NextGenDems

Saturday Night Special

Evidently unsatisfied with losing his shirt to Silver on the Racino-AEG debacle, our governor doubles-down with a threat this past Saturday night to introduce his own ethics bill in conjunction with the Senate minority. The irony on this stunt is multivariate.

The Assembly of course, overrode the governor.  The Senate didn't.  And that's probably why Dean Skelos lost his majority. 

The takeaway from this is that the next time you or someone you know gnashes teeth about Silver and his conference's dynastic success, that it's pretty simple:  they just make better decisions.  Like today's override.

If there was such a thing as a political standards malpractice board, the governor and Skelos would lose their licenses.

This one was a no-brainer.

Paterson's Leaning Tower of Babble

This is unbelievable. Literally and figuratively.

Evidently the governor awoke this past Thursday with a really dumb plan to bluff Shelly Silver on the alternative reality the governor's constructing around his selection of AEG to run Project Aqueduct.  

The governor's alternately a deeply confused or disingenuous man, so let's go through his idiocy de jour one item at a time.

From Thursday's NY Post :

Gov. Paterson was again this morning running away from his decision to appoint the politically connected Aqueduct Entertainment Group to manage a lucrative “racino” operation planned for Queens.

During his weekly appearance on WOR 710AM, Paterson repeated complaints that he was forced into the decision by a months-long spat between Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson of Brooklyn and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan).

OK. Straightforward plain-vanilla dump on Silver and Sampson.  No surprise here, he's been doing this his entire career. When in doubt, point.  With both hands, if possible.

“This was not the original group that I originally thought would’ve been best,” Paterson said. “But the leaders couldn’t agree and for months you saw the articles, ‘When’s the governor going to break the deadlock?’”

Now he appears to dump on AEG and by inference Floyd Flake and Malcolm Smith. But it's a misdirectional play. At least for now. But wait and see, eventually Flake and Smith are going under way bigger bus than Silver and Sampson. My guess is by mid-week. Something like: "Flake and Smith locked me in my room and then made me do it." Might work, except, just maybe, somebody, somewhere was wearing a wire.

Paterson insisted he “did play no favorites” in selecting the group, which has ties to Queens pastor-power broker, Floyd Flake.

Standard fact-free denial and self-exculpation that'll end up being self-strangulation. Especially upon direct rebuttal by his principal negotiator. No surprise here either.  He's been making incriminating statements his entire career too--but just nowhere near this level.  And mostly they didn't matter for much.

“We had a few of the groups that applied that were all highly rated,” Paterson said. “This is one of those groups. I broke the deadlock with one of the premier groups, a group that has a very strong relationship within the community.”

This is more self-contradictory Paterson-babble. Kind of like: "I originally bought the Subaru because the Hondas were originally rated better rated.  Plus my wife was yelling at me." He's incoherently telling us--I think--that he had doubts about AEG (see Post graph #2) yet selects it above others to break the "deadlock" foisted upon him by Silver and Sampson rather than selecting the group he "originally thought would have been best." And leaves us wondering about the originally original group that he originally thought would have been best.

That original group leave town or something?  And if so, how come?

Paterson also took issue with a testy letter sent to him yesterday by Silver, in which the speaker revealed the governor “called me to personally and strongly recommend" AEG.

Of course Paterson took issue with the speaker's revelation. Silver just called his bluff.  The same bluff upon which rests Paterson's political future--all of which now rests upon Floyd Flake.

The Big Albany Secret is that Paterson has ABSOLUTELY NO soldiers in his fort i.e. political organization to speak of. He's Don Quixote without a horse. He has nothing. No plan to get a plan. And no organization to get an organization. Paterson's own insiders will tell you that this guy couldn't raise two kids for a lemonade stand.

And this is why Paterson goes to Flake. And also why he says stupid things about Silver to the media. 

Ya really gotta wonder if it's obvious to the governor that as we speak these people are processing each syllable of his idiotic monologue--and then drilling down.  Just maybe wondering exactly how AEG's sudden elevation came to pass. Especially the part about Silver's four conditions which for all intents and purposes amounts a public poison-pill for AEG.

I mean, the ink's not even dry on Bruno's verdict yet.

In the letter, Silver said stressed that he agreed to AEG only after the group met four conditions, including strenuous background investigations of all investors. “Why he would write me a letter on Wednesday about terms we all agreed to the previous Friday might be something that’s in his head,” Paterson said. “I honestly don’t know what his problem is.”

“Why he would write me a letter on Wednesday about terms we all agreed to the previous Friday might be something that’s in his head.”  Does anybody even know what that statement means?  The letter's in his head? The terms are in his head? Wednesday's in his head? Maybe Paterson's remorselessly confused syntax is in his head.

Paterson's now into full incomprehensible mode, which is what people also tell me he's given to once something gets sticky.  Just act and speak like an organically incomprehensible jack ass and eventually everybody will just forget about it all.  People also tell me that he's done this his whole life too.  But nobody's ever had a gun to his head like this one.  He's in new territory here, the stakes are huge and there's no escape for him via social promotion or connection.

So let's answer "his problem" with Silver question. Silver's problem stems from the governor drooling all over himself on his "previous Friday" presenting AES as a now conditionally-met done deal. But here's Silver's press release on the same day stating big time conditions that have to be met.

So now this guy is trying to tell us he has no idea what's in Silver's head?  And has no idea what Silver's problem is? Here's a better question: Can Paterson's chief counsel read?

Of course, Silver memorializes his conditions in a press release that the world can view on the day of the "deal" because he reads Paterson better than Paterson reads Paterson. Silver already knows the Paterson gameplan: lock the deal down, close ranks, enforce radio silence, and then bluff Shelly on his conditions.  Or just plead stupid on them by spewing infantile gibberish to major newspapers.

And we all know what card the governor's going to play next--don't we?  And it'll probably turn out even more embarrassing to himself and the state than the last time he played it.  Who knows, maybe even the President of the United States will humiliate him again--along with whoever else was stupid enough to have gotten dragged into this with him.

 

Apocalypse Again?

Why have two people just called me stating the governor is going to resign tomorrow?  This can't be true, can it? 

I ask one, "Is it sex or thievery?"  He says "The former."  I say, "Which paper?"  He says, "The Times, just like Spitzer."

Another source says it's all about wife swapping.  And Danny Hakim of the Times has him dead to rights.

Hopefully it's all a malicious rumor.

Update:  Yet another NGD reader says it's all about Paterson's homey/bodyguard and nuclear breakup of his marriage.  As revenge, the wife goes to Danny with story of ex-hubby pimping (literally) for the governor.

Hopefully this is a malicious rumor also.

NYPD Screw

From today's NY Daily News:

Counterterror chiefs fear Al Qaeda in Yemen may soon be sending American jihadis recruited by a radical cleric to attack the U.S., the Daily News has learned.

America's most senior intelligence officials told senators on Tuesday an attempted strike by terrorists within six months is "certain."

Quick, somebody call Ray Kelly and tell him not to frisk these guys when they hit the streets here--we don't want any lawsuits.  If they act up and we don't get them, we'll just issue some bench warrants, then send the city marshall to serve them in Yemen and the Pak. It's all good.  

Better yet, why not have Eric Holder fly over there and deliver some habeas corpus seminars to the leading Yemeni law schools--preferably before some of them hit they airways. 

Maybe Holder can even rework the whole McGruff the Crime Dog thing for DOJ.   Into something more internationally salient like McFluff the Terrorist Chipmunk. Lose that whole maybe-aggressive-dog motif for a less threatening rodent-based theme. 

 

This Downtown Manhattan trial idea of theirs is insanely vapid, counterproductive and dangerous. It really, really is.

Two Stories, Same Day, Same Governor

From today's NY Times:

Gov. David A. Paterson on Tuesday vetoed the Legislature’s attempt to create new ethics panels to monitor elected officials and to require greater financial disclosure by lawmakers, halting for now an overhaul of the rules meant to curb political corruption.

Also from today's NY Times:

Three days after awarding a lucrative state contract to a company connected to the Rev. Floyd H. Flake, one of New York’s most influential black pastors, Gov. David A. Paterson summoned Mr. Flake to his Harlem office Monday morning and sounded him out about his political support.

Maybe the governor's waiting for the legislature to insert into the ethics bill a No Racetrack Pimping to Mega-Pastor clause.

This thing stinks and everybody knows it. And the only who'll end up benefiting from it is this guy.

Dr. McKenna Rocks

And we're told that New York politics are a dysfunctional bloodsport.  Check out this coroner's ad from the bayou state:

Iced Tea

From today's Buffalo News:

The base of One HSBC Center played a makeshift Valley Forge late Thursday afternoon for a dozen and a half local tea party activists who descended on downtown Buffalo to continue efforts they are billing as the “Second American Revolution.”

The target: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Silver, D-Manhattan, was in Buffalo as the headliner for a $2,000-per-head fundraiser on the 31st floor of the city’s tallest building to benefit the Erie County Democratic Party.

That alone was enough to keep tea party advocates hot despite the frigid environs. The 13-degree temperature with 30-mph wind gusts whipped snow into their eyes as they scanned the wintry terrain for any sight of Silver.

Hmm.  That puts the wind chill at about 10 below.  I've been kind of hesitant to speculate on collective Tea Party human intelligence, but standing in -10 degree temperature without any sight of anything--so much as your bete noire--just to come out with counter-counter-revolutionary babble like:

“He’s on top of a totally corrupt system that drags this state down,” said James Ostrowski, a Buffalo lawyer active in the anti-tax tea party movement. “So he’s a perfect target.”

Outstanding. Frosty the Neo-Maoist lawyer has spoken.

I guess these Tea Party people really are a solution in search of a problem.

Note to James the lawyer: If you're reading this--which I'm going to try to make happen--feel free to drop us a line here at NGD and elaborate a bit more on your "corrupt system" and "perfect target" memes.  We'd love to hear from you.

And as always, you send it--we print it.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

...like hoping Wall Street and all its workforce--and bonuses--collectively boil to death in a vat of trans fatty cooking oil.

How come?

Because the state's hiring some 330 new tax collectors.  And they won't be working Wall Street:

Increased sales taxes collections goes beyond Internet sales. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, Taxation officials are also stepping up oversight of private party auto sales, where individuals are the buyers and sellers of vehicles.

Tax officials are increasingly comparing the sales tax paid when a vehicle is registered with the "book value," or broadly published prices of cars sold and registered.

For example, if the $6,000 price you declared on that 2005 Jeep you bought from your brother-in-law is significantly less than the $12,000 it's probably worth, you might get a letter from the state.

Money's got to come from somewhere...

Memo to Eleanor Randolph

To: Eleanor Randolph and New York Times Editorial Board

From: NGD

Re: Your Failed Failed State Project

Eleanor, California just walked away with another prize. Newsweek is now also calling it a "failed state." 

The country just isn't big enough for two failed states. Or three, or four, or ten.  There can only be one.  And that one must be New York.

Look, groveling pulp like this from you people just won't cut it:

New Yorkers should be appalled at their failed state government, particularly their corrupt and clueless Legislature. Scandal and irresponsibility have been Albany’s creed for decades. This year, the gang added another outrage to the list: complete fiscal incompetence.

C'mon, who wrote that mealy-mouthed crap? The new guy fresh out of company boot camp?  You need to outsource this to a professional carnival barker.  Or a good pimp if you can find one.

Newsweek's calling their thing, "California: America’s First Failed State."  Evidently, they held some kind of panel discussion at NYU.  Too bad you missed it.  You could have really teed off on New York in there. 

Like how we're all about taxing Mountain Dew here, when all California wants to do is build prisons in Mexico and then fill them up with illegal state felons. Then save billions of pesos and thus save the state.  (Depending on the exchange rate.)

Here's Arnold's full idea:

"Think about it,” Schwarzenegger said. “California give Mexico the money… We pay them to build a prison down in Mexico and then we have those undocumented immigrants be down there in a prison and with their prison guards and all this. It will halve the costs to build the prisons and halve the costs to run the prisons. That is money — again, a billion dollars right there — that can go into higher education."

How's that for some "complete fiscal incompetence," and "addressing disasters," from Arnold and his "gang?" 

Ultimately, I just don't think your Rod Stewart strategery--ya know, just keep on repeating the same thing absent of any supporting fact, because it's a litle bit funny--works here. California, Nevada, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts are just too beaten-down for that--they won't play along. 

Hate to say it, but you really need to go back to the drawing board, Eleanor. We know you got it in you, so why not just let it all out.

Ethics Reform, Writ Large

This must be the standard that the Daily News has in mind when they castigate the state legislature's ethics reform bill.

From the AP:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $108 million on his campaign to win a third term, or about $185 per vote in what was the most expensive self-financed campaign in U.S. history.

Bloomberg’s campaign released its latest finance report Friday, which included about $2 million in bonuses for his staffers, despite the billionaire’s closer-than-expected loss to a Democrat who relied on matching funds and donations. His opponent William Thompson Jr. spent less than one-tenth of Bloomberg’s total — or about $17 per vote — and lost by just 50,600 votes.

Eleanor's Obsession

Remember way back last week when NGD's Reality Check post ended thusly: "It'll be interesting watching The Times re-reckon reality with its head still in the sand."?

Here's what I mean.  The Times editorial board this week writes this opening line on NGD fan fav Jimmy Traficant in "Youngstown Yawns":

Anyone who’s spent time in Youngstown, Ohio, is entitled to nagging affection for the gritty old steeltown that has long struggled with lost jobs and serial political corruption.

See? It's Youngstown's serial corruption that's to blame for Jimmy Traficant's behavior, not that of congress or Washington.

Today the same editorial board writes this opening line on Hiram Monserrate from its editorial "Albany's Club":

Pretty much everyone knows by now that the New York State Legislature is corrupt and dysfunctional. But it doesn’t end there. It seems every week that New Yorkers learn about another state legislator who has brought shame to the state — or worse. (Let’s not forget the felony convictions only last month of Joseph Bruno, the former Republican leader.)

See? Now it's the Albany system that's to blame for Hiram slashing his girlfriend with a busted glass.

You ever wonder how these people make these distinctions?  What the thought process is? 

I don't.

Here's another case from the same editorial board this week on federal health care reform.  It's another great example of what I call the Times' soft-core deceit:

California, a state in comparable if not worse budgetary distress [than New York], would get no such relief for its previous expansions of Medicaid because they were mostly achieved through amendments to its state Medicaid plan, not the waiver process.

"A state in comparable if not worse budgetary distress..." these people write.  And with serious-looking faces, I suppose. 

Then there's reality.

People keep telling NGD that Times editorial board czarzina Eleanor Randolph has an unhealthy obsession with New York government.  If so, maybe she should develop another one for the rest of the world.

The Winter of Reality

Wow, New York's own Winter of Reckoning. Talk about existential crisis to top all existential crises. 

Looks like it's time to crank up the NGD existential crises generator and look (again) at how New York's Winter of Reckoning stacks up against the Winter of the Real World.

Let's start with simple, nomenclative Big-Box Budget Crisis:

New Yorkers might think all the news from Albany about budget gaps, proposed spending cuts and showdowns between the governor and state lawmakers set the Empire State apart as an example of a budget process gone askew.   Not at all, experts say.

(Not for nothing, it took somebody from AP's Washington office to pen this piece of  statewide apostasy.  And this piece, too.) 

New York doesn't make this national doomsday list either.

Still not reckoned enough?  Here's an Illinois update. They can't even make their pension payments so they've got to bond them.  Yes, borrow the money to make the payments to the pension fund.  Kind of like a huge payday loan:

After spending the week in a heavy marketing campaign that includes international buyers, Illinois on Thursday or Friday will price nearly $3.5 billion of taxable general obligation bonds with a five-year maturity to help cover its fiscal 2010 pension payments.

Oh yeah, the Illinois pension fund is run by a board.  The same panacea the governor reckons New York needs to stop corruption and actuarial stupidity. 

How about stagnant economic growth?  According to the Sacramento Bee:

So this is what economic recovery looks like: 12 percent unemployment, more vacant storefronts and a seemingly endless state budget crisis that will prolong the furloughs, layoffs and other wounds.

A prominent economist has declared California's recession over but acknowledged that most Californians might not even notice.

12 percent unemployment is a very, very bad thing.  In fact, it's a horrible thing.  If you're living in California, you shouldn't be. 

What about New York's proverbial ethical abyss?  Here's one for you:

Detroit, the largest U.S. city whose debt is rated below investment grade, is under scrutiny by a federal grand jury and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the dealings of its $8 billion pension funds, said Dan Lijana, a spokesman for Mayor Dave Bing.

And guess what?  Detroit's pension fund is run by a board too!  And a board didn't help California from getting scratched last month.

Then there's the latest from New Jersey.  And Maryland. And Pennsylvania. And Massachusetts. And Missouri.  It's amazing what thirty-seconds of reckoning on Google gets you.  Do the governor's communications people know all this?  Of course they do. They--like the local MSM--are presuming you're compliantly lazy and ill-informed.

And then there's Congress.  Didn't I tell you this guy was gonna do it? Here's an update:

Former Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) lit into the current leadership in Washington on Wednesday, warning the IRS that he wants to "kick them in the crotch," apologizing to "all the hookers in America" for once comparing members of Congress to prostitutes and telling President Barack Obama to "stimulate this."

Nice.

He's even got his own talk show and freedom-fighter website.

And we're supposed to reckon this winter that New York's a uniquely dysfunctional cesspool inhabited by uniquely bombastic, larcenous and self-serving reptiles?

Yup. We are supposed to believe that.

[Here's a far more interesting reckoning: Put Pedro at the table with Traficant, on any subject, who ends up getting locked up?] 

But back on topic, here's something for the tax-slashing impresarios at the Empire Center and the NY Post. Exemplar-state Arizona has a budget gap of 30--that's thirty--percent  (New York's is about 6 percent) and the state legislature still wants to cut taxes.  Here's what the GOP House Speaker there has to say:

"Arizona is not as competitive as it needs to be with job retention and job growth," Adams said.

Sound familiar?  Now here's where the reckoning gets really good:

Arizona reduced its individual income tax by 10 percent in 2006 and 2007, and the new proposal would cut it by another 10 percent over four years starting in 2012. That reduction is needed to benefit small business owners who don't file corporate returns, Adams said.

I guess in Arizona, they reckon that a thirty percent tax cut equals thirty percent budget deficit reduction. Somebody needs to ask The Empire Center how this math works.  In other words, if Arizona keeps cutting taxes will all those pastel houses grow again?  How about all those sand-management jobs, will they come back too?

And then ask them about the income-tax-free state of Washington. 

It's guaranteed that you won't get an answer out of them because this is a world that they pretend doesn't exist.  Although I hear they're working on a blockbuster idea to post online the dental records, x-rays, and prescriptions of every civil servant in the state with subsided health insurance.

[To any civil servant in the state maybe reading this: Not really. I'm only joking. Or at least I don't know of any such plan.]

Look, if somebody wants to make the argument that New York has devolved into a mediocre slacker-state that needs to clean up its act, and that has a world of native potential that it needs to live up to, fine--you get no argument here, I'm with you.  But to pretend that New York is the worst state in the nation, or that it's facing a nationally preeminent ethical or fiscal crisis is just absurd. And then that some individual or group is to blame for this canard, is mendacious and politically-narcissistic.  But it's mostly counterproductive.

It's mostly counterproductive because to move forward with any serious work on campaign finance, ethics and fiscal reform under these ridiculous presumptions is like engineering on top of faulty blueprints--it's just never going to work.  And as such--and before these maudlin 'reckoning' theatrics are played out--the governor and his MSM cohorts will be at the other's throat. 

So pull up a chair and grab some popcorn.  It'll be interesting watching The Times re-reckon reality with its head still in the sand.

 

Wanted: War Time Consigliere

Question: Does anybody know what US Attorney General/Terror Trial Avatar Eric Holder plans to do with this Nigerian crotch-rocket bomber guy? I mention this because he seems to have gone stone-silent on one of his signature issues issues as Attorney General: to protect the rights of isolated extremists doing things like packing themselves onto airplanes with C4 supplied by other isolated extremists in a random confluence of isolated extremist activity.

Maybe Holder will turn Defendant Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab over to the Wayne County District Attorney? Set him loose in Detroit if he can make bail?  Maybe get into an extradition fight with the Dutch over him?  How about charging him with a violation of the the Honest Services Law? Better yet, charge him with the RICO statute, get him to sing, and then serve subpoenas and arrest warrants in Yemen and on the House of Saud. Tough to do though, because Holder's got a boss and we've got a commander-in-chief whom--channeling J. Edgar Hoover and the mob--refuses to acknowledge that organized terrorism even exists. Just a big bunch of isolated extremists randomly bumping into each other like so many beta particles. 

[Yet the president can organize a special-forces operation to destroy New York's governor and then bury his state in a billion dollars worth of health care reform.

Hmm. Bin Laden or Paterson? New York or Yemen? Strong horse or weak horse? What a deep contradiction in the art of enlightened war-making.

I may need to go back and re-read Zen and the Art of Sand Kicking.]

It's unconscionably troubling that Obama, Holder and Homeland Security Czar Janet Napolitano are the same people masterminding New York City's security in the KSM trial. That they even pretend to do so is absurd. Think about it: Abdulmutallab's father calls in his own son, the kid's got no visa, he books a one-way flight with no luggage other than a big bulge in his crotch, his supervisors were sprung from Gitmo on an creative arts furlough, whom DHS and FBI already knew about (just like the Fort Hood fruit loop), and a DHS Secretary--channeling Brownie--stating that the system worked.  All superintended by a president who can't seem to find it within him to utter the word, "terrorist."

Here's an interesting question: Has Janet Napolitano ever seen a NYC subway map? 

Let me assure you that none of the above is ill-tempered, superfluous rhetoric to the folks living in Lower Manhattan.  And Upper Manhattan. And Brooklyn. And Queens. And The Bronx. And Northern New Jersey.  And Long Island. And the rest of New York.

Not to worry though, we can all sleep better tonight in the knowledge that crotch-bomber won't get waterboarded and get his three (Halal) squares a day. Because Eric said so.

If you really and truly believe that terrorists throughout the globe are not planning on punking Obama, Holder and Napolitano--and haven't from Day One of the Enlightened Era--you're as stupid as me and the president think you are.

More Golisano

Look's like it's business as usual in the Land of Six Sigma Savants and stupid jokes, otherwise known as the Fiefdom of Western Golisania.

Last week the Buff News reports:

The business-backed Unshackle Upstate reform initiative is getting ready to dive into politics.

The consortium of business groups and companies, cofounded by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, plans to step up its involvement in next year’s Assembly and State Senate races to back candidates who support its agenda that calls for lower taxes, less regulation and restrained spending by Albany.

Wow.  Sounds like they mean business--this time.  Anyhow try and get your mind around this chunk of dissimulation:

“The reality is, we haven’t been overly successful, but times have changed,” said Brian Sampson, executive director of Unshackle Upstate. “People are angry.”

That anger stems from the state’s growing budget crisis, the more than $8 billion in new taxes and fees imposed earlier this year by the State Legislature and Gov. David A. Paterson, and the aborted coup in the Senate that deadlocked state government for 40 days during June and July, he said.

Hey Brian, my anger stems from the fact that not one word in this Buff News piece mentions or even alludes to the fact that Unshackle Upstate New York's 800 lb. benefactor, Tom Golisano (a resident of the state of Florida), planned "the aborted coup in the Senate that deadlocked state government for 40 days during June and July."

A Florida resident who then--get this one--'officially' hooks up with Unshackle Upstate during this deadlock.

I mean isn't it a little early for the Buff News to start scrubbing history?  Maybe they don't know about the Internets yet.

Only Golisano, his Senate crew and the Buff News authentically believe people are this stupid and amnesic.  And not angry at bush-league provocateurs like Golisano.

And they wonder why there's not been a major statewide WNY official since Ned Regan. 

And not for nothing, if you don't think Golisano and Brian Sampson aren't joined at the hip, think again. [Boy, that took a lot of work, didn't it, Buff News?]

The best of this Buff News howler comes last:

“We also need to reach out to bloggers” in hopes that they will drive people to the Unshackle Upstate Web site, where its agenda is spelled out in detail, Sampson said.

Right, Brian.

Reality Bites (Again)

From New York where, "It's Wall Good:"

Wall Street earnings soared to $49.7 billion in the first three quarters of the year, exceeding the state’s forecast for all of 2009, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said. 

Profits from the broker-dealer operations of New York Stock Exchange member firms were almost two and a half times the previous annual peak in 2000 and topped a November projection of $38.4 billion for the year, DiNapoli said in a report today. Wall Street lost $11.3 billion in 2007 and $42.6 billion in 2008, the comptroller reported. 

To California where they can no longer sell their bonds, at least in the US:

California, the most-populous U.S. state, may begin seeking to sell its bonds to overseas investors after the sale of $36 billion of debt this year has made it more difficult to raise money, Treasurer Bill Lockyer said.

...and there's talk of The Big D:

Bill Watkins, who runs the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, goes out on a limb today: He says the state should start discussing contingency plans with the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve for the day California defaults on its debt.

...or not.

Then there's Illinois, "the new California:"

Moody's cut other Illinois ratings, affecting about $24 billion of outstanding debt, including the state's Build Illinois sales tax revenue bonds, also cut to A2 from A1.

The downgrade gave Illinois the second lowest U.S. state rating from Moody's, with California having the lowest at Baa1, a Moody's spokesman said.

Moody's said Illinois has yet to take action to tackle a structural budget gap of more than $11 billion, equal to about 35 percent of its expenditures.

[For the record, S&P also cut Illinois, and Fitch whacked the state's appropriation debt. ]

And here's some really inflictive dysfunction from the land of Dixie:

A House lawmaker chided his colleagues during impeachment debate Wednesday, arguing the public viewed lawmakers as letting Gov. Mark Sanford off the hook for his misconduct.

Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, spent 17 minutes arguing Sanford should be punished.

"You idiots can't do any better than to meet four times to talk about something as serious as impeachment," Rutherford said, calling the process a "kangaroo court" and arguing the House would spend more time debating striped bass than impeachment.

Then there's the just-sprung ex-con running for office again in Ohio who'll probably be re-elected:

Convicted felon and former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant all but said Thursday morning he would be making a political comeback.

In usual Traficant style - by way of attire and manner - the 68-year-old alluded to what many in Trumbull and Mahoning counties have been wondering since his prison release: Is he bold enough and does he have the support to run for office?

This guy's hard-core. They didn't need no 'honest services' gobbledygook to put him in a cage. They got him on straight-up bribery and racketeering.

Go, Jimmy, u da man!  Just remember to hand deliver your FEC reports.

[BTW: all of the above arose from a single day's cursory scan of the news.]

So, what's a fully-invested NYS/NYC doomsayer--and/or petulant depressive--to do in light of lurid buzz-kill like this? 

Glad you asked, here's what:

Just move the goal posts: This is what has gradually occurred over the past year when the rank-and-file MSM meme that New York is unquestionably (because the Brennan Center said so) the worst POS state in the nation transitioned into "New York can't end up like the worst POS state in the nation--California." They believed themselves to have done this subtly, but they haven't, really. And they know they haven't. 

Just change the score: This is what happens when the critical metrics suddenly change. This one goes like: "By my/our calculations, New York is still going to hell the quickest because if you crunch the census numbers, you'll know that...you jerk!"  This is basically the Larry Iteration.

Just change the game:  This is what happens when suddenly it's no longer about New York having the worst fiscal plight in the US to New York having the highest property tax burden in the US--which suddenly becomes a better mechanism for calculating New York's unique fiscal dysfunction. But ask these same people what a GAAP deficit or CAFR is, and they couldn't tell you. This is a variant of the Fred Dicker/Isaac Newton stream-of-consciousness-syllogizing typology:  New York sucks because I hit a pothole on my way to work this morning and my taxes are too high.

Just change the sport:   This is one goes like: "Well, if New York had the same tax burden as Alabama, it would be worse than California."  This is another Room8 special.  Kind of like if BMW charged the same price for its sedans as GMC, it would be as broke as Chrysler. 

Just get wasted and scream at the ref:  That ground's been covered here.

Just tear off your clothes and streak across the field:  These are the people like Rick Lazio who'll do or say anything to get attention from some similarly motivated editorial boards. They don't really care about California or Illinois or Michigan or Florida, so long as they all collude that New York's worse off than Yemen. Under Mugabe.  And thus, presto-chango, they deem it doth become so.

Just fix the game: Like G. Tom Golisano & Crew who also don't care about California or Illinois, or even New York--so long as they come out in the money. They're all about kneecapping the players and then fixing the score with their ringers like Dean Skelos.  

Just punch out the announcer:  That announcer would be NGD. Enough said.

Like Disco Lemonade (There He Was)

Why is it that every time I hear Eliot Spitzer's running for some kind of office, instead of Tom Petty--No.9's fav mondo rocker--Marcy Playground jumps into my head?

Hangin' round downtown by myself
And I had so much time
To sit and think about myself
And then there she was
Like double cherry pie
Yeah there she was
Like disco superfly
I smell sex and candy here
Who's that lounging in my chair
Who's that casting devious stares
In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream

Hangin' round downtown by myself
And I had too much caffeine
And I was thinkin' 'bout myself
And then there she was
In double platform suede
Yeah there she was
Like disco lemonade
I smell sex and candy here
Who's that lounging in my chair
Who's that casting devious stares
In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream
Mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this must be my dream

Yeah mama, she surely must be a dream.

 

Question of the Day

Do you think Joe Bruno--in his mind's eye--even conceptualizes that he might have done something wrong, or unethical?

I don't think so. 

It's profoundly sad.  And not the way I'd want to spend my final years of life--either grubbing around for more and more lucre and/or on my way to Allenwood or Ray Brook.

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Chris Collins!

The Sertified Six Sigma Savant Strikeforce strikes again. First, concisely deriving   the nature and fiscal repercussions of non-corporate tax breaks:

As a force on the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, County Executive Chris Collins has approved tax breaks for corporate projects.

Some of Collins' own companies enjoy tax breaks because they operate in Empire Zones.

But Collins draws the line on tax breaks for homeowners who build additions to their residences.

"Why should taxpayers subsidize the capital improvements of other taxpayers?" Grant Loomis, a Collins spokesman, asked in explaining why the county executive opposes the "residential tax abatement" proposed by Democrats in the County Legislature.

Awesome repartee, Grant.  That all you? Or directly from the mind of the Black-Belted jokester himself?   In all honestly, we're going to have to take a break here to fully digest that chunk of seminal Six-Sigma symmetry.

OK, we're totally with you now, Grant.  It's kind of like asking: "Why should Shaq be able to strike out A-Rod with hockey pucks?"--during Eli Manning's contract negotiations. Are we getting close to Six-Sigma compliant, Grant?  Tell your boss he's free to use it the next time the Daily News editorial board calls him on his red-neck slur slinging. For instance, use it instead of saying something as implacably stupid as:

"The county executive doesn't remember using the exact same reference but he is not denying that he may have said something. He admits that he probably used harsh language."

Just for the record, let's restate that one: "The county executive doesn't remember using the exact same reference but he is not denying that he may have said something."  Wow. "...he may have said something." Nice, Grant. Kinda like how taxpayers subsidize other taxpayers with tax breaks--or don't. Is this may-have-said-something thing you again, Grant?  Or did Bozo and the rest of the Sertified Six Sigma Savant Shop come up with that gem?

Seriously, Collins must be a real dolt. I mean, do you even know anybody--so much as an elected official--who says things like this? And says them over and over. Do you think this guy even realizes that courtesy of the Daily News--and as we speak here--thousands and thousands of first and last impressions of him are being being formulated on the benches of Washington Square Park, on the tables of Ray's Pizza, and on seats of the A-Train and the New Haven Line?

I don't think he does. I don't think he or his pals know where Washington Square Park is located, if Ray's is any better than Pizza Hut, or the difference between the A-Train, Arthur Avenue, Amityville or Avenue A.  

But on second thought, Chris and Grant, if you guys are reading this, we at NGD think you should absolutely run for governor! You can really win over Staten Island (which is located on Staten Island) with some Mussolini-Sicily-Dump jokes. But just keep in mind that when the guys on Hylan Blvd. say,"Geedafuuugouttahea,"  then followed with something like, "mammaluc," or maybe "cafone," it's just their way of saying that they really dig your jokes, Chris, and to keep 'em coming! 

The only thing we can't figure out is if you should go to Brooklyn first with your anti-Christ material.

Words To Die By

Remember the last end of the world?  That was a year ago autumn when the NY Post got it into their heads that New York would die.  Unless or course, the state immediately cut taxes.  Here's George 'the Reaper' Marlin September '08:

IT'S hard to overstate the cataclysm. The global financial system is in tatters, tens of thousands of Wall Streeters are jobless and the long-term profitability of Wall Street firms has been impaired. This is also a huge hit to Albany's golden goose - taxes on the financial-services sector account for a fifth of New York state's revenue.

Going forward, these firms will be fewer, less profitable and more highly regulated - and so less able to defend the city's dominance in financial services against attacks from London, Frankfurt, Shanghai and Dubai.

Is it even theoretically possible for these people to be more wrong?

Here's Dubai today:

Dubai's fragile real-estate market could suffer another collapse in prices after the city-state asked for a standstill on Dubai World's debt and its struggling real-estate unit Nakheel.

"Should they effectively default, it can become one of the biggest sovereign defaults since the Argentinean crisis," said Marina Akopian, partner at HEXAM Capital, which manages about $440 million in emerging markets. "It will certainly have a very negative impact on the Dubai property market and I suspect on property markets globally."

Here's the Post's "fewer and less profitable" part:

In a report released Tuesday by Thomas P. DiNapoli, the comptroller of New York State, Wall Street profits in 2009 are on track to exceed the record set three years ago, at the height of the credit bubble. The report noted that the four largest investment firms in Manhattan — Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and the investment banking arm of JPMorgan Chase — earned $22.5 billion in the first nine months, in contrast to losses of more than $40.3 billion in 2008, primarily at Merrill.

Now here's the "London, Frankfurt and Shanghai" part:

New York has withstood the worst economic crisis in seven decades and remains the leading global financial center, followed by Singapore, which topped London as investors’ preferred place for doing business, according to Bloomberg Global Poll.

["Frankfurt?!"  Are these people throwing darts at a map?]

Not for nothing, NGD called all this last year: 

More particularly I refer to that paper's opinion page and the hyperventilating, old-economy narrative they set loose every so often named George Marlin. More particularly so, when Marlon and The Post have it in their collective heads that Wall Street is inexorably morphing into Detroit.

Seriously, these people are really, really lost. I mean this thing they write is like Fred and Barney Visit Nostradamus.

Soothsaying like this really isn't that hard; just read the great minds at the Post and do the opposite.

We bring this whole thing up not only to rub the Post's nose in its own nocturnal emissions, but also to make jest of their current prognostications of New York's death...only to be avoided by guess what?...tax cuts for all!  Or else--like Wall Street didn't become Detroit--everybody will leave the state. And then the state will become Detroit.

Here's Marlin's NY Post bookend, EJ McMahon, fretting this month on the death of New York this month and this year.

These people don't stop.  Really they don't.

They're kind of like those idiots that get so wasted at football games they don't even know what down it is, so much as the score or what teams are playing--they just keep yelling the same things over and over and over. Wall Street's dead, so we better cut taxes and fire teachers or the state dies.  This year it's Wall Street's not dead, so we should cut taxes and fire teachers or Wall Street will leave and then kill the state as its dying and its people are leaving for Florida. Or something like that. I think.

There's really no hope for these people. They're like Trotskyites. They'll never be happy unless something burns. But the really intriguing question about them is this: Are they really as dumb as they write or is it that they just don't care about reality?

An Experiment in Thanksgiving

Guys like this are something that I aspire to.

Here's a little experiment in thanksgiving to our current men and women.  Go down to your local firing range (they're everywhere these days) then see if you can get your hands on an AK-47.  Throw in a ten round clip, aim the weapon and then squeeze the trigger as fast as you possibly can. Then, while your shoulder's aching and your ears are ringing, just try to imagine yourself at the other end of that.

Then try to imagine that the rounds (bullets) are coming at you about 50 times faster out of a clip with four times as much ammo.  Then keep in mind that this is what's known as 'small arms fire' (as in not 'large' or 'heavy').

So hats off to all the men and women a long, long way from home doing dangerous things. Hats off as well to other parents, spouses, children and relatives. If I could put into words how uniformly alienating, yet sweetly nostalgic, days like today feel in places like Afghanistan or Korea or Viet Nam, I would. 

Semper fi, all!  And a huge shout-out to all the overworked guys in the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, NY. These guys are really amazing.  People should know a lot more about what they've done.