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The double whammy of Covid pandemic and government policies in reaction to the pandemic continue to hammer the educational sector. Unsettling thing is to consider these articles only discuss the current impact and not the long-term destruction of education for all students from pre-K to grad school.

Articles for you to consider:

• Columbia University settles for a refund of fees their class-action lawsuit claiming refund of fees and tuition.
• Freshman enrollment in colleges and universities continued to decline in fall 2021. The anticipated return of students who skipped matriculation in fall 2020 has not happened.
• As an indicator of what is likely happening in all primary and secondary schools across the country, Washington state public schools estimate enrollment for the next two years will be down another 4.5% from their February 2021 estimate.

TaxProf – 11/27/21 – Columbia Settles Covid-19 Class Action Tuition Refund Suit For $12.5 Million – Looks like Columbia University got off easy. Students there established a class and were suing for refund of tuition and fees because they were prohibited from in-person classes and instead attended an Ivy League school on their monitor.

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The Producer Price Index (PPI) in October 2021 continues to show unusually high and ongoing inflation. Increasing October was 0.6%, which follows a 0.5% increase in September and 0.7% increase in August.

The PPI has shown high inflation for all of 2021. The worst months were 1.2% in January, 1.0% in April, and 1.0% in July. Those extremes have not repeated for the last quarter, which is a small amount of good news.

Graph at the top of this post shows the monthly change and final demand (the total index in other words) in blue. The average of the monthly changes in green. The red line shows core change, which excludes food, energy, and trade.

The PPI was increasing around 0.4% the month until the end of 2020. Since then it has averaged 0.8% for 2021 through October. Ouch.

This index is explained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as follows:

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Another senior official in the Federal Reserve had odd trades in 2020.  This brings to three the number of extremely senior Fed officials doing strange things.

On 2/28/20 the chairman of the Federal Reserve issued a statement saying that the evolving coronavirus would require close monitoring by the Federal Reserve. Unusual release also indicated there were risks emerging in terms of economic activity.

Such statements get close attention by the investment markets because they contain any hint of what the Fed is thinking and what the Fed might do. The market then responds to those statements, inferring what it means and what those actions might do to interest rates and the stock markets.

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August 26, 2021

Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio, Navy

Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 20, of Norco, California, USMC

Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas, USMC

Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyoming, USMC

Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Missouri, USMC

Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, California, USMC

Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City, Utah, USMC

Cpl. Daegan William-Tyeler Page, 23, of Omaha, Nebraska, USMC

Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23, of Sacramento, California, USMC

Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Indiana, USMC

Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, California, USMC

Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, USMC

Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tennessee, Army

Over 100 Afghanistan citizens seeking to flee the country to save their lives.

Although they grind slowly, the wheels of justice do grind.

Three more parents have negotiated a guilty plea deal for trying to bribe their child’s way into college. Sentencing hearings will be over the next several months.

Four more parents await trial.

8/24/21 – Wall Street Journal – College-Admissions Cheating Scandal Yields New Guilty Plea – Marci Palatell agreed to plead guilty to one felony count a month before trial. She admitted to one federal felony of what is called conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud. We have seen that charge a lot. I think that’s a catchall for cheating. The plea agreement outlines six weeks in prison, two years supervised release, $250K fine, and 500 hours of community service. Interesting note is that the same set of terms negotiated by Elisabeth Kimmel in the following paragraph. She confessed to conspiracy to pay $500,000 to get her son admitted into USC as a fake football player.

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Looks like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has run up the highest score amongst the many Covid hypocrite politicians in the country.

Let’s count the number of times she has flouted the executive decrees everyone else is required to follow but from which she is exempt.

To start, let’s go back to last June: 6/9/20 – Michigan Capital Confidential – Whitmer Skirted Her Own Executive Orders Twice Before Blowing Them Up.

Article points out she was on the cover of Newsweek (yes, like you, I was also surprised to hear it is still around) featuring her efforts to save lives with strong rules.

Score in the hypocrisy race between the Michigan and California governors

In the race for biggest hypocrite, I’m embarrassed to say that my governor, Gavin Newsom, only has 1 flagrant hypocrisy on the scoreboard.

He has been far out distanced by the Michigan governor who is at 4.5 by my count. I’ll explain shortly how she only earns half credit for one incident.

So, the current score?

• 4.5 – Michigan governor
• 1.0 – California governor

Time is running out to even the score of 4.5-1

Governor of my state doesn’t have much time to even up the score. Several weeks ago he ordered by executive decree that the pandemic will end on June 15, 2021. On that exact date the state color-coding rules will disappear because he knows they won’t be needed anymore.

He only has two weeks to run up the count if he wants to be the hypocrisy champ.

Back to the current front runner…

Hypocrisy One

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This is the third in a series of posts describing the damage caused by shutting down the economy. First post discussed recent news on economic damage. Second post described ongoing health damage.

Some things are *not* going wrong

Just under half a million people attended the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota from August 7 through 16.

9/1/20 – PJ Media – OH THE HORROR! Sturgis Motorcycle Rally COVID-19 Numbers Are in and They Are Shocking

Half a million. Official tally is 462,000.

In one small town.

Check out any of the pictures from the rally and you will notice a distinct lack of masks and social distancing.

Expectations in most media sources were for this event to produce massive amounts of infection.

Half a million people. In one town.

The tracking results are in from the massive numbers of people who were infected and the resulting fatalities from this massive event.

It is shocking. Amazing. Head-shaking. Astounding.

Best info available is that:

• 196 people tested positive for COVID with results linked to attending Sturgis.
• 4 people died.

To put that in context, 5 people died of motorcycle accidents in Sturgis during the rally.

Growing awareness something is wrong with lockdowns

8/24/20 – Wall Street Journal – New Thinking on COVID Lockdowns: They are Overly Blunt and Costly – Article has a massive amount of information on the course of the pandemic, wide range of strategies by national and state governments, and large volume of statistics. The story is told basically scrambled egg style with no pattern or trends or storylines that I can easily summarize.

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Clifton Larson Allen provides six great ideas to put on your to-do list.

Check out Six Finance Tips for Religious Organizations.

The ideas:

1. Correctly account for contributions

2. Develop a gift acceptance policy

3. Consider offering online giving

4. Address risk management

5. Understand the housing allowance

6. Establish a finance committee

Check out the article for more detail. It will be worth every moment of your time. By the way, this is one of those wish-I-had-written-it articles.