New York City’s highest-earning official is a debt collector
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
This needs to be fixed. Just e-mailed my City Council member, who is also the body's Speaker.
Irritated on so many levels. He is a public employee. He is abusing New York City's status as a financial hub. He's cramming garbage into our city's stretched judicial system, garbage protecting economic activity occuring pretty much wholly outside our city.
> In June, Biegel faxed an order demanding money to a bank in Elmira, New York, 173 miles northwest of the city. He claimed that a state court had entered a judgment against a plumber named Orion Megivern. That wasn’t the case. The lender had tried to enter a confession of judgment at a clerk’s office in Staten Island, but the clerk there hadn’t yet acted on the application
That's wire fraud!
But let's also consider that in private industry, a great many people in finance make more money than almost every professor. In almost every major sport, a backup professional athlete makes more money than the U.S. general in charge of security and of every military asset and operation in the entire Mideast. How many professions make more than doctors who save lives daily? Than teachers?
The issue is that the current labor marketplace does not allocate resources to those who provide the most benefit to society.
EDIT: Added the last 2 paragraphs
I'm not sure what you are asking for: Evidence for the third paragraph? That's in the first two paragraphs. My economic theory of why the labor market works out that way?
But some people produce even less that that ...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2018/04/16/leaked-ny...
Some seem to believe NYC is one of the most progressive places in the country, but may not realize it's also known for most corrupt politicians and public servants.
Boston is terrible but nobody notices because NYC is nearby. NYC is pretty bad but they look good when compared to NJ that's the same but doesn't have the money to cover it up. NJ points at Chicago and say "well at least we can afford to buy the court system so our politicians stay out of jail".
I had a family member in state government. Even in some unremarkable department corruption is everywhere.
There was a Greek philosopher who said something like "more laws = more corruption". He was on to something. Too bad being in favor of big government is a prerequisite for being "progressive" these days.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tacitus (he was Roman, my bad.)
It's not so much who said it as someone said it a long, long time ago. This is the societal equivalent of someone complaining about a bug in the alpha version then the bug winds up getting shipped.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-drop-one-day-rule-...
And many use (or abuse) disability program and earn half a million or a million easy.
Another very 'progressive' city.
These organizations are crippling the cities ability to deliver services, if wages were 2/3s of what they were now, they could hire far more employees and potentially provide better services all around.
Additionally, public sector unions are completely different than private sector ones. Concessions should be made to workers at the expense of capital not workers who make less than them.
And the average cop almost certainly provides more value to society than the average programmer working on yet-another-CRUD-app. If wages were 2/3 of what they were now, even more companies could afford to higher programmers to build them custom CRUD applications to make their basic business processes more efficient and provide better services all around.
There is no wage fixing in the tech industry in a way that results in people getting paid more.
Worse, as with every other artificial limitation on hiring it actually lowers the quality of their employees.
The majority of hires at FANGs went to state schools with huge student bodies and reasonable acceptance rates.
Suppose you have two applications one with your hidden preference and one without. If your preference has say slightly less experience or requires slightly more pay, well they are a slightly better applicant in your mind so that’s ok.
Nope. Middle class is a class of people, not an income range. They are typically described as people that work in stable salaried employment, with a pension or retirement plan, with the ability to afford a house with their spouse and education for their kids.
1. https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent-tre...
2. https://neuvoo.com/tax-calculator/?iam=&salary=60000&from=ye...
3. https://www.nyu.edu/employees/life-wellness/family-care/chil...
Additionally, childcare costs fall dramatically once your child is 3/4 years old as NYC has universal pre K with later cutoffs than other parts of the country. There would also be additional tax savings if you were married.
Add on the fact that you likely have far lower transportation costs than households in other parts of the country, and it makes more sense. Couples with a child who make 120k a year in NYC would not be precariat like members of the working class, they'd be able to save money and likely buy a home someday.
Just because they might be better off somewhere else in the country, doesn't mean they're not middle class. The middle class still struggles with more limited options around finances, what I will say is that the amount you need to earn to be in the upper class in NYC is far higher than in other cities.
West Palm Beach Florida - 85K https://www.epi.org/resources/budget/
Queens New York - 130K https://www.epi.org/resources/budget/
I personally don't have any problem with cops making that much money as long as the city is safe and they are not cheating the system. Having worked as a public servant at a less-offending NYC agency, however, the problem I see is that everyone is out to milk the system as much as possible and there seems to be almost little or no control over this (ie, wage inflation among "certain" class of public servants or opportunists).
For a family with two children. Divide $130k in half and you get a realistic $65k each before taxes. (The calculator has a tax line item.)
Note, too, that this blends Astoria and Flushing. Friend of a friend is a single mom of three living in Jackson Heights on less than $65k. She commutes in by subway + LIRR or subway + ferry, using the time to consume audiobooks.
Having lived in NYC for the first 20+ years of my life, I was sad to have to relocate, but the finances are just so crazy.
Either way, it's more dangerous to be a pizza delivery boy than it is to be a cop.
$60k is not poverty in New York City. I know many families who live there, 100% of them make under $60k/family/year.
No they don't live in Jersey, otherwise I would have said so. The demographics show is not remotely unusual.
Have you ever seen an MTA job fair, thousands of people are fighting for jobs that are considered low skill when you start where they train you on the rest. They should lower wages until that line dies down and to maximize hiring with the same budget.
New York city might be more progressive than Fort Worth, TX, but there are still plenty of conservatives even though they might be in the minority.
A Democrat mayor of one city might have views and policies that would be seen as fully Republican by people in another city, and vice versa.
National-level politics is more uniform. But when you get to the local level, it’s all simply people picking the team they think will help them win the election.
A very nice observation. I do believe this occurs at the national level as well. One example being conservative Democratic Senators from the South becoming Republicans.
No, those were changes to adapt to national political realignment; they switched because the party they had been a member of stopped supporting the things they wanted.
They cater to their voting blocks with blue meat issues or red meat issues depending on what they think is most popular. That's it. Point blank. It's about staying in power as long as you can until you can leave with a cushy job, most likely lobbying, "consulting" or under another administration where they can rake in revenues via corruption.
Yes I am jaded.
Blue does not necessarily equal progressive.
See also: Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc...
> “They go back to the 1700s,” he explained. “They were designed really to encourage and reinforce church attendance and they originally covered all sorts of behaviors . . . no playing games, no sports, no sex. Back in the day, George Washington almost got arrested for traveling on Sunday.”[1]
> “It’s easy to pass laws regulating people’s behavior,” he said. “It is very difficult to repeal those laws.”[1]
> A license must be purchased before hanging clothes on a clothesline[1]
> it is illegal to walk around on Sunday with an ice cream in your pocket.[2]
> it is illegal to have two or more people gather together in public while each wearing any sort of disguise or mask[2]
> A man cannot go in public wearing non-matching pants and jacket.[2]
> it's illegal to wear your slippers after 10pm[2]
> While riding in an elevator, one must talk to no one, and fold his hands while looking toward the door[2]
[1] https://nypost.com/2016/06/19/new-york-citys-most-ridiculous...
[2] http://981thehawk.com/10-completely-bizarre-new-york-state-l...
Edit: Actually, I did find a reference for one of the saner "weird laws": PEN § 240.35 paragraph 4 does define "Being masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire or facial alteration, loiters, remains or congregates in a public place with other persons so masked or disguised, or knowingly permits or aids persons so masked or disguised to congregate in a public place; except that such conduct is not unlawful when it occurs in connection with a masquerade party or like entertainment if, when such entertainment is held in a city which has promulgated regulations in connection with such affairs, permission is first obtained from the police or other appropriate authorities" as loitering.
Again, note that many of the apocryphal stories about "weird laws still on the books" refer not to small cities, but the kind of large, old cities whose laws are easily accessible via the web.
https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/newyork-in-depth/local-gove...
Ex:
Wearing a mask in public (or on private property without written consent) is a felony in Virginia punishable by up to 5 years in jail.
This has allowed for the identification and exposure of many attendees of the Nazi riot on August 11-12, 2017 who may have otherwise concealed their identities.
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter9/secti...
> Many anti-mask laws date back to the mid-20th century when states and municipalities, passed them to stop the violent activities of the Ku Klux Klan, whose members typically wore hoods of white linen to conceal their identities.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_laws#United_States
http://gothamist.com/2012/10/22/anti-mask_law_from_1845_used... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rent_War
Also good on this guy for increasing his income from 90k a year to 1m.
> It’s like an arbitration agreement, except the borrower always loses. Armed with a confession, a lender can, without proof, accuse borrowers of not paying and legally seize their assets before they know what’s happened. Not surprisingly, some lenders have abused this power. In dozens of interviews and court pleadings, borrowers describe lenders who’ve forged documents, lied about how much they were owed, or fabricated defaults out of thin air.
> It said the Duncans had stopped making payments. That wasn’t true. The Duncans’ bank records show that Yellowstone had continued to get its daily $800 even after going to court. The company’s sworn statement also inflated the size of the couple’s debt.
These loans are like a slumlord requiring a "I confess to all future claims of damage to the property, agree to not contest eviction, and will still pay the entire year's rent if evicted" before the lease starts.
There is simply no other way.
A hope for a powerful yet fair political elite without a term limit -- is analogous to believing that earth is flat.
These leaches will tell their voters, how they will 'fix things', and how the 'needy will be served', and how the unfair will be made fair, etc.
As long as they get the checkbook, the law enforcement and the media 'covering' for them.
There is little difference between the modern day enabled 'Progressive' politician, and the old day racketeering Mafiosi.
Both wanted to control their 'sphere of influence' by very similar methods. And both want their 'subjects' to be as powerless as possible (in both legal, and self-defense senses)
Both use a form of assassination to scare the opponents (mafia chose physical, and the progressive politicians go for the economic & character assassination first ).