Monday, January 23, 2012

A Fine Pun Is Detected Today In Null Space, But InsolvenCity's POS Is No Laughing Matter

Null Space, switching from the reassessment beat to a bad situation, has unveiled (and aptly named) the huge POS that the City of Pittsburgh, apparently addled by delusions of solvency, is presenting to financial markets.

Mainly, it is InsolvenCity's mayor (or at least the leeches who wind his spring) and the city council president (who doesn't even a have a spring to wind) who are responsible for this return to an unsustainable financial trajectory. For the mayor, this offering is designed to promote re-election by funding a bunch of paving projects and (if history guides) self-promoting trashcans. For the city council president, this spending spree was the cost of doing the business of obtaining the mayor-controlled votes among city councilors for her re-election. For everyone else in Pittsburgh -- well, you voted for these knuckleheads, so reach for the Vaseline and hope for the best.

InsolvenCitiers should hope this POS is the final payment by Darlene Harris on her account with the mayor's office.

Infytune: Can't Buy Me Love, The Beatles
Infytune: Gold Digger, Kanye West with Jamie Foxx
Infytune: I Gotta Feeling, Black Eyed Peas

2 comments:

PK said...

Huh...and I thought you were joking about the 'POS' line.

That's in league with Santorum's recent Conservatives Unite Moneybomb.

Does anyone proofread these things?

kejad said...

1.) I heard one of our brilliant officials cite "road paving" as a capital expenditure. I'm not sure how it's treated under GAAP, but common sense would call that maintenance, which is an expense. Someone tell that bonehead that just because something costs a lot of money doesn't make it a "capital expense".

2.) How many other people are elated that much of the city's revenues are borne by the city's middle class? A good chunk of it is based on wages, not on investment income. Wouldn't it be far easier to collect and file (and fairer, in my view) to just take a % based on our federal income tax obligations? You copy your federal income returns, multiply some number on there by a small percentage, and write a check in that amount?