From the Star Ledger:
Millennials are slow entering the housing market
The Millennial Generation, those born between the end of the ’70s and the start of the ’90s, have crossed into adulthood. They are taking up the mantels passed down from generation to generation.
But for varying reasons, they have been slower than others to enter the home-buying market. And if they don’t buy, Generation Xers can’t move up, and if they can’t move up, then Baby Boomers can’t downsize.
“First-time home buyers hold the key,” said Gary Large, president of the New Jersey Association of Realtors. “There’s no doubt about that, but households in the lower-age bracket are finding it’s more difficult for them to buy now.”
Megan O’Haus, 26, and Ron Redzia, 27, may be typical.
They met in high school and are planning an Oct. 12 wedding. They wanted nothing more than to return from their honeymoon in St. Lucia to their own home.
“We’ve been looking since February,” O’Haus said. “We’ve already been pre-approved. We just didn’t have any luck.”
The couple rents an apartment and was “as budget-conscience as possible,” O’Haus said. She’s a public relations account executive, and Redzia is an auto technician at a Porsche dealership.
They put bids on four homes. “One was our ideal home in West Caldwell,” she said. They offered the full asking price on each of them, but were outbid, even after countering with $15,000 more.
Then there was a dry spell as the three-year-long stagnant market turned around and inventory shrank. Their search continued until last week when they found a three-bedroom, one-bath ranch in Oakland. They hope to close a week after they return from St. Lucia.
…
“The people who are 25 to 34 now are not the same people who were 25 to 34 a decade earlier,” said Jeffrey Lubbell, executive director for the Center for Housing Policy in Washington. “Times have changed. For this generation, half of their working life has been during a period of greater economic uncertainty.”But a nationwide study by the real estate firm ERA found a majority of millennials haven’t lost their optimism.
“Most young people who rent through us,” said Joe Boniakowski, of the E.A. Boniakowski Agency in Greenbrook, “who have a good education and a job, they ask to be kept on a list because they’re interested in buying a home eventually.”
The dream hasn’t changed, but tastes and the economy have.
…
Matt Francello and Erika Pavlecka are both 29 and work in the Nutley school system. He’s a gym teacher in the high school and the head freshman football coach. She’s a 6th grade teacher. They met in college, rent a one-bedroom apartment in Lyndhurst and plan to marry Nov. 9.But they aren’t house-hunting.
“We made a decision that we’ll stay where we are,” Francello said. He pointed to the costs of owning a house. “Property taxes alone would equal what we pay in rent,” he said.
“I work hard. I teach, I coach, I have a cash job chaperoning parties, but it never seems enough,” he said.
For them, the dream of owning a home isn’t dead — it’s just deferred. “I’d like to think that (home ownership) is in our future,” he said, “but when we decide to do that, I want to be able to make a significant down payment.”
…
James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Public Policy at Rutgers University, said when the economy crashed, some millennials lost faith in what they had been taught growing up.“Housing used to be viewed as a super piggy bank,” Hughes said. “The traditional mantra was that home prices only go up. Young people were told ‘get on that train as soon as you can.’ That’s history now in the minds of some.”
He notes other generational changes that have affected home-buying trends.
“We’ve seen an extended period of adolescence,” he said. “Over the past four or five years, we’ve seen more young people are living longer at home with their parents, or renting with a large number of roommates to keep costs down.”Hughes said part of the reason is that, for recent college graduates, the job market isn’t very good.
4.Fast Eddie says:
September 1, 2012 at 7:08 am
You want to experience an instant enema? $629,000 for this f*cking gem. We made sure that we didn’t rub up against anything in fear of contracting a fatality. You thought the one above was bad? This one is as close to r.ape as you’re gonna get without the actual occurrence. OMG, this is a f*cking disaster. Again, the pictures do zero justice on this train wreck. Every time I looked at the realtor at the open house, he just shrugged. He was beyond speechless and so was I.
Went arip this weekend.
Holy crap Chris Matthews is hosting a Chairman O infomercial on MSNBC right now. Not like they ever hide their intentions but this is funny!
grim [1],
I’m curious to know what the hammer price is on this one. It needed either a bull dozer or 100K to get it liveable. In fact, probably more as the property alone has years of neglected growth that can’t be fixed without heavy machinery. The realtor at the open house said around $25,000 to clear the growth. This one was putrid; water damage, stench, filth, you name it.
This one was a puzzle. It had a game room where the living room should be (people are m0rons), the yard was about 30 feet deep but wide with a dry stream in the back. There was some distorted funky addition added that made no sense at all. It looked like two houses slammed together. Ethan Allen needs to visit this one:
http://www.trulia.com/property/photos/3088262658-245-Cambridge-Rd-Hillsdale-NJ-07642#item-0
Please rise. Let us pray…
http://www.trulia.com/property/3093330956-70-Clinton-Ave-Hillsdale-NJ-07642
Here you go my millennial children. You’ll wind up competing with me for this lovely double-wide like two dogs over scraps. Except, you kids have to put down your iShit and stop hyper-texting long enough to tussle:
http://www.trulia.com/property/3085079308-231-Evergreen-St-Hillsdale-NJ-07642
They should have turned the altar and sacristy into a bar.
Do they need to bury St. Joseph?
This townhouse sold for $655,000 in 2009, currently asking $599,000. Taxes are $14,500 not including monthly maintenance fee. It’s a f*cking townhouse!! It has the dreaded two story foyer where heat goes to be lost forever:
http://www.trulia.com/property/3079234414-1-Drake-Dr-Hillsdale-NJ-07642
Grim [7],
Forget about burying St. Joe, they need to perform an ex0rcism.
Gary buy the Church then on Sundays you can just stay home! You gotta be kidding me at 700k, but I must say the numbers on that townhouse beat all. You have to be an idiot to buy that thing unless you want to commit financial suicide.
Seems the Asian markets have their own Bernanke put.
“China’s August HSBC PMI declines to 47.6 from 49.3 in July, and from the flash estimate of 47.8. It’s the lowest print since the dark days of March 2009. The number falls into the “so bad it’s good” category, with Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Sydney all reversing early losses to turn higher as thoughts turn to stimulus out of Beijing.”
People like are putting off houses, tho I do think this is a plateau right now. People like me are also putting off car purchases. Not stressed but very wary right now.
Millenials are one thing but I’m in the largest cohort of consumers. When folks like me stop buying stuff, watch out.
Everybody is on board.
“It’s a sea of a green in Europe as markets begin to get excited about a possible ECB bond-buying announcement on Thursday and stimulus from China after poor PMI data (I, II). Of the ECB, “I rather fear that we’re not going to get clarity,” says ETX’s Joe Rundle. He must be a veteran. “
Mikewaited [13],
No worries, hope and change is coming. Oh, wait… it came. Umm… we’re moving forward now. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
12 – Can we just call them the non-committal generation? They don’t get married (or have kids), they don’t buy cars, they live at home, they don’t invest, it’s amazing they actually go to college (it’s probably just because they can use it to delay responsibility for a few more years).
Dear Mr. Francello: The IRS regional office in Newark and officials from Trenton will be in touch……thank you for playing our game…..
Matt Francello and Erika Pavlecka are both 29 and work in the Nutley school system. He’s a gym teacher in the high school and the head freshman football coach. She’s a 6th grade teacher. They met in college, rent a one-bedroom apartment in Lyndhurst and plan to marry Nov. 9.
“I work hard. I teach, I coach, I have a cash job chaperoning parties, but it never seems enough,” he said.
But the millennials are so cute when they huddle with their electronic devices. I wonder if we can teach them to beg for a cookie. “Senna and Niall, sit! Sit! Good puppies!”
Obama’s pre-convention tour of battleground states has been heavy on college crowds, where he’s implored supporters to register and vote by painting the choice in stark terms: It’s his education tax credits versus Mitt Romney’s tax breaks for the rich; his “Obamacare” versus “Romney doesn’t care,” his “forward” versus “same old.”
And when those crowds boo the references to Romney, Obama tells them to convert that negative energy into votes Election Day.
Translation: give me your vote, you naive little guppies so I can dupe you once again.
The article talks about prices have only gone up, and that is what these millenials have been taught, blah, blah, blah. Have we forgotten the 80′?, prices went down you know. It really was not that long ago. Just saying.
Uh…, isn’t there a teeny problem with the mis-match in size of these demographic groups as well? A decade and a half of rising education and health costs paid for with flat wages doesn’t help matters much either. Live for today (through your iPhone) is all that matters to kids.
But for varying reasons, they have been slower than others to enter the home-buying market. And if they don’t buy, Generation Xers can’t move up, and if they can’t move up, then Baby Boomers can’t downsize.
Grim #15: You may be on to something there. The parents of millennials have made their lives so easy, why should they bother to do things like grow up? If you can live at home rent-free, have mom do your laundry and clean your room, if you can sleep with your girlfriend in your room, come and go as you please, why should you do something silly like get married and/or get your own place? If your parents pay your car insurance and co-sign your car loan for your leased BMW, why should you become emancipated?
I recognize that the job market is bad and that stands in the way for a lot of the Generation Don’t Break A Sweat cohort who are ready to grow up. But I see it in my friends’ kids; they’ve been so helicopter-parented that when real life kicks in, they’re completely thrown for a loop.
By the way, I’m not blaming the millennials; I’m blaming the parents. I couldn’t wait to get out of the house because I was 23 years old and still had a curfew. But my generation didn’t want to parent their kids, they wanted to be Best Buds. And now we’re seeing what happens.
Jill: I know it is a reach, but can’t your point be broadened to the overall entitlement mentality of the U.S. population?
Jill says:
September 3, 2012 at 10:24 am
Grim #15: You may be on to something there. The parents of millennials have made their lives so easy, why should they bother to do things like grow up? If you can live at home rent-free, have mom do your laundry and clean your room, if you can sleep with your girlfriend in your room, come and go as you please, why should you do something silly like get married and/or get your own place? If your parents pay your car insurance and co-sign your car loan for your leased BMW, why should you become emancipated?
I recognize that the job market is bad and that stands in the way for a lot of the Generation Don’t Break A Sweat cohort who are ready to grow up. But I see it in my friends’ kids; they’ve been so helicopter-parented that when real life kicks in, they’re completely thrown for a loop.
something from a really unexpected source…….
See no evil
By PHIL MUSHNICK
As a registered but less-than-loyal Democrat, I long scoffed at the long-held notion that the news media have a left-leaning, anti-Republican bias.
I didn’t believe it, primarily because I chose not to believe it. Plus, the media confirmed for me that mine was the noble side. Heck, there was no other side.
But I now know — and have for some time — that I was pulling my own leg. The notion of such a bias is not merely a notion; it’s true.
Our news media, especially as seen and heard during nationally broadcasted news, engages in highly selective story-choosing, story-telling and subsequent indignations and outrages that are first weighed on political scales.
Early this month a spectacular story was given tiny attention, and none, as far as I watched, on nightly national newscasts.
In December 2010, David Plouffe, soon to be reappointed a senior adviser to President Obama, gave two speeches in the desperately poor country of Nigeria.
Speeches for which he was paid a total of $100,000.
Holy moly! What did he have to say in Nigeria that was worth 100 grand? He must have revealed the cure for a country ranked 158th among 177 in economic development, a country in which an estimated 70% of humanity live — barely, and not for long — in severe poverty and in the mortally unhealthy conditions that accompany nothingness.
But, no, that wasn’t it.
Plouffe was invited and paid by MTN, Africa’s largest wireless-phone operator — and a company that does business with nuclear weapons-headed, radical-Islamized Iran.
Oh, so he must be a telecommunications wizard, a guy whose take on tech is well worth, oh, $50,000 an hour, even in Nigeria.
But no, that wasn’t it, either.
So, why was Plouffe paid $100,000? What could he share with MTN and Nigeria? Shoot, for 100 grand MTN could have landed KC and the Sunshine Band!
According to MTN, Plouffe was in demand “because of his expertise and knowledge of the US political scene.”
Whoa!
A penny for your thoughts? For 100 grand, this fella should have been registered as a foreign agent, or at least as a reverse lobbyist for a large international business.
A few months later, Plouffe rejoined the Obama administration as a top adviser.
But MTN wasn’t Plouffe’s only questionable off-season client. In 2009, during his first break from being an Obama adviser — Plouffe managed Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — Plouffe accepted $50,000 to speak to a group in Islamic, oil-rich Azerbaijan.
Turns out this group was connected to Azerbaijan’s occasionally democratic, occasionally despotic and often corrupt government.
When human-rights organizations protested Plouffe’s acceptance of such big dough from such a connected group — as if a senior White House advisor had no idea with whom he was dealing and knew nothing about the country in which he was speaking — Plouffe donated his fee to the purportedly nonpartisan National Democratic Institute.
So, Plouffe floats in and out, in and out: In as a top advisor in the Obama administration White House, out to give big-ticket speeches carrying insights on dealing with US politics and governance to dubious audiences in faraway places. And he’s now back in again.
Incredible stuff.
Yet, nine days ago, White House spokesperson Eric Schultz insisted that any attempt to suggest that Plouffe is not on the up-and-up or that there are any strings attached to the man is “simply misplaced.”
Really?
But that’s plenty good enough for the vast majority of the news and political media, as this Plouffe story never generated the attention it deserved — and still deserves. It was dead on arrival.
Now, imagine if a senior advisor in the last Bush administration — either Bush administration — had done as Plouffe has. Imagine if a top, inside Bush operative and persuader had such a résumé, eager for personal foreign business enrichments in exchange for “his expertise and knowledge of the US political scene.”
Woo, boy, fireworks! All over the nightly news! For weeks! Forever! And for good reason!
Nearly everyone, as opposed to just a few, would be familiar with the name David Plouffe — surely the caper would have been branded “Plouffegate” — and Plouffe would be forced to resign.
Take it from a registered Democrat no longer in denial: Fireworks!
And while the Plouffe story was mostly being ignored, Mitt Romney was in Israel, where he had the audacity to note, with gentle yet indisputable accuracy, the “cultural” achievement in that country compared to the rest of that part of the world.
Now that caused fireworks.
TV news and political reporters not only characterized Romney’s truth-telling as “a gaffe” — hard evidence that the GOP presidential candidate speaks first and thinks later — they gathered before him, offering him — shouting to him — an opportunity to “apologize.”
It was the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, stuck to describe pornography, who famously said, “I know it when I see it.”
Similar goes for news media bias in this uninspected, widely ignored Plouffe intrigue: I know it when I don’t see it.
See no evil
By PHIL MUSHNICK
As a registered but less-than-loyal Democrat, I long scoffed at the long-held notion that the news media have a left-leaning, anti-Republican bias.
I didn’t believe it, primarily because I chose not to believe it. Plus, the media confirmed for me that mine was the noble side. Heck, there was no other side.
But I now know — and have for some time — that I was pulling my own leg. The notion of such a bias is not merely a notion; it’s true.
Our news media, especially as seen and heard during nationally broadcasted news, engages in highly selective story-choosing, story-telling and subsequent indignations and outrages that are first weighed on political scales.
Early this month a spectacular story was given tiny attention, and none, as far as I watched, on nightly national newscasts.
In December 2010, David Plouffe, soon to be reappointed a senior adviser to President Obama, gave two speeches in the desperately poor country of Nigeria.
Speeches for which he was paid a total of $100,000.
Holy moly! What did he have to say in Nigeria that was worth 100 grand? He must have revealed the cure for a country ranked 158th among 177 in economic development, a country in which an estimated 70% of humanity live — barely, and not for long — in severe poverty and in the mortally unhealthy conditions that accompany nothingness.
But, no, that wasn’t it.
Plouffe was invited and paid by MTN, Africa’s largest wireless-phone operator — and a company that does business with nuclear weapons-headed, radical-Islamized Iran.
Oh, so he must be a telecommunications wizard, a guy whose take on tech is well worth, oh, $50,000 an hour, even in Nigeria.
But no, that wasn’t it, either.
So, why was Plouffe paid $100,000? What could he share with MTN and Nigeria? Shoot, for 100 grand MTN could have landed KC and the Sunshine Band!
According to MTN, Plouffe was in demand “because of his expertise and knowledge of the US political scene.”
Whoa!
A penny for your thoughts? For 100 grand, this fella should have been registered as a foreign agent, or at least as a reverse lobbyist for a large international business.
A few months later, Plouffe rejoined the Obama administration as a top adviser.
But MTN wasn’t Plouffe’s only questionable off-season client. In 2009, during his first break from being an Obama adviser — Plouffe managed Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — Plouffe accepted $50,000 to speak to a group in Islamic, oil-rich Azerbaijan.
Turns out this group was connected to Azerbaijan’s occasionally democratic, occasionally despotic and often corrupt government.
When human-rights organizations protested Plouffe’s acceptance of such big dough from such a connected group — as if a senior White House advisor had no idea with whom he was dealing and knew nothing about the country in which he was speaking — Plouffe donated his fee to the purportedly nonpartisan National Democratic Institute.
So, Plouffe floats in and out, in and out: In as a top advisor in the Obama administration White House, out to give big-ticket speeches carrying insights on dealing with US politics and governance to dubious audiences in faraway places. And he’s now back in again.
Incredible stuff.
Yet, nine days ago, White House spokesperson Eric Schultz insisted that any attempt to suggest that Plouffe is not on the up-and-up or that there are any strings attached to the man is “simply misplaced.”
Really?
But that’s plenty good enough for the vast majority of the news and political media, as this Plouffe story never generated the attention it deserved — and still deserves. It was dead on arrival.
Now, imagine if a senior advisor in the last Bush administration — either Bush administration — had done as Plouffe has. Imagine if a top, inside Bush operative and persuader had such a résumé, eager for personal foreign business enrichments in exchange for “his expertise and knowledge of the US political scene.”
Woo, boy, fireworks! All over the nightly news! For weeks! Forever! And for good reason!
Nearly everyone, as opposed to just a few, would be familiar with the name David Plouffe — surely the caper would have been branded “Plouffegate” — and Plouffe would be forced to resign.
Take it from a registered Democrat no longer in denial: Fireworks!
And while the Plouffe story was mostly being ignored, Mitt Romney was in Israel, where he had the audacity to note, with gentle yet indisputable accuracy, the “cultural” achievement in that country compared to the rest of that part of the world.
Now that caused fireworks.
TV news and political reporters not only characterized Romney’s truth-telling as “a gaffe” — hard evidence that the GOP presidential candidate speaks first and thinks later — they gathered before him, offering him — shouting to him — an opportunity to “apologize.”
It was the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, stuck to describe p0rnography, who famously said, “I know it when I see it.”
Similar goes for news media bias in this uninspected, widely ignored Plouffe intrigue: I know it when I don’t see it.
Come on people cheer up! Mitt will save you all. Undapants, ON!
from the 2012 predictions thread on 12/31/2012…..
chicagofinance says:
December 31, 2011 at 3:31 pm
2012 Election. Depends on the economy from Labor day to the election. If we persist at this level, then Obama carries the election. If Europe tanks and sucks the U.S. down, Romney will win…..everything else is just a come on to try and persuade the public to pay attention for ratings.
sorry 12/31/2011
21 – I agree, and I’ll bring up the reference I usually point back to, the death of the all-metal Tonka truck, which coincides perfectly with start of the Gen Y/Millennial childhood period.
[23] Jill – same here. I kept my eyes on the prize in my early 20’s. The prize was my own bedroom which I never had at home or college. Now kids grow up in smaller families with the birthright of their own BR that’s superior to my first apartment in every way.
By the way, I’m not blaming the millennials; I’m blaming the parents. I couldn’t wait to get out of the house because I was 23 years old and still had a curfew. But my generation didn’t want to parent their kids, they wanted to be Best Buds. And now we’re seeing what happens.
Although I hear Tonka has re-released the Mighty Dump, partially clad in steel, so maybe there is some hope.
Oh, and by the way, you could actually ride down a hill on the back of a mighty dump, and go pretty fast too.
One could not destroy a tonka truck when I was a lad. You could burn it and bruise it but it remained functional. In fact, almost every toy was indestructible. Now, items fall to pieces when touched… sort of the like the pysche of millennials.
Sometime in the not too distant future the all plastic toys of the last few decades will be in great demand…as we mine them out of landfills to extract the petroleum:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12141-giant-microwave-turns-plastic-back-to-oil.html
eddie (18)-
Wait until Bojangles manages to start another war. Let’s see if some gunfire from Iran’s Revolutionary Brigade can get Niall’s fat face off his iPhone.
Ernest [35],
Niall will be dead, we’re doomed.
“Planned obsolescence” is a business philosophy and has been for many many years. Software and Toys are good examples. I used to build and sell PCs 25 years ago that cost the end user $4k and now you can get a decent machine for $300 that is many multiples more powerful, they way they make them obsolete is to stop supporting the software and no longer create new software for the old hardware. The opposite has become true in the Auto industry where cars no longer rust away and engines fail around 40k miles and people keep them for a decade or more.
In other news, does anyone know of any farm markets in North Jersey comparable to one like Delicious Orchards?
A little too late for one guy in the media to realize Bojangles surrounds himself with thugs and Chicago machine operatives.
Too bad Romney surrounds himself with certifiable retards.
There is no choice in the election. It’s tweedledee vs tweedledum. Voting for either one makes you complicit in their crimes.
Everybody loses.
All over, but for the crying.
The opposite has become true in the Auto industry where cars no longer rust away and engines fail around 40k miles and people keep them for a decade or more.
It exists just the same, it’s just the the planned obsolescence is based on style and fashionability, and not reliability. Do car companies really need to update the exterior (read: visible) design of a car every year, and completely redesign every 2-3? Cars have become more like clothing, and in 2 years time, you’ll clearly be driving an “old” car. Yes yes, I realize the notable exceptions (Jeep Wrangler? New ones look pretty much like my ’98 did. Porsche’s 911 franchise is probably the least altered exterior in the lifetime of a car, 60 years? ).
Grim – they can change the styling every year if they like the average age of an American Auto is now 11 years old and about 10 years old for a truck. Back in the mid 90s it was 8 years, due to reliability more than the styling factor. Only the rich,the vain and the stupid go out and buy or lease a new car every-time the style changes.
Re: Blame the kids.
This article speaks volumes of why the baby boomers looking to sell their large homes for something smaller shouldn’t be expecting any price recovery for a long, long time.
So is the recent trend towards “certified” used cars with manufacturer warrantys a response to the trend, or a contributor to it?
I think reliability improvements have more to do with the leasing trends, as the dealers need to be able to resell off-lease cars in the same manner.
Imagine the financials associated with a lease program if GM tried that in the late 70s, early 80s. Lease payment would need to equal the financing payment, no other way.
Grim – the financials associated are really just ZIRP goosing new car sales and leases. 60 months no interest loans for everyone on a new car, don’t want 5 years then take the lease for almot the same monthly amount.
Car sales has rebounded only slightly, no where near the peaks. People are keeping their rides much much longer.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ALTSALES
What happens when ZIRP ends?
#42 Juice: Speaking of redesigns, the redesigned Jeep Cherokee, looks sissy like. Certainly not rugged like the old ones. My old late 90’s Cherokee, still hanging in there with almost 190K miles on it!!
What happens when ZIRP ends?
With a fleet of 11 year old cars? The cars die and folks buy more cars.
Or we all go long, real long, auto repair.
New grand Cherokee gets some great reviews though.
Isn’t it now built on the Mercedes ML chassis?
If you can’t install an armored turret, the vehicle is worthless.
It’s all turning to black.
48.
Can’t wait to get mine!
http://wot.motortrend.com/jeep-grand-cherokee-fails-swedish-magazines-rollover-test-chrysler-questions-results-230243.html
gary: I live almost walking distance to that place…..what is it that you find interesting…to be clear, we almost never set foot in the place……do you like the market or the bakery?
Fast Eddie says:
September 3, 2012 at 11:12 am
In other news, does anyone know of any farm markets in North Jersey comparable to one like Delicious Orchards?
re # 47 – “all go long, real long, auto repair.”
Yeah a relative of mine is doing that, invested in a parts company out in the midwest. Biggest problem for the US Auto parts companies right now is China. China is dumping cheaply made auto parts on our markets. If you think badly made toys is a problem wait until your local repair shop puts in a ball joint made in China.
My cousin’s husband owns a shop, he does very, very well. I should have paid more attention in auto shop … who am I kidding, I never took auto shop.
Best class to take is gunsmithing.
Wonder if West Point would let me audit an artillery class?
56 – You can learn everything you need to know by playing Missile Command and Artillery Duel on the Atari 2600.
chicagofinance [52],
I like both! lol! I don’t know, I just like farm markets. And Delicious Orchards just has so many different varieties of veggies and stuff. I like the more obscure little road side stands that have antiques, hippy sh1t, veggies and the like. You know, farm country sh1t, apple cider donuts, pick your own and all that jazz.
Pennings Farm up in Warwick is pretty cool, plus it’s only a few miles up the road from the drive-in theater (I’m pretty sure that place is still open).
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Otherwise hit the Morristown farmers market on Sunday mornings, or if you want to drive, the market at Lafayette Village. Or if you have a Saturday, try the farmers market at the Sussex County Fairground and hit Sussex Meat Packing while you are up there.
Eataly in NYC (while pretty touristy) is a pretty easy trip on a Sunday morning too (you know, for when you really need to get a couple of nice rabbits for the bolognese).
Chi #23: There’s a big difference between being 23 and not wanting to grow up and being 70 and being unable to leave the workforce because you were stupid enough to believe Wall St. guys like you when they said that the ordinary stiff plays on the same investment playing field that you do.
And by the way, stop calling them “entitlements” with all the pejorative thereof. If you want to give me the $178,000 that I and my employers have paid into the system over the last 40 years, plus, say, 3% interest, I’ll relinquish my claim to Social Security benefits.
#48 grim: I saw that about the new Cheorkee reviews. It just does not look manly and tough any more; it looks pretty and luxurious.
And by the way, stop calling them “entitlements” with all the pejorative thereof. If you want to give me the $178,000 that I and my employers have paid into the system over the last 40 years, plus, say, 3% interest, I’ll relinquish my claim to Social Security benefits.
Jill, hows about I give you that and 4% interest from my 12 years of contributions and allow me to never contribute another dime again?
Doomsday planning, fitting for around here.
” Apparently it has been the summer of Grexit planning for major U.S. firms. A NYT report has Bank of America considering a scenario where trucks filled with cash would be sent over the Greek border to let clients pay local employees, while JPMorgan is creating a handful of holding accounts reserved for a new drachma or alternative currency. More doomsday planning here. “
ben[64]
Nothing but a pay as you go system can reliably provide for the old-age income security in the society with the fiat currency. We forced a masquerade of the social security trust fund on the pay-go, which to me had been a huge mistake. Germans do much better, when they calculate the equivalent of FICA tax withdrawals annually based on the retirees numbers and pensions. Right now, the employer+employee total there is 19.5%, and the economy is clearly doing better than ours.
Grim 59/61- drive in still open, I shop a Sussex meats all the time,know the owner & all the help.
Gary a place by me fits the bill donuts ,pies & veggies on a farm it is across the street from this place http://www.aroundthearea.com/member.cfm/chatterbox , forget name of the farm. Right by Sussex county fair grounds you can hit both. Just passed it today on way to & from H. Depot.
any system in which they force participation is rotten to the core. Right now, my money goes into SS and bunch into TPAF. No way out of either of them. Yet the prevalent attitude is “I paid my share, now I’m taking it in full with interest, and you can go screw yourself”. That’s the problem with the older generation. They don’t care if they messed up. They want you to pay.
Oh when oh when will someone start thinking about the Baby Boomers? (as the world’s smallest violin played)
On top of the Millenials being spoiled, lazy azzes, which is a given….A whole lot of Gen X will NEVER be able to move again, they are going to die in place. Moving up is over. Don’t know what’s going to happen to the Millenials, I guess they can live with their BB parents forever.
Housing market never recovers in our lifetime.
70- Well Ann you are new but considering that post you will fit in well.
Went to woodbury commons ,cant find parking. People have money to spend. I needed a battery jump the wife forgot to turn off foglights ,security was there in 10 min. Boost battery for free. Just gave him a 20 tip. It could have been worst if i had to call tow truck. Nice that they give this kind of service.
gary (58)-
Your time would be better spent stockpiling MREs.
I cut both my kids a lot of slack. They are both hard-working, charitable and have a realistic view of the (sickening) future.
They will also inherit their fair share of our nation’s unpayable debt and probably spend their entire adult lives fixing the shitball we bequeath to them.
Jill: just to be clear, I generally deal in people who discuss their financial situations with me; so I get to hear a very wide berth of stories…..anyone who is 70 and needs to keep working has made fundamental mistakes…..OF COURSE there are exceptions, but to reiterate they either spent without regard or foolishly backed themselves into a corner, or else, they played their hand in a manner that left their risk profile poorly addressed. Yes, they may have had some bad luck, but they had many opportunities to place themselves out of harm’s way or in position to withstand some shocks…….I see too many people on autopilot, and the ones DOING IT RIGHT tend to be close to the vest about it. As a result, those who have protected themselves and made prudent choices are viewed with envy and petty jealously instead of admiration, as if it were luck. Pretty disgusting, but it is easy to cast a finger of blame out when you are wallowing in misery…….
Jill says:
September 3, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Chi #23: There’s a big difference between being 23 and not wanting to grow up and being 70 and being unable to leave the workforce because you were stupid enough to believe Wall St. guys like you when they said that the ordinary stiff plays on the same investment playing field that you do.
And by the way, stop calling them “entitlements” with all the pejorative thereof. If you want to give me the $178,000 that I and my employers have paid into the system over the last 40 years, plus, say, 3% interest, I’ll relinquish my claim to Social Security benefits.
Vigoda: 1
Michael Clarke Duncan: 0
Michael Clarke Duncan of ‘Green Mile’ fame dies at 54
I epect to be working until the day I die…primarily to serve as guarantor for Dimon and Blankfein’s gambling debts.
Expect, that is.
Richard,
Truecar.com seems like a scam. Did you actually use them with success? Every review I’ve read is horrible. After pricing a pilot I’ve gotten non-stop phone calls and emails. Thank god I gave them my landline and not my cell phone.
Cars – Reliability-wise, the best they’ve ever been. I can’t remember the last time I heard the decades old standard line, “Whatever you do, don’t buy a _______. They’re all lemons.” Not too many muffler shops around anymore, as somehow exhaust systems last 6-10 years now instead of 3. Finely regulated charging systems leave me in awe that fuses never seem to blow anymore and bulbs last for 8 years. Our then 8 year old 2002 failed inspection because both rear license plate bulbs were out. I thought, “Uh-oh. That has to be a wiring problem.” Nope, replaced the two bulbs and everything was fine. Finally a high beam went out a couple months ago on our now 10 year old car. Replaced both hi/lo’s for $20 for good measure. Even batteries seem to last twice as long as they used to. 10+ years and your air conditioning is still working on most cars? That’s crazy. This is the golden age of car reliability. Enjoy it now, because we might be missing it in the near future.
[37] Juice – Me too. I think what precipitated the demise of the $4K clone PC was the extra long duration between Intel’s 386 and 486 processors. Before that long lag the established market trend was a $4K clone which drifted down to $3K and then a new processor would come out, usually requiring a new motherboard, memory, and disk perhaps disk technology, and you’re backup to $4K. Rinse, repeat. While we were waiting for the 486 to take the stage the long lag allowed 386 clones to drift down to below $3K to as low as $2K. When the 486 did finally appear in the early 90’s it certainly debuted in clone form in the $4K range but fell within months to $3K and that was the end of garage built PCs that you could sell for $4K. The next generation of PCs (Pentium) were sold by Dell and Gateway et al at $3K and it was just a steep slope down from there. Even techies who spent out of pocket $4K every two years for the latest and greatest have since been able to spend far less that $2K every *5* years for systems that amaze and satisfy. I often scratch my head wondering why I agonize over spending another $1000 or two every now and then on technology far superior to that which I would gladly spend $4K on every two years when it was much harder to afford and justify those purchases.
I used to build and sell PCs 25 years ago that cost the end user $4k and now you can get a decent machine for $300 that is many multiples more powerful
[77] chifi,
A damn shame. I liked him.
In other news, wife just would not let go on a new car and when dealer met our price for an MDX (which he had rejected before), she had to have it.
Registering it in PA. Saved $700 over NJ reg.
BTW, the sales tax is the same in NJ and PA, but NJ tacks on lotsa fees. In any event, that is over three grand that isn’t going to Trenton. Sorry Chris, much as I love ya, I cannot keep paying the ransom.
And I am deferring receipt of some 2012 income until I am safely across the state line.
The End Is Nigh (Ride The Bus Edition):
NY REGION
September 3, 2012, 9:30 p.m. ET
Late Starts On N.J. Buses
By HEATHER HADDON
For tens of thousands of New Jerseyans, it is a dreaded evening routine: Rushing to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for an NJ Transit bus home, only to have the bus leave late.
Now, NJ Transit records confirm this commuting fact of life, showing that one in four buses leaves the Port Authority late on the system’s two tardiest lines—the 161 bus through Bergen County to Paterson and the 193 express line to suburban Wayne.
Overall, NJ Transit buses are getting tardier. More than one in 10 NJ Transit buses—12%—left the Port Authority Bus Terminal more than five minutes late in the first six months of 2012, according to NJ Transit records viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The numbers illustrate a continuing frustration for NJ Transit as bus ridership has grown: A system that brings nearly 100,000 commuters into New York City each day is running out of space in the world’s busiest bus terminal.
“We’re bursting at the seams,” said Joyce Gallagher, NJ Transit’s vice president and general manager of bus operations. “We’re using every conceivable ounce of space that we can.”
NJ Transit defines a late departure as leaving five minutes late or more, but commuters say they often have to wait up to an hour for a bus with a seat, as the vehicles fill to capacity quickly. They then must fight through Lincoln Tunnel traffic, which averages about 120,000 vehicles a day, including 10,000 buses.
“The bus will come, but you are wrapped around in so many lines that you have to catch the third or fourth bus,” said Douglas Panchal, a 33-year-old Little Ferry, N.J., resident who works in the banking industry. He said he has waited nearly two hours for a bus.
NJ Transit doesn’t track on-time performances for buses leaving the George Washington Bridge terminal in Washington Heights. Nor does it measure how often buses arrive at their destinations on-time.
The Port Authority’s overcrowding problem has vexed officials for years. Ms. Gallagher said the terminal was operating above capacity in the 1980s, and demand has gone up since. More than 2.263 million buses left the terminal in 2011, up from 2.144 million in 2005.
The Port Authority anticipates that bus departures and arrivals from the terminal will grow by up to 34% in the next 25 years, said Steve Coleman, a Port Authority spokesman.
“Obviously there is a problem. That’s not in dispute,” he said.
NJ Transit buses compete for terminal space with other private commuter lines, airport buses and longer-haul companies such as Bolt Bus and Greyhound. But the delays affect NJ Transit bus riders almost every day.
On the tardiest lines, queues can stretch to more than 100 commuters on cramped terminal platforms. Delays interrupt social plans and family life.
“By the time you get home, it’s 8 p.m. and it’s about ready for bed,” said Sharon Michel, who rides the 161 to and from Paterson through half-a-dozen stops in Bergen and Passaic counties. “When you get home, you don’t have time to do anything.”
The 193 bus runs express from New York to Wayne, where it stops at three large commuter parking facilities and the Willowbrook Mall in the affluent Passaic County town.
“It ruins the evening,” said Rich Weiss, a Wayne attorney who rides the 193. “I am in a good mood when I get to the bus and then you wait 40 minutes or 45 minutes.”
NJ Transit officials said they couldn’t explain why the 161 and 193 were consistently late. Ms. Gallagher said gate assignments in the three-story terminal’s higher level sometimes lead to longer delays, as buses will get caught in the terminal’s own congestion. Gate assignments for several routes, including the 161, were changed recently to speed up the process.
NJ Transit bus ridership into Manhattan has risen to almost 94,000 this fiscal year, up from about 86,000 at the beginning. The buses fill large gaps left by NJ Transit’s 11 commuter train lines, which carry about 79,000 people into the city each day, and PATH, which has about 260,000 daily commuters on average. The buses are also cheaper; a monthly bus pass from Paterson is $183, compared with $208 for a train pass. The bus lines are vital to spurring residential development in New Jersey away from train lines, said Martin Robins, director emeritus of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University.
“Bus service is very important for a variety of areas,” Mr. Robins said. “It’s going to make people less inclined to move to those areas if the bus service is as suboptimal as it’s become in the evenings.”
Officials have tried and are considering a number of fixes for overcrowding. In 2010, the Port Authority turned an empty lot on 30th Street and 11th Avenue into a bus layover space, Mr. Coleman said. Next year NJ Transit’s 1,145 local buses are expected to be outfitted with a $28 million system providing real-time travel information. The Global Positioning System program will help planners adjust schedules, Ms. Gallagher said. Riders will be able to get digital alerts with arrival times.
NJ Transit is also looking for ways to bypass the Port Authority terminal altogether. The agency began offering discount tickets in June for bus riders to use NY Waterway ferries across the Hudson River. Officials are also studying picking up commuters on Manhattan’s East side.
—Sharon Adarlo contributed to this article.
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