Categories for Monday Morning Read

Jun 3

2024

Numbers dispute the claims of a WNY renaissance

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Some numbers caught my eye in the new edition of the WNY Economic News produced by economic professors at Canisius University.  And I quote: National payroll employment has surpassed its pre-COVID peak by more than 7 million jobs while WNY employment is more than 12,000 below its pre-COVID peak.  As they have been since the late 1980s, wages for workers in the Buffalo MSA [metropolitan statistical area] are lower than wages for workers in most industries in the United States. Thus, it should not be a surprise that the most recent data for the Buffalo MSA shows that the average wage[...]

Posted 11 months ago

May 27

2024

Americans are horribly misinformed on the economy

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Subscribe to WeeklyPost and you’ll receive Jim Heaney’s recommended reading Sunday mornings in your inbox. We’re a nation that watches football, obsessives over Taylor Swift and can’t stop staring at our phone screens. Paying attention to reality, not so much. A poll released last week showed most Americans are horribly misinformed over the state of the economy, which in turn is coloring their views on national politics.  Consider: A majority say we’re in a recession; we’re not. Most say unemployment is at a record high; it’s actually near a 50-year low.  A majority say inflation is rising; it’s decreasing. Most[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 20

2024

A Buffalo renaissance? Not with this much poverty.

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The most disturbing thing I read last week was a press release from  Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli about what he termed the state’s “staggering” childhood poverty rate. Nearly one in five live in poverty, half of them in deep poverty.  Poverty is especially pervasive in upstate’s largest cities, according to the comptroller’s report: When compared to other U.S. cities with similar population levels, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo have child poverty rates that are double the average rate of their cohort cities. Between 40 to 46% of children in Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo were living in poverty in 2022, and they[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 13

2024

Online news outlets are hot, newspapers are not

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The awarding of Pulitzer Prizes is about celebrating the accomplishments of newspaper journalism. The latest announcements were made last week, and while there was a lot of good work to salute, there were somber undertones. No regional dailies won a Pulitzer. That underscores how most of them have become shells of their former selves.  That doesn’t mean there wasn’t great work being produced on the local level. Four Pulitizers were awarded to online news outlets, three of them based in Chicago and Santa Cruz, California.  In all, eight newspapers were finalists for a Pulitzer, vs. 12 online outlets. (The balance[...]

Posted 12 months ago

May 6

2024

An update on the sad condition of Kim Pegula

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Tim Graham, late of The Buffalo News, now reporting for The Athletic, broke a story last week on the latest involving Kim Pegula. She’s been declared incapacitated and husband Terry Pegula is now her guardian. Terry has transferred a small portion of the couple’s ownership of the Bills to his daughter from his first marriage, who is starting to play a role in team affairs. (Here’s a version that’s not behind a paywall.)  ProPublica reports on the IRS investigating billionaires using the sports teams they own to cheat on their taxes. The governor of Illinois is no Kathy Hochul when[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Apr 29

2024

Applying a heavy hand in Lockport – and elsewhere

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Lockport Mayor John Lombardi III generated headlines last week when he ordered all city employees to refrain from speaking with reporters. The Lockport Union-Sun & Journal properly chastised Lombardi for the gag order. Unfortunately, Lombardi is far from the only politician employing such heavy handed tactics.  Whether it’s a written policy or not, no one in the sprawling bureaucracy controlled by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is permitted to speak with reporters unless authorized to do so. Rather, all press inquiries are funneled through Mike DeGeorge, the mayor’s spokesman, who frequently fails to return phone calls, much less answer questions. Stonewalling[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Apr 15

2024

Taxes are for us, not them

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Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, took in more than $27 billion in revenue last year. It didn’t pay a dime in federal taxes.  It’s not alone. As reported by Jacobin: “More than one hundred of the country’s most profitable corporations paid zero federal income taxes in at least one year since the Trump tax cuts were enacted.” The story was based on a report generated by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. You’ve got to read the tables that names names. Many a president and Congress have passed tax laws that have enabled corporations to pay a much lower effective[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Apr 8

2024

Everything OK with Buffalo Bills sale of PSLs. Yeah, right.

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The uproar over the cost of personal seat licenses the Buffalo Bills are charging season ticket holders continues to generate a lot of press.  The Buffalo News published a full-throated defense of what many fans consider indefensible. The story quotes unnamed sources – presumably employees of the Bills and/or Legends Entertainment – who contended the PSL rollout has been flawless and that the public outcry is much ado about nothing. Yeah, right. The story prompted a sharp rebuke from Neil deMause, author of the Field of Schemes website that reports on stadium projects. He termed the story “a flagrant violation[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post