[304065]

John, that's an interesting data point, but here's another one: the original market crash was in 1987. The NY real estate market bottomed in 1992. It took five years for the guinea pig to work its way through the python, so to speak.

The City has actually been doing pretty well under our version of conservative leadership. Giuliani and Bloomberg may be significantly to the social left of your typical square-state objectivist wanna-be, but they are significantly to the right of the Democratic candidates here. Contrast the provision of basic services like an effective police presence and regular garbage pickup during the last decade or so with the situation in the 1970's.

Enough of the hollow ideological garbage about the rich-poor gap. New York City continues to embody the essence of the American Way, which is simply this, and I'm going to turn the bold face on: Every single day, immigrants from war-torn, impoverished and famished countries of every type, manner and description land on our city streets, and throw off the habits of their former homes to conform to American Capitalism as it is practiced across the five boroughs. Some make it, some don't, but the fact is that the opportunity is offered to people with NOTHING to take part in the economy and begin to better themselves. Outside at this very moment, people from a hundred different countries and racial backgrounds have put aside millenia of hostility to one another and interact in trade. I submit that that mixing happens NOWHERE else in the world, and it is the strength of New York City, which is the strength of America.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled reading of We the Living.

Oh, and Legion, do you know WHY Dick the Butcher said that line in Henry VI?