New Jersey maintains 4th highest unemployment rate
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released unemployment rates in all 50 states today, showing New Jersey maintains the fourth highest rate in the nation.
Preliminary numbers released today show only Nevada (12.1), Rhode Island (10.7) and California (10.1) maintain higher jobless rates than New Jersey, which hit 9.9 percent in August.
But while New Jersey’s rate of unemployment has risen a half of a percent since August 2011, the state has added the eighth highest job total in the nation at 51,400 new jobs over that span. (Isherwood, PolitickerNJ)
Staten Islanders Furious As MTA Considers A $15 Toll To Cross Verrazano Bridge Residents Go Ballistic As Congressman Vows To Make Sure It Never Happens
September 22, 2012 9:29 PM
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – One woman told 1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg that she doesn’t even have to leave Staten Island to feel the burden of high tolls.
“It’s actually cheaper for tolls in Brooklyn than for tolls in Staten Island,” she said Saturday.
Now, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants to hike the Verrazano Bridge toll to $15, and Staten Islanders are banding together to say “enough is enough” with all these tolls.
Trenton Stuck on Stupid : Doggie seat belts loom in N.J. as budget challenges grow
New Jersey’s unemployment rate is the highest in more than three decades. Revenue trails Governor Chris Christie’s projections by $100 million. And its assembly is considering making the state the first in the U.S. to require drivers to restrain pets in their vehicles.
Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer, a Newark Democrat who owns a Pomeranian named A.J. along with five cats and a rabbit, has introduced a bill to require motorists to secure dogs and felines with a seatbelt-like harness if they’re not being transported in crates. Violators would get a $25 ticket that might escalate to an animal-cruelty charge with a fine of as much as $1,000 in extreme cases, such as having an unrestrained pet in the bed of a pickup. (Dopp, Bloomberg)
Why is the NJ unemployment rate rising while the state gains jobs?
Another increase in New Jersey’s unemployment rate — this time to 9.9 percent — prompted the Christie administration Thursday to wonder aloud if there was something wrong with the survey itself.
Charles Steindel, chief economist for the state Department of Treasury, said the jobless rate told a story that was 180-degrees different from another survey that showed the state added 5,300 jobs in August.
If the unemployment rate is accurate, “this would mean we were losing 600 jobs a day in August, including weekends,” Steindel said in a conference call with reporters. “It didn’t happen.” (Diamond, Asbury Park Press)
Facebook raises fears with ad tracking
By Emily Steel in New York and April Dembosky in San Francisco
Facebook is working with a controversial data company called Datalogix that can track whether people who see ads on the social networking site end up buying those products in stores.
Amid growing pressure for the social networking site to prove the value of its advertising, Facebook is gradually wading into new techniques for tracking and using data about users that raise concerns among privacy advocates.
Double Whammy For Monday Morning Rush Hour Route 17 Commuters
September 24,2012
Boyd A. Loving
8:15 AM
Ridgewood NJ, On Monday morning, rush hour commuters using Route 17 through Ridgewood were treated to a “double whammy;” two separate accidents near Paramus Road, one northbound, the other southbound. Minor injuries were reported at the southbound accident scene, there was no one injured in the northbound mishap. Traffic through the area was choked for more than an hour as tow trucks cleared the northbound roadway. Ridgewood PD, FD, and EMS responded to the southbound incident. The northbound incident did not require EMS response.
Young College Grads: Real Earnings Fell in 2011
09/20/2012
By Diana G Carew
The latest Census figures show real earnings for young college grads fell again in 2011. This makes the sixth straight year of declining real earnings for young college grads, defined as full-time workers aged 25-34 with a bachelor’s only. All told, real average earnings for young grads have fallen by over 15% since 2000, or by about $10,000 in constant 2011 dollars.
This statistic is fundamental to our understanding of the current economy. College graduates have jumped through the hoops that were supposed to give them a better life. They are supposed to have the skills that enable them to compete on the global economy. But something is going wrong. The fastest growing jobs now for young college grads include dental assistants, hairstylists, and bus drivers.
The US economy is still in a sorry state
By Edward Luce
In a waning presidential first term nothing compares to the importance of securing another one. In Barack Obama’s case, there is an added spur to his drive for re-election. The president believes the American economy will spring back to life over the next four years and cannot abide the thought of Mitt Romney reaping the credit.
Mr Obama’s impulse is more than understandable. However unearned, an economic revival that coincided with a Romney first term would easily be marketed as a “Romney boom”. But even if – as many expect – Mr Obama wins on 6 November, he should be wary of the growing belief in America’s impending manufacturing renaissance.
China Appears More Competitive Than US: Dalio
Published: Friday, 21 Sep 2012 | 12:52 PM ET Text Size
By: Javier E. David
Special to CNBC.com
The emerging debate over the health of China’s economy demonstrates how the world’s second largest economy is actually more competitive than the U.S., well-known hedge fund manager Ray Dalio told CNBC Friday.
The founder and co-chief investment officer of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, likened China to Japan in its economic heyday.
“Years past in Japan when it was going strong, they called a recession anything less than 3 percent growth,” Dalio told CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” in an interview. “In China, anything less than 6 percent growth is a recession meaning it also…causes a lot of financial problems. It’s disruptive and it’s a problem.”
Neighbors-helping-Neighbors attends Forum in Washington DC for job search groups
John R. Fugazzie
https://www.neighbors-helping-neighbors.com/
Spetmebre 22,2012
9:29 AM
Ridgewood NJ, Nice recap of the Washington DC meeting on Thursday morning of job search groups across the county meeting with Department of Labor Secretary Solis. Which i attended and represented Neighbors-helping-Neighbors USA, Inc.
There was a whole lot of good feeling, and welcome good news, yesterday at a special forum in the White House in Washington D.C. The purpose of the gathering was to shine the spotlight on the legion of faith-filled Americans who are trying to help the unemployed get back to work.
As one of the legion who is actively involved in this mission, I was invited by Ben Seigel of The White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships to join U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis at a White House Forum titled:
Job Clubs and Career Ministries: On the Front Lines of Getting Americans Back to Work
Senate GOP furious newspaper got better briefing on Libya
By Alexander Bolton – 09/22/12 06:00 AM ET
Senate Republicans are furious the Obama administration rebuffed their attempts to learn details of the Benghazi attack, only to give the coveted information to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Senators say they were rebuffed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when they pressed for more information about the attack that killed U.S. envoy Christopher Stephens in Libya.
“That is the most useless, worthless briefing I have attended in a long time,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters after the closed-door session.
Medicare Bills Rise as Records Turn Electronic
By REED ABELSON, JULIE CRESWELL and GRIFFIN J. PALMER
Published: September 21, 2012 182 Comments
When the federal government began providing billions of dollars in incentives to push hospitals and physicians to use electronic medical and billing records, the goal was not only to improve efficiency and patient safety, but also to reduce health care costs.
But, in reality, the move to electronic health records may be contributing to billions of dollars in higher costs for Medicare, private insurers and patients by making it easier for hospitals and physicians to bill more for their services, whether or not they provide additional care.
Hospitals received $1 billion more in Medicare reimbursements in 2010 than they did five years earlier, at least in part by changing the billing codes they assign to patients in emergency rooms, according to a New York Times analysis of Medicare data from the American Hospital Directory. Regulators say physicians have changed the way they bill for office visits similarly, increasing their payments by billions of dollars as well.
The most aggressive billing — by just 1,700 of the more than 440,000 doctors in the country — cost Medicare as much as $100 million in 2010 alone, federal regulators said in a recent report, noting that the largest share of those doctors specialized in family practice, internal medicine and emergency care.
The New Normal: More Americans now commit suicide than die in car crashes as miserable economy takes its toll
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 10:03 EST, 22 September 2012 | UPDATED: 00:43 EST, 23 September 2012
Suicide is a bigger killer than car crashes, according to an alarming new study.
The number of people dying from suicide has drastically increased, while car accident deaths haven lessened, making suicide the leading cause of injury death.
Suicides via falls or poisoning have risen significantly and experts fear there could be en more going unrecognised, specifically in cases of overdose.
PHOTO COURTESY OF COLDWELL BANKER RESIDENTIAL BROKERAGE
Seven Ridgewood agents sell more than $1 million
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2012, 2:04 PM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Seven sales associates with the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage office in Ridgewood have each surpassed $1 million in written business for July. The office total for the month was $36 million.
Coldwell Banker sales associates who surpassed $1 million in written business for July are, from left, Peggy Jung, Khodr ‘Sharif’ Elatab, Barbara Nudelman, Terry Hassan, Ghada Abbasi and Theresa Druce. Kathy Insley also earned the distinction, but is not pictured.
The sales associates who attained this achievement are listed below.
Ghada Abbasi ($8.1 million), the No. 1 sales associate in the Ridgewood office, has 29 years of real estate experience and represents buyers and sellers in Bergen County. She ranks among the top one percent of Coldwell Banker agents worldwide and is a member of the company’s International President’s Premier. She has also earned the New Jersey Association of Realtors (NJAR) Circle of Excellence award at the highest Platinum level from 2004-2011 and has been named to the prestigious Coldwell Banker President’s Council. She is an accredited specialist in relocation and luxury home sales…..https://www.northjersey.com/ridgewood/170726316_Seven_Ridgewood_agents_sell_more_than__1_million_.html
For more information about buying or selling a home, contact Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage inRidgewood/Glen Rock at 201-445-9400. The office is located at 44 Franklin Ave. in Ridgewood. Listings can be viewed at www.coldwellbankermoves.com.
Grammy award-winning singer, Jewel, at Bookends Friday
September 22,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Grammy award-winning singer, Jewel, was at Bookends in Ridgewood on Friday to meet fans and sign copies of her new book “That’s What I’d Do.”
Jewel or Jewel Kilcher was born May 23, 1974, is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, actress and poet. She has received four Grammy Award nominations and has sold over 27 million albums worldwide.
Jewel was born in Payson, Utah. Shortly after her birth, her family moved to Homer, Alaska. Jewel learned to play the guitar while at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, where she majored in operatic voice. She started writing songs as early as the age of 16. and got her start plying in front of a live audience at Ray’s Coffee House in Traverse City, Michigan.
For some time Jewel lived the “starving artist lifesty” money was tight so she lived in her van and traveling around the country doing street performances and small gigs.She gained some recognition by singing at the Innerchange Coffeehouse and Java Joe’s in San Diego, California .
Jewel was discovered by Inga Vainshtein in August 1994, in San Diego . She cut her debut album, Pieces of You, in 1995 when she was 21. It was recorded in a studio on Neil Young’s ranch, and was backed by his band.
At her peak Jewel was chosen to sing the American national anthem at the opening of the Super Bowl XXXII in January 1998 in San Diego. She was introduced as “San Diego’s own Jewel!”
