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Re: How to develop western JC? 160 acres including warehouse on agenda for Planning Board
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Quite a regular
 
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Quote:
Well, my point wasn't that we tax and spend too much (at least not in this thread), but that a more attractive business environment is better for business than the loopholes you mention. BTW, loopholes & exemptions = abatements. My point was that states that are successfully growing are reducing the tax burden across the board, not granting special favors to select businesses. As an example, Ingersoll-Rand, a $6B industrial manufacturer, has had its headquarters in NJ for over 30 years. Currently, they only keep the highest executives and a skeleton admin staff in the HQ because it is so expensive. All other corporate function have moved to NC. How do you think the executives feel about other big business getting tax breaks to come to NJ? A level playing field creates competition, which companies generally aren't afraid of. Picking and choosing who gets the tax benefits drives as many jobs out of the state as it brings in.
Posted on: 2006/9/28 18:04
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: How to develop western JC? 160 acres including warehouse on agenda for Planning Board
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Quite a regular
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Quote:
Brewster, sorry for the late response. Here are a few sources: http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/78.html http://www.ppinys.org/reports/jtf/businesstax.htm http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1834.html http://www.njchamber.com/media/march%2006%20tax%20climate.htm As you can see, NJ doesn't do very well in any of these. Also, if you look at population trends, some of the states that are growing the fastest are AZ, NV, FL and TX, and they also have some of the friendliest tax environments. I'm sure there are other reasons, but our taxes don't help.
Posted on: 2006/9/28 13:11
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: How to develop western JC? 160 acres including warehouse on agenda for Planning Board
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Quite a regular
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Quote:
While I agree with your goal, abatements are the tools uncompetitive cities use to attract business. Smarter, and less politically entrenched, areas actually lower the cost of doing business, such as sales tax, property tax and employer tax. JC, and areas like it, prefer to spend too much, tax everybody and then rely on political favors to attract business. NJ overall is still losing employers because of its high tax base. With recent tax reductions in Deleware and Rhode Island, this will only increase. I've never met a business manager that would rather rely on political favors than a lower, more level playing field for all.
Posted on: 2006/9/27 22:46
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: Jersey City 'loses' $550G on building - Eighteen years ago city paid $2.4 mil sold it for $1.85 mil.
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Quite a regular
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The reporter is an idiot. Doing a rough, 5 minute calculation, and the information in the article, the NPV of the city's investment was approxiamately -$1.9M, while the NPV of renting is -$4.1M. This assumes an 8% cost of capital (high for a government, further penalizing the purchase) and 3% inflation. I didn't assume any investment income from the renting scenario, as I would with a private renter, since the government is more likely to spend the original purchase price rather than invest it. Optimally, if the building had been maintained (1% of purchase price per year, adjusted for inflation) then the city's NPV would have been approxiamately -$1M. Overall, I don't think they did too bad on this deal. Comparing purchase and selling prices over a long period in real estate is like comparing apples to oranges, there are too many other factors to consider.
Posted on: 2006/9/27 18:12
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: THE GREAT DIVIDE: Healy can talk about the 'rising tide,' climbing poverty rate tells another story
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Quite a regular
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Let's at least start with some facts. There is a very tight labor market for construction right now. The average wage nationwide (in 2005) was $19.46 an hour. I would guess NJ would be significantly higher than that.
http://www.bls.gov/iag/construction.htm A very small percentage of the working population actually earns minimum wage, especially with the low enemployment recently, and those that do usually work for small business (such as restaurants). Raising the minimum wage would cause less of those jobs to be available, either because the small business can't afford them, or because there are cheaper (illegal) alternatives, neither option helps those in the "poverty" category. And that's not a righty opinion, just plain economics. The people we should be focusing on are those that want to work, but don't have the training. More efforts should be focused there, than on this minimum wage issue.
Posted on: 2006/9/27 15:18
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: Eminent Domain -- Jersey City Redevelopment Agency -- Jersey City plans to buy or seize properties
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Quite a regular
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The city is supposed to pair a "fair" price for a property, but since the appraisers work for the city, there is a bit of a conflict there. Also, the city (or state) only pays for the value of the property, not the value of the business that may reside on it, or the transaction fees (real estate agents or loan fees) if the owner has to buy another property.
While I don't agree with the "public use" = "public benefit" ruling of the supreme court, most cities have a clause that allows them to use eminent domain if a neighborhood is considered "blighted". My guess is that this would be the case for JS.
Posted on: 2006/9/26 14:06
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: JERSEY CITY 911 OPERATORS AND COPS BLAMED IN $200M LAWSUIT
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Quite a regular
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Not defending the what happened in this particular instance, but before we go bashing the 911 operator maybe we should get the other side to the story. Having worked with call centers, I can tell you that it's hard enough to get people to be inquisitive and creative when they are incentivized to do so (through their paycheck), much less a city employee. The stressful and variety of situations these people must deal with is truly enormous, and they should get the respect of the benefit of the doubt. As horrible as this situation was, it was probably just an honest mistake all around.
I also find it interesting that the responses to this story have focused on how horrible the 911 operator was, and not the perpetrator of the crime, or the fact that only one neighbor called it in.
Posted on: 2006/9/19 18:51
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: 'One-strike' you're out for drug-related crimes - Jersey City now gives families a second chance
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Quite a regular
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Actually, Gore didn't say anything about funding:
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet" Gore said when asked to cite accomplishments that separate him from another Democratic presidential hopeful, former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN on March 9, 1999. Gore supported technological advances related to the advancement of the Internet, but to say that HE took the initiative in creating the Internet is a bit much.
Posted on: 2006/8/29 13:41
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: New Jersey awards $21.9M jobs grant to Deutsche Bank to bring 1,200 jobs to Downtown Jersey City
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Quite a regular
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Thanks Jeebus for your voice of reason. I would also add that any state that ranks 49th in the country for Business Tax Climate needs to do something to attract new business. With all of the redevelopment incentives in downtown NYC, there is some stiff competition.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/44.html BTW, not to hijack this thread, but NJ also ranks 3rd in total state and local tax collections per capita. Our fiscal woes aren't due to a lack of income, but to too much spending (most likely on the wrong things) by our elected officials.
Posted on: 2006/8/25 13:15
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: Mayor Jerramiah Healy railed against President Bush's plans to privatize Social Security
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Quite a regular
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Bobblehead, you're right, I didn't explain myself well. I know those pieces of paper in Virginia are Treasury securities. Of course the feds will pay them off, because there really isn't any other choice. However, when they do this, they will either have to raise taxes, print money or borrow money again from the public. These are the same choices they had if there never was a trust fun, since they used this money in the general budget. A true trust fund would have kept the money in escrow until it was needed. Regan and Greenspan didn't anticipate Congress raiding the trust fund to pay the budget.
I'm not for privatization, and I think SS should remain an insurance system to pay for the basic neceisities of life in old age. All I want to see is a Dem who's willing to make reform of any kind part of their political platform.
Posted on: 2006/8/24 15:56
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: Mayor Jerramiah Healy railed against President Bush's plans to privatize Social Security
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Quite a regular
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Thanks Bobblehead, I hadn't seen that. Nevertheless, these ideas haven't been promoted by our elected officials, and that's where the rallying cry has to come from.
I strongly disagree that SS isn't goin broke. If you wade through the funny accounting the government uses, and the fact that SS has no assets under management, you have 20-30 years before expenditures outweigh income. The longer we wait to fix it, the more painful the fix will be. Tax and financial planning can't take effect overnight. The first step should be to stop the feds from spending SS earning on budgetary items, and start investing that money in gov't bonds. The so called "trust fund" is filing cabinet in Virginia full of IOU's. When social security was enacted, you didn't receive benefits until you were 72, yet the average life expectancy was 65. You also had 16 contributers for every beneficiary. Now you have 3.3 contributers per beneficiary. Explain to me how this isn't a broke system in every sense of the word.
Posted on: 2006/8/23 21:24
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: Mayor Jerramiah Healy railed against President Bush's plans to privatize Social Security
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Quite a regular
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Sigh, when is a member of the Democratic party going to actually propose an idea to fix Social Security instead of just bashing everyone else's. I'm not a Republican, and not talking like one here, I truly want to see some ideas to solve this problem, otherwise it's just going to end up being a big tax hike.
I'm not an economist, but I am a gamble, and I know what a Ponzi Scheme is. To quote the WSJ: "As economist Paul Samuelson, an original New Deal supporter, enthused back in 1967 "the beauty of social insurance is that it is actuarially unsound. . . . Always there are more youths than old folks in a growing population" (emphasis his). He concluded that "a growing nation is the greatest Ponzi game ever contrived. And that is a fact, not a paradox." The problem is that the Ponzi we call Social Security has run into reality. I've never seen a Ponzi succeed, and this one won't either. At least the Repubs have the stones to try something. To quote an FDR at Ogolethorpe University: "this country needs . . . bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." C'mon dems, try something.
Posted on: 2006/8/23 18:27
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: Corzine and property tax reform
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Quite a regular
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I agree with you Corzine deserves credit for tackling thorny issues that our previous governors have left for him.
However, his methods leave a lot to be desired. The sales tax increase will push more business out of the state (NJ currently lacks close to the bottom in business friendliness). This costs the state not only sales tax revenue, but also revenue on corporate profit, and income tax revenue from workers of those companies. Secondly, he actually isn't shifting the burden from property owners, at least not permanently. The revenue from the sales tax is earmarked for "property tax relief", not reform. This means that property owners will received rebates on their taxes over the next two years, not a permanent lowering of their tax rate. Since they aren't chaging the tax law for property owners, our wonderful legislature can drop the relief at any time when they need a quick revenue injection, without changing the law and actually voting on the issue. Looks like just another bunch of half-measures from NJ politicians to me.
Posted on: 2006/7/13 12:47
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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Re: Jersey City to JFK
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Quite a regular
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As a weekly flyer, I have to agree with GrovePath, go for Newark, especially if you are flying at odd hours. On late returns, public transit out by JFK can be spotty, and a taxi will cost you $80-$100. You can always take the Airtran from Hoboken to Newark, or from the PATH stop in Newark via NJ transit.
Posted on: 2006/2/14 21:19
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I'd go over 12 percent for that
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