Jerry Seinfeld attacked author, entrepreneur, former hedge fund manager, investor and New York city comedy club owner James Altucher over an article he wrote in the New York Post on August 17th titled ‘New York City is dead forever.’
Long time New York resident and famous actor and comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, took umbrage with Altucher’s statements calling Altucher and ‘putz’ and saying New York city will “sure as hell” bounce back.
Altucher pointed to several consequences emanating from the coronavirus pandemic and governmental policies pushed by current mayor Bill de Blasio, who wants to defund the New York City police department. View this video of what happens when you get in an elevator in an apartment building to go home – a simple, good old-fashioned robbery.
Altucher details what needs to be overcome in New York. The same may be said for several of America’s larger metropolitan cities.
Alucher focused on the facts: “Right now there is a major problem. Tax revenues are going down. Deficits are going up. Something like a third or more of restaurants and small businesses might already be permanently closed in New York city. Apartment vacancies are at all-time highs and are going to get higher. One in four residents have not been paying rent since March. Who knows how many more vacancies there will be. And the City is already even said the deficits are so high they have to start laying off critical employees like EMTs who are front line workers, teachers, police, garbage collectors, MTA workers.
“This is a serious problem. You can’t run a city with the revenue going down and deficits going up and all the citizens leaving.”
He said he didn’t understand why Jerry Seinfeld had to personally attack him since Seinfeld doesn’t know him. He said he respects Seinfeld, and like Seinfeld he (Altucher) lives in New York City and hopes it comes back. But he continued,
“Let’s look at what the solutions could be. And let’s look at the facts of what the problems are.”
The city is going in the direction of bankruptcy. They already announced that on August 31 they’re going to send out pink slips for critical workers, police, MTA workers, EMT, the people who are front line on virus they’re about to fire.
Dagan McDowell joined in describing the leadership by current mayor Bill de Blasio, by adding, “I’ve been in New York city every day during the virus, during the unrest, during the looting, coming in to work every day. And I’m angry. I’m angry because of the feckless leadership her in the city, a mayor who really doesn’t seem to give a flying damn about anybody but himself.”
Let’s look at the facts of what the problems are – re-view the hold up in the video above.