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!
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/02/02/the-face-of-the-oligarch-recovery-luxury-skyscrapers-stay-empty-as-nyc-homeless-population-hits-record-high/
= new reply since forum marked as read
