13 Comments
Dec 2, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

You would think that our stupid politicians would lay out a plan to help the younger generations.

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Dec 2, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

Most young voters would try to throw out a politician that made proposals that are good for young people. They’d be more likely to vote for rent control, carbon taxes, more labor regulations, etc.

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Good point.

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Ha, right. "Let's big a big apartment building so more people could get an apartment". Hold on, we need an environmental study, a carve out for Section 8 and all building codes need to conform to global warming standards." "Yeah, what are you trying to do, ruin the environment?"

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Dec 2, 2023·edited Dec 2, 2023

The City guidelines for the LaSalle Street office conversions to apartments had a 30% low income residence requirement.

5% would be too much. 30% means it’s a public housing project.

Oh well, at least we got to see LaSalle Street at its peak when the exchanges were hopping.

Buildings given back to their lender include the CBOT Building, 111 W. Jackson, 175 W. Jackson, 208 S. LaSalle, and 135 S. LaSalle. The old CBOE Building at 400 S. LaSalle is for sale, but that’s a white elephant due to the trading floor configuration, unless someone converts it to a bowling alley. I spent time in all of these buildings over my career.

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Dec 2, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

FWIW re your surgery, my wife had a knee replacement a few years back. What I learned from her and others we knew is that you absolutely need to do PT aggressively and ASAP, painful or not. Fail to do that and you're no better off for the surgery.

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A huge factor in increased tuition is the high-cost 'administration' staff. It is not merely diversity and related obvious "service" roles that contribute nothing at all to student ed; it's also, and especially at the so-called top-tier institutions, research administration. The bloat at the top, and cost of the high-cost layer, has gotten ridiculous as the faculty model has shifted from publish-or-perish to get-fat-grants-or-go-away. Look at both administration to faculty ratios (and wonder who exactly they are counting as 'faculty', often not defined) and admin to student ratios. Trends over time are suicidal for the higher ed industry.

This has been going on a fairly long time but used to be hidden in reducing real faculty by making TAs, adjuncts, post-docs, and retired people (professors of the practice) or whoever else could be fooled into tons of work for almost no remuneration and usually no benefits do most of the teaching and office hours while the full professors ran first after government money and later the post-tech-funded big money like Gates and subsequent megalomaniacs/oligarchs. A few scandals and payouts over grant /contract mismanagement (see: Duke's 2019 $112.5m penalty) might not dent the big endowments but the defensive reaction has been to add layers of six-figure and meso and middle and flunky administrators checking all of the paperwork and nagging profs to get more money and certify this or that was done per the contract - each one padded with around 50-60% 'overhead' rates, to fund more administrators, schmoozers, and flunkies.

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That's a great point. The overhead is gigantic at schools, and it continues to grow thanks to subsidies.

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Yes. And that’s been the plan since about 2008. The fundamental transformation continues apace…

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Great observations Mr Carter! I've had a tougher year too. 3 back procedures and 2 spinal fusions. Yikes! Do your PT and let your body heal. Mine has been an extreme remedial course in patience. And my wife is going straight up to heaven after this year! Keep sharing your thoughts. I enjoy your perspective!

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Jeremy Horpedahl covers a lot of these kinds of questions. The kids are OK at least financially. Check out his pinned tweet. https://twitter.com/jmhorp

The thing that holds people back is sand in the gears. It's impossible to build anything inexpensively or quickly. Does yours nephews have employees? How much time is spent on employee-related regulation? ORD Terminal 2 replacement is already $1.5B over budget and a shovel hasn't even hit the ground. https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2023/11/28/23979601/ohare-expansion-united-american-airlines-global-international-terminal-gates-flights-chicago

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Bill that precisely makes my point. Why is it overbudget? Unions, unnecessary regulations and unnecessary environmental studies, plus city of Chicago graft.

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That's why it's important to read broadly. It's easy to find and point out all the BS these days. Horpedahl and people like him do a valuable job of bringing data to all us gloomers. In most ways the US is doing well. And especially compared to other developed countries.

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