From the NY Times:
ON top of the obvious hurdles to getting a home sale finalized these days, some brokers say hidden environmental issues are more often showing up at the last minute: a new inspection turns up an underground oil tank no one knew was there; air quality monitoring suggests mold is growing behind basement wallboards; or perhaps the radon levels are high.
“Lately many of our transactions have been harder to make due to things you can’t see with the naked eye,” said Karen Eastman Bigos, a broker with the Towne Realty Group in Short Hills.
The reason stems in part from the rigors of a market in which every dollar of value is crucial to buyers. To meet their expectations, their lawyers are more demanding about having every possible test done to uncover hidden liabilities, she and other brokers said. (Lawyer reviews of contracts are required before any house closing in New Jersey.)
At the same time, there is less public money available for environmental cleanup. The state’s program to assist homeowners with the cost of oil tank removal ran out of money in May. New applications are still being taken, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced, but there is a backlog, and no new money was allocated this year.
Ms. Bigos said her agency had had a spate of recent issues with abandoned oil and gasoline tanks.
In some cases, “we have all the paperwork, the tank was closed and filled with sand by a licensed company, all by permit, all with inspections,” she said, “but lawyers want the tanks out of the ground anyway.”
In others, a previously undiscovered oil tank — sometimes a second one — has turned up on a corner of a lot where inspectors using metal detectors didn’t look before, Ms. Bigos said.
According to several tank removal specialists, standard practice used to be a scan encompassing only the area within 20 feet of a house. But in older communities with mansions set on huge lots — Llewellyn Park in West Orange, for instance — old gasoline tanks are often found buried near garages, said Christopher M. Tiso, the president of ATS Environmental in Sparta.
…
Lawyers today usually urge buyers to insist that an oil tank be retested or removed — even if it has been properly certified as having been shut down cleanly. Ms. Bigos estimated that as many as 25 percent of “properly” abandoned tanks were discovered to have ground leaks when retested at the behest of buyers. Mr. Tiso said he believed it was more like 35 percent.Mr. Tiso, whose company also works on septic-tank issues, says that even when a property is being sold as-is, or is a short sale or foreclosure listing, he recommends a full inspection. “If the property is owned by the bank, and there’s a problem that could wind up being really expensive to fix,” he said, “then it’s on the record that it is the bank’s responsibility.”
From the WSJ:
New Jersey’s Rent-Control Laws Fading
Propelled by population shifts and budget pressures, New Jersey voters and local officials are slowly eroding the state’s rent-control laws, in many cases reversing decades-old programs that were long considered among the most tenant-friendly in the nation.
The most recent shift came this week when two cities in Hudson County—an urban enclave where politics are dominated by the Democratic Party—moved to scale back their local rent-control laws.
On Tuesday, Hoboken voters approved a city-backed referendum to limit provisions that, in part, allowed tenants to recoup unlimited retroactive overcharges. Two days later, the Bayonne City Council unanimously voted to decontrol apartments after tenants move or are evicted.
Experts said they see the turning tide as a sign that towns and cities are looking at every constituency—even those long protected by politics and social mores—as they try to boost tax revenue.
“It’s just a function of the times and who lives there,” said Robert W. Burchell, the director of the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University. “It’s one way for local governments to spread out their burdens on a body of transitory people.”
New Jersey is one of just four states and Washington, D.C., that allow for rent control. Cities adopted the laws during World War I and II to address housing shortages created by workers flocking to urban areas.
New York has the most rent-controlled units, but New Jersey has the greatest number of towns with ordinances governing rents. Of the state’s 565 municipalities, 98 have local rent-control laws, according to an analysis by the New Jersey Apartment Association, a housing owners group. Nine towns have chosen to phase out their rental-control laws entirely in recent years, including Edgewater, Maplewood and Passaic, according to the association.
From the Philly Inquirer:
Warming to a winter sale
Just your luck: In this terrible real estate market, you’ll be trying to sell your home in winter, the slowest and dreariest season of all.
But cheer up. This sales timetable does offer some of its own opportunities.
“You wouldn’t necessarily choose to sell your home in winter,” said Katie Severance, a broker for ReMax in Upper Montclair, N.J. “But there are certain extra steps you can take to really help your chances.”
Many homeowners pull their houses off the market by year’s end if they haven’t sold. That’s understandable: The period from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day is the slowest time of year for house hunting, as people focus on family and holidays.
the women should be committed
Watching MSNBC this morning and Chris Hayes is going after college football. Suddenly, it struck me where I have seen this before.
Revenge of the Nerds.
Think about it. A bunch of geeky journalism majors with media jobs and nerd glasses, sitting on a panel and eviscerating the programs they hated while at school.
Clot, fabius,
Found more Geordies in our circle here in the brig. My daughter carpools with a group of girls to gymnastics, and one set of parents are from the UK. And they’re Geordies. We now have a brig Toon Army, and nary a Gooner in sight.
Are s/b is. Guess that’s why its called English, not American. And I need coffee.
Asprilla, Barton and the ’95 Entertainers were the best team ever to not win the EPL.
I still cannot watch any Toon or Man U video from the last week of fixtures that year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDh_dkwGF8Y&feature=related
plume (5)-
This is my idea of heaven.
“nary a Gooner in sight”
(7) meat,
Unfortunately, Toon has Man City on deck while the Gooners get some team destined for relegation. Toon will have to strap on another set and step up for this one.
BTW, got my girl some turf shoes and it made a big difference. They got killed by a scary good Livingston team last night, but she battled well. Thought she’d get booked but game was pretty clean. Gotta toughen her up today for tomorrow’s grudge match vs SPF.
I’ll sign up right now for a well-fought loss to City, a win over Chelsea and a draw with ManU.
We are going to be in contention all season for a CL spot. The fans are jacked, so almost every home fixture means three points.
And, so it goes
And, so it goes
The 1% has
Wealth that grows
And, so it goes
And, so it goes
Down in the park
Folks freeze their toes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/one-per-cent-wealth-destroyers
The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen
Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That’s why we’re nearly bankrupt
If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.
The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. “The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.” Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.
Such results have been widely replicated. They show that traders and fund managers throughout Wall Street receive their massive remuneration for doing no better than would a chimpanzee flipping a coin. When Kahneman tried to point this out, they blanked him. “The illusion of skill … is deeply ingrained in their culture.”
So much for the financial sector and its super-educated analysts. As for other kinds of business, you tell me. Is your boss possessed of judgment, vision and management skills superior to those of anyone else in the firm, or did he or she get there through bluff, bullshit and bullying?
In a study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses. They compared the results to the same tests on patients at Broadmoor special hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses’s scores either matched or exceeded those of the patients. In fact, on these criteria, they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders.
The psychopathic traits on which the bosses scored so highly, Board and Fritzon point out, closely resemble the characteristics that companies look for. Those who have these traits often possess great skill in flattering and manipulating powerful people. Egocentricity, a strong sense of entitlement, a readiness to exploit others and a lack of empathy and conscience are also unlikely to damage their prospects in many corporations.
snip
“they’re Geordies. We now have a brig Toon Army, and nary a Gooner in sight.”
Is that the English language?
“brig Toon Army, and nary a Gooner in sight”
Actually, it resembles molespeak from the Redwall series.
http://www.instructables.com/community/Redwall-Molespeak/
The end is nigh John feminine hygiene edition:
http://www.kpho.com/story/15981315/teens-using-vodka-tampons-to-get-drunk
PHOENIX (KPHO) –
It’s no secret teenagers sometimes experiment with alcohol, even drugs, but new ways they’re finding to get drunk had jaws dropping in our newsroom.
“Quicker high, they think it’s going to last longer, it’s more intense,” said Dr. Dan Quan from Maricopa Medical Center.
“This is not isolated to any school, any city, any financial area,” Officer Chris Thomas, a school resource officer, said. “This is everywhere.”
When we heard how kids are getting drunk these days, we thought no way.
So we hit up the experts to find out if it’s an urban legend or if it’s legit.
“There’s been documented cases of people going to the hospital with alcohol poisoning just from utilizing it that way,” Thomas said.
Thomas spends his days patrolling the halls of a Valley high school. He’s heard first hand how kids are getting tipsy.
“What we’re hearing about is teenagers utilizing tampons, soak them in vodka first before using them,” Thomas said.
“It gets absorbed directly into the bloodstream. There’s no barrier, there’s no stomach acid to prevent it,” Thomas said.
“I would expect it to absorb pretty quickly as well, because it’s a very vascular structure,” Quan told CBS 5.
“This is definitely not just girls,” Thomas said. “Guys will also use it and they’ll insert it into their rectums.”
And that’s not all.
“Using a beer bong rectally is the same concept as a vodka soaked tampon,” Thomas said.
snip
Glory be! The original lineip of Black Sabbath is hitting the road in ’12. Amen to that. Now if Bruce and the Pretenders will do the same it could be a good concert-going year.
[12] shore
Indeed. Quite English actually.
Tell me something I don’t know.
Kiplinger ranks 10 worst states for retirees. NJ makes the list. Quel Surprise.
http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/TaxUnfriendlyStatesRetirees/10.html#top
Clot, Fab,
So my daughter’s team scrimmaged against a U10 team today, and this team was a bit physical. Toward the end, I saw my girl battling for the ball against a bigger player, and right after that player got off the pass (while completing it, actually), my girl gives her what seems to be an ever so slightly late shove and down she goes.
I thought it was the result of the hard play, but could not be sure. After practice, I asked and was told that it was payback for an earlier push.
That’s my girl.
Just learned that my wife’s nephew was accepted to PSU for engineering.
Seems like yesterday he was running around my house, breaking stuff.
No Sandusky jokes–this kid can handle himself. Not that I can’t drop him, but it’s because I am older and know more sneaky sh1t.
Berlusconi is Out. Joins Paterno on the sidelines.
Can’t wait to see how Asian markets react to that.
Initial euphoria, (day/couple of days) then they will realize it is not enough and react accordingly, as in decline. Same in the U.S.
Can’t wait to see how Asian markets react to that.
shore [11]
Couple other snippets from the Guardian article:
In their book Snakes in Suits, Paul Babiak and Robert Hare point out that as the old corporate bureaucracies have been replaced by flexible, ever-changing structures, and as team players are deemed less valuable than competitive risk-takers, psychopathic traits are more likely to be selected and rewarded. Reading their work, it seems to me that if you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a poor family, you’re likely to go to prison. If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a rich family, you’re likely to go to business school.
This is not to suggest that all executives are psychopaths. It is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills. As the bosses have shaken off the trade unions and captured both regulators and tax authorities, the distinction between the productive and rentier upper classes has broken down. Chief executives now behave like dukes, extracting from their financial estates sums out of all proportion to the work they do or the value they generate, sums that sometimes exhaust the businesses they parasitise. They are no more deserving of the share of wealth they’ve captured than oil sheikhs.
…
…
In his book The Haves and the Have Nots, Branko Milanovic tries to discover who was the richest person who has ever lived. Beginning with the loaded Roman triumvir Marcus Crassus, he measures wealth according to the quantity of his compatriots’ labour a rich man could buy. It appears that the richest man to have lived in the past 2,000 years is alive today. Carlos Slim could buy the labour of 440,000 average Mexicans. This makes him 14 times as rich as Crassus, nine times as rich as Carnegie and four times as rich as Rockefeller.
Beautiful evening here on the front porch sipping coffee along with a snifter of knob creek.
That’s better than turning them into tenements:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/us/homework-and-jacuzzis-as-dorms-move-to-mcmansions-in-california.html?hpw
Animal McMansion: Students Trade Dorm for Suburban Luxury
Times Topic: McMansions
MERCED, Calif. — Heather Alarab, a junior at the University of California, Merced, and Jill Foster, a freshman, know that their sudden popularity has little to do with their sparkling personalities, intelligence or athletic prowess.
Students sharing a McMansion — with each getting a bedroom and often a private bath — pay $200 to $350 a month each, depending on the amenities.
“Hey, what are you doing?” throngs of friends perpetually text. “Hot tub today?”
While students at other colleges cram into shoebox-size dorm rooms, Ms. Alarab, a management major, and Ms. Foster, who is studying applied math, come home from midterms to chill out under the stars in a curvaceous swimming pool and an adjoining Jacuzzi behind the rapidly depreciating McMansion that they have rented for a song.
Here in Merced, a city in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley and one of the country’s hardest hit by home foreclosures, the downturn in the real estate market has presented an unusual housing opportunity for thousands of college students. Facing a shortage of dorm space, they are moving into hundreds of luxurious homes in overbuilt planned communities…
plume (20)-
Delivering an effective blow after an opponent releases the ball is an art form. ;)
Looks like a Mexican Drug Cartel is usurping this site.
Sunday browsing
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/11/national-geographic-photo-contest-2011/100187/?google_editors_picks=true
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(26)meat
Beauty of it was that the girl making the pass appeared to fall down while making it. But I was right there and saw the ever so slight delay between the release of the ball and the fall, and saw my girls hand on her hip give a well timed and unobtrusive shove.
Ordering medication online can be a safe, money-saving experience. How is- drugs – development [url=http://generic-libidus-india.buy-vaigara.info/libidus-australia.html]libidus australia dallas[/url] advantages!! – adams book on pharmacology united medical liabilty insurance company pdf –
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203537304577028390121257670.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Are You Ready to Be a Landlord?
Buying Investment Properties Can Be Risky. Here’s How to Do It Smartly
Clot
4 from 9 and CPL is a bit optimistic, try 0 from 9 and UFEA cup. My big focus is Spurs who are looking good this year.
Have to try and get Mrs Fabius in and out of Woodbury Commons in time to sit down and watch my 7-1 49ers kick the sh1t out of the Giants. Finally getting a good season out of them. It’s been a rough 10 years.
I went to just a terrible wedding last night.
I won’t get into specifics, but it was expensive and classless. It was two 26 year olds getting married, I they whole group seemed more as 16 year olds.
No receiving line, music was loud. Invitation said 7PM and the couple walked down the aisle at 7:50PM. The main course was served at 10:50PM. No finesse at all. The bride and groom did not circulate, so I actually never even saw her, and neither did the entire groom’s side.
Also, bridal party spent most of the time in some back room hanging out while the DJ was loosing ceiling tiles with noise…..based on the location and trapping, it must have cost at least $60,000…….
I they whole group = but the whole group
loosing = loosening
Also, worst best man toast by 28 year old. Nothing. Mumbled some inaudible crap and leaned over and said something to the bride and groom and walked off. Maid of honor did the same. In fact, both father’s spoke before best man…never seen that one….
It sounds like we are going to start the new year with a bang:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-iran-is-closer-to-a-nuclear-bomb-than-people-think-1.395368
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-devil-and-joe-paterno.xml
Why Huntsman us not the frontrunner just escapes me:
http://m.cbsnews.com/fullstory.rbml?feed_id=0&catid=57323780&videofeed=36
Its difficult to find informative and precise info but here I found
Well, here is a use for overbuilt McMansions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/us/homework-and-jacuzzis-as-dorms-move-to-mcmansions-in-california.html
Animal McMansion: Students Trade Dorm for Suburban Luxury
snip
While students at other colleges cram into shoebox-size dorm rooms, Ms. Alarab, a management major, and Ms. Foster, who is studying applied math, come home from midterms to chill out under the stars in a curvaceous swimming pool and an adjoining Jacuzzi behind the rapidly depreciating McMansion that they have rented for a song.
Here in Merced, a city in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley and one of the country’s hardest hit by home foreclosures, the downturn in the real estate market has presented an unusual housing opportunity for thousands of college students. Facing a shortage of dorm space, they are moving into hundreds of luxurious homes in overbuilt planned communities.
Forget the off-to-college checklist of yesteryear (bedside lamp, laundry bag, under-the-bed storage trays). This is “Animal House” 2011.
Double-height Great Room? Check.
Five bedrooms? Check.
Chandeliers? Check.
Then there are the three-car garages, wall-to-wall carpeting, whirlpool baths, granite kitchen countertops, walk-in closets and inviting gas fireplaces.
“I mean, I have it all!” said Patricia Dugan, a senior majoring in management, who was reading Dario Fo’s “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” in her light-filled living room while soaking a silk caftan in one of two master bathroom sinks.
The finances of subdivision life are compelling: the university estimates yearly on-campus room and board at $13,720 a year, compared with roughly $7,000 off-campus. Sprawl rats sharing a McMansion — with each getting a bedroom and often a private bath — pay $200 to $350 a month each, depending on the amenities.
Gurbir Dhillon, a senior majoring in molecular cell biology, pays $70 more than his four housemates each month for the privilege of having what they enviously call “the penthouse suite” — a princely boudoir with a whirlpool tub worthy of Caesars Palace and a huge walk-in closet, which Mr. Dhillon has filled with baseball caps and T-shirts.
The pool table in the young men’s Great Room is the site of raucous games and taco dinners. “You definitely appreciate it when you visit your friends at other schools and they say, ‘O.K., sleep on the floor,’ ” Mr. Dhillon said.
A confluence of factors led to the unlikely presence of students in subdivisions, where the collegiate promise of sleeping in on a Saturday morning may be rudely interrupted by neighborhood children selling Girl Scout cookies door to door.
This city of 79,000 is ranked third nationally in metropolitan-area home foreclosures, behind Las Vegas and Vallejo, Calif., said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac, a company based in Irvine, Calif., that tracks housing sales. The speculative fever that gripped the region and drew waves of outside investors to this predominantly agricultural area was fueled in part by the promise of the university itself, which opened in 2005 as the first new University of California campus in 40 years.
snip
shore (39)-
It’s probably because he’s qualified to hold the office.
We are home from Gold Coast tour #2. Doing some internet searches trying to learn more and digest what we saw. Let’s just say, renting is now back on the table in the house of gryffindor.
43. OK Harry Potter.
gryff (43)-
Watch the 60 Minutes piece tonight on how Kongressklowns legally engage in insider trading.
This whole thing is about to go off the tracks. When it does, all you want to be owning is the clothes on your back, a good car, some shiny and plenty of .223.
Wait until infiltrators spark a winter blizzard riot at Occupy. They will rival Petrograd in 1917,
Come to think of it, a Petrograd 1917 moment might be just what the doctor ordered.
45 – everybody in the U.S. should see that 60 Minutes piece about Congress. Who knew? And why was this never reported on before? Or, maybe it was but it was swept under the rug by the media. I am glad they reported it finally. It’s like the final insult to the American public.
If we don’t want our 1%, there are other takers. . .
Abstract:
The global competition for residents and investments inevitably transforms the very foundation of for countries’ tax policy. It alters the way we (should) think of the classic normative goals of income tax policy. Efficiency, redistribution and even the concepts of community, national identity and democratic participation all pose significant new dilemmas due to the global competition perspective. Under competition tax ceases to be the compulsory tool used by the state to overcome collective action problems and becomes one of the instruments competing for residents and capital.
By providing taxpayers with a viable alternative, tax competition gradually turns the decision making process on its head. Instead of making compulsory demands on its subjects in order to promote the collective goals of a given group, the state acts increasingly as a recruiter – to solicit investments as well as residents.
The incentive to attract mobile residents and investments pushes policy-makers to limit tax’s redistribution functions; to choose between their original constituents and others – possibly more attractive ones; to depend less on voice-based and more on exit-based practices; and it renders mobility a particularly significant factor for gaining economic rights and benefits. Under these conditions, tax policy does not only determine the level and distribution of tax, nor does it restrict itself to determining the kinds and level of the services being provided. Rather, the new key role of mobility puts tax policy to a large extent in charge of the size and the make of the national group. By providing higher incentives for some and lower ones for others – tax policy in fact participates in determining who belongs to us. ”
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1957945
“
And I am sure there are few left on this blog that did not see this coming . . . .
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45206883/
Come on CNBC, this story is so 2008.
At Penn State’s stadium, profanity, scorn greet one father’s protest
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — In the middle of Curtin Road, John Matko held one handwritten sign in his right hand and rested another against his jeans. Two inches of black tape obscured Penn State’s logo on the 34-year-old father’s hat, as he tried to ignore the jeers, slaps and beer hurled at him.
“Put abused kids first,” one of Matko’s signs read. “Don’t be fooled, they all knew. Tom Bradley, everyone must go.”
Penn State’s Beaver Stadium loomed 30 yards away, rumbling with the first roars of Saturday’s game with Nebraska. The sea of blue-clad supporters wearing gray fedoras and camouflage hunting jackets and “This is JoePa’s house” T-shirts parted around Matko.
“That is such [expletive]!” one young woman screamed at him after glancing at the signs. “Who the [expletive] do you think you are?”
Eyes hidden by blue aviator sunglasses, Matko didn’t respond.
The night before, thousands of students held candles and sang Coldplay’s “Fix You” a capella in front of Old Main to support victims of sexual abuse. They wanted to show a different side to Penn State than the 40 charges of child sexual abuse against ex-football assistant Jerry Sandusky or the riots late Wednesday after the university fired iconic coach Joe Paterno for his role in the cover-up.
Under Saturday’s cloudless sky, Curtin Street revealed something else.
A beer showered Matko. One man slapped his stomach. Another called him a “[expletive].”
“I understand the culture,” said Matko, who graduated from Penn State in 2000 with a degree in nutrition. “I was part of it. It doesn’t surprise me what I’m getting from them.”
…
“Not now, man,” one student said, shaking his head. “This is about the football players.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/12/penn-state-stadium-profanity-scorn-joe-paterno/?page=all#pagebreak
nom[48]
The concept of a rootless person looking only at his immediate financial benefit underlying this study probably is applicable to some people and situations, but is not universal. Nobody doubts that equally wealthy and high-earning taxpayer will be taxed heavier in say Netherlands, France or Germany than in the U.S. Despite that Europe contains quite a few very well-off individuals, and I don’t believe the rate of their expatriation country-by-country much depends on the particular country’s top tax rate. There had been some scandalous cases of movie directors leaving Sweden, but not much else. Generally, for the people expecting their high earning power to stay, increased tax would lead to lower investment outlay (but as there are few good productive investment opportunities today anyway, less hoarding of gold and speculation) rather than reduced consumption – so their material well-being will not be improved by expatriation or reduced taxation at home.
On the opposite end: taking the authors’ position to the extreme, if one creates a truly regressive tax system (e.g. “head tax” where each resident is to pay say $10K or have to do forced labor), it will significantly increase the emigration of the lower economic classes – actually, this is how the U.S. filled up with people in the 19th century…
Corporate taxes are entirely different, and in the absence of strong protectionist regulations strong incentive to domicile in the cheapest (tax-wise) location exists. I’d like to see the protections in place (because I don’t see other way to reverse the brazilification trend), however none or much reduced corporate taxes will be quite helpful economically.
The best congress money can buy:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information/
At the time of the meltdown, when congress was considering bailing out Wall Street and the banks, I pulled the financial disclosure forms for the members who were pushing hardest for saving the institutions who caused the problems. Any guess as to what the disclosure forms showed?
Whine,
It has been an open secret for years.
In order to bond $5.7M in 2011 tax appeal refunds, Montclair to give state approval of any new hiring through 2012.
http://www.montclairnjusa.org/dmdocuments/R_11_220.pdf
I would not be surprised to see Michael Scheuer die in an unfortunate and unexpected accident.
Not that I am calling for it, by any means. The man has great courage to speak out the way he is doing. It just seems like bad things seem to happen to such people.
Gator,
What the heck is going on down in Gainesville?
http://www.gatorsports.com/article/20111113/ARTICLES/111119825
Here is a development hat will cause even less need for unskilled labor. I wonder how many houses droids will buy?
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/11/mobile-farm-robots/
that=that
Oh yes we did and in your house, JJ.
How about Branch with his Fireman Ed parody?
Very satisfying win on so many levels.
(52) cobbler,
Didn’t the founder of IKEA, and one of the richest men in Sweden, expatriate to avoid taxes?
The damage is cumulative , and who knows how it will turn out, but I am with you that our wealthy won’t skate en masse to France. Not with Canada rolling out the red carpet. Trust me on this: within 2 years, you will hear the words Canada and haven in the same sentence.
Seriously, Stu- is the power still off at your house?
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Don’t feel comfortable with a clean oil tank sweep, these tank sweep companies are a joke.
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