I don’t know who Lawrence Uniglicht is, but he nailed it this morning. Posted in full, from the Daily Record’s Letters section:
Feds owe New Jersey more than they’re paying
Why is New Jersey jumping through hoops to balance its budget as required by law? Why is our governor attempting to break a contractual obligation to contribute sufficient funds to public employee pensions, an unconstitutional act per a state judge? Why do New Jersey homeowners pay much higher real estate taxes than homeowners in most other states?
We should note New Jersey sends way more tax payments to Washington than it receives in reciprocal government spending from our nation’s capital. Our taxpayers in effect subsidize a host of other states, many in the South, that receive more from Washington than they pay out.
For example, New Jersey receives 61 cents per dollar sent, while Mississippi receives $2.02, Louisiana receives $1.78, Alabama receives $1.66, Arkansas receives $1.41, and South Carolina receives $1.35.
Indeed, many states subsidized by short changed states like New Jersey attract residents by offering real estate at relatively low prices taxed at a much lower rate than our fair state. Could it be New Jersey residents are getting the shaft while those other states are getting the gold mine?
Maybe that is why we have difficulty balancing our state budget, can’t meet our pension obligations. Maybe Washington ought to throw us a well-deserved bone, send back enough money to pay our current obligations. Through the years, we have been fleeced by much of the rest of the country for literally hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Frankly, I’m tired of subsidizing all those anti-Washington southern Republican-leaning states, continually biting the hand that feeds them with harsh rhetoric, still fighting “The War of Northern Aggression” while indirectly taking New Jersey’s money.
Our two Democratic senators ought to sponsor federal legislation to grant proportional rebates to highly taxed states suffering a net loss in revenue to our nation’s capital. New Jersey, for one, getting an anemic bang for its buck, losing almost 40 cents per federal tax dollar, would likely secure enough revenue to balance its budget, pay its public pension obligations, and send enough money to municipalities to substantially reduce real estate taxes.
New Jersey taxpayers paid about $90 billion in federal taxes last year. Our net loss to Washington was therefore about $36 billion. A 50 percent rebate of $18 billion would cover a $2.25 billion pension payment that is due; help balance the state’s budget, leaving $15.75 billion to be disbursed among the state’s municipalities earmarked to reduce real estate taxes.
It’s only fair.
Lawrence Uniglicht
Good Morning New Jersey
We send tax dollars to Washington so DC can make it rain everywhere else but NJ. We sent our tax dollars to Trenton so they can make it rain into the inner cities.
I’d rather my dollar go to Trenton than anywhere in Alabama.
I’d rather see a neutron bomb dropped on DC and live in anarchy.
The madness won’t stop until the thieves posing as elected officials start catching lead between the eyes for their misdeeds.
Britain the most violent country in Europe and even worse than South Africa and U.S.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
Still.going out if state. Consulting companies come.in and swallow that abbot.money right up.
I’d rather my dollar go to Trenton than to any war to protect big oil
I’d rather anon live in Britain.
Anon, I am surprised to hear that you agree with a Tea Party Republican.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/02/congressman_scott_garretts_tax_plan_would_be_a_rea.html
Scott Garrett has an idea that would end all that over-regulation – and free up a lot of money for transportation as well. Garrett, a conservative Republican who represents the northwest corner of the state, is sponsoring a bill that would accomplish both those ends through the simple expedient of turning the federal gas tax into a state tax.
Here’s how it would work: Currently the federal government collects a tax of 18.4 cents for every gallon of gas sold in the United States. That tax money then goes to Washington, where bureaucrats sort it into categories and then send some of it back to each state with all sorts of strings attached.
Many of those strings were put there by people we New Jerseyans sent to Congress. The late Jim Howard, a Democratic House member from central New Jersey, sponsored the 55-mph speed limit. The late Frank Lautenberg, a Democratic senator for many decades, sponsored the law raising the drinking age, which had been as low as 18 in many states.
In both cases, the federal government lacked the authority to impose such laws unilaterally. Instead, they were enforced via the threat of withholding transportation aid to any state that refused to adopt them.
“Maybe all those ideas were good ideas,” said Garrett when I called him yesterday. “But that should be up to the wisdom and discretion of the voters of New Jersey to decide.”
Garrett came up with an innovative way to return that decision-making power to the states. His bill stipulates that any state that raises its gas tax can have the federal gas tax reduced by the same amount. The incentive for most states would be to raise the state tax by the full 18.4 cents. The price at the pump wouldn’t change but now state officials would have that revenue to spend on transportation in any way they desire.
For New Jersey, that would produce about a billion dollars in revenue, about $100 million more than we now get. But that’s just the beginning, Garrett said. He cited a Heritage Foundation paper showing that states are forced to spend their current federal aid on “non-transportation projects such as nature trails, museums, flower plantings, metropolitan planning organizations, bicycles, Appalachian regional development programs, parking lots, university research,” as well as “thousands of earmarks.”
Those program can eat up a third of the aid, said Garrett. Get rid of them and you’d free up hundreds of millions more for the transportation projects New Jerseyans most want.
“Every time the transportation secretary comes before the committee, whether he’s Democratic or Republican, I ask him what about Route 46 or Kinderkamack Road,” he said. “They’ll say I have no idea where those roads are. I’ll say, “Don’t you think the local traffic engineer who rides on that road every day has more concern about it than you do?”
The original idea behind the federal gas tax was a good one, Garrett said. Back in the 1950s, the feds needed a revenue source to fund construction of the Interstate Highway System and a federal gas tax was the logical source. But now that the system’s done, road maintenance can be handled just fine by the states.
Garrett said that now that both houses of Congress are in Republican hands, there’s actually a realistic chance that his bill or something similar could passed. That would not only help free up traffic. It would also mean that debate among those experts cited in the Times could have some real influence on public policy.
You know – sort of like what happens in a free country.
Just FYI…..I don’t know if you recall, but before Sandy hit, the $0.61 had dipped to $0.41…….and also remember that Christie literally had to beg to get money from Congress appropriated…..
11. …and then that money never got distributed….
Who is this guy Lawrence? When is he running for governor or state senator? WE NEED PEOPLE LIKE THIS. Such a good argument about the south and their cheap property taxes being subsidized by us. If I hear another person rip jersey, I might lose it. This small state is putting a lot of the country on its back. Everyone rips it for the cost of living, yet it costs so much because we are supporting a ton of states that rip us every chance they get. Show them why their taxes are cheaper, yes, you can thank jersey for paying some of your bill. A-holes!!!
@CNBCnow:
BREAKING:
US added 295,000 jobs in Feb vs. 240,000 est; unemployment rate at 5.5% vs. 5.6% est
@JustinWolfers: Payrolls +295k!!!
No revision for December +329k
January revised down 18k to +239k
Unemployment 5.5%
Now THAT’S a recovery.
Wow blow out numbers
@jmp_nyc:
@justinwolfers If the electorate paid attention to facts over rhetoric, this would be disastrous for the GOP’s electoral prospects.
…wishing anon would contract a disease from which he can’t recover…
On second thought, stupid is a sort of disease. And it is forever.
Cherry pick your favorite cooked statistic, then use it to cheerlead a failed gubmint.
@boes_:
Still seeing big flows from people outside the labor force coming in and finding employment last month
Beat me to it!! The Great Pumpkin strikes again!! The Great Pumpkin wasn’t that wrong after all. My wage inflation predictions to hit by 2017-2018 do not seem that far off after all.
anon (the good one) says:
March 6, 2015 at 8:36 am
@JustinWolfers: Payrolls +295k!!!
No revision for December +329k
January revised down 18k to +239k
Unemployment 5.5%
Now THAT’S a recovery.
Nice drop in U6 (underemployment) again.
@TheStalwart: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RT @shaneferro: Finally willing to admit I might be wrong about a December rate hike.
Officially changing to June.
Tool [8];
Big Oil
That you even emitted that phrase shows your complete ignorance of the excruciatingly painful grinding halt your total life would come to if there was no worldwide free flow of oil at market prices.
So what’s the big deal about the Exxon settlement. They agreed to pay up $225 million and pay for the remediation of the 1,800 acres that they polluted.
Isn’t that what we wanted anyway? Them to clean it up? Make it right? Or is the goal to hit them with such a punitive suit that it puts them out of business?
So not only are they cleaning it up, but they are paying a massive fine. Exxon has not mentioned what the remediation will cost, but I’m sure it will likely be in the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. Exxon doesn’t get to decide what “clean up” means, the Feds do.
What am I missing? Frankly I have more confidence that Exxon and it’s contractors could execute a cleanup better than the political appointees of the State of NJ could. If the money went to the state they would blow it on everything else, and when it came time to actually clean it up, all the money would be gone, and taxpayers would be on the hook.
On the one hand, I hate everything the Rs would do if they win… then again lower taxes during my peak earning years would really help me claw my way into the leisure class.
Most of our dollars don’t come from NJ anyway…
U.S. stock index futures signaled a lower open on Friday after fluctuating as investors digested February’s employment report.
“It’s wages they’re concerned about. Average hourly earnings can’t get lift off here,” said John Canally, strategist and economist at LPL Financial. He doesn’t see the Fed hiking until wage gains strengthen.
“The labor market is tightening but it’s not tightening enough to push average hourly earnings,” Canally said.
And in reality, it looks like the $8.9 billion was a figure that was pulled out of someones ass.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2015/03/documents_read_excerpts_from_the_states_case_again.html#incart_related_stories
2.5 billion was the cost of the cleanup.
6.4 billion was for restoration of wetlands and forest, and the historic loss of resources by the public (punitive penalties?).
However, the DEP never presented any plan for the restoration. Not only did the DEP not have a plan, the DEP didn’t even have a design for a plan.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1680800/pages/exxon-brief-excerpt-p1-normal.gif
So everyone hanging their hat on the $8.9 billion number is hanging their hat on something that is completely made-up, and potentially unrealistic.
In addition, that “remediation” was based on returning the wetlands to “pristine” condition. Is that realistic? Are we ignoring the nearly 200 year history of industrial pollution in the area? For how many years were those wetlands in-filled with household garbage, turned into monsterous landfills?
And at no point did Exxon every say they weren’t liable for the cleanup of the sites.
So he is expecting wages to strengthen too? It’s coming, I stand by my 2017-2018 predictions.
“He doesn’t see the Fed hiking until wage gains strengthen.”
Fast Eddie says:
March 6, 2015 at 9:21 am
U.S. stock index futures signaled a lower open on Friday after fluctuating as investors digested February’s employment report.
“It’s wages they’re concerned about. Average hourly earnings can’t get lift off here,” said John Canally, strategist and economist at LPL Financial. He doesn’t see the Fed hiking until wage gains strengthen.
“The labor market is tightening but it’s not tightening enough to push average hourly earnings,” Canally said.
Grim [29];
That’s the new way. Its why I say that America can no longer build big things. Its why the Boston “Big Dig” cost almost $5,000,000,000 (that’s billion) per mile ($25B total); including preliminary and ongoing “impact studies”, not to mention handouts for public art exhibits. It’s exactly why CC was smart to kill the ARC tunnel in its infancy, knowing that NJ alone would be on the hook for cost overruns — the Big Dig was estimated at $2.8 billion; about 10% of the final cost.
Fabius,
So you respond “yes” and follow-up it up with a contradiction. I don’t know why I expected something different from you. You’re hopeless.
Will people start saying “If you don’t like all these rules, then go live in Britain”? rather than Somalia
Toxic Crayons says:
March 6, 2015 at 7:56 am
Britain the most violent country in Europe and even worse than South Africa and U.S.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
If (and I mean if) someone(s) was criminally negligent and/or did something intentional with the hope of not being caught, then prison sentences are what’s missing… potentially.
grim says:
March 6, 2015 at 9:06 am
So what’s the big deal about the Exxon settlement.
Fabu [85, prev thread];
Ford, who you quote so glowingly, was also a raging anti-Semite; right at home on the political left. I’d be happy to hear from him about production and marketing; about social order, no thanks.
If (and I mean if) someone(s) was criminally negligent and/or did something intentional with the hope of not being caught
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters have operated the refinery since the 1960s.
Just sayin’
Mittens should get some credit for the unemployment numbers, its exactly what he promised he would do.
36
Have no problem jailing them too IF they’re criminally responsible
Word of the Day: Accountability. We have somehow forgot the meaning of this word. We don’t hold politicians accountable nor do we hold companies accountable for completing a project on time. The ARC could be built. And the Portal Bridge is a disaster. See also “honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay”.
—–
For each project, Caltrans established a date for completion. In the case of the Santa Monica Freeway, it was June 24, 1994. Potential bidders were informed that if their work was completed after the established due date, they would be penalized, and if the work was completed prior to the due date, they would receive bonuses.14
The penalty/bonus incentive for the Santa Monica was set at $200,000 per day.
The contractors were also asked to submit bids that included not only a price for the work, but also a projected due date of completion. In the Santa Monica Freeway’s case, the completion date had to be no more than 140 days according to Caltrans specifications, but contractors could bid less time. If the contractor projected a quicker completion date, then the borderline between bonuses and penalties would be moved up to that date. Caltrans would select the bid that provided the most cost-effective combination of bid price and completion date. All of the bids were to be calculated within the provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act15 and California provisions regarding minority contractor participation.1
http://www.epi.org/publication/bp166/
@TheStalwart: Keeping oil in the ground is the new taking oil out of the ground.
Just like in the Curt Shilling daughter incident, we should be thanking social media for these posts. What is it about a$$clowns and posting on the internet? This is a person you want in law enforcement?
———————
A New Jersey police sergeant is under investigation for posting some callous Facebook comments about a dog that drowned when his owner’s truck plunged through river ice, authorities said.
“Why didn’t the dog do the Doggie Paddle” Seaside Heights Police Sgt. Thomas Yannacone allegedly wrote on his private social media page. “Was his favorite movie Dog Day Afternoon.”
The dead dog is still at the bottom of Toms River, as is the truck belonging to Andrew Mayer, who has been charged with criminal mischief and reckless driving. Mayer was spinning doughnuts on the frozen river when the ice shattered and his vehicle sank, police said.
FKA [41];
This is what warrants investigation? Personal account, not official capacity; and at worst, tasteless and crass. Its not like even he actually wished harm on the animal.
We are so f*ed up and pussified as a society. No wonder the middle east thinks they can walk all over us; they’re right.
W invaded the middle east for no reason, so we have already shown that we can do it to them
Anon E. Moose says:
March 6, 2015 at 11:38 am
FKA [41];
No wonder the middle east thinks they can walk all over us;
[42] Anon
Was listening to Mike & Mike the other day about the Curt Shilling incident. And they were pretty fired up about it. One point they made….Social Media has made internet thugs out of some people. They fill empowered to say anything they want with no consequences.
And I don’t blame them because we don’t hold people accountable. I also don’t feel sorry for idiots who get called to the mat for doing something stupid. You might get suspended from school, lose some pay, lose your job but know there are consequences.
There shouldn’t be an investigation. He sort of admitted to it by saying …too soon. Just suspend him with no pay for a week. Send a message.
Easy 100k. Especially love the What I want paragraph…..
http://media.oregonlive.com/ent_impact_dining/other/Rudeservicelawsuit.pdf
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ore-woman-sues-restaurant-100k-service-article-1.2139646
44
FKA
What is the offense he committed that warrants any penalty, let alone suspension? Also, do you realize how grave of a incident there must be to penalize a cop WITHOUT pay? jeez
[46] Joyce
Well aware there will be no consequences.
Question for the board. If our state is in such financial trouble, why is the fed still taking our tax money and helping other states with it that have lower taxes? How the hell does this make sense? Are we just the piggy bank for these states with lower taxes? What gives? Basically, we are taxed more than other states right from the get go, since the fed takes our tax money and gives it to them, how is this fair when we have to compete with these states for business? Blame the pensions and the govt spending all you want, but bottom line is that our tax money is providing relief to other states with lower taxes. Why don’t they help us out now?
41
“Mayer was spinning doughnuts on the frozen river when the ice shattered and his vehicle sank, police said.”
Like this is Duluth or something? Darwin award nominee?
Actually you have to die to get that award, my bad.
W invaded the middle east for no reason?
Oil isn’t a good enough reason?
#48
Idiot, the fallacy of that argument has already been mentioned.
Why is the state taking money from my county?
Why is the county taking money from my town?
Why is the town taking money from my neighborhood?
I don’t use schools, why do I have to pay for them?
I know your a big believer in redistribution, and you put it in place, then you have to live with the results. If you want to look at your argument rationally, the outrage on a federal level should be directed at foreign subsidies and aid to illegals.
Not to mention that the rationale the guy who wrote this original editorial boils down to “put money into my special interest and not someone else’s”. Then he throws in fairness(hahaha) as the kicker. He better get good lobbyists or just get over it.
OK but what about my first question?
FKA 2010 Buyer says:
March 6, 2015 at 12:52 pm
[46] Joyce
Well aware there will be no consequences.
Feds prepare criminal corruption charges against Senator Bob Menendez
The Justice Department is preparing to bring criminal corruption charges against New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat, alleging he used his Senate office to push the business interests of a Democratic donor and friend in exchange for gifts.
People briefed on the case say Attorney General Eric Holder has signed off on prosecutors’ request to proceed with charges, CNN has learned exclusively. An announcement could come within weeks. Prosecutors are under pressure in part because of the statute of limitation on some of the allegations.
The case could pose a high-profile test of the Justice Department’s ability to prosecute sitting lawmakers, having already spawned a legal battle over whether key evidence the government has gathered is protected by the Constitution’s Speech and Debate clause.
The FBI and prosecutors from the Justice Department’s public integrity section, have pursued a variety of allegations against Menendez, who has called the probe part of “smear campaign” against him.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/politics/robert-menendez-criminal-corruption-charges-planned/index.html
to be expected for a 72 yr old
@AP: Witness describes Harrison Ford’s crash-landing as “one little bang, and that was it”:
52. Exactly nwnj.
When New Jersey gets hosed by the country, Pumps loses his gourd, but when taxpayers get hosed from their town in the form of exhorbitant property taxes and little to show for it, Pumps sees nothing wrong.
re # 55- Watch him flip on Cuba and Iran.
[54] Joyce
No real offense other than stupidity. I wouldn’t want a person like that representing my company or organization. Unless you condone that type activity. I don’t think there would be any consequences unless the Police force has something written up about employee conduct on social media. Some companies do have language that speaks to that. Wait I think NYPD have rules about chokeholds, so probably nothing will happen.
Briefly back to real estate – any thoughts or recs on replacement windows? Brands, installers, etc. Many thanks, Moose.
I think it’s nice how 10+ years ago someone would be labeled both a conspiracy nut as well as unpatriotic for saying this… but now it’s acceptable in public. Shows we’ve made a step in right direction.
Juice Box says:
March 6, 2015 at 1:48 pm
W invaded the middle east for no reason?
Oil isn’t a good enough reason?
If he’s found guilty, what’s he looking at… a censure?
NJGator says:
March 6, 2015 at 2:33 pm
Feds prepare criminal corruption charges against Senator Bob Menendez
and this time around we shouldn’t be bullied into attacking Iran
joyce says:
March 6, 2015 at 2:59 pm
I think it’s nice how 10+ years ago someone would be labeled both a conspiracy nut as well as unpatriotic for saying this… but now it’s acceptable in public. Shows we’ve made a step in right direction.
Juice Box says:
March 6, 2015 at 1:48 pm
W invaded the middle east for no reason?
Oil isn’t a good enough reason?
re # 63 – bullied? How about a false flag op?
#64..false flag? there is so much bungling going on we can barley carry out a flag operation…
Juice,
Just don’t respond. Look at what it says in each post. No other purpose than to annoy people. The less people respond to it, the less it posts.
Justice Department will bring corruption charges to Sen Menendez
I am going to pretend I am a realtor today
Interest rates rose today which will bring a flood of buyers off the sideline looking to lock in before rates rise, and my twat smells
Buy Anderson and have your husband install them.
Anon E. Moose says:
March 6, 2015 at 2:47 pm
Briefly back to real estate – any thoughts or recs on replacement windows? Brands, installers, etc. Many thanks, Moose.
JJ [68];
Time for a re-visit to Wild By Nature, your MJ herb supply is clearly depleted.
Pumpkin [21];
Wish in one hand and sn!t in the other, see which one fills up first. You can wish all you want, wage inflation is not on the horizon, mostly because the so-called job growth isn’t all that. If it was, employers would be competing for talent (yes, by raising wages). Alas, reality rains on your utopian sunshine and Skittles.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/03/06/jobs_report_we_added_295_000_jobs_in_february.html
Dollar Euro hit 1.08 today, could be be par by the Summer. Book your trip folks Europe may never be cheaper.
Nompound Alert:
This property (more here) was floated on a pilots’ board I frequent. Includes its own FAA charted private airstrip. For all the talk about Marcellus shale on the website and mineral rights included, seems the seller is taking a measure of capitulation to NY regulation (some towns in the southern tier of NY along the PA border are making noise about seceding to PA over the issue).
Anyway, someone whom I do not believe has any ties to the seller described it thusly:
Sounds like Nompound material to me!
I’m for helping our own state through redistribution. I have a problem sending my tax money to the fed when they end up giving it to low cost states in the south who then steal our businesses away with lure of lower taxes. That’s bs!! We are the reason they have lower taxes. Such bs!
I’m not competiting with Paterson. I send my tax dollars there with the hope that it will benefit my state by educating a few poor kids so that I can live with myself knowing that I gave them a chance at changing their life through education. If they fail and throw it away, that is their problem.
Giving tax money to the competition down south that hates nj’s guts makes me sick. They want less govt, yet they are taking my tax money!! Bs!!! Hypocrites!! Next time a storm hits, go f yourself! You didn’t help us.
nwnj says:
March 6, 2015 at 2:00 pm
#48
Idiot, the fallacy of that argument has already been mentioned.
Why is the state taking money from my county?
Why is the county taking money from my town?
Why is the town taking money from my neighborhood?
I don’t use schools, why do I have to pay for them?
I know your a big believer in redistribution, and you put it in place, then you have to live with the results. If you want to look at your argument rationally, the outrage on a federal level should be directed at foreign subsidies and aid to illegals.
“recent Bloomberg report noted that major pizza companies have become intensely, aggressively partisan. Pizza Hut gives a remarkable 99 percent of its money to Republicans. Other industry players serve Democrats a somewhat larger slice of the pie (sorry, couldn’t help myself), but, over all, the politics of pizza these days resemble those of, say, coal or tobacco. And pizza partisanship tells you a lot about what is happening to American politics as a whole.
Why should pizza, of all things, be a divisive issue? The immediate answer is that it has been caught up in the nutrition wars. America’s body politic has gotten a lot heavier over the past half-century, and, while there is dispute about the causes, an unhealthy diet — fast food in particular — is surely a prime suspect. As Bloomberg notes, some parts of the food industry have responded to pressure from government agencies and food activists by trying to offer healthier options, but the pizza sector has chosen instead to take a stand for the right to add extra cheese.
The rhetoric of this fight is familiar. The pizza lobby portrays itself as the defender of personal choice and personal responsibility. It’s up to the consumer, so the argument goes, to decide what he or she wants to eat, and we don’t need a nanny state telling us what to do.
It’s an argument many people find persuasive, but it doesn’t hold up too well once you look at what’s actually at stake in the pizza disputes. Nobody is proposing a ban on pizza, or indeed any limitation on what informed adults should be allowed to eat. Instead, the fights involve things like labeling requirements — giving consumers the information to make informed choices — and the nutritional content of school lunches, that is, food decisions that aren’t made by responsible adults but are instead made on behalf of children.”
#62
“If he’s found guilty, what’s he looking at… a censure?”
No, a membership at club J. Corzine.
71- Interesting discussion in the comments section of that article.
Autrement et Ailleurs
It’s no coincidence that this period of economic growth coupled with wage stagnation is also the weakest moment for the Labor movement as a whole. Complain all you will about the excesses and overreaching of the unions of yesteryear (there are many examples), but they were one of the few institutions capable of fighting for increased compensation, which had a knock-on effect of wage increases for non-unionized employees in the same or adjacent industries.
Employers were happy after the crash to squeeze wages and tighten belts, but there is no motivation for them to act any differently now. I also think Millennial workers entering the job market during the recession have a deeply-engrained mentality that they were lucky to have jobs in the first place and have never developed the instinct to fight for anything better or to demand to be paid what they are worth.
returnoflubbersghost
@Autrement et Ailleurs
Globalization hurts that bargaining ability of semi skilled labor-no matter how organized labor is-the shrinking of private sector union membership is a symptom not a cause.
Autrement et Ailleurs
@returnoflubbersghost @Autrement et Ailleurs It’s both. Hence the systematic attempts to weaken unions through legislation and regulation in certain states. There’s a fine line between global market forces and ideology.
returnoflubbersghost
@Autrement et Ailleurs @returnoflubbersghost
Workers themselves are rejecting unions
Autrement et Ailleurs
@returnoflubbersghost @Autrement et Ailleurs
Right you are.
Thank you for beautifully illustrating my points about ideology and about the lack of instinct to fight for wages.
Can the advent of negative yield bonds be the definitive sign that too much money is stuck in too few hands at the top? Who in their right mind would buy negative yield bonds besides people that have so much money that they have no choice but to buy the bonds for the sake of diversification. You guys are smarter than me,what am I missing here?
Now that the house and Senate are Republican controlled, employers are now less fearful of hiring people.
Study agrees with me on two fronts. Don’t count nj out. It will recover. Just going through an adjustment period, just like it has many times before in the last 100 years. Second point, it supports my wage inflation prediction coming by 2017-2018. Check the quote below from the report.
“In the three and a quarter years since the trough
of the recession in September 2010 New Jersey has recovered 56 percent of its lost jobs. At its expected rate of growth the state will regain the peak level of 4,092,200 achieved in January 2008 in early 2017—
a full year earlier than shown in our last forecast”
http://policy.rutgers.edu/reports/recon/forjan14.pdf
“In the three and a quarter years since the trough
of the recession in September 2010 New Jersey has recovered 56 percent of its lost jobs. At its expected rate of growth the state will regain the peak level of 4,092,200 achieved in January 2008 in early 2017—
a full year earlier than shown in our last forecast.”
http://policy.rutgers.edu/reports/recon/forjan14.pdf
This report agrees with me on two fronts. Don’t count out nj, it will be back. Also, wage inflation will be here by 2017-2018.
http://policy.rutgers.edu/reports/recon/forjan14.pdf
This quote from a Rutgers report agrees with me on two fronts. Don’t count out nj, it will be back. Also, wage inflation will be here by 2017-2018.
“In the three and a quarter years since the trough
of the recession in September 2010 New Jersey has recovered 56 percent of its lost jobs. At its expected rate of growth the state will regain the peak level of 4,092,200 achieved in January 2008 in early 2017—
a full year earlier than shown in our last forecast. Most of the improvement has entered the forecast
by way of strong employment data at the end of
2013 and improved income growth shown in the major revision of state income data. By the end of
the forecast period in 2023 the employment base
will about 200,000 jobs greater than at that peak.1”
“Taylor said over the three-day expo he was able to secure approximately 20 new clients, which he believes is an indication that home-owning consumers might be willing to spend money they might not have had a few years ago.
“We’re absolutely selling more,” Taylor said. “With gas prices dropping and everything like that, I think people are a little more optimistic.””
http://www.northjersey.com/news/optimism-reigns-at-new-jersey-spring-home-show-1.1272045
“This quote from a Rutgers report agrees with me on two fronts. Don’t count out nj, it will be back. Also, wage inflation will be here by 2017-2018.”
bold call. 5.5% current unemployment, zirp, and wages may go up in three years.
ka-razy!
stop already.
“Can the advent of negative yield bonds be the definitive sign that too much money is stuck in too few hands at the top? Who in their right mind would buy negative yield bonds besides people that have so much money that they have no choice but to buy the bonds for the sake of diversification.”
Why is everything blamed on ‘income inequality’? What does that even mean? In the inimitable words of Judge Smails, the world needs ditch diggers too.
On to negative yields.
Have nothing to do with wealth concentration. It is about the the illusory wealth of which you are so fond.
Current asset values were to revert substantially in 2008 but for the government creating and burning $3T to prop them up. Imaginary money maintaining figment of your imagination asset values.
The smart money is betting this foundation of sand won’t last and asset values will correct. They would rather earn nothing – or pay – to assure their capital remains at par than lose value in a correction.
There can also be a ST QE bond trade, ie as long as rates decline you make money. Theoretically does not matter from what to what. 10bps down is 10bps down, whether the starting point is 2.0% or a negative number.
No one buying bonds today is a buy and hold investor, unless it is Robert Brennan selling them to your grandmother.
At the end of the day there is only so much corn you can jam down the gullet of goose to try to get more pate before it just pukes up bad meal all over you. Stand back.
It was my opinion that anyone in this position is a holder of immense wealth and has no choice but to hedge their position in a negative equity due to the need of massive diversification in the name of preserving wealth. It was also my opinion that the negative rates were due to policy makers trying to force people into riskier investments to get the economy going. Guess I was barking up the wrong tree.
I didn’t have a problem with income inequality until it got to a point where it created income stagflation.
“The smart money is betting this foundation of sand won’t last and asset values will correct. They would rather earn nothing – or pay – to assure their capital remains at par than lose value in a correction.”
New Jersey has recovered 56 percent of its lost jobs
Actually, NJ has recovered zero percent of its lost jobs. All those pharma companies that shut down their facilities in NJ still have empty buildings and moved over to PA or Texas. Those people aren’t employed in their same field. They are working at the Trader Joes or Chipotle that just opened in the new strip mall. I wouldn’t even try to compare the income disparity that exists between those two careers, even with Guacamole costing $2 extra. What’s sad is that I’ve seen people who were employed full time with decent salary now forced to work two jobs each. The companies won’t hire anyone full time because of the health care laws now. So they end up getting about 50 hours between two jobs.
In the statisticians eyes, that is great. We traded 1 job for 2!
I am putting all my money into kimchee futures. Hipsters love that stuff.
hahahaha……..
funniest post in a long time
Ragnar says:
March 6, 2015 at 10:19 pm
Now that the house and Senate are Republican controlled, employers are now less fearful of hiring people.
#74
And philosophically that’s different than taking suburban money and sending it to NJ’s ghettos how? It’s not.
Giving tax money to the competition down south that hates nj’s guts makes me sick.
By RICHARD S. LINDZEN
Research in recent years has encouraged those of us who question the popular alarm over allegedly man-made global warming. Actually, the move from “global warming” to “climate change” indicated the silliness of this issue. The climate has been changing since the Earth was formed. This normal course is now taken to be evidence of doom.
Individuals and organizations highly vested in disaster scenarios have relentlessly attacked scientists and others who do not share their beliefs. The attacks have taken a threatening turn.
As to the science itself, it’s worth noting that all predictions of warming since the onset of the last warming episode of 1978-98—which is the only period that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) attempts to attribute to carbon-dioxide emissions—have greatly exceeded what has been observed. These observations support a much reduced and essentially harmless climate response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.
In addition, there is experimental support for the increased importance of variations in solar radiation on climate and a renewed awareness of the importance of natural unforced climate variability that is largely absent in current climate models. There also is observational evidence from several independent studies that the so-called “water vapor feedback,” essential to amplifying the relatively weak impact of carbon dioxide alone on Earth temperatures, is canceled by cloud processes.
There are also claims that extreme weather—hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, you name it—may be due to global warming. The data show no increase in the number or intensity of such events. The IPCC itself acknowledges the lack of any evident relation between extreme weather and climate, though allowing that with sufficient effort some relation might be uncovered.
World leaders proclaim that climate change is our greatest problem, demonizing carbon dioxide. Yet atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have been vastly higher through most of Earth’s history. Climates both warmer and colder than the present have coexisted with these higher levels.
Currently elevated levels of carbon dioxide have contributed to increases in agricultural productivity. Indeed, climatologists before the recent global warming hysteria referred to warm periods as “climate optima.” Yet world leaders are embarking on costly policies that have no capacity to replace fossil fuels but enrich crony capitalists at public expense, increasing costs for all, and restricting access to energy to the world’s poorest populations that still lack access to electricity’s immense benefits.
Billions of dollars have been poured into studies supporting climate alarm, and trillions of dollars have been involved in overthrowing the energy economy. So it is unsurprising that great efforts have been made to ramp up hysteria, even as the case for climate alarm is disintegrating.
The latest example began with an article published in the New York Times on Feb. 22 about Willie Soon, a scientist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Mr. Soon has, for over 25 years, argued for a primary role of solar variability on climate. But as Greenpeacenoted in 2011, Mr. Soon was, in small measure, supported by fossil-fuel companies over a period of 10 years.
The Times reintroduced this old material as news, arguing that Mr. Soon had failed to list this support in a recent paper in Science Bulletin of which he was one of four authors. Two days later Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, used the Times article as the basis for a hunting expedition into anything said, written and communicated by seven individuals— David Legates, John Christy, Judith Curry, Robert Balling, Roger Pielke Jr. , Steven Hayward and me—about testimony we gave to Congress or other governmental bodies. We were selected solely on the basis of our objections to alarmist claims about the climate.
In letters he sent to the presidents of the universities employing us (although I have been retired from MIT since 2013), Mr. Grijalva wanted all details of all of our outside funding, and communications about this funding, including “consulting fees, promotional considerations, speaking fees, honoraria, travel expenses, salary, compensation and any other monies.” Mr. Grijalva acknowledged the absence of any evidence but purportedly wanted to know if accusations made against Mr. Soon about alleged conflicts of interest or failure to disclose his funding sources in science journals might not also apply to us.
Perhaps the most bizarre letter concerned the University of Colorado’s Mr. Pielke. His specialty is science policy, not science per se, and he supports reductions in carbon emissions but finds no basis for associating extreme weather with climate. Mr. Grijalva’s complaint is that Mr. Pielke, in agreeing with the IPCC on extreme weather and climate, contradicts the assertions of John Holdren, President Obama ’s science czar.
Mr. Grijalva’s letters convey an unstated but perfectly clear threat: Research disputing alarm over the climate should cease lest universities that employ such individuals incur massive inconvenience and expense—and scientists holding such views should not offer testimony to Congress. After the Times article, Sens. Edward Markey (D., Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) also sent letters to numerous energy companies, industrial organizations and, strangely, many right-of-center think tanks (including the Cato Institute, with which I have an association) to unearth their alleged influence peddling.
The American Meteorological Society responded with appropriate indignation at the singling out of scientists for their scientific positions, as did many individual scientists. On Monday, apparently reacting to criticism, Mr. Grijalva conceded to the National Journal that his requests for communications between the seven of us and our outside funders was “overreach.”
Where all this will lead is still hard to tell. At least Mr. Grijalva’s letters should help clarify for many the essentially political nature of the alarms over the climate, and the damage it is doing to science, the environment and the well-being of the world’s poorest.
If you mention extortion again, I’ll have your legs broken.
“anon (the good one) says:
March 6, 2015 at 2:36 pm
to be expected for a 72 yr old
@AP: Witness describes Harrison Ford’s crash-landing as “one little bang, and that was it”:
anon: Proof that you can’t possess youth and wisdom at the same time. Or, in this case, experience.
And I got a chuckle out of that; I’m much more like JJ at my advanced age than I was as know it all punk.
Posted without comment. Or tweets
“By 2025, a quarter of all jobs you can automate will be handled by robots, up from the current 10 percent, according to a Boston Consulting Group’s report “The Shifting Economics of Global Manufacturing.”
“It means a very substantial increase in productivity and it means we will be able to produce more at lower prices,” said Hal Sirkin, senior partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group. “We are thinking about a 16 percent drop in labor costs for manufacturing plants over this time period.”
A key reason we are seeing faster adoption of robots is that they are cheaper. Those used in manufacturing once cost up to $250,000. Today there are some that cost under $40,000, like Rethink Robotics’ Baxter. These robots are not only cheaper, they are also more advanced than their predecessors. They can do more difficult tasks and can be easily be reprogrammed to do different jobs.
“If you look at a very low end robot that might be doing some spot welding, it’s about $8 an hour,” said Sirkin. “It’s somewhere between $20 to $25 an hour to do the same thing with a human being.”
But the jobs data says people are being hired. I don’t dispute that. I’ve no problem getting a barista now and there’s always plenty of counter help at Chik-fil-a. Also, I’m creating new jobs quickly–every time I hire an Ed major, she proves she doesn’t know squat in record time, so I fire her and move on to someone else. Bam, that’s two jobs.
BTW, a couple of weeks ago, I actually had a candidate’s mother call me up after I declined to call back an applicant. I might have called her until that point.
Pumpkin [77];
71- Interesting discussion in the comments section of that article.
You must have some kind of time on your hands to read so many comments sections. Even if I had the time, why would I care? The signal-to-noise ratio on most comments sections is vanishingly low. The comments you posted aren’t particularly insightful, either.
While I’m at it, the following article must describe the kind of inflation you’re cheerleading for. Think of the gold mine you’d have if Grandma’s garage alone could get $1k/mo.
Silicon Valley single mom lives in one-car garage for $1,000 a month
Nom [92];
That applicant’s mom was likely also their no-rent landlord, so its not as if mom didn’t have a dog in the fight. Still strikes me as counterproductive, though.
“By 2025, a quarter of all jobs you can automate will be handled by robots, up from the current 10 percent, according to a Boston Consulting Group’s report “The Shifting Economics of Global Manufacturing.”
Newark Airport finally going through iPadization.