August 16, 2020

"Even in the 1970s, and through the 80s, when NYC was going bankrupt, and even when it was the crime capital of the US or close to it, it was still the capital of the business world..."

"... it was culturally on top of its game - home to artists, theater, media, advertising, publishing, and it was probably the food capital of the US.... In early March, many people (not me), left NYC when they felt it would provide safety from the virus and they no longer needed to go to work and all the restaurants were closed. People figured, 'I'll get out for a month or two and then come back.' They are all still gone. And then in June, during rioting and looting a second wave of NYC-ers (this time me) left. I have kids. Nothing was wrong with the protests but I was a little nervous when I saw videos of rioters after curfew trying to break into my building. Many people left temporarily but there were also people leaving permanently. Friends of mine moved to Nashville, Miami, Austin, Denver, Salt Lake City, Austin, Dallas, etc. Now a third wave of people are leaving. But they might be too late. Prices are down 30-50% on both rentals and sales no matter what real estate people tell you.... People who would have rented or bought say, 'Hmmm, everyone is saying NYC is heading back to the 1970s, so even though prices might be 50% lower than they were a year ago, I think I will wait a bit more. Better safe than sorry!' And then with everyone waiting... prices go down. So people see prices go down and they say, 'Good thing I waited. But what happens if I wait even more!' And they wait and then prices go down more. This is called a deflationary spiral.
People wait. Prices go down. Nobody really wins. Because the landlords or owners go broke. Less money gets spent on the city. Nobody moves in so there is no motion in the markets.... Everyone has spent the past five months adapting to a new lifestyle. Nobody wants to fly across the country for a two hour meeting when you can do it just as well on Zoom. I can go see "live comedy" on Zoom. I can take classes from the best teachers in the world for almost free online as opposed to paying $70,000 a year for a limited number of teachers who may or may not be good. Everyone has choices now.... NYC has a $9 billion deficit. A billion more than the Mayor thought they were going to have. How does a city pay back its debts? The main way is aid from the state. But the state deficit just went bonkers...."

From "NYC Is Dead Forever. Here's Why" by James Altucher (LinkedIn).

93 comments:

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"Nothing was wrong with the protests but I was a little nervous when I saw videos of rioters after curfew trying to break into my building."

shorter:
I'm on team prog, but - that was a little close. Is there some way I can blame some other entity other than what it was - antifa terror & rioting for sport?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“Nothing was wrong with the protests but I was a little nervous when I saw videos of rioters after curfew trying to break into my building”

What does it feel like to be constantly tying yourself into this ankle-grabbing knot? What does it do to you to force yourself into subservience? And for nothing, really. It’s the weirdest thing to observe.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Don't blame your horrible communist NYC mayor. No no no. He's awesome. Especially when he fans the flames of leftwing anger and cuts off the balls of his own police dept.

Sebastian said...

"Everyone has choices now"

What a concept!

In these US of A, we always did, sort of.

The point of progressivism is to squash choice for the sake of social justice. Except the one choice.

But now prog leaders will have to figure out: how can we corral the populace that votes with their feet?

And will progs who move pollute the places they go to? Or will the places change them first, preventing the noxious spread of blue disasters? Which is worse for reddish states -- WuFlu or blue New Yorkers and Californians?

Drago said...

The dems/left/LLR-left are gleefully destroying their cities and economies permanently...to own Trump.

And of course the smart ones with means are fleeing by the tens of thousands...mostly to the red states.

Remember: refugees vote with their feet.

And now this large scale movement out of the democrat paradises....and is combined with a new 1920's Prohibition-like emergence of complete new underground economies and activities to get around the totalitarian actions taken by democrat leaders who aren't letting this crisis go to waste.

Meanwhile a revolution in education is occurring before our very eyes across all societal classes posing a direct threat to the dems most powerful constituency: the public school unions maoist monopolist brain washers.

What if, what if, the pandemic actually ends up crushing several major democrat/lefty/LLR-lefty political power centers and Trump is returned to office in Nov?

Tis something to be hoped for and fought for.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

I will believe there is a deflationary spiral in NYC real estate when it lasts 6 months. People who live in the suburbs and countryside will start buying apartments at some point to have a place in the city.

Achilles said...

“This is called a deflationary spiral.“

No.

This is called having Democrats in charge.

Joe Smith said...

"In early March, many people (not me), left NYC when they felt it would provide safety from the virus..."

This is awkwardly phrased. It sounds as if New York is a safe haven and yet people are still leaving. I know what the author means, but it's just awkward.

Maybe, "In early March, many people (not me), left NYC when they felt it would be safer than staying..."

chuck said...

Nothing wrong with the protests but...

Ho, hum. Nothing to see here :)

Birkel said...

NYC to America: Drop Dead.

America to NYC: LOLGF.

tim in vermont said...

See: Bronze Age Collapse.

Mr Wibble said...

NYC will eventually recover, but it won't be in its present form.

It's interesting to see the destruction of the country's political and economic governing class so clearly. The cities which often served as economic and cultural hubs are being destroyed by mismanagement, the universities which served to help indoctrinate the next generation and provide the assortative mating and networking opportunities have done the same. As a result we're seeing a mass exodus to the rest of the country. But the problem is that it will make it more difficult for the governing and financial classes to keep their shared culture which was, IMHO, necessary for their political dominance over the past fifty years. Without that unity, there's less resistance to an eventual political breakup of the U.S.

Anonymous said...

and yet both the Governor and the Mayor continue to do things that stifle the economy in a myriad of ways as well as denigrate the forces of law and order

sow:
reap:

Dave Begley said...

And liberals killed the greatest city in the world. The greatest city in the world.

H/t Lin Manual-Miranda.

William said...

I live in NYC and own a small fraction of a brownstone. My life hasn't radically changed since the pandemic, but the city does seem to be devolving. There are a great many more homeless, and crime is up. Still, it nowhere near as bad as it used to be. I've lived through other Apocalypses. Maybe this isn't the final one.....I think young people will still at some point want to return to college and have that experience. For similar reasons, some people will want to live in the big city and partake of the glamour, however diminished. My guess is that this will pass and the city will recover, but, like the Asian Yale student discussing admission policies, that's the kind of thing I'd be expected to say.

tim in vermont said...

I suppose that if we still valued painting and literature, it would be artists to the rescue again, taking advantage of the cheap rents like they did in Paris and New York, eventually followed by the moneyed classes and the cycle might repeat, but nobody reads anything but genre fiction and tweets anymore it seems. Everybody wants to be a country gentleman now, like the Earl of Grantham.

This has to have murdulized Trump’s net worth, I would think, to name one guy.

tim in vermont said...

"I will believe there is a deflationary spiral in NYC real estate when it lasts 6 months. People who live in the suburbs and countryside will start buying apartments at some point to have a place in the city.”

ARM’s got an angle and he’s gonna retire rich. You don’t pay 10 million dollars for a pied-à-terre though and occasional visitors are not the lifeblood of Manhattan, I don’t think.

Big Mike said...

Nothing was wrong with the protests but I was a little nervous when I saw videos of rioters after curfew trying to break into my building.

Ah, sorry, but that is precisely what is wrong with the protests. When I see violent rioting and looting, I am totally turned off to whatever the cause is. There are lots of good causes out there, and the best of them don’t involve Molotov cocktails.

The Godfather said...

Will the people who can’t leave NYC elect a common-sense law & order Mayor? That would turn it around. Nothing else will.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I have a neighbor whose daughter has a temporary job as an enumerator for the US Census Bureau. She is going door to door to collect information from people who never filled out their census form online.

It occurs to me that the census, which is based on where people were living on April 1, 2020, and will be used to redraw Congressional districts, will not reflect the flight out of the cities that occurred after April due to the riots. That will benefit the Dems.

Sebastian said...

"Everyone has choices now"

Next thing you know, the yahoos will be demanding education choices. OMG.

rehajm said...

I will believe there is a deflationary spiral in NYC real estate when it lasts 6 months.

I'm going to agree. These riots are not of the 70s ilk- they are well funded stunt riots designed to sway an election. I'm not quite convinced the lockdowns are a stunt (to attribute to malice that which is explained yada yada..) but I'd wager good money we won't be fretting about covid much after early November...

There will be permanent changes but I don't think we'll all be working form home either. Many of us are social outdoor cats. The kids and the dog making a racket on Zoom is getting old...

...and if the wasteful Dems win in November they'll get Treasury to pass out a few trillion to prop up Manhattan...

mikee said...

Shoot rioters dead. Other people won't riot.
Or at least arrest, try, convict, sentence and jail the rioters.
Sorry to be blunt, but those two methods have been the only ways to end riots since the beginning of time.

Joe Smith said...

"And liberals killed the greatest city in the world. The greatest city in the world."

You could make the argument that NYC was indeed the greatest city on earth. My top 3 are New York, Tokyo, and Rome, in no particular order.

London fell off the list more than a decade ago when the corporate pubs supplanted the small mom & pop setups, and when security cameras outnumbered people. The fact that Muhammad is the most popular name for boys hasn't helped either. Honor killings, sexual grooming gangs, and female genital mutilation aren't the things I look for when deciding where to live.

Tokyo is insane in a good way. There is an argument to be made that there is no better place to eat (or drink for that matter).

Rome is Rome...the eternal city. The chaos is very appealing to me...and you are reminded every minute you are there that you will be gone soon enough and nobody will remember you. That makes me inclined to live my best life.

I feel bad for my son who live in Brooklyn. He was there for about a year-and-a-half before the virus hit so he had a chance to live in the 'real' New York.' I'm hoping he leaves once his lease is up...

Temujin said...

Read a number of articles recently about the exodus out of NY- both the state and the city. But none states it in as real terms as does this lifelong New Yorker. You can sense his love for his city. Yet he finds himself in Miami now, with other New York friends and acquaintances finding themselves scattered to various parts of the country. (mostly the south).

I feel his pain, though I don't feel sad. Like the rest of the world which is in transition from one way of life to another, this exodus from New York was coming. It had been happening. Its just that the spigot got fully opened up when Wuhan + BLM + Antifa hit.

A bright light is now shining on all of our cities, towns, states. What we see are Democrat strongholds that have reverted to a way of life not seen in the US for 150 years or so. This is why I have always referred to 'progressives' as regressives. There is nothing progressive about what they want or do. It is all destructive, negative, abusive, in a blind rage toward gaining power.

My only concern is that the flood of Californians, Illinoisans, and New Yorkers down to Florida, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Texas is that they probably have not learned their lessons of why they had to leave their homes. They'll move here to Florida bringing the same mentality that turned New York into a shithole. One can only hope you can teach old progressives new tricks.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

People who live in the suburbs and countryside will start buying apartments at some point to have a place in the city.

Can you give a reason why they would do that? There will be no arts or culture in New York for the foreseeable future, and major employers are not going back to having employees come to offices. There's nothing to come to the city for.

CapitalistRoader said...

This has to have murdulized Trump’s net worth, I would think, to name one guy.

My guess is the the President's real estate portfolio is diversified to the point that a big hit in NYC isn't going to murdelize his net worth.

tim in vermont said...

Hmmm.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/14/902675290/new-zealand-investigates-a-mystery-where-did-its-new-cases-come-from

Patrick said...

RM: "People who live in the suburbs and countryside will start buying apartments at some point to have a place in the city."

I think the guy's point is that the are far fewer reasons to be in the city and therefore no reason to have a place there. Eventually it will turn around, but that is likely going to be well beyond what most people are prepared to wait.

bolivar di griz said...

its dead jim, like the Norwegian blue, it just doesn't know it yet,

DavidUW said...

Sure it'll recover. In 30- 40 years.Just like the last time.

If you're young enough, congrats, you can move back when you're late middle aged.

The rest of us will be dead or quite elderly when it recovers.

If you have a stake in NYC, sell it. At best, it's literally decades of dead money. At worst, you're just dead.

You've been warned, just like you were in 1964 with the Harlem riots. If you got out in '65, you were fine. '75, and you were foreclosed on.

Murders didn't return to 1964 levels until 2002. THIRTY EIGHT YEARS.


tcrosse said...

Lots of reports about how dire things are in Manhattan, but how are things in Brooklyn or Queens?

I'm Not Sure said...

shorter:
I'm on team prog, but - that was a little close. Is there some way I can blame some other entity other than what it was - antifa terror & rioting for sport?


Exactly. How many riots accompanied the Tea Party rallies ten years ago?

Birkel said...

I am hoping the rioters arrive at ARM's house soon.
He should get what he wants.
I want him to be happy.

tim in vermont said...

https://twitter.com/KyleKashuv/status/1294977368952573953

As a Noo Yorker might say, the above video is un fucking believable.

Krumhorn said...

I think ARM is right about the suburbanites buying a city apt when the prices fall. The common charges will kill you, but mortgage interest rates are rock bottom. I owned one for many years while living in White Plains. I sold it to put the kids through college, but we loved the place.

- Krumhorn

tim in vermont said...

Not to worry, just wait until those billions start rolling in from the marijuana taxes.

rehajm said...

And then with everyone waiting... prices go down. So people see prices go down and they say, 'Good thing I waited. But what happens if I wait even more!' And they wait and then prices go down more. This is called a deflationary spiral.

I don't think deflationary spirals happen because of buyer strikes. Structural macro issues like the a negative equilibrium rate below zero or fear of bad policy solutions from hawkish central banks, yes.

n.n said...

Prices that are correlated with the value and availability of goods and services is good, not bad. Progressive prices that are constructed on ever shifting, redistributed debt force misalignments, recessions, depressions, and hard resets.

Michael K said...

Something similar is happening to Los Angeles.

When I arrived in LA in 1956, I could not think of a better place to live. It is all gone. Some is the traffic and that will be solved in the Yogi Berra fashion. "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." The rest was done by the politicians.

Kai Akker said...

I read his post.

I could have read others. Hundreds of others.

But I read his post.

I called my friend. I said, how are you doing friend?

My friend said, "Great! But my life sucks."

He was getting his passport out. His passport will take him to Sri Lanka, Nagasaki, the back nine at Torrey Pines.

Once he is on the tee at Torrey Pines....

He will never come back.

That's how it is in America today. It is the worst ever.

Ever. Ever. Ever.

But it will get better! They say.

It won't get better.

It's effed. You're effed. We're all effed. Eff this.

I love it! I always loved it! But eff it. Just eff it.

Doomed.

Doomed. And that's even having my wife.

My wife Gargle. Gargle My does all the work. She takes care of the kids.

But I know something. We are doomed. As long as I know that, I know it.

I know it. I will always know it. I told Gargle: doomed. She said, maybe.

But she made a couple calls. Now things are better. Better, better, better.

It makes me feel guilty they're so better. But I think we're doomed anyway.

Drago said...

Beijing Boy ARM: "I will believe there is a deflationary spiral in NYC real estate when it lasts 6 months."

NYC, and San Francisco for that matter and a number of other "happy" little socialist/antifa/burn it all down "paradises, are already in deflationary spirals and everyone knows it. The rats are fleeing to new environs and likely to eventually screw those places up as well eventually.

Lets face it, ARM will only believe it when Beijing tells him its okay to believe what is happening before his very eyes.

Drago said...

tim in vermont: "This has to have murdulized Trump’s net worth, I would think, to name one guy."

I'm sure its had some impact but you'd have to look at all 540+ specific Trump business entities that he declared (through his accounting firm in late 2016/2017) to understand what the long term implications would be.

By the way, for some reason, Beijing Boy ARM is under some sort of Maddow-inspired witchcraft belief that Trump only owns a couple of businesses and most of those went bankrupt.

When you really get down to it, ARM's understanding of business and business enterprises and their operations is hilariously lacking. Like a Freder, only dumber.

Such a "sophisticate".

James K said...

As mentioned a few days back, I live right near that hotel that is being used as a homeless shelter. The police say they are not allowed to arrest any of the homeless for doing homeless-type things like harassing and screaming at people or urinating/defecating in public. Strange priorities the commie mayor has. He won't pay any price because he's term-limited out next year anyway.

mikee said...

The marxist progressive element of the Democrat Party felt scared enough this year to damage their own urban strongholds and risk their decades-long hold on local governments nationwide, in order to hurt Trump enough to get a Dem elected president.

My God, Trump's second term is going to be EPIC.

RobinGoodfellow said...

“ Birkel said...
I am hoping the rioters arrive at ARM's house soon.
He should get what he wants.”

Good and hard, says I.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

"Even in the 1970s, and through the 80s, when NYC was going bankrupt, and even when it was the crime capital of the US or close to it, it was still the capital of the business world..."

I'm betting there were more life long New Yorkers from multi-generational New York families in NYC back in the 70's and 80's than there are now.

As much as I dislike NYC I wouldn't count it out just yet.

MartyH said...

There should a way to turn the rioting into a money making opportunity. Announce you are going to hit Best Buy and charge $100 to join in. As long as each rioter gets more than $100 worth of free stuff everyone comes out ahead. You could even charge bystanders admission and rough them up a little if they don’t want to pay. You know, to give the paying customers their money’s worth.

That’s how you get tourism going again.

PJ57 said...

I lived and worked in NYC in the late 70s and 80s. Left in 92 when things first started to look up from a livability perspective. Shame on me. It will take a long descent for NYC to get back to that level of uninhabitability. NYC real estate is heavily butressed by laundered Chinese, Russian and third world money that has few better places to go. The current refugees will begin to miss their restaurants and theaters and social events. De Blasio mu be replaced by someone more sensible like a Bloomberg. And for the Jews, Manhattan will always be their home. So don't count NYC out yet.

Dude1394 said...

Faster please.

Quaestor said...

William writes: For similar reasons, some people will want to live in the big city and partake of the glamour, however diminished.

Glamour, an interesting choice of words. Some people think glamour is desirable, perhaps misunderstanding the meaning of the word. Other people reject deception. Some people aren't outraged when barbarians rule the streets, fellow barbarians mostly. Civilized people find civilized places to live. Rome emptied out when Alaric led his statue-toppling protest in 410. New York may recover her population in time. For Rome that was 1,400 years.

Paul Snively said...

"This is called a deflationary spiral."

This is called an overdue market correction.

cubanbob said...

The City will come back but in a much diminished way. Too many workers that can work from home aren't coming back to the City and with that the office rental space is greatly diminished. When that happens the bars and restaurants along with the stores will also become greatly diminished. NYC is an expensive PIA city to live in so without the compensating features why bother? NY State and NYC are caught in a huge debt trap. They can't tax their way out of it although they will try and they won't cut the spending. Thus people will leave. 1% of NYC residents pay 70% if the income taxes. Those people have options and as the City continues to decline they will leave.

daskol said...

I'm of two minds on this question, which means if I don't soon figure out what I think I'm risking schizophrenia. We've had pandemics and other ills that have always hurt most the cities as long as we've had cities and civilization. It's inhuman and in particular un-American to focus on microscopic death: we think big, about the sky and the stars and even our fears are usually of great big explosions or other things that cause earth-shattering kabooms. So how long can we be whipped into a frenzy of fear over a fucking bug? OTOH, all that Altucher says about the lasting damage to NYC is also on my mind: some of those office jobs are never coming back, most of the restaurants are not either, and everything that made it fun to live in NYC from a cultural perspective is gone, forfeit by ourselves and our leaders. I don't see how NYC goes back to being something like I was born in and enjoyed living in for the better part of 5 decades, when we've attacked so successfully its raison d'être as a capital of capital, commerce, culture and entertainment.

For now, Brooklyn is a bit better off than Manhattan, and any houses or apartments with outdoor space are still in demand. But why? I've spent about a week of the last two months at home, and it's fucking depressing. There are signs of life--those restaurants that still exist have laid out tables on the street, and do a brisk business among the people still in NYC for some reason. But the better private schools are all offering remote learning at least for the first semester, the public schools are going to be remote and the universities that offer in person learning may not even going to allow out of state students to attend. Besides the house we live in, I rent out our previous home, and for the first time in a decade had vacancy in a large unit with an outdoor space, and had to cut already below market rent by 20% to retain a tenant. This tenant spends most of his time with his family outside the city, but needs a NYC residence only because investors in his project are a bit old-fashioned and want to see him in person, as it is a new venture. For the first time in my life, I am considering whether we need to uproot my family and find a new place to set down roots.

The vicious, stupid and short-sighted establishment leaders who thought they could use the virus to their electoral benefit, to kill Trump, might well have dealt the deathblow to NYC that no terrorist or natural disaster or previous pandemic could manage. Fucking assholes. I hope that deBlasio and Cuomo and our idiot neighbor Murphy go down in history as the infamous bunglers they are, but that's hardly comforting to those of us who still live in and love NYC. I give Altucher's death spiral scenario a 20-25% probability at the moment, as NYC is always full of surprises, and I still think we'll forget about COVID faster than may seem possible now no later than November, when it will no longer be to anyone's benefit to terrorize Americans about it. But the damage done may be enough that NYC as I've known and loved it is finished, and I only hope what we rebuild in its place can take pleasant shape soon enough to end the bleeding. Half the 40,000 people who pay most of NYC's income and real estate tax are gone. NYC is dead. Long live NYC!

rcocean said...

This is absurdly overblown. It ignores two things. First, NYC was hell hole in the 80s and early 90s. They had 2,000 murders a year and high taxes yet NYC was still absurdly expensive compared to other parts of the USA. Second, No matter how bad it is, people from all over the world want to live there. China, India, Russia, etc.

In terms of awfulness, NYC went from 100 "awful Points" in 1980, to 120 in 1990, to 80 in 200, and 60 now. That it might go up to an awful index of 80, still means its a lot better than it was 30 years ago.

If the prices get low enough, I'll start buying.

Michael K said...

When you really get down to it, ARM's understanding of business and business enterprises and their operations is hilariously lacking. Like a Freder, only dumber.

I visualize ARM as a high school teacher of Social Studies, which we used to call Geography and stuff like that.

rcocean said...

In 1975 NYC was bankrupt and had to be bailed out. Its nowhere close to that now. Of course, they shouldn't have been bailed out in '75. Blame Dumbshit Jerry Ford for that. That clown did the usual RINO failure two-step. First, he said he wouldn't bail them out (remember "Ford to City Drop Dead"?), Second, the bankers pressured him, so he immediately caved and bailed NYC out. Later, Ford would wank on about how "NYC bankruptcy could've destroyed the financial system" or some stupid crap. But it was just Jerry "big business" Ford bailing out his Banker friends. When they said jump, Jerry said "how high?" Just like McConnell does.

steve uhr said...

Help me understand - NYC is doomed but the US economy is coming back like gangbusters? Do I detect a crack between Trump and the commentariat here?

steve uhr said...

ARM's comment was apolitical and if made by anyone else would have received little notice. The response of Birkel and RobinGoodfellow is way over the top. Apologizes are in order. I'm holding my breath.

Or maybe they can just come clean with their real names. But that would take some courage.

tim maguire said...

People overestimate the importance of whatever is happening right now.

Michael K said...

steve uhr said...
Help me understand - NYC is doomed but the US economy is coming back like gangbusters? Do I detect a crack between Trump and the commentariat here?


Nope. People like you think moving money around is an economy. Making things and providing services to real people is an economy.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Tim in Vermont 12:19

Holy. Sheeet

iowan2 said...

The author is very contemplative. Reasonable, just the facts.

The truth? A massive failure of government. Political decisions made to appease the base, but hurt them at the same time. Like Cumo’s decision to send COVID positive people to senior homes.
A terrible decision he will never suffer for. That’s just something obvious. Thousand of choices with worse outcomes have come together, and you have NY,and NYC.

Massive govt failure.

iowan2 said...

“People who live in the suburbs and countryside will start buying apartments at some point to have a place in the city.“

The premise of the article is there is nothing in the city. Theater, dining, concerts,museums,..80% bankrupt. why would a person spend time in the city? For the BLM wiener roasts?

Birkel said...

steve uhr,
Are you saying Left Wing Antifa is violent?
News to me; you should contact the NYT with that breaking news.

What do you have against protestors?

(Do you know how big an idiot you are?)

I hope antifa comes to your neighborhood too, steve uhr.
I hope they peacefully protest your house.

Birkel said...

I hope they mostly peacefully throw a Molotov cocktail party for you.
#SummerOfLove
#CHOP

chickelit said...

NYC can always import newer people from around the third world and they will come en masse after the election when the barriers start coming down.

chickelit said...

But even with a new imported population, the tax levies just aren't going to support the City. That's where the real crisis will come from.

Birkel said...

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/08/16/more-than-sixty-9-1-1-calls-go-unanswered-during-portland-riot-n798053

I hope you get some peaceful protesting and need an emergency response from a defunded police department.

Paul Zrimsek said...

Nothing was wrong with the protests but I was a little nervous when I saw videos of rioters after curfew trying to break into my building.

The first-person possessive is doing almost all the work in this sentence.

hstad said...


Blogger tim in vermont said..."...This has to have murdulized Trump’s net worth, I would think, to name one guy...8/16/20, 11:01 AM

Well, 'Investing Portfolio Theory' is not one of your strong suits. Yes Trump has some exposure, how much anyone can guess, in NYC. But as memory serves he did move his residence to Florida last year. Therefore, his tax savings alone probably mitigates any potential losses coming from NYC. But I would need to know his 'asset basis' (actual cost of purchased assets) before making a comment like "murdulized Trump's net worth". Moreover, his properties are worldwide, and I would guess less than 20% located in and around the metropolitan NYC region.

tim in vermont said...

"Or maybe they can just come clean with their real names.”

Show me the man, I will show you the crime is how it works in Democratic prosecutorial circles, right?

James K said...

The premise of the article is there is nothing in the city. Theater, dining, concerts,museums,

You seriously think none of that is going to come back? The museums I think will open soon. There's plenty of dining now. Theater and concerts will return after the first of the year most likely. Even if a lot of businesses fail, once the tourism returns new businesses will open. I'm not saying it will go back to where it was anytime soon, but the city won't die.

Anonymous said...

mikee said...
Shoot rioters dead. Other people won't riot.
Or at least arrest, try, convict, sentence and jail the rioters.
Sorry to be blunt, but those two methods have been the only ways to end riots since the beginning of time.


I'm certainly old enough to remember that was how we treated looters.

Bunkypotatohead said...

Major cities in the US have experienced race riots over the decades. They always recover to some extent, albeit poorer and more violent, with a reduced population. Some portion of the middle class will always flee from chaos.
NYC's future politicians can probably draw some folks back...they'll promote the authentic vibrant experience of city living you just can't get anywhere else. It may take a few more generations before it deteriorates to the point of being another Detroit or Baltimore.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Help me understand - NYC is doomed but the US economy is coming back like gangbusters? Do I detect a crack between Trump and the commentariat here”

No. Not really. Deep blue shit holes are crashing, while people and businesses are either moving to cities that have not been destroyed as badly, or are becoming decentralized. I sold my first lot in the subdivision I bought in NW MT w/I a week of putting it on the market, and I could probably sell the new house we bought in Phoenix for at least 10% more than we paid for it. Probably more. The only reason that I got a decent price on it was that we signed the contract back in late October (I kept threatening to pay cash, so the lender kept enticing the builder to keep the sales contract in place, until we finally did buy, 5 months later). The old house, in a less desirable neighborhood went under contract two weeks after listing it, closing a month later. Most of our money is in apartment buildings in the suburbs west of Denver. The offers are getting obscene. Had someone begging for a §1031 exchange last week for one of three 12 unit buildings in one of our projects. Sorry. It’s cheaper to operate all 36 together. Plus, we would have our own tax problems if we sold now, and the §1031 Exchange options we were looking at a year ago no longer make sense. There are stories about this sort of thing around the country. Houses selling sight unseen well above listing prices, etc.

Point is that money is gushing out of places like NYC right now, as the people who can bail, do. There is a massive deflationary spiral going on there, while it is almost as inflationary throughout much of the rest of the country.

Why live in NYC right now? An awful lot of the synergy that made living there attractive is gone, and may not grow back for a generation. All the restaurants? Bankrupt. All the Broadway shows? Bankrupt. Comedy clubs? Bankrupt. Better paying jobs? Gone, to telecommuting. The bandwidth that facilitates working remotely isn’t going to disappear, but instead will continue to increase for the foreseeable future - even here in rural MT, where they pulled fiber through last week. All of the business connections? Many have fled. Why continue to live there? Because it will probably rebound in 10-20 years? It’s going to take years for the restaurants to truly recover, since the capital behind so many of them, accumulated over decades, is mostly gone now.

Michael K said...

You seriously think none of that is going to come back? The museums I think will open soon.

Right after the election, of course. Have you had any doubt about this ?

holdfast said...

But it's not just the race riots. It's Broadway shut down for the foreseeable future by the 'Rona.

It's all the restaurants that have already gone bankrupt, and the chefs and others who've moved somewhere else to try to make a living.

It's all the banks, law firms, accountancy houses, ad agencies, etc. that have discovered that work from home can work.

I'm Not Sure said...

"NYC's future politicians can probably draw some folks back...they'll promote the authentic vibrant experience of city living you just can't get anywhere else."

Regarding "the authentic vibrant experience"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTWqgJ13sMU

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

I second BB@H. Watch Tim In V’s video @ 12:19.

Incredible.

Birkel said...

Like reputations, quick to destroy and very hard to rebuild.
New York will be rebuilt in another 30-40 years.

Detroit?
Not under current management, ever.

Once those who can - the financially mobile and politically pragmatic - leave the Democratics cannot lose.
Monopoly government secures the rot and kills the host.

Vote accordingly.

DavidUW said...

Yes exactly. The cynical optimist take is that after the election the corona virus magically mutates into just a rough flu season

The problem is will people go back in time to rescue the city. Or will they stay in Miami, I mean why move back to NYC in winter... then 2021 spring rolls around and you start thinking do I want to move again. Or the kids like their new school. Gee no state income tax has sure accelerated our retirement savings...etc etc.

It was 11 years from the Harlem riots to NYC dropping dead.

There is much ruin in the city.

But ruined it shall be.

Mrs. X said...

The culture might come back (in 2021, a long time from now) but will tourists and the income they provide? Why visit NYC if you’re on your own, safety-wise? You can see Hamilton on Disney in your living room. Your TV won’t mug you.

n.n said...

Deflation favors capital (and tangible). Inflation favors credit (and debt).

KellyM said...

Wow. So the urban decay circa "Barney Miller" would be considered quaint, now. Ha.

Steven said...

The only question about the future of New York is, "Are the finance people still going to work there?" As long as it's a major financial center, it'll have a comeback. If for any reason it ceases to be one, it'll die.

NYC and NYS, as currently structured, are entirely dependent on tax money from the finance sector. If that seriously declines, they'll get caught in the Detroit trap -- raising taxes and slashing services to stay solvent, which then drives more people out of the city, which then forces another round of tax increases and service cuts, which then drives more people out . . . .

NYC, as a great center of finance, was an accident of geography; it was the port linking the Atlantic trade to the Great Lakes via the Erie Canal. That's what made it a financial center; trade went through it. Now, the Rust Belt is rusted and the St. Lawrence Seaway exists. The only reason NYC's a center of finance is because it's always been one.

The issue isn't the Wuhan coronavirus. The issue is that the Wuhan coronavirus is quite possibly proving that being in NYC is not indispensable to workers in finance. Moving to a place with lower costs of living and lower (or no) state and local income taxes is quite attractive if you can still make your NY financial sector salary there.

wendybar said...

I live about an hour from NYC...I have NO DESIRE to set foot there ever again...as long as Democrats are ruining the city I loved. They can go to hell.

Rusty said...

James K said...
"The premise of the article is there is nothing in the city. Theater, dining, concerts,museums,

You seriously think none of that is going to come back? The museums I think will open soon. There's plenty of dining now. Theater and concerts will return after the first of the year most likely. Even if a lot of businesses fail, once the tourism returns new businesses will open. I'm not saying it will go back to where it was anytime soon, but the city won't die"
You have to ask yourself; "What makes a city worth living in?" How are the museums and attractions doing in Detroit? A city has those things like museums and concerts and plays because a certain sector of that cities society patronize and support them. When those people leave those attractions become something less and eventually go away.
Chicago is a center for options and commodity trading. One of the past mayors of Chicago wanted to impose a 5% tax on every trade made at the CBOT. Until it was pointed out to hizzoner that the CBOT didn't need Chicago to trade. Trading is digital and can be done anywhere. The same goes for NYC.

Jeff Brokaw said...

I follow Altucher on LinkedIn and Twitter, he’s a very smart guy and a very good writer. Highly recommended regardless of your take on this particular piece.

As for his predictions on NYC, we shall see, but my observation on business would apply here: you’re either growing or shrinking. A middling kind of stasis, neither expanding nor contracting, is too rare to consider as an option. Both cities and businesses are very dynamic institutions that respond to changes in leadership and policy, both good and bad. Trends tend to continue until policies and leadership force new trends.

Sure, things will open again slowly someday, and the option of investing there does seem inevitable in general terms. But we’re all just bullshitting each other and ourselves until we make an actual buying decision on a specific piece of property at a specific price, given the FUD surrounding this situation: lack of leadership, calls to defund police, decline in public safety, lack of support for business, decline in tax revenues and resulting budget holes, etc.

Uncertainty makes growth impossible, more or less.

Jeff Brokaw said...

I follow Altucher on LinkedIn and Twitter, he’s a very smart guy and a very good writer. Highly recommended regardless of your take on this particular piece.

As for his predictions on NYC, we shall see, but my observation on business would apply here: you’re either growing or shrinking. A middling kind of stasis, neither expanding nor contracting, is too rare to consider as an option. Both cities and businesses are very dynamic institutions that respond to changes in leadership and policy, both good and bad. Trends tend to continue until policies and leadership force new trends.

Sure, things will open again slowly someday, and the option of investing there does seem inevitable in general terms. But we’re all just bullshitting each other and ourselves until we make an actual buying decision on a specific piece of property at a specific price, given the FUD surrounding this situation: lack of leadership, calls to defund police, decline in public safety, lack of support for business, decline in tax revenues and resulting budget holes, etc.

Uncertainty makes growth impossible, more or less.

Anne said...

FWIW: Here in Montana we are being swarmed with incoming out of staters. No one has ever seen anything like this before, well maybe the last gold rush in the late 1800's. Two out of every three cars in our local grocery store on the edge of town are from out of state, and most are dragging some belongings behind. They are using Penske, Haul, their RV's, their campers, whatever the hell they can use to get some stuff out of those besieged cities. One couple unloading from Minneapolis at the truck rental depot said, "we had a small business downtown. We tried to stay, but the same night the city council voted to defund the police they also voted for themselves to each have an additional $5,000 for personal security guards. That's when we shut her down and left." I don't know how accurate that was, but they were nicely dressed white middle class Americans looking for safety and sanity.

DavidUW said...

>> Moving to a place with lower costs of living and lower (or no) state and local income taxes is quite attractive if you can still make your NY financial sector salary there.>>
..

Yep. I'm in financial services. My clients were in NYC.

There are 2 left that I regularly call on still in NYC.

The rest are all in upstate NY, Connecticut, Philly, Florida, SC, Colorado, TX and even California. But mostly Florida.

Not a single one has mentioned going back. Ever. They are not making plans to return.

NYC is going to be utterly bankrupt in 10 years or likely less.

Get out.

Steven said...

How are the museums and attractions doing in Detroit?

The Detroit Institute of Arts is still entirely worthy of being the artistic crown jewel of the wealthy home city of the greatest and most powerful manufacturing corporation in the greatest industrial nation on Earth.