regrets 2 : I regret ever accepting a student loan or grant.

I regret ever accepting a student loan or grant.


The loans I already explained in the previous post. The grants may not be so obvious. They were after all free money. I didn't have to pay them back. It was sort of like the government was paying me to go to school. Why would I regret that?

I had scholarships for the first two years, which covered part of my expenses. I have no regrets there. I earned those by doing well in high school.

The grants I regret accepting for two reasons. The grants were given to me because I was sufficiently poor. (And my parents as well). The government gave me that money because my income, and wealth were so low. Again, that seems like a good thing. The world is better off with educated people. There is certainly something to be said for making sure every citizen has the opportunity to obtain as much education as possible.

But.There are two problems with this. First, If I were to take a job, even a low paying job, I ran the risk of losing that money. That makes for a strong incentive to not work. And while a scholarly education has value, I still believe a "hands-on" education has equal or greater value. And given the frequent requirement for experience in job applications, I would wager most employers are of the same opinion.

Second, free money tends to impact the way you think. It did me. I didn't fight for my education. I accepted my role as one among many.

Roughly a year from completing a degree in Either Computer Science or Electrical Engineering, illness forced me out of college. then I found myself in a low paying job with Student loans to repay, no degree, no job experience to speak of... Fortunately, I has plenty of year experience fiddling with computers, an excellent work ethic, and a reputation for integrity, which helped land a job as a computer technician. This brought connections that led to other job opportunities, sufficient to meet my financial obligations over time. Finally, a decade later, I had the good fortune to be able to return and complete a degree in Computer Engineering. This time I worked my full time, career job, and took classes part time. I also paid for my classes. If my grades were sufficiently high, and if I could demonstrate that the class had some value-add for my employer, they would reimburse me for much of my expense, but it fell to me to pay initially, and then meet the requirements.

That seems a subtle difference, but it made all the difference in my mindset. I, ME, I was paying the several thousand dollars for those classes, and I darn well expected to get my moneys worth. I was paying the professor to instruct me. I was HIS paying customer. and I expected to be treated accordingly. That made an enormous difference in the quality of education I derived from those classes.

I don't mean to discount the role age may have played, I was more mature, and I don't discount that changed the way professors interacted with me to some extent. But age alone did not cause that significant a shift. It was the perception shift I had as a result of having paid for the course with MY hard earned money.

If I had it to do over again. I would have taken advantage of the scholarships I had earned, then I would have found a job, worked hard, and paid for classes as I was able to afford them with MY money. I would have accumulated more experience, I would not have had to pay interest on school loans, I would have graduated debt free (and probably sooner that I did).

Regrets

It is my firm opinion that anyone who says they have lived their lives with no regrets is either incredibly selfish, or incredibly ignorant. I will accept that one might not choose to change anything, if given the chance to go back, but having no regrets is another matter entirely.

I have a few regrets. Mostly the kind where I would do things differently if I could go back, knowing what I know now. A few others, where, though I regret the outcomes, I probably wouldn't change it if I had the option of a do-over.

So I thought I would take a few minutes to list some of them. Perhaps my children, or their children will be able to use these post to help them chart a better course....


I'l probably start with one or two money related one's, then move the the harder stuff...



I regret ever buying a car with credit.

I have purchased Six cars in my lifetime.  The first was less than $2000. The rest have been around the $7k to $10k range. There have been a few trade-in's to soften the blow of the later cars. All told, the total asking price for those cars was probably(rough guess) $35,000 - $40,000. With the interest for the loans over those years, I actually paid roughly, $45,000 - $55,000.

I threw away to to fifteen thousand dollars, paying interest. enough to buy a seventh car in that time. Or new flooring for our home. Or a really nice family vacation, or, a decent start on a mission/college/wedding fund. Or...

If I could go back in time and talk to my pre-teen self, I would have told myself to sit down and work out the cost of a mission, a car, and college. Then I would have divided that amount up by the number of years I had until those events, then I would have started making payments at those rates, or as close to those rates as I was able. (I did have a savings account back then - my mother set it up - but I wasn't really actively involved in managing it. I put an arbitrary, small percentage in for my mission, but I really didn't consider any other expenses, like college, car, a down payment on a house, appliances... If I could do it over, I would set up savings goals for each of those, and start populating them). And when I finally did purchase my first car, I would have paid cash for it. Then I would have continued to "make payments on it" to myself, into that savings account, so that when It became necessary to replace that car, I would have paid cash for the next car. If I hadn't managed to save up enough by the time I got to that first car, I would have sucked it up for an extra year, and rode my bicycle to work in the rain and snow. I would have made car payments to myself, and paid for it in cash. If I could do it over, I would NOT take out an auto loan.

Choosing to die?

I started this post long ago, but then replaced it with this one, for fear I would end up locked away on suicide watch. But the thoughts that originally prompted me to pursue this dialog are still rattling around, and I continue to feel a certain compulsion to get them on 'paper'.

I suppose I have been more aware of my mortality since becoming ill, and with recent changes in health care cost... well, let me just get started and see if I can untangle it. Be warned this will likely be extra rambly.

I don't recall ever being afraid of death. It just doesn't scare me. It is a transition. Not much different than graduating high school. Just another step. At funerals, I don't cry because I feel any personal loss, I cry because I feel sad for those who do feel loss. Am I weird?

I am not particularly afraid of dying (not anxious to get there, just not especially afraid). I am allergic to pain. I am no fan of discomfort. When I was in high school I had planned it all out; I was going to become an air force pilot, because I figured I would probably end up going out in an abrupt fireball during an intense dogfight somewhere around the age of 40.

I am afraid of old age, of losing my vision, my ability to walk, or use my hands, or to control my mind (or my bowels. eeew! I so dread the thought of doing that to some poor little nurse!).

But even more, I fear becoming helpless. I dread the thought of becoming a burden to my children. It terrifies me to think of them losing out on their dreams because they are caring for my sorry carcass. I dread using up any potential inheritance, college assistance, etc... on expensive medical bills for myself, and preventing them from opportunities to excel.

At some level, I sort of understand that is kind of how it all works, Kids start out helpless, and are cared for, reared, nurtured by their parents, then as the years take their toll, the children, now grown, and self sustaining, care for their venerable progenitors in their waning years. Circle of life and all that.

And I suppose I am a bit of a hypocrite. I would happily care for my parents in any way I am able. I wish I could do more than I do now... But I don't accede to my self the same standard of care. I'm not quite sure why that is. Perhaps I don't see myself as deserving that level of veneration - I haven't earned that. Maybe everyone feels like this...

I think perhaps the current state of things contributes the my thought process. We are much better today at keeping people alive. People are living longer than ever before. In my specific instance there is no statistical reduction in life expectancy for those diagnosed with Crohn's. Typically for the worst case they just pull your guts out, and you keep on going.

Couple that with a declining population growth rate, and you have a state of more people in need of care then ever, with fewer people to shoulder that burden.

I don't want my children to be forced to poverty just because my generation invested their vital years in self-interest, and their later years trying to prolong their worthless lives (Do I have an overly negative opinion of my generation? Dunno, The prior generation worked hard, rationed almost everything, built infrastructure... They sacrificed so much to build wealth, my generation - at least through my potentially jaded goggles - wasted all that on "free love", "short term gains", "greed is good", and "sticking it to 'the man'".).

Now don't misunderstand. I am not looking to exit my life early. I want to live to see my kids grow up, I want to hold their babies. I want to leave some sort of legacy. I read this tribute to a girl named Summer a while back. Yeah, I'd like to manage to live long enough, that I can sufficiently improve myself to the point that someone would want to write something even half that nice about me (That could take a while, I'm not nearly as pleasant or socially not-stupid as she sounds).

But I am rambling all over the place, and not really getting to the thought I intended to address. Let me try again.

The point is, given current advances in medical technology, there is a fair chance that at some point in the future at which you will have to choose to die. we already have machinery which can breath for you, recycle your blood, replace your heart, kidneys...

There are already occasional cases involving people battling to keep someone on, or take them off life support. Cases where the person can't speak their mind on the subject due to being in a coma. Where is the line between death and Murder/Suicide in such a case? Can any rational line be drawn? Are their any kind of markers that can establish at least a reference point for making such a decision?

And then moving down a bit what if you have to take a medication to stay alive, and you decide to stop taking it? Or what if there is a particular something that you enjoy, and you know that it is going to kill you (examples, cigarettes, excessive alcohol consumption, foods that have been removed from your diet is you are a diabetic,...)?

Perhaps there are not good answers. Perhaps there never will be. Guess for now I will just do what I can to build up as much credit as possible, and hope I don't burn through all of it pooping my pants and drooling all over myself..

Do these genes make me look fat?

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately. It is an interesting curiosity I have noticed that we humans blame our hard work and choices for our successes, and our genetics for our failings. Let me illustrate with a few popular examples, before I get to meat of this.

First up is weight. Have you ever noticed how fat people tend to say obesity is a genetic issue, while thin people say it is a diet and exercise issue? Chunky people always have some condition beyond their control that is at the center of their chunkiness. While the fit and trim folk will go on and on about how they got and maintained their good by following the grapefruit/paleo/whole foods/atkins/etc... diet, and by their faithful adherence to the P-90X/CrossFit/Marathon/MMA/etc... exercise program. And both sides have their "Scientific" Studies to back up their claims.

Homosexuality is the other big one. Those are are, or who have close friend or relatives who are gay, are generality quite insistent it is genetic. Those who are morally opposed are generally quite insistent it is a choice. And again both sides pull out their "science" to back their claims (well, in this case, the opposed crowd mostly pulls out their religion and simply tries to overlook the science).

But with both of these the science isn't nearly as solid as people seem to think. The one most often run with on the genetic side of the argument is the claim that science has discovered the Fat/Gay gene. But the reality is they haven't. The so called fat gene (FTO gene) and gay gene (Xq28) are simply genes (or parts of) for which they have observed what appears to be a correlation.

Note the word correlation. It appears that there is a higher tendency for these markers to appear in the "afflicted" individuals, than the "non-afflicted" individuals. But it is not always the case. In fact, from what I have read, the correlation in both of these instances is not all that strong. A common illustration of the fallacy of correlation = causation is the observation that you can show a correlation between reading ability and shoe size demonstrating that people with big feet are smarter. The reality is that as children grow, their feet tend to grow, and they tend to improve at reading with practice.

What's more, once we have decided which side of the argument we believe to be true, we simply ignore any evidence which might discredit our position. Again, in the above two cases their is a growing body of evidence suggesting the environment may play a role (by environment, they don't mean just upbringing alone. They are also suggesting, that what you ate, where you lived, what chemicals you were exposed to as a child may in fact trigger the given genetic markers and/or the behavior).

And here's one that will really freak some people out. There is also mounting evidence indicating that prenatal environment impacts both of these. You have heard the phrase "You are what you eat". You may in fact be what your mother ate.

One more example just for giggles before I get to the meat of this. Did you know that there are studies which indicate that poverty is genetic? And there are, and have been some very smart people who have touted those studies as valid. Again, more recent studies have suggested that the genetic markers in question are not passed by the mother, but rather activated in the womb because of the mother's circumstances. And of course their are plenty of loudmouth radio personalities insisting that we are all born equal, and that we choose to be prosperous or poor...

I hear debates- and I regularly have my own self-debates between the genetic vs choice arguments. Chron's disease, my personal monster; I hear lots of arguments that is is hereditary, and a fair number of arguments that it is my fault. If I would have just consumed enough fish oil as a kid, or not eaten any grains, or not skipped lunches now and again, or had better sleeping habits, or performed the right exercises in the right way or...

I like the genetic arguments. They mean it isn't my fault. It was something entirely beyond my control.  I suppose parents like those argument as well, for the same reason . It absolves them of any responsibility. It was what they inherited, and then passed to their children.

When I was fit, healthy, running sub 18 minute 5K's in the mountains in my late 30's, I was happy to take the credit. It was my good diet and regular exercise. Now that things have turned... Yeah, I'd much rather it be the fault of my genes, than of my habits.

There is also in epigenetic circles a theory, that this is another one of those prenatal things. The result of being born into poverty in a first world country. The idea is that your mother's impoverished circumstances caused your genes to ramp up the immune system, because poor people tend to be exposed to more virii, bacteria and the like. But because we have done such a good job of sterilizing the first world, the now over-programmed immune system goes bonkers. The middle class is apparently hardest hit by auto-immune disorders, which backs this theory. So, hey, good news, I can now blame my mother for my physical defects, as well as my emotional ones.

Sometimes though, I do think about the what-ifs. What if I had done things differently? What if I had never gone to Florida, or Europe? What if I had eaten differently? What if I hadn't been exposed to the chemicals, pesticides, additives that are part of the modern world? What if? The answers don't really matter for me now all that much. We are all the product of consequences. The consequences of our choices, of the choices of our parents, or grandparents our neighbors... Perhaps even of people long since dead.Genes, choices, somehow it is all tangled together, an intricate, multi-dimensional tapestry. I am what I am. knowing precisely what caused won't change that for me.

It could change things for the next generation. Or the next. But if we are not willing to examine every thread carefully, we will never be able to see the picture will we? We have to be willing to consider all the possibilities, we have to be prepared to be wrong.

And as I say that, I can see in my minds eye the various followers of the choice vs. genetics arguments, nodding in agreement, as they  look expectantly at those on the opposite side.




"Understanding is a three edged sword; Your side, my side, and the truth that lies between."
        -Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5

Income, Wealth distribution: A few interesting numbers

I saw this video a couple months ago. It presents some very fascinating information about wealth distribution. Now some of the statistics they provide are open to debate - for instance I have seen Wealth numbers for the 1% ranging between 30% and 50%, a pretty significant variance. But most numbers put the 1% as controlling 46 of the wealth in the US. Expanding the scope to the world, the 1% control roughly 38% by most reports I have seen.

I don't disagree with his suggestion that the top 1% control too much of the wealth, or receive too much income (there is a difference between wealth and income, the top 1% receive 10% of the income). The disparity is obscene.

However, I was left feeling like I didn't have enough information. The graph is pretty and all, but graphs can say what you want them to say. So I tried to do a little math with some of the numbers.
 My assumptions: (drawn from a number of sources, mostly from the top 1 to 10 hits on Google.

• US population = 318 million
• US wealth = 52,8 trillion
• US 1 percentile average income=$717k
• US 99 percentile avg. income = $51k
• US Households = 120 million

 Given those numbers

If the one percent were to liquid all their assets and redistribute the wealth, every person in America would get a one-time payout of $76k. That is a petty good chunk. Of course it needs to be understood that a moderate portion of that wealth is timed up in Business. So to obtain that wealth for redistribution would mean shutting down, or at the very least significantly curtailing Apple, GMC, Microsoft... I am guessing a fair number of small businesses and start-ups would also have to close shop, as many are relying on investments, which also make up a portion of that wealth. So realistically, keeping all the current "lights on", every American would get a $10k to $30k one time payment. How far is that really going to go?

If the one percent were to give up their income and redistribute it, every American would get a $7k pay raise. Average salary would move from $51k to $58k. Okay, that is a per person measure, and so were are confusing kids in that mix. So if we redistribute by household, then each household gets and additional $20k per year, roughly. Again, realistically many of the one percent-ers have harder than average jobs, so they do deserve to be compensated accordingly, so the practical number is more likely to be somewhere between $8k and $15k per year. That would still be a nice number, though for most, it won't be particularly life changing.



 But let's take a look at the people we are depending on to do something about this...

 President Obama's income is around 1.7 million
roughly 11% of congress are in the 1%
US House, Senate Avg income = $174k


They are all above the average. Not sure they can be counted on. What about the celebs?

Jay-Z: $450 million
Kanye West: $70 million
Alec Baldwin: $65 million
Michael Moore: $50 million

I haven't seen any of them making the first move, have you?

I can think of four ways the inequality can be fixed.
1. The wealthy voluntarily redistribute their wealth.
2. The government forcibly redistributes wealth
3. The non-wealthy revolt and forcibly redistribute wealth
4. The non-wealthy peaceably protest.

Numbers 1 and 2 aren't going to happen. Let's be honest. People tend to look out for themselves.  Most everyone think they are under paid, that they don't make enough to support a decent lifestyle, and that the "others", get more than they deserve. Our current leadership have been seen as champions of this cause, and under their tenure the gap between rich and poor has grown at a record rate.

Number 3. is an option, but it is generally ugly and  bloody, and it usually leads to everyone being worse off than before.

Number 4, is the possibly the ideal option, but almost impossible to implement. Here's how it works: Stop supporting businesses owned by the 1%. That means shop local small businesses, buy local grown food. That also means doing without things (most brand-name products, movies, sporting events, big concerts, etc...). You don't have to completely abandon them, but if everyone cut their current investment by half, the one percent-ers would feel it, and would have to respond, either by reducing their take, or eliminating jobs. If the former, then hooray! Mission accomplished. If the latter, then it is up to the 99% to dig in and create wealth producing jobs for those people, which further reduces dependance upon products provided by the one percent.... Any takers?

Any other suggestions?


P.S.
It is also interesting to note that while there are 11 million listed as unemployed in the US, there are 4 million listed job openings. Certainly some of this can be explained by issues of compatibility, or training, or emotional or physical disability, but... all of it? Is it really fair to redistribute wealth to someone who is unemployed because... he is waiting for "the right job" ?

Is meetme.com a playground for pedophiles?

Since I ended up with a meetme.com account, I decided to poke around a bit, and see what it was exactly. It was a rather educational journey. I was fairly careful not to monkey with the account too much, well, other than giving the kid a new profile pic.

But that is the extent of my vandalism of the account, and I mostly did that to see if I could get one of his friends to come out of the woodwork, so I could confirm his legitimacy.

Anyway, I did learn a few interesting things about meetme.com

It is populated primarily by 14-20 year olds, 15-17 being the most prevalent ages listed. It is less focused on communication and more focused on building connections.There are three main strategies I observed the accomplish this: Q&A, Blind Date, and Secret Admirers.

Q&A is fairly obvious. Someone asks you a question - any question, and you answer it. The questions I saw ran the gambit from "What is your favorite band?", to "You are cute!"(yeah, I know), to "Can I have your number?"(Danger Will Robinson! Danger!), to "........."(censored due to X-rated content).


Blind Date is a fun little game, which selects 4 random profiles, and asks you multiple choice) questions previously answered by them. Three questions for each "profile", if you get two right, you are considered a match, and and make a connection. If you get it wrong, you don't. Except, you can cheat. meetme.com has its own virtual currency, which you earn for correct answers, and which you can then spend in the blind date game to get extra guesses, or to peek at the answers. Oh, you can also by meetme.com currency with paypal....


Secret admirers is a simpler game, it starts by looking a profile pic's and "admiring" them. The admiree is notified that they have a secret admirer, and is then presented with a group of... I think it was 16 photos. They have five guesses to pick the one who admired them. If they get it right, they get to make a connection. If they get it wrong, they can spend meetme.com currency to get more guesses.

So a smart person with cash to blow through, can pretty much own the place...

Something to think about.

Hacking Teen Sneaks and Questioning Google's Wisdom.

A few weeks ago, I started noticing weird messages in my inbox. First, there was a series of messages in french, which appeared to be coming from facebook. I don't speak french, and didn't feel motivated to do anything about it at the time. I just assumed it was a phishing scam. and ignored it. Then a few days ago, I started getting emails from meetme.com about admirers, and chat responses, and acceptances of friend requests... Somethings up.

So I pop into gmail on my computer. up in the header of the message is a spot that says "to me" with a little down arrow next to it.

Clicking on the arrow brings up some additional detail.

Interesting, the name is not mine (I have redacted it, because I don't know the individual or his/her motives, so for now I will try to respect their privacy).

The email is almost identical to mine. with one small difference. Mine has a '.' in it (instead of emailaddress@blah.com, mine is email.address@blah.com. (okay it isn't "blah.com" it's "gmail.com". I wonder how many other providers have the same issue though...

I found the following support doc from google here:
The interesting bit is under the heading
"Your address is similar but has more or fewer dots(.) or different capitalization."
Below are a few relevant snippets...
---------------------------------------------
Sometimes you may receive a message sent to an address that looks like yours but has a different number or arrangement of periods. ...  don't worry: both of these addresses are yours.
Gmail doesn't recognize dots as characters within usernames. ... In short:

• homerjsimpson@gmail.com = hom.er.j.sim.ps.on@gmail.com
• homerjsimpson@gmail.com = HOMERJSIMPSON@gmail.com
• homerjsimpson@gmail.com = Homer.J.Simpson@gmail.com

All these addresses belong to the same person.
----------------------------------------------------------------

okay, first blush this sounds like a convenience, people can mispell your email address, and you will still get the email. How sweet of them.

In this case, a teenager (or two or...) is(/are) using this as a tool to create accounts on social sites, without tying a legitimate email address to it. For what purpose? To increase anonymity for nefarious purposes? To keep it hidden from  their parents?

It appears to the service be a legitimate email address, and if it had been a stale account (i.e. if I were not checking it  once in a while), or If I had just continued to ignore those messages as spam, it mostly would have worked. (The facebook account would probably have died, I think after awhile facebook prevent you from seeing your page unless you respond to an acknowledgement email.Though I can think of at least one way to get around that as well).

At any rate, Google really should have stopped to consider the potential abuse inherent in their email address helper. I wonder how many such fraudulent accounts are out there? And what all are they being used for? Some poor schmoe who hasn't used his email account for a few years could suddenly find himself getting busted for child-porn trafficking or terrorist activities (he might not be checking his email, but the NSA is). I'm thinking Google should probably reconsider this feature.

So now, what am I to do about this? Technically it is identity theft, they are using my email identity for their social activities. But since their is no money involved. I don't see any enforcement agency getting involved. I pursued a scam letter which specifically was a financial fraud not too long ago; I contacted the FBI, the Postal Service (it was a snail mail scam), the police, and the two banks which were listed. Nobody would give me the time of day.

Well, since I have the email account associated with them, I went to the sites, and activated their forgot password service, which sent me an email allowing me to reset the password. They are out, I am in. I poked around a bit, trying to identify "friends" who might be "In Real Life" (IRL) friends, and messaged them, to see if they are in fact friends. My goal with that is to determine if the person does in fact exist, and is in fact who they say they are. There are cases of people building fake profiles for various nefarious purposes. If it is fake I will report it, if it isn't... I  may report it anyway.

But I have learned a couple interesting things from this excursion.
First, I found a phone number of a 16 year old girl. She sent it to the doofus that created this account - he asked her for it in a chat, and she responded. What if I had been a pedophile or serial killer? Just a thought but perhaps teens should be a bit more careful with their phone #'s. Just because you know someone doesn't mean they aren't a doofus.

I also discovered a selfie of a 14 year old (in her "about me" section, or 15 year old (in her profile, directly above the "about me"), posing provocatively on a bed in her bra, with a poster on her main page saying "If you laugh at this I get to have Sex with you!". I won't quote the first conversation on the page, as it might get my blog banned.

Just a suggestion... but parents... might want to become more involved in their kids lives. It might be a good idea to make sure the computer is out in the open, and it might be worthwhile to reconsider the decision to allow a young child to have a personal smartphone.