Greenwich Democrats livid over Treasury Secretary nominee’s secret Cayman Island accounts

I blame Bush

“It’s a complete outrage,” noted local Dem Dollar Bill fumed to FWIW. 

“Bad enough we’ve seen warrantless wiretaps of American citizens, the grand reopening of Guantanamo Bay prison and predator drone attacks against American citizens, but now we’re being offered as our Treasury Secretary someone who bets against America?  The average person doesn’t have access to Cayman Island accounts. The average person doesn’t get to take advantage of tax scams, even if he is a Democrat. We’re talking fairness here –  you think the real Obama would nominate this Jack Lew fellow, this Cayman Island tax dodger? There’s something seriously wrong here.

“No no,” Bill moaned, rubbing his face in his hands, “this shall not stand. We’ve got to storm the White House and rescue the Messiah from the Bush operatives who’ve seized him. Come, Fudrucker, take my hand, we’ll restore our leader to paradise.”

Smoke signals from the conclave

It’s grey, but the odds makers are feeling pretty Hillarious

Putting it to the Wasserman test

 

The best that she can be

The Chairman of the Democrat Party introduces a welfare recipient, just picked at random, who will counter Republican Marc Rubio’s Real State of the Nation speech Tuesday night.

In a conference call Monday, [Debbie] Wasserman Schultz enlisted the help of Annette Capella, described by party officials as a “Medicare recipient from Florida,” to warn of the “extreme budget priorities,” they believe Rubio is likely to outline in his televised response to President Obama’s address.

Capella gave a lengthy and unflattering statement about Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida and Tea Party favorite. She admitted he is an attractive politician but one who would make life more difficult for seniors by supporting a plan to alter Medicare by reducing benefits.

It turns out, however, that Capella is hardly your standard Medicare-dependent Floridian. She’s the Democratic Party’s state committeewoman for St. Johns County.

You do know what the Wasserman test is, don’t you? How fitting.

An ahistorical governor for an ahistorical time

And I’ve lost my mittens!

“We’ve never had this much snow!” So whined Governor Malloy at a press conference held today to demonstrate his firm hand on the helm. The trouble with ignorance like his is that people believe him – hey, he’s the gov, right? Malloy is apparently still undecided whether to blame our current crop of white stuff on global warming or scary looking rifles, or both, but when he does, I’m sure his followers will believe that, too.

Here’s a snippet on another snowstorm, one Dannel didn’t study in school:

Blizzard of ’88

The official snowfall measurement for Hartford was a mere 19 inches, but that was taken at Trinity College, where the howling winds of the Blizzard of 1888 were hurling the snow down to Broad Street. Unofficial, and probably more accurate, measurements for this city were 36. Middletown got 50 inches,Marlborough 48, New Hartford 42.

Convert him, ship him to Rome, forget him: (our) problem solved

Unaccustomed as I am to redeeming mankind, …

Pope Benedict retires and his church looks for his replacement;  there’s a seriously underemployed Messiah – in -waiting who’d probably be happy to fill in while  he decides when to usher in his own second coming.

No more double dipping?

 

I’ve learned to just say no

Realtor/blogger George Crossman points out that landlords are no longer offering to pay a second commission on lease renewals and sends along 7 or 8 new listings to prove it. I handle rentals pretty much just as an accommodation to clients who can’t find what they want to buy, so I’ve never looked to rental commissions as a significant source of income. It’s been easy, therefore, to toss in the unearned renewal commission as part of my client’s offer: what was I supposed to have done to earn one? You find a place, your clients move in, you get paid, period. The tenant decides to re-up, I had nothing to do with that.

For those agents for whom rental commissions are keeping them afloat, I suppose this is a big deal. I see it as fair, and long overdue.

Old Greenwich sale, back country whackeroo

15 Midbrook Lane

15 Midbrook Lane, a 1960s renovated split-level across from Perot Library (and thus north of the village), sold today for $1,117,500, which seems like a good deal for the buyer. The seller paid $1.350 for it in 2005, which no doubt explains their reason for pricing it at $1.395 this time around but we seem to be pretty much at 2003, not 2005 levels, and there was some significant price appreciation in those two short years, appreciation that must now be given back.  I though this was a nifty house, a split-level that worked, and some very good renovation work done since that 2005 purchase. So I’m sorry to see the owners lose money, but there you have it.

145 Porchuck

The owner of 145 Porchuck Road took an even worse haircut, having to mark down the house he paid $3.1 million for in 2006 to $2 million before he found a buyer and presumably, that buyer is paying less than the final asking price. Tough area these days.

Here’s a notable sale

7 Larkspur

7 Larkspur, off Sabine off Round Hill, has sold for $7.4 million. That price includes a second, 2-acre building lot. This was, to my taste, a really great house but if you want to know how dead the market has been, the house (without the extra lot) was offered in July 2011 for $6.3 million and its listing expired a year later. A few months later it was back and had a contract in 82 days. Also of interest is that only three weeks elapsed between contract and closing. Unless someone has an incredibly speedy lender, which can happen, this was an all cash deal. Buyers at this range can do that.

A tale of two cities

Or two different neighborhoods of the same city. Accepted offers reported for 82 Glenville Road, $2.495 and 1 Quintard, Old Greenwich, $2.995.

82 Glenville Rd

82 Glenville Road was built in 2002 and sold that year for $3 million. The buyers brought it back on the market in 2011 asking $3.875, which probably wasn’t a wise pricing decision and now, 530 days later, with a series of price cuts culminating at $2.495, they have a buyer.

1A Quintard

One (A) Quintard, south of the village, was built in 2008 and sold, unfinished (I believe the woman it was being built for passed on to that great retirement village in the sky) for $2.170 million. Those buyers finished it and put it back up for sale this past January 30 at $2.995  and have a buyer 12 days later.

Glennville Road is 5,000 sq. feet on an acre +, Quintard is 3,500 on a third. Just if you’re calculating.

Follow up on 114 Hendrie Avenue

A 1947 wall refrigerator goes with it

I wrote about this when it came on last December? January? 114 Hendrie is an older house on 0.3 acre, railroad in back. Owners asked $790,000, the first offer that came in (a day after it was listed) was the highest, went to contract immediately and it just closed at $800,000. I understand that the buyers intend to fix it up and live there, which might account for their high bid, but my own client’s bid and those of a couple of other builders were pretty close to the winner’s, so $800,000 is a good marker for what a less-than- prime lot on a highly convenient location in Riverside is worth today.

Pelosi: We’ll let you talk about guns – isn’t that enough?

 

Constitutional Scholar

Nancy Pelosi claims that the First Amendment protects gun owners’ right to bear arms. Or at least read about them in Field & Stream? Author Phillip Kerr also references the First Amendment as related to gun ownership rights in The Shot (fun book), but he’s British – as I understand our constitution, merely being un-American doesn’t make one British. But then, I’m not a former Democrat Speaker of the House, where the constitution is a flexible, living document to be interpreted as need requires.

Obama; Well no, you can’t keep your doctor, but here’s a wonderful nurse practitioner you should meet

Fooled ya again!

California lacks doctors to meet ObamaKare requirements but has plenty of CVS clinics ready to diagnose and treat your diabetes.- 

SACRAMENTO — As the state moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama’s healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren’t enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients.

Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare.

They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.

“We’re going to be mandating that every single person in this state have insurance,” said state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), chairman of the Senate Health Committee and leader of the effort to expand professional boundaries. “What good is it if they are going to have a health insurance card but no access to doctors?”

Doctors say giving non-physicians more authority and autonomy could jeopardize patient safety. It could also drive up costs, because those workers, who have less medical education and training, tend to order more tests and prescribe more antibiotics, they said.

[Calif. Sec. Health Diane Dooley] offered a more blunt assessment. “We’re going to have to provide care at lower levels,” …. “I think a lot of people are trained to do work that our licenses don’t allow them to.”

Hey, it’s got to happen, so it will. I’ve no particular problem with accepting economic reality, but it is annoying to see the inevitable happen despite the disingenuous promises of Obama and his cohorts and the blind stupidity of Dollar Bill. We were promised change for the better; reality demands health care dispensed by the DMV.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H. L. Mencken