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Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

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Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in my tax money being used to help stabilize the local population to minimize harm to them during this time and thereby minimize unrest and keep the whole of it safer. If my money is going to be going to making missiles and weapons for overseas, some of it can come back and pay for rough times instead.

A less drastic solution, which doesn't require much money, is to just force lenders to allow landlords who lost tenants or whose tenants can't pay to allow the landlord to defer loan payments (extending the final date of the loan). It's not exactly fair to landlords who own the properties outright, but, I can live with that.

>>It's not exactly fair to landlords who own the properties outright, but, I can live with that.

Well of course you're OK with that, you're obviously not a property investor who worked to get free and clear. What if instead we levied a special premium salary fee on technology workers who make more than the median salary? Not really fair but us worker bees are OK with it...

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#72
post #58

It's ridiculous that we couldn't coordinate a rent/mortgage forgiveness plan alongside all the customer bans put in place across the country. If a restaurant can't stay open, they shouldn't pay rent. If the property owner isn't getting rent, they shouldn't have to pay mortgage. And so on, up the entire chain.

"Trickle-Up Debt Forgiveness".

It sounds nice, but I think it benefits the poor too much to catch on.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#73
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those landlords also need bailing out. They need to pay their loans, as well.

God no. They've been sitting on empty buildings for years. It's time for them to default on the underwater loans and let people actually put the wasted space to use. Every city in the US has a similar issue including the one near where I grew up and it's the weirdest most broken thing. I remember many times walking down streets flanked by empty buildings with homeless people sleeping outside.

If they have been sitting on empty buildings for years, why would they want renters now? I expect they would just continue to keep their buildings empty and continue to be unaffected by this pandemic.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#74
post #67
post #58

It's ridiculous that we couldn't coordinate a rent/mortgage forgiveness plan alongside all the customer bans put in place across the country. If a restaurant can't stay open, they shouldn't pay rent. If the property owner isn't getting rent, they shouldn't have to pay mortgage. And so on, up the entire chain.

When you go up that chain you will eventually run into a very serious monetary crisis that would crash the banks, the real estate market, and the entire economy.

No, you would end up with another bank bailout, except this time the banks didn't do anything wrong and it was the government's fault for screwing up the pandemic response. In other words, it would be compensation for the government's failure, not a bailout.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those landlords also need bailing out. They need to pay their loans, as well.

Do I get a bailout for my losses on the share market? What if I had bought shares on margin? Why does one class of investor get a bailout but not others? (Why bailout any investor? Risk is part of investment.)

The S&P 500 and NASDAQ are both up year to date. The government has already taken actions, including injecting trillions of dollars into the economy, to bail out shareholders.

> Why bailout any investor? Risk is part of investment.

The damage caused by this pandemic is so rare it is less than a 1-in-100-years event (1918 pandemic killed millions, but businesses were typically shuttered only for weeks at most, not 6 months).

Certainly bailouts for natural disasters are quite common in other respects. And if the government were to seize your property via eminent domain, they owe you money. Why shouldn’t they also in justice pay out if they order your business shuttered for a half a year?

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#76

Only related because NY, but NY state covid 19 new cases have been incredibly flat since June. I would think they'd trend closer to zero, up some, or just bounce around more. Normally, new cases are driven up by complacency and down by fear or policy, but there doesn't seem to be either happening quickly and subtly enough to keep new cases between 500 and 1000 for so long, and r0 should be metastable, so keeping it i…

Yes there's something going on we don't understand, because some places that were hit very hard first time round are not seeing a second wave.

Perhaps the "something" is simply antibodies and herd immunity?

1. In April (!!), 1 in 5 NYCers tested positive for antibodies: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-anti...

2. Given asymmetric social contact patterns, experts estimate that ~20% may be the threshold for herd immunity of COVID: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-could-it-be-burning-...

I support looking at the science, and this means looking at it both ways; not just cherry-picking doom and worst case scenarios while ignoring best case scenarios.

We can't afford to let an "overabundance of caution" kill businesses and our economy, for good.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#77
post #58

It's ridiculous that we couldn't coordinate a rent/mortgage forgiveness plan alongside all the customer bans put in place across the country. If a restaurant can't stay open, they shouldn't pay rent. If the property owner isn't getting rent, they shouldn't have to pay mortgage. And so on, up the entire chain.

Which country implemented rent/mortgage forgiveness? The US implemented mortgage deferral, plus SBA loans for rent for small businesses. The lack of general rent deferral was to force larger companies to bear some of the cost of shut downs. France and Germany didn’t do appreciably more—they simply imposed deferrals or moratorium on eviction.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't end with "this isn't the time for ideology" after three paragraphs of YOUR ideology. For some restaurants, takeout is easy and they can make it work! For others, it really really isn't. What about bars, where most money is made on alcohol? You got it backward. These restaurants all presumably paid taxes and employed people, some for literally a century. Why do you expect them right now, when they're sufferi…

Why should we not expect organizations to give something back?

I answered that already.

Because they paid taxes and employed people. It's like an insurance company that drops you as soon as you file a claim... you pay into a pool, expecting it to be there when you need it.

This is an unheard of situation, don't forget. The government (rightfully so, in my opinion) is forcing these restaurants to shut down dining. It's not like they're shutting down because they're "lazy".

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#80
> ... following six months of partial — and in some cases total — closure due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

At the risk of appearing churlish -- given the preponderance of nation states around the world that had significantly shorter full lockdowns, and the USA's apparent predilection for litigation, it sounds like an excellent opportunity to make a compelling case against the causative elements.

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