From the WSJ:
Growth in U.S. Home Prices Slowed in 2014
Home prices in 2014 saw yearly growth slow to the weakest pace in three years, according to a home price report released Tuesday.
The home price index covering the entire nation rose 4.6% in the 12 months ended in December, said the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index report. That is down slightly from 4.7% in November and is the weakest full-year gain since home prices were falling in 2011.
Narrower measures of home prices also showed a small acceleration in December but full-year growth still was the lowest since 2011.
The home price index covering 10 major U.S. cities increased 4.3% in the year ended in December from a 4.2% rise in November. The 20-city price index was up 4.5%. That is above the 4.3% advance posted in November and equal to the 4.5% expected by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
The report said average home prices in the 10 and 20 cities covered are back to levels last seen in autumn 2004, but are still down between 16% and 17% from their peaks set in mid-2006.
…
“The housing recovery is faltering. While prices and sales of existing homes are close to normal, construction and new home sales remain weak,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “The softness in housing is despite favorable conditions elsewhere in the economy: strong job growth, a declining unemployment rate, continued low interest rates and positive consumer confidence.”Regionally, San Francisco and Miami saw the strongest 12-month increases while Chicago saw an average home price increase of just 1.3%.
From Bloomberg:
Home-Price Gains in 20 U.S. Cities Accelerated in December
Home prices in 20 U.S. cities appreciated at a faster pace in the year ended in December, a sign that a limited supply is forcing up property values.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 4.5 percent from December 2013, after rising 4.3 percent in the year ended in November, a report from the group showed Tuesday in New York. The median projection of 30 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 4.3 percent advance. Nationally, prices rose 4.6 percent year-over-year in December.
Moderate price gains bode well for home owners, improving their financial picture and boosting confidence. At the same time, a surge that outpaces wage growth and consumer price inflation could have undesired effects, like making homes unaffordable to young or first-time buyers and pushing them out of the market.
“If you continue to bounce around here in the 4.5 percent range for some time, that’s a good, healthy pace,” said Tom Simons, an economist at Jefferies LLC in New York, who correctly forecast the increase. “That’s enough to keep people that are in the market happy and not enough to keep people out of the market, especially if we get some increase in wages.”
From Zillow:
Rapid Rent Appreciation Reaches Beyond Housing Hot Spots to Smaller, Unexpected Markets
Median rents continued rising nationwide in January, with rental appreciation in some small and even struggling housing markets catching up to the country’s hottest areas, according to Zillow’s January Real Estate Market Reports.
…
Nationally, the Zillow Rent Index rose 3.3 percent year-over-year in January, and 0.4 percent from December, to a median of $1,350. For years, demand for rentals has driven up rents, and income has not kept pace. Currently, Americans should expect to spend roughly 30 percent of their incomes on rentiii as opposed to historic norms of around 25 percent. And the problem is far from over, according to more than 100 housing experts surveyed in the latest Zillow Home Price Expectations Surveyiv. More than half said they expected rental affordability to continue to be a problem for at least two more years.
“Rental appreciation has been a freight train these past few years, chugging along without any appreciable slowdown. Since 2000, rents have grown roughly twice as fast as wages, and you don’t have to be an economist to understand why that is hugely problematic,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. “More than one-third of Americans are renters, and today’s renters are tomorrow’s buyers. For many current renters, buying a home could mean both a lower and more stable monthly payment, but rising and increasingly unaffordable rents make it difficult to save for a down payment on a home. The rental market used to be and should remain a stepping-stone to homeownership. But given how widespread rental affordability problems have become, the rental market could be acting more like a barrier to buying. More supply will help ease the crunch, both from new construction and as current renters transition into homeownership, creating more vacancies in existing developments. But neither will happen overnight.”
…
Nationally, home value growth continued to level off in January. The U.S. Zillow Home Value Indexv rose 0.2 percent from December and 5.4 percent year-over-year, to a median value of $178,500. Home values are expected to grow another 1.9 percent through January 2016, according to the Zillow Home Value Forecastvi. By the end of the year, Zillow expects growth in rents to outpace growth in home values.
I was finally motivated to look up Eddie Ray Kahn (Rory Martin spelled it wrong). That’s really rich of him, giving me the sobriquet of a tax cheat.
The proposed pension reforms rolled out yesterday are DOA. anon would have a better shot of getting membership to Mensa than the reforms do of being enacted.
None of that will go anywhere without dismantling the public worker unions first. It’s not within their capacity to accept anything but token concessions or it will propel members to question their existence at all.
The unions will ride the state to the grave, so don’t even bother with the charades unless there is a plan to dismantle them.
@MotherJones: CBS released the Falklands video Bill O’Reilly asked for.
It doesn’t support his claims
Anon [5];
I’m sure all 13 of their readers were already convinced.
Here’s some inspiration for underwater bagholder muppets. Don’t try fire, you won’t pull it off and it won’t thoroughly clear the land ($25,000 value!) like this will.
http://6abc.com/news/video-stafford-twp-house-explosion-caught-on-camera/532326/
O’Reilly has been known to play loose with the truth. He was busted a while back bragging about journalism awards that he never won.
But how many people watch his show and expect ANYTHING factual? It’s a bit different than a network news broadcast as far as journalistic integrity, though I don’t expect the truth when I watch network news either.
All of the networks are spoon feeding their loyal followers crap, anon types willingly choose to be complicit with some of it.
Idiocy, all this fighting about whether actors and entertainers are truthful.
All you need to know is that a fake news show became more successful than any “legitimate” TV news broadcast. It is all entertainment and propaganda.
That is all.
7 – It sucks so bad in NJ that houses are committing suicide.
Take a look at the ultimate in fake news The Daily Show and it’s success if you want to know how naïve and gullible a huge segement of the population is. John Stewart(FAKE name even, actual name is Leibowitz), made $50-100M hosting the show and spoon feeding propaganda to the legions of anon types. I spotted this a few days ago which puts the show’s legacy in perspective.
http://nypost.com/2015/02/15/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy-and-brainwashed-a-generation/
The best line was…what kool-aid are all these folks drinking?
——————-
Real Estate: Despite the hype, Philadelphia is not as strong as it seems
I had the pleasure of attending this year’s Real Share conference in Philadelphia last week. Real Share is an annual “State of the Market” real estate conference that travels from city to city. The speakers are primarily senior brokers, area lenders and developers as well as major players in the hospitality, education and health care fields who share their views of what happened in the prior year and what to expect in the coming year.
As luck would have it, I happened to be seated next to several out of town institutional investors and lenders. As vacancy is falling, rents are stabilizing or even rising and construction cranes are popping up around the city, it was not surprising that almost every speaker had only glowing things to say about the Philadelphia market. At one point, one of the gentleman sitting next to me shook his head, leaned over to me and said “What Kool-Aid are all these folks drinking? Isn’t there any bad news in this city?”
http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blog/guest-comment/2015/02/real-estate-despite-the-hype-philadelphia-is-not.html
you guys have it wrong….here is the real reason…..
chicagofinance says:
February 24, 2015 at 9:55 pm
grim eats too much kielbasa and tries to sneak in a little quiet rip…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LuGUBPl5z8
Actually, I just read the report (link below).
It’s Christie’s gift to his daddies/Wall Street crowd. State different pensions become Cash Balanced Plans, or a union can take it away and make it a Union based plan.
http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pdf/FinalFebruaryCommissionReport.pdf
Never heard of this company. No homes in NJ.
———————-
American Homes 4 Rent
As a leader in the single-family rental home industry, we combine the benefits of a national organization, state-of-the-art leasing technologies, and experienced in-house management professionals to provide a superior residential rental experience. Each home is different, just as every resident is different. We offer homes as unique as you are with attractive features in a variety of desirable communities so that you can find the perfect place. Our dedicated in-house management professionals are standing by to help you feel right at home.
https://www.americanhomes4rent.com/
With the cash balance plan, the State can weasel its way with a “bookeeping” pension entry, instead of “real cash into the pot” for either a 401k or the Traditional Pension.
Classic Christie at work here folks. So, yes NWNJ – is going nowhere.
#14
Sounds like a red herring that the opposition to reform would use. I doubt that has anything to do with it, insiders are handling the funds now and taking their fees. That won’t change.
However, switching to cash balance moves the risk from taxpayers to the pensioners. Of course the state is interested in getting out from under the debt now when the stock market is totally inflated.
Good luck getting together a viable plan if the market drops 10%.
re: # 14 – The pension “fix” is right in the Commission report increase sales tax to 10% or State income tax that is what the Dems will go for, there is no way they are going to PO their base by privatizing the pension obligations. The obligation will stay with the taxpayer they are after all the only ones the politicians can legally fleece.
Everybody blamed Whitman for the 30% tax cut that suspended payments to the pension plan, I guess the 29% increase effectively reverses that tax cut….
If I owe you $100 it’s my problem, if I owe you $83 BILLION, it’s your problem.
Pensions should be banned, most are nothing but elaborate Ponzi schemes, relying on new member influx to pay off promises that could never have been kept otherwise. In every case these are predicated in unrealistic growth in both investment returns and new member contributions.
The entire public sector has shown itself to be wholly incapable of responsibly maintaining a pension. This statement also applies to the recipient of said pensions, since they knowingly negotiated benefits that were fiscally impossible to provide in the long term.
My recommendation is to push all NJ public sector pensions into receivership and management by the PBGC, even though they are not in default. Immediately close enrollment to any new members, and cease contributions from existing members. All employees rolled into a traditional 401k model. You get out what you paid in, plus any additional gains in investment over your contribution period, plus the tax benefits. How is this not fair?
If I sit down with Christie and negotiate myself a pension of a million dollars a year, and we both agree, what makes this arrangement not criminal? Because “I was promised”? Because “It was mine”? I knowingly negotiated myself a benefit above and beyond what my contribution could have ever provided for, and the politician agreed to an arrangement knowing full well could never be directly funded. So how is this all not criminal? How is a pension payment based on your salary during the last few years of employment the basis for your pension payout, when your contributions were based on salaries significantly lower, over a longer period of time? Why aren’t pensions based on the amount contributed, period, regardless of salary prior to retirement? Criminal.
“T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and other chains owned by TJX Cos. will be increasing the pay of U.S. workers to at least $9 an hour beginning in June. That matches the level adopted by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. earlier this month. “
Pumpkin of Omaha must be smiling with glee
23. Grim you think that is fair? First decide if there are winners and losers taking that route. Remember to stay away from the 3rd rail once again. Why not just cut benefits (outflow) across the board until the system balances itself? That way retirees and workers share the pain. This is more like the Romney/Ryan voucher plan (don’t touch medicare for those over 55), imagine if you were 54 and 99/100 and that went through.
Just because you are old does not mean you deserve a tax break, free healthcare and a discount at the movies. You hear “they paid their fair share into the system” yet what I read is that whatever the “fair share” was does not even come close to the actual amount being sucked out…
Come on Grim. Those pensions were negotiated in good faith. In good faith that the union would endorse the governor during his time of need and would provide the votes necessary for his/her reelection when the time came.
There is no such thing as negotiations in good faith when it comes to public unions. Not as long as a politicians are on one side of the table.
Baa.
Basing payouts on the contributions has a ring of fairness to it, but that eliminates the loophole that all of the political hacks used to pad their payouts, so you won’t here a whisper about it.
The public unions will take the same stance GM did instead of working out a reasonable compromise. Yes they have made some small token concessions. But at some point, it’s either raise taxes to pay for what was promised, or start cutting heads. Based on what I’ve seen in both public and private unions, the union would rather see the one worker paid in full than 100 workers paid partially. Or we can just tax the rich since that works so well.
Grim….stop making sense.
It’s the “I know someone who….” fallacy. Despite knowing that its wrong, there is anecdotal evidence that supports the belief.
I know someone who purchased a home with an interest only loan and flipped the house 6 months later and now they are purchasing two more homes. Plus they look great in their jeans and BMW.
I know someone who work for [insert govt agency] who retired and started receiving a sweet pension at 40. And because of their dedication to the company, they gave him a salary raise the last two years. And to top it off, they got paid for all the vacation days they didn’t take over the past 20 years. I can’t believe they only took 50 days off the entire 20 years they worked there.
24. And grim, what do you propose for the 70 year old who already retired and took out more money than they paid in. Give them a “free ride” or tell them hey you only paid in 200k, you are done, no more retirement check for you. Why aren’t pensions based on the amount contributed, period, regardless of salary prior to retirement?
Why is it politically acceptable to increase taxes on people that had nothing to do with that agreement?
Sure, maybe a politician made a promise, but that doesn’t have anything to do with me. I was not asked. I did not vote. I was not complicit in acceptance because I was not given the opportunity to engage.
Therefore, it’s a problem, but it’s not my problem.
Raising taxes is no different from cutting pensions.
31. Is that why some employees are posthumously promoted?
I know someone who reads all the news from NAR that said buy now or forever be priced out and bought in 2007. They are now a bagholder, not to be confused with a teabagger.
[34] Phoenix
Yes….there is a component of the pension calculation that is based on the last few year’s salary.
9: Now the news is just another show.
“Ted, Just Admit It” – Perry Farrell
re: “How is this not fair?”
Fair? FU pay me….
The governor already lost in court, as we all know the courts are not about fair, they will appeal with should take as long as the the next election. Kick the can on to the next guy.
Bend over and smile, because either way you are getting it sans the vaseline.
GM, Ford and Chrysler over next decade will have a big advantage over Japanese and German Car companies because of the financial crisis which gave a once in a hundred year chance to cut benefits, cut wages, get out of bad leases, cut better deals with suppliers and stiff all the shareholders and most of the bondholders. Then do a brand new IPO of stock and get a boatload of fresh cash and reissue new debt at all time historical low interest rates.
Mercedes and BMW are stuck with massive costs to aging workers with defined pension plans at a time when German bonds pay a negative yield and Mercedes and BMW have debt and dividends to pay. Not good.
Grim 1 point re pensions.
On post 23 – you mention a 401k plan. Most gov’t employees would jump on it. But the issue is the State/Local govt would have to pony up $$ every single payroll. That is what Christie precisely does not want. Fat Boy does not also want to pay into the public pension funds.
Gov Cartman wants to put in a big zero. A cash balance plan allows that, because the employee retirement account is not an actual account with a financial balance, but a theoretical actuarial calculated balance that become real money when the person retires and claims it. At which timw they roll over into a IRA or buy an annuity ( both are hidden gifts to Wall Street)
To Libturd on 30 who made the below statment:
The public unions will take the same stance GM did instead of working out a reasonable compromise. Yes they have made some small token concessions. But at some point, it’s either raise taxes to pay for what was promised, or start cutting heads. Based on what I’ve seen in both public and private unions, the union would rather see the one worker paid in full than 100 workers paid partially. Or we can just tax the rich since that works so well.
Libturd, you know where this attitude comes from. From experience.
Stella D’Oro Bakery, was a family company, bought out by a hedge fund. Hedge fund forced it into bankruptcy. Hedge Fund negotiated with union. Hedge Fund said, it they waived the over $150 million due into Union Pension fund, Hedge Fund would keep factory in Bronx open with all the jobs. Once Union signed away pension, Hedge Fund closed up the place, move to NC, all the Bronx jobs were lost. Hedge Fund took the $150 million as profits and place is now a BJs.
Moral of the story is “pay me now, because they are going to screw you anyway”.
United does have the most non-stop regional options out of Newark – But the flight schedule and timing of this flight are awfully convenient. Why fly private when you can get the airlines to charter for you:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-25/did-united-put-a-whole-route-in-the-sky-for-one-very-important-passenger-?cmpid=yhoo
Port Authority needs to be shut down. Let the Authority run the Ports and give the airports, trains, tolls, back to the states they are located in.
I finally solved the mystery of Pumpkinhead. I’m hypothesizing that he is a split personality of Joe Biden, who only emerges online, retaining Biden’s stupidity, but adding a different backstory to his life.
Vice President Joe Biden used a Black History Month event at his official residence Monday night to decry the rich, both white and black, for stunting economic growth and suggested that “emancipation” is in order.
“A lot of wealthy white and black people aren’t bad but they control 1 percent of the economy and this cannot stand,” Biden told about 100 guests, including past civil rights activists and NBC weatherman Al Roker.
“It’s not fair because the business experts are saying that concentration of wealth is stunting growth. So let’s do something that’s worthy of emancipation,” said Biden, according to a press pool report of the event.
Libturd – privatize those assets. I doubt various state agencies would run any better. Might even become more mismanaged.
Rags, these are your boys. These are your idols. Total dirtbags. Simple as that. You act like unions are the devil and hedge fund managers are angels sent from above to help lift everyone’s standard of living up.
Without these 1%ers, what would everyone else do? They would be lost without their guidance. Their standard of living would be crushed without the guiding hand of the 1%. Just look around and see how much good these people do for society. Thank you to the 1% for everything that you do. Btw, you are so lost, it’s not even funny.
“Stella D’Oro Bakery, was a family company, bought out by a hedge fund. Hedge fund forced it into bankruptcy. Hedge Fund negotiated with union. Hedge Fund said, it they waived the over $150 million due into Union Pension fund, Hedge Fund would keep factory in Bronx open with all the jobs. Once Union signed away pension, Hedge Fund closed up the place, move to NC, all the Bronx jobs were lost. Hedge Fund took the $150 million as profits and place is now a BJs.
Moral of the story is “pay me now, because they are going to screw you anyway”.”
[8] nwnj
I haven’t followed the Williams/O’Reilly dustup closely. No time and no interest.
What I would like to know is whether the misrepresentations (whether lying or misremembering, use your own term of art), occurred in the context of a report or of personal recollections. From my perspective, the abuse of trust is there if a reporter makes inaccurate or untruthful representations in the course of reporting the news, but isn’t abusing a trust when he or she lies/misremembers/embellishes his or her own history in a personal recount that isn’t being reported as news.
Thus, if Williams reported nonexistent events as facts, and if O’Reilly wrote in a personal memoir that he was in a war zone, these are not equivalent.
That’s my $0.02. I am sure anon or footrest would disagree with this hairsplitting and even with the underlying facts (which, I admit, I don’t know well).
45- Unions are the only way some individuals in the majority get help. Unions were the only reason for the great standard of living came about in this country. If you think the standard of living would be this high in this country without the help of unions, you are lost. Your idols, the 1%, the leaders of the industry would have sucked all that profit dry during the 1950’s and 1960s. That’s a fact. The unions were a form of check and balance that brought some of the gains to the majority of the population. If your idols didn’t have unions in the way during that era, they would have sucked it all dry for themselves. Why do you think they started attacking unions? Why do you think the standard of living has correlated with the downfall of the unions in this country?
I’m not advocating for a 100% union workforce, that is terrible. What I’m advocating for is a check and balance in the labor market in the form of a % of the workforce being unionized so that some form of balance can be brought to the labor market. You can’t have a constant 5% unemployment rate and expect wages to have a chance.
[9, 11]
Last year, when our area lost power for three days, one of my neighbors with a standby generator (that he had hooked up 9 weeks prior, hows that for timing?) put us up for a couple of nights.
Late in the evening, they said they were going to watch the news. When they put on “Daily Show”, I asked them “I thought you said you were watching the news?” They replied “this is better”.
These are not young people or mor-anons (yes, new word for anon). This is a retired couple, both with some credentials and intelligence. I’m sure that they get that Daily Show isn’t real news, but the fact that they’d rather watch that than real news signaled the death of yet another canary in the coal mine.
I’m sorry, since when do Union and Pension mean the same thing?
I’d say that public sentiment is against public employees, but that letting the populace decide is not fair. Most people have their own biases and fairness isn’t considered. Pensions for those that receive them are part of a compensation plan that was developed to serve both the workforce and the tiny citizens of this cesspool.
Deal with it.
For many of the same reasons I cannot get into today’s primary topic, I can’t go into this one very much. But suffice it to say, my opinion of Comrade Warren couldn’t possibly get lower after this.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/yellen-defies-congress-defends-greenspanian-general-counsel-scott-alvarez-elizabeth-warren-grilling.html
If the populace is on the hook to pay for commitments they weren’t privvy to making, you are damn right it’s not fair.
My point is, I blame the union bosses and politicos for making pacts that weren’t ever sustainable.
This thinking that “the government” can pay any commitment without corresponding tax dollars is like the naive thinking that magic energy fairies live behind electrical sockets and power your equipment without any pollution or carbon emissions.
Pretty sure that NJ’s “revenue” is actually zero.
[53] grim,
Your alternative is to join me on this side of the Delaware. Hell, I still work in NJ but the only tax I pay to Trenton occurs when I fill my tank.
In addition, I’m pretty sure nowhere in the NJ State Constitution does it say that the citizens of the state should be held liable to backstop missed financial performance of the retirement investment vehicles of the employees of the state.
If my 401k doesn’t perform, will you make up the difference? Isn’t that fair?
55 – Pretty sure PA has it’s own share of mismanagement and corruption.
[57] grim,
Yes, but I pay less for it than you do.
I would prefer that politicians and their appointed lackeys have no control over employee retirement savings and insurance.
And now for something completely different:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/02/25/389005176/supreme-court-sides-with-fisherman-in-case-of-the-missing-fish
For you tea-leaf readers, decisions like this are the reason I feel that the SCOTUS will uphold the government in the latest Obamacare case. When push comes to shove, the Court does get political.
Re [57, 58]
DING! We had this very conversation here about relo to NC. Yeah, NC (or PA) has its share of corruption. Town Supervisor Billy Bob shows up with a new dualie truck that seems a bit more expensive than his salary would support. If the property taxes are $3k/yr., nobody really gives a !*@&. At $12-15k taxes, people start to mind.
Nom [60];
Sarbanes-Oxley — Document =/= Fish. No, G-man, throwing fish overboard to avoid the game warden is not the same as shredding documents to avoid an audit.
I swear to God, this is from Kagan’s dissent:
“A fish is, of course, a discrete thing that possesses physical form. See generally Dr. Seuss, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (1960).”
[62] moose,
I get the point the government was trying to make, and the Court decided to end the mockery the gov was making of the law, but here’s my issue: There are no other laws on the books concerning destruction of evidence? Really? It’s clear the guy did it, but they applied a law that really did not go to the issue at hand, probably because it would be easier to get a conviction with an obscure law repurposed for this occasion, than the more general or relevant statute.
Your tax dollars at work. This is why I don’t trust the DoJ.
Nom [63];
There was a report a week or two back about Sotomayor addressing Roberts as “Chief” on the bench during oral argument. I’m not one to stand on ceremony but a little more professional formality than that seems appropriate to the circumstance and setting.
Re: [64];
And some people wonder why I long for adult supervision in DC.
[61] moose,
In our uber-tony exburb, taxes are approaching NJ ridiculousness, but it is almost entirely the school piece (I just paid my 2015 county taxes of $1,100 and my town tax last year was $163). The school tax was north of $7K and probably $8K this year. But this is a blue-ribbony school district and its for the kids.
Other parts of Pennsyltucky, yeah, $3K would be a lot. Overall, I think it is near the state average.
[65]Moose,
I don’t mind that at all. In fact, I’d have a hard time calling her “Madame Justice.”
Beside her being a phony politician (which is redundant), what’s your beef with the video/article?
Comrade Nom Deplume, who needs to stop screwing around and get back to work says:
February 25, 2015 at 2:02 pm
For many of the same reasons I cannot get into today’s primary topic, I can’t go into this one very much. But suffice it to say, my opinion of Comrade Warren couldn’t possibly get lower after this.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/yellen-defies-congress-defends-greenspanian-general-counsel-scott-alvarez-elizabeth-warren-grilling.html
60,
Crazy stuff.
I know this isn’t the crux of the article, but why would someone intentionally destroy only one crumb of evidence? 72 fish, so let’s get rid of just 3 (or 4%) of them … did that bring him below some threshold for additional penalties?
I think it’s more likely the guy from Fish and Wildlife can’t count.
Nobody voted for the redistribution of the property tax to Abbott districts, that was a NJ Court decision…..we are still are stuck paying…..
If the populace is on the hook to pay for commitments they weren’t privvy to making, you are damn right it’s not fair.
Which is why I refuse to bail out these stup1d b.astards who are seriously underwater.
The real story is that the Gooners are being eviscerated right now by Monaco.
0-2 at the Emirates. What a gang of chumps.
Even better, Berbatov scored the 2nd goal.
If the public pensions were/are criminal, please cite the statutes that were violated.
Just move to a lux condo in NY they dont pay hardly any property taxes
I agree. So why am I stuck paying for the destruction of the environment by some fat cat who took off and ran with the profit? Why am I on the hook for paying walmart’s employees welfare so that they can survive because Walmart doesn’t pay them enough? Why am I on the hook for paying the taxes that the corporations lobbied their way out of? I have to pay more now because they don’t want to pay? I have to watch the infrastructure get destroyed because they don’t want to pay taxes?
grim says:
February 25, 2015 at 2:02 pm
If the populace is on the hook to pay for commitments they weren’t privvy to making, you are damn right it’s not fair.
Some tight controls here:
Nissan dealership in Hawthorne missing 58 cars, police say
Police are tracking down 58 stolen cars from Nissan of Hawthorne that were rented out through the dealership but never returned.
Over a three-month span, Nissan of Hawthorne, located at 1060 Goffle Road, discovered they were missing 90 cars. Of those, 32 have been recovered ranging from North Carolina to Massachusetts, Capt. Jeff Vanderhook said. Most of the cars were located in the New York area, including one that was involved in a shooting last week in Hempstead, Long Island.
Police arrested Luis Berrios, 33, of Prospect Park, for stealing $126,000 from the dealership. Berrios was released on $50,000 bail through a bail bondsman. No money has been recovered and he was charged with theft, a second-degree crime.
Vanderhook said the dealership had a 30-day rental period before the cars had to be returned. Nissan is currently working with anyone who still has the rental cars.
“They’re using a good faith effort to rectify the situation,” Vanderhook said.
Berrios was allegedly taking car rental money and not keeping track of the rentals for most of 2014 up until November. Hawthorne police have been averaging about 10 to 12 car recoveries a month. The majority have been picked up with license plate readers.
Vanderhook said the major-ity of the people driving the stolen cars have been arrested on other charges. Some of the cars have been used in shoplifting and burglary rings, he said.
Since the incident, Nissan of Hawthorne has stopped renting cars and any future rentals are done out of its Bogota location.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime-and-courts/nissan-dealership-in-hawthorne-missing-58-cars-police-say-1.1277622
78- govt employees didn’t create the problem, hence they are not the problem. Did they create the laws? Also, when these laws were created, why didn’t anyone complain about it then? It’s wrong to do what the politicians are doing to the govt worker. It’s a witch-hunt and joe public is eating it right up. The politicians can’t figure out how to grow the economy, so they are using the worker to balance their budget and you are eating it right up.
Whether an individual is a govt worker or private worker, they are still a worker. It’s crazy biased to attack one or the other as in reality they are really the same. They are workers. There are some private gigs that blow the door down on govt jobs. Govt jobs are not that great, no idea why people paint that picture. You can’t even get a bonus in the govt field, leave these people alone. There is no such thing as a “rich govt worker”. There are rich politicians and their lackeys, but there are not rich govt employees. Leave the people alone, would you want a biased group with a political agenda coming out for a witch hunt on your job?
Just look at what fat man did. He suckered these employees to pay more into a failing system that he had no intentions of contributing to and you guys are getting mad at the worker? What would happen if your boss did this to you? They are getting robbed silly and you think they have it made. Joe public has lost his mind.
Pumpkin [80];
Umm, who chases the checks? That’s who had a hand in the problem.
Redux [81];
chases -> cashes
Con’t [81];
Was Granny a municipal employee, too?
No one is attacking the worker. That is a ploy by their unions to gain sympathy. I love my kids teachers and really, most public workers. But their overall compensation package is completely out of whack. And it only got that way due to corrupt unions working with corrupt politicians. We all need healthcare. I get that. But why is my wife not covered by my plan, but janitor Joe’s is and for life. Answer these two questions. How did it get this way? Do you honestly think it’s fair to charge those without such benefits to pay for those who only got them through essentially bribing the government. You can’t be upset at the 1% for doing it when your union plays the same game.
And since when does attacking one’s compensation package equal not supporting them?
You know you’re talking to children when they come back with two wrongs make a right.
No one is attacking the worker?!?! Are you kidding me with this statement? You ever study the “labor movement”? People died fighting for better working conditions. You have a naive view of what is exactly going on here. The workers won for most of the 1900’s. Unfortunately, since the 1970’s the worker has been getting his a$$ kicked. The union is almost dead. It’s a taboo today. It’s freaking crazy. You have workers brainwashed into thinking unions are bad.
Now that the unions are gone, you can bet your a$$ that work conditions and regulations will go the way of the dinosaur this century. Don’t worry, the unions and workers will come back after we go through this whole process again.
Workers and their owners have been in battle since the creation of labor markets. Slavery was the cost of cheap labor for centuries. Seems the worker made some huge gains for a while. With the advent of globalization, they gave it all back. Wage slavery is the new slavery. The illusion of choice to deem this practice morally okay, or legal for societal purposes. Hey it’s okay, we are paying them. They are willingly taking the job, as if….
Libturd in Union says:
February 25, 2015 at 5:19 pm
No one is attacking the worker. That is a ploy by their unions to gain sympathy. I love my kids teachers and really, most public workers. But their overall compensation package is completely out of whack. And it only got that way due to corrupt unions working with corrupt politicians. We all need healthcare. I get that. But why is my wife not covered by my plan, but janitor Joe’s is and for life. Answer these two questions. How did it get this way? Do you honestly think it’s fair to charge those without such benefits to pay for those who only got them through essentially bribing the government. You can’t be upset at the 1% for doing it when your union plays the same game.
And since when does attacking one’s compensation package equal not supporting them?
There are many examples of horrible things that were once legal… doesn’t make any of them “right”.
Against The Grain says:
February 25, 2015 at 4:27 pm
If the public pensions were/are criminal, please cite the statutes that were violated.
At the end of wage slavery, I will demand my reparations.
If the public pensions were/are criminal, please cite the statutes that were violated.
Easy, RICO.
The whole thing stinks.
Take it easy on Pumpkin Biden, he’s “special”.
If the government wasn’t meant to loot the public to pay for pension obligations, why did we give it guns and taxes and leave it with unconstrained powers?
re # 56- ” I’m pretty sure nowhere in the NJ State Constitution?”
Since when is the Constitution law?
Check the last ruling. It’s a law…. 2011 pension reform law, required contributions by law, constitution is bubkus.
But their overall compensation package is completely out of whack. And it only got that way due to corrupt unions working with corrupt politicians.
The compensation package is overrated. Many teachers will be force to pay upwards of 6k a year for them, a far cry from free. The healthcare is a scam anyway to divert municipal money to Horizon. The costs magically keep going up $2k a year for no actual reason. Most of the time, huge benefits are a result of the insurance agents taking the business admins out to dinner. Most teachers I know would rather have moderate benefits and more money.
I’d gladly take half of the coverage I have for an extra $5k which would save the district an additional $5k. Is that an option? No. The people in charge won’t allow it. Why?
You sum up my point. Grass is always greener on the other side.
Ben says:
February 25, 2015 at 6:58 pm
But their overall compensation package is completely out of whack. And it only got that way due to corrupt unions working with corrupt politicians.
The compensation package is overrated. Many teachers will be force to pay upwards of 6k a year for them, a far cry from free. The healthcare is a scam anyway to divert municipal money to Horizon. The costs magically keep going up $2k a year for no actual reason. Most of the time, huge benefits are a result of the insurance agents taking the business admins out to dinner. Most teachers I know would rather have moderate benefits and more money.
I’d gladly take half of the coverage I have for an extra $5k which would save the district an additional $5k. Is that an option? No. The people in charge won’t allow it. Why?
Ben, if you opt out of your health insurance, how much will they reimburse you? If you state almost nothing, then the health insurance industry is robbing the tax payer, not the teacher forced into the coverage.
“The next time your right-wing family member or former high school classmate posts a status update or tweet about how taxing the rich or increasing workers’ wages kills jobs and makes businesses leave the state, I want you to send them this article.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-gibson/mark-dayton-minnesota-economy_b_6737786.html
[69] Joyce
I know Scott Alvarez. Suffice it to say, I disagree with her characterization, or should I say character assassination
95-
“The next time your right-wing family member or former high school classmate posts a status update or tweet about how taxing the rich or increasing workers’ wages kills jobs and makes businesses leave the state, I want you to send them this article.
When he took office in January of 2011, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7 percent unemployment rate from his predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, the soon-forgotten Republican candidate for the presidency who called himself Minnesota’s first true fiscally-conservative governor in modern history. Pawlenty prided himself on never raising state taxes — the most he ever did to generate new revenue was increase the tax on cigarettes by 75 cents a pack. Between 2003 and late 2010, when Pawlenty was at the head of Minnesota’s state government, he managed to add only 6,200 more jobs.
During his first four years in office, Gov. Dayton raised the state income tax from 7.85 to 9.85 percent on individuals earning over $150,000, and on couples earning over $250,000 when filing jointly — a tax increase of $2.1 billion. He’s also agreed to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2018, and passed a state law guaranteeing equal pay for women. Republicans like state representative Mark Uglem warned against Gov. Dayton’s tax increases, saying, “The job creators, the big corporations, the small corporations, they will leave. It’s all dollars and sense to them.” The conservative friend or family member you shared this article with would probably say the same if their governor tried something like this. But like Uglem, they would be proven wrong.
Between 2011 and 2015, Gov. Dayton added 172,000 new jobs to Minnesota’s economy — that’s 165,800 more jobs in Dayton’s first term than Pawlenty added in both of his terms combined. Even though Minnesota’s top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent. According to 2012-2013 U.S. census figures, Minnesotans had a median income that was $10,000 larger than the U.S. average, and their median income is still $8,000 more than the U.S. average today.
By late 2013, Minnesota’s private sector job growth exceeded pre-recession levels, and the state’s economy was the 5th fastest-growing in the United States. Forbes even ranked Minnesota the 9th-best state for business (Scott Walker’s “Open For Business” Wisconsin came in at a distant #32 on the same list). Despite the fearmongering over businesses fleeing from Dayton’s tax cuts, 6,230 more Minnesotans filed in the top income tax bracket in 2013, just one year after Dayton’s tax increases went through. As of January 2015, Minnesota has a $1 billion budget surplus, and Gov. Dayton has pledged to reinvest more than one third of that money into public schools. And according to Gallup, Minnesota’s economic confidence is higher than any other state
Gov. Dayton didn’t accomplish all of these reforms by shrewdly manipulating people — this article describes Dayton’s astonishing lack of charisma and articulateness. He isn’t a class warrior driven by a desire to get back at the 1 percent — Dayton is a billionaire heir to the Target fortune. It wasn’t just a majority in the legislature that forced him to do it — Dayton had to work with a Republican-controlled legislature for his first two years in office. And unlike his Republican neighbor to the east, Gov. Dayton didn’t assert his will over an unwilling populace by creating obstacles between the people and the vote — Dayton actually created an online voter registration system, making it easier than ever for people to register to vote.
The reason Gov. Dayton was able to radically transform Minnesota’s economy into one of the best in the nation is simple arithmetic. Raising taxes on those who can afford to pay more will turn a deficit into a surplus. Raising the minimum wage will increase the median income. And in a state where education is a budget priority and economic growth is one of the highest in the nation, it only makes sense that more businesses would stay.
It’s official — trickle-down economics is bunk. Minnesota has proven it once and for all. If you believe otherwise, you are wrong.”
Living in Minnesota is punishment enough.
January 2011 was an excellent time to take office (or buy a home). You could just about have done anything (or nothing) and the economy would have improved greatly. As is the typical case of today’s biased news, the most important factor, the overall change in the economy, was left out. A similar puff piece could be written about our governor. Now I don’t believe trickle down works, and the Laffer Curve is laughable. But I can’t stand when suckers (and it’s the majority of the population) swallow fluff like this when the authors of this crap claim fact from causation.
Here’s one Passion Fruit.
In 2011 I purchased a home in NJ for $423,000. Thank the lord for Chris Christie’s wonderful handling of NJ’s economy, my house is worth $675,000 today according to Zillow. Praise our governor and the ground he walks in (even if it is now way more compacted).
Wait…up to $679,000. I think we should all send CC a contribution so he can do the same thing for the country that he did for us in NJ.
Somebody should cap that fat, overweight crook.
#3 Eddie Ray
More a case of a guy that gave Wesley Snipes Tax advice that put him in the Big House for three years.
Clot, “better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all!” At least we are good enough to get to the Champions League.
Programming alert, set your DVR. See one of the greatest teams ever to take a pitch.
http://www.nbcsports.com/soccer/premier-league/premier-league-download-invincibles
Eddie Ray
There is a funny link in the article you posted. It’s another link were we both might have a professional interest, but can’t comment!
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/matt-stoller-why-is-alan-greenspans-lawyer-scott-alvarez-still-controlling-the-federal-reserve-aig-bailout-trial.html
December Case Shiller | New Jersey Real Estate Report
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