New York Is “A Loser State”, Florida’s Gains & Trump’s “Bad Stuff” - Top 3 Takeaways – February 22nd, 2024
- New York’s pain is already Florida’s gain. That didn’t take long. It was just on Tuesday that I spoke of the potential for a 2nd business exodus from New York to Florida on the back of the unprecedented and clearly politically motivated $355 million verdict against Donald Trump in the New York civil fraud trial which didn’t even include a victim. As I’d previously mentioned...All told, between 2020 and 2023 a total of 56 New York City based businesses relocated to Florida – with most relocating to South Florida. Hence the emergence of the nickname Wall Street South. In total New York City has lost businesses with a total market value of over $1 trillion. And NYC’s pain has been Florida’s gain. It’s pretty remarkable to think that just one city could lose 56 businesses to a state that’s over a thousand miles away but that’s exactly what’s happened. But what comes next could be just as, if not more dramatic. Last Friday’s unprecedented decision by a New York judge, in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud case, to impose fines totaling $355 million dollars and to bar the Trump Organization from conducting business within the state for three years, is set to have an effect that’s chiller than the weather up there for businesses. Never before had a business been fined $1 without there having been a victim, let alone $355 million and three years without operation of a business. While the Trump team is set to appeal the decision, it’s likely businesses which had been on the fence about leaving New York for warmer and friendlier bastions will be off that fence and coming our way. And that’s now already happened. South Florida based real-estate investment firm Cardone Capital, which has $4.4 billion in assets under management, is pulling out of New York. As Grant Cardone, who’d previously moved his business to South Florida from California, for businesses purposes, told Fox News: We invest for 14,000 investors at Cardone Capital that depend on cash flow. And if I can't predict the cash flow because of some ruling, or because of the migrants, or because I can't evict people, New York City just keeps doing every single thing they can to sell real estate in Florida, not sell real estate in New York. And with that he ordered his firm to “immediately discontinue” all underwriting in New York and pulled $1 billion in planned investment there this year. The Trump judgement became the straw that broke the camel’s back for Cardone. Already the $355 million judgement, which will likely be overruled anyway, has cost the state $1 billion in investment this year alone, and from only one firm. New York’s pain will continue to be Florida’s gain. Grant indicated that he’d further invest in Florida and Texas instead. And he’s certainly not alone in this immediate sentiment and decision making.
- A loser of a state. Those are the words Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, used to describe New York following Judge Engoron’s decision. In a quote to Fox Business he said: Leaving the whole Trump thing out of it and seeing what occurred, I'm no different than any other investor. I'm shocked at this. I cannot understand or fathom the decision at all. There's no rationale for it. And with that he said: I would never invest in New York now, and I'm not the only person saying that. Clearly, he’s right. Whether it’s a Shark Tank based business or a project under consideration by one of his O’Leary Ventures projects or investment funds, which also have billions of dollars in assets under management, New York based companies and opportunities, aka those from “a loser state” need not apply. And for the few who are publicly speaking about this...you know there are many more that they’re representing with these views. It’s been said that Florida is for winners. Well, New York is for losers. The political witch hunt of Donald Trump in New York is already costing the state far more than they could even attempt to steal from the former and perhaps future President of the United States. And speaking of the former president...
- Trump without the “bad stuff”. For how long and how many times can you remember people saying something to the effect of... “if only he didn’t Tweet”? While Donald Trump was president polling showed that 72% of Americans thought he tweeted too much, and most people thought that his use of Twitter was “bad”. On that note 60% of Americans thought his use of Twitter was generally “bad” compared to only 19% who thought it was “good”. That number is so low due to only 39% of Republicans thinking the way Trump tweeted was “good”. The bottom line was that while Trump loved to tweet in order to say exactly what he was thinking to the American people, most people, even many of his supporters, would have preferred that he didn’t. Long before classified docs and January 6th, Trump’s tweets were the origin of the saying that most people liked Trump’s policies but not “the bad stuff”. And while I’ve occasionally poked fun (at times as a coping mechanism) at those so thin skinned that they’d really vote for Joe Biden because they just couldn’t handle Trump tweets – the reality remained. Yesterday as I was looking at Trump’s growing lead in the polls, including growing advantages in every swing state, I couldn’t help but to think that what we’re seeing play out is the effect of having “Trump without the bad stuff”. Yes, Trump Truth’s. Yes, his musings are often similar to what he used to tweet, no, most people don’t know about any of it – just the people who want to see it. Twitter’s de-platforming of President Trump and Trump’s creation of Truth Social to post in its place just may have been the best thing that could have happened politically for Trump this cycle. Here we are with legal witch hunt after legal witch hunt being carried out against him. And here he is with the best polling performances clear across the country that he’s shown in any political cycle. Well before the abuse of the legal system against Trump was backfiring, there was the left’s effort to censor him that also appears to have backfired. What we’re effectively seeing play out is “Trump without the bad stuff” (unless you want “the bad stuff” that is).