The Jaffe Briefing - September 16, 2022
STATEWIDE – Need a ride down the street? Well, hmmm, that’ll cost you $250 or so. That’s because there should be plenty of “congestion pricing” in New Jersey for Uber, after the ride-sharing company was slammed with a $100 million bill from the state Labor Department. And why? The company was classifying 300,000 drivers as “independent contractors,” rather than employees, from 2014-2018, thus avoiding a gob of unemployment taxes, NJ.com reports. At first, the Uber structure seemed a masterful way to circumvent all those pesky payroll taxes that are designed to ensure employees have workers’ comp, overtime, family leave and other protections. Likely Uber is somehow relieved here, as state auditors initially tallied an estimated bill of nearly $650 million.
STATEWIDE – Want to guarantee no one reads any further? Start talking about government credit scores. Yeah, we know this is journalistic suicide, as you consider scrolling in search of a TikTok reel. But hold on for a sec, dammit. We always hear politicians throwing bombs into the other camp, showing how all those demons are destroying New Jersey with one dumb law after another. But the independent credit agencies don’t care about all the propaganda; they just look at the numbers. And the humorless, unfun nerds at Fitch just upgraded the state’s credit rating to an “A,” the first upgrade from this stubborn company since 1992. For a state whose credit rating seemed to have once been careening toward junk bond status, this upgrade can’t be ignored. Still awake? Thank you, reader.
STATEWIDE - Anyone who has hired a contractor and quickly discovered that three-fingered monkeys could do a better job will welcome proposed legislation that would require "professionals" working on your house to be licensed. Assemblyman Paul Moriarty is pushing the bill, New Jersey Monitor reports, with a very simple argument: The lady in the nail salon needs a license to give you a $40 manicure, yet the guy, with a bunch of other guys, ready to demolish your kitchen, is unregulated. Contractors, too, need to have some form of actual training and pass some sort of test before they take a crowbar to your biggest investment. And maybe they can learn other stuff, too, like how to show up the same week they promise, keep somewhat within the alleged budget and not take on seven other jobs once you give them a deposit.
STATEWIDE – With the legal sale of weed, New Jersey has not yet turned into a smoke-filled drug den, with bleary-eyed residents staggering from here to there in the wafting haze. In fact, the latest study from the New Jersey State Policy Lab tells an absolutely different story: Towns that embraced New Jersey’s shift to legalized marijuana sales are actually seeing an increase in home real estate values - 1.6% more than in towns without weed shops. Now, many other researchers would question the direct parallels here, arguing there are many, many other factors that explain the average of $6,366 in higher real estate prices. But the bigger picture has an undeniable conclusion: Hosting a weed store is not a detriment to a town, no matter what those teetotaling detractors may claim.
PISCATAWAY – Don’t expect to see any Record reporters joining in the end zone for a RU chant, as the newspaper seems hyper-focused on blasting the Rutgers Athletic Department, now with a $60 million budget deficit. Sure, that’s a bit outrageous; any sane taxpayer agrees. But the Record is jumping a shark or two by now slamming the university for spending more money on men’s revenue-generating sports, rather than women’s sports, flying in the face of Title IX. Yes, in a perfect world, there should be perfect parity in sports, with, for example, WNBA players earning the same gazillions as NBA players. Rutgers has terrific women’s teams, like field hockey and soccer. But they don’t bring in the bucks like men’s basketball or football. So, what is the fair solution for a school deep in the scarlet and desperate for cash? It’s a no-win for Rutgers, but it gives the Record another story to package for its award submissions.
BRIEFING BREATHER
Thomas Edison, who invented the lightbulb, was afraid of the dark.
EAST RUTHERFORD - And speaking of cheering on female athletes, it's time to welcome the Metropolitan Riveters to Bergen County. The who? The Riveters are a women's professional hockey team who will have their home ice at the American Dream mall. The team - which used to play out of a rink in South Brunswick - is part of the Premier Hockey Federation, competing against such teams as the Minnesota Whitecaps and the Boston Pride. American Dream has, well, big dreams, saying the rink could accommodate up to 2,000 wild Riveter fans in tiered suites. So, come on out for the pro hockey later on this year, after schedules are announced. And stay, of course, for the great sales.
MONMOUTH BEACH – Because life gave some local families lemons, a couple of kindergarteners opened a lemonade stand on Memorial Day weekend in 2017 on Saturday mornings near the farmer's market on Beach Road. Six summers later, that stand, since dubbed “Kids Quench Hunger,” has collected a total of $20,000 for the Neptune-based food bank Fulfill. There’s a suggested $1 per cup, but the 25 or so elementary school kids who have helped run the stand over the years can usually squeeze a little more with those innocent smiles. One mom told the Asbury Park Press: “We get a lot of $5, $10, $20 donations. We’ve had people give up to $100.” Very sweet … and tart.
FROM THE MAILBAG
Last week, we complained about how we could not find a decent New Jersey angle in reporting the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Apparently, Jaffe Briefing readers saw that as a challenge, peppering our inbox with Queen sightings, Queen trivia and Queen facts that, honestly, really were not so Jersey. (No, the City of Elizabeth was not named after the Queen; the city honors Elizabeth, the wife of Sir George Carteret.) To the rescue came Jean Holtz of the New Brunswick Development Corp., swiping a great photo from Tom Byrne's Facebook page and sending it our way of the Queen and the Governor.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
ALL OVER – Another year, another batch of new words. Merrian-Webster has been busy this summer, adding 370 more words to its dictionary. So, brace yourself, grammar purists, as the dictionary now welcomes such new words as “ICYMI,” “shrinkflation,” “adorkable” and “pumpkin spice.” Upset? You can always scream “Yeet!,” which also is a new word in 2022. COVID made an impact, introducing such words and terms as “subvariant,” “booster dose” and “emergency use authorization.” And, finally, after years of being ignored, the dictionary welcomes “MacGyver,” defined as being able to make or repair just about anything with a match and a Pringle.
THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
It was this week in 1964 when someone thought it made perfect sense to play NFL football in the outfield of the new Shea Stadium, thus ensuring not one decent seat in the house. Yet, the Jets won, beating Denver 30-6, perhaps after Bronco QB Jacky Lee tried to steal second.
WORD OF THE WEEK
Musculature – [məskyələCHər] – noun
Definition: The system or arrangement of muscles in a body, part of the body, or an organ.
Example: The weight gain couldn’t be all the ice cream I ate this summer; it’s just my musculature.
WIT OF THE WEEK
“When I’m no longer rapping, I want to open up an ice cream parlor and call myself Scoop Dogg.”
— Snoop Dogg
BIDEN BLURB
My name is Joe Biden. I am Jill Biden’s husband. And I want to start by saying: Any child under 12 years of age deserves a little extra ice cream or something for doing this. This has got to be the most boring thing in the world for you.”
-Joe Biden
WEEKEND WEATHER IN A WORD
Beachy