Albany has been phenomenal about making the State’s economy more dependent on the city, and the city more dependent on financial services. And the politics of the city seems 1) ever more dependent on financial services tax revenue 2) and really wants to punish the sector that pays most of its budget. And handouts from Albany.
The previous example is the “temporary” fracking ban, which would have been a huge boon for parts of the state that needed it. Instead, all those jobs, investment, and for the locals, property appreciation, stayed over the border in Pennsylvania. This was also concurrent with RFK Jr.’s biggest “success”—the closer of Indian point. So New York increased its carbon emissions while paying slightly more for gas than needed. There was also a moratorium on natural gas hookups, which were not great for people who want to live places and have energy.
I’m sure there are much worse state governments than what we have in Albany, but dear God is it friggin’ embarrassing how useless these people are (with some honorable exceptions of course). I think New York officials have a “resource curse” mentality, like you see in petrostates or very beautiful places like California, where they figure “eh, this is New York, the center of the universe; these people aren’t going anywhere, where would they even go?” So they’re complacent and of very little use to their constituents and they let things stagnate and decay.
Also I happen to live in an area where every single person who represents me, from city council all the way up to state senate and even US House, is a socialist of some description or another (plus the current mayor was my state senator before he got his new gig). Which is weird because this neighborhood is actually quite mixed: lots of families with little kids, and immigrants from places as far-flung as Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, the Balkans, and more. But of course primary turnout is always minuscule—and of course it is, because here in New York we hold elections in off-years and off-off-years and just generally times when they know the only people who will vote are highly motivated partisans and special interest groups.
What a shitshow. It’s sometimes amazing to me that this place works at all, and I shudder to think what will happen to the place if and when the financial industry and their tax money are well and truly gone. Some of them are already off in Connecticut and so on, but it could get a lot worse, and I really worry about the consequences of a commercial property tax–revenue crisis if midtown gets emptier and emptier over time… a lot to worry about around here, it seems to me.
The thing is that New York tried that in the second half of the 20th century. You can make it so bad people run. The city nearly went bankrupt. At the time, the state had the money to bail out the city. If NYC has that problem again, I don’t know where NY state could get the kind of money. If the city is experience a crisis, the state would be too! The business environment played a role, but it was crime that really drove people. It turned a slow but steady trickle into a stampede. I don’t think the modern New York population would tolerate levels of crime anywhere near that high (nor should they). It took murder reaching a peak of 6/day in 1990 for the political machine that ran the city to be thrown out, not to return to power until De Blasio. Hochul faced a very real challenge, in part due to a crime spike from Lee Zeldin. That spike was a fraction of what was normal in the 70s and 80s. The financial services industry is far more mobile now. The wonderful things about New York City will be worth less if people are afraid of getting mugged, stabbed, shot. Or arrested for an obvious case of self defense (like that poor bodega owner).
De Blasio was a bad omen, even though he was kind of incompetent at forcing through his worst policy instincts (in part because Cuomo enjoyed humiliating him). De Blasio meant the machine was back in power, and all its clients-the unions and non-profits- wanted to make up for 20 years of lost kickbacks.
Financial services has grown in its relevance importance to NY state revenue. It’s been a major source of state revenue since the 19th century, but New York (including the city) also used to have a decent sized manufacturing state, for instance. Upstate NY used to be home to a lot of industrial concerns. That is not the case anymore.
Cuomo’s startup New York was a disaster. For a job that paid 100k, it cost something like 300k in lost revenue and direct support. Plus, you bribe new business to come in, and screw the businesses already here? Why not create a business environment that is attractive to new and existing businesses? You can still have healthy tax revenue. Just don’t make it a nightmare to open and operate a business.
I thought of a phrase - “cargo cult socialism.”
Cargo cults do all these rituals for cargo to show up, not knowing how stuff is made or deliveries are possible. Cargo cult socialism sees the Amazon delivery, likes the stuff, but doesn’t know how the stuff is made, and thinks the people who made it are the problem. It’s the “how am I broke? I still have checks” mentality to actual goods and services.
Highly recommend the most recent episode of Andrew Sullivan’s podcast where he spoke to this fascinating guy David Thomson (apparently an absolutely legendary film critic, though I’d never heard of him). They talked about this whole format-bending thing you were talking about. Among other things, Thomson said he might argue that The Wire (and one or two others I can’t remember right now) belongs on a list of best films of all time—and I personally would vote for that, because there are few moving-images-on-a-screen products I’ve ever seen that were as good as that absolute masterpiece of a show.
Albany has been phenomenal about making the State’s economy more dependent on the city, and the city more dependent on financial services. And the politics of the city seems 1) ever more dependent on financial services tax revenue 2) and really wants to punish the sector that pays most of its budget. And handouts from Albany.
The previous example is the “temporary” fracking ban, which would have been a huge boon for parts of the state that needed it. Instead, all those jobs, investment, and for the locals, property appreciation, stayed over the border in Pennsylvania. This was also concurrent with RFK Jr.’s biggest “success”—the closer of Indian point. So New York increased its carbon emissions while paying slightly more for gas than needed. There was also a moratorium on natural gas hookups, which were not great for people who want to live places and have energy.
I’m sure there are much worse state governments than what we have in Albany, but dear God is it friggin’ embarrassing how useless these people are (with some honorable exceptions of course). I think New York officials have a “resource curse” mentality, like you see in petrostates or very beautiful places like California, where they figure “eh, this is New York, the center of the universe; these people aren’t going anywhere, where would they even go?” So they’re complacent and of very little use to their constituents and they let things stagnate and decay.
Also I happen to live in an area where every single person who represents me, from city council all the way up to state senate and even US House, is a socialist of some description or another (plus the current mayor was my state senator before he got his new gig). Which is weird because this neighborhood is actually quite mixed: lots of families with little kids, and immigrants from places as far-flung as Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, the Balkans, and more. But of course primary turnout is always minuscule—and of course it is, because here in New York we hold elections in off-years and off-off-years and just generally times when they know the only people who will vote are highly motivated partisans and special interest groups.
What a shitshow. It’s sometimes amazing to me that this place works at all, and I shudder to think what will happen to the place if and when the financial industry and their tax money are well and truly gone. Some of them are already off in Connecticut and so on, but it could get a lot worse, and I really worry about the consequences of a commercial property tax–revenue crisis if midtown gets emptier and emptier over time… a lot to worry about around here, it seems to me.
The thing is that New York tried that in the second half of the 20th century. You can make it so bad people run. The city nearly went bankrupt. At the time, the state had the money to bail out the city. If NYC has that problem again, I don’t know where NY state could get the kind of money. If the city is experience a crisis, the state would be too! The business environment played a role, but it was crime that really drove people. It turned a slow but steady trickle into a stampede. I don’t think the modern New York population would tolerate levels of crime anywhere near that high (nor should they). It took murder reaching a peak of 6/day in 1990 for the political machine that ran the city to be thrown out, not to return to power until De Blasio. Hochul faced a very real challenge, in part due to a crime spike from Lee Zeldin. That spike was a fraction of what was normal in the 70s and 80s. The financial services industry is far more mobile now. The wonderful things about New York City will be worth less if people are afraid of getting mugged, stabbed, shot. Or arrested for an obvious case of self defense (like that poor bodega owner).
De Blasio was a bad omen, even though he was kind of incompetent at forcing through his worst policy instincts (in part because Cuomo enjoyed humiliating him). De Blasio meant the machine was back in power, and all its clients-the unions and non-profits- wanted to make up for 20 years of lost kickbacks.
Financial services has grown in its relevance importance to NY state revenue. It’s been a major source of state revenue since the 19th century, but New York (including the city) also used to have a decent sized manufacturing state, for instance. Upstate NY used to be home to a lot of industrial concerns. That is not the case anymore.
Cuomo’s startup New York was a disaster. For a job that paid 100k, it cost something like 300k in lost revenue and direct support. Plus, you bribe new business to come in, and screw the businesses already here? Why not create a business environment that is attractive to new and existing businesses? You can still have healthy tax revenue. Just don’t make it a nightmare to open and operate a business.
I thought of a phrase - “cargo cult socialism.”
Cargo cults do all these rituals for cargo to show up, not knowing how stuff is made or deliveries are possible. Cargo cult socialism sees the Amazon delivery, likes the stuff, but doesn’t know how the stuff is made, and thinks the people who made it are the problem. It’s the “how am I broke? I still have checks” mentality to actual goods and services.
I hope that little hesitation after saying "Buck Rogers in the 25th" was because you wanted to say "25th and a half century."
Highly recommend the most recent episode of Andrew Sullivan’s podcast where he spoke to this fascinating guy David Thomson (apparently an absolutely legendary film critic, though I’d never heard of him). They talked about this whole format-bending thing you were talking about. Among other things, Thomson said he might argue that The Wire (and one or two others I can’t remember right now) belongs on a list of best films of all time—and I personally would vote for that, because there are few moving-images-on-a-screen products I’ve ever seen that were as good as that absolute masterpiece of a show.
I'm new to soccer but I thought the USMNT made Belgium look really good. Shameful ask: can someone explain (simply) the rules for "offside" please?