Author: Mary Pat Campbell

CHICAGO HAD $41,100 IN DEBT PER TAXPAYER BEFORE COVID-19, SECOND TO NEW YORK

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-had-41100-in-debt-per-taxpayer-before-covid-19-second-to-new-york/

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Excerpt:

A new report from government finance watchdog Truth in Accounting gave the Windy City an “F” for financial health. Chicago’s massive $36 billion net debt stems primarily from pensions.

Chicago city taxpayers were just hit with $94 million in property tax increases and $38 million in higher fines and fees, including a policy for speed cameras to ticket drivers for going just 6 mph over the speed limit, to help close the city’s budget deficit. City leaders placed much of the blame on COVID-19’s impact on government revenues, but a recent report from fiscal watchdog Truth in Accounting shows Chicago’s problems existed long before the pandemic.

Author(s): Justin Carlson

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute

Cuomo Administration Releases FOIL-Requested Nursing Home Data

Mary Pat Campbell
Cuomo Administration Releases FOIL-Requested Nursing Home Data

Excerpt:

Tonight the Cuomo administration released additional data on coronavirus deaths in long-term care facilities that the Empire Center requested under the Freedom of Information Law.

The data have been posted on our website here.

The release came six months after the FOIL request was submitted, five months after we and the Government Justice Center filed suit, and one week after a court found that the department had violated FOIL and ordered it to release what were clearly public records.

Data link:

COVID Nursing Home Data

Author(s): press release

Publication Date: 10 February 2021

Publication Site: Empire Center for Public Policy

NYC Public Educator Pensions Rise Again

Mary Pat Campbell
NYC Public Educator Pensions Rise Again

Excerpt:

Average pension benefits paid to newly retired public educators in New York City rose again in 2020, according to data posted today at SeeThroughNY.net for New York City Teachers’ Retirement System (NYCTRS). 

The pension benefits collected by 969 teachers, college instructors, and school administrators who retired in 2019 with at least 30 years of service credit and received a full year of pension benefits in 2020 averaged $75,212.  

NYCTRS paid six-figure pension benefits to 3,708 retired New York City teachers. Of those retirees collecting more than $100,000, 104 retired during the 2019 calendar year.  

Author(s): press release

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: Empire Center for Public Policy

Coverup claims engulf Cuomo as scandal over nursing home deaths grows

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2021/02/12/coverup-claims-engulf-cuomo-as-scandal-over-nursing-home-deaths-grows-1363353

Excerpt:

The administration’s handling of nursing homes is now a full-blown scandal — a stunning reversal for Cuomo, whose early handling of the pandemic and high-profile daily press briefings earned him soaring approval ratings, an Emmy and a book deal.

Now, many fellow Democrats want to write an epilogue.

As Cuomo headed to Washington Friday to meet with President Joe Biden on pandemic response, at least 14 Democrats from the left flank of the state Legislature called for a repeal of the governor’s emergency powers — enacted nearly 11 months ago — that have given him nearly unilateral authority during the pandemic. And momentum appears to be growing in the Legislature to exert more oversight.

Author(s): SHANNON YOUNG and ANNA GRONEWOLD

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: Politico

Top NY Republicans seek to oust Cuomo, other officials after nursing home revelations

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/538580-top-new-york-republicans-seek-to-oust-cuomo-other-officials-after

Excerpt:

Top New York Republicans have taken to Twitter to call for an investigation into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and other state officials following a Thursday report that a top aide admitted the government withheld the state’s nursing home coronavirus death toll. 

Several Republicans from the Empire State issued statements after the report, arguing for a probe to be launched into the government’s reported decision to withhold nursing home coronavirus data, with some going so far as to call for Cuomo to be impeached and removed from office. 

Author(s): CELINE CASTRONUOVO

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: The Hill

Everybody Says Higher Interest Rates Are Coming … But When and By How Much?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/in-focus/market-drilldown/everybody-says-higher-interest-rates-coming-much/

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Absent that nightmare scenario—and most prognosticators believe science can vanquish any of COVID-19’s shape-shifting—the conventional Wall Street wisdom is for better days ahead on both the health and the economics fronts. And since escalating rates are co-dependent on an improving economy, a sunny thesis appears pretty solid.

Historically speaking, low rates like today’s are an aberration. Thus, at some point, it’s reasonable to assume they will return to normal. Or at least to higher than now, to a degree. A new normal that’s hardly towering.

Author(s): Larry Light

Publication Date: 9 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Growing Number of Pension Funds, Endowments, Foundations Adding Bitcoin to Portfolios

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/in-focus/market-drilldown/growing-number-pension-funds-endowments-foundations-adding-bitcoin-portfolios/

Excerpt:


The number of pension funds, endowments, and foundations adding Bitcoin to their portfolios has steadily risen over the past couple of years as the digital asset has gained more acceptance as an alternative asset.

Two pension funds in Fairfax, Virginia, began investing in late 2018 and 2019 in blockchain technology and Bitcoin through investments in two Morgan Creek Digital funds, which many consider the first investments in the crypto asset from a US pension fund. And a number of hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, endowments, foundations, asset managers, registered investment advisers (RIAs), and banks own Bitcoin outright through Boston-based Fidelity Digital Assets.

Author(s): Ellen Chang

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

COVID Mortality: New York, Nursing Homes, and Cuomo

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/covid-mortality-new-york-nursing

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I am very angry about all of this. That’s why I haven’t actually been posting about it that much.

If you think I have been annoyed by lack of attention to detail in COVID data, I am absolutely livid over the falsification of very key data, especially since it has been blatant since April 2020.

It is difficult to be appropriately analytical when one has such an emotional reaction to the messing about with data. I’ve had this happen at ma prior employer, when I realized my numbers were being messed with, and yes, falsifying data is one of the things that will make me blow my top.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 13 February 2021

Publication Site: STUMP

Why Does Janet Yellen Suddenly Sound Like Trump on Trade?

Mary Pat Campbell
Why Does Janet Yellen Suddenly Sound Like Trump on Trade?

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Fewer workers are employed in manufacturing, but the average worker is earning far more per hour. This is a problem? Meanwhile, American manufacturing output is significantly higher today than it was when the WTO was established. In fact, even at the lowest point of last year’s COVID-19 recession, manufacturing output was still higher than it had been in any year before 1997.

Author(s): Eric Boehm

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: Reason

The Question Some Company Owners Don’t Want to Deal With

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/your-money/company-owners-succession.html

Excerpt:

Besides a succession plan, a type of life insurance policy on a person crucial to a business — what’s known as key person insurance — can provide a lifeline to the business.

C. John Bongiovanni, who has been president of Bon Tools since his father, Carl, died of a heart attack in 2017, said he had also dealt with a lack of a succession plan. But what made the initial transition especially difficult, he said, was the lack of insurance, which would have given him some breathing room to sort through the company’s finances and tend to its 70-plus employees.

“The toughest thing at first was to circle the wagons and figure out what was what,” he said. Key person insurance would have also relieved him of some of the pressure he feels to buy other parts of the business, like its real estate, from his mother and to begin to compensate his two sisters, who are not part of the business.

Author(s): Paul Sullivan

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Times

New Allegations of Cover-Up by Cuomo Over Nursing Home Virus Toll

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/nyregion/new-york-nursing-homes-cuomo.html

Excerpt:

In a conversation first reported on by the New York Post, DeRosa told a group of top lawmakers Wednesday during a call to address the nursing home situation that “basically, we froze,” after being asked over the summer for information by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice.

At the time, the governor’s office was simultaneously facing requests from the state Legislature for similar information.

“We were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, and what we start saying, was going to be used against us, and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation,” DeRosa told lawmakers, according to a partial transcript obtained by The New York Times.

Author(s): McKinley, Jesse; Ferré-Sadurní, Luis.

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Times

Mapping the World’s Youngest and Oldest Countries

Mary Pat Campbell
Mapping the World’s Youngest and Oldest Countries

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Throughout history, it was typical to see both birth and death rates at higher levels. But today, in most parts of the world, women are having fewer children, and innovations in healthcare and technology mean we are all living longer. The average person today lives to 72.6 years old, while the rate of births per woman has fallen to 2.5.

These trends have drastically altered the demographics of mature economies, resulting in a much older population. In many developing countries, however, births still outweigh deaths, resulting in populations that skew younger.

This visualization uses data from the World Bank to examine the countries with the highest shares of old and young people.

Author(s): Avery Koop

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: Visual Capitalist