Economy

With the city's tax revenues melting down along with our local economy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and people in and around government are floating a number of large and small tax proposals. The idea of tolls on the East River bridges and even the recently defeated proposal to institute congestion pricing are once again getting serious attention as the MTA faces the need to make up revenue shortfalls. About half a million vehicles cross to and from Manhattan on those bridges each work day, and depending on the amount charged, a toll could generate up to $1 billion a year. It would also have the impact of reducing pollution, traffic and congestion in Lower Manhattan.  read more »

As the financial markets continue their roller coaster ride, the issue of government’s role in our society returns to the front pages. While Congress considers a massive buyout of poorly thought out investments, many are arguing that if we are going to provide these subsidies we need to impose rules to prevent future crises. It’s time to re-examine the way we regulate our economy and hopefully develop a more sophisticated approach to regulation and a more sustainable basis for our economy.

Regulation is a set of rules or directives intended to cause specific behaviors in target populations. The goal of regulation is to influence individual or organizational behavior.  read more »

The Presidential nominating conventions are now approaching, first the Democrats' and then the Republicans'. The President hangs out at the Olympics, stomps his feet over the Russian invasion of Georgia and then makes another pass at gutting the Endangered Species Act by reducing the time and scientific analysis needed to assess the environmental impact of federal projects. The energy and climate issue have provided some environmental content to this campaign, but the folks running the country still don't see the stake we have in environmental sustainability.

What does an extinct frog have to do with human well-being? What does the environment have to do with economic wealth? Can't our technology solve any environmental problem we make? The short answer, as we learned nearly half a century ago from Rachael Carson and Barry Commoner, is that everything is connected to everything else.  read more »

Wall Street was swarming with camera-toting, fanny-pack-sporting tourists last Friday afternoon, but few of them dared venture past the doorman standing sentry outside the pristinely intimidating Hermes boutique on Broad Street.

Inside, a woman from Abu Dhabi, wearing a black abaya accented by a diamond-encrusted, Chanel wristwatch and an oversized, patent-leather bag emblazoned with the interlocking C’s logo, browsed the selection of branded watches while her four young daughters, dressed in matching jeans and pink plaid shirts, jockeyed for a spot on the Hermes rocking horse. She had never been to New York City before, she said, so decided to join her husband on one of his many business trips here to do a little shopping.  read more »

Last Thursday, former Vice President Al Gore joined the many voices that have been calling for a crash program-a "moon-shot" national effort to get us off of fossil fuels. Senator Obama applauded the speech saying "For decades, Al Gore has challenged the skeptics in Washington on climate change and awakened the conscience of a nation to the urgency of this threat."

At the moment, neither Senator Obama nor Senator McCain are taking as aggressive a position as Gore is taking. The energy industry doesn't know how to deal with this newest energy crisis. At the heart of the discussion is the impact of our current energy practices on our economic well-being and on national security.  read more »

I'm on vacation this week, enjoying the sun, surf and sand here in Long Beach New York, where we've had a small summer home since 1987. I'm on the West End of town, where the biggest problem over the last few years has been the proliferation of second and third cars and the difficulty of parking on the narrow and crowded streets: Until this summer. This summer the big news is the price of gasoline. In the last year and a half, the price of gasoline has doubled. In January, 2007 gasoline was less than $2.20 a gallon, today it is well over $4.  read more »

Brokers, developers, and the media have been trumpeting the resilience of Manhattan’s condo and co-op market for nearly a year, and now even the Federal Reserve has singled it out in the latest installment of its regional survey known as the “Beige Book.”  read more »