Press file photo: Dr. Ella Boyd demonstrates the proper way to sneeze.

I spent Saturday night glued to CSPAN, watching the House of Representatives' historic vote on health care reform. Would the Democrats get 218 votes they needed? Would Republicans find enough Blue-Dog/Red-State Democrats to help them block it? Would there be a fist-fight on the floor? 

The answers were: yes, no, and fortunately, no.

The bill doesn't look like it's going anywhere, except to the Senate floor, where they plan to light it on fire. Meantime, the annual health care enrollment season is underway and employers are once again going to have to get on a runaway train.

What can employers and their workers expect? The good news is, it won't be the same as last year. The bad news is, it's going to be worse.

Accounting firm J.H. Cohn surveyed New Jersey CEOs and found:

*Health care costs continue to rise at an alarming rate. Some 36 percent of respondents reported double digit increases. The survey didn't ask how many of these companies saw revenue increase by double digits, but if I had to guess, I'd say 0 percent.

*Employers are increasingly offering employees high deductible health plans. Some 37 percent of employees offer this type of plan versus only 11 percent just two years ago.

"High deductible" is insurance speak. It means people can lower their insurance costs by agreeing to pay for doctors' visits out of their own pocket - up to a certain level, of course. People with these plans are paying for insurance and the actual service.

Economists trying to come up with ways to reduce health care costs would say this makes perfect sense. People, knowing they will have to pay out of their own pocket, will be less inclined to see a doctor.

But it makes more sense in theory than in practice. Let's say my office neighbor, Connie Robinson, has one of those high-deductible plans. She gets sick. She decides it's just a cold or flu and doesn't need a stinking doctor. She doesn't get better, but can't afford to stay out of work. So she comes to work before she feels better. And she infects the entire office.

*Not that I think that will happen. Connie has a pig - a toy one, not a real one - and each time one of us sneezes, she takes the pig out to remind us to wash our hands, just in case we have swine flu. The pig, who I like to call, "Swiney," was part of a bizarre magnet that she and her husband bought at a store in Lancaster, Pa. Anyway, one day, her dog, a pug named Chaz, got a hold of it and pried the pig off the magnet and brought it to her. Rather than throw it away, Connie carried the pig to work, where it now sits as a mascot.

*Um, where was I? My point is, even if the health care bill passes tomorrow, workers have to reach deep down to pay for health insurance today.

Gannett file photo: Please use your own trash can.

I have a quick workplace etiquette question: Is it OK to toss a piece of trash into a co-worker's waste basket without asking? I say this is a violation of personal boundaries. Others note that the waste basket doesn't belong to your co-worker; it belongs to the employer, and the waste basket technically can be used by anyone.

On to slightly more important items:

*The nation's unemployment rate rose to from 9.8 percent to 10.2 percent in October, the highest level since April 1983, the U.S. Labor Department said this morning. Employers cut 190,000 jobs last month.

*The New Jersey Labor Department said workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits now are eligible to receive an additional 20 weeks thanks to federal legislation signed this morning. The department will automatically file the claims for those workers. They don't need to contact the Labor Department. For more information, click here to read the story and here to see the Labor Department's Web site.

*Half-full? The spike in the unemployment rate might be because more workers are feeling confident enough to enter the work force again and actively look for jobs. And the U.S. has averaged 188,000 job losses a month the past three months, down from 357,000 during the previous three months. And 645,000 the three months before that.

*Half-empty. The nation now has lost 7.3 million jobs since December 2007. It has lost jobs for 22 consecutive months. Was Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, right? He argued long ago that  the $787 billion federal stimulus package wasn't going to be nearly big enough.

*Half-full. The professional and business service sector, a segment of the economy that includes architects, graphic designers, computer systems engineers, and advertising agencies, added 18,000 jobs during the month. Rutgers University economists have noted that this sector used to hold up well during the recessions. But it has been hit hard during this one. Could it be the first to come back?

*Half-empty. The health services sector added 45,000 jobs. Not good. If this sector could become more efficient, employers could spend less on health benefits and more on investing in other areas of their business. They could purchase new computer systems. They could give their current workers raises. They could hire new workers.

I've been good. Can I have a bigger market share for Christmas? (PRESS FILE PHOTO)

You might wonder why you should be interested that Meijer, a Midwestern retailer, is cutting prices more than 30 percent on 400 toys for the Chistmas selling season. After all, its closest stores are in Ohio.

But it's good news for consumers everywhere, because it means discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Target, which have already lowered prices on many toys, may do so again. After all, we're still three weeks away from Black Friday. There's no indication that retail sales will rebound at all this holiday, so the big retailers are going to use their pricing power to get a bigger share of the smaller pie. And that means savings for us.

My son just told me about a Spongebob Squarepants video game he wants Santa to bring him this year. I'm going to tell santa to hold out a bit; more savings could be on the way.

AP file photo: If Andy Pettitte can pitch on three days rest, I guess I can summon some energy.

I'm working on just three days rest, so I'm kind of weary. But I'll try to reach down for a little extra today.

*A day late and $25 million short. Economic reports the past two days have been encouraging. Not in time to help ousted Gov. Jon Corzine. But outside of the political world, where most of us live, they are reasons to be hopeful.

*The Federal Reserve Board said yesterday that economic activity has picked up since it met last in September. The financial markets have remained healthy. The housing sector has picked up. Once consumers start to feel better about their lot in life and begin spending again, the economy will regain its health. But that's not likely to happen for a while, so the Fed kept its interest rate lower than low. Loosely translated, of course.

*Talk about using workers on short rest. Productivity soared during the third quarter the most since 2003, the government reported this morning. It's good news if you are employer. It means orders are picking up and they need to get more out of their workers. It's bad news if you are unemployed. It means employers aren't hiring to fill those orders; they're just using the labor they have. 

*So it shouldn't be surprising to learn that the number of first-time unemployment claims nationwide fell to its lowest level in 10 months, the AP reported today, in a sign that employers are easing off on the layoff gas pedal.

Patrick J. O'Keefe, an economist at the accounting firm J.H. Cohn, crunched some numbers this morning and found initial unemployment claims in New Jersey are falling as well, although remain above historic norms.

*You can only ride CC Sabathia for so long. Soon, if economic theory holds up, employers will need to relieve their overtaxed workers with new hires. So wake me when the unemployment rate falls.  Uh oh, I might have just said the magic words. Here comes the skipper. He's pointing to the bullpen. I'm done.

Press file photo from last night.

From the business gallery, here are some Wednesday morning thoughts about Chris Christie's election:

*Economy trumps all. Gov. Corzine could have survived if  it was only business owners who were complaining about New Jersey's high cost of living. But this year, business owners and workers were unhappy. Too much for anyone to overcome.

*My own opinion? New Jersey voters weren't going to hold Corzine accountable for the recession. But they were going to hold him accountable for not bringing the public sector's expenses in line with the private sector's expenses. As one economist told me recently, "You can't tax your way out of this."

*Easier said than done. Now it's up to Chris Christie to take his swings. He starts deep in a budget hole. And his mantra about cutting taxes would only seem to make the hole deeper. Will he make public employees pay more for their health care? Will new public employees have to accept a 401(k) plan instead of a pension? And even if he manages to pull off that feat against the unions, it no doubt would leave the budget billions of dollars short of being balanced.

*Christie's campaign was criticized for not having more specifics. But I think that is more to his credit. Any New Jersey governor who makes a promise today is setting himself up to break it five months from now.

*Christie's Republican predecessor, Christie Whitman, cut taxes too, but she also borrowed $2.8 billion from the bond market to fund the public employees' pension. She thought she could put that money in the pension fund's investment portfolio and it would appreciate so much that the state could A.) pay off the 7.64 percent interest that it owed investors and B.) have enough left over to pay retirees' pensions. If you've watched the stock market's performance the past 12 years, you know that was a terrible idea. The result? Taxpayers were on the hook to pay off investors and fund the pension system, winding up paying more, not less.

*It's just one example of elected leaders who want it both ways. Cut taxes and find a way to maintain spending. It might seem like a good strategy to keep your power, but in the long-run, it's going to backfire.

Press file photo: If these guys can figure out how to rebuild the middle class, they can keep these costumes.

Ah, election day. The wheels of democracy turn. Hope rings anew. Birds chirp. Sun shines. And today's governor's race should be a doozy. Will Gov. Corzine get a new mop to clean up the mess? Will Chris Christie get a chance to throw every last one of them in jail? Whoever wins gets the second worst job in America, right behind the governor of California.

Some brief items from the business world:

*A day after campaigning for Corzine, President Obama had an economic summit where, from my vantage point at a desk in Neptune, NJ., he made the most important statement of his presidency: "What we're going to talk about is, are there mechanisms that we can start putting in place where we see the kind of growth that used to characterize the U.S. economy -- export-driven growth, manufacturing growth, growth that pays high wages and provides high living standards for a broad-based middle class," he said.

*That's the ballgame. You want to know why there has been so much anxiety in this country for the past year or two? Because the living standards of the middle class have gotten lower, not higher. Workers lost their jobs when their employers went overseas. Workers who were fortunate enough to keep their jobs didn't get big enough raises to keep up with the cost of living. The leader who figures out how to reverse that trend gets to rule for life. Every other issue is window dressing.

*Until then, we can pretty much guess how the reaction will be toward stories such as this one: "One hundred percent of credit cards offered online by the leading bank card issuers continue to include practices that will be outlawed once legislation passed in May takes effect next year, according to a new report by the Pew Health Group's Safe Credit Cards Project..."

*...There's more. "The report also found that advertised credit card interest rates rose an average of 20 percent in the first two quarters of 2009, even as banks' cost of lending declined." 

*It's no wonder then that it was Pew's health group that had to do that study.

File photo: Looking the gift horse in the mouth.

The community banks at the Shore aren't doing a lot to bolster our confidence that good times are just around the corner. In fact, if you read their third quarter earnings reports carefully, they are offering us hints that not only aren't good times around the corner, but also good times aren't anywhere in our field of vision.

Examples?

*OceanFirst Financial Corp., the parent company of OceanFirst Bank, said it made about $4 million during the quarter, a slight improvement from the same quarter a year ago. But it has tripled the amount of money that it needs this year to cover bad loans.

And it noted: "Although we continue to embrace a strong cash dividend policy, future dividend considerations will necessarily be evaluated by the Board based upon our operating performance and capital needs." That phrase was absent from its second-quarter earnings report.

Translation? The money we are giving back to shareholders might be needed for our operations in the future.

*Sun Bancorp said it lost $6.5 million during the quarter mainly because it needed to set aside $16.2 million to cover loan losses. "We believe we are moving proactively beyond the phase where the identification of problem assets inhibits forward momentum," CEO Thomas X. Geisel said.

Translation? The company still is trying to figure out which loans are safe and which are not. Which kind of makes me wonder: When the Treasury Department offered Sun $89 million through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Sun confidently said it didn't need the money. Why was it so confident? It remains well capitalized, but after looking the gift horse in the mouth, the company's stock has fallen 60 percent.

*Investors Bancorp Inc. increased the money it has set aside for bad loans by $12.4 million. "Although we have had resolution on a number of non-performing loans, the current economic environment continues to cause financial difficulties for several large construction loans," the company said.

Translation? The local economy remains shaky, and so are some of the loans we made.

It probably has never been easier for banks to make money. The Federal Reserve has made it historically cheap for them to borrow money. And consumers searching for a safe haven are depositing their money in banks. Now all banks have to do is lend it out at a higher interest rate.

On that score, it appears banks are doing quite well. The problem appears to be with the loans already on their books. As the slow economy drags on, those loans become less likely to get repaid. And the banks have to set aside more capital to cover them.

That's bad news for us for two reasons:

*It shows us that the economy still is struggling - almost two years after the recession began.

*And bankers remain concerned about their balance sheets. So they are unlikely to take a risk on a start-up business that could help the economy two or three years from now.

Anyone feeling inspired? (AP PHOTO)

Four years ago, I wrote a story about what business owners wanted to see in the next governor. Jon Corzine, then a senator, was running against Doug Forrester. Both had impressive business resumes -- Corzine had climbed to the top of the greasy pole at Goldman Sachs, and Forrester had built a fortune creating a pharmacy benefits management company.

Yet despite having two businessmen to choose from, the mood of the people I interviewed was lousy. Maybe that's because business owners are traditionally Republican, and the polls indicated Corzine, a Democrat, would probably win, as he did. But it seemed like more than partisan hackery. New Jersey was mired near the bottom of several studies on "business friendliness," a catch-all term that takes in taxes, bureaucracy and other issues. It didn't seem like either candidate had much of a clear plan for changing that.

Four years later, Michael Diamond wrote a similar story, and now the mood seems even grimmer. New Jersey's still viewed as too expensive for business.

The business owners don't like Corzine and don't expect any improvement in their lots if he's re-elected. But GOP nominee Chris Christie has been decidedly uninspiring to them. Christie talks about cutting taxes, something business owners say is vital, but he's been vague on what spending would be cut, and the systemic problems New Jersey faces -- too many layers of government with too many public employees getting too generous benefits -- doesn't seem to be something any politician wants to -- or can -- take on.

So tomorrow, they'll trudge to the polls. If Corzine wins, most business owners will expect more of the same. And if Christie wins, many will still expect more of the same. No one expects independent Chris Daggett will win, but even if he does, he might be eaten alive by the entrenched powers in Trenton.

Anyone voting for Mickey Mouse?

Quick review. I attend Rutgers’ bi-annual economic forecast and attach a star to my mood swings as I listen to the speakers. One star * is the gloomiest I can be. Ten stars ********** is the most upbeat I can be. The last time I was here, in January, when the world was coming to an end, I gave the conference one star (*) out of a possible 10.

 I start out the day feeling pretty good. The feds said GDP grew 3.5 percent during the third quarter, declaring the recession all but over. I drive to New Brunswick and notice the gold leaves on the trees are shining in the daylight. And I arrived early enough to take my customary seat, second row on the left. Dare I say? Six stars. ******

I glance at the press release and see the headline: “Recession’s effects will linger in New Jersey for much of the next decade, Rutgers economist predicts.” Should I turn around and go home? Would I get fired if I did that? Possibly. My mood has been cut in half even before the event starts. Three stars. ***

 1:05 p.m. Conference starts five minutes late. First up…before we get to this. I’m sitting in a classroom at Rutgers and the lights mysteriously turn off. Then I wave my arms and the lights go on. They are motion-detector lights. How cool is this? Hang on. I sit still for a few minutes. Oooh. Lights off. Scary. Now I’ll wave my hands. I can see again! Saving the taxpayer money on energy costs? Eight stars.********

Where was I? Ok, first up are Rutgers economists Joseph Seneca and James Hughes, and I am prepared. A few weeks ago, they released a report that showed the recession has been so devastating that it will take America until 2017, the summer to be precise, to recover all of the jobs it has lost and create enough to accommodate the new workers joining the labor force. 

This time, they walk us through the math. Eight point five million private sector jobs lost  from December 2007 to December 2009. One point three million new workers a year coming on board. If we add 2.6 million jobs a year, it will take until 2017 to reach the employment peak. Three stars ***

1:22 p.m. What are the chances we can add 2.6 million jobs a year? Not so hot. It’s twice the number of jobs we added during the expansion of the last decade. And I suddenly feel very tired. Did I get enough sleep last night? Three stars. ***

 1:35 p.m. Rutgers economist Nancy Mantell steps up for her long-range forecast. “Thank you both. That was really some fun,” she says. Funny line. Six stars. ******

Handy chart to clip and save:
------------------------------------------------------------------
State  Employment growth '99-'07     Jan. '08 to . '09

NJ               +4.6%                                  -4.2%
NY              +3.3%                                  -2.7%
Conn.        +1.7%                                   -5.0%
Pa.              +3.8%                                   -3.7%
Del.              +5.6%                                 -3.6%
Md.              +9.0%                                 -3.0%
US                +6.7%                                  -5.2%
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------

 1: 42 p.m. (Approximate. I lost track of the time.) Mantell gives the forecast. New Jersey's job market will grow only slowly for the next decade, partly because of demographics; the population won't grow as fast as the rest of the nation. This strikes me as awesome news. The drive from New Brunswick to the Shore at 5 p.m. is a bear. The last thing we need is more people. Eight stars. ********

1:43 p.m. However, New Jersey's unemployment rate from 2011 to 2019 will average 6.2 percent, a far cry from the pre-recession lows of less than 4.5 percent. For an entire decade. Four stars. ****

1:50 p.m. Joel Cantor, director for Rutgers' Center for State Health Policy, takes the podium to discuss the economic impact of the health services industry. I should tell you, this topic makes me conflicted. Taxpayers, employers and workers are having to shell out major money to pay for our health care system. But as Cantor says: "Every dollar spent in the health care system is a cost to someone, but it also is income to someone." Three stars. ***

1:52 p.m. New Jersey residents use a ton of expensive health care services. Health care comprises 11 percent of the state's economy. The bills being debated in Congress will extend coverage to more people but won't do much to get costs under control. The special interests are ruling the day. And I'm feeling queasy. Two stars. **

2:03 p.m.(Again, approximate time.) Conference ends after a spirited question-and-answer session. And it becomes clear that any attempt to predict the state's economy over the next decade should be taken at arm's length. Dr. Seneca reminds me after the event that no one could predict the high-tech boom of the '90s.

The worst of the recession is over, he says. Workers are innovative. They will come up with the next big thing. Whatever it is. The trick is, this time the country has to figure out how to manufacture the product here.

I give it three stars.*** Better than January, but still a long ways to go.

This custom home in Holmdel just sold for more than $3 million. (Photo: Pinnacle Custom)

Wondering how far your $3 million will go in the new home market? Look no further than Hop Brook Estates in Holmdel. Pinnacle Custom recently announced the sale of a "$3 million-plus" home at Hop Brook Estates.

And there are two other homes still available: priced under $2 million.

So back to the $3 million property. The 7,800-square-foot five-bedroom, custom, home sits on 3.43 acres.

Other high points:

• Four-car heated garage.
• A hearth or family room with 20 foot ceilings and a fireplace.
• Kitchen with professional appliances, as well as a breakfast room.
• Butlers pantry and hostess plan room.
• Library with built-in desk and cabinetry.
• Learning center on the second floor.
• Gym in the basement.
• Recreation room.
• Media room.
• Covered outdoor terrace.