Clearly I was wrong about the number of states John McCain would take. I cannot but hope that I am also wrong about Barrack Obama’s intentions for this republic. Congratulations to Obama and to his supporters.
Category: Group Therapy (page 72 of 81)
In Orlando on Thursday evening with nothing to do? The Bloodhound Unchained pack will be hanging out at Uno’s Pizza from 5-7ish, and nothing, and I mean nothing, would make us happier than for you to join us. It’s a casual, come-as-you-are shindig that won’t break yer wallet, or have you reaching for the Bromo Seltzer in the morning, but will offer an opportunity to engage in the same lively conversation you know and love. No barking and no biting, but howling is encouraged- join us, won’t you?
I made this map last week, and I might change it a little if I were redoing it tonight. I’m not for McCain (although I am decidedly against Obama), but here I am simply illustrating in red those states I would be very surprised to see McCain lose tomorrow. If I were to redo the map tonight, I might throw Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin to McCain, along with New Hampshire and half of Maine. Anyway, here is my thinking as of last week:
I could be wildly, wildly wrong, and you’re free to express the belief that I am — without flames, please — provided you’re willing to eat crow should it turn out, in the end, that I am wildly, wildly right. Bear in mind that all I had to do was keep this map secret to avoid the possibility of eating crow myself.
But: You can play this game, too. If you go to RealClearPolitics.com, you can create your own electoral-college map so you can show the rest of us how you think the election is going to play out. Email your map to yourself and then paste the link to your map in a comment to this post.
Why, you may ask, am I representing such a strong win for McCain when you have been told for weeks and months that Obama will win in a landslide? It’s because I don’t believe what I’ve been told. It may turn out that everything you’re hearing is true. For now, at least, I’m inclined to think otherwise.
If you’re interested, here is a stunning contrarian analysis of this election from Sean Malstrom:
The Undecideds *have* decided: they have decided not to declare their choice to pollsters.
The polls are way, way off this election cycle. Pollsters have admitted that this election has the highest ‘refusal to respond’ number. The ‘undecideds’ are people who don’t want to declare their choice. Why would they do that? If you belong to a Union, and they tell you to vote for Obama or ‘else’, you will not answer a pollster for it could be a union boss checking up Read more
Growing up as a kid, I remember my mom and dad throwing a lot of parties. They were the kind of folks who liked to “entertain”. It seems nobody entertains like my parents these days. It was usually on a Friday or Saturday night – my mom would order pizza – her hair in rollers – and my brothers and sisters and I would eat before 6. Immediately after dinner, it was bath time. Once upstairs we’d be relegated to the master bedroom and forced to watch The Brady Bunch on the black and white TV set.
Unless we were dying, we were not to set foot on the stairs – God help us if we ever set foot on the first floor.
Sometimes we’d sit at the top of the stairs and listen in on the festivities. I knew when mom had one too many Manhattans because she’d whoop it up – her laugh was the loudest. You knew things were getting good – the noise level would increase and the laughter became louder and more frequent. It wasn’t a real party unless the cigarette smoke began to linger in the upstair’s hallway.
Everybody liked my parent’s parties.
I remember one party in particular – it was a family party – a rare event – the kids were included. My mom was the consummate hostess – she used to use the “good stuff” – silver-plated footed bowls for snacks, sterling silver cutlery and china for dinner. Back then when people entertained, it was more of a production. Mom could have won an Oscar – everything was just so.
Even at a young age, I was a rabble rouser. My younger brother Mark and I concocted a plan to replace the mixed nuts in one of the silver bowls with a spicer snack – something with more kick – one that would really add some zest and zing to the cocktail hour.
Our secret? Why Gravy Train dog kibbles of course.
Mark was instructed to nonchalantly remove the bowl from the Read more
We spend so much time picking at our scabs that we but rarely notice how amazingly rich we are, and how much richer we are getting day-by-day. There are at least a thousand men and women as smart as Aristotle walking the earth right now. If you are a computer geek, you surely know the name of Donald Knuth, but what you may not have considered is that there are 10,000 Knuths alive right now. If you click on this link, you will read an account of an extraordinary scientific achievement, but the most extraordinary thing of all is how ordinary such accounts have become, how commonplace, how much to-be-expected. We are so rich that we cannot even begin to count our riches.
I wrote this essay just over thirteen years ago, when the internet was very young, but it is apposite, I think, today and every day.
–GSS
Defusing the Unabomber
I’ve been trying for a week to write something about the Unabomber and his pesky manifesto, and I can’t seem to get the job done. In this voice, the studious essayist voice, I can’t take him seriously. In the Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie voice, the only other style I’m working in right now, I can’t make light of the murder of three innocents.
I can make fun of anything. I’ve been writing Willie stories for ten years, and, with few exceptions, all of those stories ridicule the ridiculous. I have 308 words of a Willie story about the Unabomber. In it, he is represented as a cowboy wino who has just sold a pint of blood and who terrorizes strangers by popping paper bags.
But I can’t work with him in even so grotesque and ludicrous a shape. I think of him and in my mind’s eye I see children making angels in the snow. And then I see those children blown to a bloody pulp for committing the horrid act of creating artifacts of technology.
I see William Shakespeare and I hear him denounced as a mere hobbyist. Was he brother to the Queen? A Lord of the court? A lowly actor with a potent muse? Read more
In an effort to increase subscriptions and ad revenue, I have devised an ingenious new contest to identify the hottest bloggers on the real estate net. If there is one thing we can learn from People Magazine and the Republican Party – substance is secondary – most important: there is nothing that a “hot” headshot and $150,000 or so bucks can’t do to increase popularity and a list of the sexiest “insert your own category”.
Let’s put those bloglogs to good use! Start scanning your Twitter followers – clearly there are some hotties in the mix. Why not nominate a few – heck, why not nominate yourself?
Content you ask? What content? Kids – this ain’t about what you say or think, it’s all about how you look – and Billy Crystal nailed it – “it’s not how you feel, it’s how you look – and you look marvelous!”
You want to drive ad revenue to you site? Listen – sex sells. Adorning your blog with the “Hottest Blogger in the RE.net” will drive the kind of subscription traffic you’ve been longing.
Oops – gotta run – my stylist just called. She’s bringing over Armani for my photo shoot. I’m doing a series of new headshots for my avatar. We’re going to shoot a few – you know – the “too hot to handle” look – the “come hither” look. I’m banking on the “I’m too sexy for my content” look.
Money in the bank.
Just because I write on Bloodhound, doesn’t mean I have a big mouth… Or does it? Either way, when I’m with clients I try to do more listening than talking. I can’t help them if I don’t know what they are thinking.
I enjoy working with young clients. I love the energy, the enthusiasm, the optimism. It doesn’t matter how experienced they are at buying property, it’s their youthfulness that is so fun to be around. We establish a rapport quickly, and my blog helps with that. I’m told by these clients that they read my blog, so they know they can trust me. Older clients don’t read my blog- they find me elsewhere- so the trust is slower in coming. The agent/client relationship is much more solid at a faster pace with blog readers.
Yesterday I spent a glorious fall day walking acreage with a young couple from out of town. We have been emailing and phone calling for about two months now. They were in town in September to look at property, but I was at BlogWorld. A colleague was kind enough to jump in and show them around, but the couple and I missed the chance to look each other in the eyes, shake hands, size each other up, all those physical things that happen in a face-to-face meeting.
They decided they wanted to look at acreage, farmland. They have some farming experience in Europe, and Mom farms and Mom will be spending time with them here. Mom wants a farm. They were coming to town this weekend and we found some properties that met their criteria, set up the appointments. Oh and by the way, Mom is here, so she’ll be coming.
This sometimes happens with young clients. Mom and Dad, my generation or older, have some experience with real estate, and real estate agents. They are in town, so either they are coming along to make sure their babies are not getting ripped off, or they are coming along to give real advice and a second opinion.
Always, I get prepped from the daughters: “My mom is coming along. I have Read more
Reporter Michael Malone writing at Pajamas Media:
The traditional media is playing a very, very dangerous game. With its readers, with the Constitution, and with its own fate.
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.
But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer”, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.
You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I’m cut. I am a fourth generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kansas during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian). My hard-living – and when I knew her, scary – grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I’ve spent thirty years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national by-line before he earned his drivers license.
So, when I say I’m deeply ashamed right now to be called a “journalist”, you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.
Now, of course, there’s always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you ten different ways to Read more
My turn.
I feel compelled to try to make some sense of politics in public. Am I not a blogger? And this being a big bad ass blog on which I can write anything that tickles my fancy, and yes my fancy got tickled by this election, I’m going to give it a shot.
So okay then. Thanks for that.
I’m looking back at the year. I love a good political year, and in January I figured this would be a damn good one. The Republican nomination was up for grabs, I love it when that happens, and the Democrats had some history making candidates, but most importantly, my kids were paying attention, and for that I thank Barack Obama. He wasn’t a grumpy old man, he was young and energetic and hopeful and he knew how to give a rousing speech. I think hope is good. I think eloquence is good. I think both together are very good.
Then John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, and I thought it was interesting, if nothing else. History is being made and I’m living to see it. I was hopeful that Palin would bring something different to the table this time around. I had hope that this election, these candidates, this new media world, this go ’round, we might see an elevated campaign. A campaign that followed the high ground and brought the dignity and integrity that We the People deserve.
Alas, and alack, it’s not to be.
I’m uninspired by John McCain and anything I’ve heard him say. Palin is, ya know, Jane Six Pack. I worked with her, at least I think it was her, during elementary school PTO fundraisers, you betcha! She’s not without charm, and she’s a she, but mostly that ticket is kinda more of the same, only not, only yeah, it is the same.
Biden. Well I must admit that he’s not let me down because Joe’s been Joe since I was a sprout, and he’s definitely Joe now, only he’s not a Joe the Plumber kind of Joe. No, Biden is a Joe the Politician kind of Joe. Read more
I think Gordon Gecko was on to something, greed is good. In fact, the combination of greed and fear are even better, or at least they are telltale signs, it seems – for when to enter or exit the market.
Amidst the financial turmoil, Charlie Rose recently interviewed Warren Buffett regarding his thoughts regarding the financial crisis we’re facing as well as to discuss his $3 Billion investment in GE.
A Conversation with Warren Buffet courtesy of Charlie Rose
I happen to like Warren Buffett a great deal. He’s smart yet humble. Sometimes it is difficult to believe that this folksy cornhusker is a billionaire. When Warren pulls the trigger on an investment – and they are generally not small in size – people stand up and take notice. Clearly, you don’t become the wealthiest American by shooting from the hip.
Headlines today indicated that Warren is telling everyone to buy US stocks. Perhaps you’ve heard his quote – I’ll paraphrase:
When people get greedy he gets fearful, when people get fearful, he gets greedy.
I was left with a certain level of confidence despite the current financial and housing crisis – Warren is investing – again, not alittle – but alot. He’s not waiting on the sidelines, he’s investing now. Our stock and housing markets are ripe with opportunity.
Granted we’re all not blessed with billions – but interestingly enough, those who do have the resources should be investing – not in the future – but now. There is and will continue to be turmoil, however, as Warren stated, it is best to be approximately right rather than precisely wrong.
My take and my advice to my investor clients as well as those who are holding out for “the deal of a lifetime”. I think we’re approximately there.
Could prices fall further? Yep, I think they might – but would you rather buy with an approximate risk or some further loss or miss the opportunity all together?
Perhaps this is the most simple example of exactly how the rich get rich. When the majority sit Read more
Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that Spread the Wealth Around Real Estate will be the name of my new real estate company. You can call it S.W.AR.E for short. I plan to open doors nationwide just as soon as the election is over. I am a very patriotic person and I want to model my new company after the feds. I anticipate rapid growth and high demand for the exciting and much needed programs that I am going to implement. Keeping up with it all is going to be very taxing.
Our business model is very simple: Spread the wealth around – You don’t need all that darn money!
Top earning agents will give back 70% of their commissions to the company. Then we (the company) will redistribute it to underperforming agents in the office.
Top listing agents will be told to hand over the vast majority of their listings to the worthless bums that sit around drinking coffee and gossiping all day. It seems that sitting on your rear isn’t very productive and we need to help them out.
Agents that have SEO will quickly become SOL! We will move aggressively to forward their leads over to agents that don’t even own a computer. Exactly how they will communicate with the prospect is something that we are still trying to figure out. Do typewriters get online? We’re working on it…
My people (that I’m not really affiliated with) have already begun distributing my autobiography to elementary school students in the continental United States to ensure proper brainwashing. History will soon show my model to be the salvation of the real estate industry. Yes, thank you, thank you. It’s all me. Unless something goes wrong then it was the previous administration.
And, if you aren’t licensed but want to come to work for S.W.A.R.E, just tell the state examiner that you are down with commission redistribution and they will give you a real estate license in ANY name that you wish. It’s that simple! We try Read more
This is Melanie Phillips in the Spectator:
You have to pinch yourself – a Marxisant radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it’s considered impolite to say so.
Now that’s good writing, just blistering concision. It’s 76 words, and I’ll bet she could recite it with passion in less than 30 seconds. It would be sweet if a 529 group were to televise this message nationwide.
John McCain is cold oatmeal, and I can’t imagine that anyone except his wife wants him to be president of the United States. But everything in Obama’s background comprises a sound reason to fear what he will do as president, particularly in the company of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. At a minimum, we’re about to fail to learn yet again what made the Great Depression so lengthy and so painful. But the thug tactics Obama and his minions deploy give us good reason to fear a Hugo Chavez, Norte-Americano-style.
I’m not picking a fight. Both of these goons are national socialists, lacking all conviction but full of passionate intensity. McCain is nothing to be preferred. But Obama strikes me as a cipher very much to be shunned. The worst of it is, we won’t know the worst about Obama until after it’s too late. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed. May god spare us the oceans of blood that swept over us the last time we elected a socialist in a recession.
Cartoon by Michael Ramirez.
It appears that Coldwell Banker may be following the Walmart approach to real estate pricing – recommending that sellers cut their home prices 10% across the board – not locally, but nationwide. I can’t help but find the similarity to the McCain approach to cut government spending – simply freeze spending across the board.
Shouldn’t price cutting be done with a scalpel-ly machete? Pardon the pun, but in many cases 10% doesn’t cut it.
I had a very difficult discussion today with the developer whom I represent regarding a new and very aggressive pricing strategy for their condominium project slated to deliver just about when the snow flies.
New lending guidelines regarding new construction could potentially crush them – even with units under contract, no potential buyer can close without at least 51% of the units being under contract – we’re not even close. While Chicago may be a stable market per Fannie Mae guidelines, in light of the recent Wall Street meltdowns, I suspect the we may be in a declining market faster than you can say bailout.
If they don’t get aggressive quickly, we as taxpayers may just be owning 8 stunning, uniquely contemporary condos. My recommendation was a bit more dramatic – depending upon the units, as much as a 15% price cut. They didn’t take it well. They “hoped” to get the prices we had established – they forgot the second half of the word – “less”. The good new is – we have time to thoughtfully approach the pricing strategy.
If we aren’t having the tough conversation with our sellers regarding pricing – okay, I’m going to go there – aren’t we like Congress, complicit in extending this housing market nightmare by not doing what we’re paid to do – provide knowledge, expertise and guidance? While I can’t completely fault the strategy that Coldwell Banker wants to deploy, where did 10% come from exactly?
As far as I’m concerned regarding my own client’s situation, the comps matter significantly less than current lending guidelines do. If mortgage money for conforming loans is still relatively plentiful to the well-qualified buyer, my client’s units need Read more
Well, here we are on Friday again. Are you getting motion sickness from all of the news and rumors that are flying back and forth? Wow has it been another week to forget, hasn’t it?
Here are the topics we’re going to talk about today: The Bailout/Rescue Plan, some very weak economic reports, the credit markets and do bankers really trust each other?
First, there were several economic reports that came out. None of them were good. Here’s a rundown of them:
1. Jobs – the jobs report came out this morning and showed that 159,000 jobs were lost in September. While the number was lower than what the markets expected (they expected 200,000), it was a very weak report.
2. Factory orders came in down 4%. That’s not the direction we’d like them to go.
3. Car Sales fell off a cliff in September. Ford’s sales dropped 35%. Ouch.
4. A couple of reports on personal incomes, personal expenditures and the like came out and they weren’t good.
If these were the only issues that we had, we’d have our hands full and we’d see mortgage rates drop due to the increased weakness in the economy.
But that’s not all. The credit markets have taken a major hit in the last week. What’s happening with that? A couple of brief highlights:
1. Banks are very concerned about running out of money (capital). Wachovia (more on this later) and Washington Mutual have been “bought out” to keep them from going under. Other banks are concerned that the losses they are experiencing will not enable them to keep their capital ratios where they should be. Due to that, there is an increasing reluctance to lend to commercial customers and to lend to consumers. How bad is it? I’ve heard a variety of conflicting reports. What I can say from personal experience is that for people (consumers, not businesses) who have the following: 1) Some equity in the Read more