Today is the day Wall Street has been waiting for, the day when the Federal Reserve Board of Governors meets to set interest rates. Fed watchers expect anything from a quarter to a half-point drop.
BusinessWeek says:
Investors can call it what they like -- their Super Bowl, their Election Day, their Day of Reckoning -- but they might want to keep in mind that Tuesday's decision may end up raising as many questions as it answers.
The stock market plunged from record highs this summer on fears about souring home loans and excessive leveraged debt strangling corporate and economic growth. Since then, the big question on Wall Street has been: Will the Fed finally lower interest rates? Tuesday afternoon, investors will find out.
No matter what the outcome, the stock market could be in for a wild ride.
Like many investment strategists, Bob Doll of BlackRock believes Fed policy makers will lower rates by a quarter of a percentage point Tuesday and alter their assessment of the economy -- particularly given a decline of 4,000 jobs in August and weakening retail sales. But, he added, even if the market gets its rate cut, the next day it will probably ask: Now what?
"I'm not even sure good news from the Fed means we're out of the woods in terms of volatility," Doll said.
With all of the recent weak economic data, many investors have been crossing their fingers for a half-point rate cut, a move Swiss Re chief U.S. economist Kurt Karl said policy makers are probably loathe to make. "I don't think they want to give the market everything it wants. It's a very difficult situation."
How does the stock market react to Fed rate cuts? See this
Wall Street Journal story for details. The
Journal's Gregory Ip has
advice for other journalists covering the Fed meeting.
The New York Times explains why a quarter of a point might be preferable in the long run.
Along with news of today's meeting, the Fed is getting more attention than usual this week because former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's new book,
"The Age of Turbulence," just hit the streets.
The Pants Made Me Do It!
Local governments, having solved the problems of affordable housing, political corruption and traffic congestion, are taking on the problem that threatens to ruin our youth --
baggy pants. In fact, some cities are considering criminalizing those who wear baggy pants.
The Associated Press carried a story that says:
Proposals to ban saggy pants are starting to ride up in several places. At the extreme end, wearing pants low enough to show boxers or bare buttocks in one small Louisiana town means six months in jail and a $500 fine. A crackdown also is being pushed in Atlanta. And in Trenton, getting caught with your pants down may soon result in not only a fine, but a city worker assessing where your life is headed.
"Are they employed? Do they have a high school diploma? It's a wonderful way to redirect at that point," said Trenton Councilwoman Annette Lartigue, who is drafting a law to outlaw saggy pants. "The message is clear: We don't want to see your backside."
The bare-your-britches fashion is believed to have started in prisons, where inmates aren't given belts with their baggy uniform pants to prevent hangings and beatings. By the late 80s, the trend had made it to gangster rap videos, then went on to skateboarders in the suburbs and high school hallways.
The story continues:
"It has the potential to catch on with elementary school kids, and we want to stop it before it gets there," said C.T. Martin, an Atlanta councilman. "Teachers have raised questions about what a distraction it is."
In Atlanta, a law has been introduced to ban sagging and punishment could include small fines or community work - but no jail time, Martin said.
The penalty is stiffer in Delcambre, La., where in June the town council passed an ordinance that carries a fine of up to $500 or six months in jail for exposing underwear in public. Several other municipalities and parish governments in Louisiana have enacted similar laws in recent months.
At Trenton hip-hop clothing store Razor Sharp Clothing Shop 4 Ballers, shopper Mark Wise, 30, said his jeans sag for practical reasons.
"The reason I don't wear tight pants is because it's easier to get money out of my pocket this way," Wise said. "It's just more comfortable."
Shop owner Mack Murray said Trenton's proposed ordinance unfairly targets blacks.
"Are they going to go after construction workers and plumbers, because their pants sag, too?" Murray asked. "They're stereotyping us."
The American Civil Liberties Union agrees.
"In Atlanta, we see this as racial profiling," said Benetta Standly, statewide organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. "It's going to target African-American male youths. There's a fear with people associating the way you dress with crimes being committed."
The ACLU has fought this notion before, saying:
The Fourteenth Amendment�s due process clause has been widely interpreted to protect personal liberties, that is, to prevent the government from placing restrictions on the choices people make about the most intimate aspects of their lives.
Now wait a minute! Aren't "too-tight pants" a worse crime than pants that are too loose? While we are acting as "fashion police," I am going to contact my city councilman to see if we can outlaw the wearing of checked-polyester pants or shorts coupled with dark socks and sneakers.
You know, hospitals came up with an idea years ago to hand out car seats to new mothers who didn't have own one. I think clothing stores should offer free bailing twine with every new pair of pants. Just remember you heard the idea here. I'll bet some presidential candidate swipes my idea this week.
It's the Dreaded School Fundraising Season
I simply cannot bring myself to ask my colleagues and neighbors to buy the useless junk that schools ask my children to sell to support classroom supplies and marching band travel expenses.
Let's face it: There is good reason not to allow your children to sell door-to-door anymore. So, inevitably, they sell to the people you know year after year. You hate to say no, but how much wrapping paper and low-grade candy does a person really need?
Increasingly,
The Cincinnati Post says, non-sales events are moving in to ease the pain. Walk-a-thons and such are becoming more popular.
Education World lists a bunch of related ideas (most of which I don't like.)
Education World also says:
As a member of a parent fund-raising group at New York City's P.S. 87, Jean Joachim helped raise more than $200,000 a year for ten years for the school. In her book,
Beyond the Bake Sale: The Ultimate School Fund-Raising Book, Joachim provides outlines for organizing and running high-yield projects, such as a pledge drive, a flea market, a street fair, a haunted house, and pizza-and-movie nights. She also suggests pairing up with local restaurants or stores so a portion of a day's sales go to the school, and lists strategies for tapping into corporate America's funds.
Here are some story ideas:
- Who monitors the money these big sales bring in? It is easy to find scandals involving parent-teacher associations that are unable to account for money the kids brought in.
- If one school has a fireball of a fundrasiing chairperson while another does not, or if one school is in a wealthier section of town than another, the fundraising results can be drastically different. This could result in a two-tier school system in which one schools gets the goods while another goes wanting. In Canada, kids raise 3 percent of Ontario's education budget, according to the Toronto Star. The article mentions that some schools bring in $400,000 a year from outside funds while others brought in zilch.
- What did schools do with their money last year? A school-by-school accounting of where the money goes might encourage givers to give this year. It might also raise the question of why children and their parents are paying for items that taxpayers as a whole should be funding.
- Is anybody doing something original this year?
- Should schools be selling candy while also lecturing kids not to eat it?
- How high-pressured are the pitches? What are children promised if they sell a gazillion dollars worth of combs or wrapping paper?
- What percentage of the sales do schools keep? Which fundraisers have the highest percentage?
- How many parents just send a check to the parent-teacher association and say, "Forget about fundraising, I'll just pay the money"?
- What are workplace rules about selling stuff for your children's school? I bet this question would spark a lot of online chat.
Team boosters just erected
a $400,000 hi-def big screen scoreboard in Lakeland, Fla., where the local high school team has not lost a game in three years. The school, which is showing commercials and student video productions on the board, thinks the investment will generate income. Meanwhile, according to
SchoolMatters.org data, the same school ranks below the state average in reading and math scores and has larger class sizes than the state average. But it has a real nice scoreboard.
Counsel for the Cocker
The Boston Globe has an interesting piece on the rising number of legal matters involving pet custody fights:
A decade ago, the idea that a divorce would involve "custody" of a pet, much less that the decision would factor in the pet's own predilections, would have been dismissed by most lawyers as absurd. Pets were property, and not very valuable property at that, to be balanced against all of the other stuff that is split up in a divorce - nobody, after all, talks about joint custody of an armoire.
But recent years have seen an intensifying effort on the part of animal rights activists, legislators, prosecutors, and legal scholars to change the way the law treats animals.
The result has been the beginning of a qualitative shift - not merely the stiffening of animal cruelty laws, though in most states that has happened, but changes that are turning animals into legal beings with their own interests, and, in a few cases, their own enforceable preferences.
Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia now allow pet owners to endow pet trusts, the kind of legislation that made it possible for New York hotel billionaire Leona Helmsley to bequeath $12 million to her dog, Trouble. In some states, veterinarians are now required to report suspicions of animal abuse in the same way pediatricians have to report child abuse. Courts are starting to take seriously the claim that pet owners are entitled to compensation for pain and suffering in cases involving the death of an animal. And, in a Tennessee case this spring, a court appointed a legal guardian to represent the interests of a dog in a custody dispute.
Oh man, the food is awful. And the doilies and...
