My little ponequality?

If you haven't already seen the outstanding video below prepare to have your My Little Pony hearts broken:

Latest Employment figures for Columbia and Greene Counties

If you want more numbers (and who doesn't?) than were on offer in this story, you can look at the Labor Department's State and Area Unemployment Rates here. Otherwise, know this: Columbia County remains among the counties with the lowest unemployment rate in the state at 4.5% in September, while Greene County's unemployment rate was 5.7%. Both counties saw significant reductions in their unemployment rates from the previous September, dropping from 5.9% and 7.4%, respectively. Unfortunately, in both cases, although the number of unemployed fell, so did the number of employed. The former outweighed the latter in both counties, thus the reduction in the unemployment rate. In September there were about 400 fewer unemployed, but also 300 fewer employed in Columbia County, while in Greene County there were also 400 fewer unemployed with only 100 fewer employed. So, once again, lower unemployment rates hide something else: either people leaving the county or just leaving the workforce.

Show #028 Midterm Electionpalooza: Show Notes

This month, I reviewed the economic planks of the platforms of candidates for Governor, Comptroller and US Representative for the 19th District of New York and discussing the impacts of minimum wage increases with Jeannette Wicks-Lim of the Political Economy research Institute of Amherst MA. But first, as always, the news.

More interesting discussions of Ginsberg's

This past Wednesday, October 15, the Columbia County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) held a meeting at which the Payment in Lieu of Taxes arrangement for the facility being proposed by Ginsberg's in Ghent and Claverack was to be discussed. As predicted, it was well attended. A large crowd showed up, many of whom were Ginsberg's employees or people who work with Ginsberg's. Ken Flood in his role as IDA Executive Director, asserted that the project would create $10 in benefits for the county for each dollar of incentives. The main points made by opponents of the PILOT for this project is that it wasn't at all clear that Ginsberg's needed it. David Ginsberg cited an example of a competitor receiving $18.5 million in tax breaks to build a comparable facility. Residents argued that the deal would pace a burden on school and property tax payers. The latter is a little fuzzy, since there's no one paying taxes on the property now. The proposed deal means that that would continue for the first six years, with payments kicking in afterwards. More will be revealed, I guess. No word yet when a final decision will be made.

Official unemployment rate falls to 5.9%, unofficial rate is still above 11%

This Wonkblog post could have been titled "Americans think the Labor Department is tracking the wrong number." The blog discusses a poll asking respondents what they thought the unemployment rate was, the results of which show that 45% of those polled thought the unemployment rate was higher than the official rate, which was reported to decline to 5.9% in September. While the post's author speculates that the discrepancy might be due to personal experiences or that they missed the news it may be that the public is a better guide to some things than official statistics, at least the 'headline' unemployment rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does keep track of better measures, of course. In its release, you can find out that, although the number of unemployed persons (those looking not employed, but who looked for work in the last four weeks) fell to 9.3 million, the number of people working less than they want to for economic reasons (involuntary part-time workers) was 7.1 million and those who were marginally attached (who want to and are able to work, had looked for work in the last 12 months but not in the prior four weeks) numbered 2.2 million. The number of people in the latter two categories had not fallen over the last year. The math wizzes among you may have noticed that the involuntary part-time and marginally attached add up to 9.3 million, coincidentally the same as the number of officially unemployed. If you add those people to the unemployed (and the labor force), the unemployment rate you get (which the BLS calls U-6) is 11.1%. So maybe those people who think the unemployment rate is twice as high as the official rate know something about the economy that Washington Post bloggers don't.

Show Notes: Show #027 Is it warm in here, or is it me?

Is it hot in here, or is it me?

Don't forget to donate during our Radio Love Pledge Drive from September 18 to the 30th. Your pledge helps keep shows like this one on the airwaves, so show your radio love by chipping in some of your hard-earned dough.

Show #027 Is it hot in here, or is it me? Tomorrow morning at 10!

Join me for local News, the Paul Ryan budget, and reactions to the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed rules for reducing carbon emissions! Listen at 90.7 FM in Greene and Columbia counties or on line at wgxc.org. I will talk at you then!

Show #026 Our Crumbling Infrastructure - Show Notes

Show #026 Our Crumbling Infrastructure

1. Introduction

   Hello and welcome to Your Friendly Neighborhood Economist Show #026 "Our Crumbling Infrastructure" on August 12, 2014! I am Tom Masterson, Your Friendly neighborhood Economist and in today's show I will indeed talk about our crumbling infrastructure, what is not being done about it and how it relates to the Federal Budget. Then I will look at the state of global warming, especially the new regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. Finally, I have an interview with Lee Badgett, professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at UMass Amherst and Senior Scholar at the Williams Institute of UCLA. I'll have my usual unpredictable mix of music and exciting sound effects as well, but first, as always, some local economics news. Hang on to your hats, folks, Your Friendly Neighborhood Economist is IN. 

Tune in tomorrow

Tomorrow's show, #026 Our Crumbling Infrastructure, includes the usual bag of local, state and national news. I will discuss of the state of our infrastructure and what's not being done about it. Also, why. And I'll begin to dig into the carbon regulations being put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency. All this and an interview with Lee Badgett, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration, and Senior Scholar at the Williams Institute at UCLA. You can hear it on WGXC 90.7 FM Acra, Catskill, Hudson or online. Show notes and link to the archived show will follow. Real soon.

Show #025 Show Notes

Show #025: That Old-Time Tax-Cut Religion

This show originally aired on July 8, 2014. First some local news, then the rest of two interviews: one wioth State Senator Cecilia Tkaczyk and the second with Yahya Madra of Bogazici university in Istanbul.

Show #024 Fund Drive Over Yay

Show Notes

This show was a rare live broadcast for me, as Sam Sebren and I were scheduled to do fund-raising for WGXC's June $10K Fund Drive. We celebrated the end of the fund drive (during the morning show with Petey Pete) and then got down to business, playing clips from my interview with State Senator Cecilia Tkaczyk of the 46th Senate District and discussing the issues raised. There is one twelve minute segment we didn't get to which will be featured on my next show. If you want to just listen to the interview, it can be downloaded here. Here's what we talked about, with some news articles from the previous months that I used as source material.

First we celebrated the successful completion of the fund drive:

Fracking

VIEW: Documents show fracking leaders met with Cuomo's political advisers - Politics on the Hudson:
Why does the department of Health need to redact schedules for a FOIA request? Homeland Security? Please.

Fracking critics call for moratorium, more-inclusive process - Politics on the Hudson

America: Europe and Canada's Willing Chump | naked capitalism:
My favorite quote from the past month:

“Since neither Keystone XL nor fracking are long term job creators, it isn’t even like the US is selling out on these issues. “Selling” would imply some kind of profit. American workers will have virtually nothing to show for either, and the economy will be similarly unmoved. Extraction industry executives will make out like bandits, and that’s about it.”

Well, that and the environmental cleanup costs. We'll get those.

Fracking critics keep pushing for state-backed health study - Politics on the Hudson:
Now there’s radon in the natural gas produced by fracking? This just gets better and better, no?

Campaign Finance

NYPIRG calls on Board of Elections to host donor limit hearings - Politics on the Hudson

Skelos sees ways to fund public financing without taxpayer money - Politics on the Hudson:
And that is? The only thing he says is a check off on … your … income taxes. So voluntary taxpayer financing rather than funding through the general fund. oy.

GOP comptroller candidate will opt in to public financing system: "We’ll happily participate" - Politics on the Hudson:
I’m sure his entering into this program has nothing to do with the fact that he doesn’t have a chance of actually winning.

Farmworkers

Green Party pressuring Tkaczyk to co-sponsor farmworkers rights bill - Legislative Gazette

Cuomo daughter lobbies Tkaczyk - Times Union

Casinos

most of the casino bids dropped out of the running this past month, including the one for Catskill's Point, due to lack of infrastructure.
Catskills casino project goes bust, citing competition in Orange County - Politics on the Hudson
NY racinos struggle in 2014 - Politics on the Hudson:

Racino revenues are down. Let’s build casinos!

West Point Project & Energy Highway

With Power Comes Ambivalence - NYTimes.com:
A very strange title. No ambivalence whatsoever in evidence in this NYT article about the power line project. Nothing but resistance from the folks interviewed from around here.
Residents demand lower tower heights at National Grid forum - Columbia-Greene Media: News:
Lots of questions, lots of stone-walling.

Unrelated to this particular project, FERC's decision to rezone parts of our listening area is raising electricity rates; Tennessee Gas Pipeline wants to run a pipeline through Ancram, New Lebanon and Canaan.

Didn't get a chance to play this either:
Full show can be downloaded here.
The full interview can be downloaded here.

Theme Music:
Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang
Provided under a Creative Commons Public License

Tyler Cowen misses the point on Coates' Reparations article

Why is economics called the dismal science? oh, yeah:

There is still a moral case for reparations even if most American whites have lost from slavery rather than benefited.  (Although I doubt if the America public would see the matter that way, which is one reason why the reparations movement probably isn’t going anywhere.)  Nonetheless on the economics of the issue I would suggest a very different analysis than what I am seeing from many of the commentators.  And this analysis makes slavery out to be all the more destructive, and reparations to be all the more unlikely. [from How much have white Americans benefited from slavery and its legacy? | Marginal Revolution

Given Cowen's love of liberty and free markets, I wonder what the economic case is if you take into account the fact that the whites who are supposed not to have benefited were certainly free not to participate and as a 'race' had and has power in markets, whereas the same cannot be said to be true for the African Americans. Also, even if only a single white person benefited from slavery, Jim Crow, contract lending, etc., what does that have to do with the argument? The argument Coates makes is about the economic impacts on African Americans, not about who did or didn't benefit. And Coates' vision of reparations is not a strictly economic one, nor does he say that whites are responsible for making reparations. He says that Americans are. All of us, not just the ones who can be proven to have benefited. Maybe Cowen should read the article.

Latest housing market news for Columbia and Greene Counties

Source: Median home prices up statewide and even higher in lower Hudson Valley - Lohud Real Estate - Politics on the Hudson.

Detailed data from the April report from the New York State Association of Realtors is here. In Columbia County, there were fewer listings in April than the prior year and about the same number of sales. The median sales price rose by about 7% in the previous year to $235k, $20k above the New York State median, and inventory* fell from over twenty-two months to less than sixteen. In Greene County, there were also fewer listings but the number of sales jumped by a third. The median sale price was only slightly higher than the previous year, and at $165k, well below the Columbia County and New York State levels. Nevertheless, inventory also dropped significantly in Greene County from nearly twenty-eight moths to under twenty-one. Overall, then a continued improvement in our area, with prices continuing to lag in Greene County.



* measured by dividing the number of homes for sale by the current sales per month.

Show #023 “Wages, Fracking, Casinos and Power Lines. Also, Turkey”

Show available for streaming or download here.

Show #023 Show Notes

Show #023 “Wages, Fracking, Casinos and Power Lines. Also, Turkey” Show Notes

Description

Welcome to Your Friendly Neighborhood Economist Show #023 “Wages, Fracking, Casinos and Power Lines. Also, Turkey” originally aired on Tuesday May 13, 2014. In this show I discuss the minimum wage (again) in light of the recent failure of a minimum wage to get through the Senate, and bring you the first part of my interview with my old friend Yahya Madra of Bogaziçi University in Istanbul on the recent developments in the Turkish economy and their intersection with the Gezi park uprising.

How to learn about the society you live in

As I was thinking about recommendations for #RecommendARadicalBook, I got to thinking that most of the things I've learned about how the world we live in actually works have been from people of color. The two books I thought of to recommend were Vine Deloria Jr.'s Custer Died for Your Sins and Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, two good examples. Of course I've learned lots more from the people of color I've known in my life than I have from reading, especially about the everyday experience of living in our society. Anyway the though that all of this put in my head was this: if you want to learn about how our society works, you need to talk to people that it's not working for.

Upgrading the blogging aspect of the show...

I decided to start this blog because there are a number of things that weren't quite working by just using twitter, tumblr and facebook. First and foremost, the show notes were hard to format nicely on tumblr. It's fine for plain text, but for something a little more structured, a platform like this is better. Also, on the occasion when I want to ramble on about more than one item, the same logic applies. So, I want to try out using blogger for now, and seeing how it works out for me. I definitely picture myself using this platform as a way to produce rough drafts for segments for the show, especially my upcoming comments on Piketty's book. So, I hope you enjoy having even more of my thoughts streamed in to your brains.

Show #022 Is our Schools Funded?

Online now at this link.

Show Notes for Show #022 "Is our schools funded?"

Show Notes

These are the long-delayed show notes for the show that aired on April 8 of 2014. And this is my shiny new blog. Like it? I'll explain in a bit why I started this, but first, the notes you've been dying to see.