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- Aug 09 (38) - How your government's
economic policies have worked against you. What a fake nineteenth
century nun can teach us about the tea party protests.
- Jun 09 (37) - Statistics of
optimism, the real cost of your government. Judith Reilly on
renewable tax credits. Review of Akerlof and Shiller on behavioral
economics.
- Apr 09 (36) - Cap and trade, the
truth behind the card check controversy, review of Governor's tax
policy workgroup final report.
- Feb 09 (35) - The many varieties of
market failures, and what classic economics has to say about them,
review of Nixonland by Rick Perlstein.
- Dec 08 (34) - Can "Housing First"
end homelessness? The perils of TIF. Review of You Can't Be
President by John MacArthur.
- Oct 08 (33) - Wage stagnation,
financial innovation and deregulation: creating the financial
crisis, the political rhetoric of the Medicaid waiver.
- Jul 08 (32) - Where has the money
gone? Could suburban sprawl be part of our fiscal problem? Review
of Bad Money by Kevin Phillips, news trivia or trivial
news.
- Apr 08 (31) - Understanding
homelessness in RI, by Eric Hirsch, market segmentation and the
housing market, the economics of irrationality.
- Feb 08 (30) - IRS migration data,
and what it says about RI, a close look at "entitlements", historic
credit taxonomy, an investment banking sub-primer.
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underinsured, economic geography with IRS data.
- Oct 07 (28) - Choosing the most
expensive ways to fight crime, bait and switch tax cuts, review
of Against Prediction, about the perils of using statistics
to fight crime.
- Aug 07 (27) - Sub-prime mortgages
fall heaviest on some neighborhoods, biotech patents in decline, no photo
IDs for voting, review of Al Gore's Against Reason
- Jun 07 (26) - Education
funding, budget secrecy, book review of Boomsday and the Social
Security Trustees' Report
- May 07 (25) - Municipal finance: could citizen
mobility cause high property taxes?
What some Depression-era economists had to say on investment, and why
it's relevant today, again.
- Mar 07 (24) - The state budget
disaster and how we got here. Structural deficit, health care,
borrowing, unfunded liabilities, the works.
- Jan 07 (23) - The impact of real
estate speculation on housing prices, reshaping the electoral college.
Book review of Blocking the Courthouse Door on tort "reform."
- Dec 06 (22) - State deficit: What's
so responsible about this? DOT bonding madness, Quonset, again,
Massachusetts budget comparison.
- Oct 06 (21) - Book review: Out of
Iraq by Geo. McGovern and William Polk, New rules about supervisors
undercut unions, New Hampshire comparisons, and November referenda guide.
- Aug 06 (20) - Measuring teacher
quality, anti-planning referenda and the conspiracy to promote them,
affordable housing in the suburbs, union elections v. card checks.
- Jun 06 (19) - Education report, Do
tax cut really shrink government?, Casinos and constitutions, State historic tax
credit: who uses it.
- May 06 (18) - Distribution
analysis of property taxes by town, critique of RIEDC statistics,
how to reform health care, and how not to.
- Mar 06 (17) - Critique of commonly
used statistics: RI/MA rich people disparity, median income, etc.
Our economic dependence on high health care spending. Review of
Crashing the Gate
- Feb 06 (16) - Unnecessary
accounting changes mean disaster ahead for state and towns, reforming
property tax assessment, random state budget notes.
- Jan 06 (15) - Educational equity,
estimating the amount of real estate speculation in Rhode Island,
interview with Thom Deller, Providence's chief planner.
- Nov 05 (14) - The distribution of
affordable houses and people who need them, a look at RI's affordable
housing laws.
- Sep 05 (13) - A solution to pension
strife, review of J.K. Galbraith biography and why we should care.
- Jul 05 (12) - Kelo v. New London:
Eminent Domain, and what's between the lines in New London.
- Jun 05 (11) - Teacher salaries,
Veterinarian salaries and the
minimum wage. Book review: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
- Apr 05 (10) - Choosing a crisis: Tax fairness and school
funding, suggestions for reform. Book review: business location and
tax incentives.
- Feb 05 (9) - State and teacher
pension costs kept artificially high. Miscellaneous tax suggestions for balancing the state budget.
- Dec 04 (8) - Welfare applications and the iconography of welfare
department logos. The reality of the Social Security trust fund.
- Oct 04 (7) - RIPTA and DOT, who's really in crisis?
- Aug 04 (6) - MTBE and well pollution, Mathematical problems with property taxes
- May 04 (5) - A look at food-safety issues: mad cows, genetic engineering, disappearing farmland.
- Mar 04 (4) - FY05 RI State Budget Critique.
- Feb 04 (3) - A close look at the Blue Cross of RI annual statement.
- Oct 03 (2) - Taxing matters, a historical overview of tax burdens in Rhode Island
- Oct 03 Appendix - Methodology notes and sources for October issue
- Apr 03 (1) - FY04 RI State Budget critique
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Responsibility:
 Tom Sgouros
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Thu, 28 Oct 2004
A follow-up to the DOT remarks
A friend writes:
What about the matching Fed $???? Use it or lose it - right?
That's the DOT line, which presumes we can only borrow to match it.
But we're the only state that routinely borrows to match it. Other
states think that's a stupid idea, but that's what we do. (Even FHWA,
the federal highway guys, think it's a stupid idea, which they told
me in 1998. Even Capaldi himself told me it's stupid idea, but that
was in 1998, before he was head of the department.)
The money is question is $30 million. We could have three times that
much by restoring the income tax to the level of the bad old days of
1996. Did you know you got a 10% tax cut between 1997 and 2002? Most
people didn't even notice.
We ought to spend that money to get the federal funds, but we ought to
do it by appropriating it and spending it, instead
of bonding and eventually spending twice as much. What we do now is
only digging us into a hole, just the same way my sister did with
credit cards a few years ago. The reason our budget is in disarray is
that we had competing tax giveaways in the 1990's, as both Almond and
the legislature competed to see who could give away most. They had a
golden chance then to put issues like this to rights, and they blew it.
14:56 - 28 Oct 2004 [/y4/oc]
link
Wed, 27 Oct 2004
New issue online
In deference to the election coming up, we've rushed the October issue
onto the web site a little early. There is a question about funding
DOT bonds on the ballot (Question 3), and the newsletter is at least
partly relevant.
The issue looks a bit at RIPTA's budgetary woes, and at DOT's. A
comparison is made...
Here's the October issue.
18:52 - 27 Oct 2004 [/y4/oc]
link
DOT: A reply to an editorial.
(Submitted to the Providence Journal, but to no avail.)
In a recent Journal op-ed, James Capaldi, the director of our state Department
of Transportation claims that all road construction in Rhode Island
depends on passage of the transportation bonds on Question 3 this
November. But he is being slightly disingenuous. Road construction
will not halt if the $66 million in bonds are not approved; the
construction lobby employs too many people around here, and too many
of them have friends in the administration and in the legislature.
But what will happen if approval is not granted is that the state may
have to come up with a more sensible way to fund road construction.
DOT has been funding routine construction with bonds for years, which
makes it seem normal. But it's not. Among all the states, we are the
exception, not the rule in the matter of debt. Lots of states borrow
for this or that big road or bridge project, but we borrow $30 million
every year, except for the years in which we borrow much much more
(like this one). Projections have us borrowing the same amount each
year into the foreseeable future.
The question is why? If we're borrowing $30 million every year, then
there's no need to amortize, it's already amortized, at $30 million a
year, and we should just budget for that. Roads are a kind of
investment, but not one with returns--especially not roads built to
replace existing ones, which is what most of the next decade's cost is
for. Constant borrowing like this is a perfectly common financial
strategy, but one that often ends in bankruptcy court.
See more ...
12:23 - 27 Oct 2004 [/y4/oc]
link
Thu, 21 Oct 2004
Air cargo
For the past four years, I have been touring around the country, to
theatres and universities, with a one-man, one-robot show. It's been an incredible experience, and
I've learned a lot, but some of what I've learned -- about airport
security and air cargo -- is a bit unsettling.
Judy (the robot) is too big to fly with me as luggage, so she goes in
her custom-made travelling compartment (some might call it a "crate")
and flies air cargo. When she flies on airlines, she flies in the
same airplanes you do.
After September 11, 2001, new rules were put in place, and in order
for me to ship Judy air cargo, I had to become a "known shipper."
I've passed this process three times now, for two major airlines and
one air cargo company. This is what happens: an official of the
airline comes to my house, and checks to make sure it exists. They
ask me for a driver's license, to make sure I exist. Then we're done.
They don't ask to see what I'm shipping, they don't ask what business
I'm in, they don't ask for references.
See more ...
23:06 - 21 Oct 2004 [/y4/oc]
link
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