John the taxi Driver

Las Vegas and other Casino hot spots will fall..

2011-06-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

I lived in Las Vegas from 1987 until 1993 at which time I moved back to New York. A typical Friday night might have been to go to the paddle wheel for the $9.95 all you can eat ribs. Beef or pork, finger licking good, I mean, they were the best. Want more salad, no problem, that was included too, along with the mouth watering, fresh made sour dough bread, with plenty of soft, home made honey butter, butter with a hint of sweet honey.
Taking advantage of the cheap tourist attractions was one of the benfits of living in Las Vegas.
Well, that place is gone, and as far as I'm concerned, many, many more will continue to follow.
I remember in the late 80's, early 90's walking through the casinos, the sounds, the music, the cling, cling, cling of coins falling out of the machines of hope (slot machines) also known as one armed bandits.
Something else that interested me and helped me realize the soon falling of Vegas and Atlantic City, was the amount of older people playing slot machines, shooting craps and trying their hand at blackjack.
I remember once seeing an elderly woman, with an oxygen tank hooked up to her nose, smoking a cigarette while playing 2 slot machines.
These elderly people are the ones who had good pensions. Something that more and more workers will not be entitled to. These were the people who worked maybe in a simple position as a telephone operator, or a worker on an assembly line. These are the persons receiving benefits from their job and the Government for serving in one of many wars. These type of people are becoming fewer and fewer. As more and more persons in their 60's and up continue dying off, this will hurt the gambling industry severely, bringing further collapse to Las Vegas in particular. Las Vegas was also a great place to retire, but those types of retirees have, well, died.
Except for person who are blessed with civil service Jobs, especially those blessed with $100K salaries or more, people of the future will no longer be able to afford the fun of gambling. Another thing to look at is the type of people growing up in the U.S.
I can't picture half these kids growing up taking any interest in gambling, but rather operating a sushi bar or growing organic foods.

Want jobs? Shut down the internet and robotics

2011-06-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

While the Internet had made some people billionaires overnight, it also has killed thousand and thousands of jobs. Think about it. Things we used to have other people do, airline reservations, mail, hotel reservations, car rentals, recipes, books, music, can all be done form your desk at home. no more record stores, book stores are shutting down here and there, reservationists are dwindling, you can hardly find a travel agency anymore.
In car assemble plants, robots are replacing people, where it used to take 2 people to install a windshield, it now only takes one, if any.
So there you have it. Do away with robotics and the internet, and within 6 months, 1 million people will gain employment.

2011-06-14T16:07:00.001-07:00

Missing New York girl in Indiana

2011-06-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Often I have premonitions. One time while in my office in Irvington NY, I was watching CNN and a story came up about a girl missing in Utah. Looking at her picture I started to spew. "she's with a guy who worked in the house withing the past six months, doing carpentry work, she is located in a city north of her home, the name of the town or city is a woman's name". A guy named Jimmy (who was working with me at the time) took note along with "you're nuts".
The girls name was Elizabeth Smart. A few months later, she was found. In a city named "Sandy" Utah, with a guy who did in fact work as a day laborer in her house just weeks before kidnapping her.
No, my new premonition involves this girl from New York who is missing in Indiana. The clues that came to my mind were, a guy in a helicopter looking down and the mention of turkey. The other day I had a minor fender bender with a woman driving a 2004 Pontiac Aztec, a car I never heard of. so here is where it gets weird.
I went to google maps and looked up a turkey farm in Bloomington Indiana, low and behold there is one, a few miles south of where this girl went to school. Then I searched for helicopter, low and behold there is a helicopter service located to the north of her school, and , yep, you guessed it, a company called Aztec electronics located in Bloomington Indiana. Now, what's interesting, is when you look at these locations, a straight line is almost formed and it goes very close to her school.
Now, this could just be a bunch of B.S. I came up with, but If I had it my way, I would search a 1/2 mile radius at the helicopter place, turkey farm and Aztec electronics and any small bodies of water near them.
The point of all this is that there is no way to contact authorities without being looked at as some kind of wacko. One psychic that I emailed said that one is better off doing there own research, looking for a body etc, and then contacting the authorities. Better have a good alibi though lol...

Storms, tsunami on East Coast

2011-06-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

I don't know what happened, I wrote a 4 paragraph post about a month ago, clicked on post and It's nowhere to be found.

Any who, I had mentioned again, and I've said this many times before, housing prices will plummet to 1993 levels. NY will follow slowly, only because there is still a lot of "old" cash in New York. In New York city, we will still prices of Condos and Apartments go down about 12% over the summer of 2011.

I feel a strong quake Will hit about 300 miles off the East Coast causing a tsunami scare. Soon in the future, I fear, a larger tsunami will follow causing significant damage on the east coast. This will be around 2013-2016. An indication will be when 3 volcanoes of significant sizes will be erupting at the same time, you will almost be able to make a sort of triangle on a map of the globe connecting these volcanoes.

The U.S. economy will continue it's downward spiral, I urge anyone who owns Gold, to sell it soon, because the price will level out and then fall about 30% around the end of 2011 or early 2012. Take the profit you made and sell, walk away and pat yourself on the back, sell 40% or more of your stake in fine metals.

housing prices going down to 1993 levels

2011-05-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I've stated this before, but I feel housing prices in the US alone will go down to 1993 levels. Levels before that Internet boom that made people billions of dollars in just a few years.
Things were great in 1999, people who invested $5,000 in the right stocks in 1995 or so, watched their portfolio explode on this new "Internet". Businesses were spending money like it was going out of style. If you were to walk into a Satples or Office Depot location, you would have to wait on line to pay for something for maybe 10-15 minutes.
I did not have to worry about people booking for taxis and limos going to the airports based on prices, I could throw a ridiculous fare and they would say, okay, put in on this credit card.
Then, in the summer of 2001 is when I noticed a little slow down with corporate travelers. When 9/11 happened, that nearly put us out of business. We had 3 cars on the road and one 12 passenger van. If it weren't for 1 lady, who had to travel from Irvington, NY to New Jersey and back, everyday, we probably would have had to shut down within a few days after 9/11. Cash flow nearly came to a halt. I had to make sure each driver had a turn takling her to NJ, just so they could make the $15 or so tip.
So here we are, fast forward to 2011. The stock market crashed, what, 2 times. Our economy is hanging by a thread, staying a float with extra cash that has been printed by the federal reserve. So, now the price of gasoline is high becasue simply, one reason, we are getting less product because the American dollar is worth less.
I had predicted more "wars", that's happening. I have mentioned more earthquakes and Tsunamis. I want to comment that there are hundreds of earthquakes a day no this earth, but will soon see major ones in places that we have been told there is a small chance of a tremor, like New York.
I have a terrible

Economic crisis

2010-08-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's been a while.

See the news lately, home values plummet? Well , no kidding'. I said about a year ago that we would see home prices at about 1993 levels soon....

It's going to get worse people, and there is nothing, Republicans, Democrats or anyone right or Left that can do anything to fix it.

Well, at least the price of gas has not gone up too much, its come down, but, tell ya the truth, it should be about 50 cents cheaper than what it is now, with the current economic conditions.

We will see more scandals, bad economic news and possibly another major war, somewhere....

Checking in Spring, 2010

2010-04-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Oh man, it's been a while

2009-10-16T09:38:00.001-07:00

You know, I regret not posting what I feel and my predictions for the past several months. Sorry.

So, summer is over, people are done spending money.

Here, let me say this. The end of the summer looked good, well of course. people went on vacation, spent money, stocks went up, well of course. Ah, but here comes winter, reality sets in. people are done buying clothes and supplies for school, some people are looking over their credit card bills saying, wow!

This will be the next blow to the financial industry, credit cards.

Being in the airport / taxi business I am not at all surpirised seeing more and more people using credit cards to get to and from the airports, they are running out of cash. Even though I add 20% gratuity and $5, people still want to use satans' plastic.

Holidays are just around the corner, things will pick up a little, but after that, whack! Another blow will come.

I think we will see home prices dip to 1993 levels, I think I posted this before, we will re-adjust.

Terrorism, job losses, poor Holiday spending will cause stocks to fall..

2008-11-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I have posted. Rights now it's Sunday 11/30/2008.

The dow is presently 8,829. On Monday, I predict good news will come out about people shopping on "Black Friday" but soon after, reports will come out again about job losses and more foreclosures.

Monday, stocks will rally and probably end up about closing 300 - 400 points lower, but they might even go over 9,000 points at sometime during the day.

During the middle of the week, bad news will come. By Friday stocks will close at about 8,200 to 8,500 points.

More terrorism will happen in countries or a country with strong ties to the US. Something weird is in the works with Russia.

If the dow hits 7,200 or below for more than 3 weeks, we are in big, big trouble.

I have a strong feeling about buying GM stocks, crazy as it may sound.

Oil will soon rise to about $55 a barrel as Opec cuts production to offset lack of consumption.

This slowing economy will effect everyone, even those with "good" jobs.

We are truly becoming more of a global economy in which we will become equal to other countries around the world. Standards of living will drop, people will have fewer children.

Some bad news coming today

2008-10-15T04:32:00.000-07:00

Several pieces of data will be coming out today which will send jitters in the stock market. The dow will probably go down.

I have heard people saying that we are going to have a bad winter. If this is true, oil will go up. Opec and Associates are looking for any reason to increase oil prices.

Roller coasters do crash.. the Dow

2008-10-14T12:11:00.001-07:00

So, the stocks took on over 900 points recently lost. Today, as I figured, stocks rallied a bit. I predict today the dow will close about 100 points down. Tomorrow (Wed) we will lose another 200 points. Thursday, the dow might close up 100 points but Friday, look out, they should close about 400 points down.

Sell what ever stocks you have. Stop contributing to anything, 401K's etc. Wait about 5 months.

Take a breather, pay off your credit card bills, all other debts.

Start buying less of what you really need, groceries etc.

Hold on to clothing longer, go to tag sales for clothes, tools etc. Take a train, bus or taxi when you need to get somewhere.

Feds cut rates to 1.5% SO WHAT !

2008-10-08T06:50:00.000-07:00

Is cutting the interest rate going to bail us out of this financial crisis? No.

It looks good, I sit here and watch the S&P and NASDAQ going up about $1 every 30 seconds. This is just the market rallying.

Look at Asia, stocks plummeted.

2 TRILLION Dollars of pension fund investments lost. wow.

It's 9:53 and the dow is up 162 points, whoopie, we're saved, NOT.

We are in for long, hard times. We are truly becoming equal with the rest of the world.

I feel the dow will close down 100 points today. I think people are just rushing in to buy cheap stocks but at the same time, as the price of other shareholders stocks go up, they will sell creating this roller coaster effect.

Let's see what happens today.

The dow is "down" ! (as i predicted)

2008-10-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, I hit this one on the head. In my posts in July and August I mention the down dipping below 11,000.

What's happening now is our "global partners" are also having to take a deep breath and wonder, "now what the hell do we do?"

Ha ha. Wow. This is going to get worse. 159,000 people lost their jobs in September. I also predicted this in my past blogs. Don't forget, I also mentioned in July that a report would come out about people falling behind on their credit card payments.

This will be another blow to the banks.

My solution, here is an idea:

1) Have the government buy 1 point off every one's loan for those people who purchased property between 2002 and 2007. Not on loans above $500 because these people should not have purchased a home for that much in the first place.

Here's an example. I'll use my loan. presently, my loan payment (30 year @ 5.25% LOCKED ) is $2167.05. If the Government lowers my interest rate by 1 point, making it 4.25% our mortgage payment, with taxes etc. would be lowered to $1974.21. That is a difference of $193.20 a month or $2316.00 per year.

Also, home owners should be givena tax credit of 2% of their current loan balance. If your loan balance is $420,000, you would get a tax credit of $8,400.00.

My wife and I are spending about $3,000 more for heating oil and gasoline just to get to and from work.

That's $3,000 right out of our pockets and the pockets of a million or more people.

This is exactly why people are losing their jobs. People have no money to put back into the economy. You want gas money to get to work or do you ant to go to the movies or out to dinner?. that's what it's come down to.

So, if the Government Really wants to help it's citizens, it needs to help the citizens, not the greedy banks who will receive money to give loans to people who have to have excellent credit. Due to this financial mess, most persons credit has been ruined, so we will have all this "loan" money which no one can touch except for, that's right, the wealthy.

get money back into the pockets of the MIDDLECLASS consumers!

The bailout will fail

2008-09-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

For several months I have talked to many business owners who have said basically that business is terrible.

This bail out, whatever it is, will probably be passed. It does not crate jobs, it does not stimulate the economy. Is everyone forgetting that the average American family is spending like $5,000 more per year in gasoline? Are we forgetting that people have no money to spend because food prices have risen?

Want to save everyone? Give a break on people's loans. In other words, if someone bought a house between 2002 and 2007, let's face it, they paid too much. This includes me and my wife. We paid $349,000 for our house in 2005. I would estimate about 10% over what it was really worth.

So, if the government really wants to keep people in their homes, they should buy 10% of the homeowners current loan amount. Then the Government should give a tax credit of about 5% of the CURRENT value of the home to homeowners who purchased homes between 2002 and 2007 with loan amounts NOT exceeding $500K.

We do not want homeowners to lose their homes because they are, after all, the ones who pay property taxes.

This would also help the homeowners with daily living expenses, food, gas, etc.

Just my idea.

Stocks Tummble, Hold on tight

2008-09-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my las post. I don't even know if anyone reads this. Well, I was wrong witht the price of oil hitting $145 a barrel, But it will go on a roller coaster ride. I think in the near future, It will get "back up there".

Demand will be weak and I think production will be cut.

Now, for the more interesting things happening. Several banks or "financial institutions" have gone broke. I had predicted this. Consumers confidence is really going to suck by October simply because middleclass people have no money.

Stimulus checks were funneled right into the pockets of speculators by making Americans pay $2 more for a gallon of gas. People just have no money.

The news networks make everything sound okay, but trust me, it's far from okay.

Oh, and I did predict that two major Hurricanes would hit the Gulf, I hit that nail on the head.

Georgia / Russia conflict

2008-08-11T06:47:00.000-07:00

It seems the Georgian / Russian conflict is escalating.

Don't forget nw, Georgia is a friend to the U.S.

Could this drag us into another armed conflict?

With a major pipeline of oil and natural gas going through Georgia AND now Russian stocks are on the decline, let's see what's tragic event happens next?

The dow should drop lower this week. There are two tropical storms developing.

Civil unrest as I predicted

2008-08-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

on August 5th I predicted that there would be civil unrest in an area that refines, produces or transports (pipeline) oil.

We have seen recently what is happening Between georgia and Russia.

The gas and oil pipelines that run through Georgia are of strategic importance to Western Europe because they reduce dependence on Russian supplies and do not cross Russian territory.

Two major pipelines take supplies from the oil and gas fields in the Azeri region of the Caspian Sea through the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. From there they head south, away from the breakaway South Ossetia region and into Turkey, then onwards into the European Union.

Civil unrest near major oil and gas pipelines

2008-08-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

As most of us have seen on the news, Russia and Georgia are fighting.

The gas and oil pipelines that run through Georgia are of strategic importance to Western Europe because they reduce dependence on Russian supplies and do not cross Russian territory.
Two major pipelines take supplies from the oil and gas fields in the Azeri region of the Caspian Sea through the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. From there they head south, away from the breakaway South Ossetia region and into Turkey, then onwards into the European Union.

Everything is okay now, or is it?

2008-08-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Stocks are climbing, oil is falling, but thousands of families are still losing their homes and thousands more are losing their jobs.

Somewhere there will be unrest in an area that supplies a lot of oil, refines oil into gas or allows for the transporting of oil (pipelines).

Do not get too excited for now. It's going to be a long hard road ahead. When you start hearing of houses in the area staying on the market for over a year now even with a $20K decrease in the asking price, you have to face reality that this economy is failing.

Retail stores cutting back, closing stores. Hotels half full. Flights reduced, airline rates climbing.

We have a ways to go. I predicted that oil would hit $145 a barrel and I still hold my ground on that prediction.

We will also see at least TWO major hurricanes hit the east or gulf coast. I'm thinking more likely the Gulf coast.

By this Friday (Aug 8), stocks should plummet, the Dow should dip down to about 11,100.

Earthquakes, volcanos, floods...

2008-07-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

Recently, there has been a lot of natural disasters occurring all over the world. One of the best places to read about this is earthchangesmedia.com . Next, global cooling. Millions of tons of ash from volcanoes shooting up into the atmosphere.
Some kind of other major catastrophe is close at hand.

That much for a taxi?

2008-07-28T06:48:00.000-07:00

I have to share this. Yesterday I went to pick up a kid from "tap kids" at the Hampton inn hotel in elmsford. I walked in the door, found the kid (John) and he asked me how much it was to Westchester airport. $35, I answered. Then, a woman standing near the front desk yells, "$35 to Westchester airport? It's only 20 minutes away". Man, she caught me off guard there. All I could say to her was, "well yeah, every time I go to get gas, I say, but it's only oil pumped from the ground!"

What I should have told her was that my wife's Aunt was just charged $185.00 for an estimate for her home air conditioning system. What ever happened to "free quotes"?

What I should have asked her was, "what kind of work does you or your husband do?" and then compared the right to compensation for work performed.

By the way, it's not really 20 minutes, it's 40 minutes because we come back empty. 40 minutes of my time +wear and tear on taxi +traffic, +$7 worth of gas used, yeah, $35 is not that bad.

Stimulus checks for Oil?

2008-07-28T06:39:00.000-07:00

Isn't it ironic that as soon as people started receiving stimulus checks from the government, the price of oil skyrocketed to record highs? Now, it seems everyone has used up their money, and the oil prices are coming down. This is just a "black helicopter" theory, but it does make you wonder. Was our money funneled right into the pockets of middle easterners? Was our money taken away from us so speculators could profit knowing that people would have to dig deep into their pockets to pay for much needed gas? Think about it.

Was I wrong? We'll see.

2008-07-28T06:37:00.001-07:00

I predicted that oil would hit over $145, then suddenly, it dropped. Right now as I enter this info, it's at $123.00 a barrel. Watch, it will go to $145 soon. It's not over folks. Winter is coming, hurricane season and unrest in the middle east. I bet by the middle of August, it will be at about $140 a barrel.

Don't break out the bubbly yet !

2008-07-17T05:57:00.000-07:00

Things seem great in the stock market huh? Don't hold your breath. Today is thursday July 17th, and some bad economic numbers should be rolling in from other parts of this "global economy". Enjoy this temporary good time.

Like I said, Dow dips below 11,000

2008-07-15T10:44:00.001-07:00

Today, the dow dipped to 10,827.71 . At the same time, it was announced that oil dropped to around $138.65 a barrel. Don't be tricked. I bet by the end of today, the dow will close at around 11,005.00 oil will close at about $142.00.

By the end of this week, look at oil @ $145.00 a barrel. Instability somewhere will cause oil to reach about $155.00 by the middle of August.

There will also be some "not so good" job loss news by the last week of July.

Consumer confidence, well, what's left of it will be really bad news.

Watch your money in the banks

2008-07-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

Hm. So indymac collapsed, who's next? Let's not forget this housing bubble started on the west coast and now this?

I'm telling my wife to reduce contributing to our mutual fund and we are going to watch our investments closely.

This economic situation is only the tip of the iceburg.

Over 2 weeks for Tarrytown taxi license

2008-07-14T11:52:00.001-07:00

In late April I submitted all of my paper work to the village of Tarrytown to renew my taxi vehicle permit, taxi "hack" license and my business license.

Even though I submitted all of my paperwork in April, I had a hard time meeting up with the cop (Det. Byrnes) so he could take my fingerprints. It seems he is the only officer that can take fingerprints for taxi drivers? That makes no sense. Another thing that does not make sense is that he only performs this incredible feet on Fridays between 9:00 AM and 11:00 Am, um, if he's available. So being Friday is one of the busiest days in the taxi business, I just could not match up with this guy. I can't believe that no one else can do fingerprints.

One part of getting a taxi license in Tarrytown is getting your fingerprints done. What this means is a Police officer takes your fingerprints and ships them to Albany. When I asked Officer Byrnes why this is done he said "this is so we know if you have committed any crimes since the last time we took your fingerprints".

Funny, I thought to myself. I now that cops can put your name in a computer and find out all about your criminal record. I don't know, it just seems stupid. I also think that it is stupid since half the taxi drivers in Tarrytown don't even have taxi driving permits.

To be on the safe side, I went to Dobbs Ferry, applied for and received my taxi license in a week. The only reason it took this long is because the girl in the village clerk's office went away for 3 days or so. No fingerprints, no waits, just apply, pay and go to work.

So as far as Tarrytown, I wait and wait.

The dow will hit 10,000

2008-07-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

I commented to a customer a few weeks ago that I wouldn't be surprised to see the dow dip below 11,000 and possible hit just above 10,000. Let's face it, the economy is getting really bad. I see more and more store fronts for sale or lease, more and more homes staying up for sale longer than 2 years ago.

I am also hearing more stroies of people having a hard time getting by. We won't know the real effect of the gas prices reaching historic prices for another 2 months. Everyone is using the evil plastic, credit cards.

Not only will we see the housing market continue to fall apart, come Late August, early September, we will see reports of people falling behind even more on their credit card payments.

We are in a recession, we've been in a recession. Being it is a very "political year", we can't take too serious government warnings and reports.

My first blog

2008-07-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I figure with all the things I think and say and 95% of them coming true, I needed a place to post these comments to prove to myself and others that I am not as uninformed as some might think I am.