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 …
There is an expression in Mandarin, Buyaolian (pronounced boo-yiauw-lee-en, with emphasis on the ‘yauw’). Literally, it means ‘does-not-want-face’. The closest English translation is ‘shameless’, but that does not quite do it justice. It usually means ‘shameless-in-the-way-a-management-consultant-steals-your-watch-and-charges-you-to-tell-you-the-time’, but it can also mean ‘hogging credit when credit is not due’, ‘lazy’, ‘benefiting from other peoples’ work without …
Our oldest son’s first word was deng. That means “light”, in Mandarin. When he said it, he was looking at – you guessed it – a light bulb. He’s a smart kid. He takes after his mother. For some time, I liked to tell people that his first word was “arbitrage”. That was a good …
Arbitrage, the STAR Exemption, and is there a “K” in “Knucklehead”? Read More »
Yes, hello I was reading a craigslist ad in the ad it said that uh, park applicants have to be vaccinated? That goes against Geneva Convention Article 6 Section 3. So you might want to read up on your history. All you people. You people are weird. You people are sick. You people have mental …
Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine. He annexed Crimea in 2014, and he has been backing Russian-speaking separatists in the Donbass region since the same time. Now, he is massing troops on the eastern land border between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine also faces a threat of a naval invasion from the Euxine Sea to the south, as …
When I worked on Wall Street, guys who I sat next to would bet on anything. Once, the whole trading floor filed out to West Street, to see whether a guy who had run track in college could run a mile in under 4:50 (he was my direct report; he made me $200). Another time, …