
Julian Assange Wins!

Manhattan’s luxury condo frenzy petered out a few years ago. Owners are taking realized losses as they offload properties at steep losses.
A prime example of this is the pending deal at 551 W. 21st St., where two units listed for a combined $26 million found a buyer after a couple of years on and off the market, according to Bloomberg, who cited data from brokerage Olshan Realty. The owner initially acquired the property in 2016 for $31.3 million and then attempted to flip it for $40 million the following year.
With no success, the owner is expected to realize a 17% loss on the properties once the transaction is completed.
Manhattan’s luxury condo market peaked a few years ago and has since developed into a nightmare for sellers. Massive supply is quickly eroding values as inventory builds. In early 2020, half of all new luxury condo units constructed after 2015 in the borough were unsold. A confluence of macroeconomic headwinds, as well as SALT deduction caps and transfer taxes, cooled the market. Then came the big bad pandemic that wreaked even more havoc in the borough.
Donna Olshan, president of the brokerage, said sellers in the market have no interest in sticking around in “New York if they’re not using the asset or if the asset isn’t giving a return.”
Olshan said a deal at 80 Columbus Circle for a 74th-story condo recently listed at $25 million. The seller combined two apartments in the tower, one unit purchased in 2011 for $17.5 million, and the other unit (next door) purchased in 2014 for $18 million.
There is some good news in the luxury real estate market — after writing about the downturn for 18 months and the plunge following the pandemic, the decline in prices has brought buyers to the table.
With Mayor Bill De Blasio doing everything he possibly can to drive both businesses (like Goldman Sachs) and individual citizens out of the city, the effects of his colossal mismanagement and general cluelessness have come at a loss for some wealthy elites who bought luxury condos in the last several years, thinking they could flip the unit(s) for a quick buck. Many have transformed into bagholders, or recently, they want out and are willing to take realized losses.
By Brian Straight of Modern Shipper
Many golfers wish they could reach for a cold drink moments after hooking their seventh straight tee shot into the woods. The lack of electricity and staffing issues prevent golf courses from offering this level of customer service on each hole. If you are lucky, your local course may have a vending machine at the ninth hole.
But that could soon change. At Sun City Country Club in Sun City, Arizona, a significant development took place this week that may open up the opportunity for food and beverage delivery while on the course, leading to increased revenue opportunities for country clubs and more convenience for golfers.
“Successfully demonstrating our drone delivery system at Sun City Country Club was the first crucial step in advancing our efforts to produce turnkey drone solutions capable of addressing real-world commercial applications on and off the golf course,” Michael Drozd, CEO of AgEagle Aerial Systems, said.
Drone provider AgEagle partnered with Valqari, a Chicago-based startup that is building a drone delivery “mailbox” that allows drones to deliver packages directly into a safe and secure box.
The companies demonstrated their combined solution at Sun City. A drone picked up a package with beverages at the Valqari Drone Delivery Station outside the clubhouse restaurant and delivered that package to a second delivery station located on the course.
“Sun City Country Club provided us with the ideal venue for conducting this initial pilot test. We greatly appreciate their enthusiasm for the prospect of enhancing the overall golfing experience for their patrons through drone-enabled on-demand delivery of food and refreshments to our secure Drone Delivery Stations,” Ryan Walsh, Valqari founder and CEO, said. “This demonstration of AgEagle and Valqari technologies shows just one of the many ways our joint system can be used to optimize fast and secure deliveries for industries ranging from hospitality to commercial deliveries and beyond.”
Once the drone released the package and departed, the Drone Delivery Station was activated, relocating the package from the top of the station to a lower compartment for the golfer to retrieve the order.
“We were very pleased to have Sun City serve as the site for the AgEagle and Valqari pilot demo,” Jamey Lewis, Sun City Country Club manager, said. “We were duly impressed with their game-changing approach to delivering drinks, food and snacks to golfers and can envision this system being integrated into our course, and perhaps courses worldwide, in the future. It really does take customer experience and convenience to an entirely new level.”
Valqari’s system allows the creation of an order through an app. A box is inserted into a slot in the Drone Delivery Station. A global positioning system navigates the drone to the landing pad, where an “elevator system” raises the package to the drone to be attached.
As the drone approaches the destination, it signals the Delivery Station to open the storage compartment, lowers itself in and releases the package onto a pad. The package is then lowered into the correct compartment, where it is locked and secured until pickup.
The recipient receives a notification the package is ready for pickup. Upon arrival at the box, the recipient must verify his or her identity and select the proper package for retrieval. The slot will then open once that is all confirmed.
Incoming SEC Chair Gary Gensler has said at the U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for the nominees to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that he’s going to be examining the payment for order flow business model closely.
He committed to looking at the business model that has been at the center of the GameStop controversy for the past several weeks, according to Bloomberg on Tuesday. Critics of the system (including Zero Hedge) have pointed to how frontrunning could be prevalent as a result of the model. This ostensibly could result in clients of zero commission brokerages not getting the best possible execution on trades.
Gensler also said he’s going to scrutinize trading apps that encourage “gamification” of trading, according to Yahoo. He is specifically looking at “how to protect investors using trading applications with behavioral prompts designed to incentivize traders to trade more.”
Gensler also said he will try to rid cryptocurrency markets of fraud and manipulation, in what would likely be a herculean undertaking for his administration.
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, CFPB nominee Rohit Chopra said he “backs the U.S. making its own real-time payment system to give consumers faster access to and better control over their own dollars.”
Gensler is reported to be worth up to $119 million, as we noted last month. Gensler was previously the chairman of the CFTC and a partner at Goldman Sachs. He disclosed his net worth as part of disclosures he had to file with the Office of Government Ethics last month. A majority of his money was made at Goldman, where he joined in the late 1970’s after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. He became one of the youngest partners in Goldman Sachs history.
Recall, we wrote about Gensler’s nomination in mid-January.
His arrival will likely be a stark difference from the last 4 years of Jay Clayton, as Gensler’s resume includes going to war with major financial titans when he was head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — and winning. Financial lobbyists sometimes simply called him “the enemy” during the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act battle.
Justin Slaughter, a consultant at Mercury Strategies, said: “The sheriff is coming to the preeminent financial regulator in the world. It means regulation and enforcement are about to get much tougher.”
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