Earlier this year, populist everyman Newt Gingrich brought the hammer down on those out of touch "elites" who live in high rises and "ride the subway" like Olympian gods zooming about on gilded subterranean chariots. And NOW look what's happening in those exclusive luxuriant locomotives most working class New Yorkers never have the privilege of enjoying: special extra VIP seating for the upper crust. If you didn't know already, this sticker, spotted on the L train, makes it abundantly clear that real Americans ain't welcome in the subway.
The sticker, photographed (and perhaps affixed?) by an Occupy Wall Street twitter user, has some fine print underneath says "Interest rate scams by JP Morgan Chase cost the MTA $100 Million a year & you foot the bill." The sticker was also spotted on the 4 train, and is the latest sign of a growing affinity between Occupy Wall Street and the Transport Workers Union, which threw its support behind the movement in October of last year. Most recently, members of Occupy Wall Street and TWU Local 100 chained open subway entrances in several stations, treating straphangers to "free" rides.
Aside from labor costs ($8 billion a year), debt payments are the MTA's biggest expenditure. From 2003 through 2011, the MTA’s debt service ballooned 130%, from $868 million to $2 billion a year. And the MTA is taking on another $9 billion in debt to fund expansion projects like the 7 train extension and the 2nd Avenue subway, while also paying millions in fees every year to banks simply for the service of packaging and selling bonds.
That's what the sticker is referring to—big banks that underwrite the MTA's debt cost the Authority $39.7 million in fees over 2010 and 2011. More on that here, if you want something to read while waiting for your working class stretch Hummer to pick you up.
