president obama!

The big what? Kahuna?

The biggest election in your lifetime.

Crisis over!

The crisis continues, but this is a great moment, a truly momentous and great passage for our country.

Let's celebrate over chicken & waffles at Sylvia's.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..................chicken and waffles at Sylvia's!

YES WE CAN!

congratulations...streeteasy has gone from a great website about real estate to a website of fools.

And you the figurehead on this ship of fools.

well, it was a very moving event in my neighborhood, and if you had been there none of you would be snide about it - now rewind to summer of 1968 and compare side by side

I hope the inauguration features Clinton's song "Chocolate City", as delivered by Parliament.

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/parliment-chocolate-city-lyrics.html

Featured lyrics:

And when they come to march on ya
Tell 'em to make sure they got their James Brown pass
And don't be surprised if Ali is in the White House
Reverend Ike, Secretary of the Treasure
Richard Pryor, Minister of Education
Stevie Wonder, Secretary of FINE arts
And Miss Aretha Franklin, the First Lady
Are you out there, CC?
A chocolate city is no dream
It's my piece of the rock and I dig you, CC
God bless Chocolate City and its (gainin' on ya!) vanilla suburbs
Can y'all get to that?
Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya!
Easin' in
Gainin' on ya!
In yo' stuff
Gainin' on ya!
Huh, can't get enough
Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya!
Be mo' funk, be mo' funk
Gainin' on ya!
Can we funk you too
Gainin' on ya!
Right on, chocolate city!

History is having one of it´s greatest moments in front of our eyes. I salute america and it´s people for showing it´s greatness once again.

Congratulations! This a great day for the bitter renters. Bitter renters have won. This is the nail in the coffin for property prices. I myself am ready to stop being so selfish and have reduced the listing prices of all my real estate. It will not be long before the rest of the sellers stop being so selfish too. And if you are a selfish owner not thinking of selling, I suggest you stop being so selfish and put your apartment on the market for 40% less than you think it is worth.

mimi...History is having one of it´s greatest moments in front of our eyes. I salute america and it´s people for showing it´s greatness once again.

oh stop it you, silly.

And "julia" really needs to chill out and let people who want to just blow off a little steam and have a good time do so. Seriously. You should only be as 'foolish' as I am when it comes to long term investing in Manhattan residential real estate.

Yeah, get deep
Real deep
Heh
Be mo' funk
Mmmph, heh
Get deep
Bad
Unh, heh
Just got New York, I'm told

mimi...ditto...malraux...you're probably right...sorry if i offended anyone

"...america shows its greatness..."

Please.

More like America shows its collective igorance by electing an empty suit spewing puffs of platitudes - promising precious little beyond handouts and unchecked growth of the bureaucracy. Great outcome.

east_cider, didn't you hear the news . . . Obama won, not McCain.

alanhart, I'm no big fan of McCain, but I didn't hear him out there promising a lot of handouts or growth in government spending, did you?

No, east_cider? Did he help finance two major wars and a massive financial crisis bailout that was the direct cause of the bandito-style deregulation that he spawned? Isn't that real taxpayer money? And all the government debt to do so . . . to be paid back by whom?

The GOP hasn't pushed for reduced spending in over 30 years -- you can drop that as one of their platforms.

"promising precious little beyond handouts and unchecked growth of the bureaucracy"

Don't worry, Bush only has another 2 months left.

I'm not going to get sucked into this nonsense - save your talking points for some other blog. The election is over, as you correctly pointed out. It's just a shame that this country has only two legitimate parties who continually cough up lame candidates, and that the winner is generally chosen not by substance but by ephemera.

I'm really looking forward to having even more of my earnings garnished to pay for all sorts of handouts and BS programs that fall well outside the proper scope of the Federal government.

Shut up and rejoice east cider! Rejoice renters! This will reverse W's "ownership society" and replace it with a society that owns. No need to worry about paying your mortgage or buying gas for your car. And oh yeah free beer for all the workers.

God help you if you own real estate which from now on will also be known as community property for community organizers. Only the selfish would prevent someone like Obama's aunt from moving out of the Southie projects to a deluxe apartment in the sky. She is moving on up! How about Park Avenue? Never mind about that illegal alien nonsense. How selfish.

The holographic image of the performer will.i.am on CNN last night summed it up fairly well, noting that it now becomes the responsibility of the communities, schools, etc. to make the new President deliver on the campaign promises. Yep, that's their responsibility...to stand there with their hands out. Forget about hard work, setting a good example, raising good kids, encouraging academic success and all that crap. The REAL responsibility of Americans is to ask for stuff.

You think a ridiculously expensive war is better fiscal policy? How about a 700B bailout? Our deficit doubled in 8 years. We went from budget surplus to severe budget deficit. Maybe 20 years ago you were right to criticize Democrats for spending, but these days, Republicans hold the wasteful spending title.

Not just any old stuff east-cider - your stuff. Whacha gonna do, whacha gonna do, whacha gonna do when they come for you?

You won't have to work. You won't have to pay your mortgage. You won't have to put gas in your car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DrA2G1TCrQ&feature=related

Peggy the Moocher?

A great day for America!

On the walk to work this morning, I opened my wallet and handed money to any random person that passed my way. I may as well get a head start right?

Yeah, just make sure you also continue handing most of your wallet's money over to Halliburton and friends for decades to come.

Since when is a progressive income tax "socialist" and "redistributionist"? We've had a progressive income tax since the days of income tax.

That said, our tax system is actually regressive: the lowest-paid workers pay income tax & social security, which is phased out over a certain limit. AMT is phased out over a certain limit. Hedge fund managers pay 15% on "carried interest," that is, capital gains on someone else's capital.

Neat.

However, what might be a very good idea is indexing the income tax to the cost of living. What $250,000 gets you in Manhattan is not what it gets you in Peoria. Let Peoria pay more. Sounds fair to me.

Will it play in Peoria?

[I've always wanted to ask that, even if it's a setup.]

alanhart, you're sort of sounding like a comedian who still does "did you ever notice" type jokes. Everybody is tired of it. The government uses hundreds of large contractors for overseas work. The contractors compete out in the open for task orders under BPAs, IDIQs and the like. Halliburton wins some of those contracts, other times its Northrop, GD, Raytheon, SAIC, Boeing, or whoever. That's how the system works.

Steve, a progressive income tax becomes redistributionist when you start handing out refundable tax credits like candy to people who had no tax liability in the first place.

east_cider:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/25/60minutes/main551091.shtml

"Even before the first shots were fired in Iraq, the Pentagon had secretly awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root a two-year, no-bid contract to put out oil well fires and to handle other unspecified duties involving war damage to the country’s petroleum industry. It is worth up to $7 billion."

Did you ever notice?

alanhart, dig a little deeper on government contract structures. The master contract held by KBR was competitively bid. Individual task orders under that particular contract vehicle do not require a full blown procurement.

I think we are over looking the fact that the Giants could win another superbowl.

Thanks to the redistributionist NFL!

Requiring someone to actually pay taxes before you give them a tax cut (tax rebate? ok welfare) is selfish and misses the whole point of what we are trying to do here.

And stevejhx many low paid workers do not pay any income taxes. And since when did you get to deduct social security payments from your 1040. It is not a tax. It is a savings account for your retirement. The trust fund will pay you back in full. I promise. As a self employed person I am sure you understand why we need you to pay it twice.

You also miss the point on Peoria. Solidly blue states like NY get no help. We can count on you because we know no matter how we treat you, we will get your vote come first tuesday in November. Swing states like Indiana, Ohio etc. those states get the attention, subsidies and the tax breaks. And my goodness, a place like Iowa, which has the first primary and sets the tone for the entire election cycle, well how about some ethanol or other useless corn by product to go with your corn flakes and corn syrup and your corn? You want corn with that?

BTW, I hope you are not selfish enough to have your Fire Island condo sale close in 2008. We need your tax dollars so we will double the capital gains rate will come Jan 1.

lauding a presidential election as historic merely because the winning candidate is *half* black is in itself racist. once these talking heads stop tripping over their pretty words perhaps they'll realize that.

on the flip side, can we now mercifully put an end to idiotic racial preferences in this country.

Today is truly a sad day for our country.

Why? Because Obama chose Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff?

You think it is racist for us to be amazed and excited that a country that until 40 years ago denied full rights of citizenship to blacks has elected as president a man who happens to be black and of mixed race? Give me a break. Our nation's entire history has been stained by the shame of racism, and to this day we suffer from the legacy. This election is a huge step toward putting that awful legacy behind us.

We don't know if Obama will be a great president, or even a good one. But how can any American not feel excitement, awe, and pride and the enormous changes evidenced by this election. I cried like a baby when Barack Obama was introduced as President-elect. And my brother-in-law, a raging conservative who raised over 100k for John McCain shocked himself and cried like a baby too. It is just so moving. If you can't see that, you're blind or willfully ignorant.

I am always proud to be an American and today truly saddened.

Wasn't McCain the one for buying up all the deadbeats' mortgages? And in favor of the bailout, strongly?

I guess Obama returning tax rates to the levels that existed under Bill Clinton proves...
that Clinton was a socialist???

Obama winning has a great social impact - that is certain
What is sad is the number of people stating that this is "Now a Great Country". This has always been a great country and the reason Obama won is not because the change occurred on election night but it is a change that has been occurring the past few decades. But, for political reasons, it needs to be viewed as a slap to the Republican Party (like they played no part in this election win).
Obama has already changed his stance on pretty much every topic once he realized that he was going to win because its no longer about talking but now doing. He may do a great job and he may not be a puppet of the democratic or republican party like most have. Time will tell, just like time will judge if Bush was right or wrong (I grew up being told that Reagan was the devil and in the end he is acknowledged by the world as one of the great leaders so anything can happen for Bush once the media moves on from the brainwashing).
As for Obama's policies, no middle class person ever directly wrote me a pay check, that usually comes from someone that makes an investment in a business idea and believes it’s worth keeping their investment in that idea. Any attempts to hurt an investor will have long term impact on the economy. Singling out the rich for higher taxes is a short term fix to bring money into the government but at some point it still needs to be worth it to the investor to be in business. That will be Obama's job to correctly balance this if he can. Regarding the Wars, notice how he has already lengthen the expectation of a pullout in Iraq and a bigger involvement in Afghan - do not get brainwashed into thinking these wars were avoidable. Obama was not even in government when the votes took place and regardless of what he can easily say (because he wasn't there, he was in the state senate), he would have voted along party lines like the 100% he did on everything else (This is true, just like its true McCain voted 90% with his party).
My feeling is the harder you work, the less you should have to pay. It’s sad that the country feels otherwise. If you want to increase tax revenues, find ways to get more people working harder and actually paying taxes. His remark about 250 is already at 200, rumored to be 150 and will most likely end up at 100 (that is combined family income). We will all pay higher taxes - deal with it.
I am happy he won but freaked out by the way people think that it will be easy to fix everything now that he is in office. All we need to do is create more government programs like healthcare (lets remove the incentive for companies to make money, that will help matters), increase tax rates to the rich (the ones that already pay 70% of the total tax bill), fix education (by raising salaries to attract better talent but also find a way to reduce the cost - good luck), make peace in the world (like these other countries do not have their own agendas that conflict with our own need to be an economic powerhouse so our economy does not suffer more than the typical 2 yr recession we see every 5-6 years, like the current one we have been brainwashed to be believe is the worst ever). Obama has shown that he sees and can articulate what the problems are, but can he fix them? Time will tell but since I am also always rooting for the greatest country, I hope he does something good and it is not a repeat of 1976, the last time someone won on the same platform of change and the country's decision to move away from the GOP.

IanPerry, a question for u: How do we identify hard work? Hours worked? Physical effort? Speculative capabilities? I fail to see how a coal mine worker works less than a wall street manager. This is a constant theme for conservatives: the lazy get the cut. Last time I checked the hardest-working people in Manhattan are the immigrants serving the others. I also saw mexicans bent their backs for 12 hours a day in lush CT gardens. Is a tax cut going to a 60k earning family unfair? Should it go to a very hard working executive that makes 1m?

IanPerry, you have articulated your thoughts so well. The only difference between us is that I am terrified that he won.

Mimi,

I am a little confused by your remark. Regarding immigrants, how familar are you with the different communities that are blessed to exist in this country. My family has been here now for 30 years forced out of a country that until recently would not allow us to go to school unless we spoke a different language and paid higher taxes because of our ethnic background. This same place was the recent victim of Genocide just 10 YEARS ago (in the middle of Europe). Which country lead efforts to bring peace by having to wage war first - The USA. I see your point about how hard some immigrants have to work to make a living. But like us, they are mostly happy to be here and the hard working ones will and have always prospered in this country. They make sacrifices but think how pleased they are to see their children here (like my family).

I can not tell you the number of people i know that have been in this country for under 10 years that own their businesses and homes because of the great oppotunities here. High Taxes do not allow these types of hard working people that are brave enough to take chances the greatest opportunties. I started a business for a very weathly individual 5 years ago. He was able to finance us because rates and taxes were low. Today I have over 50 employees that make pay checks (and feed their families) because of the culture of investment (Investment is not only defined as Wall Street types so try to avoid getting brainwashed by the media). How many families do you feed by putting people to work? Unless you believe that the only entity that is entitled or should put people to work is the government - thats scary? I believe a culture of investment and capitalism is what makes this a great place and by listening to Obama's recent remarks, I think he is getting it too. Its not about taxing the rich, its about having people of all classes continue to invest their money here so all (that have prepared themselves - no one can help you do not) have opportunities.

¨My feeling is the harder you work, the less you should have to pay. It’s sad that the country feels otherwise.¨
I just don´t see the logic of this statement. A banker that kills himself working and makes 1 billion should not pay taxes?
The country feels otherwise???? Maybe the majority sees that there is going to be a lot of pain, that when bad times com the lower and middle classes hurt the most, and having them slip to poverty and misery only brings all of us all further down. I come from a country that was utterly damaged by america´s foreign policies. Witnessing Obama´s triumph makes me feel more hopeful about foreign policies and social consciousness.

I will not disagree that Obama winning is not a triumph event. The more I hear from him, the more it seems he will shed his ultra liberal backers that he needed to gain momentum and power. The Obama of the campiagn and the Obama that will walk into the White House on Jan 20 will be 2 different people (just like everyone before him). He is really starting to impress people on both sides and i personally believe he will marginalize Pelosi and Reid. Notice he no longer directly criticizes Bush.

I do not see how you and I will agree on this but I will try (if it doesn't work, maybe we can agree to see where things are in 6 months). Where is the logic that someone that spends 10's of thousands in schooling and then long days creating a career forced to pay more to the government as they earn more over the years. Why should they get punished? Money will get spent either way. In one system, the government takes it from you and spends it for you and tells you where to go to school and soon where to find a doctor. In another system, we keep our money and decide where to spend it on schools and which doctors are worth the money or as a back up use a government system. The difference is the left does not trust the people thats why the government must help while the right thinks people need to take care of themselves so governement needs to butt out of personal affairs.

Regarding forign policies, Obama has been a nightmare so far. If you think all it takes is being nice to others will lead to peaceful overtures - that is naive. Each country has their own objective and obligation to their people. Before they will ever care about the people in this country, they will care about their needs first. Iraq became a nightmare for us because Europe turned their back on us in 2004 when we needed their assistance for peacekeeping (just liked we have helped them countless times regardless of if they were right or wrong, WW1&11, Bosnia, Cold War etc). It took us years to get it to a point now that there is actually an outlook of removing troops in the next 2-3 years. How much quicker could this have been achieved if they didn't turn their backs on us. Let me guess, your response is that this was a pointless war so they did not have to help. Imagine if we said that to them ever time they got in trouble.
Keep an eye on Russia. Google the latest remarks by Medvedev and Putin to see how they plan to test Obama. The reality is that forign policy is what presdients are forced to spend most of their time on. Thats why its the hardest job in the world.

I think we are too far away from any RE topic in this Obama thread, so this will be my last post here. Obama was against the war in Irak in the first place, so there you have a first sign of his lucidity regarding this issue. On the other hand, he was ¨voted¨ by 98% of the rest of the world, and, even though likability is not an index of success in foreign policy, this is not a small percentage of good will to be disregarded. Is not about ¨being nice¨ is about sending a message of willingness to work with the rest of the world in fixing the problems. The USA saved the world in WWII and everyone should be eternally grateful for this. The policies regarding countries like Latam, though, have been horrendous, with torture techniques taught to tyrants by the CIA in the sixties, etc. You and me see the world through different lenses. I saw Mc Cain as a way more-volatile, risky candidate in terms of a possible war with Russia.

Great point on this being so far from Real Estate but I guess it's fun to get into a debate when RE itself doesn't have much to say.

Any good RE tips?