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From the AP:
AC’s Pier Shops sold at foreclosure auction
Lenders have taken control of the upscale shopping venue that was supposed to bring new glamor and glitz to Atlantic City.
They prevailed against one other bidder in a foreclosure auction Friday to obtain The Pier Shops at Caesars for just over $25 million. They plan to continue operating the pier while seeking a new buyer.
Lenders foreclosed on the shopping center after its owner, Taubman Centers Inc. defaulted on its mortgage. The mall developer owes nearly $150 million.
The mortgage was cancelled as part of the sale and the buyer did not inherit the debt.
The pier opened in 2006, when no one realized the Atlantic City market was at its height. The resort has since endured nearly five years of plunging revenues and lost market share.
Having recently put some very low priced listings on the market in a variety of areas, my observation is that the investor market is still over populated. True, the price needed to bring these people out of the woodwork in droves is lower than it has been in many years, but they are out there.
Have to wonder how long it will take to shake out the part time real estate investor in this type of market? I don’t go around telling people that NOW is a great time to buy, but you would be surprised by how many potential buyers believe it to be the case!
LOL – Pirates went to protest at BAC yesterday. Check out the slides
http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-wall-street-goes-to-bank-of-america-to-deliver-letters-from-occupy-the-board-room-2011-10#
I saw Inside Job last night.Most of us here know how this bubble started.It is nice to be reminded how the same people that created this scheme are the ones running around Washington and to this date O is surrounded by people like Summers.Not one,went to jail.
#4 Juice: NYFD took away their generators yesterday. They are supposed to be receiving bicyle powered generators donated from someone in Boston today.
I am right across the street from them so I see them every day. They have all different sections set up. A food section, library, recycling sanitation, committe meetings section etc. It looks pretty well organized, and I don’t think the winter is going to scare them off.
People can say what they want about them, clueless, misguided, no focus, etc. But at least they are attempting to do someting, not like the lard asses sitting home watching X Factor or some othe mindless crap. I have to give them that.
3b – I posted the other day about the lard asses. About 1/2 of the 46 million using food cards live in the burbs, untold numbers now squatting and not paying their mortgage and other bills. These are the folks that should be protesting. I bet they won’t even show up on election day, since only 62% of eligible voters turned out in the last presidential election. Zombie apocalypse as soon as their safety net runs out and they come looking for a meal in their neighbors fridge.
6. People can say what they want about them, clueless, misguided, no focus, etc. But at least they are attempting to do someting, not like the lard asses sitting home watching X Factor or some othe mindless crap. I have to give them that
Channel 7 this A.M. was complaining that it was a protest of complaints without any sense of direction or alternatives for fixing the problems. I thought to myself the news commentator could say the same thing about Congress.
CATCHING PIGS
There was a chemistry professor in a large college
that had some exchange students in the class. One day
while the class was in the lab, the Prof noticed one
young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his
back and stretching as if his back hurt.
The professor asked the young man what was the matter.
The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back.
He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist regime.
In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor
and asked a strange question He asked:
“Do you know how to catch wild pigs?”
The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the
punch line. The young man said that it was no joke.
“You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in
the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs
find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free
corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put
a fence down one side of the place where they are used
to coming.
When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the
corn again and you put up another side of the fence.
They get used to that and start to eat again. You
continue until you have all four sides of the fence up
with a gate in the last side.
The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to
come through the gate to eat that free corn again.
You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole
herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom.
They run around and around inside the fence, but they
are caught.
Soon they go back to eating the free corn . They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.”
The young man then told the professor that is exactly
what he sees happening in America .. The government
keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps
spreading the free corn out in the form of programs
such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned
income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies,
dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP),
welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually
lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.
One should always remember two truths:
1) There is no such thing as a free lunch, someone is
paying for it
2) and when you begin to think that having your government
provide for you and make your decisions is ok, realize that you’ve
also given up the freedom that goes with making your own choices.
Snowing like crazy up here in the highlands.
Mike 10 Going to bring that in to the youngsters in a class I am taking. We got into it last week , the gov should do this the gov should do that on a range of issues. I gave them them the unrealized consequences to freedom on their fixes to no avail. They looked at me with disdain & disbelieve when exasperated I queried “how safe do you want to be with freedom comes risk the safer you are the less freedom you have”. So far not one convert, I weep for the future.
Mikeinwaiting 13 It’s going to be a rude awakening
10 Mike
This is all good if you are looking it on one side.But you forget the 30 years of Redistribution going up.Income disparity widened.Salary has been flat,the bubble burst and now job losses.
We need the govt to make policies and protect us from this kind of event but they failed.Watch inside job,same people that created this mess are running around in Washington.
“The young man then told the professor that is exactly
what he sees happening in America .. The government
keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps
spreading the free corn out in the form of programs
such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned
income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies,
dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP),
welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually
lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.”
As if on cue for an Occupy Wall Street commercial, the latest Congressional Budget Office report highlighted the large crevasse between the upper 1 percent of U.S. households and the rest of us.
When it comes to income inequality, this is what U.S. politicians should be digesting now. While it’s hardly a major revelation that for the top 1 percent of earners real after-tax income rose 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, the top 20 percent made more in after-tax income than the remaining 80 percent. That’s quite a difference since the lowest-income group’s median income only rose 18 percent.
Income inequality couldn’t be more of a mainstream issue as some 70 percent of Americans surveyed want wealth shared more equally
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/28/us-usa-wallstreet-cboreport-idUSTRE79R3XR20111028
18
you’ve had 100+ years of redistribution going upward, that’s what inflation is. inflation is the worst of it, but the rich & powerful have been using the govt to regulate the sh*t out of its competitors, to arrange one-way trade agreements, etc for centuries.
TPTB, using the govt’s monopoly on legalized force, steals from the productive slowly but surely (sometimes quicker during crashes) – then to not get riots TPTB tells the govt to throw some bread/circuses to the peasantry.
the correct solution is not to provide more and more welfare, it is to stop the corruption from the lack of separation between economy and state. there’s no way this can happen currently because the politicians at all levels are bought and paid for, and the majority of the electorate has been made dependent on welfare.
the only way is to take away the power that govt has and return it to the individuals. if the govt has no/little power, no corporation will lobby. im sorry to say this will not happen, ever
The tree branches are coming down bad beside me. The guy across the street has a big branch blocking his driveway. Now I could grab my chainsaw and have it cleared in about 5 mins, but the Dont tread on me flag on the tree beside it tells me he doesn’t want any outside interference and I’m sure he’ll call his buddies in the Gulch to give him a hand to clear it up.
We don’t have any Communists here.
Every other First World country in the world has a same basic setup, more or less, as we do: a mix of capitalism and private enterprise, with substantial taxation and public expenditures going to social benefits and education.
We will always have a debate, with people taking many sides — and individuals changing their minds as they go along through life, and sometimes changing their minds again, too — about what the government should and shouldn’t do, and how much it should or shouldn’t regulate our lives and tax our income. These are debates that are necessary, inevitable and valuable.
But is there a point to saying we should sweep away every labor law, every environmental regulation and every social benefit that’s been created since the end of the 19th century? Does anybody here really, really want to go through life without college loans, Unemployment Benefits and Medicare and Social Security?
And if you do, do you think you can persuade 51% of the country to go along with you?
Did anyone go out and get a whole house generator after the last Hurricane?
Seems 1/2 of North Jersey has no power. Tree branches down all over.
http://www.pseg.com/home/customer_service/outage_info/outagemap.jsp
There’s billions of people in the world who subsist on a couple of dollars a day or less. They sure don’t have much government in their lives. Ask them how free they feel. Franklin Roosevelt included “Freedom from Want” in his “Four Freedoms” for a reason.
Lots of branches and trees down in the brig, and scattered power outages. I have more tree damage already than I got in the hurricane. I have only two trees out front, but one is damaged beyond repair and the town will take it down, and my dogwood tree is badly damaged, perhaps fatally.
I really like dogwoods, so this is especially saddening.
Had to drive to Edison for indoor soccer practice. Bad as it was getting there, worse getting back. Had to go hither and yon to avoid backups and closed roads.
In now, and got plenty of moo. Not enough bread, but I can always bake if I want it that badly. Putting on some hot chocolate and letting the girls carve pumpkins, then I will fire up the fireplace later.
Peace out.
24
you mean the totalitarian China with its people earning $1/day do not have much government?
(yes only one example)
I’m off for the night
[22] toomuchchange,
We have communists but you can count them on two hands.
We have a lot of socialism, in varying degrees and stripes. And I agree that it is perfectly legal to push a socialistesque agenda in America.
The problems are these: At what point does the agenda bump up against the prohibition on abrogation of contracts, or the Takings Clause? And how does one enforce forced redistribution of wealth without imposing a police state that runs into a host of other constitutional limitations?
Not that there would be much wealth left to take. Unlike the 30’s, most of our wealth is not grounded in land and plant. Should a redistributionist administration come in that is intent on redistributing wealth, not just taking income, that wealth will evaporate before the gov can get a straw into it. Of this, I am sure.
Why do you think that we have imposed more currency and cross-border wealth transfer controls in recent years than in our history? If, as schab or fab would argue, wealth flight is a canard, then we don’t need these measures, do we?
25 in mod. For the life of me, I cannot find the dirty word.
Though no one has addressed my post13 specifically after reading some opinions to Mikes 10 let me expand. I was attempting to enlighten these young people that there wants had consequences. In there mind sent the gov. should fix all ills but they should not lose any freedom or be taxed more. Now we all know that is not going to happen. How free do you want to be & how much of your income do you want to be taxed for the ills you fell need addressing is the question. They have no answer or arguments like Yo, Joyce or Mikes position for that matter they think they can have it both ways.
3B – Seems morbid humor is ok this Halloween. I was wondering if there would be costumes tonight down in Hoboken other than Snooki, like people making fun of the downtrodden and the protestors.
This law firm (under robo signing investigation) has some balls which may eventually get the clipped off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/what-the-costumes-reveal.html?_r=2
Tree branches down all over.
Grill smashed and my back gutter is half torn off. Good thing I took down 27 trees. Clearly I missed number 28 and 29.
23.Juice Box says:
October 29, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Did anyone go out and get a whole house generator after the last Hurricane?
Seems 1/2 of North Jersey has no power. Tree branches down all over
JCP&L has 85K out. We lost ours for 1/2 hour at 3. We have underground power lines.
23.Juice Box says:
October 29, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Did anyone go out and get a whole house generator after the last Hurricane?
Seems 1/2 of North Jersey has no power. Tree branches down all over
I am looking at the GE Natural Gas 13K power station. It has the smallest physical size, and intelligent power management. I think weather will get progressively more extreme with more frequent outages.
As of 4:30 p.m. 120,000 JCP&L customers in northern New Jersey were without power. The worst hit areas are in Essex, Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Warren and Sussex counties.
Forty-five crews from JCP&L in Ohio have been moved to New Jersey to assist with the restoration effort, said Ron Morano, a spokesman for the company.
“The root of the problem is this heavy, wet snow, there’s a lot of moisture in this snow accumulating on trees and power lines, unfortunately it’s the worst kind of snow when it comes to causing outages” Morano said.
As of 4:00 p.m. PSE&G reported 200,000 weather-related outages.
80 degrees here and the Fantasy Fest parade begins in an hour.
I am grilling Salmon tonight during the the snow storm. Whomever invented the charcoal grill chimney deserves an award.
Comrade —
“The problems are these: At what point does the agenda bump up against the prohibition on abrogation of contracts, or the Takings Clause? And how does one enforce forced redistribution of wealth without imposing a police state that runs into a host of other constitutional limitations?”
The tax rates of today are much lower than they were during the 1950s and 1960s.
I don’t think rich people worried about these thing then, did they?
This year I’ve seen many references to income inequality. I believe this week there was another study showing how much better off the people at the very top are today than in prior generations, and the middle and bottom segments have lost wealth.
I don’t have any grand philosophy — I am no socialist myself, I want a good working mixed system of capitalism, government oversight and social safety net — but it’s certainly clear to me that as income flows to the top and away from the bottom, the people at the top will have to pay more to keep the country going. Also as the 99% losses more income, there will be many who used to work and have a decent income and life will find themselves falling off a cliff and unable to reestablish themselves. The number of contributors will decrease and the number of takers will increase.
The only way to turn this around is to get more money distributed to more people. Either the pie grows or the amount going to the top will have to be reduced.
You are a smart guy, so you tell me, how are we going to get that done and make everybody happy?
Mother nature paying me back for my snarky post title.
grim [32],
That’s what you get for moving to a haughty town. ;) Stay cool, you’ll be fine… and so will the house. :)
Just returned from the beachfront bar. No snow, just west wind driven rain. Looks really cool in the flood lights and low tide. Good luck to all without power.
“The tax rates of today are much lower than they were during the 1950s and 1960s. ”
That is, unfortunately, the textbook definition of an apples to oranges comparison. Sorry.
“I don’t think rich people worried about these thing then, did they?”
They didn’t have to. They had tax shelters for that.
“You are a smart guy, so you tell me, how are we going to get that done and make everybody happy?”
You can’t. But thanks for the compliment.
Seconding NJ Coast. I think I am somewhere near the rain/snow line in central Monmouth. It tried to go to snow and stay snow at around 2PM, but it went back all rain and we have nothing on the ground. It is dark now, so who knows what is out there.
Be safe everyone!
For OWS…the whole food serving debate and the targeting of professional homeless for exclusion I find an interesting topic. Not so much for hypocrisy, which is the specious argument. But rather it makes clear to me that to avoid hypocrisy, they should be protesting in DC not NYC.
Any questions?
http://video.pbs.org/video/2160792049
FWIW, I find the presentation to be somewhat simplistic and certainly incomplete, but it is a fairly succinct statement on why we need at least some inequality in a capitalist system.
[25] juice
pretty harsh, and yeah, that will come back to haunt them (pun intended).
My harshest costume was dressing up as Ron Goldman one year while in law school. Had the bandana, the waiter costume, the tray with drink, and the knife in the neck. Got a lot of grief for that outfit.
By 7 p.m., at least 600,000 customers had lost power in the state, mainly due to falling tree limbs or the weight of snow weighing down power lines.
Utility companies PSE&G and Jersey Central Power & Light said they expected outage totals to rise through the night as the storm pulled out.
PSE&G said customers should prepare for “potentially lengthy outages” and JCP&L spokesman Ron Morano said the company had all of its available staff responding, and even brought crews in from Ohio to help lighten the load.
“We’ll offer an estimated time for restoration (Sunday), but it’s too early to say,” Morano said.
Just got a reverse 911 call that middle school would serve people without heat tonight.
Re #35
if I recall correctly, you could confiscate the assets entirely from the top five percent and not cover a single year’s federal budget deficit. What do you do in year two?
If you can read this thank whom?
http://work.lifegoesstrong.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/reg/article_media/committed_to_excellense.jpg
35 – Comrade
I get the point — I think — that the 1% are getting worried.
But who is the Fidel Castro out here that you seem to think is waiting to start the revolution and grab their money? As you point out, “Not that there would be much wealth left to take. Unlike the 30′s, most of our wealth is not grounded in land and plant. Should a redistributionist administration come in that is intent on redistributing wealth, not just taking income, that wealth will evaporate before the gov can get a straw into it. Of this, I am sure.”
Are you trying to make the rest of us afraid and willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the 1% here? Are you trying to make average people feel guilty that they are making the millionnaires and billionnaires uneasy?
I am at a loss.
There’s been a number of things that have greatly rattled the status quo in this country: the outsourcing of jobs, the concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer richer and richer people; mass migration (both legal and legal), the proliferation of one parent families; stagnant wages and since 2007, high and persistent unemployment.
In the midst of all this, we see our moneyed and intellectual elite lose their loyalty to America and their interest in making this a great country for all of to live in. So the question becomes why should the rest of us worry about people who don’t care about us?
(41) change,
in some respects I think you answered your own question. However consider the point made by professor epstein, that you cannot make the poor rich by making the rich poor.
I am simply asking you to consider what the effect on this country will be when we have driven wealth offshore, especially the foreign direct investment that we rely so heavily upon. Right now capital has gone on strike; it will eventually seek opportunities and if those opportunities are not here, well then there is your answer. So it goes beyond even open hostility to capital, it includes even the unwillingness to provide a fertile ground for capital to invest. Add open hostility to this mix, and I foresee the giant sucking sound that Perot warned us of. Of course, there are other countries that have run off capitalists and capital, but I don’t see anyone here in any hurry to emulate their example.
I further ask how you effect such a radical redistribution of wealth without running afoul of provisions in our constitution. It will take a government unlike any we have seen to enforce this.
Oh, and goodbye to full faith and credit.
#41 toomuchchange
“In the midst of all this, we see our moneyed and intellectual elite lose their loyalty to America and their interest in making this a great country for all of to live in.”
The moneyed elite that you mention, who have received most of the direct wealth transfers over the past few years, are international. By definition, they’ve never had any national loyalty.
#42
“Right now capital has gone on strike”
Where are you getting that? I’m not a banker but I see no shortage of capital. In fact, capital has been kicking the sh*t out of labor the whole time under Obama. Take a look at #13.
What could have happened to this country during the time of Ford and other elites,if they did not give their workers their fair share and treated them like how the 3rd world treat their workers?Same as what is happening now.It is like a monarchy,the peasant stay were they are,only the few will have the opportunity.We became the envy of the world and now we want to be like them.A business will have no customers if there are no buyers.Take away the money from the peasant that will spend it and everybody will be a saver.Look back to when we were the power.A common worker with no education can retire nicely.Look at our life now?Is this really what we want?
You only need to look back at the days when Drexel was around selling junk bonds from leveraged buyouts. I believe this to be a significant milestone in how CEOs wound up with significant positions in formerly public companies. This made it very easy to do away with the implied contract between Corporations and labor
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2011/1019/A-long-steep-drop-for-Americans-standard-of-living?google_editors_picks=true
A long, steep drop for Americans’ standard of living
Not since at least 1960 has the US standard of living fallen so fast for so long. The average American has $1,315 less in annual disposable income now than at the onset of the Great Recession.
snip
42 – Comrade
“I am simply asking you to consider what the effect on this country will be when we have driven wealth offshore, especially the foreign direct investment that we rely so heavily upon. Right now capital has gone on strike; it will eventually seek opportunities and if those opportunities are not here, well then there is your answer. So it goes beyond even open hostility to capital, it includes even the unwillingness to provide a fertile ground for capital to invest. Add open hostility to this mix, and I foresee the giant sucking sound that Perot warned us of. Of course, there are other countries that have run off capitalists and capital, but I don’t see anyone here in any hurry to emulate their example.”
Honestly, I do not know what you are talking about. Like most Americans, I think, I feel I’ve stayed the same and it’s the corporations and the people at the top who have changed. I don’t have any deep-seated, philosophical hostility as such towards the rich or against business making a profit. As I said above, I am content with the economic system that we and the other First World nations have been living with since WWII ended.
Frankly your concerns and your worries are really making me wonder. Are the people and companies you are talking about unappeasable? They’ve got a much bigger slice of America’s pie than ever before, yet they are far more unhappy, evidently. I would suggest that since they changed the rules of the game and don’t like the results that maybe they should reconsider what they’ve done.
Peace of mind and social harmony are much harder to come by and keep in a society that has great income inequality. As I see it, as we continue down the road we are on and away from the values and rules of the game that made us so prosperous and stable, we’re all doomed to further discontent and changes none of us will like.
“I am content with the economic system that we and the other First World nations have been living with since WWII ended. ”
The “problem” with people being all for that system is that the system that existed after WWII was an aberration. Our economic ststus at that point was predicated on a number of factors that had not existed before and do not exist any more. At the end of WWII, we had one of the only fully-intact industrial bases in the world, we had hegemony over much of the world and, cocurrently, we had vast amounts of good will.
Additionally, we had more natural resources than we do now and a more-developed mineral-extraction industry than most of the rest of the world. We cannot expect to have the same economic position when the playing field has changed so dramatically.
NJE,
Looking up to those of us with such better access to Manhattan than you, I bet you are sitting at home ruing the day you moved south.
Shore, yeah I’m really bummed out being here so far away from New York City thinking about all the nice weather you guys are having. But hey I’m makingthe best of it. Did some bicycling yesterday and a long walk today down to the botanical gardens which is the only frost free bg in the USA. Please give my regards to Broadway. ;-)
Shore Guy:
You make good points about the changing position of America relative to the rest of the world.
But we now have greater levels of income inequality than other First World nations.
Under those circumstances that you mentioned, it is absolutely extraordinary how much more wealth the top 1% has now, not just versus 10 years ago but versus our best years, isn’t it?
Do you think the current situation is sustainable?
If we become a “$10 an hour” nation, then won’t the prices of things like housing, medical care, professional services — anything that has a flexible price because it is not purchased from an international market — eventually go down drastically?
Weather results Colts Neck. We got a dusting of snow and most has evaporated off of the grass. Not much else.
Been reading the blog for awhile & have really enjoyed all the commentary..finally got the nerve to post a question…We have a condo in dtn JC which we bought late in 2007 ( not nearly at the height for our area but if we sold we probably take a bite out of the down payment) We’d like more space ( have 2 small kids). Should we just suck it up & stay a year or 2 or move to the burbs? If burbs where, we have been looking in Cranford/Westfield…any other sugestions where housing stock is older/character & taxes aren’t crazy, at least for NJ. Thanks
NJE,
Glad to see you bucking up under the strain of 80-degree weather. Continue to keep a stiff upper lip.
“Ozzie and Harriet don’t live here any more”
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/suburban-poverty-surge-challenges-communities.xml
Toomuch,
I do not pretend to have the answers to solving the problem but, it us clear to me that:
1) the government could take EVERYTHING that people with over $2,000,000 net worth have and “redistribute it” we would not solve the problems of the working class and the poor.
2) The nation is in trouble for as long as we are not free from non North American sources of energy.
3) we must manufacture what we need to run the economy.
(44) nwnj
Where am I getting that? Obama, dems, OWS, media, all the suspect sources.
(54) gracebelle,
there are a decent number of starter homes in westfield in very good neighborhoods.
cannot speak for cranford but it has more downtrodden areas, schools are acknowledged to not be as good, and you had better get used to not keeping anything valuable in your basement as you will be pumping it out constantly
Grim,
We suffered a similar fate. 1/3rd of tree da Uber Inspector suggested we remove fell on our lower roof and cracked the soffet and the gutters as well as ripped the power lines off of our home and garage. No biggie, we had already lost power at noon and the limb came down at 3pm. Spent yesterday at the Town Pub in Bloomfield and today at Panera Bread with the other half of Essex County. On the bright side, their Dark Roast is not half bad and I think we will have no problem getting through our 1/2 cord of firewood as it will probably be our only heat source for the coming week.
Lost about 1/3rd of a really nice tree at our multi. No damage but put in an insurance claim as rest of tree might have to come down because it really looks plain silly right now. No insurance claims for 7 years. Then 2 at the same time today. Loving the working fireplace.
We are now entering hour 5 o Occupy Panera. They are not getting rid of us anytime soon. Lights, heat, Internet and free pastries if you register a new Panera card. We’re here for the duration.
What damage has anyone actually suffered from wealth growing faster at the top? Excluding the bank welfare queens, most great wealth is created, not extorted from others. In a free economy, one mans gain is another mans gain, not loss.
I think the main problem is envy, and a system where the govt is increasingly trying to “distribute” income one way or another.
Occupying Panera is all fun and games until the pastry police start with cannisters of whipped cream.
(65) meat
canisters of whipped cream? sounds like a party to me.
“cannisters of whipped cream.”
Enter John, with stories of whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and bimbos.
“No damage but put in an insurance claim”
I’d call the White House; you ought to be ENTITLED to a couple hundred grand in stimulus funding.
The correct attitude when negotiating over an overpriced house:
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/Photography/Images/POD/g/gelada-fangs-711063-sw.jpg
When income is flat for the last 30 years and they feed you with debt to feel good about your status.Millions of job losses and they call them lazy ,if you cant find a job.This lazy people had a job before the greedy burst the bubble.I think I can say we got hurt.I have no problem with the rich getting richer,my problem is when trickle down is a drip.Greed is what got us here and some are still cheering for more
A.West says:
October 30, 2011 at 4:30 pm
What damage has anyone actually suffered from wealth growing faster at the top? Excluding the bank welfare queens, most great wealth is created, not extorted from others. In a free economy, one mans gain is another mans gain, not loss.
I think the main problem is envy, and a system where the govt is increasingly trying to “distribute” income one way or another.
Shore, had to suffer through some tapas wine and bread pudding at Santiagos. Jeez I wish we were in NYC, Whoa is me :)
NJE,
All I can say about the depths to which you have sunk is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNUr__-VZeQ
Speaking of urban-suburban divides:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/world/asia/31iht-thailand31.html
Tytler was right.
sure, go ahead make fun of me :-)
We are the only school district in the area with open schools tomorrow! So glad I don’t have to deal with a stir crazy Lil Gator who is also bummed by a cancelled school Halloween Parade and class party.
We’ll be back to occupy Panera tomorrow. Send pizza please.
No school on Halloween, I was taking a half day anyway might as well make it full day.
30 Year (2)-
Easy. The investors who were too early to the party overpaid and overfinanced. They will be wiped out forthwith. The real investors are still sitting on the beach, sipping fruity drinks.
“Have to wonder how long it will take to shake out the part time real estate investor in this type of market?”
gator (75)-
I suddenly get the feeling that if your Panera lost power and didn’t open, civilized society in the People’s Republic would disintegrate into Mogadishu-like chaos.
God forbid the proletariat cannot access brioche.
Fight the power.
Looks like Corzine might be hitting the soup kitchen in my neighborhood soon:
Just out from Bloomberg, citing the WSJ:
CLEARINGHOUSES SAID TO PREPARE FOR MF BANKRUPTCY, WSJ SAYS
US REGULATORS ALSO PREPARE FOR MF BANKRUPTCY, RESTRUCTURE: WSJ
The EURUSD has tumbled 50 pips in the aftermath of the news as risk just moved to the Off position
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/clearinghouses-told-prepare-mf-bankruptcy-risk
The only answer is sue Brookfield Properties for sanctioning this garbage.
We handle it internally…are you fckung kidding me?
Fiend attacks ‘Occupy’ protester in her tent
By KEVIN FASICK and CANDICE M. GIOVE
Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park battened down the hatches yesterday as the early October snow turned their tents into igloos, but the close quarters also made easy pickings for one predator.
A sex fiend barged into a woman’s tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.
“Pervert! Pervert! Get the f–k out!” said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.
“They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave,” said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.
She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.
“We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”
With temperatures in the low 30s and their gas-powered generators confiscated by the FDNY, protesters defiantly braved the cold as the occupation hit the 30-day mark.
“Bring on the snow,” said New Jersey artist Chris Guerra, 27, at the welcome booth. “This is day 30, and I say bring it on. I’m not leaving until the sun dies or Jesus Christ returns.”
The cold weather proved too much from some protesters. Medical staff at Zuccotti Park said that three people went to the hospital with cold-related ailments.
Some other diehard Wall Street haters spent the snow day protesting alleged civil-rights violations at City Hall and the rash of foreclosures in Jamaica, Queens.
Rut ro, Herman. It looks like Cain has his own Anita Hillish problem:
October 30, 2011, 9:02 pm
Report Cites Women’s Claims of Inappropriate Acts by Cain
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
9:07 p.m. | Updated Two women who worked with Herman Cain at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s complained of sexually suggestive behavior by him and later took financial payments before leaving the organization, according to a report by Politico on Sunday night.
The report comes as Mr. Cain continues to lead his rivals in national polls and in voter surveys in states that vote early in the Republican nominating fight. He was tied with Mitt Romney in this weekend’s Iowa poll by The Des Moines Register.
Mr. Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, has no experience with political office. But his straight-talking approach and simple “9-9-9″ tax plan has caught the imagination of many conservatives in the Republican primary.
In recent days, though, news organizations have begun digging into his record and his past. A New York Times article last week painted a picture of a campaign in some chaos, with aides being told to speak to Mr. Cain only when spoken to.
The Politico report alleges that at least two female employees of the restaurant lobbying organization had complained to colleagues and to senior officials there about inappropriate behavior by Mr. Cain.
Politico said it had determined the identities of the two women but declined to name them for reasons of “privacy concerns.”
snip
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/report-cites-womens-claims-of-inappropriate-acts-by-cain/
The people running NetFlix seem to be just the kind of folks we need (well, uh, have)at the Treasury Dept and the Fed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/netflix-to-lose-a-million-subscribers-its-worse-than-it-looks/245175/
Interesting little piece on wine:
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/10/you-are-not-so-smart-why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad/247240/
The Misconception: Wine is a complicated elixir, full of subtle flavors only an expert can truly distinguish, and experienced tasters are impervious to deception.
The Truth: Wine experts and consumers can be fooled by altering their expectations.
You scan the aisles in the liquor store looking for a good wine. It’s a little overwhelming — all those weird bottle shapes with illustrations of castles and vineyards and kangaroos. And all those varieties? Riesling, Shiraz, Cabernet — this is serious business. You look to your left and see bottles for around $12; to your right you see bottles for $60. You think back to all the times you’ve seen people tasting wine in movies, holding it up to the light and commenting on tannins and barrels and soil quality — the most expensive wine has to be the better one, right?
Well, you are not so smart. But, don’t fret — neither are all those connoisseurs who swish fermented grape juice around and spit it back out.
Wine tasting is a big deal to a lot of people. It can even be a professional career. It goes back thousands of years, but the modern version with all the terminology like notes, tears, integration, and connectedness goes back a few hundred. Wine tasters will mention all sorts of things they can taste in a fine wine as if they were a human spectrograph with the ability to sense the molecular makeup of their beverage. Research shows, however, this perception can be hijacked, fooled, and might just be completely wrong.
In 2001, Frederic Brochet conducted two experiments at the University of Bordeaux.
In one experiment, he got 54 oenology (the study of wine tasting and wine making) undergraduates together and had them taste one glass of red wine and one glass of white wine. He had them describe each wine in as much detail as their expertise would allow. What he didn’t tell them was both were the same wine. He just dyed the white one red. In the other experiment, he asked the experts to rate two different bottles of red wine. One was very expensive, the other was cheap. Again, he tricked them. This time he had put the cheap wine in both bottles. So what were the results?
The tasters in the first experiment, the one with the dyed wine, described the sorts of berries and grapes and tannins they could detect in the red wine just as if it really was red. Every single one, all 54, could not tell it was white. In the second experiment, the one with the switched labels, the subjects went on and on about the cheap wine in the expensive bottle. They called it complex and rounded. They called the same wine in the cheap bottle weak and flat.
snip
chicagofinance says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 30, 2011 at 10:51 pm
The only answer is sue Brookfield Properties for sanctioning this garbage.
We handle it internally…are you fckung kidding me?
Fiend attacks ‘Occupy’ protester in her tent
By KEVIN FASICK and CANDICE M. GIOVE
Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park battened down the hatches yesterday as the early October snow turned their tents into igloos, but the close quarters also made easy pickings for one predator.
A sex fiend barged into a woman’s tent and s-xually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.
“Pervert! Pervert! Get the f–k out!” said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.
“They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave,” said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.
She said that weeks earlier another woman was r-ped.
“We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”
With temperatures in the low 30s and their gas-powered generators confiscated by the FDNY, protesters defiantly braved the cold as the occupation hit the 30-day mark.
“Bring on the snow,” said New Jersey artist Chris Guerra, 27, at the welcome booth. “This is day 30, and I say bring it on. I’m not leaving until the sun dies or Jesus Christ returns.”
The cold weather proved too much from some protesters. Medical staff at Zuccotti Park said that three people went to the hospital with cold-related ailments.
Some other diehard Wall Street haters spent the snow day protesting alleged civil-rights violations at City Hall and the rash of foreclosures in Jamaica, Queens.
Ahhh, memories. From the era of leisure suits and safari jackets: Jimmy Carter does battle with a swamp rabbit:
http://www.narsil.org/_/rsrc/1234743999392/index/peopl/jimmycarter/killerrabbit/rabbit_original_750x564b.jpg?height=564&width=750
As I look at that photo, I can here Abba in the background.
There’s America—and Then There’s Washington
By Andrew Cohen
Oct 27 2011, 12:00 PM ET182
Does the prosperity of the capital region color the perspectives of the journalists and lawmakers who live there?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/theres-america-and-then-theres-washington/247442/
IT sounds like something out of a dime novel, or maybe a Nicolas Cage film. Behind the mute facade of a largely windowless neo-Gothic tower lies an ingenious system of steel vaults traveling on rails. Within those armored containers, which have been in continuous use since the Jazz Age, are stored some of New York City’s most precious objects and, presumably, a good number of its darkest secrets.
This building actually exists, and you will find it on an otherwise unremarkable stretch of Second Avenue, just north of the end of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge. It is the Day & Meyer, Murray & Young warehouse, and since it opened in 1928 it has been the storage building of choice for many of New York’s wealthiest families, most prestigious art dealers and grandest museums.
The company’s early client list reads like a condensation of the New York Social Register, with names like Astor and Auchincloss, du Pont and Guggenheim, Havemeyer and Vanderbilt prominent. The press baron William Randolph Hearst stored entire rooms bought in Europe there during the construction of his castle at San Simeon, Calif.
It was at Day & Meyer that the art dealers Joseph Duveen and Georges Wildenstein stored the Old Master and Impressionist paintings that became the foundations of many of America’s most important private and public collections.
Later, the warehouse safeguarded the personal effects of giants of midcentury industry, among them the movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, the CBS executive William S. Paley and the I.B.M. executive Thomas J. Watson Jr.
There were cultural figures, also. Marlene Dietrich and Walter Cronkite stored valuables at Day & Meyer, as did the writers Norman Mailer and Erich Maria Remarque. Mailer was so pleased with the company’s long years of service holding his archive that in 1995, he sent along a signed copy of his book “Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery” in gratitude. “Thanks for safeguarding all my loot,” he wrote on the half title page.
Over the years, the building has served not just as a warehouse of physical goods, but also as a three-dimensional map of the city’s social life, tracking its shifting focus from grand families to corporate achievers to today’s culture of celebrity. These days, the most famous client at Day & Meyer is not an Astor or a Vanderbilt, but Whoopi Goldberg. “These are the only people I trust with my things,” she said in an e-mail message.
What has not changed is that people of means still need a place to store their belongings, and they are still doing so at that somewhat mysterious building on Second Avenue.
“IT’S interesting that so few people in the neighborhood know what it is,” said Robin Young, who is in the third generation of her family to serve as the company’s chief executive. “They stick their heads in the window and say what is this building? From the outside it looks very Gotham City.”
snip
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/nyregion/day-meyer-murray-young-warehouse-of-the-rich.html
Shore [81];
I almost worked last time, that that wasn’t an elected position. Gotta smash someone “off the reservation”. If it came from anyone other than another ‘disadvantaged minority class’ member, it could simply be called racist.
69. Well put. The “A” in A West stands for anus.
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(90) anchor,
Well that was uncalled for, maricon.
When the revolution comes the lawyers will be the first to hang.
(92) baby,
So long as I take a few dozen of you out first.
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