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August 12, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Singapore Dreams, Il Bocca Al Lupo
A critique of the condition of NYC's transit system inevitably comes around to the MTA's big giveaway.
The budgets are also terribly faulty, with strange surpluses coming here and there while statements come back bloody during budgeting season. Corruption is rampant. Once example I wrote about earlier this year concerned the Atlantic Yards project. For land that was appraised at $214 million, they took the absolute lowest bid of $100 million. When that wasn’t paid, they didn’t break contract and try to negotiate with other parties, they lowered the original amount to $20 million (to be paid over the course of 22 years)!! Who ends up paying for that difference? The commuters who rely on the subways every day.
NoLandGrab: Technically, the $20 million is the downpayment on a $100 million deal paid out over 22 years. But whether the MTA ever really collects from Ratner is anybody's guess.
Examiner.com [New York], New York Times editorial: and upon practising what you preach
There's a New York Times editorial today which makes what sounds like a reasonable suggestion.
The banks have had a lot of taxpayers' money to support them. Now the taxpayers need to sell of bits and pieces of AIG: shouldn't the banks who gained from that taxpayer largess offer something back by offering to work on the AIG sell off by doing so for free?
That's certainly an interesting idea if not necessarily a reasonable one. Those who gain from the taxpayer own that taxpayer something. That debt should be repaid by free provision of the goods that the recipient normally manufactures or provides.
So, let us see where that leaves the New York Times.
Once the 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m2) site was assembled, it was leased to the New York Times Company and Forest City Ratner for $85.6 million over 99 years (considerably below market value). Additionally, the New York Times Company received $26.1 million in tax breaks.
Has anyone noted the offering of $26.1 million's worth of free copies of the New York Times to the grateful taxpayers of America? Of New York State? Of New York City?
No?
The Faster Times, London’s Answer to Atlantic Yards Chugs On
The high-profile controversy over the city’s Chelsea Barracks redevelopment reaches a new level of tediousness.
Bloomberg Watch, Re-Reading: Bloomberg’s Bombast
Bloomberg Watch re-reads a November 2008 Weekly Standard piece skewering Mike Bloomberg, his overturning of term limits, and the myth of his adept fiscal-management abilities. We never posted the original, though we covered Norman Oder's coverage.
Posted by eric at August 12, 2009 3:54 PM