Crosspost From NYT

I keep on writing/contributing tons of stuff all over the net...but not here on my own Blog. What's with that? LOL

Here's one of the hundreds I must have posted since I started this Blog...it was prompted by a story on how there are still a few "bargains" to be found in the NYC housing market....



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/realestate/04cov.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://walkthrough.nytimes.com/?p=574


The irony of a story like this is that it serves to kill the "bargains" and to further fuel the market.

There are always little nooks and crannys where persistent and/or lucky people found below market housing. By shining the laser spotlight of the NYT on this you have just flooded the market with good folks who will try to scavenge for the same deals...and the good folks who have the apartments to rent will simply raise the rents to conform with "demand". Every one will act in what they perceive to be in their own short term self interest.

The real solution is to have scads and scads of low income housing of GOOD QUALITY!!!

There is no good reason for working people to be spending half, or more, of their earnings just to have a roof over their heads....20% would be decent.

The lack of affordable housing for working class people drives up rates at the high end. And as the "rich" get "richer" the competition for nice apartments becomes utterly absurd. People are paying MILLIONS of dollars for what used to be mundane middle class apartments! It's funny on one level....pathetic on most levels.

There is a perverse incentive to keep affordable housing in short supply so that the top of the market stays inflated. The last thing property owners want is to have the market flooded with high quality affordable housing. The long term stupidity of this short term selfishness is that it destroys the quality of life for everyone in the long run.


Millions of Americans (and their children) who still remember when a single income of a blue collar worker could support a family and a home and sending kids to college aren't buying the BS about what a "great economy" we have. There is a limit to how low you can drive the living standards of ordinary struggling working class Americans before things get very ugly.


Think about it.

Colbert at WH Press Correspondents Dinner

Below is a link and copy of a recent post to Crooks and Liars.

It's easier to post in reaction to an existing framework than it is to build one afresh...anyway, for the record, here it is.



http://www.haloscan.com/comments/crooks/8104/#1015688



Yes, this was way more than just comedy.

Colbert was as direct and as cutting as the Democrats in Congress should have been from day one, and have yet to be.

Yes, it was funny and I laughed, it beats crying. The shame of this inept and corrupt administration is that many many thousands of people all over the world have died, and will likely continue to do so...all because Bush is an asshole. The contemptuous fool has no bloody idea that he's just a pawn himself.

We have to get off this Bushist path or, eventually, comedians like Colbert just might end up routinely found dead with "suicide" notes next to them.

I'm not sure it's possible to be too cynical about this bunch of "crooks and liars".

Anyway, thanks Colbert for sticking your thumb in the eye of the monster.

Second Wind...

It's verrry late, I'm exhausted...yet I checked a certain site which shall go unnamed and reacted to something posted there...it occurred to me that I should put my comments here instead. That other site gets very little traffic anyway and I'd rather invest in this place.

So, enough already with this self conscious preface...

On The Subject of Rising Gas Prices...

Note how the spread between the "cheaper" gas and the "expensive" gas becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the total.

Obvious, eh? Yet that also means that the incentive to "shop" for gas is a bit lessened...which, perversely, dis-incentivises the discounters. It's amazing what you can get "used to".

No doubt the price will continue to escalate (two steps forward one step back) since now the speculators will greedily test to see "what the market will bear".

How can there really be "competition" for a finite commodity like petroleum?

In a sane world we would be doing all we could to free ourselves from the use of fossil fuels all together. The tech is, pretty much, already out there (and will only get better and better with time, all that is lacking is the political, economic and cultural will!

In a sane world we would have been paying five bucks a gallon for the last ten years...and all the "surplus" would have gone into subsidizing businesses and technologies that can free us from fossil fuels in the long run (say fifty years or so).

Unless some creative and gutsy political leadership emerges; it's going to be the same old bs ad infinitum...or at least until catastrophe interrupts our collective delusional passivity.....at that point perhaps even the big "winners" may not want to live in the miserable world created by their short sighted ruthless greed.

Greetings All

This will be a blog dedicated to all and everything.

The question immediately arises; Isn't that kind of vague? If you're "dedicated" to "all and everything" isn't that an oxymoron? Isn't that the functional equivalent of being "dedicated" to nothing at all?

Good questions! (If I do say so myself ;-) The dichotomies are real, and we'll see if we can joyfully reconcile them together. I sure as hell can't do it by myself!

Creative, constructive and congenial interaction is what I'm (ideally) after here. Feedback is fine; but don't just tell me that I've scored or dropped the ball. Please feel free to pick it up and run with it yourself! As long as we all strive to adhere to the three aforementioned "C"s, I'm sure we'll have a great time! :-)

I'm presently involved in a political campaign as a volunteer for Camille Abate who is on the ballot in the NJ 5th Congressional District Democratic Primary. (Check out her website, http://www.abateforcongress.com/ ) I'll have a lot more to say about that real soon.

It's late and I'm nodding off here...so I'll stop at this point.