Albany likes to tax bad things, like cigarettes and, maybe soon, soda. But one State Senator's new idea of a sin tax -- on the defaulted sovereign nation of Argentina -- would harm the state's main cash cow, Wall Street. Argentina defaulted on its... Read More
Albany tops the list of "America's Most Recession-Proof Cities" in this CNNMoney.com report, based on a recent Brookings Institute paper. So, does this mean New York's Capital Region is a magnet for entrepreneurs and all-round private-sector dynamism? Read More
While the Legislature struggles to reach final agreement on yet another budget that is sure to spend more than the state can afford, a bit of good news for New York taxpayers can be found on the last page of today's report from... Read More
An advocacy group for subway riders is blaming budget reductions for dirtier conditions on New York subway cars. "It’s as clear as the grime on a subway car floor: MTA Transit cuts in cleaners has meant dirtier cars.. Read More
Bloomberg (the news, not the mayor) reports that the state of Illinois must pay 40 percent more than it did two months ago to borrow money in the bond markets (relative to supposedly risk-free Treasury bonds). Illinois' new 25-year, $300 million... Read More
New York's slow growth during the past decade is reflected in newly released Census Bureau data showing that the Empire State ranked 48th out of 50 states in the creation of new housing units from 2000 to 2009. As illustrated in the chart below... Read More
E.J. and I had a podcast chat this morning to run through some of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s 2009 payroll data, released last week by the Empire Center's seethroughny.net. The data show that last year, the MTA's 74,708 workers... Read More
Local media has picked up on the NYC Independent Budget Office's blog post on the precipitous drop in wages in New York's securities industry in 2009. The get-it-over-with-fast drop mightn't have been such a bad thing for the city -- if local, state... Read More