In recent months, states and cities have lobbied for their piece of the bailout pie. Among other requests, they've asked the federal government to support municipal bond markets by directly buying municipal bonds through the new programs that the Tr Read More
States and cities hoping to fill in budget gaps with cash-outs of future toll-road revenues and the like by handing revenue-generating assets over to private operators for up-front money may be sobered up by a report out yesterday from Australi Read More
The analysts at Municipal Market Advisors think that should Sen. Barack Obama win tonight, President Obama's planned income-tax hike on individual households earning over $250k could push up demand for tax-exempt municipal bonds. Read More
California may have to ask the federal government for a $7 billion loan by the end of the month just to pay for basic services like police and firefighting, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last Thursday. New York City readers may have shuddered, as the r Read More
New York is twice impacted by the collapsing world of complex finance: first for the obvious reason and second because in recent years, it has structured much of its own $54 billion in debt in a way that makes the city more acutely vulnerable to int Read More
Governor Paterson is reportedly close to striking a deal with state employee labor unions under which the governor will drop his plan to layoff off over 7,000 state workers in exchange for the unions' acquiescence to (a) Read More
As shown below, the highest-earning 1 percent of taxpayers (those with incomes above $750,000 or so as of 2007) accounted for nearly 40 percent of New York's total state income tax liability last year -- up from around 27 percent in the mid-1990s.  Read More
Hardly anyone seems to believe that recent events in the global economy and financial markets will lead to long-term price stability.* So assuming a recession is upon us, what’s next: or ? S Read More