Mike Stanton

Head of Strategy and Communications, BAM Mutual (@BAMutual); Member, @MetroNorth Railroad Commuter Council and @PCACRiders; Opinions my own. #muniland forever!

[BAM Mutual @BAMutual]

BAM's Chris Flosi summed up the trends that helped #muniland yields outpace Treasuries again this week: "Independent of what's going on in the world, everyone keeps coming in to look for that yield proposition from munis."

[SNY Mets @SNY_Mets]

"You've got to remember Mets fans, that hope springs eternal. Mostly because Met fans are clinically incapable of learning from experience - so Let's Go Mets!" 😂

Brockmire (@HankAzaria) shares a thought on the Mets season

[Saad Asad @realsaadasad]

Imagine that!

A LA mayoral candidate hiring actual actors for her ads vs using AI slop.

[BAM Mutual @BAMutual]

Thanks to @ICE_Markets for the opportunity to discuss BAM's data-guided approach to assessing the frequency and severity of Natural Hazard risks in #muniland ... and why credit analysts need to take a granular approach, looking at individual issuers and bond-security structures.

[Alex Noonan @AlexNoonan6]

You can make these cohort comparisons till the cows come home but the fact is that eating out and delivery were cheap and or subsidized for a solid 10 years and people became accustomed to that standard of living and after repricing to true costs people feel poorer

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

@projomike Which is tough to understand, because in my experience, Mike Stanton is always right.

[BAM Mutual @BAMutual]

Today's the day! BAM's NYC office is relocating to 28 Liberty Street, 59th Floor.

What's not changing? Our focus as the only financial guaranty insurer
focused exclusively on the low-risk public finance sector.

Learn more: https://t.co/Rg3R31IJ7j

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

BART spent $90 million on new fare gates. They're recovering about $10 million a year in fares.

That's a 9-year payback on paper. The actual return hit in six months.

Embarcadero station went from 112 hours of corrective maintenance in the six months before installation to 2 hours after. Daly City saved 109. Balboa Park saved 75. Across the system, 961 hours of cleanup work disappeared. Corrective maintenance is the term BART uses for graffiti, heavy soiling, vandalism, the damage that needs a crew not a janitor. At several stations it dropped to zero.

Crime fell 41% year over year. Riders who reported seeing fare evasion on their trip dropped from 22% to 10%. Citations issued by BART police went from 2,200 in January to under 1,000 in July, because there was nothing to cite.

The gates were a filtering project disguised as a revenue project.

Old BART gates were waist-high orange fins designed in the 1970s. You could hop them in under a second. That made the station effectively a public space, and the rider mix reflected that. The new gates are 72 inches of polycarbonate with 3D sensors that detect tailgating. You either pay or you don't enter. Once you don't enter, you also don't smoke on the platform, sleep in the elevator, or harass other riders.

BART tried hiring more police for years. Blitz operations at high-traffic stations. Increased patrols. Dedicated transit cops. None of it moved the numbers the way six feet of polycarbonate did.

The $10 million in recovered fares is the smallest line in the return. Fare revenue used to cover 70% of BART operations. After the pandemic it collapsed to 22%. The gates won't fix that gap directly. They fix the precondition for fixing it: a system that office workers, families, and tourists are willing to use again. Ridership growth at stations with new gates outpaced ungated ones before the rollout finished.

A $400 million annual deficit is heading to voters in November as a sales tax measure. Voters don't approve sales taxes for transit agencies they don't feel safe in. The $90 million on gates is buying BART the right to ask the public for more money.

That's the real return on six feet of polycarbonate.

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

This is poster-child post for the limits of 250 characters: Read the first note and thought the author was arguing that fighting crime isn’t worthwhile because that cannot alone address other urban issues … in the full thread, he actually argues the opposite (and convincingly!)

[Peter Moskos @PeterMoskos]

Notice in every city where crime is down (most cities), there's no reduction in poverty, no improvement in educational outcomes, no end to systemic racism, no massive increase in affordable housing. If I didn't know better, I'd think those things are unrelated to crime fighting.

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

Tried and failed to write a funny post mocking @MLB.com for mooning over the @Dodgers hiring a trumpet player to welcome their hired-gun closer into his first game.

So let's just say "been there, done that."

https://t.co/IzBpOHCg8L

[BAM Mutual @BAMutual]

The market's resilience will be tested next week, when issuers are planning a robust slate of more than $14 billion of new-issues. Check out the full Weekly Update on BAM's YouTube page: https://t.co/XkTO0QpG4g

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

I asked AI: "How did BAM perform this week?"

BAM insured $712 million of new-issue hashtag#municipalbonds for 29 issuers from 15 states. The highlight of the week was Tuesday, when Bam scored 83 points against the Washington Wizards, the second-highest point total in NBA history

[BAM Mutual @BAMutual]

BAM insured more than $712 million of new-issue #municipalbonds in a heavy week for the primary market: Issuers capitalized on continuing solid demand ahead of any disruptions from the next FOMC meeting or tax-selling that could pressure mutual fund cash flows.

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

No gloves, no hat, light jacket …. Just me out here Manifesting Spring.

You’re welcome.

[BAM Mutual @BAMutual]

BAM's Grant Dewey explains how "sustained investor demand" helped drive yields on long-term #municipalbonds lower this week ... and what issuers are doing to take advantage of those trends.

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

@jmp_nyc @JuliaManhattan Yeah, I was surprised by that at the time — but here, I’m just replying to Julia’s initial contention that the tone and content of *this interview* is unprecedented.

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

@jmp_nyc @JuliaManhattan And I'm surprised there wasn't more detail. Specifically: A) Does he believe Mamdani intentionally omitted him from the inauguration? and/or
B) Did Mamdani turn down an invite to the investiture?

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

@jmp_nyc @JuliaManhattan But not sure it's a complete departure from past protocol -- he catches himself and tries to be constructive about some Mamdani policies later in the answer.

[Mike Stanton @MikeStanton2012]

@IvanTheK @andrewrsorkin Fair enough, but I still enjoyed watching the live on-air disemboweling.