If you think we have it bad in Greenwich …

Okay, now you can have your permit

A friend of mine in Rye tells me that her town has one of those “protect the trees” ordinances which has resulted in homeowners electing to leave their dead and dying trees stand, until they topple on cars, houses and streets, rather than wade through the bureaucratic labyrinth involved in gaining permission to take it down.

No matter how bad things are there’s always a way to make them worse, something to remember as the tree huggers in Greenwich, the same people who brought us FAR and lot coverage restrictions, seek to duplicate here what the poor citizens of Rye already have.

Shocker! California voters pass tax increase and liberal pundits are amazed

NYT and its carefully selected panel of political “experts” interpret this as a signal that voters want to raise taxes, especially if it’s earmarked for education. Buried in the story is this fact: the new tax will apply only to the rich, defined by our newly-reelected president himself as those earning $250,000 or more.

An electorate voting to raise taxes on someone else? Who’d have ever predicted that?

Party of the rich

Fat cat and proud of it

8 out of 10 of America’s wealthiest counties went for Obama. Republicans represent the middle class, which is why they’re so despised by the elite. Po’ folk might wonder why, exactly rich people feel so beneficent towards them; might be charitable impulse, might be there’s something in it for them. Perhaps po’folk are less cynical than this writer, which could explain why they’re poor.

Goodbye mortgage debt?

If you owe under $150,000, say goodbye to debt and say thank you, Massa Obama. That’s the prediction of hedge fund guy / prognosticator Bruce Krasting, and I see no reason to doubt his logic or reasoning. Obama and his crowd want to take back the House in 2014, obviously, and as long as the printing press is powered up and financing the budget anyway, why not zip off a few hundred billion more and buy more voters? Those same presses can, and will, eliminate the trillion-dollar state pension crisis too, and then sweetness and light will grace our country from sea to shining sea. Magic: ain’t it grand?

Rush Limbaugh on the election

You can’t beat Santa Claus. I don’t listen to talk radio but perhaps I should during the next four years in the wilderness. On the other hand, Limbaugh reaches the same doomed, gloomy conclusion I do, and who needs someone seconding my darkest thoughts?

“One of the greatest misunderstandings in this country, if you boil all this down, is what creates prosperity. The Romney campaign was essentially about that, and the Romney campaign was devoted to the traditional American view and history — vision, as well — of what creates prosperity. The old capitalism, the old arguments of hard work, stick-to-itiveness, self-reliance, charity, helping out in the community.

All of these things that define the traditional institutions that made this country great, that’s what the Romney campaign was about. It was rejected. That way, or that route to prosperity was sneered at. That route to prosperity was rejected. The people who voted for Obama don’t believe in it. They don’t think it’s possible. They think the game’s rigged. They think the deck is stacked against them.

They think that the only way they’re gonna have a chance for anything is if somebody comes along and takes from somebody else and gives it to them. Santa Claus! And it’s hard to beat Santa Claus. Especially it’s hard to beat Santa Claus when the alternative is, “You be your own Santa Claus.” “Oh, no! I’m not doing that. What do you mean, I have to be my own Santa Claus? No, no. No, no, no. I want to get up every day and go to the tree. You’re the elves,” meaning us.”

One sale, one contract

14 Hope Farm

14 Hope Farm Road closed for $3,487,500. That’s a lot of house for the money, says I. Sellers paid $3.550 for it in 2009 so they did far better than the person they bought it from then, who had paid $4,272,500 in 2004.

17 Welwyn

17 Welwyn in Riverside asking $4.195 has a contract just a few weeks after hitting the market. Custom built, nice touches, but I’ll bet that generator in the back was the clincher.

New listing

The GAR/MLS office remains without power or Internet – a good argument against relocating to Byram – but a trickle of real estate news is making its way past that hurdle. 50 Hillcrest Park, for instance, is newly listed at $2. 699 million. I haven’t seen it yet, but it sold new for $2.855 in 2004 so this price seems like at least a good starting point. Hillcrest has nice big yards and depending on whether those yards are comprised of usable flat space or boulder-strewn rubble fields, they offer a nice alternative to other Old Greenwich homes on the other side of Route One.

Our country just voted for more of this

Because if our intentions are good we don’t need to look at the results

Oh, goody

(11:35 am). Up in Norwalk: snow (flurries) wind and thunder. Takes the mind off election results, I suppose.
Pretty good crowd at Hiller Sports / guns. Obama continues to be the nation’s number one gun salesman.

Zero Hedge: it was all about who’ll be captain of the Titanic

Doesn’t matter who won, entitlement spending will eat us up. I tend to agree but really, what do I care? I’ll be out of here in 10-15 years, max, and children under thirty, including my own, voted overwhelmingly for continued entitlement spending, increased regulation, a dying economy and an ever-growing government. Fine – they wanted it, they’ll get it, and they’ll have to live in it. Not my problem. I’m going hunting, myself, while it’s still legal.