From MarketWatch:
Pending home sales surge 5.9% in May to 2-yr high
Pending home sales climbed 5.9% in May to match a two-year high, a trade group said Wednesday. The National Association of Realtors said its pending-home-sales index rose to 101.1 in May from 95.5 in April. The index is 13.3% above May 2011 levels. May marked the highest level since the scheduled expiration of the home buyer tax credit in April 2010. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed. An index of 100 is equal to the average level of contract activity during 2001.
From the WSJ:
Housing’s Boost: Time to Stop Blaming Weather?
Maybe it wasn’t the weather.
For months, economists have mused over whether the surprisingly strong start to the spring housing market has come from an unseasonably warm winter that simply led buyers back into the market earlier than usual.
But Wednesday’s report on pending home sales shows that housing demand hasn’t eased heading into the traditional peak buying season, despite an early start to the spring, the economic storm clouds in Europe and a slower rate of job growth at home.
An index that measures the number of contracts signed to purchase previously owned homes rose in May to match its March level, the highest in nearly two years. Pending sales were up by 13.3% from last year, and up by 5.9% from April, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Contract activity hasn’t been a perfect indicator of future sales activity. Many buyers are unable to secure deals due to difficulties with loan approvals or low home appraisals. Also, many contracts are subject to bank approval because the home seller owes more than the home is worth.
As a result, someone who went under contract in March, only to see the deal fall apart, might have gone under contract on a separate home in May.
Still, May’s reading shows broad strength, helped by mortgage rates that continue to plumb record lows. Pending sales were up in every part of the country, up by 19.8% in the Northeast and 22.1% in the Midwest, compared with one year ago. Activity was up by 11.9% in the South and 4.8% in the West.
Right now, all the signs point to a housing market that “has hit bottom and started an upswing,” wrote Dean Baker, the housing economist who has long maintained a bearish outlook for housing, on Tuesday.
From the NYT:
After Years of False Hopes, Signs of a Turn in Housing
Announcements of a housing recovery have become a wrongheaded rite of summer, but after several years of false hopes, evidence is accumulating that the optimists may finally be right.
The housing market is starting to recover. Prices are rising. Sales are increasing. Home builders are clearing lots and raising frames.
Joe Niece, a real estate agent in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, said he recently concluded a streak of 13 consecutive bidding wars over homes that his clients wanted to buy. Each sold above the asking price.
“I just had a home that wasn’t supposed to go on the market for two weeks sold before it even went on the market,” Mr. Niece said. “It’s definitely a lot different than what we saw” during the last few summers.
Like the economic recovery that began three years ago, what happens next is likely to prove a little disappointing. The pace of recovery will probably be slow, and the prices of many homes will continue to decline.
Millions of people remain underwater, owing more on their homes than the homes are worth, and unable to sell. Millions of families still face foreclosure. And a setback in the still-fragile economic recovery could easily reverse the uptick in housing prices, too.
But roughly six years after the housing market began its longest and deepest slide since the Great Depression, a growing number of experts and people who actually put money into housing believe the end has come.
From CNBC:
Have Home Prices Hit Bottom?
For the first time in seven months, home prices as recorded on the S&P/Case Shiller Home price Indices saw month-to month gains. The press release even referred to it as a “spike.” A 1.3 percent rise for the 10 and 20 city composites. When you seasonally adjust, the number dips to 0.7 percent, but it is still in the positive, and these days in housing, that apparently constitutes a spike.
“Some of this is probably because this is the spring selling season really hitting its stride,” notes S&P’s David Blitzer, “but certainly not all of it. My guess is half of what we’re seeing is real gains, not just seasonal shifts.”
The biggest gains came in some of the hardest hit areas, where investors rule the market and where they’re finding fewer and fewer homes to buy. Phoenix saw a whopping 8.6 percent annual jump in home prices, while Miami also saw healthy gains. Atlanta is still a sore spot, with home prices down 17 percent annually, thanks to a still huge supply of foreclosed homes.
So is this the end? Have home prices nowhere to go but up? The analysts aren’t so sure.
“We are coming back and this looks like a solid turn. It’s going to take a few more months to cement all the evidence in place, but it looks very good,” said Blitzer.
…
“It’s unlikely that house prices can continue rising at this sort of pace for much longer,” warns Paul Diggle at Capital Economics. “After all, the tight supply conditions that have led to sharp price gains are unlikely to persist now that banks appear to be processing foreclosures and short-sales at a quicker pace.”
While it may be tempting to call a bottom to prices, HIS Global Insight’s Patrick Newport warns it is, “premature to do so.” He also cites a large foreclosure pipeline and the possibility of a weakening economy. “The most likely scenario, in our view, is that home prices will zigzag over the coming months, rising during the selling season, slipping in the fall,” says Newport. “We are expecting home prices to cautiously start moving up in 2013, however.”
Good Morning New Jersey
bet the 1000 people at Roche don’t give a rats ass about looking for a house right now
4. Interesting. This site was vulnerable and shrinking for year since the Genentech buyout. One thing that is interesting is that an R&D site is slated for somewhere on the east coast, just not here. This is ‘after’ capital improvements were made to the site. On a related note: Christie must truly be a terrible negotiator.
Mike – Keep in mind there used to be 10,000 at that site. The economic pain of losing the jobs had hit the area long before the last 1000 are gone. I can remember a time when all the parking lots were full, and it was long before Genentech ever happened. Someone mentioned this yesterday, but this was pretty much a done deal in 2008, wasn’t it? I recall us talking about it here.
Property taxes are the big issue. As soon as it’s vacant, we’ll see the appeals, and Clifton and Nutley will lose millions in revenue with absolutely no short-term plan to get it back (since the site will be in remediation for a decade or more). Roche is paying approx. $14 million across both towns. Average taxpayer in both towns will likely see their tax bill raised by a few hundred as they’ll be expected to take up the slack (cut services? not possible).
We just got the bill for an unnecessary MRI scan my wife had a few weeks ago at Brigham & Womens: $8200. Only a $25 co-pay to us, but is that just ridiculous or what?
No one can save NJ. It’s been a welfare state for many years and with the High Property taxes, it will never come back .
Owwwww! Does it hurt now?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/jpmorgan-trading-loss-may-reach-9-billion/
I lived in FL during bubble. You knew it was a bubble when there were long lines outside builders’ office and listing price was increased 5k after each 30 customers.
My agent called me every month and congraduated me another 10k paper profit before my new house was still a dirt lot. And just 3yrs after graduated from school, I bought 7 houses/condos. etc. At parties, everyone talked how much more money their houses were worth from last month and where to buy next.
I sold everything before end of 2006 and became a renter for years. I didnot predict bubble, just felt extremely nervous about how easy money were made.
Housing may not hit the bottom. this we only know years later.
Now I felt comfortable again to buy. No bidding wars. No lines outside builders offices. At parties, people still talk about housing but all negatives. We became landlords again this year with surprising good cash flow. Even Grim bought a house.
I listen to this boards. I charted a few towns housing sales for last 6 years and studied each one: location, tax, history, improvement, owners situation (job change, mortgage, divorce, other houses they own, etc). Internet is great. Still more than half of our money still in stock and bonds. Balance.
Would anybody like to live in a million dollar house neighborhood in a blue ribbony NJ train town where your taxes go down every year? You can. Just move to Forest View Drive in Peapack-Gladstone. Lots of these mid 90’s mansions moving lately for around $1-$1.2 million and the taxes have been going *down* every year since 2006, where else in NJ can you find that? The problem is that all of these houses were selling in the *early* 2000’s for $600-$900K more.
http://www.zillow.com/homes/forest-view-dr,-gladstone,-nj_rb/
Grim 6 Even with vacant buildings doesn’t the company still have to pay what they are paying now in taxes? I know Merck in Rahway is demolishing old buildings to lower their tax rate.
Despite indications that the national real estate market may be stabilizing, the region’s home prices continue to slide, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index said Tuesday. Home values in the New York metropolitan area, including North Jersey, dropped 3.8 percent from April 2011 to April 2012, according to the index.
House sales are up as prices continue to fall. Ok, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. And when prices are down again this time next year, the sales will be up a little more. And for everyone that bought from 2003 up to and including TODAY, you are seeing your asset depreciate.
Even a house purchase today will be worth less tomorrow. Think about it. And if you bought from 2003 through 2007, you lost so much money that to sell now means you’ll get pulverized. That 725K home purchased in 2005 with 10% down is gone. You lost the $72,500, plus closing and moving costs and will now have to bring a check to the closing table to be released from the burden. And G0d only knows how big a check you’ll need to write.
Nutley and Clifton are striving to become modeled after Stockton, California.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime_courts/062712_Federal_agents_take_Palisades_Park_residents_into_custody.html
Next time you see strange looking people walking the streets of NJ asking yourself,
“Are these people here legally” think again . Its rampant in NJ . Senior housing is
loaded with illegals so are the schools
I think people will eventually buy houses like smart people buy cars. All cash, who cares what it’s worth down the road. Just sell it for whatever you can get. The tax bill will be analogous to car insurance. “Let’s see. I really like the Audi A8 but do I really want to pay that much in insurance?”
Question for JJ Will the Stockton bond holders get paid before the retirees get their pension checks?
16 – original expat, yep…
17 – Both will get paid, and you and I will get screwed. Make sense?
Correction, we’ll get robbed, JJ will get screwed.
Remember the one where JJ was fluffing Michelle Bachmann’s husband?
Jobless claims in at 386k, results largely boring
Sent this to the mayors of Nutley and Clifton this morning, since they are undoubtedly already planning to go this route.
From the Record:
West Milford business owners seek help dealing with 117% tax hike
WEST MILFORD – Several business owners appealed to the Township Council on Wednesday night for help dealing with steep tax increases they are facing this August.
Business owners, many of whom were visibly frustrated, did not present a particular plan to the council, admitting there was no easy solution in sight. At least two restaurant owners, who were among the meeting’s 45 attendees, are staring down tax jumps upwards of $16,000 a year that they said would force them to shut down.
“Many businesses are going to close down if this is where we are going,” said Mary Ann Minikus, owner of the Tuscany Brewhouse. “I think it’s a shame and we have to do something about it. I don’t know what the next step is.”
As a result of last year’s property revaluation, West Milford businesses will share more of the tax burden. On the whole, a Record analysis of the revaluation shows the typical assessment increased by 79 percent. Taken separately, businesses’ assessments rose 117 percent.
Breaking news:
US Economy Grew 1.9% in Q1, matching the previous estimate.
expat 16 “all cash” that will bring the buying pool down to about 20 people per state.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/u-s-economy-grew-1-9-in-first-quarter-on-consumer-spending.html
Brian 1.9 that is not a recovery number, at this point it should be higher coming off a recession. Did I say coming off.
#17 Mike: If the bonds are G O’s as in General Obligation, the bond holders get paid before everybody.
23 – probably smarter long term to be tax friendly and attract more businesses rather than raise taxes on existing ones.
#27 Mike: Right. However we do expect house prices to go up next year, according to one expert, he cautions not to expect a bottom now, but rather a zig zag, yes a zig zag in prices, where up in Spring and down in Fall, but than they are going to start to go up in 2013. That is all you need to know.
grim 22 NJ numbers just triggered a cut back in U P time. Many will be falling off the rolls , watch that food stamp number boys.
“State Extended Benefits (EB) Program To End in New Jersey
The United States Department of Labor (USDOL) has informed New Jersey authorities that Extended Unemployment Insurance Benefits, also known as the federal EB program, will no longer be available to long-term unemployed people in New Jersey as of July 7, 2012.
New Jersey no longer qualifies for the federal EB program that provides up to 20 additional weeks of jobless benefits to the long-term unemployed in high-unemployment states. The USDOL announced that, effective June 16, 2012, the EB program will close in New Jersey.
There is a three week EB “phase-out period” from that date. As a result, an EB claim can be filed up to the Sunday before the established final payment date. This means the last date that EB payments may be made is the week ending on July 7, 2012.
Claimants filing for EB may file their claims through July 1, 2012 if they remain unemployed. However, under federal law, New Jersey cannot pay any EB after the week ending on July 7, 2012. Unfortunately, no additional Federal or State Unemployment Insurance assistance is available at this time through the New Jersey Division of Unemployment Insurance.
We encourage you to visit our website at http://www.jobs4jersey.com to aid you in seeking employment. This website will guide you to some of New Jersey’s best online tools for finding work, including OnRamp, a job-search engine that will help you create or upload a resume to profile your talents before New Jersey employers. The website also will connect you to many state and federal programs established to assist workers and job-seekers.
You may also be able to obtain assistance through the New Jersey Department of Human Services by accessing the department’s website at: http://www.state.nj.us/humanservices/index.shtml or by reaching out to NJ 2-1-1.
By dialing 211 or by going to the website, http://www.nj211.org, you will find free, personal assistance in navigating through the vast network of health and human services, government assistance programs and local community resources in New Jersey.
A TECHNICAL NOTE ON EB: The Extended Benefits program has been in effect since March 15, 2009. Under USDOL guidelines, a state must meet certain criteria to remain in the federal EB program. One criterion is that the state’s “seasonally adjusted” average unemployment rate for the past three months must be at least 110 percent of one of the unemployment rates from a comparable three-month period in one of the past three years. The USDOL has determined that New Jersey no longer meets that criterion. “
Brian – but your asking the idiots in government to understand common sense. Low taxes and a favorable attitude toward business attracts business. when the opposite is applied the inverse is true. It is a simple edict that is lost on the morons who suck of the teet of the productive’s backs, but hey when you have pensions to pay you have to bleed the cow from somewhere. Unfortunately, the cow is dead and the best cuts have already been eaten.
7 – My 7 year old daughter had an emergency room visit (for dehydration) about 6 months ago. It cost us $250. I got a copy of the full bill in the mail….$17,500! Seems reasonable.
3b 30 we are simpatico as usual. I have decided that if the bank gives me any guff (we want more) about my cash offer on the short sale they can shove it. They have until Aug 6th by contract otherwise I can get out & I will . Get it even cheaper this winter & if I don’t no biggy.
Grim unmod 31 please.
3B Thanks for clarifying
Didn’t see all the links.
seif you should see the bill for 36 hours of neonatal care. My daughter had low glucose and they kept her right after birth. Funny thing is the neonatal unit is staffed by folks contracted by the hospital and our insurance company won’t cover. We have to appeal because obviously we should have known to transfer he immediately after birth to a covered provider.
See the ridiculousness in that statement.
32 – Wow, what did they use to cure her dehydration, the fountain of youth?
Futures looking”grim”, Europe well everything down but Spain & Italy, go figure.
38 – i think it is just the emergency room stay in general that is costly. she got some medication and had a drip in for a few hours. we were there for 6 hours, mostly watching tv and reading.
10 am the Supremes rule on “O” care, this should be entertaining.
speaking of the supremes…a question for any lawyers on here:
what do you make of scalia’s bench statement on the arizona immigration law? in his rant he mentioned something that happened weeks after the case was argued. shouldn’t a supreme court justice be above that kind of thing?
38 – That makes no sense. I was in the ER for dehydration + stomach pains a while ago. Had a drip, bloodwork, and a CAT scan, and was there for about 6 hours. Total cost came out to about $3700. I had to fight with the insurance company to pay it, but in the end I only owed the $100 co-pay.
I also went to Bergen Regional, which probably had a lot to do with the lower cost. Seeing a bunch of DWI’s fight with cops in the ER was a very entertaining way to spend your Friday night, let me tell you.
“Paging Dr. Strong….”
bah, meant to reply to 40, not 38.
Yields on 10-year notes , which move inversely to prices, fell 4 basis points to 1.59%. A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.
Yields on 30-year bonds declined 3 basis points to 2.66%.
Five-year yields fell 4 basis points to 0.71%.
Fun stuff. Borrowers are dancing in the aisle.
It’s like a table of contents to the world
grim says:
June 28, 2012 at 5:49 am
From the NYT:
After Years of False Hopes, Signs of the New York Times Real Estate Related Ad Revenue Increasing…….
waiting for open. looking to buy JPM and Barclays prefs if price is right. bunch of bs noise from NY times today
Mikeinwaiting says:
June 28, 2012 at 9:12 am
Futures looking”grim”, Europe well everything down but Spain & Italy, go figure.
#35 Mike: No problem. I just love the way this stuff is written, does any one check it, does any one ask for clarification? You read it, and you just scratch your head. In addition to all the math and science, expertise that we need and lack. Could we not use people that can actually think, and write? And put together something coherent? Just saying.
#33 Mike: Your own version of zig zag?
Just to point out hyprocrisy…..the President is allow to say things (Trayvon could be my son), but since Scalia doesn’t share your political outlook, “shouldn’t a supreme court justice be above that kind of thing?”
seif says:
June 28, 2012 at 9:25 am
speaking of the supremes…a question for any lawyers on here:
what do you make of scalia’s bench statement on the arizona immigration law? in his rant he mentioned something that happened weeks after the case was argued. shouldn’t a supreme court justice be above that kind of thing?
#37, Pain
“seif you should see the bill for 36 hours of neonatal care. My daughter had low glucose and they kept her right after birth. Funny thing is the neonatal unit is staffed by folks contracted by the hospital and our insurance company won’t cover. We have to appeal because obviously we should have known to transfer he immediately after birth to a covered provider.
See the ridiculousness in that statement.”
My father was a neonatologist and I used to do his billing for him. The medical billing industry is a 100% sham. They charge a lot to try to get as much from the insurance companies as they can. They are usually ecstatic to get 10% of their bill. None of them ever expect to be paid in full based on what they billed out. Basically, what you should do is call them up and offer them two options. You can pay 10% of the bill in cash up front, or 20 bucks a month. They usually assume everyone has no cash to begin with. Half the time, they jump on the 10% up front.
Personally, I think it should be illegal for them to bill what they do without having all prices, rates, and insurance coverages posted on the front door of the unit. Its like akin to restaurant adding a 2000% gratuity to your bill.
One thing that is interesting is that an R&D site is slated for somewhere on the east coast, just not here”
The new R& D site will be in the NY/NJ area. It will just have 250 people with no basic science research. Other than that, things are glorious.
3b 50 zig zag weren’t those papers back in the day! Yes it is I can wait longer than they can remain solvent. Wait they aren’t, Beneficial holding paper for250k they are in receivership .
It seems, hopefully, that my town government has learned it’s lesson here. Decades ago, M&M Mars was looking to build their new heaquarters in the area. We were competing with area towns. Long story short while they dragged their feet here, Hackettstown was all too happy to accomodate them and we lost out on decades of growth and property tax revenue. M&M Mars went on to build their headquarters in Hackettstown.
The current town government in Newton seems intent on being business friendly and since then a Home Depot has gone in, Wachovia bank, Thorlabs, Dell, Kohls, Marshalls, Sears, Walgreens, Holiday Inn numerous small businesses and a more that I’m probably fogetting. I hope the trend continues here.
#51 Amen. We should be able to shop around for the best quality medical care at the best price. A big discount for cash up front would be nice too. Physicians and other providers are selling a service. From a business standpoint they are no different from plumbers and roofers, except they have bigger egos and more student loan debt. A hundred bucks to unclog your drain; six hundred for a colonoscopy. Sold!
[25] MikeiW – or maybe the price would have to move significantly, and in which direction would that be? If all outstanding mortgages were forgiven today and all future mortgages outlawed, we’d have a robust (used) housing market, just at much lower prices.
expat 16 “all cash” that will bring the buying pool down to about 20 people per state.
50 – you response shows how warped you are
your
expat 56 agreed that was implied in my 20 person buying pool.
SCOTUS where are you………………………
43 – i will see if i can dig out the bill and see how the costs were attributed
CNN saying mandate thrown out…everyone else saying it is upheld
Healthcare is upheld by the supreme court….
Good news with Obamacare, ER can charge $17,500 for a short stay and the taxpayers can pay the bill. Nice.
#62
That’s not what I’m reading. Scotusblog says mandate surives as a tax. Whatever that means exactly.
Oh, that is what you said. Sorry
65 – that is correct…the point was CNN sux and now joins fox as irrelevant
O boy Upheld !
Bloomberg saying Roberts was deciding vote and says mandate is “tax” and therefore is upheld.
64 – that is wrong
#68 Mike: I was not expceting that. I guess the boogey man conservative court that so many Liberals feared has turned out to be nothing.
Was the vote 5 – 4 or 6 – 3? I see conflicting news.
The tax issue is catching some people by surprise. But NOT NJRER readers. We discussed this months ago.
I can’t opine on this for awhile. But as we discussed, this gives Romney one huge talking point: Obama has raised your taxes (again) and broken his tax promise (again).
5-4 with Roberts siding with majority
huh? Really odd response from you….
seif says:
June 28, 2012 at 9:55 am
50 – you response shows how warped you are
3b72 me either thank god I didn’t put any money on the call. Roberts “Et tu, Brute”.
Gary 73 Kennedy against, that is what was worrying the right & Roberts pulled a fast one deciding vote, go figure.
So with this ruling the government sets the precedent that it can force you to buy whatever it wants you to buy, and tax you if you don’t.
Pete 75 Roberts made the majority other wise inverse true.
Chi fi 76 you may be warped but it nothing to do with your response.
it has nothing
Hey does this mean Gary can get some decent health insurance?
Jason [78],
Exactly. So, the sky’s the limit. The next Bill should be a mandate to purchase donuts at least once a week. If you don’t, you’ll get taxed.
Brian [82],
Sure, why not? All you schlebs, get to work, I need healthcare. Oh… I need a pony, too!
Maybe next they’ll force renters to buy SFH and Condo’s.
78.Jason says:
June 28, 2012 at 10:30 am
So with this ruling the government sets the precedent that it can force you to buy whatever it wants you to buy, and tax you if you don’t.
Roberts ignored the Anti Injunction Act?
There were five votes to uphold everything.
There was at least one vote to strike down everything.
I suspect there were three somewhere inthe middle.
Really nice site and it is more complete and simple research. I thank you very much for the relaxation .
Shore 87 it would seem.
Dammit. The damn RINOs are everywhere and the T-Party shouldn’t stop until they’ve rooted them out of our party wherever they exist. Justice Roberts is a damn dirtbag and scum of the lowest order. You don’t jam some damn healthcare down my damn throat. I didn’t ask for this shlt and don’t want it, yet liberals and RINOs are forcing me to take something I don’t want. Damn you Roberts. Damn you.
Before reading this, think back to the post the other day about the couple (I think they were 38 and 40) who described themselves as more or less sulf-sufficient:
Spoiled Rotten
Why do kids rule the roost?
by Elizabeth Kolbert July 2, 2012
n 2004, Carolina Izquierdo, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, spent several months with the Matsigenka, a tribe of about twelve thousand people who live in the Peruvian Amazon. The Matsigenka hunt for monkeys and parrots, grow yucca and bananas, and build houses that they roof with the leaves of a particular kind of palm tree, known as a kapashi. At one point, Izquierdo decided to accompany a local family on a leaf-gathering expedition down the Urubamba River.
A member of another family, Yanira, asked if she could come along. Izquierdo and the others spent five days on the river. Although Yanira had no clear role in the group, she quickly found ways to make herself useful. Twice a day, she swept the sand off the sleeping mats, and she helped stack the kapashi leaves for transport back to the village. In the evening, she fished for crustaceans, which she cleaned, boiled, and served to the others. Calm and self-possessed, Yanira “asked for nothing,” Izquierdo later recalled. The girl’s behavior made a strong impression on the anthropologist because at the time of the trip Yanira was just six years old.
While Izquierdo was doing field work among the Matsigenka, she was also involved in an anthropological study closer to home. A colleague of hers, Elinor Ochs, had recruited thirty-two middle-class families for a study of life in twenty-first-century Los Angeles. Ochs had arranged to have the families filmed as they ate, fought, made up, and did the dishes.
Izquierdo and Ochs shared an interest in many ethnographic issues, including child rearing. How did parents in different cultures train young people to assume adult responsibilities? In the case of the Angelenos, they mostly didn’t. In the L.A. families observed, no child routinely performed household chores without being instructed to. Often, the kids had to be begged to attempt the simplest tasks; often, they still refused. In one fairly typical encounter, a father asked his eight-year-old son five times to please go take a bath or a shower. After the fifth plea went unheeded, the father picked the boy up and carried him into the bathroom. A few minutes later, the kid, still unwashed, wandered into another room to play a video game.
In another representative encounter, an eight-year-old girl sat down at the dining table. Finding that no silverware had been laid out for her, she demanded, “How am I supposed to eat?” Although the girl clearly knew where the silverware was kept, her father got up to get it for her.
In a third episode captured on tape, a boy named Ben was supposed to leave the house with his parents. But he couldn’t get his feet into his sneakers, because the laces were tied. He handed one of the shoes to his father: “Untie it!” His father suggested that he ask nicely.
“Can you untie it?” Ben replied. After more back-and-forth, his father untied Ben’s sneakers. Ben put them on, then asked his father to retie them. “You tie your shoes and let’s go,’’ his father finally exploded. Ben was unfazed. “I’m just asking,’’ he said.
snip
ith the exception of the imperial offspring of the Ming dynasty and the dauphins of pre-Revolutionary France, contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world. It’s not just that they’ve been given unprecedented amounts of stuff—clothes, toys, cameras, skis, computers, televisions, cell phones, PlayStations, iPods. (The market for Burberry Baby and other forms of kiddie “couture” has reportedly been growing by ten per cent a year.) They’ve also been granted unprecedented authority. “Parents want their kids’ approval, a reversal of the past ideal of children striving for their parents’ approval,” Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, both professors of psychology, have written. In many middle-class families, children have one, two, sometimes three adults at their beck and call. This is a social experiment on a grand scale, and a growing number of adults fear that it isn’t working out so well: according to one poll, commissioned by Time and CNN, two-thirds of American parents think that their children are spoiled.
The notion that we may be raising a generation of kids who can’t, or at least won’t, tie their own shoes has given rise to a new genre of parenting books. Their titles tend to be either dolorous (“The Price of Privilege”) or downright hostile (“The Narcissism Epidemic,” “Mean Moms Rule,” “A Nation of Wimps”). The books are less how-to guides than how-not-to’s: how not to give in to your toddler, how not to intervene whenever your teen-ager looks bored, how not to spend two hundred thousand dollars on tuition only to find your twenty-something graduate back at home, drinking all your beer.
Not long ago, Sally Koslow, a former editor-in-chief of McCall’s, discovered herself in this last situation. After four years in college and two on the West Coast, her son Jed moved back to Manhattan and settled into his old room in the family’s apartment, together with thirty-four boxes of vinyl LPs. Unemployed, Jed liked to stay out late, sleep until noon, and wander around in his boxers. Koslow set out to try to understand why he and so many of his peers seemed stuck in what she regarded as permanent “adultescence.” She concluded that one of the reasons is the lousy economy. Another is parents like her.
“Our offspring have simply leveraged our braggadocio, good intentions, and overinvestment,” Koslow writes in her new book, “Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest” (Viking). They inhabit “a broad savannah of entitlement that we’ve watered, landscaped, and hired gardeners to maintain.” She recommends letting the grasslands revert to forest: “The best way for a lot of us to show our love would be to learn to un-mother and un-father.” One practical tip that she offers is to do nothing when your adult child finally decides to move out. In the process of schlepping Jed’s stuff to an apartment in Carroll Gardens, Koslow’s husband tore a tendon and ended up in emergency surgery.
Madeline Levine, a psychologist who lives outside San Francisco, specializes in treating young adults. In “Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success” (HarperCollins), she argues that we do too much for our kids because we overestimate our influence. “Never before have parents been so (mistakenly) convinced that their every move has a ripple effect into their child’s future success,” she writes. Paradoxically, Levine maintains, by working so hard to help our kids we end up holding them back.
“Most parents today were brought up in a culture that put a strong emphasis on being special,” she observes. “Being special takes hard work and can’t be trusted to children. Hence the exhausting cycle of constantly monitoring their work and performance, which in turn makes children feel less competent and confident, so that they need even more oversight.”
snip
Druckerman talked to a lot of French mothers, all of them svelte and most apparently well rested. She learned that the French believe ignoring children is good for them. “French parents don’t worry that they’re going to damage their kids by frustrating them,” she writes. “To the contrary, they think their kids will be damaged if they can’t cope with frustration.” One mother, Martine, tells Druckerman that she always waited five minutes before picking up her infant daughter when she cried. While Druckerman and Martine are talking, in Martine’s suburban home, the daughter, now three, is baking cupcakes by herself. Bean is roughly the same age, “but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to let her do a complicated task like this all on her own,” Druckerman observes. “I’d be supervising, and she’d be resisting my supervision.”
Also key, Druckerman discovered, is just saying non. In contrast to American parents, French parents, when they say it, actually mean it. They “view learning to cope with ‘no’ as a crucial step in a child’s evolution,” Druckerman writes. “It forces them to understand that there are other people in the world, with needs as powerful as their own.”
snip
Ochs and Izquierdo noted, in their paper on the differences between the family lives of the Matsigenka and the Angelenos, how early the Matsigenka begin encouraging their children to be useful. Toddlers routinely heat their own food over an open fire, they observed, while “three-year-olds frequently practice cutting wood and grass with machetes and knives.” Boys, when they are six or seven, start to accompany their fathers on fishing and hunting trips, and girls learn to help their mothers with the cooking. As a consequence, by the time they reach puberty Matsigenka kids have mastered most of the skills necessary for survival. Their competence encourages autonomy, which fosters further competence—a virtuous cycle that continues to adulthood.
The cycle in American households seems mostly to run in the opposite direction. So little is expected of kids that even adolescents may not know how to operate the many labor-saving devices their homes are filled with. Their incompetence begets exasperation, which results in still less being asked of them (which leaves them more time for video games). Referring to the Los Angeles families, Ochs and Izquierdo wrote, “Many parents remarked that it takes more effort to get children to collaborate than to do the tasks themselves.”
One way to interpret these contrary cycles is to infer that Americans have a lower opinion of their kids’ capacities. And, in a certain sense, this is probably true: how many parents in Park Slope or Brentwood would trust their three-year-olds to cut the grass with a machete? But in another sense, of course, it’s ridiculous. Contemporary American parents—particularly the upscale sort that “unparenting” books are aimed at—tend to take a highly expansive view of their kids’ abilities. Little Ben may not be able to tie his shoes, but that shouldn’t preclude his going to Brown.
In “A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting” (Broadway), Hara Estroff Marano argues that college rankings are ultimately to blame for what ails the American family. Her argument runs more or less as follows: High-powered parents worry that the economic opportunities for their children are shrinking. They see a degree from a top-tier school as one of the few ways to give their kids a jump on the competition. In order to secure this advantage, they will do pretty much anything, which means not just taking care of all the cooking and cleaning but also helping their children with math homework, hiring them S.A.T. tutors, and, if necessary, suing their high school. Marano, an editor-at-large at Psychology Today, tells about a high school in Washington State that required students to write an eight-page paper and present a ten-minute oral report before graduating. When one senior got a failing grade on his project, his parents hired a lawyer.
Today’s parents are not just “helicopter parents,” a former school principal complains to Marano. “They are a jet-powered turbo attack model.”
snip
Lavishly illustrated with photographs (by Enzo Ragazzini) of the families’ houses and yards, the book offers an intimate glimpse into the crap-strewn core of American culture.
“After a few short years,” the text notes, many families amass more objects “than their houses can hold.” The result is garages given over to old furniture and unused sports equipment, home offices given over to boxes of stuff that haven’t yet been stuck in the garage, and, in one particularly jam-packed house, a shower stall given over to storing dirty laundry.
Children, according to “Life at Home,” are disproportionate generators of clutter: “Each new child in a household leads to a 30 percent increase in a family’s inventory of possessions during the preschool years alone.” Many of the kids’ rooms pictured are so crowded with clothes and toys, so many of which have been tossed on the floor, that there is no path to the bed. (One little girl’s room contains, by the authors’ count, two hundred and forty-eight dolls, including a hundred and sixty-five Beanie Babies.) The kids’ possessions, not to mention their dioramas and their T-ball trophies, spill out into other rooms, giving the houses what the authors call “a very child-centered look.”
When anthropologists study cultures like the Matsigenkas’, they tend to see patterns. The Matsigenka prize hard work and self-sufficiency. Their daily rituals, their child-rearing practices, and even their folktales reinforce these values, which have an obvious utility for subsistence farmers. Matsigenka stories often feature characters undone by laziness; kids who still don’t get the message are rubbed with an itch-inducing plant.
snip
As Melvin Konner, a psychiatrist and anthropologist at Emory University, points out in “The Evolution of Childhood” (Belknap), one of the defining characteristics of Homo sapiens is its “prolonged juvenile period.” Compared with other apes, humans are “altricial,” which is to say immature at birth. Chimpanzees, for instance, are born with brains half their adult size; the brains of human babies are only a third of their adult size. Chimps reach puberty shortly after they’re weaned; humans take another decade or so. No one knows when exactly in the process of hominid evolution juvenile development began to slow down, but even Homo ergaster, who evolved some 1.8 million years ago, seems to have enjoyed—if that’s the right word—a protracted childhood. It’s often argued by anthropologists that the drawn-out timetable is what made humans human in the first place. It’s the fact that we grow up slowly that makes acquiring language and building complicated social structures possible.
The same trend that appears in human prehistory shows up in history as well. The farther back you look, the faster kids grew up. In medieval Europe, children from seven on were initiated into adult work. Compulsory schooling, introduced in the nineteenth century, pushed back the age of maturity to sixteen or so. By the middle of the twentieth century, college graduation seemed, at least in this country, to be the new dividing line. Now, if Judd Apatow is to be trusted, it’s possible to close in on forty without coming of age.
snip
Or adultesence might be just the opposite: not evidence of progress but another sign of a generalized regression. Letting things slide is always the easiest thing to do, in parenting no less than in banking, public education, and environmental protection. A lack of discipline is apparent these days in just about every aspect of American society. Why this should be is a much larger question, one to ponder as we take out the garbage and tie our kids’ shoes.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/02/120702crbo_books_kolbert?currentPage=all
DOW sinking like a rock. Wait until you see the jobs report in the coming months. G0d, I am so f*cking screwed! lol! C’est la vie…
Dow now down 150 pts.; 100 at the open and 50 since Obamacare decision. Trend no look goot…
I can understand stocks getting smacked down but don’t understand PM’s. How are these guys going to “pay” for Obamacare without printing more money?
BHO to gloat at 12:15
Chifi,
News from high above Cayuga’s waters:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jXh9Kf6WGk_B8GlBM8ICHGBd7dGg?docId=9708a9675f3d4b38b88fc2b6a666ebb8
ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — A fraternity has been found guilty of hazing in the alcohol poisoning death of a Cornell University student from New York City.
The Ithaca Journal reports (http://ithacajr.nl/MVsaFS ) that a county judge convicted the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter of violating the state’s anti-hazing laws in the February 2011 death of George Desdunes (dehz-DOONZ’). Authorities say the 19-year-old sophomore from Brooklyn died after drinking too much alcohol during a hazing ritual.
snip
Is there any wonder people believe that their home is special and is going to rise in price even as others drop?
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ufos-exist-americans-national-geographic-survey/story?id=16661311
Unlike the national, Cornell’s SAE was really weak….I don’t know whether that legacy has persisted…..the had one of the nicest and centrally located buildings, but the brothers were really meh…..one of my buddies actually turned down a bid from them with the reason…what’s the point?
Shore Guy says:
June 28, 2012 at 11:16 am
Chifi,
News from high above Cayuga’s waters:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jXh9Kf6WGk_B8GlBM8ICHGBd7dGg?docId=9708a9675f3d4b38b88fc2b6a666ebb8
ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — A fraternity has been found guilty of hazing in the alcohol poisoning death of a Cornell University student from New York City.
The Ithaca Journal reports (http://ithacajr.nl/MVsaFS ) that a county judge convicted the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter of violating the state’s anti-hazing laws in the February 2011 death of George Desdunes (dehz-DOONZ’). Authorities say the 19-year-old sophomore from Brooklyn died after drinking too much alcohol during a hazing ritual.
snip
Shore: opinion on the verdict?
All this debate on the Obamacare decision. The only real important question is WWBD? What would Bebo do?
Shore 91 thanks for sharing. If the US economy / debt / entitlement problem doesn’t sink us, the fact that we as a nation are raising our kids this way may.
91 –
So what’s my takeaway from that article? People from LA overindulge their kids? Didn’t need a fcking anthropoligist to tell me that.
And to the paragraph that speaks about the French mothers’ superior child rearing ablities…really? The French? The last thing I’m going to do is tell my wife she should be more like the French. Really, GTF outta here with that article.
BTW, my 3 year old has to do chores in my house and sometimes even asks to help me. Yeah a lot of times he gives us a hard time and I hear things change when they’re older but I mean really, should I be telling him to mow the lawn with a machete or hunt for monkeys and parrots, grow yucca and bananas? Sh1t.
Bet the anthropologist and the author of the article don’t even have kids. Knucleheads.
Fuk that. I’m so sick of the self loathing BS.
101.Drachma says:
June 28, 2012 at 11:35 am
Shore 91 thanks for sharing. If the US economy / debt / entitlement problem doesn’t sink us, the fact that we as a nation are raising our kids this way may.
I may be the wrong person to ask, as I am not a big fan of Greek Life as it is currently practiced on many campuses. That said, to the extent that the verdict encourages CU’s frats not to behave in a manner that is in keeping with those at Dartmouth, it benefits the University. I suspect that the dead guy’s folks will soon own a frat house, as soon as the civil suit gets filed.
Say goodbye to small business.
This bill is going to be a disaster beyond comprehension.
Get your 10-99’s ready folks. Everyone will be independent contractors soon enough.
“mow the lawn with a machete ”
That would be silly, one uses a machete to trim bushes.
“I’m so sick of the self loathing BS.”
I don’t know that it is self loathing; however, ignoring our failings is simply self delusion.
Go ahead, borrow $200,000 to attend a third or fourth-tier law school. That makes perfect sense to me.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304458604577486623469958142.html
Shore Guy says:
June 28, 2012 at 11:42 am
That would be silly, one uses a machete to trim bushes.
Obviously you never dated a girl from Astoria.
JJ right on cue, another classic JJ.
Saw it coming too. Good ol’ JJ.
I’m so pissed right now that I can’t see straight. No one, and I mean no one, is going to jam some damn socialist healthcare down my damn throat. Hell, they can’t arrest me, so I am not going to take out any damn healthcare policy and nor will I accept any healthcare that Obama has his filthy socialist hands on. Given a choice between accepting Obamacare and dying, I choose death. I’ll go down as as T-Party man through and through and you have to pry the damn teabag and my tea cup from my cold dead hands.
he’s kenyan! this proves it. real amerr-icans are supposed to create trillion dollar deficits by using our tax dollars to go and kill other people…not to help our own sick people!!! we need sarah to get out there and start telling people the truth again. sarah where are you??? your cuntry needs you!
I was not in a frat. I grew up poor in NYC. I had nothing in common with suburban white boys from affluent families. The purpose of frats when I was there was essentially for upperclassmen to rape/date rape freshman girls. Also commit academic fraud to the extent possible.
Shore Guy says:
June 28, 2012 at 11:39 am
I may be the wrong person to ask, as I am not a big fan of Greek Life as it is currently practiced on many campuses.
Shore [107];
Go ahead, borrow $200,000 to attend a third or fourth-tier law school. That makes perfect sense to me.
Heard a woman call in to a national finanical talk show today. Her and her hubby met at law school; they have $200k in student loans EACH. She didn’t take the bar because she had her kid after graduating, and is currently a SAHM with with a law degree but no license to practice. He’s making $75k — not horrible, but not enough to pay back $400k in loans either.
Have fun, kids.
Bagels for meeting in Seattle sucked. Coffee good though.
114 – what a shame. i hope that doesn’t dissuade young kids from going to law school. how we will ever fulfill the massive shortage of lawyers in this country?
I wish this mandate was the first step. Unfortunately, there will be no affective health insurance reform without single payer and some serious tort reform. As long as both parties continue to take lobbyist dollars and campaign contributions, this mandate will most likely be the last step. As usual, the U.S. once again somehow replaced one terrible system with another terrible system.
There’s a reason that mass transit sucks in this country. No one is available to grease the pols pockets like the car makers can.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/Asian-American_civil_rights_group_to_hold_registration_drive_for_NJ_NY_residents.html
In other NJ related news : Please attend
I once dated a lawyer, pretty smart bright, but she worked all the time. Lawyers do make a good trophy wife, kinda of cool to have a non-practicing lawyer at home. Plus I get to see her legal briefs. I once told her stari decisis I think is greek for let the law stay as it it, basically lay still. But apparantly when I tried to practice greek stari decisis on her she kept moving and said no way I am laying still why you try to greek me. You would think after 100k of law school I could at least stick her in the butt as I did cite precident
seif says:
June 28, 2012 at 12:35 pm
114 – what a shame. i hope that doesn’t dissuade young kids from going to law school. how we will ever fulfill the massive shortage of lawyers in this country?
Dewey defeats Trumam!
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/06/cnn-fox-fail-the-supreme-court-ruling-127544.html
Have to give a shout out to Alberto Gonzales, he nailed it. Roberts punts. I personally think this is Roberts looking out for a legacy. He realises he SCOTUS dropped the ball with Citizens United, maybe this is a small step to walk it back.
Chi, the difference between O and Scalia is that the justice was appointed to be an impartial apolitical arbiter. Scalia for the most part can’t be removed from office and is unaccountable for his actions.
another closed in The ‘Fly:
Last LP: $725,000 ML#: 1210963
Addr: 19 COPPELL DR
Twn: TENAFLY Zip: 07670
Orig LP: $749,000
Sold: $697,000
Taxes: $17,053
SD: 6/27/2012 UCD: 5/15/2012 DOM: 51
WickedOrange – how are these Tenafly closing prices comparing to how you did? As a recent buyer in that market I am interested on your feeling about Tenafly real estate. Thanks.
120 – agreed…on both points.
I’m just sick of reading the “decline of America” horsesh1t articles when my wife and I are over here working our a$$es off. It really sets me off. Nothing personal Shore.
Funny story, some days I wonder if my kid actually respects me but he confirmed it one day when this happened….
So, every summer, the same contractor knocks on my door at least once and asks me or my wife if we want to replace our bay window cuz he and his crew are working in the neighborhood and they want to give me a free estimate. Every year I get more irritated about it becuause you think he’d get the message by now that I don’t want him working on my house.
So, the other day, I had just mowed the lawn worked in the yard etc., the baby kept us up late, I was getting over a cold and all I wanted was a little nap while my son watched sesame street and my daughter took her afternoon nap. So, knuclehead contractor guy decides to knock on the door AND ring the doorbell right as I drift off to sleep….d@mnit! So I slam the door in his faceand he scurried away….now he’s woke my 7 month old up too and I have no hope of napping…..
Then my 3 year old turns to me with this frightened look on his face and says to me “daddy are you going to spank that man?”
Swear to god. True story. Kids say funny stuff.
106.Shore Guy says:
June 28, 2012 at 11:42 am
“mow the lawn with a machete ”
That would be silly, one uses a machete to trim bushes.
“I’m so sick of the self loathing BS.”
I don’t know that it is self loathing; however, ignoring our failings is simply self delusion.
Clot,
https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/559070_10151036022625874_91406279_n.jpg
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The Treasury Department sold $29 billion in 7-year notes 7_YEAR -3.13% on Thursday at a yields of 1.075%
You may laugh but something like 25 billion munis are being called in July and massive BAC and C TrUP redemption are taken place, the bond desk at Fidelity told me clients are in a panic. those TrUps average 8.25% taxable and those high coupon munis have coupons of 5-6% tax free. Yikes that money has no place to go all 50 billion of it. Retail investors are annoyed at the fact corporate bonds are paying 4% and munis are paying 2% for same duration as bonds that matured. Perhaps this will help housing.
Does this mean Justice Roberts gets 72 virg1ns when he goes to Heaven?
zieba (124)-
Sound advice.
the only bonus of us being taxed to do things now is maybe I can be taxed if I don’t buy enough ammo under a republican administration.
Lib i agree with you, either go full socialist or not at all. Half measures never work for anything. The stupid law is a big wet kiss to the insurance industry, and for all you folks you rely on any type of medical device they are going to go up about 20% to cover the news fees on their manufacturers. Plus the government can’t efficiently deliver mail, education, or infrastructure they are going to provide efficient and cost effective healthcare. Let me know how that goes.
One bonus is listening to Limbaugh cry salty tears of sorrow stupid statist pig. Can’t wait to here Hannity promising the coming apocalypse if his boy who provided the model for this mess does not get elected.
Meat i think the first salvo in the revolution was fired today and those fat and well armed middle americans just got a huge wake up call.
Pain (128):
Gotta love Limbaugh. The guy must be dying right now for 2 reasons. One for the fact that his ultimate enemy just got his way with a lousy health care bill thanks to a conservative supreme court judge. The second becuase the guy he supports created the blue print for it.
It must suck to be a Ditto Head today.
It is a pretty funny turn of events. Now Mitt must attack the O-man for passing health care reform which he himself took credit for designing. If you didn’t think this election was over before today SCOTUS decision, now it’s really over.
Not that it matters who becomes our next Border Collie.
Stu,
This IS the first step towards single payer. As soon as this goes into effect, employers are going to ditch insurance faster than JJ ditches his morals when confronted with a drunk and randy woman. This will force employees into health exchanges which will, in time, morph into a single payer system. Then, once the government is the deep pocket, tort reform will be right behind; the sovereign does not like getting sued.
Stu,
I would not be surprised to see O win Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. With California and NY in the bag, well, it is hard to see Obama not winning well over 300 electoral votes. Four more friggen years. Uggh.
Hype, this should provide Mitt some interesting debate ammo:
Obama: Mandate is Not a Tax
Sep 20, 2009
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/09/obama-mandate-is-not-a-tax/
After I made my last post, I decided to take a look at an electoral map, the link is below. Do the math and look at the many ways that BO can win and the very few paths available for Romney to win. To make this race competetive, Romney will need a personality transplant.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html
Here is another:
http://www.270towin.com/
shore it is the only angle he can argue from not really a strong one either when you where the governer of Massachusetts who raised taxes. Man that party sucks and we are all f*cked
me Bebo me no care me go work as the death panel chair!
I’m actually for the death panels. I’m not so sure why the term scares the Dems so much. Hey, if you’ve earned enough scratch to get a heart transplant when your 105, more power to you. But if you’ve squandered your existence watching Friends reruns and collecting welfare, no life extension for you!
I think you ment drunk and/or randy woman
Shore Guy says:
June 28, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Stu,
This IS the first step towards single payer. As soon as this goes into effect, employers are going to ditch insurance faster than JJ ditches his morals when confronted with a drunk and randy woman. This will force employees into health exchanges which will, in time, morph into a single payer system. Then, once the government is the deep pocket, tort reform will be right behind; the sovereign does not like getting sued
Someone necessarily assist to make critically posts I might state. That is the first time I frequented your web page and thus far? I amazed with the research you made to make this actual publish related with excellent topics about “flagyl 120 tablets“. Wonderful task!
Lib i feel the same way, half the crap they proposed to my grandmother before her passing was laughable she had terminal cancer. If we hook you up to the machine that goes ping we can extend your lif by 34.5 seconds crap. I said to the oncologist my grandmother decided to live out her final days with as much dignity as possible with no heroic measures and we as a family decided to honor her wishes. I may as well have been speaking ancient sumerian
The best visual R-money can do now is place his 40 page MA Health Care bill next to the 2000 page federal bill and challenge his detractors to prove that it’s apples to apples the same.
143 – huh?
40 pages for 1 state is…drum roll (40 x 50)…can you do the math????
Hey Bebo has 85 followers on SoundCloud, including some randy types who might need a JJ machete trim job:
http://soundcloud.com/deejaybebo-1/followers
144 – You’re right. No way anyone will ever read the bills, not when your local community organizer will just tell you everything you need to know to
make an informed decisionvote.romney’s best bet is to just get out there on the stump and start making stuff up and spewing as many lies as poss…oh, wait…he is already doing that:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romney-responds-to-the-scotus-ruling-by-making-stuff-up/2012/06/28/gJQA4RCY9V_blog.html
too bad you guys couldn’t get hermain cain in as the nominee…”all bills will be 3 pages long!” i miss herman cain :(
Expat his followers look like FDA org chart for Jersey City MS-13 or the Latin Kings
Bebo has not responded to the email I sent him. Judging by the quality of his two songs on Soundcloud, Bebo might not be able to afford the internet. Now if he made a track called, “Gotsta Quarter?” he might actually get some of that hairy randy jenny yo.
This is what I see…..
JJ says:
June 28, 2012 at 1:26 pm
You may laugh but something like 25 billion munis are being called in July and massive BAC and C TrUP redemption are taken place, the bond desk at Fidelity told me clients are in a panic. those TrUps average 8.25% taxable and those high coupon munis have coupons of 5-6% tax free. Yikes that money has no place to go all 50 billion of it. Retail investors are annoyed at the fact corporate bonds are paying 4% and munis are paying 2% for same duration as bonds that matured. Perhaps this will help housing.
[149] Hey, do you think Bebo’s follower Papi Shank is actually JJ?
http://soundcloud.com/papishank
The ruling delivers a huge victory to President Barack Obama on the signature law of his presidency—a law that promises to make insurance available to a good number of the 49 million Americans who are currently uninsured.
Some observers predicted that the law will lead to higher costs.
“The end result is everybody’s happy because everybody can get health insurance [but] who’s going to pay for it? That’s the big question,” said Keith McCurdy, a New York-based partner with law firm Fox Rothschild, which works with employers on their benefits plans.
“In the past year, insurance premiums went up to begin covering some of the requirements of health-care reform. As more of those requirements develop, the cost of insurance will continue to go up,” he said.
Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, said the law’s measures aimed at curbing costs have yet to take effect. For instance, today insurance companies compete “on the basis of their ability to select out the healthiest customers and profit off them as much as possible,”
But the law will force them to compete on value, she said, helping to bring costs down. How will the law do that? In part, by requiring insurers to cover people regardless of pre-existing conditions and requiring minimum standards for what policies cover, plus much greater disclosure to consumers about what they’re paying for.
The law’s provisions are “a new factor in the health-care marketplace that we don’t have today that will curb health-care costs,” she said. Moreover, she added, “A lot of why heath-care costs go up is because we can do more things. People don’t die of stuff that used to take us out a generation ago.”
Good news for retirees, bad for the wealthy
The law “frees many Americans from simply having employer provided coverage as their only choice,” said Randall Abbott, senior consulting leader at Towers Watson, a benefits consulting firm.
The insurance exchanges, coming in 2014, combined with the law’s requirement that all consumers are covered, regardless of pre-existing conditions, is good news for people who retire before being eligible for Medicare, among others who don’t have insurance currently, Abbott said.
But he added that “the economic considerations of whether the nation can afford it over the long term is something we now need to grapple with from a budget perspective.”
Part of those costs will be paid through higher tax rates slated to start in 2013 for some high-income people: a 3.8% tax on some investment income and a 0.9% increase in payroll taxes for single filers with income of more than about $200,000 and married couples earning more than $250,000. Read more: Health law’s demise would have meant big bucks for some.
Keep in mind that Republicans have vowed to repeal the entire law, though their ability to do so may depend on the outcome of the coming presidential election and whether they gain seats in the Senate.
Other changes
A popular provision in the law mandates that children up to age 26 must be allowed access to insurance via their parent’s plan. That provision appears to be unchanged by the court’s ruling. And some preventive-care services will become available at no cost.
The $1.3 billion in rebates to consumers as a result of a provision in the health law also appear likely to move forward as expected. Read why health insurers are expected to rebate about $1.3 billion.
Small-business owners will continue to get access to the tax credit aimed at helping to subsidize the cost of health insurance for their employees. And tanning-salon owners across the land may be complaining that the 10% surtax on such services will continue.
The health law limits the items covered by the pretax flexible-spending accounts people tap to pay for medical expenses—requiring a doctor’s prescription for more items—and, starting in 2013, the law will make it more difficult for some taxpayers to deduct medical expenses (hiking the threshold from 7.5% of adjusted gross income to 10%).
There’s also a tax hike, slated to start in 2018, on the value of employer-based health-insurance plans that are deemed more generous than most, so-called “Cadillac” plans.
The recent push, driven by the new law, toward “accountable-care organizations”—a system of delivering health care that includes a focus on patient outcomes—likely will continue
I meant FBI stupid job always has me thinking of the beuracracy I have to deal with
The law “frees many Americans from simply having employer provided coverage as their only choice,” said Randall Abbott, senior consulting leader at Towers Watson, a benefits consulting firm.
The insurance exchanges, coming in 2014, combined with the law’s requirement that all consumers are covered, regardless of pre-existing conditions, is good news for people who retire before being eligible for Medicare, among others who don’t have insurance currently, Abbott said.
But he added that “the economic considerations of whether the nation can afford it over the long term is something we now need to grapple with from a budget perspective.”
Part of those costs will be paid through higher tax rates slated to start in 2013 for some high-income people: a 3.8% tax on some investment income and a 0.9% increase in payroll taxes for single filers with income of more than about $200,000 and married couples earning more than $250,000. Read more: Health law’s demise would have meant big bucks for some.
Keep in mind that Republicans have vowed to repeal the entire law, though their ability to do so may depend on the outcome of the coming presidential election and whether they gain seats in the Senate.
[153] I was thinking maybe you meant ATF.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding “Obamacare” will have major implications for patients, insurers and hospitals. It will also determine the future of jobs in the health-care industry.
Upholding the federal health-care law, formally called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as well as the mandate that everyone buy insurance could bring as many as 30 million new customers into the industry, causing significant uptick in both use and spending, said Linda J. Blumberg, senior fellow at The Urban Institute Health Policy Center.
More money will flow to “pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospitals, the people they employ, and even insurers,” said Joseph White, Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and chair of the Department of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University.
Job growth will likely be strongest in the primary care and home care fields, said Joanne Spetz, a professor at the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco. The demand for health-care workers like dietitians, social workers and hospital administrators will also increase.
Other Winners
Another clear winner is the health-care technology sector, including those that help digitize, manage and secure health-care systems and medical records repositories, said John Birkmeyer, a University of Michigan professor of surgery and director of the university’s center for health-care outcomes and policy.
IT services companies that can take health-care information and turn it into actionable data will benefit, Birkmeyer added. Expect to see a boom in job creation and greater competition in these sectors if the law is upheld, said Joe Flower, an independent health-care analyst and author of “Healthcare Beyond Reform: Doing it Right for Half the Cost.” Support areas for primary care will also be hot.
Less clear is what happens to jobs at medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies, which have been adding and purging talent over the last three years as market dynamics change.
While it is true that the PPACA will bring in millions of new customers, a number of provisions will likely hurt the medical device manufacturing industry. The law will enforce a 2.3% medical device tax that will cut into manufacturers’ profit margins.
http://it-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SBB0001424052702304058404577494530999215186/Jobs-in-Health-Care-to-Expand-with-Court-Ruling?Mod=MKTW
Insurance Industry
But perhaps the biggest impact could fall on the insurance industry. As part of the law, 80% of insurance premiums must be allocated to covering medical care, leaving only 20% for the insurance company to cover payroll and administrative functions.
“Approximately $1.1 billion will have to be paid back this year by insurance companies,” Anderson said. “Most of which will come from employee salaries.”
“They will go from a percentage of growing pie to one-time fee,” Flower said. “They will need to change their business model.”
Yo and the unintended consequence of that will be that smaller insurance companies that may have offered competitive rates to small businesses either going out of buisness or charging rates so exhorbitant they price themselves out of the market. Either way this leads to one large single payer system or the healthcare of 330 million people in the hands of a very few insurance companies. Freedom of choice and the free amrket be damned.
#91 Shore guy
Sure they cut grass and cook their own food at 3 years old, but when do the Matsigenka start getting trophies? That’s what’s important, isn’t it?
What I see is a big pool of insurance companies competing for business inside the govt exchanges.I dont know if employers will still be compelled to give insurance to their employees,through private insurance.I see all health care insurance going through the govt exchanges
Painhrtz – Oooh a Donut! says:
June 28, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Yo and the unintended consequence of that will be that smaller insurance companies that may have offered competitive rates to small businesses either going out of buisness or charging rates so exhorbitant they price themselves out of the market. Either way this leads to one large single payer system or the healthcare of 330 million people in the hands of a very few insurance companies. Freedom of choice and the free amrket be damned
Chifi this is insanity, I just got called on a long term Chase bond that matures in the year 2035 with a lousy 5.85% coupon.
Crazy calling long long term subordinated bonds with coupons below 6% So far I got 135K worth of bonds being called next month .
SOB dead beat homeowners who need super low 30 year rates to keep from going bk is causing every bond with a coupon of 5% and above to be called.
JPM CHASE XVII PREFERRED
JUNIOR SUBORDINATED
R/MD 5.85 08/01/2035
WE NEED TO BE EDUCATED ABOUT THE LAW
Medicare Scare Ad Makes False Claim of Cuts for Seniors
Florida seniors will be living a “nightmare” because Senator Bill Nelson voted for $500 billion in Medicare cuts, the anonymous voice warns in the most-aired advertisement in his re-election race — a message repeated in similar spots targeting other Democrats across the countryIt’s also wrong, according to a Republican health-care expert and independent analysts.
“There are no reductions in the Medicare benefits promised in law,” said Gail Wilensky, who served as administrator of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare under President George H.W. Bush and is a senior fellow at Project Hope, a health-research organization in Virginia.
The nonpartisan Concord Coalition, a budget research group, says the ads assume insurers will cut Medicare benefits to comply with President Barack Obama’s 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which scales back payments to Medicare Advantage plans, an alternative to traditional Medicare.
The law, the core of which was found constitutional today by the U.S. Supreme Court, also slows the growth of Medicare payments to hospitals and other health providers. Seniors’ benefits weren’t reduced in the legislation.
That hasn’t deterred Republican-aligned groups such as Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from the benefit-cut assertion in campaign television commercials targeting the law that have outnumbered positive ads by a 3-to-1 ratio since measure took effect, according to data from Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks campaign advertising.
[161] ZIRP for the foreseeable future, just like Japan. Why issue long term maturities when it looks like corps will be able to issue short term instead and just keep rolling them over at probably even lower rates.
Here, however, Congress has impressed into service third parties, healthy individuals who could be but are not customers of the relevant industry, to offset the undesirable consequences of the regulation. Congress’ desire to force these individuals to purchase insurance is motivated by the fact that they are further removed from the market than unhealthy individuals with pre-existing conditions, because they are less likely to need extensive care in the near future. If Congress can reach out and command even those furthest removed from an interstate market to participate in the market, then the Commerce Clause becomes a font of unlimited power, or in Hamilton’s words, “the hideous monster whose devouring jaws . . . spare neither sex nor age, nor high nor low, nor sacred nor profane.” The Federalist No. 33, p. 202 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961).
(139)
Libtard, sure at age 105, death panel says no to treatment, no biggie. What happens however, when the age is dropped to 70 or 65 or 60?
The problem with a healthy individual,that don’t want to buy an insurance,once they get sick,they become a burden to the state or the hospitals through charity.
Dow now up about 125 since Obamacare decision. What a trend!
Anon E. Moose says:
June 28, 2012 at 11:07 am
Dow now down 150 pts.; 100 at the open and 50 since Obamacare decision. Trend no look goot…
Jason,
I have a sliding scale which I use with my dog. At age 8, max repairs are $1,000. At age 9, it’s $900 and so on. Heartless, yes! But a new dog is $1,000. I’m not mortgaging my home for a pooch (no matter how much I love it) to extend his miserable existence by a year or two.
Health Insurance should be exactly that. The pharmaceutical companies will stop charging $30,000 per dose for an AIDs patient to save their eyesight for the last 30 days of their existence if we stop paying for it. People need to take some personal responsibility before we end up in the dark ages. Yes, if at 70 my overall health is reasonable, I don’t have diabetes and I pass a physical fitness test, the death panel says I live. If I attend the hearing in a wheelchair, smoking a cigar with a martini in my other hand, no new heart for me.
Lib damn you and your common sense.
Great Dagos are beating the Krauts and my in-laws are coming for dinner. this is when i get the lecture about how the Krauts are superior to the Dagos despite the score and my heritage sucks. Despite being 3rd generation american. I think he forgets sometimes because my direct family is such a Jersey Ginny stereotype though i can’t blame him for getting it mixed up.
seif [147];
From your link:
>So [Romney’s] best bet is to lie constantly about what’s actually in the bill.<
Oh, so NOW they've read the bill? That was too much to ask for before they, you know, voted to pass it…
Lib,
If at 70 and in reasonable, yes Lib you do get treatment! Congratulations.
Oh wait, hold on, looking over your dietary records, it appears 10 years ago, that you ate just 3 servings of broccoli rather than the required 4 serving per week, in March and then again in October, and the gym reported that you were only in 12 times a month rather than the mandated 14 times a month, a couple of years ago. Sorry coverage denied. Next…
seif [148];
too bad you guys couldn’t get hermain cain in as the nominee
So your swipe at the party is that you don’t like the guy who DIDN’T win the nomination?
Jason I think it is heartless to deny eyesight to 100% of the people with aids. Sure the 50% face down in the pillow might not need it, but what about the other 50%?.
June 28, 2012 at 4:13 pm
Jason,
I have a sliding scale which I use with my dog. At age 8, max repairs are $1,000. At age 9, it’s $900 and so on. Heartless, yes! But a new dog is $1,000. I’m not mortgaging my home for a pooch (no matter how much I love it) to extend his miserable existence by a year or two.
Health Insurance should be exactly that. The pharmaceutical companies will stop charging $30,000 per dose for an AIDs patient to save their eyesight for the last 30 days of their existence if we stop paying for it. People need to take some personal responsibility before we end up in the dark ages. Yes, if at 70 my overall health is reasonable, I don’t have diabetes and I pass a physical fitness test, the death panel says I live. If I attend the hearing in a wheelchair, smoking a cigar with a martini in my other hand, no new heart for me.
ZIRP is a bitch.
The Original NJ Expat says:
June 28, 2012 at 3:53 pm
[161] ZIRP for the foreseeable future, just like Japan. Why issue long term maturities when it looks like corps will be able to issue short term instead and just keep rolling them over at probably even lower rates.
How the Health Care Ruling Affects You (aka, Winners and Losers)
“Those boomers under the age of 65 will see greater benefits now that the law has been upheld, says David Certner, legislative policy director for AARP.”
F—ing locusts.
Boomers happily stealing from their children and grand children since the late seventies
(166)
yo,
“they become a burden to the state or hospitals through charity”
They become a burden to the state (a.k.a. other people’s money, tax money) ONLY due to current laws that can easily be repealed.
OK, so that problems fixed.
They become a burden to hospitals through charity? What the heck does that mean? You do realize for prior to the laws I referred to above that charity wards were the only game in town to help people of limited means. And they worked somewhat well. Much better than the monstrosity of our current system.
njrereport.com will be the perfect blog for anyone who wants to know about this subject. You know a lot its practically difficult to argue with you (not that I really would want). You absolutely set a whole new spin on a topic thats been written about for years. Fantastic things, just excellent!
The US is the only developed country in the world that don’t offer health care to its citizen.Why repeal laws to throw the uninsured in the curb?People are always scared of the unknown.10 years of this law and it becomes part of your everyday living.We spent more than this monstrosity the last 30 years giving to upper income through tax breaks and low taxes.
For some of us that lived in a third world,what the right is proposing will surely lead us there.Just two class citizen,poor and the rich.We saw the widening income gap the last 30 years
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/345-Franklin-Tpke-Ridgewood-NJ-07450/38011850_zpid/
Anyone have ideas on what this Gem is worth ?
WTF, I am supporting 3, kids, wife, dog, teachers, police, librairians, garbageman, my stockbroker, swim teachers, gymastics teachers, play dates, Heck I am a one man economy and I am a cheap SOB, the damm baby boomers have blood sucking people all over them
Painhrtz – Oooh a Donut! says:
June 28, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Boomers happily stealing from their children and grand children since the late seventies
Because unlike those countries the rich dont stay rich and poor dont stay poor. I was dead broke 30 years ago and rich today. Reported a family income one year on my financial aid form one year of 9k, but for every kid in college they deducted 3k so my household income was zero. With a mortgage on family house debt was 20 times savings. In Africa you are born into wealth or born into poverty. In usa plenty a fortune is made and lost and plenty a broke kid becomes a multi millionaire.
Yo says:
June 28, 2012 at 5:21 pm
The US is the only developed country in the world that don’t offer health care to its citizen.Why repeal laws to throw the uninsured in the curb?People are always scared of the unknown.10 years of this law and it becomes part of your everyday living.We spent more than this monstrosity the last 30 years giving to upper income through tax breaks and low taxes.
For some of us that lived in a third world,what the right is proposing will surely lead us there.Just two class citizen,poor and the rich.We saw the widening income gap the last 30 years
(179)
“Why repeal laws to throw the uninsured in the curb?”
The charity wards in hospitals did a better job delivering care to those in need as compared to our current system.
“10 years of this law and it becomes part of your everyday living.”
Are we going for logic on that statement? 10 years of repealing all licensing laws and that will be come part of your everyday living too
“We saw the widening income gap the last 30 years”
The policies you support lead to the income gap. Inflation is nothing but a transfer of wealth upward. I’ve never heard you talk about inflation you didn’t like.
Headed out to Stone Street for Beers, let me leave you with.
“Buy low, sell high, cut your losses, let your profits run.”
And what is the number of people in poverty,in food stamps,unemployed,homeless vs the sucessful story JJ.
I am not saying you are wrong.I came here myself with $100 in my pocket and was able to do good for my family and myself.Lots of jobs for the ones willing to work and save.That all change during GWB’s term.During his term taxes were lowered to the extereme for the high income, lowest in history,people like JJ got richer.And the rich motto change to,I want to keep more of my hard earned dollar. The stupid common person got a poison pill from the bankers,borrow to the max and buy a house.You will get rich too.
JJ says:
June 28, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Because unlike those countries the rich dont stay rich and poor dont stay poor. I was dead broke 30 years ago and rich today. Reported a family income one year on my financial aid form one year of 9k, but for every kid in college they deducted 3k so my household income was zero. With a mortgage on family house debt was 20 times savings. In Africa you are born into wealth or born into poverty. In usa plenty a fortune is made and lost and plenty a broke kid becomes a multi millionaire.
179:
And there you have it. Surely, nothing problematic has ever resulted from this line of thinking.
10 years of this law and it becomes part of your everyday living.
#184 JJ
Jeremys for a big beer in styrofoam cup? Now thats a GTG I could go for!
#135 Shore
I have been saying that for months/years. One point to note is that those maps do not reflect todays result. Expect a big bounce for O in the next two weeks that he should be able to carry to Nov. PA is going to O and I can’t see how FL doesn’t as well. Its game over. The only question left will be if he does it by double digits,.
185
Yo,
The rich do not get richer because of the tax rates. The unfairness of the tax code is to blame, but more importantly is monetary policy.
You have no problem taxing income as a principle though, am I right?
Since when did it become moral to use the jackboot of the govt to take your fellow man’s property?
I say never.
And seriously, what is all this baloney about “it all started with this latest Obama policy” or “that all changed GWB’s term” or “when Reagan did this” or “LBJ started it with medicare” ?
It, the lawlessness, has been going on since the beginning.
How many hospitals closed because most of their patients are charity.UMDNJ in Newark is being taken over by Barnabas System,because most of their patients are charity.
“The charity wards in hospitals did a better job delivering care to those in need as compared to our current system”
A controlled inflation is good for the heavy debted country
Yo,
You are correct IF the country is now in the black for current budgets. If, like the US, a country is borrowing 1 of every three dollars it spends, inflation is a killer.
190
Find in the graph when the US was great and when its lowest point
http://visualizingeconomics.com/2010/02/04/historical-marginal-income-tax-rates/
Correlation does not imply causation…the middle class is under attack not because of any policies of government (except for the failure to institute protectionist import quotas)….simply the world manufacturing base has become global, and those unprepared, and further unwilling to adapt, have been disproportionately punished. The next time you buy any manufactured good from outside the U.S., point the finger at yourself. Go to Walmart….you are part of the problem…..Go To Family Dollar, you are part of the problem…..do you want to help the middle class…..support fracking, not buying a Prius…..don’t get lost in the weeds….we do not have a long-term revenue problem (i.e. taxes) we have a spending problem…..
Yo says:
June 28, 2012 at 5:47 pm
And what is the number of people in poverty,in food stamps,unemployed,homeless vs the sucessful story JJ.
I am not saying you are wrong.I came here myself with $100 in my pocket and was able to do good for my family and myself.Lots of jobs for the ones willing to work and save.That all change during GWB’s term.During his term taxes were lowered to the extereme for the high income, lowest in history,people like JJ got richer.And the rich motto change to,I want to keep more of my hard earned dollar. The stupid common person got a poison pill from the bankers,borrow to the max and buy a house.You will get rich too.
I am on my smartphone on stone st drinking beers, last post of night, get out there and drink
chicagofinance says:
June 28, 2012 at 6:32 pm
Correlation does not imply causation…the middle class is under attack not because of any policies of government (except for the failure to institute protectionist import quotas)….simply the world manufacturing base has become global, and those unprepared, and further unwilling to adapt, have been disproportionately punished. The next time you buy any manufactured good from outside the U.S., point the finger at yourself. Go to Walmart….you are part of the problem…..Go To Family Dollar, you are part of the problem…..do you want to help the middle class…..support fracking, not buying a Prius…..don’t get lost in the weeds….we do not have a long-term revenue problem (i.e. taxes) we have a spending problem…..
123,
Brian,
The decline of America happened long before you started working or were born. Yes, its by design. No political solution only collapse awaits us.
And look on this graph,when US deficit started growing.When they started cutting taxes.
http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/debt_deficit_history
128,
Pain,
Couldnt agree more. The only thing I hate more than the libtards are the Republican shills like Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck.
To be clear, tax issue is pure bullsh!t…..I don’t care what is collected, I care what is spent….and when you see waste, then the collection becomes an issue.
I do not think there is any question about what are the rational and humane things to offer the american public, but the long term consequences of fiscal irresponsibility are under consideration and most people seem incapable of seeing beyond the immediate choices….the long term implication is bureaucracy, waste and no incentive for individuals to follow responsible behavior……there is no sense arguing the point, we need to let this situation play out, and we will see the evidence….hopefully it won’t be too late…
130,
Libtard,
This election is a laughable disgrace between 2 of the most incompetent _ss clowns in America. The world laughs at us and for good reason.
Can I reincarnate Eisenhower?
Here we go…the latest iteration…and quickly created…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FEJljx3kGw&feature=youtu.be
My plan since 2008 has been make as much money as I can for this system doesn’t have much time. I appreciate Bernanke giving me 4 more years of prep time. I hope he can buy me 2 more. I’ve exceeded my expectations but doom is now at the door.
Historically currency systems have changed every 40 years. We are at 41 and failing fast.
I was at the gym today. Overheard an old timer on his cell stating, “Obamacare passed. Thats good. I got my social security checks coming in. Should be good to go.”
This fat f_ck on the cell phone doesnt have a clue. When it hits the fan laugh at these b_stards.
[168] Lib – good and reasonable plan. The fly in the ointment is: What’s the plan for the feral dogs, old and young?
I have a sliding scale which I use with my dog. At age 8, max repairs are $1,000. At age 9, it’s $900 and so on. Heartless, yes! But a new dog is $1,000. I’m not mortgaging my home for a pooch (no matter how much I love it) to extend his miserable existence by a year or two.
Health Insurance should be exactly that.
You know what? Maybe another 4 years for Obama and maybe 4 more for Biden, if he can avoid stepping on his own dick and inadvertently kneeing BHO in the balls. That’s 12 years. Will the American Idol crowd sill be blaming Bush? Maybe a real leader emerges in the interim. I can wait. I think.
179.
Yo,
You forget to mention that the western world is hopelessly bankrupt. Factor that into your equations.
If you think expanding the Medicaid rolls is going to reduce cost you are mistaken. I promise you that the game is to bankrupt and loot this nation to the bone. This is just another step toward the cause.
You cant fight it. You just have to play along.
[181] Hey JJack – you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t claim you’re getting $65K of services while paying $8K in taxes one day and then claim to be the low budget LI Mafia Don the next day spreading your green (as well as your valuable seed) all over the ‘hood.
WTF, I am supporting 3, kids, wife, dog, teachers, police, librairians, garbageman, my stockbroker, swim teachers, gymastics teachers, play dates, Heck I am a one man economy and I am a cheap SOB, the damm baby boomers have blood sucking people all over them
[204] AG – You have the right idea. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think fiat currency systems have substantially less shelf life.
My plan since 2008 has been make as much money as I can for this system doesn’t have much time. I appreciate Bernanke giving me 4 more years of prep time. I hope he can buy me 2 more. I’ve exceeded my expectations but doom is now at the door.
Historically currency systems have changed every 40 years. We are at 41 and failing fast.
“Find in the graph when the US was great and when its lowest point”
Of course this ignores the fact that there were loopholes galore, which, for the most part, no longer exist — except for those that disproportionately benefit those making less than $250,000/yr.
On a related note, I never fail to be amused by liberals who call for “fairness” in the tax code but want the wealthy to pay a greater percentage rate on their income. While one may plausibly argue that cap gains and other such income should be taxed at the same rate as wages, to say that the other guy’s next dollar earned should be taxed at a higher rate than your last dollar earned is the opposite of the fairness that liberals profess to want.
[211] Shore – Exactly. Every “tax the rich” idiot points to the 90% tax rates of ancient yore but neglects to report the fact that NOBODY paid those rates due to the abundance of tax shelters. My Dad was a nobody and even he owned an oil exploration company.
[212] And I mean my Dad earned under $30K a year in the mid ’70’s and he had these brown vinyl fat 3 ring vinyl binders with all the particulars of his oil exploration company. My FIL was making $600K in the mid 70’s. He had even nicer three ring binders;-)
And Romney with the rest paying less than 15% on millions of income is not a loop hole in todays low tax environment
Chief Justice Roberts prolonged the suspense by starting off his decision by calling it unconstitutional for the federal government to require people to buy health insurance. As Republicans in the room reportedly looked relieved, he seemed to savor the fake-out, waiting a full five minutes before turning to say that it is constitutional for the government to levy a tax on people who do not buy health insurance.
Mendacious Mitt: Romney’s bid to become liar-in-chief
Spin is normal in politics, but Romney is pioneering a cynical strategy of reducing fact and truth to pure partisanship
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/21/mendacious-mitt-romney-bid-liar-in-chief
You can count on the Grauniad to spot liars since their “journalistic” ranks are full of them.
Krugman calling it like it is
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/opinion/krugman-this-republican-economy.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
#194 Chi
What a pile of garbage. Nice to see your fighing the good fight against the dracronion interests “Big Ecology.”
Found an interesting story from your alma mater.
http://thehill.com/images/stories/blogs/energy/howarth.pdf
#217 Punch
You more of a Torygraph reader?
I wonder how many people celebrating today Supreme Court decision will react when they get a stiff chunk ripped out of their paychecks to pay for this boondoggle. They interviewed a guy on TV today who was dressed relatively well on the street in NYC. “This is great….I’ve never had health insurance before….now I do.” WTF?
Since this law will not be put into effect in a holistic way until 2014, people don’t seem to understand how many people are going to lose their jobs or have their own personal policies rise 15-30% to pay for this THING.
221,
Get ready for the doom. Its coming, All by design. I will have no part in the conflict that follows but I will laugh my _ss off.
Fab: who cares about global warming? It is far down the list of priorities…….you want to do something more important for global warming from methane? Tell China and India that they should get by without eating meat…stick with rice (no pun intended)….
In the past month 3 doctors closed their practices here in Key West. Sign of the times?
My new doctor has no office, makes house calls only, does not accept insurance.
#223 Chi
I care because I see the end game of fracking being a lot of localized pollution being left to the superfund to clean up while the fracking companies protect themselves in bankruptcy. The methane release is a concern because that will come straight back down in rainfall with a lower PH which will turn tthe Appelachain trail brown.
But Hey, there’s short term profit to be made. Who cares about the ecological impact!
The prevailing theme of this blog over the past few years has been doom. Ahead of the curve of course.
Thank you,
Salutes to Meat (He speaks the truth)
NJE,
The house-call-only practice makes a certain degree of sense. It keeps overhead down and it ensures great patient privacy. The no insurance thing also keeps down administrative costs.
225,
Escapee,
The game can only be played. Granted the rules change from time to time. Today will remembered as another blow to the the American coffin. Dont get emotionally attached. History always separates the wolves from the sheep.
“I wonder how many people celebrating today Supreme Court decision will react when they get a stiff chunk ripped out of their paychecks to pay for this boondoggle”
Just wait until people experience their employers cancelling health insurance, and sending employees into the exchanges. The employers may suffer a fine but it will be far less expensive to pay the fine than to provide insurance.
As the Russian proverb goes: A pessimist is just a well-informed optimist.
230,
That would be fine except we have 10 million illegals leaching the system for everything its worth.
Take a ride up to Robert Woods ER. Spend 20 minutes there. You will undersand real quick.
Dolar aqui?
Ci
Diagnosis: Pregnant (10k later)
BACK TO REAL ESTATE –
So I went to my very large credit union (HQ’d in Somerset County) the other day and inquired about its REO.
I was advised by the branch manager that at a meeting the day before, attendees were advised that the credit union doesn’t have much REO.
I asked as to her observations on recent events, and she confirmed my thoughts:
1) Realtors are (in collusion w/) over-pricing b/c:
1.a) Anyone who wants to buy will be forced to pay more, especially as rates go down. This puts the floor in place.
1.b) Very limited quality is on the market. Again, the lesser properties are putting in the floor for the neighborhoods, and anyone wanting better will be forced to pay.
1.c) Houses are staying on the market longer and longer, mostly due to sellers not being in a bind to sell (yet) and nothing at all to do with the $5k price drop (seriously, do the math on $5k on top of a 30-yr, and yes, “it’s a matter of principal(S)”.
1.d) THERE ARE FEW QUALIFIED POTENTIAL BUYERS
1.e) NOBODY IS BUYING. NOBODY IS BUYING. NOBODY IS BUYING.
RECAP:
1) Prices too high
2) Prices being kept high
3) Quality is very poor
4) Nobody qualified to borrow 80%, 70% or even 60%?!!!
5) It’s the heart of closure season and nobody is buying!!!!
6) As Metro NY and NJ go (selling prices down 3.8% y-o-y), so goes the whole I-95 corridor north of Philly (forget DC).
T2
So, why are prices being held up in the face of continued unemployment/job losses/economic contraction?
Mississipi Trading Company
East India Tea Company
Dutch Tulips
and on and on….
Your blog post on njrereport.com offers the same submit as another article author but i much like your far better.