via nytimes.com
Meanwhile, more and more children are “failing” kindergarten, according to the Alliance for Childhood report — and missing out on the kind of early schooling that does help develop 5-year-old minds. Winifred Hagan is a former kindergarten teacher and a vice president at the Cayl Institute in Cambridge, a nonprofit that sponsors conferences for principals and fellowships for the study of early childhood education. She worries that vulnerable kids are being sent down a path to failure inside a system that was created to meet purely political goals. “Kids are spending hours of their day sitting with pencils and tracing dotted lines,” she says. “And we call that education? We are kidding ourselves.”
What numbskull came up with this? Counter-intuitive, counter-scientific, and counter-compassionate.
By Steven Russolillo and Matt Jarzemsky
Goldman Sachs on Wednesday offered a ringing endorsement for U.S. stocks, calling the current environment a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for long-term investors to switch out of bonds and into stocks.
In a detailed 40-page report, Goldman laid out several reasons why the prospect for future returns from stocks relative to bonds are as good as they have been in a generation.
“We think it’s time to say a ‘long good bye’ to bonds, and embrace the `long good buy’ for equities,” wrote Peter Oppenheimer and Matthieu Walterspiler, London-based strategists at Goldman Sachs.
Goldman’s argument is largely based on valuation. The bursting technology bubble in the early 2000s and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression have contributed to the erosion of investor confidence in stocks, Goldman says.
While Goldman acknowledged slowing profit growth in corporate America is a concern, the trend may not be as bad as the market currently expects. And risks of tighter credit and investment spending as well as an aging population on equities valuations are “overstated.”
“Our global projections show that the next decade is likely to be a peak period for global growth,” Goldman says. “If future economic growth is, indeed, stronger, then again the lower expectations currently priced into equity markets is likely to prove too pessimistic.”
A Goldman spokesperson said Mr. Oppenheimer was not available for an interview and preferred to let his research stand for itself.
The report, which hit inboxes in the early hours of Wednesday added fuel to a simmering debate about whether financial markets may have hit an inflection point. And, more importantly, whether the decades-long bull market in bonds may be finally coming to an end.
Yields on the 10-year Treasury bond have jumped about 35 basis points since March 6. For much of 2012, the Treasury market has withstood a strengthening domestic economy and diminishing fears of a European sovereign-debt meltdown. But last week’s hints from the Fed that it may not need to implement another round of stimulus seemed to spook Treasury bulls, prompting prices to fall and yields to shoot higher.
Meanwhile stocks have registered one of the best-ever starts to a year. The S&P 500 is up 12% in 2012, has more than doubled off the 12 ½ year low hit in March 2009 and is about 10% off its all-time high.
For now, though, it seems many investors are yet to come around to Goldman’s way of thinking. Mutual fund-flow data released by the Investment Company Institute on Wednesday showed money is still pouring out of U.S. stock funds and flooding into bond funds.
Translation: Sell Stocks.
You will be missed!
An important story that’s getting attention, first from This American Life, now from the Times.
I don’t buy Jobs’ assertion that “those jobs aren’t coming back”. That’s a decision companies make.
Sure, you can wake up 8,000 Chinese workers in the middle of the night to go build phones. That’s because there are no labor laws in China.
So we should kiss those good jobs goodbye because American companies will always seek out the company with the most Capital-friendly regulatory regimes, and exploit them?
How about Apple takes a few drops from its ocean of cash to build some part of its supply chain in the US?
From a strict utilitarian perspective, there simply is no better car than this, by any manufacturer, including Mercedes, at any price. Cars have only gone downhill since, as I was reminded when the oil level light started blinking last night driving home in my wife’s 2008 BMW 528i. I would have checked the oil, only the thing has no dipstick. That’s right – no dipstick. Except the rafts of overpaid engineers at the overbloated company that designed the thing.
Frankly, you couldn’t pay me to drive a newer Mercedes, and lots of people with new Mercedes cars buttonhole me outside the bagel shop to tell me how they had a car just like mine and would still be driving it if they hadn’t been rear ended by a loaded dump truck on the freeway and totalled the car, but walked away. “Car saved my life. Don’t ever sell it – these new ones aren’t half as good”.
Rust is the enemy. Your jack points will rust out, and the fender rims. So spend your money replacing rubber items and get some new sheet metal. Respray it if you get bored. And drive to work with the quiet confidence that 95% of all the other cars on the road will still be in the boneyard long before yours will.
The drivers’ seat is clearly from another era, and you will likely have to re-stuff it if you have a bad back. But the MB tex is pretty bombproof.
You will need a reasonable mechanic to fix the vacuum system and adjust the valves periodically. You may need some new rod ends and periodic other suspension components, but once you replace them, they are good for another 20 years. So look at maintenance as an investment in secure transporation.
If you live in LA, take it to Mr. MB Motors in Encino, just off the 101 (no affiliation). Taking it anywhere else is a huge waste of money. If you live in or around DC, take it to the Auto Shoppe, in Silver Spring MD. Tell Randy that Karl sent you.
The W123 gets another well deserved encomium.
