Healthcare Concerns

By JUNE FLETCHER

Q: I found a three-bedroom house, built in the 1970s, that I’d like to buy. The current homeowners are retiring to Florida. But the house is being sold “as is.” What does that mean, exactly? I’m a little worried, because it smells musty.

—Nashville, Tenn.

A: “As is” clauses in sale contracts mean that sellers aren’t making guarantees as to a property’s condition, and aren’t going to make any repairs. That’s a buzz-kill to many buyers, who assume, rightly or wrongly, that something major is wrong with the house.

But the problem can lie with sellers’ finances, instead. Folks who are living on a fixed income—perhaps the situation with the sellers of the house you want to buy—or going through a job loss or divorce may not have the cash to make any fixes. So before you make an offer, find out as much as you can both from your agent and the listing agent as to why the house is being sold “as is.”

Then, proceed with caution. Buying “as is” means that you are agreeing to shoulder the costs for any obvious defects, from ripped screens to stained carpeting. Hidden defects that sellers know about should be listed on the property disclosure form. (That includes issues that could be causing that musty smell, like leaky pipes or water intrusion from the recent snowstorms.) Back away from the deal if the sellers ask you to sign a disclaimer noting that they have elected not to fill out this form. If you do, you’ll be signing away an important protection.

If you decide to make an offer, make sure that it is contingent on inspections for mold and wood-boring insects like termites that dwell in moist wood, as well as a general home inspection. If problems are found, feel free to ask for reasonable repair costs. Additionally, you might ask for a small sum, say $1,000, to cover any handyman issues that might arise during the escrow period. The sellers may decide to turn you down, but with buyers still in short supply, they may well work with you.

Meanwhile, the source of that musty smell must be pinpointed. It may be coming from one of the current owner’s possessions, like old books that have been left in a humid basement. But if it is coming from the house itself, then it must be remediated. Drywall often smells bad when it becomes wet, as mold, mildew and bacteria devour it. Superficial splashes can sometimes be cleaned with a bleach solution, but if the drywall got really soaked then it will have to be replaced.

And keep in mind that if mold is found, you may have difficulty obtaining insurance. Since the hurricane-ravaged mid-2000s, many insurers began to limit or even eliminate coverage for mold. Some will not write policies at all on homes that have had even minor mold damage.

Send questions or comments to June Fletcher at fletcher.june@gmail.com

Por TOM LURICELLA

A Bridgewater Associates faturou alto para seus investidores nos últimos anos com suas apostas pessimistas sobre boa parte da economia mundial. E a firma de fundos de hedge não tem quaisquer planos de mudar sua visão sombria neste ano novo.

Robert Prince, codiretor-presidente de investimentos da Bridgewater, e os executivos da maior firma de fundos de hedge do mundo se preparam para pelo menos uma década de crescimento lento e desemprego alto nas economias dos países ricos. Prince descreve essas economias — especialmente os Estados Unidos e a Europa — como “zumbis” e diz que elas continuarão assim até conseguirem eliminar suas montanhas de dívidas.

“O que vemos é um cenário de sistemas econômicos quebrados e operando na UTI”, diz Prince. “Estamos vivendo uma desalavancagem histórica que provavelmente levará 15 a 20 anos, e só estamos no quarto ano.”

Na Europa, “a crise de dívida ainda está longe de terminar”, diz ele. A crise financeira e econômica significa que os juros dos EUA e da Europa ficarão praticamente no zero durante anos.

Neste cenário desolador, Prince diz que as ações continuam vulneráveis a “correntes de ar” causadas por choques como más notícias na Europa. Mas para os investidores de longo prazo de olho na próxima década, diz ele, investir em ações pode ser uma boa alternativa. Dá para faturar até com Treasurys, apesar dos juros batendo recorde de tão baixos, e o ouro provavelmente voltará a subir enquanto os bancos centrais imprimem dinheiro para impulsionar suas economias, diz Prince.

Os pontos de vista da Bridgewater são acompanhados atentamente por outros investidores, devido ao status elevado da empresa no mundo competitivo das aplicações em fundo de hedge. O principal fundo da Bridgewater, o Pure Alpha Strategy Fund, é considerado um dos melhores do mundo.

O fundo estava em alta de 25% em novembro desde o início do ano, segundo pessoas a par da situação. Os fundos macro caíram em média 3,7% no mesmo período, segundo a Hedge Fund Research.

O fundo da Bridgewater está posicionado atualmente para a alta do ouro, a valorização das moedas dos países emergentes da Ásia e o rendimento menor nos mercados de títulos de dívida soberana de países de baixo risco, diz Prince.

A firma lucrou em 2011 com aplicações em ouro, mas recuou do investimento no terceiro trimestre. Ela também passou de uma visão pessimista sobre os Treasurys no início do ano para aplicações com vista a uma alta nesses papéis. A firma também se beneficiou da alta nos principais mercados europeus de títulos de dívida e escapou dos fortes prejuízos dos outros fundos macro, que tinham apostado na desvalorização do euro perante o dólar. Em vez disso, a Bridgewater apostou corretamente na desvalorização do euro em relação ao iene.

Fundada em 1976 por Ray Dalio, a Bridgewater administra US$ 125 bilhões e tem 1.400 empregados. Prince, de 53 anos, entrou na firma em 1986. Entre os clientes da Bridgewater estão instituições como fundos de pensão e de dotação, juntamente com governos e bancos centrais estrangeiros.

O Pure Alpha subiu todos os anos desde 2000 e só teve três anos em baixa desde 1991. O fundo propiciou um retorno de 9,4% depois de comissões em 2008 e depois de uma alta 2% em 2009 — a menor em uma década — obteve retorno de 44,8% em 2010.

Numa sala de reuniões na sede da Bridgewater, em Westport, no Estado americano de Connecticut, Prince desenhou um quadro preocupante sobre os desafios das economias dos EUA e da Europa.

As notícias recentes sobre a economia americana, melhores que as previstas, não devem marcar o início de uma expansão saudável, diz ele. A retomada do crescimento econômico têm sido alimentada pelo declínio da poupança, algo que não deve ser sustentável no longo prazo sem expansão na renda e no emprego, pois o crescimento da oferta de crédito no longo prazo também continua fraco, diz ele.

Enquanto isso, a Europa está a caminho de uma recessão possivelmente profunda, com os políticos de mãos atadas por uma crise interconectada dos bancos e das dívidas soberanas. “Há bancos insolventes dando suporte a governos insolventes e nações insolventes dando suporte a bancos insolventes”, diz ele.

O gestor acredita que os preços do ouro devem voltar a subir em meio à contínua impressão de dinheiro por parte da Reserva Federal dos EUA e outros bancos centrais. Esses esforços efetivamente desvalorizam as moedas desses países em comparação com o ouro, diz Prince.

Prince também acredita que as ações são um investimento atraente em uma perspectiva de longo prazo, especialmente em comparação com títulos de dívida ou dinheiro.

By RUSSELL ADAMS

News Corp. is expected to name veteran Washington attorney Gerson Zweifach as its next general counsel, filling what is likely to be a sensitive role as the media conglomerate deals with the fallout of the phone-hacking scandal that erupted this summer.

A deal hasn’t been completed and talks could still fall apart. However, News Corp. is in advanced discussions with Mr. Zweifach and could announce his hire as early as January, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Mr. Zweifach (pronounced ZWEYE-fak) couldn’t be reached for comment.

Mr. Zweifach has spent three decades at Williams & Connolly LLP where he has tried antitrust, securities, media and first amendment cases, including a spate of high-profile lawsuits defending the National Enquirer.

He also represented former New York Stock Exchange chief executive Richard Grasso in a civil trial brought in 2004 by former New York state attorney general Eliot Spitzer to recoup much of Mr. Grasso’s $187.5 million pay package.

In 2008, the state Court of Appeals ruled Mr. Grasso was entitled to the money.

Mr. Zweifach would succeed Lawrence Jacobs, News Corp.’s former top lawyer, who resigned in June.

Mr. Jacobs’s departure came just six months after onetime Justice Department antitrust chief Joel Klein joined News Corp. as an executive vice president in the office of the chairman.

Mr. Klein, who joined News Corp. after a stint as New York City schools chancellor, was initially hired to help the media company carve out a role in the education business. But not long after he joined the company, Mr. Klein began playing a role in the company’s legal affairs.

Mr. Klein’s presence created tension at News Corp. because it appeared to encroach on Mr. Jacobs’s turf, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Jacobs decided to leave the company as a result of Mr. Klein’s expanded role, the people said.

Mr. Jacobs said at the time that he was stepping down to “pursue new opportunities.”

Since then, Janet Nova has served as interim group general counsel. Ms. Nova is expected to stay at the company, where she has served as deputy general counsel.

News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

Williams & Connolly was part of a powerful team of lawyers News Corp. hired over the summer amid mounting allegations that reporters at the now-closed News of the World newspaper illegally intercepted voice-mail messages in pursuit of scoops.

News Corp. this week said it reached settlements with seven people, including an ex-lover of Princess Diana, who brought phone-hacking claims against the News of the World.

Write to Russell Adams at russell.adams@wsj.com

By DENNIS NISHI

Corrections & Amplifications

Sara Mast turned her love of documentary film into a career in reality television. She began by taking a low-paying production job to make ends meet. Now she’s an executive producer for “The Hills,” an MTV reality show that follows the personal lives of a fashion-design student and her friends. It’s one of the top rated reality shows among 12-to-34 year-olds. Dennis Nishi spoke with Ms. Mast about what it takes to succeed in Hollywood. Edited excerpts follow.

Full name: Sara Mast
Hometown: Minnetonka, Minn.
Current position: Reality show producer
First job: Pizza cook
Favorite job: This one
Education: B.A. in Women’s Studies, Mt. Holyoke College; M.A. Screenwriting, American Film Institute
Years in the industry: 16
How I got to here in 10 words or less: Passion, drive, determination and luck

Q. Did you go to film school?

A. I went to Mt. Holyoke, a woman’s college in South Hadley, Mass. They didn’t have a film program, but I was able to take experimental film courses at Hampshire College nearby. The funny thing I learned while making these avant-garde films was that I was way more interested in traditional narrative and documentary, things that told a clear story.

Q. What did you want to do in film and how did you get started?

A. I decided I wanted to make an impact and documentary was where I thought I could make a change in the world, so I made a few environmental documentaries. After graduating in 1990, I moved to San Francisco. I started dating a guy at the time that introduced me to somebody that worked under Henry Selick, director of “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Through that contact I was able to wangle an internship with Disney. I also worked as a picture framer for two shops for $5.75 an hour.

Q. Is that how most people get into the industry?

A. People think they’re going to graduate from film school and be a director. It doesn’t work that way unless you’re a rare breakout genius. If you don’t have a lot of contacts, starting at the bottom is one of the few ways to get in. I spent what seemed like years on the edge of a financial abyss.

Q. How do you distinguish yourself when doing menial tasks like getting coffee or sweeping floors?

A. It was my eagerness to do whatever was asked without question. I also had an interest in camera and lighting and so I worked for free on some other small productions. So I also apprenticed in the camera department. And I found somebody who mentored me. I kept asking him a lot of questions until he saw that I had a passion for the work, and so did he. That helped my career a lot.

Q. How long did it take you to move into a paying gig?

A. After a year, I became a production assistant and then soon after a camera assistant in San Francisco, where a lot of cutting edge special effects shops were. Over the course of (the job) I got really educated doing camera work for “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach.” I also worked on the Robin Williams film “What Dreams May Come” as well as a few other movie and television shows. I moved to Los Angeles seven years later and went to grad school and got my master’s in screenwriting. I wanted to round out my experience and knowing screenwriting helped me understand story and structure. I continued to make shorts. My film “Big Issue” went to Sundance in 2002.

Q. How did you make the jump to reality television?

A. Despite all of this work, I was still poor and struggling. I had just done a couple of documentaries, including one on taxidermy called “Stuffed.” When reality television broke out, they were in need of people that had done that sort of narrative and documentary work.

Q. Did you see it as an extension of documentary work?

A. I saw reality television as this kind of anthropology of modern culture. I’ve always been fascinated by what makes people tick.

Q. You got your first reality show job on Craigslist. Explain.

A. Yeah, I kind of fibbed to get into the door. I wrote “reality TV is my life,” on my cover letter which would later become true. Truth is, I didn’t have much experience in TV, and I needed to pay the bills. The job was for the Learning Channel, and they hired me to work on a show called “Faking It.”

Q. How did you parlay that to get onto “The Hills?”

A. I worked on a bunch of different shows over six or seven years including “Wife Swap,” “Vacation Swap,” “Supernanny” and “Ice-T’s Rap School.” When I finally got an agent, he asked if I wanted to interview for an associate producer job on an MTV reality show. Three or four interviews later, they offered me the job. What clinched it was all of my production experience. I had done every job on the set.

Q. What’s your schedule like when you’re documenting the private lives of people? Are you afraid you’ll miss something if you take time off to be with your family?

A. The thing with reality TV is when reality happens, you have to go cover it. That includes some weekends and holidays. So I’m always scrambling to assemble a crew. I’m chained to my Blackberry.

Q. Critics generally fault reality programming for being overly scripted and set up. What kind of planning goes into “The Hills?”

A. It’s like pinball. We set up the game and the balls are going to go where they’re going to go. It’s my job to predict where they end up. Things are generally pretty predictable. We were at a bar last season and a boyfriend of one of the characters was flirting with another girl. There was an argument and they both stormed out into the parking lot behind the bar. We were not at all prepared for that, so here I am yelling at the crew to get cameras, lights and audio out the door and to find them. They were by the dumpsters crying. It ended up being a turning point.

Q. Do you ever worry about crossing a line to achieve an outcome?

A. There’s certainly some moral ambiguity. And you sometimes ask yourself if what you’re doing is right. At the same time, I have to be able to wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror so there are limits that I stay within.

Q. Do you feel you’ve broken some gender barriers getting to where you are?

A. There’s not a lot of women producers and directors. But because reality TV hit so fast, many smart and talented women were able to cross over. I was one of the first woman executive producers on “The Hills.”

Q. What’s your job like these days?

A. It’s busy and exciting. Sometimes I feel half my job is being part psychotherapist to the people and part field marshal to the crew.

Q. Where do you see yourself going with this?

A. I’d eventually like my own show. I love working in this genre. It’s sort of a hybrid that’s blurring the fine line between narrative and reality. And though some of the shows I’ve worked on have less societal value than others, I think entertaining people is a positive thing.

Write to Dennis Nishi at cjeditor@dowjones.com

• Find television listings at LocateTV.

Corrections & Amplifications

Ms. Mast graduated from Mt. Holyoke, a woman’s college in South Hadley, Mass. An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the school’s location.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D8

By CHARLOTTE DRUCKMAN

Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

REQUIRED TASTE | Cooked snails mix it up with mushrooms, ham, cheese and rice in this savory dish.

In my early years, I was none too keen on ingesting snails. Something held me back: Bubblegum, my first pet and a shell-carrying member of the Helicidae family. Eventually, during a trip to Paris, I was coerced by the garlicky perfume emerging from my brother’s appetizer of escargots (as the French call the edible land-based ones), and I caved. That’s how many have been introduced to these mollusks—prepared à la Bourgogne, with that herbalicious compound butter.

“Of course, they have long been prized in Chinese cookery,” says Ken Hom, an expert of that cuisine, “We love their slightly chewy but soft texture and, like the French, usually prepare them with a very tasty, savory sauce.” Born in America to Chinese parents, Mr. Hom fondly recalls a traditional Cantonese dish from his mother’s repertoire—snails in black bean sauce with a touch of chili.

In the Philippines, the gastropods are simmered in coconut milk. In Thailand, they’re fodder for curry. And in Vietnam, they’re fragranced with lemongrass and tossed in a fiery soy sauce.

Troy Guard of Denver’s TAG eateries looks to East Asia and beyond for inspiration. He tucks the snails into soup dumplings; slices them into a Japanese-accented carpaccio seasoned with soy sauce, citrusy yuzu, mitsuba (a cress-like green) and myoga (ginger); and works them into an American combo—roasted tomato soup and grilled cheese (the snails are slipped between the bread).

At his restaurant Clio, Boston’s Ken Oringer relies on the chewy delicacies to capture the world in a bowl. His fricassee of snails contains the spicy Japanese condiment red yuzu kosho, local fiddlehead ferns and resinous Greek mastic infused with English peas.

While on the subject of British contributions, we’d be remiss to exclude Heston Blumenthal’s modern classic: his signature snail porridge, which appropriates breakfast’s oaty staple. It uses a verdant butter blended with parsley, garlic, shallots and cepes and makes that a savory base for the meaty protein.

Then it’s a visit to Brooklyn for Brian Leth’s recent addition to Vinegar Hill House’s list of specials, a pappardelle with the garden-variety snails plus watercress, pears and hazelnuts.

Across the bridge, at his new Spanish canteen Tertulia, in Greenwich Village, Seamus Mullen marries the creaminess of risotto to the earthy richness of snails and wild mushrooms, then adds the smoky saltiness of Idiazabal cheese and Iberico ham.

Mr. Mullen prefers the basil-fed buddies harvested by Mary Stewart in the Sierra Nevada. You can order them, when available, from Gilt Taste. Otherwise, the canned goods fly too (try the wild Burgundy offerings of Sarl Henri Maire from France, sold by Dean & Deluca). To “amp up their flavor,” Mr. Mullen recommends giving them a quick sauté in hot olive oil before doing the necessary marination.

When I taste the finished product, I’m reminded of a familiar chant. Bubblegum, bubblegum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish?

Seamus Mullen’s Arroz Cremoso de Caracoles

(Creamy Rice With Snails) Serves: 4

Ingredients

½ cup snails

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1 teaspoon Champagne vinegar

1 clove garlic, finely minced

I bunch fresh basil leaves torn in pieces (save a few for garnish)

1 cup mixed wild mushrooms, cut into even sized pieces

Kosher salt, to taste

1 shallot, finely diced

2 cups arborio rice

1 tablespoon white wine

8 cups mushroom stock (vegetable stock simmered with 3 cups dried shiitake mushrooms for 30 minutes, then strained)

½ cup finely grated good-quality, smoky hard cheese (e.g. Idiazabal)

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Pepper, to taste

Slices of Ibérico of Serrano ham

1. In a small bowl, mix snails, 1 tablespoon oil, vinegar, garlic and basil. Refrigerate while preparing the rice.

2. Heat remaining oil over medium-high heat in a medium saucepot. Vigorously sauté the mushrooms for 3 minutes and season with salt. Add shallot and cook until translucent, about 2 minutes. Add rice and stir thoroughly, toasting for about 2 minutes. Add wine and allow the alcohol to cook off before adding stock.

3. Slowly ladle in stock, stirring constantly. As the rice absorbs liquid, add more stock until the rice is nearly cooked all the way through, about 15 minutes. Fold in the chilled snail mixture and cook for another 2 minutes. Fold in cheese. Add liquid as needed to incorporate the cheese fully. Remove from heat and fold in butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper and divide onto four plates. Garnish with a few slices of ham, a drizzle of olive oil and torn basil leaves.

Corrections & Amplifications

Pappardelle with snails, watercress, pears and hazelnuts is a special at Vinegar Hill House in Brooklyn, N.Y., which is not an Italian restaurant. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the dish was on the restaurant’s Italian menu.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W7