Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nypost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 328 posts

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

#251

Post by pfisch »

twblalock wrote: post #74
pfisch wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about all the reits? A lot of bonds are backed by mortgages. If no one is paying rent then aren't all property owners in serious trouble? What about the massive tax hit for all local governments from property taxes. This isn't a simple problem.

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

#252

Post by the-rc »

username90 wrote: post #175
the-rc wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 negativ…

> my inkling is still to explain NYC's current rates with mask wearing and reduced indoor interactions Stockholm, Sweden has better numbers than New York yet people don't wear masks here nor are stuff closed. So you can't really say for sure that New York's numbers are thanks to those.

I don't know how to compare and control for different population mobility between the two or any other pair of cities in the world, which is why I mentioned that we'll see in a few weeks, i.e. comparing NYC to itself.

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

#253

Post by scottlocklin »

dwaltrip wrote: post #198
just-juan-post wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves Making decisions for ones self is exactly the principal that the USA was founded on. > You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. See also: Drinking, condom-less sex, smoking, and junk food. All of these things directly or indirectly harm others and if this is about public safety then it's time yo…

Have you thought about how many people need to die for you to change your mind on this one? Just curious where you draw the line.

Have you considered that your favored interventions are, in addition to being extremely harmful to society in every measurable way, probably also completely ineffective in altering the outcomes? Sweden didn't do a thing and is basically done with this nonsense, presumably for all time from the looks of the plots; Massachusetts is still mostly locked down and has 4x the death rate. Lockdown fetishists should be greeted with "citations needed."

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

#254

Post by imtringued »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #9
t-writescode wrote: post #7

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.

You can live with endangering the banking infrastructure? The place where all your hard earned money is stored at? This will end with a bank bailout because nobody wants to lose their money because some idiot decided to implement deferment of loan payments.

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

#255

Post by piva00 »

just-juan-post wrote: post #202
watwut wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people are scared and won't go to restaurants If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants ... Or long form: If people know there is infectious disease around with asymptomatic transmission and rationally decide not to go to restaurant to ... Framing does a lot.

> If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants See here's the thing: Just because you and others like you have a certain definition of "responsible" doesn't mean it should or does apply to everyone. Should we ban skydiving because it's irresponsible? Condom-less sex? This is about choice. Re-open and let people and businesses choose. Have a laugh with me tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko

No, this is about the common good, where personal choices might have a disproportionate impact unto others.

I don't care if you don't care about getting infected or not, I do care if you get infected and spread that to others that don't hold your values.

Society and populations don't work well with personal responsibility when their actions' impacts are too far removed from their personal sphere, if you kill someone 3rd hand because you infected someone who worked in a care facility: how are you going to know and act accordingly?

This bullshit about personal freedoms and responsibility in the middle of a pandemic tells me more about the people who don't have a holistic view of society but this ideologue monologue about personal freedom, this is your value, this isn't how society work yet.

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

#256

Post by imtringued »

twblalock wrote: post #26
t-writescode wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but landlords who promised to pay their mortgages are not allowed to stop paying. Why not provide them an extension during this time, as well?

We should! But for some reason, a lot of people think we shouldn't.

Because the next step after that would be to bail out the banks. You can't solve this problem without conjuring money via government debt.

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

#257

Post by [deleted] »

twblalock wrote: post #152
refurb wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#258

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

Yetanfou wrote: post #237
just-juan-post wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's mandatory because without it I and others like me are quickly branded with assumptive labels.

I realise this but the solution is not to wave the don't shoot, I'm with you flag. The real solution is to get the discussion to revolve around the message instead of the messenger . This is a culture change and as such it takes time and you'll have to suffer the (no so) occasional downvote-into-oblivion experience but so be it. Here comes some ethically questionable but effective advice to stay alive in the HN jungl…

I mean, the alternative is to only post on technical topics, where there's a lot less need for the "right" opinions (unless you hate Rust, I guess ;) ).

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

#259

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

TomSwirly wrote: post #248
just-juan-post wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves Making decisions for ones self is exactly the principal that the USA was founded on. > You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. See also: Drinking, condom-less sex, smoking, and junk food. All of these things directly or indirectly harm others and if this is about public safety then it's time yo…

> The "you may be hurting people indirectly" argument never worked and it's getting more brittle with time. The United States has 25% of the world's COVID deaths and 5% of the population. In fact, wilful ignorance DOES hurt people.

To be fair, the US is in kindof a weird position with respect to Covid 19. It's a perfect storm of 1) good testing (at least better than the developing world) and 2) inconsistent and ineffective responses to Covid.

I don't dispute that the US has performed poorly here, but the 25%/5% stat needs to be contextualised by the fact that other countries who have done really poorly (e.g. Brazil), have much less testing than the US has.

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

#260

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

twblalock wrote: post #152
refurb wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US made a different set of choices to Western Europe with respect to unemployment. Europe (mostly) chose to maintain existing employment, while the US chose to make unemployment benefits much more generous.

In a short pandemic world, it's likely that the European strategy will perform better, while in a long pandemic world, the US strategy may perform better.

I do agree with the OP though, it's far too early to tell (except letting the unemployment benefits lapse in the US was almost certainly a bad idea).

Post reply on HN