Category: News and Opinion

The Gateway (Special “Festival of Party Disloyalty” Edition)

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In the particular comment linked here, a poster name Winston takes me to task for what he perceives to be my preference for Republican Comptroller candidate Harry Wilson.

I have not endorsed Harry Wilson and may not do so, though I will admit I have been considering it. The article to which the comment is appended is, I think, the third mention I've made of Wilson, and my least positive so far. I think Wilson’s failure to endorse a change in the "sole trustee" status of the Comptroller casts doubt on his credentials as a potential reformer.

But the commentator did hit one nail upon the head; part of my reason for being reluctant to endorse a Republican is my record of outspoken opposition to Democratic Party officials doing so.

But, I am not a Democratic Party official (not even a County Committee member), I’m a blogger. And unlike Democratic Party officials, I have no fiduciary obligation to the Democratic Party.

Paladino’s 15 Minutes are up

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Yes, Carl Paladino makes for exciting copy.

Yes, he makes a boring contest interesting, but at the end of the day New York is looking at lay-offs and other serious consequences of the times we live in.

Entertainment can be a good thing, but who gets the last laugh here? You can call Paladino everything but a child of God, but (in less than a month now) Paladino returns to his million dollar Buffalo development company, and New York State is left holding the bag.

I’m Not Voting For DiNapoli

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Thomas DiNapoli, having been appointed State Comptroller by Speaker Sheldon Silver and the rest of the State Assembly in the wake of the now-convicted Alan Hevesi’s resignation, is running for election against a Republican opponent, Harry Wilson. My general voting rule is to vote against all Republicans at the federal level, on generational equity grounds. To vote against all Democrats at the local level, because they always support the interests of producers of public services (who in NYC often live elsewhere but contribute to campaigns here) against the interests of those who use those services, whether that is fair or not. And to vote against all incumbents of either party at the state level in New York, where politicians of both parties are guilty of both offenses.

Thus far the campaign for State Comptroller has revolved around one issue, albeit an important one, the proper assumed future rate of return for assets of the New York State pension system. This ignores, among other things, the New York City pension system (some times it seems like DiNapoli and Wilson are running for Comptroller of a state that New York City is not part of), the fair level of pension benefits, all those pension enhancements, the level of past employee and taxpayer contributions and the fair level of both, and the debt and capital investment issues I covered in the previous two posts. For these ignored reasons, as illuminated by the information presented in those posts (which you should read), I will not be voting in favor of DiNapoli remaining State Comptroller.

Eyes on the Treats (aka “Trustee, But Verify”)

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Last night I engaged in the masochistic act of attending City Hall News' party celebrating 40 overachiever's under 40 years of age. Someday soon I hope they get around to honoring 50 underachiever's over the age of 50, so I too can get my props.

At the party, I got into an animated discussion about the Comptroller's race with City Hall's Edward Isaac Dovere and Larry Park of the Trial Lawyers, and asked "OK, if you were investing your own retirement funds, who would you hire to chose your investments, DiNapoli or Wilson?"

Park, whose group is essentially a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Assembly Democrats (or maybe it‘s the other way around) responded sharply in defense of his candidate (perhaps Shelly does not wholly own Tom, but he surely has is the majority shareholder).

Paladino is to Gatemouth as Buttafuco was to Letterman (The Gateway)

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Although I’ve surely done it, I have always been quite reluctant to criticize the hierarchy of a religion other than my own for its internal conduct. Rock actually took me to task for such reluctance at the Room 8 dinner this year.

But I’m a blogger. Commenting upon things which are none of my business is part and parcel of my calling. The calling of a politician is to remain silent even when an answer is called for. Yet, in Carl Paladino we have a politician speaking up even when discretion would be the better part of valor.

State and Local Finance and The Future Part II: Debts and Infrastructure, and the Sold Out Future Ranking

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In my previous post, I showed how the future of New York City, the rest of New York State and New Jersey have been diminished by retroactive pension enhancements for active and retired public employees, and past pension underfunding. That post contains two spreadsheets with a series of charts and a table that I will continue to refer to here.

This post will talk about the weight on two sides of a seesaw, the negative weight of state and local government debts, and the positive weight of past state and local government capital construction expenditures, investment in public buildings and infrastructure. Older and former residents of a community are on one side of the see-saw, and younger and future residents are on the other. If the older residents bore the weight of more capital investment, while leaving behind less debt to weigh future residents down, the quality of life of those future residents will be lifted up. That essentially describes the condition many in older generations were born into. If, on the other hand, older and former residents contribute less in capital investment, while shifting more debt onto those who follow, the quality of life of younger and future residents of that community will be diminished as their taxes rise. So how have New York City, the Rest of New York State, and New Jersey fared by these measures compared with other states and the U.S. average? Lets look at the charts and table and find out.

Corporate Democracy

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Corporate Democracy

 

By Michael Boyajian

 

The battle against corporate tyranny must go beyond shareholder rights to providing voting rights to employees.  Corporations are creatures of the laws of the states and federal government and have been given certain rights that go beyond those afforded to individuals and in some cases the very governments that created them.

Chuck Barron: A Nuisance With Nuance

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I’ve been putting off doing a full-scale piece on Charles Barron and his “Freedom Party” for some time now. And each week the dynamics have been changing.

I understood from the get-go the impetus behind the “Freedom Party” as a protest vote. Though Andrew Cuomo really got to chose only one member of his ticket, he did not use that opportunity to chose a person of color; giving Democrats their first all white Statewide ticket since 1990. In fact, since 1962, a majority of the Democratic Party’s statewide tickets have included a person of color.

Were Bob Duffy’s credentials so impressive that Andrew Cuomo could not find one person of color in the entire state whose prowess exceeded them? He surely was not restricted to elected officials in his choice.

CARL PALADINO’S CANDIDACY REFLECTS NEGATIVELY ON REPUBLICANS.

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As a political-commentator, it is never advisable to make predictions that can be seen as “out on a limb”, but many of us do it anyway. The fact is that even a supposedly safe prediction can backfire and undermine one's credibility in just a single special-election, far more a whole national election-cycle.  It's probably always better to couch your predictions a bit: a lesson I learned again recently.

You see, a few months ago I appeared on a BCAT cable-television program in Brooklyn, with Tom Robbins (staff writer/ The New York Village Voice) and Tom Tracey (The Brooklyn Paper). We were discussing the then upcoming primary elections. I am sure one can “Google” and find the show on the Internet. In that discussion I told the viewing audience that Carl Paladino was going nowhere fast. I essentially felt back then -and still do now- that he is totally unfit to be the governor of New York State. I thought Rick Lazio was going to clean his clock in the Republican primary: boy, was I wrong!

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