Mr. Ryan, I Did Take Responsibility!

Paul Ryan seems to think the 47 percent of us relying on government assistance like unemployment, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., didn’t even try to take responsibility for our retirement or make a contingency plan for bad economic times. He is young and idealistic. His economic education is gotten from a Russian immigrant who wrote science fiction that was so lame it wasn’t even published until the 1950s and who believed in the “virtue of selfishness”. Objectivism was her philosophical contribution that she dumped in our laps based on her disappointment with the Russian socialist system in which she lived. Yet she cashed each and every Social Security check she received from our US government.

Is Paul Ryan aware that only 21 percent of companies in the US provided retirement plans for their employees in 2012 and 92 percent offer a 401(k) plan that is usually invested for the employee in the stock market or in company stock? Only 68% of those companies offering a 401(k) plan provide any matching funds. Without SS and Medicare, seniors are truly on their own at a time when they can least afford it. Will the millenials (those who grew up in the turbulent 2000s) be disciplined enough to budget for their own retirement 35-40 years in advance or will they spend it on luxuries and necessities now? How does that position them for their "golden years"? How will they fare without a social safety net if Mr. Ryan is elected and establishes his own version of the dystopian world of Ayn Rand?

For most of the members of my generation there were 3 legs to our retirement stool on which we could count to see us through the retirement years: investing in a home, contributing to a savings account, and social security benefits at age 66. I was born in 1946, the first year of the birth of the Boomer generation. There were no 401(k)’s till 1980, no IRAs till 1986, and no retirement was offered to most of us who worked for someone else. In 1980 when 401(k)’s were introduced not all companies jumped on the bandwagon to offer them to their employees. The first time I had the opportunity to invest in a 401(k) was in 1992. There was a maximum contribution at that time of 15% based on my salary that eventually increased to 20% in the late 1990s. These contributions were tax deferred and depended on mutual funds and the stock market for growth. The plans were subject to the volatility of the stock market, and employer and government restrictions. Whenever we took money out of these accounts, we had to pay income tax at the current rate of taxation because taxes on contributions to these accounts had been deferred. Those of us willing to sacrifice and put money in savings accounts, and 401(k)’s saw our nest eggs decimated during the 911 crises and again in 2008 with the real estate crash. Now most of us are relying on our savings and SS since our homes have lost value. What will millenials do to save for their retirements? Everyone grows old. Everyone must plan for it. But not everyone has enough discretionary cash to save when getting an education and/or raising a family. It's easy to say, do this or do that and plan ahead this way. It's quite another thing to actually put a plan into practice. I followed the recommendations of retirement planners in the 1980s and 1990s and I lost my savings, my home value, and now I am relying on SS and Medicare (which I paid into all my life) to see me through my "golden years". I have made a few wise economic moves and I am stable. I don't want to rely on my children because they should be saving for their own retirement. Right now, the "gold" in my golden years is looking very tarnished and I might have to sell it as scrap to scrape by. I am planning to go back to work as soon as the economy picks up. Maybe next year?

Happy Labor Day

I just wanted to reprint one of my favorite quotes today from a lady who puts the "I built this" statement in perspective. My personal view, probably coming from the "hippie generation" is that the United States has survived as a Democracy this long because of our dependence on an implied social contract that ultimately protects freedom for everyone. Following is her quote that I believe best illustrates my philosophy.

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there— good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea— God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." - Elizabeth Warren

What If…?

What if the US government no longer existed? What if corporations bought the right to carve our country up into “corporate controlled regions” with their own forms of governance? What if travelling was forbidden without permission? What if voting had been suspended and we no longer could elect government officials? What if hate groups and religious zealots fought for and against these regional governments?  Hitler’s Germany doesn’t seem so far removed from this, does it?

Today, corporate entities that violated our laws and plunged our nation into near financial ruin have not been investigated or brought up on any charges. They probably never will. The religious voice has almost drowned out all secular interests. These two entities are now crying “class warfare” and “religious persecution” while collecting huge amounts of money and overturning legal rulings through deception and subterfuge.

Robert A. Heinlein wrote a silly book in 1982 called “Friday” that deals with a similar scenario. It is sophomoric and probably meant mostly for pre-pubescent males but its story line could be a follow-up to what’s happening in our society now. We have a national politically conservative group that is working very hard to disenfranchise minorities and underprivileged socio-economic groups, roll-back women’s rights, dismantle Medicare and Social Security, and make the top 1% even richer than they have become over the past two decades.

Wealth and power funneled to the top of the corporate world could lead to the formation of regions of the US into “mini corporate-countries” with their boards of directors acting as governing bodies, controlling the lives and livelihoods of those citizens within their borders. (In my opinion, the only difference between Heinlein’s Science Fiction and reality is that his Sci-Fi postulates and reality actuates. If it can be conceived, it can be done.) Stranger things have happened in my lifetime. Who knew that out of George Orwell’s book “Nineteen Eighty-Four” could come our own “Big Brother” in the form of the Internet and our cell phones? Every move we make and every word we speak can be tracked mechanically, without our knowledge. We would be hard pressed to go OFF the grid, and it is almost impossible to function without a phone, without the Internet, & without credit cards. Corporations want our information and this is how they get it. Three credit agencies will gladly give our credit histories to any bank that pays for it.

Below is my view of what the “Balkanization of the US” by corporate interests might look like. This could become a global dystopian nightmare. Corporations would control the manufacture and distribution of most of the necessities of life and may even have control over who lives and who dies if healthcare is corporatized. My family thought I was crazy to lobby against segregation before it became illegal. They think I’m crazy to declare that I’m for same-sex marriage, for equal pay, for the right of a woman to choose, for taxing the rich at a higher rate, for Medicare for all, and more. What if…I’m right?

Area                                                                  Industry
California & Western Plains                     Communication and IT 

Texas & Gulf Coast                                  Petroleum & Natural Gas

NY & Northeast                                       Finance

Michigan & North Central                       Transportation

Tennessee Valley & Mid-Central             Agriculture

Hemp - the next King Cotton in the US?

I found this chart on another blog - http://jobsanger.blogspot.com - and it struck me that there may be another reason that hemp is illegal to grow in the US...COTTON! Cotton growers might have some real competition if restrictions on growing hemp were lifted. (from Wikipedia) "In modern times hemp is used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, clothing, biodegradable plastics, construction (as with Hemcrete and insulation), body products, health food and bio-fuel. Hemp is thus legally grown in many countries across the world including Spain, China, Japan, Korea, France, North Africa and Ireland. Although hemp is commonly associated with marijuana (hemp's THC-rich cousin), since 2007 the commercial success of hemp food products has grown considerably." Woody Harrelson has been advocating this for years and serves as a member on NORML's advisory board. Now we need to get a hemp lobby the size of the COTTON lobby.

Wisdom of the Airline Flight Attendant Speech...

After I have boarded my flight and settled into the cramped seat, (crawling over the two other passengers who got on ahead of me), the flight attendant begins his/her safety and information speech, "Good Morning and welcome aboard Flight blah blah blah, to blah blah blah. We would now like to tell you about some important safety features on board this aircraft, the blah blah blah." About halfway through the monologue, the part that is most confusing to many moms goes like this. "In the rare event of a loss of cabin pressure face masks will drop down from the over head bins. Stick the mask over your nose area like the flight attendant is doing now and please put the mask over your mouth before one of your children and then help your child." This is anathema to motherly instincts. I have heard, "What, me take a breath before my child? Impossible." But there is much wisdom in that statement which should be applicable in everyday life too. Moms traditionally have been the caretakers of children and today there are many more fathers pitching in so this also applies to those dads who are equal or primary caretakers. Take care of yourself or you may not be physically or mentally able to take care of your children. Rest, proper nutrition, time away from "kid stuff" could re-energize your body to cope with the chaos and joys of childcare. Children will benefit from an alert, rested parent who's ready to play, help with homework, cook a nutritious meal, or (heaven forbid) mete out discipline without too much anger. I don't have a lot of experience taking care of children except for raising my two sisters starting when I was eleven years old and continuing through college. I wish I had listened more closely to the flight attendant speech back then. It's hard to "put the mask over your mouth" first, but a parent without a break is a broken parent. Children can see this and will capitalize on your vulnerabilities. Kids aren't mean, they are just opportunistic, and they can participate or they can rule.

A Few Aliases for Willard Mitt Romney, GOP Presidential Candidate

Here are a few aliases of the GOP Presidential candidate, from the US, and a few from overseas. I remember some aliases for Bill Clinton, (Slick Willie, The Comeback Kid, The First Black President), Richard Nixon, (Tricky Dick), George W. Bush, (Dubya), and Barack Obama, (No Drama Obama). I'm sure there were some very clever nicknames for almost all of our presidents, but this list seems rather long for just a presidential candidate.

The Stormin’ Mormon
Wall Street Willie
Mittens
King of Bain
the American Borat
Mitt the Twit
Mitt the Hypocrite
Vulture Capitalist
The False Profit

And from the Twitter world:
#RomneySecretServiceCodeName
Super PACman
Pink Slip
Extra Starch
Leather Mittens
Private Sector
Offshore Account
DADDY WARBUCKS
Latter Day Snooze
Silver Spoon
Capitol Gains
Willard Vanillard

Kiss The Holocene Epoch Goodbye

The Holocene is the 11,700 years of stable environmental weather since the last major glacial epoch (ice age), in other words, now. But since the industrial revolution, humans have contributed huge amounts of carbon emissions that have sped up the timeline to our extinction as a viable species on Earth. “Habitat destruction, pollution, and other factors are causing an ongoing mass extinction of plant and animal species; according to some projections, 20% of all plant and animal species on Earth will be extinct within the next 25 years” – University of CA Museum of Paleontology. At the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, the only agreement 167 of the major polluting countries in the world would sign was to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Today we have measured the rise in global temperature at 0.8 degrees Celsius. That means we are almost halfway to the maximum rise considered to be survivable. And we are running out of time. The companies lobbying hardest to avoid any restrictions on their ability to make profits from polluting our atmosphere will not survive when oceans rise, drought greatly reduces our food supply, water becomes more expensive than gasoline, and our human species can no longer survive in such a hostile environment. Those companies will have to be nationalized and their corporate wealth spent creating a safe place for humans to live on a dying planet.

I’m just sayin’…

A New "Best Friend"?

We adopted a puppy in May of this year that had been left on the side of the road to fend for herself. I was told that an older couple stopped their car, put her out, and drove away. I will not judge them although I can think of many other and more humane ways to surrender a pet one cannot keep. This puppy is about 8 months old and may be what I call a chi-weenie-meow. That is...part chihuahua and part dachshund, with a cat-like attitude. An employee at the veterinarian we used for Pica, our "best-friend" for 17.5 years, called us while we were on a short get-away in Gulfport, MS and New Orleans, LA to ask if we would be interested in adopting again. That Thursday after we got back, I went over to meet this skinny little hybrid. She had been cleaned up, sported a pink collar and pink nail polish. She was chihuahua-like with the curled tail and enormous ears, dachshund-like with a long snout, longer body and beady little eyes, and she arched her back cat-like while looking at me as if to say "Wha's up, human?". I decided to let my husband meet her. If she didn't bite him and he agreed, we would take her home. It wasn't love at first sight for either of us. She was hyper, nipped my fingers and toes and clothes, howled instead of barking, jumped tall buildings in a single bound, and ate her food in courses instead of all-at-one-time. In other words, she was NOT like Pica. But I saw something in those mischievous narrow-lidded eyes. I decided to exaggerate the distinction between this odd little red-coated rescue dog and my black-coated Pica by naming her something totally different and foreign. I had lived in Japan for 3.5 years and remembered the Japanese word for "little". But there was no English spelling to match so I phonetically spelled her new name...Chee-Sy, (pronounced chee-sigh). I registered her with my former Pet Insurance company (VPI in Brea, CA) and got her all her shots, had her spayed, bought her a crate, a harness for walks, and a name tag with our phone numbers on it. Since we adopted her in May she has learned to play fetch and return the fetched item to me, is (cross-fingers) potty-trained, sleeps with us throughout the night, has become my alarm clock although I cannot re-set her timer for later than 5:50am, watches TV, barks at zip-lock bags, eats sweet-gum balls and mulch, patrols the back yard for trespassing squirrels, and occasionally requires a bath after rolling in something foul-smelling. It is very hard not to compare Chee-Sy to Pica whenever she does something or looks like or sounds like Pica. We even catch ourselves calling her Pica or some of Pica's nicknames at times, but she is a very different dog and that's a good thing! The comparisons are comforting and the differences are entertaining. She is becoming my new "best friend" which means I am coming close to the end of my grieving for Pica. I will have moments when I remember my "first best friend" and I will be sad but the sadness fades. Chee-Sy, with all her special personality traits, is filling the hole in my heart where Pica once lived and is becoming my "new best friend".

Might the opposite be true?

It seems odd to me that when taxes were progressive (like 70% on top earners back in the 70s and 80s) our economy was doing well, or at least a lot better than today's economy. When we reduced the top tax rates and got rid of banking restrictions (Bush tax cuts and repeal of Glass-Steagall) our economy started its downward slide, tanking in 2008. The "job creators" (the top earners) now paid far fewer taxes on their income and our financial institutions took crazy risks and invented products that were economic time-bombs. Could it be that the wealthy, when taxed more heavily, have an incentive to make more money thus creating more businesses which means more jobs and shared prosperity? And is it possible that when our financial institutions are regulated they actually help create a more stable economy? Just asking.

Living every day as if it were the last?

What would I do if I knew today would be my last day alive? I guess I would review how I have spent the last 65+ years, the regrets, and the joys. I would call people I love and say goodbye and apologize to them for all my transgressions. I would cry from fear of the unknown. I would try to change my fate so I could have one more day, or week, or year. "Knowing" that today would be the last time I would see or feel, love and be loved, laugh, cry, smell, eat…”knowing” would be the worst part about the whole day. I might even consider suicide to stop the emotional pain of “knowing”. Obviously this makes a good case for the axiom “If we knew our future, we wouldn’t have one.” But I wouldn’t want the end to come any sooner. I would cling to every second I knew I had remaining. I might even hope that there was a God and that all the stories about everlasting life were true just so "I" wouldn't end. Examining what my actions and emotions might be based on my last day alive makes me consider what I should do with the rest of my days beginning today. I don’t know how long that will be but based on actuarial data, I have about 20 more years, or approximately 7,300 days left. I could go crazy lining up 7,300 projects and my daily circumstances would dictate how most of those days would be spent, totally out of my control. Living every day as if it were my last might be filled with disappointment if I didn’t have a 24-hour plan in advance of each day and be unable to complete every item in that plan. That is not really living. That is acting as if I were living, planning to live, like scripting my life. So I guess I will continue to do all those everyday living things like eating, sleeping, cleaning, shopping, going to doctors appointments, watering plants, paying bills, making a will, surfing the internet…all the things that are at times mindless and at other times maddening. I am already living every day as if it were my last.

Now I Understand…but it doesn’t help much

Last night I had a huge insight into why I feel so bad after the death of My Best Friend, Pica. For the past 17.5 years she has been my dependant, my furkid, and I performed all the everyday living tasks for her that she couldn’t do for herself. I fed her, made sure her water bowl was full at all times, washed her bedding, took her to the vet annually or when I thought she was sick, took her out to pee and poop, I bathed her, played with her, took her for walks, bought her toys and food, made sure she got flea and tick and heartworm prevention every month, loved her. After her death on February 8, my services are longer needed. We picked up her ashes at the vet on February 10^th, one of the final, final things to do. It has only been 3 days since she died. I don’t have My Best Friend to take care of anymore. I am at a loss for what to do next. This is the time when most people would look for another pet, but I have analyzed that scenario and decided that is not an option for me. The pain of loss is too great to do it again in another 15 years or so. I’m 65 years old. I will be selling my home in another 5 years and would probably have a hard time finding a rental that takes pets. Living on a fixed income does not leave a lot of discretionary money available to care for another dependant. What if I died before my new Best Friend did? And I just don’t want to feel this bad ever again. Reasons and excuses? Maybe. Right now I would seek grief counseling but I’m not sure Medicare covers any mental health issues. So I will busy myself by scouring my digital photo albums for pictures of Pica and putting them all together in one place. I will organize all her health records that I have kept throughout her life (yes, I kept everything, even her baby teeth). I have already put her blanket and clothes and leashes and other keepsakes inside the crate that was HER home. Slowly, I will become more accustomed to not seeing her coming down the hall to tell me she has to go out or that it is bedtime. Eventually I will realize that I don’t have to get home quickly from shopping to make sure she is OK. At some time in the future I will be able to sleep through the night without thinking I hear her waking up to go out. Life will morph into a new normal for me, without My Best Friend. And although I believe I better understand the dynamics of loss and grief, why I miss her so much, and that I was just as dependent on her as she was on me, it doesn’t help much.

My Best Friend…the end.

On February 8, 2012 at about 3pm my husband and I gave our 17.5 year-old Chihuahua, Pica, some peace and freedom from pain. She had been a robust ten pounds just a few months earlier and Wednesday we didn’t want to weigh her because we knew she probably was less than six pounds. Our Veterinarian was so kind. He gave us as much time with her as we wanted. After he gave her the sedative, she started breathing easier and slowly went to sleep in my lap. I watched her chest go in and out smoothly. She was finally resting, as she had not been able to do for over 24 hours. We watched her breathe, we stroked her, we told her we loved her, we called her all of the nicknames we had given her over the years like Baby, Pica Poo, Boogie, Monkey Face, etc. It was comforting to us because I now realize she probably couldn’t hear us. Then Dr. Houston came in and sat next to me to administer the Phenobarbital that would stop her heart. There was an involuntary bodily reaction to breathe a couple of times more and then her chest stopped moving. I held her in my lap a few minutes longer and we continued to stroke her and kiss her and say our goodbyes. Then I spread out her “Winnie the Pooh” baby blanket with my left hand while holding her limp body in my right hand. I gently laid her body in the middle of the blanket and carefully folded it around her. I took back the edge that was covering her head and kissed her once more and whispered “I love you my precious”. Then we called in my good friend Beth who works at the Vet clinic to carry Pica to the back of the clinic to await the arrival of the people from “My Pets At Rest” pet crematorium. I knew Beth would find a safe place to put her body. Beth had tears in her eyes. She had helped take care of Pica since 2006. Dr. Houston came back in and assured us that in the six years Pica had been his patient he knew we had done everything we could for her and even now, this was the right thing to do. Pica gave us so much joy. It is so very hard to let go. Everywhere in the house there is some reminder of her from the dog food I had cooked for her in the refrigerator and freezer to her poop in the front yard to the picture of her, sleeping on our bed, on my computer desktop. It has been two days and we still cry each time we remember something she used to do. I remember we would give her a bath, which she hated, and afterwards she would race around the house till she was almost dry. When we took her to an open field she would run to me and as I touched her she would turn around and run towards my husband. Back and forth she would go until she was tired. At about 10 pm each night she would come down the hall, stand in the doorway to the living room and bark that it was time to come to bed. Before she got too sick, she slept with us, her back to my back. Occasionally in the middle of the night she would turn over and knead my back with her paws, almost like a cat, before she went back to sleep. When we lived in Lancaster, CA Pica and I would walk to the Starbucks every Saturday morning so I could get my caffeine fix and she could do her morning poopie and pee. At home she loved to fetch her toy that had a squeaker inside and she would push it up against a hard surface and make it squeak over and over. I never taught her to do any of these things. They were all her invention. She was afraid of thunder and fireworks and paced and panted through loud storms and on July 4^th each year. When we drove the moving truck from CA to MS, she sat on a thick blanket and sniffed all the interesting smells, through the air conditioning vent, along the route we drove. Pica even rode in an airplane from GA to CA. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience for her. I really hope there is a good reason that dogs don’t live longer because I can’t think of any good ones right now. Sometimes nature sucks! I enjoyed Pica a lot longer than most dog owners do and I am grateful for all the gifts she gave me, even the stinky ones. It will take a long time for my husband and me to get used to the silence and emptiness. We have holes in our hearts where Pica used to live.