He’s Back !!!

In response to a passing comment by a “fan” (who for his own safety shall remain nameless but live forever as proof that one vote can make a difference) I’ve started blogging again. It’s actually been a fairly busy time. I’ve moved my office and affiliated with a new firm – SCS (click the tab above for more info) and given the enduring credit crunch – have been busier than the proverbial one arm paper hanger.

I even took a trip to Warsaw to look at a property for a client.  W.C. Fields once commented that he spent a year in Philadelphia – he thinks it was a Sunday. My two days in Warsaw wasn’t quite a year but was six weeks of the Warsaw flu. But I was favorably impressed by a number of items 1) the Polish economy is actually still growing (for those who have forgotten, that’s when the GDP becomes larger rather than smaller), 2) the architecture looked interesting from what I could see in the gloomy light, 3) it was interesting being in a city whose skyline wasn’t dominated by cranes and empty buildings as the banks in Poland stopped lending sooner than elsewhere (not through prescience but because most of the banks are foreign owned and the parent banks needed the money to try to shore up their other units), and finally 4) a surprising bit of honesty. As with most hotels, there was a guide to the city. I opened it expecting to read about Warsaw: “Paris on the Vistula” – instead the opening statement was that there is a worse time to be in Warsaw than February – it was called WW II – and that if you are in Warsaw in February you have the flu – don’t bother thinking about it. How true, six weeks later after infecting fellow workers and family I can affirm that truth of that statement. But, oh would that Wall Street had even a shadow of such a sense of honesty. But anyway, I give you fair warning and a day to visit my website and remove your name from the mailing list. Beyond that, no promises.