From the NYT:
The listing Nadia Krivickova and Michael Krivicka had been waiting for popped up early last September: a pristine 2,500-square-foot 1924 colonial with a child-friendly backyard in the lower Westchester County village of Pelham Manor. Then living in an apartment in Manhattan, the couple (she’s an accountant, he’s a founder of Thinkmodo, which creates viral video campaigns) were in need of more space for their two toddlers. After their real estate agent, Arthur L. Scinta, an associate broker with Houlihan Lawrence, advised them to move quickly, they went to see the house the very next day.
By 5 p.m., they had submitted an offer for the full asking price of $942,000. The sellers wanted to give it more time. After several days, the couple raised their offer to $999,000. The sellers wanted another week. “We asked them to give us a number they would take it off the market for,” Ms. Krivickova said. “They said no.”
The couple really wanted the house. They huddled with Mr. Scinta, who analyzed recent sales prices of similar properties to help them strike a balance between a strong offer and an overzealous offer, which, if it exceeded the bank’s appraisal, could cause problems with financing.
Finally, on a Monday morning, they submitted their highest offer: $1,087,000, a full 15 percent premium. Mr. Scinta heard back that afternoon.
“Arthur called and told us there were nine other offers,” Ms. Krivickova said. “But we got it — by three or four grand.” And fortunately, the bank appraisal came in on the nose.
…
The bidding wars that have become the norm in New York City are now also common in select suburbs within easy commuting distance. Buyers priced out of the city are heading for the ’burbs, driving up demand and creating a more fraught buying process in close-in towns that have long enjoyed reputations for good school systems, lively downtowns and ready access to the city.“The city is this pot of water that’s spilling over on the sides, and that excess demand is going to the suburbs,” said Jonathan Miller, the president of Miller Samuel, a New York appraisal and research firm. “It’s all being driven by the lack of affordability.”
…
Across Westchester, northern New Jersey, parts of Long Island and lower Fairfield County, Conn., the competition is fiercest for move-in-ready homes toward the lower end of the price scale — under $1 million in some markets, under $2 million in others — in places within a 40-minute rail commute to the city. Walking distance to a lively downtown, a train station or both heightens the appeal.Well-priced homes in good condition in these markets often draw multiple offers within days of coming on the market. An analysis of first-quarter sales this year conducted by Miller Samuel showed the highest percentages of Westchester properties (23 percent to 44 percent) selling at or above asking price — signs of likely bidding wars — in places like Larchmont, Irvington, Bronxville, White Plains and Pelham. The average premium ranged from 1.7 percent to 4 percent, actually lower than a year ago at the same time, when buyers were paying more like 5 percent or 6 percent over the asking price.
…
Mr. Miller’s firm does not cover New Jersey. But there, “the housing market is looking better than it has in a very long time,” said Jeffrey Otteau, the president of the Otteau Valuation Group in East Brunswick, N.J. Among the briskest markets are Hoboken, Glen Ridge, Maplewood, Montclair and South Orange, judging by their very low levels of inventory, he added.
Good Morning New Jersey
Lib, your post 69 from yesterday hit the nail on the head. People don’t know what they don’t know. NJ’s pension is now underfunded by what, at least $60B and some think upwards of $100B. That will come home to roost some day and this economy is not sustainable so at some point, the house will become a ball and chain that cannot be removed. Always pros and cons no matter where you live. What do you want and what are you willing to give up to get it. The edge, attitude and arrogance in this part of the world is unwarranted. For some industries, the money made was way out of sync with the skillets, workload and value to society but that train has been rolling out of town for some time. More and more bankers not banking bank.
@NickTimiraos
Change in new homes completed last year, vs 1999
Under 1,400 square feet: -68%
4,000 square feet or more: +22%
Bankers run this economy, and hillary winning says it will continue. NYC ECONOMIC ENGINE IS HERE TO STAY.
As for bankers running the job market in nj, they are not even in the top 10 high paying jobs in nj. Look at the entire top 200 list for Jersey, and tell me what is not sustainable?
http://www.usawage.com/high-pay/jobs-state-new_jersey.php
Nomad says:
June 17, 2016 at 7:55 am
Lib, your post 69 from yesterday hit the nail on the head. People don’t know what they don’t know. NJ’s pension is now underfunded by what, at least $60B and some think upwards of $100B. That will come home to roost some day and this economy is not sustainable so at some point, the house will become a ball and chain that cannot be removed. Always pros and cons no matter where you live. What do you want and what are you willing to give up to get it. The edge, attitude and arrogance in this part of the world is unwarranted. For some industries, the money made was way out of sync with the skillets, workload and value to society but that train has been rolling out of town for some time. More and more bankers not banking bank.
so is it $60B or $100B? why not $175 trillion?
at least try to figure the facts if this issue is that relevant to you
Nomad says:
June 17, 2016 at 7:55 am
NJ’s pension is now underfunded by what, at least $60B and some think upwards of $100B.
My place…? Not on the market yet.
Bidding War…? hahahahahaha ha
Sorry
Re: 5 – unfunded liabilities lol. If you use real growth of perhaps 2% it’s north of 100 billion, using unicorn growth of 8% it’s 60 billion.
At least we are secure knowing Anon cut a check to NJ for his/her $20k of unfunded liabilities. It’s only fair right Anon?
4- If you are worried about the pension debt obligation, understand that it will never have to be payed all at once. You only need to support current retirees. It’s more noise than anything. You are falling for the scare tactic. It’s a fight over ideology. One side believes workers shouldn’t have a retirement plan and are hell bent on eliminating it from the workplace. They don’t believe in worker’s rights. They think workers should save for retirement on their own (which is wishful thinking). Other side is holding down in the trenches, the last line of defense in the wall of the modern day labor movement. If they are overtaken (which they will not be), there is no hope for the improvement of worker conditions or wages in America.
What’s funny, is that everything runs in cycles. Right now the movement was to eliminate all retirement plans. Then when we hit a crisis in the future with a generation that has no means to support themselves in retirement, guess what they will be advocating for? That’s right, a retirement plan for everyone. These retirement plans were put in place for a reason, taking them away deviates from their purpose in society and allows for the problem that put them in place to surface again.
not familiar with the issue 60 to 100 billion range seems t so random i will look into it as am only interested in facts
Juice Box says:
June 17, 2016 at 8:12 am
Re: 5 – unfunded liabilities lol. If you use real growth of perhaps 2% it’s north of 100 billion, using unicorn growth of 8% it’s 60 billion.
At least we are secure knowing Anon cut a check to NJ for his/her $20k of unfunded liabilities. It’s only fair right Anon?
Juice, why in the world would the pension have to be funded 100%? It never has to be paid out all at once, so why are using scare tactics as if we will be responsible for 100% of the liability on that at any given moment? The obligation is spread out over generations. So stop throwing out huge numbers and acting like we need to pay the TOTAL right here, right now.
That’s the problem with the clowns that attack the pension. They don’t understand how it works. They sit there and punch in their numbers for the total obligation, like it will ever be paid all at once. Give me a break. How do you know what the economy will do in the next 30 years? How do you know that we won’t experience a tough battle with inflation that will wash away that debt and make this whole argument meaningless. THEY HAVE NO COLA, INFLATION WILL DESTROY THAT PENSION OBLIGATION. Stop worrying about it, it will never be the death of jersey.
Juice Box says:
June 17, 2016 at 8:12 am
Re: 5 – unfunded liabilities lol. If you use real growth of perhaps 2% it’s north of 100 billion, using unicorn growth of 8% it’s 60 billion.
At least we are secure knowing Anon cut a check to NJ for his/her $20k of unfunded liabilities. It’s only fair right Anon?
NJReReport thoughts and prayers are with Jo Cox’s family and friends.
10- Don’t believe me? Then explain how the state hasn’t payed into the pension system almost every year for the past 20 years and the retirees are still collecting a check? For a so called “unsustainable pension plan” that is too generous, it’s pretty amazing the state was able to skip their obligation for 20 years and still be able to hand out checks. They were able to do this because it never has to be payed all at once. Obviously now, the state has to pay that money back, so that the pension plan can get back to over 70%. I know you don’t want to believe it, but if the state just paid their pension obligation for the past 20 years, we wouldn’t even be talking about this. The pension would be a non-issue.
Every state and city has pensions. How come only a few are in trouble? How come the other ones are fine?
Between the vomitable, NAR proganda article on top and Blumpkin’s early snorting, time to check out for the day already.
Pumps: the fact that you do not believe the unfounded pensions are a problem is frightening! Especially for one who is in some sort of finance role. It’s a problem. I see the magnitude of it in what I do. Also we have the second lowest credit rating in the country!! I see how nj municipal credit spreads are playing out in the secondary market that reflects this. Plus with our poor credit rating the cost of borrowing goes up even in this low rate environment. And nj will need to borrow more money to address the decaying infrastructure system in the state.
you neither explain how so, nor refute Michael’s arguments.
you simply go to say that financing costs are highet with a low credit rating
3b says:
June 17, 2016 at 8:50 am
It’s a problem.
Don’t worry pumps the tax increase for the unfunded liabilities won’t hurt that is if you leave New Jersey before the chickens come home to roost
[15] twitiot,
You solve it then. But keep the collateral damage within your riverbanks.
Pumps and Twitiot dominating the early morning discussion?
I’m out. Happy weekend y’all. Be sure to get in some range time, just to piss off the twitiot.
15 what argument would I refute? He states that because retirees get their check every month it’s not a problem! That’s an argument?? It should be inherently easy to understand why it’s a problem. Also because of what I do I can’t say any more. I gave the higher borrowing costs as just one fact that should be easily understood especially since pumps is in some sort of finance role.
“As Enron was imploding, Arnold played a footnote role, helping himself to an $8 million bonus while the company’s pension fund was vaporizing. He and other executives were later rebuked by a bankruptcy judge for looting their own company along with other executives. Public pension funds nationwide, reportedly, lost more than $1.5 billion thanks to their investments in Enron.
In 2002, Arnold started a hedge fund and over the course of the next few years made roughly a $3 billion fortune as the world’s most successful natural-gas trader. But after suffering losses in 2010, Arnold bowed out of hedge-funding to pursue “other interests.” He had created the Arnold Foundation, an organization dedicated, among other things, to reforming the pension system, hiring a Republican lobbyist and former chief of staff to Dick Armey named Denis Calabrese, as well as Dan Liljenquist, a Utah state senator and future Tea Party challenger to Orrin Hatch.
Soon enough, the Arnold Foundation released a curious study on pensions. On the one hand, it admitted that many states had been undercontributing to their pension funds for years. But instead of proposing that states correct the practice, the report concluded that “the way to create a sound, sustainable and fair retirement-savings program is to stop promising a [defined] benefit.”
In 2011, Arnold and Pew found each other. As detailed in a new study by progressive think tank Institute for America’s Future, Arnold and Pew struck up a relationship – and both have since been proselytizing pension reform all over America, including California, Florida, Kansas, Arizona, Kentucky and Montana. Few knew that Pew had a relationship with a right-wing, anti-pension zealot like Arnold. “The centrist reputation of Pew was a key in selling a lot of these ideas,” says Jordan Marks of the National Public Pension Coalition. Later, a Pew report claimed that the national “gap” between pension assets and future liabilities added up to some $757 billion and dryly insisted the shortfall was unbridgeable, minus some combination of “higher contributions from taxpayers and employees, deep benefit cuts and, in some cases, changes in how retirement plans are structured and benefits are distributed.”
What the study didn’t say was that this supposedly massive gap could all be chalked up to the financial crisis, which, of course, had been caused almost entirely by the greed and wide-scale fraud of the financial-services industry – particularly with regard to state pension funds.
A study by noted economist Dean Baker at the Center for Economic Policy and Research bore this out. In February 2011, Baker reported that, had public pension funds not been invested in the stock market and exposed to mortgage-backed securities, there would be no shortfall at all. He said state pension managers were of course somewhat to blame, but only “insofar as they exercised poor judgment in buying the [finance] industry’s services.”
In fact, Baker said, had public funds during the crash years simply earned modest returns equal to 30-year Treasury bonds, then public-pension assets would be $850 billion richer than they were two years after the crash. Baker reported that states were short an additional $80 billion over the same period thanks to the fact that post-crash, cash-strapped states had been paying out that much less of their mandatory ARC payments.
So even if Pew’s numbers were right, the “unfunded liability” crisis had nothing to do with the systemic unsustainability of public pensions. Thanks to a deadly combination of unscrupulous states illegally borrowing from their pensioners, and unscrupulous banks whose mass sales of fraudulent toxic subprime products crashed the market, these funds were out some $930 billion. Yet the public was being told that the problem was state workers’ benefits were simply too expensive.
In a way, this was a repeat of a shell game with retirement finance that had been going on at the federal level since the Reagan years. The supposed impending collapse of Social Security, which actually should be running a surplus of trillions of dollars, is now repeated as a simple truth. But Social Security wouldn’t be “collapsing” at all had not three decades of presidents continually burgled the cash in the Social Security trust fund to pay for tax cuts, wars and God knows what else. Same with the alleged insolvencies of state pension programs. The money may not be there, but that’s not because the program is unsustainable: It’s because bankers and politicians stole the money.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926#ixzz4BqRa2xmk
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
Pretty disgusting. That’s some reform.
“Hedge funds have good reason to want to keep their fees hidden: They’re insanely expensive. The typical fee structure for private hedge-fund management is a formula called “two and twenty,” meaning the hedge fund collects a two percent fee just for showing up, then gets 20 percent of any profits it earns with your money. Some hedge funds also charge a mysterious third fee, called “fund expenses,” that can run as high as half a percent – Loeb’s Third Point, for instance, charged Rhode Island just more than half a percent for “fund expenses” last year, or about $350,000. Hedge funds will also pass on their trading costs to their clients, a huge additional line item that can come to an extra percent or more and is seldom disclosed. There are even fees states pay for withdrawing from certain hedge funds.
In public finance, hedge funds will sometimes give slight discounts, but the numbers are still enormous. In Rhode Island, over the course of 20 years, Siedle projects that the state will pay $2.1 billion in fees to hedge funds, private-equity funds and venture-capital funds. Why is that number interesting? Because it very nearly matches the savings the state will be taking from workers by freezing their Cost of Living Adjustments – $2.3 billion over 20 years.
“That’s some ‘reform,'” says Siedle.
“They pretty much took the COLA and gave it to a bunch of billionaires,” hisses Day, Providence’s retired firefighter union chief.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926#ixzz4BqWUIE8o
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
What everyone is saying about the pension is surely true.
However, the power that be have their sights on the “Camden City Police Model”.
The regular state, county and local public employee is not the problem. The problem are police and firemen from political machine cities that way overpay this guys for political loyalty (Hackensack, Elizabeth, Union City,etc).
In fact if you look at the 100 over 100,000 in retirement from the Star Ledger investigation a bit back. Outside of judges, physicians and certain high pay positions. Everyone in that list was a cop/fireman from one these political machine towns.
That is because they can get out 20 without health insurance/25 with health insurance yrs – now 25/30yrs for new hires, they start late teens/early twenties, they rise in the ranks fast (as they are connected) and retire early.
All of the above matters not, if the Camden City model kicks in. In it they replace these overpaid public safety agencies with a new agency staff with low pay new hires. Camden City Police -> became Camden County Police. Old the overpaid political hacks were left out of a job. If they can’t get another police or fire job in NJ to finish up their 20,25 or 30 yrs(a very difficult thing -precisely because of the pays & bennies) they got to wait till 60 to touch their pension. This itself will take care of a lot of the issues, as payment reduced and postponed for at least 15 yrs.
Camden City model is coming next to Atlantic City. Paterson, Newark, and other financially troubled localities are up next in the list.
lol…wow, just wow.
Get them workers! They are robbing America!
“When asked to respond to criticisms that the savings from COLA freezes could be seen as going directly into the pockets of billionaires, treasurer Raimondo replied that it was “very dangerous to look at fees in a vacuum” and that it’s worth paying more for a safer and more diverse portfolio. She compared hedge funds – inherently high-risk investments whose prospectuses typically contain front-page disclaimers saying things like, WARNING: YOU MAY LOSE EVERYTHING – to snow tires. “Sure, you pay a little more,” she says. “But you’re really happy you have them when the roads are slick.””
“One of the most garish early experiments in “alternative investments” came in Ohio in the late 1990s, after the Republican-controlled state assembly passed a law loosening restrictions on what kinds of things state funds could invest in. Sometime later, an investigation by the Toledo Blade revealed that the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation had bought into rare-coin funds run by a GOP fundraiser named Thomas Noe. Through Noe, Ohio put $50 million into coins and “other collectibles” – including Beanie Babies.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926#ixzz4BqXRx9O7
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yosEFnhS3TI
Pensions-only pensions that will be actually paid for certain will the Police and Fire.
All others will get shafted.
All pension “funding” is suspect..I can make any fund “fully funded” by changing my return assumptions (like a car lease deal).
You should not bother funding the pension…if it is over funded the money will be diverted, if it is “fully funded” contributions will stop..and if it is underfunded, well, they all are, and again only the Police/Fire are “essential” to safety.
Remember, in 1999, NJ was fully funded.
My thought. Stop all future pension plans, freeze all current pensions. Go to 401(k).
Pumps Governor Krispy Creme solved our pension problem, no COLA(The solutions is figuring out how to weasel out of paying). Given rampant money printing inflation has to come home to roost soon(unless we actually see deflation, a real possibility and nightmare scenario on many levels), sure you have a 100k per year pension but when milk is $10 a gallon, and a mcdonalds value meal is $30 the pensions will be less of an issue.
The problem with pensions are the same problem will almost all tax increases, politicians use the money like a personal piggy bank, it gets misappropriated, expecting pols to be prudent is silly. There should not be pensions because the government employees who invest and administer these funds are profligate, if there is an investment that loses 9 times out of 10 there is a good chance the pensions are invested in it. So you have pols “borrowing” from it and idiots managing it, is there any question as to why it is broke?
22- Good post and dead on. Those political machines using police and fire fighter jobs in their quest for power are a disgrace and ruin it for all the other govt workers. Makes perfect sense though, the police and firemen are the muscle of politicians. Do a great job of intimidating their rivals.
26- Jcer, you hit the nail on the head. My comment in post #10 says the exact same thing.
“That’s the problem with the clowns that attack the pension. They don’t understand how it works. They sit there and punch in their numbers for the total obligation, like it will ever be paid all at once. Give me a break. How do you know what the economy will do in the next 30 years? How do you know that we won’t experience a tough battle with inflation that will wash away that debt and make this whole argument meaningless. THEY HAVE NO COLA, INFLATION WILL DESTROY THAT PENSION OBLIGATION. Stop worrying about it, it will never be the death of jersey.”
25- Condo, well said. Agree with it all including the 401k. You can’t let politicians have access to a worker’s retirement fund. It’s insanity to allow that.
Only problem with the 401k, the state is on the hook for 5% matching at the minimum. If they couldn’t contribute to the pension fund in the last 20 years, and instead raided it, where is this 5% matching contribution going to come from? They really fuc!ed this all up.
http://www.hoover.org/research/public-pension-crisis
I told you I was right! I told you, look I found an article that I agree with. I’m right you’re wrong.
The average company contribution in 401k plans is 2.7% of pay.
http://www.401khelpcenter.com/benchmarking.html#.V2QSa_ldXUI
But yeah, let’s go with 5%… you know, at a the minimum.
31- The first paragraph in your link is already full of bs. They left out the part where pensions were raided to support the govt. Instead they paint the picture that “assets in the pension system will be insufficient to pay for the pensions”. Yes, because you raided it, so it’s only natural that taxpayer resources will have to be used to be that money back. But let’s paint the picture that it’s unsustainable so you don’t have to pay it back. Like a thief in the night…
Anyway, they took away the COLA. INFLATION WILL EAT AWAY AT IT TILL ITS WORTHLESS. No armageddon here. This is their plan, take away COLA, and secretly rob the pension fund through inflationary means.
“Most state and local governments in the United States offer retirement benefits to their employees in the form of guaranteed pensions. To fund these promises, the governments contribute taxpayer money to public systems. Even under states’ own disclosures and optimistic assumptions about future investment returns, assets in the pension systems will be insufficient to pay for the pensions of current public employees and retirees. Taxpayer resources will eventually have to make up the difference.”
Pumps my issue is not the pensions it is the lack of growth in Jersey’s economy, we are just not cost competitive. Democratic “leadership” in NJ has left us high costs, over regulated, and over taxed. When you cannot compete with the likes of NY or CT there is a real problem. Taxes and costs need to be lower, we need to be attracting jobs, filling office space and warehouses, that pays taxes and is vital to the economy. The kleptocracy that is NJ government is hurting the situation.
You really are sick. You call a 2.7% contribution a retirement plan? On what planet?
You really are advocating for the race to the bottom, aren’t you? My question to you, when all these 2.7% 401k owners go to retire, how the hell with they survive? Can’t wait till they raise the taxes in the future when they are forced to pay for this coming retirement disaster.
Taking away retirement plans and replacing them with 2.7% contribution based 401ks is nothing more than stealing from the future, aka kicking the can down the road. Sure the 2.7% works now, but what happens when they actually retire? Yup, the can will have to be picked up. So keep advocating for kicking the bill for retirement further down the road so a few 1%ers can get rich by stealing the contributions today that are owed to future retirees.
joyce says:
June 17, 2016 at 11:09 am
The average company contribution in 401k plans is 2.7% of pay.
http://www.401khelpcenter.com/benchmarking.html#.V2QSa_ldXUI
But yeah, let’s go with 5%… you know, at a the minimum.
You know who is to blame for this? Corporations. They bought out the politicians. Hijacked our govt, and created a bunch of regulation to keep out it’s competition (small business). If you are not big business, then you can’t conduct business in a state controlled by corporations. They love the way it is currently set up. Putting state vs state into a fight over who will handout more money to this large corporation to stay.
YES, that’s how RIGGED the game is, they get the govt they control to pay them money to stay in a location. FUC!ING SCAMMERS!
What sane business would accept handouts from the govt?
What sane businessman would advocate for handouts from the govt in order to stay in business?
Welcome to the United CORPORATE States of America. In greedy ceo’s, we trust.
Talk all this free market conservative bs, and do the complete opposite. Use the term capitalism and free market to hide their money from the evil redistributing govt, meanwhile they don’t conduct business in a capitalist free market. Competition my a$$.
jcer says:
June 17, 2016 at 11:23 am
Pumps my issue is not the pensions it is the lack of growth in Jersey’s economy, we are just not cost competitive. Democratic “leadership” in NJ has left us high costs, over regulated, and over taxed. When you cannot compete with the likes of NY or CT there is a real problem. Taxes and costs need to be lower, we need to be attracting jobs, filling office space and warehouses, that pays taxes and is vital to the economy. The kleptocracy that is NJ government is hurting the situation.
It’s not possible that you’re this fcuking stupid.
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 17, 2016 at 11:28 am
You really are sick. You call a 2.7% contribution a retirement plan? On what planet?
It’s be sweet justice if pumpkin got fired for doing nothing but goofing around all day, except he’d have even more time to post here! Catch 22
Individuals are free to setup an IRA and contribute to it pre or post tax. Some of them are fortunate to have their employer setup one up for them, a 401k. Within that group, some employers contribute ON TOP OF the employees’ own contributions… a small portion of the employees’ contributions are very generous, others are less so, and some are non-existent… averaging out to the 2.7% figure according to that source.
Wanting to be fair, isn’t it fair that public employees (all of them and yes I mean all of them) receive compensation comparable to the average private employee?
Now pumpkin, if you’re going to respond (and we know you’d have a stroke if you tried not to), respond to the actual comments made and not comments you imagineered into existence.
small portion of (should be) employers’ contributions are very generous
Re: Title Post;
Getting back to the re-inflation of the housing bubble —
And fortunately, the bank appraisal came in on the nose.
What are the odds?!?
31- Joyce, another gem from that study. Here in lies the entire problem.
“What is in fact going on is that the governments are borrowing from workers and promising to repay that debt when they retire. The accounting standards allow the bulk of this debt to go unreported due to the assumption of high rates of return.”
So you are basically expecting the majority of the population to save for their own retirement. Are you really this naive?
Joyce says:
June 17, 2016 at 12:11 pm
Individuals are free to setup an IRA and contribute to it pre or post tax. Some of them are fortunate to have their employer setup one up for them, a 401k. Within that group, some employers contribute ON TOP OF the employees’ own contributions… a small portion of the employees’ contributions are very generous, others are less so, and some are non-existent… averaging out to the 2.7% figure according to that source.
Wanting to be fair, isn’t it fair that public employees (all of them and yes I mean all of them) receive compensation comparable to the average private employee?
Now pumpkin, if you’re going to respond (and we know you’d have a stroke if you tried not to), respond to the actual comments made and not comments you imagineered into existence.
As expected, response not on point.
Your idea is to forcibly take it from people (not to mention expecting politicians and their buddies to not steal it). Are you really that criminal and stupid?
Fab…no sweat with Carl. Go with whichever racquet gives you the best deal. After the close, who you went with doesn’t matter one iota.
44- Bull sh!it, my response is on point. I see a serious issue with your statement that, “Individuals are free to setup an IRA and contribute to it pre or post tax”. Okay, so let them be responsible for themselves, and when they don’t, then what? You know damn well they will not be able to save for their retirement on their own. They aren’t even financially literate enough to do so. You are lost.
My idea is to forcibly take it from people? How? Tell the employer to set up a good retirement plan as part of their compensation. You are not stealing anything. It is a part of their compensation, so how is it stealing? If their take home pay has to take a hit, so be it, but have a plan in place for god’s sake.
Why can’t you see this coming disaster?
if an employer refuses, what then?
so let me get this straight, unfunded liabilities compounding again and again… is just fine and dandy
simultaneously, the common private sector worker’s retirement is a coming disaster. Did I get that right?
And finally, this:
“If their take home pay has to take a hit, so be it”
DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT WILL DO TO DEMAND IN OUR ECONOMY?!?!!?
“So you are basically expecting the majority of the population to save for their own retirement. Are you really this naive? ”
What the? Did you just say that?
I think it’s time to buy me a gun.
46 ummmm , speaking of financially literate! A little self awareness grasshopper!
So let me understand. The people in N.J. who are just making it now, raising a family, trying to save for college, working 2 to 3 jobs, are also expected to somehow save enough for retirement? In what universe? I work with a lot of middle class people, and I am sure I am in a higher income bracket than most of them. They are good people, good workers, and they are doing the best they can. They truly don’t have much left over at the end of the day for any extra savings. I wish they all had a pension!
Sure, maybe they can retire at 70. If you are going to tell me, well, they should move out of the state. Ok, but it’s not so easy to do that.
In what world are people not responsible to save for their own retirement. Social Security was meant to be a safety net. I guess it’s all how one was raised. I will not be eating cat food.
51, wages in NJ for middle class workers are not commensurate with the cost of living here. If my wife and I didn’t both have relatively good salaries and additional investment income it would be very hard for us to save aggressively for retirement. It doesn’t help that the government thinks I’m rich so I should pay more taxes. I don’t know how people with lower incomes do it, so retirement savings are probably the first thing to get cut, no surprise there.
The answer is not some government program to fund retirement, it is improving the economy so that the middle class can afford to save for retirement, better tax breaks for retirement savings also helps.
“better tax breaks for retirement savings also helps.”
Yet these breaks are slowly being needled away by the Clintons and the Bushes.
52- As I stated, these ARE good, responsible people and I think they were raised to be so. In fact, you wouldn’t want to do their job, trust me. Life has presented them with circumstances, illnesses, etc. and yet they still come to work and help society. I refuse to blame them for not having the funds to save for retirement.
And 53- exactly!
Current burn rate for the NJ teachers pension fund is somewhere around 8% a year drawdown annually, not including investment losses. Less than 10 years and the towns are going to have to caught up billions to re-fund it.
Cough up the money taxpayer or we will put a tax lien on your house.
I wouldn’t blame them either. If the less than ideal amount saved for retirement plus social security isn’t enough, what would be your suggestion?
HouseWhineWine says:
June 17, 2016 at 1:28 pm
52- As I stated, these ARE good, responsible people and I think they were raised to be so. In fact, you wouldn’t want to do their job, trust me. Life has presented them with circumstances, illnesses, etc. and yet they still come to work and help society. I refuse to blame them for not having the funds to save for retirement.
And 53- exactly!
Going back to around the turn of the century, the naysayers all predicted Illinois, Kentucky and New Jersey would all go pop around 2019, 2020 in regards to their pensions. I look forward to not having to rely on one.
B.S. the whole amount is not due NOW. We are fine!! Stop your scare tactics and fear mongering.
Juice Box says:
June 17, 2016 at 1:32 pm
Current burn rate for the NJ teachers pension fund is somewhere around 8% a year drawdown annually, not including investment losses. Less than 10 years and the towns are going to have to caught up billions to re-fund it.
And I thought Bergen County was supposed to be the shiznit.
The state also broke down the data by county, noting that all cases were travel-related. Mulvaney said certain areas, such as Bergen County, have a higher number of cases based on population, particularly if people have family and connections to Zika-affected countries.
Here are the New Jersey cases:
Bergen 7
Passaic 4
Burlington 3
Union 3
Monmouth 2
Morris 2
Middlesex 2
Camden 1
Essex 1
Hudson 1
Hunterdon 1
Re#61 – I saw a calculation that shows the teachers pension is down YOY about 16%, and it’s not me scaring anyone, it if from the union. I’ll dig up the link.
Juice Box,
Please tell me I don’t have to start including sarcasm tags ;-)
And I thought Bergen County was supposed to be the shiznit
So who do you think hires the illegals?
63 wait until the state pushes the full pension obligations on to the towns for their municipal employees!!
Not sure how accurate this guy is.
“New Jersey Teachers’ Pension Fund Will Be Gone In Less Than 10 Years”
http://millennialmoola.com/2016/01/18/new-jersey-teachers-pension-fund/
re# 66 – Back when Florio was running things he was willing to give the towns back their share of the pot and let them manage it. They said no way of-course.
grim – from yesterday, that was my point. Your implication is that your job is so demanding that you forfeit vacation every year, or do I read that wrong? One of my BILs has worked at the same company his entire professional life. New York, transferred to Texas for a few years, back to New York. He and my sister have have two $1.5 million houses (Gladstone/LBI) and she might as well be a widow for as much time as he spends at either home. What I recognize from the outside looking in is that is just the NYC professional groove. Compared to colleagues of mine in Sweden, I still work like dog. You guys work like dogs on meth.
Shrug I get 7 weeks paid. I sometimes imagine I’m in France.
[69 cont’d] That BIL also has a condo in Manhattan (that his company owns, but it is just for his personal use). I don’t even think he has a mistress, so what a waste. Nice place to watch a parade from, though.
BTW, a little of that stuff happens up here too (vacation forfeit). Our company reduced how much vacation we can carry over from 3 weeks, then 2 weeks, then 1 week. I even created a little spreadsheet for my guys so that they could calculate how much they had to take by when. People still forfeited vacation. So now, technically, you could never take a two week ski vacation in January or February because the most vacation you could have carried over is 1 week and there would be no way to accrue the additional week in the first two months.
Pumps – you are clearly not an educated
humanbeing. This does explain a lot of your comments andreasoningvomiting, though.If you are worried about the pension debt obligation, understand that it will never have to be payed all at once. You only need to support current retirees. It’s more noise than anything.
and shoot yourself with
Libturd questioning the gender of Hillary’s Cankle fluid. says:
June 17, 2016 at 12:55 pm
I think it’s time to buy me a gun.
neither you, nor them are middle class. you are poor, working class
JJ said it many times. a banker is middle class. hedgefund guy is upper class.
HouseWhineWine says:
June 17, 2016 at 1:18 pm
I work with a lot of middle class people, and I am sure I am in a higher income bracket than most of them.
I just do not understand why people buy houses up in the NYC area. Why not rent ? The financials are SO much better. Any real estate collapse would wipe everyone out there
yes they are. issue is you be working class.
stop calling every wage earner “middle class” you ain’t one if you can’t afford middle class living
jcer says:
June 17, 2016 at 1:23 pm
wages in NJ for middle class workers are not commensurate with the cost of living here.
Think you misunderstood what I was implying. You have to have some type of plan in place because they can’t do it on their own. Even if they made enough to save for retirement, they won’t have the self control to not spend it. Yes, it’s their own fault, but blaming them is not the answer. That does nothing to help the situation.
Libturd questioning the gender of Hillary’s Cankle fluid. says:
June 17, 2016 at 12:53 pm
“So you are basically expecting the majority of the population to save for their own retirement. Are you really this naive? ”
What the? Did you just say that?
Why do they have to be unfunded liabilities? You act like it’s impossible to setup retirement plans without taking a business under. So not true.
Do you realize what will happen to the demand in the economy if we continue to let this problem build up? When these individuals with no retirement plan come time to retire, it will be ugly (social security is not a plan…that has been robbed and is worthless). You will have to take money from the younger worker class to support a retirement that should have been paid for with compounding interest, but instead, you have to pay for out of pocket, all at once. You have to make up for the compound interest lost and for the current liability at the time. So basically you are taking way too much capital away from the demand side and using it to pay for past debts. The economy will suffer badly.
So instead of fighting over whether there should be retirement plans or not, acknowledge that something has to be done with future retirees. You are going to have to pay for it no matter what, so mine as well spread the pain out over years, so it doesn’t hurt too much. Kicking the can down the road is not an option (based on paragraph above), it will destroy the economy.
So what do you say we do? Just ignore the problem? Exasperate the problem by eliminating retirement plans from the work place and expect people to handle it on their own? What’s the answer?
joyce says:
June 17, 2016 at 12:52 pm
if an employer refuses, what then?
so let me get this straight, unfunded liabilities compounding again and again… is just fine and dandy
simultaneously, the common private sector worker’s retirement is a coming disaster. Did I get that right?
And finally, this:
“If their take home pay has to take a hit, so be it”
DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT WILL DO TO DEMAND IN OUR ECONOMY?!?!!?
78- And yes, I’m talking about the entire population. I’m not talking about public workers. Everyone should have some kind of plan in place and no one should be able to touch it till they retire.
Yes, and that’s because the state barely put anything into it the past 20 years. How can politicians like Christie complain about the pension plan as too costly, when they haven’t really put anything in it the past 20 years? They have continuously raided the retirement fund for workers. Pretty messed up anyway you look at it.
You can say whatever you want, but answer me this. If those retirement funds had received 100% of the payments owed by the state, would the pension even be an issue? You know the answer.
Juice Box says:
June 17, 2016 at 1:32 pm
Current burn rate for the NJ teachers pension fund is somewhere around 8% a year drawdown annually, not including investment losses. Less than 10 years and the towns are going to have to caught up billions to re-fund it
Explain to me exactly why we bring up the total liability on a pension that is never paid out all at once?
If the total liability mattered at this given moment, how exactly were the politicians able to rob the worker’s pension funds, use them as piggy banks, and still pay out retirees?
Yes the problem matters, but what I mean by noise is exactly that. People screaming that the liability is 100 billion and the funds need to be shut down asap are doing exactly what I stated…..fear mongering. The problem needs to be fixed, but you have time to fix it. It does not need to be fixed in a given year like the fear mongering groups would have you believe.
The Original NJ ExPat says:
June 17, 2016 at 5:09 pm
Pumps – you are clearly not an educated human being. This does explain a lot of your comments and reasoning vomiting, though.
If you are worried about the pension debt obligation, understand that it will never have to be payed all at once. You only need to support current retirees. It’s more noise than anything.
Well said. These aren’t lazy people looking for a handout. These are people that work hard everyday and still struggle everyday. Someone that works hard their entire life for the society we live in has a right to a got damn retirement.
HouseWhineWine says:
June 17, 2016 at 1:28 pm
52- As I stated, these ARE good, responsible people and I think they were raised to be so. In fact, you wouldn’t want to do their job, trust me. Life has presented them with circumstances, illnesses, etc. and yet they still come to work and help society. I refuse to blame them for not having the funds to save for retirement.
And 53- exactly!
53-54 – Exactly!
Because it’s a lot cheaper to own in this area. NYC real estate is as good as gold. If the nyc market collapsed, your money is safe no where.
Millennial Moola says:
June 17, 2016 at 5:18 pm
I just do not understand why people buy houses up in the NYC area. Why not rent ? The financials are SO much better. Any real estate collapse would wipe everyone out there
“Once upon a time, local corruption was easy. “It was votes for jobs,” Doughty says with a sigh. A ward would turn out for a councilman, the councilman would come back with jobs from city-budget contracts – that was the deal. What’s going on with public pensions is a more confusing modern version of that local graft. With public budgets carefully scrutinized by everyone from the press to regulators, the black box of pension funds makes it the only public treasure left that’s easy to steal. Politicians quietly borrow millions from these funds by not paying their ARCs, and it’s that money, plus the savings from cuts made to worker benefits in the name of “emergency” pension reform, that pays for an apparently endless regime of corporate tax breaks and handouts.
A notorious example in Rhode Island is, of course, 38 Studios, the doomed video-game venture of blabbering, Christ-humping ex-Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who received a $75 million loan guarantee from the state at a time when local politicians were pleading poverty. “This whole thing isn’t just about cutting payments to retirees,” says syndicated columnist David Sirota, who authored the Institute for America’s Future study on Arnold and Pew. “It’s about preserving money for corporate welfare.” Their study estimates states spend up to $120 billion a year on offshore tax loopholes and gifts to dingbats like Schilling and other subsidies – more than two and a half times as much as the $46 billion a year Pew says states are short on pension payments.
The bottom line is that the “unfunded liability” crisis is, if not exactly fictional, certainly exaggerated to an outrageous degree. Yes, we live in a new economy and, yes, it may be time to have a discussion about whether certain kinds of public employees should be receiving sizable benefit checks until death. But the idea that these benefit packages are causing the fiscal crises in our states is almost entirely a fabrication crafted by the very people who actually caused the problem. It’s like Voltaire’s maxim about noses having evolved to fit spectacles, so therefore we wear spectacles. In this case, we have an unfunded-pension-liability problem because we’ve been ripping retirees off for decades – but the solution being offered is to rip them off even more.
Everybody following this story should remember what went on in the immediate aftermath of the crash of 2008, when the federal government was so worried about the sanctity of private contracts that it doled out $182 billion in public money to AIG. That bailout guaranteed that firms like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank could be paid off on their bets against a subprime market they themselves helped overheat, and that AIG executives could be paid the huge bonuses they naturally deserved for having run one of the world’s largest corporations into the ground. When asked why the state was paying those bonuses, Obama economic adviser Larry Summers said, “We are a country of law. . . . The government cannot just abrogate contracts.”
Now, though, states all over the country are claiming they not only need to abrogate legally binding contracts with state workers but also should seize retirement money from widows to finance years of illegal loans, giant fees to billionaires like Dan Loeb and billions in tax breaks to the Curt Schillings of the world. It ain’t right. If someone has to tighten a belt or two, let’s start there. If we’ve still got a problem after squaring those assholes away, that’s something that can be discussed. But asking cops, firefighters and teachers to take the first hit for a crisis caused by reckless pols and thieves on Wall Street is low, even by American standards”
85-
What sane business would accept handouts from the govt?
What sane businessman would advocate for handouts from the govt in order to stay in business?
What kind of capitalism is this?
77
No, he understood perfectly which your second sentence affirms.
78
First paragraph = once again responding to invented commentary; Second paragraph = all I’ll say is you don’t understand is that ALL prices will fluctuate (you won’t understand): Third paragraph = I acknowledge something has to be done which is to stop criminals and idiots from being a part of the govt process
79
By the way, you as predicted ignored question of what if employers do not want to setup a plan, then what? Please note in your post 83 you agreed that setting up another govt program was not the answer.
80
If they received 100% funding, your holy grail of demand would have taken a huge hit elsewhere in the economy? What now Magellan?
81
If unfunded liabilities do not matter, why do you say social security is broke? I refer you to your post #78
82
Even if it comes from stealing it from others via the govt taxes fee inflation?
85
I guess I should have stopped reading at the beginning of the second paragraph, according to our perfect progressive representative FabMax, when the adhominem comments started.
And finally, yawn, we’re back to the two wrongs make a right logic of kindergarten.
It only takes about 90 seconds to read every useful post in this blog these days.
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I wouldn’t set up a govt program, but I would create a law that would require a certain percentage of their income automatically be put into a personal retirement fund that no one can touch (not even the owner) till that individual is retired.
Once that individual hits retirement mode, the fund will displace a percentage of income monthly to the individual based on a formula of how much they have accrued and avg lifespan.
No, they can’t control the fund themselves. You can’t trust most to do the right thing with their retirement funds, so it has to be setup this way.
Like Jcer implied in his post, in order for this to happen, you have to improve the economy by eliminating by eliminating the nonsense regulation put in place to limit entry into the market for new business and at the same time, you must reform the tax code, and eliminate taxes that harm growth in our economy.
This can be done, and our country would be much better off for it.
“By the way, you as predicted ignored question of what if employers do not want to setup a plan, then what? Please note in your post 83 you agreed that setting up another govt program was not the answer.”
Oh, so you now agree with me that money put towards investments does not have the same impact in the economy as consumption, huh? Finally!!
As for the 100% funding, this is a issue of ethics. If you signed a contract with someone, it must be honored. Eliminate it for new employees, but a contract is a contract. Any honest individual understands this. It’s funny, we honored the contracts put in place for the aig’s of the world in 2008 by bailing them out even though it was their own criminal actions responsible for the mess, but if workers need a bail out (not cause they did anything wrong, but because their fund was robbed) we tell them to go fu!k themselves.
The respect for workers in this country is a joke. Workers keep society going and should not be shi!ted on.
“If they received 100% funding, your holy grail of demand would have taken a huge hit elsewhere in the economy? What now Magellan?”
Unfunded liabilities do matter, but not the total future liability in the now for things like pension funds and social security. They are only paying out current retirees, not everyone. So throwing out numbers like 100 billion does nothing but scare people into thinking the problem is not fixable, which is exactly what the fear mongers want to do. Scare people into eliminating it. Why do you think LIB and Juice throw out those big numbers and then state the system must go, it’s not sustainable? They are reacting the exact way the puppet masters like Christie want them to react.
“If unfunded liabilities do not matter, why do you say social security is broke? I refer you to your post #78”
Who is stealing?
With that kind of mindset, why don’t you acknowledge the theft in labor production due to wage arbitrage? Of course; shipping jobs, importing h1’s, and allowing for illegal immigration does not help corporations steal the value from the labor production of our citizens, right? Those policies artificially hold down the price of labor by inflating the pool of workers. IT’S A CRIME AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS OF THIS COUNTRY. The history books in the future will talk about how this generation was robbed of their production value by one of the greatest swindles in this history of our country.
“Even if it comes from stealing it from others via the govt taxes fee inflation?”
I’m the one with the obsession with inflation and you are telling me that I don’t understand that all prices will fluctuate? Come on, give me a little credit.
In this case, the prices won’t fluctuate to meet retirees needs. If that was the case, why do so many retirees have to leave high cost of living areas to retire in low cost of living areas. Retirees don’t have much impact on pricing as the working population.
“First paragraph = once again responding to invented commentary; Second paragraph = all I’ll say is you don’t understand is that ALL prices will fluctuate (you won’t understand): Third paragraph = I acknowledge something has to be done which is to stop criminals and idiots from being a part of the govt process”
I bring a lot of information and food for debate on this blog. I might not always be right, but who is?
The Original NJ ExPat says:
June 18, 2016 at 12:05 am
It only takes about 90 seconds to read every useful post in this blog these days.
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Another crooked politician with no morals or values.
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/06/when_padded_pensions_arent_enough_collect_unemploy.html#incart_river_home
90
You finally answered a question and as expected your idea is to jail employers and employees who do not want to participate. Well done sir.
91
Another example of sarcasm flying 10,000 feet over your head.
92
A very long way of not answering why you claim SS is broke for the same reasons you say the public pensions are not.
93
If someone doesn’t save for retirement and the “govt” provides them with money, where do you think that comes from and how did they get it? Furthermore, fcuk your entire second paragraph. Find one comment of mine that celebrates or defends offshoring, H1Bs, illegal labor, etc. Go run your mouth elsewhere.
94
No, I won’t because you’re stupid and do not understand many things including inflation.
95
You take up a lot of space unnecessarily- nothing more.
You want corruption?
According to a report by New Jersey Watchdog, the biggest dipper is County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, who is paid $230,476 annually. Nearly $69,000 of that is from a pension after he quietly retired from the position in 2010, only to be reelected months later.
Joe D’s a Democrat.