chongo

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SMU is a clear cut below the other two

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Ignorant statement.

Why do Tulane graduates make 12k less per year than SMU Graduates?

In terms of the rankings for private schools... Tulane, Pepperdine, Nova and SMU are all in there together... Everyone on The Street views them similarly... They're for rich kids not smart enough or connected enough to get into an actual good school, but they're not mouth breathers forced to go to Lynn or Rollins. Calling SMU a clear cut below has zero data to back it up.

Depends on what they want to do. Rice has the best academics of those 3, so if they're into engineering or science that's the obvious choice. Can land pretty solid national jobs with a Rice degree. SMU has the best networking opportunities per capita for a non-target school. Won't be able to compete in terms of resume for jobs against the UT kids, but can always work for a buddy's dad. Tulane would be the most fun.

It's plain and simply taxes and bad local govt. Property taxes on commercial property are like 17% of assessed value. Then you've got the Gordon's of the world preventing my company from even getting insurance in LA. I'm not huge, but I do a little less 15 mil in revenue and employ around 120 people. None of it in Louisiana. BR is home and I'd have loved to have built my business there, but the local govt is so anti-business I'd struggle to compete nationally. So now I'm HQed in Wyoming with terminals in Dallas and Atlanta. Until the populous demands pro-business reform, no one with a decent brain is setting up shop in that hell hole if they've got any mobility. I've got a home in BR and love to visit, but I'd never put a business there.

Nah

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He has a degree and played on saturdays. Judging by your post history I'm guessing you didn't do either.

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Check it closer.

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This guy can turn this around.

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For sure. He has a long and illustrious track record of doing this as a head coach. Slam dunk hire boys.

Oh yeah!!! Their best guy was stuck between Clemson and VCU. Top talent I tell ya. Getting those boys to BR is a MUST. We STA(C)KED!!!!

Edit: (C)

Service academy people tend to wear them a good bit. Not sure if more than A&M though.

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That part was changed by the DOL in their final ruling. An advisor does not have to recommend an investment over the other simply bc one has a lower expense.

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Exactly. It's why I qualified my statement by using the term "similarly weighted" indicating that the mutual fund and etf essentially hold the same securities. Of course a financial advisor doesn't simply have to recommend an investment based on expense ratio. That would be insane and the end of hedge funds lol.

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. the Treasury doesn't print money and sell it to the Fed, WTF??

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Umm yes they do. So the Treasury prints federal reserve notes (paper money) and when the Fed wishes to issue said notes, they post collateral for the notes, in addition to paying cash for the cost of producing the notes. When the Fed retires the note, they "sell" it back to the Treasury for the posted collateral. The Treasury acts as a pawn shop where it accepts collateral (the good) in exchange for the notes. Pawning something is essentially selling it. We're arguing over semantics. Regardless, the Fed pays roughly 4 cents for each note it receives from the Treasury. This is unequivocally buying money from the Treasury.

On to your bond nonsense. So the Fed has 3 tools at it's disposal for fulfilling its mandates. Your bond example falls under open market operations. This is where the Fed buys securities, generally government bills/bonds/notes on the OPEN MARKET. The Fed bids against other primary dealers to purchase these securities from the Treasury. Assuming the Fed wins the bid, they then pay the par value for the bond, and the Treasury is responsible for paying the interest on the bond to the Fed. So far so good, but here is where your example gets off track. The government needs a loan to raise capital, right. It's why it's selling these securities. Debt and leverage are generally useful so long as inflation is kept in check (time value of money and all). The problem is the Treasury cannot sell enough bonds on the open market, absent the Fed, to adequately fund our government spending without crazy interest rates. The demand for U.S. securities would be too low, since the Fed right now buys ~1 out of every 2 bonds issued by the Treasury.

Keeping everything in you hypo constant, if the Treasury strictly sold the securities on the open market, rather than the Fed giving the $9 back to "the people," the private purchaser would keep the $9... Not so good. Instead of the Fed using $10 dollars over 10 years to fund it's actives as the only "cost" associated with the debt financing, the cost would be the $100 coupon paid to the private purchaser of the Government security. At the end of 10 years, how much money is back in the treasury?? I'll count it for you, 0 times 10 is $0 dollars. $90>$0. Do you see why it is cheaper for the Treasury to sell bonds to the Fed than the open market? It's really important you understand this.

But everything in your hypo would not remain constant courtesy of supply and demand. So using your example, instead of a 10% "interest" (1000 bps is a crazy example unless Volcker gets another crack at the Chair, but for math's simplicity I'll accept it), the yield would crazy high, making the cost of borrowing for the US government too high to sustain. This would in turn cause all interest rates to skyrocket, home loans, SBA loans, student loans, etc. This would cause out of control inflation crippling economic growth, which is really, really bad. Just ask Germany post WWI. The only way to maintain an equilibrium would be for the government to cut its debt financing in half. We simply can't do that.

The only credible argument against the FOMC is that the government should not use debt financing. That's poor people shite. Virtually every company uses debt financing because they realize its utility. In capitalism, the government should be viewed as a corporation. It's nothing more than a legal arrangement between the entity (government) and its shareholders (the citizens), owing a fiduciary duty to said shareholders. The shareholders exercise certain voting rights based on the corporation's governing documents (the Constitution and laws passed under it). The corporation raises money by issuing bonds. Shouldn't it issue them at the lowest possible total cost (the Fed)?

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NO fiat currency has ever survived

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Yes, and no government has ever survived in perpetuity, so we should just give up on trying to have a government...

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They are just as much to blame in our current situation as the rest.

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Good. Our current "situation" is the best in human history. Never has the quality of life been so high. Virtually everyone in this Country has the opportunity to own property. Can it be improved, sure; we just haven't figured out how yet. You want to regress to the dark ages. Central banks are good. Without a central bank the US would have never been able to fund WWII, and we'd all be speaking German/Japanese. The Federal Reserve literally saved the free world.

I did when I was with a member. I generally frown upon stealing, which is what that is. You're hitting balls and getting a service that requires payment, yet you aren't paying. In Saudi Arabia you'd have your hand cutoff.

It's like asking if taking food from the grocery store is cool if you don't get caught... I'm too lazy to find a Jameis Winston Crab leg gif... but you get the point.