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NYT

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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Thanksgiving (and Peak Pandemic?) 2020: “Four Bedroom House?” No, “4, One Bedroom Apartments, with a Shared Common Area”

Experiencing That “Vujà De” Feeling** (Hat tip: George Carlin) Zoom call with extended family set up for Thursday afternoon? “Check.” Basement prepped for newly-quarantining, back-from-California college son? “Check.” Grocery store run — including mask, hand sanitizer, and socially distanced wait line in front — successfully completed? “Check.” Fall leaves all raked? Umm . . ....
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“Buying a Home During a Pandemic”: The NYT Interviews 2 Minneapolis Couples

How Did 2008 Home Buyers Fare? I always do a double take when The New York Times mentions Minneapolis in an article on housing. So, let’s say that today’s article, “Buying a Home During a Pandemic” — which mentions not one but two Minneapolis homeowners — had my full attention. The article’s author, Ron Lieber,...
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(Manhattan) Real Estate Term of the Day: “View-Break”

How Big a Premium for Higher Floors? If Eskimos supposedly have 38 words for snow, leave it to New Yorkers to coin the most and best words for anything relating to skyscrapers, views, and the like. Words like “view-break,” defined as: “The price-point at which views in a building clear the treetops or crest above...
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“Identitarian Demagogy and Policy Heterodoxy” (Huh?!?)

Here’s some unsolicited advice for Democrats and their supporters:  if you want to win the midterms next week (never mind the White House in 2020), figure out how to make an emotional — not intellectual — connection with voters. Think, more Teddy Roosevelt, less Adlai Stevenson. In a nutshell, that was my reaction to Ross...
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What Do Economists Call Clean Air & Water? (No, It’s Not a Joke)

Golden Retrievers & Economists Every time I start to think our family Golden Retriever, Raffy, is an actual person, he reliably does something to remind us that he’s  . . . very much not. Like catch (and eat) a frog he found in our backyard, or — more horrifyingly the other week — killing a baby bunny...
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