the inevitability of a new york nuke ?

[Jason Arnaute]

Article on the front page of the NYT today (Aug 30,
2006) discusses the proposed sale of a large block of
apartment buildings owned by Met Life in downtown
manhattan.  It will be a huge sale, 5 billion or more.

The article goes on to discuss the likelihood of the
units being gentrified, turned into luxury condos, and
the plight of the cities working middle class who will
be forced out, etc.

But what caught my eye is that not only is Met Life
selling off this crown jewel of urban real estate, but
that:

"Last year the insurer sold its landmark tower at 1
madison avenue and the skyscraper at 200 Park Avenue,
the former Pan Am building, for more than 2.6 billion"

It further details that Met Life is assuredly _not_
getting out of the real estate market, and in fact has
over 40 billion of real assets worldwide.

So ... who has better research, intelligence,
predictive models and risk assessment than a giant
insurance company ?

And now that giant insurance company is going _very
short_ manhattan real estate ?  Including its own
landmark, historic headquarter building ?

Is it possible that some have decided that a NYC nuke
is a question of when and not if ?

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com