This is Why You’re Poor
We need to throw more napalm on the fire if we’re ever going to extinguish it. You scaremongers would claim that fighting an inferno with fuel will only worsen it. But that means you simply don’t understand how tricky it is to run the Empire State.
Unfortunately, a new study indicates that those in charge are only running a once-admired state into the ground. New York is a Dickens novel come to life, as downtrodden, hardscrabble commoners can only hope to scrape through the day without being run over by a carriage or stricken by a crotchety rich jerk’s cane:
A new report by the Fiscal Policy Institute called “Grow Together or Pull Further Apart? Income Concentration Trends in New York,” details the vast and growing economic gap between New York’s wealthiest and poorest communities.
The report states quite plainly that “New York State has the highest income inequality of all states.”
It won’t surprise anyone who’s looked for signs of life in upstate’s downtowns that we’re a borderline Second World Country:
Given its degree of inequality, if New York City were a nation, it would rank 15th worst among 134 countries with respect to income concentration, in between Chile and Honduras.
Is Chile bad? It sounds bad. And I’d personally like to aim higher than Honduras. But the report sadly takes a different tack. For one, the Fiscal Policy Instituters wallow in classic class warfare by making a novel observation regarding humanity, namely that some thrive more than others:
Wall Street, with its stratospheric profits and bonuses, sits within 15 miles of the Bronx–the nation’s poorest county.
But both Wall Street and 161st Street share much in common: those on each are equally hooked on governmental cheese. Corporate bailouts are as insalubrious as unending welfare checks.
Actually, the study refers to the boring stereotype of unfettered capitalism unfairly rewarding those who take risks and work hard to invest and grow the economy. It’s amazing that entrepreneurs can create opportunities without Joe Biden’s gentle guidance.
Those in higher brackets could share how reducing the state’s role benefits all if they weren’t busy creating wealth for themselves and opportunities for the rest of us.
By contrast, the study generators want more mucking. They sadly indulge in the classic leftist ploy that the downtrodden are downtrodden because we haven’t redistributed quite enough income.
The study conductors are praising misery when they, say, announce in a different study that “New York’s Income Tax System Among the Best for Working Families.” Maybe they should go back and read their own “big income gap waaah” study. An astoundingly progressive tax rate sounds great for those in the basement until they realize the penthouse-dwellers aren’t hiring.
Endorsing excess confiscation also implies that the best way to help those at the bottom is to give them stuff taken from those at the top. It’s unfulfilling for both groups, in part because of how it actually creates the disparity that the currency-spreaders allegedly loathe.
Raising taxes even more on the most successful is jealousy as policy. It interdicts upon the finances of those who would otherwise pump the economy. As a result, Tom Golisano is not coming back, while Cliff Lee and LeBron James aren’t coming at all.
The state just lost a pair of congressional seats because so many avoid residing here. The dynamic types who dodge New York aren’t out to do their part to bridge the wealth discrepancy, either. Taking their industriousness elsewhere hurts those who could use work created by big shots spending their money.
Our wretched state’s ridiculous tax grabs and unbearable regulations encourage dependency among low-income earners while aggravating the high-bracketeers who finance it.
Such heavy planning hurts both sides. And the economic masochists want more of it. Poor New York poor people won’t be able to sustain much more help.
Wrangling Rangel
Fool NY-15′s voters 20 times: shame on you. Fool them 21 times… Censured Charlie Rangel capped of a humiliatingly busy week by demonstrating his oft-unacknowledged sense of humor when he claimed there was “no evidence of corruption” after he was found to have committed massive corruption.
His amusing take on his own misdeeds apparently explains why he feels entitled to keep acting roguishly. But the taxing and spending specialist has inflicted far more harm in true New York Democratic style during his tenure’s non-crooked portion.
At least he remains obliviously entertaining. For one, his Michael Jackson Defense is so shameless that it would have made the late King of Pop blush through his pale cheeks:
“History would show that a different standard has been used in this case where I did not curse out the Speaker, I did not try to have sex with minors,” he said, referring to past censure cases.
It’s heartwarming to know a bad guy wasn’t doing something worse. But I’m a typical conservative who focuses upon how the congressional mainstay is a corrupt scumbag instead of his history of not sexing up high schoolers. Rangel’s misappropriation is merely the culmination: he promoted bad policy even when he wasn’t enriching himself.
Regardless, the myth persists that Rangel helped his constituents when he wasn’t helping himself to rent-controlled apartments. It’s irrelevant whether his constituents believe it or not: governmental funds didn’t suddenly create a relatively meager oasis in Manhattan’s most famous desert.
Still, some won’t accept who he is. As an example, his Wikipedia entry includes the remarkable claim that Rangel deserves credit for Harlem’s semi-rebirth, at least the parts of the neighborhood people don’t avoid. Such hilariously partisan blather is egregious even by the proletariat web encyclopedia’s standards:
He played a significant role in the creation of the 1995 Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation and the national Empowerment Zone Act, which helped change the economic face of Harlem and other inner-city areas.
They would have better off without his alleged help. Gentrification due to rich private citizens rediscovering brownstones along with entrepreneurs tapping into a neglected market combined to fix the area. On the other hand, federal intervention helped Harlem as much as the stimulus helped the rest of America.
In fact, the money taken from the economy and thrown in Harlem’s direction dramatically slowed the process of private cash injection. At best, some of the federal cash thrown above Central Park stuck to a few blocks; in that case, it only took a few decades to see a few signs of life.
Fellow Empire Stater Chuck Schumer subscribes to the latter theory, although he still failed in his effort to sock it to millionaires on New Year’s Day. No higher levies for rich folks? I guess they’ll have to take their money and create jobs without Joe Biden’s help.
Aside from his personal investment in the slick suit and pomade industries, Rangel is the ideal combination of personal and political corruption. If one is going to redistribute income, why not do some of it to oneself?
In his disregard for laws and decency, Rangel also serves as his party’s tattered mascot. Yes, even Sean Hannity would admit there are corrupt and/or shameless Republicans off-camera after Greta’s show began. But this state’s Democrats are better manufacturing humiliation, which makes them much worse.
Many of those in power here are semi-unique: criminal or not, they’re sleazy in their own individual ways. Notably, Western New York’s most famous representatives during the Barack Obama have been amateur wrestler Eric Massa and shameless denture anecdote spinner Louise Slaughter. Our reps reside in the damp basement apartment of the People’s House.
The executive branch’s seat-fillers are similarly sterling. Shameless Wall Street bullier and hooker buyer Eliot Spitzer set the standard for Yankee fan David Paterson, who is in turn being replaced by former HUD scoundrel Andrew Cuomo. Worst, they all advocate a command economy even when they manage to behave.
They think they can spend your earning better than you can. On a related note, the shifty lefties all share tremendous antipathy for corporations, aside from the bailed-out failures and those politically connected enough to cut out favors. Their goals are appalling whether they enact them legally or not.
Rangel is merely the worst at present. The Ways and Means meanie is a greasily arrogant embodiment of a politician who thinks he shouldn’t have to obey the same rules as us peasants. But he hurts the nation even when he’s not thieving.
Loco Loko Ban
Is there anything more demented than consuming an icky-tasting, artificially- and vaguely fruit-flavored drink containing four alcohol and two caffeine units? Well, yes: banning the right to consume it is downright insane in an ominously annoying manner.
Infamous malt libation Four Loko may be the most disgusting Kool-Aid variation possible, and my research indicates it is a guaranteed hangover causer. But that doesn’t excuse confiscating our right to drink something gross.
Of course, complex concepts like the freedom to intake whatever the hell you want are foreign to New York’s Nanny Democrats. Their kingpin maintains his relentless desire to destroy your options. To wit, hyper-alcoholized and heavily-caffeinated Four Loko is basically illegal largely thanks to patronizing quasi-fascist Chuck Schumer.
The senator with the permanent crap-eating grin first did what he could to keep New York State residents from purchasing a product containing two legal drugs. Of course the government can take away the right to choose what you want to drink. It’s not an abortion or anything:
New Yorkers have around another month to get drunk on the “blackout in a can” Four Loko. According to the New York Daily News, “The State Liquor Authority has pressured the state’s biggest beer distributors to stop delivering Four Loko and other caffeinated alcoholic cocktails to New York retailers by Dec.10.” In addition, Phusion Projects, the makers of Four Loko, has agreed to stop shipping the drink to New York distributors after November 19th. As an extra bonus, any store caught selling Four Loko without proof it was ordered before the deadline risks heavy fines. Keep your receipts handy, store owners, before the SLA’s goon squad comes after you.
They didn’t bother themselves with anything pesky like passing a law. The only thing worse than ending sales of a product which contains the same chemicals as a rather big Labatt draft with a Starbucks chaser is doing so without voting and signing.
The interdiction is creepily frightening precisely because it’s a ban of something as simple as a party beverage. The feds think they can do as they please, and they haven’t been proved wrong yet. Simultaneously, the ban is a hassle on its own from bureaucrats who just know they need to make decisions for us.
Knowing the rest of the country looks like they will be suffering a lack of purchasing freedom along with us endlessly regulated Empire State residents is no consolation. The good news is that Four Loko aficionados won’t have to waste gas money jaunting to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont, or similarly nearby states to purchase the unhinged fruit cocktail. The bad news is that it’s because it won’t be for sale in those places or anywhere else in America, as the FDA is wretchedly taking after New York and effectively banning the cans.
Again, why bother with the legal process? Next on their agenda will be prohibiting six-pack sales for those who have recently patronized a Tim Hortons, and no, they won’t bother to get a legislator to sponsor a bill first.
They already have a successful tactic, whereby Schumer pushes an unaccountable federal agency to infringe upon our right to consumption. He’s so good at being a senator that he doesn’t even need to pass laws to pester us.
He’ll partake in whatever scuzziness is necessary. The man with such an onerous record that he even makes us miss Al D’Amato was as manipulative as usual: he appeared at a press conference with the grandmother of a young woman who died after drinking the concoction in question after taking a diet pill earlier in the day. It was a typically shameless attempt to exploit tragedy in a most Schumerian way.
It’s disgusting to leverage the suffering of one family to promote the government taking away a simple right for everyone else. A tragic but lone exception can be used to infringe on all behavior, but only by someone cynically motivated to increase state or federal power in every capacity possible.
Of course, such galling behavior is expected from the oily senator in question. He learned it from a House counterpart, which is why we call it the Louise Slaughter Technique. I have declined their request to appear at a bicameral press conference banning coffee mugs because I burned my lip that one time.
Regardless, Schumer’s been particularly irksome since his woeful reelection. Ending sales of a skanky party drink isn’t even the most irritating prohibitive fiat endorsed by Chuck Nasty this month: he’s also after the scourge of reusable shopping bags.
Shockingly, the hippies were misguided. It turns out the amount of lead in those oh so Earth friendly containers is actually hazardous for our not-really Mother. The tremendous bacteria buildup isn’t good for humans, either.
The Earth-unfriendly grocery-holders already miss the point: um, every bag is reusable if you don’t throw it away or poke a hole in it. Regardless, the Gaia stormtroopers would like us to forget how they used to freak out that we simply had to use the PBS tote bag-style carriers.
They can’t make up their mind about how they want to destroy our options. Choose a direction, you intolerant treelickers. They love the planet as much as they hate free will.
But this state has again set an infuriating standard for intrusion. It’s especially bad for New Yorkers in New York City, where evil elf Michael Bloomberg is again attempting to cut off salt when he’s not keeping Knickerbockers from consuming trans fats while forcing hungry restaurant patrons to look at calorie counts on menu boards in a shameless attempt to destroy joy. And don’t you dare ask if you can smoke in here.
It’s a thoroughly annoying campaign, and Schumer is leading the charge. I’d like to toast everyone who voted for six more years of a self-aggrandizing camera whore and his schoolmarm-style belief that it’s his job to ban anything that could ever potentially be dangerous. I would use a fruity malt caffeinated/alcoholed potable to toast. But you know how that goes.
All’s Not Well at Honeywell
When government gets in the way of business, all businesses can do is deal with the government. That’s why only suckers aren’t getting on the dole as your money rapidly becomes our money.
Take Buffalo company Honeywell, which has been granted a fortune to manufacture de facto golf cart batteries. Americans are propping up an industry against their will thanks to the deal. But some merely care that the development means a handful of locals will prosper:
The good news involves Honeywell on Peabody St. near downtown. The specialty materials provider has received a 27-million dollar grant from the Energy Department to develop a critical component of lithium ion batteries. Honeywell will become the first U-S manufacturer to do so.
Jay Kelly, Honeywell’s Buffalo Site Leader, says “we will be adding six new jobs to help us run our sample plant and there will also be approximately 15 engineering and construction jobs related to the building of the sample plant. Honeywell will build a sample plant to produce and test the new battery.
Of course, it’s only “good news” if we disregard both how expensive the project is and who’s paying for it. By comparison, corporate goon tycoons acting privately are amateurs at concentrating wealth among the privileged few. Wall Street jerks should take notes.
But who cares about costs when the deal brings jobs to Buffalo? Specifically, there are a whole 21 of them coming. Yes, the price works out to over one million dollars in taxpayer financing for each created position. But, at current federal rates, they might actually be under budget. And who cares? It’s someone else’s money!
Further, why worry that the 15 engineering and construction jobs are temporary project positions? We could probably find shovels for them to permanently man after construction is completed. It’s the way of the stimulus.
Honeywell itself certainly doesn’t feel bad. Why would they? After all, the company’s Powerball numbers just got picked. From the tone of their press release celebrating the score, they think the ability to speak geek justifies being spoiled:
Honeywell (NYSE: HON) announced today that it has signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy for a $27.3 million grant to produce a critical component of lithium-ion batteries used in hybrid and electric vehicles.
The grant is intended to help Honeywell become the first domestic supplier of high-purity lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6), a conductive salt that is one of four critical components in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are becoming more popular for use in a variety of applications because they are lighter and smaller than other batteries, hold their charge well, and can handle the numerous charge and discharge cycles required by modern electronics and vehicles.
While I’m not anti-high-purity lithium hexafluorophosphate per se, I am anti-waste-your-money-without-your-consent; you see the difference. If the power sources in question are such great investments, why aren’t private conglomerates lining up to make money by investing in these oh so conductive salts?
It’s telling nobody’s buying this product on its own. Or at least it should be. The technology doesn’t exist to run our devices on garbage-powered flux capacitors or the like. That’s why the project isn’t self-funded by willing consumers who get a desirable good out of the transaction. Instead, governmental misfits fund the hybrid moments.
Honeywell’s work is being subsidized by the equivalent of a wealthy aunt. We can only bleed her purse dry for so long, as the lack of retail foot traffic will eventually bite our bankrupt keisters.
America is frustratingly aping the Spains of the world, namely by assuming that the only thing keeping us from living as Mother Gaia intended is a massive cash infusion that greedy capitalists are unwilling to provide. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work to publicly subsidize something that, well, doesn’t work. Doing so explains why the Spanish economy is muy malo.
But the only option when you can’t see land is to tread water. Businesses are merely doing what they can to get in good with Washington partway through the Obamaera, whether such actions take the form of Goldman Sachs donating feverishly to the incumbent or Wal-Mart rolling back and supporting Democraticare.
As with many other companies facing a Greecified economic environment, Honeywell is just trying to make a good deal for itself. Of course, the fact they got a good deal is a bad sign for everyone else.
As a result, the public is left funding the unbearable folly of gas station coffee-weak batteries. More and more will eventually be heavily soaked as financiers: after successful people have been punished to capacity, the present administration will alter the definition of “rich” to any fat cat who earns a weekly paycheck.
But at least unemployment is down ever since the present bout of federal skullduggery began, even though it’s not. The president is failing to create jobs by treating Avatar as a documentary. Next, the smart wager is that he’ll try a perpetual census. Lowering the jobless rate by hiring people to constantly count all the other people is only slightly more inane than sponsoring green battery creation.
As for the handful of eco-warriors who actually fall for buying a vehicle equipped with a feeble battery sporting a Made in Buffalo sticker, the rest of us ask that you please stay in the right lane as you putter along at 48 miles per hour on the Thruway. Consider it a courtesy to those who helped pay for your hippiemobile, namely every taxpayer passing you.
Tea Partiers Forget to be Violent, Prejudiced Loons
They’re rather subdued for alleged militants. A large contingent of small-government aficionados assembled to greet the Tea Party Express in Buffalo on Monday as a means of opposing government’s expanding tendencies both nationally and locally. They were also supposed to display how sexist/racist/homophobic they are, although, whoops, nobody present acted how Janeane Garofalo thinks they do. I refuse to allow the possibility that she is wrong cross my mind.
That said, I didn’t survey the crowd to see if there were clandestine bigots present who are also in Carl Paladino’s address book, although it would of course be silly to freak out about an entire movement because one of their preferred candidates negligently passed along crudely and/or disgustingly unfunny e-mails. Foes can enjoy sifting through the gubernatorial hopeful’s sent mail, although they’ve apparently found no occasions where he wished for a political rival’s death. That would be beyond over the line.
But ignoring the traditional media’s portrayal has become second nature for this group. On that note, it’s amusing that the protest took place within sight of The Buffalo News building. While I’m uncertain if any unassigned staffers walked over, failure to do so just means they missed the awesomeness that was hearing Victoria Jackson’s songs about her take on Obamacare and whether she thinks Obama is a communist. The answers are 1) she doesn’t care for it, and 2) yes. Her rhetorical intemperance was overcome by her still-evident adorableness.
The other speakers served lots of delicious red meat. It’s always fun to boo Harry Reid, Democraticare, and local shame Louise Slaughter. But everyone did so without shrieking, resorting to cuss words, smashing property, maintaining the president is a Nazi, or any other unseemly behavior. Nobody in the well-behaved gathering slurred ethnicities or planned an armed insurrection, either, as every single person forgot to exploit stereotypes for some baffling reason.
Instead, everyone seemed to just want options. The number of attendees served as a reminder of how infuriating it is that there wasn’t at least a choice for Buffalo’s mayoral race, which is especially galling considering how City Hall fritters away cash like the type of lottery winner who’s also been on Cheaters.
Of course, Buffalo’s leaders are just aping the state’s profligate manner. As that melodramatic kid in the all-time favorite Partnership for a Drug-Free America ad would explain, “You, all right? I learned it by watching you!”
Thankfully, people such as speaker Leonard Roberto, who announced during brief remarks his intention to run against Brian Higgins, are out to provide voters with indispensable options. We can all enjoy the prospect of being able to choose more than the same person as either a candidate of the Democratic or Working Families party.
On a related note, the reason for the protest was embodied by its location. The area around the Commercial Slip has largely sat desolate for decades; there’s finally some progress after endless governmental spending and planning, although it’s almost seemingly come despite bureaucratic efforts.
Alternately, reducing the tax burden and opening the area to pioneering entrepreneurs would have brought commerce and a high volume of foot traffic to the site by now. As it stands, the retail activity is largely limited to selling rattlesnake flags at protests which, compelling or not, will only take place intermittently. I did what I could to contribute economically.
As for the rest of the city, the virtually limitless potential is sadly contrasted by the prevalent stagnancy. By chance, decades of federal, state, county, and city scheming have provoked economic rot. The left can sputter all they want over the stupid e-mails Paladino forwarded. It’s actually helpful in exposing how they can’t differentiate between a dubious sense of humor and actual racism.
Paladino’s foes can pretend his carelessness or questionable take on comedy serves a genuine distraction. In a way, it does: it’s an attempt by big-government fanatics to try to change the subject away from how their failed policies have created economic devastation.
Those who came know where the real problems begin. The press and the president’s dwindling band of supporters can pretend they’re dealing with scared, angry bigots. But the scene adjacent to the Skyway demonstrated how demonstrators should behave.
Everyone was demanding, adamantly but respectfully, one thing: let us do it. The people can’t be any worse at spending the money they earn than most politicians are at it.
Unfree Market
You may have made your annual trip to the Broadway Market last week to stockpile Easter delicacies. If the pattern follows, you will then understandably forget that the obsolete bazaar exists until Palm Sunday 2011. But it will likely be there next year despite going 51 weeks with little patronage.
Curiously, the public keeps the establishment open even if most of us don’t shop there aside from those rare occasions when one needs to acquire a butter lamb. To be clear, the city owns the Market, which is how the lights have been kept on long after economic reality dictates it should have gone dark.
Running a shopping enterprise is just another position directly or indirectly on Buffalo’s payroll. The municipality can’t figure out why the rot won’t stop despite all the money it spends. Hmm. Sadly, the city has been unwittingly provoking its own decline for years by making what’s private public. In the end, propping up certain enterprises only hurts the same places’ fortunes, along with everyone else’s.
Essentially, Buffalo’s government is financially promoting tradition. With the precedent of conserving sentimentality through public funding in mind, City Hall may as well pay to resurrect AM&A’s, Freddie’s Doughnuts, and The Sample.
Reviving memories and traditions of a bygone era is already literally keeping the city from moving into the future, so why not completely immerse ourselves in the past? As seen on the East Side, the government doesn’t care whether such businesses could succeed on their own.
While they’re at it, they should also petition the King and Queen of Ontario to re-build Crystal Beach Amusement Park. After all, so many of us have wonderful recollections of desperately scarfing down funnel cakes before reaching the end of the line for the Comet or Laff in the Dark; the fact that the park doesn’t presently exist shouldn’t prevent Western New Yorkers from being granted the right to again experience the unwise rite of passage. Concerned Canadians shouldn’t worry: Buffalo will cover the price tag, naturally.
But propping up the past isn’t cheap. Of course, no one in power will question why areas like the blocks surrounding the Market are so decrepit. The multi-level mini-stimulus taking place in Buffalo, whereby various governments provide loans to retailers or bribe others to move in or not move away, does nothing but vacuum private capital out of an economy that desperately needs it.
It’s not the companies’ fault for taking what’s available: the area’s administrators are the ones who are handing out bags full of currency. Reduce the tax burden by ending such payments, and companies might just move here or stay voluntarily.
Instead, there’s little income left under the present system to nourish both the commercial and residential sectors. That leads to, oh, struggling vendor assemblages in rundown neighborhoods.
The reason the city has to subsidize places like the Broadway Market is precisely because the city subsidizes places like the Broadway Market. It’s no different than what’s going on nationally, as taking our money to artificially nourish companies of all types isn’t helping for some baffling reason.
It might seem distressing, but the proper course is to let the Broadway Market expire naturally if the customers aren’t there most of the year. That said, ending the practice of letting the city play real-life Monopoly might be the decision that actually invigorates and saves such businesses.
Let people spend where they want instead of impounding and redistributing income, and it will ultimately provoke a revival of the area’s prospects. The Market might even be able to support itself. Alternately, we’ve seen what it costs the city to keep the place open.
