New York City

Generally, the cost of doing business is so high in NYC, in order to be competitive with other places, you need some help from the government.  A Plea to Keep Cameras Rolling in New York.

At a news conference at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, dozens of film and television workers gathered on Monday to ask politicians to expand the incentive program offered to their industry in the past few years, not scale it back as planned.

The program, which offers studios tax credits from the city and state for up to 35 percent of the production costs — 30 percent from the state and 5 percent from the city — has been so successful that the state has already paid out the $690 million that was to last through 2013.

Perhaps it would be best to find a way for New York (or New  York City) to become cost competitive with other areas.  Find out why you can not film here and work out those issues instead of taking money from those areas of the economy that are cost competitive and subsidizing those that are not.

And where else would you film a show shot in NYC you ask?

Beth Kushnick, the set decorator for the science fiction drama “Fringe,” which is relocating to Vancouver in May, said the show had 200 workers here, most of whom would lose their jobs.

The strangest part of the article, however, was the last paragraph,

And then there is the global effect. Maxine Kaplan, president of the Prop Company — Kaplan & Associates, said that two of the seven workers she employs are from Tibet and depend on their salaries to send money to relatives overseas.

Would not a Tibetian employee working in Vancouver still be able to send his proceeds to his native country, not even mentioning the issue of tax incentives in New York for money that is to then be sent overseas?

Anecdotes

A great anecdote at The Strump, but an even better observation.

It’s also confirms something that I’ve known for quite some time. Very frequently, the people who appear well-dressed on the outside are frequently very broke. I’ve also been doing taxes for many years and I see the same thing – people that spend their money on high-priced items usually (but not all the time) have financial cancer.

From my experience, this is very true in NYC.

Bailouts

Some more bailouts from America, err, I mean American Express.

American Express Co. (AXP) is offering a $300 incentive for customers to cancel their accounts as the card issuer and payments processor grapples with surging loan delinquencies and reduced card-member spending.

[...]

American Express is making the offer to a “relatively small” number of credit- card holders. It is intended to give them an incentive to pay down debt with the company and help them manage their finances, said spokesman Molly Faust. American Express has 44.2 million credit cards in force among U.S. consumers and small businesses.

So if you “manage your finances”, keep paying your bills.  If you need help managing your finances, here’s some money.

The Dollar

From the AFP,

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sunday urged China to keep buying US debt as she wrapped up her first overseas trip, during which she agreed to work closely with Beijing on the financial crisis.

[...]

“By continuing to support American Treasury instruments the Chinese are recognising our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together,” Clinton said at the US embassy here.

[...]

Yang indicated Saturday that China would not deviate drastically from its US Treasury policies, but gave no overt promises either way.

Bailouts.

Via Dealbook, US Sues UBS to Disclose Customer Names,

The suit, filed in Miami on Thursday, seeks to require the Swiss banking giant to turn over information on as many as 52,000 U.S. customers who hid their accounts from the U.S. government in violation of tax laws. Federal tax authorities said a request for the records under a Swiss treaty may only result in the production of records for about 300 accounts, Reuters says.

The question is how many politicans will be on that list?

Bailouts

Speaking of bailouts, someone sent this to me a while ago but I am just getting around to commenting on it now.  While those in Washington DC rail on those in the financial services industry for excessive pay, does it strike any of them as odd, perhaps even hypocritical, that five of the counties with the highest median household income are part of the Washington DC Metropolitan Area?  The New York City Metropolitan Area only has three of the ten.  Perhaps one region of the country is making a disproportionate amount of the income in this country?  And how does a region that does not produce anything have such a level on income?

1     Loudoun County, Virginia            $107,207
2     Fairfax County, Virginia                $105,241
3     Howard County, Maryland           $101,672
4     Somerset County, New Jersey      $97,658
5     Morris County, New Jersey           $94,684
6     Douglas County, Colorado              $92,824
7     Montgomery County, Maryland  $91,835
8     Nassau County, New York               $89,782
9     Prince William County, Virginia    $87,243
10     Santa Clara County, California    $84,360

via Wikipedia

New York City

Peggy Noonan provides some interesting comments in today’s WSJ (Is ‘Octomom’ America’s Future?) about the “new” New York City.

One senses it, for the first time: a shift in energy. Something new has taken hold, a new air of peace, perhaps, or tentativeness. The old hustle and bustle, the wild and daily assertion of dynamism, is calmed.

She has comments on some places right in the Yorkville neighborhood.

Well Played

From Dealbreaker this morning in the Opening Bell section.

France Calls For Hedge Fund Crackdown (FT)
France, in its infinite wisdom, is essentially calling for the United States and Britain to do a better job of regulating hedge funds, because, well, that’s where the majority of them are. No one in France has taken notice though that the lack of fund activity in their country could be attributed to the fact that they often don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

The Dollar

I guess this means that everything will be just fine, for whatever that is work these days.  China to Stick With US Bonds.

China will continue to buy US Treasury bonds even though it knows the dollar will depreciate because such investments remain its “only option” in a perilous world, a senior Chinese banking regulator said on Wednesday.

Mr Luo [director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission], whose English tends toward the colloquial, added: “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . .we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”

Bailouts

Clusterstock this morning has a great summary of a Minneapolis Fed paper, The Current Financial Crisis: What Should We Learn From the Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century.  Clusterstock simply titles their post, How To Cause Great Depressions.  The two salient points:

1. Seizing and breaking up insolvent banks while reprivatizing strong ones is expensive, but it works.  See Chile and Finland.
2. Nursing insolvent banks and unproductive firms along leads to a Great Depression.  See Mexico and Japan.