The Tyranny of the Smart Phone

Once you buy a smart phone, you are obligated to buy another one and another one, indefinitely.  Or at least that is what they want you to do.

If you have read my blog over the last decade (brave soul!) you realize I hate smart phones with a passion.  I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century and was finally forced - and I mean forced - to buy one, as so many transactions today require it, particularly if you travel a lot.  Dragging a laptop to an internet cafe gets really old, really fast, when you just want to check your bank account balance.

I don't like smart phones.  I don't like what they do to people. I don't like what they do to drivers, either.  And we all know you are texting, too, just from the way you drive (wandering in the lane, failing to maintain constant speed, failing to notice the light is green) so stop pretending you aren't by looking down at your lap all the time.  Hell, just the other day we saw a lady plow into the back of a pickup truck while texting.  She panicked and hit the gas, her tires smoking as she drove her Honda under the back bumper of the truck.   And all this time, she was holding that damn phone in her hand.

But most of all, I don't like what the smart phone (or even the old-fashioned cell phone) does to me.  I find myself looking at it more and more and reading books less and less.   I find myself going back like a monkey in a Skinner box, looking for that diminishing reward over and over again.  It is a brain-reprogramming tool, plain and simple.  It changes the way you think, and I know this because the people who created these tech nightmares have said so.  Facebook, in particular, has changed the very nature of humanity - almost unnoticed.   But I'll get back to those fuckers later on.

In a way, the way they sell smart phones is like leasing cars.  The car companies would rather you leased a brand-new car every 2-3 years, because they sell a lot of cars this way and make a lot of money.  It costs you a lot of money, though, but a surprising number of people do this.  And back in the day - before leasing was a thing for personal vehicles - a lot of people would "trade in" their cars on a similar time-line, squandering thousands of dollars in the process.

But if you are smart and astute, you can buy a secondhand car and take care of it and drive it forever.  You end up saving thousands of dollars and oddly enough, have fewer headaches, as you worry less about getting your fancy new car scratched or whatever. 

And with smart phones, a similar plan of action was also possible.  You can buy a cheap off-lease phone (and that is really all they are, is leased, if you trade them in every few years) on eBay for $99 or so (a lot less than a new phone for $1000!).   Put in your SIM chip and a memory card and you're off to the races.   Years ago we bought a pair of Samsung Galaxy S4 phones, used, on eBay.  They work fine.  Mark has a data plan on his, and I piggyback off it using the WiFi hotspot feature.  We pay about $40 a month, all told.   There are probably even cheaper ways to do this.  And of course, WiFi hotspots are still free in a lot of places - but getting harder and harder to find these days, as I noted before.

But trouble appears on the horizon.   The first inkling that I was going to be screwed was when Capital One updated its "app" for the phone.  It required me to update to continue, and when I clicked on "update" it took me to the Google Play store where I was informed that the new Capital One app was no longer compatible with my lame-ass old phone.

Oh, well, I can always check the balance by going to the website.  A pain in the ass, but it is a workaround.

Here in sunny San Diego, I thought we would try to rent a convertible for a few days as a treat.   I looked online, and the big-3 rental agencies want astronomical prices.  So I thought I would try one of these peer-to-peer rental agencies, such as Turo.  I sign up and log in and rent a car - or so I thought.  We are all set to go (with a few glitches - Bank of America immediately flags the transaction as fraud, as Turo puts a $1 hold on the card first, mimicking the actions of real fraudsters).

But then when I log in again, it says, "you must install the Turo app in order to pick up the car".   So off again to the Google Play store and once again, I am informed that my old phone is not compatible with their new app.   I am locked out of commerce because I have an older phone.  It is a scary thought.

And this may extend to brick-and-mortar purchases.   While my old phone has one of the earliest Near Field Communication chips installed, like most Beta releases, it might not work right or at all with some of these "swipe and pay" applications coming to the fore, where you can use your phone to check out at the grocery store or the mall.   I will end up like that annoying little old lady who pays by check, and takes an hour to write it out - or counts out pennies from her change purse.   Yea, that's me, the old fart.  Upgrade or get old - those are your choices!

By the way, one of those "only in California" things - the homeless here beg while texting or talking on their smart phones.  Will Rodgers once said that only in America could you drive to the poorhouse.   And today, you can drive to the poorhouse while texting, apparently.  But seriously, many "homeless advocates" and advocates for the poor have argued that the increasing important of an online presence in commerce has made it harder for the poor to interact with society - and find job listings, perform financial transactions, and so on.  This may have once been the case, but apparently smart phone penetration has trickled down to even the homeless and beggars on the street corners.  And what do you bet, they have a newer phone than I do?

Now to be fair, I could go online and buy a newer phone (at least two generations newer) on eBay for the same $99 I paid years ago for my old one.   They are up to at least Galaxy 9 by now, so Galaxy 6's and maybe even 7's might be found cheap.  But what does the new phone do that my old one wouldn't?   Oh, right, run all those new apps.

I've seen this pattern before somewhere, but I just can't put my finger on it.  Oh, yes, that's right, the same game was played on us with personal computers.   The new software won't run very well (or at all) on your old PC - you have to upgrade to a new one!   I spent countless frustrating hours and dollars trying to upgrade older PCs or building my own new ones, just to run the latest version of Windows.  I realized later on that most of the programs I already owned were working just fine, thank you, and there was no reason to upgrade.   Good old Microsoft took note of this and created this new ".docx" format in an effort to force people to upgrade.

Today, they have Windows 10, and it basically is a subscription service.  You buy the computer and rent the software on a monthly basis - storing your data in their "cloud".   On the cruise we recently went on (Holland America) one of the "activities" offered onboard was training in Windows 10.  They had an entire room set up with computers and a computer geek would give lectures on how to upload photos to the cloud and how to rent programs like Microsoft Word that you used to own outright.  Just give us your credit card number..... it won't hurt a bit.  Or at least not too much.

And yes, I am typing this on one of my hoary old Toshiba laptops - which you can buy on eBay for less than a smart phone, even.  It is running Windows 7, and it works fine.  You can even play movies on it - but not likely video games.  Speaking of brain-reprogramming machines.... but I won't touch the video game controversy with a ten-foot pole.  I think the video game companies implant subliminal messages in the games that say, "Violent video games do not lead to real world violence, and you should kill anyone who thinks otherwise."   but I digress.

So, just as I was forced to buy a smart phone in the first place - to keep even a tangential connection to the rest of society - I am now forced to buy a newer one - and another one after that, and so on and so forth.  I guess it won't be all that bad or too expensive, but I intensely dislike being forced to throw away working technology, just because some company thinks I need to upgrade - at my expense and for their profit.

It also makes me less enthusiastic about trying these new apps and technology.  We tried Lyft in Alaska and it worked OK (it is not available, apparently, in Canada, or at least Vancouver).   But if they tell me their app won't work unless I buy a new phone.... well count me out, unless I decide to become one of their drivers.

But getting back to Facebook, that is even more insipid.   Turo exhorted me to add my Facebook page to my "profile" so people would feel comfortable renting to me.  And of course, they wanted me to sign up using Facebook or my Google profile.  A competing peer-to-peer rental company (in its infant stages) cuts to the chase and only allows you to sign up using Facebook.   That sort of floored me - a company relying entirely on one social media network as their platform for commerce.   How soon will it be before I can't even buy groceries or gasoline without owning the latest smartphone or a facebook page?  "Bob likes unleaded gasoline and pork rinds!"

Oh, yea, the other odious aspect of this - your every move and purchase logged and posted on your "wall" for others to read, or at the very least, sold off to marketing companies, to use to manipulate your brain.   Suddenly you are getting offers for products and services that seem so convenient and timely!   You might even think it was your idea to buy these things.   Just like you believe that Joe Biden is "Crazy Uncle Joe" who has a taste for underage girls - you read it enough times on social media sites - stated as an offhand fact - and it becomes the new truth.

Something is going awfully wrong here.  I can sort of see it - a monstrous thing - but only around the edges and only out of the corner of my eye.  If I look at it directly, it becomes invisible, or part of the landscape.  But it is there, it is evil, and it is growing.  And smart phones and facebook and online life in general are just some minor manifestations of this.   Sadly, in part, I am to blame for some of it.  I, too, worked for the dark side of data mining.

And it isn't just the Russian Internet Research Agency behind this - although they are very good at it, if not a wee bit too obvious (although most Americans can't spot a shill even at five paces).   It's not an organized thing, really.  It's just an amalgamation of researchers, entrepreneurs, marketers, corporations, governments, and other institutions, great and small, interested in getting inside your head and reading out what really is in there.   And if they are lucky, they hope to be able to put things inside your head as well - and they are pretty far along with this.

This is not a conspiracy theory - there is no grand conspiracy.   But go to some convention of tech companies sometime, and look at all the new products at the display booths and listen to the lectures by industry leaders - everyone is on the same page on this.   Buying and selling eyeballs was the name of the game for cable TV.   With the internet, the game is buying and selling minds.

And what is it they want to put into your mind?  That it is "normal" to be hopelessly in debt.  That it is "normal" to expect to own a fancy house, lease fancy cars, and spend enormous sums of money, over time, on coffee drinks and restaurant meals, as well as "adult toys" (not the sexual kind, the motorized kind) and other distractions (such as smartphones) to distract you from the goal of building real wealth and happiness.   And part of this is selling you the idea that you have to have the latest smart phone, and if you don't, well, you are somehow inadequate.

On our cruise I met a nice guy who was a truck driver.  Now truck drivers don't make a lot of money these days, but he's doing OK.   He had the latest Apple iPhone, and when he saw my battered old Samsung, well, he had to snicker and make comments that (a) anything not Apple is unworthy and (b) worse that not having an Apple, I had an obsolete "brand X" (which I think he derisively referred to as a "Turnip").

But of course, he's still working driving trucks - a job that literally kills you.  Ever seen a truck driver get out of his cab?  Most can barely walk.  Sitting all day and being stressed is bad for your physique - and lets not even talk about blood clots.   It is as bad as sitting in front of a computer all day, come to think of it.

But worst than that, he was older than me and had no real plan for retirement in his future.  He could afford to go on an fancy cruise (and rent the most expensive suite on the boat) and he could afford the latest smart phone.  But he could not afford to retire.  He owns a lot of "stuff" but doesn't own himself.

And we see this in the RV parks - people with fancy expensive RVs who have to pack up on Sunday night and rush back to the city so they can report for duty at their jobs bright and early on Monday morning, because they have to work to pay for the $500,000 motorhome, which they can only use a few weekends a year - and maybe a week or two of vacation.   They look down at us in our tiny, well-paid-for trailer (now 20 years old and about to be replaced) and laugh, as we are obviously poor.  But while they are fighting the traffic on Monday morning, we're sleeping in.  And we've been on the road since May.   Who's really the chump?

I guess this gets back to my last posting about Mr. Money Beard - who was vilified for suggesting that perhaps earning money has some other purpose than just buying a lot of expensive shit so you can live life on a treadmill.  The system, if you will, wants you to work forever, and they sell this idea of "never retiring" and "waiting until 70" to collect social security.  Both ideas would save the government a lot of money - and generate more tax revenue, gin up the GDP, and increase profits for companies, drive down wages, and so forth.

And perhaps this is part of some master plan.   Like Japan, our country is aging, and more and more of us are retiring - in droves - many of us early by plan or circumstance.   How can a country maintain productivity if half the population is sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons?  We have to sell the idea that people need to keep working, forever.   And maybe the latest offerings from the GOP are along these lines - Mitch "Myrtle the Turtle" McConnell says outright that he wants to cut social security benefits and medicare and medicaid to "balance the budget" after they cut corporate income taxes and taxes for the rich, and approved the largest defense budget in history.

Does anyone out there still not get it?  That "trickle down" economics means being pissed on.  It seems odd to me, but the folks who chant the mantra of "I'll never retire" are the ones most likely to vote Republican - and Republicans seem hell-bent on making sure that mantra comes true.

I know this is a long way to diverge from forced cell phone upgrades, but I think they are one and the same thing.  There are two forces at work here - one which says work is a means of accumulating personal wealth, and another which whispers in your ear, "just give up, live paycheck to paycheck, and buy nice things - you'll be the envy of your neighbors!"  They are like Ying and Yang - opposing forces at work, but no longer in balance today, as it seems most Americans are heavily invested in the latter and not the former.

I'll buy the damn cell phone - maybe next year or the year after.   But I'll put it off as long as possible.  It isn't the actual cost, it is the idea that we are being forced to consume, that irks me.

And worries me.

UPDATE: I went to the GEICO site to get a free glass repair (Alaska, again) which you can get, even if you don't have glass coverage.   I noted that my contact information was out of date and updated it to include text notification.  GEICO suggests I load the "app" on my phone, so I go ahead and do this and guess what?  Yea, the app is "not compatible" with my phone.

By the way, we did buy a pad device (Samsung again) which is newer ($85 at the wholesale club) and it may run some of these apps that the old phones do not.  Again, we piggyback off the phone, which runs as a hotspot.  Perhaps a workaround.

UPDATE 2:  Well, the cheap "pad device" from BJ's wholesale is "not optimized for this app" but loaded the GEICO app and it seems to run OK - even showing "virtual" insurance ID cards.  The Capital One app seems to work the same - warning me it is "not optimized" for this cheap-ass Samsung Galaxy Pad, but working nevertheless.  Maybe I'll try the Turo app next.

But why can't these apps be backward compatible?  What are they changing in the tech that makes them no longer work?   Don't bother answering - I'm not really interested and the correct answer is, of course, "to make you buy a new phone".

The System Calls...

You can't buck the system, Mr. Money Beard!

In a recent article on MSN Money, Mr. Money Beard makes the big time by attacking Sooze Orman. Actually, his comments aren't directly attacking the Sooze - the MSN people really tacked that on as a headline in order to generate clicks.

The issue at hand was apparently Ms. Orman claims you need five million dollars in the bank if you want to retire before age 60, which is, of course, preposterous.   That level of wealth would put you in the top 1% of the country, and yet people retire all the time with far less - often less than two million dollars - if you can believe that!

Apparently this set off a shitstorm on something called the "FIRE" subreddit on Reddit, which I don't follow, because (a) I don't follow acronym nonsense ideas, (b) stupid formulas for retirement rarely work, and (c) Reddit blows chunks - it is just a haven for shills and con-artists trying to warp your opinion to their own advantage.   Stay off social media of all sorts - that is the best "advice" anyone can give you, financial or otherwise.

Today, a follow-up article claims that Ms. Orman is right - and another financial expert (Mr. Financial Kung-Fu) says that the $5M figure is about right, as you'd need $200,000 in after-tax income to live in places like New York, San Francisco, Boston, etc. with a mortgage and a family to support.

What fucking planet are these people from?  Oh, right, planet media, where a "normal" life includes a multi-million dollar home in posh suburb in a major city, a string of lease payments on a $100,000 SUV, and private schools for the kiddies.   Isn't that how everyone lives these days?

Perhaps not.  Since I am childless, that knocks down how much I need to retire on.  But even if I had kids, by this point in my life, they would be at least 30 years old and hopefully not living in my basement (my parents didn't permit it - neither would I).  So I am not sure what these "experts" are talking about there.   And as for living expenses, well, having a "paid for" house means my monthly carrying costs are about $1000 a month or so - on par with the cheapest apartments to rent these days.

And let's not forget the equity in the house.  Yes, I know, financial "experts" claim you shouldn't include that in your net worth.  But I disagree, as it is real wealth, and you can tap into it.  My plan is particularly simple.  We still own a Condominium in Alexandria, Virginia, worth about $170,000.  We paid $38,000 for it decades ago and depreciated it on our taxes (just like Jared Kushner, only on a much smaller scale - and yes, this is legal) so our gain on the sale of the condo would be the full $170,000.  Big tax problem, right?

Um, no.  You see we plan on selling it (and will be forced to do so when the complex is torn down to make way for a new high-rise).   We will use the proceeds in a Starker Deferred Exchange to transfer our "basis" to a new property in a retirement community in Florida.  We've identified several in that price range in over-55 communities that would allow us to fix up (sweat equity) and rent out (retirement income) the property for several years.

When the time comes to downsize, we can sell our current house for about a half-million, tax-free, as it is our personal residence.   We can then move to the rental property and live there, using the half-mil from the sale of our current property to live on (along with other investments, social security, etc.).    We avoid paying taxes on the rental property entirely as it becomes our new personal residence, and if we sell that later on, it is also tax-free.

Pretty sweet deal, no?   And yes, all perfectly legal.  I know this, as I have done it before.

But getting back to the issue at hand, why is the financial press always selling this idea that (a) you can never retire, (b) you need to save a staggering sum of money to retire, and (c) get back to work you lazy sod!    The reality is, of course, that people retire every day, and what they retire with is what they ended up with - often less than a million dollars, often far less than this.

Mr. Money Beard makes the rather rational and dangerous argument that working for a living should be something you do in order to achieve a goal. And enjoying life is more important than accumulating wealth. He points out accurately that many of the financial news sites are full of paranoia and fear - promoting the idea that no matter how much you save for retirement, it will  never will be enough.

And by doing this he is going against the system, and the system will come knocking on his door and make him an offer he can't refuse.  "Nice website ya got here, Mr. Money Beard.  Shame if something happened to it, right?"  They already got to Sooze Orman - it's only a matter of time before they get to Mr. Money Beard.

If you peruse the articles on MSN Money on any given day, they are chock-full of fear and paranoia. It seems every day there's another article as to why you should work until 70 and not claim Social Security early.  You never know when you might need that money in retirement so you should just keep working until you drop dead.  And no matter how much you managed to save for retirement, there's an article questioning whether it really is enough.

And then again there's a list article telling you about the 10 biggest mistakes to make in retirement or other articles telling you about the 10 best cities to retire - most of which have a cost-of-living which is astronomical.  New York City or Paris are often cited in these articles - practical choices, no?

The financial press never promotes articles about people living simple lives and enjoying themselves. And this perhaps is by design.

As I noted in an ealrier post, our capitalist system has a certain amount of insane genius to it.  People willingly sign themselves into debt for a new Camaro so they have a shiny car to drive to work.  Then they're obligated to work for another five years to pay for the Camaro.  Most people assume this is a perfectly normal thing and never question the validity of it.

And thanks to this system, millions upon millions of people are obligated to go to work everyday in order to pay for shiny things in their lives.  If we had people suddenly deciding to reject materialism and live their lives wholly and fully, the entire system would fall apart.  What motivation does the waiter serving you your food at a restaurant have to do his job if he isn't tied down with a bundle of debt and student loans and mortgages and car payments?

Like I said, I think eventually they'll get to Mr. Money Beard, just as they got the Sooze.  She started out giving sound financial advice to people - telling them to keep their cars for 10 years or longer and to spend less money and save more.  Then Buick offered her a gig as a spokesman for their overpriced automobiles. And then Sea-Ray - one of the makers the most overpriced boats possible - hired her as a spokesperson to sell luxury boats as a rational lifestyle choice for frugal people.

And suddenly instead of pushing arguments for frugal living, the Sooze is running a television show called "you're approved" where people call in begging to buy consumer goods.  And she tells them, like Santa Claus, whether or not they're approved to purchase the particular bling in question. She even named her new boat - a Sea Ray of course - after the television show.

The only question that remains to be seen as well how much money they will have to throw at Mr. Money Beard before he changes his tune as well.  The system will come a-calling, with an offer he can't refuse!

My advice to him - take the money!

2020 Election Results

The 2020 election results are in - Trump wins again.  Ugh.

UPDATE:  Thankfully, I was wrong.  The Democrats won in spite of their best efforts!

I finally got those time machine parts on backorder from Amazon, and once I got it working, I decided to go to the future and see who won the Presidential election in 2020.  Stupidly, I forgot to get the winning numbers for tonight's power ball!  Oh, well, better luck next time.

I regret to say that Donald Trump won re-election, and the reason was not that he excelled in campaigning or was popular with the people, but that he read the electoral map (once again) and calculated where he could use his limited resources to the best effect.  And this time around, he had more resources to use as well.

But the real reason he won was the Democratic party - they put up a roster of loser candidates that Trump picked apart, piece by piece (and the Democrats obliged him - as they did in 2016 by picking each other apart as well).  And good old Bernie Sanders got onto the game again, campaigning as a candidate for the party he refuses to join.   He joins Ross Perot and Ralph Nader in the pantheon of great spoilers throughout history, as his eventual lukewarm endorsement of the winning nominee only served to insure that his supporters stayed home in droves.

So, how did the Democrats lose this time around?   Well, it was in large part due to who they put up as candidates - and how easily Trump and his minions picked them apart.

Joe Biden seemed like an early front-runner, and indeed, today, he holds that status before even declaring his candidacy or even before the campaign season begins.   Biden clearly worries Trump, as he has the mantle of Obama (which resonates with the core Democrats) and is also a member in good standing of the "old white men's club" which typically is the source of Presidential timber.

So already, even today, the attacks are starting.  "Crazy Uncle Joe" they call him on social media and Reddit.   You post a picture of a cute cat, and five comments later, someone says, "Gee, he looks like Joe Biden!" and after that, the thread devolves into "Crazy Uncle Joe" who has "busy hands" and five comments later that he is, in fact, a child-molesting pedophile who likes little girls.   All of this is taken as routine fact and never challenged.  And this drumbeat of hostility has been going on for some time now.

All Trump has to do at a rally during the campaign is say "Crazy Uncle Joe" and it is a dog-whistle to all the conspiracy theorists out there in his audience.   It also helps that the moniker also tags him as being old and out-of-touch.

But of course, Joe Biden isn't a pedophile.   But you tell that to the legions of people on Reddit who already believe this, without one scintilla of evidence.  Heck, they already believe that pizza shops are clandestine child molestation rings.   What is it about the far-right and their obsession with child molestation conspiracy theories?  Over-compensating a bit, perhaps?  Hey, this is politics - a counter-theory and smear are just as valid.

Of course, it didn't help that Joe Biden does have a "busy hands" problem in this day and age of "Me Too" - and that the other Democratic candidates took turns tearing him down for inappropriate behavior.   When he does a photo op, he often puts his arm around attractive women and sometimes says inappropriate things.  The Republicans only needed to photoshop half the pictures they spread on the Internet to make this point - the rest were bona fide real.

So Biden was knocked out early in the primary season, the victim of an effective smear campaign and rumor mill, as well as the "Democratic Firing Squad" who lines up in a circle and shoots themselves.

That left Elizabeth Warren as the new front-runner, and Trump and his minions have been sharpening their knives for her for some time now.   It may be that her candidacy was over before it started.  Once again, Trump maligns an opponent with a moniker - "Pocahontas" - and it seems to stick.  Warren was foolishly drawn into the game by having her DNA tested, which proved, well, nothing, other than she, like anyone else on the planet, is distantly related to other people, including native Americans.  The real issue is that she claimed Native American ancestry on an application form for Harvard and may or may not have gotten special advantage from this (no doubt Harvard used her check-box to show it was meeting racial quotas, but then again there are no racial quotas at Harvard, or maybe there are, as we'll find out in the upcoming trial).

Warren wasn't a bad candidate, but too far to the Left for most Americans.  Her heart is in the right place, but America isn't ready for far-left Socialism.

Of course, it didn't help matters any that the entire Democratic Primary system was distracted by bogus candidacies such as that of Michael Avenatti, whose only claim to fame (quite literally) was being Stormy Daniel's lawyer (and apparently not even very good at that, if today's decision throwing out her suit is any indication).   Apparently, in the post-Trump world, anyone can be President of the United States, regardless of experience or qualifications - the two things that sunk Hillary's campaign.  Being an "outsider" is seen by the ignorant masses as a sign of honor, not a sign of idiocy.

Eventually, Avenatti fell by the wayside during the primaries, when it became clear that he had no other platform other than to play a "villain" role in Trump's reality-television Presidency.  What puzzled so many of us is why the media even took his candidacy seriously for a moment.  Yet even today, the Post and the Times, report on Avenatti's moves to run for President as if he were a serious contender, instead of a punchline to a bad joke.

The rest of the pack wasn't much to write home about.  Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and a mid-level Obama official, didn't have much in the way of credentials to tout.   Being mayor of crime-ridden San Antonio is about as much a resume-booster as being mayor of Chicago (let's not even go there!).   Yes, like so many other people, I got my car broken into in San Antonio.  It is what you do there.  You go down to the riverwalk, see the sights, ride the tour boat, and then call the glass company to replace the window on your car.   People even told me in advance this is exactly what would happen.  And I was parked behind the courthouse - beneath a security camera (that of course, was broken, like the government in San Antonio).   Julian Castro?  Please!  Don't insult our intelligence.

Of course, the name of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was bandied about, but she is only 28 years old today, and would be five years shy of the minimum age needed to be President, according to the constitution.   Democrats were foaming at the mouth over her, convinced that "Democratic Socialists" would carry the day - which they might for the primaries, but the general election is won by the independent voters - middle-of-the-road middle-class people whose one major goal in life isn't radical change of the government, but don't rock the boat - not while they're paying down a mortgage and funding their 401(k).  Promises of a socialist utopia simply didn't resonate in suburbia.

And that, in short, is why Bernie Sanders fizzled out.  A man who won't commit to joining the party whose nomination he seeks, isn't fit for office.  His far-out socialist politics simply didn't carry the day.  Forced to choose between an unhinged Twitter addict whose policies are, for the most part, pretty standard Republican fare, and an uncertain future with draconian tax increases, big government, and socialize medicine, the independents either stayed home or held their nose and voted Republican.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker tried to recapture some of that Obama magic - and hoped he could get out the black vote.  But being senator from a failed part of a failed State is about as toxic as being mayor of Chicago.  Next!

One would think the "Me too" movement would favor women candidates, such as Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris.  But as the Hillary experience proved, a substantial number of women are not prepared to vote for another woman just because of their gender.  Political positions and views are more paramount.  Warren failed in her attempt to counteract the "Pocahontas" nonsense - playing right into Trump's hands with a DNA test.  Harris, on the other hand was just too inexperienced, having only been elected to office in 2017.   It was all-too-easy to play her off as untested and unready.

New York Mayor Micheal Bloomberg might seem like a good choice - a member in good standing of the "old white men's club" and a conservative Democrat - being elected mayor initially as a Republican.  His experience and more centrist views would have won the votes of the independent voters.   And unlike Trump, he is a real multi-billionaire, estimated to have over $50 Billion in wealth.  But this very fact made him fodder for attacks from the Sanders crowd, and he was shouted down before he could even speak, early on in the primaries.

I won't be a spoiler by telling you who actually won the Democratic nomination, but if I did, you'd gasp and say, "really?  that was the best they could do?" and you'd understand why Trump won yet again.

Life Coach Gets Schooled by Hoarder

You can't fix hoarding.  And the whole "life coach" concept is flawed.

I have noted time and again that I am not a big follower of religious leaders.  For some reason, we look up to religious leaders as having some sort of inside track to God, when their life experience is really not much more than our own.   The Pope has no more insight into what happens after you die than you or I do, yet we hang on his every word with reverence.   And the same is true for other religious leaders - all of whom cloak themselves in elaborate or archaic garments, as if to enshrine themselves and make them look noble and wise.   (I think if we saw them all naked, we might have a different view of their opinions!).

It is not that they have nothing to say, only that what they have to say is of no greater or lesser import than what the rest of us have to say.

In the USA in recent years, a new form of secular religious Imam has come to the forefront - the so-called "life coach".   Like other types of religious leaders, these folks have no real special credentials or training in what we call "life" - any more than the rest of us do.   What they are selling is pure pablum, plain and simple.   It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you to stop compulsive spending, gambling, drug use, or alcohol abuse.   It takes willpower and discipline - and you can't get that from a "coach", but that is perhaps, why people are attracted to charismatic leaders who promise to tell everyone what to do.   And that also is perhaps the attraction of religion - giving up your own impulses in favor of someone telling you what to do (and usually the first thing they tell you to do is give them a sizable portion of your wealth, if not all of it).

A reader writes to me that one of these "life coach" charlatans is about to be schooled by a hoarder.  It seems a local hoarder - replete with junked cars on his lawn and the de rigeur dead cat (what is up with the dead cats?  Usually in the freezer?  Is it some sort initiation rite into the hoarder club?) is about to be "fixed" by a life coach who is volunteering his time.

The scenario is pretty familiar - at least to me.   A house with broken appliances (stove used as furnace, other appliances "tweaked" and disassembled - check!).  The utilities turned off regularly (check!).  The house filled with garbage and junked cars on the lawn (check!).  The house in need of major structural repairs due to neglect of basic maintenance (e.g., letting the gutters fill with leaves until the roof rots through, then letting the water damage accumulate for years until the walls are full of mold and the foundation has shifted - that sort of thing).  Check, check, check!

But this "life coach" has jumped in with both feet, and boldly promises to do what no other person on planet Earth has managed to do to date - and that is to cure a hoarder.   Truly, this is a super-man!  But that is indeed the case - hoarding cannot be cured, at all, whatsoever.  There are no "former hoarders" out there - or damn few, if any.  Most die early and that in turn "cures" the hoarding, unless, of course, the heirs turn into hoarders themselves upon inheriting the hoarding house.  Yes, I have seen this happen - twice now.  Once with the hoarding house across the street from me, and another time with a friend of mine.  Either there is some sort of mold in the house that makes the new tenants into hoarders, or it is an inherited illness.  It is a sad situation to see hoarding passed down from generation to generation.

Our "life coach's" plan is simple: he will just take complete and utter control over the hoarder's life and re-arrange it so he no longer hoards.  And he plans on doing this for free and use donated materials and services to turn the hoarder's life around.

Neat plan.  It has a few flaws.

First of all, few of us want others to run our lives.  Yes, you could "intervene" in my life and argue that I should go back to work as a Patent Attorney - no more goofing off!   No more writing blog entries!  And you could argue that I should eat healthier foods, exercise more, and drink less.  No doubt I would be wealthier, healthier and live longer.   Problem is, I have other ideas on how to live my life - even if they are not optimal in your view.   We have this thing called "free choice" and most folks are reluctant to give up on it - without a fight.

Oh, sure, there are folks who will check themselves into "rehab" - but usually only when forced to do so because of legal troubles.  And in re-hab, someone takes control of your life, telling you what to eat and drink and do, and often you do get better.   But then they leave re-hab and go back to their old ways.   Change has to come from within, it can't be forced from outside.  Otherwise, it doesn't stick.  and change is a very rare thing.

Speaking of which, a few years back, I got angry e-mails from people saying that I was "telling them what to do" - as if I could reach through the computer screen and grab them by the neck and get them to stop taking out payday loans.    I am not telling anyone what to do - or even offering advice.  I merely make observations.   And as I have noted before, if you identify with the hypothetical, maybe that is telling you something.  Maybe.

But getting back to our narrative, the second problem with this battle-plan is how to implement it.  The hoarder in question has already stated that removing the junked cars is a non-starter.   Guess what happens when you start taking out the stacks of old newspapers and piles of broken lawnmowers?   A major battle is what.  The hoarder will argue that the "junk" you want to throw away is in fact, valuable antiquities.   After all, he's seen similar crap sell for millions on Antiques Roadshow or on Storage Wars.    Why make him part with his precious collectibles?

And again, these are not negotiable points.   And by the way, under the law, that "junk" you want to throw away is legally the property of the hoarder.   Start tossing his crap without permission, and you'll end up in the back of squad car.

Oh, and by the way, he will never give you permission to throw away any of his junk.

The third problem with this approach is why are you spending your own time and money to enrich someone else?  The "life coach" says his plan - which involves conning some "handyman" to live in the home and repair it - will "preserve the equity" that the hoarder has in the property.   In other words, after all of this time and effort, if you were successful, all you've done is made some other guy wealthier, at great cost to you and no cost to him.

If the hoarder has equity in the home, they have wealth.  And often hoarders do have some income, wealth, and equity - they just squander it by hoarding.  A friend of mine who inherited their parents' hoarding house also inherited several million dollars.  Mom and Dad were not destitute, they could have called someone and fixed the house in a matter of months - or simply bought a new house.  The hoarder across the street from me did just that - buying a new home once the old one was filled.  By the time he died, he owned at least four homes - all full of junk, with junked cars on the lawn.  He was not "poor" in any sense other than in his mind.  If hoarders really wanted to "change their lives" they could so do by selling off or throwing away their junk, repairing their homes or selling them, or doing other things to take charge of their own lives.

But the bottom line is, they don't want to, and you can't make them.   So don't bother.

Trying to "fix" other people is an enormous waste of time.  And oftentimes the people trying to "fix" other people's lives are in worse shape than the person they are trying to fix.  As I noted before, my late sister once tried to stage an "intervention" for my late Mother.   It was a nice gesture, but my sister had a boatload of issues of her own to deal with, and trying to "fix" Mother was, perhaps, a way of distracting herself from her own problems.

A massage therapist recently tried to convince me that I would live longer and be healthier if only I would convert to his vegan lifestyle.  I kept my own counsel, but I could not help but think that although he was a few years older than me, he was not in any position to retire anytime soon, and I strongly suspected that, like most people these days, he was hopelessly in debt and likely would never be able to afford to retire.  At that point, he might regret living such a healthy lifestyle - and living so long!   There are two sides to every coin.

It is all-too-easy (and kind of fun!) to pick apart other people's lives and think (or discuss) about how they are doing a shitty job of living, and "if only they would..." they could be happier or wealthier or healthier.   It is a game we all play.   But so long as it is limited to "dishing the dirt" about other people, you could argue it is a pretty harmless game to play - albeit one that leaves you with a bad feeling about yourself when all is said and done.  I am never happy after people start a "bitch session" about the one person not in attendance, even if I do join in the fun on occasion.  It leaves you with a hollow feeling inside.  And let's not even talk about how awkward it is the next time you see the person in question!

But bitching about someone's (perceived) poor life choices is nothing compared to trying to intervene in their lives.   In every situation I've seen this happen, it ends up badly for everyone involved.  The person intervened complains bitterly about the people who tried to "help" them, and the person who was trying to "help" ends up bitter than the person they wanted to rescue doesn't express their eternal gratitude.

This is why I say I am not an advice columnist.   People ask me for advice on "what to do" in their lives, or take what I write here as advice.  It is not!   The problem with the advice model, is that people love to take advice cafeteria style and then complain when it doesn't pan out.   If you want to become wealthy, for example, you have to save more and spend less.   If you do half of this - save more but still spend more - you will end up broke, as you cannot afford to "save" money unless you cut back on spending by at least the same amount.

And advice for one person might not work for another.   No advice is universal.

There is an upside to this whole sad story, though.   The "life coach" in question will eventually learn a valuable and humbling lesson in life - if he is receptive enough to learn from this.   From what I have read, though, I suspect he will just end up bitter and angry and convinced more than ever that he was "right" and that the hoarder was just not appreciative enough of his skills and efforts!

And who knows?   Maybe he will be the one in a millionth person to actually fix a hoarder.  But I am not holding my breath on that one.  I think I'll take the better odds on the powerball, quite frankly.

But the real lesson is this:  people are not like cars - you can't fix them.  I have never owned a car that said to me, "I prefer to be broken!  Leave me alone!" - although a Fiat I once had came awfully close.  It is tempting to want to be "helpful" and want to make the world a better place.  No one wants to see others suffer, even if they are suffering from their own malfeasance.  But the end result of intervening in others' lives is often there ends up two victims - the intervenor and the intervenee.  Both end up bitter, angry, and mad at each other.  Much time and money is wasted and nothing of substance is accomplished.

* * * 

By the way, this urge to "fix" things or people may appear often in your life.   I have been sucked into more than one crappy deal in life by wanting to "fix things".   Rednecks often sell broken cars, campers, boats, or whatever, with the premise that "you can fix that" - as in, "Well the motor done broke the crankshaft, but you can fix that!" - often in a Craigslist advert (which is one reason not to buy cars on Craigslist.  The other is, often the cars are not really for sale, but advertised by hoarders and other lonely people who want validation that their piece of junk is a priceless collectible).

It is if by saying "you can fix that" it is, in fact, already fixed.   As a car nut (or former one) I would often see such abused vehicles and want to adopt them, much as people adopt stray cats - to give them a good home.   But the bottom line is, of course, that the "fixer upper" car or house or whatever, is often a nightmare money pit.  You are almost better off starting over - buying a better car or tearing down the mold-infested house.

Don't fall into the trap of "you can fix that" - with houses, cars, or even people.   It is a dead-end!

Words Matter - But So Do Actions

When you talk about journalists as "enemy of the people" should you be surprised later on when one of them is murdered?

In recent years, we have seen a host of targeted assassinations by world powers.  Korea kills off a potential successor to the "supreme leader" by using a nerve agent.   Russia similarly poisons a former KGB officer in Great Britain.   Saudi Arabia murders a journalist critical of the royal family by luring him into a consulate - never to be seen again.

You can almost visualize the reaction in the royal palace in Riyadh to the world outcry over the last item.   "But Trump said they were the enemy of the people!  Why are they so upset when we take it to the next level?"

But that is exactly what is going on, sadly.  It is not much different from the rhetoric used in fascist regimes against minority groups.  You demonize and marginalize some scapegoat group and pretty soon, you've convinced a lot of people that the group in question is barely human - and thus worthy of only death.  Oftentimes, you don't have to do the deed yourself, you just energize others to do it for you.  It is not unlike the fatwas made by Islamic leaders - which also result in targeted assassinations as well.

But of course, there are other things going on here.   When it comes to targeted assassinations, well, the US has a pretty good track record of its own.  And of course, today, we use more sophisticated techniques than poisons (traditionally viewed as the passive weapon of choice of women - take that, Putin!), we have drones.    And of course, the people we are killing with drones, are, most of the time, enemy combatants or leaders of terrorist groups.   So it's OK for us to blow someone up in someone else's country, if they are a "bad guy."

The problem is, one person's bad guy is another person's good guy, or at least an innocent in their view.   We may view a traitor to the KGB as a "good guy" or at least someone who hasn't done anything wrong meriting death.  Vlad Putin may have other ideas.   Ditto for Kim Jung-un or the Crown Prince.  Their view of  good versus evil is not aligned with ours.

And this sort of thing is not new. During the Cold War, assassination of defectors was, if not commonplace, at least happened on occasion.  And while we may have raised concerns and made diplomatic noises, in the end, not much got done and the culprits ended up getting away.

So what's the point of this?  Perhaps nothing.   But I won't be surprised when nothing comes of this latest assassination, once the noise dies down and a few news cycles bury the story.  We are not about to give up lucrative arms sales to Saudi Arabia over some "journalist" are we?  And we certainly don't want to cut off the oil pipeline, just as oil is headed to $100 a barrel, now that sanctions are being imposed again on Iran, while the Venezuela oil industry self-destructs.

No, likely we'll make noises of outrage and then continue on, business as usual.  But I suspect as a result, you will see more incidents like this in the future - both here at home and abroad, by State actors and unhinged individuals.   We have given people license to kill, and be killed, through rhetoric and deeds.