Tag: economics

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Economics pushes many young adults to do without cars

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Economics pushes many young adults to do without cars

December 25, 2014    Last updated: Thursday, December 25, 2014, 1:21 AM
By JANET MOORE
STAR TRIBUNE |
Wire Service

MINNEAPOLIS — Consider Jake Gau a multimodal millennial.

On chillier mornings, the 25-year-old rehabilitation aide hops on the No. 30 bus in northeast Minneapolis bound for his job at the Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute in Golden Valley. On warmer days, he pedals his mountain bike westward to work.

Missing from his array of transportation options: a car. And that’s just fine with him.

Much of the millennial generation — roughly 77 million Americans born between 1983 and 2000 — is decidedly lukewarm when it comes to Americans’ century-long love affair with the automobile. They appear to prefer biking, walking, taking mass transit and sharing cars, exhibiting behavior that could have a profound effect on transportation and land-use policies for years to come.

“Transportation policy tends to be a generation behind. We’re still trying to build our grandfather’s interstate highway system,” said Phineas Baxandall, a senior analyst with the consumer group U.S. PIRG. Policymakers should not only accommodate Gen Y’s desire to drive less, but encourage it, he said.

“We’ve spent a number of years talking about millennials and how they have different sensibilities when it comes to transportation,” said Minnesota state Sen. Scott Dibble, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. “Now we have to respond with policy.”

https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/debt-laden-millennials-shun-cars-1.1179842

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We Could Use a Lil’ Voodoo,Right Now Mr. Senator!

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We Could Use a Lil’ Voodoo,Right Now Mr. Senator!
Sep. 08 Cory Booker

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

Cory Booker (D-Twitter) launched his U.S. Senate reelection campaign last week, Save Jerseyans, but the man who prides himself on being a post-partisan and supremely hip leader chose to rely on some antiquated hyper-political rhetoric.

Specifically? For starters, he accused the GOP nominee Jeff Bell of peddling “voodoo economics.”

This is objective truth; it’s not up for debate. Booker’s buddy President Obama hasn’t come close to touching it. We’re all intimately aware that the former mayor of Newark didn’t perform too well during his time at the helm of New Jersey’s largest city.

The precise details of Reagan’s success, placed in contrast with the current Democrat regime, are even more stunning. Paul Kengor of Fox News recently did a great job of breaking it down:

Real income for a median African-American family had dropped 11 percent from 1977-82; from 1982-89, coming out of the recession, it rose by 17 percent. In the 1980s, there was a 40 percent jump in the number of black households earning $50,000 or more. Black unemployment under Reagan in the 1980s actually fell faster than white unemployment. The number of black-owned businesses increased by almost 40 percent, while the number of blacks who enrolled in college increased by almost 30 percent (white college enrollment increased by only 6 percent).

There were likewise impressive numbers for Hispanics, who saw similar to higher increases in family income, employment, and college enrollment. The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the 1980s grew by an astounding 81 percent, and the number of Hispanics enrolled in college jumped 45 percent.

Liberals often decry the income gap between men and women. Well, under Reagan, women went from earning 60 cents for every dollar a man earned to 71 cents, and their employment and median earnings outpaced their male counterparts. Women enrolled in college in record numbers.

Moreover, the youth of the 1980s certainly got off to a stronger start than my contemporaries:

The peak period of youth unemployment for 16-24 year olds under Reagan was 1982, when it was 17.3%. Reagan reduced it to 10.9% by 1988. Under Obama, the peak for that same group was 19.1%. By 2013, the number was 16.3%.

The unemployment data for 16-19 year olds is even more pronounced. Under Reagan, it fell from 24% in 1982 to 14.8% in 1988. Under Obama, it declined from a high of 25.9% in 2010 to only 22.9% in 2013. The numbers for black Americans aged 16-19 are even stronger in Reagan’s favor. They fell from 49.4% in 1982 to 31.9% in 1988—a vast improvement. Under Obama, they declined from 43.0% in 2010 to only 38.8% in 2013.

So call it whatever derisive term you’d like, Senator. We could use a little “voodoo” right now. You and your president could, too, with the Senate on the line.

– See the full article  more at: https://savejersey.com/2014/09/cory-booker-jeff-bell-voodoo-economics/#sthash.5zrCyl58.dpuf

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Are You Dumb Enough to Trade $10 Billion for $560 Million?

 

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Are You Dumb Enough to Trade $10 Billion for $560 Million?
Jun. 25 s 
By Irwin M. Fletcher | The Save Jersey Blog

Author’s Note: I’m not THAT dumb, Save Jerseyans.

Why do we ALWAYS have the same argument over a millionaires tax?

Scratch that, Save Jerseyans. Why do Democrats and newspaper editors, aka Harry & Lloyd, our friends from Dumb and Dumber, ALWAYS ignore the facts of this argument? I’m getting sick and tired of the facts staring them right in the face and then, instead of responding to logic and reason, they lie to our faces. When they say that people do not leave, that people do not flee a state when they institute a millionaires tax, grab a fire extinguisher, aim it at their pants and get ready to pull the pin.

Wealth flees, Save Jerseyans. Wealth flees. And here is what the FACTS tell us what happens when a state, any state, raises its millionaires tax.

In the first fiscal year they are enacted, taxes generally raise anywhere from 90 to 95% of the publicly estimated revenue to be raised. Sometimes it is more, sometimes it is less. This occurs for 3 main reasons: 1) They are usually retroactive for the current fiscal year, and since DeLoreans don’t come standard with flux capacitors, taxpayers can’t do much about avoiding taxes in June on income already earned 6 months ago in January; 2) Moving/fleeing doesn’t happen overnight. While millionaires have the resources to leave the state due to taxes, it takes some time. So while they cut through the red tape, their income stays and is taxed at the new higher rate; 3) The projections employed are usually the rosy best case scenario ones to make the TV sound bite better. $600 million sounds better than $500 million when you’re trying to close a budget gap. But the best case scenario is hardly ever the real case scenario.

It is also a fact that after the fiscal year of implementation, tax revenues come nowhere near projections. Nowhere near. The first years collections are a one-time windfall. Revenues fall drastically in year two. The funds that the millionaires tax was supposed to raise aren’t materializing. Not there. Year three, the gap between projected tax revenues and collected revenues is even bigger! Heck, sometimes it’s BELOW then where they started three years ago! States are collecting less income taxes than before their millionaires tax! By year four and year five, the tax revenue situation is so bad that Harry & Lloyd start up the same argument again.

– See more at: https://savejersey.com/2014/06/millionaire-tax-state-budget-analysis/#sthash.1Mv0P16u.dpuf