(AP) — America’s employers slowed their hiring in August in the face of rising interest rates, high inflation and sluggish consumer spending, all of which have weakened the outlook for the economy.
The government reported Friday that the economy added 315,000 jobs last month, down from 526,000 in July and below the average gain of the previous three months. The unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, from a half-century low of 3.5% in July, as more Americans came off the sidelines to look for jobs and didn’t find work immediately.
The smaller August gain will likely be welcomed by the Federal Reserve. The Fed is rapidly raising interest rates to try to cool hiring and wage growth, which have been consistently strong. Businesses typically pass the cost of higher wages on to their customers through higher prices, thereby fueling inflation. …
LaBarge carbon storage project wins federal approval – Wyoming gas plant’s carbon storage project became the first planned injection well to be greenlit by the Bureau of Land Management, the agency announced Friday. Natural gas trapped in the LaBarge oilfield, near ExxonMobil’s Shute Creek Gas Plant, contains a usually high proportion of carbon dioxide. The facility separates and sells millions of tons of the carbon dioxide produced from drilling each year, primarily for enhanced oil recovery, a process that uses the gas to force more oil out of depleted reservoirs “This project is a prime example of how the BLM can work together with industry leaders to combat climate change,”
based on the density of the materials, every carbon atom stored there in the form of carbon dioxide will bring up a hundred carbon atoms in the form of heavy crude oil….no matter, though, BLM says it’s all good…
(I occasionally mention that Harvard, one of a few world-class universities in my neighborhood, deserves special attention for being one of low cost, if you can get in. Because of their enormous endowment and huge financial aid grants, they are actually affordable.
Some colleges can afford to lavish their students with grants and scholarships but most cannot — which explains why higher-education debt is so unevenly distributed.
Merely 3 percent of the 3,300 nonprofit colleges and universities own 80 percent of the endowed wealth in American higher education. One-fifth of them own nearly 99 percent. This stratification of wealth — the invested capital of endowments — resulted from aggressive financial policies honed by universities and has become closely related to the wealth inequality in the nation. This relationship helps explain skyrocketing undergraduate loan debt, which impairs the social mobility that higher education has historically contributed to democracy.
University leaders began to appreciate the benefits of endowment income in the 1870s. After experiencing the ways that other revenue sources — tuition, grants, gifts, and government subsidies — are “precarious,” as Harvard President Charles W. Eliot observed in 1869, colleges and universities started amassing large amounts of invested capital. Some were more successful than others, and higher education became stratified by wealth. …
Their advantage starts with unequal fundraising, which is related to the nation’s wealth inequality. Rich schools have more wealthy alumni, who make large gifts and bequests. Today, each additional increment of $100 million in an endowment is associated with an additional $2 million in annual donations. Compounding that factor, wealthy schools spend less to raise each dollar than do less-endowed schools. Furthermore, being less reliant on current gifts, wealthy schools can direct some of their annual gifts into their endowments, increasing their invested capital. …
… In these respects, the richest schools’ wealth advantage parallels that benefitting the wealthiest Americans. In fact, the richest 1 percent of nonprofit colleges and universities own 54 percent of endowment in higher education today, while the richest 1 percent of American households own 53 percent of all households’ invested capital.
These two parallel kinds of wealth inequality also help explain undergraduates’ loan debt.
Most undergraduates holding large debt come from working- or middle-class households whose income comprises wages or salaries. Over the last four decades, this income has not grown as fast as either the cost of living or the return on invested capital, which is owned predominantly by the wealthiest Americans. These students therefore have ever greater need for financial assistance.
Most undergraduates holding large debts do not attend wealthy colleges and universities that can afford to provide grants and scholarships to assist their students. Rather, they attend less-expensive and less-endowed colleges and universities, whose capacity to meet their students’ growing needs has diminished as their invested capital has slipped further behind the upper tiers of American higher education.
Consequently, undergraduates whose income depends on wages and salaries and who do not attend the schools with the biggest endowments have ever greater need for loans. Inevitably, as the prospect of debt discourages working- and middle-class students from attending college, higher education is much less likely to foster the social mobility that has historically benefitted American society.
Proposals to address this wealth inequality in higher education have primarily come from Congressional Republicans. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 imposed a 1.4 percent tax on the investment income from endowments worth more than $500,000 per student. New legislation proposed by Senator Rick Scott of Florida would require schools with billion-dollar endowments to spend more of their income. Ironically, such measures to redistribute wealth by imposing taxes or by government fiat are normally repugnant to Republicans and do little to address undergraduates’ debt.
The best, perhaps naive, hope lies in leaders of the richest schools realizing that it is in their own self-interest to end their century-old competition for endowment size — before Congress does it for them.
(Since) “3 percent of the 3,300 nonprofit colleges and universities own 80 percent of the endowed wealth in American higher education. One-fifth of them own nearly 99 percent. This stratification of wealth … has become closely related to the wealth inequality in the nation. This relationship helps explain skyrocketing undergraduate loan debt, which impairs the social mobility that higher education has historically contributed to democracy.” …
After all, graduates from these elite universities tend to obtain great wealth. To the extent that they provide generous donations to their alma maters, the wealth of these universities increases even faster than those with smaller endowments.
Globe: … Consequently, undergraduates whose income depends on wages and salaries and who do not attend the schools with the biggest endowments have ever greater need for loans. Inevitably, as the prospect of debt discourages working- and middle-class students from attending college, higher education is much less likely to foster the social mobility that has historically benefitted American society. …
The ruling would effectively bar federal prosecutors from using key pieces of evidence as they continue to investigate whether Mr. Trump illegally retained national defense documents at his estate.
A federal judge intervened on Monday in the investigation of former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of sensitive government records, ordering the appointment of an independent arbiter to review a trove of materials seized last month from Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.
In a 24-page ruling, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also enjoined the Justice Department from using the seized materials for any “investigative purpose” connected to its inquiry of Mr. Trump until the work of the arbiter, known as a special master, was completed.
The order would effectively bar federal prosecutors from using key pieces of evidence as they continue to investigate whether the former president illegally retained national defense documents at his estate, Mar-a-Lago, or obstructed the government’s efforts to get them back. It also appeared to grant Mr. Trump special deference as a former president, rejecting the Justice Department’s repeated assertions that it would pursue investigations of Mr. Trump just as it would those of any other person. …
US employers slowed hiring in August, adding 315,000 jobs
Boston Globe – Sep 2
Exxon got its CCS project approved by BLM:
based on the density of the materials, every carbon atom stored there in the form of carbon dioxide will bring up a hundred carbon atoms in the form of heavy crude oil….no matter, though, BLM says it’s all good…
(I occasionally mention that Harvard, one of a few world-class universities in my neighborhood, deserves special attention for being one of low cost, if you can get in. Because of their enormous endowment and huge financial aid grants, they are actually affordable.
It happens there is a downside to this…)
How the richest university endowments exacerbate inequality
Boston Globe – Sep 3
Not just Harvard though. Far from it…
(Since) “3 percent of the 3,300 nonprofit colleges and universities own 80 percent of the endowed wealth in American higher education. One-fifth of them own nearly 99 percent. This stratification of wealth … has become closely related to the wealth inequality in the nation. This relationship helps explain skyrocketing undergraduate loan debt, which impairs the social mobility that higher education has historically contributed to democracy.” …
After all, graduates from these elite universities tend to obtain great wealth. To the extent that they provide generous donations to their alma maters, the wealth of these universities increases even faster than those with smaller endowments.
Globe: … Consequently, undergraduates whose income depends on wages and salaries and who do not attend the schools with the biggest endowments have ever greater need for loans. Inevitably, as the prospect of debt discourages working- and middle-class students from attending college, higher education is much less likely to foster the social mobility that has historically benefitted American society. …
Judge Grants Trump’s Request for Special Master to Review Mar-a-Lago Documents
NY Times – Sep 5
The ruling would effectively bar federal prosecutors from using key pieces of evidence as they continue to investigate whether Mr. Trump illegally retained national defense documents at his estate.
A federal judge intervened on Monday in the investigation of former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of sensitive government records, ordering the appointment of an independent arbiter to review a trove of materials seized last month from Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.
In a 24-page ruling, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also enjoined the Justice Department from using the seized materials for any “investigative purpose” connected to its inquiry of Mr. Trump until the work of the arbiter, known as a special master, was completed.
The order would effectively bar federal prosecutors from using key pieces of evidence as they continue to investigate whether the former president illegally retained national defense documents at his estate, Mar-a-Lago, or obstructed the government’s efforts to get them back. It also appeared to grant Mr. Trump special deference as a former president, rejecting the Justice Department’s repeated assertions that it would pursue investigations of Mr. Trump just as it would those of any other person. …