From ROINJ:
The next ‘Stay in N.J.’ program: Why congestion tax hurts N.J. commuters — but could ultimately help N.J. economy
New York City officials say their congestion pricing system will collect billions for mass transit — and discourage drivers from clogging up Midtown Manhattan. It’s a win-win, as it enables cities to not only raise money to fight climate change, but also help the climate while doing so.
The proposed $17-$23 fee for drivers who enter Manhattan south of 60th Street could go into effect as soon as next year.
U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th Dist.) isn’t buying it.
He doesn’t think the plan will work — it will only shift traffic and pollution, he said.
He thinks its real purpose is simply as a money grab — for a failed MTA system, he said.
Most of all, he said, it violates the spirt of the Port Authority relationship New Jersey has had with New York for more than 100 years.
The two states have long worked together to determine pricing for buses, trains and cars — in whatever fashion they travel between the two states. And they have long split those fees.
Until now.
“As soon as you get into New York, they, in essence, extend the tunnel further and add another $23 onto the end of the tunnel,” he said. “It’s a total violation of the spirit of the Port Authority cooperative relationship.”
No taxation without the spirit of cooperation?
New York doesn’t seem to care.
…
The best-case scenario for New Jersey may be for people to respond with their pocketbooks.
It will be harder for companies to get their employees to return to work if it means an extra $23 a day. That reluctance can only hurt retail businesses — and commercial real estate prices — in New York City.
It may make it easier to convince NYC companies to open offices in New Jersey, which would keep more tax dollars in the state.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for New Jersey businesses to say — besides the commuting time, besides the cost of commuting, besides the fact that Jersey is just much better than New York — come here, where we support our local businesses, and get home earlier and see your kids go to their baseball game,” Gottheimer said.
“it’s a huge argument for businesses to come here. I think it’s great that we just did tax incentives out of the state for that. We should do more.”
First
WFM is here to stay. Commuting is also bad for the environment and has negative effects on climate.
New York City officials say their congestion pricing system will collect billions for mass transit.
Take that money and throw it into the Grand Canyon, you will get the same effect. This from another article:
Almost $80 Billion Needed for Repairs to New York City’s Public Housing
Someone should ask Bard how NYC should pay for all of this.
Enjoy your dry wells-suckers. Oh, and you can blame your corporate run government that doesn’t care about you while you salute the flag:
Arizona’s water is running worryingly low. Amid the worst drought in more than a millennium, which has left communities across the state with barren wells, the state is depleting what remains of its precious groundwater. Much of it goes to private companies nearly free, including Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy company.
Thanks to fresh scrutiny this year from state politicians, water activists and journalists, the Saudi agricultural giant Almarai has emerged as an unlikely antagonist in the water crisis. The company, through its subsidiary Fondomonte, has been buying and leasing land across western Arizona since 2014. This year The Arizona Republic published a report showing that the Arizona State Land Department has been leasing 3,500 acres of public land to Almarai for a suspiciously low price.
The case has prompted calls for an investigation into how a foreign company wound up taking the state’s dwindling water supplies for a fee that might be as low as one-sixth the market rate. But the focus on the Saudi scheme obscures a more fundamental problem: pumping groundwater in Arizona remains largely unregulated. It’s this legal failing that, in part, allows the Saudi company to draw unlimited amounts of water to grow an alfalfa crop that feeds dairy cows 8,000 miles away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSiuTE3HYsY&t=32s
We’re having this done to our driveway this week. We had voids under the concrete from water. It hasn’t sunk yet but does have cracks. It’s costing us $1,500 but is much cheaper than ripping out and replacing the driveway and weighs about 1% of what mudjacking does. Since Texas has ground heave I don’t want thousands of extra pounds potentially pushing against the slab.
https://youtu.be/4MCuccVa86g
HMB,
Seen this before. Good you are having it done as that slab is like a funnel when it rains, directing water towards your foundation.
This should return the slope to normal. You don’t want additional hydrostatic pressure/erosion on your foundation/footings.
Money well spent.
BR,
Only found it so quick as I watch that guy. His videos are excellent.
That paint would be great for car sunscreens- but I don’t know if if would be flexible.
Check out some of his other videos.
https://www.nj.com/data/2023/07/nearly-29-fewer-homes-hit-nj-real-estate-market-last-month.html
In late March 2020, Haywood Talcove, a CEO at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, was packing up his office, having sent his employees home. He was worrying about laying off his staff, his family’s health, and how he was going to manage two young kids at home during the pandemic.
But when President Trump announced an initial $2.2 trillion relief package to bail out the millions of Americans desperate for cash during the national lockdown, his concern turned away from the coronavirus. An expert in cybersecurity, Talcove has worked in both the private and public sectors, and has been raising the alarm about the government’s exposure to scams for many years. And now, it was like all of his prior analysis and warnings about fraud had just become real.
“I said, ‘Oh, my God, they’re going to allow anyone to get unemployment-insurance benefits,” he recalls. “The systems are vulnerable. All you needed was a name, a date of birth, an address, and a social security number.”
Talcove’s a proud Boston guy who moved to Washington, D.C., in 1990, and went on to help an anti-government-waste-style Republican become governor of New Hampshire. He knew the relief plan would be irresistible to scam artists and especially tempting to organized transnational criminal groups. “As soon as the CARES money was announced, we started seeing squawking on the dark web, criminal groups in China, Nigeria, Romania, and Russia — they see our systems are open,” Talcove says. He estimates that “the United States government is the single largest funder of cybersecurity fraud in the world.”
https://apple.news/A7KgsgvegQZOpUsb5hr6J6Q
Talcove understood that he had to act. So he called the White House, trying to warn of the threat. No response. Finally, after weeks of trying to get through, one night while he was playing with his kids, he got a call from an unknown number. It was Larry Kudlow, Trump’s director of the National Economic Council. “I’m like, ‘Mr. Kudlow, I really need to warn you that you have to do something about identity verification,'” Talcove recalls, “‘or it’s going to be the biggest fraud in the history of our country.'” (Kudlow didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
He says he talked to Kudlow for about 15 minutes but couldn’t get him to budge. “Kudlow’s like, ‘The money has to get out quickly. You can’t have speed and security,'” Talcove says. “But I’m like, ‘That is bullshit. Sir, that’s just not true. Now you’re never going to get the money back.'”
Eventually, he says Kudlow told him to get in touch with the folks in charge of sending out small-business loans and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance loans. But those guys told him they aren’t seeing any fraud. “I’m like, ‘Dude, you haven’t even given out any money yet! That’s why you’re not seeing it,'” Talcove says. “I’m sending them screenshots of the dark web. I’m explaining exactly how it’s going to go down. And I tell them you are going to have a $200 billion problem on your hands if you do nothing.”
Driving through Arizona, my wife was flabbergasted as to how much new development there was. She went to college there around 2000. Her aunt, who lives there, said her old home sold for 1 million. She and her daughter kept talking about how all the Californians are moving in like crazy there. There’s not enough water in that area to support that growth.
Pathetic, but what do you expect from politicians.
I saw those fields, they were massive. There were also massive forests of cottonwood trees they were growing as well.
I was saying this years ago. Stupidity. Same as building up Florida. Yes, let’s densely populate any area with no water and another that is in the direct path of major storms. Genius.
“There’s not enough water in that area to support that growth.”
After a hike up the mountain, I came down to the base and there was a chipmunk sprawled out like he was about to die. I gave him some water. All of the sudden, 5 of his buddies showed up as well. So I filled a bottle cap and put it on the wall and they all had a feast. Then the squirrels showed up.
Brt,
Good man! You really are.
Then the coyotes showed up…..
Eventually the heat will kill the gorilla.
Saudis have lots of money.
Politicians love money.
Sorry chipmunks, you live in a capitalistic world. You should have gone to college and got a better job. Then maybe you could have afforded some water you losers.
BRT you damn socialist! You enable those losers who refuse to work harder.
Phoenix
Thanks. And that poly foam cures in under an hour so we can use the driveway again. Mudjacking or replacing the driveway can take days to cure
Dear Financial Samurais,
As someone who doesn’t have much talent, I saw an inspiring picture that said:
10 Things That Require Zero Talent
1) Being on time
2) Work ethic
3) Effort
4) Body language
5) Energy
6) Attitude
7) Passion
8) Being coachable
9) Doing extra
10) Being prepared
The points remind me of my own personal mantra I’ve had since 1999, which is: “The great thing about hard work is that it requires no skill.”
It’s hard to fail if you keep on going, no matter what. And as I’ve grown older, I clearly see the benefits of those who display great passion, energy, and attitude.
Some things from the report to think about include:
Treasury bonds now have meaningful real interest rates, e.g. a 5.4% Treasury yield is a 2.4% real yield (5.4% minus 3% inflation). This is a positive for Treasury bond investors and retirees living on a fixed income with Treasury bonds.
The Fed has signaled it wants to raise rates again to defend its credibility in fighting inflation. But another rate hike now seems to be behind the curve, since inflation has already come down from 9% in mid-2022. The Fed was also behind in raising rates. Hence, the Fed could be setting us up for another boom-bust cycle.
Given we’re near the end of the rate-hike cycle, you may want to invest in longer-duration Treasury bonds to capture higher real interest rates for longer, e.g. instead of buying 3-month / 6-month Treasuries, buy one-year Treasuries.
At some point, investors will focus on potential deflation and the negative reasons why inflation is coming down, i.e. because business is slowing.
Real estate is looking more attractive.
Stocks Up, Mortgage Rates Down = Good For Real Estate
If you are a real estate investor, last week should give you more confidence that real estate is recovering.
The S&P 500 went from about 4,400 before the June CPI figure to a recent intraday high of 4,528 after the June CPI figure. Meanwhile, the 10-year bond yield dropped from 4.08% to 3.82% today.
If you are a buyer, one of the scenarios you should worry about is the potential return of bidding war frenzies after mortgage rates come down.
The life goes on home-buying cycle is real. The longer the pent-up demand builds as buyers wait for lower mortgage rates, potentially, the more ferocious the demand.
The spread between the 10-year bond yield and the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is still elevated. But we should expect both the 10-year bond yield to decline and the spread to narrow, which leads to lower mortgage rates.
Hence, if you can find a deal today and follow two or more conditions of my 30/30/3-5 home buying guide, then I think there’s a greater than 50% chance you’ll be in the money 12 months from now.
The main risk is a deeper-than-expected recession in 2024 and beyond that sees a doubling of the unemployment rate. So far, as we saw two weeks ago, the employment data remains strong.
Ukraine took out the Kerch bridge again.
Also some tough talk coming out of Russia about invading the Suwaki Gap, that could mean WWIII.
https://www.politico.eu/article/suwalki-gap-russia-war-nato-lithuania-poland-border/