THE STOCK MARKET
The Stock Market is changing. No longer is the open floor and the yelling bids the way most business is done. Today, it is done quietly, sitting in front of multiple computer screens, and the Covid Pandemic moved business more in that direction, opening the door to remote work for many.
So if the NY Stock Market wants to do its employees and those of Brokerage Firms a favor, Florida can be a very good alternative. What the Exchange leadership would need is a location with established infrastructure, with a possibility of providing large numbers of modern housing at relatively reasonable rates, rental and owned, with extensive infrastructure in internet availability at top speeds, up to date cyber security, and an area that is family friendly.
There is such an area right now. Lake Nona. SE of Orlando, a bit SE of the International Airport, less than an hour to the beach and the fast-growing atmosphere of Titusville, Cocoa, and Melbourne. It has excess capacity of internet, power, water, and areas for housing because Disney had planned to move 20,000 people there from California before Covid.
There is opportunity for other NY Based businesses all over Florida, Texas as well.
TEACH AMERICA WITH NEW YORK’S DISASTER
The question about how we can influence the nation based on NY failure.
I expect Mamdani will want a fast start on keeping his promises. The problem will be, even if he passes his tax increases on the wealthy, his expected $ 2.2 Billion revenue need to cover his free busses and subways, and his grocery idea, etc., will not be sufficient and will not reach the amount he estimates as the wealthy shift income out of NYC.
That will lead a deficit that he will have to beg NY State or the Federal Government to make up. In the short run, tax revenues anyway will lag behind spending by at least a year.
So, the money will have to come from somewhere to make payroll and services (garbage collection, police, fire, safety inspections, school budgets).
There is a theory that Rome fell, not because of wars but because of deficits created by spending to keep the people quiet.
Look on some of the streets of Rome, particularly one that is about 35 feet higher than the original street.
Amazingly, sometimes two or more stories of Roman buildings were buried as one needs to walk down metal steps to reach ground level to enter a church that was once the Temple of Apollo.
Why?
Because Rome stopped garbage collection because of deficits. When the stink became too much, dirt was brought in which raised the street level, and over time the lower stories of buildings there became inaccessible, so the people just built more stories on top until buildings started collapsing into the street - the rubble then to be covered up.
And disease spread.
And the people left until at one point the whole population, once more than 1 million, dwindled to about 47,000.
PROPERTY VALUES
Some had predicted that property values will drop. I assume they will but not as much as people might think at least not at first.
Over time, I would expect a drop in values of 25%. In rental properties, expect first a reduction in maintenance that will cause a drop in value, as rent controls will preclude keeping income up to inflation and additional taxes and the cost of additional security with fewer police will leave much less for upkeep, with large management groups choosing to write off some properties and closing them. And of course, a lot of landlords will be applying for a drop in property taxes, potentially denying the city much more revenue than Mamdani’s tax on millionaires will bring in.
BYE BYE NEW YORK!
There has already been a slow exodus of White (Jews and Christian) New Yorkers. Jews and White Christians are now only 32% of NYC, the Jewish population alone down from 2 million at one time to less than 900,000 today inside the city’s boroughs, most having moved farther out, enduring long commutes to jobs and businesses rather than to live in NYC.
Others moving away to Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, New Jersey, or elsewhere. The most productive of New Yorkers have left or are considering leaving. That process will continue, Mamdani or not, but Mamdani will accelerate the exodus out of the “Big Apple.”
The warning to other cities?
The devil tempts people but it never turns out well. That is what Socialism/Communism and Islam offer to all New Yorkers.
An offer that looks attractive. “Looks” attractive, but, when accepted, you get Cuba, Venezuela, China, the failed USSR, Iran, or the poverty of West Africa under pressure from Boku Haram.
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ROGER FROIKIN
INTERNATIONAL ANALYST - THINKER - WRITER
