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The Face Of The Oligarch Recovery: Luxury Skyscrapers Empty As NYC Homeless Population Hits Record High
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Nowhere is the fraudulent and criminal “oligarch recovery” more on display than in my hometown of New York City. Despite benefitting more than any other community from an enormous taxpayer bailout of the industry that destroyed the economy, financial services, the vast majority of the wealth has been allocated to a handful of oligarchs.
To make matters even worse, American public policy, if you can even call it that, has been to encourage overseas oligarchs to park billions of dollars in U.S. real estate that largely sits uninhabited. Manhattan is a perfect example of this unproductive behavior and misallocation of capital. I covered this theme last year in the piece, Introducing Ghost Skyscrapers – NYC Real Estate Goes Full Retard, where it was noted that:
The Census Bureau estimates that 30 percent of all apartments in the quadrant from 49th to 70th Streets between Fifth and Park are vacant at least ten months a year.
New York City has never been known for its affordability, but a new crop of mega-luxury buildings in Manhattan are redefining sky-high prices. One 57 is the 1,000-foot high building looming over Central Park where an apartment has closed for as much as $90 million.
Jonathan Miller appraises the units at One 57. He said if you were to walk by at night the skyscraper would be largely dark because a majority of the units’ owners are international and don’t live here. They are using the apartments strictly as investments.
So as Manhattan builds eight figure luxury apartment units merely to serve as bank accounts for international oligarchs, New York City’s homeless population soars to a new record high. It’s the ultimate manifestation of how criminal and crony this so-called “recovery” has been.
From the New York Daily News:
The homeless population has risen to an all-time high, forcing the de Blasio administration to house desperate families in decrepit tenements red-flagged by the city’s own inspectors as hazardous.
Since he arrived at City Hall pledging to turn things around, Mayor de Blasio has struggled to confront a long-intractable problem that has only gotten worse.
By mid-December, the homeless census reached a record 59,068 — nearly the population of Utica, city records show. The Coalition for the Homeless says it peaked even higher at 60,352.
The homeless count, according to the city and the coalition, includes 25,000 children. And it represents a 10% jump from the 53,615 in shelters on de Blasio’s Inauguration Day.
So the S&P 500 and New York City homelessness increased 10% over the same timeframe. USA! USA!
To reduce these distressing numbers, the city has tried to move families into scarce permanent housing, but has been forced to continue using much-criticized apartments known as “cluster sites.”
As a candidate, de Blasio vowed to end the use of clusters, which were often cited for outrageous code violations such as collapsed ceilings, lead paint, vermin and busted boilers.
Despite the mayor’s wishes, the city actually increased the number of cluster units in 2014 by nearly 8% — from 2,918 to 3,143. The 225-unit jump was far less than the 1,150 cluster units Bloomberg added in his last two years, but critics were hoping for a total turnaround.
Buildings leased by the biggest providers — including the Bushwick Economic Development Corp., Acacia Network and Camba Inc. — have accumulated hundreds of open-code violations, records show. None of the groups returned calls seeking comment.
All of these nonprofits rake in millions of dollars from the city, state and feds each year. Meanwhile, many regularly place families in units with bugs, peeling paint, collapsed plaster and spotty heat, records show.
The building is now managed by Acacia, which has $318 million in active contracts with the Department of Homeless Services.
As usual, someone’s getting paid.
Taylor has clearly rejected the tactics of Bloomberg, who saw the homeless census rise from 30,000 to 50,000 during his 12-year tenure.
But change has come slowly, hampered by delays in getting state funds, landlords demanding higher subsidies and a slow start moving tenants into NYCHA apartments.
“New York City continues to face pronounced economic inequality,” Taylor said in response to queries by The News. “The reality of this income inequality manifests itself in the city’s shelter system.”
Now here’s the chart of homelessness in NYC.

Notice how it has relentlessly pushed higher ever since the beginning of the so-called economic recovery. Imagine what will happen when the next cyclical downturn begins, possibly as soon as later this year?
Things will become uncontrollable fast. Hence: NYPD Launches Plan to Deal with Protests – Arm Police with Long Rifles, Machines Guns and Extra Protective Gear.
Oh, and just in case you thought I was exaggerating earlier when I said that funneling all the wealth to oligarchs is actual public policy, see these excerpts from the following article from CNBC:
The penthouse at One57, which offers panoramic views from 1,000 feet above 57th Street, recently sold for a record-setting $100.5 million.
But it is not the price that has grabbed the attention of housing advocates, policy analysts, developers and city officials. Rather, it is one of peculiarities of New York real estate: a billionaire’s lair that comes with an incentive that cuts this year’s property tax bill by 95 percent, or an estimated $360,000.
At a City Council hearing last week, critics derided the 421-a program as an expensive boondoggle, a giveaway to developers building luxury housing in a city where the poor and the middle class often find themselves priced out of the market.
At a City Council hearing last week, critics derided the 421-a program as an expensive boondoggle, a giveaway to developers building luxury housing in a city where the poor and the middle class often find themselves priced out of the market.
The entire U.S. economy has become an expensive boondoggle.
According to city records, about 150,000 apartments got the 421-a tax exemptions in the fiscal year 2013, at a cost of $1.06 billion in forgiven taxes. The tax abatement, which starts with a steep, 95 percent discount on property taxes, slowly decreases over time until the tax hits full rate.
But only 12,748 of the 150,000 apartments were earmarked for low- and moderate-income tenants, making it a costly way of creating more affordable housing, according to the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, an advocacy group. “This program should be ended because it’s a relic that gives away billions in tax dollars and gets almost nothing in return,” said Benjamin Dulchin, executive director of the advocacy group. “But if it can’t be ended, then it must be fixed with a bottom-line level of public benefit that delivers enough housing that is truly affordable and located in the local community.”
Critics today, including members of the de Blasio administration and some developers, say that the current program often stimulates luxury housing more than affordable units.
Yet people still wonder why inequality is exploding? The oligarchs are in 100% in control, and their errand boys and girls at the Federal Reserve and Washington D.C. are managing the economy on their behalf. It’s entirely intentional.
* * *
For related articles, see:
As the Middle Class Evaporates, Global Oligarchs Plan Their Escape from the Impoverished Pleb Masses
Teachers’ Retirement Funds are Piling into Manhattan Real Estate at Record High Prices
New York Times Admits Wages Haven’t Grown in 15 Years, Worst Since Great Depression
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Looks like the S&P. Wonder how many macro hedge fund traders are homeless now?
It's fucked up. I had to swipe some poor homeless woman onto the subway today. Poor old thing was waiting at the turnstyle as a few hundred people passed by. The city has three very distinct classes of people - ultra rich; everyone else; dirt poor.
Well these so called homeless should have BTFD. DOW at 17,000 so everyone should be rich. It is really their fault.
That is sarcasm.
sadly, when Yellen said effectively the same thing, it wasn't sarcasm.
We homelessed some folks.
And their families....
Amerikan exceptionalism!
"we be homeless n'shit"
Atta boy, you're a generous standup guy.
Boy?
Figured I'd only waste one word on you, oh fuck, make it 13.....
/sarc
hmm, my brother lives in NYC and his name is Steve too.
if you are broke/homelss, why do you want to live in the most expensive city in usa?
If you are broke/homeless, how do you leave the most expensive city in usa?
Didn't you ever see Midnight Cowboy?
Know why it's against Goldman's personnel policies to let partners live above the 6th floor?
Because the red hot pennies have cooled by the time the starving urchins on the pavement can pick them up
Meh, it hurt more when there was actual copper in them. Now it feels like pigeon turd (which some say is lucky but I can't figure out why it keeps happening to me as I have no luck).
But, but, recovery.
Spikes installed already?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/cities/10883541/Homeless-spi...
Those just attract Indian Yogis.
it's really cold too. idk how they survive.
It's only cold if you still give a shit......
we all live in massive illusions, some created for us and some we create ourselves with the help of PRAVDA/MSM. and all are simply control mechanisms
I saw this movie in the 1960s and know how it ends, after a long and bloody war:
Dr Zhivago: This used to be my house
Revolutionary: Now it is everybody's house
Now that was great!
Hell on earth.
Why do the homeless stay in NYC?
No kidding. Why don't they sell their cardboard houses and move to the countryside.......
They stay for the 5 Star Dumpster Diving. Lobster tail vs cheetoz
you're a real piece of shit,
go get your gun Harbanger! shoot me!
You're seriously mental, dude.
ok... you were defending "vdeoklis" threat to shoot me, you're both pussies ... but that's besides the point
now you're making fun of homeless people, which qualifies you as an asshole, and a pussy but I already mentioned that...
can you add anything more to your "dossier"?
He's a ' harbinger ' of doom.
In adulthood he'll be JUDGE material.
You sound like an unhinged Lib. I must have made you feel guilty, I apologize. I was actually comparing the dumpster of the Rich Libs, like yourself in NY vs. the Cheetoz you will find in a dumpster at the countryside. That was the joke, douche.
There's a far greater percentage of mental illness in Congress & Senate , wallowing in comfort, whereas the bum on the street is fair game.
First they came for the . . .
First they came for the middle class
Because train fare to Greenwich, CT is too expensive.
You really think Greenwich allows ANYONE who even LOOKS like they're homeless ANYWHERE in the place? You won't even see all the day labor that works on the expansive lawns all day anywhere near downtown.
I wonder how many homeless are actually shipped to NYC by bus from other places.......
Greenwich Hospital (Yale) ships it's uninsured ER walk-ins by ambulance taxi over to Stamford. Fact.
Why would anybody want to live anywhere else?
Where else can one find perfectly good disgarded Christian Louboutin heels?
economics
Some remain because they're really, really into Broadway musicals.
"The Sun will come up tomorrow..."
Wonder how many of the new homeless are Obie's beloved illegal immigrants.
If you've ever done a 'Midnight Run' you'll see a pretty wide cross section.
BUT there are a large number of mentally ill - the 'deinstitutionalization' movement closed the (admittedly horrid) hospitals but never provided a real alternative for houseing and care. Many avoid shelters - sane enough to not want to deal with the abuse and violence.
There are alcoholics and addicts - people others have given up on. Some have causes for rtheir problems - vets with PTSD and others 'self-medicating' who are mentally ill. Society does not provide for these peopel though some will manage to destroy themselves no matter how much help they are given. (not all can afford rehab over and over like the Hollywood tyoes). Family may have thrown them out (understandable - I've seen it in my own family). Some people ARE self-destructive.
There are those who - through no fault of their own - illness, job loss, whatever, have seen the little savings they had evaporate and etiher are too proud to seek help or cannot get any help from 'the system' even when it is deserved.
And yes, there ARE the illegal immigrants who came here hoping for a better life and found it was far harder than they realized. You've got some tent communities of illegals out in the burbs hidden away in woods where the residents are in front of the local Home Depot every morning at 6AM trying to find work. And yes, you have some illegals who are part of the above groups - alcoholiocs or addicts.
Odd note. We stok two sizes of jeans for runs - smaller shorter sizes for the Hispanic homeless and more XL's for the others (a junk food diet means you DO have overweight homeless)
Bringing attention to the homeless? The left must think they will lose the presidential election and are planning on running the Reagan nightly news playbook.
This is the most transparent administration and political party ever. Just not in the way they are implying.
Homeless looking for rides to Kalifornia - nice warm place with non-papered citizens to take care of you
Just don't go to San Fran or LA, the folks there onlly like the homeless from a sufficient distance, not in their towns.
Butt San Fran is open to all - I'v seen Nancy say it
She was flapping her tits in a welcoming manner
The 0.1% have more wealth than the bottom 90% in the land of the free.
How is the American dream working for you?
George Carlin on "the American Dream"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4SSvVbhLw
The fact that ISIS cannot recruit thousands within the US is proof that ISIS is a CIA invention designed to hurt people outside the US and generate funding needs for the MIC.
Soylent Green is people!
Low grade pork.
Some Japanese hold outs after WWII resorted to cannibalism. People taste like pork - not chicken.
These days people are likely to be either way too fatty or stringy and tough. And God knows what's in most people these days......
All the desirable places house vacant real estate as bank accounts. Own 5 homes? Better than money in the bank at NIRP.
"Jonathan Miller appraises the units at One 57. He said if you were to walk by at night the skyscraper would be largely dark because a majority of the units’ owners are international and don’t live here. They are using the apartments strictly as investments."
It is interesting that the buyers seem to think some greater fool(s) will come along and pay even more for these units in the future.
BigAppleFUBAR.
When One 57 goes Section 8, we will have arrived in the new era.
One of the rental towers built up in the burbs ended up taking Section 8 to fill it.....
I'll bet the ones that rented early are none too happy about it.
You got horse shit all over my American Dream.......
This batch of homeless seem a lot more civilized and less criminal then previous batches of homeless.
Old man Bush did it!!! He said, 'kinder, gentler nation.'
I kind of like A thousand points of light. All about the community. I am sure these homeless people will be looked after.
This is one of the by-products of rent control laws. Since Luxury and business units are exempt from rent control it becomes an incentive to build more luxury and business units. This creates the spectacle of a Homeless guy sleeping in a dumpster behind a half-vacant luxury condominium which sits next door to an empty office building which in turn is across the street from a Democratic Party Headquarters where they complain about the lack of "Affordable Housing".
Very true and while this program could have been slowly phased out going back 30 years, now it's more locked in than ever given the difference between "luxury" and rent-controlled pads.
Rent Control has the exact OPPOISTE effect of what was intended - like too many other gov programs.
And the 'alterations' made - pandering to the larger number of renters (compared to owners) make it worse. How in the hell can you have some 80 year old in a 4 BR apartment at minimal rent while gove is PAYING AID to help a family of 6 afford a 2 BR one? Then you have the grandkids of older tenants put on the lease - moving in with Grandma - and 'inheriting' the apartment.
If landlords could make money renting to 'regular' people they would. But if they're losing money and the only way they can raise rents is to dump a ton of money into an apartment renovatign it, they will do so. There are very few ways to get apartments ourt of regulation so you can't complain when owners take the only route they can. Teh end result is a totally absurd misallocation of resources.
When NON-owners have more 'rights' than actual OWNERS, somethign is VERY screwed up. You have lots of people owning ONE smallish apartment building who thought they were beind smart who are losing their shirts. They TRY to be good landlords and get reamed. ONE bad tenant - playing the game and resisting eviction while not paying rent - can put an owner in the red for a decade. I lived in the Bronx for a while and there was a family who hadn't paid rent ANYWHERE for decades... Every time they finally got evicted they'd apply elsewhere under a different family member's name. They wer all working and could afford to pay. They simply didn't. They had it down pat and could extend eviction for years.
The only ones making money ARE the slumlords who don't give a damn. They collect as much as they can for as long as they can and they walk away or play games with sales through shell corporations.
Oligarchy Financial Feudalism is a systemic flaw – now a function of both monetary and fiscal policy. Oligarchy will continue, especially as our Political Structure is subordinated to money power special interests.
97% of our money supply is bank credit. The majority of this credit comes into being with double entry mechanics at private banks. Credit hypothecation of this type requires an asset. That asset is almost always real estate.
Money that chases a fixed asset will drive that asset up in perceived value. Real estate on Manhattan Island, like all land locked areas, is fixed supply. This fire hose of credit is aimed straight at real estate, pushing land prices. Only after the credit passes thru real estate, is it available for use as trade.
To make matters worse, fiscal policy is to tax income rather than land rental value. Fiscal policy is further perverted to give tax breaks for land. Taxing income is perverse because it taxes the ability of people to produce.
Monetary policy is bad enough in that credit is misused to chase after land, but is further abused by QE. QE creates money on a keyboard at the FED, which then buys TBill-Bonds, and MBS. Said MBS helped create housing bubble, and hence MBS creators (TBTF banks) are rewarded for their perfidy, as these securities are held high. MBS creators become Oligarchs. QE also chases after bonds, and hence interest rates low. (Bond price up and Interest rate low.)
Low interest rates are pushing on a string; hoping new debtors will arrive and take out new loans, thus pushing real estate even higher. This is the so called wealth effect that the FED keeps blabbing on about. New debtors will not allow themselves to be hypothecated if they are underwater on previous loans, or have been economically down-drafted with a menial employment. Hence, average productive debtors are not taking out new loans, but it is those who are insiders of private finance, now rewarded with new QE money.
Monetary policy fix: money supply should be much higher percentage of sovereign floating money, and any credit that is issued should be volume controlled and channeled into the commons or production. This requires a new money system.
Fiscal policy fix: Land Reform, get rid of income tax – instead have a rent tax. Government earns its keep through tariffs and land rent taxes. Government earns fees on inelastic markets it helps keep efficient.
Prices will drop dramatically, maybe 50%. People will employ each other as their output now vectors peer to peer, rather than to Oligarchy and improperly constituted government.
Real Freedom = prices delivered at lowest possible cost.
MEFOBILLS,
Sorry. I have the highest respect about your analyses, views, and the way you present them. And I am fascinated by your understandings. However, either suggestion you presented won’t happen…. Not that you don’t know it.
America's exorbitant privilege (Charles de Gaulle) is over.
Prosperity based in Bretton Woods—an asymmetric financial system where foreigners see themselves supplying ‘building’ the America Middleclass.
Then, as you have point it out before, you have foreigners subsidizing, through the Petrodollar, America debt.
In 2008 that scheme also collapsed. TARP and Discount Window to the rescue.
But that too did not hold. Not big enough to cover for all the unproductive jobs.
So, QE ‘Currency War’ to the rescue.
Now, do you really think they will stop there? Stop living beyond their means, when QE no long work.
NO!…….. They will be taking by force.
Again, not that you don't know that.
“Brace yourself! The American Empire is over. The descent is going to be horrifying!” — Chris Hedges
Cash and other goodies are being stored in some of those empty penthouses. Go take a look. Safer than a bank.
"Go take a look."
MmmK, you're leading tours?
Just more proof the credit bubble has burst. Bubbles are a fascinating phenomenon wholly and totally created by human emotions. While the Keynesians consider bubbles to be the failure of fiscal and monetary policy to maintain control over economic conditions, the Austrian School’s Theory of the Business Trade Cycle considers them as naturally occurring phases of the business cycle designed to weed out mal-investment and greed. While often painful when they occur, bubbles are necessary medicine which may taste bad at the time but ultimately cures the patient of the afflicting malady. Refusal to take the medicine only prolongs the illness and makes it even worse. In the worst case, catastrophe, the patient can die.
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/anatomy-of-a-bubble-how-the-federal-r...
Fantasy Island TV Show Opening Theme Season One 1978
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_QbVDlLbI (1:35)
Da plane! Da plane!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTs3uzChx8k (0:09)
Truncated vertical axis alert.
"Adversity breeds men. Prosperity breeds monsters."
-Victor Hugo
I guess we just don't have enough adversity yet.
some nyc homeless takes home 6 figure bounty tax free.
99.9999999999999999999% don't so shut the fuck up
This article is dumber than dumb. The reason NYC doesn't have adequate housing for the poor and working poor isn't because Paris Hilton has a part time apartment worth X million. It's because you can't build the sort of housing stock necessary to have a vibrant middle class and lower in NYC within the rules of the zoning ordinances. The only thing those completely dysfunctional rules don't touch is luxury housing so of course the market will make money where it can.
Change the rules to allow houses to be replaced by 4 flats and rented at market rates and you'll have a huge increase in housing stock in NYC, almost immediately.
Houses are a very small percentage of the NYC housing stock. In Manhattan they are non-existent. Staten Island has many more "houses" but the demand for high rise flats there I imagine is low. However, no doubt there are myriad rules, regulations and, of course, bribery to overcome which add to the overall construction costs and hence, sale or rent prices. Another facet is how anti-landlord the city and activists are so these owners convert to condos as quick as possible.
NYC USED to have PLENTY of cheap housing. You could be a drunk or addict on the Bowrey and still afford a room over your head at night. SRO's - single room occupancy hotels - rented out minimal rooms at a rate people could afford. You got a bed and not much else and a shared bathroom in the hallway.
The 'deinstitutionalization' of the mentally ill introduced a new and often unpredictable and violent group into the 'underclass' and an expansion of illegal drugs available that led to more violent behavior and calls went out to close the SRO's/ New York wanted to 'clean up' 'poor' neighborhoods. And more than a few SRO's got converted into pricier co-ops.
In times past you had large cheap hotels/rooming houses that served 'the poor'. They served unmarried laborers, widowers and others who were earning a minimal amount - or collecting a minimal retirement stipend. You also had this now unheard of phenomenon called 'boarders' where people rented a room - or even just a bed and shared meals with a family. Now most communities ahve zoning rules PROHIBITING 'unrelated' people sharing a house or apartment.
NYC and other places have made the homeless problem WORSE by eliminating the places that served this segment of the population. I had a great uncle - an alcoholic who in retrospect clearly had PTSD after WWII. His wife eventually gave him a choice - he left. He ended up in a SRO on the Bowery in NYC collecting minimal benefits. He died there. I had other family in Chicago - 'bachelors' that never married - usually minimally skilled, not all that attractive a prospect, one who was divorced, another widowed - who lived in the many residential hotels that served this group up until the 1950's. It seems like the women - unmarried or widowed - were more likely to end up as 'boarders' or living with other family.
you're a f****** idiot. Why don't you mention a tax break that is in the article above? The tax break that applies only to the 0.0001% and which gives them over $350,000 in tax breaks. I would like your opinion on that dumbass.
When I lived in NYC in the 80's all my leftie friends (and they were all lefties) would rant hysterically how Ray-Gun was responsible for the NYC masses of homeless. The beloved homeless. At that time I'd say most were mental cases or dope addicts. They used to burn trash all year long in the park in front of my apartment, toxic trash like tires. Eventually they would burn the benches they slept on. I even tried to get the NYC Environment Dept. to shut down these toxic fires for public safety reasons like they would any business. To no avail.
Now look at this chart -- compare the homeless during Obola with that of Ray-Gun. I bet a higher percentage are just poor people with no hope of employment than existed back in the 80's.
Keep in mind that the homeless in the 80s were the result of Reagan's reforms of the mental health system. That is, those were mental cases and dope addicts that were released onto the streets.
Now, it's college graduates with no job opportunities (or razors) and the need to sport dogs and dreadlocks.
Get the gun and badge thugs out doing to the homeless what they did to Eric Garner, and the homeless problem will be fixed right quick.
/s
The banksters need to repay us.
The more governmnet, the worse things get. The worse things get, the worse government gets. The worse government gets, the more government government calls for. The more government...
But, but, but Obama said the worst was over. I don't think he lied in front of our faces.
Problematic.....said every revolutionary....ever.
In the 70-ties we had the same problem in Amsterdam until the 'Kraker' movement came around. Like a lot of big cities around the globe Amsterdam always had and still has an housing shortage. People illegally moved into houses who were empty purely because of speculation reasons. Believe it or not but 'Kraken' became legal. Very sane Dutch judges ruled that if an house stays empty longer than a year and you move in after a year and put a bed and table inside (as proof you are really living there) you then can start a legal process with a big change that you will win that process and can stay in the apartment as legal renter. So release the 'Kraken'!