Pixie Dust and propeller Beanies - that'll be a change!

Obama vows to bankrupt coal industry. So that's no nukes, no coal, but how much light do we really need to join hands around the campfire and sing Kumbaya?

Update: a reader says that, according to candidate Jim Himes, we'll do everything with windmills, which is certainly reassuring. This article by British historian Paul Johnson, however, is less sanguine. The author concludes with this vignette

I don't know whether this year's financial catastrophe will shock the politicians and people of the West into a new seriousness. There's certainly no sign of it yet. I had to laugh when a Chinese visitor recently said to me: "I see you're going back to the windmill in Britain. We Chinese cannot afford that."

Still more good news: In the same interview, The Messiah vows to "make energy costs skyrocket."

You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.

Oh, we're in for a good time!

A spiritual awakening in Greenwich?
Not in Greenwich, not yet. I included a chapter in my first book, The New Millionaire's Handbook entitled "Spirituality". The text simply read, "just kidding". Nothing much has changed in 10 years, apparently.

Abortion politics

The lady pictured above is a Chester, Connecticut real estate agent named Leslie Strauss who wants customers to know that she supports abortion. I personally find this an odd position to take by someone who is a self-confessed mother and grandmother but whatever. I obviously don't hide my own politics from potential customers so more power to Ms. Strauss. But abortion, an issue that so many people are at best ambivalent about, strikes me as something best left outside of business. Just my opinion, and perhaps Strauss will attract the huge amount of our populace that suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome (recovery classes are scheduled to begin this next Wednesday at the YWCA). She'd better hope, however, that not too many of her customers practice what she preaches or who will be around to buy her houses?

The trouble with politicians

They think that driving around town in silly cars "builds excitement" and encourages people to vote. My solution for voters swayed by a wave from a fat politician in the rumble seat of an old car is the same as for those who are persuaded by a dozen candidate signs littering the grounds of our railroad stations: disenfranchise the idiots.

Selling it
In this otherwise banal press release I noticed that current real estate conditions are referred to as "choppy". This is the new preferred term for a market in the tank, as evidenced by a quick Google search. "Real estate Choppy" turns up 241,000 entries.

I don't know who dreams these things up but I do sympathize - it's got to be a tough job putting the best face on things day after day as things fall apart. My personal opinion is that the PR flack's job will be considerably eased come Wednesday morning, when the media will stop reporting bad economic news and will turn instead to trumpeting the arrival of the Jubilee. Happy days are almost here again - we just have to get through three more days of choppy weather.

Global warming should fix this

Britain labels Iceland a terrorist haven. Once those icebergs melt and wash these Eskimo bankers out to sea, peace will reign, eh?

The trouble with enacting broad, overreaching laws is that governments will be tempted to interpret them broadly and overreach. Support your local anarchist.

We were allies once, and strong

So U.S. commandos storm a terrorist hangout, kill at least seven and kill or capture the leader, one Abu Ghadiya, described as the “most prominent” weapons smuggler for Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

How does the Times of London see it? A "botched raid" that "seems to have gone spectacularly wrong."

The Times does concede that
"Despite the furore over the raid, there can be little doubt that the Americans will celebrate the death of Abu Ghadiya, whom they described as the “most prominent” smuggler for Al-Qaeda in Iraq. He allegedly ran guns, money and foreign fighters along the “rat lines” that lead across the desert into northern Iraq and sometimes led raids himself."

The Times reporter isn't mollified by such success and demands contrition: "American officials refused to apologise for the botched raid on Syria, " he notes disapprovingly. "They said the administration was determined to operate under a definition of self-defence that provided for strikes on terrorist targets in any sovereign state."

After castigating the wicked forces of the U.S., the article concludes with a reluctant admission: "For Al-Qaeda militants, the safe haven of Syria will be looking decidedly cooler as winter sets in."

A few more botched raids like this and we'll have to pack our bags and go home, heads bowed in shame.

How dare you be productive?!

Last week, the One promised to punish anyone earning over $250,000. His partner in The Great Taking, Joe Biden, revised that downward on Monday to $150,000 and today, the official definition of "rich enough to steal from" was lowered to $120,000.By the day of anointment we'll all be rich - but not for long.

The New York Times doing what it used to do so often, and so well.
In depth report on the banking shenanigans that dragged down municipal dupes - $200 million leveraged into a $20 billion exposure, no appreciable payments in exchange for that risk and, of course, huge profits for the guy who sold the stuff.

It's all reminiscent of the stuff I used to go after when Wall Street was still content to defraud individual investors - these guys just figured out how to go big time.

One thing the article passes over but which will be the next, huge financial disaster of the coming decades: the bankruptcy of municipal pension plans. General discussion of this latter sorry subject can be found here.

Buy land!

Okay, that's a shot of Wyoming's Wind River Mountains, where I'd prefer to live but if, like me, you're stuck here in the Hell Hole of Greenwich, you can still make the best of things by building a nice house. I mentioned yesterday that my pal Lou Van Leeuwen and his company, Greenwich Construction LLC (698-9420)were offering 20%-30% off construction projects and suggested that other contractors could probably be persuaded to be equally as generous. I mostly discussed renovations and additions but of course, this isn't a bad time to build new, either. Same lower building costs and the same pressures on sellers of building lots.

The Greenwich MLS currently shows 105 land listings, ranging from $35 million for waterfront on Field Point Circle (discussed yesterday - I think there ought to be some give in that figure)to $245,000 for a tenth of an acre on Peck Avenue. Plus, there are many house listings that would be suitable for new construction: my own listing, at 34 North Porchuck, adjoining Audubon property and available for somewhere between $1.6ish to $1.75 ish is just one example.

So look around. My sense is that a lot of these properties were priced when builders were active and buying. That's not true right now and in fact, most builders I know have put their land inventory back on the market. Deals can be had.

Figure it will take a year or so to build a new house. By that time, the market may have recovered in which case you'll have an easier time selling your existing house at a price you like and you will have constructed a new house for far less than you could have a year ago or perhaps you could a year from now. Not a bad deal, I think.

That should do it for this afternoon. Have a great Halloween.

If you can't move, improve your present situation
It's all very well for me to suggest, as I do below, that this is the perfect time to take advantage of our economic mess and the uncertainty it's created by buying a house cheap but what if you can't do that? What if, for example, you'd have to sell your current home to buy a new one and you're not looking forward to some smart ass heeding my advice and showing up on your doorstep with a ridiculously low offer? Well, there's another way to take advantage of these bad times: stay put, and improve your existing house - all the things you wanted in your next house? Maybe you can add them to what you own and stay put, quite contentedly, for the next few years while you enjoy them.

My fishing buddy, Lou Van Leeuwen, recently sat down with his subcontractors and basically proposed that they all (including Lou himself) cut their prices and offer to do renovation and new construction projects for 20% - 30% less than they'd have charged last year (building material suppliers, alas, are immune from Lou's gentle persuasive powers, for the moment, or costs could drop even further). The theory is, naturally, that it's better to be working and making a little money than not working at all. Lou ran an advertisement last week announcing this offer - I haven't spoken with him to find out how it played but it makes sense. Here's Lou's contact information and a list of the sub contractors who are participating - top quality people, every one:
Louis Van Leeuwen,CEO, Greenwich Construction, LLC Office: 203.698.9428 Cell: 203.223.0634 Home: 203.637.3619
Braga Flooring
Complete Carpentry
CTX Concrete & Foundations
Greenwich Drywall
Interstate Lumber
Janeczek Contracting
Mathews Roofing
Pinho Landscaping
Quezada Painting
Roger Arnow & Sons Excavating
Sottile HVAC
Stamford Plumbing Supply
Summer Rain
Vartuli Electric
VPI Contracting

I mention Van Leeuwen because I know he's specifically offering this. But any contractor should be willing to bend, and bend considerably, to get work in this climate. Dig up Lou's ad and beat your own contractor over the head with it, if you wish.

Other top people I know who would welcome work, including small jobs: Rick Hvolbeck 249-2297 and his partner, Al Oliveira (914) 273-7316. I'm not suggesting that you call them to build that rabbit hutch you've always wanted (but you might) but Rick and Al did an incredible job on our place recently replacing trim, a porch deck, insulating the foundation and replacing rotten windows and columns, all at a price I couldn't have touched a few years ago. These guys are builders and carpenters, not the half-skilled handymen who were all you could get in years past.

There are more, but you get the picture. If you're stuck where you are, put some money into addressing long-deferred maintainence issues, add a room or a deck or even completly renovate the entire house (rents are low now, too, so you'll have a place to stay). You'll get a good price, save a lot of money, improve your existing house and maybe even increase its value, all while keeping these ruffians off the streets. A good deal for everyone.

The month is (almost) up
Absent a flurry of reporting in the next 45 minutes, we'll have seen just ten contracts for single family houses this month. That compares to 33 last October, which was not a banner month itself. So sales activity is dormant. I think it may be an excellent time to buy, and here's why: uncertainty.

No one knows what's going to happen to our economy in the next year, although it's a pretty good bet that we won't like it. A year from now, the median price of a house in Greenwich may very well be below what it is today but it's also possible that we'll be beginning to see the start of a recovery. If so, sellers will be tempted to hang on awhile and resist truly low-ball offers. That's not the situation today. I know of one buyer who waited until the close of business after that first horrendous market dump a few weeks ago and, after the markets had closed, raised his ridiculously low bid by a few hundred thousand and got the house he wanted. The seller, already unnerved by September's goings on, just decided the Hell with it and took what he could get. If the economy had been showing signs of strength, rather than imminent collapse, that buyer's bid would never have been considered, let alone accepted.

And you can do the same. There are certainly sellers out there determined to get their price and, if they don't have to sell, they'll be stubborn. But there are many more in whom I sense a great deal of trepidation and who, I think, would be greatly relieved to be shed of a house they don't want and don't need. And there are also, of course, the spec builders who have to get out of their projects or risk losing everything they own to their lenders. So, while the bottom may not have arrived, the peak of uncertainty may have - in which case, it's a fine time to be out there making offers.

Real estate pricing theory, high-end style

So let's say that you paid $25.75 million for waterfront at 112 Field Point Circle in June of '07 (the Old Victor Borge place, now missing his house). You decide that you may have made a slight miscalculation, or maybe you see better opportunities elsewhere, like horning in on that ever-growing AIG bailout, which started at $20 billion and is now, where? - $160 billion? Whatever, you want out - where do you price the land?

How about $35 million? You've owned it for over a year, for Chrissake, and no one's built any more Belle Haven waterfront since then, have they? And aren't you entitled to some kind of compensation for exhaling CO2 over the once-verdant lawns during that time? It works that way on Wall Street and it damn well ought to work that way here!

The difference between the original owner of this place and the current one? Victor Borge only played a clown.

Did you hear the Happy News?

(From someone else's column)

" For the nation, existing-home sales increased last month as buyers responded to improved housing affordability conditions"

A cynic might describe "improved affordability conditions" as the bottom dropping out of sales prices, but he'd run the very real risk of the NAR stripping him of his brass-colored Realtor's pin.

Sales since September 1, 2008
A reader asked what's been happening to sales since Septemeber so I looked it up. Remember that some of these sales were contracted for as early as April so their price today might not match that agreed to six months ago. That said, here goes, all 43 of them. (address, original asking price, sell price and % to original - formatting in Blooger is a bitch, so bear with me)

11 Langhorne $28 million - $13.75 - 49%
11 Island Drive $15.75 - $15.5 - 98.4%
4 Old Round Hill $14.5 - $10.875 - 75%
16 Beechcroft $8.295 - $6.15 - 74%
101 Brookside $6.995 - $5.995 - 85.6%
268 Round Hill $5.6 - $4.6 - 82%
18 Sherwood $5.4 - $5.2 - 96%
752 North St. $4.9 - $3.9 - 80%
25 Birchwood $4.2 - $3.6 - 86%
70 Pecksland $3.7 - $3.0 - 81%
123 Shore Rd $3.2 - $2.8 - 87.5%
67 Hillside $2.8 - $2.325 - 83%
21 Wilshire $3.495 - $2.180 - 62%
10 Keofferam $2.940 - $2.415 - 82%
29 Irvine $2.585 - $2.150 - 83%
27 Dandy $2.549 - $2.349 - 92%
11 Hettiefred $3.375 - $2.349 - 69.6%
69 Rockwood $2.295 - $2.729 - 119%
49 Arcadia $2.495 - $2.075 - 83%
62 Cat Rock $2.25 - $1.9 - 84%
83 Circle $2.795 - $1.885 - 67%
18 Orchard Hill $1.895 - $2.0 - 105%
3 Old Farm Rd $1.995 - $1.525 - 76% [pd.$1.75, 2003]
29 Spring St. $1.950 - $1.6 - 82%
17 Suburban $1.995 - $1.695 - 85%
25 Ridge St. $1.695 - $1.650 97%
83 Rvsd. Ave. $1.750 - $1.50 86%
22 Bramble $1.575 - $1.525 97%
5 Lockwood Dr. $1.575 - $1.4425 92%
28 Lockwood Dr. $1.495 - $1.595 - 106.6% [April contract]
47 Will Merry $1.895 - $1.350 - 71%
4 Cross Ridge $1.340 - $1.210 - 90%
7 Ginko $1.150 - $1.275 - 111%
12 Deep Gorge $1.250 - $ 937 - 75%
37 Sachem $ 915 - $ 860 - 94%
29 Old Wagon $ 849 - $ 720 - 85%
5 Hollow Wood $ 699 - $ 650 - 93%
990 North St. $ 672 - $ 685 - 102%
279 Davis $ 899 - $ 550 - 61%
60 Gold $ 610 - $ 481 - 79% [paid $495, 2003]

So not nearly as bad as it has seemed. Of course, we're way down on contracts this month and of the few we have (9? 10?) some are way off asking price but still, the sky isn't falling (or hasn't yet fallen, take your pick)

With enemies like these, it must be a great idea
We voters have a choice next Tuesday to call for a Constitutional Convention - no agenda beyond that, but all hell is bound to break out if citizens meet to discuss what our state government should look like going forward. Support of a political position based solely on who's against it isn't fail-safe - Barbara Streisand was against the invasion of Iraq, for instance - but it's a reasonable starting point and everyone who should be opposed by people like me is against this proposition: The Lady's League of Women Voters, the UAW, the teachers' union, political incumbents, Ed Krumeich, you name them, they don't like it.

So I do. Besides, think of the theatre it will produce, to entertain us during the coming months of darkness.

Conde Nast cutting staff.

Readership and advertising is off and many people are cheering. Not me, because I have friends who work there, but I long since stopped subscribing. The comments to the article announcing the cuts all seem to be from former subscribers to the New Yorker and Vanity Fair who cancelled their subscriptions after both magazines tilted entirely to the left.
A typical comment:

It is a curious thing, how about fifty percent of the reading public is right-center, and how 100% of the publishing world goes to such strenuous efforts to insult the right-center. You've willfully alienated half of your potential customers with your incessant lobbying and condescending, contemptuous editorial attitude. 5% is only the beginning.

No fear of that here! Well, no fear of tilting to the left - condescension and contempt, we can do.

Here's a sad story:
Murtha pleads for money to save his seat after calling constituents racists

“We need to raise another $1 million to compete,” his campaign fundraiser Susan O’Neill wrote in the e-mail obtained by The Hill. “We need money immediately.”

O’Neill blamed Republicans from outside Pennsylvania for Murtha’s problems.

Those damn outside agitators - can't we just arrest them?

I realize that different jurisdictions can have different laws
But what law sees students arrested for hanging an Obama effigy when a Sarah Palin figure or or an effigy of a U.S. soldier is hanged with impunity?