Category: Blog

State regulations to allow natural gas hydrofracking in New York’sdepressed Southern Tier region are being held up by Governor Cuomo, who says he wants more study of the health effects of fracking. Read More

Carl Schramm, entrepreneurially minded economist and professor at Syracuse University, worries that “economic amnesia” may hinder the long-term recovery prospects of Syracuse — and, by implication, other once-dynamic upstate cities. Read More

“Cash-strapped New York has tentatively chosen the highest bidder to produce driver’s licenses under a disputed contract that would provide only black-and-white photos and end up costing the state nearly $38 million more than the current contract if it’s approved,” the AP reports. Read More

The prices of some previously high-flying stocks such as Apple recently have been plummeting, and the stock market has just suffered “its worst week of declines in five months,” the Wall Street Journal reports. This is not good news for savers and investors — but it may be causing sighs of relief in some corners of the state Capitol. Read More

Politicians from Albany have been complaining for years that the state’s capital city is fiscally strapped because 60 percent of the property within its boundaries, much of it state owned, is tax exempt Read More

There was virtually nothing new in Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s speech on public pensions in Washington, D.C., yesterday — nothing the comptroller hasn’t said before, as recently as a month ago. Read More

Leveraging his clout as sole trustee of New York State’s $160 billion Common Retirement Fund, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is making increased use of corporate shareholder resolutions to push political and social agendas that have little or nothing to do with corporate performance Read More

After a decade of increased borrowing — much of it for non-capital purposes — New York will be closer than ever to its statutory debt ceiling in the coming fiscal year, according to a debt impact study issued today by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Read More