Long Island City chilly, cloudy Friday afternoon linkage
Hunters Point, Long Island City
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LIC’s 10-17 Jackson condo: fresh renderings [A Fine Blog]
Prices falling @ LIC’s The Foundry at Hunters Point [Epoch Times]
Chocolate Factory named Best Queens Sweet Spot [Village Voice]
Eater picks up on El Ay Si Restaurant’s impending opening [Eater]
Inlaid stone bike lane on Center Blvd in LIC? [Streetsblog]
Maragos says he’s an LIC resident since college [Sunnyside Post]
LIC’s P.S. 1 appoints former curator as its new director [NYT]
LIC industrial building on Jackson Ave sells for $2M [CoStar]
P.S. 1 donating studio space to ‘Rising Currents’ project [NYT]
Saying ‘open sesame’ to the Pulaski Bridge [Newtown Pentacle]
Jonathan Adler and Calypso St. Barth warehouse sale in LIC [NYT]
Actress Abigail Breslin does a photo shoot @ LIC’s Ravel Hotel [Just Jared Jr]
Female hardhat dies before $20M court case against LIC employer & others [Queens Courier]
Oh get off it. The Republican machine tried the same tactics on Obama. It goes nowhere. Or conversely why don’t you enlighten us instead of making dark McCarthyesque innuendo. The classic tactic a week or two from election is slimey. There has been plenty of time to flush this out and there’s nothing that anyone anywhere has flushed.
Flash: Hey, Reuters. Roosevelt Island is not in the Hudson River.
Hey #1, know why you hate ACORN? Because The Man told you to. Know why he told you that? Because any organization dedicated to registering low income voters is a direct threat to The Man.
Wanna whine about a crooked organization that pockets your hard earned (or not?) tax dollars? Whine about KBR, Halliburton, and Blackwater. That’s where the grade A beef is.
Exactly. This effort to pump up ACORN into some bogeyman is ridiculous. They are spit in the ocean. Meanwhile, the real villains in this country who steal our tax money and call all the shots are given the red carpet treatment in DC. No. 1, Wake up.
I guess you all missed the unethical, illegal tactics ACORN was caught using a couple of months ago. The WFP also unethically breaks the rules to help its preferred candidates. The tide it turning in this country against the far left, socialistic policies the Dems are pushing and I hope it happens here in NYC.
That would be, I take it, as opposed to the greed-fueled, racist, and crypto-fascist policies that the Republican administration has been pursuing for the last 8 years.
6, first, you are doing guilt by association regarding Van Bramer. So much for your sense of values. Second, charges against the Working Families Party (WFP) – one of the parties that has endorsed him – were fully investigated by the Election Boards both local and Federal. No wrongdoing has been found. Third, that ACORN appears to have been mismanaged is without a doubt and that FOX has been able to entrap a handful of corrupt individual employees out of a thousand is also beyond doubt. Sidenote: FOX has never revealed how many employees that refused their advances. But Most important none of this has any relation whatsoever to Van Bramer. So stop perpetuating this futile last minute attempt to smear one of the more worthwhile candidates we’ve seen in years.
The tide is not turning against democrats in any way. Look at Comrade Obama. Duped the whole world, that one.
The ACORN scandal… eh… who knows what to believe? They are an organization that registers Democratic voters… it wouldn’t suspend belief to postulate that they could have been set up by the Republicans.
If you haven’t guessed, I am not a fan of either party. Honestly, I’d rather see independent parties actually have a chance to crack this two party monopoly. Dems and Reps are just opposite sides of the same coin. We need new blood.
Unfortunately 9, when you dig deeper you’ll find that many so called independent parties are just multiple personalities of larger groups unwilling to come out of the woodwork. I’m not a fan of the two party system either but at least it’s a more transparent system. It’s a little easier to find the hidden agendas, backers, etc.
9, “Comrade Obama”?!? If only.
As a progressive liberal, I see a moderately conservative guy who has continued the Bush policies of endless war and mindless Pentagon spending, giveaways to the insurance industry and other lobbyists, handing over our money to Wall Street, limiting constitutional freedoms through wiretapping, and the list goes on and on. Where are the “far left, socialistic policies”? Bring ‘em on.
You are trying to minimize ACORN’s wrongdoings? Multiple ACORN members in multiple cities were caught on video providing consultations on how to break the law. But I guess since you agree with their socialist policies that is ok with you.
Obama is a huge disappointment. I had hoped he would be a moderate once he came into office, and he started off saying the right things, but he really is a far left, anti-business, anti-productivity, huge government socialist liberal. People see it now and that is why the tide is turning against his policies. He took over the automakers in order to empower the unions, he pushed card check to empower the unions, he wants government control of health care, a redistributive tax policy, he has bolstered dictators around the world (like Chavez, Castro and Putin) while alienating our allies. He is trying to turn America into a left European socialist model, and he is stressing because the American people are not going along with it.
I did not try to minimize ACORN wrongdoings. I pointed out that a program servicing 1/2 million clients is going to have bad apples. The State Liquor Authority, the Department of Buildings for example both have a much higher percentage of corruption.
But I’m not minimizing the wrongdoing. Obviously the program needs to be completely uprooted and bad supervision has to go. But these wrongdoings are not the reason ACORN exists. Also as I pointed out, the oh so honest and unbiased FOX Network has refused to reveal how many of their entrapment attempts did NOT work.
re: Obama, you seem to have completely forgotten how Bush-Cheney trashed our economy and ran up the worst deficit in history. You seem to have forgotten the lies they used to plant us smack in Iraq (all puns intended). Obama is doing a phenomenal job considering the uphill battle. He has to work against those corporate interests that don’t give a crap about society as long as they make a buck. Thankfully a vast majority of more socially conscious people and corporations are in agreement with his policies.
Man, I love the red baiting that is still going on after half a century. Your problem is not with social liberalism. It’s with the grip finally loosening on the neo-con domination we’ve suffered through all these years.
if you think obama doesnt have corporate interests, you are as foolish as your post
No way that Obama is doing a phenomenal job.
Bush-Cheney *used* to hold the title for running the worst deficit in history. The new title is now held by Obama.
We are still in Iraq despite promises made to the contrary in the election and worse yet we are considering doubling down in Afganistan. These are in the same league as the lies used to get us into Iraq.
Recent polls show that 40% Strongly Disapprove of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President – this is up from 15% in January. The tide is in fact turning.
Gee, 8 years of Bush-Cheney can sure be turned around in 9 months. Get real. Obama’s approval ratings are running nearly twice those of George W’s at this time last year.
14, calling my post foolish doesn’t make it so. If you practice your reading skills you will note that I specifically mentioned corporate support. And what exactly is wrong with corporate support if it’s directed toward ideas that improve society. I can’t make people out here. They either want to criticize O for being too conservative, too liberal, or too much in the middle. What was the last major achievement you had that did anything to improve this world?
Speaking of major achievements, this just in:
Herr Doktor Proffesor Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute has found evidence that Neanderthals mated with (so-called) modern humans. What he now seeks is proof that these unions actually produced offspring that survived, even to the point of having living descendants. Should I contact him now, or should I hold off a little while?
#16, let’s come back in 6 months and see what Obamas rating are then. Bush is no longer in charge so stop using him as an excuse. No amount of flowery speeches are going to cover up the fact that the economy is going down the tubes, the wars he promised to stop are still going on and the budget deficit is growing and the health care fisaco he has staked his reputation on is blowing up.
OH contact him now Townie! Tripped out.
corporate support=$$ for bush, and for obama. im sick of people thinking obama is just out to help. he, like every other president will take care of those who take care of him. you are even more foolish then i originally thought!! hahahah
All liberals ever say when someone points out Obama’s screw-ups is It’s Bush’s fault! Enough already! I have news for you – fiscal conservative, small-government types didn’t like Bush either. But Obama took Bush’s deficit and tripled it. Obama’s answer to EVERYTHING is bigger government and spend more money. His slick act isn’t fooling as many people anymore. The stimulus was a mess, his health care plan is a disaster, and his foreign policy decisions have ranged from confusing to bad.
If you really want to live in a socialist country, there are a few in Europe where you can move. As long as you have enough that you don’t need a job, you may be happy there.
And stop babbling about entrapment when you don’t know what you are talking about. Watch the videos where ACORN’s true colors were shown, there was no entrapment at all.
I am a socialist. That’s why I voted Hillary. Guess we shouldn’t let the cheerleading squad dictate policy or media hype anymore…
Oh right 22, change just happens in a flash. What planet are you living on? re: ACORN, who hasn’t seen the videos? But again, why won’t FOX reveal the number of employees that did not take the bait. This thread began with a smear against a local candidate by associating him with these scandals which of course is ludicrous. Meanwhile the really important news is that we’ve all been screwed by the wild antics of the non-regulated financial market feeding frenzy. And your solution is?? I’m listening. Go ahead. What?? I didn’t hear anything.
24, the silence that you hear is your elected democrats who control the house senate and the white house. It not just you I’m also listening and don’t hear anything.
22 here. I didn’t make the initial allegation, but the response should have been to defend Van Bramer, not to defend ACORN.
24, even though you haven’t proposed any solutions for anything, I’ll chime in anyway. Many people have been complicit in the economic and financial market problems. The banking firms, the ratings agencies, the government policies pushing FNMA and FHLMC to encourage loose lending, the members of the general public who took irresponsible loans, etc. The answers are manifold. We need smarter regulation of the financial industry, focusing on leverage controls and derivatives transparency and limits. We need government to stop pushing banks to lend to low income, low credit applicants. We need to require banks to have some exposure on the loans they issue. We need rules requiring independence of credit rating agencies. For the overall economic climate, we need to reduce the burdens on business. Government is spending too much, and the major spending items- Medicare and Social Security- are only going to get worse. We need to cut government spending to reduce the tax burdens on business. There are also things we can do in the areas of health care and energy independence that are much better than what Obama is proposing.
26, you are saying the economic collapse was the result of low income, poor credit loans? I don’t think so. While I agree that banks and government should not be encouraging bad loans to solve social issues, this is definitely not the root cause of the economic collapse no matter what Rush and Hannity say. The dollar amounts of these bad loans don’t even come near the value(?) of credit swap derivatives. CSDs created national debt totals of over one quadrillion dollars! This is 16 times the estimated wealth of the entire planet. You’ve been had by some slick and well heeled operators and the rest of the bozos that jumped on board.
27, you sound like you read some Matt Taibbi article about CDS, where neither of you know what you are talking about.
The expansion of CDS was part of the irresponsible expansion of credit, not its cause. The housing bubble was caused by too much loose credit. That wasn’t the only reason for the economic factors but it was a big factor.
I’m still waiting to hear your solutions.
28, you are a published authority I suppose. Your explanation is simply not what the majority of economists agree happened. Just compare the dollar amounts of what you are claiming versus what I’m describing. The solution is to stop wetting your pants over the idea of redistribution of opportunity. Note I said ‘opportunity’ not ‘wealth’.
#29, there are a lot of respected economists who would agree with #26. Everyone wants to find the one accountible party, and it not just one thing or person. Anyone that says more regulation alone is the answer is misinformed or using this to further some agenda. I would also add to that list that the american consumer needs to look long and hard in the mirror on this issue to see what role they played. What % of the houses in foreclosure were once held by people who treated their homes like a piggybank to finance elaborate vacations and cars, or who ran up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card bills, etc. and got caught when them music stopped playing? Or what % bought homes well beyond their means? Sure some who acted responsibly were caught up in this mess, and sure blame the banks for making stupid loans, but doesn’t the stupid borrower also have some role in this? Where are the NYT exposes on this? You don’t see them. See that’s the difference between true consevatives and the republicans and democrats today. Both seem to think that the government is responsible for creating and solving every problem. Personal accountability goes a long way. I personal would never take a bailout. My parents raised me right.
I love how people just want to write about themselves…
wow for educated people you all come off as whiny wannabe know-it-alls who just put down the other’s opinion yet only offer unrealistic superficial solutions in rebuttal. Take your convo somewhere else and let’s talk about Life & Real Estate in Long Island City.
SO HOW BOUT THEM YANKEES!!
Anonymous # 32 bravely takes on the intellectuals and proposes they make their rebuttals more real, or simply talk sports.
As Orwell once wrote, “war is peace; slavery is freedom; ignorance is strength,” words he put, of course, in the mouths of the manipulators. (from the book 1984)
Sure hope the Fall Classic doesn’t have to compete with more bank failures–I mean, “mergers.”
Sadly the attitude expressed by #32 is pervasive in today’s society. We are too busy running around wondering who got kicked off American Idol last night to take the time to invest in understanding the issues of the day. Any problem that can’t be explained (and solved) in a 30 second sound bite is not really a problem after all. Don’t worry though. Someone else will figure it out and deal with it I’m sure.
32 here, believe it or not I am very familiar and knowledgeable on the subjects discussed in the above thread. I currently work on wall st at a large financial firm. (Not in a group related to CDS or mortagages) But I’ve spent every work day for the last year and half discussing and analyzing the current state of the economy.
My only reason for my earlier post is that I was getting tired of two people having a pointless discussion trying to out-smart each other by claiming to know exactly what happened and exactly what should be done to fix it. If I wanted to read about that I would look to a different blog, and from more credible sources.
Liqcity is subtitled Neighborhood Media and Blog about life and real estate. My reference to the Yankees was a innocent attempt to change the subject. (Not to mention I’m extremely excited about the world series.) Can anyone recommend the best spot to watch the games in our neighborhood. If not, we can get back to bashing CB2, restaurants and dog owners?
30 and maybe 35? Look I’m not arguing with any of what you are saying regarding personal responsibility and pushing bad risk loans. I’m just asking you to look at the dollar value of the CDS’s versus bad real estate loans to unqualified applicants. I’d be curious as to compare with the dollar amounts of the various scandals as well. We also seem to readily forget how Enron got the ball rolling on this.
But my purpose is not to bash the corporate domination of the free world. It’s to add a reality check to the knee-jerk reaction whereby blame is placed on all those bad loans in impoverished communities. Hey at least the banks end up with some real estate even if the devalued currency screws up the value in their books. What have all the destroyed retirement accounts been left with?
Watch the game at PJ O’Leahy’s. Not much other choices, sadly. RIP Lucky Mojos/McReilly’s/Cassinos.
I guess 35 thinks he is above it all. Like someone put a gun to his head and forced him to read the comments.
36, you don’t understand the CDS market. You are comparing it to bad loans when they really are all part of the same problem. Without the MBS there wouldn’t have been as much CDS. CDS were a tool to allow banks to be even more irresponsible with their issuing of securities backed by toxic loans, which was facilitated by government policy. You can’t extricate one part of the problem to relieve blame on another.
38, (chuckle), well said.
But seriously I can accept what 37 is saying. I’m 35 btw. I just detected – maybe mistakenly – a bias toward saying loans to poor neighborhoods (i.e. via ACORN) was the primary cause of the collapse. That I just know isn’t so.
editting error I think by LIQ. based on the post that I guess was removed 39 should now read: I can accept what 35 is saying. I’m 36 btw.
#36. If this were just a local blog, should we not all be discussing the Mets Spring Training schedule?
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When will Van Bramer come clean about his affiliation with ACORN?