NEW YORK CITY BUDGET
Austin Today - Albany Tomorrow? "Information delayed is information denied. Texas has opened up its spending to public scrutiny. By logging onto the Texas Comptroller's window on state spending, individuals can monitor where the money goes. Sunlight is a great disinfectant ..." 10/18/07 Blogspot.
Yay PATH - Better Signals=Faster Service "PATH (i.e., its parent, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey) is upgrading its signals. Great news. The tracks can carry a lot more traffic and they will have to if fewer people are to bring their cars into Manhattan. ..." 10/18/07 Blogspot.
The Mayor's Management Report - Raising the Bar. "Glenn Pasanen has a good review on the Gotham Gazette web site of Mayor Bloomberg’s Mayor’s Management Report (MMR). He is critical of the lack of links between numbers and explanatory information. He is right. ..." 10/16/07 Blogspot.
Congestion Pricing and Mitigation Options, "Traffic congestion is a costly problem for New York City residents, workers and visitors. The problem originates from inadequate pricing mechanisms for the use of roadways and railways in NYC. It is an aspect of the Tragedy of the Commons. A new report on Alternative Approaches to Traffic Congestion Mitigation in the Manhattan CBD offers options for using pricing to reduce congestion in Manhattan's three CBDs...." 10/14/07 Blogspot.
Top 5 City/County Websites "New York City's web site - http://www.nyc.gov/ - is by far the most popular local government web site in the United States, based on visits to the sites. As of August 2007, NYC's site had a 7.3 percent market share. It is more than three times as popular as the next-most-visited site..." 10/11/07 Blogspot.
FEDERAL BUDGET
The Growing Price of U.S. Debt, "The U.S. public debt is currently $9 trillion. That's an average debt for 303 million U.S. residents of about $30,000, or for 135 million U.S. taxpayers of about $67,000. (The numbers are about six times bigger if we add unreported U.S. liabilities.) This debt is being financed by our children and by the rest of the world..."10/17/07 Blog on Huffington Post, John Tepper Marlin.
September Job Numbers, "The stock market rose significantly today on the much-awaited September employment situation release from BLS, which said: 'Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 110,000 following increases of 93,000 in July and 89,000 in August (as revised).' The 'as revised' parenthetical comment refers to a major swing in the August numbers. The BLS's August employment situation release had reported a decline of 4,000 jobs, and the revision is to a growth of 93,000 jobs. What happened?..." 10/5/07 Blogspot.
The U.S. 10-Trillion-Dollar Debt Limit. "The Senate has signed off. The president's borrowing power has been floated up to $10 trillion, which beats the AmEx black card. The president's limit when he came into office in 2001 was $6 trillion. So it's been hiked an average of $500 billion per year during his eight years of office. ... Over the weekend Mayor Bloomberg assailed the continuing huge U.S. budget deficits in a friendly speech to British conservatives..." 30 comments as of 10/15/07.
10/4/07 Blog on Huffington Post, John Tepper Marlin.
The Rising National Debt - Why It Matters. "Congress has just approved raising the U.S. federal debt ceiling to a tad short of $10 trillion. What happened to the virtue of thrift and foresight exemplified by the fable about the ant and the cricket? The ant works all summer to save for the winter, while the cricket just sings his heart out. Come fall, the cricket begs in vain for food and starves to death, not having figured out the America Buys on Credit solution – buy what you want and put it on Uncle Sam's credit card until it maxes out at $10 trillion. ..." 10/1/07 Blogspot.
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