Dig this bit of news from Chicago's highest-end shopping district.
Drive onto the Mag Mile and at first all seems normal. Keep driving, and you’ll notice it’s anything but. Chicago police cars are parked everywhere — blue lights flashing. Stores are still boarded up. It’s all a response to two rounds of looting in the last two and a half months.
“If it happens a third time, people who are just hanging onto a belief that downtown is still a place to live and shop are going to give up,” said Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd). “We’re going to lose people. They’re going to move. We’re already seeing that start to happen.”
The city’s Second Ward includes the northern part of the Mag Mile, but it’s not just residents bailing that concerns him. It’s the potential for businesses to bail, too. He points out his ward and one other bring in about 40% of the city’s property tax revenue every year.
“If that dries up we really have no way to replace it,” he said. “There’s no casino or there’s no other magic source, no capital assets that we could sell that’s going to replace the loss of our property tax base, and that’s how a city begins to hollow out at its core.”
Emphasis mine.
It's the same as what's happening in New York City.
If Biden wins, expect massive bailouts for the burned-out blue cities. There's only one way to get that sweet, sweet bailout money, too.
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Dittos for the Green New Deal, Reparations and all of the other goodies.
I still can't figure out what to hold if the money printing goes into hyperdrive.
Rental real estate, maybe?
"Rental real estate, maybe?"
ReplyDeleteYou won't be allowed to evict "renters" who won't pay the rent. "In these trying times," how could you be so "heartless" and "selfish" as to expect people to pay you for their "human right" to a home?
My thoughts run to all the "tangible items". Gold. Silver. Platinum. Palladium. Real Estate. A good gun and shooting lessons would probably be a good investment as well.
ReplyDeleteI had been thinking hard (and still am) about a REIT. For years they have been considered great income investments for retirees. Right now their returns are low, so maybe they are a good buying opportunity? They are low because of the reason Ilion mentions and that prime commercial property in big cities is no longer a good investment (ex: Vangard REIT - VGSLX had a 52 week high on Feb 14 at $141.13, a low on Mar 23 at $80.80 - I wonder what happened during that time? - and is currently $114.58).
A second home (in a red state) to use as a AirBnB or VRBO might be really good. Not sure I'd want to put a lot of money into something like this, but if nothing else, it can also serve as place to escape CA when the insanity hits here like it has in Portland, Seattle, the Twin Cities, NY, Atlanta, Chicago...
The thing that actually scares me is that if the Dems win the Presidency, then the two women (oops, I think that should be womyn, or is it womban, or whatever the PC version of that perfectly good word is), who are next in line for the presidency, are both products of the San Francisco democratic machine. That would be far scarier than Trump is.
"Gold. Silver. Platinum. Palladium. Real Estate."
ReplyDeleteContrary to the ads on the radio, precious metals are not *investments*, that are gambles and/or hedges in case everything falls apart. AND, unless you actually acquire physical possession of the metals, if everything does fall apart, they were just wasted money.
Similarly, unless it produces income, real estate is not an investment: it is, at best, a necessary expense (you have to live somewhere, and why pay someone else's mortgage); but if bought with the expectation of turning a profit on selling it, it is merely a gamble.
I think I like liquid assets that can be sent out of the country the best. Of course, a mix is really the right way to go.
ReplyDeleteAnd guns. You need guns.
But, if the situation were to become that dire, *where exactly* could one send one's liquid assets that would still be safe?
ReplyDeleteThere is no place to retreat to.
As Mark Twain said in answer to that question, Buy land, I hear they're not making any more.
ReplyDeleteMaybe land with a nice house on it and a big kitchen garden in South Dakota, that seems as stable a place as any and they have Kristi Noem! Too bad about the winters but you can be cosy, nice big wood burning stove and all. My daughter bought a nice detached house in Fargo, N Dakota a year or so ago for $180G's.
Airbnb in Idaho, we bought last year. BDaddy
ReplyDeleteligneus and BDaddy have the right idea. It might be a good idea to have a bolt hole in the Great Plains or the South.
ReplyDelete