Hail Caesar Paulson!

On March 30th 2006, now lame duck President Bush appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate Henry “Hank” Paulson to be the Treasury Secretary

see: http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/30/news/economy/snow_replacement/index.htm

In addition on December 3rd 2006 another Goldman Alumni William Dudley was appointed to head the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. For an article on same ” Goldman Alumni wield White House Clout.

see http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto120320061956506824&page=1

The head of Goldman Lloyd Craig Blankfein is the “sole survivor” of private investment bankers arter the 2008 Tsunami of Wall Street.  Do you think it is coincidence that the Bush administrations domination of alumni of Goldman’s  assisted this firm.  Lets not forget Governor Corzine a democrat from N.Y. is an alumni of team Goldman, as such the inference to be drawn is that partly affiliation means nothing ” green” is the color that counts on Wall Street not ” red ” or ” blue”.  Why was Bear Stearns bailed out, Fannie Bailed Out, Lehman allowed to proceed to bankruptcy, Merrill gobbled up and now AIG bailed out. Well take a look at the board of directors over at AIG.

( seehttp://www.aigcorporate.com/corpsite/gov_directors.html

Can you believe who is in charge; Sullivan and Cromwell ( M&A Lawyers), Former Citi Bank executives, former SEC executives, Bill Cohen former Secretary of Defense ( Clinton) , Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, Merill executives, and the former head of the NASDAQ. Unbelievable with this ” blue ribbon” Board of experts how did AIG implode?  This star studded team blew up like the Hindenburg Disaster.

Here is an interesting link to Goldman Alumni and the power they yield.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/how-goldman-sachs-took-over-the-world-873869.html

So, why should we trust team Goldman and their Alumni are they suddenly an altruistic  entity, I don’t think so. Why did they remain  while all their competitors  were destroyed, merged or saved by the government.

I’m not a big conspiracy guy, but the evidence here is overwhelming probable cause exists to robustly examine how this happend and how Golman Sachs will benefit and whose pockets were lined while pensioners were nearly  wiped out.

Hey, you know the best way to remember  this disaster is to recall  The Beatles George Harrison lyrics in Piggies.

Piggies

by George Harrison, The Beatles

Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their styes with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there’s lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

NYC Gay Ghettos Heading to Extinction

As a real estate attorney based in New York, I have represented hundreds of first time buyers. I have  warned folks that real estate is a market and it won’t always go up.  Don’t listed to me just look at what the former head of the Federal Reserve stated ” real estate has a long way to go before bottoming out. http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSL2146624120070921

I  have told clients that   real estate brokers and mortgage lenders are inherntly pure ” salespersons”.  As such they have a huge monetary stake in ” making the deal”, and that deal may not be in the best interest of a purchaser.  Of course there are nice realtors but there job is to “sell, sell and sell they are not ecomomic advisers, nor are they certified finanical planners. 

In Manhattan for the last 10 years buying anything resulted in unbridled appreciation ” theres gold in that manhattan” , and as  everyone was making money  no one complained. That may soon change. ( An un paralled down turn in the financial market not seen since the 1970’s, over mortgaging, tremendous mainteance costs, job layoffs, banking financial lending distress, will erode over priced manhattan real estate).

Increasing  as the rest of the country hurts Manhattan has been imune to the down turn.  Why?,  Largely because the dollar’s poor valuation has enabled euro spectators to capture a piece of the big apple and as such we have vast absentee owners who take up precious space and force full time residents  especially the young gay community out of New York.  Truth be told alot of Chelsea Boys who were prudent enough to purchase real estate in the last ten years have ” cashed in” on the robust market and are spending down and moving uptown to areas such as Harlem New York, which was historically an African American Community. See;http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-03-13/nyc-life/a-fierce-harlem-reconnaissance/ 

This is causing  the Village and Chelsea traditional New York  gay mecca’s to lose some of it’s bohemic  artistic vibes , guppies are becoming extinct. http://www.thevillager.com/villager_111/goodbyegayghetto.html

Places that we could hang in a non club enviornment  like the “BIG CUP” in Chelsea are long gone as it is more economically benefical for a landlord to have a chain drug or a starbucks in it’s place. ( albeit starbucks is now hurting) see;http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/31/2320363.htm?section=justin

And its not just New York’s gay meccas Washington D.C. is also home to qay flight.  In D.C. our community is leaving the Dupon Circle area. See; http://washington.bizjournals.com/rss_promo/ To me, on my travel trips I alway’s looked forward to visiting the gay enclaves, I felt safe there and looked forward to meeting, talking, dining and the party’s that make various american cities so fun. The loss of the gay ghetto’s will certainly impact on gay trave.

 Several  additional factors will make home ownership for our community increasingly difficult.  Many young gay men and women  relocated to metropolitan cities like New York for both increased gay friendly city and the employment opportunity.As we know many gay folk are influential  and employed in the arts, music, theater, public service,food indusry,entertainment, fashion and similar creative industires.  Like it or not Wall Street is the economic engine that drives and propels New York. Many of the anciallary business  especially arts, dining ,theater and entertainment thrive as unintended beneficiaries of Wall Street, and now the future is bleak. See;http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/unemployment-rate-increases-as-financial-jobs-decline/ 

In summary, overpriced real estate, rising unemployment, financial and banking distress, and a looming recession will make it very difficult on the gay community to live in New York City especially Manhattan. And that is sad. And it’s not just New York see:

D