JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon has buyers remorse says if he knew then what he knows now he wouldn’t of bailed out Bear Stearns
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said he did the U.S. a favor by buying Bear Stearns Cos. in 2008 and he might not go through with it again because of how much the deal ultimately cost.
“Would I have done Bear Stearns again knowing what I know today?” Dimon asked today in Washington. “It’s really close. Knowing what I know today, if they called me again to do something again like that, I couldn’t do it.”
The board of the New York-based bank probably would veto the idea because of all the financial obligations that followed, he said. “We’ve lost $5 to $10 billion on various things related to Bear Stearns,” Dimon, 56, told an audience at an event sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Eric Schneiderman, New York state’s attorney general, sued JPMorgan earlier this month, claiming that Bear Stearns businesses had deceived mortgage-bond investors about defective loans backing securities they bought. The result was “monumental losses” that haven’t been fully identified, he said.
Jack Welch: I Was Right About That Strange Jobs Report The economy would need to be growing at breakneck speed for unemployment to drop to 7.8% from 8.3% in the course of two months.
By JACK WELCH
Imagine a country where challenging the ruling authorities—questioning, say, a piece of data released by central headquarters—would result in mobs of administration sympathizers claiming you should feel “embarrassed” and labeling you a fool, or worse.
Editorial board member Steve Moore on the good and bad of the jobs report and whether it will help President Obama’s campaign.
Soviet Russia perhaps? Communist China? Nope, that would be the United States right now, when a person (like me, for instance) suggests that a certain government datum (like the September unemployment rate of 7.8%) doesn’t make sense.
Unfortunately for those who would like me to pipe down, the 7.8% unemployment figure released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) last week is downright implausible. And that’s why I made a stink about it.
Facebook Fought SEC to Keep Mobile Risks Hidden Before IPO
By Linda Sandler, Brian Womack and Douglas MacMillan – Oct 10, 2012 5:04 PM ET
When Facebook Inc. (FB) filed its proposal Feb. 1 to go public, it touted the effectiveness of ads linked to customers’ friends, citing research from Nielsen, the audience-counting company.
Barbara Jacobs, an assistant director for corporation finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was skeptical, as she and her staff vetted the filing to ensure Facebook had disclosed all material information to investors. The claim appeared to be drawn from marketing materials, not a Nielsen study, she wrote to Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman, 42.
She gave him an ultimatum: Produce the study and provide Nielsen’s consent for use of the data — or don’t use it, she wrote to Ebersman on Feb. 28. Facebook dropped the reference after initial resistance.
The incident was part of a two-and-a-half-month volley of messages among SEC officials, Ebersman and Facebook’s law firm Fenwick & West LLP. A dozen letters, published a month after the May 17 IPO on the SEC’s website, depict a management team hesitant to disclose information and still guessing at even rudimentary aspects of its business just weeks before the company held the largest-ever technology initial public offering. Many of the issues raised by the SEC and now unnerving investors were foreshadowed in the then-private correspondence between the SEC and Facebook.
“They were given the benefit of the doubt when they went public that they were ready for prime time,” said Michael Pachter, a managing director at Wedbush Securities Inc. “They still haven’t proved that they are.”
The shares dropped 2.9 percent to $19.64 at today’s close in New York.
That necktie color does matter should be of no surprise. But what is the best tie color for Obama and Romney? This questions inspired me to create an online poll. CLICK HERE https://www.tie-a-tie.net/blog/obama-vs-romney-necktie-vote/ to cast your vote, as well as to see the preliminary results of each candidate’s winning tie.
Paramus High School Grad and “Clueless” Actress Stacey Dash Gets (BIGOTED) Backlash for Romney Support
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 11:13 am
by Elyse Toribio
“Vote for Romney. The only choice for your future.”
Actress Stacey Dash’s endorsement for Mitt Romney has prompted close to 7,000 retweets since it was posted to Twitter on Oct. 7, and while plenty of followers voiced their support, most of the responses have been ugly and attacking.
The 46-year-old Paramus High School graduate took to the Piers Morgan Show on CNN Tuesday night to express her surprise at all the negative commentary and reiterate her endorsement of Romney.
“I believed him. I watched him, the Governor and his wife,” Dash said. “They spoke to me, they seemed authentic and genuine.” She points out that she voted for President Obama in 2008, but wants the next four years to be different.
Rain or Shine at Ridgewood Recycling Center, 205 E. Glen Avenue (behind the Fire House) from 9AM to 12:30PM
To shred or Not to shred ?
“Dumpster diving,” or rifling through trash cans for personal information, is a tactic used by identity thieves. You are taking a terrible risk if you don’t shred sensitive material.
Invest in a shredder for your home or office, preferably one that “cross cuts” (slices in two directions), and destroy all sensitive information including bank and credit card statements you no longer need, carbon-copy charge receipts with your account information, insurance forms, physician bills, etc. If your shredder can’t handle plastic, use scissors to cut up expired credit and identification cards before discarding them.
For larger jobs, consider hiring a commercial shredding company.
What should I shred?
In short, destroy all sensitive information including junk mail and paperwork that includes:
Account numbers
Birth dates
Passwords and PINs
Signatures
Social Security numbers
To protect your privacy, you should also consider shredding items that include:
Names
Addresses
Phone numbers
E-mail addresses
How long should I keep sensitive documents?
When sorting through dusty file boxes or the pile of papers on your desk, it’s easy to become confused as to which records you need to keep and those you should shred. Here are some guidelines to help you determine how long to keep records:
Tax Records: Seven years, to be safe. The IRS has three years to audit your return if the agency suspects you made a mistake and up to six years if you likely underreported your gross income by 25 percent or more. If you failed to file a return for any year, keep records indefinitely.
Pay Stubs: One year. Match them up to your W2 form, then shred.
Bank Statements: One year. But hold onto records related to your taxes, business expenses, home improvements, mortgage payments and major purchases for as long as you need them. Many financial institutions now provide the option to receive your bank and credit statements online instead of by mail.
Credit Card Statements: At least 45 days. The rules here are similar to those for bank statements; hang on to those you may need for your taxes or as proof of purchase. Shred the rest after you’ve confirmed payment.
Medical Records: At least a year, but often longer. Keep medical bills for at least a year in case of a dispute over a reimbursement. Some experts suggest keeping other records for five years from the time treatment for the symptoms ended. Hang on to information about prescription information, specific medical histories, health insurance information and contact information for your physician.
Insurance Records: Keep policy information for the life of the policy plus an additional five years. Additional records such as statements, hospital bills, car repair bills, copies of prescriptions, etc. should be kept up to five years from the date the service was provided.
Utility and phone bills: Shred them after you’ve paid them, unless they contain tax-deductible expenses.
IRA Contributions: Until you withdraw the money. You can shred quarterly statements as soon as you match them with your yearly statement.
Home Purchase/Sale/Improvements: Until six years after you sell. Improvements you make and expenses such as your real estate agent’s commission are factored in when you sell your home, lowering your capital gains tax.
Warranties: As long as they are current. Expired warranties can be recycled, unless they contain personal information.
Can I recycle shredded paper?
That depends. According to the City of Seattle’s Web site, confetti-like pieces from cross-cut shredders have no retrievable fibers for recycling. Cross-cut shredded paper can be added to yard waste carts or garbage. Other sources indicate that shredded paper can be recycled if its bundled, so check with your waste service provider.
Here are some suggesting for re-using shredded paper: Substitute for tissue paper in gift bags or baskets, ship fragile items, line your hamster’s cage, add it to a worm composting bin, kids’ art projects, such as stuffing pillows or bean bags.
Some commercial shredders pulverize paper. Others cross-shred. Many commercial shredders transport the destroyed documents to a recycling center to be used as paper or other products. Check with individual companies per their procedures.
Below is a list of specific items to consider shredding for your safety and privacy:
Address labels from junk mail and magazines
ATM receipts
Bank statements
Birth certificate copies
Canceled and voided checks
Credit and charge card bills, carbon copies, summaries and receipts
Credit reports and histories
Employee pay stubs
Employment records
Expired credit and identification cards including driver’s licenses, college IDs, military IDs, employee badges, medical insurance cards, etc. (If your shredder can’t handle plastic, cut up cards with a scissors before discarding them.)
Expired passports and visas
Legal documents
Insurance documents
Investment, stock and property transactions
Luggage tags
Medical and dental records
Papers with a Social Security number
Pre-approved credit card applications
Receipts with checking account numbers
Report cards
Resumés or curriculum vitae
Signatures (such as those found on leases, contracts, letters)
Tax forms
Transcripts
Travel itineraries
Used airline tickets
Utility bills (telephone, gas, electric, water, cable TV, Internet)
N.J. senator considering legislation forcing merger of Bergen County police, sheriff’s departments
State Sen. Paul Sarlo is considering weighing in on the most hot-button issue in Bergen County politics.
After the Bergen County Freeholders voted against merging the county’s police and sheriff’s department earlier this month, Sarlo said he is considering legislation that would force the two agencies to come together, though perhaps at a slower pace.
“What the freeholders did was a disgrace,” Sarlo (D-Bergen) said. “And I am thinking of holding a hearing to bring some reality to the issue.” (Renshaw, The Star-Ledger)
Christie has one word for Eagleton poll, it’s “Crap”
Gov. Chris Christie says he absolutely refuses to provide comments in reference to any Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.
The governor referred to the Eagleton poll as “crap” during a Jersey City news conference Tuesday, saying he refuses to provide any comments on any of the group’s recent or future polls.
“It’s never good, it’s never accurate,” he said. “When it’s good for me it’s not right, when it’s bad for me it’s not right.”
Christie was asked by a reporter to respond to a new Eagleton poll that found almost half of New Jersey’s registered voters – 47 percent – grade Christie’s job performance as A or B, but the same percentage says they would not vote to re-elect the governor. (Arco, PolitickerNJ)
Backers of $750 million bond for NJ colleges and universities rally
Supporters of a $750 million bond to fund building and renovation projects at New Jersey’s colleges and universities say the initiative could create as many as 10,000 jobs in the construction trades.
They rallied at Rutgers University in New Brunswick on Monday to support the referendum, which will be at the bottom of a crowded presidential ballot next month.
New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney said he realizes that people are reluctant to approve spending in an off economy but he said the bond, which had overwhelming bipartisan support in the Legislature, is about jobs as well as much-needed facilities for the schools.
“It’s always easy to vote down spending but this is something we can’t afford not to do,” said Sweeney, D-Gloucester. (Alex, The Record)
Christie administration may cut free rides for nonunion NJ Transit workers
The Christie administration wants to eliminate free rides for NJ Transit employees.
Making nonunion workers and retirees pay for their commutes and other trips could generate $1.6 million a year, NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder said Monday.
The proposal, which is expected to be approved by the NJT board Monday, would not affect the agency’s union workers, whose free rides are part of their labor contracts. But contracts for all 28 NJT bargaining units have expired, Snyder said, and Gov. Christie has made it clear he wants free rides eliminated.
Reporter Lara Logan brings ominous news from Middle East
BY LAURA WASHINGTON
October 7, 2012 4:04PM
Lara Logan, a correspondent for CBS’ “60 Minutes,” delivered a provocative speech to about 1,100 influentials from government, politics, media, and the legal and corporate arenas. Such downtown gatherings are a regular on Chicago’s networking circuit. (I am a member of the BGA’s Civic Leadership Committee, and the Chicago Sun-Times was a sponsor).
Her ominous and frightening message was gleaned from years of covering our wars in the Middle East. She arrived in Chicago on the heels of her Sept. 30 report, “The Longest War.” It examined the Afghanistan conflict and exposed the perils that still confront America, 11 years after 9/11.
Eleven years later, “they” still hate us, now more than ever, Logan told the crowd. The Taliban and al-Qaida have not been vanquished, she added. They’re coming back.
“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand, that there is a major lie being propagated . . .” Logan declared in her native South African accent.
The lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban.
PICKET: New book shows U.S. top earners pay larger share of taxes than any other industrialized nation
The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore has just come out with a new book titled Who’s the Fairest of Them All?: The Truth about Opportunity, Taxes, and Wealth in America and he reveals some interesting information about how much the top ten percent of income earners in the United States pay in federal income taxes as opposed to any other industrialized nation in the world.
According to Moore, these earners pay almost half (45 percent) of the country’s total taxes. This conclusion flies in the face of the liberal concept that top earners in the U.S. are not paying their “fair share” in taxes. Moore explains:
“The United States is actually more dependent on rich people to pay taxes than even many of the more socialized economies of Europe. According to the Tax Foundation, the United States gets 45 percent of its total taxes from the top 10 percent of tax filers, whereas the international average in industrialized nations is 32 percent. America’s rich carry a larger share of the tax burden than do the rich in Belgium (25 percent), Germany (31 percent), France (28 percent), and even Sweden (27 percent).”
Read more: PICKET: New book shows U.S. top earners pay larger share of taxes than any other industrialized nation – Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/oct/9/picket-new-book-shows-us-top-earners-pay-larger-sh/#ixzz28puSKOGf
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Food Police: Rethinking lunch in Ridgewood schools
TUESDAY OCTOBER 9, 2012, 11:33 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Hungry for change, Ridgewood’s cafeteria service is joining a growing group nationwide that is raising concerns about new school lunch standards implemented this year by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
According to Ridgewood’s Superintendent of Business Angelo DeSimone, a position paper has been drafted that will eventually be presented to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.
At last week’s meeting, the Board of Education (BOE) also discussed the possibility of drafting a resolution on the subject that would eventually be presented to federal legislators.
In an interview, DeSimone said that the backers of the current position paper, which urges the USDA to revisit its standards, include the president of Ridgewood’s cafeteria service Pomptonian Food Service; Princeton Food Management, the food service director of Toms River regional school district; the food and nutrition director of the Passaic City Board of Education; the food service director of the East Brunswick school district; and the president of Nutri-Serve Food Management, Inc.
New jersey makes the 10 lowest ranked states for business …again
Tax Foundation Releases New Rankings of State Tax Systems
Washington, D.C., October 9, 2012—Wyoming, Florida, and Texas rank among the ten best states for taxes on business, while companies in states like New York, New Jersey, and California have a far less pleasant tax climate to deal with, according to a new report by the Tax Foundation.
The State Business Tax Climate Index, now in its 9th edition, collects data on over a hundred tax provisions for each state and synthesizes them into a single easy-to-use score. The states are then compared against each other, so that each state’s ranking is relative to actual policies in place in other states around the country. A state’s ranking can rise or fall significantly based not just on its own actions, but on the changes or reforms made by other states.
The Index therefore enables business leaders, government policymakers, and taxpayers to make an apples-to-apples comparison of their state’s tax system. While some similar studies focus on the total amount residents pay in taxes each year, the Index focuses on whether the state’s tax code itself enhances or harms the competitiveness of its business environment.
The top ten states in the 2013 Index are Wyoming (#1), South Dakota (#2), Nevada (#3), Alaska (#4), Florida (#5), Washington (#6), New Hampshire (#7), Montana (#8), Texas (#9), and Utah (#10).
Many of the top ranking states states do not have one or more of the major statewide taxes, such as a personal or corporate income tax or a sales tax. Wyoming, South Dakota and Nevada, for example, have no corporate or individual income tax; Alaska has no individual income or state-level sales tax; Florida has no individual income tax; and New Hampshire and Montana have no sales tax.
The 10 lowest ranked states in the 2013 Index are Maryland (#41), Iowa (#42), Wisconsin (#43), North Carolina (#44), Minnesota (#45), Rhode Island (#46), Vermont (#47), California (#48), New Jersey (#49), and New York (#50).
Despite moderate corporate taxes, New York scores at the bottom this year by having the worst individual income tax, the sixth-worst unemployment insurance taxes, and the sixth-worst property taxes. The states in the bottom 10 suffer from the same afflictions: complex, non-neutral taxes with comparatively high rates.
Maine saw the greatest improvement this year, vaulting them from 37th to 30th best overall, in part due to a repeal of their alternative minimum tax. Michigan also made a sizable leap of six places by replacing their cumbersome and distortionary gross receipts tax (the Michigan Business Tax) with a flat 6 percent corporate income tax. This improved their overall rank from 18th to 12th best, and their corporate sub-rank from 49th to 7th best.
“Even in our global economy, a state’s strongest and most immediate competition often comes from other states,” said Tax Foundation economist Scott Drenkard. “State lawmakers need to be aware of how their states’ business climates match up to their immediate neighbors and to other states in their region.”
Each year the State Business Tax Climate Index is downloaded hundreds of thousands of times and cited in hundreds of newspaper articles, editorials, and broadcast media reports. State legislators often invoke their state’s score when advocating for reform measures, and several governors have cited the Index’s findings in their State of the State addresses.
Tax Foundation Background Paper No. 64, “2013 State Business Tax Climate Index” by Scott Drenkard and Joseph Henchman is available online.
The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan research organization that has monitored fiscal policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937. To schedule an interview, please contact Richard Morrison, the Tax Foundation’s Manager of Communications, at 202-464-5102 or morrison@taxfoundation.org.
What happened: The commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection signed off Friday on new rules governing public access to waterfront areas, a source of much controversy and litigation. The new rules, to be published in the New Jersey Register early next month, will take effect Nov. 5.
What it means: It lays out a framework for providing public access to beaches and tidal waterways in 231 municipalities from the New York-New Jersey Harbor region, south along the entire coastline, and north again along Delaware Bay and tidal portions of the Delaware River.
What DEP says the rules will do: The agency says the new rules will create incentives for local governments to work with the DEP to adopt new plans designed to meet local and regional access needs. The rules also mandate access be provided for new developments either on-site or off-site, if a municipality establishes a public access fund. (Johnson, NJ Spotlight)
