Gyroscopic Investing

WiseOne wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2020 5:59 pm

dualstow wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2020 1:18 pm Rooting for you, WiseOne.

Thanks! Believe me I'm keeping a close eye on things. In my neighborhood (unlike the rest of the city) apartment sales are up a bit but prices are stable, so far. Lots of renters are leaving though.

I'm not sure if it's a good time to get in and this will all pass in a year or two or three, or if half the city is hanging back and wondering when will be the time to get out.

Don't wait too long to make your move.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/29/89694233 ... using-boom

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/29/were-ru ... s-say.html

MangoMan wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2020 7:22 am I think a very interesting realization is hitting people. This virus has had some silver linings in that these things were forced upon us but made us realize that things were not as 'necessary' as we thought. A friend's son who is a coder, moved to KY (he can work for home and fly in to Chicago once a month) where the cost of living is nearly half and the taxes are waaaay lower. Another one's child decided to forego college since there are no live classes and save thousands. You can take online classes for a much lower cost if you stay away from brick and mortar schools with huge overheads.

Less people will commute, so the traffic and pollution will improve. People will become more efficient because their time will not be wasted commuting. But unfortunately, big expensive cities will die as their tax base flees the crime and high taxes.

A lot of what's driving people to leave NYC is being cooped up in their apartments with no outdoor access. It's especially onerous with kids, what with the school closures. When the lockdown is finally over (god knows when), I suspect a lot of these people will come back.

The ones who are leaving because they can now telecommute from anywhere - that's much more interesting. I don't know how it will play out. A big question is whether companies will continue to allow permanent telecommuting after the pandemic is over (or declared to be over....I argue the pandemic itself is long gone). Also, it's not clear how cities will respond. I'm sure some places like NYC will fill up with unskilled and/or illegal immigrants, but at some point the city will realize they can't pay for all their benefits and will have to start making some decisions. The cities will "die" only if that doesn't happen, or if it's decided that benefits to those non-taxpayers take top priority over things like transportation infrastructure and clean streets. That, to me, will be the real signal to leave. For right now, I'd be crazy to leave...I have a well paid job and tenure at a prominent academic center, and that can't be easily re-created anywhere else except in places (like CA) that are facing the same exact issue.

Opinion

Jerry Seinfeld: So You Think New York Is ‘Dead’
(It’s not.)

By Jerry Seinfeld

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/opin ... virus.html

Jerry Seinfeld is being incredibly disingenuous, but then, he can afford to be. Few New Yorkers are as isolated from the everyday realities of the late “unpleasantness” as he and his family are. A quick google search reveals the following:

1. Jerry Seinfeld lives in The Beresford on the Upper West Side with his wife, Jessica, and three kids, in a very renovated $4.35 million duplex apartment.
2. Jerry Seinfeld and his family can also easily bug out to their second home in East Hampton, NY. He purchased the property from rocker Billy Joel for $32 million in 2000. See:

https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/je ... ew/google/

Seinfeld is unlikely to reveal just how much he spends on personal security, such as regular limo drivers with concealed carry permits.

I kind of agree with what Seinfeld said in the article except for one hidden theme: this is the point of view of an artsy extrovert. If you are not those two things, it doesn't really apply.

Introverts/homebodies (like me) are LOVING the work from home era. I do miss enjoying happy hour and NY restaurant week, exploring shops in Chinatown and Flushing, and taking the free ferry from Wall Street to the Brooklyn IKEA. But I'd be thrilled to never have to sit in a crowded, hot, stuffy auditorium again listening to a boring or irrelevant (to me) talk and trying really hard not to play with my phone.

Altucher fires back at Seinfeld:
https://nypost.com/2020/08/24/sorry-sei ... ts-crisis/

Fair enough, WiseOne.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:53 pm Altucher fires back at Seinfeld:
https://nypost.com/2020/08/24/sorry-sei ... ts-crisis/

Altucher wrote:
Now Jerry Seinfeld — sitting in the comfort and safety of his Hamptons mansion, with probably five dozen rare Italian sports cars in the garage — has written a response in the New York Times calling me a “putz” and insisting that “NYC has resilience.”

My mother agrees with him.

On the putz comment, too, or just the resilience of New York

dualstow wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 3:50 pm Fair enough, WiseOne.

Tortoise wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:53 pm Altucher fires back at Seinfeld:
https://nypost.com/2020/08/24/sorry-sei ... ts-crisis/

Altucher wrote:
Now Jerry Seinfeld — sitting in the comfort and safety of his Hamptons mansion, with probably five dozen rare Italian sports cars in the garage — has written a response in the New York Times calling me a “putz” and insisting that “NYC has resilience.”

My mother agrees with him.

On the putz comment, too, or just the resilience of New York

Knowing Altucher, probably both! He is quite a character.

Two Senior Officials Leave New York City Government
Architects of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s criminal-justice approach are latest high-profile departures

https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-senior ... 1602704657

From what I've seen money is being redirected to homelessness and mental health. From my experience living in city a large number of calls were due to homeless people off their meds or on drugs in the street. One of the best things my city did was pass an ordinance making sleeping on streets illegal but creating a safe place for them to go where they could shower and eat and use bathrooms. That made a huge difference. I don't think police should be dealing with issues that could be handled initially by a social worker. Jailing these people seems like an even bigger waste of money.

doodle wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 11:17 pm From what I've seen money is being redirected to homelessness and mental health. From my experience living in city a large number of calls were due to homeless people off their meds or on drugs in the street. One of the best things my city did was pass an ordinance making sleeping on streets illegal but creating a safe place for them to go where they could shower and eat and use bathrooms. That made a huge difference. I don't think police should be dealing with issues that could be handled initially by a social worker. Jailing these people seems like an even bigger waste of money.

I do agree. In fact, there's a crazy homeless guy in the park near my home who yells slurs and other things at me and my wife. We can't call the police because he hasn't been caught doing anything arrestworthy. There's a mental health facility # that I got for the neighborhood, but nothing happens when we call it. He's still out there, yelling at fathers holding their babies in their arms.

dualstow wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 9:12 am

doodle wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 11:17 pm From what I've seen money is being redirected to homelessness and mental health. From my experience living in city a large number of calls were due to homeless people off their meds or on drugs in the street. One of the best things my city did was pass an ordinance making sleeping on streets illegal but creating a safe place for them to go where they could shower and eat and use bathrooms. That made a huge difference. I don't think police should be dealing with issues that could be handled initially by a social worker. Jailing these people seems like an even bigger waste of money.

I do agree. In fact, there's a crazy homeless guy in the park near my home who yells slurs and other things at me and my wife. We can't call the police because he hasn't been caught doing anything arrestworthy. There's a mental health facility # that I got for the neighborhood, but nothing happens when we call it. He's still out there, yelling at fathers holding their babies in their arms.

It is just totally overall sad. Said for him and sad for others like you and the fathers you describe who have to be subject to his behaviors.

Vinny

Yep.

doodle wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 11:17 pm From what I've seen money is being redirected to homelessness and mental health. From my experience living in city a large number of calls were due to homeless people off their meds or on drugs in the street.

That was probably the case when you were here in NYC, but no longer. My citizen app is constantly going off with gun and knife attacks around my neighborhood. It has gone up MUCH more than the advertised 3-fold increase. There have been two murders within 0.5 miles of me in the past week alone.

We need police.

And we need our jails, bail, and all the rest of that back too.

MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 6:57 pm

WiseOne wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 2:42 pm

doodle wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 11:17 pm From what I've seen money is being redirected to homelessness and mental health. From my experience living in city a large number of calls were due to homeless people off their meds or on drugs in the street.

That was probably the case when you were here in NYC, but no longer. My citizen app is constantly going off with gun and knife attacks around my neighborhood. It has gone up MUCH more than the advertised 3-fold increase. There have been two murders within 0.5 miles of me in the past week alone.

We need police.

And we need our jails, bail, and all the rest of that back too.

Sounds to me more like Libertarian666 was right: You need to get the F out of NYC.

Yes, I'm afraid that is going to be the only way @WiseOne is going to be able to be safe. She can't do anything about the insane government there, but she can get out of its killing field.

@Vinny : Tom is being facetious, ironic, tongue-in-cheek .

WiseOne wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 2:42 pm My citizen app is constantly going off with gun and knife attacks around my neighborhood.

I hate that thing. :-) I want to delete it but I can't look away!

Resurrecting this thread, to see what "defund the police" has accomplished 6 months or so into it...

I don't know about other locations, but New York City is turning out better than expected.

We still have the knife and gun club in slum neighborhoods, and there's been an increase in graffiti in these neighborhoods as well. In my sweet little neck of the woods however, things are not noticeably different than they were pre-pandemic. No graffiti anywhere, and no violent crime reports per the Citizen app.

AND:

Last night there was the usual group of drug dealers or whoever congregating in the park across the street and blasting loud music at midnight. That's been happening quite often between midnight and 2am since the BLM riots started, and it's the sort of thing the police aren't supposed to do anything about per our dear idiot mayor. This time, instead of entertaining thoughts of buying a BB gun and a case of stink bombs, I went to the 311 website to file a noise complaint.

10 minutes later, the noise stopped. I glanced at my phone, and there was a text update saying that the police had responded and resolved the issue. It was resolved indeed! I finally got to sleep in the blessed quiet.

I'm most pleased that sensible heads prevailed at the NYPD. There is still such a thing as quality of life for us taxpaying citizens despite what the stupid mayor thinks. Of course, as expected it's minorities in slums who are suffering the brunt of the "defund the police" actions, thus increasing the divide between poor and wealthy neighborhoods. I'm sure the extreme left wing Democrats planned it that way. Thank you, AOC and others, for ensuring that police protection is focused on high income neighborhoods like mine, so that I can live in a safe, clean and quiet environment. Of course, my own preference would have been for police protection for those slum neighborhoods also, but I got outvoted so I guess I'll just have to live with that.

WiseOne wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 11:35 am Resurrecting this thread,
...

Good update, WiseOne, and somewhat heartening.
Maybe this defunding (and wealth tax) talk will mostly result in just that: talk.