Politics
Why We Shouldn't Go Over the Fiscal Cliff, Or Just Say No to Austerity
10.12.12 | 23:34 •
Steve Keen, Australian author of Debunking Economics, was invited by Dennis Kucinich to present his view on public vs private debt to Congress. If you don’t understand our current crisis, the thirty minutes will be a great education. Or you can visit Keen’s website and download his paper and/or read the synopsis on his blog. This is the best explanation of the real dangers of austerity and why we shouldn’t care about government debt at this point in time.
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Bloomberg (City Hall)
13.01.11 | 18:02 •
The mayor, under a painting of Alexander Hamilton, after signing a bill. The richest and most powerful man in NYC was shorter than I expected.
Caminata por la Justicia (Elmhurst, Queens)
19.09.10 | 23:12 •
Julie’s organization, Make the Road New York, held a rally and march through Elmhurst and Corona Park, Queens. The Walk for Justice raised nearly $50K for MRNY and its support of NYC immigrants. Never wanting to miss out on the Latino vote, local politicians, including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, arrived for the kickoff speeches. Read more about the walk here.
Atlantic Yards Begins in Earnest
11.03.10 | 22:12 •
In two years, we will have this glorious building down the street from us. This afternoon, Bruce Ratner’s ratpack of politicians, Paterson, Bloomberg, Schumer, Markowitz, etc. pushed their ceremonial shovels into some ceremonial dirt.
Thanks to taxpayer subsidies, Ratner’s pockets are very deep, deep enough to buy almost everyone out. Most likely there will be a few eminent domain fights before Forest City Ratner can claim the last few pockets of privately owned land, but the Supreme Court has already spoken about that. Like the Republican Convention held in NYC in 2004, protestors were forced a block away from the ceremony. The Times reported this, but the story was mostly buried, strange given the scale of the Atlantic Yards project. (Could it have something to do with the NYT’s cozy relationship with Forest City Ratner?).
While I’m all for jobs and the expansion of affordable housing, this plan will do little good for the borough except help the construction industry and possibly build some borough pride with the Nets. Aside from real estate speculators, I do not know a single person who is in favor of this enormous project. It is totally out of character with the neighborhood, in scale and design. The traffic will be a nightmare. There aren’t enough schools, the subway and LIRR will be overburdened. And then there will be the loss of neighborhood businesses as anonymous mall life invades the borough. We live in Brooklyn because we like the brownstone scale of life. We like trees and parks and peace and quiet. We like owner-occupied small structures. There’s a reason we didn’t want to live in Manhattan. This is a very sad day for Brooklyn.
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