Daniel Lubetzky

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%

My friend Justin Fox appeared on the Daily Show and provided some compelling insights about why markets and people behave irrationally…

We are very excited that KIND is now available at over 7,000 Starbucks stores!  KIND fits perfectly with Starbucks’ new focus on "Real Foods, Simply Delicious!"

The New York Times just ran a story about KIND and our efforts to break into Starbucks.

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KIND got a nice endorsement by Good Morning America.  Check this link out. Heidi Skolnik rocks!  KIND is mentioned mid-way through the review.  Some of their comments:

Tanya Rivero, Good Morning America Health: "I love these KIND bars.  I am a big fan of these.  These are delicious, and they are very nutritious."

Heidi Skolnik, nutritionist: "the more I learn about the company, the more I even them."…"so unprocessed", "whole good foods together even though it is a snack bar"…

The New York Times reports about (OneVoice/PeaceWorks Foundation Board member) Dennis Ross’s move from the State Department to the White House.  It offers a lot of theories for the move, many of them probably on target. But it fails to mention one of the most important likely factors: the interplay between all these Mideast conflicts, and the need for an integrated broad approach and appreciation when tackling them. 

It does not mean that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will fix the Middle East! (Ross would plainly disagree with that, as the article points out).  But it does mean that Iran’s arming of Hezbollah and Hamas deeply handicaps efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peace, and that lack of Israeli-Palestinian progress hampers US national interests – as well as Israeli and Palestinian and Arab progress itself.

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Here is an interview about OneVoice, PeaceWorks, and "my life" (the title and theme of the show, Hayati) that aired on the Arabic TV Network Al Hurra.

It is painfully funny to watch how chubby I was…

When President Obama was elected, many Israelis fretted that he would side with Palestinians, while the majority of Palestinians were elated.

When Obama selected Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, Palestinians were devastated and paralyzed in fear, while Israelis celebrated Rahm’s service in the Israeli Defense Forces.

And so on, with every appointment or every announcement by the Obama Administration, Middle Easterners have interpreted the signals as a game of ping-pong – a score for this side or the other.

If Obama is to score a historic agreement among Israel and Palestine, and between Israel and the Arab and Muslim World, his task first and foremost is to do to the Middle East what he did to the American landscape – i.e., to Obamize the Middle East.

Obama was elected because he rejected false paradigms of division and helped people celebrate their human commonalities.

And so in the Middle East, Obama’s philosophy has been to show that if we work together, it will not be for the benefit of one side at the expense of the other, but humanity’s benefit and that of both sides.

Obama’s transformation is moving at a faster pace than anyone anticipated.

This week, moderates in Lebanon rejected the charismatic but divisive policies of Hezbollah’s Sheikh Nasrallah, instead reaffirming a parliamentary majority for the pro-Western government. 

Obama may be in for yet another influential game-changer, after his poignant speech in Cairo, if next week Iranians elected a reformer to dethrone Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President.  Yes, the Iranian President may not be the Supreme Leader of Iran.  But he certainly wielded enormous (negative) global influence and a rebuke of his vision will be refreshing and encouraging to the world order.

Now hopefully Israelis and Palestinians will also press their governments to stop dillydallying and once and for all deliver a realistic agreement for a two state solution.

Click play on the link here to see an example of excellent data visualization, and to get a sense of the depth of this recession.

Barack Obama’s election, and his speech today to the Muslim world, may be looked back upon in future years as a turning point for human progress and global understanding.  Far more revolutionary than the historical first of the heritage he represents is the ideological depth of his commitment to shared humanity.

I LOVE THIS MAN!

The philosophy is very much aligned with OneVoice, and some of the language and definitions properly redefine terms like violent extremism that were misused and abused in the last Administration and that did not even exist or make sense when OV was forged.

Matthew Crawford wrote a really interesting article, The Case For Working with Your Hands, in The New York Times Magazine, about the overlooked intellectual rigor required when making physical things.

It could not come at a better time, as we are becoming more virtual, digital, commodified, and dissociated from nature – and from the simplicity of tangible output. Whether it is the Internet, financial derivatives, chicken mcnuggets or "nutrition" bars made with stuff you can’t decipher or pronounce, society is on a trajectory to twist and pretend away from simple realness.

KIND, by the way, is a counter-cultural effort to reconnect with the goodness of real, authentic, transparent wholesome natural unadulterated ingredients you can see and pronounce.  The philosophy underlying everything we do is to stick to authenticity: a) avoid pretentious wannabe names that betray the reality of the products we make with allegorical cute titles; b) avoid fillers; c) avoid artificial ingredients and artificial sweeteners; d) avoid overprocessing and emulsification; and just in general stick to wholesome ingredients you can see and pronounce.™

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