From the Commercial Observer:
You can feel it when you walk around Manhattan these days. The city seems more vibrant, more active than ever before. In fact, this is more than a feeling; it’s the verified truth.
Earlier this year the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the population of New York City reached a record high in 2013 of 8.405 million people. In addition, the number of people working in New York City–many of whom come in from the suburbs every day–is also at a record high. This growth reflects a national trend toward re-urbanization that is being led by the “millennial generation”. Millennials form the generation born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s. This age group is now in the process of entering the workforce in significant numbers. They are the largest population cohort to enter the labor force since the baby boom generation born in the 1950s and 1960s.
One characteristic of the millennial generation is that they prefer to live and work in cities. According to a recent survey by Nielsen, millenials “are currently living in these urban areas at a higher rate than any other generation, and 40 percent say they would like to live in an urban area in the future.” As this generation is entering the workforce, they are changing the way companies look at where they locate. One consequence has been a shift in job growth away from suburbs to cities.
In New York, where we can look at employment trends in both the city and the suburbs, the trend has been remarkable. From 1992 to 2004 employment in the New York metropolitan area (the city plus the suburbs of Long Island, Northern New Jersey and Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties) increased by roughly 830,000 jobs. Approximately 215,000 of those jobs were in New York City and 615,000 were in the suburbs. Since 2004, the trend has completely reversed. From 2004 to 2014 there have been an additional 500,000 jobs created in the metropolitan area. Approximately 495,000 of them were in New York City, with only 5,000 jobs created in the suburbs over the past decade.
From 2004 to 2014 there have been an additional 500,000 jobs created in the metropolitan area. Approximately 495,000 of them were in New York City, with only 5,000 jobs created in the suburbs over the past decade.
Anecdotally, I agree. I work in Hoboken and the younger cats and kittens all live in Hoboken. So, who’s buying the $739,000 worn split out in the suburbs?
Not me, I bought the center hall colonial. I know people that lived in Hoboken and as soon as they had a kid, they were out to Madison. They said the trend applies to their friends in Hoboken too. I’m talking mellenials, being that I am one. Only friends still in Hoboken are the ones with no kids.
May 31, 2014 at 8:32 am
From 2004 to 2014 there have been an additional 500,000 jobs created in the metropolitan area. Approximately 495,000 of them were in New York City, with only 5,000 jobs created in the suburbs over the past decade.
Anecdotally, I agree. I work in Hoboken and the younger cats and kittens all live in Hoboken. So, who’s buying the $739,000 worn split out in the suburbs?
The Bottom Line on Minimum Wage and Job Growth:
Two decades of rigorous economic research have found that raising the minimum wage does not result in job loss. While the simplistic theoretical model of supply and demand suggests that raising wages reduces jobs, the way the labor market functions in the real world is more complex. Researchers and businesses alike agree today that the weight of the evidence shows no reduction in employment resulting from minimum wage increases.
The Economist, November 2012: “Evidence is mounting that moderate minimum wages can do more good than harm. […] Bastions of orthodoxy, such as the OECD, a rich-country think-tank, and the International Monetary Fund, now assert that a moderate minimum wage probably does not do much harm and may do some good. Their definition of moderate is 30-40% of the median wage. Britain’s experience suggests it might even be a bit higher.” (Source)
Crain’s New York Business, February 2012: ““Critics of [the minimum wage] proposal are making the same arguments as the last time the Legislature increased the minimum wage, in 2004. The hike to $7.15 an hour from the federal minimum of $5.15 was phased in over three years. If the change had a cataclysmic effect on businesses that depend heavily on minimum-wage workers, we certainly missed it. Objections . . . while meriting consideration, are essentially objections to the very existence of a minimum wage, which has been a fixture in the U.S. since 1938 and has never stopped our economy from flourishing.” (Source)
Built in 1963 and that’s just about where it stayed regarding the décor. For a tad under $700,000, you receive the privilege of spending another fortune just to bring it into the 21st century. I’m amused and astounded:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/717-Hickory-Hill-Rd-Wyckoff-NJ-07481/38065747_zpid/
Did you simple minded individuals decide to take a deeper look into the issue. Realize that the only people against min wage are the people trying to hold down wages for the purpose of showing continued growth every year. Not having to raise wages equals easy access to profit growth. That’s right, your business model sucks. In order to generate profit growth you can’t give people raises to keep up with inflation. Every year you don’t give a raise to the lowest starting wage for that company, you are taking value off the backs of those lowest paid workers. What %? Whatever the inflation index % was for that year, you have robbed from that lowest paid employee by paying the same starting salary as last year. You have taken that value and created easy profits from it. This is why the minimum wage level is a joke in this country. Immigrants getting paid min wage in the 50’s, 60’s, and even 70’s were getting paid a much higher value than today’s wage, which has been looted by inflation.
“While the simplistic theoretical model of supply and demand suggests that raising wages reduces jobs, the way the labor market functions in the real world is more complex”
@BillMoyersHQ:
The “new normal” for working people is “poverty-wage, part-time, temporary, no-benefit employment”
-@JimHightower http://t.co/hjJx81DbJw
@CNBC: Medical bills are the single biggest cause of bankruptcy in the country:
http://t.co/sNkWlYBglc (via @_DanMangan)
“A report last year by the price comparison site NerdWallet found that medical debt was the single leading cause of U.S. bankruptcy filings, and that 56 million Americans would have problems from medical bills. A new report last week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that 52 percent of accounts sent to collection on people’s credit reports stemmed from medical-related debt.”
Are we talking about wage increases for minimum wage workers or are we talking about reducing poverty, because these aren’t the same things.
Gary (4):
That carpet in the foyer just gave me a seizure.
The house looks like it has great bones. If the owner priced it 100k less it would be sold in 3 days.
part-time, temporary, no-benefit employment
You can blame Obamacare for the 29 hour workweek.
The republican pig capitalists couldn’t have written the legislation any more in their favor than if they’d had their lobbyists do it for them. Hard to believe this kind of pro-business legislation came from democrats.
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All Hype,
If the owner priced it 100k less it would be sold in 3 days.
Absolutely! I would be placing an offer today. I’ll keep saying it because it’s the absolute truth: The sellers are approximately 10% to 15% over-priced. When the market gets serious, buyers like us will make the move.
@MotherJones:
The Bush administration was aware of the VA backlogs and secret waiting lists but failed to fix the problem:
http://t.co/Mdh1V0hF3F
#4 Eddie, love that beautiful stone work around the pool!
Eddie:
Activity in the U.S. housing market has slowed to a level that even Fed chair Janet Yellen has said she’s concerned about the recovery.
This comes even as mortgage rates have been declining, and lending standards have been easing.
A lot of attention has been paid to the demand-side of the story. Specifically, there’s concern that Americans don’t want to buy homes, perhaps because they’re not optimistic about the economy, or they’re worried about the security of the jobs.
But an increasing number of economists are saying housing supply is the real problem, not homebuyer demand.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-housing-market-activity-is-down-2014-5#ixzz33K8CPZQ8
Michael – Here fuel for you, with comments attached.
Capitalism Eating Its Children
MAY 29, 2014
Roger Cohen
LONDON — Guildhall at the heart of the City can be a lulling sort of place after a long day. The statuary and vaulted timber ceiling of the medieval great hall lead the eye to wander and the mind to muse on Britain’s strangest quirk — its centuries of continuity. Grace is said, claret is served, glasses clink and dreaminess sets in. A keynote speech from a central banker is all that is required to complete the soporific effect.
Or so one would think, until Mark Carney, the Canadian governor of the Bank of England, lays into unfettered capitalism. “Just as any revolution eats its children,” he says, “unchecked market fundamentalism can devour the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself.”
All ideologies, he continues, are prone to extremes. Belief in the power of the market entered “the realm of faith” before the 2008 meltdown. Market economies became market societies. They were characterized by “light-touch regulation” and “the belief that bubbles cannot be identified.”
Carney pulls no punches. Big banks were too big to fail, operating in a “heads-I-win-tails-you-lose bubble.” Benchmarks were rigged for personal gain. Equity markets blatantly favored “the technologically empowered over the retail investor.” Mistrust grew — and persists.
“Prosperity requires not just investment in economic capital, but investment in social capital,” Carney argues, having defined social capital as “the links, shared values and beliefs in a society which encourage individuals not only to take responsibility for themselves and their families but also to trust each other and work collaboratively to support each other.”
A stirring through the hall, a focusing of gazes — Carney has the attention of the chief executives, bankers and investors gathered here for a conference on “Inclusive Capitalism.” His bluntness reflects the fact that, six years after the crisis, the core problem has not gone away: The deep unease and anger in developed countries about the ways globalization and technology magnify returns for the super-rich, operating in a world of low taxation and lax regulation where short-term gain becomes a guiding principle, even as societies become more unequal, offering diminished opportunities to the young, less community and a growing sense of unfairness.
Anyone seeking the source of the anger behind populist movements in Europe and the United States (and the Piketty fever) need look no further than this. Anti-immigration, anti-Europe movements won in European elections because people feel cheated, worried about their children. As Bill Clinton noted a couple of hours before Carney’s speech, the first reaction of human beings who feel “insecure and under stress” is the urge to “hang with our own kind.” And the world’s greatest challenge is defining “the terms of our interdependence.”
There is still a tendency to think politicians must do this work of definition. But in Nobody’s World, driven by social media and global corporations, corporate leaders have more power to change things than elected officials. If short-termism prevails and the importance of social capital and community is dismissed, then anger will rise. Companies are not well served by boards that are too often, in the words of one participant, “male, stale and pale.”
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Carney lays out the extent of the problem: “40 percent of recent graduates in U.S. are underemployed and youth unemployment is around 50 percent in the worst affected countries in the euro area.”
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His prescription: End through strict regulation and resilience tests the scandal of too-big-to-fail, where “bankers made enormous sums” and “taxpayers picked up the tab for their failures.” Recreate fair and effective markets with real transparency and make every effort — through codes of conduct and even regulatory obligations — to instill a new integrity among traders (even if social capital cannot be contractual). Curtail compensation offering large bonuses for short-term returns; end the overvaluing of the present and the discounting of the future; ensure that “where problems of performance or risk management are pervasive,” bonuses are adjusted “for whole groups of employees.”
Above all, understand that, “The answers start from recognizing that financial capitalism is not an end in itself, but a means to promote investment, innovation, growth and prosperity. Banking is fundamentally about intermediation — connecting borrowers and savers in the real economy. In the run-up to the crisis, banking became about banks not businesses; transactions not relations; counterparties not clients.”
In other words, human beings matter. An age that has seen emergence from poverty on a massive scale in the developing world has been accompanied by the spread of a new poverty (of life and of expectations) in much of the developed world. Global convergence has occurred alongside internal divergence. Interdependence is a reality, but the way it works is skewed. Clinton noted that ants, bees, termites and humans have all survived through an unusual shared characteristic: They are cooperative forms of life. But it is precisely the loss at all levels of community, of social capital, that most threatens the world’s stability and future prosperity.
Millennials won’t be having kids at the rates of previous generations, that’s the point.
Michael says:
May 31, 2014 at 8:44 am
Not me, I bought the center hall colonial. I know people that lived in Hoboken and as soon as they had a kid, they were out to Madison. They said the trend applies to their friends in Hoboken too. I’m talking mellenials, being that I am one. Only friends still in Hoboken are the ones with no kids.
Lol you are right. That’s why picking a democrat or republican is a losing proposition. They both work for the same team.
grim says:
May 31, 2014 at 10:28 am
part-time, temporary, no-benefit employment
You can blame Obamacare for the 29 hour workweek.
The republican pig capitalists couldn’t have written the legislation any more in their favor than if they’d had their lobbyists do it for them. Hard to believe this kind of pro-business legislation came from democrats.
Chi – Red Bank is jumping…
go here….
ABOUT
Antoinette Boulangerie
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=32+Monmouth+Street,+Red+Bank,+NJ+07701&ie=UTF-8&ei=V_qwUp3FOfiysASitICIBA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg
Juice Box says:
May 31, 2014 at 7:50 pm
Chi – Red Bank is jumping…
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Google wants to reinvent transportation, Apple wants to sell you fancy headphones
http://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5764298/google-wants-to-reinvent-transportation-apple-wants-to-sell-you-fancy
How Apple could solve smart home fragmentation or mess up everything
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2014/05/28/apple-solve-smart-home-fragmentation/
24- I would bet on apple if they truly are going to go full steam into this market. This could be huge.
The hollowed-out shells of both cities and suburbs will both become places to loot once we’re living in armed packs and roving the country.
Here are some bag holders for you fast Eddie. Can’t argue with the price, I’m sure it has to be gutted at this price.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9-Shadow-Ridge-Run-Wayne-NJ-07470/39800530_zpid/
The neighborhood must hate these two houses. This is right across the street from the other home. This is Danielle’s home from the jersey housewives. Last summer, I snooped around and checked it out. Totally shot. They ran it into the ground by leaving it abandoned for years. Must have been beautiful in its hey-dey.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8-Shadow-Ridge-Run-Wayne-NJ-07470/39800540_zpid/
Home-as-ATM. All is right again in Amerika:
“With real incomes stagnant and the cost of everything from food, school tuition and healthcare premiums skyrocketing for millions of Americans, it appears that borrowing against one’s home is once again a key source for consumption, if not survival, for the nearly extinct socio-economic demographic known as the middle-class.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that home-equity lines of credit (Helocs) had increased at a 8% rate year-over-year in 1Q14. Some banks are more aggressive than others, and perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to see TBTF government welfare baby Bank of America leading the charge, with $1.98 billion in Helocs in the first quarter, up 77% versus 1Q13.”
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/05/30/home-equity-loans-jump-8-as-broke-american-serfs-scramble-for-cash/
pellet-brained Michael (28):
Michael says: “This is Danielle’s home from the jersey housewives. Last summer, I snooped around and checked it out.”
Translation: “I broked in and sniffed all the toilet seats.”
both
grim says:
May 31, 2014 at 10:10 am
Are we talking about wage increases for minimum wage workers or are we talking about reducing poverty, because these aren’t the same things.
Michael [27],
That’s a classic fcuked bag holder.
Meat [29],
Sell? Sell to whom?
Another soc1alist success story
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-30/caracas-residents-go-thirsty-as-taps-run-dry-and-bottles-vanish.html
“If farts smelt nice people would ask you for the recipe eg.”what did you eat to get that smell?” (self.Showerthoughts)
submitted 12 hours ago by SirSaucySquid
Something for anon to ignore . . .
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-31/obama-step-forward-on-carbon-undone-by-china-s-steps-back.html
I wasn’t kidding when I said to stay in the northeast. Anyone going to these states are asking for trouble.
“In seven states drought conditions were so severe that each had more than half of its land area in severe drought. Severe drought is characterized by crop loss, frequent water shortages, and mandatory water use restrictions. Based on data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the states with the highest levels of severe drought.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/05/25/states-running-out-of-water/9506821/
37- “The situation in California may well be the most problematic of any state. The entire state was suffering from severe drought as of last week, and 75% of all land area was under extreme drought. “Reservoirs which are generally fed by the Sierra Nevadas and the southern Cascades [are] where we see the real problems,” Rippey said. Restrictions on agricultural water use has forced many California farmers to leave fields fallow, he added. “At [the current] usage rate, California has less than two years of water remaining.””
27 & 28,
I think the neighbors may be bummed that Wayne’s property tax has extracted most of the value from these homes. Trying to sell for under $800k, but taxed $30k and $36k per year. Nobody will ever own those homes, just renting in from the town for $3,000 per month, utilities not included.
Ann B. Davis < Vigoda
Those are 7 bedroom homes. Over 6,000 sq ft. Nothing for nothing, these are the kinds of taxes you have to pay in north jersey for a nice town with a good school district. Tough time finding a 6,000 sq ft home with less than 30,000 a year in taxes in north jersey. This is reality. The price is so low because they let the houses go to shi!. House on the same street, half the size (3300 sq ft) went for close to a million in 2013.
Ragnar says:
June 1, 2014 at 5:07 pm
27 & 28,
I think the neighbors may be bummed that Wayne’s property tax has extracted most of the value from these homes. Trying to sell for under $800k, but taxed $30k and $36k per year. Nobody will ever own those homes, just renting in from the town for $3,000 per month, utilities not included.
[37] Michael,
Not a surprise, really. the population long has surpassed the areas ability, natural and infrastructure, to supply water. Other parts of the country have gone through this for the same reasons. I was in MD 15 years ago when they had a severe drought and imposed all the usual restrictions. Part of the problem was infrastructure. There was water but they couldn’t move it to the expanded populace fast enough.
Bush was running for president against Gore then so I guess it was his fault.
Everyone loves what you guys are up too.
Such clever work and exposure! Keep up the amazing works guys
I’ve incorporated you guys to our blogroll.
Fearing Rising Backlash, NRA Urges Gun Activists to Stand Down
Carrying assault rifles into restaurants backfired—and now the gun lobby is firing at its own for acting “downright weird.”
@MotherJones: Fearing Rising Backlash, NRA Urges Gun Activists to Stand Down http://t.co/nsCCtvnfuV
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2401242/Hitler-drug-addict-Fuhrer-used-cocktail-drugs-make-Nazi-superman.html
1. people with a couple of kids….who want really good schools, a place that doesn’t flood, people who don’t work in NYC…people with horses….people with many dogs….(etc., etc.)
Michael [5];
Did you simple minded individuals decide to take a deeper look into the issue.
Its people that you support and agree with who are sending ‘simple’ messages without considering the reality of application.
Surprise! Leftist minimum wage policy backfires in Seattle suburb
Unintended consequences. That NEVER happens with leftist utopian schemes…
#17,
..and the economists are completely f-in wrong. The issue is pricing, not inventory. I have 10 houses that I consoder good candidates for purchase…but I have 0 houses that I am willing to pay their ask. The market spoke and the spring market passed them by..now it is simply a waiting game for reality. I reiterate Eddie’s point that asking prices need to come down 10-15% to even attract offers.
Essex,
1. people with a couple of kids….who want really good schools, a place that doesn’t flood, people who don’t work in NYC…people with horses….people with many dogs….(etc., etc.)
Are you a qualified buyer? You’re going to buy a sh1t, dank, split level for 700 and change?
Bystander,
I went to three open houses in Wyckoff yesterday. There were no… I repeat, no other people that showed up while we visited each house. Not a soul. In all the times I’ve been to open houses, this has never happened.
You have to realize most folks discount the “retail” price of licensed contractors, licensed electricians and licensed plumbers to renovate place and conclude if you add that to the cost of home it is very over prices.
Flippers and other folks have their “own” crews. People price it assuming your are doing the off the books price renovation plus purchase price is a good deal.
From Sandy I have a “crew” my neighbor down the block who is from Philippines buddy who also got flooded flew in an Irish crew. They banged out all their houses and now they stayed on and are doing house after house. All off the books cash. Funny part is they are doing MUCH better work than the local fat beer belly middle aged American contractors who most barely graduated college. And much quicker, the crew has a plumber, electrician, carpenter, painters, sheetrockers etc. who all work at once and all cross trained and fly through the house. The American way of sitting around waiting for plumber, waiting for electrician, waiting for inspector, waiting for painter and waiting for sheetrock guy takes forever.
Fast Eddie says:
May 31, 2014 at 9:02 am
Built in 1963 and that’s just about where it stayed regarding the décor. For a tad under $700,000, you receive the privilege of spending another fortune just to bring it into the 21st century. I’m amused and astounded:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/717-Hickory-Hill-Rd-Wyckoff-NJ-07481/38065747_zpid/
Fast Eddie,
Here’s a house for you. Details lead me to believe it is the same as what you have been looking at. Overpriced and needing repairs, but the lot looks nice and it is well landscaped.
http://newjersey.craigslist.org/bab/4491024031.html
Phoenix [51],
Put a fridge, a bed and a toilet in that thing and believe me, someone would slap a $649,000 price tag on it if it was in Upper Haughtyville.
47- They are finding people that are complaining about making more money? Unbelievable. Guess you can find someone to complain about anything. This is hilarious.
That’s what you got out of that article?
53.Michael says:
June 2, 2014 at 10:00 am
47- They are finding people that are complaining about making more money? Unbelievable. Guess you can find someone to complain about anything. This is hilarious.
Michael (53):
Are you brain damaged? These people who have the $15/hr wage now have have to shell out money for health care, receive no match for their 401k and get no vacation and overtime. Wait until all these workers get their hours cut to 29/week. The liberals just made their voters even poorer with this wage increase. The greedy Republicans could not pass a more profitable law to companies. It is like Christmas morning to them every day as they have free will to stick it to the employees.
Michael [53];
Wow, you really don’t get it, do you.
These people are complaining because their wage increase in cash isn’t enough to make up for the non-cash benefits they were receiveing.
Have you ever had to pay an employee? Do you understand that the costs to the employer are more than just the salary that the employee receives?
You also don’t understand that businesses offer benefits (free meals, free parking, 401k, health insurance) because they are worth more to the emoployee than they cost the employer to provide. If some doe-eyes leftists like yourself comes along and says “We’re going to double your wage!”, then it falls back to the business that is actually paying the tab to re-balance their costs. So benefits have to go away, even though they cost the employer less than they are worth to the employee. That’s HARMING the employee. Even though they are getting more cash, they can’t buy what they lost for less than the increase, especially after-taxes, since many benefits are pre-tax (meals and healthcare, e.g.).
Not to mention, as Grim said, the minimum wage has little or NOTHING to do with poverty. All those ready-made union demonstrations for increasing the minimum wage? That’s because union contracts are indexed to the minimum wage, and certainly not because any of them are actually making minimum wage. An extra $7/hr. means somethign to them, but they sure as he!! aren’t working for $7.65.
Con’t [56];
You see, as contrasted with the faculty lounge, out here in reality, things aren’t as “simplistic” as you’d like to think.
Wow, minimum wage people receive benefits? Wtf? This is news to me.
59- I thought welfare and food stamps were their benefits, provided by the taxpayer, because their boss does not pay them enough.
I better run and get my minimum wage job, they get benefits!!
I said before, I have no dog in the min wage fight but if I did, I’d say hike it.
I would love to see tipping go away or at least return to what it was intended to accomplish.
Higher fast food costs mean less of it. Higher overall restaurant costs mean that we eat in more, save money and eat healthier.
Less people qualify for assistance. But more will be on assistance so it’s a wash.
Less hiring for min wage jobs means a greater labor pool for me to pick from vis a vis sitters and other domestic help. More leverage too–since I pay over min wage now, if that sitter wants more, I’ll counter with tax forms.
If the lawn guy wants another $20 a week, he’s gone and I get that ride on mower as the economics become more favorable. Same for other durables.
If my kids want to make some money, it’s easier for them to undercut the competition.
The cost of my gym membership, which includes monthly free sitting for a night out, becomes more economical (assuming costs for sitters are static or rise).
Business opportunities abound as businesses and consumers change habits to reduce outlays and consume less labor.
Raise it, raise it sky high.
Comrade,
Can we raise it and scrap the tax code as well?
Key nugget from #17,
There are about 2.3 million existing homes for sale as of April. But there are “even fewer homes for sale that do not suffer from housing obsolescence — properties that are no longer desirable because their characteristics do not match what buyers are looking for in a home,” Fleming wrote.
Right..in 5 years, the buyers have suddenly done a 180 in what they are looking for. Here’s a clue Fleming. We are not looking for orange carpets, moldy basements, busy streets, all for 15% above their 2006 purchase price. I was pleasantly surprised by the intelligence of buyers this spring. The overpriced and cheaply flipped are sottong.
Oops..sitting or even sobbing works.
Rational people in the forum, let’s unionize against working for free, feeding trolls. The trolls are clearly unreachable. We have given them all sorts of opportunities to expand their thought processes but they are immune.
“Total annual compensation for the top 301 CEOs in America increased by a median 5.5% to $11.4 million from 2012 to 2013. The top 10% of earners made 23% of the total compensation, according to the report.
Meanwhile, wages and salaries for private sector employees in the U.S. increased by 1.8% during the same period, a growth discrepancy also indicative of a trend since the recession.”
“In 2013, the average Fortune 500 CEO made 331 times as much as the average worker, according to the AFL-CIO’s “Executive Paywatch” project.”
The ratio of CEO pay to worker pay has blown up in the last thirty years. In 1983, the average CEO made 46 times the pay of the average worker, and this ratio would skyrocket through the boom years of the 90s, with CEOs making 455 times what workers made. After the tech boom receded, the CEO to worker ratio leveled off somewhat, but has risen a little in the last few years.
The overall upward trend is yet another example of growing inequality in America.”
[61] joyce
Hell no. Once nearly everything is automated so that life looks like an episode of Star Wars or “I, Robot”, jobbing the byzantine tax code will be the only occupation left.
[64] ragnar,
I am in favor of that. Of course, that eliminates about 70% of my posts.
Now everyone will be in favor of it as well.
Now I ask you, if you were a server in a restaurant, which customer would you want?
Tthe guy who comes in and puts his unloaded AR down on the booth seat next to him and proceeds to enjoy his meal, has no issues, and leaves a decent tip or
this anon-disciple:
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/06/143693-looks-like-liberal-cheap-leave-tip/
Fast Eddie/Bystander,
I’d like to know the backstory behind this disaster:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/38-Brittin-St-Madison-NJ-07940/39438697_zpid/
They took the sale history off, but if I recall from what I saw, it sold a few years ago for $400-$500K. Looks like they slapped a coat of red paint on it and are now looking for someone to pony up $700K for this POS. Check out that kitchen!
Just because something is included in the inventory, doesn’t mean it is for sale.
I predict that this is going to bite Obama in the ass. There is just too much here, from Bergdahl’s supposed desertion, the fact that he was kept alive against knwon practice, nondisclosure agreements, evidence of America hatred by father and son, possible violations of law, and violating the long-held tenet against negotiating with terrorists.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/01/us/bergdahl-deserter-or-hero/index.html
Somehow, I don’t think that any dem facing reelection is going to be quick to take up this story or asking him to come onto the podium.
And finally, this is from CNN so the left can’t complain about media bias.
No, I don’t think this is a good optic for the president. I won’t wait up for his news conference on the subject.
clotluva [70],
Yet another perfect example of what folks like Bystander and myself go through every time we attempt to look at a house. Clot has it right: It’ll be decades before we either get back to normal or roam the streets with Warlords.
Nom [71],
The whole thing does have a cloud of mystery surrounding it. Many questions.
Not sure why everyone feels that they have to spend $700k to live in a nice place. That seems a bit excessive to me.
clotluva [70],
I’ve come to the conclusion that if a house listing has a picture of something from town in it, the house is WAY overpriced.
Rags, since I am incapable of logic, please read this article so you can learn a thing or two. If you truly understand what the article says, you will not call me a liberal or leftist for supporting a minimum wage. You will also come to the conclusion of why your argument of killing jobs, is actually looking at it in very simple way.
Big question, do you really want this for America? “As the majority of government tax income comes from households, not firms, over time this becomes unsustainable: all unskilled workers become in effect employees of the state, and the higher skilled are forced to subsidise the wages of the unskilled through rising taxes.”
“The simple fiscal argument for minimum wage legislation goes like this. Both the UK and the US have systems of in-work benefits that top up wages to a level sufficient to live on. So from firms’ perspective, when there is slack in the labour market (unemployment) they have little incentive to pay wages high enough to live on. And from workers’ perspective, they have little incentive to demand higher wages, especially if the consequence might be unemployment. If there is no minimum wage, therefore, then the co-existence of unemployment with in-work benefits drives down wages to below subsistence level. As the majority of government tax income comes from households, not firms, over time this becomes unsustainable: all unskilled workers become in effect employees of the state, and the higher skilled are forced to subsidise the wages of the unskilled through rising taxes. There would inevitably be calls for in-work benefits to be cut, probably supported by demonization of the poor. Unskilled workers would be subject to the same accusations of “fecklessness” and “scrounging” as the unemployed already receive. So in-work benefits without a legislated minimum wage are fiscally unsustainable and socially divisive when there is persistent unemployment.
This simple analysis does of course assume that unemployment is a real threat to a worker’s standard of living. But arguments that the unemployed “choose leisure” imply that unemployment is a choice. If it is, then it cannot really be seen as a realistic threat. If the unemployed can refuse work without cost or sanction, then unemployment benefits themselves act as a minimum wage and there is no need for additional legislation.
Unemployment benefits may actually act as a MAXIMUM wage when there is persistent unemployment, since a worker demanding higher wages can always be replaced at close to unemployment-benefit levels. We know that a legislated minimum wage acts as a wage ceiling as well as a wage floor: it seems reasonable to suppose that an implied minimum wage due to unemployment benefits would do so too. The effect of unemployment benefits is therefore to drive down unskilled remuneration to nearly the same level as unemployment benefits. Where in-work benefits exist and there is no legislated minimum wage, nominal wages may actually be far lower than unemployment benefits, since employers are likely to set wages in the expectation that most workers will qualify for benefits – indeed they may deliberately choose to employ workers who qualify for benefits, because they can pay them less. Those who think employers wouldn’t do this should look at the “roundsman” system that operated in England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: farmers deliberately used roundsmen (unemployed labourers auctioned off at below market rates) in preference to free labourers because they could pay them less in the certain knowledge that parishes would top up the wages.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2014/01/13/why-we-need-a-minimum-wage/
77- “Arguments in favour of a minimum wage mostly hang on the idea that firms have a responsibility to ensure that their workers earn enough to live on. If a firm can’t pay its workers enough to live on, then it isn’t a viable business, because it is dependent on wage subsidies. Of course “enough to live on” depends where you live: the cost of living in London is considerably higher than it is in, say, Newcastle, so a minimum wage that would give a reasonable standard of living in Newcastle is starvation level in London. The campaign for a voluntary Living Wage tries to persuade firms to pay above the current UK minimum wage, which is perceived as being below the real cost of living.
But whether a minimum wage reduces jobs or improves welfare is entirely beside the point. I find it astonishing that many of the same people who oppose minimum wage legislation are in favour of in-work benefits and measures to force the unemployed to work. They haven’t thought it through.
The real reason why we need a minimum wage has nothing to do with the welfare of workers or the availability of jobs. Welfare is adequately ensured by in-work benefits, and the State is perfectly happy to create the illusion of employment in order to please voters. No, the minimum wage is necessary to protect taxpayers from the rational desire of firms to get something for nothing.”
Not sure why everyone feels that they have to spend $700k to live in a nice place. That seems a bit excessive to me.
What’s excessive is the gall of the fat f.ucking muppets who are asking 700k. No, we don’t have to pay 700k, but go and look at the 500k p1ss-smelling dumps that are out there.
Congrats to Nom for beating out Anon for most irrelevant post of the day. It must have taken some effort.
Daddyo,
Post of the day. Spot on. Same goes for pets and photoshopped/Lightroom photos. I find these agents and sellers are generally deceitful. They use these things to sell a lifestyle and to overcompensate for their pottery barn shanty wrapped in rotted siding/windows and hiding ancient mechanicals. Also there is nothing worse than olive green appliances run through a photo filter to look shiny and new.
77- Hope these points hit home for you guys, since you like to use them as talking points against minimum wage.
“The effect of such an implied ceiling on remuneration is that workers become indifferent between working and unemployment: indeed when unemployment is high, jobs are scarce and finding them costly, those without jobs may choose to remain unemployed until the jobs market improves. So at the margin, unemployment can indeed be a choice.
But the low-paid don’t like the unemployed getting nearly as much remuneration as they do. It seems unfair and it creates political unrest. Governments of all colours therefore respond to indifference between work and unemployment by cutting out-of-work benefits to “make work pay”. This creates a “race to the bottom”, which in the absence of in-work benefits results in increasing poverty for both unemployed and employed. This was the situation in Victorian England, where conditions in the workhouses became appalling because conditions for unskilled workers were also appalling. There was, if you like, a competitive market in poverty. But it would have been even worse without the workhouses. Grim though they were, workhouses did set an implied minimum wage in much the same way as unemployment benefits do. Without them, nominal wages would have fallen even further. After all, when there is high unemployment, firms don’t care if workers and their families starve. There are plenty more where they came from.”
This site is hilarious. Fast, check it out. Perhaps we could submit:
http://www.uglyhousephotos.com/
When you look at the numbers, poverty is on the rise, the middle class is stagnant or falling backward, and economic disparity is as great as it’s ever been. What needs to change and how can a social venture like Jobs With Justice change the trajectory?
Workers stuck in low-wage jobs without adequate benefits and protections have reached a crisis point: people work more today than they ever have before, yet they earn less. Thousands are finally speaking out by engaging in strikes and on-the-job actions, risking their livelihoods to demand better wages and a union. But the corporate-run economy has led to a steep increase in income inequality and a decline in union density, which has enabled an extreme imbalance between the power of major corporations and employees. Workers at companies like Walmart aren’t able to win better workplace standards without outside intervention by government and community allies, and fewer and fewer workers have a traditional employer-employee relationship that enables them to collectively bargain for better wages and standards. Today, the real “boss” is often tough to identify, because our outdated labor and employment laws allow for complicated subcontracting agreements where workers have little access to the person who actually signs their paycheck. The worst part is, when these corporations pay poverty-level wages, it’s us taxpayers who end up footing the bill, because workers are forced to rely on Medicaid, food stamps, and other social insurance programs.
Given all of this, it’s critical for us as a nation to engage private employers to raise wages and labor standards across our whole economy. If companies like Walmart, Nissan, and Boeing BA +0.21% want tax breaks to open up shop into our communities, then they need to pay higher wages, create more full-time work, respect workers’ rights to form a union, and provide good benefits. The entire economy has been tipped to benefit wealthy corporations at the expense of working people, and unfortunately, those systems don’t change without some legislative intervention. Our elected leaders need to shift the burden of low wages back on employers, especially profitable companies – and an increase to the federal minimum wage is a critical next step.
Jobs With Justice and our allies are working hard to support workers who are organizing for better livelihoods. We believe that workers play a critical role in designing a 21st century economy that works for everyone, and that we need a next generation set of policies, organizing models, and legal frameworks that are relevant to what workers are experiencing today. We are designing campaigns that reach across different sectors of our economy to help us articulate shared visions, develop bold and transformative demands, weave together different strategies, and reach the hearts and minds of millions of Americans who are struggling in our current economy.
I don’t want any d-bags bringing a loaded to gun to a restaurant where I am dining with my family. Is that so much to ask? I can’t believe this is even debatable. Don’t bring your stupid guns to a restaurant where I am trying to have a nice meal/time with my wife/kids…WTF.
You gun freaks are crazy…get a life and drop the guns, find a harmless hobbie like porn and keep your guns out of public places.
Its time for my epsom bath and then we’ll watch Norma Rae.
This was a comment from that forbes article. Is this guy one of you? He gives the exact same out dated response for attacking minimum wage. The good ol’ work hard and improve yourself, and you will get that job. He must not realize that we have an unemployment rate for a reason, there are not enough jobs to go around for people that want them. His last line sounds like you guys busting academics for sitting in ivory towers. You guys are funny.
“Yao Jin 4 months ago
While the argument presented here sounds compelling, it nevertheless is based on emotions rather than logic.
Author states: “I would rather people had a real choice between work and leisure.” While it sounds great in concept, that is hardly the reality. Should “leisure” even be a choice to someone who cannot make ends meet? Hardly. We aspire, we work, we work harder, we benefit, and THEN we enjoy our leisure time. If we cannot find work, then we repackage our skills, gain access to skills that are more relevant to the modern job market, then we begin the process of becoming prosperous and gain leisure time again.
If, according to the author, that the fundamental problem that’s creating the current “race to the bottom” is the fact that unemployment benefit is nearly equal to minimum wages, would it not make as much sense to reduce unemployment benefit to restore their difference? It would have a cascading effect of lower structural expenses, therefore grant government the ability to lower payroll taxes to boost the private sector’s ability to reinvest money into additional business ventures to generate more jobs? Alternatively, falling costs would allow greater price competition. It’s not as if industries with the greatest dependence on minimum wage jobs lack the incentive to compete on price. For example, Walmart is infamous for competing on everyday “low” prices (which does not translate to lowest wages–its average wage beats Target). In addition, Darden’s casual dining restaurant chains are also struggling to compete on price against fast-casual chains such as Chipotle.
In the end, the author’s argument completely ignores the fact that wages do not rise and fall in isolation of other business costs. She also completely ignores the substitution between capital and labor. Already, restaurants in the United States are experimenting with leveraging technology to replace low wage workers (e.g., Applebee’s tablet ordering system). Likewise, self-checkout kiosks are becoming increasingly prevalent as well, often with one workers overseeing six or more stations. As such telecommunications technologies (e.g., low-price Android tablets) continue to fall in cost, the benefit for replacing labor with such technologies becomes increasingly greater.
The alternative? raising prices. Of course, we can always rely on data mining and econometric magicians to argue that rising wages do not lead to rising prices. Agenda-driven inductive reasoning along with empirical positivism are responsible for the majority of counter-intuitive policy formulations. No wonder businesses think that vast majority of academics are Ivory Tower Wizards who are desperately out of touch with reality.”
Happy Anniversary!!! The Great Recession officially ended five years ago today!!!
BULL MARKET BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[79] theo
Nothing is too irrelevant when you put some effort into it. And I see you came up with a great first effort for the day. After all, there is a certain illogic in pointing out the irrelevance of something when no one else was paying attention. In fact, it makes it almost relevant.
Now, which irrelevant post were you referring to? I had two contenders and its a point of pride to know which is the most irrelevant.
I know, I know, I shouldn’t have a favorite, but hey, when you are proud of what you put out there, its hard not to show some favoritism.
Now the response to his comment. Now do you guys see how you are wrong?
daviddelosangeles 4 months ago
Mr. Jin,
This is really not a very complicated bit of mathematics. The most current data (October 2013) shows that there are 3.9 million job openings [1]. 4.5 million people were hired and 4.2 million people were let go so there was very slight decrease in unemployment. There were 11.1 million people unemployed in October of 2013 [2] so if every single unemployed American filled an open job (which of course has never happened) there would have been in October 7 million unemployed people. Lowering the unemployment insurance payments, or eliminating them, will not solve the problem of unemployment. The problem is not that workers are not motivated to obtain jobs, the problem is that there are not enough jobs for every will and able worker.
Minimum wage laws have been around for three generations. They are not cause of current hiring and employment practices.
The argument that minimum wage lowers employment is really quite old. For example, Dr. Thomas Nixon Carver of Harvard University wrote: ”A minimum wage law, or an attempt to force wages above the market value, maybe supported on various other grounds but not the ground that it would decrease unemployment…it will do the exact opposite.” (LA Times May 10, 1938)
Yet this is not what happened. Unemployment did not worse following the establishment of the minimum wage, even though it was during the worst part of the Great Depression. In fact, just a few years later, the depression ended and the US entered a period of its greatest economic growth (1945 – 1975), all after the passage of the minimum wage law.
The minimum wage law is a political reality. The United States is a democracy and the working people of the United States have had sufficient political clout to pass laws requiring a minimum wage, one that will keep those people with jobs earning enough to not starve to death. The alternative is significant social unrest based upon rising levels of poverty which the US has avoided for the last seventy years.
[1] http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jolts.pdf
[2] http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
The author responding to that comment from the guy that sounds like ragner.
Frances Coppola, Contributor 4 months ago
Yao Jin,
I have called out your comment because of David’s excellent reply to it.
Unfortunately you seem to have missed the point of most of what I wrote, and I wonder if you even read what I said about the consequences of reducing unemployment benefits.
I do not “ignore the substitution between capital and labour”. But I am no Luddite. I don’t think forcing people to work in exhausting, tedious and demoralising jobs for rubbish wages is a good way of organizing society. If those jobs can be automated so people can be freed to do things they enjoy and are good at – and spend fewer hours just earning a crust – then personally I think that is a good thing. Roll on the robot revolution, and let’s find a better way of enabling everyone to have a reasonable standard of living.
A couple of comments worth sharing. Maybe, you guys might actually see the light, since it’s not coming from me, meaning, you don’t have to attack it for the sake of attacking.
daviddelosangeles 4 months ago
Ms. Coppola,
Labour is, at the end of the day, really a commodity. The price of that commodity, wages, when supply and demand are at equilibrium, it is set by the cost of production. When supply and demand are not in equilibrium, then the price will be different. The problem is that there is serious over supply of labour as compared to job openings (see my response to Mr. Jin). This will quite naturally drive down the price of labour.
The US Government routinely sets price floors for commodities, milk and dairy products are the best examples. However there are other ways that this accomplished for other commodities, agricultural insurance subsidies, tax credits, and so forth to ensure important commodities are available at reasonable prices.
Called-out comment
Reply
Jerry Hirsch Jerry Hirsch 4 months ago
David, you forgot to mention the word human. Our labor is not a commodity like a sack of potatoes or a crate of pork bellies that can be easily replaced. The human labor provided by the lower classes are the essential legs of any economy, without whose support the rest of the body would quickly collapse.
Supply and demand is not a simple equation when human beings are involved. The legs could say we will not take another step without our fair share and the rest of the body would have no choice but to accept.
Called-out comment
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daviddelosangeles daviddelosangeles 4 months ago
Hello Jerry Hirsch,
You are of course correct that human labour is not quite like any other commodity in that respect. My point with dairy products was that it is not unusual for the government pick certain critical commodities and treat them differently from other commodities. In the case of dairy products, the US Government has decided that it is such an important product that it will take special efforts to suspend the normal laws of supply and demand and artificially create certain prices.
The short version is that it is not possible for milk to produced in a completely “free market” environment at a price that the public can pay and that will produce a profit for the producers. Without government intervention either there would be few commercial milk producers making a profit or milk would be prohibitively expensive or both.
One could go into all sort of economics theories about how it is impossible for the demand for milk to ever match the supply of milk in an reasonable or stable (i.e. profitable) fashion (e.g. at any given farm with a fixed number of cows the same amount of milk will produced everyday, irrespective of what the demand is. The product has an extremely limited shelf-live and must sold within a short amount of time following production. Demand can fluctuate wildly over all sorts of terms).
Additionally, northern European peoples have long valued liquid milk as an important food source, almost to the point of fetishisation. Milk has a high nutrient density so a little milk (for those who have the appropriate genetic and epigenetic constitution) can provide a great deal of nutrition, especially for children. The cult of milk is of course quite powerful in north America as well. As a result there has long history of public policy favoring the wide availability of liquid milk to the broadest range of people.
If a unique and market adverse regulation can be established for milk products, I do not see why it can be applied to an even more important commodity, human labour.
Called-out comment
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Author
Frances Coppola Frances Coppola, Contributor 4 months ago
The trouble is, of course, that when individual legs refuse to cooperate, the rest of the body says “well, starve then – there are plenty more where you came from”. The erosion of collective bargaining power has destroyed the ability of the legs to withdraw their support.
It’s also unfortunately true that when the legs collectively withdraw their support, they suffer as much as the rest of the body – perhaps more, since the poor have much less in the way of physical assets to draw upon when income fails.
Based on this, Michael and anon may be totally okay with the title of “Luddite.”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/?page=1
Michael, spare us the copy-and-purge garbage from random internet commenters who seem as naieve as you are. “Is this guy one of you?” and “Now do you guys see how you are wrong?” don’t make those comments relevant to the discussion here. Your inability to form your own argument and willing to substitute some unknown random poster does not reflect well on you.
I think I said this last week, but you guys would equate winning a war based on the general. I’m saying you win the war based on the backs of the soldiers actually fighting. You can have the greatest general ever, but give him an army of teenage women to go against an army of 6 ft men, and you will have a massacre. You guys constantly equate success in a business to the ceo, and not that of the worker. You guys act like workers have nothing to do with the success of a company. Workers made America great, not ceos. Workers thinking that if they work hard, they too can get ahead, is what made america great. We have taken that away. Let’s see how long America is great for, when we have bloated class of fat billionaires to go with millions of workers who have given up hope. That might end well. Glad you guys love and embrace the direction our country is going. Hey at least profits are at all time highs!!!!!!!!! YiPPPIEEEEEEEEEEE!
[92] moose,
Might I suggest Ragnar’s advice on responding?
Off to the salt mines. One new matter and one potential matter to keep me hopping.
[93] michael
(Sorry Ragnar, but this was too much fun not to post)
“I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.”
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
Here we go again. I killed his argument, so he resorts to attacking me. Awesome job!
Glad that I lead by example, and did not attack you. I just attacked your argument and destroyed it. Score 1 for team humanity. That’s right, I play for team humanity.
Anon E. Moose says:
June 2, 2014 at 2:11 pm
Michael, spare us the copy-and-purge garbage from random internet commenters who seem as naieve as you are. “Is this guy one of you?” and “Now do you guys see how you are wrong?” don’t make those comments relevant to the discussion here. Your inability to form your own argument and willing to substitute some unknown random poster does not reflect well on you.
The World is Getting Better…Much Better
What Mao’s China looks like now
It pays sometimes to step back and look at what’s working. Things do get better. Taking time to appreciate the progress we experience helps us maintain focus and hope. For human beings, the past twenty five years have marked some stunning victories.
Globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped by half in only a generation.
Out of the collapse of Communism has emerged a massive global middle class. By 2030, almost two thirds of the world’s population will have moved into the middle class.
For all the conflict and instability we see there is not a single active war between nation-states on the planet. The age of American global military dominance has marked a historic low in military violence. The world is more peaceful than it has ever been.
In the US, most aspects of life have been improving at rates no one could have anticipated in 1990. Teen pregnancy, abortion, cocaine use, murder, crime, homelessness, and divorce are all in steep, long-term declines that have gone largely unnoticed.
The cost of almost everything is in steep, long term decline with one very important and very positive exception. Human expertise is more valuable than it has ever been.
The number of Americans getting a college education is not only climbing, but that climb is accelerating. Why does college cost so much? One reason might be the good news listed immediately previous. Another might be the next bit of good news.
High school graduation rates are the highest they have ever been in the US, and heading toward 90%. For all the hand-wringing about US schools, we are educating more of our people than ever by a very wide margin.
When technology, health care improvements, crime, and the declining cost of nearly everything is taken into account, even America’s least fortunate are radically richer, freer, and safer than they were just a generation ago.
Population growth has stabilized everywhere in the developed world, including China. Population growth rates are in steep decline globally. We are on track to see global population begin to decline in absolute numbers starting in less than 40 years.
Thanks to a gradually stabilizing population and technological advances, America has probably already reached the historic peak of our demand for farmland.
The Chicago River, which no so long ago was a long sewer, now hosts kayak tours through downtown. Since the passage of the Nixon-era environmental protection acts, our nation’s air and water have become remarkably clean, even in the middle of big cities.
One of the hottest neighborhoods in New York City is Harlem. Brooklyn is trendy.
Twenty years ago Dr. Dre was producing a particularly angry brand of rap music. Now he is a billionaire tech entrepreneur. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, 50 Cent and a very long, mostly obscure list of other former “stars” have made more money in business than they did in their entertainment careers. African-Americans from all kinds of backgrounds are making the transition from “rich” to “wealthy.”
Green energy is no longer a dream. Dark, rainy Germany is on track to generate a third of power from solar energy alone by 2020. The price of solar energy has dropped by half in just five years. In sunny parts of Asia solar power is already cheaper than gas. It is expected to be cheaper than fossil fuels globally within five years.
The most exciting new sports car in America is powered by electricity. It isn’t built in Detroit or Mexico or Brazil, but in suburban San Francisco.
Thanks to a boom in energy production in the US, Mexico and Canada, America is now effectively energy independent. We may be capable of meeting all of our energy demand within our own borders within twenty years. Our natural gas imports alone have fallen by almost 70% in less than a decade.
The US is the only global military power on the planet. Russia still maintains one aircraft carrier. It has to be accompanied on missions by a fleet of tugboats. No other military force, apart from our European allies, is even close to being able to operate beyond their borders. We possess the only offensively-capable “defense” force on Earth.
The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet and the margin isn’t close. Our economy produced just short of $16tr last year. The second-ranked country, China, came in at less than $10tr, but that number appears to be radically distorted. China’s population is more than four times as large as the US. Its GDP per capita ranks 83rd, roughly the same as Peru.
But aren’t we bankrupt? Hardly. Our debt is growing, but that was not always the case and need not be. Just over a decade ago we were debating what to do with a massive projected surplus. George W. Bush took office with a budget plan inherited from his predecessor which was projected to pay off the national debt entirely by 2009. Eight years later, Obama inherited a budget that created the largest single-year deficit in American history.
We could get back in black with a modest tax increase, a few changes in defense and safety-net spending, and a fraction of a point increase in economic growth. We’ve had a formal, bi-partisan plan on the table to do this since 2010. We haven’t done it because the people who claim to care the most about our debt don’t actually care about balancing a budget.
Our debt is having zero economic impact in the present and no impact on the economy in the foreseeable future. It is purely a political problem.
We live in an extraordinary time of peace, freedom, and wealth and we are almost entirely blind to it. Conditions for Americans and the rest of the world could be, and probably will be, even better in the future. How much better things will get and for how many people, will depend to a very large extent on decisions that Americans make in coming years.
Progress means graduating up to better and better problems. We will cope with those new problems more capably if we properly appreciate our accomplishments.
Just because this guy said it, doesn’t make it right. I’ll try my odds vs 100 sheep and a lion as opposed to 100 lions and a sheep. Oh no, I did it again, I destroyed your argument.
Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:
June 2, 2014 at 2:15 pm
[93] michael
(Sorry Ragnar, but this was too much fun not to post)
“I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.”
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
Moose, if you didn’t already know, when someone disagrees with you and says exactly that = destroying your argument
98. – Dude you haven’t destroyed anything except your dignity.
98- Street, thank you. Debbie downers have to realize the world is not going to end everyday that they wake up. There is a lot of positive change in the world. I like the part at the end, which highlights what republicans do. They act like they want to cut spending and debt. Meanwhile they spend to no end.
The national debt has increased every year since 1956. a.k.a. no surplus since then, all deficits
97.Street Justice says:
June 2, 2014 at 2:16 pm
Just over a decade ago we were debating what to do with a massive projected surplus. George W. Bush took office with a budget plan inherited from his predecessor which was projected to pay off the national debt entirely by 2009. Eight years later, Obama inherited a budget that created the largest single-year deficit in American history.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm
I get it. It’s pointless. I just posted a ton of information trying to enlighten you. What a waste of time. Did you guys even read what I posted? If you did, you would realize why i destroyed their arguments about minimum wage. They say it causes job loss, when that is totally wrong. It’s proven over and over again. I give up. It’s hopeless trying to get through to people like you guys. Total waste of time. Keep holding onto your outdated philosophies. I wish I could help, but clearly that is not going to happen.
That article was from forbes. I don’t even know what to do with you guys anymore. You attacked my other sources, so I get a forbes article, and now you attack me. Attack the argument if I’m so stupid. Prove me wrong. Too bad you guys can’t do it.
joyce says:
June 2, 2014 at 2:28 pm
Moose, if you didn’t already know, when someone disagrees with you and says exactly that = destroying your argument
Street Justice says:
June 2, 2014 at 2:31 pm
98. – Dude you haven’t destroyed anything except your dignity.
Michael [96];
Here we go again. I killed his argument, so he resorts to attacking me.
Killed my argument. If you’re going to post while high, you have to be willing to share.
What you just did is called “Pigeon Chess”. You walked across the board, shat on it, knocked over pieces, and are so stupid you think you won the game.
Bystander [82],
There is a house I’ve been to in Woodcliff Lake that in many regards, resembles some of those photos. Price tag? Just under $700,000. I can take you to a few houses that are for sale that have some of those same gagging, nauseating features with a “6” handle. More than one realtor has told me the price is warranted because it’s in a “prestigious” town.
78. from what I have seen some very desirable places came and went in markets that I was watching for the $500k ball park.
Redux [105];
And you’re going to take post 105 as further prrof of your martyrdom.
http://youtu.be/fxGqcCeV3qk
“Just because this guy said it, doesn’t make it right. I’ll try my odds vs 100 sheep and a lion as opposed to 100 lions and a sheep. Oh no, I did it again, I destroyed your argument.”
Ooh, that stung.
Michael’s latest rejoinder (does that qualify as a rejoinder? Should I just give him charity points?) reminds me of a story:
I am distantly (really distant, like about 15 degrees removed, distant) related to John L. Sullivan. Once, when he was in a bar, sucking down a few lukewarm ones, a smallish man, drunk as p1ss, challenged him to a fight. Sullivan was amused so he picked up the man by the neck of his coat and bellowed into his face “Listen you. If you ever hit me. And I find out about it . . .”
Because you know someone was going to post it.
Arguing with Michael (Monty Python version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4
This is what happens when I ask people on this board to attack the argument instead of me.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg
Exactly why I destroyed your argument.
Hey Michael, you have some really great ideas. Maybe you should start your own blog?
Honestly, I don’t know if you are being sarcastic or serious? I don’t have too many fans around these parts, so I’m guessing sarcastic.
nwnj says:
June 2, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Hey Michael, you have some really great ideas. Maybe you should start your own blog?
Somebody e-mail me when Michael’s vomit gets cleaned up here.
a rapacious multimillionaire who breaks the law for a few more bucks
@CNBCSportsBiz: Mickelson sponsor KPMG on the golfer: Have had a very strong relationship with Phil for a number of years, and fully expect it to continue.
@SenSanders: I applaud the EPA’s proposal for common-sense standards to reduce the carbon pollution that causes global warming: http://t.co/IkmJIGSFfm
Gary Drake, 61, is facing second-degree assault and terroristic threat charges after he pointed a shotgun at his neighbor and threatened to kill him on May 25, according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint says:
While a father was teaching his daughter how to ride a bike on the street outside of Drake’s Daytona Way home, Drake began making comments about the father’s tactics. The father told him, “I’ve got it.” But Drake said, “If you don’t like my advice, get off my street.”
The father said Drake didn’t own the street. Drake appeared to get angrier, and then went inside his home. As the father and daughter were making their way away from Drake’s house, he came back outside with a shotgun and threatened to kill the father.
Drake’s wife came outside and pulled the gun away and physically dragged Drake inside. Drake went outside again and told the father he was going to kill him.
When arresting officers told Drake his charges, he said, “Maybe next time I should have shot him.” Drake admitted drinking all day, but he said that didn’t influence his actions.
Drake’s wife told police he pointed a gun at the man and she tried to stop him. She voluntarily gave Drake’s shotgun to police, along with his rifle.
The father told FOX 9 that he’s still shaken by the encounter. Neighbors were surprised that Drake, a well-known neighbor, had threatened someone with a gun, the news station reports.
The incident was one of a number recently in which a neighbor has threatened violence against another neighbor. In March, police said a Rosemount man pulled a gun on his neighbor after losing a game of cribbage. Peter Eldon Kvam, 60, was charged with second-degree assault and one count of terroristic threats.
Last week, a Carver County man was charged with attempted murder after he admitted to shooting at his neighbor and his 11-year-old son while they planted corn, police said.”
If stuff like the story above happens in Florida, it’s ok. Just thinning the herd.
[117] anon
But Joe Biden said shotguns were just fine!
[111]michael
I say in, all seriousness, that I hope all the opposing counsel I ever meet are as successful in destroying my arguments as you have been.
Really, I’m serious.
[118] clot
I wonder how anon’s neighbors feel about him? Let’s send them all some whiskey!
@ProSyn: .@Nouriel: Nowadays both advanced economies and emerging markets seem to be run for the few http://t.co/RLSzBHizGu
@ProSyn: “In some cases outright racist and anti-Semitic parties are on the rise,” @Nouriel writes http://t.co/RLSzBHizGu
@ChickenLittle: “The sky is falling.”
Another day in hell.