From the Press of Atlantic City:
South Jersey still lags nation in real estate recovery
South Jersey’s struggling real-estate market is lagging New Jersey’s construction recovery, an economist told the New Jersey Builders Association on Tuesday.
New Jersey has seen a jump in new-construction permits and five consecutive quarters of rising home prices.
The state sold 85,000 homes last year, the most since the housing boom of 2006.
Nationally, the picture is even better.
But South Jersey is behind the rest of the state in sales, home prices and new construction, said Jeffrey Otteau, president of the real-estate analysis firm Otteau Valuation Group Inc.
He and Michael Wolf, an economist with Wells Fargo Securities, gave their forecast for the building industry for 2014 to construction executives Tuesday at Resorts Casino Hotel.
…
A cold, snowy winter has not helped. Apparently, buyers don’t go house hunting when it snows.
“We have a weather effect. Seasonality is playing a little role. We expect it to rebound a little but not at the pace of 2013,” Wolf said.Otteau said total home sales declined by 12 percent in January and February. A similar effect was observed in California, where the decline cannot be attributed to bad weather, he said.
“The market could be fraying at the edges,” he said.
The economy has not recovered from the 2007 recession. The recovery from the technical end of the recession will be in its fifth full year in June, Otteau said.
“Most recessions took 24 months to recover. This one is essentially 5 years old, and we’re still missing jobs,” he said.
…
“The market is sensitive to where you live in New Jersey. Central and northern New Jersey have done better,” he said. “But home values are up, housing permits are up. And that will go up again this year.”Builder Dean Mon, of Sea Girt, Monmouth County, said the industry picked up speed last year after years of stagnation following the 2008 home-mortgage crisis.
“We’ve picked ourselves off the floor. Provided everything goes as expected, we should be OK,” he said. “We doubled the housing starts last year. And now the economy is beginning to pick up a little.”
A stagnant housing market continues to dog South Jersey. While most of central and northern New Jersey’s real-estate market has recovered, Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties are considered in distress, Otteau said.
Good Morning New Jersey
Good morning Mike
eliminate regulation and the inept will do a better job. give them a tax cut while you are at it
@NewsBreaker: RECALL ALERT: Nissan is recalling just over 1M cars, SUVs and vans because the front passenger air bags may not work http://t.co/TroNnQTzBX
South Jersey should secede.
South Jersey to be known as East Pennsylvania.
North Delaware might be more appropriate. I still think it might be worth it to pull a Putin with Staten Island though. Deblasio is a pussy, he won’t fight back.
I lived in South Jersey (Toms River) area for two years and commuted to North Jersey for work. I would rather be dead laying on the corner of 8th avenue and 44th Street than alive in that cultural wasteland.
Anon, is your Soviet Lada still keeping you close to the proletariat? Where are your Cuba and Venezuela cars?
So much for online gaming in NJ, it’ll be dead in a few months. Sheldon Adelson (Billionaire owner of the Sands/Venetian in Vegas) is buying enough politicians (of both pursuasions) to pass the new legislation.
Sure enough, 4 months of online gaming have started to cut into Pennsylvania casino profits, notably … wait for it … Adelson’s Sands Bethlehem..
No way Jersey casinos have any shot at fighting this. Oh, and where is the sports betting in NJ? NJ’s politicians/legislature clearly ineffective at everything they try to do.
On to the Marijuana.
Pork roll can be S Jersey’s state food.
Unexpected drop in Jobless Claims this week, down 10k to 311k – a four month low. The 4wk moving average down 9,500 to 317,750. If there are no issues with the data, these are very strong numbers.
Grim [9];
Don’t know about table games or slots & video poker, but poker itself has been off to an inauspicious start. First, the geo-location technology is crap. Players getting booted out in the middle of a hand — I was sitting next to a friend in the AC Trop who was trying to get into an online game and was rejected for not being in NJ…
Too many operators for too few players — no operator has a big enough player pool to keep games going reliably when most want to play. Too few players makes collusion too easy, thus the games themselves are suspect. The free money incentives that casinos are offering to draw in players make the games themselves play like play money online games with nothing real at stake.
And much of this comes back to the fact that AC operators have conspired to keep the online 800-lb gorilla (PokerStars) from getting a license. They’d rather have all of nothing than part of something.
Grim,
Comment caught up in moderation. I have no idea what word or part to change. Pls. release, thnx.
I’m sure any of the gaming words would throw you into moderation, lots of gambling spam bots out there. Don’t look at my posts for what is moderated or not, the filters don’t apply to mine.
A ‘Housing Bubble’ in New Jersey [AUDIO]
By Joe Cutter March 27, 2014 5:15 AM
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Rapid home price increases in some parts of the country have prompted an alarm about another “housing bubble,” but a New Jersey economist says that’s not the case in the Garden State.
Tim Boyle, Getty Images
Home prices overall are about 13 percent higher than a year ago, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, and a survey by Trulia finds home prices are overvalued in 19 of the top 100 markets in the country.
However, the economic jury is still out on whether the evidence is spotty or a real trend.
“What we’ve seen is prices have gone up, largely because the distressed properties have cleared through in many states — not here in New Jersey, but in many other states,” said Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at CohnReznick in Roseland.
O’Keefe said downward pressure on housing prices in New Jersey should continue until New Jersey’s foreclosure crisis is resolved.
According to a report that was released in February by CohnReznick, New Jersey currently leads the nation in distressed mortgages
Read More: A ‘Housing Bubble’ in New Jersey [AUDIO] | http://nj1015.com/a-housing-bubble-maybe-in-some-places-but-not-in-jersey/?trackback=tsmclip
[4] Clot – Would anyone notice? I imagine so long as they don’t commit any acts of piracy along 95, no one would care.
South Jersey should secede.
We seceded where others failed…
What a shame. Have to protect the monopolies. Now we have to pray they pass this Marijuana law. We can’t raise taxes, so what other choice do we have. How does this not make sense to Christie. People are smoking it anyway, what difference does it make if it is illegal. Grab the money Christie!
“grim says:
March 27, 2014 at 8:15 am
So much for online gaming in NJ, it’ll be dead in a few months. Sheldon Adelson (Billionaire owner of the Sands/Venetian in Vegas) is buying enough politicians (of both pursuasions) to pass the new legislation.
Sure enough, 4 months of online gaming have started to cut into Pennsylvania casino profits, notably … wait for it … Adelson’s Sands Bethlehem..
No way Jersey casinos have any shot at fighting this. Oh, and where is the sports betting in NJ? NJ’s politicians/legislature clearly ineffective at everything they try to do.
On to the Marijuana.”
What a shame. Have to protect the monopolies. Now we have to pray they pass this Marijuana law. We can’t raise taxes, so what other choice do we have. How does this not make sense to Christie. People are smoking it anyway, what difference does it make if it is illegal. Grab the money Christie!
“grim says:
March 27, 2014 at 8:15 am
So much for online gam!ng in NJ, it’ll be dead in a few months. Sheldon Adelson (Billionaire owner of the Sands/Venetian in Vegas) is buying enough politicians (of both pursuasions) to pass the new legislation.
Sure enough, 4 months of online gaming have started to cut into Pennsylvania casino profits, notably … wait for it … Adelson’s Sands Bethlehem..
No way Jersey casinos have any shot at fighting this. Oh, and where is the sports betting in NJ? NJ’s politicians/legislature clearly ineffective at everything they try to do.
On to the Marijuana.”
What a shame. Have to protect the monopolies. Now we have to pray they pass this Marijuana law. We can’t raise taxes, so what other choice do we have. How does this not make sense to Christie. People are smoking it anyway, what difference does it make if it is illegal. Grab the money Christie!
Since i went to school in south jersey here are some of the names we had for it
North Alabama
Pineyland
Toothlessville
Bible Country
Grab the money Christie!!!!!! Now that we can’t get pass the monopoly on sports betting, you need to pass this. We can’t raise taxes, and we are desperate for the money. Use your common sense. Kids are smoking it whether it’s illegal or legal, so forget that argument.
Damn it, we really needed this sports be!ting. People are doing it with bo0kies, so what the hell is the difference? Arguments over these issues makes no sense. They act like if it’s illegal that people aren’t doing it. Well here is a little tip, they still are. Making it illegal means nothing.
[5] essex
We only want the beaches. You can keep the rest.
One up pensy and allow for full on casinos in the Meadowlands, and don’t invite Adelson to the party.
Sure, it would destroy Atlantic City, but who cares, really – they’ve already gotten there on their own.
I found this blog 7 years ago and actively participated for more than a year. I pop back in every so often but haven’t been back in about a year. After lurking for the last few days I’m really surprised at how dark some of the eternal optimists have become including grim.
thought this was relevant for this forum:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-03-26/hedge-funds-unlikely-saviors-for-new-york-area-homeowners
I just bought a beach house in South Jersey by LBI. Good time to buy there in my opinion, a lot of paralysis after Sandy and a lot of tear downs which make the neighborhood look bad and scare people. All of this is good because you can get a steep discount. And the flood insurance is not bad, $600 a year.
I got my property 35-40% off what they were asking for it as little as 3 years ago and since it is on pilings it didn’t sustain any real damage from Sandy — my thinking is that if it survived that storm it would likely be fine for a long time. Good value proposition, especially since basically most of the area is being rebuilt and new houses are propping up everywhere. In a few years the neighborhood that looks crappy now with a bunch of tear downs will have all new construction and look totally different…that’s what I am hoping for at least, feel pretty good about it.
25 – very interesting, but I wonder if that “flexibility” will be short-lived as HUD, FHFA, CFPB and the numerous other housing finance regulatory groups force them to comply with the same sets of regulations (fair housing, etc etc – at both the state and local levels) that other lenders do, forcing them to become exactly what they are trying not to be.
Just because you “think” you aren’t exactly the same, once you buy a mortgage loan, delinquent or not, you become exactly the same, are still subject to the same regulations that any other servicer or debt collector would be. Based on some of those cavalier quotes, the honeymooners are in for a rude surprise.
Surpassing Florida
New Jersey has surpassed Florida in having the highest share of residential mortgages that are seriously delinquent or in foreclosure, with New York third, a Mortgage Bankers Association report showed last month. By contrast, hard-hit areas such as Arizona and California have some of the lowest levels of delinquencies after allowing banks to quickly foreclose after home prices started to crash in 2006.
The backlog is weighing on housing values because of the prospect of a rising supply of distressed homes on the market. While U.S. prices jumped 12 percent in January from a year ago, they rose only 8 percent in New York and 6.6 percent in New Jersey and Maryland, according to CoreLogic Inc.
New Jersey ranked second-to-last in a gauge of U.S. housing-market stability, according to a Freddie Mac index measuring the 50 states and Washington, D.C. The index weighs criteria including mortgage applications, income ratios and proportion of on-time mortgage payments.
Hedge funds and investment firms buying the delinquent loans may help to limit the damage by sopping up extra inventory, according to Pilles.
“Without these buyers a lot of these properties would still be in the courts,” he said.
Reading the highlights of the new flood insurance reform “reversal” bill… a seller is now allowed to pass long his/her subsidized insurance to the new owner (if I read that correctly). But it still will increase each year, albeit at a lower percentage, unless your structure is above the threshold per your zone. I’m not sure what else changed. Since you bought post BW but pre this new bill, I’m assuming your house is well above BFE so it didn’t affect you… correct?
ccb223 says:
March 27, 2014 at 10:53 am
And the flood insurance is not bad, $600 a year.
(26) That’s how it’s done, my boys. You lock in the profit at the TIME YOU BUY. That’s an old RE saying, he he. Good Job, ccb
(28) My wife’s friend has a townhome in Sayreville. Hasn’t paid mortgage/taxes in over 3 years. No sight of foreclosure yet. She’s living the life. Kids are grown up. Boyfriend and she travel around the world on vacations. Works part time in a highly specialized nursing field.
Anon — I didn’t see you tweet this yet so I thought I’d help you out, you must be swamped.
SAN FRANCISCO — In a stunning criminal complaint, State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms and public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area, casting yet another cloud of corruption over the Democratic establishment in the Legislature and torpedoing Yee’s aspirations for statewide office.
. . .
The charges are particularly shocking given that Yee has been among the state Senate’s most outspoken advocates both of gun control and of good-government initiatives.
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_25423273/bay-area-fbi-serving-multiple-arrest-search-warrants
[31] renter,
You expect anon to tweet something negative about a fellow traveler? What part of “biased” don’t you understand? ;-)
[32] redux,
Reminds me of that anti-gun community organizer in NYS who was arrested a couple of months ago for possessing a gun in a school zone.
Another wonderful NJ politician. Send in your campaign contributions. Baa.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime-and-courts/gop-assemblyman-indicted-on-fraud-theft-charges-totaling-millions-1.350277
winter all yr round, very weak economy, country is disappearing, negative growth rate, most dead by 40. they are not a threat to us, but the so called fiscally conservative wants to engage them in war. deficits don’t matter when it comes to killing
@TheOliverStone: Back from #Moscow. Lots of mud, snow, rain. Yet they endure.
Also, I noticed that Christie didn’t seem to know about bridgegate, though responsible for choosing and appointing such absurdly immature people in his office. And now it looks like the Hoboken mayor made up the whole development Sandy bribe story, but he was supposed to be so clean. What’s new? Baa. Send in those campaign contributions Anon.
[34] libtard
Why should the dems have all the fun?
Looks like it is shaping up to be another fun week of anon/Michael/ottoman/ccb versus the rest. Gonna have to snark without me though. Back to the salt mines.
Yes, the house was on pilings above BFE and even though it’s waterfront it was in an AE zone so no real issues, the reversal bill will only help.
Lib a corrupt politician, what is this world coming to.
It is only the greedy ones who get caught
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – The mayor of North Carolina’s largest city resigned Wednesday after prosecutors said he had been arrested on federal public corruption charges that include accepting more than $48,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents.
Cannon, a Democrat, won his first term as mayor in November. The Charlotte native has a long record of public service in his hometown, where he won his first City Council seat in 1993.
I’m not one of those Chicago or Detroit types … That’s not how I flow,” Cannon said. In another conversation, he was heard to joke that he looked better in an orange tie than an orange suit, a reference to prison uniforms.
http://news.yahoo.com/north-carolina-mayor-resigns-arrested-corruption-charges-011115074.html?vp=1
“Lib a corrupt politician, what is this world coming to. ”
Kind of like a performance enhancing drug using athlete.
Great job!!! That’s what I’m talking about!!! Going to make a nice profit in time.
“I got my property 35-40% off what they were asking for it as little as 3 years ago and since it is on pilings it didn’t sustain any real damage from Sandy — my thinking is that if it survived that storm it would likely be fine for a long time. Good value proposition, especially since basically most of the area is being rebuilt and new houses are propping up everywhere. In a few years the neighborhood that looks crappy now with a bunch of tear downs will have all new construction and look totally different…that’s what I am hoping for at least, feel pretty good about it.”
(35) By the end of their teen years, Muscovite soldiers are trained to kill and maim unmercifully. By the end of their twenties, they acquire the skills to propagandize all media outlets and sway public sentiment. By their thirties, they are able to motivate the public and the lesser in rank to perform the dirty deeds, to ‘break the eggs’ and make an omelet. All is done by 40. The next generation follows in step. Darwinism has done its duty.
Jersey or the south, it doesn’t make a difference. The same game is being played everywhere. The south just has so many small towns that they do a better job of covering it up. Much more difficult to be a whistle blower in the south.
“Fast Eddie says:
March 27, 2014 at 12:32 pm
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – The mayor of North Carolina’s largest city resigned Wednesday after prosecutors said he had been arrested on federal public corruption charges that include accepting more than $48,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents.”
Congrats, and good luck to you, sir.
Not to split hairs, but how does it help? It was my understanding that homes above its BFE pre BW post BW and post this new bill would have had the same low floor ins premiums. If you meant it will help people want to rebuild or help other people buy & build new faster than they would have… you may have a point there.
ccb223 says:
March 27, 2014 at 12:31 pm
Yes, the house was on pilings above BFE and even though it’s waterfront it was in an AE zone so no real issues, the reversal bill will only help.
Comrade,
Instead of responding as you did below, wouldn’t it be better to give up your sometimes full-throated sometimes half hearted defense/promotion of the repubs?
Comrade Nom Deplume, somewhere in Massachusetts says:
March 27, 2014 at 12:19 pm
[34] libtard
Why should the dems have all the fun?
I won’t get into the details of a client meeting I had last night, but essentially they have first hand experience that Christie is a dictator and a micromanager. He purposely places people in charge of organizations that have no experience, so they are somewhat helpless to manage, and put up minimal interference to his commands. As a result, the only logical conclusion (not that we thought any differently) is not only did Christie know about BridgeGate, but he issued the order……all circumstantial though……
Libtard in Union says:
March 27, 2014 at 12:11 pm
Also, I noticed that Christie didn’t seem to know about bridgegate, though responsible for choosing and appointing such absurdly immature people in his office. And now it looks like the Hoboken mayor made up the whole development Sandy bribe story, but he was supposed to be so clean. What’s new? Baa. Send in those campaign contributions Anon.
46 – Good point, not sure it will help, but given that the BW bill was only going to hurt (i.e., increase costs) and given that it is now being reversed, the reversal will certainly not hurt. I am not too familiar with the intricacies but I think you are generally right, most likely a non-event for me either way since I am above BFE.
To your last point, there are probably some indirect/tangential benefits as the costs of flood insurance are reduced and people around me who may not be at BFE can more easily sell/transact.
There are a lot of folks with no money who have inherited properties over generations and don’t have the cash to fix them post-sandy…whatever makes it easier for them to sell and get out of town is good for me as presumably new/wealthier buyers come in and buy the land/build new houses and get rid of the eye soars…which makes the neighborhood more attractive. So yes in that sense the reversal of the bill helps. There may also be other indirect benefits I am not thinking of at the moment…
38- Lib, I find it hard to believe that Christie did not know anything. Maybe he really didn’t, but I just have a hard time believing it. If he didn’t know about it, then this shows how incompetent he is in managing the people that report to him.
That sounds about right. Thanks for the share.
“chicagofinance says:
March 27, 2014 at 12:55 pm
I won’t get into the details of a client meeting I had last night, but essentially they have first hand experience that Christie is a dictator and a micromanager. He purposely places people in charge of organizations that have no experience, so they are somewhat helpless to manage, and put up minimal interference to his commands. As a result, the only logical conclusion (not that we thought any differently) is not only did Christie know about BridgeGate, but he issued the order……all circumstantial though……”
Everytime I think about how corrupt and screwed up NJ is, I just need to look to California to feel a little bit better. File this under WTF?
Remember, CA State Senator Leland Yee is the author of many of CA’s gun control bills and a vocal gun control advocate…
Yeah, that’s right…he was part of a ring to smuggle firearms to Asian gangs and Islamic terrorists…..
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-yee-indictment-political-career-20140327,0,4920941.story#axzz2xBXAQXJ8
By Melanie Mason, Maura Dolan and Joe Mozingo
March 27, 2014, 5:51 a.m.
The public-corruption case filed against state Sen. Leland Yee on Wednesday could mark an abrupt end to the prestigious, and sometimes divisive, political career of one of the most prominent figures in California’s Democratic legislative majority.
After prosecutors unsealed a federal indictment accusing Yee of sidestepping campaign donation rules in exchange for political favors, and of engaging in a conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and illegally import firearms, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg on Wednesday called on the San Francisco Democrat to either resign or face swift suspension by his colleagues.
“We’re going to demand that Leland Yee — yes, innocent until proven guilty — leave the Senate and leave it now,” Steinberg said at a news conference in his office, where he was flanked by 14 fellow Democratic senators.
If Yee does not resign, Steinberg said, the Senate is prepared to suspend him during its next floor session Friday.
Not exactly new news, but I loved this line “FEMA says that it does not factor in previous losses into its decisions how to redraw the flood zones.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/fbi-investigates-fema-flood-map-changes-after-nbc-news-report-n62906
FBI agents are interviewing employees at FEMA in an investigation of unusual changes in federal flood insurance maps that benefited oceanfront condo buildings with a history of flooding, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The investigation follows a report by NBC News documenting more than 500 instances in which FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.
I’m still not convinced ChiFi and in full disclosure, that recent report that found him innocent was published by his own lawyers (which Gator kindly reminded me). I just think the whole stunt is too immature and too easy to get called out on. Plus, he’s hurting his own by making them subjects to the unnecessary delays. I forget who here came up with the theory that is was someone in his office that wanted to make sure they would be along for the ride to DC, but I like this theory the best.
Meanwhile, the failing restaurant that double dipping County Exec., Joey D. built in the South Mountain complex was not a big enough waste of taxpayer money. If you recall, the purpose of that restaurant was supposed to find tenants for the many empty restaurants up and down Northfield Ave. Since it opened, the large chinese restaurant across from the arena closed and none of the other large establishments have been rented. Even Pal’s Cabin (a little further away admittedly) has closed recently. Well, he’s not done building. Add two fancy walking bridges, a walking path around his recently acquired reservoir and an environmental education center to this year’s waste of money. The county mini golf course and zip line course was not enough.
Pal’s Cabin is a pile of rubble actually, someone mentioned luxury townhouses.
re # 48 – I don’t recall…………….
Pal’s will be another CVS.
I’d met some folks from fema once before, they struck me as nothing more than a set of failed and wannabe politicians. Not at all surprised to hear there was corruption involved.
Yes, Pals will be CVS
The End Is Nigh (Nom Deplume Edition):
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/25/gerard-depardieu-cvstos-watches-proud-to-be-russian
I wonder what Pepe LePue’s thoughts on Russia are now?
@BillMoyersHQ: “America is not yet an oligarchy, but that’s where the Kochs & a few other billionaires are taking us. ” -@RBReich http://t.co/YCvRRDG0gW
@MotherJones: “The zen of Donald Rumsfeld, which is merely camouflage for stupid mistakes that caused mayhem and death.” http://t.co/0CNZ2sfRSX
How do you know that you got a great bag on your hands? To avoid running into these types of issues,http://www.asicsshop.us/, you should follow three golden rules until you have become very adept at mucking around with your sequencing data:Golden rule #1: Always load your sequencing data back into RAM by loading the SNG file (instead of individual http://www.asicsshop.us/s or cue lists) and being certain to select the Clear allocation option when loading the SNG file,http://www.asicsshop.us/. I
[47] joyce
“Comrade,
Instead of responding as you did below, wouldn’t it be better to give up your sometimes full-throated sometimes half hearted defense/promotion of the repubs?”
Oh, but what fun is that?
“The Koch brothers profit by exploiting their employees, keeping for themselves the vast proportion of OTHER PEOPLE’s labor and you have no problem with that? No, I say that the mere existence of their extreme wealth IS a problem.”
“Logically, this leads to greater and greater concentrations of income and wealth in the future — dynastic fortunes that are handed down from generation to generation, as they were prior to the 20th century in much of the world.
The trend was reversed temporarily in the 20th century by the Great Depression, two terrible wars, the development of the modern welfare state and strong labor unions. But Piketty is justifiably concerned about the future.
A new gilded age is starting to look a lot like the old one. The only way to stop this is through concerted political action. Yet the only large-scale political action we’re witnessing is that of Charles and David Koch, and their billionaire imitators.”
http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/27/the-koch-brothers-and-the-danger-of-american-plutocracy/
I know it’s left sided, but it makes some good points.
“For almost forty years Republicans have pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy intended to convince working-class whites that the poor were their enemies.
The big news is it’s starting to backfire.
Republicans told the working class that its hard-earned tax dollars were being siphoned off to pay for “welfare queens” (as Ronald Reagan decorously dubbed a black single woman on welfare) and other nefarious loafers. The poor were “them” — lazy, dependent on government handouts and overwhelmingly black — in sharp contrast to “us,” who were working ever harder, proudly independent (even sending wives and mothers to work, in order to prop up family incomes dragged down by shrinking male paychecks) and white.
It was a cunning strategy designed to split the broad Democratic coalition that had supported the New Deal and Great Society, by using the cleavers of racial prejudice and economic anxiety. It also conveniently fueled resentment of government taxes and spending.
The strategy also served to distract attention from the real cause of the working class’s shrinking paychecks — corporations that were busily busting unions, outsourcing abroad and replacing jobs with automated equipment and, subsequently, computers and robotics.
But the divide-and-conquer strategy is no longer convincing because the dividing line between poor and middle class has all but disappeared. “They” are fast becoming “us.””
http://billmoyers.com/2014/01/10/why-conservatives-old-divide-and-conquer-strategy-—-setting-working-class-against-the-poor-—-is-backfiring/
True story
“The strategy also served to distract attention from the real cause of the working class’s shrinking paychecks — corporations that were busily busting unions, outsourcing abroad and replacing jobs with automated equipment and, subsequently, computers and robotics.”
69- wow, between the quote above and this quote below, this really sounds like they are describing individuals on this board.
“This distinction has broken down as well. Now a significant percentage of the poor are working but not earning enough to get themselves and their families out of poverty. And a growing portion of the middle class finds themselves in the same place — often in part-time or temporary positions, or in contract work.”
Some of you doom and gloom type might enjoy this. I’m just reading a bunch of articles from that Moyer site.
“Our runaway consumption habits and growing inequality could lead to the collapse of Western civilization, according to a new short paper slated for publication the journal Ecological Economics and written up at The Guardian’s Earth Insight blog. Noting that warnings that the end is near are often “controversial,” the interdisciplinary analysis looked at the factors that have caused civilizations to collapse in the past and makes a compelling argument that we may be headed in that direction. According to The Guardian:”
http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/17/is-western-society-on-the-brink-of-collapse/
Oh Michael…you are such a sucker. The problem with the Republicans is that the economy turned on W. But it sure is easy to push your pro-union, anti-corporate, entitlement seeking agenda on the backdrop of an amazingly robust turnaround in the economy that had nothing to do with the moron in chief.
Last I checked Guantamo was still open. Now how hard could it be to close a prison filled with fundamental Muslim terrorists on an island which we still have an economic embargo against.
Sucker. Obama really is not at all different than W, except perhaps, he comes across sounding dumber.
Seems that Sprinkles has found a way to deal with the coming minimum wage hike.
http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/cupcake-atm-pops-treats-10-seconds/story?id=23065509
Look for Crumbs to follow suit by inking a joint venture with TD Bank.
This is why inequality scares me….look at the quote below. Joyce, this what I meant with hoarding at the top being terrible for our economy.
“Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharrei and his colleagues conclude that under conditions “closely reflecting the reality of the world today… we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.” In the first of these scenarios, civilisation:
“…. appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature.””
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists
The top has to give back when they accrue silly amounts of money, not because you want to take money from some rich guy out of jealousy, but because the system will collapse. I always use the monopoly metaphor. When the money is in the hands of one or two people.. Game over. What makes you think our economic system is that much different than the game of monopoly?