Economic Indicators

Bloomberg Vs. City Council Over Unemployment Hire Bill

As if the unemployed needed another political showdown in their honor after the fiscal cliff debacle. Yesterday, City Council approved a bill that would bar an employer from hiring you simply because you're unemployed (ironic, given that the unemployed are at the interview for a reason: because the ... More >>

Sandy Recovery Continues: 86,000 Jobs Lost In Storm; Obama Asks For $50 Billion In Aid

Amidst talks of the now-notorious New York Post cover and the fiscal cliff dilemma, the November jobs report slowly crept out into the news stream - a sheer side-effect of the unfortunate fact that the election is now over and unemployment stats have less of a dramatic effect on our national convers ... More >>

I Couldn't Watch Last Night's Debate

The presidential one that preceded it was one of the most painful experiences I've ever had. I cringed watching slick Mitt, with all his lies and flip flops, wipe the floor with Obama, who came off like a nice uncle who'd wandered in for some tea and some chit chat. I felt like I was watching my f ... More >>

Mayor Bloomberg to NYC: Cut $2 Billion in 18 Months

Year Four of the Great Recession has taken its toll on budgets across the country: it's hard to not come across some sort of public service being slashed in the news almost every day. The reactionary politics of cut-and-save economics has hit New York hard since Downtown self-imploded in 2008 as Blo ... More >>

Barack Obama To Congress: Extend Tax Cuts for The Middle Class

Taking aim at trickle down fiscal policies and warning legislators not to hold the American economy "hostage," President Barack Obama demanded today that Congress extend Bush-era middle class tax cuts for a year. Addressing the nation from the White House's East Room, Obama implored Congress to "do ... More >>

Obama's Ratings Have Slipped! Here's How We Can Help

Ever since the jobs report came in with staggeringly unfunny statistics, President Obama's approval rating has gone down like a hooker, making him a little too close to Republican competitor Mitt Romney in the polls for the comfort of any sane American. So here's what we have to do, folks:

Rudy Giuliani, Frenemy Extraordinaire, Backs Mitt Romney

Remember all that nasty shit Rudy Giuliani, "America's Mayor," said about Mitt Romney? If you don't, Business Insider has a rundown of some stinging gems. For example: "This is a man without a core, this is a man without substance, this is a man that will say anything to become president of the Un ... More >>

Mitt Romney, American Parasite

His years at Bain represent everything you hate about capitalism

Is New York's Minimum Wage Too Damn Low?

If you've been following recent developments in the capital, you've probably heard that Dems in Albany have been pushing for a $1.25 minimum wage increase -- from $7.25 to $8.50. And most New Yorkers would be OK with this boost. This change would impact more than 600,000 New Yorkers who are someho ... More >>

Who Has Two Thumbs and Hates More Primaries? Mitt Romney!

First, there was Iowa and New Hampshire. Then, there was Super Tuesday. At some point, there were other Republican primaries. And tonight, the resilient candidates find themselves in Illinois -- a contest that is "make-or-break" for Mitt Romney. With 54 delegates up for grabs in the state that is ... More >>

Scott Stringer: Let's Put Solar Panels on School Roofs

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who is likely to run for mayor, released a report yesterday that called for the installation of solar panels on the roofs of city public schools. Releasing reports -- it's the thing to do if you want to be mayor, apparently! This one here is one of tho ... More >>

Report: Food Stamps Boost Economy

​About one third of the people who can get food stamps do not, meaning many U.S. states have lost out on a steady source of cash, Bloomberg reports. According to the news service, people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, spend about $64 billion per year.

Rightbloggers Celebrate America's Great National Holiday: Black Friday

We hope you had a nice Thanksgiving and if you went shopping the next day you weren't trampled. You may have heard that President Obama got some grief from conservatives for failing to mention God in his Thanksgiving proclamation. But for our rightblogger subjects, this was not the worst outrage of ... More >>

Today in El Diario: Easter Was No Holiday for Hard-Working NYC Latinos

​New York's Latinos didn't get a rest on Easter While hundreds of the region's Latinos traveled to Fifth Avenue to celebrate Easter on Sunday, others attended another annual event, the Spanish-language daily reports.  That event: "Paying the rent," Estefany Cua, a 19 year-old Guatemalan, t ... More >>

Michael Bloomberg to Cut 10,000 Jobs by 2012

If you were excited about yesterday's news that New York City's unemployment rate had dipped, think again. Private businesses may have added 40,000 jobs last month, but if you're a city employee, watch out: The New York Times reports that Mayor Bloomberg's quarterly budget modification, announced ye ... More >>

Morning Links: Chinese Dissident Awarded Nobel Peace Prize; More Jobs Lost in September; Stinkbugs in Staten Island

​• The 2010 Nobel Peace prize has been awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident, political essayist, literary critic, and democracy advocate who is currently serving 11 years in jail on subversion charges. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Foreign Ministry did not appreciate this news one bit, a ... More >>

The $104 MetroCard Is Here; Let the Bloodletting Commence

​Well, it happened. We knew it would, but now it's a done deal. The MTA has voted 12 to 2 to approve fare increases for subways, buses, and the commuter rail. Insanely, this marks a 65 percent increase over the last 12 years. The highest inflation rate over the last 10 years, in comparison, ha ... More >>

The Kal Penn Effect Hits Twitter

​What subjects, you may wonder, are most Tweeted about? If you said technology, you would pretty much be right. Apple, iPads, iPhones, iPhone thefts or alleged thefts, cops breaking into journalists' homes to retaliate for alleged iPhone thefts ... all of these topics would be, and were, and ... More >>

The Unintended Benefit of Joe Biden's Awful Broadcast Correspondence Jokes

​Joe Biden was the headline speaker at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner last night. And by "spoke," one means "delivered a routine," as tradition for these dinners dictates. Unfortunately, in this case, "delivered a routine" means "bombed," which Biden did. A few of t ... More >>

Row Harder, Slaves! Productivity, Unemployment Claims Up, Costs Down

​Good news for whip-crackers: In the fourth quarter of 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals, U.S. productivity rose at a 6.2 percent annualized rate -- output up 7.2 percent, hours worked up one percent. It's the biggest such jump since 2002. Unit labor costs -- the ratio of hourl ... More >>

Paterson's State of the State: Upbeat, Lots of Programs. (Plus: Tax Incentives!)

Governor Paterson gave his annual State of the State speech, and although there were some of the grim zingers to which we've grown accustomed to hearing from him -- "The days of running New York like a payday loan operation must come to an end" is our favorite -- he mostly boosted the state ("New Y ... More >>

Few Surprises in Times Unemployment Map (Though Coney Beats Carroll Gardens)

​We are grateful for the Times unemployment map, which shows what New York neighborhoods are doing best and worst in these parlous economic times, though most of its findings come as no shock. The big loser is unsurprisingly East New York (also murder rate increase leader) with 3rd-quarter un ... More >>

Regina Belle

SUCK IT!

Not trying to be a downer, but 2009 kind of sucked ass

Senate extends COBRA subsidy and federal unemployment filing deadlines

​The Senate voted Saturday to extend the filing deadline for both federally-funded extended unemployment benefits and an additional six months of a 65% COBRA subsidy until the end of February. The current filing deadline is December 31 for both programs. One million of the nine million jobless ... More >>

Cuomo Sues Company Whose Employees Say They're State Employees and Promise the Out-of-Work $60K Jobs

Andy goes after another scammer.​State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced this morning that he is suing a company he alleges scammed thousands of unemployed people with the promise of well-paid government jobs. The official-sounding "State National Training Service", a New Jersey compan ... More >>

D.A.: H&H Bagel King Collected Taxes from Workers, Didn't Give to Govt.

Poor Helmer Toro, owner of the legendary H&H Bagels, can't seem to stay out of trouble. In summer 2008 we noted some of his legal and financial woes, including a $2.335 million property lien brought against him by the IRS. Toro had previously been accused of shunting some of his tax liability to a q ... More >>

Quick hits and follow ups

Now that he's been re-elected, Bloomberg's backing off the free cross-town bus idea -- The AP has a brutal fact check of Sarah Palin's book which goes beyond checking facts to calling out hypocrisies. A sample:

Bloomberg, Quinn Seek Billions in Breaks for Businesses

You might think that the middle of a recession spawned by massive corporate malfeasance wouldn't be the best time to propose a giant tax break for corporations. But then, if you're Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn, you might not. Crain's reports today that the dynamic duo of ... More >>

Quote of the Day: Paul Krugman

"What should change? What lessons should we be learning? The first is, obviously, that finance is something to be carefully regulated. We went from a banking system that served our needs and did so while consuming about four percent of the gross domestic product, and paying average wages... to a fin ... More >>

COMPANY MAN

Ethan Coen explores cubicle hell

663,000 Jobs Lost in March; Unemployment at 8.5%

The recent, mild exuberance of the market, like the late hyper-exurberance of the market, may cause some of us, particularly if we have jobs, to forget that the interests of stock-jobbers are not necessarily those of ordinary Americans, and that the economy as experienced by them is still horrible. ... More >>

Some New York Tea Party Protesters Want Government Investment, Re-Regulation

As we said, the dozen-plus protesters in Bowling Green today -- while less numerous than the previous New York tea-party's speakers, who called Obama a socialist and compared him to Hitler -- were a little more down-to-earth. There was a guy in a grey suit and shades who talked about commodity mon ... More >>

Unemployment Hits 8.1%, Wal-Mart Still Hiring

The national unemployment rate went to 8.1 percent last month as 651,000 jobs were lost. The losses are attributable not only to collapsing Wall Street giants, but also to corner-cutting by "healthy" companies like IBM, who in January announced a strong 4th quarter and said that "most importantly, w ... More >>

Chocolate as International Comfort Food

Despite the global economic downturn, 2008 saw record sales of Swiss chocolate. [BBC News]Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter or 2008, U.S. consumer spending on food dropped 3.7%, the steepest decline in the 62 years the Commerce Department has been compiling such data.[WSJ]The federal government has o ... More >>

As Economy Sinks, Obama Invites Us to "House Meetings"

Lots of economic news today: talking to Matt Lauer, with whom he had previously joked about the Super Bowl and Jessica Simpson' "weight battle," President Obama says that more banks are likely to fail. But, as we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Obama's permanent-campaign arm is calling for "e ... More >>

Mayor, on Budget, Wants Labor Givebacks, Albany Ed Money

The Mayor gave a press conference on his budget, and talked about how he hopes to fill a $4 billion gap with concessions from labor on pensions, wages and health care, and a reversal of the Governor's proposed cuts to the city's education budget. Governor Paterson has asked that the state withhold ... More >>

First Obama YouTube: Things Are Bad, but He Has Plans

Daily Flog: Saudia Arabia bails out homeowners while we still haven't

Up is Dow; Dow is up

NY State Shuffles, Deals Jobless' Social Security Numbers

Yuan, Me, and the Mayor Makes 3

Mushmouth Reconsidered

You can't say that on TV—but Bill Cosby can

Letters

Wood You Believe This?

City Still Using Tropical Trees for Benches

Pataki's Pap

The make-believe governor spins his boomtime fantasy