The Big Picture |
- Memorial Day Poppies
- All Killer Tornadoes Since 1950
- You Can Be a Hedge Fund Investor. But Why Would You?
- 10 Sunday Reads
- 50 Common Misquotations
- Do Big Cities Help College Graduates Find Better Jobs?
| Posted: 27 May 2013 02:00 AM PDT Memorial Day Poppies
Jason Trennert (Strategas) sent me a poppy with a note about its history and the famous poem “In Flanders Fields,” written by John McCrae in 1915. Jason noted that poppies are worn more often in the UK and Canada than in the US. He said he “never learned or had forgotten that these were worn on Memorial Day as a remembrance of those who have died in our nation's service.” Thank you, Jason, for trying to bring back that noble national memory and custom. I shall wear the poppy you sent to me this Memorial Day weekend. I remember Memorial Day when I was a kid. My father and other WWII vets would gather to decorate the graves. Colorful flags and uniforms and medals and war-vet hats bedecked these older men, whose waistlines had widened since their time in the service. We kids giggled as we watched them march. Dad served in the Pacific in WWII. He left when I was three months old and returned after my third birthday. Mom and I lived with my grandparents on the family farm. So did my Aunt Pearl, whose husband was in Europe in the army. I've read the censored letters Dad wrote to Mom. Powerful reading packed with nostalgic moments, these notes had sections cut out by a stranger whose task was to insure that the enemy wouldn't glean information from them if they were intercepted. I think about US Army censorship of a letter from New Guinea that my father sent to my mother. That letter took many weeks to travel from the place where he wrote it to delivery at the farm. I also have the flag Mom got as a vet's widow when Dad died. I just went over to it. I picked it up. I turned it around. I put it back in the place where it sits in my home office. Nostalgia has triggered some wetting of the eyes and a flood of images in the brain. Long pause. Now I'm trying to get back to this text. We had dinner with Sam L. last night. He is 89. Sam landed at Normandy on day 6 of the invasion. He was wounded, sent to rehab in England, and then posted back to the front again. Infantry! Sam and I discussed the military. My time was '66 to '69. I was very lucky. Enough said about me. I think of my friend Skip. He served in the '60s. Vietnam. He doesn't talk about it. We’ve known each other for almost 50 years and never swapped war stories. More nostalgia. Another flood in the brain. Another pause. Damn it, Jason Trennert, you started this. You sent me a poppy. You reminded me of the days when we bought poppies on the street to help vets. “Please buy a poppy. Help a vet” was the solicitation from a trusted and well-meaning neighbor. We said “please” in those days. Nearly everyone said yes. The poppy was papier-mâché and attached to a small wire. You could twirl it through a buttonhole or hang it on a scarf or pin it on a hat. There was no protocol for where you wore the poppy. You just wore it. Proudly! So all could see it and know that you supported a vet. On Memorial Day, poppies were everywhere. Everybody wore one. Jason, thank you for sending me this poppy. I will end with a poem. It is best read aloud.
We wish our readers a thoughtful Memorial Day. ~~~ David R. Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, Cumberland Advisors  |
| All Killer Tornadoes Since 1950 Posted: 26 May 2013 12:00 PM PDT |
| You Can Be a Hedge Fund Investor. But Why Would You? Posted: 26 May 2013 06:30 AM PDT >
My Sunday Washington Post column is out. This morning, we look at why hedge fund investing is so very overrated. The print version had the full headline then there were “You can be a hedge fund investor. But why would you?” (The online version is A hedge fund for you and me? The best move is to take a pass). Here’s an excerpt from the column:
Some of the data on fees is pretty astonishing. According to former JPMorgan Chase hedge fund seed investor author of "The Hedge Fund Mirage," Simon Lack, this fee arrangement is effectively a wealth transfer from investors to managers.
Astonishing. Full article at Washington Post.
Source:  |
| Posted: 26 May 2013 04:00 AM PDT My Sunday Reads:
What is for brunch today ?
Gold U. Takes It on the Chin  |
| Posted: 26 May 2013 03:00 AM PDT A weekly show hosted by John Green, where knowledge junkies get their fix of trivia-tastic information. This week, John looks at 50 common misquotations and misattributions.  |
| Do Big Cities Help College Graduates Find Better Jobs? Posted: 26 May 2013 02:00 AM PDT Do Big Cities Help College Graduates Find Better Jobs?
Although the unemployment rate of workers with a college degree has remained well below average since the Great Recession, there is growing concern that college graduates are increasingly underemployed—that is, working in a job that does not require a college degree or the skills acquired through their chosen field of study. Our recent New York Fed staff report indicates that one important factor affecting the ability of workers to find jobs that match their skills is where they look for a job. In particular, we show that looking for a job in big cities, which have larger and thicker local labor markets (that is, bigger markets with many buyers and sellers), can give workers a better chance to find a job that fits their skills. Theoretical research in urban economics suggests that the large and thick local labor markets found in big cities can increase the likelihood of job matching and improve the quality of these matches. These benefits arise because big cities have more job openings and offer a wider variety of job opportunities that can potentially fit the skills of different workers. In addition, a larger and thicker local labor market makes it easier and less costly for workers to search for jobs. Our research focuses on whether college graduates located in big cities are better able to find jobs that match the skills they've acquired through their college education. We utilize newly available census data that identify both an individual's level of education and, for college graduates, undergraduate college major. We construct two measures of what we call job matching for those with a bachelor's degree. Our first measure, which we refer to as college degree matching, determines whether an undergraduate degree holder is working in an occupation that requires at least a bachelor's degree. Our second measure, which we call college major matching, gauges the quality of a job match by identifying whether a person is working in a job that corresponds to that person's undergraduate major. For example, consider a college graduate who majored in Communications. If this person worked as a public relations manager, an occupation that both requires a college degree and relates directly to a Communications major, we would classify this person as matching along both measures. By contrast, if this person worked as a retail salesperson, he or she would be classified as not matching along either measure. What percentage of college graduates match along these two dimensions? As the chart below shows, we find that close to two-thirds of college graduates in the labor force work in a job requiring a college degree, while a little more than a quarter work in a job that is directly related to their college major. In our staff report, we estimated the relationship between the size and density of a metropolitan area and the probability of job matching to examine whether big cities help college graduates match into better jobs. Estimating these relationships turns out to be quite challenging because biases may result if either the workers or job opportunities in big cities are systematically more or less conducive to job matching. To address this difficulty, our analysis controlled for a wide array of worker characteristics, such as age, gender, marital status, and college major. We also controlled for characteristics of the metropolitan area in which these individuals were located, such as industry structure and differences in economic performance. The chart below shows our estimates of the probability of job matching across the urban spectrum for each of our measures. The horizontal axis measures the size of a metropolitan area in terms of population and is marked in percentiles. (The correlation between metropolitan area size and density is quite high, so the results along either dimension are similar.) To put these percentiles into perspective, St. Cloud, Minnesota, which has a population of about 190,000, is at the 25th percentile; while Chicago, with a population of more than 9 million, lies above the 95th percentile. Our estimates suggest that both types of job matching are more likely in the larger and thicker local labor markets available in big cities, with job matching benefits concentrated at the top of the distribution. For example, the probability of a college graduate working in a job requiring a college degree increases from 61.1 percent to 64.5 percent when the population size of a metropolitan area increases from the 50th percentile to the 99.9th percentile. This implies that college degree matching is about 6 percent more likely in a place like New York City than in a place like Syracuse, New York. For the same movement across the urban spectrum, the probability of a college graduate working in a job related to his or her college major increases from 26.7 percent to 29.1 percent, implying that college major matching is about 9 percent more likely. Thus, the larger and thicker local labor markets of big cities appear to help college graduates find better jobs by increasing both the likelihood and the quality of a job match. Given the expense of college and the potential difficulty faced by graduates in finding a job that utilizes the skills obtained through higher education, improving the chances of finding a good job is clearly important. Our work suggests that living in a big city can help. Disclaimer
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