Posted on 10/27/2001 3:18:38 PM PDT by ken5050
"Apres Rudy, le deluge!".....Rudy Guiliani will soon be leaving as mayor of NYC, term-limited by law, despite the fact that he would probably be re-elected with 75% of the vote today. Rudy was superb as mayor, and in the last eight years the city has flourished as never before. He did a great many things right, things that desparately needed to be done. But Rudy was also very lucky....lucky in the sense that he benefitted from a confluence of events that served to mask the city's underlying problems. This is no knock..the problems he couldn't fix were beyond his power to do so, but after the events of 9/11...they will be exacerbated to an unbelievable extent, and they will accelerate the city's upcoming demise.
When Rudy was first elected in 1992, he spoke of 4 things that he wanted to fix, that desparately needed fixing. They were:
1. Crime in the city, and the quality of life issues.
2. The number of people on welfare, at the time nearly 1 in 7 New Yorkers.
3. The city's schools, from kindergarden all the way through the city university system.
4. Rent control.....it has destroyed the housing stock in NYC.
Now, let's look at what he's accomplished, and what he hasn't....
1. Crime, and quality of life...he gets an A++++ on this. The police force has made the city safe, and civilized. Direct credit to Rudy, because the Mayor of NYC is de facto the PC..and Rudy was willing to stand up to all those who wanted to further emasculate the NYPD....well..Mark Green will be the next mayor..back we go to the "good old days"
2. Welfare has been cut by more than 50%, and the city has focused on getting these people jobs..and it has worked. But it was also made possible by an explosion in the city's service economy sector, which created the hundreds of thousands of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs to absorb these former welfare cases, at decent wages.....the waiters, cooks, maintenance people...etc......well, after 9/ll..that sector of the city's economy has contracted by anywhere from 20-40%,and it's not coming back soon, given the recession.
There are some 50,000 hard core still on welfare in NYC who will lose their benefits after Dec, when the 5 year federal cap on welfare benefits kicks in...the city, and the state have pledged to step in when the fed funds stop, but where's the money coming from?
3.The school system has gotten far worse. Any number of studies confirm it. And the teachers union wants a 30% pay increase. Rudy tried, but the Board of Ed is autonomous..running out of control...there is no responsibility, no accountability...the system can't be fixed..it must be blown up....and now Mark Green????....no way, folks.....you'll see a further movement of the middle class out of the city, especially from the outer boroughs, a new chapter of white flight...as it becomes apparent that the city schools can't teach the kids...let alone keep them safe. NYC has just become a minority city, and that tipping of the balance is important. It'll only take a few more years for the city to resemble Detroit. No one is talking about it, but it's on everyone's mind...
4.When Rudy took office, he tried to do something about rent control. The state legislature stopped him dead, and he realized that he could never make it happen. More tenants vote than landlords.....it's simple math..so housng continues to deteriorate, and that which is viable is also unaffordable.....as the cost goes up, people will not want to live/work here, because they can't afford to do so...and as business contracts, and wages drop..( BUT..let's bring back the commuter tax...just the thing to convince businesses to stay in NYC)...well, it just exacerbates the problem.....and Mark Green wants to use city funds to build another 150,000 units of "affordable" housing. The stupidity of that statement is staggering, yet no one calls him on it....ah well...
The city budget has gone through the roof in the last 8 years, as city borrowing has reaching monumental proportions. Yes, the city has maintained a balanced budget, but only because revenues were also going through the roof at the same time....fueled primarily by Wall Street stock taxes....income taxes from the financial sector, and touris dollars by the billions....Well, that's all disappeared in a flash, and it's not coming back. Yet will they be able to cut back expenses by the same scale????Not likely.....They're tallking about a $5-7 BILLION DOLLAR budget deficit in the next two years...well folks, nobody knows..the deficit could be $20-25 BILLION....look, in just 6 weeks, the estimate of the "cost" of 9/11 has gone from $20 billion to $110 billion, and folks are still lining up at the trough....Rudy and Pataki expected that their good buddy, President Bush, will just sign a blank check. Well, that's not gonna happen....
So, Rudy did good..he did very good.....the things he was directly able to effect, he did superbly...and he's leaving town on the highest note possible..and bless him for all he's done.....so, to paraphrase an old dead king..."apres moi, le deluge.."
Manhattan is the engine that drives NYC, and the very wealthy steer the train.....and as soon as Manhattan becomes a little less hospitable, a little less safe.....they'll start to depart, and the tourists won't come as often. NYC hotels are looking at 30-40% occupancy declines, but the city still has the 14% room tax. They can't afford to cut it. That makes a lot of sense, right?And just as soon as real estate prices start to crack, well, you'll see everyone running to sell....And if a few major corporations, like American Express, don't come back to the city, well that's thousands of high paying jobs that will be lost permanently, and thousands more that depend on them...maybe a 3 or 4 to one multiplier.....
Remember all the stories last year about the waitress who got a $14,000 tip? The NASDAQ dot-com boom was a bubble, but it flooded the city with hundreds of billions in spending over the last decade. That's all gone.......well...maybe 14,000 waitresses are out of work today, or will be soon......Does anyone have ANY idea how much money is spent in the city on holiday parties and corporate gifts?..most of it in the next two months....Billions? And that number will soon plunge to zero? It hasn't even been factored into the equation yet. Remeber also , retail does 50% of its business in the last quarter of the year..that's RIGHT NOW...tens of thousands of part time holiday help won't have jobs..those that have jobs, won't have overtimes, or bonuses..........So, it's gonna get a lot, lot worse, real soon...and no one is talking about it. Businesses HATE the expense of the holidy party..but they never could find a way to eliminate them, because it woulds upset employees. Well, now, it's real easy to cut it out.
So why, WHY isn't anybody talking about what should be glaringly obvious? There are two reasons for this....First, no one wants to sound like the prophet of doom...and after 9/11 no one wants to seem like you're kicking the city while it's down. And we're going through a mayoral race, and "tough love" hase never been the way to win votes.....you tell the people the bad news AFTER you've won......they can't kick you out then.
So, to summarize. They city had a wild ride for the last ten years. Some things went right, but many problems still continued unchecked, uncorrected, and unabated. The economy was chnaging, turning down...but, BUT, the events of 9/ll changed it all, for the worse, and worst of all, it's all going to be compressed into a quick, violent ride to the bottom.
The tax on garaging a car in New York is 18%. And if they bring back the commuter tax, it means that you have to be crazy to work in New York unless you have one of those jobs with a huge salary.
The city can't exist with no one but wall street moguls and welfare recipients living there. Especially when you get NOTHING back on your tax dollars, which are all spent on the folks who vote for people like Mark Green.
Riding the subway is gonna be fun again.
And it's been years since I've seen a guy at the urinal next to me in Grand Central diddle himself while watching me.
Sorry for being so vague, but have you heard of this?
Yes, but it comprised only 10% of the office space in LOWER Manhattan alone. NYC hardly needed the WTC to zoom past burgs like Tampa and San Jose. And to be honest, given the major downturn in the economy since 9/11, having that 10% off the market is probably a very good thing for NYC. It'll help prevent real estate prices from collapsing. Eventually, the WTC will be rebuilt (and no matter what form it takes, I'll bet it manages to hold just as much square footage of office space the old Towers did), and hopefully by then the economy will be back on track enough to welcome the extra capacity.
Schumer, Clinton Outline Economic Recovery Plan For Downtown Manhattan
Senator Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton on have sketched out a five (B) billion dollar plan to help the downtown Manhattan economy by creating a special recovery zone. The plan is similar to the ``Liberty Zone'' Governor George Pataki proposed as part of his 54 (B) billion dollar rebuilding plan. Schumer and Clinton say their proposal is still being formulated and key elements, especially dollar figures, could change.
The New York Democrats hope to get their proposal attached to the economic stimulus package in the Senate. The 100 (B) billion dollar plan approved by the House on Wednesday contains no specific provisions for New York. The main components of the Schumer-Clinton plan are: -- Three thousand dollar annual tax credit per employee for businesses south of Canal Street that agree to stay or relocate there. -- Residential tax credits for residents whose primary residence is south of Canal Street to give downtown residents incentives to stay. -- Authority to issue triple tax exempt bonds for redevelopment through the city, state and federal government, which would reduce interest rates for rebuilding. As currently envisioned the bonding authority would apply to all of Manhattan but could be scaled back just for downtown.
(1 posted on 10/26/01 6:16 AM Central by areafiftyone )
Unless the prices in Battery Park City have totally collapsed since 9/11 (no pun intended), $3000 isn't worth spitting at. Wow, a whole month's rent off, yay.
I don't know why anyone wants to live there anyway. Remember that 2.7 quake this morning? Wait until a 5.x quake hits NYC. BPC is built on landfill from the dirt excavated to make room for the WTC. When a big quake hits, that dirt will liquefy, and not only will all the apartment buildings there collapse instantly, you'll get the extra added bonus of being swept out to sea at the same time. Have fun!
I'm in the process of moving back to the New York City area, and one of my goals as a vice president in my firm will be to ensure that the home office is moved out of Manhattan when the lease expires in two years. New York City is nothing more than a Third World toilet (I'll include Jersey City, too, with all due respect to Bret Schundelr), and one positive result of the events of September 11th is that fewer people are afraid to say that out loud.
Imagine walking near the Port Authority Bus Terminal on your way to work one mid-December morning and having some creature grab your briefcase. Not hard enough to take it away from you, but just hard enough to rub it up against his crotch while he sings "Jingle Bells" to you.
You can't make that sh!t up.
I once "fell asleep" on the 4-5-6 line in Brooklyn after partying all night, and I woke in Harlem (125th street). No one touched me.
You were lucky. I know someone who did that on a PATH train and woke up the next morning in a maintenance yard in Harrison, New Jersey.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.