The Jaffe Briefing - March 23, 2022

STATEWIDE – Inflation hit nearly 8% last month, the largest increase since January 1982, bad news for anyone in New Jersey who requires gas, food or shelter. NJ.com says the price of a gallon of gas has doubled over the past year, while groceries are up 8.6%, rent is up 4.8% and used cars are up – get this – 41.2%  (Seems the perfect time to finally unload that 1981 Honda Civic.) Consumers are now looking for anyone to blame, as the paycheck just isn’t stretching far enough. While this international crisis of inflation is affecting every corner of the globe, voters will eagerly show their displeasure at the polls, making for a very uncomfortable election this November.  People are desperate to bring home the bacon, now $7.10 per pound, up from $5.78 last year.

STATEWIDE – Yeah, boycott Russia! But, as NJ.com reports, some New Jersey businesses are already feeling the pinch of this war. And, let’s all assume, it will just get worse. Hard to put a finger on it all, but the Newark council yanked licenses from Lukoil, while some liquor store retailers are pulling Smirnoff Vodka from their shelves. (That’s good; no one needs cheap, flavored vodka in their lives.) Speciality food stores who sell items from Russia and Ukraine are finding limited inventory, while the glass industry in Vineland, relying on energy, is  struggling with higher costs. A Rutgers economist offers important perspective: Many  products that may appear to have been imported from Russia, like Smirnoff, are made in the United States; your boycott could hurt domestic workers. So, if you really want to make a difference, don’t boycott. Give to relief agencies.

BRIEFING BREATHER

This year, there will be about 40 trillion gigabytes of data in the world.

JERSEY CITY – It’s unclear how a middle-class family can still live here, as the cost of everything seems more akin to tony Manhattan living. The school budget isn’t helping, as the Jersey Journal reports the typical taxpayer is going to see a $1,600 hit in the 2022-23 year, as part of a nearly $1 billion spending plan. Residents should be downright thankful, as the original proposal called for taxes to go up $2,400 next year, just to fund the public schools. The proposed budget is a 15% jump from the current $814 million budget, which raised taxes, on average, by $955 last year. City Hall is aghast, calling the original proposed school budget “unconscionable.” And the state is not helping, cutting tens of millions in state aid for the upcoming year.

SHORT HILLS - Life’s a beach for one Short Hills couple ever since they showcased their designer beach chair business on the March 18 episode of ABC’s “Shark Tank.” Gregory Besner and Leslie Hsu said orders have been pouring into their Edison warehouse for the Sunflow, an easy-to-transport chair perfect for those sole-searching slogs across the scorching summer sands from Sandy Hook to Spring Lake to Sea Girt. All this despite the fact that the $1 million in financing the couple secured from grouchy shark Kevin O’Leary never materialized. Guess he’s Mr. Not-So-Wonderful. “Fortunately, we had many other investors who heard about Sunflow’s story and we ended up not just raising $1 million, but $3.5 million,” Besner told ABC-7. Seems they are sitting pretty.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

NEW YORK – You have a basement, and maybe some old comic books down there. Well, they are worth zilch because of all the mildew and mold. But one comic book – a first-ever from Marvel – just sold for $2.4 million at auction. Published in 1939, it is considered one of the three top comic books in the world for collectors, introducing characters such as Sub-Mariner and the original Human Torch. Nerds, like us, know that is the precursor of the character of the same name that became part of the Fantastic Four.  This well-preserved “pay copy” even bears the publisher’s handwritten notes recording how much the multiple writers and artists were paid. For example, Frank R. Paul earned a whopping $25 for drawing the cover of a book now worth nearly 100,000 times as much.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

There was hope for the rest of us on this day in 1985, when Billy Joel marries supermodel Christie Brinkley.

WORD OF THE DAY

Wend – [WEND] – verb

Definition: To direct one’s course

Example: I will be wending my way up the Garden State Parkway this morning.

WIT OF THE DAY

“Nuclear weapons and other weapons are the means to protect our sovereignty and legitimate interests, not the means to behave aggressively or to fulfil some non-existent imperial ambitions.”

-Vladimir Putin

BIDEN BLURB

“Now he's talking about new false flags he's setting up including, asserting that we in America have biological as well as chemical weapons in Europe, simply not true.”

-Joe Biden

WEATHER IN A WORD

Blech