News flow a little bit slow this morning, so I thought I’d pull a piece from the archives that went almost entirely undiscussed here. Minimum wage is always a hot topic, with supporters either vehemently for – or against, so I’m somewhat surprised it didn’t at least come up. This was seemed to just sneak by in the wake of the election reporting. So what say you? Positive or Negative? Good or Bad? More jobs or Fewer?
From the Star Ledger:
N.J. voters approve constitutional amendment raising minimum wage
New Jersey voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot question today that will raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.25 an hour in January and amends the state Constitution to tie future increases to inflation.
The business community put up a tough fight to defeat the minimum wage measure, spending about $1 million to persuade the public the measure will lead to job losses and undermine their ability to move past the lingering effects of the recession. But they were outspent by unions and other supporters who raised $1.3 million to wage a very public campaign that included large rallies in cities across the state.
In the end, the amendment passed with nearly 61 percent supporting it.
“New Jersey’s voters should be thanked tonight for understanding that the state’s low-wage workers need more than $7.25 an hour to survive in this high-cost state,” said Gordon MacInnes, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a left-leaning think tank that advocated for passage. “Increasing New Jersey’s minimum wage will give nearly half a million working New Jerseyans a crucial leg up while pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s economy.”
MacInnes’ group has said raising the minimum wage will have a ripple effect and increase the pay for roughly 400,000 people who earn $9.25 an hour and less — a claim opponents called disingenuous.
“With the increase, New Jersey becomes the 20th state to establish a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum,” of $7.25, MacInnes added. “This will prevent the wage floor’s real value from eroding over time as it has in the past, and it will ensure that New Jersey’s low-wage workers don’t fall even further behind.”
Laurie Ehlbeck, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, accused supporters of minimum wage question of mislead the public by not explaining how their vote will drive future wage increases for years to come.
“People don’t realize it’s not just the minimum wage,” she said. “Most people think, ‘who can live on $7.25 an hour?’”
“We honestly believe there will be a loss of jobs and opportunities,” Ehlbeck said. “They are not going to hire someone, they will give an employee fewer hours, they may reduce the benefits. They don’t want to do anything to hurt their employees, but they are working on a very small profit margin.”
…
“A higher minimum wage will actually help business owners by reducing absenteeism and worker turnover, which costs businesses way more than nickel and dime-ing on wages,” Mitch Cahn, president of Unionwear, a clothing manufacturer in Newark with 120 employees, said. “Secure workers earning a living wage are productive workers and better consumers. A higher minimum wage just makes fiscal sense.”
I’ll throw out the first one, pro-increase, from CNN:
A history of the minimum wage since 1938
Something like that doesn’t affect NJ that much. Sure, your pizza will cost more, as will your trash collection, etc., because those jobs can’t be outsourced to PA or Mumbai. The jobs that can be lost are unaffected. Oh, and there will be consolidation and job loss as some employers close, cut back or let their unemployed relatives buy into the business as sweat equity owner (rare but possible). In the end, all the wage gains for those workers flow back to the landlords, bar owners, vendors, etc due to higher costs of living.
Hope and Change
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101204809
NYT wasn’t able to blame Bush or the GOP. Maybe anon has a devastating tweet that can sling the mud where MSM couldn’t.
Hmmm, now that I think about it, I wonder if the law applies to non-NJ businesses with accounts or income from NJ?
Uncertainty about the political landscape with regards to minimum wage in 2014 will mean no companies are making big relocations based on a dollar differential in the minimum wage.
Democrats say minimum-wage battles to help 2014 turnout
Democrats hope a slew of potential ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage next year in key states will drive up voter turnout and help their party in midterm congressional elections.
Advocates of wage increases are pushing 2014 ballot measures in several states, including Massachusetts, Idaho, Alaska and South Dakota. Legislative campaigns are planned in other states, including Illinois.
…
The flurry of state efforts comes as President Obama and some congressional Democrats push an increase of the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, unchanged since 2009. In February, Obama proposed raising the hourly rate to $9, but it has not gained traction in the GOP-led House. House Speaker John Boehner has said it would result in fewer jobs.
The White House recently endorsed a separate measure by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, that would hike the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2015 in several increments.
From US News:
Democrats’ Secret Weapon in 2014 — Minimum Wage
President Barack Obama made a surprising announcement Friday – he’d throw his weight behind increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10.
This is more than a dollar higher than what he proposed in January during his own State of the Union address. And now, with the power of the bully pulpit behind them, Senate Democrats are laying the groundwork to stage their push to increase the minimum wage just in time for 2014.
…
In the Senate, Democrats are beginning to coalesce around Sen. Tom Harkin’s, D-Iowa, plan that would increase the minimum wage to $10.10 and increase the minimum wage for tipped workers to 70 percent of the minimum wage. His bill would also tie the minimum wage to inflation so the gridlocked Congress would not have to debate the wage increase every few years. So far, 31 Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have come out in support of his legislation. Thursday, during their caucus lunch, Democratic senators began mounting a plan to move forward ahead of 2014.
The last time the minimum wage increased was 2009, and advocates say the minimum wage has quickly been outpaced by inflation.
…
While a March Gallup poll found 71 percent of voters overall said they would support increasing the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour, 68 percent of the much-sought-after independent voters support the wage hike. While raising the minimum wage could be a powerful electoral issue for Democrats, some say that is exactly why it won’t happen this year.
It’s important for a state to be business friendly in order to attract companies and encourage entrepeneur’s to create new ones. Raising the minimum wage is not a step in that direction. Innovation, and new companies growing into large companies are what creates jobs. If you are a person considering starting a business, this is just one more reason not to do it in NJ.
http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-small-business-not-responsible-for-job-creation-2013-8
By itself raising the minimum wage is a headwind that most businesses already in NJ can weather. I think What’s more damaging is tieing it to inflation and amending the state constitution.
8.25 is inconsequential in NJ. I can’t think any places that pay less than that. It might force a few more jobs off the books, but I doubt it would make much of a difference.
9.00 nationally would cost a lot of jobs. There are a lot of businesses, especially food service that would no longer be viable. Though it would be a boon for the company developing the robotic burger flipper.
Whatever level a minimum wage is raised to only serves to immediately lock people out of the workforce whose skills don’t merit that level of pay.
9.00 nationally would cost a lot of jobs. There are a lot of businesses, especially food service that would no longer be viable. Though it would be a boon for the company developing the robotic burger flipper.
Certain menu options might not be viable, but the businesses may be. Just eliminate the low-margin options (dollar menu less drinks) and raise prices accordingly to adjust. The big question is, are those businesses viable without the super-low priced options. Smashburger can command more than $10 for a burger, fries, and a drink (probably closer to $13 for a large with some toppings). Can Burger King, maybe not.
Hell, the new Shake Shack in Paramus can command even more than Smashburger – Burger, Fries, and a Shake might set you back close to $20.
Perhaps cheap fast food is dead – Maybe that’s a good thing? People are clearly willing to pay more for what they perceive as a better product served in a better setting. Starbucks, Chipotle, Qdoba, Five Guys, Panera, etc. Salaries for hourly employees at Five Guys look to be around $8-9/hr for hourly employees plus, surprisingly, a bonus if they exceed quality scores. Just looking at Glassdoor, there are hourly employees who posted bonuses of above $1,000, which is sizable for that pay range.
Maybe the old standbys (McD, BK, Dominos, Pizza Hut, etc) are all dead. Once you’ve differentiated yourself through low price, it’s almost impossible to convince someone that you can offer better.
Is this what the minimum wage argument has devolved into? Widespread worry about losing the dollar menu?
Thousands of restaurants would have closed had they kicked in the Obamacare employer mandate. They still will if it’s enacted. The same will happen if they raise minimum wage.
The margins are very low on many of these places. Try to pass the costs along to the consumer and demand will fall.
The margins are very low on many of these places. Try to pass the costs along to the consumer and demand will fall.
Irrelevant, many of these small, unprofitable, low margin restaurants have already resorted to using illegal labor.
Democrats’ Secret Weapon in 2014 — Minimum Wage
This is the best you liberious dems can come up with and you consider this a triumph? You should feel humiliated. This is a sign of progress and innovation? This is an example of defending your cause?
The min wage increase is good news for realtors.
Look at the link in comment #1 – It appears on an adjusted basis, the minimum wage was higher from the mid 1940s to the mid 1970s compared to today. So minimum wages have actually fallen in real terms, not gone up. Shouldn’t jobs be through the roof?
Globally, we’re a laggard as well, and this doesn’t appear, at all, to be beneficial for US jobs…
How about letting an employer and prospective employee agree on a wage that is acceptable to both parties?
I will miss you….
99 cent whopper junior…..
The pandering and giveaways to the entitlement classes continues…while the middle class is systematically destroyed. Got to loot somebody to have all the shit you need to keep the lazy and stupid happy and on the dole.
Anybody notice that those being looted are not the rich?
This all ends in war.
Shouldn’t jobs be through the roof?
Who has the confidence and incentive with the this current administration throwing refrigerator doors out the back of the truck as the economy tries to avoid them? You know that guy in the Allstate commercial creating chaos? That’s what this administration is all about.
Irrelevant, many of these small, unprofitable, low margin restaurants have already resorted to using illegal labor.
Wrong, look beyond north NJ and to the heartland, that’s not the case in most places.
gary (20)-
I owned a small business for 12 years. From the very first day to the last, the business was treated with open disdain by the municipality, who practically told me verbatim that we were nothing more than a ratable to be looted for tax money.
Then, after the bust, just the prospect of Dodd-Frank, Bojanglescare and the cascading wave of unintended side effects that would flow from them were enough to convince me to get out while the getting was good.
I cannot imagine still having that business right now. I’m certain the cancellation letter on my insurance group would’ve come already, and the township would’ve jacked my taxes and ordinanced me into oblivion.
mom and pop bars and pizza joints have always had bartenders and delivery boys working for free and just tips mixed in with mexican bus boys and cleaning people.
My drycleaner pays everyone off the books, does not give vacation or sick days and sends you home when it is not busy. Had one guy there 40 years off the books a white guy to boot.
These folks who knows what they do. One girl is pretty with big boobs now around 29 she has worked there since she is 17. All off the books. She lives with Mom and Dad for free, takes off when she wants, place is five minutes from house. Most likely around 32 she will pick one. She has a college degree, and nice parents.
Guess what men are shallow. We are not deep. She works out, big boobs, looks hot is friendly and has low aspirations, happy to be Mom and look hot in her average split with her average car. Pizza and burgers are fine with her.
Guess what my friend who is a Partner in a big four firm married the same type of girl. Got married at 42 to a 32 year old girl. Hot body, nice boobs, friendly, she messed around off the books jobs, friend married her at 42 she was 32 and she goes to gym, dresses nice, has dinner on the table watches kid and has no career ambitions of her own. Absolutely perfect rich mans wife.
Many illegals, girls, housewifes are perfectly happy working off the books. Who is obama to force them on the books.
My contractor has a 55 year old chinese guy who works for him for $150 cash a day 10 hour day. Man this guy did an amazing job on my tiles and electric. Anyhow Contractor is only 27. Guy has been doing off the books full time work for over 30 years. Who knows why.
You would have to be out of your mind to want to start a small business in NJ right now.
Black market/underground economy is def. the way to go.
Spine no kidding
Etsy (if you don’t know it, look it up) generated almost a billion dollars in sales in the last year. I’d argue a good 3/4 of that would be considered “black market/underground/unreported”.
What’s eBay now? You can sell something like $20-30k a year before they report you to the IRS? I know folks who make a mint doing eBay arbitrage. All unreported.
Black market/underground economy is def. the way to go.
Absolutely! No question about it! Earn your living off the books and qualify for the subsidy for Oblammy care.
http://www.diedinhouse.com/
cool website punch in the house you want to buy address and tells you if someone died in that house
Grim-Zibbet is the new Etsy.
29 – For $11.99 – Complete rip off – I doubt their data is any good anyway.
30 – I’ll tell my wife, I don’t think she is selling on Zibbet.
Lil Gator was in day care in 2009 when NJ’s minimum wage increased to $7.25/hr to match the federal minimum. The lowest paid assistants at the center all got instant raises of around 20% to bring them up to the new minimum.
And of course all the more senior staff marched into the director’s shortly thereafter office demanding hefty raises too since their underlings got such a big salary boost.
My Mold Detective Mold Test Kit
Hey trying to buy a mold test kit on line. Any recommendations? I saw this one at home depot.
I need to test several rooms. I dont want to pay for outside testing.
Also while I am at it maybe I should test for abestos or lead or radon. Who knows are there any kits that do it all. 98% of my absestos looking stuff got distroyed in Sandy. I do have only two pieces of that white stuff left on a pipe in my crawl space. Before I rip it off want to know what it is.
Also since I did not take down sheet rock in every room, is there a way to test for mold behind sheet rock without poking a hole in it.
I was hoping NYS would come and test my house like they promised for free. But last few weeks my wife and I are hacking and wheezing and wonder if house is infested or just alergy season.
Do you have forced air? Probably in the duct work.and circulating around now that it’s home heating season.
Saw a house a few years back that was Irene flooded and the mold spread through the duct work. Needed a complete to the studs reno.
Mold test?
Get a good organic chicken broth, boil it for 20 minutes, covered, with enough gelatin to make it set, keep it covered.
Get a spoon, heat it over your stove like you are getting ready to smoke crack in Toronto. Rub the back of the spoon on the wall, go back to the pot, uncover it, smear the back of the spoon onto the gel, reheat, repeat. Draw a map on on a piece of paper to let you know what room corresponds with what smear.
Put the pot aside in a warm, clean, place.
I’m sure you’ll find mold everywhere, because it is everywhere. Test kits are worthless, IMHO. Visual inspection will tell you what you need to know.
Here’s some guy getting ready to smoke crack…trying to rent his house in North Arlington out for $30k/week for the super bowl.
Do you think that price includes the hookers and blow?
http://www.northjersey.com/news/super_bowl_rent_north_arlington.html
Oh wait, here’s my answer. I am thinking this guy will finish the week down $100.
“Adamo, the North Arlington homeowner, paid $100 to advertise his home on SuperBowlRentalz.com. Unlike most homeowners who do short-term rentals, he plans to stay in the house and serve as a cook and driver. (He’d be willing to drop that idea and adjust his price if guests aren’t interested in his help.) He lives with four roommates, but told them he’d pay them $1,000 each to clear out for a week.
So far, Adamo, who manages a distribution facility, hasn’t gotten any calls on the house. He’s hoping to hear from a corporate type who “can blow 30 grand and not blink an eye.” Or maybe a die-hard fan.”
Hey Grim, I know you get asked this question at least once a month (maybe more), but who was that home inspector that you (and everyone else here) seems to recommend? Peter something?
Peter Bennett – http://www.afullhouseinspection.com/
When Obamacare gets trashed by a gay liberal Cali democrat, you know there’s a problem
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101203483
#41 “trashed by a gay liberal Cali democrat”
Who are you talking about?
Aren’t they all liberal? gay is just the bonus agrieved minority
Question for the gallery. As I was winterizing my sprinklers and doing my leaf cleanup this this weekend, I found a PVC drain pipe in middle of my front yard. The PVC drain is facing directly down and has a cap. I am wondering if it is part of the drain system from the downspouts which are installed hidden underneath my brick patios and walkways etc. There is also another one that looks to be like a french drain around the foundation. Would it be for clean out using plumber’s snake or something? Is this something I should try and clean regularly? My gutters all have screens so there was no buildup of leaves for me to worry about.
Nope, plain old oil burner with steam heat and in the wall air conditioners.
I gutted lower floor to studs, but second floor I only did like half the floor as I had only a few inches of water.
Stuff like behind kitchen cabinets no way to get back there without distroying cabinets so dont want to do that just to see if mold.
Trying to figure if there is any test that can tell me where the mold is.
nwnj says:
November 18, 2013 at 11:49 am
Do you have forced air? Probably in the duct work.and circulating around now that it’s home heating season.
Saw a house a few years back that was Irene flooded and the mold spread through the duct work. Needed a complete to the studs reno.
Could be time for a lightening strike JJ.
Minimum wage is just a political ploy. I think even many left leaning economists admit that legal price floors lead to a gap between supply and demand.
So it’s turned into one of those many political-economic issues where politicians advocate irrational policies because it’s a “feel good” policy, helping a few while hurting many more invisibly.
Any good, including a unit of labor, cannot be legislated into being worth more than it’s worth, without doing more harm than good.
nwnj says:
November 18, 2013 at 2:23 pm
Could be time for a lightening strike JJ.
Nahh, not till I know where mold is!!
Probably for your sewer or septic main cleanout.
It’s good that you have one outside. If it ever clogs, you would want to do the snaking from the outside. Some houses only have cleanouts inside. That sucks. Imagine opening a sewer main full of poo inside the house if the plumber needs to snake it out. Not good.
44.Juice Box says:
November 18, 2013 at 1:54 pm
Question for the gallery. As I was winterizing my sprinklers and doing my leaf cleanup this this weekend, I found a PVC drain pipe in middle of my front yard. The PVC drain is facing directly down and has a cap. I am wondering if it is part of the drain system from the downspouts which are installed hidden underneath my brick patios and walkways etc. There is also another one that looks to be like a french drain around the foundation. Would it be for clean out using plumber’s snake or something? Is this something I should try and clean regularly? My gutters all have screens so there was no buildup of leaves for me to worry about.
Face it, the dumbocrats have cornered the market on bread and circuses.
Juice Box says:
November 18, 2013 at 1:54 pm
No IT is probably vent for you sewer pipe.
Question for the gallery. As I was winterizing my sprinklers and doing my leaf cleanup this this weekend, I found a PVC drain pipe in middle of my front yard. The PVC drain is facing directly down and has a cap. I am wondering if it is part of the drain system from the downspouts which are installed hidden underneath my brick patios and walkways etc.
Almost no business in the real world still follows this old-fashioned practice as both medicine and medical billing have become more complex. The major exception is a certain type of collectively bargained insurance trust known as Taft-Hartley plans. Such insurance covers about 20 million union members, and four out of five Taft-Hartley trusts are self-administered.
Review & Outlook
ObamaCare’s Union Favor
The White House may let Big Labor dodge a reinsurance tax.
The Affordable Care Act’s greatest hits keep coming, and one that hasn’t received enough attention is a looming favor for President Obama’s friends in Big Labor. Millions of Americans are losing their plans and paying more for health care, and doctors are being forced out of insurance networks, but a lucky few may soon get relief.
Earlier this month the Administration suggested that it may grant a waiver for some insurance plans from a tax that is supposed to capitalize a reinsurance fund for ObamaCare. The $25 billion cost of the fund, which is designed to pay out to the insurers on the exchanges if their costs are higher than expected, is socialized over every U.S. citizen with a private health plan. For 2014, the fee per head is $63.
The unions hate this reinsurance transfer because it takes from their members in the form of higher premiums and gives to people on the exchanges. But then most consumers are hurt in the same way, and the unions have little ground for complaint given that ObamaCare would not have passed in 2010 without the fervent support of the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters and the rest.
The unions ought to consider this tax a civic obligation in solidarity with the (uninsured) working folk they claim to support. Instead, they’ve spent most of the last year demanding that the White House give them subsidies and carve-outs unavailable to anyone else.
But don’t expect ObamaCare favors unless you helped to re-elect the President. In an aside in a Federal Register document filed this month, the Administration previewed its forthcoming regulation: “We also intend to propose in future rulemaking to exempt certain self-insured, self-administered plans from the requirement to make reinsurance contributions for the 2015 and 2016 benefit years.”
Allow us to translate. “Self-insured” means that a business pays for the medical expenses of its workers directly and hires an insurer as a third-party administrator to process claims, manage care and the like. Most unions as well as big corporations use this arrangement.
But the kicker here is “self-administered.” That term refers to self-insured plans that don’t contract with the Aetnas and Blue Shields of the world and instead act as their own in-house benefits manager.
Almost no business in the real world still follows this old-fashioned practice as both medicine and medical billing have become more complex. The major exception is a certain type of collectively bargained insurance trust known as Taft-Hartley plans. Such insurance covers about 20 million union members, and four out of five Taft-Hartley trusts are self-administered.
There’s no conceivable rationale—other than politics—for releasing union-only plans from a tax that is defined as universal in the Affordable Care Act statute. Like so many other ObamaCare waivers, this labor dispensation will probably turn out to be illegal.
And by the way, this favor harms all other taxpayers. The IRS assesses the reinsurance tax in annual tranches; it must collect $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion 2016. So the smaller pool of ordinary people without a union card will pay a larger individual share of the same overall amount.
Count all of this as one more illustration of the way that ObamaCare has put politicians in control of health care. Some people get taxed but others don’t, some people get subsidies but others don’t, and some have to pay more so Mr. Obama can deliver favors to his political constituents.
Juice: I can read between the lines…..this is a Q about marital relations and birth control, right?
Juice Box says:
November 18, 2013 at 1:54 pm
As I was winterizing my sprinklers and doing my leaf cleanup this this weekend, I found a PVC drain pipe in middle of my front yard. There is also another one that looks to be like a french drain around the foundation. Would it be for clean out using plumber’s snake or something? Is this something I should try and clean regularly? My gutters all have screens so there was no buildup of leaves for me to worry about.
JJ: tell your kids not to go to school to work on Wall Street. They should work in Washington if they want to make money.
Number of 1%’ers in Washington growing faster than NY and LA
http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/d-c-awash-in-contracts-lobbying-wealth/article_53336d9b-a75f-5a1a-bb19-d46d3186a960.html
WASHINGTON • So much money to be had if you know where to look.
The avalanche of cash that made Washington rich in the last decade has transformed the culture of a once staid capital and created a new wave of well-heeled insiders.
The winners in the new Washington are not just the former senators, party consiglieri and four-star generals who have always profited from their connections. Now they are also the former bureaucrats, accountants and staff officers for whom unimagined riches are suddenly possible. They are the entrepreneurs attracted to the capital by its aura of prosperity and its super-educated workforce. They are the lawyers, lobbyists and executives who work for companies that barely had a presence in Washington before the boom.
During the past decade, the region added 21,000 households in the nation’s top 1 percent. No other metro area came close.
Two forces triggered the boom.
The share of money the government spent on weapons and other hardware shrank as service contracts nearly tripled in value. At the peak in 2010, companies based in Rep. James Moran’s congressional district in Northern Virginia reaped $43 billion in federal contracts — roughly as much as the state of Texas.
At the same time, big companies realized that a few million spent shaping legislation could produce windfall profits. They nearly doubled the cash they poured into the capital.
ChiFi [54];
All I ever knew about family law: The offense of “Criminal Conversation” is neither criminal, nor conversation. Discuss.
Zimmerman is a total moron, if he ends up in Jail he will be a dead man.
TV is reporting that George Zimmerman has been arrested in a domestic dispute involving his girlfriend. His wife filed for divorce two months ago and now he’s already fighting with another woman…
clot: the future mayor of JC…….JC and you perfect together…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB1dJeMtb08
Wow just wow.
Rapper Kanye West is done with President Obama.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/18/kanye-west-says-hes-past-obama-feels-used-presiden/
Top Zip Codes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2013/11/09/washington-a-world-apart/?wprss=rss_Copy%20of%20local-arlington-social
Street Justice (54)
Here’s why D.C. is a boomtown, for now.
“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed.”
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?id=7429
chi (57)-
There’s no way in hell Ford can outpoll Bebo.
Who would want to be mayor of JC, anyway? Fulop is barely in office a few weeks, and his fawning (liberal, magical thinking) constituency has already turned on him.
At least you knew what you were getting with Healy.
JJ (or anybody else that has any insight) — so I finally closed on that beach house and was thinking about an umbrella policy since we might rent it during the summer. Will those pick-up issues (i.e., accidents) with renters? Do I need to disclose to them that I am renting and will that affect the umbrella policy?
What about more broadly from a liability perspective…I have been advised to consider setting up an LLC and assigning the house to the LLC (which technically is a breach of the mortgage but apparently people do this)? The thought being that if there is an issue with a renter they can only go after the assets of the LLC and not my personal assets (in that case, might not need the umbrella policy, at least not much of one).
Thoughts? Have people dealt with this before? Paranoid about a renter getting hurt and suing me (the house is on the bay and there is a dock, etc. so more high risk).
What can you say about a city where a 600 ft condo costs 400K, the maintenance on it is $800, the taxes run about 18K…and the skools educate about as well as the penitentiary?
If Janet is Yellen, you must be sellin’. Today’s confirmation hearing lunacy makes that Ford guy look like Abe Lincoln:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-18/guest-post-personal-sacrifices-jfk-federal-reserve
Whack Bernank for 75K in bitcoins:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-18/dark-web-exposes-75000-bitcoin-based-bounty-bernankes-assassination
so, are you saying that $7.25 an hr to take care of your kid is too much? then, what should be the ideal wage, and what would you say is your kid worth?
NJGator says:
November 18, 2013 at 11:00 am
Lil Gator was in day care in 2009 when NJ’s minimum wage increased to $7.25/hr to match the federal minimum. The lowest paid assistants at the center all got instant raises of around 20% to bring them up to the new minimum.
And of course all the more senior staff marched into the director’s shortly thereafter office demanding hefty raises too since their underlings got such a big salary boost.
YES TO EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, create a back of the envelope net worth statement for yourself…..whatever your net assets are is the amount of umbrella insurance you should have…..
ccb223 says:
November 18, 2013 at 4:56 pm
JJ (or anybody else that has any insight) — so I finally closed on that beach house and was thinking about an umbrella policy since we might rent it during the summer. Will those pick-up issues (i.e., accidents) with renters? Do I need to disclose to them that I am renting and will that affect the umbrella policy?
What about more broadly from a liability perspective…I have been advised to consider setting up an LLC and assigning the house to the LLC (which technically is a breach of the mortgage but apparently people do this)? The thought being that if there is an issue with a renter they can only go after the assets of the LLC and not my personal assets (in that case, might not need the umbrella policy, at least not much of one).Thoughts? Have people dealt with this before? Paranoid about a renter getting hurt and suing me (the house is on the bay and there is a dock, etc. so more high risk).
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad necromance
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad necromance
Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Rama-ramama-ah
GaGa-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad necromance
Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
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Want your bad necromance
“I’ve been suspicious of the Census Bureau for a long time.”
In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.
The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.
And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.
Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.
And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today.
“He’s not the only one,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous for now but is willing to talk with the Labor Department and Congress if asked.
The Census employee caught faking the results is Julius Buckmon, according to confidential Census documents obtained by The Post. Buckmon told me in an interview this past weekend that he was told to make up information by higher-ups at Census.
Ironically, it was Labor’s demanding standards that left the door open to manipulation.
Labor requires Census to achieve a 90 percent success rate on its interviews — meaning it needed to reach 9 out of 10 households targeted and report back on their jobs status.
Census currently has six regions from which surveys are conducted. The New York and Philadelphia regions, I’m told, had been coming up short of the 90 percent.
Philadelphia filled the gap with fake interviews.
“It was a phone conversation — I forget the exact words — but it was, ‘Go ahead and fabricate it’ to make it what it was,” Buckmon told me.
Census, under contract from the Labor Department, conducts the household survey used to tabulate the unemployment rate.
Interviews with some 60,000 household go into each month’s jobless number, which currently stands at 7.3 percent. Since this is considered a scientific poll, each one of the households interviewed represents 5,000 homes in the US.
Buckmon, it turns out, was a very ambitious employee. He conducted three times as many household interviews as his peers, my source said.
By making up survey results — and, essentially, creating people out of thin air and giving them jobs — Buckmon’s actions could have lowered the jobless rate.
Buckmon said he filled out surveys for people he couldn’t reach by phone or who didn’t answer their doors.
But, Buckmon says, he was never told how to answer the questions about whether these nonexistent people were employed or not, looking for work, or have given up.
But people who know how the survey works say that simply by creating people and filling out surveys in their name would boost the number of folks reported as employed.
Census never publicly disclosed the falsification. Nor did it inform Labor that its data was tainted.
“Yes, absolutely they should have told us,” said a Labor spokesman. “It would be normal procedure to notify us if there is a problem with data collection.”
Census appears to have looked into only a handful of instances of falsification by Buckmon, although more than a dozen instances were reported, according to internal documents.
In one document from the probe, Program Coordinator Joal Crosby was ask in 2010, “Why was the suspected … possible data falsification on all (underscored) other survey work for which data falsification was suspected not investigated by the region?”
On one document seen by The Post, Crosby hand-wrote the answer: “Unable to determine why an investigation was not done for CPS,” or the Current Population Survey — the official name for the unemployment report.
With regard to the Consumer Expenditure survey, only four instances of falsification were looked into, while 14 were reported.
I’ve been suspicious of the Census Bureau for a long time.
During the 2010 Census report — an enormous and costly survey of the entire country that goes on for a full year — I suspected (and wrote in a number of columns) that Census was inexplicably hiring and firing temporary workers.
I suspected that this turnover of employees was being done purposely to boost the number of new jobs being report each month. (The Labor Department does not use the Census Bureau for its other monthly survey of new jobs — commonly referred to as the Establishment Survey.)
Last week I offered to give all the information I have, including names, dates and charges to Labor’s inspector general.
I’m waiting to hear back from Labor.
I hope the next stop will be Congress, since manipulation of data like this not only gives voters the wrong impression of the economy but also leads lawmakers, the Federal Reserve and companies to make uninformed decisions.
To cite just one instance, the Fed is targeting the curtailment of its so-called quantitative easing money-printing/bond-buying fiasco to the unemployment rate for which Census provided the false information.
So falsifying this would, in essence, have dire consequences for the country.
Abraham Lincoln spoke greatly because he read wisely and thought deeply. He turned to Shakespeare, he once said, “perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader.” “It matters not to me whether Shakespeare be well or ill acted,” he added. “With him the thought suffices.”
Maybe Mr. Obama has similar literary tastes. It doesn’t show. “An economy built to last,” the refrain from his 2012 State of the Union, borrows from an ad slogan once used to sell the Ford Edsel. “Nation-building at home,” another favorite presidential trope, was born in a Tom Friedman column. “We are the ones we have been waiting for” is the title of a volume of essays by Alice Walker. “The audacity of hope” is adapted from a Jeremiah Wright sermon. “Yes We Can!” is the anthem from “Bob the Builder,” a TV cartoon aimed at 3-year-olds.