I was planning to go into phased retirement at the end of the next school year. I’d told the chair of my division, and had warned all my faculty colleagues, but now…I’m not so sure. This might be a bad time to suffer a reduction in income and to throw myself on the mercies of our health care system.
Trump’s picks to lead US health agencies:
HHS – Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
NIH – Jay Bhattacharya
CMS – Mehmet Oz
CDC – Joseph Ladapo (TBC)
FDA – Marty Makary (TBC)
Surgeon General – Casey Means/Vinay Prasad (TBC)
That is a stunning list of quacks and incompetents. Do I really want to give up my good university health insurance to rely on whatever these humbugs and charlatans cobble up? Fortunately, I have not yet made any legal commitments to retire, so I could rethink everything and continue to inflict myself on a few more cohorts of incoming students. I would rather they got a fresh new face, and that I got to relax for a few years — I know you might think I’ve got an easy job, but still I can feel my stress levels skyrocketing every semester.
So now I’m uncertain. I might have to linger on until the walls of the ivory tower crumble down around me. Which may not take long: Trump is also appointing the wife of a corrupt wrestling promoter, Linda McMahon, to be Secretary of Education. She has no qualifications, of course. This is a clear indication that the intent is to tear down the entire edifice of our school system, and I’m sure higher education is on the chopping block. Maybe I’ll just die with the American universities instead of getting a few years of rest.
Or less dramatically, I’ll be one of a multitude of casualties when the next epidemic sweeps across the nation.
That quack Ladapo too? I was already trying to fathom Oz. What a rogue’s gallery. As Steve Bannon’s motto goes “Flood the zone with shit.”
Don’t leave out Vince McMahon’s wife as the head of Dept. of Education.
Oh dear God no!:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/19/trump-transition-health-finalists-00190365
🦆🦆
I am (I suspect) about the same age as you (yesterday I turned 29, but in base 29) and in the same profession, and also was thinking “let’s do one more year, AY 25-26.” But for the same reasons, I am also reconsidering.
I work for my state’s Medicaid program. You know, the program that Oz will be in charge of as the head of CMS? This is going to suck.
You, too! I’m slated to go into full retirement sometime in the next year…really any time according to our advisors. Now I’m not so sure. One of the main reasons I’ve been working the last 10 years is medical insurance for my youngish partner and our son who at 32 is just getting into something like a career but it comes without insurance.
I’ve been retired for a couple of years now. I made it most of the way through age 76, but I was doing some really boring coding at the end, and so I was happy to get out.
But now I’m not so sure. If the Republicans succeed in destroying Social Security and Medicare, I’ll be a pauper.
Well, sure.
.1. The uneducated are easier to lead by corrupt oligarchic dictatorships. People with college degrees are more likely to vote Democratic party.
.2. Follow the money.
When public education, which is free to kids and their parents is privatized, a lot of people will get richer running those private schools with taxpayer vouchers. In many cases, they will cut corners and produce a lot of poorly educated kids.
Too bad, it is just business.
Education becomes a profit center for a few people at the expense of your children’s future.
But it isn’t that bad.
Public education is mostly funded and run by the states.
It is even in the US constitution.
Part 2 It isn’t that bad.
The Federal government doesn’t have a lot to do with public education.
The funding is left up to the state and local governments.
.1. Roughly half of the state’s budgets are public education and their universities.
.2. The Federal government kicks in a small fraction at 11%.
If that 11% disappears, the schools will miss it for sure. They are already low on funding.
But this won’t even come close to killing public education.
Your state taxes might rise or the school districts might try to float their usual bond levies.
I pay extra property taxes because my local school district has bond levies often. They always pass although recently, the margins have become less and less.
Yeah, it is bad but it isn’t that bad.
There are over a hundred million of us.
Don’t be afraid. That is what they want.
Resist and adapt. Survive.
I’m in a similar boat. I was planning to retire from my public university (professional staff, not faculty) in early 2025, when I will be turning 65, but now I’m not so sure. This is a deep red state and the war on public universities is in full swing. Not sure that hanging onto this job will continue to be a viable option either.
Repeating my self, I’ve said this atleast a few times. How can they be so against education, weapons don’t design, build or maintain, and not yet use themselves.
About retirement, I’ve been retired 7 years, I could have gone longer, but just after I retired United Technology announced their intent to buy Collins. It doesn’t look as good now to me.
You could always relocate to Scandinavia.