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.

My experience with the VA

Yesterday the president announced that his Secretary of the VA, David Shulkin, was being replaced.  I've seen plenty of people lining up against the president to criticize either the dismissal, his replacement, or both.  Most Americans, I feel, just want the best for our veterans.  I do too.  But my experience with the VA was embarrassing.  I feel there is not only the need for change, but the need for drastic change.  Change that Secretary Shulkin was unable to deliver.  I don't think his replacement has the knowledge or skills to run an organization as large as the VA, but I also don't believe that the man at the top is really much more than a spokesperson anyway.  So I'm ambivalent about Admiral Jackson.  I am willing to give his a fair chance, just like I gave the VA 5 years ago.

Does the VA do a lot of great things for veterans?  Yes.  Should it be privatized?  I have no idea.  I like to study and research an issue before I make a decision about what I support, and I have not even scratched the surface when it comes to the VA.  All I offer here is my experience as a veteran who tried to give the VA a fair chance.

So what exactly is the VA?  It is the Department of Veterans Affairs.  They are a federal agency.  They have nearly 400,000 employees and operate on a budget of close to $200 billion, about 5% of Uncle Sam's total spend each year.  This is separate and distinct from the roughly $600 billion for defense spending, so you can see it's quite the sum.  The main purpose of the VA is to operate hospitals and health centers for use by veterans.  Most veterans qualify for some form of healthcare through the VA once they exit service, especially nowadays since the "War on Terror" is perpetually going and everyone qualifies for "wartime service."  The department does a bunch of other stuff, but providing health care is the main thing.

I left the Army in the summer of 2013 after serving for 4 years.  I did not join the National Guard or the Reserves.  I did not receive any disability rating, or carry any wounds with me out of the service, either mental or physical.  I was actually kind of surprised to find out that I qualified for highly subsidized health care through the VA.  As part of my transition, I was guided through the process of registering with the VA.  I left the military knowing I could just show up to a VA hospital and be seen, which was somewhat reassuring.

My first job out of the Army offered health insurance.  I elected for an HSA plan, because there was an employer contribution each year that actually exceeded the amount of the monthly premiums I would pay.  My plan was to bank the money in the HSA for the day when I would not qualify for VA care (I think I qualified for 4 years), and just get all my care through the VA in the meantime.  Realizing the importance of the annual well visit, I make an appointment at the local VA hospital about 30 minutes from home for a checkup.

Arriving at the VA, the first thing I noticed was how crowded it was.  The parking lot was completely full, and I had to park in an overflow section and walk.  The sidewalk was full of vets waiting on rides.  The lobby was full of vets waiting to be seen.  It was packed.  I walked up the the counter and was asked for my VA card.  I told them this was my first time, but I was early and I would be happy to sit down to get one.  "Sorry," the receptionist said, "but our system is down for ID cards so you'll have to do it next time."  Not to worry though!  It turns out you don't actually need the card to be seen.  Over the next half dozen trips to that VA hospital over as many months, the "Out of Order" sign remained firmly planted on the Plexiglas window for ID card issuance.  I never got my card.

The visit with my doctor went pretty well.  She asked a lot of questions, mostly centered around mental health and substance abuse, and I don't think I tripped a single red flag.  She cut me loose with instructions to get blood drawn, which was right downstairs back in the lobby.  I headed down there to find that they are only open during a small window each day.  I would need to return later to get my blood drawn.

A day or so later I left early enough to make the window.  I waited for a few minutes in the waiting room, and then a cheerful phlebotomist drew about 27 vials of blood.  Maybe it was just four.  I'm sure it was the appropriate amount.  I left.

A week or two later, I get a call.  My white blood cell count is low.  Come back to do another test.  I comply.  A week or two after that, no call, and I'm left to wonder if everything is OK.  WebMD had me convinced I was HIV positive.  Spoiler alert - the private sector has since drawn my blood and confirmed that I do indeed have a white blood cell count that is on the low range of normal.  Depending on the guidelines used, it may or may not be abnormal.  My current doctor says its probably just the way I am, and is nothing to worry about.  The VA never told me that.  But I digress.

Well visit in the rear view mirror, I look forward to a year of healthy bliss before I have to brave the hospital parking lot again.  But I would not be so lucky.  A couple months later, something happens.  Now fair warning, this is going to be way too much information.  Leave now, or forever be grossed out at what I am about to tell you.  Still here?  OK then -- I had developed what I believed to be an abscess or a cyst.  On my left butt cheek, right by the crack.  Now this is actually something that had happened to me before, on my neck.  I had an abscess get so infected and so swollen and painful that an Army nurse had lanced and drained it.  Besides sticking a Q-tip in your ear, having that abscess drained was the best feeling of my life.  So when my ass cheek developed a large red swollen lump that was super painful and tender, I pretty much knew what it was.  Once it was clear that this was not going away on it's own, I headed down to the VA.

Now, doctors in general are not the most receptive people for advice on how to do their jobs.  VA Doctors are no exception.  Despite my best efforts to explain that I had had this exact same experience on my neck and simply wanted the abscess drained, the doctor would not do it.  Something about density, infection risk, yadda yadda yadda.  So he sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics and instructions on how to do a warm compress and said to come back in 2 weeks if it wasn't gone.  I return with the site even more swollen, literally the size of a baseball at this point.

The doctor tells me that yep, it looks like this needs to be drained.  I decided to push my luck with the advice giving.  "Sir, the last time I had this on my neck, it kept coming back after being drained until I finally had the cyst that it was forming around removed."  To my absolute shock and surprise, he agreed!  But my joy was short-lived "We could drain it here, but if it turns out to be something that needs to be removed, you'll need that done in our other facility [that was an hour farther away]."  I schedule my appointment at that even farther location for their next available date.  It was 3 weeks away.  Those were an extremely painful three weeks that involved a significant amount of standing. 

Finally the day of my surgery arrives.  I drive over an hour to an equally crowded and chaotic facility and check in.  I am taken to a regular old exam room where a doctor who looks barely older than I am enters with a peer of his in tow.  They are surprised to see a patient as young as I am, and inform me that most of the time they work with much older veterans. I'm flattered?  Some more small talk and I find out he is in his residency - not even a full doctor.  And she is a student.  Yay, I'm today's lesson.

I try to advocate for myself and how I'd love to just have the cyst removed and Mr. Dr. Resident tells me that even if it needs to be removed, it can't be done the same day as the area is drained.  I'm simultaneously disheartened and enraged at the doctor who misled me at the other facility.  So this day would just be a draining, and then I could come back in two more weeks for them to just check to see if there was a cyst to remove.  I resign myself to my fate, get hit with two or three local anesthetics, and feel the weird sensation of someone cutting into, tugging, and pressing on an area of your body that just sent its nervous system home for the day.  They drain it, stuff it full of gauze, bandage me up, and send me on my way.  Now, I don't know if those local anesthetics have an effect on your mental capacities, or if I was just in shock, or if there was something else going on, but in hindsight I was in no shape to drive.  Certainly not over an hour back home, this time through rush hour traffic.  But I did, and fortunately I didn't hit anybody.  That would be the first and last time I would ever go to that facility.

A few days of packing the site and keeping it clean, and it's starting to heal.  A few weeks later, and I'm almost back to normal.  But then, after the skin heals, the site starts to fill again and get infected.  Over Christmas break, at the peak of another swollen episode, I research home remedies for this stuff and discover a product which has an ingredient called Ichthammol which apparently draws this stuff out.  I try it and it actually works!  The site drains, and I feel 100% better once again.  

This cycle of drain, heal, swell, drain continues another time or two and I finally decide enough is enough and I am going to have this taken care of.  But instead of going to the VA, I go through my own health insurance.  I won't go into the details here, but in a nutshell, I get surgery (under general anesthesia) to remove the source of the problem (which was actually apparently a rogue hair follicle).  The doctor sends me for a CAT scan afterwards just to make triple sure it's not something more serious like muscle cancer.  The site has since gotten a little irritated from time to time, but I am quick to respond with my home remedies and have kept it out of control and me out of doctors office ever since.  

The appointments for the private sector doctors were much closer to my house.  The hospital was only 20 minutes away.  I was able to get seen much more quickly.  Now granted, my total bills were around $13,000 (after insurance "discounts" ((such a scam and a topic for a different day)) I think I was out of pocket about $3000).  But the VA wasn't 100% free either - there was a copay for every visit except the well visit.  I think I probably sent them $200.  But to me, you get what you pay for.

I never went back to the VA after that.  I found a local primary care provider, and my 4 years of highly subsidized public healthcare ended last summer.  I don't miss it a bit.  At the risk of sounding like a pretentious asshole, the VA is simply not intended for people like me.  I am a well paid white collar worker with no disabilities who still has all my marbles.  The guys crowding the sidewalk at the VA waiting for the volunteer to come back with van to take them back to who knows where?  They were older men and women who looked like they had seen much better days.  They did not look like the type of people who could turn to private health insurance.  The VA is the safety net for them, and I agree that it is vital.  

I wish things were better in the VA, I really do.  I want the best for my fellow veterans, and I think the VA is far from the best we could offer.  As a simple proof, consider this: when someone retires from the military after their 20 years or more of service, they get to enjoy health care coverage at active duty military hospitals.  VA  hospitals are a breed of their own, and they are not the same places that active duty soldiers or true military retirees go for care.  To me, that speaks volumes.  

I guess if I want to leave you with anything, it is this...  When you think of people who get government assistance for housing, you might think Section 8, and the "projects", right?  Not very glamorous... certainly not somewhere you would elect to live if you had other options. To me, the VA is like the heath care version of public housing, but for poor veterans.  It is what you turn to when you can't afford anything better.  But the moment you can get out of that apartment (or that hospital), you do it, and you don't look back.

I hope my little story adds a tiny bit of depth to your understanding of a very complicated and multi-faceted issue.  My experience was in just two locations in a single state five years ago, and I'm sure things are different in other places and other times.  There are some disabled vets who get very specialized care which the VA provides better than the private sector ever could.  Seek out those stories too.  I can only offer my own.  

How much would you have to pay for Facebook?

Ah, Facebook. The company everyone loves to hate.  The service where just about everyone you know maintains an account, while simultaneously lamenting the quantity of time they spend engaging with the site.  It's always either too much or too little.  But the common theme is that no one seems to really like Facebook.  They don't seem to enjoy browsing through the news feed. And yet we are all still members.  Well, almost all of us.  But that's because it's free, right?

I recently read an article at The Atlantic which called out this "free" service as a Faustian bargain (a deal with the devil).  The author has, in the past "referred to this bargain, in which people get content and services for free in exchange for having persuasive messages psychographically targeted to them, as the “original sin” of the internet."  To be fair, Facebook is not the first place to operate on this business model, nor will it be the last.  Twitter, TripAdvisor, and Google, which includes the search engine, GMail, and the very blog I am publishing this on, are all additional services that give away the "product" for free to me and you in exchange for nothing more than our data.  Because the data is the real product, and they can sell it for who knows how much money...

Actually, I'd like to know how much money they can sell my data for.  Let's do some digging together, shall we?  First stop, Facebook themselves.  Two clicks into it, and I've already found this sales pitch, prominently displayed at the top of their advertising help page: "here are two primary things you get from a Facebook ad: 1) The ability to reach a certain number and type of people. 2) As many of the results you care about (as expressed by the type of boost/promotion you choose on your Page or the optimization event choice you make in ad set creation) as possible from those people."  OK, so it's clear that they are quite proud of their ability to deliver extremely targeted ads...  After some more digging, I find an example where they tout the ability to let me deliver ads only to homeowners who are interested in cooking and who are also parents.  Now I don't know about you, but I never added any of those things to my profile page.  And yet, somehow Facebook knows.  

I can see I am about to derail what I had intended to be a purely economic/financial article and veer off into the jungle of ethics and privacy.  So I will stop here before attempting to answer the question of whether or not a company should be able to do this (because at this point, we know they can and do, which is good enough for me to move on to the numbers).  Facebook is all about beating around the bush when it comes to actual pricing (though they are quite forthcoming about the abilities at targeting ads), so I think I've gone as far as I can go on that page.  Time for our next stop: Facebook's latest earnings report.

Facebook made almost $40 billion in advertising revenue in 2017.  According to Statistia, Facebook has 2.2 billion monthly active users.  That averages out to a little less than $19 per user, per year.  That is just over $1.50 per month.  Now granted, this includes people from all over the world, where $1.50 gets you a heck of a lot more.  But you gotta figure the advertising costs to show ads to poor farmers in sub-Saharan Africa who love to cook and have kids are going to be a heck of a lot less than in other parts of the world, too.  So $1.50 a month seems fair to me.  

So there you have it.  You are worth about $19 a year to Facebook.  In exchange for the ability to sell your information, you receive the ability to send unlimited amounts of message, likes, updates, pokes, prods, passive-aggressive character attacks, and whatever else people do on that platform.  Is that a fair deal?  I certainly think so, or else I'd have deleted my account before posting this.  But it begs the question - if Facebook started offering a subscription service, would you take them up on the offer?  If they eliminated ads, took down "sponsored posts", and promised to never log any of your activity and sell it to an advertiser, would you pay $1.50 a month for that?

It's a fun hypothetical question, but I promise you that it will only ever be a hypothetical question.  Facebook will never offer you this option.  How can I be so sure?  Well, let's run the same numbers, but this time based on 2016.  Total monthly users were around 1.9 billion, while revenue from advertising was a little under $28 billion.  That maths out to around $14.50 a year, per user.  Apply a little more math and you see that while they only increased the number of users by 14%, they increased revenue by 48%.  Each year, you are worth more and more to them.  There's simply no way they will abandon their current business model with growth aligned that way.

If you ever had any doubts, rest assured, you are the product that Facebook is selling.  And last year they made about $19 off of you.  Are you OK with that?  Will that, along with all the recent headlines, cause you to #deletefacebeook?  Oops, there I go getting all philosophical again.  Time to wrap this up and lurk on my news feed again.

Here we go

I love to read the news.  Well, that's not entirely accurate.  I love to read about what other people think about the news.  Then I like to come up with my own conclusions.  Sometimes I want to share them.  So I guess this is where I'll share them?

I guess there are also some random, non news-related thoughts and reflections that rattle around in my head.  I guess I'll share some of those too, from time to time.  Anyway.  I guess here it goes.