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Andrew Morse, of Anchor Rising/Ocean State Current, and I square off for the full half hour on 10 News Conference. Moderator Bill Rappleye moderates us through a wide-ranging discussion on everything from guns permits in Exeter, hedge funds in pension investments to the 2014 governor’s race.
Best part, in my opinion, is the last 30 seconds when Rapp asks me if I think Clay Pell will run for governor. “I hope not. I think that’s the worst thing about American democracy that rich kids with famous last names can declare that they are running for government.” Just to clarify, I actually love that anyone – rich or poor – can declare they are running for government or governor. What I hate is that it’s easier for rich kids to do than poor kids.
A couple important corrections:
Of course we do know who gives significant political donations directly to Gina Raimondo. And there is no reason to suspect the Manhattan Institute would be among them.
Also, Ted Cruz is a Senator, so he doesn’t have a district other than the great state of Texas.
Sorry readers, viewers, WJAR and marketplace of ideas.
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Few figures of the 20th Century are as polarizing as Ayn Rand, whose philosophy Objectivism, was outlined in her two most famous novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Objectivists are Libertarians on steroids, seemingly devoid of human compassion, yet many Christians and Catholics embrace Rand’s moral absolutism, despite her elevation of selfishness to virtue.
Now graphic novelist Darryl Cunningham has released, for free, an extraordinary webcomic biography of Rand, which examines her philosophies through the lens of her biography. Cunningham sees Rand as a woman drowning in contradictions. Describing her ideal as “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute” she went on to surround her self with a cult like following of slavish devotees.
It would have been easy for Cunningham to simply skewer and lambast Rand and reduce her to a parody of John Galt or Howard Roark, the heroes of her novels, but Cunningham is more subtle than that. He uses a scalpel rather than an axe to dissect Rand’s life and philosophies, rendering a portrait of Rand that will anger her devotees but humanize her somewhat in the eyes of her critics.
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In 2012 powerful right wing special interests predicted Gina Raimondo’s pension cuts would serve as a model for the rest of the country. They have, but perhaps not the way the Manhattan Institute, Michael Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal editorial board had hoped.
Instead, a diverse coalition is coalescing to call attention to the often hidden dangers of hedge funds.
Rolling Stone magazine, Forbes.com, the Institute for America’s Future, labor unions and this scrappy independent blog have all made strong arguments for why and how what Raimondo called “Truth in Numbers” was actually a politically calculated wealth transfer from Rhode Island public sector retirees to Wall Street billionaires.
But, whether you believe hedge funds are a silver bullet to beat the stock market or high finance snake oil, the same debate on their effectiveness is happening in the world of private sector investment as is happening in the Ocean State’s public sector investment. Mom and pop money managers and the mainstream media are serving up credible economic evidence that safer, traditional investments are more profitable in the long run.
In short, fees matter. So what can you do? You aren’t going to find a fund that invests your money for free, but experts say you can come close by buying index funds. Their fees can be a tenth of what the average mutual funds charges. And over time, in bull and bear markets, on average, index funds perform better than their more expensive actively managed fund cousins. This is no secret to anyone who is paying attention.
So why aren’t our trusted financial advisers and those ads telling us to buy index funds? Why do some 401(k) plans not even offer them on their menus?
It’s because even though an index fund might be a better option for you and me, a broker operating under a suitability standard has no incentive to sell it to us. He or she will make higher commissions from options that have higher fees.
And here’s an infographic that also illustrates the hedge fund myth.
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Education is grounded in telling the truth. The Rhode Island Commissioner for Education is lying to us about the NECAPs. In a recent op-ed piece (read it here) she asked and answered a slew of questions with misinformation, sleight of hand and outright deception.
Following these questions that she asked herself are my answers, which are the direct opposite of hers…
Q. Is it true that Rhode Island students can fail to graduate on the basis of a single, standardized test?
A. Yes. Absolutely. Despite what Deborah Gist says, if a student gets a 1 on the NECAP and then fails to improve on the subsequent two retakes, he or she fails to graduate. Feel free to quibble about which one of those three tests the student “failed.”
Q. Is it true that students have to pass the NECAP in order to graduate?
A. Yes. See above. Oh… Except that “waivers are available for students for whom — for any reason — tests of any kind are not a good measure of their abilities.” So I guess the tests don’t really count in those cases.
Q. Is it true that the NECAP assessments are not appropriate for use as a graduation requirement?
A. Yes. This horse has been beaten to death so many times in RI Future and the Providence Journal that to list the links would crash the system. Short version? The NECAPs curve is designed to identify failing schools, and therefore does not provide accurate assessment of any given individual within a school that is performing poorly.
Never mind the fact that testing JUNIORS on materials for a graduation SENIOR year seems to be just plain dumb.
Q. Is it true that the NECAP requirement penalizes students who haven’t received an adequate education?
A. Yes. If, as Commissioner Gist maintains, the NECAP won’t actually fail anyone, then why is this even a question? Because students who fail NECAP have to beat their heads against the wall until they finally learn how to take the test (or file the waiver).
Q. Is it true that, because Rhode Island will introduce a new assessment in 2015, we should wait until then to include assessments in the diploma system?
I’m going to punt this one. If you thought NECAPs were challenging, take a look at the forthcoming PARCC sample test questions. (Click here and be prepared to spend an hour or two going,”HUH?”) The PARCC test is wicked hard. It’s also wicked convoluted, and will require hours of teaching time devoted to teaching students how to take the test, rather than teaching them “content”.
Q. Is it true that the NECAP encourages test preparation and “teaching to the test”?
A. Yes. Yes. Yes! In her article, Commissioner Gist suggested that schools that perform well on these tests don’t teach to the tests. That’s because those schools are already successful! The NECAPs are designed to find schools that are unsuccessful. Furthermore, any school that maintains that they have not shifted to “teaching to the test” is just plain fibbing. When a teacher’s job and salary depends on the test. When a school’s rating and funding depends on the test, it influences the teaching. If you want some examples:
Every time NECAPs come around we get phone calls from schools telling us to put our kids to bed early and make sure that they’re well fed.
Classical High School shifts its entire schedule so that Juniors can take NECAPS without pesky Freshman, Sophomores and Seniors are around making noise.
Students who fail NECAPS spend their time on test prep courses.
No matter what Commissioner Gist says, her assertions are misguided. The NECAPs don’t improve learning. A friend’s child explained it best. It’s like testing someone for diabetes, and when you find their blood sugar is off, testing them again rather than giving them food.
What can we do to improve our children’s education?
Make school a wonderful experience that teaches children the love of learning for its own sake.
Restructure schools so that students can learn at different rates, rather than assuming that all children will learn everything at the same pace.
Bring back recess, play, experimentation, sports, arts, theater, and technical trade training programs.
Stop selling the idea that going to college is going to solve everyone’s problem. Set aside the fact that Gates and Jobs both dropped out. (Never mind the fact that the Gates Foundation is funding much of the “research”) Today there are many in-debt college grads out there who aren’t “succeeding”.
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Fix the Debt is the preeminent group whose mission is to slash Social Security and Medicare. Its founder, Pete Peterson, is among the many finance elites who are are bankrolling Gina Raimondo’s political career. She hopes that you’ll not discover this, or will divine some path by which to rationalize it away.
Prior to becoming the foremost proponent of the undermining of retirement security for American seniors, Peterson founded a private equity firm and was Treasury Secretary. He’s now one of the 150 wealthiest Americans!
FTD ventured out into the Twitterverse this week, and received the greeting it deserves — an old fashioned trolling, in what’s surely unusual fashion for a gentleman of such rarified standing.
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