The Jaffe Briefing - January 30, 2019
STATEWIDE - When you assume there's some rich up-and-comer primed to buy your house at a premium one day, here's a sobering fact: Debt from student loans has more that doubled in New Jersey over the past decade, Experian says. This credit reporting agency says the mounting college debt in the state has exploded 126 percent between 2008 and last year. Our proud graduates, and somewhat proud dropouts, together owe $42.5 billion. High school kids need to be alarmed that only 30 percent of them will graduate debt-free from a four-year school, according to the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities. Debt education is key. May we suggest this SAT question: "If you attend a college you can't afford, and borrow at an outrageous interest rate that leaves you drowning in debt until you are 40, will you ever afford to buy my house?"
TRENTON - New Jersey has an embarrassment of government agencies. There's hundreds of them at the state, county and municipal levels. And we're not even including authorities and school districts. And what does this all cost? The Garden State Initiative, a right-leaning think tank, has released "Adding it All Up." The short answer: bajillions. Or, as NJ Spotlight puts it, "The total haul soars to well over $100 billion after funds provided by the federal government are added in. And it tops out at $121 billion once investment gains by the public-worker pension funds and revenue from all authorities that operate in New Jersey, including bi-state entities like the Port Authority, are factored in." Like we said, bajillions. Try to follow the money in today's NJ Spotlight.
SAYREVILLE - A trusty backdrop for any New Jersey politician is the diner. Even better is to have the diner owner sit with you and all the other regular Joes. But it looks like Gov. Phil Murphy's advance team didn't do their homework yesterday, as the governor sat next to the owner of the Ocean Bay Diner to tout the $15 an hour minimum wage. Cameras flashed, reporters reported. And the headline? The governor says the wage boost is great. The diner owner? Not so much, initially suggesting he may have to shut his doors because he can't afford higher, state-mandated salaries. The diner owner was later "educated" about the bill and how the wage hikes will be phased in over five years. Now, following all the media coverage about his contrarian views, the diner owner is suddenly okay with it.
AT THE SALON - Here's another silly law to frizz your hairdo. Braiding hair at New Jersey salons requires 40-50 hours of detailed training for a coveted state license. And by braiding hair, we mean doing weaves, wraps, twists and adding hair extensions. By comparison, your nimble-fingered hairdresser (or anyone else) needs no training whatsoever to get a handgun permit and fire off a bunch of rounds. Believe it or not, this hair law is a scaled-down version of a 1984 law that once required hair braiders to be beauty school graduates. Gov. Phil Murphy enacted this downsized prerequisite which took effect this month. But one Passaic hair-weaver tells NJ.com that it "seems ridiculous (since) all we use is a comb."
LAKEWOOD - Big "Bingo" signs usually mean fun, chain-smoking Friday nights at the VFW hall. Well, not anymore. Bingo is New Jersey's newest Costco-style, "mostly kosher" warehouse store whose motto is "No Tricks. No Shticks." Bingo just opened its second U.S. store, situated right on Route 70 in this heavily Orthodox, kashrut-observant town. Besides selling tchotchkes in bulk, the superstore offers kosher meat, fish, fruit, vegetables and specialty desserts like halvah, rugelach and babka. While Bingo obviously targets predominantly Jewish customers, a New York-based market analyst tells the Asbury Park Press that its prices and quality make it "a United Nations for consumers." So stop by, bubbelah.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
WASHINGTON - Ninety-nine percent of the American public is certainly relieved federal workers are back on the job. But the one-percenters in this case happen to be streaming pornography websites, which experienced an odd, inexplicable uptick in traffic from the Washington D.C. area during the shutdown, when workers were home, twiddling their thumbs with 840 hours of idleness. How strange. One such site, Pornhub, was wildly excited to announce an impressive 6.3 percent growth in viewership in and around the Beltway over those 35 days. Will we ever learn why?
LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Let's just assume only a fraction of police dispatchers deal with this: a local kid calling 911 for help with his math homework. Lafayette Police dispatcher Antonia Bundy answered the call from the boy, who admitted to having "a bad day at school." After some questioning, the dispatcher surmised the little cherub was having problems with fractions, especially trying to add three-fourths plus one-fourth, the AP reports. She asked him to take out a piece of paper to figure out the answer, which, by the way, is "one." The boy thanked the dispatcher and apologized for calling 911. Lafayette police are asking other area children not to dial them for homework help.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 2017 that one Newark reporter was in the right place at the right time, reporting on his memorable attendance at Mass at Newark's Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart. That's when a nut job shambled up to the alter and punched a Bishop in the face. That led to TAPInto Newark's exclusive account of the arrest of this bizarre suspect. And then, with Mark Bonamo's contacts in the church, he was able to secure video that captured it all on film. It was the shot heard around the world, with more than 1.3 million hits on this news story, to date. See it here.
WORD OF THE DAY
Campestral - [kam-PESS-trəl] - adjective
Definition: Of, or relating to, fields or open country; rural
Example: It's too damn cold to appreciate rolling, campestral beauty.
WIT OF THE DAY
|
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
- Alice Walker
|
|
WEATHER IN A WORD
Siberian
THE NEW 60
A Jaffe Briefing exclusive
by Andy Landorf & John Colquhoun