All of the money stuff I sometimes talk about, condensed

A lot of my personal friends and family have heard me mention something regarding saving money and investing, probably remember hearing me referencing "Mr Money Mustache" or "Jacob of Early Retirement Extreme".

Chances are, though, you chalk it up to one of those random Bakari nutty things, or maybe you even glance briefly at one of the links I send you, but it's long and there's like 300 other articles, and you don't have time for all that.

I'm going to try to explain all that stuff in a condensed and untechnical manner.

Of course, the majority of my readers who I don't know in real life found me through MMM, and all of y'all feel free to skip this post, as you won't learn anything new - it might be perfect for forwarding on to your own friends and family though who haven't come around yet.

Very early on into adulthood I discovered that I don't particularly care for employment.

Its not just about the work itself - it doesn't matter how much fun, how creative or rewarding or self-directed the job is - its just the fact of being forced to be some specific place doing some specific thing for almost exactly 1/2 of your discretionary time (factoring in mandatory lunch hours and commute time), for the majority of your life.

Luckily, I grew up poor (there were 73 of us, living in a cardboard box), plus I self-identified as an environmentalist since about age 9, plus being non-conformist, all combined to make rejection of all forms of materialism come naturally.

I never felt much need for "stuff".  Living in my RV felt plenty luxurious enough.

Psychologists say that money spent on experiences produces more happiness than money spent on stuff - but I've found there is a practically infinite supply of entertaining and educational and downright amazing and wonderful experiences to be found for free almost everywhere I look.  No, not even that - I frequently don't even have to look; often times they come to me!  Sometimes when I was looking for something else, other times they just literally come seek me out.

I've never even had the desire for the stuff most American's spend money on: cable TV, a new car, fashionable clothes, or a "phone" that is really a tiny computer.  So, after food and rent, I never had all that much to spend money on.

And here is the point of all that backstory:
 
 

I discovered early on that if I don't spend a lot of money, then I don't need a lot of money, and if I don't need a lot of money, I don't have to spend so much time working.

So that is what I did for the next 10 years.

I might work full time somewhere, but I'd get bored after a few months, and quit, with no backup plan. Other times I'd work part time, maybe two or three very part time jobs, or maybe just show up sporadically to my supposedly full-time job. I built up a ridiculous resume of jobs - experiences (that I got paid for). I traveled across the country, I went to school purely to learn interesting stuff with no intention of leveraging a "career" out of it.

I made a couple of less than ideal financial decisions here and there, but managed to pay very little in interest, never miss a payment, and keep my credit score high.

And I had lots of free time, whether I was working or not, to play, to spend with my partner, to read and learn, to go on bike rides and camping trips.

Not that I ever thought debt was no big deal, but between moving cross country, college, buying a bigger RV, and getting divorced, I hit a peak of debt (around 10k), and decided to focus seriously on getting rid of it.

Older and more mature, the day I made my last payment, I also opened an IRA - 18 February 2010

Along the way, one of my blog posts caught the attention of Kirsten Dirksen of Faircompanies.com, who asked me to write for her, and then later did a video interview of me when she was in the country.

Which got moderately popular (a good quarter million views in a couple months), which resulted in a number of internet fans who found me on facebook - one of whom suggested I look up Jacob Lund Fisker of ERE, who also lived in an RV at the time.  Well, it turned out he also lived in the Bay Area, and was planning a get together soon, we met, I started reading his blog posts... it couldn't have come at a better time.

Having recently paid off the last of my debt and opened an IRA, it was perfect timing for the message.

It turns out I was on the right track, but I missed an important detail.

Allow me to summarize how many, if not most, young people look at money:

Retirement is something that happens when you are old.  If we are lucky, it will still be at age 67 by the time we get there.  By that time most of your life has gone by and if you don't have major health problems, at the least you are too weak and tired to do all the sort of things you want to do now.  Hell, you don't even know for sure you'll live that long, so it doesn't make any sense to put off living life to the fullest now.

Of course you aren't stupid either, you aren't going to spend money frivolously, and its good to have some savings in case of emergency, maybe even a retirement plan, but that all has to be balanced with enjoying life today.
 

That's more or less how most people I talk to look at it.

It's how I looked at it.

The philosophy is good.

It's the underlying assumption that is mistaken.

Its a totally understandable mistake, because every one else around us takes it for granted.

Here is the enormous underlying mistake from the paragraph above:

67 is when social security starts paying out.  That has nothing to do with when you retire.  Retiring can happen much sooner, or much later.  Its simply a function of when (if!) you have enough to live on without having to work.

And let me cut off objections preemptively here, by emphasizing a word from my last paragraph:

"...have enough to live on without having to work."

Maybe you really enjoy your job.

It may be fun, and/or meaningful.

As of now, lets stop using the word "retire".  Lets substitute "financial independence" instead.

Not having to work means that if you get bored, you can do something else, with no stress during the transition.  It means if your boss is a jerk, you quit.  It means you can start your own small business, doing what you love.

If you already love what you do, but your company is small and on the brink, you can take a voluntary pay cut.

If you love what you do, and your employer is a soulless corporation, you can use your salary to buy expensive toys, vacations, or donate to charity, or whatever you want, because if you are already financially independent you don't need to worry about rent or food or transportation or health care.

In a word, it means "Freedom".

Would you rather have more freedom in your life, or less?

"Yeah, all that sounds great, Bakari, but it is totally unrealistic"

Ah, you'd think so, wouldn't you?

Now we get to the fun part.

I'm going to leave out all the math, and all the stock market/investing stuff.  I'll point you to some MMM posts that go into detail if you want to learn a little more and go a little deeper, but for now just trust me on the numbers.

If you invest wisely (and that doesn't mean "picking the right stocks", it means taking the safe, easy, average, middle of the road route) then once you have saved up 25 times your annual spending, you are set for life.

That's actually a really really important summary, that deserves an inset section

Once you have saved 25 times your annual spending, you are set for life.

( http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need-for-retirement/ )

That's secret ("secret") number one.

Here's another:

Under capitalism, money that is invested creates its own money.  Then that new money also creates new money.  Then that new money creates even more new money.  This cycle repeats indefinitely.

An early MMM analogy is to think of each and every dollar bill you have as a potential employee.  If you spend it, you have essentially fired a reliable worker.  If you invest it, it will produce a small percentage of its own value for you, 24/7, forever.  Give it enough time, and that dollar will make you a new dollar, just by sitting there not being spent.  Then, if you only spend the new dollar, and leave the original alone, you just got something for nothing.

It gets better.

If you put away five bucks a week, starting at age 18, you will have more money at (official) retirement age than you would if you put away 30 times as much - $150 a week - but didn't start until 10 years before you retire.

In the former, you only put away $260 a year, for a grand total of 13k of your own money (spread out over 50 years)

In the latter, you spent $7,800 a year, for a grand total of  78k.

You spend 6 times as much, and have less to show for it!

All that extra free cash in the former is coming from interest and dividends, compounding and snowballing on themselves.  The new money creates new money which creates new money which creates...

But what if you put away $150 a week, starting at age 18?

Well, then you would be a millionaire just a little after your 50th birthday.

Literally.

That's just math.

But lets go back to the first secret again; once you save 25 times your annual spending, you are set for life.

If you can spend less than 40k in one year, then you don't need to be a millionaire in order to be financially independent.

Given that 40k is substantially more than median individual income (and only slightly less than median household income, which on average has more than one earner), I'm going to say it is not a particularly bold claim to suggest that it is possible - nay, downright easy - to live on less than 40k per year.

(Remember, we're talking spending, not income, and you can subtract any spending on savings, as well as any spending directly related to employment, such as commuting or work clothes, from what you need once you are financially independent).
If, for example, you can live comfortably on under 20k a year, then you don't even need one half of a million in order to be financially independent for the rest of your life.

Here's the other big mistake that people tend to make:

We think in terms of what we can afford.  When we have some extra cash, we think about what we can spend it on.  Money burns holes in our pockets.

I don't hold it against you.  Its human nature, and I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else.  Most of my working life I made only enough to cover my expenses, however much that was, and if I happened across a nice large lump sum I thought "what fun and cool thing or experience can I buy with this?"

That reasoning means we tend to spend however much we have.

In other words, maybe you were actually fairly comfortable when you were only making 23k per year, but you just switched to a better job, and you moved in with your partner so your rent is half as much, and so all these opportunities open up of stuff to buy and trips to take, maybe you get your internet speed one tier higher, since you can easily afford it, maybe you eat out a little more, get a latte at Starbucks twice a week, and before you know it, you're breaking even again.
   

There's a term for that: "lifestyle inflation".
  

Hedonic adaptation dictates that it soon becomes the new normal, and provides exactly zero happiness above baseline.

Suppose when life changes allow you to have higher income and lower expenses, you threw all the excess into investments?

Suppose you make a point of lowering expenses, cutting out anything that doesn't truly make your life better in a tangible, ongoing way.

Could you save 10% of your income?
25%?
50%?
75%?
90?

90%??!? Lets not get ridiculous here.  We aren't all stock brokers and corporate lawyers and software engineers.  Sure, if you make 6 digits each year, it would be totally possible to live a comfortable life with all the modern amenities (like cars and internet) on 10% of your salary.

Here in the real world, 1/2 of all American who work make less than 30k per year, and even bike-riding, 30-year-old-truck-owning, RV-trailer-living Bakari can't see living comfortably on three grand a year.

Ok, ok, so lets step back a couple lines.

How about 50%?

This still probably sounds a bit extreme - at first...
 
 

For reasons I don't entirely understand, people seem to think money numbers are supposed to be private.  But then, I have never been much of one for secrets, so how about I use me for an example:

Remember, I started saving at the beginning of 2010.  I made $22k that year, after subtracting business expenses.

In 2011 I made $22k again. In 2012, $21k.  This past year was my worst since I began working for myself, (8 years ago), and I only made $13k.

In 2010 my net worth was $0.

Today it is $52,000

("Wait a minute now..." you say, "those numbers mean you have to be living on less than 10 Gs on average each year!" Yup.)

It's not hard.

It is, more than anything, a change in mindset.

Remember that whole thing with my old RV trailer being stolen?

The entire settlement check went straight into one of my IRA accounts.

Remember that giant chicken coop and run I built?

The 2 large I made on that, all invested.

I don't live a deprived life.

I still buy toys now and then, (like my boombox and its battery pack). I have high speed internet, a cell phone, pets, I buy organic food, I eat out and go to the movie theater now and then.

I just try to ration spending, and avoid spending money on crap I know I really don't need, that won't improve my life in any significant way in the long run.

As a result, I am 1/5th of the way to financial independence, in just over 3 years.

At this rate, about 15 years from when I started, I should be there.

I'll be 45 - still young enough to take full advantage of freedom from mandatory employment. 

Just imagine though - if I had started back at 18; I'd be financially independent already!

You aren't me, you don't live how I live, so enough anecdote - lets segue back into some real life numbers.

We were talking about saving 50% of your income, and I was just using myself as an example to prove that even if your income is much lower than average, it is still possible.

In my example of me, spending only about 1/2 of income led to a working career of 15 years.

And there's that sweet math magic again: that number isn't just true for my particular circumstances.

It is universal.

If you only spend 50% of your income, you will have approximately 25 times your annual spending saved up in approximately 15-20 years.

Simple mathematics proves that.

Even without the power of compound interest, if you spend 50% of your income, then for every year you work you buy a year of freedom (think about it for a second).
But add in the money generating money infinite feedback loop, and at 50% every year you work earns you more than a year of freedom, and the earlier you start, the more free bonus time you get.

And here is the really beautiful part of all that, which may be easy to miss:

It doesn't matter how much your income is.  The ONLY variable in that equation is what percentage of your income you spend, VS what percentage you save.

 
( http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ )

Going back to the philosophical point from near the beginning, but with this new knowledge, we have two potential life paths, especially while we are still young:

• Path 1: Live simple, so you don't need too much money to live, and take advantage of that by not working too much.
  Spend the occasional windfall on toys and/or experiences.
  Low income, low cost of living, moderate amount of free time and freedom - but you will never retire.
  The same is true if you have a higher income, but lifestyle inflation keeps you spending however much you make.  If your savings rate is zero, you will need to continue working until you die.

• Path 2: Live simple, so you don't need too much money to live - and work full time anyway, so that you have plenty of surplus to invest.
  Put most, if not all, of your occasional windfalls into your savings too.
  Moderate income, low cost of living - and low free time and freedom, at first, for a few years.  But then, before you know it, TOTAL freedom, and as much free time as you want.  For the rest of your life.

Path 1 is pretty good, beats working a 9-5 for 50 years.  Path 2 is a whole heck of a lot better.

Especially considering we aren't talking about some hypothetical future 50 years from now.  We are talking a short decade and a half.  We are talking "retiring" with the majority of your life still ahead of you.

Don't believe the math?  There are hundreds of people who have actually done exactly what I'm talking about.  A lot of them are on the Mr Money Mustache forums.  Mr MM himself is one, one who uses some of his free time to share all this information with others.  If you want to learn more, his blog is the place to start:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/06/meet-mr-money-mustache/
 
(if you start here at the beginning, when you finish this post, scroll down a little to the link that says "Meet the Realist")

and

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/

 

If you don't feel like reading too much, try maybe just this last link.

Later, if you like, you can read more for all sort of details on how to actually start spending less (with zero sacrifice to quality of life), what specifically to do with your savings to make it start working for you, and answers to all the other questions and concerns and objections you either have already, or will come up with soon.

The really important part is just the concept.  You have it now.  Very minor delayed gratification now, for totally life changing payoff in a few years.  You - you, reading this right now - can be one of those "financially independent" people.  No inheritance, no lottery, no lucky breaks.  Just being moderately frugal, and the math of compound interest.

Start looking at your money differently.

And make sure to come thank me when employment becomes optional for you.

In progress...

So, my regular readers (I found out recently that I actually have regular readers!) may have noticed I have repeatedly promised an indepth essay on capitalism, I have said at least once that it would be my next post, and I keep posting other stuff.

Well, it really is in progress.  I've written a lot of it.  But there is a lot more to go, and I decided not to start posting the finished ones until the entire thing is finished.

In the meantime - since I am saving each section in my drafts folder - I discovered a whole bunch of stuff I wrote, sometimes years ago, and for reasons I can't even guess at, I never posted. 

I'm going to start posting those, while I work on my biggest writing project to date.


Oh, and by the way - if you read 5 Years Later and Not A Great Start to the New Year, and you were wondering if I was still in a bad place... noooo.  I am not.  Not even a little.  A very very good place right now. 
I don't want to get into it too much here - its very exciting, its very mutual, but its also very new and we all know my patterns.  I can't be objective. 
As far as I can tell thus far, there is real potential, and regardless of how it turns out I am having a hell of a fun time in the moment.  If you remember, way way back, New Year's (2009); I honestly did not think it would be possible - I mean, literally, physically possible - to top that experience.  Well, it turns out it is.

35 hour work week petititon

I tried this once before, but wasn't able to build enough momentum in time.

Different platform this time.

Click, sign it, make the world a better place:

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/a-35-hour-work-week-will

Read more about why this is a fantastic idea on my post about the first attempt:
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2011/10/dramatically-reduce-unemployment-by.html

7% of communication is words (not really though)

Just discovered what the ridiculous claim about non-verbal communication probably comes from - you know, where some corporate or academic class on effective communication claims that only 7% of a message is transmitted by the actual words (and the rest by tone and body language)?

This is of course just obviously false on the face of it: if it were true, we could communicate more effectively with someone who spoke a different language but was face-to-face with us than we could with someone who spoke the same language, but via chat (or a blog post).

But those numbers are very specific to just have been randomly made up...
Here's where they come from:
According to pychcology professor Albert Mehrabian:

When you first meet new people, their initial impression of you will be based 55% on your appearance and body-language, 38% on your style of speaking and only 7% on what you actually say.

Impression.
Now that actually makes sense! Not message. Not communication. Impression.

Furthermore, he was speaking specifically about communication about feelings, and the degree to which a person's non-verbal communication matched the verbal - as in, if a person says "I'm fine, really", but they look and sound upset, you are likely to not believe them.

In his own words, regarding this common misinterpretation of his work:

""Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking. Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like–dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable."

Dramatically reduce unemployment - with no cost to government - by instituting a 35 hour work week

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 (UPDATED 15 SEPT 2013!; new petition currently active)

Dramatically reduce unemployment - with no cost to government - by instituting a 35 hour work week

Please sign my federal petition:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/a-35-hour-work-week-will

Whatever the response is, it will at least bring this issue to the attention of American politics which is the first step toward action.
It may never happen, but it will get people thinking about things they take for granted; like the purpose of the economy, production, employment, unemployment, distribution of wealth, etc.

It has become common practice when talking about the economy or the market to treat them as though they were an end in and of themselves, and inherent good regardless of their effects. We seem to have completely forgotten that the whole point of having an economy in the first place is to serve and better the lives of actual people. Over the past half century improvements to the economy have not translated to improvements in the lives of the majority of Americans. We all need to stop, step back a moment, and ask the question: in that case, what is the point?
When individual citizens are asked to make sacrifices for the sake of "the economy", that means citizens are here to serve the markets, instead of the markets being here to serve the citizens.


The petition website has a character limit; here the original text I wrote for it:

A 35 hour work week will create 22 MILLION jobs without costing the federal government or tax payers anything.

There are currently 14 million unemployed American's, so this will eliminate all unemployment, and then it will push wages up as employers are forced to compete for a limited labor force.

Literally ALL arguments against a 35 hour work week (that it would hurt business or make America less competitive, etc) can be countered by the simple fact that those same arguments were made against the 40 hour work week, and none of those things happened.

The 40 hour work week dates back to the early 1900s, with it becoming federal law in 1932.
Since that time productivity per worker has increased well over 1000%. This means each US Worker produces more than ten times as much in an hour of labor than when the current work week was created.
This has not manifested a corresponding 10 fold increase in average wages.

Productivity has increased over 400% since 1970 alone. In that same time, total GDP has increased even more dramatically, by 1400%.
And yet, since that time, wage income (adjusted for inflation) has been completely stagnant.

The reason for this disparity is that literally 100% of the additional profits made possible by new technology and globalization have gone to corporations and investors, while 0% have benefited the working and middle classes. The average worker produces approximately $100 thousand a year in output, yet receives less than $40 thousand in wages.

While many employers will object that they can not afford it, the enormous increases in productivity per worker and total GDP prove indisputably that they can. Income inequality is at an all-time high, and thanks to patent, tax, and labor laws there is no longer any correlation between income and how much an individual contributes to society or how hard they work. The unprecedented profits which have gone to corporations and investors between the time the 40 hour week was created and today are more than enough to cover the minor costs associated with taking the next step to a 35 hour work week.

The 35 hour work week must apply equally to hourly wage AND salaried workers, and even to commission based employees. In our current system millions of people are forced to work unpaid overtime hours because they are paid salary. These people should be entitled to overtime at a rate of 1.5 times their weekly pay (annual pay divided by 52) divided by 35 hours. This needs to be stated explicitly in the law to prevent abuse by employers. No industry should be exempt, the only exception being if an individual or union VOLUNTARILY chooses to waive their rights.

In order to protect the lowest paid workers, a 35 hour work week must be coupled with an increase in minimum wage so that full-time employment at minimum wage constitutes a living wage. A minimum wage of $11.50 would equal $20,000 a year (before taxes, assuming 10 days of holidays, vacation and/or sick days per year).

Finally, in order to protect American jobs from outsourcing (and reclaim jobs which have already been outsourced), the 35 hour work week could also be coupled with a tariff on any goods sold by a US based company, which was manufactured or assembled in another country, unless that other country has labor and environmental laws as strict or stricter than the US, or if the individual company voluntarily abide by US labor and environmental laws.

A 35 hour work week would give hard-working families a much needed and deserved break, while creating enough jobs to end unemployment completely.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have already received a number of very good questions and comments about this idea - but I have answers for them all:


Legitimate point:

"How could you prevent this from decreasing productivity?"

 My response:

I don't claim it won't drop total productivity, although it is possible that as a side effect of more free time people will become more productive.

My point is productivity per person has ALREADY increased 1000% since the 40 hour week was enacted.  And that 1000% increase has not resulted in a 1000% increase in wages, nor a 1000% decrease in working hours, nor a 1000% decrease in CPI, nor any combination of the three. 
We don't need as much productivity as we have.
That's why unemployment is so high.

If, in order to just maintain, you have to be growing at all times, then the system is obviously inherently unsustainable, and yet growth is the only solution normally proposed to absorb all of our excess labor capacity.  Yet we all consume too much as it is.

If everyone were to, say, discover Mr Money Mustache and join in, there would be a lot less consumption, and a lot less needs to get done.  But there will always be people in the accumulation phase who need work.
Even without that scenario, if consumption doesn't grow fast enough, there are more people who need work than there is work that needs to be done.

Our current "solution" is to have some people work full time, and pay others to look for a job.
We could just as easily have everyone work just a little less, and spread the effects out across the entire labor force - and not have to pay any unemployment.

The reason it creates job is because right now you have 130 million employed people doing 5.2 billion hours of work per week.
That means the current economy needs 5.2 billion hours worth of work done per week.  If there was more or less than 5.2 billion hours worth of work to do, companies would be hiring or firing people accordingly.

But now say each person can only work 35 hours, or else the employer has to pay them time and a half.  That's a pretty steep premium.
Now, in order to get 5.2 billion hours of work done, you need 148 million people to do it.  Boom, instant 18 million jobs.

18 million is more than the total number of unemployed people.  In other words, it becomes a employees market - which raises wages due to supply and demand.


If, as many suggest, it had the effect of creating more overtime hours instead of more jobs, I'd consider that a success too, it is still allowing employees to reclaim some portion of their own productivity that has been lost over time.


Legitimate point:

"I am payed for 40 hours, I actually work around 45 to 50 per week for the same pay. Sometimes I work even more, nights and weekends for the same pay... If we have a 35 hour work week, I loose 20 hours of pay/mo and still work 45-50 hours, nights and weekends. I am on a salary... Won't work for me"

My Response:

In California at least (except for a few specifically exempted professions) people on salary are still entitled to time and a half pay for hours over 40 in a week. If you are not being paid for working overtime, you should be looking for a good labor lawyer.  See:  http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtime.htm 
The fact that this law is almost never followed has more to do with the decline of unions than probably anything else.
Regardless of the length of the work week, there should be a similar law on the federal level that explicitly states that overtime laws apply to workers on salary and commission. Not only does it demean human dignity that money is put above everything else in life, but an overworked workforce is less productive per hour anyway. Forced overtime should also be illegal.

So, I also propose to explicitly include salaried and commissioned workers in the 35 hour week. Even on salary, anyone who went beyond 35 hours would be required to be paid time and a half based on what their weekly salary divided by 35 hours works out to, as it is in California. So a person in your situation would actually benefit even more than wage earners, as you would either get much more free time and/or a substantial boost in pay.


Legitimate point:

"The French tried that already, and it didn't accomplish what it was supposed to. They eventually gave it up"

My response:

First of all, it has not been given up yet.
Further, there were always some differences between France in 2000 and us today. One of the more significant ones is that French employers are not allowed to lay off workers when business is slow, which makes them even more reluctant to hire new ones than our fixed per worker costs.
Another difference is the size of our economy, and how much tangible goods we manufacture and export.

Overtime after 35 hours is as little as 1.1 times (+10%) regular pay in France (as opposed to our 1.5, +50%), so employers had less incentive to hire new workers rather than just pay existing ones slightly more for 4 hours a week.
Plus, apparently the way they set it up left a lot of big loopholes from the start, (for example, a 5 minute break could be considered off the clock even if it wasn't considered off the clock before the rule, so instead of actually reducing hours, employers could just redefine them). Apparently no one kept any records of how many hours workers actually worked before and after the law, but it is likely to have been a much smaller change in reality than on paper.

In 2003 (2 years after it went into affect) the law was changed so that overtime could be paid at regular wages (making the 35 hour standard meaningless in practice - yet still retaining the 35 hour as a standard)
Despite all these caveats, 300,000 new jobs were in fact created during the 3 years the law was fully active.

Unemployment dropped from 11.5% in 1997 (a year before the first, voluntary, phase of the law went into affect) to 8.5% in 2001 (a year after the mandatory provisions went into affect). After it was weakened in 2003 unemployment went up to about 9.3% for 3 years, dropped briefly, and then was essentially repealed completely in 2008, after which unemployment immediately climbed from its 7.6% low back up to 10% within one year.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=unemployment_rate&fdim_y=seasonality:sa&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:fr&ifdim=country_group&tstart=859186800000&tend=1314169200000&hl=en&dl=en&uniSize=0.035&iconSize=0.5&icfg

How much these changes were due to the 35-hour work week and how much to other economic factors is debatable, but the data definitely doesn't support the idea that the 35 hour week hurt employment.



Legitimate point:

"It seems like the current unemployment is the result of an unusually large recession, and the fact that much of our previous boom was built on fake housing prices and borrowing, so the jobs related to that disappeared when the bubble popped. To fix it in a free-market sense, you need existing industries to keep growing ...and new industries to grow. "
and
"I too would like to see a more bell-shaped distribution with a smaller standard deviation. But if the "area under the curve" starts to decrease (GDP decrease), then everyone looses."

My Response:

One of the main reasons I hope to get this idea talked about is to get away from the traditional view of the economy.
Most specifically, I want to challenge the mind-set that "growing the economy" (mainly by increased consumerism) is inherently good and the primary goal of policy, as well as the only way to improve living standards.
The problem with expanding the economy in order to create jobs is that, as a society, we really have everything we need (and then some) already.
The flip side of consumption is production. The whole idea behind encouraging American's to buy more stuff is to "grow the economy". All the stuff that gets produced has to be bought by someone. The environmental impact of 300 million people working 40 hours a week at our current productivity levels is simply unsustainable, because it would necessarily mean an enormous amount of natural resource extraction for the purposes of production, and a corresponding increase in consumption. Therefor I believe it makes more sense to share the work we already have, rather than try to force there to be more work to do - especially since the marginal effect of additional wealth on the happiness of middle class Americans has consistently been shown to be zero
It is basically Jacob's (of Early Retirement Extreme) "Broken Window" theory of jobs. If someone throws a rock through your window, you have to hire a glassmaker to come and put in a new one. Now that glassmaker has a job and money just traded hands. So, technically, GDP has increased, and supposedly this is good for "the economy" and therefor society. However, nothing new of value has been created. In fact, resources were used up and wasted. This means that, while on paper, society is richer for the broken window, in reality we are poorer for it. The paper accounting and the reality are in direct opposition to each other.
The "service economy" is more or less just economic masturbation.
It reminds me of the story by Kurt Vonnegut where in the future automation had made work obsolete, so the government has people building multiple bridges over the same river, just in order to give people something to do since society is convinced it is morally irresponsible to just give everyone welfare checks even if society can afford to.
Growing the economy for its own sake, once a comfortable standard of living has been established, is actually counter-productive.



Legitimate point:

"1) Why not go further? Research shows part-time workers are more productive than full-time workers per hour, AND, they have better involvement in family and community...

2) Part-time workers need protection for basics like healthcare benefits"

My Response:

1) I didn't go further because I know there would be enormous resistance as is, and it would be stronger the more extreme the change; both from employees (who would be losing 12% of their salary upfront) and employers (who have some fixed per/worker costs and therefor prefer the smallest possible workforce)

2) Healthcare should be provided by the government.



Legitimate point:
"How does the tariff relate to WTO and such? Is it even legally possible at this point?"

My response:

I don't know the details, but my idea is that you would bypass trade treaties by only applying tariffs to goods made by US companies. If it is a US based company already, then the "imports" aren't affecting the trade balance. The idea is just to de-incentivise employers building factories in 3rd world countries for cheap labor and then shipping products around the world back to US marketplaces. 

 - Incidentally, I have dropped this part of the proposal from my more recent petition -

Legitimate point:

"The downside of this is fat countries like the US will see a flattening of the wealth curve and regression to the mean which means a lowered standard of living for us while the rest of the world enjoys the benefits of world capitalism. I probably won't live to see the day when human capital will flow across borders as monetary capital has done for centuries. But you might and you won't like it when a desperate kid from the Mekong delta can do your job for $1/hour and be happy to get it. So much for a 35 hour workweek..."

My response:

Even though I personally stand to lose from a lowered standard of living overall in the US, I actually find that to be a perfectly reasonable outcome. We have way more than we need. We have so much that more has no affect on happiness. We are living way over the sustainable rate of natural resources regeneration. And we didn't earn that privileged, we got lucky by being born in the US. On top of all that, nearly all American's could easily maintain their current standard of living with 1/4 to 1/2 their current income, if they just stopped wasting so much of their money. If we didn't have so much excess, we would learn to stop throwing it away.

(I have become a big fan of Mr Money Mustache and Early Retirement Extreme of late)

If I were king of the world, the extreme wealth of the top 0.01% of the US would not be distributed to the American middle class. It would be distributed to the Third World.

However, all that said, this proposal has provisions to decrease outsourcing. There is nothing about it which would make "human capital" any more able to cross our boarders. The situation being described is the situation we have been facing for decades, which this proposal aims to amend.  Outsourcing is one of the reasons for increased profits for wall street at the expense of employment and wages.  Protecting those profits will not do anything to help the situation.



Legitimate point:

"for someone who's used to spending $X and desiring more money rather than more time, they wouldn't be happy to have to "sacrifice" their annual flat screen upgrade for an extra 5 hours per week.

A further problem in the US is that hiring extra workers comes with more fixed costs (benefits). It's in the interest of the way the system has been set up to have as few workers working as much as possible. Not a very smart way to do it, but that's the starting point."

My response:

I know that many many people will object - both the workers who lose hours and therefor pay, and employers who have fixed costs per employee. I don't expect it to happen (at least not anytime soon). But I do think it should be something people are talking about, if only to set the stage for the future, or even if only to challenge peoples assumptions about things they take for granted; like the purpose of the economy, production, employment, unemployment, distribution of wealth, etc.

Then again, the 40 hour week must have seemed just as impossible to the people who fought for it in the early 1900s - at a time when 80hour weeks were considered normal - and it eventually became an almost worldwide standard.



Legitimate point:

"I am more interested in changing the way business reward workers. It'll be nice to be rewarded as a function of economic output instead of the amount of time a person show up at a business.
It drives me nut to sit for 8 hours while doing 2 hours of real work for most of the year."

My response:

I'm with you in principal, but I can't think of any practical way to put that into practice universally. Can you?

Even if it were to be done, my original point - that wages have not kept up with productivity gains - would still be true. You generate more towards GDP in your 2 hours than a 1850 worker did in 12 hours.

Besides, there is good reason to believe that a shorter workweek would actually increase productivity. Note that in Europe, where the average work week is several hours lower than our own, productivity per worker per hour is actually higher.

For a likely explanation of that, see: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/25/the-joy-of-part-time-work/



Legitimate point:

"I am afraid this will be an automatic no-go. Wally*World will never let it fly. Wally hires people "under" a 40 hour week in order to consider them part time. This is why most of the WW people have no benefits."

My response:

Wally already hires people for 34 hours a week, which is still less than 35. They currently offer healthcare plans to anyone over 24 hours per week, so this change would not affect that threshold at all.

---------------------

The following questions were asked to me by someone who not only supports the principal, they are actually actively advocating an even shorter work week (20 hours, which I fully support in principle, but I am not sure it is as politically feasible at this time.)

1.- Why only 50 signatures?  I was thinking maybe 100000 to really be take seriously. 50 is too low.

Because 50 is the threshold I have to generate before moveon makes the petition live on their site for the general public to see and sign.  Then it can build it's own momentum.

2.- I really don't believe in writing politicians because they could care less if we have 100, 1000, or 1000000 signatures. All they see in those papers is something that can be used when they run out of toilette paper. If they see 1 million signatures on one side, from citizens requesting to do one thing or to vote one way, and on the other side they also see 1 million dollars in campaign contributions from corporations to do the opposite, the politicians are more likely to do what corporations ask, no question about it. However, I will still sign your petition because your goal is mostly to create momentum and awareness. I do have a similar petition, but for Sharan Burrows, head of the largest union in the world, ITUC, to call for a global strike to implement the 4 hour work-day. You can check it out by clicking on this link http://www.change.org/petitions/sharan-burrow-general-secretary-of-the-ituc-please-call-for-a-global-strike-to-implement-the-4-hour-work-day-worldwide

 You answered your own question.  My "goal is mostly to create momentum and awareness."

3.- 35 hours is not enough. If we do the math, 4 hours a day is not enough either. It should be 3, like Keynes predicted it (and I am not a Keynesian, but he was right about this). 35 is too short of a reduction. It could be easily reversed, like the French did. It would not be the same to tell people to work one more hour (from 7 to 8 hours) than to tell them to go from 4 back to 8 hours. It is harder to reverse a 4 hour work-day. The jump is higher and people will fight it. Also, a 4 hour workday request leaves room for negotiation, because corporations will fight against it for sure. We might not achieve the 4 hour work day but maybe the 5 or 6 hour work day. It's like selling a car. If you want to get $10000 for the car, list it for $12000 so you can have some room for negotiation and still get what you wanted. With 35 hours, you have nowhere else to go but back to the status quo of "40 hours" (And I put it on quotation marks because we work more than 40 hours a week) These are not the strongest reasons why we propose 4 hours (the strongest reasons are the economic reasons explained in my website) but I mention it just so you can have a different perspective.

I agree 100%.  But, again, my goal is creating awareness.  What 1 million signatures would do is potentially grab media attention.  From conversations with people, I suspect 35 will be more palatable for larger numbers of people.  The math works out that we should have 4 hour work WEEKS, given the rise in productivity since the 40 hour week began.  But almost no one considers math or history when they form opinions.  My primary intention is to just crack people's assumption that "40" is somehow a magical default number, the given standard.  I want people to realize that WE (society) choose the number, it is not arbitrary, or handed down from the Gods, and that it can - and should - change proportionately with productivity.  I want people to realize that the gains of productivity have gone disproportionately to the top 0.1%, and this is the primary reason for growing wealth inequality.

4.- There is nothing impossible in this world. Women did not think that fighting for her right to vote at the beginning of the 1900's was impossible. Martin Luther King did not think that his dream was impossible either. Relying on politicians to implement a 4 hour work day worldwide (yes, not just the US but worldwide. More on that later) is however highly unlikely. That's why we need to do it via a strike, a global strike, the same way we reduced the work day from 16 to 12 and then from 12 to 8.......with strikes. When you shut down the flow of money to the corporation's pockets, they will begin to listen.

That's not really a question! :P

As before, I agree with you 100%.  The trick is getting a large enough portion of the general public involved.  OWS is what started to make me think there was a chance in today's environment of making real progress on economic issues.

5.- why a reduction in income? That will not only gain opposition from the politicians and corporations but also opposition from the citizens, public in general. They would not support an idea that reduces their income, specially during a recession. With work-time reductions, income can remain the same. Business will have higher labor costs, yes, but also will have higher revenues due to the increase in aggregate demand, caused by full employment and a switch of bargaining power from the employer to the employee. That will allow them to cover the higher labor costs and still report profits. I explain that in more detail in my website.

Mainly because it would be very complicated to try to have everyone keep a fixed income with a change in hours when some are paid hourly, others on commission, still others on salary, and current work hours vary wildly.  Could government effectively enforce a mandatory across the board 15% raise?  I doubt it.  Plus, there would already be many loud cries, on all sides of the political spectrum, that small and medium business could not afford to hire more workers to replace the lost hours. 

Also, I believe the American middle class makes more money than anyone really needs.  We, as a society, need to eventually start valuing life as much as we value consumption.  We are extremely wasteful, and there are ecological consequences to that.  Anyone who (for example) buys a new car is not hurting for money - though they may be making poor choices as a result of being used to excess wealth.

6.- I have issues with tariffs because it creates a distortion on the market. I am not a big fan of the market system either but that is what we have unfortunately. If I was the CEO of a US company and I am faced with tariffs on US products made overseas, I will bring the production plant back to the US but I will make it fully automated, which will be even cheaper that producing the goods in China. That will not generate the many jobs we want, unless of course we reduce the workday dramatically, like 3 or 4 hours a day. Another reason why I think 35 is not enough.

I think free trade causes distortions in the market.  It is facilitated by a finite supply of artificiality cheap petroleum. It is used to circumvent labor, tax, and environmental laws.  Any place we import from should be held to US labor and environmental laws, and if not, I see no distortion in evening things out with tariffs.

That said, I have dropped that portion of the idea from the current petition, to keep it simple and to the point.

7.- why just the US? If we reduce the work-day only here and the Canadians don't, then the Canadians will have more competitive advantage than the US. The reduction needs to be everywhere. You might be thinking that France implemented the 35 hour work-week alone and therefore it would be ok for the US to do it alone (and you might be right) but that brings me back to the point that 35 is not enough of a reduction.

Because no one people can force change on everyone else.  I happen to be a US citizen, so this is where my focus is.  At the same time, the US is the economic and cultural center of the world (for now), and places that are more politically liberal that might be more inclined to do something like this on their own are more likely to follow America's lead than the other way around.  The US was the first country to adopt the 40 hour week (prior to which there was no maximum at all), and the majority of the developed world has followed suite since then.

8.- You seem to understand very well the concept of work-time reductions (you even seem to know more things that I do). You also seem very passionate about it too. Is there any reason? I am just curious. I hope we can work together on this endeavor.

I'm just an average ordinary guy.  I have an associates degree in economics.  I try to pay attention to how the world works.  In this case, I saw a problem which (unlike most) actually has a clear solution, but very little of the general public, politicians, activists, or anyone else (present company excluded, of course), seems to have any awareness of it.  If I could change that - from home, just using the internet(!) - I have to at least try.

==========================================================================

If you have actually read through all this, and haven't gotten bored of the topic yet, here are a few more articles I have written questioning the conventional wisdom - shared by both sides of the political spectrum, but completely wrong - regarding the economy:

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/06/poor-person-never-gave-me-job.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/04/spoiled-economic-downturn-luxury-as.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/01/SupplySideEconomics.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/06/free-market-vs-democracy-1-0.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/02/numero-ocho-in-which-i-point-out-that.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/04/22-wealth-should-be-taxed.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/03/heading-14-in-which-reparations-are.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/12/anarchy-vs-capitalism-anarchycapitalism.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/07/in-which-progressive-writes-article.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/06/flat-tax.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/03/article-11-in-which-inheritance-should.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitalists-libertarians-and-anarchists.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/06/response-to-turning-hustlers-into.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/12/comments-from-mmm-economics-philosophy.html

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/07/if-i-were-elected-king-of-country.html

Last Day of Youth

• Dec 11, 2009

Last Day of Youth

In less than a month, I will no longer be one of those people who are "in their 20s".
I'm driving slower, I own my home, I'm self-employed, and I have a credit rating above 800.
Defying all that makes sense in the world, I've been gradually becoming a responsible adult.
As of midnight Jan 9th of next year, it will become official.

Living to 90 is a fair goal.
If you chop life into 3 big blocks, 90 / 3, then 0-30 would be youth.  60-90 would be old age.  Which leaves 30-60 to be middle aged.
Wow.
Man.
Crazy.
I am a month away from middle aged.
I'm a divorcee who lives with 2 cats and is currently researching the tax affects of different types of individual retirement accounts.
I don't entirely understand how this happened.




I'm not one to throw parties.
In fact, the last time I hosted a party entirely on my own was - never.

On Saturday, January 9th, 2009, I will have my "Last Day of Youth" party.

Full Contact Spoons and Amtgard in the park (probably Ohlone in Berkeley)

Video games: Perfect Dark and Super Smash Brothers and Mario Kart.
Like we used to play in high-school.  I've been playing against my 8 year old neighbor, so I don't suck as much as I did back then.

Hours of non-stop dancing starting at sun down (probably at my house - unless someone with more space than me and a kick-ass sound system wants to volunteer to host)
I went through thousands of tracks, one by one, and selected across multiple genres for maximum danceability, ordered them by beats per minutes, and have them beat-matched and cross faded by robot DJ (aka my laptop - nothing like the real thing, but about $600 cheaper). 7 hours worth of rock-a-billy followed by funk followed by hip-hop followed by "gypsy punk" followed by pop.

There are to be no presents or gifts of any kind.  Seriously.  I have enough stuff and enough money.  And not enough space.  This includes home-made stuff and things that would actually be useful to me.  Nothing.
(Edibles and sorbiles -cake, alcohol, whatever- would be appreciated, but that would be to share with everyone.)
Your presence is my present.
Playing spoons and dancing non-stop until my neighbors complain or we pass out from exhaustion is my present.  Might be a good idea to start an exercise program now to prepare...

Because I would like even my feeble friends to attend, I am suspending my usual rule that anyone who shows up to spoons has to play.

I can not think of a good way to end this

Raise

• Sep 12, 2009

Raise

I am considering asking for a raise.
A 33% one at that.
I am fairly confident I will get it, seeing that I am the CEO and majority shareholder as well as the sole employee.

It is not because I need the money.
Just the opposite.

I have too much money, not enough free time (well, maybe not "too much", but more than I need)

I am hoping that a moderate price increase will discourage people from calling me.
The decrease in work would be made up for by making slightly more when I do.

I justify raising my prices to myself in two ways:



1) I now have 3 years of experience.  I have all sort of fancy equipment.  I have moved hide-a-bed sofas, large potted trees, and several 600lb safes.  My repair skills are getting increasingly refined (as I get to practice on my clients houses).  I am gradually moving along the skill level scale from day laborer toward contractor.  That experience makes me more useful.

2) I am still well below the standard moving company rate.  Not long ago I got a call from someone who wanted to hire me to unload a U-Haul from a local move.  I pointed out that the cost of the U-Haul rental alone would be as much as my charge, and wouldn't include a laborer (me).  I priced the job at about $130.  She was immensely relived, and told me she had gotten several quotes, all above $500!
At the new rate, it would have been $160; still far below what she was told elsewhere, and in fact still competitive with renting a truck and trying to do it all alone, (including a dolly, blankets, and insurance makes a one way U-haul rental $155)

Wow.  I was on the fence when I started writing this, but after doing the math just now, and looking up U-haul's rates, now I am quite sure!

So, anyway... I'll leave my minimum where it is, at $50.  Going up to a more divisible number means I will be able to charge to the nearest 15 minutes instead of the nearest half hour.  And I'll be able to afford to make my no car discount $10 off per hour instead of just $5.
Also, I am instituting a sliding scale.  If someone genuinely can't afford even the discounted rate, I will add in an additional $5 per hour poverty discount.
I'll count that at $10,000 (approximately the federal poverty line for an individual) even though things are expensive in the Bay Area, because I don't really buy that things Americans have gotten used to calling "necessities" really are.  Granted, I don't have kids, but I did live nearly half my adult life on less than $10,000 a year - and pretty comfortably at that.  Of course, I will trust my clients on their word regarding income.
I'll also add something explicit on my pricing page about tipping for people above the median income for our area (about $50,000 for a family, $35,000 individual).
I had been excited for a while about having a sliding scale, but couldn't figure any reasonably simple way to institute it.  I think having a base rate, but with exceptions, will be the best way to accomplish it.

I'm thinking beginning of next month.
So if you need something moved, recycled, or repaired, you may want to schedule it quick.

Spoons and Amtgard; together at last

• Jul 9, 2009

Spoons and Amtgard; together at last

Its been a long time. 

There was winter.

Then training for the Bay to Breakers.

There is Farmer's Markets, my truck and garden projects, and Downieville.

But, to be honest, it has been mainly laziness.

No more!

This time, for the first time ever, I am combining my two favorite sports, Full Contact Spoons and Amtgard.

http://www.wikihow.com/Play-..Full-Contact-Spoons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..Amtgard#Ruleset

(No, not at the same time. We will not be using weapons during the actual spoons game.  No, its not actually a good idea.  It would be terrible.  Don't suggest it.)

At the same Bat time, same Bat channel:

Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 2:30-4:30pm

Ohlone Park in Berkeley, (across the street from N. Berkeley BART)

Please note:

Spoons is not a spectator sport!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone in attendance will be expected to play.  Don't wear anything which would be tragic to have grass stained. 

I now have two shields to add to my amtgard arsenal.  If you happen to have any foam swords, bring them.

If you are seeing this message for the first time, and are interested in playing, be sure to email me so I put you on the Spoons list for future games.

Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits reunion show!!!!

• May 20, 2009

Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits reunion show!!!!

Long long ago my first full-time job was as a bike messenger.
Occassionally, when things were kind of slow, I would sing to my co-workers over the 2-way radio system.
I would sing Bobby Joe Ebola songs.
One of the couriers, 1 5 Slug, he asked me who wrote those crazy songs, and I let him borrow Bobby Joe's first album.

Fast forward almost an entire decade.

I have moved out of mom's house, had about 30 jobs, traveled the country, gotten married, gotten divorced, started my own business.
Someone writes from Craigslist about a couch I am selling from a hauling run.
When I get there to drop it off, it's 1 5 Slug.

His roommate is Corbet, (former) lead singer of Bobby Joe.
For some reason 1 5 Slug does not find any of this to be the slightest bit noteworthy.

When:
Saturday, June 20, 2009
09:00 PM to 02:00 AM

Where:
The Uptown Nightclub
1928 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA, 94612

Only the greatest band ever to grace the SPAM label.
The greatest band which also doubled as an Amtgard administrator.
The headliner of nearly every GeekFest.
My own old band's - Pork and the Spork - most important supporter.
The only acoustic guitar band that could play the Gilman and not get beer bottles chucked at their heads.
Of all the offensive humor bands there are in the world, none can touch the MacNuggits.
They have been broken up for many, many, many years.
And yet here they are, playing a show as if nothing happened.
Right here in Oakland.

If you do not attend this show, bad things may happen.

On Becoming a Twit

• Apr 23, 2009

On Becoming a Twit

I notice a good number of people have set to follow me.
I have absolutely no intention of becoming a Twit.

I signed up to Twitter so I could follow other people.

Ok. I'll be honest. So I could learn more about one specific person. And I figured while I was here why not follow all of my friends?

The best way to learn of the various things going on in my life and mind would be my blog. I only update it once or twice a month, but when I do they are (usually) much more in depth, (or, to look at it another way - you have to read more than 140 characters, but I only write once or twice a month).
You can sign up for it using the little box in the corner, and it will email you when there is something new.
For short blips there is my Gmail-integrated-chat-status-message. Surely you are using gmail by now? Add me to your chat list and there you will get my random character limited thoughts and quotes and updates and such.

Door!

• Mar 6, 2009

Door!

I was doored on my skates today for the first time ever.

I've been skating in traffic regularly nearly as long as I've bicycled in traffic (15 and 17 years, respectively) and this was my first accident involving an automobile.

I had thought I was going slow enough that an impact would be negligible...
I had thought I left enough of a gap from the parked cars to avoid suddenly opened doors in my path...

It happened so fast that I didn't realize what was happening until I was already in the air

I don't care much for the pain or blood or risk, but I have to admit there is something very intriguing, almost fun, about a first hand demonstration that this body one identifies as "self" is as subject to the basic laws of physics as any inanimate object.
One moment you are a person, with feelings and experiences and goals and relationships
In the next you are velocity and mass and angular momentum.


The way the door caught me, just on the edge, I went off at an angle, feet first somehow, I twisted and spun and ended up right in the middle of the street on my front with my head pointing the direction I had come from.
Got up quick in case there was any traffic coming, assured the apologetic driver that I was fine, and finished my commute to work (where I discovered that our first aid kit is badly in need of restocking - I have a napkin and tape on my arm at the moment)



And on that note:

The East Bay Bicycle Coalition's Spring series of free urban bicycle safety classes are set and online sign-up is open. Just go to: www.ebbc.org/safety to sign up (or call 510.533.RIDE) and please be sure to tell all your friends about these great classes. Classes are scheduled throughout the East Bay.

The bicycle safety classes include a Day 1 Street Skills class, 3.5 hours classroom course that teaches the basics of safe cycling, riding in traffic, equipment, crash avoidance, rights and responsibilities. Adults 14 and over. No bike needed.

The Day 2 class is a 6.5-hour on-road course that provides an opportunity to put into practice what was learned in the Day 1 Street Skills class (a prerequisite), including emergency maneuvers and riding in various traffic conditions, to test your knowledge of vehicular cycling skills. Bicycle required for Day Two.

Class are taught under the direction of EBBC's lead certified bicycle safety instructor Jason Agar and his team of certified assistant instructors. And this June we are also offering our first bicycle safety class taught in Spanish.

One more year

• Jan 10, 2009

One more year

I looked it up, and supposedly "middle age" is supposed to consist of the 3rd quarter of life.
Now that doesn't make a lick of sense!
The term "middle" doesn't mean "third out of four".
The term middle means second out of three (or, I suppose, 3rd out of 5)
As in, one on each side.

So, even if the official designation disagrees with me, I still maintain that if there is a middle age, it should be in the middle; equal parts between youth and elder.
Assuming that people tend to live to around 90, then it divides neatly up into 3 parts. Most people can agree that 0-30 qualifies as young, and that 60-90 constitutes old, yet no one I've talked to about it (and most especially those approaching or just over the threshold) want to admit that 30-60 is in the middle of those, and is therefor "middle aged".

While our society today is an exception, in most places in the world and in most places in history a person would be married, have a kid or two, and most likely a stable job or even a career and a house by 30, so that measure lines up neatly with the math.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't expect to adjust my definitions as I get older. I consider it a matter of integrity.
Besides, I am already heading that way by a number of personal measures as well: I own the place I live in (granted, its only a trailer, but I did have to pay off a bank loan before I got the title), I run my own business, I've not only been married but I am already divorced, and while I used to imagine myself as a human bullet as I raced down I-880 at 105 miles per hour in the middle of the night, these days I drive the same motorcycle at 50 in order to get better gas mileage.

If the middle third is what constitutes middle aged, then I've got one year left of being "young".



I don't generally do anything for my birthday, and I'm not much of a party person, but in this case I think the milestone calls for something special.
I don't really plan things in advance with any consistency; this may change by the time 364 days go by, but here is my plan for a year from yesterday (my last day of youth):

On Saturday, January 9th, 2010, there will be several separate consecutive events.
There will be go-karts and mini golf, either at Scandia or Malibu Grand Prix - (its so hard to decide! Malibu has better, more powerful cars, and a challenging curvy track you can drift on, but Scandia lets you race each other instead of just the clock).
There will be tag (and possibly freeze tag, or even monster tag) at a large playground.
There will be Full Contact Spoons and Amtgard (foam sword fighting) in the park.
And there will be dancing inside of my RV trailer.
I suppose there will also have to be meals in there somewhere.

I also expect a decent amount of drinking and yelling and general gallivanting about and carrying on.

Obviously, anyone who knows me know this will hardly spell the end of my endless string of life adventures, youthful indiscretions, and general craziness. Never-the-less, supposedly commemorating the end of it seems as good an excuse as any to coax my friends, many of whom behave as though they think they are supposed to be "mature" already, into playing and having fun and looking stupid in front of other adults.

I don't need much materially, and I am not quite intoxicated by our consumer culture. Plus, I live in a very small space, and am all out of room for more stuff. The best gift you, dear reader, can get me would be to come to at least one of my day-before-my-birthday parties (I expect my best friends to come to all of them!) Mark your calendars.

The last time I played at the giant playground in Scandia with a bunch of friends was my 18th birthday.
Perhaps I shall do this again at 59 and 364 days.
Yes.
Yes, I do believe I shall.

The term "I told you so" comes to mind

• Dec 22, 2008

The term "I told you so" comes to mind

I would like to point out that in January of this year, I wrote about houses not being a sound financial investment.

Popularly "sub-prime" is thought of as referring to lending to people with poor credit history.  In fact, 61% of sub-prime borrowers had a credit rating high enough for a traditional loan.  The middle class tend to be at least as guilty of living beyond their means as the working class.  21% of those making over 100k a year say they live paycheck to paycheck.
At the time I wrote the blog an unprecedented number of people were deliberately buying houses grossly out of their means using interest only loans (which would never be paid off, by design) on the assumption (by both the consumer and the bank) that the housing market would continue to climb at the rate it was forever. 
That climb, however, was driven mainly by that very speculation, valuable only due to popularity.
This summer, 6 months later, so many people were defaulting on their loans that it affected the entire credit industry, and by extension, the entire economy.

I have an associates degree in economics.  How is it that I was able to see this, yet no one in the dozens of banks and credit institutions, nor the rest of the financial sector was?  Or perhaps were they just confident that friends in the white house would help out with tax payer money?

Stay tuned for the coming of my more direct predictions.

A practical and useful blog!

• Dec 6, 2008

A practical and useful blog!

No ranting here.

It has come to my attention that a lot of people don't really know about these options.

Chances are, if you are reading this, you have a computer, and if you have a computer, you will probably find one or more of these things useful.
They are free.
And they are even legal.

The first are related to security. Internet relate hacking can be a big problem when someone cracks into your computer remotely and ID thefts you. A bad virus can permanently crash computer. A dialer can rack up 100s in unauthorized phone charges by using your fax line to dial 900 numbers. Mostly its just annoying software that hopes to entice you to buy some stupid crap.
While Norton and McAfee would like you to spend $60 plus a ongoing subscription charge, you can get equally good protection from viruses, spyware, and hackers, all for free.

For viruses, try AVG Free.
 http://free.avg.com/
 For spyware (and a lot more under "advanced, if you so choose) install "SpyBot Search and Destroy"
http://www.spybot.com/index2.html
For a software firewall, there is ZoneAlarm (A firewall keeps people from accessing your computer remotely.)
http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm(note: they want you to buy the pay version. Read carefully and keep clicking the free options. It is fully functional, and does everything you need)



There are plenty of other free security software out there, but not all are equal. In fact, there are some "spyware removal" programs which are actually spyware themselves, and "antivirus" programs which install their own viruses.
These 3 programs have been around for many many years, and are well known. They have been shown in tests to be as effective as the big brand name versions. I personally have been using them successfully for years.

Then there is plain old Mozilla Firefox. It seems most people already know about it. According to my data compiler, almost as many people access my website using it as use Internet Explorer. If you aren't among them: Firefox takes the place of Internet Explorer. It has fewer security flaws. It is easier to use, but at the same time has more options and is more configurable. The latest version of IE was basically them trying to catch up with the format Firefox has had all along (most obviously the "tabs" option, which allows you to have two subwindows open within the same main window.) There is the added bonus of not using Microsoft software.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Chances are that you are using Firefox to read this right now.
But within it, there is something called "add-ons" which a lot of people never notice. Its in the menu bar under "tools".
Some examples:
AdBlock Plus. It will block all of the annoying flashing and animated advertising boxes and bars on 1/2 of the websites you use.
IETab. There are some webpages that don't function right in Firefox (because they have a deal with microsoft - they are rare, but there are some). Allows you to open a page in a virtual Internet Explorer window, within Mozilla.
Download StatusBar. Puts the separate download window in a more convenient spot at the bottom of the browser window (the same place where the search bar pops up when you hit cntrl F)
GMail notifier tells you with a tiny icon in the corner when you have a new message, to eliminate the need to check 60 thousand times a day when you are expecting something. There are similar add-ons for yahoo or Hotmail. They can handle multiple accounts, and can be configured to tell you who a new message is from and the subject, and/or to make a tone so you know even if you aren't at the computer.
There are many more options, which may be useful depending on what sort of things you do on the internet. There are over 2000.
They are free, and couldn't be easier to install.
Go to "add-ons" (under tools)
Pick what you want, download, restart firefox, done!
or
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

Finally:
Have you ever hit "copy" or cntrl C, and then a little later tried to paste what you copied into another place, only to discover that you accidentally copied something else more recently? Clipboard recorder remembers the last 100 things that you copied, so you can recall any of them, regardless of what you copied last. This may sound unnecessary right now, but believe me, after the first time you use it, you will wonder why it isn't built in to the operating system.
If I had to estimate, I would have to say I use it about 1 million times a day. 

http://www.lw-works.com/clipboard-recorder

All of these programs are genuinely free. There are no ads, no reminders begging you for money, and they are not illegal copies.
They are just free.
Some have pay versions, with more features.
Some simply were never made for the sake of profit.
If you like the software, I encourage you to donate to the people who created it.
Its a whole different outlook, creating things to share with the world, w/o attempting to extract as much as possible from it. But I said I wouldn't rant.

Enjoy