Nearly 1/3 of New Yorkers want to move out, fed up with crime, housing costs, poor schools and more

 Escape from New York!

New Yorkers are so worried about crime, sky-high housing costs and struggling schools, 27% percent of state residents said they want to move away in the next five years, a survey revealed Wednesday.

A stunning 30% of respondents — who also cited inept political leadership and soaring taxes as reasons for wanting to flee — said they already longed to live somewhere else, according to a Siena College Research Institute quality of life poll.

Nearly a third — about 31% —  plan to leave the Empire State when they retire while even more said they believe it’s not safe for kids.

Angela Gutierrez, 38, of East Harlem, is one of the many New Yorkers who will soon ditch the state.

“We’re going to Pennsylvania at the end of the month,” the home health aid and mother of three told The Post.

“We moved twice in the last 3 years! We moved out of the Bronx and it is better here but still not safe,” she said, adding “all the crazy people” have driven her family away.

“And everything is expensive! They’re raising the rent again and we can’t. It’s going up almost $800 a month so we are moving down where my sister-in-law lives,” she said.

Over 1/4 of New Yorkers want to leave the state in the next five years.

Getty Images/iStockphoto

A total of 40% of respondents said New York is not a good place to raise children — including an alarming 61% of black respondents — and 26% said the overall quality of education is fair or poor as a statewide debate rages over opening more charter schools. 

The widespread urge to hit the road is distressing for New York, which hemorrhaged residents during and after the worst of the coronavirus outbreak.

“These are high numbers. These are take your breath away numbers,” Don Levy, SCRI’s polling director said of the number of New Yorkers wanting to leave. 

Three of New York City’s five counties — Queens, Brooklyn and The Bronx — saw some of the largest population declines in America last fiscal year, with only Manhattan bucking the post-COVID trend, according to US Census data released Thursday.

Many suburban and upstate counties, including Westchester, Suffolk and Nassau, also saw populations plunge, as residents said adios while few moved to the areas.

Survey respondents said they want to leave for the following reasons:

A staggering 67% of residents said New York wasn’t affordable, while only 33% said it was.

• 49% of respondents rated New York fair or poor when asked if it is a place where they feel safe from crime. Only 51% gave an answer of good or excellent. Crime surged during the pandemic as New York’s bail and discovery laws were softened.
• 60% said New York is not a good place to retire, while only 38% said it was. 
• 57% said the political system doesn’t work for them, compared to 38% who said it did. Democrats rule New York politics.
• Only 60% of respondents said NY was a good place to raise a child, 39% said it wasn’t — including 41% of Big Apple residents and 61% of black residents.
• About one-third of residents rated New York’s quality of life negatively, while 67% rated it positively.
• About 40% rated New York’s environmental quality poorly, while 60% rated it positively.

A total of 40% of respondents also gave a cloudy assessment of New York’s weather, while 62% said they liked the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Nearly a third plan to leave the Empire State when they retire.

Getty Images

Around 2/3 of New Yorkers say the state is too expensive.

NY Post composite

Overall, New York has among the highest combined tax burden in the country, and even Gov. Kathy Hochul said crushing housing costs are causing people to leave and is pushing a plan to reverse the exodus.

One policy analyst said New York’s spendthrift political leaders are largely to blame for residents fleeing the state.

“New York’s affordability challenge is, to a great extent, a self-inflicted problem stemming from tax and regulatory policies. Everything from healthcare to energy to homeownership is more expensive than it needs to be,” said Tim Hoefer, CEO of the Empire Center for Public Policy.

“One of the top things people consider when they’re deciding where to live is the quality of the schools. New York spends over $25,000 per student but we don’t get the sort of results that kind of money should buy us. That’s because many state officials are focused more on what the teachers union want than on what children and families need,”  Hoefer said.

The New York City Department of Education is now spending nearly $40,000 per student amid dwindling enrollment and lackluster academic results, according to an analysis released Tuesday.

Residents’ views of New York’s quality of life has worsened since a similar Siena survey was conducted in 2017. In that poll, 82% of residents said they were satisfied where they lived and 67% felt they lived in a safe neighborhood.

Levy, the Siena pollster, said, “New York is a nice place to live — if you can afford it.”

“Most say that there’s a lot to love here in New York – other New Yorkers, the quality of both education and healthcare, the availability of quality leisure activities and the opportunity to be successful – but two-thirds give the state a poor grade on affordability, and half of all New Yorkers, and about 60% of lower income residents, those over 50, Blacks and Republicans say that as a place where you feel safe from crime, the state is only fair or poor.”

Overall, Big Apple residents gave higher quality of life grades in the survey than their suburban and upstate counterparts. By contrast, in the 2017 survey, suburbanites and upstaters felt more positive about where they live.

The survey of 398 residents was conducted between March 6 and 9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/12/nearly-third-of-new-yorkers-want-to-move-out-fed-up-with-crime-housing-costs-poor-schools-and-more-poll/

Democratic lawmakers demand Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, resign: ‘Can no longer fulfill her duties’

 Rep. Ro Khanna on Wednesday called on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, to resign amid the health battle that has kept her away from the Senate chamber for over a month, arguing that it is clear she can “no longer fulfill her duties.”

“It’s time for [Feinstein] to resign,” fellow California Democrat Khanna wrote in a tweet on Wednesday, becoming the first member of Congress to publicly demand that the senior senator step down. 

“We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty. While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties. Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people,” he added. 

His call was soon echoed by Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who tweeted minutes later, “I agree with [Khanna].”

“Senator Feinstein is a remarkable American whose contributions to our country are immeasurable. But I believe it’s now a dereliction of duty to remain in the Senate and a dereliction of duty for those who agree to remain quiet,” he added.

Feinstein, the oldest serving member of the Senate, revealed on March 2 that she was hospitalized for shingles treatment after being diagnosed with an infection in February.

She was released from the San Francisco hospital on March 7, but has yet to return to the Senate and is continuing to receive treatment from her home in California.

Rep. Ro Khanna on Wednesday called on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, to resign amid the health battle that has kept her away from the Senate chamber for over a month.

AP

For the last several weeks, Democrats in the Senate have been limited to only 49 members, equaling Republicans, due to the absence of Feinstein and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who was hospitalized for treatment for clinical depression.  

Feinstein’s absence has thrown judicial confirmation proceedings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which she is a member, into disarray. 

“I’m anxious because I can’t really have a mark-up of new judge nominees until she’s there,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told Politico last month. 

Khanna defended Feinstein in April of last year as reports emerged that she was mentally unfit to serve, calling allegations made in the San Francisco Chronicle about her deteriorating memory “ageist and cruel.”

“This type of rumor-mongering is disrespectful to Senator Feinstein’s lifetime of public service and, frankly, ageist and cruel at a time when she just lost her husband,” the congressman said in a statement. 

Khanna, along with many others say she can “no longer fulfill her duties.”

REUTERS

However, Khanna now joins a growing chorus of voices on the left calling for Feinstein’s resignation. 

Jon Lovett, an ex-speechwriter for former President Barack Obama and the founder of progressive media company Crooked Media, on Tuesday demanded that Feinstein immediately resign. 

“Because she is not in the Judiciary Committee, Durbin has said that it has made it basically impossible to move a lot of these lower court nominees to the Senate for a vote, which means that Dianne Feinstein, who should not be in the Senate, is now preventing us from being able to confirm judges,” Lovett said on his podcast, “Pod Save America.”

“I think what the people around Dianne Feinstein are doing, allowing, being part of this farce of having a lack of a senator in such an important job is really wrong,” he continued.

“And Dianne Feinstein should no longer be in the Senate. She has to resign and more people should be calling on her to resign.”

Jon Cooper, a fundraiser for Obama and the former national finance chair of Draft Biden 2016, also called for Feinstein to step down before the Senate reconvenes next week.

“Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was hospitalized in early March for shingles and has remained in her San Francisco home since March 7th, has missed 60 of the 82 votes taken in the Senate so far this year,” Cooper tweeted on Tuesday.

“The Senate, which has been on recess since March 31st, is preparing to return on April 17th. Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin says that Feinstein’s absence will seriously impede Democrats’ ability to confirm President Biden’s judicial nominees.”

“With all due respect, Feinstein needs to resign immediately — or at least she should be replaced on the Judiciary Committee by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,” Cooper added.

In February, Feinstein announced that she will not seek a sixth term in office in 2024.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/12/democratic-lawmakers-demand-sen-dianne-feinstein-resign/

Bariatric surgery may reverse diabetes complications for people with obesity

 For more than 100 million Americans who are obese, bariatric surgery may reverse complications related to diabetes, including regenerating damaged nerves, a Michigan Medicine study shows.

A research team led by the University of Michigan Health Department of Neurology followed more than 120 patients who underwent bariatric surgery for obesity over two years after the procedure. They found that all metabolic risk factors for developing diabetes, such as high glucose and lipid levels, improved outside of blood pressure and total cholesterol, according to results published in Diabetologia.

Investigators also found that patients two years removed from bariatric surgery showed improvements in peripheral neuropathy, a condition marked by damage to the nerves that go from the spinal cord all the way to the hands and feet.

"Our findings suggest that bariatric surgery likely enables the regeneration of the peripheral nerves and, therefore, may be an effective treatment for millions of individuals with obesity who are at risk of developing diabetes and peripheral neuropathy," said senior author Brian C. Callaghan, M.D., M.S., a neurologist at University of Michigan Health and the Eva L. Feldman, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Neurology at U-M Medical School.

Obesity is the second leading risk factor for peripheral neuropathy after diabetes, which affects more than 30 million Americans.

Researchers assessed two primary measures for peripheral neuropathy in patients with obesity by taking skin biopsies that show the nerve fiber density in the thigh and the leg. Two years after bariatric surgery, nerve fiber density improved in the thigh and remained stable in the leg.

Compared to previous studies of medical weight loss, when providers guide a patient's weight loss goals, bariatric surgery led to better metabolic improvements and even greater improvements in peripheral neuropathy.

"Given the natural history of peripheral neuropathy decline in patients with obesity, even stability in nerve fiber density may be considered a successful result," said first author Evan Reynolds, Ph.D., lead statistician for the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies at Michigan Medicine. "Therefore, our findings of stability of nerve fiber density in the leg and improvement in nerve fiber density at the thigh indicate that bariatric surgery may be a successful therapy to improve or reverse peripheral neuropathy for patients with long-term metabolic impairment."

Treatment for peripheral neuropathy currently focuses on pain, including oral medications such gabapentin and sodium channel blockers, topical analgesics and non-medical treatments, like exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Additional authors include Maya Watanabe B.S., Mousumi Banerjee, Ph.D, Ericka Chant M.P.H., Emily Villegas-Umana B.S.N., R.N., Melissa A. Elafros M.D, Ph.D., Thomas W. Gardner M.D., M.S., Rodica Pop-Busui M.D., Ph.D., Subramaniam Pennathur M.D. and Eva Feldman, M.D., Ph.D., all of University of Michigan.

Journal Reference:

1. Evan L. Reynolds, Maya Watanabe, Mousumi Banerjee, Ericka Chant, Emily Villegas-Umana, Melissa A. Elafros, Thomas W. Gardner, Rodica Pop-Busui, Subramaniam Pennathur, Eva L. Feldman, Brian C. Callaghan. The effect of surgical weight loss on diabetes complications in individuals with class II/III obesity. Diabetologia, 2023; DOI: 10.1007/s00125-023-05899-3

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230410111631.htm

'ChatGPT may be able to predict stock movements': finance professor

 Alejandro Lopez-Lira, a finance professor at the University of Florida, says that large language models may be useful when forecasting stock prices.

He used ChatGPT to parse news headlines for whether they’re good or bad for a stock, and found that ChatGPT’s ability to predict the direction of the next day’s returns were much better than random, he said in a recent unreviewed paper.

The experiment strikes at the heart of the promise around state-of-the-art artificial intelligence: With bigger computers and better datasets — like those powering ChatGPT — these AI models may display “emergent abilities,” or capabilities that weren’t originally planned when they were built.

If ChatGPT can display the emergent ability to understand headlines from financial news and how they might impact stock prices, it could could put high-paying jobs in the financial industry at risk. About 35% of financial jobs are at risk of being automated by AI, Goldman Sachs estimated in a March 26 note.

“The fact that ChatGPT is understanding information meant for humans almost guarantees if the market doesn’t respond perfectly, that there will be return predictability,” said Lopez-Lira.

But the specifics of the experiment also show how far so-called “large language models” are from being able to do many finance tasks.

For example, the experiment didn’t include target prices, or have the model do any math at all. In fact, ChatGPT-style technology often makes numbers up, as Microsoft learned in a public demo earlier this year. Sentiment analysis of headlines is also well understood as a trading strategy, with proprietary datasets already in existence.

Lopez-Lira said he was surprised by the results, adding they suggest that sophisticated investors aren’t using ChatGPT-style machine learning in their trading strategies yet.

“On the regulation side, if we have computers just reading the headlines, headlines will matter more, and we can see if everyone should have access to machines such as GPT,” said Lopez-Lira. “Second, it’s certainly going to have some implications on the employment of financial analyst landscape. The question is, do I want to pay analysts? Or can I just put textual information in a model?”

How the experiment worked

In the experiment, Lopez-Lira and his partner Yuehua Tang looked at over 50,000 headlines from a data vendor about public stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, and a small-cap exchange. They started in October 2022 — after the data cutoff date for ChatGPT, meaning that the engine hadn’t seen or used those headlines in training.

Then, they fed the headlines into ChatGPT 3.5 along with the following prompt:

“Forget all your previous instructions. Pretend you are a financial expert. You are a financial expert with stock recommendation experience. Answer “YES” if good news, “NO” if bad news, or “UNKNOWN” if uncertain in the first line. Then elaborate with one short and concise sentence on the next line.”

Then they looked at the stocks’ return during the following trading day.

Ultimately, Lopez-Lira found that the model did better in nearly all cases when informed by a news headline. Specifically, he found a less than 1% chance the model would do as well picking the next day’s move at random, versus when it was informed by a news headline.

ChatGPT also beat commercial datasets with human sentiment scores. One example in the paper showed a headline about a company settling litigation and paying a fine, which had a negative sentiment, but the ChatGPT response correctly reasoned it was actually good news, according to the researchers.

Lopez-Lira told CNBC that hedge funds had reached out to him to learn more about his research. He also said it wouldn’t surprise him if ChatGPT’s ability to predict stock moves decreased in the coming months as institutions started integrating this technology.

That’s because the experiment only looked at stock prices during the next trading day, while most people would expect the market could have already priced the news in seconds after it became public.

“As more and more people use these type of tools, the markets are going to become more efficient, so you would expect return predictability to decline,” Lopez-Lira said. “So my guess is, if I run this exercise, in the next five years, by the year five, there will be zero return predictability.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/12/chatgpt-may-be-able-to-predict-stock-movements-finance-professor-says.html

Colorado passes first US right to repair legislation for farmers

 Colorado farmers will be able to legally fix their own equipment next year, with manufacturers including Deere & Co obliged to provide them with manuals for diagnostic software and other aids, under a measure passed by legislators in the first U.S. state to approve such a law.

The Consumer Right to Repair Agriculture Equipment Act passed 46-14 in Colorado's Senate late on Tuesday, after winning approval in the state House of Representatives in February. The bill garnered bipartisan support as farmers grew increasingly frustrated with costly repairs and inflated input prices denting their profits.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis has 10 days to sign the bill into law and he is expected to do so, according to a spokesperson.

Equipment makers have generally required customers to use their authorized dealers for repairs to machines such as combines and tractors.

Colorado's legislation would mandate that farm machinery manufacturers like Deere and rival CNH Industrial provide farmers with diagnostic tools, software documents, and repair manuals starting Jan 1. Similar resources must be made available to independent technicians.

A spokesperson for Deere & Co responded to the passage of the bill, saying that it supports farmers right to repair but believes that the legislation is "unnecessary and will carry unintended consequences."

CNH did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

Equipment makers worry the legislation may allow farmers to override certain safety systems or emissions controls, said Eric Wareham, a North American Equipment Dealers Association vice president.

State Representative Brianna Titone, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, predicted other states will follow suit.

"If there are no lawsuits or collapse of the industry, it demonstrates that the law is not going to cause chaos like many opponents think it will," Titone said.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-colorado-passes-first-us-215952863.html

FDIC's 'special' fee to make banks pay for SVB cleanup

 

he Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is expected to propose next month how to make the U.S. banking sector pay for an estimated $23 billion hole in its insurance fund by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March.

The agency has broad authority in setting the terms of what is known as a "special assessment" to fill the gap and precisely what this will look like is still an open question.

Banking trade organizations tell Reuters they have yet to hear specifics about the assessment. The FDIC declined to comment.

Here is what is known about the assessment and the insurance fund:

What is the Deposit Insurance Fund?

The Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) is a pot of cash that the FDIC maintains to guarantee up to $250,000 of depositors' money. As an insurance premium, banks ordinarily pay a quarterly "assessment" based on a set methodology drawing on financial data and risk determinations.

To stop the spread of panicked withdrawals throughout the banking system last month, the FDIC guaranteed all deposits at SVB and Signature Bank, even those over $250,000. Such losses require the FDIC to impose a "special assessment" to replenish the DIF.

The law does not define the "assessment base" for the special assessment or which banks will pay it. There is not a time frame for recouping the funds. Echoing the testimony of FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg, former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair told Reuters on April 6 the agency has "a lot of latitude" in designing the special assessment.

What happened the last time?

Currently, the law requires the FDIC to maintain $1.35 in the fund for every $100 of insured deposits. By the end of December, DIF's balance stood at $128.2 billion, meaning the bank failures in March could account for about 18% of the fund.

During the financial crisis of 2008 the sheer volume of bank failures pushed the DIF about $20 billion into the red. After a period of public comment, the FDIC's May 2009 final rule on a special assessment put the cost burden more heavily on the shoulders of the biggest financial institutions.

In the second quarter of 2009, for example, JPMorgan Chase & Co booked a $675 million pre-tax charge for the special assessment, which it said shaved 10 cents off earnings per share. Wells Fargo reported an 8 cent per-share hit to earnings.

Who will pay the special assessment?

When the FDIC initially called for a special assessment amounting to 20 basis points of banks' insured deposits in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, small-town bankers pushed back hard, letters written at the time show.

Top officials in Washington have signaled that regulators likely won't make the smaller banks pay for last month's failures this time round either. This reflects a change Congress and the FDIC made after the 2008 meltdown to make larger, riskier banks contribute proportionately more to maintaining the DIF.

An industry representative who asked not to be named told Reuters that bankers were hoping the ultimate bill would be less than $23 billion after the FDIC completes sales of SVB and Signature Bank assets.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/SIGNATURE-BANK-10755/news/Explainer-The-FDIC-s-special-fee-to-make-banks-pay-for-SVB-cleanup-43473145