Corp Bond Quotes

California during the 1940s had Hollywood and the bright lights of Los Angeles, but on the other coast was Florida, land of sunshine and glamour, Miami and Miami Beach. If you weren't already near California's Pacific Coast you headed for Florida during the winter. One of the things which made Miami such a mix of glitter and sunshine was the plethora of movie stars who flocked there to play, rubbing shoulders with tycoons and gangsters. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the latter two. Miami and everything that surrounded it hadn't happened by accident. Carl Fisher had set out to make Miami Beach a playground destination during the 1930s and had succeeded far beyond his dreams. The promenade behind the Roney Plaza Hotel was a block-long lovers' lane of palm trees and promise that began rather than ended in the blue waters of the Atlantic. Florida was more than simply Miami and Miami Beach, however. When George Merrick opened the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables papers across the country couldn't wait to gush about the growing aura of Florida. They tore down Collins Bridge in the Gables and replaced it with the beautiful Venetian Causeway. You could plop down a fiver if you had one and take your best girl — or the girl you wanted to score with — for a gondola ride there before the depression, or so I'd been told. You see, I'd never actually been to Florida before the war, much less Miami. I was a newspaper reporter from Chicago before the war and had never even seen the ocean until I was flying over the Pacific for the Air Corp. There wasn't much time for admiring the waves when Japanese Zeroes were trying to shoot you out of the sky and bury you at the bottom of that deep blue sea. It was because of my friend Pete that I knew so much about Miami. Florida was his home, so when we both got leave in '42 I followed him to the warm waters of Miami to see what all the fuss was about. It would be easy to say that I skipped Chicago for Miami after the war ended because Pete and I were such good pals and I'd had such a great time there on leave. But in truth I decided to stay on in Miami because of Veronica Lake. I'd better explain that. Veronica Lake never knew she was the reason I came back with Pete to Miami after the war. But she had been there in '42 while Pete and I were enjoying the sand, sun, and the sweet kisses of more than a few love-starved girls desperate to remember what it felt like to have a man's arm around them — not to mention a few other sensations. Lake had been there promoting war bonds on Florida's first radio station, WQAM. It was a big outdoor event and Pete and I were among those listening with relish to Lake's sultry voice as she urged everyone to pitch-in for our boys overseas. We were in those dark early days of the war at the time, and the outcome was very much in question. Lake's appearance at the event was a morale booster for civilians and servicemen alike. She was standing behind a microphone that sat on a table draped in the American flag. I'd never seen a Hollywood star up-close and though I liked the movies as much as any other guy, I had always attributed most of what I saw on-screen to smoke and mirrors. I doubted I'd be impressed seeing a star off-screen. A girl was a girl, after all, and there were loads of real dolls in Miami, as I'd already discovered. Boy, was I wrong." - Where Flamingos Fly

In state after state, one portentous incident after another, breathlessly reported in newspapers throughout the country in the days following the election, alarmed even confident Republicans who had insisted that a Lincoln victory could never loosen the bonds that held the Union together. As early as November 9, pro-secession placards appeared on the streets of New Orleans, calling for the formation of a defense corps of Minutemen. Dissidents unfurled palmetto flags in Charleston, where artillery saluted their appearance by opening fire with a defiant fifteen-gun cannonade.

In 1918, anti-German hysteria was sweeping Texas. Germans who showed insufficient enthusiasm in purchasing Liberty Bonds were publicly horsewhipped; bands of armed men broke into the homes of German families who were rumored to have pictures of the Kaiser on the walls; a State Council of Defense, appointed by the Governor, recommended that German (and all other foreign languages) be barred from the state forever. Hardly had Sam Johnson arrived in Austin in February, 1918, when debate began on House Bill 15, which would make all criticism, even a remark made in casual conversation, of America’s entry into the war, of America’s continuation in the war, of America’s government in general, of America’s Army, Navy or Marine Corps, of their uniforms, or of the American flag, a criminal offense punishable by terms of two to twenty-five years—and would give any citizen in Texas the power of arrest under the statute. With fist-waving crowds shouting in the House galleries above, legislators raged at the Kaiser and at Germans in Texas whom they called his “spies” (one legislator declared that the American flag had been hauled down in Fredericksburg Square and the German double eagle raised in its place) in an atmosphere that an observer called a “maelstrom of fanatical propaganda.” But Sam Johnson, standing tall, skinny and big-eared on the floor of the House, made a speech—remembered with admiration fifty years later by fellow members—urging defeat of Bill 15;

Everyone has the same chemicals in our body: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and cortisol,” Jeff explains. “Dopamine helps us to achieve—to reach our goals. Serotonin inspires pride and esprit de corps, and oxytocin inspires love and bonding. What can we do to maximize those three chemicals? I’ll tell you what—it’s service. We are operating at our optimal levels when we are in service to our fellow man. Therefore, we have discovered the trifecta of happiness, and it’s not as if we just invented it or discovered it; it has been around for thousands of years. If you read the sacred texts of all the major religions, it really comes down to one thing: service.

Investment firms are buying up more vacation homes, aiming to cash in on growing demand from tourists and remote workers. Most vacation rental homes are owned by small-time owners who list their properties on websites such as Airbnb Inc., but the number of financial firms investing in the sector is growing. New York-based investment firm Saluda Grade is launching a venture with short-term- rental operator AvantStay Inc. to buy about $500 million of homes, the companies said Tuesday. Saluda Grade said it is also looking to raise debt by selling mortgage bonds backed by its homes to investors, the first vacation-rental mortgage securitization, according to the company. Andes STR, a startup that buys and manages short-term rental homes on behalf of investors, also recently signed a deal with Chilean investment firm WEG Capital to buy roughly $80 million of properties in the U.S., Andes said. These investors are betting they can get higher returns if they rent out homes by the night instead of by the year. Low-interest rates have made it more attractive to borrow and Buy Traditional Rental Homes, inflating property prices and making it harder for new buyers to turn a profit. That has prompted some institutions and wealthy families to look in more obscure corners of the property market where competition is smaller, investment advisers say. Some are turning to investments in vacation homes, where demand has surged in many places during the pandemic as more people choose to work from remote locations and leisure travel heated up last year. “There’s a lot more yield available in the short-term market,” said Saluda Grade’s chief executive, Ryan Craft. It is the latest sign of how the pandemic is changing the way people work and live, and how real-estate investors are angling to find new ways to profit from these shifts. Saluda Grade is targeting homes within driving distance of major population centers, Mr. Craft said. His company will buy the homes and AvantStay will manage them for a fee. But while vacation-rental homes can offer higher returns, they also pose challenges to investors. Mortgages are usually more expensive and harder to get for short-term rentals than for owner-occupied homes, said Giri Devanur, CEO of reAlpha Tech Corp., a startup that wants to pool money from small-time investors to buy short-term-rental homes.

December 1944. The last Christmas for too many young boys. Then off for the forty-day sail to Iwo Jima. The boys of Spearhead had been expertly trained for ten months. They were proficient in the techniques of war. But more important, they were a team, ready to fight for one another. These boys were bonded by feelings stronger than they would have for any other humans in their life. The vast, specialized city of men — boys, really, but a functioning society of experts now, trained and coordinated and interdependent and ready for its mission — will move out upon the Pacific. Behind them, in safe America, Bing Crosby sang of a white Christmas, just like the ones he used to know. Ahead lay a hot island of black sand, where many of them would ensure a long future of Christmases in America by laying down their lives.

It was the marine corps where I first ordered grown men to do a job and watched them listen; where I learned that leadership depended far more on earning the respect of your subordinates than on bossing them around; where I leaned how to earn that respect; and where I saw that men and women of different social classes and races could work as a team and bond like family. It was the Marine Corps that first gave me an opportunity to truly fail, made me take that opportunity, and then, when I did fail, gave me another chance anyway. p175

a “Dragon’s Eye Ring” that glowed in the dark, 1940, one champ seal and ten cents. There was also a wartime “Write-a-Fighter Corps,” whose members pledged to send at least one letter a month to fighting servicemen. The Corps collected scraps of paper, rubber, and tin, sold war bonds, and planted victory gardens. On each broadcast, members received urgent-sounding instructions, making them feel an integrated part of the war effort.