From the Star Ledger:
Federal jobs reports point to a rebounding labor market, though the unemployment rate remained at 5.5 percent in March. But the percentage of jobless residents out of work 27 weeks or more remains historically high.
Nationally, about 30 percent of jobless residents have been unemployed at least 27 weeks.
The situation is much worse in New Jersey.
Of 302,000 unemployed residents in New Jersey in 2014, roughly 41 percent, or 125,000 people, have been out of work at least 27 weeks, according to federal labor data. Though down from a peak of about 51 percent in 2010, the data still mean New Jersey’s long-term jobless rate is among the highest in the nation.
Only New Mexico and Washington, D.C., posted higher rates in 2014. North Dakota, Iowa and Alaska, on the other hand, had the lowest long-term unemployment rates in the country last year.
…
Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, said there are several reasons New Jersey’s long-term unemployment has remained higher than most states. He pointed to steep job losses in the financial and construction industries during the Great Recession, which hit New Jersey hard, and a slow recovery in those areas. He also noted some jobs, like many in the pharmaceutical industry, have left the state altogether.“Those are what make New Jersey different but there are many things that make New Jersey the same,” Van Horn said, noting that the longer a person remains unemployed the more difficult it becomes to get a job.
…
Kerri Gatling, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, noted gains in employment in the private sector since 2010 and upward revisions to job growth estimates for 2013 and 2014. Gatling said that indicates steady improvement in the state’s economy despite the effects of Hurricane Sandy and casinos shuttering in Atlantic City.“We have a ways to go here, and we will not be satisfied until everyone who wants a job, gets a job. But the employment situation is improving in the state,” Gatling said.
…
For 15 years, Kent said, he worked as director of information technology for a retail chain until he lost his job in June. His unemployment benefits, he said, ran out in December.“I’ve been struggling since then,” the 42-year-old Hawthorne resident said. “I’ve had interviews. I’ve had a mix of either working via recruiters or directly with the company but the majority of them seem to have the same results: nobody even responds back to you.”
Kent said he and his wife think they soon will face foreclosure. He said he plans to continue working toward finding a job in New Jersey but if that doesn’t pan out he said they may move out of state to look for work.
“I’m never giving up. I have responsibilities,” Kent said, but, “I did not think it would be this hard. I truly didn’t. I had no idea.”
Good Morning New Jersey
Clearly foreboding that BC is going downhill fast – goats move in, unicorns move out – there goes the neighborhood…
http://www.northjersey.com/news/disorderly-goat-corralled-in-paramus-1.1303173
Or maybe that was just some rich guy’s dinner.. Also from the Record:
Portrait of affluence in Bergen County, state
Bergen County’s adjusted gross income rose almost 8 percent, to above $101,000, in 2012, boosted by the stock market’s healthy performance that year, according to a new analysis of income tax data.
Bergen’s rise in income was one of the more striking findings of an analysis of 2012 federal tax data — the latest available — by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University. As the April 15 tax filing deadline approaches, the center, which analyzes Internal Revenue Service and other federal data, released figures about incomes around the nation.
Passaic County did not fare nearly as well as its neighbor, with adjusted gross income of only $54,028 in 2012 — still below the pre-recession year of 2007. Adjusted gross income, drawn from individual or jointly filed tax returns, is a measure used by the IRS that includes wages, interest, dividends and other income but does not include the non-taxable portion of Social Security or tax-exempt interest.
Like other studies of income, the TRAC analysis shows New Jersey as one of the most affluent states in the nation. According to TRAC, at $77,684, New Jersey had the fourth-highest adjusted gross income in the nation in 2012, after Connecticut, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts. The national average AGI was $62,645.
Within the state, Bergen had the fourth-highest AGI.
Bergen County taxpayers not only had much higher wages than most places in New Jersey — at an average of $68,350 per return — but they also enjoyed much higher dividends and interest income. This reflects the fact that affluent households are more likely to have investments in stocks, bonds and other financial instruments. For example, Bergen taxpayers reported dividends averaging $3,841 in 2012, compared with an average of $865 in Passaic and $1,909 in New Jersey.
Dividends and interest income will matter not when the final cataclysm descends.
“Richard Duncan, author of The Dollar Crisis and The New Depression: The Breakdown Of The Paper Money Economy, isn’t mincing words about the risks he sees ahead for the world economy.
Essentially, he sees the past 50 years of economic prosperity fueled by globalization and easy credit in serious danger of being unwound, as the doomed monetary policies currently being pursued by the word’s central banks result in a massive multi-decade depression that spans the globe.”
http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/92283/richard-duncan-real-risk-coming-multi-decade-global-depression
“Few people understand the global economy and its (mis)management better than David Stockman — former director of the OMB under President Reagan, former US Representative, best-selling author of The Great Deformation, and veteran financier.
David is now loudly warning that events have entered the crack-up phase, which he predicts will be defined by the following 4 developments:”
Increasingly desperate moves by the world’s central banks
Increased market volatility and losses
Deflation in industrial and commodity prices
Decreasing demand due to Peak Debt
http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/91810/david-stockman-global-economy-has-entered-crack-phase
@SenSanders:
Do not believe those who tell you that #SocialSecurity is going broke.
[7] anon,
Good one. I needed a laugh
“I’m sure Lib is still churning out paper, despite the rise of eProxy.”
45,500,000 pounds of paper through our offset presses in 2007
25,800,000 pounds of paper through our offset presses in 2014
We print a bunch of shorter run books on roll fed digital presses now, but those numbers are probably in the few millions per year.
#7 @SenSanders:
Do not believe those who tell you that #SocialSecurity is going broke.
It actually is not. SS can pay 75% of its obligations after the Trust Fund is depleted. It is being said that it is going broke because, money coming in is in deficit. In 25 years Trust Fund will run out..
Will Retirees take 75% of the promised amount if nothing was done to correct the problem? I think so.
There will always be money coming in from current workers that will pay retirees, full benefit or not. SS payments always paid with in what it collects. Not a single penny comes from the Fed
10-15 years ago, we had a lockbox payment processing site in Clifton. We processed anywhere from 50,000-100,000 checks a week ($750k-$1.5m). We would routinely make two trips a day to the Fed in East Rutherford to deposit. During surge periods, we would see 10x that. We would get multiple trucks a day from the post office. I remember during one surge period when everyone was working through the weekend, two shifts, on a Monday I did a ride along with the deposits from Friday afternoon, I think we dropped of more than $5 million in checks.
We were running 10 check scanning and encoding lines, and sometimes had 50 people doing CAR/LAR verification of check amounts.
We had three huge Siemens OCE printers that ran two shifts, 5-6 days a week, printing out the payment notifications for every check we received back in.
Since then, we moved the site to Delaware, where we’re currently processing 1,000-2,000 checks a week. It’s one person, checks deposited by image now, no driving or deposits, we no longer mail out payment remittance slips or reminders/past due notices. These companies did not go out of business, they are simply seeing the majority of payments being processed via credit card or eCheck/online payments.
I suspect in 2-3 years, we will be doing zero. I don’t believe the Fed in East Rutherford processes checks anymore.
I don’t think anyone quite understands the volume of paper. I remember one time, a crisis developed, someone misplaced something like 10,000 checks that were due to go for deposit. It took them two days to tear the place apart to find what was essentially the size of a shoebox full of checks.
This was easily 100 full time employees, and 50,000+ square feet of operations space, which has completely evaporated due to the fact that paper simply doesn’t exist in the volumes it had.
It truly might be buy now or forever be priced out the market in Manhattan!!!
The dirt on NYC’s soaring land values
But the question now is: How much higher can those prices go before buying land no longer makes sense for developers?
South of 96th Street in Manhattan, the buildable price per square foot of sold land jumped a massive 30 percent between 2013 and 2014 alone — and has continued to rise since, according to data compiled for The Real Deal by the commercial firm Cushman & Wakefield.
http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/486631/
yome says:
April 6, 2015 at 9:53 am
SS payments always paid with in what it collects. Not a single penny comes from the Fed
13
Yes, so Mr. Sanders was just sending a plea to twitter users to keep paying into the scheme so that his voting base can continue to get paid.
I think I can honestly say I have never been inside a mobile home before. Some look nice from the outside.
The mobile-home trap: How a Warren Buffett empire preys on the poor
EPHRATA, Grant County — After years of living in a 1963 travel trailer, Kirk and Patricia Ackley found a permanent house with enough space to host grandkids and care for her aging father suffering from dementia.
So, as the pilot cars prepared to guide the factory-built home up from Oregon in May 2006, the Ackleys were elated to finalize paperwork waiting for them at their loan broker’s kitchen table.
But the closing documents he set before them held a surprise: The promised 7 percent interest rate was now 12.5 percent, with monthly payments of $1,100, up from $700.
The terms were too extreme for the Ackleys. But they’d already spent $11,000, at the dealer’s urging, for a concrete foundation to accommodate this specific home. They could look for other financing but desperately needed a space to care for her father.
Kirk’s construction job and Patricia’s Wal-Mart job together weren’t enough to afford the new monthly payment. But, they said, the broker was willing to inflate their income in order to qualify them for the loan.
“You just need to remember,” they recalled him saying, “you can refinance as soon as you can.”
To their regret, the Ackleys signed.
The disastrous deal ruined their finances and nearly their marriage. But until informed recently by a reporter, they didn’t realize that the homebuilder (Golden West), the dealer (Oakwood Homes) and the lender (21st Mortgage) were all part of a single company: Clayton Homes, the nation’s biggest homebuilder, which is controlled by its second-richest man — Warren Buffett.
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/the-mobile-home-trap-how-a-warren-buffett-empire-preys-on-the-poor/
Mobile home is kind of an odd way to describe it, we’re really talking about a prefabricated modular home here.
Don’t these people do any research? This has been the rap on this carmaker for decades.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102562781
re # 15 – Repo man for mobile home must be a pretty slimy business. I wonder what they do if there are pets in the trailer home when they come to tow it away.
Talked to a tow truck driver the other day, he told me not to buy a Jeep, or anything else that comes out of Chrysler. Says all junk, especially new Jeeps, which he picks up all day long.
Nom,
They obviously weren’t around in the late 70s when it wasn’t unusual to have to put plywood on the floor to cover the rust holes on your Datsun 210 or Chevy Chevette.
@ianbremmer:
RT if you think there’s far too little coverage of Garissa massacre in Kenya. Where’s the #JeSuisCharlie outrage?
Chrysler to cars = Microsoft to software
grim says:
April 6, 2015 at 11:22 am
Talked to a tow truck driver the other day, he told me not to buy a Jeep, or anything else that comes out of Chrysler. Says all junk, especially new Jeeps, which he picks up all day long.
re: “late 70s” Back in day in the Bronx some junkie thief cut open the existing rust hole in trunk of my dads 1974 Plymouth Duster, right in the street in front of our apartment building. They then peeled back the trunk quarter panel and stole the spare. Allot of work to steal a spare tire back in the day, damn junkies.
NY Daily News did a story over the weekend on the junkie problem in NYC. Bratton says it is now a larger problem than what it was in the 70s.
Grim,
We are absolutely loving our Mazda’s. Sure, both are relatively new, but the CX9 has really been ideal and can’t believe we snagged one for 26K all in. I’ve been enjoying my sporty 6, with all of the bells and whistles, but the engine is too small. This is the first car I’ve driven with the lane change assist lights on the side mirrors and the audible warning when you put the blinkers on and I swear, this should be required just for the sake of us all having to sit in traffic from accidents caused by people too lazy to look to see if a car is in the lane they are changing into.
Yeah the lane/blindspot assist and emergency auto-braking are going to change the insurance business entirely.
Was reading some pieces that had indicated we’d need to see 20% reductions in premiums to account for the savings of these two technologies.
I’ve been telling everyone. Rt 23 in Wayne is checkpoint charlie for the NWNJ junkies driving down to get a fix in Paterson.
There are at least 2-3 stops a day, that I see just driving around the neighborhood. In nearly every case, they stop cars for what appear to be minor infractions (light out, non-signal lane change, tinted windows, etc) and seem to be picking up junkie after junkie.
It’s always stops on the Northbound side, nearly never Southbound – there is typically a spotter near the 23/80/46 merge, and they seem to stop people going up the hill through Wayne – in the stoplight mix.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/wayne-police-make-six-drug-arrests-around-route-23-1.1303250
It’s every day, multiple times a day, I’ve never seen so many people in handcuffs on the side of the road in my life.
All shit cars, clearly wasted burn out drivers and passengers. It’s amazing how many people will get stopped with heroin and needles on the front seat.
I suspect there is a similar flow of druggies up the hill near Hamburg Tpke. I’m sure they head into Paterson to score, than drive out a few miles for a quiet place to shoot up.
Do we have any Agent Orange left over? I’m sure it would be put to good use in Afghanistan and Mexico.
Initiatives to Acquire, Revive Abandoned Homes are Making Progress in New Jersey
In an era of hard times for New Jersey and many of its cities, municipal officials and community development leaders this week brought good news to Trenton: One decade-old initiative is starting to work.
At a hearing Monday before the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee, a parade of witnesses from around the state and beyond testified that the Abandoned Properties Rehabilitation Act is living up to its name, helping to return derelict parcels to productive use.
Although the Legislature passed the law in 2004, “it’s really taken off in the last three to five years,” said Staci Berger, president and CEO of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.
Looking for ways to rebound from the Great Recession and Hurricane Sandy, municipalities have a number of tools under the law. These include using eminent domain against small areas of “spot blight;” putting vacant and abandoned properties into receivership, and accelerating tax lien foreclosures, according to Berger.
Like any tool, though, the APRA law requires leadership willing to use it.
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/15/03/17/initiatives-to-acquire-revive-abandoned-homes-are-making-progress-in-nj/
I suspect there is a similar flow of druggies up the hill near Hamburg Tpke. I’m sure they head into Paterson to score, than drive out a few miles for a quiet place to shoot up.
Note to self: Cross Wayne off the list. ;-)
30 – We’re not nearly high class enough to have a teeny bopper heroin problem like Franklin Lakes and Ridgewood, they are just passing through.
Asian bankers knocking on the door…
http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-summers-on-asian-infrastructure-investment-bank-2015-4
Time to dust off that Dow 18K hat once again.
Is this not what Ron Paul has been asking for? A strong dollar. This is the effect of a over valued currency.
Comrade Nom Deplume, the loan snark says:
April 4, 2015 at 7:02 am
[80] [prior] yome
Not sure this helps you.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-03/the-march-jobs-report-was-a-wake-up-call-about-the-impact-of-the-stong-dollar
That jobs report might have more to do with the price of oil and layoffs in the shale business than the strong dollar. One of my clubs owns SLB and the layoffs in the oil servicing business are astronomical.
Drill baby drill!
Hey…has anyone found that creating a tenant/owner account for the security deposit has become more difficult than talking sense into Anon?
It appears that now that banks make no dough off of the float in savings, they want nothing to do with escrow accounts.
I always did it with Chase who tried to go to a DIY model for landlords, but when I went to the page to download the necessary forms, it looked worse than doing my 1040. Here’s the link if you want a laugh. https://www.chase.com/snippets/commercial-bank/modular/tenant-lease-security-forms
I started downloading the forms and then went into Chase on Saturday to ask if anyone has ever managed to do this themselves. They said not in any of the three Montclair branches. This made me laugh. I got a call back today and they will handle it for me (and everyone else) going forward.
Lib,
Switch to a credit union. But call first, as some of the Reps don’t know how to work the screens. Ask me how I know.
I also put in my leases a statement detailing the Bank/CU and the location of the branch. Saves you a big hassle later on.
Oh, reminds me, have to file Small Claims against a former tenant. Time to collect.
[36] libturd,
That makes no sense. How can something be less possible than impossible?
I’ve been saying this, same thing with pension system. It’s impossible to go bankrupt as long as people are forced by law to contribute. Nothing more than a scare tactic to dismantle both systems in the name of a power grab because hardcore right wingers want smaller govt. lemmings I tell ya. Don’t let someone scare you with this nonsense.
yome says:
April 6, 2015 at 9:53 am
#7 @SenSanders:
Do not believe those who tell you that #SocialSecurity is going broke.
It actually is not. SS can pay 75% of its obligations after the Trust Fund is depleted. It is being said that it is going broke because, money coming in is in deficit. In 25 years Trust Fund will run out..
Will Retirees take 75% of the promised amount if nothing was done to correct the problem? I think so.
There will always be money coming in from current workers that will pay retirees, full benefit or not. SS payments always paid with in what it collects. Not a single penny comes from the Fed
Exactly!!! Are they happy now that they got their strong dollar? So annoying hearing about the gold standard nonsense. It’s impossible to go back, do you want extreme boom and busts? There is no printing up money on a gold standard to soften the blow of a downturn in the economy. You just go bust. Why would we want that? Do you want to take away the Feds ability to expand and contract currency?? I don’t think so. Be careful what you ask for.
yome says:
April 6, 2015 at 2:16 pm
Is this not what Ron Paul has been asking for? A strong dollar. This is the effect of a over valued currency.
Comrade Nom Deplume, the loan snark says:
April 4, 2015 at 7:02 am
[80] [prior] yome
Not sure this helps you.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-03/the-march-jobs-report-was-a-wake-up-call-about-the-impact-of-the-stong-dollar
We understand, being a former heroine junky, temptation is too much.
Fast Eddie says:
April 6, 2015 at 1:21 pm
I suspect there is a similar flow of druggies up the hill near Hamburg Tpke. I’m sure they head into Paterson to score, than drive out a few miles for a quiet place to shoot up.
Note to self: Cross Wayne off the list. ;-)
We understand, being a former heroine junky, temptation is too much.
I will always be a “heroine” junky.
I’m all about H. Hot dogs, hash browns, halavah.
Pumps [39];
I’ve been saying this, same thing with pension system. It’s impossible to go bankrupt as long as people are forced by law to contribute.
Read as: “I can’t be overdrawn, I still have checks left!!!”
Have you imagined for a moment that the people you propose to rob think their money might not be free for the taking? They might respond by force, or by sitting on their asses and not earning any money for you to take. The nerve of them, right?!?
@TheTweetOfGod:
If you’re rooting for Duke you’re a bad person. #GoWisconsin
#19 Grim
Wife had a 2003 Jeep Liberty. Always getting recalled. I started using it as a commuter car last couple years we owned it. Racked up the miles to over 230,000 (I don’t know for sure because the speedometer cable broke and didn’t fix it as I could tell by the tach. how fast I was going). Trans. went bad and I wasn’t going to pay $2000 for a rebuilt unit with a year warranty. Put it on Craigslist with pics.
2003 Jeep Liberty
– A/C is shot
– Tires are bald
– Passengers seat has a cigar burn
– Back window pops open all the time
– Trans. is shot
– 230,000+ miles
Body is mint.
$1200. Cash. Firm.
Didn’t think anyone would want it for that price but said what the heck…
Had to delist it in less than 10 minutes. Guy came with a flatbed and cash that night.
Weird.
Highschool buddy a mine inherited a gas station (nice, huh?) right off of I-80. Had to close the bathrooms because too many junkies would shoot up and leave needles on the floor. *Initially was open 24 hrs. but then cut if back to 10PM closing because of all the stickups.
[45] irrelevant
Hell just froze over. Luge and I agree with anon on something.
[26] That sounds like a business opportunity for someone who looks good in a business suit driving a new and clean Camry who lives in Butler or points North.
I’ve been telling everyone. Rt 23 in Wayne is checkpoint charlie for the NWNJ junkies driving down to get a fix in Paterson.
[24] Lib – All Mazda family since ’99. I’m getting pretty tired of waiting year after year for the twin turbo diesel to hit US shores though. The implicit promise is torque of a V8, economy of a 4.
Everyone, you know the tune, sing with me:
“Gonna report what I feel,
Don’t care if the story ain’t real.
Gonna get my agenda heard,
In the covers of the Rolling Stone!
No partying at Rutgers? The grease trucks will.go under.
Re: paper. Dating myself but I remember the night at the financial printers. Like nothing else. Any food you wanted, drinks, pool table….just hanging out and waiting for them to turn blue line versions….Throw in a lot of comments you might be able to buy enough time to sneak out to NY Dolls on Murray St for a bit, good action before it became part of the Flashdancers conglomerate…..Pre-EDGAR you could always tell the most junior deal team person, he was the one making the frantic trip to LGA to get on the 2pm flight with a box of docs to get stamped received at the SEC on a Friday before DC shut….
NJT and Jeeps. Crazy value retention with demand. Embarassed to say what I got for a four year old trade-in with 75k+ miles….Had a bunch of outstanding recalls, never had them done since they seemed pretty minor. I think the dealer may have liked that even better, my guess they were able to ‘catch up’ on them once I traded it in for some mfr cash, maybe someone with knowledge of a dealers service dept can comment.
“heroine” junky
Is that another description of “Mommy Reading” on a Kindle?
Goddammit, anon came out for Wisconsin and totally fcuked us over.
I shoulda known–anon is wrong about everything.