In 2009, a writer in Slate said that the James McMurtry song Choctaw Bingo should be the new national anthem, because it describes life for the majority of Americans in the post financial downturn gig economy. The music is not much to listen to, but the lyrics are brilliant. In the song, McMurtry (son of …
In the early eighties, the U.S. government didn’t know what to do about bearer bonds. The government hated them because they are a tool for tax evasion. American corporations that donated to political campaigns, by contrast, liked them because they are a good way of raising capital. So in 1982, Congress split the difference by …
Here’s a text a resident of my park in northern New York who I will call Maria Gutierrez recently sent to Mike, the manager of that park: Hi Mike, I really need your help. What do I have to do to take Casey off of this lease? I don’t want him here anymore. I have …
I got a ‘B’ in con law class, but I think that my reasoning is sound in the attached. Newfies, Kerrymen, and employees in the manufactured housing section of the title division of the DMV can click here.
As the years go by, you converse with fewer voices. Almost a decade ago, I sat in the now-defunct Queen Diner in Dryden, NY with Dee Dee, the manager of my park in central New York and her now-ex-husband, Ben. We were going to pay the waitress, and Ben and I each had a ten-dollar …
At his worst, George Seferis was a low-rent T.S. Eliot. You can see that in passages like this: This is a way of thinking, a wayTo begin to speak of things that you confessuneasily, at times when you can’t hold back, to a friendwho escaped secretly and bringsword from home and from the companions,and you …
Economists say that tontines create perverse incentives. A tontine is an investment pursuant to which each participant puts a certain amount of money into a pot. The money in the pot is invested in whatever the participants want it to be invested in (biotech companies say, or swamp land in Florida). The money stays in …
Tontines, Viatical Settlements, Rent Control, and Girls, Girls, Girls! Read More »
No, Frank Rolfe has not lost it. At least, not yet, not as far as I know. Frank is the Elon Musk of the manufactured housing industry. An entity in which he owns a big stake is one of the largest mobile home park owners in the United States. His educational company, Mobile Home University, …
I had planned on posting this morning, but the Supremes have stolen my thunder by coming out in favor of school shootings and back-alley abortions. I will wait until the news cycle calms down to post about crazy get-rich-quick gurus and lazy, dishonest maintenance personnel. Watch this space.
This week, the New York State manufactured housing industry association sent a bunch of people to Albany for the annual lobby day. I had never attended previously. In fact, I had never set foot in downtown Albany, let alone inside the legislative buildings. Here’s what I learned, as our group traveled from State Assembly Member …