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New York Times

Pundits Who Completely Whiffed on Current Housing Market Confidently Forecast Next 6-8 Months

Opaque Crystal Balls No, the title of this post (above) isn’t the real headline of a recent article forecasting what’s next for the U.S. housing market — or a send-up by The Onion. This is the article’s actual title, from The New York Times (4/22/2021): U.S. Home Sales Are Surging. When Does the Music Stop?” So, when...
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“Upper Midwest” vs. “Northern Midwest”

“What’s the Matter With Kansas Iowa?”** In modern English, a shibboleth can have a sociological meaning, referring to any in-group word or phrase that can distinguish members from outsiders – even when not used by a hostile other group. It is also sometimes used in a broader sense to mean jargon, the proper use of...
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Fran Lebowitz Calls Out her Twitter Impersonators — and Jack Dorsey

Trusting Social Media, “Big Tech” to Police Itself. Not. Fran Lebowitz: I met [Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey], and I told him that [people were impersonating me on Twitter]. And I said, “you have to fix this because it’s not fair that someone pretends to be me, and people are talking to this person or tweeting...
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Name Game: “Physical” Retail, Traditional Sales, and Hamburgers

What Do You Call the Opposite of Online Sales? Amazon has marched into every arena of commerce, building moat after moat — logistical, financial, customer service — to keep its rivals from catching up. It expanded into selling its own wares, into physical retail, entertainment and into all manner of home monitoring devices. And it...
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2020 Presidential Election and Its Aftermath: One of America’s Worst — and Finest — Hours

Trump Impeached a Second Time [Note to Readers: The views expressed here are solely those of Ross Kaplan, and do not represent Edina Realty, Berkshire Hathaway, or any other entity referenced. Edina Realty is a subsidiary of Berkshire.] Of all the desecrations committed by President Donald J. Trump or his followers the last 4+ years,...
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Putting the Pandemic in Perspective

Total Cost = 94(!) Hurricane Katrina’s The coronavirus crisis has cost the United States at least $16 trillion in terms of lost lives, lost quality of life, and lost economic activity. –Amitabh Chandra, Harvard health economist; quoted in The New York Times (11/14/2020). Just how big a wallop is the pandemic? It may be years...
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