Category: News and Opinion

With the State of New York approaching bankruptcy, members of the state legislature are calling for “innovative ideas” to prevent the interests that have backed them over the years from having to give anything up. By innovation, they mean deferring costs to the future, spending future revenues today, and making sure that when their generation walks out of there laughing all the way, there will be nothing left for anyone that follows them. Since Governor Paterson was a member of that legislature and participated in all those deals and favors over the years, the legislature believes he will be once again easy to roll. What choice does he have?

After 16 continuous years of Republican mayors in New York City, you would think that there would be an urgency amongst democrats (nationwide) to get rid of this present pompous and arrogant mayor Michael Bloomberg: well you could have fooled me. After watching President Barack Obama (and surely his political director /Patrick Gaspard too) insult the democrat’s nominee William (Billy) Thompson, with what must be described as the worst half-assed endorsement ever given to a mayoral candidate for a major political party, I am demanding an explanation from the White House.

What the hell is going on?

Come next Tuesday 3rd November 2009, Mr. Carrie Solages will be on the ballot for County Clerk of Nassau. This Long Island native is a thirty year old lawyer employed at his family’s law firm (Solages and Solages). He has been described as “the young rising star of the Nassau County Democratic Party”. This description came from none other than Thomas (Tom) R. Suozzi himself: Nassau’s County Executive. Suozzi made this comment last May when he nominated Solages for the post.

Mr. Solages has been a member of the Nassau County Commission on Human Rights since 2007, and was an assistant District Attorney in the Bronx before starting with this law firm. He was born on Long Island to a black immigrant couple from the Caribbean nation of Haiti. If elected he will be the first black person to have ever held this position.  Many Caribbean-Americans here (and not just Haitian-Americans) are quite proud of this candidate; expect a bump in turnout in certain parts of the county.

There are any number of ways that Generation Greed has financed its lifestyle demands by sucking resources out of the future and away from those who will live in it, with many listed and described here.  (If you haven’t read that post, please do so). The generational inequity most likely to lead to an institutional collapse at the state and local level is the practice of assuming an unjustifiably high rate of return for public employee pension fund assets, using that assumption to hand out permanently vested pension enhancements to those cashing in and moving out, and then raising taxes, slashing services, and cutting the pay and benefits of future public employees when those mythical returns fail to materialize. In New York State, since the disastrous pension deal of June 13, 2000, the assumed rate of return – from the peak of the stock market bubble – has been 8.0% or more.

High returns are used not only to hand out pension deals to public employee unions in exchange for perpetual incumbency, but also to justify lower than necessary government contributions to the funds, allowing the cost to be deferred and hidden. Since the union members are guaranteed ever-sweetened pensions, not paying for it now just means more must be paid for it later. I challenged the candidates for City Comptroller to announce what they thought a fair assumption for the rate of return on pension assets is. None did so, implying that they want to continue or enhance the fraud — at the expense of younger generations they don’t care about, with the possible exception of their own children. But in case likely Comptroller Liu has other plans, I’ll answer my own question for his benefit.

NYPIRG, the Albany Times-Union & Bill Hammond of the Daly News are upset about a legal defense fund set up to pay  State Senator Hiram Monserrate legal fees

What’s the fuss?

Do tell me what’s happening?

All this talk from right-wing republicans about whether or not Barack Obama deserved to win the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize comes from spiteful and resentful perches. Always remember that there are very few people who possess the moral courage to support another’s success without envy. Republicans have demonstrated this with full regal display, ever since the day the announcement was made, that Obama had won the internationally prestigious and coveted Nobel Peace Prize: and attendant award(s).

Of course Barack deserved the Nobel: he earned it over the years with his articulation, suave, depth, sophistication and overall brilliance; despite a couple blatant mistakes. He earned it with his work on nuclear arms reduction while in the senate. He earned it with his commonsensical approach to diplomacy: engagement not confrontation; dialogue not escalation; inclusion not isolation; more mutual respect and less threatening behaviors; and so on, and so on. He earned it because he has raised hope and lowered fear. He earned it because he has charted a positive course forward for US foreign policy in the short-term. He earned it because of exactly what he accomplished: becoming the first mulatto to attain the office of US president. The rest of the world is quite aware of US racial history folks; trust me on this one.

JUSTICE WILLIAM ERLBAUM: The American verdict of 'not guilty' can indicate one of two things,…Innocence, or the case is not proven. In the case of these [felony assault counts], the case has not been proven.

Agree with the verdict or not, Justice Erlbaum’s words, with their implicit acknowledgment of what he likely thought actually occurred (even if he did not think it beyond a reasonable doubt) are, since the matter’s inception, among the few things said about the Monserrate case by someone who has attained their job by election, which are actually at least arguably defensible.

It looks like the Monsters of the Universe are raking in big bucks for their Wall Street firms, and rewarding each other with massive bonuses once again, despite the ongoing recession in the economy. And how are those saints, heroes and geniuses doing this? By making sound loans to U.S. consumers? By making shrewd investments in existing U.S. companies, new firms, new technologies and small businesses? Not based on what you read. My guess, based on history, is that they are merely taking advantage of the ultra-low interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve, and using the money to buy U.S. Treasury Bonds, making money off the spread.

Keeping short-term rates low, at the expense of savers, future inflation, and asset price distortions, to increase that spread is a common way for central bankers to help banks get out of trouble. One only need look back to the early 1990s to see this, with the help of the New York Times archive (no I didn’t pay for it; sorry about the wage cuts and layoffs guys). In late 1992 this source reported that in “a dramatic turnaround for the banking industry from the gloomy forecasts of just 12 months ago, Federal regulators said today that 1992 would be the most profitable year ever for the nation's banks. As a consequence, they said, fewer institutions would fail in 1993 than had been expected, even though new regulations that go into effect next week require officials to seize weak, but solvent, institutions.” A Congressman named Chuck Schumer responded as follows: “the banks' heavy reliance on Treasury instruments reflected the fact that there were few other long-term investments strong enough for investing insured deposits… ‘Any idiot can make money by taking in money at 3 percent and lending it at 7 percent…But anyone who looks at the last four quarters and thinks the banking industry is back on track is making a mistake.’"

On Monday, I read about Rudy Giuliani’s speech in support of Mike Bloomberg

I wonder when the white liberal State Senators Tom Duane, Eric Scheneiderman & Dan Squadron will let us know their feeling about whether of not Hiram Monserrate (D-R-D-Thug) should remain in office? All you progressive activists in their district – aren't you curious?