Paramus NJ , Route 17 was closed in both directions between Century Rd and the Rochelle Park Border yesterday during the morning rush do to a massive truck accident.
After a truck swerved to avoid another disabled tractor tailer on 17 northbound, dislodging a steal beam into the southbound roadway damaging two oncoming cars.
One driver sustained serious, but non-life-threatening injuries and was removed from the vehicle and transported to Hackensack University Medical Center.
Paramus Police were dispatched to the crash at 5:47 a.m. The southbound lanes were open by 7:40 a.m. and the southbound lanes were opened at 9:45 a.m.
The accident is under investigation by the Paramus Police Traffic Division and the New Jersey State Police Commercial Carrier Safety Inspection Unit.
In 2016 alone, more than 6,000 New Jersey hosts earned over $50 million by renting out their home or a room to visitors through Airbnb.
Representing a 100 percent increase compared to 2015, New Jerseyans welcomed approximately 257,000 people for a short stay last year, according to figures released this month by the San Francisco-based company.
Airbnb said the typical New Jersey host earns $6,200 in supplemental income annually, often using the extra cash to make rent or mortgage payments, save for retirement or repay student loans.
Typical listings are occupied 44 nights per year, the company said, and the average length of stay is about four nights.
“We are proud to see that more and more New Jerseyans have discovered home sharing as an opportunity to share their community with visitors from around the world, and earn a little bit of extra money along the way,” said Josh Meltzer, head of northeast public policy for Airbnb. “From the Jersey Shore to Jersey City, Airbnb hosts are ambassadors to the Garden State and we are grateful they have embraced home sharing as a way to welcome thousands of visitors.”
New Jersey’s top five cities by number of guest arrivals:
Jersey City: $11.35 million through 53,828 guest arrivals Union City: $4.3 million through 22,592 guest arrivals Ocean City: $2.7 million through 15,403 guest arrivals Weehawken: $3.2 million through 14,166 guest arrivals Atlantic City: $1.4 million through 11,244 guest arrivals
Notwithstanding the 10th Amendment, the federal government has repeatedly stepped in when the states’ political systems failed to bring about necessary action
Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff
Prediction: Sometime in the foreseeable future, the federal government will step in to address the self-inflicted crisis in state and local government pension and health-benefits funding. The only real question for us in New Jersey is whether it will happen soon enough to save us from ourselves.
How and why? Let’s review where we are:
First, state and local governments in the U.S. face a multi-trillion-dollar shortfall in public sector pension and health benefits funding. This is a genuine and growing financial crisis that clearly threatens our nation’s long-term economic prosperity.
Second, although some Democratic states with powerful public-sector unions like New Jersey and Illinois are comparatively worse off, few if any states can afford to relax and ignore the problem, especially if the analysis considers local government liabilities, rising healthcare costs, and unfunded post-retirement health benefits alongside pension liabilities.
Finally, the existing political environment, in which public employees are by far the most active and powerful constituency in state and local government, means that most blue states and many red states lack the political capacity or will to “solve” their benefits funding crisis on their own.
Unfortunately, New Jersey provides a convenient case study. By some calculations, New Jersey’s unfunded liability for state and local pensions and state health benefits combined tops $178 billion, among the worst in the nation. Further, 2017 is a gubernatorial election year. The Democratic frontrunner (and thus likely next governor) has secured the support of the state’s public-sector unions in part by rejecting a bipartisan commission’s well-regarded reform recommendations. Those reforms include a proposal to use savings from aligning public employees’ health benefits with Obamacare “Gold” level benefits to help fund the state’s annual pension contribution. Instead, the frontrunner would fully fund pensions along with an ambitious spending agenda by increasing taxes on “millionaires” and closing corporate tax “loopholes.” Trouble is, as even the multimillionaire frontrunner might admit in private, New Jersey’s economy and voters do not have an infinite tolerance for higher taxes, even on corporations and the rich. The likely result will be half measures to keep the ship afloat a while longer and continued deferral of comprehensive reform.
Cue federal intervention. Notwithstanding the 10th Amendment, over the course of history the federal government has repeatedly stepped in when the states’ political systems failed to bring about necessary action. An early example is the Compromise of 1790, whereby the federal government assumed the former colonies’ Revolutionary War debts. A more recent example is federal civil rights legislation made necessary by many states’ demonstrated political incapacity (refusal) to extend the rights of citizenship to all their citizens.
Today, New Jersey and many other states have political systems that are failing to address the escalating benefits-funding crisis. As the crisis begins to restrict and ultimately bar some cities’ and states’ access to the capital markets, exposing the national economy to widespread risk, the federal government will be forced to intervene. Although I cannot predict precisely when or how this will happen, I’ll throw out some ideas to stimulate thinking.
What form will federal relief take? There are many possibilities, but it’s safe to say that rescuing pension systems will be the first priority because rating agencies and current government counting rules place a greater emphasis on unfunded pension liabilities, often protected by state constitutions, than on unfunded retirement health benefit obligations. (Look for that to change soon, but one thing at a time!)
One option would be to extend the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp.’s pension-insurance programs for private employers to public employers. However, the PBGC’s insurance only supports a statutorily defined maximum guaranteed benefit, which in practice results in substantial reductions to middle- and-higher income retirees’ benefits. Moreover, the PBGC is already functionally bankrupt and the model of providing insurance to pay pension benefits on behalf of terminated private employer plans may not be readily transferable, or appropriate, for state and local public employers.
In the absence of a new federal insurance scheme, the most likely option is federal assistance that helps state and local government pension systems refinance their unfunded accrued liability (UAL). For instance, the federal government might lend the states the money on favorable terms, or it could provide a debt-service guarantee in support of state and local pension-refinancing bonds. Either approach would be tantamount to nationalizing state and local pension liabilities, and as such would be controversial. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.
A more limited, and perhaps more politically palatable, approach would be to provide a federal interest subsidy for pension-refinancing bonds. There is precedent. The federal Build America Bond program, part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, subsidized 35 percent of the interest on state and local bonds issued for capital expenditures.
At a recent council meeting I asked the council to consider asking our CFO to prepare a report on the feasibility of a property tax reduction, such as 10%, for seniors–whether all seniors or only those with income under a certain level (based on income tax returns) TBD. Other towns do this. It’s fiscally sound for all: a house sold by one or two seniors will go to a family with children, further burdening the school system. With our new all-day kindergarten, and the strong possibility of numerous new apartments looming, we will attract more people with very young children attending school from K through 12. Seniors are around during the day to keep an eye on the neighborhood when others are at work. Seniors volunteer and patronize stores, restaurants, the movie theater, and services such as hair salons on weekdays. A tax reduction each year, especially as taxes rise but a fixed income does not, might help some seniors to remain. Another point that needs to be far more widely known is that seniors with income under a specified amount are entitled to a property tax reduction through the state. The council and website should announce this and provide details, links, forms at Village Hall, etc.
NJ’s public sector pension plans are expected to be mostly insolvent by 2027 as the pension demands of retirees far outweigh the capital appreciation and new contributions to the fund. That’s what happens when you assume 7.95% annual pension fund returns (not adjusted for inflation) and 1980s era mortality data to pay for “special” retirements after 25 years of service. The fact is people are living longer than they were in the 1980s. So NJ has public sector retirees who will earn more from their pension (plus health plan benefit cost savings before Medicare kicks in) than they did in their 25 years of service. For example, the average PFRS retirement age is 52. If that retiree lives to 84,the recent expected average male lifespan in the US, then they’ll draw a pension for 32 years vs. only 25 years of service. This is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme where retirees are taking out much more than the <10% they actually contributed from wages could ever earn in the pension funds. Simply, the pension math no longer works.
There is no ‘fix’ possible. We are well past the point where a ‘fix’ could be implemented.
The optimal path now (something that Christie intentionally/unintentionally followed) is to hasten the demise of the unsustainable pension liabilities. Restructuring is inevitable, the sooner it is done the better it will be for all sides – pensioners as well as taxpayers.
Ridgewood NJ, in a 2017’s Best & Worst States to Raise a Family Wallet hub the Study gave New Jersey high marks rating the Garden state 7th best state in the nation for raising a family.
The survey was predicted on the idea that ,”raising a healthy, stable family sometimes requires moving to a new state. And the reasons are often similar: career transitions, better schools, financial challenges or perhaps a general desire to change settings.
But wants and needs don’t always align in a particular state, which might offer, for instance, a low income-tax rate yet subpar education system. Consequently, a family must make unnecessary sacrifices — the kinds that are easily avoided by knowing which states offer the best combination of qualities that matter most to parents and their kids.
To help with the evaluation process, WalletHub’s data team compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on 40 key indicators of family-friendliness. Our data set ranges from “median family salary” to “housing affordability” to “unemployment rate. Read on for the complete ranking, relocation advice from experts and a full description of our methodology.”
The WalletHub analysis used 40 key indicators of family friendliness for its ranking.
The study ranked New Jersey as:
11th best in the country for the percentage of families with kids
9th best for child care costs, adjusted for median family income
4th best for infant mortality rate
10th best for median family salary (adjusted for cost of living)
13th best for violent crime rate
11th best for percentage of families below the poverty level
Ridgewood NJ, as many of our reader’s are well aware when you fly its mandatory to have a boarding pass to get on the plane.
Right before boarding an airplane we hold onto our boarding passes like our lives depend upon it. But after we board, many, if not all of us, do not care anymore about the boarding pass. Sometimes we leave it in the plane, other times we leave it in the hotel room, or just chuck it in the garbage.
But this careless can get you into so much trouble.According to “Krebs on Security” there is personal information encrypted on your boarding pass. After someone took a screen shot of the bar code on the ticket, you will be amazed of how much personal information that person can get about you: home address, banking info, email address, phone number.
Watch the video and share it for others to learn about the risks and damage of being careless with their boarding pass!
Maurie Backman, The Motley FoolPublished 9:03 a.m. ET Feb. 21, 2017 | Updated 24 hours ago
We all want to save money for retirement, but these 5 costs that retirees face might shock you. USA TODAY NETWORK
Do you have a will or trust in place? Your loved ones could face a world of upheaval without one.
When most of us start planning for retirement, we think about things like what our living costs will be and how much money we’ll have access to. Many of us, in fact, get so focused on how much we are or aren’t saving that we fail to make one critical move: creating a will or living trust.
In a recent Caring.com study, 58% of American adults admitted to not having either type of crucial document in place. Even scarier, among adults with children under the age of 18, that figure climbed to 64% of folks without a formal estate plan.
Now the good news is that older Americans are more likely to have a will or trust than their younger counterparts. Here’s how the data breaks down:
AGE GROUP 18 TO 36 PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE WITH A WILL OR TRUST 22%
37 to 52 36%
53 to 71 60%
72 and older 81%
Data source: Caring.com.
Though it’s not surprising to see that almost 80% of younger Americans don’t have a will, it’s an attitude that can hurt Millennials as easily as it can folks 20 or 30 years their senior. And while you might think you have plenty of time to draw up a will, or that not having one isn’t such a big deal, it’s a mistake that could be far costlier than you might imagine.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans shrugged off rising mortgage rates and bought existing homes in January at the fastest pace since 2007. That has set off bidding wars that have pushed up prices as the supply of available homes has dwindled to record lows.
Home sales rose 3.3 percent in January from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.69 million, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
Steady job gains, modest pay raises and rising consumer confidence are spurring healthy home buying even as borrowing costs have risen since last fall. Some potential buyers may be accelerating their home purchases to get ahead of any further increases in mortgage rates. With few homes available for sale, buyers are pressured to rapidly close a deal as they find a suitable property.
The typical house for sale was on the market for just 50 days last month, compared with 64 days a year ago. Strong demand is pushing up median home prices, which jumped 7.1 percent from a year earlier to $228,900.
Just 1.69 million homes were on the market nationwide in January, near the lowest level since records began in 1999. It would take just 3.6 months to deplete that supply at the current pace of sales, matching a record low reached in December. Supply is usually equal to about six months of sales in a balanced housing market.
The supply crunch will likely get worse during the upcoming spring buying season, economists say, as demand typically rises by more than supply during that time.
Nicholas Pugliese , State House Bureau, @nickpugzPublished 5:39 p.m. ET Feb. 20, 2017 | Updated 3 hours ago
The obliterated homes and torched wedding photos. The lost green cards and melted jewelry. Those things, at least, might have been anticipated once the first flames took hold in the Avalon at Edgewater apartment complex in January 2015.
The type of sprinkler system installed in the building, as required by New Jersey’s building code, was designed primarily to give people enough time to get out, not to save the building and its contents. To that extent, it succeeded. No one died. No one was even seriously injured.
Ridgewood NJ, Controlling “exactly what people think” is the job of the media, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski boldly declared Wednesday morning.
Here’s a transcript:
SCARBOROUGH: “Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, ‘Yeah you guys are going crazy. He’s doing — what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do.'”
BRZEZINSKI: “Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.”
Brzezinski’s comments are a reminder of darker days in Ridgewood , when the previous mayor made a concerted attempt with his allies to squelch free speech in Ridgewood. At the civility forum in February of 2015 over 300 residents sat there and took it when they were told by various speakers they were not allowed to speak unless they said what they were told to say.
Civility forum moves forward to squelch public dissent
February 25,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ed Koch once said,”If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.”
But not according to Stephen Borg, Publisher and President, North Jersey Media Group, who insisted that the whole problem is that since people have found their voice through social media they have come to so many different opinions civil discourse has fallen.Things were so much better when North Jersey Media had a monopoly on public discussion and could always dictate terms. Borg implied that elites like himself are the only ones qualified to make those decisions. Borg pointed out how this blog and its anonymous posters are the greatest enemy to not only American Democracy but to the dominance of North Jersey Media Group. While I was rather flattered that the Publisher and President, North Jersey Media Group thought this blog shook the very foundations of civil discourse and was viewed as the barbarians at the gate, I would suggest the far larger problem might be the totally bias and slip shot reporting of his Media Empire. Borg set the tone for the evening which came down silencing critics and reasserting the elitist “we know better than you ”, so time to be quite.
Plein Air Essentials- A Lecture by C.A. Jerez
Sunday February 26 at 2 PM – 4 PM
Ridgewood Art Institute
12 E Glen Ave, Ridgewood, New Jersey 07450
Any interest in painting outdoors?
C. A. Jerez, longtime member of RAI and instructor of our Monday nite Oil Painting Class, will give a lecture on Plein Air Essentials.
Mr. Jerez was a disciple of the famous Art Students League instructor, Frank Vincent Dumond. In his work, Mr Jerez is able to capture the life of the subject by identifying the essential components of an object or scene and depicting them in the most simplistic manner to convey complete realism without neglecting the artistic elements of form and strong composition. He uses uses prismatic color and light effects to create a sense of distance and drama while capturing the weather conditions and the specific time of day.
Admission fee for this event is a $5 donation to The Ridgewood Art Institute and all are welcome.
With late payments on the rise, a dealership upsell begins to look dangerous.
by
Kyle Stock
February 21, 2017, 4:00 AM EST February 21, 2017, 12:39 PM EST
Lured by low interest rates, low gas prices, and a crop of seductive vehicles that are faster, smarter, and more efficient than ever before, American drivers are increasingly riding in style. Don’t be fooled by the curb appeal, though—those swanky machines are heavily leveraged.
The country’s auto debt hit a record in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, when a rush of year-end car shopping pushed vehicle loans to a dubious peak of $1.16 trillion. The combination of new car smell and new credit woes stretches from Subarus in Maine to Teslas in San Francisco.
In the era of Trump, not much attention is being paid to the NJ Gubernatorial race right now, but for those who understand what happened last November with the Presidential election, where thousands of New Jersians who rarely voted and democrats who were tired of back-room deals and politics as usual, came out and voted for Donald Trump. This should give New Jersey residents some pause when considering options for the Democratic primary race. When Gov. Christie ran for his second term, he took NJ 60.3% to 38.2%. One of the arguments from the Democratic candidate was that the power boss/es did not come out for her for whatever reasons.
In this year’s Democratic primary, we have several candidates but some corrupt party bosses are crowning their favorite, even before a single “public” vote has been cast. If the residents of New Jersey do not stand up and fight for their right to select the candidate they want to represent them, then the only vote that counts and that has already been cast, is that of the Democratic Chairman for Passaic County. To better understand how control is maintained, we must understand that this chairman controls all the County agencies including the Board of Elections and Freeholders, Passaic County Technical Institute, Sheriff’s Department and Passaic County Community College just off the top of my head. Now to be fair, the departments are run by different staff and professionals but the key elected positions and in some cases executive jobs are mostly the result of political deals made by the Democratic chair. This was not done overnight. It took years for such a process to work, but now that all county and state elected officials are controlled by the Passaic County Democratic Chair, with the exception of Congressman Bill Pascrell who is focused influencing Trenton, have selected a candidate with no governing experience at all but with deep pockets to fund other candidates the chairman has in mind.
As he nears end of second term, governor still struggling with state’s deeply troubled public-worker pension system, while some stakeholders look to a new administration for relief
Credit: Governor’s Office/Tim Larsen
Gov. Chris Christie once bragged about “fixing” New Jersey’s beleaguered public-employee pension system with a series of reforms that were enacted during his first two years in office.
But now, as the second-term Republican prepares to present a final state budget to lawmakers next week, the retirement funds for public workers remain a huge problem, and any long-term solution will likely not come from Christie, but from a successor who will be elected later this year.
Christie confirmed during a recent NJ 101.5 FM radio appearance that he’s planning to boost the annual state pension contribution up to $2.5 billion in the 2018 fiscal year spending plan. The increase would set a record for state pension funding in a single budget, but also fall well short of the full amount that actuaries say is needed to return the retirement system to overall good health. And it was Christie, in 2010, who signed a law that committed the state to fully funding the actuarial estimate by the 2018 fiscal year.
Christie, meanwhile, also left the door open during the radio interview to calling on lawmakers to approve new benefits cuts for public workers along with the next state budget. That comes even after he bragged in 2011 that benefits changes passed that year were “providing real, long-term fiscal stability for future generations.”
