NOVEMBER NEWS
11/30/07 Apple's Hire Power: Job Growth Best in the Country, NY Post. BLS data for October released 11/17 and 11/28 show NYC added 57,000 (compared with October 2006) or 1.5 percent, ahead of the national average job growth of 1.2 percent. (But "best in the country" is justified only because NYC is big so a 1.5 percent addition is big, and the chart attached to the story is incorrectly labeled.) A major source of new jobs is business and professional services, which added 14,700 jobs. Within that sector, advertising jobs grew 7.7 percent - with Internet advertising more than making up for the losses in print advertising. Another interesting area is construction, which grew 5.4 percent, the largest increase since February 2001, during a period when national construction jobs fell 1.1 percent. The financial sector grew by13,000 jobs - but this number may falter in November.
11/29/07 One Out of Eight US Residents Is an Immigrant, NY Times. Over the past seven years, 10.2 million immigrats entered the United States, more than any previous seven-year period in American history, bringing the total number of immigrants to 37.9 million, one out of eight residents. More than half of immigrants came without documentation, according to the Washington, DC-based Center for Immigration Studies, which relied on Census data. One-third lack health insurance.
11/29/07 Feds to Suspend Rule against Employing Illegals, NY Times. The administration will suspend a rule issued in August holding employers liable for hiring illegal immigrants, pending revision of the rule because of objections by a federal judge.
11/29/07 Baby Boomers Will Rewrite the Rules of Retirement, McKinsey Quarterly. The boomers have changed the rules all the way through, so why should retirement be different?
11/29/07 Foreclosures Soar in Two Boroughs, NY Post. Compared with October 2006, foreclosures in October 2007 rose 170 percent in Queens and 50 percent in Brooklyn.
11/27/07 Immigrants Account for 37 Percent of NYC Payroll, 22 Percent of NYS Economy, Metro NY. A report from the Fiscal Policy Institute hammers away at data showing that immigrants contribute at least as much to the economy as other residents. An immigrant is defined in the report as someone born in another country. This underreported analysis gives a good picture of the occupational and geographic distribution of immigrants in NY State.
11/20/07 Traffic Mitigation Testimony Constructive, Environmental Defense. A majority of witnesses before the Traffic Mitigation Commission offered constructive suggestions for improving the traffic congestion/mitigation plan. |
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11/25 (HuffPost): An email I received from a friend attributed to Rep. Ron Paul a $3.5 trillion estimate for the cost of the war in Iraq. His source was the Joint Economic Committee Democratic majority, headed by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). Here, for my friend and you, is a guide to the sometimes confusing evolution of these cost estimates. More: 11/25/07 Huffington Post, Why Estimates of the Cost of the War in Iraq have Been Rising. 11/24/2007 John Tepper Marlin, Blogspot, A Guide to Estimates of the Cost of the Iraq War.
11/01/07 (Acknowledged in book): David Toomey, New Time Travelers (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), about scholars who have written in-depth about time travel. John Tepper Marlin provided information about his uncle Dr. Willem Jacob van Stockum, a mathematician who was the first to show (in 1937) how Einstein's theory of relativity implied possibilities for time travel. |
OCTOBER NEWS BY TOPIC
BUDGETS
11/1/07 Arizona Budget Gap Raised from $600 to $800 Million, Arizona Republic
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT
10/29/07 Wisconsin Funds Biomedical Research (also Renewable Energy and Tech Transfer), FY 07-09 Wisconsin Budget
10/25/07 Cap-and-Trade Bill Is Second-Rate, LA Times
10/25/07 Why is Oil above $90? Econbrowser
10/25/07 At Last, an Overhaul for a Bad [Mining] Law, NY Times
10/24/07 China's Green Energy Gap, NY Times
HEALTH CARE POLICY
11/4/07 Beyond Those Health Care Numbers, N. Gregory Mankiw, NY Times [Fair points on Statements 1 and 2; but Statement 3 - 30% of income on health care in 2050 is "progress"?]
HOUSING POLICY AND PRICES
11/1/07 Elderly Have Problems in Their Aging Upstate NY Housing, Albany Times-Union
10/31/07 Home Prices Are Down and So Is Confidence, NY Times
10/31/07 For the Fed, Falling Houses Trump Falling Dollars, Randall W. Forsythe, Barron’s
10/25/07 Reports Suggest Broader Losses From Mortgages, NY Times
10/24/07 U.S. Existing-Home Sales Down 8% in September, Seasonally Adjusted, Worst-Ever on Record, National Association of Realtors via AOL Money&Finance
NEW YORK CITY - BUDGET
10/31/07 Tighten Belts, Bloomberg Tells Officials, Diane Cardwell, NY Times.
10/31/07 City Agencies Face Hiring Freeze, Budget Cuts, Crain's NY Business.
10/29/07 City Council To Oppose Any Midyear Budget Cuts, Grace Rauh, NY Sun.
NEW YORK CITY - ECONOMY
10/23/07 Personal Bankruptcies in NYC Soared in Past Year, Crain’s NY
NEW YORK CITY - PENSION FUNDS
10/25/07 City’s Pension Fund Soared…,, Jill Gardiner, NY Sun.
PRIVACY
10/31/07 Privacy Groups Propose Do-Not-Track List, Ad Age
TRANSIT
10/30/07 NYC Commuters Pay Highest Share of Transit Costs among Large U.S. Cities, Straphangers, Daily News
TURKEY
10/29/07 Turkey Masses 100,000 Troops on Border with Iraq to Launch Assault on Kurdish Rebels, Reuters
U.S. ECONOMY AND JOBS
11/2/07 October Jobs Rise 166,000, BLS
10/24/07 Jim Rogers: U.S. "In Recession," Reuters
U.S. POLITICS
10/29/07 Thompson Only Republican to Take on Cost of Entitlements, Christian Science Monitor
10/29/07 Rudy Awakening, Rachel Morris, Washington Monthly (November) | OCTOBER NEWS BY DATE
10/29/07 Turkey Masses 100,000 Troops on Border with Iraq to Launch Assault on Kurdish Rebels, Reuters
10/22/07 Engineer Says Con Ed at Fault for Steam Pipe Rupture, Daily News
10/22/07 Across the Hudson: The Port Authority and the Region's Future, Anthony E. Shorris, Executive Director, Port Authority of NY and NJ at New York Law School Breakfast 10/19 (Video clip)
10/22/07 Breach of Trust: The Workers Comp System After 9/11, Risk & Insurance Magazine
10/22/07 With Wall Street Slowing, Uncertainty Descends, NY Times
10/22/07 Marty Kaplan on Propaganda and the Open Society, HuffPost
10/22/07 Paying the Price for Living in NYC, Courtney Gross, GothamGazette
10/22/07 More Moms Staying (and Eating) at Home, AdAge
10/21/07 The New Lisbon EU Treaty, Vox EU
10/21/07 Should Hosts Be Liable for Serving Liquor to Guests Who Cause Accidents While Driving under the Influence?--And Other Issues of Third-Party Liability--Posner, Becker-Posner Blog
10/21/07 Is Nuclear Power's Comeback for Real? Daniel Gross, Slate
10/21/07 One World, Taking Risks Together [Panic of 1907], Nelson D. Schwartz, NY Times
10/20/07 The Two Americas [Flatland and Zoned Zones], Paul Krugman, NY Times Blog
10/20/07 A Tale of Two Town Houses, Virginia Postrel, November Atlantic
10/19/07 Broadway Strike Would Cost $5 Million/Day (Unattributed Source), Crains NY
10/19/07 Rebel Kurds Threaten Turkish Pipelines, Reuters
10/18/07 Cities Strapped by Weaker Property Taxes, Diane Cardwell, NY Times
10/18/07 Parliament in Turkey Approves Iraq Incursion, NY Times
10/18/07 Food Bank Assisted 1.3 Million New Yorkers in 2006, Up 24% from 2004, Food Bank for NYC, America’s Harvest
10/17/07 Projected $83 Billion Spending on Construction in NYC, 2007-09, NY Building Congress
10/17/07 Islamic Finance, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
10/17/07 The Subprime Blame Game: Where Were the Realtors? Knowledge at Wharton
10/17/07 NYC Area Inflation Below U.S. Urban Average in August YOY, BLS
10/17/07 Lovely Photos of Sunsets in NYC by a Friend
10/16/07 ...To Change the Face of Email, VentureBeat
10/16/07 Small Businesses Wary of Disaster Loans, Amanda Fung, Crain's
10/15/07 Cleaning Up NYC's Buildings, Gotham Gazette
10/15/07 Democrats Set Sights on Mayoral Primary, NY Daily News
10/14/07 Best and Worst Credit Cards, Consumer Reports
10/13/07 Alternatives: Traffic Congestion Mitigation in NYC, Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free
10/12/07 Mr. Wilson’s War, LA Times
10/11/07 Import Prices Rose 1% in September, BLS
10/11/07 NYC Monthly Foreclosures Grow, but at a Slower Rate, NY Post
10/11/07 Maybe an Out for Some Subprime Borrowers, John M. Berry, Bloomberg, Economist’s View
10/11/07 Why the Job Market Is Sagging in the Middle, David Wessel, WSJ, Economist’s View
10/11/07 Washington State Urges Highway Congestion Action, Seattle Times
10/11/07 Putting Back Highway Tolls in Massachusetts, Boston Globe via Governing
10/10/07 State Restrictions on Truck Traffic, USA Today
10/10/07 Quinn Suggests NYC Fiscal Changes, Crains - Full Text of Quinn Proposals, City Council
10/10/07 Albany Faces Deficits, AP
10/10/07 Is the Worst Over Or Is the U.S. Housing Recession Getting Worse?, RGE Monitor
10/10/07 Housing Markets around the World, RGE Monitor
10/9/07 U.S. Reserve Assets Fall to $68,589 million, U.S. Treasury
10/9/07 MTA: NYC Congestion Pricing Will Require $767 mil. Capital, $160 mil./yr Interest/Services, MTA
10/8/07 Why Not Shift the Tax Burden to Big Spenders?, Robert Frank, NY Times
10/8/07 SEIU Breaking Free in California, Sacramento Bee
10/8/07 US: September Payrolls, FX Economic Monitor
10/7/07 Why Not Single-Payer? Paul Krugman: NY Times Blog
10/5/07 Employment Plunge Was a Big Oops, EconBrowser
10/5/07 Conservatives Are Such Jokers, Paul Krugman, NY Times
10/5/07 County Clerks Object to Immigrant Licenses, NY Times
10/4/07 New York Area Airports Have Worst Delays in Country, WNYC
10/4/07 NBC Chief Calls for More Laws Against Video and Music Piracy, Washington Post
10/4/07 Welfare States vs Globalisation - or What?. Giuseppe Bertola, VoxEU.org
10/4/07 Bush Era Consumer and Occupational Safety Budgets and Trade Anxiety, EconBrowser
10/3/07 Dealing with "Irrational" Negotiators, Harvard Business School
10/3/07 Vietnam and Qatar Change Dollar Reserve Policies, Calculated Risk
10/3/07 Not All the News is Bad, EconBrowser
10/3/07 Kenneth Rogoff: High Noon at the IMF, Economist's View
10/3/07 Ouch - the Euro Economy Is Feeling the Credit Crisis, Eurozone Watch
10/3/07 Europe-Bashing, Paul Krugman, NY Times Blog
10/3/07 NYC Housing Foreclosures Rise 64% YOY in Third Quarter (Half in Queens), Crain's NY
10/2/07 Metro Area Housing Prices in California Highest, But Falling, RadarLogic
10/2/07 Judges Doubt City's 9/11 Illness Immunity Claim, AP
10/2/07 Four Jane Jacobs Ideas That Should Have Made a Difference, Center for Rethinking Development
10/1/07 Court to Hear World Trade Center Case, NY Sun
10/1/07 R&D Should Count as Investment for GDP, NSF, BEA
10/1/07 Bloomberg against Deficits, Diane Cardwell, NY Times
10/1/07 Dissent on Details on NYC Congestion Pricing, CityStreets
10/1/07 Enron's Second Coming (Countrywide), Paul Krugman, NY Times
10/1/07 Mayor Eyes Paris Bike System, Diane Cardwell, NY Times
| OCTOBER BLOGS AND CITES
10/25: “At the heart of the subprime loan problem were lenders and borrowers who didn't ask enough questions about whether the terms of the mortgage were appropriate. Financial literacy would have helped the borrowers, at least.” 10/25/07 Comment by John Tepper Marlin on Nonprofit Expands Financial Education Effort, Crain’s NY Business,
10/24: "Problems are global, politics is local. In May, an elderly Penn South resident was killed by a truck as she was walking across Ninth Ave. Several fatalities have resulted from cars speeding downtown or turning at this intersection, a neighborhood “dead man’s curve” (see article in Chelsea Now) and ). Something has now been done about it. ..." (See NYC DOT slide show on the twofer innovation.) 10/24/07 Blogspot, Chelsea Intersection Made Safer.
10/23: "The health problems of World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers have been in the news. Now Peter F. Rousmaniere has produced the most comprehensive analysis to date of what actually went wrong. He cites three independent failures at the local or state levels. One, the City’s safety enforcement at Ground Zero was poor, well below recognized standards… Two, employers, insurers, and City and state regulators failed to monitor the health condition of these workers… Three, NY State’s workers compensation system effectively collapsed…" 10/23/07 Blogspot, Why the Safety Net Collapsed for WTC Rescue Workers.
10/23: “Two previous blogs presented compared the high and growing U.S. national debt with the debts of other countries. The rate of borrowing is, in the words of NYC Mayor Bloomberg, “lunacy”. The debt will reduce the standard of living of our children, while continuing current-account deficits add to the odds of future global financial instability. To the pile of evidence against current practice I add the growth of the U.S. national debt by Steve McGourty… 10/23/07 Blogspot, More on U.S. Debt.
10/19/07: "For the day, the Dow fell 367 points or 2.6 percent to 13,522. For the week, the Dow was down 4.1 percent. The other indexes fell by similar percentages. The day had little specific news to drive it. Initial news-service analyses didn’t make sense, explaining the downdraft based on isolated weak earnings reports. Two theories that might help explain the steep drop: (1) Rational expectations theory operating cumulatively on information in the presence of cognitive dissonance. (2) The madness of crowds. ..." 10/19/07 Blogspot, Bad Day, Bad Week for Wall Street.
10/19 (HUFFPOST): Turkey and the Rebel Kurds: Next Move "President Bush's response to the Turkish Parliament's declaration of war against the 3,000+ rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in oil-rich northern Iraq was muted because the United States needs Turkey. The Kurdish administration in northern Iraq seems unable to control the small number of PKK separatists, while labeling in advance any Turkish forays to strike at PKK camps as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. Such forays would immensely complicate the war in Iraq... Turkey's economic needs might give it pause. ..." 10/19/07 Blog on Huffington Post, John Tepper Marlin.
10/18/07 Blogspot, 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. ..."
10/17/07 Blog on Huffington Post, John Tepper Marlin, 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..."
10/16/07 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. ..."
10/14/07 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...."
10/11/07 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..."
10/10/07 Blogspot, NYC Speaker Quinn's Five Fiscal Reforms. "The NY State Financial Control Board (FCB), created in 1975 to oversee New York City's finances, sunsets in less than a year. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn this morning proposed a five-point fiscal reporting/oversight program (full text here). All of her points are. ..."
10/5/07 Blogspot, 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?..."
10/4/07 Blog on Huffington Post, John Tepper Marlin, 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 Blogspot,Predatory Credit Card Issuers? "Who's at fault for the high level of credit card debt and the high fees that are being charged? The credit card issuers, who make it so easy to borrow, or we American consumers who run up five and six-figure credit card bills we can't afford, until the credit stops? ..."
10/1/07 Blogspot, 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. ..." |
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