New Jersey is among U.S. states least equipped to respond to an economic downturn, according to a new study comparing states’ savings. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
N.J. ranks among worst in nation in ability respond to future recession: study
Tag: anti business
For the 4th year in a row New Jersey leads in the nation on people moving out
file photo by Boyd Loving
Where’s America Moving? Oregon Named Top Moving Destination of 2015United Van Lines’ Annual National Movers Study Shows Americans Continue to Move West and South
January 7,2015
the staff of the Rmidgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , For the third consecutive year, Oregon holds on to the No. 1 spot as “Top Moving Destination,” as Americans continue to pack up and head West and South. Those are the results of United Van Lines’ 39th Annual National Movers Study, which tracks customers’ state-to-state migration patterns over the past year.
Oregon is the most popular moving destination of 2015 with 69 percent of moves to and from the state being inbound. The state has continued to climb the ranks, increasing inbound migration by 10 percent over the past six years. New to the 2015 top inbound list is another Pacific West state, Washington, which came in at No. 10 with 56 percent inbound moves.
The Southern states also saw a high number of people moving in with 53 percent of total moves being inbound. In a separate survey of its customers, United Van Lines found the top reasons for moving South included company transfer/new job, retirement and proximity to family.
The Northeast continues to experience a moving deficit with New Jersey (67 percent outbound) and New York (65 percent) making the list of top outbound states for the fourth consecutive year. Two other states in the region — Connecticut (63 percent) andMassachusetts (57 percent) — also joined the top outbound list this year. The exception to this trend is Vermont (62 percent inbound), which moved up two spots on the list of top inbound states to No. 3.
“For nearly 40 years, we’ve been tracking which states people are moving to and from, and we’ve also recently started surveying our customers to understand why they are making these moves across state lines,” said Melissa Sullivan, director of marketing communications at United Van Lines. “Because of United Van Lines’ position as the nation’s largest household goods mover, our data is reflective of national migration trends.”
“This year’s data reflects longer-term trends of people moving to the Pacific West, where cities such as Portland and Seattle are seeing the combination of a boom in the technology and creative marketing industry, as well as a growing ‘want’ for outdoor activity and green space,” said Michael Stoll, economist, professor and chair of the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The aging Boomer population is driving relocation from the Northeast and Midwest to the West and South, as more and more people retire to warmer regions.”
United has tracked migration patterns annually on a state-by-state basis since 1977. For 2015, the study is based on household moves handled by United within the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. United classifies states as “high inbound” if 55 percent or more of the moves are going into a state, “high outbound” if 55 percent or more moves were coming out of a state or “balanced” if the difference between inbound and outbound is negligible.
Moving In
The top inbound states of 2015 were:
Oregon
South Carolina
Vermont
Idaho
North Carolina
Florida
Nevada
District of Columbia
Texas
Washington
The Western U.S. is represented on the high-inbound list by Oregon (69 percent), Nevada (57 percent) and Washington (56 percent). Of moves to Oregon, a new job or company transfer (53 percent) and wanting to be closer to family (20 percent) led the reasons for most inbound moves. Nevada remained on the high inbound list for the fifth consecutive year.
Moving Out
The top outbound states for 2015 were:
New Jersey
New York
Illinois
Connecticut
Ohio
Kansas
Massachusetts
West Virginia
Mississippi
Maryland
In addition to the Northeast, Illinois (63 percent) held steady at the No. 3 spot, ranking in the top five for the last seven years.
New additions to the 2014 top outbound list include Connecticut (63 percent), Massachusetts (57 percent) and Mississippi (56 percent).
Balanced
Several states gained approximately the same number of residents as those that left. This list of “balanced” states includes Alabama,North Dakota, Delaware and Louisiana.
Is O’Toole selling Out?
Sweeney, O’Toole Discuss Bipartisanship in Newark
It seems that South Jersey-based Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) is continuing his charm offensive in the northern part of the state as he continues to angle for a likely 2017 gubernatorial run. Today, Sweeney joined Republican Senator Kevin O’Toole (R-40) for an event at Newark’s North Ward Center to honor O’Toole for his dedication to the mission of the center: to help underserved populations. Alyana Alfaro, PolitickerNJ Read more
New Jersey Taxes Second Worse in the Nation
N.J. taxes second-worst in U.S.: Forbes
New Jerseyans already know it to be true, but a Forbes analysis of state-by-state tax burdens places the Garden State near the top of its “Worst States for Taxes” list. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
What’s the future for suburban office space in Anti Business New Jersey ?
file photo Boyd Loving
OCTOBER 25, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY KATHLEEN LYNN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
What do you do with a big, isolated office building that no one wants anymore?
It’s a question being asked around New Jersey as giant office parks — built along highways when the suburbs boomed in the second half of the 20th century — sit empty or half-empty while corporations shrink their footprints and younger workers look for a more urban, transit-friendly buzz.
In northern Bergen County, for example, A&P, Mercedes-Benz USA, Hertz and Pearson have left or soon will leave offices built in the 1970s and 1980s, when corporations headed out of the cities for greener suburbs.
“There was a whole movement toward beautiful, idyllic campuses, but the workforce today wants to be in an urban hub,” said Andrew Merin, vice chairman with Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate firm with offices in East Rutherford.
As a result, “each of these properties is going to have to invent its own future,” said James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers.
Some of these properties are destined for the wrecking ball — including the former Pearson building in Upper Saddle River, owned by Mack-Cali, New Jersey’s largest office landlord, which is fighting to build housing on the site.
Others will be redeveloped. The most striking example is the ambitious, multimillion-dollar renovation of the old Bell Labs in Holmdel into Bell Works, a mixed-use property that aims to turn the landmark building’s giant atrium into an indoor Main Street with an “urban” vibe.
Whatever their fates, it’s clear that many of the state’s large, 30- or 40-year-old buildings will no longer function as home to a single corporate user. And, experts say, municipal officials who depended on those corporations — and their big property-tax payments — need to make another plan.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/big-office-buildings-look-to-reinvent-themselves-1.1440856
These Blue States Have Tried the Elizabeth Warren Model. Their Residents Are Fleeing.
Stephen Moore / @StephenMoore / April 19, 2015
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently appeared on one of the late night talk shows, beating the class warfare drum and arguing for billions of dollars in new social programs paid for with higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires. In recent years, though, blue states such as California, Illinois, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland and Minnesota adopted this very strategy, and they raised taxes on their wealthy residents. How did it work out? Almost all of these states lag behind the national average in growth of jobs and incomes.
So, if income redistribution policies are the solution to shrinking the gap between rich and poor, why do they fail so miserably in the states?
Day after day, the middle class keeps leaving California. The wealthy areas such as San Francisco and the Silicon Valley boom. Yet the state has nearly the highest poverty rate in the nation.
The blue states that try to lift up the poor with high taxes, high welfare benefits, high minimum wages and other Robin Hood policies tend to be the places where the rich end up the richest and the poor the poorest.
California is the prototypical example. It has the highest tax rates of any state. It has very generous welfare benefits. Many of its cities have a high minimum wage. But day after day, the middle class keeps leaving. The wealthy areas such as San Francisco and the Silicon Valley boom. Yet the state has nearly the highest poverty rate in the nation. The Golden State, alas, has become the inequality state.
In a new report called “Rich States, Poor States” that I write each year for the American Legislative Exchange Council with Arthur Laffer and Jonathan Williams, we find that five of the highest-tax blue states in the nation—California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois—lost some 4 million more U.S. residents than entered these states over the last decade. Meanwhile, the big low-tax red states—Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia—gained about this many new residents.
So much for liberal policies creating a workers paradise.
One liberal economic think tank—the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy—recently issued a report on the states with the most and least “regressive” tax systems. The conclusion was that states should raise their income taxes on the rich to be more “fair.” Except it turns out that people are leaving the states that the think tank ranks as fair, and they are moving to the states the think tank ranks as economically backward.
The least “regressive” tax states had average population growth from 2003 to 2013 that lagged below the national trend. The 10 most highly “regressive” tax states, including nine with no state income tax, had population growth on average 4 percent above the U.S. average. Why was that? Because states without income taxes have twice the job growth of states with high tax rates. Unlike the experts at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, most Americans think that fairness means having a job.
Ohio University economist Richard Vedder and I compared the income gap in states with higher tax rates, higher minimum wages and more welfare benefits with states on the other side of the policy spectrum. There was no evidence that states with these liberal policies had helped the poor much and, in many cases, these states recorded more income inequality than other states as measured by the left’s favorite statistic called the Gini Coefficient.
The 19 states with minimum wages above the $7.25 per hour federal minimum do not have lower income inequality. States with a super minimum wage—such as Connecticut ($9.15), California ($9.00), New York ($8.75), and Vermont ($9.15)—have significantly wider gaps between rich and poor than states without a super minimum wage.
States are supposed to be laboratories of democracy, right? These laboratories are providing us with concrete evidence that Robin Hood policies don’t help make the poor richer, they make most people poorer. In other words, the blue states have tried the Elizabeth Warren “progressive” agenda and people are voting with their feet by fleeing in droves. The kinds of income redistribution policies that Warren and others endorse can only work by building a Berlin Wall so no one can leave—though I hope I’m not giving them any ideas.
Originally published in The Washington Times
New Jersey and You : Cop tells NJ teens to stop seeking snow shoveling jobs
file photo
New Jersey and You : Cop tells NJ teens to stop seeking snow shoveling jobs
JANUARY 28, 2015, 7:23 AM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2015, 7:23 AM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOUND BROOK, N.J. (AP) — Two enterprising teens who were looking to make some money shoveling snow ran afoul of a New Jersey town’s ordinance and were told by police to stop.
Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf were handing out fliers in Bound Brook during a winter storm on Monday night.
Police Chief Michael Jannone tells the Courier News of Bridgewater (https://mycj.co/1Bnuw6s ) a resident reported a suspicious person.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/cop-tells-nj-teens-to-stop-seeking-snow-showeling-job-1.1259768
Investments in NJ continue five-year slide
Investments in NJ continue five-year slide
JANUARY 17, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY MELANIE ANZIDEI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
* New Jersey’s fourth-quarter figures buck the national trends
Venture capitalists invested $320 million in New Jersey companies last year, a decline of $2 million from the previous year and an extension of a downturn in investments in the state that began in 2008. The falloff is in marked contrast to a surge in VC investing nationally that rose to its highest level in 2014 since the end of the dot-com period.
Investments in the Garden State have dropped by about $400 million since the recession, with the drop slowing in recent years, according to a report released Friday.
During the fourth quarter, about $51.9 million was put into 11 deals in New Jersey, a more than $100 million drop from the quarter prior. Only one of last quarter’s deals included a North Jersey company. Teleservices Solutions Holdings LLC, a telecommunications company in Montvale, received $540,000 early-stage investment.
Investors poured the most money into New Jersey’s medical devices and equipment industry. Venture capitalists invested $22.4 million in the state’s medical device industry during the fourth quarter. For the full year, that sector had nearly $81.7 million in investments, making it the most-invested industry in New Jersey last year.
The retail and distribution sector was second with $80 million invested last year. Biotechnology, which has held such promise for job growth in the state, was third with $41.6 million in investments by year’s end.
State Republicans oppose increase hotel-tax bill Meadowlands
State Republicans oppose increase hotel-tax bill Meadowlands
DECEMBER 20, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2014, 1:21 AM
BY DUSTIN RACIOPPI
STATE HO– USE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
Senate Republicans say that when a bill to overhaul the 14-town Meadowlands district comes to a vote Monday, it won’t have their support.
But their opposition to the measure will be merely symbolic unless they can convince a handful of Democrats to align with them in voting it down.
The proposal to restructure the district’s tax-revenue sharing and meld its two authorities had moved quickly since being introduced last week by Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, D-Secaucus. The Assembly passed the bill Thursday night in a late-running session that included lengthy amendment talks and an emergency vote. The Senate halted the pace that night when it would not allow an emergency vote, but instead passed the amendments.
Now the Senate will return Monday for a vote.
Republicans object to the proposal to shift the revenue-sharing burden from some of the district’s well-developed municipalities to its hotels by adding a 3 percent room tax. And although they do not disagree with the idea of consolidating the Meadowlands Commission and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, as of Friday they didn’t know the details of the merger.
When the Senate votes on the bill, Republican leader Tom Kean Jr. said, he doesn’t anticipate any support from the caucus. Because of the last-minute changes made Thursday night requiring an emergency vote, the Senate would not allow a vote on the bill, because, Kean said, it “was literally changing by the minute.”
“They’re still writing it as they’re asking us to vote for it,” said state Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Demarest. “That is not good government.”
Since 1972, the 14-municipality Meadowlands district within Bergen and Hudson counties has operated under a complex formula in which tax revenues generated by development in individual communities is shared.
Each year, communities that have been allowed to more-liberally develop land send tax dollars from those ratables to the communities that are restricted to preserve open space.
In the past several years, though, the formula has become a sore point for local officials, who view it as inequitable and antiquated.
The legislation, sponsored by Prieto, would consolidate the two Meadowlands agencies and add the hotel tax, a move estimated to draw $7 million to $10 million a year. Last year about $7 million was distributed in the district.
Shifting the burden from the municipalities to the hotels would free up tax revenues for local budgets, which have become strained under increased costs and the need to stay within the mandated 2 percent cap on increases in most tax-supported spending. Prieto also said that any money left over would be used for infrastructure improvements, flood control and promoting tourism.
But Cardinale worries about the plan’s long-term sustainability.
“If that 3 percent hotel tax doesn’t produce enough, then what happens? Cardinale said. “If the cash flow doesn’t happen, then the taxpayers in the whole state” will have to make up the difference to fund the district’s costs to operate. For the past two years, Prieto has said, the state budget has either partially or fully funded the district because municipalities could not meet their tax-sharing obligations.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/nj-state-news/gop-opposes-meadowlands-hotel-tax-bill-1.1173006
Another Company looks to leave High Tax Bergen County
Another Company looks to leave High Tax Bergen County
Mercedes-Benz reportedly weighing move to Atlanta from Montvale
DECEMBER 16, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2014, 10:24 PM
BY LINDA MOSS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz is looking to move its 1,000-employee North American headquarters from Montvale to Atlanta, several sources said Tuesday.
The Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported on Tuesday that Mercedes-Benz USA is considering the move. A company spokesman declined to comment on the report, but several sources told The Record that Mercedes-Benz was indeed considering leaving Bergen County. One source within the company told The Record that an announcement on a move may come in January, at a company reception.
“As a matter of policy, the company does not comment on rumors or speculation,” said Mercedes-Benz spokesman Rob Moran.
If the reports are accurate, Mercedes-Benz would be the latest in a string of major companies to move their corporate headquarters from Bergen County to the South. The car-rental company Hertz moved from Park Ridge to south Florida, and the BubbleWrap maker Sealed Air is moving from Elmwood Park to Charlotte, N.C., both with the help of tax incentives from those states.
Montvale would be losing its second-largest private employer, behind the accounting giant KPMG, according to the Bergen County Economic Development Corp. Mercedes-Benz is among the top 10 corporate employers in the county and paid $916,700 in local taxes on its properties this year, according to the borough’s website.
Stuck on Stupid Trenton Lawmakers look to Raise NJ Gas Tax
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo
Stuck on Stupid Trenton Lawmakers look to Raise NJ Gas Tax
Potential N.J. gas tax increase comes up against Christie’s 2016 prospects
TRENTON — As the Republican governor of a blue state who has presidential aspirations, Chris Christie has spent much of the past five years carefully considering whether what plays in New Jersey will also play in more conservative states like South Carolina.
That balancing act is about to get a lot tougher as calls to raise the state’s gas tax grow louder.
New Jersey’s Transportation Trust Fund — which pays for major transportation projects — is almost broke. And Democrats who control the Legislature say that after years of fiscal maneuvers and borrowing for road projects, more revenue is needed.
The question becomes how Christie — who is widely expected to seek the nomination for the White House in a Republican Party that loathes raising taxes — signs such a measure into law without mortally damaging his presidential campaign before it even begins.
Business groups brace for deluge of regs
Business groups brace for deluge of regs
By Tim Devaney – 11/11/14 06:11 PM EST
Business groups are bracing for an onslaught of regulations, with the Obama administration bent on completing a host of the president’s unfinished policy goals and the midterm elections now in the rearview mirror.
Agencies across federal government are expected to drop a host of major rules over the next few months, with regulations running the gamut from calorie label requirements on restaurant menus to new rules for hydraulic fracturing and air pollution.
There are at roughly two dozen major rules that are scheduled to drop between now and late January, according to a review of the administration’s official regulatory agenda and rules now awaiting approval at the White House.
Groups including the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute said they are most concerned by expected costs associated with a slate of rules now in the pipeline at the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The EPA’s regulatory march is very concerning to the business community,” said Matt Letourneau, spokesman for the Chamber’s energy institute. “We’re fighting these regulations,” he added. “We’re trying to encourage EPA to listen to our concerns. We’re hoping EPA backs off or changes course.”
https://thehill.com/regulation/223769-biz-groups-brace-for-deluge-of-regulation
Reader says MSNBC viewers are anti-business, anti-military, and pro-conspiracy
Reader says MSNBC viewers are anti-business, anti-military, and pro-conspiracy
I, too, laugh at MSNBC’s ratings. However, don’t disregard the power of these seemingly low numbers of people who follow their nonsense. They absolutely rule the comments sections of the online news and blog sites with their anti-business, anti-military, and pro-conspiracy stance. I’m convinced that few of them actually work based upon their whacky beliefs and total lack of understanding of how real humans go about their lives. But, they are incredibly powerful and in this age of the Internet and having a collective voice, they cannot be dismissed as the nutters that they are
No-Show Legislating Comes to NJ
No-Show Legislating Comes to NJ
Sep. 30 State Assembly, State Senate 2 comments
By Scott St. Clair | The Save Jersey Blog
Only in government and on union jobs does a no-show get paid. Now, the Assembly has codified the practice, allowing members to phone in their presence in order to obtain a quorum for the transaction of business.
Caught by The Star-Ledger with their absentee hands in the cookie jar as being “present” when they were nowhere near Trenton, the Assembly unanimously passed a measure to legitimize the shady practice of being recorded as attending a session you didn’t.
Irrespective of what’s on the agenda, voters elect representatives to be physically on the job when there is business to transact, not to not be on the job. If you can’t commit 100 percent, then find a new hobby.
https://savejersey.com/2014/09/no-show-legislating-comes-to-nj/
Steve Wynn: I’m ‘more scared’ about US than China
Steve Wynn: I’m ‘more scared’ about US than China
Jane Wells | @janewells
To rephrase a purported Chinese proverb: Steve Wynn lives in interesting times.
The casino magnate behind Wynn Resorts makes most of his money in Macau, China, and he’s worked closely with the Chinese government for a dozen years. However, gambling revenue across Macau has softened as the government has cracked down on what it calls illegal lending practices there, and as potential new anti-smoking rules threaten to turn off gamblers. Now, new tensions are rising on the heels of massive protestsin Hong Kong by residents who oppose Beijing’s efforts to dictate the candidates they’re allowed to vote for.
‘Everyone in China is pragmatic’
Is Steve Wynn bothered?
“I’m more scared about the United States than I am about China,” Wynn told CNBC this week at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. The protests in Hong Kong have “become sort of a party out there.”
Wynn said he believes the situation will be resolved: “Everyone in China is pragmatic and practical.”
Wynn said Chinese officials may be willing to bend in favor of protesters who want everyone to be able to vote on Hong Kong’s chief executive, though he seemed to think it’s less likely that Beijing will stop deciding who can run and who doesn’t.
“I think the central government is willing to let everybody vote for the CEO, but they want to have some positive input on the nominations, so that whoever it is, the group of candidates, have some kind of mature, rational attitude towards the fact that it belongs to China,” Wynn said. “I don’t think (Chinese President) Xi Jinping and the central government are going to give up some level of control of their own country. It’s not part of that culture there.”
Wynn continues to praise the business climate in China compared to the United States: “The regulatory burden in China is infinitesimal compared to the crap we get in America.”
Wynn’s comments come as Western companies have come up against growing scrutiny from the Chinese government, including surprise raids, long investigations and growing fines in the name of “anti-trust” enforcement.
Wynn refused to comment on a slander lawsuit his company has filed against Jim Chanos—the suit alleges that the famous short seller intimated that Wynn has violated anti-bribing laws in order to succeed in Macau. Instead, he praised what he called “the most laissez-faire place on the planet at the moment” in China, and said Americans don’t realize how positive and aspirational the Chinese are about their own lives and their own government.
