CITYECONOMIST | Why I Blog (Postscript)

Why do I blog as CityEconomist?

Because I can tell within hours whether I have hit on a good topic and posted something that is interesting. In that case the number of people who look at the post rises from a fairly immediate 2-10 to 20 or 30. If the views stop there, the topic is clearly of limited interest to the CityEconomist audience (you).

But on a good day the views will rise quickly to 100 and keep going. Sometimes they will keep climbing for days, even months. I don't know who is reading my posts unless you sign up for Google + (or some other feed that notifies me), but it is enough to know that the posts are being read. Thank you.

So I blog for... feedback.

FYI, here are the most-read posts, in order of readership, as of 100 posts ago (it takes time for a post to accumulate readers). Four of the posts have had more than 1,000 views. I was in Washington working for the Joint Economic Committee between April 2009 and May 2011, which explains why there are no posts during that period.

It is easy to get to them via Google - just type "CityEconomist" and some of the listed key words. The date will also take you to the post on www.cityeconomist.blogspot.com.

Thank you for reading! Please comment or send me an email at john@cityeconomist.com.
J
Postscript, March 9, 2016: G+1 counter (all of my blogs) just clicked past One Million Views.

Title and Key Words	Views	Date
How the Clinton Health Care Plan Was Killed AlterNet, American Prospect, Barack Obama, Ezra Klein, Fritz Hollings, Health Care Reform, Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, Ron Wyden.	5,443	1/31/2009
Causes of the Depression: Real Estate Speculation or the Fed? (1 comment) Benjamin Strong, cause, CDOs, Depression, Federal Reserve,Florida, Japan, Milton Friedman, Polly Cleveland	2,596	2/23/2009
In the Eye of the Storm: NYC OMB's Mark Page (1 comment) Gov. Paterson,Mark Page, Mayor Bloomberg, NY State budget, NYC budget,OMB	1,139	3/22/2009
AdAge: Obama Makes Marketing History AdAge, Barack Obama, Brand, Change, Consistency, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Tepper Marlin, Patt Cottingham, Relevance, Simpolicity	1,002	11/5/2008
NYC More Catholic, Jewish, Muslim Bronx, Brooklyn, Catholic,Immigrant, Jewish, Manhattan, Muslim, New York, Protestant,Queens, Rome, Staten Island	950	2/15/2008
U.S. Financial Regulation 2008 Bank, CDOs, Economist, Federal Reserve, Glass-Steagall, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Regulation, SEC	929	3/22/2008
BBC Panorama on U.S. Health Care BBC, health care, Michael Moore, Panorama, PBS, what now	862	1/25/2009
The Rising National Debt - Why It Matters in 2007 current account, Debt,deficits, Misery Index	853	10/1/2007
What Keynes Said and What Bush Did Balanced budgets,Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bush 41, Bush 43, John Maynard Keynes, Manhattan Institute, Paul Krugman, Robin Wells, Steven Malanga	838	6/23/2012
NYC Tax Amnesty: A Good Idea? amnesty, City Comptroller,Daily News, Finance Department, moral hazard, scofflaws	699	2/27/2009
NYC’s Traffic Congestion Gets Worse Congestion Pricing, New York City, Rankings, Travel Time	660	9/19/2007
	526	1/1/2012
How Candy Cigarettes Contribute to the U.S. Budget Deficit  addiction, Arizona, ban, Blair, candy cigarettes, childhood obesity,fee for smokers, Medicaid, Medicare, Peter Orszag, social costs,surtax, U.S. budget deficit, William Baumol
Missing Minsky Alan Greenspan, Barack Obama, Bard College,Ben Bernanke, Benjamin Strong, Fed, Hy Minsky, John Maynard Keynes, Levy Institute, Martin Wolf, Milton Friedman, Ponzi, SEC	524	12/27/2008
The NY Software Industry Incubator - R.I.P. Brooklyn Poly, Bruce Bernstein, incubator, John Tepper Marlin, NYSIA, NYU, Pace	453	3/20/2008
Cognitive Dissonance - Equity vs. Fixed Income Markets cognitive dissonance, Dow, equity markets, Fed, fixed-income,John Tierney, Royal Bank of Scotland	448	11/8/2007
Turkey's Economy - Action Needed Now AKP, Filiz Bakirhan,IMF, Turkish Central Bank, Turkish economy	442	2/9/2009
US Financial Regulation - 2009 (1 comment) Arthur Levitt, CFTC, Chuck Schumer, Patricia Kilday Hart, Phil Gramm, SEC, Senator Schumer, Texas Observer	432	12/25/2008
Harvard Gloms onto Stanford-MIT Model - Splendor in the Glass Allston, Cornell, Drew Faust, Faust, Harvard, Ken Auletta, Kit Parker, Mayor Bloomberg, MIT, New York City, NYU, NYU Poly,Roosevelt Island, Silicon Valley, Stanford, Walter Isaacson,Youngme Moon	411	5/7/2012
NYC and NY State Stimulus Details college tuition tax credit,FMAP, Gov. David Paterson, infrastructure. New York State, New York City, Sen. Charles E. Schumer	390	2/13/2009
HuffPost Editorial Panel Talks about the Business 92nd Street Y,Arianna Huyffington, Colin Sterling, Facebook, Google, Huffington Post, HuffPost, Jason Linkins, Katharine Zaleski, MySpace, Roy Sekoff, Tweets, Twitter	389	2/7/2009
Rising Unemployment: True Pain Is Twice What's Reported Bureau of Labor Statistics, discouraged workers, Jurgen Brauer, part-time workers, U3, U6, unemployment	347	3/10/2009
NYC To Be #1 in Tech? The Cornell-Technion Tech Campus on Roosevelt Island (3 comments) BetaBeat, Charles Feeney, Cornell, Doctoroff, High Tech, Jobs,Mayor Bloomberg, New York City, NYC, Rep. Carolyn Maloney,Roosevelt Island, startups, Technion, venture capital	345	12/30/2011
Mayor Bloomberg Seeks to Clone Himself Brooklyn, Green Edge,Green Spaces, incubators, Mayor Bloomberg, MIT, NYU,Polytechnic Institute, Route 128, Salamon Brothers, Seth Pinsky,Silicon Valley, Stanford	305	2/24/2009
Regulating Banks and Non-Banks: One Year Later bank examiners, banks, Credit and Banking, FDIC, Fed, financial regulation, France, FSA, G20, George Benston, Germany, Glass-Steagall, Lord Turner, Money, non-banks, Stephen Labaton, UK	297	3/22/2009
Why Do Gas Prices Rise While Crude Prices Fall? crude oil,Energy Information Administration, gas prices, Middle East, North Sea Brent, NYMEX, West Texas	291	2/21/2009
What Happened to Our Peace Dividend? federal budget, GDP,Jurgen Brauer, military expenditures, Peace Dividend	290	3/18/2009
Obama - Please Fund Tech Innovation - SBIR - DARPA ATP,Barack Obama, DARPA, Innovation, picking winners, SBIR New York, stimulus, technology	250	1/18/2009
What OWS Has Done for NYC and Vice Versa Adbusters,Columbia Journalism School, Commissioner Kelly, Hospitality,Judy Le, Leisure, Mayor Bloomberg, New York City, NYPD,Occupy Wall Street, OWS, Picasso, Prado, Richard Cordray,Spain, Tourist Magnet, Video	223	1/10/2012
Defusing India's Labor Time Bomb Graziano Trasmissioni India,Maruti Suzuki, New Delhi, Rishi Singh, SA8000, SAI, Social Accountability International, Suzuki Motors	221	8/5/2012
Counterfeit Goods - New York City and Los Angeles brands,complements, counterfeiting, knockoffs, Los Angeles, New York City, substitutes	214	8/7/2011
How Severe Was Hurricane Irene? economic impact, Eric Blake,Ethan Gibney, Hurricane Irene, hurricanes, John Tepper Marlin,loss, New York, New York City	210	8/28/2011
Hamptons Institute Assesses U.S. Economy Cyrus Amir-Mokri,Dodd-Frank, FDR, Guild Hall, Hamptons Institute, Joe Nocera,Joseph Perella, Ken Miller, Roosevelt Institute, William H. Woodin	191	7/22/2012
Otterness Sculptures as Images of the 99% 1 percent, 99 percent, Eighth Avenue Subway at 14th Street, Occupy Wall Street, Tom Otterness	186	12/2/2011
Blair Warns of Economic Unrest Dennis Blair, economic unrest,Global Peace Index, Iceland	183	2/12/2009
Few States Thrived Under Bush 43 Augusta State University,Bush 43, Democratic Party, GSP, Jurgen Brauer, Michael Kinsley,Republican, St. Louis Fed, Washington Post	175	3/15/2009
Krugman and the Liquidity Trap Alan Blinder, Ben Bernanke,Federal Open Market Committee, Federal Reserve Board, FOMC,Laurence Meyer, liquidity trap, Paul Krugman, Taylor rule, zero bound, zero interest rate policy	173	8/31/2011
Word of the Year - Bailout - Alas, Not New American Dialect Society, Chrysler, Proxmire, Sarah Palin, Word of the Year	166	1/10/2009
Ireland Bond  Belfast Telegraph, bond, Dail, Eamon de Valera,Hillary Clinton, Northern Ireland, peace	155	2/6/2008
Good Move by Schumer - Improve Mass Transit Benefits Chuck Schumer, fare increases, mass transit, Metro-North, MTA, New York, Senator Schumer, tax benefit	147	1/28/2009
New York City's Economic Outlook economy, Federal Reserve,New York City, Rae Rosen, Wall Street	145	5/28/2008
Credit Slips Blog Supports Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights bill of rights, cardholders, Credit card, credit slips, Levitin	144	2/28/2008
The Ongoing LIBOR Scandal Bank of England, Barclays, Baruch College, Carrick Mollenkamp, CFTC, CUNY, David Rosenberg,Federal Reserve Bank of NY, LIBOR, Reuters, Robert Zicklin, Zicklin School of Business	136	9/6/2012
Obama Supports a Credit Card Bill of Rights bill of rights, Credit card, Des Moines, Obama	136	2/28/2008
The Great Recession 1980-82 recession, Catherine Rampell,David Leonhardt, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Fed, great recession,IMF, Jesse Eisinger, Niall Ferguson, NY Times, Paul Volcker,Public Editor, Rasmussen Reports	128	3/15/2009
How Come a Hero of the 99% Is Also Hero of the 1%? Colin White, David Stockman, Jean-Baptiste Say, John Maynard Keynes, Lord Nelson, marianne, Paul Krugman, President Reagan, Say's Law, supply-siders, Tricolore	123	10/14/2012
Mortgage Industry Regulatory  Reform  Basel II, CDOs, COC   FDIC, FHA, FRB, HOEPA, HUD, MBA, OTS, RESPA, SEC, SIVs	111	2/22/2008

GW | Dec. 4–GW Bids Farewell to Officers, NYC

General George Washington says farewell to his officers

at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, December 1783.

On this date in 1783, General George Washington tearfully said goodbye to his officers in the Long Room at Fraunces Tavern, 54 Pearl Street (at Broad), New York City. The tavern now encompasses a museum.

Washington was described as so overcome with emotion that he was barely able to speak. The context was that the British soldiers left New York City two weeks before.

This was the final victory, more than two years after the redcoats surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia. In the meantime the under-supplied and overworked Continental Army had narrowly survived several mutinies and, the autumn before, a near-coup.

The second Treaty of Paris, between Britain and the newly independent American colonies, was not signed until September 3, 1783 -- 20 years after the first Treaty of Paris, signed between the British and the French, wound up the French and Indian Wars and made the independence of the colonies possible.

Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris by representatives of the American colonies, General Washington resigned as commander in chief of the Continental Army and retired to his home -- Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Washington's return to civilian life was significant. It said to history -- this was not just a war, it was a  revolution. The Continental Congress had given him dictatorial powers. Some wanted Washington to become king. But he did not want this. He wanted a Republic, and land in the western territories for his veteran officers. Washington's farewells to the nation and to his officers were short-lived. Five years later he was elected as the first President of the United States.

Nov. - Mayor Jimmy Walker Died, Larry King Born

Life of Walker by Walsh.

NYC Mayor William H. ("Jimmy") Walker (1926-32) died this day in 1946 at 65. He was installed by Tammany Hall and did well for a few years, overhauling the Sanitation Department. But he became enamored of being the "Mayor of the Jazz Age" and being called "Gentleman Jimmy", and became known for spending a lot of time at the speakeasies.

When the stock market crashed during his first term, Cardinal Archbishop Patrick Hayes pronounced the cause as Mayor Walker and his permitting of casinos and girlie magazines. Al Smith (Governor, 1923-28) supported Walker, who was reelected in 1929, but FDR (Governor 1929-32), with his eye on the presidency, was less forgiving. In the end, a corruption scandal (pay-to-play by municipal contractors) blew up and Walker resigned.

Larry King, born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in 1933, King is the son of immigrants who ran a Brooklyn bar & grill. He got his start with a Miami radio station and for many years ran a hugely successful interview and call-in show. Now 80 years old, he "hung up his suspenders" at CNN but continues to appear on a variety of shows.

HEALTH CARE | A Great Website

To see what a health care website landing page should look like, visit The Health Sherpa.

It's like Google – a clear, uncluttered place to start your research. Type in your zip code.

The health care website is meant for people who don't have insurance. They are likely to be young and stretched for the money to pay premiums. Many are likely to be below-average in computer-savviness or familiarity with bureaucracy. So the site should be super-simple.

We know what we actually have been given by the national system and many state systems -- a nest of options, slow response times ending with no response at all.

This being the USA, however, three people have created thehealthsherpa.com to provide simple access to what people need to know, which is the availability of options in their area.

Unfortunately, thehealthsherpa.com doesn't yet have access to the NY State data (see below) so the site doesn't work yet for us in this state.

A possible danger with independent sites that offer better access to healthcare data than existing exchanges is that scammers are operating in the same space. A sample story is that of a self-proclaimed good Samaritan who charged a baffled health insurance searcher $100 and then walked off with the person's Social Security number, bank information etc.

Consumers should be warned not to provide sensitive personal data until they are sure they are on an official site.

Meanwhile, here is what I got when I went to thehealthsherpa.com and gave them my NYC zip code.

New York State: We're Working On It

New York has their own healthcare exchange, and hasn't shared that data with us yet. We are working around the clock to import their data from state records.

If you'd like to be notified when we add NY plans, you can sign up for our email list below.

Newsletter Signup

In the meantime, you can find and compare plans on New York's exchange.

Visit NY Exchange

Contact Us
Email: info@thehealthsherpa.com
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SANDY | NJ Payout–Slow and Opaque

Governor of NJ comforts Sandy victim.

During my half-year stint as Chief Economist at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice in Newark, I wrote a report tracking the payout of the public and private funds set aside for victims of Sandy.

Sandy caused damage equal to 5.8 percent of the NJ economy (gross product), more than twice its 2.8 percent share of the New York economy.

The report showed, overall, that the hardest-hit were the poor and near-poor, who were under-insured and under-prepared for the storm. If they had assets, they lost a major part of them. If they did not have assets, they died or suffered trying to stay alive.

In my report I compared New Jersey's response to that of New York. Most of the comparisons were not favorable to New Jersey, which was slower to pay out money to victims and was less transparent about how donations and Federal aid was being spent. In June I moved on to serve as chief economist to the Warrior Family Foundation.

This morning I read in The New York Times a story by Kate Zernike that reports: "Most U.S. Hurricane Aid Still Undistributed in New Jersey" (p. 28):

[Last month New Jersey] had distributed only about a quarter of the $1.2 billion that the federal government had awarded to help New Jersey homeowners and renters recover from the storm. [In addition, there were] complaints about heavy bureaucracy and a lack of transparency.
State officials responded that] the federal housing department  required several layers of additional approval... to prevent the kind of fraud that followed Hurricane Katrina.

Chicago Prof Mahoney Praises Card Law by Maloney

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NYC) gets her pen after Pres.

Obama signs the law she introduced, the CARD Act.

Man bites dog. The NY Times Business Section highlights a Chicago School economist who set out on a routine debunking of credit-card regulation and along the way decided the data show the opposite.

He meant to show the law did not benefit consumers... and found that it actually did benefit them. In fact the law was a $20.8 billion gift of lower fees to credit-card holders, not just in 2010 but every year.

Credit-card users are paying $20.8 billion less per year, just because of the law, concludes Prof. Neale Mahoney, along with his three NBER co-authors -- Sumit Agarwal, Souphala Chomsisengphet and Johannes Stroebel -- the last of whom is a professor at NYU Stern School.

But where did this law come from? The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act resulted from a long struggle. Surprisingly for a newspaper published in New York City, Floyd Norris does not mention that the law was introduced by New York City's Congresswoman from the Silk Stocking District, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, and was supported by then-Senator Barack Obama on the Senate side.

Maloney first introduced the bill as the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights in the 110th Congress (H.R. 5244) when she chaired the House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit. The bill passed 312-112 in the House. Although Sen. Obama supported the bill, it was not voted on in the Senate.

Maloney reintroduced the bill in the 111th Congress (H.R. 627), during which she chaired the Joint Economic Committee. On April 30, 2009, the House passed the bill 357-70, the Senate passed an amended version on May 19, 90-5, and the House passed the amended bill May 20, 279-147.

The bill was signed by President Obama on May 22 at a White House ceremony at which he acknowledged Maloney's key role in it by putting her right behind him when he signed the bill and bestowed on her a pen and a kiss. The law went into effect February 22, 2010.

Give credit where credit is due.