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.
scandinavia would be a great place to live, if it weren’t so close to russia and susceptible to invading russian forces.
but i am confident that our next president it gonna be tough on russia and stop all the wars all over the globe in the first ten minutes of his term, so it should all be good!
right?
I looked into that some years ago. It wasn’t as easy as “hey just move to X.” Not back then, anyway, and I doubt it’s gotten better. Unless you had something to offer like money, youth (and money), education (and money), and/or a viable way to make (lots of money) along with the fringe benefit of having indigenous, immediate family already in place there … well, good luck.
Even worse, the long-arm of the US fed didn’t go away just because you lived somewhere else. You still had to pay federal taxes unless of course you wanted to expat yourself (another lengthy and expensive hassle).
I’m going to second Dennis K. At this point there doesn’t seem to be anywhere US citizens can go on a permanent basis unless you have a job or a spouse in the new country. I have a friend who retired early and he and his partner wanted to live in Europe, but government policies in the EU and UK made that impossible. So, they moved off planet from Chicago to Las Vegas.
Scandinavia is appealing — especially Norway or Iceland. But I don’t see any way to justify the move to my new country. I’m poor, I’m well past my most productive years, and I’d probably be seen as an old guy who will be a drain on their healthcare system in the not-too-distant future.
I’m afraid I’m stuck in the Fascist States of America.
Whatever Republicans dismantle will not be reestablished by Democrats. Maybe you should never retire.
What makes you imagine that, drew?
They’ve got form in doing just that.
e.g. https://www.frantzward.com/news-blog/february-2021/rewind-rewind-rewind%E2%80%9D-the-biden-administration
[related]
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/20/thousands-eager-escape-trump-keen-snap-up-1-sardinian-home-mayor
For anyone interested in moving to the UK, the most viable solution at the moment seems to be as a health or care worker. This is, of course, the direct result of the screw up called Brexit, which caused the exodus of tens of thousands of health and care workers from elsewhere in the EU.
If you can find a qualifying job in the UK, you can apply for a Health and Care Worker visa. There seems to be plenty of such jobs available given the number of foreign workers who staff my mom’s care home in the UK.
Of course, the economy in the UK is worse than America’s and the NHS is struggling after a decade of neglect from the Tories, but at least the people in charge aren’t complete buffoons and want actually to improve things for most people.
Personally, I’m seriously considering moving back to the UK within two or three years. I am an expat so it’s easy enough for me. I’d be better off financially if I stayed in the US, given the tax rates, but if I’m going to move out of the Texas heat for my golden years, then the UK is as good a place as any, and I do miss watching cricket in person.
raven @9: Proportion of federal funding is higher in specific programs, such as special education programs and Head Start. These are programs that serve more vulnerable students. It will be more difficult to raise money by local taxes for these.
I read through the Education section in Project 2025 and most of what they propose is not abolishing programs but decentralizing them back to the states.
Remember how GOPQ controlled states used to howl about unfunded mandates? Well, that’s what this is. Also, they move departments to other departments in government; a shell game. The functionality remains but the inefficiency goes up, costs go up and bureaucracy increases.