Leaving New York

October 28, 2005

Listen here. Aired on the Marketplace Morning Report.

This non-narrated piece was part of Marketplace's New York Week coverage in October, 2005. I met documentary maker Pete Nicks and his family as they prepared to move out of their Brooklyn apartment and head back to Oakland. He loved the city, but it also drove him nuts. He talked to me about what was driving him back west after several years of living in NYC, a place where he had assumed he'd forge a career.

Comments

[Syahdell]

This might sound strange, but if Rudd plays his cards right, the rruesoce profits tax debate could be immensely beneficial to him politically and win him the next election. Yes, not many people support the tax; he is up against a well funded industry campaign; and right wing newspapers such as The Rentseekers Review. But how many of the people who do not support the tax actually care that much? Is it really going to affect the way that many people actually vote?The collapse in Rudd's was not due to the rruesoce rent tax, it was due to the abandonment of the CPRS. This reinforced the view that he was a poll driven phoney rather than someone willing the make tough decisions and stood for something. Perceptions like this are far more important for peoples voting decisions than whether the agree or disagree with a proposed tax that they personally do not have to pay. If Rudd plays the rruesoce tax debate in the right way, it could allow him to tell a story about what he stands for.But what story should Rudd try to tell? What should Rudd stand for? Clive Hamilton made the important point that the attack on the tax by the mining industry is an . And Andrew Forrest is upset that if does not want to pay more tax, then he would have to change the government . In this debate, if I wanted to show that I stand for something, then I would rather be on the side of democracy than siding with special interests.