Author: Larry Littlefield

Hunt’s Point: Time for the Serfs To Pay Up Again?

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Crain’s New York Business reports that negotiations between the City of New York and the existing food wholesalers at Hunts Point are at an impasse. The existing wholesalers, on public land they receive for nothing, want new, modernized buildings for their operations. There was supposedly a deal for the city, state and federal governments to pay half for their new buildings, but now that deal has supposedly fallen through. “With tensions high, the market could rekindle talks with New Jersey, which had been wooing the vendors with tax breaks and other incentives—though, according to Mr. D'Arrigo, the co-op has not talked to Garden State officials in two years. Complicating the negotiations is the fact that last month the produce vendors sued the city, naming as a defendant the Business Integrity Commission, a law-enforcement agency that regulates public food markets and haulers and carters, among other industries.”

I guess members of the general public have no leverage here. We’ll just have to pay more in taxes, and accept less in public services, to give them whatever subsidies they want, and then pay up because any competing food wholesalers seeking to enter the market would not benefit from those subsidies. Mayor Bloomberg would probably give away the store to seal a deal his successor would have to pay for, but the successor would be under even more pressure to show that he or she is not “against the middle class” by losing blue collar jobs. So those not in on any of these deals, I suppose, will have to accept being worse and worse off. Just as when the rich who sit on each other’s corporate boards enrich each other’s pay packages, then demanded a federal bailout when their house of cards collapses. Just as when the federal government had no choice but to run up the debt to prevent that collapse, but now those debts will force those age 55 and younger to lose federal old age benefits. Just as when the politicians and public employee unions cut deals to enrich their pensions, and then demand even more in taxes or service cuts to pay for it. Just as the Yankees demanded their empty parking garage or they would move to New Jersey, and rich threaten to leave town when taxes rise. They’ve got us. They’ve got our children. If you aren’t in the room, you are the victim, and we aren’t in the room. Does it have to be so? I’ll discuss further on “Saying the Unsaid in New York.”

Stop and Frisk

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I normally don’t comment on topical, symbolic issues like this, preferring instead to write about issues that I myself raise, issues that I know more about. And I’ve pretty much given up writing about solutions, because I have come to realize that solutions based on my assumptions – that everyone has equal value and the future and those who will live in it matter, for example – are not what politicians are looking for. And yet so much nonsense is being tossed around on the subject of “stop and frisk” that I feel compelled to comment, because those throwing the nonsense are in effect pretending that their pandering is cost free and will not result in losses elsewhere. This is the usual free political free shot – pander to one constituency, and blame any responsible suckers for the associated consequences.

Several facts need to be considered. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, New York City’s overall crime rate, once well above the U.S. average, is now well below U.S. average, although the city remains above average in the one crime that it seems to specialize in – robbery. In March 2002, according the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of New York City police officers was 2.9 times the U.S. average relative to population, and in FY 2011 it was still 2.81 times the U.S. average. In 2010, according to the 2012 financial report of the New York City Police Pension fund, there were 34,600 active members working, earning an average of $100,127. And 44,630 retired members, receiving an average of $40,200, free of state and local income taxes, with automatic increases each year. In the January 2006 Financial Plan from the NYC Office of Management and Budget, FY 2006 judgments and claims against the NYPD were projected to total $101 million. In the February 2013 Financial Plan, the estimate for this fiscal year is $180 million. I’ll discuss these facts and others at “Saying the Unsaid in New York.”

Has Andrew Cuomo Stopped The Pataki Local Government Boom?

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One of the ironies of recent history is that although politicians from the rest of the New York State routinely accused New York City of draining their communities through wasteful government spending and a welfare culture, a charge dating back to the administration of Mayor Lindsay and the annual tin cup pilgrimage to Albany, the reality has been nearly the reverse. During the Pataki Administration and after, in fact, local government employment in the rest of the state soared. Even as the independent economic base of Upstate New York, Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley – in manufacturing, corporate headquarters and high tech companies such as IBM and Grumman, withered away. During the darkest days of the New York City economy, someone like Bella Abzug might have suggested making up for lost private sector jobs by just giving people more government jobs, so they could have unlimited health insurance and early retirement pensions, and making someone else pay for it. But the rest of New York State has seemingly tried to actually pull that off, burdening the remaining private sector employers there, New York City, and – through debts and deferred pension costs – the future. This trend was relentless and seemed to go on and on regardless of economic cycles.

Starting in 2009, however, it shuddered to a halt and began to reverse. Have the policies of Governor Andrew Cuomo stopped the trend? Has the burden on the private sector in the rest of the state reached breaking point? Or have the costs from the past finally caught up with the local government growth machine? You can review the data on "Saying the Unsaid in New York."

Has New York City Recovered From the 1970s: Quality of Life

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A back of the envelope comparison between the average income of those living in metro New York and the average price of existing houses that sell here shows the standard of living is quite low. Housing prices soared during the housing bubble, and didn’t fall back to normal in the New York area to the extent they did in most of the U.S. Unregulated rents are up. Those who purchased houses years ago at lower prices, or have lived for years in rent regulated or subsidized housing, are less affected. But for young people looking to move out on their own, and for people seeking to come here from elsewhere in the U.S. and all over the world, the personal standard of living is relatively low by U.S. standards, and going down. That is the bad news.

And, according to one theory, the good news. Because people keep coming here anyway, and something must be drawing them, something that offsets, for the moment, that low personal standard of living. A full discussion of this, with a couple of spreadsheets, may be found on Saying the Unsaid in New York.

Test

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It seems I can get posts here after all. Anyway, my series examining the extent to which New York City has recovered from the 1970s continues over at Saying the Unsaid in New York. I'll repost here once the new Room Eight, with attachment capabilities, is operating.

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Waiting for the Next Big Thing

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I have also been posting elsewhere while the old Room Eight has been in a coma. I expect to continue doing so during this temporary resurrection, as the new Room Eight is expected to have its spreadsheet attachment function restored. More recently, I've been posting a series on the extent to which New York City has recovered from the 1970s. The latest installment was posted this morning. You can read it and download the spreadsheet to see the charts here.

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The New York City Budget and the Great Recession

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Since the financial crisis morphed into the Great Recession in 2008, Americans have been told to pay more for government, accept less, or both. That has been true in New York City as well, with ongoing service cuts in every budget despite a 7.0% property tax increase, a state income tax increase, and a new MTA tax on all workers (but not the retired or investment income). Along with fare increases, toll increases, and other increases. The recession, as officially measured, is long over, and New York City’s private employment is not only higher than it had been before the recession started, but also probably reached a historic high in 2012, finally surpassing the level of 1969. And yet New Yorkers are still being told to accept less and/or pay more to the government. This post and those after are about the reasons why.

An Alternate Blog Site for Larry Littlefield

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As anyone reading this is aware, Room Eight has had periodic technical difficulties recently. So for Christmas my older daughter set up an alternate blog for me to use if I wish. So from now on what I post, or try to post, on Room Eight I will also post on the alternate site, in the hope that it will actually be available somewhere. The alternate blog is called “Saying the Unsaid in New York.”

The new site has two advantages. First, the “attachment” function still works, so it will be easier for me to provide spreadsheets with data for the reader’s use. You just click on the link right in the text to download. Second in addition to the ongoing blog, the site allows the creation of “pages” for information that I want people to have access to all the time. In addition to “About” I have created two of them. The “Helpful Background and Greatest Hits” page contains a series MS Word files with posts or series of posts with my basic worldview, the most all-encompassing “foundation” essays I have written. And “The Latest Public Finance Spreadsheets” page contains just that, always available with Background essays on where the data comes from and how I compiled it in MS Word format, the spreadsheets themselves, and MS Word documents with my analyses of them. Much of this was written for and still is on Room Eight.

You Keep Thinking The Next One Might Be Different

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You think that Bloomberg might be different. That Spitzer might be different. That Andrew Cuomo might be different. But in the end they do the same things. The Governor proposes to drastically underfund the state pension funds, which also cover local government (and school) employees in the rest of New York State, and make up the money later. Comptroller DiNapoli had pushed through a proposal to do the same a few years ago, but the higher payments from that deal are now due. Now Cuomo wants to pay for yesterday's pensions over up to 45 years, with disaster if optimistic assumptions do not come true. For reality, read the comments from outraged taxpayers and public employees, not just the article.

I guess the kind of tax burden we have, and declining quality of services we have, in New York City (for the second time) is not acceptable in the rest of the state.