Mon 1 Feb 2010
Planning a move to a far off suburb? Budget for new tolls and higher taxes.
Categories: Economics , New Jersey Real Estate , PoliticsFrom the APP:
Tolls on N.J. interstates weighed
Interstates 78, 80, 195, 287 and 295 are likely targets to become toll roads, transportation experts predict in response to a report submitted to Gov. Chris Christie that suggests that the state explore placing tolls on certain highways.
The report, released on Jan. 22, also suggests having voters decide whether to raise the state’s gasoline tax, after all revenue that is supposed to be dedicated to the state’s Transportation Trust Fund has been returned to that purpose.
The report, which notes that the Transportation Trust Fund will run out of money in 2011 to pay for any highway, bridge or mass transit projects in fiscal year 2012, made six general recommendations about how to raise revenue but did not go into details.
Revenue from the state’s gas tax will raise enough money just to cover the estimated $895 million debt payment in July 2011, the report said.
It recommends exploring “limited tolling of select interstate highways to pay for improvements to those highways,” but didn’t identify highways to be considered.
Transportation experts said the most likely candidates for tolling would be east-west interstates I-78, I-80 and I-195, along with other high-volume highways such as I-287 and I-295. Doing that requires federal approval, which would require state officials to demonstrate why toll money is needed to fix that specific highway.
Primero
From CNBC:
White House: Stimulus Creates Nearly 600,000 New Jobs
The counting rules have changed.
The total number of jobs has changed.
But it’s doubtful that the pockets of people criticizing Recovery Act recipient jobs reporting will change their message.
From more than 160,000 reports, the Recovery Board reported late Saturday that from October through December, 599,108 jobs had been directly created by stimulus money.
…
The 599,108 number is below the 640,000 number from the first reporting period, which was widely criticized for discrepancies. The Recovery Board, and the White House, admitted that the self-reporting process would yield errors and have tried to eliminate the more embarrassing errors such as phantom jobs in phantom districts and lawnmower purchases reportedly creating dozens of municipal jobs.
In addition, the manner of counting was changed late last year when the White House Office of Management and Budget mandated that ANY job that had a salary funded, in ANY magnitude, be counted. There is no longer a distinction between a job “created” and a job “saved”.
From the WSJ:
Fannie, Freddie Chase Bad Mortgages
It is payback time for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on some mortgages sold to the finance companies by lenders.
Stuck with about $300 billion in loans to borrowers at least 90 days behind on payments, Fannie and Freddie have unleashed armies of auditors and other employees to sift through mortgage files for proof of underwriting flaws. The two mortgage-finance companies are flexing their muscles to force banks to repurchase loans found to contain improper documentation about a borrower’s income or outright lies.
The result: Freddie Mac required lenders to buy back $2.7 billion of loans in the first nine months of 2009, a 125% jump from $1.2 billion a year earlier. Fannie Mae won’t disclose its figure, but trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance said Fannie made $4.3 billion in loan-repurchase requests in the first nine months of 2009.
“Because taxpayers are involved, we’re being very vigilant,” said Maria Brewster, who oversees Fannie’s repurchase team. “No taxpayer should have to pay for a business decision that caused a bad loan to be sold to Fannie Mae.”
From HousingWire:
Fannie Mae Serious Mortgage Delinquencies Rise Above 5%
The government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) Fannie Mae reported a serious delinquency rate for its mortgage portfolio of 5.29% in November 2009, the latest month of data, the highest in recent memory.
That number grew from 4.98% in October and more than doubled the 2.13% in November 2008, according to its monthly summary.
Please just raise the gas tax, we don’t need any more traffic.
Maybe that is the point.
From the FT:
Obama plans $100bn jobs push
The Obama administration continued its fight back against its political and economic difficulties on Sunday, highlighting its push for a $100bn bill to boost job creation even as it put the final touches to a budget intended to cut the US’s yawning budget deficit.
Robert Gibbs, President Barack Obama’s spokesman, called for a bill “somewhere in the $100bn range” and portrayed it as a necessary further stimulus to reduce unemployment from its current level of 10 per cent. At the same time, Monday’s 2011 budget proposal is expected to seek $20bn of savings to tackle the deficit.
well gas tax is not a good idea either. Some people travel to work every day at least 30 - 50 miles one way. All the people who moved to Sussex , Morris, out out West to able to live in this State and could not afford to pay the high taxes in Bergen, Essex, Passaic and Hudson moved and chose to commute. This hurts them. There are literally thousdands of people this will hurt too. WHY not CUT SOCIAL PROGRAMS??
WHY not CUT SOCIAL PROGRAMS??
Reducing spending is simply not possible.
Perhaps we need to change the old adage of “Beg, Borrow, and Steal” to “Pander, Bond, and Tax”.
Marilyn (7)-
You’re joking, right?
I would not mind a higher federal gas tax. Force people to drive smaller cars and use the money to research alternative energy sources. I wonder how much congestion would be eliminated if the road was full of smaller vehicles.
Hilarious. Sick Day Today…..*ah*
Well I am not joking but I do know the reality.
as to 10 I would mind and so many who travel and live in Warren, Sussex, Morris and NW Passaic Counties. There are THOUSANDS OF US who commute and to hit this blue collar people out here would really not help. This is a bad idea.
I know a women, section 8, 10 to a home in Lodi , gets food stamps, section 8, energy assistance and is selling drugs. This women is doing better than many of my working , clean, honest friends. She is going for lipo and a tummy tuck operation for 10K!! She has the fanciest clothes, huge tvs, 5 pair of UGGS!! This is a joke.
The system is so broken. I see so many drug dealers doing better than the working class. Its getting pathetic. We need to get rid of these programs for people who really are taking advantage.
you know the girl in lodi I know has kids with different fathers. All the fathers ARER WORKING, but she is not going after them for child support. Guess who pays for her kids???
better to be a broke homeless loser in this state. People who work get nothing but the shaft!
Marilyn I think that Americans, myself and others, have a very high standard of living that obviously was not sustainable. God bless the bubbles, but hope yours never bursts. Think of it this way, a safety net is only as good as the economy driving it. We are all 6 degrees of separation from the streets.
With that in mind, I think we all makes choices and these lead us in various directions. Some good. Some bad.
it so easy to find a section 8 violation
that its a joke. section 8 is like the
ice cream truck.
Re: UBS
“UBS is too much of a U.S. bank, which was probably one reason they got singled out. And we know that the feds will impose the death sentence on them. Too much face at stake”
Big game of political chicken with global financial ramifications.
UBS was ready to knuckle under in a different environment last year - they were financially vulnerable, US was ascendant in leading the bailout of financial institutions (including the international ones), and UBS had no support at home.
Now..
US politically is running away from financial institutions, Obama is leading that effort and UBS sees he is politically vulnerable here, UBS got a favorable judiciary ruling at home, and popular opinion in Switzerland is strongly with them.
The Swiss judicial minister’s comments serve to distance his administration from the predominant view over there that his administration threw UBS to the wolves. It further serves to try to jawbone the Swiss judiciary to ‘review’ their rulings to avoid a political showdown with the US.
It also puts UBS on notice that Swiss will not backstop them financially if UBS picks up the ball given to them by the Swiss courts and runs with it, picking a fight with the US now that UBS is in a relatively stronger situation. Ironically, intentionally or not, that hands UBS a major trump card.
UBS knows that their leverage is that they are way TBTF.
Why does all this matter?
UBS’s tentacles are deeper than AIG’s, just not as visible, particularly in the yet to explode CRE market.
Failure is not an option, and that is UBS’s leverage in the current environment if they have a pair big enough. They can force a showdown. They have learned the politicians need to, and will, buckle. The Great One cannot initiate an international meltdown particularly over a tax fight after expending so much political capital averting a US led meltdown.
UBS’s move. If they walk from the US deal with the cover of the Swiss court ruling the US cannot shut them down.
It would not be BFF. It would be thermonuclear and make Lehman/Bear look like a cheap 50 cent firecracker.
Stay tuned. This one can be interesting.
the low income housing is another joke.
i know of one situation where the person
has been getting away with it for about ,, 10 years, easy.
the lax enforcement is another joke.
# 15, I see what your saying but there are still people who lived with in their means. I am one of them. I am what people would consider rich. I am actually considered spoiled, trust fund kid. However I do live within my means, did work for a long time, cleaned my life up , and care about the middle class. I scaled way down my life. I kinda live meager and like it actually. I think is fun. However I do know that I am in the 2.8 percent of the population in the US who are well off. I actually am sticking up for all my blue collar workers and people who WORK and make less than 100k in NJ. I read the millionire next door and live my life like the author recommends.
19 it is a BIG JOKE. There is no one checking. I know several drug dealers who are on this section 8. No one checks there homes, the stuff and material items you would not believe in there 2 family rented homes. There is no one checking how they live. They are really living very good. Its so pathetic. And to be honest nothing is getting done. I did social work and I saw so much abuse of the system. Its unbelievable. There is also so much abuse of the so called people helping the DD popultion. Just get the grants and make it one big SLUSH fund for the staff.
Not just the less fortunate who game the system.
Ed Koch still lives in rent control, as do many other wealthy residents.
I like Nancy Botwin on weeds, lets move on.
ok, who flew the plane that landed on the NJ Turnpike this morning?
show yourself!
“Some people travel to work every day at least 30 - 50 miles one way.”
the gas tax will force commuters to take the train.
25, no trains out in Sussex, NW Morris and Passaic counties? Please impossible.
“I know a women, section 8, 10 to a home in Lodi , gets food stamps, section 8, energy assistance and is selling drugs.”
This will always happen.
the authorties do not care about this lady. Nor should they. Do you know what happens if the cops go after all the small time drug dealers? Inventory dries up and drug prices on the street goes through the roof. And then thats when the big time robberies and violent crimes start to happen because addicts need their fix and they get desperate.
just because there is not a train in front of your door doesnt mean you cant drive to the nearest station, cut your commute in half.
Denville, mt Olive, etc.
Marilyn, just put your trust fund on the train with the lower rung working class.
Train is not that bad. Lots of first generation immigrants and mets fans. It also smells like cabbage and axel grease.
For the folks in section 8 and receiving government assistance, why not require them to do something productive that contributes to society. Our streets and roads in this country are filthy. Lets pick up a few million brooms and garbage bags and in return for housing and gov’t assitance, they should be required to help clean it all up.
Here is another project for folks on gov’t assistance. All those vacant lots strewn with rubble in the cities, clean them up & plant grass or if the soil will permit, vegatables so these folks can have fresh healthy food. It will save on healthcare costs too as overweight folks take off a few pounds and everyone else has improved quality of food intake.
When both of the above projects are completed, this same group of people can start the process of tearing down dilapidated, vacant homes and using the land for the same purposes mentioned above.
Oh yea, all recipients of sec 8 housing and other gov’t assistance will get a digital ID card that is linked to an electronic profile (ie-retina scan). Each morning they show up to work, the card and their eye gets scanned, kind of like a time clock.
If these folks can’t make it to work, no worries but no more gov’t benefits either.
Work is good for the soul, provides some structure and eliminates the problems associated with too much idle time.
Veto 29 Denville, mt Olive, etc to where?
Most don’t work in NY & commute to various parts of NJ. The transportation system is set up for people to drive their cars from point A to point B.(throughout most of the US I might add).Want to put in copious amounts of light rail cover the state with it,many more rural bus routes. All for it. Till then not a good idea to hit with the gas tax.
good idea veto!
btw, I was not trying to hurt anyones feelings. I honestly dont really feel anything I saw will matter. And to be honest this does not really effect me, I dont work. However should I stick my head in the sand and shut up.
Also I would take a train, I am open to that. Thanks all, I got it out of my system.
One less mentioned upside to tolls is they bring in out of state money from motorists passing through. Still, I think it’s a bad idea. Why does the government always err on the side of increasing revenues when trying to close a budget gap? Most sane people …. Never mind
“all recipients of sec 8 housing and other gov’t assistance will get a digital ID card that is linked to an electronic profile (ie-retina scan).”
Josh,
Al says we will be getting microchipped.
problem solved.
Gas tax seems fairer tha tolls to me.
The further you drive, the more resource you consume. Roads and bridges don’t last forever. Why not pay an amount In line with usage? If Ive structured my life to drive 3 miles to work, why should I have to bear the burden of someone who chose to live 30 miles out?
Want to pay a lower tax? Find alternate means or drive
a smaller and more fuel efficient cat. Hell why not carpool?
Realize we all pay a gas tax now, nothing new.
However we have a system in place to collect these revenueS.
New tolls means hundreds added to the government payrolls along with a new bureaucracy to pay for.
#31 - For the folks in section 8 and receiving government assistance, why not require them to do something productive that contributes to society.
Good, just require the same things of recipients of corporate welfare; all those tax breaks, subsidies, free stadiums, etc.
I blame the iPhone for the errors in the previous post.
Josh 31 What about the DPW workers who are cleaning up those vacant lots (Ok siting in the truck) & of course the union guys/gals who tear down those buildings.
They will not like that, union worker making 40 an hour sits home while these people do their job. Then more people on assistance as they have no money.Race to the bottom.
Josh just watching for unintended consequences.
Tosh,
What about the recipients of tax abatements in those fancy condos in Hudson? 1&9 could use some picking up.
not against section 8 , many hard working people actually on this. Against losers on section 8.
grim 37 Most who live in my area commute a long way. They sure as hell would love a 3 mi drive. The housing stock is mostly modest homes here bi-levels & ranches. Why did they chose the drive, it was the only place they could afford that was safe. Middle class blue collar people gets shafted again.
#41 - A capital idea!
Chose =choose
Mike,
Come now, how many purchased in Crystal Springs because they just had to have the fancy McMansion over the modest 3br closer to work?
Same reason folks moved out to Pennsy and make the nightmare commute every day.
They could afford to live closer, they just didn’t like the kind of home they could afford over here.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/economy/story/83393.html
“Obama budget foresees deficits for a decade”
uh…that’s ten years, right?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-johnson/bernankes-reappointment-a_b_441241.html
Don’t know how I missed this - Simon Johnson
“Bernanke’s Reappointment: A Colossal Failure of Governance”
yes, but we are from the Gov. and we’re here to help you.
We’ll keep you in your home, we’ll modify
your mortgage.
and if your lucky we’ll get you a gov. job
Option ARMs surpass subprime in loss severity
http://www.housingwire.com/2010/01/29/option-arms-surpass-subprime-mortgages-in-loss-severity/
Here is a slice, see link for the whole pie
Moody’s does not expect a bottoming of house prices before Q310, with another 11% national decline likely before the worst is over. These price declines, taken with rising unemployment, housing inventory oversupply and weak demand, are pressuring performance.
On the heels of longer foreclosure and liquidation time lines “exacerbated by unsuccessful modification efforts” in 2009, loan loss severities worsened across all sectors, according to Moody’s.
suddenly, this board reads like a NJ.com comments section. I told you there were lurkers!
CHifi, you don’t remember but I bet you Ambac would survive to pay the 2-1-10 interst payment, I be right!
02/01/2010 INTEREST
023139AA6 AMBAC FINL GROUP INC DEB 9.37500% 08/01/2011
Also why don’t Hindus ski? I see a lot of that, I asked two and they just said Indidans in general don’t ski, I then said to both of them that they are born in USA so you are not Indian, they told me I am American so I ski, I then said but my parents are not born in America. They then said white people whose parents are born overseas but they are born here are American, Indian people whose grandparnts or parents are born in India are Indian. OK, so no melting pot for them.
Guess it wasn’t just contained to subprime.
If you take Pesche/Freedy Johnston and Marilyn, then throw them at each other, they will cancel each other out. Matter and anti-matter. However, it also spells the end of the universe.
I learned that on Star Trek.
Sovereign debt is the new subprime.
#55 - I’m pretty sure it’s confined to Greece….
Tosh [56],
Not me.
#57 - Yeah, me neither…. just trying to be optimistic on a Mon morning.
yikes (24)-
Bet Trenton sends that pilot a bill for use of the “runway”.
There is a connection between Ara Hovnanian and Greece, yes?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j67VosWlR8
Josh (31)-
Will never happen. If you get rid of the permanent underclass, the Dems will lose a huge chunk of their support base.
Of course, those in the underclass are too stupid & brainwashed to understand that it’s the Dems who want to keep them down forever.
Just to balance it, I think Repubs are equally disgusting. Just in different ways.
what does Lady Gaga have that this gal doesn’t?
A waist? Sure, but her beats and licks are better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8WoyPEVRFo
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2010/01/bill-gross-and-the-deficit-ring-of-fire.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRlj5vjp3Ko
I fell into a burning Ring of Fire…
John (52)-
The only sport Indians can play is cricket.
I think that making more toll roads in NJ is a really bad idea. Really bad. It just clogs up our roads and wastes more gas and more of our time. This is not a smart, progressive way to increase revenue. Of all the possible choices we have, this is the absolute stupidest. So probably this is what will happen!
chi (60)-
I bet a Greek CDS is cheaper than one on HOV.
We need them, who will be buy our weed off and get our rub and tugs from once they are gone.
The Condition-Code Red says:
February 1, 2010 at 8:46 am
Josh (31)-
Will never happen. If you get rid of the permanent underclass, the Dems will lose a huge chunk of their support base.
I fear I hear Christie’s Toilet Paper Tax swan song already…
Why didn’t the Greek boy leave home?
He didn’t want to leave his Mother’s behind?
here you go: stiff ez pass , just drive
thru , that will get the message across.
chifi, what is your new revised default date for Ambac now that they paid their 2-1-10 coupon?
I have to give credit where credit is due….Lady Gaga has the chops and is also the hometown NYC businessperson. She is very intelligent. She puts all the Gen Y airheaded morons such as the Spears, Aguilera, N Sync to shame. She is a more intelligent Madonna, but it would be hard to sustain this level for any significant period of time.
64.Barbara says:
February 1, 2010 at 8:49 am
what does Lady Gaga have that this gal doesn’t?
A waist? Sure, but her beats and licks are better.
I think freedy is becoming a bot for youwalkaway.com.
67.The Condition-Code Red says:
February 1, 2010 at 8:52 am
John (52)- The only sport Indians can play is cricket.
But what about bedbug harness racing?
74.John says:
February 1, 2010 at 8:55 am
chifi, what is your new revised default date for Ambac now that they paid their 2-1-10 coupon?
7-31-2010
Lada GAGA is stupid, I am going to shoot myself if Black Eyed Peas sing that same stupid song one more time!!! Also how on the rocks is her marriage anyhow that they renewed vows after one year. Also please someone get those little white Jackson kids off the stage already. And come on “the situation” gets to walk red carpet, get real. Plus Beyonce someone take a picture of her from behind, Jay-z gotta tie a board to his butt so he don’t fall into that grand canyon of a butt. Put Beyonces and J-low butt together and even Evil Knevel could not jump it.
Every day we come closer to oblivion, I realize that I care about less and less.
This is a good thing. Lots of clarity comes from shrinking the circle of concern.
Chifi, 8-1-2010 Capital Grill downtown you are buying me a beer after work if Ambac makes the interest payment.
CCR [76],
Freddy is guilty on a few fronts. He followed the advice of the maestro in 2004, he waltzed with Chuck Prince and he played bridge, smoking some wacky stuff with Jimmy Cayne. Come to think of it, he may have wet his noodle with Carla?
Screw the Grammys. Only music on that show is the crap TPTB want to program you to like, since it’s created in order to cross-sell other forms of garbage.
OTOH, watched The Hangover last night. What a funny movie.
BC (82)-
If he did, he better get on a cycle of penicillin fast.
Somebody throw up a post here when I can watch Taylor Swift do the Kardashian on YouTube.
Ok, John?
The Human Tapestry John,
I like the Grammy’s always have.
So What.
But then again I also believe that the corporation will always nurse me at it’s breast.
Choke on this Chi-fi, GMAC upgrade, even I am choking!!
GMAC
01/27/2010 4:26 PM EST
S&P RATING UPGRADE
UPGRADED TO B ON 01/27/10
carla could not pass the smell test
Like Nancy nursed Andy on Weeds?
Essex says:
February 1, 2010 at 9:07 am
But then again I also believe that the corporation will always nurse me at it’s breast.
John,
Go buy some Oregon muni’s.
Live from the Grammy’s…hells yez 1989 rocked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9ctC5YvT54
[18] leftwing,
I don’t know IB well enough to know if, for example, UBS poses the same counterparty risk as AIG.
Regardless of the how deeply entrenched UBS is, I disagree that the feds won’t go after them. There is far too much face here, and politically the downside of doing nothing is far worse IMHO for Obama than doing something, even if it is a chinese water torture approach that slowly exacts punishment without killing off UBS quickly.
If UBS poses systemic risk, then the solution will be to impose harsh but focused punishment that doesn’t cause them to shut down. I cannot say off the top of my head what form that takes, but there will be a focused attack.
Further, I would expect the US and Swiss to get into it at the highest levels, particularly where the tax treaty is concerned.
As you said, it is an international game of chicken, but I disagree that the US will back down completely, if it backs down at all.
90. sUCKLING like a baby goat.
#20’s - Trust fund baby who knows the intimate details of drug dealers lives…….Hmmmmmm.
[37] grim,
There’s a lot of support in tax policy circles for your vision. It’s easy to administer, apportions the cost on those who use the system in a way that most closely correlates to use, and doesn’t have the undesirable collateral effects.
Unfortunately, it is a broad-based tax, and considered to be regressive, so it is politically unpopular.
I also think that tolls on commuter routes would be political suicide, but I fully expect that you will see new tolls designed to catch interstate travellers.
IMHO, a toll plaza on 287 and/or on 95 at Scudder Falls, plus a modest gas tax increase is the most likely outcome.
This one’s for Barb cause she’s gonna need it when she hits that Newark line. With her full belly and taste for crack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVMJPAihGw4&feature=related
“….When your high, you never,
never wanna come down….”
Housing Crisis Mantra and Kick Ass Bridge.
“here you go: stiff ez pass , just drive
thru , that will get the message across.”
I told you guys not to egg him on.
scudder falls, never to many nj state employees live in Penn.
Clot,
cummon, Bostonians were over Todd English nearly a decade ago. Don’t know Schlow and don’t care, and I thought Jasper died years ago, kinda like Gusteau in “Ratatouille”?
Are there plenty of lousy restaurants in Boston. Sure. Are there good ones that stack up to NYC’s in a city a fraction of its size? I think so (though I’d be hard-pressed to tell you what they are as I haven’t lived there in 15 years).
[100] Freedy,
They usually take the bridges closer to Trenton, so I am not so sure. Besides, they would likely put the toll plaza east of Lawrenceville, thus giving the state workers (now there’s an oxymoron) a bailout.
Grim -could you exchange emails between myself and safe? Job lead. Thanks.
i wonder if they do put new tolls up.
will they start taking Gold coins?
tosh 56
confined to greece… sure….
how about that 50% youth unemployment in spain?
yes, the latest stats put unemployment in those 25yr old and under at 45%. 45% is the official number. what do you think the real number is?
I wonder what the next revolution in spain will look like?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gnIDv6VFsmFt6OyT1xZokM09ZXbg
tosh
even if they magically fix the eurpoean economic problems, you still have a lost generation. Youth unemployment around europe is historically high. They will not have the opportunity to build themselves up financially like most generations before them have.
Hisotry shows that such a situation is a very good way to spark revolution. The young are much more likely to revolt then those who have homes. families, and jobs to lose.
Youth unemployment is also through the roof in the US as well
I’m pretty sure Randy Taylor said it best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiu8gtpZ3nE
I like taxes on gas because the US has some of the lowest gas taxes in the world and we need to cut the sheiks off.
For real,
BC Bob says:
February 1, 2010 at 9:09 am
John,
Go buy some Oregon muni’s.
Grim,
Could you exchange emails between myself and lishoosh? Thanks
John/BC
“Go buy some Oregon munis”
Does this have to do with the recent 66/67 passage of an 11% top tax rate
and increased corp. tax?
I have a friend who is selling all of his Oregon business interests and getting out.
veto 108
I’m fine with a gas tax as well, but it should really be scaled to the vehicle.
The amount of damage/wear a vehicle causes to the road is geometrically related to its gross weight. I.E. a car that weighs 2000 pounds causes MORE then twice the wear and tear that a car of 1000 pounds does.
Dont quote me on this but last i checked, i believe the amount of damage a vehicle does is related to the 3rd power of its mass in other words x^3.
The majority of the wear on major roads comes from large SUV’s and tractor trailers
Yesterday I sat through a presentation for some kind of premier banking at my kid’s Chinese school. (Wasn’t planning on it, it was tacked onto the parent’s meeting).
The minimum balance for the account was 100k. Just a tad rich for me. Also heard most of the parents muttering similar things during the presentation and even saying who has 100k in cash, and then making jokes about it afterwards. I guess contrary to popular belief the middleclass Chinese in NJ don’t have bundles of cash and won’t be paying 500k in cash for pos capes.
I did score a fortune cookie and a Martin Van Buren dollar coin though.
Although I almost choked on the cookie when one of the presenters said they could do stated income/no doc mtgs.
“I’m fine with a gas tax as well, but it should really be scaled to the vehicle.”
Hyde, it is.
The heavier cars get less mpg and use more fuel. Problem solved.
Unfortunately,with all the new hybrids, state fuel taxes are expected to take huge huts. So the next generation gas tax involves a MPG counter in your car computer that reports to the govt how mny miles you drove.
“And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions.” - Terry Pratchett.
Why is the anger always directed to towards the residents of Section 8 housing rather than the actual recipients of the cash - slumlords? Taxpayers are subsidizing a whole lot of pretty substandard housing and providing the owners with a tidy profit.
Another thought - gov. assistance provides a price floor to “market rates”, the recipients again being the landlords.
The heavier cars get less mpg and use more fuel. Problem solved.
Clearly I should be driving an Elise… or a Lotus 7, purely for tax purposes.
So Section * is really another form of corporate welfare.
As are food stamps -the money essentially goes to Kraft, Monsanto and so on.
toshiro_mifune says:
February 1, 2010 at 9:57 am
“Clearly I should be driving an Elise… or a Lotus 7, purely for tax purposes.”
Definitely. Should be some carbon credits involved there too, for your selfness choice. :-)
Medicaid too -the poor don’t get the money, big businesses do. Prevents them from getting stiffed by ER walk-ins.
Gas tax is the answer. Unlike toll increases it encourages fuel efficiency and reductions in carbon.
It also encourages carpooling, use of mass transit and discourages sprawl.
Tosh, 450 bhp running through 315/35 18 tires does wonders to asphalt.
Thats why you would pay the big bucks to keep filling up at 10 mpg.
Considering that wifey and I will be driving Tesla S models come 2012 I’m down with taxing the shit out of gas.
But of course I want my $7,500 tax subsidy extended and inceased to buy an zero emmiosion vehicle. Also have NJ waive the sales tax that everyone else pays. Remember the trend is your friend.
Ps.
I can’t wait to look at the cops in the eye and tell them to get out of my face when I’m cruising solo on a HOV lane.
some kind of premier banking at my kid’s Chinese school.
I love the smell of affinity fraud in the morning.
John,
How does Hindus on skis relate to Ambac bonds?
Thank you for my morning wake-up laugh.
safe, #113
That really does sound like an affinity fraud scam.
Perhaps you should investigate it a little more - who are the presenters? - and contact the authorities, if only to put a scare into them.
Veto,
not really. the gas tax scales approx linearly while the wear from a vehicle scales exponentially.
the escalade should really be paying substantially more they they do and big rigs should be paying huge amounts in gas taxes relative to what they do, if we really want the user to pay for the wear the place on the infrastructure
y=cX does not scale to y=c^x
veto,
power on the road is essentially irrelevant to how much damage a vehicle does. The wear/damage a vehicle does to a road is primarily dependent on how much flexure it causes in the road base.
a 2000 lb elise v a 2000 lb yugo cause the same wear on average
tosh?
http://www.autofiends.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/stormtrooper.jpg
tosh,
i’ll see your elise and raise you an atom
elise gross wirght: 2000lb
ariel atom gross wieght: 1000 lb
Mr Hyde: http://www.autofiends.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/darth-vader_ariel-atom.jpg
Can’t be? Fraud, money laundering, insider trading and accounting chicanery. No report from Timmy regarding this.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=as_YC9eMhEL8&pos=3
#129 - I was trying to keep things sane. The Atom 500 is certainly not sane.
http://www.arielatom.com/specs/atom-500-v8
funny, been tracking assurance & misc. chicanery finding jobs around DC.
Feeding frenzy.
If only I were willing to commute.
So…
Medicaid, food stamps, and Section 8 are all corporate welfare and handouts to investors.
As a member of the corporate/investor class, take them all back. PLEASE.
Logic like this is why the Great One is one and done.
“power on the road is essentially irrelevant to how much damage a vehicle does.”
cmon hyde, this doesnt sound right. Are you saying the torque of a 12 cyl supercar does the same damage to asphalt as a civic?
and weight is the only determenant of road damage?
Punch and Scribe,
I don’t think it was affinity fraud. I think fraudsters would have been much better prepared.
Ah, the down side to energy conservation…
National Grid wants 20% increase in rates…
http://tinyurl.com/ygj3beh
I understand we have legacy issues in NNY due to Niagara Mohawk’s incompetency, but my Kilowatt hours used have fallen almost 22% in the past 6 yrs due increasing energy efficiency, but my bill is flat to 5% higher every month :(
scribe (124)-
Easy. Neither have a prayer.
“How does Hindus on skis relate to Ambac bonds?”
Safe[104];
Yesterday I sat through a presentation for some kind of premier banking at my kid’s Chinese school. (Wasn’t planning on it, it was tacked onto the parent’s meeting).
The minimum balance for the account was 100k. Just a tad rich for me. Also heard most of the parents muttering similar things during the presentation and even saying who has 100k in cash, and then making jokes about it afterwards. I guess contrary to popular belief the middleclass Chinese in NJ don’t have bundles of cash and won’t be paying 500k in cash for pos capes.
Don’t have the cash (anymore) because they already bought the house, nach.
Seriously, though, that’s my outlook on economic recovery writ large - higher home prices are contra-indicated with economic growth in a consumer economy. Personal consumption expenditure goes down as more money goes to make the house payment and ancilliary expenses.
{104] sb [113]…
As the government budgets more and more for high speed railroads, the highways have been left in the dust. I think that this is going to become more and more of an issue nationwide, for anyone who lives out in the burbs. Interesting to see what’s happening in NJ, and the early reaction. Thanks for the post.
bit off-topic, but does anybody know anything about real-estate and tax deductions?
Can you deduct 100% of the interest paid and 100% of the property taxes (assuming not falling into AMT and electing to itemize) regardless if you live in the house?
For example, if the interest paid in a calender year was $24,000 and property tax was $12,000, then you can reduce your taxable income by $36,000 (rather than standard deduction of ~11,400)
Assuming 40% marginal tax rate, that would “save” you (in realtor speak) about $10,000 a year.
Green shoots? Only 80% of the economy. Makes 1991 appear to be a walk in the park.
http://www.blytic.com/Player.aspx?key=fee1cb4d906f48998deb1387e186716d
Il Duce says high-speed railroads can provide tons of great, high-paying jobs. Natch, the projects are being rolled out in three giant swing states (FL, CA, IL). No coincidence there, eh?
Too bad this rail thingy ignores:
1. Passenger rail in the US since 1970 has been a money-gobbling crater of loss for the US taxbleeder and a festering cesspool of corruption and mismanagement. This time will surely be different, no?
2. At a certain point, highways will deteriorate to the point at which simple trips and moving will become impossible (a la Grapes of Wrath). A large swath of us will become further trapped in place (IMO, the real reason they’re starving highways and dumping $$$ into rail).
A big swath of the population…trapped in place in suburban/exurban locations…living in toxic, rapidly-depreciating McHousing.
Smells like victory.
Note to self: begin re-reading Love in the Ruins.
The war on suburbia will continue through taxes etc. The long term plan is to have us all living in Pyongyang like cities which are more easily managed.
“…current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable. A shift is necessary. which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations…” [1] Maurice Strong , opening speech at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development
Over a billion dollars so that you can get from Tampa to Orlando 40 minutes faster doesn’t sound like a great use for the money.
(145)-
You want to catch a big fish, you have to select the proper bait…
Went to an open house this weekend in highland park. The asking price is 410,000. More than the wife and I would like to spend, but for the right house and with a low ball offer its a possibility. House is 90 years old and not updated at all. Original windows. Bathrooms and kitchen are from the 1960s.
Then comes the kicker. The taxes are $10,500 dollars per year! For what is essentially a 3 bed 1.5 bath house with a re-done attic to add 1 more bed and tiny outdated bath. Done deal, no can do! Thanks anyway!
plg (148)-
Hurry! The 8K tax credit expires May 1! ;)
Rates are at historic lows?
Brother, can you spare a dime?
SRS dips under $8. One more load-up at the trough.
To the moon, Alice.
Veto,
goggle around, lots of studies out there.
The 2 primary factors in road damage are 1) vertical force applied by vehicle. 2)fricitonal deformation of road surface due to braking
both of those forces are related to mass of the vehicle in exponential terms not linear. So even though the elise may be able to brake very hard and accelerate very fast compared to most a civic, its low weight mean that it still has a hugely smaller “wear” factor then the average Chevy Tahoe driving conservatively.
Put simply, weight is the killer and its effects are exponential
The Sierra Club, in cooperation with the IUCN and the UN, has re-mapped North America into 21 “bio-regions.” Just as the United Nations requires for each designated World Heritage site, each bio-region is divided into three zones:
1) wildness area where human intrusion is forbidden
2) buffer zones surrounding the wilderness area where human access is strictly controlled and limited, and
3) cooperation zones, where humans would be permitted to live, although their activities could be sharply circumscribed.
This is a poor picture of the map. There are better ones. http://sites.google.com/site/waterwatchalliance/wildlands.jpg
J-
All personal real estate taxes are deductible on Schedule A. Possible exception are those incurred during construction.
Mortgage interest only on primary or secondary home and up to 1 mill of acquisition debt + 100k home equity debt. There are a few more limitations on this. May want to talk to your tax preparer.
i know weight matters but hp and torque would seems to have a significant effect also.
i cant research now but a quick google search brought up a road tax in England that taxed by the amount of horsepower the vehicle had.
Clot, #137
Thank you for my second laugh of the morning.
Al, these one-world govt guys cant be all that bad. They are afterall very respecting to mother nature.
where do i sign up for this UN charter you speak of?
leftwing - if you don’t think money flows up, you are just blinded by your own partisanship.
First, I’m for a flat tax on all income and would be fine with eliminating a lot of the programs out there. We don’t have a free market at all, but plenty of big talkers are sucking at the gov. teat more than they imagine.
Just to demonstrate -
Landlord charges $800/month rent for a 1 bedroom. Section 8 subsidies makes it “affordable” to the minimum wage earner making $1000/month. Garden apartments down the road charge $1,100/month to keep the “riff-raff” out.
Take away Section 8. The $800 landlord now has to lower the rent to $4-500/ month keep occupancy. Or families will double up leading to overcrowding in one apartment and another empty, increasing downward price pressure at the bottom end. Decreased prices on the low end will increase the price differential between lower and higher end places increasing the downward price pressure.
So now rental prices decrease, making investment properties less attractive and further lowering the price of houses. House prices would drop even more as the lower cost of renting makes it even more of a no-brainer. Decreased profits mean builders having to cut down/ cut profits. And so on…….
So yes, Section 8 is a subsidy that benefits investors/landlords. It’s the government putting a floor under the rental/housing market just as much as giving people $8000 to buy a house.
On the other hand, removing it would theoretically make housing actually MORE affordable in the long run for everyone (although incomes would decrease in some areas, like construction), which is something I could get behind. Market forces would be back in place…..
Al,
you want biodiversity and human free areas???? get ride of a few billion humans.
lets not beat around the bush about the issue. that leaves 2 options. WWIII, followed by global population controls. Or a massive program to colonize space.
158. If you are a Communist you will love them. Your children might not.
For my rail dollars:
-Philly-NYC high-speed 30 min train-tremendous economic benefit
-Freight Land Bridge, cross country
I know someone making a VERY nice living renting out to Section 8. As he says - the checks come on time.
160. Depopulation will occur after the rest of the structure is in place. 500 million is the ideal manageable world population. Say good bye to the useless eaters which will be anyone over 44 years old, unskilled, or those who resist.
Do I smell arbitrage?
John says:
February 1, 2010 at 9:02 am
Chifi, 8-1-2010 Capital Grill downtown you are buying me a beer after work if Ambac makes the interest payment.
Soylent green is people.
AL
Say good bye to the useless eaters which will be anyone over 44 years old, unskilled, or those who resist.
over 44? doubtful. Huge amounts aof practical knowledge are held by those over 44 and SME’s int heir field. Whether a carpenter or a scientist, any society that dumped people at 44 is going to shoot it self in the proverbial foot knowledge wise.
And yes 500 million to 1 billion is probably the optimal population
re: Section 8
The income limits are not as low as you might think to qualify for assistance. A 3 person family making $57,600 would qualify as low income in Bergen County.
http://www.huduser.org/Datasets/IL/IL09/nj.pdf
What will the board pay me to have JJ show up at the Capital Grille on 8-1-2010 so I can buy him a beer of his choice?
chicagofinance says:
February 1, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Do I smell arbitrage?
John says:
February 1, 2010 at 9:02 am
Chifi, 8-1-2010 Capital Grill downtown you are buying me a beer after work if Ambac makes the interest payment.
“Say good bye to the useless eaters which will be anyone over 44 years old, unskilled, or those who resist.”
I will not resist. but please just dont take my AC away. or my hamburgers.
[111] cindy
“I have a friend who is selling all of his Oregon business interests and getting out.”
Depending on what the business is, and where it is located, he/she may do better to move it to Washington State, especially if there is little or no tangible property (very high property taxes in WA, and aggressive enforcement). Or, if business is capital intensive, keep the tangible property in a sub in Oregon, and move the holding company HQ to Washington. Sub mfgs and sells to Holdco pursuant to a transfer pricing arrangement designed to minimize income at the sub level and shift it to the Holdco. If the holdco is an LLC, then owner moves to Washington himself and avoid taxes on a lot of the income that would be otherwise taxable in Oregon.
Anyone here been to Caneel Bay before?
thoughts? better then renting a nice villa (which what i usually do, but that was Pre-Jr)?
When I was born there were 200 million people in the US. When I die somewhere around 2050 the estimate is 450 million.
That is another 120 million in the next 40+ years.
Think of all of the new houses that have to be built.
Time to buy is now or be priced out forever.
“What will the board pay me to have JJ show up at the Capital Grille on 8-1-2010 so I can buy him a beer of his choice?”
i’ll throw a dollar or two at anybody who can confirm the physical existance of John, SAS or RE101…
http://www.cnbc.com/id/35178157
This guy should be Times Man of the Year for doing GODS work.
“Depopulation will occur after the rest of the structure is in place. 500 million is the ideal manageable world population.”
Guys Sean makes an excellent point. when the one world govt starts killing people off by the millions, home prices will tank.
thats good right?
Re-name Doctor Doom…
Roubini Wants a New Nickname
I’ve tried to come up with more catchy ones: Realismo or something. But to no avail. But we’d be glad to hear your suggestions if you e-mail davos@cnbc.com.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/35143326/
Veto,
already underway. Report out a few weeks ago that the genetically modified Monsanto corn appears to have toxic effects on the liver and kidneys.
The stuff wasnt supposed to be able to reproduce in the wild but has been found to indeed be reproducing on its own.
I’m sure SAS could tell some good stories about monsanto
Where the fcuk was this 5 years ago?
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/108679/when-owning-your-own-home-doesnt-pay?mod=realestate-buy
re: # 177 Roubini’s new nickname should be “Professor Told You So” and move back to the classroom already.
You can’t make money on anything Roubini has to say, he is too focused on being a Cassandra and worshiping Larry Summers.That guy needs to go back and teach already, he has 95% of his money in cash which means he does not put his money where his big mouth is.
#178 Hyde,
who would have thought that gmos created to be immune/ressistant to herbicides might be toxic and be able to breed on it’s own?
I’m delighted our government doesn’t subsidize stuff like that, otherwise it might be found in our food supply./off sarcasm
Oh yeah…..how about “Detective Stavros”?
Veto That says:
February 1, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Re-name Doctor Doom…
Roubini Wants a New Nickname
How about the ‘love doctor’…
http://www.iplanretirement.com/retirementblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/roubini.jpg
#180 chifi
I doubt it would have mattered. Hard for the machine to make money if the people are prudent.
Does Arbitrage mean if the bond goes bankrupt at least I get a beer?.
chicagofinance says:
February 1, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Do I smell arbitrage?
John says:
February 1, 2010 at 9:02 am
Chifi, 8-1-2010 Capital Grill downtown you are buying me a beer after work if Ambac makes the interest payment.
ChiFi(169): “What will the board pay me to have JJ show up at the Capital Grille on 8-1-2010 so I can buy him a beer of his choice?”
JJ ain’t showing up in New York so I’m not offering you a shiny penny. Word on the street is that he is currently holed up here.
http://tinyurl.com/JJ-locale
I think you guys ain’t showing up as I think I am the only guy on this job with an actual wall street job. I wish I could see that water tower you posted but all I can see from my 40th floor corner office is a nice view of the water and all of wall street.
He wants to change his name to something lighthearted but is still pretty much a downer…
Roubini Pessimistic on Euro Area, Calls Spain a Risk
Roubini said for all the focus on Greece, Spain may eventually pose a bigger threat to the euro zone because it’s the region’s fourth-largest economy and has higher unemployment and weaker banks. Spain’s jobless rate is more than 19 percent, almost twice the EU average.
“If Greece goes under that’s a problem for the euro zone,” he said. “If Spain goes under it’s a disaster.”
After Standard & Poor’s yesterday lowered its sovereign credit rating outlook on Japan, Roubini said he was “worried” about the world’s second-largest economy as its debt mounts, deflation returns and population ages. At some point they may “flee the yen,” pushing up borrowing costs and crippling the economy, he said.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-27/roubini-pessimistic-on-euro-area-calls-spain-a-risk-update2-.html
“Where the fcuk was this 5 years ago?”
Chi [180],
MSM was not on this site at that time.
The question is: What is inside that tank?
tu aka The Sausage Party says:
February 1, 2010 at 12:56 pm
ChiFi(169): “What will the board pay me to have JJ show up at the Capital Grille on 8-1-2010 so I can buy him a beer of his choice?”
JJ ain’t showing up in New York so I’m not offering you a shiny penny. Word on the street is that he is currently holed up here.
The amount of money I will receive from gawkers will be more than the cost of the beer.
John says:
February 1, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Does Arbitrage mean if the bond goes bankrupt at least I get a beer?.
chicagofinance says:
February 1, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Do I smell arbitrage?
John says:
February 1, 2010 at 9:02 am
Chifi, 8-1-2010 Capital Grill downtown you are buying me a beer after work if Ambac makes the interest payment.
chi fi
Set up a Paypal account and some streaming video.
schabadoo says:
February 1, 2010 at 1:35 pm
chi fi Set up a Paypal account and some streaming video.
schabs: wouldn’t you show? If I make enough money, I’d buy all attendees a beer :)
i think i have a new favorite commenter here.
Marilyn says:
February 1, 2010 at 6:42 am
you know the girl in lodi I know has kids with different fathers. All the fathers ARER WORKING, but she is not going after them for child support. Guess who pays for her kids???
hilarious stuff, Marilyn.
chi (194)-
I’ll bring a blindfold, a net and some handcuffs.
yikes (195)-
I think Marilyn has the potential to become a female version of John.
Can someone provide me with a link to John’s original treatise on onion-love?
Whether or not you believe it is good policy, I had suggested that the One’s international tax policy proposals would lead to capital and corporate migration, and would have pretty bad unintended consequences on jobs and tax receipts if our multinationals suddenly became someone else’s multinationals in order to escape US taxes.
Some of the board’s liberals took me to task for such heresy.
Now this:
“President Barack Obama appeared to scale back his ambitious plan to close loopholes global companies use when accounting for taxes on profit earned overseas in his 2011 budget blueprint released on Monday.
Obama, who has used heated rhetoric to blast corporations that keep profits overseas to avoid U.S. tax, proposed changes that he said would raise $122 billion over a decade.
He mentioned the issue in his State of the Union address last week, saying: “To encourage these (energy and manufacturing companies) and other businesses to stay within our borders, it’s time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States of America.”
But the budget plan seems to tone down this effort when compared with a similar set of international tax loophole closers that last year he said would raise $210 billion over 10 years.
His original plan drew a lukewarm response from Congress, even from his fellow Democrats, many of whom took the position that changes should be part of a broader overhaul of the tax code.
The administration has sought to revise a policy that lets U.S.-based multinational companies defer U.S. tax on income earned abroad by stopping them from deducting most expenses associated with that income until it is recognized in the United States.
In his 2011 budget, Obama proposed to raise just $26 billion over a decade, by limiting deductions for interest expenses only.
Companies and some economists argued the earlier proposal could do the opposite: encourage industry to keep profit —and jobs —overseas.
“I think they are trying to be responsive to the concerns of some last year that they were going to encourage people to ship more jobs overseas,” said Anne Mathias, an analyst with Concept Capital in Washington, which advises investors. . . .”
/snip/
Hey Sas,
Did you see this gun yet?
New rifle developed at Picatinny could solve age-old problem of combat
By Tomas Dinges/The Star-Ledger
January 30, 2010, 10:30PM
While it can’t shoot bullets around a corner, a new weapon developed at Picatinny Arsenal can deliver exploding rounds close enough to kill an enemy in hiding.
If the military adopts it, the shoulder-held rifle — which, with its programmable ammunition, is called the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System — could be ready for limited use in 2012, according to a Picatinny official.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/new_rifle_developed_at_picatin.html
I think Marilyn has the potential to become a female version of John.
I could listen to someone with intimate knowledge of various drug kingpins go on and on about Welfare Queens.
It’s like Reagan never left.
Thundaar,
sorry man, old news…..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM8_rifle
concept has been around and in occasional use for years
Nom (199)
Oh, the roadkill when liberal idealism meets reality.
I liked Clinton’s revelation the best. After he took office and it was explained to him he could not deficit fund every program in sight without skyrocketing interest rates (remember the good old days?) he replied with something like “Are you telling me my whole agenda is being determined by some snot nosed 26 year old bond traders in NY?”
To which he was told, yes.
Considering that the welfare queen/marijuana dealers already know “product,” couldn’t they be assigned to staff NJ’s new marijuana dispensaries?
Problem solved! :)
[203] leftwing
That’s a great story.
Gotta get back to work, at least while I still have some.
Was on a call today, and the attorney I work for was being taken to task by two other attorneys. Not the first time a lawyer I worked for here was made to look a fool.
Problem with this is that they have shown a predilection for tossing the associate under the bus when they get called on things. And was told not to fight it (even told point blank that I would never win those arguments, even if I was right).
Gotta get out of this place. If they let me go, it may actually turn out to be a blessing.
Lish re: Section 8
My father has a lot of rentals in the area in which I grew up. They are nearly all Section 8.
The are, on paper, financial gold mines. Net ROI is somewhere in the area of 25%+ annually. Which means the building is fully paid for in 3-4 years. Which it basically has to be because the ‘depreciation’ suffered by these buildings is huge.
These buildings are basically his retirement fund after a lifetime on the factory floor.
Given this background, I can’t say it any simpler than below:
He will gladly walk away from that income - totally abandon it - if the government stops funding Section 8.
IN A HEARTBEAT.
It is laughable to propose that Section 8, food stamps, and Medicaid exist to benefit corporations and investors.
Zero them out and we’ll call it even.
Or, even better, hang onto those beliefs and I’ll see you in November….
LW [203],
“I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
James Carville
Lets all work off the books!!!
The new budget released today would reinstate 10-year-old income tax rates of 36 percent and 39.6 percent for single Americans earning more than $200,000 and joint filers who make more than $250,000 as part of a broad $1.9 trillion tax increase proposal. It proposes to eliminate preferences for oil and gas companies, life-insurance products, executives of investment partnerships, and U.S.-based companies that operate overseas.
leftwing
It is laughable to propose that Section 8, food stamps, and Medicaid exist to benefit corporations and investors.
Corporate support may not be the intention but in the end it has essentially the same effect.
I am all for social safety nets to a point, but we have to acknowledge that any social safety net will always distort the associated markets.
You guys may not remember, but back when we had high tax rates where the spouse was taxed at these high rates were “mad man” days.
The 75% of husbands who brings home taxable income of 250 or above there is no point his wife working unless she has a damm good job. 40% Fed, almost 10% state and city, add in FICA, Medicare, Disablitly, comuute, lunch and clothers and a 90K salary becomes like 20K a year take home. You can also earn your way out of AMT at around the 250K and up point. So if wife is making 250K and up she should work, under 250K no. Same applies for 25% of men whose wife makes more then them, they should say home.
When someone call explain to me how you can wage wars and not increase taxes, especially on the upper income earners, and manage to pay for everything then I will listen. Until then, you can’t have all the services and entitlements that we in the U.S. have come to expect. Would you prefer that the lower income workers get hit up for more? No matter what is decided, obviously one group will be more upset than another.
211- call = can
Lisoosh
re: sec 8
“Landlord charges $800/month rent for a 1 bedroom. Section 8 subsidies makes it “affordable” to the minimum wage earner making $1000/month. Garden apartments down the road charge $1,100/month to keep the “riff-raff” out.
Take away Section 8. The $800 landlord now has to lower the rent to $4-500/ month keep occupancy. Or families will double up leading to overcrowding in one apartment and another empty, increasing downward price pressure at the bottom end. Decreased prices on the low end will increase the price differential between lower and higher end places increasing the downward price pressure.”
I’m a LL but have never delt with sec 8 and never will. However, what section 8 has done is artificially inflate property values in lousy inner cities, keeping investors like me priced out and basically engineering a slum. Take section 8 away, property values go down, people like me can now afford a fair market price off 550 instead of 800, lower income families do not have to over crowd. Reinvestment comes in, rehabs, gentrifies…..oh on, here comes the neighborhood….up go the rents…..see what I mean? Engineered ghettos benefit both sides of the transaction, nobody’s innocent.
Also, sec 8 is supposed to be set up so that the tenant pays a % of their income even if its govt income, to the landlord in cash, even if that amount is only 50 buxks a month. Guess what, all LLs know that money is a fantasy and all, well, most sec 8ers know this too. Nobody collects and any experienced LL will base his investment on that knowledge.
200:
Need to . . . have. . . that. gun. (Dramatic pause as he wipes drool from chin)
nom:
Sounds like my office. A particular partner is always right. Never mind that he makes mistakes all the time that I catch. Can’t bring that up and must “yes” him all the time. “Yes, sir you are right and I am an idiot”
Well, must wait for the axe to fall. Who will it fall upon? Tune in readers . . .Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel
J [210],
1.3T defecit for fy 10′ and a projected 1.6T defecit for fy 11′. Now, include individual states which are spiraling downard, out of control. Hold on to your wallet. They are coming in all directions.
Trickle down economics and mustard seeds. BTW the families that are so called upper income pay around 5x taxes of middle class, while lower class with tax breaks currently pay nothing.
This increases the taxes on the people paying most already while cutting taxes on middle classes to almost nothing while the lower class gets tax credits so they pay no taxes yet get thousands of dollars in refunds each year.
House Whine says:
February 1, 2010 at 2:26 pm
When someone call explain to me how you can wage wars and not increase taxes, especially on the upper income earners, and manage to pay for everything then I will listen. Until then, you can’t have all the services and entitlements that we in the U.S. have come to expect. Would you prefer that the lower income workers get hit up for more? No matter what is decided, obviously one group will be more upset than another.
Clot 149 - We went to a Glen Ridge open house this weekend. 100 year old house. Floors all uneven, non-EIK with new appliances but 50 year old cabinets with bad paint job, 3rd floor stairs so narrow that they were smaller than Lil Gator’s feet. He was afraid to walk down them and I could easily see someone sleeping in one of the 3rd floor “bedrooms” diving head first down those when trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night (no bath on 3rd floor). No back yard and right across the street from a big apartment complex. Bloomfield border is also the middle of the street. Taxes are $13,500. Asking price is $549,900 which is $15k below what it sold for in 2008.
Sad thing is it will probably move. It’s the only non-starter house listed below $659k on the market in the whole town. And the $659k house is an estate sale with about $25k in taxes.
In other GR real estate news, the FSBO that we bid on a few months ago was just listed with a realtor. They dropped their price about $40k below what they were asking on Craig’s list. They’re now asking $9k above their 2004 purchase price.
Whine
tax everyone to pay for war. A national sales tax.
Blast from the past for A. West (198):
“John says:
November 25, 2008 at 12:44 pm
If you drill a hole in an onion and hump it you feel better for awhile but in around ten minutes you are back where you started except your johnson smells like an onion.”
http://njrereport.com/index.php/2008/11/24/home-sales-and-prices-drop-in-october/
And then there is this beauty:
“John says:
November 25, 2008 at 4:32 pm
The main difference between doing it with an onion and doing it with a women is with an onion it is the man who cries afterwards. The main similarity is either way you have stinky fingers and the best selling point is there is no cuddling afterwards with an onion.”
That talk about population control this morning? you realize they’re pretty close to reproduction without men. That’s 3 billion people no longer necessary. A few distractions to remove the maternal instinct (perhaps turn every shopping district into an outlet center?) and reproduction available only via science equals population problem solved.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4725121&page=1
Ruggles
bad idea, science shows that most sexless species don’t last very long. Can’t adapt very quickly….
Mr Hyde, you sound like a man.
Thanks ruggles
Source: CNBC
“What would be the first two things you would do if you were in Mr Ben Bernanke’s seat?” Jim Rogers: “I would Abolish the Federal Reserve and Resign.”
Hyde read very closely
MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports potentially dangerous levels of radioactive tritium — which can cause cancer — were found over the weekend in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon.
The discovery brings to at least 27 the number of nuclear reactors in the U.S. with tritium leaks — out of 104 reactors in 31 states. That raises concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants, possibly through deteriorating underground pipes.
The leaks come as the nuclear industry is seeking and obtaining federal license renewals, casting itself as a clean-green alternative to power plants that burn fossil fuels.
Tritium, a product of nuclear fusion, has been linked to cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin in large amounts.
Vermont Yankee officials say no tritium has been found in area drinking water supplies or in the Connecticut River.
Apparenly Tritium is now a product of FUSION!!! We’re saved we now have fusion. /Sarcasm off bad editors!
“Mr Hyde, you sound like a man.”
Ruggles, what gave it away?
was it the ‘Mr’?
eftwing says:
February 1, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Lish re: Section 8
“My father has a lot of rentals in the area in which I grew up. They are nearly all Section 8.
These buildings are basically his retirement fund after a lifetime on the factory floor.
He will gladly walk away from that income - totally abandon it - if the government stops funding Section 8.”
Left - you are supporting my hypothesis to the letter - the government (taxpayers) are supporting your fathers retirement fund/investment. YOU are the beneficiary of government money.
Pain
the article is technically correct. Tritium is made in fusion reactions. It’s really a mystery where the stuff is coming from though since no commercial fusion reactors exist……
Barbara says:
February 1, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Lisoosh
re: sec 8
“However, what section 8 has done is artificially inflate property values in lousy inner cities, ….Take section 8 away, property values go down, people like me can now afford a fair market price off 550 instead of 800, lower income families do not have to over crowd.”
I agree 100%
“Reinvestment comes in, rehabs, gentrifies…..oh on, here comes the neighborhood….up go the rents…..see what I mean? ”
So what? Same thing would happen elsewhere - renewal and regeneration but over a large area market rents/prices would reflect the true market, not an artificially inflated one.
I’m just showing the unexpected consequences. Cancelling section 8 would affect a lot more than just the poor. We live in a house of cards.
Painhrtz you know alot about Nuclear Power Plants, do you watch the Simpsons every night?
Could this be the end of SRS?
http://kanjorski.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1712&Item
The group, led by Congressman Paul Kanjorski, Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, had this to say: “The growing bubble in the commercial real estate industry has the potential to infect our economy and slow a recovery. We must take the appropriate steps to ensure that our commercial real estate market does not experience a liquidity crisis that would further exacerbate our struggling economic situation.”
john is the funniest guy I’ve never seen.
Stu (220)-
I thought John was JD Salinger, but last week’s events have changed my thinking on that.
“…I’d be the catcher in the rye…”
“If you drill a hole in an onion and hump it you feel better for awhile but in around ten minutes you are back where you started except your johnson smells like an onion.”
Stu (221)-
Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this one in Chinese fortune cookies:
“The main difference between doing it with an onion and doing it with a women is with an onion it is the man who cries afterwards.”
If the poor are stealing all our money how come they’re still poor?
Poor keep getting poorer, richest keep getting richer.
“Welfare Queen” is just another distraction for the sheeple, bread and circuses for the politically minded who think they’re too smart for American Idol.
Cr@p, I sound like sas.
boken (233)-
If they know what’s good for them, they will not take away my right to gamble on commercial RE armageddon.
What’s really important -
And inventor just produced a $7000 s@x robot.
lisoosh, point being - the poor in this country can’t afford true market value when the govt isn’t manipulating it.
Hyde I stand corrected, this is why I have two biology degrees
lisoosh 237
re wellfare queen:
its both, bread&circus and a real issue. We have entire generations now that have grown up learning that they way to “live” is to game the system to support you.
Go to the average slum and its often looked down upon to “act” too smart or do too well in school.
At the same time it certainly is turned into a bogey man for media consumption.
Schump - Agreed, it would appear that TPTB are seeking the same Fed backstop of the commercial market they exists in the residential market.
I think their thoughts regarding the economic impact are accurate, I think these reps misjudge who they are assisting.
It is one thing for the Govt. to help out the individual homeowner. The nation can stomach that. But when you bail-out the commercial REIT, I don’t think that will be met with much support considering the populist leaning of much of the nation.
Every large modern society needs a massive population of poor, ambitionless dupes who can be bought off with empty promises and cheap giveaways.
Same as it ever was. And, as history shows, anybody who wants to butt heads with that idea gets it Lee Harvey-style.
Everybody knows that if you’re poor in America, it is because of your own moral failing.
lisoosh, people trade on all sorts of things. Sometimes is real wealth, sometimes is cash in pocket, sometimes its ego and notoriety, sometimes its power, small amounts or large amounts. Having your housing and lifestyle 100% subsidized give you a lot of free time and an incentive to never take a risk. Guarantees is another thing that people trade on.
is = its
[227] veto
CRAP!
I’ve been inside the containment building at Vermont Yankee.
Now I will be checking my piss for the Cerenkov Effect.
boken (243)-
I doubt most of the US is populist. Nor do I think 99 out of 100 adults could even give the definition of “populism”.
Most Americans can be swayed to support any idea, as long as that idea comes with a free bucket of chicken, a lead-painted tchotchke or an under-the-table payment of hush money.
Deflation officially over?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8f6a0622-0e94-11df-bd79-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
249. lmfao.
[227] veto
Note to self:
Make improvements to proposed hydrology studies in Nompound siting. No aquifer sharing with nuclear power plants.
#249 Schumpeter,
Did you just find out your Team Snookie t-shirt was a knockoff?
I loved your blog theme! Did you develop it yourself or is it downloadalbe from somehwere?
is = are …that post is a mess
safe-
I can use it as a bib when I chow down on my free Popeye’s chicken.
Actually, I prefer Maryland Fried Chicken, but I think I’d need a bodyguard to escort me to the remaining open franchises.
Fannie Mae conventional single-family serious (90+ days behind) delinquency rates of loans:
January
2007 - 0.6%
2008 - 1.0%
2009 - 2.5%
2010 - 5.29%
BANG!!!! like the cold autumn wind.
“Left - you are supporting my hypothesis to the letter - the government (taxpayers) are supporting your fathers retirement fund/investment. YOU are the beneficiary of government money.”
Your missing MY point entirely, which is essentially Barabara’s, he DOESN’T want to be that beneficiary.
It is a market distortion for both parties and as someone noted above one with deleterious effects as the tenants have absolutely zero vested interest.
MY point is this - he has these things because that is the paradigm the government has set up BUT putting his money on the where his mouth is would gladly exit. Fair swap. Shoot Section 8, Medicaid, and food stamps and he gives up the all that ‘corporate support’ at the government’s teat.
If you ever had a night out on “Queens blvd” that ended with you “backdooring” a HO with a a few white castle onion rings on your johnson you would join the club on onion lovers.
Entourage stole my Queens Blvd. Movie deal those damm SOBs.
Just when you think it can’t get any better here, the insanity just ratchets up to a new level.
Witnessing the insanity here is one of the last things I have to remind me I’m still clinging to a shred of normalcy.
Hey Mr. Hyde,
I got married in St.John(on TrunkBay)and stayed at Caneel Bay. The place is/was in need of an update (better screening and more reliable ac) as there was at least one ubermosquito in the room at all times. Beeches were ok, some were off limits to children which was nice. There are only really three places to eat in the resort but there are plenty of local places in town and I’m sure the westin has some too. There is very little for kids to do at Caneel Bay. My sister in law stayed with the kids at the westin and she said she/they were bored. She’s a bit of a drama queen so…. The beaches in the national park, which is 75% of the island, are the best in the area. For the money I think you’re better of in St. Thomas and ferrying once or twice over to hang out on the beaches in the parks. Overpriced and overrated.
Just my .02
Good news!
“Detroit, South Bend, Youngstown, Flint, Toledo, Akron, Peoria, Cleveland, and many other “affordable” cities are not places where anyone would particularly want to live. Indeed many cities at the top of the affordability list are places that most would hope to escape from.
The high school graduation rate in Detroit is a mere 25%!
I am willing to bet that Detroit’s graduation rate is far and away the worst of any city in the survey. See Michigan Forces Business Owners Into Public Sector Unions; Detroit’s Aura of Hopelessness for more details.
Moreover, there are houses in Detroit, Cleveland, Flint, etc, one could buy for $500 that have no takers. Unlivable houses no one wants at any price skews the results.”
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/02/least-and-most-affordable-housing-in.html
Ket
Second the opinion on Caneel Bay, although it’s been a while since we were there and I heard they updated at least some of it.
Why are you swapping out of a villa? Post Caneel, we did Cap Juluca, Jumby Bay, and CuisinArt and then discovered villa rentals (mostly beachfront) for basically the same price we were paying for two rooms.
Haven’t looked back, even with the kids.
What is the answer?
#
chicagofinance says:
February 1, 2010 at 1:25 pm
The question is: What is inside that tank?
tu aka The Sausage Party says:
February 1, 2010 at 12:56 pm
ChiFi(169): “What will the board pay me to have JJ show up at the Capital Grille on 8-1-2010 so I can buy him a beer of his choice?”
JJ ain’t showing up in New York so I’m not offering you a shiny penny. Word on the street is that he is currently holed up here.
schumpt,
you can throw Camden right in there too. Thats what a legacy of decades long engineered ghettos (they used to call them projects, after all) will get you, a housing stock so throughly deteriorated that no small to mid investor can work with it at any price, hence Big Development and PILOTS and SCOTUS rulings, weee!
For JJ:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYs8bIGseoI
I live next to section 8, it’s great. Many people sell drugs, it is within a school zone but hey, they still are offering cocaine, at least to people wearing business attire.
228 - veto - what gave it away?
was it the ‘Mr’?
No, it was the pushback from someone potentially in the firing line. The online moniker is not always a clue. (for instance, I’m not really a street in rhode island.)
jcer same, you can’t beat the convenience.
Barbara, favorite thing about Camden. Rutgers campus where they restored old buildings and the essentially identical buildings across the way that look like a rendering of life after people from the History Channel. Camden has the potential to be great, but unless demand for philly housing goes up the problems make any attempt at development foolish at best.
Ahem…..
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=300300172
The Wall Street Journal
JANUARY 27, 2010
How Did the Ivy League Get So Good?
Saturday’s Harvard-Cornell Game Has Drama to Spare; 2 Top Teams Battle for 1 NCAA
By DARREN EVERSON
Open your mind to this possibility: The game of the year in college basketball just might be in the Ivy League.
There will be games involving better teams, of course—matchups that feature Final Four contenders, future NBA lottery picks, massive TV audiences and large crowds. But none of those games will be as vital as one game taking place Saturday in Ithaca, N.Y. between Harvard and Cornell.
No talk of Ivy basketball can begin without reference to Princeton’s Bill Bradley, the swingman-turned-senator who made the Hall of Fame in 1983.
For most of the 300-plus teams in Division I men’s basketball, the regular season is a forgiving four-month exercise. Good teams play for NCAA Tournament seeding, while bad teams—which can still reach the NCAAs by winning their conference tournament—get second chances.
But Saturday’s game between Harvard (13-3) and Cornell (16-3)—and the scheduled rematch on Feb. 19 at Harvard—will bring a sense of urgency that this sport is unaccustomed to, at least before March. For the first time—arguably ever—the Ivy League has two legitimate NCAA Tournament-caliber teams.
But given the conference’s diminished standing, it’s all but certain that only one of them—the eventual Ivy champion—will get there.
“It’s pretty easy to keep focused,” says Cornell star Ryan Wittman.
“It’s almost like what the BCS football programs go through,” says Harvard coach Tommy Amaker. “We’re not saying that we’re playing games that have significance toward the national title, but because our league has no conference tournament, these games simulate postseason play itself.”
Cornell and Harvard, who are tied atop the league standings, are in the midst of an Ivy race for the ages. Even in the heyday of the Penn-Princeton rivalry, rarely were there two nationally relevant Ivy teams at once. From 1989 through 2007, either the Quakers or the Tigers were the Ivy’s NCAA representative every season, but only twice (in 1999 and 2002) did two Ivy teams finish with 20 wins in the same year.
This season, both Cornell and Harvard have résumés and rankings comparable to major-conference teams chasing at-large NCAA Tournament bids. Cornell has won at Alabama and at St. John’s this season, and stood 40th nationally entering this week in the Ratings Percentage Index, a tool that the tournament-selection committee uses to compare teams. The Big Red also put a scare in then-No. 1 Kansas earlier this month, leading by six with seven minutes left before ultimately losing.
Harvard, which won at Boston College last month and is 2-0 in Ivy play (as is Cornell), stood 58th in the RPI. Typically, teams in the 40s and better have a reasonable shot at landing an at-large bid.
But because of the relatively weak state of the rest of the teams in the league—which is at a competitive disadvantage with much of Division I because of its academic-entrance standards—the Ivy has never received multiple bids.
Experts say this won’t be the year, either. Whichever team, Harvard or Cornell, that fails to win the Ivy championship won’t have a strong enough résumé to receive an “at-large” tournament berth, says Jerry Palm, who runs the Web site CollegeRPI.com. Those bids go to the top teams that don’t win their conference’s automatic bid.
“Even if both losses are to the other one, it’s a pretty shaky stand,” he says. “Even in the best-case scenario—Cornell being the at-large candidate—I guarantee you the national media will be pumping Cornell big-time, but it almost certainly won’t happen.”
In this regard, the Ivy’s lack of a conference tournament is doubly painful. Besides missing out on the publicity and profit such an event would bring, the league also is forgoing a chance at being able to sneak a second team into the NCAA Tournament.
“I’d like to see a conference tournament,” says Cornell coach Steve Donahue. “If you lose a couple of games, you don’t have a chance to play for the championship. I don’t think that’s fair.”
This season, Cornell, Mr. Donahue’s team, remains the favorite, which Harvard’s Mr. Amaker freely acknowledges. The Big Red—the two-time defending Ivy champion—is a senior-laden team led by Mr. Wittman, a long-range shooter who has made 42.2% of his three-pointers this season. (The national average is 34%.)
Because of Cornell’s recent success and the notoriety of Mr. Wittman, who is the son of former NBA player and coach Randy Wittman, the Big Red is becoming quite the road show. Last Saturday at Columbia, Cornell played before a standing-room-only crowd that included Lawrence Frank, the former New Jersey Nets coach.
Harvard’s great strength is its youth. Although senior guard Jeremy Lin is the team’s star, the biggest change from last season’s sixth-place team is the emergence of sophomore forward Keith Wright and freshmen Kyle Casey and Christian Webster, who promise a brighter future.
In the short term, the young Crimson is more susceptible to uneven performances, such as its 2-for-17 three-point shooting performance at Dartmouth Saturday that nearly led to an up set loss.
“We’re very optimistic,” Mr. Amaker says. “We feel positive about the direction of our program, and in a short period of time.” In the coach’s 2½ seasons at Harvard (he was replaced as the coach at Michigan) the team has gone from 8-22 to 14-14 to now 13-3.
At first, Mr. Amaker’s aggressive recruiting raised eyebrows, prompting a league investigation in 2008 into possible violations. The school was cleared.
“It’s been addressed,” Mr. Amaker says. “I just know we’re doing things in the Harvard way and by the Harvard standard.”
jcer,
and philly is a huge city. Way too much available square footage. No hope for philly or Camden.
chi (271)-
Amaker is a typical Dookie. Overly ambitious, backstabber, cheater, no loyalty, can’t function outside the Coach K system (not too bright). Probably pulling every trick in the book to get playas to Harvard.
Hope your team kills them.
Rut roh. Moderated.
Rip Torn gets busted in a bank- with a gun- and blows 2.0+ in a drunk test.
Impressive.
Now I will spend all night wondering why, if a guy is doing a ho on Queens Blvd., he would want to put onion rings on his johnson.
Don’t I have enough to think about with the analysis of the 224 page report from the SIG TARP?
Re Section 8, etc.,
As the state’s power in the economy expands a person is increasingly forced to decide whether to take advantage of the system and take advantage of his neigbors or to be ethical and allow others to use the system to take advantage of him.
The irony is that growing socialism/fascism/statism is what requires men to “eat or be eaten,” not genuine capitalism which is based on the recognition of individual rights and voluntary exchange of goods and services.
As the state grows, one takes turns being the victim and the victimizer. This kind of system leads to an amoral culture, where honesty, integrity, and productivity are punished, while political pull, and the willingness to abuse others under the cover of “the good of society” is rewarded.
As I’ve said before, the US needs a philosophical revolution to pull it back from the brink, see http://www.aynrand.org
not genuine capitalism which is based on the recognition of individual rights and voluntary exchange of goods and services
I always get confused with this one: which era was the ‘genuine captialism’ period?
I miss Upton Sinclair.
I always wanted a first edition of The Jungle.
The key to tolls is for politicians to hit the people who do not vote for them. Tolls into NY mostly hit NJ residents and Long Island Residents.
The Champ of this, though, is Delaware on I-95. High tolls for short stretch aand locals can avoid them.
Shore - did you ever see the piece that The New Republic did a few years back called ‘Delaware - The Worst State’? All about how Delaware makes their money off th backs of people that live elsewhere? It came out when we were sending jobs to Wilmington and that cover graced many a cubicle in my office for quite a few years. It was a great article.
IT / Tax news of the day.
While the IT guy should go to the big house for a long time, the bright line on the horizon is the ammount of consulting and programming work this person has generated as banks have to re-engineer systems. This could generate as much work as SOX.
Germany will buy ‘tax evaders’ list if real
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8491552.stm
Gator,
I never did see that. I will need to do so.
#199 Nom.
The key here is “His original plan drew a lukewarm response from Congress”. This is probably the biggest lobbyist issue after healthcare.
Back in 2008 they dropped the repatriation rate to 15% and billions started flowing back. I suspect even at 15% the only reason the cash came back was to patch balance sheets to cover dollar loses. So it was in effect a back door bailout in the line of the relaxation of Mark to Market accounting. Otherwise it will float offshore in a tax haven ready for deployment.
Stopping short of turning the US into a tax haven in line with the likes of the Cayman Islands, you will never get the cash back easily. IF you have any ideas on how to get the cash back, feel free to share.
For the government, dropping the rate to capture a bit more tax revenue, is like pulling out the high interest credit card to plug a short term gap. It will get you cash but cost you more in the long run. If the companies won’t repatriate voluntarily, then the cost to eventually repatriate should be ratcheted up. Matching expenses to deferred profit or lost would be a huge step.
I personally believe the German approach works well were the transfer of assets to an offshore entity always goes at market and not at cost. That way income is always recognized in the source country. If you build the product in another country, you have to pay for the IP value of the product if it was developed from scratch. BMW has been trying for years to get 3 series production out of Barvaria, but in the end it will just cost too much.
#248 Nom
“I’ve been inside the containment building”
Dr Octavius I presume? Nice to finally meet.
Rogue State
The Case Against Delaware
Until one day several years ago, I, like most people, harbored no ill feelings toward the state of Delaware. I suppose in some vague sense I thought of it as harmless and even endearing, the way you tend to regard other small things, such as Girl Scouts or squirrels. But all that changed the summer day I moved to Washington, when, making my way down I-95 in a rental truck with all of my worldly belongings, I screeched to a halt in front of what turned out to be a two-hour backup in Delaware. Never having driven down the East Coast, I at first assumed the traffic jam must have been caused by some horrific accident. But as my truck crept forward I saw it was no accident at all but a deliberate obstruction–specifically, a tollboth on the Delaware Turnpike. Slowly the full horror of it sunk in: The State of Delaware had turned the East Coast’s main traffic artery into a sweltering parking lot merely so it could exact a tribute from each driver crossing its miserable little stretch of concrete.
The practice of charging road tolls is an archaic holdover blighting much of the Northeast. But Delaware has taken it to a grotesque extreme. Whereas the I-95 tolls amount to less than five cents per mile in New Jersey and four cents per mile in Maryland, in Delaware they cost an exorbitant 18 cents per mile. Which isn’t surprising because, in a deeper sense, Delaware’s tolls epitomize the state’s entire ethos. The organizing principle of Delaware government is to subsidize its people at the rest of the country’s expense. While tolls represent the most obvious of the state’s nefarious methods, Delaware also utilizes its appallingly lax regulation of banks and corporations to enrich itself while undermining its neighbors. Indeed, Delaware’s image as small and inoffensive is not merely a misconception but a purposeful guise. It presents itself as a plucky underdog peopled by a benevolent, public-spirited, entrepreneurial citizenry. In truth, it is a rapacious parasite state with a long history of disloyalty and avarice.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/rogue-state
My comment of the day.
“Trust fund baby who knows the intimate details of drug dealers lives…….Hmmmmmm.”
I think eveyone here should read “Off the Books” before they go off on these Section 8, everyone in the projects is driving a Benz while chatting on an iPhone” rants.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674030710/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0674023552&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=12KRDSBXX7WXK5HCQP2H
Federalize Delaware, it will solve a lot of this country’s issues.
But to be fair to the article, the I-95 tolls have nothing on the I-78/I-80 in PA.
1-80 in PA sucks haaaaaaaaaad.
pgc,
no need for the melodrama, nobody’s innocent - why pretend?
Coast-to-coast double-digit college tuition hikes
State budget deficits contribute to higher education costs
SEATTLE - As students around the country anxiously wait for college acceptance letters, their parents are sweating the looming tuition bills at public universities.
Florida college students could face yearly 15 percent tuition increases for years, and University of Illinois students will pay at least 9 percent more. The University of Washington will charge 14 percent more at its flagship campus. And in California, tuition increases of more than 30 percent have sparked protests reminiscent of the 1960s.
Tuition has been trending upward for years, but debate in statehouses and trustee meeting rooms has been more urgent this year as most states struggle their way out of the economic meltdown.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35185920/ns/us_news-education//
“Everything that the government has done so far, with a few minor detours, has been almost exclusively focused on maintaining home prices high, by tweaking either the supply or the demand side of the housing equation. As the bulk of consumer net wealth is concentrated in the housing sector, and a wealthy and confident consumer, much more so than the banking system, is critical to the recovery of America’s economy, the Administration will do everything in its power to achieve its goal of artificially manipulating the housing market, thereby not causing an incremental loss of wealth to those still stuck with overpriced houses, while the real intersection of actual supply and demand curves would indicate a materially lower equilibrium price. This is ironic, as proper price discovery is critical for a true recovery, since Americans realize all too well that buying a house at prevailing levels in advance of the second down-leg in housing is senseless, the continued pursuit of such flawed policies by the Fed and President Obama merely pulls the market ever further away from its equilibrium, thereby making the anticipated second dip so much more likely and not that far off in the distant future. Below are 5 simple charts the highlight just how precarious the housing situation in the U.S. is, and how likely the second, and probably much more fierce, leg down in the markets is going to be.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/next-leg-housing-crisis-five-simple-charts
Coast-to-coast double-digit college tuition hikes
State budget deficits contribute to higher education costs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35185920/ns/us_news-education
291. Dont forget about the 15 trillion Americans have in 401ks and IRA’s. They will be coming for that money as well.
Senor…the post started with a recap…the article is old from last week.
273.Schumpeter says:
February 1, 2010 at 5:13 pm
chi (271)- Hope your team kills them.
271.chicagofinance says:
February 1, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Ahem…..
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=300300172
The Wall Street Journal
JANUARY 27, 2010
COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473
The best part I’m sure was near the end when the crowd began chanting “….go staht the cah….go staht the cah…”
“If the companies won’t repatriate voluntarily, then the cost to eventually repatriate should be ratcheted up.”
So…
When there is an economic disincentive to do something (keep profits/earnings on shore) the solution is to put more economic disincentives in place?
1. You cannot legislate behaviour nor outcomes, only incentives.
2. If you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize it, you get more.
I will never understand the Left….
Chris Dodd, scum until the end:
“Earlier today rumors emerged that the Volcker Rule was already DOA in the Senate, where skittish Democrats and insurgent Republicans looked set to deny Obama any kind of victory before November.
The FT is running the full report from DealReporter, the analyst firm that broke the story, and it includes this stunning revelation about Chris Dodd:
With the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate, the Democrats no longer have the necessary 60 votes to force through a Regulatory Reform package, and any bill will need at least some Republican support to pass. A Dodd staffer said the senator is likely to quietly drop or modify many of the recommendations in the Volcker rule to ensure Republican support for regulatory reform.
“Chris is retiring so he wants to end his career with an important regulatory reform bill and he wants to make the bill bipartisan,” the staffer said. “He is not going to risk bipartisan support to make the White House happy.”
This is ridiculous. There’s no reason Dodd should prefer some milquetoast bi-partisan deal over a White House-lead bill with teeth.
The best interpretation is that Dodd is doing a favor to his friends — friends who will find a way to load him up financially upon retirement.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/on-his-way-out-sen-chris-dodd-gives-giant-middle-finger-to-the-white-house-on-volcker-2010-2
chi (294)-
Good. Hope Amaker eventually gets fired by Harvard. At that point, I’d doubt any other schools will show much interest in such a self-serving, chronic underachiever.
Go to hell Dook.
Chi-
They should’ve started singing the Michigan fight song.
Tommy Amaker = Lane Kiffin
Slum Tours for the Wealthy Come Under Scrutiny
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/02/01/slum-tours-for-the-wealthy-come-under-scrutiny/
“But seeing how the other half lives shouldn’t be reserved for the rich. For the world to truly bridge the divide between rich and poor, travel companies should offering tours of the rich for the poor — five cent walking tours of the streets and mansions of Palm Beach, Greenwich and Aspen.”
This one?
300.The Condition-Code Red says:
February 1, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Chi- They should’ve started singing the Michigan fight song.
Hail to the Mother Fcukers,
Hail to the Big C0ck Suckers,
Hail Hail to Michigan the cesspoll of the West,
Hail to the Fornicators,
Hail to the Masterbaters
Hail Hail to Michigan the cesspoll of the West,
that WSJ article reminds me of a laugh out loud Opie and Anthony holiday episode when they loaded a bus up with homeless people from NYC for a trip to Short Hills Mall. They gave each of these folks some spending money and reported on reaction of shoppers and mall employees.
#290 Babs
melodrama? - Don’t really think thats me.
#297
Leftwing doesn’t understand the left, there is something poetic in that.
It is more a case of diminishing returns. When you realize that it is never coming back voluntarily that changes the playing field. Is it worth it to chase 2% of a companies profits with tax subsidies.
There is a way to increase the tax pain to make it more beneficial for companies to repatriate voluntarily. While the company can walk to another country, you can bar the door on the way out to make it a very unattractive option to them. If you say that US government contracts can only be awarded to US based entities (and not shell companies), you would see the like of Halliburton come back onshore. At the end of the day, the US is still one of the largest in the world for most products
You can put in place domestic protectionism without the need for a trade war.
clot:
I am grabbing a late lunch here tomorrow. What do you suggest?
http://www.bluesmoke.com/blue/PDF/lunchMenu.pdf
I was thinking maybe:
(1) Warm Barbecued Potato Chips with Blue Cheese and Bacon Dip
and (2) about 4 Patron Reposados
should carry be for the evening?
#298 Clot
I have a bigger issue with Joe L.
CT is a great example of where you get the government that you deserve.
be = me
Beverages….
http://www.bluesmoke.com/blue/PDF/beverageMenu.pdf
#304 njescapee
Could Opie and Anthony ever top the St Pats incident.
Very rue content….In Americans who purchased cars that could count on other Americans, even those also who did not have own cars…
chi (307)-
I like that place a lot.
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It is the most densely populated state, why with all those people paying property tax, sales tax, state tax, tolls, lottery money and other taxes is the state broke, where does all the money go?
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amazing statement! The art of relaxing is very important to the soul and body. You have to rest, it’s natural. There’s this relaxation drink, based on scientific studies and created by a scientist: it’s called Minichill. http://www.minichill.com - it’s based on scientific studies. It’s made from scientifically proven relaxing ingredients such as Relarian. It is backed by a Ph.D who who has published many articles, Dr. Benjamin Weeks. You should really check it out.
Thanks for the post.
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.
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