Friday, May 13, 2011

Life In The "Big Liberal," NYCity: Hard, & Getting Harder!

Adults nationwide are paying more for groceries now compared to a year ago..
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 91% report they are spending more money on groceries than they were one year ago. Only five percent (5%) say they are not paying more for groceries now. The number paying more is up from 87% in April and is the highest level measured in more than two years. Just over a year ago, 75% felt that way.
 
NYC 
 Meanwhile closer to home the NY POST reported that
 groceries in the five boroughs complied with city rules only 48 percent of the time and many regularly overcharged customers.
The most common offenses were failure to properly identify the prices of items on shelves, which occurred with 50 percent of the products checked, and inaccurately charging customers at the cash register, which took place nearly one out of three times.
The city conducted 983 inspections of roughly 700 markets during the past year and ended up issuing 516 violations with fines totaling more than $380,000.
While the  city is home to about 12,000 supermarkets,  bodegas had an 82 percent compliance rate citywide -- significantly better than supermarkets.
.
The study also revealed that 48 percent of the supermarkets inspected during the sweep charged tax incorrectly or inaccurately collected levies on bottle deposits.
Nearly all the inaccuracies ended in overcharging -- not undercharging -- consumers.
 
The worst offenders were in the city's poorest neighborhoods in The Bronx. But the violations were also found at markets in upscale neighborhoods
 
FOOD AND TRAVEL
 On top of this outrage New York City prices are up by 14% since last year
In addition to skyrocketing rent and gas prices, New Yorkers are having their pockets picked of all their loose change all day every day spending 21 cents more for a box of Corn Flakes, 29 cents more for a six-pack of beer, and about a dollar more to go to the movies. Aspirin even cost more than they did just a year ago.
Costs are creeping upward for everything from a cup of coffee from a cart to a carton of milk to a TV dinner.
A  NY Post analysis found "that rent has risen 5 percent and a sampling of New Yorkers’ common purchases have jumped about 14 percent".
 One week ago the average price of gas for New Yorkers was $4.26/gal
The average price of a one-bedroom apartment in a Manhattan doorman building last month was $3,529 up from $3,360 a year ago, according to The Real Estate Group of New York.
.(examples of price increases include)
TRANSPORTATION
Monthly unlimited MetroCard
2010: $89
2011: $104
15-gallon gas fill-up
2010: $46.20 ($3.08/gal. regular)
2011: $63.15 ($4.21/gal. regular
UTILITIES
January average Con Ed apartment bill
2010: $65.19
2011: $72.69
CLOTHING
J. Crew cotton women’s shirt
2010: $69.50
2011: $72
Boys’ blue jeans
2010: $24.50
2011: $34.50
Victoria’s Secret cotton panties
2010: 5 for $25
2011: 5 for $25.50
RENT
Average Manhattan one-bedroom, doorman building
2010: $3,360
2011: $3,529
ENTERTAINMENT
Cable/Internet bill
2010: $122
2011: $129
Movie theater ticket
2010: $12
2011: $13
GROCERIES
4-pound chicken
2010: $7.08 ($1.77/pound)
2011: $11.96 ($2.99/pound)
1 pound ground beef
2010: $3.59
2011: $4.99
Head iceberg lettuce
2010: $2.16
2011: $2.49
One dozen large eggs
2010: $2.67
2011: $3.99
Chunk light tuna
2010: $1.74
2011: $1.79
Frozen chicken dinner
2010: $4.79
2011: $5.19
5 pounds sugar
2010: $4.38
2011: $5.49
Kleenex tissues, 200-count
2010: $2.58
2011: $2.99
1 can coffee
2010: $5.82
2011: $6.99
Advil 50-count
2010: $9.54
2011: $9.99
Orange juice 64 oz.
2010: $4.94
2011: $5.39
Half gallon whole milk
2010: $2.47
2011: $2.99
2-liter Coke
2010: $2
2011: $2.29
Loaf white bread
2010: $2.28
2011: $2.89
1 pound bananas
2010: 85¢
2011: $1.29
6-pack Heineken
2010: $10.70
2011: $10.99
18-oz. Corn Flakes
2010: $5.38
2011: $5.59
FAST FOOD
Pizza Hut 12-inch pie
2010: $11.86
2011: $14.99
Medium coffee, street vendor
2010: $1
2011: $1.25
Quarter Pounder with cheese
2010: $3.92
2011: $3.99
Bagel at Ess-A-Bagel
2010: 85¢
2011: $1.00
Leaving out rent, here’s what you would have paid for one of all these items:
2010 TOTAL: $543.99
2011 TOTAL: $622.37
DIFFERENCE:$78.38
+14%
 
RENT
Plus,again  rent went up +5%

TAXIS Taxi drivers want a 15 percent hike which average New yorkers can ill afford.  the City Council wants to review it but the decision will rest with the TLC and the Mayor.
The request comes as  fraud cases proceed against dozens of drivers accused of charging passengers double the rate by using the suburban "Rate 4" meter setting -- and as the TLC deals internally with thousands of other drivers over their alleged roles in the scam. .
 
CON ED And According to the NY POST Get set for shocking Con Ed bills this summer.
Residential rates are expected to climb to about 7.4 percent during peak air-conditioning season this June, July and August, according to Con Ed .
Apartment dwellers who use 350 kilowatt hours of electricity each month will likely see a bill of $103.28 this summer -- a $7.10 increase over last year's $96.18 bill.
Most of the hike comes from a 4 percent increase Con Ed took in April to cover the increased cost of delivering power to its customers' homes.
The remaining 3.4 percent comes from the expiration of a discount Con Ed customers got last summer as a refund of earlier overcharges, and from an expected boost in the price of electricity Con Ed buys from generating companies.
It might get far worse: Con Ed's forecast doesn't cover electric-generating companies' demand for a price hike that would zap bills by another 10 percent to 12 percent.
If the generators have their way with federal regulators, New Yorkers -- who already pay the steepest power prices charged by any major utility -- could end up zapped with bills nearly 20 percent higher than last year.
Con Ed's forecast yesterday comes with no guarantees. If fuel prices escalate wildly this Con Ed's forecast yesterday comes with no guarantees. If fuel prices escalate wildly this summer -- gasoline prices are already up more than 30 percent over the last year -- then its customers might pay even more. Keep in mind that New Yorkers use less energy per capita in the US but pay the third highest rates..
Generators are insisting to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that federal regulators "should give no weight" to complaints by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and other elected officials that their price-hike request will slam consumers with 10 percent to 12 percent price hikes.
But Con Ed and other utilities say "it is entirely appropriate" for FERC to consider consumers' suffering from high electric prices. which stems from a fat cat independent energy generators who live high on the hog and want to live higher. They are demanding  protection from taxes they don’t pay but  "could" pay if the  state legislature eliminated tax abatements (which they now have done permanently in response to this outrage)
If FERC doesn't act on their demands in the next few weeks, the generators claim, prior rate cases give them an automatic 7.8 percent hike in wholesale prices that would translate into a 3 or 4 percent jolt in New Yorkers' electric bills.
That claim is also drawing fire from Con Ed and other utilities, which say prior rate cases
give generators no such authority
 
CONGRESS.
Meanwhile our “defenders of our purses” Democratic Congressional delegation voted no on two bills in congress to restart drilling in the Gulf and reversing Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium which have played a major role in keeping gas and diesel prices high.   Michael Grimm (R ) Staten Island was the only NYC  congress person to vote yes along with suburban and upstate reps Ann Marie Buerkle, Chris Gibson, Richard Hanna, Nan Hayworth, Peter King, Tom Reed and brave Democrat Bill Owens from the NY 23rd.  That’s right everybody else voted not to start us on the road to energy independence because they like sky high gas prices and sky high diesel prices that helped to drive up the cost of food and everything else we just talked about.  This they believe will make us convert to mythical “green” energy as we starve and freeze to death.  The only thing green these policies will create is the green mold from rotting food that no one can afford and more mold inside cold damp apartments that have insufficient heat due to environmental fascists that have enchanted the permanent government in this state .
To add insult to injury NYS now has the second highest combined Federal/State tax rate  per gallon at 69.1 cents per gallon for gasoline and the 4th highest at 73.5 cents per gallon for diesel.  While we suffer at the pumps the ghouls in Albany are laughing all the way to the bank because of new revenues from drivers which can be diverted to public service unions, no show jobs, member items and allotments to questionable not for profits.
 
TICKETS
And if that were not bad enough …has any one seen the numbers from the Independent Budget Office for non tax revenue for 2010?  In the worst recession  since the 1930’s our city government has been relentless in handing out tickets at a blinding rate in order to steal what little money we have left after we over pay for everything else.  Revenue from fines were up 3.8% over 2009, 44% since 2000, 57% since1991 and 88% since 1980. Water and Sewer charges were up 17% since 2009, 31% since 2007, 48% since 2000, 66% since 1991 and 85% since 1980. In this respect Licenses Fees were a bargain only rising 12% since 2009 after only a 3% increase since 2000 but increasing by 45% since 1991. 
 The fines are particularly galling since  Sanitation, Parking, Buildings and Health deny that there are quotas  and the city is in the throes of a very nasty and very major ticket fixing scandal involving every precinct in the Bronx, an Assistant District Attorney  and perhaps as many as 400 police officers.  NY has become a city of the rich, famous and connected vs the poor, industrious and ignored
THE END OF THE DANCE?
 
 The city is about to join the state in a mutlti- decade brain drain caused by a lack of employment opportunity, overpriced everything, taxes on everything from gas for your car to gas in your stomach, poor schools, and a generally deteriorating quality of life.  The internet has made the possibilities of working anywhere in jobs previously anchored geographically to a specific plot of earth almost irrelevant.  NY no longer has the allure, even from an artistic and creative standpoint, that it once monopolized.  It seems frozen in time unable to change or even recognize that change is not only important it is a matter of life and death.  The origin of it’s paralysis is its toxic politics which have become the worst in the nation partially due to greed and corruption and partially due to the hubris that comes with believing that there is no bill after a decades long orgy with other  peoples money.  If this state is to survive then it must clean itself up politically and begin the long slow crawl back from the edge of the precipice .  Tacitus said it best…”To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles,
they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace”!

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