The Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) website lists, just in time for the holidays, all the businesses that have been supportive of their efforts to preserve Brooklyn. Here's that list below:

RESTAURANTS AND BARS:

7th Avenue Donuts Luncheonette (Park Slope)
Diner fare and fresh baked donuts.
324 Seventh Avenue (between Eighth and Ninth Street)
(718) 768-0748

Al Di La Trattoria (Park Slope)
Park Slope’s perpetually packed, widely-acclaimed Venetian institution.
248 Fifth Avenue (Near Carroll Street)
(718) 852-1572
www.aldilatrattoria.com
(I can personally vouch for this one. Absolutely excellent! The sage butter gnocchi and the saltamboca (sp?) are among the best as is their frozen cappuccino).

Antonio's Pizzeria (Park Slope)
Pizza since 1950.
318 Flatbush Avenue (between Park & Sterling Place)
(718) 398-2300

Bacchus Bistro (Boerum Hill/Cobble Hill)
French bistro.
409 Atlantic Avenue (between Bond & Nevins Street)
(718) 852-1572
www.bacchusbistro.com

Beast Bar (Prospect Heights)
A unique take on Spanish tapas, and bar.
638 Bergen Street (at Vanderbilt Avenue)
(718) 399-6855

At last night's Independent Neighborhood Democrats meeting Assemblywoman Joan Millman gave us a grim outlook for next year's state budget. I hear the same issue was discussed at Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats as well. This comes the same day the MTA forcasts an equally grim picture (but in their case we always have to question the numbers of an agency that keeps two sets of books depending on whether they want to show a surplus or a deficit). And from Governor Paterson we are hearing ideas like raising CUNY and SUNY fees and cutting education and health programs (our biggest outlays).

Bumped. MB

As Sarah Palin enjoys being able to weather the affects of the financial crisis through shopping sprees that are large enough to be considered economic stimuli in themselves, many women (who still on average only make 79 cents for every 1 dollar their male counterparts earn) are suffering. This issue is not a rant, its not a movement, it is a disparity in our country that still has not been dealt with. People should be rewarded for their work not their gender. Its not just the $150,000 dollar wardrobe, the fact that she bases her foreign policy on being able to see a foreign nation from her window or that she couldn’t name any of the major newspapers that she reads. Instead the biggest problem is that she was selected by the McCain camp in a rushed attempt to secure potential dissenting Democrat women who saw their dreams of President Hillary Clinton vanish after the primary elections. Bad move. They banked on exploiting the female vote without really taking a stance on issues important to women.

The whole Bloomberg Putsch whereby term limits are arbitrarily set aside just this once was predicated on the belief by some (mainly Bloomberg) that Bloomberg, and ONLY Bloomberg, can save us all from economic collapse.

Bloomberg's Messianic delusions aside, the world pretty much doesn't care whether Bloomberg is made Tsar of New York or not. Far from being reassured by the green light given by City Council Lap Dogs to a third Bloomberg term, world markets plunged today:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 5% in the first minutes of trading, while the hi-tech Nasdaq index plunged as much as 6% at one point.

On European markets, London was down 6% in afternoon trading, Frankfurt fell 8% and Paris was 6% lower.

So why was it that Bloomberg and the City Council spit on the will of the people?

In what is a potentially lethal line of attack, Democrat Rick Dollinger is calling out his republican opponent Joe Robach for his ties to the companies now being bailed out by the Federal government.

Rochester, NY – October 14, 2008 – Today, Democratic State Senate candidate Rick Dollinger criticized Republican Joe Robach and State Senate Republicans for accepting nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from the Wall Street corporations that had to be bailed out from their reckless investments. Dollinger pointed out that Republicans also lavished billions of dollars in tax breaks to these same corporations that taxpayers are now being forced to save. Republicans handed out these breaks in conjunction with loosened regulations and safeguards, allowing Wall Street to run rampant with "golden parachutes" and to gamble away billions of Main Street's dollars.

"Over the past eight years Republicans in the State Senate have enabled the fallacious practices of Wall Street banks and corporations by granting billions in tax breaks and passing bills that eliminated government oversight and accountability to taxpayers," said Dollinger. "These practices have dominated the agenda of the Republican controlled State Senate, and mirror the careless policies of the Bush administration."

"We can no longer afford the Republican model of leadership that favors the needs of big businesses on Wall Street over the economic crisis facing struggling taxpayers on Main Street," continued Dollinger. "Now taxpayers are being told that they must provide a $700 billion crutch to Wall Street, a burden inflicted upon New Yorkers as a direct result of the corruption within the Republican-controlled State Senate."

For the past 10 years, State Senate Republicans have lavished tax breaks equivalent to $2.5 billion, and another $1.5 billion in incentives upon Wall Street, while also passing legislation that dismantled measures requiring accountability and transparency within these corporations.

Dollinger concluded, "For years, New Yorkers have suffered from a weakening economy, crippling property taxes, and as a result, young people leaving the state in record numbers. In the face of all that, Republican Joe Robach decided it more important to help out the Wall Street barons bankrolling his campaign than protect the Monroe County taxpayers who voted him into office."

With Goldman Sachs and - or so scuttlebutt has it - Morgan Stanley applying for New York banking charters, do you really want republicans in charge of regulating them? How'd that work out up until now?

When George Bush slithered into office due to the unconstitutional power grab of his daddy's Supreme Court cronies, the Dow stood at 10,643.

Now, it's at 8,918, after falling all the way to 8,859.78. Measured from its 52-week high, 14,198.10, the market has lost over 5,000 points.

Here's the good news: while the stock market has lost over a third of its value in the last year, that's not as abysmal a performance as the value of the dollar put in. This because the vaunted greenback has lost over half its value against the Euro since Bush came in.

So yeah, yay republicans!

Reuters published a handy summary of Paulson's bail out proposal along with the counterproposals by Democrats :

• Would allow up to $700 billion in mortgage assets to be held by Treasury at any one time.
• Allows the Treasury to buy any mortgage-related assets, both residential and commercial, for a two-year period. The plan does not detail the types of mortgage assets this could cover and or how long the government could hold them, and does not establish how they would be valued. However, if deemed needed to promote financial market stability, any type of financial instrument could be bought.
• Assets must have been originated or issued before September 17, 2008, by a financial institution having "significant operations" in the United States. This provision could also be waived if deemed needed to promote financial stability.
  

That's the unemployment rate in New York City right now, having jumped 1% in one month thanks to the AIGs and Lehman's free falling :

The city’s unemployment rate increased nearly one percentage point last month, indicating that Wall Street’s woes are starting to take their toll on the local economy. At 5.8%, New York City’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is still below the national average of 6.1%, but that gap is steadily closing.

The adjusted rate, which only accounts for people actively seeking work, made its largest monthly jump in at least three decades by increasing from 5% in July. It is up from 5.3% in August 2007.

The number of people collecting unemployment, considered by some to be a more accurate picture of economic hardship, totaled 74,795 in August, up 5.7% from 70,700 in July and up 18.2% over 63,298 in August 2007.

Chilling stuff in this New York Times piece on the ongoing Wall Street meltdown.

Flashes of fear were evident Wednesday as investors clamored for government debt. When investors bid up the price, the yield falls, and it sank on three-month Treasury bills to 0.061 percent, from 1.644 percent a week ago. The yield was the lowest in more than 50 years.

The current U.S. inflation rate is 5.4% per annum. At a yield of 0.061%, investors are tolerating a 5% loss in capital for security. Think about that.

Local governments and other enterprises will feel pressure, too. The city of Chicago and Lincoln Center in New York postponed debt offerings because they would have to pay such high interest rates to investors, said Daniel S. Solender, director of municipal bond management at Lord Abbett & Company.

Municipal debt offering usually go to capital improvements. Usually, that means building stuff and hiring people to do it. If that contracts significantly, as it now probably will, the fallout for local economies could be devastating.

There are some very hard times ahead. Thank you again, republican de-regulators. You rock.

Politics is in large measure a business of urban legends. The chief beneficiary of these is the republican party, an enterprise founded largely on myths. For example, despite the fact that the most devastating terrorist attacks in our history took place as one George Bush was reading a children's book, they're viewed as strong on terrorism. The demonstrable fact that their war on Iraq has hollowed out the military perhaps beyond repair, they're viewed as competent on issues of defense.

Most perniciously, the republican party that created the current financial and fiscal trainwreck is viewed as a competent steward of the economy.

Here's just an observation: when George Bush took office in 2001, the Dow Jones traded at around 10,659 points. At this writing, per the New York Times live market ticker, it's at 10,831, and dropping like a stone.

Maybe that's why Barack Obama has significantly outraised John McCain in the securities and investment sector. Wall Street doesn't seem to believe that the fundamentals of our economy are strong.