More Kelly Osbourne/KIND sightings!
In addition to being in Us Weekly, Kelly’s love of KIND was featured in OK! Magazine, In Touch and Life & Style… 
Kelly Osbourne loves KIND
Paparazzi snapped Kelly snacking on a KIND bar and toting a KIND Healthy Snacks grocery bag! She was featured in USMagazine.com and X17online.com. 
Making Money and Doing Good - A Talk
Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust presents:
Tuesday, November 17, 7 P.M.
Making Money and Doing Good
Moderated by Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times
Daniel Lubetzky, Kind Inc. and PeaceWorks Foundation/OneVoice Movement; Nancy Lublin, Dress For Success and Do Something; and Barry Nalebuff, Honest Tea
The news has been marked in recent years by the moral and literal downfall of prominent businesses. Meet a new generation of Jewish entrepreneurs who are leading a shift in corporate culture and philanthropy by integrating their business plans with social activism.
Join us for a tour of The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service at 6 P.M. Space is limited. Pre-registration for tour is required. Call 646.437.4202.
TICKETS:
Free with suggested donation.
Advance reservations recommended.
TO RESERVE TICKETS:
OR CALL 646.437.4202
In Person: Visit the Museum Box Office at 36 Battery Place, Battery Park City, New York.
Irrational exuberance on real estate in NYC
I have been hearing many cliches about how the New York City Real Estate market at the end of the day will not adjust as much as the rest of the real estate market because of scarcity. But the economist in me doesn’t buy it. Yes, as supply is somewhat limited, real estate in NYC should reasonably appreciate more solidly than in the expanses of San Antonio, TX, where land is plenty. But the crazy run-up in prices over the last decade+ cannot be reconciled solely by scarcity, and as bubbles burst in all other asset categories, so to they will (and have started to) in Manhattan real estate.
It is surprising that so few resources are available online to track historical trends in real estate - per square foot and/or per median and average home prices, for NYC and otherwise.
It almost seems as if real estate brokers want to focus prospects purely on 5-year timelines, and that is all they publish and share.
So here are the few sites I found useful, in case others find them handy:
- Free By 50 has some great posts and analysis:
- Explains why Average Home Appreciation across the US has averaged about 5.9% per annum nationally over the last 40 years (and 6% in NYS), but why this number may be inflated by recent exorbitant re appreciation, and why thus the more accurate/conservative annual estimate is 4%
Some magic in the Subway
An older man walked in to a subway car, offering to sing some songs…
When he realized a young guy was already performing in that car…
But rather than compete, they extemporaneously started jamming together… …quite nicely, far nicer than what we had been hearing before…
And the whole subway car started paying attention and enjoying it - I even skipped my stop and kept riding for a few more, as there was real magic in the air…and far more contributions from the riders, who knew they were witnessing something special.
What is polite and what is rude?
On the subway this morning, a homeless man sat in a corner quietly scribbling notes on a newspaper, with all his belongings next to him.
No one else sat in that section of the subway.
The rest of the subway car was reasonably full. But there was an invisible line that kept newcomers from seating near the homeless man.
Was it out of respect that people gave him his space, recognizing this was his temporary home?
Or was it out of fear, repulsion or alienation?
How would you have approached it?
Sent from my iPhone - pardon typos
Peaceful baby
His face is so calm
Full of love and tranquility
How blessed we are
to have warm shelter and peace for him.
How hard and how painful
for the millions upon millions
who lack peace, or water or heat,
who may not have bread or milk to give their children.
How hard and how painful
for the parents who’d lose a baby to a missile
or the babies who’d lose a parent to a bomb
and the nations who’d lose their innocence along the way.
That juxtaposition gives me anxiety:
the peaceful nap of our little baby
against the horrors and hatred brewing around our world,
whether a few blocks up, or 7,000 miles away.
For my baby’s peace cannot be guaranteed
his Spring cannot be counted upon
so long as babies anywhere else in our globe
are suffering, being targeted or killed.
It is for our baby here
that peace must be waged there.
Risking Other Peoples’ Money
Here is another good article on the misaligned incentives that came about when Wall Street went public.
Anatomy of a Financial Mess - Part II (and why you should always be afraid of a free lunch on Wall Street)
Michael Lewis (from "Liar’s Poker") wrote a piece in Portfolio Magazine that is a must reading (this earlier piece is also very good). It is at once nauseating, chilling, and fascinating to see how our financial system is a house of cards.
A couple years ago I got into a passionate debate with friends from the financial sector about the growing disintermediation between actual products we make in the "real" economy and the derivative products that get packaged and re-packaged and sold - always generating a fee for the financial firms that hawk them - without really creating value.
Michael Lewis explains better than anyone how this came about in the 80’s and how it came about with the current credit crisis.
The saddest thing is that, while there will be some short fixes and a lot of chest-thumping in Congress, by the media, and in the executive corridors, the system is so sick and so rigged by those that benefit from it, that it is unlikely to be structurally fixed.
As Lewis concludes in his piece, it would require that Wall Street firms go back to operating as private partnerships with skin on the game rather than become publicly traded firms where management can pass on long-term risks to shareholders, benefiting from short-term profits even if they are risking the fate of their institutions. Or it would require enough regulation that really tracks and connects compensation to long-term value creation.
Yet greed and ingenuity are potent combinations. And the "smart" guys will always find a way to game the system - with your money.
Even as we witness calamitous losses on the market, many insiders are doing quite well for themselves. They find the way. They are survivors. Several of my friends are in this industry. They are not bad people. They are just playing by the rules of the system, which banks on our own greed as investors to sustain and legitimate itself.
It is hard not to be tempted to participate in the market once it has been so depressed that it should have nowhere to go but up. And yet Lewis points out that someone who would have invested in the 80s in the predecessor to Citigroup would have lost more than half the value of the investment - rather accrue growth over a 22 year period!
Buyer beware.
And for the young people out there thinking what to do with their careers - many of whom Lewis laments having misread his book as an alluring tale for an exciting career - find something you can truly CREATE. There are sooo many opportunities to make this a better world through concrete businesses that truly improve life and society. There are so many opportunities to make money and do something truly good. To build something that adds value. Find one that is real.
Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman Make Plea for OneVoice
Several friends called or emailed to let me know Danny DeVito was hilarious at the Israel Film Festival, where he also encouraged the audience to get involved with OneVoice. This article will give you an idea…
“Look around. A lot of you are bald,” said the actor, who was introduced by Michael Douglas — DeVito’s oldest show business friend and former roommate in a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment — with a crack about absent hair. DeVito went on to make an earnest plea for support of the grass-roots organization in which he and his wife, actress Rhea Perlman, are involved: the OneVoice Movement, which pushes for peace in the Middle East.
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Progressive Business Ventures
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Enterpreneurial Social Ventures
