“Has Your Housing Market Hit Bottom?” and Other Disingenuous Questions Making money in the stock market is easy: only buy stocks that go up. If they don’t go up, don’t buy ’em. –Mark Twain One of my biggest peeves as a Realtor is disingenuous articles that suggest that calling housing market tops and bottoms — and...Read More
“I Feel So Good: The Life & Times of Big Bill Broonzy” “Um, Clapton? Sounds better than Clapton, though.” –Musician guessing the identity of the guitar player in a YouTube clip featuring legendary bluesman Big Bill Broonzy. Looking for a superb Father’s Day gift for the dad/husband/son/brother into blues music? (or not — the book’s a great read...Read More
Macro Matters If you want an excuse to simply tune out the news altogether and remain (blissfully) ignorant, look no further than yesterday’s dueling headlines in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times: Focus on Obama as Tensions Soar Across Mideast —The New York Times (5/19/2011) Gas Prices Fall as Mideast Jitters Ease —The...Read More
Scooping The Wall Street Journal on Groupon Retailers have learned the hard way that coupon sites like Groupon Inc. don’t always deliver such a sweet deal. Many businesses felt burned after their early experiences with Groupon. Now the small retailers that form the base of its business have become savvier about working with Groupon and...Read More
Tomorrow’s “Onion” Headlines . . Today! I can just see The Onion’s retort to today’s lead headline in The Wall Street Journal (“Germans in Talks to Buy Big Board”) — maybe something like this: “Chinese Negotiating for Large Pipe.” Of course, the “Big Board” in question is The New York Stock Exchange, as it is otherwise...Read More
Price Taker or Price Maker (& Fixer, Stealer, etc.)? The devil theory of Goldman Sachs, at bottom, rests on the premise that Goldman knows the future better than its customers or the rest of us. –Holman Jenkins, “‘Defining the Facebook Deal“; The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 15-16, 2011) THAT’S “the devil theory of Goldman Sachs??” Really?...Read More
