Probably wrote that backwards. But who does come first? Who has to prove to who their honesty in order to get honesty in return? Mmmm, very interesting, deep and probing question. As usual, however, I am ahead of myself or, rather, my latest story.
I think I got high last night. Very strange. Seems to eliminate migraines! Guess I'll move to California.
No, that's not what started it. I simply asked, "What's in the package that could not go in your luggage? Note: USPS will ask me too." And the answer was, "Just stuff that wouldn't fit in my luggage." Very strange-sounding response for a somewhat lightweight & slightly aromatic package. And I really didn't think the USPS would take "stuff that wouldn't fit in my child's luggage" as a description of the package contents.
By the way, USPS (post office shipments) are subject to as many or more security tests as airport luggage. Guess you didn't know that. So, as to shipping the package to you, there are some problems. In fact the problems are the same as if you put it in your luggage - but instead, I would be responsible for shipping it. Not, in my mind, a good way to use your parent - putting me in potential danger.
As the nosy parent (rarely, but this was aromatically enticing), I finally gave up and opened the package. Whew - glad I did! Two flammables: nail polish remover and a lighter need to be declared during shipping. They could have been shipped, but the flammability notification would have been very very important. I know. I used to work at a company that emphasized safety, safety & more safety.
I'm so glad you showed me the hookah and flavored packages last year. That made some sense. But the tobacco-hookah stuff does not qualify as "Just stuff that wouldn't fit in my luggage." I have searched but cannot find the legal age for smoking in Maryland. This would be somewhat important as I would not like to be arrested for supplying illegal tobacco to those under age. Maybe it would help if you explained the situation in the first place. Especially the smoking age in Maryland. Granted, I have not been a great role model when it comes to smoking. But at least now I know you don't mind the smell of tobacco like you used to. I guess every action has consequences.
And I was quite happy to find a pack of my cigarettes as I was literally out of cigarettes. I simply assumed that the pack of cigarettes was a present for one of your friends. But, after smoking most of the pack, I noticed this distinct odor. Mmmm...they weren't all regular cigarettes. But it is amazing what they do for migraines! Unfortunately, I also got very sick (kinda like throwing-up sick) as I had since I myself was 18. Seem to have an allergy to that green stuff. So much for moving to California!
By the way,this past year many of my packs of cigarettes have gone missing. Considering my ever-decreasing income and high cost of cigarettes, how much am I owed?
So the toothbrush and toothpaste remain. It's too bad that they weigh so much that it makes no sense to ship them - at all. But they'll be here when you return. Not sure about the hookah tobacco stuff. Can we have a discussion about that? Or do you want to avoid it completely?
If you are honest with me, then I will be honest with you.
Love,
mom
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & the Fate of Humanity by James Lovelock, 2006
Preface to the Preface, Foreword and Chapter 1
I anxiously awaited my library copy of this "groundbreaking work" by Lovelock on the concept of Gaia, the living earth, and the knowledge I would gain by looking at the world through Lovelock's hypothesis. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was quickly crushed in the Preface, Foreword and Chapter 1. While scientists often promote a hypothesis to encourage expansion of current scientific thought, Lovelock's writing was not even worth the gas my SUV used in driving back and forth to the library. Well, maybe it was worth the gas because it's the coldest winter on record and it's cheaper to warm up in my car (for free since heat is pulled from the hot engine block) than to heat my house. And Lovelock provided me enough ammunition for some thinking and writing of my own.
The Gaia Hypothesis and How Lovelock Uses It
"Gaia" - the idea that the world is a living creature - including traditional non-living pieces such as rocks, gases, etc. - is a valuable concept in understanding the entirety of "how the world works." Indeed, the Gaia hypothesis sums up the world & its history through a unique perspective. However, it is only one perspective. And Lovelock has thrown away the individual pieces in favor of looking at the "whole." A thorough scientist would consider the parts and the whole, both individually and collectively. But Lovelock's lack of compleat science, his degradation of other scientists who do not believe his hypothesis is the one and only answer, and Lovelock's predictions proven false, limited my reading of the book. Truly, I only read until page 11 because (1) it was taking too long to write down my scientific thoughts on Lovelock's science and (2) Lovelock was just plain annoying in his insistence on being the creator and leader of the newest and best religion in town. [Sorry for the sarcasm but it is the kindest way to describe my observations.]
Ignorance of the Parts of the Whole
"We are dangerously ignorant of our own ignorance, and rarely try to see things as a whole." - James Lovelock
We also are dangerously ignorant of our own ignorance, and rarely try to see things as a part of the whole in addition to the whole of a part.
Lovelock the Physician
"What makes it [this book on global warming] different is that I speak as a planetary physician whose patient, the living Earth, complains of fever." - James Lovelock
First, I don't hear the Earth complaining. I hear people complaining. And they're not complaining about a fever.
Second, claims to be a physician usually require attendance at medical school, residency, medical practice and certification in at least one state or country in at least one medical specialty (which admittedly could be "general practice"). While I am not a medical doctor and may often hold physicians up to ridicule, I was accepted at Vanderbilt University for a combined MD-PhD program in biomedical materials, a program I envisioned back in 1979. I decided not to pursue the MD part of the MD-PhD simply because, at the time, 99% of biomedical research was performed in Salt Lake City, the capitol of Mormonism that would interfere with my scientific experiments in lifestyle. And it would be friggin' cold in Utah at a time when the world's scientists were mostly concerned about a global ice-age (if they thought about it at all). Due to my credentials of at least being accepted as a medical student at a premier university, I claim greater knowledge of medicine and physicians than Lovelock and, I am happy to say that my ego is larger than Lovelock could even imagine. In fact, the first thing I wrote after noting this quote of Lovelock's claim to be a physician was "What an ego!"
Lovelock the Physician, Part 2
"We have grown in number to the point where our presence is perceptibly disabling the planet like a disease. As in human diseases there are four possible outcomes: destruction of the invading disease organisms; chronic infection; destruction of the host; or symbiosis - a lasting relationship of mutual benefit to the host and the invader." - James Lovelock
I can now understand why Lovelock thinks of himself as a physician instead of as a scientist. In science there are a myriad of scientific possibilities. Usually more than one of them has a positive outcome. However, in medical school the human body is described in Lovelock's simplistic fashion in order to create functioning doctors after only four years of study. Physicians are not scientists and scientists are not physicians unless they combine the two fields into scientific medical research, with fairly strict protocols too. This is not to demean either party - the physician or the scientist. It is just a fact that the human body is a complex, super-interactive, ever-changing organism that cannot be taught as a whole scientific being in just four years of medical school. If humanity's lack of knowledge of human beings was fully explained in school, our physicians would be zombies, incoherently working to solve the unknown with scientific studies on each patient. Instead, we properly train physicians to (1) believe in only four outcomes and (2) have huge egos - just so they can become functioning physicians.
Lovelock's Prediction: Global Warming Quickly Follows an Economic Downturn
"Smoke and dust pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This 'global dimming' is transient and could disappear in a few days if there were an economic downturn or a reduction of fossil fuel burning." - James Lovelock
Now here is a prediction from Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, stated as a fact in Lovelock's book, which lends itself to true scientific evaluation. Starting in the fall of 2008 and lasting through (at a minimum) early winter 2009, there has been a massive economic downturn. So many businesses and households have closed, gone bankrupt or lost income during this economic downturn that the burning of fossil fuels has drastically decreased. Per Lovelock, global warming would take over "in a few days" as the global dimming from burning fossil fuels has greatly diminished. Yet we are not warmer at all! In fact it has been much colder than normal throughout this recession. Could this imply that our pollution in the northern hemisphere has indeed followed the Gaia model as the earth may have adapted to our changing of its environment, just not in the disastrous way that Lovelock prefers?
(If you prefer a strict mathematical model, look at the commodity price of natural gas go down and down and down as compared to economic recession and the weather, particularly in North America and Europe. Natural gas price is my preferred analytical tool because it is not subject to global manipulation or political interference as compared to oil).
In Summary, Lovelock's View of Humans -> We Are Tribal Carnivores
"We are still tribal carnivores. We are programmed by our inheritance to see other living things as mainly something to eat, and we care more about our national tribe than anything else. We will even give our lives for it and are quite ready to kill other humans in the cruelest of ways for the good of our tribe." - James Lovelock
No comment necessary.
-k, 1/10/10
I anxiously awaited my library copy of this "groundbreaking work" by Lovelock on the concept of Gaia, the living earth, and the knowledge I would gain by looking at the world through Lovelock's hypothesis. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was quickly crushed in the Preface, Foreword and Chapter 1. While scientists often promote a hypothesis to encourage expansion of current scientific thought, Lovelock's writing was not even worth the gas my SUV used in driving back and forth to the library. Well, maybe it was worth the gas because it's the coldest winter on record and it's cheaper to warm up in my car (for free since heat is pulled from the hot engine block) than to heat my house. And Lovelock provided me enough ammunition for some thinking and writing of my own.
The Gaia Hypothesis and How Lovelock Uses It
"Gaia" - the idea that the world is a living creature - including traditional non-living pieces such as rocks, gases, etc. - is a valuable concept in understanding the entirety of "how the world works." Indeed, the Gaia hypothesis sums up the world & its history through a unique perspective. However, it is only one perspective. And Lovelock has thrown away the individual pieces in favor of looking at the "whole." A thorough scientist would consider the parts and the whole, both individually and collectively. But Lovelock's lack of compleat science, his degradation of other scientists who do not believe his hypothesis is the one and only answer, and Lovelock's predictions proven false, limited my reading of the book. Truly, I only read until page 11 because (1) it was taking too long to write down my scientific thoughts on Lovelock's science and (2) Lovelock was just plain annoying in his insistence on being the creator and leader of the newest and best religion in town. [Sorry for the sarcasm but it is the kindest way to describe my observations.]
Ignorance of the Parts of the Whole
"We are dangerously ignorant of our own ignorance, and rarely try to see things as a whole." - James Lovelock
We also are dangerously ignorant of our own ignorance, and rarely try to see things as a part of the whole in addition to the whole of a part.
Lovelock the Physician
"What makes it [this book on global warming] different is that I speak as a planetary physician whose patient, the living Earth, complains of fever." - James Lovelock
First, I don't hear the Earth complaining. I hear people complaining. And they're not complaining about a fever.
Second, claims to be a physician usually require attendance at medical school, residency, medical practice and certification in at least one state or country in at least one medical specialty (which admittedly could be "general practice"). While I am not a medical doctor and may often hold physicians up to ridicule, I was accepted at Vanderbilt University for a combined MD-PhD program in biomedical materials, a program I envisioned back in 1979. I decided not to pursue the MD part of the MD-PhD simply because, at the time, 99% of biomedical research was performed in Salt Lake City, the capitol of Mormonism that would interfere with my scientific experiments in lifestyle. And it would be friggin' cold in Utah at a time when the world's scientists were mostly concerned about a global ice-age (if they thought about it at all). Due to my credentials of at least being accepted as a medical student at a premier university, I claim greater knowledge of medicine and physicians than Lovelock and, I am happy to say that my ego is larger than Lovelock could even imagine. In fact, the first thing I wrote after noting this quote of Lovelock's claim to be a physician was "What an ego!"
Lovelock the Physician, Part 2
"We have grown in number to the point where our presence is perceptibly disabling the planet like a disease. As in human diseases there are four possible outcomes: destruction of the invading disease organisms; chronic infection; destruction of the host; or symbiosis - a lasting relationship of mutual benefit to the host and the invader." - James Lovelock
I can now understand why Lovelock thinks of himself as a physician instead of as a scientist. In science there are a myriad of scientific possibilities. Usually more than one of them has a positive outcome. However, in medical school the human body is described in Lovelock's simplistic fashion in order to create functioning doctors after only four years of study. Physicians are not scientists and scientists are not physicians unless they combine the two fields into scientific medical research, with fairly strict protocols too. This is not to demean either party - the physician or the scientist. It is just a fact that the human body is a complex, super-interactive, ever-changing organism that cannot be taught as a whole scientific being in just four years of medical school. If humanity's lack of knowledge of human beings was fully explained in school, our physicians would be zombies, incoherently working to solve the unknown with scientific studies on each patient. Instead, we properly train physicians to (1) believe in only four outcomes and (2) have huge egos - just so they can become functioning physicians.
Lovelock's Prediction: Global Warming Quickly Follows an Economic Downturn
"Smoke and dust pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This 'global dimming' is transient and could disappear in a few days if there were an economic downturn or a reduction of fossil fuel burning." - James Lovelock
Now here is a prediction from Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, stated as a fact in Lovelock's book, which lends itself to true scientific evaluation. Starting in the fall of 2008 and lasting through (at a minimum) early winter 2009, there has been a massive economic downturn. So many businesses and households have closed, gone bankrupt or lost income during this economic downturn that the burning of fossil fuels has drastically decreased. Per Lovelock, global warming would take over "in a few days" as the global dimming from burning fossil fuels has greatly diminished. Yet we are not warmer at all! In fact it has been much colder than normal throughout this recession. Could this imply that our pollution in the northern hemisphere has indeed followed the Gaia model as the earth may have adapted to our changing of its environment, just not in the disastrous way that Lovelock prefers?
(If you prefer a strict mathematical model, look at the commodity price of natural gas go down and down and down as compared to economic recession and the weather, particularly in North America and Europe. Natural gas price is my preferred analytical tool because it is not subject to global manipulation or political interference as compared to oil).
In Summary, Lovelock's View of Humans -> We Are Tribal Carnivores
"We are still tribal carnivores. We are programmed by our inheritance to see other living things as mainly something to eat, and we care more about our national tribe than anything else. We will even give our lives for it and are quite ready to kill other humans in the cruelest of ways for the good of our tribe." - James Lovelock
No comment necessary.
-k, 1/10/10
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The Arbitrariness of Time: From Terrorism & War to the Economy and Global Cooling
At the end of each year and, especially, at the end of a decade, we are surrounded by news of the failure or success of the preceding year or decade. We even do it to ourselves. For some odd reason, we arbitrarily set New Year's resolutions insisting that this year we will stick to them. Unless of course we are the type of people who set goals and resolutions at other times of the year too. In this case, failure to succeed is okay. If we need to set a goal to begin with, the goal is not worth accomplishing because the effort expended exceeds its benefits, else we already would have done it.
Back to the arbitrariness of time... This decade was reported by many news outlets as a failure. In particular we have been overdosed with news on our failed economy, failed efforts against terrorism, failure in war, and failure in eliminating global warming. On the last one - global warming - most of my friends are begging for it to come back as it's friggin' freezing no matter where you live. Okay, they're not saying "bring back global warming" yet, but just give them some time for reality to set in.
The Decade Against Terrorism
One group that either purposely or accidentally met it's "goal" was the terrorists. Due to the attempted Christmas plane hijacking, it was heavily reported that our security efforts have failed in the last decade - starting from 9/11/01 and demonstrated by the 12/25/09 hijacking attempt at the very end of the decade. (Note the word "attempt" here.) The terrorists, in their mountain retreat over the last decade, have had time to meditate on their goals and, in fact, simplify and hone them to perfection. Goal #1 Stay alive - done. Goal #2 Escalate and/or maintain fear in the USA - done. Goal #3 Save money - done (Yemen is cheaper than hiking to those mountains for training).
Yes, the Christmas hijacking attempt shows that we here in the USA have again failed to communicate to each other properly in order to stave off death at the hands of terrorists. Yet the hijacking attempt failed. What's truly going on here and from whence came the communication failure? Is it systemic or just our society?
While the anxious father in Nigeria attempted to save the USA from his son, we took our usual time assessing (or even considering) his information - because kids will be kids. That's our society's philosophy. We gave up real control of our kids long ago - when we found out they had their own brains or, more commonly, we simply got frustrated enough to leave them alone. And hope that they would grow up. So, as a society, we do not take much stock in parents reporting on their own kids.
But we do have this thing about "missing" kids abroad. This same December, when some Washington DC parents went to the anti-terrorists (FBI, CIA, whatever) to report that their American children were planning on blowing up Pakistan, the information was quickly transferred to Pakistan and the wayward youths were indeed arrested (hopefully with bombs in hand). For the full and most accurate story, please watch or read NPR news. It gets downright nasty if you believe USA T-day saying that the parents reported their children as "missing" and we, as a nation, act swiftly to bring back our missing kids from abroad ever since someone disappeared during spring break on a foreign island a few years ago.
Pakistan wants to deport the missing terrorist kids back to the USA. Please don't. We understand, from movies of course, that your youth rehabilitation efforts are more successful than ours. And, if they are ever released from your custody, they would probably aggregate in Afghanistan, where the other hard-core terrorists are located. That's a game we can play in Afghanistan - a combination of Risk and Battleship - though we haven't been able to win in a decade. I just said we could play it, not necessarily win it.
I give this decade's effort against terrorism an A+. Surprised, aren't you? It's both that arbitrariness of time and actual facts. What if the December 25, 2009 hijacking attempt occurred January 25, 2010? There could not be a collected effort to report our decade of failure because it would not have been a decade of failure. If nothing else was going on, it would be reported as a decade of failure on January 25, 2010 but that is again demonstrating the arbitrary assignment of time as being a useful unit of measure. The fact is that acts of terror in the USA have gone down for the past decade, in spite of our attempts to fight terrorism with more bureaucracy and increase the number of terrorists by simply being ourselves - happy and fat with a good sense of superiority (oops, I meant self-worth).
The Decade's Wars
I truly don't want to write or even think about war because I grew up in the Vietnam era. Or, rather, I was sorely depressed because I could not participate in stopping those horrors. I was a little too young and could never find enough money to run away to California. (That was not a joke). Vietnam ended the year I graduated from high school and, as valedictorian, I gave a rousing speech on how all of us were responsible for everything wrong with the world. I don't think anyone was listening except my classmates, who thoroughly enjoyed poking fun at our high school administration. I had some fun too because I learned that I was not too shy to give a talk to 2000 people as long as I believed in my own words. Otherwise, I skipped school to avoid every speech required in every class for 4 years. That may be why I easily became valedictorian - I was never there to be graded - an enigma as it were. But I digress from our decade's wars.
Mmm... So have we failed in war over the last decade? Maybe yes, maybe no. We sure spent a lot of money on it. And a lot of our young people died as untrained and unarmored soldiers, especially in Iraq. Since Iraq did not participate in the terrorism against us and had already gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction and we knew both of these facts before invading, I don't think we can include the Iraq war in the "war on terrorism." Our invasion may have been an attempt to incite terrorism and, if so, it was a complete success. However, most fact-based evaluations of the lead-up to the Iraq war have shown that the purposes were more related to oil, wanting a war, money (both current spending and future earnings) and revenge. Evaluation of either the success or failure of the war in Iraq depends on what parameter or goal we use to measure the war. Each of us must use our own conscience to evaluate Iraq.
Afghanistan - fighting Al-Queda - was a success in about 90 days. We drove the terrorists from power over the country and into caves and mountains instead. Then we let Afghanistan go to pot or, more literally, opium for a few years. See - this truly international effort did have a clear goal that the entire world agreed to. Our only problem, as usual, was the follow-up. Yet we *do* know how to build countries back into somewhat successful ventures. It's clearer in the Iraq situation where we had complete plans, mostly from the State Department and experts they gathered, to control security from the get-go, avoid group rivalries, keep the infrastructure and economy going, and so forth. As I recall there were 9 giant volumes of specific actions to take once the military entered Iraq. But Rumsfeld and Cheney purposefully got rid of the preliminary group sent to Iraq for maintaining/building the country and successfully replaced that group with someone from the Defense Department who knew little of Iraq. Kind of like that FEMA guy leading during Katrina. I rest my case.
Our follow-up in not rebuilding Afghanistan is clear. We ignored Afghanistan in favor of Iraq, which made the powers-that-be much happier. I mean, who even cares about Afghanistan? What was Afghanistan to anyone anywhere? Well, it turns out that Afghanistan is pretty important, especially as it destabilizes the heavily-nuclear Pakistan in which military leadership would love to push the button on India. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's the consequences of the consequences that count.
We failed in Afghanistan but are finally focusing on rebuilding the country and it's still an international effort. I give it a D-. It was not a complete failure just because we re-learned our lesson about stabilizing countries and are actually trying to do that in Afghanistan right now. Just beware that reports from the embedded journalists are, by necessity, biased by a kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome. Watch or read NPR and the international press instead. And think. We also had forgotten our ability to think this last decade though the world is trading thoughts in nanoseconds 24 hours a day. But we're afraid we'll lose our Facebook or Twitter friends by not agreeing en masse to popular opinions.
How does the arbitrary decade of time fit in? We simply have not been in Afghanistan a whole 10 years. Give us until October 7, 2011. Our plans include raising that D- up to at least a C.
The Decade's War on Global Warming
This is clearly a war against ourselves. Does that making any friggin' sense? Why don't we have a war on fire ants instead. They really hurt. But, in this insanely consequential world, eliminating ants would increase termites which would then eat our houses. So a war on fire ants would have to lead to a war on termites which would then decimate African animals who depend on termites for food. Then we will have a war against the chemicals used on the fire ants and termites, requiring poor countries to ban the use of these chemicals. The ant and termite populations in Africa would skyrocket without the animals who previously ate them, and we would again hurt poor people everywhere. Just read about the history of mosquitoes and DDT which, in our superior wisdom, has created massive malaria everywhere because we banned a chemical globally without preparing for the rather obvious consequences. In effect, we decided that it was better for people to die from malaria than to possibly live long enough to suffer some undefined health problems from DDT. (As a kid in Florida I rather enjoyed the small planes clouding our sky with a bit of DDT every few weeks. It was awfully hot in Florida so any relief from the sun was welcome. And, if I have any health-related effects from DDT today, they are overwhelmed by all the crap I've done to myself).
I have saved thousands of dollars in the last decade by purposely avoiding the recommended termite-control. Instead I let my ants continue their natural predatory behavior towards termites. I am happy to spend just a little on ant control because those buggers sure can hurt and they like to come inside when it's raining. My yard is blessed by ants and they move back in pretty quick. I try to only go after the obnoxious ones, leaving the remainder to eat any termites planning to invade. This approach has worked for 15 years now, even in an area advertised as the best place for a termite to raise its family. Try it yourself [add disclaimers - I won't and can't be held responsible for anything I write that you choose to act on.] There's one catch - the genius who invented termite control that *attracts* termites in order to kill them. How the heck can it be good to attract such a damaging pest except for the companies now selling "attract and kill" methods? It makes no friggin' sense to "attract" something that will eat your entire house if the "kill" part fails in any way. I can't wait for the headlines: "Attract-and-kill termite controls devastate housing across the nation, especially in areas where termites did not previously exist. House insurance up 20% while FEMA takes control and NSF funds more science grants to study the killer bee invasion expected 20 years ago."
I digress but I don't. Our "war on global warming" is already wreaking havoc in the form of consequences. Note that I did not use the common adjective "unforeseen" to soften the blow of "consequences." Sorry, but many consequences of our actions against global warming were and are foreseen - meaning that these consequences were predicted, hypothesized and even printed down on paper or available for free on the internet in advance of the war. I refuse to give any more examples of the consequences of our noble "war on global warming" because I have already provided references and people hate me enough for not towing the line on global warming.
So how has the decade been for our "war on global warming?" I think it deserves a solid C. We recognized a potential problem we were responsible for but we are being led by the nose and not thinking for ourselves - pretty average. Hopefully, we've learned that what we do and what we do not do both have consequences - good and bad - for others. But it does not appear that we understand the inevitability of consequences, not yet. If you look at this rather cold summer and winter here in the USA, maybe we could just claim victory over global warming and move on to something else. Or is it better to be stuck on one subject? Mmmm... Moving on to another war might even have worse consequences. Maybe I kind of like the subject of global warming after all. It's fun to poke sticks at with actual facts. It gives a specific goal, somewhat like a Christmas gift, to people who have everything. What other mission could be so perfect for Al Gore to lead?
I do hope we continue to drag our feet on global warming for the next arbitrarily chosen period of time given the age of the world and our itsy bitsy part of it. Without global unanimity amid the developed countries, we won't be able to impose our standards on the poor countries, thereby not increasing poverty and death and more people who hate us and become terrorists. Also, we'll have more data for scientists to play with - just for fun.
The Decade's Economy
Wow - this year the stock market (hereafter denoted by the symbol SPX which refers to the S&P500 index, completely ignoring the remainder of the world) went up 23%! Oh, joy to my assets! We all made money - hurrah - let's party!
Hey, wait a minute. I don't feel like I made money. I still feel that I'm losing ground and paying more for less. Oh, yeah, the SPX started at a 40% loss for 2008. So am I gaining or am I just losing less?
The SPX's fabulous 23% gain in 2009 is a premier case of picking an arbitrary date to evaluate performance. And the SPX provides us numbers to manipulate (er, demonstrate) our inane sense of time. While the SPX did increase 23% as of 12/31/09, the SPX would not be up 23% if we used other 12-month periods. Here are the SPX gains/losses for the last two years using every possible 12-month time period:
Month & 12-month % gain/loss
Dec 2009 = 23
Nov 2009 = 22
Oct 2009 = 7
Sep 2009 = -9
Aug 2009 = -20
Jul 2009 = -22
Jun 2009 = -28
May 2009 = -34
Apr 2009 = -37
Mar 2009 = -40
Feb 2009 = -45
Jan 2009 = -40
Dec 2008 = -38
Nov 2008 = -40
Oct 2008 = -38
Sep 2008 = -24
Aug 2008 = -13
Jul 2008 = -13
Jun 2008 = -15
May 2008 = -8
Apr 2008 = -7
Mar 2008 = -7
Feb 2008 = -5
Jan 2008 = -4
So if you bought stocks/etfs/mutual funds to mimic the SPX exactly at the closing on 12/31/08, then you gained 23% - only realized if you sold at the close on 12/31/09 because who knows what happens next. If you bought the last day of June 2008, perhaps thinking that the little pullback was a nice time to buy, and then gave up hope a year later in June 2009, you lost 22%. Of course the data above is somewhat confusing if you didn't buy and sell in exact 12-month increments because I arbitrarily chose to use 12-month periods to prove the silliness yet universality of believing that time is a fixed variable that means something.
Time means something only if you act on it (or, in most cases, react). The 12-month data does show the slow-but-steady-and-accelerating decrease in the value of stocks occurring while no one was apparently looking. In hindsight, it probably meant something was worth acting/reacting to or at least pondering about before the fall of 2008 (pun intended). What's worse than that? Your investment made a decade ago - on 12/31/1999 - also lost out. So for the decade, the market - the SPX - was down, supposedly proving what?
The true gains in the market occurred from mid-2002 to fall 2007. The SPX's high(s) in Sept/Oct 2007 were quite apparent - so much that I sold almost all my stocks/etfs/funds in these two months on the thesis that the market had gone too high too fast. And, somewhat remarkably & somewhat logically, I did identify & act exactly at the market peak in 2007. I also sold the remainder of my investments in late-summer 2008 even though I realized a pretty big loss on those. Looking back, I am so proud of selling Citigroup at $20, after having bought it at about $50, instead of waiting until it became a $1 stock. After that I became a "trader" instead of an "investor," which pretty much means I don't believe anything will last longer than a few hours to a few weeks given the current economy.
For the media stories at the end of the decade, the reporters just cared that the SPX today is much lower than the SPX a decade ago. This is reportable, yet not noteworthy, information. The inference - that our economy and even the global economy - is and was a failure is simply incorrect. During the middle of the decade, from 2002 to 2007, everyone prospered no matter what they did or did not do. Everyone's lives were changed. Employment was at a high, global trade was massive, violent crime was drastically down, etc etc. No one knew why this was happening or when it would end.
Everyone claimed success during the rise. Then everyone laid blame after the economy died. In fact, they made sure it was dead before attempting resuscitation, probably due to some golden parachutes involving donating organs. Frankly, I still just believe in my "it went too high too fast" theory. And I believe it also vividly demonstrates the arbitrary time frames we use as references. Who cares about the last "decade" or even "year"? What I care about is maybe 2005's economy compared to late 2007 and also compared to the end of 2009. That might give me insight I can apply in the future. But results from a superficial year or decade simply don't mean anything, anywhere, to anyone (except to determine bonuses for money managers).
I'll give the economy a grade of C for the decade. See - it came and went, average as always.
The Decade of Time
It's impossible to wrap this essay into some concise thesis statement other than to say that we do not understand time and its meaning. We often abuse time for our own benefit. In fact I did not "pick" the market peak in 2007 other than to say I was afraid of losing my friggin' money like I did back in 2000 or thereabouts. My justification was that the market had gone too high too fast but I honestly was willing to forego more profits if it kept going up while keeping what I had made so far. I was, frankly, just plain scared.
And things happen during arbitrarily chosen time frames. Without 9/11, the various wars, and global cooling, there would be no news for the decade. These things sometimes happen as consequences of what we do or do not do at some other period of time. Yet sometimes events are unrelatable though we try to make them so by mathematically modeling the currently unknown and unknowable variables.
I am glad the "decade" is done - at least for another 10 years. It had its highs and lows. It had stupidity and brilliance (haven't thought of an example yet). A lot of well-known people died, especially in the last year, not as a coincidence but as a result of actual time. Celebrities only became well-known through the stratospheric rise in communication from the 1960s onward (much in fact due to increasing communication opposing the Vietnam war). Then the celebrities got older and died, from a variety of causes, as would have been expected if we bothered worrying about celebrity deaths this decade too. I will put myself on record as saying I am for the war against dying celebrities. Most of them, anyways. Sometimes. No, I've changed my mind and will have to figure out the causes and consequences of dying celebrities given the fact that I've also gotten older but no one notices me.
Well, my brain dump is complete - exhausted of any timely thoughts. And I've gotten rid of my motivation for this essay. The media reports, especially on the "results of the decade," were driving me nuts. If you have read this far, you now understand my reluctance to believe in the concept of a decade (or any other set time) as being useful to anyone. It's just too arbitrary.
Happy Chaos!
-k
Back to the arbitrariness of time... This decade was reported by many news outlets as a failure. In particular we have been overdosed with news on our failed economy, failed efforts against terrorism, failure in war, and failure in eliminating global warming. On the last one - global warming - most of my friends are begging for it to come back as it's friggin' freezing no matter where you live. Okay, they're not saying "bring back global warming" yet, but just give them some time for reality to set in.
The Decade Against Terrorism
One group that either purposely or accidentally met it's "goal" was the terrorists. Due to the attempted Christmas plane hijacking, it was heavily reported that our security efforts have failed in the last decade - starting from 9/11/01 and demonstrated by the 12/25/09 hijacking attempt at the very end of the decade. (Note the word "attempt" here.) The terrorists, in their mountain retreat over the last decade, have had time to meditate on their goals and, in fact, simplify and hone them to perfection. Goal #1 Stay alive - done. Goal #2 Escalate and/or maintain fear in the USA - done. Goal #3 Save money - done (Yemen is cheaper than hiking to those mountains for training).
Yes, the Christmas hijacking attempt shows that we here in the USA have again failed to communicate to each other properly in order to stave off death at the hands of terrorists. Yet the hijacking attempt failed. What's truly going on here and from whence came the communication failure? Is it systemic or just our society?
While the anxious father in Nigeria attempted to save the USA from his son, we took our usual time assessing (or even considering) his information - because kids will be kids. That's our society's philosophy. We gave up real control of our kids long ago - when we found out they had their own brains or, more commonly, we simply got frustrated enough to leave them alone. And hope that they would grow up. So, as a society, we do not take much stock in parents reporting on their own kids.
But we do have this thing about "missing" kids abroad. This same December, when some Washington DC parents went to the anti-terrorists (FBI, CIA, whatever) to report that their American children were planning on blowing up Pakistan, the information was quickly transferred to Pakistan and the wayward youths were indeed arrested (hopefully with bombs in hand). For the full and most accurate story, please watch or read NPR news. It gets downright nasty if you believe USA T-day saying that the parents reported their children as "missing" and we, as a nation, act swiftly to bring back our missing kids from abroad ever since someone disappeared during spring break on a foreign island a few years ago.
Pakistan wants to deport the missing terrorist kids back to the USA. Please don't. We understand, from movies of course, that your youth rehabilitation efforts are more successful than ours. And, if they are ever released from your custody, they would probably aggregate in Afghanistan, where the other hard-core terrorists are located. That's a game we can play in Afghanistan - a combination of Risk and Battleship - though we haven't been able to win in a decade. I just said we could play it, not necessarily win it.
I give this decade's effort against terrorism an A+. Surprised, aren't you? It's both that arbitrariness of time and actual facts. What if the December 25, 2009 hijacking attempt occurred January 25, 2010? There could not be a collected effort to report our decade of failure because it would not have been a decade of failure. If nothing else was going on, it would be reported as a decade of failure on January 25, 2010 but that is again demonstrating the arbitrary assignment of time as being a useful unit of measure. The fact is that acts of terror in the USA have gone down for the past decade, in spite of our attempts to fight terrorism with more bureaucracy and increase the number of terrorists by simply being ourselves - happy and fat with a good sense of superiority (oops, I meant self-worth).
The Decade's Wars
I truly don't want to write or even think about war because I grew up in the Vietnam era. Or, rather, I was sorely depressed because I could not participate in stopping those horrors. I was a little too young and could never find enough money to run away to California. (That was not a joke). Vietnam ended the year I graduated from high school and, as valedictorian, I gave a rousing speech on how all of us were responsible for everything wrong with the world. I don't think anyone was listening except my classmates, who thoroughly enjoyed poking fun at our high school administration. I had some fun too because I learned that I was not too shy to give a talk to 2000 people as long as I believed in my own words. Otherwise, I skipped school to avoid every speech required in every class for 4 years. That may be why I easily became valedictorian - I was never there to be graded - an enigma as it were. But I digress from our decade's wars.
Mmm... So have we failed in war over the last decade? Maybe yes, maybe no. We sure spent a lot of money on it. And a lot of our young people died as untrained and unarmored soldiers, especially in Iraq. Since Iraq did not participate in the terrorism against us and had already gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction and we knew both of these facts before invading, I don't think we can include the Iraq war in the "war on terrorism." Our invasion may have been an attempt to incite terrorism and, if so, it was a complete success. However, most fact-based evaluations of the lead-up to the Iraq war have shown that the purposes were more related to oil, wanting a war, money (both current spending and future earnings) and revenge. Evaluation of either the success or failure of the war in Iraq depends on what parameter or goal we use to measure the war. Each of us must use our own conscience to evaluate Iraq.
Afghanistan - fighting Al-Queda - was a success in about 90 days. We drove the terrorists from power over the country and into caves and mountains instead. Then we let Afghanistan go to pot or, more literally, opium for a few years. See - this truly international effort did have a clear goal that the entire world agreed to. Our only problem, as usual, was the follow-up. Yet we *do* know how to build countries back into somewhat successful ventures. It's clearer in the Iraq situation where we had complete plans, mostly from the State Department and experts they gathered, to control security from the get-go, avoid group rivalries, keep the infrastructure and economy going, and so forth. As I recall there were 9 giant volumes of specific actions to take once the military entered Iraq. But Rumsfeld and Cheney purposefully got rid of the preliminary group sent to Iraq for maintaining/building the country and successfully replaced that group with someone from the Defense Department who knew little of Iraq. Kind of like that FEMA guy leading during Katrina. I rest my case.
Our follow-up in not rebuilding Afghanistan is clear. We ignored Afghanistan in favor of Iraq, which made the powers-that-be much happier. I mean, who even cares about Afghanistan? What was Afghanistan to anyone anywhere? Well, it turns out that Afghanistan is pretty important, especially as it destabilizes the heavily-nuclear Pakistan in which military leadership would love to push the button on India. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's the consequences of the consequences that count.
We failed in Afghanistan but are finally focusing on rebuilding the country and it's still an international effort. I give it a D-. It was not a complete failure just because we re-learned our lesson about stabilizing countries and are actually trying to do that in Afghanistan right now. Just beware that reports from the embedded journalists are, by necessity, biased by a kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome. Watch or read NPR and the international press instead. And think. We also had forgotten our ability to think this last decade though the world is trading thoughts in nanoseconds 24 hours a day. But we're afraid we'll lose our Facebook or Twitter friends by not agreeing en masse to popular opinions.
How does the arbitrary decade of time fit in? We simply have not been in Afghanistan a whole 10 years. Give us until October 7, 2011. Our plans include raising that D- up to at least a C.
The Decade's War on Global Warming
This is clearly a war against ourselves. Does that making any friggin' sense? Why don't we have a war on fire ants instead. They really hurt. But, in this insanely consequential world, eliminating ants would increase termites which would then eat our houses. So a war on fire ants would have to lead to a war on termites which would then decimate African animals who depend on termites for food. Then we will have a war against the chemicals used on the fire ants and termites, requiring poor countries to ban the use of these chemicals. The ant and termite populations in Africa would skyrocket without the animals who previously ate them, and we would again hurt poor people everywhere. Just read about the history of mosquitoes and DDT which, in our superior wisdom, has created massive malaria everywhere because we banned a chemical globally without preparing for the rather obvious consequences. In effect, we decided that it was better for people to die from malaria than to possibly live long enough to suffer some undefined health problems from DDT. (As a kid in Florida I rather enjoyed the small planes clouding our sky with a bit of DDT every few weeks. It was awfully hot in Florida so any relief from the sun was welcome. And, if I have any health-related effects from DDT today, they are overwhelmed by all the crap I've done to myself).
I have saved thousands of dollars in the last decade by purposely avoiding the recommended termite-control. Instead I let my ants continue their natural predatory behavior towards termites. I am happy to spend just a little on ant control because those buggers sure can hurt and they like to come inside when it's raining. My yard is blessed by ants and they move back in pretty quick. I try to only go after the obnoxious ones, leaving the remainder to eat any termites planning to invade. This approach has worked for 15 years now, even in an area advertised as the best place for a termite to raise its family. Try it yourself [add disclaimers - I won't and can't be held responsible for anything I write that you choose to act on.] There's one catch - the genius who invented termite control that *attracts* termites in order to kill them. How the heck can it be good to attract such a damaging pest except for the companies now selling "attract and kill" methods? It makes no friggin' sense to "attract" something that will eat your entire house if the "kill" part fails in any way. I can't wait for the headlines: "Attract-and-kill termite controls devastate housing across the nation, especially in areas where termites did not previously exist. House insurance up 20% while FEMA takes control and NSF funds more science grants to study the killer bee invasion expected 20 years ago."
I digress but I don't. Our "war on global warming" is already wreaking havoc in the form of consequences. Note that I did not use the common adjective "unforeseen" to soften the blow of "consequences." Sorry, but many consequences of our actions against global warming were and are foreseen - meaning that these consequences were predicted, hypothesized and even printed down on paper or available for free on the internet in advance of the war. I refuse to give any more examples of the consequences of our noble "war on global warming" because I have already provided references and people hate me enough for not towing the line on global warming.
So how has the decade been for our "war on global warming?" I think it deserves a solid C. We recognized a potential problem we were responsible for but we are being led by the nose and not thinking for ourselves - pretty average. Hopefully, we've learned that what we do and what we do not do both have consequences - good and bad - for others. But it does not appear that we understand the inevitability of consequences, not yet. If you look at this rather cold summer and winter here in the USA, maybe we could just claim victory over global warming and move on to something else. Or is it better to be stuck on one subject? Mmmm... Moving on to another war might even have worse consequences. Maybe I kind of like the subject of global warming after all. It's fun to poke sticks at with actual facts. It gives a specific goal, somewhat like a Christmas gift, to people who have everything. What other mission could be so perfect for Al Gore to lead?
I do hope we continue to drag our feet on global warming for the next arbitrarily chosen period of time given the age of the world and our itsy bitsy part of it. Without global unanimity amid the developed countries, we won't be able to impose our standards on the poor countries, thereby not increasing poverty and death and more people who hate us and become terrorists. Also, we'll have more data for scientists to play with - just for fun.
The Decade's Economy
Wow - this year the stock market (hereafter denoted by the symbol SPX which refers to the S&P500 index, completely ignoring the remainder of the world) went up 23%! Oh, joy to my assets! We all made money - hurrah - let's party!
Hey, wait a minute. I don't feel like I made money. I still feel that I'm losing ground and paying more for less. Oh, yeah, the SPX started at a 40% loss for 2008. So am I gaining or am I just losing less?
The SPX's fabulous 23% gain in 2009 is a premier case of picking an arbitrary date to evaluate performance. And the SPX provides us numbers to manipulate (er, demonstrate) our inane sense of time. While the SPX did increase 23% as of 12/31/09, the SPX would not be up 23% if we used other 12-month periods. Here are the SPX gains/losses for the last two years using every possible 12-month time period:
Month & 12-month % gain/loss
Dec 2009 = 23
Nov 2009 = 22
Oct 2009 = 7
Sep 2009 = -9
Aug 2009 = -20
Jul 2009 = -22
Jun 2009 = -28
May 2009 = -34
Apr 2009 = -37
Mar 2009 = -40
Feb 2009 = -45
Jan 2009 = -40
Dec 2008 = -38
Nov 2008 = -40
Oct 2008 = -38
Sep 2008 = -24
Aug 2008 = -13
Jul 2008 = -13
Jun 2008 = -15
May 2008 = -8
Apr 2008 = -7
Mar 2008 = -7
Feb 2008 = -5
Jan 2008 = -4
So if you bought stocks/etfs/mutual funds to mimic the SPX exactly at the closing on 12/31/08, then you gained 23% - only realized if you sold at the close on 12/31/09 because who knows what happens next. If you bought the last day of June 2008, perhaps thinking that the little pullback was a nice time to buy, and then gave up hope a year later in June 2009, you lost 22%. Of course the data above is somewhat confusing if you didn't buy and sell in exact 12-month increments because I arbitrarily chose to use 12-month periods to prove the silliness yet universality of believing that time is a fixed variable that means something.
Time means something only if you act on it (or, in most cases, react). The 12-month data does show the slow-but-steady-and-accelerating decrease in the value of stocks occurring while no one was apparently looking. In hindsight, it probably meant something was worth acting/reacting to or at least pondering about before the fall of 2008 (pun intended). What's worse than that? Your investment made a decade ago - on 12/31/1999 - also lost out. So for the decade, the market - the SPX - was down, supposedly proving what?
The true gains in the market occurred from mid-2002 to fall 2007. The SPX's high(s) in Sept/Oct 2007 were quite apparent - so much that I sold almost all my stocks/etfs/funds in these two months on the thesis that the market had gone too high too fast. And, somewhat remarkably & somewhat logically, I did identify & act exactly at the market peak in 2007. I also sold the remainder of my investments in late-summer 2008 even though I realized a pretty big loss on those. Looking back, I am so proud of selling Citigroup at $20, after having bought it at about $50, instead of waiting until it became a $1 stock. After that I became a "trader" instead of an "investor," which pretty much means I don't believe anything will last longer than a few hours to a few weeks given the current economy.
For the media stories at the end of the decade, the reporters just cared that the SPX today is much lower than the SPX a decade ago. This is reportable, yet not noteworthy, information. The inference - that our economy and even the global economy - is and was a failure is simply incorrect. During the middle of the decade, from 2002 to 2007, everyone prospered no matter what they did or did not do. Everyone's lives were changed. Employment was at a high, global trade was massive, violent crime was drastically down, etc etc. No one knew why this was happening or when it would end.
Everyone claimed success during the rise. Then everyone laid blame after the economy died. In fact, they made sure it was dead before attempting resuscitation, probably due to some golden parachutes involving donating organs. Frankly, I still just believe in my "it went too high too fast" theory. And I believe it also vividly demonstrates the arbitrary time frames we use as references. Who cares about the last "decade" or even "year"? What I care about is maybe 2005's economy compared to late 2007 and also compared to the end of 2009. That might give me insight I can apply in the future. But results from a superficial year or decade simply don't mean anything, anywhere, to anyone (except to determine bonuses for money managers).
I'll give the economy a grade of C for the decade. See - it came and went, average as always.
The Decade of Time
It's impossible to wrap this essay into some concise thesis statement other than to say that we do not understand time and its meaning. We often abuse time for our own benefit. In fact I did not "pick" the market peak in 2007 other than to say I was afraid of losing my friggin' money like I did back in 2000 or thereabouts. My justification was that the market had gone too high too fast but I honestly was willing to forego more profits if it kept going up while keeping what I had made so far. I was, frankly, just plain scared.
And things happen during arbitrarily chosen time frames. Without 9/11, the various wars, and global cooling, there would be no news for the decade. These things sometimes happen as consequences of what we do or do not do at some other period of time. Yet sometimes events are unrelatable though we try to make them so by mathematically modeling the currently unknown and unknowable variables.
I am glad the "decade" is done - at least for another 10 years. It had its highs and lows. It had stupidity and brilliance (haven't thought of an example yet). A lot of well-known people died, especially in the last year, not as a coincidence but as a result of actual time. Celebrities only became well-known through the stratospheric rise in communication from the 1960s onward (much in fact due to increasing communication opposing the Vietnam war). Then the celebrities got older and died, from a variety of causes, as would have been expected if we bothered worrying about celebrity deaths this decade too. I will put myself on record as saying I am for the war against dying celebrities. Most of them, anyways. Sometimes. No, I've changed my mind and will have to figure out the causes and consequences of dying celebrities given the fact that I've also gotten older but no one notices me.
Well, my brain dump is complete - exhausted of any timely thoughts. And I've gotten rid of my motivation for this essay. The media reports, especially on the "results of the decade," were driving me nuts. If you have read this far, you now understand my reluctance to believe in the concept of a decade (or any other set time) as being useful to anyone. It's just too arbitrary.
Happy Chaos!
-k
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
FOX to Time Warner: Pulling Out's a Great Thing To Do
[No other comments are possible. This speaks volumes to those who have been ripped off by Time Warner price increases - see last post - and I will, in wonderful unending laughter, be glad to be rid of FOX. -k]
Time Warner email spam to customers 12/28/09:
"Don’t Let Them Hold Your TV Hostage"
"At midnight New Year’s Eve, FOX has threatened to pull the plug on Time Warner Cable customers – withholding their programming unless we pay massive price increases.
"We think they’re going too far – especially in today’s economy – and we’re glad you agree. Over 600,000 of you have gone to RollOverOrGetTough.com. And, the overwhelming response has been to ‘Get Tough.’ With your support, we’re standing up to the TV networks to hold down the cost of cable TV.
"We apologize in advance for any inconvenience and remind you to visit RollOverOrGetTough.com for the latest information on which channels may no longer be available as of January 1, 2010, as not all FOX programming is at risk in all areas. There you’ll also find a helpful guide to alternative sources for programming – so you can continue to watch many of your favorite shows.
"Pay Our Price or You'll Never See FOX Again
"Time Warner Cable is working hard to reach an agreement. We’ve offered FOX a reasonable price increase that protects our customers’ pocketbooks. But we are not giving in to excessive demands.
"Don’t let them hold your TV hostage. Click here to visit RollOverOrGetTough.com now or call 1-877-267-1844 to learn more. Together, we can hold the line on TV prices."
- k :)
Time Warner email spam to customers 12/28/09:
"Don’t Let Them Hold Your TV Hostage"
"At midnight New Year’s Eve, FOX has threatened to pull the plug on Time Warner Cable customers – withholding their programming unless we pay massive price increases.
"We think they’re going too far – especially in today’s economy – and we’re glad you agree. Over 600,000 of you have gone to RollOverOrGetTough.com. And, the overwhelming response has been to ‘Get Tough.’ With your support, we’re standing up to the TV networks to hold down the cost of cable TV.
"We apologize in advance for any inconvenience and remind you to visit RollOverOrGetTough.com for the latest information on which channels may no longer be available as of January 1, 2010, as not all FOX programming is at risk in all areas. There you’ll also find a helpful guide to alternative sources for programming – so you can continue to watch many of your favorite shows.
"Pay Our Price or You'll Never See FOX Again
"Time Warner Cable is working hard to reach an agreement. We’ve offered FOX a reasonable price increase that protects our customers’ pocketbooks. But we are not giving in to excessive demands.
"Don’t let them hold your TV hostage. Click here to visit RollOverOrGetTough.com now or call 1-877-267-1844 to learn more. Together, we can hold the line on TV prices."
- k :)
Sunday, December 27, 2009
We Can't Save for Losing
Sorry This Post is So Long But I Know You Will Not Read It
Like me, a typical sensible person on a decreasing income, you have probably checked all your monthly bills and decided to cut back some services that you don't really need. For example, who needs that home phone when every family member has a cell phone? And why keep paying so much for those premium movie channels on cable - because they have more series than movies these days? Bet you also turned down the thermostat this winter, started leaving fewer lights on, maxed out the dishwasher every time, and YELLED "TOILET" whenever someone did not jiggle the handle correctly to save on the water bill. Ahh, yes, you are happy and proud of yourself for the work you put into lowering that energy bill (oops - I meant proud of yourself to have contributed to the glorious fight against global warming).
I am too - proud that is - of minimizing my usage of anything and everything (not the global warming part which is scientifically incompleat in my non-humble scientific mind).
But I'm not really saving much money! What happened here? Cable bill keeps getting higher. Phone bill too. They passed another increase in electricity rates. Upped the garbage/sewar fees. Water usage costs have gone up. And there's more - higher home insurance premiums, higher car and house property taxes, higher interest rates on those college loans for parents (how can they friggin' do that when US interest rates are almost zero?) Am I going nuts or are you going nuts too?
It's actually very scientific - the more we save, the more we lose. Just ask the Japanese about their economy for the last decade or so. Because individual Japanese citizens save huge amounts of money, there practically is no economy in Japan. (Here, 'economy' means buying and selling lots of unnecessary stuff to each other within your own country). Okay, the problems with the Japanese economy might not be a familiar subject in the USA so, although the analogy is accurate, it can be simplified.
Science is still science. The more we save, the more we lose. And when *everyone* saves more, we really really lose. Example: Power plants were built and designed to supply a specific, usually large, amount of electricity in a geographical area. But now residents like you and me aren't using as much electricity, those who lost their house are using no electricity, *and* every business - manufacturing, stores, gas stations, you-name-it - in the geographic area has cut back their energy use even more! Yet it costs the power plant companies just as much money and, in their opinion, more money than ever before to keep running *because* everyone decided to take their business away. Don't ask why - it's all rather economistic involving governing boards agreeing to rate hikes for the power company to pay off increasing debt at increasing interest rates because their income (our payments) have quit coming and they'd like to keep ahead of global warming.
Think of it this way. If you owned a good business but suddenly your business was bringing in 25% less money than before and your business has to pay its bills, you would increase your prices, right? Makes sense to the power companies and the public governing boards which always allow rate hikes (it's in their contract - to be on a 'public' governing board of a utility, you must misunderstand economically all the massive paper provided by the power company in its efforts to help the world's forests - er, I meant its efforts to "stay in business" because "it's too big to fail").
Of course, your attempt to increase prices in your own business would fail miserably as people would buy even less from you until you spiral down into bankruptcy because your company is too small to save. As a typical, fairly normal businessperson, you would indeed say that raising prices is the wrong approach when sales are declining rapidly. Maybe you would advertise more, mix up your product line, look at different consumer segments to add to the business, lower costs (yeah - try lowering that electric bill and see what happens!) etc. Your goal right now is to stay in business, not drive off your customers further. But you're not a 'public' utility/service or even a monopoly. You are sensible and base decisions on proven basic economic principles to keep your company going.
Public utilities and services, plus local monopolies, get to operate in their own economic stratosphere (do we still have one? I forget, maybe cause I'm freezing cold right now. Hey - what happened to global warming?) When the income for these businesses or operations go down, they raise prices to keep making money. Sometimes it is admittedly reasonable such as increasing the price I pay for garbage collection because there are 25% fewer homeowners paying for garbage service. And heck, it's hard to pay someone less for such an odorous job or find other cost-saving measures, especially as my home state keeps garbage cheaply, in landfills. And, unless you want to become Californian, those property taxes need to go up - again, since there are fewer homeowners and car owners here and our governor hates DC but loves Argentina, thereby already whacking off lots of public services along with other unmentionables.)
Power companies and water-supplying-whatever companies usually need to get the rates they charge customers approved by a public governing board. You would think these governing boards would be filled with atypical, mathematical-scientifical people who could weigh the pros and cons of, lets say, shutting down one power plant instead of increasing rates or maybe they'd ask the utilities for options on cost-cutting. But both the utilities and governing boards understand the game of rubber-stamping. Because, you know what? Those on the governing boards are actually typical and proly don't want to read that 500-page report. So your electric bill *will* go up along with your water bill and every other bill from a 'public' utility. (Though it's strange that some of these public utilities, especially power, are companies with stock for sale, etc., and don't seem very 'public' though my understanding of the word may be off).
Monopolies, on the other hand, live in heaven. I am absolutely enthralled by this one: the government broke up AT&T into little parts because AT&T had a monopoly on phone bills and charged customers whatever it wanted. The government thought that competition would lower phone bills. In my area, here comes Cingular - our premier cell phone company. And I am so happy to finally get rid of AT&T & just go cellular with Cingular. Next thing I know, Cingular has disappeared & my bills again leap higher because AT&T has taken over Cingular! Whatever happened to the original non-monopolistic plan? Watch out Sprint - you must be next cause I'm transitioning my cell phones over to you. And AT&T was born to be a monopoly.
Cable companies, including internet service connectors (I can't call them providers cause I really don't see them providing anything on the internet except the connection) also live in economic heaven. They will do anything to maintain their geographic dominance and increase prices to save money. Here's an actual Time Warner advertisement: Free HD upgrade for only $9.95 per month. How the heck can it be "free" if it costs $10 more a month? How can anyone allow this blatantly false ad to continue for months on end? Must be the television companies are sorely in need of money. Here's another Time Warner ploy: the promotional period for your plan has ended so the new price is $$$. Can someone explain to me how a plan I've had for 15 years suddenly became promotional?
So we can't save for losing, especially since we are all saving, thereby losing. When will this change? Maybe when "made in the USA" is the cheapest label globally (i.e., never). Hopefully, China will continue to buy our debt (misnomered "treasuries") so we can keep saving and losing at a rate that's somewhat bearable. We can also hope that global warming increases enough this winter to continue decreasing our electric/natgas/heating oil bills in advance of the public governing board meetings. Our only true solution is to become proud Americans again - spend as much as possible, buy houses!!!, save a tiny bit - to get not just our economy, but the world's economy, bustling again. Nothing else makes sense when you've made sense of it already.
-k (actually written 12/27)
Like me, a typical sensible person on a decreasing income, you have probably checked all your monthly bills and decided to cut back some services that you don't really need. For example, who needs that home phone when every family member has a cell phone? And why keep paying so much for those premium movie channels on cable - because they have more series than movies these days? Bet you also turned down the thermostat this winter, started leaving fewer lights on, maxed out the dishwasher every time, and YELLED "TOILET" whenever someone did not jiggle the handle correctly to save on the water bill. Ahh, yes, you are happy and proud of yourself for the work you put into lowering that energy bill (oops - I meant proud of yourself to have contributed to the glorious fight against global warming).
I am too - proud that is - of minimizing my usage of anything and everything (not the global warming part which is scientifically incompleat in my non-humble scientific mind).
But I'm not really saving much money! What happened here? Cable bill keeps getting higher. Phone bill too. They passed another increase in electricity rates. Upped the garbage/sewar fees. Water usage costs have gone up. And there's more - higher home insurance premiums, higher car and house property taxes, higher interest rates on those college loans for parents (how can they friggin' do that when US interest rates are almost zero?) Am I going nuts or are you going nuts too?
It's actually very scientific - the more we save, the more we lose. Just ask the Japanese about their economy for the last decade or so. Because individual Japanese citizens save huge amounts of money, there practically is no economy in Japan. (Here, 'economy' means buying and selling lots of unnecessary stuff to each other within your own country). Okay, the problems with the Japanese economy might not be a familiar subject in the USA so, although the analogy is accurate, it can be simplified.
Science is still science. The more we save, the more we lose. And when *everyone* saves more, we really really lose. Example: Power plants were built and designed to supply a specific, usually large, amount of electricity in a geographical area. But now residents like you and me aren't using as much electricity, those who lost their house are using no electricity, *and* every business - manufacturing, stores, gas stations, you-name-it - in the geographic area has cut back their energy use even more! Yet it costs the power plant companies just as much money and, in their opinion, more money than ever before to keep running *because* everyone decided to take their business away. Don't ask why - it's all rather economistic involving governing boards agreeing to rate hikes for the power company to pay off increasing debt at increasing interest rates because their income (our payments) have quit coming and they'd like to keep ahead of global warming.
Think of it this way. If you owned a good business but suddenly your business was bringing in 25% less money than before and your business has to pay its bills, you would increase your prices, right? Makes sense to the power companies and the public governing boards which always allow rate hikes (it's in their contract - to be on a 'public' governing board of a utility, you must misunderstand economically all the massive paper provided by the power company in its efforts to help the world's forests - er, I meant its efforts to "stay in business" because "it's too big to fail").
Of course, your attempt to increase prices in your own business would fail miserably as people would buy even less from you until you spiral down into bankruptcy because your company is too small to save. As a typical, fairly normal businessperson, you would indeed say that raising prices is the wrong approach when sales are declining rapidly. Maybe you would advertise more, mix up your product line, look at different consumer segments to add to the business, lower costs (yeah - try lowering that electric bill and see what happens!) etc. Your goal right now is to stay in business, not drive off your customers further. But you're not a 'public' utility/service or even a monopoly. You are sensible and base decisions on proven basic economic principles to keep your company going.
Public utilities and services, plus local monopolies, get to operate in their own economic stratosphere (do we still have one? I forget, maybe cause I'm freezing cold right now. Hey - what happened to global warming?) When the income for these businesses or operations go down, they raise prices to keep making money. Sometimes it is admittedly reasonable such as increasing the price I pay for garbage collection because there are 25% fewer homeowners paying for garbage service. And heck, it's hard to pay someone less for such an odorous job or find other cost-saving measures, especially as my home state keeps garbage cheaply, in landfills. And, unless you want to become Californian, those property taxes need to go up - again, since there are fewer homeowners and car owners here and our governor hates DC but loves Argentina, thereby already whacking off lots of public services along with other unmentionables.)
Power companies and water-supplying-whatever companies usually need to get the rates they charge customers approved by a public governing board. You would think these governing boards would be filled with atypical, mathematical-scientifical people who could weigh the pros and cons of, lets say, shutting down one power plant instead of increasing rates or maybe they'd ask the utilities for options on cost-cutting. But both the utilities and governing boards understand the game of rubber-stamping. Because, you know what? Those on the governing boards are actually typical and proly don't want to read that 500-page report. So your electric bill *will* go up along with your water bill and every other bill from a 'public' utility. (Though it's strange that some of these public utilities, especially power, are companies with stock for sale, etc., and don't seem very 'public' though my understanding of the word may be off).
Monopolies, on the other hand, live in heaven. I am absolutely enthralled by this one: the government broke up AT&T into little parts because AT&T had a monopoly on phone bills and charged customers whatever it wanted. The government thought that competition would lower phone bills. In my area, here comes Cingular - our premier cell phone company. And I am so happy to finally get rid of AT&T & just go cellular with Cingular. Next thing I know, Cingular has disappeared & my bills again leap higher because AT&T has taken over Cingular! Whatever happened to the original non-monopolistic plan? Watch out Sprint - you must be next cause I'm transitioning my cell phones over to you. And AT&T was born to be a monopoly.
Cable companies, including internet service connectors (I can't call them providers cause I really don't see them providing anything on the internet except the connection) also live in economic heaven. They will do anything to maintain their geographic dominance and increase prices to save money. Here's an actual Time Warner advertisement: Free HD upgrade for only $9.95 per month. How the heck can it be "free" if it costs $10 more a month? How can anyone allow this blatantly false ad to continue for months on end? Must be the television companies are sorely in need of money. Here's another Time Warner ploy: the promotional period for your plan has ended so the new price is $$$. Can someone explain to me how a plan I've had for 15 years suddenly became promotional?
So we can't save for losing, especially since we are all saving, thereby losing. When will this change? Maybe when "made in the USA" is the cheapest label globally (i.e., never). Hopefully, China will continue to buy our debt (misnomered "treasuries") so we can keep saving and losing at a rate that's somewhat bearable. We can also hope that global warming increases enough this winter to continue decreasing our electric/natgas/heating oil bills in advance of the public governing board meetings. Our only true solution is to become proud Americans again - spend as much as possible, buy houses!!!, save a tiny bit - to get not just our economy, but the world's economy, bustling again. Nothing else makes sense when you've made sense of it already.
-k (actually written 12/27)
Updating Computer Software Kills Computers
Updating computer software, especially operating system software, is more likely to degrade the functionality of the computer over time as compared to refusing all updates. Reasoning: (1) majority of computer replacement purchases are made because the computer has lost sufficient functionality (it's become too slow, DVD drive doesn't work, old software not working, won't wake up after hibernating, etc) rather than being motivated by getting the "latest & greatest" (although that adds some incentive) *plus* (2) upgraded operating system software inherently cannot account for all the tiny programming details in the myriad of computer devices & older software already on the computer & thereby creating, at the least, unresolvable conflicts. I would like to see the true impact of upgrading software vs. supposed benefits of upgrading (especially the obnoxious "security hole" or "security patch"). Additional proof (maybe): Older computers that have been automatically updated can still run great - once they are disconnected - forever - from the internet & repurposed for non-internet use such as playing DVDs or CDs or gaming for the youngest in the house.
-k
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I Am Typical, Why Aren't You?
I trade stocks and options regularly. My primary stock-trading hypothesis is that I am a typical person and can, by observing my own behavior, predict company earnings (although the earnings may not be reflected in the stock price). [And there are exceptions I make for certain company stocks that lend themselves to good chart or technical analysis instead of 'reality.'] Has worked well for me before, during and after this financial mess. Why do people assume that others are not at all like them and are going to behave differently?
Didn't you cut back the amount of money you spent this holiday compared to say 2005-2007? If so, why invest in company stocks that need the middle- to upper-class overspending to continue to meet and exceed company earnings expectations? Was your Walmart basket as large as usual when you left the store? Or did you search out the lowest-priced stores like Ross and strategize buying from the 80% off rack at Kohl's using a 30% coupon on top of that?
As to earning money in stock trading, your guess is as good as mine as long as you are self-aware. And you have to check my stock trading blog at
http://kathesstocktrading.blogspot.com/
to find out how I trade off being typical. (Don't worry - it's free, no sign-up required - I have proven myself completely unable to profit off other human beings using my specialized knowledge of any sort.) As a typical human being, I also forget to post things for days and I am utterably & completely not responsible for anything I write that you would possibly believe or act upon. I am typical, aren't I?
-k
Didn't you cut back the amount of money you spent this holiday compared to say 2005-2007? If so, why invest in company stocks that need the middle- to upper-class overspending to continue to meet and exceed company earnings expectations? Was your Walmart basket as large as usual when you left the store? Or did you search out the lowest-priced stores like Ross and strategize buying from the 80% off rack at Kohl's using a 30% coupon on top of that?
As to earning money in stock trading, your guess is as good as mine as long as you are self-aware. And you have to check my stock trading blog at
http://kathesstocktrading.blogspot.com/
to find out how I trade off being typical. (Don't worry - it's free, no sign-up required - I have proven myself completely unable to profit off other human beings using my specialized knowledge of any sort.) As a typical human being, I also forget to post things for days and I am utterably & completely not responsible for anything I write that you would possibly believe or act upon. I am typical, aren't I?
-k
Migraines, Medications & the Unscience of It All
You Can Experiment on Yourself
Belief: Migraines & headaches are not related to atmospheric pressure. Problems with studies conducted to date: (1) Using average pressure for the time (usually a day) and the geographical area (usually an airport miles away); (2) pressure not actually measured at location of person. Results -> no scientific research into pressure-based remedies for migraine sufferers, mucho $$$ for drug companies, little relief for migraine sufferers due to both cost of medicine and limitations on quantity of medicine imposed by health-care plans, and time lost by debilitating migraines. My experiment: Proved migraines caused by extreme pressures (low or high) when using hourly atmospheric pressure. Unique me - Left side of head does not drain (sinus or ear). Proved draining left side (with very cheap nasal spray) eliminated left-side migraines. Proved draining right side does not work at all. Hypothesis: My left side is completely blocked since it suddenly went deaf at age 14; I believe but cannot prove that a key drainage passage on my left side is blocked & I've never been able to get a doctor to investigate it. Another experiment: Proved elevating head well above the body while sleeping helps eliminate those wake-up migraines. Worked with either sleeping in a lazy-boy chair or using 2-3 fluffy pillows in bed. Also proved: not all migraines can be eliminated without the medications; instead, these experiments were done to eliminate/minimize some migraines due to limited quantity of medication on hand.
-k
Belief: Migraines & headaches are not related to atmospheric pressure. Problems with studies conducted to date: (1) Using average pressure for the time (usually a day) and the geographical area (usually an airport miles away); (2) pressure not actually measured at location of person. Results -> no scientific research into pressure-based remedies for migraine sufferers, mucho $$$ for drug companies, little relief for migraine sufferers due to both cost of medicine and limitations on quantity of medicine imposed by health-care plans, and time lost by debilitating migraines. My experiment: Proved migraines caused by extreme pressures (low or high) when using hourly atmospheric pressure. Unique me - Left side of head does not drain (sinus or ear). Proved draining left side (with very cheap nasal spray) eliminated left-side migraines. Proved draining right side does not work at all. Hypothesis: My left side is completely blocked since it suddenly went deaf at age 14; I believe but cannot prove that a key drainage passage on my left side is blocked & I've never been able to get a doctor to investigate it. Another experiment: Proved elevating head well above the body while sleeping helps eliminate those wake-up migraines. Worked with either sleeping in a lazy-boy chair or using 2-3 fluffy pillows in bed. Also proved: not all migraines can be eliminated without the medications; instead, these experiments were done to eliminate/minimize some migraines due to limited quantity of medication on hand.
-k
Weight Loss Myths
There's More than One Way to Lose a Pound But They Haven't Told You About It Yet
- Belief: Eating breakfast starts the process whereby you lose weight. Breakfast may start the digestive process for the day but digestion is not the same as losing weight. In my experience, eating breakfast (or lunch) makes me hungry for more food.
- Belief: Exercise is required to lose weight. I just lost 31 pounds in 2 months on a self-named "no activity" diet. And I literally mean *no activity* except using the computer, occasional errands, TV & reading (taking advantage of first months of "empty nest" syndrome). Based on simple scientific equation: Weight loss = calories eaten minus calories used.
- In fact, exercise may increase hunger &/or a person's perception of the amount of calories burned during exercise, resulting in gaining weight rather than losing weight. Also, the focus on exercise is a psychological/costly/time-consuming barrier to starting a weight loss program and may distract a person who should be counting calories.
- Belief: Weighing yourself regularly on a scale hurts your weight loss program. Think this has already been proven to be false. What better incentive than to visually see the results of your weight loss program? Also, I would like to see data on women's weight loss results over the winter compared to the summer. Hypothesis: It's easier to weigh yourself naked in the summer and trust the results of your weight loss program shown on the scale. Example: When I told my kids I had lost another 5 pounds, they said that I made up for it in added sweaters. (Sweet kids, aren't they.)
- Belief: Eating right before sleeping increases weight gain. Sorry, it's still weight loss = calories eaten minus calories used. Scientifically inaccurate myth.
I would love to see an experiment where group 1 eats the number of calories for their goal weight and is told they are *not allowed* to exercise. Compare that with group 2 who is told to lower their calories by exercise (any which way they want) every day, eating "right," etc to attain the same goal weight.
Hypothesis: Focusing on a single goal, namely fewer calories, will give group 1 the 'focus' a person needs to meet a specific goal and, therefore, group 1 will lose more weight than group 2, whereas group 2 will be subjected to our culture's belief in exercise, digestion, timing, etc that make weight-loss goals unattainable by simply lacking 'focus.'
-k
- Belief: Eating breakfast starts the process whereby you lose weight. Breakfast may start the digestive process for the day but digestion is not the same as losing weight. In my experience, eating breakfast (or lunch) makes me hungry for more food.
- Belief: Exercise is required to lose weight. I just lost 31 pounds in 2 months on a self-named "no activity" diet. And I literally mean *no activity* except using the computer, occasional errands, TV & reading (taking advantage of first months of "empty nest" syndrome). Based on simple scientific equation: Weight loss = calories eaten minus calories used.
- In fact, exercise may increase hunger &/or a person's perception of the amount of calories burned during exercise, resulting in gaining weight rather than losing weight. Also, the focus on exercise is a psychological/costly/time-consuming barrier to starting a weight loss program and may distract a person who should be counting calories.
- Belief: Weighing yourself regularly on a scale hurts your weight loss program. Think this has already been proven to be false. What better incentive than to visually see the results of your weight loss program? Also, I would like to see data on women's weight loss results over the winter compared to the summer. Hypothesis: It's easier to weigh yourself naked in the summer and trust the results of your weight loss program shown on the scale. Example: When I told my kids I had lost another 5 pounds, they said that I made up for it in added sweaters. (Sweet kids, aren't they.)
- Belief: Eating right before sleeping increases weight gain. Sorry, it's still weight loss = calories eaten minus calories used. Scientifically inaccurate myth.
I would love to see an experiment where group 1 eats the number of calories for their goal weight and is told they are *not allowed* to exercise. Compare that with group 2 who is told to lower their calories by exercise (any which way they want) every day, eating "right," etc to attain the same goal weight.
Hypothesis: Focusing on a single goal, namely fewer calories, will give group 1 the 'focus' a person needs to meet a specific goal and, therefore, group 1 will lose more weight than group 2, whereas group 2 will be subjected to our culture's belief in exercise, digestion, timing, etc that make weight-loss goals unattainable by simply lacking 'focus.'
-k
Nicotine is Not a Vice
In 30 Years, Medical Nicotine Approved in California
Nicotine is a self-medicating drug, highly used worldwide by those with mental illness because it works! (Caffeine works too but caffeine is not interchangeable with nicotine - they have different effects). I am interested in whether lung cancer in mental illness smokers exceeds damage caused by self-harm, harm to others, & basic cost to the community. Wonder if we can relate the higher-and-higher "sin tax" imposed on cigarettes to measurable impact(s) on those with a clear mental illness diagnosis. May be a difficult analysis in the midst of a recession. Note that there are many people self-medicating with nicotine, caffeine and alcohol throughout the world who have never been diagnosed with a mental illness. Also have read that not one person has died from second-hand smoke. And, indeed, I will never forget the psychiatrist's talk to a large group (>60 people) where he said, "Nicotine is not the problem. Nicotine is a great medicine. It's the delivery system - pulling tar and crap into the lungs - that is the problem."
-k
Nicotine is a self-medicating drug, highly used worldwide by those with mental illness because it works! (Caffeine works too but caffeine is not interchangeable with nicotine - they have different effects). I am interested in whether lung cancer in mental illness smokers exceeds damage caused by self-harm, harm to others, & basic cost to the community. Wonder if we can relate the higher-and-higher "sin tax" imposed on cigarettes to measurable impact(s) on those with a clear mental illness diagnosis. May be a difficult analysis in the midst of a recession. Note that there are many people self-medicating with nicotine, caffeine and alcohol throughout the world who have never been diagnosed with a mental illness. Also have read that not one person has died from second-hand smoke. And, indeed, I will never forget the psychiatrist's talk to a large group (>60 people) where he said, "Nicotine is not the problem. Nicotine is a great medicine. It's the delivery system - pulling tar and crap into the lungs - that is the problem."
-k
The Rich & Upper-Class & How They Got There
The Rich & Upper-Class & How They Stay There
Belief: Many "rich" people have more assets ("wealth") due to excessively high income. Maybe or maybe not. But it is certainly more complicated than people believe! Actually, the rich and upper-middle-class often spend their money more wisely on large items (buy a house early for the tax advantage, pick a house in a neighborhood that will hold its value, buy slightly-used cars, etc), save the max in their IRA & 401K from day 1 of work, pay credit cards off monthly while still gaining bonuses from the credit card company, invest wisely or at least look at their financial statements occasionally, research high-priced items before buying... Splurge when times are good with great vacations, eating out more, spending on their kids.. But, MOST IMPORTANT, cut back spending (23% - Business Week) in both obvious (cheaper or no vacations) and analytical ways (minimizing cable & phone bills, insulating house, lowering thermostat, checking for better auto and home insurance rates, putting off health & auto care) when times are bad. So they KEEP more of their assets (wealth) during the rough times. And consequently become relatively richer during economic downturns!
NOTE: The reverse is not true - poverty does not come from overspending. On the contrary, the above examples of spending and saving only apply to those who have disposable income (I'm thinking middle-class and above for a decent analysis).
-k
Belief: Many "rich" people have more assets ("wealth") due to excessively high income. Maybe or maybe not. But it is certainly more complicated than people believe! Actually, the rich and upper-middle-class often spend their money more wisely on large items (buy a house early for the tax advantage, pick a house in a neighborhood that will hold its value, buy slightly-used cars, etc), save the max in their IRA & 401K from day 1 of work, pay credit cards off monthly while still gaining bonuses from the credit card company, invest wisely or at least look at their financial statements occasionally, research high-priced items before buying... Splurge when times are good with great vacations, eating out more, spending on their kids.. But, MOST IMPORTANT, cut back spending (23% - Business Week) in both obvious (cheaper or no vacations) and analytical ways (minimizing cable & phone bills, insulating house, lowering thermostat, checking for better auto and home insurance rates, putting off health & auto care) when times are bad. So they KEEP more of their assets (wealth) during the rough times. And consequently become relatively richer during economic downturns!
NOTE: The reverse is not true - poverty does not come from overspending. On the contrary, the above examples of spending and saving only apply to those who have disposable income (I'm thinking middle-class and above for a decent analysis).
-k
Mental Illness and Violent Crime
Prevailing view is that mental illness increases violent crimes. Frontline example. Grrrr. Also wrote about this in 2003(?) using facts. Frankly, it is well-known in the mental health community that those with a mental illness are likely to be jailed for very minor, individual crimes; that most violent crimes are committed by those with no mental illness; and the violent crimes that are committed by those with mental illness are most likely to involve another person with mental illness (violence-on-violence). No one bothers to correct the myth - maybe because it helps get more funding and services for those with a mental illness! Good example of prevailing belief leading to *positive* unintended consequences.
-k
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Violent Profit-Making Begets Positive Consequences
Two Hundred Years of Unintended Safety
DuPont, the original gunpowder manufacturer in the US, made "safety" a core company belief/goal simply because it would lose experienced workers during gunpowder explosions. To this day, monthly safety meetings, counting seat-belt usage entering or exiting the plant, rewarding safety, & numerous other safety measures have kept DuPont a global leader in both on- and off-the-job safety records. Long denigrated for its roots in gunpowder manufacturing, the resulting enormous economic impact of safety on the company, its employees & local communities should be quantified and analyzed as a great example of win-win behavior.
[Note for compleat science: Certainly the gunpowder killed people in shootouts, crime and war at the time. But, whereas gunpowder manufacturing was discarded long ago by DuPont, the benefits of it's emphasis on safety continue to accumulate.]
-k
DuPont, the original gunpowder manufacturer in the US, made "safety" a core company belief/goal simply because it would lose experienced workers during gunpowder explosions. To this day, monthly safety meetings, counting seat-belt usage entering or exiting the plant, rewarding safety, & numerous other safety measures have kept DuPont a global leader in both on- and off-the-job safety records. Long denigrated for its roots in gunpowder manufacturing, the resulting enormous economic impact of safety on the company, its employees & local communities should be quantified and analyzed as a great example of win-win behavior.
[Note for compleat science: Certainly the gunpowder killed people in shootouts, crime and war at the time. But, whereas gunpowder manufacturing was discarded long ago by DuPont, the benefits of it's emphasis on safety continue to accumulate.]
-k
Happy Chaos or Brain Dump on Parenting, ed 1 12/22/09
Happy Chaos or Brain Dump on Parenting, edition 1
12/22/09
This was supposed to be in response to a dear old friend's Facebook message wishing me & my kids a happy holiday. But facebook said it was too long :< so it's a blog post instead. And I'm not adding disclaimers like "sorry if this sounds preachy" because I know you'll read it and understand the joy that underlies the hours I spent remembering, writing and creating it the last couple days. And I had no idea "this" would come out of my keyboard.
I laugh when I write & I write when I laugh. Such is magic.
Happy Chaos! (But Beware - Brain Dump on Parenting is Here)
Have fun with the little kids... Spoil them rotten while you can. By middle school, they'll be training you that you have no control whatsoever - except not doing those 50-presents-under-the-tree any more! Then plant seeds of independence & accountability with stories they'll never forget but will get irritated at you repeating. And yes, indeed, you walked 5 miles to school every day in five feet of snow - uphill - both ways. You became a florist at a young age just to have enough money to eat. Bought a junk car and fixed it yourself to keep it running. Only went to college out-of-state because you earned scholarships & spending money to afford it (keep secret the college savings you're building for them - more motivating if your child wants to escape their home state – while maxing out your retirement savings). Made sure you majored in something that would pay a salary after college because, sorry, kids aren't allowed to move home again. (Hey, even my ex-physics, now English-major kid, is supporting himself & my ex-psychology, now another English-major kid, is starting to support herself too.)
But this holiday let chaos reign and be a kid - get down on the floor, build trains, pretend you're a superhero (or the bad guy), lose at checkers and tic-tac-toe, have the kids use their intuition to figure out the rules of a new board game - be happy making up rules instead of boring them with actually reading the rules, spend hours doing puzzles and gluing them to hang on the wall forever, take millions of pix (which seem to last forever compared to video formats), build forts with all your furniture (yes, the furniture will be destroyed and need replacing in a few years - even an antique piano!), build doll houses and train tunnels with the kids, play with DOLLS with both boys and girls and play with CAR TRACKS with both boys and girls, eat uncooked cookie dough instead of baking it, plan on losing weight only *after* they all move out & the goodies are gone, make a mess and clean later - much later - like once a year, use a broom or rake to move their toys to the corner & let every toy lose pieces, eat candy canes and m&ms and fruitcake made from fermented fruit, sing carols all day, dance & dance more, get excited whenever they are excited, keep "facts" to yourself but never really lie, jump in piles of leaves even if they're full of dog poop, let them have animals of all kinds until everyone's older and the "wilder" animals like rabbits, turtles, & iguanas just walk off on their own; give funerals – candles and weeping when recalling the happiness of the loved one's life – immediately after the death of a beloved animal; play electronic games with the kids & become an expert (that's allowed - they'll be proud of you; I got the highest guitar-hero score for a first-timer in an entire college dorm and my son is damn proud of it still!); buy all the best and latest movies & games to attract their friends - video gaming does *not* affect their intelligence; never lose at Scrabble (let them show off their genius parents); buy things you don't need like complicated put-together-yourself furniture - desks with a million pieces for the budding engineer to build - they don't want instructions & it keeps them busy; give them books and more books and more books even if you have a great library; teach yourself to think about other things (dissociate) while reading several books to them before bed; let them paint their room black & get pierced & act goth because they won't be doing it when they're 30; forget teaching or insisting on healthy eating - kids like junk food, their friends like junk food, and yet they'll broaden their tastes way beyond you expect when they're older - I *hate* sushi though two kids love it but, on the good side, I now have a child who's a fellow cook/lover of East European & Russian cabbage & other hearty dishes - can't wait til he gets home for the holiday. forget making them do chores - it's just an endless cycle of arguments; make your house the one that all their friends want to visit including overnights every weekend - you'll actually *be* the best parents ever & your kid-friendly house continues to attract the high school, college and post-college friends so you know what they're doing & you will have great communication with your kids & their friends; keep rules to a maximum of 5 as in "I only have 5 rules and that's one of them;" put yourself in “time out” & tell the kids you're "putting yourself in time out” when you're angry & take extra time enjoying it (works great!); keep a sense of humor and calm regardless of the situation; try not to laugh when meeting with the elementary school principal because your child convinced 6 other children to beat on a bully while your child did not even touch the bully; buy a large box of condoms for each of the kids at age 12 - preferably when you have your son with a friend and, separately, your daughter with a friend - it's hilarious but you're actually taking care of your kids & letting your kids help their own friends when their parents won't, be a *DAD* they can talk to by doing the condom thing with both the boys and the girls without mom around - just this once - it's your only chance to get involved with both sexes about sex; give girls birth control pills as soon as possible because "birth control pills truly help PMS, cramps, etc"; encourage and train your kids to prioritize who they should talk to as in (1) you (parents), (2) lawyer, (3) you, (4) no one else until you figure it out and (5) never the cops unless/until you say so; find the absolute best child/adolescent psychiatrist (he/she will actually talk back to them as in "you're lying and we all know it so what is really happening") and start annual mental health checkups about age 10-12: if anyone objects just start going on-and-on about a friend who had children with problems but they had no one to talk to so they didn't know what to do; go out to fancy restaurants with the kids to create a family atmosphere of talking in an enjoyable neutral place that will never disappear - just bring a bunch of wind-up toys to play with at the table while waiting for food & they'll talk and behave at the same time; keep “eating out” a luxury item you'll pay for even during the worst recession as you've created “eating out” the most comfortable way for kid(s) to talk to parent(s) individually or all together and anywhere in the country; take your kid's current best friend on vacation with you to keep them busy and happy regardless of the cost; create family traditions that match your own sense of fun such as an endless game of monopoly during rainy vacations, appetizers (junk food) for New Years Eve and the Superbowl; be 'the place' to have an end-of-school pool (?) party, July 4th party, back-to-school party, spring break party, high school reunions, your kids' friends' birthday parties (heard yesterday, “By the way, Dom's birthday party is here on Tuesday”) ..., move all family birthdays to weekends and party at home just to have the most fun and interaction; make Mother's Day the day when mom can pretend she has no kids; do tell your kids that you are proud of them for “the thing they just did” while ignoring *all* parental advice from books and expert 'doctors' and especially your own parents and maybe me too; apologize to your kids for everything they think you did wrong to them as a child but only after they're 21 and feel like they have to complain to you; understand and sincerely accept your faults as a parent & share them with the kids after their rebellious years instead of waiting 50 years like my mother did.
But, most importantly, treat your wife – who's both your partner and your kids' mother - like a queen in every way possible; forget work as soon as you get home & get down on the floor with the kids to let mom take a rest – every day; let mom's rules be the law; always make mom more important than your own mother, especially on Mother's Day; take the kids – one or both, with or without their friends – to business conventions with you once they know how to eat in a good restaurant & handle a credit card and room key (ages 12-15): the kids will enjoy this rather weird experience, including looking at science/business display rooms & meeting your friends from far away even if your child is very shy, while their mom gets a much-needed escape from “kidness;” create chaos with the kids to eliminate chaos (weird but true); look at the household scientifically, using that big brain of yours, and make small but many ways to use yourself and kids combined to eliminate parts of the mess that are stressful to mom; think dispassionately, but apply passionately, your understanding and respect for mom in this most demanding job of all; and do let mom know that you & I have only talked – ever – and just enjoy prattling on about things sometimes.
You've heard the rather recent adage that you must take care of yourself first (put yourself first) before you can help others in your life, including your kids & their mom. But there's a misunderstanding here. People take it “globally” instead of rationally. It's right to put your basic mental and physical health first before becoming a good parent. That's equivalent to not allowing domestic violence of any sort. But most adults now take it to mean that controlling kids' behavior is the best way to take care of themselves. Examples abound but here's some I probably tried at one point or another – putting the kids in their room too early at night to get more “alone time” for myself; insisting on controlling the TV remote-control; making kids become scouts & join too many clubs the kids didn't want so I could get some free time; not letting kids keep toys in at least one living area of the house; making them clean up after themselves; etc. The best thing I ever did was to buy this “multi-area” house when the kids were 3, 5 & 7 – enough rooms/areas to have separate places of their own outside the bedroom. Yes, they trashed the areas they used. But ironically they also learned that leaving food out will attract ants and cockroaches that they have to take care of themselves; dirty dishes keep piling up until there is nothing to eat on, especially since mom started putting their dirty dishes back on their desk; clothes do not clean themselves & mom won't either because they're all over the floor; things left on the floor will be destroyed by the dogs and things left on their desk will be knocked off and broken by the cats; mom only buys things once regardless of their claim that the cat couldn't possibly have knocked that computer screen on the floor; it may be better to take care of their latest animal instead of watching it stink or die right where they play; and on-and-on. Mmmm – sounds like they learned responsibility and independence in the midst of chaos! And, you know what? They're damned proud of their own maturity once they see how clueless their college roommates are & they immediately become leaders in their dorm just because they know how to take care of themselves. Just wait – the stories coming back from college (and sometimes earlier in high school) – will be enormously entertaining and very satisfying.
So, instead of wishing you and your family a happy holiday, I am wishing you Happy Chaos.
And thanks to you for allowing me this opportunity for a brain dump before I start losing my memory again. Grrrrr – have to stop my memory-aide medicine due to unbearable side effects. Don't be surprised if it ends up in one of my blogs either. It may be the only place I can keep things I write instead of losing my thoughts – every time.
Happy Chaos!
-k
12/22/09
This was supposed to be in response to a dear old friend's Facebook message wishing me & my kids a happy holiday. But facebook said it was too long :< so it's a blog post instead. And I'm not adding disclaimers like "sorry if this sounds preachy" because I know you'll read it and understand the joy that underlies the hours I spent remembering, writing and creating it the last couple days. And I had no idea "this" would come out of my keyboard.
I laugh when I write & I write when I laugh. Such is magic.
Happy Chaos! (But Beware - Brain Dump on Parenting is Here)
Have fun with the little kids... Spoil them rotten while you can. By middle school, they'll be training you that you have no control whatsoever - except not doing those 50-presents-under-the-tree any more! Then plant seeds of independence & accountability with stories they'll never forget but will get irritated at you repeating. And yes, indeed, you walked 5 miles to school every day in five feet of snow - uphill - both ways. You became a florist at a young age just to have enough money to eat. Bought a junk car and fixed it yourself to keep it running. Only went to college out-of-state because you earned scholarships & spending money to afford it (keep secret the college savings you're building for them - more motivating if your child wants to escape their home state – while maxing out your retirement savings). Made sure you majored in something that would pay a salary after college because, sorry, kids aren't allowed to move home again. (Hey, even my ex-physics, now English-major kid, is supporting himself & my ex-psychology, now another English-major kid, is starting to support herself too.)
But this holiday let chaos reign and be a kid - get down on the floor, build trains, pretend you're a superhero (or the bad guy), lose at checkers and tic-tac-toe, have the kids use their intuition to figure out the rules of a new board game - be happy making up rules instead of boring them with actually reading the rules, spend hours doing puzzles and gluing them to hang on the wall forever, take millions of pix (which seem to last forever compared to video formats), build forts with all your furniture (yes, the furniture will be destroyed and need replacing in a few years - even an antique piano!), build doll houses and train tunnels with the kids, play with DOLLS with both boys and girls and play with CAR TRACKS with both boys and girls, eat uncooked cookie dough instead of baking it, plan on losing weight only *after* they all move out & the goodies are gone, make a mess and clean later - much later - like once a year, use a broom or rake to move their toys to the corner & let every toy lose pieces, eat candy canes and m&ms and fruitcake made from fermented fruit, sing carols all day, dance & dance more, get excited whenever they are excited, keep "facts" to yourself but never really lie, jump in piles of leaves even if they're full of dog poop, let them have animals of all kinds until everyone's older and the "wilder" animals like rabbits, turtles, & iguanas just walk off on their own; give funerals – candles and weeping when recalling the happiness of the loved one's life – immediately after the death of a beloved animal; play electronic games with the kids & become an expert (that's allowed - they'll be proud of you; I got the highest guitar-hero score for a first-timer in an entire college dorm and my son is damn proud of it still!); buy all the best and latest movies & games to attract their friends - video gaming does *not* affect their intelligence; never lose at Scrabble (let them show off their genius parents); buy things you don't need like complicated put-together-yourself furniture - desks with a million pieces for the budding engineer to build - they don't want instructions & it keeps them busy; give them books and more books and more books even if you have a great library; teach yourself to think about other things (dissociate) while reading several books to them before bed; let them paint their room black & get pierced & act goth because they won't be doing it when they're 30; forget teaching or insisting on healthy eating - kids like junk food, their friends like junk food, and yet they'll broaden their tastes way beyond you expect when they're older - I *hate* sushi though two kids love it but, on the good side, I now have a child who's a fellow cook/lover of East European & Russian cabbage & other hearty dishes - can't wait til he gets home for the holiday. forget making them do chores - it's just an endless cycle of arguments; make your house the one that all their friends want to visit including overnights every weekend - you'll actually *be* the best parents ever & your kid-friendly house continues to attract the high school, college and post-college friends so you know what they're doing & you will have great communication with your kids & their friends; keep rules to a maximum of 5 as in "I only have 5 rules and that's one of them;" put yourself in “time out” & tell the kids you're "putting yourself in time out” when you're angry & take extra time enjoying it (works great!); keep a sense of humor and calm regardless of the situation; try not to laugh when meeting with the elementary school principal because your child convinced 6 other children to beat on a bully while your child did not even touch the bully; buy a large box of condoms for each of the kids at age 12 - preferably when you have your son with a friend and, separately, your daughter with a friend - it's hilarious but you're actually taking care of your kids & letting your kids help their own friends when their parents won't, be a *DAD* they can talk to by doing the condom thing with both the boys and the girls without mom around - just this once - it's your only chance to get involved with both sexes about sex; give girls birth control pills as soon as possible because "birth control pills truly help PMS, cramps, etc"; encourage and train your kids to prioritize who they should talk to as in (1) you (parents), (2) lawyer, (3) you, (4) no one else until you figure it out and (5) never the cops unless/until you say so; find the absolute best child/adolescent psychiatrist (he/she will actually talk back to them as in "you're lying and we all know it so what is really happening") and start annual mental health checkups about age 10-12: if anyone objects just start going on-and-on about a friend who had children with problems but they had no one to talk to so they didn't know what to do; go out to fancy restaurants with the kids to create a family atmosphere of talking in an enjoyable neutral place that will never disappear - just bring a bunch of wind-up toys to play with at the table while waiting for food & they'll talk and behave at the same time; keep “eating out” a luxury item you'll pay for even during the worst recession as you've created “eating out” the most comfortable way for kid(s) to talk to parent(s) individually or all together and anywhere in the country; take your kid's current best friend on vacation with you to keep them busy and happy regardless of the cost; create family traditions that match your own sense of fun such as an endless game of monopoly during rainy vacations, appetizers (junk food) for New Years Eve and the Superbowl; be 'the place' to have an end-of-school pool (?) party, July 4th party, back-to-school party, spring break party, high school reunions, your kids' friends' birthday parties (heard yesterday, “By the way, Dom's birthday party is here on Tuesday”) ..., move all family birthdays to weekends and party at home just to have the most fun and interaction; make Mother's Day the day when mom can pretend she has no kids; do tell your kids that you are proud of them for “the thing they just did” while ignoring *all* parental advice from books and expert 'doctors' and especially your own parents and maybe me too; apologize to your kids for everything they think you did wrong to them as a child but only after they're 21 and feel like they have to complain to you; understand and sincerely accept your faults as a parent & share them with the kids after their rebellious years instead of waiting 50 years like my mother did.
But, most importantly, treat your wife – who's both your partner and your kids' mother - like a queen in every way possible; forget work as soon as you get home & get down on the floor with the kids to let mom take a rest – every day; let mom's rules be the law; always make mom more important than your own mother, especially on Mother's Day; take the kids – one or both, with or without their friends – to business conventions with you once they know how to eat in a good restaurant & handle a credit card and room key (ages 12-15): the kids will enjoy this rather weird experience, including looking at science/business display rooms & meeting your friends from far away even if your child is very shy, while their mom gets a much-needed escape from “kidness;” create chaos with the kids to eliminate chaos (weird but true); look at the household scientifically, using that big brain of yours, and make small but many ways to use yourself and kids combined to eliminate parts of the mess that are stressful to mom; think dispassionately, but apply passionately, your understanding and respect for mom in this most demanding job of all; and do let mom know that you & I have only talked – ever – and just enjoy prattling on about things sometimes.
You've heard the rather recent adage that you must take care of yourself first (put yourself first) before you can help others in your life, including your kids & their mom. But there's a misunderstanding here. People take it “globally” instead of rationally. It's right to put your basic mental and physical health first before becoming a good parent. That's equivalent to not allowing domestic violence of any sort. But most adults now take it to mean that controlling kids' behavior is the best way to take care of themselves. Examples abound but here's some I probably tried at one point or another – putting the kids in their room too early at night to get more “alone time” for myself; insisting on controlling the TV remote-control; making kids become scouts & join too many clubs the kids didn't want so I could get some free time; not letting kids keep toys in at least one living area of the house; making them clean up after themselves; etc. The best thing I ever did was to buy this “multi-area” house when the kids were 3, 5 & 7 – enough rooms/areas to have separate places of their own outside the bedroom. Yes, they trashed the areas they used. But ironically they also learned that leaving food out will attract ants and cockroaches that they have to take care of themselves; dirty dishes keep piling up until there is nothing to eat on, especially since mom started putting their dirty dishes back on their desk; clothes do not clean themselves & mom won't either because they're all over the floor; things left on the floor will be destroyed by the dogs and things left on their desk will be knocked off and broken by the cats; mom only buys things once regardless of their claim that the cat couldn't possibly have knocked that computer screen on the floor; it may be better to take care of their latest animal instead of watching it stink or die right where they play; and on-and-on. Mmmm – sounds like they learned responsibility and independence in the midst of chaos! And, you know what? They're damned proud of their own maturity once they see how clueless their college roommates are & they immediately become leaders in their dorm just because they know how to take care of themselves. Just wait – the stories coming back from college (and sometimes earlier in high school) – will be enormously entertaining and very satisfying.
So, instead of wishing you and your family a happy holiday, I am wishing you Happy Chaos.
And thanks to you for allowing me this opportunity for a brain dump before I start losing my memory again. Grrrrr – have to stop my memory-aide medicine due to unbearable side effects. Don't be surprised if it ends up in one of my blogs either. It may be the only place I can keep things I write instead of losing my thoughts – every time.
Happy Chaos!
-k
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