Members of the Theban chorus were correct when they sang, “Πολλα τα δεινα, κουδεν ανθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει”, but times have changed. Human beings had a good run as the strangest thing in the world, but we were unseated when courts in England and the United States developed doctrines of contract interpretation. The doctrine of consideration …
Consider these statements: When the Meatpacking District was still the Meatpacking District, there was a place where you could drink for free, if you consented to being handcuffed to the bar; Frank Rolfe says that owning a mobile home park is like owning a Waffle House where all your customers are chained to their seats; …
The more I learn about Yale Law School, the less I like what I hear. YLS is the birthplace of the Federalist Society. It is Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh’s alma mater and the primary platform for Amy Chua’s high-strung craziness and Jed Rubenfeld’s creepiness. Because there are no grades, career outcomes are determined by …
In a recent Ketamine-induced dream, I dreamt that I owned a mobile home park in central New York State. The park had fifty lots in all, forty-eight of which were occupied. The two empty lots had park-owned homes on them. One of the park-owned homes – the one closest to the pole barn and pump-house …
It used to be that everyone made fun of Polish people. You didn’t even have to make a joke – you could just say, “Polish”, and people would giggle. If you visit the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY and go to the Blue Room, you can see old clips of Lenny Bruce. Every now …
I usually change names on this blog. Not so with Alex J. Stinson and Misty Shephard, AKA Misty Marshall, AKA Misty Falero. Those are their real names. I post them as a public service for other people who do business or rent property in central New York. Alex’s date of birth is July 24, 1972. …
My mother once said of a woman whom she knew, “Everything she touches turns to shit”. Benjamin Franklin said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get”. Mr. Franklin’s statement is the same as my mother’s, in reverse and couched in family-friendly language. He could afford to be more sanguine because his life was easy. …
Allan Konigsberg said that showing up is ninety percent of life. I call this the Konigsberg Theorem. Konigsberg has been cancelled, but he is a genius. If we excise the art because of the artist’s flaws, that will be a loss. (Along with Frank Rolfe, Elon Musk, Kurt Gödel, John Nash, Vincent Van Gogh, Vaslav …
I have been writing covered calls and cash-collateralized puts lately. You don’t get rich quickly by doing that, but if you stick to it, you can consistently grind out singles and doubles and the occasional triple. Do it in a tax-deferred account, because everything is short-term cap gain. Stick to ETFs instead of individual stocks, …
Mobile home park infrastructure is like an iceberg; what you see is only the tip. Most of it is hidden underground. For example – as you walk through a mobile home park, every fifty yards or so you will see capped four-inch white PVC pipes extending vertically about a foot above ground. Those are clean-outs. …