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Suburban Chic and Teabagging the Teabaggers
By Michael Boyajian
When we first moved from Brooklyn to our new home in the Hudson River Valley the first thing we noticed was that our neighbors had reflector rods planted on their front lawns where they border the road. The thinking was that this would keep cars from parking on the lawn because there was no sidewalk.
Well here’s something you don’t see every day. According to the Albany Times Union, “New York Gov. David Paterson has signed a bill cracking the code of silence at public authorities that run New York City's mass transit system, the state Thruway, and many other major services…The newest statute makes it illegal for a public authority to prevent employees from disclosing anything about their work, except in certain cases when the information is kept confidential by law.” According to Richard Brodsky “the public authorities long operated without proper scrutiny even though they collectively handle billions of dollars.” So what is it that they didn’t know over the past 20 years? That if you make some people better off by borrowing $billions today, other people are going to be worse off when it has to be paid back tomorrow?
As it happens, I have in my possession a spreadsheet that I obtained as an MTA employee, covered by the confidentiality rules I was under at a time – that you cannot publicly release information that you only knew because you were an employee. The rules were in the MTA policies, and I thought them reasonable at the time. The spreadsheet is a table of the age of the signal system for each stretch of track, along with past replacement projects. It shows which parts of the city will have their transit service collapse first, as the MTA’s resources shift to debt service as a result of past borrowing for ongoing normal replacement (maintenance not capital as far as I’m concerned), once ongoing normal replacement stops. So, Paterson and Brodsky, would it be ethical for me to attach that table (and some others) to this post under the new law? I know my fellow transit buffs would love to see it.
Middle East Union and Ensuing Peace
By Michael Boyajian
Turmoil in the Middle East threatens peace there and elsewhere with no real solution in sight. Much of the problem goes back to the partitions made after World War I by the European powers. These powers created artificial nations not based on historical basis but on the convenience of these powers.
The Burning Bush of Same Sex Marriage
By Michael Boyajian
I heard a very interesting baptismal sermon by Father Richard Visconti of the Caroline Church on Long Island this past weekend. He spoke of the risks we take in life. There is monetary risk, recreational risk like bungee jumping, occupational risk like being a fireman, and there is ideological risk which he specified by mentioning same sex marriage.
The New York Times has an article today on the possible damage that New York's high taxes on real estate transfers, on both sellers and the recording of mortgages, is doing to a possible real estate recovery. "The combined New York State and city transfer taxes, levied whenever a property changes hands, are 3.025 percent, among the highest in the country. In a rising market the taxes are seen as incidental, but when profit margins contract the tax looms larger, and lenders and borrowers are grappling with who will pay it."
There is another side to this issue, however. Perhaps the sky-high taxes on each new mortgage and sale is one reason there was less idiotic flipping and cash-out refinancing in New York than in other places to begin with, as people on housing bubble blogs seem to believe. An owner-occupied residence is a place to live, not an investment, whose actual return is the rent you don't have to pay net of the expenses you do. Unless you are planning to stay a long time — possibly long enough to pay off the mortgage and live rent free — it doesn't pay to buy to begin with.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
In this corner— an increasingly frustrated press corps.
And in the other corner— Andrew Cuomo. The in all-likelihood next governor of New York State himself.
The New York Times recently had an interesting piece on Cuomo titled: “Behind the Curtain, Cuomo Runs His Own P.R. Machine,” which focused on the fact that most—if not all of the interaction between Cuomo and members of the media are done by conference call.
This race is certainly his to lose…but Cuomo is about to face a major test.
There is no skirting the issue, no direct ducking or limiting possible damage via conference call—-Cuomo will have to do something he hasn’t done in well, four years….and that is face the media— face tough questions. To borrow my signature phrase I used 20 years ago in radio, he’s going to have to do it “live and direct.”
DEAD KENNEDYS: Went to a party
I danced all night
I drank 16 beers
And I started up a fight
But now I am jaded
You're out of luck
I'm rolling down the stairs
Too drunk to fuck
Too drunk to fuck
Too drunk to fuck
Too drunk, to fuck
I'm too drunk, too drunk, too drunk
To fuck …
I…'m about to drop
My head's a mess
The only salvation is
I'll never see you again
You give me head
It makes it worse
Take out your fuckin' retainer
Put it in your purse
I'm too drunk to fuck…
The Silencing of the Lambs
By Michael Boyajian
With the abrupt termination of conservative David Frum from his employment at the American Enterprise Institute the Republicans have stepped up their efforts to kill off their own dissidents signifying an inglorious end to what was the illusion of the party’s Open Tent platform from the 1990s.
I find it ridiculous that at a time when some other types of spending are finally being scrutinized for the value we are getting, the NYPD is being given a pass. Yes the ranks of officers are down, but as the data in the spreadsheet attached to this post show,New York City had 2 ½ times the national average number of police officers relative to population in March 2007. This in a city where the crime rate was about average. The average NYC police office earned 35.1% more than the national average that month (a figure that used to be low in NYC), while the average NYC private sector worker earned 32.3% more than average if finance is excluded, a figure likely lower today. New York City police officers contribute far less to their own pensions than police officers elsewhere. In New Jersey, the police had been contributing 7 ½ percent of their salaries to the pensions, compared with zero in New York City, and the New Jersey figure is almost certainly going up. Communities in New Jersey have been contributing zero to the pensions, a ripoff for the cops, whereas in New York City police wages are topped off by an employer pension contribution of more than 50.0% and going up, a ripoff by the cops. The NYC police retire after 20 years, with gold plated health care for life, and their pensions are not taxed. Add it up and NYC residents, who pay just about the highest taxes in the U.S. as a share of their income, paid 67.0% more for police than the national average as a share of that income in FY 2006, as can be seen in the spreadsheet attached to this post, a figure that is almost certainly higher today and higher still tomorrow. Because while the number of police officers can be cut, the far higher cost of ex-officers never is.
People often ask me why I do not write fiction. It is because my imagination is too limited to ever create anything as boundlessly amusing as the truth.
Behold the following:
March 26, 2010
Dear Mr. and Mrs. [LIST-MERGE NAME OF GOY HERE]: