Stylized Facts

Despite clear views of the High Line, not one unit at +aRt, a condominium in Chelsea at 540 West 28th Street referred to as "Plus Art," sold in the fall of 2008, said Stephen Kliegerman, the director of development marketing for Halstead Property. By November of that year, 90 unsold condos ranging from $850,000 to $1.4 million were taken off the market.

After marketing resumed in May, brokers at a grand reopening gala suggested that prices remained too high. Mr. Kliegerman and others involved with the project agreed to keep some units at 2008 levels while reducing prices by 10 percent for a second group of units. Mr. Kliegerman said several units had since gone into contract. "We really wanted the market to speak to us," he said. "In retrospect, if we had a crystal ball and we were able to jump back in time, we probably wouldn't have done anything differently because you never know until you get to the marketplace where those prices are going to be."

Continue reading "Our crystal ball is better than their crystal ball" »

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Anybody who says you can't have it both ways clearly hasn't been spending much time reading opinion polls lately. One year ago, 59 percent of the American public liked the stimulus plan, according to Gallup. A few months later, with the economy still deeply mired in recession, a majority of the same size said Obama was spending too much money on it. There's nothing wrong with changing your mind, of course, but opinion polls over the last year reflect something altogether more troubling: a country that simultaneously demands and rejects action on unemployment, deficits, health care, climate change, and a whole host of other major problems. Sixty percent of Americans want stricter regulations of financial institutions. But nearly the same proportion says we're suffering from too much regulation on business. That kind of illogic--or, if you prefer, susceptibility to rhetorical manipulation--is what locks the status quo in place.

-- Jacob Weisberg

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If Only We Could Just Get Back To Work

"Jobless claims were actually even better than some down here [on Wall Street] thought," cashin said. But he cautioned that political conflict such as the ongoing health-care debate is constituting a form of class warfare -- which could hinder America's return to economic health.

"It's bubbling up again, all this 'Wall Street versis Main Street' stuff...If we could get back to work again instead of pointing fingers, things in this country would go a lot better."

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For some strange Reason, certain People think that academic Prose must follow the Rechtschreibreform. Such is the Case no matter how many Times i say: "Students, Your Essays should adhere to the Rules of american Orthography." What their Problem is, i offer not even a Guess.

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When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say 'global warming,' a certain group of Americans think that's a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.

-- ecoAmerica's president and founder, Robert M. Perkowitz

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I'd always understood "hipster" as someone who tried to claim creativity by proxy, by acquiring someone else's creative output, and trying to defend that acquisition as unique by deriding anyone and everyone else who acquired it as wannabes.

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There is another way of seeing, but it never
occurs to us to remove our glasses.

-- Ben Wolfson.

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The best American is not the American who has been here
the longest or the one who just arrived, it is the one who
understands the principles of America the best because
we are a country held together by ideas.

Rudolph W. Giuliani

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Palpable innocence, an effect created in part by her pearly skin
and flaxen hair and most especially by her tremulous blue eyes,
which she cranks open wide when the moment calls for it.

She is not given to making jokes or regaling people with merry,
self-absorbed tales. Rather, her charisma is carried primarily
in her face: her natural expression seems to be one of
incredulousness, which as a response to the world at large
— however mundane or absurd it may be in a given moment
— can seem pretty funny.

NYT review of Anna Faris.

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Could this be the inaugural musical ?
As compelling today as it was twenty years ago.

Maybe next time !

Continue reading "Front 242 - Funkahdafi (live)" »

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