Someone gives you $1.7 billion, cash, you don't want to spend it all in one place

With its nuclear weapons program still in the development stage and not yet requiring every spare penny, Iran announces it's sending terrorists to the U.S. and Europe. And it's not just cash that Obama and his experts gave Iran, they eliminated the sanctions barring trade with the country, setting this up:

Saeed Ghasseminejad, an expert from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Free Beacon: 'If we look at Iran’s previous terror attacks and assassination campaign around the world, such a statement is alarming.

'The Islamic Republic has killed hundreds of Iranians and non-Iranians around the world in a coordinated campaign of terror.

'Iran may decide to restart the project now that many western companies are going to Iran and Iran feels its action in Europe may not be punished strongly.'

Forget the solar inactivity that's about to trigger an ice age, we've entered our own ice age here in the Greenwich real estate market

Again, no contracts, no sales reported, no significant new listings, no nothin'. I do have an accepted offer going on, and I'm sure there are others who do too, but I think the market went to sleep a month ago and won't come out of hibernation until February or March; with a flurry of closings near year's end, of course.

I think I'll head to the balmy Maine beaches while it's still warm and monitor things from there.

An unbroken history of being victimized by men since 1978 - why would we want her as president?

Today's Hillary theme, as expressed by the New York Times and echoed, of course by Democrat Underground and the rest of the usual suspects, is that Hillary has been tormented and victimized by bad men her entire career. The world is mostly lead by men, and many of them are very bad people indeed. Margaret Thatcher could stand up to them and assert her principles and her goals; even if Hillary had principles, what possible reason is there for believing that she'd be able to break free of 38 years of subjugation to assert them?

Really? There are charts for that

Former America's Cup winner Freedom runs aground on Hen and Chickens. Those are the rather-well-known rocks to the north of Island Beach, and it's somewhat surprising that a skipper familiar with the area would do that. It happens of course: my friend, the late Bill Breck was a terrific sailor, yet he and his boat spent the night on them, waiting for high tide to float them off, but Bill was racing at the time and gambled that there was still enough water to permit safe passage.  He was wrong.

So far as I know, there's no racing going on in our part of the Sound this time of year.

(Of local note, Freedom was designed by Greenwich native Bill Langan, who sadly died of cancer at an early (50) age. He was the son of the late Dr. Michael Langan, who probably delivered half the babies born in Greenwich over the decades.)

If Shrillary wins, I predict many will wish their own state offered this option

CT allows early voters to change their mind, and some are doing so

Casting a ballot for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump has a permanence to it like a tattoo — but not in Connecticut.

Thanks to a quirk in the state’s election law, thousands who have already taken advantage of early voting via absentee ballot can get a do-over.

It makes Connecticut one of the few states to allow switches and creates a subplot with each emerging bombshell in the presidential race — from the FBI reopening its probe of Clinton’s emails to sexual misconduct allegations against Trump.

Trump's behavior is no longer receiving much news coverage despite Hillary's best efforts, but her own unbroken history of corruption sure is. I'm betting anyone switching his vote in the next few days won't be voting for the Influence Peddler in Chief.

Shocker: Connecticut's chickens are returning to the roost

Teachers union pension cost will go up 28% next year  

State spending on retired teachers’ pensions is set to surge $282.7 million next fiscal year – a 28 percent increase the state is obligated to fund and is likely to push the next state budget further into deficit.

Independent financial experts informed the state this week that its required contribution to the teachers’ pension fund will increase from $1.01 billion this fiscal year to $1.29 billion in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Connecticut is on the hook to contribute what the independent fund analysts report is necessary. That’s because in 2008 the legislature and then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell approved about $2 billion in borrowing to bolster the teachers’ pension fund that suffered from decades of inadequate contributions. In the bond covenant— the contract between the state and its investors — Connecticut pledged to contribute the full amount recommended annually by fund analysts.

State lawmakers in recent years have been forced to make large contributions after years of the legislature’s promising future benefits to retired teachers while not setting aside funding to pay for them.

But wait, there's more!

The return on investments announced this week over the last two fiscal years was 1.5 percent.

In a move first proposed by the Malloy administration, The Teachers’ Retirement Board last year voted to lower the assumed rate of return on pension fund investments from 8.5 to 8 percent.

Many states assume their pension investments will earn, on average, 8 percent annually or more across a 25- or 30-year period. But critics in financial services and academic circles have argued ... that the same shouldn’t be expected in the future. Some have suggested a target closer to 3 percent or 4 percent, pointing to the yield on long-term U.S. Treasury bonds.

Moody’s Investors Service proposed a new methodology in July 2012 that used the return of high-quality corporate bonds as its new guideline, noting that their average yield was 5.5 percent in 2010 and 2011.

So to cover a budget gap in 2008, the state borrowed money, and locked itself into full payment of future funding deficits; in effect, promising not to continue to kick the can further down the road. Will that last? We're earning 1.5% on our pension funds while pretending they'll earn 8% "pretty darn soon". To quote Stein's Law, 'If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.'

The only answer to this, for Connecticut and almost every other state (or all of them) is going to be a change in national law allowing states to declare bankruptcy. That'll be interesting.

Nancy Ramer quits P&Z Commission

Appointed to a full membership position less than a year ago, she departs the scene.

[P&Z Chairman] Richard Maitland ...  said she made the announcement Monday in an email to First Selectman Peter Tesei.

“It’s tough to lose her, I think she was a real contributor to the Commission,” Maitland said. “Her insight was good, she provided a different take on everything.” [emphasis added]

Maitland said Ramer was not at the last briefing and did not think she would be present at Tuesday’s meeting.

“We’ll miss her, that’s for sure,” Maitland said.

Maitland's comments can be termed "damning with faint praise", and understandably so: Ramer was well known as a divorce lawyer in town, and even among that sordid class of legal practitioners*, she stood out as, putting it politely, an abrasive personality. She was an alternate member of the P&Z for years, giving both her fellow commission members and the public ample opportunity to experience her temperament first hand, and I rather doubt any will miss her nor regret that she's ended her service. Nothing in her term became her like the leaving it.

*No slur such as that should fail to except the late Joseph Mitchell Kaye, father of Joel, Jeremy, Jevera and, at last count, 36 other Kaye children. Mr. Kaye was universally respected and admired by every lawyer I knew and probably by everyone who came in contact with him, in life and even in an adversarial setting. He was, sadly, the exception that proves the rule about matrimonial lawyers.

Wannabe elite children who will rue the world. Drop the "L" for loser

James Taranto reports on Yale students' frail personalities, again.

Home-ophobia  Halloween has come again to Yale, a Connecticut university made famous for last year’s moral panic over Halloween costumes. The Yale Daily News reports the new master of Silliman College, Laurie Santos, “transformed her home into a haunted house”:

Kishore Chundi ’20 said he appreciated the respect and sensitivity of the costumed actors in the haunted house.

Organizers took precautions to ensure that attendees were comfortable. Santos stood at the entryway to the haunted house to warn attendees about the strobe lights inside and explain to students that they could leave at any point.

“They made sure you could tap out at anytime if it was too much to handle,” Chundi said.

Taranto: "It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when people that age were legally considered adults—even drafted and sent to war."

Mr. Tingle summarizes the Trump vote, and provides every possible reason to vote for the man

ZeroHedge dug deep into the past and came up with this video from last week of Chris Matthews urging Trump to whack Hillary on the issues: In fact, Trump doesn't need to dwell on these things because his voters have, and that's exactly why they're his voters. Too me, it sounds as though Matthews has thought about them too, and this rant was actually his backhanded way of endorsing the man. Welcome back to the fight, Chris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_qa_3BQE5U

Finally, a bit of cheer for mid country owners

Sort of. 524 North Street, asking $3.5 million, reports a contingent contract. Nothing wrong with that, but the buyers paid $5.2 million for it in 2008 and have been trying to sell it since 2013, when they started at $4.995. Assuming a final selling price of around $3.2 million, that must be disheartening.

Previous owners have done better: Designer Linda Ruderman (think Cindy Sikorsky Renfrew, and you have the style) sold it for $4.475 in 2003, and those owners got out at the aforesaid $5.2, although admittedly, they tried for $6.150 before settling for the lower sum. Ironically, these present owners likely looked at that original start price and figured they were getting a bargain at $5.2, instead of a home overpriced by $2 million.

Ms. Ruderman, just as a by the way, hasn't fared as well on her next house, 465 Round Hill Road, which has been on and on the market since 2010, when it was priced at $12.950, and still can't sell at $8.995. Looking at the two houses, I see a very strong Ruderman influence in both interiors, and that's a style that I think has gone out of fashion. The owners of 524 North might have been well advised to clean out Ruderman's lingering touches before trying to sell it and, although it's rude to suggest such a thing, maybe Ruderman herself should do the same up on Round Hill.