Wake up, prices are rising, wages are stagnant. The bridge downtown is rusting away. There used to be a trolly line and a bus line but now it is gone. The schools are shabby, the park is choked with weeds, the swings are broken. But, we live in such a wealthy country, right? Where *is* all that wealth?
1/
People make ‘a killing’ in prediction markets on news of war, on secrets of war and big decisions. And we must keep their taxes low on those profits because it's "good for the economy.” The poor limping economy. The local park will close in a year, the city just can't afford to keep it up anymore. Wake up.
Is it morning in America, like Regan once said? The alarm went off hours ago. You’ve slept in. It’s beeping. Wake up.
2/
Free medical care? Free college? Free school? Free roads? Free air? Who are we kidding we all know nothing is “free.” So unrealistic. Economics 101.
Operation Epic Fury eats $6,000,000,000 each and every week and when will it end? Epic Fury is free apparently. Wake up.
3/
I know a teacher who orders 80 pencils each year. Sometimes her students forget to bring a pencil to class sometimes they can't afford to spend a lot on school supplies. She was audited last year, had to count the remaining pencils: show that this wasn’t wasteful spending. The school budget is, you see, very tight. And next year she’ll just get 30 pencils. Good for them, right? We wouldn’t want her wasting our tax dollars on too many pencils.
4/
In the US most public school teachers are just expected to buy all of the supplies they may need out of pocket. When you can get the school to buy things for you it's how I described. Penny pinching, annoying, so much paperwork that if I paid myself minimum wage for the time doing the forms it'd cover the costs of the order.
Though this is the least of many symptoms of disinvestment in education. The bigger issue is class size. Just not having enough teachers period.
myrmepropagandist
Otte Homan - remember Geordie
Aethon