New York City's Chrysler Building is one of the most hands down beautiful things ever constructed. Not only is it an American architectural icon, it is symbolic as well of a kind of clear-eyed economic and artistic vision that is in woefully short supply today.
And now Prudential Financial has sold its 75 percent stake in the building to the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. The business arm of Abu Dhabi's gub'ment.
What was that line in Blood Diamond, where Leonardo di Caprio responds to Jennifer Connelly's request for an interview? "No thanks, I usually like to get kissed before I get f - - - ed?"
Uh, huh.
14 comments:
actually made me a little queasy, kinda like the $650 billion to one trillion in bonds owned by China, Japan, etc.I'd like a good deal more than a kiss for selling out my country.
I used to go to the Empire State Bldg. in order to look at the Chrysler.
This is only shocking because because it is a famous icon and it was sold to a middle eastern country.
We are slowly being bought..... brick by brick.....
queasy is the right word.
ugh.
I still have a picture I took of the lobby in 1987 with The Mister coming through the revolving doors... it's one of my favs.
If I ran a business with finite (albeit massive) resources that I knew would some day run out or be made less valuable by technological advances, I would be very interested in getting as much profit out as possible and using those profits to buy myself a future.
Restrict (fail to enlarge supply against a growing market), reap maximum profits and buy up as much of the rest of the world as you can.
Sounds like a good long term business strategy to me…and scary as hell considering who’s doing the buying.
I am so pissed that its in foreign hands and resent it completely.
oh, let 'em buy all they want--then nationalize it--ipso facto, they's poor again.
Okay--it's jes' a dream, but hey, I'se got mah knickers twisted over this too.
warren buffett wrote in a prophetic fortune article more than four years ago, a country that goes too far down this road can be "colonized by purchase rather than conquest." this road under discussion was the selling off of american assets. reducing americans to wage earners instead of capitalists.
right now, the rest of the world owns more of america than america owns of the rest of the world. our trade deficit is somewhere around 700 billion. we manufacture very little and if we had to, would not be self sufficient. when there is a ton of foreign ownership all the dividends and interest goes to those foreign owners, giving them more money with which to buy more U.S. assets, earning more dividends, and so on.
it really doesnt matter who is the owner to me. this transnational highway thats coming to join mexico and canada via the USA will be foreign owned and you and i will have to pay to use it - or be relegated to the old highways which will not be maintained due to lack of funding.
our elected have fattened up like calfs, both demoncrats and repugnants, and like locusts can move to fresh green crop, safe and wealthy, leaving us to sharecrop on fallow ground.
nice and gloomy isnt it?
on a bright note though....the media will keep us advised on the jamie lynn spears birth, her plans as a mother and what the baby daddy does for a living.
are you ready? he is a "pipe layer"
grrrrrrrrrrherherhhahahaha
im going to go work on my rosetta stone spanish. i want to be ready for my future standing around outside a home depot in chile looking for work.
I was actually beginning to feel rather chipper again until K9 chimed in.
We got Rosetta stone for Spanish somewhere around here, too. Guess I'd better get in line. BTW, how does Chile feel about wise ass canines?
cheer back up moi. dont listen to that fleabag.
look on the bright side, its now far less likely a jet will be flown into the chrysler bldg.
you should get the rosetta stone for poultrinese. oh yes, theres much more to learn than "chick chick chick"
Usually, I regard chickens in one of only two ways: as pest control in da garden, and as table fare for Moi's tummy. But you, Dovey, you I like beyond all that. I think you have things to teach the world . . .
A Dog Said:
i want to be ready for my future standing around outside a home depot in chile looking for work.
A Hen Said:
look on the bright side, its now far less likely a jet will be flown into the chrysler bldg.
A Troll Promises:
I will be stealing both those lines.
Remember a few years back when the Japanese were buying up everything, like Pebble Beach golf course, and sold it back a few years later at big losses? I heard a guy on NPR about three years ago say, "You want to end terrorism? Let's do what we need to do to get oil back down to 20 dollars a barrel." I do believe this too shall pass . . . but maybe not soon enough.
The sale of the Chrysler Building answered a question I'd been wondering about for years, and the answer appeared in an early AP story about the sale but was edited out in later drafts. Cooper Union is a great college in downtown Manhattan for engineers, architects, artists -- you know, useful people. They don't charge tuition to their students. No tuition. And it's very competitive to get in there. I always wondered, WTF?
Cooper Union owns the land under the Chrysler Building as well as some surrounding big business towers, and the owners of the Chrysler Building, Abu Dhaboids or anyone else, pay rent to Cooper Union under the terms of a 150-year land lease. That money goes into an endowment to cover the tuition of Cooper Union students. And that's the rest of the story.
Troll: I know: outta the mouths of animals . . .
Czar: Well, as Dr. Phil says: there's two sides to every pancake, no matter how flat. I can always count on you for that.
Sad...really, sad.
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