Middle class offered one of John McCain's mansions

FOR SALE

via Wonkette:

"It’s a 5,000+ square foot estate with nine bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a seven-car garage, an entire extra gourmet chef’s kitchen out by the swimming pools, a 1,750-square-foot guest house, and it’s all on 2.7 gated acres. Remember, you’re middle-class if you make up to $5 million a year, so following the old rule about buying a house — the purchase price should be no more than three times your gross annual income — you can easily afford $12 million. But go ahead and offer $7.5 million, because the real-estate market in Phoenix is wrecked."

http://wonkette.com/403176/buy-one-of-john-mccains-unwanted-mansions-for-12-million

This is Class Warfare

So the conventional wisdom regarding the House of Representatives' failure to pass the, cough, $700 billion bailout of Wall Street goes something like this: Representatives from rural, largely Republican districts killed the bill because they were inundated with calls and emails from uninformed hicks constituents demanding they vote no.

But maybe the constituents are just differently informed.

Regular people in American who used to be middle class have, in the last year or so, seen their ability to pay for gas, food, heat, medical expenses, taxes and in many cases their mortgages, erode or disappear. They have pretty much lost everything already. So when W. and prominent lawmakers warn them that massive amounts of tax dollars are needed to avoid a catastrophe, they rightly wonder whose catastrophe? Whose Great Depression?

Essentially lawmakers are asking suffering people to suffer more so that everybody else doesn't have to suffer too much. This thing is not going to fly, I'm afraid.

Rural people know they can always shoot their lunch and turn the hides into blankets. What will we turn our credit default swaps and higher educations and blogs into?

Looks like we can blame the Republicans

So, the bailout failed, the markets are absolutely tanking, and it is the Republicans' fault. I wasn't necessarily in favor of handing over, ahem, $700 billion to the Fed and big business, but if it had passed and it had worked, people would have just grumbled about a wasteful Democrat-led Congress.

Now, we've taken what seems like a bad road for the world economy, but (upshot!) a terrible road for Republicans. This will be pinned on them. And John McCain, who delivered 40% less votes than he promised.

Times are changing

Alphabet City in the 70s

Walking up Avenue A the other day I did a mental tally of all of the places that have closed down recently. It's like watching the 90s in reverse.

Here's a partial list of Avenue A (and adjacent) restaurants that have closed recently:

• Two Boots Restaurant
• Esashi (the so-so sushi place)
• Mo Pitkins (that bar/performance space formerly co-owned by Jimmy Fallon)
• Via Delle Zoccolette (which was actually quite good and pleasant)
• Hopscotch (that irritating child-friendly but still hip and happenin' cafe)
• Oriental Grill (home of an excellent pu pu platter)
  

Mo Pitkins has been for sale for like a year now with no takers.

When I first moved to New York in 1988 you could count the number of non-bar businesses on Avenue A on one hand. In fact, I think that the only semi-upscale restaurant was Avenue A Sushi. Now even they are struggling and experimenting with various 1/2-off deals at different times.

Actually I see this as a good thing. There were very few legitimate businesses in Alphabet City in the old days, but we had a lot of fun. The night didn't really get going until the after hours places opened at 4. Maybe we'll get a little of that action back.

Ultimately, we aren't suffering some great downturn, though. We are just getting back to reality. I remember several years ago wondering at what point did every yahoo with a 2 bedroom split level in Bayonne become a millionaire? Well it turns out that everybody was just worth a million in prizes and now we return to a world of fewer fancy restaurants, cheaper happy hours and, hopefully, less hubris.