U.S. stocks closed near session lows on Thursday, off more than 2 percent, as investors weighed continued uncertainty about the timing of a rate hike and concerns about global growth headed by slowing in China.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average both had their worst day since Feb. 3, 2014. ( Tweet This )
“I think the markets are overly pessimistic,” said Anthony Valeri, investment strategist at LPL Financial. “I think this sentiment is panicking over news from China, the Fed (and) oil at six-year lows.”
Weakening in emerging market currencies on the heels of China’s yuan devaluation last week added to worries of broad economic slowdown.
“I think the oil and the geopolitical problems are the real problems for the market because we’re looking at lower global economic growth, and lower global growth is going to weigh on the U.S. as well,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital.
The S&P 500 fell into the red for 2015 and closed down 1.1 percent for the year. Consumer discretionary led all 10 sectors lower with a decline of 2.8 percent for its worst daily performance since June 1, 2012. Energy is the greatest laggard for the year so far, down more than 18 percent.
What happens when the Federal Reserve loses its stranglehold over debt markets? Investors are finding out.
The selloff in corporate bonds is deepening and investors are seeking safety in the longest-dated government debt, which does best when the economy does worst. Defaults are rising as oil tumbles and investors are looking for the best ways to hedge against credit losses.
All this comes as the Fed does, well, nothing much. Instead, it’s China that’s taken the lead with new rounds of financial stimulus in the face of slowing growth. But some days it’s a free for all, with even Kazakhstan wielding its influence.
The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison Wednesday for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job.
John C. Beale’s crimes were “inexplicable” and “unbelievably egregious,” said Judge Ellen Huvelle in imposing the sentence in a Washington. D.C. federal court. Beale has also agreed to pay $1.3 million in restitution and forfeiture to the government.
Beale said he was ashamed of his lies about working for the CIA, a ruse that, according to court records, began in 2000 and continued until early this year.
“Why did I do this? Greed – simple greed – and I’m ashamed of that greed,” Beale told the court. He also said it was possible that he got a “rush” and a “sense of excitement” by telling people he was worked for the CIA. “It was something like an addiction,” he said.
Beale pled guilty in September to bilking the government out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade. He perpetrated his fraud largely by failing to show up at the EPA for months at a time, including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did “absolutely no work,” as his lawyer acknowledged in a sentencing memo filed last week.
When Huvelle asked Beale what he was doing when he claimed he was working for the CIA, he said, “I spent time exercising. I spent a lot of time working on my house.”
He also said he used the time “trying to find ways to fine tune the capitalist system” to discourage companies from damaging the environment. “I spent a lot of time reading on that,” said Beale.
Ridgewood Nj , Did you know that Town & Country Apothecary has a watch department? Located in the rear of the store, come meet Jorge to have your watch or clock repaired, batteries replaced or links removed. We carry a wide range of replacement bands as well as watches and alarm clocks.
great service and reasonable prices
New Watch Department Hours:
Sunday – Closed
Monday – 9:30 am to 5 pm
Tuesday – 9:30 am to 5 pm
Wednesday – 9:30 am to 5 pm
Thursday – 10 am to 2 pm
Friday – 9:30 am to 4 pm
Saturday – 9:30 am to 5 pm
The Battle Against PSEG Spreads to Woodland Park Following Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop’s Monday decision to shut down PSEG projects in Jersey City, Woodland Park Mayor Keith Kazmark has decided to do the same. (Alyana Alfaro, PolitickerNJ.com) Read more
see below
Fulop Shuts Down PSEG in Jersey City Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop wants to send a message to PSEG. Effective today, the mayor shut down all of the utility company’s non-essential projects in Jersey City because, according to the mayor and other local and county officials, the company is doing an inadequate and unacceptable job in terms of repairing city streets that have been dug up in order to perform maintenance underground. (Alyana Alfaro, Politickernj.com)https://politickernj.com/2015/08/fulop-shuts-down-pseg-in-jersey-city/
Former National Security Agency (NSA) Director Michael Hayden said on Wednesday that Hillary Clinton should not have used a single account for all her emails as secretary of State.
“It’s stupid and dangerous,” Hayden, who led the CIA during George W. Bush’s presidency, said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Hayden said that “you put a really juicy target out there” by combining official and unofficial exchanges on the same email account, as Clinton did.
He said doing so puts the secretary and nation’s secrets at risk, and questioned its legality, noting that government accounts provide a certain level of security.
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO POST YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CONTACTS
AUGUST 19, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2015, 8:56 AM
BY MELANIE ANZIDEI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
With more and more potential customers flocking to Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and other social-media options, small businesses stand to benefit from having a more dynamic and engaging online presence.
Small businesses are becoming more sophisticated in their use of social media, picking and choosing what works best for them, while at the same time effectively gauging the return on their investment in social media.
For custom storage company California Closets, which opened a Ridgewood location in July, social media was one way it got the word out about its new storefront.
“Before, [social media] was a fun thing to do,” said Melanie Statlander, 37, marketing manager for the company’s North Jersey outlets. “Now, you really can promote your business.” Statlander directs social media messages now to target specific audiences. To announce the opening of the Ridgewood store, “I boosted a post only within a five-mile radius of Ridgewood,” she said.
The success of Statlander’s social media campaigns is measured by how many users actually come in and buy the company’s product. Recently, a customer said she found the company through Facebook.
“It’s good to reach people [through social media], but you want to reach the right people — your clients,” she said.
California Closets, which has more than 100 showrooms nationwide, has the advantage of a staff that can sustain an engaging social media presence. Though Statlander is responsible for the company’s North Jersey Facebook and Twitter pages — in addition to her other marketing duties, the company’s California-based corporate office has one person working solely on the company’s Instagram and Pinterest pages, which helps promote the company’s overall brand more aggressively and nationally.
For smaller businesses, having one employee committed to social media is not always an option.
Gov. Chris Christie’s office says recent actions by credit-rating agencies confirm his view that the cost of New Jersey’s state’s pension system is a long-term issue. (Associated Press) Read more
Christie comes out swinging at N.J. teachers’ union in N.H. Just as soon as Gov. Chris Christie took a seat on stage at an education summit in New Hampshireon Wednesday, he came out swinging against New Jersey’s largest teachers union. (Matt Arco, NJ.com) Read more
AUGUST 19, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2015, 9:58 AM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The Village of Ridgewood has a new director of Operations on board with the hiring of Rich Calbi, a longtime municipal engineer with a background in running public utilities.
A native of Lyndhurst, Calbi has his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and master’s degree in environmental engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He also has a professional engineering license and professional planning license. Calbi is also a certified public works manager and municipal engineer.
Calbi takes over for Frank Moritz, who retired from the post at the end of June.
Aside from serving as the head of Ridgewood Water, Calbi also takes over the director of Operations role, which includes oversight of departments such as recycling, fleet and sanitation.
The announcements of Calbi’s hiring and Moritz’s retirement took place on the same evening, May 27. Calbi started working for the village a few days before Moritz left to ensure a smooth transition during the changeover in personnel.
Calbi began his career working for the Army Corps of Engineers, specifically on the Passaic River Flood Tunnel project, which never came to fruition. He spent five-and-a-half years in the private sector doing flood abatement, storm water management and system design before going to work for local governments.
He started in the public sector in Clifton as the assistant township engineer before becoming the engineer in Maplewood Township in Essex County. Most recently, Calbi was the township engineer in Livingston, where he was also in charge of the Division of Public Works and Water Utility.
AUGUST 19, 2015, 11:57 AM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2015, 11:57 AM
BY JOE MALINCONICO
PATERSON PRESS
PATERSON — The city is running about a month late in issuing the first property tax bills under the new assessments set in the recent revaluation, officials said.
The bills will be far from routine because they will provide Paterson property owners their first tangible information on what their individual taxes will be under the revaluation, officials said. The city has issued notices on what the individual properties’ new values will be, but it has not yet disclosed what the new tax rate or tax bills will be, official said.
City Council Finance Committee Chairman Kenneth Morris said many homeowners whose properties received lower assessments under the revaluation will be expecting to pay lower taxes. “Some of them are going to find out that it’s going to have a different outcome than they expected,” he warned.
The revaluation was a lot-by-lot revision of the assessed values of all Paterson properties. It lowered Paterson’s tax base from $8.2 billion to $5.8 billion, according to data released by the city earlier this year. The numbers showed that the values on residential properties generally went down far more than they did on commercial land.
To offset the drop in ratables, the city’s tax rate will rise, officials said. The amount of the increase in the rate will determine whether property owners will pay more or less taxes as a result of the revaluation, officials said.
Normally, the city issues tax bills for the first quarter of the new fiscal year, which starts on July 1, at the end of the July and the taxes are due at the end of August, officials said. But the administration has not yet asked the City Council for the approvals needed to issue the bills.
Morris said administration officials have told him they will ask for those approvals next week, which would allow the bills to go out at the end of August and be due at the end of September.
Morris said no one has explained to him why the city is late in issuing the bills. Mayor Jose “Joey” Torres on Monday referred questions about the timing of the tax bills to his business administrator, Nellie Pou, and acting finance director, James Ten Hoeve. Neither Pou nor Ten Hoeve has responded to phone messages left for them this week.
Ridgewood NJ, Duh? Couldn’t someone at Village Hall and/or The Stable have figured out how to have capitalized on this heat wave? The “not enough lifeguards” excuse is just kind of lame.
Late Season – Monday, August 17 to Sunday, August 30th
Weekends, 10 am to 7:30 pm
Weekdays, 12 noon to 7:30 pm
POOL CLOSED – Monday, August 31 through Friday, September 4
Labor Day Weekend – Saturday, Sept 5 through Monday, Sept 7
Daily, 10 am to 7:30 pm
The shoe is on the other foot and the Mexicans from the State of Sonora, Mexico do not like it. Can you believe the nerve of these people? It’s almost funny.
The State of Sonora is angry at the influx of Mexicans into Mexico!!!
Nine state legislators from the Mexican State of Sonora traveled to Tucson to complain about Arizona’s new employer crackdown on illegals from Mexico.
It seems that many Mexican illegals are returning to their hometowns and the officials in the Sonora state government are ticked off.
In January 2008, a delegation of nine legislators from Sonora (the Mexican state immediately south of Arizona) came to Tucson to express concerns that Arizona’s recently enacted Legal Arizona Workers Act (an employer sanctioned law which imposed penalties on employers who knowingly hired persons lacking documentation of their status to legally work in the United States) would have a “devastating” effect on Sonora. After a press conference held at the offices of Project PPEP a day prior to the delegation’s meeting with Hispanic legislators, the Tucson Citizen reported the Sonoran representatives posing questions such as the following:
At a news conference, the Sonoran legislators said that Sonora — Arizona’s southern neighbor, made up of mostly small towns — cannot handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools it will face as illegal Mexican workers [in Tucson] return to their hometowns without jobs or money.
They want to tell [Arizona legislators] how the law will affect Mexican families on both sides of the border.
“How can they pass a law like this?” asked Mexican Rep. Leticia Amparano Gamez, who represents Nogales.
“There is not one person living in Sonora who does not have a friend or relative working in Arizona,” she said in Spanish.
“Mexico is not prepared for this, for the tremendous problems it will face as more and more Mexicans working in Arizona and sending money to their families return to hometowns in Sonora without jobs,” she said.
Amparano said the Mexican legislators are already asking the federal government of Mexico for help for Sonora.
NATIONAL STEVEN ERTELT AUG 19, 2015 | 9:27AM WASHINGTON, DC
The organization that has released six videos exposing the scandal of Planned Parenthood selling aborted babies and their body parts has released a new undercover video today with another shocking discovery. This latest video catches the nation’s biggest abortion business harvesting the brain of an aborted baby who was still alive.
The video (SHOWN BELOW) features Holly O’Donnell, a licensed phlebotomist who unsuspectingly took a job as a “procurement technician” at the fetal tissue company and biotech start-up StemExpress in late 2012. That’s the company that acts as a middleman and purchases the body parts of aborted babies from Planned Parenthood to sell to research universities and other places. StemExpress was partnered with Planned Parenthood up until last week, when it quietly announced it ended its relationship with the abortion corporation.
The new video includes O’Donnell’s eyewitness narrative of the daily practice of fetal body parts harvesting in Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. She tells the harrowing story of harvesting an intact brain from a late-term male unborn baby whose heart was still beating after the abortion.
O’Donnell describes the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term baby aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, California.
DID BLACK LIVES MATTER ORGANIZER SHAUN KING MISLEAD OPRAH WINFREY BY PRETENDING TO BE BIRACIAL?
by MILO YIANNOPOULOS19 Aug 20154,510
An investigative blogger has accused Shaun King, a key figure in the Black Lives Matter movement, of misleading media icon Oprah Winfrey by pretending to be biracial in order to qualify for an “Oprah scholarship” to historically black Morehouse College. The blogger says King is white and has been lying about his ethnicity for years.
King is a high-profile campaigner against “police brutality” and “justice correspondent” for the liberal Daily Kos website who told Rebel magazine in 2012 that he was biracial, with the magazine reporting that he is the “son of a Caucasian mother and an African-American father.” He has also described himself as “mixed with a black family” on Twitter.
King has been lionised by the press, praised as hero of civil rights and social activism. He has written extensively about a childhood in which he was terrorised by “decades old racial tensions.” He claims to have been “the focus of constant abuse of the resident rednecks of my school.”
Yet, in recent weeks, rumours have been circulating about his ethnicity. A 1995 police incident report lists Shaun King’s ethnicity as white. And blogger Vicki Pate, who has been assembling forensic accounts of Shaun King’s background and family tree on her blog, “Re-NewsIt!,” has published her findings.
She claims that King is entirely white and says a birth certificate, which Breitbart has since independently acquired from the Kentucky Office of Vital Statistics, names a white man as his father.
King’s case echoes that of Rachel Dolezal, a civil rights activist from Washington who claimed to be biracial while in fact being of caucasian origin. Dolezal continues to insist she “identifies as black,” despite her parents revealing that she is entirely white.
If Pate is right, Shaun King, who often uses black and white photographs of himself online rather than colour images, may have misled African-American hero Winfrey by applying for and accepting an Oprah Scholarship to the historically black Morehouse College. Oprah Scholarships are given exclusively to black men.
In his Daily Kos diary, King refers to himself as a “brother,” writing: “Oprah Winfrey paid my way through Morehouse. The leadership scholarship that I received from her is why I have a college degree today. Five hundred other brothers have the exact same story.”
Shaun King’s biography has attracted the attention of bloggers and journalists thanks to several bizarre inconsistencies in his public claims. He often struggles when asked to recall basic facts about his own life. For instance, in August 2014, King wrote on Twitter that he was father to three “black girls,” while, six months earlier, he claimed to be father to four.
It is of course possible that a family tragedy is responsible for the inconsistency, but the unexplained change in biographical details is not a one-off. In October 2009, King claimed to have endured four spinal surgeries. By February 2010, the number of surgeries had shrunk to three. There is also some confusion about when an alleged car crash may or may not have happened.
As it turns out, these explosive new racial allegations are just the latest in a string of controversies surrounding Shaun King: on July 21, a conservative blog reported that his account of a “brutal, racially-motivated beating” in 1995, which at least two reports have described as “Kentucky’s first hate crime,” did not match up with a police report from the case.
The Ridgewood Guild will feature a complimentary movie for your enjoyment! Pack a picnic basket, bring your family and pull up some turf in Van Neste Park. Movies start when the sun goes down…about 8pm. August 19th – Harry Potter (Special Event)
Join us in for family fun and entertainment. We show films great for the whole family on a 25 foot screen and professional sound system. Bring snacks, a picnic blanket, and get ready for a great evening with your community.
2015 Movies in the Park Schedule
All movies are on Wednesdays and start at sundown (approximately 9pm in June and July and 8:30pm in August). In case of rain movies will be shown the following day (Thursday). Follow-us on Facebook for the latest information.
June 10: Star Wars
June 24: Citizen Kane
July 8: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
July 22: Momma Mia!*
August 5: Murder on the Orient Express
August 19: Harry Potter and the Sorcer’s Stone*
