The consumer price index fell 1 percent month on month in October, according to . Falling consumer prices, if they continue, worsen New York's fiscal position. Read More
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How's New York's economy doing? Private trash collectors (who pick up from stores and the like) are reportedly seeing an "unprecedented" loss in business over the past quarter, as customers have not only closed their doors but closed up so sudden Read More
Goldman Sachs surprised hardly anyone when it announced that its top seven execs would take no bonuses this year. UBS followed suit a day later. But top executives aren't the real bonus worry. Read More
The redoubtable Larry Littlefield has boiled down the latest U.S. census data on local government employment into a handy spreadsheet with a regional breakdown showing the extent to which New York exceeds national averages in this category. His Roo Read More
Mayor Bloomberg will seek to revive New York City's commuter tax, his budget director the City Council yesterday. First enacted in 1966, the tax was repealed by the state Legislature and then-Governor Pataki in 1999, over the loud objections of ci Read More
But New York City, which Mayor Bloomberg once likened to a "," will do the opposite if it follows through with the mayor's idea to raise income and sales taxes early next year. Read More
In a column today, Times columnist David Brooks contrasts the auto sector with the financial sector. The column illustrates why the recovery of the financial sector will be less straightforward and more difficult than the recovery of any oth Read More
The cost of New York State's Medicaid program, which already spends twice as much per recipient as the national average, will still be rising at a double-digit pace if the Legislature enacts the latest round of mid-year "cuts" proposed by Governor Pa Read More
"The current global financial market crisis could have serious implications for New York’s local governments if access to the credit markets remains constrained," says a issued today by the office of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Read More
My in today's New York Post gives Governor Paterson credit for his continuing "straight talk" on budget issues. As for the , on the other hand: Unfortunately, for all the doomsday headlines and special-interest caterwauling Read More
India's current plight shows why it's not a good idea for any local or state government in America to think it can depend on private-public partnerships to fund its infrastructure construction projects once it's out of municipal-borrowing capacity (o Read More
Today's Times has an about the city's efforts to lure more of the biotech industry to New York by subsidizing real estate in Brooklyn and Manhattan. It inadvertently makes the case for across-the-board tax cuts. Read More