It's Not Just Me...

Both the Washington Post and New York Times have devolved into clickbait sites - according to a former editor of the Times!

I have noted before that it seems that the Post and the Times, once revered institutions (indeed, the latter being the "newspaper of record" in the past) seemed to have veered off into new territory.  Instead of traditional reporting of the who-what-where-when-why kind of deal, they offer opinion pieces - often freighted with emotional tags and high-index words - in place of news stories.  Indeed, even the headlines are politicized.

So instead of a critique of Trump's policies, we are treated to stories that Trump is "alone in the Whitehouse" and tromping around, talking to busts and paintings in a Nixonian way, asking in vain, "why do they want to impeach me?"

I was talking with a very smart person the other day - someone much smarter than myself. They had multiple graduate degrees and their main concern about the Trump Administration was the fact that Trump was alone in the White House like Macaulay Culkin and apparently losing his mind. They basically barfed up to me almost word-for-word an article from The Washington Post.

When some redneck barfs up a Fox news story to me word-for-word, I'm not really surprised. People who are not very smart get hooked by these sensationalist stories. What concerned me was that this person was a very smart person, but they were still hooked by these emotionally freighted opinion pieces masquerading as news.

This sort of "reporting" which is based on "confidential sources" and speculation isn't really news.  It isn't factually based, and what's more is irrelevant.   The right-wing press did the same sort of treatment of Clinton - claiming that Hillary was throwing lamps at Bill and screaming at him - as if that was more important a story than welfare reform or balancing the budget.

Policies are what matters, and maybe that is why the press is seizing on these trivial stories.  Because when you come right down to it, Trump's policies are pretty standard Republican stuff.   Standard, except perhaps for the deficit spending (although that seems to be a new GOP tradition) and the tariffs (which were a GOP tradition in Teddy Roosevelt's day).   What the "Impeach Trump!" crowd doesn't seem to register is that when Trump is removed, Vice-President Pence becomes commander-in-chief, and he has an even more radical agenda to promote.

The Hill, which is an online newspaper filled with pop-ups, pop-unders, and auto-loading videos, recently reported that the former editor of the Times is saying the same thing.  Note:  You may not want to click on the link to the original story, as the SPAM on "The Hill" may lock up your computer for several minutes, and you will have to "X" out of several ads and videos just to read the article.  Another example of journalism in this new age!   But anyway, from the article:

Abramson, who served as the Times's top news editor from 2011 until her firing in 2014, criticizes current executive editor Dean Baquet in her forthcoming book, saying some of the publication's news articles have become “unmistakably anti-Trump.” 

“Though Baquet said publicly he didn’t want the Times to be the opposition party, his news pages were unmistakably anti-Trump,” Abramson wrote in the book, excerpts of which were released this week. 

“Some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labeled as news analysis.” 

She argues that the Times has been motivated to slant its coverage to be critical of Trump after adding more than 600,000 subscribers during his first six months in office. 

“Given its mostly liberal audience, there was an implicit financial reward for the Times in running lots of Trump stories, almost all of them negative: they drove big traffic numbers and, despite the blip of cancellations after the election, inflated subscription orders to levels no one anticipated," Abramson wrote. 

Abramson argued in her book that the Times’s longtime rival, The Washington Post, is also guilty of mixing opinion stories with unbiased new stories.

In other words, this move to Trump-bashing news isn't about a "liberal bias" against Trump, it is merely good business practice these days, as Trump-bashing articles generate a lot of clicks, and thus revenue for cash-starved newspapers who are on the brink of extinction, nationwide.   To put it more succinctly, we are the problem, not the newspapers.  They are only feeding "raw meat" to the lions, which is what the lions want.

I ran into this same effect when I monetized my blog for a year as an experiment (and I may do it again, just to make some spare change, the way the economy is going!).   During the election, anything I said about Hillary or Trump generated a lot of hits and thus a lot of cash for me (several hundred dollars!).

A fellow in California said the same thing, before his website was shut down.  He made up news stories about Hillary and Trump and found that the rabid Trump supporters would click on anything he said about Hillary, even that she was a reptile space-alien.   He made thousands of dollars a week this way, but of course, after the election, it all died down quite a bit.  He was the one who coined the phrase "red meat" - he noted that if he threw "red meat" to his readers, they ate it up and his click-through revenue went through the roof.

One would think that Trump would understand this more than anyone else. His entire business model as of late has been in generating controversy as a television reality star. The New York Times and Washington Post are just following suit, saying outlandish things and hoping it generates some click revenue.

Today, the Times and the Post bury the substantial articles in the back pages and put the emotional click-bait grab-you-by-the-balls stuff on the front page.  They are doing this to survive because in this day and age, they can tell what we like to read, so they give us more of the same.

There is a lot not to like about Trump, including the low-level corruption (or  perhaps high-level) as well has his specific policies. Deficit spending and tariffs could derail the economy but... BORING! Yea, you were falling asleep there, weren't you? You'd rather hear juicy gossip about America's newest Kardashians, amirite?  Maybe this week, Jared will get a sex change - if he already hasn't!  It;s good for ratings!

We have an acting attorney general caught up in an invention broker scheme.  It is about as bad as if he ran a chain of check-cashing stores.  But to explain the con and why it is such a bad thing takes more than one tweet can contain. We have devolved into a nation of tweets, sound-bites, and headlines.   And no one can read anymore, or hold a coherent thought. Vonnegaut's nightmare of the future has been realized.

So we don't see any in-depth reporting on this.  The news media keeps score on the economy based on the DJIA and how many points it lurches upward and downward every day (with increasing frequency - something no one wants to talk about).    Political coverage today sounds like coverage of Vietnam back in 1968 - where we are treated to a nightly "body count" of people indicted or sent to jail or under investigation.  But there is no word as to what is actually going on, and we, the viewers, can't really make it all out, based on the two-minute clips of the fighting.

And apparently, we like this stuff which is why they do it.   The problem is, of course, that often we click on these "clickbait" stories just to see how outlandish they are, or because the headlines pique our curiosity.   So even as we decry clickbait journalism, we end up enhancing it.

Of course, one could argue that this sort of thing has been going on for a long time.  The phrase "yellow journalism" is over a hundred years old. And we've always had tabloid newspapers which relied on sensationalist headlines to generate sales.  But in the past, we always expected the mainstream newspapers to do the right thing - eventually. I'm not sure that's going to happen in this modern electronic age.

Seems we can't win, doesn't it?

Something for Nothing

Why do people believe they can get something for nothing?

Be Your Own Boss!  Work from home!  Make thousands a month with only a few hours work!  Our free money system will teach you how to make millions without any effort, work, or money on your part!  Sign up now!

You would think, after a few decades, that these sales pitches would fall on deaf ears. After all, this sort of nonsense has been going on since before I was born.  But the same old siren song ensnares a new generation every few years, who spend what little money they have on dreams of avarice, only to see it all fall apart in spectacular fashion.

A recent article in The Atlantic recounts how a young couple spent their life savings of $40,000 trying to sell things on Amazon.  They saw a podcast - and nothing ever good comes of a podcast - about how to make money buying stuff cheap from China and then selling it on Amazon.  The guys who run the deal offer to coach you on how to do this for the low, low price of $3,999, which if you are astute is four grand.

(NOTE:  The idea that you can "make money" as a merchant middleman, whether it is this scheme or MLM or whatever, is far overstated.   In order to make money as a product distributor, you either need exclusive products, exclusive territories, or a huge volume of business and a razor-thin operating margin.   The minute you make dollar one in this sort of work, someone else gets into the same business willing to make 99 cents - and a race to the bottom begins.   Any job that involves sales itself is tough.  Any job that requires you to be a mercantile middleman can safely be called a con).

But of course, there's no secret how to sell things on Amazon.  Go to amazon.com - it's all explained right there in black and white.  But of course, a lot of people can't read these days so they need someone to teach them using podcast videos or whatnot.  Similarly, it's not hard to buy things from China - the Chinese are all too eager to sell you things.  That's why if you want some stuff for cheap, skip Amazon entirely and just go to eBay and buy directly from Chinese sellers who will send you oddly-shaped packages that take three weeks to arrive, but contain merchandise at startlingly low prices.

When you read stories about these sort of cons, the punchline is always the same: it isn't rich people getting caught up in this sort of nonsense, it is Joe working-class who squanders what little money he has on these wild schemes and then becomes embittered and disappointed.  But of course, the next week they sign up for an MLM scheme, convinced that this time around they are really going to make money.  The gullible never learn!

When I was a kid, we used to watch Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners, which was a show about a sewer worker and a bus driver and their wives living in an apartment house in New York City, trying to make ends meet on blue-collar wages.  Almost every week, the boys come up with a scheme to make lots of money, and they spent what little money they had on these schemes, which always end up falling apart.

These were like educational videos - or should have been. They sent the message that trying to make money through a scheme is a pretty pointless waste of time.  Moreover, it told us that there were a host of con artists out there who will separate you from what little money you have with promises of riches - and you have to be astute enough to say "no" to them.

It almost all of these schemes, the victims never bother to ask themselves the most salient question: if this was such a money-making opportunity, why isn't the guy selling me the scheme engaging in this himself?  Why on Earth would you sell the goose that laid the golden egg when you can make more money with the golden eggs?

And this is what the two people who were profiled in the story failed to ask themselves.  Why are these guys with a podcast selling the secrets to Amazon when they could just be selling stuff on Amazon themselves?  In fact, by giving away these so-called "secrets" they're just creating more competition for their own sales channel.  If it was such a lucrative deal, they wouldn't be telling anybody about it but practicing it themselves.

But of course, to any thinking person, the answer is obvious.  You make a hell of a lot more money selling the "secrets" of selling on Amazon for $4,000 a throw, than you would actually selling products.  Moreover, it's a hell of a lot less work than actually selling the products.

Nevertheless, I don't expect this sort of thing to go away anytime soon. Like I said it's been around since before I was born, and it continues even today.  And despite articles like this in The Atlantic, which should alert people these sort of things are scams, more and more people get caught up in them everyday, never learning from experience of others, much less from their own experiences.

Sadly, this is the way of the world.  There will always be sharp operators willing to take money away from the poorest people.  And it will always be poor people who really don't understand how money  works, because they are not very smart, even though they're probably decent hard-working people.  As Jesus said, "the poor will always be with us," because they always make poor decisions.

And sadly I don't think all the rules, regulations, and consumer protection agencies in the world can put an end to this anytime soon, because they haven't been able to put an end to it for over a millennia.

Maybe articles like this in The Atlantic will educate consumers not to get conned by these deals.   But I doubt it.   Do you think the folks who send off $4000 to some guys with a podcast are reading The Atlantic?  Or reading at all?

Hey, right there, in the open, is the secret to wealth: learning to read and then reading.

Can Smart People Be That Dumb? You Betcha!

How does $11,000 go missing from your credit card account without you noticing it, for years?

A recent Op-ed piece in the New York Times illustrates how low the bar is to write an Op-ed piece for the New York Times - and how clueless people are about money.   You wonder why six-figure salary people are living "paycheck to paycheck" and then you read this and it all becomes clear:

A few years ago, when I was self-employed and had recently had my second child, my husband went combing through my credit card statements, looking for tax deductions that I’d missed. I’m financially disorganized at the best of times, and with a baby and a toddler, I was barely even trying to keep track of my business expenses. So it’s not surprising that I hadn’t noticed the hundreds of dollars of weird recurring bank charges that my husband discovered.

It turned out I’d been signed up for a dubious program that purported to protect users’ credit in certain emergency situations. My bank had been accused of fraudulent practices in connection with it and fined $700 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government agency that was Senator Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild. I tried, maddeningly, to seek redress from the bank — cycling through phone trees, screaming at automated operators. No one could tell me how I’d been enrolled in the program, or for how long.

Eventually, I turned to the C.F.P.B. itself, filling out a simple form on its website. A few weeks later, I was notified that the bank had been deducting money from my account for years, and I was being refunded more than $11,000. Having financed my own maternity leave, it was money I badly needed.

WHAT THE FUCK?  Sorry, I just had to say that.  How trivial does money have to be in your life when you can just let eleven grand go missing and not notice it?

What is even odder is that she can't even be bothered with the details.  There is some sort of "program" she was signed up for, but she can't recall the details of it, nor does she seem interested in telling us about it (again, the missing facts from any story are the real story).  I suspect it was some sort of overdraft protection scheme - the banks were doing that back in the 2000's - making it the default mode or not explaining it carefully when you clicked to sign up.   You could go over your credit limit and they would honor the charges, but sock you with hefty fees - like $30 to $100 a charge.

My banks offered this to me.   I read the offer and politely declined.  Sadly, the check box on the website was defaulted to "Sign me up!" and had to be manually unchecked.   Also, I haven't gone over my credit limit since I started this blog - rarely do I let my credit card balance exceed $1000 before paying it off - several times a month.  Stuff like this doesn't "just happen" - the consumer has to be willfully ignorant and lazy to let it occur.

Be that as it may, I am still not sure how you can rack up eleven grand this way, unless you are totally clueless about money, as well as a lot of other things.  "Oh, but I'm just a girl, tee-hee!  And I have babies, so my brains are gone!  Who has time to balance their accounts anyway?  Tee-hee, aren't I cute?"

This lady just set back the woman's movement by 100 years.  And yet she has the balls to offer her opinion about the next Presidential race.  That's the problem with Democracy - they let just anyone vote, even people who can't be bothered to check their credit card statement, which you can do on your freaking cell phone these days!  (I am just guessing, but there is four hours a day of facebooking and texting and tweeting on her phone, but she doesn't even have the credit card company app loaded on it!).

She goes on to endorse Elizabeth Warren.  If I was Elizabeth Warren, I'd ask for a retraction of that endorsement.   Or change your campaign slogan to, "Warren - the choice of clueless idiots!"

Elizabeth Warren has her heart in the right place, and the consumer protection agency is a good thing - although it will hardly stem the tide of financial fraud and abuse in this country.   So long as there are State Lotteries and Indian Casinos, people will be able to fritter away their money.   Even if you force the payday loan people to put their interest rates in 400-point type, people will still sign up.  They tried this with the timeshare people and the car leasing people - have you seen either of those go away?

The problem for Warren is Pocahontas.  Yes, it may be unfair, but it has stuck - and she stepped in the dogshit by having a DNA test done.   What was going through her mind when she put down "Native American" on her applications for graduate school (and elsewhere, apparently) is anyone's guess.  And it wasn't just a one-time thing, either.  She apparently was listed as "minority" faculty based on this specious claim to native ancestry.  Specious or fraudulent - take your pick.

(NOTE: The Wikipedia page for Warren has been scrubbed clean of any indication that this controversy even exists.   The Post and Times of course, play it down.  She doesn't know how Harvard got this idea that she was the first minority professor to be tenured.  It's not like she checked it off on her job application form or anything, right?  But it appears she did - more than once in her life.   It isn't as trivial a matter as one might first think).

The gag that her family lore proclaimed they had an Indian ancestor is lame - my family has the same WASP-y story as well - that somehow we are descendant from, well, Pocahontas and John Smith.  I doubt it is true, or if it is, it is a tenuous connection that doesn't merit myself claiming Indian ancestry - anymore than it does Elizabeth Warren.

But no harm, no foul, right?   She's a good person and we should overlook things like that - like a Supreme Court justice dry-humping a girl when he was in high school.  Right?   Well, you may be right, but then again, this is an election, not a confirmation hearing.   In the latter, you need convince only 60 mostly middle-aged white Republican men to vote yes.   In an election, you need to convince the majority of the people - or the majority in enough States to get the electoral votes you need.

And in that regard, you don't need a candidate with a built-in scandal and name recognition based only on Trump's derogatory tagging.  "Elizabeth Warren?  Who's that?  Oh, right, Pocahontas!" - and that would be the reaction of many Democrats, much less Republicans.  Sadly, if she had just left that the hell alone she would have had a better chance.  The DNA test sealed the deal.  She should have apologized to Indian tribes for claiming this heritage on government forms and school applications.  That would have been a better move - "I fucked up.  I was young and stupid.  Sorry!"  Doubling down by actually claiming Native American heritage was the utterly tone-deaf wrong move.

That and she's too far to the left.  You may have noticed that the world has lurched to the Right.  It isn't just America, it is everywhere.   People across the planet are embracing "get it done" strongmen, and our country is no exception.  We can't beat Trump by going wacky-liberal, it just won't work.

Elizabeth Warren has a good job to do in the Senate where she should stay and help out the Democratic cause.   But President?   All she would do is cause the Independents to scratch their head and again wonder what Democrats have been smoking, and either stay home on election day or hold their nose and vote Trump.

Democrats can do better than this.  And the New York Times editorial page can do better as well.

CAVEAT:  I would have a helluva lot more respect for this Op-ed author if she bothered to figure out what the "program" she signed up for was, rather than acting dumb.   She also should have owned up to her own malfeasance of not checking her bank balance and not challenging these charges for years, rather than simply blame the banks for malfeasance.   But hey, in this modern world, everything is someone else's fault!

Externalization!

The Retirement Economy and the Bottomless Purse

When your investments are increasing faster than you can spend money, life is great.  But then things change.... what happens?

In the last two years, we have experienced the "Trump Bump" - an artificial inflation of the economy, a bubble if you will, that was caused by mindless euphoria in the marketplace.   De-regulation would free up companies to make more money!  We'd all go back to burning coal!  A trade war with China would mean increased profits for American producers!  The new tax law would put more money into the hands of consumers, who in turn would bootstrap the economy!

Those were the theories.  Time will tell if they were right.   On the other hand, staggering debt, by consumers, companies and even our government, hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles.  The longer we fail to address this issue, the worse it will be when we are forced to.   And no, the economy didn't grow enough to "pay for" the tax cut.

It seems the wild Wall-street party of the last two years is done and now we have to deal with the New Year's hangover.   It remains to seen whether this is something that can be cured with two aspirin and bed rest, or result in power-vomiting.

One problem for the economy and markets is that so much is driven by emotion and perception.  People bid up stocks during the first part of the Trump era on the notion that a "business-friendly" administration would unleash the vaunted power of American Capitalism.   That sort of didn't happen, actually.   But during the last two years, a funny thing happened - my portfolio, as well as that of many Americans, actually increased in value, even as we spent the money.

For me - and many other retirees of fairly modest means - this meant we had a bottomless purse.  No matter how much we spent, it seemed, there was more money in our investment accounts than there was the month before.   And that is a pretty fantastic thing, when it happens.   You become more confident in the economy and are inclined to spend more money as a result.   Hey, why not?  You can drop ten grand and your net worth still goes up by twenty!   Trump Bump!  Yea!

But of course, to folks like me, this something-for-nothing situation just serves to make me nervous.  Maybe I am a pessimist, or maybe just a realist.  But the gravy train, in my experience, never rolls on forever.

In the next few months, and indeed, in the last two, we've seen the market go down.   Suddenly, my net worth actually has decreased in value.   If I spend money now, that accelerates the decline in my net worth even further.   As you can imagine, there are probably a lot of other people in a similar boat - some being folks who are not even retired yet.  Even to a working stiff, spending money seems less attractive when your 401(k) dips in value, as does the value of your house.

And that is what happened in the spring of 2009 - we panicked.   Stocks went down, profits went down, and everyone pulled back from spending.  "Maybe now is not the time to buy a new car - our neighbors were just foreclosed upon!"   People get scared.

And for some, the coming months could get very scary.  With the bankruptcy of Sears and other retailers, it is possible that an awful lot of people will see their pensions cut in half.   How do you think that will affect their spending plans?

Once again, the snowball effect kicks in.   Bad news causes other bad news, and it snowballs out of control until it reaches a point where folks realize they were being overly-paranoid.   Even in the worst months of the 2008-2009 recession, most people still went to work, got a paycheck, and paid their bills.   A lot of people didn't of course, but it hardly was the majority of the country.   

The same was true in 1980, when high interest rates and high inflation strangled the economy.  Unemployment was near 10% back then - but 90% of us had jobs and paychecks and managed to do all right.   Well, at least I did.   There are always jobs for those willing to work, in any economy.

But nevertheless, I am sure that my spending will start to shrink in the coming months, as the economic bad news starts to pile up.  And my decreased spending will mean more economic bad news for the folks who sell me stuff, and the process bootstraps itself.

Of course, in a year or two, it will likely turn itself around, as it did in the past, and eventually will do in the future.

Well, that is, unless this debt thing causes more inflation and wipes us all out.

Cheerful thoughts!

Tree Service

I think I shall never see, a thing as lovely as a tree, being cut down.

Trees are wonderful and beautiful and dangerous and messy.   We love the enormous magnolia that was planted by the original owners of our house, nearly 50 years ago.  It shades the front screened-in porch we built, and cuts down on our utility bill in the summer with its cool shade.  The birds love it because - in addition to the bird feeders we've hung from it - its tight web of branches discourages hawks from swooping in.

But of course, like most trees, it is messy.  It drops leaves all year-round and every fall drops these seed pods like pine cones - all over the place.   Of course, it is not a native tree to the island, which raises the hackles of our island horticulturist, but it is a beautiful tree.  Our island is noted for its plethora of live oaks.  We don't have one of these beautiful trees on our property, but our neighbor does.  He always complained about the mess - the oak leaves (which get into everything, including your car's air conditioner) and the Spanish moss litter his lawn, and he spend hours every day raking it all up!   If had his druthers, he would have cut it down - but since we live in a State Park, that isn't permitted.   Oak trees are too messy, he says.

Of course, children can be messy, too, but you don't see people cutting them in half with a chainsaw, at least not very often.   The analogy to children is apt.  When a young sprout, they are so cute and adorable, and you don't realize they can grow into a huge nuisance later on - a nuisance that can be difficult and expensive to get rid of.  Not only that, a large tree, if it falls on your house, can kill you in the night as you sleep.   Sort of like that drug-addled 30-something that you've let live in your basement for far too long.    Yes, the analogy is apt.

And some people chose not to have children - and others choose not to have trees.  We used to laugh at the "retirement houses" we'd see along the main highway in New York and in Georgia.  Usually on large lots, these houses had nary a tree.   "Too damn much maintenance!" the owners would say - a lot easier to mow five acres of lawn without trees obstructing the way or dumping leaves, pine needles, or whatnot on the lawn.

Of course, that is an extremist view - in one direction.  Others have extremist views in another.  They argue that no tree should ever be cut down, ever.  If a tree falls in the forest - regardless of whether anyone hears it or not - it should be allowed to sit there and decay and rot.   Small saplings that never have a snowball's chance in hell of growing beneath the canopy of their elders should be left to die.   Nothing whatsoever should be done to anything - just let it all grow "natural-like" in a viney mess of branches and debris.

And I suppose there is some merit to that point of view, but like anything else, perhaps moderation is the key.   One problem we do have with forests, is that they catch fire periodically - which they are supposed to do - and since we put these fires out, the amount of combustible underbrush accumulates over time, until spectacular fires erupt - fires too strong to be put out readily.    Our interference in the ecosystem (by dint of our every existence) changes conditions, and to some extent, we have to be stewards of the land to compensate.

It is like the deer population on our island.  It was brought here for hunting purposes during the club era in the late 1800's.  We were the top predator on the island.   When we stopped hunting, the deer population exploded - and so did the tick population.   Some argue that as top predator, it is our responsibility to cull the herd, through whatever means (hunting, birth control, whatever) and thus manage the herd to be healthy and of a size that is sustainable for a 7-mile long island.   Others, of the "leave it all alone" mentality, submit that the deer should be allowed to breed indiscriminately, until disease or some other factor culls the herd (so far, tick-born illness and auto collisions seem to be the only thing that is culling the herd).

Myself, I think moderation is the key.  But moderation isn't very popular these days.  Across the planet, the human race is engaged in an orgy of extremism.   People like to criticize America and President Trump (and they should, too) but they fail to realize that the populist, nationalist, right-wing trend isn't limited to our country, but is fanning across the globe.   Power-hungry dictators or parties can be found anywhere - from Valenzuela to the Philippines, from Poland to Turkey, Egypt, and even in Jolly Olde England with its xenophobic Brexit campaign (which will be the cause of the next recession).  And of course, that includes China, where a new leader is consolidating power, Russia, where Putin has held a death grip on power for decades, and rogue States like North Korea.   It isn't just us - the "get 'er done!" strongman is once again in vogue, across the planet.

And on the other side of the coin, wacky left-wing thinking is spreading as well, as evidenced by the freshmen class of "Democratic Socialists" who promise to mess things up worse than the "tea partiers" did a decade ago.  The GOP didn't get half its agenda accomplished because of holdouts on the far right.  The Democrats look poised to suffer the same fate, not due to the Republican-controlled Senate, but because of the far-left in the House.

But I digress.

Moderation - that is the key, and today, moderates are targets for both the right and left.   But like with anything else, with trees, moderation is important as well.   On your personal property, having trees is important.  Like I said, they provide shade in the summer and, if deciduous, will drop their leaves and let the sun in, in the winter.  They also make a home more appealing and comfortable and enjoyable to live in.   A house sitting in the blinding sun is no fun to be in, unless you keep your curtains closed all the time and spend all day watching television.  Whoops, I just described half of America.   More like 3/4ths.

The big problem is that trees do get old and die, just like every other living thing.  And even before they die, they can drop a limb through your roof, causing an awful lot of damage.   We have pine trees on our property as well as the Magnolia (and palms, which are considered grasses, not trees).   We've had one cut down already and hope to remove two more that are poised to fall on the house.   Our neighbor has a dead one that is coming down as I write this.

Dead trees are tricky to remove, as they can snap off at a moment's notice.  These are trees that are over 100 feet tall, and you need a tree service - professionals - to take them down.   They climb the tree, chainsaw dangling from their waist, and cut off chunks starting at the top.   Some use a crane to hold the tree up while it is being cut, and then lower the pieces to the ground.  Others let the chunks fall - often 4 feet long or longer - with a huge "thump!" and a 2-foot dent in your lawn.   The tree can sway dramatically when a piece is cut off, which is why cutting dead trees is tricky - if the tree sways far enough, it can snap off and take down the tree surgeon with it.   Since you don't know how structurally sound a dead tree is, it can be very dangerous.

Which is why often, you need to call an expert for this, rather than risk life and limb with do-it-yourself tree trimming.  Granted, a small tree, far enough away from the house, could be safely felled, if you know what you are doing.   But it also is a messy and time-consuming task.  Just removing all the branches and debris can take hours or even days - and then disposing of them becomes a chore as well.

But how much does it cost to have a tree removed?   Well, "it depends" on a number of factors - where you live, how big the tree is, what type it is, how close it is to structures such as houses, overhead wires, etc., and how accessible it is to equipment.  We paid a little more than $600 to have a pine tree removed - a decade ago - by having a guy scamper up the side of it and start sawing off chunks of it.   It was on the front lawn, far away from the house and overhead wires and easily accessible by truck (which sank into the ground).  They didn't do any follow-up cleanup work (repairing the lawn, etc.) nor did they grind the stump.

The pines we need to have removed now are four feet from the house, right near the main power drop, and basically inaccessible to larger equipment.  It is possible to crane the tree right over the house, but this of course, adds the risk of dropping the tree through the house in the process.   There is a lot of risk involved - to life and limb as well as property - and the tree service factors that in (as does their insurance company).   They are also grinding the stump.   Total cost?  About $2000 a tree.

Ouch.   Now you see why these trees, which probably seemed like cute little Christmas trees 50 years ago, can turn into expensive monsters later in life.

Trees can grow quickly - more quickly than you might think.   Some sort of trash-tree spout comes up near your house, and you think it looks cute.   Ten years go by and its growing into the foundation and clogging your gutter with leaves.   When I was young, I thought trees grew slowly.   As I get older and time compresses, I realize something else.

The previous owner of our house in New York planted a plethora of "specimen" trees, and by the time we bought the house (and the decade we lived there) they matured into a beautiful garden-like setting.  He had planted most of them away from the house, so they did not provide any shade, sadly.  But he was of the opinion  - a valid opinion - that shade trees, while nice, can create problems with they tip over in a storm, right into your roof.   I planted a tree right in front of the house, to block the blinding sunsets.  I am sure the next owner probably cut it down.

It is nice to have a tree right next to your house or patio - it provides a natural tree-house effect than can be very pleasing.  Some avant-guard houses are built around existing trees, or have trees poking through the backyard deck.  Again, very beautiful and calming, until the tree dies or threatens to topple, at which point it becomes an expensive nightmare.

I will continue to love our trees, though I will be a steward of them, and as they age, they will need to come down - with newer trees planted in their place (as indeed, is required by the State Park rules).   But man, think hard before you plant those damn pine trees.   They get huge!

UPDATE:  My neighbor found a cheaper tree service that wasn't backed up a month in advance.  Using a huge crane, they hauled the tree right over the house (hope they have good insurance!) for about $1000 a tree - far less than the other company.   The trees are all gone now.  I counted the rings - about 50 years old, or the age of the house.  The original owners could have run them over with a lawn mower - and should have.    100 foot pine trees four feet from your house - like living under a guillotine!