homeowners association, and Jon the Lawyer get together to file complaints with the zoning commission, and lawsuits against the zoning commission, and generally stomp their feet to demand, DEMAND I SAY, that this nuisance be removed from their presence forthwith!
Now, it will cost the firm some $350 million to build a new plant, but that's a small price to pay in order to make Butchertown a 'Walkable Neighborhood', near the proposed botanical gardens, with each of those little shotgun frame houses selling for $500k. After all, we're Young Professionals, the sort of people a city wants, unlike those smelly worker types, with their smelly children.
So, the packing plant is spending hundreds of thousands dealing with the neighbors, the city, the lawsuits, etc., while employing 1400 people who actually produce something. Every day, live pigs go in one door, and bacon and ham depart the other. People buy and eat bacon and ham. People can't buy and eat inflated real estate valuations, generally.
Time was, those little shotgun houses actually housed families with children. Their dads worked in the plants. They worked to support their families, eventually own their little house bought with the help of the local S&L, and hopefully launch their kids and grandkids to a better life than theirs. That was the deal. That was The American Dream.
The Bubble killed much of that off. The workers commute from the south side, not from 'Walkable Neighborhoods', where they try to raise their kids. The Young Professionals remodel their houses in their Walkable Neighborhoods, oddly empty of children and young mothers, and harrass anyone who dares cross their path.
Even if that anyone happened to have been there first, for some decades.
Until we address the raw narcissism of the culture, the Fed and government can hose the economy down with cash, stimulus programs, tax credits, jobs programs, health reforms, bailouts, what have you.
It won't matter.
I'm to the point of thinking that the sooner the air is let out of the real-estate bubble, and values return to the mean, the better. Then and only then will sanity begin to have a fighting chance.
Andy and Jon will just have to adjust, and perhaps produce something with their lives beside litigation.
OMG!!!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Return of Music to Saint Peter's Basilica
Long overdue, but very welcome!
One of the unintended and tragic consequences of Vatican II was the disappearance of almost the entire corpus of church music from the Catholic Church, replaced by really really really cheesy drivel. Badly written(most of the 'poetry' never scans, therefore is unsingable), badly sung, accompanied by out-of-tune guitars with a vocabulary of four chords.
Joseph Ratzinger is attempting to set things straight, by encouraging the return of choral and organ music, and all the arts, back to the church.
Sandro Magister, covering this week's events, offers this insight:
Among the arts to be represented in the Sistine Chapel next Saturday, November 21, at the highly anticipated meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, music is perhaps the one that has suffered the most from the divorce that has taken place between artists and the Church.
The distress in music has been the first to afflict the Church. Because while the masterpieces of Christian painting, sculpture, and architecture still remain accessible to all, even if they are ignored and misunderstood, great music literally disappears from the churches if no one performs it anymore.
Again: Great music literally disappears from the churches if no one performs it anymore.
And it disappears from cultures as well. It has faded so rapidly from our culture, in great part, because it disappeared from the churches, all the churches, beginning in the 1960's
It is good to see the Pope take the lead on this matter, because so much more is at stake than just music, and he gets it!
Green Shoot Nominee!
One of the unintended and tragic consequences of Vatican II was the disappearance of almost the entire corpus of church music from the Catholic Church, replaced by really really really cheesy drivel. Badly written(most of the 'poetry' never scans, therefore is unsingable), badly sung, accompanied by out-of-tune guitars with a vocabulary of four chords.
Joseph Ratzinger is attempting to set things straight, by encouraging the return of choral and organ music, and all the arts, back to the church.
Sandro Magister, covering this week's events, offers this insight:
Among the arts to be represented in the Sistine Chapel next Saturday, November 21, at the highly anticipated meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, music is perhaps the one that has suffered the most from the divorce that has taken place between artists and the Church.
The distress in music has been the first to afflict the Church. Because while the masterpieces of Christian painting, sculpture, and architecture still remain accessible to all, even if they are ignored and misunderstood, great music literally disappears from the churches if no one performs it anymore.
Again: Great music literally disappears from the churches if no one performs it anymore.
And it disappears from cultures as well. It has faded so rapidly from our culture, in great part, because it disappeared from the churches, all the churches, beginning in the 1960's
It is good to see the Pope take the lead on this matter, because so much more is at stake than just music, and he gets it!
Green Shoot Nominee!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Let's Just Not Go There...SOOO Unpleasant And All...
Our Nobel Peace Prize Awardee in residence would rather Congress not investigate the Fort Hood massacre.
It could be, well you know, embarrassing, and might bring up that question about terrorism, the nature of Islamic extremism, and how this monster slipped through, right under the noses of all the responsible parties.
Besides, there hasn't been enough time to shred all the relevant documents.
And, given enough time, people forget, and after all the poor psychiatrist was under a lot of stress, and the poor man was shot by the police!
The families buried their sons and daughters this week. I'd venture to guess they and theirs want some independent inquiry into why their lives were shattered.
It could be, well you know, embarrassing, and might bring up that question about terrorism, the nature of Islamic extremism, and how this monster slipped through, right under the noses of all the responsible parties.
Besides, there hasn't been enough time to shred all the relevant documents.
And, given enough time, people forget, and after all the poor psychiatrist was under a lot of stress, and the poor man was shot by the police!
The families buried their sons and daughters this week. I'd venture to guess they and theirs want some independent inquiry into why their lives were shattered.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)