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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

#151

Post by tedivm »

clairity wrote: post #118
jacquesc wrote: post #27

Looks like The Onion was right on with their reporting: "Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them"

nyc and other municipalities really bungled the categorization of risk. restaurants and bars shouldn't have been lumped together in the first place. most restaurants could have employed some modest measures and stayed open at 80-90% capacity (which may be below break-even for some, but probably enough to ride out the pandemic with price hikes and/or modest gov loans), as risk is isolated between tables (no, that one…

What you are saying doesn't seem to be the reality. Studies show that there is in fact risk beyond just your table.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a5.htm?s_cid=mm...

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/88543

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

#152

Post by twblalock »

refurb wrote: post #148
twblalock wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not that simple. There are various ways to respond to a plague, and some are better than others. Some responses result in far more casualties than others, in addition to the economic damage. We can all see that some governments responded well and others did not.

No country is coming out of this unscathed. Even the ones that kept their cases low are going to be in a world of economic hurt. And they have far few ways to weather the storm than Western countries.

You're kidding, right? Look at unemployment rates in the EU or Japan compared to the US. These are all first-world countries and yet there is still a vast difference in outcome.

There are various degrees of being scathed. "Everyone gets scathed" is not an argument. Some did way, way better than others.

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

#153

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

paxys wrote: 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.

That's exactly what an economic contraction is. A long chain of payments not being made (regardless of one's legal obligation to do so). Breaking the chain causes new problems.

It reduces spending and purse strings get tightened. When the mortgage doesn't get paid, the mortgage backed security isn't getting its repayments. The retirees living off the dividends from the REIT don't get paid. Then the retiree spends less in the economy, which would've paid the restaurant worker's wages.

When the chain breaks, the whole system is impacted. Think of it as a graph. When payments aren't flowing from one node to the next due to crisis, the solution is to have the government ensure those payments be made via taking on debt in bad times (and less borrowing in good times).

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

#154

Post by just-juan-post »

tedivm wrote: post #151
clairity wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nyc and other municipalities really bungled the categorization of risk. restaurants and bars shouldn't have been lumped together in the first place. most restaurants could have employed some modest measures and stayed open at 80-90% capacity (which may be below break-even for some, but probably enough to ride out the pandemic with price hikes and/or modest gov loans), as risk is isolated between tables (no, that one…

What you are saying doesn't seem to be the reality. Studies show that there is in fact risk beyond just your table. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a5.htm?s_cid=mm... https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/88543

It's easy to point out risk. Anyone can do that.

At what point do we fully re-open? Winter 2022 after everyone has had a mandatory vaccine?

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

#155

Post by serial_dev »

twblalock wrote: post #99
nartz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone wants to blame someone - e.g. its the governments fault! In reality, its just an external force that everyone is dealing with, a plague, if you will - its not anyone's fault; it just must be faced, that during a plague, there will be suffering, and there will be casualties. It's that simple.

No, it is not that simple. There are various ways to respond to a plague, and some are better than others. Some responses result in far more casualties than others, in addition to the economic damage. We can all see that some governments responded well and others did not.

> we can all see that some governments responded well and others did not.

Can we, though? We are not even half time yet (most likely). How are we going to judge a government in the beginning of a pandemic as if the pandemic was already over? Maybe what looks like a poor strategy now will turn out to be the best later. Same true for the economic bailouts, some countries went harder than others, and it's not yet clear which will work better.

There are some anomalies that's difficult to explain (Sweden, for example). Sure, we can retrofit some model, and imagine we have it all figured out, but could you have predicted it correctly?

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

#156

Post by adventured »

dannyw wrote: post #76
grey-area wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To add to this, Sweden isn't seeing the big surge that France and Spain are seeing (among others, including Belgium and the Netherlands, both at or near record highs). Sweden's cases have dropped lower and have stayed there. Given their comparatively open approach to the virus, they should be seeing a surge. While it's possible it'll show up in the near future as it again spreads across parts of Europe, I think it's also plausible they've reached a partial herd immunity. The commonly repeated premise that you need ~60% to reach herd immunity is plainly false, that's a calculation meant for a vacuum. In reality people aren't numbers on a sheet or living in a vacuum, all people don't behave the same way, don't spread a virus the same way, aren't all similarly at risk, some large percentage of the population may already have immunity thanks to prior exposure to other coronaviruses, and so on.

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

#157

Post by refurb »

MiroF wrote: post #122
threentaway wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to be pragmatic and get our people and economy through this crisis OK, tax the rich. PS: It was the winning strategy before the crisis too.

What income do you consider the rich? I thought we were all in agreement, but I recently saw some Pew research that had me surprised.

Link to the Pew research?

It reminds me of way back in 2000 when the NDP Party of Canada (left wing) said "we need to tax the rich way more" and a reporter finally asks "what do you mean by rich?" and the NDP leader inferred "a family of four making more than $60,000".[1]

That turned some heads, especially among the labor unions who typically vote NDP and typically make more than that.

[1]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/income-over-60-000-qualifies-...

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

#158

Post by the-rc »

dannyw wrote: post #76
grey-area wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm one of those who tested positive for IgG antibodies in April. Same in June, August. These were Mount Sinai's quantitative research tests, with a high titer. I donated plasma twice. The only symptoms occurred in mid March. Then I got an Abbott qualitative IgG test earlier this month, because I was about to fly to Italy. Still positive. Once there, to end quarantine before the customary two weeks, I got two negative swabs and another Abbott test, but this time they also tested IgM (short term response), which quite surprisingly still came back positive. Since this was the first time it ever got checked, it's not clear if I was IgM positive for the entire six months or I got some exposure in August or early September that didn't result in symptoms or infection.

I don't know what this means or if I'm just a rare case, but my inkling is still to explain NYC's current rates with mask wearing and reduced indoor interactions. I guess we'll see in the next four to six weeks.

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

#159

Post by MiroF »

dehrmann wrote: post #149
just-juan-post wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think spring was "the wave". In Nashville they closed bars and restaurants for 6 months because .004% of the cases came from bars and restaurants. We need to give people choice. If we wait until we get a vaccine it will be Fall 2022 and many Americans won't get it. What then? No bar and gym re-openenings until X percent of the population is verified to be vaccinated? Mandatory vaccination checks on entrance? Punt a…

I wonder how much people changed their behavior in sunbelt states in July when cases were on the rise. I don't remember lots of new restrictions or lockdowns. New cases just kinda peaked. I'm cautiously optimistic that the past week in the US is a blip from Labor day. Both peaks and troughs are improved from two weeks ago, but up from the week before.

There's definitely a dynamic with x% of the population distancing always, x% of the population not social distancing always, and then a certain percent that are oscillating between getting afraid and then feeling safe again - and that's what is keeping the replication rate around 1.

You can get insights into behavior with rt.live

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

#160

Post by just-juan-post »

MiroF wrote: post #110
jacquesc wrote: post #27

Looks like The Onion was right on with their reporting: "Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them"

> "Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them Even without these laws, personal decisions would have decimated the business regardless. Even in places didn't shut down, patronage plummeted.

If people are scared and won't go to restaurants and bars then why continue to keep them closed? You are saying that patronage is already down so why even restrict them?

Give people and businesses a choice in the matter.

This is about letting individuals and businesses make their own decisions without the government forcing them to close.

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