America is Back!

Posted by Roy Edroso at 1:23 PM, October 10, 2008

So far the Dow's only lost 400+ points. Clearly Bush's remarks are boosting the market. Ride the lightning, folks, and remember: Barack Hussein Obama knows Bill Ayers.

Scenes from the Cash Struggle: Yesterday at Wall Street

Posted by Chloé A. Hilliard at 11:20 AM, October 7, 2008

Yesterday afternoon, as the Dow plunged 800 points before rebounding to a still-troubling 370 point deficit, the media was on Wall Street like ants on a picnic. Coiffed reporters dashed this way and that, looking for panicked traders to interview. News vans lined Broadway, and anyone wearing a suit and not in full gallop got a microphone straight to the kisser.

The tourists who normally crawl the neighborhood, meanwhile, were relatively unscathed.

"When we got here, we saw the camera crews and wondered what the hell happened," said Jason Perry, 24, visiting from San Diego with a female friend. “Then we realized it was the Stock Market crap. I don't really worry about it. It hasn’t affected me yet. I still haven't gotten my financial aid for college yet, but if that doesn't go through I will be pissed.”

Meanwhile, TV reporters were getting into position for the final bell, waiting for traders to pour out of a door on the corner of Wall and New Streets.

"Why is every waiting around?" asked a passing woman.

"Where have you been?" snapped a cameraman.

The bell went off, and camera crews jostled even more strenuously for space at the barriers. Wearing their blue jackets, traders began emerging from the building.

"Can you tell us how it was in there?" a reporter asked.

"Hectic," said one trader.

"I have to go to my lawyers to count the money I lost," said another.

"It was fun."

"Wonderful."

"We’re not allowed to talk."

"A little rally at the end."

The parade of traders slowed to a trickle. Nearby, a crowd of cameras had gathered around on young broker who said his name was Jason Nolan. "People need to stop viewing the bailout as saving Wall Street fat cats and as helping the American people," Nolan explained, as someone behind him held up a sign: "Prosecute the C.E.O.s"

Meanwhile, outside a Goldman Sachs building, a line of black town cars and one Prius were waiting for customers. And waiting.

"This is the worst time ever for drivers," said George Waziji, who has been driving Wall Streeters around for a year. "I took this job because I needed flexible hours. I’m in school but I’ve been waiting here for two hours and nothing. No one thinks about how this affects us. I have to pay car insurance and gas, that is easily $600 to $1,000 a month for each. I used to have more business when I drove people from Chase and Lehman."

The driver waiting in the next car, who didn't want to give his name, said that he’s been driving for 20 years. It's pretty obvious how things are changing, he said. "You don’t need a college degree to read the people’s faces. It’s almost like September 11."

Suche Singh was another 20-year veteran. "The business has been dead for weeks. I’ve been here six hours and there is no where to go. Before I’d pick up 9 to 12 people a day. Now if I’m lucky it’s 4 to 6."

But Singh says he tries to remain positive, knowing that his options for other employment is scarce. "Maybe after the election the economy will get better."

Luis, in the next car, said he'd been parked outside the building since 8 am. It was close to 5 pm, and he'd driven only three people all day.

"In order for you to make money at this job, you need to be working 15-hour days. Now we are waiting two to three hours for one pick up, that’s $20. After I pay my base, pay for gas, I may have $10 for me."

He showed a parking ticket he received for stopping in the no-standing zone that serves as the informal town car stand.

"I don’t know how I’m going to pay a $115 ticket if I’m making $60 a day. The people on Wall Street, they don’t care what happens to us. I’m going to leave this job in a couple months."

Protest, Bloggers Keep Heat on Willets Point Plan

Posted by Roy Edroso at 10:42 AM, October 7, 2008

NY Metro reports a City Hall protest of the Willets Point redevelopment plan yesterday at which attendees "banged pots and pans." Brad Lander of the Pratt Center for Community Development told Metro the plan "seems to be killing 1,500 non-Wall Street jobs for an outdated vanity project that’s not going to happen."

No Land Grab comments: "From one land grab to another: 'An outdated vanity project' never makes sense... especially when it's 'not going to happen.'"

Queens Crap is displeased to learn that State Senator Serphin Maltese signed a letter supporting the project. (Other signatories include Queens Beep Helen Marshall, representatives of Con Edison, the LeFrak City Merchants Association, the Regional Alliance for Small Contractors, and several unions.)

"To summarize," says QC, "Serf, a 'property-rights Republican'... signed a letter in favor of eminent domain abuse at Willets Point as payback for the campaign cash Bloomberg dumped into the state Republican party's coffers."

QC directs our attention to similar sentiments at the Juniper Park Civic Association website, and notes that the challenger for Maltese's seat, Joseph Addabbo, signed a letter opposing the redevelopment plan.

Comments are contentious. "Framing it as an Eminent Domain issue is disingenuous," says one, "as most landowners are negotiating fairly and receiving fair prices." "Idiot," responds another, "the very mention of eminent domain by the city makes the property unsellable so that the ONLY buyer they could possibly sell to is the city." Some refer to a pro-redevelopment poster as "the dude that EDC [the New York City Economic Development Corporation ] sent here."

Times: Luxury Boxes Selling OK. (Also Selling on Craigslist.)

Posted by Roy Edroso at 9:06 AM, October 7, 2008

A friend was wondering about this: after the Wall Street collapse, would luxury suites at Neo-Yankee Stadium and Citi Field be going fire-sale? Stuff and nonsense, says today's New York Times: "Don’t expect a stampede for the bleachers just yet."

A guy from "a weekly newsletter that chronicles the luxury-suite industry" (wow, there's a phrase tailor-made for any chronicle of our age of greed and avarice) tells the Times, "I'm not hearing anything where people are panicking.” Stadium managements figures say everything's stable, though one marketer admits "everybody’s taking more of a wait-and-see approach" in light of recent events. The Times also talks to Bruce Ratner about suites in his currently non-existent Brooklyn sports facility; the Ratner-phobic No Land Grab notes this with interest.

Of course some people are sub-leasing luxury box seats at Craigslist, so far on their terms only ("Offers below face value [$115/ticket] will not be replied to"). We'll see if their price moves in the months ahead. If things get hairy, maybe the Stadia will let us roll in our own keg.

Koch Says Only "Super Rich" Can Afford to Live in NYC; Backs "Figurative" Hanging

Posted by Roy Edroso at 1:46 PM, October 6, 2008

Ed Koch was on CNBC today, where he was asked if he heard in the current Wall Street crisis "an echo of that era" when New York went broke and we all starting strutting around Times Square to Isaac Hayes music. Koch said no -- "Then it was New York City... today it's the world" -- and then, as is his wont, began to offer solutions to the world's problems.

Since the issue was one of credit, he said, the Fed should "issue an order to the banks that they have to lend as much as they lent in a certain prior period or be penalized" -- though, he hastened to add, they should "not lend to punks." Koch also said district attorneys should "find those who have been criminally liable" for the crisis "and figuratively hang them in the public square."

Asked by the flustered young host, who had apparently never heard of such government intrusions before, how he thought the city would weather the crisis, Koch said "I don't have the information from the city budget director, they don't feed me that information any more," but he thought we were in good hands with Bloomberg and he supported a third term. "My basic philosophy when I was mayor," he said, "was 'Get out of the way,'" which is pretty much how we remember it, too. "Government knows very little about how to make the private sector enrich itself." But Koch did see a role for government regulation, which he believes was missed in this case.

The host speculated that the bust would leave a lot of "empty units" on the housing market, but Koch said, "We don't have enough housing," particularly "affordable housing... people simply cannot afford housing if they're not super-rich in New York City unless they get subsidies."

We don't remember the Koch being that tenant-friendly before. Maybe in his old age he's decided that there's no point in trying to out-prick Giuliani.

America is Back!

Posted by Roy Edroso at 10:47 AM, October 6, 2008

Sorry, we just like saying that -- kind of makes us feel like Larry Kudlow without the cocaine. Anyway, the Dow has fallen over 530 points in less than two hours, but appears to be on its way back up. Maybe Paulson just agreed to send them the $700 billion in euros. America is back! Wait, did we already say that? Then how about, "Remain calm, all is well"?

Wall St., Bloomberg Got You Down? Release Your Inner, Battered Child

Posted by Roy Edroso at 12:49 PM, October 3, 2008

You kind of expect the blogs to talk about Mayor Richie Rich's third term as an oligarchical scam, but it's weird when mainstream types basically agree -- even though they see that as a good thing.

"It's actually [Bloomberg's] multi-million dollar peers who seem to be supporting him the most," says John Slattery at WCBS, running through the A-list names among Bloomberg backers (including Time-Warner CEO Dick Parsons and publisher Mort Zuckerman) as conscientiously as any society columnist.

This reminds us of Judith Warner's Times column, in which she complains that, as obnoxious as Wall Street douchebags are, she can't enjoy their downfall because it's her (and everybody else's) downfall as well. "Now, the world of Wall Street has become our world," she wrote. "There is no outside to it, there is no other option than to pay and play."

There's something to this. Many of us can no longer muster the traditional emotions -- shock, outrage, disgust -- with which people used to greet the excesses of politicians and billionaires, because we're so co-opted by them. In New York now, even artists and philosophers have to book a pretty healthy income just to survive. Would Emma Goldman and Jack Reed have been able to work on their American Bolshevism if the rent on their Greenwich Village apartments was $3000? These days it seems our choices are conformity or vagrancy.

But when it comes to the schadenfreude Judith Warner says she can't quite enjoy, we have a better choice. We can put the shoe on the other foot and proceed as if it's they who are being taken down by us.

Some of this is easily done. Just decline to vote for Bloomberg and hold out against the financial bailout. Others may succumb to money and marketing, but that doesn't mean we have to. And if a gnawing, Warneresque doubt is impeding your enjoyment of the comeuppance of your social betters, recognize it as a species of the self-doubt battered children carry into adulthood, and dispel it with therapy -- for example, you can go down to Wall Street and join one of the protests they seem to have there every day.

If you're less sociable, you can blog.

More Advertising for Your Morning Commute

Posted by Roy Edroso at 10:32 AM, October 2, 2008

Second Ave. Sagas reports the MTA is unveiling a "a fully wrapped Shuttle train sponsored by the History Channel" at Grand Central today. It's a first for the city, but the New York Daily News explains that this kind of thing has already been tried on Metro North trains; for example, "In an alcohol campaign, bar cars on Metro-North's New Haven line were decorated like a tropical tiki bar." This is one of the ways MTA is trying to address its $900 million budget shortfall while still supplying us with "street furniture." Also, the Authority is flooding cars with new see-something-say-something ads, including this one here with the cute bomb-sniffing dog.

Will Crash Doom Atlantic Yards?

Posted by Roy Edroso at 10:16 AM, October 1, 2008

No Land Grab points out a little-noted consequence of the financial crisis: a possibly fatal funding shortfall for Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. A spokesman for major AY funder Goldman Sachs told the Newark Star-Ledger "no comment" when asked about the millions the failed lender had, pre-bust, been expected to pour into the Nets arena and housing/shopping complex. Ratner is described as "resolute."

"The big question," says Atlantic Yards Report, "is whether tax-exempt financing will be available... The Internal Revenue Service has been asked by the city and state to grandfather in arena financing under more lenient rules than proposed; an IRS official said regulations would be issued 'soon.'"

NY State Shuffles, Deals Jobless' Social Security Numbers

Posted by Roy Edroso at 8:14 PM, September 30, 2008

If you applied for unemployment insurance recently, the state department of labor may have accidentally sent some of your vital information to other people. Politics on the Hudson talks to Nathan Greene of Rochester, who got a note to that effect from the DOL -- which also contained the name and social security number of a complete stranger.

The Department is sending letters out to all compromised citizens, explaining the snafu and warning them to check with credit agencies to make sure they hadn't been defrauded, and to refrain from using any unfamiliar social security numbers they may have received to, you know, steal. Photo via rockcohen (cc).

Rich Guy Backs Other Rich Guy

Posted by Roy Edroso at 12:45 PM, September 30, 2008

Longtime term-limits foe Ron Lauder tell the New York Post he'll back a "one-time extension from eight years to 12 years" for his fellow billionaire Mike Bloomberg because he's been such an awesome mayor. The Post is ecstatic -- "Run Mike Run," cries its editorial page, and David Seifman says, "Who's going to take on a guy who spent $85 million in his last municipal election?" Hell, even Bruce Blakeman says he wouldn't challenge a Bloomberg third term, and he's merely very well-off.

So we can forget about those non-billionaire opponents who probably only ran for high office because they needed a job. Maybe George Bush and Henry Paulson can come over here and scold them.

America is Back!

Posted by Roy Edroso at 12:27 PM, September 30, 2008

Stox surge! The value of the dollar is up, and so is its price! The Russian press accuses Bush of Bolshevism! Be proud of your country, and hang onto your hats and your new Depression tips.

9 Ways You'll $ave in the New Depression!

Posted by Roy Edroso at 1:58 AM, September 30, 2008

Don't worry about the banks, the crash, or the bailout. Sure, they're awful. And yes, things will get worse. A lot worse. Worse than you ever imagined, probably. But you've been in tough spots before. Remember when you lost your job and went on unemployment for a while? This will be like that, only it will last for years. But you're a New Yorker. You're tough. Or at least you like to act that way when you've been drinking and listening to Nas. You'll pull through, if you economize. And the new Depression will help by forcibly trimming some of the flab from your personal operating budget. Here are nine ways that will happen:

1. No more gym memberships. A small cadre of Alphas will do all the brain-work. We cubicle monkeys will be carrying hods and mixing cement in the new Public Works Administration, and what a workout that'll be. Good thing you've still got a closet full of loose-and-comfy jeans and a drawer full of comfortable Gap t-shirts for those long days in the sun. Remember to keep your knees bent. And breathe! (But if you're doing demolition, keep your particle mask on.)

2. No more illegal drugs. $120 an ounce for weed*? $50 a gram for coke? It's true that some poor people already take these drugs and others, but we are still in days of affluence, if only our last ones; a poor tweaker can currently do some manual labor, or hook, to get meth. Soon you will be doing these things to buy food and shelter. When all else fails you could, like the tweaker, turn to crime, but when people have less money, you will have to mug more of them to buy drugs, increasing your opportunities for arrest. Console yourself with the return of generic beer, which you will gloomily down in your cold-water flat while the rich trust-fund hipsters tipple PBR.

3. No more Jenny Craig. There'll be no need to pay someone to tell you not to eat.

4. No more $19 cocktails. Dive bars are in! Real ones, we mean. And the days when you had to dress fly and spend big to pick someone up are also gone; like as not, you'll just have to offer them a sandwich.

5. No more pro sports tickets. Admit it: When you heard the new Yankee Stadium and the Mets' new Citi Field would be more expensive to attend than the old ballparks, you wondered if you'd have the courage to resist giving the bastards your money, didn't you? Well, wonder no more. When it costs $19 to watch the Mets blow the 2009 season from the upper deck, you will discover the alternate pleasure of watching gang initiations from your fire escape.

6. No more tech upgrades. Those of you who have grown accustomed to grabbing the latest iThing as soon as it hits the blond-wood shelves will learn to live with whatever you're currently holding until it dies, and then scrounging for rich people's cast-offs at the newly popular Salvation Army Thrift Stores. But what you lose in computing power, you'll gain in stimulating creative challenges. Remember the Atari music retro scene? Cash-strapped knowledge workers will find themselves doing similarly amazing things with Kaypros, Wordstar, and MacPaint.

7. No more expensive grooming products. Soap and hot water will be your new skin care regime. You will be able, and called upon, to shampoo less. Get a hat; there's more than one reason why everyone wore them in the last Depression.

8. No more upscale entertainments. Broadway? Nokia Theatre? A bottle club? Maybe on your birthday if your uncle dies and leaves you money. When you're not throwing craps or whittling, you'll head to the cineplex to watch Seth Rogen, the Wallace Beery of the new Depression, and hope they're giving away dishes. But everybody else will, too, and over time the price of underattended plays, concerts, and much other nightlife may drop into your league. The swells will go to the opera and swank nightclubs; you will catch glimpses of their highlife back at the movies, when Seth Rogan bumbles into the Copa to belabor the oily villain, Will Ferrell.

9. No more big plans. This is the biggest $avings of all! Have you expected to rise in your profession, occupying ever larger offices, gaining ever more exalted titles and salaries? Have you planned to move from your little apartment to a bigger condo, and thence to a nice house, maybe with a spouse and some well-cared-for children? You had a perfect right, and a pretty good chance; but both are now diminished. Where once you merely had to be a less than total screw-up to advance, in our new hard times you will have to be both endlessly ambitious and utterly ruthless -- Horatio Alger cross-bred with Scarface. If you're not, accustom yourself to a new dream: three squares and a warm place to sleep.

But take this comfort: to whom little is given, little may be expected. You won't make much but you probably won't have to take work home with you, and no one with be calling you at night from the job when the power grid goes down. When you lose your pre-Depression advantages, you will also lose the need to strive, to keep up, to run yourself ragged. You may find yourself cultivating pleasant, inexpensive hobbies, like writing, painting, or maintaining a pigeon coop. Your kids, deprived of constant day-care and supervision, may play in sandlots or in the streets, using bats made out of broom handles to hit spaldeens. You may even find yourself adjusting quite happily to a life with lower expectations.

That is, if you don't contract tuberculosis or scurvy.

(* UPDATE: We thank our knowledgeable commenters for informing us that weed is far more expensive than portrayed here.)

Serrano NYC's Only Bailout Holdout

Posted by Roy Edroso at 5:18 PM, September 29, 2008

Every New York City Congressmember voted for today's failed bailout bill except Jose Serrano of the Bronx, who explains himself thus:

"I understand the need to shore up our nation’s big banks to prevent a larger problem, but I cannot support such an action if it does nothing to help the millions of people facing foreclosure...

"This is a tax on my constituents -- the working people -- to erase the consequences of the bad judgment of the fat cats down on Wall Street... If this package had been balanced—bailing out Wall Street and Main Street, I would have been more inclined to support it."

In a September 22 press release, Serrano said about the proposed package, "When a person falls on hard times and needs food stamps, we are told they lack personal responsibility. When the biggest firms on Wall Street make outrageously risky investments, and fall on hard times, why are they not held personally responsible?"

Today's bill failed 228-205; the Aye-No split was 140-95 among Democrats, and 65-133 among Republicans, with one member (Republican Jerry Weller of Illinois) not voting.

Kee-rash!

Posted by Roy Edroso at 2:33 PM, September 29, 2008

The House rejected the bailout at about the time that big line started to go down.

Various tweets:

"Well, to bad these idiots in congress never had a plan B to get through this. Hang on Rick, we may very well be in 4 a ride."

"Paraphrasing Little Britain's Carol: Congress says Noooo!! Dow Jones down 600 points!"

"We were robbed (of 401k value) not by Congress inaction but by masters ofd universe who built a Potemkim 10k Dow."

"yo congress is f*cking up crazy..gotta be a way we can impeach errbody..."

Kurtz: Wall St. Crisis Caused By Banks Giving Money to "Minorities"

Posted by Roy Edroso at 12:45 PM, September 29, 2008

If you think the Wall Street bailout has something to do with corporate greed, Stanley Kurtz wants you to know it's actually about diversity. In a New York Post op-ed, the conservative author claims "O's Dangerous Pals" in ACORN, whose part in the bailout package was stripped out, worked with like-minded saboteurs to "force" banks to give mortgages "to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods." (In case you don't get the point, the Post includes the picture shown here.)

No mention is made of the financial incentives, which would seem strange coming from a conservative, unless you know that Kurtz has in the past hoped for the destruction of social programs to return America to an impoverished but family-friendly Arcadia.

Anthony Weiner: GOP Got It "Off Their Chest," Will Deal on Bailout

Posted by Roy Edroso at 3:23 PM, September 26, 2008

In a conference call this afternoon Congressman Anthony Weiner told reporters that House Republicans had "blind-sided just about everyone" with their sudden opposition to the Bush bailout plan -- particularly because "everyone pretty much understood the outlines of the plan" prior to yesterday's contentious meeting.

But Weiner was confident that a package would be agreed upon by Monday. He said he believed Republican Congressional leaders Roy Blunt and John Boehner, who spearheaded the opposition, are now "basically saying, 'OK, we've got these things off our chest, now we're ready'" to make a deal.

Asked how his support of a $700 billion bailout of bankrupt banks squared with his professed focus on the needs of middle-class people (Weiner's website says his 2005 Mayoral run was "animated by the plight of the middle class"), Weiner said "This is a middle-class problem. If you can't get a car loan... then a credit crisis is a real problem... if you live on a block with two foreclosures, it's a real problem... if you're someone who works in Century 21, this is your problem. When the financial service sector of our country catches cold, all five boroughs catch pneumonia."

He also said the bill was "the most important legislation for New York since September 11th.

State Comptroller: MTA Fucked; You, Too

Posted by Roy Edroso at 2:57 AM, September 26, 2008

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli issues a report on the outlook for MTA funding, and Second Ave. Sagas breaks it down for you: "The turmoil on Wall Street has created serious fiscal challenges for the City and the State, which will likely limit their ability to provide additional assistance to the MTA."

Also from the report: "After assessing the gap-closing program and other risks, the MTA still faces remaining operating budget gaps that could total $522 million in 2009, $1.4 billion in 2010," etc. And: "The next [MTA] capital program is expected to have a funding gap of at least $15 billion."

If you were going to complain about the shitty service on your subway line, be aware that the deskbound token clerks of the MTA will wave it away: there is no money to do anything, and you should ask your boss, your gf or bf, and your cat to be more understanding of your late arrivals.

Death Wish: Is New York Ready for That 70s Show?

Posted by Roy Edroso at 10:10 PM, September 23, 2008

What a difference a crash makes. In recent years the wise heads of our local editorial world have been as content with rich, safe latter-day New York as investment bankers. In a 2003 New York Times Magazine article James Traub shuddered to recall the New York of the 1970s and praised the days when "New York got its swagger back: Giuliani rode high in the saddle." When in 2005 the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger heard some creative types say the 70s were a "golden age" for New York arts, he could only remember Death Wish and scoffed that those "high IQ boys and girls" who "had the smarts to survive and thrive in a city beset with drugs, welfare dependency and housing stock distorted by World War II rent controls" were just looking for "'free rides' on the backs of the workers" who, presumably, are less equipped to deal with poverty and danger than liberal arts students.

But in this week's New Yorker, Nick Paumgarten asks us to "postulate that the collapse of the financial-services industry spells catastrophe for New York City, a return to the nineteen-seventies." He doesn't seem to think it's all bad:

Throw out the other strips, the grim probabilities -- the crime, the decaying infrastructure, the hardship all around, the heroin and the syphilis. What do we have left? The bright side: maybe Manhattan will become affordable again, and cool, and dangerous. Dangerous in theory, but not to you or your family and friends. Dirty, but in a good way. Night clubs where anything goes. Art, music, Billy Martin.

But when that 70s show really goes into re-runs, we won't be able to edit out the unfunny bloopers. There was never a chance that we'd get cheaper rents without a crash, and as of now the market fluctuations are only ruffling the high end of the market. We're a long way from the vintage conditions of that last renaissance. Before you can have the Ramones, you have to have rehearsal spaces that even glue-sniffing slackers can afford. Before you can have Taxi Driver, you have to have urban moonscapes that don't need to be built by film crews. And you only get those in the wake of real catastrophe.

Joy-popping the 70s is a fun pastime, but be not deceived: playful speculation is nothing like the real thing. We remember fondly our $125-a-month railroad flat in a forsaken neighborhood called the East Village, and the good times we had there. We also remember nightly gunfire, mugger money, and Etan Patz. Are we willing to accept one to get the other? It's not worth wondering about: we'll find out when we get there.

Google Founders Roll Out (ha ha) Android T-Mobile Phone

Posted by Roy Edroso at 5:19 PM, September 23, 2008

Google and T-Mobile unveiled their G1 Android phone today.

It has a sliding keyboard, like a Sidekick, and a touch-screen, like an iPhone. It will roll out October 22 and cost you $179.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin even showed up at the press conference on rollerblades (because it's "mobile," right?), but they seemed more out of it than enthused. Brin talked about an app he once developed that would measure the time a handheld device hung in the air when tossed; asked if the Android had this feature, he said, "I should think about that, but maybe I won't."

eWeek's Google Watcher Clint Boulton is confused: "Am I missing anything here?... the G1, to my eyes and hands, is just another smart phone."

But Fortune IDs the Android's "first killer feature": Google Street View in Compass Mode, which allows you to hold up the Android and see your street view change as you turn around, "not unlike the [view] you would get through the built-in camera if you were actually standing on that street corner."