With media attention primarily concentrated on foreclosed homeowners, this article will take a brief look to consider the effect on homebuilders such as Isaac Toussie.
Embittered homeowners who have been foreclosed upon have taken to trashing the property before getting kicked out, with anecdotal estimates by real estate agents putting the number of such vandalized properties at up to one half of all such units. But given all the media coverage of foreclosed homeowners, it’s time to take a look now at how the same crisis is affecting homebuilders like Isaac Toussie. After all, many of the small-time businessmen had to take out loans in order to finance their housing developments. Of course, there are no such developers out on the street, and their cases, unfortunate in themselves, are not anywhere near comparable to that of homeowners who have nowhere to go at all. But it’s interesting to see how things can turn out for businessmen and women caught up in the same economic catastrophe, and how reactions can differ – or not.
For instance, many small homebuilders have had to dip into personal savings just to keep their companies afloat, a familiar dilemma to many homeowners. Buyers were disappearing with cash deposits of several thousand left on the table, proof that local residential property markets had turned ice-cold. Even more unfortunately, many homebuilders have proceeded since then to file for bankruptcy protection, with vast sums owed not only to their lenders but also their subcontractors and workers. But still worse yet, these small-time builders have often financed their businesses with so-called recourse debt which allows banks to seize homes, cars, and other personal assets in case of default – again, quite a familiar scenario comparable to that faced by many homeowners.
Such situations have increased and are now considered commonplace across the country. Many a builder has been left with unsold units and land, falling behind on interest payments and facing foreclosures. And in a very bad sign of the extent of the destruction involved, even very large homebuilders are in trouble, with legendary builders such as Levitt & Sons, founders of Levittown, New York on Long Island, famous for epitomizing postwar suburbia, forced into bankruptcy like some small unlucky start-up.
It’s gotten so bad that once solid partnerships and friendships have frayed as an every-man-for-himself mentality creeps into the proceedings. Contractors and subcontractors have had to take out liens on the property they build in order to protect themselves. And it is in this respect that the ordeals of homeowners and homebuilders differ: the latter have almost no hope of any governmental assistance whatsoever, despite being affected by the same subprime mortgage industry shenanigans that’s made owning a home so suddenly burdensome.
Legal Disclaimer: Be advised that such information as has been presented so far only constitutes mere opinion and should under no circumstances be misconstrued for professional advice of any kind whatsoever! Always consult those properly licensed and/or otherwise qualified when it comes to making business decisions of any financial importance.
Get out of the rat race and onto the fast track by means of affiliate marketing on the web. Thanks to the power of the internet, offering unprecedented scope and reach, there are now a few new ways to generate income from the comfort and ease of your own home. Best of all, unlike old-fashioned medical billing or envelope stuffing schemes, these modern techniques really work! Affiliate marketing is the roadmap to 6 and 7 figures – if you know what you’re doing and you are doing something valuable.
Now let’s pause right there for a moment, because lost in all the hooplah over making money online is that fact that you are only going to be rewarded for adding something of value to the internet. Yes, internet marketing equals residual cashflow, but that only takes place when you’re actually providing something that contributes positively to someone’s life!
For example, teach enough people something they want to know and enough of those people will help make you rich – not by having to pay you any money themselves, but by clicking on any number of ads you can host on your attractively designed, easy-to-navigate information-rich website.
Each click could be anywhere from a few pennies to a few dollars for you by the business that’s chosen your site as the venue to advertise their product or service – and, as previously mentioned, with enough individuals browsing your site chances are that enough of them will click on an ad, translating to hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month!
However the trick is to provide something of value and market it right. Without proper marketing, no one will ever hear of your wonderful website, even if it contains the answer to life, the universe, and everything. But all of the advertising in the world is not going to help folks want to come back or even stay on your site if there’s nothing there of value to them.
Are you an eBay shopper? if that’s the case, you perhaps have considered ordering a used Macbook there. But before you shop for your next Macbook on eBay here are some powerful tips.
Take your time before ordering:
There is no need to rush into anything. This is a substantial purchase and you should take the time to study your used or refurbished Macbook deal. You will want to make sure you are genuinely getting a deal and that it is really what you are looking for and you should not forget to calculate in the shipping costs.
Searching for the right seller:
Look for sellers with lots of positive feedback. Be very careful of sellers with lousy, low, or zero feedback.
Read the description:
Read the description very attentively. Make sure all the stuff that you will need, such as the power cord, are included.
Ask questions:
If you are hesitant about anything, ask questions. Be certain to ask any questions previous to bidding on the product. Remember once you bid you are bound to the bid.
Many sufferers swear by their arthritis pain relief gel for helping make their aches bearable, if not disappear altogether! Arthritis is a very serious debilitating condition that has no scientifically proven cure right now, although research proceeds apace in laboratories around the world.
The arthritis pain relief gel is one of the most popular of non-prescription items sold nowadays, though the illness has more than a hundred different forms – that’s right, more than one hundred variations of arthritis exist, although one of the most common types are osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and septic arthritis.
In all likelihood no single arthritis pain relief gel will work on all forms, but anecdotal evidence suggests that some kinds are much better than others. Also, though the symptoms of pain are the result of joint inflammation, variations do exist that might factor into the efficacy of any treatment plan.
Ultimately, prevention is much better than cure, and while it appears that certain forms for instance rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis may not be entirely preventable, one’s own individual risks could be reduced through such means as being physically active, eating a healthy diet, and maintaining a healthy weight.
Arthritis is a mysterious disease that afflicts not only human beings but other animal life-forms as well: evidence of ankle, or kaki, arthritis has even been discovered in dinosaurs! And scientists believe that arthritis was the most common ailment of prehistoric man, with a wealth of empirical data from mummies and other remains pointing to its prevalence.
In our own day, up to seventy percent of those over the age of 65 could be affected, most of whom are women. The disease has usually been predominant among the elderly, though children can also be affected in some cases. Close to one million persons are annually admitted due to the life-altering challenge that is arthritis.
State tax forms are needed to file state taxes – but exactly where is our tax money going? Taxes are utilized to support the government, but in a democracy the government is supposed to be “for the people,” as a popular rumor has it. All of the state tax forms filed year in, year out seem to have no effect on our local governments, which across the nation are much more likely than not operating at a deficit. How is this possible with all the money pouring into government coffers?
Most people merely file their state tax forms and leave it at that, too busy with their lives and some even hoping not to attract any government attention. But a growing number of our fellow citizens and residents are greatly concerned over where “their money” is going. Nearly everyone agrees with paying for firefighters, sanitation workers, and other civil servants, but even then there can be a lot of controversy over the details.
Take educators for example. Again, nearly everybody agrees that educators are necessary. But how to compensate them with our tax dollars, exactly? Currently, many individuals across the country are up in arms over teacher perks and salaries.
It is felt that educators have things much too comfortable, and there are folks who would like to make the profession of teaching a job like any other, which in the United States means “hire and fire at will.”
These folks want to, they say, hold teachers more “accountable” for student performance, which is usually proposed to be assessed by standardised test scores. But the other side of the argument believes that teaching is not just a job like any other, that the training of minds and the inspiration of hearts is not something which can be neatly measured on a quarterly or yearly schedule like some corporate earnings report.
Some of the most well-known of museum replicas are those famous Italian marble statues everyone knows: David, Augustus Caesar, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. They are a few of the most prized examples of marble sculpture anywhere, with a fine smoothness and absolute realism.
No wonder everyone wants a copy! They truly lend an air of elegance and even authority – gravitas – to a setting. They are veritable objets d’art in themselves, though can also stylishly serve as bookends and even paperweights!
No, those aren’t ignominious fates for such masterpieces of Italian marble. After all, there is no shame in being practical in addition to being beautiful, and if anything making use of miniature versions of beloved marble statues in novel ways can only further cement their reputations. For what is the purpose of art if not to lift us above the everyday? And what better way to do that than to suffuse the everyday with art, in the manner of a deus ex machina!
Having replicas of museum masterpieces in your home or office can put you in a good mood all day long if you truly enjoy art. You’ll go through your day surrounded by a few of the most inspirational works ever produced by humankind, landmarks of human achievement and imagination. Who knows, they may even “rub off” on you and inspire creations of your own!
Ultimately, the point in owning such things is how they put us in touch with the cultural history of our species. We are reminded of exactly where we came from and what we can accomplish. What they teach us is that the human capacity for creativity is boundless; they put us in a spiritual realm where we can all take pride in the legacy of the ancients. Sounds too good to be true? Get your own and see!
The correct wedding favors can be hard enough to find, seeing how they should reflect not only the occasion but the couple and all their guests, but for individuals in alternative~ lifestyles such as open marriages it can be extremely challenging. On the one hand, traditional wedding favors don’t seem to honor the most unique aspect of this kind of a marriage – namely, that it’s open and the couple is not exactly shy about the fact – but on the other hand most individuals want to remember a marriage, not a social statement.
Of course, one may easily retort that marriage by definition is a social statement to begin with – but the institution is so frequent and nearly universal that it is no “statement” at all, not in the sense of a declaration beyond the obvious.
Wedding favors are also statements, in effect, a kind of message from the couple to their guests. They represent what the couple wishes the guest to remember of the wedding, and even how the guest should view the couple. So how to go about selecting the right takeway gift, the right momento?
In the end, it depends on the couple, of course. The overwhelming vast majority would no doubt prefer innocous ceremonies and by extension sourvenirs – even private affairs that make the official proclamation of their marriage blend into the vast background of all marriages occurring in their culture. Hence the double difficulty encountered by individuals in alternative family arrangements where nothing seems to recognize, much less celebrate, their beliefs.
What to do, then? Fortunately, many such individuals, people who pick and also proudly proclaim their unusual unions, are very creative and eminently capable of designing their own distinctive parting gifts for their guests. But as modern society becomes ever more permissive, it’s only a matter of time before enterprising folks start catering to this niche market with particular items that not only recognize their particular flavor of marriage but even honor it.
Greek vases are among the most popular museum replicas anywhere, and no wonder. The pottery of ancient Greece aren’t only beautiful objects of art but bear witness to one of the most intellectually important civilizations of humankind. Obtaining a museum replica of Greek vases oneself is really a way of linking to a glorious golden age and lends a “blue-blooded” kind of elegance to any setting.
After all, it may be argued that the Greek vase has set the aesthetic standard for the Western Civilization for hundreds if not thousands of years. Having one on your desk, mantle, or shelf can produce the best atmosphere for oneself to be inspired! There’s something to be said about having a faithful reproduction of a museum masterpiece in your very own home or office. Imagine the experience on your next trip to the museum as you walk through a collection, identifying those which you own a personal copy of!
Museum replicas let us all to play the part of a refined collector of antiques – not “antiques” in the now commonly debased sense of someone’s grandmother’s grandmother’s quilt abandoned at a yard sale, but treasures from the ancients now owns to enjoy thanks to the painstaking skills of replica sculptors who work in the conventional methods with conventional materials.
More or less always handmade, such replicas of vases could be so faithfully reproduced as to fool even professional appraisers! Available in a wide variety of styles, these fine works are truly no less art objects in themselves, so exquisitely crafted as to warrant being their own museum pieces!
They also tend to be very affordable, as well, allowing true connoisseurs the opportunity to own more than one. Finally, they make fantastic gifts, too: thoughtful, and a little out of the ordinary, after all its not everyday you get a Greek vase as a present.
When selecting real estate, articles generally focus on what is recommended by industry experts such as Isaac Toussie. But learning from failure is as important as learning from success; indeed, the two are symbiotically intertwined. And thus, following up on the previous installment’s discussion of desirable but still affordable New York City neighborhoods, we will consider the worst of the worst here by way of steering you to properties elsewhere!
A borough-by-borough run-down concludes as follows:
Staten Island: generally speaking, the areas closest to the ferry terminal will be the worst, with crime, noise, and other social ills most prevalent.
Manhattan: a much more diverse set of conditions here, but a good rule-of-thumb principle holds that areas north of Central Park should be avoided (though gentrification has made many such areas much better than previously was the case). With the exception of Chelsea and Upper East and West Side areas like Lincoln Center, avoid all areas with a public housing project.
Bronx: the whole borough should be avoided (but for Riverdale on the west coast and Throgg’s Neck on the southeastern one).
Queens: the most complex situation in the whole city, with many neighborhoods fairly mixed ethnically, racially, and socio-economically. But clearly inferior places include vast tracts of Jamaica and surrounding areas, especially towards points south near Brooklyn. Ravenswood is another problem area, next to Astoria in Long Island City. Roosevelt Island is deliberately mixed, but as is always the case, the bad will drive out the good, and it’s quite a debate whether gentrification can work there. East Elmhurst (but not all of Elmhurst proper) should also be avoided for the mix of noise, crime, and other social ills presented by many of its denizens. Jackson Heights is on the borderline, once a nice nabe but now host to a vast illegal immigrant community.
Brooklyn: another complex case, though rather more clear-cut than that of Queens noted above. Sunset Park is gritty and working-class but at least somewhat safe, relatively speaking. Definitely avoid Bushwick and environs, as well as Flatlands and even, nowadays, Canarsie. Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights are not very desirable areas and have a history of violence, as is the case with Ocean Hill and Brownsville. East New York should be avoided like the plague. Coney Island is also often bad, though the City of New York is finally committed to a wholesale revitalization effort.
Tough stuff? Barely. One cannot be too truthful when it comes to the persisting pockets of urban blight. For those new to New York, such “color” is quite often intriguing. But for many others, peace and quiet is desired above all for thinking, studying, and enjoyment of being.
The neighborhoods listed are anathema to those values, peopled as they are by those of a disposition, whether cultural or otherwise, towards noisy commotion and even physical violence. Yet because the city bursts with new arrivals each day, industry observers like Isaac Toussie agree that property prices and rent will still be very expensive, even when compared to more desirable spots in the same city. For example, Kingsbridge and Bedford Park in the Bronx, ghetto to the core, can still command rents only a couple of hundred less than those in premier places like Riverdale or Throgg’s Neck!
Arsène Lupin III is a formidable thief capable of cracking all the safes in the world. A fictional character introduced by the mangaka (Japanese for “comicbook artist”) Kazuhiko Kato, better recognized as Monkey Punch, in the 10 August 1967 issue of Weekly Manga Action, Lupin is meant to be the grandson of another fictional character, Arsène Lupin, a French gentleman thief and detective created by Maurice Leblanc, the best-selling early Twentieth Century pulp fiction writer. As the world’s number one thief, in addition to safes Lupin is also a master at disarming traps and alarms. His journeys have proved him quite a talented driver and pilot as well, and he is an expert shot – with a pistol, no less.
For all his skills, however, Lupin has a doltish, even idiotic look. Yet they belie his ferocious reasoning abilities and social charms; Lupin is able to get past folks with about the same ease as when negotiating safes, particularly booby-trapped ones.
When not practicing his art – he seems to steal much more for the challenge than for any personal gain, often discarding treasures or not caring if he should lose them after first conquering the quest of acquiring them – Lupin enjoys fishing, gambling, and dating beautiful women – not necessarily in that order!
Giving rigor to the dubious proverb about honor among thieves, Lupin will often foil other criminals who are engaged in activities of a violent, murderous nature. Actually, most of his adventures involve not only the police, epitomized by his nemesis Inspector Zenigata, but really sinister characters of deep malice.
Immensely popular and voted amongst the Ten Most Iconic Anime Heroes, Arsène Lupin III has been ubiquitous in three television series, five feature films, nearly two dozen television specials, and a number of original video animations and videogames.