pacino wrote:interesting piece onf the savings program deal

i appreciate all the small, decent ideas that will have an actual effect on the lives of the working poor. too often we tend to forget about them and just talk about the middle class as though that's the be all and end all of our society.

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:interesting piece onf the savings program deal

i appreciate all the small, decent ideas that will have an actual effect on the lives of the working poor. too often we tend to forget about them and just talk about the middle class as though that's the be all and end all of our society.

That's what IRA's are for. If the government cared, they should raise the savings cap on the IRA, an existing tax favored retirement tool designed to do exactly this.

This MyRA sounds like a way for the poor and middle class to waste their money by buying inflation protected T-Bills.

Werthless wrote: Everyone on this board has conservative friends and family, and I'd like for you to understand that most of them take these kinds of positions absent the callousness often attributed to conservatives.

pacino wrote:

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:interesting piece onf the savings program deal

i appreciate all the small, decent ideas that will have an actual effect on the lives of the working poor. too often we tend to forget about them and just talk about the middle class as though that's the be all and end all of our society.

That's what IRA's are for. If the government cared, they should raise the savings cap on the IRA, an existing tax favored retirement tool designed to do exactly this.

This MyRA sounds like a way for the poor and middle class to waste their money by buying inflation protected T-Bills.

this makes it far more accessible and digestible. it's also far more guaranteed.

traderdave wrote:Christie strikes again?

http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2 ... t_politics

Gov. Chris Christie's brother was part of a group that bought properties near the Harrison PATH station before a $256 million renovation of the facility was publicly approved, according to a report on NorthJersey.com.

Todd Christie and his partners then renovated and flipped the lots for almost triple their purchase price after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey gave its OK to the project, the report said.

One of Todd Christie's partners in West Hudson Properties LLC owns Ferreira Construction, which has gotten "tens of millions of dollars" in work from state agencies since the governor took office in 2010, NorthJersey.com reported.

Port Authority chairman David Samson has also been linked to land around the PATH station. Sampson's law firm, Wolf & Samson, has a client that wants to build luxury apartments where a warehouse stands.

Commissioner David Steiner also voted for renovation, four months after he purchased the rights to build an apartment complex on land along the Passaic River, just blocks from the train station.

Monkeyboy wrote:This is politics. You wait for a mistake and then pound your opponent over the head with it to create a narrative. Once that narrative is created, you then try to fit as much into that narrative as possible, even if it doesn't quite fit. Because even if it doesn't quite fit, it still reinforces the narrative and keeps people talking about it.

Sen. Vicki Marble, R-Fort Collins, linked poor health within black and Latino communities to diets and foods like barbecued chicken. She went on to say that Mexicans eat vegetables in Mexico but stop eating healthy foods when they come to the United States.

Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, then found herself in the crossfire when she brought a box of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen chicken for lunch during the next task force meeting in early September. Some said Saine brought the chicken to be disruptive, though she maintains that she was simply supplementing her lunch, and that there was never intent to protest the backlash against Marble.

For her part, Marble believes the sensitivity issue is sometimes blown out of proportion. She said she brought up the issue of diets in minority communities because there can be a genetic predisposition to certain diseases such as diabetes.

Marble said that her family is quite diverse, including many different races, ethnicities and religions

“We talk honestly, we talk openly and freely, there’s no sensitivity…” explained Marble.

“We all have genetic traits…” she continued. “That’s what I was bringing up…

“But where is the discussion going to start? Marble asked. “A quarter of those blacks who die from heart disease and diabetes, those can be prevented if we’re given the right information… We can’t force them to stop doing what they choose to do, but to give them the information. These are our families and our neighbors in the black community…

“Honestly, I learned how to smoke meat from my black friends down in Texas because they lived with me… and stayed at my house…” Marble recalled. “Did we talk about cooking? Yes. The whole time.”

She said people should get over their sensitivities to advance honest and open conversations when it comes to addressing disparities.

“If there’s sensitivities, that’s the way it is,” opined Marble. “People aren’t all the same. You don’t just cookie-cutter them out and say, ‘You have to listen to this’. But it would be nice to have an honest conversation to help educate them on what is actually happening and to prevent that with diet and exercise.

“Don’t let your sensitivities get in the way of a healthy lifestyle, or educating yourself about new things…” she concluded.

Saine also rejects the notion that there needs to be more sensitivity training in the legislature in order to advance conversations around economic disparities.

“It seems that we tend to use those sensitivity issues as tools in political debate and that’s not always so helpful, and yet during session we work together rather well,” she surmised.

“If we want civility, maybe we should not use that as a political tool,” Saine continued. “Maybe we should concentrate on real solutions like getting government out of the way of business.”

jerseyhoya wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:This is politics. You wait for a mistake and then pound your opponent over the head with it to create a narrative. Once that narrative is created, you then try to fit as much into that narrative as possible, even if it doesn't quite fit. Because even if it doesn't quite fit, it still reinforces the narrative and keeps people talking about it.

Which is what the state party and DNC ought to do, and they're doing a pretty good job of it at the moment. The problem is the state's largest newspaper is also doing whatever it can to create a narrative and subsequently bend future discoveries into fitting the same preferred narrative. Tom Moran (of thinned skin fame) doubles as the Ledger's editorial page editor and one of the paper's leading columnists. He's uncorked a few gems over the past couple of weeks on his signed side, including Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer is probably telling the truth for these reasons and Why Chris Christie's dipping popularity is good news. I guess if I have to credit them for one thing, they're at least being open and transparent about their agenda.

As for the Todd Christie thing, the new PATH station was a public priority before the Port Authority approved it especially in the aftermath of Red Bull Arena opening up, it had been planned for years, and tons of redevelopment construction had been going on in the area anticipating the station upgrade (article from 2012). It wasn't a big secret where you needed to be the brother of the governor to get the inside scoop.

dajafi wrote:Without comment on the drip-drip-drip of the Christie stuff, what I think is interesting about all this is how little goodwill he seems to have banked, including among fellow members of Team R.