Follow the Money

Social Security. The mere words set off something inside me, an intense boiling. I came across a random article on the subject which led me to further research as I grew angry about money that I have earned but will never see. The question loomed in my mind: how to make this more than a long, whiny, complaining rant. There is plenty to say about the misuse of tax dollars, the system being rotten to the core, or any of the other easy roads which are, to greater and lesser extents, largely true. But what would be a more interesting approach?

I decided to get personal. I looked at my paycheck, and I think I may need blood pressure medication. Let's follow the money a bit, shall we?

I get paid every two weeks. I don't want to go into all the details of my personal finances, but I am not overly paranoid or secretive about anything mentioned here. For reference, I am paid every two weeks (typically 70 hours). First, let's look at some VOLUNTARY deductions:

Auto Insurance: $40.13
Charity: $10
Union Dues: $16.11
Subway/bus pass: $29.50

So from this we can see a few things. My car insurance is pretty low, I don't give much to charity (if you are looking for a worthy cause, I suggest BITS ETC - www.bitsetc.us - but that is for another article). I am part of a union (and I believe those are dues for two pay-periods), and have a subsidized MBTA pass (the $29.50 is a 50% discount on my monthly pass). Okay, so that all seems reasonable.

Oh wait! There are some other things that are kind of well, hiding. They aren't listed as "Voluntary Deductions" in the HR system, but they are technically voluntary:

Health insurance: $33.23
Dental: $7.38
Flexible Spending Account: $21.54
Long-term Disability Insurance: $3.06
Life Insurance: $1.92

Okay, so once again I will save my rants about the health care system and taxes for the moment and say that this is all fairly reasonable. My insurance premiums are pretty low (my prescriptions alone right now cost over 20x what I spend on insurance), the flexible-spending account is a big pain in the ass -- I have to submit claims for reimbursements for things like office visit or prescription co-pays, OTC medications, etc. -- but it is deducted pre-tax from my paycheck, so I save a significant amount.

The long-term disability is good for 2/3 of my current salary, forever, and well worth it. The life insurance is basic because I am young and don't have any children or debt or anything else...

So now I am feeling a little bit better. At least my paycheck is going to the right places. Never mind that I am contributing to my retirement, and that my employer contributes another 5% of my gross salary on top of that. But none of that adds up to very much money. So why is my net pay -- the amount that gets direct-deposited into my bank accounts -- so low?

Oh wait.

This honestly makes me a little woozy. Just looking at it, I am struck with a mix of feelings. None of them are good. "Total taxes." I can't bear to write the number. So far this YEAR I have paid enough for a down-payment on a house. I know some of you might be thinking well at least you have a job that pays you blah blah blah that is not the point! That is just a distraction from the fact that my money is being stolen!

What happened to all of this money? I did not give it up voluntarily. They were smart enough to take it before I could get my filthy little hands on it, because then it would be a lot harder for them to get back, not to mention all of the interest that I could earn from it in the meantime, which they happily accrue instead. Sure, some of you are making the argument in your head that you can do this or that to circumvent the system, blah blah blah.

That's not what I'm talking about. I am merely pointing out that we are being tricked. On one level, yes it is armed robbery, because if I refuse to pay, they will send thugs called "police" with clubs and guns and chains to take me away. But by and large, it is more like pick-pocketing. They're filching a third of your dough, and there's nothing you can do about it. So where is it going? Let's keep following the money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

There's even a keen pie-chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_category.jpg

After looking at the pie-chart, I am feeling more than a little nauseated. Mind you that we're running about a $1.2 trillion deficit as part of this awesome budget. That's "trillion" with the "tr" which you won't ever see in your pocket until our currency is completely devalued (though by then I am sure that the Bureau of Printing and Engraving will be too worried about the Zombie Apocalypse to bother printing trillion-dollar bills, much to the chagrin of Simpsons' fans everywhere).

So there must be some pretty gosh-darned important stuff that we're spending all that hard-earned cash on, right? Instead of a down-payment, let's take a look at some general items:

$677.95 billion - Social Security. It would be way too easy for me to write about how I'm never going to see this particular money again, so let's just leave it at that.
$571 billion - "Other mandatory programs." Okay, I know that actually means something I don't like, but would prefer to lighten the mood a bit and imagine that these are programs for things like happy rainbows and making sure that the butterflies have safe passage when there is a hurricane. Everyone loves butterflies.

$453 billion - Medicare
$290 billion - Medicaid

Sigh. This just makes me tired. Let's pretend that all of the money going into Social Security, "Other mandatory programs," Medicare, and Medicaid, all goes to provide health care. That's a total of almost $2 trillion. That's also with a "tr." Most sources I have found say that we have 50 million people in this country without health insurance. That works out to what, about $40,000 per uninsured person? Seems like it should, on average, be enough. According to Wikipedia, "In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678; in the U.S., US$6,714. The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 10.0%.^[5]" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_systems_in_Canada_and_the_United_States for the whole dreary article).

But wait, some of that money isn't for health care, right? The Social Security money, that was originally supposed to be about retirement. So let's take that out. Where else do you think we might be able to find some money in the budget? How about:

$663.7 billion - Department of Defense
$42.7 billion - Department of Homeland Security
$51.7 billion - Department of State
$23.9 billion - Department of Justice

Surely, I don't mean to cut all of it? Ho, ho. These are just some of the big numbers. Where is this money going? Well, we're killing lots of people. And we're making lots of people angry at us. The Department of Defense (which should really be called the Department of Offense, for more than one reason) and the Department of Homeland Security, along with the State Department, make sure that everyone who doesn't get killed by us at least dislikes us. And State does that to our own citizens, as does the Department of "Justice."

Think for a minute about this spending. You pay dollars to kill people. You like that? If you don't, then too bad. If you do, then you are lucky, because you are on the side of what is Good and Right. Do you like the idea that predator drones are blasting people with the dollars you earned today in, let's say the last third of your day? I hope you do.

Do you like that we have multiple overseas conflicts going on, but very little news coverage of them? Does this make you curious? The government depends on a population that is easily overwhelmed by the appearance of facts and the easily tricked out of doing any critical thinking. Have you bothered to check any of the numbers in this article? Do you intend to? I took them directly from Wikipedia. Do you trust them?

Let's accept that my numbers are, at least roughly, correct. Does that make them meaningful? How meaningful is a number like $663.7 billion? How do you put that in terms that are understandable? Well, it is a lot of hamburgers.

What is in the rest of the budget, though? What doesn't merit the same level of importance (assuming that funding is a proxy for importance)? Let's see:

$13.3 billion - Department of Labor
I wonder what all those unemployed folks think about that... What does the DOL actually do, anyway?

$12.0 billion - Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion - Environmental Protection Agency
Aren't these people supposed to keep things nice for us? Seems like they could use more money, if we're going to play that game, than the people who destroy shit.

$7.0 billion - National Science Foundation
$0.7 billion - Small Business Administration
I'm so glad that we are supporting science and small businesses.

Are you depressed yet? I am depressed that instead of mortgaging my future on a new house, I am forced to mortgage my future on weapons of mass destruction and other toys for those in charge to play with. Oh well. If you don't pay your taxes, those toys you are paying for will be used against you...

And don't forget, every year, you are going to be paying at least:
$164 billion - Interest on National Debt

Good times for years to come!

Journalism Rocks

So the original idea for this blog was to use it to post responses to the many ridiculous articles that I see on a daily basis. My hope was to find one per day.

Day one. And I can't find an article. I decided that varied "news" sources would be the best things for me to to address, so my first thought was to check my RSS feed subscriptions. But then I thought -- what about other people who don't share my screwball taste in journalism? So instead I started with a fairly prominent news outlet -- Guardian UK.

Great. So what are they writing about on their web site? Well, apparently Bjorn Lomborg (sorry for getting rid of that crazy "ø" in the first name, but SEVIS II is coming, so get used to it, Bjorn!), a prominent "skeptical environmentalist" is releasing a book that admits to climate change, blah blah blah I am practically falling asleep just thinking about trying to respond to that article.

The rest of the Guardian home page seems foreign or somehow indecipherable. There's a headline that US "Homeowners flock to Florida in bid to save properties," and this just doesn't sound like America to me. Perhaps "US Homeowners flock to Florida for apparent cheap deals, get swindled..."

I scroll down and it is just garbage upon garbage. I could have just stuck with MSN. Seriously. Let's look at their front page right now... Okay they do five slides now so this is going to be tiring:

Slide 1:
"Earl Upgraded, Clemens in Court & More News," okay so there's a hurricane. That's always exciting, but is it a real story? Does it merit the top spot? You tell me. How about "Clemens in Court?" I could not possibly care less about Roger Clemens. The only reason I should know his name is because I went through a phase when I liked baseball as a kid. And I am from Boston. That name, however, has been pounded into my brain by foolish talking heads and "journalists" for months -- no, years! "More News?" How about, "more stuff that will make you want to jam a pencil in your eye?" Christ below!

Okay, Slide 2:
"Who Were the Emmys' Best & Worst Dressed?" Um. Really? There's a "good" picture of Tina Fey on the left, and a "bad" picture of some redhead with too much cleavage on the right. Not sure who the one on the right is, but more importantly, who cares? What are "Emmys?" Is that even a word? My spell-checker says no.

I'm not going to even bother going on with that, so Slide 3:
"'I Can't Spend All My Time With My Birth Certificate Plastered on My Forehead," quoting US president Obama. Apparently, his majesty the president likes to capitalize words, unless they are prepositions, except for "With." Or maybe he just doesn't like the word "On." I guess this would be a real story, if the "exclusive interview" they mention reveals that the president was not born in America, and hence not our president, but if that were the case it would have surely been on Slide 1. I don't think it would fly if they just titled it: "Obama: Still American." Next, please.

Slide 4:
"Celebrities Caught in Bad Romance Songs." For those of you who have been wearing earplugs for the past year or so (and I applaud you), "Bad Romance" is a reference to a song by an artist named Lady Gaga. The story itself is evidently about celebrities whose amorous endeavors have inspired various songs about love/heartache. Yawn.

Slide 5:
"The Fresh Factor." The subtitle reads: "Make sure you know the lifespan of bread, meats & cheese to keep your food tasting great & your family safe." What is with MSN & their love of ampersands? This is the most appealing of the slides, because it has a picture of cheese and meat. Also, I know that I can rest safe at night knowing that my food will taste great and my family will be safe. My family, safe at last.

This is worse than the Guardian. Okay, so maybe I am being a little harsh here. Maybe I should remember that the "M" in "MSN" stand for "Microsoft," a software company. Not a news company. Maybe I am just looking in all the wrong places. Let's check out the New York Times.

Middle East, victims, soldiers, suffering.
Problems with our eggs.
Resurgence of bedbugs.
Chilean miners trapped for months.

I think I'll just stop here. Let's go find out how long salami lasts in the fridge...