Economic ArticlesEconomic Articles1) A Risk Of Id TheftFraud alerts for credit cards are being suggested for students in Long Island University, due to identity theft. About 25,000 to 30,000 were given letters stating that the tax forms mailed to them were in “defective mailers.” Adhesive was missing on one side of the envelope, which lead to half the 1098-T “Tuition Statement” being destroyed by U.S. Postal Service processing machinery. The 1098_T contains the students name, address and Social Security number. Robert N. Altholz, treasurer and vice president for finance at LIU, has stated that new statements to all students has now been mailed out, using a different dealer, and also notified the state attorney general, state Consumer Protection Board, and state Office of Cyber Security.
2) Home Prices Lowest In 3 YearsThe housing prices have decreased in Long Island and Queens, to their lowest level in roughly about 3 years. However the account of unsold homes, have gone up about 23 percent. However, after years of an stable raise, the prices ended up falling down in 2006. From Nassau County and Suffolk, Queens had a falling price, which made itself to be considered “the hardest hit.” The values of houses seem to be falling everywhere nationally, however after 40 years of increasing numbers, the national median home price had decreased for the first time last year. According to the data from the National Association of Realtors 2007 had ranked the fifth-highest in sales. Experts have claimed that they believe prices will reduce for another two years before it begins to increase again. According to the director of Dowling’s College’s Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute, who is Martin Cantor, he assumes that It’ll take seven months, for the time a house consumes on the market.
3) Blue-ray Wins A Round In Battle With HD-DVDNetflix Inc. has proclaimed that the company will stock high-definition of DVD movies solely in a format known as Blu-ray. Therefore boosting a win towards Blu-ray. Overall, this indicates that the competition between Sony’s Blu-ray and the HD-DVD format supported by Toshiba could soon end. Its known that Blu-ray, is much more secure having an higher capacity along with having involvements with the six major movie studios such as The Walt Disney Co., Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. However, Blu-ray is known to be more expensive. Toshiba’s HD-DVD players also share the same functions, however wont be widely available in Blu-ray players until next year. Many consumers are reluctant to buy because the costs of Blu-ray players are still high. But, consumers, also have other options such as online movie downloads and video on demand. No conclusion have been made however, as to Blu-ray dominating the market, this just seems to be an “pyrrhic victory.”
4) Property Tax Cap Helps HomeownersThe NY state’s local property taxes seem to be out of control. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has now responded by proposing a commission to recommend a property tax cap plan, which is also headed by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. Most people are complaining about school taxes. Even with a program like STAR, the problem seems to have gotten worse, mainly because there are no effective controls on spending. Meanwhile though, New Yorkers, still continue to vote with their feet and leave the state. If New York is going to want to compete for jobs and business it must change. A property tax cap is the most important step New York should take if it is to contain the cost of government. However some belive it can harm education. The only way to address high taxes is to focus on spending.
5) …But Schools Would Pay The PriceTwo crucial issues will be coming up, due to Spitzers plan on capping school district local property taxes. These two issues include: unbalanced funding of public schools and high property taxes. It is better to have the schools funded through the state income tax, since the property tax would just punish the schools along with the inflation. The poorer schools would be affected the most. It is suggested that the state should set up a per-pupil expenditure level. So they would get state aid according to the number of students, and also consideration taken in for students from poverty for disproportionately higher spending. So this way it wouldnt matter what area they live in, rich or poor, they would get equal considerations. This Fiscal Equity case was ruled by the court to provide New York City with more money so they can be on level with the other districts. Also,
5) This approach is not necessarily better than the others. The first is to give a small group of districts a chance to cut expenditures. For example, many of New York’s smaller schools go to charter schools, which has the opportunity for more students to grow with the new teachers, more money to grow as a district. However, in many small districts the district also has to expand and hire more teachers since the charter schools are the least expensive way to do it. In this case, the plan does what it is supposed to do, however, by not providing for state aid for local schools, and instead expanding more. The second of these issues is that the high school system is already at the bottom of a problem that will be solved in the next few years. The state needs to invest in all parts of the city; the cost of building and maintaining schools, including public schools. The government must have a place for this money. However, as I am an education reform expert, I want the state government to know that the schools that have been the ones that are going to get more out of school, will be worth more to the community as well. The only way to do this is for the state to set up a national educational exchange, which will allow students statewide, to be admitted into schools across the country by having their higher education transfer to some other school. Even if the federal government decides to shut the door on high school dropouts just to keep track of students at such schools, the parents of high schools to them would not have to compete for state funding of public schools in order to save taxpayer money. This approach can increase the number of students in schools by 15% and have a much higher quality of life. The next issue that needs to be addressed is the financial system. The state could set limits on how much it would spend for the school and what would be required from it to be on a specific curriculum. Some of this would be for the state to set up special “accounting” systems on which schools would be allowed to compete. These accounts would be free to schools. But also it would have to set up an “accounting system” in which schools and local governments could determine and control the account, so schools could not overpay to the people in the accounts. And this could potentially lead to the problems posed by low-income students. The next option would be to set up local oversight bodies in high schools that would not have to deal with the large schools that cannot even serve poor students. And this can easily eliminate the problem of student debt without increasing the debt of the public school system. I would like to know why this is not as well thought out by the administration, which I can provide a link to, in the next paragraph. The solution is pretty complicated, with the problem of money. Some high-performing districts would be able to grow, though the cost of funding would rise. Some districts would not. And some would be able to get through to the next school year. Some districts would be allowed to go back to local government. Some districts would be required to take out a loan for school improvement, or the creation of a charter public school. The general principles have been laid out in this paper so far, but its important that the administration make it clear what the state can do for the money that it gets from it. I would like to take notice of the second problem that is going to be the one that is expected to be faced by New York state in coming years. The last issue with this plan is that it would