Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

Would Hunter Biden have sent his failed hard drive back to Seagate?

April 1, 2022April 1, 2022 by philg

Distilling from the comments on An internal hard disk disappears from Windows, but is still apparently working:

my Seagate hard drive has failed
nobody should buy Seagate hard drives because same-price WD disks are 8X more reliable in Backblaze statistics and readers’ experience

The good news about my $500 9-month-old Seagate (now available for $300) is that it carries a 5-year warranty. So I can send it back to Seagate and they will fix it or send me a new one, rather than spend $300 on a new Seagate or 8X-more-reliable WD (maybe the Western Digital drives are reliable because they are actually designed and engineered by the Hitachi team that WD acquired? WD is still using Hitachi’s old “Ultrastar” brand name to some extent).

Here’s a question for April Fools’ Day… what kind of a fool takes up to 14 TB (formatted capacity of the disk fraudulently marketed as 16 TB) of his/her/zir/their most personal information and sends it to strangers at

Seagate RMA
United States CSO Service Center
Seagate Technology c/o Agility Logistics
21906 Arnold Center Road
Carson, CA 90810

? Who is Agility Logistics, you might ask? Wikipedia says that there is a large Kuwaiti company by this name, but the company’s web site doesn’t show any U.S. facilities. Google says that the Agility Logistics in Carson, CA is a “freight forwarding service”. Where does the failed disk actually go? Asia?

What does the tax-domiciled-in-Ireland Seagate say?

In order to protect your privacy and other interests in data, you should delete all data, or as much as possible, prior to returning any product to Seagate. Seagate realizes, however, that you may not be able to erase certain data on returned products. In any event, Seagate will take the steps described in this statement to protect the physical security of such products and, if applicable, overwrite data as early as possible on products recertified by Seagate.

The first sentence is ironic. If your disk were working well enough that you could delete all data why would you be returning it for warranty repair or replacement?

One argument for trusting Seagate, despite the fact that they won’t tell you anything about where your disk might go after the “freight forwarding” is complete, is that if you tried to dispose of the failed disk yourself and wanted to make sure someone didn’t get hold of your data by sifting through garbage you’d have to take it apart and work to destroy each individual platter. Seagate presumably has some sort of super shredder that they can use.

But, on the other hand, Seagate has the tech skills necessary to recover all of the data if they want to and look at it, post it on the Internet, etc. Who is to say that a rogue worker at Seagate won’t grab personal data and send it to a confederate overseas who will then blackmail the hapless hard drive buyer with messages such as “We need 100 Bitcoin for The Big Guy”?

WWHBD?

(And imagine how much better off Hunter Biden would have been if he’d fed his liquid-damaged MacBook into an industrial shredder rather than tried to recover its $1,000 of residual value. Daily Mail:

Files found in Biden’s personal computer included emails showing shady business dealings by the current US president’s son with foreign officials, and texts that showed him repeatedly using the ‘N-word’ and accidentally overpaying a prostitute $25,000 from an account linked to his dad.

Given that the stripper-turned-plaintiff got $2.5 million after having sex with Hunter Biden in an officially determined family court process, I’m not sure that it is reasonable to characterize $25,000+ to a prostitute as an “overpayment”)

And, even more important than WWHBD, what should I do? Ask one of our neighbors with a pavement-melting Ford Bronco to run over the failed disk 10 times?

Daily Mail story combining a bunch of people and stories that have been banned on Twitter and Facebook: “‘They’re willing to ignore facts to push their narrative’: Joe Rogan slams liberal media for suppressing Hunter Biden laptop story before the election”

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How did SNOW do versus the S&P 500?

April 1, 2022March 31, 2022 by philg

Happy April Fools’ Day! Today we can celebrate fools who buy stocks (or continue to hold, which amounts to the same thing) at near-historic-peak valuations:

(the insane spike to a P/E ratio of over 100 was in 2009 when corporate earnings went down even more dramatically than stock prices)

Let’s look at my foolish question from a year ago: Short Snowflake? I asked “How can a startup data warehousing company be worth a substantial fraction of Oracle’s $200 billion market cap?”

SNOW was worth $62 billion then. How would that idea have worked out? More importantly, how did SNOW do against the S&P 500? (since we assume that an investor would have taken the proceeds from shorting SNOW and put it into a default investment such as the S&P 500) The chart from yesterday:

Let’s remember that the S&P would have paid roughly 2 percent dividend yield during this time. If we assume that the inflation rate for anyone with enough money to buy stocks is 15 percent (includes the cost of a house in a decent neighborhood, for example), SNOW was down 11 percent in real terms while the S&P was up by 2 percent (the dividend yield). It would definitely have made sense to sell SNOW and buy the S&P. Shorting SNOW, on the other hand, might not have worked due to the various costs of borrowing the required shares.

Despite SNOW having gone down a bit, I continue to be mystified by its market cap. The company has revenue right now of $360 million per quarter or $1.4 billion per year. The accounting is tough to understand, but it looks as though they’re losing money. Why is a money-losing company, albeit one with growing revenue, worth $70+ billion? That’s 50X revenue and would correspond to a 200X P/E ratio if we created a fantasy world in which the company was as profitable as Oracle (25 percent, which very few companies achieve!). Presumably the answer is “growth” and the example of a company that loses money persistently and then finally becomes profitable is Amazon. But even Amazon, despite the U.S. government ordering its bricks and mortar competitors to shut down (#StopTheSpread), had an operating income of only about 5 percent of revenue in 2021.

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Women’s History Month at Disney Springs

March 31, 2022March 20, 2022 by philg

Today is the last day of Women’s History Month (does that mean that the other 11 months of the year should be devoted to learning about the historical achievements of people who identify as genders other than “female”?).

Here’s are some photos from Disney Springs:

The “Celebrate Her Story” banners were placed at 30-foot intervals throughout the outdoor shopping mall.

Inside an art store, a person who had a “brief” career in animation, but who nonetheless qualifies for “legend” status:

(I asked a 35-year animation professional if he had heard of Retta Scott, pointing out that she was a “legend” while he was not. He was dimly aware of Mx. Scott, but did not know of any of her legendary achievements.)

Banners remind us that Johanna Pemberton, a pharmacist who identified as “female”, invented Coca Cola:

In other Disney Springs news, House of Blues stays true to its Maskachusetts roots and California headquarters by demanding that Floridians turn over medical records:

Even if you don’t wait in line for an hour to get into the LEGO store, there are LEGO sculptures to see:

The volcano in the background belongs to the Rainforest Cafe, which shows its commitment to the environment by flaring off enough natural gas, every 30 minutes, to power half of Germany:

(apologies for the vertical video, but the primary goal was phone re-play for the kids)

We enjoyed the Cirque du Soleil show (they went bankrupt during coronapanic, but emerged after the shareholders were wiped out in favor of the secured creditors):

Readers: What stories can you share about Women’s History Month now that it is almost over?

Tip for getting food in Disney Springs: the lines are epic almost anywhere near the center of the mall, but the restaurants and counter-serve places on the far west end, near the Cirque du Soleil theater, were comparatively quiet. Another fun to do is book a ride on an Amphicar, wander around for an hour or two, and then come back to take the $125 trip around the lake. Disney owns eight of these German marvels, four that can be scavenged for parts and four in operation.

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Should Disney World offer a ride educating kindergartners on sexual orientation and gender identity?

March 30, 2022May 2, 2022 by philg

“Disney pledges to help repeal Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill” (The Hill):

Disney has pledged to help repeal Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was signed into law on Monday by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
The Walt Disney Company issued a statement shortly after the bill was signed on Monday that said, “Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.”
“Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that,” the spokesperson said.
“We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country,” the spokesperson added.
The bill is set to go into effect on July 1 and will prohibit primary school teachers from classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity, while educators of all grade levels will be prohibited from instruction on those topics that is not “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” for their students.

Note that public elementary schools are not prohibited from providing classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity. The prohibition is only for kindergarten through third grade. Starting in 4th grade, a student could receive 2 hours per day of instruction on these topics, which would prepare him/her/zir/them to “earn salaries ranging from $329,000 to $430,000” as a diversity, equity, and inclusion administrator in a state university (source: the dreaded Fox News, which seems to have pulled public salary data) and, perhaps, even more at an elite private college.

The question for today is why Disney can’t act directly, rather than trying to overturn the law passed by the Florida Legislature? Disney has announced an official corporate policy in favor of sexual orientation and gender identity instruction for K-3 children. Millions of K-3-age children visit Disney World every year. Many of them are from Florida and thus, due to this new law, are at risk of being denied “classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity”. Why can’t Disney step in to fill the gap? In the photo below, a (masked outdoors) Disney employee (maybe in California?) holds a sign reading “Help us teach our children kindness and inclusion”. But, with a captive audience of millions, Disney shouldn’t need any help to teach whatever it wants to teach.

How about a dark ride along the lines of It’s a Small World? Children of all ages, including K-3, could travel in a vehicle shaped like a Mazda Miata and learn about myriad options for sexual orientation and gender identity. By including video screens, the ride could be kept continuously updated with the latest Science and, e.g., newly developed gender IDs.

You might say that sexual orientation and gender identity isn’t as much fun as some other topics, but if Disney isn’t passionate enough about 2SLGBTQQIA+ to offer this to the children who are already on site, can we accept their passion for 2SLGBTQQIA+ in the public schools as sincere?

Readers: What should the scenes of the sexual orientation and gender identity dark ride include? I can start with the cisgender heterosexual section. A “man” and a “woman” (Kentaji will bring in a biologist to assist with these terms) are alternately bored to death by each other’s company and annoyed to death by their biological children. A banner overhead reads “Marriage means that we solve problems together… problems that we wouldn’t have if we had stayed single.” The second scene is family court where the plaintiff asks for “permanent alimony” under Florida family law. The third scene is a pickleball court in The Villages where the now-leathery heteros congregate in single-gender groups while their adult children are ignoring them from 1,000 miles away.

A separate idea: Because Americans don’t have to work anymore, every Disney World ride requires waiting in line for 1-3 hours, even on weekdays. K-3-targeted sexual orientation and gender identity instruction could be provided to those waiting in line, a literal captive audience.

Potentially inspiring, scenes of African and Mexican life from It’s a Small World (September 2021):

Carousel of Social Progress for Disney World? (see image below)
“I got a ‘dress code’ violation at Disney World over my revealing top” (New York Post), in which K-3-age children were protected from seeing some portions of a 23-year-old’s body. Disney prohibits “clothing which, by nature, exposes excessive portions of the skin that may be viewed as inappropriate for a family environment.”
LGBT rights in Saudi Arabia (Wikipedia): “Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal. LGBT rights are not recognized by the government of Saudi Arabia. … Homosexuality and being transgender are widely seen as immoral and indecent activities, and the law punishes acts of homosexuality or cross-dressing with capital punishment, fines, public whipping, beatings, vigilante attacks, vigilante executions, torture, chemical castrations, imprisonment up to life and deportation.” (Disney Plus operates cheerfully in Saudi Arabia and Disney has not suggested any changes to these laws and customs.)

Note that SeaWorld has a 2SLGBTQQIA+ section in the gift shop, but no rides specifically on the topic of 2SLGBTQQIA+. From earlier this month:

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The Disney World cathedral: perfect for astronomers

March 30, 2022March 30, 2022 by philg

One of my favorite stops on a central Florida trip earlier this month was the Basilica of Mary, Queen of the Universe (see also Wikipedia). It is tough to conceive of a more dramatic contrast with the theme parks. For starters, it’s free and you don’t have to wait in line,

For folks who love astronomy, this is the ultimate chapel:

The approach from the parking lot….

Once inside,

The stained glass covers the good old days when everyone got along:

Life was simpler before the Covidocracy. Moses stopped at 10 rules and didn’t revise them every week. And, although these rules were downloaded from the cloud, Moses did not claim that they were determined by Science.

Reviewing these windows makes me wonder if churches in the Northeast, California, and Illinois should be updated with stained glass panels depicting the lives of the modern saints, i.e., public health officials and governors who kept people safe via lockdown, mask, and school closure orders.

When you’re done with the cathedral, there is another church next door devoted to the god that most Americans worship, i.e., an outlet mall.

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Medical School 2020, Year 4, Week 9 (Urology Week 2)

March 30, 2022March 23, 2022 by philg

I am in the OR with Coach K on Monday and his partner Comedian Tom on Tuesday. I see three TURPs (transurethral resection of the prostate) on each OR day. After the patient is under general anesthesia (anesthesiologist chooses between endotracheal tube versus LMA) and draped, Coach K inserts the rigid cystoscope into the urethra. He points out several anatomical landmarks in the urethra and bladder on the screen. He points on the screen to the verumontanum, a subtle elevation of tissue identifying where the ejaculatory ducts enter. “As long as we remove tissue distal to the verumontanum, the patient should recover full control of the bladder. The external urethral sphincter and levator ani (pelvic floor) are just proximal to this landmark.”

He inspects the bladder, there are trabeculations and several indentations into the bladder surface. I ask why they’re there. “The bladder, like any muscle, hypertrophies from the increased pressure trying to push urine through the prostate obstruction.” The diverticula look exactly the same as a patient with diverticula of the colon. He withdraws the scope to the prostatic urethra, inserts an electrocautery device, and uses its 5mm-diameter semicircular wire to cut through the urethra and prostate to open the channel. As he shaves the prostate, a few bleeders are seen piercing through the clear water. He cauterizes the bleeding vessels. “The prostate is a poorly perfused organ so there isn’t that much bleeding when you cut into it; these bleeders are perforators.”

The nurse periodically hangs another bag of 7.5 percent glycine on a post near the OR table. A tube flows down to the scope to keep the bladder distended so we can see the entire prostate. Coach K explains that we use glycine because the electrocautery device would not work in saline. “The current would not be discharged to the local targeted tissue, but instead be conducted through the salt water. Glycine does not conduct so the path of least resistance is to whatever tissue is touching the wire. If we are just scoping the patient we use saline. Pure water would work, but it would kill cells from the osmotic pressure gradient. There is a small risk of hyponatremia [low blood sodium] after these procedures which is why we try to keep the irrigation time under 1 hour.”

There was a noticeable contrast between Coach K’s technical skills in the TURP versus Comedian Tom. Coach K carved out the prostate creating an elegant circular channel that was all cauterized with no bleeders. I felt Tom struggled to get good visualization during the procedure because he couldn’t completely coagulate off the bleeders distorting the picture. He didn’t “butcher” the patient, but it wasn’t as technically satisfying. I couldn’t tell if the channel was circular or how much he removed at the end. His patients still get benefits but I wonder if they have different 10-year outcomes. Coach K: “90 percent of patients at 10 years after TURP do not have any obstructive symptoms. 10 percent get regrowth that requires either medical management or re-operation.”

Although these doctors operate at our hospital, they are partners in their own practice. “Private practice is hard. There is a reason it’s a dying breed,” Coach K explains. “We are clinging to paper charts for as long as we can. EMRs are so expensive for a small practice such as ours, but we also get penalized by Medicare for not having meaningful use.” He picks up a patient’s folder. “This patient was admitted for an obstructing stone. I was called in and removed the stone. Here is the fax from the stay. Is this meaningful?” He hands me a 25-page print out from our hospital’s Epic EMR for the two day admission. The first five pages are demographic information, mostly blank (e.g., address 1 filled in, addresses 2 and 3 unfilled). There are numerous nursing notes, a CT report with paragraphs describing how radiation exposure was minimized, and his operative note. “This is all checking boxes. You cannot find actionable information.” When patients come to his private office for a follow-up after hospitalization he ends up throwing nearly their entire hospital record into the protected health information (PHI) shredder bin.

Another assault on his income is that our hospital has gradually bought up clinics and practices to form a regional health system in which providers are encouraged to refer to specialists within the system. The private practice doctors end up with the worst parts of working for the hospital, e.g., taking call, and none of the benefits. The private partners are also at a disadvantage when purchasing supplies, sometimes resorting to Amazon for scarce items.

[Editor: this was before the “supply chain” catastrophes that started in 2020]

Our last patient is a 73-year-old self-deprecating truck driver who walks in with a USA 45 hat. He has classic symptoms for BPH and an elevated PSA. He introduces himself, “I’m all healthy doc, except for my pee-pee.” The nurse measures a post void residual of 490 mL (this is pretty close to what would be considered full in a healthy individual; less than 50 mL is considered normal). He explains to me that he drinks 2 jugs of coffee to stay awake on his daily 8-hour drive. He sleeps with one of the cups due to fear of urgency and leakage. We start him on tamsulosin, and schedule a one-month follow up appointment.

One of our classmates just matched into urology. Coach K helped mentor him so is quite proud. My classmates meet at Buff Bri’s house for a penis celebration. Sarcastic Sally gets decorations from a bachelorette party store, including penis hats and straws. Mischievous Mary brings assorted nuts for snacking. We reflect on senioritis. Pinterest Penelope summarizes: “I have instagram and snap chat to deal with. I can’t be at the hospital.” Mary shares her latest experience: “I was doing an APR (abdominal peritoneal resection, removal of the rectum and anus) with a jewish colorectal surgeon and a resident. The Poop Doc was across from me, while the resident was in between the legs struggling to remove the rectum through the anus with all his might. Poop Doc: ‘You can help the resident by pushing on the abdomen from above.’ As I do this, the rectum shoots out with liquid poop, which seeps down the resident’s gown. The resident exclaims, ‘It’s in my socks!’ Poop Doc, ‘Oy vey.'”

Statistics for the week… Study: 4 hours. Sleep: 7 hours/night; Fun: 1 night. Penis party.

The rest of the book: http://fifthchance.com/MedicalSchool2020

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A $1.4 billion stadium for Afghans, Iraqis, and Somalis to watch American football

March 29, 2022March 29, 2022 by philg

“After decades of decline, Buffalo boasts a ‘Refugee Renaissance.’ Can it last?” (Democrat and Chronicle, January 2022):

After reinventing itself as a haven for refugees, Buffalo seems poised for renewal. But with success comes higher rents.
Across the nation, the results of the 2020 census were the source of hand-wringing and political debate. But in Western New York, they were cause for unbridled celebration.
For the first time in 70 years, the city of Buffalo had grown.
The city’s modest 6% growth was trumpeted by officials as a pivotal triumph for a Rust Belt city that had become synonymous with loss. Hollowed out first by suburban flight and then the loss of manufacturing jobs, the onetime steel and iron powerhouse had hemorrhaged more than 50% of its population in the half-century since 1950. By the turn of the millennium, it also ranked among the most poverty-stricken in the nation.
The city’s turnaround came from a perhaps unlikely source: refugees from some of the most conflict-riven places in the world. After welcoming fewer immigrants than any city its size in the 2000 census, Buffalo has since re-imagined itself as a haven for new Americans from countries such as Myanmar (Burma), Somalia and Iraq.
Over the past two decades, more than a quarter of the refugees who came to the state of New York arrived in Buffalo’s Erie County, even as native Buffalonians continued to flee to greener economic pastures. Since 2002, more than 16,000 refugees have resettled in Buffalo.
Higher rents as the price of prosperity
West Side homes that used to sell for $40,000 might now go for hundreds of thousands, said Beehag at the International Institute, straining the resources of agencies trying to find housing for refugees who may need months to find jobs. To house the around 500 incoming Afghan evacuees, agencies are relying in part on churches and universities for short-term housing.

Poverty rates in Buffalo have barely budged even as other economic indicators trend upward — leaving both refugees and longtime residents alike in danger of displacement, according to a 2019 analysis led by Adelman.

What do impoverished refugees “from countries such as Myanmar (Burma), Somalia and Iraq [and Afghanistan]” need from taxpayers? “Buffalo Bills Strike Deal for Taxpayer-Funded $1.4 Billion Stadium” (New York Times, March 28, 2022):

New York State officials have reached a deal with the Buffalo Bills to use $850 million in public funds to help the team build a $1.4 billion stadium — the largest taxpayer contribution ever for a pro football facility.
Under the deal, the state would finance $600 million of the construction costs, while Erie County, where the stadium will be built adjacent to its current home, would cover $250 million. The remainder would be financed through a $200 million loan from the N.F.L. that was approved on Monday, plus $350 million from the team’s owners.

“Taxpayers To Be Billed a Billion Dollars for Buffalo Bills’ New Stadium” (reason.com):

as Field of Schemes blogger Neil deMause parses in his detailed rundown of the stadium deal, the actual public subsidies probably exceed $1 billion—and that doesn’t account for things like interest payments on the borrowing that the state and county will likely have to do to finance the agreement. The fine print of Monday’s announcement, deMause notes, puts the public on the hook for $6 million annually for the next 30 years to fund upgrades to the stadium and another $6.6 million for the next 15 years to fund “maintenance and repair.” All told, that’s an extra $160 million in taxpayer funds pledged to the project beyond the $850 million price tag.

“Sports, Jobs, & Taxes: Are New Stadiums Worth the Cost?” (classic 1997 paper from Brookings)
“Sacking Taxpayers: How NFL Stadium Subsidies Waste Money And Fall Short On Their Promises Of Economic Development” (Heartland 2015): “Taxpayers funded more than half the construction cost of 12 stadiums from 1995-2013,” TPA says. “During that time, national median household income rose 0.3 percent across the United States, adjusted for inflation. In the dozen counties in which an NFL stadium was built using more than 50 percent public funds, however, median household income plummeted 5.7 percent during the same time. Twenty-six counties in America are home to an NFL stadium that received tax dollars between 1995 and 2013. In an astonishing 17 of those 26 counties, the median household income actually decreased in constant dollars after the stadium received public money for construction or renovation. Taxpayer-financed NFL stadiums didn’t just appear to decrease median income, they also apparently contributed to increasing the number of people living in poverty.”
“NFL owners approve sale of Bills to Pegulas” (2014): That payment would be for $1.4 billion. (i.e., if we don’t adjust for inflation, the cost to taxpayers, who will get nothing in return, will in the same ballpark (so to speak), as the cost to the owners)
“Celebrating Women’s History Month” (BuffaloBills.com), from a team that refuses to hire anyone identifying as a “woman” to be a player

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Bubble in the Sun book: even those with the best information can’t predict a crash

March 29, 2022December 28, 2022 by philg

Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression (Christopher Knowlton) explains how Miami Beach was essentially the vision of a single individual, Carl Fisher (a pioneer in automobile headlights, highway development, and co-founder of the Indy 500).

Jane believed the project would be an expensive mistake. When Fisher took her to inspect the property by boat, they entered from the bay side, rowing up a channel lined with dense mangroves. “Mosquitos blackened our clothing,” she wrote. “Jungle flies, as large as horse flies, waited for our blood.… Other creatures that made me shudder were lying in wait in the slimy paths or on the branches of overhanging trees. The jungle itself was as hot and steamy as a conservatory.… What on earth could Carl possibly see in such a place?” But Fisher insisted that he knew what he was doing. Standing with her on the soft sand on the ocean side of the long neck, the surf breaking toward them in slow, white rollers, he sketched out his vision for the area. It would be half beach resort and half playground. “In that moment, Carl’s imagination saw Miami Beach in its entirety, blazing like a jewel with hibiscus, oleander, poinsettia, bougainvillea, and orchids, feathered with palms and lifting proud white towers against the sky,” Jane recalled. “But I looked at that rooted and evil-smelling morass and had nothing to say. There was nothing a devoted wife could say.”

As 1919 unfolded, Carl Fisher made two final and critical changes to his business strategy. The first was to switch his target audience, which had always been the elderly and the retired rich, most of whom still favored Palm Beach over Miami, and always would. As he told Business magazine a few years later, “I was on the wrong track. I had been trying to reach the dead ones. I had been going after the old folks. I saw that what I needed to do was go after the live wires. And the live wires don’t want to rest.” He would concede the superrich and the old money to Palm Beach. Instead, Miami Beach would be for the nouveau riche; for men like Fisher himself, especially those from the industrial Midwest; men who were younger, still making their fortunes, and looking for fun ways to spend their new wealth. He would appeal to them with the sort of activities that appealed to him: contests, races, and other events that featured sports celebrities. Henceforth, Miami Beach would become “a youthful city of indeterminate social standing,” in the words of social historian Charlotte Curtis. Fisher’s second change in tactics was equally radical: he raised his land prices by 10 percent, in part to give the appearance that his lots were appreciating rapidly in value. And to further promote that perception, he offered a return guarantee of 6 percent “to any customer in Miami or elsewhere who purchased lots from us and are not well pleased with their investment.” He assured his buyers that, from then on, he would be raising prices by 10 percent every year. Ten percent was an exceptionally attractive rate of return; 10 percent that seemed virtually guaranteed was even more attractive. Fisher, in trying to stoke a small fire, was about to fuel a conflagration. Behind the scenes, other factors had contributed to the marked improvement in sales. Chief among these was the wide proliferation of the automobile. The machines that Fisher had raced, sold, and promoted back in Indiana had evolved into bona fide consumer products, viable and cost-effective substitutes for the horse and buggy. The automobile, more than the railroad, the streetcar, or any other factor, turned the American landscape from raw land into real estate. It did so by making the land accessible and thus developable: its value could be easily established, enhanced, and commodified. Land then became a far more salable product, one that benefited landlords, lenders, contractors, and real estate agents, to say nothing of the purchasers and renters of that property. Nowhere was this truer than in Florida. And nowhere in Florida was it truer than in Miami Beach, where the road built over the Collins Bridge and the new County Causeway (renamed MacArthur Causeway in 1942) at last made the resort developments there commercially viable—by making them accessible to cars. Miami Beach was on its way to becoming the most widely publicized and most famous resort destination in the country. Fisher was now forty-three years old but still full of vitality. “This is only the beginning,” he announced presciently in an ad that appeared in the Miami Metropolis newspaper late in 1919, adding that he planned to further enhance Alton Beach the following year with “a polo club house, a church, theater, schoolhouse, six store buildings, and ten Italian villas ranging from $10,000 to $35,000 each.”

By the mid-1920s, Fisher’s vision was more or less realized:

In her memoirs, Fabulous Hoosier, Carl’s first wife, Jane, captures the surreal nature of the late boom years and how the clientele of their once sleepy resort town had changed: “Pouring into Miami Beach they came, fantastic visitors to a fantastic city. The gold diggers and the sugar daddies, the gigolos, the ‘butter and egg men,’ the playboys and the gilded heiresses, the professional huntresses, the tired businessmen who never grew tired, the gentlemen who preferred blonds. Miami Beach was the playground of millionaires and the happy hunting ground of predatory women.”

Then he tried to do it all over again in Montauk, Long Island and, due to leverage, blew up. The book chronicles the fate of other folks who became billionaires (in today’s debased money) from their efforts in Florida real estate, e.g., George E. Merrick who planned and built Coral Gables and Addison Mizner who is responsible for the Spanish-style architecture that we now see all over Florida. Essentially all of them went bust after staking their fabulous riches on yet more expansion.

What’s the worst that can happen in our current real estate and stock market boom? A retired hedge fund manager friend says that he wouldn’t be shocked to see a 90 percent crash. I think that this is excessive given that Manhattan real estate crashed by only 67 percent from 1929 to 1932 (HBS) and this was much steeper than the nationwide decline.

The book should be an inspiration for more diversification, though 2008 showed how tough that can be to achieve. Here are some $5-12 million houses (Jupiter Inlet Colony) to enjoy while the good times last…

Philip’s Book Club: Bubble in the Sun (about the Florida real estate boom 1895-1926ish)

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12 Hours of Sebring, a perfect Florida fly-in destination

March 28, 2022March 28, 2022 by philg

Since small aircraft are generally inferior to a 2009 Honda Accord as a transportation tool, it is worth celebrating the situations in which it make sense to fly. The Sebring, Florida race track is actually built on part of what was once a vast military airport and is now a medium-sized civilian airport. Therefore, if you are landing on Runway 1 you’ll see the race before even getting out of the plane. You’ll hear the race as soon as you’re on the ramp (remember to pack earplugs, though they also sell them at the race). After walking through the beautiful modern GA terminal you’re a 20-minute walk from the event entrance, but the kind folks at the airport run a shuttle so you’ll be there almost immediately.

The true fans, either of beer or racing, show up on Wednesday and camp:

Imagine Burning Man with no philosophy…

Here are a Corvette and Lamborghini in 1st and 2nd place (within their class) after about 2 hours. They ultimately finished in the same positions. General Motors (Cadillac) also won all three top spots in the fastest “DPi” class.

A Ferrari appears to chase a McLaren (but they’re actually in different classes):

There is a modest midway of manufacturers’ booths and food. You can develop some new respect for your neighbor with the Hyundai Elantra:

Feel better about your job… there is an actual human zipped into this outfit in the 90-degree Florida sunshine:

Although there don’t seem to have been any drivers who identified as “female”, there apparently was a competition that may have featured some who identified as “women”:

(With the kids in tow, I was unable to stay for this important event and therefore cannot supply photos.)

Chevy’s contestants in the mechanical beauty contest… a flat-plane crank engine and a cutaway Z06 Corvette:

If you’re coming down from Maskachusetts or New York and are anxious to fit in, you might want to take the Hillary, Biden/Harris, Black Lives Matter, #StopAsianHate, and “In this plane we believe…” stickers off the Bonanza.

See you there in March 2023! (the kids are already preparing!)

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