New York City government has barely begun to bring its spending into line with post-meltdown reality—and Council Speaker Christine Quinn is already saying "we'll need to look at personal income-tax changes," among "other ideas," for closing budget gaps that are likely to swell beyond $8 billion over the next two years. Read More
As suspected and reported anecdotally, municipal-bond issuance fell off the charts in September and October. Municipal Market Advisors, in its weekly outlook today, notes that such bond issuance was 54 percent below last year's levels for September a Read More
With the city comptroller's office now a loss of 35,000 jobs in New York-based investment banking and other financial services occupations, what's the next thing that will drive profits and employment in a Wall Street recovery? In a recent "On th Read More
As everyone rushes to conclude that America's financial-regulatory regime is completely broken, the FT has to say (registration required) about hedge funds whose UK-based assets -- estimated at $65 billion dollars -- were frozen in the Lehma Read More
The Wall Street Journal considers the Bloomberg fiscal record, in an op-ed called The money quote after the jump: Read More
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association released its c of Wall Street's second-quarter results today. It found that for the quarter, which ended in June, US-based broker-dealers eked out a pre-tax profit of $4.8 billion, after three Read More
The possibility of increasing the city's resident personal income tax was broached by Council Speaker Christine Quinn in her before the Citizens Budget Commission yesterday. Today's Times on the subject includes some comparisons of the Read More
Update: The Times reports that the MTA put off a planned debt issue Tuesday because of the still-inhospitable capital markets. Ohio and Hawaii did the same. The good news is that despite increasing pressure on both revenues and Read More
City Comptroller Bill Thompson came out with some deteriorating financial and fiscal estimates today. Read More
The good news is that despite increasing pressure on both revenues and expenses, Standard and Poor’s has affirmed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s “A” rating, with a stable outlook. Read More
Japanese financial-services group Nomura, in its late September purchase of bankrupt Lehman Brothers' European and Asian divisions, is one institution willing to invest new money in the future of high global finance. So how does one key Nomura figure Read More
The chart below depicts the 25-year trend in what I call the "Tax Stability Quotient" -- the share of all New York City tax receipts composed of real property, sales, utility and commercial rent taxes, which tend to be the city's most stable revenue Read More