Wednesday, April 22, 2009

You're getting screwed either way...

From the Daily News:

New York's higher property taxes are going to take a bite out of your wallet - even if you don't own property.

State regulators recommended Tuesday that Con Edison be allowed to hike electric rates by roughly 7%, with more than half of the $785 million increase caused by higher property taxes and assessments.

New York raised property taxes 7.5% at the start of the year to help balance its budget.

At the same time, the city also raised the assessed value of property to take into account the real estate boom.

For Con Edison, which is New York's single biggest taxpayer, the annual property tax bill is now $1.1 billion a year - which state regulators are required to pass along to the utility's customers.


And in more great financial news:

Health Insurance Costlier Than Rent in NYC

RENT TAKES HALF OF INCOME

Unemployment Benefits Drying Up For Thousands Of City Residents

And this is only under 8 years of Bloomberg. Just imagine what he'll accomplish in 12!

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a great plan with Blue Cross/Blue Shield (for a single parent and children). I pay $810 a month. It is an HMO here in NY but my daughter is working in Massachusetts and they have a guest membership program that covers her in Massachusetts till she is 23 years old or 25 if she is a student. I don't think too many people are paying $4000 a month for health insurance.If they are it is by choice and they can afford it. I think my payment is way too high and I hope someone can make it more affordable for me and others like me.

jerry rotondi said...

Spoken in hizzoner's usual whining nasal tone:

A excerpt from a recent TV ad run by Emperor Bloomberg!

"...New York City is still a great place to live...".

For the high rollers maybe.

NO 3rd TERM!

Anonymous said...

You call it a good plan?

I think that $810 a month is exorbitant for a lower earning family.

Are you perhaps a visitor from the planet Mars?

4 more years of Bloomberg and watch your premium go way up along with all the other increases in the cost of living just so Mike's wealthy pals can continue to grow even wealthier.

A VOTE FOR BLOOMBERG IS SUBSIDIZING THE RICH!

If in doubt who to cast your ballot for....ANYBODY ELSE!

Make sure he's dumped this November!

Anonymous said...

It is laughable that you blame these things on Bloomberg. If it weren't for him, NYC would be in worse shape than it was in the 70s.
Blame more all those municipal union workers - let's keep giving them lifetime benefits and pay after they retire after only 20 years and assume we can just keep paying and paying . . .

Anonymous said...

$810 a month for HMO insurance? wow! That's almost $10K a year just for health insurance...

Anonymous said...

The global financial crisis is all Bloomturd's fault!

Anonymous said...

It's precisely because of him that NYC is in the shape it's in!

That "great financial wizard" Mayor Mike couldn't spot the economic collapse coming until it was right under our noses!

How come I was able to and moved my money into treasury bills a year and a half ago.

So what do we need 4 more years of an inept financial forecaster for...to get us into a deeper hole?

Retire Emperor Bloomberg at the polls!

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg is the captain of the vessel...and as such he bears the full responsibility for the actions of his crew.

And what a crew they are.

Overly wealthy developer cut throats, mogul real estate brigands, various go-fers, servants and butt kissers!

Any further explanation required?

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg has turned NYC into a ghost ship.

Foolish voters are his enslaved crew!

Anonymous said...

THE BUCK STOPS AT BLOOMBERG...
JUST LIKE THE END OF THE LINE IS AT GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL !

OF COURSE HE'S AT FAULT AND THE VOTERS ARE FULL AWARE OF THIS REGARDLES OF THE SPIN HIZZONER IS PUTTING ON IT TO DISSUADE US!

georgetheatheist said...

"The global financial crisis is all Bloomturd's fault."

Not so, Amigo. The global financial crisis is the fault of

ANDREW CUOMO

who as Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the late 1990's encouraged the sub-prime mortgages.

(Source: "Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie. How the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history gave birth to the mortgage crisis" by Wayne Barrett in the Village Voice of 8/5/08)

Anonymous said...

Atheist, You do better with your whacko Ayn Rand elitism than you do in assessing the mortgage crisis. I'm sure the banks that engaged in predatory lending are totally free from blame in your view.

georgetheatheist said...

Clinton and Cuomo got the ball rolling: cheap housing for everyone. Classical Liberal guilt and meddling. The banks had to go along with the ploy. Cuomo persecuted banks that did not lend to the undeserving.

Begin the beguine.

Anonymous said...

Once again, everything that ever happened in NYC is Bloomberg's fault. Even if the sources of our troubles extend far out into the world. All Bloomberg's fault. Except, of course, for Cuomo. Georgie is absolutely correct. Cuomo singlehandedly forced banks to be greedy and withhold details of their predatory loans when dangling subprimes in front of people they knew would default, thus enabling them to foreclose at a profit and begin the cycle again. All Cuomo's fault. Except for what's Bloomberg's fault. Just those two guys. Madoff who? Enron who?

georgetheatheist said...

"...singlehandedly forced banks to be greedy and withhold details of their predatory loans..."

Are you kidding? The nation's banks were watching on Jan, 18, 1999 when on the steps of Martin Luther King's old church in Atlanta, Cuomo touted a 6.5 BILLION settlement of a HUD home-discrimination suit levelled against the Texas -based Columbia National Mortgage Company.

The message: banks had better get their asses in gear making loans to people who were risky prospects.

Anonymous said...

Sorry...
"George" is right.
It started early with Clinton etc.

Bending over to accommodate the political "correctness" of every under-earning citizen being able to afford a home allowed various lending institutions to write bad loans.

That eventually became BAD DEBT!

Then they tried to chop it up into smaller pieces and sell off this BAD DEBT to others.

You can slice USDA prime beef into cubes and make shish-kabob but
it's still prime meat.

In an attempt to disguise substandard beef you might decide to grind it up into hamburger and season it with this and that.

But its still sub prime crap and
nobody wants it...not even your dog.

So you wind up stuck like we are right now with a rotten economy
that stinks just like bad meat.

georgetheatheist said...

From Wayne Barret (op.cit):

"Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 THAT GAVE BIRTH TO THE COUNTRY'S CURRENT CRISIS. He took actions that-in combination with many other factors-helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets WITHOUT PUTTING IN PLACE THE MEANS TO MONITOR THEIR INCREASINGLY RISKY INVESTMENTS. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a SWEETHEART LENDER WITH SKY-HIGH LOAN CEILINGS AND NO MONEY DOWN, and HE legalized what a federal judge has branded 'kickbacks' to brokers that have fueled the sale of OVERPRICED AND UNSUPPORTABLE LOANS. THREE TO FOUR MILLION FAMILIES ARE NOW FACING FORECLOSURE, AND CUOMO IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY."

(Of course Barret did not mention [see above] the now decade-old Cuomo announcement against Columbia National Mortgage Company on Martin Luther King Day.)

Andrew Cuomo, a scion of Queens - a veritable piece of Queens Crap started the world financial melt-down.

See, the global mess was Queens- generated.

Put it in your pipe and smoke it. Smoke it good.

Anonymous said...

George, all you've got is that one article by your buddy Wayne Barret. You can cite it over and over, ad infinitum, but you're not going to convince anyone who's read a little more widely.

If you want to blame the lending process itself, it goes WAY back before Clinton and Cuomo. It starts with FHA and VA loans that to this day let people like you and me afford our homes. Tell me, if you own did you pay 100% cash? Or even 50%? If not, then you have this legacy to thank.

Otherwise, you could also pin some blame on the greedy bastards who chopped and sliced and diced and tried to sell the junk as AA Prime. But of course, you would never fault the Brave Capitalists.

By the way, I'd love to smoke the pipe. But you're bogarting it.

georgetheatheist said...

"It goes way back before Clinton and Cuomo."

Historians will be the arbiters of who's at fault. But there are causes of historical phenomena, straws that break the camel's back. Cuomo was that cause.

Incidents lead up to the firing on Ft. Sumter. Incidents lead up to the attack on the World Trade Center. Incidents lead up to Concord Bridge. Incidents lead up to Pearl Harbor. Even incidents lead to Caesar crossing the Rubicon.

Some asshole wrote above "that it was all Bloomturd's fault". See, it wasn't.

But then again, you can probably argue it was.