Social Security Rant

OK, my fellow 65+ friends, gather round and let’s look at Social Security for a minute or two.

This venerable program, designed to keep seniors from poverty, has been working quite well for many years, thanks, in part, to several tweaks along the way. But, it has been headed for a disastrous collision with a large hard wall for some time now. As of 2015, the system still took in more than it paid out, by about $23B. But, as more Baby Boomers move onto the rolls, payments will start to exceed revenue. This year of 2016 will likely see the first of an escalating Social Security deficit. The demographic and economic forecasts estimate that the reserve (now about $2.7 Trillion) will be exhausted in 2034, at which time benefits will have to be reduced by about 25% across the board.

Unless Congress starts to apply the brakes before the collision happens. And the sooner, the better.

There are many ways to avoid a crunch, but the simplest is to raise the cap (now $118.5K) on Social Security withholding. To simply lift the cap and withhold on all earned income would generate about $100B additional revenue. This would instantly MORE than erase any deficit and would allow for about a 50-60% increase in benefits. Other options are to lift the cap to $200K or keep the cap where it is and apply the withholding tax on income over $250K (Bernie Sanders plan). Either one yields an extra $50B revenue, which doesn’t stop the deficit, but slows the depletion enough to get us past the “Boomer Hump” and make Social Security solvent in perpetuity and even allow a modest 10-15% benefit increase.

Of course, the wealthy are opposed to any of this and the GOP (and surprisingly Obama) have put forth ways to “close the gap” by cutting benefits instead. None of these plans would generate enough income to avoid the crunch, just postpone it a few years. And they would put an onerous burden on the millions of seniors who rely on that monthly benefit.

So, please contact your representatives in Congress and let them know that this is a problem that needs to be fixed. And fixed soon. You might even suggest, from the list above, how you’d like this done. In case they haven’t done their homework.

One more thing : Just ignore all those ridiculous internet memes about how the Fund has been “stolen”. The Fund is invested in Priority Treasury Bills, now paying about 3.4% interest. Perhaps the safest investment on the planet.

In addition to lifting or modifying the SS withholding cap, which is clearly the simplest and most effective way to solve the looming SS “gap”, other plans have been proposed to make the SS system more financially sound and avoid a benefits crisis in 2034.

One plan calls for a means test to receive benefits. The concept seems fair enough – SS was meant to keep elders from poverty, not provide pin-money to millionaires. So, those retirees with large incomes would be denied SS benefits. The most common numbers that I have seen proposed would start cutting benefits if income is over $100K/yr and eliminates SS benefits totally if income exceeded $200K. These proposals usually also include a test for assets, beginning at $1.5M and eliminating benefits if the retiree owns more than $3M in assets. These figures roughly correspond to the amounts needed to purchase an income annuity of the respective amounts. Estimates are that this would save SS about $7B per year – a drop in the bucket compared to the $50B to $100B of modifying the withholding cap.

There are two other problems with this plan. One is that enforcement and administration of the means test would likely wipe out any savings, if the costs were anything like the cost of disability administration. Although clever estate lawyers and accountants would love the extra business created.

The other is that the wealthy would likely cry foul, not realizing that SS is an insurance plan, not an investment.

The other plan, put forth by the GOP and their banker backers, is to give the SS recipient the option of converting their expected benefits into a lump sum payment. Sort of like the JG Wentworth or PeachTree offers. Aside from the fact that this would in NO WAY save SS any money, it defeats the whole purpose of the SS program – to ensure that seniors are not destitute, with no income source. Once the beneficiary has taken their lump sum, the Wall Street vultures would descend, putting that sum at risk in the market. You can just imagine the drooling that goes on when looking at $2.7 TRILLION in assets that they could make money off of !!  Moreover, that lump sum would not be all that large. The average lump sum would be around $160K and the maximum would be about $400K. Sounds tempting, but the results could be individually devastating. And the Banksters would LOVE it !!

No, better to just lift the cap, which would also allow for a 50% to 60% increase in benefits, or go with Bernie Sanders’ more modest plan, which would avoid a 2034 benefits crisis and maybe a 5-10% raise in benefits.

The time to do this is NOW !! Urge your representatives in Congress to either pass Bernie’s bill or lift the cap completely. Or maybe wait until after the election.

For more detailed and really tiring language on the subject, click the link below.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html

Soap, Detergents and Other Surfactants

I’m dishing up some dirt here on soaps and detergents, more properly called surfactants – more specifically on our (American) over-use of these products.

Let’s start with laundry detergent. According to one source, we use on average about 40% more than we need to. This is in part due to the American sentiment that “more is always better”, which extends to our pesticides, fertilizers and so many other products.

Here’s a shocker to most folks : Soap and detergent do not clean anything. It is the water that does the actual cleaning. Yep, good old H2O is the best dirt cleaner on the planet. The problem is that the water molecule has a surface tension, which normally makes it hard for the molecule to combine with grime and wash it away. That is where surfactants come on. As the name implies, they break the surface tension of water and allow it to more readily sweep the dirt away. That’s the science in a nutshell. But, as usual, I digress.

Another recent development in detergent overuse is the advent of more concentrated laundry products. These certainly make sense, as there is little point in shipping the extra water hither and yon. But, many consumers fail to make the quantitative shift and end up overdosing their laundry. In theory, you would want to use just enough surfactant (detergent) to break the tension of every water molecule in the load. Unless you are a skilled chemist, that is near impossible, given the addition of other factors, like water hardness. So, the manufacturers give you instructions which err on the high side, which also boosts their sales. Even then, many subscribers to the “more is better” school will add even more. At some point, the detergent itself become difficult to remove from the wash. This leads to dingy looking laundry, scum buildup inside the machine and lots more wasted detergent flowing out the drain hose.

So, read the dosing instructions. Trust the manufacturers’ extensive testing. Don’t over-use. If anything, you might slightly UNDER-use, unless your clothes are really badly soiled.

The same sort of overuse is common when it comes to water temperature. The common wisdom is that hot water is best. Simply not true, unless you use water with a temperature near boiling (200F), which will be slightly more effective at germ killing, but do nothing for cleaning power when using modern detergents.

The same logic applies to hair shampoo. If you use enough to create that advertising ideal of a thick lather, you used too much. It is all that EXCESS surfactant that has no water to surfact and instead turns to useless foam. Good for selling shampoo, but a waste of money and a burden on the waste water treatment folks.

This raises yet another digression about shampoo. The product itself is VERY cheap to produce. The basic ingredients sell for around $50 for a 55 gallon drum. In fact, the packaging likely costs more than the product. Read the labels and you’ll find that all shampoos share the same base – mostly water, with good old Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or Sodium Laureth Sulfate, and a splash of a co-surfactant, usually cocamidopropyl betaine . Your special brand may add some exotic ingredients and magic potions, but at its core, it’s all the same to some degree.

So, how do the manufacturers get us to pay $50 a bottle for a $2 product? ADVERTISING. Some of the cleverest advertising has surrounded shampoos for a long time. I was witness to one of the best shampoo scams of all time : Many youngsters may not know or remember this, but back in the day (before 1970), most men washed their hair with bar soap. Oh, a few maybe borrowed their mother’s or girlfriend’s shampoo, but that was considered a feminine product, not for manly men. Enter some marketing geniuses at Pantene. They figured out that if they made a shampoo “for men” that they could boost sales and create a whole new market. Which is just what they did – took their regular shampoo, changed the fragrance to a more “manly scent” and sold the living daylights out of it. When I was on the Esquire 10 Best Dressed list, Pantene offered us samples of the original stuff and asked our opinion. After using the shampoo, which left no soapy residue, we all agreed that we would certainly buy the stuff, even at the greatly increased price over bar soap. And that “squeaky clean” sound that advertisers touted? Yeah, that’s the sound hair makes when it’s been stripped of all its natural oils.

And don’t even get me started on “body shampoos”. Unless you are a steelworker or car mechanic, your body, covered in clothes, just doesn’t get dirty enough to justify an attack with soap. All it does is remove your natural oils and require the use of yet more consumer moisturizing products. A nice water rinse and toweling should get you quite clean. If you want further punishment, use an anti-bacterial soap and kill off all the good bacteria on your skin, allowing the smelly bad guys to take over and the need for even MORE consumer “smell good” products. I’ll leave it at that.

Perhaps the most ridiculous overuse of soapy surfactants is shaving cream. It is mostly useless. The claim that it “softens” the beard (or other unwanted hair), is pure Balderdash. Water softens the beard. A 3 minute soak in the shower is usually enough for the water to penetrate the hair, all by itself. All shaving crème does is accelerate that process by (as we all know by now) breaking the water surface tension. Even if shaving crème, which is just another soap, is used, a thin coating is all that is required. A 1” thick coating, as seen in most commercials, sells more product but does nothing except get in the shavers’ way. For those who don’t shower before shaving, just washing the face with soap and water and leaving the water to set a spell will yield superlative results. Duped again by those insidiously clever admen.

So, save yourself some money and put less waste in the environment by using soaps, detergents and other surfactants SPARINGLY. “More is better” applies to ice cream, but not to soap.

The Agitation Amendment : While surfactants break water tension chemically, there is a more brutal and physical way to do it – agitation. If you hit the water molecule hard enough, just like a water balloon, it will open up and flush the dirt and grime away. You’ve seen this reaction when you make mayonnaise or shake vinegar and oil into an emulsion. This is part of the reason to use less detergent in High Efficiency washers. Primitive cultures know this and “beat” clothes to wash without detergent. Probably not recommended for your Victoria’s Secret collection, however.

Silver Spoon, Buckley & Nader

I once was at a debate between William F Buckley and Ralph Nader in the old Dillon Gym. Buckley was cool and calm and brilliant, which absolutely unnerved Nader. At one point, Nader got flustered and blurted out “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth. You probably never even read Winnie the Pooh.” Buckley calmly replied, “Mr Nader, you and I have respectfully disagreed on a great many things, but on this point you are dead wrong. I did indeed read Winnie the Pooh as a young lad.” Long pause “In Latin, of course.”

Septic Tank Primer

Let’s begin with the history of the flush toilet, which made its debut about 1600 in Britain, culminating in the brilliant design of Alexander Cumming in 1775 (and not Mr Crapper, who invented the ball cock), which internalized the “S” trap and left some water in the bowl to avoid, shall we say, sticky things sticking to the side of the bowl. So fine was his design that it has remained virtually unchanged for over 150 years. This was a wonderful advance over the chamber pot – for the user. However, in the cities, the waste water simply flowed into the street gutter, mixing nicely with the horse manure and other garbage for the poor street sweeper to remove at night. In the country, toilet water flowed into a pit (the cesspool), which was similarly cleaned by staff.

It took almost a century for a lucky Frenchman in 1860 to put a top on the pit and enclose it. After a year, he opened it and was surprised (and likely delighted) to find that there was only a surface scum and some liquid in the pit. Thus was born the septic tank. What the Frenchman had accidentally discovered was that when toilet wastes are kept away from air, the anaerobic bacteria, which are residing in your very own gut at this moment, transform the poo solids into a sanitary liquid.

This is exactly the same process that I used when building biodigesters in Peru. Only we used animal manure from pigs, goats and cows. The bacteria very quickly convert solid to liquid and give off methane (natural gas), which we used as a cooking fuel. The resulting liquid, which has very little odor, is free from any pathogens, as they are killed off by the lack of oxygen. It makes an outstanding liquid fertilizer that can be applied and absorbed directly by plant foliage. In theory, you could use the effluent liquid from your septic tank for fertilizer. But the Code Inspector would throw a fit. As usual, I digress.

This septic tank system worked flawlessly for many years. If only toilet waste “Black water” goes into the tank, it will run in near perpetuity, without any pump out or other maintenance. And you don’t need a large tank. A family of 4 would need only about a 200 gal tank. But then, (I’m not sure when) some bright builder decided it would be a grand idea to put ALL the household water waste into the tank. And all Hell broke loose. You see, the anaerobic bacteria can digest urine and poo just fine, but they can’t digest soaps, oils, fats, grease, hair, fingernails, coffee grounds, paper towels, sanitary napkins, tampons, diapers, hand wipes, motor oil, cleaning solvents, bleach, lubricants, gasoline, paints, thinners, or pesticides. (Food waste is fine, except for bones, but why not compost them instead?) So, all those “other” items build up in the tank and eventually, you need to call the “Honey Wagon” for a pump out removal of all those materials.

Even worse, most of those products above are toxic to the bacteria. Kill those bacteria and the poo no longer liquefies, further compounding the tank accumulations.

The solution is to simply to go back to the beginning - separate the black water from the grey water and run the grey water directly to the leach field or through a separate digester to break down soaps and oils.. Not so hard in new construction, but retro-fitting an existing home would be a nightmare, unless you live in a raised floor home. The other issue is that most unenlightened municipal building codes will not allow this kind of plumbing. Not because it’s bad, just because it’s not in the code book.

So, what’s a body to do if they are stuck with the standard septic tank system? Pump outs are all but unavoidable, eventually. But, you can lengthen the time between Honey Wagon visits by simply not putting ANY of the aforementioned items down the drain. Or, at least, as little and as few as possible. Also, limiting the amount of water that goes down the drain will help. That means no half hour showers or leaving the tap running or flushing down a single tissue after you blow your nose. All good water conservation strategies, as well.

There are a plethora of septic tank additives on the market, all claiming to keep your tank healthy, if you’ll just use them on a regular basis. To my mind, they are just snake oil. You can’t introduce anaerobic bacteria from a packet. Besides you naturally supply a new batch of free bacteria every time you poop. Better just follow the guidelines above and save some money for your next pump out.

Toilet paper addendum:
One of the things that the septic bacteria can't digest is cellulose. Unfortunately, that is just what TP is made of. Thus, the purist would not put it down the drain. Use of a bidet or the classic 3rd World option of a trash bin for used TP would be in order.
For the non-purist, there is (sort of) good news : it's OK to wipe and drop. While the TP will not be digested, it will dissolve into tiny fibers, which will eventually be discharged to the drain field and acted upon by another group of bacteria.
Advertisers will try and sell you their "special" TP for septic tanks at a very special price. Don't fall for this and waste your money. The truth is that any single ply TP (and especially the cheapest brands) will dissolve in the tank.
Here's the simple test : take a sheet of TP and put it in a glass of water. Stir "with great vigor" ala JFK. The faster the TP dissolves, the better it is for your septic system. Cheaper brands are usually the best, in this case.
Still, you want to minimize TP use and NEVER use "wipes" which are much more durable.

SENIOR MOMENTS

I am in constant awe of the human body. And I find no part more fascinating than the mind.

Yesterday, I was chatting with a friend about our time at Esalen and my room-mate and fellow mushroom voyager Rick’s name came up. But, I drew an absolute blank on his last name. How could I forget that? My chagrin was passed off as a senior moment. I stopped thinking about it and went on with the rest of my day.  Yet some part of my mind wanted that information and set to work finding the name. Sure enough, just as I was falling asleep, there it was; clear as day – Rick Burns.

Let’s put aside for a moment in what form I revealed this information to myself. Was it seeing the name? Hearing it? Sensing it? What does it feel like when you get a bit of memory? I digress.

My theory is that we never really forget anything. But we only have a certain amount of memory for “current information”. As we acquire ever more information and knowledge, some less used data gets archived and becomes a little harder to locate. So, those “senior moments” are not really forgetting anything – it’s just that we have acquired such a vast amount of information that may it may take a while to retrieve it from the archives. Be patient and let the mind do its magic.

Thus, a “senior moment” is not something to be ashamed of. Nay, it should be a source of pride for the great volume of knowledge and information you’ve acquired.

That’s my theory.

PLACEBO

A recent TV ad for a medication to lower blood pressure brought to mind a long held fascination of mine with the Placebo Effect. The fine print of the ad stated that pill had reduced blood pressure in 86% of those tested, compared to 38% of the control group. So, you should rush right out and get your doctor to write a script for this chemical miracle pill. Let’s put aside the whole issue of taking a pill or having by-pass surgery instead of exercising and eating better, which is a whole ‘nuther rant.

WHAT ABOUT THAT 38% ???  If the study was a typical double blind, half of the subjects were given a placebo (inert/clay tablet). They were told it was a medication to lower blood pressure, as were those who were given the actual active chemical. Isn’t anyone in the medical field excited by the fact that more than one in three folks in the control group lowered their own blood pressure ?  The historical record is full of examples of self regulation of bodily function. My favorite is the Pacific island, where young women chewed the leaves of a particular plant to stop menstrual flows – native birth control. It turns out that there was absolutely nothing in the chemistry of the plant to account for this. It was the power of generations of belief by the island women.

We humans clearly have some capacity for self healing. My belief is that most ‘miracle” sites, such as Lourdes and ‘faith healings’ are caused not by the healer, but the one who is healed. The lack of interest in pursuing and encouraging this human ability is shocking to me. The two catches seem to be that we seem to need some ‘outside’ force to ‘trick’ us into the healing and also, the pharmaceutical firms are already entrenched in another route.

Maybe that’s too cynical.

Peak Moments

I’ve only had a few incidents in my life when my body and mind conspired to produce a result that far exceeded my expectation; when I functioned beyond the bounds of my recognized self, as though guided by some external force. Some athletes call it “being in the Zone”.

As a teen in Florida, my brothers and I came home from outside play to find my months old baby sister Robin floating face down in the pool. In a single motion and without thought, I scooped her from the water and started CPR at the side of the pool. She responded fairly quickly, rewarding me with a welcome spray of pool water and stomach contents. Everything I did in those moments was done without conscious thought or effort, as though guided by some external hand. Yes, I had been trained in Boy Scouts, but that was a few years earlier and certainly not practiced after that.

The next was at the Brickskeller pub off DuPont Circle in Washington, DC, noted for having over 1,000 beers on hand. My date and I settled into the huge dart room upstairs and began a casual game, quickly interrupted by someone challenging us for the board. For some inexplicable reason, I slipped into a cool Chuck Yeager drawl and began to throw nearly perfect darts for over an hour. It was all I could do to keep my own shock from showing. Then again, it was like I was playing with someone else’s talent. I went out and bought a dart board, thinking that I was on the verge of a new occupation, only to discover that the spell was lost.

The third event was in Mexico. In the hills near my island home in San Blas, there are three of the most beautiful and diverse waterfalls I’ve ever seen. They are all the more precious due to the difficulty in reaching them. From the tiny village of El Cora, a long hike ends in a steep descent down a dry river bed, making the falls inaccessible in the rainy season. The river bed is littered with large rocks and boulders of every size and shape. The group I had taken with me that day was going much too slowly for my taste. In frustration, I broke away and started accelerating down the bed; faster and faster until I was sprinting and leaping at speed that was terrifying, in retrospect. At the time, however, I could see the path ahead with extreme clarity, visualizing the arc of each step and its landing spot. When I reached the bottom, I was shocked and calm at the same time. It was certainly an athletic feat I’ve never experienced before or since.

Then, there was a mystical experience at Esalen. There was an open event at the Big Yurt (back when it had canvas walls) to heal the relationship between my friend, Tom Brenner and his girlfriend Barbara. Community members were chosen to represent them and others in their lives. The facilitator would move the surrogates to various locations and positions and then “feel” the resulting energy. The technique has a name which I can’t remember. What I do remember is being chosen to be Tom. At one point, the rep for one of his former mates was moved in front of me. I was suddenly overcome by intense feelings of dread, shame, sadness and started to cry for no reason consciously known to me. Turns out there was a very good reason for the emotions, which I won’t go into here. How could I feel Tom’s emotion from a person I never knew and wasn’t even there? Maybe the Shadow knows. I don’t.

And we’ve heard of mothers who found the strength to lift a car to rescue a child and of battlefield performances that defy imagination.

These and other experiences with my Ninja friends, have made it perfectly clear to me that we humans normally operate at only a small fraction of our magnificent potential. And I guess the question is : Why ? Why do we normally so limit ourselves, or play it safe and small and powerless ? Are we afraid to admit and own who we really are ?

I only wish I knew.