Thursday, November 24, 2016

The Liar's Ball

The subtitle is The Extraordinary Saga of How One Building Broke the World's Toughest Tycoons and the author is Vicky Ward (2014).

Another happy marriage of New York City and real estate history, this time focused on Harry Macklowe's short tenure as owner of the GM Building.  As a bonus, it's a story in which the President-Elect also has a fairly major supporting role (largely to his detriment).  Lastly, it introduced me to a great quote from one of my investing heroes, Sam Zell:

"As good as [most] real estate guys are as transactionalists, that's how poor they are as conceptualists.  That's why they keep getting caught in oversupplies.  Because what they do requires such a micro focus, their ability to then go macro is limited."

Highly recommended.

Broken Money

The subtitle is Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better , and the author is Lyn Alden (2023). I feel like I hav...