Student Loans: It’s Time to Empty that Piggy Bank

All of those happy hour Orange Crushes were worth it...right?...Right?

Maybe. But lately, the cost of higher education has sent student loan debt jumping to $1.5 trillion. Here's how it breaks down by the numbers:

$28,400—How much debt the average new grad owes. That number was $22,100 in 2001 (adjusted for inflation).

20%—Borrowers who are late on payments.

66%—Student loan debt held by women. Typically, more women attend some form of higher education than men.

For perspective...

$1.2 trillion—U.S. auto loan debt.

More than $1 trillion—U.S. credit card debt.

UK regulators appear ready to allow Fox (+1.09%) to buy a majority of Sky, but only if it divests Sky News. Comcast (-0.67%) also shouldn't have a problem with its bid.

Medicare’s finances were downgraded in a new report from the programÂ’s trustees Tuesday, while the projection for Social SecurityÂ’s stayed the same as last year. 

Medicare’s hospital insurance fund will be depleted in 2026, said the trustees who oversee the benefit program in an annual report. That is three years earlier than projected last year.

This year, like last year, Social Security’s trustees said the program’s two trust funds would be depleted in 2034. 

For the first time since 1982, Social Security has to dip into the trust fund to pay for the program this year. 

It should be stressed that the reports don’t indicate that benefits disappear in those years. After 2034, Social Security’s trustees said tax income would be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of retirees’ benefits. 

Congress could at any time choose to pay for the benefits through the general fund.

Medicare beneficiaries also wouldn’t face an immediate cut after the trust fund is depleted in 2026. The trustees said the share of benefits that can be paid from revenues will decline to 78% in 2039. That share rises again to 85% in 2092. The hospital fund is financed mainly through payroll taxes. 

Social Security trustees said that reserves for the fund that pays disability benefits would be exhausted in 2032. Combined with the fund that pays benefits to retirees, all Social Security reserves would be exhausted by 2034, they said. 

The trustees said Medicare’s changed outlook is due to adverse changes in the program’s income and costs. Hospital insurance fund income is projected to be lower than last year’s estimates thanks to “lower payroll taxes attributable to lowered wages in 2017 and lower levels of projected GDP,” the trustees said. 

And hospital insurance fund expenditures are expected to be higher than last year’s estimates, the trustees said. 

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement that “lackluster economic growth in previous years,” as well as an aging population, has contributed to shortages for both Social Security and Medicare. He said the Trump administration’s economic agenda, including tax cuts and trade deals, would generate growth and help to secure the programs. 

AARP said in a statement that the report showed “challenges ahead for the long term,” and singled out health care for action during the election year. “In particular, we need to take further steps to lower the cost of health care, especially the ever-rising price of prescription drugs,” the organization said.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/medicares-finances-are-getting-worse-as-social-security-taps-into-fund-for-first-time-in-36-years-2018-06-05

@kergo This is a site for everyone. Just like Twitter / Facebook etc....

Yes. there is also a subform about Jehovah's Witnesses as there is for Mormons, Catholics etc....

The Tesla shareholders meeting was yesterday, and let's just say...Elon Musk knows how to give a performance.

After dodging proposals that would dethrone him from his role as chairman (yes, not everyone is a Musk fanatic), he put on a teary-eyed show and expressed just how hard Tesla works to be great:

• Some employees supposedly have worked 60 days straight and had to be forced home.
• And how about that disappointing Model 3 production? Tesla just made 3,500 cars per week and is aiming for 5,000 by month's end.
• Moving forward? Expect Tesla to hit profitability in Q3 and Q4.

Bottom line: Tesla's been under the spotlight this year. But major shareholders are still betting on Musk to turn things around.

Samsung Electronics has lost a long-running patent case, with a jury on Thursday ordering the company to pay Apple $538 million for copying their smartphones, Reuters reports. Apple first filed a patent lawsuit against Samsung in 2011, alleging it had "slavishly" copied Apple products. Specifically, Apple took issue with Samsung copying mobile design features such as rounded corners, the rim of the front face of the iPhone, and the app grid layout of the iOS home screen, reports The Verge. A 2012 trial found Samsung guilty. A lack of agreement over damages had resulted in a retrial, which ended last week, per Reuters.

An Amazon Alexa speaker recorded a user’s conversation inside their home and sent it on to one of their stored contacts, reports The Wall Street Journal. Amazon confirmed the incident and said the device mistook a conversation for commands. The episode “raises questions about the security of such voice-operated devices,” per the Journal.

 

Martha Ross and Nicole Bateman

The Avenue

A smaller share of people in their prime working years (25-54) are employed now than in decades past, and some have wondered whether disabilities and health problems have played a role in that decline. People with disabilities have much lower employment rates than people without disabilities, and disabilities are one of the most commonly cited reasons for not working. Moreover, a recent Brookings report identified particular subgroups among the out-of-work as having disproportionately high rates of disability.

With that as context, we set out to better understand the role of geography and demography in patterns of disability among prime-age adults. Disability can take many forms, but the Centers for Disease Control provides a useful general definition: disability is any condition of the body or mind that makes it more difficult for the person with the condition to do certain activities and interact with the world around them. The onset of disability can also take many forms: it may present itself at birth, stem from an accident or injury, or result from a long-standing condition or disease, among other causes.

Nine percent of adults aged 25 to 54, or 11 million Americans, reported at least one of six disabilities in 2016.[1] Some patterns by place and demographics are already well-established: disability is disproportionately concentrated in the Southeast, Midwest and Appalachian areas (the so-called “disability belt”), and people with disabilities disproportionately include people with low levels of education and incomes. But analyses at the metropolitan level are less common, and given the regional nature of labor markets, regional-level data should inform efforts to help people with disabilities.

This analysis uses data from the American Community Survey (ACS) to examine disability rates of the 100 largest metropolitan areas, as well as differences by education and race/ethnicity. We do not limit our analysis to those receiving disability benefits, but rather include all who report a disability, in order to provide a broad picture of those with disabilities in the United States and where they live.

Metros show wide variation in disability rates

Disability rates range considerably among the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, from just under 4 percent up to 13 percent.

Places with the lowest disability rates have strong economies and well-educated populations, such as San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in California; Madison, Wisc.; Austin, Texas; and Washington, D.C. Metropolitan areas with the highest disability rates are located both within and outside of the disability belt. Some have historically manufacturing-based or industrial economies, such as Scranton, Pa.; Birmingham, Ala.; Toledo, Ohio; and Spokane, Wash. Others, like Tucson, Ariz.; Deltona, Fla.; and El Paso, Texas have large tourism or agricultural sectors that employ many workers with low levels of education.

Disability by race/ethnicity varies within and between metros…

At the national level, Native Americans have the highest disability rate among working-age adults (16 percent), followed by blacks (11 percent), whites (9 percent), Hispanics (7 percent), and Asians (4 percent).

Yet disability rates by race and ethnicity also vary greatly among metro areas. As Figure 1 shows, Asians exhibit both low levels of disability and relatively small variation between places, ranging from 2 percent to 13 percent. Blacks and Hispanics both exhibit wider ranges, from the low single digits to about 20 percent. In most places, as at the national level, blacks have higher disability rates than whites, up to 2.5 times greater. In a number of metro areas, however (concentrated in Florida, North Carolina, and Connecticut), blacks have the same or lower disability rates than whites. Similarly, although Hispanics have lower disability rates than most other races/ethnicities at the national level, they are more likely to be disabled than whites and blacks in metro areas such as Spokane, Wash.; Springfield, Mass.; Deltona, Fla.; and Allentown and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

…but the differences by education are much larger

Among the entire prime-age population in the United States, the disability rate among those with only a high school diploma is three times higher than among those with a bachelor’s degree (12 percent and 4 percent, respectively). In a number of places, however, that gap is even greater, particularly in formerly industrial metro areas in Ohio (Akron, Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo, Youngstown), Pennsylvania (Scranton and Pittsburgh), and Massachusetts (Springfield and Worcester).

In some ways, these data are not surprising. As noted above, people with disabilities have lower educational levels than people without disabilities, and education is a powerful predictor of health status in general. But the size of the gap is sobering and points to a complicated relationship between education and disability. Even in a post-ADA world, people with disabilities can face barriers to completing their education, and education is linked to overall health in myriad ways, including individual health knowledge and behaviors, access to health care, exposure to environmental toxins, and jobs that are more physically demanding or dangerous.

Geography also interacts with education and disability. Low education is more strongly associated with disability in some regions than others, suggesting that education is one of a number of factors that influence local disability rates. But the relationship between disability and geography is long-standing: researchers have noted it for decades, suggesting the patterns have deep roots in industrial and sociocultural conditions.

Our next post will dive deeper into employment trends among people with disabilities in their prime working years, with a continued focus on trends by race, education, and geography. Both job availability and demographics vary markedly around the country, requiring local leaders to craft employment and service interventions tailored to local needs.

The authors thank Cecile Murray for her help conceptualizing and carrying out the data analysis for this blog.

[1]Disabilities are defined as having difficulties in the following areas: vision, hearing, the ability to walk or climb stairs, cognition (remembering, concentrating, or making decisions), self-care (dressing or bathing), and independent living (doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping).

SolarReserve is a developer of utility-scale solar power projects which include Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Photovoltaic (PV) technology. The company has commercialized solar thermal energy storage technology that enables solar power tower CSP plants to deliver electricity day and night. In this technology, a molten salt is used to capture the energy from the sun and store it. When electricity is needed, the stored liquid salt is used to turn water into steam to turn a turbine and generate electricity.

As of May 2015, SolarReserve has developed and secured long-term power contracts for 482 megawatts (MW) of solar projects representing $2.8 billion of project capital, with a development pipeline of more than 6.6 gigawatts (GW) globally.[3] SolarReserve reached its lowest price yet at ¢6.3/kWh for the 2019 Copiapó Solar Project.

In addition to its headquarters in Santa Monica, California, SolarReserve has offices in Spain, Chile, South Africa, Turkey, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.

SolarReserve was formed in early 2008 with seed capital[5] from US Renewables Group, in partnership with United Technologies Corporation (UTC), to commercialize advanced molten salt technology for utility-scale concentrated solar thermal power. This technology was first developed and tested by Rocketdyne for two decades and had more than 100 US and international patents. In September 2008 the company raised an additional $140 million in a Series B funding.

In 2014, SolarReserve acquired ownership from Rocketdyne of its intellectual property rights and patents specifically for molten salt technology for concentrated solar-thermal power and electricity storage, heliostat designs and collector field control systems.

Projects

Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project

The 110 MW Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project is the world’s first utility-scale facility to use molten salt power tower energy storage. It has 10,347 tracking mirrors  (heliostats) that follow the sun and reflect and concentrate sunlight onto a heat exchanger, a receiver, atop a 640-foot (200 m) tower. Crescent Dunes has 10 hours of storage and will deliver 500,000 MW hours of electricity per year, day and night, to 75,000 homes. In September, 2011, SolarReserve received a $737 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the project and broke ground. The project has a 25-year agreement with NV Energy for 100 percent of the electricity. Construction is complete and the project went online in the fall of 2015. Under the rollout plan with NV Energy, the facility will ramp-up over the coming year.

Redstone Solar Thermal Power Project

The Redstone Solar Thermal Power Project is 100 MW solar project located at Postmasburg, near Kimberly, South Africa. The project will have 12 hours of storage to deliver to more than 200,000 South African homes. The project is planned to be online in 2018.

Aurora Solar Thermal Power Project

The Aurora Solar Thermal Power Project is a 150MW solar thermal plant proposed to be built about 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Port Augusta in South Australia.The project is expected to cost AUD $650 million and be completed by 2020. The promised power delivery price is noted to be competitive with combined-cycle natural-gas plants.

Copiapó Solar Project

The Copiapó Solar Project near Copiapó, Atacama Region, Chile is a 260 MW hybrid solar power project consisting of CSP and PV energy. It will have 14 hours of storage to deliver to more than 560,000 homes in Atacama. The project is the first of its kind in Chile and will be the largest solar power plant in the world. At the 2017 auction, SolarReserve bid $63/MWh (¢6.3/kWh) for 24-hour CSP power with no subsidies, competing with other types such as LNG gas turbines.

Photovoltaic

Lesedi Solar Energy Project

Letsatsi Solar Energy Project

Jasper Solar Energy Project

By Will James 

• Sarah Howe, who is blind and uses a wheelchair, is searching for a new apartment after her landlord gave her notice to vacateWill James / KNKX

 Residents of the Tiki Apartments in Tacoma say they know their complex is run down. 

But they say it's served as a refuge for renters who struggle to find apartments elsewhere, including people with disabilities, fixed incomes, or criminal records. 

Now that a new landlord is displacing them, they're thrust into a much more intense housing market. A new owner from Seattle is renovating the complex and notified tenants last month that they would have to leave. 

The episode highlights the extent to which the Puget Sound region's housing affordability problems have taken root in Tacoma, once considered a bargain for housing within reach of people with disabilities. 

Tacoma's average rent swelled by 8 percent to $1,218 over the past year, according to the apartment search company RENTCafé.

"It's like living in Hell," said Sarah Howe, who is blind and uses a wheelchair due to a rare genetic disorder called Norrie disease.

Howe, 42, has lived in the complex three years and has until the end of June to move out. Initially, she had less than a month, but a public outcry led by tenants like Howe, and a last-minute deal engineered by Tacoma City Council members, extended the landlord's deadline. 

Howe estimates she's made 40 to 50 phone calls to inquire about apartments, none of which have panned out. 

"It's been a nightmare," she said. "I go to sleep and hope that I wake up and I get to start all over. But I wake up and it's the same thing: still looking for a place to live." 

Her disabilities limit her choices. She needs an apartment that's wheelchair accessible and close to transit lines.

But a major obstacle is her income. Howe gets $790 a month total in federal and state assistance. Her rent at the Tiki Apartments currently takes up most of that, leaving her with $220 a month for bills and other expenses.

Again and again, she's been told nothing is available within that kind of budget.

"I want to cry, but I just hang up and then I cry a little bit," she said. "And then I get over it and make another phone call."

Tacoma City Council members allocated $10,000 earlier this month to pay for caseworkers to help relocate the tenants. So far, about half have found new homes. 

All around Howe's unit, workers have already begun renovating apartments for new tenants.

"My biggest fear is being the last one here," she said. "But then even if I'm the last one here, it's a statement that there's just not that much accessibility out there." 

When she went outside to pull a prank on one of her neighbors last weekend — she planned to put a sleep shade over her eyes and say, "I can't see, I'm blind!" — she couldn't find anyone.   

"There was nobody here to pull a prank on, nobody here to mess with," she said. "These are my friends, these are my community, these are the family that I chose. These are the people that looked out for me." 

Anyone know the name of this flower/bush?

Mobile Food Bank 2018.pdf

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today that it has charged two Ohio corporations, Epcon Communities, Inc., and Epcon Communities Franchising, Inc. (Epcon), with housing discrimination for failing to design and construct thirty-two multifamily housing communities throughout Ohio that meet the accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act. Read HUD’s charge.

The Fair Housing Act requires that multifamily housing built after March 1991 contain accessible features for people with disabilities. Requirements include accessible common areas, bathrooms and kitchens, as well as wider doors and environmental controls that can be reached by residents who use wheelchairs. The failure to include these features is unlawful and makes the property difficult or impossible to use by people with disabilities.

"It can be very difficult for persons with disabilities to live in housing that does not meet the Fair Housing Act’s design and construction requirements," said Anna María Farías, HUD's Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.  "If, for example, a unit has stairs at its entry, that unit is effectively unavailable to a person who uses a wheelchair; it’s as if the property has a sign saying, ‘no wheelchairs allowed.’"

HUD’s charge resulted from complaints by the Fair Housing Advocates Association (FHAA), an Ohio-based fair housing organization, and HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.  FHAA first filed a complaint with HUD alleging that five Epcon communities in Ohio had numerous inaccessible features in violation of the Fair Housing Act.  During its investigation, HUD discovered additional properties, built by Epcon or throughout its franchisees and filed its own complaint alleging that a total of thirty-two Epcon communities were inaccessible.

According to the charge, Epcon allegedly discriminated against persons with disabilities because it lacked unsafe and inaccessible routes that persons with disabilities and others can use to travel between their homes and common areas: mailboxes, the clubhouse and pool. 

The charge will be heard by a United States Administrative Law Judge unless any party elects for the case to be heard in federal court.  If the administrative law judge finds after a hearing that discrimination has occurred, he may award damages to FHAA for its loss as a result of the discrimination.  The judge may also order retrofits at the inaccessible properties, and other injunctive or equitable relief, as well as payment of attorney fees.  In addition, the judge may impose civil penalties to vindicate the public interest.

April 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Act and the 30th anniversary of the Act’s amendment to prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities.  This year, HUD, local communities, housing advocates, and fair housing organizations across the country are conducting a variety of activities to enhance awareness of fair housing rights, highlight HUD's fair housing enforcement efforts, and end housing discrimination in the nation. For a list of activities, visit www.hud.gov/fairhousingis50.

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability and familial status.  People who believe they have experienced discrimination may file a complaint by contacting HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at (800) 669-9777 (voice) or (800) 927-9275 (TTY). Housing discrimination complaints may also be filed by going to www.hud.gov/fairhousing.

@Chelita and @Nicole where should they be ranked? ?

Ok... help me out... who have I missed or placed wrong?

This list is just starting so I'm sure I've missed hundreds of good names.

Where should I place?

Drew Barrymore 

Martin Sheen

Charlie Sheen

Michael Douglas

Barbra Streisand

Cher

D-List

Maria Menounos  (cinema ads)

Bianca Jagger

What is the name of Clint Eastwood's son again?

C-List

Al

Courtney Cox 

James Franco

Melissa McCarthy

Amy Schumer

Jennifer Leann Carpenter  

B-List 

Jack Hughman

Zac Efron

Christopher Walkens

Scarlett Johansson

Bill Murray

Dwayne Johnson

Jake Gyllenhaal

Anthony Hopkins

Antonio Banderas

Meghan Markle

Emma Stone

Sophie Marceau (My favorite French Actress)

Eva Mendes

Gal Gadot

Chris Pine

Michael Keaton

Charlize Theron 

Benedict Cumberbatch

Sophia Vergara

Michael Knight aka 

Janet Jackson

Sally Field

Morgan Freeman

Nicole Kidman

Kate Winslet

Rowan Atkinson

Ryan Reynolds

Channing Tatum 

Adam Sandler

Now deceased:

George Michael

Mary Tyler Moore

Dick Van Dyke

In popular usage outside the film industry, an "A-list celebrity" is any person with an admired or desirable social status. Even socialites with popular press coverage and elite associations have been termed as "A-list" celebrities. Similarly, less popular persons and current teen idols are referred to as "B-list" – and the ones with lesser fame "C-list". Entertainment Weekly interpreted C-list celebrity as "that guy (or sometimes that girl), the easy-to-remember but hard-to-name character actor".

"D-list" (or sometimes Z-list) is for a person whose celebrity is so obscure that they are generally only known for appearances as so-called celebrities on panel game shows and reality television. In the late 20th century, D-listers were largely ignored by the entertainment news industry;

I decided to start my own list of who I consider celebrities and in what ranking they are in according to $ and fame. Feel free to share your opinions with me as well and I will consider them.

A-List

Leonardo DiCaprio

Matt Damon

Keanu Reeves

Robert Downey, Jr.

Tom Cruise

Tom Hanks

Madonna

Elton John

Julia Roberts

George Clooney (Amal is with him)

Matthew McConaughey

Will Smith

Sandra Bullock

Johnny Depp

Brad Pitt

Ryan Gosling

A-List actors/actresses whose careers appear to be slowing down or even halted:

Nicholas Cage

Richard Gere 

Bruce Willis

Harrison Ford

Sir Paul McCartney

Jack Nicholson

Jim Carrey

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Mel Gibson

Cameron Diaz

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Michael J. Fox 

Jennifer Aniston

Arnold Schwarznegger

Sylvester Stallone

Kevin Bacon

Steve Martin

Eddie Murphy

Clint Eastwood

Bill Cosby...... What a fall from grace and soon to be on the list below. Sad story.

Oprah Winfrey.... She owns the media world... so I can't really say her career is in decline. But she isn't seen publicly as much as her TV days.

Now deceased: (A List)

Elvis Presley

Michael Jackson

Princess Diana

Marilyn Monroe

Prince

Christopher Reeves

The stunning transformation of Meghan Markle

Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle are getting married in Windsor at St George's Chapel. You can watch the ceremony live here from 1100 BST.

4am East coast USA

1am West coast USA