Other good stuff in the NY Times

There's more good stuff in the NY Times today than I have time to blog about.

There's an article about Ayn Rand and the literature of capitalism.

There's an article about how some people are making so many millions of dollars in hedge funds that they are able to skip going to business school. How lucky for them. This is in contrast to the article a few days ago about how Master's degrees are booming. Perhaps this presages a future where rich people only need a Bachelor's degree, while the poor chase after the imaginary ticket to riches by pursuing more graduate education and further indebting themselves to the student loan companies.

There's an article about how Japanese housewives are collectively big players in foreign currency speculation.

The city of Washington, DC is becoming more white. I'm not surprised, Northwest DC is a very nice place. "[T]he city could cease to have a black majority by 2015." "A local blog has posted complaints about graffiti that reads: 'Go Home Rich White People.'" But the truly rich surely are still in Virginia where the state income tax rate is about 5% lower. Most of the white people in DC are people with government jobs who can only afford the place because they have rich parents subsidizing them. Kind of like a mini-Manhattan.

Comments

[assetmgmt]

Re: the business school article. I've worked on the sell-side and I'm now in asset mgmt. Immediately, there are fishy things in the G. Hammond story:

>>...upon graduation, [he] joined Goldman Sachs as a stock analyst.

No way. Impossible. No one has ever been hired out of undergrad to be what is commonly thought of as an equity analyst, especially not at Goldman. It's far more likely he was recruited to be an *analyst in investment banking* -- a low-level position, where you work long hours and take orders from the higher-ups. It's the entry-level job for VP and MD (managing director) positions in i-banking, which can be very lucrative. So, either Gabe inflated his resume, or the NYT reporter got it wrong. (I'm betting on NYT incompetence.)

>>So he, too, decided to forgo an M.B.A.. Instead, he raised $5 million and started his own hedge fund...

So after three years as an *investment banking trainee*, he *happened* to raise $5 million?! Laughable. Only if he raised the money from his rich parents and their rich friends. Otherwise, it's impossible. The reporter was intellectually incurious as to the source of this $5 mill. This is why I don't read the NYT.

[superdestroyer]

HS,

I have worked in DC for over a decade. I could probably count the number of civil servants that actually lived in Northwest DC on one hand.

The Northwest DC work for the Universities, law firms, and other companies that do business with the government. There are plent y of staffers and political types but few government workers. The government workers Icivil servants) live in Gaithersburg, Centerville, Manassas, Woodbridge, Bowie, and Columiba.

[the professor]

A friend of mine, in i-banking with 3-4 years of experience, and making 200-300 a year applied last year to HBS, only to HBS, saying that if I go there I'll lose so much money, yada, yada, yada... He got rejected from HBS. Now he's reapplying, which means that it's clearly a better option than staying.

I have a feeling that many people who didn't go to MBA are jealous for those who did, i.e., a case of sour grapes.

An MBA offers a lot more than a salary increase. It's stupid to think only in terms of money in the short-term.

Obvious mistakes in the article:

- To say that hedge-funds headhunters are ignoring the MBA degree is just not true.
- To say that superstars prefer to go to small unknown hedge funds and not to famous ones is also false. A lot of these small hedge funds are simply crap, doing P/E analysis that a high school student can do. A lot of them are going belly up these days, because of the crash of the mortgage market.
- I find that people at small unknown hedge funds who made at some point some money are bragging because of their insecurity of not being the best. They may be the best at the small unknown hedge fund. They probably couldn't even get into a good MBA program. But they are not superstars. Why does the article say they are?

[Half Sigma]

superdestroyer: "The government workers Icivil servants) live in [list of dreadful low class suburbs]"

Correct about boring govt jobs, most of which aren't in DC but in suburban Maryland and Virginia.

I meant people with fun and interesting jobs either in government or related to government. Often more political and policy oriented in nature than run-of-the-mill government jobs.

And also correct that there are a lot of lawyers, but they generally fall into the category of government employee, or government related (doing legal work for clients who need to use the Tax Court, the Court of Claims, etc., where the government is a party to the case)

[Robert Hume]

Northwest DC is the whitest place I have ever seen. There are almost no Hispanics living there and, of course, no blacks.

Years ago, and, I expect now, the crime rate in NW DC was the lowest in the metropolitan area. Much less than in many parts of the suburbs.

Nonetheless the place is overwhelmingly democratic and liberal, but everybody almost sends their kids to private school.

A perfect example of liberal hypocrisy and the working out of Putnam's result that diversity breeds anomie, hence *everyone* seeks a monocultural mileau.

[superdestroyer]

RH,

There are very few white children in NW. Not only is the area very white, it trends young. You have to be very rich and connect to get your children into Georgetown Visitation at more than $25K per year and with a waiting list. Most of the white twenty somehting eventually move to the suburbs where either the public schools are good enough or the private schools are cheaper. In addition, many of the wonk wannabes never have children.

[Peter]

There are very few white children in NW. Not only is the area very white, it trends young. You have to be very rich and connect to get your children into Georgetown Visitation at more than $25K per year and with a waiting list. Most of the white twenty somehting eventually move to the suburbs where either the public schools are good enough or the private schools are cheaper.

Not being too familiar with NW ... are there hardly any children at all, or is it like what one sees in Manhattan, with quite a few white infants and toddlers but very, very few white children of school age?

[superdestroyer]

Peter,

I have not seen many strollers in NW and there are almost no daycare centers and the staffers cannot afford nannies on their salaries.

However, I was walking about the DelRay section of the City of Alexandria. It is an older neighborhood that gay men have moved into and rebuilt many of the older houses. That has made it a hot neighborhood for yuppie couples. I saw a ton of strollers but the only kids on bikes were minorities who had probably ridden in from other neighbhorhoods.

[Half Sigma]

Yes, many white babies in Manhattan, but so few school aged white children.

The population of DC is even more transient, more people are just passing through between college and the rest of their lives.

[David Alexander]

Yes, many white babies in Manhattan, but so few school aged white children.

Just a simple walk along Riverside Park in Manhattan would lead an alien to believe that Manhattan was composed of Anglo-Caribbean women mothering white children who turn black in their teenage years, then turn white for college and career life.

Oddly, I actually know of two upper middle class whites who grew up in the Upper West Side. One is a Stuy grad and currently attends Trinity College in Hartford while the other attended some private school, and currently attends Cornell.

[Robert Hume]

Well, I have not checked the census; perhaps you are right that there are not many white children. But I personally know five families that have raised children in NW DC, and they all sent and are sending their kids to private school. And they are all very liberal.

If you look at http://www.city-data.com/zips/20015.html for the upper NW DC, the average age trends very high. 200016 had very few kids due to the American University students.

Not only in NW DC overwhelmingly white, they are upper middle class. There are almost no blue collar whites living in DC. When you fire a plumber or HVAC guy in DC you quickly realize that they drove in from Baltimore, Westminster, Hagertown, Easter Shore, or Fredricksburg.

Trading is like a sophisticated form of gambling. Some traders believe that no matter how much education you obtain, it will not make you a better trader. It is a gut instinct to buy, sell, or hold and hands-on experience holds more value. It's simply a waste of time to go and get an MBA.

[Dragon Horse]

Robert Hume:

No offense, but you really have no clue what you are talking about

I live in Fairfax County, in the DC metro area and I'm black.

It is true the highest concentration of blacks live in SE DC and in Prince George's County, the further out you go in PG county the wealthier the black people (usually living on the other side of the beltway) in areas like Upper Marlboro or thereabouts.

NW DC, I assume you are talking about Georgetown and maybe North to Tenleytown or another way to think of it is Georgetown U to American U.

That is mostly wealth and white, also residential.

However that is not all of NW DC, maybe half of it. "Northwest" extends all the way to Howard University/U Street area.

In between you have a lot of apartments, townhouse, etc. You have immigrant areas (mostly El Salvadrian and East African) mixed in with African Americans who have been there since forever, as well as white, Hispanic, Asian American students and low rent government workers/nonprofit workers, etc.

This extends west all the way into Georgetown really...going north through Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan...north of that...or if you are in Georgetown too far North of the shopping district then you get into very high rent areas.

In reality DC is divided into 4 quadrants, but they are not equal in size NW is large and the most diverse (although predominately white it is not close to lily white it just depends on where you are). The other 3/4 of DC are black and increasingly Hispanic, but the wealthier blacks tend to move to Maryland and have been doing so for 30 years or more...I would also say Alexandria...but not really Arlington or Fairfax as much...I don't know why...maybe price prohibitive.

A lot of Asians tend to live in Fairfax (Koreans mostly) and in Montgomery County (around Rockville a lot of Koreans and Chinese).

[Dragon Horse]

http://washingtondc.apartments.com/
washingtondc/Washington_DC_Apartments/
Washington_DCvicinity.gif

This site easily shows the quads...NW is a lot bigger than what is being said.

Also a list of areas in NW:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C._(northwest)

[superdestroyer]

DH,

You are nitpicking something that does not need to be nitpicked. When discussing whites and DC, northwest really means everything west of Rock Creek Park. That is the part of DC that is rich, older, and overwhelmingly white.

Others parts of town that have added whites are Adams-Morgan, Thomas Circle, and the Penn Quarter.

The demographic trends is for DC to become more white and that is due more whites moving into new condos in certain neighborhoods where there is enough other whites that the newcomers can feel safe enough.

[Dragon Horse]

"You are nitpicking something that does not need to be nitpicked. When discussing whites and DC, northwest really means everything west of Rock Creek Park. That is the part of DC that is rich, older, and overwhelmingly white."

I'm not nitpicking. I gave the real definition according to the DC government and everyone who lives here. Your concern with where rich white people live does in no way alter the definition.

It is somewhat like saying Long Island is where rich white people live and we define Long Island by that...which cuts out the majority of the island. LOL We do not define land mass by the class and income of residents.

What you are talking about is the wealthy residential areas of "owners" in the areas I described, but in reality NW is diverse and there are whites scattered in mixed into multi-ethnic neighborhoods who do not own but rent. One's race does not change due to one' s income.

There are many white that live around U Street and North of George Washington U up to Dupont Circle but they are mostly renters.

Those whites are typically middle class and/or students and those neighborhoods are predominately white (maybe 60%) but the rest are minorities.

When they have kids (as in NYC) they move to Maryland or VA. They move to Alexandria, Fairfax County and even Prince William.

On the Maryland side it is usually somewhere in Montgomery Count or even PG County.

I work by the State Department and hang out a lot around Dupont Circle...I know what the area looks like and I have some fairly affluent friends who used to live on Observatory LN NW...so I know that area too (which is wealthy and white and has a lot of embassies around).

The reason DC is becoming more white is not just due to whites moving there, that is false.

Blacks have been moving out of DC into PG County Maryland and even Montgomery country for 30 years. Meanwhile Hispanics (mostly Central Americas) are moving in.

The African American population was around U Street is being slowly replaced by Ethiopians/Eritrians and young white Yuppie types/students, etc. So yeah more whites are defintely to be seen around there, even if the area is still predominately black (East African/African American).

Columbia Heights is also tending to be more white and young but $300 K condo in DC is not expensive, that is a low end area, in reality. Trust me, as far out as Alexandria you can find $350,000 homes which are not as "high end" as you might think, property is expensive here. In some places like Houston or Atlanta could get for $150,000 or less. My point is those people are the rich. My condo is more than that and I'm not "affluent" trust me.

I have seen no evidence that the super right area you are talking about North of Georgetown is growing in population there is no real construction going on there it is mostly to the East in the areas I mentioned.

This type of thing is reflected in the NY Times article:

"The white population, which had plunged from 65 percent in 1950 to 27 percent 30 years later, is growing. By 2006, the census estimated that 38 percent of Washington residents were white. The Asian and Hispanic populations are also growing."

snip

"Analysts attribute the shift to lower-income and middle-class blacks leaving for the suburbs as young white professionals and others able to afford expensive housing are moving in. The newcomers are being lured by a robust economy, new condominiums and a chance to escape increasing highway congestion."

[superdestroyer]

Let look at the zip code data form Washington DC, (city-data.com)

Foggy Bottom zip codes are 20037, 20036, and 20006.

For 20037 Males: 5,683 (45.0%) Females: 6,959 (55.0%), White population: 9,873
Black population: 893

For 20036 Males: 2,000 (52.5%) Females: 1,808 (47.5%) White population: 3,125
Black population: 199

For 20006 Males: 851 (45.4%), Females: 1,023 (54.6%), White population: 1,392
Black population: 136

For 20008 (DuPont Circle) Males: 11,507 (43.9%) Females: 14,688 (56.1%)
White population: 22,117 Black population: 1,398

For 2009 (U street Shaw) Males: 24,421 (52.4%) Females: 22,140 (47.6%) White population: 23,014 Black population: 14,813

For 20006 (Georgetown) Males: 13,321 (46.2%) Females: 15,497 (53.8%)
White population: 24,941 Black population: 1,159

For 20015 (Tenley Town-Friendship Circle) Males: 7,704 (48.7%) Females: 8,120 (51.3%) White population: 13,013 Black population: 1,540

For 20016 (American University, Spring Valley) Males: 13,634 (43.5%) Females: 17,740 (56.5%) White population: 26,351 Black population: 1,837

For 20019 (Anacostia) Males: 23,086 (43.7%) Females: 29,707 (56.3%)
White population: 373 Black population: 51,582

You have to get to a zip code that has 16th street in it get a majority black population.

Just because we are talking about a neighborhood being lily white does not mean that there are no blacks considering that there are white collar blacks and embassay staff that will count as black.

[Dragon Horse]

superdestroyer:

Lily white does not mean "the more blacks or less blacks" determine the whitness of the area.

There are also Asians (East and South) and Hispanics (Central Americans).

I would agree with your stats...especially the fact that most of these areas, especialy around college areas have more women than anything.

I would also take into account who hangs out where and who lives where.

Dupont Circle is full of blacks, Asians, Arabs, and whites during the day and in the evenings...Adam's Morgan definately is...however I don't think a lot of those people "live there"...that could also be the case.

For example if you go to Dupont Circle any given day:

White population: 22,117 Black population: 1,398

This is not what you see on the street. I would say whites are a minority, but a rough estimate, it would be like 4 or 5/10 people is white the rest are black, Arab, South Asian, East Asian, etc.

Do they live there? Probably not.

I went to the same site you went to:

20008:

Males: 24,421 (52.4%)
Females: 22,140 (47.6%)

White population: 23,014
Black population: 14,813
American Indian population: 218
Asian population: 1,870
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population: 30
Some other race population: 4,747
Two or more races population: 1,869

This is Dupont Circle, Zoo, Adam's Morgan, etc.

[Half Sigma]

Everything west of Rock Creek Park is pretty much a safe middle-class or upper middle class neighborhood.

The northeast part of the NW quadrant is not such a good neighborhood.

In areas where the bad and good neighborhoods meet (such as at Logan Circle, Adams Morgan, etc), there is gentrification taking place.

[Dragon Horse]

Sigma:

actually gentrification is happening on U Street as well...just slower.

If you are familiar with the area...Bus Boys and Poets is a spot where the local younger hip white crowd mingles with local and immigrant blacks reguarlly...food is overprised. :-)

http://www.busboysandpoets.com/

[Dragon Horse]

Speaking of Ayn Rand...Alan Greenspan was on 60 minutes promoting his book last night.

He said that he is Republican but the best all around president was Ford...he said he was not "the brightest but a good guy". Talk about a backhanded compliment. He said the president he liked the most and got along with the best personally was Clinton.

He said Nixon was the most racist/anti-semitic...actually anti everything but WASP (he did not like Italians either). He also said the guy had two personalities...and he felt he was "not right". LOL

Lastly he said that Hillary was well qualified and higly intelligent but he would likely be voting Republican. Talk about double talk, guy should have been a lawyer.

"[T]he city could cease to have a black majority by 2015."

God forbid! One of the things that makes DC so unique, the high crime rate, could be lost forever. Whitey go home!

[Joshua Holmes]

One of the things that makes DC so unique, the high crime rate, could be lost forever.

Nah, they'll still have Congress.

[Half Sigma]

Nah, they'll still have Congress.

Referring to the Chandra Levy murder?