Why I Won't Live As Long As My Dad (And Why That's Okay)

Life ain't fair, and the sooner you get over this, the sooner you will get ahead.

A recent article on clickbait site MarketWatch claims that taking social security at age 62 could literally kill you.  The article cites a study by a Cornell professor and a professor from Australia who use statistical analysis and confuse correlation with causation.  This is a common error, but then again they are professors.   So you can excuse their mistake.  They don't have a lot of real-life experiences.

The premise of the article is that by analyzing mortality statistics, there appears to be a 20% increase in mortality among males who take early social security at age 62.   However, there is no such statistical anomaly for women, it appears.

The article goes on to argue that the professors are not confusing correlation with causation as data from earlier years before Social Security shows that the mortality rate does not increase at age 62 for men.  There are some problems with that statement.

To begin with, social security has been around an awfully long time.  The program was created in the 1930s and benefits start to be paid out in 1940.  In 1961 the law was amended to allow for early retirement at age 62.  Thus, when the authors opine about the effects of mortality prior to early retirement being in effect, we were talking about nearly 60 years ago when mortality rates were higher than they are today.

Moreover, I am not sure what the statement even means.  They claim there is no 20% disparity in the mortality rate of men prior to the enactment of the early retirement provision of Social Security.  But 20% compared to what?  The authors of the study or claiming that men who take retirement at age 62 have a 20% higher mortality rate than the men that do not take retirement at age 62.  But what are they comparing the pre-early retirement year data to?  Comparing it to itself?   Well, then of course you're not going to show any disparity in the mortality rate.

As I've noted before, statistics are not arguments. And once again, the Bureau of Specious Statistics raises its ugly head. People like to comb through mountains of data and then look for correlations, confuse them with causation, and claim that this is somehow "science."  This is not science.  Science is sending rockets to the moon and curing diseases.   Sociologists making statistical arguments is just advanced naval-gazing.

This is not to say that statistics don't have their uses, only that they can be very specious.  Statistics can also be misleading, particularly when general public tries to grasp statistical arguments.  For example there is a famous parody article about the dangers of bread.  As the author of that article notes, 98% of all convicted felons are bread users - and 90% of all crimes committed in the United States are committed within 24 hours of consuming bread!  This illustrates how silly correlation is as an argument.

I think there is another explanation for this apparent correlation - and a 20% delta really isn't that significant.  The authors of the "study" (and I wonder if this was funded by our tax dollars?) argue that perhaps retired men engage in a more sedentary lifestyle, sitting around bored watching television - and this kills them off at a rapid clip.

While the sedentary lifestyle is indeed killing off people in America, I highly doubt this is the case in this study.  It can take years and decades to shorten your life through sedentary living.  You don't just sit down one day in front of the TV and keel over dead two days later.

I think rather that what is happening is people have an intuitive understanding of their lifespan.  And many people take early retirement not because they want to, but because they are forced to retire due to health issues.   In fact, in many articles I read online about early retirement, health issues are often cited as one reason for retiring early - usually the second reason behind being laid off.

And indeed, there are a plethora of articles online about early retirement - MSN Money seems to post one once a week, if not more often.  The thrust of most these articles is that early retirement is a horrible, horrible thing, and you should never even contemplate this.  You should work until you're at least 70 years old, so you can collect "full Social Security" and be old and spry.

I don't do spry.

Seriously, there are articles galore about octogenarians who are riding bicycles and running endurance races - who have lean muscular bodies that are more like sinew than flesh.  And such people, of course, exist.  I had the privilege of working for an attorney who loved to ride his bicycle 50-100 miles a day.   He had a body like iron and was quite alert and competent well  into his 80s.

Of course,  I also wrote about my friend at Carrier who was also in very good shape and rode his bike to work everyday.  He was run over by a car.  I'm not sure what the moral is in that, other than life is not a guaranteed thing.  The good news is he survived, although I'm sure the injuries didn't help his life span.

Not all dogs live to be 14 - as I said time and time again.  Our life spans are variable and in some respects this is not "fair".  In terms of fairness in life, how long you live and how you die is probably one of the most fundamental unfair things, and has little to do with governments or politics.  People complain about about the unfairness of life and petition the government for relief.  But the ultimate unfairness is not something that can be fixed through laws or legislation.  It's something that God doles out and you either have to like it or lump it.

My dad lived into his 90s which is a pretty astounding length of time to live, even today.  It is funny, but I run into people in their 80s who have this idea in their mind they're going to live for a decade or two longer.  And while a decade may be entirely possible if they are in good health, more than that is pretty spectacular and Guinness Book of World Records kind of living.  Bear in mind that the oldest person in the world is usually a hundred and some teen years.  And bear in mind that the title of oldest person in the world changes hands on the weekly basis.

Living to a hundred or even a hundred and ten is more of an anomaly than the norm.  And granted, more and more people are doing it these days, but it's still a statistical aberration.  The average lifespan for Americans is still under 80.

Now granted, this average lifespan takes into account things like accidental deaths and suicides and infant mortality.  One of the aspects of aging is it the longer you live, the odds of your living longer increase.  If you live to be 60, the chances of making it to 70 are much higher.  And if you make it to 70, your odds of making it to 80 are pretty good.  That's because, statistically, you're no longer in the pool with people who died in auto accidents at age 20 or died shortly after being born.

If you live to be somewhere in your 80s, that's probably about what you can expect out of life.  Or putting it another way, that would be a pretty decent life.

How long you live is determined by a number of factors.  Your genetics has a big part in it, to be sure. But also your lifestyle decisions and choices have a big impact.  If you chain-smoke cigarettes for 30 years, this is going to shorten your life by at least a decade or two.  If you don't engage in any exercise and eat unhealthy foods - and eat far too many of them - it will also shorten your lifespan.  If you drink too much alcohol or take too many drugs, this can also shorten your lifespan if not outright kill you instantly  (or very slowly).

And while eating right and exercising can prolong your life, there's no guarantee of it.  Jim Fixx, the runner who popularized the sport of jogging, collapsed of a congenital heart defect while out jogging on a road in Vermont.  The irony was not lost on number of people.  However some doctors argue that he wouldn't have lived as long as he did if he hadn't taken up jogging.  So then there's that.  There's always room for improvement, and lifestyle changes can extend your life, even after years of abusing your body - or if you are subject to genetic issues and defects.

From a genetic standpoint, my odds of living to be a hundred are a mixed bag.  Like I said my Dad lived into his 90s, as he was pretty healthy, and exercised regularly - and gave up smoking after his father died of lung cancer.  My mother, on the other hand, died in her early 70s.  She smoked and drank and ate bad food.  Towards the end of her life, she was living on a diet of cheap white wine, vanilla ice cream, and True cigarettes.  She also refused exercise, and sat in front of the TV and got depressed.  And yes, mental health issues do affect your physical health as well.  She basically wanted to die and she let herself die as a result.  She literally refused treatment at the very end.

But even though my father lived to be in his 90s, he did have major health issues including a quadruple bypass.  And my sister also died of breast cancer, although I don't think that is really a genetic thing, but perhaps environmental one (the incidence of breast cancer skyrocketed in the 1980s and then declined in the 1990s, and nobody seems to be very curious as to why this is).

In terms of my personal health and lifestyle choices, it's sort of a mixed bag.  I never took up smoking which is a good thing, although I did a lot of drugs when I was very young.  I also drank a lot as a youth and still have a glass of wine at the end of the day.  Or maybe two glasses.  I try to get exercise - we go for a walk nearly every morning to the airport and back, which is about two miles.  But I'm not the athlete that my father was.  I don't play tennis, and very rarely play golf.  And I'm not even sure golf counts as exercise.  Mark Twain called it, "a good walk, ruined."

I do have two chronic health issues that also run in the family.  As I noted before, my grandfather is the only other lawyer in the family.  He had a prestigious amount of nose hair, diverticulitis and gout. And apparently I must have inherited his genes - although as I noted before, you can read too much into genealogy.

The problem with diverticulitis, is that when it flares up, it produces a raging infection in your intestines.  And if this infection goes unchecked, can inflame your intestines which can then burst causing an infection in the entire body cavity, known as peritonitis.  It is a gruesome and horrible way to die.  If caught in time, and you are given massive doses of antibiotics, it can be cured - in most cases.  A friend of mine is going through this right now after a botched gallbladder operation. Needless to say, we are quite worried about him, as it is a serious issue.

Even without that sort of incident, over the years I've had a number of these flare-ups who had to take pretty substantial doses of antibiotics to keep them in control.  Two of these, Avelox and Cipro are so powerful that they have side effects which include tendonitis.  One of my biceps actually partially detached as a result - a side effect which I didn't realize would happen until it did.  I wonder sometimes if people suffering from "fibromyalgia" in fact are suffering the side effects of antibiotic use.  Because tendonitis does make you ache all over.  Then again so does just getting old.

So it's totally possible I may not live as long as my father did - and I'm okay with that.  As I have noted time and time again in this blog, life is not "fair" and expecting it to be so is an exercise in frustration and futility.  What you have to do is take what your life is and make the best use of it possible.  Pining for what could be is pointless unless you have a plan to make that reality.  Only small children throw temper tantrums and cry "unfair! unfair!" when Mom won't buy candy at the checkout lane.  Sadly, often these tantrums result in Mom breaking down and buying candy - which sets up the kid for later disappointment in life.

But there is more to life than the sheer length of it, of course.

Toward the end of his life, after he remarried I think my father was fairly happy.  But for most of his life, I don't think he was a very happy individual.  As I noted in my posting about the haunted house, my parents were strivers and bought a beautiful lake house in central New York.  My Dad had to go to a job that he hated, every day, in order to support the family and have this wonderful possession. But tellingly, he never spend much time at home.  He would find excuses to be away from home such as "playing tennis" which was often a euphemism for visiting his mistress.  I look back on it now and think he must have been a very sad and depressed person as he was alienated from his children even then and his wife was basically a crazy alcoholic who he argued with constantly.  For him, going home at the end of the day was not something he looked forward to.

There is more to life than its mere duration.  Mark's grandmother lived well into her 90s, but the last five to ten years of her life were spent laying in bed watching a broken television.  Modern medical science can keep people alive for years even as the quality of their lives deteriorates dramatically. Using a bedpan or wearing an adult diaper is inconvenient enough.  Doing it for year after year would seem to be almost torture.

Thus, both Mark and I are of the opinion that living life to that extent is not necessarily a good thing. We would rather go like one of our neighbors, who complained of a mild headache and lay down to take a nap and never woke up.  No long drawn-out health crisis, no gradual deterioration that takes years or decades.  But you can only pray that that will be the case for you - this is not something that we have much control over, and the will to live is very strong.

However early retirement is something that we do have a modicum of control over - in some respects. As I noted time and time again in this blog, oftentimes retirement is something that is thrust upon you, not something that you plan carefully.  People ask me how much you should save up for retirement, and the answer often is "whatever you have when you are forced to retire."  And again, getting back to my father, that was the case.  In his mid-fifties he was forced out of his company which was failing, and forced to retire early - far earlier than he expected.  This is the norm, not the exception.

They did okay.  They had some equity in their "dream" house, some stocks and other mutual funds they had bought. He also had a small pension from his company and they both collected Social Security.  My mother also came into a small inheritance from her father which probably saved the day for them.

But apparently my father was not one of those statistical anomalies who died early as a result of collecting Social Security early (as these professors claim).

But I think for others - many others - early retirement is something that happens also when you are no longer able to work.  When your mind starts to slip and your body starts to wear out, the idea of working until you're 70 or beyond seems less and less of reality.  So you take early retirement and maybe you don't live as long, but your retirement might be as long as the person who works until 70 - perhaps longer.

The advantage of early retirement is that you can do things while you are still relatively young and ambulatory.   It is sad, but we see reports all the time of people who "work until their 70" and then keel over dead the next day.  Or people buy the motorhome of their dreams to embark on their trip to "See America" and then come down with a chronic illness and are forced to abandon their plans.

Granted, some people claim they love their work and in love working well into their 70s or beyond. Good for them if that is what makes them happy.  But not everybody loves their work, or if they love their work then they fall out of love with it after a while.  For me personally, doing anything for 5 years in a row seems tedious.  Doing it for 30 years in a row seems almost heroic.

Anyway, getting back to this study, I think it is basically full of horseshit.  People take early retirement because they sense they're not going to live as long.  They may have chronic health issues or other problems, and realize that if they wait until 70 they won't collect a penny, as they won't make it to that finish line.  Or, the health issues themselves force them to retire early in this forces them to collect Social Security at 62 because they have no other options.

Collecting social security at age 62 doesn't cause an early demise, but rather the other way around. People who sense they will die early collect Social Security early because there is no "later on" for them to collect.

A study from Cornell.  In Ithaca, New York.  Go Figure.

What Is It Like Not Being On Facebook?

What is it like not being on Facebook?  A lot better than being on Facebook.

With the recent revelations of "security breaches" at Facebook, many people are calling on Facebook users to delete their accounts.  And while many people no doubt will do this, it is doubtful that Facebook will go away anytime soon.  It is akin to the cord-cutting movement with cable television. Many people, such as myself, got rid of cable television because it was too expensive and the content wasn't worth it it.  Although cable TV has seen a decline in viewership, the majority of Americans still have cable television in their home.  It isn't going away anytime soon.

The funny thing is, a lot of people can't even imagine a world without cable television in their home. They can't imagine not watching four or five hours a day of television and seeing all their "favorite shows".  What could they possibly do without cable TV?  Of course the question is, what did we do before cable TV was invented?  A lot, as it turns out.

Maybe I am ahead of the curve here, or at least ahead of the herd.  As I noted before, at the edge of the herd - or at least the leading edge - the grass is all fresh and sweet and hasn't been trampled down and pooped upon.  The center of the herd may be safer, but the opportunities are far more limited.

I got rid of our cable TV back in the 1990s.  We got it only because it came bundled as part of an internet service.  But I quickly realized it was having a negative effect on my life and suddenly we were spending hours everyday watching television instead of actually doing things.  We started neglecting our house, our friends, our social life and even work, in favor of watching television.

Cable television caters to the compulsive addictive nature of all human beings and this was by design. They would show teasers and snippets of programs followed by five minutes of loud and annoying advertisements.  By the time that show restarted, they had to do a recap to remind you what the show is all about.  This effect is particularly jarring when you see these types of shows in a non-commercial environment such as Netflix, where the commercials are exerpted. Watching a History Channel show on Netflix is frustrating is it just keeps repeating itself over and over and over again.

But it seems that people like these sort of obsessive-compulsive behaviors and will substitute one for another.  Perhaps I've substituted blogging for cable television - I don't know.  But with most folks, if it isn't cable television, then it's something else.  Whether it is gambling, or video games, or Facebook I don't know.

The bottom line is that these obsessive-compulsive behaviors can take up hours of your day and prevent you from succeeding in life.  Think about it.  You spend 8 hours a day sleeping, 8 hours a day at work, and that leaves you only 8 hours a day of free time.  If you're spending half of it watching television, that only leaves you a few hours to get dressed, take a shower, prepare meals, and maybe contemplate life for a few moments.

And that's the whole point of this obsessive-compulsive behavior - to chew up a lot of your time, which a lot of people have.  People with no ambition, who have no goals in life, don't have anything to do, so they flop down in front of the TV and push the button on the remote and hope that something interesting comes on to distract and amuse them until they are required to go off to work, or go to bed.

I long ago got off of Facebook - very early into this blog - as I saw something very creepy and weird about it that I didn't like. It was interesting at first to connect with people and see their photos and pictures and hear updates from them.  The social aspect of it was initially a very positive thing.  But then I started hearing from people from 10, 20, 30, or 40 years ago, and oftentimes it was kind of scary to reconnect with people and realize you had nothing in common with them.

It also seemed to me that Facebook was the ultimate in narcissism.  Everybody's life looks more fabulous on Facebook, and everybody has a fabulous profile picture and is doing wonderful and exciting things.  The problem is, this is not the truth.  We all live pretty mundane lives and do pretty mundane things.  The secret to Facebook is to post pictures that look more exciting than things actually are.  And when we are traveling we can tell when there's Facebook people about.  The Facebook people take 5, 10, 15, or even 20 pictures of what they're doing in order to find one that looks really exciting, to make their life look more important on Facebook.  It is incredibly shallow and stupid.  It also wastes a lot of time.  How many meals at restaurants have you seen interrupted by people hoping to get the perfect picture for Facebook?

I concluded that Facebook is for brain-dead idiots and I didn't want to be one of those.  And yes I realize a lot of my friends have Facebook pages, so when I say they are brain-dead idiots, I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Video gaming is another area that is both a big time-waster and an obsessive-compulsive behavior. We are starting to hear lots of stories about people spending as much as twelve hours a day playing video games.  These same people are living at home with their parents, and often don't have a job - the only way you can afford to spend that many hours playing video games.

Again, these games are designed to consume your time. Most of these modern games require you to achieve various goals to reach the next level.  And in order to do that, you have to spend an inordinate amount of time building up to different levels within the game.  The more time you invest in the game, the more you feel you need to spend, so you don't lose your earlier investment.  The only real controversy with video games recently was that one company got too greedy and offered people ways to buy their way to the top of the game.  The only other alternative was to spend days or even weeks trying to build up to the even the first level.

The reality is, of course, that while video games can be interesting and fun, they are also an enormous time-waster, just sucking hours and days and weeks and months and years out of your life and returning absolutely nothing in return.  And you can't just dabble in a video game, either.  You have to spend hours becoming expert at it, in order to get any satisfaction out of it.  And again, this is by design.  The game makers carefully craft these games so your "rewards" diminish over time, so you have to put in more and more time to get rewards.  It is a Skinner box of the first order.

A recent article online opines that it's nearly impossible to get rid of your Facebook account because you'll piss off and annoy all your friends, and they will all hate you for not being on Facebook.  I suppose to some extent, this is true.  When I deleted my Facebook account I did get some odd reactions from people.  But after while, they grew to accept the fact that I wasn't on Facebook.   The few "long lost friends" I found when I reconnected with my Facebook turned out not to really be interested in hanging out with me so much as showing off how great their life was, online.

And that's what Facebook is all about. You see young people with a 100, 200, and maybe even 500 Facebook "friends".  This is literally impossible to do - to have 500 close friends.  But of course, they are not friends but "Facebook friends."  And what does this mean?  It means absolutely nothing.  It means it's somebody who gets hits from your feed occasionally, which of course are likely filtered out.

But what about the other side of the coin?  Don't I miss getting updates and communications from friends and the latest things they're doing?  Not really.  As it turns out, there was a time in this planet before Facebook - believe it or not!  People would talk on the phone and see each other in person and have what was called conversations.  During these "conversations" they would talk about the things they're interested in, in life, and what they were doing, as well as their opinions on various things.  It was actually kind of fun.  Sometimes drinking was involved.

What I found with Facebook was there was too much communication.  I had Facebook friends who would send me pictures of every meal they ate every day. This really wasn't very interesting or useful to me unless the meal was somewhat unusual.  But even then, after 10, 20 or a hundred of these posts, you kind of get bored with it.  Nobody cares about what I ate for breakfast and I certainly don't care about what you ate, either.

For some reason this is a trend on social media sites.  On Reddit you see a posting saying "I made this" with somebody posting a picture of a food item they made.  Of course, it could be a picture they scraped off the internet for all we know.  And for all we care.  Why do I care about what some stranger on the internet made in his kitchen?  It's not like the first time somebody cooked an omelette or made souffle.  It wasn't like he invented some new food item.

But getting back to conversations, that was sort of the interesting thing about Facebook.  My friends posted every intimate detail their lives on their "wall", so then we got together in person, we had nothing to talk about.  I would start going into one of my long-winded boring stories about something I was doing in my life, and my friend would interrupt and say, "Yes, I read about that on your Facebook page" and the conversation will come to an abrupt end.

So what's it like not being on Facebook?  Well it's sort of like being one of the lizard people so to speak.  The vast majority of Americans are glued to their television and glued to their cell phones and glued to their Facebook pages - if they're not compulsively gambling or playing video games.  And you are one of the few people who is not doing these things and can thus think clearly and see things for as they are.

Or maybe it's the other way around, we are not the lizard people but the real human beings while the rest of humanity are basically replicants or clones living shallow meaningless lives and never accomplishing much but instead being passive consumers and victims.  They spend the bulk of their energy on things that return absolutely nothing to them whatsoever - television, video games, gambling, Facebook, and other sorts of things like that that just waste time, money, and energy.

Of course, it was a lot easier to cut the cord on Facebook ten years ago than it is today.  When I got off Facebook, not everyone was on it.  Since then, the number of Facebook users has skyrocketed, particularly among older people.  So if you decide to quit Facebook today, yes it is a lot harder as indeed some people will be pissed at you or think you're being strange for not compulsively posting every detail of your life on some stupid website

Oh wait, that's sort of describes a Blog doesn't it?

The Free Money Mentality

People think the government is going to hand out free money.  Failing that, they think that borrowing money is free money.   How the heck did people get this way?

We had a hurricane hit the island - sort of a glancing blow - that knocked down a few trees and flooded some basements in the historic district.   The Parcheesi club was flooded out.   So much loss!  Several game boards were damaged, and many playing pieces floated away.   But intrepid members cleaned up the game boards and let them dry out in the sun, so they are OK for now.  And one member made new playing pieces in his wood shop.  Good old American self-reliance and know-how!  That's what our country is all about - right?  Well, maybe.

Other members were afraid that the club was "missing out" on free money from Uncle Sugar!  FOMO - Fear of Missing Out is prevalent in our country, and no more prevalent that with regard to free money from the government.  One guy has made a career out of free government money FOMO, selling books that tell you that, well, basically you don't qualify for a lot of this "free money" unless you really need it or are breaking some laws in asking for it.  There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, sadly.  But he'll sell you a book, anyway.

So one of the Parcheesi club members trots off to FEMA and tells them a tale of woe - of damaged Parcheesi and Ouija boards, missing playing pieces and card tables with bent legs.  Of course, not all this damage is due to the storm, but the FEMA person encourages them to add up everything they can think of and apply for government relief!   If you work for FEMA, your job is to hand out money, not to say "No" - so they encourage payouts even when, perhaps, they are not really necessary.

So they concoct a list of broken things and stuff and managed to pad it out to a couple of grand.   The nice man at FEMA suggests they apply for a small business loan to pay for these "repairs" and "damaged equipment."   He explains that the loan will likely not be approved, in which case, they might get a grant from FEMA.

So they apply for the loan - and FEMA accepts the application!   So the conundrum.  Do they take this loan to buy stuff they really don't need, now or in the future, and saddle the Parcheesi club with debt?  Why were they looking for free government money in the first place?  Oh, right.  Everyone else is getting free government money, why not us?

But of course "everyone" isn't getting free government money, and quite frankly, the biggest problem with our government and our society as a whole is this attitude that the government has this bottomless well of money to draw from, that is just handed out willy-nilly.  It's raining nickels - bring a bucket!

The second biggest problem with our society is the idea that borrowing money is the solution to all of life's problems.  The problem with borrowing money is, you have to pay it back with interest.  It doesn't solve your problems, it makes them worse.   And in this case, the Parcheesi club had no real problems or real need for money - government, borrowed or otherwise.  Parcheesi boards just are not that expensive.  We just bought a new one.  And we've owned about five.

Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed, particularly when the SBA asked the officers of the Parcheesi club to personally guarantee the note, which is akin to co-signing a loan.   They may be batshit crazy in the Parcheesi club,  but they ain't that batshit crazy.

But, still, crazy enough.  It is decided that they should buy flood insurance, so that if they get flooded out again, they can play insurance lottery and maybe win big.   They are willing to pay $1000 a year for insurance that might pay out a grand or two for damaged Parcheesi boards or lost pieces.   The old "something for nothing" mentality raises its ugly head once again.   And here, it is "free government money" at work as well, as flood insurance is indeed subsidized by the government, so then there's that.

The idea of moving out of the basement of a building with an 8-foot deep basement in a building that is 6 feet above the high-tide level (do the math on that), was soundly voted down, of course!

A Nation Of Whiny Little Bitches, Revisited

People in the West are the wealthiest people in the world - yet they feel they are victims!

If you look at our planet overall, you realize that most people on this earth are not very well off.  And by "not very well off" I don't mean they own a shitty car, but that they haven't had enough to eat today - or maybe several days.

And no, those folks don't live in the United States or any Western country for that matter.  This mythology of "starving children" in the West is spread by people wanting your charity money.  Childhood obesity is the number one health problem in the United States - not starvation.   And sadly, this fat epidemic is spreading even to Europe.

Recently, a young man blew himself up, after apparently murdering a few random people with home-made bombs.   Why he did this is still not clear.  He felt "frustrated" with his life, it is said.

This is a young man who was raised in a Christian home (of what type, we still are not sure) (UPDATE: "Home Schooled" Christian.  Yea, that.  Probably closeted gay) who had an SUV, a smart phone, a place to live, a job, a chance to go to college, and enough surplus disposable income to buy bomb-making materials as well as disguises.  Rather than being thankful for all the wealth he had, he was frustrated he did not have more.

Let me tell you about some people who are "frustrated with life" - they live in places like Syria, Bhagdad, Sub-Saharan Africa, or any country ending in "-stan".  There are places in this world where life really sucks - where life really is "brutish and short".   America - and the West - are not one of those places.

What strikes me as odd, is that as Christians, we are told to be thankful for what we have, and not to pine for what our neighbors have.   It is in the ten commandments - which I mentioned before, twice.  Coveting has nothing to do with lusting after your neighbor's wife or possessions, but rather the sin of comparing yourself to others rather than being thankful for what you have.

And we have so much in this country, we've lost track of what to be thankful for.  When sitting down to dinner, we used to say "grace" and thank the Lord for our food for the day, as well as other blessings, such as friends and family.  Today, we go through the motions, because having enough caloric intake for the day isn't seen as some superhuman feat (which for most of the world, it is).   We take it for granted we have enough food - and actually complain about having too much, or too much of the wrong foods.   I am sure the gluten-free movement isn't very popular in places like Sudan.

Even holidays based on thanks - such as Thanksgiving - are less about being thankful for what we have, than to lust for more.  We wolf down enormous amounts of food and then go on a "Black Friday" shopping binge.  We wallow in excess and our only complaint is "More! More! More!"

As a nation, we've lost track of our basic values - and I don't mean Bible-thumping religious values, but basic economic values.  We compare ourselves to the richest people in the world and then find ourselves wanting.  And much of this is because the media hypes the richest people in the world - the Bezos, the Zuckerbergs, the Musks, and so forth.  Our lives pale in comparison to theirs (or do they?) particularly if you are just measuring life in terms of economic gain.

But then again, I think a lot of this discontent is fed by social media, and our friends at the Russian Internet Research Agency are behind a lot of it.  I saw a meme online the other day that was clearly aimed at the British.  In front of a UK version of the Monopoly board were the words to the effect that the whole deck is stacked against you in life, because someone else starts the game with all the money.

Maybe that is how it works in the UK - after all, they have Lords and Kings and whatnot still.   But I sincerely doubt even that.  There are self-made millionaires even there, such as Richard Branson or that vacuum cleaner guy.  And if you look a the richest people in the US, you see that while they may have come from comfortable backgrounds, most didn't start life as billionaires.  You can get ahead in this world, it is still possible.

Does this mean you will be a billionaire?  Hardly likely.   But it does mean you can live a comfortable life and have a modicum of fun.  And compared to how the rest of the world lives, that's a pretty sweet deal.   But it is a funny thing, the same people who compare their lives to the richest people on the planet decry comparing their lives to the poorest and claim that somehow that is a false comparison.  Very odd, to me.  But then again, they have a victim mindset, and they don't want it challenged.

This kid in Austin had a good life, but it wasn't enough, for some reason.  Maybe (likely) he was mentally ill.  Or maybe being home-schooled and raised in a conservative environment didn't prepare him for life in "the real world."   I am sure more will come out in the coming days.   The media loves to do stories about killers, but rarely about the killed (because no one clicks on those).

Myself, I am thankful for what I have, not what I used to have, what I lost, or what I could have had. Because there is no profit in pining for what could be or what you think you are entitled to.  If you have a place to sleep, three square meals a day, and a place to shit (what they call in the Military, "Three hots, a squat, and a cot") you are doing pretty well.  I am thankful for basic things like that.  Anything beyond that is just gravy.

In fact, that is what I am most grateful for - contentment.  Not wanting or desiring things is the most wonderful feeling you can have.  And yet it is the hardest thing to obtain.  When I was in my 20's, I guess I felt the same way a lot of young people do today.   I wanted all the "things" in life - fancy cars, fancy houses, and the like.  And I was certain I was entitled to these things and that "rich people" had somehow "taken away" these things from me, even though I never had them.

With age comes wisdom, maybe.  Or maybe contentment.  With age comes the realization that getting up in the morning and not being in pain is a major victory in life.  You learn to be grateful not for the largess showered upon you by the almighty, but by the little things in life that make it worthwhile.  Someone to love and spend time with.  Worthwhile work to do and the satisfaction of a job well done.   Good food to eat, and maybe at the end of the day, a glass of wine.  Or two.

If you want more beyond that, good for you.  But you ain't gonna get it by whining about the 1%'ers taking all your money.  If you want to get ahead in life, the only choice is to do it on your own.  Put down the bong, go back to school, get a better paying job, and put some money aside.  Waiting for the political landscape to change or protesting "unfairness" isn't going to help your personal life, but rather just make you miserable - both mentally and fiscally.

I am not sure how we got to where we are today.  Like I said, this sort of discontent is no doubt stirred up by the Russians.  But they are only amplifying something that is basically home-grown.  We have become so wealthy, I think, we have lost sight of how lucky we really are.

The Coming Bond Debacle

Corporate bonds may be headed for a downturn. How will this affect you?

If you have a 401k or IRA chances are you own some corporate bonds whether you know it or not. Almost all mutual funds at least have some bond aspect to them other than perhaps index funds tied to the Dow or S&P 500.

Or, like myself, you may have actually bought some corporate bonds directly through an online trading site.  We are told by investment advisers that as you get older, you should put more of your money into bonds and less into stocks.   Bonds are perceived as safer and generating regular guaranteed income - provided the bond issuer doesn't go broke.

Thus, there are bonds and then there are bonds.  Government bonds, particularly Federal government bonds, are a pretty safe bet.  If the United States defaults on its obligations, then really nothing else would matter as the entire economy would collapse - in fact, the world economy.  As I noted before, you can't really make money betting on Armageddon.   Even if you win, you lose.  So, buying containers of food and ammunition and gold really isn't the answer to that long-shot proposition.  A cyanide pill is probably a better bet.

Municipal bonds are slightly more vulnerable, although most municipalities generally pay at least a portion of the amount due for their bonds, or they are bailed out and they refinance their bonds over time. Nevertheless, with the bankruptcy of several major cities in the past, owning municipal bonds can be a nervous proposition.   In some instances, however, they are tax-free, at least at the State level.

Corporate Bonds, on the other hand, are not guaranteed by anything and corporations do go bankrupt on occasion, and leave their bondholders with little or nothing.  As I noted in another posting, at least bondholders and up as creditors in bankruptcy.  And if the company  reorganizes, their debts are often converted into equities and they become shareholders of the new Corporation, much as General Motors Bond holders did when it went bankrupt.

However, shareholders - such as myself - were left with absolutely nothing.  If the company is liquidated, the proceeds of liquidation are then paid to the bondholders.  Again, they make it pennies-on-the-dollar but at least they're getting something out of the deal where is shareholders generally end up with nothing.  So, sometimes it's better to be a bondholder than a shareholder.

And in a few instances, where the company has absolutely no assets left whatsoever, Bond holders maybe stiffed entirely.  But that is a rare event.

The value of the bond depends on a number of factors. While a bond has a face value and a maturity date, if you try to sell your bond before the maturity date it's value depends on what the market receives it to be.  And this is based on the underlying interest rate of the bond as well as the perceived strength of the company.

For example, if you were holding a bond for a corporation that is in good standing but pays only 1% interest, you may find the value of the bond is less than the face value, as investors can obtain higher interest rates elsewhere.  Plus, as interest rates rise - and they are slated to rise and are in fact rising - older corporate bonds will be worth less in the future.

If you hold Bonds in a company that has shaky financial footing, the bonds may be worth less in the marketplace is people perceive a risk of the company defaulting on its obligations.  Thus, for example, if you had bonds for Toys R Us, today they're probably worth almost nothing and in the last few years probably they declined in value precipitously.

2018 looks to be the year that many of these shaky companies go under one by one.  Again, it has less to do with Amazon - or at least Amazon isn't really the major reason - for these companies to go under.  Rather, many of these companies were taken private or otherwise leverage with huge amounts of debt, often issued as corporate bonds.  As interest rates rise, these companies aren't able to service these debts and they default and go broke.

Sears is probably the granddaddy of all of these, although it did not going private but rather just loaded up with debt.  As sales continue to falter and they keep closing stores, it is only a matter of time before Sears folds its tent.   And that event, combined with a number of other retailers going bust couldn't shake up confidence in the bond market as a whole.

Markets have a psychological component, and when one sector of the economy goes down, it often takes every player with it - at least for a while.  Thus, for example when General Motors went bankrupt, the stock of Ford Motor Company went down also, even though the company was in far better financial shape.  Thus, if a slew of bond defaults occurs in 2018, the overall confidence in the corporate bond market will be shaken.

People will start to look more carefully at their bond holdings and also at the corporate finances of the companies issuing the bonds.  And it may be harder to sell those bonds as they'll be fewer buyers as they'll be scared off by tales of people losing their shirts on Sears corporate debt and the like.

The bond market, like the stock market is based on the laws of supply and demand.  And if everybody is selling and no one is buying, the prices are depressed - whether it is rational or not.  The idea that Bond and stock prices are accurately assessed in real time as a rational evaluation of the market is a fantasy and myth.  But many people still believe this.

So what does this mean for you and me?  Well it means that our bond holdings will probably go down this year as interest rates go up and as companies go bust in the bond market gets shaken.  It also means that could be strategic opportunities to pick up some bonds for a fraction of their face value.

I mentioned before that during the 2008 recession I had a chance to buy Mohegan Sun Casino bonds with a rate of return of 244%. People felt that the casino was going to go bankrupt, and the bondholders could not even be converted to equity holders in bankruptcy, as only Indians could own shares of the casino.  As it turned out, the casino is still in business and the bondholders were given a very generous offer to fold over their notes into new notes at a higher interest rate, and were paid a bonus as well.  If my time machine was in working order, I would go back and buy as many of those bonds as possible.  But time machines don't exist.

So yes, it may be possible to time the market and pick up some bonds for cheap in the coming months as the bond market declines.  However, determining which company bonds to buy will be very difficult.  You could buy bonds in a company that may double in value within a year, or that same company make go bust and leave you with pennies on the dollar.  It is very hard to tell.

The bond market does illustrate that there is more to the economy than the DJIA.

The only thing that is certain, is that we're in for a bumpy ride in the future, only because things have been stable for so long.  And the only certain thing is that rising interest rates, rising inflation, and a tariff war will have some effect on the economy.   How much of an effect remains to be seen.  Pretending these things won't have any effect, however, is just foolish.