this is a telling & interesting story

upshot: lockdowns have caused a death spiral in cities like NYC. you cannot just "press pause" for 5 months

the restaurants, the theater, the city life itself dies

this is what we were warning you about in march https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nyc-dead-forever-heres-why-james-altucher/

businesses were not capitalized to survive this. half of them may never open again. office space will not fill back up. taxpayers are not coming back

NYC is cooked. it will never survive this budget implosion without a bailout

public safety and public services are crumbling

governors like cuomo and newsom and mayors like breed and deblasio have realized that they CANNOT re-open or this is going to become obvious

so long as they lock down, they can pretend it will come back when they open

but it won't

and they desperately need to hide that

they need to hide the extent of the damage they did at least until after the election or until they can grub for a massive federal bailout from their own weak-kneed panic and pointlessly destructive policy.

did they really not see this would happen?

was this some ploy to make it look like disease is what made their finances untenable and slime themselves massive infusions of federal cash to plug budget holes that have been decades in the making?

because the policy it self is literally unprecedented madness.

you cannot just stop an economy and put it on hold. businesses like restaurants have 2-3 wks of cash on hand

rent does not stop. mortgages do not stop

RE prices and rents are plummeting and setting up a new crisis. the bad parts are just getting started

people are leaving

this all bought NOTHING. it did not save lives, it cost them

it did not slow disease or spare hospitals

it was bad policy, longstanding research/guidance said it was bad policy, everyone told them this was an economic disaster, and they did it anyway https://twitter.com/yinonw/status/1295152579941249024?s=20

and now they are keeping it going because ending it is going to mean letting people see what the real price tag is and letting the bad part of the crisis become visible and tangible.

they lied to you on lockdowns, why would they tell you the truth now?

they're cornered.

cities like NYC and SF are done for. they're the super growth stock that missed 2 quarters and are now dropping like stones. but they have a long way to go before they are values.

who would want to move there now? to invest capital?

who wants to fund this budget hole?

both rely heavily on a small part of the tax base to pay for nearly everything and have grotesquely over-bloated and over paid public sectors whose unions dominate the city budget.

both are horrifically mismanaged.

and both are going to go BK.

we should let them.

this is an object lesson in the effects of stupid policy.

we have NEVER done anything this stupid before in US history. not during world wars or real, deadly pandemics like 1918, polio, measles, etc.

this was a preposterous reaction so out of line with reality the mind boggles

and it's important that those who pushed it, supported it, and led it face the price.

otherwise you don't learn. otherwise, you do it again.

BK is not the end of the world. it will get these cities out from under impossible contracts.

it will let them elect real leaders and do something better without being saddled by the bad policies and giveaways of past generations

those that got too greedy will have killed their golden goose and will reap what they sowed.

just desserts are not always tasty.

and the cities will re-invent themselves and rise again.

maybe it will be so cheap to get loft space in soho that artists will come back.

maybe little neighborhood restaurants will thrive once more in SF.

their current models have been broken for years.

so let them fall over and build anew.

let the people there learn what's really important when they vote for governors and mayors and chose competence and respect for liberty over faux wokeness and cronyism.

and let them remember who killed the cities for it was not covid.

disease did not kill NYC. policy did

the virus did not gut SF. its mayor and governor did

and this was possible because they had poor judgement, too much power, and because the cities were in bad shape to start with

none of this had to happen

it was a choice.

choose better