Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio.
At the end of the second hour, Carmichael explained how the hotel in New York City is suffering and how some are being asked to pay money to pandemic hit workers while they themselves are already underwater financially. He later explained how the COVID shutdowns were doing harm to businesses all across the country while political elites enjoy their freedoms.
Leahy: Someday Crom, someday we’ll let our listening audience hear what we say during the breaks. (Carmichael laughs) I don’t know. It’s as interesting as what we say on the air. Crom, you follow all these interesting stories that are out there and and you’ve got a business mind. And you’re looking at the business of America today in some parts of the country, it doesn’t look so hot right now.
Carmichael: Well, this is a story also from The Wall Street Journal in a different section on real estate. New York Hotel owners have to pay five hundred million dollars to pandemic hit workers. Now now this is a group of businesses whose revenue during the pandemic is down in some cases 90 percent. Now if you’re in the business where you are paying a mortgage on a piece of real estate that’s an income-producing piece of real estate and your revenue drops 90 percent you can’t even pay your utility bill much less pay your mortgage.
And so there are going to be many many hotels in New York that will end up declaring bankruptcy. And in fact, this is fascinating. The Hilton Times Square and the Roosevelt Hotel are never going to reopen. They are closed forever. And they’re claiming that they’ll be twenty five thousand rooms worth of hotels in New York that will never reopen. and now it could be it could end up being even more than that. But let’s take this from the hotel. So what I’m saying is they’re trying to squeeze, what is it water out of a rock? I mean these businesses are broke anyway. So the $500,000…
Leahy: Let’s make them really broke forever.
Carmichael: And so this just reminds me a little bit of the airline strike that Eastern mechanics union had. Which by the way the mechanics union of Eastern, 75 percent of the members were the baggage handlers. So it wasn’t the mechanics. And the baggage handlers were being paid almost twice as much as the second-highest-paid group of baggage handlers for other airlines.
Leahy: Frank Borman.
Carmichael: And Frank Borman was the president of Eastern Airlines. And he went on with Sam Donaldson on that Sunday morning show with David Brinkly and he said that the head of the union whose name slips my mind right now, but the head of the union was crazy. And Sam Donaldson says no Mr. Borman. Calling somebody crazy could be considered to be slanderous. Would you like to change that adjective?
And Borman said, Sam, it’s my understanding that truth is a defense against slander. (Leahy bellows) And then he went on to explain that he is determined to keep the baggage handlers overpaid even by that amount and he said if they continue to have this position Eastern Airlines will declare bankruptcy within the next I think it was 90 days. And in fact, the union guy didn’t back down and Eastern Airlines declare bankruptcy and liquidation and the union people celebrated. They were now without a job.
Leahy: And they celebrated.
Carmichael: And they lost all of their seniority so when they went to work for another airline…
Leahy: And their retirements.
Carmichael: And their retirements. All these things.
Leahy: That would be crazy.
Carmichael: That was crazy.
Leahy: Frank Borman was right. It was crazy.
Carmichael: So that’s what’s going on in New York. The commercial real estate market in New York in the next year we’re going to see some some cracks that are big enough for the Hoover dams water to flow through.
Leahy: So now typically in a situation like that if you had confidence that New York would recover and you had a long-term view and you were an investor you would go in and you scoop up this real estate for a song.
Carmichael: You would, but if you look at the politics of New York City, you would say the political risk now…
Leahy: Is too high.
Carmichael: It’s too high. And so you’re not going to do it now.
Leahy: Exactly.
Carmichael: And so the next little item on here is an article about and this is what’s going on now and in fact, it is actually happening now. This is an article in defense of unpopular clients and liberty. And what you have is, I mean every American is is entitled in the Constitution to a defense and to a lawyer. And the left is trying to literally intimidate lawyers from defending anyone associated with Trump.
Leahy: Yes.
Carmichael: And anyone who works for the Trump administration. they’re trying to cancel any future employment that they have. Now, this is not healing unless you want to spell it h-e-e-l-i-n-g.
Leahy: That’s the kind of healing we’re getting.
Carmichael: That’s the kind of healing that Biden wants.
Leahy: That’s very clever Crom.
Carmichael: It’s not just mine. I took it from somebody else and I can’t remember who it was.
Leahy: You are an honest person Crom.
Carmichael: You can’t take credit or I can decide to give him credit, but I thought it was very clever was a cartoon. And so at any rate so you have so you have that problem then you have here in Nashville you have our mayor who is now in an article here in The Tennessean. He’s now talking about how terrible COVID is here in Nashville. And then the article says that two people died yesterday from COVID. They were aged 80 and age 73.
Leahy: Well, we’ve known that.
Carmichael: Now how many people from Nashville die in a year?
Leahy: A lot.
Carmichael: About 8,000. And I’m talking about just Nashville Davidson County, not the greater Nashville area. Metro area is closer to 12 to 13,000 people. So if you take 8,000 people and divide it by 365, then you get a little over 20 people a day. So and so you have a little over 20 people a day who apparently our mayor doesn’t care about. He wants to shut down the city and he wants to ruin people’s lives over two elderly people dying a day.
Leahy: And we knew that anybody over 65 was at risk.
Carmichael: Yes. Now, let me say this. I am not complaining that our mayor does not care a whit about the 20 people who are dying in Nashville every day. Well, I could take exception to drug overdoses and that type of thing. But people part of life if people dying and most of the people who are dying in Nashville are dying from old age.
Most of the people are. Most of the people who are dying from COVID are dying because they have because they are old age and they have contracted COVID. And so so what you’re going to have is if Biden does become president it’s going to be very interesting if his national policy is to attempt which I think is unconstitutional is to attempt a nationwide shutdown.
Because the states that are going back into shutdown and the poor gentleman that we have coming on that used to have coming on the show the events fella. Now the events business is going to be in the pooper again for another six months because events have to be planned so far in advance in Davidson County. I just think that these politicians don’t live by their own words. We saw that with Gavin Newsom. We saw his very flip explanation which was full of lies and deceit. And he doesn’t care.
Leahy: Doesn’t care.
Carmichael: Because the voters of California will elect him again.
Leahy: Newsom lies brazenly.
Carmichael: But the voters put him back in. So why not?
Listen to the full second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.Â
