Tax talk is taxing

It seems recently the change in presidency has caused an overabundance of unsolicited opinion offerings from all corners.  Round these parts, the predominant opinion is that the people (i.e. mostly upper middle class) are mad because they believe they are going to have to pay more taxes.  This prospect has them lamenting the seating of Obama as president as well as the collection of ‘tax and spend’ democrats in the legislature.

 

I tend to avoid engaging the opinion givers as to why people shouldn’t pay more taxes.  In general if your country has to take loans in record amounts to keep the doors open while the economy is growing, I’d say not enough taxes are being paid.  So then the real discussion should become one of either what aspects of government do you want to decrease/eliminate or who should pay the extra taxes to balance the budget.

 

 Historically, I have engaged some of those who say, “I pay way too much tax.”  The responses have included: if you give people more money (have them pay less taxes) they will invest it and put others to work, the taxes paid and benefits received are so disproportionate it’s not fair to me, taxing higher earners is a disincentive for people to take risks and succeed, and taxing more allows the government to grow and we need a smaller government that doesn’t try to solve everyone’s problems and shortcomings.

 

While there is most definitely some merit in these points of view, I think many of them fly in the face of economic and psychological fundamentals.  I can respect a person who has thought through their stance and investigated the validity of their opinion and could site some objective source who adds to the plausibility of their point of view.  However what I think has happened in many cases is the people lamenting their possible tax burden are almost completely motivated by self-interest.  Everyone is entitled to want to keep more of the money they make but at least be forthright in your motives.  The conservative entertainment business (Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Rielly, etc) is very effective at producing half-baked theories and semi-lies as to why paying fewer taxes is better for everything and there are far too many that use their fodder to mask their own greed.

 

If someone thinks paying more taxes (in normal economic times) will adversely impact the long-term well-being of our country, then I think the person needs to suggest ways of decreasing government expenses.  So I get that people don’t want to pay more taxes, but what is it our government is doing we need to stop?

 

Typically, the people who believe they pay too many taxes will site the amount of money spent on welfare and/or in general on people who are too lazy to work.  I get the impression it really, really bothers some people that they work hard and pay a lot of taxes and some of those taxes are going to people who could work but would rather live a subsistence existence off of government income.

 

I really have no idea of how much total money is being spent on welfare nor do I know how realistic it is that people can survive off of government handouts.  If I decided to stop working what sort of life could I have living off the government?  I have no idea.   As a percentage of the total population, I guess I can’t imagine there are too many people that are conscientiously choosing to live a meager existence off of government handouts.  While there are no doubt millions out there and making these people work would decrease government spending, I can’t imagine you are going to solve trillion dollar deficits by making some people who are ill-equipped and unmotivated either to work or starve.

 

So let’s assume you could solve 10% of the deficit problem by making people work who can work, what do we cut to get the other 90% we need?  I am not sure many in the ‘I’m paying too much in taxes crowd’ get past this point.  Many, I would guess, probably support the Iraq effort and probably wouldn’t start by going after corporate breaks because if the corporations get breaks, they will hire more people.  So here’s a little FYI – if you want to tell me you aren’t paying enough taxes, let me know what you want to specifically cut, how much the cut will save, and what long-term impact the cut will have.  The other option is you can identify who other than you should pay more taxes and what impact that will have.

 

Let’s be clear, I don’t want to give the government any more of my money than I have to. I think they waste for too much of it.  However, I am not afraid to pay more taxes if it will mean the country is a better place for my children.  Leaving them with a huge debt, a huge liability with medical care for the larger older population and an environment destroyed by deregulation (done to increase commerce so as to hire more people and expand the tax base) isn’t just.  I sacrifice all the time for my children and think many would and so maybe we need to think longer term and take some lumps now.

 

I do think there are ways the government should/could decrease spending to improve the long-term prospects for the country.  The Iraq war was not a good idea. I am against throwing money at the Halliburtons and their ilk.  I think corporate friendly policies can tend to consolidate wealth which is bad in the long-term.  I think our legislative process is far too strongly influenced by the self-interest of those who pay campaign contributions and lobbyists and too little by what’s in the best interest of our country in the long run.  I think if you iron out of few of these things and we collectively pay more taxes and sacrifice our current standard of living it should benefit the country our children inherit.

Dollar God

It’s all the more apparent to me that our true religion is money.  What we are selling here at the church isn’t being bought as much because more and more people worship money.

I guess I thought maybe there would be a realization after the investment crash that worshipping money isn’t ‘all that.’  I guess I would think that when people started to see there investment house of cards start to fall that maybe it would get them to consider investing on a more lasting and even eternal basis.  I think we are going the opposite direction quickly.  We are all spending more time worshipping money to rebuild the house.

In the midst of all this, I start thinking about the priests and prophets of our money religion and can’t help but conclude they are decidedly ineffective.
 
If these money priests and prophets are honest, they would say they really have no idea where the markets are going.  I’m not talking about saying whether a stock or the market will be up or down tomorrow or next month, they should just use all those fancy computers with six or seven flat screen monitors to figure out whether the market is over valued or under valued on six or twelve month basis. 

They take people’s money and tell them they have the knowledge and information to outperform the market (they don’t tell people to buy a risk appropriate collection of index funds do they?).  The real irritating thing about these priests and profits of the real religion in America is that there’s at least five different layers and none of them is adding any value as far as I can tell. 

You got your local investment advisor guy who gets his investment recommendations from some local/regional/section manager who gets his advise from some national guy who recommends products who are management by investment strategists overseen by corporate investment managers and they are all getting a little slice of the pie under the premise they are going to do better than the index funds. 

Is your collection of known and unknown advisors treating you well?  With all those layers of people making their livelihoods off the premise that they know where, when and how to invest you sure would have to believe that someone along the line would maybe have a sense for when the market might be overvalued.  What value do they add if they can’t predict on 12 month basis the probability that the market is under or over valued?  Anyone get the advice to move money to cash?  “Buy and hold quality investments, invest in the long-term, you’ll lose if you try to time the market, blah, blah, blah.”

The good news for all you, my many readers, is that you will probably get to enjoy this blog until 2038 when I can finally afford to retire although given the growth of money worship, I bet if I set up shop as money priest, maybe it would be sooner.

 

Diagnosis: broken tailbone (pending)

 

I have found myself increasingly looking toward special events in my life and am concerned about it.  In addition to looking forward to things I perceive as pleasant, I also seem to view other things as things to get through with.  I map out my week between things I will likely enjoy and things that I’ve deemed to be some flavor of burden and along I plod through my existence.

 

Is this the way everyone goes (gets?) through the week?  Do you map out your week by assessing the events as easy/pleasant hard/less pleasant?  Surely there must be more to our existence than this?

 

I think it’s unrealistic to expect that we can make a pleasant experience of everything but I guess deep down there’s got to be more potential to enjoy things more than I seem to be able to do.  On the other hand, I have encountered people who have twisted the sense for what is enjoyable and not enjoyable to the extent to where they seek to create some sore of unpleasant situation.  They like to argue or be confrontational or make a scene because they derive some sort of pleasure from it.  And I don’t want to go there.

 

I really have so much I should be grateful for including the fact that things I perceive as unpleasant would be openly welcomed by many because their unpleasant realities are so much worse than mine.  I heard a guy on the radio talking about GM bailout and he said something like, “We economists tend to think the autoworkers are inefficient at our two hour lunches.” I am not wishing ill on anyone (including/especially myself) but that’s the sort of thing that would certainly change my perspective in a hurry.  

 

If I think attending ____________is a drag, wait until I slip on the ice and break my tailbone.  After the tailbone breakage attending ____________will seem like a damned picnic what with the constant pain in my butt.  

 

Okay – I don’t want to break my tailbone or have any other bad experience to put things into a healthier perspective (although I secretly feel as though I’ve imposed a curse on myself by blogging this blog – it’s a lot like dropping comprehensive coverage on your car; it’s a sure way to get into a accident that’s totally your fault).  So maybe I need to pretend I broke my tailbone or create some other misfortune so I can begin to see all things as good things – they are opportunities to be a better person.

 

Let’s see – what sort of misfortune can I pretend has befallen me?  It’s an exercise that reminds me of how many coaches try to convince their teams that no one gives them a chance.  “No one thought we would win one game, let alone make it to the state championship game…” Coach X from the six time state champions Y.  

 

Okay think, Dan…I got it.  I went out and got a Christmas tree today and the needles scrapped the crap out of my wrists and legs – the needles were unfortunately poisonous and the poison is very slowly making me look older, slower and stupider each and every day; it’s probably fatal at some future point.  

 

What a huge misfortune this is, I had better approach every event from now on with a positive outlook and stop being a whining little baby that’s needs its diaper changed.

Conflict of Interest

I feel more conflicted this year about Christmas than ever before.  It used to be a high point in the year for me and I’d spend a lot of time and energy preparing for it.  Back in the day, I would dwell on some unique lighting scenario for my house.  I’d spend a day or two outside making whatever scheme I dreamt a reality.  I also used to make Christmas gifts.  Typically I would piece together some fantastic but practical wood sculpture.  Not this year though – I’ve been lying low, real low.

 

In part I attribute my celebration to time.  Time is moving faster now (yah, I know it’s impossible, but it is).  It used to take forever it seemed to get from Thanksgiving to Christmas but now it seems like a couple of weeks at most.  I think my kids activity and homework assistance has definitely cut into some of the time and energy I used to apply to Christmas preparation endeavors.  This makes time go faster.

 

I also think there is a societal/theological conflict within me.  On the one side you got society saying Christmas is a time of plenty – load up on gifts – buy other crap – put up decorations and copious amounts of cheap Chinese Christmas lights inside and outside of your home.  On the other side I guess I’d have to think on balance Christ would completely disagree with many things we do at Christmas.  Spending money we may have or not have on things we may on things we or others may or may not need all the while slowly heating up the earth by stringing up Christmas lights made by impoverished laborers somewhere.  

 

Well I’ll admit that last scenario does not exactly put me (or anyone else who happens to read it) into good cheer.  I am still looking forward to getting together with family and friends and being in good cheer.  I guess that should count for something.  But I think my Santa and the Reindeer figures will stay in hibernation this year.  Maybe I’ll see if I can put up a simple star at a high point in my tree and that will represent a compromise between with the conflict.  Not too much electricity and an appropriate symbol for why we should be celebrating.

 

Simian Primates

I am glad the election is over.  On the positive side, there is going to be someone different leading the country.  I think most of us from both political parties think this is a good thing.  I just hope the our current president can get that free trade agreement with Columbia ironed out before he leaves office so he can leave the White House with his head held high knowing he accomplished something realing important for our country during his second term.

The problem with elections is that it is really a litmus test of our own selfishness and stupidity.  The interactions between candidates are too often destructive and they frequently contain half truths.  Politicians can then come across as whores for power.  They will do whatever works to get elected.  The conclusion I have reached is that we are influenced by this demeaning and worthless behavrior or they wouldn’t do it.  Can we decide we are going to reward someone for talking about specific changes they will make that will improve our city/state/country instead of voting against someone because the other candidate or some supported said they were actually an alien or worse?

Their dialogue and ideas also tend to present largely unrealistic possibilities and too often they go unchallenged.  Tax breaks? How can we give tax breaks when we have record debts and deficits?  Where is the realism?  Shouldn’t the discussion really be on how much ALL our taxes should go up to pay for bailouts and wars so that we give our children a country not completely shackled to debt service. No one wants to hear that message and so no mainstream politician will ever say it.  We can do all things and there will be no pain.  Voters apparently don’t want realism.

The final problem is the number of voters who are completely guided by their self interest.  The may present a case for voting for a candidate based on one reason or another but the reality is they want someone who will make things better for them rather than whats best for our country in the long-run.  

What they say, “I really like candidate X, he’s got some great ideas that will move us forward.  I read that Candidate Y is an alien and will allow the colinazation of the world as soon as they take office.” The reality of their suppor though goes like, “Candidate Y is going to make things better for someone else, and candidate X will make things better for me – I don’t care what happens to our country so much as I want things that are best for me.”

It’s over – I am letter go – next time I am going to remind myself that election seasons are the best times to go on extended sabiticals to a third world country.

 

In this business…

I heard someone recently use the phrase, “in this business,” and it got me thinking.  The phrase is part of a family of clichés wherein the author tries to explain why something he or she is an expert on is different than other realms of business or life.

The most frequent occurrence seems to be with people in the movies and TV.  “In this business, you either give the people something they like and will pay for or you end up in the gutter.”  Dang – thanks for pointing that out.  I guess I never knew that’s the way Hollywood works and it’s way different than the rest of the commercial world. 

One the most annoying examples I recall was when Joe Sensor was doing color commentary for the Vikings.  Listening to the Vikings on radio is tough to begin with but when he would preface nearly every comment he uttered with, “In this league…” and follow it with something like, “you either execute or you don’t get things done.” Wow – brilliant – never would have guessed that in the NFL you have to execute.

I suppose there is an appropriate use of phrases of this sort but it’s difficult to use it without sounding condescending.   I was trying to imagine an appropriate use of the phrase that would be appropriate, relatively insightful, and in my business.

Some potential phrases might include:

In this business, you really need to focus on mission, vision, and identity – Not sure this is distinctly different than selling pancakes or Cheerios but it might be).

In the church racket, you either got to build relationships or forget about it.  -Again probably applies to many other service organizations but does distinguish us to some extent.

If you want to survive doing God’s business, you really need to focus on improving the morality of everyone’s behavior or you’re wasting their time and money. -Too harsh?  -Accurate?

I tell you what, in my numerous years in the faith building game, one thing you must really focus is on adding value with contributed resources, or those contributions will disappear.  -Probably too much left unsaid but accurate nevertheless.

Listen, my friend, if you only focus on one thing in this gig, don’t be a hypocrite. – Definitely not distinguishing but probably valuable.

Anyway, how about it – can you come up with a statement from your perspective that would differentiate the church ‘business’ from others?

The Early Bird

Three Little Birds

It’s springtime in Minnesota the days are growing longer and longer and you can open up those windows and let that cool evening air refresh your house.  The sun rises earlier and earlier every morning and the birds are singing.  In fact the birds are singing their asses off when you get right down to it.

I don’t sleep well and wake at next to no noise and/or a little bit of light. 

I find it difficult to impossible to fall back asleep after I am awake. 

I also have a clock that flashes the time and temperature on the ceiling above my bed.

Add all these factors together and the bottom line is I have come to view the birds singing as something for the birds.  I have regularly been tracking when I wake up and here the first bird chirping.  I can tell you this much, if someone tells you they get up with the birds or the early bird gets the worm, I would ask them exactly when they think this occurs.

My three week observation would say somewhere between 3:50 and 4:10 AM.  It was 4:10 this morning approximately and I began to ask myself just what the hell are these birds trying to prove.  Are the birds like people where their bird protestant work ethic drives them to get up way too early and make sure everyone else is aware of this fact? 

What about the other birds, do they sleep through the chattering of these birds that get up first or do they burry their head in their wing and try to get hour of sleep?  Do they get mad at the birds that get up first and start yakking away?  What do early bird, early birds do at 4:10 in the dark? 

Why are they blabbing like there’s no tomorrow at such an ungodly hour?  What exactly are they saying anyway – I can’t make sense of it – I like to think I have a little Doctor Doolittle in me and even still it’s gibberish.  In fact, I think these first chirpers are making noise just to be a pain to everyone else.  They are like people talking on their cell phones at a volume that makes the phone unnecessary (assuming the other party is in the State of Minnesota).

I got some advice for these birds and anyone who talks too loud on their cell phone – I’m sick and oh so tired and I ain’t going stand for your crap any more.  Shut up or watch out.

Head in the sand

Ostriches don’t put their head in the sand – let’s be clear on that.  The phrase does endure and represents a behavior of ignoring the problems around you.  I am proposing (for the sake of argument), that this is not such a bad thing.
 
Sometimes I think it would be far easier to be more pleasant if I could ignore the news.  Wouldn’t life be easier if we could just confine our concerns to our home, our work, maybe throw in a school or sports team and forget about the how the price of food is causing wide-spread hunger and starvation? 

The problem I run into is trying to figure out causes and solutions to problems and realizing that I am nearly powerless in the grand scheme of things to change them.  I could ride my bike instead of using my car and decrease global warming by a one-googleth and at the same time if there was a longer-term approach to decision-making by our country’s leaders, they could change things quickly by whole percentage points. 

You are no doubt saying to yourself, “Is the reason things like this bother you is that you are not doing much to change them?” You might advise me to work toward change and then news that our governmental debt, deficit, and trade imbalance would not make me worry about my children’s future.

This may be true, when I hear reports of problems and they result of bad decision-making, I could work for change but I guess my perception of undertaking this activity would that it would be ten times more frustrating than doing nothing.  I really don’t think my voice would make a difference relative to 100’s of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions. 

Life is too short to spend it banging your head against the wall.  The easier solution is to worry about your family and your work and forget about bigger problems.  I need to concern myself with getting enough security/money/wealth/safety/health under my roof and then the national debt won’t affect me as much because I got enough money. It’s better to remain ignorant of problems I can’t control or impact.  Just focus your attention on tomorrow’s weather forecast and then refrain from exposing yourself to whatever else the media may produce.  The more information you have the more it brings you down. Unless you are powerful or prepared to dramatically simplify your life, dwelling on the world’s big problems will just make you unhappy.
 
If problems creep into your existence like high gas prices, you do your best to address it by using less gas.  Don’t try to lobby for the development of alternative fuels or increasing the refining capacity – use less gas.  If higher food prices are getting to you buy less beef and more chicken but don’t get wrapped up into the value of ethanol or economics of agriculture – you’re just asking for trouble.

Set up a metaphorical life support system underground and keep your head in the sand.

The Bunny Easter

My kids tended to screw up nouns with two words when they were younger.  Not sure why – it just happened.  Two that remain are “belt seat” and “Bunny Easter”.  So around our house, the Bunny Easter made an appearance last week providing a basket full of candy for each child (who of course had to endure a house-wide search to find it).

I started thinking about the Bunny Easter (or Easter Bunny as some of you more sophisticated readers probably know him).  What the heck is the deal? Why would we celebrate Easter with an egg delivery rabbit? I then started thinking about the relationship between Santa and the Bunny Easter and wondered why our culture has chosen to couple the two most religious days with two gift bringing characters.

The cynic in me would attribute it to some cigar smoking industrialists who deviously introduced a way to hawk more of their collective wares on an ignorant and unsuspecting public… 
“Sales are flat people.  We need new ideas – big ideas – on how to improve sales or there’s going to be more than a few heads that will roll.  How can we sell more toys and candy?”

“Why don’t we try to introduce the tradition of giving freedom toys on Independence Day?”

“That’s crap. – but wait a minute you might be onto to something…”

“Why don’t we invent some characters who bring our products on days people celebrate most…like Christmas…”

So that was one theory that probably has some merit but I think there must be some deeper reason that reflects some collective dysfunctional behavior on the part of everyone.  Why would everyone chose to go along with a tradition that undermines the meaning of the two most important days of the year? 

I wonder if we were and are afraid of coping with the real meaning of the days as a group.  Maybe we have trouble expressing to friends and acquaintances the true meaning and importance of the days so we came up with a lived cartoon we use to mark the significance of the days.  We all agree the day is special but we don’t really want to confront this reality forthrightly with one another so we have created diversions to cope.

I think it would be a broach of personal space to say to an acquaintance that you are looking forward to celebrating Christ coming to the world and giving all new hope, it’s easier to buy a toy and wish them, “Happy Holidays.”  We are afraid of talking even with fellow Christians of importance and meaning of Christ dying and rising so we scatter some M&Ms around the house and head to brunch.  We all know these days are very important but somehow we’ve decided we can’t deal with their meaning head-on as a society.

I guess I don’t have any answers I sure is heck am not going to serve my kids stewed rabbit next Easter and tell them things are going to be different from now on.  I do think we must be very careful in not becoming a completely secular society when so many people are Christians and believers in other faiths.  Maybe we should change our language a little to send a subtle reminder of the true importance of these days.  How about, ‘Christ is risen’ instead of Happy Easter or ‘Christ is coming’ instead of Merry Christmas.

I suppose we should also take some comfort that we don’t have Thomas the Turkey bringing candy corn and sleds to most grateful boys and girls on Thanksgiving.  Just you wait though.

The Right to Write

There’s something I’ve often wondered about but never really thought about it enough to get to the core or its meaning.  I am sure you are probably thinking I am referring to the nature of evil, world peace, or Divine providence verses free will.  Sorry to disappoint but I am actually thinking about why people tend to horde writing instruments.

In every place I have ever worked or ever lived, there is always a spot or spots designated for amassing writing utensils.  I can see you might want to keep say, a dozen pens and a dozen pencils around just in case you hit a bad string of luck and have a lot of breaks and a lot of breakdowns but most caches I have come across number anywhere from 50 to 200.  How many ball point pens do you need?  How many pencils?  I can understand having different colored markers but at what point do you say enough is enough?

I bet there are at least 700 things in my house that are used for writing.  This of course excludes the reality that more and more of the writing we do is on one of three computers (more hording) rather than with pen and paper.  I would also guess there are roughly treble that if you searched the offices and store rooms in the administrative areas of the church.

I cleaned out my desk drawer a few months back and decided I didn’t need a drawer full of pens and pencils.  I took the bulk of inventory down to the office supply store room and added my roughly sixty items to the hundreds already there.  I am going to guess that these pens and pencils will sit there for some time as we order brighter and shinier pens and pencils from the office supply store.

How many of you have used a pencil and used it exclusively until you sharpened it down to a size too small use?  Or how many of you have used a pen until all the ink has been used up?  No doubt some people do and have extracted the full life out a writing instrument but I think more times than not we lose them or grab something else at some point.  Maybe we should commit ourselves to one pen and one pencil to the exclusion of all others until we have extracted every last letter from their existence.

I am not sure what my point is, I guess I wondered if there was some unconscious survival instinct in each of us that makes us store pencils up.  It’s as if our minds perhaps have an deep-seated fear of ever being caught in a situation where its thoughts might never be recorded.  This instinct drives us to take the free pen at the vendor booth only to take the pen home and throw it in the drawer with 100 other pens that will never be used.  The mind rests easier knowing that if it comes up with a thought that should be recorded; there is plenty of ammo in the junk drawer waiting to be used.

I will admit that if we are going to start a battle with our minds instincts we should focus our energy on resisting the temptation to eat too much and horde wealth but to be consistent, we should also liberate our lives and drawers from our irrational hording of writing utensils.