Happy Pi day

Ok, I know I can be a bit of a nerd, but when two of the people in my family don't even get it when I send a text that says "Happy Pi Day", something's wrong. They had even seen comments (likely on Facebook, likely from teachers) talking about celebrating Pi Day and still didn't get it.

For those who don't know, Pi is one of those "special" numbers in math. They seem to turn up over and over, so someone, somewhere named it. Pi is used to determine the area of a circle. Most have heard the joke, Pi are squared - no Pi are round.

Anyway, the value if Pi is 3.14. Today is 3/14. Notice the similarity? Today, I was reminded of Pi day by an entry on Wikihow explaining how to celebrate Pi day. What better way than with a pie? They show some pictures with the symbol for Pi on the pie. Or maybe the numbers for Pi on the pie. Either approach is acceptable. If you want to get technical about it, you should celebrate the exact minute, at 1:59 today.

While I've never celebrated Pi day before, I think it's a good idea. We've celebrated Ground Hog day at my house along with some other obscure holidays. Any holiday focused on a desert can't be a bad idea. So, maybe I'll go out and buy a Pi (or is that buy a pie?) today. Apple sounds really good right about now.


Happy Pi Day everyone!

(I should also wish my brother and his wife a happy birthday. I wonder how long it took them to find someone with the same birthday to marry?)

Western Sky

Today I saw an ad for Westernsky.com. This is a company owned and operated by Native Americans. The ad offered about $2500 in a loan. They will put the money in your checking account overnight. No collateral is required and there are no fees for early pay off.

I was curious, this sounded suspiciously like payday loans I talked about here or the Cashwell company I talked about here. When I found their website, I saw that they claim to have lower rates than payday loans. From looking at their rates, they are lower than Cashwell.

But they aren't cheap. For a loan of $2525, you'll pay a $75 fee right off the bat. Then you start paying almost 140% in interest. If you pay it off over the required 36 months, you'll pay over $10,000.

The website explains that Western Sky operates "within the boundaries of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, a sovereign nation located within the" USA. I don't know if  that means they operate under different rules. I wonder if they can pursue US citizens who don't pay them in the same way US companies. Or maybe they get to play under US rules in some cases and their own rules in other cases.

It would scare me to work with a company that might not operate under US laws. It would scare me even more to pay 140% interest. (I should note that this was their least offensive loan. If you only borrow $1000, you'll pay almost 195% interest)

Bullying about road rage

Yesterday, I asked for statistics about the growth of road rage. So far, I haven't seen any (if you have some, please post here or on yesterday's post). But I have a theory and the theory is related to road rage. Let me explain.

Sometime in 1987 or 1988, some news reporters on TV coined the phrase "road rage" to describe the anger some drivers felt towards other drivers. AAA talked about how bad it was and called for investigations. Psychologists searched for reasons to explore the phenomenon. And police officers dutifully began reporting it when they saw it.

Road rage was real, but did these TV reporters create the wave that spread? Not just by encouraging copycats, (which they did) but also by reporting on something that had been there all along. The term didn't exist in 1986, so the statistical count was zero. The number of reported incidents incidents had no where to go but up. (for more on this media invention see here)

So, are we seeing the same thing with bullying? Certainly it is real and has been around a LONG time. But are we 1) creating copycats and 2) counting a problem we never counted before? Doesn't change the seriousness of it and I for one am glad parents are aware of it, but it doesn't make it a national problem.

Bullying statistics - Historical data

Has anyone seen any statistics on bullying that cover the growth? Specifically, if we look back 1, 2, 5, even 10 years ago, is bullying more prevalent today than it was then?

All of the numbers I've seen indicate how bad it is now, or stats from 2009 or some other year. The numbers are staggering and I don't mean to minimize them. I'm just looking for some historical perspective and haven't found it yet.

If you find a link, post it here.

What a difference a bank makes

This morning I called my small "home-town" bank because my debit card is broken. This bank has a feature where they transfer an extra $1 into savings every time you use the card. But they charge me a monthly fee of $5. Each time I use the card, they deduct 50cents from that fee, so if I use it 10 times, there's no fee.

Another reason I signed up for this account is that in March of this year (which started today), they are going to give me a bonus and match all of the dollars they've transferred to savings. I think in my case that will exceed the service charges I've paid.

Anyway, back to replacing my debit card. Martha at the bank was very nice and was ready to send me a new card. Then she told me there was a $5 charge. I told her to hold off.

Then I called one of the big credit card companies and told them that the card I have for them is broken (I'm rough on cards in my wallet). Michele was very nice and offered to send one out right away. I talked to her about the rewards program and she offered to upgrade my card in two different ways. The first was no charge (I pay no annual fee now) and would give me trip cancellation benefits (not a big deal, but if it's free). The second would give me more rewards, but cost an annual fee of $59. I declined the second and accepted the first.

My point here is this: people like to bash the big credit card companies and praise the little guy, but my experience is the opposite. What's your experience?

Should I itemize on my taxes?

One of the most frequent questions I get from the folks who come to me to have their taxes done is "Should I itemize?" A lot of these clients don't even know what the question means, but they ask anyway. And the answer I always give is that we will look at their situation and determine the best answer, because the answer is different for everyone.

To explain what it means, the IRS gives everyone a standard deduction. You can choose to take the standard deduction or itemize. Typically, you will choose which ever gives you the best tax break (while it sounds silly, there is at least one good reason not to choose the best, but I'll ignore that for now). This deduction is the amount of your income that is not taxable. Supposed you're single and make $50,000 a year income. You won't have to pay taxes on the entire income, the first $5700 is not taxable.


The standard deduction as mentioned about is $5700 for single people or for married people who file separately. For married people who file together, the deduction is exactly twice the single deduction or $11,400. There is another class of people, Head of Household and their deduction is $8400. I won't go over those choices in this blog post, I'll assume you know which filing status you fall into.

In order to decide on itemizing, you can simply look at your items and see the total. If they total more than the standard, you're better off itemizing. So what items are significant? My experience is that home mortgage interest is typically the larges. If your home is mortgaged, you should get a from from your bank that tells how much interest you paid.

People of faith also tend to have charitable contributions. And of course we all pay state taxes, you can choose to deduct your state income tax or state sales tax. Don't forget real estate taxes and property taxes on your automobiles. If the total of all of these items exceeds the standard, by all means itemize.

There are two other areas that are common: Medical expenses and miscellaneous deductions. Each of these is subject to some minimums. For example, medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your income are deductible. For the person listed above making $50,000, that's $3750. If your expenses are less than that or are covered by insurance, you can't deduct them. If your expenses are higher, you can only deduct the difference. For example, if your expenses are $5000, you can only deduct $1250.

For miscellaneous expenses (job travel, union dues, etc), these have to exceed 2% of your income.

I purposely omitted Casualty and Theft losses as they aren't that common. By all means you should study the law yourself and not take my comments as always true. But hopefully, this will help you decide if you want to itemize.

Twenty-one years ago

Twenty-one years ago, my wife was pregnant with what was to be our third child. Everyone (except me) thought it would be sweet if the child was born on Valentines Day. We woke up that morning with my wife thinking this was the day. We hurriedly got our two girls up and gave them their Valentines presents, knowing we may not be home that night. Then we called a neighbor to take care of the girls before and after school.

We hadn't chosen a girl's name yet (which turned out not to be a problem). I had decided that if the child was a boy, he should inherit my middle name as his middle name. I hadn't made that decision with the first two, which was ok, since both girls would have seemed silly with James as a middle name. During the labor process, my wife thought about changing the first name, but all her choices started with "J" and the idea of JJ just didn't seem right. Little did we know, even without the JJ moniker, we were due for some dynamite (the link shows my age).

A few hours later, we were in the delivery room, still with no girl's name, but at least settled on a boy's name. Ultrasounds were not common and we didn't know what to expect. We had experienced similar but opposite problems the first two times around (no boy's name chosen back then). When our pediatrician told use we had a "little Muggsy", we knew we didn't have a problem this time either. I guess with what the doctor charged for his short time in the room, he could afford to be a big Hornet's fan.

After the birth, I went to the nurse's station to get some ice & water. OB nurses are always excited and asked "what did you have?" New dads (even experienced new dads like me) can be counted on to say something stupid, my answer was "just some water." After they laughed and explained their question better, I told them we had a boy.

Today, my youngest celebrates his big day. We've been through a lot together. I have the privilege of taking him on baseball trips every few years, camping now and then and other father-son experiences. He's seen enough changes to last him a lifetime, but I'm sure more changes are on their way. Hopefully, these changes have prepared him for a bright future. He certainly deserves it.

Adam is now a student, a bass player in a Christian band (when he can), and more than that, a young man. Happy Birthday Adam! Enjoy your special day. We love you.

procession of presidencies - part 2

It took me longer to get back to this than I thought. When I last left off, I had explained my theory on presidential elections. Basically, I had gone through presidents from JFK to JEC showing that the results of each election was predictable. It's almost as if some "invisible hand" was guiding not just economics, but elections too.

The last president I covered was President Carter. He took over after Ford, the only un-elected president we've ever had. America wasn't too happy with America. We'd been through the Vietnam war, then a crooked president. Then a president who tried to patch things up (Ford), but never seemed to do anything of note (except the Mayaquez incident). Inflation was high, unemployment was high. And things didn't get much better after Carter stepped in.

The hostage crisis in Iran sealed President Carter's image. Fairly or not, Americans felt defeated. A rescue attempt failed, costing the lives of 8 servicemen. The hostages were taken deeper under cover and were not released until after Carter left office.

America need to regain confidence in American. Ronald Reagan was the man for the job. Reagan was every man's grandfather. It didn't matter what he said, you just liked him. He believed in himself and he believed in America. He wanted to take the country back. I heard back then, that there was a huge boost in the sales of American flags. With him in office, America recovered. The economy got better, we ended the Cold War with the Russians and we actually made progress. We bombed Libya (on my birthday) and showed we would not put up with terrorism. Reagan surrounded himself with some very smart people, he may have been the last president to do so.

After 8 years of Reagan, control of the presidency went to his VP, George H.W. Bush. His time was lackluster. And his timing was worse. Americans had 8 years of Reagan and saw Bush as a continuation. They made fun of his "points of light" and everything else he did. When it was time for re-election, the economy was down and he seemed to not care.

In walked Bill Clinton. Like JFK, he held a Prince Charming appeal. America wanted a younger person in office, someone with charisma (a value Bush never was accused of). Sure, he was a womanizer, but he was a good looking womanizer. Men would laugh, women didn't care. And he said he would fix the economy.

At the end of his first stint, the economy looked good, so he was reelected. But after eight years, America decided it wasn't just the economy that was important, it was credibility also. They were tired of the snickers and back room jokes. Tired of the womanizer or maybe he had just grown too old? American wanted credibility again an reminisced about the days of a man named Reagan. He wasn't available and his VP Bush hadn't been all that good, but another Bush stepped in.

On George W. Bush's first presidency, 9/11 happened. Americans everywhere were convinced he was the right man for the job. There was even a political cartoon that showed Tipper Gore saying she thought he was a better choice. He was locked in for 8 years, primarily on the vote of Obam Bin Laden.

Americans can't be patient with anything and at the end of 8 years, the economy was again in a bad situation.Terrorism was no longer considered as big a threat as in 2004 and the reminiscing of Reagan fell flat. America wanted a change again, someone younger. A fresh view of the world. Someone who wasn't a cowboy. Someone who could negotiate.

In a perfect storm, a young candidate named Obama showed up. Not just a change, THE change. He wasn't Bush and he wasn't Clinton. He cared about people. He was a minority, but not too much of one. Americans could identify with him.

So what does this mean for 2012? Well predictions are easy in hindsight. It's the forward looking predictions that are hard. But I believe most presidential elections revolve around the economy. If the economy rebounds, President Obama will have no trouble getting reelected. If there is another 9/11 attack and if President Obama responds, he will have no trouble getting reelected. (I don't think there will be another 9/11, Bin Laden has no incentive) If on the other hand, the economic recovery still lags (and I think it will), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still linger and we have new issues crank up (Korea, Tibet, etc), I think he will face strong opposition.

It will be up to his opponents (both Democrats and Republicans) to surface a new face, one that shows confidence. One that shows patriotism (I think we're headed back to that).

What do you think?

procession of presidencies

I have this theory that our choice of presidencies for the last several years has been overall very predictable by the circumstances at the time. This probably isn't popular with the R's or the D's because it says that the next one will be just as predictable. But let me expound.

My theory starts in the early 1960's. JFK was a young, handsome president, everyone's Prince Charming. A beautiful wife and beautiful children. After his death, Johnson took over as president. When reelection came a year later, America's love for JFK held over to his successor and Johnson was elected in 1964.

In 1968, Johnson refused to run for reelection. America was tired of the war in Vietnam and wanted us out. After RFK's assassination, the Democrats chose Hubert Humphrey to run against Nixon. But again, the demand for change won out. After 8 years of increasing violence in Southeast Asia, riots in the streets and a seeming status-quo, Americans elected a Republican.

Nixon lived up to his promise of getting the US out of Vietnam. But his paranoia led to his downfall. Watergate is the single event most people remember about Nixon. Exactly what he did or what anyone else did seems irrelevant. Americans remember that despite his statements, he was a crook. After his exit from office, Gerald Ford became our first unelected president. Most Americans can't remember anything about him except that he pardoned Nixon. For that and more, he didn't stand a chance for reelection.

In 1976, the Democratic candidate was James Earl Carter. In response to the Nixon presidency, Congress went out of it's way to emasculate the role of the President. The economy was in the dumps and America was too. A small nation that most Americans couldn't find on the map abducted some of our citizens and held them hostage. This became Carter's defining moment. But it lasted longer than a moment and America went further into the dumps.

Tomorrow I'll conclude this story. You know how it turns out, but do you agree with my reasoning?

Climate advisor steps down - Who should replace?

I just read this news article that says Carol Brown, the president's climate advisor, is resigning from her post. Now you may be like me and didn't realize we had a climate advisor. But even though I didn't realize there was such a position, I'm impressed.

Obviously, this lady has done her job well. We in SC, have had more snow this year than in 4 average years and we're in the middle of a month long snap. Brown has advised away all effects of Global Warming in the two short years she's been in the job. (I'm assuming she took the job in 2009, I really don't know)

I have a suggestion to President Obama regarding her replacement. I think he has an opportunity to show his leadership skills, show is fiscal strength and show his climate change knowledge all at the same time. When he studies the matter and looks for a replacement hopefully, he will heed my advice. Next candidate for climate advisor? Nobody.

State of the Union Preview

About a week ago, I made a joke about a mayor's "State of the City" address. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the humor came through. But it seems like it must be a slow news cycle because all of the internet is buzzing about something that hasn't happened yet, President Obama's third State of the Union speech.

There's discussion on which Supreme Court Justices will show up. Last year, the president took the Constitution-required speech and added political comments criticizing the Supremes. If they don't show up, it won't be the first time, but it's sure to garner a lot of attention.

And there's a lot of talk about what the President will say. So I thought I'd lay out my predictions:

- One of the survivors of the Tucson shooting will be present and the President will early on offer support for Rep. Giffords. The President will talk about civility, words that heal and not hurt, etc. There will be a moment of silence for the Federal Judge and others who lost their lives.

- The President will talk about the Obamacare law, how good it is and how the congress should not repeal it. He'll vow to fight for the law

- The President will talk about jobs & the economy. He'll talk about how he inherited this mess and it's much worse than anyone thought. But he'll say that he's accepting responsibility for fixing it.

- The President will say something about the recent Chinese President Hu Jintao.This will be related to economics and will make the president look good.  (I think this will be something that no one expected).

- After 30-45 minutes of applause, etc, the President will spend 1-2 minutes talking about foreign policy, Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea and other countries of the world.

- There will be a Republican presponse to the State of the Union. They will focus on the economy, repealing Obamacare and say some nice things about Rep. Giffords and the Tucson shooting.

- No one will talk about gun control. It's a topic no one wants to touch.

- Republicans may talk about TARP and other past stimulus packages.

So, watch the speeches and give me a score.. If you want to make your own predictions, feel free, I'll score you also...

*Update* I'm also predicting Pres. Obama will speak preemptively about the debt ceiling. By doing so, he will box Republicans in a corner.

Running for president

About two years ago, I announced I was running for president. (see here) While I didn't garner quite enough votes to beat out then-Senator Obama, I did managed to spend a few blog posts detailing my ideas of what the next president should do.

It turns out, I may have started too late. I found this article today that says 76 people have already registered to run in 2012. Maybe I should throw my name into the hat once again?

From the article, it looks getting my name on the ballot in my home state. SC requires candidates to get signatures from 10,000 register voters. I know my mom will sign, that's only 9,999 more to go (I might be able to count on my wife, depends on if I took out the garbage last night - which I don't remember). It might be easier to start on the ballot in New Hampshire, where all you have to do is pay a $1,000 fee and fill out a form.

I'm already behind in my fund raising, one of my soon-to-be competitors, Randy Knill (gotta love that first name), from my neighboring state has already raised $349. That's about $348 more than I raised in my last election attempt. And the competition will be fierce, one of the candidates is Rutherford B. Hayes. My first thought was that he won the presidency before and he would be a little old by the time he was elected (he was 188 on his last birthday). But it turns out this Hayes is younger and no relationship to President #19. (This Hayes is only 42)

As a side note, I found out that the election of the first Rutherford B. Hayes was very close, a difference of 19 electoral votes. Additionally, 20 of the electoral votes were in question and could have changed the election all together. According to this article, Hayes was awarded the presidency in return for ending Reconstruction. South Carolina and Florida played a crucial role. I guess there were hanging chads in the election of 1876.

House of Representatives votes to repeal Obamacare

Unless you missed the news, you already knew this. No surprise, this was what many representatives ran their campaign on. The vote was 245 to 189, with three Democratic representatives crossing party lines to join all 242 republicans.

Reports I had read called this "bi-partisan", but I'm not convinced. I haven't see all of the details, but sounds like this was almost 100% party line split. That disappoints me.

Reading this report from Comedy Central, I found an interesting line. Read it very carefully:

It's always adorable when the Senate reminds the House, "You're just a ginormous receptacle for Americans who actually believe in the delusion of representative democracy."

Sadly, I think the writer's correct. The Senate doesn't believe we should have the delusion of a representative democracy. I guess in 2 years, we have to show them.

Fist Time Home Buyer's Tax Credit - Payback Time

If you're one of the people who bought a home in 2008 and received the $7,500 tax credit it's payback time. (For those who purchased in 2009 or 2010 and received the $8,000 credit, this does not apply, as long as you still own the home). The original First Time Home Buyer's Tax credit was actually a loan. The $7,500 has to be paid back over 15 years, starting this year.

The loan is interest fee, so you only have to pay back $500 each year. Form 5405 contains instructions for the payback. You also have to pay back the credit (either $7,500 or $8,000) if you keep the house less than three years. In this case, the amount is due back in the tax year that you sold the house. The amount of repayment is limited to any gain you might have on the sale of the home. Some other exclusions apply, but read the form and instructions for full details.

It may seem unfair to the 2008 home buyer that he only received $7,500 and has to pay it back while the 2009 or 2010 home buyer received $8,000 and he gets to keep it. Fair or not, that's the tax law. It's possible that congress would change to law to forgive the $7,500 loan, but my guess is, it won't. The current congress is more interested in reducing the debt than helping one small group of taxpayers. The realtors who fought so hard for the credit have now moved on to new buyers and aren't likely to fight for a tax break for the buyer from three years ago.

One bit of good news is that the $7,500 was real money. If you had taken that money and invested in a small CD making 2% interest (I know that's hard to find now, but let's assume), you would end up with over $2,000 at the end of the payback time. Of course, the intent of the tax credit was to stimulate the economy, so it's better if you actually spent that money instead of bankrolling it.

You're yelling so loud, I can't hear what you're saying...

In the last several days, there have been a lot of outcries from both left and right about the Tucson shooting. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if anyone is listening. Instead, both sides are shouting as loud as they can, trying to drown out the other party. In the end, no one wins and we all become a little more deaf.

In his speech, President Obama suggested that we should talk to each other in a manner "that heals, not in a way that wounds." Like many times before, I agree with the President. I hope he means what he says and (more importantly) I hope that he does what he says. He is our leader and he needs to lead. This means that in political speeches, he needs to stop lashing out at those that disagree with him. I saw a list of things he'd said about his opposition and I won't repeat it here. But my point is, if he wants things to change, he should lead.

We also need to find a way to listen to others when we disagree. For too long, that hasn't been the case (on both sides). Instead, we push the ideas completely aside and ignore the message. If a person is in favor of abortion, shouldn't we try to understand why? If a person is opposed, shouldn't we listen, instead of just saying they must be a religious fanatic? (and yes, I chose a very divisive topic to make my point).


And most of all, shouldn't we listen even when the other party is yelling?

A couple of examples come to mind. A year ago, I posted about Pat Robertson and his opinions on Haiti. Seems Robertson said some things (as usual) that folks didn't like. His real message included a call for help and prayer for the Haitians. Now who could disagree with that? Another example is the so-called Westboro Church. They protest at funerals. Yet when you listen or read some of the details of what they say, they aren't much different than those in mainstream churches. The MANNER in which they say it and the TIMING are all designed to inflame -- and they do that quite well.

Both of these are extreme examples of how the yelling overpowers what is being said. So are these people at fault or are the people complaining about them? Both. If it weren't for all the complaints, the people would (eventually) go away. In a free society, there will be those who speak out in an inflammatory manner. All we can do is ignore them and hope for some real leadership.

Donations for Haiti

This blogpost makes note of the anniversary of Haiti in a not-too-positive way. The blogger notes that the Red Cross raised $32million on text messages alone - $10 at a time. But the blogger also notes that there's very little accounting for where the money went.

One side note is the blogger mentioned that the Disaster Accountability Project asked 200 charities where the money went and only 38 responded. The blogger does give details on the 200 or the 38. This is one reason I believe blogging will never replace real reporting, but the blogger isn't trying to report, just to make a point.

The question to take away from this is how should we help countries like Haiti when disasters like this strike? Should we ignore them altogether as some in the comments have said? Why not go in, take over the government, fix everything and give it back? It would be cheaper.

Unfortunately, there are things like sovereignty that get in the way. And there's no guarantee that if we did this we could find capable people to accept it when we finished.

I'm a firm believer in helping these people out, and helping them in a small, direct way. Agencies like Samaritan’s Purse have a low overhead and directly help people. One of the commenters to the blog note that we should take in more water purifiers, porta-potties, etc. This is a win-win solution, US wins because we manufacture some of those things and Haiti wins because they need them.

There are several people who commented that the people can't be helped until the government changes. While that's probably true, there's little you or I can do to change the government. We can either continue to send money in useless ways or we can find better ways to spend our money (or we can just ignore the situation).

See also my post about the Haiti Relief effort and Pat Robertson here.

Should we treat congressmen like everyone else?

Yesterday, I posted some comments about the shooting in Arizona. One major concern I have is for the democratic process in this country, that congress will start interacting with constituents less than they have in the recent past.

Seems a congressman from my very state has already begun to think that way. Jim Clyburn, from the Charleston SC area, thinks congress should be treated differently than common people like you & me. It seems that Clyburn is uneasy going through airports (how that's related to a parking lot shooting, I'll never understand). Specifically, he said “We’ve had some incidents where TSA authorities think that congresspeople should be treated like everybody else." (see more about his time on Fox News yesterday in this post).

In looking at this, I'm reminded of two quotes from "The Miracle at Philadelphia", a book on the writing and ratification of our constitution. It said "in America, one saw a member of congress seated in a stage coach beside a laborer who had voted for him." It also said  "here the equality of man... was put into practice, accepted as an everyday fact."

Sadly, some in Congress see themselves as more equal than the rest of us.

Shooting in Arizona

Yesterday, I was studying with the television on when the news station broke into regularly scheduled news with news about the shooting in Arizona. For over 3 hours, the news program did not break for a commercial, but gave out the news as it came in.

They did some verification of the information, probably as best they could. Other news stations were quicker to give out information (they quoted NPR a couple of times and were wrong almost every time they did).

I've already seen some information from both sides showing how the shooting was the other sides' fault. At this point, it looks to me like the fault lies with one very deranged individual.

My immediate concern is for the families of those involved in the shooting. Rep Giffords and her family, Judge Roll's family and the family of Christina-Taylor Green, the nine year old girl who was killed.

Longer term, I am concerned about our American Democracy. Rep. Giffords was meeting her constituents when she was targeted. In the last election, a lot of congressmen and congresswomen had their town hall meetings broken up by people who wanted to make their points and ignored the other people in the room.

But I'm also concerned that we have come to the point where we are afraid to speak our minds for fear that some deranged individual will go off shooting at people.

Pray for the families involved and pray for our country.

To itemize or not to itemize - that is the question

Ok, I'm not a poet. But someone asked me about itemizing deductions this week and I couldn't resist the title. So, should you itemize your deductions on your taxes? As always, the easy answer is "it depends."

For couples who file jointly, are under 65 and are not blind, the standard deduction is $11,400. That means you have to have deductions higher than $11,400 to make itemizing worthwhile. What can be itemized? Mortgage interest, state and local taxes (income tax or sales tax - but not both), real estate taxes, taxes on a new motor vehicle and gifts to charity are fully deductible. If these total up (or come close to) your standard deduction, then itemization makes good sense. In SC, taxes aren't high enough to force the issue alone, so mortgage interest and charitable giving usually are the factors that answer the question.

There are other deductions too. Medical and dental expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income is deductible. That sounds hard, but start by taking a look at your income and multiply by .075. If your medical expenses are more than that, proceed, if not, just let them go.

Years ago, someone told me you could deduct shoe polish. The logic was you polished your shoes for work, so it was a job expense. While I would question shoe polish under any circumstance, job expenses have to exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income. Most people that have a job that requires polished shoes have a high income and shoe polish won't come up to that much money.

By all means you should do the math every year to see if itemization helps you. Some people worry about being audited. My advise follows Will Rogers' saying "I'm happy to be an American and happy to pay my taxes. But I could be a lot happier for a lot less money." In other words, don't worry about being audited, do what's right, document your numbers and take every deduction that is legally allowed.

So what do you think? Will you itemize this year?

Taxes!!!

It's that time of year again, the time when we all start looking at income taxes. This year, we get an extra 3 days to fill out the forms, they aren't due until April 18. That's because April 16 falls on a Saturday. Confused? Well, April 16 is Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington DC. This marks the anniversary of the date Lincoln freed the 3100 slaves living in the District of Columbia.

Since Emancipation Day falls on Saturday, residents of DC will celebrate the holiday (by taking a day off work) on Friday, April 15. Since tax returns can't be processed on a holiday, they aren't due until Monday, April 18.

We may need that extra time, because many people are being asked to wait until mid-to-late February to file. This IRS bulletin indicates that anyone who 1) itemizes deductions, 2) claims the deduction for higher education or 3) claims the Educator Expense Deduction should wait. Of course, you can start your return earlier, but you'll do better to wait until the final forms are available.

If you don't fall into one of the three categories above, you can start on your 2010 taxes anytime. If your income us $49,000 or less, you qualify to have your taxes done for free by IRS trained volunteers. Also, the IRS helps the elderly with their taxes. And there are many websites that allow free filing for taxpayers.

So start gathering your receipts and get your taxes ready. There are only 102 days left.

Wal-Mart Part 2

Yesterday I posted a long blog entry about the video Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices. If you can watch the video with an open mind, I recommend it. Basically, it's 97 minutes of anti-Wal-Mart propaganda. In my post, I promised to give my opinions on Wal-Mart.

Personally, I don't like the store. Wal-Mart is all about low prices at whatever cost. As noted in the comments, they buy a lot of Chinese products, so buying at Wal-Mart sends a lot of money to China. I don't consider this a big deal, but would rather that money stay in a country friendly to the US. Of course, if a US company could make the same product as cheaply as a Chinese company, I have no doubt that Wal-Mart would switch. And I'm a strong capitalist, you go with the lowest cost product.

But Wal-Mart also seems to play some stock games. I've noticed that the stores have frequent stock-outs. I think there are a couple of reasons for this, one is that they are popular. Customers go in and buy all of an item and the store can't get it restocked quickly enough. Or, in some cases, I believe they intentionally have stock-outs in order to get you to come back the next day. And in some cases, they are trying to keep inventory costs down, so they let shelves stay empty.

Wal-Mart also favors low prices at the expense of service. Finding an employee when you're shopping is difficult, finding a knowledgeable employee is almost impossible. Ask where is an item and you'll get a better answer from the mom shopping with a baby than you will from an employee. When it's time for check-out, you'll see they have 28 registers and only 4 of them open (the local Wal-Mart has gotten better at this).

Wal-Mart is not on my list of favorite stores. But I still visit. They have everything. I can be (barring stock-outs) assured that I can go in one time and find everything I need. And if I'm out of town, they are usually easy to find. What do you think of the store?

Wal-Mart

For Christmas, my wife and I gave ourselves a Wii. More about that later, but one of the benefits of the Wii is the ability to stream Netflix to our aging, non-HD, non-digital, non-flat screen TV. So, we also reactivated our Netflix account and watched some movies. I've had some documentaries on my list for a while, so I watched "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices"

Most of you who know me probably are surprised that I would even watch this movie. The trailers at the end give credit to Moveon.org, ACLU, ACORN and AFL-CIO along with a lot of others. Not exactly my top 4 BFF's. But I wanted to see what the anti-Wal-Mart movement is all about.

I initially thought the documentary was well done, however one error blew that away. In showing some newsclips, the video showed a story about a crime committed in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Taylors, SC. The newscaster was from one of the major towns close to Taylors and she accurately pronounced the town name. However, the caption super-imposed on the story said "Taylor, SC". Now a missing "s" might not be noticeable to those outside the upstate, but it stood out to me. My father was born near Taylors and I bought my first car in that area. My sister lives in that zip code and my daughter's in-laws are either in Taylors or Greer depending on the way the wind blows. My advice to Wal-Mart haters is to at least get the names of the towns right, it's important to some people.

The beginning of the video focused on towns laying down the red carpet for Wal-Mart. Later it talked about subsidies, in the form of towns paying for infrastructure: access roads, sewer, water, etc. It also talked about the small family businesses that were run out of business by Wal-Mart. I have to agree with this mantra to a certain extent. Towns and counties need to be very careful when enticing big business into the area. We've had some dispute about bringing a Bass-Pro shop to the area and I don't believe we should do it by giving away tax breaks we don't give to small businesses. The opposite side of this coin is the tax breaks we gave to big manufacturers (notably BMW and Boeing) that bring jobs and other business to the state. If a competitor to these big manufacturers wants to come to SC, we should give them the same tax breaks.

The video gave some stories that seemed to conflict with each other. For example, they would talk about the shortage of workers, forcing people to work longer hours and work on days off. Then they talked about how Wal-Mart doesn't let workers get enough hours and threatening them with replacement.

One part of the story focused on security in Wal-Mart parking lots. It was suggested that Wal-Mart have security patrols ride through the parking lot regularly. I don't know of any store that does this. I've been to malls in several cities, Costco stores, and grocery stores that have parking lots that could also be dangerous: no patrols. When there are patrols, the frequency is so low as to easily be missed. I don't see how this reduces parking-lot crime.

It was pointed out that Wal-Mart has cameras, but it was suggested that these were for anti-union activities. Maybe being anti-union has benefits? The Wal-Marts close to us do have cameras, and SC is far from a union hot-bed (although some manufacturing plants are unionized - a story for another day). One "security expert" said the cameras at Wal-Mart do nothing for security unless someone is watching them, however he completely ignored the deterrent effect. Also, even if someone was watching the camera, I don't believe they could stop a crime in process.

One part of the video focused on the discrimination that it claims is prevalent at Wal-Mart. When I complained about some problems at the local Wal-Mart, I was called back by a manager who was an African-American female. I guess Wal-Mart isn't as discriminatory in the south.


Most of the video focused on the way workers were treated: low pay and low/no benefits. I'm a believer in an employees right to work. If an employee doesn't like his job or feels he deserves more pay and/or benefits, he should get another job. If he doesn't have a degree that would allow him to get a better job, he should go back to school.

One aspect I found interesting was the claim that Wal-Mart encourages workers to seek out government assistance in the form of WIC and medicaid. By paying low-wages and offering no benefits, they are relying on government "subsidies" the video declares. Seems like a simple solution would be for the government to stop these subsidies and force Wal-Mart employees to look for other employment. This same argument would apply to subsidies for infrastructure mentioned above. But this flies in the face of more medicaid, Obamacare and more welfare. Maybe this is one inconsistency Michael Moore doesn't see.

The movie ended with a redeeming quality. It told communities how to fight Wal-Mart. Two communities were noted: Chandler, Az and Inglewood, Ca. These communities didn't want Wal-Mart to come in, so they had community meetings to educate residents. The processes they used were (mostly) above board and legal. The video shots did show one minister mis-quoting the Bible, but most shots seemed very clear. I'm all for communities voicing their issues this way, but I'm opposed to legislating a business out of business the way some anti-Wal-Mart'ers would do.

I did note the list of cities/towns where the video-maker claims Wal-Mart has been stopped. One interesting town listed was Belmont, NC. However, Belmont was also featured in the portion of the video on Wal-Mart's lack of environmental care. Seems that maybe Wal-Mart was not completely stopped. I also noted other cities that were listed that I believe have Wal-Marts (I'll check on these later). Cities determined to stop Wal-Mart need to realize that Wal-Mart may build 5 miles outside city and the area will still have the same problems, with none of the benefits.

Overall, the video was interesting and educational. I'm glad I watched it.  I think it requires an open mind when viewing and don't recommend it to everyone. I don't think Wal-Mart is a bad as they are made out to be and will post my personal views on Wal-Mart tomorrow. But for today, I think I'm going to watch another documentary...

Happy New Year - 2011 style

I don't know about you, but I'm thinking 2011 is going to be a great year. I'm not usually one to make resolutions and this year I don't want to break the trend. But I have pseudo-resolved to do more blogging, more reading and maybe even a little more exercise.

I've set a goal of climbing Table Rock (a nearby mountain) by my birthday in mid-April. I'm planning to do the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance thing again this year (it will be my third year) and I'm hoping to certify at a higher level. I've done a little financial coaching one-on-one (or rather two-on-one and one-on-two) and want to continue with that as well.

From a job standpoint, I'm hoping this year will be better than last. In 2010, I started with a lot of questions and went through 6 months with no direction. To have ended the year as well as I did seems to indicate that 2011 will be even better.

How about you? Any resolutions, goals or predictions?

Merry Christmas - 2010

As I write this post, we're between shifts in our Christmas. Some of our kids alternate Christmas morning with their in-laws and come see us in the afternoon. This is their year to show up for lunch. The others see us every Christmas morning, so we got up and celebrated Christmas 2010 First Shift at about 8am. Eight adults and two 2-year olds (one is only 1+1/2, but that's close). Second shift means five of the adults leave and four new ones come in (Mom-in-law works split shift, she came in mid-first shift and stays for second). The two little ones leave and two new 2-year olds (ok, another 1+1/2 year old) and a 4 year old come in their place. It will be a busy household all day.

This year we've been blessed in many ways. I want to take this moment to wish you and your family blessings from the (very) extended Barnett Household. Merry Christmas!

Is war ever worth fighting

My last post included a video of Joan Baez singing "Where have all the flowers gone?" The song was recorded by just about everyone in the 60's and it seemed to be a statement about the war in Vietnam. I was too young to really understand, but it seemed like a good time to be against something and the Vietnam war was an easy target (war as a target, that's something). Songs like this and "One, two, three, four, what are we fighting for?" (officially "I feel like I'm fixing to die" found here with mild profanity) were about as rebellious as I ever became. By the time I was draft age, the Vietnam War was a memory, a bad memory for a lot of people.

You may have seen that the review of the Afghanistan War is out, to be made official tomorrow. This comes at a time when "a record-high 60 percent of Americans think the war is not worth fighting," according this this article. The war has been raging on for just over 9 years now and an end is far away by anyone's judgment.

It made me think - is war ever worth fighting? Our President has said that this is a war of necessity (one of the few times he has agreed with former President Bush). A year ago he approved a surge, much like the one in Iraq, to send 30,000 more troops in, while also announcing an end date. Many on the left disapproved of this surge, wishing instead to get all troops out.

To me, the answer to the question can be found in a poem put to music by Pete Seeger, the same person who put "Where have all the flowers gone?" to music (the poem is found in the Bible, written by Solomon, the other Seeger song was from an old Ukranian folk song according to Wikipedia, not sure if Seeger actually wrote anything himself). According to the song (and to Solomon), "To every thing there is a season" and more importantly there is "a time of war, and a time of peace." If the Byrds sang it, it has to be so.

The real key is understanding when is the time for war and when is the time for peace. Most Americans would agree that 1776 was a time for war. Through a long fought battle, that wasn't popular with all Americans, we gained our freedom and began a democratic experiment that goes on today. Most people today blame Southerners for the Civil War, and while we did fire the first shot, the war would never have begun if the Union states had left the Confederate states alone. If you believe that the war was over slavery and that slavery needed to be ended (and I do to both), you'll have to say that 1861 was a time for war.

I may not always (often?) agree with this President, but I have to say that I believe he understands this concept. Sometimes, there is a time for war. We may soon find out if this is a time for war in Korea. I hope not. But I hope this President will continue to grow in his understanding of the phrase "a time to every purpose under the heaven:"

Where have all the bloggers gone?

Seems a lot of the blogs I follow have gone silent with one blog even completely being deleted. Some of these had started and never followed through (or are using Facebook/Twitter to share), others are out doing things like the Nutcracker Ballet (I think).

My schedule has made it more difficult to follow a regular schedule, although I think that's changing as we near the end of 2010. But it made me think of this song.

Ok, I don't like the political commentary she added in, but the song is from a different era, a different time.

A Quarter of a Century

Quarter of a Century. Saying it that way makes it sound like a long time, doesn't it? Twenty-five years ago, my wife & I were expecting our second child. She awoke early and couldn't sleep, so she went in the other room. Around 5am, she came and told me we needed to think about the fact that she might be in labor. Being the loving, supportive husband I was, I told her she probably wasn't and rolled over.

When I heard the slamming of the door accompanied with a muttered "FINE!", I made a wise decision. I got up. After sitting with her a few minutes, we decided it was time to go to the hospital. We finished packing and called a neighbor who had agreed to take care of our 2-year old daughter. As we finished packing her things, he called back and told us to remember a car-seat and something and something and something. I told him that he was more nervous than I was.

On the way to the hospital on the planned route (this was still pre-rush hour traffic) I saw a road-sign that looked familiar. I was pretty sure I knew where the other end of this road was and it would be a quicker route, so I decided to try a road never travelled before (at least by me). The funny thing about roads in Charlotte, they all have similar names. There's Sharon Rd, Sharon Lane, Sharon Amity and I ain't Sharin' Sharon. No wait, that last one is a song by Jim Stafford.

Anyway, when I got the end of Sharon something it wasn't quite where I thought it would be, but it was close. My wife was not amused or impressed. We still got to the hospital before rush hour and in plenty of time.

Ultrasounds were not as common 25 years ago, so we had no idea if we were expecting a girl or a boy (even in that day, those were still the only two choices). We entertained a lot of ideas about determining the sex, tried a boiled egg resting on the belly and a few other tricks, but these were mainly for fun. Our nurse that day told us that the baby's heartbeat would tell you, but many times it was wrong. But she had great confidence when she told us THIS one was a boy.

We took the nurse's prediction seriously, as we had chosen girl names but no boy names. Between contractions for two hours we discussed names as we had discussed for the last nine months, still with no resolution. Fortunately for us, no decision was needed as our little girl was born early that afternoon. I'm not sure if the nurse ever knew about her mistake.

Happy Birthday Katie. You've gone from being my little "bean green" to a wonderful lady with 2.2 children of your own. We love you. Hope today is as happy for you as my day was 25 years ago.

Elizabeth Edwards dies at age 61

Unless you missed the news, Elizabeth Edwards passed away today. She was 61.

I wrote about Mrs. Edwards' cancer back in 2007 (here). Let me echo something I said back then. There will be those who say this is God's punishment for something or another. Shame on them.

My heart goes out to the family. She left three children, including a 12 year old and a 10 year old. These children will have to go on without a mother.

One interesting tidbit that I found was that Edwards' son Wade (who was killed in an auto accident at age 16) was honored by then First Lady Clinton for an essay he wrote. After his death, the essay and his obituary were entered into the Congressional Record by Senator Jesse Helms (for those unfamiliar with Helms, he would have seldom agree with the Edwardses politically).

Should we blame God for our mistakes?

Ok, I'm going to step into a religious discussion again. I rarely do, but this one peaked my interest. Seems Steve Johnson, wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills literally dropped the ball in a football game. Not just any ball drop, a winning touchdown pass in overtime in the end-zone. And he wasn't too happy, so he tweeted about his frustration. The Yahoo! article is titled "Steve Johnson blames God for his overtime drop."

Now when you read his exact tweets, it seems to me that he really didn't blame God. He said "I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO..." He did say he praises God 24/7 and he never really blamed God.

It's hard to tell if his ending "THX THO" is sarcastic or real. Since he said "THO," at the end, I take it as serious. And it seems to me that Johnson expects to learn something, although he can't figure out what it is to learn about. And I also noticed is that Johnson sure likes exclamation points!!!

But ignoring all of that and taking the writer Chris Chase at his word, let's assume Johnson was blaming God. Is it ok to blame God for our mistakes? We often see athletes giving God credit for wins, why not for losses?

Most people would say that God doesn't care who wins or loses a football game. I completely disagree. God cares about the sparrows and they are two for a penny. He knows how many hairs are on your head. If He cares about these little things, don't you think He cares about a football game? (Especially if it's a certain college team that LOST to another college team this past weekend). So what message might be in the loss for Steve Johnson?

I'm not usually one for great discernment, but I have a few ideas. First, I have to say that I'm glad Johnson didn't revert to the Flip Wilson excuse, he could have said the devil made him drop the ball. Possibly, the message that God wants Johnson to get is that he is not the center of the universe. And just to be clear, neither am I (although I think I'm pretty close some of the time). On this Sunday, there were 90 football players on the active game day roster. Add about 16 more on the bench, cheer-leaders, coaches, owners, fans, advertisers and TV viewers and there were a lot of people who had an interest in the outcome. Undoubtedly, some were upset and some were happy.

Did God make Steve drop the ball? I don't think so. Not any more than he made Johnson catch the ball so many times before. That's part of the free-will thing. Does God care about the dropped ball? I think He certainly does. How does God decide when to allow a dropped ball vs. stepping in with a minor miracle, blowing the ball a little? Beats me. That's why He's God and I'm only close to the center of the universe.

Is it Ok to blame God for things like this? Well, it wouldn't be the first time. Several people in the Bible blamed God, asked Him why and asked Him what they were supposed to learn. Johnson's not the first to do this and won't be the last. God's a big guy, with big shoulders, I think He can handle a few questions like the one's in this tweet. The real question, is where does He keep His Blackberry?

The Event

I've been watching the television show The Event and last night realized the resemblance of The President in the series to President Obama.

The show, subtitled "What will you beLIEve?" could be science fiction as it has people from another planet or place and they have knowledge/power beyond what mere humans have, but really is more of a mild drama. There are no phasers or funny weapons. And they don't bend the laws of science very much.

The President in the series is played by Blair Underwood, a light skinned, good looking African-American. He was elected two years ago and according to his bio is "Moral and idealistic. Hugely popular with the American people and around the world, (he) wants to be a new kind of President, working toward a new America. He's committed to honesty ..." Like our real president, the president in this series is not fully, African-American, he was "born to Cuban refugees in Miami, Florida" and "is very proud of his Afro-Cuban roots. He is a graduate of Yale University."

But last night while watching an episode on my DVR, I noticed a deeper similarity, something in the character of the man that matches President Obama. In the episode, a man who tried to kill the president had been captured and was about to be interrogated. The President demanded that he be allowed to question the individual and that he could get answers. I'd seen it before in the series (although I can't remember the scenes), places where the President got involved in order to handle some seemingly small issue, not letting the experts do their job. The President thinks he can fix anything. He believes that he is Interrogator in Charge, Chief Fence Mender and Overall Head Honcho.

We've seen this in real life, with the mishandling of the Shirley Sherrod case, getting involved before he knew all of the facts. It can be seen in the  Henry Gates case, by saying the police "acted stupidly" then having a beer summit to ease the tensions. He weighed in on the 9/11 Mosque, an issue that should have been handled by the residents and officials of New York City. And we've seen the President get involved to fix important things (like medical care) where the government has no business meddling.

Like the President on The Event, President Obama thinks it's his job to fix anything and everything that comes up

For previous posts on related to this see here and here.

Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page

What? Can it be true? Can you really get "Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page"?

Well Trent Hamm has done it. Hamm runs a blog over at The Simple Dollar and lately it's been one of my favorites. His blog posts are typically short and to the point and he always focuses on personal finance issues (unlike me). About a month ago, I posted how you could get Hamm's book titled (coincidentally) The Simple Dollar online through Amazon. If you missed it, you can't get it free anymore, but you can still get it. I reviewed it and recommended it here. I still recommend it, even if you have to pay for it. See my instructions here.

In the one page summary of personal finance, Hamm displays some of his artwork. You'll quickly realize why he's an author, not an artist. Ok, it's not the bad and far above anything I can do, Hamm neatly sketches out everything you need to know. In just one page. He has five ideas to guide you through this process.

Of course to leave it at one page, wouldn't give you the full effect, so Hamm gives you 48 more pages to explain the pictures. The ideas are quickly consumed and give you the arms you need to tackle your particular financial situation. With each idea comes tips to help you reinforce the idea, including 100 tips to live frugally (not cheaply).

I strongly recommend Hamm's one page guide. Oh, did I mention it's free? You can find it on his blog at http://www.thesimpledollar.com/onepage.

Fees from the giant banks now at the highest level ever recorded

That's the headline from this Clark Howard online article. If  you're not familiar with Howard, he has a radio program and a TV show on HLN talking about ways to "spend less, save more and not get ripped off." He's a consumer advocate. While I listen to a lot of Christian financial programs, Howard doesn't put his faith (or lack of) on the air. His show is strictly about money and ways to help.

In his article, Clark sites a newspaper article that says that AM fees, checking fees and overdraft fees have all gone up. But wait, didn't Congress solve this problem? Didn't they pass a law commonly called the CARD Act? Didn't a well-known blogger tell us about that here?

Well you're right, on all of those. Congress has also been targeting bank fees and made it so that you can't overdraft unless you ask for the protection.  But banks will continue to find all legal means to turn a buck. That's what banks do. They try to make a profit.


Back in June, the NY Times called this a "New Day for Consumers". A consumer bureau was created and the President appointed (while Congress was on vacation) a head of that bureau who will certainly write new regulations and probably attack this problem once they read my blog.

In the mean time, what do you do about the fees? Clark Howard thinks "the reality is you have so much choice in the marketplace." He suggests "a credit union or small community bank." He also likes online banks, which is a good fit for a lot of people.

So if your bank is charging you fees, shop around. You'll be glad you did.

The Constitution and Obamacare

I've just finished reading a book on the making of the Constitution. "Miracle at Philadephia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention" covers the summer of 1787 when a group of men gathered together to create the document we all (in the US) live by now.

I took a lot of notes while I read, but I decided not to post all of them as I did with a previous book. However, I was struck by similarities to the recent health-care package that was passed. While I'm no fan of the health-care package, it turns out some very well known people (e.g. Patrick Henry) were no fan of the Constitution.

The Constitution was written in Philadelphia in secret. The conventioneers were very careful not to leave notes where outsiders could see them and were cautioned not to tell anyone what was going on. The press cooperated with the secrecy, even suggesting that they were better off not knowing. While the health-care package was not crafted in complete secrecy, there certainly were people who thought we were better off not knowing all of the details ahead of time.

I've also been involved in a few discussions with people who think the problem with the package was that it just wasn't "sold" well enough. They feel like the health-care bill needs a good PR story. After the Constitution was created and voted on by Congress, the drafters including James Madison went out to "sell" the document.

One final comparison point is that "we the people" never voted on the Constitution.  Representatives of the people voted on the document. Many of these representatives felt like the people weren't capable of understanding the paper. They felt they were more educated and knew what was best.

I'm not trying to imply that the Constitution and Obamacare are of equal importance or that they both fall into the same category. I just couldn't help but notice the similarities...

Reflections on a marathon

This past weekend was the Richmond Sun Trust Marathon. My son-in-law decided to run this year and we decided to go up and be his cheering section. The fact that our grand-daughter was going to be there added to our reasons to go.

Adam has run two marathons before: The Marine Corps Marathon and the NYC Marathon in 2008 (see my post about the 2008 NYC Marathon). This was my first. Since I didn't want to show him up, I elected not to run this year, maybe next year. Then again, maybe pigs will fly next year too.

Since I've been traveling a lot, my wife and I made use of frequent flyer points and hotel reservation points to minimize our cost. We flew up on Thursday and arrived late that night. Friday, we rode through the marathon route. That gave us non-runners a good view of what Adam would be seeing on Saturday and helped get him in the right mind-set. It also showed us all where the hills would be.

On race day, we saw the start of the race. Over 4900 runners started out. I made the mistake of being on the wrong side of the street and didn't get good pictures at this point. I also couldn't get back across the street until after all 4900+ runners passed.


After the start, we hustled over to the first check-point to cheer our runner on. He was looking good and flashed us a thumbs-up.

And of course, the smallest cheer leader even had her own sign:

I'm still processing pictures for uploading. All-in-all, we had a great time. Adam didn't finish in as good a time as he wanted, not sure how his time compares to the previous two. I guess next year I'll have to enter so I can show him how it's done (HA!).

It's that time of year again

Today is Veteran's day. The day we salute our veterans and those active in the military. Something we should do all year.

A nephew who works for Applebee's posted on his Facebook account that they were giving free meals to all veterans and active duty people (I don't know the details). I received an email from Red Robin that they were offering a free stack of onion rings (I can personally attest that these are good). I'm sure other restaurants are following suit.

I'm not going to list all of the ones I know this year. I looked back at my post from last year and reminded myself of a few of them. As I type this, I'm going to say a silent prayer of gratitude and prayer for safety for each of those.

Thank you for what you did and for what you do. Thank you for your service to your country. Thank you for protecting me.

I'm very glad that the tone of this country is to honor our nation's finest. It's what we should do.

Because I said so!

As a child/teenager, I hated those words. It seemed like I heard them all the time (probably only 4 or 5 times though) Whenever I asked WHY, I had to do something (e.g. wash dishes, cut grass, make my bed, etc.) I wasn't given an explanation, I was just told "because I said so."

Most often, these words came from my dad. I'm sure they came from mom on occasion, but I can't remember any specific case. Actually, I can't remember any specific case from my dad either, I just know I heard the words and grew to hate them. At some point, I decided - I'm never going to say that to my kids!

My first-born arrived in the early 1980's. My wife & I both had college education (which we thought was the answer to everything) and we agreed we would not use those words. We knew that we could work with our child, explain the reasons and come to a reasonable agreement on what could be done and what should be done. Those of you with children are laughing right now.

When it was time for bed, the question came out - "Why?" We explained why they needed sleep. "Why don't you go to bed?" Because I'm an adult. "Don't you need sleep?" Yes, but not as much.

Of course, the conversation went on. And it wasn't necessarily about bed. It was about any subject that came up. Eventually, I'd get tired and my answer was "Because I'm the Dad!" (it wasn't the words I'd sworn not to use, but it was close).

Eventually, I realized that some subjects couldn't be reasoned out. No amount of discussion was going to convince them that I was right. No amount of discussion was going to convince me that I was wrong. We didn't have to agree with each other, we just had to respect each other's positions and move on.

More on this subject next time...

The Simple Dollar - eBook Review

About a month ago, I told you how to get a free book (see here). Well, if you didn't act then, you're too late to get it free, but you can still follow the directions I listed and get the book for just $9.99. And I'd say it's worth it.

I want to do a review of Kindle, but I'll save those comments for another day. Today, I want to tell you about the book The Simple Dollar, by Trent Hamm. The author has a blog, conveniently titled The Simple Dollar, that focuses on day-to-day financial  management. I strongly recommend his site.

But the book is more than  just "How I got rid of credit cards and made my life easier." Trent starts by telling you his story, of being in a "prison made of plastic." But he goes on and talks about life in general, looking at "What's missing?"

Hamm interleaves stories from his personal life along with stories for your personal life. He helps understand the power of goals and the simple fact that life really is more random than you think. He looks at the sense of community in this Facebook/Myspace social networking world. He goes beyond how to get out of debt and discusses how to stay out of debt. It's not just beans-and-rice and rice-and-beans, he discusses alternatives. If you like rice-and-beans, that's fine, but most of us don't. He acknowledges that and shows how to live frugally, while still enjoying life.

But as said earlier, it's not just finances. Hamm talks about family relationships (ok, as they relate to finances) and retirement. I especially liked his discussion of a partial crossover point, a time when you can let go of your current career and start working on something new, something more exciting.

Chapter 15 of Hamm's book talks about Setting Your Child Apart. I've not read any financial planning books that discuss child rearing. He helps parents help their kids. Then he talks about giving. Not just in dollars and cents, but in giving to the community and why you should give (don't expect to be preached at - just reasons to give).

I highly recommend Hamm's book, even if you have to spend a few bucks.

Insurance

I've talked about insurance some in the past, but I wanted to take a fresh look at it. When should you buy insurance and what is it supposed to do?

The purpose of insurance is to spread the risk or the cost. Basically, you're spreading the cost of a claim across several other people. The more you spread it, the less it costs. Say for example you buy car insurance. If you keep your car for 10 years and 100 people join with you, that's 1,000 times the annual premium that goes to insurance. Now if there are claims in those 10 years that total $10,000, you'd each need to put up $10. It's a simple example, but it works.

Same goes for home owner's insurance and life insurance. Of course insurance companies hire lawyers, secretaries, actuaries, and IT people, so they will actually charge a little more. Hopefully, they will keep the extra cost to a minimum, if not you should go shopping somewhere else.

One insurance policy that behaves differently is medical insurance. Medical insurance gives you group buying power. If your insurance is with Blue Cross, they have negotiated with your doctor to get a special rate. Get an appendectomy for only $99.95 (ok, I exaggerated there a little). However, you can negotiate with doctors on your own. I recently had to pay for some medical expenses and was able to negotiate a sizable discount by telling the medical facility that this was "self-pay". The discounts I received were about the same as if the insurance company had paid.

There are two other types of insurance I wanted to cover. First is pet insurance. I may get in trouble for this, but I don't believe you need pet insurance. You should be able to pay for regular vet bills and these shouldn't be covered by insurance anyway. Given my definition of  insurance above, you would only save money if most people didn't use the insurance. Some might argue that a pet could get some kind of cancer and need expensive treatment. My argument back is that IT'S AN ANIMAL, NOT A PERSON. Ok, I shouldn't shout. But again, the discussion above about negotiating prices applies.

The second type of insurance I wanted to cover is Umbrella insurance. By this, I don't mean insuring your umbrella, I mean a kind of insurance that covers you when everything else stops. There are limits on all kinds of insurance, the most common is liability on a car. Suppose you have an accident and it's your fault. You didn't mean to do it, that's why it's called an accident. Your liability insurance will repair the other person's car up to the limits of the policy. If your limit is $50,000 and you hit someone in a nice new Lexus, you might be in trouble. That's where the umbrella policy comes in. It picks up where your regular policy stops and goes to a higher limit. Since it won't be used often (hopefully), the cost is relatively low.

If you have assets that you can't afford to lose (house, boat, 401k, etc), I think you should have an umbrella policy. These are easily obtained by the people who currently have your auto or home policy.

Hope this helps. Any comments?

What the election means to me

I don't pretend to be a political pundit or to have my finger on the pulse of the electorate. There are plenty of bloggers who will do that and give in depth analysis. Instead, I will simply point out a couple of things yesterday's elections mean to me.

As you've probably read, Republicans won big in many elections, especially in SC. We elected the first ever female governor, a lady of Indian descent (born in SC to Indian parents). We also elected our first African-American Republican Representative, Tim Scott. He's not a representative to my district, but I've seen some very good things about him. For SC to elect these two is very progressive for a state that isn't known for it's progressiveness. We also elected a real conservative Representative (Trey Gowdy) in my district to replace a pseudo-conservative Representative (Bob Inglis).


We passed four amendments in SC, guaranteeing a right for hunting and fishing, a right to a secret ballot in union elections and helping fiscal soundness.

I've already seen reports of voter intimidation and expect we'll see more. These incidents should be dealt with quickly and (if accurate) severely. I would hope that candidates on both (or all) sides will come down hard on these people.

Am I celebrating this morning? Hardly. We still have an economic mess in this nation and it's not going to be over soon. We still have a social mess with the Federal Government trying to get into too many parts of my life and that won't end soon. Our nation is still at risk from terrorists and I see people and politicians willing to close their eyes to avoid looking at it. And we have an abundance of politicians who claim to be leaders that have serious moral issues and personal baggage.

So I guess I'm troubled. Happy that the results went the way I wanted, but nervous that it won't make a difference. Or at least enough of a difference.

Goodbye to Wesley

A few times in the past I have taken on the duty of saying good bye to someone on my blog. Today is another such day.

Wesley would have been seven months old today. His mom was a close friend of both of my daughters and his maternal grandparents were close friends of mine. A little over two months ago, he started displaying signs of an illness that ended up being something in his immune system. His own body was attacking his red blood cells. On Friday, his fight ended.

Wesley's mom was like another daughter to me. She was always at my house and I know my girls were often at her house. One of my favorite memories was when she caught me napping (and snoring) on a Sunday afternoon. Her mom & dad helped my family on two major occasions (and numerous minor ones) when we needed it. Even though I moved 100 miles away twelve years ago, there was always the feeling that we would help each other out when needed.

While I travel frequently, only in the last couple of months have I gone to the town where Wesley was hospitalized. Then, out of the blue, I had two trips to the town. I took that as a sign that I was supposed to visit his family. I've said before that I don't believe in coincidence, that I believe in Providence (see here and here). I believe Providence caused me to have two business trips to see Wesley's family. I got to meet his dad and his paternal grandparents. And hopefully, I eased the burden on some old friends.

Goodbye Wesley. Your family will miss you, but rest assured that they are loved and we'll look out for them.

What does Obamacare mean to me?

I've been relatively quiet on Obamacare and the call by a lot of people to repeal it. A couple of days ago, I received an email that explained the impact to me personally. I have medical insurance through my employer. We are self-insured, that is, the employer ends up paying for all payouts. I pay into the program for family coverage (include medical, dental and vision care) and my employer pays also. All of the money is pooled together to pay out actual costs. The care is managed by one of the big insurance companies.

There are other plans available through my employer, but I've pretty much stuck with the same program over the years. My employer sent the following email (I've edited it to remove personal information):

This year, XYZ Corp had a team working for months to understand health care reform legislation.  Some of this work continues, which is one reason we are communicating with you a bit later than we usually do. We understand many of you align your decision-making with that of working spouses or domestic partners, which is why we have worked to keep the actual enrollment for employees on schedule.

You should be aware that health care cost increases for 2011 -- in addition to the normal inflationary trends -- also are affected by health care reform requirements, which affect both XYZ Corp and you.  For example, raising the age for dependent coverage from age 23 to 26 contributes somewhat to higher costs for businesses, as we must now all extend coverage to greater numbers of young adults.

There's more to the email, but that pretty much sums it up.

Sort-of Facebook and blog policy

A little over a week ago, my blog-friend Neil posted his "sort-of Facebook policy" (see it here). I mostly agreed with it and then this morning I violated it. I felt bad afterwards, so as a reminder to myself, I thought I'd specify my facebook policy and my blog policy. Or my sort-of policies. I'll probably deviate from time to time. If you catch me, please point it out.

Like Neil, I keep the Facebook comments generally light and leave the politics and heavier stuff for my blog. A lot of my family eschews these heavy topics and Facebook just doesn't seem to lend itself to in depth discussions. I have found that many times, I can keep up with my family better on Facebook than with the phone. I've also re-established some relationships from when I lived in Charlotte and even a few relationships from school. I don't play games on Facebook and try to hide updates from the games because I really don't care how many jewels you have or need for your crown.


I have a friend who doesn't use Facebook. He worries about the evil that goes on there, the relationships that get started there (he's thinking the extra-marital relationships). He worries about the wasted time (can anyone say Farmville?). He's right to worry. Facebook can be abused just like anything. And if he doesn't want to post, I think it's best he doesn't do it. He's never told me I shouldn't. That's tolerance for both of us.

For my blog, just about anything is open. I will post on any topic, from politics, to cooking, from the books I read to the movies I see. I'll post about the kids and their kids or just something I see that sparks my interest. I'll put together posts on aspects of finances and once did a three-part analysis of payday lending.

In both my blog and Facebook, I'm careful what I post. My theory is that if I don't want my mother or my kids to read it, I shouldn't post it (my mom now uses Facebook and watches my blog). I haven't posted very many of my pictures - not that it's against my policy - it's just too time consuming.

I also take requests on my blog and try to honor those. (For Emily's sake, I often insert how I feel about a subject). If you have something you want me to post about, notify me here, on Facebook or any other way.

And if you catch me going off my policy, let me know. Throw something if you're close enough.

Service with a frown - resolved

My last post was about a problem with an exterminating company. Today, that problem has (apparently) come to a resolution. I had a conference call with the company and the Better Business Bureau. The BBB representative took my call, then called the business. She thanked each of us and explained the "ground rule" (her words) and that was no interrupting the other person.

I got to speak first and explained my situation (which had been previously done in the letter). The business then explained the issues. I corrected him on a couple of matters and then bluntly asked if he understood why I was upset. It took a minute, but he said he did.

We discussed a few aspects of the inspections they had done, specifically trying to separate the inspection cost from the "insurance" aspect of a termite bond. He said there was no way to separate them. (I would have asked for a refund of the inspection).

I asked him about the reluctance to write a check and he explained that they only wrote checks 1-2x/month and then only when a PO was created. He asked if I would give my credit card number to the BBB. I explained that I was reluctant to give him the number because I still didn't trust the company and if I gave it to the BBB, they would have to give it to him to process the refund. He then offered to send a certified check for the refund.

The total refund I'll be receiving is $100. This is the "discount" that was originally discussed. Had I gotten this refund in September, it would have saved a lot of hassle.

In addition, he explained a couple of ways this could have been prevented, I'm not sure any would have worked. I could have gotten a second estimate, but I felt like I didn't have time for that. He said in his business line, companies are on call 7x24 and make emergency calls within a day. He said my realtor could have called the day of closing and he would have faxed a new estimate (which would have had to go through the lawyer, forced a redo of all the paper-work, delayed closing, etc).

The end result is the discount I originally was promised and I don't have to give my credit card info. I'm not what I would call a satisfied customer and won't give them a good reference, but then they probably don't want a reference anyway. I won't go around bashing them and haven't posted their name here.

Service with a frown

My last post was on good service. What prompted this in my mind was some incredibly bad service I got from a local exterminator (I'll provide the name to anyone that asks). In fairness, I'm still working with the exterminator to resolve the issues. But the service to date has been so incredibly bad I thought I'd make a post.

The service provided was an annual contract and a certificate for a home sale. It could have been any service. The first bad thing we encountered was when we called for the annual contract. The office treated us rudely and didn't even know what the contract covered. Since the contract was ongoing, we continued to work with the company. The people that came our were easy to work with and trustworthy.

When the time came for a certificate for home sale, we contacted the company again. They found some problems and recommended a remedy. Since we were days from closing, we didn't have time to shop for a better deal. I felt held hostage and called to tell them so.

Rather than try to understand my side of the story, the exterminator became defensive. They gave me several reasons for their findings, many of which were wrong. When I pointed out their errors, they said they were irrelevant. They did agree to discount the price, but the invoice was for the original amount. Again, I was being held hostage by a closing date.

After complaining about the price, I was told that invoices were sent by another person. For one month, I kept trying to get the right person. The lady I spoke with never gave her last name and wouldn't give me any one else to talk to. Finally, they wanted my credit card information to issue me a credit. Now let's see, I've found I can't trust the company and they want my credit card info? I don't think so.

Next step for me was to write a formal complaint letter. Which was ignored. Then a week later, I filed a complaint with the BBB. This got more defensive talk, misspellings of my wife's name and incorrect statements. No attempt to understand my points. After I rejected their settlement offer (again wanting my credit card info), I now have a scheduled call to try to resolve.

My suggestion on service - try to understand your customer. If you feel you truly don't have a mistake, educate the customer. If you want to make a concession, make it easy for the customer to accept.

I'll update this after my scheduled call to resolve.

Service with a smile

What makes "good service"? There's one company I recently dealt with that made me start thinking about this question. Unfortunately, the company didn't have "good service" and it made me thinking about what set them apart. I decided to initially focus on a company I deal with that does indeed have good service.

The "good service" company is a local dog groomer, I'll gladly share the name with anyone interested. (Since most of my readers aren't local, you probably don't care). We struggle with a couple of dog groomers including one that I'm convinced infected our dog with fleas. Since our older dog (since past away) was getting more and more difficult to transport, we decided to try a "mobile" groomer. These folks come to you with a van and all the equipment. When they leave, the dog's hair has been cut, cleaned and combed.

The first thing that I like about the mobile groomer was the price. They were actually a couple of dollars CHEAPER than the ones with a house. Cheaper is always better in my book! (well, maybe not always, but at least often) They did at least as good as any other place we took the dogs.

Second thing we noticed was that the couple doing the grooming were very polite. They listened to what we wanted, offered advice and did what we asked. Our dog has sensitive skin, so they manage that aspect well (I have no idea what they do, I just remind them to treat her like they did before).

The final aspect of their service that I wanted to mention is the trust. We've used these people several times. On one or two occasions, they've come and we've had to mail them a check. Most recently, we were away and had someone else there to dog sit for us. We forgot to leave the payment and rather than re-schedule, the groomer went ahead and did her work and we mailed a check.

This level of mutual trust is the basis for good, continued service. This business can rest assured that they have earned our business for a long time. Next post will focus on a company that doesn't give good service

Free Book - Yes, free!

I've been reading a lot of personal finance blogs like Freeby50 and The Simple Dollar. I recommend both of these. Well, it turns out that The Simple Dollar has a book titled (amazingly) The Simple Dollar. And for a limited time, you can get the book for free.

You can download the book for your Amazon Kindle at this site: The Simple Dollar Book. But wait, you say you don't have a Kindle? (I don't). Not to worry, you can download the Kindle app for your iphones, ipads, android, PC or Mac. I did and it was very simple. You start at this site. It took under 5 minutes.

Jet Packs for LA Police

At dinner Friday night, one of my friends told me this story. Seems the LA Police has ordered jet packs for their police to a tune of about $1BILLION. Seems a little strange, but hey, this is talking about California, land of fruits and nuts. The left coast.

We thought of a lot of problems, those things don't last that long, what happens if you go up for 30 seconds and then run out of jet fuel, the criminals are all on the ground, what good does it do to be up in the air, they can't afford to pay teachers, yet they spend this kind of money (when you live with a teacher, every subject turns to education) etc.

I looked for information about the story this morning and found this item. Seems the story is FALSE. First reported by the Weekly World News (we all know that's a reliable source), then picked up by Fox News. The Fox anchors said they doubted the story, to which I have a question - WHY DID YOU REPORT IT? This doesn't help your credibility at all. Oh, sure, you said it was questionable, but a lot of the folks watching didn't hear that part.

Fox knows the audience and knows that conservatives love stories like this. It's a great chance to make fun of those from "the other side". But this just makes Fox look just as bad as the other networks. I thought Fox wanted to try for a higher standard? I guess I was mistaken.

Pay to Spray

In this small area in Tennesse, a man's house burned down because he didn't pay the (non-required) fee of $75 for fire coverage. (see story here).

Mr. Cranick lives outside the city limits and doesn't pay city taxes. The city offers fire protection to county residents and (presumably) uses the fees to help fund their fire fighting activities. Mr Cranick admits he didn't pay the fee last year, but has paid for several years in the past. It just slipped his mind last year. He offered to pay when the house was on fire, but fire fighters told him it was too late.

One troubling comment in the story is made by the city manager who said "We have to follow the rules and the ordinances set forth to us." Another part of the article says "When a household has not paid the fee, firefighters are required by law to not respond." (It's not clear what law is referenced here).

I have to confess, I have mixed emotions here. I have serious, unanswered questions, about what law, if any, specifies that the firefighters are required to "not respond". I also feel that, the fire fighters had an obligation to respond.

But I also feel that Mr. Cranick is trying to buy insurance after the fact. What would happen if people only paid when their house caught fire? Supposed you bought cancer insurance after a cancer diagnosis or life insurance after a loved one died?

While my emotions are mixed, it's pretty clear to me where the law should come down on this. My emotions can be satisfied by neighbors helping Mr. Cranick out. And if I lived in the area, I'd pay the $75.

Mood ring

Ok, I'm probably showing my age here, but when I was (VERY) young in the mid 1970's, they had these things called mood rings. The idea was the stone (or plastic) would change color depending on your mood. This was one of those fads that took off real big and then died just as quickly. You can read about them on Wikipedia here. My biggest memory of them is that they didn't really work, either they didn't change or they changed randomly.

Today, I see that there is now a cell phone app that can determine your mood. (see here). According to the article, "'EmotionSense' uses speech-recognition software and phone sensors in standard smart phones to assess how people's emotions are influenced by factors such as their surroundings, the time of day, or their relationships with others."

While I was never impressed with the original mood rings, I think this has some real potential. If you could set the ringer on your phone to play different ringtones based on the caller's mood, you would really have a marketable product. Wife calls in a good mood? - Answer right away. Wife calls in a bad mood? - Gee, I'm real busy right now. But I'll get back right away.

Somehow, this brings a new meaning to a "mood ring".