Or, you just can’t fix stupid. From the NY Post:
Repeat foreclosures in the city have reached an all-time high
New York homeowners are in default mode — again.
The city leads the nation in repeat foreclosure filings
And the winner in all this is the residential mortgage servicing industry, which collects monthly payments and cashes in on fees for every homeowner’s misfortune.
The number of repeat foreclosure filings in New York City far outstrips that of other major cities like Los Angeles, while New York state is No. 1 for repeat foreclosures, outpacing every other state and the US as a whole.
In a report prepared exclusively for The Post, Attom Data Solutions found that in New York City last year, roughly 4,900 — or more than half of all new foreclosures filed — were repeats, up from just 5 percent in 2008.
Statewide, 73 percent of the 49,200 new foreclosure cases — or roughly 35,916 foreclosures — over the past 12 months were repeats, up from 20 percent in 2007, according to Black Knight, which collects data reported by servicers.
Refilings, which occur when borrowers land in foreclosure more than once for the same property, can happen for a host of reasons, from a failed loan modification to a foreclosure being dismissed when the servicer can’t prove it owns the loan and later refiles the case.
Like I said, over and over again, foreclosure is not the problem, it’s the solution.
NJ’s long foreclosure process creates ghettos, urban (Paterson) and rural (Sussex County).
To minimize foreclosures, make mortgages like government backed education loans – impossible to discharge even through bankruptcy. Dock mortgage deadbeats’ paychecks, pensions, unemployment and disability insurance.
That doesn’t make sense.
How about, eliminate judicial foreclosures. Eliminate government sponsored forebearance and modification programs. If servicers and mortgage holders want to do this for their loans, let them do it on their own prerogative.
I agree grim. Get the government out of the foreclosure process. Also the government should stop guaranteeing consumer loans including mortgages and student loans.
Home Loans are backed by the value of the property. This collateral backed loans should be foreclosed by the banks once it goes to foreclosure without interference by the Govt. This is the agreement both parties signed
To minimize foreclosures, make mortgages like any other loan and make the lender pay for their incompetence. Dock mortgage CEO’s paychecks, pensions, employment and bonuses.
Abolish the exploitation of human labor and misery at the hands of private profit AKA capitalism. Problem solved. Also guillotines.
So what then of personal accountability?
And how exactly is a mortgage modification beneficial for the borrower? If you look at the statistics, mortgage modification and forbearance isn’t actually helping the borrower at all. When you take seriously unaffordable and make it just plain unaffordable – how does this benefit the borrower?
In most scenarios, the borrower would have been better off if they simply left – you know – and stuck it to the man.
Compared to a scenario where foreclosures can clear and impact market prices, driving down housing cost, and increasing affordability.
I could very easily imagine a scenario where using artificial means to string out unqualified borrowers for a decade which would result in Banks, CEOs, and property holders benefiting substantially more than those given the “forbearance”.
And by the way, it was Obama’s bullshit justice department under Holder who chose not to prosecute banks and CEOs.
I screamed about it for nearly the entire term. Holder was more than happy to pat them all on the back in exchange for a small token payment, which means HE and OBAMA – were completely complicit in it.
Whose side are you on anyway?
I’m all for allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy (or death) too.
I’m sure that makes me a criminal capitalist.
yep, banker’s accountability issuing a NINJA loan
grim says:
May 9, 2017 at 7:41 am
So what then of personal accountability?
S&L Prosecutions under Bush = 1000 bankers and executives convicted of felonies and put in prison
Mortgage Prosecutions under Obama = 35 low-level bank and mortgage employees convicted and put in prison
Whose side are you on anyway?
I’m all for tight lending standards.
But realize, the tighter you make lending standards, the more it impacts housing affordability and home-ownership rates of minority groups. Remember, on the leading edge of the bubble, when lending standards were loosened or new low-down payment loan programs were put in place for minorities, it was the minority community that heralded this as a huge success, and it worked to provide homeownership opportunities to those who would have never been approved before, and homeownership rates increased significantly as a result. All the while the HUD and politicians were cheering their success.
So, very tight loan standards mean well off white people own all the real estate, and everyone else rents from the well off white people. Is that what you want?
So, whose side are you on anyway?
You realize, right, that the young minority small business owner, she doesn’t issue herself a W2 from her LLC, right? And, if she intelligently manages her tax liabilities, she isn’t showing a significant amount of income on her taxes. Perhaps, for the previous 2 or 3 years, she was reinvesting the majority share of her income into her business, so maybe she wasn’t showing much real-world income at all. She, would have been a candidate for a stated income loan. She should know what her projected income would be, and she would know what she could afford to spend. So, what you are saying is, she doesn’t deserve a loan anymore.
Who are you trying to be a champion for? Her? I don’t think so.
To minimize foreclosures, make mortgages like government backed education loans – impossible to discharge even through bankruptcy. Dock mortgage deadbeats’ paychecks, pensions, unemployment and disability insurance.
Because that worked out so well for students loans.
My parents lost their home to foreclosure. They could have sold it to pay off the balance and come out $100k in the green. Instead, they were completely devoid of logic and stopped paying. The house was foreclosed on lightning fast.
My grandmother’s home just went into foreclosure. That place has a $250 k loan on it and the place has been destroyed by my hoarding uncles. The bank waited 6 years to foreclose on that one.
These loan modifications just drag out the inevitable and allow banks to have properties that sit empty for nearly a decade in some cases. There’s one 2 blocks away from me. The guy ended up in jail and his home is empty. There are holes everywhere and the place is just sitting there. The bank is playing games refuses to write off the loss. If I were the neighbors, I would torch the place or pool our money to just demo and remove it one day. The bank probably wouldn’t find out the home disappeared for a good 5 years.
Judicial foreclosure has worked just fine in NJ and other states with the exception of the most recent financial crisis. A large portion of the problem with foreclosing had nothing to do with the judicial process. The problem was created by the financial community and how mortgages were packaged and in some cases how they were recorded. Had it not been for an almost 3 year delay due to the “robosigning scandal” the system would have been backed up due to volume but not stalled.
Real estate values are based upon ease of financing in this country and the 30 year mortgage. Fcuk with this system and values will be impacted!
Yo! Please explain how the foreclosure process creates ghettos. There were no economically disadvantaged areas with crime and drug problems in Paterson or Sussex County before the Great Recession?
Grim is right on the money regarding loan mods! Borrowers either end up paying everything they would have owed and much more via a mod or they end up losing the property and paying more. Arrangement is totally one sided or lender would not agree to it!
From yesterday. Nom brought up the term SJW (which sadly are my initials) which I never heard used before, probably because I stay away from the extremes. This Urban Dictionary definition fits Moana to a “T.”
Social Justice Warrior. A pejorative term for an individual who repeatedly and vehemently engages in arguments on social justice on the Internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought-out way, for the purpose of raising their own personal reputation. A social justice warrior, or SJW, does not necessarily strongly believe all that they say, or even care about the groups they are fighting on behalf of. They typically repeat points from whoever is the most popular blogger or commenter of the moment, hoping that they will “get SJ points” and become popular in return. They are very sure to adopt stances that are “correct” in their social circle.
leftwing…Regarding your question for brokers, there are only so many well priced properties available for sale at any given time. If your property is priced attractively a broker will show and sell it at standard commission rates. If the property is over priced or there is virtually no market for the product it does not matter how much commission you offer, it will not sell.
You have 2 choices. Find where market value is for your land and accept that price or hold on to it.
“So what then of personal accountability?”
If you are a progressive, there is really no such thing as personal accountability unless of course, you are a straight white male. In this case, one may only seek salvation through attendance at the church of anti-privilege followed by a two-year sentence as a SJW.
This property is under contract I believe, so it must’ve been priced right. I assume the buyer must be some historical preservation society.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/29-Avon-Rd_Springfield_NJ_07081_M63946-56229#photo17
Check it out.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/29-Avon-Rd_Springfield_NJ_07081_M63946-56229#photo0
Ha…It’s gone viral!
re: – historical preservation society
Well maintained they even winterized the diving board, as far as the decor it does need a remodel and needs a great room attached out back, so if you bought it add $150k for renovations. Taxes are already $14,500 so expect to bend over and grab your heels if you remodel.
Kinda reminds me of Henry Hill’s house in Goodfellas
I think the cool new viral thing for real estate photos should be to have a big black d1ld0 placed in at least one of the bedroom photos.
That would be great!
Juice…it might cost 150K just to remove the wallpaper!
That place must have seemed incredible in 1966. Look at the innovative mounting system for the black/white TV in photo 11.
While it’s not my style, I have to respect the effort someone put into that interior design. It wasn’t haphazard or cheaply/carelessly done. To a kid back in the day, I bet it seemed magical.
It looks like it was owned by the head of the Liberace fan club.
Land for sale in Edison. I cant believe they sell this high.Specially the one subdivided on Middlesex Ave. 0.26 acre is under contract for $389,000,I assume.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Edison_NJ/type-land
The problem was created by the financial community and how mortgages were packaged and in some cases how they were recorded. Had it not been for an almost 3 year delay due to the “robosigning scandal” the system would have been backed up due to volume but not stalled.
I very respectfully disagree. All one needs to do is analyze market recovery in judicial vs non-judicial states, and it becomes very obvious that recovery has been significantly faster, and stronger, in non-judicial states. This is directly attributable to significantly shorter foreclosure and resale timelines.
For example:
http://www.dsnews.com/news/02-24-2016/a-world-of-difference-recovery-in-judicial-vs-non-judicial-foreclosure-states
Remember, judicial foreclosure states are the minority, not majority.
Look at the recovery in NY, NJ, and CT, and the rest of the judicial states. They have been dragged on to outrageous timelines. There are no non-judicial states still in recovery, they are all well recovered.
Looking at the last few CoreLogic foreclosure reports, the non-judicial states all have around 1% foreclosure inventory, or below, at this point. Judicials are all above 1, some cases very high.
New Jersey – Judicial – 2.8% foreclosure inventory
California – Non-Judicial – 0.3% foreclosure inventory
CALIFORNIA – do you need to see more?
Judicial foreclosure is a problem, especially in NJ where there was a CONCERTED POLITICAL EFFORT TO BOTTLENECK FORECLOSURES.
This is fact, I don’t care if someone doesn’t believe me.
You could argue that the judicial manipulation was necessary, and I might agree with you, as the level of foreclosures in minority communities would have been astronomical. Cities like East Orange, Paterson, areas around Camden, Trenton, Passaic, Newark – would have collapsed economically otherwise. You would have had, in some neighborhoods, entire streets foreclosed on.
Liberace – the same thought crossed my mind. No kidding.
Same thing was said in Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States
Season 1 Episode 10 on Netflix..
Grim:
“And by the way, it was Obama’s bullshit justice department under Holder who chose not to prosecute banks and CEOs.
I screamed about it for nearly the entire term. Holder was more than happy to pat them all on the back in exchange for a small token payment, which means HE and OBAMA – were completely complicit in it.”
Puzzy,
Dock mortgage CEO’s paychecks, pensions, employment and bonuses.
bro, you sound like a cuck.
Obama was the biggest farce in US politics in the last 100 years easily. It was like they repacked GWB with socially liberal policies in black-face. A total lie, a total establishment politician who literally changed nothing. Hope and change my you know what….. totally ineffective and owned by wall street, no perp walks, nothing to see move along….
30, thanks.
Any insight into when offering a bonus to the salesperson (in addition to standard brokerage commission), does that bonus flow through the brokerage split or go directly to salesperson?
Re: 10:45
Developed Land sold for $385,000 House being built is priced at $833,000.
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/59-middlesex-ave-edison,nj-08820_rb/?fromHomePage=true&shouldFireSellPageImplicitClaimGA=false&fromHomePageTab=buy
Where is jj that little girlie man puzzy?
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1649054/000114420416126338/v449655_s1.htm
leftwing,
everything flows through the broker
Blue Ribbon Teacher [9:37];
Kinda reminds me of Henry Hill’s house in Goodfellas
I saw one like that for sale off of Alps Rd in Wayne, back in ’12. I shudder to think of all the white Formica trees that had to die to decorate that place.
Someone around here used to harp on in inevitability of wage inflation; it was a real hobby horse of his.
You’re not getting a raise and nobody knows why
ChiFi.
At least you can’t ever lose everything.
“Each Fund has a secondary investment objective designed prevent a Fund’s NAV from going to zero and to recoup a small portion of substantial losses a Fund will experience due to an extreme negative single-day or short-term movement, in the case of the Long Fund, or positive movement, in the case of the Short Fund, in the Benchmark. Each Fund holds Stop Options with respect to all or substantially all of its S&P Interests with strike prices at approximately 75 percent, in the case of the Long Fund, or 125 percent, in the case of the Short Fund, of the value of the applicable underlying S&P Interest as of the end of the preceding business day. The Stop Options will serve primarily to prevent the total loss of 100 percent of a Fund’s assets from adverse short-term movements of 25 percent or more in the Benchmark, and may also allow a Fund to recoup a small portion of the substantial losses that would result from a large or catastrophic adverse movement in the Benchmark. The Stop Options are not expected to result in significant gains for any Fund, and will generally be considered a transaction cost for each Fund. Stop Options are expected to prevent a Fund’s NAV from declining beyond a threshold equal to the value of the strike prices of the Stop Options and the position exposure of the Stop Options as a whole. For more information on the operation of the Stop Options, see “The Offering—Other Trading Policies of the Fund—Options on Futures Contracts”.”
Foot rest is right. I heartily approve of his solution and will do what I can to see that he meets with the National Razor.
re: quoted article
pigs at the trough
grim,
If it wasn’t for the concerted political effort to cause the backlog, would the judicial process be the problem? Per 30year’s comment, if there was no robosigning, would there have been grounds for some to contest the foreclosure (doing nothing but slowing it down, not stopping it)? If NJ didn’t have judicial foreclosure, politicians could have still inserted themselves in the process causing delays.
Are we all forgetting what the robosigning “scandal” was all about?
It wasn’t about borrowers being in foreclosure, this was never in doubt.
Nor was it about who the current mortgage servicer was, this was never in doubt.
The issue was that lienholders assigned ownership of liens without utilizing the county mortgage recording process until such time as it was necessary. Let’s talk about what robosigning was really about, not the handful of outrageous exceptions and improprieties that were crimes in their own right.
Honestly, you could argue this was protest against what is an archaic, error prone recording system, and nothing more than a county money grab, who expected to be paid out for recording each assignment. A system that is wholly unsuitable for how the mortgage business currently works, because it’s no different from the 1800s.
Are we arguing that guilty murderers should get off because of technicalities during the investigation?
The issue is the foreclosure, and the borrowers unwillingness to pay.
Whether or not lenders should have to pay to record every assignment is a whole other matter entirely.
Grim – Too Big to Jail. AKA Justice in America
Obama/Holder brokered a deal with the 49 state attorney generals. 25 Billion settlement. What is a little false swearing in court really mean anyway?
Anyone here thinks if the banks did not pony up the 25 billion there would have been more prosecutions?
My Jimbrowski is too big to fail.
The US military sees climate change as a threat to national and global security. Fascinating to see ex-military officers, the Defense Secretary, and SecState Rex Tillerson (formerly CEO of Exxon), as the climate realists in the room.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-08/ex-military-brass-back-tillerson-mattis-in-climate-change-fight
Grim,
It is not about whether the delays in the process due to the robosigning issue were right or wrong. It is that they existed and created a delay in all states no matter their system of foreclosure.
In order for the system to function there must be foreclosure.
@TomPerez
Trump fired the man investigating him —
a deeply dangerous abuse of power.
We need a special prosecutor,
now.
@RonWyden
Comey should be immediately called to testify in an open hearing
about the status of Russia/Trump investigation
at the time he was fired.
There is only one and my number one choice for FBI director under Trump.
Caitlin Jenner.
Extra points and ratings for using a J Edgar Hoover’s dress.
Oh Trump’s going to appoint a special prosecutor all right.
Lock her up!
The left is undeniably unhinged. Hillary is blaming her loss in the election on the person that Trump just fired. This makes a lot of sense. Not!
Comey was giving a speech when the TV on in the room tuned into the news announced his firing. Can’t make this stuff up folks.
Steamturd
I want Moana to embrace the Warrior in SJW. I want him invested in his struggle. I want him to believe in his cause so much, he’s willing to die for it.
It will make obliging him someday that much sweeter.
Not Me
Good one. I like your style. You still have to be put down like a dog but I’ll miss that humor.
grim says:
May 9, 2017 at 4:17 pm
Are we all forgetting what the robosigning “scandal” was all about?
Yeah, nothing out of the ordinary for this country. Millions of instances of white collar crime going un-prosecuted.
It wasn’t about borrowers being in foreclosure, this was never in doubt.
Not entirely accurate, but fine (there were some examples of the wrong people being foreclosed on).
Nor was it about who the current mortgage servicer was, this was never in doubt.
Not entirely accurate, but fine (there were some examples of multiple entities trying to foreclose on a single property).
The issue was that lienholders assigned ownership of liens without utilizing the county mortgage recording process until such time as it was necessary. Let’s talk about what robosigning was really about, not the handful of outrageous exceptions and improprieties that were crimes in their own right.
– Proactively setting up a system to intentionally circumvent the fee and documentation requirements of the counties’ recording systems (tough to claim they didn’t know about them) – sounds like conspiracy to me
– Creation of forged/fraudulent documents and filing of false affidavits – a.k.a. millions of crimes punishable by up to 5 years in prison each (at least that’s the federal punishment)
– Clouding the chain of title on millions of homes
– Securities violations and tax evasion
If you look, in retrospect, there were some federal legislative attempts to force states to recognize these fraudulent documents as early as 2005.
But who really cares about county laws, REMIC trust laws, etc.… what really matters is foreclose as fast as possible, and don’t look back.
If it wasn’t for judicial foreclosure proceedings, the criminal acts may never have been brought to light. That’s a good thing.
Honestly, you could argue this was protest against what is an archaic, error prone recording system, and nothing more than a county money grab, who expected to be paid out for recording each assignment. A system that is wholly unsuitable for how the mortgage business currently works, because it’s no different from the 1800s.
“Error prone”… how is it now that MERS and friends broke the chain of custody on millions of properties? It was worse before?
Are we arguing that guilty murderers should get off because of technicalities during the investigation?
Yes.
“My Jimbrowski is too big to fail.”
Sorry Stu, your ED is now a pre-existing condition! No blue Pi1l$ for you!
Stu,
Still banging on about Hill? The $hit$torm is starting. This administration is lurching from one PR disaster to another, but doing real damage in the meantime. Yet you are playing while Rome burns.
“This whole Russian thing is complete BS.”
No its just getting started. If we have learnt anything over the last load of years is that its not the initial act that is the problem, its the cover up.
Is the Manchurian Candidate, NO! Is he leveraged up on Russ1an Debt through offshore fronts, I would say yes.
This will all come out eventually and the cover up and deflection will bring them down.
Joyce – Yes, exactly, all of that, but…
The borrower was in default.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/report-trump-was-mad-comey-wouldn%E2%80%99t-utter-three-important-words/ar-BBAXyyk?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
The CCP members from China probably own more and are invested in more Trump branded properties than any other nationality. Why doesn’t the fake news write a story about the Manchurian Candidate”s real paymasters? Are they afraid NYC property values will come tumbling down?
Juice,
I’ll go with this.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/07/eric_trump_allegedly_said_in_2014_that_russians_fund_trump_golf_courses.html
@jpodhoretz
FBI Director Omarosa.
‘It will make obliging him someday that much sweeter.’
Ahh the violent fantasies of an armed shut-in. Bob Owens would be proud.
Fab – cast aside your aspersions and enlighten us.
Is it the golf course bonds?
The mortgages on his various properties?
Did they secretly buy the Miss Universe pageant?
Most of Trump’s NYC properties have long since been sold to individual unit owners. So do tell us what is financed by foreign investors, and how much $$ have they really given him and his 500+ difference business entities?
And more importantly, why can’t they find the proverbial smoking gun
of the Russian bogeyman? After all “17” Federal agencies including the CIA and the Coast Guard say the Russians put Trump in office and it had nothing to do with Comey, Deplorables, or the inevitable “whitelash” against the Obama presidency.
@johncardillo
Of course McCain is hysterical. His fingerprints are all over using Hillary’s oppo firm to compile the fake dossier.
Fab, the problem is this;
http://observer.com/2017/04/kremlingate-and-the-limits-of-classified-evidence/
cahoots with Moscow to hurt Hillary Clinton. That the IC knew much of this last summer invites disturbing questions about the Obama administration’s puzzling inaction last fall, in the weeks leading to the election.
FBI director James Comey has tamped down expectations of any quick resolution of his Bureau’s investigation of KremlinGate. He is surely correct that this weighty matter is best addressed thoroughly and judiciously, not rashly. We need the facts—not assertions or unprovable claims from dodgy dossiers. The existence of top-secret evidence pointing to collusion between Team Trump and Team Putin means that investigators and prosecutors have red meat to work with, but that does not necessarily mean that indictments are coming soon.
Comey faces a particular problem, little understood by the public or even by most journalists covering KremlinGate. That’s the fact that classified evidence is inadmissible in court, and top-secret information will never be shown to a jury. FBI agents therefore face the uncomfortable difficulty of knowing (from highly classified reports) what was going on—and finding unclassified corroboration if they want to prosecute anybody.
Hence the pressing need to get co-conspirators to “flip” on each other and, even better, coercing confessions from those facing possible prison time. This is the usual FBI modus operandi, and it’s most effective against smaller fish who aren’t eager to take the rap for bigger ones. We can safely assume that the Bureau will lean on former members of Team Trump to get confessions; here the recent ham-handed effort by Michael Flynn, Trump’s disgraced former national security guru, a man with plenty of odd ties to the Kremlin himself, to get immunity in exchange for telling what he knows seems relevant.
Without such cooperation, including confessions from at least some members of Team Trump, the transition of KremlinGate from the investigation phase to prosecution is likely to stall. We don’t know exactly what the FBI knows, but some examples from past counterintelligence cases can illuminate the conundrum the Bureau faces right now.
Take the remarkable story of VENONA, the above-top-secret NSA program which at the dawn of the Cold War gave investigators a look into encrypted Soviet intelligence communications. Armed with VENONA, the FBI painstakingly identified numerous American agents of the Soviet secret police and military intelligence—that is, KGB and GRU. But such top-secret evidence was known to very few officials—President Truman was “read into” VENONA only in his last months in office—and served as lead information only.
In the notorious Rosenberg case, top-secret intelligence from NSA led to confessions from members of the KGB spy ring run by Julius Rosenberg. Yet he and his wife Ethel were convicted and executed not on the basis of VENONA, which proved the Rosenbergs were Soviet spies yet couldn’t be shown in court, rather thanks to lots of circumstantial evidence plus the confession of Ethel’s brother, who sent his sister and brother-in-law to the electric chair to save his own skin. The Justice Department relied on such unsavory tactics to win cases when the real evidence they possessed was classified.
That MO didn’t work as well on Alger Hiss, the State Department official with a side gig as a GRU spymaster whose involvement in espionage for the Soviet Union was proven by VENONA intercepts. A cagey lawyer, Hiss stood his ground and created doubts about the witnesses against him, and ultimately was convicted of perjury, not espionage. He served less than four years in prison and remained a left-wing icon until the mid-1990s, when VENONA messages illuminating his secret GRU career were declassified by NSA.
In some cases, important Soviet spies were never charged with, much less convicted of, any crimes. Take the case of Ted Hall, a physics prodigy who graduated from Harvard at 18 and went to work on the Manhattan Project, the development of the atomic bomb, in early 1944. A few months later, Hall approached the KGB, offering the Soviets atomic secrets—a treachery which placed Hall in no less than eight VENONA messages. The classified case against him was airtight.
Therefore, in 1951, armed with top-secret details of his clandestine Kremlin career, the FBI interviewed Hall, trying to get him to confess, but he stood his ground. His denials were firm. Bureau efforts to break Hall’s friend and fellow KGB agent Saville Sax likewise failed. Without a confession from either man, the FBI had no case they could take to court, and both Hall and Sax walked away, free men.
Other suspects broke quickly under FBI pressure. In the spring of 1950, the Bureau confronted Jones Orin York, who appeared in VENONA as a Soviet spy who had passed classified military secrets to Moscow. York admitted what he had done and named his KGB handler on the West Coast in the early 1940s, one “Bill Villesband.” Quick work by the Bureau revealed that his actual name was William Weisband—and he was working in the heart of American intelligence, inside the codebreaking effort against Moscow.
Bill Weisband in fact had been a Soviet spy since at least the mid-1930s, and he betrayed countless secrets to the Kremlin, including top-secret programs which broke into high-level Soviet military communications. He was a highly productive agent and agent-handler for the KGB. Thanks to Weisband, Moscow knew about VENONA (where the traitor appeared in at least two messages) several years before the White House did.
The FBI leaned on Weisband, to no avail. He firmly denied accusations of espionage and the case against him stalled. He was convicted of failure to appear before a Federal grand jury and did a year in prison, then returned to obscurity. Despite arguably being the most damaging traitor in American history, Weisband was never charged with espionage. NSA was just as happy to have the embarrassing Weisband debacle be forgotten, as it was until the late 1990s, when VENONA revelations got the case a modicum of attention.
The FBI today may be armed with reams of top-secret intelligence about KremlinGate. If Edward Snowden didn’t compromise it when he fled to Moscow, perhaps NSA has excellent information about this saga—something like VENONA 2.0. Yet even with such top-secret gems, the Bureau must convert SIGINT into indictments that will stick, which is never an easy task. Nobody should expect a quick resolution of this complex and most important case.
I found collusion with Putin, and Snopes says it is true!
http://www.snopes.com/obama-more-flexibility-russia/
But the left is convinced there were no traitorous communist spies in the US. It was all just McCarthyite hysteria applied to “idealists”.
Newsweek, 11/7: FBI Director James Comey Is Unfit for Public Service
Thinkprogress.org 10/31: The case for firing James Comey
Bloomberg: 10/31 Reid says Comey may have broken the law by disclosing probe
Chicago Tribune 11/7: James Comey should be fired
Resist! Resist logic! Fight reason!
30 year – NJ’s foreclosure process creates ghettos by delaying the time it takes for a deadbeat’s property to get into the hands of a financially strong owner. In NJ,these properties languish vacant and unmaintained for years. Whereas in non judicial states like California and Florida foreclosed homes are quickly sold to buyers who care. Many investors have bought tens of thousands of foreclosed houses, invested $25,000 or so to fix them up, then rent them to middle class families. This isn’t happening in NJ.
Much of Paterson is a ghetto. I know investors who bought houses there at peak prices in early 2000s using liar loans, haven’t been paying the mortgage, collected rent for a few years, then left the houses to rot. Had the banks foreclosed quickly and sold to the right investor, these houses wouldn’t be boarded up traps today. In Sussex County, the population is in free fall as people abandon their homes and by the time the bank gets them, they are uninhabitable.
In 6 months everyone will be in complete agreement that Omarosa is a much better FBI director.
Fab…the Russian stuff is complete bullsh1t. I remember when the original stuff came out, the elitist left were actually mocking Trump for claiming it was the Russians who rigged the election. The left is completely and undeniably unhinged. It’s worse than the birther movement now. Keep on digging. Just as Christie served out his term, so will Trump. Maybe two if the Dems don’t change their strategy. Sad, it call could have been avoided if the DNC embraced Bernie instead of destroying him. Stupid, Stupid, DNC. It hurts so much. Doesn’t it?
It seems like CNBC, MSNBC, and the like neglect to mention the content of Rosenstein’s letter.
https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/politics/fbi-director-james-b-comeys-termination-letters-from-the-white-house-attorney-general/2430/
What the left is really going ballistic about is how an objective Democrat like Rosenstein refused to hitch his wagon to their lie.
I think Trump has once again drawn the entire left, along with their media thugs, into a jiu-jitsu match they will lose, distracting them once again from something else that will be even bigger news.
copyright Trump 2017. Draining the swamp one scaly creature at a time.
BTW, Does anybody know the true motive behind the lying left’s persistent call for a special prosecutor to investigate nothing? I’ll tell you. If a special prosecutor is appointed and no indictments result, the special prosecutor is obligated to produce a full report on the full investigation. That would give the left one more nothing burger corpse to pick over for fake news. If the FBI investigates and finds nothing, guess what? You (should) hear nothing. Just one more reason to get rid of Comey, because he might hold a press conference of his own volition just like last year.
August 11 – 13 1964 made Patterson a Ghetto.
What drives the Left nuts and keeps HRC out for long walks in the woods is that the Comey email of 10/28/16 was entirely of their own making.
Had WJC not boarded the AG plane in the summer of 2016 and twisted her arm to get the email investigation ‘closed’ there would have been no need for Comey to subsequently report back to Congress in October when is was ‘re-opened’. Comey’s written correspondence to Congress in July exonerating Clinton required his response in October when additional evidence was discovered.
It is just icing on the cake that it was yet another man unable to keep his weener in his pants that produced that evidence and screwed HRC again.
Paranoid Clinton overreach with a side of sexual predation. Damn, that must hurt, LOL.
Yo! I really don’t have much patience for explaining why you are wrong. It is clear to me that you will not change your mind. Suffice to say that I have been around Paterson all my life. I was born there, my family had businesses in Paterson and I live in a neighboring community. My 35 year and counting career as an REO broker has kept me visiting the worst areas Paterson has to offer with regularity. I know what the city is, what is was, and how it is impacted by foreclosure better than most. Didn’t want to risk that you would have mistaken my silence in response to what you wrote as agreement.
D-FENS, Those neighborhoods have never recovered. Still the worst part of the city.
in other news:
Robert Eugene Owens, the editor of popular Second Amendment advocacy blog BearingArms.com, was found dead Monday morning in what authorities have ruled a suicide.
The 46-year-old was found by authorities outside of his North Carolina home next to a stop sign around 11 a.m. on Monday, the Fuquay-Varina Police Department said. A firearm was located near Owens.
“The cause of death in this case has been ruled suicide through means of self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head,” police officials confirmed in a statement.
30 year, do you think Paterson has any chance of ever recovering?
Paterson, like Newark, might experience pockets of recovery. But the whole city recovering like Manhattan? I doubt this will happen in our lifetime.
I think one of the problems is corruption. Corruption is a killer and they feed off the poor. It’s like the more corrupt the leaders are, the more intent they are in keeping the slums going to maintain their political power. Take away the poor in places like Paterson and Passaic, and the local power politicians lose their power over night.
Holy batter in a CAN!!!!!!
No more Aunt Jemima
After a gargantuan recall do to listeria contamination concerns Pinnacle Foods of Parsippany NJ to exit the frozen waffle, french toast and pancake business.
http://investors.pinnaclefoods.com/investor-center/news-and-events/news-releases/news-releases-details/2017/Pinnacle-Foods-to-Exit-Certain-Non-Strategic-Aunt-Jemima-Frozen-Breakfast-Products/default.aspx
When I was at Shoprite about a week ago, I saw them removing all of the frozen waffles. I assumed it was a recall.
Tell me Mrs. Butterworth wasn’t affected!
Aunt Jemima should have stuck to her pancake batter and crappy fake syrup anyway.
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/zhsv3p/you-gonna-eat-those-pancakes
I always buy Krusteaz brand batter.
(no I’m not kidding)
I prefer uncle jemima’s sour mash liqour personally…..
I think one of the problems is corruption. Corruption is a killer and they feed off the poor. It’s like the more corrupt the leaders are, the more intent they are in keeping the slums going to maintain their political power. Take away the poor in places like Paterson and Passaic, and the local power politicians lose their power over night.
They don’t feed off the poor. They systematically use them as pawns to suck money out of the middle class via aid, abbot funding, and all kinds of other ways. The poor doesn’t pay a dime towards any of this.
Bingo blue ribbon, the state government is in massive debt and property taxes are out of control in order to fund Newark, Camden, Paterson, Trenton, et al, which are used as a political power base for the democratic machine, all funds are used for influence peddling and nothing else. It has been the downfall of our once prosperous state.
Re-posting my original Paterson recovery plan idea:
1. Divide the city into an East half and a West half and make them independent municipalities.
2. Name the West half East Woodland Park.
3. Name the East half West Elmwood Park.
4. Just wait for organic gentrification.
5. (new) If necessary seed the population with gays.
Paterson, like Newark, might experience pockets of recovery. But the whole city recovering like Manhattan? I doubt this will happen in our lifetime.
“seed the population with gays.”
Soda out the nose brilliant!
Might as well use Straight Street as one of the town boundaries;-)
In other stock news, Pancake in a can (NHMD, top Pumpking stock pick) closed at 15 thousandths of a cent, down 6.83% on the day.
SNAP down 22% after bad first quarter. ouch.
@MaxBoot
The moral and
intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party,
documented.
@keithellison
45 undermines judiciary,
attacks press,
fires officials investigating him.
Builds plutocrat cabinet.
Foreign interference in election.
Hmm
“The moral and
intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party,
documented.”
Sore loser!
@EricHolder
To the career men and women at DOJ/FBI:
you know what the job entails and how to do it.
Be strong and unafraid.
Duty.
Honor.
Country.
clot has been sighted:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nazi-lover-change-hitler-official-article-1.3153643
Great words of encouragement from Holder. No doubt the employees that worked years only to see their cases settled with no o admission of wrong doing and fines much less than the illegal profits taken home appreciate it
Oh grab popcorn for this. Tom MacArthur getting grilled.
https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostPolitics/videos/10155059256187911/
I wish he was my congressman. He’s the only NJ congressman co sponsoring national concealed carry.
NJ2AS members are there to thank him personally.
Did you know that in California once you pass your drivers tests it takes two weeks to get your license in the mail. What a bunch of f*ck nuggets.
Anyone yelling at MacArthur either isn’t from his district or didn’t vote for him anyway.
It’s a total farce
Lewd pctures
http://arab.adultnet.in/?jacqueline
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Good read. Think he nails it. I didn’t even realize how tight this labor market is. It’s inevitable that we will have a coming battle with inflation.
“This calls for a change in priorities. Instead of worrying about robots destroying jobs, business leaders need to figure out how to use them more, especially in low-productivity sectors. Someday robots may replace truck drivers, but it’s much more urgent to make existing drivers, who are in short supply, more efficient. Clean energy advocates boast about how many people work in solar power when they should be trying to reduce the labor, and thus cost, involved.
The alternative is a tightening labor market that forces companies to pay ever higher wages that must be passed on as inflation, which usually ends with recession.
That is a more imminent threat than an army of androids.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/robots-arent-destroying-enough-jobs-1494434982?tesla=y&mod=e2fb
Robots and AI are destroying jobs, right? Maybe not. Occupation churn in the US is at record lows. Job creation is happening at about twice the pace that the US population is growing. Fascinating read from Greg Ip, who argues that more automation would increase prosperity faster.
“The doomsayers say this time is different, that technological change is so profound and so fast that millions of workers will end up on the dole or consigned to menial, minimum-wage mobs.
The pessimism would be more plausible if the evidence weren’t moving in exactly the opposite direction. The U.S. has many problems, but job creation isn’t one of them. In April, nonfarm private employment rose for the 86th straight month, the longest such streak on record.
Monthly job creation has averaged 185,000 this year, more than double what the U.S. can sustain given its demographics. This has driven unemployment down to 4.4%, a 10-year low and below most estimates of “full employment.” Growing labor shortages have boosted the typical worker’s annual wage gain to more than 3% now from 2% in 2012, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
If automation were rapidly displacing workers, the productivity of the remaining workers ought to be growing rapidly. Instead, growth in productivity—worker output per hour—has been dismal in almost every sector, including manufacturing.
In a compelling study released this week, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation demonstrates that the supposed gale of technology-driven job destruction is a myth.
Rob Atkinson, president of the industry-supported think tank, and researcher John Wu examined government data back to 1850 to measure jobs lost in slow-growing occupations and jobs created in fast-growing occupations, their proxy for job creation and destruction driven by technology and other forces. By this measure, churn relative to total employment is the lowest on record.
How can this be? An era that includes the shock of trade with China and the financial crisis ought to have rapidly shuffled workers throughout the employment deck. But we’ve forgotten how convulsive the past was. The authors note how in the 1800s and 1900s, agriculture, at the time the largest employer, was radically transformed by the end of slavery, the opening of the West, mechanization, and consolidation of small family-owned farms. In the 1960s, the expansion of office work created 885,000 janitor jobs, rising health-care consumption created 700,000 nursing aides and the baby boom led to the hiring of 600,000 more high-school teachers.””
Psuedonom
Who says I’m shut in?
Remind me what you’re driving these days?
Amen!
https://jalopnik.com/ill-tell-you-where-they-should-test-autonomous-cars-ne-1795102071
LOL. Colbert is surprised by the disconnect with his audience when he announces that Comey is sacked.
lost my old comment,
Stu/ Juice, here is my big red flag with Trump.
When he took office, he had an opportunity for a “Paulson”, rearrange your affairs to take office with a no tax penalty. He could have had the biggest tax write off in history. He could have sold to the kids, have them take on the mortgages and load up with Donnie Debt to make the cost basis stratospheric. Everything offshore, comes onshore tax free. But he didn’t take it. Donnie passed up free money and that is the biggest flag of all. I’m hearing at minimum 600Mil to Russian banks among other things.
So Comey, fired the day after the subpoenas start flying on Flynn. If he had a problem with Comey, T should have fired him 1/21 or shortly thereafter. Yes he can claim the political cover for the firing, but the timing and optics are terrible.
So with Flynn, Page etc with all these ties and allegations should they just be ignored? For me we are in Ken Starr territory.
Redux
So how am I meant to take stories like this?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/05/10/trumps-meeting-russians-closed-us-media-but-not-tass-photographer/101520384/
D-FENS
“Anyone yelling at MacArthur either isn’t from his district or didn’t vote for him anyway.”
No the kid that called him out on R@pe as a preexisting condition said he was from Columbus, so I put this down as locals.
And let me guess, no comment from Chi yet again on this!
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-icahn-insider-trading-20170509-story.html
This White house is “All about the Benjamins!”
Chi is too busy with this:
https://youtu.be/jY4SF8xWKFo
If he cheated, let him burn….what is the big fing deal?
Fabius Maximus says:
May 10, 2017 at 11:05 pm
And let me guess, no comment from Chi yet again on this!
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-icahn-insider-trading-20170509-story.html
This White house is “All about the Benjamins!”
Funny, your rant about Raj Rajaratnam back in the day made it seem that you thought Insider Trading was a big fing deal. Guess I was wrong.
There has been a gay community in Paterson for decades in the East Side Park section. They have restored many of the grand old homes.
Paterson is an immigrant community. Most recent groups to integrate have been Bangladeshi and Peruvian. Immigrants have kept the city vibrant.
Will Paterson recover? Paterson will not recover like Hoboken or Jersey City. Both of these towns are dependent upon NYC for their strength. Paterson does not have the proximity or mass transit needed to be that type of place. Until Paterson cleans up the heroin trade, gang violence and schools it will remain stuck in place.
Think about how many of the world’s problems would be solved if we could:
1. Annex Mexico.
2. Wipe out the drug cartels in the North.
3. Convince Israel to move out of their current bad neighborhood and give them Southern Mexico in exchange.
4. As always, seed the population with gays.
Everything between the Atlantic and Pacific would be just fabulous in no time.
There has been a gay community in Paterson for decades in the East Side Park section. They have restored many of the grand old homes.
Also that way, we’d have New Israel as our double-walled Southern border. Israeli-built, Israeli-tested tough.
Where else would they live? It’s close to Broadway and far away from Straight Street;-)
There has been a gay community in Paterson for decades in the East Side Park section. They have restored many of the grand old homes.
The problem with Paterson is that their two biggest exports are feta cheese and Feti Wap.
re: “I’m hearing at minimum 600Mil to Russian banks among other things.”
Fab when you are hearing voices it might be time for this 4 time times a year. INVEGA TRINZA®
The State-owned Bank of China and Trump are in bed for a $950 million dollar loan brokered by Goldman, yet the MSM makes no mention only the Russians Russians Russians! Then there is also another $350 million owed to the Germans via Deutsche Bank AG. The have Donnie dead to rights via the emoluments clause, he should fully divest.
As I said earlier you and your liberal cohorts are in love with your Russian Strawman, it is time to bury him and move one since he was never really alive and after all the man really behind the curtain is a Han not an East Slavic.
The problem with Paterson is that their two biggest exports..
What about the Hooch being made by Grim?
Thought the hooch was made in Clifton?
Fab…with my blinders off, you are giving Trump too much credit. This is a guy who spent nearly nothing on his campaign. I don’t even think he wanted to win. Hillary outspent him 2-1. And you think he paid the Russians to interfere? Or did they do it all on their own? And if so, why? Is Trump a bumbling idiot who shoots from the hip and has no friggin’ clue what he’s doing? Sure. I can hop on that train. But did he pay the Russians to hack the election? Now you give him way too much credit.
BTW, though I don’t fault Obama for going for the money. It validates what I’ve been saying all along. Doesn’t matter if you are an R or an D. They are all the same. They are all out for themselves and will continue to placate their bases (sheeple) to get there. And where balance would help control this base placating? There’s currently an elephant on one side of the seesaw and some balsa wood on the other.
This reminded me of pumps…. It’s about house ownership.
https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-stops-people-from-having-the-life-they-want/answer/Cody-Shirk
http://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2017/05/10/ciattarelli-open-to-nj-paying-for-all-of-gateway-if-it-must-111949
SECAUCUS — Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey, said that the Gateway project must be funded no matter what — even if his state would have to cover the entire estimated cost of $20 billion, or, realistically, more.
Ciattarelli said that the project “needs to be” included in President Trump’s putative $1 trillion infrastructure project. But if it is not, and if he was chief executive of the state of New Jersey, Ciattarelli would support a compromise solution in which his state foots the bill, as long as New York would also give up something in return.
“One thing we can possibly do is offer them this: if the federal government is not willing to fund the Gateway project, New Jersey will pay for it entirely — if we are the ones who get the income taxes on the wages of these 200,000 New Jerseyans that work in New York,” he said.
He said New York now collects about $2 billion in income taxes from New Jersey commuters. “When the tunnel is paid for, we get to keep those income taxes over the long term,” he said, promising that New Jersey tax rates will “always” be lower than New York.
Ciattarelli outlined his plan for NJ Transit, the state’s unreliable transit agency, on Wednesday morning at Secaucus Junction. He had ridden the train to and from New York Penn Station, then held his press conference.
He said his zero-stop trip to New York, which should have taken 14 minutes, took more than 30. “So, it was just another day in the life of a daily New Jersey Transit rider,” he said. “I think this is an often-overlooked element to the chronic delays of mass transit: the stress.”
Lincoln tunnel opened in 1937
Holland tunnel opened in 1927.
Not sure when they started collecting tolls, however.
They have as far back as I can remember.
Why wasn’t any money put aside from the tolls to pay for a future tunnel.
Where did all the money go?
Sorry, the experts are late to the party. Could have came on this blog 5 years ago to hear Pumpkin tell you this was coming.
“”They’re crawling out of their parents’ basements, they’re forming households and they’re looking to buy,” said Doug Bauer, chief executive of Tri Pointe Group Inc., which operates in eight states.
The return of first-time buyers allays fears that millennials would eschew homeownership and provides a long-awaited infusion of new demand to the market. These new buyers could also be a boon to the overall economy by driving builders to build more homes. But demand is ramping up at a time when supply is already tight and price growth is significantly outstripping wage gains.”
Next Hot Housing Market: Starter Homes – The Wall Street Journal
https://apple.news/AQ-rIE6UMQLKEH1nXcqRVzg
Need to keep the ideas coming….this is a start.
“He said New York now collects about $2 billion in income taxes from New Jersey commuters. “When the tunnel is paid for, we get to keep those income taxes over the long term,” he said, promising that New Jersey tax rates will “always” be lower than New York.
Ciattarelli outlined his plan for NJ Transit, the state’s unreliable transit agency, on Wednesday morning at Secaucus Junction. He had ridden the train to and from New York Penn Station, then held his press conference.
He said his zero-stop trip to New York, which should have taken 14 minutes, took more than 30. “So, it was just another day in the life of a daily New Jersey Transit rider,” he said. “I think this is an often-overlooked element to the chronic delays of mass transit: the stress.””
Lol….true. This guy points out what my only supporter on this blog points out…. “It’s because you are challenging their thinking. You are proposing something that doesn’t exist in their mind, so their initial reaction is to fight it.”
And I understand when renting makes sense. Most of the time, it does not. The longer you can stay in the same house, the better off you will be, and that has always been my point. It’s how you put more money in your pocket, by buying and holding long term. The up and downs of the cycle don’t matter long term. But if you want to sit here and argue that renting is better in a short period, you will have no arguments from me. I only focus on real estate in the long term, short term thinking has no business in real estate, it’s how you get killed in it. No smart long term mindset in real estate ever gets burnt or hurt from their purchase. Only the short term thinkers get killed and burnt with their greed.
Phoenix says:
May 11, 2017 at 10:24 am
This reminded me of pumps…. It’s about house ownership.
https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-stops-people-from-having-the-life-they-want/answer/Cody-Shirk
Pumps,
Nothing new. What is a starter home in NJ? What should a “starter home” cost?
Today’s starter home is a condo or a townhouse. No one builds them. You will not find a 1100 sq ft home built new today in NJ. Many towns also have minimum size lots where the land would be worth more than the dwelling. It’s all about segregation. Older residents don’t want children adding to their tax bill, yet they want to sell a house they bought for 20k for maximum profit even when the inside looks like it did when Eisenhower was president. Look back at my posts, go ahead, try and build a Levittown type community in NJ at the same price it was done then (inflation adjusted), cannot be done.
Poor, poor pumpking. He made the worst financial decision of his life and thinks he can hype and pump his way out of it like he is pumping and (not) dumping a penny stock.
I heard NHMD is expanding into suppository in a can. Why stick your finger up your ass when you can shove a nozzle in your tukhus?
Hahahahahahaha
I’d buy that!
There a video from Moana’s math class. Anyway, he had a rocking beard then. And Otto was there. Nice overalls
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM
More than a few I know who want out now . High taxes and all the rest. They expect big bucks for their houses banging on about their kitchen remodel from 15 years ago and how much extra they will get for that! Many are at peak earning in their careers and yet expect some younger couple or family to come along and give them top dollar for their house with the ridiculous tax bill. Many of these may have student loans too as well as day care something many of the people selling did not have in their day. Of course they don’t like when I point that out to them. Or when I tell them they won’t get that price and they won’t. My spouse used to tell me to be nice and say nothing but she got tired of being nice so told me I can say what I want now. And I do.
If it stood a snowball’s chance in hell of getting through committee, I’d analyze this. But it is illustrative of how the Left will try to get through pension bailouts and go after heretofore untaxed income, like Roth IRA distributions.
They are both in there, buried deep in a lot of tinkering designed to raise revenues and bail out pensions without appearing to do so.
Death by a thousand cuts.
whoops, would help if I posted the link, right?
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/koppa?inline=file
Expat,
“I heard NHMD is expanding into suppository in a can. Why stick your finger up your ass when you can shove a nozzle in your tukhus?”
Two minute coughing/laughing fit because of that.
“Why wasn’t any money put aside from the tolls to pay for a future tunnel.
Where did all the money go?”
Same place the Thruway tolls went, which were to be ‘escrowed’ for future maintenance and construction once the bonds were paid off. Into the General Fund. Pigs at the trough.
Re: Israel/Mexico, there was a very funny sitcom episode, maybe a movie scene, that did something similar. A proposal to relocate Israel to Mexico. Very funny IIRC. Couldn’t find it easily with a google, feel free to post if anyone knows what I’m speaking of.
The main problem with Mexico is too many Mexicans.
Especially for the ExPat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQoTlVgmPK8
…and you can’t make this stuff up….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4496392/Harvard-hold-separate-black-graduation-ceremony.html
You want that in the can?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri791tauGmU
haun Tanner, a web developer and meteorologist, lives in San Jose, California, and works in Alameda, over an hour’s commute each way. His profession and location might indicate that Tanner is affluent, part of the storied Silicon Valley tech boom. But Tanner’s experience is quite different. He has a $3,000 monthly mortgage, less than half of his monthly income. Yet “week to week,” he says, he “still feels a crunch” on Fridays. “There’s nothing left here,” he says.
Until last September, Tanner had to work three jobs to pay for his health insurance and family’s expenses – as a meteorologist at Weather Underground, a rain-and-shine site, as an independent contractor, and as an instructor at San Jose State University. Now, he is down to working only two jobs, including laboring for what is called a “weather drone start-up”. (Cool! Scary!) Nonetheless, Tanner is still economically pressured, still commuting, and still heavily exerting himself to pay for three kids in after-school and daycare, all aged 10 and under.
“People see I work in the tech industry and they think I should be a multimillionaire,” Tanner explains. He’s not, needless to say. And living in the shadow of the tech industry has been even worse for some of his friends, he tells me, most of whom don’t have “ridiculous” tech jobs but whose cost of living are nonetheless full of “alienating” comparisons.
Tax that man. He makes too much money.
WSJ
OPINION
COMMENTARY
The Minimum Wage Eats Restaurants
A San Francisco ex-owner says: ‘There’s only so much you can charge for tamales.’
By Michael Saltsman
San Francisco’s ever-rising minimum wage—set to hit $15 next year—has restaurant owners asking for the check. “At Least 60 Bay Area Restaurants Have Closed Since September,” read a January headline at the website SFist, which partly blamed “the especially high cost of doing business in SF, with a mandated, rising minimum wage that does not exempt tipped employees.” Another publication, Eater, described the rash of recent closures as a “death march.”
Perhaps the highest-profile closure in San Francisco this year was AQ, which in 2012 was a James Beard Award finalist for the best new restaurant in America. Rising costs chipped away at the restaurant’s profitability, according to a report by Thrillist, driving down the profit margin from 8.5% in 2012 to 1.5% by 2015.
When San Francisco added its own municipal minimum wage in 2004—one of the first in the country—the operating assumption was that tourists and techies would pay the higher prices necessary to offset the cost of the city’s generosity. Last year the San Francisco Chronicle looked at 20 years’ of menus from top restaurants and reported that prices had jumped 52% since 2005, twice the rate of inflation. But increasing prices isn’t a panacea for restaurant owners. “There’s only so much you can charge for tamales,” the owner of a small eatery said in 2015 to explain one reason he was closing.
For some empirical backup, consider an April study from Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research. They used Bay Area data from the review website Yelp to estimate that a $1 minimum-wage hike leads to a 14% increase in “the likelihood of exit for a 3.5-star restaurant.”
Put differently, San Francisco’s minimum wage experiment may be dangerous for your favorite white-tablecloth restaurant—the kind of place where the food is exquisite and can command a premium—but it’s downright deadly for your local white-apron diner.
If there’s a silver lining to San Francisco’s culinary struggles, it’s that other cities, even ones run by Democrats, are realizing the arguments for a $15 minimum wage don’t match reality. In March, Baltimore’s mayor, Catherine Pugh, vetoed a measure that would have raised the local mandate to $15 by 2022. “I want people to earn better wages,” she told this newspaper. “But I also want my city to survive.”
California lawmakers have been less thoughtful in their approach. Under legislation passed last year the state will raise its wage floor to $15 an hour as soon as 2022. That mandate applies not only to the prosperous coast but also to the impoverished inland. California is already a net exporter of working-class residents. From 2000-15, the state lost a net 800,000 people living close to the poverty line, according to a Sacramento Bee analysis of Census Bureau data.
These families understand something that the City Council in San Francisco and the Legislature in Sacramento do not: New wage mandates and government benefits don’t mean much if you can’t find a job.
Mr. Saltsman is managing director of the Employment Policies Institute.
Appeared in the May. 10, 2017, print edition.
I saw this attitude at Cornell in the late 1980’s, in fact I lost a friend over it. When I told her I was moving to the main off-campus neighborhood, she castigated me for moving to be amongst the Jews…….meanwhile “they” all self-segregated themselves off in one corner of the campus….
Newbomb Turk says:
May 11, 2017 at 2:49 pm
…and you can’t make this stuff up….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4496392/Harvard-hold-separate-black-graduation-ceremony.html
That’s cool. Black graduation and non-Black graduation. That’s the way to network.
My MIL is always making noises about moving to New England since both her daughters and all her grandchildren live here while she lives alone in NJ. I think what stops her is once she moves up here she’s just an old lady from New Jersey and any talk about raising her family in Glen Rock means about the same to people up here as raising your family in Newark; Bergen County counts for nothing to people who never heard of Bergen County.
One trip up here she commented on how she kind of likes Wellesley. Being the fun-loving SIL that I am, I said, “Yeah…I’m not sure they let people from Jersey move there.”
Anal whippet? NHMD?
NHMD – Nate’s Home Medical Devices…in a can, and in your can.
Nom – I think there should be Oscar nominations for all involved, short subject. Speaking of short subject, Otto stole the show.
There a video from Moana’s math class. Anyway, he had a rocking beard then. And Otto was there. Nice overalls
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM
N – Need
H – Hiney
M – Majorly
D – Deflowered
I just thought of something. Do leftists need both a permanent underclass and a permanent [virtual]overclass? I’m guessing Venezuela is finding out right now what happens when the mouths exceed the purses?
N – Need
H – Hiney
M – Majorly
D – Deflowered
Ahhh…the secret mission(and sauce) of the first Clinton campaign.
BTW, Have you figured out why the leftist media has skipped quite abruptly to the Nixon campaign when it comes to the “firing” of anybody, as opposed to the 1993 firing of the FBI Director by President Clinton? Maybe because Vince Foster was found dead the very next day?
http://www.businessinsider.com/last-fbi-director-fired-bill-clinton-william-sessions-2017-5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Foster
Watching CNN. I’m pretty sure that Wolf Blitzer has a DNC anal implant while (D)Joaquin Castro is struggling to answer so as not to have one injected from an NHMD can(shhhh! Military application subsidiary).
Do you want a killer retail business to copy? Clot – this seems right up your alley.
1. Hi rent zip code (Chestnut Hill, here) think Summit, Short Hills, etc.
2. Liquor store in a strip mall (CVS on one side, Brueger’s Bagels on the other side).
3. Absolute BEST prices (you just can’t beat their alcohol prices, especially on cases and 1.75L hard liquor)
4. Superior deli with superior lunch specials, SUPERIOR dinner specials, and the best of any sides you would buy for a BBQ, (I bought incredible cole slaw, $4.99/lb. and shrimp salad with GIANT shrimp for $9.99/lb. today). My guess is that the cash flow of the liquor business holds up the business, but the real margin is made at the deli. BTW, you can buy cold cuts by the pound, bread items, other stuff at the deli too.
5. (here’s something you don’t ever see in a strip mall) – There are TWO SIZES of the highest quality shopping carts I have ever seen at a strip mall liquor store. I think this is what gets people to over-buy, after all, the prices are the best around. I just about never spend less than $65 there.
Does anyone else have a liquor store with the best prices in town where they can’t stop thinking about their last $9.99 pot roast dinner or $9.99 per pound giant shrimp salad?
I’ll give you a fer’instance. I asked my wife if she wanted to have burgers on the grill tonight. She said yes. I told her I was making a run out to the liquor store. She asked if I was going to “Gary’s”. I said I was thinking about it. She wanted me to pick up cole slaw there, if I went. I drover there, bought a small container of cole slaw ($4.99/lb.) a small container of large shrimp shrimp salad ($9.99/lb.), two 1.5L bottles of wine, a case of beer, and a 1.75L bottle of flavored Vodka. $63. My wife wanted cole slaw, I wanted beer, and I spent $63 and am incredibly satisfied with my purchase. That sounds like a win-win if you are the retailer.
One more thing: Think high rent neighborhood. Gary’s is way *over*priced for mixers, cheese, etc.
Limes are $14 each. Kidding.
New Children’s Book by Cheslea Clinton.
https://m.imgur.com/8pOGOay?r
lol
Jcer, and whoever else I missed, just wanted to say great call. We all stated millennials were not going to rent for life, despite the experts stating otherwise, that they indeed wanted the same as previous generations when raising a family. Therefore, we were on pt with our call that suburbs are not dead. Far reaching ones, yes, but not the ones with everything at their fingertips. Are things going to be different, yes, but at the heart of the matter….no.
https://apple.news/AQ-rIE6UMQLKEH1nXcqRVzg
Pumpking reminds me of my friends who went in as partners in ski condos up in Sussex in 1985-86. We had a lot of fun, my girlfriend bought one too, and I skied hundreds of days and ran up thousands on her bar tab at Kites. In the end, it was as fun time, but no profits. So sad for the bright eyes who couldn’t see the brick wall, but a great time for the rest of us!