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Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

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Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#91

Post by WalterBright »

omegaworks wrote: post #82
tastyfreeze wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it is not sustainable. Alaska put themselves in this situation by growing government whenever oil prices were high without any regard to oil prices dropping. There was an opportunity to build Alaska wealth without taxes but I feel the time has passed. If Alaska had instead taken the 75% share of oil revenue allocated to government and invested it the same as the people's portion they wouldn't be in this situa…

>The entire historical debacle just illustrates in vivid color how horrendous politicians are at managing money. This is not true everywhere. Norway has a sovereign wealth fund that is doing quite well. Libya was once the most prosperous African nation before the US demolished their government. Sovereign wealth funds are an effective management strategy for the resource curse, if western nation backed multinational c…

> Norway has a sovereign wealth fund that is doing quite well.

20% of Norway's GDP comes from oil revenues (the government owns the oil extraction business). It remains to be seen how things would go if their oil revenues ceased.

Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#92

Post by Malician »

hpoe wrote: post #17

On the flip side if they just continue to run at a deficit for extended periods then they have to cut even more as they will no longer be able to fund what they have. I get that this isn't an ideal situation but it seems like so often whenever anyone wants to cut anything its the end of the world. I mean what would you cut in order to reduce the deficit? Welfare services? Health services? Emergency services? It may n…

I talked with one of the people who's job it is to forecast the effects of cuts. The new administration's response was basically "we don't wanna hear about it and don't want to know, prepare to be reassigned."

This is not driven by accountants and budget people. This is driven by politics. Feel free to read Dunleavy's promises and budgets before election, and what he's doing now. He claimed there was hundreds of millions of easy money to be reclaimed without cutting important services. Turns out he was wrong, so he's going back on everything he said about the University and the ferry system.

He even cut funding to the courts because he didn't like one of their decisions.

Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#93

Post by pixl97 »

craftinator wrote: post #86
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody over 70 has seen some things in their life. For a concrete example: There are people alive who experienced the Great Depression. Should none of them be allowed to vote? Is that really a good idea? Should people who lived through World War II not be allowed to vote? Or would it be better to have some of those people, as voters, to be able to say "wait a minute" to some stuff that sounds good to people who hav…

I think his point is that "old people" won't live with the outcome of their votes. It's not a generally correct point, but it makes sense from the perspective that they don't have skin in the game.

Right, all old people are for killing their children.

It's almost like black and white statements are just bad stereotypes.

Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#94

Post by cavisne »

chillacy wrote: post #48
cavisne wrote: post #13

This is in some ways a preview of why the theory of basic income replacing other government spending (and therefore being fiscally conservative and libertarian) is false. Alaska is redirecting money from universities to basic income (the oil dividend) and it’s considered an outrage. The same thing would happen for any government program.

Replacing government services with cash seems to be fairly libertarian: decrease the size of government, increase freedom for consumers who would be served by the market instead of these services, no?

The point is they won’t be replaced, as removing any government program is considered an outrage. So the end result of basic income is the existing level of spend + basic income.

Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#95

Post by WalterBright »

darkpuma wrote: post #74
sweetcherrypie wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, a teenager should have triple the voting power of a 40 year old

Perhaps, perhaps not. But I see little reason that somebody over 70 at the oldest should be allowed to vote at all (let alone do something even more serious like hold public office!) If you and your friends were trying to decide what to do next weekend, would you give a vote to the friend who was going to be out of town that weekend? People should not have a say in matters they won't be around for. I'm not allowed to…

> But I see little reason that somebody over 70 at the oldest should be allowed to vote at all (let alone do something even more serious like hold public office!)

On the other hand, someone over 70 might be more likely to vote for the general good rather than their selfish interests.

Evolutionarilly speaking, the reason humans have old people at all is that they contribute wisdom. Otherwise, people would tend to die soon after their children reach adulthood. There's no incentive for evolution to favor useless organisms that aren't able to reproduce - so old people aren't useless.

Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#96

Post by dang »

tracer4201 wrote: post #20

[flagged]

Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, and it's against the site guidelines and the spirit that we want here. I'm sure you can make your substantive points without it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#98

Post by thehappypm »

basementcat wrote: post #31
iscrewyou wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody needs a “deeper and penetrating insight into the finances of state of Alaska” to see the problem here. Cutting a stem program should not be on the top of any budget cut proposal. That’s the problem.

A big chunk of this problem can be solved by eliminating the oil dividend given to all residents.

Many people would probably leave Alaska altogether if that was the case, which would be much worse for the tax base. The subsidy is crucial to keeping Alaska populated at all. They still collect various other taxes despite the subsidy.

Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#99

Post by Malician »

mywittyname wrote: post #30
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If/when oil is done, Alaska will probably depopulate rapidly; they will have much larger problems than needing to raise taxes. The governor is doing this not to fill in gaps in the budget, but to increase the Alaskan dividend all residents get every year. Crazy stuff.

It's very possible that the majority of Alaskans support the governor's plan.

http://midnightsunak.com/2019/07/08/dunleavys-already-low-ap...

Dunleavy promised a $6700 dividend without significantly cutting the University or major operations of the ferry system. Now we're talking about homeless shelters closing and old folks losing their monthly pittance. Believe me, people's minds have changed on this very rapidly.

Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

#100

Post by thehappypm »

somethoughts wrote: post #42
tsunamifury wrote: post #12

I understand a well off nation ruled by democracy due to distributed table-stakes, and a poor nation ruled by a dictator due to centralized table-stakes, but I've never known a well off nation to intentionally sabotage its own table-stakes in order to surrender to dictatorship. Why is this happening? Who supports it? Why do they think it is necessary?

What is kind of interesting is - does it make sense for the environment to actually grow the population of Alaska? Its not like its an easy environment to live in without using an increasing amount of greenhouse gases. The population should migrate toward areas where the temperature/humidity does not require resources just to be comfortable. The population should also migrate toward where energy that is renewable and…

Alaska is not nearly the cold wasteland you think it is. Its largest city, Anchorage, shares the same weather pattern that keeps Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland warm and wet. Though by being 1000 miles further north, it is much colder than any of those cities. However, compared to some continental cities, it actually has milder weather. For example, Anchorage's average January low is higher than Minneapolis's, and its average July high is lower, so you need both less heat and less A/C to live in Anchorage than Minneapolis.
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