You don't think a real estate developer, who's the son of one, isn't exquisitely aware of the importance of interest rates? He did, after all, start during the

You don't think a real estate developer, who's the son of one, isn't exquisitely aware of the importance of interest rates? He did, after all, start during the period when they were a more sane ~5%, and experienced the run up to the peak of 21.5% on December 19th, 1980 (http://www.fedprimerate.com/wall_street_journal_prime_rate_history.htm http://www.fedprimerate.com/wall_street_journal_prime_rate_h...) and the lengthy decay---my goodness, it wasn't until 2001 that they got back to ~5%, and that was of course due to post dot.com crash Fed intervention. I can attest from my family's businesses in the very early '80s that it was very hard to do more than keep them afloat while hoping they went down to something more sane. Now that we're in a regime of financial repression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_repression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_repression) they're earning a pittance out of their retirement savings, they're as I recall getting more from Social Security (!), and due to their work history in a very low cost of living that's not all that much, significantly less than I'm getting having worked in the high cost Boston and D.C. areas.