From the Record:
Home sales climb in May to the highest level since before the recession
In a sign of growing demand for housing, eager home buyers scooped up properties quickly this spring: Sales of existing homes in May reached their highest levels since before the recession, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
The increased demand, coupled with reduced inventory, is sparking a return to bidding wars in some towns, North Jersey real estate agents say.
At the same time, lack of supply is “severely limiting choices and pushing prices out of reach for plenty of prospective first-time buyers,” Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in a statement.
And prices overall remain below the levels of the housing boom a decade ago, which has kept many potential sellers from putting their homes on the market, further shrinking the supply of homes for sale.
In North Jersey, through May, single-family sales are up about 20 percent in Bergen County and 28 percent in Passaic, according to the New Jersey Realtors. And inventories have shrunk more than 28 percent in both counties over the past year. Both counties have about a six-month supply of homes at the current sales pace, compared with 4.7 months nationwide. Anything below six months is considered an indicator of prices rising in the near future.
Nationally, according to the NAR, homes have been selling, on average, in 32 days, the lowest number since the group began tracking it in 2011. Homes aren’t selling quite as quickly in the region, according to the New Jersey Realtors. Properties that sold in May had been on the market about two months in Bergen — down 20 percent from a year earlier — and three months in Passaic, which was unchanged from last year.
…
Even with the increased demand, however, prices have not taken off. Nationally, according to the NAR, the median price for a single-family home rose 4.6 percent over the past year. In Bergen County, prices ticked down 1.1 percent over that period, to a median $460,000 in May. Prices in Passaic rose 5.3 percent to a median $300,000. Home values in North Jersey remain about 17 percent below their peaks in mid-2006.
Good Morning New Jersey
@BBCWorld
US Democrats stage Congress ‘sit-in’ to demand tighter gun controls
Long pancakes, cars, and solar panels.
@MMFlint
Rep. John Conyers, Detroit, on the House floor:
“In my 5 decades in Congress, I’ve never seen us come together like this.”
No one’s leaving
Since when is staying late at work to do your job considered “protesting”?
Rep. John Conyers, Detroit, on the House floor:
“In my 5 decades in Congress, I’ve never seen us come together like this.”
No one’s leaving
What a shocker, first time in 50 years a politician worked overtime, clearly they think they deserve a medal for it.
Scratching my head a bit. Politicians are protesting the government?
Images from C-Span: http://bit.ly/28U11GB
Why are they all so old? It’s like a bad Medalert commercial. Cue Glory Days.
8. they are old because genX took one look at gubmint service and said F:ck it.
Sit in is sponsored by Metamucil.
i hate our government but i love our Country. irl
but even the Country would be better off following a mass die-off
let’s start with the Kardashians
i hate our government but i love our Country. irl
That’s why we have guns and militias, so we can overthrow our government to protect our country.
Realtytrac calls Passaic NJ an “affordability haven”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/house-prices-coming-back-to-earth-a-victim-of-their-own-success-2016-06-23
let’s start with the Kardashians
Can we start with Kanye?
Hudson County – 33 fire chiefs that make $175k+?
Makes perfect sense. Why exactly do they need Abbott funding?
aiming for 200 posts a day w/o Michael?
The new reality….via MTVeeee
Sawyer, who appeared on MTV’s “Catfish,” has died at age 23.
Sawyer was found in her Alabama apartment over the weekend. She allegedly died from a heroin overdose, AI.com reported.
Sawyer appeared on “Catfish,” a series about online scams, in 2013 where she altered her image to meet a New Jersey man named Michael Fortunato.
what odds you give that one of your kids will go this way?
Essex says:
June 23, 2016 at 8:03 am
The new reality….via MTVeeee
Sawyer, who appeared on MTV’s “Catfish,” has died at age 23.
Sawyer was found in her Alabama apartment over the weekend. She allegedly died from a heroin overdose, AI.com reported.
Sawyer appeared on “Catfish,” a series about online scams, in 2013 where she altered her image to meet a New Jersey man named Michael Fortunato.
hopefully very slim…i have managed to live half a century w/out taking heroin.
Heroin? Old news. Fentanyl is where it’s at.
And the new drug lords are Chinese.
Relax, I’m not going to return to posting and cause the members of this blog to go on a binge drinking suicide mission. I just couldn’t resist this one. So just let me have this one.
This is exactly what I have been saying for years on this blog. Anything considered affordable is NOT WHERE YOU WANT TO LIVE. Everyone loves capitalism, right? And the laws of capitalism dictate that the places where people want to live will not be affordable. So run to the affordable areas in the name of saving money and you will realize you pay for what you get.
Anon said it best yesterday.
“same thing with those who freely chose to settle in nj and bithc non-stop as to how expensive is the cost of living, etc, etc. willful ignorance”
That’s no different than moving to nyc and bitching about the costs. No different than moving to Sf area and bitching about the costs. If it’s a good place to live, it’s going to cost a lot of money. If you think the cheap cost of living areas are where it’s at, MOVE THERE. LIB recommends ohio. You can save lots of money there. Don’t know what you are going to do with the extra money there, meaning it will get boring real quick. But hey you can join the local church (like everyone else) and have something cheap to do every sunday.
Miss you guys, even though you hate me. This place will always have a place in my heart.
grim says:
June 23, 2016 at 7:47 am
Realtytrac calls Passaic NJ an “affordability haven”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/house-prices-coming-back-to-earth-a-victim-of-their-own-success-2016-06-23
Mexican Heroin, another reason to build the wall.
Like a bad fungus it won’t go away.
The Real Story
http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/21/democrats-tanked-gun-control-to-up-their-election-chances/
Senate Republicans agreed to vote on four gun control proposals—two offered by Democrats and two offered by Republicans. The Democratic proposals included Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bill linking a terrorism watch list to a gun sales ban. On the Republican side, Sen. John Cornyn also offered legislation that would link a terrorism watch list to a gun sales ban, but his version added due process protections for Americans who are put on the list. The other two proposals expanded the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, although the Republican version did not go as far as the Democratic version. For a brief moment it seemed as if the Senate would take some kind of action.
Then all four gun control proposals were voted down because of the Democrats.
Rather than agree to the incremental gun control measures Republicans proposed, the Democrats chose to pass no gun control legislation at all. At some point after loudly demanding legislation for more than a week, Senate Democrats decided it would be better for their reelection prospects that no gun control bills pass the Senate during the election season. Their decision was hypocritical, unprincipled, and pure politics.
Republicans were willing to link the terrorism watch list to a gun sales ban, as Democrats have demanded. The price of agreement was due-process protections for Americans placed on the list. But apparently due process is too much for the Democrats. They would rather have no sales ban than a sales ban that comports with the Fifth Amendment. The Democrats similarly rejected an incremental expansion of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Apparently, some gun control is not worth sharing credit with the Republicans.
So now the House Dems want to vote on the Senate bills that were already originated anddefeated in the Senate, just so they can point fingers and say, “See what they didn’t vote for?”
So, all they want is a pubic record of failure, which is what they are getting by pouting. This reminds me of when all the Wisconsin Dems ran away out of state so they couldn’t vote.
[23]
This is exactly what I have been saying
This is exactly what I have been saying
This is exactly what I have been saying
This is exactly what I have been saying
This is exactly what I have been saying
This is exactly what I have been saying
So now I’m the idiot?
So now I’m the idiot?
So now I’m the idiot?
So now I’m the idiot?
So now I’m the idiot?
So now I’m the idiot?
yes.
I vote REMAIN
@intlspectator
Brexit referendum, last three polls.
Opinium: Leave ahead 1%
YouGov: Tied at 45%
ComRes: Remain ahead 6%
FBI goofed. Put the guy on a list then off again..now lost track of the wife…
This is a great way to change the narrative and distract the public’s attention away from government incompetence…
GOP’s broken (the good one) says:
June 23, 2016 at 6:56 am
@MMFlint
Rep. John Conyers, Detroit, on the House floor:
“In my 5 decades in Congress, I’ve never seen us come together like this.”
No one’s leaving
Start by killing the Kardashians? Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8h15m_7oUI
Do you fall into the group of ‘everybody is an expert on education’?
Essex says:
June 23, 2016 at 7:23 am
joyce…i actually forgot more about education than you’ve probably ever learned.
Agreed, me too.
June 23, 2016 at 7:24 am
Not a drinker Joyce, i just hate people….
I just reviewed my folder of medical bills again. So the anesthesologist who was “out of network” billed us $12,000, he then accepted $2,000 from our insurance and is waving $8,600 and is balance billing us $1,400.
I plan on paying a visit to my Rep about the failed NJ Bill “Out-of-Network Consumer Protection, Transparency, Cost Containment and Accountability Act” and why it has failed to reach a vote even though the committee voted in December to move it forward.
All future elective procedure will be in NY, where there are no more surprises.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160407/NEWS/304079996
Maybe these guys can execute a “controlled burn” as when they take measures to contain wildfires out West…….control burn some of the hospitals and schools in Jersey City…..
grim says:
June 23, 2016 at 7:54 am
Hudson County – 33 fire chiefs that make $175k+?
Makes perfect sense. Why exactly do they need Abbott funding?
Also Bebo’s old apartment…..
On a side note regarding those without any job stability – the contract workers.
My husband heard from a contract worker friend that after working many hours above and beyond 40 hours per week at a bank too big to fail (name of C—) , when he submitted the actual hours worked – instead of them saying no we won’t pay it, they let him go that day.
I think he’s some sort of financial analyst, but before that day they liked his work, got along with everyone, and he had been there at least 10 months.
The big banks are nasty, nasty places…
So enjoy your cushy jobs with benefits.
For contract worker drones: it’s shut up, don’t say anything, and get back to work.
Sima,
My sympathies, I’ve been here too often. For those that think it can’t and won’t happen to them, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
here = there
re # 38 – nah, live it up run up the bills save nothing and heck why not take a vacation on the house.
Think of the bright side, increase in contract work will reduce life expectancy as more people die from stress related diseases, and because we are dying younger, healthcare costs will decline.
We have loads of contract workers (mostly guest workers here on visas),they aren’t allowed to work OT without our bean counters signing off, if they stay late they are sent home early next day to make up the difference, there is almost no chance the bean counters will give us budget codes for OT.
Ceo’s are the most productive members of our society. All hail the great thieves of our time.
http://www.tmz.com/2016/06/21/moji-creator-arrested-stealing-camera-youtube/
The place my husband works as a contract worker has already warned him that “they don’t give advance notice to contract workers before laying them off”.
God forbid you get advance warning and start looking for your next contract job…
Yes, the stress as a contract worker is unbelievable. Knowing you can be laid off at any minute, no warning, and then will you ever find the next job?
Contract workers are afraid to look as if they are slacking off for even a few minutes or taking a coffee break or even on their phones or a medical emergency, etc.
Even with record profits in the pharma/medical field, companies are still daily replacing American employees with imported workers. Bottom line: There is no such thing as big enough profits. Greed and money rules all.
Grim [8];
They’re old because its all about re-recreating their 1968 college glory days in the “Summer of Love”, etc. Same holds for their counterparts in the campus ivory towers.
I just reviewed my folder of medical bills again. So the anesthesologist who was “out of network” billed us $12,000, he then accepted $2,000 from our insurance and is waving $8,600 and is balance billing us $1,400.
Juice,
give the billing office a call, tell them how you are in debt and need to be put on a payment plan. Tell them you can give them $5 a month or $200 straight up. See what they say.
re # 46 – Ben I am not going to lie, that would be immoral. I am going to call my insurer and ask them to sue the providers like they have done in the past.
Reuters is reporting a gunman has opened fire in a theater in Germany…
48 – D-FENS
Might as well get this out there now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_legislation_in_Germany
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/03/oliver-weiss/german-gun-laws/
First line in the wiki…
“Gun legislation in Germany is considered among the strictest gun control in the world.”
You know what every contract worker has to do? Walk off the job(don’t have to form a union, but need to stand up for yourselves), and give these slave drivers the finger until they ante up. A contract worker is their own worse enemy because they accept the job and the conditions that come with it. If they all came together and decided they are not going to take this anymore, things would improve. Yes, you will have to sacrifice to call their bluff, but it won’t be long until they come crawling back when no one will work for them.
#51
Eh? Not possible because the list of people desperate for a contract job, any contract job, is huge.
That’s why the contract worker hourly wage has been DROPPING in NJ (and I think NYC) since 2008 for white collar, need a college degree (preferably a graduate degree) type business and/or computer jobs.
Death spiral downwards…..
Obviously…this happened because an NRA member was vacationing in Germany and we did not listen to the Democrats camped out in the House of Representatives having a sit-in right now.
Kumbaya….
GOP,
Thanks for this one yesterday – much better than your typical twitter cut-n-paste jobs!
GOP’s broken (the good one) says:
June 22, 2016 at 6:40 pm
same thing with those who freely chose to settle in nj and bithc non-stop as to how expensive is the cost of living, etc, etc. willful ignorance
And the Indian consulting companies (who get to hire the contract workers in NJ) are offering lower and lower hourly rates.
My husband has noticed that the American consulting companies (that used to offer the higher hourly rates and that he used to deal with) are going out of business one by one.
Of course big pharma and the big banks want cheaper workers and so are signing on the cheaper Indian consulting companies.
Like I said: the death spiral is still continuing….
Don’t think you’re safe at your company when you hit your 50s. tick…tick…
People need to unite instead of hopping over the next guy in the race to the bottom. Use social media to get the message out. How far do they have to push before the contract workers say enough? Guarantee if you all walked off the job for a week, they will cave, and you will no longer be contract workers, but actual employees.
[56],
What drug are you smoking?
55 visa abuse(H1B and L1B) is a big cause of the dropping rates, Cognizant, Tata, Wipro, etc are bring over “Developers” and paying them 60k per year then leasing them out as consultants for $600 per day which for tech workers is peanuts. The sooner our government curbs the visa abuse the sooner these middle class jobs will start paying more reasonable salaries.
[52] sima
Contract rates for lawyers have stagnated as well.
I’ve been lucky. I landed at my current shop by starting as a contractor. There, I set my own rate (nearly twice what I was paid for another contract, and 3x the average) because it was for highly specialized work. Most other lawyers aren’t able to do this, and I probably couldn’t do it again. Like I said, I got lucky.
59, no offense but Lawyers have had exorbitant billing rates so a long time and at the end of the day, so much of the rote work is being automated that demand for lawyers is going down and VERY few lawyers are actually worth the rate they are billing. Quite frankly most lawyers are idiots, but the really smart ones are worth the money they bill and save you money in the long run. The problem is the Hacks in your industry directly affect your ability to bill, in the tech space it is the same way the Wipro crowd sucks and they’ll need to call in the real experienced folks to fix things after the fact but because they can get a warm body for 65k it compresses wages.
Scaramucci, who initially supported Walker and then Bush before joining Trump’s national finance committee in May, told Fox News this week Trump expects to do it a lot more leaner.
“He had $57 million…and took out 16 candidates, so that’s $3.35 million per kill. [Hillary Clinton] had $183 million and she took out one 73-year-old soc!alist that wasn’t a Democrat until 23 months ago. She’s going to need a lot more money.”
53 – D-FENS
On the bright side, this appears to have been more of a “suicide” by cop rather then an actual attack.
No one other then the shooter is reported to have been killed.
HenryMakow.com – Exposing Feminism and The New …
Thought I would share this since the topic was education yesterday. This is the law breaking I was told takes place in charter schools by someone who works there.
“Changing grades, breaking student/counselor privacy, changing IEPs to fit their needs not students…. Classes in rooms with no windows Admins throwing chairs at staff meetings lol I can go on and on”
Cutting Edge Procedures at a Working Medical Education Hospital (jj Edition):
The Mount Sinai ER doctor accused of ejajaculate may have gone from my hands to the woman’s blanket,” he said. He continued with his bizarre explanation: “S5men may have also transferred from my hand to her face during the time I treated her.”
Prosecutors said sp5rm was found on the victim’s eye and Newman’s DNA was recovered from her face. She filed suit against him and the hospital, which suspended him.
Since his arrest in January, three more women ranging in age from 18 to 21 have accused Newman of groping their breasts during trips to the ER.
@StephenKing
Gee, looks like NOBODY killed Freddie Gray.
Guess he just died of being black.
Funny how that happens in this country.
@MotherJones
Donald Trump Doesn’t Remember Saying
He Has the “Best” Memory
@ezraklein
88 people were shot during the House Democrats’ gun control sit-in
cool
http://www.independencedaymystreet.com/news/all
shame you weren’t one of the 88 anon.
Or any of he house Dems.
“The Fed is stuck. The ECB and the BOJ are stuck. The banks are stuck. Corporations are stuck. Asset managers are stuck. Financial advisors are stuck. Investors are stuck. Republicans are stuck. Democrats are stuck. We are all stuck in a very powerful political equilibrium where the costs of changing our current bleak course of ineffective monetary policy and counter-productive regulatory policy are so astronomical that The Powers That Be have no alternative but to continue with what they know full well isn’t working.
It’s through this lens of resignation that I think we should view one of the most fascinating Missionary statements of the past 20 years, St. Louis Fed Governor Jim Bullard’s latest paper, where he says that the entire exercise of Fed guidance and dot plots and planning for interest rate increases and interest rate normalization is a complete and utter waste of time. In fact, he goes farther than that. Bullard writes that forward guidance is actually highly counter-productive and credibility destroying, because it teases us with the notion that normalization is possible, when, in fact, absent some deus ex machina miracle, it’s not. My god, you think I’m a downer? This is the President of the St. Louis Fed, saying that everything the FOMC has been doing for the past four years is just a bad joke! Or as Vonnegut would say, there’s “no damn cat and there’s no damn cradle” in the oh-so-complex hand weaving that Bernanke and Yellen have crafted with forward guidance, no matter how hard we look. The Emperor has no clothes.
What Bullard wrote is a letter of resignation. Not just a letter of resignation in the sense of quitting one’s job (although that, too … if you’re not going to play the game you were appointed to play, if you’re just going to pick up your dot plot and go home, then you should actually go home), but more importantly in the emotional sense of resignation to one’s fate. It’s a capitulation, a recognition that the U.S. is well and truly stuck in the current macroeconomic regime of low growth + massive debt + insanely low interest rates, and there’s nothing the Fed can do in terms of jawboning or “communication policy” or forward guidance to get us out. So, Bullard says, let’s stop this charade of dot plots and just admit the truth: rates are not going up, maybe not EVER, until something beyond the Fed’s control shocks the world into some other macroeconomic regime.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-23/ive-never-felt-so-resigned-fact-we-are-all-stuck
grim (3)-
I’m long a propellant-based delivery system for pancake batter. FFS.
“Long pancakes, cars, and solar panels.”
grim (5)-
When you’re a warlord that represents an American metro area devolving into a Third World jerkwater.
“Since when is staying late at work to do your job considered “protesting”?”
Thought I would share this since the topic was education yesterday. This is the law breaking I was told takes place in charter schools by someone who works there.
“Changing grades, breaking student/counselor privacy, changing IEPs to fit their needs not students…. Classes in rooms with no windows Admins throwing chairs at staff meetings lol I can go on and on”
I’ve met a few people who were unfortunate enough to work at Charter schools. They have no doubt that the administrators there were part of a criminal enterprise funneling money.
I’m sick of Sima’s whining. Go the fcuk back to whatever pit you came here from.
Sima (55)-
What part of any of this is a surprise to you? Learn to do something that doesn’t render you a sheeple wage slave, or just go the fcuk home. I hear enough braying and whining shit in the first hour I’m awake every day, so I really have no tolerance for any more.
“And the Indian consulting companies (who get to hire the contract workers in NJ) are offering lower and lower hourly rates.
My husband has noticed that the American consulting companies (that used to offer the higher hourly rates and that he used to deal with) are going out of business one by one.”
Sima (44)-
Again. What are you guys waiting for? Your next life?
Or maybe you just enjoy being slaves and complaining on blogs.
“The place my husband works as a contract worker has already warned him that “they don’t give advance notice to contract workers before laying them off”.
God forbid you get advance warning and start looking for your next contract job…
Yes, the stress as a contract worker is unbelievable. Knowing you can be laid off at any minute, no warning, and then will you ever find the next job?
Contract workers are afraid to look as if they are slacking off for even a few minutes or taking a coffee break or even on their phones or a medical emergency, etc.
Even with record profits in the pharma/medical field, companies are still daily replacing American employees with imported workers. Bottom line: There is no such thing as big enough profits. Greed and money rules all.”
I was listening to a news report on the immigration decision handed down by the Supreme Court today. I heard The president say that the decision would have been different if Merrick garland had been confirmed.
Just as with so many other statements by this president when he goes off Teleprompter, I was thunderstruck. That is almost a verbatim quote. Let it sink in real well because the implications of it are staggering.
And, lest there be no doubt which side they are coming down on, CNN leaves this statement out of its reporting entirely.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/politics/immigration-supreme-court-election-2016-obama-legacy/index.html
[76-78} Clot – please recall that Sima has RU educated engineers at home who spend their entire salary on non-savings. She is a whiner, but her inability to parent kids who actually leave home have doomed her future. Contracting hubby is actually loving being away from the condo at any hourly wage.
[79] I’ve never been a fan of our current president, but only now am I realizing I gave him the benefit of the doubt way, way, way, too many times. He may be evil, but my hope is that he is *just* delusional.
Jesus, here we go….Buckle up! Markets getting smashed.
Can someone update the classic monster graph for GBP/USD?
Jesus, I did not see this coming.
What’s next?? Texit?
The Brexit vote is a nonbinding referendum. But this is gonna get real interesting across the pond now.
Pop in some “sex pistols”, fits the times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc89WTEh-jE
LOL. I was quite sure that brexit would happen. This is just like our upcoming general election. Media and emboldened fanatics on one side, the un-pollable majority on the other side.
Couple things about the Brexit — I briefly watched TV coverage of the counting. No drama, no hanging chads, two people over each pile of ballots — one sorting the other checking — and some barristers wandering around like pit bosses. Amazing.
Which led me to think of the contrast with US elections, back-room electronic counting; ties broken by coin flip that miraculously all went to one candidate. Makes us look like a 3rd world country.
Forum de discussion des parents et futurs …