bills_fan

I lived in downtown Buffalo for 3 years before moving to NYC. I lived right in Allentown and loved it. That said, I always thought that turning the Main Place Mall center into Buffalo's version of Quincy Market in Boston may have worked. It would have entailed relocating many of the unique, higher-end shops and restaurants that make Buffalo what it is, but the concept would be that people would shop downtown if there were unique and good shops, all in one place, where you did not have to worry about driving and parking multiple times. You would centrally locate shops like Pitt Petri, Bomi, Riverside Mens Shop, Buffalo Inc., Reed-Jenss etc. Build a central food market with good with evrything from Charlie the Butcher and Duffs/Jim's SteakOut to higher-end stuff. You add a mini-Broadway market for food and perhaps a Spot coffee. You add a few nationals that attract shoppers willing to spend money like Talbots, Chicos, etc. and you just may have something. Add in a couple of happy-hour style pubs. You could attract the stores by essentially providing large tax abatements in the hopes that more and more stores would re-locate there. The city could make back the $$ via a % of the sales tax spent at these stores. If the idea hits, it would take off, much like the renovation of Chippewa Street.

Ummm, it is my understanding that the police were uniformed officers (please correct me if I'm wrong); displaying their badges on their shirts, and arrived in a police car. If I am correct, that would presumptively identify them as police officers. And asking for Gates' ID (not his college ID, but one issued by a government entity), would be the only way to, on-the-spot verify, that Gates was, in fact, in his own home.

"what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact. " Just wondering here...is that because they commit more crime, are thus identified as possible perps (e.g. "possible purse-snatching, be on the lookout for a black male approx age 25, wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and Yankees cap in the vicinity of 125th street"), so the police look for a suspect matching the description given by the victim? Its absurd that Obama got into this and commented the way he did.

OK, but now lets figure that the entire last decade of GDP growth has been debt-fueled spending, in effect pulling forward into today future demand. And now lets estimate that GDP is in the process of suffering a 25-30% contraction across the board in order to reset to a sustainable level (note: the 25-30% is the amount, year-over-year, that revenues are dropping for each company that is currently reporting earnings; I expect this to continue). Now, if the gov't spending was lower than it has been in decades as a % of GDP, and that GDP number was 25-30% lower (where it should have been, absent the too-easy-credit-binge of the last decade), then what is the number? I have no idea, but be very suspicious of anyone using 2006-2008 GDP to base anything off, the number was grossly inflated.

I'll put my vote in for Jenna Lee of Fox Business (All links should be SFW) Jenna 1 Jenna 2 Jenna 3

LMAO! I'm going to have to ask for permission to use that line in casual conversation!

The F-22, requiring 30 hours of maintenence for each hour of flight time, was not the answer. The F-22 has not even been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. It was a classic hanger queen, that should have been scrapped years ago.

Great question, and I wish I knew. What I do know is that the US has shifted much of its recent borrowings to the short end of the curve (10 years or less). If we get a big spike in interest rates....

Anyone who voted for President Obama has permanently lost the right to b*tch over his policies. For the most part, he has stayed relatively true to his early, leftist campaign.

Don't forget the VAT tax they will pull when crap-and-trade fails. A small part of me hope it all passes, bring it all on, just so people can see how royally f*cked up the US economy will get. Then, I rememebr its Washington and these things never go away, so I continue to hope against their passage.

Removing the "lottery" aspect of it by redirecting punative damages from the plaintiff to a fund designed to remedy whatever problem was inflicted through R&D would solve much of the problem.

No, not really. But I see no reason for involvement by the Federal government in whether a driver is talking/texting on a cell phone.

I don't disagree with anything you wrote, and believe it ought to be in driver training materials. But I just don't think the Federal government ought to be involved here at all (and that includes most motor vehicle laws).

Because the trial lawyers bar are big Democratic donors.

Tell Pauli and Jamie I said hello.

Good call on Nelson Blue (although not your link), I'm pretty good friends with the owner and one of the bartenders. Stone Street is an excellent call, you really can't go wrong with any of the places. I'd also recommend the following... http://www.trinityplacenyc.com/ http://www.batterygardens.com/ Or, if you are looking for a very nice meal.... http://www.delmonicosny.com/

I continue to believe we are in the eye of the economic hurricane right now and that the rosy forecasts will not come to pass without going through a very severe disruption. My reasons are enumerated in this chart, unemployment which will exacerate that chart (and the current 30% interest rates banks are charging on credit cards), and commercial real estate. I hope I'm wrong, but I think there are many more CITs out there and there will not be market or government solutions for all of them.

Don't have to convince me of the virtue of term limits. I'm all for them. Let these jokers go out and find real jobs...if anyone will hire them. I'd really like to see what Maxine Waters ended up doing if she had to look for a real job.

Debt financing only makes sense, in almost any circumstance, if you use the debt to purchase something that will help generate a higher rate of return than the interest service cost on the debt. I'm not seeing anything here like the TVA, interstate system etc. that will assist in productivity. All I see are costs.

Odd, I always thought that the reason the Dpression was so severe was the monetary policy contraction by the Federal Reserve and the protectionism epitomized by such misguided laws as Smoot Hawley. As for fiscal policy, they did the best the could with what tools were available. I would argue that they also violated the Constitution repeatedly.

I feel that way about NYC, wouldn't live anywhere else. But damn, it could be better if we just got rid of the politicians.

Makes me nostalgic for 1996, when Bill Clinton said "the era of big government is over."

It makes me want to vomit. Its simply disgusting.

I'm not seeing a ton of infrastructure. If there was, at least they would have something to show for the stimulus that could contribute to GDP in the future....better roads/transit leads to more efficiency as workers can get farther in a more time efficient manner etc. There is some infrastructure, sure, but not nearly what may be needed. I could get behind infrastructure spending that would lead to future efficiencies (e.g. Tennessee River Valley Authority). There is also a large amount of lending for crap. That will hurt.

Thats my thought. He'll serve 12-18 months, end up in a halfway house for a few months and be done serving in less than 2 years. COuld have been much worse. Hopefully, its a wake-up for him.