2021-10-03-pine-press

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✤PIE PRESS✤ SEPTEMBER 2021 SPARTAN HOUSING COOPERATIVE

Table of Contents Cover design by Kelly Macdonald of Bower 03 War is a Racket 05 1972 SHC Pinecone 07 What to Heck is an Audit 09 Financial Aid 10 Horoscopes 11 Climate 911 2

War is a Racket

By Conor Crenell of Phoenix “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, 1961 It seems like the United States occupation of Afghanistan is coming mostly to an end. The USA officially invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and will withdraw most combat personnel in 2021. The American public, along with the rest of the world, is coming to terms with the extensive political, economic, and psychological costs of this conflict. Take a long rip of your smokeable of choice or a big swig of piss beer and continue reading if you want help grasping the costs of this bloodshed. Or not and stay in ignorance, the true American way. It’s your life. $2.2 trillion. That’s how much this conflict is estimated to have costed the American people as of April 2021. This includes spending by the Department of Defense, Secretary of State, paying veterans benefits, and interest so far on borrowing this money. On top of this, the United States has committed to pay in health care, disability, burial and other costs for roughly 4 million Afghanistan and Iraq veterans to the tune of $1.6 to $1.8 trillion. Interest from money borrowed will continue to rise throughout the century with the peak being around 2050, where it’ll be an estimated $6 trillion.

The actual human cost of this arduous war is unclear, however we can say with certainty that at least 6000 American citizens lost their lives in this conflict. The numbers become staggering when considering the Afghan human cost of our occupation. At least 66,000 Afghan military troops and police lost their lives, 47,000 civilians, and 51,000 opposition fighters (presumably Taliban and other groups) also paid the ultimate price.

To put this in perspective, World War 2 had a human cost of 35 million to 60 million from both the axis and allies. The monetary cost of this conflict is pegged at about $1 trillion worldwide although this cost certainly does not represent the generational hardships of nearly 21 million refugees displaced by the second war to end all wars.

What baffles me is the cost of killing represented in the Afghanistan conflict. Every death of an Afghan opposition fighter comes to about $43 MILLION if you take the $2.2 trillion number. In WW2 every death of an axis fighter (which is around 7.66 million) cost the allies $131,000. Wowie, where is all this money going?

So….I have to preface this with it’s really hard to determine where these dollars went. The fact that the Department of Defense has never passed an audit (could also say never been audited?) is astonishing. Every other American citizen, business, company, governmental department has to go through this financial process to determine they aren’t committing fraud. To me, this stinks like poop. Poop that’s been left in the toilet, continues to pile up, and hasn’t been flushed for 60 years. The American people have been conned out of their tax dollars for decades at the behest of politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Okay so who is actually profiting? The American government doesn’t really produce many goods on their own so everything is developed and produced by

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private industry and bought by government agencies. Guns, boots, training simulations (the original purpose of Call of Duty), sunglasses, missiles, food, toilets, the list goes on. This is the Military Industrial Complex.

Here’s some numbers representing defense revenue from government contracts in 2018: Lockheed Martin made $44.9 billion, Boeing made $26.9 billion, Raytheon made $23.8 billion, Northrop Grumman made $22.3 billion, General Electric made $3.8 billion. Check this out, even Starbucks, KFC, and Taco Bell made $1.45 million from the military opening franchises in Guantanamo Bay around 2010.

Shoot me please this is freaking ridiculous.

And you know what? You could benefit from armed conflict too. You could bathe in the blood money of countless humans, animals, and plants destroyed by the literal pursuit of profit over life. Just go and work for any company I’ve mentioned. Or here, I’ll list them again and a few more: Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, Triple Canopy (Formerly Blackwater), Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, or any company that has taken money for death. These are the devils of our world and will continue to be a cancer to society until we vanquish them with a silver blade. I have friends who have gone on to work for some of these companies. It’s hard to call these people my friends anymore, but they’re just trying to live in our ruthless capitalist hellscape.

Not their fault right? After all, Nazi commanders and troops were just following orders right?? The real blame must be placed on the executives of these companies and those who enable them. I know this, I hope I’ll be there to cut the heads off their fucking disgusting ugly bodies. Thanks for reading.

For All Time, Conor Crennell

P.S. Here are my sources for figures and facts referenced. Go ahead and check them and tell me I’m wrong. Bet you won’t.

Afghan war human and monetary costs: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/figures/2021/Human%20and%20 Budgetary%20Costs%20of%20Afghan%20War%2C%202001-2021.pdf https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/cost-afghanistan-war-lives-dollars-7 8802965 WW2 human and monetary costs: https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II/Human-and-material-cost https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II/Costs-of-the-war#ref53608 Defense contractor revenue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defense_contractors#List_of_defense_cont ractors_by_arm_sales TACO BELL, STARBUCKS, AND KFC FOR WAR CRIMINALS: https://www.eater.com/2010/6/9/6730541/the-military-spent-1-45-million-opening -a-starbucks-and-a-kfc-taco

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1972 Student Housing Corporation Pinecone Courtesy of the Erik D. Berg Presidential Library

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What to Heck is an Audit

By Leah Rogers, Corporate Treasurer, of Vesta You’ve probably heard the ‘A’ word come up at a house meeting recently. That’s right co-opers, we’re headed into audit season! If you’re new here, you’re probably wondering what it means to be audited and how it will affect you and your house; and even if this ain’t your first rodeo, you might still have some questions! I hope this article can shed some light on the house audit process and what the heck your house treasurer has been up to all these months.

Without further ado, let’s get into it!

What is an audit?

An audit is a third-party examination of an organizations financial statements. We at the SHC audit our houses every four months as a way of ensuring accountability in the way that house funds are being used, as well as to assess any surplus or deficit for the quadrimester. The audit appointment occurs about one month after the end of the audit period, meaning that the audits taking place this October will assess financial statements for the period of May 1st 2021-August 31st 2021. Audits are performed individually by house and attended by your house’s treasurer, myself, and holly jo, the SHC’s Executive Director.

How does my house prepare for the audit?

Each month, your house treasurer will complete a budget reconciliation that details all of the expenses and transactions that your house made during that month. Completing the reconciliation is the same idea as balancing your checkbook. When your house makes a purchase, it falls into one of your budgeted categories for the quadrimester, be that electricity, food & supplies, etc. At the audit, we can see if your house overspent or underspent in a category for the quadrimester and make recommendations for how to adjust your house’s budget moving forward. You can help your house treasurer prepare for the audit by submitting receipts and reimbursement requests to them on-time so that they can be accounted for on your budget reconciliation sheet.

Your house treasurer should also prepare your house for the audit by reporting on house expenditures at house meetings and notifying you when you are not on track to stay within your budget for the quadrimester.

What happens at the audit appointment?

The audit appointment is a time for myself and holly jo to walk through your houses expenses and income with your house treasurer. Expenses and income are visualized using your house’s audit sheet. Here is an example of what that looks like:

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First, let’s talk about the blue box at the top of this spreadsheet. This box is used to calculate the total income collected by your house for the audit period. Prior to the audit appointment, those of us in the office will input the income that your house collected for each month. Income is separated into Carrying Charges (Assessment) Income and House Charges Income. Every year the SHC budgets to collect a set amount of income from your house in Carrying Charges based on the number of single and non-single spaces in your house. If your house is not full, you can request Vacancy Funds during the audit to cover the remainder of your house’s budgeted Carrying Charges. House Charges Income is comprised of both the house charges you pay based on your budget as well as any additional fines assessed to members by the house, which may include chore fines, small appliance charges, or others.

The column on the right is where we calculate gross income and deductions.

Gross monthly income is comprised of House Charges, Carrying Charges, and Buyout Charges collected during the audit period. Deductions are essentially the money that is owed to the SHC, your own house, or perhaps another house, in the event that you (for example) share a trash receptacle, as is the case with Vesta and Orion. The first item deducted from your gross monthly income is the amount that we budget for Carrying Charges. This money is used to pay property-related expenses, staffing and overhead, maintenance, and other budgeted costs to keep our cooperative running. Maintenance and savings deductions are money that your house owes to itself. It is prudent to be spending your maintenance money on upkeep as well as putting money into savings for future house members. We deduct these amounts so that they are not returned to members in the event that there is a surplus, but are rather kept in your house’s bank account. Houses with fire alarm phone lines will have a phone lines deduction, as the office pays the bill for these each month and is reimbursed during the audit. Lastly, each house pays 2% of their budgeted Carrying Charges into the SHC Vacancy Reserve at each audit. The Vacancy Reserve is the money that we set aside to help out houses which may be facing financial difficulty due to low membership. These deductions are taken out of your house’s gross monthly income to calculate your gross house income, or what I like to call your “pocket money.”

Once your pocket money is calculated, you can look to the green boxes to see how you spent it. By comparing the subtotals column to the semester budget column, you can see where your house may need to increase the budget or have the wiggle room to decrease it. Your house’s total expenses (at the bottom of the subtotal column) is then compared with your gross house income (pocket money) to calculate your surplus or deficit!

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How will a surplus or deficit affect me as a house member?

Prior to their audit appointment, house members are expected to vote on what to do with any potential surplus or deficit. In the event of a surplus, members have the option to keep the surplus amount in their savings, pay it forward to the next audit appointment, return it to members, split the surplus between savings and members, or do something else as decided by the house. In the event of a deficit, houses can pay it from savings (if they have the means to do so), charge members, or split the cost between savings and house members. It is important to keep in mind that any surplus or deficit assessed to members of the house will only affect members who were living in the house during the months covered by the audit. This may include members who have since moved out, in which case the surplus or deficit amount assessed to them will be added to or subtracted from their Shares return check.

It is important to keep in mind that paying consecutive deficits from savings can very quickly deplete your house’s account balance. If your house is running a deficit each audit, it may be time to update the budget and increase house charges to cover your expenses. I always recommend overbudgeting by a little to try to end up with a surplus rather than budgeting the bare minimum and potentially ending up with a deficit.

I hope this article has shed some light on the whole house audits thing for you, but if you still have questions or want to talk about anything finance, feel free to email me at treasurer@spartan.coop! And to my fantastic Finance Officers: I’ll see you in October for your house audit!

Financial Aid

By Anna Parcells of Raft Hill Hello co-opers of the SHC! I am here to spread some knowledge about the financial aid process that goes down ~within~ MSU, as I worked (am working) for the Office of Financial Aid (OFA) since this past May. Before we get started here there are some terms that I’m gonna throw around pretty often that I want y’all to be familiar with.

The first and most important part of the financial aid process is submitting your FAFSA!!! I truly do not think it is possible to overstate the importance of completing that, which you must re-submit EVERY YEAR! You can start the process at www.fafsa.gov which is available to complete for the next school year on October 1st!

I highly recommend doing it as soon as possible in case you get selected for verification, which is a random process in which 1/3 students get selected by the feds to prove what they submitted on their FAFSA is true. This is done by submitting additional documentation through the new oh-so-delightful student portal at www.student.msu.edu. Pls make sure you are familiar with her before you get too far into your school year.

Next, introducing: EFC. This stands for Expected Family Contribution and is actually more of an index number than a price tag. So, from the information you submit on the FAFSA, your EFC is then calculated using income information, savings accounts, assets, etc. So whatever EFC your FAFSA spits out almost entirely defines how much financial aid you are eligible for at MSU. It sounds kinda crazy re-reading that sentence but I promise it is logical. EFC ranges from $0-$999,999. The highest we have seen in our office thus far is $552,000!

Yeah, that’s a lot of money. So, in the eyes of the feds… that family has 552k available to contribute to educational expenses. They would only qualify for federal loans, which everyone who submits a FAFSA is offered. Students with

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the highest amount of need have an EFC of $0 and have practically their entire cost of attendance covered!

If you call the financial aid office (seriously we would be happy to help you just pls be nice to us) you can review your aid package that you’ve been offered with anyone who answers the phone, and they will be able to explain it to you via the terms I’ve defined previously. Also, in a simpler way but those will be in there too. If you or your family comes into a serious financial hardship or dire circumstance in which what you reported on the FAFSA is nowhere near correct, give us a call and we can fix it to reflect your actual income.

Another thing, student loans and debt really are not as bad as others can make them out to be. I will always recommend federal loans over private loans! Usually they have lower, fixed interest rates and some are subsidized (no interest builds up after you take it out until 6 mos. after graduation) and could be possibly eligible for federal loan forgiveness. However, loan forgiveness is pretty specific so I would look into how you would qualify for it. Being an informed borrower is a critical part of the process! There is loads of information available on www.studentaid.gov.

If you have any questions pls do not hesitate to contact the financial aid office or myself! Go green and think gr$$n baby! (OFA supremacy).

September Horoscopes Submitted by Anonymous

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): They’re thinking about you too. Invite them for coffee.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22): Give yourself permission to outgrow things. Relationships, jobs, pants. Discomfort means it’s time to move on.

Sagittarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 21): If it turns out the black beans are temporarily unavailable at Chipotle, just bite the bullet and get pintos.

There’s no downside to remaining flexible and being able to weather roadblocks. Don’t compromise your protein intake because you had your heart set on black beans.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You’ve been suck in survivalist mode for a hot minute now, dear Capricorn. Caring for yourself is not an inefficiency or a waste of time. Light a candle and do a facemask tonight.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19): People tend to find you to be very hot and cold, dear Aquarius, and that’s because you are. Practice intentionality this month.

Others appreciate intentional communication and behaviors.

Pisces (Feb. 20-March 20): You’re often hesitant to commit to things, dear Pisces. Be that a person, an outfit, or an event. Say “yes” more this month.

You never know where you might find yourself when you remain open to new experiences.

Aries (March 21-April 20): You know what I admire about you, Aires? You seem to understand that the meaning of life is to just have a good time. A Capricorn in your life needs to share a fun experience with you this month.

Let them be your plus one to that event you’re looking forward to.

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Taurus (April 21-May 20): How does it feel to never be wrong about anything?

Seriously.

Gemini (May 21-June 20): Put one of your Spotify-generated playlists on shuffle and don’t skip any songs. You just might start to feel like Spotify knows you better than you know yourself.

Cancer (June 21-July22): Can you feel that chill in the air? Spooky season is upon us, but I know that you’re less about the goblins and ghouls and more about the coziness of it all. Curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and your favorite pair of fuzzy socks. It’s time for a Scream marathon.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22): When god closes a door, she opens a window.

Get some fresh air, reorganize your goals, and go get ‘em tiger! (Or should I say lion).

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): You’ve definitely heard the advice, “dance like no one is watching,” but you’re definitely being watched.

Dance like how you want the person watching you to perceive you.

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