From NJ Spotlight:
NJ STILL DROWNING IN ‘UNDERWATER’ MORTGAGES, NEW STUDY REVEALS
Homeowners have it worse in New Jersey cities than almost anywhere in the nation, according to a new study of “underwater” mortgages, those with debt loads higher than the properties actually are worth.
More than 50 percent of Newark and Elizabeth mortgages are underwater, trailing only Hartford, CT, among cities with more than 100,000 residents. Paterson is fourth at 49 percent, just ahead of Detroit. Jersey City ranks 32nd, according to the report, “Underwater America,” by a team of urban planners and sociologists from Occidental College, George Washington University, The New School, MIT, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation and published by the Haas Institute at the University of California-Berkley.
While foreclosure rates are dropping sharply in some parts of the country, New Jersey continues to buck the trend, on pace for more than 50,000 new filings this year. Authors of the study pointed out that homeowners with “negative equity” are two to three times more likely to default on their loans.
They offered several other insights to the Garden State’s continuing crisis. They found underwater mortgages are especially prevalent in communities targeted by predatory lenders, often those with large minority populations, as well as in areas where housing prices have not rebounded from the Great Recession.
Like the New Jersey cities, most others on the worst-off lists have more than 40 percent minority populations. Meanwhile, New Jersey remains an expensive place to buy a home, but the state ranks 48th in the nation in the post-recession recovery of residential property values.
…
When the data is broken down by ZIP Code for neighborhoods with at least 5,000 residents, other New Jersey communities join the struggling cities. Trenton puts two neighborhoods in the bottom 52, while Roselle, Pleasantville, East Orange, Irvington, Plainfield, Browns Mills and Perth Amboy all have underwater rates well above 40 percent of mortgages.
http://diversity.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/HaasInsitute_UnderwaterAmerica_PUBLISH.pdf
Top Underwater Zip Codes
20 – Newark – 63%
38 – Trenton – 59%
39 – Newark – 58%
43 – Elizabeth – 58%
52 – Trenton – 56%
57 – Newark – 55%
61 – Elizabeth – 55%
64 – Newark – 55%
88 – Roselle – 54%
90 – Newark – 53%
93 – Paterson – 53%
106 – Pleasantville – 53%
110 – Newark – 52%
115 – Paterson – 52%
122 – Newark – 51%
131 – Paterson – 51%
141 – East Orange – 50%
154 – Paterson – 49%
173 – Paterson – 48%
201 – Irvington – 48%
238 – Paterson – 47%
247 – Passaic – 46%
252 – Plainfield – 46%
257 – Newark – 46%
262 – Elizabeth – 46%
318 – Paterson – 45%
336 – Plainfield – 44%
360 – Paterson – 44%
362 – Perth Amboy – 44%
Woo! Found the dataset.
Let’s take a look at where the underwater aren’t (just some random selections)…
Hillsdale – 5.8%
Allendale – 6.6%
Bernardsville – 6.7%
Franklin Lakes – 5.3%
Short Hills – 3.4%
Ridgewood – 4.9%
Woodcliff Lake – 6.8%
Avon – 4.9%
Montvale – 5.5%
Oradell – 6.8%
Summit – 5.0%
Westfield – 5.3%
Berkeley Heights – 6.4%
Wyckoff – 4.1%
Brielle – 6.5%
Englewood Cliffs – 5.2%
Holmdel – 6.4%
Lincroft – 6.1%
Mantoloking – 6.5%
Glen Rock – 5.3%
Colts Neck – 6.3%
New Providence – 5.5%
Paramus – 6.6%
Spring Lake Heights – 4.5%
North Beach – 5.5%
Washington Twp – 5.4%
Marlboro – 4.8%
Stone Harbor 0.7%
West Windsor – 4.3%
Montville – 5.4%
Warren – 5.7%
See a trend?
Once the standards are loosened we will see those numbers come down
2 – What about exurban areas of NW NJ?
@RossReutersGuy: Chipotle shareholders rebuke company’s executive pay http://t.co/YjdS6NIiUG via @reuters #corpgov $CMG
That non-binding “say on pay” vote comes after chief executives Steve Ells and Montgomery “Monty” Moran received a combined $49.5 million in cash-and-stock compensation last year. Ells received $25.1 million and Moran $24.4 million, making them among the highest paid business executives in the nation — ahead of much larger companies.
Numbers seem to make sense. The problem is there are too many in the better towns poised to lose most or all of their downpayment and can’t accept the fact. Thus, no inventory.
#7….only those that have to move would sell…they have the equivalent of “job lock”..so they will ride it out for 10-20 years till kids are grown…or older couples will just stay…if there is no compelling event to force or allow a move (and in fact a monetary loss argues against moving) folks won’t move…either up or out..thus a long period of low inventory…
http://www.zillow.com/visuals/negative-equity/#4/39.98/-106.92
Thanks, you just pissed in Eddie’s cheerios. Now he’ll be whining all day again.
..thus a long period of low inventory…
In retrospect, I’d be p1ssed too if my house was worth 20 percent less than what I paid. Remember, underwater means owing more than what the house is worth. The house is now worth X minus 20 percent. Factor in maintenance and realtor commission and you lost the DP and then some. In just a few years, you never even sniffed any principal. Even if you paid cash, no one is going to feel good losing six digits. For those in the inner city, it’s a whole different game. Geezus, typing from the train sucks!
http://www.zillow.com/visuals/negative-equity/#8/40.288/-74.655
Warren county 28% underwater (top 10% in US)
Sussex County 26% underwater (top 20% in US)
Passaic County 26% underwater (top 20% in US)
nwnj,
Bottom line? I stay where I am and be grateful.
Plenty of people in NW NJ got burned and plenty are still upside down on their mortgage. But let’s buy all the abandoned and underwater houses in Newark with taxpayer money. Another gut punch to what’s left of the middle class in NJ. Paying your mortgage is for suckers.
Chi- I hope Im not being annoying, but I’m confused. Where does the value come from that increased the price from 10 to 20. It has to come from somewhere right? Meaning another stock lost value, so microsoft could increase in value. Or the value doesn’t even have to come from stocks, maybe someone just sold their investment property, and dumped the equity into microsoft. This is where my belief in fixed amount of wealth stems. Otherwise, I can’t make sense of it. I thought new value was created out of new resources taken out of the ground, for example oil. If value is literally created out of nothing, then the whole economy is one big joke. It has to be a con.
chicagofinance says:
May 15, 2014 at 11:04 pm
Bill Gates owns 90% of Microsoft (for the sake of simplicity). 10% is the float in the market. The people out there bid up the price of Microsoft from $10 to $20. Gates has not done anything….his wealth doubled (on a mark to market basis)…….there is now twice as much asset value in Microsoft even though a very small fraction of the shares changed hands to get the price from $10 to $20.
Michael says:
May 15, 2014 at 5:44 pm
Yes, I’m confused. How is there not a fixed amount of wealth? It can only grow through inflation. This fixed amount is tied to inflation. Please explain to me what I’m missing
That list is a top 10 list of filthy, degenerate, wastelands. Liberalism the great destroyer of society. SOCIAL JUSTICE NOW!
Pave that sh_t over with asphalt 100 feet deep. Do it now and with great expediency. Bring back public shaming now! Fat eastward on food stamps? It should be obligatory for people to choke them out on sight.
Have a nice day.
Passaic County 26% underwater (top 20% in US)
Wayne 13.3%
Wanaque 16.8%
Totowa 17.4%
Ringwood 18.3%
Little Falls 19.0%
Hawthorne 19.0%
West Milford 24.2%
North Haledon 28.2%
Clifton 29.0%
Bloomingdale 31.0%
Pompton Lakes 32.2%
Passaic 46.4%
Paterson 48.7%
Sussex County 26% underwater (top 20% in US)
Frankford 17.6%
Byram 18.4%
Sparta 18.8%
Lafayette 22.1%
Wantage 22.9%
Newton 24.0%
Stanhope 28.1%
Hardyston 29.0%
Ogdensburg 31.7%
Vernon 32.6%
Franklin 32.7%
Highland Lake 33.0%
Montague 33.1%
Hopatcong 34.3%
How are we idiots? Please explain to me how picketty’s formula is wrong? I’m sorry, those reasons the author stated make a lot more sense than thinking it has to do with only fiat currency. Fiat currency is too narrow a view.
joyce says:
May 16, 2014 at 12:31 am
Yes, you and the author are idiots.
Michael says:
May 15, 2014 at 10:02 pm
Joyce, rags- I’m the idiot. I don’t see anything with fiat currency in the following quote on causes of income inequality. I don’t see anything Ragner mentioned in this article.
All money is fiat money.
Grim, hit us with “West Essex”
I know this is an opinion, but this guy does make sense.
In his Feb. 3 op-ed column, “Inequality misunderstood,” Robert J. Samuelson wrote that from 1980 to 2010, “the top 1 percent outdid everyone” as “their inflation-adjusted pretax incomes grew a spectacular 190 percent, almost tripling,” an outcome that prompted him to observe: “It’s hard not to be disturbed by today’s huge economic inequality.” But as to whether this was a preventable or predictable outcome of political programs, Mr. Samuelson offered no opinion.
Between 1980 and 2010, I don’t recall 99 percent of Americans becoming lazier or stupider. What I do recall is the ascendancy of Reaganomics, a.k.a. “trickle-down economics,” wherein laws were enacted to enrich the rich because, so the 99 percent were told, such changes would result in gains for all Americans. Free-trade agreements were enacted, which we were told would not push wages down. And labor unions were diminished under the guise of “right-to-work” laws.
Could any of these political decisions have contributed to today’s economic inequality? My answer is yes, and it was entirely predictable.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-causes-of-income-inequality-are-no-mystery/2014/02/06/bbff6b00-8d16-11e3-99e7-de22c4311986_story.html
Globalization[edit]
While economists who have studied globalization agree imports have had an effect, the timing of import growth does not match the growth of income inequality. China is the world’s biggest exporter and maker of manufactured products but had a per capita income in 2007 one-seventh that of the United States. By 1995 imports of manufactured goods from low-wage countries totaled less than 3% of US gross domestic product.[195]
It wasn’t until 2006 that the US imported more manufactured goods from low-wage (developing) countries than from high-wage (advanced) economies.[196] Inequality increased during the 2000–2010 decade not because of stagnating wages for less-skilled workers, but because of accelerating incomes of the top 0.1%.[195] Author Timothy Noah estimates that “trade”, increases in imports are responsible for just 10% of the “Great Divergence” in income distribution.[194]
Journalist James Surowiecki notes that in the last 50 years, companies and the sectors of the economy providing the most employment in the US – major retailers, restaurant chains, and supermarkets – are ones with lower profit margins and less pricing power than in the 1960s; while sectors with high profit margins and average salaries – like high technology – have relatively few employees.[197]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
“Between 1980 and 2010, I don’t recall 99 percent of Americans becoming lazier or stupider. What I do recall is the ascendancy of Reaganomics, a.k.a. “trickle-down economics,” wherein laws were enacted to enrich the rich because, so the 99 percent were told, such changes would result in gains for all Americans. Free-trade agreements were enacted, which we were told would not push wages down. And labor unions were diminished under the guise of “right-to-work” laws.”
@allinwithchris: “The state with the highest minimum wage, Washington, has the highest job growth” – @AGSchneiderman #inners
[24] anon,
You know what the solution is. You hint at it constantly. Just come out and say it.
@BloombergNews: BREAKING: U.S. housing starts rose 13.2 percent in April
[25] anon,
I don’t know who is stupider, Chris or you for posting that fatuous, fallacious, and highly misleading tweet.
I have an 11 year old girl. Her arguments and argumentative technique are so much like yours, it’s scary.
In 1980 my entire family of five lived off a household income of 9K a year. That number sticks in my mind as I was the third kid entering college and financial aid form knocked 3k a kid off income for each kid in college so I was able to apply to college with a BEOG income of Zero
My income today as well as the income of several of my friends from the Bronx and the lower income kids I went to school freshman year at stony brook is on average 10-50x their Parents income.
My Mother in law who did not have the advantage of Regan Trickle Down Economics must survive on an yearly income which I make in my first paycheck of year.
Regan and Clinton compbined were the 1-2 punch to incomes. Bush and Obama sucked in income producing catagories. .
24.anon (the good one) says:
May 16, 2014 at 8:26 am
“Between 1980 and 2010, I don’t recall 99 percent of Americans becoming lazier or stupider. What I do recall is the ascendancy of Reaganomics, a.k.a. “trickle-down economics,” wherein laws were enacted to enrich the rich because, so the 99 percent were told, such changes would result in gains for all Americans. Free-trade agreements were enacted, which we were told would not push wages down. And labor unions were diminished under the guise of “right-to-work” laws.”
West Essex (aka Hotel Coral Essex):
Short Hills 3.4%
Millburn 5.0%
Livingston 8.1%
Roseland 9.5%
Essex Fells 9.6%
West Caldwell 9.9%
Cedar Grove 11.6%
Verona 13.3%
Fairfield 13.9%
Maplewood 17.3%
West Orange 26.9%
For reference, Newark Zip Code 07114 – 63.2%
@CNBC: U.S. housing starts total 1.072 million vs. 980,000 estimate: http://t.co/Am46GEFYaZ
Yay! raise the minimum wage!
http://agbeat.com/business-news/panera-bread-aims-replace-cashiers-kiosks/
anon (the good one) says:
May 16, 2014 at 8:31 am
@allinwithchris: “The state with the highest minimum wage, Washington, has the highest job growth” – @AGSchneiderman #inners
I swear to you guys that I came up with that union theory on my own yesterday. I didn’t read it anywhere. I just used logic. This passage says the same thing about unions.
Here is my passage from yesterday.
Michael says:
May 15, 2014 at 1:25 pm
Wish people acted like this. World would be a better place. Too bad most people treat low wage workers like they are some kind of disease. People on welfare, treated even worst by most. Just look at the rhetoric on this board. They beat these people down on a regular basis. Anyone that kicks someone when they are down is a loser. I feel bad for people that are second or third generation welfare. Those people have no chance whatsoever. You can say it’s their own fault, but I repeat, under our economic system someone has to be poor. Meaning, there are not enough jobs to go around. If there were enough jobs to go around, we wouldn’t need unions to help stabilize workers wages from going into a downward spiral. If there were enough jobs to go around, there would be no need for a minimum wage. Too bad people don’t get it.
Decline of Unions
“The era of inequality growth has coincided with a dramatic decline in labor union membership from 20% of the labor force in 1983 to about 12% in 2007.[223] Economists have traditionally thought that since the chief purpose of a union is to maximize the income of its members, a strong but not all-encompassing union movement led to increased income inequality. Given the increase in income inequality of the past few decades, either the sign of the effect must be reversed, the magnitude of the effect small, or a much larger opposing force overridden it, since unionization has decreased in that period.[224][225]
However more recently research has shown that unions’ ability to reduce income disparities among members outweighed other factors and its net effect has been to reduce national income inequality.[225][226] The decline of unions has hurt this leveling effect among men, and one economist (Berkeley economist David Card) estimating about 15–20% of the “Great Divergence” among that gender is the result of declining unionization.[225][227]
Still other researchers think it is the labor movement’s loss of national political power to promote equalizing “government intervention and changes in private sector behavior” has had the greatest impact on inequality in the US.[225][228] Timothy Noah estimates the “decline” of labor union power “responsible for 20%” of the Great Divergence.[194] While the decline of union power in the US has been a factor in declining middle class incomes,[229] they have retained their clout in Western Europe.[230]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
More taxes! Regulate those evil businesses! Raise the minimum wage! Power to the people and fcuck the middle class people who are trying to start small businesses.
anon (the good one) says:
May 16, 2014 at 8:31 am
@allinwithchris: “The state with the highest minimum wage, Washington, has the highest job growth” – @AGSchneiderman #inners
MLS 3119956: 4/2.5, 22oo sf, .43 ac.;
Last sold Sept 2007 @ $500,000; OLP $419,000; Price cut to $399,000. Taxes $10k.
Thanks. It’s tough debating in here at times, but I do learn a lot. Maybe I will one day agree with most of you, but till then, I will do my best to be devil’s advocate. Ever since I started participating on this blog, I feel like I’m back in a college class, learning every day. Thanks guys
Juice Box says:
May 16, 2014 at 12:12 am
Michael – I am glad you are sticking around, and breathing new life to this long lived blog that GRIM has been kind enough to host for a long time as he takes over the world. Not to say you will change direction but you may learn a bit more here than you would on the huff po now that you are the 2% meaning you are cash positive. Things may heat up in the next 365 days so stick around.
Thank god incomes skyrocked and prices of everything else stayed the same.
jj says:
May 16, 2014 at 8:35 am
My income today as well as the income of several of my friends from the Bronx and the lower income kids I went to school freshman year at stony brook is on average 10-50x their Parents income.
My Mother in law who did not have the advantage of Regan Trickle Down Economics must survive on an yearly income which I make in my first paycheck of year.
Anyone happen to remember which president signed NAFTA?
Anyone happen to remember which president spent the most time getting China into the WTO?
Hint – it was the same guy, and his wife is reportedly interested in becoming president.
(Not that I’m against these developments directionally, though there are details I dislike).
grim- thank you for finding those underwater #s. Now fast eddie can’t deny the facts. There are a lot of underwater buyers in nj, but not where he is looking.
Yes, and now you know why it doesn’t matter what party is power. They all work for the same boss, the people who can afford lobbyists.
Ragnar says:
May 16, 2014 at 8:51 am
Anyone happen to remember which president signed NAFTA?
Anyone happen to remember which president spent the most time getting China into the WTO?
Hint – it was the same guy, and his wife is reportedly interested in becoming president.
(Not that I’m against these developments directionally, though there are details I dislike).
19
The reasons listed by Ragnar centered around fiat currency making other things possible. The monetary policies chosen for well over a hundred years have enriched special interests. You are an idiot for several reasons, but for now I’ll just point it out because you kept shouting inequality and more gains going to a select few… while simultaneously saying Ragnar was dancing around the subject when in fact he was identifying and explaining for one perhaps the primary culprit. You demanded an explanation like a child after dismissing the one already provided.
33
In addition to being an idiot, this is another example of confirmation bias. I can start claiming a bunch of random crap about the moon landing being fake and provide quotes/links in support of that argument. Does that make it true as true as any of the random stuff you post here and say ‘I TOLD YOU SO’
Wow, the people are finally fighting back!! Pensions funds finally aware of how they are getting ripped off and doing something about it. So it begins.
anon (the good one) says:
May 16, 2014 at 7:41 am
@RossReutersGuy: Chipotle shareholders rebuke company’s executive pay http://t.co/YjdS6NIiUG via @reuters #corpgov $CMG
That non-binding “say on pay” vote comes after chief executives Steve Ells and Montgomery “Monty” Moran received a combined $49.5 million in cash-and-stock compensation last year. Ells received $25.1 million and Moran $24.4 million, making them among the highest paid business executives in the nation — ahead of much larger companies.
[19] michael
” Please explain to me how picketty’s formula is wrong? ”
As you yourself commented yesterday, Bill Clinton was right. But he cannot be right in some absolute sense, by appeal to an agreed upon standard of right and wrong. He is only right if a majority in power believe he is. If a majority don’t, he is wrong.
Picketty, Diamond, Saez, and a host of economists and philosophers going back to Hume and Bentham have tried to come up with optimum levels of taxation and redistribution and couched it in the language of “the greater good.” It may work in a mechanical sense but it is not right or wrong in a moral sense or a universal sense.
Aside from the charitable instincts of monotheistic religions (more on that in a moment) we have appended moral and existential justifications to the need to address inequality. But they are mere window dressing and justifications are just that–attempts to justify to ourselves something we would not ordinarily see as right or desirable should it be done to us.
The free markets are elastic and imprecise, and don’t always respond as quickly as we would like. On inequality, there are self-correcting mechanisms and some of them are born of our monotheistic morality. The “robber barons” and fat cats you denigrate also were philanthropists and voluntarily redistributed much of their wealth to the betterment of the poor. Many libraries, hospitals, universities, aid societies, parks and conservation lands, charities were started by, and most are largely funded by, the uber rich. Buffett is giving away much of his fortune in his will. Gates donated a billion dollars to start his foundation. Look at the names on university and hospital buildings–those aren’t war heros, they are benefactors.
Then there is taxation. The wealthy understand that it is necessary (despite what
anon Guevara thinks) and accept that those who have more, and can pay more, should do so. But our current situation is out of control. At what point does paying 75% of your income to insure “peace” make sense when you can keep your wealth and get the same amount of “peace” elsewhere? anon would have us believe that the wealthy are simply greedy and take perverse delight in sticking it to the muppets. I prefer to think that they see the government and the poor as intransigent, wastrel adult children who refuse to be responsible and they are tired of paying for them so they look to curb their spending or cut them off altogether.
It’s interesting that Clinton chose “lion’s share” to describe what society should take from them in terms of taxes. It brings to mind another democratic president’s musings about Khruschev. “Khrushchev reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the tiger’s skin long before he has caught the tiger. This tiger has other ideas.”
The musings of Michael, anon, and CCB also remind me of an old Carol Burnett Show episode (yes, I am dating myself) where Burnett was mother to two irresponsible adult children who would not move out of the house, would not help around the house, and ate her out of house and home (also reminiscent of the old children’s story of the hen who made bread). She would remonstrate with them but they just blew her off, kept eating, making a mess, and never contributing. Then one day, the kids came home, yelling for Ma, but she wasn’t there. The neighbor came over and told the kids that Mom sold the house and left, and they had better clear out because the new owners were on their way over. The scene cut to Burnett on a beach being served fruity drinks.
Nom [28];
I’ve discover’s the troll sock’s source: Spurrious Correlations! (http://www.tylervigen.com/)
Michael [42];
I trust you’ve sold your stock in that company, then? Resigned never to eat their (yummy!) burritos again? If you have no interaction with that private company, its really none of your concern.
Joyce, I think this has more to do with inequality, than a fiat currency. I get what you guys are saying, I just don’t agree.
Taxation[edit]
How much tax policy change over the last thirty years has contributed to income inequality is disputed. In their comprehensive 2011 study of income inequality (Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007),[168] the CBO found that,
The top fifth of the population saw a 10-percentage-point increase in their share of after-tax income. Most of that growth went to the top 1 percent of the population. All other groups saw their shares decline by 2 to 3 percentage points. In 2007, federal taxes and transfers reduced the dispersion of income by 20 percent, but that equalizing effect was larger in 1979. The share of transfer payments to the lowest-income households declined. The overall average federal tax rate fell.
However, a more recent CBO analysis indicates that with changes to 2013 tax law, the effective federal tax rates for the highest earning household will increase to levels not seen since 1979.[231]
According to journalist Timothy Noah, “you can’t really demonstrate that U.S. tax policy had a large impact on the three-decade income inequality trend one way or the other. The inequality trend for pre-tax income during this period was much more dramatic.”[208] Noah estimates tax changes account for 5% of the Great Divergence.[194]
But many – such as economist Paul Krugman – emphasize the effect of changes in taxation – such as the 2001 and 2003 Bush administration tax cuts which cut taxes far more for high-income households than those below – on increased income inequality.[232]
Part of the growth of income inequality under Republican administrations (described by Larry Bartels) has been attributed to tax policy. A study by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez found that “large reductions in tax progressivity since the 1960s took place primarily during two periods: the Reagan presidency in the 1980s and the Bush administration in the early 2000s.”[233]
[42] michael
You should qualify who the “people” are. In this case, they are shareholders, the actual owners of the company. So, in a sense, you are seeing the bosses decide that the employee is overpaid, that their services aren’t worth the comp asked.
So it is right for owners to tell a CEO he makes too much but it isn’t right for owners to tell rank and file the same thing?
BTW, customers have this power too. They can refuse to eat there until the company lowers executive comp.
Note that none of this power derives from government mandate.
Regarding the increase in housing starts, it was all due to rental units. Single family housing starts were up only 0.8%:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-16/housing-starts-permits-smash-expectations-surge-rental-construction
Hahahahahahah. “non-binding” Like the town/school budget vote. Vote fails = town changes 1-2 things and finalizes (without another vote).
Michael says:
May 16, 2014 at 8:59 am
Wow, the people are finally fighting back!! Pensions funds finally aware of how they are getting ripped off and doing something about it. So it begins.
anon (the good one) says:
May 16, 2014 at 7:41 am
@RossReutersGuy: Chipotle shareholders rebuke company’s executive pay http://t.co/YjdS6NIiUG via @reuters #corpgov $CMG
That non-binding “say on pay” vote comes after chief executives Steve Ells and Montgomery “Monty” Moran received a combined $49.5 million in cash-and-stock compensation last year. Ells received $25.1 million and Moran $24.4 million, making them among the highest paid business executives in the nation — ahead of much larger companies.
Michael,
Dude, I know your stuff is just mockery. Or is your name Pat? You’re a long time poster/lurker or someone relatively new who writes in an attempted satirical manner to stir sh1t and get people to argue their point for entertainment and amusement value. Anon is doing the same thing. In fact, you might be the same person and aka RE Investor 101.
I don’t know why it took 5 posts from two different people for you to “get it.” Actually, I do know why… cause you still don’t get it.
Recapping this:
We’re talking about the causes of inequality – Ragnar gives explanation – Mikey finally *gets it* and proclaims, “I thinks this [inequality] has more to do with inequality than fiat currency.” Profound, very profound
Michael says:
May 16, 2014 at 9:07 am
Joyce, I think this has more to do with inequality, than a fiat currency. I get what you guys are saying, I just don’t agree.
I leave you with the notion that anon, Michael, and a few others here are, unbeknownst to them, supporting a form of feudalism. As we know, in feudal societies, all title vested in the sovereign. Wealth was largely static and dispensed by the sovereign to gain favor, protection, etc. But the sovereign “owned” all.
The musings of the left also resonate with the notion that the wealth concentrated in the hands of a small minority is not legally or morally theirs to hold. That it properly belongs to the government or society (with the government as agent or trustee). Thus, the sovereign is the government and to our leftist comrades, all wealth is actually properly vested in the “sovereign”, being the government. It is an inverse view of feudalism but it still adopts the feudal notion that all property is titled in the sovereign and that the sovereign permits the people to use it as the sovereign sees fit.
That’s my last thought for the day. Gym, work, and a new iPhone are on my list of to-dos.
I don’t care, I’m happy someone is finally standing up to outrageous executive pay.
Anon E. Moose says:
May 16, 2014 at 9:05 am
Michael [42];
I trust you’ve sold your stock in that company, then? Resigned never to eat their (yummy!) burritos again? If you have no interaction with that private company, its really none of your concern.
[25]
States with the best jobs outlook:
1. North Dakota
2. Arizona
3. Texas
4. Colorado
5. Florida
6. Georgia
7. S. Carolina
Huh, I can’t seem to find Washington -highest minimum wage State- on this list
So, if one absolutely has to move and has purchased anywhere from 2004 through 2009, you’re basically looking at a loss. If you purchased after 2009, regardless of the down payment, you may come out about even. Again, no one wants to stomach a loss so they’ll keep making payments unless you’re in the urban jungle and you simply walk away. The question also becomes: how many in the better towns are in default and not making payments?
44 – nearly pissed my pants laughing, brilliant
Bergen County
– 14% of homes underwater
– 16% of underwater homes delinquent.
Fast Eddie says:
May 16, 2014 at 9:32 am
So, if one absolutely has to move and has purchased anywhere from 2004 through 2009, you’re basically looking at a loss. If you purchased after 2009, regardless of the down payment, you may come out about even. Again, no one wants to stomach a loss so they’ll keep making payments unless you’re in the urban jungle and you simply walk away. The question also becomes: how many in the better towns are in default and not making payments?
I am def not posting to get under your skin. I’m sorry if it comes off that way. I focus a lot on inequality because I think it is the biggest problem facing human civilization. I also think you have a fatal flaw in your analysis of north jersey real estate. You keep using national stats in trying to understand localized real estate. I am trying to help you see the light.
“Yale professor and economist Robert J. Shiller, who was among three Americans who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2013, believes that rising economic inequality in the United States and other countries is “the most important problem that we are facing now today.”[25] Pope Francis echoed this sentiment in his Evangelii Gaudium, stating that “as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.”[26] President Barack Obama referred to the widening income gap as the “defining challenge of our time.”[27]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
Fast Eddie says:
May 16, 2014 at 9:11 am
Michael,
Dude, I know your stuff is just mockery. Or is your name Pat? You’re a long time poster/lurker or someone relatively new who writes in an attempted satirical manner to stir sh1t and get people to argue their point for entertainment and amusement value. Anon is doing the same thing. In fact, you might be the same person and aka RE Investor 101.
Wow this dataset is awesome.
In Wyckoff NJ – a full 68.9% of homeowners have between 40% and 100% equity (nowhere near being underwater).
If we expand that to at least 20% equity, the number rises to 87.6% of all Wyckoff homeowners.
I am trying to help you see the light.
LOL!!
grim,
Equity as a percentage of the purchase price? If I bought a house for 500K and paid cash. I have 100% equity. If I go to sell it and it’s now worth 450K, I still have 100% equity but in nominal terms, I just lost 50K. Yes? One necessarily isn’t underwater and have a certain percentage of equity but if I bought in 2006 and wanted to sell 5 years later, I’m losing money.
Nom, you are really slick in how you bring about your argument. The problem is the same as yesterday. You are making unrealistic comparisons. Regular workers aren’t getting paid 25 million a year. Plus, they already rape the common worker on a regular basis. There has been no wage growth, and any worker that is fired or layed off, is not replaced. The guy who still has his job is stuck upping his productivity and taking on the job of the guy who just left. The common worker is already being jacked.
Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:
May 16, 2014 at 9:07 am
[42] michael
You should qualify who the “people” are. In this case, they are shareholders, the actual owners of the company. So, in a sense, you are seeing the bosses decide that the employee is overpaid, that their services aren’t worth the comp asked.
So it is right for owners to tell a CEO he makes too much but it isn’t right for owners to tell rank and file the same thing?
BTW, customers have this power too. They can refuse to eat there until the company lowers executive comp.
Note that none of this power derives from government mandate.
Equity as a percentage of the purchase price?
Equity as a percentage of current value to current mortgage balance.
Purchase price is sunk cost, old news, irrelevant.
Equity as a percentage of current value to current mortgage balance.
How is current value calculated?
(63) Grim
By “current value” do you mean the fantasy price listed on the vast majority of homes that are not really for sale? Or do you mean based on a statistically signifianct sample of comps?
Either way, I’d like for all the sellers who simply list their homes at 120% of their purchase price to get your memo that “Purchase price is sunk cost, old news, irrelevant.”
clotluva,
Exactly! I think we entering “ignoratio elenchi” territory here. What is current value? I just tacked on $500,000 to my house as I typed this. Is that my current value?
Mantoloking tops the charts with 92.84% of home owners having more than 20% equity.
Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management noted that, “for the last two decades and especially in the current period, … productivity soared … [but] U.S. real average hourly earnings are essentially flat to down, with today’s inflation-adjusted wage equating to about the same level as that attained by workers in 1970. … So where have the benefits of technology-driven productivity cycle gone? Almost exclusively to corporations and their very top executives.”[89]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
Broad breakdown[edit]
Breaking down the proportion of the increase in income inequality between 1979 and 2007 that came from distribution of pre-tax income and how much from taxes and “government transfers”, the CBO data shows that the 33% increase[167] is composed of the following:[168][169]
23% from changes in distribution of “market income” to households (top earners received a larger share of salaries, interest, dividends, capital gains, business income, etc.)
6% from changes in “government transfers” (social security, unemployment, the end of AFDC welfare, etc.)
4% from changes in federal taxation (overall decline in the average federal tax rate and shift in federal revenues from income taxes to less progressive payroll taxes, etc.)
Of the 23% increase in inequality from changes in pre-tax “market income”, 79% came from a shift to top earners in different types of income across the board. A smaller amount (21%) came from a shift from wages and salaries to more concentrated income sources – i.e., interest, dividends, business income, and especially capital gains, which are greater among top earners than income from salaries and wages, which is more common to those with lower incomes.[170]
According to Michael Cembalest, the chief investment officer of JPMorgan Chase,[171] as of 2011, corporate “profit margins have reached levels not seen in decades,” and “reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement. … US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP”[172]
That last line really hits hard on the issue of inequality.
US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP”[172]
Number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets = 717
Deaths (US) (CDC) – 2009
grim says:
May 16, 2014 at 9:51 am
44 – nearly pissed my pants laughing, brilliant
Analyzing the top three hypotheses, economist Paul Krugman found them to be “increasingly inadequate” as more evidence accumulated.
Globalization can explain part of the relative decline in blue-collar wages, but it can’t explain the 2,500 percent rise in C.E.O. incomes. Technology may explain why the salary premium associated with a college education has risen, but it’s hard to match up with the huge increase in inequality among the college-educated, with little progress for many but gigantic gains at the top. The superstar theory works for Jay Leno, but not for the thousands of people who have become awesomely rich without going on TV.[175]
Explanations[edit]
According to the CBO and others, “the precise reasons for the [recent] rapid growth in income at the top are not well understood”,[43][102] but “in all likelihood,” an “interaction of multiple factors” was involved.[173] “Researchers have offered several potential rationales.”[43][71] Some of these rationales conflict, some overlap.[174] They include:
the globalization hypothesis – low skilled American workers have been losing ground in the face of competition from low-wage workers in Asia and other “emerging” economies;[175]
skill-biased technological change – the rapid pace of progress in information technology has increased the demand for the highly skilled and educated so that income distribution favored brains rather than brawn;[175]
the superstar hypothesis – modern technologies of communication often turn competition into a tournament in which the winner is richly rewarded, while the runners-up get far less than in the past;[175][176]
immigration of less-educated workers – relatively high levels of immigration of low skilled workers since 1965 may have reduced wages for American-born high school dropouts;[177]
policy and politics – capital account liberalization,[178] soaring executive compensation, stagnating middle income pay and more regressive taxation resulting from political decisions, not market forces. Decision such as not intervening to stop executive capture of corporate boards, the crushing of labor unions, etc. or changes in the governance and structure of executive compensation,[16] and the failure of government policy makers to do anything about rising inequality.[179]
This includes less progressive taxation since 1970, particularly the reduction in the top marginal income tax rates from 91% to less than 40%; and taxes on capital gains at lower rates than income taxes;
a decline in unionization of the workforce, leaving workers with less bargaining power in the labor market; and
austerity, or cuts in public spending during adverse economic conditions, which can reduce wages of public employees, and reduce financial aid to the unemployed and underemployed[178]
Analyzing the top three hypotheses, economist Paul Krugman found them to be “increasingly inadequate” as more evidence accumulated.
Globalization can explain part of the relative decline in blue-collar wages, but it can’t explain the 2,500 percent rise in C.E.O. incomes. Technology may explain why the salary premium associated with a college education has risen, but it’s hard to match up with the huge increase in inequality among the college-educated, with little progress for many but gigantic gains at the top. The superstar theory works for Jay Leno, but not for the thousands of people who have become awesomely rich without going on TV.[175]
While immigration was found to have slightly depressed the wages of the least skilled and least educated American workers, it doesn’t explain rising inequality among high school and college graduates.[180] Some scholars[181] questioning the explanation of educational attainment and workplace skills point out that other countries with similar education levels and economies have not gone the way of the US, and that the concentration of income in the US hasn’t followed a pattern of “the 29% of Americans with college degrees pulling away” from those who have less education.[72][182][183][184][185][10]
Fast Eddie
In the words of Randolph Hearst (among others), “News is something someone wants suppressed; all the rest is advertising.”
Nothing to see here…the market is the market…just get out your checkbook. It’s like 2006 all over again, only without the liquidity.
Seriously, how is current value calculated? By recent comps? So the mortgage balance is fixed yet current value is an estimation? So, how can you calculate equity? Isn’t this defined as hypothesis? So, I could take a pounding and lose a ton of money on a sale yet claim to have 100% equity?
clotluva [74],
You are so f.ucking right, my friend. I always reference that line by Robert Di Nero in Casino: “All the glitz, comps and perks are designed for one thing, to get your money.
clotluva [74],
Absolutely!
Sorry to post this again, but I have to comment, if globalization is to blame for lower wages, like lots of you have stated, then how come the ceo pay went up 2,500 percent and the blue collar wages declined? Please explain.
“Globalization can explain part of the relative decline in blue-collar wages, but it can’t explain the 2,500 percent rise in C.E.O. incomes.”
ZHVI – Zillow’s home price estimate by zip code, I believe they are getting the mortgage data from Transunion.
grim,
Please un-mod me.
Here is one thought of the day – I read the book Flash Boys and it mentioned in a book from a few folks how 9/11 effected them and some changed careers, rushed to new activities, made them more aware of life. On and On and On.
I was on Wall Street for both attacks on WTC. I really did not get urge to skydive, switch careers, volunteer, exercise more etc.
Did any of you have a moment like that?
I recall around August 22, 2012 I was talking to a neighbor who actually works from home and never goes to City, he was going on his first flight since 9/11 and was nervous and asked me if I flew since 9/11. I told him yea, I flew 21 times since 9/11 in fact I flew a few days after 9/11. He was like WTF. Did not bother me at all.
I mean I know I would just karate chop the terroists grab controls of plane and land it myself. So I had nothing to fear, heck I work on wall street how hard it is to karate chop a couple of towel heads and land a plane? .
JJ,
Two things come to mind about 9/11 – I worked at Chase Plaza at the time: Survivor guilt, and my throat being permanently affected by the smells downwind of the site. Other than that, not much influence on my lifestyle.
How 3-D Printed Guns Evolved Into Serious Weapons in Just One Year
BY ANDY GREENBERG 05.15.14 | 6:30 AM |
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/3d-printed-guns/
A burgeoning subculture of 3-D printed gun enthusiasts dreams of the day when a lethal firearm can be downloaded or copied by anyone, anywhere, as easily as a pirated episode of Game of Thrones. But the 27-year-old Japanese man arrested last week for allegedly owning illegal 3-D printed firearms did more than simply download and print other enthusiasts’ designs. He appears to have created some of his own.
Among the half-dozen plastic guns seized from Yoshitomo Imura’s home in Kawasaki was a revolver designed to fire six .38-caliber bullets–five more than the Liberator printed pistol that inspired Imura’s experiments. He called it the ZigZag, after its ratcheted barrel modeled on the German Mauser Zig-Zag. In a video he posted online six months ago, Imura assembles the handgun from plastic 3-D printed pieces, a few metal pins, screws and rubber bands, then test fires it with blanks.
“Freedom of armaments to all people!!” he writes in the video’s description. “A gun makes power equal!!”
JJ – for you:
http://m.9gag.com/gag/aD0qMjN?ref=fb.s
79. Grim
ZHVI – Zillow’s home price estimate by zip code
Isn’t Zillow the same source of price estimate data that virtually everyone agrees isn’t exactly reliable?
Also, does it take piggyback loans into consideration? Or did no one in the nicer towns use those to help finance their purchase during the bubble?
“Their review of the CEO debate places equal emphasis on the market, in showering capital gains through stock options, and an arbitrary management-power hypothesis based on numerous non-market aspects of executive pay. “CEOs, through compensation committees and inbreeding of boards of directors, have a unique ability to control their own compensation,” the authors write. “Furthermore, if a director approves a higher compensation package, that may subsequently lead her to receive more compensation at her own firm.”
They cite one study of 1,500 firms that found that the compensation earned by the top five corporate officers in 1993-5 equaled 5 percent of their firms’ total profits during that period; by 2000-2, that ratio had more than doubled to 12.8 percent. The trend was caused in equal parts by arbitrary pay decisions by corporate boards and by the showering of stock options on CEOs, they conclude.
Furthermore, the survey cites a study showing “ample evidence that firms work to disguise the magnitude of CEO pay,” such as lifetime healthcare, below-market-rate loans, and above-market-rate loans when CEOs defer their compensation, to lessen shareholder outrage. Such research “is important because it tells shareholders what to expect and where their outrage constraint should be set,” the authors write.
This skewing of pay at the very top in the United States contrasts with other countries, especially Japan. There, the income share of the top 0.1 percent peaked at 9.2 percent in 1938, reached stability of close to 2.0 percent after 1947, and ended up at 1.7 percent in 1998. Initially, America also saw an initial peak (8.2 percent in 1928) fall to a low (1.9 percent in 1973). But then the income share of America’s top 0.1 percent rebounded (7.3 percent in 2000). Canada and the United Kingdom mimicked the U.S. pattern, though their most recent upturns were less dramatic. France, like Japan, has seen the income share of its very top earners stay quite stable since the mid-1940s.
Why the disparity? America’s CEOs have had their pay inflated by generous stock options and having their pay set by peers on corporate boards, the survey finds, as well as institutional differences between the United States and other nations, including such things as regulations, unions, and social norms.”
http://www.nber.org/digest/dec08/w13982.html
My 2001 was this…..
June laid off from dot-com consulting firm that tanked
July car hit on street while parked
August car stolen one week after auto body place fixed
Car stolen on day of interview, so I had to run to car rental to rent car
Get offer from Cendant
Sept 11
Cendant rescinds offer because of expected economic impact
October find other job
October buy new car
November two tractor trailers treat me like pinball on route 78 by Newark airport….car essentially disintegrates except for driver’s side bucket seat…walk away with only black-and-blue marks from seat belt straps and cuts from broken glass….
Ambulance talks me into going to UMDNJ
Identity stolen by someone in emergency room, credit used by people in Queens, CT and Boston
large Enron investments tank, 100% loss…
The car accident was my WTF moment, but the Enron thing was just hitting me when I was down.
Decided that I was wasting my time here and someone was telling me to stop fcuking around……so I starting taking CFP classes……
jj says:
May 16, 2014 at 11:53 am
Here is one thought of the day – I read the book Flash Boys and it mentioned in a book from a few folks how 9/11 effected them and some changed careers, rushed to new activities, made them more aware of life. On and On and On.
I was on Wall Street for both attacks on WTC. I really did not get urge to skydive, switch careers, volunteer, exercise more etc.
Did any of you have a moment like that?
And you know you are in a screwy market when Zillow’s estimates are $100, $200, or $300K LESS than the asking price. Guess the wizards at Zillow don’t value stainless, granite, and a fresh coat of paint quite the same as the folks that paid for it.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/47-Parkview-Ter-Summit-NJ-07901/40068235_zpid/
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/summit,-nj_rb/#/homedetails/17-Webster-Ave-Summit-NJ-07901/40063564_zpid/
Here’s one factor explaining why US CEO compensation has risen faster than the average worker.
US stock market capitalization to GDP has risen dramatically:
http://www.vectorgrader.com/indicators/market-cap-gdp.
When Reagan took over the value of the stock market was about 40% of US GDP. Right now it’s about 130%. So the value of the stock market relative to the domestic economy has more than tripled. Some of this is because companies have become more global. Thus a CEO isn’t now just managing US workers, he’s increasingly managing a global organization that spans the world. A second factor is that stock valuations have gone up. In 1980 most stocks traded at single digit earnings multiples. Probably twice that now. Thank or blame the Fed for that, mostly. Most CEO compensation comes not from salary and regular bonus, but rather via stock related incentive plans. The owners/investors of these companies want CEO’s to have skin in the game and aligned interests. Shareholders reward management when the stock goes up, less so if it doesn’t.
Another reason why market cap to GDP is up is that it’s simply easier to take a company public now versus 35 years ago. Investors are more willing to invest in non-blue chip companies. Having more public companies means there is more demand for public company CEOs, and so companies may need to pay more to attract talent. Larger scope of work, more work, higher stock valuation, all pushes up CEO pay.
But who in the hell are you or Krugman to calculate what the “right” amount of someone’s pay is?
You see, unions are not evil, and are a needed mechanism in trying to help all workers out, not just the union workers. Having no union representation in the workforce is just as bad as having a full union workforce. Everything works best in moderation. Only in extremes do we find problems. This applies to unions. Too much is no good, and too little is no good.
“If women were more affected by the minimum wage, men bore the brunt of the decline in unionization over the least three decades, the survey finds. One study the authors cite suggests that the fall in organized labor’s share of the workforce can explain 14 percent of the rise in the variance among male wages between 1973 and 2001 (but it had no apparent effect on the variance of female wages).
There is little evidence on the effects of imports. And, the ambiguous literature on immigration implies a small overall impact on the wages of the average native-born American, a significant downward effect on the wages of high-school dropouts, and a potentially large impact on previous immigrants who work in occupations in which immigrants specialize.”
http://www.nber.org/digest/dec08/w13982.html
So who the hell is the ceo to dictate what he earns? Your entire passage misses this point, and tries to make excuses for excessive ceo pay. Saying that the value of the stock market went up, and the result was higher ceo pay, is a little naive. If the stock market went up, how come nothing was passed on the worker who was creating value for this company?
“Their review of the CEO debate places equal emphasis on the market, in showering capital gains through stock options, and an arbitrary management-power hypothesis based on numerous non-market aspects of executive pay. “CEOs, through compensation committees and inbreeding of boards of directors, have a unique ability to control their own compensation,” the authors write. “Furthermore, if a director approves a higher compensation package, that may subsequently lead her to receive more compensation at her own firm.”
Ranger writes:
“But who in the hell are you or Krugman to calculate what the “right” amount of someone’s pay is?”
Ragner, so you see nothing with one individual receiving 12.8% of the profits? 1 individual gets 13% of the profits!! That’s crazy. How do you not see anything wrong with this?
“They cite one study of 1,500 firms that found that the compensation earned by the top five corporate officers in 1993-5 equaled 5 percent of their firms’ total profits during that period; by 2000-2, that ratio had more than doubled to 12.8 percent. The trend was caused in equal parts by arbitrary pay decisions by corporate boards and by the showering of stock options on CEOs, they conclude.”
http://www.nber.org/digest/dec08/w13982.html
Maybe my new homebuying strategy will be to offer the full Zestimate (R) price.
Where is the money coming from that is the companies profits, compensation/bonuses, etc? It is created by the FED banks. The overwhelming majority of the newly created money goes to the well-connected. Is this supposed to be surprising? It’s happened since the govt created a quasi-private bank and allowed to it print its own money at will.
And guess what Mikey… when the money was eventually backed by nothing but faith (100% fiat), it is MUCH easier to inflate it directly & indirectly and give it to your best buds.
clotluva [93],
Maybe my new homebuying strategy will be to offer the full Zestimate (R) price.
It’s a shell game anyway. After all, it’s all in the way you advertise it, right? ;) Tell them what they want to hear. Convince the seller that it’s not the sales price that matters but the sum of their dream value minus the mortgage balance divided by 0.80.
joyce,
He’s a cartoon, working muppet strings. Why are you attempting logic?
A lot happend in my family and with folks I know in 9-11 but honestly, I view all of what happened as happening to other people.
A little after 9-11 KBW lost so many employees in 9-11 I did a project over there where we replaced dead people while they back-filled them with new employees and I also did a Power Point presentation on the risks of MBS at Merril in NJ while they were still displaced and smoke was still coming out of tower. Some folks in audience were distracted to say the least. If they had paid attention they might still be in business.
Chif you should of taken a Driver Safety Course instead of the CFP.
CFO of Cendant successfully sued the External Auditor of Cendant and is a very nice guy. He has gotten to listen to many of my powerpoint presentations.
87.chicagofinance says:
May 16, 2014 at 12:57 pm
My 2001 was this…..
June laid off from dot-com consulting firm that tanked
July car hit on street while parked
August car stolen one week after auto body place fixed
Car stolen on day of interview, so I had to run to car rental to rent car
Get offer from Cendant
Sept 11
Cendant rescinds offer because of expected economic impact
October find other job
October buy new car
November two tractor trailers treat me like pinball on route 78 by Newark airport….car essentially disintegrates except for driver’s side bucket seat…walk away with only black-and-blue marks from seat belt straps and cuts from broken glass….
Ambulance talks me into going to UMDNJ
Identity stolen by someone in emergency room, credit used by people in Queens, CT and Boston
large Enron investments tank, 100% loss…
The car accident was my WTF moment, but the Enron thing was just hitting me when I was down.
Decided that I was wasting my time here and someone was telling me to stop fcuking around……so I starting taking CFP classes……
I don’t care whats stats show, what Zillow thinks, nor Grim’s view of historical activity/pricing being back in normal line. I listen to the stories being put forth by govt. controlled media outlets like AP and Reuters and the message is housing is headed down and unaffordable. This will keep most of the uninformed on the sidelines this year (unlike like last year when we were told housing was full-go). This directly impacts me bc I am not competing against morons right now. In CT, the market is dead and not due to lack of inventory. Summer will bear fruits for the patient. My guess is that the govt. needs bad housing data to push student loan and redistribution policies. Fine with me. The chubby muppets will sit out this year. I will spring on something soon and 20% below their ask.
…and let’s be honest, this weekend is the last hurrah for the spring market. After mem. Day, things close down tremendously as kids are out, people take vacation etc. The amount of open houses this weekend has increased three fold from last few weeks. Another major sign that desperation is settling in. I love it.
I agree with the sentiment that the bottom shouldn’t be afraid of paying the “civilization bill”. However, the one blaring inconsistency with this sentiment is that in the USA, it is acceptable labor practice to pay employees as little as is possible, usually to such a degree as to require said employees to enroll on food stamps or public health services. In France and Sweden, even a dishwasher can expect to make at least enough to make rent, pay for the few school-related things he must, and still have enough to pay a 20% income tax.
This is sustainable. Paying everyone else so painfully little so that so few can live in mind-boggling opulence not only severely paralyzes economic mobility, the key to making income inequality not only stable, but a system which can actually award merit instead of entrenching a landed aristocracy – is not sustainable, and will not conform to the OECD’s tax plans.
The fact is that inequality has reached a point to where it has created a crisis in which massive government intervention has become necessary to ensure a large proportion of society is fed and sheltered. Because while commodity prices have only climbed, wages have been stagnant for nearly a generation.
So, if people in the USA cannot realistically expect to be able to exist unless they get a technician or management level income, intervention will be necessary. And if all the money is at the top, to the point that 47% of our nation cannot realistically be expected to pay rent and taxes at the same time, then where is the federal government going to go in order to balance the books?
This is a mess of the 1%’s own design. They made their bed – now they can lay in it.
“Nowhere is the political debate over income inequality more detached from reality than the call for the top 1% of American income earners to pay their “fair share.” The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data on the ratio of the share of income taxes paid by the richest taxpayers relative to their share of income show that the U.S. has the world’s most progressive tax burden.
The top 10% of earners in the U.S. pay 35% more of the income tax burden than in Sweden and 22% more than in France. These figures—from the 2008 OECD publication “Growing Unequal?”—include all household taxes imposed on income at the federal, state and local level, including social insurance taxes.
In an eternal irony unique to large welfare states, it is the expansion of government in the name of the poor and middle class that always costs poor and middle-class families the most. When the U.S. collects 16.1% of GDP in income taxes, the top 10% of taxpayers pay 7.3% and the other 90% pick up 8.9%.
In France, however, they collect 24.3% of GDP in income taxes with the top 10% paying 6.8% and the rest paying a whopping 17.5% of GDP. Sweden collects its 28.5% of GDP through income taxes by tapping the top 10% for 7.6%, but the other 90% get hit for a back-breaking 20.9% of GDP.
If the U.S. spent and taxed like France and Sweden, it would hardly affect the top 10%, who would pay about what they pay now, but the bottom 90% would see their taxes double.”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303816504577305302658158454
I’m the idiot? I’m the muppet? Please read this quote from my post #100. Now please don’t bring up the fact that 47% of the people don’t pay an income tax, it’s not a proving point for your cause, it just shows how bad the situation really is.
“The fact is that inequality has reached a point to where it has created a crisis in which massive government intervention has become necessary to ensure a large proportion of society is fed and sheltered. Because while commodity prices have only climbed, wages have been stagnant for nearly a generation.
So, if people in the USA cannot realistically expect to be able to exist unless they get a technician or management level income, intervention will be necessary. And if all the money is at the top, to the point that 47% of our nation cannot realistically be expected to pay rent and taxes at the same time, then where is the federal government going to go in order to balance the books?
This is a mess of the 1%’s own design. They made their bed – now they can lay in it.”
Fast Eddie says:
May 16, 2014 at 1:35 pm
joyce,
He’s a cartoon, working muppet strings. Why are you attempting logic?
For Libtard….
Twitter account shines light on NJ Transit riders’ frustrations, puts pressure on agency
http://www.nj.com/transit/index.ssf/2014/05/twitter_account_provides_outle.html#incart_m-rpt-1
Looks like NJ Transit’s first step at solving it’s woes is to deny there is a problem.
Bystander,
When I bought my first house about 20 years ago, the amount of scrutiny and paperwork and proof of asset/income I had to provide was astounding. This, with two incomes and no children. Fast forward ten years and lenders were practically throwing money out of windows to anyone who wanted a house. NINJA loans, piggybacks, sky’s the limit… you name it!
When it crashed, they pumped every drug, connected every life support tube and chanted every prayer to keep the cadaver alive and we’re to believe that housing prices and affordability is back to normal.
Never mind that salaries haven’t budged. Forget food and fuel. Forget that property taxes became unhinged. Just bring the checkbook. Ignoratio elenchi lives!!
My bet is that a home with a $300,000 mortgage that is $90,000 delinquent in payments and late fees is considered “not under water” if the house is thought to be valued at $310,000. What you really want to see for data is what percentage of homes would require the sellers to bring cash to the table to give away their house. That’s your true underwater number.
Periods should be used at the end of declarations.
Michael says:
May 16, 2014 at 2:18 pm
I’m the idiot? I’m the muppet?
in moderation?
(104) Expat
Agreed.
What you really want to see for data is what percentage of homes would require the sellers to bring cash to the table to give away their house.
Here is a chart to ponder muppets.
The efforts via ultra low interest rates to reflate home prices while high unemployment keeps wage inflation in check.
As a result housing price inflation is approaching 5%, which is “good” asset price inflation by the Fed’s thinking, while wage inflation which is “bad” hovers around 2% and mortgage debt levels are still shrinking due to tight that a duck’s arse lending standards.
Are you really still wondering why the housing market is stalling out. Housing starts? Multifamily rentals? Bueller?
Cue Mel Watt and Pres O for the next act. We ain’t got enough damn credit and the rent is too damm high.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/graph-landing.php?g=APZ
NJ ExPat [104],
Sounds a he11 of a lot more plausible than any other hypothesis. Why stop there? Maybe the value is now at $350,000!
Brief surfacing for air . . .
This is guaranteed to piss off anon and Michael. . .
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101679720
104 – http://www.zillow.com/research/methodology-negative-equity-3180/
Looks like they are working with TransUnion to get outstanding mortgage balances on a house by house basis, which is damn amazing, and then aggregating that upwards.
Other than leveraging the crap Zestimate, their methodology here is as good as it gets (not saying it is ideal, but other than paying for CoreLogic, you ain’t going to get it for free).
(111) Grim,
Thanks for the link…it also speaks to my question regarding second mortgages.
Hey Ragnar, AG, Libturd. Put your shoes on!
The Last Acceptable Prejudice?
May 13, 2014
By
Scott Jaschik
A quick exchange on a university’s faculty discussion board has led experts in Appalachian studies to consider again whether bias in academe (and society) is too accepted when it is about the people of the region they study.
On the faculty discussion board, a staff member posted a complaint about a student walking around barefoot in a building. A response is what set off the larger discussion:
One professor wrote: “My approach would be to assure this student that going barefoot is not against the rules because the assumption is that by the time they reach college, students are expected to understand why wearing shoes is expected on campus. If s/he disrespects his or her peers and the college community enough to (un)dress like a hillbilly here, I would say, then s/he should be prepared to be dismissed as one, in whatever pursuits s/he favors, in the preference of someone more attuned to proper decorum and respectful behavior.”
A professor who was troubled by that response forwarded the comment to the Appalachian studies email list with the question: “Colleagues, if you read the following on your institutional discussion board in reference to a complaint about a barefoot student, how would you respond to the professor?” The responses came quickly. Many were furious that a faculty member would feel free to to talk about “hillbilly” behavior in this way.
One suggested response was: “Spit on their car.”
But many other responses noted that such comments are common at various campuses, and that faculty members who would carefully consider whether their comments might offend members of many groups do not feel the same need to be sensitive to those from poor, largely white, rural communities in Appalachia. People from Appalachia wrote of being asked at colleges and universities such things as when they started to wear shoes.
The exchange reached a larger audience when it was reprinted on Academe, the blog of the American Association of University Professors.
The Academe post did not identify the institution where the “hillbilly” comment was posted, but Rosann Kent, director of Appalachian studies at the University of North Georgia, confirmed that she posted the query about her colleague’s remark. North Georgia is in Appalachia, and attracts plenty of students from the region, but Kent noted that it has far more students from elsewhere in the state, and that the student who was not wearing shoes was as likely as not from suburban Atlanta.
Kent said what bothered her about the colleague’s comment was the quick assumption that this student must be from Appalachia, and not just any student who was celebrating the end of the year and the arrival of warm weather by being slightly less dressed than normal. “Most of our professors are not from the area, so it was an opportunity to educate and bring this issue forward,” she said. “My larger concern is: Why is it still O.K. to paint mountain whites in a different way?”
Terms like “hillbilly” or “redneck” demean, she said, yet they are used all the time in most parts of society, including academe. Kent places much of the blame on Hollywood, which makes films and television shows that play off the stereotypes.
But she asks why professors — who know to question some Hollywood stereotypes — don’t do so here. “Why are we the last acceptable stereotype?” she asked.
Kent said she wasn’t particularly surprised to find “hillbilly” turn up in a faculty discussion board, or discouraged. “This is an opportunity to talk about these issues,” she said. “It’s all in a day’s work.”
wages have been stagnant for nearly a generation.
Of course wages have been stagnant. We outsourced every production job possible in this country and replaced them with jobs at Target and Best Buy.
Guaranteed to twist Joyce’s panties . . .
“Military planners assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska during 2009 and 2010 looked for a creative way to devise a planning document to protect citizens in the event of an attack of any kind. The officers used zombies as their muse. “Planners … realized that training examples for plans must accommodate the political fallout that occurs if the general public mistakenly believes that a fictional training scenario is actually a real plan,” the authors wrote, adding: “Rather than risk such an outcome by teaching our augmentees using the fictional ‘Tunisia’ or ‘Nigeria’ scenarios used at [Joint Combined Warfighting School], we elected to use a completely-impossible scenario that could never be mistaken for a real plan.”
Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for Strategic Command, acknowledged the document exists on a “secure Internet site” but took pains to explain that the zombie survival guide is only a creative endeavor for training purposes. “The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario,” she wrote in an email. “This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan.”
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/13/exclusive_the_pentagon_has_a_plan_to_stop_the_zombie_apocalypse
Yeah. Not a plan. But not a joke either. Hmmmmm. Clot, it seems that the US military is ready for you.
Sweeney puts millionaires tax ‘on the table’ to help fix NJ budget
1 / 7
By Susan K. Livio/The Star-Ledger
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 16, 2014 at 3:47 PM, updated May 16, 2014 at 3:57 PM
View/Post Comments
ATLANTIC CITY —Senate President Stephen Sweeney today said he is “dead serious” about reviving a proposal to impose higher taxes on New Jersey’s wealthiest residents, arguing the governor’s strategies have failed in the wake of a $807 million budget deficit and a series of credit rating downgrades.
Sweeney (D-Gloucester) mimicked the Republican governor’s refrain that “everything is on the table” to balance the budget that includes the option of delaying the $2.25 billion payment to the state worker pension fund. Sweeney said he is steadfastly opposed to tinkering with the pension payments, and has threatened to force a state government shutdown to block such a move.
“If everything is on the table, then put everything on the table,” Sweeney told 400 of the party faithful who attended the New Jersey Democratic State Committee’s annual conference. “Everything is not on the table when you are shielding a certain population.”
Following his remarks, Sweeney said he is “dead serious” about reviving the “millionaire’s tax.”
“His words not mine: he said everything was on the table. Well then you can’t take something off the table that would raise a great deal of revenue that could help the problem,” Sweeney said. “If everything is on the table, well then he forgot something.”
Christie has vetoed millionaires tax legislation three times, and vowed he would do so again if the Democratic-controlled legislature passed it.
If the governor is “shielding a certain population,” it is “all New Jersey taxpayers,” Christie’s spokesman Kevin Roberts said. “The Governor remains committed to not raising taxes on New Jersey families, despite how ‘dead serious’ Democrats are of raising them.”
Sweeney acknowledged getting it passed was a longshot, but in the face of the state’s sluggish job growth and a $807 million deficit in the current year’s budget, it ought to be considered.
In a compromise that both Christie and Sweeney have touted among their greatest accomplishments, they enacted legislation designed to help close the yawning pension fund deficit by requiring both employees and the state to pay more.
Sweeney said he is not revisiting that agreement. “There’s nothing wrong with the pension system, we fixed it,” Sweeney said. “The problem is we’re not creating jobs.”
“His economic policies have not worked. When everyone is doing well when you look around you,” Sweeney said, referring to New York and Pennsylvania, “that tells you we have a problem.
Three major Wall Street credit rating agencies have downgraded New Jersey’s debt in the past month. In its analysis, Fitch Ratings wrote that the downgrade reflects “the state’s ongoing budget strain created by overly optimistic revenue forecasts, a multitude of long-term spending pressures, and the state’s repeated reliance on one-time solutions to achieve budgetary balance.”
Widely considered to be preparing a run for governor in four years, Sweeney also gave elected officials and rank-and-file Democrats a pep talk.
“In difficult times with a Republican governor,” Sweeney said, same sex marriage is now legal, voters approved a higher minimum wage, and the Senate has challenged the governor for not reappointing Justice John Wallace to the Supreme Court because of ideological differences.
“We should be proud of that. We have stood up, and delivered for the middle class — because we have had the courage to stand and fight when he said no,” he said.
RELATED COVERAGE
• NJ debt downgraded for fifth time under Christie
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[116] street,
Good for Sweeney. Means more work for us tax types. And if Maryland’s example is illustrative, good for realtors in other states, like Florida.
more Joyce/Clot fodder
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=3b4b4df73a0190f910deda21df1b3fa6&_cview=0
The State Department is buying C-4 and detcord, and having it delivered to the location responsible for shipping out diplomatic pouches.
Not exactly clandestine when you buy it through the GAO clearinghouse. Duh.
[111] grim –
Thanks for that link, and I agree that it is pretty amazing that Zillow is literally “mining” for real data.
Here is a quote from Zillow’s methodology statement:
“This file of addresses, owner names and home values is sent to TransUnion. On the TransUnion side, these properties are matched to their consumer credit records on the basis of address and owner name. The match rate is highly dependent on the region with an overall average of about 80 percent.
At this point, a homeowner’s equity is computed as the difference between the estimated home value and the sum of all outstanding mortgage debt (including lines of credit) associated with the home. If the homeowner’s equity is negative, then the owner owes more on the mortgage(s) than the home is worth. After equity is computed and all personally identifiable information (“PII”) is removed from individual records, the data are returned to Zillow.”
My thoughts:
This doesn’t account for what we might call “debt transfer”, other debt taken on to make mortgage payments (401K loans, family loans, etc.) such that the mortgage indebtedness number may not take into account other debts assumed as an alternative to delinquency, or delinquency that would have occurred at an earlier date. Also no mention of property taxes.
I urge anyone who really wants to look at a smaller NJ dataset to look at the Morris County web sites, which are very transparent. The defaults are there. The foreclosures are not. After you’ve culled your own data ask yourself, “Aberration or Microcosm?”
Looks like they are working with TransUnion to get outstanding mortgage balances on a house by house basis, which is damn amazing, and then aggregating that upwards.
^^^^ Ooooh! Ooooh! Ooooh! Mr. Kotter!
I forgot my main point. The TransUnion data is entirely dependent on the banks *reporting* the current mortgage indebtedness of the mortgagors, no. Might that not leave a paper trail to be examined later of future losses that they should report and reserve for, or at least divulge to their shareholders?
Expat
I just want to know how the heck Zillow can appraise each property 3x’s per week, yet still be $100K+++ apart from the sellers asking price. Can’t the Zestimators (R) tell a fresh coat of premium, suitably muted and neutrally-toned paint when they see it?
Good god Zestimators(R), look at the pictures! How can you not notice the perfectly set f-stop on the camera…and the fact they left the new stickers on the appliances. Stop lowballing the sellers already!
[121] That made me laugh.
@AllenWest: Obama’s net worth jumped 438% since taking office. That’s change he can believe in! http://t.co/h8FySUMxq7 #guardianoftherepublic
Fans of creating stuff, enjoy:
http://www.wimp.com/metalbutter/
TINCTBHATP
@BillMoyersHQ: “We’re altering the physical, chemical and biological features of the planet on a geological scale.”
– @DavidSuzuki http://t.co/T3Rz0mzIMq
News reports like this show that climate change is serious, but corporations and even some governments seem recklessly determined to minimize or deny the reality of global warming, as well as undermine the authority of scientists.
@BillMoyersHQ: Minimum wage for restaurant workers “Hard to Stomach” http://t.co/Koz5svKcZA
As ROC United founder and activist Saru Jayaraman told Bill last month on Moyers & Company, the National Restaurant Association (NRA) has been lobbying for over two decades to keep the tipped minimum wage frozen at a little over $2. Not exactly the income that a majority of the workers — mostly adult women, many with children — need to get by.
Sweeney and the democrats have to be kidding me, the high income folks already pay 8.97% higher than NY(8.83%) or CT(6.7%). Lets try to keep the hedge funders and I-Bankers in Far Hills, Ok. The answer in this state is we need to be better for businesses than NY or CT, that is our baseline, the Dems have failed. We need to be the most competitive state in the Metro area to get the economy growing and maximize the economic production of the state. Do the Dems want to fill new Office buildings in Jersey City and Newark? Well the bosses have to want to work here(lower taxes) in order to open offices here, that means welcoming the rich not attacking
Global warming or climate change….I dunno
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/05/16/snow-in-may-this-is-not-a-drill/
I love NY
But say good fcucking goodbye to the country’s oldest manufacturing jobs. Thank goodness there are button pushing finance narcissists in manhattan to pay the tax bills. Down with the middle class.
America’s Oldest Gun Maker Thumbs Its Nose At A Two-Faced Senator
http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2014/05/16/americas-oldest-gun-maker-thumbs-its-nose-at-a-two-faced-senator/
Physically, emotionally and spiritually vacuous; in the sh1tty section of town; window AC units and no property. 659K is the asking price and I would venture to guess that most of us would be dead before it sells for this price:
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1418143&dayssince=&countysearch=false
Vaulted ceilings are very tricky. Unless the layout and design is correct and you utilize the floor to ceiling length properly, it becomes an enormous eye sore. I cringe when I see them. There are very, very few homes that I’ve seen where open areas and/or a vaulted design has been done correctly. That open look or vaulted look in a lot of these places looks like a warehouse. The people that built them have no idea what the f.uck they’re doing and the occupants have even less of an idea.
I feel like I’m fighting for air when I look at the pictures of this house. Envision yourself on the most boring date you’ve ever been on and multiply by ten. This place needs either a house counselor or the house whisperer:
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1416758&openhouse=true&dayssince=15&countysearch=false
Good L0rd, help us. It’s $150,000 over-priced:
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1407471&dayssince=&countysearch=false
A vaulted mess. I want to rip my eyes out when I look at this thing:
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1416563&dayssince=&countysearch=false
639K – A small bi-level, no f.ucking yard, on the corner of a busy road. Why? For what? It’s severely over-priced! What is with the “6” handle with these people!?
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1417736&dayssince=&countysearch=false
Lol! Omg, are people smoking diesel, or what? lol! This one is a chubby, pudgy, muppet special:
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.results&mls_number=1415283&proptype=1%2C3a%2C3b
@AllisonKLewis: The Solange/Beyoncé/Jay Z joint statement reeks of a cover-up, I call for a special committee to investigate #Beyghazi
@djennfree: I can’t believe Obama isn’t investigating the #Beyghazi elevator attack. He obviously doesn’t care about Americans getting kicked.
@jazzedloon: the new york times has fallen prey to #beyghazi
@benyc: Why was there only one bodyguard present in the elevator during the attack? #BEYghazi
Another day in hell.
Lmao…don’t agree often, but I must agree with you on this one.
639K – A small bi-level, no f.ucking yard, on the corner of a busy road. Why? For what? It’s severely over-priced! What is with the “6″ handle with these people!?
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1417736&dayssince=&countysearch=false
Lol…agree again. Pigs must be flying.
Fast Eddie says:
May 17, 2014 at 8:16 am
Lol! Omg, are people smoking diesel, or what? lol! This one is a chubby, pudgy, muppet special:
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.results&mls_number=1415283&proptype=1%2C3a%2C3b
Saw some piece on cnn about the Koch brothers. Talked about how the democrats were going to go after them and make them the poster boy for fat cats. The piece rubbed me the wrong way. Made me hate political parties. All they do is bash each other. Wtf is productive about that? Instead of attacking each other and acting like 5th graders, how about our politicians come together and do something. Get paid all this money and you do shi!. I don’t pay politicians to fight each other. I pay them to come together and come to a middle on an issue. You don’t just sit there and take a stance where it’s all or nothing. Nothing gets done with that kind of mindset. Stop being stubborn, you are taking our country down with the bs. Start figuring out how to create jobs instead of fighting over who is right or wrong. These issues politicians take up, prove it’s all smoke and mirrors. They never talk about important issues like job creation. Instead they focus on issues like banning smoking on the beach or creating charter schools. What a joke.
#138
The elevator attack goes to show, you can take some people out of the hood, but…
Eddie, you don’t want to join the Ramsey Country Club? That tennis court doesn’t look regulation sized.
I’ll pay 10k to anyone who can corner Michael in an elevator, pummel him and tape it.
@bnewnam: Congress announces they are looking into the #beyghazi scandal
nwnj says:
May 17, 2014 at 10:00 am
#138
The elevator attack goes to show, you can take some people out of the hood, but…
@BillMoyersHQ:
US’s 157,800 kindergarten teachers made $8.34 billion in 2013, while the top 4 hedge fund earners alone made $10.4B
http://t.co/KzGEdHQIRu
[142] Michael
Choosing to wield the double-edged sword signifies that we are nearer to total war, politically. The GOP can easily counter with smears of Soros and Steyer. In the past, this wasn’t done for fear of reprisal and disclosing the whole, sordid underbelly of politics. It meant you deprived yourself of a weapon to use later.
I am personally surprised at this tactic. It reeks of desperation. The dems would like rules to hamstring republican donors but the risk is that the muppets take notice of the entire landscape and hammer Dem donors as well. In the past, the dems didn’t press this issue lest they risk the DLCs pipeline. If I were Preibus, I would bang the drum over Soros, Steyer, unions, EMILY, MoveOn, etc. Reid will slink back into his crevice lest he risk his lifeblood.
SHORT HILLS – New Jersey is home to the wealthiest town in the country, and those who live there say they aren’t surprised.
Time Magazine ranks Short Hills No. 1 on its list of richest towns in America. It’s no wonder the wealthy favor the Essex County town, with its classic architecture and well-manicured lawns.
http://newjersey.news12.com/news/short-hills-named-richest-town-in-america-according-to-time-magazine-1.8048736
“Six of Walmart’s top executives received a total of $8.42 million in cash incentive payments for 2014, the proxy said. Mr. Tovar declined to specify how much of that was generated by the adjustments.”
“The average full-time hourly Walmart employee makes about $27,000 a year.”
@CNBC: Exec pay jumps at Wal-Mart as shoppers struggle: http://t.co/S55xKYvGlu
.
“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
“According to Forbes Magazine, the Koch brothers are now worth $80 billion, and have increased their wealth by $12 billion since last year alone.”
@SenSanders: What do the #KochBrothers want? http://t.co/TbX2Mqit4P http://t.co/pETTzFzxgP
So do I. Is that opinion illegal?
150545 608885Actually instructive and excellent structure of content material material , now thats user friendly (:. 713549
Speaking of drowning and underwater, opened my pool today and turned on the sprinkler system. I did fall in my pool too tripped on the cover doh!!
I have young kids so a pool can be quite scary, pool alarm is now on and I installed dead bolts on all outside doors from the inside. Not quite legal but better than what could happen.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend folks.
[154] juice,
Opening the pool this week. I had not planned on locking the gates but I think I am going to and need to get some common code locks. My girls are so headstrong, I would not put it past them to go in the pool without a parent present.
Love Larry Klayman or hate him, he gets the goods. . . .
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/JW1559-0001051.pdf
One day closer to oblivion.
According to Forbes Magazine, the Koch brothers are now worth $80 billion, and have increased their wealth by $12 billion since last year alone
And Warren Buffet has 40 billion. But that’s ok, he reminds you of your grandpa, so its all good.
Fast,
Some classics..but remember, there is no bubble out there. These homes are priced right and you can’t lose in real estate. Speaking of chubby muppets, time to bring back the classic video. Emasculated mouse man lives on..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPIxrzmatq0
I will entertain myself at the 40 (!!) open houses in Fairfield alone. These are just the ones in my price range, btw. If I go up to 800K, there are almost 60. Unheard of..normally there are 15 on any given weekend. Desperation then annihilation ahead. By August, bid whatever you want..20-30% off more than likely from their inflated prices.
Switzerland votes down national minimum wage hike. Link, for the pellet-brained anon and Michael:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-18/vast-majority-swiss-reject-25-minimum-wage-national-referendum
[160] clot
Beat me to it. I was going to say one more reason for anon and Michael to hate the Swiss.
[158] Ben
Warren sides with the dems so his money isn’t considered tainted or evil. The Kochs failure was not cultivating a few friends on Reid’s side of the aisle.
If I had that kind of coin, I’d buy a few businesses in Nevada and use the presence to squeeze Reid’s nads a bit.
You won’t find Graydon and Ellery here…
What ‘Hard Work U’ Can Teach Elite Schools
‘We don’t do debt here,’ says College of the Ozarks President Jerry C. Davis.
…At Hard Work U, the kids actually do the dishes and much more while working their way through a four-year degree. Nearly 90% of graduates land jobs—an impressive figure, given the economy’s slow-motion recovery.
“If I were an employer, I’d take our graduates over those at most any other schools,” says Mr. Davis. “The kids at these East Coast colleges strike me as being a little spoiled. Our graduates don’t expect to come into the company as the CEO.” But they certainly join a company knowing the value of work.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303380004579520261283934326
Just back from a re-enactment of the Battle of Brandywine. Mere walking distance from my house.
Not to worry anon, your side won.
Hmmmmm.
http://www.governing.com/columns/potomac-chronicle/gov-is-a-constitutional-convention-in-the-works.html
154/155
Opened my pool this weekend too.
Every time I do it I mentally calculate how much concrete it will take to fill it in.
Anyone have a pool robot? Recommendations? Reviews suck on all of them.
Got a line on a Dolphin 5 that is refurbished, see if I can haggle it down to $500.
166
For all the reasons you implied, I don’t think I’d ever buy a house with a pool. Go with a nice hot tub / jacuzzi instead.
Re#66 – I have a cheap Polaris with the booster pump. The motor seems to be on the way out however, it make allot of noise when running. There are videos on how to rebuild, I may go that route before doing a full motor replacement.
[167] Joyce,
Today, I cleaned up around the pool in preparation for opening. Cleaned accumulated debris from the edges, took apart the cover pump and unclogged it, and pulled several pounds of soggy needles and leaves from the center of the cover. Noted the degrading masonry around the pool patio and coping. Still have to get the DE for the filter. And it isn’t being opened until Wednesday.
Yeah, I so regret that the pool is here. I wish it wasn’t. But my girls would stop talking to me for life if I filled it in.
Had pools in both of my NJ homes and glad those days are behind me. I prefer being a condo / townhouse dweller and let the HOA take care of maintenance.