I find it increasingly difficult to believe there will be a spring sports season AT ALL this year.

Alternative facts... It's funny and terrifying at the same time. How hard would you laugh in your kids face if they tried to pull the alternative facts card on you? It's cute for under 5 year olds. Not so much adults.
 
Last edited:
The sites below have a lot of information on Ohio’s budget and school funding. At the bottom is a few years old data which easily shows education spending.

http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Finance-and-Funding/Overview-of-School-Funding

https://www.ohiobythenumbers.com/#school-funding

https://www.ohiobythenumbers.com

https://www.policymattersohio.org/r...icy/post-2018-2019-budget-bite-k-12-education

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbu...school-districts-that-spend-the-most-per.html

Between fiscal years 2015 and 2016, total government spending in Ohio increased by approximately $2.4 billion—from $65.1 billion in fiscal year 2015 to an estimated $67.5 billion in 2016. This represents a 3.6-percent increase

In Ohio in fiscal year 2015, 63.5 percent of total tax revenues came from sales taxes and gross receipts. Income taxes accounted for 28.6 percent of total state tax collections.

Education accounted for 20.9 percent of state expenditures in fiscal year 2015, while 37.4 percent went to Medicaid.
 
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." Lincoln wrote some awesome speeches, just as relevant today.

Funny how one group of people act when the other side pushes back. Democrats haven't changed, even after 150 years and a civil war. The barn has been painted and the clothes are different, but the mindset is the same. Our way is the only way. If you don't agree with us, something is wrong with you.

I know you mean well and more than likely you are a great guy. I've met very few people in these sports that are not great people. But when so many people want to limit speech , don't believe the rule of law applies to everyone and the US Constitution has lost its meaning, we have some major issues that are reaching a boiling point.
 
Stimulus package #4 is on the way. Bernie, oops Donny never met any amount of debt he didn't like. Why? because like his private debts
he has no intention to pay. Now he wants to forgive student interest, payroll tax, and business tax. Deficit Hawks where are you?. You gave away the
store in 2017 and 2018, is there anything left?. 5 to 10 trillion will be given out between March and November with the main purpose of getting
re elected and defeating the other side. Who said anything about Democrats? Republicans have controlled 2 or all 3 branches during this "bigly"
expansion of the debt, the most perfect, greatest, largest expansion in history
 
Stimulus package #4 is on the way. Bernie, oops Donny never met any amount of debt he didn't like. Why? because like his private debts
he has no intention to pay. Now he wants to forgive student interest, payroll tax, and business tax. Deficit Hawks where are you?. You gave away the
store in 2017 and 2018, is there anything left?. 5 to 10 trillion will be given out between March and November with the main purpose of getting
re elected and defeating the other side. Who said anything about Democrats? Republicans have controlled 2 or all 3 branches during this "bigly"
expansion of the debt, the most perfect, greatest, largest expansion in history
We are at war man! "We went through the worst attack we've ever had on our country, this is worst attack we've ever had. "This is worse than Pearl Harbor, this is worse than the World Trade Center. There's never been an attack like this."
 
Black NFL players take a knee in peaceful protest and they are thugs and villains and traitors.They shouldn't be allowed to play football and they shouldn't be in our country. White protesters with guns, anti semitic signs, confederate flags, Swaztikas, nooses and spitting in police's faces while demanding we do something that will surely cost people their lives, are "good people" and "liberators."
 
Black NFL players take a knee in peaceful protest and they are thugs and villains and traitors.They shouldn't be allowed to play football and they shouldn't be in our country. White protesters with guns, anti semitic signs, confederate flags, Swaztikas, nooses and spitting in police's faces while demanding we do something that will surely cost people their lives, are "good people" and "liberators."
Yeah, pretty much.
 
I just looked up latest unemployment figures for the worlds other countries. How is it so much worse here in the USA than most everywhere else? Do we have that many more non-essential jobs than every other country in the world? Are all our jobs sales positions or waiters and waitresses? On top of that, we are doing a pretty bad job of containing the virus too. We aren't really doing anything well compared to the rest of the world. I could see if we had a lot of deaths like we do but it is because we kept nearly everyone working. Or, I could see us having little to no deaths but at the expense of employment temporarily. But we just have bad everything. Just a lot of excuses and blaming. What am I missing?
 
I think we are missing transparency (Russia/China) that would enable valid comparisons to them. The failure to look at numbers on a per capita basis is also creating distortions.

In the US we have 243 deaths/1M people. We're testing ~28/1000 people
In Italy, they have 517 deaths/1M people. They're testing ~29/1000 people
In Spain, they have 574 deaths/1M people. They're testing ~35/1000 people


Comparing two nearby countries with different approaches:

In Norway with harsh shutdown procedures, they have 38 deaths/1M people. Norway has a higher test rate of 38/1000 people.
In Sweden without shutdown procedures they have 357 deaths/1M people. The extent of the problem in Sweden is probably also understated since they are testing 18/1000 people.

Norway's unemployment rate in early April was ~16%. I can't find an integrated number for May. For the last 20 years their unemployment rate has varied from 2.5% to 4.6%

Our appoach to this situation has been less than ideal, but I don't think we're that much different from other developed nations.
 
Except, we should be better than everyone else. Should we not? Are we supposed to be average? Should it even be close? I probably missed a lot of countries that have much higher rates in the rise in unemployment, but I was shocked to see that a lot of other countries had much smaller rises.
 
I'm not sure why we should be better. We're towards the bottom of the heap educationally and in health care coverage. We do have a higher standard of living than many of our peers, but that's an artifact that is slowly disappearing.

I am not sure how to find this statistic, but I am curious about the degree to which people with compromised immune systems are clustered in the US versus our peer nations.

The bottom line is that American exceptionalism is becoming a thing of the past. MAGA has not been effective by most metrics. The stock market is a poor measure to evaluate our society as a whole.
 
Last edited:
We are not worse in terms of unemployment rate. But we are worse in terms of the social safety net, so the effects of it are worse here on the average. We are likely understating the effective unemployment levels because we have so much more part time employment than most of of the comparison countries. And because so many people were really living on the edge before this, it didn't take much to have a really big negative impact. Most people don't realize, for example, that a majority of adult SNAP recipients were employed before this crisis. They are just working in jobs where the pay was too low or the job was too unstable for them to feed themselves and their family. The unemployment system wasn't built to handle this kind of crisis, so millions still haven't been able to get money because they can't get processed. While millions more will be losing their unemployment when told to go back to work, even if they are afraid to work or are not being given full time hours. And it's worse in the U.S. because most of our health care is employer based, so tens of millions of Americans just lost health insurance. Health care instability absolutely contributes to more people with untreated or under treated conditions that make them more vulnerable, in spite of us being younger on the average than the Western Europeans. Yeah, we should be better.

The Sweden example is apt, because they are experiencing overall comparable to or worse than their neighbors in terms of economic impact without the imposed by the government restrictions on the economy. It clearly demonstrates that as long as people are afraid the economy is going to take a beating.
 
Capture.JPG


Since the media and politicians mostly only give opinions I pulled some stats I was interested in. It took some time as not as easy to find as I expected so I thought I would share. Please feel free to share/use anyway you like.
 
View attachment 7201

Since the media and politicians mostly only give opinions I pulled some stats I was interested in. It took some time as not as easy to find as I expected so I thought I would share. Please feel free to share/use anyway you like.
Looks like we are destroying the economy to mostly save people that are past working age. And they are dying anyway. And people will die as a result of the economy being destroyed which won't show up in any statistic.
 
Looks like we are destroying the economy to mostly save people that are past working age. And they are dying anyway. And people will die as a result of the economy being destroyed which won't show up in any statistic.

You think the economy was going to be hunky dory if we had attempted to merrily roll along with absolutely no mitigation measures in place?
 
You think the economy was going to be hunky dory if we had attempted to merrily roll along with absolutely no mitigation measures in place?
Exactly Mr. Slippery. As I said above, look at Sweden. They did not do all of the shutdown measures and they still have a terrible economy. Plus more deaths.

Opening everything up and everyone going back to business as usual won't happen, because most people are not going to go out. But if they did, it would only be a short time until we had a spike and people just went home and stayed. And then it wouldn't be easy to get them to believe it was safe again. We are right now having people look at incomplete statistics about, essentially, two months of deaths (and not counting the significantly larger share of people with long term health issues due to the illness) and saying "Preventing that much death is not worth all of the economic privation." If that were really the choice we face, then maybe there would be an argument. But what we are trying to prevent is a lot more deaths AND a years long depression.
 
Exactly Mr. Slippery. As I said above, look at Sweden. They did not do all of the shutdown measures and they still have a terrible economy. Plus more deaths.

Opening everything up and everyone going back to business as usual won't happen, because most people are not going to go out. But if they did, it would only be a short time until we had a spike and people just went home and stayed. And then it wouldn't be easy to get them to believe it was safe again. We are right now having people look at incomplete statistics about, essentially, two months of deaths (and not counting the significantly larger share of people with long term health issues due to the illness) and saying "Preventing that much death is not worth all of the economic privation." If that were really the choice we face, then maybe there would be an argument. But what we are trying to prevent is a lot more deaths AND a years long depression.
Not completely disagreeing with everything you said but I believe you are a teacher so your paycheck has continued and will continue. A business owner that may have decades and life saving in a business that is about to go bankrupt has a different perspective.

It may hit more closer to home when in a year or two when the state has to cut school funding by 20% because their tax revenue has tanked and then the school board then goes to the teachers union and asked for a 10% pay cut across the board, 10% staff reduction and every teacher can expect a 20% increase in students in each class. The state and local governments cannot print money so everything they pay for needs to taxes collected from someone and most of it is sales and income taxes. If a great number of people are not working and buying things that is going to lead to big problems.

As for Sweden CV-19 they are reaching the point of herd immunity so the deaths most likely will slow greatly if not come to the end shortly. While other counties depending on how quickly they open things up maybe adding to their totals for the next year or more.
 
....of course that assumes that herd immunity is even possible with this virus. It hasn't been around long enough to establish how effective antibodies are and for how long they might remain effective if they are effective.

Lots of assumptions.

There are lots of assumptions related to everything about this virus and our societal choices. We're like a blind person figuring out the layout of a room. It's good to be cautious. There's going to be pain. We will need move in order to eat, so sitting still isn't an option for any extended period of time.
 
Not completely disagreeing with everything you said but I believe you are a teacher so your paycheck has continued and will continue. A business owner that may have decades and life saving in a business that is about to go bankrupt has a different perspective.

It may hit more closer to home when in a year or two when the state has to cut school funding by 20% because their tax revenue has tanked and then the school board then goes to the teachers union and asked for a 10% pay cut across the board, 10% staff reduction and every teacher can expect a 20% increase in students in each class. The state and local governments cannot print money so everything they pay for needs to taxes collected from someone and most of it is sales and income taxes. If a great number of people are not working and buying things that is going to lead to big problems.

As for Sweden CV-19 they are reaching the point of herd immunity so the deaths most likely will slow greatly if not come to the end shortly. While other counties depending on how quickly they open things up maybe adding to their totals for the next year or more.

Sweden is nowhere near herd immunity. Not even close. No place is anywhere near herd immunity yet. The point is that Sweden left everything open, and their economy took a similar hit to the neighboring countries. While they do have more people sick, but as of yet nowhere close to the 2/3 of the population you would need in order to have any kind of herd immunity. We don't have any real idea yet if or for how long infection confers resistance. But it is overwhelmingly likely that the resistance will only be temporary. Likely not more than a couple years at most, and quite possibly less. If it is like other similar viruses, then most of the population getting sick in a short period of time just means that most of them will be sick again in a short span of time. And it increases the likelihood that the second time getting sick comes before an effective vaccine is available.

The point I am making is NOT that there isn't economic hardship. I am beyond grateful that I have a job. I have a pretty direct view of the hardships because of the expanded size of my household due to the virus and family members who are not as fortunate as I am. The point is that the economic hardships are not going to go away just by saying "open up." They go away when we have plans to deal with the virus (some combination of testing & tracing, treatment, best social distancing practices and/or vaccine) that are effective and that people believe in. Without that trust the economy is not getting back to normal.
 
Sweden is nowhere near herd immunity. Not even close. No place is anywhere near herd immunity yet. The point is that Sweden left everything open, and their economy took a similar hit to the neighboring countries. While they do have more people sick, but as of yet nowhere close to the 2/3 of the population you would need in order to have any kind of herd immunity. We don't have any real idea yet if or for how long infection confers resistance. But it is overwhelmingly likely that the resistance will only be temporary. Likely not more than a couple years at most, and quite possibly less. If it is like other similar viruses, then most of the population getting sick in a short period of time just means that most of them will be sick again in a short span of time. And it increases the likelihood that the second time getting sick comes before an effective vaccine is available.

The point I am making is NOT that there isn't economic hardship. I am beyond grateful that I have a job. I have a pretty direct view of the hardships because of the expanded size of my household due to the virus and family members who are not as fortunate as I am. The point is that the economic hardships are not going to go away just by saying "open up." They go away when we have plans to deal with the virus (some combination of testing & tracing, treatment, best social distancing practices and/or vaccine) that are effective and that people believe in. Without that trust the economy is not getting back to normal.
You know way more about Sweden and herd immunity than I so I will defer to you on those.

Disagree about the economy coming back most of the way quickly. The day the stores in town opened up the parking lots looked like the morning of Black Friday. If we need to wait for "some combination of testing & tracing, treatment, best social distancing practices and/or vaccine" you better be prepared for government services to take a massive cut. Medicare, education and road repairs are going to have the share the majority of the states cuts.
 
You know way more about Sweden and herd immunity than I so I will defer to you on those.

Disagree about the economy coming back most of the way quickly. The day the stores in town opened up the parking lots looked like the morning of Black Friday. If we need to wait for "some combination of testing & tracing, treatment, best social distancing practices and/or vaccine" you better be prepared for government services to take a massive cut. Medicare, education and road repairs are going to have the share the majority of the states cuts.
I am always shocked when I hear about cuts to public services like a child’s education and involvement in sports (and get zero bailouts) while trillions of dollars go to big businesses that has the money in the bank that they can use to survive.

DeWine’s budget cuts show what’s wrong in today’s world. He makes a decision to drastically impact people’s livelihood and creating unemployment and then when it was a bad decision he uses it to punish education without thinking of cutting anything else besides Medicaid.

Privatize and cut! When you can!
 
I am always shocked when I hear about cuts to public services like a child’s education and involvement in sports (and get zero bailouts) while trillions of dollars go to big businesses that has the money in the bank that they can use to survive.

DeWine’s budget cuts show what’s wrong in today’s world. He makes a decision to drastically impact people’s livelihood and creating unemployment and then when it was a bad decision he uses it to punish education without thinking of cutting anything else besides Medicaid.

Privatize and cut! When you can!
The state is not giving money to big businesses. Your beef is with the Feds.

Breakdown of the state budget:
Medicaid- 37%
General Government - 20% (of that 31% DOT, Tax collection - 17.5%, Employee Benefits -12%)
K-12 - 15%
State Revenue Dist - 10%
Health and Human Services - 10%
Jails - 5%
High Ed - 3.5%

So your Governor and your directives shut down a large portion of the economy and tax revenue drops 30% where do you cut $23.5 Billion from?
 
First Off, you are completely correct about the state budget. The state can’t borrow money for operations, so there have to be cuts. The federal government could and in my view should offer aid to offset those cuts. Jerome Powell pretty clearly made that point this week, explaining why not doing so will make the downturn longer and deeper.

if you think the economy bouncing back quickly means two months of pent up demand being shoved into a couple weeks, sure it can bounce back quickly. And if COVID-19 is actually mostly hype and not that dangerous then deaths won’t start rising again and the 2/3 of the population not eager to place themselves in danger will eventually be enticed back into regular economic activity. But I view returning to normal as demand at close to pre pandemic levels for long enough to be sustainable. That won’t happen as long as we don’t have at least adequate levels of testing and tracing, and consistent prudent behavior. Given that those flocking to bars and stores now are disproportionately likely to be those who dont really believe the virus is a big deal and are thus less likely to maintain distance, wear masks and wash frequently I think the chances that opening more stuff up doesn’t lead to increasing hospitalizations and deaths is not great. And that will leads to things shutting down even without orders, because people will stay home unless they absolutely have to go out. And many of the businesses and jobs we are trying to save will just crumble to dust.

I would LOVE to be wrong. Because people would not be so economically desperate. I would be able to teach my students face to face. I could coach. My nephew could go back to work. My niece could go back to work. My daughter would not be graduating college into a recession/depression. And thousands of people wouldn’t have to needlessly die.
 
Is this accurate below of how things work?
Our public school gets say $900 from the state per pupil. That will be cut to $600. A family decides to send their kid to a private school and the state takes away $6000 from the school and gives it to the family to pay the Private School. Already a complete BS situation, but, state still going to take away the same $6000 and give it for Private School. No cuts there

A few things. Do you think anywhere near $6,000 of my taxes goes to the school? The entire community is helping pay for my kids and I help pay for other kids. At the very best, why isn't it figured out how much on average each tax payer pays towards the schools and they hand out that amount? People sending their kids to a private school are getting a pretty good welfare check in my opinion. They have every right to send their kids anywhere they want for school. I have no problem with that, but they should get zero help to do so. It's their choice and good for them. There are other issues of separation of church and state that have been cleverly gotten around, but I'm sure people would be a lot more upset if their tax money was going to Psycho dads private school of school of Atheism or Witchcraft . I just find it interesting that $ for a kid to eat is welfare and money to send your kid to a private school is not.

All that said, is it true that the money being given for private school education is not being cut? And, if I'm wrong on how the system works, can someone explain it better please. I know my local school gets a lot less from the state per pupil than what is taken away when a kid goes to another school. I'm sure other schools get more. Would I get $6,000 a kid to home school my kids? The public school is obligated to take those kids back if they decide to come back or are no longer admitted in the other school and I don't think $6,000 comes back with a kid.

This is my general understanding of how it works. Simplified of course, but the general gist. How far off am I? I am not anti Private Schools. I am pro education and pro community.
 
Top