Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Scuttlebutt: Scuttleblog - Sailing News and Commentary: Forty Little Children
A new little ditty running on the Scuttlebutt Blog today.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Making weapons.
While making weapons may well be our core competency, using them to make peace certainly has proven to be a dismal failure. Let's move on to something good.
Monday, November 15, 2010
27,000 dollars and 27,000 days.
Why wallets and days feel thin, and what to do about it.
I recall waking one day in the middle 1980s and wondering how many more times I would get to do that. I ran some quick math.
I found that if I lived to be 74, about the average life expectancy of a male at the time, I would have a bit over 17 thousand more chances to open my eyes and greet another day. Given that I was a year from my 9 thousandth morning, I thought little of it.
But the notion popped back into my head on my next birthday, when instead of thinking in years, I began to find my halfway point. I was halfway to 50. That seemed old. Every birthday since, I've rerun the math. Last September I turned halfway to 96.
If you are male and lucky to live to 74 years old, as half of males will do, you will have enjoyed about 27 thousand days. If you are a woman, you might tack on another 2 thousand or so. What might that mean?
The old adage "a dollar a day" will work nicely as a metaphor.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars seems like a nice chunk of change, whether you earn that much in a year, 6 months, 3 months or one. It's a nice downpayment on an average home. It will pay for a decent new car or a loaded late model used one. And 27 thousand days seems like a nice block of time too. But one dollar and one day have starker, eerier similarities. A dollar seems to fly out of our hands, buying perhaps a small gas station coffee or a pack of gum. Likewise, imagine a normal Sunday in America, flying by. You might wake up, make coffee, troll around on Facebook. Unload the dishwasher. Watch a couple of NFL games. Toss a pizza in the oven. Iron a shirt and fold some socks. Play some X-box. Shower and hit the sack. Come on, be honest. You've done it too.
And if you're like me, you might now be stepping back to think in terms of years and considering that both 365 days and 365 dollars can speed by with not much gained. One more year until retirement. One more car payment.
So sometimes we try to hold on to our days and our dollars. The trend towards saving and away from debt in America that started in 2008 may be indicating a desire to slow down the flow of money, and perhaps even the flow of time, though the pressures against these things are gigantic. Try stopping time. Saving money might be just as hard for a while.
Consider the 600 billion dollars of so-called quantitative easing, or simply-put, the printing of money planned by the Federal Reserve coming in the next couple of years. I'm no expert, and I'm not advocating one monetary policy or another, just pointing out that the addition of new dollars into the economy may well spur spending, but for those trying to save, it will reduce the value of the dollars that they hold. Printing money may be good for an economy, but it won't be good for some individuals in it. The system is rigged against saving, it has been for decades, and it could be going forward.
Now let's think about this idea in terms of time.
I hope that you are lucky to awaken a full 27 thousand days on this earth or more. But if you do, then during your time, life expectancy will increase and the world's population will grow. The more people and the older their age, the more days are in play among all people, and the less it may feel like yours matter in the grand scheme. Theoretically, population and public health may be to our days, what printing money is to our dollars. In economic terms, they are both deflationary. The system seems rigged against a productive life.
Printing money is worrisome for many economists, because it is baseless, that is, not connected to a standard. Likewise, living among billions creates superficiality, the sense of being surrounded by things but void of meaning.
But this is where the metaphor must be deliberately disassembled, one person and one choice at a time. We may not be able to control the value of our dollars, but we can control the value of our days.
A dollar really isn't anything but a marker of energy or ideas. Its holder can't do anything with it except place bets and hope it grows. Beyond that, it sits there inanimate, like any other piece of paper, doing nothing.
But a day in the hands of a motivated holder is a maker of energy or ideas. When next Sunday comes along, we can choose to do something that counters the force of time deflation. We can share. We can learn. We can teach if we've learned. We can use our combined time to make something new, whether we're halfway to 50, 100 or 150. Imagine the good, if just a few of us choose this, starting today. Imagine the endless possibility if more than a few do.
I recall waking one day in the middle 1980s and wondering how many more times I would get to do that. I ran some quick math.
I found that if I lived to be 74, about the average life expectancy of a male at the time, I would have a bit over 17 thousand more chances to open my eyes and greet another day. Given that I was a year from my 9 thousandth morning, I thought little of it.
But the notion popped back into my head on my next birthday, when instead of thinking in years, I began to find my halfway point. I was halfway to 50. That seemed old. Every birthday since, I've rerun the math. Last September I turned halfway to 96.
If you are male and lucky to live to 74 years old, as half of males will do, you will have enjoyed about 27 thousand days. If you are a woman, you might tack on another 2 thousand or so. What might that mean?
The old adage "a dollar a day" will work nicely as a metaphor.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars seems like a nice chunk of change, whether you earn that much in a year, 6 months, 3 months or one. It's a nice downpayment on an average home. It will pay for a decent new car or a loaded late model used one. And 27 thousand days seems like a nice block of time too. But one dollar and one day have starker, eerier similarities. A dollar seems to fly out of our hands, buying perhaps a small gas station coffee or a pack of gum. Likewise, imagine a normal Sunday in America, flying by. You might wake up, make coffee, troll around on Facebook. Unload the dishwasher. Watch a couple of NFL games. Toss a pizza in the oven. Iron a shirt and fold some socks. Play some X-box. Shower and hit the sack. Come on, be honest. You've done it too.
And if you're like me, you might now be stepping back to think in terms of years and considering that both 365 days and 365 dollars can speed by with not much gained. One more year until retirement. One more car payment.
So sometimes we try to hold on to our days and our dollars. The trend towards saving and away from debt in America that started in 2008 may be indicating a desire to slow down the flow of money, and perhaps even the flow of time, though the pressures against these things are gigantic. Try stopping time. Saving money might be just as hard for a while.
Consider the 600 billion dollars of so-called quantitative easing, or simply-put, the printing of money planned by the Federal Reserve coming in the next couple of years. I'm no expert, and I'm not advocating one monetary policy or another, just pointing out that the addition of new dollars into the economy may well spur spending, but for those trying to save, it will reduce the value of the dollars that they hold. Printing money may be good for an economy, but it won't be good for some individuals in it. The system is rigged against saving, it has been for decades, and it could be going forward.
Now let's think about this idea in terms of time.
I hope that you are lucky to awaken a full 27 thousand days on this earth or more. But if you do, then during your time, life expectancy will increase and the world's population will grow. The more people and the older their age, the more days are in play among all people, and the less it may feel like yours matter in the grand scheme. Theoretically, population and public health may be to our days, what printing money is to our dollars. In economic terms, they are both deflationary. The system seems rigged against a productive life.
Printing money is worrisome for many economists, because it is baseless, that is, not connected to a standard. Likewise, living among billions creates superficiality, the sense of being surrounded by things but void of meaning.
But this is where the metaphor must be deliberately disassembled, one person and one choice at a time. We may not be able to control the value of our dollars, but we can control the value of our days.
A dollar really isn't anything but a marker of energy or ideas. Its holder can't do anything with it except place bets and hope it grows. Beyond that, it sits there inanimate, like any other piece of paper, doing nothing.
But a day in the hands of a motivated holder is a maker of energy or ideas. When next Sunday comes along, we can choose to do something that counters the force of time deflation. We can share. We can learn. We can teach if we've learned. We can use our combined time to make something new, whether we're halfway to 50, 100 or 150. Imagine the good, if just a few of us choose this, starting today. Imagine the endless possibility if more than a few do.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Palpable irony
So yesterday, an old friend called me un-American for questioning the logic of a vote for Ron Johnson, who happens to be the the first far-right Wisconsin ideologue Senator from Appleton since Joe McCarthy. Palpable irony. Chuckle. Cry. Remember to chuckle again.
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