Every year between the end of World War II and 2004, Americans drove more miles than the year before. But new data indicates that the six decade-long driving boom — a phenomenon that saw steady increases in per-capita driving in the United States — has ended.

The unique combination of forces that fueled the driving boom, namely cheap gas prices and the rapid expansion of the workforce during the Baby Boom generation, are no longer the forces guiding America’s relationship with cars. Now, Americans not only drive fewer total miles than they did eight years ago, but they also drive fewer miles per person than they did at the end of Bill Clinton’s first term. The new generation, known as the millennials, is now “demanding a new American Dream less dependent on driving,” as the Frontier Group noted in a recent policy paper titled “A New Direction: Our Changing Relationship with Driving and the Implications for America’s Future.”

While millennials may be carving out lives that do not rely on driving as heavily as they did in previous generations, transportation policy in the United States has not caught up to the changing trends. That is a key point in the analysis. Even though recent data suggests that per-capita increases in driving have ended, official forecasts of future vehicle travel assume the opposite. These forecasts are used to justify spending vast sums of money on new and expanded highways, while existing roads and bridges are neglected.

As Frontier group’s Tony Dutzik wrote, “The time has come for America to hit the “reset” button on transportation policy — replacing the policy infrastructure of the Driving Boom years with a more efficient, flexible, and nimble system that is better able to meet the transportation needs of the 21st century.”

Although Americans drove no more miles in 2012 than they did in 2004, they did take nearly 10 percent more trips via public transportation in 2011 than they did in 2005. The United States also saw increase in commuting by bike and on foot.

It has been the millennial generation — those Americans born between 1983 and 2000 — who have ushered in the recent change in transportation trends. This group is already the largest generation in the United States, and therefore, their choices will guide the nation’s future transportation infrastructure needs. Millennials drive much less than previous generations of young Americans, and they will not reach peak driving age, the 35-to-54 year old demographic, until 2030. If the decline in per-capita driving continues for another dozen years, total vehicle travel in the United States could remain below its 2007 peak despite the fact that the population is expected to increase by 21 percent.

According to the Frontier Group, the driving reduction will have major implications for transportation policy, and it has influenced many other parts of American life already. Traffic congestion has fallen, America is less dependent on oil, and roads are being used less — although the gas tax is generating less income.

In order to adapt to these changes, the policy paper argued that the federal government should better evaluate the costs and benefits of all transportation projects based on several scenarios of future driving demand. In addition, the firm stated that the official policy should support millennials and other Americans in their desire to drive less, repair existing infrastructure, and use transportation revenue where it makes the most sense.

You can follow Meghan on Twitter (@MFoley_WSCS) for the latest industry news.

For reasons no longer known, Robert’s endowment came with several strings attached. It also forbade the recipient from studying law, medicine, dentistry, veterinary surgery, or theology, and the student must move back to Iowa for a minimum of two years after graduation.

Because of its restrictive terms, the university has not awarded the fellowship since 1997, although the school said it does not know precisely when when Columbia stopped adhering to the race-related provision of the gift. “Columbia long ago ceased awarding the fellowships in question and does not follow gift conditions that violate anti-discrimination laws,” the university said in a statement Wednesday. “It should go without saying that a university rightly known for the great diversity of its student body is as offended as anyone by the requirements of these fellowships.”

Universities must generally adhere to the restrictions on endowments as long as they are legal, as University of Iowa Foundation’s chief operating officer Tiffani Shaw told USA Today. In this case, the terms of the Lydia C. Roberts Graduate Fellowship may violate United States anti-discrimination law.

The university’s associate provost, Lucy Drotning, filed an affidavit in a state Supreme Court in Manhattan last week in support of legal action taken by JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), the estate’s trustee, as part of its own efforts to change the terms of the trust. The court papers requested that the whites-only provision be thrown out and the Iowa-only rule be modified to allow students that are residents of the state or students who graduated from colleges there be eligible for the award.

Even though the intent behind Roberts’ donation is unknown, challengers to the fellowships racial stipulations argue that its terms violate federal anti-discrimination laws. “It could be the donor put ‘white’ in there because at the time most students at Columbia University were white,” Angela Onwuachi-Willig a law professor at the University of Iowa, told the publication. “But it also could mean that it was a direct intent to discriminate against students of color. I think that the university would have a right to contest the continued use of the fund under those restrictions.”

It is true that many schools offer scholarships targeted toward racial minorities, but, according to legal experts, the purpose of the award determines whether a scholarship discriminates. “There’s a difference between considering race as a factor in giving a scholarship where you’re trying to cultivate diversity, versus a scholarship where the intent is to exclude people based upon perceived inferiority of their race,” said Onwuachi-Willig.

According to court papers, the current value of the trust is $840,000, and it earned $26,000 in income in 2011.

Follow Meghan on Twitter @MFoley_WSCS

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In the investing world, one major challenge is defining the differences between “growth” vs. “value.” Warren Buffett said it best when he described growth and value as two separate sides of the same coin. In general, low or declining growth will be valued less than a comparable company with faster growth.

Often, most companies go through a life cycle just like a human would (see Equity Life Cycle). In other words, companies frequently start small, grow larger, mature, and then die. Of course, some companies never grow, or because of lack of funding or outsized losses, end up suffering an early death. It’s tough to generalize with companies, because some businesses are more cat-like than human.

For example, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) may not have had nine lives, but the stock has been left for dead several times during its lifespan, before managing to resurrect itself from value status to growth darling (with a little assistance from Steve Jobs). Whether Tim Cook can lead Apple back to the Promised Land of growth remains to be seen, but many investors still see value.

Fluctuating price and earnings trends over a company’s life cycle frequently create confusion surrounding the proper categorization of a stock as growth or value. The other frustrating aspect to this debate is the absence of a universally accepted definition of growth and value. A few specialty companies have chosen to address this challenge. Russell Investments in Seattle, Washington is a leader in the benchmark/index creation field. Russell tackles the definitional issue by creating quantitatively based definitions, tediously explained in a thrilling 44-page paper titled, “Construction and Methodology.” Here is an exhilarating excerpt:

“Russell Investments uses a ‘non-linear probability’ method to assign stocks to the growth and value style valuation indexes. Russell uses three variables in the determination of growth and value. On the value side, book-to-price is used, while on the growth side, the I/B/E/S long-term growth variable was replaced by two variables- I/B/E/S forecast medium-term growth (2 yr) and sales per share historical growth (5 yr).”

As I bite my tongue in sarcasm, I like to point out that these methodologies constantly change — Russell most recently changed their methodology in 2011. What’s more, there are numerous other indexing companies that define growth and value quite differently (e.g., Standard & Poor’s, Lipper, MSCI, etc.).

Like religious beliefs that are viewed quite differently and are prone to passionate arguments, so too can be the debates over growth vs. value categorization. I’ve been brainwashed by numerous great investors (see Investor Hall Fame), and underpinning my philosophy is the belief that price follows earnings (see It’s the Earnings Stupid).

As a result, I am constantly on the lookout for attractively priced stocks that have strong growth prospects. If Russell or S&P looked under the hood of my client portfolios, I’m certain they would find a healthy mix of growth and value stocks, as they define it. If they looked in Warren Buffett’s portfolio, arguably similar conclusions could be made. Most observers call Buffett a value investor, but over Buffett’s career, he has owned some of the greatest growth stocks of all-time [e.g., Coca Cola (NYSE:KO), American Express (NYSE:AXP), and Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG)].

At the end of the day, expectations embedded in the value of share prices determine future appreciation or depreciation, depending on how actual results register relative to those expectations. If stock prices are too high (as measured by the P/E, Price/Free-Cash-Flow, or other valuation metrics), slowing growth can lead to sharp and painful price declines. On the flip side, cheap or reasonably priced stocks can experience significant price appreciation if earnings and cash flows sustainably improve or accelerate.

In my view, the greatest stock pickers think about investing like sports handicapping (see What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Las Vegas). The key isn’t buying fast growth (high P/E) or slow growth (low P/E) companies, but rather discovering which stocks are mispriced. Finding heavily shorted stocks that are poised for growth, or discovering unloved stocks with underappreciated potential are both ways to make money.

While defining growth vs. value is certainly difficult, the more important challenge is calibrating a company’s future growth expectations and determining the fair price to pay for a stock based on those prospects. Investing entails many difficulties, but categorizing investors or stocks as growth or value is a less important challenge than honing forecasting and valuation skills. Investing is challenging enough without worrying about superfluous growth vs. value definitions.

Wade Slome, CFA CFP is President and Founder of Sidoxia Capital Management and shares his investing insights at Investing Caffeine.

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President Obama made this sentiment a core component of his 2013 State of the Union Address, and he has echoed it across the nation ever since. Most recently, the President invoked the idea at Ellicott Dredges, a manufacturer of dredging equipment in Baltimore, Maryland, where he delivered a speech on the U.S. economic situation. Baltimore was the second stop on the President’s Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour.

“The truth is there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about where this country is headed,” he said. Obama highlighted the usual half-glass-full suspects: the housing and auto markets, as well as slowly declining unemployment and federal deficits. The president also invoked some familiar optimistic phrases about manufacturing, recycling the news that, after 10 years of shedding jobs, manufacturers have added more than 500,000 positions in the U.S. over the past three years. On the pedestal are Ford (NYSE:F), Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) bringing jobs back from Mexico, Japan, and China, respectively.

But the message of the speech, and the point that President seems like he is trying to make with the Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour, is that while improving, America’s economic situation is far from ideal. Cutting to the core of the message, Obama said that “corporate profits have skyrocketed to all-time highs. Now we’ve got to make sure that middle-class incomes increase too.”

Maximum employment is one half of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate, and in many ways, this astonishingly high unemployment rate has been the focus of post-crisis economics. Four distinct rounds of quantitative easing punctuated by unprecedented bond purchases were meant to amp up America’s private sector and encourage corporate growth, but the consensus on Main Street is that Wall Street has reaped the reward while working-class citizens continue to suffer.

The National Employment Law Project showed that while low-wage occupations accounted for 21 percent of recession-era job losses, they accounted for 58 percent of recovery job gains — and while mid-wage occupations accounted for 60 percent of recession losses, they accounted for just 22 percent of recovery growth.

At the same time, stock markets and corporate profits are breaking records. Last week, amid increased investor confidence in the United States economy, benchmark indexes climbed to record levels. Corporate profits, as a percentage of gross domestic product, have hit a record high this earnings season, helping to push stock market gains higher. But the weak labor market, coupled with the Federal Reserve’s easy-money policy, has created a climate that benefits companies far more than it does individual workers.

As a percentage of national income, corporate profits accounted for 14.2 percent of the total in the third quarter of 2012, the largest portion since 1950. Comparatively, the percentage of income distributed to employees was 61.7 percent, near the lowest level since 1966.

If inequality is defined by a shrinking middle class and growth at opposite ends of the spectrum, then the past decade can certainly be defined by its inequality. Since the first quarter of 2011, employment has grown by 8.7 percent in lower wage occupations and by 6.6 percent in higher wage occupations. Meanwhile, employment in mid-wage occupations has fallen by 7.3 percent.

What this means is that post-recession job growth is characterized by Americans taking lower-paying jobs and moving out of the middle class and into the lower class. Low-wage industries such as food services, retail, administrative support, and waste management services, constituted 43 percent of net job growth during the recovery. Within these industries, 76 percent of job growth occurred at the low end of the wage scale.

Amid this renewed — and arguably futile — effort to repeal the bill, a recent tracking poll conducted around the three-year anniversary found that slightly more Americans oppose the law than support it. The same poll also found that a little more than half the country supports attempts to repeal the law, no matter how futile that may be. Here are 5 troubles that have continued to plague the bill despite its current age:

1) Ron Johnson’s Complaints

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson recently claimed that the recently updated estimate of Obamacare’s cost, provided by the Congressional Budget Office, far surpasses the number at which President Barack Obama sold it and further illustrates the impossibility of America affording it. He explained: “The President and his allies in Congress sold Obamacare by promising it would cost the taxpayers less than $1 trillion in its first decade. Instead, the Congressional Budget Office now makes clear that once fully implemented, it will cost far more than that over its first ten years: a whopping $1.8 trillion.”

He added: “Obamacare will reduce medical innovation and the quality of care, increase wait times, lead to rationing, and bust the federal budget.”

2) Gingrich’s Alarm

Another man leery of the bill, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, predicted on Monday that the recent U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s scandal will haunt Obamacare indefinitely. The IRS admitted that it was targeting conservative organizations, working with an “enemies list.”

Though both the White House and the U.S. Department of Treasury have been careful to distance themselves from this operation, Gingrich maintains that “huge problems could materialize for the legislation as result of the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.”

3) Sebelius Fundraising Probe

Bloomberg has reported that Republican lawmakers are on the tails of U.S. health secretary Kathleen Sebelius in an attempt to discern whether the money she made to promote the Affordable Care Act was solicited from companies regulated by her agency. Members of two House committees questioned her on Monday, asking about her fundraising efforts and claiming that Sebelius had been calling advocacy groups, doctors, churches, and “companies not regulated by HHS.”

4) Corporate America’s Unease

McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) franchise owners claim that they, too, are largely against Obamacare, with one franchisee explaining in a survey: “Obamacare will negatively hit us like nothing else.”

The owners associated with the fast-food chain believe that the healthcare reform law will cut into profits at a tough time when the company has seen declining sales since last summer. “Obamacare is going to destroy already low profits, [and] McDonald‟s Corporation does not seem to care,” an owner explains. “The future looks BLEAK.”

It is not hard, then, to discern that this McDonald’s franchisee is not “lovin’ it.”

5) Vote After Repeal Vote

Thursday’s House vote to repeal the law was the 37th such. But despite the skepticism and ongoing zeal to get rid of the healthcare reform law, MSNBC doesn’t see it going anywhere, explaining that the CBO isn’t even bothering to score the vote. It cites a letter written by CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf explaining that “his office is too busy to take on the task of estimating its impact, instead pointing him to the estimated impact of the 2012 repeal attempt, which would increase the deficit by $109 billion.”

Nonetheless, veteran Republicans viewed the vote as symbolic — for the 37th time — and as a gift to their younger colleagues who weren’t afforded the opportunity to have a voice in the 112th Congress’s 36 votes to repeal the law.

Meanwhile, Thursday afternoon was spent by the two sides in a Twitter war, with Republicans urging people to comment negatively on the law with the hashtag #ObamacareInThreeWords. Democrats –the official White House account included — tried to spin it in favor of the bill. Here’s a sample of the exchange:

It’s. The. Law. #ObamaCareInThreeWords, twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…

— The White House (@whitehouse) May 16, 2013

Worse than Nickelback. #ObamaCareInThreeWords

— Rep. Trey Radel (@treyradel) May 16, 2013

Here’s how the market traded on Friday:

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In the followings that Gallup has measured of more than 200 news stories in the past decades, viewership usually stands around 60 percent. These results are significant, then, as they demonstrate the higher level of disinterest Americans have conclusively shown for these two stories, despite their extensive news coverage.

Who is causing this low report of interest? With only 40 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Independents following the IRS scandal, we may have our answer. This is supported by the 45 percent of Democrats interested in the Benghazi situation, and the 52 percent of Independents closely following suit.

So why the disinterest? It is arguable the liberals are following the lead of the Obama administration, which has given more weight to the IRS situation while taking a step back from the Benghazi news, as it fields criticism for the way it handled its aftermath.

Conversely, compared to the 40 percent of Democrats interested in the IRS scandal, Republicans appear gung-ho, with their 67 percent following. They show a similar investment regarding the Benghazi situation, posting a 66 percent interest.

One thing that Americans along all three party lines can agree on is that the IRS scandal warrants continued investigation. A majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents agree on this point, while Democrats break off from the group over whether the Benghazi situation demands more attention. Eighty six percent of Republicans agree with this, along with 73 percent of independents. The Democrats’ results could again reflect their obedience to the Obama administration’s stance.

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Steven Miller, acting director of the Internal Revenue Service, told the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday morning that the targeting of conservative groups for additional review was not based on ideology. Miller — whose resignation was accepted by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew earlier this week — echoed the finding of an audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and suggested that the ordeal was the result of institutional incompetence, not political conspiracy.

Last week, Lois Lerner, who leads the Exempt Organizations Division at the IRS, issued an apology admitting that the agency had engaged in “inappropriate” targeting of conservative 501c(4) groups during the 2012 election. According to Lerner, lower-level IRS employees pursued additional review of groups containing keywords like “tea party” or “patriot” that were suspected of violating the conditions necessary to qualify for tax-exempt status.

Friday’s hearing was the first in a series of that will seek to get to the bottom (or top) of the issue. At the behest of justly outraged Republicans and Democrats alike, attorney General Eric Holder announced on Wednesday that a criminal investigation would be launched. The investigation has put a wall between the White House and the answer-seeking public — as Press Secretary Jay Carney put it: “we need the independent inspector general’s report to be released before we can make judgments.”

For his part, President Barack Obama, who claims he had no knowledge of the ordeal before it made headlines last Friday, said on Monday that “if, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that is outrageous, and there is no place for it, and they have to be held fully accountable.”

As it stands, Miller revealed during the hearing that a few unnamed IRS personnel have been disciplined in connection with the ordeal, but Miller is the only high-level authority to face the ax so far. However, Representative Sander Levin (D-MI) has called for the resignation of Lerner because she did not inform lawmakers about the problem sooner.

In what is perhaps an unsurprising turn of events, what actually happened (although inexcusable) is becoming less and less important relative to how it was handled. Specifically, how those involved failed to either a) notice the ordeal, or b) reveal the situation to lawmakers in a timely way. The second is where a case for conspiracy crops up, but the TIGTA report suggests that the first — i.e. ineffective management — is where the problem actually was.

“Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued,” reported the TIGTA in the May 14 report.

Ineffective management can go a long way in explaining a lot of problems, and is certainly at play here, but is not a conclusive diagnosis. In the wake of the 2010 Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court Decision, the number of applications for 501c(4) organizations increased 183 percent, which undoubtedly raised a few eyebrows at the IRS.

In this case, it looks like the IRS was challenging whether or not these groups were actually “primarily engaged in the promotion of social welfare,” as the verbiage of the Internal Revenue Code dictates they must be in order to qualify for tax-exempt status. IRS employees were no doubt on high alert for gamesmanship, particularly heading into the presidential election.

As Robert Maguire, an outside spending researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, told The Daily Beast, IRS staffers “just willy-nilly went about trying to create their own system and it has blown up in their face.”

For your additional viewing pleasure, here’s the May 14 report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

IRS IG Report

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Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

However, not everyone is in favor of such action, as the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffery Lacker thinks these are just “temporary deviations,” warning that “we should not overreact.” Regardless, analysts expect aggression from the Fed as long as the number remains below the two percent which is considered healthy.

There is the possibility that falling gas prices could help restore the metric to its normal level, as the Commerce Department has found that consumers have spent some of their savings from gasoline elsewhere. With car fuel efficiency on the rise, and Consumer Reports finding it to be a top issue with those looking to buy a vehicle, a downward trend on gas prices could be likely in the long run. Jim O’Sullivan, chief economist with High Frequency Economics, says that this can act “like a tax cut for consumers, offsetting some of the payroll tax hike,” with the hope being that it could modestly spur retail prices over time.

Unlike Mr. Lacker, some are more concerned with the news of low inflation, with St. Louis Fed President James Bullard saying, “I’m getting concerned about that, and I think that gives the FOMC some room to maneuver on its monetary policy.” Moreover, Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for the Economic Outlook Group, notes that historically, economies perform best with inflation around two or three percent.

Concerns such as those held by Bullard may be alleviated today, though, as The University of Michigan and Thompson Reuters released their monthly consumer sentiment report — with quite promising findings.

The overall index rose to 83.7, up from 76.4 in April, with households feeling ever more confident about their finances. This number also represents the highest figure for the report since July 2007. The gauges for the consumption of durable goods and economic conditions both rose, with the latter reaching pre-recession levels. Moreover, with concerns about low inflation looming, the report’s one year expectation for inflation remained unchanged from last month at 3.1 percent.

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The Republican-led House of Representatives launched its 37th attempt on Thursday, and the bill to repeal Obamacare passed by a margin of 229 to 195. The scandal involving the IRS has not only added fuel to the political fire over the controversial law, but gave the Republican lawmakers another platform from which to criticize the Affordable Healthcare Act. News that the tax agency singled out conservative groups for special examination when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2012 election cycle has many Republican legislators asking how the agency can be trusted to administer Obamacare.

Aside from the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS is the most important government agency responsible for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act; it is charged with checking whether millions of Americans are in compliance the law’s health coverage requirement. It will also track individuals’ private health information in order to distribute tax credits to eligible individuals who purchase coverage under a qualified plan through one of the exchanges. In total, there are 47 different Obamacare provisions that require involvement from the IRS.

A new revelation has only strengthened Republicans’ resolve to roll back Obamacare. Sarah Hall Ingram, who now heads the IRS office responsible for implementing the healthcare legislation, served as commissioner of the tax-exemption division between 2009 and 2012. Her successor, Joseph Grant, served as deputy commissioner during part of the time period when the improprieties occurred, and he took the fall for the misdeeds despite being appointed commissioner on May 8. He became the second IRS official this week to announce his resignation.

“I’m deeply concerned with the ability of the agency and the resolve of this agency to lawfully manage this significant undertaking with discretion and with accountability,” Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said on the House floor Thursday, according to CNN. However, Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, head of the Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee, said Wednesday that even though the agency’s actions were “outrageous,” it should not be a barrier to installing the central elements of Obamacare. “People agree on an investigation … but that shouldn’t get in the way [of implementation],” DeLauro said at a press briefing in the Capitol. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Still, Republicans are looking to pass additional legislation to prevent the implementation of Obamacare. Representative Randy Forbes (R-Va.) introduced a measure on Wednesday, officially known as the Prevent IRS Overreach Act, which if passed, would ban the tax collection agency from hiring anyone to implement Obamacare’s provisions.

Follow Meghan on Twitter @MFoley_WSCS

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The Wall Street Journal reported that Nasdaq is about to settle for the price of $10 million over the Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) IPO debacle last year, which would be the highest fine yet. The now notorious failure of Nasdaq to process orders for Facebook stock amounted to a huge embarrassment on such a high-profile offering. Technical issues were the reason behind the delayed opening and the failure to process numerous orders, some of which were never filled. The SEC is taking $10 million after reportedly seeking $30 million from Nasdaq.

The Chicago Board of Options Exchange is expecting to be clubbed with a fine in the same neighborhood as Nasdaq’s following its three-hour blackout in late April. Software issues were the culprit that day at the CBOE, yet the excuse is not considered valid by any party concerned. Filings show the CBOE is earmarking $10 million for the SEC as details of its fine are released. The SEC is holding exchanges accountable for errors of all kinds as high-frequency trading becomes the norm…

Luis Aguilar, the SEC’s Commissioner, has pointed out the need for “robust oversight” among exchanges that regulate themselves. After the NYSE failed in its compliance obligations in 2012, Aguilar saw the need for a line to be drawn in the sand. “Obviously, these events undercut investor confidence,” he said in a speech earlier this month.

As cyber attacks and other tech issues confront the major exchanges, large investments in security and performance technology will be necessary in order to avoid future fines. The SEC is going out of its way to show there is no excuse for failures in performance and lackluster regulatory policies. Ideally, the SEC’s efforts will guarantee a level playing field for investors on every exchange floor.

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