New Jersey Governor Chris Christie strongly suggests that you go before taking to the New Jersey non-toll roads. As another example of how states are selling or reducing basic services in this economic crisis, Christie will close the last two restrooms to save $270,000.
You can still use a bathroom on the tollroads like the New Jersey turnpike. However, on the non-toll roads it is back to the state of nature in New Jersey. This may why Christie tried not to laugh when he is on the road and his reaction to attempts at humor, here.
I will add my usual complaint that we have spent hundreds of billions in these two wars while we cannibalize on our resources at home with states selling off public land and ending basic public programs, here.
For the full story, click here
Hi, just visited your blog first time, and found it quite interesting. Nice post indeed. Thanks for sharing it to all
Regards
Pravin singh
Dry Carpet Cleaning NY
Byron–
I don’t know when and where you built your house. We bought our house in the mid-seventies–just after housing prices had skyrocketed and nearly doubled in our area in a few short years. We bought our house for a little over $40,000. (Imagine that!) We were able to afford the house and pay a sizable down payment–thanks to my parents who didn’t charge us much for rent for the seven years we lived in their two-family house after we got married. Around here at that time, housing lots were also very pricey. It might have cost us more to buy land and build a house than to purchase an existing house.
I’m unclear as to what you mean by a builders/developers premium.
I won’t deny that there are lots of things wrong with local, state, and federal governments–but I feel the same is true of the private sector. There is greed and corruption and incompetence in both worlds.
Elaine:
My wife and I couldn’t afford to buy an existing house so we had to build one. We paid much less than we would have and got more house than we would have ever hoped to afford if it had been pre-constructed by a developer/builder. It took us 2 years, almost 3 and the sad part is that county regulations and requirements added about $30,000 to the cost and an extra 20 months from boundary survey to final completion. It spent almost 12 months in permitting, it only took 7 months to build from breaking ground to occupancy.
Had I not been an engineer with some construction experience it would have been almost impossible and would have cost additional money for supervision.
You think that is right? Why shouldn’t an average family be able to build a house for a fair price? And be able to save the builders/developers premium if they want to. Because government and business are in bed together and it ain’t capitalism. I can tell you what they say down here, they call it public safety. More like builders and suppliers putting their products in the code manuals so that there is no alternative.
And then you are forced to buy low flush toilets and high efficiency equipment (that never saves you enough money to make it a win/win. It takes about 20 years to pay that stuff off in terms of energy bill savings) and do other things that don’t promote public safety or the environment.
Government as it exists today is a drain on our society. At every level it takes resources that would be better used in the private sector and redirects them causing inflation, shortages, and skewed labor requirements. In short it drags our society down and does not provide a commensurate level of service for what we pay in taxes.