Taking the "open concept" to its logical end
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Master bath — too much information, thank you
Big ticket sale pending on lower Lake
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297 Chapman (nee 293 Lake) is pending at $5.999 million.New this year by Kaali-Nagy, it’s a typical build from him, which means pleasant design, good proportions, and top-quality, so it’s not surprising someone wants it.
Kaali-Nagy paid $2,968,500 for the two building lots at this location in 2016, and the sister-ship to this one is available for $5.799 million, should you feel that you lost out on 297.
Old Greenwich waterfront sale
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202 Shore Road has sold for $5.1 million. Owners hoped for, but didn’t achieve, $6.450 in 2015-2016. This time, they priced it at $5.2, and had a buyer in 20 days. I assume that whoever can afford this kind of money won’t choose to live in an aluminum-clad 1957 house, and we’ll see a dumpster on site shortly.
If only
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Dogged resistance down in the swamp
Press overreacts, again, to Trump’s latest trolling
From America’s Paper of Record, of course, offering real news to real, unawake people
I see, said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw
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First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly ….
Round II (right eye) of cataract surgery this morning. Typing difficult, so blogging will be light-non-existent until later this afternoon. Back soon, ready to resume mote patrol.
They're just following the lede of their fellow Democrats scribes at the NYT, WaPo, et al
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Official Bloomberg 2020 bumper sticker
All the news they deem fit to print.
-$900,000 over 19 years; not so bad, these days
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Grey elephant
17 Cameron Drive, a dead-end off N. Stanwich, has sold for $3.1 million. Purchased for $4 million in 2000.
A zillion square feet, four acres, built in 1994 (with 12”-thick stone) and updated/renovated in 2004, it’s almost laughable at what a relatively small sum will buy you in the back country today.
Quid pro quo
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Who wants to be a millionaire?
Less than a year has passed since he departed from the White House, and former President Barack Obama has already joined the "well trod and well paid" Wall Street speaking circuit, a decision many argued will negatively impact the Democratic Party's credibility as it attempts to fashion a message around taking on corporate monopolies, tackling income inequality, and loosening the insurance industry's control over the American healthcare system.
Of course, the FOWS owe more than just their freedom to the community organizer, they also pocketed billions through his (and Congress’s) TALF program. And not just the big banks: Hunter Biden’s boutique firm somehow, and purely by coincidence, was one of the few small fry to get a piece of the action.
An investment firm linked to Hunter Biden received over $130 million in federal bailout loans while his father Joe Biden was vice president and routed profits through a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, according to federal banking and corporate records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
Rosemont Capital, an investment firm at the center of Hunter Biden’s much-scrutinized financial network, was one of the companies approved to participate in the 2009 federal loan program known as the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF.
Under the program, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank issued billions of dollars in highly favorable loans to select investors who agreed to buy bonds that banks were struggling to offload, including bundled college and auto loans.
According to federal records, 177 firms participated in TALF, many of them well connected in Washington or on Wall Street. For investors, there was little risk and a high chance of reward. The Federal Reserve funded as much as 90% of the investments. If the bonds were profitable, the borrowers benefited. If not, the department agreed to take over the depreciated assets with no repercussions for the borrowers.
“It's very complicated to become qualified as a TALF borrower or as a TALF fund, if you will,” Carol Pepper, a wealth management specialist, told Forbes in 2009. “But that's an example of where, if you can get into a TALF fund, you can benefit from this government program.”
Thousands gather at Bronx hospital to thank cops for their service
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Well no, that didn’t happen, even though 13 NYPD were injured while entering a burning apartment house to save its occupants. Not even Al Sharpton showed up, probably because the cops refused to help persons of color, gays, transgenders and women, and only rescued white males. And, so far as I could tell from the video, no neighbors attempted to douse the flames with buckets of water.
If I were a New York cop, I’d be tempted to sit in my patrol car instead of risking my life rescuing people who hate me,
More stirrings in the white elephant graveyard
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91 Sawmill Lane, asking $2.195 million, is under contract. Sellers bought it for $2.675 in 2005 and put it back up for sale in April 2016 at $3.125. There are some decent deals to be had these days.
31 Khakum Wood
And 31 Khakum Wood Road has finally closed, at $4.060. We’ve reported on the travails of this property over the years. Owners paid $7 million for it in 2006 and returned it to the market in December 2013 at $6.750, a price that showed they were willing to write off the enormous sums spent renovating the house during their ownership but, unfortunately, they ultimately ended up throwing in half that initial purchase price, too.
But at least they had an additional six years to enjoy it.