Looking at something a little more attractive

Sometimes, there just isn't that much to say.   This is particularly true after a day when, instead of staring at this


and this

all day, you instead hop on a bike for a few hours and spend your time staring at this

and this.



Macro Man does have a couple of  observations, however.  Following on from the student loan post last month, TICAS released its latest report on the debt incurred by the class of 2015.  Among the salient points include the following:

* The proportion of graduates incurring loans was 68%, unchanged from the previous year but considerably higher than was the case a decade or two ago.

* The average debt amongst these borrowers rose 4% to $30,100. 

* The above figures do not include the loathsome for-profit institutions, which apparently award 7% of all bachelor's degrees these days.   By a stunning coincidence, almost none of the for profit "schools" report the debt profile of their graduates.   Apparently there was some data collected back in 2012, at which point 88% of students had taken out loans, with an average balance of $39k.   One can only presume it is higher today because, y'know, the dean has gotta get paid.

Normal-ish service will resume tomorrow...
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Anonymous
admin
October 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM ×

There are few things I would like to see "blow up" more than "higher education." Aside from the ridiculous indoctrination and intolerance prevalent on college campuses today, the whole method just seems archaic (and more important - not cost effective) in the twenty-first century).

This is a classic example of the unintended consequences of government intervention. They have pushed prices much higher through various subsidies, and artificially stimulated demand through inappropriate encouragement. It is not popular to say, but too many people are going to college. Every study I have seen say that fewer than one-in-three jobs creating in 2020 will require a college education. The entire edifice represents one of the largest misallocation of resources in history.

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amplitudeinthehouse
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October 19, 2016 at 9:02 AM ×



Obviously, Julian Assuage has pissed off the pimps on wall street again.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/wikileaks-founder-julian-assanges-isolation-deepens-1476832302

DC = Tremendous hypocrites

ps...are there any cowboys left in America, or has your political apparatus( machine men) turned them into p##fters too!

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checkmate
admin
October 19, 2016 at 9:59 AM ×

Anon 7.24
It's a momentum thing. It works until it doesn't. For a long time it's been the concept that higher education would lead to enhance prospects for one's entire adult life. Globalisation exaggerated the story because more labour competition the more you needed to be able to compete, right? And on it goes feeding itself on that premise backuped by government muppets spouting gibberish that the 'West', name your country, can only compete with the 'East' (new entrants now serving a better purpose than the boogeyman) via the educational channel. Of course the questionmark that hangs over this storyline is where's the correlation between higher education and an improved ability to make plastic toys in their millions , or serve up a better class of coffee using your cultivated barista skills which have become your substitute for not getting a middle management job?
The storyline works IF and only IF your higher educational experience as made you more fit for purpose in terms of the skills that are most relevant for the time we are living in. Unfortunately ,that's a fairly narrow strata and bears no resemblance to the majority of the higher education being served up.
In reality this is government swaps (cdo's et al) if you think about it in terms of being highly misleading and time dependent upon the future becoming totally different to the reality that exists right now. Slow moving train wreck just need to watch out for when it comes off the rails.

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Anonymous
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October 19, 2016 at 12:45 PM ×

Maybe "comprehensive" and life time debt guaranteeing degrees aren't the thing which one should prefer currently but rather combining different skills, e.g. through platforms like this. Even though I do understand that in some very old fashioned state jobs and some companies degrees may be a formal must but in terms of substance knowledge things are getting very much more specific, pinpointed and only certain niche knowledge are in demand for the future. And jobs ain't the traditional 0800-1600/5-days-a-week jobs but rather only random, non contractual project jobs if you know what I mean. This, of course, does not bode well for the debt based, consumerist economic system which is based on the population receiving steady and growing income.

Especially in socialist countries education is very much central planned through even decades lasting projections of what the CURRENT government thinks that what kind of future workforce is required. Non point but this is also one of the reasons why they've gotten the need for unskilled mass immigration so wrong in the EU. This ain't the 70s German economic miracle where low skilled factory workers would be needed en masse, quite the contrary.

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Bruce in Tennessee
admin
October 19, 2016 at 12:57 PM ×

Heh,Heh...

Still reading the blog daily, but don't see the need for comment at this point. It isn't a recovery this time, it is a creditovery...and things look, um, interesting now...

MM...liked your pictures. In fact I live on something very much like you posted. And it is better than even you opine about living like this.

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Anonymous
admin
October 19, 2016 at 12:58 PM ×

Get out of my hometown! ;-)

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Celeriac1972
admin
October 19, 2016 at 1:33 PM ×

Nice leaves. Mixing my metaphors Macro Man I wonder if equity & bond markets are drawing in on their own Giro di Lombardia. Bonds are leading the peloton and a tough selection may soon be made. Perhaps some degree of abscission will be healthy...?

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

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amplitudeinthehouse
admin
October 19, 2016 at 1:44 PM ×

Anon @ 12.58PM

F##k you, Anon.....I asked you 12 months ago who the pimp was on wall street that Julian Assuage pissed off, and you wouldn't tell me.

Don't you go telling me it's that weird four eyes one trick pony, it's someone with more ability and clout than that.

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Anonymous
admin
October 19, 2016 at 1:52 PM ×

Anon 7.24
Education is democracy's best safe guard. While it may not be economically efficient for most of the population to get higher education, it is the best way, hopefully, get the voting population to rationally examine the issue and not elect a tinpot despot. That said currently education in the US, while arguably the best in the world is extremely unevenly distributed, and the funding system is bananas.

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Leftback
admin
October 19, 2016 at 2:56 PM ×

Saudis selling $17.5B in bonds. So of course crude is trading higher….. watch that turn around tomorrow…. cynical?
Not much going on here, other than short crude. Op Ex looms, with all of its usual attendant vol-selling pressure.

MM, good choice of activity for yesterday.

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Anonymous
admin
October 19, 2016 at 4:00 PM ×

We need a GED scheme for college students...no more borrowing, no more debt...no more commuting to school. You pass your college GED exam and get college diploma.

If you care to read the latest news on what is happening at these institutions you will come to the same conclusion:

http://www.thecollegefix.com/news/

http://legalinsurrection.com/tag/college-insurrection/

Most of these institutions have become minimum security prisons. Watch this Yale professor being harassed:

http://thefederalist.com/2016/09/15/watch-a-mob-of-yale-students-bully-a-professor-who-hurt-their-feelings/

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12yo HFM
admin
October 19, 2016 at 4:14 PM ×

Sitting here in the office watching "There will be blood" on NFLX (just made half a dollar on CL), while our equity index positions are propelled higher by crude inventories. As we all know, high oil prices are +ve for stocks (as are low oil prices, and anywhere in between) - thus we remain long equities across the board. "I'm an oilman".

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cowboy
admin
October 19, 2016 at 5:20 PM ×

What was that second chart?

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washedup
admin
October 19, 2016 at 8:47 PM ×

"As we all know, high oil prices are +ve for stocks (as are low oil prices, and anywhere in between)"

that cracked me up - so so true - another gem from our 12 YO friend.

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Bruce in Tennessee
admin
October 19, 2016 at 9:16 PM ×

Seems like even on up days, we are starting out higher and gradually losing momentum until the close....?

I recall a couple of recent financial times when this seemed to be the trend too...


:)

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Anonymous
admin
October 19, 2016 at 10:08 PM ×

Where is TLT a buy now - 125?

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Polemic
admin
October 19, 2016 at 11:09 PM ×

It all pretty dull really. Even GBP is trading sensibly.
That copper chart has basically rangey flatlined for a year. zzz
Coal is highly amusing though. The stonking rally is positively Lazarus. I am pretty sure I was told that China steel was dead, coal is double dead and Australian coal mining co's were pure paleontology.

I do think this is the start of the great Bond unwind though and it will be messy. Unless the central banks go BoJ and decide to go 'limitless' on the balance sheet and pin the curve.

Market seems to be trying to give the impression that it's really really exciting. But it isn't really, A bit like the prat in the whacky hat at the party who it turns out works in compliance.

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Anonymous
admin
October 19, 2016 at 11:30 PM ×

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-18/ecbs-first-chief-economist-warns-eu-house-cards

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Anonymous
admin
October 20, 2016 at 12:30 AM ×

"Education is democracy's best safe guard. While it may not be economically efficient for most of the population to get higher education, it is the best way, hopefully, get the voting population to rationally examine the issue and not elect a tinpot despot."

The number of college graduates (both in raw terms and as a percentage of the population) has increased dramatically over the past fifty years. What has happened to the level of civic engagement during that time?

I (first commenter) would argue that colleges today are detrimental to critical thinking, as they push unquestioned acceptance of the "party line" (and that is really how to end up with a tinpot kleptocrat).

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abee crombie
admin
October 20, 2016 at 12:44 AM ×

Market is in wait and see node for tech earnings...meanwhile the number of stocks above fast moving averages is getting low. Spoos gonna bounce back to the triangle trend line?

If the market does go up Financials should lead. Pretty good earnings.

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abee crombie
admin
October 20, 2016 at 12:46 AM ×

Market is in wait and see node for tech earnings...meanwhile the number of stocks above fast moving averages is getting low. Spoos gonna bounce back to the triangle trend line?

If the market does go up Financials should lead. Pretty good earnings.

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May 15, 2022 at 9:50 PM ×

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