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Re: CERC Building Being Sold (180 9th St) - Community Programs at Risk
#1
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Quote:

JPhurst wrote:
As I understand it, the issue was that the Community Development grants could not go to charter schools. Schundler circumvented that by funding the facilities, then letting the charter use them while calling them community centers, allowing a few after school activities from other groups, etc.


The charters paid rent, but I recall not enough to cover the cost of construction, hence the hustle to monetize the gym. HPNA tried to meet there for a while, but they made it such a hassle we gave up. So much for "community center".

Posted on: 2020/8/3 16:55
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Re: Beer Gardens in Jersey City
#2
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Fascinating. Of 6 listed, only 2 are actually open, biergartens and in JC. Good going, great journalism!

Posted on: 2020/7/30 18:03
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Re: CERC Building Being Sold (180 9th St) - Community Programs at Risk
#3
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Quote:

K-Lo2 wrote:
https://www.njspotlight.com/2010/05/10-0523-1629/

Way back in the late 90s, my sons went to LCCS, which was then renting space in the recently demolished Boys and Girls Club. We were all might envious of this new space.


Yup. And while I guess there's been some community stuff in there, they were more interested in rent paying programs like St Anthonys to pay off the debt. I recall attending a 'planning ideas' meeting before it was built, and suggesting that they create storage space in the gym area for community theater to have flats for sets. A flat NO. Has there ever been community theater in there? And while I don't have the facts handy, most of what Yvonne says is true AFAIK. Schundler played fast and loose with the money to forward his charter agenda in a way pretty antithetical to the whole charter idea.

Posted on: 2020/7/29 23:33
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Re: Evict a tenant of illegal (not zoned) apartment
#4
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While it's not a great idea, there's many, many thousands of these illegal units in JC, many of them illegal only because of low density zoning rather than because they fail habitability or safety requirements. I have a hard time believing getting caught is that drastic. I've heard many stories of them passing inspection simply by removing the range. Poof!! It's no longer a separate apartment.

Posted on: 2020/7/10 3:02
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Re: JCBOE hikes school taxes by 39 percent. Paging Yvonne.
#5
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Quote:

Ralph_Abutts wrote:
The best way to learn about special ed costs is not the budget, but from the BoE resolutions and meeting agenda/minutes. They are rich with detail if you have the patience to search.


That's just it, I don't want to have to be fucking Sherlock Holmes to understand where the money goes! Special Ed gets thrown around frequently as a reason (along with ESL) you can't compare urban and suburban districts. How convenient then that you can't even find out what we spend on it! This is the stuff that makes my default judgement of all JC governmental arms to be that they're criminal enterprises. They aspire to be like the DoD, declared 'unauditable', just walk away and leave them to make our money vanish.

Posted on: 2020/5/16 3:55
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Re: JCBOE hikes school taxes by 39 percent. Paging Yvonne.
#6
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Quote:

Ralph_Abutts wrote:
On the school district website you may find such information in its User Friendly Budget document. There is also a 2019 operational efficiency audit document, too.


The last time I dove into the "User Friendly Budget" I found line items which Google could not define! So much for 'User Friendly'. IIRC, I was curious what we actually spent on special ed, often a bone of contention between JC and charters or other less urban districts. Couldn't be done by an untrained civilian, the cost was distributed too widely.

Posted on: 2020/5/14 16:22
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Re: JCBOE hikes school taxes by 39 percent. Paging Yvonne.
#7
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Spend a fraction of that money on forensic accountants and find out where the money goes and why JC spends more than anybody. If it turns out it all goes to overpaid staff from principals to janitors, and overpaid sweetheart contracts to 'connected' services, declare bankruptcy and renegotiate every.single. contract.

Posted on: 2020/5/13 21:05
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#8
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Quote:

The question is with workers and offices in the city: which is the tail and which is the dog? Are the workers in the city because that's where the big high paying businesses are, or are large businesses attracted to the city because that's where educated and talented people want to live?

What could be the biggest effect is on commuters, who have already chosen not to live in the city. Even if the urban areas don't actually lose residents they will lose those millions of people coming in each day and spending money. That would be a huge change in the economy, but not a death blow. NY was the greatest city in the world before the explosion of the suburbs. Fuck em. The office towers of Wall Street have already been converted to residences, could happen to midtown.

Posted on: 2020/5/13 1:22
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Re: The Pandemic
#9
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Quote:

Sutherland wrote:
I don't discount possibilities. But for now I just suspect a bad period. It's not like it's never happened.


It took decades and very broad demographic trends for the 70's to happen. Not saying its impossible, but there's very little data pointing in that direction. The great coastal cities are so absurdly overpriced they have a VERY long way to fall!

That said, I would not be surprised at a long term >25% correction here. The "natural" price of property should be at an equilibrium such that both renting and buying homes makes sense exclusive of the appreciation of said home. The cap rates of commercial and residential property have diverged dramatically for decades now. Time was it was normal to buy a small rental property for 4-6 times it's rent roll. That hasn't been seen in a long time outside of distressed assets.

Posted on: 2020/5/12 19:26
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Re: The Pandemic
#10
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Quote:

MDM wrote:
So by 2025, Jersey City real estate will look like this:
Resized Image


Apocalyptic prognosticators of all kinds never take feedback loops into account. As prices drop the rust belt looks less attractive and all the people who always wanted to live in the city but couldn't afford it are suddenly in the market.

Posted on: 2020/5/12 16:52
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#11
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What attracted businesses to the city wasn't office space, you can find that out in central Jersey or White Plains or any number of suburbs. It was the skilled workers who want to live in the city, with it's exciting & stimulating lifestyle. Nightlife, art, music and cuisine. That will not change, it will all come back eventually after Covid.

A friend with perfect timing moved to Stroudsburg PA 10 weeks ago. But she and her partner never cooked, they lived off the rich variety of restaurants in Astoria. Maybe they will learn to love cooking, but maybe their lifestyle just took a major turn for the worse even though they now have more room than they know what to do with.

Posted on: 2020/5/10 16:08
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#12
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Quote:

Sutherland wrote:
there has already been a long period of excessive unemployment.


Umm, a month or 2 is not "long"! Homeowners aren't selling in a panic and flooding the market. They're sitting tight, waiting it out as best they can, hoping it'll blow over. Look at the graphs from 2008 how badly it hit incomes and equities, but how slowly the housing markets actually fell. What it takes is someone trying to buy a house and the bank looks at the most recent comps from desperation sales and says "you're paying more than it's worth, we won't give you the LTV you want". Then the prices spiral down.

Posted on: 2020/5/7 18:22
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#13
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Quote:

ActionDan wrote:
I've heard similar anecdotes in other markets, from people who hoped to have a dip to buy into and didn't see one.


Prices drop WAY slower than that when shit hits the fan! Only people who absolutely have to sell do, everyone else sits tight. So new comps at lower prices appear very slowly while properties sit on the market and sales are very slow. It took till 2012 for prices to actually bottom out from the 2008 bubble bursting.

Posted on: 2020/5/6 23:33
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#14
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Not surprising. Between Netflix and Zoom folks are using a whole lot more bandwidth. I've noticed some artifacts, but my PCs are wonky enough that I didn't assume it was the connection. My workstation with an SSD for the OS is obsessed with accessing a storage drive when I websurf, dragging down performance. I've tried to check if it's using it for temp or swap files but it doesn't seem to.

Posted on: 2020/4/28 17:02
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Re: The Pandemic
#15
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Quote:

heights wrote:
Is this forum ending it's reign soon ?


Resized Image

Posted on: 2020/4/23 18:09
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#16
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Quote:

Frinjc wrote:
Yup, and when people factor the 47% increase in their school taxes they may go see the light elsewhere - I believe that between this and the impact of covid on property value, we will hit the 2+% tax rate that people have been using as a "fairness" benchmark. I expect to appeal next year...


It might take longer than that for sales to reflect the new reality and then those comps can be used to generate new assessments. Property repricing downward moves at a glacial pace as only those who MUST sell do so, everyone else is waiting it out, hoping for recovery.

Posted on: 2020/4/21 18:11
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Re: The Pandemic
#17
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Quote:

RichMauro wrote:
Well,
since we're off the thread topic anyway, here's an interesting slant:

https://drop.space/watch/gravitas-wuha ... reak_4vpPz5FIotq799o.html


Sorry Rich, but worrying about being a little off topic when the site only has one active thread seems silly.

On topic: Today's Times had an article about the OP subject. What bothers me is the way they treat the high cost of cities as a fact of nature rather than an artifact of their desirability. They ignore feedback loops, like the notion that if less people are willing to compete for urban homes the prices will drop to a sustainable level as the market sets a new price. Unsustainable trends tend not to be sustained.

Posted on: 2020/4/20 18:35
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#18
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Quote:

TheBigGuy wrote:
You are funny... that is what risk management, emergency preparation and root cause analysis is all about. Of course the expectation is that all parties are open to process improvement and resilience. I do not get that sense of cooperation from the benevolent Chinese government hence my more nefarious view of their behavior... here are some fun facts to mull over in your self-isolation:

Around 2005 in response to SARS, WHO issued pandemic response protocol to integrate governments and businesses into a uniformed response; that all came crashing down when the swine flu hit Mexico. certain escalation triggers between the linear protocol phases failed. WHO released the new Pandemic Continuum Phases which is cyclical. Staying away from politics, a lesson learned from this is that WHO ignored their own phase escalation criteria and finally declared a pandemic in March, despite the obvious evidence acting globally. Most public/private sector pandemic plans had that WHO pandemic declaration as a trigger.

A critical risk to the WFH contingency was whether the ISPs could manage the additional network volume. Those companies should be commended... after 5 weeks at home, I have seen very little degradation in my service. Companies tested this with internal WFH requirements... but the risk was what happens when schools close and other companies activate?

A lot of media consternation about PPE stockpiles. They cost money to maintain and many of the products have a shelf life. In 2005 the Health and Safety SMEs provided recommended PPE list to their clients. Our Purchasing Team reported back there were 3 - 4 month backorders on regular and N95 masks. All the major companies and public sector were buying. Ventilators brought then are obsolete now, like most technology.

We spent $3M preparing on PPE alone. 4 years later, refreshing our supply, we could not find any public health agency that would take masks sitting unused after 4 years. They technically became a biohazard as we contacted companies to remove them... then with economic conditions at the time, restocking was not a consideration.

So yes... watching this all unfold is interesting. We never did foresee the level political and media grandstanding. But it is a joy listening to the armchair experts. Stay Safe and Isolate!


All very fascinating, but none of it explains why you would believe a ridiculous conspiracy theory about a Chinese lab just because the Chinese did as they have always done and initially tried to 'save face".

Posted on: 2020/4/18 19:46
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#19
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Quote:

TheBigGuy wrote:
You really are a dope... this is my professional risk management background and I have seen this coming for 20 years. I worked alongside seasoned professionals for a Fortune 10 company with a prominent presence in Latin America, MEA and Asia. Supporting the company and employees, we responded to SARS, Fukishima, Swine Flu in Mexico, MERS and Ebola.

A year ago I designed and facilitated a TTX for NYC Operations using a planning scenario based on the measles epidemic in Brooklyn. I am currently active in a corporate ICS framework responding to this incident in a WFH scenario as planned.

The professional planners are not surprised. In 2005 modelling mortality rates for NYC using data from SARS and 1918, we knew there were not enough ICU beds or ventilators and working with NYC Public / OEM, they knew catastrophe was looming just managing the bodies. You think these refrigerated city trucks just appeared out of the clear blue?

Your political nonsense is boring...


Lemme get this right, you claim all this professional risk management background and that of course you saw this coming, but then get behind a ridiculous chinese lab theory? Who's a dope?

Posted on: 2020/4/18 3:31
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#20
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Your lack of cognitive ability is at least consistent. Pissing on your ridiculous conspiracy theories is not defending China's lack of openness or freedom in any respect.

What you're doing is insulting and denigrating science itself, consistent with your GOP brethren. Everyone from virologists and epidemiologists to Bill Gates has been warning this was coming for years. But when it comes, idiots like you need to be comforted by conspiracy theories because "no one saw this coming".

Quote:

TheBigGuy wrote:
LOL.... after the way the Chinese government behaved in this incident do you really believe their medical research is for the betterment of humanity? You must be very proud of how North Korea has had zero deaths.

There was a reason the Chinese government bounced the US media. And there is a reason they are publicly trying to deflect this on the US and the country's African population. They would blame it on the Uighers except they are all in concentration camps. You people defending China are amazingly stupid and dangerously naive.






Quote:

brewster wrote:
Quote:

TheBigGuy wrote:
The Chinese government can deny all it wants... but their research was about bio-weaponizing viruses and this was a lab experiment that backfired. Like a rocket blowing up on a launchpad.


Yeah, except that actual virus scientists have been warning about corona virus transfers from the wild to humans for decades. They've seen close relatives of Covid 19 in the wild, and SARS was a such a close relative that some virologists call this SARS 2. But be a moron believing conspiracy theories, it suits you.

Posted on: 2020/4/17 21:44
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Re: The Pandemic's effect on the Jersey City and overall Urban Real Estate Market
#21
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Quote:

TheBigGuy wrote:
The Chinese government can deny all it wants... but their research was about bio-weaponizing viruses and this was a lab experiment that backfired. Like a rocket blowing up on a launchpad.


Yeah, except that actual virus scientists have been warning about corona virus transfers from the wild to humans for decades. They've seen close relatives of Covid 19 in the wild, and SARS was a such a close relative that some virologists call this SARS 2. But be a moron believing conspiracy theories, it suits you.

Posted on: 2020/4/17 16:02
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Re: Councilman Michael Yun - Dead from Coronavirus
#22
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Quote:

papadage wrote:
What do you expect from the party of no responsibility for their fuckups? It's a repeating pattern of getting healthy economies and leaving them in shambles.


But, but, but, tax cuts are ALWAYS the answer! And while repealing G-S wasn't great, there was still plenty of regulation that would have prevented the subprime meltdown if they were actually implemented by the Bush SEC. It took failures on multiple levels to achieve that fiasco, Moodys, Fitch and S&P should have been criminally charged for their roles. Its like traffic in JC, we don't need new traffic laws, just the old ones actually enforced.

Posted on: 2020/4/13 18:28
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#23
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Quote:

MDM wrote:
A mutated strain of Covid-19 is now causing deaths in Thailand. Patients come in without any of the typical Covid-19 symptoms (dry cough, diarrhea, etc.)

Instead they come into the hospital with a severe headache. Spinal taps reveal the virus present. Patients have been suffering a shutdown of their central nervous system which leads to death.

Link?

Posted on: 2020/3/23 20:06
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#24
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Quote:

jerseymom wrote:
Okay, poll question for the day:
What do you miss most since moving to Coronaville?
Me?
1. Walking without abject fear of contamination.
2. Gino's pizza.
You? Begin.


Seriously, "abject fear"? Get a grip woman. Your odd of getting hit by a crappy JC driver while on a stroll on a given normal day are probably higher than catching Covid while walking outdoors, never mind dying from it.

I miss just sitting down at a local eatery for lunch.

Posted on: 2020/3/22 22:06
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#25
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Quote:

MDM wrote:
A dissenting opinion on Covid (just for FYI):

https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/e ... ria-covid-19-1b767def5894


Excerpt:

The results of their research show that COVID-19 doesn?t spread as easily as we first thought or the media had us believe (remember people abandoned their dogs out of fear of getting infected). According to their report if you come in contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19 you have a 1?5% chance of catching it as well. The variability is large because the infection is based on the type of contact and how long.

The majority of viral infections come from prolonged exposures in confined spaces with other infected individuals. Person-to-person and surface contact is by far the most common cause. From the WHO report, ?When a cluster of several infected people occurred in China, it was most often (78?85%) caused by an infection within the family by droplets and other carriers of infection in close contact with an infected person.



Another one from Richard Epstein of the Hoover Institute:

Podcast

https://www.hoover.org/research/coronavirus-isnt-pandemic


It is what it is. The fact that so many caregivers who were taking reasonable precautions have caught it shows to me that it's contagious enough to warrant the current situation. I personally don't want to roll a 20 sided die with every contact on whether I end up on a ventilator.

Posted on: 2020/3/21 22:45
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#26
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Quote:

MDM wrote:
Quote:

brewster wrote:


My favorite economic sideshow is how this is going to affect the shale plays. I've been hearing for years none of it was ever actually profitable, that it was all basically a debt fueled Ponzi scheme. So while right now energy prices are in freefall, the recovery may be with no fracking and virtual banking subsidy of energy prices. Great for alternative energy in the long run, but no the short.

WTF has happened to American Capitalism? Milton Friedman basically destroyed it. We've become of nation of grasshoppers, having no idea how to save for a rainy day on an institutional level.


Fracking: Yes and no. Gas is for the most part barely or unprofitable. About 35% to 40% of all the gas pulled out of the ground in the USA is burned off as a waste product (comes up with the oil). Gas just got too cheap and will probably stay that way for years.

Oil is for many producers profitable. The Saudis already tried to kill the US domestic drillers back in 2016 and failed. The Saudis dropping the price of oil ended up accelerating the pace of innovation. New wells now are approaching break even cost to that of Saudi Arabia itself.

As for WTF happened: Private profits / socialized costs. There is a disincentive to be fiscally prudent when the government bails you out (i.e. Citibank) and an incentive to boost stock price artificially (bonuses , paying compensation in stock or stock options). You have to get rid of the former (my preference.. I prefer "the stupid will be punished" approach) or heavily regulate / ban the latter.


What I've heard is the production falloff on shale wells is so much faster than traditional that the capital is not recaptured. But like the subprime mess, there's so much smoke and mirrors on the books that money keeps flowing in like a Ponzi.

I don't recall if I've linked this here yet or not, but one of my favorite podcasts of all time is 2 Libertarian economists arguing over whether Big Capitalism is inevitably corrupt and rent seeking, and they found they could find no way way out. There's always a point where the next dollar spent is more profitable buying influence, protection and subsidy than investing in the business. You know I believe in capitalism, it's central to the rental RE game, but our Capitalists don't seem to.

https://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-crony-capitalism/

Posted on: 2020/3/19 22:35
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#27
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Quote:

bodhipooh wrote:
Now, imagine we were experiencing a mortality rate like that of Spain (5%) or Italy (8%)


If we're going to pick about numbers, lets start with the absurdity of those "mortality rates". The infection rates used are mostly for confirmed cases. Tested cases. In a situation where there's been nowhere near the kind of testing to get reliable numbers.

Most epidemiologists say there's something north of 4 unreported subclinical/subcritical cases for every confirmed. So if you took the number around for a while of 2.5%, in reality it's 0.5%. Bad, a lot of people unnecessarily dead, but not an 8% fatality rate.

Posted on: 2020/3/19 20:26
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#28
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Quote:

MDM wrote:
I am getting worried the economic fallout is going to be worse than Covid itself.


My favorite economic sideshow is how this is going to affect the shale plays. I've been hearing for years none of it was ever actually profitable, that it was all basically a debt fueled Ponzi scheme. So while right now energy prices are in freefall, the recovery may be with no fracking and virtual banking subsidy of energy prices. Great for alternative energy in the long run, but no the short.

The other big story is how irresponsible corporate America has been with it's 'boom money", making Trump happy by raising stock prices at all cost. They not only put their tax windfall money into buybacks, they actually borrowed deeply to buy back stocks and give dividends to make the usual suspects wealthier. That's not what rational Capitalists do, it's the MO of corporate raiders. WTF has happened to American Capitalism? Milton Friedman basically destroyed it. We've become of nation of grasshoppers, having no idea how to save for a rainy day on an institutional level.

Posted on: 2020/3/19 15:30
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#29
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Quote:

That can't be right, according to my insane sister with a DVM and PhD, Covid is a Russian bioweapon with HIV DNA and they're releasing it sequentially in world cities to keep the hysteria going.

No end to crazy shit going around the net.

Posted on: 2020/3/17 1:34
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Re: Coronavirus is now in Hudson County
#30
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Quote:

MDM wrote:
Went to Stop&Shop yesterday... the toilet paper racks were completely cleaned out.

So you think we are at the beginning of something out of the movie "12 Monkeys" and the first thing you panic buy is toilet paper?


Dude on JC Reddit thinks that stockpiling 200 rolls was not panic buying at all. People are bizarre. After the Times story about the nationwide "capitalists" who stripped every dollar store within a 200 miles of their homes of masks and sanitizer to sell on Ebay, I guess anything is possible. Will there be guys standing on the corner wearing a mask saying: "Psst, need a roll? $10..."

Posted on: 2020/3/15 18:47
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