“It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much.” Yogi Berra I’m an average sports fan. I like some sports more than others and for the most part, find fun in just about everything. Even NASCAR ( continuous left turns for 500 miles at Beltway speeds) is a lot more interesting since I found a Chevy hat while recently walking my dog. At least I can sit on the sofa, wear my Chevy hat and call my dog Bo. That’s not her name, but if I’m eating something I’ll call her and she’ll come over to…

Clemenza: You know any good-a spots on the west side? Paulie Gatto: Yeah, I’ll think about it. Clemenza: Well, think about it while you’re driving, will ya? I wanna hit New York sometime this month. (c) The Godfather 1972   The effect of job loss is evident in New York. One friend of mine has a foolproof measure of the economic health of the city; how long does it take to get a taxi in the city. Time was, the streets were jammed with cars, traffic didn’t move and taxis were almost universally full. Now, a simple wave gets you…

Here are some “take away” items from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual commercial real estate financing conference, which I attended this week in San Diego. Yes, financing will be back, within two years. That is the opinion of most of the financing industry members, some of them executives of leading players. We are talking about CMBS-like, securitized, financing in some form or other. Indeed, during the conference Jones Lang LaSalle released its 2009 Loan Production Outlook Survey that showed 67 percent of nationwide commercial real estate lenders expect securitized lending to return to the capital markets by 2011. If some…

As top financial executives come to Washington hat in hand to appear before the House Financial Services Committee, they have some explaining to do. Since taking hold of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer aid under the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP) last fall, the firms have come under heavy scrutiny for using the funds for purposes other than lending, including junkets and massive bonuses to top brass. Now, before handing out the remainder of the TARP funds, the Treasury is re-jiggering the program strategy and Congress is making banks eat a little crow on behalf of the American…

Governor Le Petomane: ” …We’ve got to protect our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen. We must do something about this, immediately, immediately, immediately!” Blazing Saddles, nominated for an Oscar in 1975 (c) Mel Brooks, Warner Bros. Pictures 1974 The World According to TARP, as it’s now known, has been fraught with an overwhelming sense of failure. One of the key distinctions between how economic stimulus is supposed to work and the reality of its effect is becoming more evident every day. Remembering our earlier example, in the far reaching poppy fields of OZ, Dorothy and her cohorts (ever notice how much…

I saw the decade in, when it seemed The world could change at the blink of an eye And if anything then there’s your sign of the times I was alive and I waited I was alive and I waited for this I am indebted to the band Jesus Jones for those lyrics, from a song that was popular in maybe 1991, but feels viscerally appropriate for today. Eighteen years ago we were in a war with Iraq, in a recession, but it was clearly still so twentieth century. A decade later, there was another tectonic shift in our culture…

Recently at the farmers’ market I visit, I came across a variety of grapefruit known as a “cocktail.” On my quest for the perfect morning citrus treat, this one, apparently a cross between a grapefruit and an orange approaches holy grail status. Wow, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have one of these in my yard. So I inquired at my local nursery for the species, and of course no one had ever heard of it. All right, move on, I thought. Then this morning, while enjoying another sweet, juicy, near-perfect hemisphere, gingerly picking out the seeds with my…

As Aretha Franklin sang “My Country ’Tis of Thee” at President Barack Obama’s swearing in ceremony last Tuesday, ABC News panned to images of the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, Capitol Hill and other scenes of architecture and nature from across the nation. It was hard not to be moved, not only by the occasion, but by those images of great art in the midst of the swelling music. As those images flashed, it occurred to me that every one of those sculptures shown was by an artist from the Nineteenth Century. That was art that had something real…

  Last week I had the pleasure of attending at least one day of the National Multi-Housing Council Conference in La Quinta, California. You know what? I have to tell you: I’m certainly glad that developers, as a rule, are optimists. Well, maybe not the numbers guys, but certainly the visionary guys. It provided some comfort to hear many of the seasoned veterans remind us that, thought this particular downturn had a unique brutality, they had all been through it before, and knew that if, rather, as they survived they could look forward to making a lot of money in…

Palm Springs, Calif. The just concluded Apartment Strategies Conference (ASC), which is part of the National Multihousing Council’s programming is a study in contrasts. The speakers throughout the day commented on real estate and capital market issues and while what could pass for highlights and good news were few, this meeting was a remarkable transformation over prior years and some other industry conferences. One might have had the feeling from the content in the presentations that bad news and industry stress rules the day, but in fact, I believe there was a different message. No one who attended the ASC…