Not sure what motivated them to dress up in box heads (I like the “pet” box that one brings on a leash) but they were happy to get their pictures taken at Millennium Park.
Cross posted at LITGM
Carl from Chicago
Gaddafi Dead
Gaddafi is dead. That news is everywhere.
Ever since the uprising started I have been following it avidly not only because it involves a horrid dictator being taken down by his own people under NATO air cover but also because of past military historical knowledge of the region from following the Eighth Army vs. the Afrika Korps from the time I was a little kid. Most of that war was fought on Libyan soil (some in Egypt, and the end came in Tunisia).
There is footage of Gaddafi being captured alive. The scene is chaotic but Gaddafi is clearly alive. It is unknown how Gaddafi thought this was going to end, but he seems surprised. For a man who attempted to radiate manliness and strength you’d have thought he’d have died under his own hand rather than being captured alive.
He was holed up in Sirte for weeks, holding off the forces of the NTC, which mainly consisted of militias from Misrata and Benghazi. After fruitless attempts at negotiations, the militias moved up and back over a period of weeks, gaining ground over time but facing fanatical resistance. It is unknown what those resisting so fiercely thought they’d accomplish; there was nowhere to go, and nothing to do but surrender or die. It is ironic that Gaddafi’s forces fought so hard with little thought of their own survival while Gaddafi himself hid in a stinking drain pipe and awaited capture. I am only speculating but his hold on his bodyguards and remaining fighters must have been due to delusions of retaking the country or from fear of offending their leader, whom had run the country with an iron fist for over 40 years. Perhaps this is similar to German delusions of using “wonder weapons” like V2’s to turn the tide against the advancing allies in 1944-5 which helped to buoy morale when the end game was clear. Or perhaps it was a fear of violent reprisals at the hands of the Misrata militias, who had seen their city destroyed by pro-Gaddafi forces and suffered brutal atrocities. Only speculating but likely the latter.
Rommel was famously quoted saying something along the lines of
He who fights without command of the air fights like a savage
Per the BBC Gaddafi’s bodyguards attempted to break out this morning and their convoy of armed jeeps was struck by either a jet or predator drone and suffered severe damage. Just as NATO played a critical role in turning the tide as Gaddafi’s forces neared Benghazi, they apparently played a pivotal role in shooting up this convoy and allowing NTC forces to close in while Gaddafi hid.
There is a lot of discussion in certain parts of the media about darker skinned Libyans being targeted as mercenaries and allies of the regime; it likely won’t be helped that per the BBC in the end his remaining bodyguards (whose mauled and decapitated bodies were found near Gaddafi) were all black.
Exactly how he died is under dispute and perhaps we will never know. All that is documented is that he was captured alive and in a crowd of NTC fighters and wound up dead. Given the violence that he unleashed and the nature of the militias fighting him (not professional soldiers) it seems inevitable that it would end up this way. This wasn’t a “formal” war; it was a civil war, brother against brother, and unlike the US civil war those types of conflict often end up with bloody frontier style justice. So it happened here, as well.
The Next Bubble
I know a lot of people who rent and recently overheard how difficult it is to find an apartment. This is anecdotal but they said that you needed to sign a multi-year lease and / or offer MORE than the requested rent to guarantee that you get one as soon as it is open.
The New York Times today had an article titled “The Lease is up, and now so is the Rent” describing the situation in New York City:
Across New York, rents have not only rebounded from the depths of two years ago, but are also surpassing the record high of 2007 during the real estate boom, according to figures from Citi Habitats, a large rental brokerage, and other surveys. That means a perennially frustrating process has become almost frenzied. Brokers say prospective renters need to come prepared to close a deal on the same day — ready to write a check for thousands of dollars to cover the first and last month’s rent, and the broker’s fee. For desirable apartments, forget about open houses — the best places are snapped up within a few days, or less, through private showings by brokers.
In the comments section on that post they mention what the article (typically) fails to do; New York’s problems are exacerbated by their ludicrous rent-control laws, which distorts developers’ behavior and forces some renters to subsidize their neighbors and creates a “shadow economy” of sublets.
In Chicago it is (comparatively) easy to build new rental stock to take advantage of the situation; in my River North area there are giant new rental only buildings going up everywhere. At this site where a bank used to be there is another hole for a 20+ story apartment building at 501 N Clark.
I remember back in an economics class in college a professor discussed the real estate boom in Arizona in the ’80s… he said that since the builders were all small, they didn’t know when to exit the market. Individually they weren’t large enough to have market intelligence (such as in an industry with a few large players, like chemicals) so they just kept overbuilding and doubling-down their chips until they were wiped out. Only a few were smart enough to take their cards off the table rather than try to chase the last win, only to fall short and get caught when the market tanked.
It will be interesting to see who will take the brunt of the collapse in the higher-end rental market that is likely to occur in a few years. Someone is financing these rental projects; while they are not as subject to failing as a similar condo project (since sales are binary while you can adjust rents in a falling economy) they are still risky and require lots of up front debt financing as well as being hostage to rising real estate taxes (especially in Chicago, where we are in dire financial straits). A lot of the banks that funded the condo buildings went under and were taken down by the FDIC; perhaps the banks that are financing these new buildings will take the brunt, too.
As these buildings get constructed downtown, expect the more marginal rental units in the outskirts to take a big hit later when the number of renters falters. I anticipate that the big buildings would cut rents rather than remain empty (since it is essentially a fixed-cost operation, like an airplane, so getting any tenant is better than letting it sit vacant), and then they would prove to be tough competition for the less-modern rental buildings. Watch and see it all unfold.
Cross posted at LITGM
Terrestrial Radio and the Death of Innovation
I have been interested in radio and music in general for many years. I wrote about the “squeezebox” internet radio here which I highly recommend.
In the September 18, 2011 Chicago Tribune they had an article titled “No way to tune out internet” with the tagline “digital competition causing static even as broadcasters try to dismiss its impact”.
The article covers a radio broadcaster convention that met in Chicago and the comments of the radio executives on the state of their industry.
Radio Advertising Bureau President and CEO Jeff Haley told broadcasters that the fight against Internet and satellite radio must be joined, particularly in the car, where most listening takes place… lagging in online and digital efforts, the radio industry finds itself swimming upstream, chasing competitors all but dismissed a decade ago. Pandora has more than 100 million registered users, while once-teetering Sirius XM is in the black, with more than 21 million satellite subscribers.
In addition to being challenged in aggregate by online radio and satellite radio, over-the-air radio is also losing amongst the young.
A recent analysis… showed Pandora’s listenership topping all terrestrial radio stations among 18-34 year-olds in the top 5 markets.
Do Not Mow
A family member sent me this great photo that I thought I’d share. The sad part was that I stared at it a bit before I got the joke. Maybe I am getting slow…
Cross posted at LITGM