"Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has warned his employees to avoid making big-ticket, high-profile purchases as the gold-plated Wall Street firm hunkers down amid a firestorm of public and political anger over outsize bonus payments," today's N Read More
Last week, the Arizona Republic that the Grand Canyon State, faced with a 30 percent budget deficit, is looking to raise $735 million by selling its state properties, including the House and Senate buildings, to private investors. The state Read More
Richard Ravitch, New York's putative lieutenant governor, "is looking into using pension funds to help insure municipal bonds," according to an "insider" quoted in . But more than a few pension fund managers and investors believe that using pension Read More
My in today's New York Post is about the fiscal folly (economics aside) of trying to balance the state budget with higher taxes on a relatively small number of affluent New Yorkers whose incomes and portfolios have dropped sharply in the re Read More
Almost all of can be traced to falling tax receipts. But rising spending will represent a growing share of the problem over the next three years. In fact, more than one-third of the projected growth in next year's gap, and over half the Read More
Given , it should come as no surprise that the state's is forecasting a $2.1 billion deficit for the current fiscal year. But some of the financial details released by the Division of the Budget (DOB) today are getting even more worrisome. Read More
Writing in today's FT, investment-banking veteran (and former New York bailout-facilitator) Felix Rohatyn and ESC consulting-firm president Everett Ehlrich, pointing out that states still face $200 billion in operating deficits in the next t Read More
A new out from the state's Financial Control Board (FCB), which reviews New York City's finances, shows the updated value of New York's projected costs over time for providing healthcare to retirees. This liability has grown by 36 percent in the t Read More
Classic cartoon characters have an entertaining knack for suspending the basic laws of physics--for example, when Wile E. Coyote propels himself in pursuit of the Road Runner through the use of a sail "pushed" by a fan strapped to his back. So perh Read More
In his annual report to the state's Financial Control Board yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg offered this intriguing fact: "the labor force is growing faster in New York City than elsewhere in the country. Our growth - at 1.6 percent - is nearly twice that Read More
Five months ago, Brooklyn/Queens Rep. Anthony Weiner how hard he had fought to include $1 billion in money for the nation's police officers in the $787 billion federal stimulus package. Now it turns out that President Obama is leaving New York out o Read More
In remarks accompanying his annual city budget report, Comptroller (and mayoral candidate) Bill Thompson said that the city's tax revenues have "evaporated." After a 37 percent decline in personal-income tax revenues over two years, these revenues w Read More