Coupon Power! Is The Right To Sue More Important Than Jobs?

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Why can the American public not save jobs, stop the sell-off of public property at bargain rates to private interests, protect our private records, halt the sale of Uzies for recreational purposes, or have traffic laws enforced?

We did win one fight. We managed to make General Mills, with its nearly $18 billion in annual sales, back down after it changed its coupon policies, so let’s find a way to use the power of public opinion for greater good. Please use the reply box at the bottom of this blog to provide suggestions – you won’t forego any rights if you do.

A bit of background, if necessary: General Mills established a new requirement that disputes from those using its “benefits,” including coupons, would have to be submitted to binding arbitration rather than the courts, but after four days of backlash, the company behind brands like Cheerios, Wheaties and Pillsbury, was so scared that it will allow us to sue it again, as Stephanie Strom of the N.Y. Times reported.

If the public is able to weigh in with such force to maintain its right to be litigious — a right most of us will never use — how can we use the weight of public opinion to persuade corporations, and even our problematic local, state and federal governments, to take measures more likely to be of greater worth to us, like promoting job growth and a reliable banking system?

Could we use our power to persuade Sallie Mae, the student loan firm, to bring ALL its jobs back to the U.S. and hire the students and parents who are its customers and wealth source? Could consumers target a corporation that announces job layoffs at the same time it increases executive salaries exponentially? Would our politicians and the interests that own them take note that the natives are finally restless?

Surely part of the reason why we do not recognize and claim our public clout for greater good is a lack of focus – unemployment is a more complex issue than the right to sue, and the corporate-government alliance that has decimated U.S. manufacturing is murkier and more diffuse than one corporation, even the mega-sized General Mills. As is the case with General Mills, it would have to be one corporation at a time and we would have to protest layoffs that don’t involve ourselves.

To be fair to processed food companies, they are struggling in the courts. Strom pointed out in her earlier story that General Mills has been plagued by suits – like the one it settled in late 2012 when it had to take the world “strawberry” off the label for its Strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups because the product did not contain strawberries.

Even now the Supreme Court is considering arguments over whether Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid brand misled consumers when it put only traces of pomegranate and blueberry in its pomegranate-blueberry blend. Coke’s lawyer said the public was too sophisticated to be misled by its label. After Justice Anthony Kennedy told her that he himself had thought it was pomegranate juice, Justice Antonin Scalia opined that Justice Kennedy “sometimes doesn’t read closely enough.” It sounded like a rare day of fun for the justices.

Would Americans be galvanized to action if what sophisticated writers call “the hallowing out of the middle class” involved saving fifty cents off a box of cereal or provoking some laughs? As it is, thanks to General Mills’ capitulation we should be able to sue processed food companies for some time and the good will generated by Poppin’ Fresh, better known as the Pillsbury Doughboy, has been restored.

NYC Charter Schools Play With Matches: Who’s Getting Burned?

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When Bill de Blasio was a candidate for Mayor he created shock waves by saying that he would make charter schools that operate in public school buildings pay rent. Whether or not that helped him get elected last November, a few weeks ago when he refused to allow former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz to co-locate three of her Success Academy charters in crowded public schools with special needs students, he set off a firestorm. She claims, basically, that the Mayor is victimizing low-income students and their parents and she has engaged the help of Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reinforce that message.

Do she and her charter school peers and benefactors not have the ability and connections to find space for their charges? Do they not have money to pay rent? Could they succeed if they did not usurp the space intended for public school students that charters do not enroll? Success Academy pays Moskowitz $485,000 per year. Last year it hired the political consulting firm SKD Knickerbocker for $519,000. For that money, SKD could have lit the match that set off the fireworks, singeing de Blasio with charges of being mean to minority children, and inspiring Cuomo to promise to “save” charter schools. With this posture he seizes the opportunity to appear to defend the poor even as he benefits his hedge fund campaign contributors.

Basically charters are public schools that are allowed to operate free of the regulation – such as union rules governing teacher salaries and working conditions – that most public schools must abide by. In exchange they must demonstrate better results. Many do. Others don’t. Through the years the New York City Department of Education had to close a few of them for poor performance even before their charters came up for renewal. Others have been outstanding. The same can be said for New York City’s public schools. The two operations are so different that they thwart real comparison. [The charters make their case at http://www.nyccharterschools.org  Public school teachers explain theirs at http://www.uft.gov ] Clear, reliable data on the long-term benefits of charter schools versus public schools is hard to come by, which may mean that ultimately the schools are on par with each other. I have not heard either side declare unqualified victory, which could mean something as well.

Let’s take a brief and truly insufficient look at charter schools: at one extreme was Courtney Sale Ross, socialite widow of billionaire Steve Ross. Granted a charter to create Ross Global Academy, she was given space in Tweed Courthouse, landmarked headquarters of the city’s department of education. In 2010 after five years of poor performance and the development of a middle school that was described as “violent,” it was closed for poor performance. At the other end of the spectrum are the Promise Academy Schools, created in partnership with the Harlem Children’s Zone. Its website reports that at Promise Academy II, 100 percent of third-graders were at or above grade level on the 2008 statewide math test. At Promise Academy I, 97 percent of the third-graders were at or above grade level in math.

The well-funded public relations offensive for three Moskowitz schools makes one wonder if the charter school movement, notably in New York City, seeks not to inspire, but to discredit. Seeks not to augment, but to drain public schools of resources. Well-funded private financial entities, traditionally enamored with the privatization of public goods like schools and libraries, and hostile to unions that preserve jobs and wages, are bringing themselves under scrutiny as well.

Charter schools have refused to open their books and be as fiscally transparent as public schools and their administrators are required to be. Moskowitz successfully filed suit to bar the state comptroller from auditing her 22 schools, all of which are funded by tax-payers but which also receive the above-mentioned private support.

Happily, journalists have pointed out the whopping salaries that charter school administrators earn and the cash-fueled political alliances at the root of many of these schools. In the N.Y. Daily News Rachel Monahan provided a list of more than 16 such schools. At the top was Deborah Kenney, chief executive officer of Harlem Village Academies, which has two schools. She is paid $499,000. Compare this to New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña who earns $212,000 and is responsible for 1.1 million students, including those with special needs who seldom find a place in charters. In the N.Y. Times, Michael Powell discusses Eva Moskowitz who is paid her $485,000 to administer 20 schools.  A separate foundation established by hedge fund manager Joel Greenblatt and his wife pays half her salary. Both are Cuomo’s campaign contributors. Powell’s column is rich with political connections and a word on Moskowitz’s political action committee.

This Sunday Ginia Bellafante of the N.Y. Times observed, among other things, that charter school advocates have a public relations operation that rivals Paramount in the 1940s. She also pointed out that KIPP charter schools, with 141 schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia, including 11 in New York City, conducted a study in which it found that only a third of students who had completed a KIPP middle school in the previous decade had graduated from a four-year college. This is better than the average for low-income schools around the country, but still far short of KIPP’s mission.

At their best, charter schools could serve as laboratories for new models of education. Maybe a longer school day and an 11-month school year could lead to a better-educated nation. Data may show that some day. Meanwhile, it seems that education is not truly what charter schools, which began to take their present form after state legislatures authorized them in 1990, are really all about. Based on overall results for students so far, I don’t see that they are doing a better job than public schools. Certainly when it comes to their finances, charters and their backers don’t want officials to do the math. They may find that they would have done better to just pay the Department of Education some rent.

“Afrulals” and “Concessions” With The Chase Debit Card

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Full disclosure: I am not sure that the Chase Banking customer service representative in the Philippines said “afrulal” on the telephone last Sunday. I am not really sure what those syllables were, although she repeated them several times. I do know that she never said “Withdrawal” clearly. After I guessed right, she confirmed that was what she meant, so I repeated my question about the charge for withdrawing currency from ATMs abroad using my Chase debit card. She said it would be $5 for each ATM withdrawal and then three percent on the difference between the currencies. Call me dumb, if you can pronounce it so I can understand the observation, but I had to ask her how that worked. She couldn’t explain, so I thanked her (?), hung up and called Chase Banking again.

Additional examples of garbled and useless offshore customer service are numerous and tedious, so I will cut to the point: consumers must complain to U.S. companies, through the offices of their leaders, about this. The U.S. is said to be a service economy, but service jobs are melting away like a polar icecap. Service now is largely unacceptable and customer satisfaction is low. So are U.S. employment numbers. In 2013, the employment-population ratio, the proportion of working age people who are employed, stood at 58.6, down from a high of 63.3 in 2007. In New York State, the e-p ratio is 56.8.

Americans who speak clear English, even if it is not their first language, should have all customer service jobs. We are supposed to believe that exporting jobs keeps our bills down (have they been dropping?) because hard-working foreign employees earn a fraction of what U.S. workers do. But why should the American worker, who has direct and multiple value to the U.S. economy, pay this price? Jamie Dimon, chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., earned $18,670,000 in fiscal 2012 alone and a lot more since. Time Warner Cable’s brand new chair and CEO Robert D. Marcus, earned $9,968,326 as president and COO even before his promotion this January.* Verizon’s Lowell C. McAdam earned $13,835,632 (salaries are total compensation for fiscal 2012 and source is salary.com). Such purported leaders place the reputations of their companies in the hands of people who, try though they might, provide poor service. If imperial executive compensation were reduced to the salaries of kings, perhaps more American citizens could be hired. These bottom-rung employees would pay taxes on their salaries instead of collecting unemployment benefits.

U.S. banks, particularly before they brought down the U.S. economy with the help of lax regulators, proudly say they are global operations. However, when they cause disaster to themselves and the world, it is the citizens of the U.S. who are called upon to bail them out both through tax money and through the loss of their jobs. Americans must demand these companies provide jobs to Americans. We cannot rely on elected officials to do this for us. They have not so far.

To return to the story of Chase debit card consumer service: My second rep, also in the Philippines, said he was ready to explain my “concession.” After a long pause I confirmed that he was talking about “transactions” and our call continued to conclusion. I had agreed to take a satisfaction survey after each of my inadvertent calls to the Philippines, but in the middle of each survey, in which I gave low marks for everything but politeness, the lines went dead and the survey was cut off. Did Chase record me as satisfied or unwilling to take a survey? I was neither. Would I have been cut off if the computer systems sensed I was happy with the service?
One final recent example: Every few months my Time Warner Cable goes funky in the evening hours, when I watch tv. My calls for service go to Costa Rica where the inevitably-male service rep tells me to reset the cable box. That tedious procedure did not work a few weeks ago (static on my Verizon line compounded other communication problems) so the next morning I called Time Warner Cable service again and I reached a native-born middle-age American woman working in the U.S. She instantly knew that I had to type in new settings. During our twenty-some minutes on the phone I mentioned that I was happy that an American had a job at Time Warner Cable. She told me, her voice dropping, that she doubted she would have it for long. Guess she doesn’t think she’ll make the cut if the Comcast $5 billion (read five Billion dollar) acquisition of Time Warner Cable goes through. If history is an example, Time Warner Cable executives will receive golden parachutes so they can continue to enjoy multiple unused mansions and she will be eligible for shrinking unemployment benefits before she depletes her savings.

Saddest of all is that the American consumer deserves exactly what we are getting because we have accepted poor service and the off-shoring/exporting of jobs without protest. [Maybe unions had an important purpose after all and NAFTA and succeeding trade agreements were not so good for us.] We grumble among ourselves, perhaps, but we do not protest. Our elected officials have proven themselves to be largely unwilling to save U.S. jobs, so if we don’t like the service we are paying for, it is time to take time to complain directly to the offices of the CEOs of faithless companies. Starting jobs like consumer service used to be career ladders to future advancement. At present, routine annoyances indicate a systemic problem to our economic security and one that seems too tedious for us to deal with.

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* A few weeks after this posting Robert D. Marcus agreed to receive $80 million dollars for six weeks of “work” in selling Time-Warner Cable to Comcast.

Pedaling Within The Law

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Cyclists in Manhattan are taking better care of themselves and possibly of pedestrians too, according to a recent study from Hunter College.

More bike riders are stopping at red lights. Fewer are riding against traffic. Citing articles saying that there have been only two dozen minor injuries involving Citi Bike riders and no fatalities, the report suggests that this is because Citi Bike share riders are more cautious and rule-compliant than other cyclists.

Here are some other findings:

• The number of female cyclists has increased by 9 percent in the last four and one-half years, possibly because of the bike-share program that began last May.

• Almost three-fourths of commercial cyclists now wear helmets, three times as many as in 2010. Nearly half of male “general” cyclists now wear helmets, up from 32.2 percent in 2009.

• Nearly sixty percent of commercial cyclists wear “upper body apparel” identifying the name of their business, as required by law, twice as many as in 2011.

Graduate and undergraduate students of professors Peter Tuckel and William Milczarski observed 4,316 bicyclists at 98 different locations in central and lower Manhattan. Comparison was made against a study the professors published in 2011.  Kudos to them and to Hunter College for developing data on something all New Yorkers have opinions about.

The report Bike Lane + Bike Share Program = Bike Safety predicts that safe cycling in New York City is likely to increase. It is true that the delivery guy who nearly cycled into me while I was walking down the sidewalk was wearing a helmet, so I am prepared to hope, if not yet to be convinced.

Ferries Could Save Tax Payers from the Second Avenue Subway

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A decade ago, the Metropolitan Transit Authority held public meetings at the old Hunter College School of Social Work to prepare East Side residents for the construction of the Second Avenue Subway, and for the destruction and damage to homes and businesses. Mysore Nagaraja, then president of MTA Capital Construction Company, nearly wept as he described the plight of those of us living east of Third Avenue in the 70s who had to walk 20 or 30 minutes to reach the subway. That was why, he told us, construction of the Second Avenue was so important and inconvenience was to be darned. He was so aggrieved about our situation and so agonized over those who live around York Avenue and 77th Street, that he advocated construction of multiple entrances on the north, south, east and west sides of every station so that after years of suffering we would not have to cross one more avenue, or tarry at one more traffic light, before we could descend to a train each day.

As it turns out, residents of the far East 70s or 80s will continue to be under-served by train service, even if the Second Avenue Subway is ever completed. There is no stop between the 86th Street and 72nd Street stations. Michael Horodniceanu, Nagaraja’s successor, told me during neighborhood tour of the underground construction this is intended to speed travel on the line. I had suspected that plans to construct a station in the high 70s were dropped because a developer pal of former MTA chairman Peter Kalikow was building a new high-rise on the spot, but clearly I was wrong.

Although Second Avenue Stubway, when it opens, will not shave much time from the commute of those living on East 79th Street and First Avenue or York, a more efficient and cost-effective service for them and everyone else is on the way.

The East River, the greatest transit artery in New York City, is one that few travel today, but the New York City Economic Development Corp. recently proposed five new ferry routes that would exploit its possibilities. Such service would connect waterfront neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx to Manhattan and to each other. It would also improve transit from midtown to the Lower East Side and Wall Street.

Current ferry service on the East River has proven to be a success. It served 1.2 million total riders last year, some 3,200 riders daily. Fare is $4.00 each way, and like the rest of public transit, it is subsidized. The city pays $2.22 or 55 percent, for each one-way trip, compared to 62 cents, or 35 percent, for the subway, which because of the varying fare structures averages $1.73 per trip. Increased use of ferries would make the water system more cost-effective.

Currently there is a pier at 34th Street on Manhattan’s East Side and shuttered one near Gracie Mansion at East 90th Street. An additional one in the mid-70s has been on the drawing board. Happily, construction of ferries would also cost taxpayers far less than the subway. A NYCETD report notes that the extension of the 7 train cost $1.6 billion per mile served, compared to the cost of construction of infrastructure serving the East River Ferry at $8 million per mile served. Unlike busses, ferries don’t travel on congested roads and bridges. Based on what figures I can glean from MTA reports and a helpful 2010 post on the 2nd Ave. Sagas blog, I calculate that construction of the Second Avenue subway ballooned to a cost of  $2.75 billion per mile.

Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway will end at Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street and is supposed to be operational by December, 2016 after much delay. Increased ferry routes, and the relatively new Select Busses on First and Second Avenue that have improved surface transit, should mean that other Manhattan neighborhoods will not be needlessly and pointlessly blighted at enormous cost to taxpayers.

Library is About People Encountering Each Other, Sez Starchitect

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Do you go to a library solely to sit down? Is your purpose to photograph yourself and your misbehaving friends? To harass and hamper people who are trying to accomplish something? If so, the New York Public Library system under the dubious leadership of board of trustees chairman Neil Rudenstine and president and CEO Anthony W. Marx is for you. If you are planning a big event in the next few years, give them a call because the library is rapidly becoming party space.

The latest evidence that this is true is a quote from Enrique Norten, the architect who has designed the Donnell Library Center on New York’s West 53rd Street, which will open in late 2015.  He describes his creation as “More like a cultural space, which is about gathering people, giving people the opportunity to encounter each other.”

His definition fits not a cultural center but the subway system and city sidewalks. Cultural spaces are actually where people experience art, theater and the written word. Such spaces could feature Picasso or Basquiat, Handel or hip-hop, Wilkie Collins or Erle Stanley Gardner, but they are not primarily meet-and-greet. That a supposedly educated man affiliated with the New York Public Library could make such a public statement tells us all we need to know. Ditto a statement comparing taxes to Hitler’s invasion of Poland made by library benefactor Stephen A. Schwarzman*.

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NYPL puts bleachers where books used to be, at cost to public

Norten’s Donnell Library Center will be embedded in a luxury hotel and has been diminished to a third of the size of the Donnell Library that it succeeds, but certainly does not replace. The main feature of Norten’s version, of which he is so proud, will be bleacher seating and steps. He seems to be copying the High Line and Times Square bleachers, but both are open-air, not contained in libraries. Architects must follow and serve the money, but surely they are supposed to be too educated, or at least too savvy, to make statements like Norten’s unless they know their patrons would approve.

A bit of background: the original and much-mourned Donnell library branch opened in 1955 and had the system’s largest collection of non-English circulating materials. It also housed the system’s largest collection of materials for teenagers.  As the New York Library’s second busiest branch it was clearly appreciated by New Yorkers. It lent a note of leniency and humanity to midtown. In 2008 (before Rudenstein and Marx took over), the library sold the Donnell and its space to developers. Norten’s largely empty area (see photo) will open in late 2015. The “new” Donnell is to the 1955 Donnell what a rhinestone is to an engagement ring.

Norten’s quote achieved prominence this week when N.Y. Times architectural critic Michael Kimmelman evaluated the anticipated destruction of the American Folk Art Museum building near the destroyed original Donnell. His piece offers an explanation of why midtown Manhattan will soon resemble a Stamford industrial park and shopping mall, and it also provides insight into current cultural leadership.

In sum, if you are a student or some other kind of knowledge seeker, or if you just want to read, the New York Public Library is decreasingly for you. However, if you want to make noise and socialize, and you are over-caffinated from Starbucks public spaces, by all means go to the New York Public Library, particularly the Stephen A. Schwarzman* Building, as the iconic library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue is now known. A few months ago one patron (not me) in the Reading Room was so driven to distraction that he started screaming: “We are NOT zoo animals.” He lost when the tourist setting up a tripod to photograph him proved to be too much.  Last Saturday afternoon when I searched for an empty place at a reading room table, tourists were less in evidence. It was cold and rainy, and so only people who love and need the library were about.

Catch content-users while they last. People who use the New York Public Library as a source of knowledge are endangered. Rudenstine, Marx and Schwarzman, who have a big contested plan to renovate the library, are more geared to party people. The stone lions in front of the Schwarzman building are called Patience and Fortitude. Let’s adopt the library management’s spirit of update and call them Philistine and Barbarian instead.

[Search “public library” for previous posts]

*Stephen A. Schwarzman is chairman of The Blackstone Group and author of a 2010 statement about proposals to end the carried-interest loophole allowing executives like himself to pay taxes on only 15 per cent on income: “It’s a war; it’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” He is a NYPL financial benefactor and trustee and his name is on the former Main Branch, but he is apparently not one who reads history books. He did apologize.

Federal Decision Lends Hope to The Ramarley Graham Case

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Police officer Richard Haste, who gunned down unarmed Ramarley Graham by his grandmother’s toilet in the Bronx nearly two years ago, may yet be indicted. U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel cleared the federal civil suit against him to proceed. Former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and the New York Police Department are also named as defendants.

On Feb. 2, 2012, Haste and his partner pursued Martin from the street because they thought he was acting suspiciously. Without calling for back-up, the officers charged after him and onto private property without a search warrant. When the three stood before the toilet, Haste’s partner called out that the kid has a gun, so the Haste shot him down. Oops! Look, in fairness the police were onto something — frightened Graham was  flushing away marijuana when he died– maybe a plastic bag in his shaking hand gleamed like a gun.

This case deserves far more media attention than it has received, particularly by the major print media. However, the fact that this horrific incident has been so under-reported makes it more likely that many in New York have no opinion about the incident and could sit on a jury. The death of this young man is as worthy of nation attention and prolonged discussion as the Trayvon Martin case in Florida in which a black youth was killed by a neighborhood watch coordinator. [Enter “Ramarley Graham” on this blog’s search box to find two previous presentinthecity posts on the death]

A brief history of the policeman’s days in court thus far: Officer Haste pled not guilty to first and second degree manslaughter charges in June, 2012. In May 2013, the case was dismissed on a technicality when State Supreme Court Judge Steven Barrett ruled that the prosecution had not given proper instructions to a grand jury. Last August, a second grand jury decided not to indict, which led Graham’s family to ask the federal government to intervene. In a pending review, the U.S. Attorney’s office is considering whether Graham’s civil rights were violated.

As Jeff Mays of DNA Info reports in detail, Paulet Minzie, the owner of the building where Graham lived, has also filed suit against the police. She alleges that Haste and other officers terrorized and humiliated her and her family members when they banged on her door to gain admittance. Minzie says that she jumped out of the shower and grabbed a towel when she heard the pounding on her door. In the terror of the moment she says  she exposed herself to the officers and in fear urinated on herself.

In a full story on the latest developments, Khouri A. Atkinson of The Amsterdam News reports that Judge Castel asked the parties to consider whether they want the case decided by a mediator. They have until Jan. 14 to decide. The next court hearing for both lawsuits—filed by Graham’s family and Minzie—is Aug. 1.

I hope there will be a full trial with a detailed record. I want to know how Haste and his partner were trained — how did they come to be on our streets with loaded weapons making judgement calls? It is proper that Kelly is a defendant, because police are unlikely to be better, or even worse, than police policies.

I want to know Haste’s background — was he born and raised in New York City or is he a suburbanite come here to give multi-cultured city people what for? Am I far off the mark when the suburbanite police force, roaming this city where they can’t afford to live, make me think of Hessian soldiers hired by the British around 1776 to subdue unruly colonists? I honor the fact that the police are first responders — even though former Mayor Bloomberg did tell an audience at MIT that the police were his own army. Let us hope that the federal courts will help us sort this out.

Turning Off the Trickle Down Spigot

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These are the peak days for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office a day ago and has not disappointed New Yorkers yet. This high point provides an opportunity to reflect on his greatest achievement. No, it’s not that 33 years after the inauguration of Pres. Ronald Reagan, the notion of trickle-down economics has finally trickled out, or that Progressives are emerging from cover, or even that the media sniffs the change in the wind.

The astonishing thing is that de Blasio trusted middle class voters to finally recognize their economic interests. Candidate de Blasio’s stated platform was about standing up for the poor, but the middle class did not feel threatened or excluded. Assisting have-nots (and de-segregating the South) is how the Democrats lost their unassailed majority and they have been scrambling ever since. This time, however, in 2013 New York City, the middle class rallied to support a man whose name they barely knew a year ago because he proclaimed a fundamental truth they recognized: Giuliani-Bloomberg New York was fast becoming Dickens London, a place where only an unrepentant Scrooge could feel secure. This is the New York they have come to know. They are now in as much or more jeopardy than people in public housing.

With 46 percent of New Yorkers at or near poverty after the supposed recovery from the Great Recession, those in the middle have seen proof that they are one job loss, or one serious health crisis, from near-poverty and possible homelessness. Ask a 45 year old who has been out of work for seven months how he or she envisions the future. Most know at least one such person, and having a talk with them is painful indeed.

In contrast, those earning more than $500,000 a year tend to feel threatened when they hear about resources going to the less fortunate. The proof is that de Blasio’s opponent Joseph Lhota prevailed in the wealthiest zip codes, those where average income exceeded $140,000.*

The new mayor hasn’t given up on the wealthy yet — in his inaugural address, de Blasio pointed out that the tax he proposes to levy on them to fund universal pre-kindergarten enrollment would only cost them about three dollars a day. He cajoled that this was the price of a latte.  He got a laugh, possibly because such a tariff would cost the rich too little to drive them down to middle class level – unless $500,000 in adjusted gross income is what it takes nowadays to be middle class in today’s New York. This is a point that many do ponder. And a latte is the first thing to go.

The mega-rich have been silent about de Blasio since his blow-out win. The Catholic ones feel on safer ground denouncing the Pope. Billionaire Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot, told Cardinal Timothy Dolan that when Pope Francis warned  “Money must serve, not rule,” the rich were offended. One donor was so miffed that he threatened to retaliate by withholding a seven-figure donation to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Langone felt secure enough to offer this sentiment to CNBC.

This is the kind of billionaire mind-set that made middle class New York voters think.

*Click “average income” link in the lower right corner of the link for vote by personal wealth

Bloomberg Packs Heat, Obscures Light

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On January 1, 2014 Michael Bloomberg will no longer be mayor of New York City, but he will continue to pick at the threads of the nation’s social safety net in indirect and almost untraceable ways.

The question is whether Bloomberg does it deliberately or not. Clearly he is working against elected Democrats in red states and thereby he assists Republicans who are not friendly to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits or gun regulation.

In 2006 Bloomberg co-founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and became its largest funder. Its admirable mission is to promote public safety by cracking down on illegal firearms. Spurred by horrific homicides in the intervening years, the group has grown from an initial 15 to one thousand mayors in 46 states, including four in Arkansas, a state that increasingly leans toward Republicans.

Trouble began when, with Bloomberg-like gusto, this group took shotgun aim at those who did not rally to their dictates. These included moderate politicians in red states who declined to support unpopular legislation to restrict gun ownership, including background checks. This story unfolded around the nation throughout 2013, but the N.Y. Times just reported that Bloomberg’s aides were warned that they are endangering Democrats’ political chances. If Democrats lose, Republicans win, and their platform is not friendly to gun restrictions.

Former President Bill Clinton phoned Howard Wolfson, Bloomberg’s Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs and Communications, to request that the Bloomberg group drop its ads against Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, a beleaguered Democrat facing re-election in Clinton’s native state. Request denied. The ads ran. Pryor may have scored points with his constituents with his retort that he did not take orders from Bloomberg or New York City. We will find out next November when Arkansans either let him keep his Senate seat or award it to a Republican. I am betting that Pryor’s opponent won’t back gun restrictions either. Does Bloomberg think that far? He would if he truly cared about this issue or if he cared enough to hire people who could think effectively. Is Bloomberg aiming for gun restrictions or for a Republican majority? No one should count on his being a straight shooter, even with a $31 billion fortune in ammo. The people of New York City and the nation are not rid of him by a long shot.

Let There Be Peace on Earth — Decriminalize Pot Now

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White people of all ages have long been able to use marijuana legally, at least if they were careful. Outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg regrets that he quipped that he had enjoyed pot, yet his frank flippancy did offer a beacon of truth about enforcement of anti-drug laws. White people, even before they become billionaires, usually get off fairly easily for drug use, if they are detained at all. Cases in point are celebrities and their offspring. Google Lindsay Lohan and Cameron Douglas, who got into serious trouble only after their flouting of laws became too egregious and too well documented to ignore.

If Ramarley Graham, whom police shot dead by his grandmother’s toilet early in 2012, had been Bloomberg’s white child, he would have known he had little to fear from New York City police, who probably would not have charged into his dwelling without a warrant and slaughtered him because, once they found themselves inside the house, they decided he was armed. Turns out, the reason the 18-year old fled was because he did have a small amount of marijuana, but no gun. In a note worthy of a Dickens novel, the officer who shot him was named Haste.  A Bronx grand jury declined to bring charges again the officers.

In this Yuletide season, there come a ray of hope that this will be less likely to happen in future. State Senator Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) has introduced legislation to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana under state law along lines similar to the state’s current system regulating alcohol. A spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared her move a “non-starter”  but many legislators are working to see it pass. The fact that this is politically risky is clear enough to cut through any smoky haze, as is the fact that the war on drugs has been as constructive as the one Vietnam. Among the benefits of decriminalization are these: it would keep youth out of prison crime schools (this admittedly would not help upstate communities that depend upon prisoners from downstate); it would spare the lives of police who can be injured or slain in drug busts; it would preserve the characters of those corrupted by drug lords; and it would help taxpayers, if the $1.7 billion New York City pot industry were taxed. Recognizing the disaster of the drug war,  Uruguay just took a innovative step. Alarmed that drug-related murders accounted for a third of total homicides in 2012, its legislators passed a bill to legalize marijuana and put its production and sale under government control and President Jose Mujica will sign it, a brave move since two-thirds of Uruguayans say they oppose it.

Organized crime around the globe is surely hiring lobbyists to fight Kruger’s bill right now.