D*mn. It has been over six weeks since I last posted, and that post was a silly article about the virtues of automatic savings. I could explain all the reasons for the blogging hiatus, but I don't imagine anyone really cares. Let's just say lots of stuff is behind me, and I'm resolving to do better. That means I'm going to try to post at least 3x-4x a week, hopefully more. We'll see.
So what is the topic of my first post back? A lovely little article in Richmond BizSense, a daily on-line Richmond business journal titled "Strategic Default," which has certain segments of the Richmond real estate development and commercial banking community in an uproar.
Short version of the article: Justin French, a local developer with expertise in historic tax credit real estate development, gave an interview to the reporter on his intent to "strategically" default on a whole lot of real estate development debt in order to get his tax credit investor/partner, Markel Corporation, out of the deals. In other words, French wants the banks to foreclose.
I don't know anything about any of these deals other than what was written in the article. But can I just say, the online comments are AWESOME. A friend of mine said many of the commenters "sound like 15 year old girls on Facebook." After reading the comments, I think that's doing a disservice to 15 year old girls on Facebook. There are allegations of low moral character. There is name calling. Someone threatens to hit someone with a chair. This leads to virtual "meet me here and I'll kick your *ss" sort of stuff. Truly wonderful. Even Jerry Springer is mentioned. I haven't had so much fun vicariously and from a distance since Richmond Roz was kicked off "The Bachelor."
So, pop a cold one and skim the article, then get to the comments, the really good stuff. I can't do this whole mess justice, so I'm not going to try to - you have to read it yourself. Nuts.
Yeah, we missed you.
Posted by: moser | July 06, 2010 at 09:24 PM