Posts

  Unelected, Unchecked, Untrusted: New York’s Public Authority Problem New Yorkers have a high tolerance for dysfunction. We endure train delays, power outages, fare hikes, tax hikes, and the strange, immutable fact that no public project in this state ever gets done on time or on budget. But even by New York standards, something has gone terribly  wrong within our public authorities, those vast, semi-independent bureaucracies that manage everything from our power grid to our railroads. The recent controversies at the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and the persistent overtime scandals tolerated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) point to a structural failure that can no longer be dismissed as bureaucratic noise. What we’re witnessing is not a series of isolated incidents. It’s a symptom of a governance model that has drifted too far from democratic accountability and too close to entrenched political and corporate interests. Electric utilities aren’t suppos...

  When Corruption Is a Transaction and When It’s a Character We tend to lump all forms of corruption together, as if every crooked act comes from the same moral defect. But there’s a real difference between someone who can be bought and someone who is simply corrupt . And that distinction matters. Paid corruption is transactional. It’s the envelope passed under the table, the favor exchanged for a quiet payout, the public trust sold off in bite-sized pieces. These actors undermine institutions because the price is right. Remove the incentive, tighten oversight, increase transparency, raise the risk and the behavior tends to shrink. It’s ugly, but predictable. Then there is the other kind of corruption: the corruption that doesn’t need a paycheck. This is the official who bends rules not because someone paid them to but because they enjoy the bending. The person who wields authority like a personal toy, who manipulates processes, bullies subordinates, cuts corners, and erodes norm...