What ever became of the numbers game?

Hello again

Did you ever wonder about what became of the old numbers game?

Used to be that there were a bunch of characters who had regular routes, like the milk man. Except these guys were selling something more important than milk: Hope- and it only cost a dollar.

I had a friend who was a numbers guy, Richie. He worked some of the auto body shops, and junk yards in Mariners Harbor and Port Richmond. His biggest stop was Proctor and Gamble (P&G). I wonder how many people reading this even know that P&G used to be on Staten Island. That’s why its called Port Ivory- (Ivory Snow). When you were a kid, you took a tour with your class and at the end, they gave you broken pieces of soap, stuff they couldn’t sell, to take home. Lots of people on Staten Island got rich working for P&G, buying stock options, and dividend reinvestments.

Wednesday, my uncle Jason, who is now 81, paid us a visit, from Florida (Thursday with his kids, Friday with hers). While he was here we looked at old photographs, and amongst them were me at various stages of my life: Me fat, Me thin, Me with long hair, Me skinny, me obese, etc.

Anyway, in 1980, I had gone on one of the great diets of my life, Essex Weight Loss Center on Hylan Blvd (which was an early form of Optifast, but in cherry, and orange flavors instead of vanilla and chocolate) where I lost about 60 pounds. Fran Reali was the receptionist (skinny little thing that she was).

When I completed my weight loss, and was svelte, I went out and bought myself a brand new 1981 Red Corvette. My first new car. I was so proud. The day I got it I saw Richie at a meeting that we used to attend together. He asked me for the dealers number that came with the car (the paper thing that hangs on the rear view mirror), so I gave it to him, and then he told me to give him $5. Which I did.

Apparently what I did was box the number of my car (played all of the different combinations of the 3 numbers).

Anyway, the next time I saw Richie, he gave me $250- I won $250 (I really don’t know how they figured out how much I had won, but hey). I had only played the numbers that one time, and I won. I am the only person that I ever heard of that only played the numbers once, and won. I beat the system, and the organization that ran it.

So what every happened to the numbers?

Proctor & Gamble closed their Staten Island operation and moved to the South West.

The Lottery finally woke up and started creating new games, to compete with the Numbers. A more reliable payer, but doesn’t extend credit. The mob downsized their operation, to its present form, whatever that is.

And Richie bought a building and opened a deli, and continued selling hopes and dreams; with ham and cheese.

…………………to be continued

So who is Alan Lasher and why is he sending me all of these emails?

Hello again.

This is the email where I talk about myself.

I am Alan Lasher. I am a 4th generation Staten Islander, Licensed Real Estate Broker in New York and New Jersey, in the same building where my family operated the Meiers Corners Department Store.

I come from a very civic minded family. My mother, Audrey Lasher, was a Staten Island Advance Woman of Achievement; and the Deputy Commissioner of the NYC Dept of Ports and Terminals.

My father, Richard Lasher, was one of the founders of the Mid Island Little League, and the South Shore Swim Club, but his favorite cause was the Richmond County Bar Association which he single-handedly ran for decades.

My parents were recently written up in the Memories column of the Sunday Staten Island Advance-

Remembering ...

When my father had a stroke in 1987, I continued to “ghost write" the Bar Association Newsletter under his name for 8 years, and for another 8 years after he died using my own byline. I am especially proud of the issue that I wrote right after September 11, 2001.

http://www.richmondcountybar.org/newsletter/pdf/fall2001.pdf

I miss writing, and that’s why I came up with Lasher's List.

Anyway, I have been in the Real Estate Business for the past 30 years, having developed numerous parcels of vacant land; built new homes and renovated many buildings, and received numerous building awards, and accolades

I don't accept NO as an answer when I think the answer should be something else. I don't accept that you can't do something, when I think that you should be able to. I have taken on numerous projects, and obtained approvals, after everyone else had given up after hitting stone walls.

Many say that I single handedly turned Westerleigh around when I rehabilitated the stores 264-286 Watchogue Road in 1985 & 1986. It took years to get the project started because the architects and contractors said to forget about it, or I was told to just tear it down and start over again.
After the rehabilitation of 264-286 Watchogue Road virtually every house in a two block radius was renovated. Channel 5 called it non-governmental urban renewal.

Meanwhile at the end of the 80’s/early 90’s, some of you may remember there was a real estate crash. So many banks failed that the government started the RTC (Resolution Trust Corp) to handle to sale of the assets of the banks that went under, and the properties being foreclosed. Staten Island lost two local banks: Westerleigh Savings & Loan, and Community National Bank. The price of homes fell dramatically for the first time in anyone’s memory. The short sale was developed to help people who owed more than their houses were worth.

The price of real estate fell everywhere- except Westerleigh- where the price of homes remained steady, or rose.

Anyway, that’s about enough of me.

So here is a little tidbit:

100 years ago or so when people gave directions through Westerleigh, there was a huge Oak Tree that was the landmark. Directions would be to Watch for the Oak Tree- over time Watch Oak became Watchogue Road.*

So stay tuned for more interesting useful and useless information to entertain, educate, and inform.

Please feel free to send in any questions about anything that you may have, if I don’t know the answer I will find it out, especially about Real Estate.

Thanks for listening, see you next time.

……………………..to be continued

So what happens now?

It seems that every day's headlines are just chock full of crisis: the Dow and the S & P are dropping because investors are worried about the crisis, and the foreign exchanges and the global markets are on a roller coaster ride; unemployment; the interest rates; number of foreclosures; the MTA; GM, FORD & Chrysler; Monthly and quarterly profit reports; executive salaries and bonus’s and golden parachutes; and on and on with more and more Doom and Gloom. The naysayers are saying that this is just the beginning and that the hard times haven’t even begun yet.

And maybe they are right.

Happy Thanksgiving.

And then there are the blamers, finger pointers, fault finders, name callers, and of course the media. They are really going to have a field day once the Congressional hearings; Attorney General Investigations; and Indictments begin. More important to find someone to blame than to find a solution.

The economic crisis-- the chaos and turmoil -- has affected each and every one of us. Some of us are having trouble paying our mortgages...or have stopped paying our mortgages. Some of us can’t pay our credit cards; and, to add insult to injury, the banks have cut our credit limits that we worked so hard to get even though we are current and never late, (and they have raised the interest rate to boot!). (And we are going to bail out American Express). A friend of mine who owns a restaurant told me that the pharmaceutical reps have lost their expense accounts, so the free lunches for doctors have ended at the hospitals, and his restaurant has lost 10% of its business from this alone.

But today is my birthday; and notwithstanding the headlines, I am having a really great day, and so I decided that I want to share with you my thoughts on: What happens now?

First and foremost:

Life will go on!

People are still going to get married and divorced.

New people are going to be born, and old people (and some not old enough) are going to die.

The Yankees and the Mets are going to bring us baseball from new stadiums next season.

The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.

Some of us will lose our jobs, and our homes, our businesses will lose some customers. Some of our tenants and clients and customers won't be able to pay their bills.

All of us will adapt and do what we have to do.

And Life will go on.

We are all in this together, and I am here for every one of you.

And Lasher’s List is going to be the glue to help hold it all together.

I hereby launch, Lasher’s List, on this my 58th birthday (I know you were all dying to know), as a place that you can count on to get a periodic fix, at no charge, of truth, entertainment, fun...and useful and useless information.

I’ll tell you about me.

You are going to be educated, and entertained by my vast knowledge, investigative skills and extensive research on all sorts of issues affecting Staten Island. I am going to find out what is really going on with some of the places that we drive by every day and some of the so-called "big deals" we’ve heard about. I’ll tell you about recent sales and what things rent for and what things cost to fix.

I have created a blog at Google where I will post this today. It contains all of the emails that I have already sent (not the listings showing properties). With this blog I shall be able to answer your questions; and, if I don't know the answer, I promise to find the answer! Just click on the blog's address below, and you'll get there! (In a future email I will describe the trials and tribulations of sending out multiple emails at one time, and why you probably didn’t get this email today. I will share this information with you as I discover it, and together we will all become more blog savvy)

http://lasherslist.blogspot.com/

But anyway, we and our world have entered into hard times. Many of you may remember the early 90’s, some of you may remember the late 70’s, and maybe a few of you the 30’s. But, together, we are going to witness and participate in this round, and I am going to point out the opportunities that arise, and how to take advantage of them, and how and why not to brood and cry.

Some people see problems in opportunities, and some people see opportunities in problems*. The general theme and tone of this “blog” will be to find the opportunities within the problems, and to have a good time doing it.

So welcome aboard, and remember, if you know anyone who would like to be receiving these, please send me their email address, so they can be added to Lasher's List.

……………………to be continued

*I saw this the other day, it grabbed my attention, but I can’t remember where I saw it and to whom to give credit. When I find out who said it, I will post it on my Blog

What is this financial crisis about anyway?

So when the real estate market was good, people bought houses, got mortgages, and closed.
The mortgage brokers got paid. The banks got paid.
Wall Street came up with Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS’s), and made a killing. They even had their own mortgage banks to make the loans.
The bonds were sold to foreigners and foreign governments, and Wall Street made a lot of money selling the loans/bonds.
Now here is where I get confused! People started defaulting on these subprime mortgages, and the value of the bonds went down. Wall Street wrote down their lost value (in some cases by billions of dollars), which was a tax savings used to offset their billions made in profit. Easy!
What do we care if foreign investors lose money? When the bonds were purchased they were paid for in cash. Even if Wall Street invested their own money, along with their clients’ money and the bonds lost value, they were paid for. So what’s the problem?
When Junk Bonds went bad, some people sold them at discounted prices; and the big guys bought them and eventually made home runs. No one expected the government to step in.
With the dot coms, the stock prices jumped through the roof, until reality set in and we realized that some of these companies weren’t making profits and wouldn’t for years, if ever. All of a sudden the price of the dot com stocks crashed. No one expected the government to step in.
So why did we have to bail out Wall Street?
Maybe Wall Street realized that they had "screwed up", and that they were worried about scandals, and losses, and indictments, so they needed to create a smoke screen to hide behind? Could it be that the billions of shares of stock traded every day are merely stock manipulations to generate commissions, and/or to create a crisis according to a secret agenda?
The Treasury Secretary and former managing partner of Goldman Sachs (who I’m sure owns hundreds of millions of dollars worth of their stock and/or partnerships) said, “Let's buy the "toxic bonds" so poor Wall Street doesn't have a problem.” The Bush Administration, who had already given away the store to the very rich, was consistent- anything to help the very rich, because then it would trickle down to everyone else. Yeah, right!
Or could it be that they were worried about their end-of-the-year bonuses? Thanks to the perceived crisis due to stock manipulation, Wall Street was able to fire thousands of employees and cut overhead, so that the billions of dollars in savings could be used where it's most needed - as end-of-the- year bonuses.
…………………to be continued