Ridgewood NJ, Quick thinking on the part of an observant bank teller and an immediate response by Ridgewood PD Patrol Officer Paul Dinice saved a local resident from becoming a victim of the increasingly pervasive “IRS Scam.” Officer Dinice was dispatched to a local Chase Bank branch (84 East Ridgewood Avenue) following receipt of a 911 telephone call from a bank teller there who reported that a very distraught female patron talking on a cell phone had asked to withdraw a large sum of money.
After arriving at the bank less than 60 seconds from being dispatched, Dinice quickly located and interviewed the intended victim. He determined almost immediately that the “IRS Scam” was in play and convinced the 57-year old resident to hang up the phone. Still distraught, the resident asked to be transported to a local pharmacy, a request Dinice cheerfully honored.
On “Hannity” tonight, Donald Trump said he’s disappointed with our country’s leaders, particularly President Obama, who he called the worst president in the history of the U.S.
Trump said that Obama has been a disaster for the country, pointing to the nuclear agreement with Iran as a recent example of the president’s failures.
Trump added that Obama is just like most politicians: All talk and no action.
Trump said that his anti-politician message is resonating with Americans, and that’s why he’s currently leading in the polls.
“People are tired of incompetent politicians running our country,” Trump said. “When they see a deal like the Iran nuclear deal, when they see how badly our veterans are taken care of, they’re just sick and tired of it.”
Trump added that many people are asking him to run as an independent, but he doesn’t see why he would do that when he’s the leading Republican in the polls.
New Jersey is more than $10 billion short on what it would cost to fully fund schools, pensions, transportation projects, Medicaid and other programs, according to an estimate prepared by the state’s nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services and obtained by NJ Advance Media. (Samantha Marcus, NJ.com)
Non-Accredited Equity Crowdfunding Investors Need a Path to Liquidity
Jul 27, 2015 by Scott Shane In VC & Angel Capital
PeerRealty, a real estate crowdfunding platform, recently introduced CFX, the U.S.’s first secondary market for equity crowdfunding shares. For accredited investors, this exchange will improve the liquidity of equity crowdfunding investments.
Unfortunately, only accredited investors can use the platform. Equity crowdfunding investments made by non-accredited investors remain as liquid as ice.
This lack of liquidity creates a big problem. With the implementation of the rules for Title IV of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act in June, non-accredited investors — people with less than $1 million in net worth or $200,000 in annual income if single and $300,000 if married — can now buy shares in private companies through equity crowdfunding portals.
But non-accredited investors can’t sell those same shares. Unlike accredited investors who can go to PeerRealty to sell their securities, unaccredited investors have to wait for the companies in which they have invested to go public or get acquired to cash out. And if venture capital and angel group investments are any guide to the time to exit for young companies, then these unaccredited investors will be waiting five to ten years for liquidity. Of course, that’s if the companies in which they have invested are the kind that will be purchased or go public.
Securities and Exchange Commissioner (SEC) Daniel Gallagher has recognized this problem, calling for a solution to the ill-liquidity of crowdfunding securities in a September 17, 2014, speech.
Specifically, he said, “I’ve called for the creation of ‘Venture Exchanges’: national exchanges, with trading and listing rules tailored for smaller companies, including those engaging in issuances under Regulation A.”
Congressman Scott Garrett, the New Jersey Republican who chairs the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises of the House has taken the issue to Capitol Hill. He has put forth a discussion draft of the Main Street Growth Act (PDF) – a bill that would “amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to allow for the creation of venture exchanges to promote liquidity of venture securities, and for other purposes.”[/fusion_text]
By Samantha Marcus | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on July 26, 2015 at 6:00 PM, updated July 27, 2015 at 8:24 AM
TRENTON — In the latest salvo in the battle between New Jersey and its public workers, the heads of the state’s largest pension funds are accusing the state of breaching its contract by underfunding government workers’ pensions.
The pension heads are seeking billions of dollars in damages.
The pension fund trustees’ newly amended complaint opens a new front in the fight for pension funding in which Gov. Chris Christie had already declared victory following a state Supreme Court ruling last month that the state couldn’t be forced to make the payments into the retirement system promised under a 2011 pension law.
That ruling has so far spared the state from having to scrape together billions of additional dollars in pension contributions.
Ridgewood NJ, On Tuesday July 21, 2015, a resident reported that he/she had entered into an agreement with a seller on Craigslist.com to purchase a motor vehicle. After the resident forwarded payment for the vehicle and shipping costs, the vehicle did not arrive as agreed upon. Upon further review of the transaction, the buyer realized that the advertisement was fraudulent and the seller had no intention of providing the vehicle. The matter was forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
How to Spot Car Scams on Craigslist
Craigslist can be a great resource to find new or used car deals in your local area. In some cases, if you are looking for a specific model of car, it can be tempting to purchase a car from another region of your country or from a different country entirely. When you are browsing cars for sale on Craigslist outside of your local area, you must learn how to recognize and spot the signs that indicate potential car scams. https://www.wikihow.com/Spot-Car-Scams-on-Craigslist
My goal at the convention is to make as many connections with both professionals and like-minded students. Exposure, to sum it up with one word. As a rising senior at Rutgers business school pursuing a bachelors degree in finance with a legal studies minor I am also seeking internship opportunities in the field of finance/ compliance for the fall/spring and/or summer. Eloisa Faria
Yes it’s to raise money for the Convention. Our story and goals are presented in the gofundme account below, but If you want more details about my personal goals/ why I want to attend,
Send Eloisa & Dina to ALPFA 2015!!
ALPFA is a national, not-for-profit professional association that creates opportunities, adds value, and builds relationships for its members, the community and its business partners while expanding Latino & Diverse Leadership in the global workforce. ALPFA Rutgers –Newark is a student chapter of this professional business association which strives to participate in the professional chapter’s events, build professional relationships and network with other business students and corporate professionals.
Eloisa Faria guaduated from Passaic County Community College with an Associates Degree in Business Administration and is a Standing Senior at Rutgers Business School where she is pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance with a minor in Legal Studies. She has maintained a 3.5 cummulative GPA and works as a Resident Assistant at Rutgers, Newark in order to give back to the community she fell in love with.
Dina Siyam is a graduate of Middlesex County College with an Associates degree in Business Administration and is a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. She is currently entering her Senior year at Rutgers Business School where she is pursuing a Bachelors degree in Accounting & Finance with a concentration in Real Estate Finance.
Media Generated Controversy ? How far will GOP press Garrett?
GOP insiders
JULY 26, 2015, 11:16 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2015, 7:39 AM
BY HERB JACKSON
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD
Rep. Scott Garrett’s decision to stop supporting a key Republican campaign fund did more than raise questions about his attitudes toward gay people — it highlighted an often-obscured reality about the political machinery that ties congressional power to cash.
Party leaders — for both Democrats and Republicans — know that certain committee assignments give members of Congress access to lucrative streams of contributions from industries that those committees oversee.
And the pressure applied to Garrett to contribute to his party shows that when someone who needs to pay for an election every two years is put in a position to tap those streams, leaders expect loyalty and a piece of the action.
Garrett, a Republican from Wantage whose district is dominated by Bergen County voters, is resisting pressure to do both. He has a long record of going his own way when voting on the House floor, and in an interview with The Record last week indicated he will continue to do so if he believes a matter of principle is at stake.
He also has reportedly told colleagues he will not pay his “dues” to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s campaign fund because it has supported gay candidates and because of differences with the leadership of House Speaker John Boehner, whose reelection Garrett opposed in January.
It’s an unwritten rule in Congress that dues to the party committee are tied to a member’s position in the chamber. And Garrett is chairman of a subcommittee that handles legislation affecting stock markets and the mortgage industry, a post that could be in jeopardy because of his resistance.
Garrett raised nearly $1 million in both the 2012 and 2014 election cycles from employees and PACs tied to banking, insurance, securities and real estate interests, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. His latest campaign finance report showed Garrett had $2.2 million available on June 30 and nearly a year and a half to raise more for his 2016 reelection.
JULY 27, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 27, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY GREG MATTURA
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
John Driscoll has set his sights on winning the New Jersey Junior Championship and has given himself five years to do it.
New Jersey’s reigning Boys champion is foregoing his final two years of eligibility in that 15-and-under division and stepping up in class against many of the Garden State’s premier 18-year-olds.
The 14-year-old from Ridgewood hopes to join a prestigious list of golfers who have won the New Jersey State Golf Association’s Boys and Junior titles since the former debuted in 1971. Six have won both, most recently Wayne’s Anthony Alex in 2009.
“I just wanted to give myself an opportunity to do it,” Driscoll said.
The 94th Junior and 45th Boys championships open today at Rumson Country Club and Driscoll, an incoming freshman at Don Bosco, will compete against golfers who in the spring were chosen All-State by the New Jersey PGA and in late summer will head to college.
“To be honest, my goal is just to make match play in the Junior,” said Driscoll, who plays out of Arcola CC in Paramus, “because I know there’s a lot of good players there. And I know if you can make match play, anything can happen. That was my mind-set last year.”
The Junior has a field of 77 who today will compete in an 18-hole, stroke-play qualifier, with the low 16 advancing to Tuesday morning’s first round of match play. The final is Wednesday afternoon.
JULY 27, 2015, 8:58 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2015, 8:17 AM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
Donald Trump, a lifelong New Yorker, has been on a 30-year mission to blanket New Jersey with his self-named businesses. It’s a story that has been perplexing and awe-inspiring, infuriating and romantic — sometimes all at once.
What began in the 1980s with a few casinos in Atlantic City soon became a grand tour in which Trump registered 41 businesses in the state; submitted plans for a massive golf community in southern Bergen County and a mega-mall in Paramus; came up with four different ideas for Trump amusement parks; hosted Mike Tyson boxing matches and concerts by Bob Dylan and Michael Jackson; ferried passengers to his casinos on his own airline; and developed three golf courses.
The golf courses were huge successes. And the casinos had a solid run in the 1980s and the early 1990s. But there was also the wreckage: plans that went nowhere, casinos that faltered, deals that fell through and developments that were rejected by state officials.
After 20 months of negotiations, this week President Obama announced a nuclear arms deal that will give Iran sanctions relief and a path to obtaining a nuclear weapon.
The Iranian regime has done nothing to prove that it has earned the trust or respect of the international community and should not be rewarded with sanctions relief. This deal will only further destabilize an increasingly volatile region.
President Obama asks for this deal to be judged on its original goal and its merits. But it should be judged on the ability to keep weapons out of the hands of a regime that is both a sponsor of terrorism and an enemy of the United States and its allies.
By that standard, it fails horribly.
One of the most imperative aspects of a deal is the ability to verify that Iran is fulfilling its end of the agreement. The president may claim that this deal “is not based on trust; it is built on verification,” but this is not reflected in the actual provisions of the deal. The president himself has stated that a deal must allow for inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) anytime, anywhere. Yet this deal fails to live up to the president’s own standards. Instead it allows Iran to object to inspections and dispute the inspections in front of a resolution panel— a process that can take up to 24 days. This is hardly the spontaneous inspection that will ensure compliance.
Under this deal, Iran is not required to fully dismantle existing bomb making technology. Rather, Iran is allowed to continue its enrichment capabilities. But that becomes almost irrelevant when you consider that in ten short years the United States and its allies will have little ability to ensure that Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons. After a decade, the limits on Iran’s nuclear activities will begin to sunset.
In recent years Iran has involved itself in both regional and sectarian conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. By lifting the sanctions, billions of dollars in frozen assets will be freed up, and Iran will be rewarded for its bad behavior.
Due to provisions included in the eleventh hour of negotiations, this deal lifts the arms embargo after just five years, and after eight years the restrictions on ballistic missile transfer will be lifted. This will no doubt benefit Russia, who stands to make considerable money by providing missile technology to Iran. The reality for the US and its allies is that lifting this embargo will allow Iran to further support bad actors and terrorism in the region.
President Obama claims that if Iran violates the deal the sanctions will snap back into place. This just isn’t reality. Snapping back the sanctions—as the president claims he will do—will take an act of the same international body that worked on the agreement. It will be out of the hands of this or any other White House.
So where are we now?
Unfortunately, due to a bill that passed in May without my support, Congress’ ability to stop this deal from being implemented is greatly diminished. Instead of requiring a majority of Congress to approve the treaty, the so-called Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 turns the Constitution on its head and requires Congress to block a treaty. Knowing this, President Obama has already issued a veto threat if Congress tries to block this deal.
Even if Iran abides by all of the provisions in this deal, in 15 years they will be able to proliferate weapons grade nuclear materials and possess ballistic missiles. By implementing this agreement, we will not make the world a safer place; we will essentially start a countdown until this terrorist regime has nuclear weapons.
This is not a political issue; this is an issue of national security for the United States and for our allies around the world. Over the span of the negotiations, 367 Members of Congress from both parties have called upon the president expressing the standards that a final deal must achieve. Yet this deal fails to achieve these standards.
The administration consistently said that a bad deal is worse than no deal, yet it delivered this terrible agreement to the American people. As I’ve said since the beginning of these negotiations, any agreement that allows Iran to acquire, build, or proliferate nuclear weapons—now or in the future—is a threat to the United States and its allies.
Booby-trapped MMS messages and websites exploit flaw in heart of Android.
Almost all Android mobile devices available today are susceptible to hacks that can execute malicious code when they are sent a malformed text message or the user is lured to a malicious website, a security researcher reported Monday.
The vulnerability affects about 950 million Android phones and tablets, according to Joshua Drake, vice president of platform research and exploitation at security firm Zimperium. It resides in “Stagefright,” an Android code library that processes several widely used media formats. The most serious exploit scenario is the use of a specially modified text message using the multimedia message (MMS) format. All an attacker needs is the phone number of the vulnerable Android phone. From there, the malicious message will surreptitiously execute malicious code on the vulnerable device with no action required by the end user and no indication that anything is amiss.
In a blog post published Monday, Zimperium researchers wrote:
A fully weaponized successful attack could even delete the message before you see it. You will only see the notification. These vulnerabilities are extremely dangerous because they do not require that the victim take any action to be exploited. Unlike spear-phishing, where the victim needs to open a PDF file or a link sent by the attacker, this vulnerability can be triggered while you sleep. Before you wake up, the attacker will remove any signs of the device being compromised and you will continue your day as usual—with a trojaned phone.
The vulnerability can be exploited using other attack techniques, including luring targets to malicious websites. Drake will outline six or so additional techniques at next month’s Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, where he’s scheduled to deliver a talk titled Stagefright: Scary Code in the Heart of Android.
JULY 27, 2015, 10:53 PM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 27, 2015, 10:53 PM
BY HERB JACKSON AND CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx urged Governor Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday to meet with him in the next two weeks to talk about replacing the century-old Hudson River rail tunnel that is frequently the cause of delays for commuters.
Foxx’s call comes after a week in which state and federal officials traded increasingly harsh words about delays on trains entering and leaving New York City.
In a letter to the two governors obtained by The Record, Foxx recounted how the federal government put up $3 billion for a new NJ Transit tunnel that was begun in 2009, then canceled by Christie in October 2010.
Amtrak, which owns the existing tunnel and Northeast Corridor tracks used by many NJ Transit commuters daily, has proposed the Gateway project, which includes building two new tubes under the river. If Gateway were built and the existing two-track tunnel were overhauled to replace failing electrical systems and structural damage caused by flooding from Superstorm Sandy, rail capacity under the river would eventually be doubled.
Foxx said that Amtrak was in discussions with the Federal Railroad Administration about financing, but that Washington would not bankroll the project by itself.
“Neither Amtrak nor your individual states, acting alone, can replace these tunnels,” Foxx wrote. “It will take all of us working together. To that end, I would like to meet with you within the next two weeks to discuss the project, especially your states’ roles in getting it completed.”
JULY 27, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 27, 2015, 10:32 AM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Ridgewood voters will have a referendum question on their ballots in November.
The Village Council this month authorized the placement of a non-binding referendum related to financing a municipal parking garage.
The referendum question was approved unanimously by the governing body and asks voters whether or not they support a proposal to finance the construction of a parking garage in downtown Ridgewood, which officials anticipate will be paid through parking revenues, by bonding up to $15 million in public funds.
The proposed garage would be built on the parking lot at the corner of Hudson and South Broad streets. The cost of such a structure is not yet known, though village officials have given placeholder estimations of between $10 million and $15 million as the possible tab for a garage.
Attached to the question is an interpretative statement, which says the referendum seeks to gauge public opinion on the development of a multi-story parking garage, which would provide additional parking for commuters and the Ridgewood residents and visitors who are patronizing the shopping and dining establishments as well as other services available in the Central Business District (CBD).
It is anticipated the parking garage would provide a net increase of approximately 300 spaces over what currently exists without negatively impacting local property taxes, the interpretive statement reads.
Anti-market and pro-socialist rhetoric is surging in headlines (see alsohere, here, and here) and popping up more and more on social media feeds. Much of the time, these opponents of markets can’t tell the difference between state-sponsored organizations like the International Monetary Fund and actual markets. But, that doesn’t matter because the articles and memes are often populist and vaguely worded — intentionally framed in such a way to easily deflect uninformed attacks and honest descriptions of what they are actually saying. In the end, they can all be boiled down to one message: socialism works and is better than capitalism.
While most of it comes from the Left, the Right is not innocent, since the Right appears to be primarily concerned with promoting its own version of populism, which apparently does not involve a defense of markets. “Build bigger walls at the border,” for example, is not a sufficient response to “All profits are evil!”
Instead of stooping to this level or simply resorting to “Read Mises!” (a more fitting response), we must show, yet again, that socialism — even under well-meaning political leaders — is impossible and leads to disastrous consequences.
The Necessity of Profits, Prices, and Entrepreneurs
Socialism is the collective ownership (i.e., a state monopoly) of the means of production. It calls for the abolition of private ownership of factors of production. Wages and profits are two parts of the same pie, and socialism says the profit slice should be zero.
The inherent theoretical problems of socialism all emanate from its definition, and not the particulars of its application. However, the supporters of socialism define “collective,” as no exchange of the factors of production. And without exchange, there can be no prices, and without prices there is no way to measure the costs of production.
In an unhampered market economy, the prices of the factors of production are determined by their aid in producing things that consumers want. They tend to earn their marginal product, and because every laborer has some comparative advantage, there is a slice of pie for everybody.
If technological changes make certain factors more productive, or if education and training makes a laborer more productive, their prices or wages may be bid up to their new, higher marginal product. An entrepreneur would not like to hire or buy any factor at a price that exceeds its marginal product because the entrepreneur would then incur losses.
Entrepreneurial losses are more important than many realize. They aren’t just hits to the entrepreneur’s bottom line. Losses show that on the market, the resources used to produce something were more highly valued than what they were producing. Losses show that wealth has been destroyed.
Profits give the opposite signal. They represent economic growth and wealth creation. A profitable line of production is one in which the stuff that goes into producing some consumer good costs less than what consumers are willing to pay for the consumer good.
As such, profits and losses are more than just important incentives, or cover in a conspiratorial capitalist class system; they are the only way to know that wealth is being created instead of destroyed in any line of production.
Under socialism, there is a single owner that does not bid factors away from some lines of production and toward others. Nobody is able to say, with any shred of certainty, that a particular tool or machine or factory could be used to produce something else in a more effective way. Nobody knows what to produce or how much to produce. It’s economic chaos.
Without Markets, We Can’t Know What or How to Produce
Profits and losses guide and correct entrepreneurs in the process of producing things they expect consumers will demand. Without this information, including the costs of production specifically, entrepreneurs cannot engage in economic calculation, the estimation of the difference between future revenues and the costs of production necessary to gain those future revenues.
Laborers are put to work in areas where they don’t have a comparative advantage. Farmers are sent to factories, and tailors are sent to the mines. Workers are in the wrong lines of production and have the wrong tools. Every morning, the economy looks like Robert Murphy’s capital rearranging gnomes just ransacked it.
The Polish film Brunet Will Call lampooned situations like this throughout the movie, with consumer and capital goods in the most unlikely places. A butcher pulls an automobile’s clutch cable out of his freezer, and gives it to the main character, who pays for it with information on the whereabouts of a double buggy for someone’s newborn twins (at the flower shop, obviously).
So the failure of socialism is not conditional on the culture, time, or place of the victims. Socialism is flawed at its core: the “collective” ownership of the means of production. As such, there is no way to enact a functioning, growth-inducing version of socialism anywhere. In practice, however, the theoretical problems of socialism give way to civil unrest, which is met with state force and results in a death toll higher than any official war ever fought.
Without profit motives to produce, quotas must be put in place. With quotas, even in the cases where workers don’t lie about their production, chaos still reigns. For example, if a nail production quota is based on the number of nails, workers produce a lot of tiny, unusable nails. A nail quota based on weight would encourage workers to produce massive, but still unusable nails — a situation lampooned by this cartoon in Krokodil during the 1960s.
Endless queues stretched across the USSR, filled with people looking for shoes even though shoe production in the USSR exceeded that of the US. The problem was all the shoes were too small, because shoe production was measured by number, with no regard for the sizes or designs consumers demand.
The Wake of Socialism
Some cases are funny; others are not. About seven million people died of starvation in the USSR just in 1932–33 (middle-of-the-road estimate based on manipulated data). The authors of The Black Book of Communism (1999) estimate the deaths of close to 100 million people are attributable to communist and socialist regimes. That’s more than 200 times the number of US deaths in WWII (and a case could be made that their deaths are attributable to socialism, too).
Even today, in Cuba, the average wage is about $20 a month. In North Korea civilians are routinely rounded up by the dozens for public execution for the crime of watching South Korean TV smuggled into the country.
When people are hungry and unhappy, the state cannot survive if the people know others are better off. The state uses propaganda, misinformation, and censorship to make an already captive citizenry even more confused and submissive.
So count me surprised to hear fresh calls for socialism in 2015 — if the strong economic calculation argument and astronomical death toll haven’t turned the Left off of socialism, I don’t know what will. The idea is both bankrupt and deadly in both theory and practice.
