Hiram And His Mouthpiece
|Saturday’s NY Post reported that poor Hiram Monserrate can no longer afford to pay his high-priced mouthpiece Joe Tacopina.
Velella: Goodfella (revised more than once)
|David Lachmann: Now, now, Gatey. Harsh words can't hurt the dead, which is why we so rarely speak ill of them.
Really, I want to people to believe that this Department is about more than dancing upon the graves of the dead.
Doomsday or is it Real. Cutting 21,000 Teachers
|Formats for political debates must change.
The state has a 10 billion dollar budget gap, and as a result, Mayor Bloomberg just on Friday laid out a doomsday scenario where he says the city may be forced to slash 21,000 teaching positions.
It needs to be repeated, 21,000 teaching positions. We are talking about people that educate our children. People that are the only role models for many kids.
What did we get from that one general election debate, answers on how to deal with this fiscal mess. No, comic relief of “the rent is too damn high.”
Point of Intersection Between The Years in Retirement Rich and the Bonus Rich
|Reviewing the economic history of the past 35 years, one finds that two groups of people are getting richer: the executives who sit on each other’s boards and vote each other a rising share of private sector income, and the retired, particularly retired public employees and those approaching retirement, who control state and local government. Everyone else is getting poorer, a trend that has been covered up first by having a higher share of family members in the workforce, then by taking away their future income when they themselves reach old age, which doesn’t affect their current spending, and then by debt. There is, in other words, the executive class, the political and politically organized class, and the serfs, with the latter including members of generations born after 1955 or so in the former middle class. The point of intersection between the two advantaged groups is the projected rate of return for public employee pension funds, and the Wall Street firms that manage them.
The Gateway (Laid Up With a Bad Back Edition)
|Though written with the light hand and puckish sense of humor which is often the author's hallmark, this may be one of the most frightening articles I've ever read.
Andrew is Riding High
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Snow White Responds (Revised)
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Touch a nerve and the email really piles up.
Just for the Record
|Six of the eight largest snowstorms in NYC history have taken place in the past 15 years. Three of the top eight have taken place in the past 12 months. Two of the top eight have taken place in the past month. And last summer was the hottest in NYC history.
Pehaps the guy who suggested that I stop kvetching about the financial damage to public services, benefits and the infrastructure caused by Generation Greed — because global warming and rising oil prices will make it seem like a walk in the park — has a point.