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I like Miles so count me in too. Cept I'll bring a knife instead of the stillettos LOL.
Come on over guys, we'll just hunker down till it's safe to go out. quelinda, you bring your weapon of choice and makossa you bring all the food supplies you can lay your hands on. We'll have a hot dog vendor outside for those rare occasions when we want to live life to the full.
We'll reminisce about the days of yesteryear - of the luxury high risers all over town, of leveraged buyouts, Wall street financiers, ARM's and no downpayment mortgages, of high finance and big time credit, of the glory, greed, passion and financial excesses of the first decade of the 21st century.
If you two are like me, you'll come out of this with hardly a ruffle since we never drank champagne and caviar in those heydays. We were and continue to be only average Joes and Janes trying to live within our means.
And quelinda, hopefully the knife is not to use against me and makossa.
I wonder how long it would take to get permits for a reflecting pond to surround the house, and just because it's 15 feet deep and happens to have a drawbridge is immaterial. It's a reflecting pool, not a moat. And, should alligators or the like decide to take up residence in said moat, who am I to question? That should provide some security should the sky continue to fall, and hordes of former bankers are prowling the streets in gangs. LOL
Seriously, though, it will be bad in the near term, but long term things have a way of settling out again, and sometimes great talent is liberated from outmoded structures when massive corrections come into play in the markets. I agree with mmckenna who posted about the newer bankers, many of whom might have younger families as they might not be as equipped to handle the loss of income in the short term. Then again, I don't like to see anyone lose their job, even when its inevitable for the current organization to continue operations for financial reasons.
Well, I just found out I'm getting laid off. Guess I'll be finding out just how bad this recession job market is shortly.
Anyone else get hit by this personally?
That's terrible, Minus. I am so sorry to hear that. I hope that you find something quickly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MaximumTorque
Wow Minus sorry to hear that. Do you work for one of the investment firms? I work in the commercial real estate industry (for a major firm) and we not only have a hiring freeze, but they are telling us to not use the color copiers, use both sides of the paper when printing, they have eliminated the design on our paper cups (they are now plain white), and we can no longer order pens or other supplies until we have absolutely none left AND somebody comes over to verify it. I believe that is how it started at Lehman!
That is one of the ways that it starts, yes. I have been involved in situations like that previously, not with this go around of bubbles bursting, though. Cutting costs at every corner to try to minimize expenditures goes so far, then it comes to reductions in staff and real estate holdings, and talks of mergers of equals to try to get on some sort of economic foothold between the two organizations. When I went through a situation like this, it was not caused by a bubble bursting in the financial market, but due to internal problems within the organization, and many of us lost huge stakes as a result. It's not easy, that's for sure.
The city won't go back to the 70s. People want to live here. Most people I know who left the city did so because they couldn't afford it. Real estate will suffer but NYC will do just fine. Energy prices, etc. have made people increasingly want to live in the city.
Yeah? even if there are no jobs? Regardless of people like, or want, the bottom line is jobs. That's what brings people to any city, and the fact is NYC is based entirely on the FIRE sector. This is not the end of the financial carnage, by any means. Ironically, the high gas prices make all the new real estate developments and investments on the fringes of metropolitan areas worth far less than they were over appraised for.
NYC was short sighted to convert its industrial areas into housing. We are going to need that for production. Lets face it, either we'll have crazy inflation, with the fed printing out mad money, and our dollar will be worth so little it will no longer be cheaper to buy goods from china, or we'll have deflation, and simply few dollars to spend on foreign goods.
Our country doesn't actually produce anything. All this financial BS (debt, financial services, assets) adds up to nothing but huge debt, and now our country is bankrupt, including our entire financial system, and our government which is half a trillion in debt and growing with each bailout. I hope the fed doesn't bail out AIG; they should collapse and our economy has to restructure itself to be able to produce, as the last forty years have been one giant transfer of wealth to china and oil producing countries. I know that AIG is important, but only for our totally useless financial system as it stands. It should collapse and take every bank with it; new banks, or banks that have done well, will take over and make up for the job losses. Lets clean up our economy because the fundamentals are not strong. Its only based on a giant credit card which has maxed out.
Great thread, OP. I think a lot of people have been in denial about the country's economy because NYC has seemed immune for the past year or so. But I think it's pretty hard to deny that not only are we already in a recession with depression type numbers but we are also facing a major Wall Street crisis.
I find it really hard to look at the hardcore numbers and deny that this is happening and that it will not affect New Yorkers long time. The fact remains that the majority of buyers in the market were from the financial industry and were rich out-of-towners banking on the continued success of the market, both financial and real estate. So when one effects the other, as the financial market has been affecting the real estate market, there are bound to be repercussions. Crime, poverty, lack of jobs, price drops etc. are all such repercussions.
You are right on the money Samyn, Marilyn and Jackson. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Last edited by vitalove; 09-16-2008 at 03:59 PM..
Reason: Correction of names.
1) Yes, the U.S. economy is in serious trouble, and, yes the credit crunch is FAR from over.
2) It's true that we don't make that much anymore - except for services. This is also true of most of Europe. Butl the more industrialized the world becomes, the less developed countries will make traditional widgets, so to speak, and the smaller portion of the sum of all nations GDPs they will be. Wealthier countries will export things high on intellectual capital - brands, pharmaceuticals, and, yes, financial products. It's scary, but to say we should start making widgets anymore is ridiculous. We should continue to focus on high-value services and provide incentives to invest in technology, healthcare, and alternative energy. Saying we should put factories back in NYC though is just really stupid.
3) Whoever said "NOT if there are NO jobs in NYC," How ridiculous. Finance represents only 5% of the jobs in NYC, and, yes 10% of its tax basis (this is according to the WSJ today), an 25% of its TOTAL wages. YES - Loosing all of this would be a signficant blow. But every job is not going away - not even within finance. Some jobs will, yes, but not all jobs. And there are still many more people working in NYC and Manhattan than living there - this will ALWAYS be true. If prices fall enough, people will chose to live in the city. In the 70s, people fled cities; this simply will not happen anymore for a variety of factors (energy prices, cultural trends, etc.)
4) NYC's economy will suffer as a result of what is happening and real estate prices will come down - BUT THIS IS A GOOD THING - this means people can actually maybe afford to live here.
5) In summary - Recession? Yep. Real Estate Price Declines? Yes. NYC reverting back to the way it was in the 70s with crime, etc.? That will not happen.
I think you guys might be right if the government let AIG go belly up, but they couldn't, and didn't. If AIG went down, everybody would be taking out their money, and the stock market would plunge to Hell.. yes, there's been some great financial losses in the past few days, but I seriously believe it's just a blip on the radar.
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