For almost a century Senior Centers such as Lennox Hill Hospital have provided valuable services for Senior Citizens living in the district. With budget cuts, these organizations much rely increasingly on private donations to sustain there activities. Although they are adept at raising a large donations from a few donors, they lack the technology and skills needed to raise large sums of money from small donors. By working with various senior centers in the district, you could provide a valuable public service, raise your profile among senior citizens, undermine the argument that your campaign is based on agism, and show how you would differentiate yourself via Maloney.

The availability of affordable housing in New York City is relevant to the city’s life in so many ways—including its ability to foster innovation—that it merits a serious discussion about how we might go about improving our housing situation. Obviously this is already an aspect of city policy. Just as obviously, city policy is falling well short of the goal of providing an adequate supply of affordable housing. Can we talk about what might be done to remedy this? You don’t have to be an expert to contribute to this—I’m certainly not one! (Yet.) Any idea you have could be interesting to the discussion.

I’ll start us off by mentioning one idea that comes from one of our right-leaning friends at the Manhattan Institute. In the most recent edition of City Journal, Edward Glaeser suggests that historic district classification may drive up prices and reduce socio-economic diversity within those regions. He concludes that the spread of these districts may helping Manhattan become “a refuge of the rich.”

The idea is that development is much more difficult within historic districts, leading to the stifling of an increase in housing supply to match growing demand.

Should we be more careful about designating historic districts? Should we reduce the power of Landmarks Preservation Commission to regulate development? I would go for this especially if it came with a concomitant increase in low-income housing concerns in the approval of development projects.

What do you think about that issue? What other ideas do you have for improving the housing situation?

References:
1. S. Mankikar’s Original Post on Preserving Cultural Capital: http://www.reshma2010.com/pages/protect_cultural_capital
2. E. Glaeser’s Article on Historic Preservation: http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_preservation-follies.html

While democracy has indisputably been a blessing to the American people, increasing in scope over the last couple centuries, it is also indisputable that there is still a lot of room for improvement. I’d like to discuss one major way we can improve our system to make it work better for the American people, and that is to improve our hyper-partisan political system and address the disappearance of moderate legislators.

Despite the fact that most Americans occupy a place near the center of the political spectrum, we are increasingly governed by a legislature bitterly divided into two strict partisan factions. As a result, the political preferences of one ideological extreme are instituted over the howls of the other—in the very rare case that anything is done at all about America’s most pressing issues. Americans rightly bemoan a state of politics in which their leaders appear to care more about beating the other party than about actually solving the nation’s problems—a situation which frequently descends to the level of one party opposing moderate reforms that it has long supported, in the cynical hope that they might derive a partisan advantage from the defeat of sensible solutions.

Perhaps the best way to fix this would be to make it possible for voters to rationally select third party candidates. This would force the two main political parties to the center, while allowing for the possibility of giving a true representative voice to districts that would really prefer to be represented by the Greens, Libertarians, Reform Party, Socialists, or Conservative Party.

The problem today is that voting for a third party in America means throwing away your vote. One solution that would still maintain the advantages of our electoral system would be to rank your preferences in a procedure called Instant Runoff Voting. Here’s how it works:

1. You rank as many candidates you want in order of your preference.
2. If someone wins a majority of first place votes, that person wins.
3. If no one wins a majority of first place votes, the person with the fewest would be eliminated. If you voted for them, your second place vote becomes a first choice vote in the next tally. If someone wins a majority if first place votes in the next tally, he or she wins.
4. This is repeated until someone wins a majority.

This is equivalent to having an election, and if no one wins a majority, eliminating the last place person and having another election—except in this case you state your preferences beforehand so you don’t have to vote several times.

Under this method, people could run under the party that really reflects their beliefs, and voters could vote for whomever they wanted without worrying about wasting their vote. In most districts, this could lead to more moderate candidates in the Republican and Democratic parties. The end result would be a Congress that is more politically diverse and more moderate at the same time, ultimately serving as a better representative of the wishes of Americans.

In the early 2000’s, the IPO market dried up, largely due to collapsed margins for brokers in post-IPO trades. While allowing retail investors more direct access to these markets, these changes inadvertently closed a financing window for technology startups (especially those in R&D-heavy sectors like biotech and cleantech). Currently, biotech companies have to depend on sale to a large pharma in order to have a hope of their healthcare products getting to the market. Cleantech companies largely haven’t seen exits through acquisition, and the few recent acquisitions have actually been to large overseas energy companies—so either these companies go nowhere or they go somewhere else altogether.

Policies that would re-open the IPO window would have the effect of stimulating more VC investment into early-stage, highly innovative startups, by allowing these startups to have greater access to sources of public financing.

New York City harbors the most ambitious individuals who have ideas and entrepreneurial drive but often lack the time, means and support to explore these goals. While some can pursue an MBA, for others the high financial and opportunity costs present significant barriers.

I propose we create a business school-like environment, creating the benefits of graduate school comraderie and networking through a public-private partnership in NYC. This would allow those with the entrepreneurial drive but lack of resources or time to go beyond the initial idea phase and gain mentorship, meet experts and develop a support system. Having an outlet to help entrepreneurs-to-be identify business opportunities and develop a path to test and transition their ideas into new ventures could help foster a new innovation pipeline. In addition, it can be an engine to attract new ventures and investors seeking to connect with critical mass of talent

NYC already attracts top academics, experts and resources. I suggest we create a formalized structure bringing these resources together under one accessible platform, divided into 4-5 key areas. The resulting New York Business School(NYBS) would solicit participants by inviting anyone to apply and describe their experience, ideas, and development opportunities. Participants will be matched in “sections” according to their needs and focus areas. As a result, we’d create a network more active than a traditional meet-up and more accessible than a traditional business.

Create a national Innovation Corps, in the vein of AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, to enlist recent math, science, and engineering college graduates in a rotational program geared towards cultivating the next generation of American Innovators.

Innovation Corps participants will be sponsored through a public-private partnership grant and engage in a 4 part rotational program. Each participant will apply to join the Innovation Corps with a particular focus areas in either web-tech, clean-tech, bio-tech, or new infrastructure.

The participants will spend the first 3 months as a research assistant in their focus area in an academic or federally sponsored research facility, such as the NIH or a local university. The second 3 months will be spent with an early growth or venture capital firm investing in technologies in line with the participant’s focus area. The third 3 month rotation will place the Innovation Corps participant as an apprentice in an entrepreneurial enterprise. The last 3 month rotation will bring Innovation Corps members together in their focus cohorts together in an Innovation Incubator to learn about the entrepreneurial process and work on their own business plan.

Throughout the program, Innovation Corps members will receive mentorship, guidance, and exposure to career paths as an entrepreneur and innovator in areas of significant national importance. The Innovation Corps will be a highly competitive program that enlists America’s brightest college graduates, who far too often are drawn into swapping derivatives for big bonuses. Cities can apply for a cohort of Innovation Corps members in particular focus groups by coordinating and public-private rotational program plan. The Innovation Corps will offer young innovators an incredible network within which to cultivate their ideas, learn new skills, and contribute to their country.

Following their Innovation Corps service, participants will receive stipends to pursue higher education in math, science, engineering, and business. These Innovation Corps alumni will be equipped with the direction, experience, and support network to create the next set of great private enterprises and innovations that will drive our nation into the next generation economy.

We need to stimulate our economy in the short term, and also to clean up the long-term structural deficits our government operates under.

We can do both by immediately raising the income levels that our tax brackets are set to (effectively an across-the-board tax cut, but one that would primarily benefit lower- and middle- income earners), while also locking in the new brackets at the nominal rates they are reset to.

Over time, as workers get raises, more income will find its way into the higher brackets, eventually letting this tax cut pay for itself and then some.

Additionally, this reform could be used to simplify our income taxes (with rates set to simple numbers like $25,000 and $50,000 instead of $11,853 or $42,528, etc) and to make it more progressive (by adding new $1million and $5million brackets, for example)

Currently our federal taxation of financial instruments creates perverse incentives – dividends and capital gains are taxed, which takes a bite out of the income generated by prudent investment (buying and holding profitable companies), while speculation is rewarded.

Replacing the dividend tax (at least on US companies) with a per-share transaction fee on stock sales (of say, $.05 per share sold) would strongly discourage speculation, make investing less volatile and safer for amateur investors (luring new investment), and drive up the value of dividend-paying stocks. This change could also be structured to raise more $$ for the federal government, reducing the deficit.

New York is my star-crossed lover. I don’t know how long I can hang on here. My parents immigrated to the Bronx in 1977, when the Bowery was famous for bums and Basquiat, when a dancer named Madonna was trying to get a break on East 7th St, when Spike Lee was learning how to load film into a camera at NYU, and when the international language of hip-hop was being born on these streets. One can say great art comes out of facing life’s struggles. It has become increasingly difficult for artists to make art and culture in “New York, New York” because it has fundamentally become too expensive to live here.

As a filmmaker, I keep tabs on all the cultural movements and flows in the city. It is no longer possible for a young Paul Auster to work a part-time job, rent a $300/month studio on East 3rd St, walk everywhere instead of subway or cabs, buy $40 groceries for the week, and spend the majority of time writing, re-writing, and revising more in order to get published. This young Paul Auster would have to move to Flushing or be independently wealthy. This East Village studio would rent for $300/day to French tourists. I appreciate the positive contributions of the 90’s and 00’s redevelopment plans. I appreciate the fact that I can walk down 3rd Ave at 3am as a young woman and feel pretty safe. My mother didn’t have that in the 70s. However, we lost a lot of our cultural capital in the process. We lost Live/Work Studio spaces to condo conversions. We lost hearing different languages on the street. We lost seeing people of wide age and wealth ranges. We lost affordable living & housing, and we lost some of our international landmarks — CBGB’s, galleries, little boutiques by emerging designers. More than just storefronts, these were gathering places, artistic labs, nurseries for the young talent that made this city worth living in. Without all this, we may as well live in Nevada and at least have some money saved up at the end of the day.

I’m not a policy analyst. I don’t know the right Economics equation or who to lobby in City Council. Frankly, I’m a little skeptical of politicians. I’m just trying follow my dreams. There are millions of people in my position. I guess we all need to take more responsibility over our government, vote for people we believe in, continue the momentum from 2008. It’s 2010, and we’ve all gone back to chasing our own dreams.

What happened to the prosperity of the 00’s? Which Swiss Bank now holds all this money that has suddenly vanished? Why are New York City school children losing their free metro cards to get to school? Why is the MTA going bankrupt again and talking about closing the subway at night?

So — I guess I’m talking about a lot of things here. I suppose the “innovation” would be to protect the innovators. Some of these artists were also our greatest business people. There should be an “artistic investment exchange”, a better way to link those in the financial sector to the arts. There should be more public funding for the arts, as with the British Film Council’s Lottery Fund or any other developed nation. There was talk of a Cabinet Post for the Arts in 2008. But all these things affect High Art, not daily living. I don’t really know the technicalities of the grand, 30-year urban re-development plans. I do know that we need to get some of that cultural capital back. We need to make this city affordable to live & create in again.

When I started my small business in New York, it cost me a small fortune. In other states and cities, becoming an entrepreneur is practically free. If New York State won’t change it’s burdensome fees and filing process, perhaps Congress can help entrepreneurs in NY and other business-unfriendly states by offering a tax credit for state and local start-up costs. It would a small expense to the Treasury, and a huge help to entrepreneurs.

Need a user-friendly online portal that provides both public and private sector information for entrepreneurs, including information on:
1) local meetups
2) local watering holes
3) government grants, loans, incubators, subsidies
4) data centers, servers, labs
5) engineers, managers
6) investors and venture capital
7) mentors, angels
8) city training
etc.

Right now, this information is scattered over the web. Just be aggregating it real-time, the city can provide an invaluable map for new entrepreneurs.

Before 1960, more than 95% of clothing sold in the United States, was produced in the United States. After NAFTA and several other sweeping changes only 4% of clothing purchased in the United States was made here.

Many ask the question, can clothing still be made in the developed world? My response is yes.

Of course we cannot compete using the same tactics as countries that have few labor rights and cultures so poor any work is acceptable. We can compete with great ideas, executed better than anywhere else.

We need to support businesses that make products in innovative and sustainable ways as much as we support the creation of software and web-based companies.

I do not suppose we will revisit the days of traditional shirt factories, now a relic of the fading New York garment district. For one, we must imagine a new way to design and manufacture the stuff we wear and love.

It is important that we support the creation of companies that use technology to create tangible products, which can be in themselves, solutions to our economic and environmental challenges.

US is the only country in the world taxing its citizens across the globe. In a way, this is a tax on mobility, i.e. because I am taxed even if I work in Europe, there is no incentive for me to relocate there for a good opportunity. Unemployment can be lowered if people can find jobs in a global environment vs being incentivized to only look for opportunities at home. Finally, for every person working abroad, it reduces some level of burden on the state.

Use some of the money that has been allocated to the SBA — which small businesses have difficulty getting access to because of the complexity of the application process and demanding collateralization requirements — to give all small businesses (less than 100 employees) a breark (3-6 months) from payroll taxes. This would be an effective capital infusion for small businesses, allowing them to use these funds for new jobs and capital purchases, both of which stimulate economic growth.

The government should promote the proliferation of nuclear power. The Three Mile Island accident is over 30 years ago, reactor technology and safety procedures have come a long way since then. Diversifying our energy generation capabilities away from the traditional carbon based sources would reduce our reliance on foreign oil (which may have additional foreign policy ramifications), not to mention the positive environmental impact. France currently has a working nuclear energy model where approximately 85% of its electricity is generated by nuclear power plants, there is no reason why we can’t follow suit.

Computer Science and Applied Math will continue to be the tools of innovation and value creation. Let’s point some of our education budget to creating more scholarships in this area and insure New York and the United States remain strong in the 21st Century.

One of the most anti-competitive political sentiments of today is that of “protectionism.” Unfortunately, protectionist policy also leads to serious misconceptions of economic change.

Rather than try to protect existing jobs in America from the outsourcing phenomenon (a futile objective), government should be incentivizing foreign investment in the U.S. and small- and medium-sized American businesses to transact overseas.

Financial and accounting regulatory reform must therefore become looser for foreign companies, even as it becomes tighter for U.S. ones. Knee-jerk accounting reforms such as Sarbanes-Oxley must be prevented from happening. Tax credits should be awarded to SME’s which effectively export goods and services to overseas markets.

Currently, immigration could be a much bigger force for economic growth than it is. However, pointless debates over saving American jobs prevent it from being so. Government should have a clear program for putting immigrants with foreign languages to work in playing a crucial role in developing U.S.-global enterprises. One way to achieve this is to give immigrants whose first language is anything other than English and who start a U.S.-domiciled enterprise tax credits and/or substantial reductions for the first 5 years of operation.

Local governments are facing revenue short-falls due to the recession. They are being forced to do more with less. Technology solutions such as cloud computing and CRM software can enhance productivity. I have written two white papers on the subject. http://www.pinarus.com/thought_leadership

Not only would such investments allow for more cost-effective delivery of services but also create a demand for high-skilled labor.

I took a big risk two years ago. I quit a stable job to start my own business. What I didn’t realize was how difficult it would be to get decent health insurance once I was self-employed. New York is better than most states, with our large freelance community, but making a decision about the type of health care I could get was very simply defined by what I could afford as an individual. What I could afford ended up being a basic scheme from a health insurance provider who my doctor once accepted but soon dropped because in her words, “My practice can’t survive on the rates they are paying.” Wouldn’t it be great if there was a pool insurance I could buy into at a “reasonable” rate as a registered entrepreneur? Wouldn’t it be nice if I could spend less time worried about my health coverage (and praying I don’t get REALLY sick) and more time creating innovative ideas for my business and for New York? I think so. :)

With cap-and-trade, the emission of carbon would be limited, and market forces would be harnessed to drive low-carbon innovations. Barring the disproving of anthropogenic global warming (not likely), green technology is our future—our choice is to import it or to create it at home. We could tax carbon directly and use the proceeds to subsidize clean tech, but cap-and-trade would both be more effective in limiting emissions, and be more efficient in developing low-carbon technology, since the development of this technology would be shaped by the free market, not by bureaucrats. Most essentially, technologies developed under cap-and-trade would be much more likely to be viable in the international market, since they would represent the most cost-efficient reductions in carbon emissions.

Following along with Friedman’s article in the Times today, I think the New York City needs to be on the forefront of supporting those with innovative ideas. Job creation isn’t going to occur through a bill, it’s going to come through concrete steps like tax credits for startups that operate in New York and provides jobs to New Yorkers. Take for example my husband’s startup company CipherHealth, based in New York City, employs Americans, more companies like his would crop up here if the government sought to incentive individuals to remain here.

How does it work?

The federal government sets aside funding to infuse start-up seed capital for the bank. Upon formation, the government will leverage private capital and invite proposals from American entrepreneurs in line with important national innovation priorities. The National Innovation Bank will enable entrepreneurs to access the capital, resources, and mentorship to unleash the full potential of their next generation innovations that will re-charge the American economy.

How much capital will it raise?

The government will contribute $15B from non-committed stimulus funding and then leverage up to $100B through the sale of federal “innovation” bonds or other devices.

What are the investment guidelines?

The National Innovation Bank will appoint an “Investment council” made up of experts from academia, the private sector, and government. The NIB will outline investment areas in line with national priorities, including clean-tech, bio-tech, national broadband expansion, and web tech.

How can everyone get involved in re-starting America?

The bank will solicit proposals from bright American innovators and entrepreneurs for early seed capital, mid-stage investing, or late-stage scaling to fund ground-breaking initiatives. These investment packages would include incubator subsidies, access to resources, and advisory support from the “Investment council”. Americans can invest in “innovation bonds” across the three asset classes of early-stage, mid-stage, or late-stage companies, with appropriately scaled risk-return rates. In addition, investors can track progress against transparent reporting metrics. Together, we can re-start the American economy.

What role can states play?

Each state will be invited to provide matching investments for innovators selected by the National Innovation Bank. In addition, states can set up special “incubator incentives” to provide start-up space, public-private resources, and mentorship to cultivate businesses. In doing so, the National Innovation Bank will not only fuel entrepreneurship and growth nationally, but will be an engine for states to develop regional innovation clusters, similar to Silicon Valley.

Why do we need to think differently?

If we’re serious about jump starting our economy, then we need to reboot the conventional economic thinking coming from Washington. From 1995-2005, over 25% of technology companies founded in the US had a key immigrant founder. In 2005 alone, those companies generated $52B in sales and employed nearly half a million people, mostly Americans. The immigrants that comprise 12% of our population earn a staggering 47% of the nation’s science and technology PhDs and pioneer new innovations by filing for 24% of US patents. From Google to Ebay, immigration has been good for New York City, good for America, and is critical to our future economic prosperity.

How can we enact innovative reforms to boost American entrepreneurship?

However, for years, Washington policy has shown immigrant entrepreneurs the door instead of providing them the resources to start the next Google here in the US. In fact, right now over 50% of immigrants returning to India or China hold advanced degrees. Our current work-visa system is outdated, counter-productive and sorely in need of reform. By enacting smart reform, we will both protect existing American jobs while also encouraging immigrant entrepreneurship that will create more domestic jobs. Today’s H1-B (for immigrant workers) and EB-5 work visas (for immigrant investors) for immigrants are too limited in scope and too narrowly defined. I propose eliminating the cap on H-1B visas and doubling the cap on EB-5 visas to 20,000 per year. In addition, I will fight for the immediate passage of the “Start-up visa” program which keeps immigrant entrepreneurs, who commit to hire American workers and generate domestic sales, right here in the United States.

Similar to how government-funded medical research leads to huge innovation and jobs in the pharmaceutical industry, open source software serves as the foundation for entire industries… yet it receives virtually no funding. Just imagine the infrastructure that could be built for such a small government investment.

We could use something like github to allocate the funds based on how many people use the project or via peer ratings.