C19 Open Discussion Week 18b

From Marketwatch:

Home prices could fall in major cities as Americans sour on urban living, says Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller

The coronavirus pandemic has many Americans heading for the hills — or the suburbs, as it were. And home prices in cities could decline as a result, says Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller. 

In an interview with CNBC, Shiller outlined the broad risk to the economy posed by the spread of the novel coronavirus and the resulting impact on the global economy.

Where housing is concerned though, the impact of a decline wouldn’t be felt equally across all markets. Rather, Shiller laid out a worst-case scenario for urban markets around the U.S.

“What’s nice about the city? It’s good restaurants, theaters, museums, art shows,” he said. “But if you’re afraid of people because you think you might catch something in the next epidemic then it may color your whole feeling about the city.”

In addition to that fear, many employers have embraced remote working amid the coronavirus pandemic. Facebook, has said it will ramp up hiring remote workers, while other firms have given workers the option to continue working from home indefinitely amid the pandemic. There’s even a “work-from-home” ETF that’s aiming to capitalize on the trend.

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192 Responses to C19 Open Discussion Week 18b

  1. Fast Eddie says:

    My company initially stated the WFH policy will not be permanent but I wonder if competition from other firms in the form of a WFH or remote work option will be an incentive in attracting potential candidates.

  2. NoImagination FromBoomers says:

    Fast Eddie and Leftwing from yesterday regarding virus’ temporary immunity.

    I think most people still have not opened their imagination to the upcoming permanent changes caused by the virus that will occur at the same time as a generational shift is occurring.

    -Ok, so we get a vaccine that will be seasonal. You got the anti-vaxxers and assorted ideological crackpots blasting away amplified my social media.
    -China. Anybody read this morning that Hong Kong special status is gone. Expect retaliation where it hurts. Look for cutting off PPE, medical supplies, and medications. Normally, a rapid build up of manufacturing capabilities using the Defense Act and the Federal Reserve financing would make sense. But with the losers in charge on both sides of the aisle, expect nothing.
    -Expand China’s issues into corporate world made worse by Wall Street, Bankster, PE, etc, pushing hard for the “let it self burn out – herd immunity theory” which might not exist, so we will be repeating this ad-nauseam yearly.

    There are times in history, like post WW2’s Berlin Blockade/Marshall Plan that need creative solutions. Issue is those in power had their brain cooked with all the 80’s Yeyo.

  3. homeboken says:

    NoImagination – Good points, my opinions are that there is nothing in your statements that can’t be quickly corrected via free market capitalism. No price limits on items, such as PPE. Market participants are very good at filling production voids when properly motivated via profit. That means no subsidy, no price limits, no limits on wages for the the production staff. Just good old free market capitalism. I mean, 2 months ago you couldn’t order a mask anywhere on the net. Now, I see an assortment of sizes and designs for sale at my gas station counter. Granted, they are poor quality, but you get my point? The for profit market will respond light-years faster than the government.

    There is an argument to be made that price gouging should be limited but that will counteract the goal of allowing the market to find equilibrium. Think of it this way, for years we underpaid for products made by exploited cheap foreign labor pools, the market is coming back now to collect on that debt. Equilibrium – we may swing the pendulum to the edges of the equilibrium, but the market will always return to the mean.

  4. 3b says:

    Fast I would think they will have too.

  5. NoImagination FromBoomers says:

    Homeboken, you mis-understood me.

    Your idea of free market where competent fact based government does best is bs. You can see the best results of Iraq Part Deux- where everything from Kitchen duty to protecting the VIPS were contracted to overpaid mercenaries that all they did is sour the population and we lost.

    Kitchen duties – the basic of most basic duties that a GI did was contracted out to a company that brought Salvadorans. Of course boomers in powers would not know kitchen duties, as they avoided the draft.

    Sorry dude, but because of your free market privatization obsession is why we are in this mess. Government works when is set to do the right way. Don’t mistake the Pumpkin for your average government worker, he’s your typical Jersey connected public worker. Look more to Dr.Fauci -fighting the fight of facts over 80’s Bolivian marching powder damaged brain.

  6. Phoenix says:

    “There is an argument to be made that price gouging should be limited but that will counteract the goal of allowing the market to find equilibrium. ”

    Are you related to Martin Shkreli? :-)

  7. Juice Box says:

    Andecdotal on our new normal of Work From Home. I cruised by the Middletown NJ train station this morning after dropping my kids off at camp. A grand total of 20 cars in the parking lot at 9AM. Yes I took the time to count them. That is 20 commuters….Normally lot has several hundred cars in it.

  8. Juice Box says:

    Damn it feels good to be a gangsta…

    NEW YORK, July 15, 2020 – The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) today reported net revenues of $13.30 billion and net earnings of $2.42 billion for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020. Net revenues were $22.04 billion and net earnings were $3.64 billion for the first half of 2020

  9. Juice Box says:

    Speaking of Draft. We already have one draft dodger in the White House.

    But this latest candidate?

    “He is 6 feet tall and had an athlete’s build. He played football in high school and was active in sports throughout college. He spent one summer as a lifeguard at a local pool.

    But after he graduated college in the spring of 1968 and became eligible for the draft and —possibly — combat duty in Vietnam, he received a diagnosis that let him avoid military service. No, not bone spurs. Asthma.

    And his name was Joe Biden.”

  10. Bystander says:

    “Think of it this way, for years we underpaid for products made by exploited cheap foreign labor pools, the market is coming back now to collect on that debt.”

    Nonsense, home. We paid for this via lack of job stability/globalization, wage suppression, and overall increased consumer debt. Also, I guess you disagree with breaking up monopolies? Punishing businesses for being best at “free market capitalism”? Sorry, truth is that world does not work like Ayn’s bad book of idealism.

  11. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Cities are the only figments of society that have survived over time. Are we at the point where they die? I can’t bet against history on an issue that has never failed. You go with the trend, you don’t bet against it. I think a 7 billion population needs the city to survive. You can’t fit and feed 7 billion people efficiently living that spread out. Just doesn’t work like that.

    So what to do. If you like making money, buy up properties in the city if they drop and there is blood in the streets. History says that a mega city like nyc doesn’t die, it only grows over time. This trend is 100% correct as of this moment, trend has never been broken. Easy money.

  12. homeboken says:

    No, I do not agree with monopolies, cartels or unions. I believe that removing the legal protections that massive corporations, via their lobbying of legislature, receive will enable direct competition and the market will equalize.

    I think we are closer in opinion on this than you think.

  13. The Great Pumpkin says:

    And once they have a vaccine, everyone will forget about the virus and return towards their original thought process pre-virus. Just how humans are.

  14. Bystander says:

    Got it, home. Agreed but getting rid of lobbying, big money in politics and rewriting tax code..pure fantasy-land stuff. It will never happen thus we will never have free markets. The closet thing humans will ever come to free markets is a local vegetable market in Punjab, and I have my doubts about that being free.

  15. Juice Box says:

    Pumps – I don’t think you have traveled the world very much for a History teacher. All cities and civilizations are built upon the ruins of previous cities and civilizations, yet you still cling to the idea that people will go back to the old ways of doing things, ” original thought process”.

    We have already crossed into this new paradigm where thought has changed on working in an office building 50 hours + a week and spending another 10 + hours commuting. It has already changed forever as in the remainder of your lifetime.

    I will explain so you can better understand.

    The company I just mentioned above GS just posted record earnings with most of their NYC employees working from home. This is just one of the companies I speak of in NYC with loads and loads of MBAs who drive change in all business verticals, they sell a concept you might not understand, it’s called “success”.

    The people at McKinsey, Delottie, Accenture heck Grim’s company are all pushing remote work forever, cut expenses drastically, cut head count and payroll etc. They have put together decks and decks of Powerpoints for the boards of directors and C-Suite on how to permanently cut expense the bain of any companies existence and more importantly profitability.

    A lesson you may not learn in a public sector job is you cannot argue with “success” and these stories of companies doing exceptionally well with a remote workforce already have proven out that “success” yet you continue to cling and argue, you will be left of the heap of civilizations that have failed clinging to old ideas and ways of doing things.

  16. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    BRT re: SNES

    https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/07/13/Sealed-copy-of-Super-Mario-Bros-auctioned-for-a-record-114000/1341594662060/

    Leftwing, it’s pretty incredible. I’m flabbergasted by the amount of money people pay for these things. My friend was telling me some Pokemon game that he has 25 sealed copies of are going for $2k a pop. So he basically has $50k in Pokemon games. Here’s the kicker…every single one was picked up at garage sales he’s gone to over the past 10 years. He probably paid a grand total of 50 bucks for them at most.

  17. A Home Buyer says:

    I’ve had positions advertised to me from recruiters as “80% of time work from home”.

    I think it’s here to stay, much to the detriment of our quality of product.

  18. Juice Box says:

    Little known taxpayer lawsuit against borrowing 9.9 Billion in NJ for ongoing payroll.

    Governor Murphy’s lawyers are seeking to dismiss a Superior Court lawsuit filed last month to block his plan to borrow $9.9 billion and “no layoff” deal with 40,000 state employees. A motion brought by Assistant Attorney General Jean Reilly will be argued by telephone conference before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson at 11 AM this Thursday, July 16.

    Michael Smith, an Atlantic County taxpayer together with Liberty and Prosperity, a constitutional awareness group, filed the suit last month. They claim these state actions violate the balanced budget requirements of the State Constitution. Since 1844, New Jersey’s Constitution has barred state government from “creating debts and obligations” in future years without voter approval of a ballot question.

    The plaintiffs are represented by Seth Grossman, a Somers Point attorney and former candidate for Congress.

    “It is obvious that both the $9.9 billion borrowing plan and ‘no-layoff’ deal create debts and obligations in future years.” Grossman said. “Murphy is trying to completely misuse a very narrow exception to the Constitutional requirement of voter approval for debt.

    The State Constitution does not require voter approval when “debts or obligations” are created “to meet an emergency caused by disaster or act of God”.

    Grossman said, “Borrowing $9.9 billion to keep “non-essential” state employees at full salary with raises is not an emergency. Saying so is not an “act of God” because Murphy is not God.” Grossman said. “Murphy knew since last March that his shutdowns of private businesses would cause a big drop in tax collections”. He has almost 18 months to cut spending and balance the budget now”.

    “For the past four months, Murphy paid CWA union members in full, then he made a deal to keep that going for another eighteen months. Now he wants to borrow $9.9 billion so the people who are losing almost everything will pay 35 years of higher taxes so those who work for state government lose nothing”.
    Grossman said. “That’s why they made this bizarre sweetheart no layoff deal”.

    “Under this crazy deal, thousands of state employees are given ten unpaid furlough days in July when they are most needed, to they are required to be paid for the next 18 months when many are not needed”. Grossman said.

    “The only reason they did this was so state employees on furlough could collect both state and federal unemployment benefits”.

    “Some of them will probably make more money on furlough than they do when they are working” Grossman said.

    The balanced budget clause was added to the New Jersey Constitution in 1844. It was done after state governments throughout the United States borrowed heavily and defaulted on their bonds. This caused widespread bank failures known as the Panic of 1837 and years of economic depression.

    During the past sixty years, New Jersey Governors and legislators of both parties avoided this constitutional requirement by creating independent “authorities” to borrow without voter approval. Although many debts from these authorities are paid back with taxes and tolls, the State has no legal obligation to do so.

    However, if the State borrows money directly through the Constitution, it is required to authorize and automatic statewide property tax surcharge to pay back the loan. This is similar to the automatic gas tax and toll hikes used to pay back debts of the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority.

    Grossman said the lawsuit is just one of several steps planned by his organization to stop the debt. “Even if we lose in the lower courts this year, we can still appeal. Even if we lose there, voters can elect future legislators who refuse to fund unconstitutional debt not approved by voters or use bankruptcy or insolvency to cut state debt. New Jersey already has more than $230 billion in debts and unfunded pension obligations. These debts are unsustainable and will never get paid. Every day we delay addressing this problem means more hardship for more people.

    -30-
    Seth Grossman, Executive Director
    LibertyAndProsperity.com

    https://mailchi.mp/libertyandprosperity.com/news-release-judge-jacobson-to-rule-99-billion-nj-debt-case?fbclid=IwAR1BcdoJadxzQSZoCledc3tW-i6IkLuWLtUBkTK81J6K1zs1vpflQBK5aY8

  19. Juice Box says:

    BRT – History Rhymes.

    Beanie Babies bubble, people are probably borrowing against their credit cards, homes and 401ks in a to bid to make a windfall on these old game cartridges.

    https://qz.com/114753/meet-the-family-who-lost-100000-when-the-beanie-baby-bubble-burst/

  20. 3b says:

    Juice: Well said , as always. WFH is here to stay. All the hysterics and pontificating otherwise won’t change that fact. Great cities have risen and fallen through out history, they may still exist in some form, but the greatness is gone.

  21. AP says:

    BRT, about the recent jump on the price of collectibles. I see that too. I like to buy old audio gear sometimes, and units I saw before the quarantine for 500 bucks are going on starting bid for 700 in some cases.

    It reminds me of the movie Blade Runner, where everything from the past was highly valuable as it provided some kind of emotional link to a better, more innocent time.

    People always paid a premium for nostalgia, but maybe now more than ever.

  22. Bystander says:

    BRT,

    My ex’s uncle was Disney fanatic. Collected anything and everything for 30 years (back in 2007 so more now). Basement full of rare stuff. He stocked Hallmark cards for a living but I am guessing that he will have millions in retirement. People think stocks are good investments..it has nothing on the right collectibles.

  23. Juice Box says:

    Anecdotal – School board online meeting last night ran until 11 PM. They spent the first hour reading an hour long presentation on plans. All garbage and a waste of time as well we could have read it before the meeting if they simply sent it out. We all know they school system cannot protect the children from getting the FLU never-mind covid-19, yet they wasted everyones time.

    They would not answer any questions and basically lawyer-ed up on the tough ones like IEP. I foresee many many long drawn out lawsuits….We could have a lost generation on our hands here.

    I am loathe do it but the local catholic schools will be open and are taking applications.

  24. Fast Eddie says:

    No one is mentioning the human factor or the lack of it regarding WFH. How will not seeing colleagues or in-person meetings affect the personal side of not confiding with colleagues? No more side bars, glances, exchanges, coffee discussions, impromptu cubicle meetings to discuss an issue…. all gone. There’s pros and cons when WFH.

  25. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Okay, so if cities are dead. Where are all these people going to live? How do you eliminate cities? You guys are pretty crazy.

    Juice,

    Civilizations have fell, but the city remained. You missed my point. How long has Paris been around? How long has Rome been around? Cairo?

    Im sorry, I respectfully disagree with you guys. WFH is not the norm and cities will not die. WFH will work in some fields and not all.

    It seriously sucks the competitive edge out of you. Makes you less of a hungry and creative worker. At home, you simply don’t give a f’k. You lose your all connection with your company and co-workers. It’s like people that were a big part of your life, you don’t even know anymore. You have no idea of the direction of the company(due to no social talk with co-workers), which is a recipe for chaos long term for the company. How do you even ask for a raise? It will be like asking for a raise through a screen? Wtf?!

    This world is doomed and I’m glad to have lived through the peak.

  26. Juice Box says:

    3b – Hence the opportunity now exists to hang out a shingle and get a premium for the crap shack. Heck if my kids are going to get another year off from attending school and the governor wants to enact a state property tax to make up for current payroll shortfalls which is only a stop gap for a year why be held hostage to the local school board and the governor?

    I might as well cut my expenses to the bone and educate my kids myself with some stuff you cannot learn in a history classroom taught by with a dolt.

    All I need now is to get the boot and a years severance pay to push me over the edge. My local realtors are banging on doors looking for sellers, might be time to get out before the next bagholder figures out the game.

  27. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Seeing your co-worker move up motivates you. You lose this with WFH. Competitiveness of avg worker takes a major hit. There is no keeping up with the Jones’s if you never see anyone.

  28. 3b says:

    Fast: Valid points, but Zoom addresses some of those points. As well, with the young people in my office most of them have headphones on all day, and don’t seem to want to interact. They have their lunch buddies, but that’s about it. Some of them don’t even want to say hello when you pass them in the hall or kitchen.

    The people with young kids are out the door at 5 to 5:00 P.M. I find office culture very much changed from when I first started out.

  29. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Maybe this has to do with a record run in stocks during this period.

    “The company I just mentioned above GS just posted record earnings with most of their NYC employees working from home. This is just one of the companies I speak of in NYC with loads and loads of MBAs who drive change in all business verticals, they sell a concept you might not understand, it’s called “success”.”

  30. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    So a cop that decides to stay in his station house and not respond to a call that he deems dangerous is a problem.

    But a teacher that decides he can’t go back to the classroom because COVID is too dangerous, is no problem.

    This is one talking point that getting talked about from both sides without much knowledge of the options at hand.

    We are slated to open in the fall. Nobody is forcing teachers to go back to school. Teachers are allowed to take a leave of absence if they do not feel safe returning in September. There is talk of possibly allowing people in those categories to be the “distance learning teacher”. Nobody is forcing students to go back to school, they have an option to remote learn.

    All I see on facebook are people posting about how we are going to slaughter all the kids and teachers. I just don’t see it. Most of the teachers that were in the cohort of at-risk were forced into early retirement by Chris Christie’s policies. The few that remain, can take the year off if they want. Given retirements this year, I can’t identify a single person I work with that falls into this category in my building.

    With respect to the students, this virus does not pose a threat to 99.999% of the population. It’s ludicrous to even bring this up when influenza has always been far more of a threat to their life. We’ve killed more kids via school bus in New Jersey than Covid has killed nationwide. I will concede that there is the possibility that they transmit it to their grandparents, so if their grandparents lived at home with them, I would consider the remote learning option. My father in law has an immuno-compromised condition and we, for the past 7 years, have always made sure to not visit or cancel a visit with the slightest cough or ill feeling in any of us. People should be practicing this regularly.

    I’ve spoken to about 20 teachers at last week’s graduation. Every one of them wants to go back to work and completely loathed online learning. We generally don’t get sick because we are constantly put through a germ pit on a daily basis. I personally don’t fear a virus that I know my immune system is fully capable of fighting off.

    From a science standpoint there’s a paper out that claims there is a lot of evidence that the reason nearly half the population is asymptomatic once contracting the virus is that they were exposed to previous coronaviruses that were related. There are also several instances of nearly entire prisons or homeless shelters where every single occupant tests positive yet none are symptomatic. Again, two closely confined germ pits. I wouldn’t be surprised if the schools exhibit a similar outcome given that most children are by default completely asymptomatic.

    Moreover, I can tell that in my district, we were in the thick of things when this thing was silently spreading like crazy in Feb and March. Train town commuting to NYC. Many of my students tested positive for antibodies and many of our staff tested positive for the virus itself. It already ran through our school and none of us even noticed.

  31. 3b says:

    Juice: do you really think it will be that bad with the school situation? I would think it would be very tempting to hit the sell button on your house if your situation works out the way you want it. My town has very little inventory, but what is out there is 600k to a million, lots of price drops but still not selling at those prices in Brigadoon on Hackensack! As for your prior comment and my response it went right over that persons head.

  32. The Great Pumpkin says:

    3b,

    Just remember in your belittling game that you took the position that suburbs were dead a few years ago. That everyone wanted to live in the city. Now all of a sudden, cities are garbage and burbs all the rage?

  33. The Great Pumpkin says:

    How bout the idea that major metropolitan hubs like nyc will continue to grow both its urban core and the outlying burbs. All cycle based, meaning will have peaks and troughs as it continues to grow long term.

    No one is going to abandon nyc economic hub region to build up middle America grasslands because they can WFH.

  34. Fast Eddie says:

    I want to go back to the office. This isolation is unhealthy.

  35. 3b says:

    GS profits came from trading and investment banking, most of it done WFH. Also did not have to put reserves aside to cover loan losses from consumer banking as Marcus is a small player, and would not be surprised if they dumped it at some point.

  36. 3b says:

    Pumps : I will make an exception and respond to you. Yes, I did you are absolutely right. The pandemic has changed everything, one needs to be able to adjust their outlook based on facts and circumstances. And now there is flight to the suburbs, only people are overpaying to be close to cities in this NYC, when many wont be going back at all, or one or two days a month.

    As for not moving to the grasslands as you say, many firms were already geographically dispersing their workforce prior to the pandemic. You should realize that those of us actually in the corporate workspace have far better insight into what is going on then you do.

  37. Juice Box says:

    Finally an article on the 10 Billion our governor wants to borrow for payroll.

    https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/07/gov-murphys-unconstitutional-plan-to-borrow-10b-is-wacko-on-steroids-opinion.html

  38. Bystander says:

    “How will not seeing colleagues or in-person meetings affect the personal side of not confiding with colleagues”

    You must work for smaller companies. Most big corp jobs don’t need this type of creative interaction. I have worked at mostly major banks for over 15 years. They could give a flying f* about these items. Try being one of 3 resources in US, managing 40 Wipro staff in India plus 10 perms. Who cares about water cooler talk? They spend millions setting up virtual tools, thinking it covers face to face interaction. Never will but someone sold it. You would not believe “build it and they will come” attitude. There are four people in our management support area who set-up their own communication and KPI channels to track various aspects of our programs. They send out notices about using their tool (glorified Sharepoint site) and now want to track when you logged in. No one wanted these things and it provides no value. They all think it is our only role to fill out their sh&t. Insanity never ends. All to mimic conversations and capture “shared” knowledge

  39. grim says:

    We can no longer hire for work at home jobs if there is a potential that the job will go back into a brick and mortar location in the future. It simply turns candidates completely off right now, even the possibility.

  40. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Didn’t I say the suburbs would become cool again around this exact time? I called the strong labor market and I called the housing market. Hard to blame luck when you get those two things right 7 years out. Just accept that I read the market, market cycles, and demographics correctly on this one.

    Blame the virus on the demand for suburban housing all you like…I don’t agree. It might have quicken the speed of it, but it was already happening before the virus. NYC hit peak pricing in 2017. It had become too expensive in comparison to the surrounding areas. So the market went to work..aka spillover correction.

    Combine that with demographics. You had the biggest demographics group just push up demand for rentals in cities over the last 10 years. They are now ready to have families. It was always going to appeal to this demographic group to leave the city core and go to the burbs as they raise their families. Their kids will return to the city core as will they when they are done raising their families driving up the price of city real estate in the long term.

    3b says:
    July 15, 2020 at 11:31 am
    Pumps : I will make an exception and respond to you. Yes, I did you are absolutely right. The pandemic has changed everything, one needs to be able to adjust their outlook based on facts and circumstances. And now there is flight to the suburbs, only people are overpaying to be close to cities in this NYC, when many wont be going back at all, or one or two days a month.

  41. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Will you be saying this 5 years from now? After people have learned of the pitfalls?

    For the worker, this is an absolutely dumb move. You are making yourself expendable and opening up your job to third world nation competition. The got damn sheeple worker embraces the idea of WFH because they think they can chill at home watching Netflix instead of working. Boy, are these Homer Simpson’s in for a rude awakening. Don’t cry after you let them in with the Trojan Horse. Beautiful gift…

    grim says:
    July 15, 2020 at 12:00 pm
    We can no longer hire for work at home jobs if there is a potential that the job will go back into a brick and mortar location in the future. It simply turns candidates completely off right now, even the possibility.

  42. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Drug addicts and alcoholics love it too…they can get f’ed up all day.

    I really don’t know if the world is heading in the right direction. Becoming anti-social and leaving people prone to major addictions..

  43. AP says:

    Slack or Google chat is the new water-cooler.

  44. Exit NJ? says:

    What happens when GS et al have their trading revenues dry up? Are the traders already being replaced by AI? I am not from IB industry, how do the newbies make a name for themselves in the WFH environment? I thought you had to play golf and socialize with the big shots to make MD.

    WFH – if you want to climb the ladder or are in late 20s early 30s, do you need to live within a daily commute from office so you can meet face to face on some regular level with the people that can help move your career along or can you work in a much lower cost city than the tri-state? The full economic fallout from COVID has yet to be seen. Property taxes going up more than in the past. Less people riding a train system that has deficient infrastructure. Less revenue in, more layoffs, pension obligations growing, how can any of this end well.

  45. The Great Pumpkin says:

    When your social life is based on a screen…life has become pretty pathetic.

    Hey, let’s go on zoom date and then we can have phone sex afterwards. F’ing pathetic.

    Soon, they will be ordering robots to fulfill their needs and will never leave their house. Sounds like so much fun. Just me and my screen, locked in a cage called my house.

  46. 3b says:

    Juice My group in NYC has 8 people. Prior to the pandemic, we were already geographically dispersing. When or if we come back in whatever form, it will be one to two days a week, as we already did 2 from home, and they confirmed they will be expanding that.
    Whatever shape it takes my team will be sitting in a total of 4 offices, this was already happening. Two will be in NYC, and the other 6 will be split into 3 offices outside of NYC but in the metro area.

  47. 3b says:

    Exit NJ: The Wall Street wine and dine culture and golf has radically changed since I was in the business. It’s on a much smaller scale now, if at all in some places. Golf is dying,Millenials hate it apparently, and it has the oldest demographic of people who watch it on television.

  48. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Ahh, water cooler talk that records your every word and makes it public? Sounds like fun.

    AP says:
    July 15, 2020 at 12:13 pm
    Slack or Google chat is the new water-cooler.

  49. Bystander says:

    Dumb move was Blumpy’s mom going the 40 weeks. Brain development stopped around week 12. A guy that never competed in corp world and has no clue on how it works, lecturing Grim. Unreal arrogance mixed with Gump level IQ.

  50. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Ahh, a teacher can’t understand or relate to the corporate world. Such a simpleton.

    You realize that the corporate world has hijacked education, right? Your tax money doesn’t all go to teachers…

    Bystander says:
    July 15, 2020 at 12:25 pm
    Dumb move was Blumpy’s mom going the 40 weeks. Brain development stopped around week 12. A guy that never competed in corp world and has no clue on how it works, lecturing Grim. Unreal arrogance mixed with Gump level IQ.

  51. The Great Pumpkin says:

    I don’t know what grim does, but I imagine it has to do with call centers which are occupied by Homer Simpson’s.

    He offshores professional positions? I doubt it, but maybe I’m wrong, and dumb for assuming.

  52. Bystander says:

    That you have survived 20 years tells me how it has not changed.

  53. ExEssex says:

    12:15 short answer: it won’t.
    For the lucky few it will!!

  54. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Okay, if all jobs are being sent to other countries, why stay here? Go to the lower cost of living location and take the job there, since you can’t compete living here based on America’s cost of living?

    Where is this going?

  55. Bystander says:

    Let me give you insight into where we are headed. Part of Bridgewater’s meritocracy system involved rating profiles for each employee based on 360 feedback. Everyone sees it. The more team values your contributions, the higher the rating and thus compensation. Welcome to future world. You have been warned. Watch Black Mirror, Nosedive. It is coming.

  56. AP says:

    Pumpkin, “Ahh, water cooler talk that records your every word and makes it public? Sounds like fun.”

    It can be fun. Just don’t get into anything too controversial. Save that for the blog.

  57. PumpkinFace says:

    I seem to remember someone lecturing us on not understanding the teaching profession.

    The Great Pumpkin says:
    July 15, 2020 at 12:28 pm
    Ahh, a teacher can’t understand or relate to the corporate world. Such a simpleton.

  58. PumpkinFace says:

    but maybe I’m wrong, and dumb for assuming.

    This and this.

  59. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    Exit NJ: The Wall Street wine and dine culture and golf has radically changed since I was in the business. It’s on a much smaller scale now, if at all in some places. Golf is dying,Millenials hate it apparently, and it has the oldest demographic of people who watch it on television.

    This is how dead golf is. The top story on ESPN 5 minutes ago was they think Tiger Woods can win this next one. Has the top golf story ever changed in the past 10 years?

  60. Juice Box says:

    Wait until the history teachers find out Grim is trying the outsource their jobs to the Philippines too. Who says you cannot do distance learning for a small fraction of the cost?

    1 Philippine peso equals = 0.020 USD.

    Average Teacher there makes ₱218,444 or about $4,400 USD a year, there is no tenure and negligible pension benefits.

  61. Juice Box says:

    Golf is dying becuase the business entertainment expense deductions were eliminated in 2018. Neighbor is a member of Metedeconk National. Average age is creeping up 60+, lots of members joined 20 + years ago.

    I told him not interested and he said who invited you! Lol!

  62. Bystander says:

    Hah JB. Can’t write it off so no one plays…welcome to America. I was on the public golf course this past spring more than any time in my life. With playgrounds closed, I snuck onto it so my 5 and 3 year old could run around hills and play in sand traps. It was wonderful. Broke my heart when they let golfers back on it in June. Carlin nailed it again.

    – Elitist, arrogant sport that takes us too many resources and land in the country
    -(watching golf on TV) ..is like watching two flies f&*k..

  63. 3b says:

    Juice: that’s one reason, but also lack of interest by many young people, as well as with working couples being the norm today, no spouse will tolerate one being on the golf course every weekend!! I played in my GS days, and myself and others hated it! Boring as hell. But the clubhouse was fun after it was over!!

  64. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    My ex’s uncle was Disney fanatic. Collected anything and everything for 30 years (back in 2007 so more now). Basement full of rare stuff. He stocked Hallmark cards for a living but I am guessing that he will have millions in retirement. People think stocks are good investments..it has nothing on the right collectibles.

    Collectables can be had cheap because a lot of people don’t know the true value of some of the things. My friend goes to a gigantic flea market with $2k cash, comes home with a car full of garbage collectables, flips it online, and doubles his money. He’s done that weekly. It takes time to clear the inventory but it’s worth it.

    I learned this quickly back around 2005 when interest rates on CDs were turning to crap. I could buy things on 90% off and flip them online to quickly double my money.

  65. JCer says:

    3b, the reason for no golf is they are stripping all fun out of business, it’s 100% productivity at all time. You are working all hours, expected to be available at all hours, who has the time? In the past as part of relationship building people would go play golf, it’s an excuse to get out of the office, talk some business, etc. No one has time for this anymore and without the tax breaks no one wants to pick this up, furthermore quality golf is expensive and takes 4 hours. You don’t get an office, you don’t get an assistant, you don’t get an expense account, they even wanted to take away your cubicle. Briefly before I was promoted they multiple time in multiple places they took offices away, at this point if you are not an MD you don’t have an office or an assistant. That is the reality of corporate work today.

    Juice, you are making Pumps point by using GS as an example. My wife’s MD is pressing her like crazy to be back in the office and wants to know when the team will be back. They are not going to be a “WFH” shop, they want the people in the office. GS insane profits are tied to the stimulus and the massive need that companies have for accumulating rainy day funds. So all these companies are doing offerings and are borrowing, getting lines of credit, paying fees etc so they have access to capital if TSHTF. My wife is trying to use the COVID experience to push for more flexibility for her team, it was not an option before. People are still fearful about the virus.

  66. 3b says:

    Jcer that is part of it, but I still believe working couple are not going to have one on the golf course on a regular basis. When I was in the business, most of us at the time had wives who were stay at home Moms; not the norm anymore.

    Surprised at your wife’s IB, does not seem to be the case with the rest of them in fact they don’t appear to be in any hurry at all. Don’t understand her Boss s rationale, with most others at home as well. As for GS their earnings were based on trading and IB revenues; don’t know anymore than that.

  67. Libturd says:

    JCER/Left,

    I am not deflecting or moving the goalposts. I 100% agree that we need police enforcement and that crime is up due (most likely) to cops seeking revenge. I also know that “defund” the police does not mean “eradicate” the police. It’s a call for reform. You MUST step back from FoxNews for a minute.

    Speaking of moving goalposts and BLM. The original BLM was an organized group pushing for reparations among other things. When the white 19 year old freshman from NYU joins in a protest to say what happened to Floyd was atrocious and must be stopped, they have not joined BLM nor is their plan to get Biden elected in 2020. This is pure biased FoxNews poppyc0ck. If it were not for Covid-19, I would be out there too. And no, I would not be out there under the cover of supporting BLM, to make sure Biden gets elected. This is one of the dumbest arguments I have ever heard made here. I love you guys. I really do. But different things trigger protests. Lots of innocent kids are murdered, black and white. But when the National Guard shot two white kids at Kent State, the white population went completely apesh1t. Now why weren’t they out protesting every time some white kid died from an overdose of LSD during a hippy protest. You are 100% unequivocally biased by the garbage you are reading and watching.

    Is black on black crime a huge issue. Absolutely! But not every crime evokes a need for protest. People tend to get especially upset when paid representatives of the government kill innocent people. Why is this so hard to understand? What the fukc does this have to do with Joe Biden?

    If people used logic, we would be a much better society for it. Right now, the right is both hellbent on restricting the access of birth control (recent SCOTUS decision) which undoubtedly will lead to more abortions, especially ones of pure personal choice, while trying to stop abortions. And the leader of the right finally dons a mask.

    My point? You are looking at everything through a politically biased lens. Logic does not always matter. Way to often it doesn’t. But to say “the key goal of BLM besides defunding the police is insuring Biden wins the election,” is purely the imagination of a FoxNews reporter.

    Also, what does having to live it have to do with anything? I lived in the ghetto. There is no argument that the cops are there to help stop crime. But when the tactics they employ (search and frisk, choke holds, false arrests, dirty business including drug plants and paid protection, illegal searches, etc.) are for their personal benefit rather than to prevent crime, reform must occur. Once again, what does this have to do with Joe Biden? It’s like the whole ANTIFA thing. Every single time the left protests, everyone is a card carrying member of ANTIFA. Enough already. Let me explain to you what’s going on. People are generally pissed. It didn’t help that our citizenship has had to endure both a disgusting and somehow successful hate-filled populist campaign and then a POTUS that has the demeanor of murder hornet. Throw in a few months of economic lockdown and the fuse was lit.

  68. ExEssex says:

    The trouble with golf is it’s hard. You are forcing yourself into
    Unnatural contortions to smack a little white ball into a hole surrounded by lush soft grass. It’s….a metaphor….also gives you a little walk-around time. I stink generally but early hockey obsession taught me good eye/hand which is half of the game. The other half is actually conditioning. You’ve gotta be strong and supple to really shoot a good golf game. Though some seniors would disagree. But it’s a wealthy obsession. Though I learned at Waveland Avenue (Chicago) awesome public courses there.

  69. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Some people are never happy. Now combine that with an available platform (social media) to bitch and moan about it, you get where we are now. That’s who is controlling the narrative right now, the people that are good at bitching and complaining.

    “Let me explain to you what’s going on. People are generally pissed. It didn’t help that our citizenship has had to endure both a disgusting and somehow successful hate-filled populist campaign and then a POTUS that has the demeanor of murder hornet. Throw in a few months of economic lockdown and the fuse was lit.”

  70. The Great Pumpkin says:

    You would consider yourself fortunate…a lottery ticket to be born into the American system. What do these people do? Bitch and complain like it’s a horror to be living in America. Give me a f’ing break.

  71. The Great Pumpkin says:

    It’s such a horror to them that they want to destroy the very economic system that makes this place great on the basis of fairness and equality. What a bunch of crybabies.

    At the end of the day, you are either someone that goes and gets it, or a baby that cries when someone beats them in a race. Guess what type made this country great? It’s alright to complain and cry, but not over every little thing.

    And hate on trump all you want, but at least he went and fought to get what he wanted. They said he couldn’t be president and laughed at him, he beat them all in the end. Guy is a prick, but you can’t say he didn’t do something great. Not easy to get elected president. Almost impossible.

  72. homeboken says:

    Pumps – It’s an odd thing about America, the people that absolutely hate the country and the system don’t leave. Instead, they try to change the system to fit their desires.

    I actually very much support that effort, I may disagree with the content of the message, but I’m awfully happy they have the right to say what they want.

    There is nothing more American than a protest or addressing grievances with your government.

    The part that I think most of these protesters miss out on, is that there are not all that many places in the world where there right to peaceable assemble and petition the government is even allowed. For example, I would love to see someone put an anti-CCP mural on the road in front of Xi’s house. How do you think that would work?

    America is great because we allow, and encourage, all opinions. Especially those opinions that we don’t agree with. Those are the most important to protect.

  73. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Home,

    I agree with all that is stated. What I don’t agree with is when they turn into social police. Their way is the law, and everyone must share the same opinion.

    Some people like the American economic sysytem, did it ever occur to them that this is the case? Nope, instead you are an evil capitalist or good socia!ist. Either evil racist, or good citizen…you get the point.

    Right now. there is way too much crying going on.

  74. The Great Pumpkin says:

    It’s wrong to take away someone job/career over what they have said.00

  75. The Great Pumpkin says:

    It’s also wrong to attack the rich and advocate for major economic reform because you are angry that someone has more money than you.

  76. homeboken says:

    Watching a video of a march that was led by minority clergy and religious leaders across the Brooklyn bridge, just this afternoon. It took less than 30 minutes for it turn into maniacs beating the police officers over the head with bats.

    This is not protest, it’s not peaceable assembly, it is not petitioning one’s government for address of grievances. It’s is organized anarchy. I do not support any part of this.

  77. JCer says:

    Libturd, your heart is in the right place and I agree 100% we need reform. My issue is not with protests, I don’t like the riots but even some of that is expected but not nationwide, and I have a real issue with the idiots tearing down statues. I support discourse and fully support getting rid of the confederate flag and statues, the others I’m more mixed on and think the attacks on monuments are very wrong.

    It’s not fox news, I’m not even watching fox news it is what the representative of the BLM movement are actually saying, it is AOC, Omar, Tlaib and their ilk, and it is the actions of city councils across the US who are reducing the funds for policing. “Defund” means defund, it means a reduction in police presence, only more centrist Democrats are tempering it so it doesn’t sound as bad to the vast majority of sane americans. BLM means the BLM organization and their organized protests, if you put up a “Black Lives Matter” sign you are implicitly supporting them, you need to own it. There stated positions include Defunding police and voting to change(for Biden) they have explicitly stated this, and yes they are in favor of reparations as well. It isn’t a conspiracy theory or something from Faux News, it is 100% based on statements made by the organizers of the protests.

    Your comments regarding living it are myopic. Do you know anyone who does police work in the hood? Can you have some perspective from the side of the cop, who in many cases is black or latino and deals with a lot you don’t see. Do you have any idea what their day looks like? The point is any reform needs to account for crime, if it increases crime it is a non-starter. the impact of crime on people living in urban war zones is pronounced and deeply impacts people in ways you might not have thought of and don’t readily see. Again the road to h*ll is paved with good intentions. Reforms leading to meaningful increases in crime should be dead on arrival.

    Organized Antifa is real and is bad but thankfully like white nationalists/neo-n@zis they are a very small group. They are really just a politically different form of neo-n@zi with different radical views, losers who desire to destroy things and get violent.

    If kids in your neighborhood were getting indiscriminately killed, you’d be out in the street marching. Unfortunately people only get outraged and go out into the street when someone who arguably is part of the problem(a person engaged in criminal behavior) is wrongfully killed by a white officer as if the problem is racial(more black suspects are killed by black officers than white, it is part of the reforms taken towards community policing). Again the data indicates otherwise.

    Under the circumstances of COVID there shouldn’t have been riots or a George Floyd funeral. If there is too much risk to do all of the other things people desperately need to do you cannot condone the protests. The hypocrisy of democratic, mayors, governors, and representatives was astounding. All of us made sacrifices to prevent the spread why should this situation be any different? And again lots of platitudes and feelings but little real concrete action, no reforms are really being planned it is all political theatre and at the expense of the very people who this is aimed at helping.

    Again Trump is a moron, it might be the best thing for the country if he somehow dropped out of the race and was replaced by someone who is actually sane. It doesn’t change the fact that there is political opportunism to assist with Biden who is the “Weekend at Bernie’s” candidate.

  78. JCer says:

    Homeboken, exactly there is peaceful protest and then there are riots with full fledged anarchy. When kids are being shot by BLM “protestors” we have a big problem.

  79. Bystander says:

    Grim, in mod. Thanks.

  80. AP says:

    Ross Douthat, makes “10 sweeeping claims” about Cancel Culture in a well reasoned column today. It’s a view from inside the house:

    https://nyti.ms/32hDJWe

    Re protesters and counter-protesters. It’s interesting, did you know that one of the main complaints that the colonists had against the British was police brutality and unlawful searches?

    It offended them deeply to be treated like criminals and subject to random searches by the British guard and they protested in their own way. It’s been described as an 18th century stop and frisk.

    Thankfully we are a mature democracy today, made great by cherished principles like Equal Protection.

    You have to study history to begin to make sense of what’s going today. Historical sound items from the major networks just doesn’t cut right right now.

  81. zapaza19 says:

    Libturd,
    The whites did not go ape.. as a result of Kent State. Polling was performed in Ohio for years after the incident and the pollers asked the Ohio citizens if they thought the National Guard was right in their actions. A majority of the respondents sided with the Guard. This lasted an entire generation. In the 90s the precentages finally flipped.

    Immediately after the shootings, the student were blamed by a strong majority of Americans as responsible for the debacle.

    I doubt you were alive during those years.

  82. Grim says:

    Wait until the history teachers find out Grim is trying the outsource their jobs to the Philippines too. Who says you cannot do distance learning for a small fraction of the cost?

    Indian PhDs actually. If the new normal is distance learning, I can get your kid setup with a top notch set of STEM teachers for $300/month.

  83. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Grim,

    I’m sure people will really love the idea of selling out American jobs to have foreign slave labor teaching their kids. It’s so 2020.

  84. The Great Pumpkin says:

    At some point, if jobs aren’t supporting our standard of living, why are we still shipping them in the name of savings. These short sighted business owners don’t realize they are selling the country short. Sending a bunch of our wealth to other nations in the name of individual cost savings. Greed is a b!tch.

  85. The Great Pumpkin says:

    And then they wonder how we got in the predicament of our enemy (China) manufacturing our necessities like medicine to technology.

  86. The Great Pumpkin says:

    And the end game for these businesses. These slave shops will be owned by the Chinese govt and they will beat the hell out of our businesses, which they are already doing. They protected their position and attacked. We stood around counting money, while throwing the future away.

  87. The Great Pumpkin says:

    That’s the big elephant in the room. You are against slavery, but you buy the cheapest products that can only be produced at slave labor wages. All you self righteous shoulder tappers, keep supporting modern day slavery while doing the shoulder tap.

  88. Walking says:

    Get a PhD from India to teach your kid, in pharma we would always laugh when the Indian hourly suddenly came in with a master’s degree, you could still see the pink eraser shavings on the paper where the new name was the inserted. Those Indian guys do cover for each other , specially when a lower caste was in a higher position at work.

  89. Phoenix says:

    “I’m sure people will really love the idea of selling out American jobs to have foreign slave labor teaching their kids. It’s so 2020.”

    Boomers will. Anything that will lower their taxes. Boomers near me are dying to sell drugs to they youth (currently pot, but they are open to anything) in order to get more tax revenue.

    Just wait till those Karens get older….

  90. joyce says:

    Are history books useless?

    zapaza19 says:
    July 15, 2020 at 8:01 pm

    I doubt you were alive during those years.

  91. Phoenix says:

    N.J. teachers next.

    http://dailym.ai/32l9k9o

  92. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    Anyone that seriously considers having your kid at home to learn online regularly after this nationwide beta test is smoking too much ganja.

  93. chicagofinance says:

    Waveland was the first time I ever golfed in an overcoat……. that lakewater can turn a 70 degree day into a fcuking ice bucket in May…… I still remember walking near the zoo and it was a freakish almost 80 degrees….. then the wind whipped up and I literally starting seeing my breath as I spoke to the other guy….. I was like WTF?

    ExEssex says:
    July 15, 2020 at 3:50 pm
    Though I learned at Waveland Avenue (Chicago) awesome public courses there.

  94. chicagofinance says:

    Ex – I think you asked once about my Hunter vintage…. my daughter is overloading on Hamilton with Disney+.

    I was ’86 …. it is a six year school, so I was there from 80-86.

    Way too many writers and editors for the NY Times……… sickening really

    Elena Kagan is ’77
    Cynthia Nixon ’84
    Marvin Young ’85 (Young MC – Bust A Move, also wrote all of Tone Loc’s material)
    Jon Daniels ’95 (Cornellian) Texas Rangers General Manager; youngest-ever MLB GM
    Christopher Hayes ’97 MSNBC (I can vouch that he must have been the biggest douchebag even in high school)
    Lin-Manuel Miranda ’98
    Robert Lopez ’03 Composer for Avenue Q, Book of Mormom and Frozen (he wrote Let It Go)

  95. chicagofinance says:

    I am not on the ground so I am open to being corrected.

    The stimulus is not helping Goldman Sachs profits per se. The stimulus is going directly to the U.S. public and PPP loans, which are really keeping people on payroll and filling in revenue gaps.

    How IB’s are benefiting is that The Fed is somewhat spraying money at the bottom rungs of the investment grade fixed income market and the fallen angles. Notice, it is somewhat….. not tons of money….. what they are doing is allowing companies who are stuck in the foxhole under heavy fire to venture out and reload ammo while The Fed is standing cover with huge guns.

    So with The Ten at 0.65%, The Fed is artificially keeping spreads tighter, but even an indicative level is worthless if there is no depth to the market. The Fed is helping in both pricing and volume of demand by investors. Again, the actual need to use piles of money is not that extreme. It is the “jawboning” that Powell will be out there holding everything up if the situation demands it.

    So any company can issue bonds at reasonable spreads off a historically low UST curve.
    But the questions is separating zombie companies (e.g., retailers versus BA, airlines, travel).

    To be clear, I find this action extremely concerning for the long-term benefit of our country, but we have been a mess since 2007. China should pay dearly.

    JCer says:
    July 15, 2020 at 2:59 pm
    GS insane profits are tied to the stimulus and the massive need that companies have for accumulating rainy day funds. So all these companies are doing offerings and are borrowing, getting lines of credit, paying fees etc so they have access to capital if TSHTF.

  96. JCer says:

    Walking, as a hiring manager that has had to interview people in India who supposedly have “Masters in Computer Science”(Not to be confused with the 3 yr Master of Commuter Applications), I will say this the state of higher-ed in India is appalling, a handful of schools are ok but most are pretty poor and the truth is you have no idea if the person even has a degree. Your average candidate with a masters degree is far less qualified than the kid with an undergrad degree and a B average from NJIT or Rutgers, full stop. I’d rather talk to someone in the Philippines as it is far easier for me to understand their English. And yes fraud is rampant in India, so you really have no idea who you are talking to. Technically speaking Eastern Europe seems to be a better option. So Grim you really need t set us up with STEM Phd’s from Poland or Russia who speak greater English and can teach out children.

  97. ExEssex says:

    11:19 very cool. I’m from a pretty small family.
    First cousin was there then. Super brilliant kid.

  98. homeboken says:

    Pumpkin – I agree in part, I would love to see American’s employed en masse before we begin outsourcing certain jobs. My friends and neighbors are teachers, I don’t want them to lose their job.

    But, all of those feelings are trumped by my desire to educate my children. If a teacher or the teachers union decides that they will not work due to Covid, what choice am I left with? I do care for my neighbors but their teaching careers will never take priority over my kids schooling. I suspect I am not alone in this.

    I would recommend the NJEA, AFT etc not overplay their hand when it comes to going back into the classroom. There are other options for people with the means or the determination. It will end up with fewer students in the public school system and those that leave will almost all be kids with parents that are very involved and interactive with their kids.

    The teacher union is very strong but their power is not limtless.

  99. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    When I was in graduate school, 50% of the Chem department were students from mainland China. In the early 2000s, there was a glut of students that did online phone interviews and they must have had someone who was proficient in English do the phone interview, and when the kids show up, they magically can’t speak a word of English. That year was a disaster and it probably cost the department 200k.

  100. Bystander says:

    home,

    I don’t see anyone mentioning it – online school means someone needs to be home to ensure things go well. Employers are asking people to return to work..so for many, it won’t be option to stay home. 30% of households are single parent. Who will pay for daycare when these worlds collide?

  101. TruthIsTheEnemy says:

    The teachers union situation for the upcoming year is very simple. Either return to the classroom or 75% of your positions are eliminated until you do. Online instruction can be performed at scale.

    If you don’t feel safe performing your duties, you can resign. At a later date if you decide you would like to return you can apply. The schools do not exist for the purpose of provide accommodation to your lifestyle decisions.

  102. Juice Box says:

    Bystander – There will be no home to go too if the bills aren’t paid.
    .
    Deblasio already hedging says only 2 or 3 days in classroom, that means nobody is going back to the office full time in NYC.

    MTA numbers still down by 4 million rides a day.

    Tuesday, 7/14/20 1,234,214 -77.5%

    Monday, 7/13/20 1,173,975 -78.6%

    Cumom also hedging on data going to base it on some infection rate % if it goes above NY schools closed by region for probably the remainder of the semester.

    We are 53 days out folks. It’s going to be a shit show.

    I may just take a year off…

  103. Phoenix says:

    They hired police to patrol schools. What are they doing now that no one is there?

  104. chicagofinance says:

    WSJ OPINION

    WONDER LAND

    Oh Yes, Ban the Redskins

    I give up. It’s time to ban a lot of really terrible sports-team names. I have a long list.

    By Daniel Henninger

    For now, the Washington Redskins are just the Washington Something or Others, a team with no name. After holding out for years against the inertial forces of political correctness, the Washington football team caved. Hmm, maybe “caved” is inappropriate language now. They gave up.

    You knew the Redskins were done as soon as Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream said it was dropping Eskimo Pie so the company could be “part of the solution on racial equality.” When I was growing up, Eskimo Pie always made me think Eskimos were great. But what did I know?

    I’ve been fighting the team-name wars for years, most recently over baseball commissioner Rob Manfred’s goofy suppression of the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo.

    You have to know when you’re licked. Sorry, wrong word. I mean beaten. Double-sorry; no one should be beaten. I mean defeated. I am defeated. Instead of complaining about the Redskins, it’s time to get ahead of the logo posse and eliminate a lot of really terrible sports-team names. Many of these teams probably think there’s no way their names would offend anyone. They are about to find out how wrong they are.

    First we get rid of the low-hanging, already rotting fruit: The Chicago White Sox, the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Browns. White, red, brown and black are unspeakable and unthinkable colors now—for anything. The Chicago Green Sox would be ok. Many pro athletes are weirdly attracted to the color pink, so the Boston Pink Sox would work.

    Clevelanders will object that even if most people under 20-years-old think the Cleveland Browns offends the race gods, the Browns are named after team founder Paul Brown, who, as luck would have it, was a white guy. The easiest solution would be to abolish the Browns once and for all. Who would notice?

    Sing “hey hey, goodbye” to any team whose name suggests centuries of systemic privilege: the Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Kings, Sacramento Kings, Vegas Golden Knights and Cleveland Cavaliers. And hasn’t the moment come for LeBron James to renounce “King James”?

    Let’s admit it: Times have changed. The highest value in modern American life is feeling safe. Not “safe” in the sense of not being gunned down tomorrow night. I mean safe the way a college student or street protester feels “unsafe” if bad thoughts are brought to mind.

    By this measure, the list of violative professional sports-team names is endless.

    The Denver Broncos? Broncos are abused horses forced to buck and then submit by a Dallas Cowboy kicking them with San Antonio Spurs. They’ve all gotta go. Ford Motor just resurrected its Bronco SUV. What terrible timing. Dump it.

    Too many teams are still dependent on fossil fuels: the Detroit Pistons, Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Steelers. Let’s clean up the Steelers by renaming them the Pittsburgh Windmills.

    The Philadelphia 76ers? Surely they’re already on their way to being rehabilitated as the Philadelphia 1619s.

    The Miami Marlins shamelessly expropriated the name of a vulnerable species. They should be renamed the Miami Minnows.

    Anyone who thinks names like this honor endangered species doesn’t understand why statues of George Washington have to go. The Minnesota Timberwolves should leave the wolves alone and call themselves the Minnesota Lutefisk.

  105. chicagofinance says:

    Names associated with religious belief are also a problem. The New Jersey Devils imply God exists. Ditto the New Orleans Saints, and the Boston Celtics evoke Irish Catholics. Get rid of them.

    The Portland Trail Blazers celebrate genocidal pioneers. The San Francisco 49ers are named after 19th-century California gold-diggers who r^ped the environment.

    The Houston Rockets have an impossibly male-sounding name and should compensate by becoming the Houston Rockettes.

    The Colorado Avalanche evokes death. The New York Rangers sound like the police. The Texas Rangers are the police. What were the San Diego Padres thinking?

  106. chicagofinance says:

    The Chicago Bulls are another team named after an abused animal, not to mention the consumption of animal protein. A new name that comes to mind is the Chicago Jordanx in honor of Michael, but that will remind some people of the Jordan River and the plight of the Palestinians.

    Don’t get me started on teams who think they’re safe by hiding behind the names of birds or animals. The Toronto Blue Jays are named after a nasty bird. The Atlanta Hawks kill rabbits. Just the words “Miami Dolphins” make me want to cry.

  107. chicagofinance says:

    The Miami Heat may be the future, invoking the problem of climate change, and we can’t be reminded of that too often. The about-to-die Cleveland Indians could become the Cleveland Cold.

    The team name of the Utah Jazz never made sense to me, but it does suggest that rebranding teams as musical instruments might be safe. The New England Patriots are problematic in so many ways. Patriotism? Are you kidding me? I look forward to them coming back as the New England Trombones.

    For now, Washington sits with a nameless football team. How about calling the team in the nation’s capital the Washington Nothings? That sounds like something we could all agree on.

  108. TruthIsTheEnemy says:

    In the local schools of suburban Morris they are facilitating the free lunch programs. It’s pick up or delivered by bus. I heard their are a lot of import cars in line.

    My favorite online instruction from the spring was the gym teacher uploading faces to YouTube and telling the kids to follow along. Sure, okay.

  109. TruthIsTheEnemy says:

    Uploading dances

  110. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    Utah Jazz were originally the New Orleans Jazz. Made perfect sense when they were there.

  111. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    I think the Redskins should rename themselves to the Washington Lobbyists

  112. Phoenix says:

    No backup plans. No reserve in the system. Inability to adapt when needed. Debt out the wazoo as everything will go as it always does, right?

    This country is “ratchet” as the young kids say..

  113. homeboken says:

    BRT – Don’t know about you, but when I think of Jazz, the first thing that comes to mind is how much mormons really love it.

  114. BoomerRemover says:

    “If you don’t feel safe performing your duties, you can resign. At a later date if you decide you would like to return you can apply. The schools do not exist for the purpose of provide accommodation to your lifestyle decisions.”

    Truth.

    Can’t teachers take a two year sabbatical once tenured? I’m told this is what quite a few are choosing. Unpaid leave but their positions remain, this creates a lot of maternity leave type openings for 1/2 year contracts. This is already a very generous accommodation.

  115. Fast Eddie says:

    ChiFi,

    Where does it end? At what point do we stop banning things and names? I’m sure banning thoughts is coming soon.

  116. Bystander says:

    Sorry Chi. Those are some pretty dumb opinions. The move in Washington was long overdue. If England had a team called the Bristol Paddies with a ginger haired man holding a potato, well, I think that may be offensive to Irish. Why is this so hard to understand? You can’t commit genocide on people while claiming your multi-billion dollar sports marketing is “honoring” them. It is ludicrous.

  117. Fast Eddie says:

    Remember that movie, Demolition Man, in 1993 with Sly Stallone and Sandra Bullock?

    Here’s a quip: San Angeles — a metropolis that combines the former Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara — is a peaceful utopia and the police are no longer equipped to deal with violent crime. Spartan finds the new future depressing and oppressive; human behavior is tightly controlled, physical contact and swearing are illegal, and anything else deemed “bad” is also banned, including drugs, cigarettes and intoxication.

    I remember Bullock’s character singing the Armor hot dog jingle. I remember thinking then when I first saw this movie that society will eventually become what is depicted in this film. We’re getting there. Ayn Rand illustrated it years prior in her two biggest novels.

  118. No One says:

    Free Markets: They aren’t free because people have demanded government intervention for over 100 years. The more intervention, the worse things get, and the more people blame freedom, and the more they call for more intervention, and the cycle goes on. Freedom would work, but a century of mind control has convinced people that they are all helpless children who need their diapers changed by Uncle Sam.

    Golf: I picked up the sport 5 years back after a few poor tennis matches, thinking I should have a fallback sport hitting a stationary ball. Tennis is better for exercise, I’ve been playing for over 25 years (I’m a USTA 3.5+ level player, who mostly plays doubles). But golf provides its own pleasures and difficulties. Golf is terrible for people with short attention spans. It costs more up front and on an ongoing basis. To be better than an embarrassment on the course, most people require lengthy diligent practice, because it’s quite difficult to become competent. I’m surprised it was ever as popular as it was. I do know that it’s miserable to be stuck behind (or with) someone taking 120 strokes to get around 18 holes. With the virus shutdown, I’ve played nearly 20 rounds this year and made some improvements in practice, got my handicap down to 15, most rounds in the 80s and 90s, which makes me think I’ve finally made it to the level of ok golfer. How many people have the time, money, and determination to get there?
    Anyway, my club, Fiddler’s Elbow, is just a couple miles from Trump’s club. Our 3 courses are busy. The membership skews older for sure, but there are younger people playing too. I know a few people who are picking up golf these days, partly because Murphy opened golf earlier than most sports. Indoor Tennis is still more restricted than it was before.

  119. Fast Eddie says:

    Bystander,

    Notre Dame Fighting Irish! Offensive? Luigi on a pizza box twisting his mustache? I think every mob movie needs to be banned now. Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino… don’t ever show them again. Arrest those who possess copies of these films.

  120. Phoenix says:

    “Can’t teachers take a two year sabbatical once tenured?”

    Well, she wanted that nice beautiful house that required their entire husbands salary just to pay the mortgage and taxes. A large kitchen for entertaining. His and her closets. You know, happy wife, happy life, right??

    He has the business, but he does not want to pay for health insurance, and why would he when he can get platinum insurance through her job. I know doctors and lawyers that use the wife’s teaching job insurance plans as they know what they are getting.

    Time to switch to grapeseed oil as the pan is getting too hot for the regular stuff and now its starting to oxidize.

  121. Fast Eddie says:

    Bystander,

    Notre Dame F1ghting Ir1sh! Offens1ve? Luig1 on a pizza box twisting his mustache? I think every m0b movie needs to be banned now. G0dfather, G0odfellas, Casin0… don’t ever show them again. Arr3st those who possess copies of these films.

  122. Phoenix says:

    NSFW. Well, just plain messed up. And NSFW

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcuJ65RH8Xg&feature=youtu.be

  123. Bystander says:

    No one,

    The problem with infantile Randian idealism is that govt. can only exist for said purposes. When war breaks, cities are leveled then govt becomes market for food, shelter etc. When natural disaster strikes. govt steps in and houses and protects people. When a pandemic virus hits, govt steps in and bails economy out. Each chapter exponentially expands govt role/rules into free market then that structure only exists to keep power and stability for itself. It is a farce that we can have ‘free markets’ like we can have ‘true equality’

  124. D-FENS says:

    It’s just one study…but some interesting insights.

    https://spectator.us/evidence-children-passing-covid-19-relatives-icelandic-study/

    Many countries are refusing to open their schools for fear of a prompting a second wave of coronavirus infections. But their policies would appear to be flatly contradicted by evidence from Iceland. There, a company called deCODE Genetics, in association with the country’s Directorate of Health and the National University Hospital, has analyzed the results of coronavirus tests on 36,500 people. The tests identified 1,801 cases of people suffering from the disease — and 10 deaths. Each case was carefully tracked. In not a single case could the researchers find evidence of a child passing on the disease to their parents. The company’s CEO, Kari Stefansson, revealed the findings in an interview carried on the British Science Museum website. He suggests the fact that few children suffer any symptoms, and are less likely to cough, is an important factor.

    The Icelandic study reinforces the results of a review of evidence last week by the Royal College of Pediatricians and Child Health, which said it couldn’t find a single documented case of a child under 10 passing COVID-19 to an adult. In one case a nine-year-old boy returning from a skiing holiday in the Alps was found to be infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, as well as influenza and the common cold. He didn’t pass SARS-CoV-2 to anyone, in spite of coming into contact with 170 children. He did, however, pass the flu and cold to his siblings — but not SARS-CoV-2.

    It ought to be pretty strong evidence that opening schools is safe, and is among the first moves which should be taken to exit from lockdown. But don’t bet against the unions squashing plans to open before September at the earliest.

  125. Bystander says:

    Ed,

    There are a lot of Irish who don’t like it. My mother was born in central Ireland and she can’t stand it. What you are missing is context, Irish came and thrived in America. That is why it is not such a big deal. If English team was called Fighting Irish, you best believe it would have been changed.

  126. Juice Box says:

    Lockdown is good for some things I guess. I have my 6 month visit today.

    BP this morning is 109 over 76 heart rate is 66 and I have lost 10 lbs.

    I don’t eat out at work anymore. Used to grab breakfast, lunch and dinner mostly crappy on the road fast food etc and now I exercise a bit more, less stress as no commute and less running around with kids to activities. Maybe I will live to see 80yrs old.

  127. A Home Buyer says:

    I’d say you’re the exception.

    I’ve been seeing some of my My coworkers coming over the past few days to get things from the office. They are preparing for a longer work from home stay.

    Half of them look like they’ve been hit by a truck.

    I’ve also been watching people… Um… Evolve… On Facebook. Reminds me of the scene from Wall-E with each picture of the new captain being larger and larger.

  128. D-FENS says:

    probably propoganda…right?

    Any native American’s on the board? Fighting Irish certainly doesn’t bother me…

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/native-american-son-of-redskins-logo-designer-says-its-not-offensive/

    While many have been celebrating the Washington Redskins’ decision to officially change the team nickname into something less triggering, not everyone is happy about the development, including the Native American family of the man who originally designed the NFL team’s logo.

    The Redskins logo that America knows today was originally designed in 1971 by Native American Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, whose iconic image depicted John “Two Guns” White Calf, a Blackfeet Chief who also appears on the Buffalo Nickel.

    “Wetzel grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana and was eventually elected president of the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C.,” WUSA9 reports. “He was instrumental in the Redskins franchise logo change from an ‘R’ to the current depiction of a Native American.”

    Wetzel’s son, Lance Wetzel, said the logo evokes pride in Native Americans and should not be considered offensive. Though he understands the decision to change the team nickname, he believes the logo should stay.

    “Everyone was pretty upset (about the change),” Lance Wetzel said. “Everyone understood the name change. We were all on board with that. Once they weren’t going to use the logo, it was hard. It takes away from the Native Americans. When I see that logo, I take pride in it. You look at the depiction of the Redskins logo and it’s of a true Native American. I always felt it was representing my people. That’s not gone.”

    “The Native Americans were forgotten people. That logo lets people know these people exist,” Wetzel continued. “If it were changed and it removed any derogatory feelings toward any person, then I think it’s a win. I don’t want that logo to be associated in a negative way, ever.”

  129. No One says:

    Bystander,
    Yeah, like I said, people thinking like you have taken this country into self-handicapped victimhood, focusing on fears of problems and wanting other people to rescue them via government rather than confidently achieving positive values for their own lives.
    I would say “to each his own” but your kind cannot bear the idea of people opting out of collective bondage.

  130. Phoenix says:

    “New Jersey taxpayers still owe more than $2 billion to pay off $2.9 billion in bonds Christie Whitman sold way back in 1997. Now Phil Murphy is following in her footsteps.”

  131. Phoenix says:

    That’s Christie Whitman. Way back in 1997, the Republican governor decided she didn’t want to make any tough choices going into a year in which she sought re-election.

    But she had a problem. There was a big installment due on the state pension funds. She could have raised taxes or cut pensions. But either would cost votes.

    So Whitman just put the bill on the credit card. She bonded for $2.9 billion.

    You’d think those bonds would be paid off by now.

    You’d be wrong.

    “We still owe $2 billion on those bonds,” state Senator Steve Oroho told me.

    Not only that, but Whitman committed us to a repayment schedule that has the state paying off the debt at the rate of half a billion dollars a year until 2029.

    “We’re gonna pay $10 billion more to pay off that $2 billion,” the Sussex County Republican said.

  132. Fabius Maximus says:

    The flippant nature of that Team Name article and the subsequent comments show the deeper problem. A lot of people still don’t see racism as an issue. The whole issue of civil rights has always had lip service but no real change. Plessy was never overturned, and 150 years later Separate is Still Not Equal. The underlying issues have not changed and every little movement forward is met with a Sorry, Not Sorry.

    Here is a great piece that addresses the core of this issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2roWLzrqOjQ If you dont want to watch the full 8 minutes, skip forward to the 5min mark for the part on Levittown LI.

    Until you truely address equality, things arent going to get better.

  133. D-FENS says:

    What do Native Americans think of the team name and logo? I’d love to see an article that went into those communities and asked their opinions directly. Perhaps we shouldn’t pretend we can read their minds and speak for them.

    Fabius Maximus says:
    July 16, 2020 at 11:32 am
    The flippant nature of that Team Name article and the subsequent comments show the deeper problem. A lot of people still don’t see racism as an issue.

  134. Phoenix says:

    “What do Native Americans think of the team name and logo? I’d love to see an article that went into those communities and asked their opinions directly. Perhaps we shouldn’t pretend we can read their minds and speak for them.”

    Easy enough to do..

  135. AP says:

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550619898556?journalCode=sppa

    This recent study seems legit. It appears to contradict a previously held view that the majority was not opposed to the mascot and name. It depends on the demographics and how involved they were with Native American cultural activities.

  136. Hold my beer says:

    NY Giants name is offensive to vertically challenged people.

  137. AP says:

    Fab, the Levittown story is both horrifying as well as deeply enlightening.

    It’s not about “offended sensibilities”, we are way past that as a society, and now there’s a much clearer understanding of how specific investment programs and choices shaped our present stats.

    It is less clear how to address this issues in a way that’s effective, constitutionally sound, and politically feasible. Focus on politically feasible, in this case.

  138. 3b says:

    Phoenix: I will have to verify that on how much is owed. I assume they kept refunding or advance refunded these bonds therefore saving on interest, but never touching principal.

  139. homeboken says:

    Thought of the day –

    You can not claim you want to fight against systemic racism and be opposed to school choice.

    Forcing a child to attend a failing school because their parent(s)/guardians can not afford to live in a zip code with a higher quality school is segregation with extra steps.

  140. 3b says:

    Bystander: a lot of history behind the name fighting Irish, although no definitive version of which one is true. Both of my Parents were Irish, and it did not bother them.

    What did bother them was and is the depiction of Irish as drunks. No other group would put up with the drunk tee shirts etc every St. Patrick s Day season. And she could not find any cards suitable to send home to Ireland every year as they were offensive. She finally found an Irish missionary society that had appropriate cards.

  141. Walking says:

    Change the team to the redstorm, the redsox, or the blue balls. I don’t think people rally care about football at this time and under the current conditions. With football out for 2020 no one will remember the change and life will go on.

  142. crushednjmillenial says:

    Regarding NJ borrowing $10 billion more, I just note the following numbers from the source linked below:

    NJ Bonds Outstanding: $60 billion
    Unfunded Pension Benefits: $98 billion
    Unfunded Retiree Health Care Benefits: $91 billion

    TOTAL NJ Debt (2019) (including three line items above): $234 billion

    Debt Per Taxpayer: $65,100

    Debt Per Taxpayer Arising from State Worker Obligations: $52,886 (81.2% of total debt)

    Not sure if these numbers include county and municipal debt. Obviously, the numbers today (from Covid) are dramatically worse – simply there are less taxpayers right now and the unfunded state worker obligations get worse every single day.

    https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/FSOS-booklet-2019.pdf

  143. 3b says:

    The Republic of Ireland is filled with British statues left over from British colonial rule. Brits do like their statues commemorating all sorts of events and battles many of them obscure. There were two massive statues of Queen Victoria and her husband sitting on the front lawn of the Irish Parliament. The government back in the 60 s asked the British government if they wanted them; they declined.

    The Australian government offered to take Victoria, but did not want Albert. He was moved to the back of the building, and is still there as far as I know.

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  145. Fabius Maximus says:

    Home,

    How about I bus your kids into the hood to bring up the numbers. I’m all for change. Take the districts to the county level. High achievers can test into Academies and mix up the rest.

  146. homeboken says:

    Fab I responded but I think I ended up in moderation.

    To summarize – School choice aims to pull the lower rungs of education up. You are suggesting pulling the top rungs down and calling it a victory for equality.

    That is really stupid.

  147. Democratnomore says:

    I went to a Catholic grade school with very few luxuries. Why were these poor Catholic schools able to educate kids in the basics? Discipline and some amazing teachers.
    You could hear a pin drop in the hallways while class was in session at my Catholic high school.

    What happens when you have forced busing? Cleveland Ohio’s tax base was decimated as whites fled or put their kids in Catholic schools.

  148. homeboken says:

    School Choice —- the important word here is Choice.

    We should not force a kid into a new school anymore than we should force them to stay in their current school.

    With almost no exceptions – Increase in choice produces a better result for the consumer. That is true in almost every situation.

    That choice does come with an expense – it will be paid by those schools that are not anyone’s preferred choice. That is exactly what it aims to accomplish.

  149. TruthIsTheEnemy says:

    Damn that pesky constitution getting in the way of our social engineering schemes again. If only we could abolish it and hand over our liberties to progressives and bureaucrats, we could fix all of our problems.

  150. homeboken says:

    Consumers everywhere are hurt by monopolies. They reduce quality and raise prices with no corresponding benefit. Pretty much nobody defends a monopoly as a benefit to society.

    And yet – We have legalized geographic monopolies when it comes to educating our future generations.

    Our current zip code based education system would be broken up by anti-trust lawyers in a heartbeat if it were subject to the same legal scrutiny as the business world.

  151. Fabius Maximus says:

    Home,

    At best Choice is pulling the ladder up behind and making the bad place worst as now there are no role models and less resource to teach the rest. Choice does not necessarily mean that the school they land in is better than what they left. Also Choice is lip service if a kid has a voucher, but cant use it because they can get the logistics to work. Also Choice is not a two way street, the receiving school gets to choose who they take.

    And why are your kids top rung? If your kids a D student, why cant I put them in a class with other D students and focus teaching to the ability and not the grade.

    Education is not a monopoly. Just like the difference between the USPS and UPS. The post office will deliver to every address for the price of a stamp. UPS can choose where to offer service and what they can charge. Big difference.

  152. homeboken says:

    Fab- you are reaching here. Just admit that you are against school choice because it will impact the teachers and weaken their union. I will leave it alone. I’ll still consider you a segregationist but I will stop making you defend your racist views on the board.

    But if you are trying to convince me that the current system can in no way be improved by offering more choice to the student and their family, you are not doing a good job.

  153. Libturd says:

    D-Fens,

    That Icelandic study proves almost next to nothing if you know anything at all about how Iceland handled Covid cases. There was absolutely no time for anyone to spread the disease there. Nearly every case was from those who traveled internationally and everyone (I MEAN EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO ENTERED THE COUNTRY) was rapid tested and forced into immediate and government supervised quarantine. No one with the virus spent a single minute in schools.

    That article is a handpicked propaganda piece at best. Worst of all, the loss of freedoms required to control Covid in Iceland, fly in the face of every argument the Right makes.

    I’m surprised the writer didn’t also say that Mexicans in Iceland can’t contract Covid since none did. Then again, all Mexicans are rapists so why would they?

  154. joyce says:

    Education is not a monopoly. Just like the difference between the USPS and UPS. The post office will deliver to every address for the price of a stamp. UPS can choose where to offer service and what they can charge. Big difference.

    UPS and everyone else is prohibited by law from delivering “letters.”

  155. Libturd says:

    I support school choice. Mainly because I don’t believe unions should exist for public workers as their is no such thing as collective bargaining with them.

    Though I mainly support school choice only where the school system is failing to educate the population.

    I’ve seen way too many “boutique” schools with connected founders (to local governments) profiting off of the program and screwing the taxpayer by hurting the well-performing public schools. For instance, someone on my block tried to open a French speaking school in Montclair. WTF?

    And don’t forget, there is the religious aspect here. Plenty of folks want their children’s religious education to be paid for with tax dollars also hurting the public schools. If you want Johnny to get educated (and felt up) as an altar boy. You can pay for that yourself.

  156. joyce says:

    Maybe 100 years ago. Recently, what large companies have been scrutinized let alone broken up via anti-trust regulation?

    homeboken says:
    July 16, 2020 at 1:58 pm

    Our current zip code based education system would be broken up by anti-trust lawyers in a heartbeat if it were subject to the same legal scrutiny as the business world.

  157. homeboken says:

    Lib – Those are valid points. I recall very well, the Charter School system in Hoboken, called Hola! It was graft and corruption of the highest order. We must support rooting out corruption in student selection in charter schools.

    Also – I think we can easily legislate school choice to side-step the religious school dilemma. I suggest allowing school choice from public school to other public school only.

    I will not defend allowing public dollars to be funneled into a religious school program.

  158. homeboken says:

    Joyce – Maybe I should state it more clearly –

    “Our current zip code based education system would be broken up by anti-trust lawyers in a heartbeat if it were subject to the same legal scrutiny, THAT SHOULD BE ENFORCED, in the business world.

  159. Fabius Maximus says:

    Home,

    Now who’s reaching. As has been discussed repeatadly in here. The performance of schools is not with the teachers. It starts with the Adminsistration and goes all the way up to to DeVos and the DOE. A woman who I suspect has never seen the inside of a public classroom in her life.

    Here is my view, just like healthcare. You have a right to a basic education. That should be the same for everyone across the board. If you want to Opt out and go private, go for it. If you want to pay extra for outside help again, go for it.

    Charters and Abbots have the same issues. Once you introduce for profit into the equasion, then Service Level is not the driving factor.

  160. homeboken says:

    Quality of education is made up of many variables. My theory is that the closer the variable is to the student, the more impact.

    Parent involvement – 10 out of 10 on importance
    Quality of home life – 10
    Quality of school building – 8/9
    Quality of teacher – 8/9
    etc.
    .
    .
    .
    Then way way down,
    Quality of the Secretary of Education – not meaningful.

  161. homeboken says:

    I should add – That I think Betsy Devos and her Amway family are likely giant $cumbags. They made their fortune selling a get rich quick pyramid scheme. I’d be happy to see her removed from her post immediately. But the point remains, her impact on the day to day life of the average student is pretty close to nil.

  162. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Come on, like UPS wants any part of that business. It’s impossible to win long term, why it must be subsidized.

    “UPS and everyone else is prohibited by law from delivering “letters.””

  163. Libturd says:

    Sadly, I agree with Homeboken. The schools will suck in Jersey City regardless of who serves at the federal level.

    Crappy urban schools used to be a huge pet peeve of mine. I used to think it was more the lousy teachers and the lousier facilities. Then I looked more closely at the conditions of these schools and realized they were 100 times better than what I just graduated from in East Brunswick. The more I read about the issue, the more the problem pointed to the lack of respect for education (or the inability of the parent) at home. Even in my rich white town of Glen Ridge, I would posit half of the kids received extra educational services from a private tutor or learning facility (Kumon, Kaplam,PR, Etc.). Not mine, but we scared him straight from a young age by telling him he would end up a garbage man if he didn’t perform well in school.

    There have been a lot of studies over the years how best to improve urban schools and the best solutions usually involving improving the conditions for the parent(s) and offering free tuition for preschool. I remember reading of multiple experiments where a family received a cash stipend in exchange for their kids improved school performance. The better the grades, the higher the cash reward. These programs were always disgustingly successful but were never well received by the public (supposedly). The truth is, educational performance is directly related to parental incomes. As long as economically depressed families continue to live on the cycle of welfare dependency, little will change regardless of how nice the schools are or how much you spend on each pupil. The kid needs an incentive to learn and the parents of that kid must reinforce it.

    And yes, there are exceptions, but they are far and in between.

  164. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Home,

    Are you really advocating to have your child’s education destroyed by a gang banger? Let’s throw the gang banger in the class with rich kids, that will end well.

    If you want an honest opinion of someone who has been teaching for 15 years in the urban setting, we don’t need school choice. It’s good intentions, from someone that doesn’t get it, that will end badly.

  165. The Great Pumpkin says:

    We have a winner.

    What difference does the teacher or school make if the kid has no intention of learning? These poor parents should be locked up for what they do to their kids, instead we allow them to play victim. Being poor = get out of parenting card. These losers who ignore their kids get to play the victim card, it’s sickening. Blame the school all you want, it’s you. You are the problem. Every poor kid that has decent parents does well and gets out of the ghetto.

    I always say this. How is that the Indian immigrants do better than the other immigrant groups in my school. Same exact economic status. Dark skin. People always make fun of them. How do they consistently knock it out of the park in the same exact school system that is deemed a failure for Dominicans, Mexicans, and African Americans. Why do those groups consistently fail at education while the Indian’s kill it in the same exact public school system. No one wants to hear it, they like victim bs. Those Indians go to Ivy League schools and become doctors. Guess the school isn’t a failure, it’s the other cultures that don’t respect education.

    “The more I read about the issue, the more the problem pointed to the lack of respect for education (or the inability of the parent) at home.”

  166. The Great Pumpkin says:

    There are some bad teachers. I call them scumbags. The majority do care and try their best. Problem is, without the union, the teachers get walked all over. Unfortunately, no one respects the profession unless they have actually did it. I know teaching is tough, but convincing other people that it is has wasted lots of my time.

    “I support school choice. Mainly because I don’t believe unions should exist for public workers as their is no such thing as collective bargaining with them.”

  167. ExEssex says:

    Well there she sits buddy just a-gleaming in the sun
    There to greet a working man when his day is done
    I’m gonna pack my pa and I’m gonna pack my aunt
    I’m gonna take them down to the Cadillac ranch

    https://youtu.be/4dG3jc6fzPY

  168. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    The national DOE should be completely dismantled. It’s a patronage pit that has zero effect on what I choose to do in the classroom. The state DOE is equally as bad. Ironically, in communist California, they actually put together a group of science teachers that put forth an amazing set of standards to adhere to. They were clear, methodical, logical, and best yet, free of edubabble buzzwords.

    In NJ, we have a system where the state DOE creates standards full of nonsense and buzzwords and our idiot administrators act like it’s all important and try to force the teachers into doing it. For me personally, my boss has no chance of even understanding my subject, so I’m free to just say I did things and they cannot verify what I did or did not adhere to. Basically, anyone who drinks the kool-aid pisses off the students and parents following an awful curriculum and is then fired because firing decisions are almost exclusively based off of how many complaining phone calls an administrator receives. Those that choose to teach effectively and evade criticism from the admin are the only ones who survive.

    Every district has a few useless souls that should be dragged out of the building and have their certificates revoked. My observation on most of them is that they managed to skirt through the system because when they were up to fired, their principal or supervisors got a job offer somewhere else and stopped caring. I’ve seen people that should have been canned in their tenure year suddenly forgotten because the supervisor got promoted.

  169. chicagofinance says:

    I thought you people use trains for relocations to the East…

    Fabius Maximus says:
    July 16, 2020 at 1:19 pm
    Home,

    How about I bus your kids into the hood to bring up the numbers. I’m all for change. Take the districts to the county level. High achievers can test into Academies and mix up the rest.

  170. Fabius Maximus says:

    Home,

    So if Parent involvement and Quality of home life are your big markers, how is a voucher going to address that.

    It starts with the Administration. Put in a good principal and let them enact change. You don’t need new astroturf on the football field before you put a Chromebook in every kids hands. Doesn’t have to be the the $2K Macbooks my district gives out in High School, but a $150 plain machine that they can use with Free Wifi.

    One of the best initiatives I saw in one of the Newark schools was the principal who raised $5K and put a laundry room in the school basement. Grab some free Tide from the cupboard, do your laundry while you do your homework. That’s more useful than a voucher you can never use.

    Again, back to that Levittown video. The reasons for the projects are well documented. The way out of the projects, not so much.

  171. 3b says:

    Fab: Do your laundry in the basement while doing your home work? Seriously? Why don’t we just add dorms and be done with it.

    It all starts with the a Parents, you bring them into the world, which is your right; your responsibility is to raise them and that includes stressing education.

    I don’t know why bad behavior is not called out.

  172. ExEssex says:

    6:14 it takes a great deal of time and energy for leaders
    to call out bad behavior. Schools are scared of litigation.
    Only when parents protest conditions will changes be made.

    School choice is available in CA. Is it working?
    I dunno. CA is 38th out of 50 states in k-12 Ed.

  173. Juice Box says:

    Fab – Coaching from the stands again? What ghetto are you preaching from these days? Where do you go home a night? I get it your jollies are casting aspersions but you don’t live your convictions.

    You do care but in reality, where we live tells us all we need to know.

  174. Juice Box says:

    Essex – wise one on the mary jane..

    Litigation, yup noting needs to change more than that profession.

    They are ignored……

  175. Bystander says:

    ‘boken,

    What’s deal with Hola? A friend of mine got his 5 year old in there last year. Two kids, 2 BD apt. They refuse to move because they love bar scene/pool leagues. He was pushing some local candidate to get on school board to represent Connors then magically he got Hola. They never shut up about it on FB.

  176. D-FENS says:

    God damnit I am so drunk right now

    3b says:
    July 16, 2020 at 12:44 pm
    Bystander: a lot of history behind the name fighting Irish, although no definitive version of which one is true. Both of my Parents were Irish, and it did not bother them.

    What did bother them was and is the depiction of Irish as drunks. No other group would put up with the drunk tee shirts etc every St. Patrick s Day season. And she could not find any cards suitable to send home to Ireland every year as they were offensive. She finally found an Irish missionary society that had appropriate cards

  177. Juice Box says:

    Bystander – don’t do it yes Hoboken politics…. U will lose your mind, I speak as a survivor…

  178. The Great Pumpkin says:

    “Modern society has been shaped indispensably by markets and their evolution. It will be deeply affected if real markets mostly vanish, replaced by merely electronic, virtual forms.

    We are now living through a remarkable moment in the history of markets, and therefore in the history of contemporary civilization. Countless shopping places inside malls and on cities’ high streets keep disappearing. In their place, Amazon, Walmart and a very few other giants dominate, pleasing us with their prices and selection and efficiency but letting us down in so many other ways.

    We are becoming siloed, isolated again in households, this time staring at computer screens and opening packages. Social indicators show that we are understandably lonely and becoming lonelier. This year’s lockdown aiming to contain the pandemic has only intensified that process, putting mega-retailers who dominate the internet even more firmly in the catbird’s seat.”

    https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-brick-and-mortar-crumbling-20200711-xchmaiup6jailgxeiydch5l4ca-story.html

  179. The Great Pumpkin says:

    “The key word to describe the loss is loneliness, long a growing problem in the U.S. We spend ever more time before screens on computers, smartphones and TVs. Shopping face-to-face has long been very different.

    As has been known since at least Socrates’ time, humans are social animals. People gather in groups to exist in nature, to reproduce and raise families, to enjoy goods and services that cannot be produced by isolated individuals but only by groups or collective efforts. Sports, dances, restaurants and most other entertainments require people to gather in groups. Escaping loneliness has always been a major part of what we enjoy about our activities with others.

    Going to markets in malls, at country fairs, along Fifth Ave., and at tag sales overcomes loneliness.

    We probably can’t continue self-isolating forever. Likely sooner than later, Americans will react to their worsened loneliness. Venal politicians tap into this when they advocate “reopening America” despite serious viral risks.

    We ultimately want to venture out, and have contact with one another, for the same reasons that isolated farmers went on market day to gather with one another, that shy teenagers had reasons of their own to do likewise, that older people maintained lifelong friendships and started new ones.

    The internet is far better for selling goods than selling services precisely because services are, by definition, more about interpersonal interactions. So traditional retail spaces need to focus more on services than goods and more on the service aspects of goods than on the goods themselves. Buying a service from another person is likewise getting it, and that is much less lonely than buying a good via the internet.”

  180. AP says:

    I saw that piece about the Newark school principal who brought laundry machines for the students. He also kept the school building open at nights, with adult supervision, which some kids said was the only safe place they had to go.

    That principal is showing the way. He asked students what would help them best, rather than approach it with his own preconceived ideas.

    Definitely worth a watch: https://youtu.be/BIrhR6TZphA

  181. The Great Pumpkin says:

    The $52 Trillion Bubble: China Grapples With Epic Property Boom

    Real-estate surge eclipses the one in U.S. housing in the 2000s; desperate buyers undeterred by Covid pandemic

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-property-real-estate-boom-covid-pandemic-bubble-11594908517?st=pkp2lu2nsth2pmm&reflink=article_copyURL_share

  182. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Cities won’t die..

    “In March, 288 apart­ments in a new Shen­zhen prop­erty de­vel­op­ment sold out on­line in less than eight min­utes. A few days later, buy­ers snapped up more than 400 units in a new hous­ing com­plex in Suzhou. In Shang­hai, apart­ment re­sales neared a record high in April, by one es­ti­mate. One Sat­ur­day last month, nearly 9,000 peo­ple each put down a de­posit of one mil­lion yuan ($141,300) to qual­ify to buy apart­ments in a Shen­zhen de­vel­op­ment.”

  183. chicagofinance says:

    That’s my Mother-In-Law’s high school…… different era back in 1960.
    AP says:
    July 16, 2020 at 8:59 pm
    I saw that piece about the Newark school principal who brought laundry machines for the students. He also kept the school building open at nights, with adult supervision, which some kids said was the only safe place they had to go.

    That principal is showing the way. He asked students what would help them best, rather than approach it with his own preconceived ideas.

    Definitely worth a watch: https://youtu.be/BIrhR6TZphA

  184. chicagofinance says:

    Gave up in 2007….

    Juice Box says:
    July 16, 2020 at 6:43 pm
    Bystander – don’t do it yes Hoboken politics…. U will lose your mind, I speak as a survivor…

  185. Chicago says:

    Mushnick:

    Many suggestions for the NFL Washington team’s new nickname. Several have suggested the Lobbyists, while reader Mike Gressman would have the team honor all the lawyers in D.C. by naming them the Sioux. Mel Gross would go with the D.C. Comics.

  186. Fabius Maximus says:

    3b,

    I would rather see services like laundry and other supports in schools, if it helps break the Circle of Poverty, I would rather it be paid here than having to pay for it when they are incarcerated for minor MJ or parking fines that accumulate.

    Juice I have a half acre in a nice Tony town in Bergen County. I would actually benefit from vouchers. My district is driven by teaching to the test and the the standardized scores, They would rather send kids out of District or to other buildings that don’t count in the test scores than put real services in place where they are needed. Add in kids with money and you get a different set of problems.

  187. ExEssex says:

    In this publication, released by the Albert Shanker Institute in conjunction with a professional development forum for state leaders cosponsored with Achieve, Inc., Harvard professor Richard Elmore argues that education reforms that are based on standards and accountability will fail unless policymakers also adopt a strategy to ensure that educators have the knowledge and skill they need to help students succeed. The bottom line, says Elmore, is not in issues of governance and process, but in how the quality of instructional practice affects student learning.

    Source: https://www.shankerinstitute.org/resource/bridging-gap-between-standards-and-achievement

  188. homeboken says:

    Vouchers will not help all low-performance students in low-performing schools. Never claimed that.

    It will give the kid that has parents with even the slightest interest in their kids education, the opportunity to select a school that better suits their kid.

    Right now, there are plenty of very involved parents that are trapped in their zip code for various reasons, almost all relating to income and not at all because that is the best choice for the kids education. The kid is literally paying the price, via a diminished future, that the parent is forced to elect by living where they live.

    The parent’s that don’t value education and can’t be bothered to go through a process of selecting a better education for their kid, they are screwed. I don’t have an answer for those families.

    But for a parent that is in a tough economic spot and doesn’t want their kid to remain in the poverty life-cycle, a voucher to a better school is a decent start.

    Again – There is no way that we lift every single student to the highest level of eduction. But we can take the hand-cuffs off some parents and give them a fighting chance. But there will ALWAYS be those that care less about schools.

    Remember that Galton Board. Life is a bell curve. Allowing people to move along the curve is the goal that we can accomplish. A drastic shift in the curve to the better is much tougher and before long, those on the low end begin to realize that they are still worse off than those on the other end.

  189. homeboken says:

    It’s perspective – Ever hear of the pink dollars scenario in economics?

    Imagine the Fed says – We have a big national debt problem, so we are eliminating green dollars and replacing them with pink dollars.

    Every pink dollar is worth 2 green dollars. So if you have $1,000 in savings, boom, instant $2,000. Make $50,000 per year Boom, now you make $100,000.

    Look at your – Six figure salary – isnt’ that awesome. You’ve MADE IT!!

    In about 5 minutes people realize that relative to their peers, they have not improved one iota. Everything is double the price and the rich guy across the street just doubled his income too.

    That is not economic improvement. That’s calling a pile of cat turds and ice cream sundae and still being forced to eat it.

  190. zapaza19 says:

    Joyce,
    Your earlier comment about history books gave me quite a chuckle. History books are the LAST resource I would use. In todays political climate, it’s WHO writes the books that matter.

    With that aside, I would say watching, seeing and hearing in real-time is infinitely more impacting. As an example, when I was 7 years old, watching live telivision the day after Kennedy was assasinated and seeing Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald it was definitely a ‘WTF just happened’ moment. No history book can project that upon you

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