CategoryEconomics

HOW TO FIX NYCHA’S ILLS: A MODEST PROPOSAL

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March 2020 / Recently, Greg Russ, the chairman of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) indicated that the agency could do the unthinkable and partially privatize the city’s public housing stock as a way to bridge that agency’s ever-widening repair bill. This was brought about by Russ’ revelation that the cost of the repairs over the next five years could be a staggering $40 billion, up...

Factors Affecting Crude Oil Prices

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May 2019 / The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power. — Jamal Khashoggi While America has been a superpower for almost a century, its emergence as a global energy superpower is relatively new. As an illustration, as recently as 2015 it was illegal to export oil. This all changed with the shale boom which...

The Rise of the Robots and Semiconductors

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April 2019 / Ever since a study by the University of Oxford predicted that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk of being replaced by robots and artificial intelligence over the next 15 to 20 years, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the future of work,” wrote Andres Oppenheimer in his novel, “The Robots Are Coming: The Future of Jobs in the Age of Automation.” Sounds all too familiar as we...

Heating Oil Hedging, Explained

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March 2019 / The year was 1978 and I was a newly-minted bank lending officer at Irving Trust Company in Manhattan. Fresh out of high school and desperate for any type of recognition, I volunteered to join a small group of adventurers involved in introducing a futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange (the Exchange) to local heating oil dealers. For the uninitiated, the Exchange opened...

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead

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January 2019 / If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. — Orson Welles In the world of New York City diesel-based heating oil, the story for No. 6 residual oil came to an end in 2015, while No. 4 oil will be eliminated by 2030. With that looming timetable it is surprising to learn that as many as one-third of all New York buildings are still using No. 4...

Ron Spurga, United Metro Energy Corporation

Best-selling financial author, Wall Street investment banker, social commentator, award-winning poet, energy consultant, off-Broadway producer, and community organizer in Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, Ron Spurga is the ultimate Renaissance Man.

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