Brooks excoriates Republicans

March 10, 2009

The New York Times’ David Brooks goes after John Boehner and the GOP leadership in his Tuesday column:

The current Republican response is totally misguided. The House minority leader, John Boehner, has called for a federal spending freeze for the rest of the year. In other words, after a decade of profligacy, the Republicans have decided to demand a rigid fiscal straitjacket at the one moment in the past 70 years when it is completely inappropriate.

The G.O.P. leaders have adopted a posture that allows the Democrats to make all the proposals while all the Republicans can say is ???no.??? They??™ve apparently decided that it??™s easier to repeat the familiar talking points than actually think through a response to the extraordinary crisis at hand.

COTA ridership soared in 2008

March 10, 2009

As reported by COTA:

The Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) provided over 16.4 million passenger trips in 2008, an increase of nearly 10 percent over 2007. On an average weekday, 57,000 passenger trips are taken on COTA.

Nationally, public transit ridership was up 4 percent in 2008 according to a report released by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) on Monday. Americans took 10.7 billion trips on public transportation last year, the highest level of ridership in 52 years.

COTA??™s ridership increase was among the highest among comparable transit authorities. Along with volatile fuel prices, COTA??™s ongoing service expansion program and the upgrading of its bus fleet are making transit a convenient and economical option for central Ohio residents.

???We are pleased to welcome more customers to COTA,??? said Bill Lhota, President/CEO. ???Fortunately we are able to accommodate the higher demand for transit by adding more service and new routes.???

COTA is expanding service by 60,000 hours annually by adding service to its busiest routes, introducing service to new destinations and adding new express routes. The Authority is acquiring 40 new coaches annually, adding Park & Ride locations, investing in the renovation of its fixed-route bus facilities, and constructing a new facility for Mainstream, its demand response service for people with disabilities.

The increases in 2008 are continuing in 2009. For the week ending March 1, COTA ridership was up 7.6 percent over the same week a year ago. Year-to-date ridership is up 4.5 percent.

Cleveland’s foreclosure problems make cover of NYTimes Mag

March 9, 2009

08foreclose31Tony Brancatelli, a Cleveland City Councilman, has been dealing with foreclosure issues for much longer than most of the country. What can America learn from his experience, and his city’s experience?

Sullivan: This is not socialism

March 9, 2009

Blogger Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic Monthly writes:

Most Americans understand what this man inherited.

He didn’t borrow and spend in a boom, as Bush did. He is borrowing and spending to counter a downturn more pernicious than any in memory. He isn’t bailing out the banks with an invisible and unaccountable slush-fund, as Bush did. He’s doing so transparently and bending over backwards to keep as many banks in private hands (not socialist enough for many, even on the right).

Obama pushing for global stimulus

March 9, 2009

President Obama, acknowledging the perilous situation facing economies worldwide, is pushing for global leaders to boost emergency economic spending.

All sides are looking to avoid a breakdown at the summit that would roil markets, which are already wary about whether government leaders know how to stem the economic decline, say U.S. officials and international economists. Expectations of the summit are high: A coordinated response is seen as critical so each government’s efforts reinforce, rather than impede, the efforts of others.

The differences could be hashed out this coming weekend in London at a meeting of finance ministers from the G-20, and in Washington, in the steady stream of global leaders and finance ministers visiting Mr. Obama.

U.S. officials, who could receive support from China and other countries with big stimulus programs, contend additional government spending is needed to reduce the depth and length of the downturn.

Why the poor stay poor

March 9, 2009

A new book reviewed in Sunday’s NYTimes Book Review by Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson outlines the complicated and interdependent issues at play in making it so rare for the poor to escape their poverty.

In ???More Than Just Race,??? the Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson recaps his own important research over the past 20 years as well as some of the best urban sociology of his peers to make a convincing case that both institutional and systemic impediments and cultural deficiencies keep poor blacks from escaping poverty and the ghetto.

The systemic impediments include both the legacy of racism and dramatic economic changes that have fallen with disproportionate severity on poor blacks. State-enforced racial discrimination created the ghetto: in the early 20th century local governments separated the races into segregated neighborhoods by force of law, and later, whites used private agreements and violent intimidation to keep blacks out of white neighborhoods. Worst, and most surprising of all, the federal government played a major role in encouraging the racism of private actors and state governments. Until the 1960s, federal housing agencies engaged in racial red?­lining, refusing to guarantee mortgages in inner-city neighborhoods; private lenders quickly followed suit.

Meanwhile, economic and demographic changes that had nothing to do with race aggravated the problems of the ghetto. Encouraged by recently built highways and inexpensive real estate, middle-class residents and industry left the inner city to relocate to roomier and less costly digs in the suburbs during the ??™60s and ??™70s. Those jobs that remained available to urban blacks further dwindled as companies replaced well-paid and unionized American workers with automation and cheaper overseas labor. The new economy produced most of its jobs at the two poles of the wage scale: high-paying jobs for the well educated and acculturated (lawyers, bankers, management consultants) and low-paying jobs for those with little education or skills (fast food, telemarketing, janitorial services).

And, as Wilson argued in an earlier book, ???The Declining Significance of Race,???the success of the civil rights movement inadvertently made things worse for the most disadvantaged. After federal law prohibited housing discrimination, successful blacks began to leave the inner city for many of the same reasons whites did: in search of better schools, less crime, lower taxes and a leafier landscape. This left the least well off behind in ghettos that were both more socially isolated and more economically depressed than ever.

High-tech immigrants leaving U.S.

March 6, 2009

High-tech savvy immigrants, long drivers of advancement and industry in the United States, are now responding to the higher demand back home in larger numbers

It seems to be a political gesture, understandable and probably empty. ???Citibank and the others aren??™t hiring, they??™re firing,??? Vivek Wadhwa, a former technology entrepreneur who is an adjunct professor at Duke University, said in an interview Sunday. ???It has no practical effect, other than to make a couple of senators feel good. But it??™s a stupid message to send.???

The real worry should not be smart foreigners coming to take jobs in America, said Mr. Wadhwa, but all the bright, ambitious immigrants who are leaving the United States and returning home, especially to India and China. That is the topic of a report, ???America??™s Loss Is the World??™s Gain,??? to be released Monday, with Mr. Wadhwa as its principal author and the Kauffman Foundation as the funder.

In the last two decades, Mr. Wadhwa estimates, 50,000 immigrants left the United States and returned to India and China. In the next five years, he projects that 100,000 more will make the return trip. ???A trickle is turning into a flood,??? he said.

Economics, not visa headaches, is the main engine of the shift, according to the two-year research project, which surveyed 1,203 Indian and Chinese workers who had studied or worked in the United States for a year or more before returning home. Growing demand for their skills and shining career opportunities back home were cited by 87 percent of the Chinese and 79 percent of the Indians as the major professional reason for returning. Most also cited the lure of being close to family and friends.

Obama comin’ to Columbus to celebrate cadets’ graduation

March 6, 2009

columbus-cops

He’ll only be here for a few hours, but President Obama will be in Columbus today to attend the private graduation ceremony for a number of police recruits that would not have a job were it not for the stimulus package.

The Washington Post has full coverage of the Columbus cadets, and wonders if Columbus will be able to continue paying their salary after the stimulus money has run out, and looks into the broader situation for Columbus, a bellwether for the rest of the nation.

But Coleman — who in recent years has announced a series of ambitious building projects, from downtown to the depressed east side — is under no illusion about what lies ahead. “This is new for us, even traumatic,” he says of the city’s economic situation.

Like other big-city mayors, he faces a bewildering matrix of challenges in restoring his city’s economic health. Just days ago, for instance, a company on the city’s west side — White Electronic Designs — announced it would lay off 56 workers next month.

Many here realize the situation could be much worse, as it is 3 1/2 hours away in southern Michigan, where the auto industry dominates the local economy. In Columbus, “there hasn’t been that one dominant company that has hurt the local economy as a whole,” says Keith Ewald, chief of the Ohio Bureau of Labor Market Information. “The city tends to weather downturns better than most because we have Ohio State University, the state government and research institutions.”

Still, the local unemployment rate hovers at 7.6 percent, and according to Ewald, it hasn’t been that bad since 1984. Statewide, the jobless number is 9.7 percent.

The Post goes on to outline many of the plans Coleman has for Columbus, and much of the spending he has encouraged in areas like downtown housing, the renovation of the Lincoln Theatre, the Scioto Mile, the Short North, the Arena District and the Columbus Clippers’ new stadium. The question is then: what will happen next to Ohio’s capital city, which is typically so immune to downward economic trends?

Duncan and Children’s Zones

March 6, 2009

The New Republic reports on the Secretary of Education’s thoughts on spreading Children’s Zones across the country:

Over at the Fordham Institute’s blog Flypaper, Mike Petrilli points out that Duncan went on to say, “We need to be more ambitious. The goal shouldn’t be to save a handful of children. The goal should be to dramatically change the opportunity structure for entire neighborhoods of kids.” Petrilli aptly notes that this sounds a great deal like language used by Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a New York-based program designed to transform the lives of entire neighborhoods of children through schools, health clinics, and other local services. At its core, Harlem Children’s Zone focuses on charter schools, which education reformers strongly support. (It’s worth noting that while Obama has backed charter schools publicly, all funding for charters was shorn from the stimulus bill.)

It does appear that Harlem Children’s Zone and similar pioneering programs are informing Duncan’s approach to policy. For instance, in the most recent issue of Chicago magazine, the education secretary had this to say:

Q: Obviously you’re familiar with what [Geoffrey Canada is] doing.

A: Yes. I’m going to create 20 Harlem Children’s Zones around the country. I am.

Q: Really? Do you think you’ll face opposition to the federal role expanding in that way?

A: I don’t care. I’m going to fund it.

That’s pretty bold (and encouraging!) talk, particularly in the face of congressional and union opposition to broadening reform efforts that have only been tested on a small scale–like the Harlem Children’s Zone. But Duncan has been on a bold streak lately. The Washington Post reported today that the education secretary plans to use some of the stimulus money to “adopt on a grander scale ideas that are producing results on a trial basis in some locales.” Duncan praised longer school days instituted by some charter schools, urged that clear standards for student achievement be created, and backed reformers’ pet issue of merit pay. “We also have to make it easier to get rid of teachers when student achievement isn’t happening,” Duncan said.

Dow 1937 vs. Dow 2008-09

March 4, 2009

The similarities between now and then are remarkable:

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The blogger Afraid to Trade explains:

Looking at the charts side-by-side shows a chilling reflection of similar Wave structure progression that unfolded.

The structures contain the expected progression of 5-waves which properly subdivide into corresponding fractal waves as the big picture develops as the bear market progresses.

Keep in mind, there were no computers in 1937, no online brokerage accounts, no hedge funds, etc. What??™s stayed the same – arguably – is human psychology as investors??™ fear and greed interact to create these patterns. Also, Mr. Ralph Elliott almost certainly saw this 5-wave decline develop in the Dow during his time which perhaps was further confirmation of his ???Wave Principle??? he was developing at the time.

In the case of 1938, the circled 5 wave was the bottom (at 100) at that time before an ABC corrective rally launched. If past is prologue, then we have yet to complete the final circled Wave 5 to complete the pattern, though we??™re much closer now than we were.

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