The friction between protestors and police is also about economic opportunity (待审核) 2014-8-19 10:11 | 个人分类: exceptional america Opinion: The friction between protestors and police is also about economic opportunity Time (EDT)American Airlines Group Inc.10:0011:0012:001:002:003:004:00 US:AAL US:BA US:BUD -1% 0% 1% 2% 3% Getty Images Police stand guard as demonstrators protest the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., a city divided by race and poverty. SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — At first glance, the civil unrest and tragic events shaking Ferguson, Mo., don’t seem like a Wall Street story. And it’s true what’s happening in the St. Louis suburb isn’t going to sink or lift your portfolio. There isn’t money to be made in investing in riot gear or Molotov cocktails. And if the local QuikTrip convenience store is burned to the ground, well, it’s part of a private company based out of Tulsa, Okla., and one that probably carries insurance. That said, it would be foolish to ignore what’s happening in Ferguson and dismiss it as an isolated event far removed from the economy. The friction between protestors and police is more than just about race, it’s about poverty, taxes and economic opportunity. As a small, minority majority town near a major city, there are hundreds, maybe more, Fergusons across the country. Ferguson is wary of National Guard arrival Tanya Rivero and Joe Barrett discuss the latest from Ferguson, Mo. Where does Wall Street come in? Well, this is the environment in which companies must choose to invest or not. And it’s also a place where someone such as Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer, has to choose a future. Ferguson is one of those places that’s been shaped not only by white flight , but economic flight . The city’s unemployment rate rose from less than 5% in 2000 to more than 13% in 2012. Inflation-adjusted incomes for the working have fallen by a third during the last decade, according to the Brookings Institution. More than a quarter of the households live below the poverty line. Believe it or not, Ferguson is a small step up from the city of St. Louis, where unemployment is higher and crime more rampant. Stephen Gandel, writing for Fortune, noted: “St. Louis’ 20 percentage-point gap between the unemployment rate of African Americans and white Americans is the largest of any city in America, according to the Census. So, the fact that protests against the treatment of black Americans have erupted there is not a coincidence.” Ferguson and North St. Louis County have been battling another kind of flight: corporate flight. Former Missouri State Sen. Jeff Smith notes that the region’s economy was for many years dependent on Lambert International Airport. Until 2001, it served as a hub for TWA. That’s when it was acquired by American Airlines Group Inc. AAL, +3.75% After the merger, American shifted its hubs to Dallas and Chicago. Lambert is running at about half capacity, according to Smith. Since acquiring St. Louis-based McDonnell Douglas in 1997, Boeing Co. BA, +1.48% has downsized or relocated its workforce in the region. Earlier this year, Boeing offered buyouts to 12,000 of its workers in St. Louis. It employs 15,000 there. McDonnell Douglas once employed 160,000. And in the city, the 2007 acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by InBev (now Anheuser-Busch InBev NV BUD, +0.59% ) led to 2,000 job cuts , or about a 15% reduction. And those are just the headline grabbers. There have been layoffs at the local newspapers, the fire departments and in the schools. Now, consider the region’s biggest employers: three hospitals, Boeing, Washington University, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT, +0.80% a U.S. Air Force Base, the Catholic Church, the post office, a grocery store chain and McDonald’s Corp. MCD, +0.49% You can see that except for the hospitals and the university, most of those employers aren’t the sort that are driving economic growth. More importantly, there aren’t a lot of places for skilled workers except Boeing, and we know what that company has planned for its future in St. Louis. Much of the decision for any company to invest in Ferguson or St. Louis comes down to the labor pool. Normandy School District, which includes parts of Ferguson, lost its accreditation in 2010. The shooting victim, Brown, attended Normandy High School, which was named the “most dangerous” high school in the region by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Like most fights over education, the fight in and around Ferguson and the local school district has been about money. State money goes only so far, and a bond measure or any other tax increase has little chance of passing even if there was something to tax. That’s left places like Ferguson, with no meaningful industry, to depend on traffic tickets and court fees to keep city hall open. There are 90 municipalities in St. Louis County. And though politicians, such as Smith, long have argued that combining these fiefdoms would create tremendous cost savings for taxpayers, none of the fiefs want to let go. All of this poverty and lack of opportunity is enhanced by racial tension. The neighboring town of Bellerive, one of North St. Louis County’s remaining affluent and mostly white communities, Smith writes, “is a reminder of the privilege that so many whites enjoy while they are pulled over by cops, fined, arrested, and imprisoned at astronomical rates, crippling their ability to enter the region’s economic mainstream.” Smith is right. I haven’t lived there for a long time, but I’m a native St. Louisan. Growing up there, it was clear there were two distinct classes. You either had a future, or you didn’t. Mostly this depended on factors such as whether you were white or African American, rich or poor, lived in the city or in the nicer parts of the county. Your aspirations depended on your family and peers. Did they aspire to college or to work construction? Would they ever consider taking a box of anything from a store, or was it OK? What disappeared was a middle track that offered a way out for the less-than-lucky: a decent middle-class life for the people in between. You didn’t need a lot of education to work at the brewery, the airport or the Chrysler plant in Fenton, Mo. (It’s now closed.) Over time, however, any road out of hopelessness seems to have disappeared. Maybe the global economy gave up on St. Louis, or St. Louis didn’t remake itself for the global economy. Probably both. But St. Louis is hardly unique in its problems. Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, N.Y., Pittsburgh — all of these cities and more have struggled with similar issues, some more successfully than others. In the end, the death of Michael Brown and the ensuing outrage weren’t caused by Wall Street. But Wall Street played a role in the world in which Brown lived. How long this state of affairs can last or worsen to the point we become two nations is only a matter of time. And one thing is for certain: The story doesn’t have a happy ending. 路过 鸡蛋 鲜花 握手 雷人 收藏 分享 邀请 使用
Beware, The Brent Vigilantes Are Coming Back Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/08/2013 10:21 -0400 Bond China Crude Crude Oil Vigilantes Back in February we introduced the world to their last best hope in controlling the largesse of the world's central bankers . The 'Brent Vigilantes' were shown to have taken over the mantle of the now totally-repressed and benign bond vigilantes (since deficits don't matter apparently). Each time retail gas prices have breached $3.80 in the past six years, the SP 500 has crested (specifically the crossing of that threshold has seen P/E multiple expansion brought to a halt). With current gas prices around $3.53, we hear you cry, "what are you worried about?" Well, simply put, the answer lies in what is coming. Prices at the pump follow crude oil prices extremely closely with around a 30-day lag; the current WTI crude prices imply a price of gas at the pump around $3.80. So, if there is anything that can stop us from hitting 2,000 on the SP 500 (or Dow 30,000), we suspect it is the 'tax' that gas prices represent and we now know what the trajectory of those prices is likely to be in the next few weeks. Each time retail gas prices have topped $3.80, valuations (Fwd P/E) have also topped - not good news for a market driven solely by hope-driven multiple expansion... Especially as it would appear clear that gas prices at the pump are set to surge up to that $3.80 level once again... The Brent Vigilantes are on their way back... maybe that is what China is banking on? Charts: Bloomberg Goodbye Bond Vigilantes, Hello Brent Vigilantes Brent WTI Back To $20 - Some Thoughts On What's Next From Goldman Guest Post: Analysis of the Global Insurrection Against Neo-Liberal Economic Domination and the Coming American Rebellion Market Sentiment: Mixed SocGen Lays It Out: "EU Iran Embargo: Brent $125-150. Straits Of Hormuz Shut: $150-200"
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