With the Realtors posting snarky lowball pieces about overpriced NJ houses – maybe it is time to call it quits. From Realtor.com:
6 Years Later, New Jersey’s Most Expensive Home Still Waiting for Its First Resident
In this age of tiny houses and the less-is-more aesthetic of millennials, can a house be too large for its market—even when that market sports a median home price around the $5 million mark? That has to be a question that occurs when viewing this massive 30,000-square-foot home listed for $48,880,000 in tony Alpine, NJ.
New Jersey’s most expensive home is only 30 minutes from Manhattan, and the property has been on and off the market since being built in 2010 by real estate mogul Richard Kurtz. Currently, Alpine’s median listing price is $4,995,000, and an estate just down the road from this mansion is listed for $27.8 million.
Kurtz originally had the home built for him and his wife, but they decided it was too much house after construction was done. He put it on the market in 2010. The home has apparently never been lived in, although one report noted Kurtz has been paying roughly $300,000 a year in property tax since it was built.
Listing agent Sharon Kurtz with Prominent Properties Sotheby’s International Realty–Alpine didn’t return a request for comment on the mansion.
The listing price for the home, known as the Stone Mansion, has fallen from $68 million in 2010 to $56 million in 2013 to $49 million later that year to today’s price of $48.88 million. The manse features 12 bedrooms, 15 full bathrooms, and four half-baths. And, of course, there is every imaginable amenity, including an indoor basketball court, a 4,000-bottle wine cellar, gold fixtures in the bathrooms, and a master suite that is larger than most New York City apartments just across the Hudson.
Good Morning New Jersey
From NJ1015:
The middle class in New Jersey is getting smaller
A new study confirms what New Jerseyans have already figured out.
The middle class is shrinking, while the number of lower- and upper-income residents is on the rise.
The Pew Research Center report finds over the past 16 years, as income inequality has widened, the middle class in most parts of the country, including New Jersey has grown smaller.
According to James W. Hughes Dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, this is having a detrimental effect on the state economy.
“The fact that the Jersey middle class is shrinking has feedback elements to all other dimensions of the economy. It impacts spending power, consumer spending power, it impacts retailing, it impacts the ability to purchase needed services and the like,” he said. “As shoppers look for more affordable places to buy things, the dollar stores are flourishing but the middle department stores are struggling, and even some of the high end department stores are struggling.”
In the Pew study, members of the middle class are defined as having an annual household income of between $42,000 and $125,000 for a family of three. The research indicates the share of Americans living in middle-class households dropped from 55 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2014.
Hughes pointed out the unemployment rate in Jersey, 4.4 percent, is now lower than the national average — but the figure alone can be a bit deceiving.
“We still have people who are technically employed, but they’re really under-employed. Their skill set may be greater than the job they actually have requires,” he said.
Hughes said that back in the ’80s and ’90s, as we made the transition to the information economy from the post-industrial economy, “we created a lot of middle-skilled, white-collar jobs. But over the past 10 years or so many of those jobs have started to disappear, They’ve been supplanted by information technology.”
In other words “those middle-skilled, reasonably good-paying white-collar jobs bulwarked our economy in the ’80s and the ’90s, but that’s no longer the case.”
He said “super-talented in demand workers have seen their wages go way up while a lot of low-paying jobs are going down, and as this trend plays out, New Jersey may well be hit harder because we have the highest housing costs in the country, we have other costs which are prohibitive, much greater than other parts of the nation. This makes the struggle for the middle class even harder.”
Hughes said that over the past 10 years, while New Jersey’s economy has been flat, New York City has gained about 650 thousand jobs, and many of those higher-paid positions are being filled by New Jersey workers, which has also contributed to the middle class shrinking in the Garden State.
@itsPeterGabriel
Happy 30th birthday to So, released 19 May 1986.
What were you doing 30 years ago today?
2 – The Barbell Effect
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-19/the-number-of-million-dollar-homes-in-the-u-s-has-doubled-in-four-years
Quick equalization plan to address NJ’s situation, for all homeowners with property tax over the median, let’s say $10,000, we can impose a surcharge equal to the amount over $10k and redistribute that to the lower income folks.
So if you pay $17,000 in property tax, we take 17,000 – 10,000 = $7,000 additional surcharge that the State can collect and redistribute!
…Middle Class…in New Jersey is struggling….anywhere else? They are flush!
Why is this blog still up? I thought grim created the ultimate plan to get that pumpkin useless to fk off….
Family Day at the Zoo (clot Edition):
A 3,300-pound walrus killed two people in a Chinese wildlife park by “hugging” them tightly and drowning them, according to reports.
A male tourist from Liaoning in Northeast China was visiting the Xixiajou Wildlife Park in the Shandong Province when he lost his footing and tumbled into the walrus pool, according to the Shanghai Daily, which did not provide a specific date of the incident.
The animal’s longtime trainer jumped in the water to try to save the flailing visitor — but the massive pinniped wrapped its arms around both men and plunged the pair deep underwater.
Zoo officials told local media that they initially thought the walrus was just demonstrating playful behavior with its longtime trainer and didn’t think he was in harm’s way.
Disturbing video of the incident has been circulating on Weibo, a popular social media site in China similar to Twitter, leading many to question the park’s safety procedures.
There are currently no barriers at the walrus exhibit, which remains open.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/population-surge-in-cities-eases-as-jobs-shift-and-suburbs-call-1463630461
“Happy 30th birthday to So, released 19 May 1986.
What were you doing 30 years ago today?”
Praying to my personal god that nearly a grand of college parking tickets over three years that finally caught up to me would not be processed quickly enough to prevent me from getting an actual lambskin at graduation given three generations of my family had come, lol.
I was interviewed earlier this week by The Record for an upcoming article on the impact of foreclosures on the NJ real estate market. As usual they were not interested in what I believe is important about the topic and will likely pull some meaningless quote from the interview. Flattered that they sought me out for my expertise.
Regarding the Frick property…marketing real estate is all about the size of the potential buyer pool that meets the profile for what you are selling. Buyer pool for Frick property is about the size of a thimble!
You are three generations Cornell?
BTW – I was just looking into hockey tix…..have you gone any time in the last 10 years? I haven’t been to a hockey game in 25.
I showed my 9 year old son this last night……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGbyqhuE_A
leftwing says:
May 19, 2016 at 9:49 am
“Happy 30th birthday to So, released 19 May 1986.
What were you doing 30 years ago today?”
Praying to my personal god that nearly a grand of college parking tickets over three years that finally caught up to me would not be processed quickly enough to prevent me from getting an actual lambskin at graduation given three generations of my family had come, lol.
Santa Claus is coming to town (clot Edition):
CARROLL, Iowa — Carrie Sapp teased her husband, Brad, about being afraid of ghosts when he said he heard someone whisper “get out of here” while he was sorting cans at his Iowa recycling business.
It was her turn eight hours later, though now it was a man yelling for help from the Carroll Redemption Center’s chimney.
Carrie Sapp told the Daily Times Herald on Wednesday that the man explained, “I was playing hide-and-seek with my cousin….Don’t call the cops!”
But they were called, as were firefighters, who eventually hammered a hole in the chimney before getting 29-year-old Jordan Kajewski out of it.
He was naked and covered in soot, though he had his clothes with him.
Kajewski was charged with trespassing. Court records don’t list an attorney for him.
Mulshine’s column today hits on some of the topics from yesterday and today…
Minimum rage: Why Donald Trump is doing so well with the working class | Mulshine
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/05/minimum_rage_why_donald_trump_is_doing_so_well_wit.html#incart_most-comments
clotopia
“Life here has become a misery. You walk around always stressed, always scared, and lynching offers a collective catharsis,”
“The mob went through Bernal’s pockets and handed a wad of bills to the old man: The equivalent of $5. They doused Bernal’s head and chest in gasoline and flicked a lighter. And they stood back as he burned alive.”
“Everyone needs to be scared,” said his nephew, Alfredo Cisneros. “People need to know there is no law here anymore. No one is safe.”
http://nypost.com/2016/05/19/mob-burns-a-man-alive-over-5/
[17] chifi
Coming to a barrio near you?
17 – Feel the Bern?
Morley Safer- RIP- Passed away less than a week after retiring from 60 min.
“The author correctly identifies the two major problems that have been occurring since the late 1970’s in the world economy-a nonsensical belief in an incoherent, intellectual monstrosity called ” Free Trade ” ,combined with massive Wall Street speculation and securitization based on debt leverage that was financed by a deliberately concentrated,” too big to fail ” private banking system created by Wall Street through a constant series of mergers,acquisitions and takeovers.
This has led to the deindustrialization of the United States through the hollowing out , downsizing,and off shoring of the manufacturing industrial sector and outsourcing of millions of American jobs.
The author correctly identifies this as the policy resulting from the application of theories taught at the libertarian economics department and Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.
The author loses a half of star for his incorrect assessment of Adam Smith’s analysis of trade in the Wealth of Nations (1776) that is presented on pp.434-439 of the Modern Library(Cannan) edition with the forward by Max Lerner. Smith was an advocate of both retaliatory and revenue tariffs.He put in place the largest revenue tariffs in history as the head of Customs in Scotland in 1780.Alexander Hamilton copied Smith in this regard in 1794. Protectionist tariffs would be dismantled in a prudent,judicious,slow, and gradual manner so as not to negatively impact the fixed capital stock and/or create possible unemployment problems. Smith’s views on retaliatory tariffs is, in fact, the first application of a game theoretic probabilistic mixed strategies approach in history since retaliation would automatically be resorted to unless the probability of the repeal of the offending countries tariffs was equal to 0. Any positive probability greater than 0 would lead Smith to advocate retaliation.Smith viewed a 100% free trade policy as ” Utopian “. Consider,however, the author’s incorrect assessment of Smith :
“Now what the GATT and its successor,the WTO,call ” free trade “, is not what Adam Smith…or most American economists mean by ” free trade “.For the economists,free trade means that a country unilaterally removes its tariffs and other trade barriers regardless of what its trading partners do.It means Laissez-faire or totally unregulated trade “(p.85).
This is ,in fact, the argument of Bentham, Say and Bastiat.However,it is NOT the argument of Smith.Smith would view the ” modern” American economics profession’s free trade argument with distain.
The author has a potential, powerful ally in Adam Smith.Adam Smith was not an economist.He was a philosopher who specialized in ethics.I recommend the purchase of this book.I hope that the author revises the book in a later edition in which he incorporates what Adam Smith actually said and not what some University of Chicago economist claims he said.”
http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-American-Prosperity-Delusions-Post-Dollar/dp/1439119791
Minimum wage…..
http://www.businessinsider.com/wendys-swaps-workers-for-kiosks-2016-5
“The author correctly identifies the two major problems that have been occurring since the late 1970’s in the world economy-a nonsensical belief in an incoherent, intellectual monstrosity called ” Free Trade ” ,combined with massive Wall Street speculation and securitization based on debt leverage that was financed by a deliberately concentrated,” too big to fail ” private banking system created by Wall Street through a constant series of mergers,acquisitions and takeovers.
This has led to the deindustrialization of the United States through the hollowing out , downsizing,and off shoring of the manufacturing industrial sector and outsourcing of millions of American jobs.
The author correctly identifies this as the policy resulting from the application of theories taught at the libertarian economics department and Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.
The author loses a half of star for his incorrect assessment of Adam Smith’s analysis of trade in the Wealth of Nations (1776) that is presented on pp.434-439 of the Modern Library(Cannan) edition with the forward by Max Lerner. Smith was an advocate of both retaliatory and revenue tariffs.He put in place the largest revenue tariffs in history as the head of Customs in Scotland in 1780.Alexander Hamilton copied Smith in this regard in 1794. Protectionist tariffs would be dismantled in a prudent,judicious,slow, and gradual manner so as not to negatively impact the fixed capital stock and/or create possible unemployment problems. Smith’s views on retaliatory tariffs is, in fact, the first application of a game theoretic probabilistic mixed strategies approach in history since retaliation would automatically be resorted to unless the probability of the repeal of the offending countries tariffs was equal to 0. Any positive probability greater than 0 would lead Smith to advocate retaliation.Smith viewed a 100% free trade policy as ” Utopian “. Consider,however, the author’s incorrect assessment of Smith :
“Now what the GATT and its successor,the WTO,call ” free trade “, is not what Adam Smith…or most American economists mean by ” free trade “.For the economists,free trade means that a country unilaterally removes its tariffs and other trade barriers regardless of what its trading partners do.It means Laissez-fa!re or totally unregulated trade “(p.85).
This is ,in fact, the argument of Bentham, Say and Bastiat. However,it is NOT the argument of Smith.Smith would view the ” modern” American economics profession’s free trade argument with distain.
The author has a potential, powerful ally in Adam Smith.Adam Smith was not an economist.He was a philosopher who specialized in ethics.I recommend the purchase of this book.I hope that the author revises the book in a later edition in which he incorporates what Adam Smith actually said and not what some University of Chicago economist claims he said.”
http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-American-Prosperity-Delusions-Post-Dollar/dp/1439119791
If you don’t create new jobs for low level workers, who is going to be buying the fast food? You have to understand the relationship between labor costs and a customer’s ability to buy a product. If you eliminate their job without replacing it with another one, then you cut your labor costs while at the same time destroying your business’s customer base (aka destroying your ability to profit, therefore destroying your business).
“Wendy’s is far from alone in looking t0 tech as a way to reduce labor costs.”
“Today, economics plays a pivotal role in many arguments over social and political issues. On one side of the economic spectrum are individuals who focus on the issues of free markets and the limited role that government ought to play in economic issues. On the other side are individuals who focus on economic equality and the role government ought to play establishing that equality. I have interacted with individuals on both sides of the economic spectrum who, curiously, do agree on one thing: Adam Smith (1723-1790), the pioneer of political economy and author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (commonly called The Wealth of Nations), was a laissez-faire (free-market) ideologue. I, however, do not agree with them.
When I ask people on both sides of the economic spectrum why they think Smith was a laissez-faire ideologue, they commonly reply that he supported the view that an economy works best when business is completely free (unfettered) from government control. They tell me that Smith argued that the best economic situation is one in which the government has no role in the economy because businessmen ought to be free economically to do as they please. Some sympathetic to capitalism and free-markets claim that this total freedom was Adam Smith’s primary point and that this freedom is a good thing. Some opposed to free-markets claim this freedom is a bad thing because a few individuals end up incredibly rich while many other people end up with virtually nothing. I would contend that individuals on both sides of this argument are wrong about Adam Smith—and the implications of his theory.”
http://msc.gutenberg.edu/2013/03/adam-smith-was-no-laissez-faire-ideologue/
23- I think Trump understands this, or at least I hope so.
“US economists have long used the idealized free market model to make global trading decisions. The problem is the simple model illustrates heuristics of the concept, but in reality, our current global trading system is exceedingly complex and the “rationale” of the idealized model is inadequate. The global system is so complex with so many unquantifiable variables that it cannot predict accurately. One cannot pick and choose (as politicians are prone to do) “key items” to apply and get the expected outcome. I compare the idealized free market with the actual market to the difference between a paper glider and a modern super-sonic fly-by-wire jet fighter with an expert pilot in control. However, unlike the fighter where you can predict how it will perform under any condition of inputs because the parameters are known, in the global trading system, not all parameters are known and/or not defined. Adding new parameters or ranges of parameter values on-the-fly (e.g., policy changes on either side) changes the model and therefore invalidates any model, even if were correct.
The alternate method of US businesses gaining sales in other countries is to build factories there to gain access to lower-cost labor and overcome the export barriers from the US. However, a country typically requires a company to transfer technology as well which then becomes available there to compete against the US. This is a multi-edged sword – lost jobs in the US due to closed factories, loss of technology and R&D capability, transfer of capital, and the products used in the US are now imports that add to the balance of trade deficit.
This leads to multi-national corporations with no loyalty to stakeholders (US, employees, community, etc.) only to shareholders to maximize profit. Global corporations owe no allegiance to any country and can relocate to any country of choice. In this role, currently US-based companies lobby congress for legislation to promote the corporation bottom-line regardless of whether it has a negative effect on the US economy or benefits another country that is competing with the US. By the way, the lobbying is all a tax deductible business expense to the company. The book is rife with examples of the irreversible loss of US technology, manufacturing, R &D capability, and millions of jobs under the current US laws and tax policies.
Without a drastic change in US policy, we are rapidly headed toward a 3rd world economy. The idea that the US will continue to be a major power by migrating to “higher level” services is debunked. Having presented a well balanced background on how we got into our current situation, Prestowitz closes the book with a number of steps to get the US back on track.
I am concerned that the country does not have the political will to do the right thing and fix our current broken trading system to get our economy back on track.”
14. Chi, no, I had three generations of my family *attending* my graduation. Needed that lambskin or I would be in deep…..
Although it would likely take three generations of alumni to get parking tickets forgiven, post-graduation. Remember the Christopher Reeve speech situation? He was scheduled to speak and they threatened to revoke his appearance because he still had outstanding tickets from his time there. Turned into a standoff and IIRC some third party came in and paid them LOL.
Hockey, yes, usually make it up there every couple years. A buddy’s son is on the team so more often recently. Still the same, a little sanitized, Schafer made it known he wanted the rink more family friendly and a few years back they were enforcing that strongly. Was amazed at how empty College Town is….all social media house parties now. Nines was dead on a Friday night, literally maybe ten people in there. Palm has finally shut.
Clot…I think I too may get myself banned from Baristanet. Grim…you can’t shut this place down. I will have no place to share my wisdom.
Haha, just watched the video. Great.
I have a current friend, was an ECAC All Star defenseman at a different school. Took more than a few penalties and he *fondly* recalls the long, full rink, full volume windup to ‘see ya!’ accompanying him to the penalty box up there. Good times.
Not to buck the consensus that real-estate is “improving”, but I’ve had three offers on my residence that were 20% under what I paid for it a few years ago… after things “stabilized” from the crisis.
Without a doubt this is a self inflicted wound and the blame rests solely at our feet here, but to anyone saying the market is on fire should pony up the difference in prices for me.
If this is considered a good market / recovery, may whatever deity you worship take pity on your soul during the next economic contraction (which after 8 years of proclaimed growth… should be right around the corner, right?)
WASHINGTON — Preliminary statistics released today by the FBI show that 41 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2015. This is a decrease of almost 20 percent when compared with the 51 officers killed in 2014.
I think Plumpkin needs a Venezuelan Vacation. Hopefully his vile and voluminous defecation in an otherwise livable community is considered theft there as well.
Felonious
I like that, it’s my new stage name.
Felonious Punk
@realDonaldTrump on Nabisco departure: “I’m not eating Oreos anymore. Neither is Chris.”
Grim are you really going to shut the blog down?
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