Economic Issues

Nearly Half Of New York City Lives In Or Near Poverty

Who said the recession was over? Coming off the news that New York City's homelessness population is at Great Depression levels, the Bloomberg administration released a report this weekend that nails that whole neo-Gilded-Age income disparity point in just a little bit deeper. In 2011, the populati ... More >>

Marriott Marquis 'Sweetheart Deal' With Giuliani-Era City Hall Is the Gift That Keeps On Taking, Comptroller John Liu Says

City Comptroller John Liu says Mayor Bloomberg should reopen a sweetheart deal struck in 1998 by the Giuliani administration with the Marriott hotels corporation that, he claims, will end up costing the city $345 million. "This is one of worst deals since Manhattan was sold for $24," Liu said. Th ... More >>

Just Because It's My Brooklyn Doesn't Mean It Can't Be Yours

On Saturday afternoon, Rerun Theater at Rebar was full. It seemed only fitting that even the name of the place is a do-over, its chairs the back seats from old minivans--and not just because Rerun is a venue for post-film festival movies that don't yet have distributors. Today the theater was screen ... More >>

Debate Over Won't Back Down Shines Light on City's Brewing Education Battle

Considering that Won't Back Down is reportedly the lowest grossing opening film in Box Office history, it sure has garnered a lot of attention both nationally and here in New York.The attention the movie's received in New York sheds light on the city's educational landscape -- where there's an int ... More >>

Brother, Can You Spare a Dollar

Drinking With Rich People As The Recession Lifts

Hanging with the upper crust as the recession finally lifts

Drinking With Rich People As The Recession Lifts

Check out my hilarious new column about my week spent toasting wealthy folk who never even knew the recession hit, and who've been carrying on in a madcap manner like there's no yesterday. From a "Le Cercle Rive Droite de Grands Vins de Bordeaux" tasting with Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, Bonnie Fulle ... More >>

Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, on the Living Wage Bill

When Speaker Christine Quinn presented her compromised version of the Living Wage Bill last week, we immediately wondered how it would affect retail-clothing workers, #47 on the Voice's list of the 100 Most Powerless New Yorkers. We got in touch with Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Whol ... More >>

Poll: More Than Half of New Yorkers Disapprove of Bloomberg's Handling of OWS

​A new Quinnipiac poll shows that fifty-one percent of New Yorkers disapprove of the way the mayor has handled Occupy Wall Street. Despite this, Bloomberg has a steady overall approval rating of 49 percent. Sixty-two percent like the man personally, and 52 percent approve of "most of his polic ... More >>

The East Village Comes in Third for the Most Chain Stores in New York City

Not a chain.​New Yorkers (most of them, it seems) profess a grand dislike of chain stores, especially when they have to wait in line to get their overpriced lattes from Starbucks! The good news for such people is this: According to the Center for an Urban Future's annual survey on chain stores ... More >>

Today in El Diario: Suicides Up When the Economy Tanks

​Broke people tend to kill themselves Suicides go up considerably during recessions, according to El Diario, the Spanish-language daily. The data, from a report published Thursday, also notes that fewer people kill themselves during economic booms. A Centers for Disease control report indic ... More >>

Eat the Rich

The rich are richer than ever, but don't ask them for help

Economists Pronounce the Great Recession Over; Everyone Too Poor to Celebrate

​You may not have heard (maybe you've been too busy holed up counting all of your money...or, maybe, looking for a job?) but: The Recession Is Over. Like, more than a year ago over! According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group which has the dubious honor of pronouncing the st ... More >>

At Least the Recession Has Made People Think Twice About Reproducing All Willy-Nilly

​Hey, a benefit (we think) to this whole crappy mess of a Great Recession and jobless recovery: Maybe people are being convinced to let up on the kid-having, a little. Not that we mind the stroller set; we simply mind being surrounded and held captive and questioned by the stroller set about o ... More >>

It's Not You, It's the Recession

​New numbers out from Pew Research give us a handy excuse for whatever ills have befallen us over the past 30 months since the "Great Recession" began. If you were unemployed, took a pay cut, had your hours reduced, or involuntarily took to working part-time, you're in good -- or, at least, a ... More >>

Atlantic Yards Brings "Permanent" Street Closings; Ratner Writes a Letter; Haier In On Barclays Center

Atlantic Yards Report reproduces a notice that says, starting on February 1, stretches of Pacific Street and Fifth Avenue within the footprint will be "permanently closed," presumably in preparation for work on the Ratner megacomplex at Atlantic Yards. Dan Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Bro ... More >>

'Tis the Season: Protesters Hit A Queens Mall With Demands For a Living Wage

As shoppers scurried to snatch up last minute gifts inside the Queens Center Mall, local elected officials and community organizations painted the shopping destination's landlord, Macerich, as the latest Grinch in the ongoing fight for living wages -- just days after the city council rejected a ... More >>

Kelo outcome shows Atlantic Yards risk

The outcome of New York's embattled eminent domain development projects is called into question by the economic development project which made them possible. The Pfizer research facility at the center of the Kelo v. New London Supreme Court decision is closing, taking over 1,400 jobs with it. The 5 ... More >>

We've Bailed out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind our Financial Collapse?

Coney Community Board Votes Yes to Rezoning Plan, No to Plan's Actual Details

Photo by Neil deMause It took four years, but the fate of Coney Island's future finally began the deliberative phase tonight, with a meeting of Brooklyn's Community Board 13 in the packed, sweltering auditorium of Coney Island Hospital to vote on the rezoning plan put forward last April by the Bloom ... More >>

As Economy Tanks, Rightbloggers Say Obama is Just Trying to Scare Us

Job losses are accelerating. Big companies on both sides of the Atlantic -- including carmakers who are not part of the Big Three, and insurers -- are posting big losses. Banks are closing. Etc. All this you know. To stop the bleeding, President Obama last week pushed hard for a giant stimulus p ... More >>

What Cooked the World's Economy?

It wasn't your overdue mortgage.

Recession's Mostly In Your Head, Says Columnist

Happy Days are Here Again!

Happy Anniversary, Black Tuesday! You're 79 and still kicking!

When Wall Street Coughs, Business Schools Scramble

How educators are dealing with the crash of '08

Daily Flog: Wall Street's broken brokers go for broke; McCain's lie is buried by meltdown news

Whitewashing the bad econ news

Michael Rosen Fights Back Over East Village Rezoning

Rosen defends himself against 'Yuppie Scum' charge while activists claim conflicts of interest.

Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie

How the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history gave birth to the mortgage crisis

Manhattan BP Hotseat for Chinatown/LES Rezoning Plan

Fancy Restaurant in the Middle of Union Square?

Scenes from the Chinatown Border War

Lower East Side Rezone Sparks Border War in Chinatown

Out of patience and out of order over city's 'racist' rezoning plan

Going for Broke

Harlem Residents Blast 125th Street Rezoning 'Sellout'

Harlem Vendors Protest 125th Street Rezoning

Harlemites to Join Hands to Protest Rezoning

The State Of the Union Ignores the State of Sub-prime

The City Is Their Laboratory

Pratt students invent the next New York—for real.

On the Outs in Brooklyn

The city's complicity behind the borough's soaring eviction rate

A Wolfie 'Exit Strategy.' Finally.

Where Was I? Oh, Yeah, Wolfowitz.

Rubble With a Cause

Redevelopment woes: Williamsburg residents yanked out by their roots

Morning Report 1/11/06
Whose Vault Is It?

U.S., al Qaeda Converge on Iraqi Oil

What Bush won't say, al-Zawahiri will

Is Gotbaum Master of Her Domain?

Wolfowitz at Work: The Blind Leading the Blind

Morning Report 5/10/05
Neocons Fight Back

Wolfowitz Leaves Pentagon Without Causing Further Casualties