Stevehjk, I am a long time reader/fan, not a contributor, and I've often skipped through the other tags to look for your byline (well I read urbandigs and used to like W67 too, but now he requires additional effort). But you have for years been consistently insightful. Your ability to poke holes in common but faulty economic ideas have helped me find outside sources (e.g., urbandigs, economonitor,... [more]
Stevehjk, I am a long time reader/fan, not a contributor, and I've often skipped through the other tags to look for your byline (well I read urbandigs and used to like W67 too, but now he requires additional effort). But you have for years been consistently insightful.
Your ability to poke holes in common but faulty economic ideas have helped me find outside sources (e.g., urbandigs, economonitor, Naked Capitalism) and understand far more about the reasons for the bizarre costs of living in New York.
Then, after the teetering prices you predicted occurred, you've done a great job at elucidating the faulty means that have been used to prop up this situation. Always with a great sense of humor, and even when bating your fellow writers, with no genuine meanness, just an insistence that they back up their argument.
So your discussions haven in a succinct, humorous way, pointed out the course of economic decisions that are doomed to work poorly and now affect billions of people. Beyond local real estate, you've helped me understand the carry trade, the basis of speculative growth and now ongoing collapse in commodities and stocks, and essentially how so much of the economy is manipulated by often poor design.
I'm sorry only for myself that you are moving to Florida, and I hope that Streeteasy will offer you your own column on our local real estate and beyond!
[less]
