From CNBC:
The May jobs report is coming and economic reports don’t get much more important than this one
The economy was expected to have added a solid 180,000 jobs in May, but if the payroll number is much stronger or weaker than forecast, that could be a game changer for the markets and any consumers or businesses looking for a loan.
Coming amid a huge shift in expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, economists say a big miss either way in Friday morning’s May employment report could have a profound impact on markets and help decide the timing of the first Fed interest rate cut in more than 10 years.
“There’s clearly been a shift in Fed rhetoric,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist Americas at Natixis. He said Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida helped first stir the speculation that the Fed would lower rates when he discussed several weeks ago how the fact the central bank in the past had cut rates pre-emptively, or made an ‘insurance’ cut.
Other Fed officials, like St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, also made dovish comments about cutting rates. Then Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a Fed conference in Chicago this week that trade is having an uncertain affect on the economy, and the Fed “will act as appropriate to sustain the expansion.”
“What’s interesting about the employment report is it raises the chance that the Fed could move,” said LaVorgna.
The May jobs report follows April’s surprisingly robust 263,000 payrolls, but other data, like retail sales and manufacturing data have been sending mixed messages. Economists also expect hourly wages rose by 0.3% in May and unemployment was unchanged at 3.6%, according to Dow Jones.
Comments yesterday about the Star Ledger being a political mouthpiece, likely spot on.
In all the good news:
https://www.nj.com/news/2019/06/barclays-moving-500-jobs-to-nj-from-delaware.html
The Star Ledger forgot to mention that this move was negotiated by Christie along with a $40 million dollar tax break from the EDA.
Perhaps Murph should rescind the tax break offered and see what happens?
Average of the Bloomberg survey respondents is 175k
Some folks fearing under 100k (CNBC)
Jobs + 75,000
U/E: 3.6%
Wages: 3.1%. yoy
Downward revisions on past 2 months, 75k
Homeboken,
This is why there is never a teacher shortage, yet they are severely underpaid. You simply have good people signing up to do the job. The same reason Catholic schools get teachers with borderline poverty compensation of 40,000 dollars. We are simply taking advantage of them. Would you go to college to make 59,000 dollars after 12 years? Do you know how much money you are losing per year going this route? You have to be insane to take this on, yet you claim they are overpaid? Wtf planet are you living on? Take away the pensions and this group is beyond screwed in their retirement. I think it’s wrong to do this, but what do I know…
“you have to altruistic and really interested in educating children to want to become a teacher.”
” it is crystal-clear who is running Trenton right now — it’s not the governor’s office. It’s the headquarters of the NJEA”
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2019/06/07/sweeney-no-nj-millionaires-tax-hike-no-125-tax-credit/1371643001/
Gov. Phil Murphy and the “dark money” group run by his allies can keep pumping money into television ads promoting a millionaires tax in the next state budget, but it isn’t going to convince the state’s top lawmaker to support it, he said Thursday.
Murphy has tried to sweeten the pot by dangling a $125 credit to taxpayers if lawmakers support his proposal to raise rates on incomes over $1 million from 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent. But Democratic leaders — who repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought the millionaires tax under former Gov. Chris Christie — have said they no longer support the increase.
“I’m not doing it,’’ Senate President Stephen Sweeney said in an interview, shortly before he met with Murphy and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin in Trenton.
Even though the advertisements have not softened Sweeney’s position on raising rates on high earners, they have been revealing, Sweeney said, since at least $2.5 million of the Murphy-aligned group’s funding came from the New Jersey Education Association.
“He can spend $10 million in TV commercials from the NJEA, because it is crystal-clear who is running Trenton right now — it’s not the governor’s office. It’s the headquarters of the NJEA,” Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said in the interview.
The solution to most of these problems is cheap plentiful electricity.
It looks like the economy is slowing down due to the tariffs. Can the low oil prices help it rebound?
What’s a TV commercial?
Never heard of that.
What nonsense….is this guy serious? Yes, the njea runs the state of nj, please tell me another one…
““He can spend $10 million in TV commercials from the NJEA, because it is crystal-clear who is running Trenton right now — it’s not the governor’s office. It’s the headquarters of the NJEA,” Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said in the interview.”
The most telling piece of that article. These guys flip-flopped on an issue they nailed christie with for years…this is all an attack on Murphy so he can’t carry out his plans. Won’t let him get pot revenue, won’t let him get revenue from a millionaire tax that won’t force anyone to move because if they were in the position to move, they would have already done so with the current 9% rate. They are doing their best to prevent him from doing his job….his own party. Says a lot. They actually worked with Christie, yet road block their own party every step of the way from carrying out the agenda. Showing their true colors…
“But Democratic leaders — who repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought the millionaires tax under former Gov. Chris Christie — have said they no longer support the increase.”
Pumpkin – Its an old article but still factually accurate.
Teachers are paid precisely what they are worth, in aggregate. Yes there are some that are underpaid, just like there are some that are overpaid. But teachers seem to hate the argument that they should be compared to the rest of society in terms of compensation/hours.
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/ib_05.pdf
The median household income for N. Jersey is $71,367. Teachers comp fits this curve nicely. When you consider the hours required being 30% less than the private sector (see above study) along with the benefit package, it seems obvious to me that teachers are doing just fine. And here’s the thing, if they are being terrible taken advantage of, then they are free to find another job. If a teacher shortage is the norm, the market will respond by paying more. How do you say that teachers are so underpaid yet getting a teaching job in N. Jersey is really tough. I
My opinion on the matter is that good teachers are underpaid…and it’s all based upon the idea of a salary step scale that is locked in place in each district.
BRT – I can agree with you there 100%. Good teachers are unfairly lumped into the union wages that protect garbage teachers. It is very unfair and frankly, teachers should be able to opt-out of the union agreements and be allowed to negotiate on their own behalf. I would support that mightily.
Home,
Look at what a teacher does, and then tell me they work fewer hours than everyone else. That’s like saying a “stay at home” mom doesn’t work. That paper’s position is biased. How do you account for all the hours a teacher works? It’s a salary based position for a reason. If they worked such little hours in comparison to the rest of the labor market, why not pay them hourly? Districts would get destroyed with the hourly model. I can only imagine how long it takes to grade 200 papers a night. Even if it takes you one minute per paper, that is still 2oo minutes. Fewer hours?? How do they come to this conclusion?
On top of that, a teacher is a manager. What manager do you know that only makes 70,000 managing 100 people? How can you not say they are underpaid? I don’t get it.
It may be possible now that you have the option of completely opting out of the union due to Janus. Haven’t seen that yet. They still have the ability to do that by leaving the district and going to another one. But, in this day and age of budgetary crunch, admin is content to hire a 21 year old at $45k. They don’t care.
Pumps – Those that are very successful and well-paid in the private sector work a ton of hours outside of the normal “work-day” too. The article addresses exactly that point. Teachers are not unique with their # of hours worked or the effort required to do the job well. Everyone has to deal with some late nights phone calls or early morning emails.
Well, except for low-level P&L analysts, they sit at work for 8 hours a day but generally do about 2 hours of real work. The rest is spent blogging, chatting and complaining about their own lot in life.
Our district actually had a reduction in average salary last year, for every experienced teacher that left or retired, they were replaced by a 22 year old at $50k. “Quality” is not a factor.
The buyer of the Toys R Us headquarters in Passaic County purchased the 193-acre site, which includes a helipad, for $19 million, even though the property has an estimated market value of $94.1 million, according to a report.
Point View Wayne Properties, a limited liability company, obtained the former headquarters through a bankruptcy proceeding in Richmond, Virginia, months ago and finalized the deal in March, according to a report on NorthJersey.com.
https://www.nj.com/news/2019/06/mystery-buyer-of-toys-r-us-headquarters-revealed-and-you-wont-believe-what-a-steal-it-was.html
Home,
You will never convince me that teachers are paid well. I just don’t see it. Again, I ask, what individual in the private sector managing 150 people gets paid under 60k for the first half of their career and then only tops out at 80-100k? That’s insanity right there, but I guess they are paid well since your report says so.
How’s the ping pong Mecca coming idiot?
“They are doing their best to prevent him from doing his job….his own party. Says a lot.”
Because our representative assembly sees what a farce he is. Only the most far left of lefties believe his policies make sense. I, for one, see him exacerbating an already sh1tty situation with disruption after disruption to businesses to meet his noble causes. Meanwhile, the state is sinking quicker and quicker into bankruptcy and he is chasing the few job creators left out of the state.
Murphy is not smart. He is simply playing make believe governor with his Wall Street blood money as the rest of the elected state government tries to come to terms with how to deal with him. Did you guys watch the start of the last state of the state address? He is beyond clueless. He makes Trump look polished. That’s not easy to do.
https://www.facebook.com/NJ.com/videos/2019-state-of-the-state/748815195489883/
I dare you to try to watch the first 5 minutes of this without cringing.
https://www.nj.com/data/2019/06/the-wealthiest-towns-in-nj-ranked.html
Lib,
The fact that Norcross is personally taking shots at Murphy tells me he is doing a pretty good job. Says a lot.
Last time we checked, tax revenue was up huge. So let’s not act like businesses are running away, and the nj economy is dying. He is doing something right.
In Pump’s bizzarro world. Everyone in government gets paid like CEOs. Everyone in the safety net gets paid like CEOs. And CEOs get paid like teachers. All paid for through the money tree.
He really is The Great Pumpkin. And Murphy is Peter Pumpkin Head (read the XTC lyrics).
Pumps – If you are going to compare to private sector wages then you MUST adjust for hours worked. Otherwise you are not being intellectually honest. That $60k is the equivalent to $80k in the private sector. Add in the benefits package and the total teacher comp. is above AMI for the area.
Teaching is not meant to be a get rich career. People that desire riches would never go into teaching. People become teachers for many other reasons but becoming a millionaire is not one of them.
Lastly – You can think of teachers as a manager of 150 employees if you wish. I disagree. If you have ever worked as a manager of adults, you would understand the difference.
Home and Lib,
It has nothing to do with “govt” jobs. It has nothing to do with anything besides the fact that someone should be compensated for what they do.
Home,
I’m glad you think it’s more difficult to manage adults as opposed to children that can’t be fired. You really disrespect their profession. You basically come off as they are teachers, therefore they don’t deserve to be compensated, if they did, should have went to another field, correct? Just don’t agree with that…
Pumps. You are such a simpleton. Revenue is up due to Federal policy. It’s up in spite of Murphy’s actions.
re: “what a steal it was” and “even though the property has an estimated market value of $94.1 million”
I covered this before New Jersey if chock full of empty office space and empty campuses, all are worthless unless they can be redeveloped. Unless the town of Wayne approves massive mixed-use housing development on that land it will sit vacant. There were no takers since no big company wants it at $300 million, 94.1 million or 20 million.
Google search will show you the blueprint for the lawsuit. The developer will file plans to redevelop and then sue the town when it is not approved. It will be an affordable-housing lawsuit.
It’s not hard to manage the classroom. Lay down the law in the first month and the kids are into a routine.
Did not take long to find this. Blueprint for Toys R Us land use lawsuit.
Wayne is short 2,271 units under it’s COAH obligations.
“Wayne must create 2,271 new affordable-housing units, including the rehabilitation of several existing units, according to master plan documents from 2008 under round three of COAH regulations. COAH regulates the amount of income-restricted housing municipalities are required to have.”
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/passaic/wayne/2017/01/14/wayne-mayor-calls-affordable-housing-quota-atrocious/96503478/
Blumpy’s favorite book is Animal Farm? His ideology and intellectual comprehension speak to Horton Hears a Who? Look out Blumpy, the Wickersham Brothers, I mean Koch brothers are coming..
Maybe the ping pong palace should be converted into a project to help meet Wayne’s low income housing quota?
“My opinion on the matter is that good teachers are underpaid…and it’s all based upon the idea of a salary step scale that is locked in place in each district.”
“But, in this day and age of budgetary crunch, admin is content to hire a 21 year old at $45k. They don’t care.”
Boom. In my blue ribbon, number one school district in the state I (which is apparently one of the wealthiest towns per the above link as well) we are overrun with cheap twenty-somethings living in Hoboken and reverse commuting to teach.
Teenage boys don’t complain, neither do the dads on back to school nights, since they’re easy on the eyes and sweet.
When we convinced a well respected private school teacher to apply who had deep community ties…no interview, he was a non-starter….given his age, degrees, and at least one certification the union pay scale was way too much…He said he would work for less, not allowed. He HAD to be paid scale or not hired.
Unions suck.
I hate the term, “mixed-use” when it comes to these open spaces. Affordable housing? 2000 plus units? Does that mean 2000 plus cars jammed onto already choked roads? There’s no train so what’s the options here? A shuttle? A bus? Do we need to stuff more people into every square inch of this state? And what does mixed-use actually mean? More box stores? Don’t they need to contain the rain runoff as well?
leftwing. We are seeing the same thing with the special education teachers in our district. The tenured ones are all leaving to be refilled with inexperienced newbies.
Also, correction, Blumpy is a junior credit analyst. Even a P&L analyst would understand value diff bw managing a team responsible for business revenue vs. a public speaker “managing” an audience. And to answer question, hubdreds of thousands of people have mangerial duties and don’t get 6 figures. Walk into any smaller business, clothing store, restaurant or fast food joint, you arrogant d$ck.
“Again, I ask, what individual in the private sector managing 150 people gets paid under 60k for the first half of their career and then only tops out at 80-100k? “
mixed use – ping pong practice facility during work hours and low income housing shelter at night
““Again, I ask, what individual in the private sector managing 150 people gets paid under 60k for the first half of their career and then only tops out at 80-100k?”
That looks an awful lot like my career.
Let me open your triangular jack o lantern eye holes…
New Jerseyans have a median HOUSEHOLD income of $72,062. Who is underpaid?
Who comes up with this crap?
Why does affordable housing get access to the most beautiful lots in the town? WTF?! Affordable housing should have no business being built on desirable land, that’s just wrong in so many ways…
I’d argue further, that this headquarters is probably the most beautiful vancant land in north jersey….and affordable housing gets to live there….what a big f u to the rest of us. Why do I work so hard again?
Go knock down the land on rt 23 and build affordable there. Don’t give them access to the best land at a discounted cost on the backs of everyone else.
Juice Box says:
June 7, 2019 at 10:47 am
Did not take long to find this. Blueprint for Toys R Us land use lawsuit.
Wayne is short 2,271 units under it’s COAH obligations.
“Wayne must create 2,271 new affordable-housing units, including the rehabilitation of several existing units, according to master plan documents from 2008 under round three of COAH regulations. COAH regulates the amount of income-restricted housing municipalities are required to have.”
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/passaic/wayne/2017/01/14/wayne-mayor-calls-affordable-housing-quota-atrocious/96503478/
A bunch of people with no skill bring that number down. I don’t know any college graduate that is competent making less than 70,000 dollars. Six figures is becoming the norm…
“New Jerseyans have a median HOUSEHOLD income of $72,062. Who is underpaid?”
Just shut up already.
Good luck on the affordable housing..watched 20 hours of meeting in my town…Developers are leveraged by the Fair Housing group to litigate, litigate, litigate….
http://fairsharehousing.org/
PayScale estimates the typical graduate with zero to five years experience makes $48,400. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) calculates that the preliminary average starting salary for graduates from the class of 2018 is about $50,004. – Feb 17, 2019
Your anecdotal evidence wouldn’t be so bad, well, if it didn’t come from you.
Teachers don’t ‘manage’ 150 people……Students are analogous to ‘customers’, not ’employees’.
Plus, study halls don’t count, it’s babysitting.
So a teacher may see up to 90 customers in multiple group settings (not individually) daily for 50 minutes per session for the service they provide.
Comparable jobs? Coach. Chef at a small restaurant. Banquet hall manager.
NOT a manager of 90 professionals who all have customers of their own.
Don’t misunderstand, IMO teachers’ contributions and responsibilities are ‘higher’ than those of a coach or chef given the intellectual component of the ‘service’ provided and the age and formative state of the ‘customer’.
They are not, however, managers. They are employees that deliver a purchased service directly to the end user customer in a group setting.
There’s a difference.
Pure arrogance. There are tons of dumb college grads and tons of brilliant non college grads. I would hire the 20 year old who manages the night shift at ShopRite over your dumba$$.
I showed you all what the greedy developers are putting up in Glen Ridge due to our COAH shortage. Nothing like having a small piece of Brooklyn in the middle of bucolic Glen Ridge.
Jesus, I’m 39, I don’t know graduates starting out so I wasn’t referencing them. I stated that any competent college grad I know is making 70’000 or more, with 6 figures being the norm. I stand by that.
Libturd, seen crazy things done with ping pong balls. says:
June 7, 2019 at 11:33 am
PayScale estimates the typical graduate with zero to five years experience makes $48,400. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) calculates that the preliminary average starting salary for graduates from the class of 2018 is about $50,004. – Feb 17, 2019
Your anecdotal evidence wouldn’t be so bad, well, if it didn’t come from you.
Lmao….affordable housing might seriously take down nj. Going to ruin a lot of towns with this latest policy…
Nothing like having a small piece of Brooklyn in the middle of bucolic Glen Ridge.
Drive down Kinderkamack Road through Park Ridge and take a look at that monstrosity they’re building. What is it? What an eye sore!
There are enormous rental apartments that are coming on line in central and northern Bergen county. Some already up and open, others started, and still others approved. Hackensack, Paramus, River Edge, New Milford, Washington Township, and Park Ridge. Bergen ain’t Mayberry no more.
Comment in moderation don’t know what triggerd it.
Anyone getting antsy about this stock market?
I’ve begun to cycle into more conservative names. Anyone else?
Lots of apartments being built all over Bergen County. And long time residents even people proud to call themselves liberals are not happy.
Valetudinarian – [val-ə-too-də-NAIR-ee-ən] – noun
Definition: A person of a weak or sickly constitution
Please travel to your local government office and submit yourself for reprogramming.
Thank you in advance for your attention to this important matter.
homeboken says:
June 7, 2019 at 9:09 am
Pumpkin – Its an old article but still factually accurate.
Teachers are paid precisely what they are worth, in aggregate. Yes there are some that are underpaid, just like there are some that are overpaid. But teachers seem to hate the argument that they should be compared to the rest of society in terms of compensation/hours.
Bergen County apartment construction nothing out of the ordinary. Naive locals notice because little multifamily was built for decades so a normal building pace surprises them.
Toys HQ pricing is ugly. $30 per office square foot – plus excess land – is like something out of Detroit.
How is Wayne looking on COAH requirements? Could be time for some apartment buildings going up on Geoffrey Way.
In the market the same way for the last 11 months….2 day, 2 week, or 2 month max time horizon. Locking gains at least in part when I can. Using volatility to help reduce cost.
Powell or Trump uttering the wrong thing moves market 3-5% over a couple days…both leaning on the same side of the boat, even worse…Monday a big day with mexico, no?
Not convinced conservative (value) is way to go if we get to giddyup mode, Fed easing (which is a virtual given by July or market tanks if they don’t) and tariff fix and we’re off to races. Think value will lag.
Moves within the last week or so…
Hopped back into PINS a couple days ago when she bounced again off IPO price without breaking it. Just exited half at 10% up and wrote some calls on the remainder. A name that absent the great market unknown I would otherwise hold LT…like the chart a lot, and growth story. Again, keeping tight leash on time horizon and gains though.
The ‘guardrails’ for my LYFT trading position are now 54/70…I’ve written enough calls and puts against my LEAP that it now has no cost basis, notwithstanding that the recent rise brought it into profitability anyway even with the fat premium I had to pay for it. Playing entirely with house money on that one so I’ll just hold it until it clearly reverses. LYFT IRA collar (write put/long call) I sold out.
Have a pot stock that seems to like to move 5% +/- nearly daily, ha. Trying to time that one to cost average down the put side of a collar, showing a loss of 539% as I type but nearly all time value and premium. So it’s a waiting game for a month or so.
TSLA, fcuking LOL, still have the 195 puts I wrote, put on a long spread beneath it and further out as insurance as I don’t trust that little b1tch at all and don’t want to see gains turn into losses.
Still nursing a CVS position, a little more optimistic on it now than before.
BMY is my only real LT hold…
Still looking for short recommendations I can keep in my back pocket….
Only fitting that affordable housing gets prime real estate right next to a beautiful reservoir. Can’t make this stuff up… who came up with this law?
Yo! says:
June 7, 2019 at 1:58 pm
How is Wayne looking on COAH requirements? Could be time for some apartment buildings going up on Geoffrey Way.
Still looking for short recommendations I can keep in my back pocket….
BYND….. LOL
almost 8B market cap on $365M revenue
Only fitting that affordable housing gets prime real estate right next to a beautiful reservoir. Can’t make this stuff up… who came up with this law?
The same people who propose solutions to reduce inequality
I’ve begun to cycle into more conservative names. Anyone else?
Since December, large cap, small debt, moderate dividends.
Libturd,
I hate Murphy’s fake toothy politician smile. He’s really just baring his top row of teeth at people.
In the video he was just giving shoutouts at first. It was weird that he gave a shout out that his sister in law died unexpectedly that day, but merely referred to her as one of his wife’s sisters. While flashing his smile before, and again soon after.
He looks like he could have been a good Catholic priest in Boston. He was born in MA, after all.
Yo it most certainly is out of the ordinary. I have lived in Bergen for 30 years and I have never seen so much apartment building. And it’s 3 or more stories high. Towns don’t appear to be fighting it either. And these are parcels of land where single family homes or condos could be built but they are building rentals instead.
I’ve begun to cycle into more conservative names. Anyone else?
Like Sarah or Mary, as opposed to Shaneequa, or Spontaneous Bootay?
LOL chi.
Some shorts there must be bleeding out of every orifice.
Look at nearer term ATM put/call premiums like July….crazy.
Damnit. I was going to suggest BYND too. It’s the same story as TSLA, but with meat alternatives instead of battery powered engines. Both will become very popular one day. Just not anytime soon.
From Liptessa to Lisa.
Bloomberg gets it! How many times have I said this on this blog…
“I’m as much a capitalist as you will ever find,” he said. “But anyone who believes that unfettered capitalism works hasn’t read history.”
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/05/michael-bloomberg-extolls-moral-leadership-at-harvards-class-day/
A series of well-intentioned government decisions since the 1960s has left us with today’s out-of-control higher education market.
THE SATURDAY ESSAY
The Long Road to the Student Debt Crisis
By Josh Mitchell
The U.S. student loan system is broken.
How broken? The numbers tell the story. Borrowers currently owe more than $1.5 trillion in student loans, an average of $34,000 per person. Over 2 million of them have defaulted on their loans in just the past six years, and the number grows by 1,400 a day. After years of projecting big profits from student lending, the federal government now acknowledges that taxpayers stand to lose $31.5 billion on the program over the next decade, and the losses are growing rapidly.
Meanwhile, four in 10 recent college graduates are in jobs that don’t require a degree, according to the New York Federal Reserve. And many American colleges are dropout factories: At more than a third of them, less than half of the students who enroll earn a credential within 8 years, according to the think tank Third Way.
The U.S. is shoveling more and more money into a highly inefficient system that, polls find, Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with. College tuition has soared 1,375% since 1978, more than four times the rate of overall inflation, Labor Department data show. The U.S. now spends more on higher education than any other developed country (except Luxembourg)—about $30,000 a student, according to the OECD. Meanwhile, college presidents are being handsomely rewarded for the success of their enterprises: Seventy of them, including a dozen at public colleges, earned over $1 million in 2016-17, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
How did we get here?
The student loan system was built in the 1960s on the overarching belief that higher education is a safe and worthy investment for both society and the individual. At the time, the first children born after World War II—the baby boomer generation—were beginning to graduate from high school and enter college. The American economy was becoming more sophisticated and knowledge-based. Education had been a key factor behind the nation’s impressive economic growth and rising living standards, to say nothing of its standing as a global superpower.
At the start of the century, less than a tenth of American workers had a high school diploma, let alone a college degree. But by the 1960s, high school was universally required and college attendance was growing rapidly. Economists started to talk about college as an investment in human capital that drove wage gains for workers and raised the economy’s total productivity.
Officials in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson and members of Congress wanted to make sure that everyone shared in the gains. Previously, college had largely been confined to upper-income whites. Now the hope was that colleges would level the playing field for minorities, the poor and the middle class. “It was quite clear to us…this was an economy that was screwing a group of people—or not helping a group of people it should be helping,” said David Mundel, who served as a budget analyst in the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Banks were reluctant to make loans to students, who were viewed as risky prospects, so Johnson successfully pushed Congress to pass the 1965 Higher Education Act, which provided funding for the government to guarantee student loans made by banks, shifting almost all the risk to taxpayers.
But Johnson wanted to come up with a longer-term strategy for financing higher education. He and Congress faced a pivotal decision: Should the bulk of federal money go to schools or directly to students? The task of settling that question fell to a young economist in the administration named Alice Rivlin, who in the late 1960s headed a task force on the issue (before going on to become the first head of the Congressional Budget Office, President Bill Clinton’s top budget official and the vice chair of the Federal Reserve).
The Rivlin panel came down on the side of direct aid to students, essentially endorsing a voucher system—the one that we have today—in which the federal government gives students a combination of loans and grants. Student loans became an entitlement, like Social Security, which students were free to spend at the school of their choice.
In one of her last interviews before she died this spring, Rivlin said that they expected this system to empower minorities and the poor. “It evolved into an almost fixation—among economists anyway—with the idea that higher education added to your future income and therefore loan finance was a sensible thing. You could pay it back out of your future income,” Rivlin told me. “Companies can borrow to buy equipment. People ought to be able to borrow to invest in themselves. ”The so-called Rivlin report came out in January 1969, weeks before the new Nixon administration took over. The Nixon administration and Congress largely followed Rivlin’s blueprint in the Higher Education Act of 1972. That act made permanent the government’s role in guaranteeing student loans made by private banks. It also created Sallie Mae, a quasi-public entity designed to jump-start the student loan market. Sallie Mae borrowed from the Treasury at low rates and used the money to buy student loans from banks, thus freeing up banks to make even more loans to students.
What could go wrong? As it turned out, a lot.
The combination of open access to schools and open access to loans turned the higher education market into a version of the Wild West. Schools of all types, banks, nonprofit guarantee agencies and Wall Street investors competed for federal student-loan dollars. In particular, the system gave colleges an incentive to maximize the tuition they extracted from students and the federal taxpayer by boosting fees and enrollment, which meant relaxing admissions standards.
The federal government didn’t want to put in place any academic criteria to prevent someone from getting aid. The idea emerged that anyone who wanted to go to college should be able to. “We didn’t think about dropouts,” Mr. Mundel said. They didn’t consider the possibility that a large number of students would end up in debt without earning a degree or the higher wages that come with it.
The voucher system, combined with a lack of government oversight, created perverse incentives: Colleges could raise money quickly by admitting academically suspect students while suffering little or no consequences if their students dropped out and defaulted on loans.
The market was suddenly flooded with cheap money, which led to a surge in the ranks of college-going students. Colleges responded to higher demand by raising prices, leading Congress to increase loan limits and grants. This cycle continued throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as Sallie Mae and private banks that fronted students the money for the federal student loan program made big profits—and schools collected more money.
By 2000, higher education had become an opaque and dysfunctional market. Students and families have had to accept it as an article of faith that taking on big college debt is still worth it, since official data has been hard to come by. Only last month did the federal government release, for the first time, data showing the average debt burden of students leaving particular programs within a school. Previously, the government only published schoolwide debt statistics.
The severe recession that began in 2007 led to a boom in college and graduate-school enrollment, as workers who couldn’t find jobs went into higher education. President Barack Obama’s administration tried to address many of higher education’s problems through regulation. For example, it put in place rules designed to force for-profit trade schools to shut down if too many of their students defaulted on loans. But Mr. Obama doubled down on the basic idea that college is a safe investment for students and the country. In his first speech to Congress, in February 2009, he said that his budget would invest in education, in part through student loans, and asked every American to spend at least a year in college. “Every American will need to get more than a high school diploma,” he said.
His administration cut out the middlemen by killing off the Guaranteed Student Loan Program, the one created under Presidents Johnson and Nixon that relied on banks, in favor of a direct loan program, in which money came from the Treasury. But the government’s loose lending policy, with few questions asked, remained in place.
The Obama administration also heavily promoted income-based repayment programs, which set borrowers’ monthly payments at 10% of their discretionary income and then forgave a portion of their debt after 20 to 25 years of payments. This severed the link between the value of students’ education and how much they could borrow, providing a huge incentive for schools to raise tuition, since taxpayers would pick up more of the tab. Enrollment in these programs is one big reason that the government’s costs for student loans are exploding.
In several important ways, the student loan system has achieved the objectives set out by policy makers a half-century ago. More Americans gained access to college: The number of full-time workers with bachelor’s degrees has risen from 7.6 million in 1980 to 19.5 million today. The share of Americans age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree reached 34.2% in 2017, double what it was in 1980, Education Department data show. And for the typical borrower, higher education is an investment that pays off: The college premium—the amount graduates earn over workers without degrees—remains at an all-time high. About 40% of all student debt goes to finance graduate degrees, including law and medical degrees, which typically lead to high salaries.
But those averages obscure big problems. Many groups are benefiting unevenly, or not at all, from college degrees. “The extent of the returns depended on several demographic characteristics—most notably, when people were born and their races or ethnicities,” the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reported earlier this year. “In particular, the financial benefits one can expect from a college degree appear to be lower among people born in the 1980s, and they remain unequal across racial and ethnic groups.”
Worse, millions of students took out loans but never earned a degree. High college dropout rates continue. And many households and employers no longer seem to think that college is “worth it.” Companies including Google, Apple and IBM have dropped the requirement that job applicants have college degrees: They no longer think that a degree is automatically needed to succeed.
Where do we go from here?
Members of both parties acknowledge that the system is broken, but they have offered very different sorts of fixes. Some Democrats endorse the idea of free college, or at least a system in which the government directly subsidizes public colleges. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), as part of her campaign for her party’s presidential nomination, has called for canceling up to $640 billion in student debt. She and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who is also running for president, have endorsed tuition-free college.
Meanwhile, Republicans have favored a system that would shift student-loan financing to the private sector. Under its president Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor, Purdue University has tested a plan for income share agreements, in which students receive funding from investors to cover tuition in exchange for a share of their income for a period of time after graduation.
Each approach has its benefits and risks. Free college would relieve financial burdens on students and households, likely boosting enrollment and, perhaps, graduation rates. Surveys show that resistance to college costs are a big reason why students either don’t go to college or drop out early. But such a plan might well bring new problems. Schools would become subject to even more political control, potentially undermining the quality of the educational experience. Costs could continue to rise and strain government budgets. And without other reforms, low graduation rates could persist.
Income share agreements could lower costs and improve outcomes by tying loan amounts to objective judgments of how much the student is likely to earn from her degree. Educational quality could also benefit: Investors would presumably advance students money only for schools that were doing a decent job of teaching them. The risks are that some borrowers could end up paying far more under such a scheme than the current plan and that investors might not lend to students they consider too risky.
In any case, these changes would only apply to prospective students. They wouldn’t do anything to help people currently struggling under the burden of student debt. In February, I asked Rivlin what she thought about the system she helped to create 50 years ago. Her response: “We unleashed a monster.”
He sounds a lot like Pumpkin…just saying..
“This principle reaches beyond business, Bloomberg stressed — particularly today, when people are questioning not only our economic system but the fundamentals of our government. “My luckiest break was taking a job out of College where I got to see the ethics I learned growing up put into practice in the workplace,” he said. “But when we look at today’s world, it’s not clear that everyone with a degree in business has those principles. And that’s one reason, I believe, that this great country of ours is suffering from an ethical crisis that is corroding our society.”
Faced with rising income inequality and partisan politics, the public today sees “truth and science being trampled with reckless abandon” and the rule of law “attacked and undermined,” he said. The result is a lack of faith that can foster extremists on both the left and right, he warned.
“More and more Americans — especially in your generation — are questioning whether capitalism is capable of creating a just society,” he said. “Their faith in America and all that we represent is being shaken. If we do not act to restore it, the turmoil in our politics today will be only a prelude of what’s to come, and that could shake the very foundations of our society.”
Part of the answer, he stressed, is regulation. Citing both Teddy Roosevelt’s breaking up of the monopolies and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, he said politics should mute the worst impulses of the business world in order to promote public good.”
Something to add to the Murphy list from yesterday…maybe the first veto override in a long time.
https://observer.com/2019/06/nj-politics-digest-legislature-reportedly-prepared-to-override-murphys-veto/
Blue Ribbon Teacher says:
June 7, 2019 at 2:15 pm
I’ve begun to cycle into more conservative names. Anyone else?
Since December, large cap, small debt, moderate dividends.
chicagofinance says:
May 23, 2019 at 4:24 pm
left: I’m getting very vanilla…. focusing more on beta than alpha….. domestic…..
Honestly, for some reason I’ve put on a lot of high quality corporate debt recently…. sometimes I wonder why TF I do these things….. today was shocking really….. I don’t know whether the market is pricing China properly……..
https://jerseydigs.com/144-east-saddle-river-road-for-sale-saddle-river/
Super-mansion going to auction in Saddle River (last listed at $30m). Appears to be owned by a guy who formerly owned most of the Pizza Huts and KFC’s in Russia.
“Damnit. I was going to suggest BYND too.”
Stu, think Chi was kidding. There’s no way to reasonably make this trade, and any that have tried have been absolutely steamrolled. Stock borrow rate is literally the highest out there, +/- 100%. Put option vol is 145%.
You find a way to take an effective risk adjusted short with those stats LMK.
Oh, and don’t forget there’s only 11m shares out there…….small float
Get him out of here…he’s not even an elected official, yet controls the state govt. F’n disgusting. Modern day boss tweed.
“South Jersey Democratic power broker George Norcross wants a state judge to stop the task force investigating New Jersey’s tax incentive programs from issuing a report next week and holding another hearing.”
https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2019/06/06/norcross-asks-judge-to-block-task-forces-report-on-tax-incentives-1046990
Nice week this week. Though I only watch one big US biotech
Happy Fathers Day – one and all!
Little early on that Father’s Day?
3b what was out of the ordinary was the lack of new apartment construction for decades in Bergen County. Permit data going back to 1980 shows little being built until 2012 when the current building pace (1,500 permits annually) began. Far more units were built in 1950s, 60s, 70s.
Yo those apartments the garden apartments were built after the end of world war 2 to accomadate returning vets and the exodus to the suburbs. And then as you note it stopped. Many of those apartments were supposed to be temporary and were expected to be torn down in a few years. They were not. My point as previously stated is that developers are building apartments not condos or single family houses. I don’t know ultimately where these people will come from to inhabit them but they are being built. These surburban towns are going to end up having a much more urban feel. And that is upsetting people. As well as the potential change in ethnic demographics.
More apartments will be built in the expensive suburbs in nj because the unelected judges sitting on the New Jersey Supreme Court divined a “right” to affordable housing which mandates that all towns provide their “fair share”. The NJ Supreme Court is the only high court of all the states that has taken that step, despite it being decades since they issued the Mount Laurel ruling.
Through delay strategies and inaction, the full force of this ruling has not yet been felt in nj. However, a year or two ago, the Supreme Court of nj mandated direct court oversight of each town’s compliance with their affordable housing obligations. Frankly, I was expecting to see much, much, much more apartment construction around nj in the wake of that decision. However, it seems the towns have been able to settle with the fair share housing alliance for much fewer units than their “obligation”.
As a person who is not a homeowner, this construction is beneficial for me because there is more housing supply and theoretically lower prices. However, that doesn’t change how stupid and outlandish the Supreme Court of NJ’s mount laurel doctrine is.