Here are the latest strange happenings within New York’s body politic.
A new Siena College public opinion poll indicates 52% of New Yorkers believe the state is going in the wrong direction.
As for New York’s major problems, 83% say it’s the high cost of living, 73% cite crime, and 62% view the influx of migrants as a top issue.
The most interesting finding: 62% of Democrats named crime as a top concern. Yes, the lax law enforcement policies imposed by Progressive Democrats are now infuriating their base. Will radical leftist adherents in Albany take note and rescind the so-called bail reform laws? I doubt it.
While most cities throughout the nation have regained their pre-COVID retail job levels, New York City has not. There are presently 60,000 fewer retail jobs than in 2019.
Steve Malanga, of the Manhattan Institute, has reported that New York City “has lost approximately 675 outlets operated by national chains…the total includes over 100 drugstore close-ups.”
These declines “can be attributed to the triple whammy of COVID shutdown, residents leaving the city and rising social disorder in the wake of Black Lives Matter….”
Another reason for the retail shop crisis: “theft spurred by bail reform and reduced charges for shoplifting.”
Meanwhile, it appears many of New York’s financial giants are taking seriously Gov. Kathy Hochul’s advice to those who disagree with Progressive policies: “…jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong.”
More than 150 investment firms that manage over $1 trillion in assets have left since 2019. Most of them have relocated in Florida.
What will be the impact of this exodus? Financial sector income taxes that provide the biggest chunk of the state’s revenue, 22%, will continue to decline and will eventually wreck New York’s tax base.
The Far Left’s Service Employees International Local Union 1199, which represents 304,000 healthcare workers and calls for “equality, justice and democracy,” is being accused of hypocrisy.
According to a report in the New York Post, the SEIU, which has over $450 million in assets, has refused “to invest in diverse businesses” and is “selling out underpaid workers.”
The CEO of the National Association of Investment Companies told the paper, “They have very little invested with minority-run investment funds.” Instead, their money is with big-time Wall Street firms.
The Post quoted one activist, Vicky Niu, as saying, “The union has deeper political ties with insurance companies and healthcare agencies and is completely uninterested in representing workers.”
I’m not in the least surprised. The president of the union, George Gresham, is so taken with himself that he recently told Gov. Hochul, “We don’t work for you—you work for us.”
The average cost per student in New York will top $35,000 this academic year. (The national average is $12,000.)
What is the return on this huge investment? Very little.
The New York Times recently reported that New York reading scores are behind the rest of the nation.
“In large districts like Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, as many as eight in 10 kids fail reading tests; in Gotham, less than half passed,” the newspaper said.
Another major public school problem is “chronic absenteeism,” which is defined as missing a minimum of 10% of the school year, according to the Post.
In New York City the absentee number hit 36% in 2023.
In other words, at least 86,000 students missed 18 or more school days.
While excessive no-shows, according to Department of Education regulations, cannot affect student grades, it most certainly helps explain why the results of standard math and reading tests are dismal.
Here’s another beaut: New York City’s Math and Science Exploratory School, once a center for high achievers, has changed its name to “The Exploratory.”
Why? Because the lower standard for admission, ordered by Mayor Bill de Blasio, has resulted in a major drop in math scores. “While 95% of MS 7th graders scored a passing math grade on end-of-year tests in 2018, only 69% did last year,” the New York Post has reported.
So, instead of restoring standards, the school changed its name to cover up the failure.
And get this: In rationalizing the new name, the principal said “the old name scared off girls.”
Strange but true folks, strange but true.
I always love these “from the right” opinion pieces, because it really gives us a glimpse into the delusional detachment of reality they so dearly adhere to.
For example, the opinion opens with the statement that “Yes, the lax law enforcement policies imposed by Progressive Democrats are now infuriating their base.”
But there have been no “lax law enforcement policies imposed by Progressive Democrats.”
For example, “NYPD’s current Fiscal 2023 budget is $5.83 billion, approximately 5.4 percent larger than the agency’s Fiscal 2023 Adopted Budget of $5.53 billion and $234 million or 4.2 percent larger than the budget presented in the Preliminary Plan.”
Source: https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2023/05/NYPD.pdf
On Long Island, Bruce Blakeman just last month proposed a $4.1 BILLION Nassau County budget with MORE police.
Source: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/bruce-blakeman-nassau-budget-g5ft2a7f
If you’re referring to bail reforms, that was passed in 2019 when Cuomo (not a progressive by any measure, but very much so a sex pest) was still governor.
Not to mention, the reforms were rolled back in 2020 due to a fear campaign, which the author of this opinion piece is working to continue.
Source: https://www.nyclu.org/en/campaigns/facts-bail-reform
For example, Marlin decides to quote the Manhattan Institute, “an American conservative think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs.” He’s leveraging talking points from a wealthy backed institute whose sole purpose of existence is to vomit out reports that do nothing more than attempt to provide legitimacy behind the distractions that come from the right.
Again, Marlin quoted the Manhattan institute claiming “residents leaving the city and rising social disorder in the wake of Black Lives Matter,” which is just an out-right falsehood.
A spark of social justice protests — the largest in the country that echoed beyond the US borders — were not the reason people left an overly expensive city that has been crumbling under the oppressive weight of wealth inequality for decades.
Source; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-black-lives-matter-impact/
Inflation, lack of affordable housing, and the commodification of real estate are perhaps a larger reason there was a mass move during COVID.
Workers that now had the luxury and autonomy provided to them by remote jobs were freed from renting within community distance to their office.
They were freed to find new locations in which they can truly afford a stable life. Something not possible in Manhattan with, especially in a time when “more than half (55 percent) of workers who either got a raise or a higher-paying job between August 2021 and 2022 say that pay gain didn’t match inflation, according to a previous Bankrate poll.”
Source: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/wage-to-inflation-index/
Marlin’s perspective should become clear to all further down, when he claims that a major problem is the fact that “more than 150 investment firms that manage over $1 trillion in assets have left since 2019.”
To Marlin, the issue isn’t that normal Americans are finding it harder and harder to afford basic necessities, to Marlin the issue isn’t the poverty that creates the crime, the poverty that develops as a result of wealth inequality.
To Marlin, the issue is that wealthy capitalists no longer have the free reign they once did. To Marlin, the issue is that police aren’t cracking enough skulls, and that helping the poor people instead of melting them is the real failure of society.
To Marlin, the issue is that Unions apparently don’t spend their money how he would like.
Its also really funny to see another rhetorical tactic exposed, when Marlin attempts to debase the United Healthcare Workers East, a local union within the Service Employees International Union, as part of a larger “far left” body through is use of a possessive contraction.
There is no “far left” coalition, much as there is a “Far right” coalition — the Manhattan Institute previously mentioned is an exact example of that. Conservatives have pumped a lot of money into these think tanks, and leverage their publications as further legitimacy to their concepts — but its nothing more than a self-funded content farm.
In an attempt to smear the left as having a similar structure, Marlin tries to claim a local union for HEALTHCARE WORKERS is a nefarious “far left” plot, instead of just front-line, necessary workers banding together in solidarity to help form a more fair workplace.
And in a further attempt to smear the union, Marlin quotes the New York Post in a baseless claim of hypocrisy because they’re not spending money the way that Marlin *thinks* the money should be spent.
Its also really funny when Marlin feigns outrage over a fact based statement uttered by the union president (I’m honestly surprised Marlin didn’t rely on the old school smear title of “union boss,” but I guess he’s catching up with the times a bit) that the governor is an elected official paid by tax money generated through the labor of workers. IE, the governor literally *does* work for the public.
I would have thought someone in favor of small government (a corner stone of conservative politics, no?) would agree that the government works for the people, and not the other way around. I guess Marlin got confused in his ramblings.
Moving on, its really funny when Marlin turns his sights on New York’s Schooling, adequately pointing out the fact that the NYTimes reported that”in large districts like Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, as many as eight in 10 kids fail reading tests; in Gotham, less than half passed.”
How does Marlin attempt to round the circle on this one? He blames attendance. Not economic factors, not historical redlining and lack of funding to lower income schools, not a recognition that charter schools siphon away the wealthy students, no single mention of the fact that this is all lasting impacts of systemic racism within America’s social, political and economic functioning.
So, instead of focusing on the facts, Marlin presents us with an obfuscated, twisted, and down-right infantile interpretation of world events.
It beckons one to wonder, why do we even engage in discussion with such arguments that hinge on such blatantly, bad faith interpretations of reality? Because one can only surmise that the exposure of this stupidity to sunlight will cleanse it.
But then again, as Carlin said, “think of how stupid the average person is. Then remember, half of them are even stupider than that.”