Jobless Claims & Commercial Real Estate

On this Thirsty Thursday, John discusses jobless claims rise, Cuomo issues getting crazier by the minute, childhood in Staten Island, and commercial real estate. Today's guests: Chris Benabu, Jonathan Gillium, Tim Kelleher, and Gary Rosen.

Episode Transcript

(00:17):
All right, welcome back. You'rewatching Liquid Lunch, Um, Liquid Lunches,
the show that brings you the newswith the booze, and today,
a little later on, I'll bedoing a little tequila to wash down some
of the brutal news. I gotto deliver it to you today. Um.
But you know, a lot isgoing on out there, and like

(00:38):
I talked about a little earlier,we're seeing all kinds of things happen in
this economy, and the experts thatJoe Biden wheels out there are telling us
not to see what we see.We see hyper inflation, we see the
cost of goods going higher. Wesee still what should be an improving employee

(01:00):
situation not so much so. Alot of factors out there are hurting.
And I personally think that people arehoarding cash because they don't know what's going
to happen next. An expert inthis area, consumer spending and other parts
of the economy, Chris Benebu joinsUS right now. He is the chief

(01:22):
operating officer Swipe for Free. He'sa co founder of Swipe for Free,
and Chris, thanks for joining US. Seven hundred forty four thousand new jobs
claims not quite what we were expecting, correct. I just think that,
first of all, thanks John forhaving me on, But I think that

(01:42):
business owners still have that fear ofrunning out and you know, hiring new
employees and reinvesting their businesses, whenactually what they're really trying to do is
recoup on the losses that they feltwith the pandemic. A lot of business
owners that I personally know we processEurope over teen thousand local merchants, is
they're actually they let go all ofemployees and they picked up the slack,

(02:05):
so they're actually getting back into theirbusinesses and taking over a lot of the
positions because obviously they need to savethose salaries to keep either their business upfloat
or make a living. So Ithink that's why there's not that confidence yet
that this thing is over. We'reall hearing the variants and the media and
the things that are happening, andwe're you know, we're slowly building the

(02:27):
confidence, but I think business ownerswant to want to keep an eye out
first before they start hiring people againand raising their payroll and expenses. Well,
you know, the jobless claims numberis to me a signal of continuing
layoffs, you know, and youknow, Chris, I did a lot

(02:49):
of work consulting for like some smallcommunity banks when they were trying to figure
out how they were going to delveout this PPP money, and I was
on these calls with the SBA andthe FDIC. It was it was a
mess, right, And my thoughtat that time was, well, you've
given everybody two months worth of stuff, but they were already three months behind

(03:10):
on everything. So when they actuallygot their PPP money, there was no
money to keep really going forward.They still had to start getting out of
arrears. So the next thing todo is, you know, after that
six you had to keep them employedfor six months. I believe after that
six month period then they start layingpeople off again because that money's gone.

(03:35):
Plus they have, you know,operating at lower occupancies. More people are
concerned about going in point of salemerchants, which probably hurts wife for free
also because I bet you transactions ofthem. Yeah, well, we definitely.
It's it's interesting, John, here'ssome people we do process so many
merchants. We saw actually a hugeamount of industries being really affected by the

(04:00):
pandemic. Like of course, asyou know, meeting that's spending kind of
shift over to supermarkets and Delhi groceriesbecause people were home and cooking and staying
home more. So we see ahuge explosion in home improvements. And it's

(04:20):
funny a local pool person that Iknow has a two year waiting list to
build a pool. One of mymerchants gardening, landscaping. So yes,
on one angle, so many businesseswere truly truly affected, especially here in
the New York City metropolitan area.But then I did see a shift in
a lot of you know, likeI said, local businesses were more closest

(04:41):
to residential So I see it's hugeeffect in metropolitan areas like your faery familiar
with Wall Street and Midtown Manhattan.But I do see some improvements on businesses
in suburbia and think like that wherepeople are doing home improvements, gardening,
landscaping and things like that, Ithink people shifted their focus on Oh yeah,

(05:06):
one of the only numbers I've seenover the last couple of months is
that the spending on durable goods hasbeen up. So that's why I was
thinking, like people are hoarding it, DOUG and they're buying something like,
you know, a new patio setbecause they made you know what I mean
dropped down twenty five hundred bucks forthat because improve in their life. It's

(05:29):
something that they can hang on to. It's gonna last for five to seven
years. So durable goods are up. But then at the same time,
those people waiting for the pool,um, I don't know how your food
guy can give them a price lockbecause you know, huncretes going up,
materials are going up, roll goods, stones, sand going up. So
number one, their price may besignificantly different next year. And number two,

(05:55):
the commerce departments just announced the sevenpoint one percent drop in household incomes,
so the people may not have themoney for the lock price even and
it's going to be more. Soyou know that's affecting a lot of home
improvement people. Yeah, I haveto agree. So I was fortunate enough
to build a home recently just finishedup. But my builders and all my

(06:18):
friends and all my merchants in thatindustry state that lumber is ridiculously up,
and you know it's they can't evenyou know, they can't keep the price
point to Everything is up. Youknow, sheet rock is up, all
building goods are up. So thereality is that the cost to build a
home or or definitely put up aproperty is increases higher than we've seen in

(06:40):
many, many years, which ultimatelywill will definitely affect people's ability to build
and do things like that. ButI do see a huge increase in real
estate purchases away from the cities andmore towards the suburbs. So that's a
I would say a positive thing.People are definitely purchasing more homes, well
depend homes. But you know,one of the trends that I'm seeing in

(07:01):
New York that scares the hell outof me, to be honest with you
and all my friends who've got thesebig commercial footprints in Manhattan Park Avenue,
Wall Street, Broad Street, everythingelse, they've gone to these smaller outpost
places like you know, Socaucus,New Jersey, and Long Allen and Westchester
in Red Bank, New Jersey,much cheaper, closer to where their executives

(07:25):
live. And my fear and Ithink it's gonna I think it's happening already.
Everyone that has a large footprint inNew York. Everybody's comfortable going to
these satellite places. So as theseleases start to come to determination, I
think people are gonna be downsizing theNew York City addressed by fifty percent,
letting employees work from home two daysa week and do something every other day.

(07:48):
So New York is facing you know, the highest taxes and increasing and
now you're gonna have commercial real estateowners saying, wait a minute, we're
at occupancy here and you want toraise my taxes. So that's the arm
again that you know a lot ofthese metropolitan areas aren't ready for I think,
what do you think? Yeah,I definitely see the numbers, the

(08:11):
processing volumes really really bad and lowin the high rents when people have grown
accustomed to working from home. Andyou you made a great point. I
do see increases in my merchants outTemple in Elizabeth, New Jersey. One

(08:31):
of the hottest businesses I see arethese warehouse kind of rentable spaces. So
everybody's running out of the city andgoing more local. So I am scared.
John. I am a New Yorker. I was born and raised in
Brooklyn, so it is sad forme to go into the city and really
see you know, every three orfour businesses on every block or out of
business. M If they don't dosomething to get these people back, we're

(08:56):
in for a route awakening. ButI hope that with so many businesses out
and so many businesses built, likerestaurants and things like that, I hope
that there will be a new waveof ownership. And that's what I'm gambling
on. I hope to see peoplethat have always dreamed homes, a restaurant
or a bar saying, you knowwhat, let me full investment than a

(09:20):
full build out. And hopefully NewYorkers start coming back, slowly but surely,
no doubt. Chris Nabo co foundthe Chief Operating Officer or Swipe for
free, great stuff. Brother,I appreciate it. I've been saying for
a while that the city that Neversleeps is on a respirator right now,

(09:41):
and somehow or another, we gotto get this city back on its feet
and moving, because if New Yorkgame moving, this country ain't moving.
If you ask me so, Chris, we got to have you back soon.
I really appreciate you joining us,and I want to bring you una.
I'm gonna get your PR person andI want to bring you back on

(10:01):
and talk about the advent of cryptosecurities and any advances you're seeing in point
of sale merchant with that stuff,because I think it's an emerging thing that
people need to know about. Absolutely. I agree, it's a big demand.
I appreciate the opportunity, John,thank you so much. All right,
Chris Bennebot. He's an expert andhe knows what people are spending because

(10:24):
they process their charges and they don'tcharge you to three percent fee and all
that other crap. They do itright, just like we do every single
day. We'll take a quick breakright here. We'll come back right after
this with Jonathan Gilliam, the authorof Sheep No More and the host of
the Experts podcast right after this.Hey, all right, welcome back.

(11:13):
It's Thursty Thursday, liquid lunch.Yep. I got my bottle of cosam
egos right here. My campaign advisorsdon't want me drinking alcohol an hour one
because they say could lead to meseemingly being slashed an hour or two.
So I'm just taunting myself with thebottle of cos of egos right now.
Dal Jones taunting investors today. Downa little bit earlier, now up nine.

(11:37):
So back in the green and techheavy nasdak up a bunch of bucking
a quarter and you know there's twothree five trillion dollar infrastructure package has a
lot of Lulu's in there for thesegrowth companies that are in the Nasdak,
the electric car companies, the batterycompanies, the solo win that this.
So the Nazdak is performing nicely now, waiting like Drooland for this big hunk

(12:01):
a dough to come in from fromJoe Biden. Basically, Um, and
they're killing they're killing the dollar inthe meantime, So don't think anything good
is going on. Um, you'rein trouble and things aren't going good.
You look around and you look forthis guy Jonathan Gilliam who joins us right
now. He's the author of SheepNo More. He's the host of the

(12:22):
Experts podcast, former US Navy CLFBIspecial agent and Marshall Um. Everything you
want somebody that you find, killhim. They're probably so hold on,
wait, wait, hold on.First of all, yeah, I don't
know. That's coffee. That's notanything else. He's using the David eiaenback

(12:45):
met that the coffee cup. Igot a couple other guys, we know
what you got going on. SoJohnny, Johnathan, this Cuomo thing,
um, it's getting sick of bythem, Like the Meto movement is hiding
under a bed like like you guyswere serving a Lauren on their house.
Because now nine ten accuses did allkinds of things. What's happening there?

(13:11):
Well, so the Democrats I think, I literally think that the Democrats what
they're doing right now, the reasonyou're not hearing anything is because Cuomo is
dishing out everything that the Democrats want, like a soup kitchen on Saturday.
I mean, it's like they're justHe's given everybody everything that they want right
now so that they'll back off.And I have a feeling that although things

(13:33):
are moving forward, because we're kindof privy to some of the stuff that's
happening behind the scenes. I mean, trust me, the Democrats do not
like Cuomo. They hate Cuomo.And but right now, I mean they're
they're getting a ton of stuff,including the immunity clause just came off,
you know. So I think they'replaying this slow for that reason. And

(13:54):
quite frankly, you know, Idon't have any faith in the system,
nor does anybody else. I don'tknow if anything's going to come out of
this, but Cuomo is It's notanything new. This guy's a bad guy.
No, I want to know whatthe deep connections is though, because
this guy is able to bully people, assault, sexually assault and harassed people.

(14:16):
He's able to, you know,kill thousands and thousands of elderly people
and make deals with the elderly clinicsin the hospitals who were his biggest donors.
And nothing happens to this guy.Yeah, you stought, you do
stought wondering, But this is whatI think happened. And I'm, you
know, a long time political wonkin New York. I think the progressives

(14:41):
said, hey, Cuomo, enoughplaying in the middle and acting like mister
moderate. You're with us or you'reroute, And they took Latitia James,
who was wanted the heads the attorneygeneral in New York State. She came
down on Cuomo from that side,so you want to get progressive or what?
And then AOC came from this sidesaid he should resign, so they

(15:01):
put the Malachie crunch on him.And you even saw something that never happened.
You saw the Blazio, the mayorof New York City, one of
the chief protagonists in the progressive movement, war on Wilhelm. He said he
should reside, so they surrounded himwith progressives and said, now what.
And I feel like the Democrats areplaying Princeton basketball right They just running clock

(15:24):
right now to see is he goingto do what we want or are we
going to squeeze them? And Ithink he's going in the money. And
I think, you know, we'reboth saying the same thing here. They're
they're playing the clock because they wantto see what they can get. I
mean, that's the sick thing aboutthis is that this individual, the Democrats
know how bad he is, butyou're not seeing anybody maneuver to get him

(15:45):
out. And what's even sicker thanthat is the fact that you know,
the Democrats are the ones that knowall the plays. The Republicans they're nowhere
to be found in any of thisstuff. They're like the Malaysian airlines of
politics. Now you just never disappearand you never see them again, whether
it's Trump or with Cuomo. Andso you know, I think, I

(16:06):
don't know, it's it's it's prettybad. I do think though, where
the break happened with Cuomo and theDemocrat Party. I think he was planning
to run for president in twenty twentyfour, and I think that's why he
had the book deal that's why hegot these awards, that's why all this
stuff. He was building himself upinto this incredible guy. And at the

(16:26):
beginning of COVID, I think hehad a lot of people fulled because,
let's be honest, his PowerPoint presentationsfar out exceeded Trump's, uh, you
know, his press conversation. Atthe beginning, Cuomo was doing good,
nothing, nothing. He should havegot an Academy award for acting like the
leader. Actually, people were dyingeverywhere. But I do want to ask

(16:51):
you, because this is this isright in your wheelhouse. M The border
is a siven now it's wide open. One hundred and seventy two thousand tried
across and march most of fifteen yearsand then trying to get to wear blue
cities and blue states where the sanctuarycities. Now New York is offering one
time payments in this new budget offifteen thousand, two hundred dollars to illegal

(17:14):
immigrants and business closed. I thoughtit was twenty thousand. Maybe wrong either
way, fifteen or twenty thousand.Me, it's just ridiculous when you got
Americans who are starving in homeless veteransin New York City, it's I mean,
they just give money to anybody whowill do the least amount. It
seems like they just go out themoney to those people. But I'll tell

(17:36):
you something that's very telling. Onthe border. There's two things happened recently
that came to light. One isthey're they're continuing to construct the wall.
Okay, Donald Trump was an effectiveleader. I know, if when you
win your race for a controller,you're an effective thinker, right, you
come up with effective solutions. TheDemocrat Party is they're only focused on salism

(18:00):
slash communism. That's their goal.And then the Republican Party has all these
careers. But the fact that theywent and started doing this wall shows you
how effective Donald Trumps in his thinking. Now, the other thing that happened
is that on January twenty ninth,right after Biden was sworn in, we
they catch a Syrian terrorists suspect comingacross the border. The guy waited until

(18:26):
after the twentieth to come over theborder. Because here's what happens. This
is what shows us is that allthe things that the left takes advantage of
to push these uh, these foreignersup to the to the border and into
these blue states. The bad guysare going to take advantage of that as
well, and so that's very destructive. We've seen that. We've seen that
happening right now. And the otherday I think they captured two other Yemeni

(18:48):
terrorists on an old playlist and stufflike that, trying to get through the
Mexican border. So crazy. Butsorry Yemeny, it wasn't Syrian. Yeah,
yemy yeah. Um. So youknow, it gets crazy by the
minute. And by the way,we got you know, eleven million people
on a play in America. Themore illegals come in, they take away
the opportunity for our workers also.But uh, you know, you know,

(19:14):
from what I'm understanding, what I'munderstanding that that is almost a skewed
thing now is that they are nottaking the jobs away. They are just
coming here and getting on welfare,getting the social programs want to help.
Yeah, it's crazy, all right. Jonathan Gilliam, thank you so much.
Go check out his book Sheep NoMore and look him up at the
Experts podcast. This guy protected ourcountry in every way you'd wanted to protect.

(19:38):
You to thank you, brother,I appreciate it. You got my
friend and enjoy We'll take a quickweekend come back with some more munch right
after this. Welcome back, justbreezing during this first hour of a thirsty

(20:18):
Thursday broadcast here on biz TV.Also BIS Talk Radio. Our friends out
there on the money station, Goodmorning, uh, speaking of your money
dow just lifting itself out of thered in the last few minutes. A
little turnaround here. Got a littleknock on the head this morning on some
job numbers, you know, onjobless claims. Unemployee claims hit seven hundred

(20:41):
and forty four thousand, which wasa higher number than expected. Many of
the wizards in the Biden administration aretalking about, you know, how the
more vacs, more business open,more people will be back to work.
Not quite happening just yet, leadinga little SmackDown in the data this morning.

(21:02):
But the NASDAC, on the otherhand, performing amazingly up abuck twenty
five today, one hundred and twentyfive points. And that's because many of
the lulu's in the stimulus package areaimed at growth companies like those that are
in the in the NASDAC markets,and those growth companies like battery companies,

(21:26):
solar companies, wind companies, electriccar companies, charging stations. All those
things lead to these tangential opportunities forthe smaller companies in the NASDAC, and
that's probably why the NASDAC is upa little bit more than it should be
today. Invest View, my favoritesecond largest bitcoin mining company in North America,

(21:49):
on a real hot streak of late, went from twelve cents to seventy
cents, snuggling in at sixty twocents today, down a penny, but
just a scoche, but traded sixmillion shares, which is good news for
those of you who like investor.There's liquidity and trading. Well, there's
a new class of investors in UMlike to see go to seventy eighty again,

(22:11):
but we'll be happy here in abig cooin at fifty eight thousand.
We are awaiting Tim kellaher Um.Tim kellaher as an actor, writer,
director, peakin in the Ukrainian OrthodoxChurch, and he recently wrote a beautiful,
beautiful memoir maybe not a memoir,but a beautiful story about his memories

(22:32):
of my hometown Scotaten Island, andhis article that was carried in a National
Review with memories of a Staten Islandchild child, Staten Island childhood and I
read it. Tim's a great friendof my buddy Joe Gianna Scoli. So
you say, Joe Gianna Scoli ina story area is okay? And I

(22:55):
think I hear him. Y yousay, Joe Gianna Scoli and a story
about stating out, And I'm like, sign me up. I'll think this
guest every day in a week.And uh, Tim Keller lifelong stat now
even when you leave STAT now andyou're still stating now jims us right now,
he jimph having me on And I'msorry for the delay here all right.

(23:19):
Our computer mice were it must haveunionized. They were on a strike
there for a second. Well everythingis good now. Um, your story,
what after all this time, whatmade you want to write a story
about your memories of stating old.That's a great question, you know,
I don't really know exactly why.I think partly because I'm in Canada right

(23:40):
now and the borders are shut,and even though I can come back to
the States a citizen, Uh,the psychological obstacle is there. So you
know, it's it's like you alwayshave it in the back of your mind
that there's like an invisible fence there. But I guess uh, you know,
you know, my dream like thedreamscape is always almost always takes place

(24:03):
somewhere and some reconfigured version of stateand iland. When there is a schoolyard,
a classroom, you name it theferry. So that's kind of like
the architecture of my dreams. Andnostalgia, I think is a common thing
for all this. But I thinkwhen I began to write this, it
started with the idea of you know, when you smell something, for example,

(24:26):
it can transport you back somewhere immediately. And I've been playing with that
idea in my mind for a longtime, and I finally decided I want
to get this down on paper.I mean, I just want to get
this out of my system and moveon to other things. And as I
began to wait into it, Iwas like, wow, you know whatever,
this nostalogy is really pointless unless thereit cultivates this sense of gratitude,

(24:49):
And that's what I began to feel. The more I waded into this stuff
and recall things and people and facesbegan to pop up and little incidents that
happened, I became incredibly grateful forhaving grown up there um and the sacrifices
that it took to get us there. And yeah, let's I think that

(25:10):
was it. And you know,um, let me ask you Tim,
because this is this big story aboutlittle old stand Allen getting carried, you
know, a national review. Um, you talk about smells and stuff.
I grew up in Manhattan and mychildhood, you know, and my grandfather
used to take us for walks downto the Bowery and we'd get an egg

(25:32):
cream and a knish, and theyhad these little knows, these little store
these little stands on the street,like a newspaper stand, right, and
they made an egg cream. AndI'll always remember when when it happens.
You know, in the old days, they used to put the knish on
the skillet. It was like hotwith like something heavy on top of it.
Yeah, it's like to burn it, charret, you know, and

(25:56):
stand and outside while they were startingthe egg cream. You could smell that
caninh burning. And anytime I digabout, I smell something like that,
I think about the canih exactly.Well, that happened to me. That's
exactly what happened to me. Iwas I hadn't been in Manhattan. It
plugs along time I'd ever been twoyears and I was meeting some friends midtown

(26:17):
on the East Side and it wasrush Arrow and I was like, I
don't want to get a Penn station. I want to get on the subway.
It's gonna be crazy, but Ihad no choice. I jumped down
to the sea train, jumped up, you know, two stations, and
the moment I came down the steps, you know that that that unique whush
of air that he got from thesubway out of the tunnels, that kind
of and there's nothing like that smellI was in, I know, exactly

(26:40):
instantly transported to being three years oldin the Bronx. I went down the
stairs, hitting into the subway andgoing to Radio City Music Hall for the
Christmas show for the first time.And it's it's it's a magical thing that
our sentence can do that way.Jim, uh, don't you find it
as somebody who understands the origins?Is that? And what an amazing group

(27:02):
of people on Stan Allen, youknow, um, Italians and Irish or
overwhelmingly you know, coexisting, whichis good and um you know there there
are the lower income areas, thehigher incomes areas. But anytime stat Allen
gets hit with an issue like nineto eleven or like Hurricane Sandy. Um,
it's one of the tightest communities inthe Five Borrows if you ask me,

(27:25):
because everyone cares about each other,regards what school you went to,
what color you are. It's likeboom, let's step up with a red
headed step Borrow. I always say, you know, and I think,
tim, I think you know thereare some great majestic people that you know
came from or spent lots of theirlife on Stanton Allen, you know,

(27:45):
like Commodore, Vanderbuilt and m Mayucciwho you know very well. May have
you know, been the inventor ofsome of the greatest inventions of all time.
Right, um, and Stan Allenas a Canadian from a fall you
must be mad like I am thaton TV that were always painted as a
bunch of dumb goombas and sweatsuits.Yeah, you're talking about like Jersey Shore

(28:08):
and the Yeah, just all thetime. You know, they go to
Staten Island and Lauren. If ifan episode of Law and Order is about
stating aland they're in a pizzeria witha couple of breezy guidos and gold chains
on, you know what I'm sayingand that I think the nation thinks that
stating Aland is just a bunch ofdumb criminals who are them up you know

(28:33):
what exactly? Yeah, well yeah, yeah, we feed into that.
You know, people are throwing moneyat you to to to you know,
magnify that stereotype. You know,a lot of people will go for that,
and you know it's easy money,it's quick cash, and you go
on. But you know you putyour leave behind us, you know,
a bad representation. Uh, Imean there is that element. Doesn't mean
that we wouldn't deny that. Imean, you know what, I'm half

(28:57):
Irish and half a Talian. Okay, I got delivered the of course the
vowel at the end of my namebecause my father was Italian and Irish also.
Um. But when I think aboutstan Allen, I think, man,
there are so many different kinds ofpeople that I know that are so

(29:18):
successful, um and those things inthe great tradition at stan Allend and and
it's like that's never presented. Atleast your story from a nostalgia I read
it. It was excellent and atleast your story puts another narrative out there
about a real close knit community withpeople. Yeah, yeah, you know,

(29:38):
and and the things when you whenyour kids, you know, at
that time of life, you're stillreally impressionable. You're going through you know,
you know, really have a clue, you're yearning, and we all
share that, you know, andit's there's a certain kind of innocence.
When you mentioned the Irish and Italianthing. You know, it's funny because
people, you know, I grewup in tompkinsvill basically, so that's a

(29:59):
very mixed area, um um.But I always told people, you know,
daily purgess I knew growing up earlyon was against Italian. It was
the Irish and Italians. My uncle'sgetting fights with this you know this guy.
And of course you grew up inStunt Island. My closest friends became
Italian and you know, I meanreal time from Italy. And and you

(30:19):
know, I was telling the FrankBreno the other day that, you know,
the first time I was so areal vegetable that wasn't didn't come out
of a can with water roll around. It was my my my adopted family's
house. You know, they werealmost I mean, they barely got by.
They were really really modestly you know, I mean, we got it.

(30:40):
Tell me, we gotta leave itthere. The guy's great author,
great writer, um also a deaconin the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the author
of Memories of a Staten Island childhood. Jim Keller, thank you, brother,
thanks for having me. I'm sorryfor the delight. That's okay.
We'll take a quick break. We'llcome back and wrap up our one right
after this. Look all righty,welcome back. Just breasing through the first

(31:22):
hour, about to wrap it up, but you got to close it out
strong, Dal closing out the morningstrong. A little bit of a red
morning for the dow, but turnedit around as we got through the top
of the hour here in the downnow up eleven, NASDAC up one hundred
and thirteen, which is good newsfor those of you in the tech heavy
NASDAC and a Bitcoin up thirteen hundred, but still middling around in the high

(31:45):
fifties, fifty seven eight as weget through the first hour. Right now,
New York City is rotting. It'sthe rotting apple business has just shuttered.
Fifty percent of the health the hospitalityworkforce is currently unemployed, sixty percent
of them a minority. So thisis killing the minority community and businesses are

(32:06):
fleeing, uh to the burbs andresetting their organizations. Somebody knows a heck
of a lot about this. Uhit's Gary Rosen. He's a real estate
attorney, form a real estate developer. Uh. He joins us right now,
Gary, you say, um,evidence of businesses starting outpost outposts outside

(32:28):
the city is a sign of goodthings. Well, it's it's good because
it is causing, um, thethe employees of all of the companies to
have more more jobs eventually. Butright now a lot of jobs have left
long left New York City for LongIsland. Um. The real estate market

(32:54):
in Manhattan, for commercial real estate, is come down a lot of a
lot of I'm sorry, I saidit's rigged. Yes, yes, yes,
I don't want to admit the pricesare coming down, so they're still
advertising stuff at crazy old prices andyou try to lowball them and they're like,

(33:16):
no, wait, what are youcrazy? But meantime, yeah,
to me, you know, spacein Manhattan's worth half of what it was.
Yes, people are sitting with vacantcommercial spaces, vacant retail spaces.
And why because the City of NewYork doesn't want to do what's necessary to
make businesses successful in the city,and it's going to cost jobs. People

(33:45):
now can open their businesses on theislands for half the rent. There's no
reason that you have to be inphysical offices anymore. There are companies that
need the physical offices so they willhave a presence. A lot of companies
are reducing their office space from onehundred percent of the space to fifty percent
of the space, and you coulddo that. You know, I've been

(34:07):
one of the reasons I'm running forNew York City Controller right now. One
of the reasons is because I'm lookingat that as the as the army getting
right. Because all my friends whohedge funds and broken deals and private equity
shops, they saying, Man,as soon as my lease is I'm whacking
my space in half. I'm gonnathat half the people come in Monday and

(34:28):
Wednesday, half the people come inTuesday and Thursday, and everybody worked from
home on Friday. And we don'tneed this big nut anymore. So I
think occupancies are down now, butas these things start to come to term,
it's only going to get worse.And the city and state think your
way to get to a better budgetis to keep tax raising real estate taxes.

(34:52):
But the owners are gonna say,wait, you can't raise us anymore,
my occupancies in half, you know, so, well then why?
And the horrendous thing is that rightnow, real estate taxes are between twenty
and twenty five percent of the revenue, and it's based on the revenue that

(35:13):
the city believes of what the rentsshould be. I can almost guarantee you
that when the rents go down,which they're going down, the city is
not going to reduce the real estatetaxes by the same percentage because the city
needs the revenue. And unless someonegoes in there and changes things and makes
New York City friendly, a friendlyenvironment for the businesses, then it's going

(35:36):
to be very devastating for the city, no doubt. You know what,
you know what would work. Butthese progressive wackos could never understand this because
they don't base anything on economics orscience. They just base it on what
they want us to think. Theyshould give some kind of real estate holiday,
a real estate tax holiday to theowners. If they don't, if

(36:00):
you ask me, if they don't, most of these people, you know,
you're real estate developed, they're ontriple netleases. So if they don't
have to pay their rent, theyain't paying their taxes. Maybe they're paying
their insurance, if they got importantthings in the building, but they're not
paying their rent. And over leveragedcorporate real estate companies are not paying their

(36:21):
mortgage. So we're either going tohave to bail out those real estate companies
in a way to keep them solving, like a tax break, or they're
gonna blow up a bank. It'sthat simple, and that blow ye.
There's a very big trickle down effect, you know, trickle down effect.
If the tenant doesn't pay the rent, the landlord doesn't pay the mortgage,

(36:42):
they don't pay the real estate taxes, the bank has to come in.
The bank is taking over properties,and unless you give some relief to the
landlords, it's going to affect theminority, low income individuals who need the
jobs because wealthy people can leave NewYork. And that's what's happening. That's
what we're seeing, no doubt aboutit. And some of the most walloped

(37:07):
areas on the residential side, upperEast Side, up a West side.
Um. You know, we're alot of limousine liberals. They're out of
here but deefund the police. WhatI'm out of here? Um? And
you got Tribeca Gumbo. These areall the you know, gentrified places where
all the you know, left winglunies like to hang out. They're running

(37:30):
for the hills. These are peoplethat made our city get like this.
They have the ability to leave,and they're leaving. And who are they
leaving. They're leaving a mess,no doubt about it. And you know,
um, some of my friends Ilive in stan Allen, right,
and these high income earners, right, hedge fund guys, big attorneys,

(37:50):
Right, they were like, hey, they keep telling me that Trump's tax
cuts, tax cuts only help theone percent. Right. The elimination of
the ten thousand dollars cap on thesalt deduction actually cause people making you know,
a half a million or more tohave a significant tax increase in New

(38:10):
York. Right, So these peopleare already like wait a minute, I'm
getting out of here. And nowthey want to put a millionaires tax,
and then they want to give twopoint one billion of that money to get
a TAXI four in fifteen thousand dollarsincrements to illegal aliens. I mean,
Florida is gonna be booming with NewYork is next year. Yeah, if
there's not a change, it's goingto be a very quiet city and it's

(38:31):
gonna be like in nineteen seventies.Yeah. No, I can't disagree with
you on any of that, becauseyou know New York. I've been there
a number of times in the lastsix months and it's just like a ghost
town. Gary, there's nothing reallyhappening there. But I'm gonna ring the
bell because we had Gary Rosen onI ring the bell for the first time

(38:54):
guest, and you were great brother. We got to have you back on
soon. Thank you. Have agreat day. Excellent. Hey. Gary
Rosen real estate attorney, real estatedeveloper and knows a heck of a lot
about what's going on around this metropolitanarea and others. BIS TV, BISDOC
Radio, money station. We'll seeyou tomorrow, same badtime, same bad

(39:15):
channel. Rest of you stay tuned. We'll could go off hour two right
after this.