Auto insurance 'profiling' unfair

Geico re-entered the New Jersey auto insurance market in 2004, much to the delight of state insurance officials, who were getting tired of watching auto insurers flee the state because they couldn't turn a profit.

Now Geico and other insurers are under attack for using a customer's occupation and educational history to determine rates. Assemblyman Neil Cohen, D-Union, says he will introduce a bill banning the practice.

The state Department of Banking and Insurance says there's nothing wrong with using such factors as education and occupation in setting rates if the company can prove they correlate to losses. We disagree. Why should someone with a blue-collar job and a high school diploma have to pay higher premiums than someone with a white-collar job and a college degree if they have comparable driving records?

It isn't right. The law should be changed.

The Russians are here - on Garden State Parkway

Who would've thunk it? Who would have thought 10 or 20 years ago that a Russian oil company would be selling gasoline on the Garden State Parkway?

Lukoil, Russia's largest oil company, recently bought 800 gasoline stations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including those on the Garden State Parkway, from Mobil. The new signs just went up, in English, not Cyrillic - at least not yet.

There are no immediate plans to require that motorists pay for their gas in rubles rather than dollars. And there is no truth to the reports that vodka will replace Coke and Pepsi in the vending machines.

Open up exit off Route 33 bypass

The Farmingdale-Howell First Aid Squad wants the state Department of Transportation to allow emergency responders to use the barricaded Howell Road exit off the Route 33 bypass. That's a great idea. A better one would be to open it up to all motorists.

The 1.6-mile bypass cost taxpayers $33.7 million. But when it opened in 2003, the Howell Road exit was barricaded because the state said there was a blind spot for motorists at the end of the ramp. Too bad the engineers didn't figure that out before they built it.

One rescue squad member said opening the exit could speed the trip to CentraState Medical Center in Freehold Township by 5 to 10 minutes. That could easily mean the difference between life and death. Officials say it would take $1.7 million to redesign the ramp to make it safe. Fine, then do it. Pay for it by suing those responsible for the screw-up.

Better off than you were four years ago?

If you are feeling less wealthy today than you were a few years ago, little wonder. A Federal Reserve report released Thursday showed that the average inflation-adjusted income between 2001 and 2004 fell 2.3 percent. That was the poorest performance since the period 1989 to 1992.

Average net worth, which includes savings, real estate and stock assets, rose 6.3 percent in 2001-04. But the gains weren't equally shared. The top 10 percent of households saw their net worth increase 6.1 percent while the lowest 10 percent saw a decline, from a net worth in which their assets equaled their liabilities in 2001 to owing $1,400 more than their total assets in 2004.

The percentage of Americans who owned stocks, either directly or in mutual funds, was lower in 2004 than it was in 1998.

Any reason to think things will improve in the next few years?

Glucosamine and chondroitin: Do they help?

Two popular supplements for the relief of arthritic pain, glucosamine and chondroitin, have been wildly successful at making money for the companies that sell them. Unfortunately, a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine found the supplements provided the same level of relief for patients with aching knees as the experiments' dummy pills: none.

Millions of arthritis sufferers use the supplements. Last year, glucosamine and chondroitin accounted for $1.7 billion in worldwide sales. Many people swear by them. We doubt the study will change many minds.

Have they worked for you, your friends or family members?

When parking in New York City, shop around

My wife and I went into New York City Sunday for a play and dinner. Before we left, I went online to find out where the most convenient parking garage was. The closest was only a block from the theater. Then I decided to find out if there were any others that were midway between the theater and the area in which we planned to have dinner.

I was pleasantly suprised to come across a Web site for Icon Parking Systems, http://www.weparknewyork.com/ which operates garages all over Manhattan. It allows you to click on a section of the city or put in a specific address, and it brings up a list of all its garages in the vicinity. It also lets you calculate the cost of parking at each garage, based on the day and times of day you expect to be there.

After I provided the required information, it called up six different locations within a five or six-block radius. The prices ranged from $50 to $10. I chose a $12 garage that was about four long blocks from the theater. Half-expecting to pay more than that when I actually parked there, I was pleasantly surprised again. The tab was actually 12 bucks.

It was nice not having to spend more to park than to eat in New York for a change.

What's next? North Koreans operating our nuclear plants?

In his five-plus years as president, George W. Bush has never seen fit to veto a bill. But Tuesday, he promised to veto any legislation seeking to block a deal that would allow a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates to manage shipping operations at six major U.S. ports, including New York and New Jersey.

When the story first broke last week about the Bush administration signing off on the deal, I assumed the approval must have somehow slipped through the cracks. Obviously not. Bush says the deal was fully vetted by the appropriate agencies - in about six weeks - and there's no reason to pull out of the deal. I can think of plenty of reasons.

For starters:

The UAE was one of three nations to recognize the Taliban as the official government in Afghanistan. Two of the 9/11 hijackers were UAE nationals. The UAE is reportedly pursuing trade talks with Iran. The FBI claims the money for the 9/11 attacks was transferred to the hijackers primarily through the UAE banking system. After 9/11, the U.S. Treasury Department said the UAE was among the Arab countries failing to fully cooperate in its attempts to track down Osama bin Laden's bank accounts. And Dubai has been identified as a key transfer point for shipments of nuclear components to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Even if President Bush believes the current regime in Dubai is on our side, the lease on the ports runs for 30 years. Bush will be gone in three years, and who knows how long the friendly despots in UAE will manage to keep their subjects fat and happy.
But the most important reason for opposing the deal is that the United States should not be outsourcing the operation of our ports, which account for 95 percent of the imports into this country, to any foreign nation. As President Bush reminds us on a nearly daily basis, we are engaged in an all-out war on terrorism. He says it's better to fight the terrorists on their own soil than here in the United States. Maybe. But I'd like to see more resources devoted to the defense of the homeland. And I'd feel far more secure knowing that American companies, employing American citizens, were responsible for protecting our borders.

Make your voices heard on Oyster Creek

In today's Press, we published the last of a three-part series of editorials opposing a 20-year license extension for the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey. http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060221/OPINION/602210331/1029. We urged citizens to put pressure on public officials that haven't done enough to ensure that all of the safety issues regarding Oyster Creek are given a thorough and fair public airing. We printed the names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of some key decision makers. But space considerations forced us to leave some of them out. The complete list follows:

Rep. H. James Saxton. Phone (732) 914-2020 or (202) 225-4765; fax (732) 914-8351; e-mail him from his Web site at http://www.house.gov/saxton/contact.htm.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Phone: (202) 224-3224; fax: (202) 228-4054; e-mail him from his Web Site, http://lautenberg.senate.gov/
Sen. Robert Menendez. Phone: (202) 224-4744. His Senate e-mail has yet to be set up.
James Dyer, director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Phone: (301) 415-1270; mail, Mail Stop O-5 E7, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001.
Gov. Corzine, Phone: (609) 292-6000; e-mail him from his Web site at http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail.html.
John E. Rowe, Exelon Corp. CEO (AmerGen Energy Corp.'s parent). Phone: (800) 483-3220; mail, 37th Floor, 10 South Dearborn St., P.O. Box 805398 Chicago, Ill. 60680-5398.

Let the decision-makers know how you feel. Call them, write them or e-mail them.

The new DMV indeed

I went to the Eatontown Motor Vehicle Inspection Station early this morning to get my license renewed. Although I had heard how the DMV had gotten its act together in recent days, I brought plenty of reading material with me just in case. I never needed it. The whole process, from start to finish, took less than 15 minutes.

I dealt with four different people, all efficient and courteous, and my longest wait for anything was about 1 minute - while they were developing my photo and finalizing my new license.

Who to thank? Other than the DMV employees themselves, Diane Legreide, former DMV chief under Gov. McGreevey and later chief of operations and management under Gov. Codey, deserves the most credit for turning the agency around.

It just goes to show what a difference good management can make - even in government.

Lautenberg hasn't had enough

So, Frank Lautenberg says he wants to run for another six-year Senate term when his current term expires in 2008. That has to be great news to the Republicans.

Lautenberg is now 82. He would be 84 at the start of a new term and 90 at the end of it. Someone needs to pull him aside and tell him it's time to give someone else a crack at the job. It might not hurt to remind him what he said about Rep. Millicent Fenwick when he went up against her in his first Senate campaign in 1982: she was too old. She was 72 at the time.

Lautenberg wouldn't be in the Senate today if he hadn't been an 11th-hour ballot replacement for Bob Torricelli. There's good reason to doubt whether he could win in 2008 under the full glare of the media in a long campaign.

Real estate market going soft?

Has the housing market in New Jersey finally cooled off? According to the fourth-quarter report on median home sales released by the National Association of Realtors this week, yes and no. While the number of houses sold in New Jersey fell by 7 percent last year, median prices continued to rise. In the region that includes Monmouth, Ocean, Middlesex and Somerset counties, the median resale price, fourth quarter over fourth quarter, rose 11.9 percent, to $384,600. In the Newark metro region, which includes Essex, Union, Morris, Sussex and Warren counties, the median price increased 14.5 percent, to $427,600.

Median prices in the fourth quarter fell slightly in Monmouth and Ocean from the previous quarter, but that's not particularly unusual. My hunch is the market will stay strong in central and north Jersey unless interest rates jump markedly, which seems unlikely. As long as the demand far outstrips the supply, which has been the case in New Jersey for at least five years, prices should hold or rise. If the stock market keep showing signs of life, that should make for an even stronger housing market.

Anyone disagree. Anyone think the bottom is about to fall out? Anyone having a particularly tough time selling their home? Any buyers seeing some better values out there?

Little Egg residents 1, Strip club 0

Congratulations to the good people of Little Egg Harbor and beyond for joining forces to oppose a strip club proposed for the main thoroughfare into the township. And kudos to the zoning board for denying a variance the strip club owner needed to proceed.

The turnout at Wednesday night's zoning board meeting was amazing. Hundreds of people packed Pinelands Regional High School to witness the proceedings.

This story is by no means over. A court challenge of the zoning board's contention that it didn't have jurisdiction to hear the case is likely. But it's nice to see the will of the people prevail - at least for now.

Help trim the fat

We've been encouraging readers to send us ideas on ways government can reduce spending - and lower taxes. We published many of the responses on our op-ed page Thursday. We will be publishing many more in the days ahead.

Among my favorites:

Require all levels of government to publish a list of employee salaries and benefits.

Put all unused vacation, holiday and sick days wages into a 401(k)-type account at the end of the year rather than having them accrue over a number of years and basing the payout at retirement on the final rate of pay.

Stop changing state signs every time we change governors.

''Nonviolent prisoners should not be paroled for good behavior while sitting around, but for good 'work behavior' on state highway cleanups and other projects.''

''Consolidate! Consolidate! Consolidate!''

Eliminate the ''VIP vehicles assigned to state department heads, chiefs of staff, governors' aides and others who think they are important in government.''

Keep those ideas coming. We will print them, post them online and forward them to Gov. Corzine and the Legislature.