From the Star Ledger:
Amazon in ‘advanced’ talks with a city for HQ2. It’s not Newark.
Newark’s chances at landing Amazon’s second headquarters is looking more like a long shot.
Amazon officials are reportedly in “advanced discussions” about establishing its second business hub in Northern Virginia, according to a Washington Post article on Saturday.
Cities across the continent have contended for the new headquarters, dubbed HQ2, offering huge tax breaks in exchange for the retail giant’s estimated 50,000 jobs and a $5 billion investment.
But on Saturday it appeared as if Crystal City, Virginia, had emerged as the front-running city for the online behemoth.
The Post reported that officials from the northern Virginia city and the surrounding county have discussed how quickly employees could move there, what office real estate was available and how to publicly announce the decision. JGB Smith, the city’s top real estate developer has even pulled some of its buildings off the market and earmarked them for Amazon, according to the article.
There has been no official word from Amazon, though, and the company could also be discussing similar details with other cities.
The news would likely come as a huge disappointment to cities that have been wooing the company since it announced its HQ2 competition in fall 2017.
“Unlike then, however, it is hard to picture Apple as a leading innovator of the next thing or things, whatever those may be. Rife with cash and focused on honing and defending a premier brand, it is more like a dynamic retailer than a tech disrupter. Those lines may, of course, blur, and those categories may not matter much in the end. But Apple today is one more sign of the dramatic transformation of the US tech industry from a gaggle of innovators and disrupters into a smaller clique of industry titans with different mantras and different agendas. Goodbye to changing the world; hello to profiting from it.”
https://apple.news/AuhRh0YUANmuyn9dCeuehYg
“The job gains were over a broad base of sectors from health care to manufacturing, which economists say is a good sign of growth across the entire economy.
“It’s a terrific report. There is nothing you can’t love in here,” said Dan North, chief economist at the credit insurance company Euler Herm!s North America.”
https://apple.news/A0NIyKoLLQHOz8YjBE-yzxw
In reference to opening article;
Any questions about who runs government now? Lobbyists run this country. There is no other reason for picking that location.
Frontline video on pension plans. As a taxpayer and someone who benefits from the state pension plan here is something for you to watch. We are approaching the coffin corner.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-pension-gamble/
Frontline video on pension plans. Pumps, as you are taxpayer and someone who benefits from the state pension plan here is something for you to watch. We are approaching the coffin corner.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-pension-gamble/
Amazon’s “search” for HQ2 was a show to bid up the package they’d get from state and local government. Pretty sure Amazon doesn’t take any kind of step like this without knowing exactly where they want to go.
Jersey, and all of the other bidders, should be happy they “lost”. The cost of winning would have outstripped any benefit.
Never had a chance …
At what point do states start targeting Amazon’s revenue for taxes? I’m happy they didn’t end up here. Higher property prices and no tax relief to the existing residents. Stupid cities were willing to give them the farm. How about extending such gestures to existing businesses in this state?
What revenue for taxes? Pretty sure they have a gazillion years of carry forward losses.
Hope so.. No Newark please.. Prices are already crazy in North NJ. Need to go lot lower.
What a troll! Fcuk off.
The Great Pumpkin says:
November 3, 2018 at 12:31 am
Deep down inside, you know that I’m on point. For whatever reason, I’m able to see the economy in ways most are not. There is no way I could have made my calls otherwise. You don’t just get lucky calling the job market, wage inflation, and housing market 6 years in advance. Almost impossible.
chicagofinance says:
November 2, 2018 at 12:25 pm
How many times has this quote been posted on these threads?
Ready?
“You don’t get it do you?”
$1500+ per month in property taxes for your only child to live in a childless neighborhood breathing exhaust fumes by herself. Yeah I’d say you see the economy in ways most don’t. Can’t wait to see her instagram account in a few years.
For whatever reason, I’m able to see the economy in ways most are not.
Truly feel bad for these people. Good breakdown of the problem. Also liked how they show the true nature of wall st, they simply can’t help themselves. They will take candy from a baby or shoot their own mother to land a big commission. Absolutely ruthless individuals.
Phoenix says:
November 4, 2018 at 8:34 am
Frontline video on pension plans. As a taxpayer and someone who benefits from the state pension plan here is something for you to watch. We are approaching the coffin corner.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-pension-gamble/
This is my favorite Pumpkin’ism of all time:
Pumps – If you really had this ability, you thoughts and commentary would be so in demand that you could sell your advice for hundreds of millions of dollars. Or better yet, you would have your own shop and make billions of dollars.
Instead – you are booking P&L for the desk and reconciling trade breaks. Glamorous.
I know, it makes me sick thinking about it. I made some of the best economic calls over the last decade right here on this blog and didn’t get a penny for it. Meanwhile the guys who got it all wrong are making millions to spew nonsense.
homeboken says:
November 4, 2018 at 8:02 pm
This is my favorite Pumpkin’ism of all time:
Pumps – If you really had this ability, you thoughts and commentary would be so in demand that you could sell your advice for hundreds of millions of dollars. Or better yet, you would have your own shop and make billions of dollars.
Instead – you are booking P&L for the desk and reconciling trade breaks. Glamorous.
I know, it makes me sick thinking about it. I made some of the best economic calls over the last decade right here on this blog and didn’t get a penny for it.
You didn’t get a penny for it because your supposed calls involved no actual investments you spoke of.
I bought a 650,000 dollar home at 31. Maxed out what I could at the bottom of the market. My wife wanted the home and she wanted the single family home. I did the best I could with the hand I was dealt. True story!
Blue Ribbon Teacher says:
November 4, 2018 at 9:40 pm
I know, it makes me sick thinking about it. I made some of the best economic calls over the last decade right here on this blog and didn’t get a penny for it.
You didn’t get a penny for it because your supposed calls involved no actual investments you spoke of.
That was also my second home purchase at the bottom (first when I was practically a teenager) I also locked in rates on a 15 year mortgage at 2.75%. Like i said, I did the best I could with the hand I was dealt.
And that second home purchase can qualify as a move in ready home for life at the age of 31 in north jersey(no small task for a 31 year old in 2012). It’s a home most move into after their starter home. If I stay in it long enough, should save significant money.
So to sit here and say I have not invested and put my money “where my mouth is,” is wrong.
Want to know my next big move. I’m going to keep building my equity, and when the stock market has its next big crash, I’m going to take out an equity line of credit and buy the sh!t out of the equity market. Patience is a virtue, but I shall strike, and strike hard.
“The contrast with the Obama years must be painful for any honest leftist. For future generations, the Kavanaugh fight will stand as a marker of the Democratic Party’s intellectual bankruptcy, the flashing red light on the dashboard that says “Empty.” The left is beaten.
This has happened before, in the 1980s and ’90s and early 2000s, but then the financial crisis arrived to save liberalism from certain destruction. Today leftists pray that Robert Mueller will put on his Superman outfit and save them again.
For now, though, the left’s only issue is “We hate Trump.” This is an instructive hatred, because what the left hates about Donald Trump is precisely what it hates about America. The implications are important, and painful.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-reason-they-hate-trump-1540148467?emailToken=f74213613619d5e7a1625569c845f2ddBsuMznn5olCWgEqIn9DVN+qNSwpWqhpVBZDuu2CSXg9a9p9HS4LbqiV9V6vRhhjwH5ankxbmHAYBBpYR01rj0A%3D%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share
I used to vote blue, but woke up and smelled the coffee. I realized the democrats don’t want for this country what I want. I see the economic growth, big companies coming back to the U.S.A., which means more jobs. I see a president who cares about our country. I see negotiations with North Korea, unbelievable! I walked away from the democrats. Sorry, but I vote what’s best for America.
http://victorygirlsblog.com/another-kavanaugh-accuser-lied-allegations-were-a-ploy-to-derail-nomination-video/
Another Kavanaugh Accuser Lied, Allegations Were A “Ploy” To Derail Nomination
Given her relatively unique name, Committee investigators were able to use open-source research to locate Ms. Munro-Leighton and determine that she: (1) is a left-wing activist; (2) is decades older than Judge Kavanaugh; and (3) lives in neither the Washington DC area nor California, but in Kentucky.
On November 1, 2018, Committee investigators connected with Ms. Munro-Leighton by phone and spoke with her about the sexual-assault allegations against Judge Kavanaugh she had made to the Committee. Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms. Munro-Leighton admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original “Jane Doe” letter. When directly asked by Committee investigators if she was, as she had claimed, the “Jane Doe” from Oceanside California who had sent the letter to Senator Harris, she admitted: “No, no, no. I did that as a way to grab attention.
She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she “just wanted to get attention”; (2) “it was a tactic”; and (3) “that was just a ploy.” She told Committee investigators that she had called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing process – including prior to the time Dr. Ford’s allegations surfaced – to oppose his nomination.
Regarding the false sexual-assault allegation she made via her email to the Committee, she said: “I was angry, and I sent it out.” When asked by Committee investigators whether she had ever met Judge Kavanaugh, she said: “Oh Lord, no.”
FlabMax has better things to follow that this blog
https://nypost.com/2018/10/18/facebook-removes-video-of-farrakhan-comparing-jews-to-termites/
Galloway was right…..
Amazon in ‘advanced’ talks with a city for HQ2. It’s not Newark.
Meanwhile, leftists defend Menendez, because while he partied with Melgin in the Dominican he says only partied with young foreign “girlfriends,” none legally proven to be under 16 or officially pr0stitutes.
And Hugin’s attack ads then “prove” that Hugin is the bad guy among potential NJ senators. Meanwhile those same people are still outraged that a guy in high school may have possibly gotten drunk and tried to have relations with other drunk people, and that mere possibility, also unproven, is good enough reason to call the supreme court illegitimate.
As hard as it is for Jerseyans to accept, Menendez is New Jersey. He embodies much of what New Jersey is known for. Ordinarily, guys like him will be elected to congress from poverty pockets, a la Rangel or Waters or a few Sandinistas in Texas or Florida. The fact that he is a senator, elected by the entire state of New Jersey says something about NJ, something the rest of the nation finds unsavory. But NJer’s revel in it, much like Pats fans with the “you hate us cuz you ain’t us.”
When you all say “it’s different here”, the rest of the nation rolls it’s collective eyes and thinks to themselves “and you’re proud of that?”
The reason I would like to see a return to federalism is to neutralize the Menendez’ of the world and make them a bit less relevant, even if the Dems return to power.
Why DID Menedez got to the DR 26 times on someone else’s dime? That’s enough evidence for me! It’s no surprise he’s currently divorced.
I bought a 650,000 dollar home at 31. Maxed out what I could at the bottom of the market. My wife wanted the home and she wanted the single family home. I did the best I could with the hand I was dealt. True story!
I bought at the same time. Same deal. It’s a 4BR and it was relatively new. Did I get in the bottom, sure. Does it make me a winner? No. In fact, my stocks that I took the down payment out of went up a lot more than the house itself. Buying real estate wasn’t the best move, far from it. If you want to say that it made sense for your personal life, fine, but it doesn’t make you an investment genius. In fact, when you take into account maintenance costs and upkeep, the gains are pitiful with respect to the overall market. And they have been incredibly pitiful compared to classic blue chip dividend paying stocks.
Had I remained in stocks, I probably could have put down 80% today on a higher price than the 40% I put down at a lower price.
Want to know my next big move. I’m going to keep building my equity, and when the stock market has its next big crash, I’m going to take out an equity line of credit and buy the sh!t out of the equity market. Patience is a virtue, but I shall strike, and strike hard.
Let us know when you do and post it in real time. Then, you can talk crap.
I’m watching that Frontline video on the Kentucky Retirement System. So you have state leaders robbing the fund (to pay for schools, infastructure, etc.), but the majority of the damage appears to have been done by the Pension Boards made up mostly of financially uneducated volunteers from the public sector (fireman, teachers, police, prison guards). When the market crashed in 2008, since pension obligations weren’t met, they invested huge sums in long-shot hedge-funds. Of course, they didn’t do what was promised by their shyster salespeople and Kentucky lost another boatload. Now, why should the taxpayer be on the hook for the whole shortfall. If I make ill-advised investments, I am fully responsible for the risk and result. The uneducated Pension Board, they will make up the losses off the taxpayer. Seems patently unfair, no? Wall Street is a bunch of crooks. It is how they make their money. Sadly, without these huge pension investments, Wall Street has little business. AND WE BAILED WALL STREET OUT! But keep focusing on the Honduran caravan as you are systematically being looted without knowing it.
Pension problems are systemic. Bad management, bad wall st. firms, politically connected double and triple dipping. Politicians don’t care, they are looting it either directly or indirectly.
The caravan is symbolic of another problem. Mass immigration gives labor less bargaining power. Supply and demand.
One problem does not warrant another being ignored.
“One problem does not warrant another being ignored.”
To provide citizenship to 2,000 people and pay for their meager welfare if they don’t find jobs in Trump’s booming economy for the poor (right?) isn’t even a drop in the bucket compared to what these pension bailouts will cost. Heck it’s not even equal to a oxygen molecule. Yet, the big story is the Honduran Caravan. The pension shortfalls are in the combined order of multi trillions! Yet our leaders left and right want the focus to be on a few Hondurans seeking asylum. Want comparative numbers? Every single resident in the US would have to pay $6,500 to make the pension and state liabilities whole. If every resident in the US gave a shiny quarter, it would provide $40 grand per Honduran refugee. I’d pay double that to make America wake up and realize there is absolutely no story there. Let me spell it out for the dumb American. There are 1,000,000 legal immigrants who enter our country per year on average. So what is 1,500 or so? It’s not even fckin symbolic.
LOL. I just watched that last night. There’s line in that doc, “Wall Street refers to pension funds as “found money”.”
The “fund of funds of funds of funds” quagmire is like and Escher drawing. Active managment of active management of active management gets a lot of people paid ahead of the investor.
I’m watching that Frontline video on the Kentucky Retirement System.
Blue,
As I have stated in my response yesterday, my wife wanted the single family home. I was fine living on the first floor/basement apartment of my rental banking almost every penny for investment. Money isn’t everything, quality of life matters too. So I’m not going to say my wife is wrong or ignorant for choosing the quality of life over living in a rental unit and banking tons of money.
I like our life, and am happy with it. I guess that is what matters at the end of the day. Would more money really make us that much happier? It surely might, but I highly doubt it (who knows). I don’t really worry about money as is, would just be putting extra cash flow into a stock fund or buying expensive stuff because “I could.” Could I be close to retirement already had I went that route? Of course, but then again, money is never enough (It’s scary retiring at a young age for obvious financial reasons, I would never feel secure enough to retire at 40 or even 50….too many things can go wrong). Don’t get me wrong, it might be nice to retire at 40, but it would be too much stress for me. Market drops would give me the shakes, and who needs that in their life.
Powerful post.
Libturd…look me up in Costa Rica says:
November 5, 2018 at 12:49 pm
“One problem does not warrant another being ignored.”
To provide citizenship to 2,000 people and pay for their meager welfare if they don’t find jobs in Trump’s booming economy for the poor (right?) isn’t even a drop in the bucket compared to what these pension bailouts will cost. Heck it’s not even equal to a oxygen molecule. Yet, the big story is the Honduran Caravan. The pension shortfalls are in the combined order of multi trillions! Yet our leaders left and right want the focus to be on a few Hondurans seeking asylum. Want comparative numbers? Every single resident in the US would have to pay $6,500 to make the pension and state liabilities whole. If every resident in the US gave a shiny quarter, it would provide $40 grand per Honduran refugee. I’d pay double that to make America wake up and realize there is absolutely no story there. Let me spell it out for the dumb American. There are 1,000,000 legal immigrants who enter our country per year on average. So what is 1,500 or so? It’s not even fckin symbolic.
If you are really reconciling trade breaks your job is going to be replaced by a BOT quite soon i’m sure.
In 2011 I bought a house – that same money down would be worth a lot more today if i kept it in equities, alas its a place to live and is much cheaper than buying the same house today.
Wall St is the one sucking on the giant tit, not general welfare recipients. They are the definition of welfare class, but the only difference, they live it up. The worker is truly a sucker in this game….always has been, always will. They are told they make too much money by the one’s attaching a giant sucking hose to their paycheck and productivity. What a scam.
“The uneducated Pension Board, they will make up the losses off the taxpayer. Seems patently unfair, no? Wall Street is a bunch of crooks. It is how they make their money. Sadly, without these huge pension investments, Wall Street has little business. AND WE BAILED WALL STREET OUT!”
Hey does NJ still have old school voting machines, with the curtain and mechanical levers? Sign in in the “big book” with an actual pen in front of challengers? I was shocked when we moved to MA with no sign-in, paper ballots, etc.
My district still has that ^ and the kind seniors to greet you at sign in.
LOL. I just found out for myself. Apparently NJ has the “most outdated machines in the country.” The last time I voted in NJ (1995?), they had, I guess, the previous generation of the “most outdated machines in the country.”
http://newjersey.news12.com/story/39403504/kiyc-union-county-to-begin-using-newer-more-secure-voting-machines
As I have stated in my response yesterday, my wife wanted the single family home. I was fine living on the first floor/basement apartment of my rental banking almost every penny for investment. Money isn’t everything, quality of life matters too. So I’m not going to say my wife is wrong or ignorant for choosing the quality of life over living in a rental unit and banking tons of money.
That’s fine and I wasn’t casting judgement over the decision. I made the same one. But at the same time, don’t hold a home purchase as some genius investment decision when mathematically, it wasn’t.
I quickly figured out that in MA all you need to create fraudulent votes is the ability to read upside down. When you check in they just ask you your name and address. The sign-in people then turn to your name in a mammoth computer printout and check you off by hand. You could quickly read several names of people who hadn’t voted and pass those names off to spare voters you might have assembled outside.
ExPat,
I always thought of that. Or, those old coots working the polls are so senile, they wouldn’t even remember you if you just kept getting in line over and over again. I am always surprised by how few people vote. I tend to do it at 7pm and the book is always near empty. At best, one other person of the 8 or so on the page has voted.
I’m an idea man, Chuck. Let’s let the illegals in the country and give them a simple path to citizenship. Each one has to kill 3 public pensioners to attain US citizenship, but the pensioners have to be retired 5 years or less. The only other requirement is that they have to vote a straight Republican ticket for 5 years.
Why do they have to vote Red? I was onboard with the rest. :P
So the Democrats will vote for a wall.
Why do they have to vote Red? I was onboard with the rest. :P
Why can’t they just kill democrats?
Just got alert: Amazon is going to pick 2 new HQ’s
Got the same alert, and was coming to post it. Shows, they only wanted D.C. for lobbying purposes. Giving some lame reason that they don’t want to drive up housing costs with one location.
We’re essentially re-electing a guy who is as bad as Roy Moore in NJ. WTF
They’ve been touch screen voting machines since 2001 in my district
Wait ’till tomorrow night, they’ll be killing themselves.
Why can’t they just kill democrats?
I DVR the three Sunday shows (Meet the Todd, Disgrace the Nation, and Fox News Sunday) and I noticed something very different yesterday. Chuck Todd, who is as irascible when it comes to Trump as anyone on air that I know, seemed calm, complacent, even…pleasant? I expect NBC let him see the real polls and he has thrown in the towel. It’s also possible his antidepressant meds were upped.
NJ does now have electronic voting machines. But you still have to sign in a big book and in a smaller book. The page on the smaller book is perforated and the voter is handed the part of the page to give to the person operating the election machine. So it is the same as you remember except your vote is collected electronically and you don’t have to pull the lever to the left when finished. And no bell rings any longer.
My problem when still living at home was having to argue with the poll worker who stated that I voted already. I would have to tell them it was my father who voted (I am a Jr.). Apparently the NJ law is still on the books that require the poll workers to be over 75 and senile as the last time I voted I heard the same argument by someone else. This time the father was saying his son voted already.
Thanks CGV. Interestingly, I never had the Sr/Jr problem, that I recall. I am a “Jr.” too. Even when I lived several towns away from my parents, I was too lazy to change my voter registration and I used to drive home to vote, probably until my mid 20’s. I guess I could have been legally challenged for not being a resident, but, hey…I’m white.
Now that I live in a
n affluentless diverse and suburban section of Boston, I’m guessing that probably 1:45PM is probably the best time to vote. Too close to the end of school to get mired in a line of soccer moms and all the men who still travel to offices will still be at work.ExPat, I got you beat.
Let in a 1,000,000 illegals. But they got to take out a High Net Worth F*ck*r. You know the $25Million plus crowd. They get to keep 10% of the Estate Taxes paid by their kill.
Is true Ayn Rand free market at its best. You eat what you kill.
Every time one of these HNWF gets wacked, Estate Taxes get paid. Enough money for everyone in society.
Expat,
Not that it makes a difference, but you are white? For some reason, I thought you said you were Asian.
Poor Koch brothers won’t have anyone to cut their lawn.
Peter Thiel won’t be able to get his freak off with those underaged hairless tanned teen boys.
We will be safe. I doubt any loudmouth here is $25M+. I bet only PumkinPotatoHead, but that is because he thinks those Turkish Liras are same as dollars.
Oh, the ignorant gullibility of liberals….
Only 156,000 Americans with a net worth over 25m…..
That’s 0.05% of the population. But of course your heroes blame everything on this micro minority… even better when the crazy old liberal coot hollers about the billionaires…all 536 of them…..
Takeout everyone with net worth over $250,000. That seems more fair.
You can’t be a Democrat unless you show a preponderance of evidence showing that you have zero talent in math.
Let in a 1,000,000 illegals. But they got to take out a High Net Worth F*ck*r. You know the $25Million plus crowd. They get to keep 10% of the Estate Taxes paid by their kill.
lw – too many zeros and decimal points for them to ever understand.
Oh, the ignorant gullibility of liberals….
Only 156,000 Americans with a net worth over 25m…..
That’s 0.05% of the population. But of course your heroes blame everything on this micro minority… even better when the crazy old liberal coot hollers about the billionaires…all 536 of them…..
That should jigger-rig our economy. Nice work.
Takeout everyone with net worth over $250,000. That seems more fair.
I win the Amazon contest!
Trump trump trump trump
Nice win for Queens and Nassau residential real estate if LIC gets HQ2 and LIC becomes the East Coast version of Seattle’s South Lake Union.
Will be fun to see Cuomo, who will win overwhelmingly tomorrow and makes Murphy and Christie look like lightweights, freeze de Blasio out of the HQ2 announcement. Cuomo did it last year when Amazon announced Manhattan 2,000 jobs and Staten Island warehouse. Seven pols quoted in the press release, de Blasio wasn’t one of them.
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/cuomo-announces-new-amazon-office-new-york-city-will-create-2000-jobs
I’m shocked the Murphy-Baraka-Melendez-Booker team won’t land HQ2.