Unfortunately, wage income may be more fixed than retirement income these days, since Social Security is indexed for inflation and for NY’s public employees since 2000 so is retirement income. One thing that isn’t indexed for inflation is the minimum wage.

But there is a lively “how are we screwed?” debate going on as to all these public, business and personal debts that can never be repaid will be handled. Eroding them via inflation is one way out, mass default another. In fact, high inflation may be seen as a sort of mass default. And savvy commentors know that inflation is one way NYC escaped from the 1970s fiscal crisis.

Not good for savers, of course, but how many of those are there in this country? In any event, someone seems to have saddled the MTA with floating rate debt. I’ll bet they were well paid by the agency to do so.

“The authority said that it might increase the fine for other offenses as well and was also considering asking the State Legislature to raise the maximum fine it can charge to $200.”

My god, the MTA has to go to Albany for something as local and trivial as determining appropriate fines for fare beating on the NYC subway? No wonder this system is broken!

The chickens are coming home to roost, aren’t they?

Issue summonses for idling.
Issue summonses for idling.
Issue summonses for idling.
Issue summonses for idling.
Issue summonses for idling.
Issue summonses for idling.

You could do NOTHING ELSE and you’d cut emissions dramatically, and dramatically quickly!

All the more reason to encourage the pedicab industry. Maybe some of the drivers who are really suffering from the high gas costs would do well to switch? I imagine the cost of the pedicab is less than the Crown Victoria and certainly there aren’t the fuel costs.

If Bloomberg wants to make a significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions, then he needs to promulgate a comprehensive bicycle parking bill:

–All parking garages must accept bicycles
–All office and retail buildings of a certain footprint must provide indoor bicycle parking
–All office buildings must permit employees to bring in their bicycles if their companies permit it

AND he needs to throw his support behind a comprehensive bike share program a la Velib.

It’s a public relations coup for Ikea as well. What better way to build community good will in New York than to provide free and comfortable transit for an underserved neighborhood?

That’s pretty clever. If I lived or worked in Red Hook, I’d do the same thing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/07/AR2008070702215.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

“In 1977, Jimmy Carter called it the ‘moral equivalent of war.’ In the sort of speech a politician rarely delivers, he told a not-particularly-grateful nation that his energy program was going to hurt, but ‘a policy which does not ask for changes or sacrifices would not be an effective policy.’”

Well, I listened to him. So, perhaps, did many other readers here. But the fable of the ant and the grasshopper doesn’t always end the way Aesop said. Often the ants are forced to subsidize the “decent, hardworking” grasshoppers. There is already a bill to subsidize the overbuilt McMansions. The SUVs may not be far behind.

And political successes. The generations in charge have been willing to sell out the future, and future generations, on every issue: debt, pensions, infrastructure investment, the environment, energy, Social Security, health care, etc. etc.

The issue behind the issues is generational equity.