bodhipooh wrote:
I hesitate to jump into the fray, but I definitely have to agree with Vigilante about the recent uptick in shit not being scooped, and not just in the dog runs. It is now quite common to find dog poop all along Marin Blvd, and many of the streets perpendicular to it. It is incredibly rude to others, and completely unnecessary.

This is a recent experience that tells you all you need to know about how people think or look at this: I was out walking my dog and he had just pooped on the street, so I pulled out a baggie and bent over to pick it up when someone happened to walk by and she asked "Why are you picking up? if he goes on the street, you don't have to pick it up. Only if he poops on the sidewalk."

kencares wrote:
You should never set your laptop up at a cafe, allowed or not, it is always rude and ugly.

On_The_3rd wrote:
Quote:

Seems like their only real selling point is that they're right off of HP.

This. My wife purchased a slice of quiche from them about a year ago. It was about 1.5" W x 4" x 1" D, cost something like $4.75 and was dry and flavorless. We used to go there a lot before they converted it to a cafe, but haven't been back since The Quiche.

mrspigglewiggle wrote:
Sighs, I hope this girl knows she is blatantly advertising breaking occupancy regulations. Although I doubt LeFrak cares. 3 single adults living in a 1 bd apartment (and most of those high rise 1bd's are 700-800 sq ft) is pretty abysmal.

I used to live in Montgomery Towers and that building frequently posted public notices about NJ state occupancy rules and how the violations in the building were a health hazard... and how the building couldn't properly exterminate and fumigate because all the violators refused to allow the exterminators in. It got quite disgusting by the time I moved out.

I personally hope the state/city starts cracking down on blatant violations... that will help lower the rents slightly in the high rises

On_The_3rd wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:
The fact that they're more expensive than SS, within reason, is expected and in my view entirely acceptable. The trouble is that they're worse, more expensive, and from what I see - they don't offer anything unique other than "hey, we're here and they're not." I'm in Manhattan enough that I'll just grab SS there if I'm in the mood.

I appreciate that they're in somewhat of a tough bind, but it is business 101 to realize that you have to offer some competitive advantage to stay in business.

With respect to the "restaurant burger" vs "upscale fast food burger" I agree that they're different animals. The key though, is that they're different price ranges too. I think we're starting to get certain of the latter approaching the price of the former, especially if you want something like fries with your burger. For example, Hamilton Inn, which sells a decent organic burger for $10 with fries (granted, you'll have to pay extra for cheese) ends up seeming like a value. Park and Sixth, which has a great burger for $14 with fries is only slightly more expensive - and is a far more substantial burger.

Has Hamilton Park upped their burger game? I've only had their burger a few times over the last 3 years and I always thought what i received was a pre-frozen, overcooked patty. If things have changed, I'd give them another shot (maybe).

kencares wrote:
It's a 66? of ingredients burger that would normally sell for $1.99 at any other fast food restaurant. It's no Big Mac or Whopper. It's a little bigger than the 72? White Castle and about the same size as the $1 McDonalds hamburger, but with more toppings, "fancy" beef and special sauce, which puts it squarely in the $1.99 retail price range.

They're aspiring to be a Shake Shack in size and quality, but Shake Shack costs $5.66 (tax included) vs $7.38 at this knock-off.

Overpriced. Won't last.

Voyeur wrote:
Yesterday I was reading a blog post from Jersey Digs on the upcoming real estate development for 2016 and one section jumped out at me:

"According to The Marketing Directors leasing records, only about 60% of leasing activity in the new buildings are current Jersey City residents. The other 40% are new residents from outside Jersey City including a large chunk from from Manhattan and Brooklyn."

Although I haven't been able to access the report they are referring to, I was genuinely surprised by this number. Are existing folks already living in town really accounting for 60% of the people moving into all this new construction?

I had long assumed that it was mostly NYC refugees paying these outrageous rents, precisely because they would only look reasonable to someone coming from across the river. I had thought that citizens already living here would balk at paying those kind of prices. And the many threads on gentrification on this board seem to confirm those assumptions.

These numbers sound way off to my ears, thought I'd put it out there and see what y'all think...

12345 wrote:
devilsadvocate, so if you want to legalize prostitution then tell the politicians to add that to the bill because YOU are the only person who mentions this and YOU are an IDIOT because I was referring to ILLEGAL PROSTITUTION that is NOT TAXED and puts women in danger

You sum up your position by saying that jobs in illegal prostitution in the craphole Greenville are a good thing? You are an IDIOT - where is the IDIOT BUTTON? I am going to move out of Jersey City to get away from IDIOTS like you.

Dolomiti wrote:
Quote:

12345 wrote:
Politicians will hit the jackpot but casinos also bring crime, drugs, drunks, prostitution, traffic, poverty, and huge ugly buildings behind the statue; are we going to protest this or what?

I don't support casinos anywhere. However, your claim is not correct.

There are lots of casino and gaming areas that don't attract crime. Crime rates did not go up after Dover Downs, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun opened. These days, casinos are opening in affluent suburban neighborhoods, and don't hollow them out.

Atlantic City was already in the grips of crime and drugs when the casinos were first built. The casinos did not solve the problems, but it also didn't create most of them. Nor is it likely that a strip joint and heroin shooting alley will open at Port Liberty if a casino is built there.


Quote:

Every casino I have ever visited is windowless by design except for the REVEL which is out of business. So why not put this in East Orange, Newark, Paterson instead of turning Jersey City into a ghetto?

Holy moly. Even by JCList standards, that's a stunningly blatant NIMBY attitude.

"Casinos make crime worse, so let's dump one in a community that already has problems."

Why not ship a bunch of toxic waste into East Orange while you're at it?

hero69 wrote:
Quote:

Yvonne wrote:
Atlantic City is now saying in order to save gambling you must legalize prostitution. This is the reason I don't want to see gambling here. http://www.trentonian.com/opinion/201 ... ity-legalize-prostitution

why not legalize prostitution and tax it. register the sex workers and have them get regular check-ups, benefits, etc...neither nevada nor the holland have fallen off the earth because of legalized prostitution. it is alos legal in brazil and france.

hero69 wrote:
slightly different subject, i was talking to someone about charter schools and i indicated that charter schools were revolutionizing the educational system. he said it was smoke and mirrors.

apparently, unbeknownst to me, charter schools can dump the underperforming kids back into the public school system which elevates the numbers for charter schools but depresses those for public schools

JadedJC wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:

Have you spoken to many "X studies majors"? Their linguistic skills in the language they're learning is nothing like full fluency.

Took Russian for three years. I was never a serious Russian student, the language just fascinated me. By the time I got to the third year, most of my classmates were majors. They were hardcore, and if you're a major you have to go live and study there for at least a year. Total immersion. So, yes, I would say they were pretty fluent. Admittedly, they were studying it at the right time in history. The top students were courted back in the late '80s/early 90s by the CIA, State Department, banks, energy companies media organizations, NGOs and think tanks.

JadedJC wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:

By the way, I speak a "desired foreign language" and am not a "X languages" major. You end up with the language if you're an immigrant or a children of immigrants.

I can only speak for myself and those I know as children of Chinese immigrants. Most of us speak well enough to order at a restaurant or argue with our parents, not well enough to function at a high professional level. The vast majority of us can barely even write our names in Chinese. All the cramming and studying Chinese parents insist on, sadly, doesn't include the language. My own parents conceded that was a mistake when they realized how big a demand there was for fully fluent English-Chinese bilingual workers.

JadedJC wrote:
[quote]
devilsadvocate wrote:

A large part of that though is that attendees tend to come from far wealthier families. It isn't surprising that the GW Bushes of the world aren't graduating from Harvard and Yale with student debt.

And if you start to look at graduate level education, which tends to be less concentrated based on socioeconomic status (for a variety of reasons), you'll see a ton of people graduating from the likes of Harvard and Yale law with massive sums of debt.

But sure, some go to ivy league schools and for whatever reason have less debt. Their ability to find employment still relates to their major, at least to some degree. Yes, some can still get banking internships or go into management consulting. But that takes a methodical dedication to preparing for those that many liberal arts majors don't really pursue.

You know, rather than speaking in sweeping generalizations and just plain making stuff up, I invite you to actually look at the financial aid stats for schools like Harvard. They're easy to find and the schools are pretty transparent on the economic backgrounds of their students and how need-based aid is determined. Students from families like the Bushes are in the minority.

Some 60% of students come from families making less than $200k, and even those making more than $200K aren't excluded from receiving aid (if, for example, they have more than one child in college). The other Ivy League schools have aid models pretty similar to Harvard's.

For whatever reason, you dislike the liberal arts, which is fine. To each his own.

But your last sentence makes no sense whatsoever - not even from a sentence-construction point of view - and is backed by nothing other than your own biased assumptions. You clearly don't have a STEM background.

People from those backgrounds live by facts and figures and they use facts and numbers to persuade people to their point of view. You clearly don't. In the JC List vernacular: You're simply talking out of your ass.

JadedJC wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:

Sure, but with finance they had to pick up real quantitative skills somewhere. That doesn't just happen.

Do you understand how big financial institutions like Goldman Sachs work? They assemble teams with all sorts of backgrounds or talents. In the early and mid-1990s, the banks were all trying to court Russian and Chinese majors because they were in a hurry to do deals in those countries. That's where many of my classmates ended up. They needed people who spoke the language and understood the culture. A lot of the big-picture macro strategists don't come from technical backgrounds. They hire people with more technical skills to write proprietary trading programs or do the quantitative analysis.

VanVorster wrote:
The bigots on here don't observe being polite or constructive but because of their anonymity and call people trash, inferior, crappy to imply their own supposed innate superiority. No one is expressly using the N word but it's there beneath the surface as well as the white superiority complex. And once a person of color calls them out on it, they get all bent out of shape and call the person of color a racist. That is called projection folks.

http://www.racefiles.com/2013/07/03/w ... bout-being-called-racist/

JadedJC wrote:
Quote:

bodhipooh wrote:
Quote:

JadedJC wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:

Here's the disconnect here: she is saying "statistically, it is likely to result in X", to which you are countering with a personal anecdote that you didn't fit X. You may be a counter-example, but you don't disprove the statement, which is correct.

The other thing to keep in mind is that none of what you wrote implies that you wouldn't have been better off if you didn't major in something inherently marketable, rather than needing to rely on being a "quick learner" (which, in this market is a massively tough sell - I'm not going to hire even an entry level developer that doesn't have a CS degree because why would I? Nor will I hire a project manager with a "fluffy" degree even from an ivy when I could have many with an MIS, CS or at worst, straight up business management degree also from good schools).

What I'm saying is the average Ivy grad leaves school with a much lower student debt load than those who went to a non-Ivy private school, like NYU or Northwestern, and often lower than those who attended a state university. In 2012, the average debt owed by a Princeton grad was just over $5,000. At Yale, it was around $9,000. You owe more buying your first car. And its even possible to pay that off waiting tables. I have no idea what the job market is nowadays for those graduating with liberal arts degrees. I agree it's much tougher than it was 25-30 years ago and if I had a kid, I probably wouldn't want him/her to pursue a liberal arts degree. Your argument is narrowly based on hiring a software developer. Of course, you should only hire someone with a CS degree (fwiw, my ex has a CS degree and lost three jobs over a relatively short period because someone in or from India did the work for a lot less money). What I'm talking about are fields that DON'T require specific STEM skills. They do exist. For example, media, marketing and even finance. I know lots of people in finance - currency and bond traders and asset managers - who majored in history, philosophy and foreign languages.

I don't dispute your contention that I would have been better off pursuing something, as you put it, "inherently marketable." I certainly would be making more money, if that's what you mean by better off. But I know myself well enough to know I would have been bored and miserable in a technical field. Life is full of trade-offs that way. I'm in a job I mostly love and perform well (when I'm not on JC List). I'll never be wealthy, but I do all right: I have no debt besides the mortgage and I have enough to pay my bills, save decently for retirement and still have a little leftover to splurge on shoes or a vacation once in awhile. Btw, why are you so hostile to everyone posting on this thread? I mean this as a sincere question.

You are cherry picking the student debt data. Princeton is considered a model school in terms of how to best serve its student body with its "no loan policy". The average undergrad student load debt exceeds 27K. That's AVERAGE. For every Princeton grad with a debt of 5K, there's (statistically) one or more students with much more in debt.

Pebbles contention that data is not being provided is turning a blind to established facts: as a country, we are facing a student load debt crisis. Too many grads are coming out of school with too much debt. Add to these totals and numbers the people who continue their studies in fields like law, medicine, etc. Tons more money. The average law school loads debt is around 100K. For many schools, it is much more.

I was refuting your original contention of Ivy grads leaving school with "a pile of debt" they will regret. I'm saying the Ivies have fat endowments and a significantly high percentage graduate without any debt. Those who do typically have a total debt load well below the national average.

JadedJC wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:

Here's the disconnect here: she is saying "statistically, it is likely to result in X", to which you are countering with a personal anecdote that you didn't fit X. You may be a counter-example, but you don't disprove the statement, which is correct.

The other thing to keep in mind is that none of what you wrote implies that you wouldn't have been better off if you didn't major in something inherently marketable, rather than needing to rely on being a "quick learner" (which, in this market is a massively tough sell - I'm not going to hire even an entry level developer that doesn't have a CS degree because why would I? Nor will I hire a project manager with a "fluffy" degree even from an ivy when I could have many with an MIS, CS or at worst, straight up business management degree also from good schools).

What I'm saying is the average Ivy grad leaves school with a much lower student debt load than those who went to a non-Ivy private school, like NYU or Northwestern, and often lower than those who attended a state university. In 2012, the average debt owed by a Princeton grad was just over $5,000. At Yale, it was around $9,000. You owe more buying your first car. And its even possible to pay that off waiting tables. I have no idea what the job market is nowadays for those graduating with liberal arts degrees. I agree it's much tougher than it was 25-30 years ago and if I had a kid, I probably wouldn't want him/her to pursue a liberal arts degree. Your argument is narrowly based on hiring a software developer. Of course, you should only hire someone with a CS degree (fwiw, my ex has a CS degree and lost three jobs over a relatively short period because someone in or from India did the work for a lot less money). What I'm talking about are fields that DON'T require specific STEM skills. They do exist. For example, media, marketing and even finance. I know lots of people in finance - currency and bond traders and asset managers - who majored in history, philosophy and foreign languages.

I don't dispute your contention that I would have been better off pursuing something, as you put it, "inherently marketable." I certainly would be making more money, if that's what you mean by better off. But I know myself well enough to know I would have been bored and miserable in a technical field. Life is full of trade-offs that way.

I'm in a job I mostly love and perform well (when I'm not on JC List). I'll never be wealthy, but I do all right: I have no debt besides the mortgage and I have enough to pay my bills, save decently for retirement and still have a little leftover to splurge on shoes or a vacation once in awhile. Btw, why are you so hostile to everyone posting on this thread? I mean this as a sincere question.

K-Lo wrote:
Quote:

the George Bushes of the world

Legacies...the biggest AA group around....but not at McNair, by the way. No family preference.

JPhurst wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:


Now you're just equivocating. "Oh, as long as they're REASONABLY smart it is GOOD ENOUGH." No, there are admissions criteria and you're supposed to choose people that *best* fit them.

That's what you say, not what people looking to create the next class of scholars says. You treat it like it's some game where you get a reward for a high score. Anyone admitted to these schools has achieved and accomplished both with numbers and in other areas.

No one ever asked me what my SAT score was after I got into college. No one ever asked me what my LSAT score was after I got into law school. No one ever asked me what my GPA was after I got my first job. Because once you get admitted or hired, you can demonstrate your ability to contribute by actually contributing rather than patting yourself on the back because you consider yourself "worthy" because of test scores.

As others have pointed out, you appear to be bitter, defensive, and hateful, needing to distort arguments and just make stuff up. Calm down and realize that the classes at McNair, Harvard, Yale, etc are all still outstanding achievers even with affirmative action. And in fact affirmative action may very well improve such achievement for all involved.

VanVorster wrote:
The bigots on here don't observe being polite or constructive but because of their anonymity and call people trash, inferior, crappy to imply their own supposed innate superiority. No one is expressly using the N word but it's there beneath the surface as well as the white superiority complex. And once a person of color calls them out on it, they get all bent out of shape and call the person of color a racist. That is called projection folks.

http://www.racefiles.com/2013/07/03/w ... bout-being-called-racist/

Pebble wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:
This is so widely known that I thought that it should be obvious to anyone that has attended college/grad school. But here you go:

https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/ ... oyment.Final_.update1.pdf

Unemployment rates:
Fluff - Art: 11.1%, Humanities/Liberal Arts: 9.4%;
Good degrees - Computer Science: 7.8%, Math: 6%, Business: 7.4%

The earnings delta is even greater. Your median humanities major makes $50k/year in their job, arts $46k, while business makes $64k, computers/math $76k and engineering a whopping $81k. This is from Georgetown, which I think is a respectable institution, even if not Ivy.

What you are presenting here is statistics about income and unemployment. You are not presenting the amount of debt that these students are carrying while leaving Ivy league schools. I am unsure if that statistic exists anywhere and I really don?t care enough to hunt it down.

My entire point was to state where one individual was providing some form of evidence, even if flimsy, while another just made a claim with a lack of evidence.

devilsadvocate wrote:
Quote:

2. I find your hiring requirements a bit funny.

Why is that?

VanVorster wrote:
Devil
Another poster on here asked why are you so hostile in your posts. So it's not just me. You come off very defensive, angry, and bitter which is why I said "seething resentment;"

and yes, you come off racist to me or as if you don't like black people and that is certainly your right.

Saying I'm racist is ridiculous as I have nothing against white people, Asians, etc.

but I do take umbrage if you're going to denigrate black and Latino people -- people who I know very well and call us lazy, crappy or whatever pejorative term you can devise.

I assume because of the cloak of anonymity on here you feel uninhibited to come off like an asshole but if there was transparency, I think you'd be more judicious and diplomatic with your words.

I am glad you think you're not a crappy person and ostensibly a winner because you have a "great, high paying job, have multiple grad degrees from elite schools and own a house in DTJC". We all have to derive our sense of self esteem from somewhere but the seething anger is baffling, is it deficient looks, physically unattractive or something?

Try to be a calmer person in 2016 or express yourself with less vitriol.

PS. It doesn't anger me in the least when black people (Glenn Loury) make similar arguments but at least they don't come off like the Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh prototype like you do.

Again, if other reasonable people have said you're hostile, perhaps ponder that.

#6 as to your comparison of disparities between blacks versus Jews/Asians. http://www.understandingprejudice.org/readroom/articles/affirm.htm

Also, to what extent does unconscious bias alienate black and Latino youth when they are on the receiving end of things like this and everyone is saying it's a figment of their imaginations. These are law firm partners doing this. http://www.vault.com/blog/vaults-law- ... -firm-partners-are-racist

hero69 wrote:
Quote:

brewster wrote:
Quote:

JadedJC wrote:
A hiring manager once told me that most liberal arts majors end up in jobs/careers that have nothing to do with their field of study, but he found them to be quick learners on the job and they were far more adaptable and flexible

It's kinda sad, once upon a time college wasn't trade school. It was where you learned enough about the world and yourself to think critically and be able to adapt to whatever life brought you.

The current specialized state of things reminds me of an apocryphal story told to me by a sculptor years ago. A renowned sculptor goes see a prospective client who needs a statue of a cow. He shows a portfolio full of gorgeous figures of horses, but the client sends him on his way, saying he's looking for a cow sculptor.

maybe universities should do away with sat scores/gmat as the key determinant.....i believe harvard business does not require gmat scores any longer.

also, i would expect that someone who is going to study fine arts at a good school also would have lackluster scores on the math portion as someone who intends to be an astrophysicist or an engineer. maybe the liberal arts schools should simply get rid of their arts/theater/history and other such programs.

Pebble wrote:
Quote:

devilsadvocate wrote:
Quote:

JadedJC wrote:
Quote:

bodhipooh wrote:

Statistically, anyone attending an Ivy for a humanities or liberal arts undergrad degree is likely going to end up with a pile of debt that they will come to regret.

Not quite true. I went to an Ivy, got a liberal arts degree and was able to pay off my very modest student loan in about five years. Granted, I lived a very spartan life those first five years out of school and didn't eat out or take any trips, not even for friends' weddings. The Ivies are so well endowed that no one pays full freight unless you're from a super wealthy family. They were able to cobble a very good aid package for me through a combination of scholarships, grants and work-study jobs. Most importantly, they didn't count my parents' home as an asset in determining my aid package. Most schools back then did, which almost always disqualified me from any meaningful financial aid. Nowadays, the state schools have seen so much of their funding cut that tuition, especially if you're going out of state, can run as much as a private university - and most of them can't offer the same level of grants and scholarships.

It's also correct that an Ivy League degree will help open some doors for job interviews you might not otherwise get. If you ever get laid off, the alumni network also comes in handy, but that's about it. How you perform and thrive on the job often depends on the stuff they don't teach you in school. A lot of it is the ability to survive and navigate office politics through people skills and diplomacy. I don't know what the job landscape is like today for people just graduating from schools, but a liberal arts degree wasn't necessarily a dead end. A hiring manager once told me that most liberal arts majors end up in jobs/careers that have nothing to do with their field of study, but he found them to be quick learners on the job and they were far more adaptable and flexible

Here's the disconnect here: she is saying "statistically, it is likely to result in X", to which you are countering with a personal anecdote that you didn't fit X. You may be a counter-example, but you don't disprove the statement, which is correct.

The other thing to keep in mind is that none of what you wrote implies that you wouldn't have been better off if you didn't major in something inherently marketable, rather than needing to rely on being a "quick learner" (which, in this market is a massively tough sell - I'm not going to hire even an entry level developer that doesn't have a CS degree because why would I? Nor will I hire a project manager with a "fluffy" degree even from an ivy when I could have many with an MIS, CS or at worst, straight up business management degree also from good schools).

Quote:

1. He only stated that it was statistically likely to end up with piles of debt and not a job. There was no actual evidence supporting this statement. While JadedJC did make anecdotal argument, it should carry more weight than one which is not supported by any facts.

2. I find your hiring requirements a bit funny.

VanVorster wrote:
Devil:
First, to the extent there's a vast discrepancy (that wasn't the case when I was in college and the black enrollment was roughly 5-6%) in test scores vis-a-vis whites and also Asians, I do think that would be largely attributable to the social and public policies that have been in place since time immemorial in this country that ensured blacks and Latinos would be consigned to lesser quality schools and their parents not have the same privileges or access as others (e.g. poor whites who made into the middle class afforded all the preferences and privileges simply for the mere fact of being white or perceived as white).

Many of the Asians with whom I went to college were quite affluent also and had the resources to ensure optimal test scores on the SAT (tutors, etc.). For instance, my roommate in college was Asian and went to boarding school in the US and his dad was some big shot in Hong Kong and the same could be said for most of his friends.

Second, your insipid narrative below about poor white kids knowing they had to work twice or three times as hard to get into a good school and your veiled allusion to black kids being lazy rings hollow for me.

What's next in your vignette, the white kids wore bread bags to school and walked 5 miles to the recreation center for extra homework tutoring? That black kids with whom I went to college and grad school were quite industrious and hard working. Also, if you know any history, America has been one big preferential platter and Affirmative Action bonanza for white people for CENTURIES from the plunder of land and people (eg. slaves) to ensure maximum resource allocation for white people (land, schools, jobs, property, GI bills, pensions, etc.)

If you are Asian, then I may indulge your ax to grind but I suspect you're white and using this as a wedge issue to foment dissension between the so-called model minority and blacks & Latinos. That is what conservatives like yourself do. I have seen a lot of white mediocrity in my lifetime (school and work) so really not indulging your BS.

Second, the schools which you revere and covet so much made much of their wealth through slavery and exploitation.

Third, I don't know if it was brewster or someone else who mentioned the Southern Strategy but just a cursory inspection of your posts makes me feel like you're the very audience in the last article by Barbara Ehrenreich.

You have a lot of seething resentment and I guess you feel sort of stoked or amped up because you and your ilk (JCMan8) get to be anonymous and blithely posts your racists posts.

Sad. Fourth, the one shred we agree on is that I do think AA should be class based (class often inextricably linked to race and there's a reason white people have 21x the wealth of black people, perpetual systemic discrimination).