NYC Transit Strike '05
No doubt about it, the NYC transit strike is causing much consternation, but the truth is that the TWU's bark is much worse than their bite this time around because of our new, wired world. Telecommuting and modern communication technologies render the union's strategy rather anemic. While they are clearly screwing up the holiday shopping season and making life hell for the innocent tourists who came to our city to have a nice holiday, the beating heart of the city - the financial services industry - is wired to the hilt and can easily do business offsite. Every financial services worker in the city is a Crackberry junkie and has a high speed isp at home or can go to the suburban outposts that every smart firm has setup in the past few years. So the movin' and shakin' is still happening even though folks can't get to the Manhattan office as easily. (And besides, nobody does anything this time of year except go to Christmas parties and obsess about their bonuses.)
This is on top of the bad calculation of the TWU. They have historically relied on the weenie factor in our politicians to get their demands through. Bloomberg may be a nanny-state, phony Republican, but he is rich as Croesus and just got re-elected so he can have a cost-free backbone on this one. Pataki certainly is a weenie, but he's not running again and desperately needs to be seen as a non-weenie since he harbors these delusional notions of running for President. On the whole, bad political calculus from Roger Touissant & Co.
Finally, on a macro level this is just another data point in the long, sorry history of reasons why NYC is a fading great city. NYC is, and has been, losing population and influence for decades. One of the key reasons has been that residents don't get adequate services for the huge taxes they pay in, and the subways are just one example of the many services that come at enormously high cost but are barely adequate. (Schools. We won't even go there.)
NYC still has a way to go before it is completely devoid of appeal for business and a dynamic citizenry, but it continues to do everything it can to drive people and business away. NYC has for years been handing cities like Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix and Jacksonville what they need to prosper - its fed-up citizens who want a square deal from their local civic administration poobahs. Alas, the transit strike of 2005 is just another chapter in NYC's long, slow decline.
UPDATE: Gee, as if on cue.
This is on top of the bad calculation of the TWU. They have historically relied on the weenie factor in our politicians to get their demands through. Bloomberg may be a nanny-state, phony Republican, but he is rich as Croesus and just got re-elected so he can have a cost-free backbone on this one. Pataki certainly is a weenie, but he's not running again and desperately needs to be seen as a non-weenie since he harbors these delusional notions of running for President. On the whole, bad political calculus from Roger Touissant & Co.
Finally, on a macro level this is just another data point in the long, sorry history of reasons why NYC is a fading great city. NYC is, and has been, losing population and influence for decades. One of the key reasons has been that residents don't get adequate services for the huge taxes they pay in, and the subways are just one example of the many services that come at enormously high cost but are barely adequate. (Schools. We won't even go there.)
NYC still has a way to go before it is completely devoid of appeal for business and a dynamic citizenry, but it continues to do everything it can to drive people and business away. NYC has for years been handing cities like Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix and Jacksonville what they need to prosper - its fed-up citizens who want a square deal from their local civic administration poobahs. Alas, the transit strike of 2005 is just another chapter in NYC's long, slow decline.
UPDATE: Gee, as if on cue.
posted by Donny Baseball at 12:51 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home