Open your wallets, someone needs to bail out Atlantic City

From the Morning Call:

Will demise of North Jersey casinos bring $100 million in new building at Bethlehem Sands?

While the rest of the country was transfixed by the presidential race, Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem officials kept one eye on another race just across border as New Jersey asked voters whether to expand gambling into the heart of Sands’ lucrative market.

Now that voters soundly crushed that effort, will it trigger $100 million or more of new building at Sands casino? The short answer is, well, probably.

Two sources with knowledge of Sands’ master plan but not authorized to speak for the casino say the world’s largest gambling company elected to wait until Garden State voters decided whether to build two $1 billion casinos in northern New Jersey.

And now that voters defeated the question 78 percent to 22 percent, Sands can forge ahead with plans that could include a $40 million project to build a new poker room and restaurants, and a second hotel and convention center that could cost more than $60 million.

From Casino News Daily:

New York Casino Commission Approves Table Game Regulations for Upstate Casinos

The New York State Gaming Commission approved on Tuesday the necessary regulations that would govern the operation of table games at the four Upstate casinos that are set to open doors in the next several years.

The regulations adopted included rules and official terminology for popular table games like blackjack, roulette, poker, and craps, among others, and covered important operational details about how cards should be dealt and shuffled. The rules will come into force once published in the New York State Register.

Late in 2014, the state Gaming Facility Location Board recommended the construction of three hotel and casino resorts in the Schenectady, Catskills, and Finger Lakes regions in Upstate New York. As a result, the New York State Gaming Commission granted licenses to the developers that stood behind the projects for the above-mentioned three areas.

Montreign Resort Casino in Catskills, Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady, and del Lago Resort & Casino in the Finger Lakes are the other three casino complexes to have been approved for Upstate New York. They will also feature Las Vegas-style casino gaming and numerous other non-gaming options to attract visitors from around the state and other parts of the nation.

This entry was posted in Politics, South Jersey Real Estate. Bookmark the permalink.

142 Responses to Open your wallets, someone needs to bail out Atlantic City

  1. Essex says:

    Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss….

  2. Now Spanky, be reasonable says:

    Making America Great Again – one casino at a time.

  3. grim says:

    Eat.. Our.. Lunch..

  4. Now Spanky, be reasonable says:

    Making Am3rica Great Again – one casino at a time.

  5. grim says:

    From the Philly Inquirer:

    N.J. assumes vast powers over Atlantic City

    In a blow to Atlantic City elected officials, New Jersey’s Local Finance Board voted, 5-0, on Wednesday to grant its director, Timothy Cunningham, far-reaching governing powers over the beleaguered city.

    The long-feared takeover vote, a by-product of the state’s Municipal Stabilization and Recovery Act, was a worst-case scenario for the city, which has been fighting a takeover threat from Gov. Christie for the last year, even as it barely escaped going broke.

    Mayor Don Guardian called the decision “devastating.”

    The law gives the state up to five years to run Atlantic City, granting Trenton the power to hire and fire, sell off assets, veto City Council minutes, eliminate departments, and nullify union contracts.

    The Local Finance Board specifically excluded the power to declare bankruptcy from the resolution placing power exclusively in Cunningham’s hands.

    Cunningham said unions should consider their contracts still in place, but gave few specifics on how he would proceed.

    Before voting on the takeover, the board approved Atlantic City’s 2016 budget, first increasing the tax rate, which Cunningham paradoxically said would result in a decrease of about $13 per typical household.

    Guardian warned that any additional tax burden on residents would result in its citizens “walking away from their homes” and facing foreclosure.

    The city was given 150 days to come up with a plan to avert a takeover. Most viewed a takeover as inevitable. At the time, Christie mocked the city’s ability to meet that deadline, saying, “Tick tock, tick tock.”

    On Wednesday, time ran out.

    “I haven’t had three easy years if you haven’t noticed,” Guardian said on his way out of Trenton.

  6. grim says:

    From the Star Ledger:

    Gas tax vote won’t help N.J. budget troubles, Moody’s says

    A Wall Street rating agency on Thursday called the voter-backed amendment restricting all gas tax proceeds to transportation funding “the final step” in a tax package that will put an added burden on state finances.

    Moody’s Investors Service last month deemed the deal — the first increase in the tax on gasoline since 1988 in exchange for more than $1 billion in income, sales and estate tax cuts — as “negative” for the state’s credit outlook.

    While the Transportation Trust Fund, which pays for road, bridge and rail projects across the state, will gain more than $1.23 billion in annual revenue from hikes in gas, diesel and non-motor fuel taxes, the state budget will lose about $1.1 billion a year by 2021.

    Voters on Tuesday passed a ballot question creating a constitutional amendment safeguarding the all gas tax revenues from future raids. The state is expected to borrow about $12 billion against the new income as part of an eight-year, $16 billion trust fund program. It is also expected to spend about $500 million a year in pay-as-you-go funding.

    “These projects will significantly improve the state’s burdened infrastructure and restore construction jobs lost this past summer because of a lack of funding,” Moody’s said in its report. “In addition, the dedicated transportation funding could provide much-needed resources for state subsidies to New Jersey Transit, which will begin to address deferred maintenance and alleviate budget pressure for the enterprise and the state.”

    Meanwhile, the state budget will lose $1.4 billion in revenue through cuts to the sales tax, elimination of the estate tax, increase in the retirement income tax exemption, an increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit and the introduction of a veterans’ tax deduction.

  7. Screw it! Let the country burn.

  8. grim says:

    Suspect that a large amount of this racist propaganda spewed on us over the last few days was manufactured specifically by the democratic/liberal side to create an enemy to combat. Good ol’ Alinsky.

  9. Or may be not? Is “stop outsourcing” too far to take the joke because it hits the pocket book?

  10. grim says:

    Just this year I was able to bring more than 800 jobs back to the United States from an off-shore location specifically due to technological improvements that enhanced productivity and reduced overall workload due to automation. Even though the cost per employee was significantly higher, we were able to reduce the number of required employees by nearly 25%. This was originally motivated by the client’s leadership team, who wanted to see these jobs repatriated, and worked with us to create a scenario where we could do this.

    This was similar to a situation a year back, where we were able to do the same, and not only were we able to repatriate more than 200 jobs to the US, we were able to turn their outsourced business into a completely cost-neutral operation by putting a number of key revenue generation programs in place.

    Companies don’t need me to go off-shore, plenty of companies have their own captive off-shore workforces. What we offer is expertise, in technology, in operations, and in management. It doesn’t matter where we operate, we generally operate 30% more efficiently than even the most efficient captive teams, and why wouldn’t we? Generally what we do isn’t what our clients’ core competencies are.

    Chipotle doesn’t farm their own meat, nor do they have any reason to believe that they would be successful doing it.

  11. grim says:

    I save companies a million bucks on my average Tuesday.

  12. Essex says:

    Along way from happiness, in a three hour away town: https://youtu.be/_uZQo3mtnBk

  13. grim says:

    Their recording of No Depression is one of my favorites.

  14. grim says:

    Let me eat when I’m hungry
    Let me drink when I’m dry
    Two dollars when I’m hard up
    Religion when I die
    The whole world is a bottle
    And life is but a dram
    When the bottle gets empty
    Lord, it sure ain’t worth a damn

  15. Essex says:

    Gotta keep fillin’ that bottle!

  16. Essex says:

    Day….367…JJ Watch.

  17. Grim, were you for outsourcing before you were against it? Was it the democrat/liberal devil that made you do it?

  18. I never knew that the liberals are such mean devils killing babies for the fun of it! Trump should stop abortion ASAP. The only abortions I like are if Trump does time travel and forces abortion of Obambi and Shillary and Bill and Michelle and my rich liberal cousin.

  19. grim says:

    I think you are confusing outsourcing and offshoring.

    The rationale behind outsourcing doesn’t have anything to do with being ‘for’ or ‘against’, it’s basic business 101. A provider who specializes in a specific service or manufacturing process, and has greater economies of scale, can execute on that process with a higher level of quality and speed, and a reduced cost, against someone who doesn’t. If these activists are not the core mission of the company, or represent core or strategic capabilities, why would you invest capital to develop or support that part of the business?

    This has been a basic tenet of the US Economy since nearly day 1.

    I make whiskey, but I don’t grow grain, I simply couldn’t do it as cost effectively as the farmer a few counties west of here. I don’t make bottles either, the investment in a glass plant would be stratospheric. While there are certainly case studies of complete vertical integration that make sense, generally it doesn’t.

    How many American’s outsource their tax preparation? How many companies do their own payroll?

    Outsourcing is about business reasons.

    Offshoring, however, is a wholly different concept. Companies can off-shore without outsourcing. Ford, for example, opening a plant in Mexico. Offshoring is entirely about labor arbitrage, nothing more.

    The issue is, US is so stupid, in that they are hell bent on creating new laws, regulations, taxes, and costs to force companies into these arbitrage activities.

    The Affordable Care Act, for example, pushed huge numbers of low-skill jobs to near and far shore countries. Don’t blame me for this. I agree, it’s idiotic.

    From an outsource perspective, we are equally happy to operate on our clients behalf within the United States. We have many clients that operate out of US. Perhaps they are very profitable, with good margin, so they can afford it. Perhaps they are willing to absorb the cost, for nationalistic reasons (it does exist). Don’t get me wrong, we love doing business in the US, we love bringing jobs back to the US, and we love creating jobs in areas where job creation is generally poor.

  20. I save companies a million bucks on my average Tuesday.

    If I got a penny every time an empty suit from an outsourcing place like the ones below claimed this, I’d be richer than Eddie!

    Cognizant, Accenture, IBM, TCS, Wipro, HCL, Dell, Infosys, CapGemini+IGATE, CSC (http://www.cio.com/article/3030989/outsourcing/the-top-10-it-outsourcing-service-providers-of-the-year.html)

  21. “I think you are confusing outsourcing and offshoring.”

    If you take jobs from Ohio and “outsource” to Texas and North Carolina, you get to fvck up Ohio, get a big bonus, blame it on the brown h1-b cheaters, bank a win for your party, and get to claim that all the bad things were said by Saul Alinsky supporters!

  22. grim says:

    I agree with you wholeheartedly. Do you know how many times we have to clean up the messes made by “consultants” from those places? I have direct experience with nearly every single one of those players.

    I was never impressed by their consultancies, their consultants, or their work. They seem hell bent on creating their own bureaucracies and ensuring years of profitable billing. They are also generally talking out of their ass.

  23. You are a decent person, and I respect you despite my rants against you, but please don’t make it sound like you are doing God’s work! All of us (or at least most of us) have some blood on our hands — it is not a red vs blue thing or a white vs brown thing.

    Don’t get me wrong, we love doing business in the US, we love bringing jobs back to the US, and we love creating jobs in areas where job creation is generally poor.

    Translation: our clients move jobs around like chess pieces, to places where there are lower wages and no union protections, and to places where they get great tax breaks. After the gravy train stops, when the workers demand higher wages, they pack up to another place. I am not blaming you, you are doing your job, trying to help the clients that want to do their job.

    So, when Ikea sets up a shop in NC because of lower wages and lax employment laws, they get to claim to bring in a lot of jobs, suppress wages overall, and you have a clear conscience and still have a righteous complaint against h1-b’s from India!

  24. Fast Eddie says:

    What a beautiful morning, isn’t it? :)

  25. grim says:

    If you take jobs from Ohio and “outsource” to Texas and North Carolina, you get to fvck up Ohio

    Nobody needs my help to do this. You seem to be operating under the impression that this activity wouldn’t exist otherwise, which just isn’t the case. Likewise, you seem to want to ignore the local market activities, whether they be driven economically or politically, that are the actual root cause drivers behind these activities. You would be amazed at how much local politics drive this. Go ahead, raise the minimum wage. It’s not me that kills jobs, it’s you.

    You are a decent person, and I respect you despite my rants against you, but please don’t make it sound like you are doing God’s work!

    I’m not sure what God’s work is, but I am doing work that is in my client’s best interests.

    You know we built a platform to allow companies to transition to a work at home infrastructure which has been very successful and employees are really embracing the model. I don’t know if it’s God’s work or not, but it’s great that we created a platform to enable such a big percentage of single parents and differently-abled individuals to be able to have good jobs with good pay and benefits, where at the same time we can provide the kind of schedule flexibility a single mom needs (work only during school hours, or split shift), and likewise, making work available to those who might have physical or mobility challenges an opportunity they wouldn’t previously have had. At the same time, we reduce the overhead of physical real estate and all of those costs, and open up the hiring pool to most of the country.

    I know, I’m a bad guy. Blood all over my hands. Please, it’s no surprise how many bloodbaths have been created by “good intentions”.

    AND if by moving a job from Ohio to Texas, I can help a company successfully compete against a competitor that moved a similar job to Mumbai, I’m still the bad guy?

  26. grim says:

    So, when Ikea sets up a shop in NC because of lower wages and lax employment laws, they get to claim to bring in a lot of jobs, suppress wages overall, and you have a clear conscience and still have a righteous complaint against h1-b’s from India!

    Why? It’s wrong that I think this is a program that is entirely politically/lobby motivated? Benefits an extremely small number of politically motivated players? Is a complete bastardization of what the original intent of H1-B was? Is entirely about the government picking winners and losers in what should be an open market?

    I don’t think elimination of the H1-B program is a good idea, but I do think that caps and quotas, and a refocus of the program is necessary.

    Why is it that India consumes more than 65% of H1-B? Why is it that India consumes more than 85% of all tech H1-B granted? Why is it that 7 companies consume the vast majority of H1-B granted any year?

    This is absurdly lopsided. The purpose of H1-B was not to provide Congnizant with a nearly unlimited labor foreign technology labor pool.

    Why not caps by country based on percentage of global population? Why not caps by specialty area? There are many talented individuals globally that should be given the opportunity to come and work here, but they can’t, because they are crowded out otherwise.

    Also, this is not beneficial for India that the US is sucking their brain-trust dry. For many years this was the dark and dirty secret of H1-B. It allowed the US to steal highly skilled, qualified, and intelligent specialists from around the world. And why not? Wouldn’t you too be lured by the opportunity? H1-B is not about your tired and hungry, it’s about giving us your brightest and motivated. We are the vampire squid.

    I can’t argue against the latter, why not use our prestige to attract individuals that make this country stronger.

    But, that’s not what’s going on anymore.

  27. grim says:

    Not to mention, it runs contrary to the initiatives to improve and enhance STEM education in the US. What message are we sending to students graduating in these fields?

  28. 3b says:

    Flee from yesterday evening . You know what my question was. Why you choose to be so obstinate i don’t know.

  29. 1987 Condo says:

    Grim, sorry if I missed it, but anyway to purchase your product for Christmas gifts?
    I am not a big drinker, but I have relatives who would appreciate your local brew.

  30. Fast Eddie says:

    Are the protests still in full bloom or have the snowflakes completed melted?

  31. Flee? says:

    3b, I plead stupidity. Why not please repeat it? As a courtesy?

  32. Ben says:

    Now if Trump is successful in renegotiating trade agreements making it a two way street, I suspect grim has a lot of business ahead of him bringing everything back.

    Anyone who gets a science and engineering degree these days better be doing it for passion as opposed to money. Granted, I have a friend in engineering that started his own machine shop and does very well for himself. But he’s few and far between. Most of the people going into these fields have delusions of grandeur of working for a big pharma, power plant, or energy company. Yeah, they’ll get jobs. But the H1B issue puts downward pressure on their wages. The outsourcing issue (especially in pharma) puts downward pressure on their wages. When I was getting my degrees in Chemistry, I was hellbent on landing a job with a big pharma company. Circa 2008, right about when I was to enter the workforce, Merck, Schering, BASF, and other companies closed down all the NJ factories to move elsewhere…be it out of the state or country. Everyone who got let go now competes for whatever is left and that puts major downward pressure on wages. A lot of these people are now trying to enter teaching because they have no choice. Unfortunately, the majority of them just aren’t cut out for it and fizzle out.

    The push to get more kids to study science or engineering at the national level is a complete joke and they proclaim that there is this mythical job shortage that needs to be filled as their justification. There is no job shortage. If there was, it would be reflected in their wages. The message we are sending them are false promises. They’ll get a job and make much much less than the local police officer.

    Trade barriers with nations like China and Mexico would force companies to operate domestically which would create upward pressure on wages. Isn’t that what the left wants? Higher wages? You can’t legislate higher wages while trading with nations paying a dollar and hour with no healthcare initiatives. Anyone that thinks we can create new jobs to bring wages up without revisiting our trade agreements is incredibly devoid of logic.

    That being said, the other most important thing we need to do is reduce the amount of regulation that exists.

  33. D-FENS says:

    NJ Attorney General’s Office Concedes that NJ’s Stun Gun Ban is Unconstitutional

    http://www.evannappen.com/nj-ag-stun-gun-ban-is-unconstitutional.html

  34. Joyce says:

    “If you factor in ROI on Solar in your home and more solar charging stations, the calculation changes.”

    You have to have an in ground heated pool, hot tub, and tax credits* in addition to a charging station for an EV in your home to make the investment in solar panels on your home a practical investment.
    *Price would come down without the credits.

  35. Joyce says:

    Speaking of solar… Ben, if you can, I’m going to repost a comment of mine that I’d love your feedback on.

    joyce says:
    November 1, 2016 at 1:26 pm
    Ben,
    Regarding your comment from yesterday and the solar lease, glad you’ve been very happy thus far. What are the implications if the house changes ownership mid-lease? You said the price per kwh raises annually at a fixed percentgage; is that in line with historical trends? What if the local prices stay flat or decrease (unlikely)? Do you still get to sell excess power back to the grid? What are the end of lease options for the panels, inverter, whole system etc?

    My electric bill is so small 8-10 months of the year I know solar doesn’t make any sense for me… and I assume they’ll stay low for the foreseeable future.

    But still curious, thanks.

  36. Comrade Nom Deplorable, just waiting on the Zombie Apocalypse. says:

    I’m very much looking forward to solar; I wish it was a viable option for me.

    And any tax reform or infrastructure deal in DC should include a modest gas tax increase.

    Surprised? Have Our resident alien tax avoider look up old posts. I think that point has been consistent over time.

    Well, back to supporting the layabout snowflakes. Jan. 20 am the End of an Error can’t come soon enough.

  37. No One says:

    Anyone who helps people get more useful goods relative to the resources (costs) required to produce them, is facilitating human progress. That’s a core element of economics. The person who invents a car that for the same price delivers 200 hp and gets 40mpg compared to the prior car that delivers 200hp at 20mpg has moved human productivity forward. The innovation of movable type and the printing press put scribes out of business while moving the knowledge of the world forward. Companies no longer employ a room full of typists and people to carry notes from people’s physical inboxes and outboxes.
    That’s progress, and it’s sad but unsurprising that “progressives” hate it in so many ways.

  38. Ben says:

    Joyce,

    my increases are fixed at 2.9% growth starting at about 12 center per kWhr. That growth is below what I’ve experienced on my bills historically and I went back to about 2001. Furthermore, I think existing rate is something like 17 cents an hour so its gonna be a while before I even get to parity with what I was paying. That was my ultimate motivation. I think if we get inflation or dollar devaluation, this agreement is a potential home run.

    As of now, it’s just a good business decision. As far as the grid goes, you do not get to sell the power. The company owns and maintains the panels and installs them free of charge. The solar panels are theirs, not yours. I’ve simply entered into an agreement than lets them be on top of my roof for 20 years at a cost of $0 out of my pocket. The incentive is purely to purchase electricity at a reduced price with no delivery. The reality is though, at my residence, none of it goes into the grid as I consume every kWhr of energy generated. Once the 20 years are up, you can buy them, have them take them down, or possibly install new ones. I’m guessing that I just let them take them down and consider buying my own at that point. I think the technology will be a lot more efficient by then and a lot cheaper. This was simply my way of getting solar panels now without paying anything. Solar doesn’t make much sense when you pay for it on your own but when the taxpayers and a private company pay for it entirely, it makes perfect sense.

    As far as moving out goes, you have two options. One, they can transfer the agreement to your new residence and move the panels there. Or, you have the option of transferring the agreement to the new owners.

  39. No One says:

    So funny that when the Dems were or expected to be in power, their Keynesian economists were always pushing for deficit spending, and even willing to defend the classic “digging ditches and then re-filling them” argument, while arguing that deficits don’t matter. But when Trump proposes to build real infrastructure and even save public money by bringing in private investors, their lackeys in the press suddenly rediscover terms like “budget busting” and become incredibly concerned over the idea that deficits could rise if US citizens were allowed to keep a higher percentage of the money they earned and let them decide how to spend or invest it.

  40. Juice Box says:

    Trump goes to Washington.

    http://i.imgur.com/JPMxMvI.gifv

  41. grim says:

    There are truckloads of removed solar panels available on the black market.

    Clearly removals of existing installations.

    Was curious about this.

    You know, slated for destruction, but found their way out.

  42. Juice Box says:

    This Buffalo NY plant, under construction now and set to open mid next year will be churning out 10,000 panels a day, that is if Elon Musk doesn’t blow up Solar City first.

    http://www.solarcity.com/careers/buffalo

  43. Ben says:

    I wonder if Elon Musk is crapping in his pants now that the man he badmouthed literally has the power to veto all the subsidies that go directly into his company. Maybe it’s time to look at some put options.

  44. Flee? says:

    Why is it that India consumes more than 65% of H1-B? Why is it that India consumes more than 85% of all tech H1-B granted? Why is it that 7 companies consume the vast majority of H1-B granted any year?

    The main advantage that Indian programmers have over some Eastern European or Chinese ones is that they speak English (not up to Eddie’s standards but OK enough to repeatedly say, “yes!”). You’d be surprised that hiring managers at mega corps with harems to maintain actually like yes-men that will do whatever the boss wants (the body shops are like pimp-shops, and share the same motto, “the main goal is to keep the client happy”)!

  45. Heck, they struggle to even serve it without sickening patrons. (Actually I like Chipotle and go there all the time).

    Chipotle doesn’t farm their own meat, nor do they have any reason to believe that they would be successful doing it.

  46. Our Chipotle is the one that sickened the Boston College crowd. They sent out coupons for free burritos, chip, etc. to the community to bring them back. I’d say their lines were only down for two-three weeks.

  47. Flee? says:

    Why is it that 7 companies consume the vast majority of H1-B granted any year?

    Oh, the top 7 companies know how to “showcase the house”, so to speak. They get the most closings because the clients like them.

    To reduce H1-B abuse, the congress-critters introduced a rule that a purchase order from a company is needed before H1-B can be granted. Guess who gets the purchase orders? Some small company showcasing a few raw beauties or a big company showcasing an unlimited supply of heavily made-up beauties that will indulge the customer’s wildest fetishes? You build a better mouse-trap and the Indian mice-god comes up with even better mice! Every move benefits the ones that game the system. Your own company is likely pushing H1-B’s without calling them H1-B’s by simply sub-contracting to smaller body shops.

  48. In January 1984 I graduated with my EE/CS degree right into the Reagan defense spending. 15% raises each of my first two years and we had to give some “fresh-outs” “compaction increases” because the market rate for engineers was growing faster than some of the ones we just hired 6 months ago. We used to hire about 80 engineers every January and 140 every June. It was like a continuation of college, just with a fat paycheck. Could happen again if Trump dials up the military again. Good times, good times.

    The push to get more kids to study science or engineering at the national level is a complete joke and they proclaim that there is this mythical job shortage that needs to be filled as their justification.

  49. Flee? says:

    No one,
    So funny that when the Dems were or expected to be in power, their Keynesian economists were always pushing for deficit spending

    So, were you against raising debt limit before you are now for raising debt limit? I remember GOP threatening default multiple times, taking it to the brink, Trump promised budget cuts, so what is your position? Democrats never objected to raising debt limits EVER, and GOP has done it regularly and made it a campaign issue! Even posters here were vocally against debt increase (some here are dumb partisan hacks that act like wild bulls that only respond when a red flag is waved no matter how it is waved).

  50. No One says:

    I’m in favor of massive spending and entitlement cuts, so yes I’m still in favor of reducing public spending and indebtedness. And cutting the taxes that fund the bloated entitlement state.

  51. And we got straight time overtime and shift differential too. You got a 10% bump for 2nd shift and a 15% bump for 3rd shift. I used to have my little team of 3 alternate between weekly between 2nd shift shift (start at 2PM?) and 3rd shift (start at 6AM, but I never got there until about 7:15AM). With no debts and no responsibilities we were all living pretty high for a bunch of 20-somethings.

  52. And funded by Soros. I heard Glynn Washington on a podcast yesterday saying how scared he was for all children of color. He claimed at his daughter’s school children were comparing the colors of the skin on their forearms to figure out who was getting deported first. That BS is cooked up by marketing and media pros, for sure.

    Suspect that a large amount of this racist propaganda spewed on us over the last few days was manufactured specifically by the democratic/liberal side to create an enemy to combat. Good ol’ Alinsky.

  53. For the same reason we have pet dogs, but not pet wolves. They are already domesticated and easy to train.

    Why is it that India consumes more than 65% of H1-B? Why is it that India consumes more than 85% of all tech H1-B granted? Why is it that 7 companies consume the vast majority of H1-B granted any year?

  54. Flee? says:

    For the same reason we have pet dogs, but not pet wolves.

    Exactly, the hiring managers prefer more docile brown pets than the uppity white pets, because they are too smart to give a shit about anything other than their bonuses. You have done your patriotic duty to vote for tax cuts for those managers. All if well!

  55. funnelcloud says:

    Any comments on how the Lib’s are behaving, 3 black youths beat the shit out of and rob a white guy for voting trump , (no hate crime), Defacing monuments , Stars calling for violence on republicans, Democrates in general are behaving like animals, From the Chicago street thugs To the hollywood melon heads. Thinking about getting a CCP

  56. Flee? says:

    No one,

    But when Trump proposes to build real infrastructure and even save public money by bringing in private investors, their lackeys in the press suddenly rediscover terms like “budget busting” and become incredibly concerned over the idea that deficits could rise if US citizens were allowed to keep a higher percentage of the money they earned and let them decide how to spend or invest it.

    I’m in favor of massive spending and entitlement cuts… And cutting the taxes that fund the bloated entitlement state.

    The outcome is that most jobs will be privatized, and jobs get sent to “low job areas” (with pay cuts and benefit cuts). Military and police will get privatized too with no bid contracts. Pension funds go to cronies that run hedge funds. When tax revenues reduce, pensions will get slashed. Soon, the US will run out of real estate and infrastructure to sell to Chinese and Russian billionaires. Every time you drive to work, you will have to pay toll to a foreign company (unless you think you can grab the company back by the puzzy easily — the mercenary police at that time won’t give a shit about your skin pigmentation). Save your tax cut money so that you can afford the lube.

  57. Flee? says:

    Expat, we were all living pretty high for a bunch of 20-somethings

    If you had to redo, would you have saved the money at that time instead of living high?

  58. grim says:

    Funny, they said there would be riots, they said there would be unrest.

    Who would’a thunk it would be from the dems and not the deplorables?

  59. grim says:

    Maybe we’re not all so different after all

  60. HEHEHE says:

    “I’m in favor of massive spending and entitlement cuts, so yes I’m still in favor of reducing public spending and indebtedness. And cutting the taxes that fund the bloated entitlement state.”

    We are $20T in debt and they need to raise the debt ceiling in March which I believe they’ll need 60 votes in the Senate to do before he can even talk spending any money.

    We’ll know if he’s serious about the deficit depending upon who he brings in as his economic team.

    If it’s a Goldman alum expect more cut taxes and borrow nonsense. In which case they’ll pile on another $10 trillion in 4 years to the deficit, like Obama’s $10 trillion in 8 years, because that’s what they’ll need to keep the heroin addict economy running on the high its been on the past 8 years.

  61. HEHEHE says:

    I am sure Soros money is all over the “organic” protests across America.

  62. Ben,
    I wonder if Elon Musk is crapping in his pants now that the man he badmouthed literally has the power to veto all the subsidies that go directly into his company. Maybe it’s time to look at some put options.

    Two things: (1) you seem to you feel pity/superior to Elon Musk enough to give him a tax cut even though you don’t like him — you are a better man than I thought, and (2) you can buy the puts, be very correct, and still lose your shirt because the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent (from someone that lost a lot of money shorting Fannie Mae stock).

    Of course, you may have “learned from the best” like 3b, and are the boss. Since you also don’t believe climate change, you should also buy some beach property in Miami.

  63. Fast Eddie says:

    The outcome is that most jobs will be privatized

    Amen to that!

  64. funnelcloud says:

    Wish Soros would frog out and croak already, 86 year old curmudgeon, He’s a big part of the problem here and around the world.

  65. Fabius Maximus says:

    So looking at the numbers it seems that Trump got 8ooK votes less than Romney and 200k more than McCain. Hilllay got 5.8 Million less that Obama in 2012 and 8.5million less in 2008 and 1 million more than Kerry.

    So I would say its not that people flocked to Trump. I think
    Bush 2004 added 12 Million to the GOP number and Kerry added 10 Million to the Dem Number
    O 2008 added a further 9 Million and McCain lost 3 Million.
    O 2012 Lost 4.5 and Romney held steady.
    Hil Lost 5.8 and Trump held steady.

    Here is my take. The bases voted as they did since 2004 and Hillary could not hold the last of the O surge in 2008

  66. Fast Eddie says:

    Flee,

    Did you unfriend all your Facebook Trump friends yet?

  67. Now Spanky, be reasonable says:

    Soros could play Jaba the Hutt, all that is missing is the slave girl (oh, I am sure there is one lurking somewhere in the background).

  68. D-FENS says:

    Good lord. Flee is really racist.

  69. Fast Eddie says:

    You know the beauty of the election outcome? Trump can set the tone at the SCOTUS for a generation!

  70. No one
    Anyone who helps people get more useful goods relative to the resources (costs) required to produce them, is facilitating human progress. That’s a core element of economics.

    So, here is one scenario…

    1. Company X in Detroit has 1000 jobs at an average of 100k/yr cost (low-skilled work, normal hours, overtime, pension, benefits, at a 30/hr wage).
    2. Romney buys the company at fire sale, kills the company (and pensions) and gets a nice chunk –> he is a rich job creator!
    3. Those jobs go to China at 5k/yr cost and 10k/yr profits for company in China, but automation cuts it to 100 jobs.
    4. Grim negotiates a deal to bring back the jobs costing 15k/yr to USA and the company is willing to “sacrifice” 10k/yr more because Freedom! and they want 1500 jobs, way more jobs than ever –> Grim is a genius and a patriot and will get a Patriot of the Year award, and gets a nice bonus.
    5. The jobs have to be in some Sh1tville, SC, and pay from 12/hr to 25/hr (guess where the most salaries will be? if you guessed 12/hr, you’re wrong, the correct answer is 12.25/hr). Jobs have no benefits, no double pay for overtime, nothing. No pensions and no 401k match (they probably can max out 401k, but the company won’t allow zero-dollar pay stubs for 12 monts). –> Grim is correct in claiming that a poor region is being uplifted, gets a picture with Nikki Haley (check yes for all optics).
    5. That region was an empty state park to begin with and was gutted as an “incentive” for the company that brought 1500 jobs –> Nikki gets credit for it, photo op, IOUs from Chamber of Commerce.

    Every step is a progress, and we keep marching forward! Nikki runs for higher office, may even become the first woman President (see, the progressives were the racist ones because they didn’t even suggest a woman of color). Grim progresses in career and becomes CEO of the year with a hobby “microbrewing and sharing with community”. The world is a wonderful place.

    If an idiot like me writes the steps of how 1000 jobs at 100k/yr plus all pension funds of the 1000 people got cut to 1500 jobs at 30k/yr, Ben comes at me with “you stupid liberals can’t do the math! 1500 is more than 1000 you dumb idiot”.

    If the idiot persists in showing the equations, Eddie will ask him to speak English, 3b will accuse him of not answering some issue and diverting to show how intelligent he is [see 1], ExPat writes a sexual reference to an under-10 year old girl [see 2], Nom tries to say something positive about the idiot but no takers for it, Ben writes about how high school math is all it takes to solve world’s problems!

    The idiot feels very bad… till he gets a tax cut, saves it, keeps buying regularly even when the index keeps going down, sees his portfolio go back up quite a bit, and thanks the monkey god for his luck (or monkey satan, don’t know what is the verdict here is). So after eight years, Expat moves on to obsessing with some other 10 year old girl, tells the idiot how rich he is by talking about how he got granite tile for his 900 sq ft 1BR condo, and the cycle repeats!

    THE END

    [1] I work with some smart people and am under no illusion of being smart or intelligent — but often, I try to have the last word with, “yeah, you are very much correct; I am an idiot”, but even lose that battle because they respond with, “well, I won’t put it that way”.

    [2] ExPat writes a sexual reference to an under-10 year old girl…May be after he jacks off to broad shoulders of his dear leader, and then to the image of a high school kid like Ivanka in Trump’s photos (he may have his own photos), he still needs some more, and needs an image of an under-10 year old girl to get off before he can go back to the broad shoulder (sorry to disappoint, ugly brown kids won’t probably cut it for you Expat).

  71. Fast Eddie says:

    Nationalists, alt righters, anarchists, constitutionalists and so on and so forth all made for strange bedfellows but an effective team. Working on the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend we have all found common ground. We have you (l1berals) to thank for that. By pushing, badgering, harassing, marginalizing and insulting us on a regular basis you created something new. And it crushed you at the ballot box.

    Beautiful.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/

  72. Slow Eddie, no, I rarely play Facebook… The only feed I check once a month is that of Danny.

  73. chicagofinance says:

    Stunning rebuttal…..I am left speechless….I feel thoroughly dismantled……

    Fabius Maximus says:
    November 11, 2016 at 12:09 am
    Chi,

    What a garbage piece.

  74. No One says:

    Whatever that footnoted editorial was about, I’m not going to bother reading it. But as my eyes skimmed over it, I caught a few things that made me think that a sensitive and bitter little idiot wrote it.

  75. Dead DNC (the good one) says:

    Approximately 1200 democrat seats on the local, state and federal level have been lost since 2010. Thanks, Oblama!

  76. grim says:

    The part you missed was that the existing company was no longer sustainable. While the jobs “existed”, it was only barely so. When everyone gets laid off because the business failed, would that be the best outcome to you?

  77. grim says:

    The big lie about globalization was that wages were supposed to equalize longer term, as lower-cost regions improved their standard of living. This was proposed to be the check and balance to complete off-shore and loss of jobs. As the other countries improved their living standards, social equality, wages, there would be a larger pool of global consumers to demand goods and services, and international trade, bi-directional, would occur. More advanced economies would transition to higher value services and goods. We aren’t making shower curtains, we’re making MRI machines, for example.

    But, this clearly isn’t the case.

    Now the argument is, we can’t change this because we will destroy these countries, because they’ve now adapted to a lifestyle that their own economies can not support otherwise. Removing a job because of low social and living standards is worse than simply accepting those lower standards.

    I say this is bunk, and it’s clear we need to use tariffs and trade barriers to force these countries to change. Use these funds as part of our foreign aid program, instead of using our own tax revenues to fund this.

    Very liberal of me, I know.

  78. chicagofinance says:

    In general, solar panels should be installed on commercial property that will theoretically be owned in perpetuity……….the private company is making a killing……..no gripe with you….good for you…….however, the entire enterprise is a disgusting embarrassment for government and society…..essentially a stealth regressive tax on the poor……the heretical godfather is Al Gore and the anti-Christ is Elon Musk…..

    Ben says:
    November 11, 2016 at 9:24 am
    As of now, it’s just a good business decision. As far as the grid goes, you do not get to sell the power. The company owns and maintains the panels and installs them free of charge. The solar panels are theirs, not yours. I’ve simply entered into an agreement than lets them be on top of my roof for 20 years at a cost of $0 out of my pocket. The incentive is purely to purchase electricity at a reduced price with no delivery. Once the 20 years are up, you can buy them, have them take them down, or possibly install new ones.
    This was simply my way of getting solar panels now without paying anything. Solar doesn’t make much sense when you pay for it on your own but when the taxpayers and a private company pay for it entirely, it makes perfect sense.

  79. chicagofinance says:

    BTW I was told the panel become chemically inert in far less than 20 years……

  80. chicagofinance says:

    panels

  81. Lost says:

    What a beautiful time to be alive. It doesn’t get any better than this folks. We are in the beginning of an investor’s wet dream. The economy was already in the beginning stages of lift off, but with the newly elected president trump, this thing is going to be a monster! He is basically pouring rocket fuel into the early stages of this coming boom period with his tax cuts and focus on getting jobs back here in America. Think about the boost in consumer spending!! Combine that with his infrastructure spending and boom, we have lift off!! Nj itself is going to be spending how much on infrastructure in the next 8 years guaranteed!! Billions people!! Strap on your seatbelt, and enjoy the ride!! Going to be a hell of a ride. Going to the stuff of legend, the stuff you tell your grand kids about. Take advantage of the coming boom period people, invest wisely, don’t let greed take you down. Let’s go! Ride the wave!

  82. HEHEHE says:

    You are on crack if you think our economy is in anyway near a liftoff. Consumers are indebted to the hilt. Obama spent $10 trillion in 8 years just to get this muddle along economy we have going. All Obama and the Fed have accomplished is creating another asset bubble that’s going to pop soon enough. The Fed’s out of ammo when that happens and it will take $20 trillion more debt for Trump to get the same sort of results over the next 8 years that Obama got over his 8 years.

  83. Steamturd, Hate Trumps Cankles says:

    I feel left out of that footnoted missive.

  84. Joyce says:

    Thanks, Ben

  85. I bought my first condo almost right away. I put my girlfriend in it and called her my renter, taking advantage of the pre-1986 tax laws on depreciation and improvements while I lived elsewhere. I had a Manhattan accountant at age 24, and a Merrill-Lynch CMA ($20K to open one back then) by the time I was 27. You seem to think I am someone of no means because we live in a 900 square foot home? By that measure you must praise Pumpkin as your one of your gods.

    If you had to redo, would you have saved the money at that time instead of living high?

  86. Heck, I was able to apply income averaging on my tax returns starting in 1984 because I had significant income as a college student, that’s part of where my first down payment came from. Back when significant was $8,000 per year or so.

  87. Speaking of outsourcing, I used to work for a company called ARC (Alternative Resources Corp, it was a public company at one time). I was the top dog on a team at EDS, but I didn’t work for EDS. EDS went in and sold these pie-in-the-sky contracts to companies to absorb their IT staffs and then when they actually got someone to sign they went and hired their own consultants (me and my team at ARC) to actually come in and manage the jobs, pretending to be EDS team leads and tech guys. I was the top server and LAN guy, my buddy Carmine from ARC was the top Cisco and WAN guy, we had a crew of Desktop and Network Monitoring guys too. The EDS salaried employees worked under us or next to us, most of them not knowing we weren’t actual EDS employees either. We had EDS business cards with our names on them, etc. What was better still was that we had full and better benefits from ARC plus we got paid buy the hour, bigly, and time-and-a-half for overtime too. EDS didn’t care, they had our high rates marked up into their contracts and all their real employees were being underpaid with no overtime. I think ARC used to bill me at $135/hour (I’m not sure if it was flat or not), but I would net $85/hour for my first 40 and then $122.50/hour for all my overtime. EDS loved me so much they even paid for me to get Novell certifications like I was one of their own. They repeatedly tried to hire us, but we would never bite and we pretty much knew they couldn’t replace us. I remember Carmine used to tell them, “I’m not looking for a home.” That was great money back in the mid 90’s.

  88. grim says:

    The Michael Moore interview on MSNBC from the other morning is pretty insightful.

  89. Maybe they’ll widen your road and put in some more lanes?

    Nj itself is going to be spending how much on infrastructure in the next 8 years guaranteed!! Billions people!! Strap on your seatbelt, and enjoy the ride!! Going to be a hell of a ride.

  90. A Home Buyer says:

    For anyone’s anecdotal use:

    We sold our house, taking a 25% + loss to do so but its where the market is. Thankfully we overpaid the principal every month; we can walk away owing nothing despite the sale price. The market is in terrible shape for lower end houses away from commutable NYC distances, glad to be out from under that rock.

    We have secured gainful employment in a different state and are moving. Surprisingly small reduction in income. It was expected to be a 30-40% reduction in income, in actually it will be 25% not including the the lower taxes and all around lower COL. Most likely only a 15% decrease when all considered.

    Our families will be leaving shortly after we do. They cannot afford to retire in this state.

    I wish you all the best. Except Pumpkin, he can be deported.

  91. 3b says:

    Well lost as a new handle certainly fits! I would put hopelessly in front of the lost however just for emphasis.

  92. HEHEHE says:

    Weeble wobble Christie no longer in charge of transition team.

  93. Comrade Nom Deplorable, just waiting on the Zombie Apocalypse. says:

    Quarterly expat list released the day after the election. Just as in years prior, the IRS sat on it (it was dated 10/24) until after the election in dedication of law and for good reason it turns out.

    3rd quarter list had the second highest number of expats ever. Apparently wealthy folks with overseas presence were no happier with the choices of Hillary and The Donald than they were with Obama.

    It will be interesting to see if this number tanks next year. If so, one of the Obama legacies will be that more Americans renounced their citizenship in response to his presidency than under all other presidents combined within the lifetimes of everyone who can read this.

  94. Comrade Nom Deplorable, just waiting on the Zombie Apocalypse. says:

    Dedication s/b derogation

  95. Juice Box says:

    Trump is weighing spending weekends back in NYC.

    Gridlock every weekend?

  96. HEHEHE says:

    Gridlock every weekend?

    And protests!

  97. HEHEHE says:

    Soros’s friends know where he’ll be; his name is on the building ;)

  98. 1987 Condo says:

    Home buyer, good luck and congrats.
    Our 1987 condo set us back financially for years, but like you, we persevered, got out from under it and moved on.

  99. Ben says:

    Two things: (1) you seem to you feel pity/superior to Elon Musk enough to give him a tax cut even though you don’t like him — you are a better man than I thought, and

    A subsidy is not a tax cut. It’s free money for a favored industry. If Musk is so brilliant, let him build it on his own with his own money. He’s rich enough and he can surely raise the money from people who believe in him, couldn’t he? The taxpayer has no business funding this guy’s startup.

    And, yes, I do not like him and the status he holds with the general public right now. He’s a moron who just proposed that we can colonize a planet with no atmosphere, poisonous soil, no water source, and average temperatures of -55 degrees Celsius. Well…let me rephrase, that, he’s very smart, but proposed something very stupid because he knew the media would eat it up.

    (2) you can buy the puts, be very correct, and still lose your shirt

    In order to lose your shirt, you need to bet your shirt. As far as investing goes, I’ve hit it out of the ball park in the past 10 years. I was in gold at $600, Silver at $10 prior to their run up of near $2k and $50 respectively. Moved out into dividends for safety 3 to 4 years ago and have watched many stocks of mine double. Made a decent bet on coal this year. I could put 50% of my net wealth right into a put option play, lose it all, and still be up 100% these past 10 years.

    because the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent (from someone that lost a lot of money shorting Fannie Mae stock).

    That’s the beauty of put options, they can’t make me insolvent. They just expire worthless if it doesn’t work out.

    Of course, you may have “learned from the best” like 3b, and are the boss. Since you also don’t believe climate change, you should also buy some beach property in Miami.

  100. Ben says:

    Of course, you may have “learned from the best” like 3b, and are the boss. Since you also don’t believe climate change, you should also buy some beach property in Miami.

    also…it’s kinda hard to take you serious when you claim I don’t believe in climate change when yesterday, one of my posts started out saying “Climate change is real”. As of now, I’m done responding to you until you actually decide to read people’s posts carefully before you attack them. You aren’t worth five minutes of my time.

  101. 3b says:

    Please don’t etc. What can I tell you. In the world of investing and finance I did learn from the best. Much more value than the m b a I earned at night.

  102. 3b says:

    Good luck home buyer. Happy for you. I know someone trying to sell now in a.blue ribbony town trying to sell. Asking 50k less than they paid 10 years ago. No takers. Good commute to NYC too.

  103. flee? says:

    Expat,

    I call BS on this financial wizardy claims!

    Your own story of home purchase in 2002 reads like some “oh, poor me” story. For example, “Everybody trusts a blue-eyed couple with an infant, even if you don’t have jobs.”, and “I even had the down payment invested in stocks (actually a closed-end bond fund paying ~8%)”. Reckless thing to do (Motley Fool’s recommendation only risk-free investments if you need the funds in less than five years; and timing the markets at that time was not the right thing to do) (https://njrereport.com/index.php/2015/11/30/new-tunnel-we-cant-afford-it/)

    Coming to recent times, your strategy seems to involve some speculation (I call it day trading — of course, you can’t buy a dozen houses and sell them on the same day; so the short-term speculation is akin to day-trading)
    https://njrereport.com/index.php/2016/10/22/so-far-away/ “Well I signed an 8 month lease on a furnished house today for January 1st. So now I can clear the family out of our 900 square foot condo, prep it, and hopefully sell it to a greater fool for $400K or thereabouts. My best hopes are that I can sell in early Spring, the RE market crashes and then I can buy back in the fall. ”

    If you had a long investment time period, and had done even half decently, you should be in a really well off — enough to not worry about kids’ college fees. However, your plan was something like this: “I’m planning on putting in two more full years of pedal-to-the-metal bread-winning and then we’ll fall back to my wife’s income for two years leading up to college applications while I work on some long term projects that will likely only see losses until both kids are nearly done with college.” (https://njrereport.com/index.php/2015/11/25/state-ready-to-force-reassessment-of-properties/)

    So, either you are a very cheap Rockefeller that raised his two daughters in a 900 sqft, 1-Bath condo (with that much money, you can at least provide a 2 bath condo, so that the bathroom queue will be manageable, right)? Or, you are a pretend multi-millionaire (like Trump may be a pretend billionaire). Or you blew up a lot of money on your own life style and not saved enough for the kids. Or you are just a random bot posting inconsistent passages! No matter what, your financial record/strategy looks erratic.

    Obligatory note: please don’t say nasty things about kids or family (either your own or others’).

  104. flee? says:

    3b,
    “Please don’t etc. What can I tell you. In the world of investing and finance I did learn from the best. Much more value than the m b a I earned at night.”

    … but did you actually maintain the discipline to practice what you learned? I learnt about “how not be an a.hole” from some very nice people, but I am still an a.hole!

  105. flee? says:

    grim, pls unmod my longish note on someone’s BS claim of financial wizardy!

  106. flee? says:

    Ben,
    one of my posts started out saying “Climate change is real”

    This is what you put in “Climate change is real and always occurring. Unless you have the ability to control the amount of energy the sun is giving off, this will always be the case.”

    You claimed that it is so slow that “… readjusting infrastructure to any changes like that would be incredibly easy.” Do you by any chance teach at a school for children that aspire to be sleazy lawyers?

  107. flee? says:

    Grim,

    The part you missed was that the existing company was no longer sustainable. While the jobs “existed”, it was only barely so. When everyone gets laid off because the business failed, would that be the best outcome to you?

    Talking about the rust belt, if the jobs from those places are gone and replaced by unrelated McJobs in NC and TX, and Trump promises to bring them back to rust belt after cutting taxes, and quite a few here actually seem to believe it is possible, there is something wrong with the picture. My math is suspect, but something doesn’t compute!

    Oh, the ones that Romney raided were not unsustainable (and had nice pension funds too). Trump too screwed over a lot of casino workers too by perfectly timing his bankruptcies!

    I don’t get it, it looks like many GOP supporters seem to be pro-rich people (“tax cuts solve everything”), but complain about Obama’s years (“didn’t do enough for rural whites”), and yet think that the same approach by Trump is the perfect thing (“killing middle class jobs in Ohio and creating a lot of McJobs in some no-regulations state is the way to make US great”)! Is it possible that some people that seem so eager to dole out one-phrase solutions to fix the problems actually don’t give a damn about what they say?

  108. flee? says:

    Home Buyer, all the best, and enjoy your new State and place.

  109. 3b says:

    Flee yeah I did. Very humble too. Only trot it for a few select holes that you mention. Don’t understand your hostility. I ask a few questions and you can’t or won’t answer them. I have promised in the past to ignore you . After this post I will be sure to keep that promise. Stay complex!

  110. flee? says:

    Why don’t you please repeat the specific question that you are talking about? I already requested you repeat it… I am hostile towards self-contradicting posters, and you have done quite a bit. It indicates that that you don’t give a sh1t about what you say. If you are as successful as you say you are with your investments, then dumping 500K or 1M cash on a house should be chump change — if it goes south, nothing major lost.

  111. flee? says:

    3b, smart finance guy made this prediction in 2011 and sticking to it till now:

    “With all due respect to grim, I certainly cannot see housing as having stabilized; it is merely a pause in my opinion. I am seeing bigger price drops in the last few months than I saw all last year.”

    Check the ten year trend chart at http://www.zillow.com/nj/home-values/

    One thing I agree with 3b is that house is a consumable. So why not have one with stability and freedom? Why rent a car on a monthly basis when you can buy it, especially if you are a finance wizard?

  112. D-FENS says:

    Even this was staged. No wonder she lost. What a dunce.

    https://twitter.com/andieiamwhoiam/status/797135232164040705

  113. I knew that as soon as I read the story. That cunt said she was just out walking when she saw the crime family heads walk into a clearing. Bullsh1t. The Secret Service would have seen her and approached her long before she could see the protected corrupt.

    Even this was staged. No wonder she lost. What a dunce.

    https://twitter.com/andieiamwhoiam/status/797135232164040705

  114. I think flea has a flea up his ass.

  115. Expat,

    I call BS on this financial wizardy claims!

    Your own story of home purchase in 2002 reads like some “oh, poor me” story. For example, “Everybody trusts a blue-eyed couple with an infant, even if you don’t have jobs.”, and “I even had the down payment invested in stocks (actually a closed-end bond fund paying ~8%)”. Reckless thing to do (Motley Fool’s recommendation only risk-free investments if you need the funds in less than five years; and timing the markets at that time was not the right thing to do) [2011/15/30]

  116. Expat,

    Your recent strategy seems to involve some speculation with selling and buying back the primary residence (I refer to is as day trading — of course, you can’t buy a dozen houses and sell them on the same day; but the short-term speculation of round-trip trading of houses is like day-trading)

    “Well I signed an 8 month lease on a furnished house today for January 1st. So now I can clear the family out of our 900 square foot condo, prep it, and hopefully sell it to a greater fool for $400K or thereabouts. My best hopes are that I can sell in early Spring, the RE market crashes and then I can buy back in the fall.” [2016/10/22]

  117. Expat, don’t cheat on taxes!

    If you actually had any financial sense, and had done even half decently, you should be really well off — enough to not worry about kids’ college fees. But, your plan was something like this: “I’m planning on putting in two more full years of pedal-to-the-metal bread-winning [on njrereport.com] and then we’ll fall back to my wife’s income [of 50k/yr; does she know how much you time you spend here?] for two years leading up to college applications while I work on some long term projects that will likely only see losses [make losses or fake losses?] until both kids are nearly done with college.” [excretion date: 2015/11/25]

  118. Flee? says:

    Grim,

    The part you missed was that the existing company was no longer sustainable. While the jobs “existed”, it was only barely so. When everyone gets laid off because the business failed, would that be the best outcome to you?

    Rust belt, if the jobs are gone from those places are gone and replaced by unrelated McJobs in NC and TX, it is not a cause for celebration, right? The companies that Romney raided were not unsustainable (and had nice pension funds too).

    Are we now fully supporting wage depression now (except when it hits the pocket books of IT people with experience in Windows NT administration)?

  119. flea – I’m not sure what agitates you so much about the selling of my home after 14 years or my financial plans for not having a high income in a few years. The owner of the house we are renting is a 70 year old Boston College professor who is nearing retirement and he completely gets my financial plans, I’m not sure why you don’t, but it doesn’t bother me much if you don’t have that kind of mental processing power. Another think you might not understand is how Harvard admits and how they dole out grants (no loans it’s all grants). If you have an income of less than $75,000 per year your kid goes for free. You can earn up to $125K or so and your “expected financial contribution” is about 10%. BTW, it’s not tax fraud to stop earning all the money you are capable of making per annum, nor is it tax fraud to undertake a long term project that may have a large payoff in the future with limited current income.

    Also, do you not believe we bought a home in 2002 for a paltry $260K? I was pre-approved for a $645K mortgage and we had a $90,000 down payment (I’m sorry if you and some magazines disapprove of where I held the money, these are not the kind of closed-end funds you would find on your own, if you know what I mean). I lost my $130K job literally the day before I was going to sign a contract on a $210K condo. Instead we pivoted quickly, while my wife was on maternity leave, and bought as $260K condo near her job in Boston (that she had intended to leave, but didn’t). We both have great credit and we had a 40% down payment so it was no problem qualifying for a $175K mortgage on her income alone. I’m sorry if you find this incredulous, maybe I had white privilege I was not aware of at the time? Prior to losing my job we could have bought an $800K house, but there was no way I was going to assume that level of risk. I assumed I was buying at the top and I was not going to go in large. Who knew the top wouldn’t come for 5 more years?

    My guess is you have a great amount of doubts, debts, and strife in your life so it kind of eats away at you like acid? Here’s two rules to help you move forward:

    Rule #1: Don’t stress the small stuff.
    Rule #2: It’s all small stuff.

  120. flea – you also seem confused about “best hopes” vs. realistic hopes. I am fine to rent for the next 6 or more years, I’m just saying if the bottom drops out of the market I’ll have the liquidity to buy back in. Realistically I assume I’ll sign another lease in September.

    My best hopes are that I can sell in early Spring, the RE market crashes and then I can buy back in the fall.”

  121. Flee? says:

    My guess is you have a great amount of doubts, debts, and strife in your life so it kind of eats away at you like acid? Here’s two rules to help you move forward:
    Nope. Simple stuff… I made/make mistakes, pay for them, try to learn, and correct one thing at a time.

    If you look inwards, you can see someone so scarred by one event in 2002, and never recovered for another fourteen years, enough that the kids didn’t get a spare bathroom. Your choice, but you went from a potential 800k house to 260k house, and never got to let go of the fear? I think one rule of sensible finance management is to not act on irrational fears.

    Another think you might not understand is how Harvard admits and how they dole out grants
    Hmm… May be spend time helping the kids get in there instead of wasting time here? Last time I suggested it, you responded with vile stuff about my kid.

    Rule #1: Don’t stress the small stuff.
    Rule #2: It’s all small stuff.

    First, apologize for the vile words you used against my under-10 daughter. Then, consider letting go of the non-stop “c-word” references to Hillary — out of the blue, no argument. With two women and two young girls around you, why not learn a little bit of respect towards women and girls?

    One thing about Harvard, does the all-knowing Ben approve of it (blasphemy, Rutgers is way way better)?

  122. flea – I’m sorry you have a vile kid.

  123. What riles me up is the inability of some people to own up to it when they screwed up something fundamental — beating up on people that aren’t able to fight back (there is a Hindu saying, naah, an X-tian saying, naah a facebook meme — “whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers that you do unto me”).

    I was a cheer leader for Hillary and Obama for ever… and the small thing of Hillary unable to say sorry for not addressing the plight of the rust belt people enough (the damage is vast and the suffering is silent and their suffering is likely to still go on unaddressed). She wasn’t able to say sorry for ignoring the rust belt people, and that makes her loss right.

    My kid was able to hear the story of a white X-tian Ohio woman that thinks Obama is a muslim not born in the US that will fight for the terror1sts and started of with “that is racist and cruel”, heard the next part of how that lady has no heat and has to get food from the church (“oh, she is in pain and so is very angry”), how she avoided losing the house because of Obama’s policy (“but she should be at least be thankful to Obama instead of saying bad things to him”), and an explanation from me about half-a-meal is not enough (“oh, so Obama didn’t help her as much as he should have — like a bad parent”), to apologizing (“just because somebody says something racist does not mean they are actually racist, they may be in pain and angry, and I am sorry to judge that lady”), and even conceding the point to Trump (“so, if Trump is listening to them, he is doing a good thing and Hillary Clinton didn’t do it”).

    Yes, not only is she a vile kid, I am also trying to raise her to be one. If you feel like you don’t need to apologize for calling her a whore, it is your choice, and no one else sees a reason for you to apologize or explain why you’d call her that, there’s nothing I can do.

    I don’t have the ability to reason through your wording and to see the core issue you are raising when you call an under-10 kid names. But I want my kids to be way better than me in reasoning and in empathy (very low bar). May be when she is old enough I can show her these posts and she will probably explain to me what I am missing in a way my little brain can understand (“dad, see, when ExPat was saying that you whore me out regularly, he is really meaning that … ; and “while you thought ‘uncle Stu’ to stand up to it, you are mistaken because…”, and “when all the other strangers on the group shouldn’t have said a thing because…”, and “your anger at ExPat and the whole group is not justified — just because they don’t call out when someone posts about a small girl a whore doesn’t mean they believe it is acceptable …”). If and when that happens, I will definitely apologize to you.

    Of course, for her to be able to help me learn, I need to ensure she has the safety, guidance, and opportunity, and a dad that can spend time teaching her instead of trying to teach some strangers.

    So, adios amigos. I promise not to waste any more time posting here. This is not a promise to the group, but to my kid, and I will have to answer to her in the future if I failed to keep the promise, (or worse, I won’t even have to answer to her because I abandoned her as a parent and she didn’t progress enough to understand this either)… I want her to be able to help me see what I missed. Please don’t give away the answer, but please wish me luck in being a parent that doesn’t abandon his own kids in favor of internet gossip.

    — a bitter, prejudiced immigrant; but worse, a person that is not doing as much as he can and should be doing for his family…

  124. Comrade Nom Deplorable, just waiting on the Zombie Apocalypse. says:

    “Juice Box says:
    November 11, 2016 at 3:29 pm
    Trump is weighing spending weekends back in NYC.

    Gridlock every weekend?”

    Trump may do it just to say FU to Diblasio

  125. chicagofinance says:

    Don’t abandon your kids, flee! says:
    November 12, 2016 at 2:54 am

    1. x-pat called your daughter a whore?
    2. silence should not be construed as tacit approval

  126. chicagofinance says:

    Juice…here is another one….really spot on…
    https://www.facebook.com/JonathanPieReporter/videos/1044777035645189/

  127. Grim says:

    The Brit video was good

  128. Acknowledging up front that I know I sound like the hopelessly lost pumpkin:

    This is what I’ve been telling you all along!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs

  129. Great minds think alike, but chifi types faster.

  130. Youtube commenters agree, Angela Rye very much like a ….

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvAZVNgdlqk

  131. No One says:

    Ben,
    Tesla is a maker of unicorn chariots. They lose money, burn cash, despite getting massive government subsidies and favors. And Musk is a big-time huckster, always bluffing and puffing. But people want to believe.

  132. Ben says:

    I wouldn’t call them unicorn chariots. I’d call them taxpayer subsidized toys for the rich. It’s a fad funded by the taxpayers running on an unsustainable business model. With the incoming administration, I would look for some sort of rollback on various advantages they’ve taken through the government to watch their stock fall through the floor, possibly to zero.

    Beyond that, I do believe that other car companies like BMW have the ability to run the a knock off operation at a huge loss and a lower price just to bury the jerk.

  133. Fabius Maximus says:

    Interesting piece on Texas. Unintended consequences.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2016/11/10/trumps-first-100-days-hit-texas-hard

    This transition is going to be interesting three or four factions all fighting for control. I think Pence will have the sharpest elbows.

  134. ^^^I almost do this a lot, this time I did. I watched Njescapee’s vid and then posted it as my own link.

  135. Joyce says:

    grim,
    If you care, watch Bill Maher praise Eric Holder to the Nth degree.

Comments are closed.