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4 Things You Should Consider As A Future House Owner

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Becoming a homeowner is a significant milestone in life, but it also comes with various responsibilities and considerations. Whether you’re a first-time buyer or looking to invest in a new property, careful planning and decision-making are essential. In this blog post, we’ll explore four crucial things you should consider as a future house owner to make a well-informed and successful real estate investment.

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House Approves Financial CHOICE Act In Major Step to Repealing Dodd-Frank

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June 9,2017

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC, The House on Thursday passed the Financial CHOICE Act, legislation to overhaul and replace the failed Dodd-Frank Act that has contributed to the worst economic recovery of the last 70 years.“Every promise of Dodd-Frank has been broken,” said Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), as he read letters from Americans about how they were declined home, automobile and small business loans due to Dodd-Frank’s burdensome regulations.  “Fortunately there is a better, smarter way.  It’s called the Financial CHOICE Act.  It stands for economic growth for all, but bank bailouts for none.  We will end bank bailouts once and for all.  We will replace bailouts with bankruptcy.  We will replace economic stagnation with a growing, healthy economy,” he said.

“We will make sure there is needed regulatory relief for our small banks and credit unions, because it’s our small banks and credit unions that lend to our small businesses that are the jobs engine of our economy and make sure the American dream is not a pipe dream,” said Chairman Hensarling.

CHOICE, which stands for Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs, has received strong support from community banks and credit unions.  Large financial institutions did not offer their support for the Financial CHOICE Act.  Instead, Wall Street CEOs have publicly said they do not support repealing Dodd-Frank.

The Congressional Budget Office reports the Financial CHOICE Act would reduce the deficit by $33.6 billion over 10 years and that the bill’s regulatory relief would benefit community banks and credit unions.  The nation’s largest banks would be unlikely to raise enough capital to meet the bill’s requirement for substantial regulatory relief, the CBO reported.

FINANCIAL CHOICE ACT AT A GLANCE:

BANKRUPTCY, NOT BAILOUTS

No more bailouts:  that’s at the core of the Financial CHOICE Act. With changes to the bankruptcy code, large financial firms can fail without disrupting the entire economy or forcing hardworking taxpayers to pay for more bailouts.

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WALL STREET AND WASHINGTON

The Financial CHOICE Act includes the toughest penalties in history for those who commit financial fraud and insider trading.  Holding Wall Street accountable with the toughest penalties in history will deter corporate wrongdoing and better protect consumers. At the same time the Financial CHOICE Act holds Wall Street accountable, it also holds Washington accountable. Tougher accountability for Wall Street and Washington will protect the integrity of our markets so they benefit ordinary Americans who are working, saving and investing.

STRONGLY CAPITALIZED BANKS

Dodd-Frank’s one-size-fits-all regulations treat all financial institutions the same, regardless of their size.  That makes no sense and hurts smaller, hometown banks and credit unions that did nothing to cause the last financial crisis.

The Financial CHOICE Act is based on two important principles:  First, all banks need to be well-capitalized and, second, community banks and credit unions deserve relief from the crushing burden of over-regulation. Under the Financial CHOICE Act, banks and credit unions will qualify for regulatory relief if they elect to maintain enough capital to ensure that if they get in trouble, taxpayers won’t be forced to bail them out. Ninety-eight percent of the financial institutions that met the Financial CHOICE Act’s requirements for being well-capitalized did not fail during the financial crisis.  Of the miniscule percentage that did fail, none posed a systemic risk.

EMPOWER AMERICANS

The Financial CHOICE Act grows our economy from Main Street up.  Dodd-Frank tries to control the economy from Washington down.  The Financial CHOICE Act will help get credit and capital into the hands of working men and women to fuel their economic growth.

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House Acts to Require Cost Benefit Analysis of all SEC Regulations

Jeb Hensarling
January 13,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

WASHINGTON – The House approved bipartisan legislation on Thursday to ensure that the benefits of proposed regulations from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) justify the costs to jobs, economic growth, and capital formation.

The SEC Regulatory Accountability Act, sponsored by Financial Services Committee member Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), passed 243-184.

“Ill-advised laws like the Dodd-Frank Act empower unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats to callously hand down crushing regulations without adequately considering what impact those regulations have on jobs,” said Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).  “The true cost of Washington red tape includes the jobs not created, the small businesses not started and the dreams of our children not fulfilled.”

Under the bill, before issuing a regulation the SEC will be required to:

identify the nature and source of the problem its proposed regulation is meant to address;
utilize the SEC’s Chief Economist to assess the costs and benefits of a proposed regulation to ensure the benefits justify the costs;
identify and assess available alternatives; and
ensure that any regulations are consistent and written in plain language.

Further, the legislation requires the SEC to engage in a retrospective review of its regulations every five years and conduct post-adoption impact assessments of major rules.

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Tony-winner Robert Sean Leonard returns to Bergen County and Broadway

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JANUARY 31, 2016    LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016, 1:21 AM
BY ROBERT FELDBERG
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD

Tony-winning actor Robert Sean Leonard is experiencing not one, but two homecomings.

The more literal is his return from California – where he played Dr. James Wilson in eight seasons of “House” — to Ridgewood, where he was raised.

“My brother, who’s a cop in Ho-Ho-Kus, called about two years ago to tell me that he heard that this lovely old Victorian house near where we grew up was for sale. So I just called the owners, cold, and asked if they were thinking of moving,” Leonard said, with a brief look of mortification on his face as he recalled his audacity. “They said they weren’t, but I told them that if they ever did want to sell, to give me a call.”

A year ago they did, and last month Leonard, his wife Gabriella and their two daughters, Eleanor, 7, and Claudia, 3, moved in.

In the midst of unpacking boxes, though, Leonard was often absent, because of his other homecoming – his first role on the New York stage since returning from Los Angeles.

He’s appearing in “Prodigal Son,” which was written and is being directed by John Patrick Shanley, the author of “Doubt.” Now in previews, the drama opens Feb. 9 at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s off-Broadway space at the New York City Center.

With a kind of full-circle neatness, Leonard, whose breakout role was a prep-school student in the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society,” portrays a prep-school teacher in the play, which is based on Shanley’s own experience as a working-class Bronx boy attending a New England private school.

“I was told that Shanley was interested in me,” Leonard said. “I read the script and I liked it; it’s a very unique play, very surprising. Kind of like a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode.”

Leonard, who started out as a child actor, is known for his enthusiasm for stage acting, and he’s built an impressive list of Broadway successes.

He made his debut replacing Matthew Broderick in Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” and his subsequent plays have included “Arcadia,” “The Iceman Cometh,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and “The Invention of Love,” for which he won his Tony. During a break from “House,” he came to New York to do “Born Yesterday.”

Many of the plays he’s done, on Broadway and elsewhere, are revivals of classics, which, he said, made “Prodigal Son” a different kind of challenge.

“Working with an author who’s breathing is an unusual experience for me,” he said,

At 46, Leonard still has an enormously engaging boy-next-door quality. He’s unstintingly praising of other actors, enthusiastic, good-humored and unassuming — he kept apologizing for being late for our interview at the theater (he hadn’t seen the message moving the start time up a half-hour), and he good-naturedly posed for a photographer right after walking in, without even a glance at a mirror.

https://www.northjersey.com/arts-and-entertainment/celebrities/he-s-come-home-to-ridgewood-and-to-n-y-stage-1.1502976

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Garrett bill on SEC disclosure rules sails through House Streamlining Paperwork for Startup Companies

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Garrett visiting local businesses in Ridgewood

Garrett bill on SEC disclosure rules sails through House Streamlining Paperwork for Startup Companies

DECEMBER 3, 2014    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014, 12:02 AM
BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT |
NORTHJERSEY.COM

The Securities and Exchange Commission would be required to simplify some of the disclosures that public companies must make under a bill sponsored by Rep. Scott Garrett that won unanimous approval in the House.

Garrett, R-Wantage, was one of the sponsors of a 2012 law intended to make it easier for startups to raise funds through financial markets, and the law included a section directing the SEC to study disclosure simplification.

On the House floor Tuesday, Garrett said the SEC produced a study in December 2013 that did not call for any changes but did call for more study.

“I believe we need to stop studying and start taking action,” Garrett said. “Simplifying and streamlining disclosure requirements will enable companies to divert fewer resources to compliance, freeing up additional capital to create American jobs.”

The Disclosure Modernization and Simplification Act, which was approved in a voice vote on Tuesday, directs the SEC to allow public companies to submit a summary page of annual reports on Form 10-K that cross references the contents of the report, Garrett said.

It also directs the SEC to revise Regulation S-K “to better scale disclosure rules for emerging growth companies and smaller issuers.”

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said the SEC’s 2013 report showed that the commission had studied ways to streamline disclosure in 1969, 1977, 1992, 1996 and 2007.

“What this history demonstrates is that the process of scaling and streamlining the reporting requirements for smaller companies is something that we all need to focus on in order to keep pace with the ever-evolving marketplace,” she said.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/garrett-bill-on-sec-disclosure-rules-sails-through-house-1.1145369