In the end....

NSFW for language.

In the end, its really not worth it.


Police finally cracked the case of the murder of Linda Stein. And guess what? It was her assistant Natavia Lowery.

Gothamist and Curbed have some background on the story.

Despite being a successful broker to celebrities, Ms. Stein was not the most pleasant person to deal with. But what do you expect from a scrappy Jewish girl from the Bronx who managed the Ramones? Carol Brady? Apparently her abrasive ways was a key factor in her death.

"Lowery told detectives that Stein was 'verbally abusive' to her the day of the murder, using profanity and derogatory language." Plus: "She also said Stein blew marijuana smoke in her face before she snapped and hit Stein six or seven times with a yoga stick, Kelly said."

However Ms. Lowery was no saint herself.

Citing friends of Ms. Stein, The Daily News reported that the real estate broker might have met Ms. Lowery when the younger woman worked as a secretary at the Rogers & Cowan public relations agency in Manhattan.

The News, citing unidentified sources, reported that Ms. Lowery had been arrested in December on misdemeanor charges of identity theft and petty larceny — and that Ms. Stein did not know about the arrest

Everyone is probably wondering why didn't they do a background check on Ms. Lowery in the first place? Because unlike other industries, real estate brokerage does not engage in background checks. All they care about is your closing rate. In fact a background check is not even required to get a license.

However, I think after this incident, some brokerages will push for background checks on new personnel.

Nasty brokers are nothing new. I know since I have met a lot of them. In fact all workplaces filled with douchebags is a concept as old as time. It sucks when you have to work with one, it sucks even more when you work for one.

Nearly a lifetime ago, the Grunt worked in a certain segment of the media industry and thought he had a dream job. That was until he met his co-workers who were probably the biggest bunch of douchebags he had ever met in his life. In a nutshell, they made his life a living hell. Now the Grunt wasn't perfect. He made his mistakes, but these people were the most manipulative back stabbing bastards he had ever met in his life and they got away with doing a ton of bulls**t in the workplace.

The Grunt also did not take very well to this particular area of the media industry as he thought he would and decided to take his chances doing something else.

One of the great truths the Grunt has learned from that experience is that douchebags are everywhere. There is just seems to be a completely unending supply of a**holes who's prime directive is to cause grief for others whether it is justified or not. No matter where you go, they pop up.

I am not saying Ms. Lowery was justified in her actions. Now, I am sure everyone wants to take a 2 by 4 to the skull of every f**ktard who messed with them, but if we did that, we would be extinct. But what she did was absolutely deplorable.

As much as we like to, we can't control people, but we can control ourselves and our actions. Remember, she only had to deal with one crazy person, I had 5 people who treated me like a punching bag. Did I do anything insane and start inflict blunt force trauma on these people? No. Because it is just a f**king job. And I also realized I did not want to become like these people. It is not easy taking the high road mind you and was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life. It sure as hell did not make it easier when these pieces of trash mocked me as I left. But to stay and fight in an industry that I had no desire to be in anymore wasn't worth it. And it was especially not worth taking any type of action resulting in being incarcerated.

All she had to do was say it was her last day and leave. Now Ms. Lowery has to face a life without freedom and when it is her time to leave this plane of existence, she will need to answer for her actions to a higher power.

I am a big believer in karma because I have witnessed karma in action to others and experienced it myself. Karma is vicious as f**k, especially if it develops over a long period of time. It can be a Kerikesque kick in the balls or it can be very subtle. In my opinion it is when the comeuppance occurs under the radar that it is the most heart breaking and painful to the afflicted party because they have no idea what is going on until it is too late.

Pick a cliche and I will prove it to you. There's the star high school football player who could make the girls swoon with a smile was able to smack freshman around while the principal looked the other way or the hottest girl in your class who used to make the thinnest girl feel fat and was more than happy to point out the flaws in the weak and helpless whether they were real or otherwise.

The high school football star is now the star of the sports bar. Resting the one of many beers on his enormous belly that was once a six pack of hard abdominal muscles. Trying to relive past glories while watching football games on television and trying to impress the ladies with his fossilized tales of victory.

The popular girl is also at the same bar. She is very popular with the bartender because she keeps ordering drinks so that he will talk to her. Her once beautiful looks have given way to wrinkles and sagging skin.

All those years of partying, drinking, smoking and doing drugs have taken their toll on these two fallen idols. They all wonder the same thing.

"What happened to my life?"

It is a moment of sweetness when you see a person get karma smacked. Especially one that was in the years of the making. There is simply no way to describe it other than pure utter bliss. But it gives way to a very sour taste because the realization sinks in that this can happen to you. There are no differences between the both of you. What befalls them can befall you. The most important thing you realize is that you can become a better person as long as you make an effort not to walk their paths.

Ms. Lowry would have had the opportunity to experience this epiphany, if she had realized that Ms. Stein was a woman who was desperately attempting to hold onto her lifestyle the only way she knew which was to fight tooth and nail. If she felt that she could not deal with Ms. Stein then all she had to do was walk away.

As for those people that made my life a living hell, from what I hear they haven't really amounted to anything. Do you know why? Because they are nothing to me. For all I know they are hanging out in the same sports bar.

Swiftboat Kramer

There is always the WWE.

I found this on the Business & Media Institute website. Apparently Jim Cramer was having a hissy fit over our esteemed Attorney General.

CNBC's Cramer: New York AG Cuomo a 'Communist'

The best place to get details on Cuomo's new mission is from Jonathan Miller.

Jim, stop being such a little girl. Andrew Cuomo is doing his f**king job. Some serious s**t went down during the last couple of years involving certain parties in the banking and appraisal industry and now they are paying for it.

Don't blame him for destroying the lending market, these numbnuts were doing a fine job destroying it on their own before the Attorney General entered the picture. Remember, investors aren't running away because of Cuomo, they are running away because of the results of some very bad and unethical decision making.

Jim, after you recover from your caffeine induced brain seizure, swing on by to my main man Jonathan Miller. Recently he sold his company to Radar Logic and as you see the result speaks for itself.

Still don't get it? Well, as you can see, Jonathan is riding high on his success and yet do you see him in Cuomo's cross hairs? Hell no. Why? Because he is a straight shooter. When the clock hit High Noon he was one of the few appraisers who were willing to suck it up and do his job, even if it meant losing out on a surplus of profitable deals. In other words, Jonathan Miller is not a douchebag. That is why people are now running to him in droves because they know his word is bond.

So be a man and use that Goldman Sachs acquired intellect of yours and examine this entire situation again and you will realize that certain parties in the industry need to take responsibility for their actions.

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE! CUOMO IS NOT TO BLAME!
STOP TRYING TO SWIFT BOAT CUOMO!

I have a headache

Just eat. It is not as if anyone is taking you seriously.

First we have nooses, swastikas and an insane Iranian and now this at Columbia.

Columbia Students On Hunger Strike


Six anonymous students at Columbia University have gone on a hunger strike to protest the administration's attitude and position on a number of issues, including Columbia's plans for West Harlem/Manhatanville, a series of hate crimes on campus and lack of an ethnic studies program.

So these geniuses decided to take it upon themselves to have themselves a hunger strike. And they are doing it ANONYMOUSLY.

Although I do not have an Ivy League pedigree, I do know that in order for a hunger strike to be effective, the participants need to expose their identities. Not only to publicize why they are on this strike but to also prove to people they are not chowing down on Chipotle. Also the Hunger Strike, like all forms of protest is a visual act. You can't just say went on a hunger strike. There needs to be evidence of what you have done. Also it shows a lack of commitment. My take is that these kids do not want to risk jeopardizing their futures as the next generation of yuppies

What has led to these extreme measures? Apparently they were slighted by their president.

8:24 PM StudentStriker: So the thing is there is a "why we strike" statement [reproduced after the jump- ed.] and this statement is a collection of the strikers' personal feelings. It is a culmination of individual statements, not to put us on the same level of prisoners who are without rights, expressions, food, or freedom. However, there is the sentiment that if all things were relative, students are in a way robots of this school.

The idea is, the core curriculum is so beautiful and so empowering, a social tool and a social weapon, so we should use it to make intelligent citizens and reform it with input from current events--such as the 5 hate crimes in less than a month. But the administration oppresses idea likes this or ethnic studies or expansion.... and they [the ideas] are literally put into a vacuum. We have had meetings with Bollinger where he outwardly doodles flowers on the demands



No joke.

He has walked out on meetings with students. He has rolled eyes at students. It is really quite disgusting

Of course he walked out you. He probably was thinking to himself. "Oh my f**king god, I can't believe I actually let these idiots into this place. They can't even properly conduct a protest in a coherent manner I need to fire my admissions department."

No wonder Columbia is considered to be the safety Ivy League amongst high school seniors.

And if you haven't heard yet, the market took another beating.

Markets Jolted by Oil Surge and Worries Over Slowdown

Stock markets plummeted and the dollar sank to a record low against the euro today as investors worldwide grew skittish over rising oil prices and the prospect of a substantial economic slowdown in the United States.



Just for fun. Adult Language.

Roll Call: S**t hits the fan edition.

This past Halloween, shots were fired in Union Square. Evidence suggests that it was gang related. Sounds familiar?

Union Square will be protected. No matter what.

As I have said before, Union Square is not the proper site urban warfare. It is a place of commerce, tourism and relaxation. Not for gangbanging. As I have stated before, keep that douchebaggery in your own back yard.

Just because Bloomberg is in the final stages of his administration does not mean he is going to be slacking off. In fact he has been going full speed ahead trying to get as many changes to be implemented. He sure as hell as not going to let a bench of street punks f**k up his legacy. He has already put one gang member away for terrorism and he has to he will flood that entire park with Hercules Teams.

Even after Bloomberg leaves office, I do not see Union square going to hell in a hand basket because that area has turned into a hive for anchor stores. If violent activity continues to be a problem I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blackwater showing patrolling the area.

Remember that jobs report that got the market all worked up in a positive state. href="http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/making-up-jobs/">Floyd Norris says otherwise.

NOVEMBER 2, 2007, 11:12 AM
Making Up Jobs
Today’s employment report is mediocre at best. But to understand that, you have to look past the headline numbers.
Those numbers say that the government’s survey of employers showed a gain of 130,000 private sector jobs, on a seasonally adjusted basis, in October. That seems to be better than in recent months.
I don’t believe it. Most of those jobs — 103,000 of them, before seasonal adjustment — were added by the statisticians, not reported by employers. (It should be noted that, before seasonal adjustment, there were 201,000 jobs added, so this is just more than half.)
Why add jobs? It is an effort to include jobs created by new companies not surveyed, less an estimate for jobs lost at companies that went out of business and therefore did not respond to the survey.
Of those 103,000 jobs, 14,000 were in the construction industry, and 25,000 were in finance. Does anyone believe that all those new companies are being created in those industries now? (You can see the government’s explanation for this here.)
At times of inflection, these adjustments can be wildly off, as I argued a month ago. I think we hit such a point this spring. A couple of years from now, after all the adjustments are made, this year’s job performance will look far less impressive.
Over the last 12 months, the government’s current numbers indicate that the private sector added an average of 115,000 jobs a month. But 80 percent of those jobs came from the statistical adjustments.
It is also worth noting that the govertment’s other survey, of households, has not found those jobs. Over the last 12 months, it has found about 50,000 new jobs a month. In October, it found employment declined by 250,000 jobs.

A few years ago, the survey of employers was showing what turned out to be unreasonably low job numbers. (They have since been revised upward, and those revisions influenced the current rose-tinted adjustments.) Then the household survey sounded the warning that things were not as bad as the survey of employers seemed to indicate. Now it is warning that the job picture is not as good as it appears at first glance.

Now we have Citigroup is doing the Write down dance and it has been reported they have lobbed death threats at Meredith Whitney of an analyst at CIBC World Market, a subsidiary of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce who had the balls to blow the whistle that Citigroup and say the following

Citigroup needs to cut its dividend or sell assets to stave off a $30 billion capital shortfall. She further downgraded Citigroup shares to "market underperform," which basically tells investors to sell.

And we know the end of that movie.

I think it is outrageous to blame her for the turmoil that has affected Citigroup and the market. Everyone knew the Emperor had no clothes but she was the one who called it out.

But Meredith isn't done yet because now she is calling for Citigroup to be broken up.

Asked about the possibility of a Citi break-up, Ms Whitney, who received death threats following her comments last week, said: "That's really the only thing they can do. They don't have the capital to manage it as an ongoing entity."

Btw, for those of you who wish to do her harm, please remember, her husband is John “Bradshaw” Layfield. He is a Texan who was once signed with the Los Angeles Raiders, a former WWE superstar who ran with the APA. He also is extremely bright when it comes to finance. If you are stupid enough to touch her not only will he put his foot up your ass but he will also complete a hostile takeover without breaking a sweat at the same time. Mess with his wife and it is the end of your life.


It is getting so bad that Brazilian lingerie models are ditch the dollar as if it was last year’s clothing line.



Hot and Smart.

Bundchen's Demands
The dollar fell 0.8 percent last week and touched $1.4528 per euro, the weakest since the euro's debut in 1999. It traded at $1.4476 at 5:47 p.m. in New York. The dollar lost 2.8 percent last week to 93.47 Canadian cents and 1.8 percent to $2.09 per British pound. The Fed's U.S. Trade Weighted Major Currency Index measuring the dollar's performance versus seven currencies, such as Japan's, slid to a record low of 72.22.
BNP Paribas chief currency strategist Hans-Guenter Redeker, the most accurate foreign-exchange forecaster last quarter in a Bloomberg survey, said the dollar may drop to $1.50 per euro by year-end. The median estimate of 42 strategists surveyed by Bloomberg is for the currency to end the year at $1.43. Among those surveyed last week, the forecast ranges from $1.42 to $1.50.
When Bundchen, 27, signed a contract in August to represent Pantene hair products for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co., she demanded payment in euros, according to Veja, Brazil's biggest weekly magazine. She'll also get euros for the deal she reached last October with Dolce & Gabbana SpA in Milan to promote the Italian designer's new fragrance, The One, Veja reported. Bundchen earned $33 million in the year through June, Forbes reported in July.
`More Attractive'
``Contracts starting now are more attractive in euros because we don't know what will happen to the dollar,'' Patricia Bundchen, the model's twin sister and manager in Brazil, said in a telephone interview in September from Sao Paulo. She declined to discuss details of the arrangements last week.
``Gisele has contracts in dollars,'' said Anne Nelson, Bundchen's agent in New York at IMG Models, in an interview today. ``When she works in Europe she gets paid in euros, when she works in the U.S. she gets paid in dollars, when she works in Brazil she gets paid in reais, and so on and so forth.''

Over on True Gotham they have confirmed what I heard on the street that all is quiet on the Manhattan front. Buyers are waiting and sellers are staying.

Dig in people. This is just the beginning.

Final units sale for Striver's Row

Kelly Kreth emailed me with some interesting news about Striver's Row. According to Kelly, Darren Sukenik's exclusive is now 80% sold after only six months on the market. Developers initiated a dropped prices about two weeks ago 10% – 15% for a “final units sale.”


2605 Frederick Douglass Boulevard
APT#: 7A



2605 Frederick Douglass Boulevard
APT#: 1A


2605 Frederick Douglass Boulevard
APT#: 6B

Considering the volatility in the stock market and the huge amount uncertainty affecting the New York City market, it is pretty darn impressive that they were able to get 80% in 6 months.

Safety First

With daylight savings now upon us, this might be a good time not only to turn the clocks back and also check the fire alarms. And if you want to really take a step further you might want setup an emergency evacuation plan.

OpenHouse NYC has a great segment on how to prepare for emergencies in New York City.



It is a great segment that covers all of the bases of deal with emergencies in New York City. In regards to a GO bag, besides including 3 days worth of food and water, a flashlight, first aid kit and important papers, I high recommend having a large sum of cash and a swiss army knife.

You know things are bad when the comic book geeks get involved. Part 2

I recently received this comment about an entry I did in August.

Hey! Miles Perrie here: long time reader, first time writer...

....I'm a psychologist. I make a good living. Can I ask - what is so surprising about me buying a townhouse?

Miles,

Thank you for reading my blog. I was pleasantly surprised to see my entry posted on the Slushfactory. and for all you Slushers out there, I am a frequent poster.

I am assuming that when you mean by "surprising" you are referring to the reaction of all the slushers on the forum including myself when you announced your purchase? If not. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I think the reason why everyone is surprised about your decision is due to the state of the market. As I pointed out in that particular entry the Florida real estate market is in a free fall. When this evolution occurs in the real estate market, that is when buyers usually take a step back, as I have stated in a previous entry, one of the key rules in real estate is never overpay and when the market begins plummeting like it is right now, the smart money doesn't go to the dance no matter how many suitors knock on the door.

You either wait for the bottom or look for a deal that fits your financial requirements.

Real estate, just like any other investment vehicle, does not come as one size fits all. Everyone has different needs and resources. That also goes with personal taste. I bring this up because I am not aware of your financial situation. So I am assuming that you did the numbers and they make sense for you. In the end, all that matters is that you are happy.