I'm not sure that I really expected to see you again, but I definitely didn't think that the last time I saw you would be the last time I would ever have a chance to see you.
I still remember you vividly, smoking with the wind blowing your hair sideways, squinting to keep the smoke out of your eyes.
"What are you going to do?" I asked
"I don't know, whatever pays the most to do the least." You said with a teasing smile, one that I had come to know too well on countless weekend mornings. Your humility was a good match for your dry humor, you may have had a penchant for slacking off whenever you could, but it was never the same as shirking responsibility.
I can remember the first time I saw that mischevious grin, you were sitting in my aunt's car, playing with a toy made for toddlers, trying your best to make it work in a way it was never designed. One hand holding the dial firmly in place while the other finessed the lever with precision. "The cow says - The cow says - The cow says - The cow - The cow - The cow- The cow says MOOO."
I had all but forgotten you until I got my first job where you were already a seasoned veteran. On my first day, you offered to help me take out the trash, at first I resisted, indicating that I could lift the can alone, but after one flash of that troublesome smirk, I never had to question you again... Trash-Breaks we came to call them... Once the can was emptied and the overfilled dumpster had been smashed down enough to close, what more was there do to but catch a few minutes of conversation and smoke before returning to the hectic pace of the kitchen.
Outside the building, near the nook where you liked to hide from the wind, there was a hole in the siding where you would deposit your snuffed out butts. Another cook who you worked with before my time had started the tradition, and you continued out of sheer curiousity, wondering where they went, feeling as though the wall should have surely filled up and overflowed by now. That is, until one day when someone called the fire department because the building was smoldering. No one was ever sure whether it was because of a cigarette or some other cause, I think the official declaration was electrical fire, but we all snickered quietly knowing that every restaurant in the building had a smoker who dropped butts in the hole. We always assumed that someone dropped one in while it was still smoldering, but how can you find out about something like that without self-incrimination?
I know you were glad that you hadn't smoked that day, but we didn't really talk about it, you were afraid that Sheila would find out and fire you or turn you in, even though she rarely did more than give us a sideways glare when we got into trouble. Now that I think about it, you probably never told anyone about that who didn't already know.
At lunch-time one day, you over heard me making an order and introduced me to an invention of your own, the B.L.T.T. (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Tuna). The combination never seemed right in language, but I tried it anyway, knowing that I could hassle you for a few days if it was disgusting. Like yourself, the sandwich represented a combination of it's own individually meritous objects which you wouldn't expect to blend into such a unique experience.
I liked it enough to have it again several times, once getting too lazy with my hand-writing, making the head-cook Stefan proclaim loudly "What is a BUTT Sandwich?" Which is exactly what he and I called it from that point forward.
That is the kind of humor which keeps you level in a stressful environment, everyone in the kitchen would laugh when you would beat eggs in our two gallon jars with the giant wisk. The vigorous up and down motion always made you smile and we all knew what was on your mind.
On a particular weekend morning, several people had called in sick, you and I joked about sneaking out of the kitchen and calling Sheila from the payphone, even though she'd already seen us at work. I found some way to get outside and call the kitchen phone... "Sheila, I'm pretty sick, so I don't think I'm going to make it in today."
"HA!" She laughed, immediately walking as far as the phone cord would stretch to try to figure out where I was "Where is he? Where did he go? I know I saw him." she continued, ending with "Very funny, now get back in here!"
As time went on, you taught me to do your job, not just so I could help you out, but to prepare me to take over for you when you finally decided to leave. I still have you to thank for teaching me the faster ways to dice potatoes, mince parsley and crack eggs one-handed (with both hands, at the same time), and how to steal knives from the cooks... After I took over for you, one of the cooks would usually catch my eye when I was beating eggs and we'd both laugh, remembering how much fun you were to have around.
In my life, I've learned that the people you work with are never appreciated the way they should be. You spend hours, days, weeks and years with them and you rely on them to keep you level and focused, or at least entertained, and in the end they represent a narrow cross-section of how we see ourselves.
This is why I had to write this for you; When I learned you were gone, I had to get this down before it was lost with you. Up to that point, I knew you were still somewhere, making dark places bright with humor, but now your bright light only lives on in what parts of it you shared with all of us left behind.
I didn't go to your memorial service, it's never been my way of dealing with things, and I never got the feeling that it was yours either. Compared to the many people who knew you better, I didn't feel I could offer them more than what they already had and I already cherish the great memories you gave me.
What I did instead, was introduce my family to an almost forgotten sandwich, the same that you introduced me to over a decade ago, and told them stories of our shenanigans.
I don't believe it's our place to govern our times to come and go, but I like to imagine that if you ever had the chance, you'd like to help me take out the trash, one last time...
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Minesweeper: Gardening by Trial
It's getting close to that time of year again. My home gardening exploits give me fresh produce in the summer, and eggs almost all year, but most importantly, it keeps me honing my agricultural skills. It seems like the average suburbanite doesn't seem to have any agricultural skills at all, and they completely take for granted the fact that there is more to making food grow than simply planting seeds and putting water on it (at least, if you intend to be effective anyway).
My first garden attempt, as a teenager, was a complete failure; It looked good and I had a good location, with nice raised rows, but I had no clue what I was doing. The most valuable asset in my gardening experiences has been that I've become more observant of the patterns in our climate, so I can effectively weigh out risks and benefits when I plan out my garden. For example, my first garden attempt was in the middle of a hot June and in soil that had very little to offer. I watered in at the worst times of the day and produced absolutely nothing. Most of what I learned from that point forward was by continuing trial, error and getting bits of information from people around me who grew things.
At the time, my main adviser was my mother, it took years for me to realize how clueless we both were. She had lots of experience growing flowers and landscaping, but very little making produce. I'm the one giving out the advice now, just last year I had to explain why a small greenhouse and pots on her southern deck would not be sufficient for strawberries due to their intolerance of heat, whereas tomatoes would love an environment like that... Which reminds me of my second year, when she rightfully directed me to plant some tomatoes against a wall so that they could get more heat and light reflection, but the wall she suggested was on the Southeast side of the house rather than the Southwest, giving the advantage of morning light, but too much afternoon shade. I had huge tomatoes, but only half of them ripened before the frost came that year.
The point of saying that is that transitioning from knowing about the theory of gardening and applying it succesfully are very different. I'm humbled yearly by experiences which show me how complex and different many plants can be. I've become very good at growing some, but still need to fine-tune countless others.
Other than my tomato problem, my second garden was made primarily of nursery bought plants, and combined with the good fortune of a hot summer, I was able to grow a lot of produce. Like many first gardening attempts, however, I can see now (with humility) that the things which made it work, such as a good location and the right starting time were based in nothing more than sheer luck on my part.
My years in an apartment left me unable to plant anything, but when we got our first house, a well-positioned garden with a fence and raised beds gave us the inspiration to try again. I had already learned that some plants needed to be started indoors in our state, and had gained a good base of knowledge from my experience at my parents house.
The main problem with the garden at our first house is that we forgot it too frequently, because, while it's position was great for growing, it was behind our garage and also great for forgetting. We managed to hold it together the first year, but by the second we were too busy and ventured behind the garage too infrequently. The heat sensitive plants died and the tolerant plants lived, but with only just enough to pull together some tiny ears (of the most delicious) corn and some fantastic sugar beets (it's hard to kill beets).
The third growing season for our house, I was commuting to work in Seattle and we were preparing to sell and move to a new home, so we missed our opportunity entirely, though gardening had been part of our reason for buying that house in the first place. By the next season I bought a tiller, some garden tools and picked a spot which would be out of the way and offer the most sunlight that my yard could give. After several years of partial failures, I was finally able to select a good location based on experience and understanding and even more importantly, I knew which foods I could grow there and which would have to be potted and placed in another location.
I chose a location at the top of my hillside where I got m more light than any other spot, the hillside would offer good drainage (but I would have to improve the soil) it was far enough from the house to get the advantage of late evening sunlight, the only kind in Washington which is intense enough to keep corn happy... I painstakingly tilled the ground, pulling out hundreds of rocks left there by the county as part of an unrelated project, I composted for months in advance, spreading mulch and adding nutrients to soil that was a little sandy, I planted as soon as the frost was certainly gone and I was blessed with an unusually steady spring, summer and early fall; I weeded and watered faithfully and I harvested bounties of corn, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, beets and cucumbers (I even expanded my original tilled garden in the first year to make more room), but ultimately, half of what I tried to grow died or never produced.
I couldn't say that I was crushed, not with as much delicious food that I was able to make succesfully, but such staggering losses showed me that I had a lot more to learn. That was when my paradigm began to shift and I realized that conventional wisdom came from places with 120 - 140 days of viable growing weather, where March truly marks the coming of spring and where you could lose an early plantation of corn, with plenty of time to start over and try again... Those of us in the Northwest have to hone our skills further and pay more attention to our trials if we want more success...
I have developed a relatively succesful system now, whereby I plant sections at different intervals according to the preferences of what I plan to grow, I have to become more intimate with the plants and get to know their preferences if I want success. Some of them start outside and tolerate the cold-wet spring, some have to be sprouted indoors and some of them can be planted in July, when others are done producing for the season. The main point is that I try to limit my attempts at new introductions to one or two per year, knowing that my first year may result in failure, but that my second year will yield more success. I can never say that I'll be entirely confident in my ability to produce any one type of plant with certainty, even the ones which are usually hardy and successful.
When new gardeners ask me for advice in a specific area, it only takes a few seconds before their glossy eyes show that I've tried to give them details which they will only learn through experience as I did. Instead, it's easier to say that the the key to successful gardening in the Pacific Northwest stems from nothing more than making the least amount of mistakes possible in any given year, and trying to make less the next.
My first garden attempt, as a teenager, was a complete failure; It looked good and I had a good location, with nice raised rows, but I had no clue what I was doing. The most valuable asset in my gardening experiences has been that I've become more observant of the patterns in our climate, so I can effectively weigh out risks and benefits when I plan out my garden. For example, my first garden attempt was in the middle of a hot June and in soil that had very little to offer. I watered in at the worst times of the day and produced absolutely nothing. Most of what I learned from that point forward was by continuing trial, error and getting bits of information from people around me who grew things.
At the time, my main adviser was my mother, it took years for me to realize how clueless we both were. She had lots of experience growing flowers and landscaping, but very little making produce. I'm the one giving out the advice now, just last year I had to explain why a small greenhouse and pots on her southern deck would not be sufficient for strawberries due to their intolerance of heat, whereas tomatoes would love an environment like that... Which reminds me of my second year, when she rightfully directed me to plant some tomatoes against a wall so that they could get more heat and light reflection, but the wall she suggested was on the Southeast side of the house rather than the Southwest, giving the advantage of morning light, but too much afternoon shade. I had huge tomatoes, but only half of them ripened before the frost came that year.
The point of saying that is that transitioning from knowing about the theory of gardening and applying it succesfully are very different. I'm humbled yearly by experiences which show me how complex and different many plants can be. I've become very good at growing some, but still need to fine-tune countless others.
Other than my tomato problem, my second garden was made primarily of nursery bought plants, and combined with the good fortune of a hot summer, I was able to grow a lot of produce. Like many first gardening attempts, however, I can see now (with humility) that the things which made it work, such as a good location and the right starting time were based in nothing more than sheer luck on my part.
My years in an apartment left me unable to plant anything, but when we got our first house, a well-positioned garden with a fence and raised beds gave us the inspiration to try again. I had already learned that some plants needed to be started indoors in our state, and had gained a good base of knowledge from my experience at my parents house.
The main problem with the garden at our first house is that we forgot it too frequently, because, while it's position was great for growing, it was behind our garage and also great for forgetting. We managed to hold it together the first year, but by the second we were too busy and ventured behind the garage too infrequently. The heat sensitive plants died and the tolerant plants lived, but with only just enough to pull together some tiny ears (of the most delicious) corn and some fantastic sugar beets (it's hard to kill beets).
The third growing season for our house, I was commuting to work in Seattle and we were preparing to sell and move to a new home, so we missed our opportunity entirely, though gardening had been part of our reason for buying that house in the first place. By the next season I bought a tiller, some garden tools and picked a spot which would be out of the way and offer the most sunlight that my yard could give. After several years of partial failures, I was finally able to select a good location based on experience and understanding and even more importantly, I knew which foods I could grow there and which would have to be potted and placed in another location.
I chose a location at the top of my hillside where I got m more light than any other spot, the hillside would offer good drainage (but I would have to improve the soil) it was far enough from the house to get the advantage of late evening sunlight, the only kind in Washington which is intense enough to keep corn happy... I painstakingly tilled the ground, pulling out hundreds of rocks left there by the county as part of an unrelated project, I composted for months in advance, spreading mulch and adding nutrients to soil that was a little sandy, I planted as soon as the frost was certainly gone and I was blessed with an unusually steady spring, summer and early fall; I weeded and watered faithfully and I harvested bounties of corn, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, beets and cucumbers (I even expanded my original tilled garden in the first year to make more room), but ultimately, half of what I tried to grow died or never produced.
I couldn't say that I was crushed, not with as much delicious food that I was able to make succesfully, but such staggering losses showed me that I had a lot more to learn. That was when my paradigm began to shift and I realized that conventional wisdom came from places with 120 - 140 days of viable growing weather, where March truly marks the coming of spring and where you could lose an early plantation of corn, with plenty of time to start over and try again... Those of us in the Northwest have to hone our skills further and pay more attention to our trials if we want more success...
I have developed a relatively succesful system now, whereby I plant sections at different intervals according to the preferences of what I plan to grow, I have to become more intimate with the plants and get to know their preferences if I want success. Some of them start outside and tolerate the cold-wet spring, some have to be sprouted indoors and some of them can be planted in July, when others are done producing for the season. The main point is that I try to limit my attempts at new introductions to one or two per year, knowing that my first year may result in failure, but that my second year will yield more success. I can never say that I'll be entirely confident in my ability to produce any one type of plant with certainty, even the ones which are usually hardy and successful.
When new gardeners ask me for advice in a specific area, it only takes a few seconds before their glossy eyes show that I've tried to give them details which they will only learn through experience as I did. Instead, it's easier to say that the the key to successful gardening in the Pacific Northwest stems from nothing more than making the least amount of mistakes possible in any given year, and trying to make less the next.
Friday, December 14, 2012
My New Subaru is an Old Dodge Durango
As I departed my previous employer, I had the option to cash out the Roth portion of my 401k without incurring any taxes, but it wasn't really so much an option as a necessity. Since my new job paid less salary, it was necessary to cut down the monthly expenses so that we could afford to trade money for time (an investment which has paid huge dividends and which I could never regret).
The largest and easiest expense to slash was the monthly car payment. I'm think we should consider changing this term to car-tithing instead of payment because we seem to worship new cars as a society (or new anything for that matter) and because the term payment makes it sound like you'll be done making them some day.
For today's debt-enslaved common man, it looks to me like the most you can hope for is the ability to scrounge just enough of your income from the grasp of debtors to enjoy a tiny bit of freedom in the last five years before you die. To those who feel the same, this is my slice of light, not at the end of the tunnel, but the wealth of light you can bathe and soak in by finding the nearest exit and leaving the tunnel all-together.
"Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on."
-Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin
Let's skip to the core of the story; We were about to have a second child and already had two dogs. We take road trips at least once a year, sometimes twice, we frequently browse second hand stores for furniture and other supplies, so flexible space was absolutely required. We live in the Pacific Northwest, home to rain, mud, black ice and (twice a year) formidable snowfall, with wonderful opportunities to go camping, making it a necessity to have a 4x4 or AWD vehicle. I do most of my own mechanical work, so part availability and engine design were also large factors.
This left a large number of options to consider, even within our planned ceiling of less than $5,000, but the only thing we really new for certain was that our beloved Subaru Legacy was no longer going to work. When we bought it we were a couple with two dogs and plans to have two children, but none so far. We were basically buying a car for what we thought would help us the most, but had no clue what that really was. I find that most people shop this way and I believe that it's frankly impossible to get things like this right on the first (or sometimes second or third) try when you haven't been through the thing for which you are trying to prepare. I can't say enough good things about Subaru, they are very well engineered vehicles with engineering principles that everyone could learn from, but that would be an entirely different story, instead I think it's sufficient to say that we had to take a different road this time.
Sometimes when I think about it, I still feel a slight flash of heat through my veins when I consider the way things fall into place sometimes and the way that choices stand right in front of us and nag until we finally see them. At that point we realize that the choice was always there, all we had to do was recognize the choice and make it. After using the cash from my retirement to pay off the car, I saw it in front of me as if I had finally taken a step back to see this more clearly. I could make less money, pay off all of my debt, put a new roof on my house and also get a vehicle that would better serve my family's needs for the current time. All I had to do was step away from the "common sense" that I had given in to a few years earlier.
To be specific, I never thought I would buy a new car, everyone is well aware of how quickly cars depreciate immediately after their initial purchase and for several years there-after, but when we bought our first Subaru Legacy in 2005 we considered it a good buy since the used cars which met our qualifications were priced within a few thousand dollars of the new cars that met our standards. Even now, I think it was the right choice for the time, especially considering that we had planned to use this car for pretty much the rest of our lives. In that situation, knowing that you've owned and maintained the car properly can make this a justifiable expense. Two years later, however, the Subaru dealership offered to pay off our 2006 Legacy and give us a 2008 for the same price, which was also a great deal, but three years later and I was already looking at other options again.
If you are an excellent negotiator, you can definitely buy a new car every two to four years and end up paying pennies per mile (in the case of our two new cars, a net cost of 17 cents per mile is pretty good), but it requires you to dedicate a portion of your monthly income to indefinite debt. The alternative philosophy which I previously and currently utilize works from the other end of the spectrum, where you buy a vehicle that has already depreciated, but still has many miles to offer you with a few repairs along the way. The social philosophy about vehicles in general seems to be that you should avoid repairs at any cost and that a vehicle which requires repairs, or might require them (especially expensive ones) is not a good buy and should be avoided. The new vehicle (or anything for that matter) philosophy is patently backwards because it expects a complex machine to operate flawlessly, which is like betting on black and red at a roullete table. Eventually the ball has to land on zero and the more time you play, the more likely it is to happen.
I've illustrated that this can work at the expense of perpetual debt, now let's talk about the freedom that the inverse strategy offers. It requires discipline both in building cash savings to start with and in spending that cash savings on expensive repairs when the time comes. The idea is simple, you don't have to drive a pile of junk, just find a reasonable car that is in wide use (part availability and price advantage) and which is easy to work on (labor costs advantage). It will work with a car that you haven't selected for these qualities, but the more effort you put into selecting the best vehicle, the more you save, buy this vehicle outright, or if you have to finance it, you need to be able to make the payments while you save up for the next inevitable failure(Paying in cash also gives you flexibility with your insurance, since most cars, even new ones, aren't worth what full coverage insurance costs vs. the events they will pay for, it's an easy way to save).
Assuming you now have your car, stop and envision your car as what it is, a complex machine that has parts which will break down, some faster than others. Don't panic! Just breathe, all of these parts will not fail at the same time, most of these parts will last longer than the life of the vehicle, some of them will have to be rebuilt or replaced, it's alright, your car is not a ticking time bomb, just a machine. If you don't know about motors yourself, spend some time finding a mechanic shop that you are comfortable with. Despite what many people believe, most mechanics are completely honest and fair, but they get a bad reputation from people who don't understand the technical complexities and assume they must be getting scammed. You will have to define your own level of comfort and expectations, but unless you plan to do the repairs yourself (which I applaud), you need to build a working relationship with a shop you like.
Now that you have come to accept and understand that your vehicle will require maintenance and repairs you need to start saving money for these events. This seems to be one of the hardest parts for many individuals, but it should be easy to do. You used to pay $350 a month for a car with modest luxury options, saving $150 or $200 each month should be painless in comparison, especially since you get to keep the money until/when/if you need it. I personally use a separate savings account that is only for vehicle maintenance and I write that amount into my budget as a planned expense. Not only does this make cash readily available for unexpected repairs, it makes it easier to justify to myself when I need to do an oil change or a brake job. I know many people who put off regular maintenance like this to hold on to their precious dollars, but then end up paying more later to repair serious problems, or buy a new car. Ironically they usually feel as though their car has betrayed them, when the opposite is true and they should appreciate that their car was able to run so miraculously well without clean lubrication for five years (true stories). If you acknowledge this need up front and set aside money for that specific purpose, it may be easier for you to come to terms with.
In the end, after looking at different vehicles for a few months, we selected a 2000 Dodge Durango since it matched all of our criteria and had the bonus of being an (mostly) American made product. It also has the same motor that my Dodge Ram 1500 has, which raises my level of familiarity and makes buying certain parts very simple. The more time we have it, the more I like it, it's kind of like someone took a Jeep and put a station wagon on top of it and for all the extra room inside, it is only 16 inches longer and four inches wider than our Subaru was, so it fits right in our garage. It seats 8 if you use the front and middle center seats, so six adults fit very comfortably. The rear and middle seats fold down flush for cargo hauling, offering more interior hauling space than a small Ford Ranger with a canopy. Roof racks and a class 3 trailer hitch are standard as well, in case it wasn't utilitarian enough already.
It came with one big draw-back that turns many people away and that is fuel economy, we average about 15mpg in town and for general use. We haven't taken any long trips yet, but expect to get around 20mpg when we do since that's what the truck gets. This is enough for most people to disqualify it immediately and that's fair, but for us, it works fine. If I was commuting to Tacoma daily, I'd obviously be broke, but we rarely leave the county as is and I generally take my motorcycle as often as humanly possible, so we don't even notice. It is also noteworthy that many smaller SUV's with smaller and newer engines get the same mileage. The Jeep Cherokee, Nissan Xterra, Jeep Wrangler, Chevy Suburban and Ford explorer, for example, all ring in with similar or even worse mileage. Even among the more compact SUV's of the world, like the Subaru Forester, Ford Escape and Toyota CRV, the mileage is only a little better (at a big sacrifice for space).
As a cost comparison, if we were driving our Subaru to Arcata to visit Brandy's family, we would have to pack very carefully, cram every last bit of luggage in and still wouldn't be able to take the dogs for a $30 fuel savings each way. That's fairly easy to justify for the comfort and versatility we get in exchange.
Now back to the cost of repairs. The single biggest repair expenses that could come up could cost as much as $3,000, which is about what we paid for the vehicle, but what we paid or what it is worth is irrelevant in this scenario, it is about how many miles you will get out of the repair you make. A new transmission or one properly rebuilt should give you 100,000 miles of service, which translates to $.03 per mile. At minimum, it's safe to assume that you won't be paying $3,000 every year, more like a few hundred most years with the occasional $3,000, that's a bargain compared to the $4,200 you would pay every year for that modest new car which didn't need any repairs. Even if you did spend $3,000 a year on repairs (which is pretty much impossible, even if you drive a very rare and hard to fix vehicle), you would still be saving money without adding to our consumer waste problem.
Aside from all of these benefits, the one I like the most is the freedom from indebtedness. Until you experience it for yourself, it's hard to understand, but to put it simply, it is a healthy load off my mind to know that I could sell this vehicle and buy another, or smash it into a tree without being on the hook for a single dime. I would say that this is the kind of freedom that money can't buy, but it wouldn't be true, because well spent money can absolutely buy this freedom.
The first step is a desire to get out of the mouse wheel and stop caring about the reward, then you'll see that the reward was an illusion all along and you will be ready to begin looking for the real and attainable things in life.
The largest and easiest expense to slash was the monthly car payment. I'm think we should consider changing this term to car-tithing instead of payment because we seem to worship new cars as a society (or new anything for that matter) and because the term payment makes it sound like you'll be done making them some day.
For today's debt-enslaved common man, it looks to me like the most you can hope for is the ability to scrounge just enough of your income from the grasp of debtors to enjoy a tiny bit of freedom in the last five years before you die. To those who feel the same, this is my slice of light, not at the end of the tunnel, but the wealth of light you can bathe and soak in by finding the nearest exit and leaving the tunnel all-together.
"Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on."
-Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin
Let's skip to the core of the story; We were about to have a second child and already had two dogs. We take road trips at least once a year, sometimes twice, we frequently browse second hand stores for furniture and other supplies, so flexible space was absolutely required. We live in the Pacific Northwest, home to rain, mud, black ice and (twice a year) formidable snowfall, with wonderful opportunities to go camping, making it a necessity to have a 4x4 or AWD vehicle. I do most of my own mechanical work, so part availability and engine design were also large factors.
This left a large number of options to consider, even within our planned ceiling of less than $5,000, but the only thing we really new for certain was that our beloved Subaru Legacy was no longer going to work. When we bought it we were a couple with two dogs and plans to have two children, but none so far. We were basically buying a car for what we thought would help us the most, but had no clue what that really was. I find that most people shop this way and I believe that it's frankly impossible to get things like this right on the first (or sometimes second or third) try when you haven't been through the thing for which you are trying to prepare. I can't say enough good things about Subaru, they are very well engineered vehicles with engineering principles that everyone could learn from, but that would be an entirely different story, instead I think it's sufficient to say that we had to take a different road this time.
Sometimes when I think about it, I still feel a slight flash of heat through my veins when I consider the way things fall into place sometimes and the way that choices stand right in front of us and nag until we finally see them. At that point we realize that the choice was always there, all we had to do was recognize the choice and make it. After using the cash from my retirement to pay off the car, I saw it in front of me as if I had finally taken a step back to see this more clearly. I could make less money, pay off all of my debt, put a new roof on my house and also get a vehicle that would better serve my family's needs for the current time. All I had to do was step away from the "common sense" that I had given in to a few years earlier.
To be specific, I never thought I would buy a new car, everyone is well aware of how quickly cars depreciate immediately after their initial purchase and for several years there-after, but when we bought our first Subaru Legacy in 2005 we considered it a good buy since the used cars which met our qualifications were priced within a few thousand dollars of the new cars that met our standards. Even now, I think it was the right choice for the time, especially considering that we had planned to use this car for pretty much the rest of our lives. In that situation, knowing that you've owned and maintained the car properly can make this a justifiable expense. Two years later, however, the Subaru dealership offered to pay off our 2006 Legacy and give us a 2008 for the same price, which was also a great deal, but three years later and I was already looking at other options again.
If you are an excellent negotiator, you can definitely buy a new car every two to four years and end up paying pennies per mile (in the case of our two new cars, a net cost of 17 cents per mile is pretty good), but it requires you to dedicate a portion of your monthly income to indefinite debt. The alternative philosophy which I previously and currently utilize works from the other end of the spectrum, where you buy a vehicle that has already depreciated, but still has many miles to offer you with a few repairs along the way. The social philosophy about vehicles in general seems to be that you should avoid repairs at any cost and that a vehicle which requires repairs, or might require them (especially expensive ones) is not a good buy and should be avoided. The new vehicle (or anything for that matter) philosophy is patently backwards because it expects a complex machine to operate flawlessly, which is like betting on black and red at a roullete table. Eventually the ball has to land on zero and the more time you play, the more likely it is to happen.
I've illustrated that this can work at the expense of perpetual debt, now let's talk about the freedom that the inverse strategy offers. It requires discipline both in building cash savings to start with and in spending that cash savings on expensive repairs when the time comes. The idea is simple, you don't have to drive a pile of junk, just find a reasonable car that is in wide use (part availability and price advantage) and which is easy to work on (labor costs advantage). It will work with a car that you haven't selected for these qualities, but the more effort you put into selecting the best vehicle, the more you save, buy this vehicle outright, or if you have to finance it, you need to be able to make the payments while you save up for the next inevitable failure(Paying in cash also gives you flexibility with your insurance, since most cars, even new ones, aren't worth what full coverage insurance costs vs. the events they will pay for, it's an easy way to save).
Assuming you now have your car, stop and envision your car as what it is, a complex machine that has parts which will break down, some faster than others. Don't panic! Just breathe, all of these parts will not fail at the same time, most of these parts will last longer than the life of the vehicle, some of them will have to be rebuilt or replaced, it's alright, your car is not a ticking time bomb, just a machine. If you don't know about motors yourself, spend some time finding a mechanic shop that you are comfortable with. Despite what many people believe, most mechanics are completely honest and fair, but they get a bad reputation from people who don't understand the technical complexities and assume they must be getting scammed. You will have to define your own level of comfort and expectations, but unless you plan to do the repairs yourself (which I applaud), you need to build a working relationship with a shop you like.
Now that you have come to accept and understand that your vehicle will require maintenance and repairs you need to start saving money for these events. This seems to be one of the hardest parts for many individuals, but it should be easy to do. You used to pay $350 a month for a car with modest luxury options, saving $150 or $200 each month should be painless in comparison, especially since you get to keep the money until/when/if you need it. I personally use a separate savings account that is only for vehicle maintenance and I write that amount into my budget as a planned expense. Not only does this make cash readily available for unexpected repairs, it makes it easier to justify to myself when I need to do an oil change or a brake job. I know many people who put off regular maintenance like this to hold on to their precious dollars, but then end up paying more later to repair serious problems, or buy a new car. Ironically they usually feel as though their car has betrayed them, when the opposite is true and they should appreciate that their car was able to run so miraculously well without clean lubrication for five years (true stories). If you acknowledge this need up front and set aside money for that specific purpose, it may be easier for you to come to terms with.
In the end, after looking at different vehicles for a few months, we selected a 2000 Dodge Durango since it matched all of our criteria and had the bonus of being an (mostly) American made product. It also has the same motor that my Dodge Ram 1500 has, which raises my level of familiarity and makes buying certain parts very simple. The more time we have it, the more I like it, it's kind of like someone took a Jeep and put a station wagon on top of it and for all the extra room inside, it is only 16 inches longer and four inches wider than our Subaru was, so it fits right in our garage. It seats 8 if you use the front and middle center seats, so six adults fit very comfortably. The rear and middle seats fold down flush for cargo hauling, offering more interior hauling space than a small Ford Ranger with a canopy. Roof racks and a class 3 trailer hitch are standard as well, in case it wasn't utilitarian enough already.
It came with one big draw-back that turns many people away and that is fuel economy, we average about 15mpg in town and for general use. We haven't taken any long trips yet, but expect to get around 20mpg when we do since that's what the truck gets. This is enough for most people to disqualify it immediately and that's fair, but for us, it works fine. If I was commuting to Tacoma daily, I'd obviously be broke, but we rarely leave the county as is and I generally take my motorcycle as often as humanly possible, so we don't even notice. It is also noteworthy that many smaller SUV's with smaller and newer engines get the same mileage. The Jeep Cherokee, Nissan Xterra, Jeep Wrangler, Chevy Suburban and Ford explorer, for example, all ring in with similar or even worse mileage. Even among the more compact SUV's of the world, like the Subaru Forester, Ford Escape and Toyota CRV, the mileage is only a little better (at a big sacrifice for space).
As a cost comparison, if we were driving our Subaru to Arcata to visit Brandy's family, we would have to pack very carefully, cram every last bit of luggage in and still wouldn't be able to take the dogs for a $30 fuel savings each way. That's fairly easy to justify for the comfort and versatility we get in exchange.
Now back to the cost of repairs. The single biggest repair expenses that could come up could cost as much as $3,000, which is about what we paid for the vehicle, but what we paid or what it is worth is irrelevant in this scenario, it is about how many miles you will get out of the repair you make. A new transmission or one properly rebuilt should give you 100,000 miles of service, which translates to $.03 per mile. At minimum, it's safe to assume that you won't be paying $3,000 every year, more like a few hundred most years with the occasional $3,000, that's a bargain compared to the $4,200 you would pay every year for that modest new car which didn't need any repairs. Even if you did spend $3,000 a year on repairs (which is pretty much impossible, even if you drive a very rare and hard to fix vehicle), you would still be saving money without adding to our consumer waste problem.
Aside from all of these benefits, the one I like the most is the freedom from indebtedness. Until you experience it for yourself, it's hard to understand, but to put it simply, it is a healthy load off my mind to know that I could sell this vehicle and buy another, or smash it into a tree without being on the hook for a single dime. I would say that this is the kind of freedom that money can't buy, but it wouldn't be true, because well spent money can absolutely buy this freedom.
The first step is a desire to get out of the mouse wheel and stop caring about the reward, then you'll see that the reward was an illusion all along and you will be ready to begin looking for the real and attainable things in life.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Building Wall Mounted Shelving
I came by a pair of simple wall mounted Shelves for Coughlin's room a few years ago. They were given to me by my sister when they redecorated the room of one of my nephews. We repainted them and mounted them on the wall, finding them to be very useful and reasonably attractive.
- 1 smooth cut, 8' 1x3
- 1 Box #6 x 1-3/4" wood screws
- 1 Tube wood filler
The tool list is pretty short as well:
- Drill
- Countersink drill bit
- Screw driver
- Sandpaper or Sanding Block
You start by cutting the one peice of 1x3 into two sections. There is no set width or depth on the shelves, you can make them as big as you want, depending on what your local hardware store carries for supplies. In my case, I cut the 1x3's into 3' lengths, no other cutting was necessary since the stair risers were already 12x48 and the shelf brackets are pre-made.
Next, measure out and mark the locations that you need to drill pilot holes for your screws. All of these need to be drilled with a countersink bit so that your screw heads sink below the surface of the wood for filling and painting or staining. You can make them with the exposed screw heads, but they won't be smooth or as finished looking when you are done.
These are the screws that I used for this project:
It helps to have large C-clamps to hold the peices in place while you drill the initial pilot holes and put in the first screws. I attached the brackets to the 1x3 on my bench first, then I clamped the 1x3 (and newly attached brackets) vertically to the top of the shelf and attached it with wood screws. I used a little bit of wood glue with each screw to help hold it in place since there is no reason I would ever dismantle the shelves.
One screw through the top of what would become the shelf surface:
And the other through the side of the bracket into the 1x3 backing and mounting point:
Also, make a note of the saw-horses holding the shelf in place. The odd shape of these shelves makes them hard to build accurately on a bench alone. You will want something to hold the shelf up while you attach various parts.
Now that the shelf structure is built with approximately 8 screws (4 through the top into the 1x3 and another two for the bracket), it is time to drill the mounting holes through the 1x3 so that this can be mounted to the wall.
Here is one of the pilot holes, make sure you plan your structure pilot holes so that they won't interfere with your mounting pilot holes. I chose to use four mounting holes for added strength, but only two are truly necessary:
If you remember to drill the holes for wall-mounting at a measured spacing, it will make marking and mounting to the wall MUCH easier. I set them at 28" apart overall, with the inner holes at 10" from the outer holes. This means that when I mounted the shelves, all I had to do was take a yard stick and level, then mark off 0", 10", 18" and 28" on the wall.
Here is a shot of the mounting holes and the complete shelf:
Mounting them is fairly straight forward, you can either find a stud or use sheetrock anchors, or some mixture of both. In some cases a stud might not be available in a convenient location for mounting. You can take these things into consideration when you are choosing the spacing for your mounting holes, but I find that sheetrock anchors, installed properly, can hold plenty of weight.
Part of the reason that they can hold the weigh so well is that the brackets rest against the wall and give added support.
Here are the finished shelves, mounted on the wall and fully painted:
When we had Ilana, we found ourselves looking at similar shelves, but being shocked by the exorbitant price for shelves that were already built. Normally this is the time when we would turn to second hand stores in the area, but this type of shelf is not particularly common, unlike your run-of-the-mill bookcase made of particle board and veneer.
After shopping around and pricing out materials, we decided to build them instead. The list of materials are available at any hardware store and offers extreme simplicity.
Here are the materials I used to build two shelves:
- 4 Pine shelf brackets
- 2 Stair Risers (can be any rectangular peice of lumber)- 1 smooth cut, 8' 1x3
- 1 Box #6 x 1-3/4" wood screws
- 1 Tube wood filler
The tool list is pretty short as well:
- Drill
- Countersink drill bit
- Screw driver
- Sandpaper or Sanding Block
You start by cutting the one peice of 1x3 into two sections. There is no set width or depth on the shelves, you can make them as big as you want, depending on what your local hardware store carries for supplies. In my case, I cut the 1x3's into 3' lengths, no other cutting was necessary since the stair risers were already 12x48 and the shelf brackets are pre-made.
Next, measure out and mark the locations that you need to drill pilot holes for your screws. All of these need to be drilled with a countersink bit so that your screw heads sink below the surface of the wood for filling and painting or staining. You can make them with the exposed screw heads, but they won't be smooth or as finished looking when you are done.
These are the screws that I used for this project:
It helps to have large C-clamps to hold the peices in place while you drill the initial pilot holes and put in the first screws. I attached the brackets to the 1x3 on my bench first, then I clamped the 1x3 (and newly attached brackets) vertically to the top of the shelf and attached it with wood screws. I used a little bit of wood glue with each screw to help hold it in place since there is no reason I would ever dismantle the shelves.
One screw through the top of what would become the shelf surface:
And the other through the side of the bracket into the 1x3 backing and mounting point:
You will notice in the picture of the top that I not only measured out the points of interest, but etched them on with pencil. When drilling pilot holes it is best to avoid guessing when you can be precise. If you are finishing these with stain, the pencil will easily sand off before you put the stain on.
Also, make a note of the saw-horses holding the shelf in place. The odd shape of these shelves makes them hard to build accurately on a bench alone. You will want something to hold the shelf up while you attach various parts.
Now that the shelf structure is built with approximately 8 screws (4 through the top into the 1x3 and another two for the bracket), it is time to drill the mounting holes through the 1x3 so that this can be mounted to the wall.
Here is one of the pilot holes, make sure you plan your structure pilot holes so that they won't interfere with your mounting pilot holes. I chose to use four mounting holes for added strength, but only two are truly necessary:
If you remember to drill the holes for wall-mounting at a measured spacing, it will make marking and mounting to the wall MUCH easier. I set them at 28" apart overall, with the inner holes at 10" from the outer holes. This means that when I mounted the shelves, all I had to do was take a yard stick and level, then mark off 0", 10", 18" and 28" on the wall.
Here is a shot of the mounting holes and the complete shelf:
Now that all of the pilot holes have been drilled, the screws have been put in and the structure has been finished, we need to put wood filler in to cover the exposed heads and make the countersink holes flush for painting or staining. DO NOT put wood filler in the wall-mount holes, unless you liked drilling them so much the first time that you thought you would do it again.
Here is the wood filler I used for this project, it's the same color as the wood so if stained it would not stand out. I planned on painting my shelves, however, so it only needed to fill in the holes.
You want to push the wood filler in with your finger to make sure it gets all the way into the space. The more surface area it holds to, the more even it will look. You also want to mound it up on top of the hole you are filling so that you can sand it down to a flush level, as I've shown in the picture below:
I used a sanding block to make the wood filler flush:
After sanding off the wood filler and rounding out some of the rough spots, I painted the shelves with pints of mistint paint that we picked up. We had some leftover primer that we used first, then put a few top-coats on before hanging them on the wall.
Mounting them is fairly straight forward, you can either find a stud or use sheetrock anchors, or some mixture of both. In some cases a stud might not be available in a convenient location for mounting. You can take these things into consideration when you are choosing the spacing for your mounting holes, but I find that sheetrock anchors, installed properly, can hold plenty of weight.
Part of the reason that they can hold the weigh so well is that the brackets rest against the wall and give added support.
Here are the finished shelves, mounted on the wall and fully painted:
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Revisiting the Case; For Gold
A few months ago I recorded some of my thoughts and feelings on monetary policy. You can view that HERE if you didn't get a chance to see it initially. I have finished reading Ron Paul's "The Case for Gold" and I'm ready to revisit my thoughts to see what may have changed.
Overall, the book isn't something everyone could read, you need a good base understanding of how the money system operates before you can get any useful information. That being said, there are a few good short videos and articles which can bring you up to speed quickly. I consider this type of self-education essential for all citizens if we have any hope of avoiding future economic problems and also solving the problems we face right now. It should be clear to everyone, at this point, that it is not as easy as simply cutting one type of spending and increasing another, nor will any amount of so called quanititative easing, bailing out or austerity measures reconcile problems when the system, at it's core, is incapable of growth without constant inflation. Thusly, I encourage everyone to read up on this for themselves, including Dr. Paul's book, which is certainly unparalleled in useful information regarding the former success and failures of free market monetary systems within and without the United States, along with the consistent failures of fiat based paper money.
To digest the book as much as possible for the sake of this discussion, Ron Paul's basic case revolves around examples of every government controlled paper money system in recorded history becoming debased, first to the point of worthlessness, then collapse. He then contrasts that with systems that used specie directly or had paper money that was backed by specie, all of which were very efficient and well regulated through free-market principles, leading to extremely prosperous economies. Contrary to what many people believe, he does not propose resolving this through an abrupt dismantling of the Federal Reserve Bank and an instant return to a gold standard dollar or specie alone. His plan is actually very balanced and can be implemented in a way where it either works or fails, we don't really have anything to lose.
The idea is that the U.S. Treasury would begin minting gold and silver coins as a competing currency to the Federal Reserve's dollar. At the same time, laws which currently ban citizens from keeping savings or making payments in specie will be lifted so that private citizens can choose the currency they wish to use. In response to this, the Federal Reserve would be forced to set a real value on the dollar, or at least to allow free markets to set the value. With the value of gold remaining constant in the face of an ever fluctuating dollar, people would naturally begin using and saving in gold as an alternative. There are many more details which I hope you choose to read for yourself. As I said, the plan offers no downside, if it doesn't work we are still using worthless paper money, but if it does, we can reap the rewards of a system based on tangible goods.
On to my original thoughts.
1.The Federal Reserve was only created to act as an executive credit card that could bypass a notoriously stingy congress.
Dr. Paul does touch on this topic, but he also shows many other past examples in our country and others where centralized banking have used similar agencies to increase executive access to money. This is almost unanimously done in times of war, or economic distress following expensive wars. He definitely supports the graceful dismantling of the Federal Reserve Bank (state sanctioned) monopoly, not to put them out of business, but to allow for the free creation of banks which can offer competing currency. Such an action would help keep all banks more competitive, honest and will make times of regression less severe, evenly spread and over quickly. He doesn't spend much time discussing the corruption of the Federal Reserve, or it's creation, I believe, because the error in allowing it to monopolize our currency seems self evident and also because it is only the latest flavor of the larger problem of worthless, debased currency (of which he has provides many other examples).
2. Paying interest to the Federal Reserve as a private institution is pointless since we could do everything they do, but without the added cost of interest and with the added benefit of running it with elected officials.
He touches the fact that we pay interest to the Federal Reserve for the money we use. His main focus is on the fact that this is an unfair and unnecessary monopoly. In the past, in our own country and in many others, free marketplaces which have been operated on a truly level playing field have allowed banks to create their own notes (essentially money) backed by specie, which allowed consumers to choose their bank based on the reputation they had for being honest. the bigger underlying problem in those systems was when the lending pyramid (fractional reserve lending) became too big to support. Even with fractional reserve lending, however, truly free-market banks were still able to run functional systems through the use of private clearing houses and banking networks which ensured that consumers could trust an institution based on their reputation for providing specie upon request. More on fractional reserve lending in a little while...
Although he doesn't come out and say it explicitly, I think that Dr. Paul would not support paper money issued by the government directly, even if it was backed by specie, because the system would allow for too much corruption without any level of separation for the public who theoretically owned and was responsible for any mistakes. That is to say, if elected officials began debasing the currency, the taxpayer has to pay for their mistakes. When a private bank debases their own promisary notes, the investors in that bank have to pay for their mistakes. This degree of separation doesn't give our elected officials direct control, but it also gives us a layer of security in general. If this was done in a system with the appropriate number of national banks (thousands at minimum), the impact of even a few hundred corrupt banks failing would barely be noticed. He doesn't truly support the complete de-regulation of banking, he supports the right amount of regulation to maintain a level playing field. Since failure is more or less innevitable given enough time, we should adopt a system which allows failure to happen gracefully with the least impact to everyone.
3. The fractional reserve banking system is completely unfair and only makes higher profit for banks at the expense of greater, impractical debts for the people.
For those who don't understand how our current banking system works, I will explain as briefly as possible, for everyone else, here is a short review.
Fractional reserve lending gives private banking institutions the legal right to lend out more money than they have. A bank receives money from investors, depositors and payments made by the indebted. With a pyramid of 10-1, they can then loan out 90% of that money, holding only 10% of it in reserve for despositors who wish to make a withdrawl. In reality, they don't actually loan out money as cash, they write mortgages and promisary notes which only exist as contracts. So when if I make a $1000 payment on my mortgage, part to principle and part in interest, a bank is able to loan out (after expenses) 10 times that amount. They may have never actually possessed that money, they are simply allowed to make contracts of debt for that amount as long as they have 10% of what they are actually obligated to pay out in reserve. In a few months of operation, it's easy to see how quickly this system could get out of hand. At that, why permit a bank to more or less create funds that don't exist when your average citizen has no such ability?
There is a benefit to this system offers, which is flexible and rapid growth due to the widely available access to funding. A major industrial change is made easier to facilitate in a proven industry with an organization that has good credit history. That benefit, however, also rewards monopoly and in itself comes with great dangers to all of the investors, depositors and those who hold debt. In my opinion, the system allows too much risk for one benefit. The streak of 'bubbles' we have experienced in the last two decades are obviously exacerbated by credit which was too easy to come by and agencies who had no incentive to lend wisely.
4. Attempting to control inflation with interest rates does not work.
Dr. Paul didn't really cover this topic in any depth. If you are interested, however, there are many research articles on this topic which show that the control of the prime rate has had virtually none of the desired outcomes in control. We are in the midst of a perfect example of this since the rate is astoundingly low, but lending and borrowing are still suffering drasticaly.
5. Money is a representation of debt, in this case, money should circulate because the government prints it to pay for goods and services rendered. It is removed from circulation by taxes. This works kind of like an investment, where the money paid is reused exponential times so that when it is collected again through a tax, it should have served numerous people with beneficial exchanges before being collected as a tax. That being the case, even a high tax rate (which shouldn't be necessary in a balanced system) should reflect an equally high output of products.
This sentiment remains unchanged, Dr. Paul suggests moderating this by restricting the government to their constitutionally specified role of minting coins with silver and gold, making all payments in specie and accepting specie for payments of debt. Doing so would keep our government on a narrow path of honesty, where corruption will become obvious quickly.
6. In order to use government minted money as currency, it needs to be readily available to everyone. This means that annual spending (investment) should be very high, but that they should also succesfully balance debts using short terms. Instead of a system of unmitigated and substantial debt growth, it should be a system of frequent monetary rotation, but with controlled thought regarding our next moves.
Dr. Paul strongly advocates controlled debt, at the time of it's creation, our debt was nothing in comparison to what it is now and his predictions of out of control spending, booms and busts have all come true to a degree even greater than he suggested.
Overall, the book isn't something everyone could read, you need a good base understanding of how the money system operates before you can get any useful information. That being said, there are a few good short videos and articles which can bring you up to speed quickly. I consider this type of self-education essential for all citizens if we have any hope of avoiding future economic problems and also solving the problems we face right now. It should be clear to everyone, at this point, that it is not as easy as simply cutting one type of spending and increasing another, nor will any amount of so called quanititative easing, bailing out or austerity measures reconcile problems when the system, at it's core, is incapable of growth without constant inflation. Thusly, I encourage everyone to read up on this for themselves, including Dr. Paul's book, which is certainly unparalleled in useful information regarding the former success and failures of free market monetary systems within and without the United States, along with the consistent failures of fiat based paper money.
To digest the book as much as possible for the sake of this discussion, Ron Paul's basic case revolves around examples of every government controlled paper money system in recorded history becoming debased, first to the point of worthlessness, then collapse. He then contrasts that with systems that used specie directly or had paper money that was backed by specie, all of which were very efficient and well regulated through free-market principles, leading to extremely prosperous economies. Contrary to what many people believe, he does not propose resolving this through an abrupt dismantling of the Federal Reserve Bank and an instant return to a gold standard dollar or specie alone. His plan is actually very balanced and can be implemented in a way where it either works or fails, we don't really have anything to lose.
The idea is that the U.S. Treasury would begin minting gold and silver coins as a competing currency to the Federal Reserve's dollar. At the same time, laws which currently ban citizens from keeping savings or making payments in specie will be lifted so that private citizens can choose the currency they wish to use. In response to this, the Federal Reserve would be forced to set a real value on the dollar, or at least to allow free markets to set the value. With the value of gold remaining constant in the face of an ever fluctuating dollar, people would naturally begin using and saving in gold as an alternative. There are many more details which I hope you choose to read for yourself. As I said, the plan offers no downside, if it doesn't work we are still using worthless paper money, but if it does, we can reap the rewards of a system based on tangible goods.
On to my original thoughts.
1.The Federal Reserve was only created to act as an executive credit card that could bypass a notoriously stingy congress.
Dr. Paul does touch on this topic, but he also shows many other past examples in our country and others where centralized banking have used similar agencies to increase executive access to money. This is almost unanimously done in times of war, or economic distress following expensive wars. He definitely supports the graceful dismantling of the Federal Reserve Bank (state sanctioned) monopoly, not to put them out of business, but to allow for the free creation of banks which can offer competing currency. Such an action would help keep all banks more competitive, honest and will make times of regression less severe, evenly spread and over quickly. He doesn't spend much time discussing the corruption of the Federal Reserve, or it's creation, I believe, because the error in allowing it to monopolize our currency seems self evident and also because it is only the latest flavor of the larger problem of worthless, debased currency (of which he has provides many other examples).
2. Paying interest to the Federal Reserve as a private institution is pointless since we could do everything they do, but without the added cost of interest and with the added benefit of running it with elected officials.
He touches the fact that we pay interest to the Federal Reserve for the money we use. His main focus is on the fact that this is an unfair and unnecessary monopoly. In the past, in our own country and in many others, free marketplaces which have been operated on a truly level playing field have allowed banks to create their own notes (essentially money) backed by specie, which allowed consumers to choose their bank based on the reputation they had for being honest. the bigger underlying problem in those systems was when the lending pyramid (fractional reserve lending) became too big to support. Even with fractional reserve lending, however, truly free-market banks were still able to run functional systems through the use of private clearing houses and banking networks which ensured that consumers could trust an institution based on their reputation for providing specie upon request. More on fractional reserve lending in a little while...
Although he doesn't come out and say it explicitly, I think that Dr. Paul would not support paper money issued by the government directly, even if it was backed by specie, because the system would allow for too much corruption without any level of separation for the public who theoretically owned and was responsible for any mistakes. That is to say, if elected officials began debasing the currency, the taxpayer has to pay for their mistakes. When a private bank debases their own promisary notes, the investors in that bank have to pay for their mistakes. This degree of separation doesn't give our elected officials direct control, but it also gives us a layer of security in general. If this was done in a system with the appropriate number of national banks (thousands at minimum), the impact of even a few hundred corrupt banks failing would barely be noticed. He doesn't truly support the complete de-regulation of banking, he supports the right amount of regulation to maintain a level playing field. Since failure is more or less innevitable given enough time, we should adopt a system which allows failure to happen gracefully with the least impact to everyone.
3. The fractional reserve banking system is completely unfair and only makes higher profit for banks at the expense of greater, impractical debts for the people.
For those who don't understand how our current banking system works, I will explain as briefly as possible, for everyone else, here is a short review.
Fractional reserve lending gives private banking institutions the legal right to lend out more money than they have. A bank receives money from investors, depositors and payments made by the indebted. With a pyramid of 10-1, they can then loan out 90% of that money, holding only 10% of it in reserve for despositors who wish to make a withdrawl. In reality, they don't actually loan out money as cash, they write mortgages and promisary notes which only exist as contracts. So when if I make a $1000 payment on my mortgage, part to principle and part in interest, a bank is able to loan out (after expenses) 10 times that amount. They may have never actually possessed that money, they are simply allowed to make contracts of debt for that amount as long as they have 10% of what they are actually obligated to pay out in reserve. In a few months of operation, it's easy to see how quickly this system could get out of hand. At that, why permit a bank to more or less create funds that don't exist when your average citizen has no such ability?
There is a benefit to this system offers, which is flexible and rapid growth due to the widely available access to funding. A major industrial change is made easier to facilitate in a proven industry with an organization that has good credit history. That benefit, however, also rewards monopoly and in itself comes with great dangers to all of the investors, depositors and those who hold debt. In my opinion, the system allows too much risk for one benefit. The streak of 'bubbles' we have experienced in the last two decades are obviously exacerbated by credit which was too easy to come by and agencies who had no incentive to lend wisely.
4. Attempting to control inflation with interest rates does not work.
Dr. Paul didn't really cover this topic in any depth. If you are interested, however, there are many research articles on this topic which show that the control of the prime rate has had virtually none of the desired outcomes in control. We are in the midst of a perfect example of this since the rate is astoundingly low, but lending and borrowing are still suffering drasticaly.
5. Money is a representation of debt, in this case, money should circulate because the government prints it to pay for goods and services rendered. It is removed from circulation by taxes. This works kind of like an investment, where the money paid is reused exponential times so that when it is collected again through a tax, it should have served numerous people with beneficial exchanges before being collected as a tax. That being the case, even a high tax rate (which shouldn't be necessary in a balanced system) should reflect an equally high output of products.
This sentiment remains unchanged, Dr. Paul suggests moderating this by restricting the government to their constitutionally specified role of minting coins with silver and gold, making all payments in specie and accepting specie for payments of debt. Doing so would keep our government on a narrow path of honesty, where corruption will become obvious quickly.
6. In order to use government minted money as currency, it needs to be readily available to everyone. This means that annual spending (investment) should be very high, but that they should also succesfully balance debts using short terms. Instead of a system of unmitigated and substantial debt growth, it should be a system of frequent monetary rotation, but with controlled thought regarding our next moves.
Dr. Paul strongly advocates controlled debt, at the time of it's creation, our debt was nothing in comparison to what it is now and his predictions of out of control spending, booms and busts have all come true to a degree even greater than he suggested.
Monday, March 12, 2012
You buy time with money by using less.
We finally downgraded out cellular service this weekend. I only ever (begrudgingly) accepted a smartphone and data plan in the first place because my last employer asked me to do so in order to increase my overall availability.
I can't say that it wasn't fun and, at times, exceedingly useful, but I honestly don't believe I would have taken that step without an outside request nudging me forward. While commuting, I used my Android heavily to keep in contact with people I didn't have time to interface with, but most of the time I think it was just a distraction from things I enjoyed more such as reading or a good conversation with another human. The root of the problem is that, at my core, I still just want a phone to be a phone. The last two days without my pocket buzzing every 10 minutes with new notifications, I feel as though I've succesfully reinstalled a barrier I wish I had never taken down.
The monthly cost of data services were easy to say goodbye to as well. Overall it was only a $50 savings, but that's still a lot of money to me and I don't think I got $50 worth of joy out of it the same way I would get $50 worth of joy out of eating out with Brandy or buying a really big bottle of whiskey. In August our contract is up and we will either switch providers and downgrade to one cell phone or we might do away with cellular services entirely if the mood strikes me right.
My future transitions may include Google Voice, which has intrigued me, with the ability to buy my phone number (which I've built up for years on resumes and among friends) and forward the text and voice messages to any number I want. I have plenty of time to decide what will work best, whatever it is I doubt it involves getting a smart phone for the whole family, which is what the wireless companies seem to want me to buy.
In addition to this cost cutting, we cancelled our membership at the local pool. I had more trouble giving this up, even though it was a larger savings, because it gave me an opportunity to expose Coughlin to swimming on a regular basis. After looking it over and realizing how infrequently we would be going with the birth of our new daughter, it makes more sense to pay the cost of a full-price visit until Ilana is old enough to go along. At that point, we will probably renew our membership so that we can take both kids.
With these changes, our largest regular expense, our mortgage, accounts for 57% of our regular monthly expenditures. I don't count taxes in this since I'm not able to control that expense and seeing the true percentage of that burden would only cause hopelessness and anguish which I cannot afford right now. Our mortgage payment is somewhat reasonable for the house and property we have when compared with rent costs, but it could be a lot better if we were able to refinance. Since our mortgage wasn't securitized and bought by one of the federal agencies, there are no programs which allow me to reduce that expense, even though our interest rate is fairly high by today's standards (it was very good at the time). That is, there aren't any programs for us unless we stop making payments. Something which I have moral objections to as long as I'm able to make the payment and which would unnecessarily ruin our credit as well. It's an option that I can keep in my back pocket in case of a really big problem, but I don't suspect things to get quite that bad in either case.
I can't say that it wasn't fun and, at times, exceedingly useful, but I honestly don't believe I would have taken that step without an outside request nudging me forward. While commuting, I used my Android heavily to keep in contact with people I didn't have time to interface with, but most of the time I think it was just a distraction from things I enjoyed more such as reading or a good conversation with another human. The root of the problem is that, at my core, I still just want a phone to be a phone. The last two days without my pocket buzzing every 10 minutes with new notifications, I feel as though I've succesfully reinstalled a barrier I wish I had never taken down.
The monthly cost of data services were easy to say goodbye to as well. Overall it was only a $50 savings, but that's still a lot of money to me and I don't think I got $50 worth of joy out of it the same way I would get $50 worth of joy out of eating out with Brandy or buying a really big bottle of whiskey. In August our contract is up and we will either switch providers and downgrade to one cell phone or we might do away with cellular services entirely if the mood strikes me right.
My future transitions may include Google Voice, which has intrigued me, with the ability to buy my phone number (which I've built up for years on resumes and among friends) and forward the text and voice messages to any number I want. I have plenty of time to decide what will work best, whatever it is I doubt it involves getting a smart phone for the whole family, which is what the wireless companies seem to want me to buy.
In addition to this cost cutting, we cancelled our membership at the local pool. I had more trouble giving this up, even though it was a larger savings, because it gave me an opportunity to expose Coughlin to swimming on a regular basis. After looking it over and realizing how infrequently we would be going with the birth of our new daughter, it makes more sense to pay the cost of a full-price visit until Ilana is old enough to go along. At that point, we will probably renew our membership so that we can take both kids.
With these changes, our largest regular expense, our mortgage, accounts for 57% of our regular monthly expenditures. I don't count taxes in this since I'm not able to control that expense and seeing the true percentage of that burden would only cause hopelessness and anguish which I cannot afford right now. Our mortgage payment is somewhat reasonable for the house and property we have when compared with rent costs, but it could be a lot better if we were able to refinance. Since our mortgage wasn't securitized and bought by one of the federal agencies, there are no programs which allow me to reduce that expense, even though our interest rate is fairly high by today's standards (it was very good at the time). That is, there aren't any programs for us unless we stop making payments. Something which I have moral objections to as long as I'm able to make the payment and which would unnecessarily ruin our credit as well. It's an option that I can keep in my back pocket in case of a really big problem, but I don't suspect things to get quite that bad in either case.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Orchestral Precipitation
The thin veil of clouds could not decide between light gray or pale blue, sheer curtains distorting bright colors. How does so much rain come from such a thin cover? Droplets making hollow pats as they hit the brim of my hat and tiny slaps on the ground.
If I focus hard enough, I'm certain I can hear it over the steady rythm of my boots, the petite dunk when a ball of water hits the surface of a deep puddle. Standing over a pond in a year long rainstorm wouldn't satisfy the fascination with the reverberation of the ripples or the tiny upward spout which shoots out of the ground just after another drop hits.
I have smelled nothing in the world like Washington rain, not the kind of smell you experience when heavy rain hits after a week of hot weather, but the kind that comes after hours of cold drizzle. Moss, leaves, wood and earth mixing with moisture and rising into your nostrils.
The sound a mossy road makes under your boots, or the productive crunch of packed gravel is more pleasing than the empty slap and dull thud of clean concrete or pavement. It feels like I'm walking better, faster and further with every step.
The poplar must be the tallest tree to grow within a six foot radius. They always seem to be moving, even when there is no wind to make them move, or the wind shapes them so that they at least look that way. I love their gnarled bases, something alien from a science fiction movie, roots and knots around plain bark. It is as though the tree cannot keep itself contained within the bark and has to break free, overflowing with life. Watching them lean and sway reminds me of road trips. Rows of fingers covered in green confetti marking out the edges of countless fields, they shift and wave in ways that make me feel like I'm standing still.
I wave as I pass by, his yard dotted with old machine parts, canons, road signs and even an outhouse for decoration. His beard was long and gray, concealing and showing his age at the same time. The felt hat on his head, like the one on mine, showing that he was old enough to understand that hats like this weren't made just for playing dress-up at the fair and rodeo. I raised a hand in a single wave, not sure if he noticed or not, I wonder if I should try again when his friendly voice says "How are you today?"
I reply "Very good, thank you." to which a simple "Good." is sent back, enough having been said.
If I focus hard enough, I'm certain I can hear it over the steady rythm of my boots, the petite dunk when a ball of water hits the surface of a deep puddle. Standing over a pond in a year long rainstorm wouldn't satisfy the fascination with the reverberation of the ripples or the tiny upward spout which shoots out of the ground just after another drop hits.
I have smelled nothing in the world like Washington rain, not the kind of smell you experience when heavy rain hits after a week of hot weather, but the kind that comes after hours of cold drizzle. Moss, leaves, wood and earth mixing with moisture and rising into your nostrils.
The sound a mossy road makes under your boots, or the productive crunch of packed gravel is more pleasing than the empty slap and dull thud of clean concrete or pavement. It feels like I'm walking better, faster and further with every step.
The poplar must be the tallest tree to grow within a six foot radius. They always seem to be moving, even when there is no wind to make them move, or the wind shapes them so that they at least look that way. I love their gnarled bases, something alien from a science fiction movie, roots and knots around plain bark. It is as though the tree cannot keep itself contained within the bark and has to break free, overflowing with life. Watching them lean and sway reminds me of road trips. Rows of fingers covered in green confetti marking out the edges of countless fields, they shift and wave in ways that make me feel like I'm standing still.
I wave as I pass by, his yard dotted with old machine parts, canons, road signs and even an outhouse for decoration. His beard was long and gray, concealing and showing his age at the same time. The felt hat on his head, like the one on mine, showing that he was old enough to understand that hats like this weren't made just for playing dress-up at the fair and rodeo. I raised a hand in a single wave, not sure if he noticed or not, I wonder if I should try again when his friendly voice says "How are you today?"
I reply "Very good, thank you." to which a simple "Good." is sent back, enough having been said.
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