Two Plus Two Older Archives - NYC sucks (rant)

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Re: HEY COLA ADD A STAR PLEASE

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Obey the law or stop whining about paying a ticket for an amount that is an infintesimal percentage of your income.

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These are two separate issues that you are trying to link for the purposes of whipping out the old class warfare card.

However they are intellectually discrete.

1. Obedience to laws. Yes, obviously, I agree that when you break laws, you need to face consequences. This is not the issue.

2. Normative propriety of taxation rules and spending priorities. This is my objection, and it has nothing to do with whether I should obey the law.

Let me use the police department as an example. NYPD is the largest PD in the country (about 3x more uniformed officers than LAPD, for example, even though it covers a much smaller territory).

LAPD has as its number one priority, law enforcement. It is a "hard core" policing organization focussed on interdicting crimes, solving crimes, patrolling, etc. It is highly effective, and has basically been the wellspring of every major policing advance--the SWAT team, the air unit, the police academy, etc. LAPD officers are the best in the country, man for man.

NYPD is a much less effective law enforcement organization. Its officers are less professional. It has lower physical fitness standards and academy qualifications than LAPD. NYPD's policing doctrine is much more about "standing post" than actively fighting crime.

NYPD is a perfect prism through which you can view most of city government. It is a city government overrun by bureaucracy, sinecures, union turf, hidebound programs and pseudo-public works projects, etc.

All of these spending programs are supported by a ridiculous, anti-taxpayer revenue collection system. A huge amount of city government is dedicated to the collection of revenues, as opposed to the provisioning of services.

This is worth bitching about.

Re: NYC sucks (rant)

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1. There is only one reason to live in NYC: professional opportunitites (particularly in financial services, but to a lesser extent also in professional services). Obviously those who choose to remain in the city do so for this reason.

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Well, I think NYC is alot more than workers in the financial sectors (I really enjoy visiting/touring NYC, as does my wife -- and I don't believe any of our enjoyment is derived by the fact that Goldman Sachs has a big office there); but I also am of the belief that the financial sector flourishes in NYC specifically because the state (and by that I mean, the city government) is proactive. Read on.

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2. As far as the "wealth transfer", Im not just talking about direct subsidies, but Im also including indirect wealth transferring subsidies such as public education, low income/elderly subsidies, public medicine, etc.

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Almost everything you mentioned there (low income/elderly subsidies, public medicine) is either included in the 10% that falls under the umbrella of "health and welfare" part of the NYC city budget that I mentioned in my last post, or falls under the jurisdiction of a federal social service program.

Public education (the other 'indirect subsidy' you mention) is, of course, NYC's biggest expenditure (with uniformed safety officers a distant second). I can't help but think the financial sector, and all professions that thrive in NYC, do so precisely because there is a highly-educated workforce available at a close proximity. I think it also should be noted that your tune has changed slightly -- initially, you were paying so much in city taxes because of those blood-sucking, leeching welfare bums. Now you're saying it's the welfare-bums and 'school children' -- which is a little like saying my diet is high in cholesterol, due in large part to the fruit and vegetable diet plan I use...and in that diet plan, I also make a daily trip to McDonalds and order a Big Mac. Perhaps not the best analogy, but I think you get where I'm going.

You've either decided that it's not just those bums that are costing you a pretty penny, or you associate/identify public school children as being synonymous with parasitic, welfare-dependent, poor, shiftless idiots.

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Obviously, an urban city like NY needs a certain amount of spending for "public goods" like police, fire, sanitation, transportation, and parks--and this drives a certain amount of the tax.

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As in (when combined with the interest paid on NYC's debt) about 30% of your tax burden. (FYI, public education also makes up about 30% of your tax burden -- so 60% of your taxes go to finance: schools, police, fire, sanitation, transportation, parks, city administration, etc. -- about 6 times what NYC pays out in social services -- yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and yes, Virginia, it costs a boatload of money to keep big cities safe, clean, and educated).

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However, there really isn't a reason to have this deep support structure for poor/elderly etc. Those people should be in low cost states. To the extent that they continue to live in NYC, they are economic parasites--net consumers of far more in public services than they contribute in tax revenues. NYC is "progressive taxation" taken to insane heights--anti-property owner, anti-business, anti-taxpayer. If NYC were to reduce its subsidies, those who rely on it would leave and go elsewhere, into (hopefully) economies where their economic contributions would be closer to their actual consumption. Sounds heartless, but Im a big believer in private communities and privatized everything--obviously a self-serving position, but that's Adam Smith at work for ya.

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You're certainly entitled to those opinions, and I'm fairly convinced you can find other localities that have a tax paradigm closer to your liking. But you stay in NYC because of the many prosperous opportunities that exist there -- opportunities, I would add, that exist because the population is highly educated; a population that is enticed to come (and stay) because NYC is (relatively) safe, clean, exciting, livable, etc. climate -- a climate, I would argue, that is due in no small part because you pay alot in taxes to have such a climate created.

Re: NYC sucks (rant)

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Public education (the other 'indirect subsidy' you mention) is, of course, NYC's biggest expenditure (with uniformed safety officers a distant second). I can't help but think the financial sector, and all professions that thrive in NYC do so precisely because there is a highly-educated workforce available at a close proximity.

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Public education is a huge subsidy in NYC. Contrast the way public education is principally funded in California (and most places), i.e., by property taxes. When funded through property taxes, education is a use tax. When funded through income taxes, it is a wealth transfer. Very few of the most productive (i.e., taxpaying) members of NYC would choose to send their children through the NY school system. This is why God created Connecticut.

You also seem to be under the illusion that the NY public schools somehow churn out the vast majority of NYC's elite educated workforce. This is wrong. NY public schools churn out ill-tempered, barely-literate/numerate clerks at Duane Reade who can't make proper change. NY's talent pool is drawn from a worldwide source--people who were high achievers wherever they were before, but who came to NYC for the financial opportunities the city offers in just about everything--finance, prof. svcs., advertising, medicine, etc.

The NYC DOE and federal DOE are abominations, and among the worst aspects of today's welfare state.

Re: NYC sucks (rant)

No one lives in NYC because it is clean and safe. And the people working in its high end industries do not come from the public schools.

NYC has lots of insanely rich people who can afford to isolate themselves from the shithole they live in. Some commute all the way from another state. They pay taxes only because they work there, and they work there only because that is where all the money is (based on historical reasons). It's a filthy horrible city and I'm glad I'm leaving.

Re: NYC sucks (rant)

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Public education (the other 'indirect subsidy' you mention) is, of course, NYC's biggest expenditure (with uniformed safety officers a distant second). I can't help but think the financial sector, and all professions that thrive in NYC do so precisely because there is a highly-educated workforce available at a close proximity.

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Public education is a huge subsidy in NYC. Contrast the way public education is principally funded in California (and most places), i.e., by property taxes. When funded through property taxes, education is a use tax. When funded through income taxes, it is a wealth transfer. Very few of the most productive (i.e., taxpaying) members of NYC would choose to send their children through the NY school system. This is why God created Connecticut.

You also seem to be under the illusion that the NY public schools somehow churn out the vast majority of NYC's elite educated workforce. This is wrong. NY public schools churn out ill-tempered, barely-literate/numerate clerks at Duane Reade who can't make proper change. NY's talent pool is drawn from a worldwide source--people who were high achievers wherever they were before, but who came to NYC for the financial opportunities the city offers in just about everything--finance, prof. svcs., advertising, medicine, etc.

The NYC DOE and federal DOE are abominations, and among the worst aspects of today's welfare state.

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Even if education is a wealth transfer, who cares? The children of rich people do not deserve a better education than the children of poor people. it cannot be argued that rich children did anything to deserve their wealth other than happen to pop out of the right vagina. Society as a whole is much better off if everyone has an opportunity to obtain a good education

Re: NYC sucks (rant)

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Even if education is a wealth transfer, who cares? The children of rich people do not deserve a better education than the children of poor people. it cannot be argued that rich children did anything to deserve their wealth other than happen to pop out of the right vagina. Society as a whole is much better off if everyone has an opportunity to obtain a good education

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Yes yes, John Rawls, I understand the arguments here. But the Adam Smith in me, as opposed to the moral philosopher says, "So what? I only care about educating my kids. And I dont want to pay to educate yours."

I do reluctantly recognize, however, that it is fundamental to our American notion of upward mobility that access to basic education should one of the responsibilities of government.

But setting aside the philosophical point, as a practical matter, NYC DOE does a miserable job of educating children. Another example of incompetent city government propped up by a ravenous tax collection scheme.

I hate paying taxes into this system, because while I dont completely reject the goal of the system, I find the means that city government is using to be so incompetent that I resent being conscripted to support that failing system we call "public education"

Re: HEY COLA ADD A STAR PLEASE

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Obey the law or stop whining about paying a ticket for an amount that is an infintesimal percentage of your income.

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These are two separate issues that you are trying to link for the purposes of whipping out the old class warfare card.

However they are intellectually discrete.

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WTF??! Who are you kidding? _You_ are the one that linked your income and taxes to the $180 ticket. Now you complain when someone responds on your own terms? What a joke.

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1. Obedience to laws. Yes, obviously, I agree that when you break laws, you need to face consequences. This is not the issue.

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See above. You linked the consequences to your income. Not us.

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2. Normative propriety of taxation rules and spending priorities. This is my objection, and it has nothing to do with whether I should obey the law.

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Then why mention your lawbreaking (and its consequences) at all?

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This is worth bitching about.

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Spare us. You choose to live in the city. You could live right accross the Hudson and commute in on the Path in 15 mins and save your precious $50k subsidies of the "shiftless". You don't like it, move. There is no NYC commuter tax (contrary to lehighguy's post).

Re: HEY COLA ADD A STAR PLEASE

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_You_ are the one that linked your income and taxes to the $180 ticket.

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I linked the issues as an illustration of how the entire NYC revenue system is corrupt--it soaks the taxpayers through confiscatory income taxes, steep sales taxes (which I mind less), then at every turn tries to collect more money through thinly disguised additional taxes such as revenue-generating traffic traps, insanely effective meter enforcement, so-called "surcharges" put on top of tickets, etc. (A reasonable response might be that these are "use" taxes, but in truth, they are not. They are designed as revenue enhancing items.) I would have less objection if NYC actually enforced traffic rules that mattered, such as blocking the box or double parking. Zealous enforcement of such rules would improve the quality of life in the city by reducing congestion. However, NYPD Traffic never appears to enforce these rules, and instead spends all morning writing hundreds of tickets (Im not exaggerating here) to motorists who make a left-turn where absolutely every "normal" rule of the road would have permitted it. (In fact, I cant think of a single intersection on a small street in which a left turn on a green light isn't permitted. Obviously im excluding things like lefts across big streets like 42, 23, etc.) The signs were put up, and the trap was set, solely for revenue generating purposes, not for traffic enforcement/flow control. This is hidden taxation, and its outrageous.

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Spare us. You choose to live in the city. You could live right accross the Hudson and commute in on the Path in 15 mins and save your precious $50k subsidies of the "shiftless". You don't like it, move. There is no NYC commuter tax (contrary to lehighguy's post).

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This point is totally valid. I have voted with my feet, so by staying in the city, Im voluntarily subjecting myself to its irrational taxation schemes.

Re: HEY COLA ADD A STAR PLEASE

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NYPD is a much less effective law enforcement organization. Its officers are less professional. It has lower physical fitness standards and academy qualifications than LAPD. NYPD's policing doctrine is much more about "standing post" than actively fighting crime.

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After the train bombing in Spain last year the first US government organization to start investigating the scene was the NYPD. Yes, even before the FPI.

in addition the NYPD must be doing something right, total crime is down 8 percent in the last year.

NY crime
here are some interesting quotes....

"New York City ranked 221st out of 240 cities across the nation on the total crime index"

"The City’s murder rate of 7 per 100,000 of population in 2004 was half that of Los Angeles and Chicago which were 13.5 and 15.5 respectively"

"Over the past four years, the murder rate in New York City declined 12% (2004 compared to 2001) compared to a national decline of only 0.5% during the same period."

Re: NYC sucks (rant)