City comptroller William Thompson released his regular "" report today. It's not necessary to go into the gory details, since it's past time for everyone simply to stipulate that things are ugly so that we can get on with life. The good news, though, Read More
Supporters of an income tax increase in New York State were, until recently, pushing what they called a "millionaire tax." But now that the number of millionaires is rapidly shrinking, Albany's most vocal tax-hike proponents have lowered their taxa Read More
Investment manager Bernard Madoff has allegedly admitted to what could be the biggest single criminal financial fraud ever, with up to $50 billion in losses. What does it mean for New York? Read More
Today's Citizens Budget Commission panel on "" (the link is to the full report, with good case studies) offered an excellently reasoned and evidenced summary of what the private sector can and cannot do when it comes to public-infrastructure Read More
Also in today's Times is a written to illustrate the foolishness of what my colleague Heather Mac Donald would probably call part of the victimology culture. The author, Linda Hirshman, notes that there will be "almost no women" on Obama's Read More
The Times that New York City's Industrial Development Agency is preparing to issue an additional $341.2 million in tax-exempt financing "on behalf of the Yankees and Mets" to finish building their new ballparks, in addition to the more tha Read More
What can Brazilian power lines teach New York about introducing private-sector competition to its public-bus system? In 1999, Brazil started to hold auctions open to both public and private sector players interested in improving the nation's trans Read More
Say this much for the "mobility tax": Unable or unwilling to find more cash in operational savings, capital cuts, or the farebox, the Ravitch Commission apparently tried to find the least-awful way to raise another $1.5 billion for the MTA. Read More
The Wall Street Journal today that the town of Avondale, AZ, will use a $2.5 million grant from the federal government's "Neighborhood Stabilization Program," signed into law by the president in July, in part to "build two additional rental Read More
As promised, here are our articles in today's newspaper parsing the Ravitch report on how to fix the finances of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority: E.J. on Me on the Read More
Today, the Ravitch commission released its report on MTA finances. We'll have more to say about this tomorrow. Here's an interesting piece of data to tide readers over 'till then: Read More
The Times today that the amount of commercial real estate on the market in Manhattan has doubled since last year, and that rents are down "20 to 30 percent from the going rents at the end of the summer — to around $75 to $80 a square foot Read More