Sell off assets? Cut administrators? Drop the presidents pay?
They are doing those too. The budget cuts are quite significant.
Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
101–110 of 134 posts
Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#102So being the kind of person who has a lot of random trivia floating around in my brain, this is the first thing that came to mind when I thought of Alaska engineering colleges: Search DuckDuckGo for the following : "[Censored] Evaluation is a study at the University of Alaska Fairbanks using finite element modeling to evaluate the possible causes of [Censored]'s collapse."
Replace censored by WTC 7 and World Trade center respectively.
Username checks out.
While is perfectly fine to investigate the collapse of a building, especially as the findings may help us make buildings less prone to such collapse, in this case, the academic who led the research claims results that contradict the mainstream understanding of the event, but provides no real evidence. The publication date of the actual study has been repeatedly delayed (see the German Wikipedia page on the academic and the references there). That makes me sceptical to start with, but for now, I will put it down to bureaucracy. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and claiming a result from a study that they admit is still incomplete is irresponsible.
The project website claims it will be over by September 2019,[1] so it should be available soon enough, unless it is one of the things that are affected by the STEM cuts. Though it should not be, because he said in his live stream talk that it is externally funded by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (a conspiracy theory organisation).
Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#103The Alaska budget cuts are not only to the University. Deep cuts across the board with services Governor Dunleavy feels are unnecessary taking the biggest hit (public health, university, public ferry transportation). However, according to Alaska's constitution the government must come up with a balanced budget. They have failed to do so since revenue shortfalls began. The previous governor used a stopgap measure of u…
I think that you're underselling the size of the PFD relative to the state budget when you say "akin to digging through [the] couch cushions for change". Here's a comparison of the numbers: // (expected - actual) * valid applicants // ($2,300 - $1,100) * 666,047 PFD withheld 2017: $ 687M Total state revenue 2017: $1,018M Also, these statements are in conflict: > the PFD that isn't constitutionally protected > pay res…
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Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#104I 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?
Because most of the benefits of the former are getting concentrated into the hands of educated and urban dwellers. So people want change, but end up stupidly sabotaging. Disclaimer: I am not a Trump supporter.
Note that only 9% of rural residents support Dunleavy right now, especially since he is cutting ferry service by 2/3, which will be catastrophic for the many towns which rely on it and are not accessible by road.
http://midnightsunak.com/2019/07/10/poll-dunleavys-approval-...
His reputation is utterly trashed across the whole state right now.
Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
While this may be true, Alaska, unlike almost all other states, basically operates without any income or sales taxes. They depend almost entirely on oil revenue and property taxes which obviously isn't sustainable long term. https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/state-taxes-alaska.as...
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.
I think they are incentivized to mismanage money. Voters want low taxes and government programs more than they want a balanced budget.
Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
From what I heard, it’s own people got tired of Ghadaffi’s crap and revolted, but let e know if that is just western media bias.
Check out the Adam Curtis documentary/social commentary film 'Bitter Lake' for more on this
Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
While this may be true, Alaska, unlike almost all other states, basically operates without any income or sales taxes. They depend almost entirely on oil revenue and property taxes which obviously isn't sustainable long term. https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/state-taxes-alaska.as...
Property, income, and sales taxes are all part of the cost of living and doing business. Raising property taxes won't hurt the general public any more than raising the other two. Taxes aren't a menu where you need a little of column A and a little of column B, just because. It's all money coming from the economy in some form and the important part is what you're incentivizing or disincentivizing. In fact, there's a m…
Different taxes affect different people differently. Sales tax primarily hits poor people for example - there’s only so much the rich can spend their money on. Bracketed income tax can be made to have low impact for lower income while boosting revenue. Property taxes tax the permanent residents but misses out the opportunity of, let’s say, taxing the tourists. Those are all levers.
There was a recent article on economist that compared the tax models of California and Texas. One has a progressive income tax but crippled property tax and the other has no income tax but a steady property tax. Everything from the risk to revenue and the impact it has on the people vary so much. Neither is good in a way. The best system will use all three in the right proportion.
Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
They'd leave over the removal of a $1-2k subsidy?
Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah, I doubt that most people support Dunleavy. A lot of people are very angry with him. A few years ago the state could barely afford to repair roads, which get very rough after freezing and thawing every year. Also, cutting the ferry system essentially cuts off some people's only means of transportation out of small towns for months at a time. And there was already not enough space in homeless shelters in Anchorage.
Re: Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
That's a fair point, but you can also flip it the other way: someone with 5 years left on Earth might be much more interested in improving things for future generations. Thinking about how your impact will live on after your death is an enduring human strategy for dealing with the terror of impending nonexistence. Another way to flip it: someone who's 40 has plenty of time left to live hedonistically without having t…
The assumption that age comes with wisdom is a gross oversimplification. Age is strongly correlated with dementia. Rather than they elderly having greater than normal lucidity, they often lack it, sometimes completely.
We don't let teenagers vote because they're known for being hotheads, but when an 90 year old man forgets the names of his children, we still let him vote. That's nuts, and it shows that what we have right now is not a 1-person-1-vote system. We already have a system of selective enfranchisement, but it's not been configured in a rational way. It's not been configured in a way designed to give good results. In fact, it's proven itself quite harmful. Go ask any climate scientist what our future on this current trajectory looks like. Trying to stay the course is suicide.