July 4 is celebrated as Independence Day — the day the 13 colonies formally declared their independence from Great Britain.
In truth, that decision was made on July 2, 1776, in a vote by the Continental Congress. July 4 is the day the Congress issued the Declaration of Independence — a document justifying that break with an eye toward “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.”
In that respect, the Declaration was as much a foreign-policy document as a simple statement of the governing principles by which both our break from London and our future government was to be judged: A government’s failure to take account of the fact that “all men are created equal” and a failure to secure men’s individual rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” means that a people, any people, has justifiable grounds for “abolishing” its ties, its allegiance, to that government.
As was obvious to both the Founders who drafted and approved the Declaration, and the monarchies and despotisms that ruled the vast majority of the rest of mankind, the American declaration of these principles was a revolutionary moment not only for a sliver of the North American continent but, potentially, for the rest of the world.
The United States, initially weak relative to the other great powers in the world and, as such, disinclined to involve itself in the their conflicts, set itself inevitably on a course that is aptly captured in the title of Robert Kagan’s history of early American statecraft, “Dangerous Nation.”
July 4th Information – Buy Tickets for July 4th Fireworks!
The Parade begins at 10am and is free. The Fireworks (Vets Field opens at 6pm for entertainment & skydivers) requires tickets for entrance to the Field. Donations for Fireworks Tickets is one of the Celebration’s largest sources of income. Tickets are available for advance purchase at stores for $10. Tickets are on sale at the gates for $15 for adults and $10 for children ages 6-12. Buy your tickets in advance for big savings! Children 5 and under are admitted for free.
Tickets will be on sale at the following vendors for $10 each. Children 5 and under are admitted free.
•Backyard Living – 235 Franklin Avenue, Ridgewood
•Bergen News Plus – 890 Prospect Street, Glen Rock
•Chestnut Catering & Deli – 25 Chestnut Street, Ridgewood
•Connect One Bank – 171 E. Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood
•Custom Cut Salon – 239 Godwin Avenue, Midland Park
•Daily Treat Restaurant– 177 E. Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood – Open July 4th until 2:00 PM
•Drinks Wines and Spirits- 607 N. Maple Avenue, Ho-Ho-Kus – Open July 4th until 5:00 PM
•Goffle Brook Farm– 425 Goffle Road, Ridgewood – Open July 4th until 5:00 PM
•Hillman Electric Inc. – 133 E. Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood
•Hogan’s Restaurant & Diner – 20 Central Avenue, Midland Park
•Hoskins Propane – 523 Goffle Road, Ridgewood
•Ridgewood Auto Wash Co. – 450 South Broad Street, Glen Rock
•Ridgewood Cycle Shop – 35 North Broad Street, Ridgewood
•The Wine Seller- 6 West Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood – Open July 4th until 4:00 PM
•Town & Country Apothecary – 60 E. Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood
At the gate tickets are $15.00 for adults, $10.00 for Children ages 6-12. Children 5 and under are admitted for free. Buy your tickets in advance and save.
Patrons and belongings will be subject to security checks by Police Department personnel when entering Veterans Field. Alcohol is not permitted. There will be 2 lines at the gates, one for those with bags and one for those without bags. Expect delays. All gates will close at 9:00 PM.
The Free-Market and Anti-Government Roots of the American Revolution
JULY 3, 2015Murray N. Rothbard
[From For a New Liberty.]
Historians have long debated the precise causes of the American Revolution: Were they constitutional, economic, political, or ideological? We now realize that, being libertarians, the revolutionaries saw no conflict between moral and political rights on the one hand and economic freedom on the other. On the contrary, they perceived civil and moral liberty, political independence, and the freedom to trade and produce as all part of one unblemished system, what Adam Smith was to call, in the same year that the Declaration of Independence was written, the “obvious and simple system of natural liberty.”
The libertarian creed emerged from the “classical liberal” movements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Western world, specifically, from the English Revolution of the seventeenth century. This radical libertarian movement, even though only partially successful in its birthplace, Great Britain, was still able to usher in the Industrial Revolution there by freeing industry and production from the strangling restrictions of State control and urban government-supported guilds. For the classical liberal movement was, throughout the Western world, a mighty libertarian “revolution” against what we might call the Old Order — the ancien régime which had dominated its subjects for centuries. This regime had, in the early modern period beginning in the sixteenth century, imposed an absolute central State and a king ruling by divine right on top of an older, restrictive web of feudal land monopolies and urban guild controls and restrictions. The result was a Europe stagnating under a crippling web of controls, taxes, and monopoly privileges to produce and sell conferred by central (and local) governments upon their favorite producers. This alliance of the new bureaucratic, war-making central State with privileged merchants — an alliance to be called “mercantilism” by later historians — and with a class of ruling feudal landlords constituted the Old Order against which the new movement of classical liberals and radicals arose and rebelled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The object of the classical liberals was to bring about individual liberty in all of its interrelated aspects. In the economy, taxes were to be drastically reduced, controls and regulations eliminated, and human energy, enterprise, and markets set free to create and produce in exchanges that would benefit everyone and the mass of consumers. Entrepreneurs were to be free at last to compete, to develop, to create. The shackles of control were to be lifted from land, labor, and capital alike. Personal freedom and civil liberty were to be guaranteed against the depredations and tyranny of the king or his minions. Religion, the source of bloody wars for centuries when sects were battling for control of the State, was to be set free from State imposition or interference, so that all religions — or nonreligions — could coexist in peace. Peace, too, was the foreign policy credo of the new classical liberals; the age-old regime of imperial and State aggrandizement for power and pelf was to be replaced by a foreign policy of peace and free trade with all nations. And since war was seen as engendered by standing armies and navies, by military power always seeking expansion, these military establishments were to be replaced by voluntary local militia, by citizen-civilians who would only wish to fight in defense of their own particular homes and neighborhoods.
Thus, the well-known theme of “separation of Church and State” was but one of many interrelated motifs that could be summed up as “separation of the economy from the State,” “separation of speech and press from the State,” “separation of land from the State,” “separation of war and military affairs from the State,” indeed, the separation of the State from virtually everything.
The State, in short, was to be kept extremely small, with a very low, nearly negligible budget. The classical liberals never developed a theory of taxation, but every increase in a tax and every new kind of tax was fought bitterly — in America twice becoming the spark that led or almost led to the Revolution (the stamp tax, the tea tax).
“Being libertarians, the revolutionaries saw no conflict between moral and political rights on the one hand and economic freedom on the other.”
The earliest theoreticians of libertarian classical liberalism were the Levelers during the English Revolution and the philosopher John Locke in the late seventeenth century, followed by the “True Whig” or radical libertarian opposition to the “Whig Settlement” — the regime of eighteenth-century Britain. John Locke set forth the natural rights of each individual to his person and property; the purpose of government was strictly limited to defending such rights. In the words of the Lockean-inspired Declaration of Independence, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it….”
While Locke was widely read in the American colonies, his abstract philosophy was scarcely calculated to rouse men to revolution. This task was accomplished by radical Lockeans in the eighteenth century, who wrote in a more popular, hard-hitting, and impassioned manner and applied the basic philosophy to the concrete problems of the government — and especially the British government — of the day. The most important writing in this vein was “Cato’s Letters,” a series of newspaper articles published in the early 1720s in London by True Whigs John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. While Locke had written of the revolutionary pressure which could properly be exerted when government became destructive of liberty, Trenchard and Gordon pointed out that government always tended toward such destruction of individual rights. According to “Cato’s Letters,” human history is a record of irrepressible conflict between Power and Liberty, with Power (government) always standing ready to increase its scope by invading people’s rights and encroaching upon their liberties. Therefore, Cato declared, Power must be kept small and faced with eternal vigilance and hostility on the part of the public to make sure that it always stays within its narrow bounds:
We know, by infinite Examples and Experience, that Men possessed of Power, rather than part with it, will do any thing, even the worst and the blackest, to keep it; and scarce ever any Man upon Earth went out of it as long as he could carry every thing his own Way in it…. This seems certain, That the Good of the World, or of their People, was not one of their Motives either for continuing in Power, or for quitting it.
It is the Nature of Power to be ever encroaching, and converting every extraordinary Power, granted at particular Times, and upon particular Occasions, into an ordinary Power, to be used at all Times, and when there is no Occasion, nor does it ever part willingly with any Advantage….
Alas! Power encroaches daily upon Liberty, with a Success too evident; and the Balance between them is almost lost. Tyranny has engrossed almost the whole Earth, and striking at Mankind Root and Branch, makes the World a Slaughterhouse; and will certainly go on to destroy, till it is either destroyed itself, or, which is most likely, has left nothing else to destroy.
Such warnings were eagerly imbibed by the American colonists, who reprinted “Cato’s Letters” many times throughout the colonies and down to the time of the Revolution. Such a deep-seated attitude led to what the historian Bernard Bailyn has aptly called the “transforming radical libertarianism” of the American Revolution.
For the revolution was not only the first successful modern attempt to throw off the yoke of Western imperialism — at that time, of the world’s mightiest power. More important, for the first time in history, Americans hedged in their new governments with numerous limits and restrictions embodied in constitutions and particularly in bills of rights. Church and State were rigorously separated throughout the new states, and religious freedom enshrined. Remnants of feudalism were eliminated throughout the states by the abolition of the feudal privileges of entail and primogeniture. (In the former, a dead ancestor is able to entail landed estates in his family forever, preventing his heirs from selling any part of the land; in the latter, the government requires sole inheritance of property by the oldest son.)
The new federal government formed by the Articles of Confederation was not permitted to levy any taxes upon the public; and any fundamental extension of its powers required unanimous consent by every state government. Above all, the military and war-making power of the national government was hedged in by restraint and suspicion; for the eighteenth-century libertarians understood that war, standing armies, and militarism had long been the main method for aggrandizing State power.
JULY 3, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2015, 10:26 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS AND MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Some accomplishments require years of work and training. Others fall right into place.
Planning for the Ridgewood Fourth of July Parade and Celebration is a full-time job; preparation begins in the early fall for the following year’s festivities. Developing the parade theme is one of the time-consuming tasks, but once that’s done, many pieces of the puzzle come together.
The selection of Ridgewood High School student Charlotte Samuels as this year’s parade grand marshal was a natural fit for the program’s “American Innovation” theme.
,
The same could be said about who was chosen as the parade committee’s honored guest.
According to Ridgewood Fourth of July Committee member Tara Masterson, the years of dedication Samuels and Corcoran put into their endeavors “embodied the spirit and motivation” America’s forefathers and inventors employed throughout the annals. Over the past year, both honorees have set individual world records in their respective sports.
“I was so honored to have been asked to be part of the Ridgewood Parade in such an incredible way,” Samuels said. “I was also very excited about the theme of the parade being American Innovation because I think that can be taken in so many ways. When I learned that the special guest at the parade would be Brendan Corcoran, who broke the firefighter’s mile record, I felt so lucky to be in the company of a town that has so many diverse talents and people.”
JULY 2, 2015 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2015, 1:32 PM
BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
A police academy named in memory of “the little chief” helped build bonds between officers and village youngsters.
The Second Annual Chief Michael Feeney Jr. Police Academy ran from June 22 to 30.
The academy presents an opportunity for children entering sixth, seventh and eighth grades to get to know police officers while also learning some valuable skills. The program offers the children a chance to have fun while in a learning environment, making them more likely to remember what they are taught, according to village police officials.
Ridgewood Police Lt. Glenn Ender, one of the driving forces behind the academy, noted that “several towns do a youth police academy; it’s a great way for us to interact with the youth of the town, and to show them what it’s like to be an officer.”
The academy’s namesake, Michael Feeney, died in late 2013 after a courageous battle with Ewing’s sarcoma.
Ender said Feeney was “inspirational” to the department and village.
“We gave him a badge, gave him a uniform and he just thought it was the greatest thing,” said Ender. “To see his face, it was just unbelievable.”
After Feeney tragically lost his battle with the disease, Ender decided that he wanted to do something in the “little chief’s” memory.
JULY 3, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY EILEEN LA FORGIA
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Ridgewood music legend Warren Grim, is being honored with a Tribute Concert Under the Stars on Tuesday, July 7 at the Kasschau Memorial Shell. The beloved founder of the Ridgewood Village Band died last September at 91.
“It seems fitting that his life and legacy be remembered in this special way,” said John Palatucci, music director of The Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus of Ridgewood. This week marks the 56th anniversary of the Village Band’s first concert at the shell. Many of Grim’s students, former students and other community-minded players became members of the band playing for the annual 4th of July celebration and also on every Thursday evening to large and enthusiastic audiences. Grim directed the band for more than 30 years.
The tribute concert will feature performances by the Orpheus Club as well as by their guests, The Ridgewood Choral and The Ridgewood Concert Band.
The program beings with five pieces by Orpheus: “The Star Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful,” Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from “Carousel” and “We Sing As One” by Richard Lane, who had been the accompanist for Orpheus for 42 years.
Ridgewood Choral will sing “Aint Misbehaven,” “Duetto Buffo di due Gatti” by Rossini, “Music of the Night” from “Phantom of the Opera” and “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat” from “Guys and Dolls.”
In choosing the program, Palatucci and Ridgewood Concert Band director Chris Wilhjelm thought, “What would Warren choose for a summer concert band – Broadway show tunes, great old classical overtures, marches, of course and patriotic music.”
Ridgewood Concert Band will play five compositions: John Phillip Sousa’s “The Invincible Eagle March,” followed by “Italian Girl in Algeria” by Rossini, then “Shenandoah.” “Pennsylvania Polka” was a special request by Grim’s wife Elisa, since he was born in Bethlehem, Pa. “Old Comrades March” by Teike honors Grim’s parents who served in the U.S. Army in World War 1. His father was a sergeant and his mother was an Army nurse.
JULY 3, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
This weekend includes one of the highlights of my family’s year: the Ridgewood Fourth of July parade.
Though I am a resident of Waldwick, my family and neighbors have been attending the parade for as long as I can remember; my father was raised in Ridgewood. As such, he knew firsthand how great the parade was, and made sure that we attended.
In a day filled with celebrations, floats, barbecues and fireworks, some of the smaller aspects can get lost in the shuffle.
One of the most important parts of getting ready for the parade seems rather inconsequential, but is very necessary: the laying out of chairs.
My father recounted how he and his friends were amused in the late 70s when people felt the need to put their chairs out the night before; nowadays, people are known to do so two weeks in advance. As the popularity of the parade has grown, so too has the anticipation, causing people to lay out their chairs earlier and earlier.
Considering that my family and friends have been sitting in the same spot for as long as I can remember (across the street from Graydon, near the corner of Maple Avenue), putting out chairs has become an important part of our parade preparation. However, laying out the chairs is just the beginning.
By laying claim to the area with chairs, we are able to set up our inflatable Bud Light couch, which became rather well known. Politicians marching by have complimented it, with a particular highlight occurring when then-Gov. Christie Todd Whitman left the parade route to come over and admire the couch.
JULY 2, 2015 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2015, 2:26 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Others might claim the title as the county’s oldest or longest running parade, but Ridgewood’s day-long Independence Day celebration might be unmatched in pageantry and spectacle.
That notion is unlikely to change this Saturday, the 105th installation of the village’s Fourth of July festivities.
This year, the Fourth of July Parade – the crown jewel of the celebration – will pay homage to the innovation and ingenuity that became the cornerstone of the country. Much of the parade’s procession will be designed and decked out in garb observing the “American Innovation” theme.
Selecting the parade theme and planning for the event, according to Ridgewood Fourth of July Committee member Tara Masterson, is a lengthy task that begins in September.
“One of our first tasks is to identify a theme, which is a collaborative effort of the entire committee,” Masterson said. “This year, we chose American Innovation to celebrate innovators in our community, New Jersey and throughout the history of America. Each of the six elementary schools will be creating floats that will display various aspects of American Innovation.”
The Fourth of July Committee’s website further describes the theme selection: “On July 4, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was signed, a new nation was invented where with hard work and determination anyone can attain their dreams. Since then, America has seen many great minds that have developed innovations we use in our everyday lives. This year we will be celebrating the innovators and innovations that America has seen throughout its great history.”
JULY 3, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Residents looking to weigh in on the issue of multifamily housing should circle September on their calendars.
The Village Council set forth an ideal timeline for consideration of ordinances relating to a master plan amendment approved by the Planning Board last month.
Although the issue can be brought up during comment portions of any council meeting, officials are eyeing the mid-September public meeting as the date for a public hearing. An exact date will not be fixed until the ordinances are formally introduced.
In early June, the Ridgewood Planning Board approved a master plan amendment that would create four new zones in the Central Business District, three of which would allow for multifamily housing projects to be built at a maximum density of 35 units per acre for affordable rental units.
As “Pomp and Circumstance” plays at ceremonies nationwide this month, a record number of high school students are celebrating their hard-earned diplomas.
The celebrations won’t last. Despite their hard work, these students will soon find that they’re far from prepared for life after graduation. Academically, they’re worse educated than most of their foreign contemporaries. Occupationally, they’re ill-equipped for the jobs our economy needs. And emotionally, they’re less healthy than any generation in recent history.
America’s K-12 educational system is to blame. Despite huge advances in classroom technology and the science of learning, our nation’s schools remain a relic of another era.
Modernizing our schools isn’t just a matter of changing funding formulas and tweaking mechanisms for accountability. Instead, we must completely reimagine the American model of schooling, drawing on the science- and technology-driven practices that have revolutionized the modern world.
U.S. students are rapidly falling behind their international peers in primary and secondary education. A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked countries based on the average math and science scores of 15-year-old students. America’s schools came in 28th.
Even worse, the OECD found that almost a quarter of American 15-year-olds failed to acquire “basic skills” in math and science. Of the 76 countries evaluated in the study, only Luxembourg performed worse.
This poor academic performance translates directly into inadequate workforce skills, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. Because of a lack of qualified applicants, companies take more than twice as long to fill STEM positions than equivalent non-STEM ones. The problem will only worsen. STEM positions are projected to grow 17 percent by 2024, almost double the rate of non-STEM jobs.
As if leaving students undereducated and unprepared for the workforce isn’t enough, current school practices are also making students psychologically unhealthy. The incidence of anxiety and depression among American adolescents has reached alarming levels. And, according to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly one in five high school kids contemplated suicide in 2013, many due to stress from school.
If we are going to reverse these dangerous trends, we need to completely change the way we teach our young people.
That starts by acknowledging that every student is different, and that the same student can be different depending on the week, the month, and the year. As a result, students need an education customized to their evolving individual needs.
This idea is far from new. Individualized teaching has long been recognized as superior to standard one-size-fits-all instruction. A 1984 study showed that individually tutored students, on average, performed better than 98 percent of students educated in a standard setting.
The problem is that such tutoring has long been prohibitively expensive. But with the advent of new technology, programs such as Khan Academy and Coursera are demonstrating that personalized, self-directed learning is possible on a large scale.
That could mean a classroom full of students using laptops or tablets to learn at their own pace. Or teachers using technology to closely track individual student progress so they know when to step in and help.
Once students master foundational core knowledge and skill requirements, they need resources and time to pursue their own projects, internships, and other opportunities for applied learning.
Rather than trudge through unnecessary extra English courses, a science-lover should be able to spend her time in the laboratory. By the same token, an aspiring writer should be encouraged to work on the novel kicking around in his head rather than taking unwanted extra science courses. It’s amazing what teenagers are capable of if they are given agency and a little direction.
Apart from academics, schools should address students’ emotional and social growth. For too long, a skeptical public has brushed aside concepts like socio-emotional learning as hippie nonsense. But in this case, the hippies have it right. Those who embrace these concepts experience very real, measurable benefits — including enhanced academic achievement.
For example, in January, Developmental Psychology published a study of grade-school students who were taught meditation and mindfulness techniques. After 12 weeks, the students showed a 24 percent decrease in aggression and an overall reduction in depression-like symptoms — plus a 15 percent improvement in math scores!
Progressives, liberals, socialists, Democrats and the media (one and the same?) who crow about the current “low” unemployment rate never want to admit that the reason it’s gotten to 5.3 percent — the “official unemployment rate,” or U-3, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — is because the bureaucrats at BLS and the politicians in the White House artificially have tossed millions upon millions of long-term, out-of-work Americans off the roles by arbitrarily declaring that they’re “no longer in the labor force.”
There are lies, damned lies and government unemployment statistics. I’ve written about this before, but you can never have enough economic bad news, especially on the eve of our national birthday.
The more accurate U-6 rate, which is what economists look at for unemployment numbers and includes those marginally attached to the workforce, has the unemployment rate at 10.5 percent. But even that is too optimistic.
There are some – count John Williams at ShadowStats.com and me among them – who contend that the REAL unemployment rate has to include EVERYBODY, not just those the government wants included and did, until 1994 when they rigged the way the numbers were calculated to exclude the long-term unemployed.
That unemployment rate – the REAL rate – is 23.1 percent, a number that, unlike the U-3 and the U-6, hasn’t significantly gone down in over two years. At its highest in 1933 during the Great Depression, the unemployment rate was at 25 percent.
While Williams is not without his critics, they focus more on his terminology and harping about the edges of his calculations rather than his central thesis that a whole lot of folks who should be counted as in the labor force aren’t being counted.
Since, for statistical purposes, the U-3 only counts workers in the labor force, the measurement automatically drops whenever the labor force shrinks in size, which it does whenever the government wants it to. In theory, I can get the unemployment rate to ZERO by simply declaring all unemployed persons to be no longer in the labor force. BAM – problem solved.
Adding insult to injury, whatever job creation we’ve seen has been in low-wage and part-time positions. Mid- and higher-range positions are down some 1.2 million since 2009. When you go from making $75,000 per year on a full-time basis to making $7.50 per hour on a part time basis, most people consider that to be a severe hit, but the federal government considers it a net win – after all, you’re working, aren’t you?
A record 94 MILLION Americans are no longer considered as being in the labor force. That’s substantially greater than one in three, resulting in a participation rate — the total of Americans working or “looking” for work — of 62.6 percent, a number not seen since the worst days of the Carter administration.
To illustrate graphically, here’s a comparison of the U-3, the U-6 and John Williams’ ShadowStates Alternate rate that factors back in the workers the government has kicked off the labor force roles:
Consider: Even with a margin of three to five percent unemployment, which would encompass workers in between jobs or otherwise transitioning, which some are always doing, well over one-third of all Americans who should be working, could be working and would be working if the government had any business sense about it are not working.
Net, net, net: Continuing and accelerating economic stagnation and deterioration, zero wage growth, sluggishness and that brother-in-law of yours who’s been out of work since the fourth season of Breaking Bad will still be sleeping on your couch, eating your food and drinking your beer for as far as the eye can see.
When some left-wing loon posts one of those stupid “Obama’s so great — he’s lowered the unemployment rate” bumper-sticker memes on Facebook, show them this post and ask what other lies the administration and its lackeys and toadies are telling?
RHS Class of 1978 member Carrie McIndoe is running the program. Sounds like there is still time for some entrepreneurial RHS students. If not this summer, then keep the idea in mind for next summer.
Scholarships Available for High School Entrepreneurship Camp
Jun 24, 2015
Full Scholarships are available to the EntrePrep℠ Summer Institute, a one-week residential experiential entrepreneurship program for a diverse population of rising high school juniors and seniors. The program will be held July 12-18, 2015 at the University of Delaware, Newark and August 9-15, 2015 at Skidmore College, Saratoga, NY.
Program
In this intensive program, the participants experience being entrepreneurs. They work towards launching and operating their own Business-for-a-Day™, with over 20 hours of training and mentoring in support of this undertaking. They brainstorm, identify ideas and opportunities and develop them into their own Business-for-a-Day™.
They assemble the resources needed to launch their businesses and then run them. These young entrepreneurs deliver a ‘Concept versus Reality’ analysis in a final presentation before a live audience of their peers, mentors, local community and business advisors.
The students learn and implement economic/financial concepts and key life
skills, all required to create, run and evaluate their businesses. They experience the entrepreneurial mindset.
The program provides preparation for the future. The knowledge and skills students learn by this direct experience, helps prepare them for the world they are entering – one where understanding of economic concepts and financial literacy is a must and where most jobs are created by small businesses.
This is a unique opportunity to participate in a transformative experience.
For more information contact: Carrie McIndoe 917-650-3929 www.econventures.org
Those of us leaning in the Austrian direction see bubbles and malinvestments around every corner and assume, wrongly as it turns out, the market will right these wrongs lickety-split. But, for the moment a rational market is no match for cheap money. “Any college that is thinking about capital expansion, now is a very good time,” Robert Murray, an economist at Dodge Data told the Wall Street Journal. “Several years down the road, the climate might not be as good.”
Now being a good time because stock market gains have pumped up endowments, “and low interest rates have created a favorable environment for colleges to build,” writes Constance Mitchell Ford. The campus building boom marches on.
In 2014 colleges and universities commenced construction on $11.4 billion worth of projects, a 13 percent increase from the previous year. It’s the largest dollar value of construction starts since the heady days of 2008.
Ms. Ford’s piece highlights a $2 billion project at Cornell and sixteen new buildings at Columbia worth $6 billion. But here in Auburn, Alabama the campus has been a construction zone since 2008 when I arrived. Multiple new dorms, a basketball arena, a fancy student center, and various new classroom buildings have been constructed at a time when funding from the state has been cut back. What’s now underway is the largest scoreboard in college football, with a plan to expand the stadium next.
Back in the 1985–86 school year, full time tuition at Auburn for a non-resident was $2,585. Thirty years later it is now $28,040. That’s a compounded annual growth rate of 8.27 percent.
According to Bloomberg, college tuition and fees have increased 1,120 percent since records began in 1978, and the rate of increase in college costs has been “four times faster than the increase in the consumer price index.”
Tuiton at state schools is rising even faster says Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He told Becky Quick on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” the cost of an education has risen 50 percent faster at state schools versus private in roughly the last decade.
Cappelli said a critical question is whether students will graduate in the first place, noting that only 40 percent of full-time students earn a degree within four years, and 30 million — and perhaps as many as 35 million — young adults do not finish their studies.
Unfinished college is as useful as an unfinished building.
College degrees are similar to what Austrians call higher-order goods. It’s believed a student will gain knowledge and seasoning in college, making him or her more productive and a candidate for a high-paying career. The investment of time and money in knowledge are undertaken for the payoff of higher productivity and a high future income. Higher education is the higher-order means to a successful career.
The assumption is those high-pay jobs, (A) will require a college degree, and (B) they will be plentiful when the student graduates. Borrowing $100,000 to earn a law degree is a malinvestment if the student ends up writing briefs for $15 per hour. A recent graduate of the Charleston School of Law put fliers on cars announcing that he or she had borrowed $200,000 to attend school and is now working at Walmart for $35,000 a year.
A post on the “Above The Law” blog revealed, “As of the 2013–2014 academic year, the total cost of a three-year J.D. degree from Charlotte Law was $123,792.00, while the median loan debt per graduate was $159,208.00. Just 34 percent of the class of 2014 was employed in full-time, long-term jobs where bar passage was required. …”
“More college graduates are working in second jobs that don’t require college degrees,” writes Hannah Seligson in the New York Times, “part of a phenomenon called ‘mal-employment.’ In short, many baby-sitters, sales clerks, telemarketers and bartenders are overqualified for their jobs.”
Ludwig von Mises wrote in Human Action,
The whole entrepreneurial class is, as it were, in the position of a master builder whose task it is to erect a building out of a limited supply of building materials. If this man overestimates the quantity of the available supply, he drafts a plan for the execution of which the means at his disposal are not sufficient. He oversizes the groundwork and the foundations and only discovers later in the progress of the construction that he lacks the material needed for the completion of the structure. It is obvious that our master builder’s fault was not overinvestment, but an inappropriate employment of the means at his disposal.
As it is now, parents and students still have the belief that college is the way to, if not riches, at least a well-paying career. In a 2011 piece for mises.org with what turned out to be the hasty title of “The Higher-Education Bubble Has Popped” I quoted PayPal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, who questioned the value of higher education. He told TechCrunch,
A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.
Like most bubbles this one is being fueled by debt. USA Today reports, 40 million borrowers owe $29,000 each, totaling $1.2 trillion outstanding. Student loan debt is easy to get, but hard to get rid of. It’s hard to pay back without a high salary, nor can it be bankrupted away. “Government either guarantees or owns most of the student loans and has the power to sue and to garnish wages, tax refunds, and federal benefits like Social Security when borrowers default,” Kelley Holland writes.
Defaults are plentiful. In the third quarter of last year, the three-year default rate was roughly 13.7 percent, with the average amount in default per borrower just over $14,000.
These debtors “are postponing marriage, childbearing and home purchases, and … pretty evidently limiting the percentage of young people who start a business or try to do something entrepreneurial,” says Mitch Daniels, president of Purdue University
I administer funds for a small scholarship for graduating high school seniors in my old home town. This year, for the first time, an applicant wrote that he needed financial help for college because his father, a veterinarian, can’t help his children because he’s struggling to make payments on his own student debt.
The college boom is not just on campus. Student housing developers have been riding the college boom as well. Two years ago in a piece for The Freeman, I wrote about developers cashing in building dorms. These developers have even found Auburn, with its population of only 50,000. A project called 160 Ross has long-time residents in an uproar with its high density. But as much as locals don’t like it, students have snapped up units at $599 a bed.
That rack rate has large student housing developers coming to town and CV Ventures is ready to break ground for a six-story mixed-used project on just one acre featuring 456 beds, stumbling distance from the college bars, with a Waffle House across the street.
Meanwhile, everyday we hear about how online courses being the death knell for brick-and-mortar institutions. For the moment traditional colleges seem safe. “Because traditional campuses offer peer and teacher interaction,” writes Ron Kennedy, “as well as a plethora of other important benefits often sought by traditional, college-aged students, there will remain a need for traditional education.”
More importantly, Kennedy continues, “Research has shown that students who interact face-to-face with their instructors and other students tend to be more academically balanced than their online counterparts. This is one reason why most employers still prefer students who have attended traditional campuses.”
Trees don’t grow to the sky and neither will tuition. However, it’s doubtful young people will suddenly stay home with their parents and work toward degrees taking online classes. Parents who can afford it want to relive their college days vicariously through their kids.
Ridgewood Police Responded to a Whooping 427 calls between June 24th and July 1st
July2,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blogRidgewood NJ, Between Wednesday June 24, 2015 and Wednesday July 1, 2015 the Ridgewood Police Department responded to (427) Calls for Service (30) trauma/medical emergency calls and (17) motor vehicle accidents.
Ridgewood Police had a very busy week :On Thursday June 25, 2015 Officers Colin Donnelly and Joseph DiBenedetto were dispatched to the Central Business District on the report of a disturbance. Upon their arrival they observed a male actor who fit the description provided by the caller later identified as Fransisco A. Andino, 23 of Newark, New Jersey sitting on the sidewalk at Van Neste Square and East Ridgewood Avenue. As the officers were speaking with Andino they were notified that there was an active warrant for his arrest out of Hoboken, New Jersey, for assaulting a police officer. Andino who attempted to flee the area on foot was subdued and placed under arrest by Patrolman Colin Donnelly after a brief foot chase. While at police headquarters Andino assaulted several officers by biting, kicking and spitting at them. He was subsequently charged with obstructing administration of law (2C:29-1A), resisting arrest (2C:29A(3)(a)), disorderly conduct (2C:33-2(a)(1)) and three counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer (2C:12-B(5)(a). Bail was set at $15,000, Andino was housed at the Bergen County Sheriff’s Unit at Bergen Regional Medical Center.During the late afternoon hours on Thursday June 25, 2015, a resident reported observing a group of juveniles acting suspiciously near a vacant home. It was later determined that the homeowners were away on vacation and it was the groups intent to congregate on the property unsupervised without the homeowner’s permission. Annually with the onset of summer and vacations commencing this has become a frequent problem, residents are asked to report suspicious activities in their neighborhoods in order to prevent similar behavior.
On Thursday Friday June 26, 2015 a pedestrian crossing East Ridgewood Avenue while in a marked crosswalk reported that she/he was nearly struck a by a vehicle that failed to yield right of way. The driver pulled to the side of the roadway exiting their vehicle entering into a verbal dispute with the pedestrian. The pedestrian reported being assaulted by the driver who left the area prior to the arrival of police. The operator of the vehicle later responded to the Ridgewood Police Headquarters where she reported being assaulted by the pedestrian. Neither party wished to pursue the matter. It is paramount that all drivers cede right of way to pedestrians in the roadway regardless of whether a crosswalk is present as per the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Laws.
On Monday June 29, 2015 Detective Jeffrey Casson arrested Francis J. Yacopino, 30, of West Milford, New Jersey on a criminal warrant out of Pennsylvania. The warrant was discovered during a background check of Yacopino who had applied for a job with the Village of Ridgewood. Yacopino was housed in the Bergen County Jail on a fugitive warrant pending extradition.
On Monday June 29, 2015 a resident reported that his/her personal information had been used to open a fraudulent Dish Network account, the resident further reported having been the victimized similarly numerous times over the last several years. This type of incident continues to be on the rise and information on prevention and reporting identity theft occurrences is available at the police department.
During the spring months numerous street signs have been removed from roadways in the village. In addition to being both a nuisance and financial burden, the removal of these signs (including traffic signage) creates a danger to the public. Citizens are asked to exercise vigilance in reporting these incidents to police as well assisting in the recovery of stolen signs.
Please remember to register your house and any emergency contacts with the Police Department Records Division when you are planning to go away.
A reminder : All criminal defendants are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Tool celebrates the Supreme Court’s approval of same-sex marriage Critics say Facebook is using it to monitor how views spread online But Facebook has denied using it to collect user data on behaviour The site has previously come under fire for altered the news feeds of almost 700,000 users in a huge psychological data experiment
By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 13:17 EST, 29 June 2015 | UPDATED: 09:06 EST, 30 June 2015
Your Facebook feed is probably looking a little more colourful this week.
In celebration of the Supreme Court’s approval of same-sex marriage, the site is offering users a tool to overlay their profile photos with a rainbow filter.
And it’s proved hugely popular. Within a few hours of the ‘Celebrate Pride’ tool launching, more than a million people changed their profile photos.
But while it may seem like Facebook’s intentions are noble, some people have accused the social network of carrying out another psychological test on its users.
