The Moron of NOPO, Sam Romeo

The NOPO Pol led a bunch of Mianus types in a suit against the town over excessive sewer line costs, and he had a point, maybe: too much police overtime, bad construction, whathaveyou. But now, after four years of litigation, a settlement has been reached whereby each plaintiff will recieve$2,400 off their sewer bill, spread out over twenty years. So that’s $140 per year. I’d guess that these people spent far more than that on legal fees and for sure the town did. Waste of money.

Food Stamp recipients: + 44%

Direct Payments to Individuals: +32%. According to Obama’s last budget direct payments will account for 2/3 of all federal spending by 2016

Federal benefits (Soc. Sec., federal unemployment benefits, etc.) received by 49% of all house holds, up from 39% in 1983 and a 44% increase from when he took office.

Hope for a change.

But I want it!

I’m not saying that home sellers also confuse their needs with market reality, just that their carefully thought out pricing decisions oddly mirror that process.

10 Glen Court, for instance, has failed to sell for $1.295 since July 2010.  Pulled from the market last November it’s back again , but with the same price. This time it will be different.

And over in the east 8 Arnold Street, which sold for $871,50 in 2006, did not sell for $969,000 or even $949,000 so the owner has fired his broker and has relisted it with a new one at a new price, $929,000. I don’t think that’s enough but, given his mortgage situation, he certainly “needs” to get what he’s asking. I hope he does, but I doubt he will.

Stupid is as stupid does

Following in the footsteps of the hated Bush, Obumpski has now come up with yet another way to subsidize an alternative to oil: natural gas for vehicles.

President Bush was an enthusiastic supporter of fuel cells, until he was an enthusiastic supporter of ethanol made from switchgrass. President Obama has come out strong for biofuels and electric cars, but he didn’t mention those in his State of the Union address this week. Now he wants researchers to invent new ways to use natural gas to power vehicles.

The hope is to create a market for natural gas, which is pouring from the ground in record amounts in the United States, and in turn driving down natural gas prices to levels not seen for 10 years.

It’s easy to use natural gas in internal combustion engines, but it’s hard to store much of it on board a car, so natural gas vehicles typically have a much shorter range than gasoline powered ones. The White House announced today that the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) will announce a research competition for either improving natural gas powered vehicles, or developing a cheaper way to turn the gas into an energy dense liquid fuel. (The announcement referred to ARPA-E’s previous funding rounds as “competitions,” so it’s likely this will just be another funding round, not something like the DARPA challenge competition to develop autonomous vehicles.)

Notice anything funny about both these morons’ plans, other than the billions of dollars they’ve wasted on them? (and the humor in that depends on whether you’re rich as Warren Buffet’s secretary or a regular working slob). Everything they propose involves the government (erroneously) picking a new technology winner and then flooding that choice with tax payer’s money. And when one idea goes bust they don’t pause to reflect on whether there might be something wrong with the federal government attempting to guess what might work, but instead just move onto another boondoggle.

Front

44 Sound Beach Avenue Extension (NOPO) has an accepted offer after just 52 days on market, asking $775,000. That seems like a lot to me but I haven’t been keeping a close eye on this end of the market. A 1958 ranch that has had no improvements worth mentioning on its listing on a 10,000 square foot lot (it does have a full basement that looks to be bone dry). I had a listing on this street back in maybe 2005 or 2006 and we had a hard time selling it at $745,000. But here is this one, apparently selling for more than that. Good for the owner. I’ve long speculated what happens when the high end falls to the middle and squeezes the middle into the low. I’d guess that that would exert downward pressure on the bottom level, but perhaps there’s a floor.

Back

Shall I super-size that drink for you?

Hillary is quitting. I won’t miss her.

21 North Street

21 North Street, very nice construction by Kali-Nagy that took two years to sell after being built in 2005 but did move in 2007 for $5.650 million. It’s been on for a while now and today dropped to $4.845.

9 Rockwood Spur. Sold for $4.150 million in 2004, tried to sell again in 2007 for $5.650 (too late!) and has today dropped to $3.495 from $3.795.

This keeps up, we might see a trend, eh?

As an aside, some of us were astonished to see houses like 21 North Street sell for as much as they did back in that time. While I take no pleasure in seeing another man’s loss (nor mine, come to think of it), it’s reassuring to see some sense of reason beginning to appear in the Greenwich real estate market. Except Riverside’s, but that day may come too.

On the short bus

Deer enters school, knocks down 8th Grader. Oh, the (non) humanity!