Poverty and inequality: one possible government solution

"The poor will always be with you," once said a very wise man.  So why try to do anything about it?  Well, that's the pessimist view, but I believe people have a responsibility to help those that are less fortunate than themselves.  I used to just assume that anyone who worked hard would be able to get ahead in life, but after reading a book recently, I've questioned that presumption. 

Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America came out 18 years ago, so I'm a little late to this particular party, but it is still relevant today.  The author, a prominent writer with a PhD and no shortage of money, decides to see if she can live on an entry-level low wage job.  She spends a month in three different areas of the country, waitressing, working as a maid at a cleaning service, and working at Wal-Mart.  In each state, she finds a place to live and then pays her rent and feeds herself on around $7 an hour.  

I'm not saying this book was the quintessential work of investigative journalism.  I definitely have my reservations about the author, her attitude, her beliefs, and her agenda.  But the fact remains that it is downright difficult, if not completely impossible, to support a family on these kinds of low wages without some kind of help or assistance.  I think that there are three pillars of support - individual, faith-based, and government.  This essay is regarding the government leg of the stool.  We can argue all day about the proper size of this goal, or whether or not it should exist at all, but the fact of the matter is that it already does, so I'll save that debate for another day and focus on how we can do better with the money we already spend.  

My main takeaway from the book centered around relocation.  Since the author was only staying for a month in each location, she couldn't sign a full year lease.  This caused her to stick with monthly rentals or weekly rentals (and sometimes nightly rentals at motel rooms).  This solution cost her much more each month than a yearlong lease would have been, but they also had a few things in their favor.  First, there was usually no security deposit.  Second, no first and/or last month's rent due in advance.  Third, utilities were often included.  

All of this combined means that to move into a new apartment requires a significant amount of money up front.  A lot of people might have trouble scraping together the kind of cash required for utility deposits, security deposits, and an extra month of two of rent, and this limits not only their mobility, but also their ability to keep costs down over time by moving into cheaper housing arrangements than a short term rental.  These short term rentals also had the downside of being dirty, dangerous, and lacking any way to prepare food.  That last point also meant that the author was constantly resorting to eating fast food, rather than cooking for herself.

Which bring me to my idea.  I propose a new government program, perhaps replacing or consolidated into housing subsidies or TANF, that focuses on "jump starting" people who are ready to move to a new region and start over but who lack the means to do that.  Let's call it the Bootstrap program.  You would get one bootstrap every ten years, and you could also transfer your Bootstrap to a friend or family member.  What is a Bootstrap?  The idea would be that you would have to move to a new area with job opportunities to qualify.  No heading just up the road either - there would be a mileage requirement, too.  The program would work on a vendor reimbursement basis, where you had the company bill the government.  Your bootstrap would include the following:

• one "you haul it" rental (up to $500)
• gasoline and tolls (up to $100)
• groceries (up to $200)
• clothing allowance (up to $100)
• first month's rent (up to local housing rates)
• security deposit (reimbursable to the government)
• utilities deposit (reimbursable to the government)

In practice, this would all work out something like this: an individual or a family would wake up one day and realize that their town had nothing left to offer economically.  Jobs are gone, crime is high, and things are just not looking up.  They decide to make a fresh start a few cities or states away.  They activate their Bootstrap, and are able to rent a moving truck and get themselves a to new place.  They are able to move into an apartment with no up front costs.  They are able to fill their refrigerator with groceries.  They are able to get some new clothes for interviews.  They have a month to apply for jobs and start working without needing to worry about starting off in debt.  

Now the magic questions are, how much would this cost, and who is going to pay for this? 

Let's start with cost.  This would be open to any between the ages of 18 and 62 (when you are eligible for Social Security).  According to the Census Bureau, there are 191 million people in this age range right now.  Based on my list above, I'd say each bootstrap would run approximately $3000 depending on location.  That comes to a maximum cost of $573 billion.  If you figure that you only get one of these every 10 years, that means an average of 10% of the eligible population might use it each year.  So figure $58 billion annually.  You could also kick out anyone who made over a certain amount of money any time in the past few years.  Then you have to figure a number of people just wouldn't use the benefit because they don't need it (though transfers are allowed, so that mitigates this a bit).  If the deposits go back to the government, you could recoup another significant chunk of money.  I figure all in you're looking at around $40 billion or less a year. 

That's still quite a bit of money.  Not an easy pill for a conservative or a libertarian to swallow.

But let's look at the benefits.  Right now, New Mexico has one of the highest unemployment rates in the USA (49th place).  Many of these people would probably love to move to Colorado (10th place), if only they had the chance.  A few hundred thousand newly employed people, and now you have a boom in Colorado bringing in more tax revenue.  Not only that, but you have to figure that many of these people were on welfare back home to begin with.  How much money could you save by moving people off these programs through new jobs in a new city?  My guess: a significant amount.

Let's take housing, for example.  In 2014, the federal government spent $18 billion on the Housing Choice Voucher program, $12 billion on Project-based rental assistance, $7 billion on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, and $7 billion on public housing.  That's almost $50 billion right there.  I imagine that quite a few of those recipients would love to move to a different part of the country with better opportunities, but they are stuck in place thanks to the very government programs that are designed to help them.  If you had to choose between moving to a different state and losing your subsidized housing, or staying where you were with no prospects for work but at least a roof over your head, wouldn't you err on the side of inertia?  My Bootstrap program would provide families like these with a mechanism to escape the prison of a dead-end city and strike out for someplace new.

Let's look at another program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).  This goes to over 2 million families a year, and in 2013 cost the government $17 billion.  This could also fall if those families had more flexibility to pack up and move to a place with better support, better opportunities, or a lower cost of living.  Then there are the billions more spent on Medicaid, food stamps, and supplemental security income that could be chipped away at if more people simply had the means to move to a region of the country with actual opportunities.

Another way to drive down the cost is through private partnerships.  Just like some housing developments can apply to be Section 8 eligible, I envision a program where companies partner with the federal government as Bootstrap participants.  In exchange for accepting lower rates, they would benefit from increased business, tax deductions, good publicity, and a bigger stake in growing and improving their community.  You could even provide employers with incentives to provide application options and interviews to remote applicants, ensuring that people already have irons in the fire when they show up in town.  In the book I read, the author had to spend several days searching and waiting for a job before she could finally start one, even in tight labor markets.

Business friendly Republicans should love the idea of a steady supply of new workers arriving in tight labor markets.  Freedom minded Libertarians can hopefully appreciate the liberation that would come to so many families who would love to move, but can't afford that large step.  They should both get excited at the potential to reduce other welfare costs, thus actually reducing overall spending with this program.  Sometimes all that someone needs to get off the welfare wheel is a steady job, but when there are no jobs in town and you can't afford to move to a different one, what then?  Continue on welfare.  My program could free countless people from their current poverty traps while improving their lives and even saving the government money in the process. 

The poor are indeed with us, and always will be.  I agree that something should be done to help the poor and the impoverished, but I hate the idea of never-ending streams of money designed to keep people stagnant and in one place.  This seems like a decent idea to me.  What do you think?

When you find out something is wrong with your kid

Before David was even born, the doctors saw something concerning on a prenatal ultrasound.  His ureters were enlarged, which could indicate one of a number of different things.  He could have a blockage to his bladder, or he could be refluxing backwards through the system from his bladder to his kidneys.  Either way, not good, so they ordered some ultrasounds shortly after he was born.  These ultrasounds revealed the same thing as before - enlarged ureter, possible blockage or reflux.  The doctors had him go through a test where they injected dye into his bladder that would show up on an X-Ray.  They observed it in real time to see if any of the dye made it up either ureters.  Neither side had reflux, so we could cross that off our list.  He was wetting his diapers regularly, so we figured there was no blockage either.  The doctor scheduled a follow-up a few months down to road just to be safe.

A few ultrasounds later, and the David was in the clear.  We were told that his right kidney was smaller than his left one, but this was nothing to be concerned about, and it would probably catch up.  At least that's what  I remember hearing.  Anyway, fast forward six or seven moths to yesterday when David had another ultrasound.  Once again, the left kidney looked fine.  But this time, the ultrasound tech couldn't even find the right kidney.  Discussing this with the doctor, we found out that when they said his right kidney was smaller than his left, they had actually said it was smaller at 9 months old than it should have been on the day he was born.  In other words, he was born with a small kidney, it likely never grew, and possibly even shrank.  Now it may not even be functional at all, and it doesn't appear on an ultrasound.

The doctor has us scheduled for one more ultrasound at a facility with better instruments in a couple months just to make absolutely certain his hunch is correct.  But in my mind (and in all likelihood) it's already a done deal: my son will grow up with only one healthy kidney.  He will likely be officially diagnosed with kidney dysplasia, thus winning his own little 1 in 4,000 lottery.

In and of itself, this is really not that big of a deal.  There are millions of people alive right now with only one working kidney, living full and healthy lives.  Many people choose to voluntarily donate one of their own healthy kidneys so that someone else can live, and those people are no worse for wear.  So the rational part of my mind has already made peace with the fact that David is now in their boat, and that part of my mind is fine with the logic of it.  But contrary to popular belief, there are so many more parts of a man's mind.  At least this man anyway.  Those parts of my mind have been duking it out over the past 24 hours or so, and it's been a way rougher ride for me than I thought it would be.  Even the fact that this is harder on me than I thought it would be is tough to deal with.  Let me try and unpack this...

At a primal level, I feel like I have failed in my most basic responsibility as a father: to protect my child.  Primal Brain also have sad and ouch inside because little boy is broken and Primal Brain cannot fix.  My Logical Brain comes back screaming "you are moron, Primal Brain, and your grammar is terrible.  This was and continues to be completely outside of your control.  If you failed at this, then George Washington failed to prevent the Bubonic Plague."  Logical Brain is a fan of odd analogies.  But Primal Brain just stares back blankly and is unconvinced, because he is indeed a moron.

Source

On a selfish level, I am angry.  My Asshole Brain is whining like the entitled little punk he is.  He is saying things like "David doesn't deserve this" and "this is so unfair" and "stop writing the stuff I'm thinking about, this is private" and other typical whiny stuff that he likes to say.  But lately he has been no match for my logical side.  When Asshole Brain starts up with his sniveling little pity party, Logical Brain crashes through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man.  "Are you out of you mind?!" Logical Brain says, unaware of the irony in his statement.  "Think of all the kids out there that are going through things a million times worse than this.  David's situation doesn't even register compared to other families!  It would be like if hundreds of years ago some family of Native Americans had to live with severe acne and decided to feel sorry for themselves while across the ocean the freaking Bubonic Plague was raging."  Apparently Logical Brain is also hung up on the plague.

While these two fine gents are having their go at each other, a short, pathetic little fourth brain slowly walks by.  He's muttering some of the most vile stuff under his breath.  Sometimes I shut the door on Logical and Asshole Brain, and get real close to hear what Judgey Brain has to say.  "Logical Brain is right... there are so many worse things David could have.  How dare you get upset about this.  You should be embarrassed that Asshole Brain is even in there throwing a pity party in the first place.  This is nothing.  You want real pain and suffering?  Keep up the ungratefulness at how good you have it and see what karma drops on you next."

It's basically this, but less wholesome and more depressing.

I think I like Judgey Brain even less than Asshole Brain.  But he kind of has a point.  Right now I am following the story of a friend of a family member who has a boy almost exactly my son's age, and that family is going through some unimaginable pain right now.  Here is a link to their GoFundMe page if you care to see what true heartache looks like.  If you choose to read their story, I hope you will consider donating.  I learned about this little boy just a few days before I found out the news about my own son.  The dissonance in my head right now is real.  I feel so conflicted about caring more about my stupid little not-even-a-real-problem than about this heartbreaking situation with the other family.  And I don't mean care in the sense that Logical Brain cares more about David's story, because he doesn't.  I mean care in the sense that David matters more to Primal Brain than the other boy does.

To summarize, I feel like I have failed somehow as a parent.  I feel like I am failing at being a decent human being.  I acknowledge the logic and the facts of the situation, but it doesn't change how I feel.  The fact that I am having this struggle at all makes me even more upset, because I feel like I should be over this by now.  Joy has been conspicuously absent the past few days.  But it helps to write about this and try and unpack some of this stuff.  Even if Judgey Brain is judging me for doing it.

Your Money: Bathtub or Bookshelf?

Unless you are a particularly self-aware individual, I feel like most people go through life just assuming that everyone else thinks the same way about basic concepts as you do.  I'm not talking about things like politics or religion.  Obviously everyone knows that each person has their own take on these more complicated aspects of life.  I'm talking about things like "food is what you eat to survive", "sleep is one of the most wonderful things in the world", and "money is a pool of resources you add to and draw from".

When you meet someone for the first time and come to discover that they think very differently about a fundamental aspect of life, it's kind of shocking.  The first time I met a true foodie, I thought they were joking.  They really thought they were too good for fast food?  Come on.  I'm not saying it's healthy, but you can't beat the convenience, and it's not that pricey either.  Plus it can be downright delicious.  It never occurred to me that food could be this thing that almost borders on art until I met a few people that were truly passionate about cooking.

The same goes for sleep.  I love to sleep.  In spite of the fact that I haven't felt like I've received a good night's sleep since I was about 15 years old, I look forward to doing it night after night, and once I'm doing it, I don't want to stop.  It is embarrassing the amount of things I have turned down in favor of going to sleep.  When I started meeting people who hated sleep, it blew my mind.  Insomniacs, workaholics, night owls who also manage to wake at an adult hour... it's all alien to me.  Sometimes I'm jealous when I meet people who can function on 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night, but then I realize that I love sleep, so what do I care that I need 8 or 9?

Now, money is little bit more of a private matter.  You generally don't talk about it with your acquaintances or your family, and you might not even discuss it much with your closest friends.  Because of this, it's kind of hard to figure out how other people feel about money and what they think of it.  I didn't meet someone I knew who saw money differently than I do until I started talking about it with my wife.  It's been a process, but I think I understand how she thinks of it, and I hope I have explained to her how I view it.  It leads to conflicts, but like everything else in a marriage, you can get through it with a lot of communication.

To me, money was always a single number.  You had $500 in your account, then you deposited some money, and now you have $700.  You spent $100, and now you have $600.  Money was water, and the bank account was a bathtub.  You dumped water into the tub when you earned it, and you scooped some out when you spent it.  Hopefully you always had enough to cover your legs.

My wife sees money in a completely different way.  To her, money isn't water.  It's a book.  Some books are big and fat, others are small and thin.  Her bank account is a bookshelf.  When she earns money, she puts that book on the shelf.  When she needs to buy something, she takes a book off the shelf.  But like a librarian, she is fairly meticulous about tracking which books come and go.

This discrepancy in viewpoints first came to light a few months after we got married.  People had given us some checks and some cash as gifts, and I had deposited them in my checking account.  I recall the conversation unfolding more or less like this:

Amanda - We should get a couch for the basement.
Dan - Yeah, that would be a good idea.
Amanda - We can use some of the money we got at our wedding.
Dan - Uh, sure.
Amanda - Where are those checks?
Dan - Um, I deposited them in my bank account already.
Amanda - What? Did you spend it already?
Dan - .... maybe?

In my mind, the moment I deposited those dollars, they started mixing with all the other dollars in a molecular swirl that was impossible to reverse.  I probably spent some on lunch, some on beer, some on the rent, and there was probably still some left.  But in my mind, my account still had $500 more in it today than it would have had if I had never deposited the money, so who cares?  Amanda was not having it.  She felt like I had already spent the money on myself.  It wasn't until I explained to her how I viewed the situation that she finally felt like I hadn't done something shady.

This issue has come up several times over the past few years, and it always takes a little bit of a conversation to work through.  It's funny how your brain can see something so differently than someone else, and how that difference in viewpoint can lead to arguments over the most basic things.

For example, say you receive $50 gift card to Amazon or Target.  If you are a bookshelf person, you will think of all the cool stuff you can get with this extra $50.  When you finally decide on what to get, you see it as basically free - you wouldn't have gotten that something if you didn't have the gift card, so why not go buck wild and get you something fancy?  If you are a bathtub person, the moment that gift card arrives, your tub just went from $500 to $550.  While the bookshelf person is daydreaming about a new toy, you just bought groceries for $100.  Now your tub has $450 in it.  Then the bookshelf person comes to you and says something like this:

Bookshelf - I want this shiny bauble, and guess what, it's exactly $50!
Bathtub - But we don't need a shiny bauble.  We need toilet paper and detergent.
Bookshelf - OK, well you can go get that stuff.  But I'm using this gift card on the bauble.
Bathtub - I wanted to use it for the household stuff.
Bookshelf - But it was a gift!
Bathtub - (confused) so?
Bookshelf - Who buys toiletries for a gift!?  "Happy birthday, here's some toilet paper!"

I would like to advocate for the bathtub view of money, and I will tell you why.  If you keep separate books of money on multiple different bookshelves, it is easy to lose sight of the overall size of your library.  Imagine walking into public library where the shelves are 80% full, and then into another where the shelves are 60% full.  The gaps are sporadic, and the density varies from section to section, but it's obvious some books are missing.  It's just not obvious how many are missing.

Now imagine you visit two public pools.  Again, one is 80% full, the other is 60% full.  It will be much, much easier to tell at glance which pool is more full than the other.  It will be much easier to decide if you can afford to take a few gallons out of the pool than if you need to choose whether or not you can take a few books off the shelf.

I'm not advocating for lumping all your money into a single account and calling it a day.  You don't have to change a thing, just your mindset.  I have a spreadsheet where I total up every single asset I own, offset by all my liabilities.  I do this twice a month.  Sometimes my checking account is nice and flush, but that's because my credit card balance is a little higher than usual.  The month after I pay the annual property tax bill out of the savings account could be deceptively kind to my checking account balance; but, if I look at my overall total, I can see the hit.

I find that looking at your money this way makes it so much easier to save, because when you put money into your 401(k), buy some stocks, or you transfer some cash to your savings account, your total net worth stays the same.  If you think of money like bookshelves, you can get into this mindset where you only notice the book missing from your checking account bookshelf, and you start to cut back on your savings.  I think of my money like a bathtub, and try to make sure that each month the tub has a little more water in it than it did the month before.  I'd encourage you to give this mindset a shot and see what it does for your finances.  

Baby's first infographic

So I figured I'd give making an infographic a shot.  Not super happy with how it turned out, but whatever, here it is for the world to see.  I had a vision in my head of what it would look like, and when you start actually making the thing, it drifts further and further away from how you envisioned it somehow.  I kind of had wanted to put the price of each service listed next to the logo, and have them all grouped a circle around the category icon.  That would have been way too cluttered.  Then I decided to go with more of a squares on a calendar look, so that boxed me in (pun not intended, but appreciated).  I have a few more ideas for other infographics.  The tool I'm using has some pre-made templates - maybe I'll give that a shot next.

9 Things I Miss About the Army

I served in the US Army for 4 years - from 2009 to 2013.  This means that right now more time has passed since I left the service than the total I was actually in.  That blows my mind.  It doesn't seem like it was just yesterday or anything, but it also doesn't seem like a whole other person could have gone through the same experience as me starting after I left and also be out today.  I have a cousin who just graduated from Air Assault school.  I worked for his dad when I was in college and his son was in middle school.  Time continually marches on, I suppose.

There may be a little bit of a rose tint to my rear view mirror, and I can't deny that nostalgia is a powerful force.  Those of you that knew me while I was on active duty might laugh to read this list today.  But I am writing this as a veteran looking back, not as an author trying to document "how it really is."  That time in my life was very different -- it was much more orderly, yet more chaotic.  More disciplined, yet more thrilling.  More exciting, and yet lonelier.  The highlights of my reminiscence range from the practical to the psychological.  Here is my list of nine things I miss about the Army.

1) The Clothes

I think the fact that to this day I still wear my Army issue socks speaks volumes.  Our government is getting a great deal from their sock supplier.  Also, they are comfortable.  I've long since chucked out my undershirts, but man, these socks are comfy.  There is something about a sock that goes all the way over your calf that is just perfectly snug and comfortable.

Moving on past socks, just the fact that every day I put on the same uniform is something I miss.  You never had to pick out an outfit.  You never had to update your wardrobe.  You never had to worry about hitting the proper level of professionalism in what you wore to work.  Working in an office turns the idea of a uniform upside down.  I hate worrying about all these things in the civilian world.  Sometimes I wish I could just show up to work in the same uniform day after day. 

Oh, and those boots and pants were super comfortable too.  I used to get home, take my uniform top off, and stay in my undershirt, pants, and boots until I went to bed.

2) The Benefits

There's a reason the healthcare industry is a sixth of our economy.  It's because it sucks.  Insurance is a scam until it's the one thing keeping you alive.  Providers are somehow simultaneously overpaid and underpaid.  The billing system is atrocious.  Networks add a fun layer of arbitrariness to the entire operation.  Oh, and don't forget about your astronomical premiums, deductibles, and co-pays.  You know who doesn't have to worry about any of that?  Someone on active duty.  I miss TRICARE like I miss Saturday morning cartoons.  

Hey people who own a house and itemize your taxes: you know how it's pretty sweet that you get to deduct your mortgage interest and property taxes?  Well, what if you could deduct your entire mortgage payment, or even your rent payment if you didn't own?  Wouldn't that be even sweeter?  Well, active duty soldiers who live off-post basically get to do just that.  There is a line in your pay stub for "BAH" which is your housing allowance.  It's designed to cover your entire housing cost and varies with your zip code.  It's completely un-taxed.  And by that, I mean it's even excluded from those pesky payroll taxes, saving even more than the mortgage interest deduction saves you.  Oh, and when you deploy, you don't have to pay any taxes at all.

When I travel for work, I get pretty fairly reimbursed.  The government goes above and beyond.  Anyone who ever went "TDY" can tell you that you make bank.  Don't forget to claim laundry in your travel voucher!  That's an extra  $2 a day! (OK, maybe they got rid of that, but still, it was there when I was in, and a 100 day TDY earned me an extra $200 doing that alone).  

Don't forget the relocation expenses, the all expense paid R&R plane ticket, the 30 days of paid vacation a year, free gym membership, all kinds of discounts, and a slew of smaller perks.  It's true that the government has the best benefits for your average Joe.  I miss it.

3) Job Security

When I was just a sophomore in college, I had a guaranteed job lined up after graduation.  When I showed up to work, I knew that unless I broke the law or got fat, I would never be fired or laid off for at least 10 years, regardless of how terrible of an employee I might have been.  In five years out of the military, I've witnessed countless firings and been through two different rounds of layoffs.  It's scary out in the private sector.  "YOU ARE AN AT WILL EMPLOYEE".  This basically means your company can toss you without any warning just like your ex did back in your freshman year of high school.  You can go from steady paycheck to unemployed in the blink of an eye, and to someone who is supporting a family, that possibility is terrifying.  I really miss the job security.

4) The Public Pay Chart

If you had asked me to make a list of what I did and did not like about the Army when I was active duty, this is one item that I am sure I would have placed on the "hate it" list.  As a matter of fact, it's something I mentioned during my interviews with companies as a reason for leaving after I got out.  I remember saying something along the lines of "I am a high performer, and it is frustrating in the military to not be rewarded financially for my excellence."  While that might have mostly been a slick sound bite for the recruiter, I really did feel incredibly frustrated that there were no raises or bonuses for high performers in the Army.  You might get promoted ahead of your peers, but at the lower ranks, the first chance I'd have to do that wouldn't be for seven years.  

I don't even want to get into the topic of whether raises or bonuses actually getting paid out for performance in the private sector.  Apart from it varying wildly from one company to another, I've found that unless you have a sales position, these bonuses and raises generally revolve around who is the biggest jerk about demanding one, and who is threatening to leave if they don't get one.  But let's set that whole concept aside for a minute and think of it on an even more basic level.

In the military, as in anywhere one works, everyone generally knows who the poor performers are, and who the rock stars are.  The thing of it is, while it's frustrating to know that you're making the same amount as they are in the military, at least you know.  I swear, in the private sector, people are scared absolutely shitless to talk about how much money anybody makes.  As a result, you don't have a clue what anyone else around you makes.  The guy who is just a little bit better than you... does he make double your salary?  The guy who is on a performance improvement plan... does he actually make a little more than you?  Should you ask for a raise?  Are you overpaid or underpaid compared to your peers?  Are you going to be the first to get axed because you would save an outsize portion on payroll, or is your boss grinning behind your back because he is keeping the salaries in his department at bonus-worthy lows because you are a sucker who doesn't make what you're worth?  Knowing everyone's salary in the military was irritating.  Not knowing in the private sector is absolutely maddening.

Oh, and one more thing - in the military, you got significant scheduled raises at year markers even if you didn't get promoted.  When I was a Lieutenant and ticked over to my 3rd year from my 2nd, my base pay went up by over 15%.  Today, that makes me want to reach back and slap myself for not realizing how lucky I was.  

5) "Odd Jobs" and Opportunities

Life in garrison may have been boring at times, but at least there were plenty of training opportunities.  I went to Unit Movement Officer school to learn how to load equipment onto rail cars and tractor trailers, and then I also went to the Air Load Planners Course to learn how to load vehicles onto cargo planes.  Both times I was able to completely walk away from my day job for a couple weeks to spend all day every day learning something new.  That was fun.  

I also had countless opportunities that I was too lazy to take advantage of, like a chance to go to Airborne School and jump out of airplanes, or a separate chance to go to Air Assault School and jump out of helicopters.

One of the last things I did before I got out was to take on an additional duty as an Investigating Officer for a FLIPL.  I was to spend several weeks conducting my own investigation into some money that was missing from the unit's morale fund bank account.  I got to spend some time with legal getting trained on what to do, and then they set me loose to conduct interviews, gather evidence, and create a sweet binder full of findings and recommendations (spoiler: a soldier totally stole that money).  I had a lot of fun with that assignment.

6) The Work/Life Balance

I will readily admit that my job today provides excellent work/life balance... compared to other jobs in the private sector.  Nothing can touch the military, though.  Unless you were stuck on the deployment hamster wheel, I found that the military really excelled at ensuring that soldiers had plenty of time with their families.

I talked earlier about the 30 days of PTO each year, but it's important to also note the culture surrounding PTO.  In the private sector, a lot of times you are expected to remain available for "emergencies" even while you're on PTO.  In the military, I found that your leave was sacred.  Unless someone died or got arrested or we went to war, no one was calling you while you were on leave.  No one checked their e-mail on vacation.  No one logged back online in the evening after a doctors appointment.  It was gloriously pure time off.

The other thing that I really miss is the four day weekends.  Most of my time in garrison, we had one every month.  That meant that each month I had two four day weeks that didn't cost me a day of PTO.  On top of that, we'd let people go home early on every other Friday most of the time, and I remember the Monday after the Super Bowl being a "late opening" day.  And then there's block leave.  Wonderful, wonderful leave-at-lunchtime-every-day-for-weeks-if-you're-not-taking-time-off block leave.

7) Adventure

I've gotten to do a decent amount of traveling in the private sector.  I've been to Utah, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.  In the Army, I spent at least a month in seven states, as well as a year overseas.  I was paid to drive myself two-thirds of the way across the country, including the absurdly ridiculous journey from tip to tip in Texas.  I trained in the shadow of Mount Rainier, Washington.  I passed through Bangor, Maine, as well as Ireland and Germany.  I drove across the mid-Atlantic more times than I care to remember, including getting stuck in a snowstorm in Virginia and spending the night in a hotel because the governor shut down I-95.  

I had the opportunity as a cadet to shadow a pilot in upstate New York.  The last thing he wanted to do was babysit an ROTC cadet, so he cut me loose to explore.  I finagled my way onto a Chinook helicopter bound for West Point and got to ride on the back ramp with my legs dangling over the most picturesque model train mountain river vista I have ever seen.  I charmed my way onto a Blackhawk that was going to make a detour to New York City on the way back home and got to buzz the Statue of Liberty from the back seat of a combat helicopter.

I got to shoot thousands of rounds of ammunition on the taxpayer's dime through some of the coolest weapons we have.  I got to explore the capital of a country in the Middle East for a day.  I got to live in a tent in the Texas desert and run a remote outpost for a week.  I got to paid to rappel down walls, hike through the woods, play paintball, and go camping.  I got to meet and hear stories from dozens of amazing people who have experiences which put my pathetic tales to shame.  

8) Pride

Do I take pride in what I do at my job today?  In case anyone from work is reading this: sure, yes, of course I do.  But am I proud to work for an average performing, middle-sized software company?  Not really.  Was I proud to be a soldier for four years of my life?  Absolutely.

If the conversation goes on long enough, you inevitably get to the topic of what you do for a living with nearly anyone you meet.  Today, I dread this topic.  I have no cool stories anymore.  I have nothing exciting that happens to me.  I contribute nothing to society.  I am the quintessential office drone, the worker bee in a white collar, the rat running on a wheel which may or may not actually be connected to anything.  It is not a fun topic of conversation for me, and I will deflect with a million questions about your undoubtedly much more interesting and meaningful career.  But if you had caught me 5 years ago... I would have been proud to talk about what I did for a living.

9) Camaraderie

Now we're really moving out of the practical and into the psychological.  I would say that my sense of camaraderie peaked in ROTC and slowly trailed off over the years, but it was there especially strong at the beginning.  Being a part of something bigger, a piece of a puzzle, an actor in a play... I really felt like I was an important part of a close-knit organization.  In an article I read recently, the author wrote something that really hit home: "Friendship is a relationship between those who possess true emotional and intellectual affinity—they do not seek to lose their identity, but rather “find themselves in each other and thereby gain greater self-knowledge and self-possession.” Camaraderie, by contrast, is about submersion in a collective."  This is something that so many outside of the military (and maybe the first-responder community) just don't grasp.  You don't make that many real friends in the military.  You make a few, sure, but no more than you'd make at a regular job.  Instead, you form a different kind of relationship.

You belong to something bigger, something greater than the sum of it's parts.  When you show up to work each morning, there is literally a prescribed spot on the pavement you are supposed to stand on, and people will instantly notice if you're missing.  When you deploy, you are a crucial name on a roster, not easily replaced and certainly not with a high degree of interchangeability.  When you are traveling or eating or walking or just standing around in your group of fellow soldiers... it is unlike anything you will ever experience out of a uniform.  You lose part of your own personal identity in that moment, but in exchange you tap into something visceral and primal - you gain entry into an exclusive tribe and are accepted as one of their own.  It's intoxicating, and I'm convinced it's a large part of the reason so many people stay in for so long, or volunteer for deployment after deployment.  

After you get out, you might see the same faces and spend time together again, but it will never be the same as when you wore the uniform.  To quote the previous article again, "These feelings are temporary—Gray later noted the awkwardness of WWII-veteran reunions where the old fellow feeling could be reignited only with the strong application of effort and alcohol—but they’re deeply powerful."  Spend time in the VA, at a veterans event, or even pass by the USO at an airport and see people in uniform.  That feeling is gone.

So there you have it.  Nine items, devolving into wistful nostalgia... with the lurking doubts in the back of my mind wondering if this camaraderie even truly existed in the first place.  Sometimes I miss the Army.

How does an IRA save you money on taxes?

Want to learn how you could possibly save over $1000 on your taxes this year?

If you live and work in the United States, your taxes are due in just under a week. One common strategy for saving money on your taxes is to use a tax-deferred retirement savings account. Most companies that employ more than a few dozen people will offer a 401(k) retirement savings plan to their employees, sometimes with a company match. However, this is only available to employees of that company. A spouse is not eligible, nor is someone who left the company. The tax code offers every citizen the option of opening an IRA, or Individual Retirement Arrangement (the “A” doesn’t stand for account, believe it or not).

There are two flavors of IRA: Roth and Traditional. The big difference between the two is that your money that goes into a Roth gets taxed before you contribute, while the money that goes into a Traditional gets taxed in retirement. Both allow you gains to grow tax free each year. The only way to save money on this year’s taxes is to contribute to a Traditional IRA. If you are reading this on or before April 12^th, 2018, you are not too late to make a contribution towards your 2017 taxes!

Other countries besides the United States offer similar programs. There is the Individual Savings Account in the United Kingdom, which functions a lot like a Roth IRA in that you contribute money after taxes. Switzerland has restricted pension plan accounts which function a lot like a Traditional IRA. Plenty of other countries have plans that are somewhat similar to a 401(k) or an IRA, like Poland, New Zealand, and Australia.

Let’s talk about a Traditional IRA. How can putting money in this account fatten your tax refund or reduce what you owe? How much money did you make last year, total? Imagine you took all of those dollars, turned them into bills, and stacked them on top of each other. Now slide that stack next to a ladder. You should have something that looks like this:

 (not to scale)

The United States has a progressive tax system, which basically means that the more money you make, the higher your earnings are taxed. This is somewhat hard to understand intuitively for some people, so here I have grossly over-simplified to illustrate what this looks like in practice. The red portion of each dollar is the number of cents you owe in taxes.

(definitely not to scale)

So to use some actual numbers, if you are single, you pay nothing on the first $10,040 of money you earned. Then on the next $9,325 you earned, you’d pay 10% of that. Then on the next $28,625 you earn, you’d pay 15%. Then on amounts between there and $101,940 you’d pay 25%. There are more brackets the higher you earn, but I’m going to assume you make $60,000 a year for this exercise and stop there. (I also oversimplified and assumed you just took the standard deduction and an exemption for yourself and didn’t qualify for any other credits or deductions or taxes.)

So if you imagine each of your dollar bills stacking up during the year, you pay nothing on the first ten thousand or so at the bottom. Then you start forking over ten cents for each dollar, for bill after bill. Then you hit fifteen-cent land. Then you finally make it to the twenty-five cent territory, where for every dollar you earned, you give Uncle Sam a shiny quarter. Your $59,999^th dollar bill? Another quarter. And one more quarter for 60K and you’re done. What’s your tax bill? It’s $8,228.75. Here you go, picture time again:

(not a round number)

So even though you are in the “25% tax bracket”, we’re only talking about your top dollars. So you didn’t owe $15,000, you owed roughly half that. You actually paid an effective tax rate of just 13.7%. Now here is where the IRA can come in to save you a ton of money. Uncle Sam treats the dollars you put into an IRA like they are invisible when it comes to taxes for that year. And not only that, they also assume you are putting the dollars at the top of the ladder in your IRA first. In 2017 the IRS lets you put up to $5,500 into an IRA. Since those dollars come off of the top of the ladder, that would save you $1,375 in taxes. You’d owe that much less, or get that much more as a refund. My final picture:

(sweet sweet green)

Now your tax liability goes down to $6,853.75, or 11.4%. Yay keeping your money. Except 20 or 30 something you doesn’t really get to keep it anymore… you pay a penalty if you touch that money again before you turn 59 ½. There are some exceptions to this rule, but you generally want to just write that money off until retirement.

That being said, if you have an extra couple grand laying around that you don’t need, this is great way to get a jump start on your retirement and save a bunch of money in taxes. Convinced? Then you’re going to need to make two decisions. First, where to open the IRA. Second, what to invest in. Since I’m already to a thousand words here, I’ll save topic number two for another day. You don’t technically have to do anything at all with the money in the IRA in order to qualify for the tax savings, so I’ll write about picking investments another time. But bottom line, I recommend index tracking ETFs. These are ticker symbols like QQQ and SPY. If you put a couple grand in there, you could do a lot worse than going 50-50 into those two ETFs right there and calling it a day. It can really be that simple.

As to where you open an account, it doesn’t really matter too much, to be honest. If they are coming up in the first two pages of a Google search for “open an IRA”, then they’re almost definitely a trustworthy company. I would scout out offers for new accounts, like a cash bonus or referral bonus. The only thing that would really matter to me about where to open an IRA would be if I wanted access to that company’s mutual funds. But I think mutual funds are kind of crappy ways to invest, so it wouldn’t make a difference to me.

There are dozens of caveats and other things I haven’t covered, so if you’re interested in this I’d encourage you to do some more research or ask me questions and I’ll do what I can to help. One of the biggest questions/gotchas would be if you already contribute to your employer’s 401(k), should you put extra contributions there instead. I would say yes, but only if you are happy with the options available in your 401(k). I know I only have a couple dozen options available to me in my employer-sponsored plan, so I couldn’t take my own advice and buy a bunch of my beloved QQQ. The other consideration is annual limits. You can contribute to both an IRA and a 401(k), but if you make over a certain amount, you can’t deduct the IRA contributions (they still grow tax free). That threshold for single people is $62,000 MAGI, and for married it is $99,000 MAGI. MAGI is your modified income, so it’s the number after you take all your deductions and exemptions. In our example above, you are well under the threshold at 60k a year. Bottom line – if you have a 401(k) at work and made a lot more than these cutoffs, your best bet is to add more to your 401(k). You can still do this and tag it for last year. The annual limit is $18,000, which leaves plenty of room for most people to play tax time games. Don’t forget your spouse gets their own separate limit too if you are married. A few grand chipped into your 401(k) now for last year will do the exact same thing for your taxes as the pictures above show.

So there you have it! A Traditional IRA will let you save money on your taxes. It’s very similar to a 401(k), but generally allows you a lot more freedom in how you allocate your money. It’s also completely unrelated to your employer or your current job. If you have any questions, send them my way!

Why I had to rethink the opioid crisis

I like to think I am more of a libertarian than anything else when it comes to politics and social issues.  So when it came to drugs, I had generally felt that adults should be free to do whatever they wanted to their own bodies as long as they are willing to accept the consequences of those actions.  I used to think that people who got hooked on heroin had only themselves to blame and they should just deal with the consequences of their actions and we shouldn't waste a bunch of tax dollars trying to prevent, treat, or even punish those people.  While I still believe that people are ultimately responsible for their own actions, two things have changed my mind to cause me to be a little more open to a government-based solution to the problem.  And even where I am not willing to sign off on wholesale nanny-state or war on drugs approaches, I have much more empathy for the people and families affected by this crisis.

The first thing that changed my mind was the realization that a lot of times, these are not victimless crimes.  When someone gets hooked on heroin, not only does it destroy their own life, it destroys the lives of other people around them.  Spouses, parents, siblings... but most importantly, children.  Becoming a father has really driven home the concept that there is now a life which is totally dependent on me for just about every level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  If I am not able to provide him love, attention, food, or a safe place to live, then who does?  Luckily, I have a wonderful wife who I am sure is more than capable of raising a child alone, as well as an extended family that would likely be more than willing to take him in, but how many other people are that lucky?  What if both parents are hooked?  What if the family is in shambles to begin with?  At that point, the state is really the only safety net left, and to me, that is terrifying.  I think if you have a kid, maybe the law should treat you differently.  And I am talking both carrots and sticks here.  Maybe there should be more resources available to addicts who are also parents.  I absolutely think there should be more resources available to the countless grandparents out there who are playing mom or dad to the next generation.  Anyway, that's my "children angle" on the matter.

The second thing that changed my mind was my own personal experience.  I have always been particularly resilient when it came to physical dependence.  I have never done hard drugs, so I can't speak to that, but I did used to smoke socially, and I never got hooked despite all the warnings.  At my peak, I probably smoked 2 packs a week (mmm, cheap Argentina prices on Lucky Strikes...), but one morning I woke up, coughed up a bunch of brown phlegm, and quit cold turkey for months.  I used to use smokeless tobacco too (snus, anyone?), but after learning that I could pay just $20 a month instead of $50 a month for my life insurance if I quit that for 3 years, I dropped it cold turkey the minute after I got off the phone with the insurance agent.  I am currently 19 months in to that resolution, so yeah, I can resist physical dependence.

If you read my previous post on here, you read about a surgery I had done a few years back.  Now I had been on general anesthesia for surgery once before, in high school, so I thought I knew what to expect.  I had also had Codeine prescribed after my wisdom teeth came out years ago, so I thought I knew opiates.  But when I came out of surgery for my butt, the hospital staff gave my an Oxycodone for the first time in my life.  The rest of the evening, I was floating on air.  It was the best feeling of my life, hands down.  It was like being drunk but without the dizziness or the "fog".  You just floated.

I will never forget going to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled.  I had someone drive me, thank goodness.  As I was paying for my thirty pills, I had a little trouble answering some basic questions and getting my card out of my wallet.  Meanwhile I am still just enjoying the feeling of being high out of mind.  The pharmacist, a concerned look on her face, asked me point blank if I had driven myself there or if I had a ride home.  I assured here I would not be driving myself.

Later that evening, just a few hours after the first pill, the effects were starting to wear off, so I popped another pill.  No pain had really set in yet, just a general feeling of discomfort and that someone had been poking around back where they shouldn't be.  I rationalized the decision to take another by figuring that I was probably in so much un-medicated pain that I should just take the pill to ward it off before it could fully set in.  I coasted back into the clouds for another couple hours, and then went to bed.

I woke up the next morning and my backside was indeed pretty sore.  It even hurt a bit.  But not really any more than a deep gash you might get from an errant swing of an axe (looking at you, Oxycodone-less camping trip to Vermont).  I had 29 more pills to take, and the instructions said to take one or two as needed every four hours, so I popped another one before I even had my morning coffee.  The effects were not nearly as strong as they were the day before, but I still felt pretty dang good.  Around noon and my backside was throbbing again with that dull pain.  I looked at the bottle and re-read "one or two"...

In hindsight, I truly believe that in that moment I was at a crossroads.  Not a full blown Robert Frost style fork in the road, but may the first of what could have been many small turns.  I see now that the final destination could have been horrific.  For a minute or two, I seriously contemplated taking two pills instead of one.  Not because I was in pain.  Just because I liked the way they made me feel, and one alone wouldn't do the trick.  But instead of popping a double dose of opioids, I chose the prescription ibuprofen.  I don't know if it was my own common sense, the fact that I had already read several articles about opioids, or divine intervention, but in that moment I realized how dangerously close I was flirting with abuse, and how deceptively quickly addition could set in if I just did what felt good.

I never took another pill of Oxycodone after that, but I can see how someone in a different situation would have given in.  Even me in a different situation would have given in.  I wasn't actually in any true pain.  I had family in town staying at the house visiting.  I had work on Monday.  I wasn't out on disability.  I had relationships that were going well with people I wanted to spend time with and who wanted to spend time with me.  Change any one or all of those factors and two more pills might have sounded just a little too good to resist.  So today, I empathize with people who get hooked on prescription opioids and then turn to heroin.  Even if my story was just a "baby's first drug" experience, I know what it's like to build up a resistance to a dose and want something just a little stronger to get you back to that same cloud.  Quite frankly, it scares the shit out of me to think about what could have been.  It make me really feel for the people who took those turns that I did not...

Well, once again, that was probably way too much information to share publicly.  But I wanted to share my story for three reasons.  First, as a cautionary tale.  I thought I was better than addiction, and that pride almost cost me.  Be careful if you are prescribed opioids.  Second, if you are currently in the middle of this struggle, I am there for you.  Please feel free to reach out to me, judgement free.  And if we're not close enough to do that, share this story with a friend, ask them what they think about it, and then reach out to them for help.  Third, to my fellow libertarian minded friends, or no-nonsense lock 'em up war on drugs types, I'd ask you take a moment to re-think your position on the issue.  Today, I believe stronger laws are needed to prosecute doctors who over-prescribe narcotics.  I believe we should have better programs for rehabilitation and treatment.  I believe there should be no criminal charges for using drugs or possessing small quantities.  I believe in stricter regulation of the drug industry and the medical guidelines for prescribing these pills and following up with the patients.  Why did I get thirty pills without even asking for them or reporting being in any serious pain?  That should not be allowed to happen.  I believe much more should be done to support the families that take in a kid whose parents are addicts.  I am open to other suggestions, and willing to lend an ear to people who want to propose solutions, regardless of who they voted for.

Stay safe, stay well, stay healthy.  It's a scary world out there.  We need to be there for each other.