U.C. Berkeley chose to raise min. wage at its campus to 15 USD last year (The UCs as a whole is supposed to have a min. wage of 10 USD). Then a couple of weeks ago they decided to cut 500 jobs and enact a number of spending cuts to deal with the growing deficit.
How does it make any sense to voluntarily raise wages to such a level for a "lofty" goal, only to cut 500 jobs a year later?
I'm confused. The articles say the increase hasn't gone into effect yet. Why should we attribute the deficit, and these cuts to address it, to that increase?
I'm confused. The articles say the increase hasn't gone into effect yet. Why should we attribute the deficit, and these cuts to address it, to that increase?
I misread that. I thought it said October 2015 and then 2016.
In any case, I wanted to get to the incongruity I see in this-
"Our community does not exist in a vacuum," Napolitano said. "How we support our workers and their families impacts Californians who might never set foot on one of our campuses."
I misread that. I thought it said October 2015 and then 2016.
In any case, I wanted to get to the incongruity I see in this-
"Our community does not exist in a vacuum," Napolitano said. "How we support our workers and their families impacts Californians who might never set foot on one of our campuses."
And the fact that Berkeley now has to cut jobs.
But if the job cuts are because of a deficit, and not the minimum wage increase, then how is there an incongruity?
1- They had to have figured the financial impact of the raise from 2015 through to 2017 into their budget projections. It would be completely irresponsible not to. Ergo, one can't actually say that the increase didn't have a part in it.
Berkeley apparently employs 8,500 people total. For complete and utter simplicity's sake, let's suppose that ALL of them made minimum wage-
8500x80 (an 8 hour wage based off $10)=$680,000 a working day.
8500x104 (an 8 hour wage based off $13, what it should be right now)= $884,000
8500x120 (an 8 hour wage based off $15)=$1,020,000 a working day.
Those are pretty big increases on operational budget.
Of course it probably wouldn't be that big of a jump, since I doubt all 8500 people would be getting the raise. But, then again, not all of them make solely minimum wage either.
2- They knew they had a deficit that they can't deal with quickly, and they chose to do this anyhow. I don't know why they'd do this when they know the deficit will probably increase from this. Ergo, I think it has something to do with Napolitano's quote.
But, if that was the case, wouldn't cutting people be completely antithetical to the stated quote? How are you supporting your workers by deciding to fire them?
Basically, it doesn't seem to make sense to place greater financial strain to an existing deficit for what appears mostly to be for ideological purposes, only to go and do something that seems counter to that ideology.
Shouldn't they be looking for ways to keep the raise and keep the people while also dealing with the deficit?
But, if that was the case, wouldn't cutting people be completely antithetical to the stated quote? How are you supporting your workers by deciding to fire them?
It's called financial responsibility. If you're hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole, you have to pay that off.
Basically, it doesn't seem to make sense to place greater financial strain to an existing deficit for what appears mostly to be for ideological purposes, only to go and do something that seems counter to that ideology.
It isn't counter to that ideology. It's called financial responsibility. If you owe money, you have a financial responsibility to the people you owe money to. If you employ workers, you have a financial responsibility to make sure they are compensated properly.
Someone can recognize a responsibility to adhere to a minimum wage law even though they are in debt. I hope this is not a difficult concept to grasp. UC Berkeley's stance on the California minimum wage, evidently, is that it is too low and should be increased, and has chosen to do so for its employees. Again, I don't see how these are necessarily at odds.
Shouldn't they be looking for ways to keep the raise and keep the people while also dealing with the deficit?
... Dude, seriously?
Yes, obviously increasing the minimum wage and firing no one while at the same time paying for the deficit would have been preferable to increasing the minimum wage and firing people while at the same time paying for the deficit.
I'm also pretty sure the fact that they're laying off hundreds of people is an indication that they probably looked into that already and figured they couldn't manage to do that.
So they've got an excuse for being as ridiculously in debt as Berkley apparently already is, and has been for a while?
I don't know why people didn't agree to this. This sounds perfectly reasonable. It would certainly give them a hint of justification and misdirection to
1. Be in debt all along.
2. Raise min wage.
3. Use #2 to misdirect blame and accountability by the parties who caused the debt in the first place.
It's a narrative that would most certainly appeal to the conservative perspective, where min wage would cause a loss of jobs and greater unemployment.
I don't know why people didn't agree to this. This sounds perfectly reasonable. It would certainly give them a hint of justification and misdirection to
1. Be in debt all along.
2. Raise min wage.
3. Use #2 to misdirect blame and accountability by the parties who caused the debt in the first place.
Except no, that wouldn't work to anyone who actually did any research on UC Berkeley's history of being in debt.
The only people who are trying to misdirect blame to the minimum wage are conservatives who object to raising the minimum wage - because I guess they don't understand the principle behind a minimum wage in the first place - and therefore react to both minimum wage increases and massive debt within a company and think, "LOOK! My biases are confirmed!"
I have to side with Highroller on this one. In theory if you raise the minimum wage then it could result in job loss. In reality I've worked long enough with big organizations to know this isn't how it actually works, at least not all of the time. Staff is based on (not always effective or logical) studies to determine minimum operational levels.
According to the theory of some people, and I'm using these numbers for simplicity sake, if I had 1500 workers making $10 each then if I raised the minimum wage to $1500 then it stands to reason I would then only employ 1000 workers. In reality, organizations have other operational costs that aren't tied to payroll, and most employees aren't minimum wage workers anyway. Companies do all sorts of studies to figure out how many people they need working for them.
My suspicion is that Berkeley knew they were too fat and wanted to lean up. Rather than just lay people off, which would be bad PR, they decided to also raise the min wage to deflect the blow of having to lay people off.
If you think about it, it cannot logically be any other way. If I employ 1500 people and I'm a competent CEO you have to assume I need 1500 people working for me. Otherwise, if I could operate on fewer people, say 1000, then I would have already made the cuts. Raising the minimum wage isn't going to force me to cut down to 1000 people if I need 1500 people to operate. Raising the minimum wage won't necessarily result in lost jobs, it could result in lost profit, but I also may be able to find the cuts elsewhere. But I'm not going to drop my staffing below safe levels just to save money, if that means I cannot operate.
I don't know why people didn't agree to this. This sounds perfectly reasonable. It would certainly give them a hint of justification and misdirection to
1. Be in debt all along.
2. Raise min wage.
3. Use #2 to misdirect blame and accountability by the parties who caused the debt in the first place.
Except no, that wouldn't work to anyone who actually did any research on UC Berkeley's history of being in debt.
The only people who are trying to misdirect blame to the minimum wage are conservatives who object to raising the minimum wage - because I guess they don't understand the principle behind a minimum wage in the first place - and therefore react to both minimum wage increases and massive debt within a company and think, "LOOK! My biases are confirmed!"
Highroller, you are concerned with truth. And that's a good thing. In your world, people are always dilligent and care about the facts.
They will do their research, and really know who is to blame.
In my world people don't listen or give a damn. They make 3 second decisions that validate their world view. In such a world, the strategy advocated by Hackworth is worth quite a bit of mitigation. It's a tactic that has value in a flawed world.
Highroller, you are concerned with truth. And that's a good thing. In your world, people are always dilligent and care about the facts.
They will do their research, and really know who is to blame.
In my world people don't listen or give a damn. They make 3 second decisions that validate their world view. In such a world, the strategy advocated by Hackworth is worth quite a bit of mitigation. It's a tactic that has value in a flawed world.
I don't think you're getting the situation.
First of all, the conservatives are already confused. If you Google this, you will notice that a lot of people are trying to attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase. Even though they're not related. This is happening without UC Berkeley lying to anyone.
Second, what, exactly, would be the benefit of fooling people into thinking that the massive layoffs were because of the minimum wage increase? What incentive would there be to lie about this? Especially they've been in debt years before this, and anyone would be able to expose them for lying?
This is what Hackworth wrote:
"So they've got an excuse for being as ridiculously in debt as Berkley apparently already is, and has been for a while?"
Now consider Tiax's objection:
I'm confused. The articles say the increase hasn't gone into effect yet. Why should we attribute the deficit, and these cuts to address it, to that increase?
which is the perfectly sane, reasonable, and calm conclusion to be drawn. Of course, my contention is that people will draw no such conclusion. Conservatives will attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase. Which we both agree on... They are in search of any evidence, even faulty evidence to support their agenda. So what does Berkeley get out of this? Probably a little diffusion of responsibility.
Huge deficits stemming from abject incompetence is something that might get some people fired. But as long as some of the public opinion can be swayed into attributing Berkeley's incompetence on yet another libtard scheme gone awry, personal responsibility for mismanaging the deficit can be deflected away. Administrators at Berkeley, of all places, wouldn't lose their jobs over pushing a liberal agenda. But they might for incompetence.
If you botched a budget, which axe would you rather have fall on you?
That you were incompetent, personally, for having mismanaged a budget.
Or that you pushed a liberal agenda, raising min wage, and the consequences resulted in failed economics, proving yet another example of why liberal doctrine is idiocy.
The former attributes personal responsibility. The latter takes advantage of "your enemy"(conservatives), who will ironically save you by focusing on liberal idiocy in the abstract vs the personal incompetence of some admins.
I think wall street has their own philosophical version of this which is: Never let a crisis go to waste.
In this case, however, it makes sense strategically to go one step further. Manufacture your own crisis (raising min wage when you damn well didnt have the money to do it), and then not letting that crisis go to waste.
Nobody who does any research on the subject would be confused on the issue, and the ones who wish to draw a link between the minimum wage increase and the job cuts - the conservatives - are already confused on the issue.
Conservatives will attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase.
They. Already. Are.
So what does Berkeley get out of this? Probably a little diffusion of responsibility.
Uhh, no. Berkeley would still appear irresponsible and incompetent, just for different reasons.
And if Berkeley starts lying, that means anyone following the stories would be able to point out that, instead of being extremely fiscally incompetent, Berkeley has been extremely fiscally incompetent and also lying. That's not better.
The effort you're spending defending this silly idea would be better spent elsewhere.
Nobody who does any research on the subject would be confused on the issue, and the ones who wish to draw a link between the minimum wage increase and the job cuts - the conservatives - are already confused on the issue.
Conservatives will attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase.
They. Already. Are.
So what does Berkeley get out of this? Probably a little diffusion of responsibility.
Uhh, no. Berkeley would still appear irresponsible and incompetent, just for different reasons.
And if Berkeley starts lying, that means anyone following the stories would be able to point out that, instead of being extremely fiscally incompetent, Berkeley has been extremely fiscally incompetent and also lying. That's not better.
The effort you're spending defending this silly idea would be better spent elsewhere.
Nobody who does any research on the subject would be confused on the issue. I agree. But here's where you and I seem to differ.
In my opinion. No one will. And that's the point.
Like I said, you live in a world where it is self evident that people would go out of their ways to inform themselves. In your world because people do go out of there way, you don't know what I'm talking about. How can someone possibly get confused because they WILL in fact do the research.
In my world, people are exceedingly emotional. In my world people don't read anything, study anything. They find whatever validates their worldview and they run with it. Truth is the thing that matters least of all.
And in such a world, you better believe that misdirection carries value.
Once you readily accept that people are simplistic, irrational emotional creatures, learning to play their game will come. No longer will you spend time trying to convince people of "the truth" or with logic.
Instead, you'll abide a new set of rules...rules which play to irrationality and emotion.
You admitted this: "Conservatives will attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase."
But why are they? Are these conservatives not doing their research by your own standards? Apparently not. By your own words, reality seems a bit closer to how I'm depicting it then.
I once wrote on a thread here, without religion, I trend pretty nihilistic....that atheism's attempt to not believe in God because there is no proof inherently exalts the concept of truth. As if truth is a God.
You responded to that comment too actually.
But I'm telling you the evidence is before you, that truth does not matter. People could discover the truth, but they wont--as you emphatically pointed out already about the conservatives. So then tell me what's wrong with using your enemy to help with your agenda? Nothing. It's smart, and rational.
And to top it all off, it's perfectly biblical
"Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” 7When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8(The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)
9There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. “We find nothing wrong with this man,” they said. “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” 10The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks."
Nobody who does any research on the subject would be confused on the issue. I agree. But here's where you and I seem to differ.
In my opinion. No one will. And that's the point.
No, you don't have a point, TomCat26. Your "point" is "I'm going to continue to defend this silly idea instead of letting it go."
Anyone doing a cursory Google search on the UC Berkeley debt will proceed to find news articles that predate the news that UC Berkeley was doing the layoffs. This isn't that hard to find. It takes seconds.
Moreover, if UC Berkeley lied, it would be immediately known to anyone who has any stake in the issue, as well as any news organization. And an organization like UC Berkeley publicly lying in a really obvious way tends to get the attention of people.
You admitted this: "Conservatives will attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase."
But why are they?
Because they're seeing two unrelated events and drawing a connection based on their own political biases.
Of course this brings me to the other problem with what you're saying, which is how does this benefit UC Berkeley? Answer: it doesn't. Notice how UC Berkeley isn't being benefited by some conservative bloggers jumping to conclusions.
So then tell me what's wrong with using your enemy to help with your agenda?
It's stupid. Publicly lying in an obviously false way does not benefit UC Berkeley. The lie is obvious, easy to fact check, and Berkeley has publicly acknowledged its fiscal irresponsibility. If UC Berkeley's agenda was to cover up the fact that their fiscal irresponsibility lead to them being very much in the red, this would not accomplish that because it is way too late to accomplish that because people have known about that for years.
Now, if you have anything to say about what is actually happening, feel free to comment. But I have exactly zero interest in you derailing a thread to justify your previous statement of, "There should totally be a conspiracy here!" No, there shouldn't. That's silly. And no amount of attempting to justify it is going to make it sound smart.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28522491/uc-system-will-raise-minimum-wage-15-an
http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-Berkeley-looking-at-sports-cuts-layoffs-to-6819196.php
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/justinholcomb/2016/04/18/uc-berkley-forced-to-cut-500-jobs-after-15-minimum-wage-n2149066
Basically-
U.C. Berkeley chose to raise min. wage at its campus to 15 USD last year (The UCs as a whole is supposed to have a min. wage of 10 USD). Then a couple of weeks ago they decided to cut 500 jobs and enact a number of spending cuts to deal with the growing deficit.
How does it make any sense to voluntarily raise wages to such a level for a "lofty" goal, only to cut 500 jobs a year later?
Art is life itself.
I misread that. I thought it said October 2015 and then 2016.
In any case, I wanted to get to the incongruity I see in this-
"Our community does not exist in a vacuum," Napolitano said. "How we support our workers and their families impacts Californians who might never set foot on one of our campuses."
And the fact that Berkeley now has to cut jobs.
According to this, they've been millions in debt since 2013.
Well,
1- They had to have figured the financial impact of the raise from 2015 through to 2017 into their budget projections. It would be completely irresponsible not to. Ergo, one can't actually say that the increase didn't have a part in it.
Berkeley apparently employs 8,500 people total. For complete and utter simplicity's sake, let's suppose that ALL of them made minimum wage-
8500x80 (an 8 hour wage based off $10)=$680,000 a working day.
8500x104 (an 8 hour wage based off $13, what it should be right now)= $884,000
8500x120 (an 8 hour wage based off $15)=$1,020,000 a working day.
Those are pretty big increases on operational budget.
Of course it probably wouldn't be that big of a jump, since I doubt all 8500 people would be getting the raise. But, then again, not all of them make solely minimum wage either.
2- They knew they had a deficit that they can't deal with quickly, and they chose to do this anyhow. I don't know why they'd do this when they know the deficit will probably increase from this. Ergo, I think it has something to do with Napolitano's quote.
But, if that was the case, wouldn't cutting people be completely antithetical to the stated quote? How are you supporting your workers by deciding to fire them?
Basically, it doesn't seem to make sense to place greater financial strain to an existing deficit for what appears mostly to be for ideological purposes, only to go and do something that seems counter to that ideology.
Shouldn't they be looking for ways to keep the raise and keep the people while also dealing with the deficit?
It isn't counter to that ideology. It's called financial responsibility. If you owe money, you have a financial responsibility to the people you owe money to. If you employ workers, you have a financial responsibility to make sure they are compensated properly.
Someone can recognize a responsibility to adhere to a minimum wage law even though they are in debt. I hope this is not a difficult concept to grasp. UC Berkeley's stance on the California minimum wage, evidently, is that it is too low and should be increased, and has chosen to do so for its employees. Again, I don't see how these are necessarily at odds.
... Dude, seriously?
Yes, obviously increasing the minimum wage and firing no one while at the same time paying for the deficit would have been preferable to increasing the minimum wage and firing people while at the same time paying for the deficit.
I'm also pretty sure the fact that they're laying off hundreds of people is an indication that they probably looked into that already and figured they couldn't manage to do that.
I don't know why people didn't agree to this. This sounds perfectly reasonable. It would certainly give them a hint of justification and misdirection to
1. Be in debt all along.
2. Raise min wage.
3. Use #2 to misdirect blame and accountability by the parties who caused the debt in the first place.
It's a narrative that would most certainly appeal to the conservative perspective, where min wage would cause a loss of jobs and greater unemployment.
The only people who are trying to misdirect blame to the minimum wage are conservatives who object to raising the minimum wage - because I guess they don't understand the principle behind a minimum wage in the first place - and therefore react to both minimum wage increases and massive debt within a company and think, "LOOK! My biases are confirmed!"
According to the theory of some people, and I'm using these numbers for simplicity sake, if I had 1500 workers making $10 each then if I raised the minimum wage to $1500 then it stands to reason I would then only employ 1000 workers. In reality, organizations have other operational costs that aren't tied to payroll, and most employees aren't minimum wage workers anyway. Companies do all sorts of studies to figure out how many people they need working for them.
My suspicion is that Berkeley knew they were too fat and wanted to lean up. Rather than just lay people off, which would be bad PR, they decided to also raise the min wage to deflect the blow of having to lay people off.
If you think about it, it cannot logically be any other way. If I employ 1500 people and I'm a competent CEO you have to assume I need 1500 people working for me. Otherwise, if I could operate on fewer people, say 1000, then I would have already made the cuts. Raising the minimum wage isn't going to force me to cut down to 1000 people if I need 1500 people to operate. Raising the minimum wage won't necessarily result in lost jobs, it could result in lost profit, but I also may be able to find the cuts elsewhere. But I'm not going to drop my staffing below safe levels just to save money, if that means I cannot operate.
Highroller, you are concerned with truth. And that's a good thing. In your world, people are always dilligent and care about the facts.
They will do their research, and really know who is to blame.
In my world people don't listen or give a damn. They make 3 second decisions that validate their world view. In such a world, the strategy advocated by Hackworth is worth quite a bit of mitigation. It's a tactic that has value in a flawed world.
First of all, the conservatives are already confused. If you Google this, you will notice that a lot of people are trying to attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase. Even though they're not related. This is happening without UC Berkeley lying to anyone.
Second, what, exactly, would be the benefit of fooling people into thinking that the massive layoffs were because of the minimum wage increase? What incentive would there be to lie about this? Especially they've been in debt years before this, and anyone would be able to expose them for lying?
This is what Hackworth wrote:
"So they've got an excuse for being as ridiculously in debt as Berkley apparently already is, and has been for a while?"
Now consider Tiax's objection:
I'm confused. The articles say the increase hasn't gone into effect yet. Why should we attribute the deficit, and these cuts to address it, to that increase?
which is the perfectly sane, reasonable, and calm conclusion to be drawn. Of course, my contention is that people will draw no such conclusion. Conservatives will attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase. Which we both agree on... They are in search of any evidence, even faulty evidence to support their agenda. So what does Berkeley get out of this? Probably a little diffusion of responsibility.
Huge deficits stemming from abject incompetence is something that might get some people fired. But as long as some of the public opinion can be swayed into attributing Berkeley's incompetence on yet another libtard scheme gone awry, personal responsibility for mismanaging the deficit can be deflected away. Administrators at Berkeley, of all places, wouldn't lose their jobs over pushing a liberal agenda. But they might for incompetence.
If you botched a budget, which axe would you rather have fall on you?
That you were incompetent, personally, for having mismanaged a budget.
Or that you pushed a liberal agenda, raising min wage, and the consequences resulted in failed economics, proving yet another example of why liberal doctrine is idiocy.
The former attributes personal responsibility. The latter takes advantage of "your enemy"(conservatives), who will ironically save you by focusing on liberal idiocy in the abstract vs the personal incompetence of some admins.
I think wall street has their own philosophical version of this which is: Never let a crisis go to waste.
In this case, however, it makes sense strategically to go one step further. Manufacture your own crisis (raising min wage when you damn well didnt have the money to do it), and then not letting that crisis go to waste.
They. Already. Are.
Uhh, no. Berkeley would still appear irresponsible and incompetent, just for different reasons.
And if Berkeley starts lying, that means anyone following the stories would be able to point out that, instead of being extremely fiscally incompetent, Berkeley has been extremely fiscally incompetent and also lying. That's not better.
The effort you're spending defending this silly idea would be better spent elsewhere.
Nobody who does any research on the subject would be confused on the issue. I agree. But here's where you and I seem to differ.
In my opinion. No one will. And that's the point.
Like I said, you live in a world where it is self evident that people would go out of their ways to inform themselves. In your world because people do go out of there way, you don't know what I'm talking about. How can someone possibly get confused because they WILL in fact do the research.
In my world, people are exceedingly emotional. In my world people don't read anything, study anything. They find whatever validates their worldview and they run with it. Truth is the thing that matters least of all.
And in such a world, you better believe that misdirection carries value.
Once you readily accept that people are simplistic, irrational emotional creatures, learning to play their game will come. No longer will you spend time trying to convince people of "the truth" or with logic.
Instead, you'll abide a new set of rules...rules which play to irrationality and emotion.
You admitted this: "Conservatives will attribute the layoffs to the minimum wage increase."
But why are they? Are these conservatives not doing their research by your own standards? Apparently not. By your own words, reality seems a bit closer to how I'm depicting it then.
I once wrote on a thread here, without religion, I trend pretty nihilistic....that atheism's attempt to not believe in God because there is no proof inherently exalts the concept of truth. As if truth is a God.
You responded to that comment too actually.
But I'm telling you the evidence is before you, that truth does not matter. People could discover the truth, but they wont--as you emphatically pointed out already about the conservatives. So then tell me what's wrong with using your enemy to help with your agenda? Nothing. It's smart, and rational.
And to top it all off, it's perfectly biblical
"Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” 7When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8(The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)
9There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. “We find nothing wrong with this man,” they said. “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” 10The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks."
Anyone doing a cursory Google search on the UC Berkeley debt will proceed to find news articles that predate the news that UC Berkeley was doing the layoffs. This isn't that hard to find. It takes seconds.
Moreover, if UC Berkeley lied, it would be immediately known to anyone who has any stake in the issue, as well as any news organization. And an organization like UC Berkeley publicly lying in a really obvious way tends to get the attention of people.
Because they're seeing two unrelated events and drawing a connection based on their own political biases.
Of course this brings me to the other problem with what you're saying, which is how does this benefit UC Berkeley? Answer: it doesn't. Notice how UC Berkeley isn't being benefited by some conservative bloggers jumping to conclusions.
It's stupid. Publicly lying in an obviously false way does not benefit UC Berkeley. The lie is obvious, easy to fact check, and Berkeley has publicly acknowledged its fiscal irresponsibility. If UC Berkeley's agenda was to cover up the fact that their fiscal irresponsibility lead to them being very much in the red, this would not accomplish that because it is way too late to accomplish that because people have known about that for years.
Now, if you have anything to say about what is actually happening, feel free to comment. But I have exactly zero interest in you derailing a thread to justify your previous statement of, "There should totally be a conspiracy here!" No, there shouldn't. That's silly. And no amount of attempting to justify it is going to make it sound smart.