Category: News and Opinion

The American standard of living has been inflated by debt, and is going down. But I predict the reduction will be experienced in a higher cost of living, not permanently high unemployment. More competition for scarce resources from developing areas in the rest of the world, given a falling dollar, is one reason. The second is a growing inability to import cheap goods from abroad, requring them to be made in the U.S. at higher prices as described here.  If we succeed in inflation our way out of our debt/pension disaster rather than defaulting en-masse, the trend will merely accelerate.

There is, of course, a good side to this as well — more moderate skill jobs could be available in previously declining mid-sized metros, such as those upstate. Warren Buffett's investments in railroads appears smart, given the need to save energy and the possibility of growing domestic production. Unfortunately New York's rail freight system isn't what it was, or could be. In any event read the article, because while the timing may be off, I agree with the premise. And it will run right into labor force shrikage as the baby boom retires. If you really need it, better buy it soon.

Bullshit Patrol: Mystery Solved.

Not that it bothers those who are doing it, but it would certainly bother me to be in a situation in which other members of the community had to be deceived for me to avoid being despised. But those who have been getting richer over the past 20 years as everyone else has gotten poorer, as a result of their manipulation of our public and private institutions, have that sort of deception as their stock in trade. So the most likely outcome of the property tax cap debate is to enact a cap that is a fraud, so those who have been taking more and more in exchange for less and less can wail they had sacrificed, while they do nothing of the sort. Kind of like the “sacrifice” made by existing and retired public employees by agreeing to lower pay and benefits for future public employees, followed by the argument that all public employees should do a less good job because they are underpaid. Or the “sacrifice” of layoffs, which unions love, because they provide less in public services in exchange for the same or slightly more money, rather than the same public services in exchange for a lot more money. That is a sacrifice, in their view, compared with less in public services in exchange for a lot more money, which is what they have provided to New York City for the past four years.

Last December I wrote a column suggesting that Brooklyn’s next borough president should be a woman. I even suggested one: Lori Cintron Knipel.  I feel that it is time to make history in Brooklyn.  It’s time for a woman: case closed.

After I published that column, some people asked:”why not a black, Hispanic or Asian?” I have no qualms with either of those options, since such an election will also be historic.  Anyway, that column brought a little attention, and it was requested that I revisit this topic as soon as I got a chance to. So here I am.

The trajectory of Europe puts it on a path to surpass both the United States and China as an economic superpower contrary to chest beaters in both those countries.  What can be done to put America back on its own upward course through history into the future?

Something interesting happened with the news coverage of the Arab Rising.  More and more women were appearing in scenes that were once dominated solely by men.