Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, November 11, 2011, 5:28 PM
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A few years ago I read a fantastic book called The Secret Life of Lobsters. I had picked it up at Barnes & Noble since I had already been making feeble attempts to fish for lobster for a number of years.
I wrote a post on “Lobster Prices And Subprime Lending” back on July 5, 2009, the day after our family’s annual July 4th lobster bake. The 2009 post links out to the book and a great radio interview with Mr. Corson. The book is very well written.
I opted to write about the subject when I read a related article by Mr. Corson in The Atlantic called “The Mystery of Cheap Lobster” which connected lobster fishing and subprime lending. I strongly recommend you listen to his radio interview in my 2009 post.
Fascinating.
The Real Deal stumbled upon my lobster obsession recently and asked me to send a photo for proof of my lobster fishing exploits, publishing it in The Real Deal Magazine in a fun article called “Cheap lobster, courtesy of subprime lending“
I’ve been talking about this issue more and more in public forums because it shows how this credit crisis touched virtually everything and everyone, especially as I usually observe 5-6 lobster-related items on the menu of nearly every restaurant I have been to for the past 2 years.
Lobster has become the Coke syrup of the restaurant business. The cost is so low but the value perception is so high that many new items containing lobster are entering the menus of many modestly priced venues.
Confession: I threw back my first lobster (the one in the photo) and I never became a very good fisherman.
Next time you go out to dinner, be sure to count the number of lobster menu items – you’ll be surprised at how many there are.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 10:40 AM
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I had the pleasure of speaking with Guy Kawasaki, former Chief (Software) Evangelist at Apple Computer in the early days of Macintosh – who has become a prolific author in addition to being a technology entrepreneur. While I claim to avoid the self-help book genre, I realize I’ve read nearly all of his books. Guy released his 10th book today: Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions. Here are some reviews.
His first book, The Macintosh Way, is now a free download and was always one of my faves – because it came out as we were building our company, Miller Samuel, entirely by using Macs. He later ran ACIUS, developer of 4th Dimension, the database application we ran for about 15 years to manage our data.
This was a pure treat for me as I got to talk about the early days of Apple, reminisced about Guy’s one word email technique (I shared my 15 second voicemail rule), his other ventures such as Alltop.com and Garage.com, the state of marketing today and how to make yourself enchanting.
Fun!
Check out the podcast.
The Housing Helix Podcast Interview List
You can subscribe on iTunes or simply listen to the podcast on my other blog The Housing Helix.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, January 21, 2011, 11:56 AM
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I sat down with my good friend Barry Ritholtz, CEO/Director of Equity Research of Fusion IQ, Author of Bailout Nation and the engine behind The Big Picture Blog.
Barry is the only person I know who is described as providing “trenchant economic commentary” -(Norris/NYT) in fact, I’ve never even used “trenchant” in a sentence before now. Barry makes his 3rd visit to The Housing Helix podcast and he does not disappoint his fans for the depth of his insight.
This is an R-rated (“R” for “Ritholtz”) podcast – children, young adults, rating agencies and commercial bankers beware.
Check out the podcast.
The Housing Helix Podcast Interview List
You can subscribe on iTunes or simply listen to the podcast on my other blog The Housing Helix.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 10:36 AM
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I interview the always intense Adam Leitman Bailey, the eponymous founder of the real estate law practice that specializes in real estate.
He’s involved in two high profile cases at the moment, representing the developer of the proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero in a lawsuit and the recent decision in favor of his clients in the case against the sponsor of a luxury condominium building on the Upper East Side who must return a $510,000 buyer’s deposit. Adam also touches on a another case involving new development known as Sykes v. RFD Third Avenue Associates LLC.
We talk Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act of 1968, how it was interpreted in the Related Co case and what it means to the new development market going forward.
Adam has written a guide for first-time home buyers through the purchase process: Finding the Uncommon Deal: A Top New York Lawyer Explains How to Buy a Home for the Lowest Possible Price, that is scheduled for release by John Wiley & Sons in April 2011.
Check out the podcast.
The Housing Helix Podcast Interview List
You can subscribe on iTunes or simply listen to the podcast on my other blog The Housing Helix.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, August 20, 2010, 11:31 AM
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I met Ilyce Glink a few years ago when she moderated a panel I was on during an Inman conference and she impressed me. She is a high energy, prolific writer and provider of personal finance, real estate and consumer advice through countless medium. Her efforts include her recent book Buy, Close, Move In!, her publishing company Think Glink, LLC, her web site ThinkGlink.com, her weekly radio show on WSB in Atlanta, her blog, or should I say, blogs, nationally syndicated column and, well, you get the picture.
She sets me straight on eBooks, typos and provides insight on how she gets it all done. It’s a great conversation.
Check out the podcast.
The Housing Helix Podcast Interview List
You can subscribe on iTunes or simply listen to the podcast on my other blog The Housing Helix.
Posted by Jonathan Miller -Monday, March 22, 2010, 12:28 AM
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I’m a big fan of Michael Lewis’ writings starting with Liar’s Poker (think onion cheeseburgers for breakfast and traders owning more speed boats than suits) and much of his other work including Money Ball, Panic (a collection of his favorite news accounts of the credit crisis) and The Blind Side (Academy Awards), but I am very much anticipating reading his new work “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.“
Admittedly I am growing weary of Wall-Street-what-went-wrong books and I still need to read Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “Too Big Too Fail” compendium on my nightstand (worrying its becoming “Too Big To Read”) but I definitely will. But the Lewis book has got my attention for some reason. It’s weird to sound like I am recommending a book I haven’t purchased or read yet but I guess I am relying on past experience.
In the book acknowlegements, the WSJ Deal Journal blog points out that Lewis:
praises “A.K. Barnett-Hart, a Harvard undergraduate who had just written a thesis about the market for subprime mortgage-backed CDOs that remains more interesting than any single piece of Wall Street research on the subject.”
And my favorite quote referring to the idea of making the numbers say what you needed them to say.
“If you just randomly start regressing everything, you can end up doing an unlimited amount of regressions,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Read the thesis.
She was able to track down information and cover the looming CDO disaster completely on her own through basic research.
Perhaps most disturbing about these losses is that most of the securities being marked down were initially given a rating of AAA by one or more of the three nationally recognized credit rating agencies, essentially marking them as “safe” investments.
A lot can be said for taking a detached or neutral look at a complicated situation. Sometimes the collective mindset takes on blinders, or in this case, blind folds.
A couple of charts to peak your interest.
Posted by Jonathan Miller -Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 11:45 AM
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President Obama announced his intent to appoint several individuals to serve on the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. One of them is Edward Tufte who has been my inspiration to look at the housing market with data in different ways. He’s taught me how to see through the BS in charts and tables we are spun with nearly every day – and no – I am not one of his PR people.
He says:
I will be serving on the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. This Panel advises The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, whose job is to track and explain $787 billion in recovery stimulus funds.
Anyone who has been reading this blog since the early days (2005) knows I am a big fan of Edward Tufte, professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University. His self-published books are fascinating and cover the way we present information. I’ve attended one of his seminars when he came to New York.
I especially love his essay on Powerpoint, the worst way to present information in the history of mankind (ok, so I get a little emotional about the topic). Here’s a sampling.
Posted by Jonathan Miller -Friday, December 18, 2009, 11:30 PM
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[click to play]
I was invited this morning to join Tom Keane and Ken Prewitt on their must listen to radio show Bloomberg Surveillance at 8am. I sat in for about 3/4 of an hour. Love this show – avid listener of their podcasts.
This time, they brought in a few cameras for a few minutes, mid-interview and cut in from the Bloomberg TV broadcast to join us. Fun!
Mentions during show
55 Sq Ft Apartment [NY Post]
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 [Amazon]
Show links
Listen to the show podcast [Bloomberg]
Watch the TV clip [YouTube]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Monday, October 12, 2009, 6:04 PM
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In this podcast, I have a conversation with Justin Fox, economics and business columnist for Time Magazine and author of the book The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street.
As publisher Harper Collins says about the book:
“Chronicling the rise and fall of the efficient market theory and the century-long making of the modern financial industry, Justin Fox’s The Myth of the Rational Market is as much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk.â€
Here’s his interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
I first became acquainted with Justin by stumbling on his blog The Curious Capitalist which takes complex economic issues and translates them into everyday speak.
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[Audio Quality Alert] What began as a 30-minute interview was cut to 18 minutes because of a random recurring podcast issue I have been trying to resolve: audio distortion. About 18 minutes into the interview I had to cut it short. My sincere apologies to Justin. But I got an idea and I set out this past weekend to solve the mystery. I am happy to report: problem solved going forward – I explain how at the end of the podcast – so much for myth of the rational podcast.
Check out the podcast
The Housing Helix Podcast Interview List
You can subscribe on iTunes or simply listen to the podcast on my other blog The Housing Helix.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, July 24, 2009, 3:09 PM
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I had a fun time interviewing Ali Rogers of CBS MoneyWatch where she writes a column Ask The Agent. She’s a very smart chronicler of issues related to housing. A few years ago, she authored a book: Diary of a Real Estate Rookie to good reviews and wrote a column for Inman News for three years of the same name. She is also into the Twitter thing and is a successful real estate agent.
I often tell her – she’s no “Rookieâ€.
Check out the podcast.
The Housing Helix Podcast Interview List
You can subscribe on iTunes or simply listen to the podcast on my other blog The Housing Helix.
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