Category: News and Opinion

In my most recent “Vines” column, I was a bit hard on council member Jumaane Williams; I would  admit that. I even felt it was justified based on the information I was working with. So it wasn't at all surprising when he called me to defend his position. This column essentially delves into the gist of the council member's response.

In honor of St. P’s Day, the attached blog post asks if anyone has any Eileen Dugan stories they'd like to share.

Dozens.

Where folks have found out the hard way that government of the seniors, by the seniors, and for the seniors eventually leaves no one left to pay for the seniors.  New York suckers take note. "More than 1,000 chanting protesters rallied at the state Capitol today against a proposed tax on retirement income that Gov. Rick Snyder called a necessary move that had silent support from many people. The governor’s mantra of 'shared sacrifice' isn’t sitting well with many retirees, though."

Michigan's Governor is open to criticism because he is using some of the revenues from having retirees pay the same taxes as those who are working to cut business taxes. The fact that the state has lost a huge share of its jobs — and the young workers that go with them — over ten years does not seem to concern those with retirement income, which in that state is now higher than the hiring wage. Here in NY, it would be nice if we just had more money to pay for public employee pensions and retiree health care without destroying public services.

Capitalism is a means to ascent. When we reach the summit it will die and we will all be free.

Capitalism equals competition and that advances civilization in a brutal yet necessary way forcing us toward some type of utopia.

Once we reach that state the need to compete and to advance and for capitalism ends for we have arrived at our destination.

COMPLAINING POL: Gatey, if you care to write an extended diatribe about what you are inferring from a statement that i release, i would recommend giving me a call beforehand.

GATE: When you consult me in advance about what you release to the public, I will gladly return the favor

Why do some pols (Charles Barron–who is not the whiner above– most comes to mind), not understand the simple difference between a reporter and an opinion writer?

It has been a while since I did a “Vines” column: so here goes. As I always caution, this type of column is a bit different to my regular columns, and as such, it should not be held up to the same rigorous scrutiny (and standards) as the others. Here I do a bit more speculating than I normally do: so keep that in mind as you search for ways to jump my blog-bones (lol).

The tragic events in Japan may in the long run help improve the world economy. Right now you have centers of industrial output around the world. All our eggs are in a few baskets.

The centers in Japan have come to a grinding halt because of the disasters there driving down economic recovery. In order to avoid this in the future businesses should turn to a risk allocation model.

This model can easily be seen in mutual funds where instead of putting all your money in one stock you spread it around to a diverse portfolio of stocks.

Proponents of nuclear power, back in the days of anti-nuclear protests following Three Mile Island, believed that people feared nuclear power because they feared the unknown. With the current disaster unfolding in Japan, however, I’m beginning to think that I didn’t fear nuclear power because of what I didn’t know. I didn’t know you couldn’t turn it off.

Here is the standard education in nuclear power provided to someone who got a pretty good education by 1970s standards, and has a very good long term memory. The nuclear reaction is controlled by control rods. You pull them out to start the reaction, and put them in to shut it off. You are safe, because of the control rods. Well in Japan, the reactors survived the earthquake. They survived the tsunami. The control rods were inserted. But the tsunami knocked out power to the plant, shutting it off. And when it shut off it went into self destruct mode.