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Re: How to (attempt to) buy an election, Hudson county style @ $70 a vote
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Street money is one thing, but the ratio of "workers" to cast votes in the 4th ward has got to be pretty unusual.
Does a $1 lottery ticket really compare to a $70 payout? Even in the project $1 doesn't go too far.
Posted on: 2007/9/26 17:56
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Re: JC Real Estate Market Recent Activity
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Home away from home
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Quote:
They did create the crisis, but by deregulating the S&L's so they could make very risky investments with government guaranteed deposits.
Posted on: 2007/9/26 17:50
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How to (attempt to) buy an election, Hudson county style @ $70 a vote
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Home away from home
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I've been following the drama of the contested 4th ward election in Hoboken because Dawn Zimmer is a friend. An amazing fact was posted by Dawn on the Hoboken411.com site.
http://hoboken411.com/?p=6255&cp=90#comments In an election that Campos lost to Zimmer 863 to 870, he had hired 380 "campaign workers" in the ward at $70 a pop. That is to say, he bought nearly half his votes outright! Boy, you think you're jaded and can't have a lower opinion of the process, and there it is. It's amazing he lost if you add that 380 to the graveyard vote and the voter impersonators that have been reported around here. No wonder people despair of real change in JC.
Posted on: 2007/9/26 3:57
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Re: Wireless Internet - Steven Fulop
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Yes, exactly. Those people were the overwhelming majority, thus the perception of Netscape as "the first browser", regardless of it's little known predecessor.
Posted on: 2007/9/25 21:45
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Re: Wireless Internet - Steven Fulop
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Netscape may have seemed a yawn to you, but people like you and I who ever used Mosaic are a very small minority. I'd bet most websurfers out there have never used anything but IE, never mind Netscape. And I sat out the techstock boom, investing in real estate instead. I remember a broker friend at a Y2k new years party derisively knocking real estate's returns compared to tech stock. He lost everything but his condo. Buying rental RE in 1997 was the single best move of my life.
Posted on: 2007/9/25 20:44
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Re: Wireless Internet - Steven Fulop
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Home away from home
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Unfortunately Sinik, history is littered with innovators that are forgotten and die penniless in the shadow of the paradigm shifters, who are thieves and copycats more often than not. Tesla vs. Edison, Philo Farnsworth vs RCA (TV), Xerox PARC vs Apple (graphical interface). At least in this case the players were the same and got rich, until MS wanted their lunch. (Now THERE'S a company that never innovated anything but is credited with changing the world) But if the point is public perceptions rather than actual 1st innovation, I'd say Netscape wins. I remember just before the IPO getting a call from my millionaire investment banker brother asking me what a "browser" was! To me it was like Bush 41 being astonished by a supermarket bar code scanner.
Posted on: 2007/9/25 18:43
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Re: Wireless Internet - Steven Fulop
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Yeah, like the phone is a secure medium. It doesn't take much to phone phish someone by spoofing comcast, it's happened to me by someone pretending to be my bank. When I've gotten a call from comcast, I've hung up and called them back.
Posted on: 2007/9/25 13:27
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Re: Wireless Internet - Steven Fulop
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Home away from home
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Just the way the 20th century was driven by electricity, the 21st is driven by data. The nation would never been fully electrified by corporations without the federal rural electrification program, it simply wasn't cost effective to the utility, though invaluable to the nation. Just the same is true of a nationwide wireless network, or even affordable landline broadband. The "socialist" Europeans kick our butts in broadband penetration because our telecoms are basically engaged in a price point redlining of their inferior product that they flog to us, spending billions on ads and competing on anything but price and speed.
The network is simply too valuable to leave to a cartel of monsters like Comcast and Verizon. Comcast is so backwards that if there's a payment problem they are incapable of customer service by email. They will have a live call made, and if that fails, send a disconnect crew, before sending an email. Until recently you couldn't just go to their website and set up an autopay like every net vendor since the WWW began. And you wonder where the money goes. This company act like its selling gas in pipes not packets over fiber. I want SOMEONE to eat their lunch! Oh yeah, when I switched browsers from Lynx to the brand new Mosaic, "Netscape" was a word yet to make it's appearance.
Posted on: 2007/9/25 2:57
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Re: talking demographics - yuppies
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Home away from home
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I think you create confusion by claiming "yuppie" kids have special needs, rather than the children who come from disadvantaged homes that were imparted no respect or thirst for knowledge. I also think you're generalizing your own parenting issues on the rest of us. In my son's LCCS "crunchy feely" classes so far, none of the "yuppie" children have been disruptors of the class. Chew that along with your tofu (which my kids bring for lunch regularly) I'll use "yuppie" because I hate it when words get devoured by negative connotations. Every word or phrase for Americans of African ancestry has been eventually been "retired", only to have it's replacement fall to the same fate. Even though I'm not strictly a professional and young only in terms of barely being a boomer, I'll embrace being a yuppie given the dearth of adequate alternatives. How about this one: OBARER Outer Borough Artistic Real Estate Refugee
Posted on: 2007/9/20 22:22
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Re: Voter Registration Initiative
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This sounds great. Convincing homeowners with flooded basements to vote should be a snap. But how does one convince a childless renter in a tower that JC's government matters to them? I can't come up with a compelling argument.
There's that apocryphal story about polling commuters at the path and when asked who was mayor of their city, a significant portion of them said "Guiliani". How do you get traction on the "bedroomers"?
Posted on: 2007/9/11 21:12
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Re: NJ transit to build pedestrian bridge from Hoboken to Newport
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Consider the fact that anything but a drawbridge would require closing Liberty Marina, a source of cash for somebody (who?), and be millions of dollars regardless, and you'll give up your dream. $2 is a bargain by comparison, and you pay it, not the Brokeass city.
Posted on: 2007/9/11 17:18
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Re: Fulop: Let's tighten our ethics rules
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Clearly this it the case. Perhaps you should consider this before commenting on the merits of a popular local political figure. And if you can't figure out why the Downtown JC councilman is often discussed on Downtown JCList, I can't help you.
Posted on: 2007/9/7 15:35
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Re: Fulop: Let's tighten our ethics rules
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You say little that's positive, ever. You relentlessly bash Councilman Fulop's repeated efforts to show voters how we can have a responsible government without conflicts of interest. JSQ, why don't you tell us who's YOUR personal favorite JC councilperson and why. Spare no details please about what they've done or tried to do for JC.
Posted on: 2007/9/6 23:09
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Re: Rent Late Fee?
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As a landlord, I say yours is a douche, regardless of the law. A little grace and good faith is what makes for good landlord-tenant relations, and your landlord is antagonizing a good tenant for no reason at all, since the next banking day is Tuesday.
Posted on: 2007/9/1 15:53
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Re: Hudson Square
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Nothing wrong with having convenient shopping, they just have to change their design mode from "suburban cheap land" mode to urban efficiency. Without getting into it's location problem, look at the new Home Depot for an efficiency example. Personally, I think Target get the award for worst use of space. Their lot for 1 store is nearly the size of Metro Plaza.
Posted on: 2007/8/31 16:47
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Re: Gerald McCann in yelling match outside of Hoboken City Hall
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This thing is SO out of control. Dawn and her family are friends of ours, our kids went to preschool together. She is as pure as the driven snow, somebody you would never expect to get into politics.
To see the kinds of crap thrown at her in this election is a real illustration of how f@#ked up and nasty our politics is here in Hudson county. It also is a clear warning signal to other reformers that getting involved will mean the worst forms of character assassination and harassment will come the way of you & your family. How many of us are really up for that, for what is supposed to be a part time job serving your community? The fact that Campos & McCann are willing to fight to the death over a council seat in tiny Hoboken also shows how important the control of power is to the 2 machines battling it out in Hudson. In a uncorrupted system that wouldn't matter so much, but being able to direct tax money is key to keeping their power base and funding.
Posted on: 2007/8/31 15:03
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Re: Bike signs all over town
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This marking is the worst sort of lip service to the constituents needs. It reminds me of crosswalk stripes without a stop sign. Either a car will give you right of way or not, the stripes don't help (maybe out west they do, but not here)
It's not like striped bike lanes are well respected, but without the stripes you might as well just put up signs saying "ride your bike in JC, but watch out for cars!" But the politicos will take credit for a cheap but visible token, and then call us ungrateful whiners when we want more substance on the subject.
Posted on: 2007/8/23 3:52
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Re: Oceans rising: move to high ground?
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What's most amazing about global warming denyers isn't that they sound so much like tobacco shills denying that cigarettes are bad for you, it's that some of them are actually the same people and psuedoscience "institutes" touting corporate america's desire to keep doing the same old profitable but destructive crap. So now that the republican & corporate party line has given up on actually denying warming, their talking points are "it's not as bad as those silly scientists say". The unsaid part is "so keep lighting them up, burn that coal and line our pockets, we'll have lived out our wealthy privileged lives by the time the then completely irreversible process destroys the world of your grandchildren. Our grandchildren will be hereditary oligarchs who will retreat to their fortified compounds in Aspen, far from the drowning cities and starving masses".
Posted on: 2007/8/19 2:08
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Re: Oceans rising: move to high ground?
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That may be overly optimistic. From Nicholas Kristof's NYTimes op-ed yesterday: In case you missed the May edition of ?Geophysical Research Letters,? an article by five scientists has the backdrop. They analyze the extent of Arctic sea ice each summer since 1953. The computer models anticipated a loss of ice of 2.5 percent per decade, but the actual loss was 7.8 percent per decade ? three times greater. The article notes that the extent of summer ice melting is 30 years ahead of where the models predict. Three other recent reports underscore that climate change seems to be occurring more quickly than computer models had anticipated: ? Science magazine reported in March that Antarctica and Greenland are both losing ice overall, about 125 billion metric tons a year between the two of them ? and the amount has accelerated over the last decade. To put that in context, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (the most unstable part of the frosty cloak over the southernmost continent) and Greenland together hold enough ice to raise global sea levels by 40 feet or so, although they would take hundreds of years to melt. We hope. ? In January, Science reported that actual rises in sea level in recent years followed the uppermost limit of the range predicted by computer models of climate change ? meaning that past studies had understated the rise. As a result, the study found that the sea is likely to rise higher than most previous forecasts ? to between 50 centimeters and 1.4 meters by the year 2100 (and then continuing from there). ? Science Express, the online edition of Science, reported last month that the world?s several hundred thousand glaciers and small ice caps are thinning more quickly than people realized. ?At the very least, our projections indicate that future sea-level rise maybe larger than anticipated,? the article declared. Checking out that interactive flooding map, the interesting one for us is a 6 meter surge, which is totally within expectations of a big storm. Also, it only takes 1m to put JFK out of commission.
Posted on: 2007/8/17 23:46
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Re: Oceans rising: move to high ground?
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You miss my point about our reactive govt. Sure they\'ll do it, but only after trillions of dollars are lost by a 20 foot storm surge inundating NY harbor and the entire \"Gold Coast\". This concerns me because my property and possessions will be in those trillions. And Federal Flood insurance only covers actual destruction of the structure, not your possessions.
Posted on: 2007/8/17 22:09
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Oceans rising: move to high ground?
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My wife and I had a serious discussion tonight about our investment and life in Downtown JC. We have always planned to keep this multifamily property as a paid off cash cow in our retirement. Every time the subject came up of rising sea levels and low lying real estate, I just said "we're not alone, there's many $billions in property here, and eventually something will be done to protect it" But the way the city gives the finger to the neighborhoods when it comes to sewers is a pointer of where it's going to go. A Downtowner now refers to her neighborhood as the "lower 9th ward", how long before her grim joke is no longer even ironic? But while a less corrupt city could fix the sewers, they couldn't touch the rising sea level problem.
I saw a prediction of 1.5 meters rise by century's end, and they're finding most of their models of melting icecaps are being outpaced by the actual melt. The Feds need to copy the Europeans and build gates on the Verrazzano Narrows and the East River to keep out storm surges and eventually just the high tide, but they won't spend those billions till trillions have been lost around the harbor to a flooding disaster.That's the way our country works now, reactively only. If only we lived in a parliamentary democracy we could start a new political faction, "the Dry Party" Maybe the next RE cycle will peak in 13 years after my kids graduate high school, and we'll look for some high ground.
Posted on: 2007/8/17 3:59
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Re: Parking problems getting out of hand
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A grand idea. I can't wait for the sump pump for that underground lot to fail and all the cars get totaled.
Posted on: 2007/8/10 22:01
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"half of the city's employees earned at least $77,448 last year"
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G-P is letting us down, so I fill in:
JJ article In Jersey City, more than half of the city's employees earned at least $77,448 last year, the highest median salary among the county's 12 municipalities. "We are the second biggest city in the state and the largest in the county, so we need experienced, professional people who can handle the day-to-day problems in the city," Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said. Yeah, where are they Jerry? All we see is a bunch of overpaid clowns lining their pockets with our taxes and making excuses.
Posted on: 2007/8/8 3:27
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Re: Gerry McCann's 'Excellent Hoboken Adventure' -- Jersey Journal's Political Insider Column
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If Dawn only had the resources to dig into Campos's campaign the way they've thrown money into digging into hers. Can you imagine the graveyard vote and vote buying that went on in those projects of his?
Posted on: 2007/8/5 1:07
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Re: Fulop again donating his salary
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The JJ gets facts wrong? No way!!
Posted on: 2007/8/3 20:31
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Re: The Pulaski Skyway and other Jersey City bridges are considered "structurally deficient."
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nafco wrote: I dont know if I'd say they overbuilt everything back then. Ever heard of the Tacoma-Narrows bridge in Washington? That was built in the 20's or 30's and that had an embarrassingly short lifespan for a bridge. Either way, they are starting the work so Im sure its nothing too serious to be concerned about.
Posted on: 2007/8/3 4:44
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Re: The Pulaski Skyway and other Jersey City bridges are considered "structurally deficient."
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Cool, 6 of the 8 "structurally deficient" bridges in NJ are in our neighborhood! A number of them are drawbridges too, won't that be a fun collapse.
I'm a little surpised they think these aren't strong enough, in the old days the engineers really didn't know what they were doing, and so overbuilt like crazy. That, and that the "honest graft" corruption style of the day meant that the steel supplier was connected so they would buy more steel than they really needed. Our modern corruption is so efficient the money simply vanishes with nothing to show for it. Too bad Hudson County and JC are "financially deficient". We'll be living with these bridges a long time.
Posted on: 2007/8/3 2:49
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Re: Fulop again donating his salary
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The problem with judging a reform legislator by legislative success is that he's not operating alone. If he's not willing to "play ball" with the good old boys none of his initiatives will pass. Does that mean he needs to lighten up and get something through so he can wave it in our faces come election time? Not in my book. You should be able to tell all you need to know by his voting record, no? I've seen a quite a few of our councilpersons and candidates for such office speak. Most of them were inarticulate to embarrassing. Steve is no Bill Clinton, but he's quite a effective speaker at the public meetings I've witnessed him at.
Posted on: 2007/8/3 1:34
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Re: Fulop again donating his salary
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I suspect the real point from Steve's view is that this is the public's money being given to him for a part time job. He knows well that there are other people in the community working just as hard for free to improve our city, so he passes on his suck at the public tit to worthy local causes. The fact that it makes the rest of the bloodsuckers at city hall look bad isn't incidental, but I bet it's not the main reason.
Posted on: 2007/8/3 0:31
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Re: JC Brownstone Renovations
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I think that's too simplistic. I've renovated quite a few apartments. HD & Lowes have many satifactory products, from national name brands down to generic chicom imports. The trick is figuring out which is good, which is garbage, and most importantly, which is a value. Paying twice the price for better quality lumber at Dykes only makes sense if it makes a big difference, which it frequently doesn't. Kraftmaid cabinets are a decent value. Mills pride cabinets are cheap but still crap, and much better can be gotten elsewhere at the same price. While a homeowner may not want to invest the time in the learning curve of figuring out where to spend money and where not to, a contractor should know these things, and not be afraid to go to HD for the things he knows are good values. As for the rest of hiring a contractor, I wish you good luck, and lots of patience. Nothing will happen at the speed you see on TV, or even close.
Posted on: 2007/7/30 17:40
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