From the NYT:
On Tax Bill, It’s Trump vs. His Hometown
When President Trump returned to his hometown on Saturday for a day of fund-raisers, his third and final check-collecting stop was the Park Avenue home of Stephen A. Schwarzman, where the crowd included some of Mr. Trump’s old New York friends and real estate colleagues.
Some in the group, including Mr. Schwarzman, a founder of the private equity Blackstone Group, have been among those pushing the Trump administration to change the Republican tax package that is making its way through Congress — in particular to save the ability to deduct state and local taxes from federal returns.
Richard LeFrak, a developer and longtime friend of Mr. Trump’s who has been among those lobbying, asked about what changes the president wanted to see.
“LeFrak always has a question,” Mr. Trump mocked.
Mr. Trump was vague in his response, giving some in the room the impression he was open to their concerns. Others were less certain. And Mr. Trump concluded by poking fun at his wealthy supporters’ complaints. “You guys seem to be doing O.K.,” he said dryly.
While Mr. Trump has tried to sell the tax package as a giant tax break for all Americans, a different story is unfolding in New York and other high-tax, mostly Democratic states. The mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, has estimated that there could be tax increases for as many as 700,000 residents if the legislation is approved. Nearly half of households in surrounding suburban counties itemize their deductions — and stand to lose valuable write-offs of state and local taxes on their federal returns.
…
The fact that Mr. Trump’s tax package would economically hamper his hometown is unusual.It is almost unimaginable that President George W. Bush would have championed a bill that would have harmed Texas relative to other states, or for President Barack Obama to have embraced legislation that took a particular bite out of his birth state, Hawaii, or adopted hometown, Chicago.
“It’s hard to think of a president whose signature legislation will fall, in a very negative way, on people in his home state,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a presidential historian and professor of history at Princeton. “Usually you bring back the pork.”
I live closer to the radioactive dump site than pumps.
Even more interesting than our little 6 acre remediated site – 250 acres of residential property across Montclair, West Orange, Glen Ridge, Bloomfield, and East Orange is basically sitting on an unremediated radioactive dump site. I believe these two superfund sites number more than 800 homes.
Your pork just left the Guvnor’s mansion
The headline article is interesting. I think the rationale is that the federal government has executed policies that have really benefited New York City for the last eight years. And a disproportionate amount of wealth has been generated in this area relative to the rest of the country. As a result all that is being done is some level of a return in that consideration. Is it really unfair to scrape about 10% off of everyone’s net worth around here?
+228k, UE holds at 4.1%
Jobs for November — 228,000
Thank you, President Trump!
Wages miss, 0.2 mom vs 0.3 expected, 2.5 yoy vs 2.7 expected.
Captain Cheapo says American Airlines Card is running a 60,000 mile waived fee for first year offer. That’s good for two round trips anywhere in contiguous and one short round trip. All for $3K in spending over three months. It’s about as good as it gets. Hop on board the cheapo train. Free bags of course too and priority boarding. That’s about 33% back on your credit card purchases figuring 3 flights are worth about 1K. Remember to tip your postal carriers.
And you can bring the whole family if you open the business card too. They are treated separately. Same promotional offer.
AA did a big deval last year, I ended up burning nearly all of my AA miles on 3 RT tickets to Mexico. I was saving my AA miles for 3 tickets to Hawaii, but was a bit short. Decided to just burn the miles and take the tickets instead of being set back on the Hawaii tix. Haven’t flown AA much this year, favoring UA to get status.
I can’t stand flying UA, but I end up on it pretty regularly. I still think JetBlue and Southwest are by far the best. Too bad government corruption has allowed United to hog up EWR and then overcharge everyone to fly from there. On long flights (since I don’t have status) I tend to drive out to JFK and fly JetBlue. The seats are huge, the customer service is great and so are the inflight services. I usually fly redeyes (no traffic to get to work) so the drive only takes about an hour.
Also, parking is way cheaper at JFK.
Brownfields are everywhere in New Jersey.
https://njogis-newjersey.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/6f11f6204ffa40a09527c8205aec4425_7/data?geometry=-74.343%2C40.879%2C-73.909%2C40.97
Why bother parking? I take a Lyft from western essex to EWR for $25
I parked at Spot at EWR for the first time this trip, $80 for the week.
Spot is excellent. Uber/LYFT only work for long trips. I still am not a huge fan. My 4:30am uber experience was horrible the last time I took them home from EWR. Dirt cheap, but horrible.
Really good graphics and charts here. Have fun.
https://nyti.ms/2koB355
lefty,
It’s really only fair. When Obama came in, he provided the near trillion in his “porkulous” package to all the main DEM contributors who stood by idly while the Bush Regime was in the White House. Now that Trump is in the White House, he had few real supporters as he wasn’t really a Republican so he is giving his trillion to the voters who put him in. This is how I originally saw it. The house Republicans are going along because it generally benefits their constituents anyhow. Plus most of them are filthy rich and we all know why politicians are in it anyhow. For themselves.
Libturd,
Why a horrible experience? Did you sit in a pool of puke? Or the driver try to sell you a multi-level-marketing scheme?
I don’t do much uber, other than for business. Once in Palm Beach last year the driver was pitching me some kind of virtual gold investment scam run out of Austria. Another time in N.Carolina the lady was a hare-brained chatterbox. In Canada waiting in the cold rain 15 minutes a driver kept on missing us because she could never figure out how to turn onto our street, and eventually we ditched her for a cab. But there were some smooth and unmemorable rides also.
LibTurd,
Poo-pooing and writing off UBER because of one bad ride is juvenile. You are getting into a strangers car who may not necessarily consider themselves to be a professional offering a service, stuff happens but it’s $20-30 from EWR to most everywhere!
First guy who picks me up says cancel it please, I only want rides to NYC. Second person picks me up, price now went up $2 (not a big deal). She asks if I can cancel and pay her off the books. I said no. She then proceeds to drive through Irvington/Vailsburg at 5am (not advised) at about 15mph stopping at every crossroad regardless of whether or not there was a stop sign or traffic light. I think she was avoiding the tolls of which I told her there isn’t any if you get off at my exit. Well, the trip to the airport, of which my dad drove me in a rainstorm, took 18 minute. The trip home, I kid you not, took nearly 50 minutes in crystal clear weather. And my dad drives pretty conservatively (he’s 84).
I am not writing them off. But my experience, which consists of about ten trips, has been pretty lousy. Nearly everyone complains about being underpaid. They are all scary weird. Some don’t use AC in the Summer. I think it will get worse than better as time goes on.
I just ran over to Ikea in Paramus to get a cheap desk. Three registers open. I waited in line for 20 minutes. And you wonder why Amazon is so popular? And yes, I had my $25 off of $150 coupon.
So, a little update and giveback on the phones…
Thought I settled on the S8+ and Verizon. Seemed like Best Buy had the best deal advertising $300 off the S8+ with a Verizon activation. So blew an hour and some on Rt 10 last night….
Avoid that Best Buy deal, basically a fraud.
Went in knowing which plan I wanted. Best Buy offered it, great. Looked at my current AT&T bill to get familiar with mobile billing, pretty easy these days. Service fee and access fee equals total plan cost from the MNO. Went through the process, Best Buy writes the numbers up, and the access fee ($20 monthly) is outside of the Verizon quoted price. Back and forth with sales person. Finally ended up getting the Verizon prices online. Very clearly their rate is all in, service plus access. Best Buy salesperson says that’s not ‘the way they do it’ and the access fee is on top.
So, bottom line, they offer you $300 off the phone (deducted over a 24 month subscription period) but then hit you with $20 extra over that time. In other words, they advertise $300 OFF but are actually charging you $180 MORE than just buying the phone full retail and activating with Verizon.
Left the store obviously without buying. Drove out and there is a Verizon store one stoplight down. Questioning my own recollection so I stop in. They verified everything above. Their plans as quoted are all in, including both fees.
Freaking Best Buy, unbelievable, advertising $300 off and clipping customers for an additional $480 instead. Wonder how many people they have fleeced with this scheme.
https://twitter.com/SeanMSpiller/status/829171480923615232/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpatch.com%2Fnew-jersey%2Fmontclair%2Fmontclair-interfaith-alliance-will-shelter-immigrants-ice
Sean Spiller was the councilman who sat on the Montclair Board of School Estimate (BOSE) and claimed it was not a conflict of interest even though he is NJEA’s third ranking official and a highly paid executive of the teachers union and its affiliates, including the Montclair Education Association. The BOSE is in charge of approving the school budget (the PROM doesn’t get to vote on it).
Libturd,
It’s a great offer but I hate going to JFK or LGA. If not Newark, I would rather drive to AC, Trenton or maybe even Philadelphia.
Montclair sanctuary city. Looks like everyone in that crowd is white. Seems about right for inclusive progressives sjws
Yes JFK and LGA really suck, even though the facilities have improved massively over the last 10 years at JFK the people who work there are still way worse than the awful people at EWR. If I’m traveling to an airport PHL, TTN, or ACY are all preferred to JFK. As for UBER, it has been pretty good for me but you are right that as of late there seem to be more shifty drivers calling asking to cancel or just straight out cancelling while you are waiting on a cold street corner, I’ve found that Lyft has been better recently and my worst experiences tend to be with TLC tagged drivers. It is pretty much impossibly cheap so you have to tip if the ride was good. I think part of the problem is they do not let the driver see where the fare is going, they should allow the driver to reject the fare and go to the back of the queue without penalty, which based on the conversation I had with a driver once, the cancellations negatively impact their score/rating and they have a lower priority in the queue. Uber in suburbia does not seem to be as good as it is in Hob/JC where the volume of short fares seems to make it more lucrative for the drivers and in Newark in particular it is BAD. I’ve been taking it after the devils games and the drivers are strange. I have the amex platnum so i get some free uber rides otherwise I’d probably switch to lift.
Yeah…I’ve used that Amex deal a lot!
Best airport around is Westchester. But good luck finding a cheap flight out of there. After touchdown, if you are in the front of the plane, you are literally in your car after about 50 steps.
Back in the early 1980’s I couldn’t figure out what was going on there. That site was a mountain of dirt (or something) covered with black plastic with something on top to weight the plastic down.
I live closer to the radioactive dump site than pumps.
Even more interesting than our little 6 acre remediated site – 250 acres of residential property across Montclair, West Orange, Glen Ridge, Bloomfield, and East Orange is basically sitting on an unremediated radioactive dump site. I believe these two superfund sites number more than 800 homes.
At Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. Grim eat your heart out
I had an MBA teacher back in the 1980’s with a long and storied career. I remember him telling our class once, “I can’t tell you what I know and I can’t tell you how I know it, but don’t ever buy any RE in upstate New York.”
A couple years ago I remember grim espousing the incredible net energy benefit the country would experience with LED lighting technology. I had no idea what grim was talking about back then, even as I owned some hi-tech portable LED lights since 1998.
Color me converted. The home LED technology is just awesome! I bought a dozen dimmable recessed lights for the kitchen almost a year ago. They are awesome. About a month ago I bought a couple under-cabinet Xenon replacements for the lights we leave on the most, equally awesome. We have a staircase with a 90 degree “pie slice step” turn (no landing), so we leave the light over the stairs (three chandelier-type bulbs) on all night. Well one bulb burned out, a second burned out, and finally I went out to HD to buy replacements for the probably 6 year old fluorescent bulbs. I ended up buying 4 LED replacements. 3 of them went over the all-night-on stairs mini chandelier, the fluorescent went into the family room where 1 of the 12 identical sconce and chandelier bulbs was out. I was left with one more spanking, brand new LED chandelier light. Our daughters’ room only has one overhead light – three triangularly opposed chandelier type incandescents, one of which was out. I screwed in the LED replacement and, OMG, you literally cannot tell the difference between the two incandescents and the LED replacement.
This is going to be bigger than the Prius.
^^^ The three bulbs in our daughters room are integral and below the ceiling fan.
I love to turn on MSNBC for a couple minutes each day until I feel my IQ dropping.
GOP BRAND IN CRISIS AS TRUMP FIRES UP MOORE BASE
That would be kind of like the Jets saying that the New England Patriots brand is in crisis, no?
I’ve got nothing but LED’s in my house, when I bought it a year ago I replaced all 200 bulbs…kind of a no brainer, LED’s perform great use little power and don’t do the warm-up thing CFL’s do. Longevity isn’t always as advertised though, based on the 50k hour MTBF design these things should take years to burn out and some only make it 6 months or a year and it’s clearly a quality control issue because the same bubs are still going strong years later but a handful will burn out early, given the reduction in cost it’s not a problems but 3-4 years ago when I started to put them in they were really expensive, you actually claim on the warranty.
Democrats – lowest amount of NATIONWIDE elected officials since the Civil War.
We have 8 hi hats in our kitchen and dining room. Switched to leds and our electric use dropped bigly.
every room in my house has recessed cans and when I bought it the guy had at minimum 75W-125W high intensity spot lights in each one, literally a hundred cans…… If I turned all the lights on you couldn’t even see the meter spinning it was spinning so fast.
When we bought our place in 2002 we only had CFLs in the bathroom, 4 big globes over the medicine cabinet. By 2007 or so I mused, “Jesus, I haven’t replaced a single one of them yet, right” Within the next year they started to go South and when I bought the replacements they stated “6 year guarantee” or something like that. Sure enough, 6 years later they were failing again. When we moved here last year you could tell that someone went crazy with CFLs about 6 years ago too as almost every bulb in the place was a CFL and it just so happens that our landlords bought the place in 2009. The kitchen was already a hodge-podge of recessed bulbs with two of them out when we moved in. It almost seems like CFLs come dialed in with a digital 6 year lifespan programmed in at the factory. Within a month we had 5 out overhead in the kitchen and that’s when I bought a dozen LED overhead bulbs for less than $40 at HD! I’ve been so impressed with them I didn’t even mind spending almost as much (~$30) for two under cabinet Xenon replacements and 4 chandelier types. It’s amazing to me secondarily how little heat they radiate.
The quality control problem is not surprising as the price leaders (FEIT) are Chinese.
I’ve got nothing but LED’s in my house, when I bought it a year ago I replaced all 200 bulbs…kind of a no brainer, LED’s perform great use little power and don’t do the warm-up thing CFL’s do. Longevity isn’t always as advertised though, based on the 50k hour MTBF design these things should take years to burn out and some only make it 6 months or a year and it’s clearly a quality control issue because the same bubs are still going strong years later but a handful will burn out early, given the reduction in cost it’s not a problems but 3-4 years ago when I started to put them in they were really expensive, you actually claim on the warranty.
I’ve actually had remarkably good luck with FEIT
That was the real impressive thing with my first batch of LED bulbs in the kitchen, the “instant on” effect. Our family roof full of CFLs feels like you are lighting a fire when you turn the switch on. We have a single CFL in our walk-in pantry (that even has a window!) and it pisses me off in that it feels like there isn’t even a light in there at all with how long it takes to get that bulb going. I might buy another box of 12 LEDs for $38 just to replace that often used pantry bulb and one other that we hardly ever use.
kind of a no brainer, LED’s perform great use little power and don’t do the warm-up thing CFL’s do
Uber – I’m a late adopter of technology and just signed up about 2 years ago. I travel often and have taken nearly 150 Uber trips and never had a bad experience using the service across the US and in other countries. Only one driver cancelled, understandably as I was traveling from Ontario, California, to Long Beach, a 90 minute drive. Just one driver whined about the fare.
I live in the burbs and never need to wait more than 10 minutes for an Uber to arrive.
In contrast, my experience with traditional taxis in this area (100s of rides) is horrible. Two accidents, both fault of the taxi driver. During one trip from EWR at 2am, I fell asleep then woke up to realize the taxi driver was lost. I told him my address to type into his GPS, but he was illiterate and couldn’t do it, so I got the device and typed it in myself.
I find Uber drivers are handier at geography too.
yes you flip the switch and it feels like you are waiting for some old POS car to make it up a hill….. Also never EVER use CFL’s in a dimmer, even the dimmable ones have strange behavior.
Heh-heh! The CFL in the pantry is low wattage and sloooow turn on. The light we rarely use was the last good and bright fast turn on CFL from the kitchen and illuminates 7 feet of hallway between the kitchen and a half bath via a single switch and never gets turned on. I just switched them. Now our pantry is instant on and bright and the low wattage CFL will make a good, low brightness, night light/guide to the bathroom when the girls have sleepovers in the family room.
AMEN! Our family room has two dimmable switches that each turn on 6 chandelier style bulbs, one turns on a chandelier, the other turns on 3 two bulb wall sconces. If you don’t leave the dimmer on full bright they all strobe like crazy.
Also never EVER use CFL’s in a dimmer, even the dimmable ones have strange behavior.
my wife accidentally replaced one bulb on a dimmer with a CFL and when you turned it on it caused every LED light in the apartment to dim low and buzz like crazy.
Just to beat an LED horse a little more…
The twelve recessed 65W equivalent LED bulbs in our kitchen function perfectly and dim linearly.
The two Xenon replacement (12W equivalent, 2w actual) under cabinet lights dim, but seem to dim linearly to about 50% and then that’s about it, which is fine. They illuminate mini-counters on either side of the fridge and adjacent to two family room entrances, which make for a perfect evening light.
The chandelier type LED bulbs are not on dimmers. The three bulbs over our staircase stay on all night and do a great job of illuminating not only the stairs, but also the upstairs hallway and the first floor.
Way back when I had a cheap rheostat dimmer on single incandescent wall sconce with a single chandelier bulb as a night light in our 900 square foot condo as a night light. It took me a few months to realize how much electricity it was using. After that we went nearly 15 years with the four CFLs in the bathroom on every night, all night for significant savings.
Never send your wife out to buy light bulbs or tires;-)
my wife accidentally replaced one bulb on a dimmer with a CFL and when you turned it on it caused every LED light in the apartment to dim low and buzz like crazy.
How fu.cking crazy is it that mainstream news makes absolutely ZERO!!!! mention of the jobs report or the economy in general.
Grim eat your heart out
I’m in Disney at Grand Floridian. Concierge level main building suite. The room alone goes for $15,000 for the week.
Oh yeah, comped. Thanks Mickey. I must have drank a case of free beer already. Too bad I need to fly home into the snow tomorrow.
For the p-brain who has been wrong on a wage inflation forecast for what seems like 5 years.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/lack-of-wage-growth-remains-the-economys-greatest-mystery.html
Grand Floridian concierge building is great. Breakfast, snacks, cocktail hours. Spent spring break there with family a few years ago, an excellent way to enjoy the parks.
Grand Floridian concierge building is great. Breakfast, snacks, c0cktail hours. Spent spring break there with family a few years ago, an excellent way to enjoy the parks.
Listen, based on classical economic trends, I was dead on. I knew the unemployment rate would drop big time, and I was correct. Usually, with 4% unemployment rates, you see massive wage growth. The thing that screwed me up is technology. This is why the Luddites might be right this time. Technology is sucking up the wage growth at the mid and lower wage level. Only highly skilled individuals have seen massive wage growth because they can’t be replaced by tech yet. All the wage growth has been sucked up by business owners/corporations that employ this technology in an effort to increase profits. So instead of giving a raise to increase productivity, the owner class has simply substituted tech instead of raises. This is how I see it. Automation is holding down wages at the mid and lower tier.
No One says:
December 9, 2017 at 9:29 am
For the p-brain who has been wrong on a wage inflation forecast for what seems like 5 years.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/lack-of-wage-growth-remains-the-economys-greatest-mystery.html
I am starting to believe that the Trump curse is real.
http://olympics.nbcsports.com/2017/12/09/lindsey-vonn-injury-st-moritz/
That’s why this gop tax plan will fail miserably. They think that businesses will pass this savings on taxes onto the worker? Wtf? They are going to use this savings to automate or ship more jobs overseas. These people that think it will create jobs or raises are smoking crack.
Listen, horses used to drive the economy. They were replaced by machines that could do it better. Why does nobody realize that the exact same thing will happen to humans (it’s happening as we speak). What makes you think we are any different from the horse? That’s why there is going to be a major revolution in the way we look at the economy and how it works. The economy based on human labor is dead. Most people will not have a job in 30 years. Marx may indeed be right in the long term. We will have become so efficient at providing basic needs without human labor, there will be no purpose to work.
Trump curse? Wtf is that?
What’s up with trump and Jerusalem? Is he trying to start wwIII?
re”Technology is sucking up the wage growth”
Wrong…. Companies are using their profits for other things than paying their mid and lower level employees. For example companies in the S&P spent 54% of their earnings on stock buy backs instead of for example employee compensation over the last 15 years.
What is worse is a large number of S&P companies are spending more on buybacks than they earn, and their entire earnings plus borrowing is going into buybacks.
Companies are now trapped with their commitments for buybacks. It stifles investment in the company R&D and tech spending for example. That also affects compensation and benefits.
The low raises come right from the top and it has been that way for several decades now regardless of performance of the company or the economy. You the worker are just an expense to be managed.
By the way the BLS stat is bull-s-hit and has been for a long time. The labor force participation rate for adults is still below the year 2000.
Juice,
I agree with that, but you don’t think tech played a role in those buybacks? They need less and less workers to be just as efficient or more. Meaning, they can grow their business without giving raises or hiring more workers. So the extra profit can go to buybacks.
I’ll say it again, corporations have to go back to the time that they actually took care of the community they produced in. Otherwise, it will get worse and worse with each tax break on the corporations. We keep cutting taxes for the rich and corporations in order to get the economy going to create jobs and raises. After a couple of decades of lowering their taxes, isn’t it time to say that it just doesn’t work? If you cut taxes on the rich and corporations, who is left to pay for the cost of society? The 80% of the population that owns only 40% of the wealth?
This is how bad it is.
CBO Chart, U.S. Holdings of Family Wealth 1989 to 2013. The top 10% of families held 76% of the wealth in 2013, while the bottom 50% of families held 1%. Inequality worsened from 1989 to 2013.[1]
If they won’t pay to support society, who will be able to? Now you know why the national debt goes up every year. People don’t riot because the debt is still fueling the cost of society. The rich are paying for the cost of society through debt of the people, not out of their pockets.
Pumps – you are talking about employee productivity and Robotics/AI all in the same breath.
Nobody here can tell us what society will be like in 3 years never mind 30 years. 20 years ago during Dot com 1.0 it was predicted by now everything would be bought online and there would be no malls and brick and mortar basically the Amazon story. Yet here we are decades later and eCommerce sales overall only account for only 9.1 percent of total retail sales. Bezos and Amazon now make their money on AWS cloud tech and not really the 480 million different products they sell. Their AWS cloud tech as impressive as it is only generates 13 Billion in sales and as a company they net very little profit? They do no stock buybacks, they pay no dividends they pour everything back into R&D.
I have no doubt Robotics and AI will shape the future. I do doubt it will be the existing stodgy tech companies however that make the next break-thru in ways that will permanently change our society.
One thing is for sure companies that ignore flushing cash down the toilet with stock buybacks and dividends for the Class A shareholders will be the winners. That is the real lesson from Jeff Bezos. F-Wall st…. and F established tech companies like Microsoft, IBM and Oracle.
re: “What’s up with trump and Jerusalem”
Campaign promise for the the different tribes? The Orthodox support him, many rich Republican Jews support him but the liberal reform clan here in America not so much. 80% of that clan wants to give the land back to the Palestinians and voted for Hillary anyway and don’t want to live in Israel anyway. So it is really not about Jerusalem it is about Trump being Trump and his brutal brutal political style of sticking a thumb in one’s eye.
Fed deficits is designed to go up every year. Think about it. Social Programs are there to pull surplus and surplus is spending money to the Government. On paper and accounting ,this are debt counted on the deficit. We all know , it will never be paid. Never the less it is a part of the current $21T deficit US debt as some will call it
And when Social Programs collection is in a deficit,Government borrows to cover short fall. Govrrnment borrows peoples money in a surplus, Government borrows money in a Social Programs deficit
“I am starting to believe that the Trump curse is real.”
Ha. I’ll believe when Colbert falls off a train platform and is run over by an A or C train…
“For example companies in the S&P spent 54% of their earnings on stock buy backs… over the last 15 years. What is worse is a large number of S&P companies are spending more on buybacks than they earn, and their entire earnings plus borrowing is going into buybacks.”
Smart corporate finance. With rates so low many CFOs should be deemed negligent and fired if they aren’t borrowing at today’s rates to buy back stock, at least before this year’s 29% runup in share prices lol. The math is straightforward, google it and find an investment banking buyback pitch. Easy way to increase EPS in the absence of projects that clear investment hurdles.
“Companies are now trapped with their commitments for buybacks. It stifles investment in the company R&D and tech spending for example. That also affects compensation and benefits.”
Very incorrect. Absolutely nothing binds a company to buy back even one share of an announced plan. Look that one up too.
This explains affordabilty in housing can get worst under the new tax plan
http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/09/pf/tax-reform-housing-affordability/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom
Jimmie nails it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHu-2vyvaQY
leftwing – re: “Very incorrect”
Yesh…. I will elaborate..
Without getting too much into it, one of its defining characteristics of the current Bull market running now for 8 years is stock buybacks. The fact is companies have been financing this to the extreme and it is unsettling. We are talking about trillions in senior notes.
Any sharp upward movement in rates would be bad news for those bond investors so they will get hammered.
More importantly how will companies finance expansion to capitalist on the stronger economy if all of their cash is committed to stock buybacks?
It is only a matter of time folks…..just watch for the downgrades…
Love the Grand Floridian. If I win the lottery I will live there for the SnowBird season.
I took Mrs Fab there for her last big birthday. A week in the GF and the Disney Deluxe Plan to eat our way around the park. A lot of the Deluxe points went to the Birthday meal where we treated a load of friends to dinner at Marrakesh in Epcot.
re: Disney
Disney and their indoctrination parks are something out of a horror movie. Able bodied slobs on rascal scooters, and alligators eating children, with people stuffing themselves to near explosion, and if you act up there is the Disney Jail? Eh never mind their movie productions where pretty is good and ugly is evil and all kinds of racism and sexism is the norm..
I am too triggered to every take my kids there.
Juice, the ‘incorrect’ was for your statement that companies are obligated under their buyback plans. You say it again implying that if there are investment opportunities for companies they can’t capitalize because they are ‘obligated’ under the buybacks. They’re not obligated. A buyback is a Board authorization and never needs to be executed. Many aren’t.
Not going to debate that a ‘defining characteristic’ of this bull is buybacks. Many more important factors such as the economy, normalization after the financial crises, and the low basis of the market from the starting point eight years ago.
I pitched levered buybacks, when appropriate, to executive management and Boards for 15 years. 80% aren’t interested, maybe 20% are, maybe half of those commit and a smaller number actually execute. Not one management team – nor pitch – ever took a company into seriously levered territory. The IB would have to be crazy to go there –
they would be tossed out and not invited back. It’s not practical. And not good for the future fee stream of the bank from that client, lol.
Your logic is kind of backward…levered buybacks occur when there is an ABSENCE of good operating investments. Buybacks don’t choke out investment, they represent a lack of good investment alternatives. Any management team would much rather make an operating investment with double digit ROI than tweak out a buyback. But, if the operating side of the business is not seeing those opportunities the financial side will, and ought to, put some of that excess capital to use.
Love the Grand Floridian. If I win the lottery I will live there for the SnowBird season.
I took Mrs Fab there for her last big birthday. A week in the GF and the Disney Deluxe Plan to eat our way around the park. A lot of the Deluxe points went to the Birthday meal where we treated a load of friends to dinner at Marrakesh in Epcot.
Marakesh is awesome. That appetizer, the Beef Brewat Rolls sprinkled with cinnamon is amazing.
Hotel du Flabmax
Coming Soon to Washington: An Anti-Trump Hotel for Liberals
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-13/coming-soon-to-washington-an-anti-trump-hotel-for-liberals
Not as the crow flies.
grim says:
December 8, 2017 at 8:10 am
I live closer to the radioactive dump site than pumps.
Uhhhh….Maybe the difference is whether your state voted for you or not?
The fact that Mr. Trump’s tax package would economically hamper his hometown is unusual.
It is almost unimaginable that President George W. Bush would have championed a bill that would have harmed Texas relative to other states, or for President Barack Obama to have embraced legislation that took a particular bite out of his birth state, Hawaii, or adopted hometown, Chicago.
From the article on the liberal hotel:
““Self-selection is definitely one of our strategies,” she says about branding and marketing materials that directly appeal to the “woke” crowd. ”
Can’t wait for it to open. I find Trump distasteful and Moore reprehensible but I will book a corner suite and show up downstairs in a Moore hat and Trump Tshirt. With my baggage covered with bumper stickers like “Lock Her Up” and MAGA. Good times.
A lot of S&P 500 companies were able to issue bonds at rates lower than the dividend rates on their stock. Retiring the stock pays better than retiring the debt. It’s all fine and good until a recession hits.
Companies are now trapped with their commitments for buybacks. It stifles investment in the company R&D and tech spending for example. That also affects compensation and benefits.
Juice,
I don’t mind pretty princesses and straight princes in Disney. What has bothered me is how PC they’ve become. EPCOT started in the 80s as celebrating technology, but they couldn’t keep up and basically turned it into more of a save the earth multiculturalism theme. the latest avatar ride is fun but explicitly anti-development. Kids are so steeped in this anti human development propaganda these days they think it’s just commonplace, but that wasn’t Walt’s attitude.
More proof that 100k is crap for our area. A friend of mine made 112k this year along with money under the table for side jobs by being an electrician. Money is being made out there people, you can cry about cops amd teachers salaries, or get it and take advantage of this location.
He still lives at home, btw. I think he is 33. Just can’t find a girl. Way too picky. Great guy though, with a heart of gold.
Try to explain to him that picky equals slim pickings, unless he finds a divorced girl after one marriage. Can find some quality girls that got married and did not work out. Girls married 2/3 times…writing is on the wall.
Also, notice from single friends……all do online dating for searching “real” relationships. My, has the world changed.
How long before virtual sex is better than the real thing? Sick question, but reality.
Pumpkin,
Probably can still catch a virus either way.
If you gotta ask that question Pumps, then you are definitely doing something wrong.