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DC's Revealed Black Economic Development "Plan"

DC's Revealed Black Economic Development "Plan"  https://youtu.be/rlr_DomOais DC has the highest rate of HIV infection, the highest Black/White income disparity and the most rapid gentrification in the United States. These facts are not unrelated. Together, they point to the true economic development policy, at least for Black people, in the city. My analysis and experience, described in detail below, supports this contention. Since 2005, we have been managing an effort to bring  crowdfunding  to  small businesses  in DC. My firm was  selected  to develop a crowdfunding program for the District's Great Streets Program. The effort we undertook was initially funded at $85,000, was reduced to $25,000 and further reduced to $20,000. DC has actually paid a fraction of this amount. Despite this, we moved ahead. At DC's Historic Metropolitan AME Church, we  worked with four innovators  to launch crowdfunding projects  in support of the...
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Investment Insights from Student Loan Data

Direct loans are low-interest loans for parents and students to help pay for the cost of post high-school education. Parent PLUS, available through the Direct Loan Program, lets parents borrow money to pay costs not already covered by a student's financial aid package. The current PLUS interest rate is fixed at 7.21%. The Parent PLUS, combined with other student loans, should lower the student loan default rate. However, we should note that the financial responsibility rests Parent PLUS not on students, but on parents. When a borrower fails to make their monthly payment at a scheduled point in time, a default occurs. The cohort default rate is the percentage of a school’s borrowers who enter into a repayment agreement on Direct Student Loans during a given fiscal year and default within the period. Cohort default rates nearly tripled from 2007 to 2010. The US government is now focused on strengthening the Federal Direct PLUS Loan Program to stop the default rate increase. While th...
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Appeals Court Ruling in Citi Case Is a Gift to Big Banks

Anyone still waiting for justice with respect to the role that large banks played in the financial crisis had to be disappointed in a New York appeals court's ruling in a case involving a settlement agreement between Citigroup Global Markets and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Read more at: http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/appeals-court-ruling-in-citi-case-is-a-gift-to-big-banks-1067939-1.html Also see:  http://www.prlog.org/11948760-william-michael-cunningham-files-revised-brief-in-sec-vs-citigroup-2nd-cir-ct-of-ap.html
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LeVar Burton and Crowdfunding

(Photo from: Top 50 Crowdfunding Campaigns: Fifty Most Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns Kindle Edition.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RKK4NL0 ) We note with interest the recent Kickstarter campaign by LeVar Burton for Reading Rainbow . According to one news report, "Reading Rainbow, the PBS children’s program hosted by LeVar Burton that debuted in 1983 and went off the air in 2006,upset many with its departure. But Burton, who also executive produced the program, has managed to keep the project alive in some form or another in the time since. He launched the show as an app in 2012. And now his new venture is to take Reading Rainbow’s large digital library of books and videos to classrooms nationwide for free. But to do so Burton needs capital. So the Star Trek actor turned to Kickstarter to raise money. He launched his campaign last Wednesday to raise $1 million to launch his PBS children’s series online. Although Burton had allotted 35 days to raise the money, within 24 ...
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Mr. Gary Becker, 1930 - 2014

The photo at left is Mr. Gary Stanley Becker (December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014).  Mr. Becker was thesis adviser for my Master's degree in Economics at the University of Chicago.  The photo was taken at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC on September 23, 2013 .  Thank you, Mr. Becker.
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