NY-25's Dan Maffei on Stephen Colbert

Everything you don't want Stephen to ask, he asks. If Dan doesn't get re-elected because of this, Stephen owes him a visit. Maffei was a little too amped up. He seemed like he was pushing it, he was too ready to get himself in on the joke. I don't know how this will play in NY-25.

Update: embedded now. Sorry, had to go to work.

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Better Know a District - New York's 25th - Dan Maffei
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A song for Paul Krugman

You won a Nobel Prize and Geither uses Turbo Tax.

What one trillion dollars looks like

Amazing.

What if we had unions over the last 30 years?

The Washington Post has this piece on the yin / yang economic role of China and the United States. This was the line that got me:

But suppose that China and the United States did have powerful unions. In China, such unions might have pushed for higher wages, social insurance and more domestic consumption. Here, such unions would have preserved more of a manufacturing sector and boosted wages in the service and retail sectors, so that American consumers could have relied more on income than on credit to make their purchases. The two nations would have had more sustainable economic strategies. And the world economy might not now be plunging into what, so far, appears to be a bottomless pit.

But unions are evil we have been told over the last 30 years. Speaking of yin and yang, I firmly believe that there needs to be a balance. You can't have unregulated business and you can't have unions running wild. In these tough economic times, we need to work together, not at cross purposes. We have been at cross purposes for 150 years and look where we are. What if labor and business had worked together all this time? I always wonder about those pictures of Rosie the Riveter from WWII. Could America's 20 and 30 year-olds of today go out and work in those jobs building tanks, planes, bombs and guns if it was necessary? I doubt it.

What 3.6 million job losses looks like

I'd like to see this compared with the Great Depression. Amazing. Notice that it is almost vertical. There doesn't seem to be a flattening effect yet.

Visual guide to the Financial Crisis

Man this is great. Especially for all you visual learners out there - Really breaks it down for us.

Ah...HA! Pensions are to blame for NYS' problems

Splashed across the front page of the Rochester D & C this morning, was some of the worst writing I have seen in a while. And I see alot of bad writing in the course of a day. Trust me. First, there are more numbers thrown around than two teenage math geeks trying to impress Kate Beckinsale. Second, one of the key points is in the second to last sentence. I know my writing is nothing to write home about, but come on! You guys are professionals.
Anyway:
The heavy hitters in the executive branch in NYS are looking to pension reform to solve NYS woes.

Paterson estimates the savings at $10 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year, which starts April 1, and $30 million in the 2010-11 fiscal year.

...
In New York, payouts now exceed $19 billion with 750,000 beneficiaries, up from $18 billion and 738,000 beneficiaries the year before, census figures show.

Currently the state has 10 public employee retirement systems, with membership of 1.3 million. The average state or local government worker's pension was $24,744 for those who retired last year, up from $15,026 a decade ago. Police and firefighters averaged a pension of $58,106 in 2008, compared to $37,413 in 1998.

I get it. When you have a record $15 billion shortfall, every million counts. But the entire budget is $121 billion. $10 million is a drop in the bucket. I can't begrudge a 25 year civil servant $24,744 a year for the rest of their life. Granted, the numbers jumped more than the regular inflation rate. I am assuming this mythical civil servant, who has "bankrupted" NYS served for 25 years. The article doesn't say. It does say something about firemen retiring at a certain point.

Someone however is doing ok in this situation:

Duffy — who had a 29-year career as a Rochester police officer, including eight years as chief, began drawing a $70,255 pension in April 2005, after retiring to run for mayor. His salary as mayor is $127,694.

Its almost 3xs the average employee. How about donating some of that back to NYS to make up our shortfall?
Here are the three important quotes:

Mike Mazzeo, president of the Rochester police officer's union, noted the safeguards limiting how much overtime can affect pensions. But those benefits were negotiated, he said, with labor making concessions to get them. He echoed Savino, saying those pushing reform have some explaining to do.

"When the economy was good, and they did not have to make contributions ... what did they do with that money then?" Mazzeo asked. "What did they spend it on, a ferry?"
...

But — despite a projected $15.4 billion state budget gap over the next 15 months and a nearly $32 million shortfall in Rochester for 2009-10 — the proposals are not likely to go anywhere this year.

"I don't believe that these proposals will be part of the year's budget," said Sen. Diane Savino, D-Staten Island, part of the new Senate majority and newly-appointed chair of the civil service and pension committee. "I don't believe they should be either, for that matter.
...
(the very end of the article)
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli argued that adding a new pension tier now may be premature. He said the state's roughly $120 billion pension fund has consistently provided strong returns, which have led the state to cut pension costs to state and local governments.

"I find it interesting when some people comment about the soaring increase in pension costs," he said. "The reality is we've been cutting them for five years."

DiNapoli warned, however, that the state's pension fund is expected to lose at least 20 percent of its value this year because of the economic downturn, so pension reforms may be needed.

Ok, its not going to go anywhere, the head of the committee in charge of it doesn't believe in it and we have been cutting pensions for the past five years. It sounds like another shortsighted, quick fix that will barely stop the bleeding.

Why make these statements? It seems like more anti-union talk. It doesn't solve the problem and it probably won't be actionable in the NYS Leg. And all this is is "red meat" for the news junkies that follow the D&C comments section. (Don't read those by the way)