From CNBC:
Here’s how many millennials got money from their parents to buy their homes
Millennials aren’t buying homes like their parents and grandparents did. That’s largely because it’s harder to afford a house these days: high real estate prices, stagnant wages and student loans hold young people back.
And a good chunk of those who have been able to purchase a home haven’t done so on their own. New data from financial services company Legal & General finds that 43 percent of homeowners age 34 and younger got money from family or friends.
Likewise, just over half of prospective homeowners 34 and under expect to benefit from financial assistance when they do take the plunge, L&G finds.
“House price growth in the U.S. has outstripped wage growth in 2018, meaning that on average across the U.S.A., houses are becoming more unaffordable,” the survey says. “This suggests the need for assistance [from family or friends] with a home purchase is on the rise. ”
…
One reason so many millennials aren’t able to afford homes is because of the rising cost of college. Between 1988 and 2018, the average price of tuition at a public four-year institution rose by more than 200 percent.
The L&G survey found that 35 percent of college graduates who are carrying debt and don’t already own say their student loans have made it “much more difficult” to save up to buy a home.
As a result, “many millennials have effectively given up on owning their own home — at least in the near term,” the survey says. “Of those under 35 who don’t already own, 43 percent say they don’t expect that to change in the next five years — most often (40 percent) because it’s simply not feasible to save for a down payment in that time frame.”
…
Apart from real estate, many millennials also routinely get help from their families to cover education costs, bills and child care expenses, reports Hannah Seligson for the The New York Times.
And many parents are willing to step in. Around 90 percent say they would give their adult children money to pay off debt if they asked for it, for example, a 2018 survey from CreditCards.com found. More than 50 percent of parents said they’d be willing to give their kids $1,000 or more.
Good Morning New Jersey
Good morning NJ.
https://www.nj.com/essex/2019/03/changing-newark-requires-bold-ideas-mayor-proposes-guaranteed-income-for-all.html
With all that money floating around Newark for guaranteed income perhaps they should start by funding it’s own schools. Newark population is 4 times the size of my town, yet they get 800 million a year in School funding not including other benefits. my town gets a paltry $17 mil a year, and aid was cut again this year and my local taxes went up.
The only solution politicians have anymore is to raise taxes, vote themselves large raises and give more handouts to the failure factories in our state, last one to leave Nj turn out the lights.
Newark taking out a big loan to fix homeowner problems on their behalf. Not only do they pay you income for doing nothing, they fix your house for free too.
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/03/13/newark-lead-water-service-line-replacement/
http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin/m4.cgi?district=0911&l02=091100064__0100001__09_____M
http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin/m4.cgi?district=0911&l02=091100064__0100001__08_____M
Land in Hudson County trading for $20 million per acre. Guy in Tewksbury struggling to move 30 acres for $1 million.
Separation widening.
Pre-Dawn Raid good name for a rock band
The Original NJ ExPat says:
March 13, 2019 at 9:33 pm
There’s probably a lot more nervous families out there waiting for a possible pre-dawn raid.
I love this…..
https://nypost.com/2019/03/13/son-defends-parents-caught-in-college-admissions-scandal-while-smoking-blunt/
So if so many millenials don’t ever expect to buy a house or buy one anytime soon what happens to housing prices going forward?
Land always sells at a price in line with it’s best use, not current use.
An acre in Hudson can support how many units? 100? 200?
30 acres in Tewksbury can support how many units? What’s the new minimum lot size in Tewksbury? 7.5? 15? So this can support 2-4 units?
That’s the difference.
So if so many millenials don’t ever expect to buy a house or buy one anytime soon what happens to housing prices going forward?
Multifamily housing owners get MAD PROFITZ.
OMG, Grim. They don’t even try to hide it any more. It truly is ‘Vote for me, I will give you free stuff’. And we’re not talking low quality government run programs. These are private homeowners paying only 10% (up to $1000) for repairs on their private property…and then Newark’s share is refunded by the State at 75 cents on the dollar. Their idea of “bold new ideas” is “Everyone gets a check!”.
When are problems so bad that Personal Responsibility is bold path taken?
On another site, I have some flapjack arguing with me that these plans, combined with shoveling moar suburb money into Newark Schools will finally equalize the opportunity to poor brown kids that are afforded to the lily whyte suburban kids. I must have missed something at the last meeting, but my check from the government still hasn’t arrived, my quoted price from the plumbing contractor to replace my service line was $8000, and my school taxes were over $8000 again this year for our 115 year old school buildings.
I don’t want to live on this planet any more.
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Grim True. But what about all the boomers and gen x people expecting big bucks for their houses as they retire? Can’t have it both ways.
I’m so sick of this bs. They need to make these individuals aware of the opportunity being given. How? If you fail more than one class, you are on the hook for the cost. This will directly slap them in the face with how much money is given to them by the producers in this country. Don’t waste other people’s hard earned money. You want to waste your own, go for it, but stop throwing away the one chance you have at improving your lot in life.
Got damn little babies always crying about what they don’t have while ignoring what is being given. Always someone else’s fault except their own.
“On another site, I have some flapjack arguing with me that these plans, combined with shoveling moar suburb money into Newark Schools will finally equalize the opportunity to poor brown kids that are afforded to the lily whyte suburban kids. I must have missed something at the last meeting, but my check from the government still hasn’t arrived, my quoted price from the plumbing contractor to replace my service line was $8000, and my school taxes were over $8000 again this year for our 115 year old school buildings.”
What is wrong with these people? WTF!
Grim says:
March 14, 2019 at 6:56 am
https://www.nj.com/essex/2019/03/changing-newark-requires-bold-ideas-mayor-proposes-guaranteed-income-for-all.html
Beto in the race. He wants to tear down all existing border fences and walls. “If (lots of) immigration is your problem, it’s one of the best problems to have.
Change the name of welfare to guaranteed income, and everything is alright. Just hand money out that others had to work for and everything is alright… who comes up with this bs?
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/beto-if-immigration-problem-its-best-possible-problem-country-have
Your wife hands out money to you, no?
Change the name of welfare to guaranteed income, and everything is alright. Just hand money out that others had to work for and everything is alright… who comes up with this bs?
I’m moving to Newark and starting my early retirement. I love this country!
Wow, life’s so unfair for these folks. Is this what “white privilege” looks like? Lucky people, so privileged!
“Newark population is 4 times the size of my town, yet they get 800 million a year in School funding not including other benefits. my town gets a paltry $17 mil a year, and aid was cut again this year and my local taxes went up.”
What highway are you moving to this time?
Hahahahahahahahhahahahaahhahaahahha
I’m moving to Newark and starting my early retirement. I love this country!
RE: Tewksbury
I was up there last weekend, a google exec bought up five properties on the mountain and combined them and is building home for himself and in-laws down the road.
I also picked up some farm fresh eggs on my way home, love that honor system for the money, there is a camera too at the road side stand.
Anybody have a WSJ subscription that could post this OpEd?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-speech-police-come-for-tucker-carlson-11552518354
BTW, there is a clickable date in the corner of each transcript that links to the audio file for each.
https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2019/03/10/unearthed-audio-tucker-carlson-makes-numerous-misogynistic-and-perverted-comments/223092
OPINION COMMENTARY
The Speech Police Come for Tucker Carlson
Like Lenny Bruce, the Fox News host is the target of an organized effort at suppression.
By Bubba Clem
I host a comedy-driven radio show for guys. Until Sunday, no one confused it with something that should be taken seriously. Given my on-air name, “Bubba the Love Sponge,” I assume most people get the joke. We are rude, sometimes profane.
Tucker Carlson called into my satellite radio show regularly from 2006-11, and like all my guests, he adopted an edgy comic persona for the broadcast. He said really naughty things to make my audience laugh, and they did. The 100 or so shows we made with Mr. Carlson weren’t a secret.
Do I really need to go into the rich history of insult comedy? Lisa Lampanelli, Andrew Dice Clay, Rodney Dangerfield, even Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. Comedy breaks taboo subjects that release the unspoken into the air in ways that are, dare I say, funny.
To be sure, we say really mean things on my radio show, and we laugh instead of getting mad. Why do we allow things to be said in comedy that wouldn’t be acceptable elsewhere? Believe it or not, scientists have studied comedy for an answer, and they found one. It’s called benign violation. We laugh when social norms are exceeded—the violation. But it’s not permanently harmful—it’s benign. No one called into my show authentically outraged about what Mr. Carlson said—not once—because everyone knew we were goofing in the spirit of the show.
To understand the mood of today, the only name you need to know is Lenny Bruce. A brilliant and shocking comic, Bruce was arrested over and over for obscenity—jailed for saying the wrong words. In New York he was convicted and died before his appeal could be heard.
Mr. Carlson is being smeared by a new generation of speech police for a new crime—refusing to give in to a small group of political activists who love all forms of “diversity” except of political thought. They take his comic words of a decade ago, reframe them as hateful, and require adherence to their demands. They attack the advertisers that simply want a chance to sell things to his audience, and threaten them with reputational destruction by public shaming unless they repudiate him. In the marketplace of ideas, these guys are shoplifters.
This is not only unfair but makes the world a sadder and angrier place. It’s a violation. There is nothing benign about falsely calling a good man a misogynist or a racist to force your politics on the half of the American public that rejects them.
If Mr. Carlson’s detractors think the way to counter his wit is to close him down by blacklisting him, I am afraid they’ll be disappointed. The chest-beating of the thought police will only help him grow. Americans love the underdog, and we love the unfairly maligned. Most of all, we love to be entertained. The people who hate Tucker Carlson are elevating him.
Did you hear the one about the political activists who decided to win on the strength of their own ideas, rather than smearing those they opposed? Me neither—and that’s no joke.
Mr. Clem hosts “Bubba the Love Sponge.”
There’s always Costa Rica.
Save a million, retire at 50 and don’t worry about anything more than whether or not it is going to rain or be sunny. And even when it rains, the sun still comes out every day. Feeling lousy? For less than a dollar, you can refresh yourself with a pipa fria and all will be well.
Comedy is dead, just try and be funny without stomping on people. Just wait till they go after the use of obscenity in Comedy again, oh wait you can’t call somebody a C&C&Ksucker anymore.
Wisconsin workers embedded with microchips
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/08/01/wisconsin-employees-got-embedded-chips/529198001/
RIVER FALLS, Wis. — A local firm here made good today on its vow to embed employees with microchips.
Sporting “I Got Chipped” T-shirts, some 40 workers at Three Square Market, a firm that makes cafeteria kiosks aimed at replacing vending machines, got tiny rice-sized microchips embedded in their hands.
Company officials said it was for convenience, a way for them to bypass using company badges and corporate log-ons to computers. Now, they can just have their hands read by a reader, similar to using a smartphone to pay for goods.
The company would like to see payments go cashless, as iPhone users do with Apple Pay. Except in this case, consumers use their hand instead of a smartphone to pay.
The chip is not a tracker nor does it have GPS in it, so the boss can’t track your movements, company officials say. Still, to those who worry about Big Brother having more control over our lives, Three Square Market President Patrick McMullan says you should, “take your cell phone and throw it away.”
Comedy is dead, just try and be funny without stomping on people. Just wait till they go after the use of obscenity in Comedy again, oh wait you can’t call somebody a C&C&Ksucker anymore.
Check out Sebastian Maniscalco. He’s old school funny. He puts on a phenomenal show.
MG, Grim. They don’t even try to hide it any more. It truly is ‘Vote for me, I will give you free stuff’. And we’re not talking low quality government run programs. These are private homeowners paying only 10% (up to $1000) for repairs on their private property…and then Newark’s share is refunded by the State at 75 cents on the dollar. Their idea of “bold new ideas” is “Everyone gets a check!”.
There was a sign in Philly for some dude campaigning. It literally said “the more you vote, the more you get”
BRT I did not really like Sebastian s last show. Past shows have been great
9:24 ur wife handed me her dirty purse.
Man her clit is huuuuge.
“Bold ideas –
The two parent household.
Valuing the eduction we all pay for and actually showing up for school.
Getting a job and supporting yourself.
All very very bold.”
Bruiser, it was ever thus.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship”
Alexander Fraser Tytler
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
John Adams
Beto has Jazz hands. What’s with all his hand movements?
The Original NJ ExPat says:
March 14, 2019 at 9:21 am
Beto in the race. He wants to tear down all existing border fences and walls. “If (lots of) immigration is your problem, it’s one of the best problems to have.
It’s from too much masterBetoing.
Does that pass the censors?
You mean Beto won the fishing contest? He was the Master baiter?
I think he caught Parkinson’s from Hillary.
3b, the one that just came out? I didn’t see the Netflix but I saw him live. I liked it but you’re right. His old stuff was a little better.
Funny comment on the admissions bribery: I thought the idea of college was to make 500k, not spend 500k.
“I don’t want to live on this planet any more.”
Anyone that’s spent any appreciable time outside of this state realizes it is a planet unto itself.
Beto coming into the race is a gift. With the current ideological span of just the announced candidates grab some popcorn and watch the Dems implode. Too bad this generation of their radicals are such pussies…otherwise I would look forward to a replay of Chicago, 1968.
Another quote sometimes attributed to Tytler…
We’re banging up against the timeline, both in years and (end) stage.
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
Another quote sometimes attributed to Tytler…
We’re banging up against the timeline, both in years and (end) stage.
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From b0ndage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into b0ndage.”
https://directory.scunthorpetelegraph.co.uk/company/1188204541587456
Good Commentary from Howard Marks
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-source/memos/political-reality-meets-economic-reality.pdf
BRT yes the one one Netflix that just came out. It started out strong and then rapidly declined in my opinion. But yes his older stuff is great.
Nom, thank you for the quotes. I always remembered the gist of it, but could never do it justice in my weak attempt to paraphrase. I never expected to witness it so bare in my time on this Earth.
Leftwing, the problem is: the cancer of NY/NJ style S0c1ali$m has metastasized. It is spreading to places once considered safe, like NC and TX and AZ. Soon FL will succumb to the weight of northeastern and midwestern ex-pats and they too will go Big D. Opening the borders and letting them all vote will be all the daggers and all the silver bullets needed to kill this once great country off. I am but a humble workerbee, I don’t make enough money to escape to Costa Rica or the Cayman Islands.
unethost無限空間虛擬主機 http://blog.unethost.com/
Prout has a similar, but slightly different idea of the social cycle, his own spin on Sarkar:
Prout takes account of Sarkar’s law of social cycles. Prout spins it a little bit differently and sees the social order as consisting of four classes of people that cyclically dominate society:
1. shudras (workers)
2. kshatriyas (warriors)
3. vipras (intellectuals)
4. vaishyas (acquisitors)
Essentially, the laborers (workers) live hand to mouth for a very short time until a groups of warriors evolve and fight each other for dominance over territories and the warriors come to power. Eventually the warriors get tired of fighting each other and figure out ways to just keep their territories while keeping the laborers class in check to do their bidding. For this they eventually need the intellectuals, who come up with the laws of society, the religions and dogmas to keep the underclass in line. After a while the intellectuals take over completely from the now nearly obsolete warriors. Then, when the society is in it’s final throes, the acquisitors swoop in and acquire most of the assets. They don’t look to lead or better society, they just accumulate wealth within the current territorial boundaries and eventually have full power…for a relatively short time. Then, like the end of a game of monopoly, when just a few or one have all of the wealth, there is mass revolt and the society crumbles. Then the cycle starts all over again. It’s the laborers who come back into power, the ones who can find food and shelter without any help or infrastructure.
Another quote sometimes attributed to Tytler…
We’re banging up against the timeline, both in years and (end) stage.
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From b0ndage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into b0ndage.”
Noak.
Great, great read. But outside of admitting that tax rates are too low on the wealthy, it really doesn’t speak to a solution to slow income inequality. Quite honestly, it’s a rich guy preaching, “don’t pick on the rich guy,” to his rich guy clients.
Now that’s not to say that much of what he says is true. I would also say he takes great liberties in claiming that progressives believe the government can manage spending better than the corporation.
Personally, I understand his perspective, but don’t agree with most of it.
Sure the post WWII economy rose all ships so no one complained. But those days are over. Now the only the ships of the rich are rising while the great armada of row boats and canoes behind them are taking on water. And the rich don’t want to lower their life boats to save them. So it is no surprise populism is on the rise. We all know the rich can be greedy, but I didn’t think they would be THIS greedy. The truth is, if they are not willing to share the wealth, the populist government will force them to share at the eventual demise of our political system. This is what Marks conveniently left out of his article.
And sadly, Trump has riled up a whole bunch of dimwits who believe he is helping them, when in reality, he is cutting taxes and raising the rich ships further while handing funnels out to the sinking boats so they can make believe he is bailing them out.
The rich better wake up before they have to leave. Of course, what do they care? They’ll be long dead before it all collapses.
“… it really doesn’t speak to a solution to slow income inequality. ”
Income inequality is a symptom of a vibrant, growing, and innovative society.
The more rapid the growth and innovation in society, the greater the income gap will be. If you want less ‘income inequality’, shut down growth and innovation.
Pick any example…the industrial revolution, automation, the current technology boom….It is foolhardy to expect those that conceive, form, nurture, and develop these technologies will benefit less than simple workers. Stated differently, does anyone seriously believe that at Facebook the janitors are going to experience larger proportionate growth in earnings than Zuckerberg and his 10,000 engineers? Unless this occurs, ‘income inequality’ will grow. It’s basic math.
If one wants to reduce ‘income inequality’ stop growth and innovation. There were about a dozen petri dish experiments and they failed badly. They were called the Soviet satellite states. Very low levels of income inequality, very miserable existence. To get to perfect ‘income equality’ go back to the Stone Ages. Very small difference between the top and bottom of ‘society’. Although even in that time there were better ‘earners’, those more physically fit who dragged more game back home by the tail than others.
Bottom line, growth and innovation exacerbates income inequality. Pick your menu item. Expanding ‘income inequality’ or commonality of poverty.
Listen up you little guilty prick…… if you were that contrite, then withdraw from USC immediately…..
The son of Beverly Hills marketing CEO Jane Buckingham, whose mom allegedly took part in the nationwide college cheating scandal, apologized, saying he’s upset he was “unknowingly involved” in the scheme.
Jack Buckingham said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter that he hopes the scandal — in which his mom allegedly conspired to cheat on his ACT exam so he would get into the University of Southern California — will change the college admissions process for the better.
“I know there are millions of kids out there both wealthy and less fortunate who grind their ass off just to have a shot at the college of their dreams,” he told the publication. “I am upset that I was unknowingly involved in a large scheme that helps give kids who may not work as hard as others an advantage over those who truly deserve those spots.”
“For that, I am sorry, though I know my word does not mean much to many people at the moment,” he continued. “While the situation I am going through is not a pleasant one, I take comfort in the fact that this might help finally cut down on money and wealth being such a heavy factor in college admissions.
“Instead, I hope colleges may prioritize an applicants’ character, intellect, and other qualities over everything else.”
Jack’s mom, parenting book author Jane Buckingham, was charged Tuesday along with 33 other parents in the massive college cheating scandal.
^^^parenting book author^^^
This stuff writes itself.
That’s what I always try to explain to people…you think you can escape by moving to another state…I wish I was as naive as the people that believe this. I know there is no escape.
Bruiser says:
March 14, 2019 at 3:02 pm
Leftwing, the problem is: the cancer of NY/NJ style S0c1ali$m has metastasized. It is spreading to places once considered safe, like NC and TX and AZ. Soon FL will succumb to the weight of northeastern and midwestern ex-pats and they too will go Big D. Opening the borders and letting them all vote will be all the daggers and all the silver bullets needed to kill this once great country off. I am but a humble workerbee, I don’t make enough money to escape to Costa Rica or the Cayman Islands.
I agree with both lib and lefty on the issue of income inequality. After long thought though, I side with Lib. Income inequality is scary. Why? It leads to the horror show known as populism which then leads to a social!ist dictatorship which is just a nightmare.
People like to use Venezuela as case study for what goes wrong with soci!ism. Truth of the matter, it should be used as case study on the danger of income inequality. You think Chavez came to power on the back of a happy populace? Yea, right! Guy came to power because the elite didn’t contain the legions of poor. Good job, could have thrown a few crumbs, instead you are now left with nothing.
I have stated for years on this blog the dangers of the growing income inequality. No one cares, they think you are attacking other people’s money and lifestyle. It’s amazing how blind people are to the dangers of income inequality. It has never ended well once in history. If you can find me an example, I’m all ears.
At the end of the day, the got damn idea of socia!ism was born from extreme income inequality in the 1800s. Remember that..
“growth and innovation exacerbates income inequality”
What does paying these CEOs of non-startups 20 to 40 million a year have to do with growth and innovation? Same with most of the clowns on Wall Street?
Lib,
The one thing that would calm the waters in this country is a lot more stable living wage jobs. The simple but very hard question to answer is how to create those jobs. Answer that and income inequality is reduced, but so far, all those I have asked haven’t been able to answer it. The high wage heavy manufacturing jobs in mass quantity are gone. As we speak, our nation is insolvent and to address the financial woes we have would take heavy pain on all sides and I’m not sure Americans have the stones for it. We are pretty weak these days. Some of the take from the rich commentary is on some level, capitulation that the problem can’t be solved but what upsets many is how Wall Street gets bailed out and joe six pack looses pension and healthcare benefits when Wilbur Ross rolls up Weirton, LTV and Bethlehem into ISG group via bankruptcy and then flips it to Mittal and makes hundreds of millions for himself. The Dems abandoned the heavy manufacturing crowd and now we are where we are. I’m very very concerned.
PS – I like the idea of made in the USA but look at the price of a pair of jeans from Bills Khakis.
It’s Over folks. The story will now fade out of the news.
Personal tennis instructor for Michelle Obama, her daughters charged in bribery scheme
https://www.foxnews.com/us/personal-tennis-instructor-for-michelle-obama-her-daughters-charged-in-bribery-scheme
cts. Illinois billionaire Ken Griffin said Thursday he’s having second thoughts about moving his financial firm to the city in light of Amazon’s decision to scrap plans for new headquarters in Queens amid intense political opposition. “The current climate in New York has dramatically reduced our interest in moving our headquarters here,” the 50-year-old founder of investment behemoth Citadel said during an interview on Bloomberg Television, adding Amazon’s exit was “a loss for everybody.” Griffin, who’s worth nearly $10 billion, said he started thinking about moving Citadel to New York after recently buying a $238 million penthouse near Central Park — the priciest home sale ever in the U.S. “I’m actually in New York every single week,” Griffin said. “We pay the New York investment banks roughly $1 billion a year in revenues…The apartment presents the possibility it might be home for me and Citadel could be headquartered in New York one day.”
Deep sigh. Everyone who makes over $60K per year in the USis the rich. There is not enough money in the top 5% to fix jack squat.
grim, Lib – Help me model this. Let’s treat Montclair as a country with a diverse population. Let’s further imagine that we fully confiscate the full wealth of the top 5% of Montclair. For our model’s sake, let’s assume we just kill those f.uckers and their progeny. If we decide to cap the top 10% instead, we can address that easily after we complete our model.
Let’s consider ourselves trustee receivers. How much money will we have when we liquidate every asset of the corpses?
Shit. grim – if you have a chance, check my premise, currently in mod.
Income inequality will destroy the country over time
I agree. But what the ridiculous amounts that athletes and Hollywood actors are paid? It’s not just the CEO s of Corps.
Income inequality isn’t quite the issue people make it out to be. How many homes does Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk own in your town?
Common folk love rich people as long as they have a decent job. The issue is the job loss.
Blue Ribbon Teacher says:
March 14, 2019 at 11:42 pm
Income inequality isn’t quite the issue people make it out to be. How many homes does Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk own in your town?
Take away enough opportunity (hope) and these people attack the rich.
Booker dating Rosario Dawson? If they get married – that’s income inequality.
Two millionaires shouldn’t be allowed to marry.
Average refunds drop again, now at +0.1% over last year.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/filing-season-statistics-for-week-ending-march-8-2019
Makes sense.
Poor people file first, they know they are getting a refund, but they also had less withheld and paid less tax, so refunds are down.
Mix of people file next, so refunds go up.
Now we’re getting into a mix of regular people and better off people, including those who know they owe tax, so refunds go down.
BTW, what is the denominator of the calculation? All filers? Filers who received refunds last year? Just filers who receive refunds this year?
Average refunds drop again, now at +0.1% over last year.
So, from last night, does anybody know how to calculate the total income, and also total wealth of the top 5% of Montclair residents? I’d like to come up with a redistribution model treating Montclair residents as if it were a sovereign nation.
I guess the denominator is filers who received refunds.
2018 – 55.3 million refunds by 3/9, average refund $3004
2019 – 53.4 million refunds by 3/8 average refund $3008
About a wash.
BTW, what is the denominator of the calculation? All filers? Filers who received refunds last year? Just filers who receive refunds this year?
About 3/4 of the way through the 2013 Danny Boyle movie Trance with James McAvoy is a fully nude front shot of Rosario Dawson…….. OMFG…. she is absolutely stunning…….
grim says:
March 15, 2019 at 7:28 am
Booker dating Rosario Dawson? If they get married – that’s income inequality.
Two millionaires shouldn’t be allowed to marry.
chicagofinance says:
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March 15, 2019 at 8:42 am
About 3/4 of the way through the 2013 Danny Boyle movie Trance with James McAvoy is a fully n6de front shot of Rosario Dawson…….. OMFG…. she is absolutely stunning…….
grim says:
March 15, 2019 at 7:28 am
Booker dating Rosario Dawson? If they get married – that’s income inequality.
Two millionaires shouldn’t be allowed to marry.
8:05 clearly you know the hoards await compensation.
These are the last days of Empire. Smoke em if ya got em.
I heard she lost her Cherry to JayZ – so there’s prolly nothing she won’t do..,
I just want to mathematically prove that it just won’t work. The one thing that very few people understand is math over 1 million. Ask somebody what length of time a billion or a trillion seconds is and see what they come up with for an answer. Probably 85% of them you could hand a calculator and they still won’t be able to figure it out.
8:05 clearly you know the hoards await compensation.
These are the last days of Empire. Smoke em if ya got em.
Days before Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, were arrested for allegedly participating in a college admissions cheating scam to get their two daughters into college, their youngest, popular YouTuber Olivia Jade Giannulli spoke out about her dad’s former college experience in which he “faked” his way through his education.
https://people.com/tv/lori-loughlin-daughter-olivia-jade-said-fashion-designer-father-faked-way-through-college/
LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoO2zcB66pQ
Expat and grim,
You miss my point. The object is not to take money away from the rich and give it directly to the poor. The object is to provide opportunities for jobs they can support themselves on. Not get rich, but enough to buy a home, raise a family, and go on a vacation. This is why the poor have never really attacked the rich in this country over the past 60 years. We had a strong middle class. So people feel happy and support the rich.
What’s happening today is a disaster waiting to happen down the road. Do you see this populist movement? It put Trump in power and then spread to the extreme left side. If that’s not a warning sign, I don’ t know what is. It’s not cool to be a billionaire right now, and that’s a problem ladies and gentleman.
A billion seconds is approximately 31.7 years. I think. lol.
Refunds up in low tax sates and down in high tax states. No surprise there.
Lol. Le’Veon bell thinks he got a great deal signing with the jets. Wait until his state income tax jumps to 11%.
leftwing,
I was searching for that Tytler reference in the past – didn’t know who originally came up with that model theory. Thanks for that.
They closed comments on the Cory Booker article on nj dot com. Tons of people calling it a fake relationship… a farce for his 2020 run.
Progressives don’t like free speech. The truth is the enemy to them.
So Booker is not gay?
You can still jack off to him, Pumps.
Liberace was married… just sayin’
The Great Pumpkin says:
March 15, 2019 at 9:46 am
So Booker is not gay?
to give you an idea of what a fully depreciated Rosario Dawson might look like:
https://pagesix.com/2010/08/07/rosario-dawsons-mom-fights-squatters/
Pumps is married… just sayin’
You had a point? When was that?
Expat and grim,
You miss my point.
my personal identity essay http://paperwritingservice.gdn/planetpapers/education-research-paper-topics.html final draft essay
Does anybody have any opinions or experience with opening a franchise? Was thinking of opening a pokeworks franchise.
Unreal; the jews are good at shaking the tree.
https://www.nj.com/education/2019/03/lakewood-to-get-another-15m-in-school-aid-from-special-fund-just-for-lakewood.html
Then tell the orthodox jews to stop corrupting the system. Pay taxes for god’s sake.
“The state has an obligation to make sure all children receive the education and services they deserve, Yaple said.”
You should sell Lularoe leggings, or maybe those essential oils.
“What does paying these CEOs of non-startups 20 to 40 million a year have to do with growth and innovation? Same with most of the clowns on Wall Street?”
“Wilbur Ross rolls up Weirton, LTV and Bethlehem into ISG group via bankruptcy and then flips it to Mittal and makes hundreds of millions for himself.”
Then do it yourself. Or not, and then STFU and stop being a whiny little b1tch.
Lib, you and I overlap opinions on here 90+% of the time but you’re off on this one.
By what right does anyone have to dictate in the absolute what someone else’s activities are worth? What standing do you have to do that? Seriously, who the fcuk are you to do that? Can I nominate you as ‘sports czar’ so you can evaluate the appropriateness of aaron rodgers pulling in $76m? Entertainment czar so you can reclaim some of the billions from that vacuous tart Kardashian?
If these compensations are so outrageous, then just go do it yourself. Take it. And if you can’t for whatever reason – family, capability. commitment, predisposition, whatever – then STFU.
Really aggravating when people who can’t or won’t step up try to control those who do.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Agree, Lib. Stop complaining. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps like Wilbur Ross, Trump, Romney, Devos..oh wait.
You should do it Pumps! Pokeworks franchisees and their employees have lots of time to post here. They just wait for the work to come to them.
Hahahahahahahahhahahaahahahahhaaa
Does anybody have any opinions or experience with opening a franchise? Was thinking of opening a pokeworks franchise.
Made me think of this scene. I love it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onoaKEEyNEI
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
LOL By, point taken. I’ve never denied the lucky sperm club exists. But I neither envy nor honor them.
Every family starts somewhere. Very few people in this country have familial wealth they trace back to the founding of this country. These children of wealth you mock all had forebears who came to this country usually legally and mostly penniless. And some where along the way made it.
So, again, my advice is to enjoy the lifestyle you have chosen, or change it. Sitting around ruminating on others’ choices and wealth is just not healthy.
LOL By, point taken. I’ve never denied the lucky sp3rm club exists. But I neither envy nor honor them.
Every family starts somewhere. Very few people in this country have familial wealth they trace back to the founding of this country. These children of wealth you mock all had forebears who came to this country usually legally and mostly penniless. And some where along the way made it.
So, again, my advice is to enjoy the lifestyle you have chosen, or change it. Sitting around ruminating on others’ choices and wealth is just not healthy.
When their obsession with profit impacts the lives of others, these individuals have every right to push back. It’s about being able to put a roof over your head and raise a family if you work full time. Lot’s of people can’t do that today with a full-time job, and you sit here and mock them for complaining that working hard gets them nowhere.
“So, again, my advice is to enjoy the lifestyle you have chosen, or change it. Sitting around ruminating on others’ choices and wealth is just not healthy.”
I think a lot of sensibilities got altered in the US in the first decade of this century, specifically 2000-2008.
I’ve had the luxury of taking a lot of time off from during my life, so every time I re-enter the work force, even after a little time off, I’ve kind of noticed things with fresh eyes. My longest time away from work was 2002-2006, stayed home when the kids were small.
I then worked on a team of 5, but from home starting in mid 2006. Two of the people on my team were previous coworkers of mine from a previous company, and I knew them both well. They seemed really stressed out in 2006-2007, and I never knew them to be that way before.
Then I moved into a consulting position right around the beginning of 2008, my first time back in an office in almost 6 years. I loved it. I made some new “work friends” for the first time in a decade. I began hearing strange things like, “I’ve never made so much money, yet I feel so poor”. I also started hearing a lot of animus aimed at the government. In my working life, I had never really heard people start conversations about how much they hated the government. It baffled me a bit, because I had always been ambivalent about government; there had never been a political figure I hated or loved.
Then the financial crisis hit in late 2008. After the panic settled I sensed something brand new. There seemed to be this growing sentiment, something like, “I don’t thing I’m going to make it(financially).” On the heels of this I think some groupthink germinated. Something like, “If I don’t get the rich to give it to me, I’m definitely not going to make it.”
I think we’re on the cusp of two disgruntled groups coalescing, middle aged adults who didn’t plan for retirement properly combined with young adults who never gained anything unless it was given to them. The latter group just wants to continue in the only way they know and the former group is ready to convert to that lifestyle.
It’s about keeping the “American dream” alive, and that’s not happening today due to income inequality. Working hard should get you something, unfortunately, most of the growth in the economy has gone to the 1% over the last 30 years.
Remember, your grandparents came to this country and were able to buy a home and raise a family based on a basic job. You just had to work hard. Try doing that today.
Monthly nut. When I graduated college it was common for kids to have no college loans, no cable tv, no car payment, car insurance was almost nothing too. In addition, no cell phone, no home computers, no internet. Maybe 50% of kids out of college had cable tv and a car payment. Meanwhile, your income shot up to 3-5 times the rate of whatever you made at your best full time Summer job. I remember being shocked that the taxes taken out of my check were equal to about the most I ever made before I graduated. My first apartment was $300/month and I had a 10 year old car already. Made it real easy to save money, as I had no other expenses.
OK – here’s an outside the box plan, half s0c1alist. Free community college and a government supplied crap-ass cell phone. You should be able to get yourself an associates degree, rack up some cash with a part-time job, and then take it from there.
I’m pretty sure our connected age and access to information has degraded our self esteem and worked on highlighting class differences like never before.
The Trump, Romney, and Ross’s ‘obsession with profit’ – if such a thing even exists – has absolutely zero to do with the ability of joe sixpack to provide for his family.
Absolutely zero.
Not only does causation not exist, basic correlation is non-existent.
In other words, any of those families could go bankrupt tomorrow. Or their wealth could double. In either circumstance joe sixpack’s life would not change.
You are dealt circumstances in life. After that, your choices are just that – your choices. Deal with it.
Lefty,
I’m a ceo. I stop providing good paying jobs by either replacing them with automation and offshoring in the name of increasing profit. My competitors must now do the exact same thing. This is why people blame them.
They ruined our society with their obsession with short term profit. They totally sold out everyone else in the economy. They only cared about themselves and their profit. They didn’t care about the impact their actions would have on the rest of society.
This is how I see it…maybe I’m wrong.
You are dealt circumstances in life. After that, your choices are just that – your choices. Deal with it.
Post of the day.
It’s about keeping the “American dream” alive, and that’s not happening today due to income inequality. Working hard should get you something, unfortunately, most of the growth in the economy has gone to the 1% over the last 30 years.
Remember, your grandparents came to this country and were able to buy a home and raise a family based on a basic job. You just had to work hard. Try doing that today.
Your grandparents didn’t try to buy a McMansion and could care less about buying a new iphone every 6 months. The American sense of entitlement to big houses, new phones, expensive cars, and multiple vacations is the primary reason the middle class has no money.
Left,
The problem with the ‘getting on the ladder’ theory is that capitlism can’t succeed that way. If everyone get an associates degree then capitalism must set the lowest rung a little higher. Look at last 40 years. In 1975, if you got a bachelors then you were getting a better paying job than the factory line and probably moving to a upper middle class. Somewhere around 2000, it was not good enough to have a bachelors and you needed MBA to get a good paying job. Now, after collapse, no one gives a flying f-ck if you have MBA. You won’t get paid more for it. Today, a big payday would be a PHD in AI or robotics automation.
In 1975, it was the same as today, just make sure your bachelor’s degree is in engineering and you never have to go to school again(if you don’t want to).
After living in Boston for decades, I think I know what’s going on. Just “getting a bachelor’s” being inadequate is not because of a changing market, it’s due to unsupervised kids who gravitate toward bullshit majors. Even in today’s college environment, where the average Ivy League grade is an “A”, there are still exceptions. The large fork in the road is getting a degree OR getting an education. You can piss away your parents money and still get a degree without doing hardly a bit of work, but you can’t get an engineering degree that way. As corrupt as certain institutions are these days, they still aren’t releasing engineers into the wild to build bridges, aerospace platforms, and skyscrapers without learning engineering. OTOH, they might allow you to keep ponying up $60K per year for your F’s, but you won’t graduate.
Look at last 40 years. In 1975, if you got a bachelors then you were getting a better paying job than the factory line and probably moving to a upper middle class. Somewhere around 2000, it was not good enough to have a bachelors and you needed MBA to get a good paying job.
Now…if you just want to get rich on Wall Street, that’s a much simpler plan. Just graduate from the Ivy League, NYU Stern, Stanford, Georgetown, or Duke. That’s it. Doesn’t matter what your degree is in or what you learned. You’ll get a job, you’ll get rich, and you’ll be protected.
Bystander gets it. Capitalism is not designed to reward everyone that works hard. It’s a game of winners and losers. Income inequality at current levels is dangerous because it is based on very few winners and lots of losers.
The American Dream was based on lots of winners (strong large middle class), but not many jackpot winners. Winners that could buy a home, raise a family, go on vacation, and provide their children with an education.
Blue,
It’s not about cell phones or McMansions. That’s not true. Millennials had a hard time getting job opportunities, hence, they were living in parents basements at 28 years old. They couldn’t even afford to rent unless they found a ton of roommates. Didn’t matter how much they wanted to work, just not enough opportunities to go around.
At least in my industry, (investment management) beyond the age of 40, nobody cares if or where you got an MBA, because by then, you have a body of work that you can point to or you don’t. (Though you better have a CFA or another relevant degree if you don’t have an MBA. At my place the CFA is probably valued higher than the MBA, and some people are even anti-MBA). A guy with a Harvard MBA and 18 years of lasting only 3 years or less in every job, with no discernible track record of success, no way are we hiring that guy without multiple enthusiastic references from internal advocates who has worked with that person, and a good explanation. I’ve turned down plenty of interviews with people like that.
The key benefit of a top MBA is the opportunity to get that first, maybe the second job after graduation. After that, you’re pretty much on your own.
Age 25 through 35, a good MBA might get you into interviews, and it will probably have helped polish your presentation skills, and that person probably isn’t dumb. Then the focus of the interview will be to find out if they are actually good or if they just sound good. A high status MBA generally is evidence that the person is generally intelligent, knows how to put effort into projects, knows some business lingo, knows how to talk and write. But they still could be pretty worthless, and just know how to say what they think we want to hear, and how to play office politics.
BTW, as a Stern MBA graduate, I know plenty of people who never got rich. I knew a Wharton graduate who hated working in investment banks and struggled to stay employed. I know a U of Chicago guy who is a consistently weak analyst. Plenty of people struggle to hold down jobs paying under $200k/yr despite top 20 MBAs. Plenty of very successful people as well.
Pat,
Not disagreeing but there used to be a place for b^llshit BA majors – it was either teaching, journalism, publishing or advertising. Now, nearly all those solid jobs are gone. Even a good teaching job often requires a Masters and other certifications beyond a BA.
Let’s not pretend that dufus partiers did not exist 25-30 years ago. They still had a leg-up in society even graduatinf with 2.0 GPA and BA in Philosophy. Today, you graduate with that and 150K in debt then you are royally f-ed..and better off not going to college.
Partiers can always go into sales. It’s sink or swim, but the money can be great!
Agreed. But that was back in the days when you could actually fail out of college, even if it was a bullshit major. 22+ years ago when I first became a manager I used to view it this way:
The only difference to me during an interview of someone who has a college degree, versus someone who has work experience but doesn’t have a degree, is that I (used to) know that the guy with the college degree undertook a four year commitment to accomplish something. On the surface I didn’t know for sure if he A.) learned what he should have, B.)Crammed for exams, but didn’t retain anything, or C.)cheated his way to his degree. Nowadays, I’m not sure if someone with a non-technical degree did anything except show up and fill a dorm room.
That’s why the easy way for hiring managers to take a good guess at education, assuming there is an adequate hiring pool, is to lean toward the guy with the advanced degree. This is not because it has gotten that much more competitive. Rather, it is because the guy with one degree might not have done anything to get his.
Ask Pumps. That’s why he needed three degrees to prove himself and get that Post Office job.
Not disagreeing but there used to be a place for b^llshit BA majors – it was either teaching, journalism, publishing or advertising.
Left,
Maybe the argument could be made that at least those from rich families (like Ross and Trump) had drive and ambition to succeed further with the giant net they were already given i.e. not handout f-ups. I have no insight into that world but I have an in-law who grew up in Potomac, MD. Is the son of neurologist with a law degree too, for kicks. His father sent him to elite DC prep school (where all politicians kids go) and he graduateed from top business school with MBA. In past 20 years, he has held down no real job. He only cared about a fancy, job title and whether it was a startup. The father is snob with capital S as his first question is which school you attended. If not up to elite standards, he ends conversation. What I have learned from their family is that father is a cheapo who never took family out to eat. He told kids that connections mattered more than anything. They name drop like crazy. His younger brother is 42, Georgetown MBA and never held real job either. His linked in page says he is expert in “blockchain, AI and robotics” (lying puke). I had a phone call last summer with their cousin (also elitist) who apparently runs small regional bank in CT. It was to see if he knew of any banking jobs. After I describe my background, he says ” I am having lunch with CTO with JP morgan..blah, blah”. I wanted to vomit as I knew this conversation was pointless. To finish it off, I am in fantasy FB league with 6 of his prep school friends. All of them have careers as “business coach” or “strategist for hire”. My point is that it looks to me as that is rich elite attitude in this country. Education, connections, image then ride it is out until inheritance comes. It is so clear that is what many do.
Michael says:
September 12, 2014 at 12:43 pm
As an uneducated individual would say….stop being a HATER! I have 3 degrees. My family income is over 200k as a millennial, but I’m an idiot? Why, because I don’t think the end of the world is coming? Because I think wage inflation is inevitable?
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Left,
Before I debate you, I am first going to point out that I am quite asset rich, but due to D’s situation, I am now cash poor. So I am not whining about my slice of the pie. I got mine by working my ass off and being insanely frugal. With that out of the way, let me get on soap box and proclaim, Wall Street is the most corrupt entity ever imagined. Perhaps even moreso than the World Bank. The Occupy movement knew it, but it mattered little.
My grandfather on my father’s side was an accountant for some of the largest companies in the states. He also did some side work for Al Capone in his younger days. To this day, he was the wealthiest person I knew personally (besides a few athletes perhaps) compared to everyone else I know. Even though flights to Los Angeles from New York were both dangerous and took a day and one half due to the ten stops required each way for the mail to be dropped off. He would do this pretty regularly. Air travel was incredibly risky in those days. But his job paid him well and to him it was worth it. I could go on and on with crazy stories about him, like the strange dude that no one knew, who came to speak at his funeral and knew more about his life in the early 20th century than I think he did. But that’s not the point here. Even with all of the risks and impossible hours worked and with questionable clients who put him at additional risk, he probably made no more than maybe fifteen times (at most) what the average blue collar family made. Keep in mind, he hobnobbed with the Ford’s and the Carter’s. When he retired and sold off his mansion on the sound, he moved to a condo on Galt Ocean Mile in Ft. Lauderdale in what was once the tallest building in Florida. Him and my grandmother lived a very comfortable life. His children, he spoiled horribly, and they both ended up as losers. But that’s another story. If you are wondering why I didn’t have the upbringing that you would expect me to have had with my grandfather’s wealth? Well, my mom smartly divorced my dad when I wasn’t even two yet and that was the end of that. Quite honestly, I’m much happier to have been raised unspoiled and solidly middle class New Jersey. I probably would have f’ed up much like my dad did otherwise.
Sorry I keep experiencing scope creep.
“By what right does anyone have to dictate in the absolute what someone else’s activities are worth? What standing do you have to do that? Seriously, who the fcuk are you to do that? Can I nominate you as ‘sports czar’ so you can evaluate the appropriateness of aaron rodgers pulling in $76m? Entertainment czar so you can reclaim some of the billions from that vacuous tart Kardashian?”
You are correct Lefty. I have no right to dictate someone else’s worth. Nor do I have any power to. But I do know that the republic ends when the wealthy no longer share the spoils. So, think of it less of a whiny attack on the individual, and more a plea for compassion for the survival of the country that allowed that person to get where he is today. Heck, even that OakTree analyst who penned that piece admitted that the tax rates are hysterically low on the wealthy. Why do you think he slipped that in there? Probably because he knows what is going on is patently unfair.
There was once a time in this country when the government did provide the RIGHT amount of regulation. Like in the break up of AT&T. This will blow the mind of some of the younger posters here, but I remember once owing my mom $45 since I stayed on the phone with my girlfriend in Middletown too much one month. And most of those calls were late at night when it was significantly cheaper. Yet the technology and cost of those calls was paid for decades before I made those calls. The profit margin on long-distance was probably around 99.5% if not more. Praise Sherman’s hammer. We’d still be paying for long distance today without it.
But the author would like you to believe that it’s fair what the executives at AT&T were being paid even though Alex Bell pretty much invented that technology in 1876. Sure, there were a few innovations along the way. Like being able to send multiple signals down the same line or automated assistance (for another 10 cents). But really, AT&T was printing money. And the author feels that regulation is the antithesis to innovation. In the case of the Baby bells, I would argue that competition among the now multiple providers created the innovation necessary to separate themselves from each other. You know, healthy competition.
If I were running the show, Amazon would have been broken up ages ago. No company, in the history of the United States, Walton enterprises included, has done more to take away good paying blew collar jobs. And the author would like you to believe that Bezos’ 138 billion is well deserved. And Lefty echoes the same sentiment. If you want to make 138 billion, just go out there and do it! The problem is, there are only so many middle class jobs to steal. There is only so much profit to be stolen from each worker.
Though I don’t disagree that laissez faire government fosters ingenuity, I also know that having larger numbers of better educated citizens fosters even more invention than the draw of that rare chance to juice 140 billion net worth off the backs of the working class. And as income inequality gets worse, the ability to profit off your innovation also diminishes as there are less dollars to pay for it.
So go ahead and call me a whiny little b1tch. Had my grandfather and his compatriots all made 300 times their coworkers salaries (after all, who is to say what a man is worth), there’s a good chance Jeff Bezos’ Cuban immigrant father would not have had the ability to pay for his engineering degree which undoubtedly shaped his son’s future.
Really, the fat cats and rich b1tches should be thanking the whiny complainers. They are the ones keeping the reality alive. For I’m certain if Wall Street could have their way, there would be no SEC to keep them in line.
“New Jersey has a pension problem.
It’s been a subject of debate for years. The state’s contribution to the pension system seems to increase every year, and the unfunded liability is a mind-boggling amount.
So I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that the system was unaffordable. After all, how can New Jersey continue to plow billions of dollars into this system each year?
But here’s the thing. It’s all a simple bait and switch.
All the politicians who are harping on how we need to reform the pension system focus on two things — the unfunded liability and the state’s annual pension payments.
When you hear that the governor is proposing to appropriate $3.8 billion for pensions, you get sticker shock. But this number doesn’t represent the actual cost of the pension system. It represents the cost of the state paying down its debt, incurred by years of underfunding.
If the state had simply made its normal contribution each year, we wouldn’t be in this mess. As it turns out, that normal contribution isn’t a whole lot. If you look under the hood at the last actuarial report for the TPAF — the Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund — you’ll see that it covers about 141,000 active members with a total payroll of $10.6 billion. To cover the ongoing costs of these members’ accrued pension obligations — what’s known as the Normal Cost — the state owes less than $400 million.”
https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/19/03/14/op-ed-njs-pensions-are-not-expensive-so-lets-stop-pretending-they-are/
Normal cost would be 400 million. They compounded this mess into oblivion by stealing from the pension. Those people should be lined up and shot for how much cost they have now added to the plates of nj taxpayers. Compounding effects of borrowing from that pension fund is disgusting.
The debt obligation costs more than the got damn pension cost. Think about that for a minute. The so called expensive pensions, as lib likes to say, costs less than the debt payment accrued from decades of stealing from the fund. Disgusting…and then they try to vilify some middle class worker for all this mess by having them reduce their compensation. How do these people live with themselves?
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” Greek Proverb
Libturd,
Sorry…
https://njrereport.com/index.php/2014/11/19/your-commute-is-about-to-get-shorter/#comment-660007
Wow, that was an epic post by Lib.
Re: Amazon
I wonder what they would have become if, after caught committing tax fraud multiple times, they were criminally prosecuted.
At some point, Amazon is going to become about as loved as K-Mart. I can’t wait. Until then, I’m in at the recent pullback to 1600.
Ever since 2008, I’ve done a lot better joining them than fighting them. If you knew how many 0% loans I’ve taken, you’d laugh.
Jersey Spotlight is pretty much the NJEA newsletter. Two, the 400 million does not sound like a lot. But it was a much bigger number back in the early 90s when they started robbing the pension fund. On the bright side, we have the nicest salt temples in the world!
Who is that Libturd in Union guy! :P
Joyce,
Wouldn’t it be great if we could trust our government?
Automobile Companies (FlabMax Edition):
“EBIT macht frei”
https://nypost.com/2019/03/15/volkswagen-board-condemns-ceo-for-evoking-nazi-slogan/
ExEssex says:
March 15, 2019 at 5:51 pm
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” Greek Proverb
Kojak:
[dripping with sarcasm] Hey look, Deidre, I’m sorry I missed your coming out party. I hear you were crowned Miss Sillicone, is that right?
Solly DeChico:
Hey, Kojak, did you come here to break in a nightclub act or was there something special you wanted?
Kojak:
Hey, Counselor, you tell your client to have his mouth behave, or he’s a prime candidate for a get well card.
Solly DeChico:
[raises voice] He threatened me! You heard that, he threatened me!
Kojak:
Greeks, they don’t threaten. They utter prophecies.
Disclosure: I sold half of my position in VEDL near the close. 8.55% gain, not bad for just a few weeks. Utilities have been on my radar for a long time and I don’t like it, but I can’t fight my model so I’ve been buying, D, OGE, ETR. Very boring.
The Original NJ ExPat says:
February 20, 2019 at 8:09 am
If anyone wants to take a flyer on an Indian stock, I’m putting on a position in VEDL, in fact I have been taking some profits in NGLOY to buy VEDL, I see my move as a very complex arbitrage. VEDL and NGLOY (AAL on the London exchange) have a complicated relationship that orbits around Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal, largest shareholder of Anglo American. I’ll leave you to your own research because it is too long and complicated for me to explain here.
The recent jump in paychecks has come with an unusual characteristic, as workers at the lower end of the pay scale are getting the greater benefit.
Average hourly earnings rose 3.4 percent in February from the same period a year ago, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report last week. That’s the biggest gain since April 2009 and seventh month in a row that compensation has been 3 percent or better.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/workers-at-lower-end-of-pay-scale-getting-most-benefit-from-rising-wages.html
The Original NJ ExPat says:
March 15, 2019 at 4:31 pm
Michael says:
September 12, 2014 at 12:43 pm
As an uneducated individual would say….stop being a HATER! I have 3 degrees. My family income is over 200k as a millennial, but I’m an idiot? Why, because I don’t think the end of the world is coming? Because I think wage inflation is inevitable?
Over 300k now…not bad for a millennial high school drop out with no degrees. 😉
Joyce,
I’m floored by your memory. Did your memory prompt you to look it up? Or did you just look it up on a whim? I honestly had no clue I felt differently. Call me Pumpkin with a lower household income.
By Jennifer Levitz and
Brian Costa
BOSTON—He was a test-taking whiz who could get any score on demand, federal prosecutors say, and the secret weapon in the college-admissions cheating scandal.
Mark Riddell, a 36-year-old Harvard University graduate, used his uncanny ability to boost scores fraudulently on college-entrance exams for teens of wealthy families participating in the scheme, according to federal filings.
“He did not have inside information about the correct answers,” the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Andrew Lelling, said after announcing Tuesday’s federal charges. “He was just smart enough to get a near-perfect score.”
Prosecutors say Mr. Riddell, who lives outside Tampa, Fla., was central to the cheating scheme. He has agreed to plead guilty to mail fraud and a money-laundering-related charge, according to court documents, and is scheduled to appear in court in Boston in April.
After the charges, Mr. Riddell issued a statement apologizing for the damage and grief he caused. “I understand how my actions contributed to a loss of trust in the college admissions process,” he said.
Prosecutors said William Rick Singer’s testing scheme took place at least 30 times back as far as 2011. Of the 33 parents who were charged Tuesday, at least 16 are linked in court documents to Mr. Riddell, who was referred to as “Cooperating Witness 2.”
He has been helping with the investigation since February in hopes of leniency, federal filings say.
In one case, a test had to be scheduled at a later date because Mr. Riddell had a baby, according to the filings. Another time, Mr. Riddell used false identification to pose as a student. And after a Los Angeles teen had tonsillitis and couldn’t meet Mr. Riddell at the Houston test site—where the plan was for Mr. Riddell to fix the teen’s test answers afterward—Mr. Riddell asked for a handwriting sample and took the test on his behalf, scoring a 35 out of a possible 36 on the ACT.
Mr. Riddell is among some 50 people charged in Operation Varsity Blues, a federal investigation that resulted in the largest college-admissions scandal ever prosecuted.
From 2011 to 2018, prosecutors say, dozens of parents paid more than $25 million to Mr. Singer, a Newport Beach, Calif., college-admissions consultant, to bribe coaches to designate their children as top recruits or boost test scores. Mr. Singer pleaded guilty to four charges Tuesday.
Mr. Riddell is an alumnus of IMG Academy, a private Bradenton, Fla., prep school where boarding-school tuition for this year runs to as much as $77,650.
From there he went to Harvard, where he studied biology and played on its men’s tennis team, graduating in 2004.
This week, he was suspended indefinitely from his job as director of college entrance exam preparation at his alma mater, IMG, which has grown into a factory for a wide range of young athletes in sports including baseball, golf, basketball and lacrosse. The school was purchased in 1987 by sports-marketing giant IMG Worldwide.
Mr. Singer assured parents seeking his services that Mr. Riddell could “nail a score,” the court filings say.
In 2011, Canadian businessman and philanthropist David Sidoo allegedly paid Mr. Singer $100,000 to have Mr. Riddell secretly take the SAT in place of his older son, according to court filings. Directed not to score too high, Mr. Riddell earned a 1670 out of 2400, the filing says.
He also took a Canadian high-school graduation exam for the son and later was paid to take the SAT for Mr. Sidoo’s younger son, the filing says.
Mr. Sidoo, who stepped down as chief executive from East West Petroleum Corp. this week, appeared in court Friday in Boston for a hearing. He pleaded not guilty.
In court on Tuesday, Mr. Singer said Mr. Riddell would fly in from Florida to two test centers in Houston and West Hollywood, Calif. Parents were advised to concoct a reason, such as a bar mitzvah, for why they were in town.
There, Mr. Riddell would either take the ACT or SAT test for the student, help them during the test, or change the student’s answers afterward, federal authorities said. Mr. Singer would pay Mr. Riddell approximately $10,000 per test.
Tanned and sandy blond, Mr. Riddell charmed the students during these encounters. “She loves the guy,” one parent, Marcia Abbott, said about her daughter to Mr. Singer in a recorded phone call described in the filings. “She said he was so sweet.”
Ms. Abbott and her husband, Greg, who Thursday stepped aside as chief executive of International Dispensing Corp. , allegedly used Mr. Riddell to correct answers on their daughter’s ACT test and then booked him for the SAT, flying her in from Aspen to the L.A. testing site last October, court filings say.
Ms. Abbott was seeking scores on the SAT above 750 per section, which is what she said Duke University required. In a phone call, Mr. Singer assured her that it could be done, according to the court filings.
“We’ll get 750 and above,” Mr. Singer promised.
“Fabulous,” Ms. Abbott replied.
After the Abbotts’ daughter scored in the mid-600s in the literature section on her own—by Mr. Singer’s estimation—Mr. Riddell fixed some errors and she ended up with a 710, according to federal filings. For math, he got her a perfect 800, according to the filings.
Libturd,
If you want a more educated populace, then break up the govt near-monopoly on education, where you pay whether or not the service is any good, and your kid can only go where the govt says.
Lib, didn’t mean to personalize the ‘whiny b1tch’ part. I wouldn’t take a run at you personally. Apologies. Bad editing.
Lots of good comments above. Maybe surprisingly, I agree with most. I think SX had one of the more insightful comments on the downside of information access because I believe it to be real but not specifically quantifiable. Understand I didn’t read the article referenced. I’m just going on facts and logic.
On that basis, taking and mostly agreeing with everything said, my original statement still stands:
The net worth of the Trumps, Romneys, Rosses, etc have no impact on the ability of joe sixpack to provide for his family. Their net worth could double or halve overnight, and joe sixpack’s condition would not change.
A household is a small business. It has a top line, and it has expenses. The difference between the two determine the household’s well being. I don’t deny that many households are hurting but that has nothing to do with wealth concentration or income inequality. Here, IMO, here are the real items impacting the average worker’s well being, top line and expenses:
Career choice. We are in the midst of the most impactful societal change ever. Over history, there have been many but this technological revolution dwarfs the industrial revolution, the shift from agrarian to cities, etc in size and timeframe. Someone mentioned above three careers that used to be open to soft BA graduates – journalism, publishing, and advertising. Those careers haven’t disappeared. They are just not housed in three floors in Midtown supported by huge art departments anymore. Advertising is very healthy, I just reviewed a business plan that had data on the massive US spend by auto manufacturers. There are great careers in advertising – if you are sitting on the West Coast and coding. Those graduates are likely on any adjusted basis doing much better than their predecessors in Midtown and at a younger age. They are CS majors though, and not Art majors. Macro societal changes are difficult to absorb, especially in a compressed time frame. At the very least parents and young adults need to understand they are occurring, and plan.
That’s the revenue side. On the expense side impacting the average worker:
Healthcare. System is broken, period. There is nothing else to say, and the average person will continue to have his lifestyle squeezed until it is fixed.
The broken, runaway cost train that is healthcare in the US though has zero to do with whether the Rosses are worth $5B or $10B.
Higher Education. Another runaway cost train and perversely one that can substantially determine the ‘revenue’ line of the household. The middle class is especially squeezed as it falls in the netherworld of not poor enough for a free ride and not wealthy enough to write the check easily. This system needs to be fixed, especially with the massive endowments at these purported not-for-profit (and tax advantaged and state supported) entities.
Again, the fact that college costs have escalated at multiples of the inflation rate for what has become an essential service while the current funding system leaves a substantial part of the populace financially exposed has nothing to do with whether the Trumps are worth $10B or $20B.
Housing, Regionally. There has been a tectonic demographic shift for a couple decades at least of people locating to certain geographically smaller and higher density areas. When that happens, basic supply and demand dictates prices will rise, substantially. I am empathetic that people may not be able to live exactly where and how they want, especially in areas where their parents were able to. I would note for those who feel that inter-generational pinch that my parents would not have been able to afford most better areas in NJ even when I was growing up and that my sister’s family (she a PT, he supply chain management) looked here 20 years ago and decided they could not afford the baseline lifestyle they wanted and located elsewhere. Sometimes, you can’t get what you want, especially when everyone else wants the same item that’s limited in supply.
Again, the fact that certain areas experienced rapid population growth and exploding housing costs has nothing to do with whether the Romneys are worth $2B or $4B.
That’s all folks. Maybe I’m simple but if one is evaluating household financial well being it boils down to what do you make and what do you spend. Where I see those factors adversely impacting the average worker, especially for items out of his control such as healthcare or education, there is just no basis to say wealth concentration or income inequality causes the diminshed earning capacity or runaway expense the worker is subject to. It may feel good to grab a pitchfork and have a bogeyman if you are pinched economically, it doesn’t mean it is accurate.
11:00 that’s happened here in CA with the rise of the Charter School. Empowers the kids a bit…. usually leads to higher teacher turnover…but that pesky bell curve. Same as it ever was.
Left,
Your main premise is that if you cut the grossly compensated individuals down to size, it wouldn’t change the situation of the rest. Stats are then constantly thrown out how it wouldn’t make a difference. I’m not so sure it’s true. Sure you won’t lift the vast groups of people living in poverty, most likely on the dole, without the ability and in most cases, opportunity to lift themselves out of their hole. But I wonder how the math would look for the average mid to large size company if the executive compensation was say halved (like cutting it back to what is was probably 20 years ago). I wonder what the impact would be on the overall economy would be when you put all of those dollars, most of which is not being spent, back into society? I wonder how many more people are employed when that ten million dollars (cut the ceo salary from 20 million down to 10 million), that was going to be spent on a yacht, is instead spread among the 2,000 employees each getting $5,000. How many more people are then employed when that $5,000 each is spent by 2,000 employees (on restaurant meals, car down payments, entertainment, or even home improvements). I imagine the 50 workers at Westport Yachts (yeah they’ve built 150 yachts over the last 50 years with about 50 employees) are very happy. Though even there, the average salary is only $18 an hour, so it’s all going to the few executives there as well.
So I’m not saying it would save the world or even the US alone. But I think it could make a major difference to a lot of lives.
And the argument that it will stifle the desire to create and innovate is pure BS. That innovation was going on when the executive class was making 1/4 of the difference they make now compared with the average worker. And if you say the people will go to where they can continue to exploit the population? I would guess that someone will quickly take that persons spot even at half the salary.
I agree that there is something horribly wrong with the cost of education and health care. But that’s because our government is bought by the the highest bidder. That’s not going to change. Especially when the populace is completely duped about single payer. No one I know from a health socialized country is even disappointed in their care. As a matter of fact, the one’s I know from France and UK laugh at us. The friends I have from Asia (mainly Southeast), return home for healthcare. The joke IS on us. As for the excuse that people from all over the world come here for care? Only those with money to burn do. Remember that.
So is about pitchforks against the wrong guilty party? I am not so sure. There’s an awful lot of bullsh1t being written supporting the rich. Heck, most of those rich morons still invest in hedge funds which on average perform way worse than the indexes. But I guess if you got money to burn, it’s worth it to get to golf with former pro athletes and celebrate holidays among celebrities.
At some point, I need to play with the numbers to see if I am definitely off here. I very well could be.
Great stuff lib and left – one reason among many I come here. We live in very challenging times . These debates help to fine tune our thinking.
Libturd,
It was the term ‘baby bells’ that reminded me of the time when Net Neutrality, Verizon Fios, Netflix, monopolies, the last mile et al was an ongoing conversation here. Inevitably, the history of Bell Labs would always come up since we’re in New Jersey.
Lib, I would agree with you if the US economy were a zero sum game – if something that benefited one party was at the direct expense of another party. As long as the economy is growing, it’s not.
I don’t see how the redistribution of profits broadly back to workers would solve the problem. In fact, it may exacerbate the issue in some respects as it ‘moves the goalposts’ by putting more money in many hands, which just means that in your example dinner prices go up for everyone.
An example of the same moving of the goalposts is the two income family and housing prices. Early adopters – the original YUPpies and DINKS – benefited greatly from two incomes. As two income families became more of the norm – additional funds more broadly and equally distributed among the population – all it did was inflate the price of the current housing stock. The one earner, stay at home mom $400k home was gone, supplanted by two earners working to pay $800k for the exact same house.
I guess if I were state my position differently…if we were in a world where a useful college education could be provided for all qualified students at rates equivalent to the UC in-state rate ($12k); if we were in a world where your healthcare premium even at the current high rate would assure you of treatment without wildly unexpected out of pocket amounts; and if we were in a world where housing costs regionally were 1/3 to half as much as they are currently I think the average worker would feel a lot better about his prospects.
We were in such a world not that long ago. I believe the reasons we are no longer has little to do with income inequality and wealth concentration and everything to do with demographic changes (migration patterns and the rise of two earner households), the aforementioned runaway costs for essential services, and the technological revolution that upends industry after industry with little lead time for workers to adjust to the new employment reality.
I’m as interested in fixing the problem of anxiety among and the inability of segments of the population to succeed as anyone else.
I just feel to fix the problem we have to address what causes the problem. We can run at income inequality and wealth concentration all we want, but if they are not the root causes of these issues the problem won’t be fixed.
Leftwing,
Speaking of past conversations (rise of two income earners), are you on the side of two income households were mostly a choice with prices rising afterwards … rather than price inflation (going off gold standard among other things in the ensuing decades) causing more families to feel like they need two earners to survive/get ahead?
For chicagofinance:
https://www.nj.com/education/2019/03/i-ended-up-at-rutgers-because-the-rich-kids-stole-my-spot-at-other-schools-nj-teen-says.html
I ended up at Rutgers because the rich kids stole my spot at other schools, N.J teen says
A Rutgers University honors student who had a near-perfect SAT score claims in a class-action lawsuit that he didn’t get a fair shake when he applied to the University of Texas and Stanford in the wake of a massive college bribery scandal that involved some of the country’s most elite universities.
I’d like to see Pumpkin’s opinion on hourly wage after he drops $400k to open his own Pokeworks. Let us know when you do and where. I am very picky with who I let me serve raw fish.
Never really thought about cause and effect of the rise of two earning households…interesting question.
For me, the fact that now two earning households are more the norm (one half nationally and I would presume higher for this area) is more relevant. Whatever the cause a single earning household in more upscale NNJ towns is, unbelievably, having a difficult time being economically viable at a ‘median’ lifestyle with a sole breadwinner earning $150-200k.
The low end of that range places the earner in the top 8% nationally (lower locally of course). The high end of that range moves you out of the financial aid qualifications for most colleges.
Tack on two kids, the desire for a ‘normal’ lifestyle (reasonable vacation, car, etc expectations), and stare down the barrel of housing, retirement and college costs…the math just doesn’t work for sole breadwinners in a nuclear family in a better than average town. You need that second income.
I think a generation ago we would have said the same thing, except to make things work instead of needing a second income the threshold would have been you needed a dad with a professional job in NYC. Now mom and dad need to both be on the road, to afford grandma’s exact house. Times, they are a changing…
Thank you.
Something doesn’t quite add up there….. grades and a sport should get a kid into UT-Austin from NJ. Is it possible he has either has poor interpersonal skills, or really offerred a substandard set of essays? As this scandal proves, the process is a game, and some people are rather obstinate, and refuse to play by its rules. Subsequently, they wonder how 2+2+2=5 in the evaluation……
joyce says:
March 16, 2019 at 2:23 pm
For chicagofinance:
https://www.nj.com/education/2019/03/i-ended-up-at-rutgers-because-the-rich-kids-stole-my-spot-at-other-schools-nj-teen-says.html
I ended up at Rutgers because the rich kids stole my spot at other schools, N.J teen says
A Rutgers University honors student who had a near-perfect SAT score claims in a class-action lawsuit that he didn’t get a fair shake when he applied to the University of Texas and Stanford in the wake of a massive college bribery scandal that involved some of the country’s most elite universities.
I may, admittedly, also be more sensitive to population and demographic changes and how underlying shifts can affect personal outcomes.
I am the last year of the boomers and I always felt I was at best getting the scraps off their table.
I missed the original runup in real estate prices by about ten years.
I graduated to a solid job in finance, only to have the crash of 87 occur almost to the day of my one year work anniversary. The ‘big’ and ‘easy’ money had already made and the ‘closed’ sign was hung up on the door.
My college applications (and those of my kids’ due to the boomer generational reflection) were into a highly competitive environment where the growth in the number of applicants exceeded the growth of available seats.
Etc, etc.
For the longest time I felt like the trailing car in a dirt road race, eating everyone else’s dust just to try to keep up and see out the windshield. Not because of any specific attributes to me, but because the goalposts kept being moved simply because of the size of the boomer pig in the python.
I actually have sympathy with many of the gripes of current millennials from these experiences.
The great scam is higher education. Why invest 200k and waste 4 years of your life to be indoctrinated not educated? That’s non dischargeble debt. Pumps and Cortex are all perfect examples.
Why not learn something real. Get a trade at 18, learn it, develop your business on the 3 A’s. Affordability, Availability, Affability.
What do I know? My mother cleaned houses for a living as an immigrant (legal). I have 3 degrees and 2 million in net worth and not even 50 yet.
Wise up you dumb ass millenials
a current article that happens to be relevant….
https://nypost.com/2019/03/16/ben-shapiro-the-real-reason-i-was-attacked-on-college-campuses/
Those who become indoctrinated choose to. It’s entirely possible to go to college and get gain a shitload of knowledge.
The best part of that story is that they claimed 1500 was near perfect.
From the Shapiro article. Wow.
“We are in the process of abandoning Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, favoring moral subjectivism and the rule of passion. And we are watching our civilization collapse into age-old tribalism, individualistic hedonism and moral subjectivism.
And in order to fix ourselves, we must reexamine what we believe.
If you believe that life is more than materialistic pleasures and pain avoidance, you are a product of Jerusalem and Athens.
If you believe that the government has no right to intrude upon the exercise of your individual will, and that you are bound by moral duty to pursue virtue, you are a product of Jerusalem and Athens.
If you believe that human beings are capable of bettering our world through use of our reason, and are bound by higher purpose to do so, you are a product of Jerusalem and Athens.
Jerusalem and Athens built science. The twin ideals of Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law reasoning built human rights. They built prosperity, peace and artistic beauty.
Jerusalem and Athens built America, ended slavery, defeated the Naz1s and the C0mmunists, lifted billions from poverty and gave billions spiritual purpose.
Civilizations that rejected Jerusalem and Athens, and the tension between them, have collapsed into dust.
The USSR rejected Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, substituting the values of the collective and a new utopian vision of “soc1al justice”— and they starved and slaughtered tens of millions of human beings.
The Naz1s rejected Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, and they shoved children into gas chambers.
Venezuela rejects Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, and citizens of their oil-rich nation have been reduced to eating dogs.
The economies of the West aren’t going to die overnight; stacking s0c1alist programs atop capitalist infrastructures won’t immediately collapse the West. But we flatter ourselves to believe that we can abandon the values of the past and somehow survive indefinitely.”
Some really good posts. Lefty is not a bad guy at all, sorry for pissing you off.
It is possible to debate and not get angry at the other person. In most cases, I find that both persons are wrong and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. This is why I am pretty centrist politically.
the tempest essay topics http://paperwritingservice.gdn/termpaperwarehouse/jackie-robinsons-siblings.html compare and contrast essay title
FCUK YOU BASTARD! EAT SH!T DIE!
Libturd, still in Union, mainly on Thursdays. says:
March 16, 2019 at 7:43 pm
It is possible to debate and not get angry at the other person. In most cases, I find that both persons are wrong and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. This is why I am pretty centrist politically.
left: Quinnipiac bounced in two games by Brown.
Red trying hard to fcuk it up….. maybe last night was rust…. today was a smackdown 4-0.
My suspicion is that robots will only be on the job about six months before they start clowning around and become even less productive than the humans they were designed to replace. Thus mankind need have no fear of machines. You machines think that you can do a better job handling customer service or providing tech support than we can?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/robots-will-end-up-goofing-off-like-the-rest-of-us-11552575344?emailToken=42198a89123a7ff6a43208a9b4eefa58GXr2sW3fC3fMpgy4HIFa+VM7Q9ao9zujEDClllUdqz31ot4FPFUKhc34vHqrZcq6+Pn6hQcSpPmw28Bl1Vs1ZHyrVN9BVdIEcOinkT+syuE%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share
The older you get, the more evidence you have seen to lay the assumption that it is all bs. Half wrongs/rights disguised as fact as those biases want to perceive.
Libturd, still in Union, mainly on Thursdays. says:
March 16, 2019 at 7:43 pm
It is possible to debate and not get angry at the other person. In most cases, I find that both persons are wrong and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. This is why I am pretty centrist politically.
Heh-heh.
I just looked up JJ’s new house. 6 beds 4.5 baths 5,514 sqft, circular driveway, half acre property in Potomac, MD. He bought it for $1.3 million. Taxes? $11K
7.5 mile, 15 minute drive to his office in Bethesda too.
“but because the goalposts kept being moved simply because of the size of the boomer pig in the python.”
Same with the pensions, if you are a late boomer , unless you suck off the government trough, more than likely always missed getting a real pension plan, usually by just a couple of years, or if you had one, you were forced into a 401k type plan, while your co -workers were “grandfathered.”