Motivational Posters - Pregnant Wife Edition

Well, my wife hasn't been in the spotlight in a while, and while the pictures to create these are a few years old now, the inspiration from them is timeless.  First, while I recognize that there are people on both sides of the IWB or OWB debate, this one might be a little more controversial.

In the late 90s and early 00s, cell phones were getting skinnier.  Since we don't have one and everything had a cell phone pocket, I thought up a new use for them.

Be sure to come back for more, I'll need to get my wife set up for another photo shoot!

Christmas Ammunition

Someone commented to me that they didn't think my Christmas present of ammunition was very ... Christmassy (you know, that peace, love, good will towards men thing). So, see if you can guess which is the correct response:

a) Don't worry, it was full metal jacket stuff and I only use that for target practice, hollow point is the preferred type for perforating bad people.

b) The Son of God only used a whip to clean the temple because a Glock would have been too messy and a 1911 only carries 7+1 rounds (besides the fact that they hadn't been invented yet).

c) It's OK, it was Winchester White Box, made in the USA. All of the materials (lead, copper, and brass) are fully recycleable or (in the case of gunpowder) completely organic/natural/not harmful to the environment.

d) The Barrett .50 BMG wouldn't fit in the stocking.

Romney's Taxes vs. my taxes

Since tax season is coming up, I felt inspired to post this bit I had previously posted on Facebook.

I was thinking about how "awful" it is from the revelation that a) Mitt Romney makes millions of dollars a year, and b) he has an effective tax rate of less than 15% (because almost all of his income is from Capital Gains/Dividends not ordinary income). So I decided to take a look at my own finances, what is my effective tax rate?

To begin, let me iterate that I fall into the top 15% of wage earners based on reported AGI in table 488 ofhttp://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0488.pdf . Lest you think that makes me a millionaire, the top 3% make $200,000 or more (so I wouldn't even fit Pres. Obama's definition of millionaire). So I have admitted that I make less than $200K. Now going back on my tax returns to 2001, I averaged my federal taxes (income and payroll), state taxes, and charitable contributions.

Why include payroll taxes (SS and Medicare)? Because in the end it is money going to the federal government to finance our nation. Mr. Romney probably pays nothing into SS and Medicare because (if you look at his return) he has no ordinary income (line 7 Wages, salaries, and tips). At 7.65% (5.65% currently), this is by far the biggest tax bite that workers in America pay (and if you include the employer portion, you can double that number to 15%). So, without refundable credits, you are automatically paying an effective tax rate of 7.65% if your income is primarily derived from ordinary income.

Anyway, my effective federal tax rate remained around 12% from 2001 to 2007. In 2008, it dropped to 7% (this would have been under Bush II). And then in 2009 and 2010 it was down to 6%. So, not only does Mr. Romney pay 2.5X an effective tax rate as me, he also pays about $3 million more than me. Can't say I have anything to complain about there. Besides, my tax return is only about 20 pages, not the 200 that Mr. Romney has to do. And I still do my own taxes, so I am not paying an accountant a few grand.

My state tax (when I lived in a state that has an income tax) has remained fairly stable at 4.5%. I have no desire to try and figure out what Mr. Romney's rate is. Nobody seems to care. They only care about his Buffet rate.

As for charitable contributions, mine have remained between 10% and 15%. This is right in-line with the 13.7% that Mitt donates to charity. So, maybe I should like Romney after all.

Having done my own taxes for my entire life, I would guess that the only people who are paying more than a 15% effective tax rate are those that fall into the 1% (according to IRS statistics those with income of about $350K) that the Occupy movement rails against. The exception would be single or married with two incomes who make between $100K and $350K. But even then, we are still talking about less than 7% of the population. If you make less than $100K and are paying an effective tax rate of more than 15%, you haven't figured out how to do your taxes. Get some advice from an accountant, and follow it.

So, have you ever bothered to figure out what your effective tax rate is? (Hint: It is not as easy as taking your paycheck withholding and dividing it by your income.)

Progress - It's Why We're Here Today!

Another great news article. JC Penney will finally follow the lead of lots of other stores and eliminate (mostly) their check out clerks replacing them with self serve kiosks. Naturally, some people are concerned that this is going to cost people jobs.

Yes. By golly gee willikers it will! And that is what JC Penney needs to do to survive. Cut out the expensive employees, so they can make money again. Because if they aren't making money and have no forseeable chance of making money in the future, then they might as well shut down.

People happen to be a BIG expense. Take the phone system. We used to employ thousands of operators to direct calls all over the country. Then the computer came about and pretty soon we were able to place calls all over the world and all of those (or most of them) operators lost their jobs.

And it was GREAT! Not because they lost their jobs, but because we were able to remove thinking humans from a mundane task that can be satisfactorily performed by a computer at a fraction of the cost. This has two benefits. #1 the customer can call anywhere for a whole lot cheaper (phone calls now cost a fraction of what they did just 25 years ago and we make far more of them) and #2 that thinking human has the option to use their brain for more creative/inventive/entrepreneurial work (like figuring out how a computer can get rid of the next mundane task).

This is called progress, we have been doing it for about 10,000 years since our hunter/gatherer forebears figured out they could produce a lot more through agriculture and husbandry. Of course, if you still want to make toothpicks by hand, be my guest. I happen to like my spare time to play video games (you know, those things thinking humans invented for our entertainment).

JC Penney, welcome to the 21st Century!

Cursive Writing

Yeah, I didn't like it much when I learned it in elementary school. I do remember my elementary teachers hammering it into my head that in high school and college all of my papers would need to be written in cursive. They were wrong (no fault of their own - they just didn't see the computer revolution that was imminent).

So is it worth it to still be teaching cursive? Look at it from a foreign language standpoint. My teachers also beat it into me that learning a foreign language was the doorway to the rest of the world. Really? As I have grown up, I found out no, it isn't - not being afraid to go to a foreign country and ask for help is.

I have been to Canada, England, Germany, India, Japan, and Taiwan. I learned German in high school but never used it. I speak Mandarin which was useful in Taiwan, but I was with native friends so would have survived without knowing any (my wife did fine and she doesn't speak it). Japan, everyone speaks English. India, most people you interact with speak English and the chauffeur I had didn't speak it but we got along fine with sign language and pointing at things.

Had I "listened" to my teachers I would have had to spend years learning German, Mandarin, Japanese, French, Hindi, and Tamil to enjoy the places I have been. I'm glad I didn't. I found English speakers and enjoyed those places anyway. We are fortunate to live in a country where the primary language is English. The rest of the world has adopted English as the de facto language of the world. Which means we don't necessarily have to learn theirs.

Does that mean we shouldn't learn another language? No, but it also means we shouldn't force it on people. One of the great conundrums of the modern world is there is so much knowledge it is impossible to try and gain it all. Leonardo Da Vinci would be flabbergasted by how much a sixth grader has learned. Which means it is more important than ever to prioritize what you are going to learn with your time.

For me, things like 19th century bonnet literature (i.e. Jane Austen) have ZERO value. I am not interested. I think the stories are dull. Unfortunately, my English teachers had different ideas. Good for them. I'm a grown up now and I don't need to waste my time reading "Pride and Prejudice." Would understanding that stuff add value to my life? Probably. My guess is that there are plenty of allusions to "great" 19th century literature throughout life that I miss.

So what? I am not interested. I have chosen to dump that crap from my mind and replace it with scientific knowledge that I like. So, when I read an article on the Higgs-Boson, I see all sorts of nuances that are satisfying and enjoyable to understand. I once spent a two hour meal talking with a stranger about the nuclear fuel process. She seemed genuinely interested and I was happy to impart the knowledge that I had. Do some people do the same with F. Scott Fitzgerald? Absolutely, just not me.

What does this have to do with cursive? Well, it is no longer a necessary skill for the vast majority of written communication. We have computers and Ipads for that. It will always be around in historical documents, but like foreign languages, learning American cursive has its limits. There are plenty of people who have learned the cursive writing styles of 18th century Germans.

Learning to read cursive nowadays is akin to learning juggling. It is a neat skill to have, but very limited practical applications. If you are going to be a clown in the circus, by all means juggling becomes a necessary skill. For someone like me, it is just a trick I do to entertain my kids. Likewise, reading and writing cursive is a must for historians and genealogists. For the rest of us it is a parlor trick to decipher hidden codes. Juggling and cursive writing are rather easy skills to acquire. It probably takes less than a month of a little practice each day to become proficient (I learned juggling over the course of a month in New Jersey, maybe a half hour of practice a day). My wife taught my daughter cursive in about the same amount of time.

So, no, we shouldn't force everyone to learn cursive anymore than we should force them all to learn juggling. Even though it takes minimal time to learn, our schools shouldn't fill up their time with "useless" skills that take minimal time. Let's all recognize that cursive's time has come and gone. But if your kids want to learn cursive, or you want to teach them this curiosity on your time, by all means do it!

Some People Aren't Obese

With recent reports that 1/3 of Mississippi is obese and obesity being "epidemic" throughout the US, I can understand the First Lady promoting healthy eating. But there are a couple of people who do not need to be told they can't eat junk food.

 
#1 President Obama. At the Iowa State Fair he said Michelle wouldn't allow him to have a fried twinkie. Why not? Fried twinkies at the Iowa fair are good, I've had one. Its not like our President is out of shape. He looks to be in very good shape. Quitting smoking is about the only bad habit I see him having, and that even probably helps keep his weight normal. So, President Obama, tell you're wife you are going to indulge. Your campaigning schedule is rather grueling and you are in no danger of gaining weight.

#2 Gabby Douglas. On Leno just after the Olympics, Michelle jokingly ribbed her for having a Egg McMuffin to celebrate, particularly that it should be on a whole wheat bun. Gabby can eat whatever she wants. She has finished all of her competitions, her metabolism is sky high, and an Egg McMuffin is not going to balloon her like a blimp. In actuality, I am a little disappointed in Gabby. An Egg McMuffin is not something that is traditionally considered unhealthy. It has eggs, bread, meat and cheese. Couple it with an orange juice and you have all four food groups.

In 1984, Sharlene Wells consumed a half pound of fudge just hours before appearing in the Miss America swimsuit competition on national TV. Next time Gabby, when you are in England go with a Treacle tart and clotted cream. And there is no reason if you are satisfied with your body, to apologize to anyone for what you are eating. If you are not satisfied with your body, the only one you have to apologize to is yourself.

And just so you all know, I had a scoop of Haagen Daas ice cream on a cone last night and it was delicious. I felt no guilt, and my pants fit just fine this morning.

Piecing Out Appliances for Money

Last year our glass oven top met an unfortunate demise at the hands of our stone cookware (serves the glasstop right for busting one on the stones when it was set on the "On" burner three years ago). So after much internet searching I found that a new glasstop for the stove would cost $425 delivered to our house. A brand spanking new stove and oven would cost only $525.

Looking over the life expectancy of stoves/ovens it is around 8-12 years. So paying 80% of the replacement cost for the repair just didn't make much sense. We ordered the new stove. In the meantime, I decided to do some more internet searching to see what the cost of some of the replacement parts that aren't broken are.

Control Panel - $381
Large Burner - $109
Small Burner - $62
Burner Switch - $45
Control knob - $15

So with a half hour, I removed all of these items from the old stove, since they were still in perfect working order. If I can just get 25% of the retail price, I have paid for half of the new stove. If I get 50%, then the new stove was free. $500 for 30 minutes of work, isn't too bad. The sad thing is, if I was really tenacious, I could have stripped the whole thing and probably had $2000 worth of parts to sell, and then sell the shell for scrap steel and get another $2.

Maybe I should go into the spare parts business. Just buy new stoves, take them apart and sell the parts. It would work with cars too. I could be a millionaire in just a matter of months. After the week of auctions, it turns out I made a total of $23.48, the market just isn't there.  So, I am not quitting my job and moving to the Bahamas.

Retrospectively, the market has got to be really slim.  Consider that there were 2 million of this model made. And they were made over a 10 year period, 200,000 a year.  Parts don't start breaking until the 8-12 years and only in 25% of them, so 50,000.  There are still 52 weeks in a year, so only 1000 potential customers at the time that I am selling the stove parts.  Only 25% of these are regularly online, and only 25% of those think to check eBay.  So, that puts me at 65 potential customers.  There are about 30 different parts on the stove that could break, I had 10 of them for sale, so now my customer base is down to 20.  It wouldn't take too many errors in my estimates to bring it down to the 1 to 3 people that were bidding on the parts.  Markets can be funny that way when you look at the variables that make up demand.

New York Forgets About Police Officers

In New York's ram-em-through gun law, they forgot to include exemptions for their law enforcement officers.  Seems once the law becomes effective, they will all be law breakers with their service pistols, issued by the government. The best quote though is below:

State Senator Eric Adams, a former NYPD Captain, told us he's going to push for an amendment next week to exempt police officers from the high-capacity magazine ban. In his words, "You can't give more ammo to the criminals"


NY doesn't want its police officers (who may arrive on the scene 1-20 minutes after being called) to face criminals with less than 15 rounds in a magazine, but it doesn't care if victims (who are already on the scene because they are the scene) only have 7 rounds.

Criminals vs. Police Officers - BAD. 
Criminals vs. Victims - GOOD.
I sure hope Texas' plea to gun owners from NY to move there is effective.

A Housewife with Some Sense on Guns

This is my cousin-in-law (is that really a thing?):

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fprepared-housewives.com%2F2013%2F01%2F17%2Fend-the-violence%2F&h=MAQF45VM7

Great sense of humor!

Why Do We Still Have the Dollar Bill?

I've said in the past get rid of the dollar bill. While this is probably the 20th time in the last 50 years that Congress has looked at the proposal, perhaps we will have some sense this time and do it. Don't bet the house on it (when has Congress made a fiscally sound decision in the last decade), but I'm hoping for a long shot here!

One thing why you shouldn't get your hopes up - the Treasury is finishing up an 18 month study of this issue. Whatever money we spent on this study is a complete and utter waste. Several countries have gotten rid of their $1 bills, and not just third world banana republics - trading partners like Canada, England, and even the Eurozone have recognized for decades that the $1 bill was a money waster.

The fact that we are behind several third world countries who don't have reliable running water or electricity is an embarrassment. If we really need a study, we should have asked the Canadians for their 30 year old study and then relabeled it - total price $100K. If the study from 30 years ago showed that it was cheaper back when everyone carried money, it is going to be that much more cheaper now that hardly anyone carries money. 

If it is the metal composition, we are also behind the eight ball. Since we stopped putting precious metals in coins in the 60s, we should have immediately gone to the cheapest metals possible. No sense in trying to pretend like the money has melt value. Once again, several other countries (including many banana republics) have done this. While I am not too keen on steel from a collector's standpoint, it is very practical. I'd prefer a chrome steel or nickel steel alloy that doesn't rust. Cupronickel is good (what our nickels are made from) but expensive. If we wanted to stick with this then get rid of the penny, nickel and quarter and just have dimes and half dollars (then no one will get the dollar confused with the quarter). Several countries use a stainless steel alloy which remains nice and shiny decades later. 

So, if all of these other countries have been able to figure this out, why do we need to spend 18 months and millions of dollars on a study to come up with the same answer? And people wonder why we are adding $1 trillion in debt each year. Easy, just take this philosophy and magnify it by every item in the federal budget.

One area of the economy that would be affected is strip clubs.  I am not sure strippers would like to be pelted with dollar coins for their performance.  However, this could easily be solved by the strip clubs printing their own bills and then patrons can purchase a bundle upon entering. The workers would then turn in their gathered bills at the end of their work day for real money.  (Sure, this would eliminate a lot of the under the table transactions that probably go on, but that would mean more tax dollars - its a good thing!) Disney does this as sort of a souvenir gimmick (or at least they did 30 years ago).  I have Disney Dollars (with portraits of Mickey and Goofy) that can be used as real money in the Disney themeparks, but have no value elsewhere.