Katie Park , @kathspark3:43 p.m. EST November 29, 2016
In New Jersey, the minimum wage is $8.38.
NEWARK – As part of a national demonstration, workers part of the Service Employees International Union converged at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday afternoon to rally for a $15-per-hour minimum wage — which is what New York airport workers make, organizers say — and to advocate for fairer working standards, according to numerous reports.
The coalition of workers — made up of workers from airports, fast food restaurants, Uber and taxi companies — started the “civil disobedience” march in Manhattan, then moved down into northern New Jersey to continue the campaign for a $15 wage, dubbed “Fight For 15,” according to Newark Patch.
Patricia Laya PattyLaya
November 23, 2016 — 10:00 AM ESTUpdated on November 23, 2016 — 10:30 AM EST
Consumer confidence rose more than previously reported to a six-month high in November, showing Americans became more optimistic about their finances and the economy after Donald Trump won the presidential election.
The University of Michigan said Wednesday that its final index of sentiment rose to 93.8 from 87.2 in October, after a preliminary reading of 91.6 that reflected pre-election views. The split was stark between respondents in the month’s survey before and after the Nov. 8 vote, with sentiment rising 8.2 points in the post-election group from the pre-election cohort.
The lift suggests that Americans were heartened on the whole by Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, with broad gains in confidence across incomes, ages and regions, according to the report. At the same time, the increase may reflect a “honeymoon” period that could fade unless actual economic conditions improve, said Richard Curtin, director of the Michigan survey.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 70 points, closing above 19,000 for the first time ever, with Home Depot contributing the most gains.
“What we’re seeing is a shift in the sectors that are participating” in this rally, said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial. “It hasn’t been parabolic in some sectors.”
The S&P 500 closed over 2,200 for the first time, as telecommunications rose about 2.1 percent to lead advancers. The Nasdaq composite also closed at all-time highs, rising approximately a third of a percent.
Hot stocks, frozen investors: the despondent Democrat’s guide to Trump and money.
Investors across the country are variously cheering and mourning the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. In some cases, they’re pressing their financial planners into double duty as therapists. Or grief counselors.
In San Francisco, where Trump won 9 percent of the vote, people seem depressed, said Milo Benningfield, a financial adviser based in the Presidio, next to the Golden Gate Bridge.
“The most common remark I’ve heard is, ‘I feel like somebody died,’ ” he said.
“It does seem like a mourning process,” said Jennifer Hatch, managing partner of Christopher Street Financial, 3,000 miles away in New York. Though the financial planning firm has specialized in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community since 1981, even Hatch wasn’t prepared for the emotional challenge of watching her clients struggle with the Election Day shocker.
“Some people are sort of frozen. Some people are just depressed,” she said. “And some people have gone on with their lives—although you really can’t escape the conversation.”
Dodd-Frank does not in fact rein in the forces of Wall Street and protect everyone else. (Photo: Cameron Davidson Westend61/Newscom)
President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of dismantling Dodd-Frank, and now Senate Democrats are pretty much the only thing that can derail that promise.
This week, key Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee indicated they want little to do with dismantling the 2010 law. But in their rush to save Dodd-Frank, they’ve shown just how badly they misread what bills like Dodd-Frank actually do.
For instance, Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the committee’s ranking member, doesn’t believe that dismantling Dodd-Frank fits the president-elect’s anti-establishment message.
Brown told reporters: “If Donald Trump starts doing the bidding of Wall Street, then the voters in Ohio who voted for him will realize that he’s joined the Republican establishment here in advocating the billionaire’s agenda.”
The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.
That’s completely backward because Dodd-Frank does not in fact rein in the forces of Wall Street and protect everyone else.
Dodd-Frank does impose large volumes of complex rules on financial companies, but the largest (and best-funded) of those firms have the easiest time complying with the regulations, while smaller firms and consumers are hit the hardest.
Dodd-Frank does not empower “those who don’t have a voice in Washington, D.C.” It empowers an army of lobbyists and lawyers, since they’re the ones who get paid to secure the best possible deals for their clients. Naturally, it also empowers the senators and congressmen that these lobbyists call upon.
Under Dodd-Frank, the people on Main Street pay higher prices for loans, have a harder time getting loans, and get stuck paying for bailouts and federal guarantees.
Democrats have perpetuated the myth that deregulation caused the 2008 financial crisis, but that is absurd on its face. The claim looks even more baseless to anyone who bothers to check the details, since there has never been any substantial deregulation of financial markets in the U.S.
Even a mild investigation into the post-1999 world, when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act supposedly deregulated the big banks, clearly shows that the volume of regulation only increased. (Figure 1)
A deregulated financial system is not what imploded in 2008. Financial markets—not just banks—were full of minimum capital rules, liquidity rules, disclosure rules, leverage rules, bankruptcy exemptions for derivatives, and the constant threat that regulators would make up new rules.
The nation’s largest banks had federal regulators literally embedded in their headquarters on a daily basis.
Worse, everyone expected the federal government to step in and pick up the pieces if something went wrong. At the very least, people expected an expansion of FDIC deposit insurance coverage (well beyond what anyone on Main Street needs), and some kind of “emergency” funds from the Federal Reserve.
The large financial firms’ creditors had every reason to expect what most of them ended up with: special loans and taxpayer guarantees. When federal policies are chiefly geared toward “keeping the system going,” the market knows bailouts are coming. And that’s a major problem with the regulatory system that Dodd-Frank worsened.
People on Main Street understand, though, that this kind of system—one that is highly regulated and uses taxpayer money to cover losses—will never provide financial security for anyone other than the largest financial firms.
They can see what’s going on in Washington.
They know that bailing out the titans of finance actually costs them money, and they’re not buying the notion that adding yet more rules in the name of protecting Main Street will actually work. And they’re right to be so skeptical.
If the Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee really want to improve financial security for Americans, they’ll convince their colleagues to go back to the drawing board.
That means they’ll start with dismantling Dodd-Frank.
Then, they can get to work fixing the system the way they should have after the 2008 crash. They can get rid of the ridiculous rules that let regulators micromanage financial companies, and they can put safeguards in place to make bailouts less likely.
That means financial firms’ owners and creditors will have to absorb financial losses, and they won’t like that. And that’s proof that truly fixing financial regulations is anything but establishment-friendly.
Ridgewood NJ, After a lifetime of working hard and saving faithfully, some people just want to enjoy retirement and spend their money without worrying about passing on anything to the next generation.
But plenty of others are determined to leave a legacy – whether it’s by bequeathing a tidy sum to their children and grandchildren, or bestowing a beloved charity with a parting donation.
Not everyone, though, takes the necessary steps to accomplish their goals.
“Don’t assume everything you have left when you die will go to your children or to your favorite cause,” says Stephanie Fullerton, president and co-founder of Fullerton Financial Planning Group and author of Living a Happy, Healthy and Inspired Retirement (www.Fullertonfp.com).
“Taxes and other costs can eat away at your legacy.”
That’s why it’s important to have a financial plan in place to help make sure as much of your wealth as possible ends up in the right hands.
It’s wise to seek professional advice from those who can guide you through the options, Fullerton says. Among some of the things to consider:
• A will. Everyone knows about wills, at least in theory, but that doesn’t mean they take the time to visit with an attorney and have one drawn up. A Harris Poll last year reported that 64 percent of Americans don’t have wills. • An IRA. Many people think of an IRA as the nest egg that will help them survive retirement, but these accounts also are one of the largest types of assets inherited by beneficiaries. If you don’t anticipate needing your IRA money in retirement, Fullerton says, you might consider a legacy-planning strategy that will help reduce taxes and increase the payout your beneficiaries will inherit upon your death. • Trusts. There are many different types of trusts, and they can be complex to set up and execute. However, a trust can be a flexible and advantageous means to transfer your assets in the future, Fullerton says. Most trusts also provide current benefits, such as tax-deferral and deductions. Unlike a will, a trust will avoid probate upon your death, but a trust is also more expensive to prepare. A qualified estate-planning attorney who specializes in these matters can explain more.
Before you get started on a plan, Fullerton suggests thinking about what types of gifts you want to leave to others – and it doesn’t have to be just money.
“It can be items you own, such as your house, a favorite work of art, special dishes used at every family gathering or a family heirloom,” she says.
You don’t even have to wait until you die, Fullerton says. Experiences also can be a legacy, such as taking a special trip each year with a different grandchild to give them memories that will last not only your lifetime, but theirs as well.
About Stephanie Fullerton
Stephanie Fullerton, author of Living a Happy, Healthy and Inspired Retirement (www.Fullertonfp.com), is president and co-founder of Phoenix-based Fullerton Financial Planning. She and her husband, Steve, an investment adviser with Kingdom Financial Group, work together to assist clients in protecting their retirement savings and to create an income stream that will last a lifetime. She is featured on two weekly radio shows and frequently appears on local television.
Investment advisory services offered through Kingdom Financial Group, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor.
As Wall Street grapples with the election of Donald Trump as the next US president, it appears the order of the day is uncertainty.
Among the myriad uncertain consequences of Trump’s election is the real possibility of a major shake-up at the Federal Reserve.
Jefferies economist Sean Darby said that in terms of possible problems for the economy going forward the “main risk is monetary policy uncertainty.”
The most striking uncertainty for some analysts is the political independence of the Fed — to not have monetary-policy decisions influenced by ever-shifting political tides has long been a key aspect of the central bank.
Some analysts now say that independence may no longer be assured.
by Matt Egan @mattmegan5November 9, 2016: 4:10 PM ET
That didn’t take long. An overnight panic in global markets evaporated as Wall Street gave an emphatic welcome to President-elect Donald Trump.
The Dow soared 257 points and brushed up against lifetime highs on Wednesday, in defiance of those who predicted Trump’s election would bring about a plunge in the stock market. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq rose 1.1% apiece.
The impressive market performance represents a dramatic reversal from the knee-jerk panic in global markets overnight as the results were coming in. Dow futures plummeted nearly 900 points at one point as investors expressed fear that no one would emerge victorious and concern about the inherent uncertainties brought on by a Trump White House.
A court case threatens the social network with multibillion-dollar claims.
Joel Rosenblatt
October 26, 2016 — 7:00 AM EDT
Facebook Inc.’s software knows your face almost as well as your mother does. And like mom, it isn’t asking your permission to do what it wants with old photos.
While millions of internet users embrace the tagging of family and friends in photos, others worried there’s something devious afoot are trying block Facebook as well as Google from amassing such data.
As advances in facial recognition technology give companies the potential to profit from biometric data, privacy advocates see a pattern in how the world’s largest social network and search engine have sold users’ viewing histories for advertising. The companies insist that gathering data on what you look like isn’t against the law, even without your permission.
Casino magnate Steve Wynn expresses his disappointment at the lack of discussion of the economy during the course of the presidential election in an interview on Thursday’s Hannity. Wynn also weighed in on the debate describing it long on negativity and short on substance.
Wynn said the printing of money by the U.S. Treasury under the guidance from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the national debt have not been properly addressed albeit a short segment at the final debate.
“We take in $3.1 trillion and we spend $3.7 trillion,” Wynn said Thursday to guest host Eric Bolling. “And that $600 billion deficit is at the rate of $50 billion a month. Our government is printing money and it’s degrading the living standard of every person in America. It’s the cause of frustration, anger and confusion. I was disappointed we didn’t get in a real substantive conversation about that last night.”
Wynn also addressed health care and said the more than 10,000 people he employees “paid more money but did not get more coverage” under Obamacare.
“All government bureaucracies should be accountable to hardworking taxpayers”
October 11,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) released the following statement on today’s federal court ruling that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is unconstitutional:
“This is a good day for democracy, economic freedom, due process and the Constitution. The second highest court in the land has vindicated what House Republicans have said all along, that the CFPB’s structure is unconstitutional.
“By design the CFPB is arguably the most powerful and least accountable Washington bureaucracy in American history, and it shows. The Bureau has infringed on the economic freedoms of consumers, limited their financial choices, increased their costs, and failed to hold managers accountable for widespread discrimination and abuse of its own employees. This must change. The CFPB has an important mission. Properly designed and led, it is capable of great good. But the Bureau’s bizarre and defective structure allows it to evade the time-tested checks and balances that are necessary to hold it or any other government bureaucracy accountable. Our Constitution requires these checks and balances to protect our God-given liberties from government abuse. It is astonishing that the Democrats who voted for the Dodd-Frank Act so casually disregarded their constitutional obligations to the American people. It’s also astonishing that President Obama illegally bypassed the Senate by appointing Richard Cordray to serve as the Bureau’s Director. It is time to restore the rule of law and Constitutional governance to this nation. While I welcome today’s decision, it’s absurd that a judicial opinion was necessary.
“The Financial CHOICE Act, approved by our committee last month, solves the constitutional defect identified by the court today. The Financial CHOICE Act replaces the current unaccountable single director with a bipartisan, five-member commission – which is how virtually every independent regulatory agency, including those responsible for consumer and investor protection, currently operates.
“Republican efforts in the Financial CHOICE Act to reform the Bureau are and have always been grounded in the fundamental belief that all government bureaucracies should be accountable to hardworking taxpayers, especially those bureaucracies like the CFPB that can spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year with no oversight or control from Congress or the executive branch; employ an army federal employees; and have a direct impact on the personal finances of virtually every American citizen.”
Case of 14-year-old taking social network to court over naked picture has already resulted in others seeking legal advice
A legal case against Facebook, which will involve a 14-year-old taking the company to court in Belfast over naked images published on the social network, could open the floodgates for other civil claims, according to lawyers who work with victims of revenge pornography.
Facebook’s forthcoming trial, which centres on the claim that it is liable for the publication of a naked picture of the girl posted repeatedly on a “shame page” as an act of revenge, has alarmed the tech world and could have a seismic impact on how social media companies deal with explicit images.
The case has already resulted in victims of revenge pornography seeking advice about whether they too could have grounds for legal action, according to Paul Tweed, media lawyer and senior partner at the law firm Johnsons.
Ridgewood NJ, PSEG announced today that its Hudson Generation Station in Jersey City, N.J., and its Mercer Generation Station in Hamilton Township, N.J., will be retired on June 1, 2017.
“The sustained low prices of natural gas have put economic pressure on these plants for some time. In that context, we could not justify the significant investment required to upgrade these plants to meet the new reliability standards,” said Bill Levis, president and chief operating officer-PSEG Power. “The plants have been infrequently called on to run and neither plant cleared the last two PJM capacity auctions. The plants’ capacity payments have been critical to their profitability and PSEG’s ability to continue to invest in modernizing them.”
PSEG stressed that it is committed to treating the approximately 200 employees at Hudson and Mercer fairly during the process of retiring the existing units.
“These plants have played a critical role in powering the growth and economic expansion of New Jersey and PSEG is grateful to our employees who have played a part in building and running them for the past 50 years,” said Levis. “We will work with our union and PSEG leadership to ensure that the plants continue to operate safely through their retirement dates and to place as many employees as possible within PSEG’s family of companies.”
PSEG remains committed to meeting the long-term energy needs of New Jersey and the region and currently is investing more than $600 million in a new state-of-the-art combined-cycled gas plant in Sewaren, N.J., as well as new plants in Connecticut and Maryland. Currently, PSEG Power has gas facilities representing nearly 4,000 MWs of generating capacity in New Jersey and owns 3,740 MWs of nuclear generation, of which approximately 2,500 MWs are located in New Jersey.
PSEG has long been an advocate for fuel diversity, both in its generation fleet and in the PJM pool. With the announced closing of the coal plants, New Jersey’s energy now will be split almost evenly between nuclear and natural gas, with a small but growing amount of renewable energy. “We continue to believe that it is unwise for New Jersey to become too overly dependent on one source of energy,” said Levis. “With the continued low cost of natural gas, it is important that we recognize and support the full value of non-carbon, non-polluting nuclear and renewable energy.”
PSEG noted that it is evaluating all options for future use of the sites.
The decision to retire the Hudson and Mercer plants early triggers certain changes in accounting treatment that will have a material effect on PSEG’s and PSEG Power’s reported results. In the third quarter of 2016, PSEG and PSEG Power expect to recognize one-time charges in Energy Costs and Operation and Maintenance expense ranging from an estimated $40 million to $70 million and $35 million to $77 million, respectively, related to the cost of shutting down these units, including coal and other materials and supplies, inventory reserve adjustments, employee-related continuance, and severance benefits costs.
In addition to these one-time charges, there will be ongoing annual incremental non-cash charges to earnings of $560 million to $580 million in 2016 and $940 million to $960 million in 2017 due to the shortening of the expected economic useful lives of the Hudson and Mercer plants. These charges are detailed in the Form 8K that PSEG and PSEG Power filed today and will be discussed in more detail when PSEG reports third quarter earnings on October 31, 2016.
Mercer Generation Station was opened in 1960. It currently has a capacity of 632 MWs. Hudson Generation Station was opened in 1968 and had a capacity of 620 MWs. The 200 employees are roughly split between the two locations
RIDGEWOOD, N.J., Advisors Capital Management, LLC (ACM), a globally recognized investment manager, is pleased to announce that Dr. Alan Greenspan has joined ACM as Economic Advisor. The former Federal Reserve Chairman will work closely with senior members of the firm and participate in the firm’s investment committee by providing economic analysis to support the firm’s top-down approach to selecting sectors in the economy for investment. Dr. Greenspan will also provide economic and market valuation analysis.
Dr. Alan Greenspan Joins Advisors Capital Management as Economic Advisor
ACM’s co-founder and Chief Investment Officer, Dr. Charles Lieberman, is looking forward to the collaboration. “I am very excited to resume working with one of the towering members of the economics profession. He has served our profession and our nation with distinction. I am now pleased we can bring the benefit of his insight to our investment clients.”
Dr. Greenspan’s insight will be highly beneficial to ACM’s investment management. ACM’s investment process led by Dr. Lieberman, a former Wall Street, and Federal Reserve economist, identifies economic sectors that might be affected by macro developments, before implementing a value oriented bottom-up securities selection.
About Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan served five terms as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from August 11, 1987, when he was first appointed by President Ronald Reagan. His last term ended on January 31, 2006. He was appointed chairman by four different presidents.
Shortly after assuming office as chairman of the Board of Governors, Greenspan faced the October 1987 stock market crash and acted quickly to inject liquidity into the financial system to calm the markets. During his tenure, he led the Federal Reserve through several major events with significant economic repercussions, including two U.S. recessions, the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the collapse of Long Term Capital and the Russian default in 1998 and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Many observers credit Greenspan with further reducing inflation while facilitating the longest official economic expansion in U.S. history. For these accomplishments, he was dubbed the “Maestro” by Wall Street analysts. He was also known for his skill at building consensus among members of the Federal Open Market Committee on policy issues.
About Advisors Capital Management, LLC
Established in 1998, and headquartered in Ridgewood NJ, ACM is globally recognized investment manager providing portfolio and wealth management services to affiliated advisors and direct clients throughout the United States. ACM has been named to the Financial Times Top 300 RIAs* over the past two years and the firm’s investment income solutions have been recognized by numerous financial media outlets including Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.
The third leg of the world’s intractable depression is yet to come. If trade economists at the United Nations are right, the next traumatic episode may entail the greatest debt jubilee in history.
It may also prove to be the definitive crisis of globalized capitalism, the demise of the liberal free-market orthodoxies promoted for almost forty years by the Bretton Woods institutions, the OECD, and the Davos fraternity.
“Alarm bells have been ringing over the explosion of corporate debt levels in emerging economies, which now exceed $25 trillion. Damaging deflationary spirals cannot be ruled out,” said the annual report of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
We know already that the poisonous side-effect of zero rates and quantitative easing in the US, Europe, and Japan was to flood developing nations with cheap credit, upsetting their internal chemistry and drawing them into a snare. What is less understood is just how destructive this has been.
Much of the money was wasted, skewed towards “highly cyclical and rent-based sectors of limited strategic importance for catching up,” it said.
President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of dismantling Dodd-Frank, and now Senate Democrats are pretty much the only thing that can derail that promise.
This week, key Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee indicated they want little to do with dismantling the 2010 law. But in their rush to save Dodd-Frank, they’ve shown just how badly they misread what bills like Dodd-Frank actually do.
For instance, Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the committee’s ranking member, doesn’t believe that dismantling Dodd-Frank fits the president-elect’s anti-establishment message.
Brown told reporters: “If Donald Trump starts doing the bidding of Wall Street, then the voters in Ohio who voted for him will realize that he’s joined the Republican establishment here in advocating the billionaire’s agenda.”
The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.
That’s completely backward because Dodd-Frank does not in fact rein in the forces of Wall Street and protect everyone else.
Dodd-Frank does impose large volumes of complex rules on financial companies, but the largest (and best-funded) of those firms have the easiest time complying with the regulations, while smaller firms and consumers are hit the hardest.
Dodd-Frank does not empower “those who don’t have a voice in Washington, D.C.” It empowers an army of lobbyists and lawyers, since they’re the ones who get paid to secure the best possible deals for their clients. Naturally, it also empowers the senators and congressmen that these lobbyists call upon.
Under Dodd-Frank, the people on Main Street pay higher prices for loans, have a harder time getting loans, and get stuck paying for bailouts and federal guarantees.
Democrats have perpetuated the myth that deregulation caused the 2008 financial crisis, but that is absurd on its face. The claim looks even more baseless to anyone who bothers to check the details, since there has never been any substantial deregulation of financial markets in the U.S.
Even a mild investigation into the post-1999 world, when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act supposedly deregulated the big banks, clearly shows that the volume of regulation only increased. (Figure 1)
A deregulated financial system is not what imploded in 2008. Financial markets—not just banks—were full of minimum capital rules, liquidity rules, disclosure rules, leverage rules, bankruptcy exemptions for derivatives, and the constant threat that regulators would make up new rules.
The nation’s largest banks had federal regulators literally embedded in their headquarters on a daily basis.
Worse, everyone expected the federal government to step in and pick up the pieces if something went wrong. At the very least, people expected an expansion of FDIC deposit insurance coverage (well beyond what anyone on Main Street needs), and some kind of “emergency” funds from the Federal Reserve.
The large financial firms’ creditors had every reason to expect what most of them ended up with: special loans and taxpayer guarantees. When federal policies are chiefly geared toward “keeping the system going,” the market knows bailouts are coming. And that’s a major problem with the regulatory system that Dodd-Frank worsened.
People on Main Street understand, though, that this kind of system—one that is highly regulated and uses taxpayer money to cover losses—will never provide financial security for anyone other than the largest financial firms.
They can see what’s going on in Washington.
They know that bailing out the titans of finance actually costs them money, and they’re not buying the notion that adding yet more rules in the name of protecting Main Street will actually work. And they’re right to be so skeptical.
If the Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee really want to improve financial security for Americans, they’ll convince their colleagues to go back to the drawing board.
That means they’ll start with dismantling Dodd-Frank.
Then, they can get to work fixing the system the way they should have after the 2008 crash. They can get rid of the ridiculous rules that let regulators micromanage financial companies, and they can put safeguards in place to make bailouts less likely.
That means financial firms’ owners and creditors will have to absorb financial losses, and they won’t like that. And that’s proof that truly fixing financial regulations is anything but establishment-friendly.