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Posts Tagged ‘New York’
INSANE New York Speech Crackdown Shields ISRAEL ONLY
Posted by M. C. on January 8, 2025
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Israel, New York, Speech Crackdown | Leave a Comment »
California and New York Are Even Shaking Down Fleeing Residents
Posted by M. C. on May 17, 2024
“We are incredibly reliant on New York’s high earners for our income tax revenue,” Amanda Hiller, New York’s acting tax commissioner, told an audience of civic leaders. Ms. Hiller claims the state doesn’t know whether millionaires are leaving because of the state’s high tax rates. Are they studying the matter closely?
New York and California have become the dark dystopia Orwell described in 1984. Why does anyone stay?
https://mises.org/mises-wire/california-and-new-york-are-even-shaking-down-fleeing-residents
Those who have declared residency in another state cannot spend even a minute beyond the allowed time in either high tax New York or California. And, Big Brother is watching. George Orwell could not conjure up a more diabolical tale than the Bloomberg story penned by Laura Nahmias and Eliyahu Kamisher.
“The minute you file a partial return you’re going to hear from New York state,” said Jonathan Mariner, who created TaxDay, an app that tracks users’ locations so they don’t overstay the threshold of days that would trigger residency status, which is typically 184 (for irony, slip a nine in after the one).
So for the really rich, a misplaced day in New York (or on the other coast, California) can mean millions lost to the tax authority. How serious is this? Nahmias and Kamisher write, “State officials are stepping up already-intense scrutiny to make sure former residents have actually moved. It’s a complex operation that involves cutting-edge artificial intelligence and tracking everything from travel to the location of people’s pets.”
Those who earn a million dollars a year or more have been fleeing New York (top state tax rate 10.9 percent) in droves since 2019, and the state can’t do without the income tax these high earners paid. Residency audits have been instituted. “New York’s auditors closely watch travel and apply a standard known as ‘the teddy bear test,’ looking to see where individuals keep their most cherished possessions to determine whether a home is their primary residence,” write the pair from Bloomberg.
“I’ve had cases that have hinged on a single dog,” Mark Klein, a tax attorney at Hodgson Russ told Bloomberg. “And I had a case once that was based on the fact that the person moved their Peloton bicycle to Florida.”
Klein compares a New York tax audit to a colonoscopy. Except taxpayers remain awake, one supposes.
The state of New York collected roughly $1 billion between 2013 and 2017 from fifteen thousand audits. The Bloomberg scribes say the Golden State is not as draconian as New York. Or in their words, “the scale and complexity of its residency audit operation” is not on a level with New York. But California collected $85 million in residency audit income last year through November, the largest single-year tally in at least a decade.
As in Orwell’s totalitarian superstate Oceania, time and history are manipulated in New York to create chaos and allow state manipulation. You’ve heard the expression “New York minute.” Well, now state tax bureaucrats define a few hours as a New York day. If you stop for lunch while driving through the state, the taxing authority considers that a day. A quick visit to a doctor in New York City is counted as a day by the state taxing authority.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: California, Fleeing Residents, New York, Shaking Down | Leave a Comment »
New York kills off another man named ‘Floyd,’ laying him off from his firefighter job to pay for illegals
Posted by M. C. on April 30, 2024
A blameless man, a contributor to society, a hard working role model for his children, thrown away by the city based on his health condition, solely to pay for five-star hotel accommodations for illegals.
Replacement theory, anyone? This case looks literal. Was he forced to take the mRNA vaccine for COVID, too? Just asking. How is that for gratitude for service?
Where are the protests now that New York City has killed off an innocent man named ‘Floyd’?
There ought to be a few, because a completely blameless man suffered an untimely death and was left high and dry without needed benefits for his funeral and young family, based on the city’s prioritization of illegals over city needs.
Dereke Floyd, age 36, died of an heart attack after being “fired” or laid off, from his job as New York firefighter based on a wave of city cutbacks brought on by its looming ‘bankruptcy,’ as its mayor put it based on its lavish welcome for illegal aliens.
He leaves behind a loving 34-year-old widow, and two small children.
Back in November, the New York Post noted that this was coming:
The NYPD’s force will be reduced to just 29,000 cops by the end of fiscal year 2025 — the lowest level since the mid-90s — amid a slew of city-wide budget cuts revealed by Mayor Eric Adams Thursday as the Big Apple grapples with its multi-billion-dollar migrant crisis.
Under City Hall’s newly unveiled updated 2024 financial plan, the next five police academy classes will be axed — essentially decimating an already strained department as roughly 4,500 officers are expected to leave their ranks within the next 18 months.
Firefighters are also in the firing line with FDNY members who are on “long-term light duties” — meaning they’ve been injured on the job or are out sick — being forced into early retirement or fired under the plan.
Floyd was one of the men on “long-term light duties” and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that there would be tragic cases his, not because he was faking it, as some reputedly do, but because he had a bona fide heart condition, with heart attacks, dating from 2019, and was desperately trying to get back onto regular duty before the mayor axed him.
According to the New York Post:
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: firefighter, illegals, New York, NYPD | Leave a Comment »
New York is Using Race to Determine Access to a Limited Supply of Life-Saving COVID Treatments
Posted by M. C. on January 2, 2022
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/new-york-is-using-race-to-determine
“Monoclonal Antibody Treatments Save Lives,” announcedthe New York City Department of Health in an October 26 public notice. These treatments “are available and lifesaving,” the agency said, noting that they “have averted at least 1,100 hospitalizations and at least 500 deaths among people treated in New York City.” The agency urged the public to seek out these monoclonal antibody treatments as soon as possible: “When given early after symptom onset, mAb treatments can decrease the risk of hospitalization and death due to COVID-19, which is why it is crucial to get tested for COVID-19 as soon as symptoms begin – the sooner someone is tested, the sooner treatment can begin.”
The city’s health agency quoted its own Health Commissioner Dr. Dave A. Chokshi: “the science shows that monoclonal antibody treatments work and can make all the difference when it comes to the severity of COVID-19 illness.” It thus urged that “treatment should be given as soon as possible after someone tests positive for COVID-19.” Studies from Pfizer, cited by the agency, independently demonstrated just how effective the company’s antiviral treatment, called Paxlovid, can be: it “decreased Covid-19-linked hospitalisation or mortality risk from any cause by 88%.”
But with the Omicron variant now the dominant COVID strain in New York, both the city and state are facing severe shortages in the availability of effective antiviral monoclonal treatments. While Pfizer claimed its antiviral treatment would work against Omicron, the New York State Department of Health issued a memo to all health care providers this week warning that “Sotrovimab (Xevudy) is the only authorized monoclonal antibody product expected to be effective against the omicron variant.” Yet due to “a significant surge in cases and reduced effectiveness of existing therapeutics due to the omicron variant,” the agency warned that “supplies of oral antivirals will be extremely limited initially.” As of this week, the agency also said the same of its monoclonal antibody treatment: “supplies of Sotrovimab are extremely limited.”
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: COVID Treatments, monoclonal antibody, New York, Pfizer, Race | Leave a Comment »
New York Restaurant Adds Voting Booth So They Can Allow People In Without ID
Posted by M. C. on September 23, 2021
NEW YORK, NY—In an effort to circumvent the city’s vaccine passport regulations, a midtown eatery has installed a voting booth and designated itself as a polling place so it can allow in anyone without any ID at all.
Mikey’s Eats did a brisk business on the day, as the front of the restaurant was crowded by protestors for/against vaccines, for/against vaccine mandates, and for/against vote fraud. The protestors frequently lost track of who they wanted to yell at, changed sides, and dejectedly walked into the restaurant to console themselves with the chef’s special avocado burger.
A lawyer for the ACLU was also present. He spent the day alternating between threatening the restaurant with lawsuits, congratulating them for their commitment to democracy, and openly weeping.
Owner Mikey DeCarlo said, “A guy from [Mayor] de Blasio’s office came by and said he was going to shut us down, except for the voting booth part which he said he would defend to the death. Then he asked if he could get an avocado burger in the voting booth. He was crying a lot.”
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New York Can’t Run an Election. Why Can’t Governments Do Their Most Basic Tasks? | Mises Institute
Posted by M. C. on July 2, 2021
We’re told that governments must be in charge of elections; that governments will “keep us safe” by catching criminals and preventing crime; that governments must be in charge of the justice system; that governments must be in charge of the schools.
Yet in all these cases, the competence and success with which government agencies carry out these “core duties” is questionable at best.
New York City held its Democratic primary for mayor last week, and the initial results favored Brooklyn Borough president Eric Adams by a sizable margin.
But now officials say those results aren’t reliable at all and the Board of Elections botched the vote-counting process.
As the Washington Post now reports:
It turns out that the results the city released also included a number of dummy ballots, used to test the system—ballots that should not have been included in the initial count….
It will still be a few weeks before we know who won the primary, given those absentee ballots (which are likely to aid Garcia) need to be counted.
This is a primary election in a single city, yet based on the level of competence brought to the operation, one would think this were an incredibly complex affair, unknown in the annals of government operations.
(It’s also reminiscent of the botched primary election in Iowa in February 2020, when the Democratic Party had more trouble counting a small number of votes in one of the smallest states in America.)
In the wake of the New York fiasco, not surprisingly, some Americans began to point out that if New York miscounted its votes in a mayoral election, why should we trust that 2020’s presidential election in New York was “secure”?
Perhaps aware of the fact that last week’s election doesn’t look good for the idea of election integrity, the corporate media sprang into action with a plan: blame everything on New York’s board of elections (BOE). This is a New York problem only, we’re told. Elections everywhere else in America are in tip-top shape and run by only the highest-quality, most competent people.
To keep up this narrative, the Washington Post today ran an article with the title “New York’s mayoral election is a mess. This doesn’t somehow prove Donald Trump right.”
Now, I don’t know if Donald Trump lost due to election fraud, but the idea that elections and election officials are not exactly paragons of efficiency and virtue is plausible, to say the least. Nonetheless, the Post article makes it clear that the BOE is to be thrown under the bus in order to insist that election systems everywhere else are in great shape:
No observer of New York City politics was surprised to learn that the Board of Elections had messed things up. It’s common knowledge the board is at best inept, as a report from the city’s local paper documented in late October. The city’s politics broadly are byzantine and dishonest, often relying on a system of patronage that those in power—generally the system’s beneficiaries—are loath to challenge. It’s an embarrassing situation, but usually one that does its embarrassing thing out of the spotlight of national attention.
Similarly, CNN featured a story today declaring the New York BOE to be “corrupt and incompetent,” with CNN on-screen personality John Avlon insisting in no uncertain terms that the BOE is worthless.
Needless to say, one rarely hears such thundering condemnation of Democrat-controlled institutions at the WaPo or CNN, yet it’s no holds barred at major news outlets today. But it’s all necessary to assure the public that New York is the only place in America where election systems are “corrupt and incompetent.”
Governments Continue to Botch Their Core Functions
But even if we leave Donald Trump and the 2020 election out of this, the New York affair should be regarded as just the latest reminder that government institutions increasingly can’t seem to be able to carry out what we’re told are their most basic functions.
We’re told that governments must be in charge of elections; that governments will “keep us safe” by catching criminals and preventing crime; that governments must be in charge of the justice system; that governments must be in charge of the schools.
Yet in all these cases, the competence and success with which government agencies carry out these “core duties” is questionable at best.
The court system is slow, overloaded, and involves long wait times. The multiyear wait times needed to get a hearing for suspected illegal immigrants is just the latest example. The right to a “speedy trial” is apparently not much of a right at all.
Meanwhile, the homicide rate continues to head up to the multidecade highest. Millions of Americans are buying guns because they don’t trust government officials to “keep us safe.” This is true both at the micro and macro levels. In many cities, police devote almost no resources to investigating homicides. And then, of course, there is the American intelligence “community” (i.e., the FBI and the CIA), which allowed 9/11 to happen right under its nose. And don’t forget the fact the US just lost two more wars.
Public schools are almost as unimpressive. The US ranks forty-eighth in math and science education. The US is only in the middle in terms of science and reading. Ninety percent of American schoolchildren attend public schools.
Yet while governments in America can’t seem to pull off these most ordinary tasks, they seem to have plenty of time and resources for investigating middle-aged women who “stormed” the US Capitol on January 6. Last Sunday, the US government bombed Syria and Iran—for reasons that obviously had nothing to do with defending the borders of the nation or the rights of American citizens. America’s governments have plenty of resources to pour into bailouts for wealthy bankers and other corporate friends.
But crime? Elections? Schools? Well, that’s all just much too complicated and governments insist we shouldn’t expect too much of them. After all, they assure us, we stingy taxpayers aren’t willing to cough up as much money as we should. The data says otherwise.
So when New York announces that it just hasn’t yet gotten the hang of this whole “elections thing,” just chalk it up to yet another example of how governments are awash in cash, yet never seem to be able to actually deliver the promised goods.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Democratic Primary, election, New York | Leave a Comment »
Cuomo Invites All Accusers To Come Forward And Gather In New York Nursing Home
Posted by M. C. on March 13, 2021
ALBANY, NY—Governor Cuomo invited his accusers to come forward and gather in a New York nursing home today, saying he wants to face anyone who has allegations against him and make sure they are heard and “handled appropriately.”
“Please, if you have allegations against me, come forward and meet me in this nursing home, where I can be sure you are… taken care of,” Governor Cuomo said at a press conference today held at Sunny Acres Nursing Home. “We have many competent people and lots of vacant beds for you to fill while you tell your story.”
“All I ask is that you come forward as soon as possible. I would hate if anything were to happen to you before you got the chance to tell your truth,” he said. “Sunny Acres is the place to be — and there’s always plenty of free parking!”
Cuomo then gave reporters a tour of the entirely vacant nursing home, showing them the serene, abandoned shuffleboard courts, the immaculate cafeteria, and the quiet duck pond, without a living soul in sight. “As you can see, this is the ideal locale for bringing the many thousands of potential accusers and finding out what they have to say. They’ll be safe here — eternally safe.”
At publishing time, Governor Cuomo had said that if any accusers didn’t feel comfortable meeting him at the nursing home, they were more than welcome to meet him down by the docks at midnight.
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Proposed Bill Bans Body Armor, Makes Possession a Crime, Forces Citizens to Turn it In or Face Arrest – Activist Post
Posted by M. C. on January 7, 2021
The armor is purely defensive in nature, and people should always have the ability and right to defend themselves against attack.
The right to self-defense is the right from which all other rights are derived. As John Locke stated, self-defense is the first law of nature. Each person owns his or her own life and no other person has a right to take that life, or hinder the preservation thereof.
When seconds count…you’re screwed.
By Matt Agorist
Lawmakers in New York have proposed one of the most tyrannical and utterly worrisome pieces of legislation we’ve seen. They want to ban citizens from having body armor to protect themselves from bullets. As no one has ever beaten anyone to death with a bullet proof vest, the intentions behind this bill are clear and have no other purpose other than making it easier for government to kill citizens and harder for citizens to protect themselves from bullets.
New York, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, now wants to make it a misdemeanor and potential felony for people to purchase or possess a passive means of resistance to bullets.
Unlike other attempts to ban body armor like we’ve seen in the past, this bill does not grandfather people in who already own it. In fact, the bill says that it must be turned over to the state for disposal, or you are guilty. After the passage of the bill, citizens will have 15 days to turn it in before they are declared criminals.
Assembly Bill A352 was introduced and cosponsored by David McDonough, Richard Gottfried, and Michael Montesano. It reads as follows (emphasis added.)
§ 270.21 Unlawful purchase or possession of a body vest. A person is guilty of the unlawful purchase or possession of a body vest when he or she knowingly and unlawfully purchases or possesses a body vest, as such term is defined in subdivision two of section 270.20 of this article. This section shall not apply to active law enforcement officers or those whose occupations require the use of body vests as determined by the department of state.
Unlawful purchase or possession of a body vest is a class A misdemeanor for a first offense and a class E felony for any subsequent offense.
§ 2. Any person currently in possession of a body vest, as such term is defined in subdivision two of section 270.20 of the penal law, shall have 15 days from the effective date of this act to dispose of such body vest at any local or state law enforcement agency.
On the government’s website, they allow comments from citizens. Naturally, this piece of legislation is not being well received. One person pointed out the obvious, saying, “The only legitimate reason for this bill is to make it easier for the State to murder the disarmed subjects of New York.”
“I cannot believe that such a bill would even be introduced in our state. The government here wants to control every aspect of our lives, even such a purely defensive item. Shame on our lawmakers for even considering such a bill,” another commenter wrote.
“This is a vile and wicked bill! Body armor is the most passive form of self protection possible that a person can use and you want to take that away from law-abiding citizens?! You should be disgusted with yourselves for ever proposing such a thing!” another person pointed out.
We agree with all of them.
The reality is America has less major crime than at any point in the last 40 years, and yet we have cops patrolling American streets as if they are in the Korengal or Fallujah, and treating the citizens as such, with absolutely no regard for the Constitution.
Perhaps if these lawmakers put as much effort into disarming the overly militarized police, as attempting to take away law-abiding citizens’ ability to defend themselves from would-be shooters, people wouldn’t have the impetus to wear body armor.
The armor is purely defensive in nature, and people should always have the ability and right to defend themselves against attack.
The right to self-defense is the right from which all other rights are derived. As John Locke stated, self-defense is the first law of nature. Each person owns his or her own life and no other person has a right to take that life, or hinder the preservation thereof.
Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that the police have no duty to protect citizens, so that responsibility now falls squarely on the shoulders of individuals themselves.
To take away people’s ability to access defensive armor, after telling them that they are on their own and are owed no protection by law enforcement, almost seems like a cruel joke.
Why should a law-abiding American, who takes steps to defend themselves passively, be criminalized?
Where is the sense in government banning something that provides people protection from harm?
The logic of this bill is so askew that it wouldn’t be surprising if perhaps next they will try and pass a bill that outlaws hiding behind things while being shot at.
When the state attempts to make it illegal to protect yourself from bullets, it may be time to start purchasing gear to protect yourself from bullets.
Source: The Free Thought Project
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Ban, Bill A352, body armor, David McDonough, Michael Montesano, New York, Richard Gottfried | Leave a Comment »
New York can’t buy its way out of blackouts – Watts Up With That?
Posted by M. C. on December 26, 2020
All of this battery backup hype is a scam, and not just in New York either. The papers are full of this con, from coast to coast. The utilities know perfectly well that these loudly touted battery buys are a hoax, but they are getting rich building the wind and solar systems the politicians are calling for.
The voters are oblivious to these impossible numbers, since they are told that intermittent wind and solar are cheaper than reliable coal, gas and nuclear. Only when the sun shines bright and the wind blows hard, which is not all that often.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/24/new-york-cant-buy-its-way-out-of-blackouts/
By David Wojick
New York City will soon be home to the world’s biggest utility-scale battery system, designed to back up its growing reliance on intermittent renewables. At 400 MWh this batch of batteries will be more than triple the 129 MWh world leader in Australia.
The City of New York’s director of sustainability (I am not making this title up), Mark Chambers, is ecstatic, bragging: “Expanding battery storage is a critical part of how we advance momentum to confront the climate emergency while meeting the energy needs of all New Yorkers. Today’s announcement demonstrates how we can deliver this need at significant scale.” (Emphasis added)
In reality the scale here is incredibly insignificant.
In the same nonsensical way, Tim Cawley, the president of Con Edison, New York’s power utility, gushes thus: “Utility scale battery storage will play a vital role in New York’s clean energy future, especially in New York City where it will help to maximize the benefit of the wind power being developed offshore.”
This puts the Con in Con Edison.
Here is the reality when it comes to the scale needed to reliably back up intermittent renewables. For simplicity let us suppose New York City is 100% wind powered. Including solar in the generating mix makes it more complicated but does not change the unhappy outcome very much.
NYC presently peaks at around 32,000 MW needed to keep the lights on. If Mr. Biden makes all the cars and trucks electric it might be closer to 50,000 MW but let’s stick to reality.
This peak occurs during summer heat waves which are caused by stagnant high pressure systems called Bermuda highs. These highs often last for a week and because they are stagnant there is no wind power generation. Wind turbines require something like sustained winds of 10 mph to move the blades and more like a whistling 30 mph to generate full power. During a Bermuda high folks are happy to get the occasional 5 mph breeze. These huge highs cover many states so it is not like we can get the juice from next door.
So for reliability we need, say, seven days of backup, which is 168 hours. Here’s the math:
32,000 MW x 168 hours = 5,376,000 MWh of stored juice needed to just make it. Mind you for normal reliability we usually add 20% or so. Did I mention electric cars?
It is easy to see that a trivial 400 MWh is not “significant scale.” It is infinitesimal scale. Nothing. Nada. Might as well not exist.
[I estimate 45 seconds of backup power from the facility. Someone correct me if I’m wrong~CR]
More specifically, 5,376,000 divided by 400 = 13,440 so only 13,439 more to go.
On the other hand, this measly 400 MWh battery array may well cost half a billion dollars, which is significant, especially to the New Yorkers who will pay for it. No cost figures are given because the system is privately owned, but EIA reports that the average utility scale battery system runs around $1.5 million a MWh of storage capacity. That works out to $600 million for this insignificant toy.
So what would it cost to reliably back up wind power, at this MWh cost and NYC’s scale? Just over $8,000,000,000,000 or EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS. I have not seen this stupendous sum mentioned in the media. Perhaps Con Ed has not mentioned it.
Then too, New York State has the same problem. Only much bigger if New York City is included, which it often is.
But hey, maybe the cost will come down a few trillion. Not if we create a seller’s market by rushing into intermittent renewables, which is certainly where we are headed. After all, this is just New York City. Imagine what backing up America with batteries might cost. Don’t bother because it is impossible.
I should also add that we have no idea how to make 5 million MWh of batteries work together. The tiny 400 will be a challenge. It may not be possible.
Maybe fracked geothermal, the reliable renewable, is the answer. Or how about coal, oil, gas and nuclear power? Too bad they are all out of fashion.
All of this battery backup hype is a scam, and not just in New York either. The papers are full of this con, from coast to coast. The utilities know perfectly well that these loudly touted battery buys are a hoax, but they are getting rich building the wind and solar systems the politicians are calling for.
The voters are oblivious to these impossible numbers, since they are told that intermittent wind and solar are cheaper than reliable coal, gas and nuclear. Only when the sun shines bright and the wind blows hard, which is not all that often.
Reality is just sitting there, waiting. It can’t work so it won’t work. At this point it is just a question of how and when we find out the hard way
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blackouts, New York, utility-scale battery system | Leave a Comment »
Determined To Kill Businesses That Survived Lockdowns, New York Plans Minimum Wage Hike Later This Month
Posted by M. C. on December 18, 2020
I might buy some moving company stock.
In an apparent effort to finish off the businesses that survived the nightmare that was 2020, New York will go ahead with a planned minimum wage increase at the end of the month.
The New York Department of Labor announced Wednesday that it will move forward with plans to hike the state’s minimum wage on December 31. Under the state’s phased-in minimum wage increase that started in 2016, businesses in New York City are already required to pay workers a minimum of $15 per hour. On December 31, the minimum wage in Long Island and Westchester County will increase by $1 to $14 per hour, and the minimum wage across the rest of the state will jump from $11.80 to $12.50 per hour.
The Labor Department had considered postponing the minimum wage hikes in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated government-mandated shutdowns that have crushed businesses across New York. The unemployment rate in New York state has been above 10 percent nearly every month since March, and as many as one-third of New York City’s small businesses may have permanently closed due to the pandemic. With new statewide economic lockdowns announced in recent weeks (and Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatening even more in the near future), those figures are likely to get gloomier before they improve.
Seems like a great time to make it more expensive to employ people, right?
Greg Biryla, New York director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle that the Cuomo administration’s reasoning for approving the minimum wage hike “defies logic.” Even with assistance from the state and federal governments, 39 percent of NFIB members say they could be out of business in the next year.
The infuriating thing is that the state is well aware of the additional burden it is creating—the Cuomo administration just doesn’t seem to care. A report commissioned by the labor department to review the potential costs of hiking the state’s minimum wage in the middle of a pandemic and economic crisis notes that “COVID-19 has dramatically changed the economic landscape, casting doubt on whether the capacity to absorb minimum wage increases without adverse impact can continue over the near-term.”
But the analysts add that “Anecdotally, our research has found examples of job openings upstate offering wages well above $12.50,” and conclude that “these examples could be interpreted as evidence that upstate businesses are able to offer the wages necessary to attract the workers they need.”
Yes, they discard piles of actual economic data because they found anecdotal evidence that businesses can afford to pay higher wages—and so all must.
F. A. Hayek famously wrote that politicians and bureaucrats will always lack the necessary knowledge to run the economy as well as the market can. That’s often true. But here’s an example of bureaucrats having all the information necessary to make what should be a very easy decision to postpone a minimum wage hike until the pandemic passes and unemployment falls—and the amount of knowledge doesn’t matter as long as Cuomo’s administration is determined to ignore reality.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Cuomo, lockdowns, minimum wage, New York | Leave a Comment »
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