Citizens for Apple Pie and Motherhood Except That They Are So Not November 20, 2009March 16, 2017 ALN So here‘s a company with actual sales and profits (I know! What’s come over me?!) – and growing, no less (or at least so they report) – selling at barely 5 times earnings. A way to own a little piece of the Chinese economy, on the cheap? With money I can truly afford to lose, I do. TOUGH NEWS FOR THE PLUTOCRACY The latest Stribling & Associates newsletter (‘an insider’s view of the latest trends in luxury residential real estate’) gives you a sense of just how rough it is in New York right now. Madonna snagged an asking-price $45 million double-width townhouse for just $32 million; a Russian billionaire snagged an asking-price $65 million 8,400-foot penthouse for just $37 million (barely $4,400 per square foot); and ex-Lehman chief Dick Fuld had to take a $6 million haircut on the $32 million asking price for his 16-room Park Avenue apartment. It’s truly bargain time. A 5,276-foot four bedroom penthouse at 15 Central Park West, was pegged at $80 million but went for (again) only $37 million. (Is there something about $37 million that just sounds ‘right’ to penthouse bargain hunters?) It’s a good thing the Republicans lowered taxes at the top, and stand ready to fight not to see them raised – things are tough at the top. HEALTH CARE Serious health care discussion: here. Twenty leading economists say the Senate Finance Committee’s health legislation ‘will reduce long-term deficits, improve the quality of care, and put the nation on a firm fiscal footing.’ Affront group bizarro opposition: here. The ‘Center for Medicine in the Public Interest,’ which advocates against the public interest; ‘Americans for Quality and Affordable Health Care,’ which opposes affordable health care; and the ‘Association for American Physicians and Surgeons,’ who hold that it’s ‘evil’ for physicians to participate in Medicare and Medicaid. Don’t miss this one.