Belle Haven may prove less so

Sean Dunne fies for bankruptcy

Records of Mr Dunne’s application to the bankruptcy court in Connecticut show the developer – who, during the boom, famously paid more than €500m for seven acres occupied by the former Jurys and Berkeley Court hotels – submitted his bankruptcy application online late last Friday night.

 

Reflecting on the fallout from the collapse of the property market, in which he had been a key player, he says: “The idea that the Irish taxpayer would be made liable for developers’ and bank debts was equally incomprehensible and beyond anyone’s worst nightmare.

“I regret any involvement I have had in making life difficult financially for any Irish resident.”

He gambled, he lost. Why that should make him the world’s most evil man escapes me, but he’s certainly lost his luster in Ireland, where I suppose he’s been a disappointment. They sure idolized him when he was on top, though.

Buy gold

WSJ: Mom and Pop return to the stock market.  When the bears lie down with the bulls, when Main Street thinks Wall Street in a safe place to keep its money, it’s over.

Al Gore must be in Great Britain

Global warming: a religion to die for

Coldest Easter in 100 years. I blame Bush.

David Stockman’s venting again

His new book, “The great Deformation” comes out April 2nd and apparently has something in it to offend most people of all political stripes, an approach that certainly appeals to me – I’ve pre-ordered a copy. A friend of mine heard him speak at Greenwich Library this week and the man’s view of what’s in store for our country and our economy makes me sound like Pollyanna.  From the publisher’s description:

Defying right- and left-wing boxes, David Stockman provides a catalogue of corrupters and defenders of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and free markets. The former includes Franklin Roosevelt, who fathered crony capitalism; Richard Nixon, who destroyed national financial discipline and the Bretton Woods gold-backed dollar; Fed chairmen Greenspan and Bernanke, who fostered our present scourge of bubble finance and addiction to debt and speculation; George W. Bush, who repudiated fiscal rectitude and ballooned the warfare state via senseless wars; and Barack Obama, who revived failed Keynesian “borrow and spend” policies that have driven the national debt to perilous heights.

By contrast, the book also traces a parade of statesmen who championed balanced budgets and financial market discipline including Carter Glass, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Simon, Paul Volcker, Bill Clinton, and Sheila Bair.Stockman’s analysis skewers Keynesian spenders and GOP tax-cutters alike, showing how they converged to bloat the welfare state, perpetuate the military-industrial complex, and deplete the revenue base—even as the Fed’s massive money printing allowed politicians to enjoy “deficits without tears.” But these policies have also fueled new financial bubbles and favored Wall Street with cheap money and rigged stock and bond markets, while crushing Main Street savers and punishing family budgets with soaring food and energy costs. The Great Deformation explains how we got here and why these warped, crony capitalist policies are an epochal threat to free market prosperity and American political democracy.

I’m paying for his book, but he can have my advice for free: David, your house is overpriced.

Mummy dearest

 

Wakeywake!

Woman keeps news of her aunt’s death a secret for years so she can hang onto rent-controlled apartment.

A Brooklyn scammer spent four years fooling her dead aunt’s co-op board into thinking the woman was still alive, to keep living in the rent-stabilized apartment for $287 a month, a lawsuit charges.

Brenda Williams, 55, gave neighbors regular health updates on Debbie Vaughan long after the woman died at age 93 in 2007 — and pulled out all the stops to keep board members at the Prospect Park building from trying to contact the woman, the lawsuit says.

Williams claimed “her aunt was paranoid and senile and if we knocked on the door, she would have a heart attack,” said the co-op board’s president, Diana Hansen-Young. The suit was filed Phillip Cramer, the apartment’s owner.

Of course, this being America, the lady’s subterfuge was discovered in 2010 and she’s still there, fighting eviction.

Williams, a city Department of Education school-improvement specialist for 25 years, said, “I don’t care what The Post writes. Call my lawyer,” and hung up when reached by phone.

I was curious what a “school-improvement specialist might do to occupy her time during working hours so I looked it up and the answer is, “not much”. Here’s a job opening for one, paying $106,000 to start and restricted, quelle surprise, to current NYC Board of Ed employees only. Duties seem all over the place but basically, a good command of marshmallow roasting, concretization of amelegeous neo-development srcrtshi, and, naturally, a good grasp of the philosophical underpinnings of “Kumbaya” should ensure success.

That’s fair, we didn’t know they were poisoning our minds

Teacher ‘had no idea” that her students were trying to poison her. Turnabout, fair play, all that.

Who knew? Greenwich High School had a genuine Objectivist matriculating as recently as 2008

While searching the internet for references to our town using toxic fly ash from the power plant to use as fill for the high school (no luck – I’ll try the oral histories at Greenwich Library) I came across this 2007 article from student editor Ryan Fazio denouncing a “save the children of Dafur” dance as a useless, feel-good gesture that would make its organizers and attendees feel virtuous while accomplishing nothing. My kind of guy! Intrigued, I poked around to see what Ryan had done with himself after GHS and found an opinion piece written while he was at Northwestern, in which he exposes the “living wage” campaign for the fraud it is.  So far so good. And according to LinkedIn, he’s now a commodities trader trainee at Louis Dreyfus on their shipping desk. Shades of Ragnar Danneskjöld! You go, Ryan and Cliff Asness, if you’re reading this, why don’t you snap this kid up?

Those of you who, like me, despair at what our high school turns out by way of political thinkers these days should find Ryan’s mere existence encouraging. Something similar to Dagny Taggart discovering that there were still people left in the world who thought as she did. It must have been a lonely existence at GHS and Northwestern for Mr. Fazio and I’m glad to see that he obviously both survived and prospered. May he always do so.

Throw Momma on an ice flow

Tens of thousands of Britons freeze to death while global warmists cheer.

The reaction to the 2003 heatwave was extraordinary. It was blamed for 2,000 deaths, and taken as a warning that Britain was horribly unprepared for the coming era of snowless winters and barbecue summers. The government’s chief scientific officer, Sir David King, later declared that climate change was “more serious even than the threat of terrorism” in terms of the number of lives that could be lost. Such language is never used about the cold, which kills at least 10 times as many people every winter. Before long, every political party had signed up to the green agenda.

Since Sir David’s exhortations, some 250,000 Brits have died from the cold, and 10,000 from the heat. It is horribly clear that we have been focusing on the wrong enemy. Instead of making sure energy was affordable, ministers have been trying to make it more expensive, with carbon price floors and emissions trading schemes. Fuel prices have doubled over seven years, forcing millions to choose between heat and food – and government has found itself a major part of the problem.

I have a better idea: forbid the legislature to meet more than three months every two years

“I prefer notes in bottles” William Gaston, Vice Division, Greenwich Democrat Committee

State Representative Steve Walko, (R., Byram) would like to allow legislators to vote from their home districts on some matters, rather than drive 3-hours-round-trip for a 90 second session. Although this would seem a rather obvious thing to do now that there are more effective means of communicating than the telegraph and carrier pigeon, Democrats are against it. Surely most of their opposition stems from where the idea arose: a Republican, but there’s also the entertainment factor.

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” Greenwich Democrat Chairman Francis Fudrucker tells FWIW, “and I need that 51¢ mileage fee. My fellow Democrats are in the same straits: stay home waiting for the unemployment check to land while getting nagged by the Little Woman or head up to the strip joints on Asylum Ave. You tell me which you’d choose.”

Dump it on the anonymous taxpayer

Greenwich’s public golf course has reopened, minus 40 trees that blew over in Sandy’s winds. The town estimates it will cost $500,000 to replace those trees ($12,500 per tree is a mighty big tree, no?) and has filed for reimbursement for that expense from the country’s taxpayers. I realize that when Greenwich gets money back from the taxing authority it’s more aptly termed a “return of stolen property” than, say, “hurricane relief”, but it’s no wonder our federal budget is totally, wildly out of control when one of the richest cities in the country demands that taxpayers in Iowa pay to replace some trees on its golf course.

All across America towns and cities expect others to pay for what used to be local responsibilities, like snow plowing, beach erosion and now, tree maintenance. This is not the path to fiscal restraint. Sequestering $85 billion while spending trillions? A mere drop in the bucket.

(Real footage here of tree huggers wailing over a dead tree – no shit; you can sent $500,000 to ease their pain or turn the page – your choice, and that of Sally Struthers)

The gun mania spreads

Everyone’s got one (or two) now

Trapp-Shooting

While those kids are skiing, Democrats seek to wreak havoc on the country

 

Thought they could threaten us, did they?

Poisoned food, prison riots and cocaine on the streets, all coming courtesy of the Democrats so they can blame the Republicans for the sequester. “If it saves the life of just a single federal dollar …”

The public has largely tuned out the Democrats’ repeated warnings about mid-air plane crashes, troop deaths and mass illness from tainted meat if the sequester cuts stay in place.

But Democrats aren’t dropping the threat of disaster, seizing now on the line they think can beat the Republicans: law and order.

Prison riots, cocaine flooding the streets, terrorists on board airplanes — even hurricanes and tornadoes left undetected by budget-slashed agencies — have moved front and center as Democrats try to get the public behind blaming the Republicans.

Harry Reid –  you remember the guy, the one who blamed the deaths of seven Marines on sequester cuts that hadn’t even occurred? Like his boss in the Big House, Harry is pulling out all the stops to make sure that any cuts that are made do maximum damage to the country.

Next on the list could be furloughs at major airports that would mean flight delays for millions of travelers. The DOT helpfully warns that these delays could be “very painful for the flying public.” The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) accounts for only 20% of the Transportation budget but under White House and Congressional sequester math somehow absorbs 60% of the cuts.

Many of the service cutbacks could have been easily avoided by a budget amendment last week sponsored by Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas. He proposed replacing $50 million of FAA sequester cuts with savings from unspent balances, which are a kind of agency slush fund, and by reducing other low-priority spending. Great idea.

How did the vote turn out? There wasn’t one. Majority Leader Reid blocked the amendment from ever getting to the Senate floor. Mr. Moran believes that public safety is compromised by these control-tower cuts, and he calls the Reid gambit “a very dangerous way to try to score political points.”

Mr. Reid used the same tactics last week to block nearly a dozen other measures to soften the impact of the sequester. Mr. Moran also couldn’t get a vote to restore funding for White House tours by cutting $2.5 million for new uniforms for airport screeners.

Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma sponsored seven amendments to save money—including one to provide funding to the National Park Service to keep open the likes of Yosemite and Yellowstone—by cutting programs that even Mr. Obama’s budget calls low priorities. He also proposed freezing new hiring of “nonessential personnel” and to end conferences by the Department of Homeland Security. At least he got roll-call votes, but nearly every one was defeated by Democrats when Mr. Reid gave the order to his caucus.

Mr. Reid’s blocking tactics were supported by President Obama, whose main political goal continues to be to impose as much sequester pain as possible on the public to force Republicans to raise taxes again.

So in the weeks ahead travelers will likely experience the frustration of flight delays, cancellations and closed airports. It won’t happen by accident or out of fiscal necessity, but because Washington Democrats refuse to prioritize federal spending.

But…but…but, Dollar Bill told us the science was settled!

There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!

Warmists admit what has been known all along: the globe hasn’t warmed in the past twenty years

DEBATE about the reality of a two-decade pause in global warming and what it means has made its way from the sceptical fringe to the mainstream.

In a lengthy article this week, The Economist magazine said if climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, then climate sensitivity – the way climate reacts to changes in carbon-dioxide levels – would be on negative watch but not yet downgraded.

Another paper published by leading climate scientist James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the lower than expected temperature rise between 2000 and the present could be explained by increased emissions from burning coal.

For Hansen the pause is a fact, but it’s good news that probably won’t last.

International Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri recently told The Weekend Australian the hiatus would have to last 30 to 40 years “at least” to break the long-term warming trend.

But the fact that global surface temperatures have not followed the expected global warming pattern is now widely accepted.

Research by Ed Hawkins of University of Reading shows surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range projections derived from 20 climate models and if they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years.

“The global temperature standstill shows that climate models are diverging from observations,” says David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

“If we have not passed it already, we are on the threshold of global observations becoming incompatible with the consensus theory of climate change,” he says.

Whitehouse argues that whatever has happened to make temperatures remain constant requires an explanation because the pause in temperature rise has occurred despite a sharp increase in global carbon emissions.

And so on.  Deniers like Hansen and Dollar Bill may squawk, but their hopes to destroy modern civilization are dimming. More here, if you wish. And if you’d like to read of yet another debunking of “the hockey stick” graph, perhaps the most grievous fraud foisted on a gullible public by the warmists, read here.

Well why not? It’s the logical result of their more publicized positions

But not for children

Planned Parenthood spokesman: Infanticide is a matter to be decided by a woman and her doctor. If it is morally acceptable to tear apart an eight-month-old fetus in his mother’s womb or stick a blade in his skull and suck his brains out, what’s the big deal about suffocating him on the table? And if you disagree, you’re a misogynist.

Yet another government program to make honest workers feel like chumps

 

Former mortgage payers

New rule  lowers principle and interest on mortgages when borrower stops payment for 90 days.

Federal housing regulators took a significant step on Wednesday toward helping borrowers who are falling behind on their mortgage payments — a move that will help more people but also introduce new risks that some homeowners could deliberately stop paying in order to become eligible for assistance.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced that borrowers who are more than 90 days late on their mortgages will become automatically eligible for a modification to the terms of the home loan. The goal is to reduce monthly payments.

In the past, to be eligible for a mortgage modification, borrowers had to provide documentation they had a financial hardship. They will no longer be required to do so — though providing such documentation will make borrowers eligible for more substantial monthly savings.

“This new option gives delinquent borrowers another path to avoid foreclosure,” said Edward DeMarco, the acting director of FHFA. “We will still encourage such borrowers to provide documentation to support other modification options that would likely result in additional borrower savings.”

The program is only available to loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, which have been government-backed and controlled since late 2008. The relief would come in the form of a reduced interest rate, extended timeline for payments, or other measures.

Some analysts worried that the new program could encourage borrowers to deliberately miss payments in order to become eligible for the program.

“The primary issue is whether this will encourage borrowers to strategically default on their mortgage in order to get the modification. This risk exists because the new program does not require the borrower to demonstrate financial hardship,” Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Gugenheim Partners, wrote Wednesday. “

Amnesty for illegal entry into the United States, four-years rent free living in foreclosed homes, now, you want a lower interest rate, just don’t pay the bill for three months. Living on the straight and narrow looks increasing like a suckers’ game these days.

This could be the solution

Greenwich P&Z hearing

From our Irish correspondent, this from Norwich, CT: zoning members held personally liable for screwing land owner.

Congdon was one of three defendants held personally liable in the case of Kenneth H. Watrous vs. Town of Preston et al, Congdon told the Board of Selectmen. He, former Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission Chairman Kent Borner and current wetlands board Chairman John Moulson were ordered to pay $3,000 each in punitive damages, Congdon said. A fourth defendant was found not liable, he said.

The 2010 lawsuit stems from a house Watrous built on land on Poquetanuck Cove, which the town claimed is in a location that violates wetlands regulations. The lawsuit questioned whether a local land use board has authority over a tidal watercourse such as Poquetanuck Cove, or if the state has jurisdiction.

The punitive damages are not covered by the town government or insurance, Congdon said, but the town government was ordered to pay $6,000 in compensatory damages.

The case, decided in New Haven Superior Court, could have large implications on wetlands enforcement as well as for any volunteers serving on town boards, several people at Thursday’s meeting said.

“It’s a horrible precedent,” said Selectman Timothy Bowles, who is also a state representative and a former town Conservation Commission member. “I know this case well.”

“There are going to be repercussions,” said Sean Nugent, chairman of the town’s Redevelopment Agency.

And there ought to be repercussions, just as police officers who intentionally violate a person’s constitutional rights should lose their immunity. Private citizens are held responsible for all their actions, intentional or not; public officials should at least be liable for harms deliberately done.

A tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

SAC honcho arrested for alleged insider trading. I’ve yet to see the harm in trading on inside information but I’ll concede that it’s illegal and thus shouldn’t be engaged in. But I notice that no one involved in the mortgage/real estate collapse has even been indicted, let alone tried and imprisoned, and it makes me wonder whether the Justice Department isn’t initiating these high profile insider trading cases solely to create the impression that they’re cracking down on Wall Street when in fact they’re doing nothing of the sort. Where’s Jon Corzine lately? Dickie Fuld? Angelo Mozillo? Ben Bernanke? Chris Dodd? Barney Frank? All safe, all free. I’m not impressed.

 

Oh, why don’t they like us?

There’s crappy music in Austin, Kimchee – nuke’em

NoKos plan to nuke D.C., LA and Austin. No problem with the first two: I’ll loan Dear Leader (III) a map, but Austin? Bomb Willie? Say it ain’t so.

The first family brats have jetted from the Bahamas to ski in Sun Valley

It’s two vacations in one, lucky devils. Nothing too unusual about a surf and turf vacation – wealthy Greenwich families do it all the time. The difference is that Greenwich families do it on their own dime while the Obamas vacation on other people’s money; specifically, ours. I don’t care what these two girls do, I do care about their parent’s complete refusal to acknowledge any responsibility that might accompany the office of the President of the United States. Bush gave up golfing during the Iraq war because he felt he’d hurt the parents of soldiers wounded and killed over there, Obama blows a million-and-a-half bucks of taxpayers’ money to golf with Tiger. Hawaii, Vail, Bahamas, Spain, Sun Valley: they Obamas are rubbing our noses in it. Truly a disgusting family.

Just making sure

 

Belt and suspenders, always

Saudi Arabia beheads sodomite, then crucifies him. It’s a religion of (two) pieces.