It's Working

Bidenomics. It is most certainly working. Just not the way Bidenphiles want.

What's With All The Blind Squirrels?

First it was our favorite semantic vegan whose word salad-spinner inadvertently spat out a truth. Which had to go back in the spin machine. No five second rule for accidental truths. 

Close to home we now have a School Board member best known for open loop rantings who spoke truth to power. Well, really, to the powerless as it was fellow board members who recently hired a new supe effectively their last chance at a power play until they hire the next one. In a couple of years. But this particular, rogue member pointed out that this "new and improved" supe is really just the same ole same ole. What her pollyannish see as the great, new hope, she sees yet another rinse and repeat. And here is the shocker: she is absolutely correct. The new supe, like those before, is bloating admin, adding positions to be filled with prior colleagues--his hallelujah chorus. Next we'll be treated to multi-million-dollar trendy edu-babble junk program with materials, training to waste teachers time even while they are terribly understaffed. 

There is an interesting metric: student/teacher ratio. While this number is manipulated by including "teachers" without any direct classroom responsibilities, it is a metric. Maybe we need a new one: student/administrator ratio. Oh, and we should include those non-teaching "teachers" in the admin headcount.

Not A Dime's Worth Of Difference

Or just two sides of the same coin. 

From the senile side we get "just another way of saying restoring the American dream."  Sounds familiar in a bumper-sticker kind of way, now doesn't it? It's a lot like what we've been getting from the crazy side with "make America great again." Both rooted in nostalgia, looking back while claiming to move forward with one aligned with self-proclaimed "progressives." 

Do we really have two major political parties? Really? Is senile and crazy really the best they can put on offer? Outside of party extremists is there anyone who still thinks ranked voting is a bad idea?

Counting When It Matters

The "Brookhaven Annexation" applicant has withdrawn, allegedly after "questions were raised" about the application. Now that is spin that would make Washington insiders dizzy.  Questions were not raised; observations were made. The applicant's claim regarding 60% of the population was based on an under count of the relevant population. Hence not 60%. Oops. If that were not enough some property owners smelled a rat and pulled out of the fiasco. Again, not 60%. 

While this application has been withdrawn, we'll not have long to wait for the second act. Like all good citihood advocates hell bent on throwing their fellow citizens under the bus we are treated to the same chant: "we'll be back!" Let's hope more folks at risk of getting caught up in this disaster use the intermission to read the city charter as they'll soon realize they are turning their community over to unelected bureaucrats unaccountable to anyone who lives there.

Finally Gets Something Right

The Prez and the Veep seem to be constantly auditioning for a gig at a comedy club with an act channelling the nonsensical comedy of Abbott and Costello and the comedic timing of the Smothers Brothers. Hardly a waking hour goes by without one of these two saying something so outlandishly ignorant, out of touch, or just plain random that we can only assume this is an attempt at humor. Or it could just be a delightful blend of senility and stupidity playing off one another. Regardless, it IS funny. Until it isn't.

Recently the laughs were replaced with knowing nods. The Veep, while attempting to spin some word salad, actually hit the nail on the head. And it is all about climate change. You know, the kind that is caused by human activity. The Veep gave voice to what should be an obvious truth: the way to reduce climate change caused by human activity is to reduce human activity and the most effective way to do that is reduce the number of humans. She is only the second world leader, next to Putin, to recognize this truth. Perhaps when she becomes president, which is all but guaranteed in the early days of 2025 should Biden win, she will join with Putin in achieving their shared commitment to addressing climate change. 

One has to wonder if she knows the obvious truth about how to eliminate school shootings and is simply sitting on it. Maybe one day we'll know.

The Embarrassment Never Stops

At least not when the Dunwoody PD is involved. 

A recent decision by the Georgia Department of Labor has found that the city's case against a police officer they fired just doesn't hold water. That officer is getting the unemployment that was always due though it isn't clear if the city will launch an appeal. And with their transparent-not-transparent approach to operations it is likely we'll never know exactly how much they'll [continue to] spend on protecting what is clearly a failed department. 

When will the mayor and council pull the only lever the city charter has given them?

Have They Considered DIY?

Fine. We know they are grant-grubbers. Have been since day one. And they do need to tick some boxes to grub those grants. But you have to wonder why it is city hall is spending over $166K "develop a road safety action plan." Now we know these plans, like the PATH[etic] plans aren't worth the paper they're not printed on, but for the love of god why do we have to spend this money? With the bloated city payroll you'd think they could have hired someone who could string together the blather that would pass muster and earn that grant application tick mark. Or, how about this? Why don't they use ChatGPT to "develop" action plan? In fact we could ditch PATH as well. 

It is worth noting that this is not even what a normal person would call a plan. It is a plan for actions to be taken to come up with an actual plan assuming they follow thru once the Fed's check clears. Not likely. 

Where The Smart People Went

Remember when Dunwoody was "smart people-smart city?" Ever wonder where all those "smart people" went? Well, some seem to have landed in happily unincorporated DeKalb County. Other smart folks have always lived there.

Now they are under attack. By Brookhaven. See Brookhaven is one of the new faux cities where elected officials are powerless and city hall wants to annex folks in the Toco Hills area. The smart residents of that area are putting up a fight. They seem to have a clue how this will impact their quality of life. Negatively. Perhaps they've been watching Brookhaven or Dunwoody's screwups. Maybe they've noticed the degradation of services awaiting them if them if this train wreck comes to their neighborhood. Or it could be they just do not want non-stop tax increases. Maybe they like having a police force that engages in quality of life enforcement. 

It must be nice to have your vote matter as it does in unincorporated DeKalb where the CEO and Commissioners have actual operational responsibilities and authority. We had that before citihood, but now we have a situation structurally identical to the DeKalb County Schools were elected officials are little more than cheerleaders for an unelected and unresponsive bureaucracy. 

Opponents rightly observe that this is being rushed. Of course it is. That's how you pull the wool over peoples' eyes: quickly, before they have a chance to see the truth. And while it is good they are looking over the plans (which we know from experience are vaporware) they should be reading the Brookhaven City charter which will reveal that should the residents vote for annexation it is the last meaningful vote they will be allowed to make. 

Makes You Miss The Pandemic

Here is a shocker: the city was forced, by law, to fess up to yet-another-tax-increase. No surprises there. 

Like A Broken Record

The only relief taxpayers have experienced was due to the CoVid-19 pandemic. Lord knows there will be no relief offered by city hall. In fact with that very minimal respite from their back door tax increased encourage them to up the millage rate to the legal max. This will change, upward, if they get their way with the "parks and paths" referendum. Just look at the trajectory. 

Damn Near 20% Increase With Millage Hike

If you still hold on to the hope of a revenue neutral millage rate each year then you are a either a pollyannish fool or an idiot. If you think there is a snowball's chance in hell of zero based budgeting you are certifiable. If you think what these scoundrels have been doing is a good thing, you are the problem.

How Could They Possibly Have Known?

 Known what? Well, perhaps that those student loans were not such a good idea, that's what. 

They could have used their prodigious interweb skills to research the ROI on the desired degree and make it a cut and dry financial decision. Let's pause for a working definition of financial, as clearly these debtors and soon-to-be debtors likely have no clue: pertaining to monetary receipts and expenditures; pertaining or relating to money matters; pecuniary. Yep. It's all about the money. And this has become increasingly and painfully important. A recent article (originally Fortune) posits 

"The government is poised to take a bath on its student loan portfolio over the long term, even as that portfolio expands in size every year as the higher education system sucks up more federal funding." 

And this is because the ignorant were allowed, nay encouraged, to take out very ill-advised loans. 

"What we’ve considered to be economic prosperity of the last 10 years, prior to the pandemic, was in fact economically punishing to younger cohorts forced through the wringer of increasingly costly higher education and into a labor market characterized by stagnant wages and deteriorating job ladders."

Then consider that in the before times borrowers were having trouble repaying loans. What is hard to imagine is parents suffering the burden of loan debt not recognizing their mistake and instead encouraging their children to go down the same path. 

And we know this how? 

Well, that darned interweb again. There is a rather interesting site with data on Student Loan Debt by age group. Turns out folks in their 30's and 40's (the latter most like of the newest debtors) are carrying an average of $40.5K in debt. To be fair, those in their forties represent less than half of the total debt held by those in their thirties and half of that held by those in their twenties, indicating that this debt has gone from being a useful tool for some to an addiction for many, many more. Simple math: there are well over two times as many debtors in the 30-39 age bracket as in the 40-49 as the average debt is virtually identical. For the 20 year olds it is even worse as their average debt is one half of the forty-somethings so there are four times as many debtors in this age group, hence the pandering to that voting demographic. 

As a parent you might want to encourage your budding debtor to research salaries based on college major, and make sure they look not just at the widely touted highest paying but at those majors they are most interested in or most likely to acquire. They might start by searching for lowest-paying majors. Acquire a real idea of what you are getting into. Look at the monthly cost of piling on $40K of debt. Online calculators will tell you that will set you back over $225/month for 20 years. And that is if you get a 3% rate. And it took you at least 4, most likely 6 years of no income to achieve this wonderful life. 

Then investigate the options, perhaps a skilled trade. Look into starting and average pay. Check out the cost of preparing yourself to be an electrician, plumber, welder, HVAC technician, auto technician, project manager, etc. You may be surprised at the economic viability of what seems to have become an alternative career. 

Unfortunately this would require that someone considered to be smart enough for college be smart enough to determine, for themselves, whether or not college is right for them.