Thursday, December 18, 2008

New Yorkers are All Shoe Throwers Today

Remember the first lines Tommy Lee Jones uttered in The Fugitive? "My oh my, what a mess ..."

That basically describes the fiscal reality in New York today. Wherever you turn, on every front, the full mendacity of this economic crises is punching us in the face like Scott Farkus in A Christmas Story.

First, to fill the ever widening state budget gap, Governor Patterson is taxing everything -- everything -- that moves. Things you wouldn't imagine like soft drinks, massages, ITunes downloads, you name it. Needless to say, people are outraged by this but hey, what's the guy supposed to do? Do you really think he wants to impose these taxes? Don't you think he knows this will make him unpopular? But it's worth (for now) if we can keep more cops on the beat, more hospitals open, prevent bridges from falling down, etc. Let's just keep the big picture in mind.

But the pain doesn't end there. Ohhhhh no. The MTA is proposing some nasty service cuts and big fair increases. None of this is final yet (hence proposing) but the MTA wants to eliminate the Z and W lines, reduce service on the G and other lines, and increase service on some lesser used lines like the Q (which actually makes sense; what's the point of having a subway line that ends at 57th street?). Now the real pain: $2.50 fairs and $100 a month Metro cards!!!! New Yorkers like yours truly are going to feel a brutal hit in the wallet and, once fairs go up, they never go down. Oh the humanity!

To top it all off, our real estate industry is now in crises as well. And I'm not just talking about falling home prices. This nozzle Bernie Madoff -- this hedge fund manager/investor extraordinaire who masterminded the biggest Ponzi scheme in history and lost $50 billion dollars somewhere -- has caused many commercial developers to loose their metaphorical shirts. A lot of them had money they used as collateral for projects invested with this jerk and now ... it's gone ... no collateral ... can't borrow any more money ... can't build anything ... figure it out.

Do you realize $50 billion is more than the economy of some countries? Where did it go? It sure didn't come my way!!


I'm sure this won't be the last of the bad news but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we've seen the worst. But I guess we'll all have adjust to this new reality.

Welcome to the new NYC.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please keep it civil, intelligent, and expletive-free. Otherwise, opine away.