The good news is that states and cities have begun fixing bridges, paving roads, repairing subway tracks, and upgrading sewage treatment plants.

President Obama made a big deal late last week about high speed rail and pointed to $8 billion in stimulus spending to get some projects going.

General Growth finally succumbs to a Chapter 11 filing. The gargantuan City Center project in Las Vegas sits on the edge. Scores of other investments and developments hit the skids. And we have been warned for years to brace for refinancing carnage once the generous terms of recent vintage loans burn...

Keeping your powder dry? Good idea, because it will be some time before the commercial real estate markets settle into a bottom. You'll probably be waiting well into next year or even later depending on how long it takes for the economy to regear. And for all the happy talk around the stock market,...

The irony is commercial developers and construction lenders had been relatively disciplined in the recent run up. There was little pure spec office development. It was hard to build new hotels. Big projects especially were difficult to finance even when lenders were throwing money at just about anybody...

Mortgage securitization had been touted as wunderkind gamechanger bringing unparalleled liquidity to the real estate markets, allowing banks to lend more, enabling more people to get residential mortgages so they can own homes, and providing greater flexibility in transactions for commercial owners and...

The forward-looking stock market has been on a bit of a roll lately, offering glimmers of hope. For the lagging commercial real estate industry downward trends follow employment numbers, bankruptcy filings, and delinquency rates all of which get worse. Everybody pins their hopes on a housing recovery--low...

The ouster of GM boss Rick Wagoner (great name for a car company honcho) and the ultimatum to Chrysler (sign a deal with Fiat or go bankrupt) signal conclusively that the Midwest-based U.S. car industry will shrink dramatically. Any autoworkers or Michigan pols who were holding out hope for a different...

In Chicago, frustrated motorists this week broke new downtown parking meters which charge up to $3 an hour--that's a bunch of change. Over the next six months the meter system will be adjusted to accommodate credit cards, which should alleviate the need to husband quarters. But what drivers...

Here's a pastiche of conversations I had last Friday: