From CNBC:
Fast-rising home prices finally hit a wall
This spring may be one of the hottest sellers’ markets in history, but even off-the-chart-demand can’t put every potential buyer in a home of their own.
If the house is too expensive for the region’s demand, it won’t sell. That is becoming the case in more and more neighborhoods this spring — and is likely behind the first sign that big price gains are starting to shrink.
Home values rose a healthy 6.9 percent in April compared with April 2016, according to a new report from CoreLogic, but that is a drop from the 7.1 percent annual gain in March and the 7 percent gain in February. CoreLogic is also lowering its predictions for annual gains, to 5.1 percent in April 2018.
“I think we are beginning to see it in selected markets,” said Frank Nothaft, CoreLogic’s chief economist. “You just can’t have house prices grow at 7 percent year after year, when income growth is 2-3 percent a year.”
The evidence is clearest in the hottest markets, like San Francisco, where April home sales were at their slowest pace in six years. The median price hit another new record, but the annual gains are shrinking. Adjusting for inflation, however, San Francisco home prices are still 7 percent below their peak in June 2006.
The higher end of the market is seeing price gains cool the most, because supply there is higher. Both Manhattan and Miami Beach have huge supplies of newly built condominiums, and slower sales are hitting prices. Even in tonier suburbs, the million-dollar-plus homes are sitting longer with more and more price reductions.
Nationally, home prices are reacting to the severe lack of homes for sale, especially on the low end of the market. Demand is heavy, but there is a limit that is slowly being reached in certain markets and even certain neighborhoods. In Washington state, where the supply of homes for sale is at the lowest on record, home prices are up 12 percent annually. In Connecticut, where employment is weakening and major companies have relocated to other states, home supplies are high and prices basically flat.
Those are the extremes. Back in the middle, it’s the same story of short supply and strong demand. If mortgage rates finally do move higher, as some have been predicting, affordability will weaken further. Demand will simply come up against math.
I take it back, I thought a republican would not win in Jersey. Woman vs. Rich White Wall Street Banker? No longer so clear. Talk about role reversal here. Democrats are republicans, republicans are … ? … only slightly more progressive republicans? Would imagine hard-core NJ democrats are fuming over the results. Not any better for the republicans, who now have Christie Jr (jr associated with size, not relationship) in the race, vs Corzine the 2nd. Christie no longer seems so awful.
Trumps promise to cover the Mexico border wall with solar panels is the single greatest thing any American politician has said. I’m sorry, I nearly pissed my pants laughing when I saw the story last night. He needs to cut to the chase on Twitter and just start swearing. “Because F*ck you, that’s why, I’m going to harness the power of the sun to do my bidding.”
Pumps hopes to unload his highway shack as frat house when they turn Fuddruckers into a community college. He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. The bank of the Pompton River, that is.
It’s vacant, they went out of business. Dave and Busters should be open this fall though.
I don’t live in Wayne for the “Wayne nightlife.” I live in Wayne for the NYC metro area night life.
No One says:
June 7, 2017 at 12:01 am
What exactly is Pumpkin’s nightlife in Wayne that he can’t find elsewhere? Getting cuckolded by some guy from nearby Patterson?
But how much of that “nightlife” do you really experience?
I guess it’s because I’m a parent now and really enjoy my house that nightlife isn’t so important. I’d rather spend time with my child, improving my home, than going out. Once a month I might go do some artsy crap in NYC, but for the most part it’ll be beers, BBQ, and jokes amongst friends at MY house (or friends house) for nightlife.
There is no best, worst, better, less than place left in the US, take this from someone who is an industry operator who is specifically focused on operating in lower-cost areas of the US, with exposure to clients in every major metro area. The fact is, the cost savings of nearshore and offshore operation is astronomical in comparison to high-vs-low cost US areas. This doesn’t even take into account automation, which is now eliminating jobs wholesale and will be the primary story for the remainder of this decade, and probably the next. Even in the era of New Trumponomics, companies are still moving jobs out of the US at record pace.
The bifurcation continues, and is this trend means that it will continue to spread as the middle class is hollowed out. Don’t point to these mid-tier or low-tier (generally) places that are “booming” as evidence that the grass is greener there, it isn’t the case at all. While these seem to you, an outsider, as being comparable bargains, there are tons of locals priced out of local markets. I don’t necessarily mean cities vs suburbs, many suburban areas are seeing this trend as well. These small boomlets that get all the airtime pale in comparison to the hollowing out.
I maintain my that the single most important macroeconomic trend of our generation is the necessary and likely decline in the American standard of living. This will be sugar coated, sprinkled, and polished in every way possible, but it is happening, and it will continue to happen. Cost of living goes up now. Sorry, but living in trailers is now cool? Microapartments in mid-tier cities are hot? Like I said, sugarcoated, but real.
The price of Denver or Nashville house doubling and tripling is not positive, it’s a negative. This is an increase in the cost of living, and as housing costs increase, this results in a reduction in standard of living, especially as other costs increase as well (healthcare, taxes, etc).
Jumping from one area to another is a short-lived solution, and if you can accurately pick the longer-term trend and profit from it, god bless you with that. If you have the job and means to stay permanently mobile, it’s not a bad option either. But don’t, for one fucking second, think the very rare opportunity you have as an upper middle class or upper class ability in a high cost area, to capitalize on this arbitrage as being reflective of your intelligence. While you think this is obvious, what you don’t realize is that there are very few people who can do this. In the grand scheme, the steamroller is still coming for you, you can try to delay it in any way you can. But trading your what-once-was-middle-class-NJ-existence for middle-class-somewhere-else, that’s only temporary, can’t you see that? By the way, if you are still here, you are too late anyway, sorry.
It doesn’t take much to go from shit to gold plated, and back again in the blink of an eye.
The only sure bet is that middle class America is going to be the loser in all of this. If you are wealthy, and have the ability to stay above the cut-off line, fantastic for you, nothing posted above applies to you.
Excellent write-up, Grim! Excellent.
Flab,
That Politico article you wasted my time on was just another example of what is wrong with the Left and really, why they are losing seats left and right. In the end, the author can only attribute HER loss to a change in the direction of the country. No mention of her allowing infidelity. A mere slap on the wrist for Benghazi and email server. No mention of the foundation, or the Uranium or the Swiss bank accounts. Like HRC herself, this author blames everyone and everything accept the typical DNC sheeple for the loss. Until the DNC accepts that they truly blew this one, they will not regain their seats. Trump. It still makes me laugh.
..but I disagree with it all,Grim. It is just a cycle. Smart economists posted an article. Did you not read it? The roaring 2020s will make Nucky Thompson era look like a Mormon house party. Up, up, up in NJ.
My wife and I enjoy our restaurants. Pretty much hit up an excellent restaurant or two on a weekly basis. Don’t get me wrong, enjoy a night at home too with the family.
The past month, have visited the following: Koi-Bryant Park, Maritime Parc- Jersey City, Laurel & Sage- Montclair, The Stanton Social- Lower East Side, and The Dining Room at Jockey Hollow- Morristown.
That’s why the area works for me. Endless amount of choices for the restaurant scene.
Lurks McGee says:
June 7, 2017 at 7:55 am
But how much of that “nightlife” do you really experience?
I guess it’s because I’m a parent now and really enjoy my house that nightlife isn’t so important. I’d rather spend time with my child, improving my home, than going out. Once a month I might go do some artsy crap in NYC, but for the most part it’ll be beers, BBQ, and jokes amongst friends at MY house (or friends house) for nightlife.
Pumps grims write up is great. In fact it touches on many things I have been saying for years. And yes he called me out in that article with relocations etc my point in that to you was many companies have left the NYC metro area for other areas and than they will leave from there as well. You congratulate grim on his excellent write up and yet you fail to understand what it was he wrote for while he called me out he utterly blew you and your stupid ramblings utterly away. And yet it went right over your head. Typical.
And by now all of Pumpkin’s nightlife has been flushed down the toilet, gone forever, except some food selfies.
The most interesting meals I’ve had were generally in other countries, and at ethnic restaurants in the US, most of which were not in this area.
Grim,
You are 100% correct in your analysis. I would share what is going on with my company, but I can not for fear of personal retribution. Rest assured, it supports your story to the T. Once the language barrier is reduced further (Babelfish, e.g.), it’s lights out for the former high quality of American Life.
I too think that this reduction in the American quality of life will be the big story of this century. When growing up, I always thought about how each generation, ranging from my great grandmother’s (born at the turn of the 20th century) until my parent’s (born in the 30s and 40s), all seemed to do much better than the prior. When I got out of college, I knew it would be nearly impossible to outdo my folks. I’ve been extremely lucky in this case, but most, if not all of my peers have not. Very very few do more than live paycheck to paycheck. The concept of saving for their kid’s college education or enough for a pleasant retirement is completely foreign to them. I posit, that’s it’s my abhorrence to debt, combined with my inane ability to figure out a way to purchase things at a much lower cost than most, is the main reason I’ve been able to buck the trend. Also, a lot of sweat equity has helped as well. But even though I pat myself on the back, I’m not sure I’ve outdone my folks. They did raise seven of us.
When I think of how hard I have it. I look at the current set of college graduates and pity them. They are a creative bunch and much more open-minded than we were. But they are in for a lot of financial pain. A few of my older friends are now witnessing this with their oldest offspring. One, who was always super smart beyond his years, has been working as a barista for the past two years. Others I know have found lousy entry level and low paying jobs at formerly decent companies I would have only dreamed about getting my foot in the door. I am glad as hell my older son will not have to pay for his college (unless he blows my money partying like I did of my dad’s money). I have a feeling that the traditional model of “working for the man,” is going, going, gone. Being entrepreneurial and having the ability to start one’s own business will probably be the path to survival for future generations here. I simply don’t see the corporate setting surviving automation. We’ll see.
Grim’s post should be printed out and placed on a plaque. While dimwits like Blumpkin point to mainstream articles or ad sponsored economists, I simply look around at me, my family and people who actually see the world on the ground like Grim. The rest of the news and corporate speak is complete spin. Sure, it may push sheeple into short term decisions but long term trend matters more. Thanks, Grim.
“the steamroller is still coming for you”
Same thing was said for manufacturing decades ago, and we are still here somehow.
The reality is everyone is coming for you. The jihadists (which I already survived a story for another day), the undertaker is always is lurking, the tax man always wants to pick my pocket, the big brothers of federal, state and local government and their fines, tolls and restrictions and last but definitely not least the zombies (who is of course family) who want to eat and bleed you out of house and home.
So who are we comparing today’s USA middle class to anyway? USA in 1950s-1960s? The Japanese middle class of the 1980s? The Chinese middle class of this decade? If you look at post-tax and post-benefit household income Americans are considerably better off than Europeans.
If anything we are now at peak prosperity, the question is will our technology save us and keep us here longer and is there an even better age even on the horizon? Even if there is a better age where robots do all the work, we perfect unlimited energy and humans live a life of luxury it will all be fleeting a few hundred years at best perhaps before we intentionally screw it all up and have to start over again as we have before.
Grim,
My wife and I probably don’t have to worry about the middle-class decline thanks to my career taking off the past 10 years. But we help out relatives trapped in that zone.
I worry about my daughter, now in high school. I don’t know what kind of career would be durable and allow her to live in the way to which she’s become accustomed.
Seems like about 50% of her generation are mostly skilled at social media marketing, so anticipate a glut there.
Government seems to be a trend growth employer.
Accounting has traditionally been a field where one can stay employed and make some but not a lot of money.
I don’t think she’s interested in anything STEAMy.
Grim: I thought you were over the hill on providing good content (joke)……nice throwback…….your best post in about 10 years…..said with respect…..
grim says:
June 7, 2017 at 8:21 am
true story from work
Penn State withdrawal sophomore year
transfer to Rowan; becomes CS major
graduates 2012
takes entry level job in DC at tech company $40K
works a year, raise to 51K
works another year and employer gets wind that he interviewed outside; jumps salary to $71
1 1/2 ago takes job elsewhere in DC for $91K
last week is going to relocate to SF for $170K
bear in mind, there is nothing special about this guy…..he’s smart, but not overly so, and he is also shy…..
Did I read something different. Wtf are you talking about? He was basically supporting my position. He says moving to low cost locations is a gamble not worth taking. That’s what I read. A lot of northeast nj is not middle class, it’s either rich, upper middle class, or poor. Grim is saying to stay put here, and to avoid the carrot of the low cost area, which is exactly what I have been promoting on this blog.
3b says:
June 7, 2017 at 9:00 am
Pumps grims write up is great. In fact it touches on many things I have been saying for years. And yes he called me out in that article with relocations etc my point in that to you was many companies have left the NYC metro area for other areas and than they will leave from there as well. You congratulate grim on his excellent write up and yet you fail to understand what it was he wrote for while he called me out he utterly blew you and your stupid ramblings utterly away. And yet it went right over your head. Typical.
the job description is essentially business analyst…..the middle ground between the normal people, and the coders on the spectrum…….
Anecdotal evidence to Grim’s piece? NJ Transit. Not only is it literally a trainwreck, but they don’t even manufacture excuses anymore for the problems. They just leave you in the dark.
More? Last night, Gator hits a flat inducing pothole on 46 around 7pm. Midas parking lot she drives into just closed. People are inside, but they won’t unlock the door. She calls 24 hour roadside assistance, 90 minutes later, still no one comes. Finally, good friends from Lincoln Park slap on the donut for her. I would have helped, but was stuck in Union driving the ice hockey carpool.
Every which way you turn, the signs of the decline in quality of life are there.
I noticed that TN is the hot place for foreign tire makers to build new factories. Korean tiremaker Hankook started production at a $800m tire plant this year, employing about 1,000, and Finnish tiremaker Nokian just announced they will start construction of a $350m tire plant in TN next year.
A tire factory job in the country will at least allow you to afford bbq, fried chicken & catfish, ham & biscuits, and collard greens.
Pumps I won’t claim to speak for grim but that was only one part of his explanation. There was far more in it than you were able to comprehend. Like I said over your head. Typical.
Pumpkin, something I can agree with, in NYC you have some of the best and worst(over hyped as well) restaurants in the world and the largest variety of ethnic foods. NNJ gets some good spill over, in most of America you can get good meat and potatoes but not much else.
Grim has good insight into the belt tightening, lower cost locales and offshoring any and everything they can. NJ jobs typically were not the elite, we were the spill over lower cost locale. NYC is our only hope it is the draw and brings people here, I hear about companies moving from Jersey to JC or Manhattan because of the inability to attract talent. We are losing the operations and back office jobs from banks to places like Dallas and SLC, what we get in return……warehouse jobs. Pumpkin is right about one thing high end talent typically doesn’t want to be in a second tier city and as of right now the desirable places aren’t much cheaper. I used to have a team in Denver, maybe salaries were 10-15% yes than in NNJ, not a big difference, but it is in line with the cost of living difference and their housing market is out of control, but if you are looking for talent it is a pretty good market. Second tier markets are cheaper and good for work that doesn’t require the best and the brightest.
Chi, 170k is not out of line for a good developer depending on area of expertise. Capitalism at work, supply and demand, if he has a skill that’s needed the pay can be high. That’s about what most banks have to pay for an american with 10 yrs experience in NYC at the moment.
NJ’s biggest issues with quality of life, etc are because our government is about as effective and efficient as Mogadishu’s. Not only do we need to reduce expenses and the pension obligations, but we need to improve efficiency. Remember that when we vote for governor, Murphy is owned by the unions and the unions have been a major reason this state is run so poorly among other things.
I noticed that the former NJ Transit Executive, and current MTA executive is one Veronique Hakim. With degrees in Political Science and Law, and a history of working in government.
Current Executive Director is Bill Crosbie is an electrical engineer who worked at Amtrak (another failing organization). Perhaps an upgrade over a pure political operator like Hakim, but neither one of these looked likely to be customer-service focused or have spent much time in private sector positions.
J c e r. True but only to a point. High talent will ultimately go where the higher talent or the boss if you will tells them where to go. It’s not all call centers moving to these cheaper locales. Also lots of high talent people will be leaving London after Brexit to be moved to Dublin or Frankfurt. Those two cities do not have the cachet of London. And finally pumps job is definitely a type of position that could be easily moved. He is a not in a revenue producing role. That went right over his head.
The government is a special kind of stupid. We should bring the Swiss in to build the NYC tunnels and fix the Amtrack/LIRR/NJTransit Penn Station situation. They have private sector people with the experience in Trains and Tunnel building who could get it done better/faster/cheaper. But we continue to use the same schmucks who never do anything right. Mind you they built the worlds longest and deepest tunnel for far less than the new tunnels to Penn will cost.
Chi,
Not a developer? I worked as a BA for years but moved up to PM 10 years ago (unfortunately still doing the BA side as companies consolidate roles). I can assure you that a BA in banking is generally paid 100k to max 150k in NYC area. He must be in specialized part of technology. Believe me, my resume is out there and I take calls often. I rarely get quotes in 150k range even as PM. We are a dime a dozen.
High talent makes the calls my friend. You know that thing called income inequality, where the top make more than is justified, but the laws of capitalism support it. It’s brutal that someone doing a hard job that MANY can do gets totally ripped off, and someone doing a rather easy job that not many people have the education to do gets paid at insane compensation levels. That’s the new world grim is talking about, be on the right side of the coin.
“J c e r. True but only to a point. High talent will ultimately go where the higher talent or the boss if you will tells them where to go.”
3b, I know from my perspective if given the option I don’t have a ton of interest in moving to low cost location(I could do Philly, DC, Boston, SF, LA, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, but Dallas or NC or SLC I wouldn’t be willing to do) same goes for Europe(Major centers London, Zurich, major centers I won’t relocate to Romania fyi I don’t think London will take to big a hit from Brexit it’s like Zurich it has historically been a center of finance and will remain so). I know people who have taken the offer to move to SLC or Dallas from Goldman, they have drank the kool-aid and are happy but those who didn’t and either waited to be laid off or left on their own accord are doing better compensation wise. I’m not saying there isn’t talent in those markets(SLC actually benefits from the mormons, it’s an anchor for a large population) or people are unwilling to go I’m say the draw for talent is in the major centers and the pool is deeper in the major markets. I almost think a big strategy for the sc*mbags at GS is to move talent to these other markets so they cannot be hired away as retention in NYC has been problematic and the NYC salary is quite a bit higher than the local salaries, I know many good people who left GS for greener pastures and many unqualified people I have worked with at other banks who have careers there.
jcer,
Correct, because in NJ, government enterprises and projects are opportunities to pay off friends and connected parties. Supply/demand, customer service, efficiency are all alien thoughts only minimally relevant to their incentive structures.
If CC wasn’t such a very small thinker, he would have blown up the structure of NJ transportation and tried more radical reform. Instead they keep on doing the same thing hoping for different results.
Bystander, real developers are in demand, it’s the technical skill. My last job I was the 60th person they interviewed, while I was there we went through 40 resumes to hire a consultant, the place before that I interviewed 40 people to hire one developer, my current place I was cold called and offered a job without an interview based on a reference and the person was basically pleading with me to run one of their teams. A good developer is like a good lawyer they save you tons of money, a bad developer is like a bad lawyer, a major liability and like the law field there are more bad than good.
A good manager knows this and knows that bringing in one sub-par person risks your product and projects. Any manager who is entertaining the cost cutting is playing politics, lower cost is fine as long as the quality is there, India is literally a factor of 4 for non-trivial tasks or zero cost savings and that’s not at the worst, that is median.
Pumps, if you read Grim’s astute piece carefully, much of what he is saying is a direct refutation of your predictions of recovery and boom times just around the corner. Grim is saying that with increased automation and the continuing rapid rate of offshoring of jobs, the middle class is in the process of being hollowed out and steamrolled. Under this scenario, and I believe Grim is right on the money, the forseeable future for the middle class is looking dire.
jj and his fcuking BPOP preferred gets the 11:59PM call from the governor……
Spain’s Santander Buys Ailing Rival Banco Popular
Banco Santander acquired Banco Popular Espanol in an overnight auction for the notional amount of one euro ($1.13) after the European Central Bank determined that Spain’s No. 6 bank by assets was “failing or likely to fail.”
Santander said it planned to raise 7 billion euros in a rights issue to fund a cleanup of Banco Popular’s balance sheet.
Democrats are now the pro-segregation, anti-free speech party and don’t even want you in their party if you have the “wrong” view on abortion.
Democrats are republicans, republicans are … ?
The barbell effect my friend. It will boom, but for less and less of the population. Capital rules these days, plenty of money to be made if you have the capital. Middle class is either going rich or poor. Let’s just call upper middle class rich. They are not talking about northeast nj, it’s not a known middle class haven. How many towns can even be considered middle class in northeast nj on a national scale? Not many, almost every single town is either rich, poor, or uber rich.
The same thing is happening at the national level which is why I laugh at 3b pushing the idea of moving to low cost areas. It’s a barbell effect at a national level. Pretty much the coasts hold all the weight and the middle is hallowing out. That’s how trump got elected, by the people stuck in these low cost areas with no opportunities to keep up with the top. They thought Trump could save them, but they should have did good in school and got a degree so that they wouldn’t be left out in the dark.
Alex says:
June 7, 2017 at 10:54 am
Pumps, if you read Grim’s astute piece carefully, much of what he is saying is a direct refutation of your predictions of recovery and boom times just around the corner. Grim is saying that with increased automation and the continuing rapid rate of offshoring of jobs, the middle class is in the process of being hollowed out and steamrolled. Under this scenario, and I believe Grim is right on the money, the forseeable future for the middle class is looking dire.
the kid (28 I think) has only 5-6 years experience; my advice is to bank as much as possible of the $170K, because people assume that everything is up-up-up, and cycles simply do not work that way…….I’m just saying …… 5-6 years experience with B.S. from Rowan making $170K…… he should be on front cover of alumni mag…..
jcer says:
June 7, 2017 at 10:12 am
Chi, 170k is not out of line for a good developer depending on area of expertise. Capitalism at work, supply and demand, if he has a skill that’s needed the pay can be high. That’s about what most banks have to pay for an american with 10 yrs experience in NYC at the moment.
I think he is also getting scads of stock options……
Bravo Grim. Perfect post.
The hollowing out is real and won’t stop. I’m not mad at it. Its just what competition on a global scale creates. If someone’s living standards improve, another’s will decrease.
Here’s to hoping my investments can keep me and at least some grand-kids afloat over my lifetime.
Thank you Alex.
Chgo one of my guys graduated Rowan 2 years ago. And they are kicking butt salary wise. The most disciplined and hardest worker I know. I can’t say more as to what they do as its sensitive not as in government sensitive but client sensitive. Oh and no college debt mom and dad took care of that.
However, I think a new “version” of the middle class will emerge. Won’t be how we saw it, but it’ll be middle class nonetheless.
Think how middle class used to be 1 working parent, 1 sah, 2.5 kids in the 50’s. Then middle class was 2 working parents in the 80’s. Maybe the 2030’s will have child labor?
Trump and all his followers expecting to get a good job with no degree should read this. You either make it or you don’t. Any idiot telling you that college is not worth it should be shot in the head. If you are not opening up your own business, and do not want to live like a poor soul, then get a degree in something valuable, it’s your only chance.
chicagofinance says:
June 7, 2017 at 11:12 am
the kid (28 I think) has only 5-6 years experience; my advice is to bank as much as possible of the $170K, because people assume that everything is up-up-up, and cycles simply do not work that way…….I’m just saying …… 5-6 years experience with B.S. from Rowan making $170K…… he should be on front cover of alumni mag…..
My post at 10:36 is based on the same idea.
“You don’t have to be a genius to become a mathematician. If you find this statement at all surprising, you’re an example of what’s wrong with the way our society identifies, encourages and rewards talent.
As a mathematician who studied at Berkeley, Harvard and Princeton, I’ve known geniuses. I got to hang out with Andrew Wiles, who is credited with solving Fermat’s Last Theorem, and I met Grigori Perelman, who solved the Poincare Conjecture. They’re great guys, but they didn’t do it on their own. For each certified genius, there are at least a hundred other great people who helped achieve such outstanding results.
Math requires altruism, hard work and fact-checking. Although presented as a platonic ideal of logical argument, a mathematical proof really passes muster only if it persuades a critical group of colleagues within the field. As such, it’s partly a social construction. Long and difficult proofs require enormous — and unpaid — effort to find the flaws that in most cases exist. The mathematical community deserves more thanks than it gets for this selfless toil.
The same applies to society at large. The winners, be they CEOs, senators or Nobel laureates, owe much of their success to a functional system. I’m not the first to note that Steve Jobs likely would have been a subsistence farmer if he had been born in another time (if he survived childhood at all). Yet his achievements tend to be portrayed as entirely his own.
In short, we over-reward those at the top and dismiss the rest. It’s an unhelpful and unnecessary bias that facilitates hero worship, undermines the goal of nurturing creativity and discourages valuable contributions to communities, worthy causes and scientific projects. It also influences the way we educate our children, on the flawed premise — reflected in articles with titles like “How to Raise a Genius” — that standardized tests can identify potential geniuses, that the right upbringing can turn them into actual geniuses and that they will be compelled to solve the world’s problems.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have high hopes and standards for our children. But by focusing our attention on the kids who get the top SAT scores, we reinforce the fixation on genius to the detriment of everyone else — and particularly to the disadvantaged kids who don’t have the resources to compete. In such a system, math loses its playful and curious nature. It becomes a gatekeeper, intimidating instead of clarifying.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-07/a-mathematician-s-secret-we-re-not-all-geniuses
I have an uncle who is an average guy…was lucky enough to get a job working at IBM early on…same thing…stock options etc. Retired a millionaire. No smarter than anybody else. Some people are just lucky and their timing is perfect.
chicagofinance says:
June 7, 2017 at 11:13 am
I think he is also getting scads of stock options……
Great, he is going to sue and the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill. If you are risking other people’s lives in a police chase, you deserve the beat down. Someone has to teach you a lesson.
http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2017/06/teen_accuses_police_of_punching_kicking_nj_him_aft.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured
D-FENS, I’m a firm believer in being lucky. Sometimes being at the right place at the right time is all it takes. Capitalism’s compensation system is beyond screwed up. It totally takes a dump on a good part of the population. So you have to be a hard worker, smart, educated, and prop just as important…lucky.
Check this example. You know those spinning devices that are being hyped right now, the idea was pitched to Hasbro. They did consumer tests and stated it was a failure. Well, look at how many are being sold right now. You can have a great business idea, but if the timing isn’t right, you aren’t going nowhere no matter how smart or hard you work. Luck is so important.
“but they should have did good in school”
Blumps, no doubt where you should fall when the times comes. I would say wearing a blue t-shirt and pants to work while heading back to first grade English.
On Murphy:
New Jersey has the worst funded pension system in the country, which is a result of this governor and other Trenton insiders choosing to provide for the well-connected, rather than fulfill their obligations. Twelve years ago, Phil Murphy chaired the first commission to evaluate the state’s pension system in light of a growing unfunded liability. The commission recommended, first and foremost, that the state must meet its obligations and respect the collective bargaining process. These are the first principles Phil will bring to the issue as governor. (Bend over NJ)
Trenton insiders ignored these recommendations and today, the problem has only grown worse. Phil is committed to getting our pension funds back on track to solvency — starting with the state living up to its commitments. As Phil said in 2005, when Governor Codey appointed him to chair an effort to address our pension problems, “a constitutional amendment guaranteeing state pension contributions should be part of the solution – but the solution must be comprehensive and ensure a reasonable payment schedule.” (Bend Over NJ)
Phil has also led the effort to boost the pension funds’ returns by calling on the state to divest from private equity and hedge funds. These investments have cost us hundreds of millions in fees while delivering only middling results. Phil will stop this practice, and ensure that pension fund dollars are put to work for the people who earned them, not for Wall Street. (Will never happen)
Remember. The pension is his biggest issue. NJEA is essentially responsible for the shortfall through their endorsements. Who do you think they endorsed in last night’s election?
Mark my words. Murphy will get elected and will immediately raise every single tax and toll that he can to make the pension whole to the detriment of NJ’s failing economy.
Fidget spinners at best are a half a billion industry. NJ’s short fall is 200 times that. Just to put into perspective how deep the hole is. American’s are not good with math.
No commentary on Murphy (I am not qualified)…..however, it can be done….see Marc Levine…..
Hillary’s Cankles are ground zero for Zika virus says:
June 7, 2017 at 12:15 pm
Phil has also led the effort to boost the pension funds’ returns by calling on the state to divest from private equity and hedge funds. These investments have cost us hundreds of millions in fees while delivering only middling results. Phil will stop this practice, and ensure that pension fund dollars are put to work for the people who earned them, not for Wall Street. (Will never happen)
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-10/watch-what-indexing-does-for-public-pensions
grim – This is the entire (unspoken) globalist agenda. Open all borders, let everyone go anywhere they want. This will make counterproductive (large) wars unnecessary as the world homogenizes into two classes of people, those with power and those without. BTW, all employees will be in the lower class, all business owners in the upper class.
I maintain my that the single most important macroeconomic trend of our generation is the necessary and likely decline in the American standard of living.
…and, quite obviously, there will be no more small businesses.
8:21 by Grim… well said!
Expat and the upper class will be living in Wayne with pumps.
Lib, seriously give Murphy a chance. The pension will never be paid back in your lifetime, so stop worrying about it. You will be in Costa Rica.
He has good ideas. He understands economics much better than the avg individual. He wants a positive legacy. He is not out to hurt this state unlike Christie. WE CAN’T CUT OUR WAY OUT OF THIS. WE HAVE TO GROW THE ECONOMY AND HE UNDERSTANDS THIS. It’s the only way. Murphy understands that Nj is in the perfect location to be the top economy in the United States. Let’s give the guy a chance. First thing he wants to do is set up a state bank so that he CAN HELP SMALL BUSINESS IN THIS STATE. Isn’t that exactly what we need? To get small business going again? No banks are loaning to small business, this will help get it going.
I don’t know, I love jersey. I just want a real leader that has some original ideas on how to get this state economy to the top. Kim has no idea how to do this, just like Christie. The state doesn’t have the money to lower taxes right now like the gimmick she is proposing. That money should be invested in the state economy instead so you get so much more back for your money. It’s like she just wants to gift the senior citizens that complain about their taxes. Tell them to move, don’t give them a 1,000 dollar break on their taxes that will cost this state 1.5 billion dollars. Just ignorance.
Marc Levine worked for KPMG and his own smallish hedge fund. He didn’t have that many friends to help. Murphy? He drank at the GS trough for 23 years. That’s a lot of Wall Street friends to help. I recall Corzine making huge investments in Lemon Bros just a week before they went belly up. There’s a precedent here. Ultra rich guy, buys election, then gives rich friends like love interests, high ranking jobs. With Corzine…he put his relationship with head of NJEA ahead of conflict of interest. Then he was above the law, over and over again, not to mention his piss poor budget performance. At least CC got a foothold on property taxes and kept NJ from adding another albatross to the debt in the Tunnel. Parkway tolls took a halt too. You can fault the fatman for a lot of things. But he did keep taxes under control. You can not say the same for Mangravy or Corslime and certainly not for the former Dem, Florio. This state is completely F’ed anyway. Not sure why I bother to pay attention. They don’t even go for the low hanging fruit in NJ. Such as the double and triple dippers.
The State Bank is a joke. What bank opens up with a 100 billion dollar debt?
Ha Ha…..
Democrats freaking out because they just realized there’s money in the budget that could be used towards the wall…
https://www.buzzfeed.com/lissandravilla/some-house-democrats-are-pissed-congress-made-a-down?utm_term=.sweN6zOMz#.kimZpQ07Q
I hate Murphy
Here is Murphy’s solution to public school funding as he supports Abbott as it is.
“New Jersey will grow its way into property tax reductions and that an increase in incomes will reduce their impact on families.”
Rather than bend over, we’ll call him Drop-kick Murphy after how you’ll feel after he passes all of these tax increases. He also supports selling off state assets.
He bought the election and now owes every Dem organization in the state pay back. If you deny this, you haven’t been paying attention. Trust me, he was the worst candidate on the ballot.
I know this sounds crazy, but you will be begging for the Christie years to return.
Don’t underestimate the impact of cannabis legalization in the upcoming governor’s race. 50-60% of NJ agrees with legalization and there is a percentage of those people that are republican-leaning but will vote for Murphy anyway. The idea being “we’ll put up with this guys crap for 4 years if he will follow thru on the plan to legalize and tax MJ to the benefit of NJ’s economy and then we can replace him and the mushrooming MJ industry will remain”.
With the inner city + union + MJ + anti-Christie vote, Murphy will steamroll no matter what, even if he doesnt spend another dime on campaigning
I support the legalization of weed. It’s about the only thing I support about him. Though, chances are, he’s only doing it so he can smoke weed himself.
Pumps you are dense his ideas on the economy look like France’s, tell me how is that working for them? You can’t make the minimum wage $15, create new labor regulations, and pay for everything by raising taxes and really expect that employers will flock to NJ. This is a race between Corzine Jr and Christie Jr and it stinks, it is the same damn election playing out again. There is one thing I’m certain of, Phil Murphy will not be good for NJ. I have an idea let make our income taxes more appealing to lower earners and to compensate raise the rate on high earners, how is that working out? Again it is about competitiveness and we are fighting a losing battle as we are not NYC yet have high costs and taxes.
dude spent millions upon millions starting long before anyone else on both sides and couldn’t get 50% of the Democratic primary vote.
I would have preferred Lesniak or Wisneski
Why is the state bank such a bad idea? I believe it’s a good thing if done right. If he is such a Wall St. boy, why is he trying to cut off their easy money with a state owned bank to lend to and jump-start our small business community?
Jcer, no way in hell he gets a 15 dollar min wage passed. Not happening. I haven’t really heard him talk about that in a while.
15 min wage will hurt rural jersey. It will not hurt northern nj. There are not that many min wage jobs in northern nj. Most are already 12 dollars or more. We aren’t Alabama.
The $15 wage is nothing more than a press stunt. It helps about as many as it hurts. But it sure looks good when the 50 million dollar man drops some crumbs into the hair net of those poor burger flippers.
What’s up with all these Lurks?
Anyway, I wanted Wisneski myself.
Murphy has all the identifiers of a scumbag wall street slime, but if he will legalize then i would vote for him. The pension shortfall problem isnt going away and maybe MJ taxes will help reduce it. Repubelickers have no shot unless they get right with this issue.
i’m busy man, lurking’s all i got time for
Please pass a $15 minimum wage.
It will mean I stay employed for a long long time.
Trump reads his tweet replies?
Peter Vallorosi is a fomer candidate for NJ 5th Congressional district.
Peter Vallorosi @petervallorosi Feb 6
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@realDonaldTrump make the wall a wall of solar panels
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Replying to @petervallorosi @realDonaldTrump
This is the tweet I sent to you on 2/6/17 about the solar panel wall. I should get some credit.
Only 13% of the state’s registered voters turned out yesterday.
Enthusiasm for NJ Governor’s race just isn’t there….
@PollsterPatrick 18h18 hours ago
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Updated NJ primary turnout projections:
740K or 13% of all RVs
495K D (24% of reg Ds)
245K R (20% of reg Rs).
@MattRooneyNJ 6h6 hours ago
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13% turnout is how the bad guys keep winning, folks. Fight or leave. Or pay? Your options are limited. #NJPrimary
It won’t hurt wall street. It will hurt community banks and credit unions.
If someone they provide credit to defaults…the loss is now the taxpayers loss. It institutionalizes too big to fail.
It’s foolish to trust people in government with this sort of power. Don’t be naive…corrupt politicians will enrich themselves with this tool if you give it to them. Even if you believe Murphy it doesn’t mean you can believe the next guy. People are what they are…fallible and corruptible.
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 7, 2017 at 2:25 pm
Why is the state bank such a bad idea? I believe it’s a good thing if done right. If he is such a Wall St. boy, why is he trying to cut off their easy money with a state owned bank to lend to and jump-start our small business community?
I love this blog. Only place that you are going to find real talk when it comes to most issues concerning nj. You get a bunch of different perspectives which is priceless.
Thank you to the people who regularly contribute. Keep up the good work!
D-FENS, good points. I believe Murphy has good intentions, but it’s up to us, the citizens, to hold the next guy in check.
What I like about Murphy is that he is actually thinking about how to fix this. He’s not like these other politicians, like Kim, who come up with gimmicks and claim cutting is the only answer. That’s the easy way out for a politician, telling the voters you will cut their taxes, but give no plan as to how you will improve the economy.
That’s all Phil Murphy talks about; how there is no easy answer, and the only way is to grow the economy. He’s straight up and doesn’t claim “he won’t raise taxes.” He understands that we might have to raise taxes to invest in ourselves and get out of this mess to grow our economy. Then when the economy is stronger, you can lower the taxes. Right now, we are in no position to be cutting taxes, and Kim is evil for basing her election on giving a 1.5 billion tax break that we can’t afford to give.
I hope Murphy proves the haters wrong. I have a feeling he will.
Oy!
Pumpkin Seed,
Do you really have a f.ucking job?
No quite the opposite, Murphy has claimed he is going to raise taxes. We need those towers on the mold coast filled with rich NYers and we want them to bring the Jobs here, no good motivation to want to sit in NJ if taxes are higher in NJ and it might dissuade them from wanting to move here. All Murphy has are gimmicks, no one from GS understands economics what they know is currying political favor and manipulating markets. If Murphy succeeds, I know more than a few VERY rich people who will pack up shop and move to Florida along with their business presence. Whoever we get needs to get us some federal money 42 cents on the dollar isn’t cutting it for a broke state.
Murphy has qualities, but “good intentions” is not one of them…..you are a fool….and you should know better, but seem incapable….
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 7, 2017 at 3:52 pm
D-FENS, good points. I believe Murphy has good intentions, but it’s up to us, the citizens, to hold the next guy in check.
So what’s the answer? Vote for Kim?
What I don’t get, and this is a generalization, so no one needs to take this personal, is how people attack Murphy for his money, and these same people supported one of the most crooked developers in our country during the presidential election. How did you look the other way for Trump, but attack Murphy for it. I don’t get it.
Why would Murphy be intent on hurting the rich in our state when he is one of them?
For the individuals feel he is intent on hurting our state, what do you think his intentions are of becoming governor? We now know Christie had his sights set on the Presidency, he could have cared less about Jersey. Every move Christie made was to suck up to the national republican base. Every scumbag move was for that. He screwed our state big time by putting national party politics ahead of our state. So what are Murphy’s intentions?
This is NJ. ALWAYS operate on the assumption that our politicians are corrupt.
NEVER give them more power or money than they need.
” and these same people supported one of the most crooked developers in our country during the presidential election.”
Talking about yourself.
“Why would Murphy be intent on hurting the rich in our state when he is one of them?”
Once again, proving you can’t read. He’s going to help the special interests and screw the rest.
“I love this blog”
You’ve single-handedly ruined it. You belong on nj.com or fox/huffpo/etc. Fcuk you.
You can’t realize every time the next politician comes up promising “new” ideas, they are really out to – oh look squirrel.
Bingo D-FENS, the more they get their mitts on the more graft and corruption. Pumpkin, Murphy is intent on a political career, politicking in NJ involves favors, etc, the motivation is winning. He’s not hurting himself because he may pay additional taxes but access to the government is worth a lot, rest assure he will not leave office poorer than he entered.
Great “new” ideas usually have unintended consequences just remember the road to h#ll is paved with good intentions.
You telling me the Murphy is not looking for what the ROI is on governorship? He spent a small fortune to win the primary, he’ll need to spend a big chunk of his fortune to win the election.
What GS bankster invests that kind of money without a guarantee of payback?
Back last year some guy I know was already asking me for Murphy donations, pitching it like buying into a stock pre-IPO. I hadn’t heard of the guy, don’t care, wouldn’t donate to a Dem anyway. But the operative said I can get some access and influence by getting in early. I said my company is heavily regulated, tricky disclosures, so I don’t do political contributions. No problem he said, it can be funneled through somebody else.
I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.
But hey, they’re fighting for “the little man” and “saving the earth” so that justifies anything, in their minds.
The robots are coming for our jobs but Deloitte’s COO doesn’t think it’s that scary – Business Insider
https://apple.news/AvuYsBWuKTBSOVxp8o7KoNA
Maybe Murphy is not the answer. Maybe the political system needs to be blown up. As it is right now, it seems we are constantly picking between the lesser of two evils. Is that the candidates fault, or the political system we employ?
He’s being groomed to be the next Woodrow Wilson.
I’m in heaven. I wrote a Firefox plugin that “disappears” all of Pumpkin’s posts. I think my index finger will soon atrophy as it won’t be getting the scroll wheel workout that it usually gets on a daily basis.
“Regulars know I’ve been over this message too many times in the last, oh, almost decade. Fear sells and I have no doubt this magazine will sell well. But it’s also totally wrong. I’ve spent a few minutes in my life understanding the modern monetary system and trying to explain it to people so here’s the typical rant in case you haven’t heard it from me before:
1 – The United States government spends money by taxing people and then financing the excess spending by selling bonds.
2 – There is a risk that the US government might not be able to finance this spending in the case that private bond buyers don’t want to buy those bonds. However, in this case the US government has something the rest of us don’t have – a bank that can literally finance its spending. So, it should be obvious that the US government literally cannot “run out of money” as it has its own bank willing to lend it money in perpetuity. Therefore, the risk of a solvency crisis is just wrong.
3 – More importantly though, the national debt doesn’t get repaid. This is what’s called a fallacy of composition. For instance, while people individually repay their debt, at the aggregate level the quantity of debt in the private sector and the public sector does not decline over the long-term. In fact, we should expect and actually hope for it to increase as our assets become more valuable relative to our liabilities. There is literally no such thing as repaying the national debt as that would involve the elimination of every good or service presently used to finance public purpose.
4 – The primary problem here is that people don’t look at aggregate balance sheets when they discuss these matters. For instance, the private sector carries a tremendous debt burden:
That sure looks scary. But when you look at the whole balance sheet you see that the asset side dwarfs the liability side leading to a massively positive net worth:
A similar view is net wealth relative to GDP. We hear lots of scary stories about high debt to GDP ratios, but we never hear about the asset side of the balance sheet. And it turns out that net wealth in the USA relative to GDP is very high:
Although the US government doesn’t calculate its assets and balance sheet every quarter like the private sector’s entities do, we do have at least a rough idea of the US government’s balance sheet. In fact, if you calculated just the value of federally owned fossil fuel resources these assets would dwarf the national debt by a margin of 8:1. And that’s not even touching the surface on the trillions in federally owned structures and land. The US government doesn’t have a positive net worth. It is possibly the wealthiest entity on the planet.¹””
http://www.pragcap.com/say-americas-bankrupt-one-more-time/
http://www.pragcap.com/the-myth-of-declining-american-living-standards/
http://www.aei.org/publication/declining-living-standards-new-research-finds-164-increase-in-consumption-for-low-income-americans-from-1960-2015/
Ok, I’m gay. I know I’m a bad real estate investor, but I make it up with creativity.
Your village outcast/idiot is doing some digging. Everything in my analysis leads me to believe there is a trend of falling prices in everything except housing, healthcare, financial equities, and education. Leads me to believe you would be ignorant to not purchase as much euquities and real estate as you can feasibly purchase. This stuff is only going to go up in price under these new economic conditions.
What a f’en enlightenening day!
Grim even supports this notion. Cost of living is not getting cheaper folks. Get in while you can. Buy real estate. Buy equities in American tech. Stuff is only going up.
“I maintain my that the single most important macroeconomic trend of our generation is the necessary and likely decline in the American standard of living. This will be sugar coated, sprinkled, and polished in every way possible, but it is happening, and it will continue to happen. Cost of living goes up now. Sorry, but living in trailers is now cool? Microapartments in mid-tier cities are hot? Like I said, sugarcoated, but real.”
Sometimes I grab my ankles at work, even when nothing is going on…except hope.
You can think I’m an idiot. or take some good advice. Your call.
Not saying I’m smarter than anyone here, I’m just focused on the right factors.
Check out debt article above and please stop being scared to death of it. It’s not what it really seems like on the surface. Dig a little deeper.
Oooh! I’m just about there Carlos! You can’t sleep here, you need to go back to Paterson.
We are almost in a 10 year bull market for god’s sake. Writing is on the wall. Take advantage, or wait for the crash whenever that comes. Wiuld not hold my breath for that. These are special times for bulls.
Ahhhhhhh!
mi Assa su Assa
After having close to 24 hours to absorb the full breadth of the Comey testimony I’ve come this thought:
He’s really a pussy, right?