Category: News and Opinion

Is New York City the best place to be poor?  If the measure of quality of life for the poor and troubled is the number of people hired to provide them with services, it certainly appears, at first glance, to be one of the best places.   Or at least it should be.

In 2004, according to data from the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau attached to a prior post here, the City of New York employed 278 persons in “public welfare” agencies for every 100,000 residents.  The national average was 93; the rest of New York State averaged 231 and New Jersey averaged 121.  Much of the social service work in the city, however, is actually done by private, mostly non-profit agencies in the Social Assistance sub-sector which, according to the current industry classification system, “provide a wide variety of social assistance services directly to their clients.”  According to covered employment (ES202) data for the second quarter of 2005, New York City had 1,857 people employed in this sub-sector for every 100,000 residents.  The national average was 708; the rest of the New York State averaged 1,048 and New Jersey averaged 730.

Is New York City the best place to be poor?  If the measure of quality of life for the poor and troubled is the number of people hired to provide them with services, it certainly appears, at first glance, to be one of the best places.   Or at least it should be.

In 2004, according to data from the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau attached to a prior post here, the City of New York employed 278 persons in “public welfare” agencies for every 100,000 residents.  The national average was 93; the rest of New York State averaged 231 and New Jersey averaged 121.  Much of the social service work in the city, however, is actually done by private, mostly non-profit agencies in the Social Assistance sub-sector which, according to the current industry classification system, “provide a wide variety of social assistance services directly to their clients.”  According to covered employment (ES202) data for the second quarter of 2005, New York City had 1,857 people employed in this sub-sector for every 100,000 residents.  The national average was 708; the rest of the New York State averaged 1,048 and New Jersey averaged 730.

Is New York City the best place to be poor?  If the measure of quality of life for the poor and troubled is the number of people hired to provide them with services, it certainly appears, at first glance, to be one of the best places.   Or at least it should be.

In 2004, according to data from the Governments Division of the U.S. Census Bureau attached to a prior post here, the City of New York employed 278 persons in “public welfare” agencies for every 100,000 residents.  The national average was 93; the rest of New York State averaged 231 and New Jersey averaged 121.  Much of the social service work in the city, however, is actually done by private, mostly non-profit agencies in the Social Assistance sub-sector which, according to the current industry classification system, “provide a wide variety of social assistance services directly to their clients.”  According to covered employment (ES202) data for the second quarter of 2005, New York City had 1,857 people employed in this sub-sector for every 100,000 residents.  The national average was 708; the rest of the New York State averaged 1,048 and New Jersey averaged 730.

My father is a retired investor who’s spent his entire life as a resident of either Texas or Louisiana, and currently splits his time between the two; he can, if pressed, tell you who occupies the third slot on the slate of either Likud, Labor or Kadima, but cannot, for the life of him, name the Attorney General of either of his home states, even though they are elected positions. But, he can tell you who Eliot Spitzer is. Eliot Spitzer is probably the only State AG whose support is worth any votes in the American Heartland (each state’s own AG may or may not be a possible exception), which is pretty amazing for a New Yorker, given that the support in such places by either of our very well known US Senators “ain’t”, in the words of Mr. Garner, “worth a bucket of warm piss”.

Earlier I outed Leroy G. Comrie for using close to two hundred thousand dollars on his re-election campaign when in actuality he had no opponent; well there are others. I am going to give you a list of the really egregious and odious ones who did the same thing; or those whose opponents were so weak that they didn’t need to spend a dime (collectively). And I mean that both literally and figuratively.

Let’s start with comptroller Bill Thompson, he spent $2,380,985. Can anyone tell me what he spent this money on?

Then Borough Presidents:

Helen Marshall spent $125,381.

New York’s election law requirements are justly criticized. So much so that I usually agree with the complaint that they are the worst in the land.

But then I read the following  about Pennsylvania:

Diamond is hoping to get on the fall election ballot as an independent candidate for governor. He gained notoriety for channeling voters’ anger over last summer’s legislative pay raise into an effort to oust those lawmakers.

So most of the black elected officials in Brooklyn hate my guts: whoop-dee-damn–doo. Let me give some of those in the other boroughs, reason to join the Brooklyn Klan in their dislike for me. Interestingly enough, one of the Brooklyn electeds stopped me last weekend- at an event in his district- and requested a sit-down. I don’t think so. My position is simple: when you sit down with dogs, you stand up with fleas; and fleas bite and they also suck blood.

Anyway, let me take my show on the road. To Queens to be exact. Let me out another one of these intellectually-challenged and morally-bankrupted individuals. His name is Leroy G. Comrie.

In Leo Rosten’s classic, “The Joys of Yiddish”, it is said that, at a rally in Nuremberg, Hitler was delivering a long and detailed harangue about the perfidy of the Learned Elders of Zion. “All of  the world’s  problems” he screamed “are the fault of the Jews”.

“Yes” replied a disembodied voice from the audience, “the Jews and the bicycle riders!”

Hitler looked stunned, “The bicycle riders” he asked puzzled, “why the bicycle riders?”

The voice responded, “Why the Jews?”

BELIEVE IT OR NOT THIS PIECE IS NOT ABOUT HEZBOLLAH OR JOE LIEBERMAN.

As noted in my prior post, we are facing a slowly building economic crisis on energy, and we are facing it without leadership. But what would leadership on energy look like? And do I have a proposal? As it so happens, I do. The unfortunate fact about the demand for energy in the United States is that it is “inelastic” in the short run. Since we cannot start living in compact cities or throw away our energy-intensive homes and vehicles overnight (doing so would take a lot of energy), we consume nearly as much no matter how much it costs, desperately bidding against the rest of the world for the limited supply, sacrificing other aspects of our standard of living. In the long run, if we had had leadership, we would have made different choices over the past 20 years. In the long run, if we had leadership, we might make different choices over the next 20 years. In the short run, however, there is only one thing that suburban, auto-oriented America can do to substantially reduce its energy consumption – carpool on a large scale.

As noted in my prior post, we are facing a slowly building economic crisis on energy, and we are facing it without leadership. But what would leadership on energy look like? And do I have a proposal? As it so happens, I do. The unfortunate fact about the demand for energy in the United States is that it is “inelastic” in the short run. Since we cannot start living in compact cities or throw away our energy-intensive homes and vehicles overnight (doing so would take a lot of energy), we consume nearly as much no matter how much it costs, desperately bidding against the rest of the world for the limited supply, sacrificing other aspects of our standard of living. In the long run, if we had had leadership, we would have made different choices over the past 20 years. In the long run, if we had leadership, we might make different choices over the next 20 years. In the short run, however, there is only one thing that suburban, auto-oriented America can do to substantially reduce its energy consumption – carpool on a large scale.