In 2009, the average pay for hedge fund analysts was $76,000 per year.
In 2009, the median pay for K-12 teachers was about $40,000 per year.
It’s no wonder, then, that a disproportionate number of talented, motivated, and intelligent people choose to go into hedge fund analyst jobs, where they… analyze hedges? It’s safe to say, especially after the great crash of 2008, that many people working in hedge funds have ended up doing more harm than good in their communities.
Say, here’s an idea. What if the median pay for teachers was something like $100,000 per year? Tell me, free marketeers, what would happen to all that talent and motivation and intelligence that is currently “working” in hedge funds and similar Wall Street jobs?
Somehow, I suspect that suddenly we’d have a generation of college students very, very interested in getting their teaching certificates. And within 10 years or so, I think that the US would be well on it’s way to actually leading the world in math and science again.
In case you need some evidence that hedge fund analysts might make for good teachers, check out the Khan Academy. Here’s an amazing teacher, a former hedge fund analyst, who decided to set up a new non-profit organization to provide free tutoring and lessons to students around the world. I think Mr. Khan is one of many talented, motivated, and intelligent people locked in to those unfulfilling $76,000 per year jobs in hedge funds.
What’s stopping us from unlocking the potential of people like Mr. Khan? Republican ideology. Republicans say that schools will be fixed if we give them less money, make them compete for funding. And most of all, Republicans insist that federal dollars must never, ever go toward public schools.
We spend literally trillions of federal dollars, with no strings attached, on military experiments that lead nowhere.
How about we spend a measly 10 billion dollars or so over the next decade on teacher salaries? That would put people to work. That kind of money (which isn’t very much when we’re talking federal dollars) would attract talent, and give these motivated people something to study besides business.
Where’s the catch? I can’t see any downside to this, except that we’ll have some upset Republican senators. And maybe we’d lose a few hedge fund analysts. Oh, no.
You’d think that fans of Motor City sports would never see anything worse than 2008, the year topped off by the first ever 0-16 NFL season, courtesy of the beleaguered Detroit Lions.
But 2009 was much, much worse. In fact, 2009 was the worst year for me as a fan of Detroit sports… ever. I’m confident that there hasn’t been a single year with this many woeful tales for Detroit fans since at least 1979, when I was born. I’d challenge my Important Readers to come up with any other year in Detroit sports history that was worse than 2009. Good luck.
Let’s review the awfulness, shall we? In the form of a traditional top 10 countdown.
12. University of Michigan’s Football Team Tarnished by Allegations of Cheating
That’s right, a top 10 countdown isn’t expansive enough. There were an awful dozen tragic events in 2009, and this is the least of them. Checking in way down at the bottom of the list is a major national disgrace for the proudest football program in the NCAA. Michigan football has previously been known simply as the winningest program of them all. Now it’s also known as the program that got caught cheating by requiring players to practice beyond the limits allowed by the league’s rules. Plus, the head coach apparently inspires hatred and disrespect among his players. Super. On top of another losing season, the performance of the Wolverines in 2009 definitely counts as a major tragedy, casting a pall over the Detroit metro area. We’re just getting started, folks.
11. Michigan State University Men’s Basketball Loses National Championship Game
Downtown Detroit. Final Four. March Madness. Awesome. The Spartans have an incredible Cinderella season, going well beyond where they were expected to go in the tournament. They make the Final Four on the “home” court, and then they advance to the title game against North Carolina. Sadly, Tom Izzo’s team was just plain beaten in the final game. You know, while this was sad, there’s a reason this is only number 11 on our top 10 countdown. The Spartans’ second place finish was awesome. But a championship would have been even better. And less tragic.
10. The Lions Continue To Suck.
The Lions. Abysmal. A year after going 0-16, in 2009 the Lions went 2-14. Wow. The glimmers of hope for the Lions this year include the time when the star rookie QB got leveled so hard that his shoulder separated. Awesome. If that’s the 10th worst thing that happened this year, you know we’re in for a long, awful list. But put this year’s tragic Lions season in perspective. We’ve now lost a record 20 straight road games (and counting). We were 0-6 in our division (again). It doesn’t get any worse for a football team than the Lions, folks. We’ve basically watched a full generation of players get chewed up and spit out by the Lions franchise. Disgusting.
9. The Buick Open Collapses
The organizers of the Buick Open, a PGA golf tournament held in suburban Detroit every year since 1958, said that 2009 was the event’s swan song. Tiger Woods, the main guy at Buick until 2009 (speaking of bad years… at least we’re not Tiger Woods, right Detroit?!), said that there was no way he would ever set foot in Detroit again. It was fun getting all the big golf stars in Detroit. That’s all over now.
8. Allen Iverson fails to lead the Pistons anywhere.
OK, technically, the Iverson trade happened in 2008. However, we didn’t know that this trade would be the worst trade in Pistons history until 2009. That’s when it became quite clear that 2009 would be the worst year for the Pistons in a decade. Previously the dominant power in the East, in 2009 the Pistons were a shell of their former selves. They failed to make the Conference Finals for the first time in years, and they gave up the lynchpin of the glory years in 2004-2008, Chauncey Billups, for a disgruntled and disfunctional former superstar, Allen Iverson.
7. The Pontiac Silverdome Sells for Less Than The Value of The Average House in California
The iconic Silverdome, a huge stadium that hosted the Detroit Pistons, the Detroit Lions, 1994 World Cup matches, a Super Bowl, an NBA All Star Game, and countless other big-time events, was sold to some guy for like $550,000. Putting a big, bright sign on the collapse of the Detroit-area economy, this former gem of a stadium, one of the largest in the country, was found to be worth less than the median three-bedroom house in southern California. Ouch. Yet another punch in the face to Detroit fans. 2009! Don’t stop kicking us in the balls now! You’re on a roll!
6. Tiger Stadium is razed to the ground.
Oh, my. It’s the place I first saw the bright green of the field and heard the sharp crack of the bat. Hallowed Tiger Stadium – tied with Fenway for the oldest baseball stadium in the world – was bulldozed to the ground this year, after nearly a decade of dereliction. A stalwart but cash-strapped preservation movement failed to gain enough momentum to stop the wrecking ball. One compromise plan, which would have kept part of the stadium in place for use as a museum, failed at the last minute. The Corner, Michigan and Trumbell, is now nothing more than a sad scar on the face of Detroit. The memories are still there, but the grounds that held them are now gone. What a shame.
Read on for the top 5 tragic moments in a year of tragedy for Detroit Sports… 2009.
I am proud to announce the inaugural winners of the most prestigious award on the internet: The Lovely. As you know, the Lovelys honor only those things that are the most important. Not necessarily the best. Not necessarily the greatest. Simply the most important.
This first-ever edition of the Lovelys honors this decade’s (2000-2009) most important things.
I was difficult deciding on a winner in some of these categories. In other categories, the decade’s most important development was obvious. In any case, all winners will be duly honored with a golden Lovely statue filled with delicious milk chocolate. Congratulations to everyone.
Without further ado: here are the esteemed nominees for the inaugural Lovely Awards.
The awful tragedy at the US Army base Fort Hood, where a deeply troubled soldier turned on his own, is sad enough. Sadly, and all too predictably, hate crimes on Muslims quickly followed the news that this particular troubled soldier is a Muslim American. Also sad is the possibility expressed by General George Casey, Jr, the Army’s Chief of Staff, “it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty [of the shooting] as well.” It’s sad that the General had to express the simple idea that diversity in the Army is a good thing, but the General has apparently struggled to find an audience for this view.
Not everyone on the right is convinced that an outright ban is the best idea, though. Some more practical right wing racists have admitted that it might be too difficult to enforce an total ban on Muslims – after all, Muslims could just lie and say that they’re Hindu or something, right? Well, at the very least, then, let’s have more ethnic and racial profiling, or “special screening” for Muslim soldiers or police officers. Because to these racists, it’s obvious that Muslims are inherently more violent and dangerous than, say, Christians.
Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community, the CIA is launching a new TV ad campaign to recruit Middle Eastern Americans. Contrary to the self-styled experts on the right calling for a ban on Muslims, the participation of Muslim and Middle Eastern Americans in law enforcement and national security efforts is considered crucially important by many in the actual business of stopping violence. In fact, whether active participation with law enforcement by Muslim Americans goes too far is currently being debated amongst Muslim American civil rights advocates. Many Middle Eastern Americans, especially Muslim Americans, are worried about spies in their mosques and at community centers, perhaps allowing agents provocateur to entrap Muslim Americans.
In any event, the idea that more racial profiling or an outright ban on Muslim or Middle Eastern American participation in public service is clearly impossible and undesirable, and therefore not worthy of discussion. General Casey’s comments in support of diversity as a matter of course should be the end of that line of thinking. The real questions are: why have so many mainstream media outlets published hateful opinions calling for further attacks on Muslim Americans, and why are members of Congress participating in openly racist fear mongering?
Somehow, in the tangle of mixed economic news in the last week, this story slipped through the cracks.
“On every major measurement, [a new] Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country’s condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton’s two terms, often substantially….
When Bill Clinton left office after 2000, the median income-the income line around which half of households come in above, and half fall below-stood at $52,500 (measured in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars). When Bush left office after 2008, the median income had fallen to $50,303. That’s a decline of 4.2 per cent.
That leaves Bush with the dubious distinction of becoming the only president in recent history to preside over an income decline through two presidential terms, notes Lawrence Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
This damning report, showing that the Republican policies of the 2000’s absolutely devastated the American middle class in every measurable way, should be the final nail in the coffin for Republican policies. We should not be listening to Republicans until they admit that they were wrong, and change their tune. So far, the GOP is sticking to their dangerous and wrong “Tax cuts are good! Spending is bad!” theme.
And for some reason, we’re forced to listen to blowhards like Glenn Beck and Charles Grassley. They’re on TV all the time. Why? And we’re told that we need “bipartisanship.” For some ridiculous reason, it’s not enough that we have 60 votes in the Senate and a massive majority in the House of Representatives and we have the White House, and a majority of governorships are held by Democrats. So, what does it take to vote out Republican ideology? When do we get to treat the Republicans like the fringe element that they are?
Some awful force keeps Americans dialed-in to the idea that building a strong social safety net – with fully universal health care – is “bad for the economy.” I think it has to do with thinking that tax dollars shouldn’t go to help out “those people.” And I think that a lot of Americans think that way, because Republicans have encouraged them to think that way for a long time. That’s what we have to fight back against. We don’t need bipartisanship. We need to beat this wrongheaded Republican ideology – before it destroys what’s left of the middle class.
It took about six decades to build a vibrant middle class in America. It only took Bush and the Republicans 8 years to blow it to smithereens. Obama and the Democrats don’t have much time to turn that around. Let’s get to work.
Oh, by the way, thanks for The Great Recession, Republicans!
