So Which Is It? One side effect of a market flooded with both sales and rentals is that renters are gaining clout when it comes to negotiating, just as buyers have. –“As Sales Slump, Rental Stock Rises“; The New York Times (9/25/2010) To the chagrin of many renters . . . the balance of power...Read More
Bullet Trains . . . in Minnesota How can you compete with a country that is run like a company? –Thomas L. Friedman, “Too Many Hamburgers?”; The New York Times (9/22/2010) I suppose that depends on whether the country in question is run like Costco — or Citigroup. In fact, Friedman makes a number of...Read More
Engineers, Financial & Otherwise OK, so I’m not coming down on the side of buying more Intel stock (vs. selling what I did buy, way back in 1995; see, “To Buy Intel (or not) . . . that is the question“). But I still like what Intel does a whole lot better than what Wall...Read More
Contrarian Indicators — Housing Market Edition If you like contrarian indicators, here’s a good one, courtesy of today’s New York Times: “Housing Fades as a Means to Build Wealth, Analysts Say” —headline, NYT (8/23/2010) Or as Barry Ritholtz puts it, “the time to be an über-bear on Housing (or anything, really) is before the collapse...Read More
The Financial Crisis for Beginners (or Grandmothers) Mystified by the financial crisis? Here’s one of the simplest — and most accurate — descriptions I’ve encountered yet: My mother is paying taxes to the government. The government is giving her money to the banks. The banks are gambling like they’re watching “Fast Money.’ But my mother...Read More
Northeast Minneapolis’ 13th Ave. What’s the difference between a neighborhood that’s down-and-out vs. up-and-coming? Or, in the case of a Northeast Minneapolis neighborhood long anchored by the Modern Cafe, the difference between warm and hot? One or two new restaurants, a popular new bar — and a profile in The New York Times’ Sunday travel...Read More
