Monthly Archives: January 2016

Fact check…

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I’ve seen a couple of posts banging around the interwebs today that claim if we just gave every American a slice of the upcoming Powerball jackpot, everyone would get about $4.33 million and we could dispense with poverty forever. It’s a fun idea, except for the part where the math is utterly wrong.

With a estimated cash payout of about $868 million and about 300 million Americans that works out to $2.89 per person… or enough for everyone to get themselves a extra large coffee from Dunkin Donuts. While I’m not theoretically opposed to the everyone-gets-coffee scheme, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s a long way from “curing” poverty.

It’s a stone fact that for a handful of people in the next few days life is most likely going to take a radical departure from its current trajectory. It’s not going to lead to a chicken in every pot, although that makes for a nice little story on the internet.

Unfortunately it also illustrates nicely why fact checking shouldn’t just be for history majors.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Delmarva Power. There’s an issue with my power bill. I called their “customer service” number Monday night and was met with a 50-minute estimated wait time. That’s not going to happen, so I called back Tuesday morning. The wait time for that call was a sleek 27-32 minutes. They split the difference and I waited half an hour to be immediately told by the CSR that the system is down and they can’t answer any questions. They did offer to call back when their system is up, which is fine I guess, but what I really want is to determine when I talk to my vendors myself rather than sitting around looking forlorn like a 14 year old girl waiting for her true love to call. After blasting them on social media, someone did reach our to me and promised I’d get a call back “sometime” in the “next few business days”. Fifty hours later. Still waiting.

2. Staffing. In order to send any information outside the organization you need approximately 4,587 separate lines of approval. It’s not necessarily hard work, but it is what some might call tedious. Reaching the point where something is approved for release always feels like something of any accomplishment… but the best part is when you get something fully staffed, vetted, socialized, and approved only to be notified two hours after you hit send for the final time that someone at Echelons Higher than Reality has decided to “go a different direction.

3. The sky is falling. Look gang, I’m not a fancy big city investment banker, but despite the thrashing Wall Street has taken this week the sky really isn’t falling (yet). The Dow made its high in May of last year. We’re down in the neighborhood of 10% off that high – that’s the operative definition of a correction – but still a ways off from a bear market. If you haven’t jumped out well before now, the only thing cashing out in this market does is lock in whatever loss you’ve suffered. If I were in danger of retiring next year I’d be a little more worried. As it is, I’d say it’s time to stack some cash and do a bit of hedging. If that doesn’t work for you, just win yourself a Powerball Jackpot and you’re all set.

H-bomb of justice…

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When the world around you seems to be driving full tilt towards batshit crazy, at least you can count on North Korea to kit it up a notch. With discord and dissension the order of the day at home and wars simmering across the Middle East, it’s like the two bit dictator of our favoriteKimbackwater just needs to rattle his cage a bit so the world remembers he’s there – and doing whatever it is you do when you’re the undisputed liege and master of earth’s most isolated nation.

Good work, Dear Leader. You’ve reminded us all of the basic absurdity of, well, everything. While world leaders may have to treat you as a serious threat to global peace and safety, I think your antics are just delightfully entertaining. The long-departed Nero only fiddled while Rome burned. Kim Jong, on the other hand, seems to be happiest running from house to house with his personalized book of matches and flinging them indiscriminately at whatever catches his fancy. It must be a charmed life. I mean, why wouldn’t it be, the ladies seem to dig him.

Paying for it…

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I’ve always read that people who don’t have a plan for what they’re going to do in retirement are the ones that end up bored or worse – longing to return to the orderly days of life at work. While a two week vacation hardly qualifies as a dry-run for retirement I can say with at least some degree of certainty that a really detailed plan to fill my days may not be strictly necessary when the big day comes.

For the last week or so I’ve mostly done as the spirit moved me. I ate when I was hungry, slept when I was tired, and filled in the other hours cooking, tinkering around on minor repair projects that time never seems to be found for, devising less-than-lethal anti-squirrel devices, and reading. To put it simply, I excel at simply puttering around the house and doing whatever strikes my fancy. I think I could be ok doing that for a long, long time.

Of course I’m not retired – and not even on the same continent as that far off day. Now is the time (or more precisely tomorrow is the time) when I’ve got to go back to busting my hump to pay for the possibility of unlimited free time at some point in the future. As this particular winter Sunday draws to a close, I find my motivation lacking… anyone out there want to pool our funds and buy a crapload of Powerball tickets?