'Other People's Money' - Charles V. Bagli

By

Sampson I.M Onwuka

Charles V. Bagli 'Other People's Money' resumes every page of the story leading to the sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. The funds of interest included 'Church of England' 'California Public Employees’ Pension Fund and Singapore Government. 

The main event in the whole tale is that the sale of the building which was close to $5.6 billion was one of the city’s most 'historically Racist 'town-village' which was acquired by Tishman Speyer and Black Rock.

The story concerns New York especially at the tail of the housing boom, and the collapse which this more than contributed. The issue is that the neighborhood and more like the village developed, that initially the "...Civic groups, unions or tenant organizations, however, challenged the notion of slum clearance which required the demolition of fire hundred houses.

 In conjunction with the clearance of the block houses of 1911 fires and Fashion District, the Story of New York and districts such as Stuyvesant is a long story quite familiar with the rest of us – almost like the back of the hands, from , most real estate property in New York required massive involvement of the City of New York.  

But on this day of day for the largest real estate clearance in the City, the names that were present for the bidding process which was endorsed by the Mayor of City of New York include; Durst, Rudin and Lefrank families, The Emir of Qatar, the Rothschilds, The Safras, Simon Glick, Steve Roth of Virnado Trust, Stephen Ross - builders action and loss Angeles, Government of Singapore, Church of English..

It is not a topic exactly neglected but efforts to show the role of Federal Housing Authority in creating the negative balance sheet we regard as the Ghettos and the consequences of these neglects in terms of Insurance - both on the practical side of it all and the side that seem to have developed through the years.

Of course, the story that the F.H.A with some backing of US Government to place Red Marks on areas of business owned by Americans unable to pay their rent and hence a default, is to be viewed from both the actual formative years of property ownership and the failure of the government to handle the issue from early.

 II

It needs to be mentioned that historically there are other books covering the dead issue of 'Other People's money, one of is from a collection of essays by Louis Brandeis concerning the issue of exposures and the perennial investor's trust and confidence and the role of the Banks and the Banker in the course of managing other's people's money.

Compared to the movie starring Danny DeVito and other's people's money, Bagli's 'Other People's Money' concentrates on Down town Manhattan and the sale of Stuyvesant Town-Cooper Village which many of us was a hub of not justifiable history. 

 In many ways than one the issue of Red lining is a multifaceted problem that cannot be solution by any single bullet, and from all asunder that powered the U.S Labor markets, there was always the question of migrants from different parts of the world, particularly of Jewish retraction.

In comparison to happened to Chicagoan Lawndale, to the fall of Detroit and some of its disputed real estate, the issue of housing and the discriminatory attitudes of Americans and among Americans is not easily justified in our time or any time in the past.

 

One instance which is worthy of consideration in the book is why the struggle for housing and insurance and eventually the return of red-lining mirrors the more devastating cases of Stuyvesant Town-Cooper Village of New York which once built with private money as they said from Metropolitan Life Insurance under the Chairmanship of Frederick Eckers.

It mirrors the gaps between public money and funding which Americans are not privy to and the damaging and wholesale collapse of what is gradually a fart called Welfare and private interest acting in their own interest and not-for-profit organization carefully depart the culture of investment for other interest including personal interest and appreciation

 who categorically mentioned that if he will be willing to take the slum of New York such as ‘Gas District Houses’ littered with whites and blacks, that he was going apply the strict observation that it was only Whites who lived in these Apartments.

These stories connecting Chicago, Detroit, and New York, warrant a new investigative study on was perhaps behind the idea of redlining and if there was something positive about eschewing blacks from Kew Gardens Queens to have anybody other than blacks live in the poor but transformed Austin Neighborhood and Sunnyside, and where the logic is preserved innuendo New York high stake buildings where the owners made it a matter of policy – to isolate one group from another and thereby heightening the tension surrounding the neighborhood and hence preserving that sense of belonging needed to live in one place.

It may seem that being around people of similar types, whose manners are mainly as likely similar and their drifts in culture is as much preserving as the culture of neighborhoods and real estate engineered according to money types.

Perhaps the question is not so much the animus behind the birds of the same flocking together as to human twins who are not interested in each and more like deep resentment that is concomitant with similar characters living together – or with clashes of personality irrespective of bias. 

Of course the weightier subject on why for instance a horse of any color would still connection with his kind if it looked well enough, accords the same that the general interest of all humanity is the enduring facade of ultimate connections. 

 

III----Miscellaneous

 

But the VAR is easily discounted given Real Housing similar to cushion as Precious metals, but the differences especially for instance a VAR misaligned categories of convertible arbitrage and the Banks that create money through loans and mortgage, you may need the GSE; Fannie Mae, Sallie, and MBS to show relative proof that the banks renting under their vises are fully operational since they are involved in the process of money creation which is what Commercial Banks are created for.

But some of the problems with the Creation of money through Commercial Banks is that management degree that a recall of exposure could be generated through a TARF basic coverage, at least from the point of concession of foreign dominator to US Banks and/or ETF basics to US investment from both private and institutional money houses heading elsewhere (Third Tier markets in International or Third World economies, or government covered external Bonds whose major returns are through the exchange prairie and the guarantee of currency depression in spite of the in-money cover) or returning from foreign lateral (currency rotation).

 

 IV

 

It is true that the book conditions the rest of the market from one market was Park Avenue and Stuyvesant Town, it measures the history of New York differently when some its past citizens are no longer at ease with the changes in City of New York. The gilded age is last of the Tycoon age and Pier Pont and House of Morgan eased the pressure on banks by creating alternative. But prices differ due high demand and any part of human energy crescent called New York is priced article. Whether it offers a future to buy is high is another matter. It needs to be mentioned that since the coming of EU until now, the great leap towards housing and real estate has exponentially appreciated and the question which Bagli needed not to answer is if the economy could sustain so fancy a real estate that was not much of it, and required 'Other people's Money' to ease off with it.

There was no need from all information available to the general public that the Real Estate market such as those of New York would ever lose value, of course, this was story from those unfamiliar with the City. For people who lived and dined in City for at least a very young age, New York is hot potato that was getting brown and need to offload. In the 80’s in the Bronx, many houses were still lower than 90 000, and was considered expensive. In some areas, all you needed was a dollar for a down payment and then the show of income for at least 6 months. It was perhaps lack of foresight that shut many people from taking advantage of these deals; above all, people were dying by the day and usually in thousands by the State of New York.  It was very bad period and departures were common. But after 1992, Bronx and Brooklyn alone recorded the highest number of murders in one year, but from that time, effective measures were taken to cut down the killings, many of which were drug based, manufactured and distributed in the Bronx.

However by the turn of the 1999, most of these houses noticed significant upsurge, there was hardly any building within 300 thousand and unlike the 80’s were there was job everywhere, the 90’s had series of setbacks but the house prices were steady north stream. It is not the 9/11 that brokered the landscape but at least by the end of 2000, most of the Bronx and usually expensive Brooklyn were beyond the reach of every Americans. We might indicate the Manhattan has a reputation of sustaining its prices but even in the 1980s this was not the case. Saving parts of downtown, there was hardly any part of New York that did not offer affordable renting, in fact Science District such 72- 96 street were half projects from a decade or so leading to the 80’s, and further down to the 60’s, the only part of downtown at least from eyewitness account and from pictures and from many of us remembered as decaying trunks of the older cities, didn't offer the glamour that it will inherit from the later years. Whether the drug businesses of the 70’s or the 80’s, damaged neighborhoods in New York will not necessarily support fact that New York simply had as much problem as a place in recent times such as High Point North Carolina or were not as old and dilapidated as Wilson Salem. But there was the continued intrusion of immigrants and exiting of migrants and there were those called immigrants, usually first generation of some minority such as African or some Indian or people who just arrived. The silly thing about New York the buildings are not entirely wonderful, as such places like Stuyvesant with the old and brick houses are usually considered with taste of architecture. 

But it mainly for its real estate and not as far the job numbers, to the point that many Americans would not necessarily add the extra-ordinary impact of the Mighty Chinese on New York, that the fact that nearly half of everything consumed and displaced in New York was linked to China. It was Chinese entrance to World Market that shelved the no-show American City called New York from burst at earlier stages, such that one also accustomed to China Town before 1990, will hardly recognized the transformation which really their making. Bloomberg gets credit for Bowery and for repaving West Side high way which from many years of driving through, was possible to have picked the computerized faults of the pavements.  But in so far as real estate is concerned, there are questions of sentiment out of which the City divides on who gets what and when.