I think University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was$375.00/ 12 credit semester After 12 credits, full time additional 3 credit courses were no cost. So I tried to do 15 credits per semester although Chemistry was 3x per week lecture, 1 3 hr lab and on hour discussion ( TA) so really kind of hard to do more than the 12 credit full time week.
I think University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was$375.00/ 12 credit semester After 12 credits, full time additional 3 credit courses were no cost. So I tried to do 15 credits per semester although Chemistry was 3x per week lecture, 1 3 hr lab and on hour discussion ( TA) so really kind of hard to do more than the 12 credit full time week.
Laughable now to think this was the cost. I had a double major Art & Chemistry/ Life sciences and my student loans balance was $15k.
I can't imagine coming out of college with $60k or the additional grad school loans. I was on the "eat rice, live in the dark and walk to school program". You could hang meat in the drafty duplex rental. Ah, yes the good old days, fun times!
I have not researched it, but it seems to me that the price of once cheap foods, such as rice, crackers, peanuts, etc. has risen much more dramatically than many other items. It seems to me that price has become untethered from the cost of production at the lower end of things with less competition to keep it down. I imagine, if this is so, that it really hits the poor.
The president addressed that a couple of days ago. I have been begging, given climate change, for price controls and rationing of certain foods. It will come so we may as well start getting accustomed to it. We continue to behave as if nothing has changed and as if we don’t “belong to” the planet. In a small boat on the French canals (2002-2011) in the smallest towns we passed through there were recycling bins on the edge of town: clear glass, colored glass, paper containers, metal containers, and two more I’ve forgotten. Here, although I separate garbage from recyclables, I’m not certain it doesn’t all go into landfills.
If I recall correctly, Sweden just incinerates it's plastics, which doesn't seem like a great solution. I guess plastic at least doesn't break down rapidly so maybe landfilling it is a better solution.
Of course, bring your own bag to the store is the best solution! But I haven't figured out what should be done about plastic packaging at the grocery store.
Plastic breaks down to micro plastics and particles are found in all of us. They are so small they cannot even be removed. Recently scientists at UT/Austin found an enzyme that eats plastic. If a billionaire or two could make money off this, it might help us. I doubt that the government has the resources these days.
Jeri, I’ve heard of this & then had a “what could go wrong?” thought…like the enzyme escaping into the wild and munching on synthetics everywhere, not just disposable plastics. So dystopian! Must be reading too much sci-fi!
Guess you too have seen plenty of unintended consequences, like the runaway Kudzu along the East Coast. Yep, one must be careful messing with Mother Nature, but we’re doing it all day every day, without a thought to the unintended “what could go wrong.” Sort of like Murphy’s Law. What can go wrong, surely will.
Jeri, you mean like putting computer screens in vehicle dashboards? I prefer simple knobs & buttons that muscle memory locates w/o taking eyes off the road! Guess I’m a Luddite!
During several "icy" days, I made an attempt to cleanse my computer of improvements/enhancements and garbage that I didn't use. I had to refresh my memory about computer inards that I had let go of while my husband was so ill. So far, it boots up quickly, shuts down quickly and I have no error messages saying, "you deleted program so that I can't function anymore." So much crap comes on a new computer that some users have no use for. After several years, they become a giant liability. So far, so good - today. Humans have a knack for complicating the simple and simplifying the complex. Wish we could do it appropriately. So far, we users have to put up with so much crap. I think Amazon is the champ. I cannot buy a song without having to sign up to "free prime." I cancel the next day, and they charge weird charges. Jeff must be planning another space penis flight...
We are pathetic, some states do better than others, but we don’t care enough. I am gobsmacked. Most goes to landfills. The place I take mine no longer takes glass. WTH. It should be more useful than plastic recyclables, it’s almost as if it’s paying lip service, just pretending. As the Titanic sails on…
eg peanut butter has about doubled in the past 3-4 years, blamed on covid mainly, by corporations which are opaque in providing any kind of detailed information, at least to the everyday consumer.
I have stopped buying almost anything I have control over with these ridiculous inflated prices. I refused to pick a prescription at the pharmacy yesterday because insurance refused to pay for it. I will do just fine without it.
Be careful on avoiding prescriptions! I use costco, and only generic versions if possible - right now drugs are a very cheap world for me. Mind you, I'm in Canada, where americans flock to for eg insulin. Campaign for drug reform! Dems are the closest to that!
Frank, a med that can work best for a recurring microbiome imbalance I experience is not available in the US as a generic, Medicare & suppl ins, per my doc, would only pay for 3 courses in my LIFETIME (did I mention it reoccurs?) w/ the copay skyrocketing each time. Self-pay is $3000 for 21 day course. The very same proprietary drug is sold in Canada, same dose and duration, for $600!!! How is this right? Canadian pharmacies also sell a generic drug, available in all other countries, for $200. Luckily my doc is amenable to me getting it shipped from Canada by a vetted & trusted pharmacy. The motto I lean into is “make a living, not a killing”…..greed is a god to some, sadly.
Glad the laws in your northern neighbour make such a difference for you via your doc i gather. Prices are somewhat regulated in many countries, on a Wall Street article resulting in removal of research to USA from Canada, for example, but on the other hand US Pharma accepts Indian/Chinese regulation because of the sheer immensity of the prospective markets. A Canadian relative of mine has a late-stage Castleman's disease, a very rare condition, and the drug treatments are something like 20K/month, the company/s involved are covering the cost for research purposes.
What he could do right now is stop the gouging by corporations in all fields. It gets harder and harder to get by. Yes, we need to enforce laws that are already there i.e. anti-trust laws.
I’m on Medicare now and began to refuse some prescriptions at CVS pharmacy because they were (still) very high, so… I now call canadadrugs.com and buy the drugs through them! Sometimes they’re from other countries. It’s so worth it! Saves me so much money. It be wonderful to put billboards all over the country, saying ‘go to Canada drugs’ for your prescriptions to be less expensive!
I am far more financially comfortable now than I was in my youth, but there are things I used to enjoy I just won't pay absurd prices for. Alas, for some, prescriptions are vital. Meanwhile I see headlines such as"
"World’s five richest men double their money as poorest get poorer
Even red-baiting Tricky Dick Nixon had a sense of the common good which would be blasphemous to today's Republicans:
"Therefore, I urge again that the energy measures that I have proposed be made the first priority of this session of the Congress. These measures will require the oil companies and other energy producers to provide the public with the necessary information on their supplies. They will prevent the injustice of windfall profits for a few as a result of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans. "
"Injustice of windfall profits"? Perish the thought.
We were just talking about this yesterday! It seems like companies just keep pushing the prices higher and higher in an effort to judge the public's breaking point.
The Guardian had a piece claiming half of inflation was caused by corporations keeping prices high even after their costs of manufacture went down. Proctor and Gamble was an example with the price of diapers. There was no incentive to lower prices as their competitors did not drop theirs. They were happy with bigger profit margins, no effort required. I will find the link
Was *just* about to share this article as well. Here's the Cliff Notes clip -- "Prices for consumers rose by 3.4% over the past year, but input costs for producers increased by just 1%.."
JL, one of ex-students who now lives in Paris and was home for the holidays mentioned how he was shocked by the price of groceries here vis a vis what they cost in Paris. i think there is a certain amount of price gouging going on and massive corporate holdings make some things virtually a monopoly. Now some corporate entity is trying to buy up I think, supplying food items here in Oregon to grocery stores. From what I have read this does not bode well.
Nope, basically a monopoly. This is why we try to buy locally and attend the Saturday Market in the summertime. We rarely darken the doors of any supermarket. Just the one down the street which until recently was locally owned. Now owned by a Canadian company.
I'm glad you buy locally. But I wonder, do you mainly buy vegetables at these local markets? I ask because I suspect that the monopolists don't care if the locals take some of the tomate/green bean/lettuce market -- basically, anything that spoils quickly. Monopolists need crops that they can commodify, like grains and unripe fruit. No matter how many local markets we support, there is still a great need for anti-trust enforcement.
Oh I agree. We do buy meat as well, raised locally. I doubt that matters either except to us and them. Also wine and spirits and some handmade items. We also buy baked goods and bread from a wonderful local bakery that is just getting started. However, this is something that we can do right here locally.....we try not to give our dollars whenever possible to big corporations. I have had to stop buying some items originally locally made and then bought up. I raise a lot of my own produce and I buy starts from local places as well.
Turns out that a couple of the monster chicken factories snuck through because today's rag had an article about them. Avian flu arrived at both....surprise....and the chickens had to killed by suffocation. Usually they use foam, but not enough was available, so they just shut off the air flow. It is horribly cruel of course. Then the chickens and the mess inside the barns has to be composted at a very high temp to kill the virus.
I am fortunate to live in the Willamette Valley in Salem, Oregon. It requires constant vigilance as recently big chicken wanted to put in some chicken factories and were adamantly opposed. I think at least one of them did not happen, maybe more. We have fairly strict land use laws here although many work to undermine them and our Marion County commissioners never have seen a development they didn't like. The big battle is coming up this year because the governor, a D, wants to solve the housing problem and urban growth boundaries are a problem in terms of that. Tonight is a film sponsored by our local land use advocates about this. We have tickets, but probably won't make it, but it is sold out....at the local movie house. We belong to 1000 Friends of Oregon as well as the local chapter here in Marion County. We take care of our own yard without chemicals and use a vinegar mixture on weeds. Our yard service is supposed to spray the fruit trees soon with dormant oil and we will remind them as the pruners will be here soon and then they must spray before bees appear. Of course, we can't do anything about what people in the neighborhood do. There used to be a person I called Mr. Chemical because his yard, while weed free, reeked. It was sold and now ironically is full of weeds. Some neighbors close to us share things from their gardens and we share things from ours. The birds planted raspberries in our hedge which our neighbors pick and share with us. They claim the best ones grow on our side. Because of climate change, I can't garden exactly as I used to and often the timing is not what it used to be. This week we have had snow and ice here in the valley....a mess. But thankfully, there is now much more snow in the mountains which supplies summer water. We have many wineries here in the valley and the grapes were ruined a few falls ago by big fires up the canyon. They are now suing the power company which ignored heavy wind warnings. The people up the canyon have already won a law suit. And so it goes.
(sigh) If a house in your neighborhood opens up, lemme know? Sure, I know it's not Heaven, but it sounds like a good knock-off. Keep up the good fight!
We live in a diverse neighborhood which is great, but also too many Rs in the area just north of us especially. Our immediate neighbors, save the wing nut across the street are fine. I did hear gun shots and shouting fairly close by about a month or so ago. We have a massive sewer and street improvement project on our street; the pumping station is right across the street from us. i don't know if they are done with that. We do now have a sidewalk out front and since we live on a corner, it has ramps. They are supposed to be finished next year. Too many think our street is a racetrack although they can't get through going west down the street. During the initial construction out front when our street was closed, we saw lots of fools and their antics. So, every place has its problems. The wealthy live in south and west Salem hills or further out in the country. We are north and a few blocks from the 45th Parallel. Lots and lots of apartments going up as well. And the wing nut across the street has a huge shop which faces our backyard. It blasts his noise right into our back yard, including a horrible metal saw and a riding lawnmower for his postage stamp lawn. For a while we couldn't even hear our TV when he was running large unmuffled engines...his wife finally put a stop to that. Of course, he has a power washer and power everything. So not exactly paradise, but we have lived here for a very long time and have our house as we want it.
How many major American companies pre-Reagan are now just brands of mega-conglomerates. I read about monopolies in school history classes (1950s and '60s), how bad they were and how we had "solved" the problem. In the last 20 or so years two national chins bought up virtually all the local supermarkets, and now they are trying to merge into one.
Yes, and that is not good. When I look closely at how big money controls most things, I could get depressed. However, this afternoon we are headed to a surprise retirement party for our long time vet. Thankfully, they have found replacements and not gone corporate.
In this area shadowy corporations have bought up pretty much every veterinary practice in sight, including our exemplary family vet and the 24 hr. large and small animal hospital. I the past when our dog was dying, they got someone out of bed. This time we called early in the evening and were told to go away.
JL, there are interesting investigative reporting on the types of businesses—and they are varied!—that private equity firms are acquiring & then, usually, bleeding them dry….not unlike a plague of locusts.
Very sad. Ours is overwhelmed because another clinic went corporate. So far so good, but they need another vet for this practice. The surprise went very well and we were able to see the old staff and both of our now retired vets. A good stout too as it was at a local beer place just down the street from us. We do have some traveling vets around here, but I don't know what kind of service they provide. There is also a business, recommended by our vet, that will pick up the animal and return the ashes.
We are a long ways from that, maybe when the university president and many administrators and coaches are earning 6 (Sorry I meant 7!) figures. I'm really not sure what the problem is with affordable college in the US.
See Wendell Berry's "The Unsettling of America," Matt.
He published it in 1977, in ire at how corporate America was taking over everything left from America's great network of land grant colleges and universities (dating from the Justin Morrill legislation Lincoln signed in 1862).
Having state legislatures defund higher ed had the added benefit to our vultures then of getting students historically in crippling debt to the banks.
As Powell-memo-inspired ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, and the Hoover Institution conducted their campaigns to kill off humanities, as tenure openings shrank, and majors tilted insanely to finance and biz ed, all life became transactional, specialist neutered.
It was all a plan, Matt. And even Wendell Berry (then, and for decades on), never knew the organized way dark money so took over.
In NC, the vile Republican legislators want to turn our fine university system into a bunch of trade schools, focused on creating workers for businesses. The Republicans want to tell the universities what to do, all while cutting funding to the regional schools that do the most to lift people up the ladder. As a donor, the legislature undermines philanthropy, as they make it even more necessary. There are NO good Republicans.
JennSH, they have proven themselves to be the party of death. Our next door neighbor is a former county commissioner and he puts D signs in his yard now. He is totally disgusted by what the party has become. He cannot bring himself to register D, so I think he is registered as an I. On the other hand, across the street, we have wing nut R who hates us although his wife is a progressive D except for taxes. We live in an enclave of Marion County where we receive city service like sewer, water, and schools, but are not in the city of Salem, thus saving some amount on property taxes. It took three votes for this area to pass a fire district budget, so that we would have emergency services 24 hours a day. The fire district also includes a large rural area. But hey, get out your hose and put out the fire yourself. Heart attack....well, too bad. All these people are, of course, experts, because they can access nonsense on the internet.
I’m a North Carolinian who married two UNC-CH men so have a fond attachment to that university. I’ve been appalled at the way the republican legislature has managed to screw up our entire system by installing their toadies on the university governing boards and into chancellorships. UNC-A used to be continually listed as one of the best small, liberal arts college for the money in the U S; but no longer. Most of the universities in the system were excellent until they got politicized. It’s a disgusting degradation of higher education in a state that used to be a leader.
So do I, if anybody, besides Walter, helped form who I am today, it was Bill Moyers. He looked at all sides (truly fair and balanced), was brilliant in so many areas, and taught me so much. There is nobody like him today. And exactly why Rupert went after him. Rupert has poisoned the well.
I am reading Craig Unger’s Kochland right now. OMG!about the rise of corporate power/greed. Have read his other books too – “House of Trump, house of Putin”, “American Kompromat “. He’s an amazing researcher. Pretty scary out there. 😬😳 Highly recommend all!
Lee, your substack reading list is impressive as hell, both for volume and for diversity.
After Kochland, if you haven’t already, I’ll give a recommendation for ‘Silent Coup’, as a follow up. It looks at corporate influence/ownership over governments worldwide, how it came to be institutionalized via entities like the World Bank.
I’m currently reading ‘American Exception’, about American Empire and our tripartite state. Recommend that one as well.
Have you seen the efforts to allow 14-yr old children to spend more hours at work? Sara Huckabee Sanders is all for it. I wonder what she thinks of affordable college.
Far, far more than professors, who don't even teach much, leaving that to the Graduate Teaching Fellows (now Graduate Teaching Employees at the U of O).
It's actually adjuncts who shoulder the bulk of the teaching loads in colleges and universities now. I should know. I forgot the percentage but it's something like an excess of two-thirds of college teaching workloads are filled by adjuncts. The colleges get the work from them/us and they don't have to pay for any benefits, just a low per hour rate, often on a par with custodians. And then, they can lay off workers at will with no warning or consequences. Try doing that with a tenured professor. Again, I know first-hand.
I know a professor at Colombia U who is a champion of complete education. He speaks of colleagues who habitually refer to teaching "loads" and research "opportunities"
So my question is then where is the money going? Is there really that big of an administration highly paid bureaucracy? Or is it buildings and fancy sports complexes? I'd like to know!
Yes, there IS in most of the bigger colleges and universities an enormous top-heavy administration. You don't have to search hard to find position after position labeled like: "Vice-President in Charge of _____________" The lists can be endless. There are people whose jobs are specifically to manage the institutions' endowments, finances, and investments, plus various areas like outreach, alumni, development of this & that. I mean, it really is obvious colleges and universities are more and more run like corporations. And then there are departments' deans and staff, along with all the offices these positions generate and the people to staff them. Some of these salaries in higher positions can be around 6 figures. College Presidents' pay in the bigger institutions can be over $1 million. That's just the top-heavy administrations, and then come all the other monies that go into facilities and stuff . . . big splashy facilities and a faculty of tons of tenured professors attracts students. It all can mount up really fast. There are definite priorities with some schools in what they're trying to attract and, like everything else, it always comes down to money. America's higher education systems are about making money, first and foremost. They'll tell you up front it's about educating students, but the industry that has risen up around that is, in my opinion, what may very well be its downfall.
I had a few TA's in college, and one in particular who was extremely suspicious of us students. I guess they have a place but they were the bane of my college experience.
I was a TA for a couple of years. My first quarter I got a bunch of reviews from students saying "I can't hear you speaking." So then I upped my game and talked loud, which I think also translates into enthusiasm for physics, problem solved! I even earned an award for most improved TA.
The worst comment I ever received is "He is as interesting as watching paint dry." Ouch! Note that I am not employed as a teacher, and don't have a clue how all of our teachers do it day after day!
I believe college has become unaffordable because states have stopped investing...or significantly reduce subsidies to higher education. It seems all the subsidies (welfare) now goes to corporations. The big winners during Texas' Winter Storm Uri were gas and oil corporations. The average Texan will be paying surcharges for decades to cover the cost of that Texas Grid debacle...meanwhile gas and oil earned big money and over 700 Texans died directly due to the three to four days of no power during below freezing weather or due to due the side affects on no power.
The highest pension in the Oregon PERS system goes to a former UO coach. The next highest are OHSU doctors which does make sense to me. All public pensions here in Oregon are public record, thanks to a couple newspapers insisting that this be so. PERS is good click bait around here although only first tier retired get excellent benefits. I think the state is now down to third tier, each tier getting less. As for coaching salaries, people who complain all the time about the amount want a winning coach and in major programs that takes a lot of money. Then there are the people who complain about government no matter what. I was reading a long thread yesterday about the handling of snow and ice here in Salem (a fairly rare occurrence) by the city. In fact, the city was doing the best it could with this mess and they take care of major roads first. We had several days of first snow and then freezing rain, making it difficult for them to keep up and ice is much more difficult than snow. One couple in particular complained long and loud. They are among those who don't want to pay taxes for anything, but are first in line for a handout or to complain.
Don't forget about the part where, because these events did not happen routinely, the public entities are horribly ill-equipped to handle major snow/ice events. People like your neighbors who don't want to pay taxes and yet expect the government to deal with what they cannot absolutely disgust me.
Jeri, I was replying to Matt at the same time you were, and I had thought Belotti was second. He's actually third now, behind two doctors from OHSU.
Matt, Mike Beloti, the former football coach at U O is the third highest paid PERS "employee". He makes as much in a month (over 41K) after 20 years as a coach than I do (just over 4K) after 28 years in law enforcement which is half again as much as what my friend, who is a retired teacher makes. PERS was designed for public employees like cops, teachers, firefighters, public works. Not for obscenely rich coaches.
The highest paid PERS employees are doctors from Oregon Health and Science University, a premier teaching hospital.
I think University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was$375.00/ 12 credit semester After 12 credits, full time additional 3 credit courses were no cost. So I tried to do 15 credits per semester although Chemistry was 3x per week lecture, 1 3 hr lab and on hour discussion ( TA) so really kind of hard to do more than the 12 credit full time week.
Laughable now to think this was the cost. I had a double major Art & Chemistry/ Life sciences and my student loans balance was $15k.
I can't imagine coming out of college with $60k or the additional grad school loans. I was on the "eat rice, live in the dark and walk to school program". You could hang meat in the drafty duplex rental. Ah, yes the good old days, fun times!
I have not researched it, but it seems to me that the price of once cheap foods, such as rice, crackers, peanuts, etc. has risen much more dramatically than many other items. It seems to me that price has become untethered from the cost of production at the lower end of things with less competition to keep it down. I imagine, if this is so, that it really hits the poor.
Price untethered from the cost of production. Needs to be on the ticker tape 24-7 and on the lips of all. Great comment…
The president addressed that a couple of days ago. I have been begging, given climate change, for price controls and rationing of certain foods. It will come so we may as well start getting accustomed to it. We continue to behave as if nothing has changed and as if we don’t “belong to” the planet. In a small boat on the French canals (2002-2011) in the smallest towns we passed through there were recycling bins on the edge of town: clear glass, colored glass, paper containers, metal containers, and two more I’ve forgotten. Here, although I separate garbage from recyclables, I’m not certain it doesn’t all go into landfills.
Sadly, it mostly goes to the landfill, especially anything plastic—glass and metal are more “marketable” to recycle as I understand it.
If I recall correctly, Sweden just incinerates it's plastics, which doesn't seem like a great solution. I guess plastic at least doesn't break down rapidly so maybe landfilling it is a better solution.
Of course, bring your own bag to the store is the best solution! But I haven't figured out what should be done about plastic packaging at the grocery store.
Plastic breaks down to micro plastics and particles are found in all of us. They are so small they cannot even be removed. Recently scientists at UT/Austin found an enzyme that eats plastic. If a billionaire or two could make money off this, it might help us. I doubt that the government has the resources these days.
Jeri, I’ve heard of this & then had a “what could go wrong?” thought…like the enzyme escaping into the wild and munching on synthetics everywhere, not just disposable plastics. So dystopian! Must be reading too much sci-fi!
Guess you too have seen plenty of unintended consequences, like the runaway Kudzu along the East Coast. Yep, one must be careful messing with Mother Nature, but we’re doing it all day every day, without a thought to the unintended “what could go wrong.” Sort of like Murphy’s Law. What can go wrong, surely will.
Jeri, you mean like putting computer screens in vehicle dashboards? I prefer simple knobs & buttons that muscle memory locates w/o taking eyes off the road! Guess I’m a Luddite!
During several "icy" days, I made an attempt to cleanse my computer of improvements/enhancements and garbage that I didn't use. I had to refresh my memory about computer inards that I had let go of while my husband was so ill. So far, it boots up quickly, shuts down quickly and I have no error messages saying, "you deleted program so that I can't function anymore." So much crap comes on a new computer that some users have no use for. After several years, they become a giant liability. So far, so good - today. Humans have a knack for complicating the simple and simplifying the complex. Wish we could do it appropriately. So far, we users have to put up with so much crap. I think Amazon is the champ. I cannot buy a song without having to sign up to "free prime." I cancel the next day, and they charge weird charges. Jeff must be planning another space penis flight...
Not in my neighborhood, no more glass
We are pathetic, some states do better than others, but we don’t care enough. I am gobsmacked. Most goes to landfills. The place I take mine no longer takes glass. WTH. It should be more useful than plastic recyclables, it’s almost as if it’s paying lip service, just pretending. As the Titanic sails on…
eg peanut butter has about doubled in the past 3-4 years, blamed on covid mainly, by corporations which are opaque in providing any kind of detailed information, at least to the everyday consumer.
I have stopped buying almost anything I have control over with these ridiculous inflated prices. I refused to pick a prescription at the pharmacy yesterday because insurance refused to pay for it. I will do just fine without it.
Be careful on avoiding prescriptions! I use costco, and only generic versions if possible - right now drugs are a very cheap world for me. Mind you, I'm in Canada, where americans flock to for eg insulin. Campaign for drug reform! Dems are the closest to that!
Frank, a med that can work best for a recurring microbiome imbalance I experience is not available in the US as a generic, Medicare & suppl ins, per my doc, would only pay for 3 courses in my LIFETIME (did I mention it reoccurs?) w/ the copay skyrocketing each time. Self-pay is $3000 for 21 day course. The very same proprietary drug is sold in Canada, same dose and duration, for $600!!! How is this right? Canadian pharmacies also sell a generic drug, available in all other countries, for $200. Luckily my doc is amenable to me getting it shipped from Canada by a vetted & trusted pharmacy. The motto I lean into is “make a living, not a killing”…..greed is a god to some, sadly.
Glad the laws in your northern neighbour make such a difference for you via your doc i gather. Prices are somewhat regulated in many countries, on a Wall Street article resulting in removal of research to USA from Canada, for example, but on the other hand US Pharma accepts Indian/Chinese regulation because of the sheer immensity of the prospective markets. A Canadian relative of mine has a late-stage Castleman's disease, a very rare condition, and the drug treatments are something like 20K/month, the company/s involved are covering the cost for research purposes.
I don't think it should be called inflation but "corporate gouging". Do something about that Biden as you have the means to do it.
Imposed price management is anathema to modern capitalist ideology.
"Wealthiest Americans pay just 3.4% of income in taxes, investigation reveals
Tax records from 2014 to 2018, analysed by ProPublica, show 25 Americans collectively earned $401bn but paid just $13.6bn"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/13/wealthiest-americans-tax-income-propublica-investigation
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/30/heres-how-biden-may-cement-his-antitrust-legacy-in-2024-00132756
What he could do right now is stop the gouging by corporations in all fields. It gets harder and harder to get by. Yes, we need to enforce laws that are already there i.e. anti-trust laws.
I’m on Medicare now and began to refuse some prescriptions at CVS pharmacy because they were (still) very high, so… I now call canadadrugs.com and buy the drugs through them! Sometimes they’re from other countries. It’s so worth it! Saves me so much money. It be wonderful to put billboards all over the country, saying ‘go to Canada drugs’ for your prescriptions to be less expensive!
I am far more financially comfortable now than I was in my youth, but there are things I used to enjoy I just won't pay absurd prices for. Alas, for some, prescriptions are vital. Meanwhile I see headlines such as"
"World’s five richest men double their money as poorest get poorer
Oxfam predicts first trillionaire within a decade, with gap between rich and poor likely to increase" https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2024/jan/15/worlds-five-richest-men-double-their-money-as-poorest-get-poorer
while "Republicans" blame public spending for inflation.
"Wealthiest Americans pay just 3.4% of income in taxes, investigation reveals
Tax records from 2014 to 2018, analysed by ProPublica, show 25 Americans collectively earned $401bn but paid just $13.6bn" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/13/wealthiest-americans-tax-income-propublica-investigation
Reaganomics full blown. The weed of crime bears bitter fruit.
Opaque indeed like a large black cloud of dense smoke....and probably some mirrors as well.
Even red-baiting Tricky Dick Nixon had a sense of the common good which would be blasphemous to today's Republicans:
"Therefore, I urge again that the energy measures that I have proposed be made the first priority of this session of the Congress. These measures will require the oil companies and other energy producers to provide the public with the necessary information on their supplies. They will prevent the injustice of windfall profits for a few as a result of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans. "
"Injustice of windfall profits"? Perish the thought.
I think peanut butter is cheap, comparatively. Eggs are $1.77. Milk is $1.27. I make my own bread. Rice is high but it goes a long way.
Wow! Where do you love that you buy eggs for 1.77?
Close to the border. Safeway. With coupons.
We were just talking about this yesterday! It seems like companies just keep pushing the prices higher and higher in an effort to judge the public's breaking point.
Especially food; "shrinkflating" by selling less for more and using increasingly crappy ingredients. Ersatz foods.
The Guardian had a piece claiming half of inflation was caused by corporations keeping prices high even after their costs of manufacture went down. Proctor and Gamble was an example with the price of diapers. There was no incentive to lower prices as their competitors did not drop theirs. They were happy with bigger profit margins, no effort required. I will find the link
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflation-caused-by-corporate-profits?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Was *just* about to share this article as well. Here's the Cliff Notes clip -- "Prices for consumers rose by 3.4% over the past year, but input costs for producers increased by just 1%.."
Poof! Where did the money go?
Useful, thanks, Liz!
I think of Prohibition crime families dividing up the spoils.
JL, one of ex-students who now lives in Paris and was home for the holidays mentioned how he was shocked by the price of groceries here vis a vis what they cost in Paris. i think there is a certain amount of price gouging going on and massive corporate holdings make some things virtually a monopoly. Now some corporate entity is trying to buy up I think, supplying food items here in Oregon to grocery stores. From what I have read this does not bode well.
It does not bode well at all.
Nope, basically a monopoly. This is why we try to buy locally and attend the Saturday Market in the summertime. We rarely darken the doors of any supermarket. Just the one down the street which until recently was locally owned. Now owned by a Canadian company.
I'm glad you buy locally. But I wonder, do you mainly buy vegetables at these local markets? I ask because I suspect that the monopolists don't care if the locals take some of the tomate/green bean/lettuce market -- basically, anything that spoils quickly. Monopolists need crops that they can commodify, like grains and unripe fruit. No matter how many local markets we support, there is still a great need for anti-trust enforcement.
Oh I agree. We do buy meat as well, raised locally. I doubt that matters either except to us and them. Also wine and spirits and some handmade items. We also buy baked goods and bread from a wonderful local bakery that is just getting started. However, this is something that we can do right here locally.....we try not to give our dollars whenever possible to big corporations. I have had to stop buying some items originally locally made and then bought up. I raise a lot of my own produce and I buy starts from local places as well.
Your schema sounds both delicious and judicious. Brava! What part of the country/world are you? You seem to have some very good local options.
Turns out that a couple of the monster chicken factories snuck through because today's rag had an article about them. Avian flu arrived at both....surprise....and the chickens had to killed by suffocation. Usually they use foam, but not enough was available, so they just shut off the air flow. It is horribly cruel of course. Then the chickens and the mess inside the barns has to be composted at a very high temp to kill the virus.
I am fortunate to live in the Willamette Valley in Salem, Oregon. It requires constant vigilance as recently big chicken wanted to put in some chicken factories and were adamantly opposed. I think at least one of them did not happen, maybe more. We have fairly strict land use laws here although many work to undermine them and our Marion County commissioners never have seen a development they didn't like. The big battle is coming up this year because the governor, a D, wants to solve the housing problem and urban growth boundaries are a problem in terms of that. Tonight is a film sponsored by our local land use advocates about this. We have tickets, but probably won't make it, but it is sold out....at the local movie house. We belong to 1000 Friends of Oregon as well as the local chapter here in Marion County. We take care of our own yard without chemicals and use a vinegar mixture on weeds. Our yard service is supposed to spray the fruit trees soon with dormant oil and we will remind them as the pruners will be here soon and then they must spray before bees appear. Of course, we can't do anything about what people in the neighborhood do. There used to be a person I called Mr. Chemical because his yard, while weed free, reeked. It was sold and now ironically is full of weeds. Some neighbors close to us share things from their gardens and we share things from ours. The birds planted raspberries in our hedge which our neighbors pick and share with us. They claim the best ones grow on our side. Because of climate change, I can't garden exactly as I used to and often the timing is not what it used to be. This week we have had snow and ice here in the valley....a mess. But thankfully, there is now much more snow in the mountains which supplies summer water. We have many wineries here in the valley and the grapes were ruined a few falls ago by big fires up the canyon. They are now suing the power company which ignored heavy wind warnings. The people up the canyon have already won a law suit. And so it goes.
(sigh) If a house in your neighborhood opens up, lemme know? Sure, I know it's not Heaven, but it sounds like a good knock-off. Keep up the good fight!
We live in a diverse neighborhood which is great, but also too many Rs in the area just north of us especially. Our immediate neighbors, save the wing nut across the street are fine. I did hear gun shots and shouting fairly close by about a month or so ago. We have a massive sewer and street improvement project on our street; the pumping station is right across the street from us. i don't know if they are done with that. We do now have a sidewalk out front and since we live on a corner, it has ramps. They are supposed to be finished next year. Too many think our street is a racetrack although they can't get through going west down the street. During the initial construction out front when our street was closed, we saw lots of fools and their antics. So, every place has its problems. The wealthy live in south and west Salem hills or further out in the country. We are north and a few blocks from the 45th Parallel. Lots and lots of apartments going up as well. And the wing nut across the street has a huge shop which faces our backyard. It blasts his noise right into our back yard, including a horrible metal saw and a riding lawnmower for his postage stamp lawn. For a while we couldn't even hear our TV when he was running large unmuffled engines...his wife finally put a stop to that. Of course, he has a power washer and power everything. So not exactly paradise, but we have lived here for a very long time and have our house as we want it.
Anti-trust? There's a word I've not heard in a while.
How many major American companies pre-Reagan are now just brands of mega-conglomerates. I read about monopolies in school history classes (1950s and '60s), how bad they were and how we had "solved" the problem. In the last 20 or so years two national chins bought up virtually all the local supermarkets, and now they are trying to merge into one.
Yes, and that is not good. When I look closely at how big money controls most things, I could get depressed. However, this afternoon we are headed to a surprise retirement party for our long time vet. Thankfully, they have found replacements and not gone corporate.
In this area shadowy corporations have bought up pretty much every veterinary practice in sight, including our exemplary family vet and the 24 hr. large and small animal hospital. I the past when our dog was dying, they got someone out of bed. This time we called early in the evening and were told to go away.
JL, there are interesting investigative reporting on the types of businesses—and they are varied!—that private equity firms are acquiring & then, usually, bleeding them dry….not unlike a plague of locusts.
Very sad. Ours is overwhelmed because another clinic went corporate. So far so good, but they need another vet for this practice. The surprise went very well and we were able to see the old staff and both of our now retired vets. A good stout too as it was at a local beer place just down the street from us. We do have some traveling vets around here, but I don't know what kind of service they provide. There is also a business, recommended by our vet, that will pick up the animal and return the ashes.
We are a long ways from that, maybe when the university president and many administrators and coaches are earning 6 (Sorry I meant 7!) figures. I'm really not sure what the problem is with affordable college in the US.
See Wendell Berry's "The Unsettling of America," Matt.
He published it in 1977, in ire at how corporate America was taking over everything left from America's great network of land grant colleges and universities (dating from the Justin Morrill legislation Lincoln signed in 1862).
Having state legislatures defund higher ed had the added benefit to our vultures then of getting students historically in crippling debt to the banks.
As Powell-memo-inspired ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, and the Hoover Institution conducted their campaigns to kill off humanities, as tenure openings shrank, and majors tilted insanely to finance and biz ed, all life became transactional, specialist neutered.
It was all a plan, Matt. And even Wendell Berry (then, and for decades on), never knew the organized way dark money so took over.
In NC, the vile Republican legislators want to turn our fine university system into a bunch of trade schools, focused on creating workers for businesses. The Republicans want to tell the universities what to do, all while cutting funding to the regional schools that do the most to lift people up the ladder. As a donor, the legislature undermines philanthropy, as they make it even more necessary. There are NO good Republicans.
JennSH, they have proven themselves to be the party of death. Our next door neighbor is a former county commissioner and he puts D signs in his yard now. He is totally disgusted by what the party has become. He cannot bring himself to register D, so I think he is registered as an I. On the other hand, across the street, we have wing nut R who hates us although his wife is a progressive D except for taxes. We live in an enclave of Marion County where we receive city service like sewer, water, and schools, but are not in the city of Salem, thus saving some amount on property taxes. It took three votes for this area to pass a fire district budget, so that we would have emergency services 24 hours a day. The fire district also includes a large rural area. But hey, get out your hose and put out the fire yourself. Heart attack....well, too bad. All these people are, of course, experts, because they can access nonsense on the internet.
I’m a North Carolinian who married two UNC-CH men so have a fond attachment to that university. I’ve been appalled at the way the republican legislature has managed to screw up our entire system by installing their toadies on the university governing boards and into chancellorships. UNC-A used to be continually listed as one of the best small, liberal arts college for the money in the U S; but no longer. Most of the universities in the system were excellent until they got politicized. It’s a disgusting degradation of higher education in a state that used to be a leader.
Not any more. Even with with right wing credentials Liz Cheney got the boot for speaking the truth. That's how tyrannies operate.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/19/north-korean-teens-12-years-hard-labour-for-watching-south-korean-videos
Moyers talked about it often
Jeri, I really miss seeing the Moyer’s show on PBS!
So do I, if anybody, besides Walter, helped form who I am today, it was Bill Moyers. He looked at all sides (truly fair and balanced), was brilliant in so many areas, and taught me so much. There is nobody like him today. And exactly why Rupert went after him. Rupert has poisoned the well.
The book Dark Money by Jane Mayer is a must read for all!
Couple that with Nancy MacLean’s ‘Democracy In Chains’ and it gives one a pretty good view of our money-corrupted political landscape.
I am reading Craig Unger’s Kochland right now. OMG!about the rise of corporate power/greed. Have read his other books too – “House of Trump, house of Putin”, “American Kompromat “. He’s an amazing researcher. Pretty scary out there. 😬😳 Highly recommend all!
Lee, your substack reading list is impressive as hell, both for volume and for diversity.
After Kochland, if you haven’t already, I’ll give a recommendation for ‘Silent Coup’, as a follow up. It looks at corporate influence/ownership over governments worldwide, how it came to be institutionalized via entities like the World Bank.
I’m currently reading ‘American Exception’, about American Empire and our tripartite state. Recommend that one as well.
Great book - am reading now for the second time.
Have you seen the efforts to allow 14-yr old children to spend more hours at work? Sara Huckabee Sanders is all for it. I wonder what she thinks of affordable college.
Six?? Coaches earn seven figures—more than professors.
Far, far more than professors, who don't even teach much, leaving that to the Graduate Teaching Fellows (now Graduate Teaching Employees at the U of O).
It's actually adjuncts who shoulder the bulk of the teaching loads in colleges and universities now. I should know. I forgot the percentage but it's something like an excess of two-thirds of college teaching workloads are filled by adjuncts. The colleges get the work from them/us and they don't have to pay for any benefits, just a low per hour rate, often on a par with custodians. And then, they can lay off workers at will with no warning or consequences. Try doing that with a tenured professor. Again, I know first-hand.
It’s that way at U of O. My wife (a therapist) has several adjunct professors on her caseload. They are awful, especially to women of color.
😡🤬😥
Exactly. At a university that “prides” itself on its DEI.
I know a professor at Colombia U who is a champion of complete education. He speaks of colleagues who habitually refer to teaching "loads" and research "opportunities"
So my question is then where is the money going? Is there really that big of an administration highly paid bureaucracy? Or is it buildings and fancy sports complexes? I'd like to know!
Yes, there IS in most of the bigger colleges and universities an enormous top-heavy administration. You don't have to search hard to find position after position labeled like: "Vice-President in Charge of _____________" The lists can be endless. There are people whose jobs are specifically to manage the institutions' endowments, finances, and investments, plus various areas like outreach, alumni, development of this & that. I mean, it really is obvious colleges and universities are more and more run like corporations. And then there are departments' deans and staff, along with all the offices these positions generate and the people to staff them. Some of these salaries in higher positions can be around 6 figures. College Presidents' pay in the bigger institutions can be over $1 million. That's just the top-heavy administrations, and then come all the other monies that go into facilities and stuff . . . big splashy facilities and a faculty of tons of tenured professors attracts students. It all can mount up really fast. There are definite priorities with some schools in what they're trying to attract and, like everything else, it always comes down to money. America's higher education systems are about making money, first and foremost. They'll tell you up front it's about educating students, but the industry that has risen up around that is, in my opinion, what may very well be its downfall.
I had a few TA's in college, and one in particular who was extremely suspicious of us students. I guess they have a place but they were the bane of my college experience.
I was a TA for a couple of years. My first quarter I got a bunch of reviews from students saying "I can't hear you speaking." So then I upped my game and talked loud, which I think also translates into enthusiasm for physics, problem solved! I even earned an award for most improved TA.
The worst comment I ever received is "He is as interesting as watching paint dry." Ouch! Note that I am not employed as a teacher, and don't have a clue how all of our teachers do it day after day!
My daughter who was studying at one major university overheard a PhD candidate complaining about how much she hated having to teach.
Sorry I lost track of my figures! Which is very embarrassing for me :-).
I believe college has become unaffordable because states have stopped investing...or significantly reduce subsidies to higher education. It seems all the subsidies (welfare) now goes to corporations. The big winners during Texas' Winter Storm Uri were gas and oil corporations. The average Texan will be paying surcharges for decades to cover the cost of that Texas Grid debacle...meanwhile gas and oil earned big money and over 700 Texans died directly due to the three to four days of no power during below freezing weather or due to due the side affects on no power.
Evil is real.
Evil is selfishness to the point of harming others. Some even enjoy doing so.
The highest pension in the Oregon PERS system goes to a former UO coach. The next highest are OHSU doctors which does make sense to me. All public pensions here in Oregon are public record, thanks to a couple newspapers insisting that this be so. PERS is good click bait around here although only first tier retired get excellent benefits. I think the state is now down to third tier, each tier getting less. As for coaching salaries, people who complain all the time about the amount want a winning coach and in major programs that takes a lot of money. Then there are the people who complain about government no matter what. I was reading a long thread yesterday about the handling of snow and ice here in Salem (a fairly rare occurrence) by the city. In fact, the city was doing the best it could with this mess and they take care of major roads first. We had several days of first snow and then freezing rain, making it difficult for them to keep up and ice is much more difficult than snow. One couple in particular complained long and loud. They are among those who don't want to pay taxes for anything, but are first in line for a handout or to complain.
Don't forget about the part where, because these events did not happen routinely, the public entities are horribly ill-equipped to handle major snow/ice events. People like your neighbors who don't want to pay taxes and yet expect the government to deal with what they cannot absolutely disgust me.
Jeri, I was replying to Matt at the same time you were, and I had thought Belotti was second. He's actually third now, behind two doctors from OHSU.
"PERS beneficiaries
Name Annual benefit
ROBERTSON, JOSEPH E $997,489
DELASHAW, JOHNNY B $756,233
BELLOTTI, ROBERT M $616,839
SWANSON, NEIL $556,118 "
Thanks Ally. I hadn't looked at the PERS records recently. I am not too bothered by doctors making large salaries.
Always the way, isn't it?
Yup.
Matt, Mike Beloti, the former football coach at U O is the third highest paid PERS "employee". He makes as much in a month (over 41K) after 20 years as a coach than I do (just over 4K) after 28 years in law enforcement which is half again as much as what my friend, who is a retired teacher makes. PERS was designed for public employees like cops, teachers, firefighters, public works. Not for obscenely rich coaches.
The highest paid PERS employees are doctors from Oregon Health and Science University, a premier teaching hospital.
Hi! I am so curious (nosy!) what you went on to do with your Art & Chemistry/ Life sciences degrees!
I don't know what he does now, but he just landed the tuba position in the St. Paul symphony!